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Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has signalled he is willing to compromise on the Turnbull government's tough foreign labour regime, assuring universities they won't be hamstrung by new work experience requirements.

Vice-chancellors, academics and the powerful Group of Eight universities were alarmed the Turnbull government's abolition of the 457 visa may prevent them hiring overseas researchers straight out of a PhD program.

In a letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Go8 chairman Peter Hoj warned the changes could be "extremely damaging" to Australia's reputation for welcoming international academics.

Particular concern surrounded the introduction of a two-year work experience prerequisite for temporary work visas, which universities feared would stop them hiring researchers who had spent their adulthood studying.
Ratner certainly delivered the celebrities in spades for Packer. The pair setting up their RatPac offices in a suite on the Universal Studios lot which had once belonged to the original rat packer, Frank Sinatra. Packer beamed as he was photographed with the likes of Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Martin Scorsese, men he now considers friends. But long before them, Packer had been well versed in the art of celebrity friendships, having cultivated a close bond with Tom Cruise, though that relationship appears to have dimmed over the years, as Cruise embedded himself further into Scientology and Packer distanced himself from the controversial religion. James Packer with his Macau business partner Lawrence Ho (left) and Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, director Martin Scorsese and producer Brett Ratner. Credit:AP Since 2012 Packer had established himself as one of the most powerful players in Hollywood, largely courtesy of Ratner's contacts. Their company produced a series of both critically acclaimed and box office hits, including The Revenant, Birdman, Creed, The Lego Movie, American Sniper, Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla.

But there were also a few lemons, among them Jupiter Ascending, Entourage, Pan, In the Heart of the Sea, Storks and Collateral Beauty. "James was really just having a go ... sure there were a few mistakes they made but really, they are incredibly proud of what was achieved," an associate told PS on Thursday. And while the Carey-Packer union imploded so spectacularly last year, some now suspect the bust-up caused inevitable strain between Packer and Ratner, though this week's move appears to be fiscally motivated on Packer's behalf. "Hollywood needs much deeper pockets' than James'," one of Packer's associates informed PS. Packer is re-focussing his attention on his Australian casino operations, specifically the construction of his Crown Casino at Barangaroo.

And while Packer still counts his Rabbitoh's co-owner Russell Crowe within his sphere, it would appear he will remain the only big name celebrity in Packer's new court. Not to worry, he will always have Karl Stefanovic. 'No choice' but to go to police Eastern suburbs socialite and high-profile interior decorator Janelle "Nellie" Tilley has confided in friends that she had "no choice" but to go to the police and seek charges against her former lover, millionaire Sydney publican Phillip De Angelis. "It is humiliating for her, she finds this really embarrassing but she had to do something to protect herself and her family ... she hopes that maybe it might encourage other women to do something if they find themselves in a similar situation," a close friend of Tilley's told PS on Thursday as news broke.

Nellie Tilley. Credit:pdoherty@fairfaxmedia.com.au Tilley, a mother of three boys, is well known within Sydney's influential eastern suburbs and is the former wife of Simon Tilley, brother of James Packer's confidant Ben Tilley. The 52-year-old is a regular at charity fundraisers and red carpet events, up until now Tilley's life appeared glamorous, having dated some of Sydney's leading bachelors, including finance executive and former Goldman Sachs boss Simon Greenaway. Her former boyfriend, 36-year-old Phillip De Angelis, is a member of one of the country's most powerful pub families. His uncle is Arthur Laundy, one of the wealthiest publicans in Australia. De Angelis now faces 25 charges, including common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, "destroy or damage property with intent to injure", "aggravated break and enter and commit serious indictable offence - people there" and "intentionally choke etc person with recklessness". De Angelis, who is yet to enter a plea but has retained Kennedy's Lawyers to represent him in the matter, is also accused of breaking into Tilley's home several times last year, "with intent to cause fear of physical or mental harm", as well as stealing her keys.

Last week an interim AVO was put in place, banning De Angelis from going within 100m of Tilley's home. At Waverley Local Court the interim order was made without admissions by De Angelis. He was granted bail and is listed to return to Downing Centre Local Court on June 22. De Angelis did not respond to PS's calls this week. It is not the first time Phillip De Angelis has landed in hot water. In 2012 he was embroiled in a complaint to Fair Work Australia after a female employee at the Hotel Ingleburn tendered her resignation following a "highly offensive inappropriate remark". In an altercation over a broken ATM, she alleged De Angelis told her to "shut the f--- up, you stupid f---ing s--t".

His brother, hotel supervisor Peter De Angelis, called the woman the following day to apologise for his brother's behaviour and suggested the three of them meet to discuss the incident the following week  an invitation which she accepted. But while Phillip De Angelis did apologise to the woman upon her return to the workplace on Monday, the meeting did not take place. Fair Work Australia Commissioner Alistair MacDonald said: "The [woman] reacted adversely to this highly offensive insult - she was shaking in anger, she had been insulted and she had been humiliated in front of others," Commissioner MacDonald said. Commissioner MacDonald said the evidence given by the woman was not in dispute but dismissed the proceedings. Polishing up that ol' shine

It's been 20 years since David Helfgott has appeared on the London stage, but on the eve of his return, it would appear not everyone in Old Blighty is quite so eager to see the Australian pianist come back. Helfgott's manager Jeff Weaver offered a firm "no comment" when PS inquired about an article that appeared in London's Private Eye magazine. The item questioned whether the May concert at London's Barbican was "such a good idea?" David Helfgott and Geoffrey Rush at the National Film and Sound Archive to celebrate 20 years since the release of Credit:Rohan Thomson The article went on to say: "Helfgott was the real-life subject of a feelgood 1990s biopic called Shine [played by Geoffrey Rush] that documented his apparent triumph over mental illness to make a career as a professional performer. For a while, thanks to the film, Helfgott basked in fame. But when it came to giving concerts, his mental problems were sadly and ruinously obvious."

And on it continued: "Helfgott disappeared and hasn't played in London for 20 years. Now he's back to resume a concert life, encouraged by his wife  who claims to be clairvoyant and apparently foresees a second coming for him. Reports suggest that his condition is exactly as it was before. A very questionable booking." No such fears were expressed by the audience at last month's Helfgott performance at Gooseberry Hill Primary School in Perth where he conducted a 30-minute recital. "Helfgott did not disappoint as he performed with characteristic gusto and finished with a frenetic rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee," according to a review in the local paper. Helfgott also played a special concert at Perth's Mundaring Weir Hotel in March to celebrate his 70th birthday, where he was joined by wife Gillian. The Mundaring Weir Hotel was where Helfgott played annually for some 30 years on his road to recovery. Foul-smelling delivery not an Easter treat for Roxy Jacenko

Whatever you think of publicity seeking missile Roxy Jacenko, she certainly did not deserve the nasty Easter surprise delivered to her swanky new Paddington offices sometime last weekend. Roxy Jacenko got an unwelcome Easter surprise. Credit:Nick Cubbin Jacenko's Sweaty Betty mail box appeared to be the target of the vile and rather cowardly attack, which resulted in a thick, brown, foul-smelling sludge of dubious origins oozing down the walls outside her front door and smeared all through her mail box. While the swarm of blow flies appeared to be enjoying it, no one else was. No Kerr nuptials for Gunnedah

PS has been assured there will be no wedding bells for supermodel Miranda Kerr and her billionaire beau, Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, in the next few days. Miranda Kerr is expected to tie the knot with Evan Spiegel in a small, intimate ceremony abroad. Credit:Getty Images However, Kerr's family and friends are getting ready for the big day in the next month or so. Sadly the wedding will not be taking place in Kerr's hometown, the Koala capital of Australia, sunny Gunnedah, with the American-based couple expected to tie the knot in a small and intimate ceremony abroad. Suzy collection going under the hammer

While PS' collection of limited edition, slightly-used commemorative royal family dolls would surely fetch a hefty price, it would be nothing compared to the estate of Aileen Mehle, known to her fans worldwide as the late society columnist Suzy, who died last year in New York at 98. The huge haul is set to be sold in two auctions at Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers. Her extraordinary collection of jewellery will be offered as a special section of the April 27 auction, while her elegant furniture, decorations, paintings, couture, costume jewellery, accessories, photographs, and memorabilia will be offered on May 24. Aileen Mehle, the legendary society columnist Suzy, lived a life as glamorous and exciting as any of those whose lives she chronicled. Credit:Doyle New York During a career spanning more than 50 years, Aileen Mehle lived a life as glamorous and exciting as any of the society figures, film stars, and celebrities whose lives she chronicled in her columns. She was married twice and was linked romantically with five and dime heir Woolworth Donahue, Hollywood producer Walter Wanger, and Frank Sinatra.
Eastern suburbs socialite and high-profile interior decorator Janelle "Nellie" Tilley has confided in friends that she had "no choice" but to go to the police and seek charges against her former lover, millionaire Sydney publican Phillip De Angelis.

"It is humiliating for her, she finds this really embarrassing but she had to do something to protect herself and her family ... she hopes that maybe it might encourage other women to do something if they find themselves in a similar situation," a close friend of Tilley's told PS on Thursday as news broke.

Nellie Tilley Credit:pdoherty@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Tilley, a mother of three boys, is well known within Sydney's influential eastern suburbs and is the former wife of Simon Tilley, brother of James Packer's confidant Ben Tilley. The 52-year-old is a regular at charity fundraisers and red carpet events, up until now Tilley's life appeared glamorous, having dated some of Sydney's leading bachelors, including finance executive and former Goldman Sachs boss Simon Greenaway.

Her former boyfriend, 36-year-old Phillip De Angelis, is a member of one of the country's most powerful pub families. His uncle is Arthur Laundy, one of the wealthiest publicans in Australia.
More than 700 public patients have had their privacy breached and potential delays in their follow up care after more than 1600 medical letters were found dumped in a Sydney bin.

NSW Health is investigating the incident involving a sub-contractor for a company tasked with transcribing medical letters sent from specialists to general practitioners.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard speaks to media about patient correspondence discovered in a bin. Credit:Nick Moir

On Tuesday, April 11, a man found piles of follow-up letters containing patient details stuffed into a garbage bin at an apartment block in Ashfield. It is understood there were more than 1600 documents in total. Some of the letters were duplicates.
A prominent Brisbane restaurant owner, whose brother was bludgeoned to death, has been arrested on drug charges.

Police executed 11 search warrants on Friday morning in what has been described as one of the biggest cocaine operations in the history of Queensland police.

One of the premises raided was Toowong Italian restaurant Mariosarti, with owner Daniel Milos arrested. Police also raided 10 other addresses across the Gold Coast and Brisbane, including a Fig Tree Pocket home.

Police said five people in total had been arrested on 33 drug-related charges and expected further charges to be laid at a later date. The others in custody have been described as Mr Milos' "business associates".
EHP executive director Andrew Connor said they will hold Qantas to account as the polluter. "These chemicals have the capacity to accumulate into food chains, so they might start right at the bottom and then start working up at different levels within that food chain," he said. Mr Connor said part of their notice will require Qantas to monitor the food chain, which includes fish and crustaceans, pay for the work and provide information to the EHP. "So over time we can get a really good understanding through the work that they do around exactly how that chemical is behaving in the food chain," he said. The Qantas investigation comes on the back of the initial water quality results taken from Boggy Creek from the spill being released.

Residents have been advised not to fish in the area and not to eat seafood until further results are received. "I can advise Brisbane residents that water samples in the immediate vicinity of the Brisbane Airport spill are within recreational water use guidelines," Mr Miles said. "It appears the levels have started to dilute from the immediate location of the spill. "We are still waiting on further results in the broader receiving environment including Nudgee Beach and Brisbane Airport." Acting chief health officer Dr Mark Elcock said the initial results were encouraging from a perspective but not the full story.

"There has been a dilution of the chemicals which is good but until we get a fuller picture of the spread and those levels we would as a precautionary perspective still not eat seafood that originated from that area," he said. "Our job is to protect the public from a health perspective and that cautious approach is the best way to do it until we know more definitive information." Some experts said they feared the consequences of this spill could be felt by the city for decades. The lengthy wait for results on the impacts this spill could have had on seafood caught from the area has prevented businesses from operating in those waterways. Fisheries Deputy Director General Claire Andersen said the department continued to work with the industry to create arrangements for them so it doesn't disrupt their business.

"We've issued permits to beam trawlers this week so they can operate in a broader area of Moreton Bay, they had quite a restricted area that they could fish in that overlaps significantly with the investigation area," she said. "They are now able to operate in a broader area where the pollution is not expected to have any affect. "Speaking to industry this morning I understand that some of the product that did make it into the food chain didn't go for consumption, it was used for bait purposes so I think people can be assured there is very minimal product that was taken in that area that has made it through to people's dinner plates." Qantas issued a letter to commercial seafood operators in the Moreton Bay area on Friday reassuring them the airline acted quickly to contain the spill and was committed to replacing the fire retardant foam used in the handars.
The wife of Watersun Homes director Gary John Caulfield has been assaulted in front of their children, as the fallout from the budget builder's collapse continues to unfold.

Industry insiders claim Mr Caulfield and his wife, Lisa Caulfield, were the target of a recent assault at their Williamstown home.

It is believed the alleged attack was linked to the news the Victorian arm of Watersun Homes, WSH Group, had gone into administration owing hundreds of creditors debts totalling about $20 million.

Fairfax Media spoke to Mrs Caulfield outside the family's home on The Strand in Williamstown last week.
Box Hill is a suburb growing up quickly, literally.

The 36-storey Whitehorse Towers apartments and hotel is almost complete but, if a plan to be put to the state government by Whitehorse Council is anything to go by, locals haven't seen anything yet.

Whitehorse Towers, a new apartment building in Box Hill, is 36 storeys. A new plan would make 30 storeys the preferred height for some of the area. Credit:Eddie Jim

The proposal, to go before a panel of experts in June ahead of presentation to the planning minister, puts forward preferred building heights of up to 30 storeys in the popular retail, health and office precinct.

Currently there is little guidance on the height limits that the council wants to built in the area.
Premier Daniel Andrews is taking the state down a track with a proven dead end. Credit:Darrian Traynor The government plans to increase police numbers by about 3000 while the opposition promises to introduce mandatory sentencing for repeat offenders in 11 crime categories. Consider these facts. In 2006 we had 4000 prisoners, but 10 years later that number had increased by more than 65 per cent to 6500. That will grow to 8000 in the next few years, and with Opposition Leader Matthew Guy's mandatory sentence proposals it will crack 10,000. That is a fivefold jump from 2001. Labor leaders Bill Shorten and Daniel Andrews get in some feel-good politicking at Sunshine Hospital. On the flipside, there is a chronic lack of rehab beds in Victoria for drug addicts. Credit:Simon O'Dwyer We are building the 1000-bed Ravenhall Prison at a cost of $670 million, and on these projections will have to build another. Right now our prisons are full and police watch-houses are packed.

In 2002, police staff numbers were about 12,500 but under Premier Daniel Andrews' initiative will pass 20,000 by 2020  a jump of 60 per cent. And the crime rate keeps rising. If governments want to go all John Wayne, they should consider the Singapore Solution to reducing drug criime. Credit:Getty Images We are heading down a track with a proven dead end. And we should know, as white settlement in Australia was designed to relieve pressure on overcrowded British jails. It didn't work then and won't work now. In traditionally tough-talking Texas they have changed direction and invested in rehabilitation and mental health and addiction programs. The result has seen a drop in prison numbers, the closure of three jails and a reduced crime rate. If Dangerous Dan and Tough-Guy Guy want to take off their shirts like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, they should quit horsing around. Credit:AP

Yet here there is no appetite for such discussions. So if Dangerous Dan and Tough-Guy Guy want to take off their shirts, Putin-style, and go down the hard line, let's stop mucking around with water pistols and pull out the bazookas. If you want to go all John Wayne on us, why not embrace the Singapore Solution? No time for water pistols, it's time for the big guns a la Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry. Recently, a senior Victorian police officer asked his Singaporean counterpart about their gun crimes. For a moment the Singapore policeman looked confused before asking his off-offsider when was the last such offence. The reply was "1990". When the Australian asked the secret he was told, "We execute them". Singaporeans say our approach to illicit drugs (chase the suppliers while offering harm minimisation for users) is nuts. And the figures say they are right. We are seizing more drugs than ever, and yet drug abuse is worse than ever.

Dirty Harry is on target, unlike Victoria's politicians when it comes to drug crime. Credit:Fairfax Media And it will get worse. Stand by for a flood of Chinese fentanyl, an opioid, that has devastated Canada, with more than 900 deaths last year in the province of British Columbia. Forty years ago Singapore authorities tackled demand rather than supply, forcing users into mandatory (and uncompromising) rehabilitation. Code-named Ferret, users were put into centres that looked like prisons, forced to go cold turkey, given military-style training, work, and finally released to a job. The addiction rate halved. "Compulsory rehabilitation of drug addicts is the key to any lasting attack on the problem," the then Singapore Central Narcotics Bureau director Tony Poh told me inside one of six dedicated prisons (sorry, rehab centres). "Too many law enforcement officers think that they can turn off the drug supply like a tap. If there is a demand there will always be a supply; the profits are too great."

Clearly we will never embrace the Singapore method, but the facts are clear. We must find our own way to slow demand, which makes it so disappointing that both sides of politics are obsessed with finding a law enforcement solution that doesn't exist. Police say virtually all organised crime, most violent offences, and the majority of property crimes are drug related. The crime rate goes up because drug use continues to climb; yet we cling to the failed model like a drowning man to a sinking lifeboat. Take the proposed safe injecting room in Richmond. Despite a coronial recommendation for a trial and the support of a number of experts, both Andrews and Guy immediately dismissed the idea. Why? Because it is not seen as tough. The reality is that a large percentage of voters are frightened by the increasing crime rate and want lock 'em up laws. When I once advocated a broader approach, a reader wrote suggesting I was a "left-wing wanker". Well, in fairness, he may be half right. Governments are supposed to build stuff. Schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and parks  things that take more than one election cycle to complete. We know the Metro Rail Project will disrupt traffic for several years and accept it as the price that has to be paid. So why is law and order different?

The issue of drugs and related crime cannot be dealt with purely by arrests, conviction and punishment. We need both sides to stop this political arms race and look for long-term policies that punish criminals, rehabilitate drug addicts and slow the rate of new users. Fact: If we do not deal with drug abuse the crime rate will climb. Last week, this paper reported violent patients with ice-induced psychosis are being placed in medically induced comas and shoved into scarce intensive care beds on ventilators to protect staff from attacks. Meanwhile, we have 1000 Protective Service officers guarding near-empty railway stations for political rather than practical reasons. That decision alone shows that rather than being strong, politicians on both sides are as weak as water. People who cannot access mental health care commit thousands of crimes and dozens of murders. Every shift, police deal with people who need treatment, not punishment, which means cops can't get on with their core duties. While the majority of people suffering mental illnesses do not commit crime, too many end up being processed within the criminal justice system.

But the votes are in more cops, not more rehabilitation or mental health care, no matter what the end result. We have feel-good government ads shoved down our throats, but when was the last time you saw a drug ad that would act as a conversation starter at home? We have skin cancer campaigns, confronting road toll ads, Worksafe messages and anti-smoking programs, yet very little to deter illicit drug use. There is a chronic lack of rehab beds, and yet both sides of politics will spend billions on new jails rather than invest a tiny percentage on getting users clean. Forget the polls and the news cycle. We need to pause, kneel and drink deeply from the Fount of the Just. We need a 20-year commitment from both sides for a continuous public and schools education program funded directly from seized assets of crime. The government appointment last week of former Police Association secretary Ron Iddles as an independent law and order watchdog is a welcome one, but does not go far enough. We need a panel to take a fresh look at all the issues to find some bipartisan consensus on what is a national crisis. I would suggest:
Victoria Police have reviewed their security around Anzac Day commemorations after an attack in Paris left a police officer dead.

Acting Commander Peter O'Neill said there was no specific threat, but the attack in France - described by the French President as terrorist-related - meant they would review what will be the biggest security effort by police around Melbourne's Anzac parade and dawn service.

Crowds gather around the eternal flame at last year's dawn service in Melbourne. Credit:Chris Hopkins

"I can assure you there is no specific threat. We note what happened in Paris last night and that involved a loss of a member and it just reminds us of our police and our defence forces, our own personal security as well as that of the general community," Commander O'Neill said.

"No (there is no change in the security plans for Anzac Day). I can assure you that this morning we reviewed it. We went out this morning and re-did our travel plans and how the barriers are looking."
A search and rescue helicopter has picked up a man and woman stranded in WA's remote Gibson Desert and is now flying them to Broome

Police made contact with the pair after a search plane dropped supplies to them, including a satellite phone.

The man and woman were rescued by a helicopter sent from Broome. Credit:AMSA

The pair activated their Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) after their vehicle became bogged in an area more than 300 kilometres north-west of Warburton.

A search plane was deployed from Kalgoorlie at around 3pm on FRiday in order to search the area and the pair was found.
Mazar-i-Sharif: Dozens of Afghan soldiers were killed or wounded on Friday when Taliban gunmen disguised in Afghan army uniform talked their way past checkpoints and attacked a military base, officials said.

A US official in Washington put the toll at more than 50 killed and wounded. Afghan officials offered conflicting numbers of casualties in the incident, at a major headquarters in northern Afghanistan often used by foreign military advisers.

Afghan soldiers stand guard at the gate of a military compound after the attack. Credit:AP

The Western-backed Afghan government is locked in a prolonged war with Taliban insurgents and other militant groups.

The attack was launched near a mosque on the base in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, as soldiers were leaving Friday prayers, said army spokesman Nasratullah Jamshidi.
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Nissan NV3500 Ready For Prime Time

 Cary Clark, a 33-year veteran broadcast technician for WTVF-TV in Nashville, begins his workday by arriving at the ABC-affiliate station at 3 a.m. where he meets up with his partner: a Nissan NV3500 broadcast truck.

"There was only one truck in the industry that the TV stations dealt with, but now Nissan has come up with this NV3500 and it's an awesome truck," said Clark.

The up-fitting of the Nissan NV, which offers a large workspace for editing and story composition, satellite and microwave signal-sending delivery, begins in Clearwater, Florida. Frontline Broadcast Communications has become the largest supplier of TV news trucks in the industry.

"In 2012, we re-evaluated all available vehicles on the market," said Steve Williamson, director of sales for Frontline. "Our engineering staff did a six-month evaluation and determined that the Nissan NV was the strongest, safest van on the market."

Clearly, the use of the NV3500 as a broadcast truck has had an impact on Clark. "It drives like a cloud down the Interstate. I'm very impressed with it."
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
Honoring the helpers Awards recognize those who support autism community

Thirteen community members and providers were recognized for their resilience, passion and heart at the 2022 Awesome in Autism Awards ceremony. The 14th annual event, hosted by Autism Society Ventura County, was held Oct. 20 at Wood Ranch Golf Club...

Go purple to support those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer November is the busiest month of the year for cancer awareness campaigns. Im going to focus on one of thempancreatic cancer because its a type weve seen a noticeable rise in over the last few years. And because it remains...

Hospital offers safe option to dispose of meds, narcotics Los Robles Health System is working to crush the opioid drug crisis by raising awareness about the dangers of opioid misuse and the importance of safe and proper disposal of unused or expired medications. Crush the Crisis will take place...

Alzheimers Foundation to host free conference The Alzheimers Foundation of America will host a free virtual educational conference from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tues., Nov. 15. The event is part of the foundations 2022 national Educating America Tour. The conference, which is free and open...
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steinbach firefighters were called to a house fire on Hanover Street shortly after 1 a.m. on Friday morning.

Fire chief Kel Toews said when crews arrived they found a fire in the basement of the residence. Toews said flames burned through the main floor and managed to get into the attic as crews worked to contain the blaze.

Toews said the house, which he described as a total loss, was unoccupied and had no active hydro or gas connections.

GRANT BURR | THE CARILLON Steinbach firefighters work at the scene of a fire on Hanover Street around 7 a.m. on Friday morning.

He also noted the residence was slated to be removed. Last year, the city approved plans for two three-storey condos, with up to 32 units, to replace a total of three residences on the street.
Join The Daily Beasts Drink + Food editor Noah Rothbaum (@NRothbaum) and its Senior Drinks Columnist David Wondrich (@DavidWondrich) as they discuss the greatest bartenders of all time and how they changed what the world drinks. On this episode hear about the modern European cocktail boom and the history of Americans working overseas. Edited by Alex Skjong

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Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock Met Donald Trump at the White House. It Was Weird.

OF COURSE

They even pose with a portrait of Hillary Clintonyes, this actually happened.
From her very first moments onscreen, its abundantly clear that Katherine Heigls Tessa is going to do something crazy. Unforgettable, which is something of a comeback for Heigl, is at its strongest during these moments of restrained violence. When we first meet Tessa, shes staring at herself in her mirror, surrounded by an army of beauty products. When a woman owns this many eyeshadow brusheswhy would you ever need more than two? its easy to imagine her running after her ex-husbands new fiancee with a kitchen knife (which Tessa will do by the end of this film). Tessa is terrifying, whether shes brushing her long, straight hair after a long day of plotting against her romantic rival, or taking out all of her aggression during a horseback riding session. Its a testament to Heigls performance that this character is, for all her tightly wound energy and barely concealed hysteria, very funny. Armed with a wardrobe of power dresses and an over-the-top serious delivery, Heigl manages to elevate a script full of tropes into a parodic send-up of the frigid, angry ex-wife.

It would be fascinating to watch Katherine Heigl play a woman who is demonized for being too much: angry, critical, or just unmanageable. Unfortunately, this is not that movie. Heigls Tessa really is crazyfull-on sealed juvenile records, tried to burn her father alive crazy. Somehow, we are meant to believe that her ex-husband David (Geoff Stults) didnt know any of this, leaving his new girlfriend Julia (Rosario Dawson) to put together the pieces before its too late. Tessa wants her ex back, and tries to get Julia out of the picture by making a fake Facebook account and catfishing Julias ex-boyfriend, who physically abused her. All of this clumsy plotting culminates in two fight scenes: between Julia and her ex, who Tessa essentially sicced on her, and between Julia and Tessa.

For a film that owes so much to its female charactersI think Whitney Cummings has more lines in this movie than the man Julia and Tessa are presumably fighting overUnforgettable really hates women. For starters, it pits two strong, accomplished women against each other over a random dude who quit Merrill Lynch to start his own craft brewing company. I understand that the American middle class isnt what it used to be, but are breadwinners really so few and far between that two women would be physically duking it out for the opportunity to coax this dude through his mid-life crisis? Julia leaves her job at the internets leading storytelling platform () to move to a new town and start a life with her fiancethe same man that Tessa, a Stanford grad, has presumably spent her entire divorce trying to get back.

Of course, its impossible to watch this movie without thinking about its undeniable predecessor: a little film called Obsessed. From their one-word titles to their many scenes of women staring at themselves in the mirror while wearing sheath dresses, Obsessed and Unforgettable are cut from the same cloth. Theyre both stories about determined, unhinged white ladies who are trying to steal a man by any means necessary. They both culminate in girl-on-girl fight scenes, and teach us that the key to a happy marriage is communicating, never letting your restraining order expire, and not living in California. Seriously, what are they putting in that West Coast white lady water?

Naturally, there are a few differences that make Obsessed a cult classic, and Unforgettable just barely watchable. First of all, Obsessed stars Idris Elba as the husband, Beyonce Knowles as his wife, and Ali Larter as the conniving femme fatale. Let me say that again: Beyonce. Rosario Dawson is many things, including a fine actress, but she will never be 2009 Beyonce. Despite the fact that Beyonce wears a tiny cropped vest and knee-high suede boots around the house, Obsessed actually ages fairly well, and somehow manages to feel more relevant than its 2017 knockoff. Maybe thats because in Obsessed, Ali Larter is a career woman who has the hots for Idris Elba (relatable!) as opposed to an unnecessarily unemployed ex-wife who refuses to pick herself up and make a match.com profile.

In Obsessed, not only is the man actually worth fighting for, but everybody has the appropriate reaction to Ali Larters campaign of craziness. Idris Elbas character doesnt tell his wife, because he hopes it will blow over. When she finds out, she kicks him out of the house for three months, and then proceeds to beat the shit out of Ali Larter. These good life decisions stand in direct contrast to Unforgettable, a confusing film in which a man doesnt know that his ex-wife is a psychopath, a woman refuses to leave her boyfriend even though her life is in real and immediate danger, and nobody ever calls the police.

If theres one thing that dates Obsessed, its the casual workplace harassment of a gay male secretaryalso the fact that Idris Elba listens to American Boy in the car on the way to work. But while not all the jokes land, Obsessed is still genuinely funny. Its simply more fun to watch an aggressively un-chill, horny temp grind on Idris Elba than to watch Katherine Heigl engage in cybercrimes in an empty mansion. As the ultimate late-aughts temptress, Larter gets to wear multiple trench coats, and sends her prey a creepy email composed entirely of a huge, old-timey smiley face. When she breaks into Beyonces home, shes wearing Louboutins and holding a magnum of champagnejust because! Of course, shes also a sexual predator who literally roofies someone. Im not going to go so far as to say that female rapists advance the cause of gender equality, but its nice to see an evil woman whos motivated by her psychotic sexuality as opposed to her all-encompassing desire to be a stay-at-home mom.

But while Larter is the charismatic woman on the verge, Beyonce is the real heroine in this film. As the no-nonsense wife who will not stand for Ali Larters tomfoolery, she gets to say things like, You think youre crazy, Ill show you crazy. Just try me bitch. By the end of the film, Beyonce is done with her fancy security system and her incompetent husbandshe literally hangs up on him so she can continue to wipe the floor with Larters little skinny ass. Again, these are all actual lines that Beyonce gets to say in this film.

Obsessed truly ascends to greatness when Beyonce decides to take matters into her own hands, resulting in one of the best fight scenes of all time. After dragging each other through the house, Larter lures her sparring partner into the attic. Beyoncedirty, sweaty, and somehow still wearing heeled bootiesuses Larters own body weight against her, and tricks her into falling through the flimsy attic floor. Larter falls into the living room but manages to grab on to a chandelier. She then loses her grip and is slammed through a glass table. Bloody and bruised, Larter momentarily opens her eyes, only to watch helplessly as the chandelier crushes her dead. Beyonce emerges shaken but triumphant, and the credits rollset to the tune of a Beyonce song. It might not be Bey back-lit by a glowing FEMINIST sign, but it will do.
President Donald Trumps would-be deportation force may be sadly unprepared for the task, according to new report by a government watchdog.

The report, which the Department of Homeland Securitys inspector general released on April 20, found that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) isnt deporting everyone it could be and has internal problems that will make it hard for the agency to manage with its growing workload under Trump. ICE conceded those problems exist and promised to try to fix them.

The report may come as a surprise; after all, during Barack Obamas presidency, ICE deported more than 3 million undocumented immigrantsa record number that won him the nickname Deporter in Chief. And during Trumps first three months in office, ICE snagged headlines for launching raids around the country targeting undocumented immigrants deemed dangerous. ICE said those raids were comparable to raids conducted during Obamas presidency, but they still concerned advocates and undocumented immigrants.

This new report, though, indicates that even more people would have been deported by now if management at ICE were better at their jobs.

ICE is almost certainly not deporting all the aliens who could be deported, the report said, and will likely not be able to keep up with growing numbers of deportable aliens.

One of the biggest challenges for ICE is deporting undocumented immigrants whose home countries dont want them back. A State Department official told Congress last July that Cuba, Somalia, India, and China are especially uncooperative. Deporting undocumented immigrants can involve a lot of paperwork and back-and-forth between the State Department and those immigrants home country governments. And if that government moves slowly, then immigrants who are supposed to be deported can be stuck in the U.S. for months or even years.

And that brings its own complications, since a 2001 Supreme Court ruling concluded its unconstitutional to indefinitely detain immigrants in that situation. As a result, many immigrants who are supposed to be deported but whose home countries dont want them back end up out of detention.

Thats where things get tricky for ICE. The report found that ICE agents responsible for monitoring those immigrants are often overworked, with much more responsibility than they can manage. In the Washington D.C. field office, for instance, individual ICE officers were responsible for overseeing more than 10,000 non-detained immigrantsall on their own. ICE officers have to track down immigrants passports or birth certificates and share those documents with their home countries embassies, while also making sure the immigrants dont abscond.

Its not an easy task, and it can be urgent. Though immigrants in general have lower crime rates than native-born Americans, there have been headline-grabbing cases of undocumented immigrants waiting to be deported committing heinous crimes. One of the most notable was that of Jean Jacques, an undocumented immigrant from Haiti whoafter being ordered deported and then releasedstabbed a 25-year-old woman to death in Connecticut. He had already been convicted of attempted murder, but ICE agents werent able to get him sent back to Haiti before the killing.

He was convicted of the womans murder in June of 2015. But since then, according to the report, the problems at ICE that let it happen still arent fixed. And this could potentially put more lives at risk; one unnamed ICE officer told investigators that his or her workload was so big, s/he couldnt keep an eye on immigrants who were supposed to be deported and who were deemed national security risks.

Trump promised on the campaign trail to hire 10,000 new ICE agentsa promise that could potentially help alleviate the workload. But hes likely to have significant trouble finding people to fill those jobs, as has been widely reported.

In the early days of the Republican primary, Trump told Fox News that just about every undocumented immigrant in the U.S. would be subject to deportation if he became president.

Theyre here illegally, you take them, they have to go back, he said.

Given the reports findings, ICE isnt yet up to that task.
For a politically astute businessman looking to get into the nuclear power industry, a series of contributions to influential legislators could cut some of the inevitable red tape, but a million-dollar gift to Donald Trumps inauguration might help seal the deal.

As he awaits regulatory approval for a new nuclear power project, Chattanooga, Tennessee, developer Franklin Haney is flexing some serious political muscle by donating $1 million to Donald Trumps presidential inauguration committee in December through a company he owns.

With nearly $107 million in contributions , the committee almost doubled the previous fundraising record, set by Barack Obamas inaugural committee in 2009. Trumps inauguration, like many before it, was financed by a host of corporations with business before the federal government.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer rejected suggestions that inaugural donors might receive favorable treatment from the administration.

I think funding the Inaugural Committee has pretty much been a nonpartisan activity that is going back every administration, Spicer told reporters on Wednesday.

Haneys donation came by way of HFNWA LLC, an Arkansas company that he has used to make just one other federal political contribution: a $1 million donation in 2014 to Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC.

Haney personally made two other million-dollar contributions during the previous cycle, to Democratic super PACs Priorities USA Action and Majority PAC . He has given more than $2.3 million to Democratic candidates and party organs, according to Federal Election Commission records.

In light of that record, his contribution to the inauguration stuck out. He did not donate to Trump during the presidential campaign, setting him apart from other major inaugural donors such as casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and Chicago Cubs co-owner Marlene Ricketts.

His ongoing private financial activities could be a clue. Haney chipped in for the inauguration only after embarking on a business venture that would require favorable treatment from Trump administration regulators.

Haneys company did not respond to multiple messages left with its Washington and Chattanooga offices.

A week after the 2016 election, Haney won the right to buy the defunct Bellefonte nuclear power plant in Hollywood, Alabama, from the Tennessee Valley Authority. He paid $22 million up-front and will put up another $89 million upon closing.

His donation to Trumps inauguration came about a month later, on December 23.

After winning the rights to buy the plant, Haney announced that he and his partners in the project, operating under a Delaware company called Nuclear Development LLC, plan to invest up to $13 billion to get Bellefonte up and running and selling power once again.

But first the project needs sign-off from the TVA. The federally owned utility is currently seeking public comments on aspects of the sale including its likely environmental impact. Bellefonte will also need to renew permits with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

There will definitely be bureaucracy at NRC that the company will have to navigate, according to Jessica Lovering, an energy policy expert at the Breakthrough Institute, a nonprofit generally supportive of nuclear energy.

Haneys company has already received some key support from prominent public figures as he attempts to cut through the red tape that dogs most nuclear power projects. Many of those officials are Republicans, and they happen to be the only Republicans that he has supported financially in recent years.

When Haneys company purchased the Bellefonte plant, he issued a statement thanking the entire Alabama and Tennessee congressional delegationsespecially Senators Richard Shelby, Jeff Sessions, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Corker, as well as Alabama Governor Robert Bentleyfor their continued support of nuclear development throughout this process.

Since 2012, when Haney incorporated Nuclear Development LLC in Delaware, he has contributed to just three Republican candidates for federal office: Shelby, Alexander, and Corker. He gave them and their leadership PACs $30,000 through the 2016 cycle, and donated another $10,000 to the Tennessee GOP.

One of those contributions, a $5,000 gift to Corkers leadership PAC on September 20, 2013, came just a week after Corker held a public hearing to nudge TVA towards selling the Bellefonte plant, a move Haney had been pressing for months.

He was also giving heavily to Gov. Bentley. Haney donated about $300,000 to his campaigns through 2016. When TVA solicited public comments on the potential sale of the Bellefonte plant early last year, Bentley lined up to support it , along with Sen. Shelby, another recipient of Haneys financial largesse.

His donation to the Trump inauguration came as Haney shifted his focus from acquisition to profit. Now that he has a lock on the Bellefonte plant, Haney is looking to expand and exploit federal incentives for nuclear power production.

Two weeks after TVA approved the Bellefonte sale, Nuclear Development LLC hired a pair of high-powered Washington lobbyists: former Clinton White House officials Harold Ickes and Janice Enright. They brought on lobbyists with another firm, Peck Madigan Jones, including the former chief of staff to Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Nuclear Development paid the two firms a combined $60,000 through the end of last year to lobby Congress and the Treasury Department on tax incentives for nuclear energy production. One of those tax credits is worth an estimated $6 billion to the nuclear power industry.

With the administration and congressional Republicans eyeing a push for comprehensive tax reform, Nuclear Developments lobbyists will have a chance to earn their keep as the nuclear industry tries to preserve its federal tax incentives.

For Haney, being in the presidents good graces can only help. And a seven-figure contribution to a ceremony devoted entirely to exalting the new president was a good place to start.
An inter-state police force that serves a polygamous fundamentalist Mormon community wont be required to disbanddespite alleged discrimination against nonbelievers, surveillance of dissidents, and facilitation of child abuse.

Instead, officers in the Colorado City Marshals Office will be required to attend annual training sessions to ensure they comply with federal laws and dont discriminate against the communitys non-religious minority. The Marshals Office has been serving the adjoining towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona since 1985.

Together, the two towns make up Short Creek, a 7,500-person community thats home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamous offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that splintered from the Mormon church when the latter renounced plural marriage at the beginning of the 20th century.

The U.S. Department of Justice called for the disbanding of the CCMO as part of a lengthy anti-discrimination lawsuit against the twin towns that comprise Short Creek that began in 2012. According to the complaint, the communitys powerful FLDS leaders denied non-members access to housing, police protection, and public services including water and electricity.

In March 2016, a jury determined the communitys leadership had discriminated against non-FLDS members and awarded $2.2 million in damages to six Short Creek residents. The Justice Department then demanded the federal government disband Short Creeks police force, which it claimed was enforcing the churchs discrimination against non-members.

Prosecutors claimed the Marshals Office was using its state-granted law enforcement authority to carry out the will and dictates of Warren Jeffs, the infamous FLDS leader who is currently serving a life sentence for sexually abusing two young girls whom he called his spiritual wives.

In October 2005, marshal Fred Barlow wrote a letter to Jeffs, a fugitive at the time. I want to fill the position that you would have me fill and do the job the way you would like it done, Barlow wrote. We will continue to do that directive unless you would like us to do something different.

Jeffs continued to lead the church from behind bars, and according to the suit, the practice of older men marrying underage women did not end with his arrest. Instead, it was allegedly ignoredand even practicedby the Marshals Office, which allegedly continued to carry out Jeffs orders after his arrest.

In 2007, Barlow was decertified as a marshal for failing to assist with an Arizona Attorney General investigation. An administrative law judge who reviewed Barlows decertification determined he displayed bias in favor of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS, in derogation of his oath to neutrally enforce the law, according to the civil complaint.

Helaman Barlow, who served as a marshal for 20 years, testified in February 2016 that he was instructed to be a protector of the church, not a police officer. When Barlow began his tenure at the CCMO in 1994, he asked then-FLDS leader Rulon Jeffs if he had any advice for a new cop. Jeffs allegedly told him, Number one, you arent a cop. You are a peace officer. Number two, your calling is between the church and harm, Barlow testified, as reported by Courthouse News.

Barlow served as chief marshal between 2012 and 2014 and said that under his leadership, the Marshals Office didnt investigate claims of FLDS membersincluding Colorado Citys former mayor Joseph Allredmarrying underage girls.

If it was a church marriage, I as a church member saw it as a valid marriage, Barlow testified. When the local sheriffs office began to investigate allegations of child marriage in the FLDS, Barlow said it felt like he was there to attack our marriages, our beliefs. Barlow left the church in 2014.

Local authorities also claimed the Marshals Office actively interfered in their investigations, including child custody disputes. When they know that we are coming, those children are moved, making it harder to find them, Washington County Sheriff Cory Pulsipher testified in October 2016. James Schoppman, special counsel for the Mohave County Sheriffs Office, reportedly testified to a history of abuse by the Marshals Office. Both sheriffs offered to fill the void in the event that the Marshals Office were disbanded.

But on Tuesday, a federal judge ruled it would be unreasonably expensive for the Marshals Office to disband.

Disbandment would approximately double the cost of law enforcement for the Short Creek community or necessitate a reduction in police protection, U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland declared. The Marshals Office wont, however, be allowed to return to business as usual either. The CCMOs Chief Marshal and officers are plainly in need of training and supervision, Holland added.

The Marshals Office now has approximately three months to hire both an outside consultant and an independent mentor for the chief marshal.

The changes the judge is requiring from the police department are changes the department had begun to make anyway, in terms of hiring a consultant to help them change their policies, Jeff Matura, lead attorney for Colorado City, told The Daily Beast.

From the beginning of this case, the federal government sought to disband the local department, Matura continued. The judges decision to deny that request is not only a victory for the local residents, but really a victory for all small, regional municipalities throughout the country who are fighting against the overreach of the federal government into their daily affairs.

Lawyers representing Colorado City and Hildaleincluding Maturaunsuccessfully tried to get a judge to bar evidence of polygamy, underage marriage, and church teachings from the trial, the Associated Press reported last year.

Matura also denied any allegations of ongoing child abuse and underage marriage. We hear that allegation all the time. We had an eight-week trial last year; there was no evidence of that, Matura told The Daily Beast.

Regarding Warren Jeffs continued power over the Marshals Office, Matura said, The CCMO has undergone a great transition over the years and is now moving forward with the Courts order to ensure that all residents, regardless of their religion, have confidence in the police services they will receive.
It must be shocking for a president elected on his promise to rack up so many wins that wed tire of winning to approach the 100-day mark with no real legislative achievement. White House aides desperate to load up the presidents scorecard are claiming a bevy of rollbacks of Obama-era regulations as the most impactful measures that have passed Congress since the new administration took office.

Thats truebut its also true that these measures, taken together, are deeply unpopular with the broader public. A week after White House legislative affairs director Marc Short urged reporters to pay more attention to President Donald Trumps prolific use of an obscure twenty-year-old law, the Congressional Review Act, to overturn protections put in place by his predecessor, Trump kept the media away from two of his most controversial signings.

With no cameras to record the moment, he repealed online privacy protections for consumers, and he signed a measure removing a rule from the final days of the Obama administration to prevent governors from withholding federal funding from health care providers if they provide contraception and abortion services.

A partial de-funding of Planned Parenthood satisfies his conservative base, but why would Trump pull the plug on Internet privacy protections?

You would be very hard-pressed to find a single person in the United States not connected to the telecom industry who believed this was a good thing, said Robert Weissman, president of nonprofit consumer rights group Public Citizen. It was a big deal to Comcast and Verizon.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the CRA is a nifty mechanism the Trump administration is using to pay back corporate donors and lobbyists, roll back protections for consumers, and advance a conservative agenda on the environment and womens health.

CRAs are boring and complicated for people who dont think about policy, but thats all theyve got, said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way. He predicts their actions will come back to bite the GOP in next years congressional elections. Undoing environmental regulations to make the air and water dirtier, is that what you voted for?

President Bill Clinton signed the CRA into law in 1996. It was part of the anti-government fervor unleashed by Newt Gingrichs Contract with America. Weissman at Public Citizen called it a kind of gentle offering to make the rest of Gingrichs house of horrors go away.

Before Trump latched onto it, the law was used only once by President George W. Bush, who repealed an ergonomics rule that Clinton had put in place. It had to do with repetitive motion injuries, and the rule would have forced large employers to take steps to mitigate those injuries. UPS among others vociferously opposed the rule, and got it rolled back.

You can almost like a laser trace these back to industries that wanted to see the rule repealed, said Lisa Gilbert with Public Citizen. This is a story of industry influence.

In Washington, its a familiar storyjust not the one that Trump ran on when he promised to drain the swamp.

The CRA allows the incoming administration to repeal with a simple majority in the House and Senate within sixty legislative days any regulation put in place during the final six months of the previous administration.

Obama did a burst of progressive rulemaking at the end of his eight years that he could have done a lot earlier. The question arises: Why didnt the Obama administration issue regulations earlier in the year?

He was afraid of being too political, said Weissman, And at the beginning of 2016, not many people thought Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton.

The window for additional CRAs closes on April 28th, with the tally so far of 13 passing through the House and Senate and signed into law, and two more having passed the House and awaiting action in the Senate. Another seven are teed up and ready to go if the House chooses to act. (Public Citizen has a user-friendly chart at RulesatRisk.org.)

The first one out of the box right after Trump took office was an Obama-era rule requiring oil companies to disclose how much theyre paying foreign governments in royalties. It was seen as an anti-corruption measure, and it quickly came out that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as head of ExxonMobil had lobbied hard against the rule. Its repeal was reported as a gift to the oil lobby.

Another early gift went to the NRA, when the Senate passed with 57 votes (all 52 Republicans and 5 pro-gun Democrats) and Trump signed into law a measure undoing an Obama-era law that blocked some 75,000 people from buying a gun because they had been deemed incapable of handling their financial affairs because of mental illness.

Its not immediately apparent what Trumps core supporters are getting out of these CRAs. When he overturned the Stream Protection rule, allowing mining companies to dump pollutants into nearby streams, Public Citizen pointed out, It isnt coastal Democrats whose crops wont grow, whose drinking water will be poisoned and whose children will end up in the hospital. Its the rural working-class voters who backed Trump and live close to these drill sites whose families will suffer the most.

A prepaid card rule issued by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is rumored next on the GOP hit list. It has safeguards against fraud and unauthorized charges for consumers who use prepaid credit cards. Its obvious which industry would benefit from its repeal.

The White House says its anti-regulatory agenda is designed to create jobs and spur the economy, logic that doesnt always apply. When Short briefed reporters early this month, claiming a dramatic impact on the economy with $10 billion in savings over twenty years, he was asked, If the purpose is to create jobs and stimulate the economy, how is repealing Internet privacy rules doing that? What is the justification?

He didnt have much of an answer other than the totality of these measures helps lift the burden of regulation.

Its a story thats not been told, Short said.

Telling that story is not going to get Trump the credit he wants at the 100-day mark. Repealing a bunch of regulations with party-line votes is not much of an achievement. Its more like business as usual for the special interests.
Roger Stone, a former adviser and longtime friend of President Donald Trump, played a pivotal role in getting former campaign chairman Paul Manafort a job, three former Trump campaign officials told The Daily Beast.

Manafort, now the subject of a FBI investigation pertaining to alleged connections between Russian officials and Trumps campaign, initially joined the campaign in April 2016. His role began with delegate operations, ensuring that the Republican National Convention went off without a hitch and ended in Trump securing the nomination. By May, Manafort was named the campaign chairman and by June, Trumps first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was out.

According to the officials familiar with the deliberations, at the outset of Stones time with the campaign, he made a strong case to Trump to bring in Manafort. Manafort himself backs that version of events up in an interview for the upcoming Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23.

It was all Stone. Every bit of it was Stone. Right down to suggesting that he go salary-free, one source familiar with the process told The Daily Beast.

As detailed in a recent New York Times article, Manafort reached out to Trump with memos in February 2016, pitching himself as a professional who could help Trumps operation. According to the Times report, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a friend of Trumps who went on to become the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, provided Trump with the Manafort memos. Trump subsequently requested a meeting with Manafort, according to the paper.

Thats where Stone came in.

After Barrack brought Paul to the president, Trump called Stone for a recommendation and they had a long conversation, one former Trump campaign official told The Daily Beast. Pauls offer came soon after.

Neither Barrack nor Manafort responded to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.

Rogers relationship with Trump has been so interconnected that its hard to define whats Roger and whats Donald, Manafort says in the documentary. While it will be clearly a Trump presidency, I think its influenced by a Stone philosophy.

Stone and Manafort worked together in the 1980s for the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, whose group of clients was referred to as the torturers lobby. And Stone was further compelled to get his old friend involved in the presidential campaign by his dislike of Lewandowski, later saying after the campaign manager was let go that he was wisely fired.

You know Stone has a hard-on like a dog with a bone, a person familiar with the deliberations told The Daily Beast. He just wont stop doing something. He hates Corey Lewandowski. He was looking for a thousand ways to undo Corey.

Stones call with Trump, which allegedly came after the review of the memos that Manafort sent the candidate, was referred to by one source as pivotal.

All the characterizations Ive heardeven excluding Rogers own perspectivemade it a closer call, one source told The Daily Beast. Informing Trumps confidence in the decision. Sealing the deal.

Stones alleged behind-the-scenes wrangling was a result of his desire to see Trump succeed, and he purportedly didnt think Lewandowski was the person who could accomplish that.

Roger had a lot of ideas, and he was frustrated and he knew how to keep Trump in line, and he wanted him to succeed, one source familiar with the decision-making told The Daily Beast. Roger just wanted to get the thing back on track and Manafort was a perfect answer.

Stones official split with the campaign in August 2015 is a tale told very differently by the two sides. Stone says he quit, while the Trump campaign says he was fired. But as he puts it, Stone wasand isalways trying to do things for the ultimate benefit of Trump. He wanted him to run for president as far back as 1988 and advised him once again in 2000, when Trump toyed with running on the Reform Party ticket.

Even now, as Stone spends time on InfoWars suggesting that Trumps own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is undermining his administration by providing damaging stories about chief White House strategist Steve Bannon to outlets like MSNBCs Morning Joe, Stone suggests hes doing it for the presidents benefit.

They would like him to be more mainstream, more establishment, Stone said recently, referring to Kushner, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell. They want him to be popular when he goes to Malibu or the Upper West Side. But I dont think Donald Trump cares about how hes perceived in those places. He has no interest in kowtowing or ass-kissing for the establishment. So I think that his advisers are trying to push him in the wrong direction.

Although he often is quick to take credit for his political maneuvering and influence, Stone was not so quick to indulge The Daily Beast in discussing his role in getting Manafort a job.

Sorry I only respond to inquiries from legitimate news organizations. Fake News sites like the one you work for dont qualify, he wrote in an email to The Daily Beast.
A small team of scientists is desperately pressing the Australian and Malaysian governments to resume searching for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. For the second time in four months they have insisted that they are now much more certain of where the remains of the Boeing 777 are on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

A search that lasted nearly three years and cost $150 million was abandoned in January after the same oceanographers decided that, all along, they had been looking in the wrong place.

The team of oceanographers, led by Dr. David Griffin of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, CSIRO, has used debris from MH370 that washed up on beaches in the western Indian Ocean to get what they now believe is a far more accurate fix on where the jet went down. Using a method called drift modeling they reverse-tracked the debris to a point 1,700 miles off the west coast of Australia.

The first search area that turned up empty was huge46,000 square miles. Dr. Griffin now proposes a new area of 9,700 square miles.

This does not change our earlier estimate of the probable location of the aircraft, he said. It does, however, increase our confidence in that estimate, so we are now even more confident that the aircraft is within the new search area.

Griffin and his team in Hobart, Tasmania, are placing great importance on the first piece of debris to be found, part of the right wings control surfaces called a flaperon recovered from the island of La Reunion near Africa in July 2015.

In their first reverse-tracking of the debris the scientists used replicas they made of a flaperon. The flaperon found on La Reunion was sent to French accident investigators in Paris (La Reunion is French territory) and France did not agree to send it to Australia, insisting that their scientists would provide the Australians with any relevant data.

Late last year the Australians acquired an actual flaperon from a retired Boeing 777 provided by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. After trials in the waters near Hobart using this flaperon, modified to reflect damage from the crash impact, they now say that that it gave them a much more accurate picture of the course taken by the debris as it drifted across the Indian Ocean. (In fact, their calculations matched those made in Paris by the French scientists.)

However, one expert who has reviewed the work of Dr. Griffins team believes that they may be putting too much confidence in the debris as a guide to where the airplane is.

Dr. Richard Cole of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College, London closely followed the previous search operation over many months. He told The Daily Beast that he is cautious about whether there is enough data from the debris to reach a more confident assessment of where the wreck was likely to be.

Statistically the number of debris items is very small, he said. For example the final predictions are strongly based on the absence of debris on the Australian coast, but a few pieces could easily have been missed. Would discovery of those have made a difference to the conclusions? I have yet to see any treatment of the drift modeling that uses any real statistical treatment with a proper level of significance, e.g. 99 per cent or better.

Dr. Cole points out that something that sounds to the public like an optimistic numberfor example, that there is a 90 per cent confidence level in proposing a new search area, is statistically not very good.

Nobody would cross a road if there was a 10 per cent chance of being hurt, he said, and most people wouldnt make an investment with a 10 per cent chance of failure. Certainly no scientific paper that drew conclusions with this level of significance would be believed.

The CSIRO team received an enormous amount of help from other scientists around the world, including from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, who provided vital data from a fleet of buoys monitoring ocean currents, and other agencies using satellites to monitor climate. As a result, a remarkably detailed day-by-day history of conditions in the Indian Ocean was constructed, beginning on May 8, 2014, when the airplane vanished.

More than 20 pieces of debris from the 777 were recovered from the southern coastline of mainland Africa as well as Mozambique and other islands in the direct path of currents originating near the western coast of Australia.

In January the Australian Minister of Transport, Darren Chester, speaking on behalf of Australia, Malaysia and China (many of the passengers on Flight MH370 were from China) announced that the largest search in aviation history had been suspended.

In a press conference the next day Chester came under pressure to explain why, in view of Dr. Griffins teams new prediction of where the wreck was, the search had not been switched.

No one is coming to me and saying we know where MH370 is, Chester replied. He later doubled down and said there would be no consideration of a new search in the absence of any credible new evidence leading to a specific location of the aircraft.

No one, certainly not the scientists, is claiming to have reached a specific location. That seems to set a standard that can never be met. When the initial search was launched in 2014 there was nonstop media coverage and worldwide pressure to the find the airplane in which 239 people had been lost. That pressure is now absent. The Australians have made clear that it is the Malaysians who will have to decide whether Dr. Griffins work justifies a renewed effort.

That is highly unlikely. Suspended is a euphemism. In any event, with the Southern Hemisphere winter approaching no search would now be possible until late this year.
The Indiana University track and field team will square off against in-state rival Purdue and Wabash at the Rankin/Poehlein Invitational this weekend. The Hoosiers will look to continue the momentum they established last weekend with a successful meet at the Louisville Invitational.Friday's action will be limited to just one event, the hammer throw. A total of four Hoosiers will throw, including:and. Both the men's and women's competitions will start promptly at 5:00 p.m. EST.Saturday's slate will kick off with the javelin throw at 11:00 a.m. while running events get started at 1:45 p.m. with the men's 3,000m steeplechase. The meet with conclude with the 4x400m relay, scheduled to start at 4:15 p.m.The javelin throw will feature, who landed inside the top 10 in school history in the event last weekend with a throw of 58.40m (191-7). Six field athletes on the women's side all joined Ludwig's lead by cracking, or improving their standing within, the top 10 list. Both(sixth) and(10) are competing in the long jump. Freshmansits sixth on the triple jump list. She will contend in the triple jump and the long jump this weekend.had a tremendous weekend, improving to fifth on the shot put list and sneaking into 10in the discus. She will throw in both events at Purdue.jumped up to fourth in the hammer throw with a mark of 55.85m (183-3). Ford will throw the hammer and the shot.Indoor All-Americanwill headline the running events for the Hoosiers. Roach will run in the 400m dash as well as a couple relay events., a Big Ten point socrer, will look to lead a group of five Hoosiers in the 800m run.Live results can be tracked here or via the IU track and field Twitter page.#GoIU
A Michigan doctor and his wife were arrested Friday morning for providing the clinic where Dr. Jumana Nagarwala allegedly performed female genital mutilation surgeries on girls as young as six.

Federal prosecutors charged Fakhruddin Attar and his wife, Farida, for conspiring to perform FGM on minors. Neither Attar nor his wife are alleged to have carried out the procedures themselves, but investigators claim the couple facilitated Nagarwalas procedures and coordinated appointments with parents. The Attars urged parents to deny the procedures had taken place after Nagarwala was charged, prosecutors claim.

Nagarwala, an emergency room clinic physician at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, was arrested last week.

The alleged criminal activity did not occur at any Henry Ford Facility. We would never support or condone this practice, a hospital spokesperson told The Daily Beast after Nagarwalas arrest.

Instead, Nagarwala performed the alleged surgeries at the Burhani Medical Clinic in the suburb of Livonia, which is owned and operated by Fakhruddin Attar. Attars wife is the office manager.

According to the criminal complaint, Nagarwala and her alleged co-conspirators were careful not to leave a paper trail: shes not employed by BMC and theres no record of her billing the clinic for medical procedures there.

On April 10, Attar told federal investigators that Nagarwala occasionally sees young patients, between 6 and 9 years old, at his clinic for problems with their genitals, including treatment of genital rashes. According to Attar, Nagarwala never charged any money for seeing patients at BMC, and only attended to patients at the clinic after regular business hours, usually on Friday evenings or Saturdays.

Attar began contacting a Minnesota phone number in October 2016, according to the criminal complaint. Between October 2016 and January 2017, he had more than 50 calls with the Minnesota number.

On February 3, 2017, two adult women and their young daughters visited Attars clinic, according to surveillance footage. One girl entered BMC at 6:25 p.m. and left less than 20 minutes later. The second girl left the clinic at 7:02 p.m. Surveillance footage shows Nagarwala had arriving at the clinic at 6:09 p.m. and leaving at 7:03 p.m. with Attar, just one minute after the girls left with their parents.

The first girl later told investigators she and another girl were brought to Detroit for a special girls trip and that they had to go to the doctors because their tummies hurt. The second girl told investigators she got a shot on her upper right thigh, and was in so much pain after the procedure that she could hardly walk.

Both girls identified Nagarwala as the doctor who performed the procedure. The first girl told investigators that two other adult women were at the room.

On April 10, Attar told admitted that his wife is present in the examining room while Nagarwala treats patients in order to comfort them and hold their hands. He told investigators Nagarwala sees patients at his clinic five or six times a year.

According to the criminal complaint, two additional Michigan parents said Nagarwala had performed FGM on their daughters at Attars clinic. On March 31, Attars wife used Nagarwalas phone to call one of the parents, urging them to completely deny the allegation and say that nothing had happened.

At a hearing on Monday, Nagarwalas attorney claimed her client had performed a religious practice on young girls, but denied that there was any cutting involved. Instead, Nagarwala removed the membrane from the girls genitals as part of a religious custom practiced by a small sect of Indian Muslims called the Dawoodi Bohra, the Detroit Free Press reported .

FGM is not a religious practice, it is a cultural tradition that happens in every region of the world, Jaha Dukureh, founder of anti-FGM charity Safe Hands for Girls, told The Daily Beast in a statement. "Sadly, the reported details of the alleged suffering of two seven-year-old girls are too familiar to those of us who have experienced this human rights abuse."

But doctors observed some scar tissue and smeall healing lacerations on one of the two seven-year-old girls genitals, and a small incision and small tear on the other girls, according to the criminal complaints against Nagarwala and the Attar couple.

Nagarwala and the Attars belonged to the Anjuman-e-Najmi mosque in Farmington Hills, the Detroit News reported. The mosque is the only Dawoodi Bohra mosque in Michigan, and Attar has reportedly served as its treasurer and leader.

The Dawoodi Bohras do not support the violation of any U.S. law, local, state or federal. We offer our assistance to the investigating authorities, an Anjuman-e-Najmi spokesperson told The Daily Beast in a statement. Any violation of U.S. law is counter to instructions to our community members. It does not reflect the everyday lives of the Dawoodi Bohras in America. It is an important rule of the Dawoodi Bohras that we respect the laws of the land, wherever we live.

On Thursday, one of the two girls was allowed to return to her parents custody after being temporarily removed from their home, the Associated Press reported . The girls parents are required to get her medical and psychiatric care and have to submit to home visits from a social worker.
The United Nation's Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced Thursday that it had found incontrovertible proof that the Syrian government used sarin or a sarin-like substance in a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun earlier this month. The crisis that attack provoked, and the American responsescores of Tomahawk missiles blasting a Syrian airbasedrew the worlds attention. U.S. President Donald Trump made it clear hed been moved, not least, by the photographs of beautiful babies dying horrible deaths after exposure to sarin.

But the war continues, and there are other policies pushed by Assads government that need to be examined closely. The Syrian regime and its allies are continuing to carry out what they call their reconciliation and evacuation policy across Syria's besieged areas.

Begun last year, the strategy so far has managed to return many of the formerly opposition-held, besieged, suburbs of rural Damascus and Homs to government control, while consolidating opposition forces and supporters in the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib.

But the reconciliation part of this program is, to say the least, problematic. It is championed by the Syrian regime, and Russian forces, as the best option for stability in the country, while the opposition and human rights organizations see it as forced displacement, which is itself a war crime.

The latest chapter in the process continued Friday morning, as a group of buses evacuating several hundred residents from what have come to be called Syrias four towns finally reached their destination.

The buses held people from the pro-opposition areas of Zabadani and Madaya located north-west of Damascus, on the one hand, and the Shia villages of Foua and Kafraya, which were sympathetic to the Assad government, but located in the rebel-held north-east of the country.

They had been stuck for two days, leaving evacuees sitting in the same locations where, last Saturday, a suicide bomber attacked the first convoys.

The most recent batch of buses holds more than 500 people from Zabadani, Madaya, and Wadi Barada, and 3,000 residents from Foua and Kafraya, and reportedly were waiting for the release of 750 detainees, held by the government of Syria, before they could cross to their final destinations. The residents of Zabadani wrote goodbyes on the towns walls as they boarded the buses, one read: "Cry, Zabadani, and I will return to wipe your tears.

An additional group of buses yesterday brought 131 people from Aleppo to Turkey, including 37 of the injured from Saturday nights deadly truck bomb attack on buses holding residents of Foua, which claimed the lives of over 120 people, including at least 80 children, and injured more than 300 more.

While this group of buses will see Zabadani emptied of residents, most of Madayas residents have remained in their homes, after agreeing to a so-called reconciliation agreement with the government of Syria.

The evacuation, or forced displacement, of people from across Syria in reconciliation agreements began in August 2016 with the full evacuation of the Damascene suburb of Darayya, and has continued apace sincethe largest and most publicized example being eastern Aleppo city, and the most recent the ongoing evacuation of al-Waer.

Unpicking the intertwined layers of the four towns arrangement, which has tied the fates of four besieged communities together since 2015, involved one of the most complicated deals in the Syrian wars history.

With the predominantly pro-opposition areas of Madaya and Zabadani besieged by Hezbollah, the government of Syria, and their allies, and the Shia enclaves of Foua and Kafraya besieged by al-Qaeda-inspired Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the four have been linked in a tit-for-tat deal which means aid deliveries and medical evacuations must be matched by aid or evacuations to or from the other.

The four towns trade-offs have resulted in desperate conditions, as the military groups exert pressure on each other, punishing innocent civilians in each of the areas.

In January 2016, the UN visited besieged Madaya and found civilians starving, after being cut off from food aid, and in recent months, reports of Hezbollah forces sniping residents have increased. A UN convoy that reached the four towns in March reported that sniping activities and shelling increased heavily in the last three months and in Zabadani observed that adult males observed during the mission were gaunt and thin.

Despite tying an evacuation from Foua, Kafraya, Zabadani and Madaya to the east Aleppo evacuation in December, only a small number of residents of Foua and Kafraya managed to leave their area.

Ongoing negotiations since then have seen several false starts. Then, a week ago, what seemed a solid deal finally was reached. The details were initially hard to come by, save the fact it had been brokered directly by Qatar and Iran, rather than the Russian military and Syrian Government, who normally play a leading role in reconciliation negotiations.

* * *

When the terms of the agreement finally emerged they had all the makings of a high-drama spy novel; they involved large cash payments thought to have been flown into Baghdad on private planes, and the release of 26 Qatari royals who have been held in Iraq since December 2015 after going missing on a falconry hunt.

The execution of the deal played out like a carefully choreographed chess game, each piece dependent on the next to move. Since the time the now-infamous green buses arrived in the four towns early last week, there have been excruciating delays at every step of the process.

On Friday those people leaving Madaya, Foua, and Kafraya, boarded buses for the first phase of the evacuation. After many hours, the buses reached Ramousah and Rashideen near Aleppo early on Saturday, and then, after more than eight hours of waiting, tragedy struck when the suicide bomber hit the Foua buses in one of the most deadly single incidents of the conflict, with scores of children, of beautiful babies, if you will, among the dead.

It seemed certain the deal would implode and in panicked phone calls the people of Madaya, trapped on the buses and fearing a reprisal attack, asked frantically for help. In a call to The Daily Beast, a resident of Madaya said: There is something happened now, a car has exploded where the buses of Foua and Kafraya are, and there are a lot of dead people and there is a lot of fear the regime will react against our buses.

On both sides, help came from unlikely sources. The injured and dead of Foua were treated by the White Helmets and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) who worked side by side with pro-opposition journalists and civilians to rescue the wounded, the many children. The Madaya buses were surrounded by Russian military and escorted to the crossing point, to ward off attacks.

By early Sunday morning, the buses arrived in their respective destinations.

* * *

If todays convoys arrive safely, the deal will pause before resuming again in June for its final phase.

If completed, it will displace 30,000 people from their homes, probably permanently. Zabadani is empty of residents, and by the end of the June phase, Foua and Kafraya will be, too.

Security guarantees for those remaining in Madaya under the reconciliation are slim. One resident told The Daily Beast, The situation is so bad, the army came to Madaya and took everything in the hospitalsdrugs medicines, tools, equipment, everythingand they went to the houses of people who are wanted by them and took everything in their houses. Video posted on social media from Madaya showed Government of Syria forces in the town, and lines of local men who appeared to be being conscripted into the military.

Both the government of Syria and Russia see reconciliation agreements as the preferred resolution to the conflict, as they remove hostile actors to one limited area, allowing the government to re-exert control over what had been pro-opposition territory within central Syria. According to state media this week, Presidential Political and Media Advisor Bouthaina Shaaban reiterated that the local reconciliations taking place throughout the country without foreign interference are the best way to restore security and stability to Syria.

For foreign powers, and negotiators, the reconciliations bring may mean less killing and the possibility to begin to talk about reconstruction. A reduction in violence, particularly at a localized level, has been the low bar for success set across the country since the UNs Syria Envoy Staffan de Mistura posited it in November 2014.

However, reconciliations are failing to deliver stability, or even substantial improvements in circumstance for many of those living in reconciled areas across rural Damascus and Homs. Far from being a solution to the problems of the besieged areas, the agreements have brought with them a new set of problems, which are likely to play out in Madaya as well.

In eastern Aleppo, widespread looting has been reported since the area was evacuated in December 2016, following a pattern observed in other reconciled areas. Forced conscription and arrests are also pressing issues across these areas, with many fighting-aged males living in besieged areas doing so to avoid mandatory military service. In some areas locals have been told that all men between 18 and 42 must join the military or the police.

In Moadamiyeh, which reconciled in September last year, residents told The Daily Beast that there has only been one garbage collection since the evacuations took place and the area returned to the jurisdiction of the government of Syria. In Wadi Barada, which evacuated in December, a recent UN visit found that there were no doctors working in the clinics, and almost all medicines were removed from the convoy of humanitarian aid that was delivered, an action often used by the government of Syria to inflict pain on besieged communities, but used against reconciled areas as well.

Even services that are tied to government ministries that work closely with the United Nations hub in Damascus, like the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, have not improved. Hospital and clinics remain unrepaired, and schools still suffering from physical destruction in most reconciled areas. While access has improved in some areas, with roads opening to allow some movement of people and goods, many men remain scared of arrest or conscription and remain in hiding.

In an early, positive, move, a SARC convoy consisting of 21 trucks of humanitarian aid reached Madaya on Thursday. While the US policy on Syria outside of the fight against ISIS continues to develop, its possible the situation for those in reconciled areas will continue to improve, but for the civilians of Madaya, and the remaining residents in Foua and Kafraya waiting for the June phase of the evacuation plan, there are no guarantees, and no easy answers.
I know this might sound crazy, but just hear me out for a second, The Daily Shows Trevor Noah said on Thursday night after outlining Attorney General Jeff Sessionss strict opposition to marijuana legalization. I have a theory that President Donald Trump is always high.

Noah admitted that he may have come up with this theory while he was high during the shows 4/20 broadcast, but insisted that it still made sense even after hed stopped being high. But hear me out, because I think theres strong evidence that the president is always high.

He forgets peoples names, he mixes up Iraq and Syria, he continued, and what do high people always do? They forget where they put things. As Noah pointed out, Trump didnt just lose his keys last week, he misplaced an entire aircraft carrier.

More evidence came in the form of Trump literally hugging the American flag during the presidential campaign and hanging out with an imaginary Easter Bunny earlier this week. What sealed the deal for Noah was Trumps attempts to discuss his attack on Syria in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. But that was no match for the munchies, he said of Trumps bizarre tangent about the chocolate cake he was eating at the time.

Why are you talking about cake when you just launched missiles into Syria? Noah asked. But if Trump was totally baked, all of a sudden it all makes sense.
Its one of the simple realities of American politics that conservatives get to make fun of liberals folkways without penalty, but when liberals belittle conservatives over theirs, theyre being out-of-touch elitists.

There was a famous attack ad against Howard Dean made by the Club for Growth back in 2004, in which an older white couple deliver themselves of the opinion that Gov. Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs.

The ad was credited as damaging Dean badly in Iowa. No liberal group, needless to say, has ever made an ad that Im aware of advising that some Republican candidate should take his rich-worshipping, government-killing, moonshine-swilling, steak-eating, pickup-driving, Guns & Ammo-reading, arm-tattooing, Jesus-loving right-wing freak show back to Alabama where it belongs. Such an ad would be considered one of the most boneheaded plays of all time.

So I know what Im walking into here, but the hell with it. Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock are totally classless people. First of all, hats in the Oval Office. I think thats appalling. Ive been in the Oval Office (though not while a president was there). Its awe-inspiring to walk into that room. Peopled though its been with crooks and drunkards, its humbling. I could no more wear a hat in that room than take a piss in Chartres Cathedral. Theyll say this means I dont understand their culture. I say it means they dont understand respect. What a couple of low-rent mofos.

Just imagine that picture not with Trump and Nugent and Kid Rock, but with Obama flanked by, oh, Russell Simmons and Jay Z, and both of them wearing hats. Zoom! It would have been an outrage for days. I mean, forget hats. When a photo emerged once of Obama not wearing his suit jacket in the Oval, a right-wing freakout ensued.

Then there was the famous hip-hop barbecue. This was an Obama birthday party that also sent the right into convulsive shock because some hip-hop music was played (as was some Motown and other stuff) and some dancing ensued (gasp!). And because one quasi-hip-hop artist performed. (And Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock too!) I have it on good authority that other actual black people were in attendance.

In England, back during the John Profumo sex scandal of 1963, the serious broadsheet papers covered sexual details more frankly than the tabloids, which employed euphemism, leading one wag to quip that sex was all right as long as youd been to university. Our contemporary American corollary: Disrespect is all right if youre a white redneck expressing it toward liberals.

Now we come to that photo with Hillarys portrait. Theyre making kind of obscure hand gestures. Nugent told the Times that one of the party (he wouldnt say who) actually suggested they all give the portrait the finger. Nugent, not known heretofore for his sense of restraint, thought the better of it, and they did not.

Even so, it should have occurred to themand it certainly should have occurred to the person who was escorting them around, who may have been Donald Trump himself, at least according to what Nugent told the Timesthat this was totally inappropriate White House behavior. Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, or today giving a speech attacking Trump, is one thing. Savage that Hillary all you want. But Portrait Hillary Clinton on the White House walls is our history. Nancy Reagan wasnt my flavor of danish, but I sure wouldnt pose for an insolent picture in front of her official portrait in the White House. Why? Because Im not 14 years old anymore.

Now before conservatives sniff, Well, Tomasky, you didnt care when Bill Clinton sullied the Oval Office, I note that I did care. I wrote at the time that his actions were wrong, and in my recent book on Clintons presidency, I called his behavior unfathomably irresponsible, reckless, and selfish and out of control. I just thought it and his lie about it werent grounds for impeachment.

No party has a monopoly on public rectitude or manners. But the permissible bounds of our political discourse are such that one side can get away with the kind of childish stuff the Trump-loving troika got up to, while the other side cant. I cant change that. But I can call them on it when theyre being nincompoops.
Something a little funny might be going on in Americas most secretive court. According to the annual report for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), released April 20, the court didnt authorize any surveillance last year under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acta controversial provision of the 1978 spy law.

Section 702 lets the U.S. intelligence community work with telecom companies to secretly gather the content of phone and electronic communications that happen outside the United States. In the process, the eavesdroppers often inadvertently gather emails and phone calls that U.S. citizens make to people overseaswhich civil liberties advocates say can violate Americans Constitutional rights. But the court didnt authorize U.S. spies to use Section 702 to gather information in 2016.

Marcy Wheeler noted this on her blog, Empty Wheel, and a spokesman for the court confirmed to New York Times reporter Charlie Savage that the court didnt authorize any Section 702 surveillance last year.

Julian Sanchez, an expert on privacy and surveillance at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Beast this change is unusual.

Its absolutely a big deal, he said. Im just not at all sure what it means.

One plausible option is that theyve asked to do something novel: that they asked for approval to do 702 tasking on some new categories of targets beyond what we known theyve done previously, and that it was contentious enough to throw a wrench into the process, he said.

Courts have found that people within the U.S. have Constitutional rights that would prohibit 702 surveillance without probable cause, but that non-citizens outside the country dont, and can be subject to this kind of surveillance. Constitutional problems can arise, however, when the intelligence community inadvertently surveils innocent Americans as part of its surveillance of foreignersfor example, when an American calls a foreigner being monitored under the Section 702 authorization and someone in the intel community listens in on that conversation.So every year, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence formally ask the FISC to let them use Section 702 to surveil certain foreigners. Those requests also say what steps they plan to take to minimize potential violations of Americans Constitutional rights. If the FISC grants those requests, then intelligence community is good to go.

In 2016, the court didnt grant any of those requests. The number of requests made was redacted, as in the previous years report. As Sanchez noted, that could be because the AG and DNI asked for new powers the court didnt want to grant. However, it could also be for less interesting reasons. But the courts procedures are highly secretive, so we dont know.Anything involving Section 702 can have major political implications. President Donald Trump has alleged that he and his associates were wiretapped by the Obama administration for purely political reasons. Theres no publicly available evidence the Obama administration did anything wrong, but we know U.S. spies listened in on conversations between Gen. Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassadorsurveillance that was could have been authorized under Section 702.

This matters for Congress as well. The Section 702 authorities will expire at the end of 2017, so Congress will debate reauthorizing them. Securing their reauthorization is the single biggest legislative priority for the intelligence community, as Reuters Dustin Volz has noted, but civil liberties advocates hope Congress will rein in some of those broad powers. When Trump was first elected, people in the civil liberties community were pessimistic about what his presidency might mean for privacy rights. But then his early-morning wiretapping tweetstorm gave them a weird ray of hopemaybe he would be surprisingly helpful on the issue? It remains to be seenand Trumps ultra-hawkish CIA director, Mike Pompeo, is likely to be an enthusiastic opponent of any Congressional curtailing of Section 702 authorities.

Regardless, all things related to Section 702 will have major repercussions at the White House and on the Hill this yearand Americas most secretive court could also be its most politically impactful.
Iceland is a beautiful country, full of outstanding natural beauty, volcanoes, waterfalls, and black sand beaches. It really captured my heart on my recent trip. With all the beautiful landscape in this stunning country, the capital Reykjavik can often go overlooked, but don't! It has some amazing architecture, vibrant street art, gastronomic delights and interesting museums.





This is my post on top things to do in Reykjavik.





1. Visit Hallgrimskirkj





Hallgrimskirkj





Hallgrimskirkj, the l argest church in Iceland is the main landmark being in an elevated position it can be seen from most places in the city. Designed by Gujon Samuel in 1937, it's a cool building, the architect was inspired by the shapes of lava when it cools in basalt rock. For a fantastic view over the city, take a life to the top of the church.





2. Snap a photo of the Sun Voyager





Solfar the Sun Voyager





On Reykjavik's waterfront, is the statue of the Sun Voyager - called Solfar. This striking landmark is a huge steel sculpture by Jon Gunnar Arnason. Thought to resemble a Viking ship, the sculpture is, in fact, a 'dream boat' and ode to the sun. The artist's intention was to give the city something to inspire dreams and hopes.





3. Go to a concert or grab a cocktail at Harpa





Harpa the concert hall





Harpa, the concert hall designed by Olafur Eliasson is a stunning building on Reykjavik's waterfront

. Opened in 2011, it's the place to go for concerts as well as cocktails with a view. There are two places to eat in Harpa, a cafe and restaurant on the ground floor called Smurstoin and Kolabrautin, a modern restaurant focusing on Icelandic food fused with Meditteranean cuisine. The coloured glass windows are inspired by the basalt landscape of Iceland.





4. Admire the amazing street art





Iceland is known for its amazing street art, and there is so much of it to see in the city that you could spend half a day just strolling around the centre and taking it all in. Some pieces of artwork are created with permission from private building owners, some are commissioned and some are less formal, but the variety of the artwork is astounding.





5. Visit one of the many museums





The Settlement exhibition





From the Punk Museum to the Whales Of Iceland exhibition and the Saga Museum, Reykjavik has a museum for everyone. We visited the Settlement exhibition which explored the life and work of the first settlers and was interesting for an hour. We were given a Reykjavik city card which covered a number of museums and attractions and gave us entry into the Settlement exhibition. Well worth doing if you are staying in the capital for a few days.





Where we stayed

Eyja Guldsmeden Hotel





We stayed in the city centre at the Skuggi hotel before our drive around the country. We thought this 3-star hotel was good value as it had daily buffet breakfast and was only 5 mins walk from the main shopping street Laugavegur. The rooms were modern, stylish and exceptionally clean.





When we returned to Reykjavik for one night before our flight home we stayed at th e Eyja Guldsmeden Hotel, a stunning and very beautiful boutique hotel, not far from Laugavegur.





Where we ate

Kopar





We had a tasty meal at Hralestin an Indian restaurant not far from Harpa, and Kopar, where we had an outstanding meal for my birthday. The location of Kopar was perfect too, right in the marina, with a great view. We also took a tour with the Reykjavik Food Walk which I would highly recommend for a taste of Icelandic cuisine as well as a humorous tour of the city.



Pin for later



Tell me would you visit Iceland? What do you think of my suggestions in Reykjavik?
The public is invited to join Friends UCC Congregational Church at an interfaith series on environmental stewardship.

The talks will take place at 5 p.m. Sunday at Friends UCC on Southwood Drive in College Station. Practitioners of various religions will be at the event to share beliefs and perspectives on the importance of saving the environment from a religious point of view. There will be a panel discussion and question-and-answer session afterward, followed by snacks and a light reception.

Leaders will include members of the local Church of Latter-day Saints, Hindu society, Islamic and Jewish Communities and Unitarian Universalist Church, as well as leadership from Friends UCC. For more information, contact Jon Maxwell of the Friends Sustainability Team via email at jmaxwell@ers-inc.com, or Kelly Wellman via email at kellywellman@yahoo.com or by phone at 575-1281
November 2, 1965 - April 17, 2017

Qian-Hong "Melanie" Crosby returned to God on April 17, 2017. She was born on November 2, 1965, in Keelung, Taiwan. Her father had fled there from China in 1949, at the age of 20, to escape from the communists in the revolution. She studied at the English School in Taipei, graduating with a degree in Education.

To further her studies she came to the U.S. in 1993, first to San Antonio, where she met her future husband, Kevin. She received a Master's Degree in Special Education from the University of Southwest Missouri in 1995 and returned to Taipei to help develop a pre-school for special needs children.

She was married to Dr. Kevin Crosby in 1999 and continued to work in special education until the birth of their children, William Conner, now 15 and Gwynne Bernice, 12. Her special loves were music and art, both of which she shared with and encouraged in her children. Her devotion to education was remarkable, and inspired both family and friends. Melanie's honesty, humility and patience were gifts that will be greatly missed.

She is survived also by her mother, Peng Chin-Feng, and three brothers, Chih-Hsing, Kuo-Fei and Rong-Sheng, in Taipei. Funeral Mass will be offered Saturday, April 22nd at 1:00 P.M. at St. Luke's Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas. Interment will follow at Sunset Memorial Park.

Condolences may be sent at www.theangelusfuneralhome.com Arrangements by The Angelus Funeral Home, (210) 227-1461.
Judith "Judy" Anne (Johnson) Green died peacefully on Sunday, April 2, 2017. Born in Joliet, IL Sept. 18, 1939, the eldest of two daughters of Bill and Dixie Johnson, she was welcomed into a large, extended Norwegian family. Judy was excited to welcome a baby sister, Gay Lynn, in 1946, who shared a lifetime of love, laughter, and adventure.

She graduated in 1957 from Peoria High School (Peoria, IL) and attended Beloit College and Colorado State University, then married James "Jim" Green on June 24, 1961. They celebrated the birth of two daughters, Cindy in 1962, and Allison in 1965. Judy proudly worked to pay college expenses for her two Aggie daughters, working in a travel agency and bed/bath outlet (Southern Mills) before joining Kmart as a sales associate until her health faltered in 1994. Jim cared for Judy until his death in 2002. She then moved to College Station to join Cindy and family, where she made new friends and enjoyed life in Aggieland.

Judy was a modern woman, enjoying the latest in jewelry, clothing, music, and household design, but loved family heirlooms, antiques, and hobbies from the past, like stamp collecting, jigsaw puzzles, tole painting, cross-stitch, playing cards, and fishing. She was an avid reader, word puzzle genius, and trivia buff. She taught her daughters to care for people and animals, to love and respect others, and to view an individual's heart above all. Judy smiled and welcomed everyone into her heart and home. She loved family and friends like she wanted to be loved: whole-heartedly and completely. Celebrating her life are daughter, Cindy and husband Roy Robinson, grandson and wife, Kerry and Jessica Robinson, and granddaughter, Morgan; and daughter, Allison and husband Steve Nordstrom, grandson, Russell James (RJ), and granddaughter, Madison (Maddi); and sister, Gay and husband Richard (Dick) Sammon, niece, Jennifer and husband Scott Lewis and sons, and nephew, Jeff and wife Nichole Sammon. She will be greatly missed by family, friends, and little dog, Ellie.

Judy lived a full life despite a life-altering stroke at the age of 55, a heart attack and triple bypass in 2009, and other health challenges. She was known for her heartfelt hugs, even when she could no longer use both arms. Judy didn't want a funeral; she wanted a party. Whenever you think of her smile and warm hug, enjoy a hot cup of coffee or two fingers of bourbon. Celebrate the time you spent with her. Memorials may be made to the American Heart Assoc., American Diabetes Assoc., or donate blood to the American Red Cross.

Please share your favorite memories of Judy at www.hillierfuneralhome.com.
February 17, 1923 - April 18, 2017

Bill J. Ravey, Colonel United States Air Force, retired, passed peacefully of natural causes on April 18, 2017. He was born the 17th of February 1923 in Fort Worth, Texas, attended the North Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, and served in the Air Force from 1943 until he retired in 1974. During his career he served as a fighter pilot in WWII in the China Burma India Theater. He received numerous awards during his 31-year career including the Legion of Merit for his service at Clark Field in the Philippines 1967-70. Bill, like many others during this era of military service, was a true leader. Additional noteworthy things about his career include:

-was a combat fighter pilot before getting a driver's license;

-flew a P-51 Mustang fighter over Mt. Everest at 33, 200 feet;

-saw the Great Wall of China in WWII and witnessed Shanghai celebrating the end of the war; -

witnessed the first thermonuclear bomb test (Bikini Atoll) and 59 other nuclear tests when he served as the safety and supply officer for the program under Dr. Al Graves, Test Director for the Atomic Energy Commission and Chief of Staff Omar Bradley;

-he saved countless lives over his career; and

-taught many how to serve others, by his example.

Colonel Ravey was an active veteran of the First Air Commandos-China Burma India Theater, was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Bryan, the Masonic Lodge, the Sojourners, and the Scottish Rite.

His dedication and fearless commitment carried over into his home life being lovingly devoted and supportive of his family. His favorite hobby was spending time with his grandchildren who affectionately call him "Pawpaw". Additional hobbies and interests included travel, genealogy, playing dominos and cards, and amateur radio.

Colonel Ravey is preceded in death by his parents, Edward Emanuel and Ruth Sylvira Ravey; his beloved first wife Mary Katherine Major Ravey; and his siblings Jane Giegoldt, Edward Ravey, Joe Fred Ravey and Beverly Fischer who all welcomed him to Heaven upon his passing.

He leaves behind his loving second wife, Margaret Cook Lambert Ravey; his precious children, son Bill R. Ravey & wife Linda L. Ravey of Bryan, son Terry E. Ravey & wife Sheila Carroll of Guffey, Colorado, daughter Mary Ann Ravey Field & husband Doug Field, daughter Katherine J. Ravey Tuttle & husband Jim Tuttle of Monterey, California; 13 grandchildren and their spouses, 17 great children, 3 great-great grandchildren, numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be held on Friday, April 21, 2017 from 6pm to 8pm at Hillier Funeral Home in Bryan. The memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 10:30 am at Hillier Funeral Home located at 2301 East 29th Street, Bryan, TX 77802. A graveside service will be held on Monday, April 24 at 3:00 p.m. at Davidson Cemetery in Strawn, Texas.

In lieu of flowers and as an expression of sympathy memorial contributions may made to:Wounded Warrior Project, PO Box 758517, Topeka, Kansas 66675-8517, Tel: 904.296.7350, www.woundedwarriorproject.org.

Please visit Col. Ravey's tribute page at www.hillierfuneralhome.com to share memories and stories.
CHARLESTON -- The African Children's Choir will perform at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Wesley United Methodist Church, 2206 Fourth St.

The program features well-loved children's songs, traditional spirituals and Gospel favorites. Concerts are free and open to all. A free-will offering is taken at the performance to support African Children's Choir programs, such as education, care and relief and development programs.

Music for Life, the parent organization for The African Children's Choir, works in seven African countries: Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. MFL has educated over 52,000 children and impacted the lives of over 100,000 people through its relief and development programs during its history. MFL purpose is to help create new leadership for tomorrow's Africa by focusing on education.

The African Children's Choir has had the privilege to perform before presidents, heads of state and most recently the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II, for her diamond jubilee. The choir has also had the honor of singing alongside artists such as Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Keith Urban, Mariah Carey, Michael W. Smith, and other inspirational performers.

Promotional support of this community concert is greatly appreciated.

The African Children's Choir is a nonprofit humanitarian and relief organization dedicated to helping Africa's most vulnerable children today so they can help Africa tomorrow.

No tickets are necessary; donations are welcome.

For more information, contact the church at 217-345-3917, Lydia Sherwood at 360-733-2149 or visit www.africanchildrenschoir.com.
PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT: Treatment centre for PTSD in first responders, military opens in Nova Scotia

Imagine its your job, every day, to be ready to rush to scenes where men, women or even children had been killed or badly injured, often in horrific circumstances. Really, consider what that might be like. If youre like most of us, the thought ...
GLEN CARBON -- Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois (GSSI) announce that Kayli Worthey from Neoga has been selected as one of its 2017 Outstanding Graduating Girl Scout Scholarship winners.

Winners were recognized April 1 at GSSIs annual "All That Glitters" Ceremony held at the Holiday Inn in Mt. Vernon.

Kayli is a Girl Scout Ambassador who has been a Girl Scout for 13 years. She received her Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouting, this year. She is also a GSSI Trifecta recipient, having earned the Girl Scout Silver Award and Girl Scout Bronze Award as well. She has also served as a GSSI ex-officio Girl Board Member and GSSI robotics team member.

She is currently a senior at Neoga High School and plans to attend Indiana State University to study speech language pathology with a minor in special education-elementary in the fall. She states that, through Girl Scouts, she has developed confidence, leadership, respect, optimism and work ethic, along with a sense of belonging.

Girl Scouts has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. It gave me a place, a purpose and made me feel that I belonged to something. I was part of something bigger that made me who I am today. Theres no other way to describe what Girl Scouts means to me than saying its my world, said Kayli.

GSSI is the premier organization providing all girls in southern Illinois a premier Girl Scout Leadership Experience. GSSIs mission is to build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois is a not-for-profit organization supported by various United Ways throughout the region. For more information, call Jay Strobel at 618-692-0692.
In opening last November, Chi Public House promised a SoNo dining experience centering and soothing for the soul along with the intrigue of Asian fusion dishes and a cocktail menu pegged to the Chinese zodiac.

As it turns out, the restaurant would make not make it far beyond the Chinese calendar flipping to the Year of the Rooster.

After holding a liquidation sale in March while leaving a remnant menu posted at its front door, the Chi Public House space at 128 Washington St. is now in the process of being gutted for new use, with the restaurant having informed customers on Facebook weeks before. Chi Public Houses sunset was otherwise as quiet as its dawn, with the restaurant holding its formal opening with little fanfare on Nov. 26 in space previously occupied by the Gothic lounge Red Lulu Cocina & Tequila Bar.

Chi Public House was created by 99 Hospitality Group, which under Rob Moss and Marco Siguenza also runs Washington Prime across Washington Street, with a second Washington Prime location opening last year at the Georgetown crossroads of Redding. Moss did not respond immediately Friday to a Hearst Connecticut Media message for comment on Chi Public Houses brief run.

In contrast to the inviting Washington Prime locale with its outdoor patio overlooking the Norwalk River, Chi Public House presented an opaque exterior on Washington Street, with the buildings upper-level exterior leaving intact the historic exterior of the Hoyts and Rialto theaters that occupied the property from the 1870s through the 1950s.

Inside Chi Public House, diners were greeted by Buddha statues and art, with the room dominated by a two-story waterfall. The restaurant offered gourmet Asian cuisine under executive chef Mark Taruna  some of it pricey, to include Kobe beef tataki appetizers seared table side, at $28; and classic entrees like General Tsos chicken and short ribs, at $25 each. Topping all was Japanese sushi in the omakase tradition (derived from the Japanese word for entrust) in which a chef chooses the selections, with Chi Public House offering a five-course version for $70, or $90 for seven courses.

In an independent review published last December on the CT Bites website, the restaurant won plaudits for bringing a new level of creativity to many classic recipes with bold flavors and textures, from the simplest dumpling to the most complex sauces while the reviewer found fault with some opening service issues with regard to seating, timeliness of deliver and customer focus. Chi Public House received mostly positive plaudits on its Facebook page as well as Yelp, Pricelines OpenTable website and others that allow patrons to post their experiences.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-354-1047; www.twitter.com/casoulman
NORWALK  The citys Zoning Commission has resolved to decide over the next six months if and where medical marijuana facilities should be located in Norwalk.

Its been a year already and its time to move forward, said Commissioner Joseph Passero.

Commissioner Douglas Stern also called for the commission and city staff to tackle the topic.

Theres an awful lot of sick people that have to drive a long way, said Stern, referring to demand for the product.

Although Connecticut law now permits medical marijuana dispensaries and producers in the state, Norwalks building zone regulations do not. The commission last year established a nine-month moratorium on such facilities to give itself time to address the issue.

That moratorium was to expire April 29. At City Hall on Wednesday evening, zoning commissioners decided to extend the moratorium for six months after discussion among themselves and input from city staff.

The idea would be to extend the moratorium out, said Norwalk Director of Planning and Zoning Steve Kleppin. Last week, we talked about possibly three months as opposed to a year. The only concern that staff has is that three months is too hard for us to turn around and get an actual amendment in place.

Six months is a more realistic option for us, Kleppin added.

The commission concurred.

During the next six months, Kleppins staff will assemble recommendations on where medical marijuana producers and dispensaries might best be located in Norwalk. The commission will review the recommendations and schedule a public hearing to get input.

The staff certainly needs to look at this fully and produce something for us to discuss, said Commissioner Roderick Johnson.

The extension came after a public hearing at which East Norwalk resident Diane Cece urged the commission to move quickly to establish rules for medical marijuana facilities.

I hope that when you set a time frame for this next moratorium that youll consider the ever-growing list of afflictions where patients would benefit from medicinal marijuana, Cece said. In Connecticut alone, that list includes cancer, glaucoma, Parkinsons Disease and Multiple Sclerosis, spinal-chord injury, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder.

At present, Connecticut has nine licensed medical marijuana dispensary facilities. The two nearest facilities are located in Milford, according to a list from the state Department of Consumer Protection.

rkoch@hearstmediact.com
NORWALK  Genesis Mosquera is on the fence as to where she should continue her education when she finishes up her associates degree at Norwalk Community College this December.

Just a month or so ago the decision as to where to attend a four-year school may have been much simpler for Mosquera, a 24-year-old general studies major. But as the state of New York moves forward with its plan to offer free tuition for state college and university students its added a layer of complexity for her and other students in the area who are making decisions about their educational futures.

Should prospective students in Norwalk and greater Fairfield County who are already settled here, including Mosquera who moved to Stamford from New York about four years ago, stay in Connecticut  where state colleges and universities are seeing tuition rates rise  or pack up and move 30 minutes down the road across state lines to take advantage of the new opportunity?

I thought about the opportunity  of moving back, Mosquera said. A lot of students were thinking the same way.

New York state legislators approved earlier this month Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos proposal to offer free tuition at the states colleges and universities, in what has been touted as a groundbreaking move.

Under the program, dubbed the Excelsior Scholarship, nearly 80 percent of families and individuals making up to $125,000 per year would qualify to attend college tuition-free at CUNY and SUNY two- and four-year colleges in New York, according to the governors office.

More Information Connecticut State Colleges and Universities in-state tuition hikes 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 Community Colleges $4,172 $4,276 $4,384 Regional Universities $10,079 $10,482 $10,901 Charter Oak State College $7,611 $7,915 $8,234 Connecticut State Colleges and Universities in-state tuition hikes 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 Community Colleges: $4,172 $4,276 $4,384 Regional Universities: $10,079 $10,482 $10,901 Charter Oak State College: $7,611 $7,915 $8,234 See More Collapse

The program is slated to be phased in over three years beginning this fall for New York residents making up to $100,000 per year. New Yorkers making up to $110,000 annually will be eligible in 2018 and those making up to $125,000 will be eligible the year after.

Students in the program must be enrolled in college full-time and average at least 30 credits per academic year, including summer and winter sessions. Students are also required to maintain a minimum GPA that keeps them in line with successful completion of their program.

In what some may argue is the biggest catch, students who receive free tuition must have lived in the state for at least one year and will be required to remain living and working in New York for as many years after graduation as the program they received free tuition for.

After digging into some of the requirements to qualify for New Yorks free tuition, Mosquera expressed some doubt and thought, maybe not.

What keeps me uneasy, she said, is although its a good idea, what if I find a better opportunity in a different state after graduation? Would that free tuition turn into a loan?

Despite quibbles over the details, Mosquera said she has heard of many students in the area eyeing the opportunity for its appeal.

Mosqueras classmate at NCC, Nardia Pryce, offered a more cynical view.

There is probably a catch to it, said Pryce, a 19-year-old liberal arts major from Bridgeport.

People might feel compelled to take advantage of it just to do the free tuition, she added. But the thing is youre not guaranteed you will find that job. Suppose you get a position in Michigan, youd have to pay back that money? To me it doesn't really make any sense.

Pryce said although she also moved to Connecticut from New York, she wouldnt consider going back just for the promise of free tuition.

Doing so, she said, would require finding housing in New York, where areas of the state closest to Fairfield County tend to have high living expenses. It would also require finding a job and investing the year of life just to qualify.

Youd be saving money one way just to spend it another, she said.

David Levinson, president of NCC and vice president of Connecticut State Colleges & Universities, doesnt foresee New Yorks offering to cause any major brain drain from the area.

I don't see that as happening, Levinson said. I cant say it's based on any empirical fact. I think that we still provide affordable options in Connecticut.

Though he supports the idea of offering free pre-K through 14 education and said the plan sounds like a good idea on the surface, he questioned how true it really is.

I think the issue with the free tuition is how is that going to be operationalized? he said.

He added that he still sees a lot of advantages for students staying in the Nutmeg State.

He said there are resources available to allow many students to attend college essentially tuition-free at NCC.

Besides the over $10 million in state and federal financial aid, Levinson said the school offers over $1 million of aid from the NCC Foundation. There is also the LEAP Transfer Scholarship that provides at least partial funding for students who have earned 3.5 GPA for their associate degree at NCC to move on to a four-year institution.

Students can graduate from NCC without incurring debt, Levinson said. We have opportunities here.

Leaders of the states system of public colleges and universities though announced earlier this year an increase in-state tuition in each of the next two school years by 4 percent  or $403  to $10,482 for its four universities and by 2.5 percent  or $104 to $4,276 for its 12 community colleges.

Levinson said that hike isn't great but is hopefully something we can plan for.

I just think that we are quite honestly being a little bit more honest and upfront here in terms of what's going on in the state and higher education, Levinson said, during what he described as a challenging time.

As to whether Connecticut is moving in the direction of offering free state tuition any time soon, Levinson said he hasnt heard of anything in the works, but that he does hope for the best with New Yorks offering.

I think we can all learn from good experiments and good initiatives but, he said, the hoopla is what concerns me and could be very distracting.

Whether the program will be appealing enough to lure prospective area students out of state, remains to be seen.

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz
MATTOON -- Lake Land College will host a free viewing of Ava DuVernays Netflix original documentary "13th" followed by a discussion with James Kilgore, activist, author and adjunct lecturer for the University of Illinois Center for African Studies.

The public is invited to the event, which will take place on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the theater of the Luther Student Center.

DuVernays 2016 documentary focuses on the 13th amendment which abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a person convicted of a crime. The movie description states that DuVernay examines how the imprisonment caveat was used to continue the systematic exploitation of black people throughout Reconstruction and into the Jim Crow years that followed. DuVernay looks at how the legacy of Jim Crow continued through the years to the present criminal justice system.

Following the documentary, Kilgore, who is featured in the documentary, will host a discussion. He is the author of five books, including Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Right Struggle of Our Time. He was paroled to Champaign-Urbana in 2009 after serving six-and-a-half years in federal and state prisons in California. He lives in Urbana with his wife and two sons.

Lake Land College provides educational programs at 18 Illinois correctional centers and two youth centers. The college is one of the largest providers of correctional education in the country.

The documentary and discussion are one of many educational events hosted by the college to increase awareness and promote inclusivity. On Tuesday, the college will host a student-organized interfaith panel discussion in which leaders of different faiths will come together to share their beliefs and answer participant questions.

For more information about the documentary and discussion on Wednesday, contact Paula Rosine, marketing design coordinator and chair of the Inclusion & Diversity Education Committee, at 217-234-5265.
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WILTON  Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown have numerous sculptures, wall works and other fiber art adorning their 10,000-square-foot home at 276 Ridgefield Road.

They know each piece by name, the materials theyre made out of, and the artist who created them.

But from April 22 through April 30, the Wilton couple will be hosting artists, curators and other collectors to purchase some of the works to place in their businesses, museums and homes.

This show is really one of the most unique things youll find anywhere, Grotta said. And one of the reasons people mark it on their calendars like Christmas and they come every year is because they cant this anywhere else, anytime of the year, any other place. So if you miss it, you really miss something.

This years exhibition is the largest one yet, marking the 30-year milestone for the couples art gallery, browngrotta arts.

Still Crazy After All these Years: 30 years in Art Exhibition will feature works of 83 global artists from Europe, Asia, North and South America and the U.K. Sixteen of the artists will be at the opening.

Those attending will find a unique variety made by current fiber artists, ranging from a large sculpture made out of jute to 24 karat gold electroplated onto steel mesh boxes, as well as outdoor sculptures for the first time.

We do an awful lot to educate a global audience about work thats done globally, Grotta said. Whats interesting about the field, for the collectors out there, theyre as spread across the globes as the artists. Theres not one hub where this is where people do it or where people collect it.

The Wilton couple said they didnt plan on running what has arguably become the worlds largest dealer of international contemporary textile, sculptures and basketry. And they never had a business plan.

They started their first show with artwork Grotta received from Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, a pioneer in fiber arts during the 1960-80s. He took photos of her work and she paid him in art.

I brought the art home and people wanted to buy it, he said.

From then, the exhibition has grown in size, variety and popularity  helping collectors and buyers from across the country and the world fulfill their fiber art needs through the browngrotta arts gallery space, traveling art shows, online inventory, and vivid print catalogs.

Our aesthetic is recognizable, Brown said. You either look it or dont. Its a bit more minimal.

If we were to define it, wed say a cross between an Asian and a Scandinavian sensibility, which to me is timeless, which is why we love it so much, Grotta added. Our aesthetic is the one constant. The art will change.

The artists opening and reception will be on Saturday, April 22, from 1-6 p.m. The gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. the remaining days. To schedule an appointment outside of scheduled hours, call 203-834-0623.

In addition to running browngrotta arts, Grotta runs an advertising agency, Tom Grotta Inc., and Brown is the vice president of ethics, compliance and employment at Macmillan Publishers.

skim@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1044; @stephaniehnkim
BROKEN BOW  Broken Bow renters will have a chance to transition to homeowners.

A down payment assistance program offered by Central Nebraska Economic Development aims to find reliably paying renters who are looking to become homeowners but have struggled to set aside a 20 percent down payment, said Chelsea Luthy, CNED community development specialist.

The Broken Bow City Council recently approved participating in the program.

Each recipient will receive grant help with the down payment. The homeowners must live in the home for 15 years, Luthy said, or repay the down payment.

CNED is offering $250,000 in grants to help 10 candidates across Nebraska, including Broken Bow, Burwell, Ainsworth, Valentine, Stuart and ONeill.

Some income restrictions apply. Interested parties may speak to city council members or contact CNED at (402) 340-0106.

In other news, the council recently approved contracts for asbestos abatement and subsequent air-quality checks required as part of the ongoing renovation project at the Broken Bow Public Library. Tests confirmed the presence of asbestos in several locations in the existing structure at 626 S. D St. Asbestos was located in the ceiling coating and window caulking.

Asbestos is the second-most regulated material behind uranium in the United States, Councilman Chris Myers said.

Environmental Direct of Grand Island received the contract for the abatement, and B2 Environmental of Omaha will conduct quality checks. Myers of Myers Construction confirmed that the $16,400 abatement and $450 air checks were both reasonable bids because of the demanding procedures asbestos requires.

Library Director Joan Birnie said she is confident the renovation of the library will remain on schedule. The library construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Also at the meeting, as the city proceeds with proposals for a trail system, Custer County Attorney Jason White advises people to attend planning meetings. He said some residents have voiced concerns about increased foot traffic near private property.

Councilman Neal Neff emphasized that the trailway is still in planning stages, and he encouraged community input as the project develops.

The goal of the trail system is to provide a healthy and safe jogging, walking and biking trail within the city.
Food Bank for the Heartland is partnering with the Salvation Army and Trinity United Methodist Church in Grand Island to host a mobile food pantry on Saturday.

Approximately 20,000 to 25,000 pounds of food (16,600 to 20,800 meals) will be distributed for free to individuals and families in need from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of the Salvation Army Grimminger Worship and Community Center at 818 W. Third St.

A mobile pantry is a traveling food pantry that delivers food free of charge directly to individuals and families who need assistance for a one-day food distribution. The goal is to provide food where there is a high need but limited resources.

Individuals and families living in Hall County and surrounding communities are welcome to attend. Those who come to the mobile pantry should bring boxes or bags to carry the food they receive.

Items to be distributed at the mobile pantry in Hall County include spaghetti, tomato sauce, canned pork and beans, cereal, pancake mix and other shelf-stable products, along with perishable items, including a variety of fresh produce and bakery items.

Next months mobile pantry in Grand Island will be on May 13. The permanent location is yet to be determined.

Dunston to speak at Living Word Church International

STROMSBURG Peggy Dunston of Bellevue will speak during the 10 a.m. worship service Sunday at Living Word Church International in Stromsburg.

Dunston is the director of benefits for Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society in Omaha. She has a bachelors degree from Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Ill., and a masters degree in human relations with honors from the University of Oklahoma.

She serves her local church, Bellevue Christian Center in Bellevue, in the areas of womens ministry, prayer ministry, Christian education and small group facilitator and has traveled to Kenya, Africa, as part of a mission team.

Dunston is the past chairman of the American Lung Association board in Omaha, a prior board member for Social Settlement, a current board member for Restored Hope, a transitional housing for women, and a Board of Regents member for North Central University in Minneapolis. Peggy has also been a board member for Julaine Christiansen Ministries.

Living Word Church International is located at 120 E. Third St.
Butch Gordon reveled in capturing scorpions and tarantulas as a youth growing up near El Paso, Texas.

Gordon says he caught his first lizard in the sandbox. He moved on to capturing rattlesnakes and delivering them to be milked of their venom before eating them and selling their skins.

Gordons adventurous nature and willingness to flirt with danger led to a 21-year career in the U.S. Marines. By his own accounts, he faced many other perils during those years.

A dark-of-the-night trip driving an 18-wheeler across Nebraskas sprawling Interstate 80 marked the beginning of the end of his Marine career. A chance call on the CB from a young woman driving east from North Platte was the beginning of a 30-year marital partnership between Gordon and his now wife, Martha, known as Marty.

The couple married in 1987, and Gordon retired from the military in 1992. They returned to Martys native Grand Island where, Gordon said, the cold winters tested his Marine Corps toughness. But he survived and has thrived.

Gordons penchant for wild things changed from the creepy-crawly critters of his youth as he moved on to camels and buffalo.

I gave the best years of my life to the government, said Gordon, 60. Now I give to the children of Nebraska.

Two camels, a buffalo, a zebra, two miniature donkeys, a miniature Belgium horse, a burro, horses and several dogs make up the Gordon menagerie. Regular visitors to the farm north of Grand Island include elementary classes and Scout groups.

As he tours a visitor from pen to pen, the love that the animals show for Gordon is amazing.

Clay, a 7-year-old camel, willingly nuzzles Gordon and seems just as interested in a cautious visitor.

Camels can live to over 100 in captivity with proper medical care and nutrition, Gordon said. His camel knowledge is vast and shared in a rapid-fire fashion.

n Male camels have an inflatable sac in their mouths, which puffs up and protrudes as a bright red balloon during mating season.

-- Camels feet can expand and accommodate to various types of terrain including ice and snow.

-- The hump on the dromedarys back is fat, not water, but, Gordon says, camels can smell water from 30 miles away.

-- Camels have no upper teeth, which helps them grasp branches from plants. Their lips are quite dexterous and used much like humans use their fingers.

-- Remarkably effective immune systems keep the animals healthy and even offer some promise for improving human health.

-- An adopted-state note of pride: Camels roamed Nebraska in millennia past.

Although Clay did not produce a red balloon for his recent visitor, he was observably excited about Cloie, a 3-year-old female nearby. Cloie was in oestrus, but Gordon was not sure about wanting a third camel 15 months into the future.

Camel romance aside, Cloie was more lovingly friendly than Clyde. She welcomed Gordon with kisses. Camel kisses are a big attraction among children and celebrities, Gordon said.

If you get kissed by a camel, you will lead a blessed life, Gordon said, quoting a Mideast proverb.

The Gordon camels have made frequent area appearances at fairs and special events and played a starring role in the Singing Christmas Tree show that was featured for many years at the Evangelical Free Church.

Zeb, a Grant zebra, rules the pen next to Cloie. His sharp black and white delineations intrigue the eye like a daunting maze.

Gordon offers insights into the nature of zebras.

-- Each zebras markings are unique, a sort of zebra fingerprint.

-- Zebras are born with tannish markings to give the vulnerable young protection from predators.

-- Despite a shared linage with the horse, zebras resist being broken to ride or as beasts of burden. A quick bit a of research shows many have tried only to fail.

-- Life expectancy for zebras in captivity is 18 to 24 years.

If Gordon had to name a favorite among his four-legged friends, odds are the title would go to his prize buffalo, Samson  a 5,000-pound neutered bull.

The 17-year-old behemoth has been on display from coast to coast, including at the Macys Thanksgiving Parade and the Rose Bowl. Samson and his owner/trainer have made frequent Las Vegas appearances and starred in promotional events around the country.

Weary of the road life, Gordon and Samson have stuck closer to home in the last five years.

Gordon can take hold of one of Samsons horns and nuzzle him to his chest. He said the horns transmit feeling to the animal, and the feeling seems to be warm and mutual.

In addition to being a major attraction, Samson serves as the watchman for the farm, Gordon said. If a stranger ventures unattended onto the property, they are met with a fury they likely have not before encountered.

Samson has been looking a bit shaggy of late as he sheds his heavy winter coat to prepare for the scorching summer months ahead. Gordon said a buffalo cools down through its belly, making water-filled swales or mud wallows their version of air conditioning.

In case you were thinking about getting into the exotic animal business, be ready for lots of dedication.

Gordon said Samson has been a part of the family since he first took nourishment from his mother. After that, the Gordons took over with constant attention and bottle feedings.

Training Samson to be ridden involved hours of work. It started with Gordon just standing over the small calf as it grew into a size it could be ridden.

Groups interested in touring the animals can contact Gordon at (308) 380-6060.
ST. ALBANS, Vt. (AP)  U.S. dairy farmers already struggling with low milk prices worry President Donald Trumps talk of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement could harm trade to Mexico, its biggest export market.

About 15 percent of dairy production in the United States is exported with one-third valued at $1.2 billion going to Mexico in the form of milk powder, cheese and whey protein, according to the National Milk Producers Federation, which says trade with Mexico is its top priority. Thats nearly double the value exported to Canada, the countrys second biggest export market, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The income of dairy farmers, whether theyre in Vermont or California, depends heavily on our export to Mexico, said Jaime Castaneda, senior vice president responsible for domestic and international policy for the federation.

If just 1, 2 or 3 percent of the exports were to come back to the United States, we would see a significant drop on overall prices, he said.

Far from the U.S.-Mexican border, trade is on the minds of dairy farmers in Vermont.

Mexico is our biggest destination for dairy and its not only dairy, said Fairfield farmer Harold Howrigan Jr., of the U.S. trade partnership with Mexico. Its corn and soy also that go down there so our huge trading partner and we need that market.

Howrigan is the board president of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery. He made comments after meeting with Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch last week.

U.S. dairy trade with Mexico has jumped by 558 percent since NAFTAs implementation in 1994, according to the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

Trump last week promised pleasant surprises from planned renegotiations of NAFTA, an agreement hes called the worst deal in U.S. history. Trump has said NAFTA puts U.S. workers at a disadvantage.

Anything that happens that reduces the ability to trade products to Mexico will be troubling for dairy producers in the United States, said Scott Brown, a dairy economist with the University of Missouri.

Can we renegotiate and get a better NAFTA deal? Only time will tell. Those trade agreements traditionally have taken a lot of time and effort to get everybody on the same page and we know weve benefited tremendously on the NAFTA agreement that we have, Brown said.

Mexico has objected to Trumps pledges to step up deportations, build a border wall and renegotiate NAFTA.

The National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export Council traveled to Mexico City in March to meet with Mexican dairy leaders to reinforce its commitment to continue working with that country.

We see Mexico as a partner, not necessarily as just a customer, Castaneda said.
BELGRADE, Minn.  While Republicans in the Legislature again take aim at the states new stream-and-ditch buffer law, John Mages rests easy.

Mages, a past president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, farms 850 acres of good soil in Stearns County, planting corn and soybeans in spring and harvesting the crops in fall. To save topsoil and reduce overhead costs, he practices minimum tillage. And if the weather cooperates, his yields are superb: The past two years hes averaged more than 200 bushels an acre of corn, without irrigating.

But one day last week, as Mages showed a visitor around his well-kept operation, the issue wasnt crops but buffers. In all, he has about 30 acres of grasslands bordering waterways that either abut his croplands or run through them.

The buffers are in CRP, Mages said, referring to the federal Conservation Reserve Program that pays an annual fee to participating landowners. On 10-year contracts.

Planting grassland borders, or buffers, along ditches, streams and rivers is important if Minnesota is going to clean up its waterways, conservation professionals say. About 40 percent of tested state waters are polluted, and significant portions of chemicals and soil runoff that infiltrate the states ditches and rivers can be traced to farms.

Which is why Gov. Mark Dayton pressed the issue two years ago, arguing that farmers  as well as their non-farm neighbors in the Twin Cities and other towns  must reduce runoff if Minnesota is going to clean up its maze of subprime waters.

Now with a fall deadline to at least begin installation of buffers where they will be required along public ditches, streams and other waters, Republicans in the House are attempting to postpone the laws implementation, if not overturn it altogether. They say the law is too burdensome on farmers and that its buffer requirements amount to a taking of private property without compensation.

But here in Stearns County, where about 94 percent of waters that require buffers under the new law already are protected with grassland borders, implementation is seen, generally, as a good thing.



Tom Gregory runs a 500-cow dairy operation not far from Cold Spring and is one of five Stearns County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) citizen supervisors.

My opinion is that buffers are necessary, Gregory said. Actually, the law has been on the books for 15 or 20 years. It just hasnt been enforced. And buffers definitely filter out runoff, including manure runoff.

When Gregory began his dairy operation in the early 1980s, it was commonplace, he said, for livestock owners to allow cows and pigs to wallow in streams and rivers.

I moved all that back and fenced it off, he said. We got a grant to build a manure pit if we kept the animals out of the creek, and we did that.

Not all Stearns County farmers have complied with the new law, and recently SWCD employees here mailed about 300 letters containing detailed aerial maps of waters requiring attention before the fall deadline.

Weve heard back from about a quarter of the people we mailed the maps to, said Ben Ruley, a Stearns County SWCD conservationist. Some of these producers intend to put in buffers on their own, because they have a need for hay, and can mow the buffers a couple times a year.

But of those who dont need hay, some are upset about the crop acreage they would lose putting in buffers. Some say its an illegal taking of their land and theyre not going to do it.

Dustin Frieler, his dad, Tom Frieler, and partner Dave Schoenborn farm 4,000 acres in Stearns County. About 2,000 acres are in corn, another 1,600 in soybeans, and the rest in wheat and oats. A lot of water runs through their land.

We started planting buffers 15 years ago, mostly through the CRP program, Dustin Frieler said. It was a win-win for us. We were protecting the water while taking ground out of production that wasnt that good.

Most buffers in the Frieler operation are 30 feet wide. But the new law might require some of them to be widened to 50 feet, depending on a parcels slope and other considerations.

Wider buffers in some cases will mean more lost revenue.

Example: If a landowner is required to plant 50-foot buffers on each side of a stream that runs a half-mile through a farm, 6 acres would be lost in production. At 200 bushels an acre of corn, multiplied by, say, $4 a bushel, the cost to the farmer in lost revenue would be $4,800.

In some cases, or perhaps most, much of that income could be made up by government payments through CRP or similar programs. And cost sharing to establish buffers is generally available.

Still, Frieler said, property taxes on the buffered acres would be the same as if they were planted in corn.

Thats why the reaction by some farmers is so negative to the buffer law, he said. If they would cut you some slack on property taxes, it would be different. Our property tax bill now is $120,000 a year.



Mages came into the country near Belgrade some 35 years ago. He and his wife, Cindy, a nurse, had been farm kids near Sleepy Eye in the southern part of the state, and they came north to make their mark.

They did that, raising four kids on the home place, while running a profitable operation.

A believer in buffers, Mages nonetheless is sympathetic to farmers who might struggle with compliance with the law by this fall.

Each farm is individual, and one size wont fit all with buffers, he said.

As he spoke, Mages held a sign he displays prominently in the window of his farm shop.

Minnesota Water Quality Certified Farm, the sign reads.

Like the neatly kept tractors and other equipment housed in nearby outbuildings, and the hundreds of fertile acres that surrounded him, the sign, for Mages, was a source of pride.
The Grand Island Fire Department rescued a man clinging to a nearly sunken boat Thursday night at Mormon Island State Recreation Area.

The man, who was clinging to the partially submerged boat for 30 to 40 minutes, was taken by ambulance to CHI Health St. Francis, said Shift Commander Bryan Stutzman of the Grand Island Fire Department.

The victim was one of three men who had been fishing on the lake Thursday night when their boat nearly sank, Stutzman said.

The call came in about 9:15 to 9:30 p.m. as a possible drowning, he said. One of the three men had made it to shore but couldnt locate his two friends.

When firefighters from Station 1 arrived on the scene, a second man had also swum to shore, Stutzman said, but the third man remained clinging to the boat in the lake.

Stutzman said two of the Fire Departments paramedics got into the departments Zodiac rescue craft, an inflatable boat with a motor, and met a bystander in a canoe who was already approaching the man in the water. Together, they pulled the victim into the Fire Departments boat and brought him to shore.

He said the time the victim spent in the cold water of the lake was a concern.

"His core temperature was really low, so we hauled him in to the hospital," Stutzman said.

The shift commander credited the Doniphan Volunteer Fire Department and the Grand Island Dive Rescue Team for their assistance in the rescue.

Doniphan firefighters arrived first and had the scene well lit when the Grand Island firefighters arrived to perform the rescue, Stutzman said, and the dive rescue team helped get the fishing boat out of the water.

The rescue itself took about 10 to 15 minutes from when Grand Island firefighters were on the scene until the ambulance left with the victim, he said.

The names of the three fishermen were not available, Stutzman said.
The second group of Hall Countys Vietnam War veterans will take part in the seventh Hero Flight from April 30 through May 2.

Eighty-three veterans  most of them accompanied by escorts  will take a chartered Allegiant Airlines flight out of the Central Nebraska Regional Airport around 7 a.m. Sunday, April 30.

This is Hall Countys seventh Hero Flight for its veterans  three for World War II vets and two each for Korean and Vietnam war veterans. None of them would have been possible without the endless contributions of Hall County citizens and many others outside the county.

While in the Washington, D.C., area, the vets, escorts and staff members will tour the Korean War Veterans Memorial, National World War II Memorial, National Cathedral, Jefferson Memorial, U.S. Air Force Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and, of course, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial  the Wall.

In addition, vets will be honored guests at a banquet Monday night, May 1, at the Double Tree Hotel in Arlington, Va. The featured speaker will again be retired Major Gen. Galen Jackman, a Nebraska native.

Other highlights of the trip will be a tour of Caisson Platoon Stables  home of the Old Guard  at Fort Myer, Va. There the Hall County vets will meet members of the Old Guard, and their fleet of horses, which carry out Arlington Cemetery funerals for U.S. veterans and other distinguished Americans.

The Hero Flight should arrive back at the Central Nebraska Regional Airport around 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 2. The public is invited and encouraged to come out to the airport and welcome home Hall Countys military heroes.
Getting older doesnt mean what it used to. For many aging Americans, it is a phase of life where interests, goals, and dreams can get a new or second start. Today, aging is about eliminating outdated perceptions and living the way that suits you best.

Take Barbara Hillary, for example. A nurse for 55 years who dreamed of travel, at age 75 Hillary became the first African American woman to set foot on the North Pole. In 2011, at age 79, she set another first when she stepped onto the South Pole. Former president George H.W. Bush celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving. Actress Betty White, now 95 years old, became the oldest person to host Saturday Night Live in 2010, coincidentally during May -- the same month recognized as Older Americans Month (OAM).

Since 1963, OAM has been a time to celebrate older Americans, their stories, and their contributions. Led by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the annual observance offers a special opportunity to learn about, support, and recognize our nations older citizens. This years theme, Age Out Loud, emphasizes the ways older adults are living their lives with boldness, confidence, and passion while serving as an inspiration to people of all ages.

The Coles County Council on Aging, Inc. at your LifeSpan Center will use OAM 2017 to focus on how older adults in our community are redefining aging -- through work or family interests, by taking charge of their health and staying independent for as long as possible, and through their community and advocacy efforts. We can also use this opportunity to learn how we can best support and learn from our communitys older members.

Throughout the month, we will conduct activities and share information designed to highlight the programs, support groups, and activities at your LifeSpan Center. We encourage you to get involved by coming in and joining our events to see just what we have to offer.

Our Mission: To enhance the quality of life for older adults and people of all ages and abilities. Join us and ACL as we speak up for #OAM17 and #AgeOutLoud this May! Specifically, we invite you to Senior Expo 2017 on May 2 from 9 a.m.-noon, featuring over 35 exhibitors, Smart Phone Seminar, Wheel of Fortune (from Mason Point), prizes, and much more!

And we couldnt provide our programs and events without our wonderful partners and sponsors. With gratitude to our 2017 LifeSpan Senior Expo sponsors: AARP Illinois, Coles County Council on Aging, Inc., Douglas Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, and Harbor Light Hospice; and thanks to our exhibitors for joining with us to bring the community this annual event!

The Coles County Council on Aging offices are located at the LifeSpan Center, 11021 E. Co. Rd. 800N, Charleston. The telephone number is 217-639-5150 for the Coles County Council on Aging and LifeSpan Center. The telephone numbers for the programs are as follows: Coles County Telecare -- 217-639-5166; Family Care Giver Resource Center -- 217-639-5168 and Dial A Ride -- 217-639-5169 or 1-800-500-5505. See you at your LifeSpan Center.
The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission took a good first step Wednesday in addressing the tragedy in Whiteclay. The commission refused to renew the liquor licenses of four liquor stores in the tiny town of 12 people.

The four stores sell 4 million cans of beer and other alcohol every year to members of the Oglala Lakota Tribe living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Whiteclay sits just 200 yards south of the reservation and the South Dakota border.

Since alcohol is banned on the reservation, members of the tribe stream to Whiteclay to buy and consume alcohol, leading to public drunkenness and other crimes.

For decades, critics have said the Whiteclay stores have fueled an alcohol scourge on the reservation. Residents there struggle with a high rate of fetal alcoholism and a low life expectancy rate. Alcoholism is a rampant problem there.

The Whiteclay stores, critics say, have preyed on the Native Americans for years. The store owners get rich, while alcoholism pervades Pine Ridge.

However, closing the Whiteclay liquor stores hasnt been easy. The stores are legal businesses as long as they follow state laws.

This time, though, the commission cited the lack of law enforcement in the area as a reason for rejecting the liquor license applications. Because of the lack of law enforcement, state liquor laws arent always enforced and there have been numerous reports of violence and sexual assault near the stores.

Whether that reason for denying the licenses will hold up in court is unknown. The liquor stores have vowed to appeal the ruling, so it will be up to the courts.

Its not known whether the commissions decision will hold up, but give them credit for trying to clean up the mess at Whiteclay. However, their action is just the first step.

Officials must work to make sure the problem doesnt just spread to other towns down the road, such as Rushville. State and local officials must make sure liquor laws are enforced, including drinking and driving, so the highways there dont become a danger zone. Just moving the problem from Whiteclay to the highways wont work.

Most of all, the federal government and Lakota tribe must work to address the alcohol problems at Pine Ridge. Just banning alcohol has proved a failure. More must be done to help the tribal members lead productive lives.

Nebraska must look at promoting economic development in the Whiteclay area. Resources are needed to help encourage cooperation between tribal officials and Nebraska and local officials.

The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission made its decision with the right intent, which is to prevent Nebraska businesses from preying on a vulnerable population. Its hoped that this in the first in a series of steps in ending this blight on the state.
According to KRGI, the Grand Island Vets Home is not going to be repurposed as residential or retail, but whatever we do, it should honor veterans. May I suggest it become a military academy? At the college level there is VMI in Virginia and the Citadel in South Carolina. There are a number of high school level military academies around the country as well.

Many parents from around the country  and even around the world  send their children to military academies because of the high academic standards and discipline they are noted for. Their children need not go on to a military career, but if they do they will begin at a rank above their peers  and that rank is earned. Civilian employers are also impressed by a diploma from a military academy. On the other end of the scale, military academies have been known to turn around the lives of many young people on their way to a life in prison.
March 26 marked 35 years since we broke ground for what was to become the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., known now as The Wall. I was one of the speakers that day and am one of the nearly 3 million Americans who served in Vietnam.

The Wall was born out of conflict and division. As we stand back and think about when the Wall was built, its a remarkable accomplishment. The Vietnam War was the most divisive war in recent U.S. history and up until Iraq and Afghanistan, our longest war. It bitterly divided America and drove an incumbent president out of office.

Yet seven years after Congress pulled the plug on further financing the Vietnam War in 1975 and ended Americas involvement in Vietnam, The Wall was built with no government funds. This is even more remarkable when we remember that there were no World War II or Korean War memorials in Washington, D.C., at the time.

It happened because of many people and many factors, but principal among them were two driving forces: an unknown Army infantryman wounded in Vietnam by the name of Jan Scruggs and his committed founding board and two World War II veterans who were U.S. senators, Charles Mac Mathias of Maryland and John Warner of Virginia.

Every step of the way to getting the Vietnam Memorial built was entangled in controversy from the war itself to the design of the memorial. But when we step back for a moment, we realize that the Walls design was appropriate for that war and that time in our history.

The Wall was built 35 years ago because of what Ive just noted, but also because America was beginning to separate the war from the warrior. It was a historic and defining time, matched by historic and defining leaders.

It is the story of America. It is important to remember that The Wall has never been about the war, but rather about the people who served. The requirement for the design to include the names has proven the value of remembering the individual sacrifice, and that is what makes the Wall different from other memorials.

We build memorials not to glorify war, but to remember and honor those who served and sacrificed. The Wall allows current and future generations to understand the hard lessons learned and legacies of the Vietnam War.

The Wall has enabled the healing of a generation and of our nation. It is a tangible symbol of national dialogue and reflection.

Through the Wall, we remember those who sacrificed all, those who served, those who waited and those who continue to serve today.

Chuck Hagel served in Vietnam in 1968. He later served as deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration,a U.S. senator from Nebraska and the 24th secretary of defense. He is chairman of the 35th Anniversary of The Wall Committee.
Live election coverage: All eyes on PA as voters head to the polls

The nation is closely watching PA as it could decide the balance of power in Washington. Check back regularly for statewide coverage updates.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fifth of six stories in the JG-TC's "State of the University" series focusing on Eastern Illinois University's recent years of declining enrollment, and financial challenges related to the Illinois state budget impasse. This installment looks at efforts by EIU supporters to work with lawmakers for funding.

CHARLESTON -- With the state of Illinois' budget impasse approaching two years, some who support Eastern Illinois University say they're ready, but mostly waiting, to do more.

Working on behalf of EIU to try to help with its lack of state funding and resulting budget cuts is worthy of the effort, but it's mostly the same as with any organization that relies on money from the state, they say.

"It kind of comes down to waiting and seeing what we can do," said Austin Mejdrich, an EIU student with the Fund EIU organization.

Fund EIU was a collaborative effort between students, faculty, community members and others that organized a large rally on Eastern's campus last year in support of funding for the university.

At that point, it was beneficial to have a "good combination" of supporters to send the message that budget cuts were jeopardizing the institution, Mejdrich said.

"It was really helpful to really see another conversation of what was happening with the state," he said.

Fund EIU members have also traveled to Springfield to meet with local lawmakers and speak before high education committees. Another trip is in the works, Mejdrich said.

Mejdrich also said efforts by Fund EIU and others helped lead to last year's stop-gap budget, the temporary, six-month spending plan that "kept the doors open." They've helped keep people aware of the ongoing budget situation and what it means, he said.

Fund EIU is still sending messages, mostly through social media, about any budget negotiations and other developments, but it's difficult to take on something as large as last year's rally, Mejdrich also said.

"Overall, I think Fund EIU has been hugely successful for what it can do," he said.

The budget impasse also changed how Eastern works with state lawmakers, as the funding shortfall has to be the top issue, according to Katie Anselment, EIU's legislative liaison.

"It's much more about the lack of a budget than it is about education," she said. "It didn't used to be all-consuming."

Anselment is an EIU graduate who's been in the university's legislative liaison for four years. Her position replaced that of a contracted lobbyist when former EIU President Bill Perry preferred a university employee to work with lawmakers.

Most of Anselment's time is spent reviewing and monitoring proposed bills that might have an impact on EIU or higher education.

She then provides an overview and advice to university President David Glassman for a decision on whether to take a public position on a bill.

Anselment said she finds area lawmakers "very receptive" to EIU's situation because of the budget impasse. Other representatives with universities in their districts see higher education as a priority but others perhaps "don't feel the impact," she said.

"I do think our legislators just want to get this worked out but it's been going on so long," she said.
Since 1877, Carrollton Bank has continued to provide outstanding service to customers in its nine locations throughout the greater St. Louis metropolitan area and beyond.

On this weeks episode of Segue, Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles premier radio show on WSIE 88.7 FM The Sound, Chancellor Randy Pembrook sits down with Carrollton Banks Tom and Suzanne Hough to showcase the banks outstanding history, its partnership with the University and its dedication to community involvement.

As Carrollton Banks chief executive officer and chairman, Tom serves as the banks fifth generation of leadership since it was founded by his great-great grandfather, Jeduthan Eldred in Carrollton. Toms father, Thomas S. Hough, enjoyed a 70-year career at the bank, starting part time during his high school years. The patriarch returned to the bank to work full time in 1946, after attending college and fulfilling his military service in World War II.

Tom joined the family business and began working for Carrollton Bank on a part-time basis during high school. He received his bachelors degree from the College of Business at the University of Illinois and returned to the bank in 1973. At the time of his return, the bank had only one location in its native Carrollton and about $7 million in assets.

Over four decades later, the bank has expanded to eight other branches throughout Illinois, including locations in Springfield, Jerseyville, Alton and OFallon, along with four branches in Missouri, including St. Charles, Clayton, Des Peres and St. Louis Hills. The bank now has assets totaling more than $1.4 billion.

Suzanne Hough, vice president of community involvement, joined Carrollton Bank in 1983 following her graduation from Milliken University. She also graduated from the School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin. She manages interactions with community partners, coordinates financial literacy education programs, connects bank staff with community service opportunities, and works diligently to integrate banking products and services directly in line with the communitys needs.

The banking industry has gone through several changes in recent decades and despite the challenges that have appeared throughout the years, Carrollton Bank maintains its long-standing dedication to its customers and employees.

These days, it comes down to three things that challenge nearly every bank, Tom Hough says, We want to attract and retain really good people, maintain our compliance on the increasing number of regulations in the banking industry, and most recently, emphasize cyber security and offer the products that our customers want.

Recently, we focused on the notion that we are truly in a service business, he says. A lot of banks do a lot of the same things, but people truly make the difference. Our customers and team members are the most important people to us.

Although the bank works to comply with banking regulations such as the Community Reinvestment Act, Carrollton Bank aims to go above and beyond their required service to make community involvement a pivotal part of its mission.

Among its numerous efforts throughout the region, Carrollton Bank has partnered with the SIUE East St. Louis Center to provide opportunities and education for low-income individuals throughout the community.

After we opened our full-service branch in OFallon, Tom and I knew we wanted to do something impactful in St. Clair County, and the area that seemed to be in the most need was East St. Louis, Suzanne Hough says.

I had already known Tom for quite a while, Pembrook says, He was my first banker while I was in Greenfield.

Absolutely, she says, Tom knew you from way back, and when we were thinking about this, we thought it would be a great potential partnership and opportunity to see what we could work on together.

Our thought was that there is only so much we can do on our own, so finding a good partner is key, Tom Hough says. SIUE has been so involved in the East St. Louis community, and its own community development program there is incredibly strong. We are glad that we can supplement the great work it is doing there.

Carrollton Banks support has been influential to the SIUE East St. Louis Charter High Schools personal finance class. The bank provided supplemental materials such as laptops, financial education software, textbooks and other items, so students can begin to understand the vast financial landscape.

In all phases of life, people have specific financial needs, she says. The information we gave these students can show them how they can get their financial aid assistance ready for college, along with steps they need to take academically to stay in school. We also provide valuable insight about renting an apartment, getting a car and budgeting.

If we give these students the firm foundation of knowledge, we hope that we can continue to help them grow their financial capacity. When theyre going through school, we hope to keep them as customers and as they move forward to follow their dreams.

As professionals in the banking industry, Tom and Suzanne believe the best advice that they can give to someone is to start saving early.

It is extremely important to have a savings account, he says. Those who had a savings account at some point in their childhood are seven times more likely to attend college.

We have also talked to students about understanding how to use credit, and we know the last thing you want to do is start life with a low credit score.

A lot of people have no idea what comprises a credit score, and what makes it go up or down, Pembrook says. I always explained it to my daughters that it was like your financial grade point average, and you should care about it just as much as your academic GPA.

To hear this entire episode of Segue, tune in at 9 a.m. on Sunday, April 23 to WSIE 88.7 FM The Sound.

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Linkedin Delita Sartika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017

The gender pay gap has reached Hollywood. At the Academy Awards, for instance, a number of actresses have revealed in their victory speech that they earn significantly less than their male co-stars for exactly equal roles.

While the gender pay gap is real, the general root of the problem  the gap in competence and productivity between genders  should be dealt with comprehensively. To say that women are less competent and productive than their male colleagues may sound like a discouraging statement that put women further in a disadvantaged position.

Yet, it is necessary to fully comprehend this fact before relevant authorities can act to close the gap.

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Linkedin Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017

Idul Fitri came early at hundreds of mosques in the capital as their congregations chanted takbir (praise to Allah) and lit firecrackers until late on Wednesday in celebration of a new dawn after Anies Baswedan, the gubernatorial candidate backed by conservative and hard-line Muslim groups, swept closer to leading Jakarta.

Anies, supported by the opposition camp, delivered a crushing defeat, according to quick counts by all pollsters, on President Joko Jokowi Widodos ally and incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent.

The election, deemed the dirtiest, most polarizing and most divisive campaign the country has ever held, will serve as a precedent for the 2019 presidential election.
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Linkedin Milos Krivokapic and Angela Charlton (Associated Press) Monaco  Fri, April 21, 2017 09:53 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea1c2e2 2 Science & Tech car,flying-car,aeromobil Free

It may not be quite like the Jetsons, but for over a million dollars you too can soon fly around in a car.

A Slovakian company called AeroMobil unveiled on Thursday its version of a flying car, a light-framed plane whose wings can fold back, like an insect, and is boosted by a hybrid engine and rear propeller.

It will be available to preorder as soon as this year but is not for everyone: besides the big price tag  between 1.2 million and 1.5 million euros ($1.3 million-$1.6 million)  you'd need a pilot's license to use it in the air.

"I think it's going to be a very niche product," said Philip Mawby, professor of electronic engineering and head of research at the University of Warwick.

Several companies are working on flying cars, either like Aeromobil's two-seater that needs a runway, or others that function more like helicopters, lifting off vertically. But not many companies are seriously looking at marketing these vehicles anytime soon, Mawby said.

AeroMobil display a rear view of their latest prototype of a flying car, in Monaco, Thursday, April 20, 2017. The light frame plane whose wings can fold back, like an insect is boosted by a rear propeller. The company says it is planning to accept first preorders for the vehicle as soon as later this year. (AP/Claude Paris)

Read also: Volvo announces plans to export China-made electric car

"The technology is there... The question is bringing it to the market at an affordable cost, and making it a useful product."

Among the big questions is how to control the air traffic if there are hundreds of such vehicles zipping through the air. There is no control except for traditional aircraft, notes Mawby.

So while vehicles like the AeroMobil could be used for recreational purposes by people who have a large piece of land, flying cars are unlikely to become a mass market reality anytime soon, he says.

The AeroMobil has a driving range of about 100 kms (62 miles) and a top speed of 160 kph (99 mph). When flying, its maximum cruising range is 750 kms (466 miles), and it takes about three minutes for the car to transform into a plane.

"You can use it as a regular car," said Juraj Vaculik, co-founder and CEO of Aeromobil, at the unveiling in Monaco. Though it is not legal yet  to take off from a highway.

The previous AeroMobil 3.0 prototype made news in 2014 when it was presented in Vienna, but no test-flight took place then. It crashed during a test flight in Slovakia in 2015 with its inventor Stefan Klein on board. He escaped largely unharmed.

__________

Charlton reported from Paris. Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.
For 23-year-old designer Pratiwi Harsetiani, creating a collection with burlap, a fabric more often found in sacks than in clothes, is risky, but she believes that by using the correct method the fabric could offer a "breath of fresh air" to the fashion industry.

The founder and creative director of the House of PH, a label established in 2013, was among the designers participating in Senayan City Fashion Nation 2017, an annual event held from April 6 to 16 at the Senayan City shopping mall in South Jakarta that highlighted works by local designers.

Read also: Saving the planet with slow fashion

During the event, Pratiwi presented her newest collection dubbed "Tropical Immersion", which she considered her "most honest so far". "I follow my sense of intuition in order to achieve what I want to express," she said.

Said to be a collection that "embodies a depraved concept of the life in the jungle", it included eight earth-colored ready-to-wear pieces with draping accents. The clothes were created by mixing heavy and light elements, utilizing heavy burlap, medium-weight pleats and lightweight textured tulle, all hand-sewn on mannequins by Pratiwi herself.

The collection was created within one and a half months and mostly without any patterns, she added.

Read also: When nude is only nude for some people

Pratiwi explained that she chose to use burlap because the fabric's earth-friendly character and texture represent the image of the jungle that she wanted to highlight. "When consumers feel that these clothes are 'out of date' or damaged, they can recycle them for other purposes, such as [turning them into] industrial wiping cloths," she told The Jakarta Post.

The original collection presented in Fashion Nation is currently not for sale, but fashionistas can order the clothes with reference to the designs in the collection. Pratiwi said that as the clothes would be hand-sewn, there would be no similar design and that there would be different drapes in each production. But it will still be in the same silhouette outline."

She added that as each order would be custom-based, customers might ask to have their clothes created using the original materials or with other materials according to their preference.

The price of clothes in the collection starts from Rp 1.4 million (US$105). (kes)
MATTOON -- U.S. Navy veteran Dan Patrick had seen photos of the memorials in Washington, D.C. but had never seen them in person until he took part in a recent Land of Lincoln Honor Flight.

Volunteers with this nonprofit program took Patrick and approximately 80 other veterans of World War II, the Korean War era, and the Vietnam War era on an April 11 tour, at no cost to the veterans. The participants visited several war and military service memorials, plus the Lincoln Memorial and other sites.

"When you see it in pictures, you don't appreciate the size of the memorials. It's an experience," Patrick said during an interview Friday morning at his home in Mattoon.

The Navy veteran said he served from 1948 to 1952, spending much of his time on the USS Alsea ocean tug on the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean Sea.

Patrick said he decided to go on an Honor Flight after his friends and fellow veterans Jack Collinsworth and Ed Dowling, both of Mattoon, took part in a flight and were enthusiastic about the experience.

The Honor Flight program arranges for a volunteer guardian to accompany each veteran to ensure their comfort and safety throughout the trip. The regional Land of Lincoln branch of the Honor Flight program connected Patrick with a guardian, Brian Hinton, from Mattoon.

Hinton said he volunteered for his first Honor Flight in August so he could serve as the guardian for his wife's grandfather -- Korean War veteran Richard Johnson of Mattoon. Hinton said he was glad to have a second opportunity, during the April 11 tour, to help veterans visit their memorials in Washington.

"It's an awesome way to say 'thank you' to the guys who served and put their lives on the line to protect the country," Hinton said, adding that he plans to organize a fundraiser for future Honor Flights.

Participants in the April 11 trip flew out of the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield before dawn on a Boeing 737 leased by the Honor Flight. Hinton said their flight was greeted at Reagan National Airport in Washington by a water cannon salute from a group of fire trucks.

The veterans and their guardians then boarded a charted bus that took them to the National World War II Memorial for a tour and group photo, and then on to other nearby memorials.

Patrick said he was particularly moved by the Korean War Veterans Memorial's 19 stainless steel statues, which depict a platoon of military service members on patrol. He said the realistic expressions on their faces are captivating.

"You walk through them and they all seem to be looking at you," Patrick said.

The Honor Flight participants then boarded the bus for a boxed lunch there and a trip to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum's annex in Chantilly, Va., where they saw the Space Shuttle Discovery and other famed craft.

After visiting the museum, the tour group traveled to Arlington National Cemetery and watched the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Patrick said he was amazed by the precision of the guards and the hushed silence of the large crowd in attendance at the ceremony.

From Arlington, the travelers headed back to the airport for a boxed dinner and their flight home. On board the plane, the veterans were given a surprise "mail call." They received cards from family, friends, schoolchildren and other well-wishers.

Hinton said the Honor Flight participants were greeted back at the Springfield airport by Illinois State Police bagpipers, veterans organizations, cheerleaders and hundreds of other supporters.

Patrick said he found every stage of the Honor Flight to be well organized. Patrick said he also was pleasantly surprised throughout the tour by how many strangers stopped to take time out of their day to shake hands with him and his fellow veterans.

"I would recommended it to anyone in the service who gets the opportunity," Patrick said of the Honor Flights.

More information about the Land of Lincoln Honor Flight program is available by contacting spokesman John Dust at 1-309-339-0227 or honorflightguy@aol.com, or by visiting www.landoflincolnhonorflight.org.
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Linkedin Delita Sartika (The Jakarta Post) Jambi  Fri, April 21 2017

The gender pay gap has reached Hollywood. At the Academy Awards, for instance, a number of actresses have revealed in their victory speech that they earn significantly less than their male co-stars for exactly equal roles.

While the gender pay gap is real, the general root of the problem  the gap in competence and productivity between genders  should be dealt with comprehensively. To say that women are less competent and productive than their male colleagues may sound like a discouraging statement that put women further in a disadvantaged position.

Yet, it is necessary to fully comprehend this fact before relevant authorities can act to close the gap.

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Linkedin Lori Hinnant and John Leicester (Associated Press) Paris  Fri, April 21, 2017 17:17 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea345fa 2 World #France,#FranceAttack,France,Paris,#Paris,#TerrorAttack,terror-attack Free

France began picking itself up Friday from another deadly shooting claimed by the Islamic State group, with President Francois Hollande convening the government's security council and his would-be successors in the presidential election campaign treading carefully before voting this weekend.

Investigators found a pump-action shotgun and knives in the car of the gunman who targeted police on the Champs-Elysees, and were working to determine whether he had accomplices. The prime minister said the government has reviewed its already extensive election security measures and says it is "fully mobilized" for Sunday's vote.

One of the key questions was whether, and how, the attack that killed one police officer and wounded three other people might impact voting intentions. The risk for the main candidates was that misjudging the public mood, making an ill-perceived gesture or comment, could damage their chances. With polling just two days away, and campaigning banned from Friday at midnight, they would have no time to recover before polls open on Sunday. Candidates on Friday canceled or rescheduled final campaign events.

"Nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country," Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, appealing for national unity and for people "not to succumb to fear."

"The whole of Europe is targeted because it represents the values and ideals of peace," he said.

More than 50,000 police and gendarmes are mobilized to protect Sunday's first-round vote in the two-stage election, with an additional 7,000 soldiers also on patrol. He added that the intelligence services are working "in the shadows" and elite intervention police forces are also on alert.

On the iconic avenue in the heart of Paris, municipal workers in white hygiene suits were out before dawn Friday to wash down the sidewalk where the assault took place  a scene now depressingly familiar after multiple attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France in little over two years. Delivery trucks did their early morning rounds; everything would have seemed normal were it not for the row of TV trucks parked up along the boulevard that is a must-visit for tourists.

The two police officers injured in the attack are out of danger, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said. National police spokesman Jerome Bonet, also speaking on BFM television, said "there were thousands of people" on the iconic boulevard in Paris when the gunman opened fire and that the rapid response of officers who shot and killed him avoided a possible "carnage."

The attacker emerged from a car and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer's department store at the center of the Champs-Elysees. Police shot and killed the gunman. One officer was killed and two seriously wounded. A female foreign tourist also was wounded, said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins. The Islamic State group's claim of responsibility just a few hours after the attack came unusually swiftly for the extremist group, which has been losing territory in Iraq and Syria.

In a statement from its Amaq news agency, the group gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium. Belgian authorities said they had no information about the suspect.

Investigators searched a home early Friday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed linked to the attack. A police document obtained by The Associated Press identifies the address searched in the town of Chelles as the family home of Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old with a criminal record.

Police tape surrounded the quiet, middle-class neighborhood and worried neighbors expressed surprise at the searches. Archive reports by French newspaper Le Parisien say that Cheurfi was convicted of attacking a police officer in 2001.

Authorities are trying to determine whether "one or more people" might have helped the attacker, Brandet said.

The attacker had been flagged as an extremist, according to two police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.

The attack appeared to fit in a spreading pattern of French extremists targeting security forces and symbols of the state, to discredit, take vengeance and destabilize. It recalled two recent attacks on soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris: one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport last month.

Leading presidential candidates have urged greater counterterrorism measures in a campaign already under a state of emergency.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron appealed to French voters to keep a cool head. Speaking Friday on RTL radio, Macron said: "What our attackers want is death, symbolism, to sow panic [and] to disturb a democratic process, which is the presidential election."

He vowed that, if elected, he would within weeks of taking power create a task force to coordinate French intelligence efforts against the Islamic State group.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who campaigns against immigration and Islamic fundamentalism, took to Twitter to offer her sympathy for law enforcement officers "once again targeted." She canceled a minor campaign stop, but scheduled another.

Conservative contender Francois Fillon, who has campaigned against "Islamic totalitarianism," said on France 2 television that he was canceling his planned campaign stops Friday.

The two top finishers in Sunday's election will advance to a runoff on May 7.
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 21:24 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea43707 1 City #AhokTrial,defense-statement Free

Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama is preparing his defense statement for a hearing on April 25, when the court is set to listen to the governors response to the prosecutors sentence demand of two years probation for insulting Muslims.

I Wayan Sudirta, his lawyer, said on Friday, that the governor would read his defense before the five-judge panel led by Dwiarso Budi Santiarto.

He will tell the court about what he has experienced and how he feels, Wayan said in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

Wayan added that Ahoks legal team was preparing to refute the accusation that Ahok had insulted a group of people who had faith in the interpretation of Surah Al Maidah 51, a Quranic verse that has been interpreted as forbidding Muslims from voting for Christian or Jewish leaders.

Wayan said that in the defense, the legal team would stress the prosecutors failure to give a concrete explanation about those who had been insulted by Ahok.

Therefore, they could not prove that Ahok had violated Article 156 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on inciting animosity or hatred toward, or offending, a particular group, which the governor has been charged with, he said. Initially, Ahok was legally processed on the accusations that his speech violated either Article 156 or Article 156a of the KUHP. The prosecutors decided to withdraw their accusation that Ahok violated Article 156a.

In the defense, the lawyers will also insist that prosecutors have mostly presented de auditu witnesses, who have only heard Ahoks speech in Thousand Islands on Sept. 27 last year from a viral video that was an excerpt of the speech, and experts who were not neutral in the case.

The lawyers will then try to convince the judges that Ahok should not be responsible for the uproar caused by the scandal.

Prosecutors said in a hearing on Thursday that a person named Buni Yani, now a suspect in a hate-speech case, had contributed to the uproar by writing a false transcript for his video of Ahoks speech during his working visit to Thousand Islands.

Therefore, there was no reason that prosecutors should continue pressing their case against Ahok, Wayan said.
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Linkedin Ahmad Bayuny (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 15:31 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea2b1a2 1 Business PT-AKR-Corporindo,revenue,growth-assumption Free

PT AKR Corporindo (AKRA), a publicly listed distributor of basic chemicals and petroleum products, eyes 40 percent growth in net revenue this year to Rp 21 trillion (US$1.58 billion).

With the assumption that the oil price will increase consistently, and given the positive outlook for the economy, we see net revenue rise to between Rp 20 trillion and Rp 21 trillion in 2017, AKR Corporindo director Suresh Vembu said.

AKR Corporindo president director Haryanto Adikoesoemo added that the company would expand its business in the retail sector by building more fuel stations.

The growth potential is very large, said Haryanto, adding that more gas stations were still needed, considering Indonesias large population and the fast growth in vehicles sales.

The Java Integrated Industrial and Ports Estate (JIIPE) in Gresik would contribute to the companys income, Haryanto added.

Suresh explained that 10 percent of the companys income was generated by JIIPE. We expect that in the next five years, JIIPE will contribute up to 25 percent to our income, he added.

The companys annual shareholders meeting has agreed to distribute Rp 120 per share in dividends. (bbn)

The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21 2017

Anies Baswedan, the presumptive winner of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, made a conciliatory gesture on Thursday by holding a meeting with defeated candidate and incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama at City Hall, following a bitterly contested election that divided the city along religious and racial lines.

Anies and Ahok agreed to have the meeting after the two politicians exchanged text messages on Wednesday shortly after pollsters projected that Anies would win the gubernatorial election.

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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 09:30 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea18a04 2 City anies-baswedan,Anies-Baswedan-Sandiaga-Uno,ahok,#ahok,#Ahok-Djarot,basuki-tjahaja-purnama,2017JakartaElection,#2017JakartaElection,#JakartaGubernatorialElection Free

Anies Baswedan, the presumptive winner of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, made a conciliatory gesture on Thursday by holding a meeting with defeated candidate and incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama at City Hall, following a bitterly contested election that divided the city along religious and racial lines.

Anies and Ahok agreed to have the meeting after the two politicians exchanged text messages on Wednesday shortly after pollsters projected that Anies would win the gubernatorial election.

Knowing that Ahok had to leave City Hall early for his blasphemy trial, Anies arrived for the meeting at 7.30 a.m., interrupting Ahoks regular meet-andgreet program with Jakartans.

Upon seeing Anies, Ahok cut short his meeting with the residents and moved to greet Anies and proceeded to escort him to the governors mansion next to City Hall.

Anies said during the meeting, which lasted 30 minutes, he and Ahok discussed efforts to start a reconciliation process between supporters from their respective camps.

We all are Jakartans. Let bygones be bygones. Lets start a new chapter, Anies told reporters after the meeting.

Hours after balloting wrapped up on Wednesday, a number of research outfits projected that Anies and his running mate, millionaire Sandiaga Uno, would win the gubernatorial election by a wide margin.

Jakarta-based pollster Sjaiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SRMC) showed Anies securing 58.06 percent of the vote against Ahoks 41.94 percent.

After learning he was trailing by a double-digit margin, Ahok conceded defeat and pledged that he would pave the way for a smooth transition at City Hall.

On Thursday, one of issues highlighted during the meeting between Anies and Ahok was the 2018 city budget.

Anies said an early discussion on the budget would be crucial in his effort to realize some of his campaign promises.

If we dont discuss it now, I am afraid the programs we campaigned on to implement in 2018 will be put off until 2019 because the 2018 city budget has already been approved, Anies said.

Meanwhile, Ahok insisted that discussions on the 2018 city budget needed to wrap up soon, without waiting for Anies to take the reins of power in October.

He suggested that Anies send members of his team to discuss some of the new details of the budget with officials in the current administration.

We will include [some of the new details] into programs that need to be implemented immediately, Ahok said.

With regards to Anies invitation to begin work on reconciliation, Ahok maintained that his supporters would accept the final election result.

I guarantee that my supporters will not stir up any problems, he added.

The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) is expected to announce the final results of the election in early May.

On the campaign trail, Anies pledged he would halt some of Ahoks controversial policies, including the reclamation project along the citys northern coast as well as the eviction program aimed at widening some of the citys main rivers such as Ciliwung and Cipinang.

Ahoks decision to press ahead with the 2018 budget is likely aimed at safeguarding some of his signature projects that could be axed by Anies.

Responding to Anies plan to halt the reclamation project, Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said the presumptive governor should not rush to execute the plan.

There are new processes that need to be looked at. We will explain about this issue carefully. Maybe Pak Anies does not have complete information yet, Luhut told reporters at the State Palace on Thursday.

Luhut said he was convinced that once Anies got a complete picture of the reclamation project, he would decide to reverse his stance.

There has been no official statement from the State Palace regarding Anies victory.

Some analysts say Anies victory in Jakarta deals a serious political blow to President Joko Jokowi Widodo, who backed Ahok to be governor for the next five years as part of his strategy to push through some of his key infrastructure projects.
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Linkedin Heru Prama Yuda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21 2017

Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Anies Baswedan and his running mate Sandiaga Uno are leading in exit polls and quick counts by around 16 percent against the incumbent Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat after the April 19 runoff.

Reflecting back at the past six months of campaigning, wherein both camps traded nasty blows against each other, there seems to be two Jakartas separated by an inequality in financial standings, educational background and religious affiliations. The fact that inequality itself persists makes separating these two Jakartas all too easy.

I remember my first encounter with these two Jakartas around six years ago. Then a student at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, I arrived star-struck at one of Jakartas five-star hotels for an international conference on futurology: an approach to anticipate future trends in the 21st century.

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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 06:45 2028 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea0d341 1 National #ChildMarriage,child-abuse Free

Three child bride survivors are challenging Indonesias 1974 Marriage Law, calling on the Constitutional Court (MK) to raise its minimum legal marriageable age for women in a bid to end rampant child marriage across the country.

Plaintiffs Endang Warsinah, 35, Maryanti, 30, and Rasminah, 32, are former child brides who were forced to marry due to financial struggles. Endang and Maryanti married at the age of 14, while Rasmidah's first marriage was at the age of 13.

Lawyers filed a judicial review request to the Constitutional Court on Thursday from the Indonesian Coalition to End Child Marriage (Koalisi 18+), who represent the women. It was filed in commemoration of equal rights pioneer Kartini's birthday, which this year lands on Friday.

Endang, Maryanti and Rasminah decided to challenge the article because they felt they had suffered as child brides and did not want to see their own children or future generations be forced into the same experience, said Koalisi 18+ lawyer Dian Kartika.

"This judicial review request is based on the survivors' real-life experiences. Being married at such young age has not only brought pain to their lives, but also the lives of their children," Dian said on Thursday.

The petitioners specifically challenged Article 7 (1) of the law, which sets the minimum age of marriage for women at 16. They are demanding the court to raise the age requirement to 19, which is the minimum age of marriage for men. (dan)
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Linkedin Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21 2017

Idul Fitri came early at hundreds of mosques in the capital as their congregations chanted takbir (praise to Allah) and lit firecrackers until late on Wednesday in celebration of a new dawn after Anies Baswedan, the gubernatorial candidate backed by conservative and hard-line Muslim groups, swept closer to leading Jakarta.

Anies, supported by the opposition camp, delivered a crushing defeat, according to quick counts by all pollsters, on President Joko Jokowi Widodos ally and incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent.

The election, deemed the dirtiest, most polarizing and most divisive campaign the country has ever held, will serve as a precedent for the 2019 presidential election.

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Linkedin Nurni Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Fri, April 21, 2017 07:00 2028 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea0d5e9 1 National Czech-Republic,Monaco,France,Medan,North-Sumatra,tourism,#tourism Free

The Czech Republic, France and Monaco have for the first time penetrated North Sumatra to market their respective tourist destinations in the province.

To introduce their destinations, representatives from the three countries held a string of events in Medan, North Sumatra, on Wednesday.

In a meeting hosted by Alliance Francaise de Medan, they offered a presentation on European tourist destinations in front of at least 60 travel agents operating in the city. They also invited local and national media companies to discuss European tourism.

Among the representatives who participated in the visit included Monaco Government Tourist Bureau Asia Office director Benoit Badufle and Bruno Courbet, Club Meds director for Indonesia, Thailand, India and Emerging Countries.

Courbet said Club Med was a leader in presenting luxury winter holidays for travelers worldwide.

The company offers 25 luxury ski resorts in exceptional snow destinations around the world, including 21 resorts in the French Alps, he said.

It is the worlds leading premium, all-inclusive resort company. It offers high-end, friendly and multicultural holidays for families and couples. To guarantee that holidaymakers have nothing to worry about during their stay, every detail is carefully taken care of, said Courbet.

Badufle said Monaco continued to promote the Grand Prix Formula One and Casino in Monte Carlo as its prime attractions. The Formula One will be held in Monaco at the end of May this year. I hope visitors from Indonesia will come and see it. (ebf)

Exploring opportunities: Delegates from the Czech Republic, France and Monaco visited Medan in North Sumatra on April 19.(JP/Nurni Sulaiman)
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Linkedin Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 17:38 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea362ec 1 National Earth-Day,underwater-cleanup,underwater-clean-up,underwater-garbage,underwater-trash,#EarthDay,Kupang,East-Nusa-Tenggara Free

Fourteen divers conducted an underwater cleanup in Kupang Bay, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, to celebrate Earth Day, which falls on April 22.

During the event, divers from the Indonesian Navy (TNI AL), the Sawu Sea Waters Conservation Agency (BKKPN), the Kupang Search and Rescue Agency and the Flobamora Diving Club collected considerable amounts of underwater garbage from the area.

This underwater cleanup is conducted in honor of Earth Day, which we will celebrate tomorrow [Saturday]. TNI AL and all stakeholders are committed to cleaning up coastal areas across East Nusa Tenggara, Kupang Naval Main Base (Lantamal) deputy commander Col. Fransiscus Herman told journalists on Friday.

He said it was the first underwater cleanup conducted in East Nusa Tenggara. It aimed to send a message that it was important for them to keep coastal areas clean.

Fransiscus said the divers managed to collect 50 kilograms of trash, which was dominated by plastic waste.

Fransiscus said at a previous event, TNI AL worked together with the Kupang administration to clean up the Oeba fish auction port (PPI), in which they managed to collect about 4,000 kilograms of trash.

BKKPN Sawu head Ikran Sangadji said the underwater cleanup was aimed at reminding Indonesia and the world to protect beaches and seas.

This movement is the start of the revolution for a Clean Indonesia that has been mandated in Presidential Instruction No.12/2017, he said. (ebf)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21 2017

Malaysian Felda Investment Corporation (FIC) Properties Sdn Bhd, a special purpose vehicle of the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda), has acquired 37 percent of the shares of PT Eagle High Plantation, owned by Peter Sondakhs Rajawali Group.

We hope this partnership will further cement stronger bilateral ties between Malaysia and Indonesia to move forward the agenda of the recently established Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries [CPOPC], of which both countries are founding members, Rajawali Group managing director Satrio Tjai said in a statement on Thursday.

Eagle High is one of the largest oil palm plantations in Indonesia. It has a 320,000-hectare land bank, which is about 4.4 times the size of Singapore. Of that, 125,000 ha have already been planted.

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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 07:15 2028 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea0d7b0 1 National Philippines,exclusive-economic-zone,illegal-fishing Free

The government is hoping to combat illegal fishing and protect Indonesian fishermen with the ratification of a maritime agreement between Indonesia and the Philippines, a ministry official has said.

The ratification of the maritime agreement on an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) signed in 2014 would delineate clear boundaries between Indonesia and the Philippines in the Mindanao Sea and Celebes Sea, Reza Shah Pahlevi, the director of fisheries management at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry said.

"Such a clear boundary will make it easier for us to take strict action when we find Filipino fishermen operating in our waters. It will also provide legal certainty for our fishermen, especially in determining the areas where they can operate," he said during a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense and foreign affairs on Tuesday.

In the hearing, the government and the House agreed to ratify the three-year-old agreement next week.

Citing 2015 data, Reza said at least 107,182 Indonesian fishermen and 152 Indonesian vessels with a capacity of 30 gross tons and above were operating in the waters off North Sulawesi, which had a diverse fisheries potential of 478 million tons per year that should be protected.

Up to April this year, the ministry's directorate general of marine resources supervision had reportedly arrested four vessels with a capacity of 1 to 2 gross tons belonging to Filipino fishermen who entered Indonesia's territory. (rin)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 18:08 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea392f1 1 National landslide,landslides,Southeast-Aceh,aceh,#Aceh,natural-disaster,natural-calamities Free

Evacuees of landslides and flash floods hitting Semadan and Lawe Sigala Gala districts in the Southeast Aceh regency, Aceh, are hoping for clothing aid because they do not have clothes for everyday use anymore.

Please help us, Sir, we do not have clothes for everyday use. Our houses have been swept away by flash floods, said Risma boru Simarmata, 45, an evacuee in Lawe Kesumpat village, Lawe Sigala Gala, on Friday, as quoted by Antara.

The Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) states the disasters, which occurred on April 11, have swept away 183 houses and caused severe damages to 47 houses while 208 houses were lightly damaged.

It further says 1,765 people from 460 families must evacuate as they have lost their houses but most of them opt to stay temporarily with their relatives. Two residents reportedly died in the natural disasters.

(Read also: Social affairs minister posts first vlog entry)

Risma said 10 days after the natural disasters hit 14 villages in the two districts, clothing aid provided for the victims was minimal. The assistance should be in the form of school uniforms, school stationery, sarongs and clothing for everyday use."

BPBD Southeast Aceh secretary Muhammad Nur Hasan Bangko said humanitarian assistance for the landslide and flash flood victims was mostly in form of staple foods such as rice, eggs, instant noodles, mineral water and also medicine.

Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah said the illegal logging practices caused adverse effects for the people who live in forests and near river stream areas. I think the flash floods in Southeast Aceh are a result of such practices." (mrc/ebf)
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Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 13:28 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea27f05 1 Business Bandung-Jakarta,high-speed-railway,ridwan-kamil,comments Free

The mayor of West Javas provincial capital of Bandung, Ridwan Kamil, has said that the construction of the high-speed railway connecting Bandung and Jakarta is set to be completed in 2020, a year later than initially planned.

"I have met [President Joko Jokowi Widodo], who indicated that the railway would be operational in 2020," he said on Thursday.

The ground-breaking ceremony for the railway, which is being constructed in cooperation with the Chinese government, was held in January 2016, but the US$5.9 billion project got off to a slow start. Construction was initially to start in late August.

(Read also: Indonesia might see high-speed rail costs swell amid changes)

Officials said a Chinese funding company would not disburse the funds for the 142-kilometer railway project as long as the land acquisition process had not finished.

The mayor, who is popularly called Emil, confirmed that land acquisition was one of the problems.

The government has given the Indonesian-Chinese joint venture, Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), a fixed concession period of 50 years starting on May 31, 2019, the initial deadline for the completion of the project.

Previously, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said he could understand the difficulties faced by the developer. "When people want to invest [in the country], we shouldn't be too harsh with them," he said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya, East Java  Fri, April 21, 2017 17:21 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea34bda 1 National corruption,Dahlan-Iskan,#DahlanIskan Free

Surabaya corruption court on Friday sentenced former state-owned enterprise minister Dahlan Iskan to two years in prison for his role in selling 33 assets belonging to East Java province-owned company PT Panca Wira Usaha.

The court also asked the media tycoon to either pay a Rp 100 million fine or serve an additional two months imprisonment.

The defendant has been proven to have carried out the corruption as written in the secondary accusation, said Tahsin the presiding judges during the verdict hearing.

The corruption convict was given the opportunity to consult with his lawyers, according to the court.

I want to file an appeal, your Highness, Dahlan said, adding that his supporters at the court were disappointed with the verdict.

(Read also: Dahlan Iskans pretrial motion rejected)

Previously, prosecutors sought a six-year prison sentence and a Rp 750 million fine for Dahlan Iskan, as well as requiring him to pay up to Rp 8.3 billion in compensation to the government. (hol/dan)
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Linkedin Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 20:45 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea415b4 1 National #LandReform,LandReform Free

The Indonesian government has urged regional administrations across the country to accelerate the implementation of the agrarian reform program by strengthening coordination with relevant agencies, an official of the Home Ministry said.

Home Ministrys human resources development bureau head Teguh Setiabudi, said on Friday that governors and mayors had played a crucial role in supporting the program by improving their communication with related parties, such as land, forestry and housing agencies.

Many land conflicts are left unresolved due to the lack of coordination among the agencies that manage agrarian issues. It is better [for regional heads] to strengthen communication with relevant agencies to further efforts to resolve land conflicts, Teguh said during a discussion on agrarian conflicts.

(Read also: Agrarian reform to end control over land)

Locals, including tribespeople, often become entangled in land conflicts in part due to widespread double claims over land ownership, as well as forced land deprivation in support of the interest of industries such as timber and palm oil.

Teguh said land conflicts had been reported to regional heads, who had insufficient data to support the settlement process. This was partly due to the reluctance of land agencies to be transparent in providing the required data, such as right-to-cultivate permits (HGU) owned by plantation companies.

They [regional heads] should be given greater access to data so they can fully understand the roots of the problem regarding land conflicts, Teguh said. (dan)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 07:30 2028 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea0e369 1 National MURI,quran,YasonnaLaoly,penitentiary Free

More than 50,000 inmates currently being held in prisons across the country simultaneously took part in khatam, or reciting the Quran from beginning to end, on Thursday, strengthening their faith while also breaking a record at the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI).

The event saw 57,360 inmates in 450 penitentiaries spread across the country recite the Quran.

Centered at the Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta, the event was livestreamed and screened on a large videotron.

MURI founder Jaya Suprana handed over the award to Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly in front of hundreds of inmates wearing white attire and white caps.

Yasonna said the inmates inside the prisons had made mistakes that everybody was capable of making.

We must see them as human beings. We have to empower them, not destroy them, he said.

The event was held in collaboration with Nusantara Mengaji, a movement that promotes people reciting the Quran. Nusantara Mengaji is helmed by Muhaimin Iskandar, the chairman of the National Awakening Party.

Yasonna said the program could show the public that even people who were serving time in prison could practice religion solemnly. (dis)

Topics : MURI quran YasonnaLaoly penitentiary
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 14:35 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea296e1 1 City jakarta,traffic-management,odd-even-license-traffic-policy Free

The Jakarta Police re-imposed the odd-even license plate policy on the Semanggi-Kuningan section of Jl. Gatot Subroto on Friday after the completion of a construction project at Pancoran in South Jakarta.

The policy was temporarily suspended by the police and the Jakarta Transportation Agency to prevent further congestion on Jl. Gatot Subroto caused by the construction of the Pancoran overpass and the Kuningan underpass.

The police re-implemented the policy as the construction of a detour road in front of the Air Force base in Pancoran, South Jakarta, had been completed, said Adj. Sr. Comr. Budiyanto, the head of law enforcement at the Jakarta Police traffic unit on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Several traffic engineering projects had been initiated to ease the worsened traffic congestion in the area, apart from the construction of the detour road in Pancoran, such as the closure of the inner-city toll road exit ramp in Tebet and an extended traffic light duration at the Pancoran intersection. (kuk)
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Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura, Papua  Fri, April 21, 2017 21:31 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea4432c 1 National kartini,Kartini-day,patrilineal-system,Papua,women-in-politics,women-empowerment,#Papua Free

The struggle of Kartini, a young female hero who strove to release Indonesian women from old-fashioned traditions, must be followed by women in Papua, where local communities still adopt a strict patriarchal system.

Papuan women should not let themselves be shackled by old-fashioned traditions. It doesnt mean we should no longer adhere to our customs and traditions. But what should happen is that our traditions must become our motor to keep moving forward, said Jacoba Lokbere, a Papua Legislative Council member from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), in Jayapura on Friday.

The lawmaker further said many Papuan women were still shackled by old-fashioned traditions, such as marriage at a young age, because there was a common belief there that once a woman got her period, she was ready to get married. Youth marriage was common especially in remote villages with poor access to information and communications.

It is still widely considered that womens sole responsibilities are to give birth to their children, tackle housework and work in plantations. Only men are allowed to work outside the home, said Jacoba, in her statement on the commemoration of Kartini Day on April 21.

The female Papuan politician said she could release herself from the adoption of old-fashioned traditions because of her strong will to see more Indonesian women having a successful career in various fields, but without forgetting the support of their families.

Families play a great role in releasing a woman from the adoption of old-fashioned traditions, she said. (ebf)

Equal rights: US Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph Donovan (right, wearing brown batik shirt) attends the International Women's Day celebration at Hamadi Beach in Jayapura, Papua, recently. (JP/Nethy Dharma Somba)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 14:57 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea2a174 1 National Semarang,counterfeit,counterfeit-money,fake-money,Central-Java,police,#counterfeit Free

Semarang Police in Central Java arrested an alleged counterfeiter of the Rp 50,000 and Rp 100,000 denominations of the new banknotes following reports from local people.

Semarang Police chief Sr.Comr. Abiyoso Seno Aji said the alleged forger, identified only with by his initials, WH, was 50 years old and a resident of Semarang. During his arrest, the police confiscated Rp 600 million (US$45,055) worth of fake banknotes that were apparently ready to be distributed.

The [alleged] perpetrator was a former convict charged with fake money distribution and sentenced by the court in a trial in 2007, said Abiyoso as quoted by Antara on Thursday.

Abiyoso said some pieces of equipment such as a laptop, a printer and silk-screening tools were confiscated from a rented house on Jl. Pedurungan, Semarang. He claimed the silk-screening tools were used to make raw layers and safety ribbons for the banknotes. After the copying was completed, the money was printed on HVS papers and banknote masters.

Rp 20 million worth fake banknotes could be produced in a single print run, Abiyoso said. A second person was needed as a courier to help distribute the fake money. Two other men and a woman were also taken into custody.

The banknotes were circulated by using them to buy things from street vendors. The vendors then gave change in real money, said Abiyoso, who added that the Rp 5 million of the counterfeit money was also sometimes directly exchanged for Rp 1.2 million in real banknotes. (mrc/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 16:20 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea30c33 1 Business OCBC-NISP,private-banking-service Free

Private lender OCBC NISP Bank, the local unit of a Singapore banking corporation, plans to launch a private banking service in May after the bank received a license to do so from the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Private banking, personalized financial and banking services, is traditionally offered to very wealthy clients.

Ka Jit, the OCBC NISPs individual customer solution head, said on Thursday that the bank, as of March, had gained Rp 8 trillion (US$600.24 million) in repatriation funds from the participants of Indonesia's nine-month-long tax amnesty.

He said that the funds would be distributed to government bonds, corporate bonds and capital markets.

The most visible distribution is to government bonds. We are also in progress of distributing them to corporate bonds, Ka said.

He said the bank had cooperated with securities company PT OCBC Sekuritas Indonesia to distribute the funds in the capital market and were seeking cooperation with other securities companies.

We are supported by the central OCBC group for initiation of the private banking [service], especially in developing its human resources. So the services relationship managers will later be trained by our group, Ka said.

Although more than Rp 1 quadrillion worth of foreign assets was declared during the amnesty, only Rp 147 trillion in funds stashed abroad were repatriated, according to tax office data. (yon/bbn)
The past few months have been a long and arduous period for Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who has been mired in a blasphemy case following several large-scale street rallies demanding his imprisonment and dismissal.

His predicament culminated on Wednesday, when his political rival, Anies Baswedan, defeated him in the Jakarta gubernatorial election by riding a wave of growing religious conservatism.

Directly after his loss, Ahok was forced to sit through another court hearing in order to listen to the prosecutors demands on Thursday.

This time, however, he could breathe a sigh of relief after prosecutors decided to drop blasphemy charges against him.

During the hearing, the prosecutors demanded the North Jakarta District Court sentence him to two years probation if found guilty of violating Article 156 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on showing animosity toward others. This is a far cry from the five years maximum imprisonment for blasphemy, as stipulated in Article 156a of the KUHP.

Should Ahok violate the probation, he should be sentenced to one year in prison, the prosecutors said.

We demand the judges rule two years probation and one year of imprisonment if the probation is broken prosecutor Ali Mukar-tono said.

Initially, the prosecutors built their case against Ahok on the grounds that he insulted Islam by quoting Surah Al Maidah 51, a Quranic verse often used by certain Muslim conservative political groups to urge Muslims to vote only for political candidates who share the same faith.

But on Thursday, they admitted they could not prove Ahok had insulted Islam as a whole, but only individual Muslims.

Therefore, the prosecutors decided to withdraw their accusation that Ahok had violated Article 156a of the KUHP, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison upon conviction.

Furthermore, the prosecutors said Ahok had been cooperative during the legal process.

Also, they added that the contributions he made to develop the capital during his service as governor were a mitigating factor.

However, the prosecutors said Ahok was still guilty of showing animosity toward Muslims who believed that Surah Al Maidah 51 instructed them not to choose non-Muslims as leaders.

The prosecutors argued since Al Maidah 51 had various interpretations, even among Muslims, Ahok was at fault because he acted as if he knew the correct understanding of the verse.

They claimed that when Ahok said Thousand Islands residents could be deceived by some of the interpretations of Surah Al Maidah 51, Ahok had not only insulted Muslims who had a different view to him, but also Thousand Islands residents, who are mostly Muslim.

The defendant acted as if his interpretation is correct and said people who believe other interpretations were being tricked, prosecutor Ardito Muwardi said.

Nevertheless, Ahok was not the only one to blame in the case, the prosecutors said.

They cited Buni Yani, now a hate-speech suspect, who uploaded an edited video of Ahoks speech to his Facebook account with a misleading transcription.

That video led to public uproar and the governors blasphemy charges, the prosecutors said.

Pedri Kasman, the secretary of Muhammadiyahs youth wing, who reported Ahok for blasphemy to the police, said he believed the prosecutors were biased.

This legal process was in vain as it has been interfered with by parties with power, he said.
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Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Papua  Fri, April 21, 2017 10:24 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea1ea94 1 National WhaleShark,#WhaleSharks,Papua,WWF,WWF-Indonesia,conservation,ProtectedSpecies,protected-animals Free

A research team from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia reveals that the population of whale sharks in Cenderawasih Bay, Papua, is quite large, amounting to 135 individuals.

Only four out of the total population are female, however, said Evi Nurul Ihsan, WWF Indonesias monitoring and surveillance officer for Cenderawasih Bay in Kwatisore, Nabire, Papua, last week.

Such a situation has also occurred in other places, such as in the Philippines and other parts of the world, he said, adding the causes remained a mystery of the global research on whale shark populations.

Together with other whale shark observers, Evi recorded their numbers by using underwater photographic devices. They took pictures of scratches and white freckles behind the left and right gills of the whale sharks for identification purposes because each of them has a different pattern. They also recorded their size and sex.

Based on satellite monitoring results, the migration area of the whale sharks is quite large, Evi said. They not only moved within Cenderawasih Bay National Park waters but also reached the northern waters of West Papua that directly connect to the Pacific Ocean.

But they will always return to the national park. Hence, its existence is important for the whale sharks, said Evi.

Whale sharks also can be found in waters around Alor and Flores in East NusaTenggara and around Bali, Maluku, North Sulawesi, Papua, Sabang in Aceh and Situbondo in East Java. In Probolinggo, East Java, the presence of whale sharks is seasonal. But in Papua, they appear throughout the year, said Evi. (ebf)

Protected species: A whale shark moves in waters in Cenderawasih Bay, Papua. (JP/Arya Dipa)
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Linkedin Haeril Halim, Liza Yosephine and Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21 2017

From trade barriers to a spat between Indonesia and United States mining giant Freeport McMoRan, President Joko Jokowi Widodo and visiting US Vice President Mike Pence got down to brass tacks in their meeting on Thursday.

In a one-hour courtesy call to Jokowi, Pence had a one-on-one chat over tea with the President on the veranda of the State Palace with no ministers or officials in tow.

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Linkedin Haeril Halim, Liza Yosephine and Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 09:15 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea170f1 2 National US,Jokowi,Joko-Widodo,Mike-Pence,#MikePence,vice-president,FreeportIndonesia,Freeport-Indonesia Free

From trade barriers to a spat between Indonesia and United States mining giant Freeport McMoRan, President Joko Jokowi Widodo and visiting US Vice President Mike Pence got down to brass tacks in their meeting on Thursday.

In a one-hour courtesy call to Jokowi, Pence had a one-on-one chat over tea with the President on the veranda of the State Palace with no ministers or officials in tow.

Pence is the first member of US President Donald Trumps administration to visit Southeast Asia.

The President sent me here as a sign of high value the US places on our strategic partnerships with Indonesia, said Pence.

Pence took the time to clarify the inclusion of Indonesia this month on the list of 16 countries that had contributed significantly to the US accumulating trade imbalances.

Under President Trumps leadership, the US seeks a trade relationship that is both free and fair for job creation and economic growth for both parties, as President Widodo has said so often, we are looking for win-win relationships and we are confident that we can find them, said Pence.

We believe we must level the playing field, break down barriers to ensure that American exporters can fully participate in the Indonesian market, the same freedom that Indonesian exporters have had in many sectors in the US for many years.

Pence went on to say that the US expected progress for the objectives in the coming weeks.

Indonesia is in 15th place on Trumps trade hit list, with a trade surplus of US$13 billion over the US -- Indonesias biggest export destination with a 12 percent share.

Apparel and clothing accessories accounted for the biggest share of exports to the US in 2015, according to the International Trade Centers Trade Map.

Indonesias main imports from the US, meanwhile, are machinery, mechanical appliances, and power generation boilers.

Economically, President Trump and I seek to expand the US commercial relationship with Indonesia. And the President and I spoke about that very openly today and we look forward to those discussions continuing, said Pence.

In response to the US demand for greater access, Jokowi said a team would resolve trade and investment issues with the US next month. The solution should be based on the win-win principle, Jokowi said.

The President also said the US was committed to improving the US-Indonesia Strategic Partnership sealed in 2011 by focusing more on the investments of US companies in Indonesia.

Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said the President had also made an effort to convince Pence to accept Indonesias rationale to demand Freeport divest 51 percent of its shares in its local unit that operated the worlds biggest gold deposit.

The talks between the President and Pence were pleasant. Pence is very satisfied with the Presidents explanation that Indonesia demands more shares from Freeport, Luhut said after a meeting with Jokowi.

Freeport is Indonesias oldest foreign investor. Since commencing operations more than five decades ago, Freeport has been perceived by many Indonesian politicians and activists as a symbol of US economic imperialism in Indonesia.

Pence did not publicly mention Freeport, but only made a general statement about US companies operating in Indonesia.

American companies have been doing business in Indonesia for years and American products and services contributed greatly to Indonesias economic development. But, we believe we still have room for significant progress.

The US was Indonesias seventh-biggest investor last year, according to Indonesias Foreign Ministry.

Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) chairman Thomas Lem-bong said talks with his US counterpart next month would seek to reevaluate current economic relations, noting that Pences visit came at the right time, placing attention on new industries, especially technology and services.

Aside from business issues, Pence also took the time to explore ways to strengthen defense partnership to confront various security threats, including terrorism.

Sadly, Indonesia is no stranger to this evil, nor is the US, he said.

As the largest Muslim-majority country, Indonesias modern Islam frankly is an inspiration to the world.

In terms of regional peace, Pence said the US would work with Indonesia to defend the rulebased system that was the foundation of Southeast Asias peace and prosperity. The US will uphold the fundamental freedoms of navigation and over flight in the South China Sea and throughout the Asia Pacific. Well ensure the unimpeded flow of lawful commerce and promote peaceful diplomatic dialogue to address issues of regional and global concern.

After the meeting with Jokowi, Pence held bilateral talks with Vice President Jusuf Kalla for less than 30 minutes.

Pence and Kalla are slated to witness the signing of agreements worth $8 billion between state energy company Pertamina and US ExxonMobil, as well as state power company PLN with Pacific Intra Capital Pacific LLC during Fridays business forum.
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Linkedin News Desk (Associated Press) Moscow  Fri, April 21, 2017 17:41 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea36621 2 World #KoreanPeninsula,US,Russia,#Russia Free

Russian authorities are denying reports that they are moving troops to the border with North Korea over growing tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The Interfax news agency on Friday quoted Alexander Gordeyev, spokesman for the Far Eastern Military district, as saying that the movement of heavy weaponry, caught on film and widely distributed on social media, is part of "absolutely scheduled maneuvers of combat readiness." Gordeyev said the military hardware was on its way back from drills elsewhere and denied any connection to the tensions around North Korea's nuclear program.

In Moscow, first deputy chairman of the defense committee at the Federation Council Frants Klintsevich told RIA Novosti the movement was pre-planned and dismissed reports suggesting Russia was preparing for a possible U.S. attack on North Korea as speculation.
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Linkedin Vivian Salama (Associated Press) Washington  Fri, April 21, 2017 08:00 2028 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea0fabb 2 World DonaldTrump,Donald-Trump,Libya,US,Italy,Afghanistan,#Italy,Italian-Prime-Minister-Paolo-Gentiloni,Paolo-Gentiloni Free

President Donald Trump on Thursday hailed Italy's contributions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its efforts seeking stability in Libya, but dismissed the possibility of US intervention in that country, saying the US has "enough roles."

After a White House meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Trump stuck to his demand that European allies meet their financial obligations in their partnerships with the US, including NATO. He urged Italy to address the refugee crisis through a policy that "seeks the eventual return of refugees to their home countries so they can help to rebuild their own nations."

Gentiloni, who took office in December, stressed the need for burden-sharing in the refugee crisis, given Italy's proximity to Libya, where large numbers of migrants take the risky voyage across the Mediterranean to reach Europe.

Trump was quick to dismiss the notion that the US would get involved in Libya, telling a joint news conference, "I do not see a role in Libya."

"We have enough roles. We have a role everywhere," Trump said.

Gentiloni noted Italy and America's "common commitment against terrorism." He said it requires social and economic collaboration with Muslim communities to be effective.

He said that despite budgetary limitations, Italy was committed to increase its defense spending from 1 percent of gross domestic product to 2 percent  the threshold that Trump has called for all NATO members to adhere to. Trump has complained that the United States contributes more to the military alliance than it receives.

"We are used to respecting our commitments," Gentiloni said.

Trump plans to attend a NATO meeting in Belgium next month before attending a summit of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations. Italy will host the summit, and Gentiloni can shape the agenda on behalf of European leaders wary of Trump's position on some long-standing agreements.

Trump has already pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact with 11 Asian and Pacific nations he said was "a disaster." This week he said he would make "some very big changes" to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico or "we are going to get rid of NAFTA for once and for all."

Gentiloni has been strongly critical of protectionist trade policies shielding a country's domestic industries from foreign competition by taxing imports. Italy has suffered sluggish economic growth and was a staunch backer of a proposed US-European free trade agreement negotiated by the Obama administration.

Trump favors bilateral trade deals and has used trade as a tool for pressuring countries to do more on national security matters. That was evident most recently with his public statements promising China a "better" trade arrangement if Beijing cracks down on North Korea.

Thursday's US-Italy meeting took place against a backdrop of high uncertainty in Europe, following Britain's decision to leave the European Union and the upcoming French presidential election  the first round of voting is Sunday.

Like Trump, anti-establishment French populist Marine Le Pen hopes for an electoral boost by seizing on voter disenchantment with politics as usual. The EU has been a constant target, and Le Pen has called for a referendum similar to last year's Brexit vote.

__

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Linkedin Winda A. Charmila (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21 2017

Despite the scorching sun, Suprizal, 35, could barely contain his excitement as he prepared to plant vegetables and herbs for local residents in his neighborhood in Palmerah, West Jakarta.

Along with his neighbors, Suprizal planted the crops on a 160-square-meter plot of land, whose owner had asked a community unit (RT) head to utilize it.

All the plants are organic. We use compost and do not use pesticide, he said.

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A man who killed a police officer on the Champs-Elysees Thursday night was known to French security services for radical Islamist activities and had shot and wounded an officer in the past, a source close to the investigation told CNN.

The suspect, who was shot dead by French police, was the subject of a "Fiche S" surveillance file and was on the radar of the French domestic security service DGSI, the source said.

The man was a French national who shot two officers in 2001 after being stopped by a police car, the source said. He was taken into custody but while being questioned grabbed another officer's gun and shot him three times, the source said. He was convicted in that attack and had a criminal record because of involvement in violent robberies, the source said.

The source said French investigators now believe this was in all likelihood a terrorist attack. They believe there was just one attacker, and the danger is likely over, the source said.

ISIS issued a statement saying an Islamic State "fighter" carried out the attack. The ISIS claim comes via a statement released by the group's media wing, Amaq. The ISIS statement said the attacker was a Belgian national and cited "security sources."

CNN could not independently confirm that claim.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said he will reveal the shooter's identity on Friday at a news conference. He said officers are searching the man's residence in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, a Paris suburb, and are trying to determine if he had accomplices.

The shooting has not officially been declared a terrorist act but anti-terrorist forces are leading the investigation, French President Francois Hollande said.

"The people who were present have been evacuated and we are convinced that the leads which point us to this case, and which will allow us to uncover the truth, are of a terrorist nature," he said.

Elections on Sunday

The shooting happened about 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) when a car stopped at 102 Champs-Elysees in front of a police van, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre Henry Brandet said.

A man emerged from the car and opened fire on the van with an "automatic weapon," killing one officer instantly, he said. The man "then ran away, managing to shoot and wound two other policemen. Other policemen engaged and shot and killed the attacker," Brandet said.

The slain officer was 30 years old, Molin said. One of the wounded officers was critically injured but is improving, he said. Also wounded was a female tourist.

The shooting shut down the famed Champs-Elysees, one of Paris' top tourist attractions and home to the iconic Arc de Triomphe monument. The avenue was clear of residents and tourists but teeming with security officers Thursday night.

It comes three days before French voters start elections for a new president. Candidates went ahead with a debate Thursday night.

France has been in a state of emergency since the 2015 Paris attacks, which left 130 people dead. Parliament voted in December to extend the extraordinary provisions to ensure the protection of upcoming presidential and general elections.

Security has been tight because of the vote. Just two days ago French authorities arrested two men in Marseille who were allegedly planning an attack in a run-up to the election.

At least three underground train stations of the Paris Metro -- the Champs-Elysees-Clemenceau, George V and F. Roosevelt stations -- have been "closed off" near the site of the police operation on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, BFMTV reported.

Trump: 'What can you say?'

Paris resident Daoud Kal, 29, said he was walking in the area near a metro station when he heard four to five shots. He looked around, but couldn't identify where the shots were coming from. People panicked and ran away from the scene and he joined them.

The CNN Paris bureau is on this street and staffers reported hearing a dozen shots. At least 20 police vehicles were seen on the street.

Officers could be seen forcibly removing innocent citizens from the area as they attempted to get them to safety.

President Donald Trump, speaking at a news conference in Washington with the visiting Italian Prime Minister, offered condolences to the people of France after the shooting, saying it "looks like another terrorist attack."

"What can you say? It never ends," the President said.

The Champs-Elysees is a main road lined with restaurants, cafes, exclusive designer boutiques and tourist shops. At one end is the Arc de Triomphe, surrounded by a several-lane-wide roundabout, and the other end stops at the Place de la Concorde, known for its obelisk monument.

The presidential palace, the Elysee, is a few blocks away.

French police tweeted, "Police intervention underway in the area of the #ChampsElysees avoid the sector and follow the instructions of the police forces."

French candidates respond

The US State Department put out a cautionary tweet, saying: "If you're in #Paris, monitor local news. #ChampsElysees has been closed. Authorities are telling people to avoid the area after a shooting."

The shooting comes three days before French general elections and Paris was already in a state of heightened alert. French politicians immediately reacted on social media.

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen tweeted, "My emotions and solidarity for the police, once again targeted."

Conservative French presidential hopeful Francois Fillon tweeted, "Paying homage to police who give their lives to protect ours, #ChampsElysees."

Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve tweeted: "Paying homage to the policeman killed on the champs elysees. Thoughts are with his family. Solidarity with his injured colleagues and those close to them."

Former French President Nicola Sarkozy's tweeted: "To our law enforcement: support, strength, courage. They are paying again a heavy price. Our Nation's tribute must be total NS"

CNN's Pierre Buet in Paris and Julia Jones, Hamdi Alkhshali, Emanuella Grinberg and Nadeem Muaddi in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 16:55 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea31e74 1 Business Mike-Pence,visit,energy,agreement Free

Indonesia and the United States signed US$10 billion worth of agreements on trade and investment in a ceremony attended by Vice President Jusuf Kalla and his US counterpart Mike Pence in Jakarta on Friday.

A majority of the deals were in the energy sector, including a $6 billion deal between US-based ExxonMobil and state-owned oil and gas giant PT Pertamina to provide liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the latter for 20 years starting in 2025.

Furthermore, state-owned electricity firm PT PLN and US-based Pacific Infra Capital LLC signed a $2 billion deal to implement an advanced metering infrastructure system in Indonesia.

(Read also: RI, US seek win-win solution to thorny trade issues)

Pence said that US companies saw tremendous potential in the Southeast Asia region, especially in Indonesia, which was touted as the heart.

Today, on President Trumps behalf, I have the honor, with American and Indonesian businesses, as they signed historic agreements which bring jobs and opportunities. All total no fewer than 11 major deals worth more than $10 billion dollars and its happening today, he said during the ceremony.

Based on data provided by the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), the US invested US$1.16 billion in 540 projects in Indonesia throughout 2016

Pence said both Indonesia and the US could improve their trade relations, as American exports had fallen more than 30 percent in the last four years.

American businesses are ready and willing to drive Indonesias growth to a greater extent. As President Jokowi [Joko Widodo] and I discussed yesterday, he said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 06:23 2028 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea0ccb4 1 National Mike-Pence,Pence,#MikePence,ASEAN,DonaldTrump,Donald-Trump,foreign-policy,Jokowi Free

United States Vice President Mike Pence made his maiden visit to the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on Thursday, amid expectations of a clearer US foreign policy stance for the region.

ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh greeted the Republican vice president, who earlier on Thursday made a courtesy call to President Joko Jokowi Widodo at the State Palace and held talks on bilateral ties with Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

The US second-in-commands visit to ASEAN was the first since the new US administration was sworn in on Jan. 20. It was also the first visit of a US high-ranking official at ASEAN headquarters in Jakarta after former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited during Cambodia's ASEAN chairmanship in 2012.

Outgoing Indonesian permanent representative to ASEAN, Rahmat Pramono told The Jakarta Post prior to the visit that Pence was set to speak privately with Secretary General Le before holding a 30-minute dialogue with ASEANs Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR), as requested by both parties.

We want [the US] commitments to ASEAN on issues like South China Sea disputes and tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Rahmat said.

He said the CPR, which engaged in the day-to-day dealings of formulating ASEAN's stance on a wide array of issues, would also convey its hope in the meeting that US President Donald Trump would be able to attend the next ASEAN Summit later this year. (ebf)
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Linkedin Arif Gunawan Sulistiyono (The Jakarta Post) Washington  Fri, April 21, 2017 13:25 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea27b9f 1 Business AIIB,World-Bank,IMF,Spring-Meetings,China Free

The World Bank is getting more eager to expand its cooperation with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to help accelerate global development.

The AIIB initiative was officially launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping on a state visit to Indonesia in October 2013 and it signed several memorandums of understanding with the World Bank during the 2017 spring meetings in Washington.

China is now taking leadership in world development. I think it is impressive. China has been stepping out, illustrating that it has concerns about development, not just in neighboring countries but also globally, World Bank Group president Jim Yong-kim said during a press conference on Thursday.

He said that the World Bank had partnered with the AIIB to co-finance two major Indonesian projects. He did not elaborate on the projects. We have a very close working relationship with the Chinese government and the AIIB, he said.

The AIIB, located in Beijing, aims to promote regional cooperation in addressing development challenges by working with other multilateral and bilateral development institutions. It is expected to advance sustainable economic development and to improve infrastructure in Asia.
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Linkedin Noke Kiroyan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 22 2017

Call me naive, not nationalist enough, or both for not joining the cacophony of mainstream condemnation of what is perceived as deliberate moves to hamper Indonesian economic growth by restricting the consumption of a major export commodity.

I am referring to the recent and still ongoing uproar about the European Parliaments resolution to reduce the use of palm oil that is not produced according to sustainability principles.

In my view, calling it a trade war may be an oversimplification and calling for retaliation may not be that easy nor practical because some of the items that would be included in the retaliatory measures may not be readily substituted.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Balikpapan  Sat, April 22 2017

Hundreds of Indonesian workers who were deported from Malaysia arrived at Tunon Taka Port in Nunukan on Friday.

As many as 470 Indonesian workers were deported by the Malaysian government for various violations on Thursday through Tawau, Sabah.

There is one person with HIV, one who suffers from strokes and others who violated immigration laws, like having incomplete documents or expired permits, border officer Lt. Col. Sigid Hengki Purwanto said on Friday.

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Linkedin News Desk (Vientiane Times/ANN) Vientiane  Fri, April 21, 2017 16:02 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea2e87e 2 SE Asia #ASEAN,ASEAN,labor,Laos,#labor,#Laos Free

Concrete measures to assist more people to access decent employment opportunities were on the agenda for discussion as senior labor officials from the governments of ten ASEAN member states met on Thursday in the Laos capital.

They met to develop a regional action plan on the Vientiane Declaration on Transition from Informal Employment to Formal Employment towards Decent Work Promotion in ASEAN adopted during the 28th and 29th ASEAN Summits in September 2016 in Vientiane.

The meeting was attended by Laos Ministry of Labor and Social Welfares deputy director of planning and international cooperation Chomyaeng Phengthongsawat and officials, along with counterparts from across South-East Asia.

The Vientiane Declaration is considered a significant vehicle to facilitate contributions and coordinating support towards realization of the ASEAN Vision 2016-2025 and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 of United Nations.

In support of the Declaration, the regional action plan is set to outline various steps required to promote sustainable economic growth, employment, labor productivity and decent work with the aim to strengthen lifelong learning, skills development plus public-private partnerships for training and re-training of workers.

Collaboration is sought with the private sector to foment innovation, diversification of business, labor skills and new knowledge for the labor force and registered business sectors.

This is sought in order to create favorable conditions for income generation contributing to poverty elimination in ASEAN region.

Creating opportunities for more employment in formal sectors as well as addressing the imbalance in development between urban and rural areas are considered key focus areas.

Transition from Informal Employment to Formal Employment towards Decent Work Promotion in ASEAN will promote effective and sound policy and mechanism to support production activities, facilitating employment, promoting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises development including accessibility to financial service, Chomyaeng told the audience.

Besides, the main objective is to protect benefits of workers in informal sectors with regard to security, working environment for workers including migrant workers, especially women and those working in risky and hazardous environments to be able to access necessary treatment and secure a basic income, ensure well-being of workers, take into consideration benefits of workers as first priority he said.

According to the Vientiane Declaration, state signatories are committed to strive towards elimination of forced labor, child labor, violence at the workplace and all forms of discrimination including gender inequality.

They also agreed promote joint work and sharing of best practices and methodologies among ASEAN Member States and possibly with Dialogue Partners in assessing the factors, characteristics and circumstances of informality in employment in respective national contexts.

Together they vowed to collaborate on inputs to the design and implementation of laws, policies and other measures aiming to facilitate the transition from informal employment to formal employment in all economic sectors, particularly in rural and remote areas.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), informal economy comprises half to three-quarters of all non-agricultural employment in developing countries, with women, migrants and other marginalized groups more likely to rely on such employment.

Characteristic features of informal employment are lack of protection in the event of non-payment of wages, compulsory overtime or extra shifts, lay-offs without notice or compensation, unsafe working conditions and the absence of social benefits such as pensions, sick pay and health insurance.

This article appeared on Vientiane Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Matthew Pennington and Ken Thomas (Associated Press) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 16:20 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea30943 2 SE Asia Pence,#USVicePresident Free

Southeast Asia, a focus of past U.S. presidents, has been overlooked thus far for the Trump administration, but Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Indonesia Thursday marked a sign of change and he announced the president would follow him to the region later this year.

Anxious Southeast Asian governments are looking for America's commitment to counter China's economic and military clout. Vietnam's foreign minister is in Washington this week, and the top diplomats of the region's 10-nation bloc are expected to arrive en masse in early May, amid concerns their interests were being crowded out as President Donald Trump prioritizes Mideast counterterrorism, traditional alliances in Europe and North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

Pence's stop in Jakarta on a 10-day swing through the Asia-Pacific, meeting with Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, sends a message that Trump's interests in Asia extend beyond North Korea and the massive U.S. trade imbalance with China. It is the first to Southeast Asia by a top administration official, and Pence announced Thursday that Trump will attend the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in November.

Washington is "taking steps to strengthen our partnership with ASEAN and deepen our friendship," Pence said, resolving to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation in combating terrorism and in the disputed South China Sea.

This year marks ASEAN's 50th anniversary. November's gathering is being held in the Philippines, setting the stage for an encounter between two unconventional leaders: Trump and the host, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president who is sometimes likened to the American leader because of his outspokenness and unashamed populism. Duterte's government welcomed Pence's announcement that Trump would attend.

U.S.-Philippine relations are strained over Duterte's war on drugs, and his brash efforts to forge closer ties with China. President Barack Obama scrapped a planned meeting last fall after Duterte cursed him. Before that, Obama engaged Southeast Asia more than any U.S. president since the aftermath of the Vietnam War and made ASEAN summits a virtual fixture in his diplomatic calendar.

(Read also: VP Pence makes inaugural visit to ASEAN Secretariat)

Among Obama's foreign policy accomplishments: Promoting democratic reform in Myanmar, on communist China's doorstep. He stood up, albeit unsuccessfully, against Beijing's construction of artificial islands that can give it a strong military foothold in the South China Sea. He paved the way for a bigger U.S. military presence in the Philippines, where American bases were shuttered 25 years ago.

Obama also understood the importance of showing up. He made nine trips to Southeast Asia, became the first sitting U.S. president to visit former adversaries Myanmar and Laos, and was first to travel to Malaysia in more than four decades.

Trump got off on the wrong foot.

His "America First" rhetoric and abrupt withdrawal from Obama's pan-Pacific trade pact raised fears of U.S. protectionism hurting the region's 600 million people. They do $225 billion in trade with the U.S. each year. Trump's relationship with Beijing remains unclear and his unorthodox foreign policy has begged the question as to whether he could ease U.S. demands on the South China Sea to win Chinese cooperation on North Korea.

"The region very much wants to know where the United States is going to stand on the South China Sea, and more broadly what its approach to China is going to be," said Amy Searight, a former top U.S. defense official for the region.

Senior State Department official Patrick Murphy told reporters Thursday that the U.S. would continue freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. Those U.S. Navy maneuvers through disputed waters were conducted periodically under Obama but have not occurred since Trump took office three months ago.

Still, the future of economic ties is probably the region's top concern. China is the main trading partner for most of Southeast Asia, although the U.S. remains a key source of foreign investment. The TPP's demise leaves an alternative pact as the main avenue for boosting trade among the fast-growing economies. China is a part of that negotiation, while the U.S. isn't.

Trump's decision to leave TPP "creates a vacuum that China is happy to try to fill," Searight said.

Trump also is expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam in November.

ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are among 16 nations the Trump administration is investigating over their U.S. trade surpluses. Pence said U.S. exporters to Indonesia should enjoy a level playing field and the relationship should be "win-win."

Vietnam, which has courted its former U.S. enemy, wants even better ties. Its ambassador visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point this month. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh met Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department.

And in an unusual move, ASEAN foreign ministers have arranged an 11-way meeting in Washington with Tillerson. The State Department said the meeting will take place May 4. It will reprise, at a lower level, a leaders' summit Obama hosted in California last year.
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Linkedin News Desk (Associated Press) Sydney  Fri, April 21, 2017 19:30 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea3fa44 2 SE Asia Pence,Australia,#Australia Free

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has arrived in Sydney for a weekend visit that will include meetings with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other top officials.

Pence landed in Australia on Friday night, his latest stop on a 10-day tour through Asia.

He's expected to meet with Turnbull, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, opposition leader Bill Shorten and others. Pence and his family are also scheduled to tour the Sydney Opera House and other landmarks.

The visit follows Pence's stops in South Korea, Japan and Indonesia for events focused on national security, trade and economic development.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 09:08 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea1615a 1 News malaria,health-ministry,disease,eastern-Indonesia,#malaria,#traveling,travelers,travel,traveling,health,#health,tourists Free

The Health Ministry has warned the public, especially tourists traveling to the Eastern part of Indonesia, to be cautious about malaria infection in the region.

According to the ministry's data, malaria is still highly endemic in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Maluku, North Maluku, West Papua and Papua provinces.

The ministrys director of vector and zoonotic infection disease prevention and control, Vensya Sitohang, said that tourists, especially backpackers, should anticipate and take necessary measurements against the disease. "Avoid going outdoors at night since the anopheles mosquito is more active during that time. If you must travel after dark, apply [mosquito repellent] lotion; and install a mosquito net for when you are sleeping," she said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Read also: Malaria-proof mosquito? Tool promising but needs more study

For those already bitten, Vensya advised travelers to immediately visit health services and conduct laboratory checks for malaria.

Tourists are also encouraged to take precautions by taking antimalarial medications prior to their trip, which are available for free in health facilities like Puskesmas (community health centers) and hospitals.

NTT and West Papua are currently among the country's most popular travel destinations with highlights including Raja Ampat and Labuan Bajo. (mas/kes)
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Linkedin Asmara Wreksono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 13:06 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea26375 1 News AirAsia,Touristly,startup,startup-incubator,funding Free

After last years success in securing funding from Tune Groups startup incubator, Tune Labs, travel planning platform Touirstly is ready for more.

AirAsia Berhad has acquired 50 percent shares of Touristly, injecting assets and signing a loan agreement valued at 11.5 million Malaysian ringgit (US$2.6 million).

AirAsia Group chief executive Tony Fernandes said in an official statement: We see a huge potential in Touristly, which will perfect AirAsias existing travel offers. Our customers will be able to choose from thousands of travel options when they purchase flight tickets, and this can bring us a step closer to be the true digital airline.

AirAsia also injected its asset in the form of a digital program from the airlines in-flight magazine, Travel3Sixty, valued at 6,5 million ringgit via AirAsia Investments Ltd. It will also provide Touristly with a convertible loan valued at 5 million ringgit for working capital and development.

We have been thinking to collaborate with AirAsia since the very beginning. The airlines 15-year experience in the travel industry will help us to understand the Asia Pacific market and quickly adapt to give an added value for our customers, said Touristly CEO Aaron Sarma.

Read also: AirAsia Indonesia to serve new international routes

Our dream is to help tourists who want to explore the Asia Pacific region to find amazing things, and were very happy to share our platform with more people.

The digital program includes online branding in Travel3Sixty, touchpoints on airasia.com and other online advertising assets that will enable Touristly to reach AirAsias 60 million customers annually.

Touristly will be operating under Travel3Sixtys name and gain exclusive offline advertising opportunities that include print advertisements in Air Asias magazine, and advertising space on cabin storage and seat trays of Air Asia planes.

Tony Fernandes will serve as board member of Touristly post-acquisition.

The agreement will strengthen AirAsias support services portfolio, with various attractive offers from restaurants, amusement parks, spas, tourist attractions and tour packages in more than 70 destinations served by AirAsia.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 16:06 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea2ec11 1 News Banten,foreign-tourists,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism-promotion,Banten-Travel-Mart,tourism,#tourism Free

The Banten Travel Mart (BTM) 2017, a three-day event ending on Friday, has been deemed successful, thanks to a large number of buyers for services offered by more than 30 sellers.

Forty-two of a total of 170 buyers attending BTM 2017 had come from oversees: 30 from Malaysia, four from China, four from Singapore and four from Mongolia.

This [event] is one of the strategies to push Tanjung Lesung as a priority place for tourism development, said the Tourism Ministry's deputy minister in charge archipelago tourism marketing development, Esthy Reko Astuti.

Read also: Tanjung Lesung to add 10,000 rooms to welcome travelers

Located in the regency of Banten, Tanjung Lesung has been declared a Special Economic Zone (KEK) and has been included in a list of 10 tourist destinations prioritized by the ministry.

Apart from Tanjung Lesung, the regency also has other interesting attractions that have been dubbed the Seven Wonders of Banten, namely Banteng Lama, Ujung Kulon National Park, Sangiang Island, the Baduy tribe, Umang Island, Mount Krakatau and the Dano swamp. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, April 21, 2017 18:34 2027 a291276806121264c0bd211cdea3e0ee 1 News Tourism-Ministry,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism-promotion,tourism,#tourism Free

To improve human resources in the tourism industry, the Tourism Ministry is holding technical workshops in the cities of Palembang, Makassar and Surabaya.

The events are attended by representatives of provincial administrations and the Association of Indonesian Tours and Travel Agents (ASITA).

The first workshop was conducted in Palembang from Monday to Tuesday, with participants including tourism industry stakeholders from Sumatra, West Java, Banten, Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Central Java.

Read also: Youth organization to help promote tourism in East Java

Makassar hosts the second event from Friday to Saturday, with stakeholders from Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua participating.

The last workshop will be held in Surabaya from May 2-3, with participants expected from Yogyakarta, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.

Read also: White sand awaits tourists in Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara

Our mission is to inform [the public] about promotional activities we will be doing overseas in four main categories, namely exhibitions, sales, festivals and familiarization trips, said the ministry's deputy minister for overseas promotion, I Gde Pitana.

According to Pitana, this years marketing strategy for Indonesian tourism would emphasize sales, and the ministry was slated to hold 54 hard-sell activities. Were also planning to hold 30 festivals and 51 familiarization trips, he added. (kes)
Seward Park Liquors is losing a space it has occupied at 393 Grand St. for more than four decades.

The owner of the shop, John DeBlasio, has been locked in a tense battle with his landlord, the Seward Park Cooperative, for several months. Following a vote by the board of directors, DeBlasio received a letter today stating that his bid for a lease renewal had been turned down and that the co-op intended to rent the store to another business.

Back in February, DeBlasio posted a notice on his front door, urging residents of the cooperative to lobby board members on his behalf. I have spent my whole life building a successful business, and I do not want to see it pulled out from under me, he wrote. DeBlasio called the decision to force him out immoral. He later retracted some of the statements contained in the notice.

The co-op is negotiating final leases terms with another liquor store operator, one that has reportedly run several successful businesses in New York City. Co-op management declined to name the new operator, since the terms of an agreement are still being worked out. DeBlasio offered to pay $90/square foot.

In an interview this afternoon, board member Darcey Gerstein said it was a split vote last night, and a tough call for many of her colleagues. There were financial considerations, she noted, saying there have been difficulties in the past with other commercial spaces owned by the cooperative (non-payment of rent, failed businesses, etc.) She added, however, that board members were convinced that the new business will offer a higher level of service to the community.

We value long-term tenancy, said Gerstein, but it is also the boards responsibility to make the best decision for our shareholders, to take into account the price per square foot (a tenant is willing to pay), as well as the value and service to the community now and in the future.

Some members of the board took exception to DeBlasios public letter, citing factual inaccuracies and, as Gerstein put it, potentially libelous statements against the co-op and Greenthal, its management company. Others wanted the removal of a lotto machine at the front of the store and the sale of miniature bottles of liquor. This is a move DeBlasio resisted.

DeBlasio said today that he is disappointed and flabbergasted by the boards decision and alarmed that his livelihood is being threatened. DeBlasio said he believes the board has made a series of bad decisions, impacting small businesses and residents, that are not in the best interests of the community. He added, I feel I have served this community to the best of my ability.

DeBlasio said hes considering legal action against the co-op.

The new operator plans to lease the front portion of the space, while the neighboring gallery, Ramiken Crucible, will take over the back portion of the store. DeBlasio has been without a lease for a few months. Hes been paying month-to-month during lease negotiations. The changes in commercial leases, were told, will mean $60-70,000 in additional revenue annually for the co-op.

Editors note: Seward Park Liquors advertises in The Lo-Down from time-to-time. The author of this story is a resident of the Seward Park Co-op. It is The Lo-Downs policy to disclose whenever theres a potential conflict of interest in any story.
Its won awards all over the world by people who recognise that this astonishing account of the Gaza Strip is a unique insight into the conflict, and has recently arrived in London for the BBCs Arabic Festival.

The feature-length film is a remarkable debut by a young film-maker. Mohamed Jabaly was only 24 when he was recording his experiences travelling with an active ambulance crew during a period of intense warfare between Palestine and Israel during the summer of 2014. His youth and inexperience in the world of media is evident  the cuts are rough, the documentary takes on its own direction and schews many popular conventions. Watch an episode of Panorama or Dispatches and youll notice obvious differences in production. Despite this, Ambulance never feels immature or messy. Its fit-for-purpose and real, and thats what gives it its heart as it grows alongside its creator.

Jabaly embeds himself with an ambulance crew serving the Gaza Strip so he can document the suffering of his people during Israeli bombings, shellings and air strikes. As a young man growing up in such a difficult and turbulent area, he finds himself wanting to make sense of the conflict that surrounds him. The ambulance gives him one way of doing this as he makes countless trips to the citys hospital, which becomes a gathering place, an offer of redemption and a symbol of safety and hope for the suffering citizens.

Ambulance makes for a tough watch. Its an insight into a brutal and unforgiving world. Although it's graphic and features quite bloody injuries, its not needlessly so. The injuries themselves are never exaggerated or made into a spectacle. The senseless violence is epitomised by the acceptance and lack of shock at such pain. The ambulance crew slowly wash away the blood that stains their vehicle day after day, pausing once to note a large fragment of bone thats been lying on their floor.

Jabalys skill lies so much in the way he builds his world. More than most documentaries, the director allows the visuals to pretty much tell the whole story. Its refreshing from a production perspective. Jabaly is not seen in the film, but this doesn't detract from his reporting. The first-person shots allow the viewer to feel as though theyre living the experience through their exposure to what Jabaly sees and hears at any given time. Its a powerful means to greater emotional engagement. The voice over is minimal and serves as a reflective experience for the director. He uses it retrospectively to explain what happened, and focuses more on his own personal experience rather than the conflict as a whole.

Ambulance is not a conventional documentary by any means. Its not an academic or properly educational experience  viewers will not come away any more informed on the complicated Israel-Palestine conflict. But what Ambulance affords is an incredible insight into humanity.

The documentary is an endless stream of bombings and shellings, of rubble and bloodshed. Yet even as the ambulance tears through the streets with its sirens wailing, the driver peering out a shattered windshield, theres room for laughter and hope. Jabalys friend Abu Marzouq is injured, and as doctors reveal his injuries to be minimal the jubilance of his crew is heart warming. Theyre not exempt from the pain theyre trying to minimise. One crew member learns of the death of 12 members of his immediate family, and Jabaly captures his heartbreak.

One thing Jabaly likely didnt intend to do was create a documentary that exposes belief in the way he has. The crew members despair is swayed by his prayers, a pattern that reveals itself in the carnage that the ambulance chases. God is great, God will help us are mantras repeated throughout the film, as people try to come to grips with whats happening. Through God, seemingly meaningless violence does not seem so isolated, so cruel, or so despondent.

Ambulance is an incredible journey. The maturity and development of Jabaly is evident. He starts off a voyeur of the violence that besieges his people, but after a near-death experience he almost becomes one of the victims. His perspective changes with the filming  shots are shorter, more desperate, more frantic as he attempts to make sense of the world around him. Despite this personal turmoil, he manages to create a tribute to the ambulance workers of Gaza and in conflict zones around the world, the people who work tirelessly and selflessly to try and make an ounce of difference and offer the slightest bit of grace in an unforgiving and cruel world. Its an exploration of grief, belief, and an insight into humanitys extraordinary capacity for resilience and hope.

Ambulance featured at the 2017 Arabic Film Festival.
Forget coffee. Or green smoothies. Or wheatgrass juice. If you want a beverage that has health-boosting benefits, look no further than the humble cuppa.

Yes, science has confirmed tea is officially good for us and here are a few reasons to get the kettle going.

1. Its good for the heart

A 2012 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests heart disease rates could be reduced by 10% if everyone took to drinking large amounts of tea.

Researchers believe consuming the equivalent of around eight cups of black tea a day could lead to a significant lowering of blood pressure  thanks to polyphenols, the plant chemicals that are said to have health benefits (a regular cup of black leaf tea contains up to 150mg of polyphenols).

The authors wrote: Our study has demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge that long-term regular consumption of black tea can result in significantly lower BPs (blood pressures) in individuals with normal to high-normal range BPs.

At a population level, the observed differences in BP would be associated with a 10% reduction in the prevalence of hypertension (high blood pressure) and a 7% to 10% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease.

2. Its good for your teeth

Drinking tea also means fewer trips to the dentist, if research from the University of Illinois College of Dentistry is anything to go by.

In a study conducted in 2009, scientists found that certain chemical compounds in black tea were able to kill cavity-causing bacteria or suppress their growth and acid production.

Black tea also affected a bacterial enzyme responsible for converting sugars into the glue tooth decay bugs use to adhere to teeth.

Study author Dr Christina Wu said: It is our belief that the intake of black tea can be significant to improve the oral health of the general public. If sequenced properly between meals and normal oral hygiene, a reduction in dental caries (tooth decay) may be possible.

3. It helps you when youre stressed

The invitation to have a nice cuppa tea might seem like unscientific advice but a 2006 study found black tea does have an effect on stress hormone levels in the body.

Researchers at University College, London said people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute.

They said this is because those who had a cuppa four times a day for six weeks were found to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood after a stressful event, compared with a control group who drank a placebo.

4. It helps heal damaged skin

A 2006 study by scientists from California and Germany found that tea extracts helped skin damage from the cancer treatments heal faster.

The extracts helped radiation-induced skin damage heal up to 10 days earlier than would normally be expected.

The researchers believe that the results could be attributed to teas high levels of polyphenols  which blocks the effects of some enzymes which cancers need for growth.

5. It helps protect us against dementia

Exercise followed by a relaxing mug of tea might also be a good tonic for the brain in old age.

In a study conducted in 2010, scientists from the University of California at Los Angeles, monitored 4,800 people aged over 65 for more than 14 years.

They found participants who drank tea regularly were between 17% and 37% less likely to suffer a reduction in mental ability than non-tea drinkers.

6. It hydrates our body  despite containing caffeine

Yes, youve heard right. In a study published in 2009 in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers said drinking three or more cups of tea a day is as good for you as drinking plenty of water.

BBC Speaking about the findings, public health nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton told the: Studies on caffeine have found very high doses dehydrate and everyone assumes that caffeine-containing beverages dehydrate.

But even if you had a really, really strong cup of tea or coffee, which is quite hard to make, you would still have a net gain of fluid.

7. Its good for the bones

study In aconducted in 2009, researchers in Hong Kong found that drinking green tea could potentially help preventing osteoporosis and other bone diseases.

After exposing a group of cultured bone-forming cells (known as osteoblasts) to three important green tea components  epigallocatechin (EGC), gallocatechin (GC), and gallocatechin gallate (GCG) for several days, they found that one in particular, EGC, boosted the activity of a key enzyme that promotes bone growth by up to 79%.

In addition, researchers noted that EGC boosted levels of bone mineralisation in the cells while blocking the activity of a type of cell that breaks down or weakens bones.

8. It helps fight off infection

Find yourself saying yes to a strong brew when you are under the weather? Well, there may be a scientific reason why a cup of tea helps you feel better.

study from 2003 found that it helps the body to fight off infection and boost the immune system. And its all down to chemicals known as alkylamines  which are commonly present in tea as well as some disease-causing agents such as bacteria, cancerous cells, parasites and fungi.

Scientists say the alkylamines found in tea are relatively weak, but consuming the chemicals in small quantities could prepare the bodys immune system against these diseases by teaching the cells to remember alkylamines.

So stop everything and get the kettle going. Go on, youve earned it.
A home in the suburbs of Paris has been searched by authorities after a gunman opened fire on police on the Champs-Elysees boulevard, killing one officer and wounding three people before being shot dead.

What exactly happened?

The attacker emerged from a car and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer store at the centre of the Champs-Elysees, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said.

The gunman was shot dead by other officers, and a woman tourist was also wounded in the incident on Thursday night.

What has happened in the aftermath of the attack?

(AP/PA)

A terror investigation has been launched and authorities searched a home early on Friday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed to be linked to the shooting. A pump-action shotgun and knives were found in the gunmans car.

A police document obtained by The Associated Press identifies the address searched in the town of Chelles as the family home of 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi, who has a criminal record.

Police have detained three of his family members for questioning, as investigators seek to determine whether he was acting alone and where he got his weapons.

What do we know about the gunman?

(Thibault Camus/AP/PA)

The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility just a few hours after the attack.

The extremist group gave a pseudonym for the gunman, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium, although Belgian authorities said they had no information about the suspect.

Two French officials said the gunman had been detained towards the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police, but he was then released due to a lack of evidence.

He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted murder in the shooting of two police officers.

Has it affected the French election?

(Christophe Ena/AP/PA)

The first round of the presidential election is to take place on Sunday and candidates have since cancelled or rescheduled their final campaign events ahead of it.

Conservative contender Francois Fillon, who has campaigned against Islamic totalitarianism, said he was cancelling his planned campaign stops on Friday.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who campaigns against immigration and Islamic fundamentalism, cancelled a minor campaign stop, but scheduled another.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron offered his thoughts to the family of the dead officer and Socialist Benoit Hamon tweeted his full support to police against terrorism.

A French television station hosting an event with the 11 candidates running for president briefly interrupted its broadcast to report the shootings.

How have world leaders responded?

French president Francois Hollande said he was convinced the circumstances of the attack pointed to a terrorist act.

A Downing Street spokesman said: The UK strongly condemns the appalling terrorist attack in Paris.

The Prime Minister has tonight passed on her condolences to President Hollande.

US president Donald Trump said the shooting looks like another terrorist attack and sent condolences to France.

US vice president Mike Pence said the shooting was the latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere, any time and his country will not relent in our effort to end terrorism.

Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull offered his condolences to the killed policeman and urged Australians in Europe to be on their guard.
Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. (NYSE: FGP), with its propane distribution focus, got itself into a jam recently with a series of midstream acquisitions. As oil prices started to fall, the company's push into the midstream oil and gas industry dimmed the partnership's overall outlook. But it did what no partnership wants to do and, as a result, better days are likely ahead for Ferrellgas.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry have officially opened 'The Global Academy' along with Heads Together, a charity which raises awareness for mental health in the UK.

During the day they met some of the 800 students training to be production staff at the Academy. Radio stations LBC, Heart, and Capital broadcast shows from the London school, which opened in September.

They also saw students and Capital presenter Roman Kemp trying out the Heads Together Snapchat Lens, which enables everyone to take a picture of themselves wearing a Heads Together headband in support of opening up the conversation about mental health and raising awareness.

Heart hosted an hours phone-in show that explored young people and anxiety, and the team then attended a round table discussion with GLOBAL presenters on the importance of talking about mental health.

The Academy principal said:

There has never been more pressure on young adults to fit the norm  whether thats posting the perfect picture on social media or creating a different persona online.

"The Global Academy was created to enable young adults from all backgrounds to learn the skills they need to prosper in an ever changing world. At the Global Academy, we encourage our students to talk, and talk about things that might be considered taboo.

Heads Together was started and is run by The Duke and Duchess and Prince Harry, in partnership with eight leading mental health charities that are raising awareness and providing vital help for people with mental health problems.

The organisation is trying to fight the stigma and try to get people to have conversations about mental health.

their website

If you would like to know more about Heads Together visit
How to save the Left? Let the Tories win

Yes - the impending electoral defeat is almost irrelevant.

Socialism frees man from the tyranny of living for others.

Oscar Wilde knew of the truth in paradox. Whilst too many use the term to denote insoluble contradiction, its actual meaning carries no such connotations; rather, a paradox is only an apparent conflict of ends. A keen mind untangles the threads; in revealing the consistency in paradoxical statements we find the truth. Paradox is the dialectic in action.

anticipated Leave election for Trump referendum in Turkey I can claim for myself a good record of predicting the unpredictable. I, called the, was quite sure of the outcome of the; I was sceptical of the Boris coronation and speaking, albeit cautiously, in favour of May.

But the piece I now flaunt before you, the one which really serves to illustrate the point, is one I wrote on June 10th last year. It predicts, with a fairly high degree of accuracy, Farages resignation from UKIP, and that partys subsequent malaise. UKIP, I argued, would be doomed by its own triumph. The title: Hate Farage? Vote Leave .

It is because I have had proven and demonstrable success with this method that I now propagate it. It is because the method has been successful that I make the following claim, and do so in full confidence that it will prove not absurd but sane: losing the next election will be good for the Left. More than that: losing the next election is absolutely necessary for the Left.

There is another truth-by-paradox that we would all do well to remember: the true sign of your victory is the manner of your opponents success. Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher claim Tony Blair as her greatest achievement, and not for nothing did Cameron - the heir to Blair - elevate his progenitor: Blair accepted all of the key tenets of Thatcherism, and sought only to expand upon them. Cameron, similarly, challenged none of the assumptions underlying Blairism; he wanted only to refine them.

It is the past successes of the Left that are responsible for its current transcontinental crises. It no longer has anything to say, having ceded its social policy (and its capacity to make money) to the Tories and its economic policy to the EU. It has forgotten how to fight for its principles because it has ceded stewardship of those same principles to outside forces.

The ultimate victory of the suixante-huitards is that there is no longer any such thing as a mainstream social-conservative. When Tim Farron, the liberals Liberal, can be vilified for his traditionalism as regards homosexuality for nothing more than not answering a question  this despite the fact that his voting record in this area is about as progressive as you could wish to find  then you should see clearly how profound and total the Lefts victory has been.

Our poor short-term memory is doubtless at fault, but allow me to try and put it as plainly as I can: our current Prime Minister is a vicars daughter and head of the Conservative Party. Yet she will speak warmly and (almost) naturally about championing Britains progressive, inclusive values, including gay marriage. Hell, her government speaks up for the rights of trans people! It was a Conservative government that introduced gay marriage, and which has given Britain both of its female Prime Ministers. It has accepted defeat and embraced the victors platform.

The Left has won the culture war. It won it decades ago. And it suffers for its own obtuseness, for it has not recognised the fact. It has continued to fight battles in which it has already prevailed; this is why the focus on identity politics is to be so lamented, for it is a symptom of a problem. When your raison detre is to champion what your opponent has already conceded, and accepted as a matter of course, voters are left (justifiably) asking: whats new?

By contrast, the most radical departure from orthodoxy has been achieved by those believed  sometimes wrongly  to hail from the Right. With one or two honourable exceptions, such as Kate Hoey and the soon-to-depart Gisela Stuart, our break from the status quo has been achieved by members of the Bruges Group. The bulk of the Labour Party is now more conservative, on matters of economics, than the Conservative Party.

But why should it be so? Ive said it before and Ill say it again: if the Atlee government were elected today and pledged to create the NHS and the welfare state, it would be prohibited by EU law from doing so. Austerity, for which we blame the Tories, is a constitutional requirement of EU treaties and directives. Our (allegedly) Leftist parties are those which have united in their defence of the Single Market, but it is the Single Market that makes austerity, and related measures, necessary. Our supposedly Leftist parties have become conservative. The Labour Party has never been made to address this; nor have marginal Leftist groups like the Greens (the last party I voted for).

Tears are already being shed by votaries of both, for our elections in June are almost certain to confer great gains upon the Conservative Party. A number of Labour moderates (misnamed, for they are at least as Right as most modern Tories) have already resigned rather wait for their constituents to reject them.

But to be upset by this is to take an unpardonably short-term view. Were it the case that these people  the likes of Tom Blekinsop and Pat Glass  had a shred of principle they would have campaigned upon it. Principled politicians stand not because they think theyll win but because they believe they should; because they believe their cause is right and that it is their duty to convince the voters. To resign because youre sure youll lose signifies nothing but cowardice and self-interest.

A Labour Party shorn of these rank careerists is better for it. Remain-voting MPs who contest their seats and lose, as many are sure to do, nonetheless help to refine the party. They should, I think, be commended for standing for their beliefs, even if one disagrees with them. But their loss serves a broader purpose: it will no longer suffice to stand upon socially liberal ideals, for those are all but guaranteed. Radicalism comes from the reclamation of economic sovereignty. Labours problems arise not from paradox but from genuinely irreconcilable contradictions.

written about them before A heavy defeat helps unset the ossified divide in the party. It may well be cathartic. Labour will be free  nay, be forced  to remake and redefine itself, and will be able to do so with some consideration of consistency. This consistency may well come naturally. Whilst internal, structural reforms are as necessary as theyve ever been (and Ive), the fact is that a significant defeat will allow the party to realign itself in favour of the very class interests it was created to promote. A heavy defeat is necessary if the party is to reform and revitalise itself.

So, I turn again to paradox. As with UKIP, so (but constructively) with Labour: to save the Left, let the Tories win.
Parks And Recreations Rashida Jones said she hopes her new documentary series about porn, sex and technology lifts the veil on a secretive industry and forces people to examine their relationships with and on the internet.

Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On is a six-part Netflix series that tells stories about people whose personal lives are affected by the explosion of the internet through intimacy, disconnection, self-promotion, race and gender politics.

It follows on from the actresss acclaimed documentary film, Hot Girls Wanted, which was met with some resistance from the porn industry.

A young girl being photographed in Hot Girls Wanted (Netflix)

Rashida, who serves as a producer on the new series, said she welcomed the controversy.

She told the Press Association: I think its good to cause waves because it means people are talking, especially with this issue where there is so much to talk about and so little real conversation happening around it.

We had our fair share of push-back from within the industry and outside the industry and I think we wanted to answer the question what other stories are happening around and dealing with porn and technology and sex and intimacy?

There is a lot more to talk about, we didnt want to stop there. We reached out to all our critics and asked if they wanted to be involved in the series. Nobody took us up on it.

The intention is not to present this skewed, manipulative story or to get people to not enter the world of porn.

The intention was to lift the veil, pull the curtain back on the industry, that really thrives from secrecy. The more people who want to be involved in the narrative, the better.

Rashida, who is the daughter of music producer Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton, said sexual images in pop culture are now everywhere but she was still taken aback by how young people present different sexual personas online.

She said: It is just the way it is now. There is a media portrayal of sexuality and everybody has bought into it. In the series, I did feel like I observed that a lot of our characters knew how to brand themselves online that I certainly dont know how to do.

I feel like millennials are very comfortable with the idea of having this persona, especially for girls in the sex industry online. For girls who cam (perform in front of web cameras for money), they can decide who they are and it doesnt have to have anything to do with who they are in private. Im endlessly fascinated by that.

(Netflix)

Rashida added that dating apps such as Tinder have changed romantic attitudes beyond recognition, making people feel more distanced from the people they are supposed to be connecting with.

She said: I think that there is a truth that people are seeking that they are not getting because of it.

Its easier to mask your own desires, to be selfish, to ghost people, to treat people with disrespect because you dont feel connected to their feelings and dont feel responsible for the outcome of your date or your relationship.

Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On is released on Netflix on Friday.
Comedian David Walliams has horrified his social media followers by sharing a disturbing face-swap photo with Simon Cowell.

The Britains Got Talent co-judges posed for the bizarre snap in the lead-up to the second round of auditions in the ITV contest this weekend.

Presenter Lisa Snowdon commented on the Instagram picture: Now that is freaky.

Another follower responded: Creepy, but it works.

While the picture shows the pair sporting each others glasses and main facial features, the picture app allowed Simon to keep his glistening white teeth.

Match made in heaven (Joe Giddens/PA)

Pointing out the dental difference, actress Sheridan Smith asked Walliams: Why do (you) still not have the flashy teeth?

The TV duo are known for their playful bickering throughout the talent show series, usually sparked by David teasing Simon.

The Little Britain star posted the photograph on both his Instagram and Twitter accounts with the caption: Face swap with my @SimonCowell.

And fans just could not help piling on the jokes

@davidwalliams @SimonCowell Christ ! Its too early for images like that from Crimewatch  ChocGirly (@sunglasses67) April 21, 2017

@davidwalliams @SimonCowell Looks like an e fit for a pair of bank robbers  Phil brown (@Philbro51628114) April 21, 2017

As the pairs bro-mance develops, we can only hope this isnt a hint towards what their children would look like
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Home >Police Enforcement > Checkpoints and Stops > US Appeals Court Outlaws Frames On God Bless America Plate
The Armenian Genocide is a curiously unexplored moment in our modern history, cinematically speaking. That fact alone makes director and co-writer Terry George's "The Promise " intriguing enough. Historical fiction generally has it over documentaries in inspiring mass interest, especially when actors as appealing as Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon are involved.

And indeed, "The Promise" is a sprawling and handsome epic set around the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. But despite the best of intentions, the film fails to properly explain and contextualize both what led to that disgraceful episode, which Turkey to this day denies, and why it escalated as it did. Instead, "The Promise" chooses to focus in on an unsympathetic love triangle that manages to trivialize the film overall.

The goal, as always, is to personalize the events that are too big and too devastating to look at as a whole  to make it about the lives interrupted, cut short and thrown into turmoil because of external forces. Thus we're given the character Michael Boghosian (Isaac), an Armenian medical student from a small village in Southern Turkey who uses his fiancee's dowry to study modern medicine in Constantinople. Michael isn't in love with his fiancee (Angela Sarafyan), but such is life in Siroun where marriages are arranged and he doesn't have any other choice. He kisses her goodbye and heads off to the big city, promising to return in just a few years.

Constantinople is an oasis of temptation for Michael, who essentially falls for the first woman he sees. The beguiling Ana (Le Bon) is a cosmopolitan beauty and intellectual. She lived in Paris for years. She exudes ethereal confidence. And she's an Armenian from around his hometown. Ana also happens to be in a long-term relationship with Chris Myers (Bale), an Associated Press reporter who we're told drinks too much.

While Michael is enjoying the city life and lusting after Ana, though, things are devolving around him. It's 1914 and vague signs of war are emerging. Things go on as normal for a little while  there are German soldiers at the parties now and battleships in the harbor and a heightened sense that some Turks are anti-Armenian. And then Constantinople's Armenian intellectuals start getting arrested and taken away. To where is unclear. To fight? To prison camps? To be executed?

The intention, likely, is to put the viewer on the blurry ground level with Michael and Ana, who see their world turned upside down so suddenly that of course there would be confusion. Explanation and insight is hardly a priority when survival is the goal. But that's where Bale's Chris Myers should have been more useful.

To the film's credit, he does take us early on to distant villages to witness townspeople being rounded up and walked through the desert. Women and children are executed without hesitation and, when Chris is spotted in the distance, soldiers take off after him. It's clear they don't want people seeing what they're doing. He chimes in occasionally with helpful exposition as he's dictating articles, and yet, it's a wonder whether anyone who knows little about the events will actually be able to track what's going on in a meaningful way.

"The Promise" is infinitely more interested in the triangle, dropping the three leads into convenient situations to heighten the will they/won't they/can they/should they drama, which, frankly, becomes increasingly unsympathetic as the situation around them becomes more dire.

It's unfair to critique such an utterly sincere film that does contain some riveting action and acting and even might inspire some to learn more about this moment in history, but unfortunately, the story just doesn't live up to its grand ambitions.
Irans Asghar Farhadi is among the best filmmakers working anywhere today, crafting artful, powerful realistic pictures out of daily life in Tehran.

A Separation, his film about a divorcing couple trying to negotiate the confounding Iranian court system, won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2012.

The Salesman, its follow up, did the same earlier this year.

While not a masterpiece like its predecessor, The Salesman is, nonetheless, an exquisite piece of work about another couple -- this one finding themselves pulled into a high-tension conflict when they are forced to move out of their apartment when the building starts to collapse.

Emad (Shahab Hosseini), a school teacher, and his wife, Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti), are given the keys to a new place by Babak (Babak Karimi), one of their fellow cast members on a amateur production of Arthur Millers The Death of a Salesman, from which the film takes its title.

Moving in, the couple discovers the previous occupant hasnt moved her belongings out of the place -- and that she was frequented by male visitors. Shortly thereafter, Rana returns home before Emad following a rehearsal. When he gets back, he finds the bathroom covered in blood and Rana in the hospital.

So begins the Hitchcockian mystery of The Salesman, as Rana doesnt want to report the crime to the police, forcing Emad to take the investigation into his own hands. After being temporarily sidelined, Rana returns to Death of a Salesman," joining again when it goes to public performances.

Intertwining the play with Emads dogged investigation and Ranas post-assault trauma, Farhadi takes what might have been a clumsy conceit and makes it a gripping work, where the words spoken onstage have meaning off stage and the relationship between Emad and Rana begins to echo that of Willy and Linda Loman from the play.

The films third act is a stunner, in the unraveling of the mystery and in the exploration of the relationship between Emad and Rana.

As was the case with A Separation, Farhadi gets superb performances from his lead actors -- Hosseini as a man who seems to care as much about control and revenge as he does about caring for his wife; Alidoosti as a woman whose life has been forever unsettled by a lapse in judgment and Karimi as a guy who may not be as decent and accommodating as he appears to be.

While not as direct as A Separation, The Salesman also makes comment, very subtly, on Iranian life under the Islamic regime, addressing its control of information, its police procedures and its treatment of women.

It requires careful viewing to find that and to keep track of the hints of what will unfold later -- which, like all smartly crafted films, The Salesman rewards with resonant style and meaning.
In the 1950s, Tempest Storm was an international star, the queen of burlesque and a mistress of both Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy.

Unknown to the public, then and now, Storm had overcome a brutal upbringing, lost much of her career because of a interracial marriage and sacrificed her relationships with her family, including with her daughter to keep working into the 21st century.

There are two stories, of her history and of what is happening to her right now in the present," Nimisha Mukerji, said of her documentary Tempest Storm. I was excited to jump into the present. This is a chance to see someone coming to terms with her past.

She didnt want it to all sound like it was easy. She was a very ambitious person with a very lonely, solitary existence, like a lot of celebrities. But we dont hear about that. She faced a lot of judgment. She still faces a lot of judgment.

Mukerji will be in Lincoln Friday to talk about Tempest Storm after its 7:30 p.m. screening at the Ross Media Arts Center. So will the 89-year-old Storm, who is flying in from her Las Vegas home.

She loves traveling, she loves visiting cities, Mukerji said. Shes never been to Nebraska before, even when she was a performer. Shes very, very excited to come out.

Even with its unflinching honesty, Storm endorses the movie, enthusiastically joining in the promotion of what Mukerji calls a collaboration with the woman who started out as the subject of her film and is now a friend.

I was terrified to show her the film, I didnt know how shed react -- all documentary filmmakers have that fear, Mukerji said. But she likes it. The reason why this worked is because we told the truth. Theres nothing in the film thats taken out of context. It is just who Tempest is. To me, its the most fulfilling feeling, that weve made this film together and we stand up together to talk about it.

Mukerji didnt know anything about Storm before beginning the film. Her producing partner was working on a Ph.D., studying womens sexuality and had interviewed Storm while looking into burlesque. She passed the audio recording of the interview on to Mukerji.

She said There might be a movie in this. Shes the last performer of her era. Shes very private, I dont know if shed agree to a film, but she just recorded an album with Jack White, Mukerji said.

Mukerji then met Storm, who eventually agreed to do the picture. But the director said Storm wasnt the brassy extrovert she had expected.

I loved her shyness, Mukerji said. Thats what interested me most about her. Shes an entertainer, known for taking her clothes off and yet shes so private. There had to be a story there.

That story begins in Georgia, where the young Tempests happy childhood was destroyed by an abusive stepfather. By 20, shed survived two abusive marriages, finding a way out by becoming a burlesque dancer.

For Tempest, it was one of the jobs that someone who had no education, no connections in show business could get, Mukerji said. It was a way to gain control over her life and her body.

While she got the job because of her busty figure and it entailed taking off her clothes down to her pasties, burlesque was a far cry from todays nude or nearly nude dancing.

To her, there was an art to it, it was about the art of the tease, Mukerji said. Today, burlesque has had a small resurgence and she loves that. Its not supposed to be about the nudity. Its supposed to be about the seduction.

Even so, Mukerji said, it was difficult to get funding for her film from men, who didnt want to see the present-day Tempest. Instead, she said, they were only interested in Storms career.

It was Were mostly interested in the affairs she had,' Mukerji said. Tempest is used to that. Shes always asked What was Elvis like in bed? She takes offense at that. It was private. So this is not a sensational tell all. We got those answers, but it didnt seem right to put them in the film. The vulnerability she shows in the film is far more interesting than any one-night affairs.

Tempest Storm does make mention of the affairs, and details Storms career via some vintage clips, including a scene from her movie with another '50s sex symbol, pin-up model Bettie Page, taking her up to her final performance, when she took a tumble on stage at the end of performance -- in her 80s.

Unlike Betty Page, who refused to be seen in public at a certain age, she was out there until she broke her hip, Mukerji said. Shes still out there now, in a way.

For a few years, the filmmakers traveled with Storm to tell the second story, following her to appearances at celebrity conventions, visiting friends like the late producer/director Garry Marshall, trying to find out about her biological father and reconnect with her estranged family, including her husband Herb Jeffries, the Bronze Buckeroo, the first black singing cowboy in the movies who had worked with Duke Ellington.

The two stories come poignantly together in the films final scene, which finds Storm in a white dress in a cotton field like the one shed worked in as a little girl.

Besides being on stage, that cotton field in Georgia was the most at home I saw Tempest, Mukerji said. Maybe we saw her going back to when she was a little girl. She was so comfortable and at peace, she just started dancing. I didnt know we had that footage. But when we pulled it out, the editor said This is the ending of the film.
Nineteen inmates sent a letter to the Nebraska Ombudsman's office last week, detailing an April 7 incident at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, in which they said they were trapped in a housing unit during the fire, and left in "extreme danger."

The incident, they said, lasted about three hours, but related problems went on for days.

They wanted the letter shared with the Legislature and the media, they wrote.

The Corrections Department has shared few details of the incident, saying officials must wait for a critical incident review to be completed. Those reviews and reports can take at least a couple of months to become public.

This is the inmates' account of what happened that night:

Inmates said the incident started with an exchange of words between a few inmates and a corrections officer at about 7:20 p.m. Once the officer left the unit and entered a control booth, officers there began to laugh and point at inmates who had been involved, they said.

Ten minutes later, the officer was back in the unit, got into a shouting match with an inmate, and was grabbed and assaulted by a small group. Two officers came to assist and were also assaulted. All three officers got out of the unit, leaving behind a can of pepper spray.

Using the public announcement system, the inmates were told to back down, and they complied, the letter said.

"Shortly after we locked ourselves in our cells, things spiraled out of control quickly," the inmates said.

As one officer in the control booth held up a middle finger and others continued to antagonize the inmates, they began lighting fires and tried to break the control booth window with the legs of a table.

Smoke and fire spread fast, the inmates said, burning coats, plastic mattresses, trash cans, sheets, wooden doors and a library drop box. Smoke filled the unit and men began banging on their cell doors.

"We yelled, screamed and pled to be let out of the fire exit (the yard door), but at this point all of the correctional staff that were in the control booth were now leaving us," the inmates said.

Crews from Lincoln Fire and Rescue were not called out until just before 8:30 p.m.

"We were convinced after the first hour with no fire alarm, and no other signs of staff, that Unit 9 would be our tomb," inmates wrote in the letter. "Many began to pray and write out their last will and testament on their MP4s, in hopes that their families would find them in their property."

The sprinkler system finally kicked on, but made the smoke worse, they said. Water in the cells reached ankle deep, so inmates could not lie on the floor to seek fresh air.

After two and a half hours, the prisons' emergency response team went cell to cell putting each inmate in full restraints, the men said. They were taken to a gym and told to lie on the floor. Several men vomited and black soot-filled mucus covered the floor, they said, which they sat in for hours.

They were left in full restraints five or six hours, they said, and in wet and dirty socks, boots and clothes for more than 24 hours.

The next night they were sent back to the fire-damaged unit, and some men had headaches, nausea, chest pains and shortage of breath, they said. And the psychological trauma continues.

There is little trust of the staff now, they said.

The letter said staff did not follow fire procedures, or pull the fire alarm. And fire and rescue crews were not allowed inside until the inmates were removed, they said, adding proper medical attention was not given.

In reporting to the media on the incident on April 8, Corrections spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said the affected housing unit was assessed and cleared by the fire marshal at approximately 2 a.m. Repairs were made to make the unit functional. Cleanup on the unit continued and 23 inmates were expected to return to the unit that evening.

Thirty-nine inmates were housed in the affected unit; 16 were directly involved, she said.

One staff member was initially assaulted, Smith said, along with two others who assisted. None of the injuries were serious.

Smith said the department received the letter of complaint from the inmates Thursday at noon, and would incorporate it into the critical incident review to determine what, if any, action needed to be taken.
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Director Scott Frakes summed up his response in a PowerPoint to anyone questioning what progress the Department of Correctional Services is making in Nebraska's troubled state prisons.

"Reforms Take Time

It is difficult work

It is dangerous work

It takes time for strategies to work"

He handed out a six-page letter to reporters Thursday addressed to ACLU of Nebraska legal director Amy Miller, a response to the organization's April 10 demand that Gov. Pete Ricketts make immediate changes in the prisons or face a lawsuit.

It outlined the "noteworthy reforms" Frakes said have taken place since the beginning of 2015, when he arrived. At that time, he said, the department was on the verge of crisis with pressing issues like sentencing miscalculations, growing population, lack of resources, insufficient security and lack of inmate programming opportunities.

Progress has been made and will continue, he said. That includes working to address a decade of underfunding.

"I just want to make it clear to all the interested parties, because my name comes up quite frequently in a lot of different venues, that we are not just sitting back and waiting for things to fix themselves," Frakes said. "We do an incredible amount of work every day, and almost all of it goes really well."

He told Miller that the woeful situation in 2011 in California, which the ACLU referenced in its letter, in no way compares to the challenges in Nebraska. The Supreme Court ordered the state to significantly reduce crowding in its prisons.

He and his staff are addressing solitary confinement, accommodations for inmates with disabilities, medical care, mental health care and staffing.

"I recognize the ACLU and its many litigation partners join me in having a genuine concern for the safety and well-being of inmates," the letter to Miller said. "As such, I encourage you to engage with Nebraska's corrections reforms in a constructive manner."

There's no mention of the ACLU demand for Ricketts to immediately call an emergency and to allocate emergency funding to the Department of Correctional Services to fill current staff vacancies and correct constitutional and legal violations.

The ACLU of Nebraska responded that its legal team is working to finalize a complex and critical lawsuit, but would not give details or a timeline.

"Our next announcement about this case will be when we file suit," said ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad. "In the absence of state leadership our work is more important than ever."

She noted that since the ACLU demands were launched 10 days ago, more violence has occurred. An inmate at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution died, sparking a criminal investigation, and in another incident Wednesday three staff were assaulted at that prison by an inmate who appeared to be under the influence of homemade alcohol.

At a news conference, Frakes said the staff is working on five major areas of reform: prison population, programming opportunities, staffing and culture, funding operations, physical plant and security.

He acknowledged that cultural change is not easy.

"It's difficult for inmates. It's definitely difficult for staff. Every once in a while it's even difficult for me," he said. "We're trying to make sure that we're always looking for those opportunities to show people what's in it for them."

Both internal and external communications and transparency are a never-ending challenge, he said, but one that pays more dividends than anything else the department does.

He said he'd like to share more information on incidents, such as a recent inmate death at Tecumseh, but he is confined by state law.

Transparency is sometimes hindered by security concerns, he said.

He said he has not received a critical incident report on the March 2 incident at Tecumseh, when two inmates were killed and others were injured. Two inmates also were killed there in a May 2015 riot. A disturbance on April 7 at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center in Lincoln when a fire was started in a housing unit will also be investigated.

In the past six months, he said, there have been fewer staff assaults. And the inmate-on-inmate assaults have decreased.

Omaha Sen. Bob Krist commented Thursday on the floor of the Legislature on the death of Tecumseh inmate Terry L. Berry Jr. this week, asking who is responsible for the pairings of inmates.

Krist, who has been involved in corrections issues for eight years, attributed problems to overcrowding, lack of funding, and the hands-on operational issues in the prisons.

He supports Frakes in his work to change the culture and do large-scale reform, he said. He doesn't support Frakes' request for more staff at the prisons when there are already 149 vacant positions.

"If they're saying that they need the money, then I want to know where the money went to for the fully funded positions," Krist said.

Where is the accountability for that money? he said. It's being diverted to overtime pay and per diems, he said.

"We need to make sure that there's accountability for the (inmate) lives that have been lost in the last two and a half years," he said. "And we need to know why we did not have a problem at Tecumseh for almost two decades (previous), in terms of management structure."
A Tecumseh inmate spending life in prison was charged Friday with first-degree murder for allegedly strangling his 22-year-old cellmate last week.

Patrick W. Schroeder, 39, is also charged with use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, according to the Nebraska Attorney General's Office.

Terry L. Berry was found unresponsive in his cell April 15 just after 7:30 p.m. He was taken to Bryan Medical Center and pronounced dead five days later.

Berry was serving three to four years for felony forgery and a jail assault conviction from Platte County. He had a parole hearing scheduled for next month, and his release date was in December.

Schroeder and Berry were the only occupants in the cell at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution before Berry was found unresponsive.

Video surveillance showed a corrections corporal had conducted a check of the inmates around 7:12 p.m. About 25 minutes later, the same corporal returned to remove a phone cart from another cell when Schroeder told him that Berry was lying on the floor, unconscious with a white towel around his neck, according to a court document.

Investigators said the towel had creases near the ends as though it had been pulled and held tightly. Berry also had injuries on his neck that were consistent with being strangled, along with several small bruises on his hands and arms, the document says.

An autopsy conducted in Omaha on Friday confirmed the cause of death to be strangulation, and the manner of death to be homicide.

Nebraska State Ombudsman Marshall Lux said his staff told him the incident occurred in the special-management unit, which holds inmates in segregation or solitary confinement.

Earlier, Lux said he had questions for prison officials.

"Why were there two people in that one cell?" Lux said.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes was questioned Thursday about double bunking in the segregation unit at Tecumseh.

He said it was very limited, but "using the correct tools and in the right setting and with the right population, it's safe and it's OK to house people in a restrictive housing setting with two people in a cell. Just like it is in general population."

The Tecumseh prison housed an average of 1,032 inmates each day in the last quarter of 2016, operating at 107 percent of its design capacity, according to the department's latest population numbers.

Schroeder was in prison for first-degree murder, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and six counts of second-degree forgery out of Pawnee County, according to records.

He killed 75-year-old Pawnee City farmer Kenneth Albers on April 14, 2006. During Schroeder's sentencing hearing the next year, Pawnee County District Court Judge Daniel Bryan said Schroeder killed the farmer because he was "tired of pinching pennies."

Schroeder confessed to the crime but investigators initially suspected him after finding that the day before Albers was killed, Albers had filed a report with the Pawnee County Sheriffs office alleging Schroeder had stolen his checkbook on April 10 or 11 and forged a check for about $1,350.

Prosecutors said Schroeder went to Albers' home with a plan to rob him. He demanded money from Albers and then hit him once with a nightstick. Albers led Schroeder to his bedroom and handed over several thousand dollars in cash. After that, Schroeder took Albers to a machine shed and hit him with the nightstick four or five more times before taking his body to an abandoned well south of the farm.
To stay competitive, SD ethanol needs a carbon dioxide pipeline, Summit says

Summit met with Watertown area leaders to discuss the carbon pipeline and why it is vital to the longevity of South Dakota ethanol and corn growers.
A second Lincoln Fire and Rescue captain has filed a federal lawsuit against the department saying he faced retaliation for reporting harassment of two female firefighters between 2012 and 2015.

Captains Brian Giles and Troy Hurd said they were passed up for promotions. They contend firefighters who were less qualified, had less experience and scored lower than them on promotion tests got the jobs.

Hurd also reported facing other disciplinary actions as a result of his complaints, the lawsuits claims.

Hurd filed a federal lawsuit last year and a jury trial is scheduled for 2018, according to records.

In the new lawsuit filed Wednesday by Giles, Gretna attorney Kelly K. Brandon wrote Giles and Hurd first heard about harassment complaints from one of the women, who was a personal friend of Giles', in 2012. Both firefighters reported her complaints to management, the court document says. Only one of the women is still with the department.

Hurd later completed the citys workplace harassment form, which opened an investigation by Kim Taylor-Riley, the city's director of equity and diversity, into his complaint of retaliation. She found that at least three chiefs disciplined Hurd four times over the course of two years and that now-retired Chief John Huff blocked him from a temporary promotion that came with a 10 percent pay bump.

The report led Mayor Chris Beutler to pull all disciplinary actions against Hurd from his file. Beutler also approved Public Safety Director Tom Casadys plan to address management issues at LFR, including retaliation and inconsistent discipline.

Lincoln City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick said the plan from Casady has been successfully implemented.

"We're making sure it's a welcoming workplace and you don't have people that are being bulled or harassed," he said. "That's an ongoing commitment that Chief (Micheal) Despain has made."

Giles was also involved in Taylor-Rileys investigation, which was completed in 2014, and he supported Hurd's allegations of retaliation.

Later a second employee told Giles she was also experiencing harassment. The woman had been transferred to Station 8, which allegedly upset the stations captain, Shawn Mahler.

She was the only woman at the station. The complaint doesn't say how Giles knew the woman.

In December 2014, the woman expressed interest in applying for the rescue and hazmat crew, but Mahler allegedly told her she should stick with the medical or logistics teams because, typically women are less mechanically-minded than men, the document says.

He also subjected her to 18 months of observation before he would decide if she was competent enough to run on his truck. Its not standard procedure for firefighters to undergo such observation, the document says.

Giles complained to Battalion Chief Eric Jones, who told him he would rectify the situation. Again in August 2015, Giles reported to Jones that Mahler was denying the woman training because of her sex. The Station 8 schedule was also being manipulated so she was assigned to drive the ambulance more than her male counterparts, the document says.

Giles' last report was made in December that year. The retaliation against him has continued since, the document says.

Giles filed a charge of discrimination and retaliation with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission in June 2016 and expects to receive a right-to-sue letter from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before the case goes to trial.

Kirkpatrick said he was familiar with the NEOC complaint, which Giles filed the day before its deadline. Kirkpatrick said it's his understanding that the promotional procedures went they way it should have gone.

Giles is accusing Public Safety Director Tom Casady, Assistant Chief Pat Borer and battalion chiefs Jones and Tim Linke of retaliation and fostering an illegal retaliatory hostile work environment by treating people who complain about discrimination differently than other employees. He also alleges the City of Lincoln violated the Nebraska Fair Employment Practices Act.

Giles and Hurd seek unspecified damages and are asking for punitive damages to punish the defendants and deter others from doing the same.
The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating Lancaster County Treasurer Andy Stebbing, but details of the investigation are unknown.

When asked, the State Patrol said Friday the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office is handling the case.

Spokeswoman Suzanne Gage didnt release details of the investigation, but said in a statement that We are aware the Nebraska State Patrol is investigating. Our office will review the results of the investigation at its conclusion.

Gage said the investigation is focused on Stebbing "in a personal capacity" and not the county office. A search warrant was issued Thursday, she said, but has been sealed.

Sources said the State Patrol served the warrant at Stebbing's office Friday.

Stebbing did not answer calls from the Journal Star. His Twitter account, which was active last month, has been deleted.

Employees who work in Stebbing's office declined to comment when reached Friday.

Stebbing, a retired Lancaster County deputy sheriff and former Norfolk police officer, has been Lancaster County Treasurer since 2011 and won re-election in 2014.

A Republican, Stebbing lost to Chris Beutler in the 2015 Lincoln mayoral race by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin.

As county treasurer, Stebbing is responsible for collecting property taxes to be distributed to schools, fire districts, cities, villages and other political subdivisions.

The county treasurer's office also manages more than 300,000 motor vehicle registrations and titles.

Stebbing's department works out of three offices, including the County-City Building, North 46th Street and West O Street, and has 39 full-time employees.
Low-cost carrier SpiceJet on Friday said it would launch its second daily direct flight on the Kolkata-Dhaka route from May 16.

The airline, which now operates to seven international destinations, is the only low-cost carrier to operate flights on the Kolkata-Dhaka sector.

Bookings for the new flight starting from May 16 are currently open.

"The overwhelming response of our customers to our first flight on the Kolkata-Dhaka route is what encouraged us to launch our second flight on the sector in such a short period. We will eye new markets and boost connectivity while discreetly gauging customer demand," said airline's Senior Vice President Commercial, Shilpa Bhatia.

Dhaka is the second international destination after Bangkok that the airline will be serving with a daily direct flight from Kolkata.
Arnold Schwarzenegger isnt invincible any more. Terminator sequels apart, its been 20 years since he starred in a film, which broke the US blockbuster box-office threshold of $100million. His seemingly stable family life similarly collapsed in 2011, when his wife since 1986, Maria Shriver, separated from him on discovering that he had fathered a child with their housekeeper. His initial popularity as Californias Republican Governator had also nosedived by the time he left office in 2011. As action star, politician and family man, Arnie entered his sixties on the ropes.

His unlikely response has been to reinvent himself as a serious actor, a move confirmed with the release of Aftermath, in which he plays a grieving and eventually vengeful father. Even more than his low-key role in Maggie (2015), where he quietly cared for his daughter while awaiting her transformation into a murderous zombie, Schwarzenegger shows gentleness, helplessness and nuance in Aftermath. Aged 69, he has finally learned to act.

Such subtlety hadnt been needed in Arnies 1980s pomp. The macho American vision of the first Hollywood star-turned-politician, Ronald Reagan, had chimed with the bluntforce action films with which Arnie ruled the decade. The bulging pectorals on display as he wrestled Predators, leapt from a moving plane (Commando) and single-handedly shot a casinos-worth of mobsters (Raw Deal) made him appear armourplated. Even Clint Eastwood suddenly looked old, and lost his box-office crown to Arnie and his similarly pumped-up pal, Sly Stallone.

Schwarzenegger had set himself ambitious goals ever since arriving in the US from Austria in 1968, writing them on index-cards like a muscle-bound Gatsby. After being crowned as body-buildings youngest ever Mr Universe, and ignoring his thick accent to triumph as not only an action but a comedy star (in Twins), politics seemed the inevitable next step in an irresistible rise. There was talk of changing the law, so this small-town Austrian could follow Reagan as President.

That also meant a full decade away from leading roles, which left Schwarzeneggers Hollywood power exposed. There had been signs his lustre was fading even before he became Governor. He had co-starred in the disastrous bomb Batman & Robin (1997), as the thuddingly unfunny Mr Freeze. End of Days(1999) then saw out the Millennium with Arnie in a punch-up with Satan himself.

When Schwarzenegger finally made his comeback with The Last Stand(2013), he soon found how fatally long hed been away from multiplexes. Korean director Kim Jeewoon brought super-charged style to a High Noon-like plot, in which Schwarzeneggers sheriff defends his town from a drugs gang. The part was specifically designed for a 63- year-old broken-down guy, an executive from the producing studio Lionsgate told Deadline; Jee-woon saw a new vulnerability in his star, who now suggested some of the later John Waynes rough dignity. A miserable US box-office of $12mn showed how few now cared.

A jail-break team-up with Stallone, Escape Plan(2013), showed a lighter touch from Arnie in its comic moments, but again needed Asian and European fans to turn a profit. Solo again as a corrupt cop in Sabotage (2014), embarrassing US boxoffice of $10mn confirmed Schwarzeneggers action stardom was done. Even Terminator Genisys (2015), though a massive hit, was widely ridiculed. Playing an android who first crash-landed from the future looking like the Arnie of 1984 offered limited prospects for the weathered, sixty something former governor.

Now Aftermath proves Schwarzenegger is serious about being serious. He plays Roman, a Ukrainian American construction worker whose wife and pregnant daughter die in a plane crash. Blaming the air-traffic controller, he is determined to seek revenge. But Roman is no assault weapon-wielding tough guy. We see him early on in the shower, the then 68-year-old Arnie looking far from tautly super-human. He has a big, old working mans lumbering gait and, discovering his familys death, hes polite, and helplessly angry.

Why take such a role now  and why hadnt he before, Aftermaths British director, Elliott Lester, wondered when they met. I was so busy being the biggest action star in the world, and then Governor, that it wasnt in me, Schwarzenegger confessed.

In terms of raw skill as an actor, maybe when he was doing those action roles and being paid $30 million, the war wounds werent there yet, Lester tells me. I think you have to have a bit of damage to be able to do it. Although he would probably say that he has no damage at all. I saw in him sensitivity. With all the success that hes had, hes been beaten up a bit along the way.

Schwarzeneggers stubbornly intact accent here suggests a man whos still an American outsider. 100 per cent, Lester says emphatically. And hes been that guy that Roman is. Arnold used to be a bricklayer. These ordinary roots resurfaced on set and in his performance. I found Arnold incredibly straightforward and simple in his tastes. We were shooting in Columbus, Ohio, and he wanted to go and eat German sausages and potatoes.When filming was over, though, Lester saw Schwarzenegger campaign for John Kasich in the Presidential primaries. There were private jets, 21 security guards, and a convoy. He traversed two worlds, but was the same in both.

Lester equates the work ethic he saw in Arnie the actor to his bodybuilders devotion to reps (repeated exercises). He did an amazing turn in Maggie, Lester reflects. It would be great, as he gets older, to have a film like Unforgivenor Gran Torino. I know hes just done a comedy (Why Were Killing Gunther).

Its very late for such a second act, though. The model for Hollywood longevity, Clint Eastwood, built in such range-expanding roles from the start.

It depends on how people react to these films, Lester concludes, of Schwarzeneggers commitment to leaving action behind. I dont know if his fans from The Terminator will necessarily appreciate Aftermath, which is quiet and intimate.

But Arnolds very self-aware. And I think that he knows that its very hard, physically, to do what he did in The Terminator when youre 70.

The Independent
The Supreme Court has agreed to examine in August if a Parsi woman after marriage deemed to take the religion of her husband would cease to be a Parsi.

Should a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi be allowed to follow her religion? Should she have access to the Tower of Silence, the place for last rites of Zoroastrians, and other Parsi religious institutions to offer prayers and perform rituals?

It will also examine if a Parsi woman can be deprived of her religious identity and rights after marrying a man of different religion.

The apex court was dealing with an appeal challenging the Gujarat High Court's March 2012 verdict in which it was held that Goolrokh Adi Contractor, a Parsi, who had married Mahipal Gupta, a Hindu, under the provisions of the Special Marriage Act, ceased to be a Parsi.

Her lawyer Indira Jaising has told the court she was denied entry to the Tower of Silence for the funeral of her father and that there was no law in India which said the wife must adopt her husband's religion.

But the Valsad Parsi Anjuman Trust while supporting the Gujarat High Court verdict added that as per the Parsi Personal Law, a woman married to a Hindu can't be allowed to offer prayers and that it is up to the court whether personal laws are amenable to judicial review.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and MM Shantanagoudar observed that the issue dealt with the aspect of "religious identity" of a woman.

The three-judge bench of the Gujarat High Court had dismissed the petition demanding a direction to Parsi Anjuman Trust not to prohibit her entry to Parsi religious places and to allow her to attend the last rites of her parents.

The high court had maintained that unlike her male counterpart, if a Parsi woman married a non-Parsi, her religious identity would merge with that of her husband and that she would be deemed converted to his religion. If she wanted to continue to be a Parsi, she would have to specifically "give up her husband's religion in court or prove that she led the Parsi way of life".

Right now, if Parsi women marry outside their community, they lose their right to the home in a Parsi baug, they can never enter an agiary or fire temple, and the children born out of such an alliance can't avail benefits of Parsi trust funds.
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Myanmar has made substantial shifts in its relations with major powers comprising China, Russia and the United States. These are key regional players in Southeast Asia who will impact directly on peace and stability as well as economic development in Myanmar.

In the first half of this year, China has made impressive diplomatic inroads throughout Southeast Asia, taking advantage of the lack of policy clarity coming from the new US administration of President Donald Trump.

So far, Washington has flexed its muscle over the conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan and displayed a more reconciliatory tone towards Europe. That much was clear. It was only on Thursday that Vice President Mike Pence said that Trump would attend the Asia Pacific Economic Leaders Meeting in Vietnam, the ASEAN-US summit and the East Asia Summit.

Meanwhile, Beijing has been able to sharpen its long-standing policy and make the necessary adjustments to ensure strong friendships and cooperation with countries in the region. Myanmar President U Htin Kyaws recent visit to China demonstrated the new dynamics of their bilateral ties, which have encountered different challenges over the years.

Obviously, China has placed the highest value on Htin Kyaws week-long trip, knowing full well that this would be the most pivotal time to further strengthen their 67-year-old bilateral ties amid growing anxieties over US policy towards the region.

The joint press communique issued after his visit was extensive and forward looking, as China recognised the so-called Myanmar way of doing things.

China supported Myanmar in following a development path in line with its own national conditions and steadily promoted democratic transition As such, it would commit Beijing to help Nay Pyi Taw in its endeavours to promote both economic and political development at the same time. It must be noted here that for Beijing, such a commitment represents a new model of bilateral relations promoted by the current Chinese leadership.

In addition, China expressed strong support for Myanmar in realising domestic peace and national reconciliation through political dialogue. In return, Myanmar thanked China for its assistance extending to Nay Pyi Taws domestic peace and national reconciliation and welcomed its continued constructive role in this process.

Most importantly as far as China-Myanmar relations are concerned, Myanmar reiterated its firm commitment to the one China policy and continued support towards Chinas position on the questions of Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang. Akin to Cambodia, Myanmar has became another Asean member to concur with such stringent interpretations on the one-China policy.

After the scandal over the seizure of Singapores armoured vehicles tanks in Hong Kong last November, China has attempted to prevent further erosion of the one-China policy by becoming more forceful in pressing Asean members to adhere to it.

In 2014, Singapore concluded a free trade agreement with Taiwan by using different designations. The Philippines and Indonesia are pursuing a similar arrangement. Beijing is concerned that other Asean members will jump on the band wagon, further complicating ties with the grouping.

Obviously, Myanmar agreed to such a comprehensive statement as a goodwill gesture following Chinas support at the UN Security Council for blocking a proposed statement in March on the situation in Rakhine State. Russia, another member of the UN Security Council, also vetoed the statement. Previously, in January 2007, both countries blocked a UN resolution on the situation in Myanmar.

The cosying up of the Myanmar-China friendship has been clearly manifested by the opening of their long-delayed oil pipeline, which will transport oil from the Bay of Bengal into Chinas Yunnan provinces, some 800 kilometres inland. With both the oil and gas pipelines now in operation, Myanmar has suddenly become a major connectivity route for Chinas Belt and Road Initiative  a showcase of Xis mega-plan in mainland Southeast Asia. Chinas efforts elsewhere, especially in Laos and Thailand, are still at the early stage.

The quick operation of the oil pipeline also indicates that future MyanmarChina relations will be further strengthened. Both countries are confident that any remaining challenges posed by the controversial Myitsone Dam and the Letpadaung mine in Sagaing region will be resolved after final recommendations are made by the relevant assessment commissions.

During Htin Kyaws visit, he also received an assurance that China would continue to play a constructive role in the peace process. Myanmars National League of Democracy-led government has been pushing for the much delayed second batch of the 21st Century Panglong Conference, which is now scheduled to be held in May. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi wants to have all armed ethnic groups to sign the nation-wide ceasefire agreement. Those armed groups that were left out included  United Wa State Army, the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Taang National Army and Kachin Independent Army.

As the NLD-led government enters its second year, the peace process and border security remain top priorities, but are equally elusive. The link between domestic and external factors were discussed during the summit meeting in Beijing, but whether it would produce positive results on the ground remained to be seen. To ensure that Myanmar and China are on the same page and follow similar strategic plans, Ms Suu Kyi has already confirmed her participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Summit in Beijing from 14-15 May.

In comparison to China, Myanmar-Russia ties have been cordial, but they are still very much focused on military-related cooperation. The two countries will celebrate their 70th anniversary of relations next year. In retrospect, Russia has been faithful to Myanmar, treating the strategic Southeast Asian country as a gateway to Asean. Better Myanmar-Asean integration would also be beneficial to Russia.

Due to Myanmars external factors and unique political system and non-aligned diplomacy, its bilateral ties with Russia have special characteristics, focusing heavily on military and security related matters. The international boycott imposed by the West since the late 1980s has further warmed their relationship. Russia has been quite sympathetic to Myanmar prior to its dramatic transformation in 2011. During the 1980s-1990s thousands of Myanmar officials and students were dispatched to Russia for training and study, especially in nuclear-related science and technology.

At this juncture, Russia is diversifying its cooperation with Myanmar to include economic, cultural and scientific fields. Although Russia does not have a big investment in Myanmar, its future interest in oil and gas exploration would increase its investment portfolio. Last year, Russia provided more than 300 scholarships to Myanmar students.

Finally, after years of optimism over the prospects of USMyanmar relations, the harsh realities have kicked in and seriously damaged the once unshakable bilateral relationship. Kudos must go to President Barack Obama who invested lots of foreign policy efforts to ensure Myanmar moved towards a new era by working closely with the previous administration under President U Thein Sein. Without him, the current transformation would not have been possible.

Truth be told, the US interest in normalising ties with Myanmar was aimed essentially at distancing the country from North Korea to halt the formers nuclear ambition and desired missile technological development. Washington was extremely concerned that there would be quick knowledge transfer of these know-hows between the two countries. In late May 2011, the US Navy intercepted a North Korean ship carried missile technology in the Andaman Sea destined for Myanmar and managed to force the ship to return home.

Fortunately, Myanmar North Korea ties were quickly neutralised and their ongoing nuclear cooperation has subsequently been stopped ahead of US-Myanmar normalisation. Given the current focus on the nuclear threats from North Korea dominating global headlines, Myanmar could have been targeted as well without the earlier policys u-turn.

So far, the Trump administration has not yet made known its policy toward Myanmar, whether it would continue to pursue the same path or adopt a new one. However, judging from the US position and official comments on the Rakhine situation, Washington is pressuring Nay Pyi Taw to do more over the communal conflicts. Daw Suu Kyi has already asked the international community for time and patience as she is dealing with the issue through both domestic and international mechanisms.

Early next month, she is scheduled to visit key members of European Union following her participation in the 30th Asean Summit in Manila. She plans to update her colleagues on the latest development in Rakhine and remedial measures that have been instituted there since they last met in December 2016.

It remains to be seen how her reputation and shuttle diplomacy will play out in coming months as Myanmar intensifies broader engagements with concerned major powers, while at the same time mitigating the adverse effects emanating from the Rakhine situation.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies, Thailand. This is a series of columns on global affairs written by top editors and columnists from members of the Asia News Network and published in newspapers and websites across the region.
Accelerating efforts to enable people with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders to lead a productive life, countries in WHO Southeast Asia Region on Friday adopted the Thimphu Declaration which calls for integrating the needs of such individuals and their families into national health and socioeconomic development plans.

The Declaration, adopted at the end of the three-day International Conference on Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders here, emphasizes the need for a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach to these issues, with specific attention to strengthening national capacities in the health, education and social care sectors to provide effective services and support to people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), a media statement said.

The Declaration welcomed WHO Southeast Asia Region's strategy on autism and called for countries in the Region to share experiences and best practices, with a focus on the lifespan needs of people with ASD and NDDs.

"Inter-country cooperation and partnerships are fundamental to addressing autism in the Region. Member countries are already demonstrating how progress can be forged, providing valuable learning opportunities that must be embraced and adapted to country needs," Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO Southeast Asia, said.

The Thimphu Declaration, a collaborative effort of countries in the Region, was facilitated by the existing collaborative framework for autism in Southeast Asia.

Government at all levels  national, state and local  should work with civil society, including academia, professionals and non-government organizations, as well as the private sector and media to effectively address autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, the Declaration said.

The Thimphu Declaration stressed the need to promote social inclusiveness and remove stigma, which are major challenges that individuals and their families face.

The conference witnessed high-level representation at the inaugural with the Queen of Bhutan  who is also the Royal Patron of Ability Bhutan Society  gracing the occasion, as well as Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay and Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, highlighting the need for focused and concerted efforts to address ASD and NDDs.

WHO Champion for ASD in Southeast Asia, Saima Wazed Hossain, who is also the chairperson of Shuchona Foundation, advocated for WHO's regional strategy on ASD.

The Conference, attended by policymakers, academics, professionals, practitioners, advocates and civil society organizations from the 11 Member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region and beyond, discussed community based services, inclusive education programs, employment opportunities, trainings and rights; and supported independent living in the community.

Autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders are life-long disabilities that affect brain functioning, and when left without proper support can cause significant impairment in exercising of an individual's human rights and fundamental freedoms, it said.


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SAN DIEGO -- President Trump appears to have softened his position on NATO, free trade, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the advice of generals, and whether China is a currency manipulator.

This is welcome news to "Never Trump" elements on Wall Street and in the Washington establishment, who are holding out hope that this could be a normal presidency after all.

But there is one issue where Trump and his cohort are not going soft: immigration. On that front, the administration is doubling down -- on cracking down.

Team Trump is pressing ahead with plans to build a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border, punish so-called sanctuary cities, hire thousands of additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents, end the "catch and release" policy, and appoint 125 new immigration judges over the next two years to speed up the deportation process.

As Attorney General Jeff Sessions said recently during a visit to the border: "This is a new era. This is the Trump era."

For a while there, it seemed as if Trump was prepared to deal sensibly with immigration -- by not revoking President Obama's executive actions, not deporting those undocumented young people known as "dreamers," telling members of his Hispanic Advisory Council during the campaign that he wanted a "humane and efficient" approach to the undocumented that could include legal status, and acknowledging that what he sold to voters as a seamless 2,000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico border will be more like a patchwork of fencing along a few hundred miles.

In his first 100 days in office, the president learned that health care reform and dealing with North Korea are more complicated than he thought.

Yet Trump learned the same thing about immigration -- even before he took office. But now that he seems to have empowered Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to shape U.S. immigration policy, there is reason for concern.

Sessions' record in the Senate shows that he is not just anti-illegal immigrant but anti-immigrant. Now that he wants the Justice Department to have a larger role in immigration policy, he should try to reform the system so that more immigrants can come into the country legally, instead of simply keeping out those who come legally.

Meanwhile, Kelly has been all over the map. During a recent trip to Mexico, he declared: "There will be no mass deportations." But during an appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," he warned the undocumented: "If you're here illegally, you should leave or you should be deported."

Sometimes, Sessions and Kelly disagree. While visiting the border, Sessions urged federal prosecutors to look for ways to charge undocumented immigrants and said that anyone in the country illegally should expect to be deported. Someone should loop in Kelly who, on "Meet The Press," said "just because you're in the United States illegally doesn't necessarily get you targeted."

With Sessions and Kelly cast as the Abbott and Costello of immigration policy, you'd think more people would be nervous.

Yet you don't hear many complaints, aside from the open-border activists whom no one listens to anyway. Could it be that the political establishment and business community are not as pro-immigrant as they pretend to be?

They're not the only ones. Show me a region of the country that complains about having too many immigrants. And I'll show you a bunch of people with short memories who, 10 years ago, were so desperate for workers to build their homes, pick their crops, and babysit their children that they did everything but place help wanted ads in foreign newspapers.

Oh wait, actually, some U.S. companies did do that.

After more than a quarter-century of writing about immigration, I'm sick to my stomach of hearing a chorus of dishonest Americans complain about something that is -- any way you look at it -- a self-inflicted wound.

Just look at who accounts for much of the economic growth in this country, who is taking the risks, and who is producing much of the wealth -- sometimes for themselves as budding entrepreneurs but more often for others.

A new study by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative found that, over the last decade, the number of Latino-owned businesses grew 300 percent faster than the national average. And 61 percent of these entrepreneurs are immigrants or children of immigrants.

Americans have it backward. Instead of driving out immigrants, we ought to be begging the world for more.
Part of the charm of Puglia is its slow approach to everyday life. Southern Italys rising star has ancient farmland hemmed by a sun-bleached sandy coast and is where travellers come to escape the frenetic vibe of nearby Tuscany.

This year the regions beautiful range of private villas, many with private pools and always with gorgeous views, will be particularly popular, as it allows social distancing without compromising on the joy of travel.



So what does this beautiful region have to offer? Here are our top ten suggestions:

Valle dItria

Valle dItria, also called Trulli valley, has a unique fairytale landscape dotted with former peasant homes known as Trulli (plural of Trullo). These traditional Apulian structures look quaint with their beehive-shaped roofs and are resourcefully made from stones that peasants cleared from their rocky fields. These structures were easy to erect and just as easy to knock down if necessary and offer warmth in the winter and coolness in the summer months.

These fanciful Trulli, set in the peaceful Puglia countryside, have been restored as holiday homes with private pools.

For example, Corte Bianca in Valle dItria has been carefully renovated to bring together traditional features and contemporary style.

In the heart of Martina Franca is Trullo Febe, a charming Trullo in a secluded spot with a shaded pergola for alfresco dining surrounded by countryside and olive trees.

While its interiors are charmingly rustic it offers modern luxury, including air-conditioning and a large saltwater pool with Jacuzzi. The accommodation is arranged in separate units which means a family or group of friends can holiday together yet still have privacy. Trullo Febe comes with a concierge service too.

The sea and the regions beautiful beaches are nearby.

Gargano

In the spur of Italy, Gargano is replete with beautiful fishing villages, dark and ancient forests inland, fine sandy beaches and hemmed by rugged cliffs, secret caves and picturesque coves. It is ideal as a hub for eco-tourism and to relax.

The most popular and fashionable town in Gargano is the medieval village of Vieste. Its a joy to saunter through its narrow streets, passing whitewashed houses all the while being overlooked by the stunning 13th-century castle.

The Mattinata beach along the coastal area of Baia delle Zagare is among its most beautiful beaches with its famous stacks a few metres from the shore.

If you like fresh fish you have to try a dinner at a trabucco, a traditional wooden fishing platform that protrudes out to sea from on the coast. You can watch the fishing process, help out if you want, enjoy a fish dinner leaving you with a very memorable experience.

Where to Stay

For a selection of the best properties with authentic and exclusive design and comfort, visit our sponsor, Puglia Paradise.

Salento

The southernmost area of Puglia is defined by stony olive groves that extend between dry-stone walls bordered with oleander. It has a strong identity with its own cuisine, traditions and music, influenced by its Greek past.

Along with some of Italys best beaches such as Porto Cesareo with the Punta Prosciutto dunes, Pescoluse beach (also called Maldives of Salento) and Torre Lapillo beach, there are some fascinating towns to explore such as Otranto, Specchia and Presicce (awarded as three of the most beautiful Italian villages).

Get there in the summer for a chance to witness a sagra di paese (a village festival) where you can eat traditional street food while listening to traditional music such as pizzica or tarantella.

Ostuni

The city of Ostuni is a beautiful maze-like white city on a hilltop just 8km from the Adriatic Sea. It is packed with narrow streets and alleys you can spend ages getting lost in, climbing staircases and falling in love with the stunning views.

The historic centre inside its ancient walls is home to traditional craftsmanship shops, cosy cafes and aperitivo spots, and lovely restaurants to experience a perfect Apulian dinner. Then wash it down with a drink in one of the trendy bars where you can enjoy the lively Italian nightlife in an international environment.

Set amid the olive trees, Villa Rosara styled as a traditional Puglia farmhouse amid landscaped grounds, has a terrace and private pool. The villa is just a 700m walk to Ostuni and a short drive to some of Puglias most beautiful beaches.

Created in the style of a traditional farmhouse, Villa Margareta is only five minutes from Ostuni. The terrace and saltwater pool overlooks stunning sea views with plenty of spacious areas where you can relax in the shade or sunshine or prepare an alfresco rustic meal in the outdoor wood-fired barbecue and pizza oven.

Villa Margareta Villa Skyler

The surrounding area around Ostuni is well worth visiting, particularly the quaint and slightly out of the way town of Carovigno famous for its production of olive oil.

Carovigno is just a 12-minute drive from Ostuni, and if you would like to have your base here you can book a stay at Villa Skyler, which is located just 5km from the sea. The villa is equipped with a spectacular saltwater infinity pool with views of the sea and surrounding countryside.

Brindisi

The safe harbour port of Brindisi is a UNESCO heritage site for the culture of Peace. The city hosts the United Nations Logistics Base  the hub for peacekeeping operations.

For many years, the port was a stop point for the Indian Mail from London to Bombay, and it hosted the likes of Virgil and Gandhi.

Its beautiful waterfront is packed with restaurants that serve local and fresh food. The old town nicknamed Brindeasy for its slow and relaxed lifestyle has an old-school traditional charm where people are friendly and welcoming.

Bari, the capital of the region, is buzzing and busy and has a lovely old town. Bari Vecchia (the old town of Bari) is a walled city built on a peninsula jutting into the sea. It is so intimate that walking down the narrow alleyways feel like being in someones living room. The streets here are places to socialise, and each morning women sit at tables making orecchiette (little ears), the typical Apulian pasta made by rolling the dough into thin logs, cutting off a chunk and shaping it by hand at an impressively rapid pace.

TIP: Be sure to try the focaccia! It is a flatbread typical of this area with roasted cherry tomatoes, olives and glistening with local olive oil.

Polignano A Mare

Polignano a Mare is one of Puglias most picturesque seaside towns, and one of the most important ancient settlements in Puglia. Spectacularly positioned on the Adriatic coast, it is built on the edge of a craggy ravine pockmarked with caves.

TIP: For a once in a lifetime experience, visit Grotta Palazzese, a luxury restaurant with a view over a magnificent blue-green sea, carved out of magnificent limestone rocks that lies in an unparalleled location. It has been enchanting visitors for centuries.

Set in the countryside close to Polignano a Mare there is Villa Incanto a Mare, the ultimate in modern Italian style and luxury outdoor living. A stylish and exclusive holiday villa, its most striking feature is the spacious party area, which comes complete with a chefs kitchen, pizza oven and barbecue.

READ ALSO: When is the best time to visit Puglia

Alberobello

Alberobello is a fairytale UNESCO World Heritage town made of 1,500 Trulli (typical Apulian conical stone huts). It is both unique and enchanting place, and though a little touristy it is definitely worth a visit.

Most of the Trulli here have been transformed into souvenir shops, cafes, restaurants, but some of them (in less crowded areas of the town) are real homes where people still live.

You can stay in one of the authentic Trulli, such as Trullo Atena, a hidden gem that combines the tradition of a historic Trullo with the comforts of modern living.

Although it feels secluded this Trullo lies within an easy walk or drive of Alberobello. Enjoy soaking up the sunshine beside your private pool and relaxing in the shady gazebo.

Lecce

Called the Florence of the south, Lecce is one of Puglias largest cities. It is known for its baroque architecture with more than 40 churches and at least as many noble palazzi built or renovated between 17th and 18th century. The magnificent result is that it has one of the most unified urban landscapes in Italy.

The streets are always alive with young people drinking in cafes, families out for a stroll and groups of friends enjoying gelato or street food.

TIP: Dont miss the Pasticciotto (typical cake of Lecce) at Pasticceria Alvino in piazza SantOronzo, and Caffe in ghiaccio con latte di mandorla (ice coffee with almond syrup).

Otranto

Otranto is Italys easternmost town. It offers a mix of history, architecture, beautiful views, sea-front restaurants and white sandy beaches.

Sitting right on the Adriatic sea, in front of the Balkans and Greece, its strategic position has profoundly influenced its history. The imposing castle and towers dominate much of the town, surrounded by thick perimeter walls that give way to a small port and lovely sea-front promenades dotted with excellent fish restaurants.

The delightful Romanesque cathedral, dating back to 1088 with unique 12th-century floor mosaics, is another highlight not to be missed.

TIP: Though the town has its own beautiful white sandy beach with turquoise waters, make a little time to find the Alimini beach, part of a marine protected area. This is a long beach with white sand dunes and rich Mediterranean vegetation.

More about Puglia Paradise

Puglia Paradise is a leading villa rental company in Puglia, highly rated on Trustpilot UK , providing villas and Trulli with private pools for rent. Villas are managed exclusively by Puglia Paradise. Guests enjoy a warm and personal concierge service, or Guest Angel, to welcome you and assist with practical issues and offer tips on things to see and do, where to eat, local markets and the best local products shops.

The selection of the best villas can optionally be provided with a full staff.

Villas will be available to rent from April to October, and prices start from  200 per night for long stays. Minimum stay varies from 2 to 7 nights, depending on the period.

This article is sponsored by Puglia Paradise. It was updated on January 9th, 2022, and first published on April 21st, 2017.
Organization: Malaria

Consortium

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

Reports to: Africa Technical

Director

Salary: USD 53,100

About Malaria Consortium:

Malaria Consortium is the worlds leading not-for-profit organisation

dedicated to the comprehensive control of malaria and other communicable

diseases in Africa and Southeast Asia. Malaria Consortium works with

communities, government and non-government agencies, academic institutions, and

local and international organisations, to ensure good evidence supports

delivery of effective services, providing technical support for monitoring and

evaluation of programmes and activities for evidence-based decision-making and

strategic planning. Malaria Consortium works to improve not only the health of

the individual, but also the capacity of national health systems, which helps

relieve poverty and support improved economic prosperity.

Job Summary: The Capacity

Building Specialist will provide technical support to country offices and

projects in the development of approaches and tools for capacity building and

curriculum development. The position is based in one of Malaria Consortiums

regional or an agreed location in Africa. The incumbent will work in liaison

with the Africa Technical Director to provide technical advice and guidance on

human capacity building initiatives relating to its broad communicable disease

portfolio. The post holder will also serve as a resource to key stakeholders

such as Ministry of Health, and the National Malaria Control Programme

specifically.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:

Technical support contribution  (40% LOE)

Offer

technical advice on human capacity building approaches and methods, at

facility and community levels.

Take

part in the development of and field-testing of capacity building

approaches, materials and tools.

Keenly

monitor the quality of the capacity building aspects of Malaria Consortium

projects and establish standards to ensure project materials comply

with existing global and/or national benchmarks regarding human capacity

development.

Offer

timely technical assistance to Ministries of Health and other development

/ implementing partners, strategy development related to human capacity

development.

Direct

efforts to strengthen capacity of technical staff within Malaria

Consortium as well as public and private sector projects in capacity

building approaches and content development

Strategic contributions  (30% LOE)

Design,

develop and implement, evaluation methods for project capacity

building activities.

Contribute

to the conduct of both qualitative and quantitative research associated

with human capacity development

The

jobholder will also represent the organisation at national, regional and

international meetings on matters relating to human capacity

development and health system strengthening of malaria, and other

communicable diseases.

Be

a core member in Malaria Consortiums Capacity Building Community of

Practice and support strategic initiatives led by this group

Serve

as country focal point as deemed appropriate by global technical director

and regional technical director

Communication and Advocacy  (10%)

Manage

and prepare documentation based on Malaria Consortiums work in capacity

building for dissemination in line with our organizational

knowledge management strategy, in forms such as learning briefs, learning

papers and journal publications.

Provide

technical inputs as required to the organizations global advocacy work

Technical

staff professional development

Participate

in technical capacity building both internally and externally

Business Development  (10%) Contribute to the organisations business development efforts by

providing technical inputs to proposal writing and programme design

particularly on capacity building Contribute to the organisations business development efforts byproviding technical inputs to proposal writing and programme designparticularly on capacity building



Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The

ideal candidate for the Malaria Consortium Capacity Building

Specialist job vacancy must hold a post

graduate degree in public health, health education or related field,

clinical specialty additional certification in communicable or infectious

disease

A

minimum of ten years of field experience in a developing country

with at least five years professional experience working at a senior level

within the health sector supporting capacity building initiatives,

including proficiency in adult learning techniques and approaches.

Significant

experience in curriculum, pedagogy and training material development.

Previous

exposure and experience in training of health staff at all levels

of the health system, including community level.

Prior

experience coaching and mentoring senior staff within Ministries of

Health, particularly within Africa.

Proficient

in qualitative research methods

Working knowledge of health systems strengthening including health service

delivery, clinical mentoring, support supervision, competency development

and performance improvement.

Fluent

written and spoken English.

Excellent

mentoring skills and a commitment to national and expatriate staff

capacity development.

Previous experience of establishing strong working relationships with

colleagues from different functions and cultures is desirable

Familiarity

with epidemiology of malaria.

Familiarity

in management of other common childhood illnesses and nutrition.



of French or Portuguese is desired Knowledgeof French or Portuguese is desired

Core Competencies:

Delivering Results: Supports others to achieve results

Displays

a positive and enthusiastic approach and is not deterred by

setbacks, finding alternative ways to reach goals or targets.

Supports

others to plan and deliver results



others to manage and cope with setbacks Supportsothers to manage and cope with setbacks

Analysis and use of

information: Works confidently with complex data to support work Works confidently with complex data to support work

Interprets

complex written information

Works

confidently with data before making decisions: for example; interpreting

trends, issues and risks



with the validity, relevance and limitations of different sources

of evidence Acquaintedwith the validity, relevance and limitations of different sourcesof evidence

Interpersonal and communications: Adapts communications

effectively Adapts communicationseffectively

Tailors

communication (content, style and medium) to diverse audiences

Communicates

equally effectively at all organisational levels

Understands

others underlying needs, concerns and motivations and communicates

effectively in sensitive situations



intra-team and inter-team conflicts effectively Resolvesintra-team and inter-team conflicts effectively

Collaboration and partnering:

Builds strong networks internally and participates actively in

external networks and think tanks Builds strong networks internally and participates actively inexternal networks and think tanks

Builds

strong networks internally

Participates

actively in external networks and/or think tanks.

Engages

with relevant experts to gather and evaluate evidence

Shares

and implements good practice with internal and external peers

Leading and motivating people: Effectively leads and motivates

others or direct reports. Effectively leads and motivatesothers or direct reports.

Gives

regular, timely and appropriate feedback

Acknowledges

good performance and deals with issues concerning poor performance

Conducts

staff assessment and development activities conscientiously and

effectively

Develop

the skills and competence of others through the development and

application of skills



and supports team members when they have difficulties Coachesand supports team members when they have difficulties

Flexibility/

adaptability: Clarifies priorities and ensures learning from experience Clarifies priorities and ensures learning from experience

Clarifies

priorities when leading change

Sees

and shows others the benefits of strategic change.

Helps

colleagues/team members to practise stress management through

prioritisation of workloads and modelling of appropriate self-management

and care



time to learn from experience and feedback, and apply the lessons to a new

situation Makestime to learn from experience and feedback, and apply the lessons to a newsituation

Living the values: Supports

others to live Malaria Consortiums values Supportsothers to live Malaria Consortiums values

Demonstrates

personal integrity by using role position responsibly and fairly

Cultivates

an open culture within the wider team, promoting accountability,

responsibility and respect for individual differences

Strategic planning and thinking and sector awareness: Keeps up

to date with the internal and external environment Keeps upto date with the internal and external environment

Takes

into account economic, political and other business factors when drawing

up medium and long-term plans, covering both public and private

sectors

Looks

beyond the immediate operations to prospects for new business

Engages

with appropriate internal and external sources to establish major

influences on future plans

How to Apply:

All interested applicants are encouraged to apply online at the web

link below.

th April 2017

by 11:59 pm Deadline: 25April 2017by 11:59 pm
Job Title: Hygiene Promotion Team Leader

Organisation: Catholic

Relief Services (CRS)

Duty Station: Uganda

Reports to: Project Manager

 Emergency Response

About US:

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in an international non-profit

organization that carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United

States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at

the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and

as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values

and our commitment to serving those in need.

Job Summary: The Hygiene

Promotion Team Leader will take lead on assessments together with the Water and

Sanitation Team Leader, line manage one to two Hygiene Promotion Officers,

train them as necessary and manage the day to day processes and organization of

CRS Hygiene Promotion activities as part of the Yumbe emergency response.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:

Ensure that Hygiene Promotion Officers

(HPOs) and Community Hygiene Promotion Teams (CHPs) promotes safe WASH

practices including use and maintenance of WASH facilities and services.

Ensure the effective coordination and

integration of Hygiene Promotion activities with Water & Sanitation

Activities and any other cross-cutting activities within the project and

ensure CHPs are trained and formed by HPOS.

Coordinate all hygiene promotion

activities with Water & Sanitation Team Leader

Work in liaison with the Water &

Sanitation Team Leader lead and provide support on assessments of WASH and

Public health situation of settlement camp and communities in defined

geographical area.

Work in close coordination with the Water

and Sanitation Team Leader, come up with baseline analysis of key public

health issues with key recommendations to problems identified. This

includes design of KAP survey methodologies.

Based on the needs assessment and WASH

strategy and program objectives set by the HRD WASH TA, support the

emergency program coordinator in designing and initiating the public

health program including any additional emergency preparedness and

response

Work in liaison with Water &

Sanitation TL, ensure that program implementation activities are within

the parameters of the hygiene promotion needs. This will involve

supporting to Water and Sanitation Team in identifying appropriate designs

for implementation; review and strengthen of refugee WASH Committees,

water and sanitation committees and identifying training needs to empower

these structures

The Hygiene Promotion Team Leader will

monitor the effectiveness of hygiene promotional activities (including

WASH related diseases) and the continuing humanitarian needs.

Develop together with the Water and

Sanitation Team Leader a hygiene promotion plan and manage others in the

effective monitoring and reporting WASH and health indicators.

Keenly analyze and make the links between

the Water and Sanitation engineering, and hygiene promotion team, and to

make recommendations for actions which are consistent with CRS policies

and WASH emergency policies set by the WASH Settlement Coordination Body.

As necessary, lead on recruitment,

training and supervision of HP staff and CHP volunteers. This will involve

writing work schedules, training plans but more importantly ensuring that

performance objectives are set and appraisals carried out for all HP staff

Take lead in the selection of the

composition of WASH NFI kits for distribution with the WASH team

Ensure that Post Distribution Monitoring

systems are in place with clear feedback and complaint mechanism in place.

Ensure that requisitions are raised in a

timely manner and follow up with logistics on procurement and delivery of

materials.

Regularly monitor budget and ensure

cost-effectiveness of program delivery

Ensure that all members of the community,

women, men, children and PWD are involved in all aspects of the program implementation

from planning to evaluation and systems are in place for proper

accountability including setting up feedback and complaints mechanisms.

Ensure that all work is carried out in a

way that is sensitive to community needs and gender issues, promote the

full and equal participation of women in all aspects of the work and to

ensure that CRS response is in line with the needs of the affected people.

Ensure that hygiene promotion activities

meet Minimum Standards and adheres to CRS emergency guidelines and

protocols

Ensure that integrated approach to program

implementation is considered within the Hygiene promotion activities

Ensure that gender, protection, the

environment and other important cross-cutting concerns are considered in

program design, implementation, and reporting; ensure that activities

reflect the needs of specific groups and individuals e.g. elderly people,

children and people with disabilities.



Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The ideal candidate for the Catholic

Relief Services (CRS) Hygiene Promotion Team Leader job opportunity should

a Bachelors Degree in relevant Public Health discipline from a recognized

academic institution. Appropriate relevant and comprehensive experience in

the field of WASH, especially in emergency settings.

Previous experience in Hygiene/Health

Promotion with NGOs may substitute for the formal qualifications but not

vice-versa

Demonstrated ability and experience in

planning and implementing WASH Program (both in emergency response /

recovery and long term development)  At least three years preferably in

Uganda refugee settlement is an added advantage.

Proven technical skills

Proven experience of managing staff

Prior experience of project cycle

management

Proven experience of mentoring and

capacity building of team / partners including training facilitation

skills

Excellent interpersonal and team skills

and proven ability to be flexible in demanding situation

Assessment, analytical and planning skills

Communicates strategically under pressure

Manages stress and complexity

Actively promotes safety and security

Good organizational skills and ability to

manage multiple tasks simultaneously.

Excellent verbal and written English

communication skills as well as local languages.

Excellent interpersonal communication

skills.

Proficient in the use of AutoCAD and MS

Office programs.

Ability to work independently and

creatively.

High degree of enthusiasm in working as a

member of a team and willingness to learn.

Ability to embrace the challenge of

working under pressure

A capacity and desire to pass on skills

and information, a confident communicator and willing to work in a

collaborative and respectful way with the beneficiaries.

Working knowledge of and commitment to

humanitarian principles (NGO / Red cross code of conduct) and with Sphere

humanitarian charter and minimum standards

Fluent English language (speaking and

writing) and knowledge of the local language in Yumbe district, Arabic is

an added advantage.

Excellent knowledge about importance of

integrated approach in engineering, livelihood, shelter and protection) in

emergency context.

Previous exposure and experience of

working with local partners including local authorities/settlement

leadership

Significant experience in gender analysis

and integrating gender & diversity into programme

Flexibility and ability to work under

pressure and meeting deadlines in changing situations

Experience of working effectively within a

big international agency (I/NGOs)

Willingness to be based in Yumbe

Agency-Wide Competences (for all CRS

Staff): Serves with Integrity, Models Stewardship, Cultivates

Constructive Relationships, Promotes Learning

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates are encouraged to send

a cover letter, updated CV and three work references (names and contact

information only) to ug_recruitment@crs.org

th April 2017 Deadline: 25April 2017
But the tribe has a long way to go
Actress Raveena Tandon, who is making her comeback with Maatr, portrays a mother of a 12-year-old rape survivor, who when denied justice seeks revenge.

Expressing her deepest worries as a mother herself, the actress said, My role was not only challenging but disturbing too.

Tandon said, Shooting for such a role was horrifying and disturbing. It makes you understand what people actually go through when such things happen to them or their loved ones in real life.

The Bombay Velvet actress, who is quite selective about her choice of films, shared, I dont want my film to release every week. I get many scripts and films but I refuse most of them because I have done such roles before. The artist in me requires something challenging, something that will push me beyond my limits.

The film is about the failure of judiciary and the society in the face of a heinous crime such as rape, who is out to take revenge from the criminals who destroyed her daughter's life.

'Maatr' is written by Michael Pellico and directed by Ashtar Sayed. It traces a mother's journey from being a law abiding citizen to a person who is forced to take law into her own hands.

The movie also brings into light the rampant cases of rape in the national capital.

It also stars Divya Jagdale, Anurag Arora in pivotal roles and is scheduled to hit the theatres on Friday .
In the wake of current tensions in the Valley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has asked all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris across the country.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris," he told reporters.

The minister later tweeted that the ministry will soon issue an advisory to all the states regarding the same.

I appeal to everyone to ensure the safety of Kashmiri students living in other parts of the country. Kashmiris are a part of our family.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) April 21, 2017 The Kashmiri youth also contribute in the progress of India. Action should be taken by the states against those who target them.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) April 21, 2017 I have asked the HS to immediately issue an advisory to all the states to ensure the safety and security of Kashmiri students.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) April 21, 2017

Further, the home ministry tweeted round-the-clock helpline numbers for Kashmiris living outside jammu and Kashmir

MHA Helpline Number for the people of J&K living in other parts of the country. pic.twitter.com/ojGAIIFkBo  HMO India (@HMOIndia) April 21, 2017

The warning comes amid banners calling for boycott of Kashmiris and asking people from the Valley to leave Uttar Pradesh coming up at Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.

The banners have been put up by a little-known outfit, Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena. Its chief Amit Jani said they have put up these banners and hoardings along the Partapur bypass outside the colleges where Kashmiri students study.

Police said action will be taken against those putting up such hoardings.

But the outfit said it is only the first step and it will launch a 'halla bol' campaign from April 30 to "banish" the Kashmiris who do not leave the state on their own.

A video clip of some youths assaulting soldiers on their way to poll duty in Kralpora area in central Kashmir's Budgam district had gone viral on social media recently, drawing nationwide outrage.
Thirty-year-old-constable Abid Hamid (not his real name) was repeatedly kneading his left cheek. Every time he felt it, it hurt.

Hamid was hit by a stone during Monday's clashes between the police and college students at Srinagar's posh M.A. Road.

The protest broke out in retaliation to a police assault on students of a degree college in Pulwama on April 14, in which at least 50 students had sustained injuries. Apparently, the clashes took place in the presence of a nakka party close to the campus.

A day later, students across Kashmir took to the streets to protest the high-handedness of the security forces against Pulwama college students. Intense clashes took place between the students, including females, and the police in Srinagar, Sopore, Tral, Pulwama and Baramulla.

In an attempt to restore calm, the police fired scores of tear smoke shells and cane-charged the enraged students.

Hamid and his colleagues were deployed at M.A. Road to quell the agitation. The fracas continued for several hours forcing shops to close down and diversion of traffic through city's main arteries.

The students hit the police using intense barrage of stones and brickbats. Hamid was hit in the face and left leg above the ankle.

The situation eased by afternoon, but not for Hamid. He seems to be in great distress as he was alternately rasping his cheek and leg.

His swollen cheek had turned red with a bluish tinge. Should you consult a doctor? I ask.

No, this is routine, he says. We are used to this.

Don't you wear the helmet and the leg guard?

We do, but it hardly matters when you face a barrage of stones, he says.

He then points to his colleague who was sitting inside a jeep.

His entire upper jaw was crushed by a stone," Hamid explains. The SP got it replaced with an artificial one.

Soon, two more of his colleagues open up.

We can handle this, but the advisory the DGP has issued that policemen from south Kashmir should avoid visiting their homes is more distressing than the stones we face, says Ali Khan (not his real name).

What was the need for that? he cannot stop from asking. We used to visit homes and return and nobody said anything.

But have the houses of several policemen been ransacked by militants in south Kashmir?

Not in my area, Khan says. The situation is more dangerous in Kulgam, Shopian, Pulwama and Tral.

Another cop joins the conversation. They could have quietly conveyed this to us through our seniors, he feels. Now, it will raise unnecessary suspicion when we would go home.

This was, however, not the first time that police kept themselves from visiting their families during political tensions. During the 2016 uprising, another constable says he hardly visited his home in south Kashmir. A few who did, took to mufti and tucked their cards in their shoes. Some even procured fake ID-cards.

Quite close by, Station House Officer Rashid Khan and a few of his men were standingguarding opposite the SP college. A cop was wrapping bandage around his injured wrist. Wearing a helmet, Khan showed no signs of unease as blood dripped down his fingers.

The situation eased by around 6 pm. The tell-tale signs of what unfolded during the day were visible on M.A. Road.

The stretch between the Women's College to Poloview was littered was brickbats, pieces of rocks and stones. The air still smelt of tear gas. At some places, pieces of brickbats crushed by speeding vehicles traced a trail.

How come the students had so many stones?

They probably carried them in their backpacks, Khan replies. Despite the injury, he seemed content that the police didn't fire bullets.

We showed a lot of restraint, he explains.

Later the day, there was news of a young girl Iqra, 17, who suffered a skull injury allegedly from a rock that the CRPF hurled at some protesting female students at Sekidafar in downtown Srinagar.

However, the police refuted the charges and blamed the stone-pelters for the incident.

By dusk, Hamid and his colleagues seemed worn out, not because of the clashes but by the advisory from the DGP.

But regardless of the advisory, many young policemen from south Kashmir said they would visit their homes.

DGP S.P. Vaid was furious when THE WEEK asked him by when would the advisory be withdrawn. Who says that? Don't make an issue out of this advisory, he thundered. Can't a father ask his family members to take care? he questioned.

We have families and how can we not go and meet them? asks another cop. But a top CID officer told THE WEEK that most often the cops used to visit the homes without informing their seniors.

Now they will have to inform their seniors who will alert the police station and army unit concerned whenever the cops visit home, as a precautionary measure, the office said.
Karnataka's higher education minister Basavaraj Raya Reddy, on Friday, dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give up his security cover. But what came as a shocker were the comments that followed.

Modi removed red beacons. Let him also give up his security cover. I am ready to give up mine. If there is any threat to his life, let him die. If one wants to be in power, he should also be ready to die. Else, let him sit at home, said Raya Reddy.

Enraged by the remarks, BJP leaders dubbed the minister as mentally unstable and demanded that the minister be immediately dropped from the cabinet for his irresponsible statement.

BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa said, Being a minister, he has bad-mouthed the prime minister of the country and dared him to give up security cover. This is not only condemnable but smacks of ill-intent too. Reddy should be dropped from the cabinet immediately and he should apologise to the people of the country.
At a time when O.Panneerselvam and Chief Minister Palanisamy-led factions of the AIADMK are trying hard to reach a truce, a Facebook post by one of Sasikalas nephews has gone viral in social media. The post had a created flutter among the AIADMK party men, particularly the OPS camp, who had been continuously demanding an in-depth probe to end the mystery in Jayalalithaas death.

Jeyanandh Dhivakaran, son of Sasikalas younger brother Dhivakaran, is one of the prominent young faces in the family. In his post on April 7, the day of IT raids at health minister Dr C.Vijayabaskars house, when the political heat in Tamil Nadu reached a feverish pitch, asked, What if the videos of discussions between Amma and Chinnamma are released? If so what can be done to this P.H.Pandian, Manoj Pandian and O.Panneerselvam who demand an enquiry?

Jeynanandh Dhivakaran's Facebook post

In a post written in Tamil, Jeyanandh says, The pictures of Amma in hospital was not released....The reason was that the enemies should not seen her clad in a green hospital gown....this is the work of Thyagathalaivi Chinnamma (sacrificing leader Sasikala)....We sent the lion as a lion to rule the heaven with all the kings respect....But OPS, just for the sake of votes, paraded our Puratchi Thalaivi Amma in a coffin....Truth is more powerful....If one day, the conversation between Amma (Jayalalithaa) and Chinnamma (Sasikala), while in the hospital, is released, what can P.H.Pandian, Manoj Pandian and O.Panneerselvam do...That day is not very far.

Jeyanandh, like others in the family, was not active in politics. His father Dhivakaran, Sasikala's younger brother, though, was one of the 12 in the family who were expelled from the party by Jayalalithaa in 2012.

Reportedly, Dhivakaran is very close to Sasikala and was seen next to her on the day of Jayalalithaas funeral at Rajaji Hall in Chennai.

Dhivakaran had earlier claimed that he was with Jayalalithaa, fighting to get back the two leaves symbol in 1988-89 when it was frozen (the AIADMK split into 'J' faction under Jayalalithaa and 'Ja' faction under MGRs wife Janaki Ramachandran). In fact, a few days after the death of Jayalalithaa, a few old pictures of Dhivakaran, seen along with Jayalalithaa in then party meetings, had gone viral in social media.

Reportedly, Dhivakaran is not in good terms with T.T.V. Dinakaran, Sasikalas nephew, who had to step aside from the post of deputy general secretary.

Dhivakaran, sources say, had been honing his son Jeyanandh to step into active politics. Reportedly, Dhivakaran is the new lobbyist supporting Chief Minister Edappadi K.Palanisamy in running the government and party.

Reportedly, Sasikalas husband M.Natarajan too is by Dhivakarans side.
US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, officials told CNN on Friday.

The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former US Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning now known as Chelsea Manning.

During former President Barack Obama's administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks was not alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning, reports CNN.

The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.

Last week, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia".

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news conference on Thursday that Assange's arrest is a "priority", CNN reported.

"We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," he said.

According to Assange's lawyer Barry Pollack, there has been no communication between him and the Justice Department about any charges against the Australian whistleblower.

Pollack said WikiLeaks is just like any other news daily which routinely publish stories based on classified information.

WikiLeaks, he says, publishes information that is in "the public's interest to know not just about the US but other governments around the world."

Assange, has been staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, reports the BBC.

He was granted asylum by Ecuador to prevent his extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
On April 10, a day after eight civilians were killed in clashes with security forces during anti-election protests in Srinagar, senior government officials met to discuss how the fallout would affect Anantnag, which would also hold a Lok Sabha byelection two days later. Most of the polling booths in Anantnagmore than 1,500had been declared hyper sensitive. In the meeting, the officials were told, based on intelligence reports, that violence in Anantnag could kill four to five times more people than in Srinagar. The meeting felt it would be impossible to protect the polling booths from mobs without the use of massive force, a senior official who attended the meeting told THE WEEK. A minister had suggested relocating some of the booths to safer places, but we thought that would be tantamount to premeditated rigging, said the official. The Election Commission and the opposition would not allow that to happen, the official said. It was then that Tassaduq Hussain Muftithe Peoples Democratic Party candidate in Anantnag and brother of Chief Minister Mehbooba Muftiasked the commission to postpone the elections.

Most political analysts said Tassaduq had done so for fear of losing. Like in Srinagar, where only 7.14 per cent of the electorate voted, a low turnout in Anantnag could have tipped the scale in favour of G.A. Mir, the Congress candidate supported by the National Conference. Mir, furious with the deferral, said if the situation was so bad, Mehbooba should have immediately resigned.

The PDP, said sources, would prefer to contest the elections this winterthe harsh weather would reduce violence and Tassaduq would have more time to gather support. Many observers, however, said the situation in Kashmir had worsened to such an extent that ensuring greater participation in elections would need a lot of work. Interestingly, just three years ago, in the 2014 assembly elections, the voter turnout had been 66 per cent.

The separatist sentiment, which survived despite a crushing defeat in the 1990s, has now manifested itself in street protests and stone pelting. The protesters are the youth of Kashmir, aged 16 to 24 and raised during the unstable years of militancy. Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, whose killing in 2016 sparked violent uprisings in Kashmir, was part of this generation.

Bye elections: Paramilitary personnel at a polling station in Srinagar. The turnout for the Lok Sabha byelection on April 10 was 7.14 per cent | AP

A major reason for the unrest in Kashmir is the shrinking of the middle ground that the PDP had created. It was seen as an alternative to the decades-long rule of the NC and seemed to support soft separatism. The stand on separatism won the party the support of some militants and their supporters in Pakistan. The PDP occupied the space between the NC and an uninspiring Hurriyat Conference. The emergence of the PDP not only robbed the separatists of their agenda, but also lent credence to the otherwise sham democracy in Kashmir. The PDPs riseit formed government in 2002was aided by Pakistans peace overtures to India. Post 9/11, especially between 2003 and 2006, the infiltration completely dried up on the Line of Control, said a senior intelligence officer of the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The PDP claimed it had brought peace to Kashmir.

But the calm ended in 2008, when the Congress government, supported by the PDP, transferred 99 acres to the Sri Amarnathji Shrine Board. There were demonstrations against the move and some people were killed. Two years later, the Army killed three civilians in a fake encounter at Machil in Kupwara. The protests that followed morphed into a separatist uprising and nearly dislodged the Omar Abdullah-led NC-Congress government.

This was when Burhan, a teenager, fled home and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen to avenge the humiliation caused by the security forces. From 2010 to 2016, he operated in the PDPs political base and enticed hundreds of youngsters. He began posting pictures and videos on social media, glorifying his battle, and soon became the poster boy of militancy in Kashmir. He did not hide behind a mask and he made it look like fun, said the officer. Militancy regained social acceptance and Islam once again became the motivation for taking up arms. Shahadat (martyrdom) became a goal for many.

Todays militants consider surrendering a sin, unlike those of the previous generation. This also stems from Islam, said Khalid Gul, a south Kashmir-based senior journalist and analyst. Recently, when a Hizbul militant was arrested from hospital, there were reports that he had surrendered. His supporters, however, strongly rebutted that claim on social media.

Since February 17 civilians, mostly boys, have been killed in clashes between security forces and stone pelters. Such has been the intensity of the protests that polling could not be held in 10 per cent of the polling booths in Srinagar. Mobs ransacked polling booths, damaged electronic voting machines and set ablaze vehicles used by the polling staff. Only 2 per cent of the voters showed up for re-polling in some booths; 28 of 38 booths recorded zero per cent turnout. This despite the deployment of 17,000 police and paramilitary troops for 35,000 voters. A day before the election, the state government had shut down the internet, hoping to curtail the violence. However, eight people were killed in anti-election protests.

Mehbooba has faced a lot of flak from Kashmiris for her alliance with Modi | PTI

After the internet was restored, videos of security forces torturing civilians went viral on social media, including one of Farooq Ahmad Dar, 26, who was used as a human shield by the Army. It further inflamed passions and put pressure on the PDP-BJP government. Dar, a shawl artisan from Budgam, and one of the few residents who voted in the Srinagar byelection, was strapped to the bonnet of a jeep and was driven through villages for 27 kilometres.

I was on my bike, going for the condolence ceremony of a relative at Gampora in Pulwama, when the Army stopped me at Utligam and thrashed me, Dar told THE WEEK. Then I was made to sit on a tyre on the front bumper and tied with a rope. A soldier was seen daring pelters to throw stones at the jeep. Dar was released after the sarpanch of his village, Chil, asked the Army to let him go. The Army took away my phone and broke my arm, he said. I dont want to register a complaint as I have an old mother to look after. The act was widely condemned on social media and rights groups such as Amnesty International demanded an inquiry.

Such developments have put a lot of pressure on the PDP leadership, especially on Mehbooba. There has been criticism within the party, too. Party leader Javid Mustafa, for instance, blamed Mehbooba for the killing of three youths during an encounter on April 3 at Chadoora in Budgam. As home minister, Mehbooba should take the blame for what has happened, he said. It is unacceptable that our boys are shot dead during protests.

Said PDP spokesman and influential youth leader Waheed Para: The youth have a right to protest, but it has to be meaningful and peaceful. They have to become stakeholders in peace. Peace cannot be enforced and should not be security driven. But when you wave an Islamic State or Pakistan flag, it becomes a red rag. I think we need to be cautious that democracy doesnt alienate people.

The unrest among the youth was fuelled by the PDPs alliance with the BJP after the assembly elections in 2014. The pro-separatist constituency, which had supported the PDP, was outraged by this partnership. Qasim Sajad, who was an independent candidate in the 1987 assembly elections, said the party had betrayed the people of Kashmir, especially its cadre. The political clout the PDP had gained has been seriously dented, said Sajad. Kashmiris will never support an alliance with the BJP.

An aide of Mehbooba told THE WEEK that the party had hoped that the BJP-led Union government would fund development projects and come to the aid of the victims of the 2014 floods. Nothing has happened. Instead, the Centre has used the PDP to execute its own agenda in Kashmir, said the aide. I accept that the plan to build sainik colonies, pandit colonies and settling outsiders in Kashmir has vitiated the atmosphere in Kashmir. Mehbooba resisted the formation of the government for 40 days, but she was compelled after the BJP encouraged a quiet coup in the party.

When Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, after becoming chief minister in 2014, urged the Centre to reach out to Pakistan to improve the situation in Kashmir, he was publicly snubbed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I dont need advice from anybody on Kashmir, Modi had said at a rally.

Siddiq Wahid, vice chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology in Kashmir, said Modis speech was a direct message to Mufti to limit his politics to development. Analysts in Kashmir said the BJP was now using strong-handed tactics to deal with Kashmir so as to polarise the rest of India. The surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir were part of that plan, and helped the BJP win the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Many experts said they believed this would continue till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Rough ride: Farooq Ahmad Dar, who was tied to a jeep by the Army, at home with his mother | Umer Asif

The BJPs moves have further broken the political middle ground, creating extreme positions and generating hostility towards mainstream politics and security forces. Young boys are now risking their lives for trapped militants and students are protesting at the slightest provocation. On April 14, clashes with security forces in a college in Pulwama, south Kashmir, left 50 students injured. On April 18, hundreds of students took to the streets to protest the high-handedness of the police at the college. Several students and policemen were injured.

Such is the tension that Sheesh Pal Vaid, the Jammu and Kashmir director general of police, recently issued an advisory, asking policemen, especially those from south Kashmir, to avoid visiting their hometowns for the next few months. What is wrong if the head of the family tells his members to take care? Vaid asked THE WEEK. Please dont give it too much publicity.

Two policemen THE WEEK spoke to said the advisory was unneeded. This has brought unnecessary focus on us, one of them said. Now we will be tracked both by the militants and the Army unit. What is this? asked the other.
STURTEVANT  Racine County and the Village of Sturtevant remain in opposition about getting four vacant, county-owned properties on Highway 11 into village hands. But there may be a ray of hope on the horizon.

The county filed its response early this month to a lawsuit the Village of Sturtevant filed in March. It denied Sturtevants contentions that county officials previously offered to give the village the land it seeks to redevelop.

The county also disagreed that Sturtevant has any legal basis for forcing the county to either give the village the properties, or put them up for sale.

The conflict involves four properties, totaling 13 acres, along the north side of Durand Avenue and across the highway from Blains Farm & Fleet, 8401 Durand Ave. Racine County took the four parcels, and about 80 more that at one time had all been part of the failed Cobble Court condominium development, in November 2015 in a mass tax foreclosure.

The village wants possession of the properties, to try to develop them as part of a planned Highway 11 corridor upgrade. The area lies within a new tax-increment district the village created.

The Village Board last year offered the county $275,000 for the four properties, but the county rejected the offer. Sturtevant officials say they have continued trying to get the county to sell or donate the four parcels to the village ever since, but with no results.

The suit seeks to force the county to give the properties to Sturtevant or put them up for sale. It contends Racine County has an obligation to offer the properties for public sale if it does not convey them to the village and cites both Wisconsin law and Racine County code.

County response

On Thursday, attorney Ryan Braithwaite, Racine Countys lawyer for the lawsuit, summarized the countys response. Basically, we dont think the county has done anything wrong, he said, or that Sturtevant has any legal basis for which it can force the county to hand over the deeds or put the properties on the market.

Theres a high likelihood it will get worked out, predicted Braithwaite of the law firm Crivello Carlson, S.C. If not, the county would file motions for a summary judgment to dismiss the suit, he added.

Theres no deadline, and neither side is pushing to have it brought before a judge soon, Braithwaite said.

They probably filed the suit as a tactical action, he commented.

To Village of Sturtevant officials, what could have been a simple sale or transfer of the properties has dragged on for about a year too long, holding back any attempt to get the properties into the hands of one or more developers  and onto the tax rolls. The tussle over the four properties has been ongoing since at least last spring.

But on Thursday, newly elected Sturtevant Village President Jayme Hoffman said Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave contacted him with congratulations after Hoffmans win over former Village President Steve Jansen.

He said, Lets get together in the next week or two and discuss this  with the board and work to resolve this, Hoffman said.
The following is via YHN:

The U.S. Air Force dispatched a nuclear sniffer aircraft Thursday to the east of the Korean Peninsula amid the possibility of North Koreas imminent nuclear test, a government source said.

The WC-135 Constant Phoenix, a special-purpose U.S. plane, made an emergency sortie today over the East Sea, the source said, requesting anonymity.

Its mission is to collect samples from the atmosphere in order to detect and identity a nuclear explosion.

It arrived at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, early this month amid indications that the North is preparing for another nuclear test.

Thursdays flight appears meant to check whether the secretive communist nation has detonated a nuclear bomb.

It also tests operational readiness in the event of an actual provocation by the North, added the source.

There was an unconfirmed rumor that North Korea has notified China of its nuclear experiment plan.

South Koreas military said earlier the North seems all set to conduct what would be its sixth nuclear test at its Punggye-ri site in its northeastern region anytime on the leaderships decision.

(Source: YHN)
The leader of a bipartisan good-government group, Zach Wamp, headed to the White House last week to ask whether President Donald Trumps drain the swamp slogan would ever be more than a throwaway campaign slogan. One of the presidents closest aides, Steve Bannon, assured him its a priority.

Bannon said he agrees with the concept that Washington is rigged, said Wamp, a former Republican congressman. He said he just needs to figure out what to do about it.

Yet within 48 hours of the visit, the White House announced the end of an Obama administration practice aimed at greater transparency in government: It would no longer release the names of visitors to the executive mansion.

It was another step away from the goal of drainage, curbing the outsized influence of Washington powerbrokers. Then, a filing this week showed that the president raised a record $107 million for his inauguration, much of it from companies and people who do business with the government.

Trump also has brought scores of special-interest players into government. And he has yet to push any proposals to tighten campaign finance or lobbying disclosure rules.

Trumps boldest anti-swamp move  a January executive order limiting the lobbying of outgoing officials  has already been undermined by a waiver he granted to at least one departing employee. The administration says it will never share information about when or why it makes those decisions, another change from the Obama era.

What they do on drain the swamp is very much to-be-determined, Wamp said. I think  at least I hope  my stop there last week was a reminder that these things matter.

Bannon did not respond to requests for comment, and the White House says it considers Trumps early bureaucracy-slimming moves to be part of its drain-the-swamp work. At a rally last month in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump re-upped his vow: We are going to drain the swamp of government corruption in Washington, D.C., and we are going to keep our promises, all of the promises that we made.

Indeed, drain the swamp is scrawled on one of chief strategist Bannons white boards documenting those campaign pledges. Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican who wrote a book about the corrupting influence that fundraising has on Congress (titled, conveniently, Drain the Swamp), said Trump has surrounded himself with people who want to find solutions. He is optimistic that the president will make good on his word but argues that a mile-long White House to-do list means itll take time.

Democrats are skeptical Trump will ever deliver.

Theres a huge gap between what hes said going back to his campaign days, and what hes done, said Rep. John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who has introduced several bills aimed at reducing money in politics. I dont at this point have any confidence that anything he said about accountability and transparency was anything more than a head fake.

Tackling corruption in Washington  a goal tied to increasing transparency and decreasing the influence of lobbyists and major donors  interests people of all political persuasions. A January NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 66 percent of Americans agree that reducing the influence of lobbyists and big money in politics is an absolute priority for this year.

Wamp works with a Washington-based nonprofit called Issue One, which has collected 180 past and current public officials from both major parties in what it calls the reformers caucus and is pitching Capitol Hill on ways to change the way politicians raise money.

Issue One, like other good-government advocates, has been sharply critical of Trumps secrecy decisions. Yet Issue One also sees the unconventional president as a natural potential partner, particularly on campaign finance changes such as incentivizing small donors and making the Federal Election Commission enforce rules already on the books.

Trump raised a stunning $282 million from donors giving $200 or less to his 2016 campaign and a joint account with the Republican Party. Even a tweet urging lawmakers to take up the subjects of money in politics and lobbying would help, Wamp said. His bully pulpit is like no other.

A CBS News poll just before Trumps inauguration found that just under half of Americans think he will be able to get big money out of politics in the next four years. In a twist, Democrats and Independents more so than Republicans had faith in Trump on that issue, according to the poll.

Meredith McGehee, a senior adviser at Issue One who has worked for decades on campaign finance proposals, said money in politics has always been a third rail topic because lawmakers want to preserve their seats by preserving the status quo on fundraising. That means not only spending countless hours dialing for dollars for their own campaign accounts but also for leadership accounts that get parceled out to help the rest of the party.

Its an insider system, and Trump did not run on being an insider, McGehee said. Buck also makes that case in his book.

As Wamp said he put it to Bannon: Trump would not be president if the stench from the swamp hadnt gotten so bad in the first place.

(AP)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

An estimated 1,100 terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails of 6,000 are taking part in a hunger strike that began last week, demanding improved conditions including more cable TV channels and studies towards earning a high school diploma.

On Thursday 24 Nissan at noon, activists from Ichud Leumi and the partys general-secretary, Ofir Sofer, held a barbeque outside Ofir Prison where many hunger strike leaders are imprisoned. The event is timed with families of prisoners coming to visit.

The message of the young guard of Ichud Leumi is we are pleased with the hunger strike, encouraging the terrorists to continue to the end. They told the press they are hopeful that inside the prison, the hunger-strikers will inhale the fumes of their barbeque.

In addition, Sofer calls on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to worsen their conditions rather than improve them and to use whatever force is necessary to bring back the remains of soldiers Hadar Goldin HYD and Oren Shaul HYD, whose bodies were abducted by Hamas in Gaza.

The partys young guard urges the government not to give into the hunger strike, questioning why there is not a death penalty for the terrorists instead of imprisoning them.



(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
LONDON  Britain marked Queen Elizabeth II's 91st birthday on Friday with gun salutes as the monarch herself enjoyed a family day and a trip to the races.

The queen, who owns and breeds racehorses, was spotted smiling broadly and chatting animatedly Friday with jockeys and staff at Newbury Racecourse, not far from her Windsor Castle home.

She visited the racecourse with daughter Princess Anne and sat in the royal box to watch her thoroughbred Maths Prize run; it finished fifth.

There were also official celebrations in London, where a troop of the Royal Horse Artillery rode horse-and-gun carriages past Buckingham Palace before staging a 41-gun salute in Hyde Park at noon.

Outside the palace, a band of guardsmen in scarlet tunics and bearskin hats played "Happy Birthday" during the Changing of the Guard ceremony.

And at the centuries-old Tower of London, there was a second salute with 62 guns.

The queen is Britain's oldest and longest-reigning monarch, having become queen on Feb. 6, 1952. She is also the world's longest-reigning living monarch since the death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej last year.

Elizabeth also has an official birthday, marked in June  when the British weather is better  with the "Trooping the Color" military parade.
Following a ruling by the High Court of Justice permitting the opening of grocery stores and supermarkets in Tel Aviv, MK (Yahadut Hatorah) Uri Maklev announced ten High Court decision will not cancel the Jewish Peoples observance of Shabbos!

Maklev condemned Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai for being an activist against Shabbos, explaining former Tel Aviv Mayor Meir Dizengoff realized the significance of Shabbos as a sign of solidarity for the Jewish People while he is working in earnest to trample Shabbos.

Maklev adds The High Court ruling delivers a blow to halacha, the Jewish character of the nation as well as the religious status quo which has been observed since the establishment of the state.

He concluded The High Court leaves no other option to legislators other than to legislate a law to bypass its ruling to preserve Shabbos as the ultimate value and we will fight for it.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
On Wednesday morning 23 Nissan, at Erez Crossing, Defense Ministry Crossings Authority inspectors seized explosives used in the production of IEDs.

The explosives were hidden in tubes labelled medical materials.

The tubes were found during a security inspection, at the crossing, of the tools of two sisters, residents of Gaza, and were dealt with by Israel Police bomb demolition technicians.

The sisters entry into Israel had been approved in order that one could receive treatment for the cancer from which she suffers.

A preliminary Shin Bet investigation revealed that the explosives were sent by Hamas. It is believed that they were to be used in Hamas terrorist attacks in the near future.

An investigation against the sisters is still ongoing.

Defense Ministry Crossings Authority Director Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Kamil Abu Rokon commended the Erez Crossing security inspectors for thwarting the smuggling of explosives into Israel. To our regret, it has been proven again that Gaza-based terrorists are continuing their efforts to exploit the humanitarian channel in order to carry out attacks in Israel. The security inspectors acted exactly as expected, with exemplary professionalism, he said.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Far-Left and Arab students disrupted Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkats lecture on Wednesday night the eve of 24 Nissan at Hebrew University, holding signs and shouting derogatory slogans at the mayor.

Once the lecture began, a number of protesters stood up and began to shout at the mayor, referring to Jerusalem as an occupied city.

We will not bow our heads to the violence and incitement of the radical Left, said Barkat. It is unfortunate that those who claim to promote the values of freedom of expression try to silence those who dont agree with them.

Once the protesters were removed, Barkat delivered his speech as planned and added: There is one law in Jerusalem  for Jews and Arabs alike. We will continue to work, without prejudice or exemptions, to ensure law and order in Israels united capital.

Barkats lecture was delivered within the framework of Im Tirtzus Seminars for Zionist Thought, the largest Zionist academic extra-curricular program in Israel.

The Seminars for Zionist Thought is the flagship academic program of the Zionist advocacy group Im Tirtzu, which was established to impart pro-Israel and Zionist knowledge to Israeli students and to combat the growing phenomenon of anti-Zionism in Israeli academic curriculum.

Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg said that this hostile disruption crossed a red line and called on the Education Minister Naftali Bennett to demand from the university president to take action against the protesters.

What happened tonight was a disgraceful attempt to silence free speech, said Peleg. Im Tirtzu has never been deterred by the radical-Left and will never be deterred by them in the future. We will continue running the Seminars for Zionist Thought on campuses throughout the country and will continue to provide students with pro-Israel knowledge from the leading Zionist lectures in Israel.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Rabbi Mordechai Halprin, who is in charge of the Meron Lag BOmer event, announced the widespread chilul Shabbos seen in past years will not be tolerated this year. Rav Halprin is aware that Lag BOmer begins on motzei Shabbos this year, contributing to the likelihood of massive chilul Shabbos involving many involved in the event as well as visitors.

He explains that in past years many began arriving on Shabbos afternoon, but this year, the area will be shut down until motzei Shabbos and Meron will remain closed on Shabbos so not one can come or go. He adds police and other agencies will not be involved in chilul Shabbos as in past years as well.

Rabbi Halprin promises groups, including one chassidus or another, will not be given rights to areas without a guarantee they will be for whatever arrangement are necessary to ensure Shmiras Shabbos including thousands of police troops who in the past began communicating with one another; resulting in massive chilul Shabbos. He remains committed that this year, these incidents will not occur at the expense of Shabbos.

Halprin adds that while in the past tens of thousands spent Shabbos in Meron, no areas will be allocated without absolute guarantees of Shmiras Shabbos, adding We wont have Tel Aviv here.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
[ADDITIONAL VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Residents of PA (Palestinian Authority) occupied Shechem on Thursday 24 Nissan marched in support of striking terrorists imprisoned in Israel.

The hunger strike was organized by imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for his heinous acts.

About 1,000 terrorists serving prison terms in Israel are participating in the hunger strike.

In one of the accompanying videos, marchers are seen trampling on an Israeli flag.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Head of the Tanzim faction of Fatah, Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his heinous acts, is receiving international media notoriety after launching a prison hunger strike last week. An estimated 1,100 terrorists imprisoned in Israel of a total of about 6,000 are participating in the hunger strike.

The following information, provided by the Israel Foreign Ministry, provides a bit of an insight as to who Barghouti is since some of the international media portray him more as a freedom fighter and not who he actually is.

Marwan Barghouti, a convicted murderer and terrorist, was one of the leaders of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian terror campaign of suicide bombings and shooting attacks on Israeli citizens, between 2000-2005, and not just an innocent Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.

Barghoutis murder record:

Barghouti was convicted in a criminal suit in Israeli district court on five separate counts of murder of innocent civilians.

Crimes orchestrated by Barghouti include: The murder of Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus in Jerusalem on June 12, 2001; the murder of Yoela Hen in Jerusalem on January 15, 2002; and the murder of Eli Dahan, Yosef Habi, and Salim Barakat in Tel Aviv on March 5, 2002.

He was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks, due to lack of sufficient evidence.

Barghouti was the founder and senior official of the designated terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which was responsible for massacring dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada (2001-2005).

Barghouti also served as the head of the Tanzim, an armed faction in Fatah that carried out attacks on Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada. During his trials, Barghouti showed no remorse for the murders he committed.

Whitewashing murder: the April 16 New York Times Op-Ed

The recent Op-Ed published by Marwan Barghouti in the New York times is filled with lies and distortions. To add insult to injury, the original publication never mentions that Barghouti was imprisoned after he was tried and convicted on five counts for murder.

In his opinion piece, Barghoutis claims of mistreatment have no basis or evidence; moreover, he could have appealed his claims at the time he alleges they occurred, but did not.

The New York Times, in publishing the article and failing to fact-check Barghoutis claims and to provide basic context, allowed itself to be used as a mouthpiece for a convicted terrorists fabrications.

Furthermore, Barghoutis recent declaration of a hunger strike and this Op-Ed are part of a bid to gain relevance within internal Palestinian politics and an attempt to increase influence on the Palestinian street. Barghouti has been out of the political limelight in recent years, and failed this past February to secure the position of deputy chair to the Palestinian Authority.

The rights of prisoners under international humanitarian law

Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons receive all the rights to which they are entitled to under international law. Moreover, in many cases, Palestinian prisoners also enjoy privileges that go beyond their rights under the Geneva Convention; for instance, Barghouti completed his Ph.D. while incarcerated.

Barghoutis claim that 200 Palestinian prisoners have died since 1967 in Israeli prisons is baseless. Prisoners and detainees are treated humanely in Israel and in accordance with international law. Within the last decade, only one prisoner died violently, during a riot.

Barghoutis record: the antithesis to peace

If Barghouti had truly sought the establishment of a Palestinian state living in peace side by side with Israel, he would have supported Israels proposal for a Palestinian State at the Camp David negotiations in 2000 (as well as Israels further peace proposals in the following years since then).

Instead, Barghouti chose the path of violence, spearheading the bloody Second Intifada immediately after rejecting the Camp David proposal, thus shattering the peace process.

Additionally, in referring to Israel as an occupying power for 70 years  meaning, since Israels establishment in 1948  Barghouti indicates that he espouses the extremist ideology that seeks to eliminate Israel and to replace it with a Palestinian State. His rhetoric serves only to inspire more hate crimes and violence, and is the antithesis to peaceful coexistence, dialogue and mutual recognition.

But even with him being behind bars, Barghouti is still rewarded for his acts of violence, receiving a salary while from the Palestinian Authority.

Calculated through age 85, Barghouti will have received almost 1,000,000 dollars in salary from the Palestinian Authority, whose budget is in part funded by taxpayer money from numerous democratic countries.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
President Donald Trump directed his administration Thursday to expedite a just-launched investigation into whether steel imports are jeopardizing U.S. national security, saying, This is not an area where we can afford to become dependent on other countries.

Executives from U.S. steelmakers, who support the review, stood behind Trump as he signed a memo directing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to return recommendations in the very, very near future. Trump said that could be as soon as 30 to 50 days.

Trump promised as a candidate to revitalize the American steel industry, the decline of which has been especially hard on states like Pennsylvania that were crucial to his victory.

The president said maintaining steel production is critical to U.S. security interests because it is needed to build airplanes, ships and other machinery, along with roads, bridges and other infrastructure. The American steel industry argues that if the U.S. is dependent on imported steel, it could be vulnerable if relations break down with nations that export it.

U.S. prominence in the industry has been slipping for decades. American-made steel once accounted for roughly 20 percent of global production, but had slipped to less than 5 percent by 2015, according to the Belgium-based World Steel Association. China made up less than 3 percent of U.S. steel imports.

Trump couched the investigation as part of action he took earlier in the week to enforce existing Buy American laws.

From now on, were going to stand up for American jobs, workers and their security, and for American steel companies and companies in general, Trump said. Todays action is the next vital step toward making America strong and prosperous once again.

In 2001, the Commerce Department found no evidence of a threat after it examined potential national security risks from importing semi-finished steel.

What has changed since 2001 is that China now accounts for half of steel production, such that excess output by Chinese factories regardless of imports to the United States can dampen prices for U.S. steelmakers.

Asked whether the move would affect his dealings with China over North Korea, Trump said: This has nothing to do with China. This has to do with worldwide, whats happening. The dumping problem is a worldwide problem.

A 1962 trade law that gives the president authority to restrict imports and impose tariffs if they are determined to harming U.S. security interests outlines 270 days for such investigations.

(AP)
The ear-splitting explosion from Americas mother of all bombs has been followed by calculated silence about the damage it inflicted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday he does not intend to discuss damage estimates from last weeks use of the militarys most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan.

The April 13 attack on an IS tunnel and cave complex near the Pakistani border marked the first-ever combat use of the bomb, known officially as a GBU-43B, or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb. U.S. military officials have said the 11-ton bomb effectively neutralized an IS defensive position.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, however, called the use of the weapon an immense atrocity against the Afghan people.

The Afghan government has estimated a death toll of more than 90 militants. It said no civilians were killed.

Reporters traveling with Mattis in Israel asked for his assessment of the bombs damage, but he refused.

For many years we have not been calculating the results of warfare by simply quantifying the number of enemy killed, Mattis said.

But the Pentagon sometimes announces death counts after attacks on extremists.

On Jan. 20, for example, it said a B-52 bomber strike killed more than 100 militants at an al-Qaida training camp in Syria. That same day, the Pentagon said more than 150 al-Qaida operatives had been killed by U.S. strikes since Jan. 1.

On Jan. 25 the Pentagon said U.S. strikes in Yemen killed five al-Qaida fighters.

Mattis, who assumed office hours after President Donald Trumps inauguration on Jan. 20, hasnt publicly discussed such numbers. He said Thursday his view was colored by lessons learned from the Vietnam war, when exaggerated body counts undermined U.S. credibility.

You all know the corrosive effect of that sort of metric back in the Vietnam war and its something thats stayed with us all these years, said Mattis, who was in Tel Aviv to meet Israeli government leaders on Friday.

He met Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

The publicity created by the bombing in Afghanistan caught many Pentagon leaders by surprise, leading to questions about whether U.S. commanders fully considered the strategic effects of some seemingly isolated decisions.

The Pentagon also has been criticized for its declaration that an aircraft carrier battle group was being diverted from Southeast Asia to waters off the Korean Peninsula, amid concern that North Korea might conduct a missile or nuclear test. The announcement led to misinformed speculation that the ships were in position to threaten strikes on North Korea.

Mattis said he is confident his commanders are properly weighing their actions.

If they didnt, Id remove them, he said.

(AP)
Syria still possesses chemical weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday, warning against the banned munitions being used again.

At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional U.S. strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Mattis spoke alongside Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. There can be no doubt in the international communitys mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all, said Mattis. He said he didnt want to elaborate on the amounts Syria has in order to avoid revealing sources of intelligence.

I can say authoritatively they have retained some, its a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and its going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike, he said.

Israeli defense officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of President Bashar Assads weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said We have 100 percent information that Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels.

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syrias northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government. Top Assad ally, Russia, has asserted a Syrian government airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mattis in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

We sense a great change in the direction of American policy, Netanyahu said. He referred to the U.S. cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administrations forthright deeds against the use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has been locked in a six-year civil war against an array of opposition forces. The fighting has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syrias population.

Israel has largely stayed out of the fighting, though it has carried out a number of airstrikes on suspected Iranian weapons shipments it believed were bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Iran and Hezbollah, both bitter enemies of Israel, along with Russia have sent forces to support Assad.

Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal to avert U.S. strikes following a chemical weapons attack in opposition-held suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 that killed hundreds of people and sparked worldwide outrage.

Ahead of that disarmament, Assads government disclosed it had some 1,300 tons of chemical weapons, including sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard gas.

The entire stockpile was said to have been dismantled and shipped out under international supervision in 2014 and destroyed. But doubts began to emerge soon afterward that not all such armaments or production facilities were declared and destroyed. There also is evidence that the Islamic State group and other insurgents have acquired chemical weapons.

(AP)
The following is via Fox5NY:

A U.S. air marshal reportedly forgot her loaded gun in the bathroom of a Delta flight headed from England to New York and the gun was found by another passenger.

It reportedly happened on April 6 aboard a flight from Manchester to Kennedy International Airport.

The New York Times reports that the passenger gave the weapon to a member of the flight crew, who returned it to the air marshal.

The marshal waited days to report the incident to her superiors, according to the report. The Transportation Security Administration said it was investigating the incident.

Other air marshals said that leaving a loaded weapon unattended constituted a significant security breach.

You cant have inept people leaving weapons in a lavatory, said Craig Sawyer, a former air marshal told The Times. If someone with ill intent gets hold of that weapon on an aircraft, they are now armed.

In 2015, a federal air marshal left his gun in a bathroom stall at Newark Liberty International Airport. That gun was later found by a janitor.

(Source: Fox5NY)
RACINE  A tiny-house village for homeless veterans under development on Yout Street got a visit Friday from U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who called it inspiring on all fronts.

Racine-based Veterans Outreach of Wisconsin has been working to give homeless veterans a place to stay by building the village at its headquarters, 1624 Yout St. Five tiny homes have been laid on their foundations, almost ready for veterans to occupy them.

Co-founder Jeff Gustin and Racine city officials gave Baldwin, D-Wis., a tour of one of the homes as well as a community center with a kitchen, bathrooms and common space.

We need to be creative and have all sorts of options for our veterans who find themselves homeless or in need of other support and service, Baldwin said afterward. They have earned these services and they deserve them.

Gustin said the village has been a community effort, with volunteers putting in time on Saturdays and students at Park, Horlick and Case high schools joining the effort.

Racine District 7 Alderman Ray DeHahn said the project found no opposition from the neighborhood.

Its great seeing such a volunteer-based effort that pulls together the whole community in support of these heroes, Baldwin said.

Open for inspection

One of the houses is completed and used as a display for people to learn about the project and as a fundraising tool. Veterans Outreach officials have said they hope to have the other houses ready for veterans by the end of spring.

The goal is to eventually have 15 tiny houses on the property. The other 10 are being built off site.

Baldwin said the project will make a big difference in the lives of veterans, who will have a place to call home. Tiny as it might be, a place to call home and a place for peer support.

The senator also credited organizers for researching best practices and whats worked in other communities, as well as working closely with local government.

Everyone took the time to put this project together the way it should be, Baldwin said.
Russian Bear bombers and spy planes buzzed Alaskan airspace the past two nights in a repeat of incidents earlier this week, two U.S. officials told Fox News on Friday.

Wednesday night a pair of Russian spy planes Ilyushin IL-38s flew near the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea staying in the U.S. Air Defense Zone for a few hours before departing.

Thursday night, a pair of long-range nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers flew near Alaska and Canada staying in each countrys air defense zone for hours.

In both incidents, the U.S. Air Force did not scramble any fighter jets or airborne warning planes (AWACS). The Russian jets in both incidents remained in international airspace. It was not immediately clear how close they came to mainland Alaska.

Russia now has flown bombers or spy planes near Alaska on four consecutive nights this week, the first time since President Trump took office that Russia has flown this close to the United States.

(AP)
Within less than a year, the Tourism Ministry brought SAS to announce their return to operations in Israel, with a direct flight Stockholm-Eilat beginning in the Winter season 2017.

The Tourism Ministry announces, in cooperation with the Swedish airline SAS, that the company will return its operations to Israel with a direct flight from Stockholm to Eilat, within the framework of the Tourism Ministrys Winter flights directive. The new route will operate from the upcoming winter season (2017/8).

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin: I welcome the decision of SAS to operate a direct flight from Stockholm to Eilat. The decision was made with the cooperation and due to the encouragement and support of the Tourism Ministry. We have set ourselves the goal of bringing new direct routes to Israel and we are indeed witnessing an exceptional momentum of airlines flying into Israel and bringing with them record numbers of tourists.

SAS joins the many new airlines which are operating in Israel  only recently, as a result of the activities of the Tourism Ministry with the airlines, the following companies announced the opening of new routes: WOW, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Hainan Airlines and Air India. We warmly welcome the Swedish tourists who will once again return to Eilat, thanks to the new route, and will enjoy an attractive tourism destination, especially in the winter season.

SAS Sales Manager Sweden Anders Wahlstrom: Eilat is located on the Red Sea in Israels south coast and offers everything from white sandy beaches to spectacular hotels and nightlife. This is a city that has attracted visitors for decades. We see that more and more people want to travel with us to warmer destinations in the winter.

Incoming tourism increased 24% in the first quarter 2017 on the same period in 2016. The Tourism Ministry attaches importance to investing in expanding direct flights in the winter season from Europe into Israel in general and Eilat in particular and sees potential for significant increases in these tourists.

When the company announced it was ceasing its operations in Israel in March 2016, the Tourism Ministry took significant steps to encourage them to reinstate the direct route. Within the framework of ongoing negotiations since June, the ministry held a significant round of meetings, including a meeting between the Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevi in Sweden with senior SAS representatives working on opening new routes. It was decided that SAS would join the directive offered by the Tourism Ministry for opening new direct flights to Eilat from Europe in the winter season. As part of the directive, airlines receive a 45 Euro subsidy per passenger from the Tourism Ministry and an additional 15 Euro from the Eilat Hotels Association.

The Tourism Ministry is also working with the leading bodies in the local tourism industry and the successful Two Cities, One Break advertising campaign is running in Europe, including Sweden. The investment in Sweden in a campaign that presents Israel as a legitimate and attractive tourism destination has changed the opinion of the public and the industry and instilled a sense of confidence, security and genuine partnership in the companys decision to take this new path. All this, in order to expand and increase the number of Swedish tourists visiting Israel.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
13 Morcha cadres held for trying to disrupt election activities

Police on Friday arrested 13 cadres of the agitating Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) for trying to disrupt the voter education training in Janakpur.
Consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser has warned of 'challenging' macroeconomic conditions after its first quarter sales fell flat because of weak growth on the continent and in Asia.

The company behind the Durex condoms and Dettol brands saw like-for-like sales growth flatline in the first three months of the year, although total revenue grew 15 per cent to 2.64billion after including currency fluctuations, acquisitions and disposals.

A good performance in developing markets and the hygiene business, which grew three per cent, failed to offset declines in Europe and in the home products business.

Spooned up: Reckitt confirmed its 14.3bn takeover of baby food maker Mead Johnson Nutrition is on track to complete by the end of September

Reckitt was also hurt by the ongoing fallout from weak markets in Europe and North America, a South Korean safety scandal and a failed new Scholl product.

Like-for-like sales in North America were flat at 631million, while sales in Europe fell by three per cent, totalling 1.04bn.

Sales in the business's health sector were flat, despite the strong performance of Durex condoms, while its home range, which includes the Airwick brand, fell by four per cent.

However, the company added it still on track to hit its three per cent full-year sales growth target.

Boss Rakesh Kapoor said: 'Our first quarter results are in line with expectations as macro conditions remain challenging.

'Against this backdrop, our underlying business remains strong.

'We delivered continued outperformance in consumer health and good growth in DvM (emerging markets units), offset by previously flagged headwinds, which will persist during the first half.'

Earlier this month, Reckitt announced a 'strategic review' of its food business, which makes French's mustard and Frank's Red Hot sauce, saying it is exploring 'all options', including its sale.

The food business reportedly could fetch more than 2.4bn and could help Reckitt fund its 14.3bn takeover of baby food maker Mead Johnson Nutrition as it targets more sales in Asia.

Reckitt confirmed the Mead Johnson acquisition is on track to complete by the end of September.

Hot deal: Reckitt announced a 'strategic review' of its food business, which makes French's mustard and Frank's Red Hot sauce, saying it is exploring 'all options', including its sale

Kapoor added: 'The acquisition of Mead Johnson, to create a global leader in consumer health, is progressing well and we expect completion by the end of the third quarter.

'We have commenced a strategic review of our Food business as we continue our focus on portfolio optimisation.

'We remain very confident that the strategic direction we are pursuing will continue to drive shareholder value.'

Mead, which makes Enfamil baby formula, had been the subject of numerous takeover talks since 2009 after being spun off from American drugs giant Bristol-Myers Squibb.

It is one of the biggest formula makers in the world and has a large presence in Latin America and Asia.

Reckitt's Asia sales have been hit by the fallout after its steriliser product Oxy Sacsac led to 96 deaths between 2001 and 2011.

It led to a boycott of Reckitt's products in the country and a 300m compensation payout.

Graham Spooner, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, said: 'Investors should acknowledge that the firm emphasised the current challenging economic conditions, but nevertheless, the CEO asserted that the firm's underlying business remains strong as they outperformed in its consumer health business.

'Interested investors should note that the group has started a strategic review of its food business in which its exploring different options including plans to sell off brands such as French's mustard and Frank's Hot sauce to fund its acquisition of baby milk produced Mead Johnson and to enable it to reduce its debt.

'The company stated that it anticipates this acquisition will be completed by the end of Q3 as it continues to progress well.

'We have long been fans of the company for the lower risk investor as it has proven to be an excellent and consistent performer over the last 16 years.

'As a result, we continue to recommend Reckitt Benckiser as a 'buy' for lower risk investors with a balanced portfolio.'

Reckitt's shares fell by nearly two per cent in today's early trading.
A building society will today launch Britains cheapest ever mortgage rate at 0.89 per cent, triggering a new price war.

Yorkshire Building Societys new variable rate undercuts the next best deal of 0.99 per cent, making it the lowest since records began in 1988.

Borrowers will need at least a 35 per cent deposit, but a 150,000 mortgage will cost just 564 a month.

Yorkshire Building Society have introduced the cheapest mortgage rate since 1988. The rate of 0.89 per cent requires a 35 per cent deposit and would cost 564 a month for a 150,000 mortgage (file photo)

Experts say the move will pile pressure on other banks and building societies to cut their rates as they battle for customers.

Andrew Montlake, of mortgage broker Coreco, said: This is an incredible rate and usually when a lender brings out a deal like this its not long before its rivals try to outdo them.

So I expect rates to come down a bit further, which is fantastic news for homeowners.

Aaron Strutt, of mortgage broker Trinity Financial, added: Experts have been calling the end of low rates for years and yet they are still getting cheaper.

The new rate undercuts Yorkshire Building Society's next cheapest rate of 0.99 per cent, which requires a 40 per cent deposit. The move could spark a price war with other banks

Recent cuts show theres no reason why mortgage rates cant go lower, although its hardly worth waiting with the deals on offer at the moment.

The mortgage price war is partly being driven by a tax clampdown on landlords. Earlier this month the Government started gradually removing tax perks for landlords, making buy-to-let less profitable.

As a result, fewer landlords are applying for mortgages, with figures showing buy-to-let lending down 44 per cent this year.

Experts say banks and building societies are under pressure to make up for the lost business by increasing their loans to homeowners.

They are able to cut rates further than ever before because the cost to lenders of funding these loans has fallen heavily in the past six weeks.

This is because City traders think there is less chance of the Bank of England increasing its base rate  currently at a record low of 0.25 per cent  any time soon. A spate of cheap new mortgages means the average loan now costs 276 a year less than 12 months ago, according to data firm Moneyfacts.

Among the top deals launched recently was a 1.29 per cent five-year fix from digital lender Atom Bank whose customers need a smartphone to apply for a mortgage.

It had to be withdrawn after just eight days due to high demand. HSBC and Santander both offered fixed rates below 1 per cent last year before withdrawing them.

Even though mortgage rates are tumbling, experts believe the housing market will be sluggish this year over uncertainty over Brexit and the General Election (file photo)

Then last month Yorkshire launched a 0.99 per cent two-year fixed rate.

Its new 0.89 per cent deal runs for two years and is a variable rate, which means it can be increased or decreased at any time. There is a 1,495 fee, or borrowers can opt to pay 995 if they are willing to accept a 1.05 per cent rate instead.

Other top deals include two-year fixes from HSBC at 1.14 per cent and the Post Office at 1.17 per cent, both available with a 40 per cent deposit.

Best five-year fixes include HSBCs 1.79 per cent and Virgin Moneys 1.84 per cent, with 40 per cent and 35 per cent deposits respectively.

Rachel Springall, of Moneyfacts, said: When rates are so low it would be ideal for borrowers to consider overpaying on their mortgage.

Despite falling mortgage rates, experts believe the housing market will be sluggish this year. Homeowners are putting off buying due to uncertainty over Brexit and the General Election, and the fall in buy-to-let lending has kicked the housing market into neutral gear, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

House prices are growing at 3.5 per cent, the slowest rate in 19 months, according to the Nationwide Building Society.
13th Nepal Intl Trade Fair and Expo kicks off

The 13th edition of Nepal International Industrial Trade Fair and Innovation Expo 2017 kicked off at the Exhibition Hall in Bhrikutimandap, Kathmandu on Thursday, with the aim at promoting products made by domestic and cottage industries.
MBABANE  What is this Labadzala? This question was posed by Judge Mbutfo Mamba yesterday during the fraud case involving former Mhlatane High School head teacher Simeon Makhubu.



The former head teachers attorney Noncedo Ndlangamandla was cross examining the Vice Chairperson of the school committee, Beatrice Motsa, who is former Magistrate Leo Ndvuna Dlaminis wife.

Ndlangamandla mentioned the name Labadzala a number of times, prompting the judge to ask what the labadzala she was referring to was.



She had asked Motsa if the school committee knew anything about the money that was allegedly given to Labadzala and she responded to the negative.

The attorney reminded Motsa that Principal Auditor Timothy Matsebula on Wednesday told the court that the school committee had allegedly informed the audit team that they were aware of money given to Labadzala by Makhubu.

Judge Mamba posed the question, What is this Labadzala?



deceased



Ndlangamandla clarified that she was referring to the Inkhosikati who is alleged to have been given a sum of E1.6 million by Makhubu through one Sijabulile Temkhitsi Dlamini, who is now deceased. The judge said he was asking this question to ensure that the court was on the same page since we also have grannies at home.

Motsa told the court that Matsebula was not telling the truth that members of the school committee knew about the withdrawals from the school funds. She stated that the audit team would not have shown them pictures of the cheques they had photographed.



Even when Ndlangamandla said she had been instructed that the committee members were aware of the withdrawals, Motsa insisted that they did not know anything regarding the withdrawals.

She said since they did not know about the money given to the alleged Inkhosikati, they approached former Magistrate Dlamini because he had presided over a matter of two women who were in court after one conned the other. One of them was the late Temkhitsi.



Motsa said the auditors warned the school committee in June 2011 to sort out the issue of cheques. She said when the auditors returned a year later, nothing had been done because they allegedly knew nothing about the said cheques. Makhubu was arrested in December 2013.
44 Nepalis prisoned in India; families barred from visiting

The relatives of 44 Nepali workers, who have been languishing in a prison in the Indian state of Himachal, have requested the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to take the initiative for their release.
MANZINI  A financial accountant of Eteteni Filling Station has been arrested for allegedly stealing E522 275 from the company.



The filling station was previously owned by Tibiyo Managing Director (MD) Themba Dlamini, who is also a former prime minister (PM). However, it now belongs to a businessman of Asian origin.

Sijabulisile Ndzingane (39) of Ntondozi was arrested by the Fraud Unit led by Sergent Leonard Mavimbela on Tuesday afternoon. This was after the company went through some auditing and it was discovered that the said amount was missing.

Information gathered is that when cashiers at the filling station gave the accountant money for banking, she would allegedly take part of it on a daily basis and deposit the rest in the companys bank account, an exercise referred to as short-banking.



It is alleged that Ndzingane would take amounts ranging from E2 000 to E5 000 daily between January and December, 2016. This practice was allegedly done by the suspect until the money accumulated to the E522 275. Upon making the discovery, the company alerted police officers, who after conducting investigations, arrested the suspect.

During her appearance at the Matsapha Circuit Court before Magistrate Mthokozisi Dlamini, Ndzingane informed the court that she would hire the services of an attorney during trial.



Public Prosecutor Fakazi Mngomezulu informed the court that the suspect would have to make a bail application through the High Court. She was remanded in custody until April 27, 2017, pending the setting of her trial date.

The charge sheet states that Ndzingane, during the said months last year, employed as an accountant, entrusted with the custody and care of the money belonging to her employer, allegedly stole E522 275, property of Mohammed Asraful Chowdhory.
MBABANE  A bounty of E1million has been put up for anyone with information or expertise that will lead to the solving of kidnapping cases in the country.



This carrot was dangled by about 25 businessmen of Asian origin in a highly secretive meeting in Matsapha yesterday.

The new figure comes a day after the Royal Swaziland Police announced a reward of E150 000 that would be given to anyone who may have information regarding the kidnapping of Matsapha businessman Almor Oliveira.

One of the Asian businessmen, who only identified himself as Nadim, said they were greatly concerned with the kidnappings in the country, especially because they remained unsolved.

He said they had lost confidence in the police service, and after the kidnapping of Oliveira, they decided they had to act fast.



We have lost faith in the local police. They say they have expertise to deal with this issue, where is the expertise? he asked.

He alleged they already had information that a local businessman, who is a well-known thug, was behind the kidnappings, but the police were seemingly doing nothing about it.

Nadim said they believed that a syndicate was behind these kidnappings and it was time that that the cases were dealt with.



He said they also heard that those kidnapped were taken to Mozambique, but they believed this was not true. He said it would be impossible to take a person through the borders.

I have been to Mozambique and there are roadblocks everywhere. How could the criminals manage to take a kidnapped person to that country? he further asked.

Nadim alleged that the police were too lazy to deal with these crimes.



He alleged that after one Asian businessman was found in Manzini after he had been kidnapped, the police only took him to hospital and nothing was done thereafter. He said he was speaking on behalf of other businessmen, especially car dealers and retailers, who originate from Asia.



He said they had met in Matsapha yesterday morning and pledged to put up the E1 million, which could be E40 000 per person.

He said as businessmen, they could raise that amount of cash as it was equivalent to one Honda Fit (the E40 000 each).
Chand-led CPN Maoist main security threat for polls

A regional security meeting held in Dhulikhel of Kavre on Friday has taken anti-election activities of Netra Bikram Chand-led CPN Maoist as 'main security threat' during the local level elections slated for May 14.
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By Naeisha Rose

Greg Mays, the founder of A Better Jamaica arts and culture organization, is presenting Bangladeshi Delights Saturday at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, which is the third out of eight installation within the Delightful Festival series so far this year

For Mays, a pillar of the Jamaica community, the latest event in The Delightful Festival is a way for people all over the area and with different backgrounds to mix. mingle and get to know each other.

The Delightful series are evenings of music, food, and a movie all tied to a immigration population here in Jamaica. They are meant to appeal to everyone. They are a cross-cultural experience if you will, Mays said.

We are giving folks that arent in that immigration population a taste of what Bangladeshi food tastes like, and the music sounds like, and the movie experience itself.

During the free event attendees will get to hear music from the Bengali-American star Wahid Azad, dine on cuisine from Jamaicas very own Ghoroa Restaurant and watch The Clay Bird, a family drama about Bangladeshs independence from Pakistan.

Mays dream for the event is that the attendees grow closer as a community.

I hope that they learn from each of these evenings, Mays said. We live in a fantastically diverse community and we shouldnt be afraid. Not only should we not be afraid of each other, we should be excited by the fact the community is diverse, which means that we have fantastic food offerings, movie offerings and music offerings. We should take advantage of the fact the community is as diverse as it is. As you know, Queens is probably the most diverse county in the United States and even right here in Jamaica it is fantastically diverse and changing.

When it comes to selecting the country that gets represented during these weekly installations, Mays looks at the statistics of the ever changing and growing demographics of the south Queens area.

In terms of the South Asian population in Queens there are presently more Indians in Community Boards 12 and 13, but the Bangladeshi community is growing faster than the Indian community, Mays said.

According to PUMA (Public Use Mircodata Areas)statistics, which provides statistical geographic information, in 2013 there were 7,150 Bangladeshi Americans in Community Boards 12 and 13, who made up 13 percent of the Asian population in the area.

Like all non-profits, A Better Jamaica had to receive funding from somewhere. With the help of City Councilmen Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest) and Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans) through the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Initiatives funding Mays was able to present this program. With the National Endowment of the Arts facing cuts from the Trump administration, however, he is not sure if he will be able to grow the organization or if he will have the opportunity to expand the Delightful Festival to 16 countries so that he can represent more people from the area.

I absolutely have concerns. Last year we received $10,000 from the NEA. They have a grant called the Challenge America grant and the advice is that you do the Challenge America grant for a couple of years and then you apply to an Arts Work grants [once you have an established organization] for larger sums of money, Mays said. I am hoping that it doesnt go away because I am hoping to grow the business. I dont want cut backs.

Bangladeshi Delights runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at JCAL, which is located at 161-04 Jamaica Ave. To learn more about the event go to thede light fulfe stiva l.com .
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By Mark Hallum

A Douglaston mansion is up for rent this summer for the price of a Manhattan one-bedroom apartment.

Once owned by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the home at 122 Grosvenor St. sold in 2015 for $2.4 million and is now up for a six-month lease from July 1 to Dec. 31. The owners are asking $5,500 per month from a lucky renter.

Cuomo lived in the Queens home in the early 1990s before joining President Bill Clintons campaign team in 1993. The location is a step well above the house where he grew up in Holliswood, owned by his father Mario, the late governor of New York.

According to Curbed, this is the last home Andrew Cuomo owned in Queens. Oasis NYC estimates the house was built around 1920.

The mansion features six bedrooms, four bathrooms, outdoor lounge space and close proximity to the waterfront.

The home is currently owned by the former CEO of the music-sharing app Songza, according to Curbed, and is rumored to be a sister home of the Long Island mansion that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald for his novel, The Great Gatsby.

But the home formerly belonging to the younger Cuomo is not the only Douglas Manor property of repute to hit the real estate listing in recent weeks. An 18th century Dutch Colonial once originally owned by Cornelius Van Wyck went on the market for $3.2 million earlier this month.

Designated an historic site by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1966, the waterfront home was built around 1735 and was passed down to the Queens County merchants son, who served in the Continental Congress before selling the house to Wynant Van Zandt, a wealthy merchant from the city. Van Zandt began the transformation of the area from working farms to country estates around the year he purchased the land, according to The Douglaston and Little Neck Historical Society.
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By Gina Martinez

Three Flushing residents have been indicted for allegedly running a multi-state prostitution ring, the acting U.S. attorney in the Buffalo area said last week.

Acting U.S Attrney of the Western District James Kennedy Jr. said.

Feng Yang Chen, 41; LiangLiang Guo, 31; and Cheng Qi Li, 28, were charged with conspiracy to violate the Mann Act and the Travel Act related to the operation of an interstate prostitution business, according to James Kennedy Jr. of the Western District of New York.

According to the U.S Attorneys office, Between March 2011 and March 2016, Chen, Guo and Li posted ads on backp age.com which led to encounters with prostitutes in multiple states, including New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas, Kennedys office said.

Chen and Li also operated a call center out of Flushing, scheduling meetings between prostitutes and clients, the acting U.S. attorney said. said, while Guo drove the victims to different hotels and collected money from the sex activities. According to Kennedy, some of the commercial sex acts took place in Tonawanda, N.Y., and Henrietta, N.Y.

Chen was charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life if found guilty, the acting U.S. attorney said. Guo and Li face a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

While the sexual exploitation of another is a criminal act that victimizes the person exploited, Kennedy said, a criminal enterprise such as this, which provides profits to those who orchestrate such exploitation, is particularly pernicious.

According to the indictment, throughout the conspiracy, the defendants victimized 12 individuals who traveled state-to-state to engage in prostitution in different hotels.

Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of $476,354.74 in profits, as well as two properties in Flushing, a 2012 Porsche Cayenne, cell phones, computers, and iPads used during the prostitution conspiracy.

The defendant allegedly callously abused and exploited vulnerable women for her own financial gain, Homeland Security special agen James Spero said. The charges announced today will hopefully lay the foundation to restore the dignity of those victimized by this alleged criminal enterprise.
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By Bill Parry

Its Immigrant Heritage Week. The city Department of Small Business Services announced Tuesday a new guide offering step-by-step advice for immigrant entrepreneurs planning, launching, or growing a small business.

Building Your Business in New York City: A Guide for Immigrant Entrepreneurs offers advice on topics such as igning a commercial lease, navigating government, personal and business financial planning, staying compliant with business regulations and understanding the rights of immigrant New Yorkers.

The guide is part of the citys Immigrant Business Initiative, launched by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 to support immigrant entrepreneurs, who own nearly half of all small businesses in New York City.

As an immigrant whose grandmother supported the family through entrepreneurship, I know first-hand that owning a business has the power to change lives, SBS Commissioner Gregg Bishop said. By making information and resources available to immigrant New Yorkers in six languages, were helping all of our people, no matter their origin, pursue their dreams.

The guide offers advice to tackle the common challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs and businesses. It will be available in Spanish, Chinese, Haitian, Creole, Russian, Korean and Bengali.

Without immigrant entrepreneurship, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst would not be the thriving neighborhoods that it is today, City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said. I thank the Department of Small Business Services for producing this guide to encourage more immigrants to pursue their dreams of owning a business and contributing to the economy of New York City.

The new guide is available at www.nyc.gov/ immig rantb usine sses..

SBS also announced over $1 million in grant awards funding that will help support community organization for neighborhood development across the city. The 82nd Street Partnership in Jackson Heights, Sunnyside Shines, the Rockaway Business Alliance and the Queens Economic Development Corporation were selected to receive grants awards to undertake projects in their neighborhoods.

The Avenue NYC initiative is investing in local, community-based organizations to help strengthen and preserve small business corridors across our city, Bishop said. Small businesses are an essential part of building vibrant neighborhoods, and the grants we are awarding today will help meet tailored, local needs.

Meanwhile, Sunnyside Shines announced tickets are now on sale for the 2017 Taste of Sunnyside, the one-of-a-kind culinary event staged in a block-long festival tent pitched underneath the No. 7 subway line at 46th Street and Queens Boulevard. The Sunnyside Shines BID produces the event to showcase the neighborhood as a dining destination. Nearly 30 restaurants serve samples of their best dishes.

The Taste of Sunnyside is one of Sunnysides biggest annual events for a reason  the combination of diversity and community spirit is like no place else, Sunnyside Shines Executive Director Jaime-Faye Bean said. Ninety-five percent of attendees have told us that they plan to return to a restaurant they sampled for the first time at The Taste, which says a lot about the quality of their experience.

The event will take place May 23. Tickets are on sale at taste ofsun nysid e.com , along with more information.
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By Mark Hallum

Comitato Festa Di Maria SS Del Romitello De Borgetto is more than just a mouthful. The East Elmhurst social club, founded in 1979 by Steve Giambrone, 81, has been a slice of home for him and other Sicilians in the neighborhood who came to the United States from Borgetto, a mountain town about a half-hour drive south of Palermo.

But now, with membership diminishing and a lack interest from the younger generation, Giambrone, a retired carpenter, is closing up the club and donating the remaining $85,000 in the clubs coffer to St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital.

Nobody wanted to take over, Giambrone said in an interview. My wish was when it was over to give the money to St. Jude do something for society

My familys so proud of my father and the hard work that hes done, Rita Roscigno, Giambrones daughter, said. Ever since I was a child, Ive always seen him dedicate his spare time to the Blessed Mother, the club and serving his community  keeping the traditions alive from his town in Borgetto, Sicily. Its a very tight-knit group of people. They all came here from Borgetto and theyre still very close with each other.

Giambrone came to the United States in 1957, but separated from the original Borgetto social club in the late 1960s, according to his daughter. He wanted to create a club centered more around Catholic traditions specific to his region of Sicily, she said, believing the social aspect of the club should not take a back seat to religion.

The name of the club is a reference to the towns patron saint, the Madonna of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The Borgetto club started by Giambrone would emerge as a community staple for processions and religious observances in connection with the local parish, St. Lukes.

They meet every Sunday at church and they still follow all the traditions together, Roscigno said. There is now another club in the area similar to her fathers which has taken up the responsibility of carrying on the traditions, she said.

Membership in the Borgetto club started with about 35, Roscigno said, but it has dwindled to only two, her father and a neighborhood friend, Vito Nicolosi.

The two men met last week in the backyard of his house on 73rd Street to present two officials from St. Judes with the check for $85,000  all the funds that were left over in the clubs bank account. They did not want to keep any of it for themselves, Giambrone said. They wanted it to go for a good cause. Giambrone said they hoped the contribution to St. Jude would help it conduct research to improve care for sick children and bring them one step closer to their goals.

Among the items the club is leaving to others is a wood and glass tomb that carries a figure of Jesus Christ in the Good Friday procession. Giambrone made this tomb by hand, she said.

The Lady of Sorrow is a tall statue of the Blessed Mother in a black velvet cape with gold trim that Roscignos mother had helped sew together.

Giambrone ran the club with Vice President Nicolosi, Secretary Tommy De Vito, Treasurer Rosario DAmico and Co-Treasurer Vincezo DAmico, whose names all appear on the $85,000 check.
By Gina Martinez

A week before oral arguments at the New York State Courts of Appeals, former Councilman Hiram Monserrate and Elmhurst community leaders gathered on the steps of City Hall Tuesday to once again demand that Mayor Bill de Blasio honor the original Willets Point Redevelopment Plan that guaranteed affordable housing.

Monserrate and leaders from The Black Institute and the East Elmhurst Corona Alliance have been trying to prevent the transfer of 23 acres of publicly owned Willets Point land to the Queens Development Group for $1. They called on the mayor to honor the original Willets Point Redevelopment Plan, put forward by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2008. According to Monserrate, the plan included 5,500 housing units, of which 1,925 units would be permanently affordable, an 850-seat public school, the construction of new access ramps to the Van Wyck Expressway and a project labor agreement with a relocation plan for displaced businesses and living wage protections. The Willets Point project has been on hold, awaiting the resolution of the court case over the use of parkland for a mega-mall. Members from the East Elmhurst Corona Alliance, the Black Institute and Monserrate plan to show up at the New York State Court of Appeals in White Plains Tuesday, the date of oral arguments in the ongoing litigation over the use of parkland for the project .

De Blasio supported and voted for the first redevelopment plan when he was a fellow councilman with Monserrate.

Since then, the plans have changed and de Blasio and Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (East Elmhurst) are now backing different re-development plans that protestors say do not benefit community members.

According to Monserrate, the new proposed plans would expand the redevelopment project onto over 40 acres of public parkland and prioritize construction of a mega-mall or casino. Monserrate said these new plans provide contractual escape clauses that allow the developer to opt out of constructing any Willets Point housing, instead of guaranteeing it. He also said the new plans give 23 acres of Willets Point property to developers for the price of $1 even though the property was acquired at a cost to taxpayers of more than $250 million.

Instead of recouping that cost by selling the property to the developer as was required in the original plan, the city will give it away and provide the developer with an additional $100 million to clean up the site, Monserrate said.

I am calling on the Bill de Blasio the people of New York City believed in, and voted to be their mayor, to take a bold stance and prevent those same developers from taking an additional 40 acres of parkland to build a mega-mall or casino, Monserrate said. I want that Bill de Blasio to withdraw his support of the developers appeal at the Court of Appeals scheduled for April 25 and revert back to the 2008 redevelopment plan for Willets Point. The 99 percent is watching.

Bertha Lewis, president and founder of The Black Institute, said that local leaders should stand with the people, not greedy developers.

Today, members of the City Council  including Mayor Bill de Blasio are making a move to allow developers of Willets Point to use the 40 acres of parkland for a mall and casino, she said. This is unacceptable. Our citys most vulnerable residents need affordable and permanent housing now. The fact that our mayor has changed his mind on a project that he once called precedent-setting is outrageous. Our local leaders need to be supporting projects that assist those in great need, and the people of New York need affordable housing. Supporting any project of Willets Point that does not include affordable housing is a misuse of power.

.
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By Bill Parry

Four supporters of terminated immigrant workers at the Tom Cat Bakery in Long Island City were arrested and led away in handcuffs after they chained themselves to the underside of delivery trucks early Friday morning.

The two men and two women were cheered by the immigrant workers who rallied outside the bakery instead of working their final shifts following their firing for not producing proper employment documentation.

The four were arrested around 4 a.m. and charged with disorderly conduct, according to the NYPD.

Tom Cat Bakery management had been subjected to an audit by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and told 31 workers to produce adequate working documents by Friday or face termination and possible deportation. Eleven workers were able to satisfy the government requirements for immigration papers, while 20 were dismissed with severance pay, according to Tom Cat Bakery attorney William Wachtel.

The Trump administration may want us to quietly disappear, but were not going away silently, Tom Cat worker Henry Rivera said. Were on strike today to send a message that we help make America great and we cannot just be thrown away like day-old bread.

Tom Cat employees describe their efforts as just the beginning of a sustained fight against the Trump administrations crackdown on immigrant workers, culminating in a general strike May 1. The workers also rallied outside Trump Tower earlier this month, but Wachtel said their anger is misplaced.

This audit began under the Obama administration, before Trump was president, Wachtel said.

An organizer from non-proft Brandworkers, which has been working with the Tom Cat Bakery employees since 2011, did not know if any deportation proceedings have begun.

We are not sure which administration initiated the original audit here at Tom Cat, but we know that DHS has been emboldened by Trumps racist rhetoric, Brandworkers Gabriel Morales said Friday. These are the first of many workers across the nation that will face action from ICE and DHS and have their families torn apart. This company was built on the backs of these workers and the way theyve treated their employees is like theyre throwing out the trash.
DPM Nidhi directs concerned bodies to drain water from Arun river

Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Bimalendra Nidhi has instructed the concerned authority to put in place a mechanism to drain water from the dammed Arun river in Sankhuwasabha so as to mitigate the risk of inundation of human settlements in Barun Bazar.
Albany County Sherif's Department

ALBANY - A Berne man was arrested after he damaged a laptop and choked the victim, the Albany County Sheriff's Department said.

Robert Hutchinson, 57, was arrested after deputies said they were called to a Delaware Turnpike home to handle a physical confrontation.
EC puts earlier decision on RPP statute on hold

A day after it wrapped on the knuckles of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) for its activities, the Election Commission (EC) on Thursday decided to put its earlier decision related to the party on hold, following which the RPP withdrew its planned protests.
Every year, People magazine reveals its pick for the Most Beautiful Woman of the year. And just about every year, the magazine is predictable in that it rarely selects a person of color.

Since 1990, there have only been four women of color to receive the title - Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Lupita Nyong'o. This week, Twitterverse slammed the publication for naming Julia Roberts the Most Beautiful Woman for the fifth time. (Why?)
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Albany

Sol Greenberg, legendary district attorney of Albany County who served as chief prosecutor for a quarter of a century before retiring in 2000, died Thursday. He was 95.

A striking figure with wavy silver hair, square jaw and his familiar pipe clenched between his teeth, Greenberg, a Democrat who became a political institution, was a popular vote-getter. He relished making the rounds of gatherings, political and otherwise, shaking hands and sharing anecdotes, whether it was an election year or not.

Greenberg attended gatherings, in later years usually accompanied by his wife, Bea, whom he married in 1945.

"He was the best boss anybody could have asked for," said Cheryl Coleman, a defense attorney who met him as a law clerk in 1983 and would stay in his office until shortly after he retired in 2000. "He really cared about his people. He kind of ran his office like you'd run a family."

She recalled one employee of his who got a DWI, and instead of firing him, Greenberg helped get the man into treatment for alcoholism.

"He turned his life around," she recalled. "You don't see that kind of thing anymore."

In a 2011 interview with the Times Union, Greenberg zeroed in on what he termed the highlight of his career, if not his legacy  the introduction of DNA into the criminal justice system in Albany County.

"We can take credit for being the first DA's office in the United States to use DNA evidence in a murder trial," Greenberg said. He was referring to the case of George Wesley who, in 1987, raped and killed a 79-year-old woman in her Albany apartment.

The trial was preceded by a months-long hearing before the late Albany County Judge Joseph Harris at which scientists and pathologists and others in the legal, medical and scientific communities testified. Harris handed down a 50-page ruling in the summer of 1988, allowing Assistant District Attorney Michael Katzer to use DNA evidence in the Wesley case. It was the first time in the nation that a judge approved DNA fingerprinting for use in trial.

"When presenting something new scientifically, we had to show that the methodology used was acceptable by the scientific community," Greenberg said.

Wesley was convicted in the landmark case and appeals courts upheld the verdict.

"It's been a quick 25 years on a fantastic road," Greenberg said when he retired at the age of 78.

Greenberg could rattle off statistics that marked his time in office  nearly 400 homicides handled, some 400 grand juries drawn, about 90 lawyers passed through as assistants. He prided himself on selecting good attorneys with no regard as to the political party in which they were enrolled.

"From day one through August 2000, we have disposed of 14,277 felony cases," Greenberg said at the time he retired. Among those prosecuted by his office was serial killer Lemuel Smith, one of the most infamous murderers in state history.

In 1974, when tapped by Democratic Party patriarch Dan O'Connell to run for district attorney, Greenberg was a little-known lawyer whose experience was in estate and trust work. He listed among his clients banks and corporations. Although he had limited criminal experience, his strengths as a candidate were a clean reputation and a lack of political baggage. He was regarded as a party loyalist who had been a Democratic committeeman.

He won his first election by a mere 487 votes, defeating Ralph W. Smith Jr., the incumbent Republican who had been District Attorney Arnold Proskin's chief assistant, appointed a year before when Proskin became a county judge. Smith went on to become a federal magistrate judge and Greenberg won six more terms as district attorney. In his last election, 1997, he had Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Independence party endorsements.

Christopher Horn first worked with Greenberg as in intern in 1991 when he was a Cardozo Law School student. He recalled his longtime boss with affection Thursday.

"He welcomed me with open arms," said Horn, who is now the office's chief counsel. "He was always open to new ideas and new approaches to problems."

Campaigning with Greenberg in 1993 when Tom Marcelle ran against him, "I walked mile after mile with him, knocking on doors," Horn said. "I was amazed at his endurance and energy, and how happy he was talking to people and asking them to vote for him."

At the time, Greenberg was in his early 70s. "He was like a grandfather to me."

Over the years, Horn said, "I worked long hours and Sol was there until 7 or 7:30 every night, smoking his pipe."

At the height of his administration, Greenberg ran one of the area's biggest law firms  overseeing 32 full-time assistants, double the 16 he started with when he was sworn in on Jan.1, 1975. David Soares, now the district attorney, was his last hire.

Critics faulted Greenberg for not aggressively pursuing white-collar crime and shying away from political corruption cases. He shouldered the criticism for years, at times claiming it was mostly generated by the media, and denied he turned a blind eye toward political corruption or failed to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in state government. He said his administration handled many white collar cases.

Greenberg showed up at crime scenes and was always available to the media. He took long lunches, regardless of the weather, leaving his office in the Albany County Courthouse to hit the more popular diners and coffee shops. Sometimes, he ate lightly, and he always strolled among the tables and counters.

"Sol Greenberg has a special place in the hearts of the scores of lawyers who started their careers in his office," said attorney Michael McDermott, a former assistant district attorney who is now with the Albany firm of O'Connell & Aronowitz. "He was fiercely loyal to his assistants and inspired loyalty in return. Sol was slow to anger and quick to praise, qualities that created a perfect environment for young trial lawyers learning their craft."

Defense attorney Steve Coffey was an assistant district attorney for Greenberg for a year in 1974, and remained good friends with his old boss for the next four decades.

"Let me tell you, he was a gentleman," he said. "He had a kindness about him that was remarkable. He really was just a nice man. Unpretentious. Humble. He was a very kind and simple man  simple in the most positive sense."

The son of Romanian Jewish immigrants, Greenberg was born Nov. 6, 1921, in New York City but grew up on Ashgrove Place in Albany's South End neighborhood. The family eventually moved uptown to Quail Street. His father was a men's hatter. He learned the trade in New York City and when he heard there was a shop for sale in Albany, he bought it and moved the family. His mother was a couturier. Both parents worked for General Electric in Schenectady during World War II.

Greenberg attended public schools and graduated from the University at Albany. Although accepted at Harvard Law School, his plans were interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He spent three years in the Navy during the war, having trained at midshipmen school at Columbia University, and 25 years with the Naval Reserve in Albany, retiring in 1970 as a full commander.

He and the former Beatrice Raab of Albany spent most of their lives in Albany. When he was discharged from active duty in January 1946, he checked on Harvard Law School, he said, and was told there was no opening in the January class and he'd have to wait until June. He didn't want to wait, so he was immediately accepted at Albany Law School, finishing in two years by not taking summers off.

In addition to his widow, Greenberg is survived by a son, Harry, who lives in Guilderland, and a daughter, Elizabeth Friedland, of Cambridge, Mass., a sister, Harriet Gold, of Seattle, and three grandchildren.

Bethany Bump and Rob Brill contributed to this story.
Phoenicians Mediterranean Palace is not obviously a Lebanese restaurant. Or a restaurant at all. It shares its flat roofline with Bargain Outlet and a going-out-of-business video store; the tightly scripted sign is up so high it's hard to see. The building, 71 Fuller Road, is one of the area's uglier strip malls, and while you scan for an entrance in the storefront facade and take in the pocked parking lot worn by industrial deliveries to a former lumberyard and Sysco warehouse, you may feel rising panic.

But steady your nerves. Overlook the delivery trucks and cars hurtling along Fuller Road  the lifeline connecting the University at Albany, SUNY-Nano and Crossgates shoppers with Colonie Center and Wolf Road. Now that the Party Warehouse opposite is a less celebratory discount mattress store, those drivers have no plan to stop. But you know better.

You know that stepping inside Phoenicians is like entering a portal to some alternate world. Cavernous ceilings ring with Lebanese music, arched walls are painted vibrant colors and Levantine scenes, and steaming shawarma platters are carried proudly overhead to tables from a kitchen somewhere far in back.

I don't say "far" lightly. The space is massive. You've already passed a jewelry counter where the hostess station should be, and you'll be trying to make sense of things when owner Robert Rahal rushes over to welcome you. Stroll on, passing an ice cream counter and rows of brightly lit glass cases glistening with nut-packed pastries and honeyed baklava in assorted shapes. Empty spaces will soon house a kosher-style deli, an Italian deli and a grab-and-go hot food counter modeled, Rahal says, after Chipotle. There are floor displays piled high with bagged pita bread, boxes of baklava from Andalos (his family's bakery in Montreal) and Lebanese coffee sets. Yet another cooler harbors grape leaves, baba ganoush, toum and beet-pickled turnips packaged to go.

More Information Phoenicians Mediterranean Palace 71 Fuller Road Colonie Phone: 464-4444 Web: www.phoeniciansofalbany.com Cuisine: Familiar selection of Lebanese dishes, including assorted Lebanese mezze, savory pastries, shawarma, mix grill and desserts. The unique space sells grab-and-go menu items and will soon feature prepared hot dinners as well as delis. Liquor license pending. Ambiance: Cavernous former warehouse serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Combined elements of a food court, grocery, bar, coffee and hookah lounge. Open plan, family-friendly dining with friendly staff. Private rooms and a relaxed storefront lounge. (Free Wi-Fi for customers.) Price: $-$$$ Hours: Kitchen: Currently 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Hookah lounge open until 10 p.m. Once the liquor license is approved, the bar will remain open later. Credit cards: All major. Parking: Parking lot. Handicapped accessible: Yes. Price ratings for inexpensive eateries based on average of entree costs: $: $9.95 and less $$: $9.95-$15.95 $$$: $15.95 and higher See More Collapse

To the right is the main dining room, a sea of plastic-covered tables a third filled with young families and older couples, vine-wrapped trellises suspended overhead. Six men in pin-striped shirts summon huge platters and adjourn to smoke fruit-flavored hookahs ($30 per head) in the upfront lounge, where we will sip powerfully dark after-dinner coffee among the mirror-spangled cushions.

This isn't a place where people stop by accident  at least not yet. Most are loyal patrons of the former Central Avenue restaurant, also called Phoenicians, that Robert and his wife, Rindala, ran opposite his jewelry store until recently. With his businesses now combined under one roof, Rahal buzzes around greeting everyone while a server waits tables. Service is slow at times, in part because the server station is hidden from view and in part because Rahal is still hiring. When you go, exude a little Middle Eastern patience.

A self-contained bar has the sort of brickwork and brewery signs you see at airport bars aiming to duplicate a homey pub feel. Since Phoenicians is awaiting its liquor license, those at the bar sip Lebanese coffee or soft drinks.

As in any Middle Eastern restaurant, there's a familiar lineup of tabbouleh, hummus, kebabs and mixed grill. Lebanese cooking is an interwoven mix of Levantine cuisines with subtle but endless variations among households. We take the best course of action, ordering mezze, vegetarian and shawarma platters that spare the stomach and offer a tasting of virtually all.

Fresh vegetables, citrus and torn herbs keep plates light and bright. Mezze trios arrive on colorful Lebanese plates. Silky tahini hummus partners roasted eggplant baba ganoush  less smoky than hoped  and a simple leaf salad dressed in citrus and pink radishes. Fattoush salad wasn't on the temporary menu, though it's available now, so we swab softly minted grape leaves and nutty falafel through tahini tarator sauce, munch crisp phyllo cheese rolls with soft feta centers and gobble bulgur wheat kebbeh balls drizzled in mint sauce.

We're surprised the pita bread isn't warmed, but care less once it's heaped with garlic toum, a fluffy, white emulsion made from an obscene number of garlic cloves pulverized with lemon and olive oil. It's fantastic, pungent and stays with you for days.

Forget the meaty, layered eggplant of Greek moussaka. Food historians suggest maghmour, or Lebanese moussaka, a rich stew of eggplant, tomato and chickpeas, is the origin of a dish adapted through Europe and the Middle East. At Phoenicians, it is full-bodied and sweetly caramelized, tinted with cinnamon, sumac and seven spices for a soul-stirring dish.

Some mezze are more subtly spiced than I expect. Though Rahal mixes his own ras-el-hanout spice, he uses it sparingly. Stewed lentils, rice and onion in mujadara are lightly aromatic; green beans in lubieh bel zait, a little plain. Rindala has been out of the kitchen for a few weeks, and Rahal and a cousin are at the helm. Rahal is rightly proud of his fatayer spinach and the beautifully seasoned minced lamb and beef in sfiha  both pinched pastry turnovers made daily  but, having eaten previously Rindala's more delicate versions, I'd say she would surely caution him over such thick crusts.

As if that's not enough, we tackle the shawarma platter, piling toum and rice onto chicken and beef blackened from the grill. We box half to take home.

All 11,000 square feet of the Phoenicians Mediterranean Palace  a mixed-use food court, grocery, restaurant and hookah lounge  is testament to Rahal's ambitious labor. He's hiring. Delis are coming soon, and, starting this week, Phoenicians will offer Lebanese breakfasts from 10 a.m. There's Wi-Fi for customers enjoying coffee in the hookah lounge. A further 11,000 square feet still under renovation will feature a banquet hall and a larger jewelry shop; the bar, once licensed, will host live music and Bollywood and Israeli nights. It sounds crazy. But Rahal might be ambitious enough to pull it off.

Dinner for two (that could feed at least three)  including a mezze platter, two extra appetizers, two entree platters, three small dessert pastries and coffee  came to $92.78 with tax and 20 percent tip.

Susie Davidson Powell is a freelance writer from East Greenbush. Follow her on Twitter, @SusieDP. To comment on this review, visit the Table Hopping blog, blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping.
EC urges all parties to ensure womens participation in polls

The Election Commission has urged all the political parties to ensure womens participation in important positions of the local federal units during the elections scheduled for May 14.
Brexit and the collapse in milk price is feeding into uncertainty about the price of land in Tipperary, according to a local farm leader.

Sean Butler, Tipperary ICMSA chair, was commenting on the fuindings of a Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland and Teagasc into land prices throughout teh country.

The survey revealed that Munster counties took the biggest hit from the collapse of milk prices, with a 20 per cent average fall in the sale of land holdings.

The report did not list individual counties but found that selling priecs for Munster for holdings over 100 acres with a residence fell by 20 per cent to 9,154 per acre in 2016, while those without a dwelling fell by 9 per cent to 8,577 per acre.

That equates to a drop of 2,242 per acre and reflects the drop in dairy incomes from 2015 to 2016 when milk prices fell from 38cpl to 26cpl.

It also found that medium sized and small holdings were at 9092 per acre, with non-residential holdings down 11 per cent to 8,800 per acre.

For small holdings up to 50 acrea, the fal was 4 per cent to 10,622, with non-residential falling 3 per cent to 9,936 per acre.

Im afraid that thats no more than a reflection of two factors that we have to recognise. The first is that the Brexit process is undoubtedly going to affect Irish farming and the overwhelming likelihood is that it is going to affect it adversely, said Mr Butler.

The Dolla farmer said that thie was not being pessimistic; , but a reflection of the fact that whatever we end up with is most unlikely to be as easy and cost-free as the situation up to the point of official exit.

That probability is going to affect Irish farming and food production and - as Tipperary ICMSA always stresses - this county is a particularly large component in Irish food production, he siad.

Tipperary was the second largest milk producing county in Ireland after Cork, and the uncertainty about the short to medium term prospects of our farming and food sector was feeding back into uncertainty about the value of agricultural land, said Mr Butler.

He pointed out that this will only be allayed as the situation likely to apply post -Brexit became clear.

The second factor affecting agricultural land values is the hangover from the collapse in milk price that wiped out dairy farmer incomes throughout the region in 2015 and most of 2016, he said.

The ICMSA chair said that we were into the era of volatility where we can expect a peak and trough pattern where periods of healthy milk price will trigger increases in production that in turn lead to over-supply and price collapse.

ICMSA has consistently pointed out at both national and EU level that this pattern is utterly destructive of the family farm system that was very unique to Ireland and backboned food production in counties like Tipperary, said Mr Butler.

He emphasised that dairy farmers did not want dizzying highs to crushing lows.

We want to see a level milk price well above the 28 cent per litre cost of production that gives us an income commensurate with the long hours of work we have to put in and the levels of investment and technical skill long associated with Tipperary farmers.

I think that the milk price collapse in 2015 and 2016 finally woke some people up to the reality of the challenges facing our local farmers in these times and that realisation is being reflected in the marginal decline in land values, said Mr Butler.
What you need to know about Powerball's $1.6 billion lottery jackpot
Flood debris block Arun River forming 3-km dam

The Arun river has been blocked forming a 3-kilometre dam at Syaksila Gola in Hatiya, Sankhuwasabha district.
Joshi holds talks with diplomats on investment

Industry Minister Nabindra Raj Joshi on Thursday called on members of the diplomatic community to update them on the policy reforms initiated by the ministry and follow up on the investment pledge made by the foreign investors during the recent Nepal Investment Summit 2017.
Apple Watch owners are accidentally calling 911, according to emergency services dispatchers in Connecticut who have reportedly been receiving a deluge of false emergency phone calls from Apple watches.



(Image credit: The Apple Watch can call 911 all too easily with its SOS feature, officials say. Credit: Apple)



The calls could be a stress on ambulance services and fire departments and their response time for legitimate emergencies, the Tolland County Mutual Aid Fire Service in Connecticut told local news channel Fox 61.



Officials are afraid that the problem could get worse as more consumers buy the Apple Watch, which has an SOS feature turned on by default.



Out of the box, if you hold down the side button (and not the digital crown), the Apple Watch will automatically call 911, and send notifications will be automatically sent to contacts who you specify in the app.

It you make a call by accident, you can hard-press the watch face and select End Call. However, it's better to remain on the line and let emergency services operators know you called by mistake, rather than having them spend more time calling you back.

You can disable this feature so that you have to press the side button, and then use the Emergency SOS slider on the watch screen to contact emergency services. Here's how.

Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone Tap the My Watch tab Select General Tap Emergency SOS Turn off Hold to Auto Call.

Even after deactivating this setting, you'll still be able to call 911 using your Apple Watch. Simply hold down the digital crown until the Emergency SOS slider appears.
Last month, Sydney was treated to one hell of a punk bash as Melbourne trio Dumb Punts, Byron Bay trio WASH, and locals Pist Idiots piled into beloved Newtown haunt The Leadbelly for Brixton Broadcast Sydney.

With the locals scoring a huge night of music for the grand price of nothing, the venue was heaving, and all were treated to a sweaty night from three of the Aussie punk scenes strongest emerging talents.

Now, weve got a bit of footage and some great snaps by Life Without Andy to rub it in the faces of any of us who were unfortunate enough to miss out on the moshing, and give you an idea of why you should catch one or all of these bands when they next swing by your neighbourhood.

Until then, be sure give Dumb Punts 2016 breakthrough 7 a listen, released on Drunk Mums label Pissfart Records, or WASHs debut effort Point Of View, with the production force of The Pinheads Jez Player and The Straight Arrows Owen Penglis behind it.

Even better, kill two birds with one stone and grab the split cassette that the two bands just put out together, which neatly sums up why any fans of Aussie punk or garage need to keep their eyes firmly on both of them.

And punk fans, be sure to keep an eye out for the next time Brixton heads to Oz and crams a pile of our favourite bands onto a stage.
The people have the power is what Patti Smith sings, but for the 28th Bluesfest at Byron Bay the women definitely had the power and the glory. Neil Finn summed it up on the last night when he played She Will Have Her Way and preceded it by talking about how pleased he would be when women took over the running of the world, because men had fucked it up so badly.

This years lineup was jam-packed with women of substance and positive energy, with over 18 of them proving that men dont run music. Case in point Nikki Hill and her band who, joined by Laura Chavez on guitar, ripped it up with rock and roll and soul.

Melody Angel, a true find at this festival, was joined by her Mom on vocals and Angel praised her skills as a single mom keeping her safe and out of the hands of the police. Angel was a virtuoso on guitar taking us from Hendrix to Chuck Berry blended in with her own fine compositions. She stated at one point this was the best day of her life playing to such a large audience after only playing clubs in the Chicago area, and you knew she meant it.

Bonnie Raitt, now the god mother of the blues, was as steady as ever, and Laura Mvula was a captivating performer who garnered enormous crowds. Courtney Barnett, new to the festival and to many in the audience rocked out like her life depended on it  you can see why Patti Smith is a big fan of Barnett with her sweeping lyrics and full out rocking routine.

Lets talk about Patti Smith and quite possibly her last visit to our shores. Struggling with vocal issues due to illness, her supremacy and her presence illuminated the Mojo stage on the first night. Smith was able to take her album , Horses, and ride it through the downpour that most were unaware of. Lenny Kayes absorbing guitar and the poetry of these iconic songs had many people close to tears. Ending with The Whos My Generation is a majestic statement all in itself as Smith literally shredded the strings from the guitar.

But the performance that was truly glorious was Smiths solo set on Friday. Reading poetry from sheets of paper, glasses firmly placed, she was mesmerising. Her belief in humanity and positive force took the crowd on a ride many had never been on. For many it was difficult to fall into the blues and rock of the rest of the day until that trance was slightly adjusted with more music that evening.

Mary J Blige, Rickie Lee Jones, Rhiannon Giddens and Beth Hart kept the female influence going strong. Giddens eclectic mix of tunes proved she was a fan favourite as word spread and her audience definitely grew over the three days she performed.

This years festival was graced with perfect weather. Warm afternoons settled into a cool, but comfortable evening with the moon and stars overhead. If you were in a horny mood, there was a hell of a lot of brass on hand. The new sounds of Snarky Puppy, the New Orleans-styled California Honeydrops, the funky ten piece Suffers from California (with the pretty remarkable Kam Franklin on lead vocals) and of course the return of Trombone Shorty. His funk and horn playing ability just continue to grow from year to year, and hes one live act that should never be passed over.

The ebb and flow of the festival is amazing to watch. From Thursday to Sunday the crowd swells and tramping around the gravel and grass gets crowded, but there are always places to avoid the huge crowds if you so desire. With an array of food and market stalls, taking a break from the music was never dull, and when finding a dry piece of terra firma or a bench to evangelise about an act you saw or were about to see with other like-minded folks, the word stress was hardly heard.

The superannuation acts, as someone called them, (Santana, Jimmy Buffet Jethro Tull and The Doobie Brothers) all filled their respective tents. Jimmy had his dedicated parrot head crowd in the tent and hundreds more watching from outside on the TV screen. Although he garnered a considerable audience, at times it appeared the band were a bit under-rehearsed for their only show in Australia.

The Doobie Brothers, joined by Bill Payne from Little Feat fame on keyboards, kicked off with Jesus Is Just Alright and closed with Listen To The Music. In between there were hits and guitar solos galore for Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons and the multi-instrumentalist John McFee to show they still have what it takes to get us all rocking out to China Grove.

Carlos Santana and his band were ablaze as soon as they stepped out on stage. With images of Santana playing at Woodstock on the screen they blasted into Soul Sacrifice to a shoulder to shoulder audience. Cindy Blackman Santana wailed on drums and the other two percussionists hit anything that was not moving. Santanas solos were riveting and lengthy and he looked cool and relaxed and calm as always killing the guitar as he chewed his gum.

What is a Bluesfest without some Blues, you might be asking? Well, we had the great Buddy Guy at the age of 80 still able to command his instrument and the audience. Although he continues to fit in many covers, including some Cream, his playing has not faltered and his showmanship continues as he strolls through the audience getting close to his fan base.

The southpaw guitarist Eric Gales continues to impress and his solos and band were top notch. With some of his personal issues behind him, he seemed clear and on point. But one blues guitar slinger, who played all five days of the festival, definitely has taken on the family name  and is doing them proud. Devon Allman, Gregg Allmans son and nephew of the late Duane Allman, has taken his solo career to a new level.

Allman has moved away from his previous bands, Royal Southern Brotherhood and Honeytribe, and has matured into an excellent frontman and player. With no visitations to Allman Brothers material, he was able to entice the crowd with his excellent playing and what has turned into an amazing vocal presence.

The highlight of one of his sets  and of the festival  was when Jake Shimabukoro, the ukulele genius, came up to play Bob Marleys No Woman No Cry with the band. Shimabukoro and Allman traded solos with each other and the joy and musical expertise of each artist was clear to see and hear. If you were there, you took away something very special.

There was so much music to take in and some of the other fabulous sets were by the funkiest band in town, Dumpstaphunk; Davey Knowles bringing some British blues guitar to our shores; Jeff Lang, one of our countrys best guitarists; Mavis Staples doing her thing with so much life and vitality at 77; and Turin Brakes and the Zac Brown doing rock and country rock respectively. Zac Browns set list included a cover of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody that had to be heard to be believed.

Another great find at this years festival was the Los Angeles-based Record Company, the power rocking blues trio of Chris Vos, Alex Stiff and Mark Cazorla. With only one album under their belt, and a fabulous one at that, Give It Back To You, you knew what they were going to give you. They were humbled and surprised at the turn out for an unknown act, and they let it rip accordingly.

With the sun setting on the festival and the long Easter Weekend, the crowd thinned out, but not the musical feast. Feet were weary and eyes were bleary, but smiles were still firmly planted on the dials of the remaining throng. Ray Beadle and Tony Joe White were on early in the day and it was hard to choose between the Australian and the man from Louisiana.

St. Paul and The Broken Bones from Alabama rolled out the soul with Paul Janeway singing and rolling around the stage like the preacher he wanted to be at one point in his journey. Booker T and his Stax Revue were on, and the sounds from his Hammond B3 sounded delightful, but the pull of one of Australias best in Kasey Chambers pulled the Americana fans in.

Kasey first played solo at the festival about 19 years ago and she was in her element. With chestnuts like Not Pretty Enough, Pony and others she put on one of the highlight sets of the festival. Her new album Dragonfly showcases her new vocal style after having some nodules removed from her vocals. She has always had a fabulous voice, but she has gained some depth and growl, and displayed that in full on the new track Aint No Little Girl, hands down. Throw in a spectacular cover of Little Feats Willin, and she still wears the crown of Australias Americana royalty.

With 28 years of festival experience behind them, Peter Noble and their team know how to throw a party, and there were very few hiccups. Families, couples, teens  they were all there, all loving the moments. As the festival approaches three decades at the top, bands and punters alike continue to be in very safe hands.
"Oh my God it happened so fast. He came out of nowhere and was just standing at my door, screaming with that big rifle in his hand," the grandmother recalled about the day she thought she and her friend were going to lose their lives.





"We were just going to a convenience store and when we stopped at the stop sign at Garner and Bales he popped up with that AK-47. We were so scared, too scared to realize it was really happening."

Our blog community wasto warn of theand now take a look at increasing local Latino violence . . .Deets:Developing . . .
Man killed as tipper hits scooter in Bhaktapur

A man died after a tipper hit a scooter he was riding on at Kamal Binayak in Bhaktapur Municipality-4 on Thursday.
KCTV5 - Recent KCK homicide victim was Pamela Butler's sister: A woman whose 10-year-old daughter was abducted and murdered in KCK 18 years ago is now dealing with another daughter's murder.

Our blog community laments this tragic story that deserves a closer look . . .The number of locals connected to this tragedy is kinda surprising . . . One of our readers spotted young Pamela during back in the 90s during the Amber Alert andwas one of the first people in the metro to report on identity of the victim.Developing . . .
Season Of Kansas City Storms

Severe weather, tornadoes ripped through Kansas City area in March KANSAS CITY, Mo. - It was late afternoon on March 6, 2017 when a line of thunderstorms developed north and west of Kansas City. 41 Action News meteorologist Gerard Jebaily went out in our new storm chase vehicle, Storm Tracker.

Traffic Tragedy Across State Line

Pedestrian suffers life-threatening injuries in KCK Police in KCK are working an injury accident at Third and Franklin Ave. Kansas City, KS Police Chief Terry Zeigler said the injuries are life-threatening. An adult pedestrian was struck by a vehicle. Police say the driver remained on the scene and cooperated with police. Copyright 2017 KCTV (Meredith Corp.)

More Inner-Suburban Gunfire

Reported shooting in Raytown sends man to hospital A reported shooting Tuesday afternoon in Raytown sent a man to a hospital. Raytown police were called about 12:30 p.m. to a home near 57th Terrace and Woodson Road. Police said the man went to a hospital, but his condition was not immediately known. Detectives are at the scene investigating.

Nasty Animal Stench Report

Woman charged with animal neglect after awful odors, 50 cats found in cages at store RIVERSIDE, Mo. - An animal neglect charge was recently handed down against the owner of Street Cats Rescue in Riverside after police discovered awful odors and 50 cats inside cages, some of which suffered from poor health.

Lesson In Local Sound

Effort hopes to rebuild eastern KC neighborhood by reviving jazz roots Since the 1920s, jazz has built a reputation for Kansas City. About 90 years later, a local organization is hoping the power of jazz can rebuild Kansas City. Led by co-founders and spouses Daniel and Ebony Edwards, KC Jazz LP is working to establish Kansas City as the jazz recording capital of the world while helping revitalize the origins of its jazz heritage.

Kansas City Royals Suffer Setback

DeShields RBI single in 13th gives Texas 1-0 win over Royals ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Delino DeShields is stuck in a crowded platoon for playing time in left field. In one of his rare starts for the Texas Rangers so far this season, he had the biggest hit.

McTavish Makes The Weekend

6 Over-The-Top Things To Do In Kansas City This Weekend Maybe you won't make it to the top. But going over the top this weekend should be no problem. Overachieving ascending action: The work of brain-searing illustrators redefining the boundaries of fantasy art, Canadian funny men turning depictions of alcohol dependency into believe-it-or-not comedy gold and ambitious performers striving for the farthest reaches of live burlesque, spoken poetry and throwback record-store love so real it just might feel like 1979.

Brit Instagram babe supremegets us going for the early morning and inspires our Friday morning news link session as we check the top links for the local discourse . . .is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .
Kansas City Hog Wild

Pennsylvania's loss is KC Harley plant's gain - Kansas City Business Journal Harley-Davidson Inc. plans to lay off 118 workers at its York, Pa., plant and add the same number of positions at its Kansas City facility. Reuters reports that Harley informed its York employees of the plan on Thursday, two days after the company (NYSE: HOG) reported a 25.6 percent fall in quarterly profit.

Meth Town Morning Gunfire Recap

Shooting injures 1 at Independence QuikTrip A shooting injured one person late Thursday at a busy Independence QuikTrip.

Vegas & Kansas City Meth Return Trip

Man arrested allegedly with drugs in Kansas City should have stayed in Vegas For Hector Hernandez-Bobadilla, it really should have stayed in Vegas. The "it" being the more than one pound of methamphetamine he was arrested with in Kansas City, according to court documents. Hernandez-Bobadilla, 43, is now charged in U.S. District Court in Kansas City with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and aggravated identity theft.

Lesson In Pain

Front end of KCKSD school bus destroyed in crash KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A bus in Kansas City, Kan., ran off the road and into trees Friday morning. The incident occurred around 10:15 a.m. near 64th Terrace and Parallel Parkway. There is no word on what caused the incident.

Show-Me GOP Slap Fight

Gov. Greitens' nonprofit zeroes in on GOP state senator in online ad Missouri state Sen. Rob Schaaf has his hands in a lot of important legislation this session, yet he's still made time to criticize Republican Gov. Eric Greitens over his new nonprofit. A New Missouri Inc., which isn't beholden to campaign finance laws and doesn't have to disclose its donors, is fighting back, publishing a digital ad this week that says the St.

Rock Chalk Native Discovery

'Lost city' discovery: Kansas site sheds new light on Native American history Archaeologists have found incredible evidence of a huge Wichita Indian town in Kansas that was once home to 20,000 people. Donald Blakeslee, a professor of archaeology at Wichita State University, told Fox News that experts harnessed 400-year-old Spanish documents and modern technology to locate the long-lost town of Etzanoa near Arkansas City, Kansas.

Lunch Link With Local Foodies

Deli Revivial And Sandwiches Why did the old-school Jewish deli go away ... and why are people interested in reviving it now? Then, KCUR's Food Critics search out the best sandwiches

hotness along with all her friends and this important collection of Kansas City midday links right now. Take a peek:And this is thefor right now . . .
Congressman Cleaver Announces a Significant Grant for KC Public Library

Just a bit of nice news for the midday and a realization that locals are bracing for the Prez Trump budget . . . Meanwhile, the move towardis the future as this news blasts suggests.Checkit:(Kansas City, MO)  Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II is pleased to announce that the Kansas City Public Library will share a nearly quarter-million dollar grant awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). This two year grant of, $249,586, will be used to advance the Kansas City Public Librarys digital learning program.This is a tremendous opportunity for the Kansas City Public Library to be awarded the National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For decades, the library has been the only public place where children and adults know they can get help if they do not have the resources they need at home, said Congressman Cleaver.The digital learning program trains librarians and volunteers who meet with peers to work together on digital topics such as email, mapping and directions, internet safety and other online courses. The Kansas City Library will work with Peer2Peer University to scale up Learning Circles, a community-based learning program. Learning Circles combines enrollment in online courses with in-person group study sessions facilitated by librarians covering a range of academic, professional, and personal development subjects.Im glad that our office was able to assist in making sure our libraries have the technology, equipment and training needed to educate and assist the public, said Congressman Cleaver. Programs like this one, and other federal funding that our local libraries rely on, could be on the chopping block next year. The Fiscal Year 2018 budget blueprint, released by President Trump, cut funding to the Institute of Museum and Library Services by $230 million. We need to do all we can to support federal library funding which goes to local libraries all around the country.The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nations 123,000 libraries and approximately 35,000 museums with a mission to inspire them to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement.###############
World Bank President Jim Kim reiterated on Thursday that there are "no imminent" plans for a loan towards bailout-dependent Greece, confirming reports by "N" this month that the international development bank considers the prospect of lending to the eurozone member as premature.

Speaking at a press conference a day before the annual spring meetings in Washington D.C. of the World Bank Group and IMF, Kim noted that "... now we are investing through the IFC, our private sector arm, and we have had talks with the Greek government but there are no imminent plans to do this ... any kind of movement like that to provide a loan to Greece would have to be done with the agreement of all the other creditors of Greece, and also by our Board.

Kim reminded that the World Bank is already providing assistance on sectors such as better social protection in the crisis-plagued country, as well as improving bureaucracy-laden Greece's Doing Business ranking in order to combat long-term unemployment.

"So its not, there is nothing imminent but we are committed to support Greece in the ways we have been supporting them now for almost five years," he said.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Turkey will launch a foreign policy move through presidential visits to critical countries in May in an attempt to reshape the countrys relationships with the international community after months of domestic political tension fractured Turkeys bonds with its traditional allies.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogans itinerary in May includes a visit to Washington D.C. for his first in-person meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump after the latters election and to Sochi for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan will also visit Beijing, Brussels and New Delhi.

Turkey is going on the foreign drive in a bid to repair relationships with a number of key countries, such as the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, which have soured in recent months, while Ankara also wishes to discuss developments in Syria and the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Erdogan will seek to establish a new framework for the Turkish-American relationship in Washington in the wake of his contested win in the April 16 referendum, while also planning to meet with the European Unions two top institutional leaders, Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, in Brussels to discuss Ankara-Brussels ties in detail.

First stop India

Erdogans first stop on his tour will be India on April 30, when he will be accompanied by ministers responsible for economy and trade. Erdogan will participate in Turkey-India Business Forum and will hold political talks with Indian leaders, particularly President Pranab Mukherjee. The agenda during the meeting is expected to be dominated by an improvement of bilateral economic and trade ties.

Putin-Erdogan meet on May 3

Erdogans second visit will be to Sochi on May 3 where he will meet President Vladimir Putin, although the two leaders recently met in Moscow in March. Erdogan, who will discuss developments in Syria with Putin, will deliver the message that the conflict in Syria can be resolved if Russia adopts a constructive position and a political transition process can begin.

The Erdogan-Putin meeting will be important also for bilateral economic and energy ties. Despite the fact that the two countries launched a normalization process in ties, Russia continues to impose serious restrictions on the import of Turkish agricultural products. Turkey recently deployed a high-level delegation to Russia to resolve the trade dispute that has affected $450 million in agricultural trade from Turkey. The two leaders are also expected to discuss the potential that Moscow will ease visa conditions for Turkish business leaders.

First meeting with Trump

The meeting between Trump and Erdogan, deemed as historic by Ankara with regards to Turkish-American ties, is expected to take place in the second half of May. The oral invitation to Erdogan was extended by Trump in a phone conversation on April 18, in which Trump reportedly told Erdogan: Lets meet face to face. Turkey is very important for us; we want to work with you.

Following consultations through diplomatic channels, the two sides agreed to hold a meeting in the second half of May. The issues to be discussed at the White House include the extradition of Fethullah Gulen and restrictions on his followers in the U.S., developments in Syria, Turkeys sensitivities over the prospective role for the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), in the upcoming Raqqa operation, as well as the countries bilateral economic relationship.

Turkey has already begun working on the dossiers ahead of the visit, while the main theme in Washington will be to create a new framework for bilateral ties.

Key talks with EU

A NATO summit in Brussels on May 25 will also provide a good opportunity for Erdogan to hold bilateral meetings with some key European leaders. Furthermore, talks are underway to arrange bilateral or trilateral meetings between Erdogan and European Commission head Juncker and European Council President Tusk.

Erdogans message to Europe is expected to center on unopened accession chapters, visa liberalization, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Gulenist movements activities in Europe, according to presidential sources.

Turkish sources noted that Ankara had reacted positively to German Chancellor Angela Merkels call for dialogue following the referendum, while stressing that further contacts with Europe would follow in this process.

Agreement in China

The president will also visit China in May to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 14 and 15 along with Putin and other regional leaders. Erdogan will hold talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as well as other participants, and is expected to sign a cooperation agreement on the revival of the ancient Silk Road through new railways and roads.

Source: hurriyetdailynews.com

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Diyar Al Muharraq, one of the leading urban developers in Bahrain, has announced the handover of the first batch of residential units within Phase Two of Diyar Homes.



The maiden handover ceremony, which took place recently at the Diyar Sales Office was held in the presence of the chairman Abdul Hakeem Al Khayyat, its chief executive Dr Maher Al Shaer and the deputy chief executive (Projects & Developments) Hisham Al Moayyed, along with other members of management and staff.



Phase Two of Diyar Homes consists of 196 residential units that are diversely designed to reflect the cultural history of Bahrain and its proud traditional heritage, said a statement from Diyar Al Muharraq.



The villas follow six different interior themes; El Joory, El Sheraa, El Matar, El Yasmeen, El Gomar, and El Semah, it stated.



Speaking at the ceremony, Dr Al Shaer said: "On behalf of Diyar Al Muharraq, I would like to congratulate the owners of the first batch for receiving their residential units in Phase Two of Diyar Homes as they now join the privileged residents of Phase One, who have already comfortably settled into their environment."



"The Diyar Homes project was designed to embrace traditional Bahraini architecture, to meet the need for high quality housing standards with comprehensively developed infrastructure, and to provide the ideal setting for Bahraini family living. Therefore, in line with expediting the manifestation of that vision, we look forward to welcoming more of our inhabitants in the near future," he stated.



"It is our immense pleasure to witness the constant progress made on the projects within our master-plan," he added.



The Diyar Homes neighborhood is conveniently located off the Eastern coast of Muharraq and is envisioned to become a fully integrated city containing all modern facilities, taking into account its suitability for traditional Bahraini families and architectural designs inspired by the timeless heritage of the kingdom.



"The handover of the first batch of residential units within Diyar Homes is testament to the exemplary rates we undertake for the completion of our project, and its complete installation, and serves to highlight our efforts to facilitate the process of populating our projects as soon as possible," remarked Dr Al Shaer.



"The project represents an important part of Diyar Al Muharraqs residential offerings, and adds to the progress of the real estate development process in the kingdom," he added.



Diyar Al Muharraq is a unique master planned city for the people of Bahrain providing range of housing options and quality lifestyle. It offers a cohesive mix of residential and commercial properties with a strong lineup of projects aimed at creating a long term and sophisticated township.-TradeArabia News Service
MiFID II Trade Reporting: The 60 Second Challenge

The introduction of near real-time trade reporting set to be extended beyond equity markets as part of MiFID II will broaden the visibility of trading activity in listed and OTC instruments - but how can market participants bolster post-trade capabilities and prepare for the 2018 deadline?

With commodities, fixed income and FX trading activity set to be included in reporting requirements coming into force next year, market participants must focus on delivering greater automation in their post-trade capabilities, while developing multi-asset functionality to account for the new breadth of the new rules.

Adding to the challenge, details of all trades in eligible financial instruments (both equity and non-equity) need to be published to Approved Publication Arrangements (APAs) in as close to real time as possible. In practice, for some instruments this means no later than 1 minute after the trade. Stricter accuracy requirements designed to prevent over and under reporting is also on the agenda, as regulators look to clamp down on an if in doubt, report mentality.

Yet, many financial institutions continue to rely on manual processes built on siloed IT operations that segregate middle and back office functions between asset classes. It comes as little surprise therefore, that this move is posing significant challenges for market participants, a point illustrated in a recent survey conducted by WBR Research. The survey, which polled 150 equity traders in Europe, found 37% of respondents cited post-trading issues as the factor expected to cause the biggest impact of MiFID II reforms.

As such, demand for centralised solutions which can process input from multiple front-office Order Management Systems, across asset classes continues to rise. The logic around the need to create holistic view of trading activity extends to other important post-trade functions including transaction reporting, best execution and market abuse monitoring.

A tempting solution for the buy-side may be to delegate authority for trade reporting to their brokers in some instances. But in this scenario, these firms will still retain accountability for ensuring reporting is done correctly. Consequently more buy-side firms are likely to handle their own trade reporting  and as a result  will need to upgrade post-trade functionality to meet the rules.

Ultimately, the need for a step change in post-trade connectivity and automation looms on the horizon. At the user level, a unified, interface will be needed which accurately reports trade details, shows the status of all reporting - and allows interaction to cancel/modify reports and handle APA rejections.

Richard Bentley is Chief Product Officer at Ullink, global provider of market leading multi-asset trading technology and infrastructure for buy-side and sell-side market participants.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:
Melamchi project to conduct test run of water treatment plant in July

The Melamchi Water Supply Project is set to conduct a test run of its water treatment plant in Sundarijal in July.
PUERTO RICO TO HOST 2018 CARIBBEAN TRAVEL MARKETPLACE

SAN JUAN (April 21, 2017) - Puerto Rico will host the 2018 edition of Caribbean Travel Marketplace, the Caribbean's largest marketing event, at the Puerto Rico Convention Center from January 30 to February 1, 2018.

Produced by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, and the Puerto Rico Hotel and Tourism Association, next year's event will feature two days of business meetings that match hotels and destinations with online travel agents, tour operators and Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) planners through a busy program of thousands of pre-scheduled appointments.

"We are honored to host the most important Caribbean tourism event of the year as we evolve our position as a regional leader in the meetings and conventions business," said Omar Marrero, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority.

"CHTA's strategy to bring more MICE planners to next year's Marketplace is very well aligned with our objective to continue to grow this crucial category," said Marrero, who is also the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Ports Authority and the Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnerships Authority.

"Puerto Rico takes great pride in announcing that this prestigious travel event will be returning to our island," said Jose Izquierdo, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC). He said that PRTC looks forward to working with CHTA officials, its members and all on-island partners to welcome delegates to 'La Isla del Encanto' (Island of Enchantment)."

"This is an excellent opportunity to partner on the ground with our regional affiliate," said Miguel Vega, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Puerto Rico Hotel & Tourism Association. He noted that CHTA plays a key role in driving business to the destination and the region by developing and maintaining strong ties with global buyers interested in the Caribbean. "Caribbean Travel Marketplace is a marquee event that provides an excellent opportunity for stakeholders here to network with some of the world's leading travel professionals and, more importantly, share what we offer on our islands to the world."

In a joint statement, CHTA's President Karolin Troubetzkoy and CEO Frank Comito said: "We look forward to returning to Puerto Rico and partnering with both the public and private sectors in such an incredibly welcoming destination." The CHTA officials, whose organization represents the interests of national hotel and tourism associations, noted they anticipate working with local partners, including the team at Meet Puerto Rico and destination management companies, to attract global meeting planners as well as buyers who specialize in niche markets such as spas and wellness.

In 2017, Caribbean Travel Marketplace, hosted by The Bahamas, attracted 114 buyer companies from 20 countries. More than 1,100 delegates from 31 countries participated in more than 10,000 pre-scheduled appointments.
Mother of all evils

Nuclear bombs may kill millions of people, but they cannot kill ideologies and concepts
Organ traffickers run health camps to lure people

In a shocking revelation, health camps are found being used or rather misused as a means of creating a base for human organ smuggling.
PM, Morcha meet underway

A meeting between leaders of the ruling coalitionNepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Centre) and Madhesi Morcha leaders to discuss on holding the local level elections in two phases and constitution amendment is underway at the PMs residence in Baluwatar.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has raised the issue of tightening of H-1B visa norms with the US administration. US President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its abuse and ensure that the visas are given to the most-skilled or highest-paid petitioners.

Jaitley, who is on a visit to the US, raised the visa issue in a bilateral meeting with the US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington.

The Finance Minister was accompanied by Indias Ambassador Navtej Sarna and Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das.

The Finance Minister outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.

According to an official statement, both leaders emphasised the strength of Indo-US economic relations and the bipartisan support it has acquired over the years.

Jaitley briefed Ross on the strength of the Indian economy and the significant structural reforms that India has undertaken over the past three years.
Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 21

The call for university bandh given by the Joint Students Action Committee (JSAC) failed to garner support as students preferred to stay away from the protest.

About 60 members of the JSAC, including supporters of the Students for Society (SFS), All-India Students Association (AISA), PSU (Lalkaar) and PUSU (evening department), gathered outside Arts Block I around 9.30 am and asked the students to boycott classes. The JSAC is the united front of Left-wing student parties on the campus.

While at some departments in Arts Block I, II and III, students moved out of their classes, at many others, the protesters faced resistance. The students who had moved out of their classes either returned within minutes to study or stayed back at the department. The protesters went to the Student Centre to ask students to join them, but did not find support. Later, the protesters moved to AC Joshi Library, seeking support from students there. On a request of the librarian, Raj Kumar, one of the student leaders from the SFS went inside the library to request the students to join the protest, but the latter refused. The protesters then marched to the VC's office, where they reached around 11.40 am. They raised slogans against the PU authorities amid heavy police deployment.

The protesters were also demanding that the VC should come out and address the students. Their other demands included withdrawal of criminal cases registered against fellow students and no checking of ID cards at entry points of the university.

Dean, Students Welfare, Emanuel Nahar visited the spot and informed them about the upcoming special Senate meeting on May 7, where they could raise the fee hike issue.

He also informed the protesters that the PU authorities were in talks with officials of the state and Central governments. We are with you in your protest but please maintain peace on the campus, the DSW urged the protesters.

What the officiating DUI promised

The officiating DUI, Prof Rajat Sandhir, addressed the protesters around 2.50 pm and assured them that members of the JSAC and representatives from other student parties would be invited for talks with PU Senators on April 27. He assured that their demand for an open house meeting with the VC would be scheduled shortly. Soon after, the JSAC called off its protest with a parting note that the future course of action would be decided on April 28.

Protesters confronted by students

At Arts Block III, many students refused to boycott their classes and confronted the protesters about the violence on April 11. Holding them responsible for stone throwing, students of the Economics Department said they came to the university to study and not to indulge in violence.

12 more 'innocent' students identified: DSW

The DSW said apart from 15 names of innocent students, 12 more names had come to him with regard to the April 11 violence. We have already given the 15 names to the Administration. The rest will be sent too, he said.
S Nihal Singh

BRITAINS Prime Minister Theresa Mays surprise announcement of a snap general election three years early are for opportunistic reasons and to strengthen her bargaining position with Brussels after she gave formal notice of her countrys desire to leave the EU.

Ms Mays popularity ratings are far ahead of the dysfunctional main Opposition Labour party and by calling elections on June 8, she hopes substantially to increase her slender majority in the House of Commons. Even in the preliminary talks with Brussels, Ms May has been discovering how expensive the foolish severing of ties with the EU will be.

Much blame is to be laid at the door of Mr David Cameron, former PM, for promising a referendum on leaving the EU for the sake of maintaining peace in his own Conservative party. The wafer-thin No vote majority recorded was due to two factors: a nostalgia for the old days of the British Empire and fears of a flood of East European EU men and women settling down in the UK, symbolised by the proverbial Polish plumber.

Ms May, who was a quiet supporter of the Yes vote, saw her opportunity offered by the No vote and Mr Camerons departure by throwing her hat in the leadership stakes. Since then she has taken a hard line declaring that Brexit means Brexit and has further indicated her preference for a hard exit from the EU common market because it comes with freedom of EU citizens to live and work in a member country, a British red line.

There is much scepticism in Europe over Britains ability to complete negotiations in two years. Ms May believes that after she returns to power with a substantial majority, she will be in a better position to bargain with Brussels. EU members are divided between giving help in leaving and punishing it for its decision to leave imposing a crisis on the EU. As British officials are discovering each day, the cost of leaving is increasing and one of its prized assets, the city of London, the hub of Europes financial dealings, is fearing a downgrade once the act of departure is complete.

Britain is trying to woo the EU by reminding it of its military prowess, particularly the nuclear programme, and permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Although London has a point, flaunting the military ramifications can prove counter-productive. After all, France remains an important EU member, is nuclear-armed and enjoys a permanent UNSC seat.

Much depends upon the compromises that could be worked out over Britains access to the common market. It cannot have the cake and eat it too because any preferred access would come with the free movement of people. How far Ms May can sacrifice immigration control for a continuing freedom to export to the prized market without imposts remains to be seen.

On the domestic front Ms May has a Herculean task. The days of the British Empire are gone for good. The US remains the sole superpower, with an aspiring China snapping at its heels. Whitehalls inclination automatically to follow Americas lead in foreign policy gives a lie to Ms May and her ministers declaration of a world role for itself. Speculation over reviving the Commonwealth is like flogging a dead horse.

Britain is certainly an important regional power. Even when it became an EU member after initial failures, it felt it was a cut above the rest and demanded, sometimes successfully, special privileges. Perhaps the English Channel that separates Britain from continental Europe accentuated the notion of separateness. There was indeed a substantial section of people still unconvinced of the benefits of togetherness and lived in their dream world.

Britain has merely accentuated the strange world we are living in today, with Mr Donald Trump assuming US presidency and the far right in Europe, best symbolised by Ms Marine Le Pen in the French presidential stakes. Populism is the order of the day, with many beating the drum of nationalism. Globalisation has become a dirty word.

The EU was the flower that bloomed after the carnage and horrors of World War II. Germany was tethered to a larger grouping, France and Germany reconciled, leading to rare decades of peace and prosperity. The mood was soured by the recession and other economic privations. And there followed the rise of the populist right, with France now at the centre of a mighty debate.

Britains desire to leave the EU comes at a particularly difficult time for Europe and the world. For one thing, it has added a new measure of uncertainty to a world randomly seeking a new direction. Apart from battling with Brussels, Ms May will have to resolve the problems of Northern Ireland and Scotlands desire to remain in the EU. The latter problem, Ms May will hope, would be submerged for a time in the campaigning for the snap general election. While Ireland remains in the EU, its close and interlocking mechanisms with Northern Ireland, which will be out, present enormous problems. Besides, the fate of Gibraltar, the Rock jutting out of Spain, Britains colonial booty, is up in the air. Spain has been giving a special dispensation on Gibraltars future in the EUs guidelines in negotiations.

The future is thus strewn with hurdles as Ms May seeks to negotiate a fair deal with Europe and her job remains one of the most difficult in the world, even assuming that she will receive a boost in the general election. She has a fair measure of self-belief, evident from her long years in the Home Office.

Indias and the worlds main interest in the outcome of the British election is that it should lead to a significant majority for the ruling party to negotiate with Brussels and the outcome of the talks will lead to a happy divorce. It is now up to the voters of the United Kingdom.
Policeman and suspected gunman shot dead in Paris 'terror attack'

One policeman has been shot dead and two others wounded in central Paris, French police say, with their suspected attacker killed by security forces.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 21

Canada has evinced keen interest in investing in Haryana in the fields of civil aviation, skill development, education, defence and smart city projects, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said here today.

This development emerged from the Chief Ministers meeting with Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan. Khattar later while told mediapersons at the Chandigarh airport that follow-up meetings would be held to facilitate investment by Canadian companies in Haryana, which would help create job opportunities and benefit both countries.

The Chief Minister said they discussedi two memoranda of understanding signed during his visit to Canada in 2015.

It was decided to set up a working group to ensure implementation of the agreement on horticulture, which would be executed jointly by Haryana and Canada, he said.

Khattar apprised Sajjan of the progress made by Haryana in various fields. He said Haryana has become kerosene-free. To achieve this goal, the government had provided more than 6 lakh LPG connections, he pointed out. The state had made installation of rooftop solar systems mandatory, he added.

Khattar told the Canadian minister that when the present state government came to power, the sex ratio at birth was 840 girls per 1,000 boys, which had now crossed the 900 mark.

Strict action was being taken against those involved in sex determination and more than 300 cases had been registered so far, he stated.

Sajjan lauded the state government for this achievement. I gather that other states have expressed the intention to follow the measures adopted by the Haryana Government, he said.

Lauding the government, he said Haryana had achieved unprecedented development and growth since it came to power.

Chief Parliamentary Secretary Bakhshish Singh Virk, Chief Secretary DS Dhesi, Principal Secretary (Industries and Commerce) Sudhir Rajpal, Canadian High Commissioner Nadir Patel and Canadian Consul General in Chandigarh Christopher Gibbins were present.
Tribune News Service

Hisar, April 21

Congress leader Sampat Singh suspects a big scam in the procurement of mustard crop. He has urged the government to take urgent steps to stop cheating of farmers.

Sampat, in a statement issued here today, said the BJP had promised to implement the Swaminathan Commissions recommendations to ensure remunerative prices to farmers for their produce. But the government had failed to protect the interest of farmers, who were being looted in the procurement of their rabi crops.

He alleged that farmers were unable to sell their produce at the minimum support price (MSP) during procurement by government agencies. He said the government had fixed the price of mustard at Rs 3,700 per quintal but its agencies did not purchase the crop. As government agencies did not procure mustard crop, 80 per cent of the farmers had to sell their produce at a price lower that the MSP of Rs 3,200 to Rs 3,300 per quintal. Hence a farmer suffered a loss of around Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 on one acre of mustard crop. Now, when the procurement of mustard has started, many conditions have been imposed, he added.

Sampat said these conditions would increase transportation cost for farmers. Only seven or eight villages manage to sell mustard seeds in the Hisar grain market every day. Due to a heavy rush, they have to wait for several days. Another condition that a farmer cannot sell more than 25 quintals of mustard a day is harming their interests, he added.

Sampat alleged farmers were being cheated in procurement of wheat also. They were being imposed cuts to the tune of Rs 30 to Rs 32 per quintal in the guise of various charges. He warned the government that it would face the consequences if the loot of farmers produce was not stopped.
Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla April 21

Top police experts from the state and central law enforcement and investigating agencies today chalked out that increased coordination and intelligence sharing among different agencies was a must for checking terror and drug infiltration.

Addressing a closed-door meeting of the northern region police coordination committee, which was attended by top police officials from Himachal, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Delhi, here today, Himachal DGP Sanjay Kumar said, There is a need for greater coordination among various state police organisations and central law enforcement agencies to address these issues.

The police officers agreed that to check terror-related infiltration and radicalisation of the youth, they need to keep a tab on refugees in various parts of northern India.

They needed a coordinated mechanism to check foreigners, who overstayed their visas mainly in the cannabis havens of Kullu-Manali, Dharamsala and other parts and they need to check the misuse of social media as well.

To check the spread of drug cartels, the police needed to take investigation of drug recovery to logical conclusion by doing financial investigation to break the economic backbone of the smugglers in the region. The properties gained from illegal drug trade need to be seized, the experts asserted.

They agreed that the police needed new methods to check the involvement of foreigners in drug trade. For this, all states needed to share intelligence reports to reduce trans-border movement of drugs, the officers said.

IGP, Southern Range, Zahur Haider Zaidi said it was deliberated that the police and enforcement agencies needed to develop new methods to tackle online frauds, misuse of cyber space and abuse on social media. For this, intelligence sharing and transfer of information needed to be strengthened, he added.
Legal Correspondent

Shimla, April 21

Advocates of the HP High Court and district court today abstained from the court work on the call given by the Bar Council of India (BCI) against the suggestions given by the Law Commission of India.

The BCI has given a call for a nationwide protest on April 21 against the Law Commission of Indias suggestion to the Central government for a drastic change in the Advocates Act-1961.

The lawyers are against the amendments proposed by the Law Commission in the Advocates Act and terming them draconian, anti-lawyer, unconstitutional, undemocratic and anti-people. They are saying that the recommendations of the Law Commission are against the legal profession and legal education of the country.

President of the HP High Court Bar Association BP Sharma informed that on the call given by the BCI against the proposed amendments in the Advocates Act, the lawyers of the Himachal Pradesh High Court Bar Association abstained from the court work.

Sundernagar: Lawyers of District Bar Association Mandi today observed a complete strike against the proposed Advocate (Amendment) Bill 2017. They burnt the copies of Bill and submitted a memorandum to Central government through Deputy Commissioner, Mandi, seeking withdrawal of the proposed amendment.

Desh Raj Sharma, former chairman of Bar Council of HP, said a one-day strike was observed in Mandi district as per call given by the Bar Council of India. Lawyers assembled in the court campus of the district courts and took out a procession raising slogans against the proposed amendment. They burnt the copies of the recommendation of Law Commission and proposed Bill in the Chauhata Bazar.

President of District Bar Association Mandi Sanjay Mandyal and former vice chairman of Bar Council of HP Narinder Guleria addressed the gathering and apprised them how the government was planning to control the autonomy of legal profession.

Strike was also observed in various sub divisional courts at Sundernagar, Sarkaghat, Jogindernagar, Gohar and Karsog in these places the lawyers boycotted their work and burnt the copies of proposed bill and recommendation of the Law Commission. Earlier the lawyers had observed strike on March 31.
Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 21

A one-hour flight costing Rs 1,920 will now ferry passengers from Shimla to Delhi or vice versa. It is after a span of over four-and-a-half years that the state capital will again have aerial connectivity.

The inaugural flight will be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 27 from the Jubbarhatti airport, near here, at 11.45 am. To begin with there will be a daily flight (ATR-42) of Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India from Delhi to Shimla and back.

RK Choubey, Union Secretary (Civil Aviation) and Ashwani Lohani, Chief Managing Director, Air India, today flew down to Jubbarhatti airport to oversee the launch of the flight by the Prime Minister. The possibility of another private airline also starting a flight from Shimla cannot be ruled out. There have been no scheduled flights from Shimla since September 2012 though chartered flights, including the one of the Army and Air Force, have been landing here on and off.

However, the fare of Rs 1,920 will only be on 50 per cent of the total seats as the other half would be available on flexi rate which could fluctuate anywhere from Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000, depending on demand. While on its way from Delhi to Shimla, the plane will ferry 35 persons but on the return journey, it will carry only about 15 to 20 passengers owning to a shorter runway.

Resumption of flights to Shimla has been possible under the Government of Indias Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), where smaller and unconnected routes are being provided aerial connectivity on nominal rates of less than Rs 2,500 for a flight with one hour or less duration.

The resumption of flight has come as a big relief to the tourism industry as high-end tourists were very apprehensive about travelling by road, which was very strenuous and taxing.

The start of the flight coincides with the tourist season which has picked up with the mercury soaring. Hoteliers and travel agents, however, feel that one flight would be insufficient to cater to the demand of tourists as well as locals. The start of the flight is a welcome step but one flight is insufficient so the possibility of roping in another airline should be explored, said Naveen Pal, president of Shimla Travel Agents Association. Similar sentiments were echoed by Harnam Kukreja, President of Shimla Hoteliers Association.

Two children from a local orphanage will enjoy the flight from Shimla to Delhi and return as a goodwill gesture.

The new scheme
Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 21

Pakistan has set up a number of cyber warfare centres to fuel violence, militancy and stone-throwing in the Valley with the long-time objective of defaming India over Kashmir across the world.

Highly placed sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs told The Tribune that Pakistan after declaring 2017 as the Year of Kashmir had intensified its cyber warfare against India over the Valley. It had been producing videos like Sangbaz (stone-thrower) with fiery songs and martyrdom appeals to target the Indian security forces and wreck its political and democratic system. Pakistan had undertaken a major exercise to make youth, some of them hired cyber warriors, to go in for anti-India propaganda.

A highly placed source in the MHA said that after seeing the crowds in Kashmir fight the police and CRPF in the wake of the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani, the ISI and Pakistan army with the clear nod of the civilian government had started such cyber warfare centres. The propaganda material gets downloaded in the social media sites of the individuals hired for the purpose, and that is used by them instantly or at a convenient time.

The restrictions on the Internet in Kashmir have not much affected the cyber warriors, who have the patronage of political groups, and are operating through highly sophisticated and undetectable devices that broadcast real and imaginary images.

It remains a mystery that who uploaded the videos showing the Army in a negative frame or the heckling of CRPF personnel in Budgam on the polling day on April 9. It is also not known who shot and uploaded the video of the human shield used by the Army. The video has been shot professionally as the camera deftly captures the images from the front and then moves to the top and then straight before going to the rear.

This is highly professional work, a source said, adding that it is suspected that some hi-tech minds are involved with a large financial support.

The MHA authorities are looking into the whole affair and are trying to find out ways to get rid of the propaganda-churning machinery. They believe that something more than mobile phone cameras are at work.

We have confirmed and reconfirmed that it is Pakistan behind the trouble. Other factors are secondary, the source told The Tribune.
Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 21

The PDP-BJP coalition is on a collision course as the war of words between the two partners have intensified over the recently held Legislative Council elections and the prevailing situation in the Kashmir valley. The statement of Industries and Commerce Minister Chander Parkash Ganga on stone-throwers has added fuel to the already surcharged atmosphere.

Ganga had recently termed the stone-throwers traitors and anti-nationals, evoking a sharp response from the PDP and National Conference.

Furious over, what is called, backstabbing by the BJP in the Legislative Council elections, the PDP is mincing no words in contradicting the saffron partys stand on the Kashmir situation, be it over Gangas remarks or BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav defence of the Army officers allegedly involved in the human shield incident.

Highly placed sources said Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, who belongs to the PDP, today formally registered his partys protest before Ram Madhav against the treachery in Council elections and irresponsible statements of BJP ministers in the prevailing hostile atmosphere.

Drabu especially came to the BJP headquarters this afternoon to meet Ram Madhav to convey his partys anger over the recent developments which have the potential to rock the coalition, a source said, disclosing that the one-on-one meeting between two architects of the PDP-BJP alliance was held in a not so conducive atmosphere.

Drabu, sources said, made it clear to the BJP leader that the PDP had taken serious note of the recent developments. Humiliated over the defeat of their candidate on the safe Legislative Council seat, PDP legislators had boycotted the swearing-in function of the newly elected MLCs on Thursday.

The BJP, too, is not missing any opportunity to taunt its coalition partner for its failure to manage one vote in the Council polls. Ram Madhav has reportedly sided with the Army over the human shield incident, saying that everything is fair in love and war and the harsh decision saved lives of civilians and soldiers.
Bhubaneswar, April 21

Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Friday assured that she would take up the shortage of kasturi (musk collected from a stags navel) with her countrys government.

Kasturi, an aromatic substance, is an essential commodity used in rituals at the Puri Jagannath temple. It is used for the Mukh Shringar of the presiding sibling deities during the Rath Yatra.

Bhandari, who offered prayers at the temple, said she would take measures for resolving the crisis faced by the temple administration.

I am so happy after the Darshan of Lord Jagannath. President Pranab Mukherjee invited me and I am so humbled by the arrangements made by the union and state governments.

I would take up the kasturi shortage issue with the Nepal government, she told the media after paying obeisance to the deities.

The 12th century shrine used to meet its requirement with donations from Nepals kings. Nepal has been contributing the precious commodity for the services of Lord Jagannath for a long time.

The Nepal Royal family used to donate kasturi free of cost. However, this source dried up after the fall of the monarchy.

Temple authorities prefer kasturi from Nepal for its purity. Earlier, the Odisha government had urged the Centre to ensure procurement of kasturi from Nepal.

The Nepal King, other than Puri Shankaracharya and Gajapati King of Odisha, is allowed to ascend the Ratna Vedi (the altar on which Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are placed). IANS
New Delhi, April 21

The Supreme Court today refused to issue any directions to the government to take steps to reclaim Kohinoor diamond from Britain and to stop it from being auctioned.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar said it could not ask a foreign government not to auction a property. The Bench made it clear it could not pass an order as regards a property that was in a foreign land.

The Bench disposed of the petition by an NGO  All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front  seeking directions to bring back the treasured diamond to India, saying it was for the government to explore possibilities. Referring to the governments affidavit, it said: The Government of India continues to explore ways and means with the UK government on the issue.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Kohinoor (mountain of light) is a large colourless diamond that was found in southern India in early 14th century. The 108-carat gem, which fell into British hands, is claimed by at least four countries, including India.  TNS
Proposal at British parliament seeking probe of Saptari incident

A motion has been registered at the UK Parliament urging Nepal government to amend the constitution to allow for fair representation of marginalised people of Madhes, according to a record of proposals published by the UK House of Commons.
Our Correspondent

Jaipur, April 21

The Congress on Friday demanded a CBI probe into the Alwar lynching incident in which one Pehlu Khan was beaten to death allegedly by cow vigilantes earlier this month.

PCC president Sachin Pilot on Friday met Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh at Raj Bhawan and submitted a memorandum to him.

The Congress alleged that the law and order situation was getting worst and criminals in the garb of cow protectors were taking advantage to beat innocent people.

Since Rajasthans economy is based on animal husbandry there is movement of cattle for different fares in the state, Pilot said.

It is highly deplorable that the ruling BJP leaders and its frontal organisations are glorifying the incident.

A Sadhavi in her video released yesterday demanded to give martyrs status to killers.

Home Minister GC Kataria was making misleading statements and Chief Minister is silent, Pilot said.

The Leader of Opposition in state Assembly Rameshwar Dudi also demanded resignation of Home Minister Kataria or appealed to the Chief Minister to sack him.

Dudi also demanded a ban on VHP and Bajrang Dal, and in retaliation these organisations burnt the effigy of Dudi at Collectorate Circle.

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had also taken cognisance of the matter and sent notices to the Centre and Rajasthan Government and sought reports in four weeks.

The incident occurred at Behror, near Alwar city, when 15 persons who were transporting cows in a mini truck were attacked by cow vigilantes and brutally beaten.

Pehlu Khan, 55, succumbed to his injuries in a private hospital.

The police have also registered a case related to cow smuggling against ten persons.

Alwar police has so far arrested five persons for their alleged involvement in thrashing Khan and his companions under various Sections of the IPC.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

The Supreme Court today admitted for hearing an appeal by Abdul Latif Adam Momin, a convict in the sensational hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar in 1999, against the life imprisonment awarded to him.

A Bench headed by Justice PC Ghose admitted Momins appeal after his counsel contended that there were flaws in the Punjab and Haryana High Courts verdict upholding his conviction and life sentence given by a special court in Patiala.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Flight IC-814 was hijacked on December 24, 1999, on its way from Kathmandu to Delhi with 179 passengers. It was diverted to Amritsar and taken to Kandahar. The government was forced to release Maulana Masood Azhar, Umar Sheikh and Mohammed Zargar.

The High Court had in 2014 upheld life imprisonment for Momin but rejected the CBIs demand for capital punishment on the ground that he had been in jail for quite a long period. Momin was held to be one of the conspirators.

The HC had, however, absolved Bhupal Man Damai alias Yusuf Nepali and Dilip Kumar Bhujel, holding that the CBI failed to prove their active participation in the conspiracy. They were held guilty under Section 25 of Arms Act.

The CBI had named 10 individuals for the conspiracy. While Latif and Bhujel are Indians, Yusuf was from Nepal. All other accused were Pakistanis who had to be declared proclaimed offenders.
New Delhi, April 21

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that he did not lack the political will needed to carry out reforms as he asked the civil servants to break silos and work together as a team to perform and transform.

Addressing the bureaucrats on the Civil Services Day, Modi said time had come for out-of-the-box thinking and from being a regulator, the government needed to become an enabler.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Political will can reform but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms. We have to bring them in one wavelength, he said.

To reform, political will is needed. I do not lack it and may be have a bit extra, the Prime Minister said.

Modi said senior officers should introspect if their experience was becoming a burden.

He said hierarchy in bureaucracy remained an issue which had been inherited from colonial rulers and was not left behind in Mussoorie (where civil service academy is located).

The Prime Minister said the role of the government was very strong but things had changed for the past 15 years.

'Use social media for public welfare, not for self-praise'

He also asked the civil servants to use social media, e-governance and mobile governance for the welfare of the people by reaching out to them.

The Prime Minister said that mobile phones were banned from his meetings because he often found officers checking social media sites in the midst of official discussions.

I see these days that district-level officers are so busy, busy, that most of their time goes into it (social media). I have stopped the entry (of mobile phones) in my meetings as they (officers) would take them out and start (checking out social media sites), he said.

The social media should be used for the welfare of the people and not for self-praise, he told bureaucrats.

The world was moving from e-governance to mobile- governance and the best equipment needed to be used for the welfare of people, he added. Social media sites were helpful when they were used for spreading information about the good work being done.

If I am informing the people about dates of polio vaccination through social media, saying that they should come out on a particular date for the vaccination, then it (social media) is helpful. But if during vaccination-related work, I am praising my own photograph on facebook, then it puts a question mark (on the work done by civil servants), he said. PTI
New Delhi/Jaipur, April 21

Expressing concern over reports of attack on Kashmiri youths in Rajasthan and banners coming up in Uttar Pradesh asking people from the Valley to leave, the Centre today issued an advisory asking all state governments to ensure safety and security of such students staying in their respective jurisdictions.

The direction came after a security review meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who directed the Home Secretary to immediately issue a directive.

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Later, Singh said: I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris at some places. I appeal to all chief ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states.

I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well as they also form part of the large Indian family, he added.

Meanwhile, a day after the assault, the Rajasthan police today arrested two youths for their alleged involvement in assaulting two Kashmiri students of Chittorgarhs Mewat University at Gangwar, 7 km from the campus, and calling them stone-pelters.

In UP, an FIR has been registered against Amir Jani, leader of the Hindu right group Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena, for putting up posters in Meerut calling for boycott of Kashmiris.  TNS
New Delhi, April 21

The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre that triple talaq or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said it was not inclined to go into the issue as the Supreme Court is already seized of the triple talaq matter related to changes in the Muslim personal law.

It said there is no dispute that a Constitution bench has been formed to hear the issue. So, the law laid down by it will be applicable to all women and children of society.

The high court further noted that all women are entitled to equal protection under the law.

In view of it (Supreme Court seized of the issue) we are not inclined to hear the issue. The petition is dismissed, the bench said.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla had highlighted the plight of Hindu women affected by triple talaq.

It had also sought directions to the Centre for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter-caste marriage is not registered.

A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will be hearing from May 11 a batch of petitions challenging the practice of triple talaq and polygamy as unconstitutional and discriminatory towards women.

Muslim practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy are issues that are very important and involve sentiments, the apex court had observed. PTI
Kurukshetra, April 21

Kurukshetra University has rusticated four students of the Institute of Law on charges of ragging. The accused, however, claim they have been framed.

The university will now write to the district police for registering a case against them, said sources.

On April 10, a law student in the fourth semester had lodged a complaint, accusing the four sixth-semester students of ragging.

Prof Tejinder Sharma, the universitys spokesperson, said two of the accused, who were boarders, had been evicted from the hostel. All four had been prohibited from entering the campus.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Initially, the anti-ragging cell of the university that probed the case had termed it a mere brawl among students. However, on the directions of the University Grants Commisiion (UGC), the university proctor re-investigated the matter, questioning several students, and found claims of ragging against the four students convincing.

The accused students claimed they had been falsely implicated after one of them had got into a quarrel with a student (not the complainant) and that they had been denied a full hearing by the university authorities.

Under the laws in India, ragging is defined as any disorderly conduct by either acts or words, any rowdy or undisciplined activity which causes psychological harm and raises fear in the minds of junior and forcing students to perform an act which has the effect of causing shame or embarrassment.  TNS
New Delhi, April 21

The Indian Navy on Friday successfully test-fired the Brahmos land attack supersonic cruise missile in the Bay of Bengal, joining an elite club of navies to have capability to strike on land targets from sea.

The long-range missile was fired from the guided missile frigate Teg on a target on land and it yielded desired results, a top Navy official said.

The BrahMos Missile has been jointly developed by India and Russia, and its anti-ship variant has already been inducted into the Indian Navy.

This successful maiden firing of BrahMos Land Attack Supersonic Cruise Missile has significantly enhances the prowess of Indian Navy and has placed India into the club of select few nations, Navy Spokesperson Capt D.K. Sharma said.

Navies of the US, Russia, Britain and China have similar strike capabilities.

Majority of the frontline ships of Indian Navy, like the Kolkata, Ranvir and Teg classes of ships, are capable of firing the land attack supersonic missile.

Land attack variant of Brahmos missile provides Indian naval ships the capability to precisely neutralise selected targets deep inland and far away from coast, from stand-off ranges at sea.

The Navy is upgrading its weapons system and platforms as part of a major modernisation programme.

Last month, it had successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile for the first time from an indigenously built Kalvari class submarine, enhancing its sub-surface warfare prowess.

The weapon was fired from the submarine, the first of Indias six Scorpene-class submarines which are being built under the Project 75.

All the six diesel-electric attack submarines will be equipped with the anti-ship missile, which has a proven record in combat.

These missiles will provide the vessels the ability to neutralise surface threats at extended ranges.  PTI
New Delhi, April 21

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sri Lanka next month to take part in the celebrations marking the UN Vesak Day, the most important in the Buddhist calendar.

During his visit, he will take part in the UN Vesak Day celebrations to be held from May 12 to 14.

This is Prime Minister Modis second visit to Sri Lanka. He had visited the country earlier in May 2015.

The International Day of Vesak will be hosted by the Buddhist-majority country and the commemorations in Colombo will include an International Buddhist Conference in which over 400 delegates from more than 100 countries will participate.

Vesak is the most important day in the Buddhist calendar. It commemorates Lord Buddhas birth, enlightenment and passing away.

During the Prime Ministers visit, it is expected that India will take up the fishermen issue and Chinas growing influence in the island with Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister Modi's visit will come after his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghes arrival to India on April 25.

Wickremesinghe will be on a five-day visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Modi to further expand ties in a range of areas and find a solution to the vexed fishermen issue.

The Prime Minister will have a luncheon meeting with Ranil Wickremesinghe on April 26, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Gopal Baglay said. ANI
Right person, right job

As Nepal moves to implement federalism, civil service reform has become crucial
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

The Centres move to link Aadhaar number with Permanent Account Number (PAN) for filing income tax returns from the assessment year 2017-18 came in for judicial scrutiny on Friday with the Supreme questioning the decision.

Why has it been made mandatory? a Bench headed by Justice AK Sikri asked Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi during hearing of a PIL questioning the legality of Section 139AA in the Income Tax Act that talks about linking Aadhaar number with PAN. There was an order to keep it optional, it pointed out.

Defending the governments decision, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi said people were furnishing PAN cards procured on the basis of fake documents. He said many of them held multiple PAN cards and used them to divert funds to shell companies.

Is making Aadhaar by force the only way to tackle fraud? the Bench asked.

A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is already seized of petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar on the ground of violation of Right to Privacy.

The court had in August 2015 said Aadhaar number would not be mandatory for availing benefits of governments welfare schemes.

However, in October 2015 it permitted voluntary use of Aadhaar number in welfare schemes, including MGNREGA, pension schemes, provident fund and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna.

The top court had last month said Aadhaar number was not mandatory for welfare schemes.

However, the Centre maintained that the earlier order applied only to LPG and food grains subsidy and it was free to use Aadhaar for filing of income tax returns.

Rohatgi said in the past it has been found people procuring SIM cards for mobile phones on fake identity cards and the top court itself had asked the government put in place a proper verification process to check it.

The Bench said it would hear arguments on the petition challenging the validity of Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act linking Aadhaar number with PAN on April 25.

The top court was hearing CPI National Executive Member Binoy Viswams petition challenging the legality of Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act.

A former Kerala MLA, Viswam contended he did not have an Aadhaar number as it was not mandatory in view of the top Courts orders which said it was not mandatory as well as provisions of the Aadhaar Act.

He, however, contended that due to introduction of Section 139AA of the Act, he was being forced to get an Aadhaar number in complete violation of his right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Viswam said he and other citizens, who had refrained from enrolling in the scheme due to apprehensions regarding infringement of their right to privacy, were being forced to give their consent for Aadhaar.

Petitioner contended biometric and demographic information of individuals was sought to be forcefully obtained by the State by making the consequences of non-enrollment drastic.

It was evident from the fact that non-enrollment by July 1, 2017, as mentioned in the impugned provision, shall render the PAN of the defaulting individual invalid, attracting serious consequences under the Income Tax Rules, the petitioner submitted.
Vijayawada, April 21

At least 14 persons were killed and 24 injured when a truck ploughed through a group of villagers standing outside some shops in Andhra Pradeshs Chittoor district today, police said.

The speeding truck hit an electricity pole, before ramming into roadside shops on the Puthalapattu-Naidupeta Road in Yerpadu, 30 km from the temple town of Tirupati.

Police said the accident occurred near Yerpadu police station, where a group of villagers, including farmers, had gone to complain about illegal sand mining from the Swarnamukhi.

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Tirupati Urban Superintendent of Police R Jayalakshmi said most of the casualties were due to electrocution.

The condition of six of the injured is critical and they were being shifted to CMC, Vellore and Chennai.

Jayalakshmi said a circle inspector, a sub-inspector of police and constable were among those injured. She said the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle.

The truck crushed 10 two-wheelers, two auto rickshaws and a police vehicle before hitting an electricity pole and shops. Both the driver and cleaner escaped after the crash.  IANS

14 die in MP blaze

Bhopal: At least 14 persons were killed in a fire at a fair price shop at Bargi village in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh on Friday. Three of them were stated be critical. Sources said kerosene drums stored in the shop caught fire as people queued up to purchase ration. CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh for the next of kin of those killed. agencies
Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 21

In a joint operation, the Jalandhar Police Commissionerate, Counter Intelligence Wing and Special Task Force (STF)nabbed four persons associated with the gang of Vicky Gounder and Sukha Bikhariwala here today.

The gang had struck at Kahnuwan in Gurdaspur yesterday and killed three persons in broad daylight.

The arrested gangsters, who could be the B-team of the gang, had reportedly arrived just last night hinting at their involvement with yesterdays killings.

The joint operation, carried out at the posh Chhoti Baradari, Phase-1 locality at 3 pm, was over in just about half an hour.

The police had a secret information that some persons associated with the gang had been hiding on the second floor of house number 204, which was cordoned off.

More than 50 policemen in full protective gear wearing bullet-proof jackets and armed with weapons  reached the spot and nabbed three of them.

The fourth, who reportedly managed to escape, was nabbed later from the adjoining Hardayal Nagar locality, where he had reached by jumping over inter-connecting terraces.

The policemen used tall ladders from an adjacent house where paintwork was underway to reach the top floor.

One of the suspects, who jumped down to the second floor landed on a washing machine on the ground floor and broke his leg.

The fifth member, however, managed to flee and could not be arrested even as searches were conducted in several houses in the two localities.

Those arrested, namely Angrej Singh, Ranvir Singh, Bharat Bhushan and Damanpreet Singh, hail from Gurdaspur.

The police recovered a pistol, a country-made gun, a knife and a rod from their possession.

A case under Sections 399 and 402 of the Indian Penal Code besides Sections 25/27 and 54/59 of the Arms Act has been registered against them.

The four were whisked away to an undisclosed location.

Commissioner of Police Parveen Kumar Sinha, DCP Investigation Gurmeet Singh, ADCP RPS Sandhu, AIG Counter Intelligence Opinderjit Singh Ghuman and AIG STF Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar were among those who took part in the operation.

Meanwhile, the police are mulling action against the owner of the house where the gangsters were hiding.

Muktsar police lay nakas to nab Gounder

Muktsar: The police have laid nakas to nab gangster Vicky Gounder (Harjinder Singh Bhullar), a native of Sarawan Bodla village in the district. A senior police officer said teams had been told to remain on the alert in case he tried to enter the area. The Kabarwala police have prepared a dossier of his criminal activities. TNS

Gangster remains elusive

Jalandhar: Tarn Taran SSP Harjit Singh said on Friday that gangster Vicky Gounder's location had been traced to the Amritsar-Tarn Taran road by the security agencies after Thursday's Gurdaspur shooting, but he managed to move elsewhere before the police could swoop down on him. TNS
Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh met Water Resources Ministrt Uma Bharti on Friday to discuss the deadlock between the state and its neighbour Haryana over the Sultej-Yamuna Link Canal.

The chief minister is believed to have told Bharti that Punjab could not share it waters with Haryana because of a fall in water levels in its rivers and the resultant water shortage in the state.

The meeting is believed to have lasted for some 15 minutes.

The meeting comes a day after Singh met chief secretaries of Punjab and Haryana over the tussle.
Kharar, April 21

The CIA staff have arrested a Nigerian with 500-gm intoxicant powder and 14-gm heroin. Inspector Atul Soni said on April 19, the staff with the help of Mullanpur Garibdas police arrested one Taranjit Singh.

Taranjit confessed to have brought the powder from one Colline who resided in Delhi. The police zeroed in on Colline who told the police that he came to India from Nigeria on medical visa.  OC
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

Israel on Friday showed interest in strengthening cooperation with Punjab on a wide range of subjects, including exchange of technology, police and security training, agriculture and irrigation, dairy farming, as well as promotion of private investment in the state.

At a meeting between Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Israels ambassador to India, Daniel Carmon, the two sides also decided to explore the possibility of setting up Punjab-Israel working groups for continuous dialogue on issues of mutual interest.

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The Chief Minister promised to take up the matter with the External Affairs Ministry, after the Israeli envoy suggested the formation of such groups for long-term cooperation, according to Raveen Thukral, Media Adviser to the CM.

Besides Thukral, those who joined the Chief Minister in the meeting included Chief Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar, DGP Suresh Arora, ADGP Intelligence Dinkar Gupta, Special Chief Secretary (Horticulture and Forests) Himmat Singh and Punjab Resident Commissioner in Delhi Rahul Bhandari.

The Israeli ambassador was accompanied by Deputy Chief of Mission Dana Kursh and Adva Vilchinski, First Secretary and Political Affairs Adviser.

The Israeli ambassador told the Chief Minister that his country was interested in expanding ties with Punjab beyond government-to-government relations by extending business opportunities for the Israeli private sector. He also showed interest in technological cooperation, with the possibility of setting up an IT and communications hub in Punjab, which Amarinder said could be an important area of mutual growth.

The Chief Minister was keen to involve the private sector, as he had done during his previous tenure as Chief Minister, in innovating new ways to boost irrigation and improve the yields of farmers with small holdings by encouraging them to shift towards horticulture. The Israeli ambassador pointed out that several Israeli companies were engaged in augmenting crop yield through innovative measures aimed at ensuring more crop per drop.

Amarinder also suggested to Israel to set up an agriculture implements manufacturing facility in Punjab, besides helping the state in providing effective cold storage solutions for agricultural produce.

Pointing out that the dairy yield of Israeli cows was among the top three in the world, Carmon offered to provide Punjab with embryo transfer and artificial insemination technologies to scale up the dairy farming business in the state.

The two sides also discussed cooperation in police/security training, which the Israeli ambassador said could be arranged either in his country or in Punjab. The possibility of setting up a Punjab Special Operation Group for training could also be considered, Amarinder and Carmon agreed.
Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday asked the Punjab Government to release a White Paper on the current situation of electricity production and demand in the state. In a press statement, the party's chief whip and MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira said while the government was unable to meet the power needs of the state it was talking about selling electricity to Pakistan and Nepal. Khaira said Punjab was an agrarian state and farmers needed round-the-clock power supply during paddy season while they get it only eight hours a day. The AAP leader said the government did not have clarity on the power situation in the state as the minister concerned had stated that the government would review the power-purchase agreements with private players in the state. Khaira said there should be clarity on it before any step was taken to sell electricity. He termed the government claim of power surplus as eyewash. tns
Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 20

Punjab and Haryana today stuck to their well-entrenched positions on the sharing of riverwaters and the construction of the Satluj-Yamuna Link canal at a meeting called by Water Resources Secretary Amarjit Singh here to end the logjam.

Both Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh and Haryana Chief Secretary DS Dhesi reiterated their stand during their meeting with the Secretary. Punjab apprised the Union Government of the critical water situation in the state and stressed its inability to share waters with neighbouring states, including Haryana. It urged the Narendra Modi government to intervene to save the state from an ecological disaster.

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The Punjab team was called for the meeting first. Meanwhile, the Haryana team waited for about an hour in the room adjoining the Secretarys chamber. While the Haryana team met once, Punjab was given a second hearing.

Talking to mediapersons later, Dhesi said the meeting was a follow-up to an all-party memorandum submitted by Haryanas political parties to President Pranab Mukherjee, seeking early completion of the remaining part of the SYL canal. He pointed out that all judicial and tribunal rulings had been in favour of Haryana. Karan Avtar Singh said Punjab had urged the Modi government to intervene and save Punjab from a possible ecological disaster. The Secretary assured us that Punjabs interest would be taken care of.

It is not Punjabs issue but that of the nation. Water resources in the country must be used judiciously, and in a scientific manner, he said. The Union Secretary had been told that only 28 per cent of Punjabs land was canal-irrigated and that the state was in urgent need of expansion of its canal system to prevent a water crisis. If the SYL was constructed, an estimated 10 lakh acres of land in Punjab would go dry, he said.

Punjab and Haryana are locked in a dispute over the sharing of Ravi-Beas waters for decades. While Haryana wants its share, as was decided when the state was carved out of Punjab along with Himachal Pradesh, successive Punjab governments have refused to share water. The dispute on SYL is pending in the Supreme Court. The case will come up for next hearing on April 27.
Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 21

Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan wound up his Punjab visit today by regretting the lack of conversation with Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for investment opportunities. Both former military officers did not have a face-to-face meeting as the Punjab Chief Minister termed the Canadian a Khalistani sympathiser.

The pitch was queered on the eve of his departure to India after a Canadian provincial assembly passed a resolution that termed the 1984 killings of Sikhs as genocide.

In a conversation squeezed between the inauguration of the Canadian Consulate Generals office and departure to Mumbai to interact with industrialists, Sajjan said his Government was ready for a conversation with the Punjab CM regarding investment opportunities.

Having been hounded for reactions to Capt Amarinders rather unusual boycott of a son-of-the-soil from a country that has hit the economic sweet-spot and, therefore, well placed to provide investments Punjab sorely needs, Sajjan added a caveat: We dont get involved in the politics of other nations. Neither do we like others getting involved in our affairs.

Sajjan, one of the few Sikhs to make it to the political high table of another nation, sought to rid the notion that his was a personality-driven trip although it had some personal moments such as the obeisance at the Golden Temple or a visit to a Jalandhar charity. Its no secret that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to reach out to India. That is why several ministers have visited India to introduce ourselves for greater dialogue.

He felt the time had come for overseas Punjabis to have a bigger vision for investment rather than pouring money into building palatial mansions in their home villages. This is tremendous but a lost opportunity as well. There is very little concrete investment [by them] in Punjab, he commented. In fact, the trend is the other way round, he noted. There are over 1,000 Indian companies that have invested about $15 billion in Canada but there is very little Canadian investment coming to Punjab.

Canada, the worlds sixth largest exporter of military hardware, was keen to get a bite of the lucrative Indian defence sector but indicated that these were early days. But civil nuclear energy, a scaffolding for strategic ties with India, was performing well. Uranium shipments have started arriving in India and the conversation has expanded to reactor technology.

Canadian minister slept on cot in village

Bambeli (Hoshiarpur): Many residents of Bambeli, the ancestral village of Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, finally got to meet him on Thursday night. Earlier, security personnel had not allowed him to enter the pandal where villagers had made arrangements to welcome him. Sajjan had dal-roti and kheer for dinner and slept on a cot on the rooftop of his ancestral house. He met his relatives and members of the panchayat. Sajjan expressed satisfaction over the development works carried out in the village. Sarpanch Paramjit Singh said Sajjan went down memory lane, fondly recalling his childhood days. Early on Friday morning, he had paranthas with curd and pickle before leaving for Chandigarh. Sanjiv Kumar Bakshi
GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 20

Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan paid obeisance at the Golden Temple here today, even as SGPC chief Kirpal Singh Badungar welcomed him.

Apparently, to discourage the participation of Sikh radical organisations, the ministers visit was advanced by two hours. However, some of their representatives reached the Golden Temple plaza well in advance. They were kept at bay, though there was a scuffle between them and the SGPC task force later.

Sajjan reached the holy shrine shortly after 6 am and remained there for an hour amid tight security. He listened to the hymns for more than 20 minutes, took a round of the complex and spent around 15 minutes inside the sanctum sanctorum.

He offered parshad at the shrine and was honoured with a siropa (robe of honour) by the head priest of the shrine Giani Jagtar Singh.

He also paid obeisance at Akal Takht, where its Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh greeted him. As he headed towards tents, specially pitched by the SGPC for his reception, the Khalisthan sympathisers raised slogans.

There was a minor clash between SAD (Amritsar) members and the SGPC task force when they tried to gain access to hand over a memorandum to Sajjan. Jarnail Singh Sakhira, general secretary, SAD (A), claimed to have received bruises on his hand.

Sajjan was honoured as per maryada by the SGPC president. He was presented with Siri Sahib (a replica of a sword), a silver model of the Golden Temple, a specially crafted silver plate and a set of religious books.

Given the protocol, he refrained from interacting with the media. SGPC chief Badungar said, It was a proud moment for the Sikh community to honour Sajjanji. He has contributed immensely to establish the identification of Sikhs.
Six Madhes-based parties under one umbrella

Six of the seven Madhes-based parties under the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) on Thursday announced their merger to form a new partyRastriya Janata Party (RJPin a bid to what they said consolidate their strength for protest to push for constitution amendment and emerge as a new force at the national level.
Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, April 21

Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu paid a surprise visit to Dera Baba Nanak Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) and suspended an SDO of the Water Supply and Sewerage Board after finding anomalies in the working of the plant.

Sidhu was on a private visit to the town on an invitation of the Dera Baba Nanak sitting Congress MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa. During their conversation, the issue of the virtually defunct STP, constructed at a cost of several crores in 2013, cropped up. Randhawa told him that the plant was dysfunctional ever since it was set up.

Sidhu decided to visit the plant. On the way, he stopped at a couple of places and requested residents to reach the site. Once there, he inspected the facilities and came across many shortcomings. He asked residents if they had benefited from the plant or not. Sidhu got livid when almost all residents who had reached there replied in negative. He then placed SDO (maintenance) Jugal Kishore, who was present, under suspension despite the fact that officials tried to defend him.

Randhawa discussed nearly half a dozen more civic amenity projects with the minister and told him that almost all had inadequacies, due to which people were suffering. The minister assured the MLA that action will be taken. Sources said the STP worked in fits and starts and that the pipes were so narrow that they could not carry sewage.

The minister said he had asked officials of the Department of Local Bodies to draw up a list of all such STPs in Punjab that were not working to their optimum capacity.

Wants public audit to probe SAD-BJP scams

Phagwara: Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday advocated a public audit to inquire into the alleged scams committed during the decade-long term of the previous SAD-BJP government. Talking to mediapersons here, Sidhu said public audit system was introduced during the late Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairons rule for a transparent administration. When apprised of alleged corruption in the local Municipal Corporation while awarding ownership rights of 198 rented shops and laying of sewerage lines in the town at the cost of Rs 61 crore, Sidhu asked MC Commissioner Davinder Singh to submit a report within 21 days. He set up a four-member advisory committee comprising former minister Joginder Singh Maan, PPCC general secretary Harjit Singh Parmar, block Congress committee chief Sanjeev Bugga and Congress leader Satbir Singh Walia to monitor the working of the Phagwara civic body. OC
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has voiced concern over the central governments delay in having Sikh youngsters names removed from its blacklist for subversive activities.

External Affairs Ministry Sushma Swaraj, who met Singh on Friday in the national capital, is believed to have promised to take it up with the Home Ministry. The blacklisted people are barred from entering India.

She has also agreed to have a passport office opened at Nawanshahr to provide easy access to non-resident Indians and their families in Doaba.

The Nawanshahr passport office will be in addition to the recently sanctioned passport office in Patiala, a spokesperson of the Punjab government disclosed after the meeting. The Patiala office will be opened soon.

The chief minister also discussed racist attacks on Punjabis and Sikhs settled abroad, most recent of which is an attack on a cab driver in New York.

Singh visited Swaraj after the latter recently underwent a kidney transplant.

A Sikh cab was assaulted by some drunken people in New York in what police suspect is a hate crime.
THE Englishman has made the remarkable announcement that the members of the newly created Indian Defence Force are to receive a moral and intellectual training in addition to physical drill. Then our contemporary proceeds to explain the nature of the moral and intellectual training. The present Commander-in-Chief, we are told, attached great importance to the study of the past traditions of the army in India and the records of the achievements of soldiers. General Strange is now inviting officers or civilians who may be competent and willing, to deliver lectures on these subjects. The Englishman then explains what kind of moral and intellectual training would be valuable to Anglo-Indians. The special qualities that India has always called for, it says, are promptness and decision. It is a land of surprises and we are all liable to be called upon at a moment to face a fatal epidemic or a devastating storm, wild beasts or wilder men.
Mazar-e-Sharif (Afghanistan, April 21

Dozens of Afghan soldiers were killed or injured on Friday when Taliban gunmen disguised in Afghan army uniform talked their way past checkpoints and attacked a military base, officials said.

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A US official in Washington put the toll at more than 50 killed and wounded. Afghan officials offered conflicting numbers of casualties in the incident, at a major headquarters in northern Afghanistan often used by foreign military advisers.

The Western-backed Afghan government is locked in a prolonged war with Taliban insurgents and other militant groups.

The attack was launched near a mosque on the base in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, as soldiers were leaving Friday prayers, said army spokesman Nasratullah Jamshidi.

Six attackers in two military vehicles told guards at the gates that they were carrying wounded soldiers and urgently needed to enter, he said.

After killing at least eight soldiers and wounding 11 others with rocket-propelled grenades and guns, one attacker was killed and the other five arrested, Jamshidi said.

Another Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly, said more than 20 soldiers had been killed and 50 wounded.

A number of German and other foreign soldiers are based in Mazar-i-Sharif, including about 70 who advise the corps headquarters as part of a NATO-led multinational mission to advise and train the Afghan security forces.

To our knowledge, no Germans were affected. Nor were any other soldiers in the multinational force harmed, said a spokesman for the German Operations Command. The statement was echoed by American officials.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attackers had set off an explosion, allowing suicide bombers with small arms to breach the bases defences.

Our fighters have inflicted heavy casualties on the Afghan army stationed there, he said.

The base is the headquarters for the Afghan National Armys 209th Corps, responsible for much of northern Afghanistan, including Kunduz province where there has been heavy fighting.

The NATO command in Kabul called the attack murderous and reprehensible.  Reuters
Nairobi: Kenyas military said on Friday that it killed 52 fighters with the extremist group al-Shabab during an early morning attack on a camp in neighboring Somalia. The army destroyed the camp in Badhadhe region of Lower Jubba using ground troops and artillery fire, said military spokesman Col. Joseph Owuoth. An assortment of weapons was recovered at the scene, he said. Kenyan troops are part of a multinational African Union mission supporting Somalias weak central government against the homegrown al-Shabab insurgency. Kenya sent troops to Somalia in 2011, and al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for that. Kenyas government previously has made claims of battlefield victories against al-Shabab that were disputed by Somali residents. There was no immediate statement from the extremist group, which Kenya has seen as a growing threat. AP
Caracas, April 21

About 50 children were evacuated from a Caracas hospital which the Venezuelan government blamed on an attack by armed gangs but the opposition attributed to tear gas used to quell unrest.

As protests and looting continued into the night following another day of clashes between police and demonstrators in the capital, the government and opposition traded blows over the events at the maternity hospital.

I denounce before the international community that armed gangs hired by the opposition attacked a maternity hospital with 54 children, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez tweeted, noting that President Nicolas Maduro had ordered the hospitals evacuation.

But Freddy Guevara, an opposition leader, rejected the allegation, calling Rodriguez irresponsible and saying the evacuations were the fault of tear gas bombs of your dictatorship.

Demonstrators have vowed not to flinch in their campaign to oust Maduro, despite three weeks of protest violence that has left eight people dead, including three on Wednesday.

Earlier on Thursday police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up thousands of marchers as they reached a vital freeway in Caracas, then edged back slightly as masked protesters pelted them with stones and Molotov cocktails.

Protesters blame Maduro--heir of the leftist Bolivarian revolution launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999 --for an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Maduro says the protests seeking to oust him are backed by the United States.

On Thursday, Maduro said the opposition was ready to begin a political dialogue, which his opponents denied. AFP
Canberra, April 21

Fresh evidence confirms that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is most likely located to the north of the actual search zone, Australian scientists said on Friday.

The evidence was featured in a report prepared for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) scientists.

The new area is twice the size of greater Sydney, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation news reported.

This latest research confirms their earlier drift analysis made in a report released in November 2016.

In their new report, the CSIRO team confirmed their new findings correspond to their previous predictions for the plane's location.

"The only thing that our recent work changes is our confidence in the accuracy of the estimated location, which is within the new search area identified ... near 35 degrees south," the scientists said.

It is a region known as the Seventh Arc, which was searched incompletely during 2014-15 before efforts were redirected further south.

A total of 239 people were on board the flight travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, when it disappeared from aviation radars.

The search for the Boeing 777 was suspended in January, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation news.

Ministers from Malaysia, Australia and China agreed that there needed to be "credible new evidence" if the operation was to continue.

About 120,000 sq.km of the ocean bed have been searched to no avail, despite the more than $180 million cost of the operation.

Since the CSIRO's November report, the scientists conducted further detailed analysis based on the first tangible evidence of the crash - a part of the wing known as a flaperon, which washed up at La Reunion Island in 2015.

IANS
Chitral (Pakistan), April 21

A mob attacked a man accused of blasphemy during Friday prayers in a northern Pakistani town and injured six police officers after they intervened to rescue him, police said.

It was the third blasphemy-related incident in Pakistan this month, after a student was beaten to death by a lynch mob and a faith healer was shot dead.

Security officials in Chitral fired tear gas and live rounds on the mob, injuring eight protesters, after they attacked the local police headquarters and demanded that alleged blasphemer Rashid Ahmed be made available for mob justice.

We told them that Ahmed will be examined medically and if he was found mentally fit then he will be tried under the blasphemy law, but the mob was not satisfied, said local police chief Akbar Ali Shah.

Shah said he had asked for army assistance to help control the crowds, but a Reuters correspondent at the scene said soldiers had yet to arrive.

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive topic in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where insulting the Prophet Mohammad is a capital crime for which dozens are sitting on death row. There have been at least 67 murders over unproven allegations since 1990, according to figures from a research centre and independent records kept by Reuters.

MESSIAH STATEMENT

Witnesses say that Ahmed entered the local mosque asking to make an important announcement, then declared himself a messiah and said that he would lead his followers to paradise.

An angry congregation then turned violent and attacked Ahmed, who Shah said appeared to be suffering from mental illness. He suffered a beating, but police said his injuries were not life-threatening.

Pakistans government has been vocal on the issue of blasphemy, with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issuing an order last month for the removal of blasphemous content online and saying anyone who posted it should face strict punishment under the law.

Police are investigating over 20 students and some faculty members in connection with the killing of Mashal Khan, the student who was beaten to death on April 13 in an attack that shocked the country.

Since then, parliament has discussed adding safeguards to the blasphemy laws, a move seen as groundbreaking in Pakistan where political leaders have been assassinated for even discussing changes.

In 2011, Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard after calling for reforms.

Taseers killer, executed last year, has been hailed by religious hardliners as a martyr to Islam and a shrine has been erected at his grave. Reuters
Mazar-i-Sharif, April 21

Dozens of Afghan soldiers were killed or wounded on Friday when Taliban gunmen disguised in Afghan army uniform talked their way past checkpoints and attacked a military base, officials said.

A US official in Washington put the toll at more than 50 killed and wounded. Afghan officials offered conflicting numbers of casualties in the incident, at a major headquarters in northern Afghanistan often used by foreign military advisers.

The Western-backed Afghan government is locked in a prolonged war with Taliban insurgents and other militant groups. The attack was launched near a mosque on the base in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, as soldiers were leaving Friday prayers, said army spokesman Nasratullah Jamshidi.

Six attackers in two military vehicles told guards at the gates that they were carrying wounded soldiers and urgently needed to enter, he said.

After killing at least eight soldiers and wounding 11 others with rocket-propelled grenades and guns, one attacker was killed and the other five arrested, Jamshidi said.

Another Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly, said more than 20 soldiers had been killed and 50 wounded.

A number of German and other foreign soldiers are based in Mazar-i-Sharif, including about 70 who advise the corps headquarters as part of a NATO-led multinational mission to advise and train the Afghan security forces.

To our knowledge, no Germans were affected. Nor were any other soldiers in the multinational force harmed, said a spokesman for the German Operations Command. The statement was echoed by American officials.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attackers had set off an explosion, allowing suicide bombers with small arms to breach the bases defences.

Our fighters have inflicted heavy casualties on the Afghan army stationed there, he said. The NATO command in Kabul called the attack murderous and reprehensible. The base is the headquarters for the Afghan National Army's 209th Corps.  Reuters
SLMM activists clash with police in Gaur

Activists of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha clashed with police in Gaur, the district headquarters of Rautahat, on Thursday.
Islamabad, April 21

Pakistani media on Friday gave a mixed reaction to the Supreme Courts verdict on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs high-profile graft case with some calling it just a momentary relief while others contemplating its moral impact on the embattled premier.

Sharif, 67, on Thursday got a temporary breather from the Supreme Court which said there was insufficient evidence to remove him from office but ordered setting up of a joint team to investigate the graft allegations against his family.

Dawn reported that it was neither a clean chit nor a disqualification for Sharif.

The final verdict was split 3-2 among the five-judge bench, with two dissenting notes from Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed, it reported.

The Express Tribune focused on the dissenting note of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa who headed the panel and said that the prime minister was not honest and hence should be disqualified.

The News also focused on the remarks of Khosa who said Sharif should go home.

Although, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa turned out to be a minority voice in the five-member bench on the Panama Papers, the arguments he advanced for taking on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will continue to resonate louder than the majority decision, it reported.

The Nation reported that the main outcome of the judgment was that Sharif stayed on.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was given a reprieve when the Supreme Court ruled there was insufficient evidence to order his removal from office over corruption allegations, but it ordered further investigations, it reported.

Urdu papers and electronic media also debated if Sharif would also come out clean of the new probe.

Evening talk shows were mostly partisan as the decision and its moral impact were discussed. Those opposing Sharif in the debate asked him to step down on moral grounds.

Meanwhile, local channels are saying that Sharifs daughter Maryam who was cleared by the Supreme Court in the graft case on Thursday is being seen as his successor.

Maryam, Sharifs eldest daughter, is apparently being groomed by her father for the big role and she is often portrayed as his heir apparently due to the fact that his two sonsHasan and Hussainlive abroad and are more interested in business than politics, local media said. PTI
Islamabad, April 21

Pakistans retired Army Chief General Raheel Sharif on Friday departed for Riyadh after the government granted him permission to head a 41-nation military alliance led by Saudi Arabia.

Speaking to Geo News, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed that the government had given the former Chief of Army Staff the No Objection Certificate (NOC) after completion of all legal formalities and requirements.

Asif said the former top commander was given the NOC after approval from the Pakistan Armys General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi. The Defence Minister had said earlier that Pakistan had received a written request from the Saudi government for employing Raheel Sharif as head of the military alliance to fight militancy.

General Raheel Sharif (retd.) departed for Riyadh on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother on the flight, Dawn reported.

He was granted approval to serve as the head of the military alliance for three years, reports said.

With a Joint Command Centre headquartered in Riyadh, the coalition includes Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Sudan, Malaysia, Egypt, Yemen and other Muslim countries.  IANS
Islamabad, April 21

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs media savvy daughter Maryam Sharifs name has been virtually cleared by the Supreme Court in the high-profile Panama case, according to a media report.

The Panama Papers leaks alleged that 43-year-old Maryam was the beneficial owner of the London properties owned jointly by her brothers.

The petitions claimed that since Maryam was a dependant of Sharif, she should have declared the Mayfair properties in her wealth statement.

The verdict, however, was of the view that Maryam has received cash gifts from her father in substantial amounts on various occasions receipt of gifts from the father does not necessarily make Respondent No 6 (Maryam Nawaz) his (Nawaz Sharif) dependent in the legal sense of the word, Dawn reported.

The Bench said in the verdict that we also notice that she owns substantial agricultural property, receives income from the same, holds shares in limited companies worth more than Rs 200 million and her husband also receives a fair amount of money by way of pension as a retired military officer.

In response to the arguments that Maryam lives in the Sharifs family house, the verdict said: The mere fact that she has chosen to live in a compound owned by her grandmother does not ipso facto make her a dependent of Respondent No 1 (Nawaz Sharif) either.

The verdict further noted that Maryam contributes a substantial sum of money towards her share in the joint expenses incurred by her grandmother on behalf of other members of the Sharif family residing in the compound.

The Bench concluded that in these proceedings sufficient material was not available on the record to establish that Maryam Nawaz was a dependant of Nawaz Sharif, in a legal sense.  PTI
SEOUL/BEIJING, April 21

South Korea said on Friday it was on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang.

US officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signalling a possible heightened state of readiness by reclusive North Koreas sole major ally, although the officials played down concern and left open a range of possible reasons. Beijing denied its aircraft were on an increased level of alert.

In Russia, the RIA news agency said a Kremlin spokesman declined to comment on media reports Russia was moving military hardware and troops towards the border with North Korea.

US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions, something both the United States and China have warned against.

North Korea marks the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean Peoples Army on Tuesday, an important anniversary that comes at the end of major winter military drills, South Koreas Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said.

Top envoys from the United States, South Korea and Japan are due to meet on Tuesday, South Koreas foreign ministry said, to discuss plans to rein in North Koreas additional high-strength provocations, to maximize pressure on the North, and to ensure Chinas constructive role in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue.

South Korea and the US have also been conducting annual joint military exercises, which the North routinely criticises as a prelude to invasion. It is a situation where a lot of exercise equipment is amassed in North Korea and also a lot of strategic assets are situated on the Korean peninsula because of the South Korea-US military drills, Lee told a briefing.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday praised Chinese efforts to rein in the menace of North, after North Korean state media warned the United States of a super-mighty preemptive strike.  Reuters

Trump speaks of unusual moves
Two killed, eight hurt in SUV crash

A Mahindra Bolero SUV crashed nearly 300 metres down the road at Kamalmai-2 in Sindhuli district on Wednesday night, killing two persons.
First quarter earnings for trucking company Heartland Express Inc. edged lower from the same time a year ago as revenue posted a significant decline, according to figures released Friday by the company.

Net income fell 2.4% to $14 million while earnings per share of 17 cents were unchanged, but that was 2 cents better than Wall Street expectations. Revenue declined 20.2% to $129.9 million, primarily due to fewer miles driven, according to the Iowa-based carrier.

"The results achieved during the quarter were a result of operating through a challenging freight environment coupled with unfavorable weather conditions in the western United States during the first two months of the quarter followed by stronger freight volumes in March said CEO Michael Gerdin.

The company was able to greatly cut operating expenses to $110.5 million in the first quarter compared to $142.5 million a year earlier.

We also increased our fleet activity as evidenced by more equipment purchases and sales completed during the quarter which resulted in an increase in gains on sale of equipment as compared to the same period in 2016, Gerdin said.

Heartland said it currently anticipates a total of approximately $40 to $50 million in net capital expenditures for the calendar year.
Senate Bill 81, which is currently pending state House action, would require the suspension of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who assault or attempt to assault school employees or volunteers.

Previous law has limited mandatory suspensions to students in sixth grade or higher.

Taken to extreme, a school could suspend a 9-year-old who raises her fist in anger  attempted assault.

These third-graders today are not the third-graders of yesteryear, state Sen. Ron Sharp, the bills author, told The Oklahoman earlier this year. Theyre big and strong, and they are attacking teachers and other students. Its a problem today in our public schools.

Not to be too cynical, but why are we drawing the line at third grade? Why shouldnt kindergarten teachers have protection against the big strong students in their classes? Todays second-graders arent the second-graders of yesteryear.

Everyone wants teachers and school volunteers to have safe working environments, but schools already have the option of suspending any student in any grade who poses a real danger, and they do. The problem with this proposal is the one-size-fits-all mandate that presumes all students in the category should be suspended.

In some circumstances suspensions are the appropriate response, but in others counseling or other approaches are the right move. What we need here is careful consideration of the child and the incident, which is the job of the school, not the Legislature.

Schools already have the ability to protect teachers. We dont need the Legislature mandating discipline policies that are best left to people who understand individual circumstances.

If the Legislature really is bent on doing something for public schools, it could consider adequately funding them.
Canada is Oklahomas best import-export customer with $3.9 billion in goods and services moving annually between the state and the neighbor to the north.

That doesnt count the 50,700 Oklahoma jobs that depend upon trade and investment with Canada.

U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin has taken note of the important link between Oklahoma and Canada because 6,800 jobs in his district rely on the import-export trade.

And if conditions are right, those numbers could increase, said Sara Wilshaw, Canadian consulate general.

Wilshaw discussed business opportunities while meeting with Tulsa Global Alliance members at Gilcrease Museum. The gathering was held before the 34th annual World Trade Conference in Oklahoma City.

The trade picture expands dramatically when the states numbers are added to national trade figures.

Canada and the U.S. trade an average of $1.3 million in goods and services every minute of every day, Wilshaw said. On a larger scale, Canadian goods sold in the U.S. contain 25 percent American content, and nearly 9 million U.S. jobs depend upon trade and investment with Canada.

Oklahoma also is a popular attraction for almost 55,000 Canadian visitors who spent $21 million in the state last year.

Equipment and machinery make up 47 percent of the states $1.4 billion in exports, followed by transportation 16 percent; plastics and rubbers, 12 percent; minerals and metals, 8 percent; chemicals, 5 percent; energy, 4 percent; and other, 8 percent.

Canadian imports to Oklahoma total $2.5 billion annually, with energy topping the list at 65 percent.

Other imports include equipment and machinery, 11 percent; forest products, 6 percent; transportation, 3 percent; minerals and metals, 3 percent; plastics and rubber, 3 percent; and other, 9 percent.

Services exported to Canada include business, professional and technical, royalties, financial, insurance and telecommunications.

Tulsa-based NORDAM, one of the worlds largest family-owned airspace companies, has partnered with Pratt & Whitney Canada to design, engineer, develop and manufacture components for PWCs new PurePower engines selected by Gulfstream for the next generation of long-range and ultra-long-range aircraft.

The partnership will bring 300 highly skilled jobs to Oklahoma, Wilshaw said. The Tulsa Regional Chamber estimates the partnership will contribute $53.8 million in wages and salaries throughout the areas economy and have a $77.7 million impact on Tulsas gross metropolitan product.

Oklahoma sells more goods to Canada than its next four largest foreign markets combined, she said. Those markets are Mexico, Germany, Japan and Singapore.

The Canadian-Oklahoma partnership reaches beyond imports and exports, she said. Canada also is part of national security for both countries.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel have been stationed at Tinker Air Force Base in support of the North American Aerospace Defense Command since 1979. This is the only bi-national command of its kind in the world, and the two countries work side by side to carry out aerospace warning and control, as well as maritime warning in the defense of North America.

Every effort is made to keep the U.S.-Canadian borders as open as possible because parts for many America-made vehicles cross the border eight times before they actually become a car, she said.

The controversial North American Free Trade Agreement has benefited both the U.S. and Canada and has been tweaked many times since its inception in 1994, Wilshaw said. Canada also is a port of entry for the European Union to bring goods into the U.S. because the distance is shorter between Canadian and European ports.

There are many advantages to doing business with Canada, Wilshaw said.

She encouraged her audience to look carefully at available markets, attend trade shows and research the benefits of working in Canada.

We are a country that is bordered by two oceans and the U.S., she said.

Preston Scot Wayman, Purolator International Inc. branch sales manager from Grapevine, Texas, said Oklahoma always has had a strong relationship with the Ontario-based firm.

Purolator International is a freight forwarder that provides cross-border logistics services between the United States and Canada.

He referred to the $1.3 million crossing the border every minute and raised that amount to $1.8 billion moving between the U.S. and Canada daily.

E-commerce is growing as consumers become more confident in going online to shop rather than going to the store. Canada ranks among the top 10 in using this service, which makes shopping convenient because the winter is long, he said.

Approximately 90 percent of Canadians have high-speed internet access, and 76 percent of the Canadian households shopped online in 2015.

Randy Hayes, Vacuworx corporate sales director, spoke on sending Oklahoma products to Canada.

The Tulsa-based firm manufactures lifting systems that use vacuum for a variety of uses, including oil and gas and water and sewer pipes, in addition to lifting concrete and other heavy items at construction sites.

We focus on and teach workplace safety, Hayes said. Vacuworx equipment replaces chains and slings used to handle pipe. People working on projects are taken out of harms way.

Vacuworx equipment is used at a number of pipelines across the U.S. and into Canada.
UN officials call on PM Dahal

Chief Executive Officers of various development organisations associated with United Nations (UN) called on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the latters residence in Baluwatar on Friday.
Sen. J.J. Dossett, D-Owasso, was presented with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau 100 Percent Club award during the 2016 legislative session this week for his support of farmers, ranchers and rural Oklahoma.

This honor is presented to those legislators who stand with Farm Bureau in its core mission of improving the lives of rural Oklahoma, said Tom Buchanan, OKFB president. Were grateful to these state lawmakers for their leadership and service at the state Capitol.

Dossett received the award for a 100-percent voting record on Farm Bureau-supported legislation during the 2016 legislative session.

Legislators were scored on four pieces of legislation which included aiding the extermination of feral swine, increasing penalties for cattle theft, easing restrictions on prescribed agricultural burns, and granting drivers licenses to temporary H-2A agricultural workers.

"I'm glad to support all things agriculture here in Oklahoma," Dossett told the Owasso Reporter. "Our state has a rich history in food production for our citizens here at home and all Americans coast to coast."

In honor of the award, Dossett received an OKFB 100 Percent Club coin to display in his office at the state Capitol.

Founded in 1942, Oklahoma Farm Bureau is a grassroots organization of farm and ranch families united to analyze issues and formulate action to achieve educational improvement, economic opportunity and social advancement in each of Oklahomas 77 counties.

To learn more, visit http://www.okfarmbureau.org/.
OKLAHOMA CITY  Students from across the state shared concerns about college affordability Thursday during a meeting of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

It is vital to keep tuition as low as possible so that students can achieve their goals, said Olyvia Nguyen, a criminal justice major at Rose State College. Nguyen said she has seven younger siblings and works two jobs to pay for her education.

Regents hold a public hearing each spring in advance of approving tuition and fees for each of the 25 public colleges and universities.

Sarah Wheeler told the regents she works 16 hours to pay for one credit hour at Redlands Community College. Any increase in tuition would hurt her and many friends who work two jobs and are struggling, she said.
Closing arguments will begin Friday in the trial of a woman charged with mutilating a body at a Tulsa funeral home.

The jury in Shaynna Lauren Sims trial spent more than an hour listening to a series of jailhouse calls Sims made to her now-estranged husband, Monty Smith, and her mother. In those calls, Sims, now 28, can be heard repeatedly denying claims that she damaged the body of Tabatha Lynch during a viewing on April 30, 2015, at Moore Funeral Homes Eastlawn Chapel.

But Sims mother, Vicki Murray, told Sims over the phone that her attorney at the time recommended that Sims undergo in-patient treatment if shes able to post bond because people think youre crazy because you went over there and messed with a dead person.

However, Sims objected to the suggestion based on discussions with the same attorney that made her think it would harm her case, not help it. She became visibly emotional in the courtroom while listening to her conversations with Murray, who wasnt allowed to watch the trial because she was a possible defense witness.

Sims told Smith in the calls that although police found locks of Lynchs hair during a pat-down search, they dont have no cameras. They dont have no witnesses. They dont have no proof. She added later that just because I had hair on me and I had a knife didnt automatically mean she violated Lynchs body.

Sims is charged with multiple felony and misdemeanor counts, including knowingly concealing stolen property, first-degree burglary, unauthorized dissection, disrupting or interrupting a funeral and unlawfully removing a body part from someone who is deceased. Testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday indicated that both of Lynchs breasts and one of her toes had been, as Assistant District Attorney Tanya Wilson put it, crudely removed during a viewing before Lynchs scheduled funeral and cremation.

I didnt even know shed be capable of doing that, Smith testified Thursday.

Wilson said in her opening statement that a search by police of Smiths phone, which he shared with Sims, revealed that Sims took graphic photos of what she had done to Lynchs body. She and Assistant District Attorney Reagan Reininger have argued that Sims actions were apparent retribution for an affair she believed Lynch was having with Sims husband.

Smith has insisted that the two were only friends. He testified that he has filed for divorce from Sims but that its not yet finalized.

The burglary charge against Sims is based on allegations that she gave Lynchs boyfriend and children a false name and wrongly said she worked for the funeral home when she went to Lynchs apartment, reportedly to steal jewelry after taking her shoes from the funeral home. But Sims attorney, Donn Baker, argued this week that Sims simply wanted to fix Lynchs hair and makeup and denied that she intended to burglarize Lynchs residence.

Smith, the states final witness to take the stand, described how Sims arrest and subsequent jail time put a strain on a relationship already damaged by unhealthy conflicts. Sims did not testify, and the defense did not call any other witnesses.

In the jail calls, Smith asked Sims why she went to Lynchs viewing a second time after previously going with her mother. However, he also told her that despite what shes heard, he had never cheated on her with anyone, including Lynch.

I wish you would have just stayed away from them, Smith told Sims, referencing Lynchs family.

Sims ultimately asked Smith to get her released from custody so she could pay municipal tickets and attend a Waka Flocka Flame concert downtown. She also expressed frustration at Lynchs family.

They tried to say I cut her face and her hair. No. Her hair was falling out, Sims said. It was all in my hands.

Sims has been in the Tulsa Jail without bond since July 2015 after reports that she violated conditions of previous jail release by visiting Lynchs apartment complex.
A Peoria, Illinois, man has been named in a criminal complaint that says he used Facebook to receive and send pornographic images of minor females from the Grove area.

Christopher Parlier Jr., 29, is being held without bail after appearing Thursday before a federal magistrate in Tulsa on a charge of producing, possessing, receiving and distributing child pornography.

Parlier was arrested April 7 in Peoria based on a warrant issued the same day, court records show.

Authorities allege in an affidavit that Parlier communicated via Facebook Messenger with four Grove-area minor females during 2016, exchanging pornographic images and videos with at least two of them.

The investigation of Parlier began in September when the parents of a 15-year-old girl contacted the Delaware County Sheriffs Office with concerns that their daughter might have had sexual intercourse with a 28-year-old man.

The girl told officials that she met Parlier in January 2016 through online video games and video game forums, and that the pair later communicated via Facebook Messenger.

The girl told investigators that she and her mother drove to Joplin, Missouri, in July, where they went to a bus station and picked up Parlier, who planned to visit her for her 15th birthday.

Parlier stayed with (the minor) and her mother at their home in Oklahoma for 10 days, says the affidavit, written by a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The girl told officials that she and Parlier engaged in sexual intercourse during his 10-day stay, the affidavit states.

The affidavit quotes the girl as saying Parlier communicated with other minor friends that he found on her Facebook account.

One of the friends, also 15, told investigators that she and Parlier exchanged photos of their genitalia two to three times a week at his request.

The female stated that she complied with the requests of Parlier each time he asked, and would follow his instructions when taking photos and videos, the affidavit states.

Federal officials obtained a search warrant for one of Parliers Facebook accounts, and a search revealed nude images of Parlier that he had sent to other females, according to the affidavit.

A search of another Facebook account tied to Parlier revealed that he sent numerous pornographic images of the first 15-year-old to another Facebook account, investigators said.

Investigators were unable to locate the username of the account to which Parlier sent the images, but they did determine the display name to be Parl Christopher, according to the affidavit.

Federal officials allege that Parlier installed a program on the second females laptop computer that allowed him to have access to her computer and all of its contents.

Officials believe Parlier had access to the social media accounts utilized by both females, which allowed him to contact at least two other minors, one of whom was described as being from the Grove area.

The third female indicated that she declined to send a photo of herself to Parlier but did receive a photo of his penis.

Parlier has a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday at Tulsa federal court.
Before Robert Bates was sentenced, Gov. Mary Fallin asked a member of her legal staff whether she had looked into the former reserve deputys situation at the request of Fallins sister-in-law  a friend of one of Bates daughters.

That revelation of at least some level of interest in Bates circumstances by Fallin before his sentencing on May 31, 2016, is seen in a 14-page batch of emails from Fallins personal email account that the Governors Office released to the Tulsa World this week.

Bates daughter Leslie McCrary complained in a May 16, 2016, email about Bates treatment at the Tulsa Jail, expressing fear that he would die there. McCrary also took aim at prosecutors, writing that The Tulsa DAs office is so biased and scary.

The email was sent to Jane Vanfossen, Fallins sister-in-law. Vanfossen forwarded it to Fallin, telling the governor that any advice that you all could tell me to pass on to Bates daughter would be helpful.

Fallin forwarded the email to Jennifer Chance, her then-deputy general counsel, with the message, Did we check (on) this yet?

The emails indicate that Vanfossen is a neighbor and friend to McCrary.

The next day, Fallin emailed her sister-in-law to tell her that Chance would call Bates family, adding that Chance has been researching info. Fallin also forwarded another email from Vanfossen to Chance. This one contained a lengthy plea from McCrary for help.

As a tax paying, law abiding citizens (sic) we have been thoroughly disappointed in the bias, influenced by a media with no ethical code, that appears in our court system, McCrary wrote. I wont elaborate on the specifics but would ask for you to please review the statute that is keeping our Dad in jail ...

Chance responded to Fallin: No worries! We will take care of her. Ill send an email to her right now.

Chances email to McCrary explains that the governor cant intervene at the district or appellate court levels. She wrote that Bates could have recourse regarding medical care and treatment under federal laws.

James Williamson, the governors general counsel, told the Tulsa World in a statement Monday that he asked Fallin to search her personal email account to see if there were any Bates emails the Governors Office hadnt provided from a previous open records request.

Although I believe some of them are beyond the specific language of your request dated March 17, 2017, the Governor asked that I provide all of them since they relate to the matter upon which you were inquiring.

The Tulsa World asked the Governors Office whether Fallin takes as much interest in other prisoners or convicts who have yet to be sentenced or if this was a favor to her sister-in-law.

The governor treated this matter the same as similar requests that she receives by referring it to her general counsels office, spokesman Michael McNutt said.

Emails contradict media report

On March 16 The Frontier, an online media publication in Tulsa, reported through unidentified sources that Chance resigned after Fallin learned that Chance had recommended that the Bates family use her husband, attorney Derek Chance, to file a request to commute Bates sentence.

Jennifer Chance formerly had been Fallins general counsel, a promotion from deputy general counsel that she received in October. She submitted a resignation letter on March 8, saying she was leaving to pursue other opportunities.

Ryan Leonard, an attorney representing Jennifer Chance, called the Frontiers allegations false in a statement published in a Tulsa World article on April 2. The Frontier story says Fallin was reportedly not aware that Bates family had been referred to Derek Chance.

The governors personal emails appear to show that Fallin knew several months in advance of Jennifer Chances resignation that Derek Chance had been involved with Bates.

An email from Bates daughter again made it to the governor via Fallins sister-in-law on Sept. 17, 2016. McCrary wrote to express thanks and forwarded an email describing what had happened so far in the commutation process.

We hired Derek in June of 2016 and as of today this is where we are. Nowhere. UGH! Thank you again, McCrary wrote.

Fallin forwarded that email thread to Jennifer Chance two days later, with the following message:

Sorry to bother you but I had a phone call this weekend from my sister in law who is friends with the robert bates family (sic). See below. Thank you Mary.

Ex- prosecutor recommended

On Sept. 10 and Dec. 6, commutation requests on Bates behalf were filed with the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which denied them in November and February, respectively.

Derek Chance handled the first commutation request, while McCrary and Bates filed the second themselves.

Leonard, in his previous statement, said Fallin requested that Jennifer Chance assist the Bates family in May 2016. He said she recommended that the family contact a former prosecutor in Oklahoma City to help with commutation efforts.

Only after the Bates family on their own accord sought to hire Ms. Chances husband, Derek, a well-respected criminal defense attorney, did Ms. Chance seek approval from the General Counsel of the Ethics Commission that the familys decision was appropriate, Leonard said. Any allegation that Ms. Chances actions constitutes a violation of the Oklahoma ethics rules is false.

Leonard has declined to say whether Chances resignation was in any way associated with the Bates matter or at the request of Fallin.

The Governors Office, through its spokesman, reiterated its stance of not commenting on personnel matters.

Jennifer Chances departure from the governors office is a personnel matter, and the governor does not comment on personnel issues, McNutt said.

Robert Don Gifford, an attorney representing the Bates family, in a statement this week also said Jennifer Chance never suggested that the family seek or hire Derek Chance. She recommended a former Oklahoma city prosecutor, Gifford said.

The family was fully advised Mr. Chances representation required Mrs. Chance to recuse completely from advising the governor on the matter, he said.

Gifford said the Bates family  just like every citizen  has the right to contact elected leaders if they believe they see an injustice.

We have the best justice system in the world, but it is not infallible, Gifford said. Judge (William) Musseman was a former colleague of mine and is an outstanding jurist, but he is guided by imperfect laws that are not fully developed and were made by imperfect individuals.

Musseman, a Tulsa County district judge, sentenced Bates on May 31. Jurors had found Bates to be culpably negligent in convicting him of second-degree manslaughter on April 27.

It is the hope of the Bates family that the appellate court may see the flaws in the law, and that our elected legislators will take action to address the errors in their legislative drafting, Gifford continued in the statement.

Bates said he mistook his revolver for his Taser when he fatally shot Eric Harris on April 2, 2015, as deputies subdued Harris on the ground in north Tulsa. Harris had tried to run away from a Tulsa County Sheriffs Office undercover gun buy.

Bates action sparked a scandal after a suppressed 2009 Sheriffs Office internal investigation surfaced, containing allegations that Bates benefited from falsified records, intimidation of subordinates and special treatment.
Correction: This story misspelled the first name of Amadeuss Becerra. The story has been corrected.

A Tulsa County judges decision to grant a Glenpool teenager the opportunity to be released on $175,000 bond in a murder case has raised questions from both prosecutors and police, who pointed out that the bond amount is less than that of a co-defendant charged with a lesser offense.

Court records indicate that a bond hearing was held Wednesday for Tyler Ratcliff, 19. His attorney, Allen Smallwood, asked that Ratcliffs bail on the first-degree felony murder count be set at $50,000.

Ratcliff, who had been held without bond, was charged April 11 with felony murder in the March 27 shooting death of 19-year-old Nicholas Morris at Quickie Mart, 53rd Place and Peoria Avenue. Police and prosecutors allege that the homicide occurred during a botched drug deal Ratcliff had coordinated through the social media application Snapchat.

Trevor Tarpalechee, 22, is also charged with first-degree felony murder, with police alleging that he and Ratcliff robbed and kidnapped 17-year-old Amado Becerra when Ratcliff drove away from the store while Becerra was in Ratcliffs vehicle.

Becerras 18-year-old brother, Amadeuss Becerra, faces a first-degree murder charge on allegations that he fired at Ratcliffs car and shot Morris in the process, as well as a drug count saying he and Amado Becerra possessed Xanax pills. Jail records show that Amadeuss Becerra and Tarpalechee are held without bond.

But while Special Judge Martha Rupp Carter decided to grant Ratcliff a $100,000 bond on the first-degree felony murder count over the states objection, a Tuesday order from Special Judge Deborrah Ludi-Leitch states that Amado Becerras bond on a second-degree murder charge is $500,000.

No other defendant has had a bond-reduction hearing. Jail records show that Ratcliff is white, while prosecutors said the Becerra brothers are Hispanic.

Ratcliff also has bonds of $25,000 and $50,000 on related charges of kidnapping and robbery, respectively, which court minutes state Carter let stand over the defenses objection. Carter declined a request Wednesday afternoon to comment further on her decision.

Smallwood told the Tulsa World that the $175,000 bond is more than sufficient to ensure that his client will appear for his next court date, which is June 5. He said theres no evidence that Ratcliff is a flight risk or a continuing danger to the public.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray said he asked the court to set Ratcliffs bail at $1 million if Carter set a bail amount at all, and he noted that the facts of the case indicate Ratcliff started the chain of events that led to Morris death. By contrast, the underlying offense for Amado Becerras felony murder charge is a claim that he was distributing the drugs that police said Ratcliff and Tarpalechee decided to take by force.

The state apparently believes that everybody charged with murder should be in jail, and thats just not what the law says, Smallwood said of the case. I think what Judge Carter did was a reasonable compromise supported by the facts and evidence. My guy did not murder anybody. He was not the shooter and didnt want to shoot anybody.

In the event Ratcliff is freed, he will be required to wear a GPS monitor and submit to weekly drug testing at his expense. Carter said Ratcliff could leave his parents home, where he lives, only for work, and that he could not have access to social media or firearms or contact his co-defendants.

Sgt. Dave Walker, a homicide detective, said the discrepancy between the bond amounts for Ratcliff and his co-defendants opens the door for the appearance of unfairness.

Without Tyler, they dont drive there, Walker said of the sequence of events. They dont set up the drug deal. And without Tyler, they dont steal Amado. Theyre equally culpable, and the bond should be equal, in my opinion.

A motion Smallwood filed last week advocated for Ratcliffs bond to be reduced since Ratcliff was to be employed by a nationally recognized company (Wal-Mart) and (his) only previous criminal history consisted of a public intoxication charge. The document says Ratcliff has a nonviolent reputation and does not have a mental health issue that would cause irrational conduct.

Weve got four people here telling four different stories, Smallwood said Wednesday. But the evidence my client gave to the police is that the brother who was in the car brandished a pistol in his pants. My guy takes (the gun) out so he wouldnt get shot, then panics and tries to leave, and the brother (Amadeuss Becerra) fires and kills his friend.

A probable cause affidavit states that Morris told Tarpalechee before his death that Ratcliff planned to rob the people he talked to on Snapchat, later identified as the Becerras, of marijuana and Xanax. Detective Mark Kennedy wrote that Ratcliff told him he saw that Amado Becerra had a gun in his waistband and took it out because he didnt want to give him the chance to use it against him.

Ratcliff, according to Kennedy, also said he and one of his passengers had a gun, which made him panic and try to drive away while Amado Becerra was in the car. Once Tarpalechee told Ratcliff that Morris had been shot, Ratcliff said he drove Morris to a Tulsa hospital, where staff pronounced him dead.

Kennedy wrote that Tarpalechee reported seeing Ratcliff point a gun at Amado Becerra before Tarpalechee restrained him from behind so Morris could grab another weapon in the backseat.

Amado Becerra, in his statement to Kennedy, said he was restrained by someone matching Tarpalechees description while Ratcliff pointed his gun at him and said they were going to go have some fun. He went on to say that Ratcliff told him he was next after he realized Morris was injured.
A Tulsa man wanted in a fatal hit-and-run on March 4 involving a woman in a wheelchair was arrested Friday by Tulsa County sheriffs deputies.

Dameon Lundy, 39, is charged with felony counts of leaving the scene of a fatal collision and leaving the scene of a collision involving injury.

Police say Lundy was driving a 1990 GMC Sierra when it struck and killed Beverly K. Evans, 61, on Garnett Road just south of 11th Street.

Erick Packard, 47, who was with Evans when the collision occurred, was critically injured.

The truck was headed north on Garnett and the driver apparently didnt see the people in the road, police said.

After the collision, the driver pulled into a restaurant parking lot, parked the truck and walked away, police said.

Lundy, according to jail records, is being held on charges in three other separate cases. Among them, he is charged with trafficking methamphetamine, unlawful possession of a controlled drug, resisting an officer, transporting an open container, unlawful possession of a controlled drug with intent to distribute and acquiring proceeds from drug activity.

He is being held without bond and is scheduled to appear in court Monday.
US assures Nepal full use of TPA facility

The US government has reaffirmed its commitment to facilitate production and trading of the 66 products it has been providing duty free access to Nepal through Trade Preferences Act (TPA).
Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman struggled at times to explain his positions and spoke haltingly throughout a highly anticipated debate against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz as they vie for a critical Senate seat. In the opening minutes of Tuesday's debate, Fetterman addressed the stroke he suffered five months ago. Fetterman said it knocked him down but he's "going to keep coming back up. Oz ignored Fettermans health challenges, focusing on Fettermans policies on immigration and crime and his support for President Joe Biden. The race represents the best chance for Democrats to flip a Republican-held Senate seat this year. A big question is whether the debate will have a lasting impact so close to the November election.
Edmond state Rep. Ryan Martinez asked police officers if he should call the governor when they arrested him last week for suspension of driving under the influence, his second such offense since 2014.
Youth SAARC Regional Conference-2017 to be held in Kathmandu

Youth Parliament Nepal is organising Youth SAARC Regional Conference  2017 on April 24 and 25 at City Hall in Kathmandu.
UK screenwriter Simon Mirren (Casualty, Spooks, Waking the Dead, Without a Trace, Third Watch, Criminal Minds, Versailles) will lead a new Writer in Residence TV Drama Initiative in Victoria.

Mirren, who is nephew to actress Helen Mirren, will take residence in Melbourne during June through Film Victoria and Screen Australia funding.

Three teams will be mentored in a Writers Room over a three week period, developing their television drama concepts.

Film Victoria CEO, Jenni Tosi said: Were delighted to be able to support three Victorian teams to further develop their drama concepts, guided by the expertise and experience of Simon. His skills and knowledge of the international market will be enormously beneficial and should encourage the teams to aim high to ensure their ideas have the best chance of being commissioned.

Screen Australias Head of Production Sally Caplan said The Writer in Residence TV Drama Initiative is a fantastic professional development opportunity for Victorian-based storytellers, and one we are proud to support. In addition to the privilege of furthering their story ideas with such a hugely successful TV writer and producer like Simon, they will cultivate invaluable story development skills

which they will be able to use in their careers far beyond this experience.

Helen Mirren is currently filming feature film Winchester in Melbourne.

Applications for the Writer in Residence TV Drama Initiative are open until 4 May.
Ex-Biggest Loser trainer Tiffany Hall swings by The Living Room tonight while Dr. Chris heads off to Hoi An in Vietnam.

Renovation with Barry Du Bois

Those lucky enough to own a big block of land in the right area could be sitting on a gold mine. Adelaide couple Leisha and Blair have outgrown their small home since having children and luckily, their little house is on a big block of land. Before they decide to sell and buy a bigger place, they have called in Barry to investigate the possibility of subdividing their land. Barry and moneyman Jason Cunningham join forces to investigate the financial pros and cons of moving versus sub-dividing.

Travel with Chris Brown

Chris is in Hoi An to explore Vietnams most beautiful city. With its ancient architecture, mysterious canals, nearby mountain temples and beautiful lantern festivals, Hoi An is a tourist hot spot and a place for all types of travellers. Also known for its amazing tailors, Chris is on a mission to find the perfect Logies outfit for himself, Miguel, Barry and Amanda. He heads to the local tailor store to create matching outfits for his friends back home, who need to look their best for Australian televisions night of nights.

Food with Miguel Maestre

Office lunches are not known for their delicious taste or variety. With only a kettle, microwave and sandwich press on offer, Miguel shows his colleagues at The Living Room how to make delicious ramen noodles using minimal ingredients and appliances. Say goodbye to boring sandwiches and pre-made soup and hello to fresh, delicious, easy to make lunches.

Health and well-being with Tiffiny Hall:

With the pressures of work, family, finance and relationships taking its toll on people in everyday life, it is often hard to find time to de-stress and unwind. Health guru Tiffiny Hall drops by The Living Room this week and visits a stressed out young family who are in need of help. She provides them with some simple tips and tricks on how to unwind on the go and in the home.

7:30pm Friday on TEN.
Newly arrived refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo settle in at Mussunge camp in Angola.  UNHCR photo

A spike of violence in the Kasai Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has now forced over 11,000 refugees to seek safety in Angola. Border points and villages inside the Southern African nation have seen a sharp increase in refugee arrivals with over 9,000 arriving so far in April. The brutal conflict in Congos previously peaceful Kasai region has already displaced more than one million civilians within the country since it began in mid-2016.

Those fleeing into Angola continue to arrive mainly in Dundo, the capital of north-eastern Luanda Norte Province.

Refugees reported fleeing attacks from militia groups, who are targeting police, military officials, and civilians who they believe are supporting or representing the Government. After running away from fighting rebel and Government forces, some refugees had to hide in the forest for several days before fleeing to Angola. Refugees are arriving in desperate conditions, without access to clean water, food or shelter.

The situation among children is dire, as many arriving malnourished and sick - suffering from diarrhea, fever and malaria. Two children are reported to have already died from severe malnutrition. UNHCR is concerned for the fate of others suffering from worrying levels of food insecurity and illnesses.

The new arrivals are terrified and still fear for their lives and mentioned they do not have any immediate plans to return home. Some parents have reportedly sent their children across the border, worrying they would be forcibly recruited by the militias if they had stayed in the DRC.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is currently coordinating refugee response with the Government, local authorities and partners on the ground. We are also negotiating with the Government for proper hosting sites as the current border locations are overcrowded and not suitable. UNHCR is sending an additional emergency team to Dundo this Saturday to support relief efforts.

UNHCR is in the process of shipping family tents, kitchens sets, blankets, mosquito nets, sleeping mats and other essential relief items to the area.

Further aid is urgently needed, as refugees are forced to stay in makeshift buildings in the border villages. Angolas wet season peaks in April, and UNHCR is especially worried about the ongoing rains  which could further complicate living conditions and the health of refugees, especially the most vulnerable such as women, children, the elderly and the disabled.

UNHCR welcomes the response of the Government of Angola in keeping its borders open for continued refugee arrivals. We hope that this gesture of goodwill will continue as the situation remains dire in DRCs Kasai region. UNHCR is also underlining the importance of not returning people in need of international protection to the DRC.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
On Tuesday, National University announced that they received $28 million donation from T. Denny Sanford. It is the largest donation in the San-Diego based school's history.

The money will be used to nationally roll out three education initiatives under Sanford's name. It also aims to address the needs in teacher education, social skills of children and nonprofit fundraising.

Micahel Cunningham, of the National University System, which is a network of nonprofit education institutions, said they are very appreciative to have received the historic gift. He said that the gift affirms the remarkable impact of the three initiatives. This will allow them to expand the capacity of the programs even further to transform lives of the children, schools and community.

Cunningham added that they are honored to carry out the vision of Denny Sanford who has been their inspiration and driving force behind the programs. They will be dedicated to ensuring the impact of the programs last for generations. The three programs are Sanford Harmony, Sanford Inspire and the Sanford Institute of Philanthropy.

Sanford Harmony is a pre-K through sixth-grade social and emotional learning program. It promotes positive peer interactions and communications among boys and girls, which has been adopted by the nation's largest school districts in three dozen states.

The Sanford Inspire program provides support for teacher education t hrough online video systems that were developed in partnership with Teach for America and Arizona State University. The Sanford Institute of Philanthropy provides a training course for nonprofit fundraisers.

Sanford said helping others is what it's all about, which is why he was pleased to recognize the remarkable impacts the three programs are having nationwide. He shared that what used to be his dream is now a reality, which he considers the greatest gift of all of being able to see how the programs strengthen the communities and help children succeed in school and life.

The Times of San Diego reported that the donation brings total funding for the programs to around $70 million. This includes a combination of donations by Sanford, Cunningham, anonymous donors and matching funds from the university.
College students from the country's historically black colleges could benefit from President Donald Trump's "America First" campaign where he gives more favor to American companies and implement reforms on the visa programs of foreign technical workers.

It was Tuesday when President Trump signed an order which calls for changes to be implemented on the visa programs issued to foreign technical workers, The New York Times reported. While the order is expected to affect most foreign workers from technology outsourcing firms, science and technology students at the nation's historically black colleges could be the one to reap its benefits.

Leaders and advocates for historically black colleges and universities have been looking at the trend and have been monitoring the immigration and jobs debate and foreseeing that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) graduates from HBCU schools are the ones who could fill in the jobs that are currently being given to foreign workers, The News Observer reported.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., who hosted a gathering of black college presidents in Washington said that the president's order has the potential to help some of the HBCU graduates and that it can be a good thing.

The order signed by Trump was dubbed "Buy American, Hire American" which tells the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Labor and State to come up and implement new rules that will help prevent fraud and abuse in the immigration. One of the goals of the order is to tackle the H-1B visa program, which admits 85,000 immigrants each year to work in technical jobs that according to companies are difficult to be filled in by Americans.

Trump wanted to insist that H-1B visas should only include the most skilled and highest paid applicants, and that it should never be used to replace American workers.
The University of California, Berkeley canceled their scheduled speech with Ann Coulter on Wednesday. University administrators said that they could not let Ms. Coulter speak due to active security threats.

Berkeley College Republicans were sponsoring the speech received a letter that said two chancellors from the university had to cancel the speech because they had been unable to find a safe and suitable venue for the event featuring Ann Coulter in April 27.

The letter was written by Vice Chancellor Scott Biddy and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Stephen Sutton. It said that it was not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully. It also mentioned that the safety of Ms. Coulter, audience, event sponsors and bystanders could adequately be protected.

In response to the cancellation that was announced, Ms. Coulter said that she would definitley speak at Berkeley next week. She added that she was invited to speak by two groups on campus and intends to speak.

Berkeley has had a reputation as one of the country's most liberal universities and the campus along with its surrounding areas have become a target for small, militant and shadowy right-wing groups. These groups have clashed in recent months with equally militant and shadowy anarchist groups based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

On Saturday, the police arrested more than 20 people during a violent encounter. In February, Milo Yiannopoulos speech which was sponsored by the College Republicans was canceled after masked protesters rioted outside the event, ABC News reported.

The university spokesperson Dan Mogulof said they have committed to having a diversity of voices on campus and has been working with the police to reschedule Ms. Coulter's appearance. He added that they are going to do whatever they could to make it happen at a time and place when police can provide safety and security, The New York Times reported.
On Wednesday, the University of Akron announced that they have received a gift of $5 million from Jim and Vanita Oelschlager to help create a museum to display Native American artifacts. The contribution will go the Oak Native American Museum, which will be a part of the Institute for Human Science and Culture at the university's Drs . Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

The gift will be used for renovation of the building's third and fourth floors to include galleries, classrooms and a reading room. Jim Oelschlager, the founder of the Akron-based investment firm, Oak Associates, said that University of Akron was the appropriate organization to house, display and study their Native American collection.

He added the collection will provide students an opportunity to learn how to manage, research and display the historical items from different parts of the continitent. It would greatly help and prepare them to be able to work on other collections.

Crains Cleveland Business reported, Oelschlagers' collection has 800 rare Native American artifacts. The museum said in a statement that they will give the community access to the collection. It will also allow more research opportunities.

Cleveland reported, Oelschlagers will also support a full-time curator for the collection in cooperation with the Lynn Rodeman Metzger Endowed Curatorship in Anthropology. The curator will be tasked to manage the collection through their display, cataloging and preservation of these Native American artifacts.

No opening date has been set yet and early planning for the museum is definitely underway. Construction is set to take place about 18 to 20 months.

The Oelschlagers have supported the university for 25 years especially the Oelschlager Summer Leadership Institute for high school students to participate in a seven-day workshop on UA's campus. The Oelschlagers also support various scholarships and has helped hundreds achieve their college dreams.
The University of Nevada, Reno, says classes should start later in the day. For one, the brain functions best for college students during noon up until evening.

According to US News, the University of Nevada got some help from the Open University in the UK to determine the preferred time of students to start their classes. In the study, the researchers found that school should begin lectures at about 11 a.m. They stressed that the students are "at their best" during this period.

Mariah Evans, one of the authors, explained that people do so many things to boost the academic performances of educational institutions that are less effective. The truth is, per Evans, there is this free solution of just "changing the timings." With this in mind, most students are actually not morning people.

As a matter of fact, only a quarter of the respondents said they were morning people while almost half admitted that they are either "probably evening" or "definitely evening" persons. Furthermore, additional tests revealed that the students had "higher rates" of functionality during noontime. Currently, most college classes start at 8 a.m., wherein people are half awake.

Interestingly, Evans and her team later discovered that higher levels of productivity last longer when studying and doing homework than when listening to lectures. Nonetheless, there is no optimal time for schools to start class as it depends on every individual. Overall, though, colleges should consider later lecture hours in the morning.

With this in mind, the Huffington Post reported that the Senate Education Committee in California recently passed a bill to ensure "safe, healthy opening hours" for middle and high school students. Senator Anthony Portantino presented the bill that makes California the first state to consider healthy school hours.

In it, the lawmakers prohibit middle and high schools from starting the school day before 8:30 a.m. According to them, a number of health organizations already proved that early morning classes are often unhealthy and counterproductive. These renowned institutions include the American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The US Department of Education picks the Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) to pilot its new program to help college students manage their student loans. The highly anticipated project will start this fall.

Per News & Record, student loans typically require beneficiaries to attend just two counseling sessions. The first is when they start college and the next is when they graduate. The Education Department now experiments with an extra loan counseling. With it, officials believe that the students would care for their debts better.

The federal program came in after a number of outstanding student loans debt surpassed the $1.3 trillion mark in 2016. In particular, it has increased more than double over the past 10 years. According to previous reports, roughly one in every 10 borrowers is at least 90 days behind on payments. Moreover, a quarter of all student borrowers has defaulted on their debts.

At GTCC, as indicated by the Department of Education, about 40 percent of students took out federal loans last year. For the record, this is already the third experimental federal program that GTCC participated in. Last fall, the school was - once again - the only state college to pilot the Dual Enrollment Pell Experiment. It awards Pell Grants to high school students who take college classes. It basically shoulders other expenses such as textbooks.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that the Chief Financial Officer of Citigroup Inc., John Gerspach, college debts are growing "too fast". Actually, US authorities have estimated that one in four student debtors is either in default or struggling to pay. Currently, America has about 44 million borrowers.

Now, banks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have withdrawn from the student-loan market. The latter reportedly decided to sell a $6.9 billion portfolio of educational loans to Navient Corp. Navient is the third party between students and lenders.
The International Center of the University of California - Davis will have its grand opening this Friday, Apr. 21. The event will be celebrated with a party from 1 to 4 p.m.

The center is a three-story building that houses three Global Affairs units. It includes the vice provost-associate chancellor's office, Study Abroad and Services for International Students and Scholars as well as UC Davis Extension's Center for International Education.

According to a post in UC Davis' official website, the speakers for the event are Ralph J. Hexter, interim chancellor; and Rep. John Garamendi. D-Walnut Grove will give the keynote.

There are two masters of ceremonies: Paul M. McNeil, dean of UC Davis Extension, and Joanna Regulska, vice provost and associate chancellor of Global Affairs. Other speakers are associate vice chancellor and campus architect Clayton Halliday and Xinyi "Daisy" He, who is an international undergraduate student and student assistant to the chancellor.

For the rest of the afternoon, people can tour the building and visit open houses at Study Abroad, Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS), and the vice provost-associate chancellor's office. There are also other programs and activities.

One example is to see how Global Affairs is engaged internationally. The program is named Inspiring Global Curiosity, Understanding and Engagement. Visitors can add message to the SISS chalkboard, participate in a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and try Chinese paper cutting.

Another activity is Cultural Traditions and Activities, which allow visitors to witness the customs and practices of the international students at UC Davis. The program is scheduled for 2 to 4 p.m. at Room 1206.

Other activities are the Center of International Education Film Festival, Then and Now: A History of International Engagement at UC Davis, Envisioning the Future, International Students in Davis: An Interactive Quiz and UC Davis International "Human" Library.

The International Center will serve as a hub for the school's international presence and impact by establishing a centralized, welcoming environment. This is intended to be a place for key international programs and creating opportunities for all students, both international and domestic.
Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine have found that plasma from human umbilical cords can revive the brains of old mice. It occurs in a specific area of the brain named the hippocampus, which plays a significant role in learning and memory functions.

Blood from the cord have been known to be donated to blood banks, which freezes the stem cells inside. This is used to treat people with various cancers and genetic disorders.

Stanford neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray said that using actual plasma is not practical as treatment since it is difficult to collect. It is expected, though, that the identification of beneficial molecules in the fluid can help develop treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer's.

The Atlantic reported that the team has identified a protein called TIMP2 abundant in young blood that, when injected, can revitalize aging organs even the brain. This type of protein decline as humans age.

There are speculations that this approach could enhance the function of other brain areas that become vulnerable in old age. This includes the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for planning, decision-making and other complex cognitive skills.

University of Minnesota bioethicist Leigh Turner cautioned that scientists should be careful with this breakthrough since it may come with the assumption that the same outcomes will be witnessed in human diseases. Wyss-Coray added that it is important to know if plasma is beneficial in any form in humans and whether TIMP2 can be produced synthetically to mimic its beneficial effects.

According to Science Magazine, the Stanford scientists gave human cord blood plasma to mice in varying ages. The subjects had defective immune systems so they did not reject the foreign human tissue.

Human cord plasma was injected every 4 days for 2 weeks into the circulation activated neurons in old mice's hippocampi. They found that, after the injections, the aging animals were able to navigate a maze more swiftly. They also had better performance on other tests of learning and memory.
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Published: April 21, 2017

Graduate Experience Rebuilds Confidence of Tanzanian Poet, Entrepreneur

Neema Komba MBA 17 was finding success early in her career. She had launched an all-natural soap company in her home of Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania, and it was starting to outgrow her garage-sized factory.



Komba, a closet writer who has been featured in several anthologies, had also co-founded an event called La Poetista, designed to help change the culture of her city by highlighting the arts and educating people on social issues around violence to women.



There was nothing involving poetry going on in the country at that time. There was nowhere you could showcase your poetry. There was no promotion of poetry. So we started an open mic event, and it grew really big, Komba said. With La Poetista, what we created was a movement. Now there are a lot more poetry events and a lot more awareness of the arts, even collaboration between poetry and music and comedy, so that was a good thing. We kind of revived the poetry culture.



But two years ago, Komba found herself at an apex. Everything in her life needed to grow  her business, the poetry events and herself, and she said she felt stuck.



I was kind of terrified of that next phase. But then UT gives me this opportunity to apply, and I get the graduate assistantship. It was clear I needed to get better at some things. I needed to become a better leader or manager, to manage my businesses better, to have a different point of view, she said, of finalizing her decision to pursue her MBA at UT. It happened at a good time, when I needed something to push me to the next level.



Komba found mentors and some breathing room to assess her business strategy. For example, shes asked her accounting professors for feedback on her costing methods for her soap products, called Ira Fresh.



I can ask those questions and I can think about them and polish my idea without the burden of being there running the business. School is a really safe place to try things without being judged harshly by revenues, she said. Because when youre running a business you really dont get a chance to think about the future as much or your vision. Every day is a new crisis, and you wonder if youre going in the right direction. But being in school has given me the time to look at what worked, what didnt work and how I plan to go forward.



The graduate program has also put her on solid ground.



Its given me a lot more confidence. Ive always been a leader but when things get really tough, you need something that boosts your confidence. I think it was my first semester here when I realized I had taken a big hit on my self-esteem as a leader. I was doubting my own ability, she said.



Komba was worried about stepping out of the race of growing her business, but she knew that if she wanted long-term success, taking a few years to develop her business savvy would be a good investment.



The MBA program is making me think in a very different way, she said. A lot of the professors are really helpful in that way  they help you shape your ideas, experiment with them, think about them from a different point of view and get feedback. Im excited for whats going to happen next. Im ready for that next step I was so worried about.



After graduation, Komba plans to return home to grow her businesses. She wants to create a nonprofit around poetry and the arts and expand her soap business to the East African and Sub-Saharan markets.



Its more about teamwork now than myself doing all the work, Komba said. Its about leveraging all the relationships Ive been afforded and using them to make something greater than myself.





Have a story idea? Contact Jamie Pilarczyk, Web Writer

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Published: April 21, 2017

UT Wraps 2016-2017 Business Network Symposium Series April 25

On Tuesday, April 25, the leaders of Brett Culp Films, Schifino Lee and Bertram Yachts will stop by The University of Tampa for the final Business Network Symposium of the 2016-2017 academic year. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins with a continental breakfast at 7:15 a.m., followed by the program from 7:459 a.m. in the Vaughn Center Crescent Club.



The slate of speakers includes Brett Culp, filmmaker and owner of Brett Culp Films; Paola Schifino, president and co-founder of Schifino Lee; and Peter Truslow, CEO of Bertram Yachts.



Culp is a filmmaker whose client list includes movie stars, music icons, best-selling authors, hall of fame athletes, royalty and Fortune 500 companies. He co-founded The Rising Heroes Project, a nonprofit that supports creating and sharing inspirational films.



Schifino is president and co-founder of Schifino Lee, a successful advertising and branding business boasting national and global clients such as AT&T, Gerdau, Wellcare and Vigo-Alessi and local clients such as the Tampa Museum of Art and World of Beer.



Truslow is CEO of Bertram, a luxury yacht manufacturer that moved its headquarters to Tampa in 2016. He joined Bertram in 2016 after more than two decades as president of EdgeWater Boats in New Smyrna, FL, building its line of offshore boats into a successful brand.



The event is hosted by The University of Tampa Board of Fellows and the presenting sponsor is LCG. Other sponsors include the Tampa Bay Business Journal and Sodexo Campus Services.



The Board of Fellows holds this networking event three times a year to allow businesses that are well known, changing or new to the Tampa Bay area the opportunity to share their accomplishments and plans with the business community.



For more information, contact Niti Shah, director of Fellows and Counselors, at nshah@ut.edu or (813) 253-6220.
Tibet Museum Director to Speak at UW April 25

The director of the Tibet Museum in Dharamsala, India, will discuss at the University of Wyoming the history and current state of Tibet, and how he created exhibitions that present complex subjects to a diverse audience -- while living in exile in India.

Tashi Phuntsok will discuss Tibet: The Story and Struggle of a Nation at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 25, in Room 127 of the UW College of Business Building. The event is free and open to the public. His presentation is the final Center for Global Studies event this semester.

The Tibet Museum was established in 1988 to document, preserve, research and exhibit all matters relating to Tibets history, culture and present political situation. The museums goal is to educate Tibetans and nonresidents.

The museum currently consists of a small permanent exhibition centrally located in Dharamsala, which receives about 70,000 annual visitors and has a strong online and regional traveling exhibition presence. It will soon move into a new, larger space to be completed this spring. In conjunction with the move, the Tibet Museum is reconceptualizing and redesigning its exhibitions.

Phuntsok was born in Thimpu, Bhutan, and raised and educated in India. He received a bachelors degree (1997) and a masters degree in history (2001), both from Panjab University.

He has worked at the Central Tibetan Administration (de facto Tibetan government-in-exile) since 2001. Before joining the Tibet Museum, Phuntsok worked at the Department of Education, Department of Home, and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

For more information, call Nicole Crawford at the UW Art Museum at (307) 766-6529 or email ncrawfor@uwyo.edu.
UW Names Finalists for VP for Student Affairs

Finalists for the position of vice president for student affairs at the University of Wyoming have been identified, and they are scheduled to visit UW beginning Monday, April 24.

The candidates are Tim Alvarez, vice president for student affairs at North Dakota State University; Sean Blackburn, UWs current associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students; Lori McDonald, dean of students at the University of Utah; and Bill Schafer, most recently the vice president for student life at West Virginia University.

As part of a two-day interview, each candidate is scheduled to give a public presentation. McDonalds presentation will be 3:30-4:45 p.m. Monday, April 24, in the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center auditorium. The session will be streamed on WyoCast for UW employees and students at https://wyocast.uwyo.edu/WyoCast/Play/a225735b30e24a008fb3b23f792cd5121d.

Alvarezs visit to UW for interviews will be April 27-28; Blackburn, May 1-2; and Schafer, May 4-5. The times and locations of their public presentations will be announced later.

To learn more about Alvarez, go here.

To learn more about Blackburn, go here.

To learn more about McDonald, go here.

To learn more about Schafer, go here.

The vice president for student affairs oversees UW units focused on student life, including Residence Life and Dining Services, the Dean of Students Office, Campus Recreation, Student Health Service, the University Counseling Center and the Wyoming Union.
UW President to Visit Buffalo May 1

UW President Laurie Nichols

University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols will meet with local residents Monday, May 1, from 7:15-9 a.m. at the Cowboy Carousel Center, located at 59 N. Lobban Ave. in Buffalo.

The reception takes place in the centers Steamboat and Comanche Room. Complimentary coffee, juice and donuts will be available. The UW Alumni Association invites all UW alumni and friends to the reception. No RSVPs are needed to attend the free public event.

During her first year in office, Nichols has traveled around the state to meet with citizens, community college and public school leaders, legislators, alumni, media and others.

I am enjoying getting around the state to meet with people and hear their thoughts and expectations for Wyomings university, says Nichols, who began her duties as UWs 26th president last May. This is a crucial time for the state and UW, and input from the public is important to make sure the university fulfills its land-grant mission of education, research and service to the entire state.

Nichols came to UW from South Dakota State University, where she served as provost and executive vice president from 2009 to 2016. Before that, she was dean of the SDSU College of Education and Human Sciences from 1994 to 2008. She began her career in higher education as a member of the faculty of the University of Idaho from 1988 to 1994.

Nichols was born and raised in South Dakota. A first-generation college graduate, she received a bachelors degree in education from South Dakota State in 1978. She then earned a masters degree in vocational and adult education from Colorado State University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in family and consumer sciences education from Ohio State University in 1988.

For more information about the Buffalo event, call the UW Alumni Association at (307) 766-4166.
UW President to Visit Dubois May 4

UW President Laurie Nichols

University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols will meet with local residents Thursday, May 4, from 7:15-9 a.m. at the Headwaters Arts and Conference Center, located at 20 Stalnaker St. in Dubois.

Complimentary coffee, juice and donuts will be available. The UW Alumni Association invites all UW alumni and friends to the reception. No RSVPs are needed to attend the free public event.

During her first year in office, Nichols has traveled around the state to meet with citizens, community college and public school leaders, legislators, alumni, media and others.

I am enjoying getting around the state to meet with people and hear their thoughts and expectations for Wyomings university, says Nichols, who began her duties as UWs 26th president last May. This is a crucial time for the state and UW, and input from the public is important to make sure the university fulfills its land-grant mission of education, research and service to the entire state.

Nichols came to UW from South Dakota State University, where she served as provost and executive vice president from 2009 to 2016. Before that, she was dean of the SDSU College of Education and Human Sciences from 1994 to 2008. She began her career in higher education as a member of the faculty of the University of Idaho from 1988 to 1994.

Nichols was born and raised in South Dakota. A first-generation college graduate, she received a bachelors degree in education from South Dakota State in 1978. She then earned a masters degree in vocational and adult education from Colorado State University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in family and consumer sciences education from Ohio State University in 1988.

For more information about the Dubois event, call the UW Alumni Association at (307) 766-4166.
UW Vice President for Student Affairs Candidate Withdraws

One of the finalists for the position of vice president for student affairs at the University of Wyoming has withdrawn from consideration, meaning the first campus visit by a candidate will be Thursday and Friday, April 27-28.

Lori McDonald, dean of students at the University of Utah, had been scheduled to visit UW April 24-25. That is no longer the case.

The remaining candidates are Tim Alvarez, vice president for student affairs at North Dakota State University; Sean Blackburn, UWs current associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students; and Bill Schafer, most recently the vice president for student life at West Virginia University.

As part of a two-day interview, each candidate is scheduled to give a public presentation. Alvarezs visit to UW for interviews will be April 27-28; Blackburn, May 1-2; and Schafer, May 4-5. The times and locations of their public presentations will be announced later.

The vice president for student affairs oversees UW units focused on student life, including Residence Life and Dining Services, the Dean of Students Office, Campus Recreation, Student Health Service, the University Counseling Center and the Wyoming Union.
Wyoming Business Tips for April 30-May 6

A weekly look at Wyoming business questions from the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (WSBDC), part of WyomingEntrepreneur.Biz, a collection of business assistance programs at the University of Wyoming.

By Cindy Unger, WSBDC business adviser

Over the past several years, crowdfunding was all over the news as a miraculous source of financing for small businesses. I have not heard much recently. What are the current trends in this area? Bill, Douglas

Reward funding, via websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, made the initial headlines. These sites match people and funding with relevant ideas and inventions online.

Companies receive what is essentially a contribution from an interested party who receives some free trinket or service in return. Securities-based crowdfunding or regulation crowdfunding became legal in May 2016. Regulation crowdfunding permits private companies to secure funding from investors without registering the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Prior strict regulations involving investor qualifications also have been relaxed.

Although the increased availability of financing is very attractive, especially to startup companies that have difficulty finding traditional bank financing, the process to actually offer the securities is complicated and costly. The securities must be offered through an approved crowdfunding portal.

To achieve success, a company must carefully implement an effective marketing campaign. These companies are not just trying to induce customers to purchase products; owners are seeking considerable investment in new ventures.

The most important component to a successful fundraising campaign is a video that explains the product or service. Professional videos get a far better response than smartphone videos. In addition to the numerous filings required, the details of the offering must be worked out and explained to the public in a simple, easily understandable manner. To conduct a successful campaign, the issuer must have an extensive social media following.

According to Douglas Ellenoff, expert in crowdfunding, the data suggest that, unless an issuer has several thousand online contacts, they will have difficulty raising even $100,000.

Despite the hurdles, how is crowdfunding doing? At the end of 2016, there were 21 Financial Industry Regulatory Authority-approved portals, with 186 participating entrepreneurs actively seeking financing. Of that group, 79 were able to raise at least their minimum funding requirements.

Looking at reward-based crowdfunding, platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo have become considerably more sophisticated over the past few years. As a result, successfully marketing these campaigns also has become more sophisticated. Traditionally, specific product categories tend to perform better than others. According to Entrepreneur.com, these popular products include affordable electric transportation alternatives for urban commuters (electric bikes, skateboards, etc.); active apparel with built-in chargers, extra pockets and extreme durability; and smart home devices for every need.

Another wrinkle in the crowdfunding landscape is the proliferation of companies doing crowdfunding that dont need financing. Last year, Indiegogo launched Enterprise Crowdfunding to help large companies do market testing, launch products and support new innovations.

Although this industry may be off to a slow start in comparison with the total amount of funding raised last year, the $17 million raised to support securities crowdfunding, in addition to the numerous companies that have been funded via the reward-based websites, has helped numerous entrepreneurs start new and innovative businesses.

A blog version of this article and an opportunity to post comments are available at www.wyomingsbdc.org/blog1/.

The WSBDC is a partnership of the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming. To ask a question, call 1-800-348-5194, email wsbdc@uwyo.edu, or write 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3922, Laramie, WY, 82071-3922.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The concept behind the Locations brands is one of creative thought. Dave Phinney, co-owner and winemaker, started Locations with the vision to create wines that represent not just a particular wine region of a country, but a whole country in and of itself. Dave has traveled to wineries worldwide meeting with some of the finest winemakers to source their best fruit to ultimately produce a wine representative of that country. There are so many rules and restrictions when it comes to winemaking in particular winemaking areas and regions that Daves goal is to have creativity and freedom without being held by these rules and regulations. Their targets are low yields and old vines from some of the highest quality vineyards with forward thinking growers. Daves motto is based on simple, complex and fun.

Dave Phinney

The beginnings of Locations

Daves journey began as he was visiting France in 2008 due to the intrigue of a friends discovery of a vineyard in Maury located in southern France. This area borders Spain and was an area that hadnt really been discovered yet. Dave ended up purchasing this vineyard of 300 acres of vines and began producing single vineyard wines. It made me laugh the beauracrcy we face in the United States as Dave mentioned that he was able to get permits and build a winery in France in 6 months where in Napa it would take 6 years. As he ventured all around France the concept of blending grapes from other winemaking parts of the country peaked his interest. Of course this isnt allowed by the AOC laws and if a wine was to be created this way it would need to be without a vintage date and only be listed as a table wine. Two years later as Dave was saying goodbye to his friend at the airport and they were discussing more of these frustrations a license plate showing the later F forced a lightbulb to go off in Daves head and what if they made wine in many other countries than France with the same blending ideas. Locations was created!





Dave stated that 95% of the winemaking takes place in the vineyards. It's all about finding great vineyards, getting the right crop and picking at optimal times. Every vintage t he blends are similar and sourced from similar areas without changing it up too much and going outside the lines. The wines are vinified and bottled in their country of origin. Locations now produces wines in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Corsica and the United States (CA, WA, OR and TX). They're about to release a vermentino from Corsica and a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand as well as rose' from France. Dave wouldn't be surprised as well if a sparkling wine is in their future also. Location's first vintage in 2011 totaled around 15k cases. The different vintages are labeled by numbers with the first vintage labeled as 1 and so on and so forth.





The most touching part of the virtual meeting with Dave was when one of the bloggers asked Dave of his proudest moment. Getting choked up and taking a minute or two to gather himself, Dave simply explained it was during the time of when he had nothing but a plain business card with his name on it and how he wouldn't put winemaker on it unless someone hired him. Starting off as a young, struggling winemaker and fighting to get where he is today still gets to him. For me it was beautiful to see humble pride one feels from their own accomplishments.

Locations Italian red wine

Of course I was intrigued by the Italian red wine that Locations produced because how can one choose from the large amounts of indigenous grapes grown all throughout Italy and make a wine representative of a whole country. Dave studied abroad in Florence, like myself, and when he started Locations he traveled to Italy for 2 years without finding a profile for the wines there.





Locations Italian red is based primarily on nero davola and negroamaro grapes from Puglia, specifically Torricella and Manduria, as well as some Barbara from Alba in the Piedmont region. There is also a bit of nero d'avola, dolcetto and sangiovese. Its aged in barrel 10 months before release. The wine incorporated everything including juicy, ripe blackberries paired with good structure acidity and solid tannins. According to Dave s ome wines cellar better than others obviously, but Italy is the most serious of all the wines for him. It has the most structure.

With these wines having a SRP of $18.99 its amazing the efforts put forth behind the scenes to produce wines of this caliber with such affordability. Dave's completed our virtual tasting sharing that he gets to taste amazing wines, visit amazing vineyards and people from all over and it never gets old. It's these experiences that get him out of bed every day to share with you these wines from locations all around the world.





Don't miss an Italian wine blog ~ Subscribe





*all wines were received as samples, but opinions are my own.
1. Susan Travers

2. Nancy Wake

3. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

4. Lydia Litvyak

5. Krystyna Skarbek

6. Eileen Nearne

7. Annie Fox

8. Lise Brsum

9. Ruby Bradley

10. Lyudmila Pavlichenko

11. Aleda Lutz

12. Noor Inayat Khan

13. Natalia Peshkova

14. Reba Z. Whittle

15. Barbara Lauwers

16. Violette Szabo

17. Hannie Schaft

18. Felice Schragenheim

19. Queen Wilhelmina

20. Elsie Ott

War is often seen as something that women should be protected from. Men are often portrayed as stronger, braver, or more prepared to face the horrors of battle. And yet, when given the chance, women have shown time and time again that they can brave those dangers just as well as their male counterparts.These are the women who have become war heroes in their respective countries and around the world for their exploits during 20th century wars. Some became famous as martyrs to a cause, others for surviving impossible conditions, and still others for their complete selflessness in the face of death.There are millions who have served. This list of women war heroes sheds a little light on a few.General in the French Foreign LegionnaireEnglish socialite Susan Travers was in France when World War II started. Initially, she trained as a nurse for the French Red Cross and later became an ambulance driver. Travers escaped to London when France fell to the Nazis. There, she joined the Free French Forces. She was sent to Syria and later North Africa to serve with the French Foreign legion as a driver assigned to Colonel Marie-Pierre Koenig. Travers soon fell in love with him. Her dedication to the married Koenig was fierce.Even as Rommels Afrika Corps attacked Libya, Travers wouldnt evacuate with female personnel. She and members of Koenigs unit hid from the invaders for 15 days in sand pits. She drove Koenig through enemy lines under heavy fire, heading up 2,500 troops. They made it safely to the allied camp. After this act of bravery, Travers was promoted to general. She served in Italy, Germany, and France for the rest of the war, sustaining injuries when she drove over a land mine.After the war, Travers joined the French Foreign Legion. Her request was approved by a fellow officer who knew her reputation and disregarded her gender. She was the only woman to ever serve officially with the French Foreign Legion. She went on to serve in Vietnam. She waited until her husband and Colonel Koenig to pass before publishing her memoir,, in 2000 at the age of 91.Guerrilla fighter, spyNancy Wake was a world traveler before the Second World War began. She was born in New Zealand, raised in Australia, and then lived in New York and London working as a journalist. She was living in Marseille with her French husband when Germany invaded the country. Wake didnt hesitate to work for the French resistance. She hid and smuggled men out of France, transported supplies, and falsified documents.The Germans captured Wake and interrogated her for days, but she gave up nothing. After her release, she escaped to Britain and joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE). With the SOE, Wake received weapons and paratrooper training. She dropped back into France as a spy. She blew up buildings, engaged in combat with the enemy, and killed an SS sentry with her bare hands.The Gestapo tortured Wakes husband when he refused to give up any information about his wife. He died as a result of the torture. Wake would discover this after the war. She ran for office in Australia and published her biography,(the Germans nickname for her), in 1988. She died in 2011 at the age of 98.Guerilla fighterAt just 18, Kosmodemyanskaya was the first women to be named Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II. She volunteered for the Red Army Western Front as a saboteur and part of the reconnaissance group. The unit went behind enemy lines near Moscow to set land mines and to cut off German supply lines.Under orders, Kosmodemyanskaya set fire to a stable and a few public buildings in the town of Petrischevo. She was captured by locals, possibly ratted out by one of her fellow resistance fighters. She was tortured by the Germans, forced to strip in the cold and march in the snow, and then beaten and whipped. She did not give up any information and was hanged the next day in the town center. A sign reading arsonist hung around her neck. Her body was left hanging for a month with visiting soldiers desecrating her body.Flight instructor, Senior Lieutenant, fighter pilotBesides The Night Witches, the Soviet Air Force had other female units. Chief among them were the female-led bomber, ground-attack, and fighter squadrons. Litvyak was already a seasoned flyer, having been a member of flying clubs since 14. She joined the 586th Fighter Regiment and was an intense and effective instructor. She and a few other pilots were transferred to the all-male 437th Fighter Regiment. On her third combat mission, and after just three days with the squadron, Litvyak shot down Messerschmitt Me-109G and a Junkers Ju-88 bomber that were pursuing her commander. She was the first woman in military history to ever score a solo aerial victory in combat.The pilot of the 109 survived the dogfight and couldnt believe he was shot down by a woman. Litvyak, known as the White Rose of Stalingrad, went on to shoot down many more enemy aircraft until she disappeared over the Donbass. The last time she was seen, she was being pursued by around eight 109s. Her body has never been recovered.Polish spySkarbeck, who would later change her name to Christine Granville, was a wealthy woman of Jewish heritage. She and her second husband were in Ethiopia when World War II began. She signed up with Britains Section D and went to Poland via Hungary to launch her resistance work. Her main role was to pass communications between allies. Skarbeck became known as the flaming Polish patriot. Under the guidance of the British, she organized Polish resistance groups and smuggled Polish pilots out of the country.The Gestapo arrested Skarbeck in 1941, but she was released when she faked having TB by biting her tongue so hard it bled. She and partner Andrzej Kowerski changed their names to Christine Granville and Andrew Kennedy to escape detection. The pair were smuggled out of Poland to Turkey through Yugoslavia. Skarbeck, then Granville, wouldnt return to Poland because her operative group had been compromised.After being trained as a radio operator and paratrooper, she dropped into France on D-Day only to find that her resistance area had been infiltrated by the Germans. She hiked 70 miles to escape. Then Skarbeck turned Axis fighters in the Alps. She outed herself to the French who were working for the Gestapo and then orchestrated prisoner releases.She survived the war and was rumored to be the inspiration for two of Ian Flemings Bond girls. Despite having survived the Gestapo, imprisonment, and many other dangers, Skarbecks life came to a violent end when she was murdered by a stalker, Dennis Muldowney, in 1952.British spyNearne and two of her siblings served in the SOE. At 23, she parachuted into occupied France as a resistance message courier. Her communications centered mainly on the arrangement of weapons drops. A smooth talker, she escaped capture several times, but was eventually arrested and tortured by the Nazis. She was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp and later transferred to a labor camp where she escaped during a transfer to another camp. When she came across the Gestapo, she talked her way out of identification and arrest. Nearne hid in a church until the town was liberated by the Americans.After the war, Nearne battled psychological issues and lived a quiet life with fellow SOE spy and sister Jacqueline until the latters death in 1982. Nearne died in 2010 and her body wasnt discovered for several days. A search of her apartment revealed her war time resistance and spy role. She received a decorated heros funeral.NurseLt. Annie G. Fox just happened to be on duty at Hickam Air Field in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. As the chief nurse on duty, Fox swung into action to tend to the injured and dying service personnel on the base. She initially received the Purple Heart, but when the requirements changed in 1944 (the recipient needed to have sustained battle wounds), Foxs medal was rescinded. She received the Bronze Star instead.Refugee smugglerBrsum was the wife of a physician in Oslo. She and her husband, Ragnar, smuggled Jews out of Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. They were arrested in 1943, and her husband was later released. She was sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany and was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross in 1945. She wrote a bestselling book about her war experiences and dedicated her life to ending concentration camps all over the world. Brsum was an activist and humanitarian right up until her death in 1985. Her daughter, actress Bente Brsum, honored her mother with a stage play she wrote and performed.POW nurse, colonelAs a career Army nurse prior to World War II, Colonel Ruby Bradley served as the hospital administrator in Luzon in the Philippines. When the Japanese invaded, she and a doctor and fellow nurse hid in the hills. Eventually, they were turned in by locals and taken to the base, now a prison camp. Bradley and her staff spent threes years treating fellow POWs, delivering babies, and performing surgery. They also smuggled supplies to keep the POWs healthy, although Bradley herself weighed a mere 84 pounds when the Americans liberated the camp in 1945.After the war, Bradley served as the 8th Armys chief nurse on the front lines of the Korean war in 1950. She managed to evacuate all of the wounded soldiers in her care under heavy fire. She was the last to jump aboard the plane just as her ambulance was shelled. She was promoted to Colonel. She retired in 1963, but worked as a supervising nurse in West Virginia for 17 years. She received a heros funeral with full honors in 2002 at Arlington National Cemetery. She was 94.Russian sniper, majorLyudmila Pavlichenko was already a celebrated sharpshooter before joining the Soviet Army. She was a student at Kiev University when World War II started and was part of 2,000 female snipers sent to the front. Only 500 survived. Older and more skilled than her fellow snipers, Pavlichenko had 309 confirmed kills, including 36 enemy snipers. Her male counterpart, Ivan Sidorenko, had 500 confirmed kills after six years of combat.After being wounded by mortar fire, she went on a public relations and recruiting tour in the U.S. and Canada, dealing with sexist questions about her weight and skirt length from reporters. She would also become a sniper trainer. After her war time service, Pavlichenko became a historian at Kiev University. She also served on the Soviet Committee of the Veterans of War.Flight nurseLutz volunteered with the 803rd Military Air Evacuation Squad. Their missions were to rapidly remove injured soldiers from the front as fresh soldiers came in. She flew 196 evac missions that brought back 3,500 men, logging more hours than any other flight nurse. In December of 1944, the C47 carrying Lutz and injured soldiers from Lyon crashed. The Veterans Administration Hospital in Saginaw, Michigan was renamed in her honor in 1990.Princess, spyPrincess Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khans father was Indian Sufi master and musician Inayat Khan, and her mother, Ora Ray Baker, was the niece of Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. Her paternal great great grandfather ruled the Kingdom of Mysore. Although she was born in Russia, Khan held a British passport. She was living in France when Germany invaded. Khan and her family managed to escape to England where she joined the Womens Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She also worked for the British spy agency, SOE, as a wireless operator. The SOE sent her back to France in June of 1943, where she transmitted information back by Morse code. Even as other radio operators were discovered and arrested, Khan was determined to continue her work.She was arrested by the SD (German intelligence) in October of 1943 and aggressively fought back. She refused to give up information under interrogation and sent a coded message to the SOE, which they ignored for some reason. When the Germans discovered her coded messages and notebooks, they used it to lure other British spies to France for arrest. Khan escaped briefly and was held in shackles for ten months after being caught. She was sent to Dachau concentration camp in September of 1944 and immediately executed.Combat medicPeshkova was swept up along with a lot of young Russian girls in the countrys rush to pull together forces to fight the Germans. She was recruited right out of school at the age of 17 to be a combat medic. Peshkova found herself in such a poorly equipped unit that the weapons continuously malfunctioned. Disease, starvation, and the loss of a boot to a hungry horse was part of Pehkovas tough stint in the Russian army.At one point, she was separated from her unit and managed disguised herself while also hiding her weapon. If she discarded it, she would have been executed by her own military. She finally made it back and went on to become Sergeant Major, and was allowed to finish her educationPOW Nurse, lieutenantFlight nurse Whittle is the only U.S. female solder to be a POW in the European theater of World War II. Whittle served in the 813th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron and her plane was shot down over Aachen, Germany in September of 1944. Whittle was one of only a few survivors and the Germans didnt know what to do with her. The Swiss discovered her among the POWs and arranged for her release, along with another 109 male POWs, on Jan. 25th, 1945. Surprisingly, Whittle's POW experience went undocumented and she was denied POW retirement benefits. This was unfortunate, as her war injuries prevented her from flying. She worked in an Army hospital in California until 1946.After years of being denied benefits, Whittle received a settlement in 1955. She died of breast cancer in 1981. Her POW status was confirmed in 1983.Propaganda masterCzech born Lauwers had a law degree when she she moved with her husband to the United States in 1941. After she became a U.S. citizen in 1943, she joined the Womens Army Corps and was assigned to the OSS, Americas precursor to the CIA. Lauwers was involved in a propaganda mission called Operation Sauerkraut in 1944. The goal was to demoralize German soldiers. Because Lauwers was fluent in five languages, she was a essential in turning German POWs into counter operatives.The mission was quite successful and Lauwers and her counterparts were adept at convincing the Germans to turn. Lauwers continued to design, and then run, other propaganda operations across Europe. She also trained the POWs in intelligence gathering. Her propaganda tactics convinced 600 Czech soldiers to turn to the Allied side.SpySzabo was married to a French Foreign Legion officer Etienne Szabo. He was killed in action in 1942 and Szabo joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1943, vowing to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. She trained as a courier for missions in occupied France. She reorganized a resistance unit, damaged roads and bridges, and sent back regular reports.She talked herself out of trouble a couple of times, but her luck ran out after she parachuted into France and sabotaged German communications. Under arrest by the German, Szabo was tortured and eventually transferred to Ravensbruck concentration camp. She and two other SOE agents were executed by an SS officer at the camp.Resistance fighterJannetie Hannie Schaft was a Dutch resistance fighter who refused to swear an oath to the Nazis. She joined Raad van Verzet, a resistance group with a communist ideology. She spied on soldier activity, aided refuges, and sabotaged targets. Her reputation as the girl with the red hair would eventually lead to her downfall. She colored her hair to cover up the red but after she was captured by the Nazis, her hair began to grow out.The Germans then discovered that they had the legendary spy and resistance fighter in captivity. She was executed on April 17th, 1945. She was defiant up until the end, taunting the soldier who shot in the head and merely grazing her. She said, I can shoot better than that. The second shot killed her but not before leaving an ever lasting impression on her captors and witnesses. Schaft was 24. She received a state funeral after the war, attended by Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch royal family.Underground operativeWhat we know of Schragenheim has been preserved through her lover Lilly Wust, the former wife of a Nazi officer, and a survivor of World War II. What is known is that Schragenheim hid her identity as a Jew while working for a Nazi newspaper. She passed information for the underground resistance and smuggled Jews out of Germany. She operated in plain sight and maintained the appearance of someone well-connected to Nazis.Wust and Schragenheim met in a cafe and instantly had feelings for one another. Wust was unaware of Schragengeims Jewish ethnicity, but wasnt upset when she eventually found out. Wust and Schragengeim kept their relationship secret while the latter continued to operate for the resistance. After a day at the lake together, the Gestapo showed up at Wusts home and arrested Schragenheim. Wust kept track of Schragenheims transfers from one concentration camp to the next and regularly corresponded with her, signing her letters as Aimee. Schragenheim managed to smuggle letters back to Wust, signed your caged Jaguar.It was Wustss visit to Theresienstadt that sealed the fate of Schragenheim. Wust was thrown out by the camp director, and Schragenheims subsequent death march may have hastened her death. She succumbed to TB. Heartbroken, Wust divorced her husband and hid Jewish women in her basement to evade capture.Wust held onto Schragenheims letters right up until her death in 2006. They were donated to the Yad Vashem Memorial Institute in Jerusalem. Wust dreamed of being reunited with a woman she considered reflection of herself and her spouse. "Twice since she left, I've felt her breath, and a warm presence next to me. I dream that we will meet again - I live in hope." Wust received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.Dutch resistance inspirationQueen Wilhelmina was removed from the Netherlands against her wishes when the Nazis invaded. She foiled a plot to be kidnapped by the Nazis on the way to exile. From Britain, she broadcast messages of encouragement and hope to the Dutch resistance via Radio Oranie. Winston Churchill was a fan, calling the queen the only real man among the governments-in-exile in London.Flight nurse, lieutenantOtt was a trained nurse who joined the Army Air Corps in 1941. She was sent to Karachi India where she was part of a mission that would evacuate injured soldiers as fresh troops were brought in. The plane didnt have medical equipment sufficient to handle the serious injuries and disease of the troops. Otts only help was an army medic. The plane made several stops across the six-day flight after leaving India. She continued on with these kinds of flights for the rest of her career and was promoted to captain in 1946. She was also instrumental in outfitting the flights for optimum care of patients.(via Ranker
Illustrative photo. A customer deposits money into a bank account.-VNA/VNS Photo

The idea was proposed by SBV in the draft law on the restructuring of credit institutions and bad debt settlement to protect the benefits and rights of customers at credit institutions that are going bankrupt due to its inability of improvimg their performance or recovering from bad conditions.

Part of the refund will be provided by SBV and other financial institutions, such as the State-owned financial institution Deposit Insurance of Viet Nam (DIV).

The current maximum level of deposit insurance that DIV can provide for a bankrupt creditor is VND50 million (US$2,200) for each individual customer. The Government and other authorities are discussing the possibility of raising the maximum level of insurance for each account to VND75 million.

With the current level of deposit insurance, individual customers that have deposited less than VND50 million in bankrupt banks and financial creditors do not have to worry about their assets.

For deposit accounts worth more than VND50 million, bankrupt creditors must take loans at preferential rates from SBV and other financial institutions to refund their customers.

The lending rate will be determined by the Government on the request of the central bank. Individual customers that may not be refunded are managers, directors, major shareholders, founding shareholders and investors of the credit institutions and those that are related to these subjects.

Bankruptcy of banks and creditors has attracted a lot of attention from analysts in Viet Nams financial market.

Bankruptcy should be the last solution when dealing with weak-performing financial institutions and it would be a long and complicated process but in line with international practices, according to the economist Nguyen Tri Hieu.

Lawyer Truong Thanh Duc said Viet Nam is a market economy, therefore, weak-performing banks and financial firms should go bankrupt to make the countrys banking sector secure and effective.

During the past four years of the banking systems restructuring, SBV acquired three weak-performing banks -- Vietnam Construction Bank, Ocean Bank and GP Bank -- compulsorily at zero dong.
The graduation of Bosch TGAs first apprentices marks an important milestone in the companys commitment to help develop a highly-skilled technical workforce in Vietnam. We believe that by successfully completing the programme, which is based on German vocational training standards, our apprentices are capable of taking up specialist and managerial positions at Bosch manufacturing plants in the future, said Vo Quang-Hue, managing director of Bosch in Vietnam, at the graduation ceremony in the southern province of Dong Nai on April 20. The success of Bosch TGA demonstrates that a high-quality vocational training programme would help improve employability for apprentices. Therefore, we hope that the dual-vocational training model can be multiplied.

Bosch TGA was established in Vietnam in 2013 with only one discipline at that time, industrial mechanics. In 2016, the programme started offering mechatronics as a second discipline to its vocational training curricula. The number of apprentices recruited annually is 24, at 12 per discipline.

As of April 2017, the Bosch TGA has 93 apprentices, of which female apprentices account for 23 per cent. Since 2013, Bosch has made a total investment of more than $1 million into this dual-vocational training programme.

Bosch TGA is one of the first partnerships under the dual-vocation training framework of the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Vietnam (GIC/AHK Vietnam). The programme does not charge the apprentices any tuition fee, and offers a monthly allowance throughout the duration of the apprenticeship with Bosch.

Upon the successful admission into the programme, apprentices undergo 3.5 years of theoretical studies at the LILAMA2 Technical and Technology College, and practical training with modern machinery and equipment at Bosch TGA. In the last one and a half years of the program, apprentices spent most of their time working at the Bosch Gasoline Systems plant in Dong Nai.

The programme is designed to not only equip apprentices with technical skills, but also prepare them for long-term career development by building up their social skills. All apprentices at Bosch TGA are entitled to English and intercultural training throughout their apprenticeship.

Among the 17 apprentices who graduated in 2017, four had undergone exchange programmes abroad in 2015. As of April 2017, Bosch TGA has sent eight apprentices to other Bosch manufacturing plants in Germany and China. The exchange programmes offer apprentices opportunities to experience different cultures, learn to work in other countries, foster their ability to act independently, take responsibility for their actions, and develop strong teamwork skills.

In 2016, Bosch TGA received almost 930 applications, which was a positive increase as compared to 150 when the programme first started recruitment. The year-on-year increment of applications is an indicator of quality for Bosch TGA.

More importantly, there is a shift in the public mentality towards vocational training, and this is really encouraging, Hue said.

Bosch has been committed to occupational training for more than 100 years around the world. On April 1, 1913, Robert Bosch founded his companys first occupational training department in Stuttgart, Germany. Since then, more than 100,000 young men and women have begun their professional lives with the dual occupational training programs at Bosch in 20 countries across the globe.
Luxury Apartment is one of the few seaside projects in Danang having sufficient legal basis and doing to be handed over

Despite the flourishing supply featuring remarkable variety, foreign investors come to Vietnam with a particularly discerning eye for real estate projects. Apart from amenities, service quality, profitability, and legal conditions of ownership, foreign clients have a special concern for the reputation of developers.

With a solid track-record of cooperating with Marriott to develop a chain of high-end real estate projects at favoured tourism destinations, such as Sapa, Danang, and Quy Nhon, Alphanam is highly regarded for its sustainable financial capacity and credibility.

The hotel-apartment complex Four Points by Sheraton and Luxury Apartment (Danang), developed by Alphanam, is one of the most notable projects in Danang. The project is reaching the 30 per cent maximum on foreign ownership as set by Vietnamese law.

I am currently working in Danang. When I moved here, I was looking for an apartment that meets all of my requirements. With its five-star services and superior design, Luxury Apartment is a choice I have not regretted a single time, Nicholas David Hatton, a buyer of Luxury Apartment, said. Danangs white sandy beach sprawls just beneath my balcony, greeting me with fresh air, making every morning a treat.

Luxury Apartment was designed with the most particularly demanding upper-class clients in mind who are on the market for a second and a resort-style kick-back to retreat every year. The project satisfies these clients various and all-encompassing needs with seemingly effortless ease, a hallmark of meticulous design and experience of an accomplished developer.

We pay special attention to perfecting the project to offer the best quality on the market. Both the construction materials and the equipment and furnishing come from the very best brands: we sourced our elevators from Fuji Alpha, signed with Toto for bathroom equipment, Malloca for the kitchen, and Electrolux for laundry facilities. In addition, the suites offer Vincards smart key system for added security and Daikins air conditioners for the perfect, even temperature. We provide the very best in all aspects, nothing less for our valued customers, said Alphanams representative.

Harmony and solidarity: premium reception hall in Luxury Apartment

In comparison to other real estate types in Danang, the ROI of beach resort real estate is considered the highest. Upon signing the first contract, Alphanam (the developer) commits a 45 per cent return on investment in five years to investors. From the sixth year, upon signing a second contract, investors receive 85 per cent of rental profits after expenses and tax. Currently, Alphanam is offering an attractive discount policy up to 7.5 per cent on the total value of a unit. The group is encouraging investors to invest in Luxury Apartment through making the investment process as transparent as possible. With a limited number of units available for sale in the building, the capital gain on the units is expected to far exceed other forms of investment in resort real estate in Danang.

According to Shugo Arai from Japan, proud owner of a Luxury Apartment unit, the project leaves nothing left to want. In his words, With its prime location on My Khe Beach, convenient transportation and easy connection to the international airport and Danangs popular tourist spots, Luxury Apartment one of the best choices for tourists coming to Danang. Moreover, the fact that Luxury Apartment shares the building with Four Points by Sheraton leaves little doubt over the quality of services. This is one of the most excellent investment opportunities in Danang.

Luxury Apartment units come fully furnished with high-end furniture and modern electronic equipment

The Four Points by Sheraton Hotel and Luxury Apartment is one of the key projects serving the APEC 2017 Conference in Danang in November this year.

Property at Luxury Apartment is marketed by Singaporean real estate agency Century 21, a prestigious agency with 7,000 franchise brokerage offices in 76 countries around the world, bringing the project close to potential customerswherever they may be.

A further point of pride, Luxury Apartment is one of the few Vietnamese property projects invited to the International Real Estate Exhibition hosted by Property Guru in Singapore on April 22 and 23, 2017.

Project information:

Location: Vo Nguyen Giap - Tran Huu Tuoc Intersection, Son Tra, Danang

Developer: Alphanam Real Estate Joint Stock Company

Hotline: +84 916 20 7979 | +65 9450 3907

Website: luxuryapartment.com.vn
So far, scientific studies have mostly concluded that mobile phones pose no serious risk to human health. (AFP/BERTRAND GUAY)

In a ruling handed down on Apr 11 but only made public on Thursday (Apr 20), the court in the northern town of Ivrea awarded the plaintiff a state-funded pension.

The ruling is subject to a possible appeal.

Roberto Romeo, 57, had testified that his work duties obliged him to use his mobile for three to four hours of each working day for 15 years.

"For the first time in the world, a court has recognised a causal link between inappropriate use of a mobile phone and a brain tumour," his lawyers, Stefano Bertone and Renato Ambrosio said in a statement.

Romeo said he did not want to demonise mobiles, "but I believe we have to be more aware about how to use them.

"I had no choice but to use my mobile to talk to colleagues and organise work - for 15 years I was calling all the time, from home, in the car.

"I started to have the feeling of my right ear being blocked all the time and the tumour was diagnosed in 2010. Happily, it was benign but I can no longer hear anything because they had to remove my acoustic nerve."

A medical expert estimated the damage to Romeo at 23 per cent of his bodily function, prompting the judge to make a compensation award of 500 per month (US$536) to be paid by INAIL, a national insurance scheme covering workplace accidents.

Scientific studies of the potential health risks of mobile phones have mostly concluded that they pose no serious risk to human health at the level of most people's use.

Heavier use may pose some risk, other studies have found, and many experts say it is too early to do a proper assessment of what is a relatively new technology.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong has submitted a variety of proposed solutions to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to help the struggling pig-farming industry recover.-Photo infonet.vn

The move comes after the price of live pigs kept falling, dropping to VND30,000 (US$1.32) per kilo in recent months. With no indication of an end to this downward spiral, pig breeders across the country are facing losses, the Infonet online newspaper reported.

Previously, the price per kilo of live pig was VND40,000 ($1.76). One of the reasons for the fall is said to be oversupply.

Le Dinh Thanh, deputy director of Hoang Hoa Livestock Investment and Development Company in the central province of Thanh Hoa, said due to the price drop the company cannot sell 2,000 pigs and is losing VND1.6-1.8 billion each month on animal feed, veterinary expenses, electricity and water bills.

If the market does not recover, the company will go bankrupt, Thanh said, urging provincial authorities to come up with solutions.

Mai The Sang, head of Livestock Division at the Agriculture and Rural Development Deparment of Thanh Hoa Province, said the price of live pigs dropped at the end of 2016 due to oversupply and unchanged demand on the domestic market, as well as difficulties in meat exports.

Nguyen Van Quang, a farmer in the northern province of Thai Binh, one of provinces with the largest pig production in Viet Nam, said the price of live pig was VND52,000 per kilo in April 2016 but dropped to VND34,000 after Tet (the Lunar New Year Festical) this year. Now the price is at VND24,000 per kilo, he said.

Under the situation, minister Cuong has proposed reducing the price of animal feed and veterinary medicine, and finding a stable market for domestic pork meat. He also suggested the Government direct banks and credit institutions to erase the debts of pig breeders, and people selling animal feed to help them recover their losses.

In the long term, the ministry will push for the use of modern technology to reduce production costs, improve productivity and seek potential export markets for domestic pork meat, he said.

The ministry has planned to instruct localities across the country to review, suspend and not issue licences for new animal-feed processing facilities as the current productivity is 31 million tonnes per year, far more than the target of 25 million tonnes by 2025.

The ministry also plans to reduce the livestock inventory from the current 4.2 million sows to three million by 2019.

Long-term solutions involve applying the supply chain model to maintain food hygiene and safety, control prices, and adjust the demand and supply of pork meat, he said.

Nguyen Van Duc, head of Livestock and Veterinary Sub-department in Thai Binh Province, said farmers should reduce the pig production cost by joining hands with each other to develop livestock chains from production to consumption for sustainable development of the industry.
The biggest increase in investment capital in the textile and garment sector in the year so far is the expansion of the plant to manufacture polyester fibre products by Taiwanese Polytex Far Eastern Group in Binh Duong Province. This investor has been granted a license to increase investment capital by an additional $485.8 million less than two years after making the first investment in the project, raising the total investment to nearly $760 million.

Although the investment in Vietnam was admittedly to take advantage of business opportunities from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, Far Eastern affirmed that even if the TPP is suspended, their capital increase plan will remain unchanged. Earlier in June 2015, this investor was granted an investment certificate for the construction of the plant. The facility covered 99 hectares with the investment value of $274 million for the first phase.

Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS) said that a number of South Korean investors are also planning to expand their production in Dong Nai and Binh Duong with the ambition to exploit export markets in the near future. The decision to increase capital in the context that textile and garment export has just undergone a difficult year shows the confidence of foreign investors in the sector.

Domestic textile and garment enterprises also have not lose sight of the expansion trend. Accordingly, Vietnam National Textile Garment Group (Vinatex) will launch the construction of Phu Cuong Fibre Factory phase II in Phu Cuong commune, Dinh Quan district, Dong Nai Province. This projects scale is as same as the first phase, with a designed output of more than 5,000 tonnes of yarn per year, and holding a total investment of more than VND460 billion ($21.85 million).

In addition, the construction of Nam Dinh Fibre Factory phase II is also included in the 2017 investment plans of Vinatex, with the total investment of more than VND300 million ($14.25 million), serving export products. According to Cao Huu Hieu, head of the Investment Department at Vinatex, the investment will be made regardless of the TPPs fate. These projects will produce inputs with an aim to enhance added value for the textile and garment sector and reduce sewing projects.

Vu Duc Giang, chairman of the VITAS, said that in the second half of 2016, the purchase and sales transactions in the Vietnamese textile and garment sector experienced signs of slowdown. However, the export performance in the first quarter of 2017 encouraged enterprises a great deal. The export turnover of $6.7 billion, up 12-13 per cent quarter-on-quarter, showed that foreign importers still praise the capacity of Vietnamese textile and garment exporters.

Than Duc Viet, deputy director general of Garment 10 Joint Stock Company, told VIR the textile and garment industry is the first in Vietnam to join the global supply chain and enterprises in the industry are quite sensitive to market conditions in each period. Without the TPP, Vietnamese enterprises still have export markets. The reality is that the more difficulties Garco 10 Corporation  JSC faces, the stronger it will go on the offensive, investing in in expansion and acquisition of machinery, equipment, as well as factories from weaker enterprises.

According to VITAS, in case the TPP falls through or is started without the United States participation, the textile and garment sector also has a complementary host of free trade agreements (FTAs) with other partners, such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the European Union, to achieve sound growth. The industrys exports account for only three per cent of the total textile and garment imports in the EU and 11 per cent in the United States. In case Vietnamese companies can take full advantage of these markets, there will be opportunities to achieve breakthrough growth in the 2018-2020 period.
Survey results released on April 19 showed that brands which commit to selling green and safe products reported a growth rate of 4%, with foods and beverages expanding by between 2.5% and 11.4% in recent years.

Dang Thuy Ha from Nielsen Vietnam said that in order to increase competitiveness, companies should pay more attention to building green brands.

Accordingly, enterprises should build up consumers confidence in their brands through commitments on social and environmental responsibilities as well as put consumers health at the centre of their product development.

Vu Xuan Truong from the Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy said that green products are becoming a competitive edge of many enterprises to conquer the market.

He said that enterprises should employ energy-efficient technologies, implement their social responsibilities and protect the environment in order to build green brands.

However, there are still many challenges facing Vietnamese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized businesses, which lack funds to invest in green product development while having to balance between the two goals of profit and green growth.

In addition, there are a wide range of green technologies in the world but the application in Vietnam is limited because in some cases employees at enterprises are underqualified to utilise technologies transferred to them.

The Trade Promotion Agency said in the time ahead it would foster the ecological labelling programme and promote mutual recognition of green labels between Vietnam and other countries to facilitate local enterprises to expand their markets.
Cambodias ambassador to South Korea, Long Dimanche, has claimed that there are between 3,000 and 4,000 Cambodian laborers working illegally in South Korea.

Altogether there are more than 53,000 Cambodians working in the country, he said.

Dimanche said the workers there without a visa had refused to return home.

We always informed them and disseminated information to them that all of you, who are workers with finished work contracts, must return home in order to re-apply to take an exam and go back [to South Korea], he said.

But if they dont return home, they will become illegal workers. They will face risks, confronting with some employers who have ill mind and exploit their blood and sweat. This is an issue, he added.

He said unless the workers returned to Cambodia they would lack insurance and miss out on other benefits.

Labor rights groups said workers are often reluctant to return home as they fear losing the higher wages that working abroad brings in.

Dy Thehoya of the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights said there was a careless attitude from government officials when it came to ensuring workers did not stay on illegally.

From our experience working directly with migrant workers, we havent seen any serious attention on keeping track of or rescuing people working in receiving countries, he said.

He added that the government should make workers aware that if they work illegally in South Korea they could face expensive legal action.

Chum Sounry, foreign affairs spokesman, could not be reached.
The government has ordered 50,000 members of the armed forces to be deployed during the upcoming local elections to provide security.

Speaking at a police academy on Tuesday, Interior Minister Sar Kheng praised the actions of the armed forces during the peaceful 2013 election.

At that time there were no deaths in the election even though there were words and phrases exchanged that impacted each other ... there were clashes but no one was killed, he said.

In protests and strikes following the 2013 election, at least five people were killed by the security forces.

Kirt Chantharith, National Police spokesman, said the troops would be deployed to 20,000 polling stations around the country, adding that they would not disrupt the vote.

There is nothing to be afraid of ... we have experience in providing public order and security in past elections, so I hope in the commune election process that there will be no safety issues.

Yoeurng Sotheara, a legal officer with election monitor Comfrel, said it was standard procedure to deploy security officials to monitor the polls, adding that if there was large-scale armed forces deployment it could disrupt the democratic process.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has told migrant workers in South Korea not to worry about their safety, saying the likelihood of conflict breaking out on the peninsula is remote.

The premier said the recent trading of threats between North Korea and the US was the flex of their muscles, adding that Cambodia had no plans to evacuate its citizens.

First, the war has yet to happen so why do we need to evacuate? Evacuations are no small thing, via sea or air, because there is no road connection, he said.

Second, staying is safer than evacuation. Just live the way the Korean people are living.

He said that the tens of thousands of workers would lose their jobs if they were pulled out of the country.

Last week, the US announced it was sending the warship USS Carl Vinson to the area.

Long Dimanche, Cambodias envoy to Seoul, said little had changed in South Korea and that workers were not concerned.

Meas Ny, a social development researcher, said that while the threat of conflict was low, the government should nevertheless be prepared for the worst.

We need to have a plan for an urgent situation to transport out workers when needed, he said.

Workers pay taxes to the government so the government should do more to provide services in case of emergency.
What impact will the Paris attack have on the French election? Will a deadly attack on a police bus in the heart of Paris affect the outcome of the French presidential election? Eleven candidates are running to replace president Francois Hollande. VOA European correspondent Luis Ramirez and VOA Macedonian Service reporter Jane Bojadzievski discuss the looming election in France, where far right candidates are gaining ground, especially in the wake of this weeks attack against police officers in Paris.
Albanias top diplomat called on the Democratic Party-led opposition to end its ongoing parliamentary boycott and re-engage in the legislative process, echoing a plea made earlier this week by Germanys foreign minister.

Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati expressed his views about the political situation in Albania in an exclusive interview Thursday with VOAs Albanian Service.

Bushati held talks with State Department officials about efforts to resolve domestic political tensions ahead of upcoming general elections in the Western Balkan nation.

The State Department issued a statement reiterating that plea shortly after meeting with Bushati.

Judiciary corruption

Albanias ruling officials allege that opposition legislators are boycotting parliament to block justice reforms required to kick-start European Union membership negotiations with Brussels. Judiciary corruption has been a primary obstacle to Albanias post-communist development, and the necessary reforms, prepared with assistance from EU and U.S. experts, were unanimously approved last year.

Opposition lawmakers are refusing to participate in the June 18 elections unless Prime Minister Edi Rama steps down and a caretaker government is formed to guide the country to election day. Otherwise, they allege, Ramas Cabinet will manipulate the vote with drug money, which leaves them unwilling to negotiate any compromise.

Albania has seen a substantial increase in marijuana cultivation under Ramas watch.

US, EU agree

After meeting with Tom Shannon, the State Departments undersecretary for political affairs, Bushati told VOA that U.S. policymakers, like their EU counterparts, see Albanian justice reform as vital to securing the countrys role as a regional bulwark against terrorism recruitment networks.

This administration will pay attention to the same issues that are considered a priority for U.S. foreign policy, he said. And here I want to stress justice reform, security issues, democratization process in Albania and the [Balkans]  cooperation on issues regarding terrorism and radicalism.

In addition to meeting with U.S. defense and national security officials, Bushati addressed Washingtons German Marshall Fund on Wednesday, where he called Albanias soft measures against violent extremism a success to be emulated by neighboring countries.

In the case of Albania, we have seen very effective cooperation with religious [and] community leaders in confronting [radicalism], he said, explaining that no foreign fighters had been recruited directly from his country in the last year.

In 2015, researchers at West Points Countering Terrorism Center reported that an estimated 500 ethnic Albanians had traveled from the Balkans to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State group since 2012.

Bushati has served as Albanias foreign minister since September 2013. He previously chaired the Parliamentary Committee for European Integration.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOAs Albanian Service.
A man was shot and killed Thursday night during massive protests in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, authorities said, making him the ninth person to be killed during protests in the country this month.

Carlos Ocariz, mayor of Sucre municipality, announced the young man's death on Twitter and called for an investigation and punishment for the man's killer.

"With much pain, I report the death by gunshot of Melvin Guaitan, humble neighborhood worker of Sucre municipality #Petare," he wrote. "We demand that the culprits be investigated and punished!"

Ocariz did not provide immediate details about the killing or say whether Guaitan had been participating in the demonstrations.

Neighborhoods in Caracas have had nearly daily and increasingly violent protests over the past month as the country slides deeper into an economic crisis.

WATCH: Venezuelan protesters speak out



Violence Thursday night forced the evacuation of children and mothers from a maternity hospital when the building was flooded with tear gas. Anti-government protesters blamed riot police for the attack, but Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said armed groups hired by President Nicolas Maduro's opponents were to blame.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans participated in the demonstrations to denounce what they consider an increasingly authoritarian government.

The ongoing demonstrations started after the Venezuelan Supreme Court's March 30 announcement that it would strip the opposition-controlled National Assembly of its legislative powers. The court reversed its position in the wake of domestic and international outcries about an attempted power grab.

On Saturday, protesters are planning to march silently through the capital while wearing white to commemorate those that have been killed during the demonstrations.
Arkansas has executed an inmate for the first time in nearly a dozen years as part of its plan to execute several inmates before a drug expires April 30, despite court rulings that have already spared three men.



Ledell Lees execution was the first in the state since 2005. He was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m. Thursday, four minutes before his death warrant was to expire.



Lee, 51, was put on death row for the 1993 death of his neighbor Debra Reese, whom Lee struck 36 times with a tire tool her husband had given her for protection. Lee was arrested less than an hour after the killing after spending some of the $300 he had stolen from Reese.



More executions planned

Two more inmates are set to die Monday, and one on April 27. Another inmate scheduled for execution next week has received a stay.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Ledell Lees execution, rejecting a round of last-minute appeals the condemned inmates attorneys filed. An earlier ruling from the state Supreme Court allowing officials to use a lethal-injection drug that a supplier says was obtained by misleading the company cleared the way for Lees execution.



Arkansas dropped plans to execute a second inmate, Stacey Johnson, on the same day after the state Supreme Court said it wouldnt reconsider his stay, which was issued so Johnson could seek more DNA tests in hopes of proving his innocence.



The state originally set four double executions over an 11-day period in April. The eight executions would have been the most by a state in such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The state says the executions need to be carried out before its supply of one lethal injection drug, midazolam, expires April 30. Three executions were canceled because of court decisions, and legal rulings have put at least one of the other five in doubt.



Justices on Thursday reversed an order by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray that halted the use of vecuronium bromide, one of three drugs used in the states lethal-injection process, in any execution. McKesson Corp. says the state obtained the drug under false pretenses and that it wants nothing to do with executions.



McKesson said it was disappointed in the courts ruling.



We believe we have done all we can do at this time to recover our product, the company said in a statement.



Justices also denied an attempt by makers of midazolam and potassium chloride  the two other drugs in Arkansas execution plan  to intervene in McKessons fight over the vecuronium bromide. The pharmaceutical companies say there is a public health risk if their drugs are diverted for use in executions, and that the states possession of the drugs violates rules within their distribution networks.

Governor frustrated



The legal maneuvers frustrated Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who had set the execution schedule less than two months ago. The states elected prosecutors also criticized the roadblocks to the execution plans.



Through the manipulation of the judicial system, these men continue to torment the victims families in seeking, by any means, to avoid their just punishment, the prosecutors said in a joint statement issued Thursday.



Lawyers for the state have complained that the inmates are filing court papers just to run out the clock on Arkansas midazolam supply. Prisons director Wendy Kelley has said the state has no way to obtain more midazolam or vecuronium bromide.

Earlier in the evening, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on a previous batch of appeals with new justice Neil Gorsuch voting with the majority of five to deny the stay of execution sought by Lee and the other inmates. Justice Stephen Breyer said in a dissent he was troubled by Arkansas push to execute the inmates before its supply of midazolam expires.



Apparently the reason the state decided to proceed with these eight executions is that the use by date of the states execution drug is about to expire. ... In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random, Breyer wrote.
The government of Cameroon has restored the internet to the country's two English-speaking regions after a three-month blackout, but it is unclear whether the move will be enough to restart dialogue to end the unrest that began in November.

Abeng Sylvan moved his roadside cyber cafe to Yaounde from Bamenda when the internet was cut in the northwest. The connection was restored late Thursday.

"I was almost losing hope," Sylvan said. "Paying my rents and all the light bills was really difficult.  But when I heard it came, I was very happy."

But he may have to wait to move his business home.

Cameroon government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma Bakary says the internet is being reinstated gradually to the two English-speaking regions, the northwest and the southeast.

The internet was cut in January following violent unrest related to an ongoing strike. The government said the strikers were using social media to spread secessionist and anti-government messages.

The minister of post and telecommunication, Libom Lili Keng, says although service is back, controls will be intensified.

She says the government is equipped to control internet use, and Cameroon's security forces have platforms to track and control people  just as is done in all other countries. She added that Cameroonians should not abuse social media.

Restoring the internet is one of three conditions posed by the organizers of the six-month strike before they will resume dialogue with the government.

The other conditions are that all people arrested in relation to the strike be released unconditionally, and that the state withdraw the soldiers deployed to English-speaking zones since the start of the strike. The government has given no indication it will make concessions on either demand.

But Che David of cameroon.net, a security surveillance enterprise that had to relocate to Yaounde during the blackout, says restoring the internet is a start.

"To me, it is a bold step that the government has taken to solve the problem," he said. "You know, the people were cut off and they knew they were not part of la Republique Du Cameroun. But now that the internet has been given back to them, they feel involved. They feel being citizens in a country."

The unrest began in November when anglophone teachers and lawyers in the two affected areas went on strike, calling for reforms to address what they say is the marginalization of English in the bilingual country.

Last week, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative to Central Africa, Francois Lonseny Fall, visited Cameroon. He called for frank dialogue to address the long-standing tensions. The U.N. official also called on the government to reinstate the internet and release the detainees.
An Egyptian-American charity worker freed after nearly three years of detention in Egypt returned Thursday night to the United States, the White House said.



Aya Hijazi, 30, and her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, an Egyptian, arrived in the Washington area, said a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the case by name and requested anonymity.



Earlier this week a court acquitted Hijazi of charges of child abuse that were widely dismissed as bogus by human rights groups and U.S. officials. She and her husband had established a foundation to aid street children in 2013, but were arrested along with several others in 2014.



Her case was on the agenda when President Donald Trump met earlier this month with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.



Details of their arrival were first reported by The Washington Post. Their release and the freedom of four other humanitarian workers were negotiated by Trump and White House aides, and Trump sent a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring them home, the Post reported.



Hijazi, a dual national, was born in Egypt and grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, a Washington suburb. She received a degree in conflict resolution from George Mason University in 2009.
Chinas increasingly close relations with rivals in Southeast Asia put it in a position to disregard a harsh statement from a powerful group of foreign ministers this month, as well as other rebukes over its expansions in the South China Sea.

Beijing, which has expanded quickly into the vast, contested sea over the past decade, despite competing claims from smaller states, met fresh criticism from the Group of 7 foreign ministers in mid-April.

A G7 joint communique urged countries around the sea to use a world court arbitration ruling against China as a useful basis for settling disputes. A tribunal in The Hague ruled last year that Beijing lacked a legal basis for claims to more than 90 percent of the South China Sea, a resource-rich 3.5 million-square-kilometer tract also claimed by five other governments.

At most (China) will just probably repeat what theyve been saying about it  its a ruling that they dont really recognize, said Herman Kraft, political scientist at University of the Philippines Diliman. I dont think theyre really going to pay any attention to it that would significantly indicate any change in their position.

Arguably (the communique) is just one of these statements coming from admittedly international organizations, but international organizations made up of countries that beyond talking about the issue and encouraging China to actually recognize and abide by the ruling, I dont think theyre really going to do anything about it, he said.

Ignoring pressure

China can afford to ignore pressure from the G7, the world court ruling or periodic criticism from the United States because it is pursuing peaceful cooperation with countries that directly contest Beijings maritime claims, analysts say.

I think China is not interested in talking about the South China Sea situation, not to further complicate the issue, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. I think basically they consider the situation as under control and nobody is disrupting or trying to disturb the trend or current state of the South China Sea.

Economic strings

Beijing was working on economic cooperation with the smallest claimant, Brunei, before the arbitration ruling. In Malaysia, despite regular sightings of Chinese coast guard vessels in waters it claims, officials seldom confront China because they count it as their top trading partner and biggest source of direct foreign investment.

China, an $11 trillion-plus economy, has stepped up talks over the past three years with Vietnam, once its harshest maritime rival, on cooperation in the disputed sea.

The Philippines had filed the world court arbitration to resist Chinese coast guard control of a shoal off the archipelagos west coasts. But President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office last year in Manila, has set aside the dispute to discuss investment.

G7 and Silk Road

The G7 ministers are from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. None have a claim to the sea, which lies entirely in Asia, but Beijing is looking to Europe for help with its Silk Road policy of spreading Chinese investment through central Asia to the Atlantic.

We reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions which increase tensions, such as the threat or use of force, large scale land reclamation, building of outposts, as well as their use for military purposes and urge all parties to pursue demilitarization of disputed features and to comply with their obligations under international law, said the communique posted to the G7 website states.

China has used landfill to expand tiny features in the seas Paracel and Spartly island chains. Some of those islets are prepped for use by combat aircraft and radar systems, think tank researchers believe.

Other countries report regular sightings of Chinese coast guard vessels in exclusive economic zones extending 370 kilometers off their coasts.

Criticism meets quiet

China called the July 12, 2016, arbitration result a farce. It also vented after the G7 ministers criticized its maritime expansion a year ago but has kept quieter this year. Beijing seldom responds to foreign organizations critical of Chinese motives for creating artificial islands for military infrastructure.

Unless one of the Southeast Asian claimants steps up relations with the United States, Beijing can weather any international criticism, analysts say.

The U.S. government disputes Beijings efforts to control the South China Sea and has sent naval ships, alarming Beijing. But President Donald Trump has not followed former President Barack Obamas lead in bolstering military aid for any of the four Southeast Asian claimants.

China is the biggest winner in the South China Sea contest, said Lin Chong-pin, a retired professor and former deputy defense minister in Taiwan. We know that the effects of the world court arbitration ruling actually came to nothing.
South China Sea Chinese forces tried to drive away two Philippine planes carrying Manila's defense and military chiefs Friday near a Chinese man-made island, officials said, adding they admired seeing up close the stunning city-like features, including buildings, roads and a runway in the South China Sea's hotly contested region.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the aircraft continued uninterrupted after Filipino pilots messaged back to the Chinese that they were flying over Philippine territory. The Chinese warned the Philippine aircraft they were entering the periphery of Chinese installations and told to avoid miscalculation.

The aircraft that took Lorenzana, military chief of staff Gen. Eduardo Ano and about 40 journalists to Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island were "challenged'' by China as they flew in the vicinity of Chinese-held Subi Reef, just 25 kilometers (15 miles) away.

"Those were just exchanges and no untoward incident happened,'' Lorenzana told reporters, adding that those normally transpire amid the unresolved territorial conflicts.

The Chinese navy has similarly warned U.S. ships and aircraft to leave what Beijing claims as its territory, messages which the Americans also ignored.

On Pag-asa, known internationally as Thitu, Lorenzana announced that the Philippines would start to develop the island, the second-largest in the Spratly archipelago, with plans for a wharf and reinforcing and extending the partly-eroded dirt airstrip. China may protest the planned constructions, but Lorenzana said he did not expect it to worsen into a confrontation.

Asked what he thought of China's rapidly developed Subi Reef near Pag-asa, Lorenzana he was awed.

"A grudging admiration to the Chinese for their resolve and single-mindedness to bolster their claims,'' Lorenzana said in a text message to The Associated Press. "I wished we had the same.''

China claims virtually the entire sea and has aggressively tried to fortify its foothold by transforming in recent years seven mostly submerged reefs into island outposts, some with runways and radars and more recently weapons systems, to the consternation of other claimants and the United States, which insists on freedom of navigation in international waters.

Philippine security officials also said they were checking reports that Filipino fishermen were harassed by the Chinese coast guard near Union Bank in the South China Sea few days ago. Lorenzana said authorities have yet to get the fishermen's statements, but if true, the Philippines would file a diplomatic protest with China.

China's radio warnings to the Philippine military planes took place despite the improved relations between the Asian neighbors after President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in June, reached out to Beijing.

Duterte himself had planned to fly to Pag-asa to raise his country's flag when the Philippines celebrates its Independence Day on June 12, but dropped the plan after China raised concerns.

After a flag-raising ceremony on Pag-asa, Lorenzana told troops that Duterte had ordered him to inspect the island and ensure facilities are built there as soon as possible.

About 1.6 billion pesos ($32 million) has been earmarked for the construction, including a fish port, solar power, water desalination plant, improved housing for soldiers, and facilities for marine research and tourists.

The government also plans to fortify small buildings on eight much smaller reefs and atolls occupied by Filipino forces.

The latest visit may highlight the territorial disputes when Duterte hosts an annual summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Manila next week. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which the Philippines currently chairs, expects to conclude talks with China this year on the framework of a regional code of conduct that aims to prevent the long-simmering disputes from escalating into a shooting war.


After a racially and religiously-charged election that resulted in a runoff, Jakarta finally has a new governor and Indonesia is facing the reality that political Islam has entered the public discourse in a way unprecedented in modern Indonesian politics.

Anies Baswedan, a university rector and former minister of education and culture, handily beat Chinese-Christian Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who became acting governor after his boss, Joko Jokowi Widodo, won the 2014 presidential election.

Ahok was widely popular until September 2016, when he quoted the Quran at a campaign speech in the Thousand Islands fishing region, and Islamist hardliners seized upon a video clip of it to charge him with blasphemy. The formerly fringe group known as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) organized two enormous protests in Jakarta, where they called for Ahok to be jailed and even killed.

Those demonstrations pushed the national police to charge him with blasphemy in November, which means he was on trial while campaigning for re-election.

The case would have created a political quandary had Ahok won the race; could he, for instance, govern from jail? Thats no longer in question, but the final verdict wont be delivered for another few weeks.

Judges are expected to show leniency given his loss, and this week, the prosecution floated a light sentence of two years probation, without jail time. The FPI, however, is still lobbying for the maximum sentence of five years in jail.

Political Islam normalized

Although 87 percent of Indonesians are Muslim, its government is formally secular and its constitution protects six religions, giving no special status to Islam (as in neighboring Malaysia).

Baswedan, formerly known as a centrist moderate, allied with the FPI and religious hardliners throughout his campaign. When Baswedan won on Wednesday, he explicitly praised Islamic clerics (ulama) and teachers (kyai), and his campaign leader, Mardani Ali Sera, praised FPI and its incendiary leader, Habib Rizieq, as important pillars of this victory.

People were intimidated [throughout this campaign] with propaganda of 'Bela Islam,' 'Hell vs. Heaven', and 'Us vs Them,' said Alissa Wahid, a leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesias largest moderate Muslim organization. And threats of becoming outcasts in their immediate kampung, or neighborhood, said Wahid. Muslims who voted for Ahok felt they would attract social stigma.

Wahid said this was a bad omen for the 2019 presidential election, when Jokowi will run for re-election. Ahoks loss is seen as a hit for Jokowi, as the pair led Jakarta together and remain close. Baswedans victory is also being celebrated by Jokowis 2014 presidential opponent, Prabowo Subianto.

Recent links have emerged about a loose coalition of anti-Ahok and anti-Jokowi forces, including Prabowo; Fadli Zon, vice speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives; billionaire Hary Tanoe; and the Indonesian military.

Unique candidate

That said, Ahoks loss did not merely fall along sectarian lines. Plenty of Jakartans had grievances with Ahoks pugnacious governing style, like the thousands of poor people who were evicted from their homes to make room for redevelopment. These citizens, from seaside neighborhoods like Pasar Ikan and Luar Batang, enthusiastically joined the FPI rallies last fall and fervently campaigned against Ahok in recent months.

In Rumah Susun, a low-income apartment where Ahok forcibly relocated hundreds of poor East Jakarta residents, Baswedan won 93 percent of the vote.

Political analyst Philips J. Vermonte, writing in the Jakarta Post, also explained how Ahoks electability was never secure even before the blasphemy case, because his favorability rating never rose above 50 percent, even as his performance ratings were high.

And although racism became regrettably and unprecedentedly public this year, anti-Chinese sentiment is not new in Indonesia. Even during Jokowis gubernatorial campaign, groups like FPI made racially charged attacks on Ahok.

The difference is that they didnt stick at the time, but perhaps thats because their ticket was headlined by a Javanese Muslim. Ahok has never faced a true election in Jakarta  he comes from the small province of Bangka-Belitung  and he likely always faced steep odds.

Ian Wilson, a Murdoch University researcher who has worked extensively on urban poverty in Jakarta, thinks both candidates ignored economic inequality, which left the field open for sectarian baiting.

Despite the seeming differences between the Ahok and Anies camps, reproduced over and over in commentary as one between 'pluralism' vs sectarianism, the coalitions surrounding each of the two candidates consists of the one percent; some of the richest people in the country, all of whom have benefited significantly from the same economic conditions that have left millions of Indonesians in or near poverty, Wilson told VOA.

That is to say, in Indonesia, like many other places in the world, economic populism is enmeshed with resurgent identity politics. Jakarta just joined the list of regions wracked by exhausting elections, whose winners have a rather long road ahead.
Challenges are growing to the validity of Sunday's referendum in Turkey to extend the country's presidential powers.

"Referendum won by cheating," declared Osman Baydemir, spokesman of the pro-Kurdish HDP, Turkey's second-largest opposition party.



An HDP report on the vote said 2,462 "No" campaigners were detained and 453 jailed during the 85-day campaign. HDP's honorary president and deputy, Ertugrul Kurkcu, said the past two months were a "total violation of democratic principles."



Kurkcu said the investigation revealed widespread abuse on voting day.



"It's obvious," he said. "Fraud is extensive. Invalid ballots and envelopes were very widely deliberately used, as well as people forced to vote openly in remote districts and villages, using votes for people who are away from their homes, like construction workers or agricultural migrant laborers."

Under Turkey's election law, all ballots and the envelopes they are placed in have to have an official stamp  a measure aimed at preventing vote stuffing. But on voting day, the Supreme Election Board sanctioned uncertified ballots.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored the election, strongly condemned the move in an interim report Monday. The report also highlighted difficulties of monitoring voting procedures in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, citing cases of its monitors being temporarily detained by security forces.



The HDP, too, claimed its monitors were excluded by security forces from numerous voting stations in rural parts of the southeast, the center of renewed fighting between Turkish security forces and the Kurdish PKK.

"There is much greater presence of security forces in the region than there has been for many years," observed Emma Sinclair-Webb, a Turkey researcher with Human Right's Watch. "We've seen pictures circulating on social media of people armed in front of ballot boxes, taking photos of those voting at ballot boxes. Of course, this could have had an intimidating effect on people voting, and this needs investigating."

Dismissing complaints



On Tuesday, the Supreme Election Board dismissed all complaints and calls by opposition parties for a revote. The decision was made in less than a day, despite calls by the European Commission for a full and transparent investigation. The ruling cannot be legally challenged and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim declared the issue resolved.



The referendum to turn Turkey from a parliamentary to an executive presidency was carried out under Emergency Rule and only narrowly passed by 51 to 49 percent of the vote.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who led the "Yes" campaign, saw his traditional strongholds of Turkey's largest cities vote against him, including Istanbul and Ankara. The Kurdish region voted 40 percent yes, significantly higher than the support Erdogan's AK Parry secured in November's general election.



Throughout his campaign, Erdogan courted the Turkish nationalist votes, taking a hardline against the pro-Kurdish right movements. He has presided over an unprecedented crackdown on the PKK since a collapse in the peace process in 2015.



The referendum vote is being interpreted by the presidency as a turning point.

"By making a very clear distinction between the Kurds and the PKK, President Erdogan and the government have won the Kurdish confidence again" wrote Presidential adviser Ibrahim Kalin in Sabah newspaper.



The HDP acknowledged that all the voters the "Yes" camp cannot be explained by fraud.

"Under the circumstance, imagine a town already destroyed by military, the leadership of popular movement is crushed the people left alone," said Kurkcu. "Face to face with the aggressors, under those circumstance, people have to make their decision before the barrel of a gun. But Erdogan won with fraud, and this referendum is stained by fraud."



The president and his government dismiss such concerns as belonging in the past, arguing it is time to look to the future.
4 A man from the Netherlands shows his tattoos on the back of his head on the first day of the Frankfurt Tattoo Convention in Frankfurt, Germany.
A group of heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers Friday attacked a regional military base in northern Afghanistan, reportedly killing dozens of soldiers in one of the deadliest assaults on Afghan forces in recent years.

Local authorities said the coordinated attack began with a suicide bomber exploding himself at a checkpoint, making way for other assailants to enter the headquarters of the 209th Shaheen Corps in Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province.

Witnesses told VOA the insurgents were aboard two Afghan army vehicles and disguised as government soldiers. They targeted personnel of the Afghan National Army, who were leaving a mosque after offering afternoon prayers.

A group of attackers then stormed a dining facility and inflicted further casualties before Afghan commandos surrounded and engaged them in a gunbattle.

A U.S. Central Command spokesman told reporters in Washington that dozens of "friendly" Afghans died during the attack.

Colonel John Thomas described the incident as a "significant attack from enemy forces" and said "we are helping the Afghan forces in any way that we can."

"We're talking probably more than 50 casualties," he said.

Taliban claims responsibility

The Taliban took credit for the attack, saying it involved a large number of suicide bombers who had inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan forces.

Afghan Defense Ministry officials, at the beginning of the attack, confirmed the deaths of at least eight soldiers.

But politicians in Mazar-i-Sharif and journalists late Friday said the death toll was much higher, with some saying it could exceed 60.

Afghan authorities had not released the latest casualty toll, though, hours after the siege ended.

The number of attackers was said to be between eight and 10. Some of them reportedly detonated explosives strapped to their bodies, while others were gunned down by security forces, ending the hours-long siege.

The Afghan military base houses tens of thousands of soldiers who are regularly engaged in anti-Taliban operations in troubled northern regions of the country.

Military advisers and trainers from NATO's U.S.-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan are also stationed at the base. But there were no reports of foreign troop casualties.

General John Nicholson, U.S. commander of the international military mission, denounced the violence as "murderous and reprehensible actions."

A statement quoted him as saying the assault showed "the barbaric nature of the Taliban. They killed soldiers at prayer in a mosque and others in a dining facility."

Bombing in November

Balkh is among Afghanistan's relatively peaceful and prosperous provinces.

A truck bombing this past November in the provincial capital targeted the German consulate, killing six Afghans and injuring more than 100 others.

Friday's insurgent assault was the deadliest since April 2016, when Taliban suicide bombers stormed an office of the Afghan intelligence agency in Kabul, killing at least 60 people.

The latest violence came a month after suicide bombers assaulted the country's largest military hospital in the Afghan capital, killing about 40 people and wounding dozens more. Doctors and soldiers were among the victims.

That attack was claimed by loyalists of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
A pilot from the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, which is sailing toward the Korean Peninsula, ejected safely from a fighter jet, the U.S. Pacific Command said Friday.

Navy officials said the pilot of the single-seat jet was conducting "routine flight operations" over the Celebes Sea before he ejected. The plane then crashed. The cause was not given. The Navy's Seventh Fleet said the incident was under investigation.

The pilot was reported to have no apparent injuries.

The Vinson is expected to arrive in the region of the Korean Peninsula next week as it makes its way north from Singapore. The supercarrier is being sent to respond to tensions over North Korean military provocations.
An award-winning documentary has captured the innovative ways farmers and others are trying to make the planet a greener, more sustainable place.

Winner of the 2016 Cesar for best documentary, the French equivalent of an Oscar, Tomorrow charts a road trip in which co-directors Cyril Dion and Melanie Laurent roam the globe in search of solutions to environmental problems.

Their journey takes them to Icelandic volcanoes, Indian slums and French farmlands, among other places, to tell the stories of ordinary people fighting climate change.

The decision to steer away from doomsday narratives  most recently seen in Leonardo DiCaprio's "Before the Flood"  came from the realization that such an approach failed to spur people into action, Dion said.

"When we focus on catastrophe, and on things that raise fear, it triggers mechanisms in the brain of rejection, flight and fear," the longtime environmental activist said in a phone interview ahead of the film's U.S. release Friday.

The film begins in the United States, where two California professors discuss their milestone 2012 study concluding climate change may signal a new cycle of mass extinction.

Soon afterward, Dion and Laurent  a French actress known for her role in "Inglourious Basterds"  hit the road.

Public plantings

In Britain, they visit the market town of Todmorden where residents have seized public spaces to plant fruit, vegetables and herbs  which pedestrians are encouraged to pick.

In the French city of Lille, the CEO of an envelope company shows them how bamboo is grown in the factory's wastewater to feed a wood boiler that powers the unit's central heating.

And in Copenhagen, local planners explain how building a labyrinth of bike paths is part of efforts to become first carbon-free capital by 2025.

"We don't make the cities to make the cars happy, to make the modernistic planners and architects happy," Jan Gehl, a local architect and urban planner, says in the film. "We have to make the cities so that citizens can have a good life and a good time."

Dion said he was confident the film would appeal to American viewers despite the many U.S. lawmakers who are skeptical about climate change and oppose regulation to combat it.

Since being sworn in January, President Donald Trump has taken several steps to undo climate change regulations put in place by the previous administration.

Trump also promised during his election campaign to pull the United States out of the global climate change pact reached in Paris in 2015.
Iran's former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been disqualified from running in next month's presidential election.

The Guardian Council, a clerical body tasked with vetting the candidates, on Thursday did approve the candidacy of incumbent President Hassan Rouhani.

Rouhani, a relative moderate, will face off against a field that includes two prominent hard-liners: Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.

Other presidential candidates who made the cut, according to an Interior Ministry statement carried by state TV, include moderate Senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, former conservative Culture Minister Mostafa Mirsalim, and former pro-reform Vice President Mostafa Hashemitaba.

Ahmadinejad announced his candidacy last week in a surprise move, despite being advised against it by Khamenei. The former president, a deeply polarizing figure even among Iranian hard-liners, left office in 2013 after two turbulent terms, leaving the country domestically divided and internationally isolated.

He was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear program. Upon registering, he said he was doing so to support his former Vice President Hamid Baghaei, who also failed to receive approval to run.

Under Iran's clerically overseen system, the president is subordinate to Khamenei, who is Iran's top decision-maker and has the final say on all matters of state.

Rouhani, 68, is hoping voters will deliver him a second term to see out his promises of greater personal freedoms at home and openness to the wider world, as he works to turn around Iran's sagging economy -- a top priority for many voters.

The election will be in many ways a referendum on his administration's negotiation of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That agreement gave Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions in exchange for limits to its nuclear program, but has been assailed by hard-liners.
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron spoke with former U.S. president Barack Obama on the phone on Thursday, in an apparent sign of support just three days before the first round of an uncertain presidential election.

Macron said Obama wanted to exchange views about the French presidential campaign and that the ex-president had stressed how important the relationship between the two countries was.

"Emmanuel Macron warmly thanked Barack Obama for his friendly call," Macron's party "En Marche!" said in a statement.

In a separate statement, Obama's spokesman added: "an endorsement was not the purpose of the call, as President Obama is not making any formal endorsement in advance of the run-off."

Macron is the only candidate so far to have said he has talked with Obama, a popular figure in France.

Macron, a pro-EU centrist, is leading most opinion polls for the election's first round and is expected to contest a second-round run-off with far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Polls show he would easily defeat her.
Senior French officials say Thursdays shooting in Paris and a planned attack foiled by police in Marseilles earlier this week are part of an effort by radical Islamists to influence the result of Frances upcoming election.



They fear more terrorism is being planned  including possibly an attack on polling day.

They want to influence French political life by directly impacting the course or even the organization of the polls, Thibault de Montbrial, former head of the French foreign ministrys internal think tank, the Center for Analysis and Prevision, told French newspaper Le Figaro.

French authorities say the gunman, named swiftly by the Islamic State terror group via its Amaq news agency as Belgian Abu Yousif al-Bajiki, opened fire on a police car parked on the Champs-Elysees, hitting three police officers and a tourist during the attack outside a Marks and Spencer clothing store.

The man was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and was shot dead as he tried to flee. One of the police officers died on the scene. Initial eyewitness reports said the dead gendarme had been shot while in his car, which was stationary at traffic lights. The gunman dashed out of another vehicle and without hesitation opened fire.

A French interior ministry spokesman said more than one attacker may have been involved and confirmed the police had been deliberately targeted. A second suspect turned himself in to authorities Friday in Antwerp, Belgium.

French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting with his top advisers and security chiefs Friday to discuss how to safeguard Sundays election. A national tribute will be paid to this policeman who was killed in such a cowardly way, the French leader later told reporters.

Pre-planned attack



British counterterrorism expert Olivier Guitta told VOA the unusual speed with which IS claimed responsibility for the attack would seem to indicate the shooting was not just inspired by the terror group but was also planned by it.

The likelihood of more terror attacks in the French presidential elections is very high, he said. Jihadists will try to influence the vote, added Guitta, who runs GlobalStrat, a London-based risk consultancy.

Thursdays shooting took place as the 11 official candidates in the election were debating live on French national television. Some political commentators speculated the attack may give a boost to Marine Le Pen, the far right populist who says immigration threatens Frances security and culture.

Le Pens opponents say the jihadists want her to win, charging that the hardline anti-immigrant policies she wants to introduce would help militant groups like Islamic State to recruit. Her supporters deny the claim.

During the debate Le Pen, who was being tipped by pollsters to top the list in the first round of the election Sunday but who has been losing ground in recent days, emphasized her long-standing call for France to leave the Schengen free movement zone and introduce much tighter border controls.

The influx of migrants is in front of us. Control our borders, otherwise we wont stop this wave! she said.

As news of the attack emerged, the candidates appeared to try to outdo each other in the toughness of their proposals for protecting France from terrorism. Enough of laxity, enough of naivety, Le Pen declared. Conservative candidate Francois Fillon proposed arresting hundreds of militant suspects on the terror watch list, like Thursdays gunman.

Tight presidential race



Pollsters have been saying for weeks that the presidential race is very tight between the top four candidates, Le Pen, Fillon, the centrist and pro-EU Emmanuel Macron and left-winger candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Analysts have said a major last-minute event could easily swing the election.

Macron, a former economy minister who has little security experience, adopted a more measured tone than Le Pen and Fillon in Thursdays debate, cautioning France would have to live with terrorism for many years to come. In a poll midweek, Macron appeared to have edged ahead of Le Pen.

On Tuesday, police in Marseilles arrested two men on suspicion of planning an imminent attack in France. Police said they found explosives and guns at an apartment linked to the suspects. The presidential candidates were warned by security chiefs to ramp up their own personal security.

Frances intelligence chief said they suspected the pair, both French-born and in their twenties, of plotting an attack to coincide with the election.

Midweek Macron and Le Pen jousted over security measures in separate radio interviews. Today fundamentalist Islam is waging war and the measures are not being taken to limit the risks, Le Pen said on RFI radio.

Macron shot back on RTL Radio: Theres no such thing as zero risk I hear Madame Le Pen... anyone who says that they can make it otherwise is both irresponsible and a liar.

Two years ago, Le Pens National Front topped the first round of regional elections weeks after the 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 dead. But the apparent boost given the National Front did not prevail in the second round and the party failed to win political control of any region.
With their Kalashnikovs and anti-aircraft missiles pointing outward, the Hezbollah militants peered at journalists from an orange grove in a village on the Israeli border.

"No photos!" a Hezbollah official ordered after almost all had taken pictures of the unusual peacetime scene.

Thursday's odd encounter was part of a south Lebanon media tour that Hezbollah organized. The objective was to highlight Israeli defensive measures taken in the past year along the southern frontier.

The choreographed outing also was meant to send a message to Israel: Hezbollah is here and ready in case of a war.

The tour was the first since an inconclusive month-long war with Israel in 2006. It came amid heightened tensions along the border, with each side promising to inflict massive casualties on the other in any conflict.

In the past month, Israel has unveiled a plan to evacuate up to a quarter-million civilians from border communities in case of attacks from Hezbollah or other Islamic militant groups. It held a drill at a base in northern Israel simulating a Lebanese village and an urban warfare environment that Israeli troops struggled with in 2006.

Israel has also built up its missile defenses. This month, it unveiled a joint U.S.-Israeli interceptor to counter Hezbollah's medium-range rockets.

Willing to fight

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said the group is not seeking a resumption of hostilities, but he vowed that if war did begin, his forces would strike Israel's Dimona nuclear facilities. Hezbollah officials also have signaled that the next war will involve fighters infiltrating Israel's northern settlements.

At the border Thursday, Hezbollah officials were keen to point out it is Israel that is preparing for war, showing journalists a series of fortifications the Israelis have made against anticipated Hezbollah infiltration  huge concrete blocks, barbed and electrified fences, deep trenches.

Standing at the border in Labbouneh, a Hezbollah officer said the measures highlight the changes in Israel's calculations.

"For the first time in this enemy's history, it is switching from an offensive to a defensive doctrine," the man who identified himself as "Ehab" told journalists.

The Labbouneh site was one of three border points visited Thursday on the U.N.-drawn "Blue Line," including a point across from a large Israeli surveillance post and radar at Jal al-Alam.

The tour, under the gaze of U.N peacekeepers based in the border town of Naqoura, sometimes took on a theatrical nature. At one point, as journalists walked near an Israeli surveillance post, two Italian U.N. peacekeepers came running up the hill, shouting for the group to stop taking photos  apparently surprised that such a large group was so close to the frontier.

The Lebanese-Israeli frontier has been mostly quiet since the 2006 war, which broke out after the Iranian-backed militant group's guerrillas crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers. The ensuing conflict killed about 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis.

The war ended with a U.N. resolution that created a buffer zone, which was supposed to be free of Hezbollah militants.

Violations unsurprising

Brigadier General Ram Yavne, head of the Israeli military's strategic division, said the latest show of arms was "more blunt" than usual, but violations of the U.N. resolution are nothing new.

He said the border tour was primarily a message of "mutual deterrence" with Israel, and that while Israel takes the threat seriously, Thursday's show of force would not change the overall "calculus."

"I don't think this organization is in a very comfortable situation these days," he said. "Its leadership absolutely understands the cost of an escalation."

Israeli officials say Hezbollah has significantly upgraded its capabilities with a larger, more sophisticated arsenal since the 2006 war. While largely staying out of the Syrian civil war, the Israeli military has carried out a number of airstrikes against suspected arms shipments thought to be headed to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, which has lost more than 1,000 of its fighters in the Syrian war, clearly has no appetite for a fight. But Salem Zahran, a Hezbollah-aligned analyst on the tour, said another war between the two was inevitable and was tied to the Syrian conflict, where there have been flare-ups with Israel in the Golan area south of Damascus.

The next war will not take place only on Lebanese territory, but also in Syria and "inside occupied Palestine," Zahran said.

He said Hezbollah wanted to send a message through the tour, in case Israel was preparing for war. "The message is: I see you, and I have another scenario for you."
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Charlottesville, a small city about 190 kilometers south of Washington D.C., is known to welcome refugees. More than 3,000 refugees, including Yasha Ismailov, have re-started their lives here, where Ismailov has built a reputation as the ultimate fixer of cars.
In 2014, a stranded motorist left a glowing review for Larrys Auto and Truck Repair, located on the outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia.

I am in the midst of hauling my horse cross country from Northern Virginia to Denver Colorado, and as I was heading onto I64W my truck broke down wrote Ariel L. from Castle Rock, Colorado, on the Yelp business review website after ending up at Larrys Auto and Truck Repair.



The man was literally waiting for me like a surgeon expecting a seriously ill patient being transported to the hospital. I'm not exaggerating when I say he took the keys from me, said to make myself comfortable



The man was Yasha Ismailov, 35, whose family owns Larrys. He is a passionate fixer of vehicles.

We can fix any car, he says, So it happens a lot of times when nobody can fix it in town, they send it here.





It is not just that his name is Yasha instead of Larry, Ismailov is an unlikely businessman in Charlottesville. He came a long way to get here.

Long journey



A Meskhetian Turk, Ismailov was born in Uzbekistan.

Meskthetians are an ethnic subgroup of Turks that were deported in rail cars from their homeland by the leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin during World War II. Most of them were left in Uzbekistan.



Ismailov was not in Uzbekistan long. My family had to flee to Russia because there was a massacre in Uzbekistan of Turks  in 1989, he explains. Ismailov was seven.



But Russia was no more hospitable. Meskhetian Turks were barred from citizenship, property ownership and jobs.

When the U.S. began accepting Meskhetian Turks as refugees in 2004, the family came to Charlottesville. By then, Ismailov was 22. All he, his parents and his brother brought with them were suitcases of clothes.



We felt safe



Charlottesville, a small city about 190 kilometers south of Washington DC, is known to welcome refugees. More than 3,000 refugees, including Ismailov, have re-started their lives here since the late 1990s with the help of the resettlement agency, the International Rescue Committee (IRC).



"[The IRC] told me it was a nice place, good and You will like it, so go there, says Ismailov. We felt free. We felt better than over there. We felt safe.





What followed was hard work.

We were working so hard [the] first three years before we started [the] business. We were working four people, sometimes working double jobs, he says.

Ismailov worked as a painter, an air conditioner installer and something he learned in Russia.

My third job was electric," he says. "I love electric stuff.



And then the family bought the auto repair shop from original owner, Larry.



Harriet Kuhr, director of IRCs Charlottesville Office says Charlottesville has jobs and opportunity to offer refugees.

It really adds a lot of diversity, but it also adds economic impact," says Kuhr. "So the refugees are not takers. They're giving back by helping the community grow economically.



Proud to contribute



Ismailovs shop now has seven employees and repairs about 150 cars a month. He has opened another family business called Downtown Auto Sales, a used car dealership.



Ismailov is a U.S. citizen now and owns his house. He's married to another refugee and has two children. His life in Charlottesville looks very good to him.



I have nice neighbors. I have a job. Nobody bothers me, he says. I am proud to be able to contribute to the community in Charlottesville.



Now he is looking beyond the hard work to the future. His eight-year-old daughter is an accomplished swimmer and he hopes one day she wins an Olympic medal for the United States."



He also looks beyond Charlottesville to the large number of refugees around the world who have not been as fortunate as he has.



"I am lucky I am here, but they are not, he says sadly. I feel sorry about them. I'd like to help them with something if I can."
Police in the Indian state of West Bengal are going beyond the call of duty by raising funds for the women they rescue from sex traffickers to help them get back on track.

The girls are hardly literate, have no access to bank loans, and government schemes are not enough to sustain them in the long run, said police officer Chandra Sekhar Bardhan, who is spearheading the program in eastern India. We had to do something, even though it did not fall in the realm of our duties.

The scheme, the first of its kind, began this month, with 22 rescued women singled out for rehabilitation. Police then hope to reach out to 100 more women and create a model to replicate across the region.

Police tailor the aid to the individual women, asking firms to fund their needs as an act of corporate social responsibility. One of the women in the first group wants to set up a sewing business, another to drive her own taxi  anything rather than return to a life of poverty and unemployment.

Green pasture for traffickers

Of an estimated 20 million commercial sex workers in India, campaigners estimate that 16 million women and girls are the victims of sex trafficking. They are mostly trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced labor and child marriage.

The South 24 Parganas district where the project began has seen a steady rise in crime against women, with police recording a jump of more than 80 percent in the number of abductions between 2010 and 2013.

Due to poverty and backwardness, the area has always been a green pasture for traffickers, said Subhasree Raptan, coordinator of nonprofit Gorabbose Gram Bikas Kendra, which helps trafficked victims and is supporting the pilot project.

Raptan said the problem grew far worse after cyclone Aila in 2009, displacing more than a million people in the region.

No job, no chance

When victims are rescued from traffickers, they usually return to poverty, a dysfunctional family life and no job.

Work is key to a new life, and the first group of women include aspiring seamstresses, two women who want to run a stationary shop and another who wants to drive her own taxi.

I did not know anything about the extent of human trafficking until I was posted to this region and came across the case of a 14-year-old victim, who had been trafficked, abused and dumped in a hospital, said Bardhan, the policeman leading the project. Now the program will run as long as the problem persists.
An Islamic State terrorist tied to the deadly New Year's Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub was killed this month by U.S. ground forces in Syria, U.S. military officials said Friday.

U.S. Central Command confirmed the death of Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, who was the target of an operation near Mayadin, in eastern Syria, on April 6.

Officials described Uzbeki as a "close associate" of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was deeply involved in planning terror attacks outside Iraq and Syria, including the attack on the Reina nightclub that left 39 people dead.

"We have clearly linked him with the Istanbul New Year's Eve bombing," Central Command spokesman Colonel John Thomas said Friday, adding that the United States had been tracking Uzbeki for some time.

Thomas said Uzbeki also had played a key role in facilitating the movement of IS funds and foreign fighters, and "was known to interact with [Baghdadi] in various ways over time."

U.S. officials declined to explain how they linked Uzbeki to the nightclub attack, but they said he was a native of Uzbekistan. The main suspect in the attack on the Reina nightclub, Abdulkadir Masharipov, also was from Uzbekistan.

Turkish officials described Masharipov, who they say confessed to the attack, as a "well-trained" terrorist who speaks four languages.

Turkish media cited intelligence sources as saying at the time that the two-week manhunt for Masharipov had uncovered as many as 20 IS networks in Turkey.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking Friday during U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' visit to Jerusalem, said that Israelis "sense a great change" has occurred in America.

Mattis' stop marked the first visit to Israel by a Cabinet member in the new Trump administration.

"I think this is a welcome change, a strategic change of American leadership and American policy," Netanyahu said.

Mattis met with Netanyahu and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin after speaking with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Leiberman in Tel Aviv. Lieberman praised Mattis' "clear and strong approach" to North Korea, Syria and Iran.

Watch: Israeli Leaders to Mattis: A 'Welcome Change' of American Leadership

The U.S. defense secretary said Israel and the United States have a common enemy in militant Islamists, and he vowed to "do whatever it takes" to achieve peace. That includes defeating Islamic State and confronting Iran, which Mattis said continues to threaten Israel and its neighbors with ballistic missiles, through its maritime activities, and through its proxies and surrogates such as Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that's helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stay in power.

"I think it's important that we remind ourselves that if good people don't band together, then bad people can do a lot of damage in this world, and we're committed to stopping that and doing whatever it takes to pass on peace and freedom to the next generation," Mattis said.

Strike on Syria

Israeli leaders applauded the U.S. missile strike that targeted a Syrian airfield this month, in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons on civilians.

Syria has moved its assets since the U.S. strike destroyed about 20 military planes, Mattis confirmed in a news conference in Tel Aviv earlier Friday.

"No doubt they have dispersed their aircraft in recent days," he said.

Syria and Iraq will be a top priority in talks with leaders at Mattis' next stop, Qatar, which hosts U.S. military aircraft used in the counter-IS fight.
Norah Chepkulul, a single mother of two young sons, stands outside her home, a grass thatched hut surrounded by cactus-like euphoria trees on the dusty Maasai Mara road in Kenyas Rift Valley.

She has just finished milking her four cows and has asked the boys to keep an eye on the goats corralled in the little compound.

A few years ago, a single mother taking sole responsibility for her family would have been a rare sight among the pastoral Kipsigis and Maasai communities. Traditionally, in the predominantly herder societies men are the decision-makers and managers of land and stock.

But overgrazing and the sub-division and privatization of land and its transfer to agricultural use has forced herder communities to accept and adopt new land strategies, including applying for security of tenure and women in land transfer and inheritance.

Traditions rooted deep

Getting married these days is no longer a priority, Chepkulul told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

I am not married and being a single mother is not easy. I stay at home with my four children as a mother  and as a father, too.

Deeply rooted obstacles in society, along with the big gap between new laws against gender discrimination and local custom and tradition however continue to be a problem for women.

Chepkulul, is one of the lucky ones. Her family defied cultural traditions.

My family members saw the economic challenges I faced in bringing up my children, felt pity, and gave me a small portion of land to farm and put my house on, she said.

Sometimes when there is a financial challenge at home, for example hospital bills for the parents, youre told to sell that cow and any other assets.

For my brothers that is considered the last option  there is no equality at all. I wish they could realize that my children are the same as theirs.

Changing attitudes

Local priest, Mathew Sigilai, believes that the combination of economic pressure and new gender equality laws in Kenya is slowly eroding deep-seated cultural beliefs.

Things have changed and the population has grown and nowadays, getting married is not guaranteed, he said.

As a parent, if my daughter is not married, I will not chase her away. Instead I give her a farm or a cow to earn a living and start off her life like a son.

Chepkululs neighbor, 56-year-old Juliana, recalls her youth, a time when things were even tougher for unmarried women.

When you were not married, it was difficult to find accommodation or a home. You would not be allowed to stay with your parents. Sometimes a neighbor sympathized with you and offered you an old house, she said.

But later, when they wanted it back, you had to leave and find another place ... that was life for unmarried women, they were considered outsiders.

Kenya discriminatory laws

A 2014 World Bank report, Gender at Work, showed that legal discrimination against women on inheritance and property rights remains common in many areas of the world, including the Middle East, North Africa, parts of South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

However, between 1960 and 2010, the report said, Kenya had slashed the number of discriminatory laws against womens property ownership and rights by more than half.

Room for improvement

Purity Wawerua, a retired Kenya Wildlife officer who belongs to a different tribe agreed there had been important progress in womens inheritance rights among the Maasai.

Land used to be a major source of disputes, particularly after long marriages ended in divorce, she said.

When [the woman] goes back to her parents home, it becomes a problem, she said. Thanks to the new Kenyan constitution, equal rights are given to both genders.

However, according to Mitchelle Oyuga, of the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-Kenya), there is still room for improvement.

People have become quite aware that children are equal and its a provision in the new constitution, she said.

You are allowed to farm, to do any kind of work on that farm, but when it comes to selling the farm, women are given secondary rights, she said.

The most difficult hurdle

At her home in the Rift Valley, Chepkulul agrees and says that speaking up for themselves remains the most difficult hurdle for many women.

When you despair you feel like speaking out but no one can understand what youre going through, she said. Sometimes I have been thinking ... that if God had really created human beings equally, there would be no discrimination on gender and all people would have been the same.
Tensions are high in Kenya's chaotic primary season as the ruling Jubilee party and the opposition run into logistical issues and allegations of irregularities.

The Jubilee planned to hold party primaries in all of Kenya's 47 counties Friday and Monday. But of the 21 scheduled for Friday, three were postponed.



Confusion and accusations then derailed voting in nine more counties, such as Uasin Gishu, home to Deputy President William Ruto.



The governor, Jackson Mandago, said party elections will not take place in Uasin Gishu.

"We as aspirants and the people of this county have all agreed that all the polling stations have not received enough voting papers," he said. "Now we have decided the vote will not go on."



Several hundred miles away in the already tense Rift Valley region, the Jubilee party secretary general, Raphael Tuju, warned leaders against such statements.



"Any aspirant who have made that announcement, that's their own announcement," he said. "It's not the announcement of the party headquarters, and if they've called it off, they have called their own process off. Our process is continuing, and even if it's 20 people who turn up, if we did not call it off, we will count those 20 votes and proceed."



Political competitors are complaining of a lack voting materials, favoritism and rigging, including reports of pre-marked ballots. There is also disagreement over which voter register  that of the party or that of the national electoral commission  to use during the process.



Jubilee party officials offered a clarification Friday. They said they expect no more than 50 percent voter turnout during a primary, hence the provision of less ballot materials.



The Jubilee party is a young one. It was formed last year in a merger of 12 parties to consolidate support behind President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy.



Opposition parties are facing logistical challenges of their own.



The largest party, the Orange Democratic Movement, had to reschedule primaries in some constituencies due to late-arriving or incomplete ballot materials. ODM also canceled the results of the governorship primary in Busia county amid allegations of rigging.



Stakes are high in the primaries. In an opposition or a ruling party stronghold, securing the party's nomination for certain posts can be an almost-certain ticket for victory.



President Kenyatta on Thursday warned against violence. "A culture of hooliganism during the electoral process must not and will not be allowed to gain currency and acceptance."



All party primaries are expected to conclude next week. Kenya holds presidential, parliamentary, governorship and local elections in August.
Kenya's Ministry of Defense said its troops, operating under the African Union Mission in Somalia, have destroyed an al-Shabab camp, killing 52 militants and seizing weapons.



In a statement, the ministry said troops raided the camp, located near the town of Badhadhe in the Lower Jubba region, at around 1:00 a.m. Friday.



"The intelligence-led operation was executed after surveillance assets sighted al-Shabab terrorist concentration in the location," the ministry said. "Ground troops supported by mortar and artillery fire were employed to neutralize the camp thereafter," the statement added.



A local resident who could not be named for security reasons told VOA Somali the bombed al-Shabab camp is near Lagta Dishu, a military base used by Kenyan military operating in Somalia.





He said Kenyan troops used helicopters to bomb the area early in the morning, and said the aerial attack on the site was ongoing.



The resident said he could not confirm the casualty figure claimed by the Kenya military.



"It's possible many al-Shabab fighters were killed, but I don't know how many," he said.



Kenya said other militants escaped with injuries. The statement said troops seized weapons including seven AK47 rifles, ammunition and explosive devices.



Badhadhe is 200 kilometers southwest of Kismayo and is one of the main towns in the region still controlled by al-Shabab.



Residents west of Kismayo reported separate clashes between Somali regional forces and al-Shabab militants Friday.



Jubbaland security forces spokesman Ahmed Mohamud Mohamed said their forces have seized new areas from the militants.



"We have conducted military operations against these religious bandits in Bulo Haji, our troops are there now," he said.



He said the operations and the attack by Kenyan forces were coordinated.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri asked the United Nations on Friday to help Lebanon and Israel move towards a permanent ceasefire and end what he called Israel's "continuous violations" of Lebanese territory.

Israel and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah group fought a month-long war in 2006 that concluded with a cessation of hostilities but without a formal peace deal.

"I urge the U.N. secretary general to support efforts to secure, as soon as possible, a state of permanent ceasefire. This is long overdue and my government is committed to move this agenda forward," Hariri said.

Hariri was speaking on a visit to south Lebanon a day after Hezbollah officials staged a media tour near the same area to view what they said were recent Israeli fortifications on the border and to state their preparedness in case of any new war.

The tour drew a response from Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, who said in a Facebook post that Hezbollah's media tour was to "shake their sabres and pound their chests."

Under U.N. resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army is responsible for security on its side of the border in a zone from which any other armed force, including Hezbollah, is banned.

The United Nations also maintains a peacekeeping force on the border.

Resolution 1701 also required Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Lebanon says that Israel has not fulfilled this because it continues to occupy a disputed area known in Lebanon as the Shebaa Farms.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that Syria had dispersed its warplanes in recent days and retained chemical weapons, an issue that would have to be taken up diplomatically.

The United States launched dozens of missiles earlier this month against a Syrian air base in response to a chemical attack that killed about 100 people, including 30 children.

It said the Syrian government launched the attack from the Shayrat air base. The Pentagon has said that the strike had damaged or destroyed about 20 percent of the Syrian militarys operational aircraft.

Aircraft gone from air base

During a press conference alongside his Israeli counterpart, Mattis was asked whether the Syrian military had moved warplanes to a Russian base in Latakia.

They have dispersed their aircraft, no doubt. They have dispersed their aircraft in recent days, Mattis said.

Chemical weapons

Mattis also reiterated that the United States believed Syria had retained some chemical weapons.

The bottom line is, I can say authoritatively they have retained some (chemical weapons). Its a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and its going to have to be taken up diplomatically, Mattis said.

Israels military said Wednesday it believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assads forces still possess several tones of chemical weapons.

A senior Israeli military officer told Israeli reporters that a few tons of chemical weapons remained in the hands of Assads forces, a military official told Reuters.

In a 2013 agreement brokered by Russia and the United States, Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, a global watchdog, said sarin or a similar banned toxin was used in the April 4 strike in Syrias Idlib province.
Mexico has surpassed 2,000 murders in a month for the first time since the summer of 2011, and had more murders in the first quarter of 2017 than in the start of any year in at least two decades.



Unlike 2011, when a bloody cartel clash in Ciudad Juarez was driving the national toll to new heights, the murders driving the 2017 total are spread across a number of states.



The federal government released the state-by-state murders totals for March on Friday. There were 2,020 murders in March, up about 11 percent from February.



For January through March, the total was 5,775 murders, up 29 percent from the same three months last year.

Guerrero, Baja California and Baja California Sur were among states that saw jumps in March.
The Mississippi Delta has no shortage of museums, historic attractions and clubs devoted to the blues. But visitors will find the region has many other stories to tell, from the cotton plantations where African-American families worked and lived in desperate poverty to culinary traditions that reflect a surprising ethnic diversity.

The Blues Trail and Museums

You can't miss the big blue guitars marking the famous crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale. This is where, according to legend, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play the blues.

Roadside signs for the Mississippi Blues Trail make it easy to find other sites as well, from Clarksdale's Riverside Hotel, where Bessie Smith died, to the Dockery Farms cotton plantation in Cleveland, where many pioneering bluesmen lived, worked and made music, including Charley Patton, Roebuck "Pops" Staples and Howlin' Wolf.

A sign in a field at Clarksdale's Stovall Plantation notes that Muddy Waters' songs were recorded there in 1941 by musicologist Alan Lomax as he collected folk music for the Library of Congress.

The sharecropper's shack that Waters lived in has been restored and relocated to the nearby Delta Blues Museum. In Indianola, the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center pays tribute to King's life and legacy. He's buried there as well.

These museums and others use photos, artifacts, videos and other exhibits to explore the blues' roots, beginning with African musical traditions brought to the South by slaves. Because Delta cotton plantations were relatively isolated, musical styles developed here uninfluenced by trends elsewhere. But eventually, many African-Americans who barely eked out a living working for white landowners in the decades after the Civil War migrated away from the South, seeking economic opportunity elsewhere along with an escape from segregation and racial terror.

Waters left the Delta for Chicago in 1943. King left Mississippi for Memphis, where he got his big break at radio station WDIA. These and other bluesmen were worshipped by 1960s music giants like Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. "Muddy Waters' music changed my life,'' said Eric Clapton. As the title of one of Waters' songs puts it, "The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll.''

Cat Head, clubs, festivals

Stop in Cat Head, a Mississippi blues music and gift store in Clarksdale, for a chat with owner Roger Stolle, a blues fan who moved there to "help pull the blues scene together in a way that would get people to come." Local clubs stagger their schedules so you can hear live music every night. Stolle keeps a list online of who's playing where.

Clarksdale's best-known club is Ground Zero, co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman and Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett, but blues fans may be disappointed by party-vibe bands playing songs here like "Sweet Home Alabama."

A more interesting venue is Red's. Don't be fooled by its rundown appearance and tiny, informal, living-room-style interior. Red's showcases under-the-radar, brilliantly talented musicians like Lucious Spiller, whose performances will make you realize why the blues still matter.

Delta festivals include the Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival, August 11-13, and the October 12-15 Deep Blues Fest. Next year's Juke Joint Festival will be April 12-15.

Food, lodging

Mississippi cuisine isn't just catfish and barbecue. Doe's, in Greenville, where a security guard watches over your car as you dine and walks you to the parking area when you leave, is known for steaks the size of your head and has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation. Chamoun's Rest Haven in Clarksdale, founded by a Lebanese family in the 1940s, serves some of the best kibbe you'll find outside the Middle East.

At Larry's Hot Tamales, ask owner Larry Lee to share stories of how Mexican tamales became a scrumptious Mississippi staple. For upscale bistro fare like ceviche and roasted vegetables, try Yazoo Pass in Clarksdale.

To learn more about culinary traditions in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South, visit the Southern Foodways Alliance website.

Delta accommodations range from motels to the Alluvian, a luxury boutique hotel in Greenwood. A unique lodging option in the Delta is spending the night in a preserved sharecropper's shack at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale or at Tallahatchie Flats in Greenwood.

Some travelers may find the concept offensive as a sugarcoating of the misery experienced by those who had no choice but to live this way. But for others, a night spent in a rustic cabin that rattles with the howling wind or shakes to its foundations in a thunderstorm may evoke the very vulnerability that makes the blues so haunting.
Mali restored interim authorities to its northern cities of Timbuktu and Menaka Thursday, ending a standoff with armed Tuareg factions that had prevented the transfer of power.

The return of state authority is meant to fill a power vacuum that has turned northern Mali into a launch pad for jihadi attacks across a vast region on the Sahara Desert.

Most government posts have been unfilled since ethnic Tuareg separatists and desert jihadists took over northern Mali in 2012, before French forces intervened to push them back. A peace deal signed in 2015 was meant to enable authorities to return.

Pro- and anti-government Tuareg-dominated factions finally agreed in February how this would happen, after months of arguments over how the authorities should be constituted.

They returned to Gao and Kidal two weeks later, but some armed groups prevented them from setting up in Timbuktu and Menaka at the beginning of March.

State TV announced the impasse was over. A spokesman for the anti-government Tuaregs, Iyad Ag Mohamed, confirmed by telephone that the authorities had been allowed in.

"Everyone feels that a big step has been made and thinks that peace will now come," Timbuktu resident Moulaye Haidara told Reuters by telephone.

Despite such encouraging moves towards peace, Mali mains plagued by banditry and deadly Islamist attacks.
U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence will arrive in Australia later Friday for a visit that is expected to focus on regional security and trade.

The vice president is considered by Australian officials to be a calm and measured presence in President Donald Trumps administration. He has been on a tour of Asia to reassure allies of Washingtons commitment to the region under Trumps leadership. In Australia, Pence will be among friends.

Trade is top of mind

Business discussions are expected to be a key part of his visit, including how to remove remaining trade barriers between Australia and the United States, which is the biggest foreign investor in Australia. Two-way trade is worth more than $41 billion.

Professor Fariborz Moshirian is the director of the Institute of Global Finance at the University of New South Wales Business School in Sydney.

Australia and the U.S. have (a) very close business relationship, Moshirian said. They have got (a) free trade agreement between the two countries and naturally one of the key points that could be raised is how to enhance free trade between these two countries as well as in the region.

Reviving parts of TPP

Trumps decision to scrap the worlds biggest trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, was met with dismay in Australia, one of a dozen countries that signed the agreement last year.

Trump said the deal was a job-killing disaster, and Moshirian says officials in Canberra hope parts of the TPP can be revived without the United States.

That has been very disappointing from Australias point of view, Moshirian said. But at the same time, Australia, and to some extent maybe Japan and even Mexico, are now trying to continue, if you like, dialogue about TPP in the absence of the U.S. So we have to really wait and see.

Tensions over North Koreas nuclear ambitions, as well as territorial disputes in the South China Sea, also will likely be discussed during the vice presidents three-day visit to Australia.

Canberra and Washington have a solid military alliance dating back to the early 1950s, and successive Australian leaders have asserted the relationship is the foundation for their nations security.
Indonesia and the United States agreed Friday to find ways to reduce barriers to U.S. companies operating in Southeast Asias largest economy, visiting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Jakartas investment chief said.

The Trump administration has put Indonesia on a list of 16 countries whose trade surpluses with the United States will be put under review. A series of disputes between Indonesia and American firms has also ruffled ties.

We will work with President Jokowi to reduce barriers to trade and investments and to create a truly level playing field where all our businesses have equal opportunity and market access, Pence said. Jokowi is the nickname of Indonesias President Joko Widodo.

The president and I spoke about that very candidly and very respectfully, Pence told a roundtable discussion with business executives in Jakarta before flying to Australia on the last leg of his 10-day Asia-Pacific tour.

Indonesia barriers

Indonesias investments barriers include a lack of intellectual property protection, insufficient transparency with regulations and requiring local content for manufactured goods sold in the Indonesian market, Pence said.

Indonesias Investment Coordinating Board chief Tom Lembong said Widodo agreed we still have too many regulations, too many barriers to trade, and these are bad for local and international industries.

Im optimistic because President Jokowi and President Trump are both lifelong business people, and I think they are very focused on the practical issues that hinder business and investment, Lembong told Reuters. I feel that the Trump administration and the Jokowi administration are on the same wavelength.

Lembong said Indonesia needs both investment and imports from the United States, especially productivity-enhancing products and services. You need imports to boost exports.

$10 billion in agreements

Neither side disclosed any discussions about the disputes Indonesia has had with American companies of late.

Over the past six months, Indonesia has wrestled with mining giant Freeport McMoRan, demanding the company divest 51 percent of its shares in its Papua-based gold and copper mine, and has demanded that Google Inc. settle unpaid taxes and fines of more than $400 million. Jakarta also scrubbed JP Morgan from its list of primary bond dealers after what was deemed a negative research report.

Pence did, however, witness the signing of more than $10 billion in memoranda of understanding with U.S. companies in Indonesia Friday.

Among the 11 agreements were ones by Exxon Mobil to sell liquefied natural gas to Pertamina, Lockheed Martin to provide upgrades to the Indonesian Air Forces F-16s, and General Electric to develop electrical infrastructure in Indonesia.

We think there are opportunities to clear open the way for American companies to participate more greatly in Indonesia, Pence said, adding the agreements would draw our nations closer together and benefit both our people.

Counterterrorism cooperation

Pence said in opening remarks to the roundtable that an attack in central Paris is the latest reminder terrorism can strike anywhere at anytime, and the United States would not relent in its efforts to end terrorism.

The people of Indonesia can be confident in the wake of this latest attack: We will not relent in our effort to end terrorism and the threat it presents to both of our peoples, Pence said.

A French policeman was shot dead and three other people were wounded in central Paris Thursday night in an attack carried out days before presidential elections and quickly claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority nation, has itself been hit by a series of deadly attacks in the past 15 years, led by militants affiliated with al Qaeda and more recently by Islamic State.

Pence said Washington would continue working with Indonesia to combat terrorism. On Thursday, Pence toured the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Southeast Asias largest, and said Indonesias moderate form of Islam should serve as an example to other nations.

Indonesia has expressed concern about the Trump administrations proposal to bar entry to citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations. That plan, however, remains stalled in courts.

Pence on Thursday announced Trump would visit Southeast Asia in November for an annual series of regional summits. They include the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vietnam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines.
The Serbian government made budget savings of around 480 million euros ($515.95 million) in the first quarter of 2017 and wants to inject nearly 10 percent of that sum into the defense industry, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said Thursday.

Vucic also said Serbia's exports of weapons and military equipment was expected to reach 550 million euros in 2017, up from an estimated 449 million euros last year.

"We agreed to give big money to the defense industry. ... When you have a market that is secured for a decade or so, then you invest in production," Vucic told a news conference after meeting top executives from the sector.

He said the funds would be used to develop new factories and overhaul existing ones, based on increased demand in the global weapons market.

Serbia exports small arms, artillery systems, missiles, ammunition and various equipment through 173 licensed companies to dozens of countries, including the United States, Israel, Canada, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.

In February, Assistant Defence Minister Nenad Miloradovic said the United Arab Emirates remains a key market for Serbia's defense industry, where it has "active contracts" worth some $220 million, the B92 news portal reported.

The budget savings have been generated by structural reforms and improved tax collection. Serbia's budget deficit is seen at around 1.2 percent of GDP this year, down from 2.1 percent at the end of 2016, and economic growth is put at around 3 percent.

Vucic said Serbia's own 28,000-strong armed forces also needed new weaponry and modernization.

Belgrade has recently procured six MiG-29 jets, 30 tanks and armored personnel carriers from Russia as well as nine helicopters from Airbus.

Serbia's military budget for 2017 accounts for 1.39 percent of GDP, or around $503 million. The country is militarily neutral and tries to balance between NATO and Russia, its traditional Slavic and Orthodox Christian ally.
For Prince fans, Friday's one-year anniversary of his shocking death from an accidental drug overdose will be a time for sadness and celebration.



At his Paisley Park home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap, ranging from concert performances by his former bandmates to panel discussions.

Fans who can't afford those high-priced tickets can head to a street party outside First Avenue, the club he made world famous in "Purple Rain.'' And the Minnesota History Center is staging a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia, including his iconic "Purple Rain'' suit.



Here's a look at how Prince's home state will honor his legacy and mourn his loss:



Paisley Park



Prince's home base in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen is marking the anniversary with a roster of shows from artists such as his old band The Revolution, Morris Day and the Time and New Power Generation. Also on the docket: panel discussions featuring such speakers as his old band mates  think Lisa (Coleman) and Wendy (Melvoin) from "Purple Rain'' and The Revolution  along with many more.



Fans who could afford it spent $999 for VIP passes for the Paisley schedule, and the estate said those were sold out. A relatively cheaper option  $549 general admission passes  was still available midweek.



Prince's siblings, who are on track to inherit an estate valued around $200 million, are hosting an all-night dance party in the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley with Dez Dickerson, Apollonia Kotero, Andre Cymone and others.



First Avenue



The downtown Minneapolis club where Prince filmed key parts of "Purple Rain'' is hosting late-night dance parties Friday and Saturday with tracks from the late superstar.



A memorial street party outside the club is also on tap for Saturday. It will be reminiscent of the one that drew thousands of mourners on the night of Prince's death to cry, dance and sing along.



Pieces of History



Prince's "Purple Rain'' costume  purple jacket, white ruffled shirt and studded pants  was put out for display at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul through Sunday.

The museum is also marking the anniversary by featuring handwritten lyrics to an unreleased song, "I Hope We Work It Out,'' signed by Prince in 1977. Prince performed it for record executives when he first signed with Warner Bros.



Painting the Town Purple



Several landmarks in Minneapolis will be lit up in Prince purple, including U.S. Bank Stadium, Target Field, the IDS Center, and the Interstate 35W and Lowry Avenue bridges over the Mississippi River.
A group of Qatari falcon hunters who were kidnapped in southern Iraq in 2015 are reportedly free after a complex regional deal that included a swap between rebels and regime forces in four Syrian towns, Iraqi and Syrian sources told VOA.

"The release operation of all hostages is complete now," Shakhawan Abdullah, a member of the Iraqi parliament's security committee, told VOA.

The 26 Qataris  some of whom are members of the ruling family  were taken to Doha by a Qatari plane that left Baghdad International Airport on Friday evening.

The group was kidnapped by a group of 100 armed men in December 2015 during a hunting trip in the Muthanna governorate of southern Iraq, a famed desert spot for falcon hunters.

No group publicly claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. Qatari and Iraqi officials said that based on intelligence reports, they were certain the hostages had been taken in Iraqi Shi'ite territory by militias with close ties to Iran.

Little information had surfaced since their abduction as to their whereabouts or condition. It was unclear whether the hostages were initially kept in Iraq or moved to Iran or Syria, Iraq's Abdullah said.

In April 2016, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said one of the hunters and an Asian worker on the trip had been freed.

Party of God Brigade

"Government officials say the hostages were held by Shi'ite civilians, but our investigations point to Kataib Hezbollah," Abdullah told VOA. Kataib Hezbollah, or Party of God Brigade, is a Shi'ite paramilitary group with close ties to Iran and the Syrian regime.

But the complex deal to release of the hostages emanated from Syria and was reached between the Syrian regime and Syrian rebels last month, sources said.

It reportedly included an agreement to evacuate people and rebels from Madaya and Zabadani, predominantly Sunni towns in northwest Syria that have been besieged since June 2015 by the Syrian army and fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

In return, people in the villages of Foah and Kefraya, most of whom are Shi'ites, were allowed safe passage. Residents have been encircled by rebels and al-Qaida-linked Sunni jihadists since March 2015.

The hostages would have been released earlier, sources told VOA, but the evacuation was halted following a suicide bombing April 16 that ripped through a convoy of buses coming from Foah and Kefraya, killing 126 people. There was no claim of responsibility, and movement of people from villages has continued.

According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the deal was drafted by Qatar  which backs the opposition to the Syrian regime  following negotiations between representatives of Iran, Hezbollah and a Sunni Islamist rebel alliance.

A person involved in the negotiations told The Associated Press that Qatar paid tens of millions of dollars to Shi'ite groups and to the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and Ahrar al-Sham, which are involved in the freeing of villagers.

'Completely humanitarian' effort

A Qatari source told CNN that Qatar had helped sponsor the deal to free Syrian villagers but denied it was linked to the hostages being freed.

"In regards to the four-towns agreement in Syria, Qatar has sponsored negotiations since the beginning of 2015," the source told CNN. "It's completely humanitarian and has nothing to do with Qatari hostages in Iraq."

Iraq's Interior Ministry said the hostages were interviewed after they were freed and before being handed over to Qatari authorities.

Earlier, during his weekly news conference on Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said his government was doing its best to free the group.

"Qatari citizens came to Iraq with official visas granted by the former interior minister, and they should have been under the protection of the Interior Ministry specifically, but unfortunately they were kidnapped," Abadi said. "We have exerted a great deal of effort to secure their release, to obtain any information that would lead to their release."

Iraqi parliament member Abdullah told VOA that members of parliament would demand an investigation of the hostage release process and connections to Syria.

"The issue, as it stands now, is very unclear to us. We will have many questions when the parliament meets next week," Abdullah told VOA.

VOA's Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this report.
In a suburban Moscow home on Wednesday, a few sleepy Chechen men in their twenties nervously mill about and one by one introduce themselves to visiting journalists.

There are six gay Chechen men hiding in the house because they fear that their lives, and their relatives, could be in danger.

They fled Russia's Republic of Chechnya as independent media reported a crackdown on gay men involving hundreds of abductions, torture, and at least three murders.

"At first, I thought that all was as usual, the same as it had happened to me in 2016," says one man living at the house under the false name Ilya to protect his identity. "I had got acquainted with a man, through a social network, went to meet him, and he turned out to be a set-up. So three men beat me and the fourth videotaped it. They broke my jaw and I was beaten blue."

Ilya says when that happened a year ago, the men blackmailed him for about $3,500. But this year, he says, the threats and disappearances in Chechnya's underground gay community began adding up quickly.

"It all started in the middle of March. Everybody wrote that the gays were being hunted in Grozny. I did not pay much attention," Ilya said. "I had experienced it before and thought that the same thing was going on. I did not think that it was on such a mass level. If they caught one man, they found two or three [more] from his [phone] contacts. If they caught them, then another nine were caught. That's how it was happening."

'Catch him or kill him'

Russian authorities say there is no evidence that gay men in Russia's conservative republic of Chechnya are facing a wave of persecution, as reported by independent Russian media. Hundreds of gay Chechen men have reportedly fled the region amid allegations of abduction, torture and murder being covered up.

Ilya says he just missed police when they came to his family's house in Grozny, Chechnya's capital.

"They told my mother that their son was gay, they needed either to catch him or to kill him," said Ilya. "They gave her all the details of what they were going to do to me. My mother called me, she cried and said that she would never believe that I was gay. She was so worried and to calm her down I told her that it was not so. I shook when I told her that."

When a friend's mother called him to say her son had gone missing, Ilya decided he had to leave Chechnya.

"I have heard also that the guys that had been caught were given back to their parents. The parents were told: 'Either you'll kill him or we'll kill him.' It is called to wash the disgrace away with the blood. The disgrace that such a man brought into his family."

The men take sedatives to calm fears that Chechen authorities, or their own relatives, could find them.

Authorities deny gay Chechens exist

Rights activists say discrimination and abuse is common in Chechnya's conservative, religious culture, where being openly gay is not accepted.

"I wish I could forget it as soon as possible," says another gay Chechen hiding at the house who gives his name as Timur. "It won't be forgotten here, even in Moscow. There is no way back to Chechnya, where everyone would point fingers at me."

Chechen authorities not only deny the allegations, but also deny the very existence of gay Chechens.

Chechnya's human rights council member Kheda Saratova told Russian radio "any person who respects our traditions and culture will hunt down this kind of person without any help from authorities," reported The Guardian newspaper.

"I am a gay person, I know other gay men, who know other gay men so there are many of us in Chechnya," Ilya said. "The gay men in Chechnya are being caught, there is a prison in the city of Argun, as friends tell. Some were released and they escaped here. They were told that if they left Chechnya, [authorities] would harm or kill their relatives."

Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, in a meeting Wednesday at the Kremlin with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, called the allegations and reports a provocation.

"Some 'good people,' in quotes, write to us that in our republic, it is not quite decent to talk about it, people are being detained, killed, and even one family name was mentioned," Kadyrov said. "Someone said he had been killed, but he is at home."

Putin apparently accepted the explanation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there's no reason not to believe Kadyrov. He echoed the words of Russia's Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova, who said there was no evidence that gay Chechens were being abused and no reported abductions.

Activists helping the men escape say authorities' statements give gay Chechens good reason not to trust them.

"What is going on in Chechnya now is the utter expression of what is going in the whole of Russia," said Olga, of the Moscow Community Center for LGBT. "In Chechnya, they have their own authorities and their own laws that allow total criminality. But similar things happen in small Russian towns from where they have to flee to bigger cities."

Newspaper threatened

Russia's independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper first reported the alleged abuse of gay Chechens, including three murders  one by torture and two by their own relatives.

Its reporters have since received a number of threats, including a white powder mailed to their office this week from Chechnya.

On Thursday, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations sent a mobile chemical laboratory to the office to investigate.

"We have worked for over 20 years, and there has not been a single case when we were found guilty of spreading lies," said special correspondent Irina Gordienko. "And the fact that the authorities call [our report] a provocation, and denunciation, let them prove it. We can't reveal our sources because it would be such a threat to people that they could be physically eradicated."

It is not the first time that Novaya Gazeta has been targeted for its reporting on rights abuses in Chechnya. Two of its journalists  Anna Politkovskaya and Natalia Estemirova  were murdered in killings widely believed to be related to their work exposing abuses in Chechnya.

The newspaper has been threatened in many different ways, Gordienko says.

"It is the reaction of the Chechen authorities that is extraordinary, because right after the article being published about 15,000 people got together in a mosque in the center of Grozny," Gordienko said. "These were respected people of Chechnya. And a sort of meeting was conducted there. And they cursed Novaya Gazeta by stating that we tarnish century-old traditions of the Chechen people and that vengeance [reprisal] is required and that we should be charged."

Chechen religious leaders have since stepped back from the threats to say they meant they would take the newspaper to court.

For some of the Chechen men hiding in the temporary safe house, it's not just in Chechnya but in Russia where they don't feel safe.

Some are acquiring passports and visas with plans to leave the country as soon as possible.
Russian authorities say there is no evidence that gay men in Russia's conservative republic of Chechnya are facing a wave of persecution. A number of gay Chechen men have fled the region amid allegations of abduction, torture and murder. VOAs Daniel Schearf visited a safe house on the outskirts of Moscow where gay Chechen men are in hiding, and has this report.
Russian has become the "second language" taught in Syrian schools, and President Bashar al-Assad's children are studying Russian, Syria's ambassador to Russia was quoted as saying Friday.

"The decision by Assad that the Russian language become the country's second language is a sign of gratitude to the Russian people for their support of the Syrians," Russia's TASS state news agency quoted Syria's Ambassador Riyad Haddad as saying.

"Also as a mark of that gratitude, many families are even naming their sons Putin," Haddad added.

"It is no secret if I say that the children of the president [Bashar al-Assad] are now learning Russian," Interfax news agency quoted the ambassador as saying.

According to Haddad, Russian-language instruction in Syria's schools starts in the seventh grade, and Russian language departments have been opened in all of Syria's universities.

Russian news agencies also quoted the ambassador as saying Syria's president has donated a plot of land near Damascus for the construction of a Russian school.
As they left Minnesota for Detroit in early February, the two 7-year-old girls were promised a "special girls' trip." But the story changed after they arrived at their hotel outside Detroit: They were going to see a doctor at a nearby clinic because "our tummies hurt," one of the girls later recalled.

According to allegations contained in a criminal complaint unsealed Friday, Jumana Nagarwala, the doctor at the Burhani Medical Clinic in Livonia, Michigan, told the unidentified girl she was going to perform a procedure on her to "get the germs out" of her body. Instead, the complaint says, Nagarwala mutilated the girl's genitalia, while the office manager, Farida Attar, the wife of the clinic owner, Fakhruddin Attar, assisted.

Earlier in the day, Fakhruddin and Farida Attar were arrested on charges of conspiring to perform female genital mutilation on two girls. Nagarwala was arrested last week and later was ordered jailed without bail, pending trial, after a judge found her a flight risk.

Fakhruddin Attar, 53, a physician, and Farida, 50, appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Friday afternoon and were ordered held, pending a full hearing Wednesday.

Mary Chartier, Fakhruddin Attar's lawyer, said in an email, "Dr. Attar is unaware of any crimes that occurred at his clinic. Given that Dr. Attar is not a flight risk or danger to the community, and he is a respected and trusted member of the community, he certainly should be released on Wednesday."

Matt Newburg, a lawyer for Farida Attar, declined to comment.

1996 federal law

Prosecutors described the case as the first of its kind brought under a 1996 law that made female genital mutilation a crime in the United States. If convicted, the three each face up to five years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000 for performing and conspiring to perform female genital mutilation.

The complaint identifies the three as members of "a particular religious and cultural community known to practice female genital mutilation as part of their religious and cultural practice."

The community was later identified as Dawoodi Bohra, a small, insular Islamic group with mosques in several major U.S. cities.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security began investigating Nagarwala earlier this year after receiving a tip that she was performing FGM.

Using telephone records and video surveillance, investigators tracked two Minnesota couples and their 7-year-old daughters as they visited Nagarwal at the Livonia clinic.

Fakhruddin Attar told federal agents that Nagarwala sees minor girls five to six times a year "for problems with their genitals, including treatment of genital rashes," and that she does not charge for her procedures.

Nagarwala's lawyer, Shannon Smith, told the court Monday that Nagarwala merely wiped off a portion of mucous membrane from the girls' clitorises during her procedure, The Detroit News reported. Small amounts were placed on gauze pads and given to the families for burial, the lawyer added.

"This is part of the culture," she said.

Smith did not respond to a VOA request for comment.

Nagarwala and the Attars are prominent members of the local Dawoodi Bohra community, a subsect of Ismaili Shi'ite Islam with about 2 million adherents worldwide. While the majority of members live in Pakistan and India, where the group has its administrative headquarters, large numbers of Bohras have moved to the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America in recent decades.

The Bohra community is also the most well-known Muslim sect in India to practice FGM, according to a study by Marya Taher, a co-founder of Sahiyo, a transnational group that advocates for elimination of female genital mutilation among the Bohras.

In a 2016 study of Bohra women, Taher found that nearly 80 percent had undergone the procedure while 81 percent said they did not want the practice to continue.

"There is huge fear of ex-communication within the community," said Taher, who herself underwent the procedure at 7, the common age for Bohra females to experience it.

The Bohras' spiritual leader, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, issued a statement last year saying that female genital mutilation, known as khatna within the community, should not be performed in countries where it is illegal, but he left open the possibility of practicing it in other countries.

Arrests lauded

Shelby Quast, the Americas director for Equality First, a women's rights organization, hailed the arrests.

"We're actually very encouraged to see the law being implemented," Quast said of the 1996 federal law. "We're now seeing a greater priority at the federal level. We're also seeing priority at the state level."

In the U.S., 25 states have passed their own laws against FGM in recent years, and others are mulling similar legislation.

Michigan state Representative Abdullah Hammoud said he wanted the state to pass a law with a harsher penalty for perpetrators of FGM than is allowed under the federal statute.

"This is a tragedy and a human rights violation," Hammoud said. "I can't believe there was a tradition conducting such a procedure."

FGM is an internationally recognized human rights violation, with all 193 members of the United Nations committed to eliminating the practice. According to Quast, approximately 200 million women and girls live with the consequences of FGM around the world.

In the United States, more than 500,000 women and girls are either at risk of FGM or have experienced it, and they live in all 50 states, Quast said.

"Previously, we thought it was certain communities," she said. "What we're seeing is it's very widespread."

At a December summit on FGM in Washington, "a woman stood up and said, 'I'm white, I'm Christian, I'm from the Midwest, and this happened to me,' " Quast said. "We're beginning to understand that this is much more broad-reached than we thought."

VOA's Lynn Davis contributed to this report.
Serbian officials warned on Friday of another war in the Balkans if Albanians try to form a joint state with Kosovo in the war-weary European region and the West does not reject such a plan.

The angry reactions from the Serbs came after Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama said an interview with Politico journal that a union between Albania and ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo cannot be ruled out if European Union membership prospects for the Western Balkans fade.

Serbian government minister Aleksandar Vulin said he expects the EU and NATO to denounce such statements, otherwise there could be another war in the Balkans.

Vulin said that a new war in the Balkans would also include Macedonia and Montenegro which have large ethnic-Albanian populations.

Most of the Balkan wars were over attempts to create joint ethnically pure states, such as "Greater Serbia," or "Greater Albania." It is traditional desire by nationalists on all sides.

Serbia's former province of Kosovo declared independence in 2008, which Serbia and its Slavic ally Russia do not recognize. NATO bombarded Serbia in 1999 to stop its crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists.

The Balkans saw bloody clashes in the 1990s that left tens of thousands dead and millions homeless, mostly because of Serb nationalists' demands to create a new state that would comprise all Serb-populated lands in former Yugoslavia.

Serbian officials hinted that in case of an all-Albanian state in the Balkans, Serbia could try to form a union with a Serb mini-state in neighboring Bosnia _ something that would be against a U.S.-sponsored peace plan that ended the war there in 1995.

Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist turned pro-EU reformer, said that the unification between Albania and Kosovo "will remain only wishful thinking" and called on the EU to react.

"If I said that all Serbs should live in one state, I would be hanged from a flagpole in Brussels," Vucic said.

Both Serbia and Albanian have declared desire to be part of the EU amid its struggle with its internal problems.

Serbs have throughout history speculated that Albania wants to form a joint state embracing all Albanians in Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece.

Likewise, Serbia has been accused of wanting to create "greater Serbia" comprising territories in Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro where Serbs live.
A handwritten note praising the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group was found near the gunman suspected of fatally shooting a police officer Thursday in Paris, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said.

Molins identified the attacker during a news conference Friday as Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old who had a long police record that included a previous attempted attack on police.

Police arrested Cheufri in February, but were forced to release him because they lacked evidence for a prosecution.

The Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility through its news agency, identified the shooter as "Abu Yussef the Belgian," calling him "one of Islamic State's fighters."

French media is reporting the attacker had been identified by police as a resident of Seine-et-Marne who was imprisoned for several years for shooting at police officers in the early 2000s.

Molins said police are still trying to determine if Cheufri had any accomplices in the attack.

"He was not on the security watch list and had shown no signs of radicalization despite his many years in prison," Molins said.

U.S. President Donald Trump predicted on Twitter Friday the attack would have an impact on France's presidential election on Sunday.



Le Pen calls for border checks



The attack prompted far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen to call Friday for a reinstatement of border checks and the expulsion of foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence agencies. Le Pen was the only major French candidate to support Trump, who pledged to crack down on immigration, during last year's U.S. presidential election.

Le Pen said in a radio interview Friday, "France, has again known the barbarism of a terrorist attack at the very heart of our capital."



Le Pen, who has spoken in increasingly inflammatory terms during her campaign, said the police targeted in the attack "have paid the price of the fight against radical Islamism, this monstrous, totalitarian ideology that has declared war on our nation, on reason and civilization."

Police, meanwhile, have detained and questioned three family members of the gunman who was shot and killed in the attack.







Hollande links attack to terrorism



The Champs-Elysees, Paris' most iconic boulevard, was returning to its normal activities Friday, after a gunman killed one policeman and wounded two others on the world-famous street.

French President Francois Hollande said he is convinced the "cowardly killing" was an act of terrorism. The French leader Friday called together the government's security council and his would-be successors in the presidential election campaign to discuss if, and how, the attack might impact voting intentions.

Hollande's defense and security council meeting was part of government efforts to protect Sunday's vote, taking place under heightened security.

"We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election," he told the nation on television.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron urged the country not to "give in to fear." Macron suspended two rallies after the shooting on the Champs Elysees.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, speaking Friday in Jakarta, said the attack in Paris was the latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere and at any time. He said the U.S. would not relent in its efforts to end terrorism.

In Washington, President Donald Trump sent condolences to the French people. He called the attack "a terrible thing," and said it was another example of the sort of violence that "never ends."



Presidential election



France is on edge ahead of Sunday's presidential election, with a very close outcome expected. The country is still feeling the effects of a series of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks over the past two years that killed more than 200 people.
South Sudan's three-year-plus conflict has taken a heavy toll on children. An orphanage in Kajokeji in the former Central Equatoria State was forced to relocate recently to Uganda because of rampant insecurity. The orphanage manager said fleeing the town amid fighting between the South Sudan Army and forces loyal to rebel leader Riek Machar was a nightmare.

Mama Susan Tabia founded the Amazing Grace Children's Home in the early 1990s at a camp in northern Uganda, for refugees from what was then called Southern Sudan. The orphanage hosts more than 200 children.

Tabia started by adopting a child who had been abandoned in the bush near the Olijji refugee settlement camp in Adjumani. Within 10 days, people had left more than a dozen children at her doorstep, including babies.

She said the orphanage was already home to more than 100 children in 2005 after the signing of the peace agreement that ended Sudan's 21 years of civil war.

Tabia left the children in Uganda and moved to Kajokeji, where she established a bigger facility and operated until the conflict escalated in Kajokeji earlier this year.

Residents terrorized

Tabia said she was forced to abandon the orphanage in Kajokeji because soldiers with the armed opposition and the South Sudan Army were terrorizing residents. In one village, she said, government soldiers were shooting people and setting buildings afire, "so this act frightened everybody."

Tabia said criminal behavior among rogue elements of the warring parties also terrified Kajokeji residents, and many fled to Uganda. She said she evacuated more than 180 orphans amid heavy fighting.

"Most of our people, they crossed to Uganda [on foot], but it was not possible for us because children are small," she said. "Then we had a lorry, but the lorry kept breaking down. And then carrying the small children from there up to Adjumani by road was not easy, because we had small babies."

Eventually, Tabia and her staff decided that all children older than 12 should walk, while arrangements were made to hire vehicles from Uganda to transport the smaller children. She said it took the staff six days to get all the children safely across the border to Uganda.

The management of the orphanage settled the younger children on a piece of land just outside Adjumani town. The older children, who were separated upon their arrival in Uganda, were sent off to a refugee camp in Morobi in Moyo District.

Tabia said she worries about those children. "Since we came, no children have been registered because of lack of school fees; we don't have money for their schooling," she said, and most of those in Morobi have no shelter and have been sleeping under trees.

Having lost everything in Kajokeji, Tabia and her team of volunteers try, amid all the challenges, to help the children adjust to their new environment.

Jansuk Alex, a nurse at the orphanage, said it's a miracle none of children died on the way to Uganda, considering the harsh conditions they faced along the journey.

Disease prevention

Alex said his top concern was figuring out how to minimize diseases among the children. He admitted malaria continued to pose a serious health threat to the orphans. Another issue, he said, is intestinal worms.

The orphanage relies almost entirely on donations from church organizations, particularly from the United States. But American donations have been intermittent in recent months.

Wudu Mogga, who manages the orphanage, said he would like to construct new facilities for the children.

"There is no support that comes to the children frequently, you know. You may get some support; sometimes you find that there is not any other support," said Mogga.

Morris Taban, 21, who was dropped off at the orphanage as a boy following his mother's death, praised the volunteers for the care he received at the facility.

"This place, it is really good and it's really making children also to be hardworking," he said. "I didn't expect that I would grow up to this moment."

Like others at the orphanage, Catherine Juan, 16, does not attend school, but she still hopes she will be able to achieve her dream.

"I want to become a nurse, because I like treating people who are sick," she said.

The Amazing Grace Children's Home was founded on Christian teachings and values, and Tabia said this was crucial in molding the character of the children.

"Most of the children are well-behaved. The first children that we started with, they have finished from university," she said. Four of the girls who have finished their university education are now married and have children, she said.

Tabia added that she would continue to try to build a new, larger home for the orphans who were forced to become refugees at such a young age.
Clashes are raging at a military base in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif after Taliban insurgents assaulted the facility Friday afternoon, said Afghan officials and insurgents.

Local officials in Mazar-I-Sharif have now confirmed at least 8 security personnel were killed and more than 10 others wounded in the attack in the capital of relatively peaceful Balkh province. They said Afghan forces have ended the siege after killing the attackers, some of whom were in security forces' uniforms.

Witnesses told VOA the assailants arrived at the military facility on board two Afghan army vehicles. Afghan media quoted witnesses as saying the attack left at least 10 security personnel dead. But several hours after the siege began, Afghan officials have provided little information to reporters.

The Taliban took credit for the violence, saying a group of its fighters with explosives strapped to their bodies staged the coordinated raid.

Local media reported Taliban assailants targeted officers and soldiers of the Afghan National Army as they were leaving a mosque after offering Friday prayers.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the attack began with a suicide car bombing, making way for other assailants to enter the 209 Shaheen Corp military headquarters.

The Afghan military base houses thousands of forces that are regularly engaged in anti-Taliban operations in troubled northern regions of the country.

Ekram Shinwari in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
The U.N. refugee agency reports that more than 11,000 Congolese have fled to neighboring Angola, seeking refuge from an upsurge in violence between rebels and government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai Province.



According to the The U.N. refugee agency, more than one million people have been displaced within the DRC since mid-August when conflict erupted in Kasai Province.



UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said more than 9,000 people fled to Angola this month, in fear of their lives, as fighting intensified. He said some refugees have been forced to hide in the forest for several days before making their escape. All the refugees, he said, arrive in Angola in desperate condition.

"The situation among arriving refugee children is dire as about half of the arriving refugee population are children," he said. "Many of them are arriving malnourished and sick, suffering from diarrhea, fever and malaria. Two children are reported to have already died from severe malnutrition inside Angola."



Baloch said some parents reportedly sent their children to Angola, fearing they would be recruited as child soldiers by the militias in Kasai. The U.N. Children's Fund, which agreed that is a valid concern, reported at least 2,000 children are being used by the militia to fight their war.



The UNHCR reported conditions along the DRC border in Angola are overcrowded. It said refugees lack proper shelter and are forced to stay in makeshift buildings, with food, water and other relief in short supply.



It said heavy rains in the country are putting vulnerable refugees  women, children, the elderly and disabled  at risk of becoming ill.
In some of the world's remotest corners, health workers armed with smartphones, digital maps and medication are making steady progress in eliminating trachoma, the world's leading infectious cause of blindness, a leading expert said.

Better living conditions have wiped out trachoma in many countries but some 200 million people are still at risk of contracting the disease, according to the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI).

Trachoma is categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), one of a group of 18 debilitating and sometimes fatal illnesses that affect 1.5 billion people, mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Efforts to treat trachoma include improving access to clean water and decreasing the number of infected people by treating them with antibiotics.

ITI Director Paul Emerson said antibiotics donation programs, increased government spending, a global mapping project identifying hotspots and the use of smartphones to collect data had been gamechangers in fighting trachoma.

"We know where the disease is, we know what to do about it and where do it," Emerson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"That may sound simple but we can only reach our goal of eliminating trachoma through a combination of joined-up efforts."

Trachoma can be prevented in childhood by having facilities for children to wash their faces and if caught soon enough the disease is easily treatable with repeated doses of antibiotics.

Those suffering with an advance stage of the disease, in which the eyelashes turn inward and scrape the cornea, can be treated with simple surgery.

This week, governments and private donors pledged more than $800 million at a meeting in Geneva to accelerate the fight against NTDs.

The Geneva gathering came five years after a meeting in London brought a commitment by the public and private sectors to achieve WHO goals for the control and elimination of NTDs.

Fight Gathers Steam

In 2015, nearly one billion people received treatments donated by pharmaceutical companies for at least one NTD, a 36 percent increase since 2011, the WHO said this week.

The fight against trachoma has also gathered momentum as the number of people at risk dropped by 50 percent in the last six years, while those requiring treatment now stands at 182 million, down from 325 million, according to the ITI.

Emerson said thanks to the Global Trachoma Mapping Project (GTMP), an effort to document where the disease is endemic, health workers can now say for sure where treatment is needed.

Ethiopia is one of the countries that has made significant strides in fighting trachoma, said Emerson.

The government has included fighting trachoma as a target in its national health plan, provided significant domestic funding, participated in the mapping project and is training doctors to conduct surgeries to correct the effects of trachoma.

Health workers in Ethiopia use smart phones to collect data in the field that are then streamed to an analyst who can call the field team to correct errors in real time, he said.

But despite progress in fighting trachoma and other NTDs, experts agree that drug companies need to step up donations of medicines.

"The challenge now is in reaching the most neglected populations, communities in conflict and in closing the funding gaps," said Emerson.
Ukraine has urged the West to back its efforts at reform despite accusations that the government has failed to tackle corruption three years after the revolution that toppled the regime of President Viktor Yanukovich. Campaigners say billions of dollars were embezzled from Ukrainian state coffers, much of it held in secret offshore accounts. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, one case highlights the barriers prosecutors face in trying to recover Ukraine's stolen assets.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reiterated his countrys support for its longtime friend and ally Israel while meeting Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mattis and Netanyahu agreed that both countries have a common enemy in militant Islamists and vowed to do whatever it takes to achieve peace.

I think it's important that we remind ourselves that if good people don't band together then bad people can do a lot of damage in this world. And we're committed to stopping that and doing whatever it takes to pass on peace and freedom to the next generation, Mattis said.

Mattis met with Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Tel Aviv after holding meetings this week with leaders in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Netanyahu said he appreciated the change in direction the Trump administration is taking in regards to the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

I think this is a welcome change, a strategic change of American leadership and American policy. We have common values and also common dangers, Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said the U.S. and Israel face dual threats from militant Islamists  coming from both Sunni extremists led by the Islamic State and Shiite militants led by Iran. He said the meeting with Mattis would focus on how to deal with those threats.

Mattis is the first member of Trump's cabinet to visit Israel.
U.S. sources have told CNN that they have prepared charges against Julian Assange, the Australian whistleblower who founded WikiLeaks.

The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Assange since at least 2010, when WikiLeaks published thousands of stolen U.S. security files.

Last week in a speech in Washington, D.C., CIA Director Mike Pompeo said WikiLeaks directed a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in 2010 to intercept "specific secret information" that "overwhelmingly focuses on the United States."

The Washington Post reports that prosecutors in the Justice Department have been drafting a memo considering charges against people connected with WikiLeaks. But the Post reports that any charges against those people would need approval from the highest levels of the Justice Department.

U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia used WikiLeaks to publish emails by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up to last year's presidential election.

Hackers working for Russia are believed to have gotten into the accounts of officials of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and published their emails on WikiLeaks, in order to tamper with the election's outcome.

"It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is," Pompeo said. "A nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia."

'Step up our efforts'

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday at a news conference that Assange's arrest is a priority for the Trump administration.

"We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail," he said.

Assange's lawyer, however, told CNN that he has not heard from the Justice Department about any charges against his client. "They've been unwilling to have any discussion at all, despite our repeated requests that they let us know what Mr. Assange's status is in any pending investigations," Barry Pollack said.

Pollack said WikiLeaks should be treated the same as other news outlets, such as The Washington Post and New York Times, which routinely publish stories based on classified information. His position echoes the stance taken by the Obama administration, which elected not to prosecute WikiLeaks.

Officials in the Trump administration indicated early on that they might re-examine the issue, which was never formally closed.

Assange is wanted on rape charges in Sweden, but has been granted asylum by the South American nation of Ecuador. He has been living since 2012 in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest and extradition.

The Post on April 11 published an opinion piece by Assange that said, "Quite simply, our motive is identical to that claimed by the New York Times and the Post  to publish newsworthy content.

"Consistent with the U.S. Constitution, we publish material that we can confirm to be true, irrespective of whether sources came by that truth legally or have the right to release it to the media," he added.
The United States is reaffirming its engagement with Southeast Asian nations at a time when analysts say there are concerns that North Korea's threats are overshadowing territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Since becoming president, Donald Trump has softened his once-stern tone on China, reaching out to Beijing to help pressure North Korea to end its provocative nuclear and missile programs. On Friday, he tweeted:

In comparison, his last tweet about the South China Sea was in December after a Chinese navy ship seized an American unmanned underwater vehicle.

Some analysts warned the U.S. not to create a perception of being so focused on the North Korea threat that it loses sight of other issues important to allies in Southeast Asia, in particular the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

"Clearly the administration must be very cautious," said Harry Kazianis, who directs defense studies at the Center for the National Interest.

"Help [from China] on North Korea could come at a very steep price, damaging critical partnership throughout Asia, if Vietnam and others feel abandoned for Chinese help on North Korea," he added.

Southeast Asian nations are seeking a long-term agreement to settle disputes in the South China Sea, as China moves to extend its regional influence. The North Korea issue, and the Trump administration's early decision to back out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership regional economic pact, could send mixed signals.

"The Trump administration must move very cautiously, balancing all strategic problems in the Asia-Pacific carefully," Kazianis said.

State Department officials say the U.S. is "in pursuit of expanding good trade" with the Southeast Asian bloc that's "free and fair."

ASEAN trade

ASEAN countries buy more than $100 billion of U.S. exports each year, and the volume of trade supports over half a million American jobs, according to Patrick Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia.

However, "there are a number of countries in this region that enjoy a substantial trade surplus with the Untied States, and that's a disadvantage for us," Murphy said.

Reaching out

The White House has reached out to allies in the region, sending Vice President Mike Pence on a 10-day tour with stops in South Korea, Japan and Indonesia this week. Pence announced that Trump will attend the U.S.-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the East Asia summit in the Philippines in November, along with the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Vietnam.

"It is a testament to the value that President Trump places on the U.S.-ASEAN strategic partnership and the Asia Pacific as a whole," Pence said Thursday in the Indonesian capital. "And it's a sign, I hope, to all of our firm and unwavering commitment to build on the strong foundation that we already share."



In two weeks, ASEAN foreign ministers will gather in Washington prior to the planned multilateral meetings in August, with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hosting the ministers on May 4 at the State Department.



Founded in 1967, ASEAN's ten member states cover the size of the continental United States, with a total population of 626 million and an economy valued at $2.4 trillion. Washington established its relations with this bloc in 1977 through the ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue. The U.S. and ASEAN also share nearly one hundred sister city or sister state partnerships.
The United States said on Thursday it would maintain training for east and central African regional forces to prevent warlord Joseph Kony's rebels from regrouping, despite plans to pull troops from operations hunting the insurgents.

About 100 U.S. military personnel have been providing a regional force made up of soldiers from Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic with intelligence, logistics and other support to track Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

The rebel leader has been indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Last month, Washington announced that it was pulling its contingent out of operations against the LRA, saying the insurgent force had been "dramatically weakened."

"We obviously have concerns about the possibility of the LRA coming back to fruition," Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the top U.S. military commander overseeing troops in Africa, told journalists in a telephone briefing.

"We will continue to work with those countries with training and exercises ... because even though we are officially ending [the mission], we are certainly aware of the fact that we do not want to leave a void there."

For nearly two decades, the LRA battled the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni from bases in the north of the country and across the border in what is now South Sudan.

They were notorious for their brutality and for kidnapping children for use as fighters and sex slaves.

In 2005, they were ejected from those bases and retreated to a lawless patch of jungle straddling the borders of South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic (CAR).

Kampala announced on Wednesday that it has also begun withdrawing troops from CAR, saying its decision to pull out was spurred by "the realization that the mission to neutralize the LRA has now been successfully achieved."
The United States said Thursday it was troubled by the growing number of extrajudicial killings in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs and called on Manila to stick to its commitment to investigate them.

Close to 9,000 people, mostly drug users and small-time dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office almost 10 months ago and promised an unrelenting campaign to rid the Philippines of illicit narcotics.

Police say about a third of the victims were shot by officers in self-defense. Human rights groups believe many of the remaining two-thirds were killed by paid assassins cooperating with the police or by police themselves, disguised as vigilantes. The government and police reject that.

Patrick Murphy, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Southeast Asia, said the United States shared Manila's objective of eliminating the scourge of illicit drugs and wanted to help.

"We, however, do have a very sustained and deep concern when elements of the drug war are operating outside the rule of law," Murphy told reporters. "The growing number of extrajudicial killings is troubling."

Rights advocates were concerned when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sidestepped questions about extrajudicial killings in the Philippines during his January confirmation hearing, raising the possibility that President Donald Trump might take a softer line on the issue than his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Murphy said there was a distinction between being a nominee and the secretary of state and Tillerson was now the leader of the policy of expressing concern about the way the drug war was being waged.

"We are urging the Philippines to follow up on its commitment to investigate extrajudicial killings whether they are committed by law enforcement, or of a vigilante nature," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, Duterte's office rejected allegations by two senior police officers in a Reuters report that police received cash rewards for executing drug suspects, while the most high-profile critic of the president backed the officers' claims.

Duterte was infuriated by U.S. expressions of concern about extrajudicial killings after he took office last year and threatened to sever the long-standing U.S. defense alliance.

Duterte spoke positively about Trump, a fellow populist, after the U.S. presidential election in November, although his anti-U.S. rhetoric continued.
The U.S. government says it will not waive trade sanctions for U.S. companies seeking to drill for oil in Russia, including for U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made the announcement Friday, indicating that the United States would maintain a tough stance on sanctions against Russia.

"In consultation with President Donald J. Trump, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions," he said in a brief statement.

Exxon has sought permission to drill in several areas that are currently off limits because of the Russian sanctions, including in the Black Sea. It sought to resume a joint venture with Rosneft, a Russian state-owned oil company.

Exxon's former CEO Rex Tillerson, who is now secretary of state in Trump's Cabinet, has recused himself from the administration's decision.

Tillerson has established close ties with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, and has previously spoken out against the sanctions.

Crimea-related sanctions

The United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 in response to Moscow's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The European Union sanctions do not keep European oil companies from operating in Russia, a fact that has frustrated Exxon.

"We understand the statement today by Secretary Mnuchin in consultation with President Trump," Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in statement. However, he said the company was hamstrung by the U.S. government's position.

"Our 2015 application for a license under the provisions outlined in the U.S. sanctions was made to enable our company to meet its contractual obligations under a joint venture agreement in Russia, where competitor companies are authorized to undertake such work under European sanctions," Jeffers said.

Exxon has said the company previously received several waivers from the sanctions during the Obama administration for limited work with Rosneft.

Friday's announcement comes as U.S. lawmakers continue to investigate possible ties between some Trump campaign aides and Moscow. It also comes at a time when relations between the United States and Russia have become more strained following a U.S. missile strike in Syria.
This week has brought Venezuelas biggest demonstrations in years, with opponents of President Nicolas Maduro demanding a return to democratic rule. The leftist leader also has called his supporters to the streets, backed by security troops and civilian militias. Several people have been killed in clashes. VOA Spanish Service correspondent Alvaro Algarra, reporting from Caracas, spoke Thursday with two opposition members about their goals for the protest.
Vietnam is facing a power dilemma, with officials in Hanoi trying to figure out how to supply all of its surging energy needs without destroying its environment in the process.

Southeast Asia in general will see energy use jump 80 percent in the next two decades, according to Trilliant, a software firm for electricity grids. But for Vietnam, that number is closer to 200 percent.

Some stakeholders believe the remedy is a combination of technology, renewable power, and greater energy efficiency. But the answers arent so simple to decision makers in Hanoi.

Considering coal

Many of them see coal as an affordable fuel for the economy, with dozens of thermal power plants slated to come online by 2030, despite the carbon pollution they discharge. And although Vietnam just raised the price itll pay investors for solar power, the market for renewable energy has remained in its infancy for years.

Vietnam faces the predicament familiar in developing countries: Economic growth comes at a price.

The world has engaged in the industrial revolution 4.0, featuring the deeper penetration of information technology into all aspects of life, said Vo Van Hoan, office manager at the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee.

Thats the good news about technology, that Vietnam is taking part in this revolution in its quest to be an industrialized nation by 2020.

But the bad news, Hoan said, is there are downsides to globalizing economies, such as pollution, deforestation, desertification and other damage linked to climate change.

Smart meters

Technology isnt always eco-friendly as it ushers more factories and heavy machinery into Vietnam, where electronics have overtaken rice and coffee as a leading export in recent years. Technology, though, also could mitigate an economys harm to the environment, especially in addressing the energy supplies that Vietnam considers essential to move up the income ladder.

An example is electricity meters connected to the internet, or smart meters.

Trilliant and the Saigon Hi-Tech Park wrapped up a pilot project in March deploying smart meters around the commercial zone that houses the likes of Intel and Samsung. The devices alert authorities when theres a power outage, so they can fix it and keep the grid running smoothly. The meters can detect tampering and measure power quality. And they capture data every 15 minutes, so that people can analyze their electricity consumption in real time and make decisions about the most efficient use of energy, rather than wait on a monthly bill.

That means officials arent the only ones thinking about public utilities.

Nguyen Ba Quynh, public sector director of Microsoft Vietnam, said ordinary people must get involved, too.

Its about building an ecosystem, its about innovation, he said. Its about [enabling] the citizens to participate with the government in building up the nation.

Look to Singapore

If this sounds lofty, its because Quynh was discussing what Vietnam could learn by peeking across the Gulf of Thailand at Singapore. The tightly managed island has a Smart Nation campaign that pushes tech-driven improvements to the quality of life, such as a zero waste dream of converting refuse into energy.

Another common application of emerging technology is to assess traffic patterns, which can lead to optimal fuel use. In Singapores case, the government simulates various arrangements of mixed-use real estate to see the impact on traffic, said Chinn Lim, lead public sector strategist at Autodesk, which makes software for architecture, engineering, and manufacturing.

Based in Singapore, Lim said his company is also consulting with Vietnamese government agencies to cut energy waste.

For example, designers can reduce cooling costs depending on how they situate a building to take in sunlight. Lim also said its becoming trendy for buildings to be retrofitted with more efficient lighting, such as LED bulbs and lights that can be programmed to dim or shut off on their own.

Smart bulbs and smart meters might offer just incremental change, but with more power blackouts expected in 2018 as demand beats supply, Vietnam needs all the progress it can get.
The United Nations' World Health Organization says millions of lives could be saved if people infected with viral hepatitis were tested and treated for these potentially fatal diseases.

New WHO data from the just released Hepatitis 2017 report show an estimated 325 million people globally are living with chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus infections.

WHO said hundreds of thousands of people infected with these diseases are dying because they lack access to life-saving testing and treatment. The agency noted that most people are untested and do not even know that they are infected.

Consequently, WHO said they remain untreated and are at risk of a slow progression to chronic liver disease, cancer and death.

Hepatitis B virus is transmitted between people through contact with blood or other body fluids. Hepatitis C virus is spread through direct contact with infected blood.

Latest estimates show that viral hepatitis caused 1.34 million deaths in 2015 and that some 1.75 million people were newly infected with hepatitis C, bringing the total number of people living with this disease globally to 71 million.





Comparable to TB



Gottfried Hirnschall, director of WHOs department of HIV/global hepatitis program, said that the number of deaths from viral hepatitis was comparable to that of tuberculosis.

However, he noted that hepatitis kills more people than HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and significantly more than malaria.

What is, however, the difference between hepatitis and those three other diseases is that the trend for hepatitis is upwards. We are seeing an increase in mortality while for the other three diseases, it has been going down over the years," Hirnschall said. "Since 2000 and 2015, we have seen a 22 percent increase from one million, as I said, to 1.34 million.

Hirnschall said there was a range of interventions and tools, including highly effective vaccines and medicines that can prevent hepatitis from becoming a chronic and fatal disease.

WHO estimates 257 million people worldwide were living with chronic hepatitis B in 2015. However, it noted that new infections have been falling dramatically thanks to increased coverage of HBV vaccination among children.

Hepatitis B is mainly transmitted in the first years of life from mother to child and is most prevalent in the Western Pacific and African regions.

While this safe and effective vaccine has been around since 1982, nations have been slow to use it. But Ana Maria Henao Restrepo, team leader of the department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals, observed that this has changed.

She said 95 percent or 185 countries now use the hepatitis B vaccine in routine immunization programs.

That is great and as I mentioned because of this, 85 percent of the infants worldwide are protected with three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. Where we are lagging behind is on the first dose that is given after birth. It is very important to prevent infections from the mother, she said.

Restrepo said only 50 percent of countries were delivering this vaccine. Without this vaccine, she said people become chronically infected and require medication and diagnosis throughout their lifetime.



Unsafe injections



Unsafe injections in health care settings and injecting drug use are the most common modes of hepatitis C transmission. The problem is most widespread in the Eastern Mediterranean and European regions.

While using clean needles and syringes will prevent transmission of the disease, Gottfried Hirnschall said there is a highly effective drug that can cure hepatitis C within a relatively short time.

A person needs to take a single tablet or a tablet every day for two to three months and most of the people will be cured.

He said few people have availed themselves of this treatment for a long time because of the exorbitantly high $84,000 price tag.

They were very high to start with. They are still very high in many countries, particularly in high-income countries, he said.

But, as the report also points out, the price of these treatments has come down considerably. It costs as little as $200 in some countries now, per cure for treatments, which is quite striking.

Charles Gore, President of the World Hepatitis Alliance said WHO's Global Hepatitis Report provides an understanding of the true impact of the disease, providing new data and a set of very specific, global and regional targets to reach by 2030.

For instance, global deaths from hepatitis must be brought down from 1.34 million to lower than 469,000 people per year," he said.

Hirnschall said the new possibilities of cure for hepatitis C and the possible elimination of hepatitis B through vaccination have created some positive momentum and greater public attention on these heretofore silent epidemics.

The momentum has clearly been driven by the excitement around some new opportunities we do now have, he said.
Fox News Channel has thrived despite losing founding leader Roger Ailes and next-generation star Megyn Kelly within the past nine months. Wednesday's firing of defining personality Bill O'Reilly will be its toughest test yet.

Fox moved quickly to install a new lineup after announcing O'Reilly's exit because of several harassment allegations by women, which he continues to deny.

Outside pressure isn't leaving with him; members of the National Organization for Women demonstrated outside Fox's headquarters Thursday, saying the company's workplace culture wouldn't really change unless management cleaned house of other high-ranking executives who knew about the sexual harassment but didn't do anything.

For most of Fox's existence, O'Reilly had been the linchpin of its success as the most visible and most-watched host. Fox's viewership at 9 p.m. went up when Tucker Carlson replaced Kelly in January  her battles with Donald Trump cost her support among many Fox viewers  but don't expect Carlson to repeat the feat when he moves an hour earlier on Monday.

'Some dismay'

"There's going to be some dismay among the Fox audience," said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative watchdog Media Research Center. "The real question is what happens next. If they offer the same generic product, then it will be forgive and forget."

Announcing a new lineup at the same time as the O'Reilly firing was smart, Graham said, because it enabled some viewers to say, "Oh, that's not bad. I can live with that."

Fox News has consistently been the most-watched network in all of cable television, not just news, over the past few months. The ouster of Ailes because of sexual harassment allegations last summer may have been disturbing, but meant little to viewers because it was off the air. Most of his management team remained, and the network's approach didn't change.

O'Reilly's brand of middle-class populism, delivered with a mix of humor and outrage, predated and reflected the appeal of President Donald Trump. O'Reilly wasn't always predictable in his opinions. Joe Pollak of the right-wing Breitbart.com website wrote a column Thursday headlined "Bill O'Reilly's secret: he was a centrist, not a conservative."

Arguably, the lineup installed in his stead is more reliably conservative. Carlson has made it a point to seek a younger audience by reaching out to the alt-right community, said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal Media Matters for America. Eric Bolling begins his own show at 5 p.m. and the current late-afternoon panel show, "The Five," moves into the 9 p.m. hour.

"It's not like they brought in [Fox managing editor for breaking news] Shep Smith or a news anchor," Carusone said.

Biggest challenge

Carlson scored the highest ratings ever for Fox in the 9 p.m. time slot for the first three months of 2017, but there remains some question about how much that was a result of following O'Reilly in the lineup. With him moving up an hour, 9 p.m. most likely represents Fox's biggest challenge. "The Five" is set up as a panel show with one liberal trying to hold his own with four conservatives. The panelists are familiar to Fox viewers, and O'Reilly protege Jesse Watters is being added to the mix.

"The Five" faces strong competition with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in that hour, and CNN is about to give Jake Tapper a test drive in the time slot.

Trump's most ardent defender on Fox, Sean Hannity, remains at 10 p.m. ET.

Fox plainly hopes that the brand and point of view it has developed is stronger than any single personality, even one as outsized as O'Reilly.

Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, who run Fox News parent 21st Century Fox, have talked about building an atmosphere of respect for women at the workplace now that the network's top executive and top personality have both been drummed out for their behavior. Some observers, like the NOW demonstrators, wonder whether that can happen without further changes behind the scenes.

Ailes' former top aide, Bill Shine, is now Fox's co-president. He hasn't been accused of any harassment, but many inside and outside Fox have wondered how much he and other executives still in place knew about Ailes' and O'Reilly's behavior. Fox even signed O'Reilly to a contract extension knowing that The New York Times was investigating harassment allegations against him  the story that led to O'Reilly's ouster.

'Nothing changed'

"There were a lot of people at Fox who really hoped things would change after Roger left, and they didn't," Margaret Hoover, a former Fox political contributor, said Thursday on CNN. She added: "Nothing changed in the sense that the culture that perpetuated this behavior is the same."

Another former Fox contributor, Kirsten Powers, described on CNN an on-air segment with O'Reilly she found offensive because of the way the host talked about all the "blondes" who worked there. Powers said she sought an apology from O'Reilly and didn't get one, and her complaints were waved off by various managers, including Ailes. She said she wouldn't go on O'Reilly's show, despite the high-profile platform it provided, for a few years afterward.

A former Fox clerical worker who anonymously complained Tuesday came forward Thursday on "The View" to identify herself and speak about the experience. Perquita Burgess, who is black, said O'Reilly leered at her, made grunting noises as he passed her desk and once referred to her as "hot chocolate." She said she felt "triumphant" when she heard about O'Reilly's firing.

"It's very cathartic," she said.
The global flow of remittances declined in 2016 for the second year in a row, potentially reducing access to health care, education and food for millions of families in developing nations.

Friday's report from World Bank experts says migrants sent $429 billion from wealthy nations back to their home countries during the year. That is a drop of 2.4 percent from the previous year.

Falling oil prices in commodity exporting nations and weak economic growth in Europe took a toll on the flow of money.

India is the world's largest receiver of remittances and saw money sent home by its overseas workers fall by nearly $63 billion, a drop of nearly 9 percent. Steep declines were also reported in Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt.

The report says it costs about $15 on average to send a $200 remittance home, with even higher costs for destinations in sub-Saharan Africa. World Bank officials would like to cut that fee by more than half, but the effort is complicated by new rules intended to make it harder to launder money and commit other illegal acts.

The report in the Migration and Development Brief also says the number of refugees headed for Europe increased by 273,000 to a total of 1.6 million. Globally, refugee flows rose by 1.4 million to a total of 16.5 million.

The lead author of the brief says migration will "almost certainly" increase due to large income gaps, widespread youth unemployment, climate change, fragility and conflict. Dilip Ratha of the World Bank says migration is also being driven by aging populations in wealthy nations. As developed nations lose workers to retirement, new employees may be needed to fill those gaps.
Young people from Southern European countries who migrated for work opportunities are unlikely to move back home anytime soon. Thousands migrated north after the economic crisis hit their countries hard. Unemployment rates in countries such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Portugal remain excessively high between  25 percent and 45 percent.



Roberta Damore left her home country of Italy in 2010. After graduating from university, it took her months to find a full time jobs that paid her only 500 euros a month without any benefits or health insurance.

She now works in Luxembourg at a recruitment agency and doesnt think she will move back to Italy anytime soon.



Every time I go back the situation is worse when it comes to work opportunities," she said. "It makes me sad that my country is not able to offer the young generation to start a life. If the situation would improve I could at least think about opportunities and go back.



Most of the young unemployed move to countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, but also to smaller countries like The Netherlands and Belgium.



Portuguese software engineer Jorge Lima moved to England because of the language. There was little work in Portugal in my field and the work the projects I get to work on here are much more interesting," he said. "Also the salary is more than twice as much. Most of my friends from Portugal have moved away to find better jobs.



Forced mobility?

Only three percent of Europeans live in a different European Union member state, mostly due to language barriers. For years the European Union has tried to increase mobility within the bloc, but many of these young professionals migrating north feel their mobility is forced. More than 4 million young Europeans were unemployed in the year of 2016.



The efforts of the EU Youth Guarantee, an initiative established to assist those under the age of 25 with employment, education or internships, falls short of the initial expectations raised, according to a report by the Court of Auditors released in April.



Matthias Busse is a researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies. He says the Youth Guarantee had a positive impact, though the total number of unemployed youth remains too large.



Its not a drop in the ocean, but its not something that will have a huge impact on the macro number. One also has to have realistic expectations on what the EU can deliver on. In the end it comes down to the economic environment," said Busse. "And if domestic jobs are created, schemes can only be tools to facilitate positive trends, but the positive trends have to be there.



The European Youth Forum lobbies the EU and policymakers on behalf of young people on issues such as employment. They were very much in favor of the Youth Guarantee, but also believe proper financing and less bureaucracy is needed to successfully implement such programs.

Seeking reform

Allan Pall of the European Youth Forum says the current situation could lead to a so-called lost generation if no reforms are introduced.



We see that young people are more likely to work in precarious jobs, unpaid, or zero-hour contracts or sometimes not even having contracts. We are now seeing that countries like United Kingdom and Greece have legitimized paying young people below the minimum wage, just because they are young, said Pall.



One Spanish job seeker in Brussels says he prefers not to be named as he is actively applying for jobs, and he feels there is a negative bias against those who are not Belgian. After doing three unpaid internships at home there was still no prospect of finding paid employment.

The linguistic graduate says he faces several challenges, such as how to negotiate in his new cultural environment and not being able to speak the local language.



Despite these challenges he feels that even if he doesnt manage to find a job within his field, he will stay in Belgium.



This is something that I discussed with my family before coming here, there is a chance I dont find anything. But its more worth it to being a Belgian waiter with a better salary and better conditions than being one at home. And that is a very sad thing to say.



The Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium assisted hundreds of Spanish people looking for work in Belgium and surrounding countries in recent years. Almost all are under 35 years old and 85 percent of them have a university degree. Despite the challenges with language, bureaucracy or even knowing where to find vacancies, it will be difficult to lure them back to Spain, says Ramon Lopez of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce:



In Spain there were many qualified people fore few jobs so the wages were quite low. When the people from Spain come here, they are just happy with having a fair salary, he said.



Ramon says the brain-drain of young professionals means that now activities with public money are initiated to attract those who migrated, to come back home.
A Belgium man wanted in connection with the terrorist attack on Paris' Champs Elysees has turned himself in to authorities in Antwerp.

A Belgium prosecutor said Friday the "man came to police late yesterday after he saw himself appear on social media as terror suspect Number One . . ." Further information about the suspect and his connection with the attack was not immediately available.

Islamic State, which claimed responsibility through its news agency, identified the shooter as "Abu Yussef the Belgian," calling him "one of Islamic State's fighters." Paris police said the dead gunman has been identified, but they have not released his name or said if he was working with Islamic State.

Police have detained and questioned three family members of the gunman who was shot and killed in the attack.

The Champs-Elysees, Paris' most iconic boulevard, was returning to its normal activities Friday, after a gunman killed one policeman and wounded two others on the world-famous street.

French President Francois Hollande said he is convinced the cowardly killing was an act of terrorism. The French leader Friday called together the governments security council and his would-be successors in the presidential election campaign to discuss if, and how, the attack might impact voting intentions.

Hollandes defense and security council meeting was part of government efforts to protect Sundays vote, taking place under heightened security.

We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election, he told the nation on television.

Marine Le Pen, France's far-right, populist presidential candidate, said in a radio interview Friday, "France, has again known the barbarism of a terrorist attack at the very heart of our capital." Le Pen who has spoken in increasingly inflammatory terms during her campaign, said the police targeted in the attack "have paid the price of the fight against radical Islamism, this monstrous, totalitarian ideology that has declared war on our nation, on reason and civilization."

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron urged the country not to "give in to fear." Macron suspended two rallies after the shooting on the Champs Elysees.

Nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, appealing for national unity and for people not to succumb to fear.



The whole of Europe is targeted because it represents the values and ideals of peace, he said.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, speaking Friday in Jakarta, said the attack in Paris was the latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere and at any time. He said the U.S. would not relent in its efforts to end terrorism.

In Washington, President Donald Trump sent condolences to the French people. He called the attack "a terrible thing," and said it was another example of the sort of violence that "never ends."

More weapons found

Piecing together reports from witnesses, investigators said a gunman jumped out of a car near a subway station and opened fire on a police vehicle with a machine gun. He was killed by police gunfire.

Investigators found a pump-action shotgun and knives in the car of the gunman who targeted police on the Champs-Elysees, and were working to determine whether he had accomplices.

Islamic State, which claimed responsibility through its news agency, identified the shooter as Abu Yussef the Belgian, calling him one of Islamic States fighters.

Paris police said the dead gunman has been identified, but they have not released his name or said if he was working with Islamic State.

Investigators searched a home early Friday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed linked to the attack. A police document obtained by The Associated Press identifies the address searched in the town of Chelles as the family home of Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old with a criminal record.

Champs-Elysees reopens

Police closed off a large part of the Champs-Elysees Thursday. The boulevard is popular with residents and tourists for its fashionable shops and restaurants.

On Friday, municipal workers in white hygiene suits were out before dawn to wash down the sidewalk where the assault took place. Delivery trucks did their early morning rounds; everything would have seemed normal were it not for the row of TV trucks parked along the boulevard.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, speaking Friday in Jakarta, said the attack in Paris was the latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere and at any time.He said the U.S. would not relent in its efforts to end terrorism.

In Washington, President Donald Trump sent condolences to the French people. He called the attack a terrible thing, and said it was another example of the sort of violence that never ends.

France is on edge ahead of Sundays presidential election, with a very close outcome expected. The country is still feeling the effects of a series of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks over the past two years that killed more than 200 people.
In Zimbabwe, the opposition formed two new alliances in the past 24 hours to challenge the country's longtime leader President Robert Mugabe in the 2018 polls.

Zimbabwe's top opposition leaders, former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and former Vice President Joice Mujuru, signed a coalition agreement late Wednesday.

Tsvangirai brings with him a large, well-established opposition party, while Mujuru, a former top Mugabe ally, brings with her defectors from the ruling Zanu-PF.

Tsvangirai spoke at the signing, but didn't say who would be the coalition flag bearer in next year's presidential race.

"We shall drive a comprehensive democratization and transformation agenda," he said. "Similar arrangements shall be entered into with other political formations, and we will inform you as it happens."

Tsvangirai signed another agreement Thursday with a fellow longtime opposition leader, Welshman Ncube, healing a 10-year rift between the two men.

Meanwhile, civil society activist and Christian pastor, Evan Mawarire, the leader of the country's #ThisFlag movement, has been called to appear Friday in Harare Magistrate Court.

Mawarire led several anti-government protests in 2016, calling for action on human rights abuses and the worsening economy. Mawarire was arrested in January, accused of subversion and insulting the national flag.

On Thursday, Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's regional director for southern Africa, said the state should drop all charges.

"The Zimbabwean authorities want to make an example out of Pastor Evan Mawarire to send a clear message to anyone who dares dissent," Muchena said.

Muchena said the government is using the criminal justice system to harass and silence peaceful activists.

The acting prosecutor general, Ray Goba, dismissed allegations of persecution at Mawarire's last court appearance in February, saying the courts would settle the matter.
Brad Paisley. Photo: Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Every week, Vulture gathers new albums you can listen to right now. We dont have a problem admitting it: Keeping track of everything thats released can be overwhelming, but finding out about interesting music doesnt have to be work. Read our picks below, and share your thoughts in the comments.

Joe Goddard, Electric Lines (Domino Records)

U.K. producer Joe Goddard is best known Stateside for being part of the playfully idiosyncratic electronic band Hot Chip and as one half of the house duo the 2 Bears, but his sophomore solo album is a confident, cohesive, and thoroughly enjoyable statement from a producer no longer content to classify his music as a Hot Chip side project. While theres a lot to like here for Hot Chip fans  Lose Your Love offers up a groove layered with Auto-Tuned vocals reminiscent of that bands single I Feel Better, and the title track is a reflective ballad featuring Hot Chip vocalist Alexis Taylor  Electric Lines as a whole is a solid album of unimpeachable house and disco-inflected pop thats perfect for summer. That Goddard and guest vocalist SLO can deliver a chorus as generic as music is the answer to your problems with such genuine conviction that you actually believe them is a testament to Electric Lines simple power. Samantha Rollins (@SamanthaRollins)

Ray Davies, Americana (Legacy)

Ray Davies swaps Waterloo Sunset for purple mountain majesties on Americana, a tongue-in-cheek love letter to sub-Mason-Dixon America. Just as he did with British tea-and-crumpets propriety during his time with the Kinks, Davies both celebrates and takes the piss out of classic Americana. He talks romantically about driving a Mustang in The Deal, but has a bit too much fun with the idea of drinking a cappuCCINO, like he did with frilly nylon panties being pulled right up tight years ago in Dedicated Follower of Fashion. When, on the albums title track, he sings I wanna make my home where the buffalo roam, you might sense a sarcastic sneer behind the drawl  but you also kind of believe him. Gabe Cohn (@Gabescohn)

J Dilla, Motor City (Vintage Vibes Music Group / Nature Sounds)

A completists burden is entirely self-imposed, and often doesnt make sense to outsiders, but what happens when an artists body of work is enriched by the act of hearing literally everything theyve ever made? Three days before he died, Detroit producer J Dilla released Donuts, a now-classic album of beat sketches lovingly stitched together as a patchwork narrative of one mans lifelong obsession with music. It moved from crackly-soul to psychedelic reggae with ease, disregarding conventional song structure in favor of loose ideas that gather weight the more you hear them. Since his passing, Dillas seemingly endless archives have been gradually unearthed. Motor City  a collection of beat scraps that doesnt achieve the same brilliance as Donuts but is full of interesting ideas nonetheless  was compiled by Dillas mother, and her love for her sons work is almost audible. Its likely that most of these pieces were not meant for public consumption  at least not in the form they exist in now, but listening to them still feels exciting. Each unearthed nugget is a window into the mind of one of musics great treasures. I cant say this is the best album ever, but its definitely inspiring. Sam Hockley-Smith (@shockleysmith)

Woods, Love Is Love (Woodsist)

Its a ballsy move to quote Lin-Manuel Miranda for your album title (Was I the only one who thought of Van Morrison when he delivered that speech?), but the phrase Love Is Love couldnt be a more fitting title for this collection of songs. Recorded in the months immediately after the election, Love Is Love is a rumination on  and affirmation of  its title, expressed through a freewheeling half-hour of psychedelic folk. The six songs are centered around Spring Is in the Air, a ten-minute instrumental odyssey that shifts subtly from sounding mournful to sounding triumphant  like how a televised Cadillac motorcade can look like a victory or a funeral, depending on the background noise. GC

Gas, Narkopop (Kompakt)

Wolfgang Voigt, a founding father of minimal techno, completely changed the way I thought about nature. His Gas project  which is sometimes ambient and completely without rhythmic structure, except when he introduces a muffled drum pulse that sounds like a heart beating  has long defined a specific sort of relationship with the world at large. When you think of nature music (whatever that is! I kind of just made it up), you probably think of a wooden flute or maybe some dude with a guitar picking away at a solitary melody, but Voigt flips that concept on its head. Narkopop, his first Gas album since 2000s Pop, is lush and amniotic, strings are stretched to the point of unrecognizability, and a low bass thrum might as well be a rushing river. When you listen to it, the outside world falls away, which is the point. SH-S



Brad Paisley, Love and War (Arista Nashville)

Perhaps the biggest surprise on Brad Paisleys new album, Love and War, is the lyric Lets all sing together: The internet is forever! on a song called selfie#theinternetisforever. Its about how people on social media have no shame, and its a weird little interlude smack dab in the middle of Paisleys down-home tribute to slices of southern paradise (Heaven South), long nights with your girl (Last Time for Everything, Go to Bed Early), and even the veterans we neglect when they return from combat (Love and War). If youre a sucker for a heartbreaking country ballads, Paisley hits his peak on the Bill Anderson duet Dying to See Her, about a man following his beloved into the afterlife, because hes just not him without her. Always one to appreciate a cross-genre collaboration, Paisley also brings in Mick Jagger and Timbaland for a few assists, and they manage to work out pretty well. Spin Love and War as you pregame for summer cookouts.  Jordan Crucchiola (@JorCru)
Carrie Fisher. Photo: Ed Miller/Amazon

Just like you, Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan wish they had more time with Carrie Fisher. The late Star Wars star appeared as Delaneys irascible mom Mia on the first three seasons of the duos Catastrophe, and according to Horgan, before the actresss death they had intended to delve deeper into Fishers character in the shows upcoming seasons. We wanted to do a lot more with Carrie. I was only just beginning to be invited to her house! the shows co-creator and star says in an interview with Page Six. We wanted to tell more about that character. We wanted to flesh her out more and give her a story and a reason for her behavior. And the only reason why we did that is because Carrie made us want to do that. Delaney agrees: Only now am I realizing  because Ive been sad as a human being and friend of hers  but yeah, I do feel now stolen from.

The pair both recall being shocked by Fishers death in December, precipitated by a medical emergency on a flight from London to L.A. four days earlier. We had no idea. I dont think she had any idea, says Delaney, who wrote fondly about his co-star in the Guardian. Fisher had finished shooting her scenes for the shows third season, which premieres next Friday, shortly before she died. She brought her incredible, crazy, hilarious, warm, kind personality, but she also brought us the character of Mia, Horgan says. You know, we wrote it down, but she made her the brilliant monster that she is. I miss her, but Ill miss her in our show, you know, Ill miss that character and Ill miss being able to tell that characters story.
Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, and Cillian Murphy in Free Fire.

The talented British director Ben Wheatley must believe that he has a mandate to push every premise into the red zone, playing havoc with your emotions while testing your endurance. His last film, an adaptation of J. G. Ballards High-Rise, was so successful in that regard that it was unwatchable. His new one, the black comedy Free Fire, is more agreeable, as if Wheatley had decided to take the sting  if not the blood  out of death. The result is reasonably entertaining and totally disposable. Which it shouldnt be, given that its focus is on guns and the way that they facilitate mayhem. Gory farce can be bracing. Its the glibness thats unconscionable.

Related Stories Free Fire Is Another Ultraviolent Gun Movie, With One Crucial Difference

A pity, because he has a hell of a setup. Its the 1970s, and several groups of hoods/businesspeople converge on an abandoned Boston-area warehouse to make an arms deal. (The buyer is the IRA, represented by Cillian Murphy.) I dont know much about astrology, but from the start its clear that some planet is in some wrong constellation. The banter is hostile, and no one shrugs off an insult. As the pressure builds, I was laughing in anticipation and wondering who would be allies when the shooting started: Murphy and Brie Larson as a no-nonsense businesswoman? How about the bearded put-down artist with a Zen serenity played by Armie Hammer? And what will happen to Sharlto Copley, a great physical comedian whos wonderful as a cocky/cringing South African kingpin whos dismayed by bullet holes in his Saville Row suit. The warehouse with its ladders and piles of debris looks more and more like a giant playpen for gun freaks.

But Wheatley, for all his gifts, doesnt quite hit his marks. Free Fire cries out for a spatial-temporal genius like Brian De Palma  though I imagine De Palma would have quickly gotten bored with the limited premise. When all hell breaks loose, you lose your bearings (who is with whom?), and the van that crashes with the still-blaring John Denver 8-track cassette is a good comic idea made excruciating by  too much John Denver. The movie is meant to be a nihilist joke, but its all fodder if you dont give a damn about whos being annihilated.

*This article appears in the April 17, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Britt Robinson in Girlboss. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Based on Sophia Amorusos novel #Girlboss, Netflixs new series Girlboss follows a young woman in San Francisco (played by Tomorrowlands Britt Robertson) who figures out how to build a business selling vintage clothing online. Though Amoruso, whose Nasty Gal clothing empire has recently hit hard times, is an executive producer for show, its not a historical reenactment. And though it might seem like a millennial take on a sitcom, with a quirky cast of supporting characters that includes Jim Rash and RuPaul, its not that either. Vulture sat down with Amoruso, Robertson, and creator Kay Cannon (of the Pitch Perfect movies), to talk about creating a Larry Davidlike lead character, their vision of pretech boom San Francisco, and how far they plan to get into the mechanics of running a company.

What made you think that #GirlBoss, the book, would work as a 30-minute comedy?

Kay Cannon: We get this question a lot, because I think people go, Whats funny about it? When I first heard this story, I was like, Sophia is that type of honest to a fault [character], the female Larry David. I understand that. I can write that character and make that person funny. What were trying to do with the show is tell a very real story where its not necessarily your typical sitcom. Its a half-hour comedy, give or take, plus or minus five minutes; it really feels like 13 little movies in a way, or four movies.

Sophia Amoruso: It doesnt look like a sitcom.

A female Larry David is an interesting comparison because its very much focused on her character. There arent a lot of B and C plots or roommate hijinks.

KC: Yeah, we didnt really do B or C stories or anything like that. I think in one episode we have like a second story but very rarely.

Do you see the show changing over the course of the series? Do you want to get into the longer arc of the story of Nasty Gal?

KC: The first two are kind of like one episode in a way, but then the third episode is a totally different feel and look than the first two, and the fourth episode has its own style. So in that way, this show will continue to do that. We have an episode where we bring the internet to life in a Doctor Strangelovelike way around a conference table where people in a forum are speaking the thing that they are typing, so that was a very stylized episode. Well continue to do that kind of stuff. Well continue to change up episodes in order to tell the story in a cool way.

Britt, in bringing Sophias character to life, youre embodying a real person. But the show says that its also loosely based on reality. How much of it was mimicry and how much of it was making a character for the show?

Britt Robertson: Before we started shooting for sure, we had a lot of time rehearsing with Christian Ditter, our director, and Charlize [Theron, an executive producer] was actually in a lot of our rehearsals. That time I really used to just try everything, because I wasnt sure what was working at the time. I just knew my interpretation of these words, but I didnt necessarily take into account Sophias interpretation. She really gave us the freedom to not be confined to that structure.

SA: Its not a historical reenactment.

BR: Yeah [laughs]. Its really nice having that vibe about it all, because [turning to Sophia] I never felt the pressure to be you. What I loved about telling the story is bringing these moments to life, and making them as real and grounded as possible and telling the stories as best we could. How do you bring this character to life and give her all of those amazing complex things that humans have, while also giving the audience the Sophia that they all know and love?

KC: We cast Britt as Sophia because shes a real brat [laughs]. She just is 

BR: Thats what my mom says.

But do you push her into, like you said, a Larry David kind of unlikability, which is interesting.

KC: We needed to have, and found in Britt, an actress with a crazy wide range because we knew we were gonna have Sophia going to all different kinds of places. So she had to be fun and funny, but then also go real deep emotionally.

The show starts in San Francisco in 2006, right at the beginning of the tech boom. How did you construct that setting?

KC: When we went on location scouts, we went to San Francisco for a week just to get myself where I would know the city better, and know what I was writing about. I remember a waiter said, In 2006, San Francisco was magic. Then eventually, when all the tech stuff started happening, it lost its magic.

SA: [Now] its like hipster coffee shops on every corner 

KC: I loved that idea that the city had this magical moment in time before all the tech people came in, and I think its like the best and worst place to be poor. Its very expensive 

SA: But its beautiful. Its like cheap stuff that someone spun into something really beautiful.

So much of Girlboss is about the outfits Sophias selling  for instance, in the first episode its that East West jacket. How did you choose which pieces you were going to feature on the show?

KC: When I was writing the first episode, I checked in with Sophia to ask, What would be like a fabulous find? So she gave me the idea of a 60s or 70s East West motorcycle jacket. Audrey Fisher, our costume designer, found that jacket, and I got the approval from Sophia, being like, Is this amazing?

SA: I said, Ah, that jackets amazing!

BR: Its incredible. Its like a full cow, though. I mean, it is thick.

How involved do you plan to get with Sophia, the character, running a company?

KC: By the end of the first season, she has two employees. Well see the hiring of the first employee, in a way, who happens to be her best friend and the second [employee] coming in right before the launch. If we were given a second season, it would be, How am I a boss to my friends? The whole first season were meeting people along the way who will become instrumental to Sophias life later. The audience doesnt know it yet, but some of the team is being created. In the second season youll see this team and then its like, How is this young boss going to tell them what to do with any kind of authority?

I guess, implicit in the title, is the idea that she has to figure out how to be in charge while very young and as a woman. How did you want her to confront those expectations?

BR: A big part in that whole journey is that she is very young, and she has a really difficult time getting people to take her seriously. I dont know that its specific to gender, you know? At this point in the series, what youre talking about is her struggle to become a boss and leader in this business. Frist of all, she has to accept the fact that it is a business, theres a whole six-episode arc of her just finally being like, Oh, its a business.

Oh, this is how Im gonna make my money 

BR: So then once she took ownership of having this business, its like, Now I have to be a real boss, what does that mean? Do I hire people? Those are the obstacles she faces, more so than feeling less empowered by the fact that shes a woman. Shes young and people look at her as a child, and no one wants her to be taking ownership of this thing, even though shes really driven to do so.

KC: A big part of what we wanted to do, which came from directly from your life, was that [Sophia] loved doing it because she could do it in her undertrunks in bed, and she didnt have to work with other people. [On the internet], it was easier to get back to a customer without having to have a real interaction, and then what she discovers is that to win at life you need people. She has no business managing people. I think thats a big obstacle.

You were saying you have a lot of freedom to mix up the story  how does that play out?

KC: I actually thought of Game of Thrones, because, they kill main characters, right? I mean theyre not the only ones doing that now, like The Walking Dead or whatever, but for us I was thinking that, in future episodes, would be like firing someone.

BR: Seems like shes killing me off 

KC: But that idea that you could fire someone or someone doesnt continue on the journey with her, and then theyre gone. Or a breakup. We dont have to have a typical this is our gang [sitcom structure] throughout the whole thing, that someone that you fire may come back to get you.

SA: I think that makes it especially not sitcom-y, right?

Britt, what interested you in doing the show?

BR: My answer to this question is sometimes completely inappropriate. People say like, Why do you think Girlboss is right for Netflix? or Why did you want to be on Netflix? Usually my answer is like, because you can say, Suck a dick. But to be honest with you, the freedom of being on a Netflix show is everything I wanted. Ive been on network television shows. I know the grind of trying to get something cleared or passed and its literally like, Can she not wear this tank top where her boobs are exposed? I wanted to be on a show that was not focused on the nothing. I wanted to be on a show that was, like, focused on doing something. The fact that Netflix is willing to let everybody run with it is amazing, and I love having the freedom to go to work and say suck a dick every day. Thats so cool.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
These days, the best way to watch Scandal is pretending its a scripted reality series with governance and gunplay  The Real Housewives of the Imperial Presidency. The show is a lot more fun that way, and honestly, thats about the only way to make it track logically. This is not a group of characters with organically formed relationships and ample motivation to overlook one anothers shortcomings and slights. Its a hilarious and bizarre tableau of people who, for the sake of manufactured drama, refuse to spend time with anybody except their worst enemies.

The parallel jumped out at me during the scene in Trojan Horse when Olivia goes to the Oval Office to beg Fitz not to make Rowan the fall guy for Frankie Vargass murder now that Cyrus has been exonerated. I forgave Abby, Olivia says, using her recent detente with the mole inside the White House to provide cover for her mustache-twirling father. Shes not convincing Fitz that shielding Rowan from prosecution is to his benefit, and she isnt even flirting with him. Shes saying, Let bygones be bygones. Were talking about the people who killed Fitzs son, and Harrison, and Frankie Vargas, and almost Huck. Whatever. Its in the past now.

Scandal, in a very Housewives way, has always been a whiplash machine that emphasizes nearly constant mixing and matching of its characters and a landscape of ever-shifting alliances. With Trojan Horse, it reaches for a higher level of drama by killing off a major character. The death of Elizabeth North is shocking, but only for anyone who missed Thwack, last seasons dud in which Olivia Pope caved in the head of a brain-damaged man in a wheelchair because he was making fun of her. That was Andrew Nichols, remember? Former vice-president to Fitz? He was sleeping with both Mellie and Elizabeth at one point? Had Olivia kidnapped or some such? Dont beat yourself up if youve watched every episode but have only the vaguest memory of what Im describing.

This time, Elizabeth North gets the Nichols treatment when the mysterious and sinister Ms. Ruland bludgeons her with a putter. Its not quite as brutal as when Olivia did the head crushing. But in fairness to Ms. Ruland, Olivia utilized a really heavy metal chair, and Elizabeth still had about half a can of SpaghettiOs spilling out of her cranium when all was said and done. And most importantly, Rulands grotesque display had the desired effect of scaring Mellie back into line. Ruland pounces on the job opening she just created, installing herself as Mellies new chief of staff after she and Theodore Peus force her into office. As Peus explains, Mellie is the Uber-cabals Trojan horse. They plan to put her in place to execute their agenda, and if she doesnt, theyll kill her children. (Seems like cutting off Mellies moonshine supply is a more potent threat, but Ill leave the murder-conspiracy business to the professionals.)

As shocking as Elizabeths death is supposed to be, it doesnt feel very shocking despite the crafty staging. To be clear, theres a difference between a major character and a major star. Portia de Rossi has appeared in three episodes this season for a grand total of about nine minutes, because without Susan Ross as an active character, the writers never found a way to work Elizabeth back into the action. When she shows up these days, she does so out of nowhere, usually to execute some specific intermediary task before slinking back into the shadows. Its nice in theory that by killing Elizabeth, Scandal has acknowledged that it has about four characters too many. But the more cheap and insignificant death becomes, the harder it is to care when it happens. So long, Lizzie Bear, but youve had it coming for a while, for reasons I dont completely recall.

Of course, thats the result of Scandals reality-show rhythms. I only remember the broad details of the relationships, no matter what seemingly irreparable damage the characters have done to each other, so the show can shuffle the deck to the point of incoherence. Why are Mellie and Elizabeth teaming up to begin with? Did Mellie ever find out they were sleeping with the same man? Are there no other political operatives in Washington who might like to work in the White House? This season is about forward momentum at any cost  the next drama, the next confrontation, the next threat, the next abrupt murder. Remember when the episodes used to start with the Previously on Scandal montage? Seems pretty standard for a serialized drama, but Scandal no longer benefits from reminding the audience of the finer points of the plot.

Thats what allows Scandal to get away with nonsense like reanimating its two most dysfunctional relationships in one fell swoop. Olivia is back to being a dutiful daughter to Rowan, presumably because she sees the threats from Peus as a mitigating factor. But this show always overplays its hand with the Olivia and Rowan relationship. This is the same dude who hired Jake to sleep with his daughter while he watched them on surveillance cameras. Honestly, that alone is enough for a restraining order with no expiration date, but Olivia still goes hard for her dad.

The same goes for Fitz, who is back in Olivias good graces now that he swooped in to spare Rowan from a death sentence. Olivia tells Fitz not to make her choose between him and her father, because hell lose. Only one significant male figure in her life gets to manipulate her at a time, thank you very much, and right now, Rowans holding the joystick. But Fitz reveals Rowan on a monitor, sitting comfortably in the Oval Office on Fitzs orders. Now everyones on the same side and they can fight to take down Peus and Ruland together. Im not one to shame another person for their kinks, but the Popes need to stop getting their sexual thrills from watching each other on surveillance cameras. Because once Olivia sees Rowan in Fitzs custody, the only reasonable choice is to have sex with Fitz. Hope springs eternal.
Photo: Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Its getting to the point  where Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Youngs animosity is no fun anymore. Graham Nash loves talking smack about David Crosby; David Crosby loves talking smack about Graham Nash. The cycle continues. Cmon, gentlemen! There arent many iconic supergroups left these days, and its unlikely Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Lynne are going to be hopping onstage with each other anytime soon. But do you know who these four hate more than each other? A certain man named President Donald Trump. Heres how I feel about it: I believe that the issues that are keeping us apart pale in comparison to the good that we can do if we get out there and start talking about whats happening, Nash explained to Variety when asked about a potential CSNY reunion. So Id be totally up for it even though Im not talking to David and neither is Neil. But I think that were smart people in the end and I think we realize the good that we can do. He continued about the Donald:

You have to keep up your will to fight. You have to research your subject matter so that when people ask you about them you have good answers, true answers, you need to feel something before you create something like a song that could change the world, you have to remain really vigilant and strong. We cannot let this man undermine everything we have fought for over the last 30 years, which is whats happening by the way. You couldnt possibly write this script and have it accepted in Hollywood, they would laugh you out of the office. Then this guy becomes president and did what? Its a crazy story.

Think of the song potential, too.
Hannah and Grover. Photo: Courtesy of HBO

In the Girls finale, Hannah (Lena Dunham) gives birth to a baby boy, who she names Grover after a suggestion from Paul-Louis, her baby-daddy surf-camp instructor, played by Riz Ahmed. Their baby seemed not to look like the product of a white woman and a light-skinned Pakistani man, but rather, as many people pointed out on social media, black  another visible fumble for the show, which has struggled with race in the past. But the babys real-life mother, Jaclyn Nichole, isnt comfortable with people calling her children (Grover is played by twins) black. In a now-deleted tweet (via the Root), Nichole said that her baby isnt black! Hes Puerto Rican & His Dad is Haitian. Nichole also retweeted two users, one who responded to her tweet pointing out that Black Puerto Ricans and Haitians exist, and another who responded to someone calling Grover black by saying the baby could be a number of ethnicities. Nichole hasnt directly addressed the fact that the baby is definitely not of South Asian descent, aside from her insistence that his race doesnt matter and he fit the role to a T & hes gorgeous!

If you think all brown babies are black then aren't you the problem? That baby could be a number of ethnicities, including Pakistani  Ramirez AJay (@Vazquez10Jr) April 18, 2017
Charlotte Le Bon, Oscar Isaac, and Christian Bale in The Promise. Photo: Jose Haro/Open Road Films

Its easy to blow raspberries at the epic The Promise, in which Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale compete for the same woman against a backdrop of the Armenian genocide. But only a handful of narrative films have even touched on the Turkish-led massacre of a million and a half Armenians in the early 20th century (which Turkey still officially denies), so The Promise deserves at least a fair synopsis.

Oscar Isaac plays an Armenian apothecary named Mikael Boghosian, who leaves his small southern Turkish town in 1914 for medical school in Constantinople, using his future wifes dowry to finance his education. The young innocent is dazzled by the big city  and also by his nieces willowy dance teacher, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), whos the girlfriend of famous American journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale).

For a while, Armenians and Turks sit side by side in apparent harmony. (You can recognize the Turks because theyre darker and wear fezzes.) But there are ominous signs. Mikaels medical-school pal, Emre (Marwan Kenzari), invites him to a party at the mansion of Emres father, an openly bigoted government official, where the Turks consort merrily with German soldiers. (The Germans launch into a chorus of Deutschland Uber Alles, which they do with little provocation in movies like this.) Then war breaks out and the Turks begin rounding up Armenian spies and traitors  and, pretty soon, women and children who need to be marched into the desert and slaughtered for their own protection.

Assaulted when he tries to rescue Armenian shopkeepers, Mikael is tended to by Ana, who goes on to make love to him, unaware that he is betrothed. (Mikael starts to say something but it has gone too far and he presumably needs his tongue for other purposes.) She is about to tell Chris that she loves Mikael  but then Mikael, attempting to use his fiancees dowry to free his imprisoned uncle, gets smashed on the head and shipped to a work camp, where, six months later, a former Armenian clown blows himself up along with a sadistic Turkish officer (a good sight gag) and Mikael escapes to his hometown, where his honest mother (Shohreh Aghdashloo) forces him to honor his promise to marry Maral (Angela Sarafyan) and the couple slips off to a remote farm to have babies.

The idyll lasts until Mikael hears that Ana and Chris are nearby helping thousands of Armenian orphans escape to the safe haven that is Aleppo, Syria. (The irony here might well have been intended.) The tension between Mikael and Chris is thick, but they table their differences as the Turks move in and the bloodshed begins. There are convolutions ahead  massacres, diplomatic interventions, executions  before the threesome end up in the famous battle at Musa Dagh, a Turkish mountain where Armenian resisters and their families mount a violent defense as the cavalry (a French ship captained by Jean Reno) chugs towards the coast.

Its worth asking why so many movies with disasters  natural or man-made  have love triangles at the center. My guess is that filmmakers feel they need to ground so inconceivable a horror in something that audiences can relate to. At least director Terry George and his co-writer, Robin Swicord, are several cuts above the Roland Emmerich template, where hundreds of millions perish while Jake Gyllenhaal tries to summon the words to tell Emmy Rossum that he, you know, likes her. For one thing, Mikael, Ana, and Chris keep their focus on saving orphans, their longings and jealousies expressed in stray love-gazes and bitchy asides. For the viewer, though, attention is divided between praying that the Armenian people will not be exterminated and wondering which man  both admirable  Ana will choose. I guessed (and wrote in my notebook) exactly how the love story would be resolved a half-hour before the climax, a feat that fills me with both pride and disappointment. The chief flaw of The Promise is that there isnt a single development that you cant see limping toward you from a great distance.

Another problem is that Oscar Isaacs character is so insipid. The actor has made a specialty of transforming himself for every role, changing his look, his rhythms, perhaps his very essence. But hes a little old and much too bright to play so callowly starry-eyed. Bale does better as the prickly crusading journalist, but you can sense that this is akin to pro bono work  its for a good cause. Le Bon is, as her name would suggest, delectable, but her achievement is mainly not provoking unintentional laughs.

Finally, no attempt is made to illuminate the peculiar reasons that the Turks used to justify the wanton killing, among them the misguided conviction that the Armenians would throw in their lot with the Russians and/or other enemies of the German-Turkish alliance. Apart from that chorus of Deutschland Uber Alles, theres no suggestion of the scale of the German atrocities  one way the Turks were able to proceed with their genocide unmolested.

Does The Promise work on its own simpleminded melodramatic terms? Yes, although for budgetary reasons (I assume) the weeks-long battle at Musa Dagh comes off as a skirmish over a couple of days.

But how much more confidently I could recommend it if George had told the story with some artistic cunning! For guidance, he could merely have looked to his own 2004 Hotel Rwanda, in which Don Cheadle played Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a four-star, French-owned hotel who became a kind of Oskar Schindler of Rwanda. Whats fascinating is how Rusesabagina begins as a flatterer and briber of officers who come to ogle Western women  and how he ends up using those same talents to keep his family and hundreds of Tutsis taking refuge in his hotel from being dragged out and murdered. The film is no masterpiece  again, George cant illuminate why a million people were murdered by their own countrymen. But as we focus on Rusesabaginas almost farcically desperate attempts to forestall tragedy, we have a vision of genocide as a virus with its own terrible momentum. (Because I mentioned Oskar Schindler, I should note that Steven Spielbergs Schindlers List transcends melodrama by being the story not of victims and victimizers but of an ordinary mans inability to do nothing in the face of evil. Much more fascinating!)

It should be noted that the late investor Kirk Kerkorian is credited as the executive producer of the film and was the driving force in its financing. In the late 60s, he won a controlling interest in MGM for the purpose not of making movies but of stripping the studio of its real-estate assets and driving it into the ground. (He hired the odious James Aubrey to help.) Kerkorian was an architect of Las Vegass megacasino industry, and so MGM as we knew it became the MGM Grand Hotel. His efforts on behalf of his Armenian heritage are laudable, but his legacy to cinema is lamentable.
Katherine Heigl in Unforgettable.

The obsessed-woman psychosexual thriller is an underappreciated cinematic subgenre. Think Disclosure, When the Bough Breaks, The Roommate, Swimfan, Single White Female, Obsessed, and the example par excellence, Fatal Attraction. This weekend, Katherine Heigl will join the club in Unforgettable, playing a woman who will stop at nothing to keep Rosario Dawson from moving into her exs bed. Its Heigls first starring role in a wide release since The Big Wedding in 2013, and if shes willing to commit to breaking bad, it could turn out to be her best career move in years.

Ten years ago, Heigl experienced the biggest turning point of her professional life when she starred in the smash hit Knocked Up. The movie not only made a ton of money, it pulled in great reviews and ushered in a new wave of R-rated comedies. Heigl at the time was best known for her roles in Roswell and Greys Anatomy, and Knocked Up made her a movie star. She was fantastic as the uptight foil to Rogens aggressively lazy inseminator  funny, charming, and as sympathetic as she was grating. Knocked Up was an unqualified success, and it was the absolute worst thing thats happened to Heigls career.

In 2007 that would have seemed like a ridiculous thing to say, but Heigl had the bad luck to become the rom-com star du jour at the exact moment the genre was crumbling. Her first two follow-ups, 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth, were solid rom-com hits that had her play a variation on her driven Knocked Up character, but from then on the box-office returns and the critical acclaim diminished year after year. From The Killers to Life As We Know It to One for the Money, people literally werent buying Heigl as a romantic heroine. The reviews briefly picked up again when she swerved into earnest territory with Jackie & Ryan, playing a single mother fighting for custody of her daughter; hardly anyone saw it. But even that couldnt stop the tide: Critics dragged Heigl again when she stayed sentimental for Jennys Wedding, a movie that saw her play a closeted woman coming out to her family.

Heigl had exited Greys in 2010 under a storm of controversy, and her return to TV hasnt fared much better. Her spy drama State of Affairs got canceled after 13 episodes in 2015. Her latest attempt to shoulder a series, CBSs Doubt, just got pulled after a mere two episodes. The legal drama wasnt very good, but seeing a Heigl vehicle get yanked after just a pair of episodes feels borderline personal at this point. Whether shes an ambitious attorney, a bail bondswoman, a single mother, a queer woman about to get married, no one seems to be rooting for Katherine Heigl. Luckily, Unforgettable offers an alternative path: Why not go full villain?

Its a trick shes pulled before. In the middle of her rom-com phase, Heigl snuck in one of the best performances of her career as an obsessive-compulsive, murderously jealous housewife in the black comedy Home Sweet Hell. She was an unhinged treasure: When her unhappy husband breaks the news to his wife that his pregnant mistress is attempting to extort him, Mona plainly asserts that she must be killed. Unable to do the deed himself, he turns the job over to Heigl; watching the actress strip down to her skivvies and a protective smock to gleefully cut Jordana Brewster apart is a true delight.

Two years and two failed TV dramas later, Unforgettable sees Heigl unleash her acerbic edge once more. Her platinum hair is pressed Ivanka-straight, she wields a fire iron while wearing a nightdress, and in the movies marquee scene, Heigl catfishes her ex-husbands new girlfriend while hate-masturbating in a silk robe. Shes never been more fun.

The truth is, Heigls always been more Ali Larter than Meg Ryan. (Yes, that makes Unforgettable her Obsessed.) She has the face of the prettiest mean girl at your high school, and considering she started her career playing petulant teens in My Father the Hero and Under Siege 2, petty is in her DNA.

None of this is to say that Heigl is strictly limited to playing smirking, vengeful bitches, but it would serve her well to lean into the madness for a while. Remember: Heigl didnt excel in Knocked Up by playing nice. The most impressive thing about that performance was Heigl building a character we cared about despite the fact she was preening and uptight. Besides, likable is the boring cousin of watchable  Heigl is a hell of a lot more entertaining when shes out for blood.
The following movies are showing at first-run theaters Regal Jewel 16 (RJ16), Starplex Galaxy 16 (SG16) and the Waco Hippodrome (WH). Letter grades for movies are from advance reviews; an NR means a movie was not reviewed.

New in theaters

B BORN IN CHINA Disneynature Chinese-based documentary starring a baby panda and her mom, a monkey and a snow leopard. What more do you need? Rated G. Non-graphic scenes of animals fighting. 1 hour, 19 minutes. SG16.

C GIFTED Flat, disappointingly contrived drama about a custody fight between mother (Lindsay Duncan) and son (Chris Evans) over the brilliant niece (Mckenna Grace) that hes been raising. Rated PG-13. Profanity, some suggestive material, thematic elements. RJ16.

NR GROW HOUSE DeRay Davis and Darius Lil Duvall find growing marijuana in a mansion isnt as cut-and-dried an effort as they hoped. Rated R. Frequent profanity, some sexual references, drug use. RJ16, SG16.

NR PHOENIX FORGOTTEN Teens investigating mysterious lights over Phoenix, Arizona, disappear after going into the desert. Rated PG-13. Some profanity, terror and peril. 1 hour, 27 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

C THE PROMISE A romantic triangle set amid the Armenian Genocide of the early 20th century draws attention to it, but fails to live up to its ambitious scale. Rated PG-13. Some sexuality, thematic material including war atrocities, disturbing images, violence. 2 hours, 14 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

C UNFORGETTABLE Pretty forgettable drama with Katherine Heigl as a vengeful ex-wife out to drive her former husbands fiancee (Rosario Dawson) crazy. Rated R. Strong profanity, sexual situations, brief partial nudity, violence. 1 hour, 40 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

Also showing

B BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Rich visuals and capable acting highlight an expanded, live-action version of the classic 1991 Disney animated feature. Rated PG. Frightening images, some action violence. 2 hours, 9 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

B THE BOSS BABY Credible sibling relationship/rivalry between a 7-year-old (Miles Bakshi) and a management baby (Alec Baldwin) sent from heaven proves the key in this family animation. Rated PG. Mild rude humor. 1 hour, 37 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

C+ THE CASE FOR CHRIST Journalist Lee Strobel, now a Houston Baptist University professor, tells of how his investigation of Christianity turned him to personal belief. Rated PG. Thematic elements including a medical description of crucifixion, incidental smoking. 1 hour, 52 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

C+ THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS Latest in the Fast and Furious series has Toretto (Vin Diesel) opposed by his old crew, but plot takes a backseat, as always, to plenty of action. Rated PG-13. Strong profanity, suggestive content, prolonged sequences of violence and destruction. 2 hours, 16 minutes. SG16, RJ16, WH.

C+ GOING IN STYLE Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin and Michael Caine make enjoyable watching in an otherwise routine tale of a senior trio attempting a bank robbery. Rated PG-13. Profanity, some suggestive material, drug reference. 1 hour, 36 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

C+ KONG: SKULL ISLAND New King Kong installment moves action to 1973 with the Vietnam War as backdrop, but tone flips between serious and silly, with movies true purpose a fresh line of monster movies. Rated PG-13. Brief strong profanity, intense sequences of action violence. 1 hour, 58 minutes. SG16.

C LIFE Astronauts to Mars bring back mutating lethal lifeform in Alien-like story thats more tense than terrifying. Rated R. Profanity, some sexuality, nudity. 1 hour, 43 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

C- POWER RANGERS Uneven film adaptation of the cheesy Japanese action series . Rated PG-13. Profanity, some crude humor, sci-fi violence and action. 2 hours, 4 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

C- THE SHACK Adaptation of William Paul Youngs best-selling novel about a grieving man healed through a metaphorical encounter with the Christian Trinity stumbles on a thin main character and glib answers to hard questions. Rated PG-13. Thematic material, some violence. 2 hours, 12 minutes. RJ16.

D SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE Undiscriminating children will go for this brightly colored, forgettable story of Smurfettes search for identity. Rated PG. Rude humor, mild action. 1 hour, 30 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

Special screenings

CHONDRA PIERCE: ENOUGH Christian comedian Chondra Pierce comments on life in an image-conscious world. 1 hour, 30 minutes. 7 p.m. Tuesday RJ16.

THE MET: LIVE IN HD  EUGENE ONEGIN Soprano Anna Netrebko stars in the Metropolitan Operas production of the Tchaikovsky opera Eugene Onegin. 4 hours. 11:55 a.m. Saturday. RJ16.

THE GRADUATE 50th anniversary screening of the 1967 drama starring Dustin Hoffman as a young man who has an affair with an older woman then falls for her daughter. 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday. RJ16.

VICTOR A Puerto Rican who comes to Brooklyn in 1962 finds faith an ally in battling gangs and drugs. Directed by Baylor University graduate Brandon Dickerson. 7 p.m. Monday. WH.

TED 2017 OPENING NIGHT Broadcast of the opening night to the weeklong TED Conference in Vancouver, B.C., created to stimulate ideas in technology, education and design. 7 p.m. Monday. RJ16.

TED 2017 PRIZE EVENT Final TED session with announcement of $1 million prize winner. 7 p.m. Tuesday. RJ16.
The city of Hewitt, Loaded Sound Stage and Lighting, and the Greater Hewitt Chamber of Commerce are sponsoring a Hounds and Sounds Music Festival from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Creekside Amphitheater in Warren Park, 450 S. Old Temple Road in Hewitt.

The family- and pet-friendly event will feature the alternative rock band Trine, local favorite Fenix Theory and headline act, Citizen Way, contemporary Christian artists.

The event also will include games, inflatables and face painting, as well as Pokey Os and other local food trucks.

Admission is $15 in advance or $20 at the gate and is free to ages 10 and younger. A portion of the proceeds will aid the Humane Society of Central Texas.

Parking is $2. Premium parking costs $5.

For tickets, visit www.cityofhewitt.com or call 666-6173.

Jeff-Moore reunion

The Jefferson-Moore class of 1976 will have a class reunion June 16-17.

The deadline to register for the reunion is June 2.

For more information, interested alumni, friends and teachers can email JMHS.Lions.Class.of.76@gmail.com.

Free Earth Day bags

The Waco Friends of Peace/Climate will have its third annual Earth Day Free Bags for the Biosphere event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Waco Downtown Farmers Market, 500 Washington Ave.

To celebrate Earth Day, the group will distribute complimentary reusable shopping bags, which help to reduce local litter, protect oceans from plastic pollution and mitigate climate change.

For information, visit www.friendsofpeace.org.

Storytelling guild

The H.O.T. Storytelling Guild will meet from 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at the South Waco Library, 2737 S. 18th St.

The guild meets monthly to learn, share and listen to stories.

For more information, call 717-1763.

Jubilee Theatre show

Jubilee Theatre will present The Last Five Years at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the theater, 1319 N. 15th St.

A matinee will be presented at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

The musical explores a five-year relationship between a rising novelist and a struggling actress.

Tickets cost $10.

For tickets and more information, visit www.jubileetheatre-waco.org.

Pack of Hope benefit

The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, 1624 Wooded Acres Drive, will host a garage sale from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The sale will aid the Waco Diaper Bank and the McLennan County Pack of Hope.
Wacos Doris Miller Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center now can provide the gold standard in research and treatment for brain injuries suffered on the battlefield with Thursdays opening of a 53,000-square-foot facility for the VISN 17 Center of Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans that sprawls across three floors of Building 93.

More than 150 people attended a grand-opening ceremony to mark the occasion, and U.S. Rep. Bill Flores said the Waco VA will become a hub for dealing with the invisible wounds of post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury that have become part of this countrys global war on terror.

McLennan County has become one of the most popular places for veterans to live or retire, and the Center of Excellence likely will mean more veterans locating here, Flores said.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent $9.8 million to renovate a building at the VA campus on Memorial Drive to create a one-stop destination for research on returning war veterans.

We let the contract in 2011, and our target for completion was 2014, but we lost two years because the original contractor defaulted, an issue that tied up a couple of years, said Michael Russell, a clinical neuropsychologist and director of the Center of Excellence. It turned into a five- to six-year job.

But now it is done, and it is spectacular.

VA top priorities

The center will meet the critical needs of those suffering from PTSD, traumatic brain injury, Gulf War Illness, depression, emotional issues and suicidal thoughts, all of which are top priorities of David Shulkin, secretary of Veterans Affairs, Russell said.

Congress opened an investigation into the VAs mental health efforts in 2014 shortly after the Austin American-Statesman uncovered dysfunction in a research program the Waco center oversaw. Among other issues, the Statesman found that a $3.6 million mobile MRI scanner bought in 2008 had seen little use.

After the investigation was opened, the paper also found that the center had taken credit for research it had tenuous connections to and had produced far less research than other VA centers for excellence. At the time, the Statesman quoted officials as saying the new facility would revolutionize the understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and other war wounds.

Richard Seim, a clinical psychologist who will disseminate information about the center, said 70 people will work in the centers newly unveiled facilities. Many will have permanent assignments, and adjunct personnel and specialists will make one- to three-year commitments.

These people have been recruited from both coasts, the North and the South, Seim said. They are from Minnesota, Nevada, Mississippi, all over. There are a few from Texas.

Waco City Manager Dale Fisseler said attracting these well-paid professionals to Waco will ripple through the local economy.

We have a goal of attracting more Ph.D.s to Waco, and that can prove difficult if the opportunities are limited, Fisseler said. Im told they like to hang out together. And sometimes Ph.D.s have spouses with the same credentials, and both want jobs.

Fisseler described the Center of Excellence as world class. Its presence should quash talk of closing the entire VA Medical Center complex that arises every few years, he said.

Im really impressed with the research thats going to be done on this campus, Waco Mayor Kyle Deaver said. Most people dont realize the importance of having the Center of Excellence in our community and the value of the trials it will be undertaking.

The VAs Seim said researchers will take a diverse approach in pursuing answers to why veterans react to their wartime experiences in certain ways, taking into consideration genetics and factors on the psychological, neurological and molecular level.

They want to know what makes your brain injury unique, Seim said. A bomb blast in Afghanistan may cause a concussion in those near the blast site, including someone 40 feet away. But what sets those injuries apart? What part of the brain is injured? We will use brain scanners, including an MRI 3 Tesla, to investigate.

We also have the technology to help veterans change their brain wave pattern, just as it is possible to speed up or slow down the heart. We also can assess neuron signaling. Neurons in those with PTSD may be overly firing, while those with traumatic brain injury may experience under-firing.

Planned studies

Studies planned at the center include Project Serve, which evaluates returning veterans experiences; the SHE Study addressing sexual trauma among female veterans; the Moral Injury Project, which examines actions in war that challenge notions of right and wrong; treatment of PTSD using transcranial magnetic stimulation; treatment of traumatic brain injury using EEG neurofeedback; psychotherapy treatment of veterans; and the use of MRI scans to examine white matter pathways in the brain that may suffer damage from explosions.

Christopher Sandles, new director of the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, said the center will feature top-line psychiatrists, top-line equipment, MRI-based brain imaging and research-enhanced counseling to pursue causes and solutions to the emotional problems veterans are suffering.

Sandles said he thinks the future of the medical center is secure.

Were assessing the buildings here as we try to address gaps in housing for veterans, he said. Something probably needs to be done for female veterans with children and to create transitional housing to help homeless vets get on their feet.
Educators Credit Union presented six scholarships to area high school seniors at its annual membership meeting in March.

Recipients were Briana Pizarro from Robinson High School, Sophie Pavlas from West High School, Seraphina Gayle from Rapoport Academy, Kyle Langford from Abbott High School, Riley Stephens from Hamilton High School and Johnathan Goldsborough from Copperas Cove High School.

Each of the students will receive $1,500 toward their college education at the school of their choice. Students were chosen based on academic achievements, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, community service and financial need.

Educators Credit Union is a member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperative with more than 30,000 members across Central Texas and with more than $391 million in assets.

Educators Credit Union was founded in 1938 and serves anyone who lives, works or attends school in McLennan, Bosque, Hill, Falls, Coryell or Lampasas County.

For more information, visit www. edcu.com.
Grande Communications, a Texas-based broadband communications company, recently presented a check for $1,900 to the Talitha Koum Institute, a faith-based child care program for child-ren from 8 weeks old to kindergarten.

The donations were made on behalf of its employee philanthropy club, Grande Cares. Through this program, Grande employees seek to enhance the communities where they provide service and where they live, work and play.
Midway High School student Haeun Moon won top honors at the Music Teachers National Association Senior String Competition finals in March at Baltimore during the 2017 MTNA National Conference.

Haeun, 15, studied violin with Julia Hardie and is a student of professor Brian Lewis at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the Midway High School Camerata Orchestra, the Waco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Central Texas String Academy.

Beginning with her debut at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York at the age of 11, as the first-prize winner in her age division in the American Protege International Concerto Competition, Haeun won top prizes in numerous competitions, including the Austin Symphony Concerto Competition, the Fort Bend Symphony Concerto Competition, the Houston Civic Symphony Young Artist Concerto Competition and the Waco Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, and she performed with those orchestras.

Haeun was a 2013-14 MTNA Junior Performance Competition national finalist in Chicago.

She was the youngest finalist in the Lynn Harrell Concerto Competition of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and was selected as the silver medalist for the Houston Symphony League Concerto Competition in 2016. In addition, she was invited to attend the Great Mountains International Music Festival on a full scholarship and had the privilege to study with world-renowned violinists Boris Brovtsyn, Radu Blidar, Nam Yun Kim and Koichiro Harada.

The three-tiered MTNA Senior String Competition begins at the state level. As the first-place winner of the state competition in November, she advanced to the South Central Division competition in Arkansas in January. After winning the division competition, she competed as one of seven national finalists at Baltimore on March 19.

As a national competition winner, Haeun received $2,000, provided by the MTNA Foundation Fund. The senior division is open to artists ages 15 to 18. The string category includes violin, viola, cello and string bass.
A judge on Friday effectively postponed the start of any Twin Peaks biker trials in McLennan County until after the federal trial of Bandidos national leaders in San Antonio or until federal prosecutors agree to share evidence with McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna.

Judge Matt Johnson of Wacos 54th State District Court granted a motion to delay the June 5 trial of Kyle Smith, 50, an air-conditioning technician from Kilgore and member of the Cossacks motorcycle group.

Johnsons ruling comes in the wake of Reyna filing a letter he got last month from U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin, of San Antonio, telling him that federal authorities prosecuting the Bandidos have information that relates to Twin Peaks cases but wont share it with Reynas office until the federal trial is over.

That trial is set for August, but Durbins letter said it could be postponed until later this year or early next year.

Judge Ralph Strother of Wacos 19th State District Court is also hearing Twin Peaks cases. While no attorneys for bikers have filed motions to postpone trials in his court, Strother said the situation with the federal evidence effectively has done that.

I dont think we can move forward in any of our cases until some kind of resolution or understanding is reached regarding the situation with the federal indictment in San Antonio, Strother said. It has effectively put a barrier between our ability to proceed with our cases. I dont think the presence of a pending motion (for continuance) is what is causing the problem. It is the presence of the federal indictment out of San Antonio that is the issue.

Sherman attorney John Hunter Smith, who represents Kyle Smith, told Johnson he doesnt want to go to trial if federal authorities have evidence that is favorable to Kyle Smiths case. He also said he has not been given evidence from DNA testing done on his client.

Prosecutor Michael Jarrett said the DAs office is waiting for the return of DNA evidence from a state lab, where it is being analyzed and tested.

Reyna told the court that he could not in good faith oppose Smiths motion for continuance because of what Durbin said in his letter. Reyna said he has contacted the offices of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and State Sen. Brian Birdwell to see if they can serve as intermediaries between his office and Durbins in an effort to free up the federal evidence sooner.

Reyna said he would update the court if the lawmakers have success with federal officials.

Jury panel canceled

Johnson also canceled a jury panel Friday that was scheduled to report May 5 to fill out questionnaires for Smiths trial.

Despite Fridays ruling, Dallas attorney Clint Broden said he intends to keep the trial dates set for his clients in place. Broden, who represents two clients indicted in the shootout, has fought for almost two years to move forward with the trials.

The United States Constitution guarantees every American a speedy trial, and that constitutional guarantee also operates in McLennan County, Texas, Broden said Friday. The state is playing games with a tragic incident in which nine people lost their lives and in which more than one hundred people were unjustly arrested.

Matthew Clendennens trial is set for Oct. 9, and Burton George Bergmans is set for Nov. 7. Clendennen and Bergman are clients of Broden.

In filings last month, Reyna notified the court of his communication with Durbin. He said that although federal authorities made no specific evidence disclosures, it is his duty under the Michael Morton Act and other statutes to make defense attorneys in the Twin Peaks cases aware that the information exists.

Although the federal investigation was underway when that incident occurred, neither the fact of the investigation nor any information pertaining to the investigation were shared with this office, Reynas filing states. The federal indictment was obtained under seal, and it was not until it was unsealed and reported by the media that the McLennan County Criminal District Attorneys Office became aware of the existence of the federal investigation.

While Durbins office and Reynas office have not coordinated their efforts in the separate investigations, Durbin said his office has evidence that relates to the Twin Peaks incident.

Because of our limited knowledge of your cases, we cannot express an opinion on whether our information would be admissible in your prosecutions, nor whether it is clearly incriminating to some of your defendants, or exculpatory of others, Durbin wrote. It is possible that there may be some of both given the number of defendants charged in your cases.

The federal indictments resulted in the arrests of three top Bandidos leaders and include allegations from incidents before and after May 17, 2015. The charges do not specifically mention the Twin Peaks incident, which is thought to be the result of escalating tensions between the Bandidos and Cossacks.

As I explained, we and federal investigators have invested considerable time to obtain evidence through complex and expensive techniques to reach the highest levels of the Bandidos organization, Durbin wrote. Because of the significance of this prosecution, I have no choice except to maintain control over litigation relating to that information and evidence until we have completed our prosecution.
Two Bellmead residents are challenging incumbent Travis Gibson in the May 6 election for a seat on the city council.

George Melvin Cleveland and Linda Ione Robinson are vying for the Precinct 2 seat against Gibson. Harry Myers originally filed to run in the race but has since dropped out.

Early voting starts Monday.

Precinct 5 incumbent Doss Youngblood is unopposed, as is Precinct 1 incumbent Alfreda Love, leaving one contested race on the city of Bellmead ballot.

Residents will also see a countywide proposition on the ballot. All McLennan County voters can cast a vote for or against a 2 percent hotel occupancy tax and a 5 percent tax on short-term car rentals. The ballot measure is aimed at raising more than $34.4 million to overhaul the 60-acre Extraco Events Center off Bosque Boulevard. Money raised from the taxes would not go into the countys general fund, and its use would be restricted.

Cleveland and Robinson have said they are running to give their neighbors better representation.

Gibson, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, was first elected to office in May 2015. He won the election after outgoing Precinct 2 Councilman Kevin Wilson stepped down after seven years on the city council.

Street improvements

Cleveland said he wants the city to focus more on street and waterline improvements. After years of fighting with city leaders on different topics, he decided the best way to enact change was to serve in office, he said.

I feel like the city needs to start taking care of citizens instead of harassing them, said Cleveland, who has lived in the city for two decades.

Cleveland, who served in the Army for eight years, said he would also want to focus on getting residents more involved in city decisions.

Better opportunities

Robinson, a United States Air Force veteran, wrote on a campaign page that she wants local government to work with businesses to provide opportunities for residents to prosper. She wrote it was after the November 2016 election that she decided to put my money where my mouth is and do more than complain about government, by running for office.

Early voting runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through April 28; 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. April 29; and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. May 1 and May 2.

Bellmead voters can cast their ballot at any of the five early voting locations:

McLennan County Records Building, 214 N. Fourth St., suite 300, in Waco

Robinson Community Center, 106 W. Lyndale Drive

Waco Multi-Purpose Community Center, 1020 Elm Ave.

First Assembly of God Church, 6701 Bosque Blvd., in Waco

Hewitt Public Safety Facility, 100 Patriot Court.

Ballots by mail must be received by the McLennan County elections department no later than the close of business Tuesday.
April 21 is a special day in Aggieland, and a Waco veteran who worked at Baylor University and graduated from the University of Texas has a special connection to the tradition.

The Texas A&M University faithful gather annually for Aggie Muster, when students and alumni honor Aggies who died within the past year. The largest Muster is held on campus, but Aggies everywhere observe the tradition. Attendees read the names of Aggies who have died, and a family member or friend of the deceased responds, Here.

Bill E. Porter, a nonagenarian living in a Waco assisted living facility, participated in what is known as the most famous Muster. On April 21, 1946, the 110th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, 127 men gathered on Corregidor Island in the Philippines shortly after World War II ended.

It was not until 71 years later that Porter, a University of Texas graduate, was identified in two photos of the event, which are familiar to most Aggies. In one photo, Porter smiles slyly as the rest of the group is bent over at the waist with their backs to the camera.

Hes just lived a very interesting life, Porters stepson, Rob Kennedy said. This was more or less a Forrest Gump moment to be in this particular place at this particular time.

The family came together like The Brady Bunch, Kennedy said. After his father and Porters wife died, a new unit was eventually formed.

Porter was drafted into the Army after World War II and became a lieutenant. Why he participated in the sacred Aggie tradition has left people shrugging and laughing.

I think Dad may have gone with some of his friends there, said Billy Porter, another son who is a 1978 Texas A&M graduate. I dont know for sure how he ended up there.

Billy Porter joined the A&M Corps of Cadets, then went on to serve 30 years in active and reserve duty in the Army before retiring as a colonel.

Bill Porter, now 92, doesnt quite remember why he was there either. He suffered a stroke in 1997 which took away his speech, but he is still mentally sharp, communicating mostly by writing on a whiteboard.

Hes continued to thrive and continued to be the patriarch of our family, Kennedy said.

In 1996, Texas A&M launched an initiative to identify all 127 people in the famous photo, the one in which they are all facing the camera, according to the university. The effort has identified 113 so far.

Billy Porter said his father told him long ago that he was in the photo. He was about 22 at the time and is now identified on the former student associations website.

Bill Porters face is the only one visible in the second photo.

All in good fun

The photographer said, OK, everybody who went to the University of Texas, stand up,  Billy Porter said. Dad was the only one standing, and all the other Aggies turned around and showed their butts to the camera. Thats how they feel about their rival. Thats basically what it was. It was all in good fun.

Bill Porter grew up in Gonzales. His family moved to Austin, and he went to the University of Texas and eventually entered pharmacy school.

He founded Porters Pharmacy in Waco with a location across from the 25th Street Theatre, where the family worked. Later, he worked as a pharmacist at Baylor Universitys health center.

Bill Porter, the longest-tenured resident of his facility, also considers himself a fan of Baylor, where Kennedy now works.

Youve got an A&M (Aggie Muster photo) with a guy from UT, who eventually works at Baylor, so it shows the big schools can co-exist, said Jason Young, one of Bill Porters six grandchildren. You got A&M, UT and Baylor all together, and hes a great representation of all of them. We knew after all these years there was something with A&M that had to do with him, and we finally figured it out.
Using little but an ordinary time machine, I obtained this transcript of Donald Trumps Aug. 8 resignation speech. Disclaimer: he (or Melania?) might have cribbed some of it from President Nixon.

Good evening. Im speaking to you from the Oval Office. Its amazing. Not as nice as Trump Tower, but classy. Really classy. Every decision Ive made here is the most important decision made in American history.

All the decisions Ive made have been made to help the economy, whether properties I own, or ones owned by ordinary Americans like Ivanka and Jared. To protect those interests, I wanted to stay your president for as long as possible, until one of my kids could take over when I retire.

In the past few days, it has become evident the haters and losers in Congress are tired of winning. When I had support there, I was willing to see the impeachment process to the end, to prove theyre all morons. But keeping me from getting embarrassed is more important than anything the voters or the USA need. A lot of experts agree with me on that. From talking with members of Congress, I conclude I wont have the votes to get anything passed. Not even sneaky, middle-of-the-night kind of stuff.

If that wasnt bad enough, I heard that Putin has sold a video to Netflix. Or maybe Amazon. Taken in a Moscow hotel room. Sad! Before any of you see that, let me remind you that Putin is a Muslim who was born in Kenya. Total loser. The video is fake news. Never happened. And my hands are a lot bigger than the camera shows. And thats vodka theyre pouring on me. I mean not pouring on me. Pouring on someone else.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. My tremendous, very, very strong body. But I have to put my interests first. If I lose money, the economy goes down. And I pay fewer in taxes. Fewer than zero even.

I can do better than be president. Bigger league things. So I get rid of the presidency at noon tomorrow. Mike Pardon will become president. I mean Pence. Mike Pence. I know I  I mean you  will be in his good hands. Not huge hands like mine, but somewhat big ones. Hes a good Christian man. The kind who will forgive and forget. Forgive even people who commit treason. A random example . . . say, having an enemy interfere in a presidential election in exchange for easing up a bit on sanctions. Mikes a forgiving church person. He understands thats not so much treason. Its just alternate loyalties.

If you have been offended by anything I have said or done, like having the hugest inauguration crowd in history, or keeping people who pray or look different from me getting in or staying in the USA, I deeply regret you are so easy to offend. If some of my judgments were wrong, well . . . they werent. I thank my family, friends in the FSB and Alex Jones for standing with me. Until yesterday. And to the haters and losers, I leave with no bitterness. I know you are just being selfish and calling it patriotism. I mean watch your back and stuff, but no big deal. Really. Try a good night of sleep.

A lot of people are calling for some sort of monument to me to be built. It doesnt matter to me. Whether the White House lawn. Or on top of the Capitol, or blocking the view of the Washington Monument. Any of those is good. Or all of them. I got no ego on this. Or Mount Rushmore too.

Ive never failed at anything and this is one of them. Like President Truman said, The buck stops in my pocket. I pledge to keep doing what I have always done. Lining those pockets. Grabbing women by the poodle. The difference is you wont get a news alert on your phone every time I do it. May God be good to you like he does for me every day.

USA! USA!
We dont know how effective Russian President Vladimir Putins efforts were to get President Donald Trump elected. We dont know whether leaked documents, disinformation campaigns or actual Russian agents joined forces with Trump to sink Hillary Clinton.

But the evidence is clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Putin expressed a preference. Why? Easy answer: Clintons tough line on Russia as a senator and secretary of state and tough talk during the campaign.

A more complete explanation would look to the difference between what Clinton has represented throughout her political life and what Trump argued for: a series of ideals he has since deserted. Where Clinton long argued that efforts to ensure democracy and human rights are . . . central to our foreign-policy objectives this century and pushed for war over this conviction in Kosovo, Iraq and Libya, Trumps foreign-policy vision was much closer to Putins: The GOP nominee contended that economic and security interests  not ideals about democracy  should instead set the U.S. agenda.

Go back to Yugoslavia to find the roots of Putins loathing toward Clinton and her ideology. It was during NATOs 1999 air campaign over Kosovo that then-President Bill Clinton helped to inaugurate the current era of militant humanitarianism (that is, humanitarian intervention at the point of a gun). In bombing Kosovo, Clinton intended to halt violence at the hands of Serb nationalists led by Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic. But by undertaking military action in Russias traditional sphere of influence, Clinton infuriated the Russian leadership.

The Kosovo intervention realigned Putins priorities. In winter 2000, after Putin became president, Russia adopted a new national security concept that silenced previous calls for partnership with the West. Instead, Russia would deal with Americas unilateralism by consolidating its position as one of the great powers and influential centers in the world.

Celeste Wallander, one of President Obamas advisers on Russia, wrote after the new policys adoption that Russias tougher posture is clearly related to assessments after Kosovo. Since then, Putin has consistently opposed U.S. humanitarian wars, seeing in them not high ideals but unwarranted aggression.

One reason Putin found his priorities so upended by Americas involvement in Yugoslavia was that it contradicted the basic logic of a post-Cold War order on which Russia was forced to depend. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was much diminished and relied on Western forbearance to maintain internal stability and its regional power position. Yet by claiming a right to intervene abroad for humanitarian reasons, the United States was asserting that sovereign governments had to answer to it for their domestic activities, effectively lording its newfound hegemony over Russia and everyone else. Had the roles been reversed, American leaders clearly would never agree to such conditions.

This intervention also caught Russia by surprise, humiliating European-leaning liberals there and emboldening hard-liners. Just weeks after the bombing, Putin was announced as Boris Yeltsins successor and, to the delight of hawks smarting at Western provocations, immediately began flexing military muscle in Chechnya.

Militant humanitarian interventions in Iraq and Libya  which Hillary Clinton backed for a combination of reasons, humanitarian ones prominent among them  also proved destabilizing and were themselves disasters from the standpoints of human welfare. Each further degraded the norms of the world order that Russia thought existed after the Iron Curtain came down.

True, Putin does not oppose militant humanitarianism for idealistic reasons. He, too, claims to be a militant humanitarian. In justifying Russian policies toward Syria and Ukraine, Putin and his supporters have explicitly relied on arguments the Clinton administration used in Kosovo. If NATO can stumble into Yugoslavias civil war, why cant Russia do the same in Syria? Indeed, Russia is Syrias ally, sworn by treaty to protect its government. And if Saddam Husseins genocide against the Kurds was a reason to violently unseat him from power, then why shouldnt Russia protect persecuted ethnic Russians, as it has claimed to do in Georgia and Ukraine?

If there is a principled difference between the Clinton and Putin approaches to militant humanitarianism, it is that the latter is essentially conservative, seeking to preserve the status quo or restore the status quo ante, and the former is transformative, attempting to build new states along lines preferred by U.S. politicians and strategists. Given the hypocrisies underlying all this militant humanitarianism, its obvious why Putin would oppose Hillary Clinton as president of the United States. Her doctrine sought to make the world a better place, but its effect was to enforce her own preferences through the profligate deployment of U.S. military power.

With Trump, the story was supposed to be different: He favored rapprochement over what he saw as pointless confrontation. National wealth and security from Islamist violence were supposed to replace liberal values as the principal motivations of U.S. foreign policy. But then Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used the nerve agent sarin on civilians again. Suddenly it was important to Trump that the Syrian government was killing beautiful little babies, so the president gave an order this month to retaliate against the Syrian regime, showing himself to be, like Clinton, a militant humanitarian. Again Putin finds himself staring down an American leader who thinks he has the right to change the world.

Trumps heartless rejection of Syrian refugees indicates he doesnt really care about their suffering, their future or who governs them. He is a militant humanitarian in Putins mold rather than Clintons, using moral argument not to justify idealistic transformation but as another weapon in the contest for power, security and glory among nations  and for domestic support. For Putin, humanitarianism has been a powerful propaganda tool, helping to maintain his image among many Russians and allies as a righteous leader holding the line against Western encroachment. The same has been true for Trump, whose Syria strike was greeted at home with fulsome praise.

In a perverse way, Trumps turn to militant humanitarianism is Clintons victory. She may have lost the election, but her ideology lives on, a bipartisan guide to American foreign policy. But Putin may recognize that Trumps foreign policy is no less compatible than anticipated. After all, Russias president understands as well as anyone what a beneficent bombing run can do for good ratings.

Simon Waxman is a writer and editor whose work appears in The Boston Globe, New Republic, Washington Spectator, LA Review of Books and elsewhere.
MURDOCK  A Bow Hunter Class was held at the Murdock Fire Hall on March 14, 16 and 18. The course was 10 hours and students were required to attend all three sessions.

Nebraska Game and Parks require anyone that is between ages 12 and 29 to pass the course if they want to hunt deer in Nebraska with a Bow and Arrow.

The class consisted of Eight Chapters. They were: Introduction to Bow Hunting, Wildlife Conservation, Safe and Responsible Bow Hunting, Know your Bow and Arrow, Preparation before the hunt, Methods of Bow Hunting, Shot Placement and Recovery Techniques and Outdoor Preparedness.

The outdoor portion was held Saturday at Patti and Rusty Withrow farm. Arriving at Rusty and Patti farm two students were assigned to ask permission to access their ground. Students learned to shoot at 3-D targets from a ladder stand while wearing a safety vest. They also shot from a turkey blind, and followed a fake blood trail to learn the proper way to recover a deer after it has been shot.

Conservation Officer Levi Krause attended on Thursday evening to cover game laws and proper tagging of game that is harvested. He has assisted the class for the last 24 years.

Students were Angelo Leone, Dustin Miller, Dylan Miller, Garrett Pleiss, Emily Ridge, Karley Ridge, James Struthers, Jordan Vogler, and Braxton Walz. Instructors were Roger Buck, Dale Johns, Dan Timm, Jerry Brinkman, Ton Pleiss, Matt Griffen, Rusty Withrow and Patti Withrow.
CEDAR BLUFFS  One Iowa woman was found uninjured after various agencies from Dodge and Saunders counties conducted a search of Cedar Lakes and the Platte River early Thursday evening.

According to Cedar Bluffs Fire Chief Rob Benke, emergency personnel searched the area three miles north of Cedar Bluffs for approximately 45 minutes before locating the woman. The woman in her 40s had been reported missing at approximately 5 p.m. from family members that she got separated from while mushroom hunting.

Alcohol was involved, Benke said.

Approximately 25 personnel from Cedar Bluffs Fire and Rescue Department, Fremont Rural Fire Department, Fremont Fire Dive Team and two airboat companies responded.

Benke said Thursdays incident is a good teaching lesson for individuals hunting mushrooms or out near the river or timber on the bluffs.

Have communication with you and have a plan with your group  a meeting point at a certain time, he said. "Alcohol should be consumed after everyone is home and safe."
Tasmania could become a "battery for Australia" under a proposal to double the capacity of the country's largest hydro power scheme, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared.

Speaking alongside Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman in Launceston, Mr Turnbull announced an investigation into an expansion of the state's hydro scheme that, if built in full, would cost more than $3 billion and add 2500 megawatts of storage capacity to the national grid.

It follows the Prime Minister's announcement last month of a feasibility study into an expansion of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. The full Hydro Tasmania expansion would be larger.

Mr Turnbull said it could provide enough electricity to run 500,000 homes.
Investors in Coca-Cola Amatil have pummelled the soft drink giant after weak trading at its core local beverages arm prompted an earnings downgrade and sending shares down more than 10 per cent.

Australia accounts for about two thirds of Coca-Cola Amatil's market. The company has been challenged to grow market share in a saturated and price-sensitive market that has increasingly turned its back on soft drinks.

Scan data obtained by Fairfax Media revealed soft drink sales slumped 2.9 per cent in volume in the 2016 financial year across the aisles of Coles, Woolworths, Foodworks and IGA supermarkets, reversing almost a decade of growth in the sector.

"Trading in Australian Beverages for the year to date has been weaker than last year with all channels experiencing volume and price pressure due to competition and category trends," Coca-Cola Amatil told the market on Friday.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's plan to salvage his Australian Jamie's Italian restaurant chain has narrowly avoided collapse with a court granting administrators and receivers extra time to complete the takeover from failed hospitality company the Keystone Group.

The buy-back decision by the star chef, who has built an empire from being an apprentice cook in his dad's pub in Essex, Britain, came after Keystone was put into receivership in June last year owing more than $100 million.

Jamie Oliver visited his Italian restaurant in Canberra in 2014. Credit:Katherine Griffiths

But Oliver's plans to bring his eponymous restaurants back in-house under his British parent group hit a snag when the sale was not finalised by the April 11 deadline for a creditors' meeting mandated under the corporations law.

During an urgent hearing the NSW Supreme Court heard that if an extension of time was not granted, the Jamie's companies  which are insolvent  would proceed into liquidation, with the loss of more than 300 jobs.
Jim Stynes: AFL star. Kostya Tszyu "Thunder from Down Under": professional boxer. Fred Hollows: ophthalmologist who restored eyesight to thousands of people. Arthur James Arnott: inventor of the electric drill. James Harrison: inventor of mechanical refrigeration. Lars and Jens Rasmussen: creators of the Google maps platform. "High-rise" Harry Triguboff: property developer. Frank Lowy: shopping centre developer. Lachlan Macquarie: fifth governor of NSW.

What do these people have in common? Major contributors to Australian history, culture, world sport, science, engineering, and medicine? Yes. Australians? Not by birth. All immigrants.We seem to know but still forget that Australia is a country founded by immigrants, bolstered, built and emboldened by waves of immigration over its lifetime. Analysts say that over 28 per cent of Australia's population is born overseas, yet for some reason (some say politically driven reasons) recent action taken by the Turnbull administration indicates that the government would like to diminish that percentage.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

Life here for many people starts with a visa. It did for me and for my husband. We came to Australia on 457 visas almost eight years ago. A company my husband was working for at the time offered him a transfer here when the GFC hit the US, where we're from, particularly hard, and we were grateful for the opportunity to ride out the storm in Melbourne for what we thought would be a short, two-year stint.

But a year and a half into the contract, my husband saw an opportunity here that he couldn't pass up. The industry that he works in was lacking a service that was holding back progress in Australia, so he decided to start his own company and offer the service himself. It took him, an immigrant who had seen this model executed in his own country, to implement the idea and employ the business sense to see the concept succeed in Australia. Not only did he and his partners create a thriving, lucrative business, but they also employ a large staff, serve hundreds of clients, and have now expanded to Sydney. He hasn't taken Australian jobs, he's created them.
Forcing public servants to move from cities to country Australia is no miracle cure for regional economic woes, the Productivity Commission has warned.

The commission's report Transitioning Regional Economies cites the controversial move of the pesticides authority from Canberra to Armidale as a cautionary tale, warning that vital skills in highly specialised agencies can be hard to find in the the regions.

It is published on the day when the agency's chief executive will announce she is walking away from her job and will not make the move north.

While the Productivity Commission found that a government presence can make a difference in regional economies, citing the corporate watchdog ASIC's call centre operation in western Victoria, much of the time, the numbers of jobs involved were too small to make meaningful change.
Paris: President Donald Trump inserted himself into the tumult of French politics on Friday, declaring that the fatal shooting of a police officer in central Paris would have "a big effect" when voters go to the polls on Sunday to choose among 11 presidential candidates.

Mr Trump tweeted on Friday morning that the "people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!" - comments which came at the tail end of a tight, fragmented race, with at least four contenders running neck and neck.

Later in the day, during an interview with the Associated Press, he said that while he was not endorsing far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, the attack would "probably" help her as she was "strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France."

Ms Le Pen has issued grim warnings that a declining France is losing its identity, echoing Mr Trump's themes during the US presidential race last year.
Paris: He was a proud gay man and a committed policeman. He was among the officers who responded to a terrorist attack at the Bataclan concert hall in November 2015, and he was in the crowd when Sting helped reopen the 19th-century building a year later.

Xavier Jugele, 37, a Paris police officer since 2010, himself fell victim to terrorism Thursday evening. He was in a police vehicle on the heavily guarded Champs-Elysees, Paris's most famous boulevard, when a gunman opened fire, killing him and wounding two other officers, along with a bystander.

The gunman was shot dead as he tried to flee; the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack a short while later.

Mr Jugele was mourned on Friday by friends and fellow officers.
At the invitation of Ms. Bettina Vogl-Lang, Vice-Chair for the Europe Region and Deputy Director General, Austrian Tax and Customs, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya attended the 2017 Heads of Customs Conference of the Europe Region, held in Vienna, Austria from 19 to 21 April.

Opening the meeting, Ms. Vogl-Lang speaking on behalf of the Austrian Minister of Finance, Mr. Hans-Jorg Schelling, welcomed delegates from around 50 Members of the Region. She emphasized the multi-faceted role of Customs in today's society which extends beyond the traditional role of tax and duty collection to the fight against terrorism, trade facilitation and many other varied roles.

In the context of trade facilitation, she highlighted transit as an important process that enables the free flow of goods while protecting revenue. This meeting aims at contributing to the concept of enhanced transit processes. On behalf of the Minister, Ms. Vogl-Lang wished the delegates success in their important deliberations.

Secretary General Mikuriya emphasized the current main priorities of the WCO:

- Trade Facilitation and the opportunities and challenges presented by the entry into force of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement.

- E-commerce and the response of Customs to the increase in trade volume to ensure the necessary degree of control and facilitation, as well as revenue collection.

- Security and the role of Customs in the fight against terrorism.

- Customs and Tax cooperation. The WCO advances the important role of Customs in the overall control of trade, as well as the necessity for a well-resourced Customs administration. Information sharing is an essential aspect of cooperation, and the WCO continues to promote the sharing of information.

- Illicit Financial Flows. The Secretary General updated delegates on the input of the WCO to the ongoing work of the G20.

The Secretary General invited delegates to endorse these items which he would present to the forthcoming Policy Commission and Council sessions as the main priorities of the WCO.

He outlined details of the many upcoming events, in particular the IT Conference in Georgia, the Knowledge Academy and Conferences on Origin and Transit, as well as other events whose details are on the WCO Website.

The Secretary General also informed delegates of the forthcoming departure of the Deputy Secretary General, Sergio Mujica. Wishing Mr. Mujica every success, he informed delegates that, pending the election of a successor, the current management team would execute the responsibilities of the Deputy Secretary General.

Mr. Ruslan Davydov, Chairperson of the Council, emphasized of the priorities as outlined by the Secretary General. He called for full support for the role of Customs in the context of the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Customs must remain vigilant and protect its exclusive competence. Mr. Davydov expressed the strong desire that delegations be able to make their interventions in a greater range of languages in the future. He asked that the accession of new Members be discussed so as to ensure the implementation of best practices in this regard and mentioned the necessity to continue to review the Organization's governance mechanisms.

Statements were made by several Members on the recent acceptance by the depositary (Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) of an Instrument of Accession from Kosovo. Delegates noted that the accession of new Members would feature on the forthcoming Policy Commission and Council Agendas.

The meeting considered several aspects of Transit in the context of the steps necessary to develop a Europe Region Transit system. This included discussions on the economic background and challenges for the future; existing systems and possible benefits of compatible interactive systems; requirements for future development; and how to progress the introduction of a suitable system. It was agreed to establish a working group to bring forward a position paper and roadmap to advance the concept.

Delegates also heard reports on the recent Audit and Finance Committee meetings, ROCB activities (including the future funding policy), RILO activities and governance. Decisions were taken regarding the Regions representation on the various WCO working bodies for the next financial year.

The Secretary General expressed his appreciation to the Austrian Tax and Customs Administration for the warm welcome extended to delegates and the excellent organization of the meeting.
Tatum's 39 points help Celtics hold on to beat Grizzlies 109-106
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First staged in 1970, Christopher Hampton's comedy (an inverted reflection of Moliere's The Misanthrope) about a mild-mannered, people-pleasing Oxford academic gets a revival stuffed with comic actors off the telly. You can see why: this groaning period piece, directed by Simon Callow, needs all the comedic help it can get. It's not enough.

The Inbetweeners' Simon Bird plays the Philip of the title, a philologist (see what he did there) who throws a party for his colleagues. He's typecast, but then he does manage to convey all this man's nervousness in the way he holds his knees together, hands perched in a gesture as ingratiating as it is irritating.

His guests are a self-indulgent, solipsistic lot, given to out-doing each other in displays of callous sophistry. There's dark, satiric humour in this, but it often seems weirdly overblown  that the entire cabinet has been gunned down by a terrorist is a pretty extreme off-hand backdrop, yet one that's rarely alluded to.

Celia  Philip's fiance  is an almost cruelly confident literature student, played by Charlotte Ritchie, from Fresh Meat. The model Lily Cole plays Araminta, a vacuous femme fatale in a maxi-dress who glides around lissomely, and spouts an accent posher than the Queen's. There's a woman called Liz (Lowenna Melrose), a running joke because she never says anything (hilarious!). Tom Rosenthal's indolent academic Don starts as a world-weary cynic, before leaping to the defence of socialism in the face of the unscrupulous Braham, a braying novelist who's given up being left wing "for tax reasons" and has twigged that being controversial helps sell books. This, at least, doesn't feel dated.

He's played by Matt Berry in a cerise velvet suit and full Toast of London mode, always a joy. But while individual actors nail occasional zingers, the dialogue needs to really snap and crackle if this play is going to, well, pop; here, there seem to be weird spaces between the barbs. Callow's physical blocking around Libby Watson's elegant white set is often lumpen too.

While the first half is diverting, the second becomes eye-rolling. Philip sleeps with Araminta because he didn't like to say no, and as his relationship falls apart we get a lot of naval-gazing that nonetheless remains in the same chirpy tone. He's a man who studies words, but not their meaning, so there's droll comedy in his complete inability to ever get the subtext of what others are saying - but Celia and Philip are so obviously ill-suited, it's seems only right they should break up. There's not much dramatically at stake when you're actually rooting for a couple to give up.

We're also treated to a monologue about why Araminta sleeps with every man she can. Because she enjoys it, perhaps? Oh no, my bad: because she was raped by an uncle and once locked in a room for a week by a partner. I think you need good reasons to put on plays that feature ill-thought-through speeches about sexual abuse, unquestioningly stage dated double-standards, and operate as male wish-fulfilment, all at the same time. This production fails to mount a case.

The Philanthropist was written when Hampton was only 23  and here gets a revival that for once casts actors in their late-twenties, early-thirties, as intended. But it's not revelatory: these academics act like old fogeys who sleep about a bit. There's little in the way of parallels to the perma-youthful millennials the cast seem to have been brought in to evoke. While there is much fizzy talent here, it simply does not match up with the play.

The Philanthropist runs at Trafalgar Studios until 22 July.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a day and age when immigration is a hot-button topic all over the globe, its interesting to note the White Top Drive In, winner of the Free Presss inaugural Munch Madness competition, owes a small debt of gratitude to a customs official who, 51 years ago, happened to have a pen and roll of tape kicking around.

When Peter Louizos moved from Greece to Canada in 1966, he couldnt speak a lick of English, his son Demos Louizos told us in a 2013 interview.

Before letting the elder Louizos board a train headed west, the Halifax-based officer affixed a note to Louizos jacket, upon which he had written WINNIPEG in big, bold letters.

Choose Winnipeg's finest burger joint in our Munch Madness bracket.

After dabbling in the construction business for a number of years, Louizos and his brother Tony founded the P and T Drive In on Chevrier Boulevard in 1973.

Twelve years later, Peter bought the White Top from a buddy of his, in order to work closer to his home on Matheson Avenue. Ever since Munch Madness kicked off on March 25, the North End institution has been flooded with old and new customers alike, whove been following the competition online, as well as in the pages of the Free Press.

Its been great the last couple of weeks, having all these old regulars dropping in to tell us stories about when they used to come here as kids, and to have lots of new people trying us out, too, says Mike Rogers, who helps run the restaurant.

Demos Louizos, owner of the White Top Drive In, with the Munch Madness winning Fat Boy. (Joe Bryksa / Winnipeg Free Press files)

Rogers says he and the Louizos family were humbled to make it past the first round of voting. To be crowned champ is obviously a feather in their cap, he says, but in their hearts, everybody associated with the White Top were crossing their fingers for a slightly different outcome.

The distinctive red-and-white stripped White Top Drive in at 409 Manitoba Avenue. (Joe Bryksa / Winnipeg Free Press files)

In all honesty, we were kind of hoping it would be us going up against the Red Top (Drive Inn) in the final, and that they would win, Rogers says.

Theyve had a pretty tough year and it would have been nice to see them come out on top; we definitely would have cheered on that result. So I guess what you could say is for us, winning is kind of our way of supporting them.

In February, Red Tops co-owner Peter Scouras died tragically in a drowning accident in Cosa Rica. The iconic St. Boniface restaurant was originally founded by his dad John, his uncle Gus and other partners in 1960.

Thanks to the thousands of readers who took the time to vote in our burger joint competition, as well as to the hundreds of people who left comments online, tipping us off about places we might have missed this time around.

Well be back next March with another competition. We dont want to give away too much, but we will make one promise: its going to be a slice.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca

Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press Files Peter Scouras, the well-known co-owner of the iconic Red Top Drive-Inn, died in a tragic drowning accident in Costa Rica this past weekend.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pollocks Hardware Co-op will keep its South Osborne location open  for now.

The Winnipeg hardware institutions board voted Wednesday night to keep the shop in business, with one big caveat: it must stay in the black. After more than three years in business, the location turned its first profit in March after publicly appealing to its customers for support. It made $2,400 and is on track for its April budget of $1,000.

While grateful for the reprieve, store manager Mike Wolchock said hes both optimistic and worried.

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Mike Wolchock says Pollocks South Osborne location will need to stay profitable to remain open.

The Co-op had to sign another year lease, but Wolchock said the board plans to close up and sublet immediately if the shops profits drop. The secondary location is starting to be a financial burden on the Co-ops flagship North End store, which has been an institution in the neighbourhood for decades.

It would be easy for me to close the store and not have to deal with the grief, but I think its important, Wolchock said.

One of the benefits of the public appeal, he said, has been the opportunity to better connect with customers in South Osborne about what they actually want. Wolchock said the store has been very focused on selling what it has in stock, sometimes at the expense of ordering in products people ask about.

Wolchock was particularly impressed by the publics support. While Pollocks did a survey in 2016 showing its average customer was middle-aged, sales in South Osborne were bolstered by young people and young families.

As the urgency of the situation fades, Wolchock hopes customers will still come in to shop.

The bottom line is, if people dont shop, we dont make money and we cant be there anymore.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If someone named you as his or her executor, you would likely feel honoured  and for good reason. That person is nominating you as his or her personal representative, to put yourself in their place and to use your judgment when they have died.

It is likely not a job to get excited about. Being an executor involves a lot of responsibility and it will likely be very time consuming or even frustrating. An executor can even be held personally liable for things such as distributing assets to beneficiaries before taxes or debts have been paid, though most modern wills absolve executors for actions taken in good faith, with proper care.

An executor might also have to cope with impatient or unreasonable beneficiaries  or even family in-fighting.

When you are selecting a person to act as your executor, keep these things in mind. Sometimes this is a job best left to a professional executor such as a trust company, which has the expertise and experience  as well as the ability  to act as an impartial third party.

While thinking about who to name, consider the nature and complexity of your assets and affairs; the size of your estate and whether or not the benefits of good tax, legal and other decisions could offset professional fees; the ability of the executor to understand the issues and devote the time required, both in duration and potential intensity; whether or not family members are reasonably expected to get along; blended family situations, second marriages and other fairness-related or awkward issues and characteristics of a potential executor, such as age, skill, where they live, experience and attention to detail.

Common choices for executor (executrix if female) include the surviving spouse, which makes a lot of sense, especially if receiving the entire estate. A co-executor might be a good idea if the person named is older, potentially infirm, inexperienced or more comfortable with help. The will may grant this executor the right to hire professionals, including a trust company, to provide such help.

If adult children will inherit the estate, one or more of them may be the right choice. The obvious consideration is who to choose and who, if any, to leave out. If your children have a history of disharmony or lingering resentments, they are probably a bad choice and an objective professional may be better.

A lawyer, accountant or other professional adviser, especially one who has familiarity with your affairs, may be worth considering. However, many such professionals will decline the appointment, choosing instead to provide their advice and service to the executor, rather than being the executor.

If your affairs are complicated, then a business associate might be considered, but think carefully about potential conflicts of interest and the needs of your family.

A trust company may be your right choice. If there are to be long-term trusts established under the will (which could be for young children). If blended families or other divisive situations are involved, having a third party may be the way to keep your family together after you are gone.

Once your choice is made, be sure your executor knows they have the job and have had a chance to ask you the questions they need to ask.

Prepare a complete inventory of all assets  such as bank and investment accounts, life insurance policies, real estate, group insurance and pension benefits, safety deposit box, out-of-country accounts or properties and everything else you own  and their locations. This is also a great organizational tool for you.

Make sure the location of your original will is known to your executor. Ideally, go over the will with the executor, to clarify any ambiguities.

If your will leaves things to the executors discretion, then prepare a letter or have a talk with that person to explain your thinking and feelings about those issues.

By all means, honour a person by naming them as your executor, but give them every tool to do a fabulous job for you.

Dollars and Sense is meant as an introduction to this topic and should not in any way be construed as a replacement for personalized professional advice.

David Christianson, BA, CFP, R.F.P., TEP, CIM is a certified financial planner and senior advisor with Christianson Wealth Advisors, a vice-president with National Bank Financial Wealth Management and author of the book Managing the Bull, A No-Nonsense Guide to Personal Finance.
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This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Court of Queens Bench Judge Vic Toews could face professional sanctions after a ruling Friday by the federal conflict of interest and ethics commissioner.

Commissioner Mary Dawson found Toews, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister, violated the Conflict of Interest Act after he received money from two Manitoba First Nations for consulting services shortly after leaving office in July 2013.

In one case, he received a retainer from Norway House Cree Nation, an organization he had dealt with while in cabinet, before a required two-year cooling-off period expired.

Former federal Conservative cabinet minister Vic Toews has been found to have broken federal conflict-of-interest rules. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press files)

In a second case, he acted on behalf of Peguis First Nation in its quest to acquire Kapyong Barracks land  after representing the federal government on the issue years earlier. In the latter instance, the prohibition against acting as a consultant or switching sides, is indefinite.

Toews, who for years was Manitobas senior federal cabinet minister, was appointed to the bench in 2014. Under the Conflict of Interest Act, he faces no penalty for Fridays findings  other than the embarrassment from the publication of Dawsons report.

However, he could soon be in hot water with a tribunal that oversees the conduct of senior judges.

Richard Leblanc, a governance and ethics professor at York University, said the conduct of judges is held to the highest standards.

Your conduct as a judge has to be beyond reproach, and theres nothing more serious than acting under a conflict of interest. So I think hell be sanctioned, Leblanc said from Toronto.

Its just terrible conduct, and it puts the administration of justice into disrepute. It also puts federal members of Parliament into disrepute when you see stories like this. It impugns the reputation both of Parliament and of the administration of justice.

Leblanc said Toews could be given a warning and, in a worst-case scenario, be asked to step down  although the latter measure is rare.

Toews could not be reached for comment Friday. A court spokeswoman said he was not at his office and was not expected to return until Wednesday.

Glenn Joyal, chief justice of the Manitoba Court of Queens Bench, did not respond to a request for comment.

In her 35-page report, Dawson said during his last year in office, Toews, acting as senior minister for Manitoba, met in August and September of 2012 with Norway House Cree Nation on a pair of issues. In October 2013, just a few months after leaving office, he provided consulting services to the First Nation through a company owned by his spouse.

Norway House Chief Ron Evans said Friday the community retained Toews to open doors in Ottawa and provide advice on some issues.

We had a couple of meetings with him and we gave him a retainer and that was about the size of it, Evans said, adding in the end, the First Nation received no real help from the federal minister.

Evans said he wasnt aware of the conflict of interest guidelines concerning former federal politicians at the time. I certainly feel thats something he (Toews) should have been aware of.

As president of the Treasury Board in 2007, Toews was responsible for the sale of the former Kapyong Barracks property in Winnipeg. The governments decision to unload the land was challenged by several First Nations, including Peguis. The legal wrangling spanned the years from 2008 to 2015. Toews began advising Peguis on Kapyong, through the First Nations lawyer, Jeffrey Rath, in the fall of 2013, Dawson said in her report.

He acted for or on behalf of a party that was seeking relief against a decision in which he had been involved as a minister of the Crown. I therefore found that Mr. Toews contravened subsection 34(1) of the Conflict of Interest Act, she wrote.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, said while he was happy to see a rare finding of guilt emanating from the ethics commissioner, the Toews case highlights several problems that have plagued the office.

Its much too little and much too late  and an example of how weak the federal government ethics enforcement system is, he said Friday.

Even if Toews were still a cabinet minister, he would face no penalty from the review, Conacher lamented. There is no applicable fine under the law.

Conacher said Toews should lose at least part of his federal pension and any severance he was paid when he left office. The law that he broke is second only to the criminal code in ensuring that politicians uphold the public interest and dont breach the publics trust.

If the actions of federal politicians and former politicians were more carefully monitored, Toews conflicts may have been discovered long ago, and he may never have been appointed to the bench, Conacher said. He said if no one else files a complaint against Toews to the Canadian Judicial Council, Democracy Watch will.

Meanwhile, Conacher said, given Dawsons now-tenuous role as conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, Toews may even have grounds to challenge her ruling.

Rather than operate under a multi-year term as she used to, with no fear of termination except for just cause, Dawson has served under renewable six-month contracts at the pleasure of the Trudeau cabinet since last July.

That puts her in a financial conflict of interest that taints all of her rulings, Conacher said, noting Dawson recently let the prime minister off the hook for his fundraising activities.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

The%20Toews%20Report
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This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON  Peppering his remarks with folksy stories, Premier Brian Pallister shied away from specifics during Thursdays state of the province address at the Keystone Centre.

Pallister didnt make any funding announcements, but he did offer broad insights into what the Progressive Conservative government will focus on as it enters its second year in power.

Hitting many of the same notes as he did during Wednesdays Manitoba Chamber of Commerce address in Winnipeg, Pallister spent much of the first half of his speech lambasting the previous government.

Tim Smith / The Brandon Sun Premier Brian Pallister delivers the State of the Province Address during a Brandon Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Keystone Centre on Thursday.

Pallister later told reporters his focus on the massive mess his party inherited from the Manitoba NDP helped highlight the foundational issues they must deal with before theyre able to announce important projects.

When announcements begin rolling out, he said theyll be strategically targeted.

Were not going to be considering the political consequences, which is what most provinces do, he said.

Were not looking to do projects for political gain. Were looking to do them because theyre the right thing to do.

Assiniboine Community College and Brandon University are waiting on funding announcements for projects, as is the Brandon School Division, whose leadership has long cited the need for a new school.

The City of Brandon is waiting on a decision from the province on funding for Keystone Centre capital improvements, which Pallister did not mention despite speaking at the centre.

Brandon Coun. Lonnie Patterson, who is also a Manitoba NDP provincial council member, cited that as a glaring omission, along with the premiers failure to mention the provincial governments recently announced $809,565 commitment toward the planning and design of water treatment plant upgrades. She said Pallister should take credit where credits due.

The lack of specifics in Pallisters address didnt appear to bother Mayor Rick Chrest, who said hes a complete optimist in terms of the direction of the province and Brandons ability to benefit from these broader changes.

Pallister at least alluded to all of the things that we would include in our playbook, Chrest said, citing economic development as its centrepiece, adding hes confident the city can count on the provinces support for continuing down the path.

Brandon Chamber of Commerce president Terry Burgess said while Pallisters speech left questions as to whats next for Brandon, his vision is clear. Burgess said the premiers focus on managing costs, cutting red tape and developing the economy are all goals shared by the local chamber of commerce.

Pallister cited economic potential in northern Manitoba, and Burgess said hed like to challenge him to consider Westman in a similar light.

We need to have that same sort of focus and energy toward economic development in Westman, he said.

 Brandon Sun
Opinion

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This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservative government recently introduced Bill 30, which is one of the most blatant abuses of power in memory in Manitoba.

The title of the bill is relatively innocuous: The Local Vehicles for Hire Act. In reality, it might as well be called the Uber Bill, because it clearly aims to dismantle the regulated taxi industry to pave the way for this so-called ridesharing company.

There is an irony with the bill. Uber, a company that is estimated to be worth US$70 billion, has broken the law worldwide in its attack on regulated taxi services. Bill 30 abuses the legal power of the province to pave the way for Uber.

John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press Files A city cab waits for a customer at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg.

Mayor Brian Bowman has made it clear he wants to bring Uber to Winnipeg. There are two problems. First, the City of Winnipeg does not have licensing jurisdiction over taxis; that is provincial jurisdiction. Second, the advent of Uber would devastate hundreds of families that have followed the rules and invested in the regulated taxi system.

The PC solution is to transfer taxi-board jurisdiction to the City of Winnipeg, cancel all provincial licences, establish transitional municipal licences and bring in legislation denying compensation to Manitobans who, in many cases, have poured their life savings into the taxi industry. They also plan to remove rural and northern taxi regulation through the Motor Transport Board and let municipalities bring in Uber and threaten their local regulated taxi systems.

One section in the act goes as far as stating that the governments actions would not be seen as expropriation, a legal process whereby property owners are compensated for property that is taken for public purpose. There is even a retroactive provision that prohibits people from taking action legally before the bill comes into force.

There is a reason why the PCs have moved to prohibit legal action. There are clear legal and political precedents for individuals being able to seek legal recourse when they are affected by the cancellation of a licence or quota. The provincial government could be liable for the millions of dollars in lost investments by people in the taxi industry.

What is particularly appalling is the way in which this targets an industry where the vast majority of owners are new Canadians, many of whom have invested their life savings in the industry, followed its rules and built a livelihood for their families.

There are many arguments against the deregulation of the taxi industry. In markets where Uber has operated, there has been differential pricing, a lack of equal service to all areas of the municipality, and significant safety issues for both drivers and passengers.

Manitoba has made great strides in taxi safety. After the tragic murder of taxi driver Pritam Deol in 2002, we put in place shields and cameras that made a huge difference in terms of safety. There is also a stringent complaint mechanism for passengers.

It is one thing to look at ways to improve the taxi industry but the governments initiative is clearly aimed at destroying the regulated industry, and opening it up to a multinational corporation that, in addition to breaking the law, bases its business model on the exploitation of part-time employees and the removal of profits out of the jurisdiction in which they operate.

What is particularly galling about the governments initiative is the fact that it is almost impossible to contemplate them doing the same to other Manitobans. It would be simply inconceivable for this government to bring in similar legislation affecting, for example, farmers in southern Manitoba.

Regardless of their views on the taxi industry, Manitobans should be appalled at the blatant abuse of power in Bill 30 and the way in which the PC government is threatening to wipe out the livelihood of hundreds of hard-working Manitoba families.

Steve Ashton is the former minister of Infrastructure and Transportation. He is now pursuing his original vocation as an economist as well as being a periodic commentator on current affairs.
Opinion

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This article was published 21/04/2017 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the Manitoba government contemplates the shape and form of its carbon pricing and green plan, heeding the words of perhaps our greatest public intellectual might be prudent. We shape the tools then the tools shape us, said eminent cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan, also an alumnus of Kelvin High School and the University of Manitoba. He meant that the tools we create can be very useful but still carry unintended negative consequences, so the toolmakers foresight and breadth of vision matter mightily.

McLuhans reign  he held court at his Centre for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto from the early 1950s until 1979  coincided with mass consumption of automobiles and television. His observations of how these technologies were reshaping society, the environment and especially our psychology were profound.

In Manitoba, its been arguably the surveyors rod and the drainage dredge that have proven to be the technologies that have impacted us the most.

Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press Files The 2011 Assiniboine River flood caused more than $1 billion in damage to infrastructure in rural Manitoba.

The Dominion Land Survey (DLS), the largest integrated survey system in the world, began in 1871 to promote settlement via a quarter-section homesteading model. University of Alberta environmental historian (and former Winnipegger) Shannon Studen-Bower has documented the broader cultural and environmental implications of the DLS, a settler culture devoted to an ethos of land improvement by clearing forest and bush and by draining marsh and wetlands with an ever-more-comprehensive drainage network.

The benefits of DLS must be acknowledged; agriculture has flourished in Manitoba for almost 150 years and remains a pillar of Manitobas economy.

However, the unintended consequences and vulnerabilities of the infrastructure networks that have grown alongside the DLS are also occasionally exposed. In the aftermath of the 1930s Dust Bowl, a federal agency  the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration  was established to repair much of the damage, notably by planting trees and building small-scale water retention projects peppered across all three Prairie provinces.

More recently, the 2011 Assiniboine River flood revealed other vulnerabilities  more than $1 billion of damage to rural infrastructure: section roads, highways, culverts and bridges blown apart from a climate shock on a heavily modified landscape not designed to store water.

And then, within a few months and for much of southern Manitoba, an agricultural drought. Some sections of land were under both flood and drought insurance claims that year  and we are still dealing with the catastrophic economic impacts of 2011.

Though 2011 was declared a one-in-300-year event at the time, thats very unlikely to be the case. The best available climate science for the region, assembled by the Prairie Climate Atlas, projects much higher-frequency oscillation between flood and drought conditions. Deeper ditches and more tile drainage do not take these risks off the table; they merely transmit flood risk downstream and largely exacerbate drought risk.

The one-percentage-point PST increase was justified by the previous government as necessary for the infrastructure needed to de-risk us from more 2011-type events. Of concern then is the list of approved Manitoba infrastructure projects, co-funded federally and provincially, as published by the Free Press (Deadline to spend, April 1). As legitimate as these projects may be, none take a nickel of 2011-type climate risk off the table.

The climate policy and infrastructure policy narratives in Manitoba should be better connected. The logic for pricing carbon is that every jurisdiction must share the burden of reducing global climate risk. How carbon revenues should be optimally reinvested is an open question in environmental economics and the subject of recent public consultations.

The logic for reinvesting at least part of our carbon revenues in our own risk reduction should be obvious, particularly when it can leverage infrastructure investment with high economic multipliers that broaden the tax base.

International capital markets have identified the problem and are looking for solutions  and Manitoba needs to be at the table. Last week, Globe Capital hosted a conference in Toronto attended by four federal cabinet ministers on how to deploy the estimated $90 trillion in global infrastructure investment needed to de-carbonize and climate-proof our economies. In Manitoba, were increasingly confident that we know what the solutions look like  theyre decentralized and truly green infrastructure.

Since 2012, the International Institute for Sustainable Development has collaborated with the LaSalle-Redboine Conservation District to manage a multi-functional water-retention project known as Pellys Lake near Holland, Man.

Originally conceived for mitigating flooding and drought risk, we now harvest the site for high-value biomaterial and bioenergy, and intercept and recycle the phosphorus that would otherwise foul Lake Winnipeg. Weve also confirmed that harvesting the site enhances its ability to absorb greenhouse gases, while improving habitat conditions.

Well need hundreds of Pellys Lakes, but theyre out there and will only occupy a small fraction of the agricultural landscape, turning some of our least productive land into super-productive risk-management nodes. There are no more Winnipeg floodways to build and, even if there were, they wouldnt provide the co-benefits that makes the green infrastructure option long-term economic development (and clean tech innovation) rather than a typical infrastructure spend.

Fundamentally, climate policy and infrastructure policy should be linked and the jurisdictions that do so with foresight, sophistication and climate resilience in mind will go the top of the investment queue.

Lets shape these tools wisely, for they will shape us for the century to come.

Hank Venema is director of planning at the Prairie Climate Centre.
Washington-Kosciusko kindergarten teachers Mrs. Kulzer and Mrs. Allington have fostered a love for learning through play this year in the kindergarten playroom.

This room has a changing dramatic play theme each month, and Aprils theme is farming.

Winona State Universitys physics department along with student teachers, Abigial Grenon and Ashley Sim provided the playroom with an incubator, 41 chicken eggs, instructions and emotional support for how to hatch the eggs.

The students incorporated math skills of counting back from 20 as the eggs are incubated for 20 days. They focused all about eggs and what hatches from them. They received a big surprise at 10:15 a.m. April 12 as Baby Herky hatched.

Students have been eagerly anticipating the hatching and are egg-cited to watch Baby Herky and wait for the others to hatch. Once all baby chicks are hatched, they will be re-homed to the Moore Family Farm.
Every year thousands of veterans fly to Washington D.C. to visit the memorials in their honor, thanks to the non-profit organization Honor Flight Network.

A pair of Lanesboro High School sophomores deserve a word of thanks as well.

This year, 11 veterans from Lanesboro, Minn., will fly out for their moment of honor and recognition. In order to keep sending veterans, two high school students from Lanesboro helped organize a fundraiser to pay for future flights.

Lanesboro special education teacher Jim Gladis approached Coy Pederson and Brynn Howerton, both sophomores, earlier in the month and asked if theyd be interested in helping with the event.

We couldt really refuse an opportunity to give back (to our veterans), Pederson said.

Both were asked to delegate jobs to different groups, organizations and students to help put the fundraiser together. Pederson said theyve recruited the schools Future Farmers of America, Family Career Community Leaders of America, the schools organization dedicated to helping young students develop leadership skills, and other students interested in volunteering.

Lanesboro, a town of just over 750 people, is a close-knit community. Nearly everyone has a friend or family member who currently serves or is a veteran, Howerton said.

People want to help ... its personal and local, Howerton said. Its a good opportunity to help people we know.

Howerton and Pederson both have family members who served  in Vietnam and World War II. Pederson said veterans do so much to protect and serve us, the least they could do is show their appreciation for everything theyve done.

The Honor Flight Network focuses on getting the older veterans to Washington D.C first because theyre likely to die soonest; the Department of Veteran Affairs estimates 640 WWII veterans die every day.

This years veterans from Lanesboro fought in either Vietnam or the Korean War, and one fought in both.

The fundraiser will take place on April 28, and includes a dinner, a speaker, and an informational slide show on the history of the Honor Flight Network and its growth since it started in 2005.

Pederson said hes excited to see familiar faces in the community come together and support their local heroes.

Its nice to know you dont have to be the biggest town or city to get this recognition (for our veterans), Pederson said.

Its been a great opportunity to help show respect for people who served our country, Howerton said.
One of many March for Science rallies around the country will happen in St. Paul on Saturday at the state Capitol, where a feud has broken out over funding for environmental programs.

Organizers of the marches worry theres a growing threat to science-based public policy.

In Minnesotas GOP-controlled House, a committee cut millions of dollars in projects recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, or LCCMR.

Jeff Broberg, St. Charles, citizen co-chair of the LCCMR, sees that as an insult.

It takes me over 60 hours to read the proposals, he said. I sit through 15 days of meetings to vet em out, and I work pretty hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

Like most of the seven citizen-members of the commission, Broberg has a background in science. Hes a licensed geologist and works as an environmental consultant.

He chafes at what he sees as an anti-science bent to some of the changes the Republican-controlled House made to the commissions recommendations.

Gone was funding for projects on climate change, renewable energy and water quality.

[There is] some pernicious notion that the science isnt valid, we shouldnt listen to experts, the citizen involvement is not legitimate and were legislators and we have election certificates so were going to do whatever we want, said Broberg.

Funding was also cut for proposals to buy land for the Metropolitan Regional Park System, State Parks, and Scientific and Natural Areas.

Minnesota voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1988 establishing the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund with which lottery money is earmarked for environmental research, education and land acquisition.

State and local governments, nonprofits and scientists apply for funding, and a 17-member panel recommends how the state should spend the money.

State Rep. Josh Heintzeman was in charge of evaluating the commissions proposals.

Heintzeman is on the House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance committee. Hes also a new member of the LCCMR and will help select projects for funding next year.

The Nisswa Republican denies specific areas of research were targeted by lawmakers and says there were many reasons for eliminating projects. Among them, he said, were things that might maybe have opportunities in future years, or may have had some issues with committee members and maybe were somewhat controversial.

Heintzeman insists those who criticize the Legislature for changing the LCCMR recommendations dont understand the process.

The Legislature wasnt given a rubber stamp, Heintzeman said, they were given the opportunity to be a part of what is and isnt in the bill and there may have been previous legislatures that had a different take, but this is where we are at currently.

Its not the first time science and politics became entangled with environmental funding.

In fact, the makeup of the LCCMR was changed in 2006 to include citizens. At the time, projects were selected by a commission of legislators, and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty criticized the process as too political.

Its also not new for lawmakers to cut projects recommended by the commission. But former legislator and past commission member Steve Morse says lawmakers seem to be ignoring the advice of experts.

Theyve becoming more brazen, and its happening to a larger degree, said Morse. Im not sure where it will end up but its a very bad trend.

Heintzeman said the funding shifts are a matter of priority, not politics. Money from eliminated projects will go to fund the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Under the CREP program, the federal government pays farmers not to till environmentally sensitive areas, but the program requires state matching funds.

Minnesota has a CREP agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to improve water quality by targeting land in southern and western Minnesota. The agreement will help compensate farmers who install grass buffers to protect streams from pollution.

Morse, who now heads the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, says its admirable to spend money on the conservation program, but not at the expense of important research.

Some of these people dont want to spend it on climate, they dont want to spend it on hard science that is going to tell us things that they maybe dont want to know, said Morse. So theyre looking for other places to spend the money. They need a place to park it. I think the CREP is an easy place to park it. Everyone loves the CREP.

The funding cuts are not final. The Senate left the commissions recommendations largely intact, but Heintzeman says he expects many of the cuts to be accepted by the Senate when the bills are reconciled in conference committee.
The Dept. of Agriculture says 2016 alfalfa hay yields averaged 3.2 tons per acre on Wisconsin farms, up from 2.8 tons in 2015.

Alfalfa growers in Trempealeau County did better, averaging 3.55 tons per acre, and Pepin County averaged 3.75 tons. Buffalo County averaged 3.25 tons per acre.

Pierce County took the blue ribbon statewide with alfalfa yields averaging 4.25 tons per acre. Pepin County tied with Grant County for 5th place yield statewide.

Grant County alfalfa farmers took top honors in production, producing 159,700 tons. Dunn, Vernon, Iowa, Sauk and Lafayette counties all topped 100,000 tons.

More than 3 million tons of alfalfa was harvested statewide in 2016, down about 160,000 tons from 2015, USDA said.

Alfalfa production was up in Buffalo County, rising from 57,800 tons to 68,100 in 2016. Pepin County was about 1,000 tons to 28,500, and Trempealeau County was down 20,000 tons to 55,100.

Trempealeau County growers harvested 15,500 acres of alfalfa last year, compared to 23,400 acres in 2015. Buffalo County was down a couple of thousand to 21,000 acres, and Pepin County was down 1,600 to 7,600 acres in 2015.

Hay other than alfalfa accounted for 726,000 tons harvested statewide. In other agriculture reports, grain stocks in Wisconsin showed 348 million bushels of corn stored in March.

Corn storage was up 15 percent from a year ago, and USDA said it was the largest March corn stock on record in Wisconsin, breaking a 330- million-bushel March corn storage record set in 1987.

Of total Wisconsin corn stock in March, 56 percent of it was stored on farms. Corn stock used from December through February was down 10 percent from the same prior year cycle.

Wisconsin soybean stock also was at record levels in March, 54.4 million bushels, 24 percent higher than a 2012 record 43.8 million bushels stored. About 27 percent of soybean stock was stored on farms.

U.S. corn stock in March was up 10 percent to 8.62 billion bushels. Soybean stock was 1.73 billion bushels, up 13 percent.

Wheat stock was 1.66 billion bushels, up 21 percent, and oats stored were up 16 percent to 63.2 million bushels in March.
WASHINGTON  Youd think with 24/7 exposure to everything Donald Trump, wed know all about him. But here are a few fun facts you may have missed.

During the presidents six business bankruptcies, investors lost $1.5 billion. He had to reduce his personal expenses to $450,000 a month. Ultimately, the government bailed him out from his many bankers, who didnt know about the others loans to Trump.

When Trump had money troubles, he asked an employee to put the arm on a friend who worked for a bank. She said she couldnt do it. Trump was furious. He said: She turned on me after I had done so much to help her.  She ended up losing her home. Her husband  walked out on her and I was glad.  And now I go out of my way to make her life miserable.

Trump didnt always love the military. During the Vietnam War, he got four student deferments and one medical deferment, apparently for a bone spur, although he cant remember which foot had been affected.

Trump would have been ineligible to own the casinos he bought in Atlantic City if the previous federal criminal investigations of him and his associations with mob figures had been revealed in the background checks. Somehow, the required investigation was never done.

Although Trump has spent almost two years urging Republicans to vote, he did not vote in any Republican primary for 27 years until he voted for himself.

The nearly nude photo of Melania Trump for GQ magazine was arranged by Trump, then her boyfriend, who watched the photo shoot. GQ says Melania was featured in our naked profile shoot on his customized Boeing 727 wearing handcuffs, wielding diamonds and holding a chrome pistol.

After Trumps father died, the young Trump sought out as his dads mentor, Roy Cohn, the chief lawyer for Sen. Joe McCarthy, the infamous conductor of witch hunts for non-existent communists.

Trump said that he was amazed Cohn told him he had spent more than two-thirds of his adult life under indictment for various charges. Cohn went on to unsuccessfully defend Trump on federal charges he engaged in racial discrimination in his housing projects despite getting federal money. Trump settled. Cohn was also Trumps fixer on construction projects.

Trump has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits, either as plaintiff or defendant.

Trumps grandfather was kicked out of Germany for draft dodging. He set up a bordello and a bar in Seattle and later prospered as a barbershop owner in New York, although it isnt clear how. Trumps father partnered with a known organized crime figure, cheaply built 27,000 subsidized apartments and row houses and was accused of gaming the Federal Housing Administration.

Life father, like son. Trump, too, associated with known gangsters.

And he loves manufactured news, as did his father. The elder Trump once hired beautiful women wearing hard hats and bikinis to start knocking down a beloved ride on Coney Island that stood where Trumps father planned to build an apartment building.

Trumps older brother had a grandson born very sick and in need of constant medical attention to live. According to Trump biographer David Cay Johnston, when Trumps father died, all but disinheriting the older brothers family, Trump made certain that the sick boys health insurance was no longer paid.

When Trump tore down the famed Bonwit Teller department store to build Trump Tower in New York, he used undocumented Polish laborers working off the books, without hard hats or face masks despite handling asbestos. They did have sledgehammers.

A federal court concluded they were paid $4 or $5 an hour for 84-hour weeks. No Social Security was paid. Workers slept on site on concrete floors and went hungry when their paychecks bounced while Trump threatened deportation. Sued, Trump settled out of court 10 years later. To save money, Trump destroyed the art deco sculpture above Bonwits door that hed promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (By weird numbering, Trump Tower, billed as having 68 stories, has only 58.)

Trump uses tape to hold down the edge of one end of his tie so the front hangs below his belt, dyes his hair, wears padded suits, paid no income tax for years and personally has donated little to charity. But, hey, you know all of that.

Trump has sent no details of any of his promises to Capitol Hill. He hasnt given us any plans on health care, corporate and individual tax cuts, infrastructure investments, entitlement reform, or how to pay for any of it. Nothing.
JUNEAU  An inmate at Waupun Correctional Institution is accused of physically abusing a correctional officer in the institution.

Cedric Barefield, 33, is charged with battery by a prisoner. He could face up to 6 additional years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted of the charge.

According to the criminal complaint, at about 3:40 p.m. on March 24, Barefield repeatedly punched a correctional officer in the head and body in a cafeteria area of Waupun Correctional Institution.

According to the criminal complaint, the correctional officer said he was standing next to the exit of the cafeteria and asked Barefield to sit near the exit so he could talk to him after the other inmates left the area. Barefield attempted to ignore the officer and when he did respond, he started punching the correctional officer. Two other correctional officers were able to separate the two.

The correctional officer was sent to Waupun Memorial Hospital for treatment of his injuries.

Barefield was sentenced in 2005 for eight counts of armed robbery with the use of force.

The initial appearance in this case is scheduled for May 23.
According to the criminal complaint, a resident in the town of Beaver Dam reported on April 6 at 2:50 p.m. that there was a domestic disturbance and she had been assaulted by Berndt. The woman said Berndt had kicked, hit and strangled her along with throwing one of her children into a bedpost.

The woman said Berndt had gotten upset because the children were playing with bandages and she had gotten in the way because he was moving toward one of the children in an aggressive way. According to the complaint, Karl pushed her backward into a counter top, and she was able to get away but continued to argue with her. She said at one point, he kicked her in the back and she fell on the ground and at that point, he began to strangle her. According to the criminal complaint, one of the children jumped on Berndts back to stop him and Berndt threw the boy and the boy struck the bedpost.
Gov. Scott Walker is open to amending a private school tuition tax benefit, two-thirds of which is going to families making more than $100,000 a year, though he isn't seeking any particular changes himself.

In January the State Journal wrote about how the state is spending $8 million a year to subsidize private school tuition for families making more than $100,000.

Urban Milwaukee wrote about the issue this week, citing the State Journal report and pointing out that Walker and Republican legislative leaders at the time didn't respond to a request for comment or articulate their rationale for the tax benefit.

In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald told the State Journal the tax benefit would boost private schools, which lift a "huge tax burden on the state" by educating thousands of students.

But as Urban Milwaukee points out, many of the families using the subsidy are already sending their children to private school, such as the University School of Milwaukee, where tuition is $18,835 for first grade and $26,065 for 12th grade.

The State Journal asked Walker about the issue in early February but didn't report his response at the time because the state budget and other issues took precedence.

Asked why the state was spending $8 million to subsidize private school for rich people, Walker said: "We're not."

"We dont distinguish one way or the other based on income," Walker said. "But your question makes it sound like we target them. We dont."

Pressed on how Department of Revenue data show two-thirds of the benefit is going to families making more than $100,000, Walker said "that might be an issue of discussion in the future."

Later, when asked again to explain the goal of using $8 million to subsidize private school for those in the top 13 percent of wage earners, rather than targeting it at middle-income families who don't already send their students to private school, Walker said "that very likely will be what some lawmakers consider."

"I think when they originally put it in they were just trying to make it affordable for people and families that chose to send their sons and daughters to private school without regard to income, not having an idea what the spread would be," Walker said. "If they tied that in to then using those dollars to expand the number of low-income families that could then get vouchers, so its in the same spirit, that would be interesting to me."

Under a 2013 state budget provision, families sending students to private school can reduce their adjusted gross income by up to $10,000 for high school tuition and up to $4,000 for elementary school tuition. The private school tuition exclusion, similar to an exclusion for a retirement account contribution, reduces a tax filers income before deductions and credits are applied, so the actual amount in tax savings is a few hundred dollars per tax filer. Unlike a tax deduction, filers dont have to itemize to benefit from it.

In 2015 a total of 20,560 tax filers making more than $100,000 claimed the exclusion, receiving a tax cut of about $388 per filer, according to DOR. Another 16,750 filers earning less than $100,000 claimed the exclusion. Their average tax savings was $235.
In the age of fake news and alternative facts, it never has been easier to reject inconvenient truths.

These are high times for bamboozlers. Dont like truth? Cook up some alternative facts. Cant disprove media reports? Dismiss them as fake news.

Things have never been so dicey for those of us in the fact business. Nouveau-riche sources that make no claims of objectivity  Im looking at you, Breitbart News  are gaining currency. Meanwhile, standard-bearers such as the New York Times have been barred from a presidential press briefing, and Donald Trump himself refers to any journalist who relies on anonymous sources as the enemy of the people.

President Trump has condemned as fake news the reporting of CNN. But he encouraged his own staff to overstate attendance at his inauguration, leading his counselor Kellyanne Conway to infamously say Press Secretary Sean Spicer merely was providing alternative facts.

Clearly the president, as a balderdash artist of the first order, is an authority on alternative facts. The tweeter-in-chief has become a leading source of fake news. He steadfastly insists the Obama administration tapped his campaigns telephones, but has yet to provide supporting evidence. Trump also told us millions of people voted illegally for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, but hasnt backed up that claim. The only sources less reliable than anonymous sources are non-existent ones.

Trumps bent for embroidery should come as no surprise. Remember, this is the man who claimed Obama was born in Kenya, an allegation later proved false. Perhaps our new president would call it an alternative fact.

Now that hes in the White House, Trump and his team have become the worlds leading exporters of specious assertions. Conway scolded the media for ignoring the Bowling Green massacre, a terrorist attack that never occurred. Then she told us our microwaves might be watching us.

Fake news is hardly new: Saturday Night Live and The Onion perfected the art of fictitious satire decades ago, and sired dozens of imitators. The proliferation of satiric news websites, coupled with Americas gullibility  hence the election of a rich guy who said hed look out for the poor, only to fill his Cabinet with rich guys  resulted in fibs being passed around as facts on social media.

With the existence of fake news and fibs-turned-facts generally accepted, Team Trump has taken one small step  and one giant leap of logic  in lumping CNN and the New York Times in with clickhole.com. All the better for swatting away unflattering portrayals as fake news, my dear.

What the Trump administration doesnt realize about the media is that facts are inconvenient for us, too. Our jobs would be easier if we could simply make things up. No phone calls, no background research, just fanciful fiction. Imagine the possibilities: CIA admits installing surveillance cameras in Americas microwaves.

But spinning yarns isnt our role. Were here to inform the public about whats happening in the world. We dont support the dissemination of fake news. Nor are we interested in alternative facts, unicorns or leprechauns.

Inconvenient though this may sometimes be, for us and our subjects, we must rely on actual facts. The job of the media is to hold up a mirror to society, and let the public evaluate what it sees. The Narcissus in the Oval Office doesnt like his reflection and would like us to believe the mirror is cracked.

But when Time magazines cover asks whether truth is dead, and the conservative Wall Street Journal chastises a Republican president for telling lies, its clear the public trust in the presidency  not the media mirror  is shattering.
Wisconsin students and their parents deserve better than a delusional superintendent of schools. Tony Evers has rated all schools in Wisconsin Great. Who does he think he is fooling? I guess it is because he is the one who has to take responsibility for the failing schools in Wisconsin. After all, he has had the top position for eight years. Perhaps he is too busy going to cocktail parties and catered events to take a look at Milwaukee, Madison, and other failing schools. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
A Portage man is facing a possible mandatory minimum of three years in prison after he was charged with an eighth drunken driving offense following a rollover crash in December.

Michael Purnell, 52, is charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated as an eighth offense, operating a vehicle with prohibited alcohol concentration as a repeat offense, operating a motor vehicle while license revoked as a repeat offense, four counts of felony bail jumping and two counts of misdemeanor bail jumping.

It appears as though the defendant has six open Columbia County cases including two felony operating while intoxicated cases, said Assistant District Attorney Christine Genda during a Thursday bail hearing. He is here and I know there are some medical conditions  Im not sure the severity of those  I dont think a high cash bond is necessary. I think to balance out the factors, $250 cash is reasonable.

His current felony case stems from an incident in which a Columbia County Sheriffs Office deputy responded to an early-morning vehicle rollover on Dec. 4 on Highway 16 in the town of Wyocena. The officer reported that Purnell, who had been thrown from the vehicle, was the only occupant at the time and several open beer containers could be found in the vehicle.

Purnell reportedly told the deputy that he had not been driving, but also said that he had been the only one in the vehicle. Purnell was then taken by ambulance to UW Hospital in Madison. Wisconsin State Crime Lab results later showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.162.

Mr. Purnell does have significant medical issues going on and there is documentation of that in other cases requesting rescheduling of a jury trial, said defense attorney Brian Severson at Thursdays hearing. He does have surgeries coming up. He was in a hospital for a significant time after this date  on Dec. 4  he was allowed to leave and charges were not filed yet, and once charges were filed, he voluntarily appeared here.

Purnell walked to the defense table Thursday, though slowly, under his own power, still wearing a neck brace and one arm in a tight vinyl sling.

At the time of the rollover, Purnell was free on a $5,000 cash bond from a set of charges following an arrest in March 2016, in which he had been tracked by the Portage Police Department K9 unit, and was charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated as a seventh offense.

At the time, Judge W. Andrew Voigt told Purnell that he was not unsympathetic to Purnells condition as described by his attorney, involving both addiction and serious medical concerns, but with the caveat that the behavior at issue, is dangerous not only to himself, but the folks he might come into contact with, unfortunately quite figuratively and literally.

On Thursday, Judge Todd Hepler imposed a $250 cash bond, scheduling Purnell to return to court for a July 11 hearing.
It looked like a piece of junk mail  mass-produced, with no recipients name on the envelope.

When Mark Heinze opened the letter earlier this month, he found that it contained the worst possible news.

Grassland, the Greenwood-based dairy processor that had bought the milk produced by Heinzes 300 cows, was notifying Heinze that it would no longer buy his milk, effective May 1.

They just sent us a generic letter in the mail, he said. There was no personal contact whatsoever.

Heinze  who farms in the town of Lewiston, near Portage  was far from alone in his predicament.

A similar letter, he said, went to about 58 Wisconsin dairy producers, and another nine in Minnesota.

Most of the affected Wisconsin farmers, and a few from Minnesota, got together April 14 at the Bayside Supper Club near Beaver Dam, for a strategy session, organized by Heinze and his wife, Beth.

Ben Brancel, the secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection, was at the meeting,

Much of the milk that Grassland buys is sold to cheese manufacturers in Canada, but Grasslands Canadian customers informed the company last month that they would no longer buy from Grassland.

The news couldnt have come at a worse time, Heinze said.

At about this time of year, dairy farmers commonly experience a phenomenon called spring flush  a spike in milk production, commonly attributed to cows being able to graze after a long winter, although it also happens with cows that dont graze.

Also, Heinze noted, this is the time of year when farmers have to finalize their plans for spring planting.

Heinze said he cant remember any time when a milk buyer pulled its business from producers with this short of notice.

When President Donald Trump spoke Tuesday in Kenosha, he declared that Canada has been very, very unfair to Wisconsin dairy producers.

But a letter dated Tuesday from Canadas ambassador to the United States, David MacNaughton, said overproduction of milk, and not Canadian trade policies, caused this and other setbacks experienced by dairy producers.

Canada is not to blame for the global situation that many American and Canadian farmers face, he wrote to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Among the Grassland producers set to lose their contracts, Heinze is one of the lucky ones. Mullins Cheese, based near Knowlton, about 15 miles north of Stevens Point, will, for the short term, buy the milk that his cows produce.

But Frank Behling, who milks 55 cows in Dodge County, just outside of Randolph, the loss of Grasslands business could mean the loss of his dream to start his own dairy.

We got a call from another producer who told us to check our mail, he said  and he, too, found a form letter from Grassland.

I dont blame Canada whatsoever, Behling said. They took matters into their hands, to create more markets for the producers there. Their markets, and the U.S. markets, are flooded.

Behling started his herd (mostly Holsteins, a few Jerseys and one Ayrshire) about four years ago, at Wildwood Holsteins and Jerseys. Hes renting now, and had hoped to own his own dairy someday.

For about 18 months, hes shipped about 4,000 pounds of milk a day to Grassland.

Behling said hes wanted a career in the dairy industry ever since his youth, when he showed Holsteins, and later Jerseys, at the Dodge County Fair and the Wisconsin State Fair.

Now, hes considering the possibility that he might have to dump his milk in the hope that a new buyer emerges soon, or sell off his herd altogether.

Mullins isnt buying Behlings milk, but he said he hopes that pressure on social media will persuade Wisconsin-based buyers to support small, family-based producers such as himself.

I think its important that we have family farms, he said. Were important to the economy. Its important that we stick around.
Japanese guitarist Hiroya Tsukamoto tells stories about his life and experiences with different cultures, perhaps his most important story being people are all the same.

Tsukamoto, who lives in New York City, will perform in Portage for the first time at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Portage Center for the Arts. Hes a solo performer who plays acoustic guitar and sings, sometimes using a looper pedal to make it sound like many people are playing with him.

Many of his songs are about Japan  its history, its wars, how it opened its borders to the West, Tsukamotos hometown of Kyoto and his grandparents. The engine that drives this kind of storytelling, Tsukamoto said, is honesty.

What Im trying to do is, Im trying to tell very personal stories to people, and I know some musicians dont do that, Tsukamoto said. But I just try to reveal everything. I believe thats more powerful to people, to be natural, instead of doing covers, the fancy things.

I think American people can connect to what I do.

His first instrument was the five-string banjo, which he learned when he was 13. He picked up guitar shortly thereafter. He came to the U.S. in 2000 upon receiving a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where Tsukamoto would later form a group called INTEROCEANICO (inter-oceanic). The group, which includes Latin Grammy nominee Marta Gomez, has released three records.

Tsukamoto has also released two solo albums and performs more than 100 shows a year in the U.S. and internationally. Hes made several appearances at Blue Note in New York City.

Terms sometimes used to describe his music, he said, have been eclectic, immersive and mesmerizing  with some reviewers saying Tsukamotos music is like one big movie. The term Tsukamoto and his promoters like to use is cinematic guitar portrait, music that imparts a mood of peace and tranquility.

Some of his stories are serious, some are funny, but theyre all rooted in honesty. I just want (the audience) to feel something, he said. Im not trying to do many things on purpose. I try to output whatever comes to me naturally.

People respond (to honesty) because, nowadays, so many things are very commercial, even when they listen to radio, (its) a lot the same things, Tsukamoto said. So when I play music, I sometimes feel like I want (the audience) to think about themselves when I play. I dont force them to do that; I only suggest (it).

If Im telling a story about my grandparents and history and also my experience in the U.S., by listening to the music and stories, some people have told me that my culture made them think about their family and their history, and looking back as an American.

Having lived in two different cultures  his native Japan and now the U.S.  Tsukamoto is more interested in similarities than the differences. The differences are perhaps easier to spot, like how Americans are very individual compared with Japanese people, who he thinks sometimes are too formal, perhaps trying to be kind of the same to each other, even though we have something to say, we want to say what we cannot say.

Both cultures are unique, he said. Underneath it all, the differences dont tell the important story.

I thought American people were different, Tsukamoto said, and of course they are different in some ways  but when I play music with people from different countries, I realize people are the same. We could be friends, we could share so many things.

Overall, I see many things similarly.

For more information about the performer, visit hiroyatsukamoto.com.
Another county  this one in rural northern Wisconsin  is taking a stand against the Legislatures rigged process for drawing legislative and congressional districts.

The Lincoln County Board recently voted 18-4 for a resolution demanding an end to partisan gerrymandering, in which top state lawmakers use powerful computer software and voting data to shape districts to their political advantage after each major census.

Supervisors in Lincoln County, about 160 miles north of Madison, correctly fault Wisconsins current legislative and congressional maps for putting the desires of politicians ahead of the electoral prerogative of the people, and for costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal bills.

The Lincoln County Board also highlighted in its resolution that a panel of federal judges has ruled the maps are unconstitutional. The judges faulted the Republican majority for gerrymandering maps to favor GOP candidates in swing seats while packing Democratic voters into a minority of seats Democratic candidates were likely to win anyway.

Redistricting to achieve partisan gains is improper, whether it is done by Republicans or Democrats, the county resolution reads.

It then points to the obvious solution: a nonpartisan process that promotes more accountability and transparency while prohibiting the map makers from considering voting patterns, party information or the fate of incumbents when shaping districts to account for population changes.

The Dane County Board has similarly criticized partisan redistricting at the state level and is leading by example. The board last year adopted a new process in which County Board members no longer will draw supervisory districts.

Milwaukee County has acted, too, by approving a panel of judges to draw its supervisory districts following the 2020 census.

Both of those urban counties are dominated by liberals. In contrast, Lincoln County is rural and favored Republicans Donald Trump for president last year and Scott Walker for governor three times (though in 2012 it narrowly favored Barack Obamas re-election).

That helps show the push for a fair system enjoys broad and bipartisan support.

Unfortunately, that isnt true in the Legislature, where Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville, is the only Republican to press for reform. Novak and most Democrats (some of whom failed to change the system when they were in power) have sponsored a bill mirroring Iowas model for neutral map-making. In Iowa, a nonpartisan agency draws districts with strict rules forbidding political favors.

Wisconsin should adopt Iowas proven method, which respects voters of all stripes and encourages more competition for seats. The Lincoln County Board just added some bipartisan momentum to this good-government cause.
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) visited Prairie du Sac April 20 to speak to students at Sauk Prairie High School. Following the event, he spoke to the Eagle about healthcare, tax reform and the federal budget.

Johnson said Obamacare will have to be revisited because individual insurance company markets are collapsing.

We need to stabilize insurance markets first, Johnson said. We need to show them what the regulatory environment will be like for 2018 so they can price their products and then focus on the damage done by Obamacare and the skyrocketing premiums.

He said they have to look at what specifically caused the problems, and repeal those elements and replace them to address the problems Obamacare didnt.

From my standpoint, its focusing on what damage has been done to real people  remove that harm  and then I think we transition to something that will actually work to restrain the growth in healthcare process, he said.

Johnson said many parts of the House Bill turned Medicaid over to the states. He think that allow Medicaid to be governed and managed more effectively.

Things like health savings accounts, which put consumers back in control of healthcare and reinjects market disciplines and restrains costs and improves quality customer service, so reinjecting free market disciplines is really the main thing we have to do, he said. Its going to take some time; its going to be a transition.

When asked about his position on tax reform, Johnson said he has a concept and is working out the details.

Its basically letting people comply with the current tax form or have the option to buy something simple, he said. You get rid of all the junk and you lower the rates. Another concept involves making the owners of corporations paying corporate taxes rather than consumers and employees.

With an S corporation, the business isnt taxed, the owners pay tax on the business through their personal income tax. Many C corporations have the business itself pay taxes.

Thats who really pays it; lets make the owners pay it, he said. It may sound radical for C corps, but 81 percent of American businesses are already treated that way, where the corporation and business is taxed at the ownership level.

He said by using his idea with C Coprorations, it would make American corporations the most competitive in the world and it would get rid of the whole problem with inversions.

I think thats where we get the greatest consensus is through corporate tax reform; because we arent competitive right now. We have such a terrible corporate tax system.

He said it would be a true Warren Buffet tax, having to pay the high margin of rates for his share of corporate income from the corporations he owns.

Democrats have been calling for a Warren Buffet Tax  Im giving it to them, Johnson said.

As for the rise in military spending, Johnson is on board.

From my standpoint, defending this nation is the top priority of this government, Johnson said. We are under enormous threats from around the globe.

He said the previous administration handed President Trumps administration a lot of messes and that you get peace through both economic and military strength in an effort to avoid conflict.

Johnson said he is sympathetic with the direction of the budget in terms of making federal agencies do as much  if not more  with less.

Businesses do it all the time, he said. We ought to expect the same thing out of government.

He said he understand what President Trump is trying to do by disciplining agencies to reduce their budgets and make them focus on their main priorities so they dont keep growing. You keep giving them money and they will. Give them less money and they will focus on their primary objectives.
When a flood of emergency vehicles takes over the Dells area, dont be alarmed. Disaster hasnt struck  yet.

Emergency response professionals from across Wisconsin will converge in Lake Delton April 25 for a three-day conference and emergency communications exercise, and they and the vehicles they bring with them will be hard to miss across the village during at least two of those days.

The annual State Interoperable Mobile Communications Exercise (SIMCOM) will take place April 25-27, and the exercise the second and third days of the event will occur in various Lake Delton locales, with more than 30 federal, state, tribal, local governments and volunteer agencies participating.

That also means that 30 or more emergency response vehicles not normally seen every day in the Dells-Delton area, as well as a drone or two flying high above, will be highly visible during the exercise.

Sauk County will facilitate the event, with the assistance of Wisconsin Emergency Management and the Wisconsin National Guard and funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Grant Program, according to Lake Delton Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Darren Jorgenson.

The exercise is designed to display, educate and test mobile emergency communications from federal, state, tribal, local governments and volunteer agencies, according to a news release Jorgenson distributed this week to ensure that the local citizenry knows that the exercise is a drill. The goal is to develop relationships and understand the capabilities of other agencies before they are needed in a real emergency.

Major, widespread emergencies can strike anywhere, even in Wisconsins south-central region, and the purpose of the exercise will be to grapple with the challenges inherent during such an event, Jorgenson said.

It could be something like the 2008 floods that affected so many areas throughout the state, it could be a devastating severe storm event with multiple tornados affecting different locations, or it could be a widespread power outage that affects large regions or the entire state, Jorgenson said.

Jorgenson and his emergency counterpart in Sauk County, Sauk Emergency Management Director Jeff Jelinek, will participate in the two-day exercise as facilitators, Jorgenson said.

The citizens of the Dells-Delton area, meanwhile, will not be able to miss the numerous emergency and military vehicles that will roll into the area beginning April 23 and will see duty across Lake Delton and the township of Delton later in the week during the exercise.

The main command post will be located at the Lake Delton Fire Department, 45 Miller Drive in Lake Delton, with military and emergency vehicles spread out around the area.

The exercise will take place between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. April 26 and 27, and Jorgenson said that anyone in the Delton or Lake Delton region should expect to see increased traffic in the area during the event.

Jorgenson wants everyone to know the unusual and potentially intimidating equipment is part of an exercise and not an actual, major emergency.

The equipment they bring is pretty big, these vehicles are pretty large, he said. In other areas when this annual exercise has taken place some of the locals got worked up about all the big command posts and military looking vehicles in town all at one time.

The events first day takes place at the Wilderness, with facilitators and participants convening for a pre-exercise preparation.

During the actual exercise, the gathered emergency will be tasked with different objectives that will test their ability to communicate with each other, Jorgenson said.

Specific operations tested by the gathered emergency professionals will include data sharing, radio frequency bridging and patching, and network failures, according to the news release.

We need to be able to test the communications equipment to make sure we can patch through from one frequency to the next, in challenging terrain and across long distances, he said.

Testing communication interoperability capabilities with outside resources before an actual disaster event occurs is critical to ensure the highest level of response, Jelinek said in the news release.
Increasing caesarean sections in Africa could save more mothers lives

Caesarean sections have been lifesaving procedures for hundreds of thousands of women across the world who experience complications during labour.

Globally, its estimated that just under 20% of births take place via caesarean section  a percentage thats gone up over the last three decades. This has raised concerns, particularly in high-income countries where generally too many caesarean sections are performed.

But in many African countries women who are medically required to have caesarean sections are not able to access them. This is due to several reasons, the most prominent being weak health systems and a lack of resources.

This needs to be fixed as women in sub-Saharan African suffer from the highest maternal mortality ratio in the world. Close to 550 women die for every 100 000 children that are born. This amounts to 200 000 maternal deaths a year  or two thirds of all maternal deaths per year worldwide.

Some of these deaths could be prevented if skilled health personnel were able to perform caesarean sections safely. But this would require proper equipment and supplies including drugs and blood transfusions.

Research shows that low-income countries with the lowest caesarean section rates also have the highest maternal mortality rates.

Improving the access and availability of caesarean sections on the continent is therefore pivotal to reducing the number of maternal deaths and to achieve the sustainable development goal on maternal health of reducing maternal deaths to less than 70 per 100 000 live births by 2030.

Africas challenge

Between 1990 and 2015 maternal mortality dropped by about 44% across the world. And several countries in Africa have halved their levels of maternal mortality between 1990 and 2015. In Mali, for example, 1010 women died for every 100 000 children born in 1990. By 2015, this figure dropped to 587.

Despite this massive reduction, more than 800 women continue to die from preventable causes around childbirth every day, most in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. And millions more will suffer serious injuries, infections, complications or disabilities due to insufficient treatment.

The World Health Organisation has found that in countries where at least 10% of women have caesarean sections the number of maternal and newborn deaths decrease.

The organisation has not identified an ideal caesarean section rate, however theres evidence that rates above 20% at country level might be to too high. But it encourages governments to make every effort to provide the procedure to women in need of it.

Africa has the lowest caesarean section rate in the world. In Europe about a quarter of births are conducted via caesarean section while Latin America and the Caribbean have caesarean section rates of about 40.5%.

In Africa only 7.3% of babies are born via this method. But its a very mixed picture across the continent. Some countries have very high rates such as Egypt (51.8%) and Mauritius (47%), the highest in Africa. And despite a 2.9% overall increase across the continent from 1990, theres been a decline in some countries like Nigeria and Guinea which now stands at about 2%. Zimbabwe has maintained its caesarean section rates at 6%.

Caesarean section rate in selected African countries. Provided

When caesars matter

Caesarean sections often happen at the end of a series of complex events. There can be both pre-existing and pregnancy related complications. The need for caesarean sections can be aggravated by a range of issues such as delays in accessing the appropriate level of care, transportation delays as well as a shortage of necessary technologies.

Complications require prompt access to quality obstetric services equipped with life-saving drugs, including antibiotics, and the ability to provide blood transfusions or other surgical interventions.

But there are several barriers to improving the caesarean section rates in a country. These include:

a shortage of midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists, laboratory and other allied personnel,

limited access to health care, information and

a lack of equipment.

Cost is another significant barrier. It was estimated, almost a decade ago, that it would cost US$430 million to perform the almost 3 million additional caesarean sections needed.

Different playing fields

While reducing unnecessary caesarean sections may be a priority in high-income countries, access to it will save more lives, particularly in countries where deliveries in a health care facility are considered a luxury.

Many African countries are trying to increase the number of women delivering in a health care facility by a skilled birth attendant. In Africa, more than 40% of births are not attended by a skilled health provider.

Inequities in access to caesarean sections across different parts of sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income countries need to be addressed. And soon if the continent wants to reduce its unacceptably high maternal mortality rates.

Salome Maswime, Lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of the Witwatersrand and Gwinyai Masukume, Medical Doctor, Epidemiologist and Biostatistician: University College Cork, University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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United Parcel Service, Inc. provides letter and package delivery, transportation, logistics, and related services. It operates through two segments, U.S. Domestic Package and International Package. The U.S. Domestic Package segment offers time-definite delivery of letters, documents, small packages, and palletized freight through air and ground services in the United States. The International Package segment provides guaranteed day and time-definite international shipping services in Europe, the Asia Pacific, Canada and Latin America, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa. This segment offers guaranteed time-definite express options. The company also provides international air and ocean freight forwarding, customs brokerage, distribution and post-sales, and mail and consulting services in approximately 200 countries and territories. In addition, it offers truckload brokerage services; supply chain solutions to the healthcare and life sciences industry; shipping, visibility, and billing technologies; and financial and insurance services. The company operates a fleet of approximately 121,000 package cars, vans, tractors, and motorcycles; and owns 59,000 containers that are used to transport cargo in its aircraft. United Parcel Service, Inc. was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
NextEra Energy, Inc. is the largest electric utility holding company in the US. It operates a network of power generation and distribution facilities that include fossil-fuel-generated and green energy. As of mid-2022, the company was capable of generating 58 GW of electricity with nearly 60% of the load produced by green sources including wind and solar. In their view, going green isnt an option, its the solution. NextEra Energy has been recognized multiple times as a leader in clean energy and ESG practices and was ranked the #1 electric and gas utility on the Forbes list of Most Admired Companies.

The company is the result of several mergers that begin with FPL Group. FPL Group is now a subsidiary of NextEra Energy and the third-largest provider of electricity in the US servicing nearly half of Florida. FPL and its affiliates are the single largest provider of renewable energy generated from wind and sun. The group changed its name in 2010 following a decision to shift focus onto renewable energy sources.

Today, NextEra Energy, Inc through its subsidiary FPL serves about 12 million people in eastern and southwestern Florida. The company employs nearly 14,900 people who service 5.8 million accounts. The company is in business to generate, transmit, and distribute electricity to retail and wholesale clients. Electricity is generated through wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas, and coal-fired facilities.

The company is also engaged in the construction and operation of new facilities, specifically renewable power generation, storage, and delivery facilities, and can offer custom solutions tailored to any need. Offerings include tailored services to assist businesses with their transition to clean energy.

NextEra Energy also owns and operates 7 nuclear power stations in Florida, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin generating power for the wholesale market.

Unlike other companies that are targeting net-zero emissions, NextEra Energy has a plan to reach real zero and is investing heavily to reach that goal by 2045. The company had invested nearly $50 billion in green energy infrastructure and initiatives by mid-2022. The plan is to first work on reducing its own emissions and then take its knowledge and expertise to the world.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500<sup></sup> urban office real estate investment trust ("REIT"), is the first, longest-tenured, and pioneering owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, with a total market capitalization of $31.9 billion as of December 31, 2020, and an asset base in North America of 49.7 million square feet ("SF"). The asset base in North America includes 31.9 million RSF of operating properties and 3.3 million RSF of Class A properties undergoing construction, 7.1 million RSF of near-term and intermediate-term development and redevelopment projects, and 7.4 million SF of future development projects. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science, technology, and agtech campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science, technology, and agtech companies through our venture capital platform. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns, and greater long-term asset value.
Telecom Argentina S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides telecommunications services in Argentina and internationally. The company offers telephone services, including local, domestic, and international long-distance telephone services, as well as public telephone services; and other related supplementary services, such as call waiting, call forwarding, conference calls, caller ID, voice mail, itemized billing, and maintenance services. It also provides interconnection services, such as traffic and interconnection resource, dedicated Internet access, video signals transportation in standard and high definitions, audio and video streaming, dedicated links, backhaul links for mobile operators, data center hosting/housing services, dedicated links, layer 2 and layer 3 transport networks, video links, value-added services, and other services. In addition, the company offers mobile telecommunications services, including voice communications, high-speed mobile Internet content and applications download, online streaming, and other services; and sells mobile communication devices, such as handsets, Modems MiFi and wingles, and smart watches under the Personal brand. Further, it provides internet connectivity products, including virtual private network services, traditional Internet protocol links, and other products; data services; and programming and other cable television services. The company was formerly known as Cablevision S.A. and changed its name to Telecom Argentina S.A. in January 2018. Telecom Argentina S.A. was founded in 1979 and is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
ONEOK, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in gathering, processing, storage, and transportation of natural gas in the United States. It operates through Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, Natural Gas Liquids, and Natural Gas Pipelines segments. The company owns natural gas gathering pipelines and processing plants in the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain regions. It also gathers, treats, fractionates, and transports natural gas liquids (NGL), as well as stores, markets, and distributes NGL products. The company owns NGL gathering and distribution pipelines in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado; terminal and storage facilities in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois; and NGL distribution and refined petroleum products pipelines in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, as well as owns and operates truck- and rail-loading, and -unloading facilities connected to NGL fractionation, storage, and pipeline assets. In addition, it operates regulated interstate and intrastate natural gas transmission pipelines and natural gas storage facilities. Further, the company owns and operates a parking garage in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma; and leases excess office space. It operates 17,500 miles of natural gas gathering pipelines; 1,500 miles of FERC-regulated interstate natural gas pipelines; 5,100 miles of state-regulated intrastate transmission pipeline; six NGL storage facilities; and eight NGL product terminals. It serves integrated and independent exploration and production companies; NGL and natural gas gathering and processing companies; crude oil and natural gas production companies; propane distributors; municipalities; ethanol producers; and petrochemical, refining, and NGL marketing companies, as well as natural gas distribution and electric generation companies, producers, processors, and marketing companies. The company was founded in 1906 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
W&M Board of Visitors approves 2017-18 budget

Plan includes strategic investments in financial aid, diversity initiative and curriculum

The William & Mary Board of Visitors on Friday unanimously approved the universitys fiscal year 2018 budget, which reflects additional financial aid for students, funds the second year of an ongoing commitment to faculty diversity, and supports the COLL curriculum, a new engineering and design program, and undergraduate enrollment growth.

With this budget, we continue to focus on William & Marys highest priorities, said President Taylor Reveley. We are navigating very challenging budget times. This limits our capacity to do all that we had hoped to do and highlights the need to find savings and efficiencies in our existing programs.

In his presentation to the Board during Fridays Committee on Financial Affairs, Senior Vice President Sam Jones said the 2017-2018 budget is built around supporting the priorities of the William & Mary Promise, including increasing the availability of financial aid, decreasing student debt for low- and middle-income Virginia students and families and providing additional resources to recruit and retain superb faculty.

In the four years since the Promise was adopted, William & Mary has generated significant funding for new investments and strategic priorities through a combination of new revenues, reallocations, business innovation and cost-cutting measures. For example, William & Mary identified $2.65 million in savings internally for fiscal year 2018 through a combination of budget reallocations, business innovation and targeted personnel vacancy savings.

As part of the W&M Promises four-year tuition guarantee for in-state students, rates for Virginia students remain constant through all four years. Therefore, the adopted budget includes no tuition increases for rising in-state sophomores, juniors or seniors. In November, the Board set the four-year guaranteed tuition for incoming in-state freshman students at $16,370, which is 4.4 percent higher from the tuition charged to last years incoming class. The tuition reset percentage increase for incoming in-state freshmen represents the smallest increase since the William & Mary Promise was adopted by the Board in 2013. By virtue of the guarantee, in-state freshmen entering in fall 2018 will pay the equivalent of an annual tuition increase of just over 1 percent per year.

Fridays Board action also approved next years tuition for out-of-state undergraduates, tuition rates for graduate students, mandatory fees, and room and board. According to the budget adopted Friday, out-of-state undergraduates will see a 3.5 percent increase in tuition in fiscal year 2018 to $37,425. The total cost for out-of-state undergraduates, including mandatory fees, room and board will be $55,469. The total cost for incoming in-state undergraduates will be $33,843.

With the fiscal year 2018 budget, William & Mary continues year-over-year increases in financial aid for students. The budget includes an additional $4.36 million  a 10.75 percent increase  for student aid available to undergraduate and graduate students. Since fiscal 2013, the year prior to the W&M Promise, available in-state financial aid for undergraduates has more than doubled to roughly $25.3 million in 2017-18.

The commitment to growing in-state financial aid is part of William & Marys overall effort to increase socioeconomic diversity at the university. Since the William & Mary Promises inception, the average net price for Virginia students and families with financial need making less than $75,000 annually has dropped by more than 20 percent. Among public universities in Virginia, W&M offers the lowest average net price for Virginians at or below the $75,000 income threshold who qualify for financial aid.

The Board is committed to keeping William & Mary as affordable as possible for the greatest number of students, said Rector Todd A. Stottlemyer 85. The William & Mary Promise has ensured that the university remains accessible to low- and middle-income Virginia students. Scholarships are also the top priority of the For the Bold campaign, which will guarantee a W&M education remains affordable for students of high intellectual promise, regardless of means.

The 2017-2018 budget also absorbs a $2.15 million decrease in funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

This was not an easy budget, but William & Mary is still moving forward and making progress in priority areas, Jones said.

Other highlights of the budget approved Friday:




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Paks II environmental licence decision upheld

21 April 2017

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MVM Paks II has received environmental approval to build two new units at the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary. The company received an environmental licence from the Baranya County Government Office in late September, but this was challenged by Greenpeace Hungary and Energiaklub. The initial licence was then reviewed by Pest County Government Office, which gave statutory approval of the licence on 18 April.

In their appeal, the two groups had argued that issues such as the handling of radioactive waste and protecting residents, as well as contingency plans against acts of terrorism, sabotage or war were still unresolved. They said in a statement on 19 April that there are "no guarantees" the expanded plant would not overheat the river Danube, whose water is used for the Paks plant's cooling system. Pest County Government Office has rejected these arguments and the groups say they plan to take legal action against the decision.

Attila Aszodi, government commissioner for the Paks II project, told Hungary Today that the environmental permit is now valid. He added that, as the project received a site licence from the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority on 30 March, work on obtaining a construction licence can now start. Hungary Today added in its report yesterday that the parliamentary committee for sustainable development has approved the appointment of Paks mayor, Janos Suli, as minister without portfolio in charge of the Paks expansion project.

Paks currently comprises four Russian-supplied VVER-440 pressurised water reactors, which started up between 1982 and 1987. These units account for about half of Hungary's electricity production. An inter-governmental agreement signed in early 2014 would see Russian enterprises and their international sub-contractors supply two new units at Paks - VVER-1200 reactors - as well as a Russian state loan of up to 10.0 billion ($11.2 billion) to finance 80% of the project.

Aszodi told World Nuclear News on 31 March the target remains for the first new unit to be completed in 2025 and the second in 2026.

Procedure

The environmental impact assessment procedure began on 19 December 2014, when the Paks II project company applied for an environmental licence.



Aszodi wrote on his blog that the application (environmental impact assessment report) is about 2200 pages long, publicly available and contains all the relevant information about the project such as: the impacts of the discharged cooling water on the Danube river; the radiological impacts of the normal and accidental operation conditions of the plant; the results of the analyses of water and air pollution and the noise and vibration loads; the conventional and radioactive waste management; the effects on the flora and fauna around the plant; as well as the expected social and economic impacts, available at the time of submission.

"Before the public hearing conducted by the competent environmental authority, a number of public forums had been organised by the experts of the Paks II project company and the Office of the Government Commissioner in order to inform the residents of Paks town and the neighbouring 40 settlements about the predictable environmental impacts of the project, and also the ongoing licensing procedure. It was emphasised that this procedure was open to the public concerned and anyone had the right to express their opinion, remarks and questions," Aszodi said.

On 7 May 2015, as part of the procedure, a public hearing was held. In line with the Espoo Convention, an international environmental impact assessment procedure was also carried out.

"As part of the international environmental impact assessment procedure, public hearings and expert consultations were held in nine locations of seven countries, and consultations in written form were carried out with three additional countries," he said.

"Taking into consideration the environmental impact assessment report submitted, the additional clarifying submissions, the comments, opinions and remarks of the public concerned, the governments, authorities and organisations received from [Hungary] and also from the countries that took part in the procedure, the Government Office for Baranya County - as the competent environmental authority - issued the environmental licence for the Paks II project on 29 September 2016 at first instance.

"The case reached the second instance authority because two NGOs (Greenpeace and Energiaklub) had appealed against the decision. The Government Office for Pest County as the second instance authority started its procedure on 23 November 2016 and completed it on 18 April 2017. The second instance authority reviewed the procedure carried out by the first instance authority ... and, with its approval, the environmental licence of the Paks II project became legally binding and enforceable," he said.

The Paks II project is "now entering a new phase", with preparations for a construction licence application, he added.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topics
Ryugyong Hotel, also known as the Ryu-Gyong or Yu-Kyung Hotel, is a 105-floor hotel under construction in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Standing at 1,080 feet in a pyramid shape, the skyscraper hotel is also sometimes called the "105 Building" owing to its number of floors. The hotel is notable for having been under construction for nearly three decades thanks to financial and political setbacks.

Origin Of The Ryugyong Hotel

The construction of the Ryugyong Hotel was initially a Cold War supremacy response to Singapores completion of the then-tallest hotel in the world in 1986, called the Westin Stamford Hotel. The Westin Stamford Hotel was designed by South Korean architects. Ryungyongs construction laid on the hopes of a 230 million dollars fund from the Soviet Union for what Pyongyang had promised to be a "Western-like lifestyle" in the premises.

Construction Of The Ryugyong Hotel

The Ryugyong Hotel has taken the North Korean government almost three decades to construct, with still no end in sight. Construction of the building started in 1987 with the intention to first be opened in time for the 13th World Festival of Youths and Students in 1989. Further delays occurred in 1992 because of economic crisis after the fall of the former Soviet Union who had been sponsoring Pyongyang economically. Between 1992 and 2008, the iconic building graced Pyongyangs skyline with no windows or appropriate internal furnishings.

Construction work resumed in 2008 and engineers managed to complete the exterior by 2011. The grand opening was scheduled for 2012 to coincide with Eternal President Kim II-Sungs 100th birthday anniversary, but this was postponed for the second time to 2013 before being canceled indefinitely. The hotel has yet to be opened.

Records Set By The Ryugyong Hotel

Ryugyong Hotel is perceived to be the tallest, most iconic and prominent building in North Korea. The unfinished structure once held the title as the worlds tallest hotel building until 2009 when it was overtaken by the Rose Tower of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Currently, Ryugyong is number 63 in the list of the tallest hotel buildings in the world with the 10th most number of floors. However, Ryugyong still holds the record as the tallest unoccupied building in the world.

Features Of The Ryugyong Hotel

The Ryugyong Hotel has three wings with each measuring 330 feet long and 59 feet wide. The pyramid slopes form a perfect angle of 75 degrees converging at a sharp point at the peak of the building. Ryugyong Hotel is topped by a shortened cone that is 130 feet wide housing eight floors that, upon occupation, will be rotating at a slow speed and six top most floors that are designed to remain motionless. In the original plan, the rotating part of the cone was designed to house five restaurants and thousands of guest rooms. Ryugyong was designed to be a self-sustaining building with restaurants, residential apartments, and business facilities.

Criticism Of The Building

What was to be the tallest hotel building in the world lies abandoned with no clue being given to when it will be operational. North Koreas silence on the project has led to many speculations with western media terming the 105 Building as the worlds worst building, Hotel of Doom and Phantom Hotel. There have been questions about the Hotel's structural integrity and safety with EU Chamber of Commerce inspectors concluding that the building cannot be repaired. Japanese National News reported that construction of the hotel consumed closed to 3 percent of North Koreas GDP.
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According to international property consultant JLL, with no new shopping centres delivered to the market in Q1 2017, the vacancy rate in existing retail properties in Moscow declined from 7.5% to 7.2%. Over the course of the year, JLL analysts expect this indicator to decline further, to 6.5%, the lowest level since the beginning of 2015.Some 217,500 sq. m of new quality shopping centres are announced for delivery in 2017, which is 52% lower than the 2016 volume and the lowest level in the past four years. The main properties expected later this year are Vegas Kuntsevo (113,400 sq. m) and Vidnoe Park (27,500 sq. m)."The volume of new shopping centre supply in Moscow has been declining since 2015. Developer activity moderated considerably during the recession; projects were frozen at various completion stages." Ekaterina Zemskaya, Regional Director, Head of Retail Group, JLL, Russia & CIS, says. "This year started with an announcement of realization of such previously suspended projects as Salaris (105,000 sq. m) and Galeon (14,000 sq. m), as well as construction plans of brand-new projects, in particular Vegas on Kievskoe highway. As economy stabilises, we expect further recovery of development activity that will restore positive completion dynamics in 2018-2020.""The focus of developers is changing with a gradual market saturation by traditional shopping centres and rising competition. There is a growing interest in neighbourhood shopping centres, which not only focus on the daily needs of residents, but also offer cultural and leisure components. The share of such projects in the future supply will increase mainly as a result of ADG Group's reconstruction and reconception of 39 Soviet era cinemas (324,000 sq. m)", says Polina Zhilkina, National Director, Head of Retail Advisory, JLL, Russia & CIS. Zhilkina continues, "At the same time, construction of transport interchange hubs incorporates shopping complexes. For instance, Seligerskaya (145,000 sq. m), Cherkizovo (120,000 sq. m), and Park Pobedy TPUs. Such projects will form the bulk of the new retail supply from the beginning of 2019."The Russian market continues to attract new international retailers: seven new brands appeared in Q1 2017, Aquazzura, Zanellato, Peter Kaiser, Japonica, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Eglo, and Ahimsa. Most of the newcomers represent the premium segment. The most notable event among the first quarter debuts was the first European opening of Italian cosmetics boutique Giorgio Armani Beauty in Atrium. The only brand opening in street retail - on Petrovka Street - was that of Italian luxury shoes store Aquazzura. Street retail traditionally attracts flagship stores of global brands, with Q1 marked by such launches as flagship Nike store (the third overall and the first in Europe new concept store); a Massimo Dutti store appeared on Kuznetsky Most Street; H&M opening on Tverskaya Street was announced for Q2 2017."It is too early to call a start of the consumer sector recovery", says Margarita Shebanova, Retail Market Analyst, JLL, Russia & CIS. Shebanova further said, "Although consumers, along with other market players, adjusted to the current conditions, their incomes continue to decline. Nevertheless, the expected improvement of retail turnover and real disposable income dynamics (by 2.3% in 2017, according to Oxford Economics) will support further improvement in retail leasing activity."
Passengers at airport (illustration)

By: Tanya Clark WorldWideWeirdNews.com

A Customs and Border Protection officer betrayed the United States, be helping drug traffickers smuggling cocaine through JFK Airport, according to police in New York.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer was indicted on Wednesday, for his role in a conspiracy to import more than 100 pounds of cocaine into the U.S.

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York with assistance from CBP New York Field Office and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General, arrested the man.

Fernando Marte, 28, of Farmingdale, allegedly abused his law enforcement position by escorting drug smugglers through CBP inspection points at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport in Queens.

As a public servant entrusted with border security and keeping dangerous drugs out of our country, Officer Marte instead sought to serve himself and stained the badge he wore by doing so, by allowing cocaine to flow through JFK Airport and into our city,a said Angel M. Melendez, special agent in charge of HSI New York.

For corrupt officers who think they can hide behind their badge as they engage in transnational criminal activity, todayas indictment shows you will be caught and brought to justice, Melendez added.

According to the criminal complaint, Marte, an employee of the United States Customs and Border Protection who worked at John F. Kennedy International Airport, conspired to import cocaine into the United States from the Dominican Republic.

While on duty for CBP, Marte approached two individuals who had arrived together at JFK on a flight from the Dominican Republic.

Marte escorted the individuals to the baggage claim area, where they loaded two suitcases onto a baggage cart.

Marte then escorted one of the individuals and the baggage cart through the secondary inspection point in the terminal.

Upon searching the suitcases of the second individual, CBP officers recovered 45 brick-shaped packages containing approximately 45 kilograms of cocaine.

Further investigation has revealed that Marte previously escorted at least one other drug smuggler from the Dominican Republic through the inspection area at JFK Airport.

He was booked into jail, and his bail has been set at $1 million.
Jesus Nieblas-Romero and Nestor Franco-Guevara

By: Emily Lewis WorldWideWeirdNews.com

Two illegal immigrants who were deported from the United States, managed to cross the border and live in Arizona, according to police.

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents arrested the two Mexican nationals previously convicted for sex crimes against children.

Willcox Station agents arrested 26-year-old Jesus Nieblas-Romero near San Simon, Arizona.

During processing, agents conducted a records check and found that he was convicted twice for illegal re-entry into the United States, and also convicted for sexual contact with a child.

Brian A. Terry Station agents arrested 28-year-old Nestor Franco-Guevara in Bisbee, Arizona. A records check revealed that he was previously deported from the U.S. and was convicted of raping a child.

Both men are being processed in accordance to Tucson Sector Guidelines, and face prosecution for criminal illegal re-entry into the United States.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Nearly $100,000 worth of marijuana was found Thursday after a traffic stop in Huntington.

Duke Geary, 33, of Kenova, is charged with possession with intent to deliver, conspiracy and transporting a controlled substance into the state.

According to the criminal complaint, a West Virginia State Police trooper pulled over a vehicle in the area of 7th Avenue and 8th Street after he noticed a car had a defective brake light.

Two women, Ashley Bryan and Ciana Lee, were inside the car and said they had just returned from Washington.

Troopers say they believe the pair flew to Washington state earlier in the week and then drove back to Huntington.

When the trooper asked permission to search the vehicle, both women declined.

A K-9 was then brought out who smelled the presence of imprinted odors.

Troopers found two suitcases with 34 vacuum sealed bags containing a green leafy substance.

WVSP says the substance has a street value of $100,000.

"You know, they went out and got that much, you know they had plans for it, probably half of it was probably already sold or, you know, promised out anyway," Sgt. Randy Charlton told WSAZ.

According to the criminal complaint, investigators determined the suitcases were meant to be delivered to Geary.

Geary was found at a hotel in Cabell County. He refused to cooperate, but admitted to knowing the two women.

Troopers say it's just a coincidence that the bust happened on 4/20.

"That's just as ironic as can be and that's all it is," Sgt. Charlton said. "To get that much marijuana on the marijuana smoking day ... it's just as ironic as can be."

Lee, 21, of South Charleston and Bryan, 21, of Cross Lanes were both charged with transporting a controlled substance into the state.

Geary was taken to Western Regional Jail; his bond is set at $300,000.

Lee and Bryan have both posted a $100,000 bond.
The Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (DCCG) is preparing the groundwork for private companies to profit by slashing National Health Services (NHS) across the county.

How far this process has gone was confirmed at the end of last month, when the Bournemouth Private Clinic (BPC) ceremoniously opened its ward in the public Royal Bournemouth Hospital (RBH).

Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (RBCH) spent 800,000 of public money to turn a normal ward into a luxurious facility with a ward, two consultation rooms and a treatment room in order to attract wealthy patients and patients who have private insurance. This effectively creates a two-tier health system in the same hospital, with those who have money able to jump queues to access treatment, while ordinary people have to languish on long waiting lists produced by years of funding cuts to the NHS.

BPC is the trading subsidiary of a registered charity, the Bournemouth Healthcare Trust. It was established in 2008 with the sole aim of managing and developing private patient services within RBCH. Until this year, BPC mainly ran private patient cardiac services at RBHs cardiac suite, where consultants carried out private practice.

With the opening of the new ward, BPC is hoping to treat around 800 private in-patients a year and to run a stand alone clinic service six days a week. It plans to make profits from increasing the scope of the services, which includes cancer care, chest medicine, diagnostic imaging services, diagnostic vascular imaging and interventional radiology, eye surgery, gastroenterology, general surgery, urology, dermatology and orthopaedics.

RBCH, like other trusts, has become more reliant on revenue from private treatment with hospital budgets squeezed to the hilt by government funding cuts. RBH is to allow the private sector utilisation of spare capacity of hospital facilities during evenings and weekendsand the use of NHS staff. It specifically calls on consultants to carry out their private practice in the hospital.

The outsourcing of NHS services to allow the private companies to profit from RBH facilities is being justified on the bogus grounds that profits generated will be used to the benefit of NHS patients. It is claimed that the health service will be improvedwith greater patient choiceby allowing patients to choose from either a private or NHS provider.

The reality behind such lies is the decimation of the NHS, a humanitarian crisis, according to the British Red Cross. Far from improved choice, tens of thousands of people are systematically being denied timely treatment and health care nationwide. There are numerous reports that Clinical Commissioning Groups are rationing vital treatment and operations to patients.

The Clinical Service Review (CSR) of Dorsets Clinical Commissioning Groups is one of the governments Sustainability and Transformation Plans being rolled out nationally. The review includes downsizing two Accident and Emergency departments, shutting down child hospital units, maternity units and closing down eight out of 13 community hospitals.

Immediately after a bogus public consultation over its slashing of health services, DCCG withdrew funds for 13 council-employed community rehabilitation assistants, who work in the Bournemouth Intermediate Care Service. Health authorities disbanded the Bournemouth community palliative service this January during the public consultation. A further five workers in Bournemouth Church Housing Association based in the RBHwho arrange care packages for patients prior to their dischargeshave been told that they will be made redundant by June as a result of the withdrawal of DCCG funding.

This is not all. In its separate Primary Care Commissioning Strategy, the DCCG has devised a draconian plan to shut down two thirds of GP surgeries across the county. The slashing of these services, as with others is, according to the DCCG, to provide care closer to home.

The RBCH and BPC are preparing to exploit the patient care crisis that will be created from running down these services by declaring they are supportive of the Dorset CCGs CSR plans.

In order to smooth the way for the profiteering that will take place at Royal Bournemouth Hospital, RBCH management boasted in a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document, In the past six years, BPC has invested more than 3m into equipment and staff resources at RBCH, including more than 1m to buy a Da Vinci robotan advanced machine enabling surgeons to perform delicate keyhole surgery for the treatment of prostate cancer. They also claim the BPC has also funded more than 140,000 of radiology equipment and pays for an extra member of staff to work in the Trusts Cardiology Department.

But nowhere in the FAQ does it say how much money BPC has pocketed over the last six years by utilising the facilities in the hospital.

At the same time as a new private ward has been opened, RBCH has, since 2010, shut down several wards in Bournemouth and Christchurch hospitals. This was in order to meet the government efficiency savings targets, in which tens of billions of pounds are being cut from the NHS budget nationally, and paved the way for BPC to develop its patient care provision. Not long ago, RBCH shut down a cardiac ward and several bays in Ward 9, under conditions in which the hospital is already unable to provide beds for those desperately requiring them.

In 2014, the Care Quality Commission criticised the RBCH for poor staffing levels, an unsatisfactory mix of skills, and high bed occupancy rate with ongoing use of escalation beds when a ward or unit was fulleven though these beds could not meet patients needs properly.

It noted that patient safety and care was not adequate in certain departments. These conditions are further deteriorating for patients in ordinary wards, while the BPC ward boasts of having a private room with ensuite facilities, luxury toilets, satellite TV, radio and a bedside telephone. Private patients will also be given access to free parking and fast Wi-Fi.

What is taking place in RBH is not unique.

Many Foundation Trusts [FTs] in Dorset, surrounding areas and across the country have started to operate private patient units in hospitals. In launching the private unit, RBCH stated, In many ways, RBH is catching up with many other Trusts.

While slashing the funds of Trusts and demanding 22 billion more in NHS cuts by 2021, the Conservative government is exploiting the favourable conditions created by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act to carry out a scale of privatisation in the NHS without precedent.

The Foundation Trusts had a cap of 2 percent, with some variations across the country, for the income they could earn from private treatments. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 abolished this income cap.

According to the Act, FTs have to perform a majority of their work for the NHS. However, they can generate up to 49 percent of their income from treating private patients.

The Labour Party played a critical role in laying the basis for the privatisation of public health care. In 2002, the Labour government of Tony Blair introduced Foundation Trusts as semi-autonomous organisational units. FTs allowed the private sector to earn income from private patient treatments and paved the way for a two-tier system, in opposition to the founding principles of the NHS.

Labour and their partners in the trade unions have not raised a finger against the opening of private units and the threat it poses to patient care and the pay, terms and conditions of hospital workers.

For more information visit nhsfightback.org

The author also recommends:

Death toll mounts as UK National Health Service deliberately destroyed

[09 January 2017]
According to a CNN report Thursday, the US Department of Justice has prepared the charges it needs to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been living in asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012.

US officials told CNN reporters that investigators have proof that WikiLeaks played an active role in helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, disclose a massive cache of classified documents.

This represents a distinct shift in the focus of US efforts to persecute the WikiLeaks founder, from targeting the websites publication of documents and materials provided by Chelsea Manning and other whistleblowers, i.e., acting as a recipient of leaks, to claiming that WikiLeaks was a participant in the leaking of material by Snowden.

Although stopping short of naming Assange, when asked about the matter at a press conference on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, Weve already begun stepping up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.

CNN spoke with Assanges lawyer Barry Pollack about the report. Pollack said, We've had no communication with the Department of Justice and they have not indicated to me that they have brought any charges against Mr. Assange.

Pollack added, They've been unwilling to have any discussion at all, despite our repeated requests, that they let us know what Mr. Assange's status is in any pending investigations. There's no reason why Wikileaks should be treated differently from any other publisher.

The CNN report comes one week after CIA Director Mike Pompeo gave a highly publicized speech before the Center for Strategic and International Studies where he attacked both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Pompeo said during the question and answer period that Assange was not a US citizen and has no First Amendment freedoms.

Assange responded with a statement last Friday calling Pompeos remarks dangerous and an attempt to stifle speech. The WikiLeaks statement also compared Pompeos effort to demonize Assange to the campaign against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Both the Pompeo speech and the leaked report of impending charges against Assange are clear indications that the Trump administration is moving swiftly to a direct attack on First Amendment rights. Of a piece with its reckless war policies, the administration is attempting to silence any further exposures of the criminal activities of the military-intelligence apparatus of the state.

The timing of the Justice Department charges is connected with the recent confirmation of president-elect Lenin Moreno as the winner of Ecuadors presidential election over Guillermo Lasso after a recount. The US was planning to exploit a defeat of Moreno, who has defended Assange up to this point and opposed his extradition from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

The Justice Department is counting on the enthusiastic support of both the US Congress and the subservient corporate media to back its assault on democratic rights. In an interview with CNNs Wolf Blitzer, Rep. Peter King, R-New York said, I'm glad that the Justice Department has found a way to go after Assange. He's gotten a free ride for too long.
Anger is growing among teachers and Education Support (ES) staff in Victoria as they become aware of the real content of the four-year Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) struck between the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the state Labor government.

The Socialist Equality Party has spoken with, or received emails or Facebook comments from, dozens of teachers denouncing the EBA. Contrary to the claims by the AEU that the agreement delivers significant improvements, it will impose a 12-month wage freeze and provides only cosmetic relief from the 53 hours that the average teacher is now working. It gives no guarantees of secure employment to the thousands of teachers and ES staff languishing on short-term contracts. Yet, the AEU is seeking to get the agreement ratified without any genuine discussion or mass meetings, while bureaucratically censoring expressions of opposition. There is a clear relationship between the anti-democratic measures of the AEU apparatus and the regressive content of the agreement.

The most detrimental, long-term aspect of the Victorian EBA is that it includes sweeping new commitments by the AEU to enforce a performance system tied to education department criteria, school priorities and student data. In other words, standardised testing such as NAPLAN. Introduced by the federal Labor government in 20092010, and modelled on comparable schemes in the United States and the United Kingdom, the overriding objective of performance-ranking and related school autonomy is to cut spending. Education for most students is being dumbed down to comprise what is pragmatically determined to be necessary as far as the major employers are concerned. At the same time, an ever-growing proportion of the teaching workforce is being driven into contract employment with 40 percent of graduate teachers leaving the profession in the first 5 years.

Performance-ranking is setting the stage for an even more brutal assault on teachers and on the public education system as a whole. In the US, hundreds of schools have been classified as failing and handed over to private charter operators, who receive block grants and then extract profits by cutting costs on every conceivable overhead. Tens of thousands of full-time teaching jobs have been destroyed and replaced with lower-paid contract positions. With the appointment of Betsy DeVos as education secretary in the USa longstanding and virulent opponent of public educationthe charter agenda is expected to drastically accelerate.

Right-wing bodies in Australia, such as the Institute for Public Affairs, have hailed DeVoss appointment and are agitating for the wholesale introduction of charter schools. They are using the alleged flat-lining of NAPLAN results and a decline in the international ranking of Australian education to argue their case.

The sentiment among Victorian teachersthat their interests and rights are being trampled on by both their employer and the unionis shared by millions of workers in other industries, across Australia and around the world. Decades of restructuring to achieve international competitiveness, or a regime of continuous improvement in the case of education, has led to a vast decline in the conditions of the working class and unprecedented levels of wealth and income inequality.

Every teacher knows that there is an ever-widening gap between the private education that the wealthy can buy, and the under-resourced and increasingly narrow public education that is available to working class youth.

The same class divide affects every aspect of life, from access to culture, to housing, child care, health services and aged care. By 2015, the richest 10 percent of Australian households controlled as much as 55 percent of the national wealth, while the poorest 40 percent owned virtually nothing. Australia, a recent report estimated, is one of the five most unequal countries among so-called developed economies (see: Report reveals, for the first time, extent of wealth inequality in Australia).

Every work day, teachers and ES staff at hundreds of working class schools confront the psychological and physical impact on their students of the financial and other stresses afflicting their parents. A growing number of students come from officially recognised poor households. The definition of poverty, however, does not encompass the millions of working class families who struggle each month to meet mortgage payments and other bills.

With the destruction of vast swathes of once well-paid, full-time jobs, a generation of youth knows it has a bleak future. Nearly 50 percent of the Australian workforce has been reduced to casual, contract or part-time employment. Add to that the awareness among young people of the international dangers of war and the absence of any credible action on issues such as climate change and the pandemic of mental health problems, and teachers are being left to deal, in their classrooms, with explosive social antagonisms and crises.

How can teachers effectively educate and inspire children in such an atmosphere? Many are struggling themselves under the stresses of short-term contracts, sub-standard pay and the constant pressure of performance reviews. They face a union that is not just indifferent, but actively collaborating in the imposition of such conditions.

Many teachers are bitter and hostile toward the AEU. What is not widely understood, however, is that the perfidy of the union is not the outcome of cowardice or corruption on the part of its current leadership. Rather, it is the outcome of the fact that trade unionism accepts the capitalist profit system and all that flows from it. With the advent of globalised production, which enables transnational banks and corporations to transfer investment and entire industries both between and within countries, every capitalist state is objectively compelled to provide competitive tax rates and labour conditions. The steady reduction in taxation on corporate profit and income over the past three-and-half decades has propelled the endless attempt to curb or cut public spendingwhether on education, health, social services or infrastructure.

The pro-capitalist trade unions, in every country, have transformed, under the impact of globalised production, from organisations that sought limited workplace and social reforms, into industrial police forces that seek to deliver international competitiveness at the expense of the working class.

This process has vastly intensified since the 20072008 financial crisis and the ensuing stagnation within the global economy. Behind the scenes, the Australian corporate and political establishment is preoccupied with discussing how to slash federal and state budgets, while channelling an even greater share of national income to the military, corporate profits and the rich. Whether represented by the Coalition, Labor, or other parties, the agenda of the Australian ruling elite is war and militarism around the world, alongside its US ally, and austerity and class war against the working class at home.

The lesson that must be drawn by workers from their decades of bitter experiences is that the unions will collaborate with the ruling elites and seek to block and dissipate any signs of opposition.

Members and supporters of the Socialist Equality Party, who work in the public education sector, are actively campaigning for Victorian teachers and ES staff to vote NO in the secret ballot that will take place in May on the proposed EBA. They have established a Facebook page, Teachers Against the Victorian Education Agreement, to provide a forum for discussion and debate.

The rejection of the EBA is a necessary step, in opposing the sell-out deal, however it will not immediately change the situation that teachers and students confront. The AEU will simply re-enter sordid negotiations with the Labor government. It may even call work-stoppages or strikes and protest rallies to let off steam, and declare that it is fighting for a better deal. The unions aim, however, will not change. It will seek to pressure teachers into endorsing an agreement that accepts the subordination of public education to corporate requirements and the budget dictates of the state and federal governments.

Immediately, teachers and ES staff need to set about creating new, independent organisations of struggle.

The SEP advocates the formation of democratic, rank-and-file committees at each school, which actively seek to mobilise parents and students in a rebellion against NAPLAN testing and performance ranking, the substandard state of facilities and resources at many public schools and the unacceptable working hours, pay and conditions being forced on teachers.

Such a struggle for education rights, however, must be a conscious political one, and explicitly linked to the broader mobilisation of the entire working class to achieve all its social rights. It will necessarily require coordinated, unified action by workers across state and national borders to take economic and political power out of the hands of the tiny capitalist oligarchy. The resources to meet the needs of masses of people on a world scaleincluding high quality educationcan be acquired only by placing the banks and financial institutions, as well as the major corporations, under public ownership and the democratic control of workers governments, as part of the overall socialist reorganisation of society.

The socialist perspective of the SEP is dismissed by some as unrealistic. The most unrealistic perspective, however, is one that claims education or any other right can be defended within the framework of the failed capitalist order, the breakdown of the facade of democracy, rising international tensions and the danger of war.

The SEP urges teachers and ES staff who agree with our program to apply to join our party and world movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Like and follow the Teachers against the Victorian education agreement Facebook page.
Only three days before the first round of the French presidential election on Sunday, Paris was hit by a shooting targeting police on Champs-Elysees avenue. One policeman was killed and two were wounded, together with one passer-by, during the attack. The area, at the heart of the tourist districts of downtown Paris, was blocked off last night.

French media have already demanded that candidates and commentators place the issue of terrorism at the center of the election debate. With France already under a perpetually extended state of emergency suspending basic democratic rights after the 2015 terror attacks, this latest attack will doubtless strengthen political forces calling for an escalation of law-and-order measures. The day before the attack, French authorities were planning to put 50,000 troops in the streets on Election Day, effectively holding the election at gunpoint.

After the attack, authorities sealed off the famous boulevard and the surrounding streets with heavily armed military and police forces, calling on the public to avoid the area. A police helicopter flew low over central Paris.

While only initial accounts of the attack are available, they already raise questions as to how it was allowed to happen.

Early this morning, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins and Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet spoke to reporters on the Champs-Elysees.

Inquiries by technical and scientific police are continuing, said Brandet, who added, Tonight at 8:50p.m., an individual armed with an assault rifle fired at on-duty policemen in front of the Marks & Spencer firm, killing one policeman, and wounded another seriously, as well as a tourist who was passing by. The terrorist was killed by return fire.

The identity of the attacker is known and has been verified, Brandet said. I will not give it to you because police raids are ongoing, to see if he had accomplices. Officers at the scene said they were searching for a potential second assailant, and Brandet said it could not be ruled out that there were others involved.

According to French officials and media reports, a car approached a parked police van packed with officers at around 9pm on Thursday evening. A man emerged from the car and opened fire on the van with an automatic weapon, killing one officer instantly, Brandet said. The man then ran away, managing to shoot and wound two other policemen. Other policemen engaged and shot and killed the attacker, he explained.

Choukri Chouanine, the owner of a restaurant on the nearby rue de Ponthieu, told AFP that he had heard a short round of a lot of gunfire... We had to hide our diners in the basement. One woman said there had been panic at the Franklin D Roosevelt metro station nearby. People were running in all directions.

A witness identified as Ines told French television station BFM-TV that she heard shooting, saw a mans body on the ground and that the area was quickly evacuated by police.

Late Thursday night, the Islamic State (IS) militia claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement by its propaganda outlet, Amaq. According to AFP, the statement said the attacker was one of the groups fighters known as Abu Yousef al-Belgiki, the Belgian.

Reuters also reported that an arrest warrant had been issued in the Paris shooting for a suspect who arrived from Belgium by train.

Press accounts later identified the suspect as Karim C., a 39-year-old man living in a Paris suburb with a long police record. If media reports about this man's history are correct, it is remarkable that he was allowed to prepare a deadly attack on policemen in France. He had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003 for a 2001 shooting attack near Paris that nearly killed two policemen. He was released on appeal, but recently landed in custody again in Meaux after making statements declaring that he was looking for weapons to kill police officers.

He was well known to the police services, declared Audrey Goutard, police-justice correspondent for France2 television. He already had been condemned for attempted homicide. AFP reports that he was under investigation by anti-terrorist police.

Astonishingly, Karim C was not considered by the police to be dangerous, however, and he was released shortly before he went on to carry out the terror shooting.

Outgoing French President Francois Hollande held a press conference around 11:30 p.m. to discuss the shooting. He called the attack terrorist in nature and promised utmost vigilance by security services to secure the election. A national commemoration will be held for the police officer who was murdered in a cowardly fashion... The nation's support for the police forces is total, Hollande declared.

Hollande also convened a meeting of his defense council at 8 a.m. today.

If the claims of Hollande and ISIS about the attack are correct, it appears that this episode is yet another consequence of NATO's bloody wars in Libya and Syria. Bombings in Europe by various networks of terror operatives used by the NATO powers in their proxy wars for regime change in those countries have already claimed hundreds of lives. The Mohamed Merah shootings of 2012 around Toulouse, the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo shootings, the 13 November 2015 bombing attack in Paris, and the 22 March 2016 bombings in Brussels were all carried out by such forces.

Given the close links between NATO authorities and the Islamist terror networks, on the one hand, and the intense political crisis in France on the other, it is entirely legitimate to ask whether factions of the state machine were in some way involved in this attack.

Faced with growing anti-war and anti-establishment sentiment in the population, an unpredictable presidential election, and the historic collapse of the governing Socialist Party (PS), the French ruling class is desperate. After the illegal and unprovoked April 7 US strike on Syria, the French ruling elite was terrified by the rise of anti-war sentiment, with candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon rising significantly in the polls. It responded with demands for stepped-up law-and-order measures.

Interior Minister Matthias Fekls proposal to put 50,000 troops on the streets of France during the elections was followed by a wave of media demands that the electoral debate focus on counter-terrorism and law and order.

Nothing said or done by the government or, for that matter, the various intelligence and security agencies, can be taken at face value. Powerful sections of the ruling elite clearly believe they have every interest in shifting the political atmosphere in the final days of the election far to the right.

Their main advantage is that none of the presidential candidates oppose the pro-war, pro-police state agenda of the ruling class. On the contrary, all the major candidates, who were participating in a television debate when the attack occurred, hailed the police. This includes Melenchon, whose pro-police reaction once again underscored that he is not a left alternative to the other candidates.

Neo-fascistic candidate Marine Le Pen wrote on Twitter: My emotions and solidarity for the police, once again targeted. The right-wing conservative Francois Fillon tweeted, Paying homage to police who give their lives to protect ours, #ChampsElysees.

Emmanuel Macron of the PS-backed On the March movement struck a similar tone: Tonight, I want to indicate my full solidarity to our security forces.

Melenchon for his part wrote on Twittter, We send to the family of the deceased policemen and to the family of the wounded policemen thoughts laden with emotion Criminals will never go unpunished and their accomplices will never be forgotten.
Opposition to the Verdi trade union is growing among workers at Berlins airports. Many workers are outraged at the services trade union for imposing a collective agreement for ground staff, even though the majority of members voted against it.

When the Verdi leadership declared they would sign the agreement although almost 57 percent of the membership voted against it, many spoke of their intention to leave the union.

In a statement on the verdi-airport.de website, the trade union reported on April 6, co-workers are seething. Many employees had been prepared to go even further and to accept the continuation of industrial action.

In the face of the members mounting criticism, Verdi called for unity and warned of supposedly false reports from trade union opponents. It was stated on Verdis website, Unfortunately, trade union opponents are currently trying to divide, damage and weaken us with false reports and rumours they are spreading online. Do not fall for these alternative facts, but speak to us. You will receive comprehensive and reliable information and details from us.

The commenting function for this article on verdi-airport.de was deactivated as a precaution.

Verdi avoided any specifics. There was neither any reference to a false report, nor any attempt to correct one. No opponent of the trade union was named. But it is a fact that only the WSWS and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP) condemned the pathetic contract negotiated and called on ground staff to vote down the contract. Both the employer association and Verdi called for workers to vote in favour.

Verdi portrays the agreement as an improvement for the workforce and claims that no more was possible. This is not true. The contract will have two main results, which are both in the interests of the corporations. It consolidates low wages in a sector where tough and very demanding work is carried out in shifts. And with its long duration, it ensures three years of labour peacei.e., it denies the workers the use of their most important weapon for three years by banning strikes.

The claim that no more was possible is also false. The contract emerged because Verdi broke off the strike when the considerable extent of its impact and the substantial power at the disposal of ground staff became clear.

An examination of the course of the confrontation makes clear that Verdi directed the entire process against the workforce. From the outset, Verdi sought to limit the strike to single days. The union concluded collective agreements at all other airports so as to isolate the workers in Berlin.

On the third day, Verdi agreed to secret exploratory talks with a mediator. It nominated for this purpose the interior senator in the former SPD/Left Party coalition government, Ehrhart Korting (SPD), under whose direction ground staff operations in the state of Berlin were privatised. The negotiating commission then accepted a three-year contract, and after the majority voted it down, Verdi imposed it against the will of the membership.

The role of the trade unions

The experience through which ground staff are currently passing is similar to workers in all industries and services internationally: a serious struggle against low wages and miserable working conditions cannot be waged with, but only against, the trade unions. The trade unions play workers at one location off against another, divide workers and subordinate them to the profit interests of the corporations and businesses. The unity of the workers cannot be established through the trade unions, but only in opposition to them.

The WSWS and SGP make no secret of the fact that they are adversaries of the trade unions, since the unions have become adversaries of the working class, which they confront with ever more aggressive and open hostility.

In every struggle, whether at airports, public transport, hospitals or industrial sectors, such as currently at Bombardier, workers face the problem that their union representatives cooperate in the drafting of managements plans and enforce them.

They sit on company supervisory boards and negotiate plans for rationalisation and restructuring in secret talks. In collective bargaining talks, they play a double game. For a few crumbs in wage increases, they sacrifice all that has been secured in past struggles, transform jobs into precarious and low-paid positions, and stab in the back all resistance from workers.

Trade-union-organised strikes and rallies serve merely to let off steam, demoralise the workers and demonstrate to company management the importance of the unions for enforcing their plans.

This is something employees at the airports have experienced time and again. Last autumn, when pilots, cabin crew and ground staff from Air Berlin and Tuifly organised a sick-out protest against the restructuring of the companies and job cuts, the leadership of Verdi issued a joint call with the pilots union Cockpit and Air Berlin calling on other employees to work emergency shifts and thus act as strikebreakers.

Low wages have not fallen from the sky, but were agreed upon in conjunction with the unions. The WSWS has exposed the despicable role played by Verdi in the privatisation of ground staff services. When the SPD-Left Party coalition state government prepared the majority-state-owned Globeground for privatisation in 2003 by founding a subsidiary company called Ground Service International, the works council and Verdi agreed to this, according to the Freitag newspaper.

Prior to the sale to the private company WISAG in 2008, Verdi ensured the adoption of a cost-cutting contract in which the membership gave up around one fifth of their income. This fired the starting gun for the wage dumping strategy, according to Jorn Boewe in Freitag .

The workers have been divided up among various firms and subcontractors in the period since, while their wages and working conditions have been severely undermined. Wage rates for new hires have been slashed by around 30 percent, as even trade union secretary Enrico Rumker admitted.

The dead end of nationalism

Verdi is outraged at the WSWS and SGP because we openly stand as opponents of the trade unions and explain the reason for their transformation.

The role the unions once played of securing improvements in wages and working conditions within a national framework has been transformed into its opposite. Today, the unions not only participate in the destruction of jobs and social achievements, but take the initiative in proposing them, as the works council at Volkswagen recently did.

This is connected with fundamental changes in the global economy. The global development and integration of production stands in irreconcilable contradiction to the capitalist system of nation-states, which as at the beginning of the twentieth century is sinking into trade war and military conflict.

The capitalist private ownership of the means of production, which subordinates the world economy to the profit maximisation interests of a few major finance and industrial concerns, has led to extreme levels of social inequality. The worlds eight richest people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the globes population, which includes some 3.5 billion people.

The pro-capitalist and nationalist perspective of the unions has transformed them into close allies of their own ruling classes in a struggle for a share of the world market. Their leading officials are paid handsomely, and union wealth is increasingly based on property and insurance investments, and supervisory board fees.

A works council conference at the German Air Transport association in March 2016 demonstrated this nationalist position clearly. The joint statement from union, government and business representatives called on the German government to strengthen Germany as a location for air transport and retain its competitiveness. It could not be tolerated that politicians propose or adopt laws which result in our corporations losing market share, production facilities and jobs to their international competitors.

When the European Union (EU) impoverished the Greek workers with one austerity package after another, the trade unions in the German Confederation of Labour (DGB) aligned themselves with Chancellor Merkel, Finance Minister Schauble and new SPD leader Martin Schulz, who at that time was imposing the EU dictates in Brussels.

In the US, the United Auto Workers (UAW) trade union recently demonstrated the role of the unions in an especially disgusting manner. On March 15, UAW leader Dennis Williams appeared alongside US President Donald Trump and the CEOs of the three largest US automakers, and endorsed Trumps speech, which said that American workers and corporations stood side by side and that in our veins flows the same red patriotic blood.

The German trade unions are no less prepared to support trade war and war, and to cooperate with far-right politicians. While in the 1950s they still mobilised in opposition to the rearmament of the German army, there has not been a single protest on their part against the rearming of recent years and the German armys foreign military interventions. On the contrary, in early 2013, the then DGB head Michael Sommer agreed with Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere (Christian Democrats) to close cooperation and a partnership with the army.

In so doing, the trade unions are drawing on their reactionary traditions. During the First World War, they agreed to a so-called class truce, suppressed all opposition to the war and ensured the necessary resources, and men were sent to the front in the name of war socialism. After Hitlers assumption of power, they called for a joint demonstration with the Nazis on May 1, 1933. A disturbing indication of how alive and well this tradition is was shown several weeks ago, when the IG Metall union allowed Alternative for Germany members to join their march in Gorlitz.

The WSWS and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei urges the rejection of the trade unions nationalist and pro-capitalist policies. It is urgently necessary for workers to organise independently of the unions, make contact with workers internationally and combine the struggle for decent wages and working conditions with the fight against war and the capitalist system. This requires a socialist perspective and an international strategy.
Underlining its readiness to more closely integrate with Washingtons military-strategic agenda, Indias ruling elite has hailed the April 7 cruise-missile attack on Syria and the April 13 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bombing in Afghanistan.

While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made no official statement on the US assaults, national upper house parliamentarian Subramanian Swamy, a member of Modis Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP), tweeted his support.

In my personal capacity & analysis I welcome US strike against Syria as retaliation for the horrible poisonous chemical attack on civilians, Swamy declared. He thus parroted the bogus US claims that its actions were in response to an alleged Syrian military chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun in southern Idlib province. The US has failed to provide any evidence to substantiate its allegations against the Assad government.

Notwithstanding Swamys insistence that his tweet was in a personal capacity, he is a leading BJP member. This underscores the reality of the Modi governments enthusiastic support for the US attack on Syria.

Swamy later also endorsed Washingtons MOAB bombing of Afghanistanunleashing the most destructive weapon ever used since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He called for the involvement of India in a US-led strategic alliance, including Israel, in the name of fighting terror.

Swamy tweeted: US President Trumps blasting with Mother of all bombs the ISIS hideout in Afghanistan is Super. Need US Israel India compact against terror.

Opposition Congress Party national spokesman Manish Tewari likewise welcomed the MOAB attack. He called for similar bombings in Pakistan to target various Islamic extremist groups and those fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. He tweeted: If US can drop MOAB on ISIS Khorasan, how is LET, Jaish-e-Mohmmad, Jamat-Ul-Dawa any different? Why not one on Muridke? Terror is seemless.

LET (Lashkar-e-Taiba), Jaish-e-Mohmmad and Jamat-Ul-Dawa are Kashmir separatist groups operating from Pakistan. Muridke is a commercial city in Pakistans Punjab province and the operational headquarters of LET. If heeded, Tewaris bloodthirsty calls for Washington to bomb Pakistani cities, towns and villages would result in the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

The US military attacks in Syria and Afghanistan have nothing to do with retaliating against the alleged use of chemical weapons or fighting ISIS terror respectively. Trump used the unprovoked US assaults to make clear to Russia, Iran and China that Washington will not hesitate to use any weapon against perceived adversaries.

This was spelled out on Monday by US Vice President Mike Pence during a visit to South Korea. In the past two weeks the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan, he declared. North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region.

Washingtons threats against North Korea are in preparation for military conflict against China, its principal ally.

In their support for the US attacks on Syria and in Afghanistan, the leaders of Indias principal partiesthe BJP and Congressare expressing their readiness to line-up with US war preparations and pursue the Indian ruling elites own global power ambitions.

Indias military-strategic ties with the US were initiated under the BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, from 1998 to 2004, and further developed by the successive Congress governments of Manmohan Singh. Prime Minister Modi has taken this to a qualitatively higher level, transforming India into a frontline state in Washingtons military-strategic agenda against China.

Irrespective of various tactical differences between the BJP and Congress over how far they should go with Washington in pursuing Indias geo-political ambitions, Swamys and Tewaris remarks underscore the basic agreement in the Indian ruling elite over forging close military ties with US.

Hindu extremist groups associated with the BJP have seized on the US bombing in Afghanistan to push for a similar Indian attack on Pakistan, posing the danger of a major military conflict between these two nuclear-armed South Asian countries, with potentially deadly consequences for millions of people in the region.

Addressing a public event in Jamshedpur on April 14, Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Pravin Togadia declared: Trump showed how its America First for him by bombing IS hideouts in Afghanistan, which is more than 10,000 kilometres from Washington. Our government should show similar resolve of India First by bombing Pakistan, which is barely 800 kilometres from New Delhi and securing the Indian soldiers release.

Togadias call for the release of an Indian soldier is a reference to former Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was allegedly arrested by Pakistan authorities in Pakistans Baluchistan Province and sentenced to death by a military court after being accused of espionage.
The Trump administration and the US corporate media are continuing to escalate the pressure on North Korea and China over the Pyongyang regimes missile and nuclear weapons tests, fuelling an extremely tense standoff and raising the danger of a devastating nuclear war.

On its evening news last night NBC reported that the United States is taking active measures to prepare for the possibility of a nuclear test by North Korea, including the deployment of U-2 spy planes, drones and special sniffer aircraft capable of detecting evidence of a nuclear explosion.

Two US intelligence officials told NBC News that North Korea is in a position to suddenly conduct a nuclear test. We expect that they are able to do it at any time, without any real warning, one official said. They have been engaging in steady preparations.

During a Thursday press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, US President Donald Trump branded North Korea a menace and suggested that China would take action against North Korea.

As far as North Korea is concerned, we are in very good shape, said Trump. I respect [President Xi Jinping] very much, and I think hes working very hard Some very unusual moves have been made over the past two or three hours and I really have confidence that the president will try very hard.

As usual, Trump did not elaborate. His administration has been applying relentless pressure on Beijingincluding threats of military strikes against North Korea that could initiate a full-scale war on Chinas borderto force Pyongyang to bow to Washingtons demands to dismantle its nuclear and missile capacity. Trump has declared that if China cannot solve North Korea, the US is prepared to go it alone, with all options on the table.

Washingtons ultimatum is being underscored by Vice President Mike Pences current tour of Asia and Australia, reinforced by this months US cruise missile strikes on Syria and its use of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb in Afghanistan. In South Korea, Pence cited the US attacks in Syria and Afghanistan, warning North Korea not to test Americas resolve.

The USS Carl Vinson and its accompanying guided-missile destroyers and cruiserwhich Trump earlier declared to be part of an armada heading for Koreaare now due to arrive during possible North Korean tests marking Military Foundation Day on April 25.

The dangers of triggering a nuclear war that could draw in both China and Russia were further revealed by Reuters reports that Russia is moving heavy military equipment toward its border with North Korea.

According to Reuters, residents and local media in Russias Far East reported large military convoys travelling in the direction of the border since the weekend, in what appeared to be contingency plans for a possible war that could directly threaten Russias population and strategic interests.

A Russian military spokesman said the flurry of military activity was part of routine exercises, but the reports highlight Russias own vulnerability, along with Chinas, to any conflict involving nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

Vladivostok, a city of 600,000 people and the home of Russias Pacific Fleet, is just 160 kilometres from the North Korean border, and one of Pyongyangs nuclear test sites is close to the border. The radiation fallout from any nuclear explosion at the site, or attempted North Korean retaliation for a US strike, could imperil the city.

These developments demonstrate the risk that miscalculations or mistaken interpretations of military moves could trigger a conflict that could endanger the lives of millions of people. The Trump administration has deliberately added uncertainty to the crisis by leaking to the media that its options include a return of US nuclear weapons to South Korea, sabotage by special forces inside North Korea and decapitation strikes to kill North Korean leaders.

South Korean authorities, who are in the throes of a volatile presidential election campaign, added to the tensions yesterday. Just days after Pence visited the country, the acting South Korean president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, convened a meeting of senior officials where he repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.

At the same time, Seouls defence ministry pointed to the current large-scale US and South Korean air force exercise, codenamed Max Thunder. We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever, South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemys intention to provoke us.

The North Korean regime is resorting to blood-curdling threats of its own, evidently in an attempt to deter a US attack. The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Norths ruling Workers Party, said in an editorial on Thursday: In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes. Such rhetoric only plays into the hands of the US ruling elite, and divides North Korean workers from their fellow workers in the South and America.

The Chinese leadership is desperately sending out warnings of the war danger and appealing to the Trump administration for an accommodation. A commentary in the state-run Peoples Daily yesterday pointed to the possible consequences of a preemptive strike by the US, saying there was no guarantee that the presumed US strike would be precise enough to wipe out all nuclear facilities in the DPRK before Pyongyang launches a nuclear attack in retaliation.

The comment continued: If that happens, the DPRK wont wait to fire its nuclear missiles, and thousands of howitzers and rocket launchers deployed along the 38th parallel Military Demarcation Line into the Republic of Korea. No defense systems, including the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system, will be able to shield off such a shower of artillery shells. And Pyongyangs missiles could destroy Seoul and hit even Japan.

The commentary urged the US to consider a Chinese proposal for suspending hostilities. As a first step, the North would freeze its nuclear program if, in exchange, the US halted its military exercises with the South.

Another Peoples Daily commentary signalled the Chinese bureaucracys wider plea for a partnership with Washington. China has no intention of competing with the US for the position of top superpower, it stated, appealing for win-win cooperation.

Washington, however, has rejected any suggestion of resuming talks with Pyongyang, asserting that the days of strategic patience are over. The Trump administrations America First program is dedicated to reasserting US global economic and hegemony at all costs.
On Wednesday night, the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) held the final campaign meeting of its presidential candidate, Philippe Poutou, in the north suburbs of Paris. Around 1,000 people were at the meeting, where NPA members backed the US-led war drive against Syria and Russia and made tactical criticisms of the Socialist Party (PS), amid the historic collapse of the PS, which has been discredited by President Francois Hollandes administration.

The NPA speaks for a constituency within the upper-middle class that has monopolized for decades what passed for extreme left politics in France, just as the media falsely presented PS policies of war and austerity as representing socialism. Led by forces of the post-1968 student movement, the NPA attracts different layers of youth. Some preparing a career in official politics dutifully posed for TV interviews in suit and tie, and others wore expensive alternative clothes; one guest speaker from Italy discussed a plan on gender violence she will propose to the Italian state.

Towards the working class, however, the NPA is bitterly hostile. It repeatedly supported the election of pro-austerity governments of the PS in France and of Syriza (the Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece. Above all, it rabidly supports the imperialist wars through which the financial dominance of the leading imperialist powers, and thus the wealth of the NPA's upper-middle class constituency, is maintained.

This was the subject of the first main contribution at Poutous rally, by NPA spokeswoman Christine Poupin, who presented a report supposedly on internationalism, but that was in fact a full-throated defense of imperialist intervention, in particular in Syria. She launched a hysterical denunciation of the major imperialist governments in Europe and North America for not having intervened more violently to topple the Syrian government.

To try to manufacture support for NATO-backed opposition militias that are now deeply unpopular in Syria, Poupin was compelled to turn reality on its head. She claimed that due to the actions of the NATO powers, anti-Assad militias had been left without any means of defense, particularly anti-aircraft defense." She continued, "And all the foreign interventions in Syria actually helped [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad to stay in power.

This is a pack of lies. Poupins claim covers up the fact that the principal foreign intervention in Syria was that of the imperialist powers of North America and Europe, aided by the Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms. The billions of dollars they poured into arming Kurdish nationalist and Islamist opposition militias in Syria did not help Assad. Rather, they shattered Syria and his government, forcing tens of millions of people to flee their homes.

Poupins attempts to present the NPAs pro-war line as a left criticism of the policy of the major imperialist powers were steeped in political lies. Echoing the position of the Democratic Party in the United States, Poupin denounced US policy in Syria for failing to be sufficiently aggressive in attacking Syria to overthrow Assad. This simply underscores that the NPA has managed to criticize Trump, the most far-right administration in US history, from the right.

Poupin denounced Trumps unprovoked April 7 missile strike on Syria after the alleged April 4 poison gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun. This attackafter several chemical attacks by NATO-backed opposition forces which they blamed on the Syrian regime, such as the 2013 Ghouta attackhas all the hallmarks of a CIA provocation. Nonetheless, Poupin attacked Trumps act of aggression against Syria from the right, not for its illegality, but because it was not bloody enough to destroy Assad, whom she blamed for the Khan Sheikhoun attack without presenting any evidence.

Trumps showy gesture wont change our minds because just a week before the atrocious chemical attack at Khan Sheikhoun, Trump was letting it be known he could consider an alliance with Bashar al-Assad in the context of the so-called war on terror, Poupin declared. Such a signal obviously encouraged the regime to pursue its crimes. So yes, faced with Assad, faced with IS, it is up to the Syrian people, and it alone, to decide on its future.

The NPAs support for imperialist war, which has become unmistakable, in particular since it openly endorsed NATOs 2011 war in Libya, exposes it as a tool of imperialism, hostile to the working class. This is also, however, the end product of the NPAs long evolution and its relation to the PS, the reactionary big business party that has dominated what passed for the French left since the 1968 general strike. At that point, it allied with the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF), which still had a mass electoral base in the working class, to falsely present itself as socialist.

Today, nearly a half-century later, the PS is rapidly disintegrating, deeply discredited by the decades of austerity and war it has imposed on the workers, and in particular during Hollandes last five-year term. The PS is split, endorsing competing presidential candidates, ex-PS Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and nominal PS presidential candidate Benoit Hamon. It is hated and on the verge of utter collapse, with speculation growing that it will soon follow Greeces social democratic Pasok party on the path of total disintegration.

The PS collapse raises urgently the issue of building a genuine revolutionary socialist alternative. The petty-bourgeois layer in and around the NPA does not want to touch that question, however. Founded in 2009 on the basis of a public and overt rejection of Trotskyism by its predecessor, the petty-bourgeois Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), it has no perspective to offer amid the collapse of Europes social democratic and Stalinist organization.

The NPA had nothing to say about its rotten relationship, over nearly a half-century, with the PS, even as this party passes though a historic collapse. While they did not openly acknowledge their close ties with the PS, the PS could always rely on the political assistance of the NPA. Poutou called for a Hollande vote in 2012, and then-NPA candidate Olivier Besancenot endorsed unsuccessful PS candidate Segolene Royal in the 2007 elections.

The NPAs reactionary policies, taken together, have produced a situation where it is not the NPA, but Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former post-1968 student radical and long-time PS member, who is seen as the best hope for left voters. He rapidly rose in polls, particularly after the April 7 strike on Syria, to which he reacted by criticizing Trumps attack. Nevertheless, neither Melenchon nor the NPA have fundamental differences with the PS; both have worked in its periphery for decades.

When Poutou discussed his differences with Melenchon at the Paris meeting, he attacked Melenchon on populist lines, as a politician, based on Melenchons long career as a PS senator and Poutous own career as a trade union bureaucrat at a Ford plant in Blanquefort near Bordeaux.

Claiming that politicians have morals that are more than questionable, Poutou warned against falling in the trap that is being laid for us, that of trying to save the institutional left, the governmental left.

Poutou added that Melenchon, however nice he seems to be with his militant and anti-austerity aspects, the fact is he is someone who has done politics his whole life, he was in the Socialist party for 30 years, he was in the Jospin government for a while.

Poutous moralistic pronouncements are empty demagogy. The NPA carries out, in the final analysis, the same essential type of nationalist, pro-imperialist politics as Melenchon, the former PS senator, or Jospin. Poutous attempts to distance himself from Melenchon are in bad faith, insofar as it is well known that the differences between the PS-linked politics of Poutou and those of Melenchon are at most marginal, and that the NPA is happy to ally itself with Melenchon.

Indeed, asked about the NPAs differences with Melenchon on the Public-Senat TV channel shortly before Poutous rally, Poupin insisted that the NPA and Melenchon were close allies. Those who are getting ready to vote for Jean-Luc Melenchon, who vote Jean-Luc Melenchon, they are great, she said. If Jean-Luc Melenchon reaches the run-off, that is a very very good thing... Jean-Luc Melenchon is not our enemy.

Such remarks make clear that Poutous denunciations of professional politicians and his attempts to present himself as a revolutionary, anti-capitalist critic of Melenchon and the PS are so many frauds. Workers and youth seeking an alternative to the collapse of the PS will be compelled to also struggle against the petty-bourgeois, pro-war politics of the NPA.
Three months into the most right-wing government in modern US history, the meaning of the America First doctrine proclaimed by Donald Trump in his inaugural address has been spelled out by Washingtons deeds: US war everywhere.

The latest threat of military aggression was delivered Wednesday by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson against Iran. It came in the midst of Washingtons nuclear brinksmanship on the Korean peninsula and followed the US cruise missile attack launched against Syria on the basis of wholly unsubstantiated allegations of chemical weapons use and the dropping on Afghanistan of the most destructive bomb since the atomic attacks on Japan in 1945.

Tillersons bellicose tirade came just one day after the administration had certified to the US Congress that Tehran was in full compliance with the nuclear agreement that it negotiated in 2015 with the major powers, scaling back its nuclear program in return for the lifting of punishing economic sanctions. The terms of the agreement make it impossible for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, something that its government insisted it was not pursuing in the first place.

The statement from the US secretary of state appeared to have been orchestrated in order to dispel any illusion that Tehrans compliance with the nuclear agreement would have the slightest influence in staying Washingtons hand in organizing military provocations and outright aggression against Iran.

Tillerson issued a blistering, though at times barely coherent, indictment of Iran as the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism. He charged it with intensifying multiple conflicts and undermining U.S. interests in countries such as Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon, and continuing to support attacks against Israel.

He went on to denounce Iran for what he termed one of the worlds worst human rights records.

Such allegations, coming out of the mouth of the former ExxonMobil CEO who is now Washingtons face to the world, reek of hypocrisy.

In Syria, Yemen and Iraq, US imperialism bears direct responsibility for the deaths of over a million people, the displacement of tens of millions and, in the case of Yemen, the driving of an entire population to the brink of starvation. From the US invasion of Iraq 14 years ago, to direct American military intervention and CIA-orchestrated wars for regime change in Libya and Syria, and US backing for the near-genocidal Saudi-led war against the Yemeni people, Washington has laid waste to entire societies and turned much of the region into a killing field.

As for human rights, Tillerson was pointing the finger at Tehran even as Trump was embracing the Egyptian dictator Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, responsible for the massacre of thousands of protesters and the jailing and torture of tens of thousands more. As the secretary of state was delivering his tirade in Washington, US Defense Secretary James Mad Dog Mattis was in Saudi Arabia paying homage to a dictatorial ruling family that outlaws all dissent and regularly beheads those who dare oppose it.

And, when it comes to exporting terror, Washington really has no competition. Al Qaeda, ISIS and similar Islamist militias all got their start through covert CIA operations that used them as proxy forces for US aggression and regime change operations.

In relation to the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the so-called P5+1China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States plus Germany, Tillerson made it clear that, as far as the US administration is concerned, it is not worth the paper on which it is printed.

The agreement, he said, fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran; it only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state." He continued: "This deal represents the same failed approach of the past that brought us to the current imminent threat we face from North Korea. The Trump administration has no intention of passing the buck to a future administration on Iran.

What does this ultimatum mean? The objective of a non-nuclear Iran would require the country to renounce all nuclear technology, destroy its existing facilities and presumably place its scientists under US lock and key. The same failed approach of the past is the conception that there is anything whatsoever to negotiate.

And the vow not to pass the buck to a future US government means that the Trump administration intends to launch a war to violently subordinate this nation of over 77 million people to the dictates of American imperialism. Its aim is to restore the kind of US domination that prevailed under the bloody dictatorship of the Shah, turning back the historical clock four decades, even if it costs the lives of millions.

Given the Trump administrations insistence that it will not give any indication of its plans for military action until after they are executed, the Iranian government must calculate that a barrage of US cruise missiles could fall on Tehran at any moment.

This policy of naked aggression is being directed by the cabal of recently retired and active-duty generals who are largely in charge of US foreign policy under the Trump administration. They see Iran as the principal obstacle to the imposition of US hegemony over the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia, which the Pentagon has pursued by means of virtually uninterrupted war over the course of a quarter century. The American military brass bitterly resents the fact that the US war in Iraq served largely to strengthen Iranian influence in the region.

The recklessness of opening up a new front of military confrontation with Iran under conditions in which US provocations against North Korea continue to escalate the threat of war, including a nuclear conflict, in east Asia is staggering. There were reports Thursday that Russia has sent troops and military equipment to its border with North Korea, while China has expressed its concern over provocative US-South Korean air exercises designed to simulate an attack on the north.

This seemingly wild thrashing about in search of a military confrontation on the part of Tillerson and the Pentagon brass is the subjective expression of the objective crisis of the capitalist system, rooted in the same essential conflict between global economy and the capitalist nation-state system that erupted into world war twice in the 20th century.

The parasitic and criminal American ruling class, personified in the figure of Trump, increasingly sees war as the only way out of economic and social crises for which it can offer no progressive solution. Thus, new acts and threats of militarism in one country after another are rolled out on virtually a daily basis, with the support of a corporate media that functions as a willing instrument of war propaganda, and the full complicity of the Democratic Party, which had previously criticized Trump from the right as too soft on Russia and Syria.

While opposition to militarism and war finds no expression in the existing ruling establishment, it is deeply rooted in the working class, both in the United States and internationally. This opposition must be given conscious expression in the organization of a new mass movement against war, based on the mobilization of the working class on a socialist and internationalist program, independent of and hostile to all of the parties and organizations of the capitalist class.

This is the only way that war, including a nuclear confrontation that threatens the survival of humanity, can be stopped.

We urge all of our readers and supporters to join in this fight and to participate in and build the April 30 annual International May Day Online Rally, being organized by the International Committee of the Fourth International with the overriding purpose of uniting workers across the world against imperialist war.
The BBCs April 11 flagship documentary Panorama, The Spy in the IRA by veteran journalist John Ware, highlighted the decades-long British state infiltration of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Ware centred on Alfredo Scappaticci, who became infamous 14 years ago, in 2003, when he was named as the alleged British agent Stakeknife.

Scappaticci, notorious as the alleged one time head of the IRAs Internal Security, responsible for identifying and dealing with informers, denied everything.

In the intervening period, such material that has emerged into the public domain has tended to confirm the role of Stakeknife in the extended and murderous British military intelligence operation, which for many years hopelessly compromised the security of the IRA.

Three years after Scappaticci was named, in 2006, Denis Donaldson, the former head of the IRAs international relations, was exposed as a long-term British agent.

Donaldson was assassinated later the same year. No one has ever been charged with the killing.

In 2008, Roy McShane, also formerly of IRA Internal Security, was taken into protective custody for fear his role as a British agent was about to be revealed.

Scappaticci, Donaldson, and McShane are only a few of the most prominent figures thus far identified, in what is now assumed to be a list of agents that runs into many hundreds.

The role of Stakeknife and Scappaticcis name only became known because of the efforts of a former British military intelligence officer, Ian Hurst. Hurst was a member of the British Armys Force Research Unit (FRU), one of whose tasks was running spies in both loyalist and republican paramilitary organisations. Hurst appears to be primarily motivated by anger over the fact that British agents lives were sacrificed to maintain Stakeknifes cover within the IRA. This was chiefly the angle taken by Ware, although the broadcast shed light on how Scappaticci came to be recruited.

Former IRA volunteer, now historian and writer, Anthony McIntyre, told Ware that Scappaticci was an admired and feared republican figure in the Markets area of Belfast. Scappaticci was detained in 1971, when, during the early years of the Troubles the British government introduced mass internment without trial, and was only released four years later.

Sometime after this, according to Ware, Scappaticci, who was a building worker, appears to have become tangled up in a VAT fraud. He was arrested by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), was recruited as a police informer and avoided prosecution. At some later stage, responsibility for handling him was transferred to the FRU. He was given number 6126, and a codename, Stakeknife. By this time, he already appears to have been placed in the IRAs Internal Security section, which he came to lead during the 1980s.

McIntyre described Internal Security as like an electrical junction box through which every wire must flow.

Scappaticci was able to inform his handlers on many operations the IRA was planning and on threats to other perceived or real British agents within the organisation. Some of these, like Vincent Robinson, were innocent. According to Ware, Robinson was killed by the IRA after he was tortured by the police into revealing the location of an arms dump.

Others, such as Frank Hegarty, were spies. Hegarty was a republican who dropped out of the movement, then rejoined as an FRU agent. Having passed on the whereabouts of a stash of Libyan-supplied arms, he was shot in the head in 1986. According to Ware, Scappaticci knew Hegarty was going to be killed and told his handlers as much.

Ware has also recently brought out another aspect of Scappaticcis activities, although this was not covered by Panorama.

Writing in the Irish Times April 15, Ware noted that Scappaticci was also responsible for the IRAs Civil Administration in nationalist areas. According to Ware, Civil Administration was responsible for the vile practice of shooting working class youth in the knees, elbows and ankles for petty misdemeanours such as car theft and drug dealing. One mother described Scappaticci as warning her, The next time we hear hes been at it, or of any complaints against him, I will personally blow the head off him.

The man in question was shot dead a few years later.

In 2016, after years of delay, the British police opened Operation Kenova, a 35 million police investigation involving as many as 50 detectives from across the UK with a remit to establish whether there is evidence of crimes that may have been committed by Stakeknife or by members of the British Army, the Security Services or other Government agencies.

Head of Operation Kenova, Jon Boutcher was distinctly non-committal to Panorama, but Ware outlined the circumstances surrounding two of the cases with which Kenova is likely to be dealing.

One was the murder of Joe Fenton, a Belfast estate agent who was manipulated into serving as an agent for the Special Branch of the then Northern Ireland police, the RUC. According to Ware, Fenton set up safe houses for the IRA, which were then bugged by Special Branch and information gathered used to compromise their operations. As head of IRA Internal Security, Fenton came to Scappaticcis attention, as did a succession of failed operations. Scappaticci is said to have warned his handlers that an investigation into Fenton was imminent. Nothing was done, so Fenton was interrogated and shot.

As many as 50 murders are alleged to have been carried out by Internal Security, 30 under Scappaticci. By contrast, another agent, Sandy Lynch, who was facing the same fate under Scappaticcis supervision, was rescued at the last moment by the RUC.

The entire sordid affair is a testimony to the brutal and oppressive character of the British and Northern Ireland military, intelligence and police operations against the IRA during the decades-long dirty war. But Sinn Fein have also colluded with the British state in preventing exposure of the infiltration and subversion of their own ranks and leading bodies. This is consistent with the partys key goal of securing a working agreement with British imperialism. Following the 1999 Good Friday Agreement, and 2006 St Andrews Agreement, Sinn Fein has functioned as a loyal government partner with the hard-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland and currently promotes itself as a prospective coalition partner with either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail in the Irish Republic.

Sinn Fein are currently embroiled in protracted negotiations with the British government and the DUP over the terms on which it might be possible for the Northern Ireland Assembly to be revived after an indecisive election in March left the DUP with just one more seat than Sinn Fein. Items under dispute include the impact of Brexit, the status of the Northern Ireland border, the Irish language, and the continued leadership of the DUP by Arlene Foster.

Also under discussion are the so-called legacy cases of the Troubles. However, while historical cases are the subject of immense tension between the talks participants, none of them, including Sinn Fein, have any interest in a full exposure of what took place since all are compromised and implicated.
The Trump administration is closely collaborating with the trade unions to push its chauvinist Buy American, Hire American campaign and increasingly aggressive trade war and militarist measures. The unions, which have long peddled the snake oil of economic nationalism to disorient and divide the working class, are providing the deeply-hated president with critical political support as he prepares for even bloodier wars.

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive memorandum directing the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate whether Chinese and other foreign-made imports were undermining US military preparedness. Declaring that the maintenance of American steel production was extremely important to our national security and our defense industrial base, Trump said he would investigate such practices as steel dumping and other foreign strategies designed to undermine American industry as a whole.

Ross, a billionaire financier and former steel magnate, told reporters that his focus would be on whether US steel production could quickly scale up to meet the needs of the military. One of the factors relating to national security would be if you needed a very rapid buildup, are the skill sets there, particularly are the skill sets there for the very complex alloys that are needed for armor plate and things of that sort," Ross said. He added that he could issue tariffs on a broad range of products from a broad range of countries.

After signing the measure, Trump handed his pen to a smiling Leo Gerard, head of the United Steelworkers (USW), who was at the White House event along with the bosses of US Steel, Arcelor-Mittal and other steelmakers. The USW has long alleged that China and other countries have been dumping low-cost steel in the US.

Just last week, Gerard issued a statement, saying, Overcapacity in steel, aluminum, tires and other critical sectors demands quick and resolute action. Dumping and subsidies are still ravaging our manufacturing sector. Chinas cyberespionage is still rampant. China has already been rewarded with millions of our jobs and tens of thousands of factories built at our expense. Its time for a real change.

The threat of trade tariffs boosted steel stocks on Wall Street Thursday, with US Steel up 7.35 percent, AK Steel soaring 8.6 percent and Nucor Corporation gaining 4.74 percent. US Steel issued a statement that was indistinguishable from that of the USW: For too long, China and other nations have been conducting economic warfare against the American steel industry by subsidizing their steel industries, distorting global markets, and dumping excess steel into the United States.

Trump, the steel bosses and the USW executives all support the attack on the jobs and living standards of steelworkers. The corollary of economic nationalism has always been corporatism, which preaches class collaboration and the subordination of the interests of the working class to the profit needs of their own capitalist exploiters. Far from defending a single job, nationalism has been used to disarm workers, block them from uniting with their class brothers and sisters around the world, and pave the way for the destruction of the gains made by generations of struggle.

Today, this poison of economic nationalism is once again being used to line up workers for world war, with all the terrible consequences that entails.

Wilbur Ross is no stranger to the USW. In the early 2000s, the USW and its Wall Street advisors collaborated with the venture capitalist and asset stripper in the restructuring of the steel industry. Ross bought up Bethlehem, LTV and other bankrupt steel firms, destroyed the jobs, wages, conditions and pensions of thousands of steelworkers. He made an estimated $1 billion in profits when he sold his International Steel Group in 2005 to Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal.

In January, USW President Gerard sent a letter urging Congress to confirm Rossalso known as Mr. Protectionismciting his collaboration with the union and support for anti-Chinese tariffs. The USW also hailed Trumps selection of other trade warriors, including Peter Navarro to head the White House National Trade Council and his nominee for US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who imposed anti-Japanese tariffs as a Reagan trade official.

Last week, as the USW bureaucrats assembled for a convention in Las Vegas, Gerard praised Trump, saying he was giving speeches against unfair trade that sound like tape recordings of speeches I made. So far, he added, the president has talked about our jobs, trade and infrastructure, named a trade representative that we have worked closely with to stop the flood of cheap Chinese steel and a commerce secretary who bargained with us in good faith. Even though he has said and done a lot of things we dont like, when it comes to trade and manufacturing, Im prepared to give credit where credit is due.

The unions, however, appear to have been somewhat blind-sided by Trumps rapid shift towards a confrontation with Russia, after the cruise missile strikes against Syria, and, at least, a temporary delay in a direct conflict with China.

At the end of the USW convention Gerard criticized Trump for backing away from his pledge to label China as a currency manipulator. The president, he said, appears to be placating China to get them to help with the threat of North Korea in return for ignoring Chinas economic attacks on the United States. Appeasing and rewarding China is not the answer, Gerard said. He added that Trump was backing away from his promises not to trade away economic interests for foreign policy goals. Business as usual appears to be infiltrating the policy approach of the administration, and workers are still not interested in having their jobs used to incent China to help deal with the nuclear threat of North Korea.

There is widespread hostility to war in the working class after 16 years of military adventures that have exacted a massive financial and human cost, with no end in sight. The upper middle class executives and aspiring capitalists that man the union apparatus are pro-imperialist and are joining Trump to dragoon workers into even bloodier wars.

On Wednesday Trump signed an executive order, dubbed Buy American, Hire American, that instructed all government agencies to use domestic-made steel and other products for all federally-funded projects and contracted work. The measure also imposed stiffer restrictions on skilled and college-educated workers seeking temporary visas under the governments H-1B visa program.

In addition to the USW, the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and other unions immediately hailed the reactionary measure. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a frequent White House guest, said, We welcome efforts to improve the effectiveness of Buy American and Hire American, both of which commit taxpayer funds to support good jobs and businesses in America With respect to immigration, the labor movement consistently has called for reform, rather than expansion, of temporary work visa programs that make US and foreign workers more vulnerable to discrimination, displacement and exploitation.

Speaking at the USW convention in Las Vegas last week, the AFL-CIO head Trumka repeated his claim that the new administration was deeply divided by a Wall Street wing and a pro-worker wing. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last month, Trumka made it clear the supposed pro-worker faction the unions were looking to includes anti-Chinese trade hawk Peter Navarro and Trumps fascistic aide Stephen Bannon.

For decades, the unions worked closely with the Democratic Party in overseeing the destruction of jobs and living conditions of the workers they claim to represent. Now they are offering their services to Trump in the promotion of nationalism and war. In both cases, they prove that they have absolutely nothing to do with the defense of the interests of the working class, and in fact function as instruments of corporate management and the capitalist ruling class.
Millions of supporters and detractors of the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolas Maduro are demonstrating across Venezuela, bringing tensions to their highest point since 2015. On Wednesday, clashes between the two groups left three dead, including two opposition protesters and one soldier.

The opposition demonstration Wednesday, billed as the mother of all marches, was a right-wing show of force aimed at appealing to the Venezuelan military, factions of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and US imperialism to secure more favorable bargaining terms with the government. The PSUV, which also held a sizable rally of its own on Wednesday, has been in power since the election of ex-president Hugo Chavez in 1998. Maduro became president in 2013 after Chavezs death.

In a move intended to provoke a government crackdown, opposition leaders directed Wednesdays massive crowd over an elevated highway situated above a river and led them toward government buildings in the city center. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles then used the resulting clashes as a pretext to call for continued demonstrations Thursday.

The demonstrations took place with Caracas under martial law. On Tuesday, Maduro enacted Plan Zamora, a domestic military operation that involved placing Caracass highways, public buildings, and key television antennas under military control. General Jose Ornelas, military commander of the capital region, explained: We must defend Caracas. In addition, local police across the country have been placed under the authority of the National Guard.

The extent of the military presence reflects the nervousness within government circles that increasing divisions are emerging in the government. Three weeks ago, the Venezuelan Supreme Court stripped the legislature of its lawmaking powers in a move that was later reversed after being opposed by Maduros own attorney general, Luisa Ortega Diaz. In a statement released Wednesday, Ortega abstained from repeating Maduros claim that demonstrators are terrorists and instead appealed to both opposition leaders and the military to refrain from violence.

On Tuesday, the government announced the arrest of four junior army officersthree first lieutenants and a captainfor conspiracy and planning terrorist actions. Speaking Tuesday, Maduro said the officers are playing with the most sacred thing the Republic has, which is national unity, civil-military unity, and peace.

The arrests were a shot across the bow to silence opposition in the armed forces, which have provided the PSUV with a key base of support over the last two decades. Elements within the armys senior command have greatly enriched themselves since Chaveza former military officertook power in 1998. On Monday, Maduro appeared at a rally of thousands of soldiers and officers, praising them for repudiating sedition against the country and traitors of the country. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez pledged the armed forces unconditional loyalty to Maduro.

Aware of growing divisions and hoping to work out a deal on behalf of American oil companies, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that the Venezuelan government is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard and is violating its own constitution.

The Trump administration has signaled a policy of more-active involvement in Venezuela. In February, Trump launched a new round of sanctions against Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami and met personally with the wife of ultra-right-wing opposition leader Leopold Lopez. These moves come despite the Maduro governments US$500,000 gift, funneled through Citgo, the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company, to fund Trumps inauguration festivities, according to U.S. Federal Elections Commission filings released Wednesday.

Washingtons record of military interventions and support for Latin American dictators and death squads shows that Tillersons statements about defending free speech in Venezuela are beyond hypocritical. Before joining the White House, Tillerson was CEO of ExxonMobil, which has been exploiting Venezuelas oil since 1921. Chavez nationalized ExxonMobils extraction facilities in 2007, and the company is searching for ways to tap Venezuelan oil once again.

The working class largely abstained from this weeks demonstrations, and there was no uptick in strikes or walkouts.

The unpopularity of Maduros government among the working class is outpaced only by popular hatred for the opposition, which is concentrated among upper-middle-class layers, including students, operating under the direction of groups with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and US State Department.

Groups associated with the US government and US corporations give tens of millions of dollars to the Venezuelan opposition, much in the form of youth outreach to recruit members of the right-wing opposition. In 2008, the Cato Institute gave its Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and a cash prize of US$500,000 to an opposition student leader. The oppositions attempts to denounce Maduros crackdown on free speech are a fraud. In March, opposition leader Julio Borges called for the military to establish a dictatorship.

But support for the chavista government has evaporated in the midst of an unprecedented collapse in living standards for the Venezuelan working class.

The pro-capitalist, nationalist policies of the Chavez-Maduro governments, based almost entirely on oil exports, left the economy vulnerable to the drop in the international price of oil. The government responded by orchestrating a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the pockets of international finance capital, slashing social programs to make interest payments to its creditors.

As a result of these policies, 75 percent of the populationsome 22 million peoplelost an average of 19 pounds of body weight in 2016 alone due to lack of food. A recent university study shows that 93 percent of the country has insufficient income to purchase basic food, while a third of the population eats fewer than three meals per day, nearly triple the figure from 2015.

Mass hunger and malnutrition gave rise to a series of spontaneous demonstrations in working class neighborhoods in the first half of 2016, in which residents attacked government food storage warehouses and sacked shops where owners were hoarding food. Conditions have only continued to deteriorate.

Under these conditions, the chavista and opposition factions of the ruling class fear a social explosion. Former Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres hinted at this in February when he said the government must open space for participation to dissipate the violence in order to pay homage to those who died in 89.

This was a reference to the mass protests of February-March 1989, in which demonstrations in the town of Guarenas near Caracas over a rise in bus fares spread rapidly across the country, igniting a social powder keg. The government of Carlos Andres Perez responded by suspending the constitution, declaring martial law, and massacring more than 1,000 people.

This event looms large in the memory of both factions of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. Both the chavistas and the opposition are planning their strategies with the overarching goal of preventing an outbreak of the class struggle.
Mass water shutoffs resumed this week in the city of Detroit. It is the fourth straight year that city officials have sanctioned the shutoffs, targeting the most vulnerable layers of the population in the Motor City, the poorest big city in the United States.

According to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), some 17,995 households are on its target list for service disconnection. Water shutoffs began Wednesday, and shutoff notices went out 10 days earlier.

The resumption of water shutoffs in Detroit is part of a broader annual spring offensive, the start of mass utility disconnections in metropolitan as well as rural communities across the US. Whether it is gas, water or electric service, the loss of utilities can have dire health consequences, particularly for children, the sick and the elderly.

The purpose of the mass shutoffs in Detroit is two-fold. City officials are determined to increase revenues, squeezing hard-pressed workers in the city for every loose dollar to bolster the finances of DWSD in advance of possible privatization. DWSD Director Gary Brown recently told the Detroit News that his office has collected some $57 million as a result of the program.

At the same time, the mass water shutoffs are aimed at effectively driving tens of thousands of impoverished residents out of the city to make way for upscale developments by billionaires such as Quicken Loans CEO Dan Gilbert, who is buying up properties in the city right and left. This is in line with plans for the return of Detroit based on gentrification. Upscale development in the city center is combined with the shutdown of entire working-class neighborhoods that are deemed no longer viable. This entails the mass closure of schools and the denial of basic services like street repairs.

Since 2014, some 50,000 Detroit households have been disconnected from water service, and there are currently 10,000-20,000 Detroit homes still without water. The city, which is located next to the Great Lakes, the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, has seen recent double-digit increases in its water rates, which have doubled over the past decade.

A survey two years ago of 30 major US cities found that water bills rose by 41 percent between 2010 and 2015.

The continuation of the brutal water shutoff policy in Detroit follows in the wake of the Detroit bankruptcy, which gutted the pay, pensions and benefits of city workers and led to the sale of valuable city assets to private interests. The administration of Democratic Mayor Mike Duggan has continued the policy in the face of mass public opposition and a finding by a United Nations Special Rapporteur that it violates basic human rights.

While city officials and the news media claim that many resources are available to help residents pay water bills, the reality is that the money offered is only a fraction of the need. The Water Residential Assistance Program (WRAP) offers limited assistance to residents who are at or below 150 percent of the official poverty level by covering one-third of monthly payments and freezing overdue amounts. Just 5,766 Detroit households are enrolled in the plan that last year provided $5 million in aid, only a fraction of the total outstanding water bills. The main purpose of such schemes is not to help victims of shutoffs, but to extract as much as possible from those facing disconnection by requiring large up-front payments to qualify for the programs.

Nakiya Wakes, a Flint resident who has been active in protesting the poisoning of the citys water with lead, spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about the water shutoffs. The city of Flint recently began cutting off residents over past due water bills.

This crisis has had a major impact on my family. We are paying the highest water bills in the US, and we are paying for drinking poison. We have been living on bottled water for the past two years. I am not paying for anything after being lied to this long. Everyone is furious.

In Detroit it is the same, except they have been shutting off the water for years. There are already a lot of people living without water in the city.

The author also suggests:

The Michigan power outages and the case for the nationalization of the utility industry

[15 March 2017]
QUINCY, Fla. (WTXL) - A group of concerned citizens is investigating whether or not a Quincy City Commissioner violated privacy and election laws as he campaigns for another term.

These allegations come just a few days before voters head to the polls in Quincy.

Commissioner Daniel McMillan is running for reelection for Quincy's district 5 but how he might be going about looking for votes has some residents very concerned.

A group called the "Citizens Review Board" is looking into claims from residents at "Arbor Crest Apartments" that McMillan approached management, asking for leasing information so he could match information to a list of registered voters at the complex.

We spoke to the commissioner over the phone today, but he declined to comment, saying he had already addressed the media about the issue.

Management at the complex was unavailable as well.

We also reached out to his opponent in this race, Donny Young, but we haven't heard back.

Another group called "Citizens for a Better Quincy" says it's alarmed by these allegations, coming from someone who currently represents the people.

"I have to really question his reasons for being in an elected office," said Beverly Nash, with Citizens for a Better Quincy. "As I understand it, you're elected to serve the people -- and, if you're not serving the people, then what are you there for? You do not have the concerns of the people in mind if indeed you are asking for their personal information."

The Citizen Review Board says it's still investigating the incident, which it says happened on April 15th. Once it's completed its investigation, the group intends to hand over their findings to law enforcement.

We also reached out to the county's supervisor of elections to see whether or not the office was aware of these allegations. We're still waiting to hear back.
LIVE OAK, Fla. (WTXL) - Suwannee County crews are just now arriving on the scene of a motorcycle accident they say has injured one person.

Suwannee County Fire Rescue said that the motorcycle accident happened on 2nd St at Evelyn Ave in the city of Live Oak.

They have asked that travelers use caution in the area as units are on scene.

We will update this story as we confirm more details.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Tallahassee Community College hosted an event today about dangers of distracted driving.

It's in honor of "Distracted Driving Awareness Month".

According to "Triple A", more than 16 percent of accidents in the U.S. are caused by distracted driving, adding up to about 5,000 fatal crashes a year.

Organizers say Thursday's event was about drawing attention to those statistics, and giving students a chance to practice communication skills.

The event today featured guest speakers, simulations, and vendors.
For every decision made in Israel, there is a government worker making cost-benefit calculations. We must admit honestly that there is no benefit in Holocaust survivors, definitely no economic benefit, as they no longer work and dont pay taxes.

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There are a lot of costs, however. They are old, they are sick and they are a burden on the health and welfare systems. With all due respect, there are enough associations and organizations helping them. There is no reason to increase the burden on the state.

No one will say this out loud, but this is the State of Israels attitude toward Holocaust survivors as a systematic policy, and it didnt start today. There is of course information here about all of that, but its not a key fact in the experience of the Yishuv, David Ben-Gurion said while the Nazis were murdering millions of people.

Its not that theres anything he could have done, as the leader of tiny and powerless pre-state, but this statement says it all.

When the government really wants to advance something, it does it efficiently (Archive photo: AP)

And today? The state comptrollers report released Wednesday tells only part of the story. According to the report, nothing is being done intentionally of course, its just that damn bureaucracy which is making it difficult for the different governmental bodies to communicate with each other in order to carry out the simplest tasks, our basic and minimal obligationto help Holocaust survivors live their last years in dignity. Its an obligation, because the State of Israel was established on the blood and ashes of the six million Jews who were slaughtered in Europe.

The thing is that when the governmentas the states executive bodyreally wants to advance something, it does it efficiently. For example, transferring funds to our people here or beyond the Green Line. Holocaust survivors, however, are not an organized powerful group. They dont join parties in masses in a bid to make a change from the inside, and they dont have the new survivors to care for them. Many of them are just thankful for the right they have been given to live, especially in the State pf Israel, where our redemption began.

When we arrived in Israel, I was told that we must not whine and that we must be quiet, so we kept quiet, Leah, who immigrated to Israel from Romania upon the states establishment, told me recently. It may be best, as the honorable licensed members of Knesset might even attack them if they dare complain about something.

For the State of Israel, almost from its inception, the Holocaust is in many cases an excellent tool for acquiring force against enemies and money and support from friends.

In practice, I doubt there is another government in the entire Western world which belittles the memory of the Holocaust more than the Israeli government and its members. It does so by constantly comparing different enemies to the Nazis, by adopting a discriminating and racist policy, and by systematically neglecting Holocaust survivors as part of an economic perception which helps the strong become rich at the expense of the weak and abandons the poor and the weak to deal with the situation on their own.

The attitude toward Holocaust survivors is not a stain on the prime minister and his ministers, however. Nor it is a stain on their predecessors. It is a stain on all of us, who keep silent, who shut our eyes, who click our tongues, who stare at the television and who write statuses on social media. We dont always have the power to make a real change, but when we have a cowardly government whose ministers and Knesset members are more concerned about their seat than about their citizens wellbeing, the power is in our hands. We must pressure them, we must shake them up and, most importantly, we must not keep silent.
The Industry of HateAntisemitism, Racism, Prejudice is an exhibition focusing on the hundred years between the 1920s and the second decade of the twentieth century.

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It explores the inherent dangers of propaganda that enlists contemporary mass media for the kind of incitement to violence that reached a peak on the eve of World War II, when the ground was prepared for the annihilation of the Jewish people in the Holocaust.

(Photo: Industry of Hate Exhibition, Massuah)

The exhibition tracks the use of modern mass media for incitement (to violence, anti-Semitism), beginning with the rabble-rousing statements of the 1920s, up to the unrestrained and unbounded slanted remarks found on todays social media.

The first part of the exhibition highlights Nazi propaganda that, in tandem with terror, was the central means that the regime applied in persuading the German public to support its racist ideology. The exhibition helps us analyze the messages in the propaganda posters that the regime used to define the figure of the Jew as the Reichs enemya process that facilitated the persecution of Jews and other groups, and their exclusion from German society in the 1930s.

In the exhibitions second part, the focus is on the dehumanization of the Jews as the backdrop to the methodical murder by agents of extermination during WWII; it was instrumental in creating the indifference of bystanders to the fate of the persecuted.

Finally, the third part looks at the decades from the 1950s until today. It ranges from the immense hopes that the international community had learned the lessons of the Holocaust, to rising racist and antisemitic acts in the past decade.

At the end of WWII, a series of international treaties were signed centering on human rights: the 1949 Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Genocide Convention. Nevertheless, humanity has gradually retreated from those post-war aspirationsleading to new case of genocide, antisemitism, and racism.

The exhibition ends with the processes typifying present-day incitement in the social media.
A gunman opened fire on police on Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard Thursday night, killing one officer and wounding three people before police shot and killed him.

The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which hit just three days before a tense presidential election.
During the night, security forces arrested six wanted Palestinians in the West Bank, three of them suspected of violent disturbances. They were taken in for questioning.

In addition, the security forces seized six lathes used to create weapons alongside many pieces of weapons in a workshop in the Judea sector. The workshop was closed by the forces.
The Memory in the Living Room project, in which Holocaust survivors and their families come into people's living rooms and tell their personal stories, is set to take place this year for the seventh year in a row.

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Last year, more than half a million people marked Holocaust Remembrance Day by taking part in this project, but every year we say goodbye to more and more Holocaust survivors. Now, the project's founder is calling on people to continue to hold these meeting even if no Holocaust survivor is found to take part.

Adi Altschuler, Memory in the Living Room

"More and more people are turning to us in frustration and say they will not hold the event this year because they have no survivors," said Adi Altschuler, one of the founders of Memory in the Living Room.

"Memory in the Living Room was founded exactly for this reasonso the memory of the Holocaust doesn't depend on the survivors. Keep hosting Memory in the Living Room, even if you don't have a Holocaust survivor," she urged.

"We are here to sustain this thing even after they are gone. Unfortunately, the number of Holocaust survivors is diminishing. Let us all work together to shape Holocaust Remembrance Day so that it is accessible, meaningful and relevant even in their absence."

In light of the many appeals, the Memory in the Living Room website posted a kit explaining how to host the meetings without a Holocaust survivor.

"In the past few days, thousands of people have asked us to pair them up with Holocaust survivors or with members of the second generation to give testimonies in their living rooms," the website said. "Unfortunately, there are no Holocaust survivors left in our databases. And so we are imploring you: 'don't give up on Memory in the Living Room.'"

The kit includes recorded testimonies, among them Helena Birnbaum, who talks of her life in the Warsaw ghetto and the deportation to the concentration camps. This 7-minute testimony is suitable for evenings hosting second generation or academics. Another example is Baruch Shub's testimony about his escape from the Nazis and his joining the partisans. This testimony is suitable for adult salons and is 25 minutes long.

The kit also contains sections for reading, texts, lyrics and chords that are suitable for the event, as well as ideas for various activities and more.

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
Three young men, who tried to enter the emergency room at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya on Wednesday night, were filmed attacking and lightly injuring a security guard who tried to prevent their entrance.

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The police detained several suspects for questioning shortly after the incident, but later released them. "This is crossing a red line," said the director of the medical center, Dr. Masad Barhoum.

Three men assault a security guard in Nahariya hospital

X

The incident began after the hospital admitted casualties following a vehicular accident.

Three young men, residents of one of the villages in the valleys, claimed that they were relatives of one of the wounded and demanded that they be allowed to enter the emergency room.

In a video documenting the incident, it seems that relatively quickly, a verbal altercation with the security guard transformed into a frenzy of slaps and kicks. The three pushed the guard into the emergency room and he was hit in the neck.

Security footage from Nahariya hospital

The security department staff was called to the scene and took the suspects out of the emergency room. The security guard was treated in the emergency room. The relatives of the attackers were also released from the hospital after receiving treatment shortly after the incident.

"This is a serious crossing of a red line that unfortunately we have been experiencing in recent years in the health system in Israel in particular and in our society in general," said Dr. Barhoum.

"I am sure that the police and the judicial system will fully prosecute the perpetrators. Only deterrent punishment will prevent such cases from recurring I guarantee zero tolerance toward any attempt to harm the staff of the medical center," Barhoum concluded.

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
Hezbollah's information department gave journalists a tour of the border with Israel Thursday, highlighting new IDF fortifications , antennas, armored vehicles and watchtowersdefensive positions that Hezbollah guides claim will be overrun so that "resistance forces will penetrate their settlements ."

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In an interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), Mohammed Afif, head of Hezbollah's information department, said that Hezbollah is ready to repel any Israeli attack. Additionally, he also accused Israel and the IDF of waging a media and psychological war against Lebanon.

Hezbollah tour

X

Ihab, the Hezbollah officer leading the tour, added that Israel is listening to the remarks of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and is taking steps since the latter threatened to invade the Galilee.

Media outlets in Lebanon claim that the tour with Hezbollah was coordinated ahead of time with the Lebanese Army and UNIFILthe UN force stationed in southern Lebanon.

Press briefing (Photo: AP)

According to a report on new IDF border fortifications and obstacles by Al-Manar, Hezbollah's recent behavior is considered exceptional as the organization usually does not operate so openly. Uniformed Hezbollah operatives now operate on the border in contradiction to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War.

Italian UN forces from UNIFIL (Photo: AP)

Additionally, Hezbollah operatives work close to the perimeter fence and gather intelligence daily on IDF activity, though they usually take more precautions, such as wearing civilian clothes.

IDF patrols along the Israeli side of the border (Photo: AFP)

The Al-Manar report and journalist tour seem to highlight how anxiously Hezbollah is following the engineering plan of the Northern Command.

The project includes placing high concrete walls in sensitive areas along the border, manmade embankments and other obstacles in mountainous areas along the border.

Photo: AFP

The purpose of the project is to create significant difficulty for Hezbollah should it attempt one of its more ambitious projects of sending in dozens of armed special forces operatives with the goal of occupying an Israeli position or community. The goal being to present a quick picture of victory.

Israeli defensive construction (Photo: AFP)

The announcement by Hezbollah came against the backdrop of statements made by a senior IDF officer who claimed that the Shi'ite organization was in great distress due to its participation in the war in Syria and Iraq alongside Bashar Assada war which has affected some 8,000 Hezbollah fighters.

IDF installations on the Israeli side of the border (Photo: AFP)

As far as Israel is concerned, Hezbollah's display near the border proves how much of an internal and external crisis vis-a-vis the Arab world the organization is. Therefore, many believe that it is trying to create the impression that it is still defending Lebanon.

According to sources in the defense establishment, Hezbollah's press conference is blatant propaganda, but it is also conclusive evidence that Hezbollah is violating Security Council Resolution 1701 by being deployed and armed south of the Litani River.

Photo: AFP

Hezbollah operatives who conducted the tour refused to comment on the organization's handling of Israel's alleged new defense lines, but said that "for the first time in the history of the Zionist entity, the enemy uses defensive means and moves from the doctrine of attack to a doctrine of defense."

Hezbollah's move also has significance within Lebanon where the organization is taking criticism for operating in Syria alongside the Assad regime.

Photo: AFP

The anti-Hezbollah Al-Mustaqbal ("The Future") faction, identified with Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, attacked the organization following the border patrol, saying, "Once again Hezbollah presents a spectacle that provokes most Lebanese who followed the demonstration organized by Hezbollah for the local and foreign media on the border."

Photo: AFP

The statement continued by saying that the IDF certainly "looked at the demonstration, and perhaps even congratulated it because it was further proof that the IDF can use to say that the Lebanese state is not present and bears no responsibility in the border areas."

Photo: AP

The statement also claimed that it was a "media show that compensated for a long absence due to Hezbollah's involvement in the war in Syria and an attempt to rehabilitate its status in south Lebanon and in the country as a whole to divert attention from the campaigns, the pressures and the intensification of the sanctions it is complicating."

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that he was committed to Israels security on Friday afternoon during a joint press conference with Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman in the IDFs headquarters in Tel Aviv.

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Mattis began his remarks by stating his respect for Israel and its people, reaffirming his committment to ensure that genocide is never committed against the Jewish people again.

Im honored to return to Israel once again to show my respect for this country and for the Israeli people. I am keenly aware that we stand together this morning, just a week before the Holocaust Rememberance Day, and we share a common determination to never allow such horrific event to reoccur," he said.

Lieberman and Mattis hold press conference in Tel Aviv (:  )

X

Cooperation between the countries continues. I came from Saudi Arabia and other visits in the region, he said. In the meeting with Lieberman, we promised to establish the strong connection between Israel and the United States."

Turning to the issue of the ongoing Syrian civil war, Mattis said: "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt."

Photo: AP

He also warned that they would be "ill-advised" to use them again.

Addressing Iran's repeated threats against Israel, Mattis said that his country recognized the need to tackle its aggression.

Photo: Motti Kimchi

In addition to our campaign to defeat ISIS, we also recognize the need to confront the destabilizing activities of Iran. Iran continues to threaten Israel and its neighbors with ballistic missiles...through proxies and surrogates, including Lebanese Hezbollah, a terrorist organization helping to keep Assad in power in Syria.

Photo: Ariel Harmoni/Israeli Ministry of Defense

Asked whether the Syrian military had moved its combat aircraft to a Russian base in Latakia, Mattis said: "They have dispersed their aircraft, no doubt. They have dispersed their aircraft in recent days."

Meeting between Libermand and Mattis (:  )

X

It is the third such meeting Mattis has had with Lieberman since becoming the US defense secretary. He is set to meet later with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Photo: Ariel Harmoni/Israeli Ministry of Defense

During this meeting we had another in-depth conversation sharing a keen appreciation for the security situation facing Israel and our friends in the region and further refining the practical steps we are taking together to defend our shared security interest, he reflected.on the meeting.

Lieberman declined to comment on news reports that Israel believes Syria still holds between one ton and three tons of chemical weapons.
Recently discovered rare World War I-era pictures of an all-wood synagogue from Sniadowo, Poland, have been published for the first time. The unique structure was built in 1768, but burnt down, leaving no trace.

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However, the National Library of Israel has now published a series of rare photographs by Polish architect and historian Konrad Kalush, who photographed the structure before it burned down.

Sniadowo wooden synagogue (Photo: Israel National Library)

The photographs were discovered in the estate of the rabbi and researcher Shmuel Poznanski. They contain meticulous and unique documentation of the interior of the wooden synagogue, the dome of its magnificent Ark, and the Women's gallery.

The only documentation

The photographs themselves were part of an architectural memorial project by Konrad Kalush and his partner, the architect Oscar Sosnowski, in which the pair documented various structures of architectural importance in Poland.

Photo: Israel National Library

The builders and architects of the building have remained anonymous to this day.

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah 1913, Kalush and Sosnowski came to commemorate the synagogue with the lens of their camera not knowing that it would be the only documentation.

The photographs themselves immortalized not only the beautiful architectural structure of the ancient synagogue, but also the worshipers.

The synagogue itself was built in northern Poland as a structure known at the time as a model of Jewish architecture. In this area, synagogue construction was characterized by unique architecture that drew inspiration from a variety of sources.

Photo: Israel National Library

Interior decoration was also a unique element, since in various places in Europe it was forbidden to decorate the interiors of synagogues with paintings, so as not to distract worshipers from prayer.

The Russians burned, the Nazis destroyed

Although the synagogue began as a square structure, over the years it added various wings and galleries as well as decorations and artistic motifs such as the "broken" roof that appears to be made of different levels.

However, the highlight of the magnificent building was undoubtedly the bimah (alter) of the synagogue, which stood in its center, as is customary. Above this stage was a magnificent dome that became the focus of Kalush's photographs.

Photo: Israel National Library

According to historical documentation, there was a Jewish community at the end of the 19th century in which there were about 1,300 Jews.

During the First World War, the Russian commander ordered the town to burn the synagogue and expel its Jews, most of whom were deported to other countries.

Photo: Israel National Library

Until the German occupation, the Jewish community succeeded in recovering and growing to some 869 people, some of whom were engaged in the typical occupations of craftsmen and small merchants. Among them was even a filmmaker.

The Jewish inhabitants of the town continued to suffer harassment and riots by locals until the Nazi occupation in 1941, according to the Polish Jewish Heritage Center.

Photo: Israel National Library

Some of the Jewish inhabitants of Sniadowo were murdered by the Nazis in the town itself, and most of them were sent to the nearby omza Ghetto and finally to the Auschwitz death camp in 1943.

The photographs constitute the only photographed documentation of the magnificent synagogue and the only remnant of vibrant Jewish life in Poland in the period before the two World Wars.

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
The meeting of Palestinian schoolchildren and Israeli soldiers is not usually friendly, and their interactions often end in violent clashes. But in the hills of southern Hebron, Israeli soldiers walk Palestinian children to and from school every day.

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The children live in the Palestinian villages of At-Tuba and Maghayar Al Abeed in the south Hebron hills. To get to At-Tuwani, where the school is located, they need to walk more than four miles, and pass through a Jewish settlement called Havat Maon.

Every morning at 6:30am, an Israeli soldier driving an army jeep waits for the group of children, usually about a dozen of them, at the eastern gate of the settlement. The schoolchildren walk alongside the jeep until they reach the western gate of the settlement, a journey of about 15 minutes on foot. After leaving the settlement, they finish the journey by themselves.

In the afternoon, when school ends at 1:00 pm, the soldier meets them again, and they make the return trip. The soldier does not leave his jeep unless Jewish settlers threaten the children, either physically or verbally.

The soldiers are expected to intervene if an incident takes place and to notify the relevant bodies for additional measures to be taken, an Israeli army spokesman told The Media Line.

Sometimes the soldiers are late or dont come, Palestinians said. When that happens, the children take an alternative route through a valleya journey that takes about two hours.

Aside from being late or ignoring certain attacks, my biggest fear is trying to cross the flooded valley in winter time which could add another two hours to my trip as well as making me miss the first three classes of the day, Yusuf, 13, told The Media Line. He asked that his last name not be used.

In 2015, Soujud Mahmoud Ibrahim Awad from Touba village was walking with her cousin, bringing food and water to her uncle, who was farming nearby. Masked assailants threw stones at the two girls, causing serious head wounds.

After six hours, it is time to start the trek home. The students leave the school and meet the soldier in his jeep at the settlement. After the escort through the settlement, they continue their walk home.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

During their meeting, Netanyahu said, "We feel a great change has taken place in the direction of American policy It is appreciated throughout the world and in our region, and I think that this is a welcome change, a strategic change of American leadership and policy."
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Israel.

Mattis said that "especially in the week before the Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is important to remind ourselves that if good people do not unite, bad people will cause damage, and we are obligated to do whatever it takes to ensure that the next generation lives in peace and freedom."
Senior Christian leaders and heads of churches in Jerusalem warmly welcomed President Reuven Rivlin during his visit on Wednesday to the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalems Old City in honor of Easter. During the visit, the Israeli president spoke of the importance of the festivals of Passover and Easter that the Jewish and Christian communities had celebrated respectively in the last week.

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Rivlin was greeted by The Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III.

President Rivlin with Latin Patriarchate Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III (Photo: Kobi Richter/TPS)

The Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa commented on Israels solidarity and sensitivity to the Christian community.

It is a long tradition that the President of Israel receives the heads of the Christian churches at his residence towards the end of the civil year, said the archbishop. The fact that, despite our small number, you decided to come to us, makes your visit all the more appreciated.

We want to thank you for this sensibility towards the Christian presence in the Holy City, and in Israel in general, said Pizzaballa, adding that it was fascinating to see Israeli policemen arriving to the Holy City to help with the festivities, directing different faith groups to their holy sites.

He spoke of the many pilgrims who came to Jerusalem to celebrate Easter, from Egypt to Mauritius, from Europe to Asia, and from the Americas to Russia. Jerusalem was full of people with different colors, dresses, languages, traditions, and liturgies, which I am sure is impossible to find elsewhere in the world.

(Photo: Kobi Richter/TPS)

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III also shared his appreciation of the Presidents visit and pointed that in a world of confusion and peril, Jerusalem and the Holy Land are the only place where people can take refuge.

Your visit comes at a time when our region is experiencing despicable acts of violence against the human family. We appreciate your compassion and deep respect for human life, and your sensitivity to human experience, he said.

In these days of our common celebrations, we see the deep relationship that unites Jews and Christians as the children of Abraham, along with our Muslim sisters and brothers. This coming together of these feasts this year is a wonderful providential sign of hope, said Patriarch Theophilos.

President Rivlin, who in previous years had visited the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and Armenian Patriarchate to convey Easter holiday wishes, emphasized Israels solidarity with the Christian community. I say to you here, our Christian brothers of Jerusalem, our thoughts are with you at this difficult time. We have all seen the pictures from Syria; I visited some of the injured being treated in Israeli hospitals , said Rivlin, who also noted the brutal terror attacks on Egypts Coptic Christians

The Jewish people know better than any what it means to pray in fear, and suffer from terrorism, and I want to say to you that Israel will stand firm to protect your freedom of worship, your security, and the security of your holy sites.
A channel affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, who are opposed to the rule of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, published shocking footage Thursday of Egyptian soldiers executing prisoners in the Sinai.

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In a disturbing video, several uniformed and armed men are shown removing civilians from a military vehicle before shooting them in cold blood.

Egyptian soldiers allegedly executing prisoners

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It is unclear when the events depicted took place, but the video is circulating around social media networks.

The video showed a soldier picking up a weapon lying next to a body before shooting one of the civilians in the head. According to the channel, soldiers then placed the weapon next to the body in order to make it appear that the man was armed.

Additionally, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated channel claimed that the bodies in the video are identical to those published by a spokesman for the Egyptian military in December. The photos published on the spokesman's Facebook page were intended to show the el-Sisi regime's progress against terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula.

However, Egyptian media affiliated with the regime were quick to reject the allegations and cited several explanations in order to prove that the video was a mere fabrication aimed at tarnishing the Egyptian army.

Photo: Courtesy of Roi Kais

Egyptian news website Al-Bawaba reported that the Arabic spoken in a conversation between one of the Egyptian soldiers and one of the alleged executioners was not in the Egyptian dialect. They also claimed that the uniforms of the military were not the same, indicating that the video appeared to be fabricated.

The same channel that circulated the video, which broadcasts outside of Egypt, published a number of reports in recent years aimed at embarrassing the el-Sisi regime.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Photo: AFP)

One such video included a conversation that allegedly took place between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Yitzhak Molcho, an envoy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two were apparently discussing transferring the islands of Tiran and Sanafir.

The Egyptian army is currently engaged in operations to rid the Sinai of ISIS militants, who have established a presence in the area, periodically firing rockets at Israel and attacking Egyptian government forces.

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
Parent, teacher and student organizations criticized on Friday the decision of Minister of Education Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) to postpone the Lag BOmer vacation by a day in early May to avoid desecrating Shabbat.

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The Lag BOmer vacation had been scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 14, after lighting bonfires on the eve of the holiday, according to the Jewish calendar, but in the past few days, Haredi and religious figures asked Bennett to postpone the day off so that the bonfires would be lit on Sunday evening, instead of Saturday night, for fear of a mass desecration of Shabbat by people lighting the fires before sunset on Saturday. Bennett acceded to their request Friday morning.

Later on, it became clear that on the computer matriculation exam (the Bagrut) had been scheduled to take place on Monday. Following the ministers decision, that exam will have to be postponed. The Ministry of Education said that the new date would be set at the beginning of the week.

Last year's Lag B'Omer (Photo: Reuters)

Yaara Yeshurun, head of the organization Parents Working for Change, commented, For years, we have been told that vacation cannot be moved in the middle of the year. All of a sudden: Bam, its moved inside a second without consulting the parents. What does this mean? The vacation schedule was planned in advance; its just not acceptable.

A computer teacher who was told that the matriculation exams would be postponed complained, Its really irritating. They could have opened the calendar and seen things ahead of time. How can this be done now? How can they move a matriculation exam and not even tell us to when? Wheres the Ministry of Educations time management?

A pupil from Kiryat Bialik said that there is a sense of lack of consideration for students and teachers. Theyre moving dates, setting inappropriate matriculation dates and not listening to what is happening on the ground at all. Weve been preparing for the test for the past two years.

The Chabad Lubavitch movement, which had already planned events on the day, also expressed criticism, saying that it was too late to postpone those events due to contracts wigned with performers and venues.. Some 400 branches of the movement throughout the country are holding a special event on the Lag BOmer holiday, attended by 250,000 students on vacation.

Education Minister Bennett (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Avi Kaminsky, Chairman of the Israel Union of Education Directors in Local Municipalities, said that after a conversation with the director general of the Education Ministry it was clarified that there has indeed been a mishap and stated that better care would be taken to avoid such surprises in future.

He said that the data indicate that about one million residents in Israel are Shabbat-observant, and some of them have young children. It only makes sense that these pupils will also celebrate Lag BOmer and not at 9:00pm (after Shabbat ends). As both educators and public figures, we are committed to enabling all children in Israel to celebrate.

The Teachers Union agreed to postpone the holiday, provided that the decision was also made by the teachers organization, the student council and the parents organization. In addition, the union noted that a teaching employee who had booked a vacation in advance would not have it cancelled or the time deducted from their salary.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
Thursday's machine gun attack in Paris's Champs-Elysees Boulevard, in which a police officer and the shooter was killed, is deepening France's political divide, with presidential nominees reacting to the incident by going after the other nominees and promising to bring about change and security. The first round of voting is set to take place on Saturday.

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French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron, of the social liberal party En Marche! has called on the French people not to succumb to fear, division and intimidation.

The leading five candidates, left to right: Fillon, Macron, Melenchon, Le Pen and Hamon (Photo: AFP)

Following the shootings of police officers in Paris, which came just two days before the first round of the presidential election, Macron said in a video posted online: "the terrorist's will is to destabilize the country".

"In such circumstances, the role of the president of the Republic as the army chief and guardian of our institutions is to protect the French. I am ready," he said.

Macron, an independent centrist considered as one of the front-runners, recalled a series of security measures listed in his campaign platform: boost police and military forces and intelligence services, and pursue France's military operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

French conservative candidate Francois Fillon has pledged to keep the country under a state of emergency following the shooting of police officers Thursday in Paris.

In a statement at his campaign headquarters, Fillon said "the fight for the French people's freedom and security will be mine. This must be the priority" of the next president.

Fillon promised to boost police and military forces.

He also said that, if elected, he would launch a "diplomatic initiative" aiming to create an international collaboration against Islamic extremists that would include all major actors, including the United States, the European Union, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Gulf countries.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called on the government to restore France's borders immediately following the shooting of Paris officers in Paris.

The leader of the National Front wants France to exit the European passport-free Schengen area.

Shortly after the attack (Photo: AFP)

In a statement from her campaign headquarter in Paris, she asked the government and judicial authorities to handle the case of all individuals on the French territory known for "their adhesion to the enemy's ideology".

Le Pen stated she seeks to have foreigners signaled as Islamic radicals expelled from the country and French nationals identified for the same reason to face trial.

After Le Pen spoke scathingly earlier Friday of the government's fight against extremism, socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve noted that Le Pen's party in 2014 voted against an anti-terrorism law and, in 2015, against a law that beefed up resources for French intelligence services.

"She seems to be deliberately forgetting everything that has been done over five years to make people forget that she opposed everything, without ever proposing anything serious or credible," he said.

He added that "She seeks, without shame, to exploit fear and emotions for purely political ends."

Far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon said the candidates should not cave in to violence.

"As we wait for more definite information, I think we need to attend to our duties as citizens: no panic, we shouldn't interrupt our democratic process," Melenchon said.

Socialist long-shot Benoit Hamon, for his part, tweeted his full support to police against terrorism.

Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande visited a police officer who was seriously injured in Thursday's attack.

The president's office said Hollande went to the Hospital Georges-Pompidou with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl. The officer was one of two wounded in the attack, along with a German tourist. One police officer was killed before officers shot and killed the attacker.

Hollande also went to Paris police headquarters to pay tribute to police forces.

The two top contenders Sunday will advance to the runoff on May 7.

Confusion over ISIS claim of responsibility

A potential second suspect was identified as Youssouf El Osri. Belgian security officials had warned French counterparts before the attack that El Osri was a "very dangerous individual en route to France" aboard the Thalys high-speed train.

The warning was circulated more widely among French security services in the hour following the Champs Elysees attack.

Brandet later told BFM TV that a man with that name had turned himself in at a police station in Antwerp.

ISIS, which has hundreds of French-speaking fighters, claimed responsibility for the Champs Elysees shooting soon afterwards, in a statement identifying the attacker as "Abu Yousif al-Belgiki (the Belgian)".

El Osri's connection with either the downed assailant or the man named by ISIS (also known as the Islamic State) remained unclear on Friday.

"We don't understand why Islamic State has identified the wrong person," said a police source. "What does seem clear is that Islamic State was planning something."

ISIS has been losing territory in Iraq and Syria and has seen the number of foreign recruits, notably from Europe, dwindle.

The swift claim indicated the group may have been trying to capitalize on the widespread attention from a high-profile attack at a time when Islamic extremism and security are at the center of France's presidential campaign.

French officials: Gunman was previously detained

Two French officials have stated the gunman who shot and killed a police officer on the Champs- Elysees was detained in February for threatening police then freed.

The officials spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the probe into Thursday night's attack.

The officials said the gunman was detained toward the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police but then released for lack of evidence.

He was convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in shootings on two police officers.
Shortly after his meeting with his Israeli counterpart on Friday, the US secretary of defense met with the Israeli president and prime minister in separate meetings in Jerusalem.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received James Mattis and praised the relations between the two countries. Israel has no better friend than America, he began. America has no better friend than Israel. And this is a partnership based on common values in the deepest sense of the word. We sense a great change in the direction of American policy.

Mattis and Rivlin (Photo: Reuters)

We know that the very clear and forthright words, Mr. Secretary, that you had to say about Iran, this follows very strong and forthright words on the part of President Trump and very forthright deeds against the use of chemical weapons by Iran's proxy, Syria. This has been appreciated around the world and in our region. I think this is a welcome change, a strategic change of American leadership and American policy.

Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman accompanied Mattis to his working meeting with President Reuven Rivlin. The head of state welcomed Mattis and spoke of the high regard with which the former general was held by the IDF.

Mattis and Netanyahu (Photo: Reuters)

He added, It is a really great honor, a pleasure, to welcome you secretary of defense, not only as the secretary (of defense) of our greatest ally, but as a former general, and not only as a general, but as a real soldier, and a leader. The president went on to thank the US Administration, both past and present, for their firm support for Israel, and for the recent signing of the historic military aid package deal.

President Rivlin stressed the need for confidence building between Israelis and Palestinians and said, We are very committed to the need to build trust with the Palestinians, and I know you are devoted to this mission. The mistrust between the two peoples makes it almost impossible to find a way to bring to an end not only a conflict, but a real tragedy.

Lieberman with Mattis at Ministry of Defense (Photo: Ministry of Defense)

We are living together, we are sharing the same land (and) we have responsibilities that we have to trust one another in order to understand that we can live together. Sadly, we have wasted 120 years. The rejection by many of our neighbors, the Palestinians, of the very idea of the existence of the State of Israel does not help.

Mattis spoke of his appreciation for the warm welcome he had received in Israel and noted his pride at being the first member of the new US administration to visit Israel since taking office. He said, We are committed to Israels defense; we support Israels internal security and external security. Obviously the week before the Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is important we remind ourselves that if good people dont band together and work together across all religious and all ethnic lines, then bad people will dominate, and we are not going to allow it, we are going to work very, very closely.

He went to on to speak of the excellent security relationship between the two countries, and noted that the US saw in the threat of terrorism, and the threat posed by Iran, two significant threats that must not be allowed to overcome those who sought peace and prosperity for the region.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri asked the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Friday to help Lebanon and Israel move towards a permanent ceasefire and end what he called Israel's "continuous violations" of Lebanese territory. Hariri's request comes after Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah toured the Lebanese-Israeli border the previous day, in a show of force the likely prompted him to seek out a quiet front with Israel.

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Israel and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah group fought a month-long war in 2006 that concluded with a cessation of hostilities but without a formal peace deal.

Hezbollah tour of the border

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Hariri (R) touring the south of Lebanon with UNIFIL

"I urge the UN secretary general to support efforts to secure, as soon as possible, a state of permanent ceasefire. This is long overdue and my government is committed to move this agenda forward," Hariri said.

Hariri stepping off a helicopter on his way to a tour of south Lebanon

Hariri was speaking on a visit to south Lebanon a day after Hezbollah officials staged a media tour near the same area to view what they said were recent Israeli fortifications on the border and to state their preparedness in case of any new war.

Hezbollah forces touring the Lebanese-Israeli border; Hariri (Photos:EPA)

The tour drew a response from IDF Spokesperson Unit representative, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who said in a Facebook post that Hezbollah's media tour was to "shake their sabres and pound their chests".

Hezbollah officer giving press a tour of the border

Under UN resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Army is responsible for security on its side of the border in a zone from which any other armed force, including Hezbollah, is banned.

Hezbollah officer speaking to the press (Photo: EPA)

The United Nations also maintains a peacekeeping force on the border.

Resolution 1701 also required Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Lebanon says that Israel has not fulfilled this because it continues to occupy a disputed area known in Lebanon as the Shebaa Farms.
After a rocket siren was sounded in the Golan Heights earlier Friday shortly after 6pm, two yet to be identified objects were reported to have fallen in open areas in the north Golan Heights.

No injuries or property damage were reported.

The objects were likely debris from rockets fired at a Syrian target from inside Syria, which spilled over into Israel.
The head of the United Nations medical department, Dr. Gillian Farmer, will arrive in Israel next month with a delegation from her department to conduct a special recruiting seminar for doctors from Israel to join UN peacekeeping forces around the world.

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The move was initiated by Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who said that "Israel is seen as the ultimate place from which to recruite doctors for UN activities around the world. The need to integrate physicians in field positions and the search for experienced candidates in operational medicine have led to great interest in Israel, whose security, rescue and medical forces are a unique source of professionals with experience in the field. "

Israeli doctors in Cambodia (Photo: Embassy of Israel in Bangkok)

The organization's main target is doctors with operational experience, which will enable them to integrate into senior positions.

According to estimates by the Israeli delegation to the UN, the average salary for the various positions offered to physicians will be $120,000 a year, will include travel around the world as a UN diplomatic official.

Physicians interested in the position will have to have at least five years of experience and the ability to work in English or French. Sought after areas of expertise include trauma medicine, family medicine, pediatrics and psychiatry. Female physicians are particularly sought after.

Danon welcomed the UN decision to recruit doctors in Israel and said: "Israel's human capital is the secret to its success, and Israeli women are at the forefront. The UN understands the advantages of Israeli doctors, and we are proud that it chooses Israel as a target for new employees."
The IDF announced on Friday evening that it had attacked the sources of three mortars fired into the northern Golan Heights earlier that day.

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Friday afternoon, a mortar shell exploded in an open area in the northern Golan Heights. No alarm sounded at that time.

(File photo: Avihu Shapira)

Later, an alarm sounded shortly after 6pm in the area, and a short time later, two mortar shell hits were identified in Israeli territory. The IDF reported that there were no casualties and no damage was caused by any of the mortars.

In a statement, the army said, The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel or the security of its residents and will see the Syrian regime responsible for what happens within its territory.

It was also reported that the mortars were apparently a spillover from the internal fighting in Syria.

(Article translated and edited by J. Herzog)
The Tourism Ministry and Swedish airline SAS announced Thursday that the company would return its operations to Israel with a direct flight from Stockholm to Eilat, within the framework of the Tourism Ministrys Winter flights directive. The new route will operate from the upcoming winter season (2017/8).

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Tourism Minister Yariv Levin welcomed the announcement and commented, We have set ourselves the goal of bringing new direct routes to Israel and we are indeed witnessing an exceptional momentum of airlines flying into Israel and bringing with them record numbers of tourists.

Eilat

He added, We warmly welcome the Swedish tourists who will once again return to Eilat, thanks to the new route, and will enjoy an attractive tourism destination, especially in the winter season.

SAS Sales Manager Sweden Anders Wahlstrom commented, Eilat is located on the Red Sea in Israel's south coast and offers everything from white sandy beaches to spectacular hotels and nightlife. This is a city that has attracted visitors for decades. We see that more and more people want to travel with us to warmer destinations in the winter.

SAS previously operated in Israel, but it ceased operations in March 2016. Following overtures from the ministry, it was decided that SAS would join the directive offered by the Tourism Ministry for opening new direct flights to Eilat from Europe in the winter season. As part of the directive, airlines receive a 45 subsidy per passenger from the Tourism Ministry and an additional 15 from the Eilat Hotels Association.
More than the sense of scarcity and uncertainty about whether to pay the electricity bill or buy medicine, the terrible loneliness is the most difficult for elderly Holocaust survivors. Three such survivorsJulius, Ernest, Zvi and Svetlanapull back the curtain and show a glimpse into the at times sad reality that they face.

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On Thursday, the State Comptroller published a report that stressed the dire financial and physical reality for many Holocaust survivors, underscoring some serious oversight by the government to help them toward the end of their life. However, when asked about their day-to-day hardships, loneliness appears to be no less difficult.

'I'm nothing but a number'

Julius Brown, 80, lives alone in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. "I rarely leave the house. What do I have to do outside? What do I have to live for?"

Julius Brown (Photo: Eli Mandelbaum)

Regarding the Welfare Office, Brown states, "I'm nothing but a number to them. They don't come here. They claim they have so many cases to take care of. This country was established because of the reparations it received from Germany. They could have said, 'Guys, thank you very much, now it is our turn to help you.'"

Brown says he often thinks about suicide. "You remember the past. It comes back to you every time, and you tell yourself, 'What do I have to live for, let's end it and commit suicide, and then I think who will help others if I go because I'm actually trying to help others. When I'm alone I cry a bit and get into a little depression. Music is the only thing that can calm me down."

A broken kitchen with almost no food

Ernest Ravitzkin, also 80, lives in Netanya with his wife Irena in a foul-smelling, windowless room. Ravitzkin was four when World War II reached Ukraine. Together with his mother, they fled from the Nazis on a long and dangerous journey through the Soviet Union to seek refuge. Ernest and his mother survived the Holocaust, but the rest of his family did not.

Ernest Ravitzkin and his wife (Photo: Assaf Kamer)

After the war he immigrated with his wife to Israel, and today they live in one of the neighborhoods in northern Netanya in a neglected and disintegrating apartment with dozens of cats and an old dog. The dampness penetrates the holes in the walls and ceiling, and when it rains, the poor drainage in the yard channels the water straight into their house.

The Ravitzkins' apartment (Photo: Assaf Kamer)

Since the apartment has no windows, the front door must be left open for any air to come in. The marble in the couple's small, dimly lit kitchen is broken, the old sink rests on a wooden kitchen chair and the plumbing leaks. The refrigerator does not work, and there is hardly any food. The stale air in the apartment stinks of heavy mold and the strong smell of urine of dozens of cats living with them.

"The first time I came here I was in shock," says Eran Nir, entrepreneur and leader of the independent volunteer project "Lema'anam" ("For Them"), which provides food and support to Holocaust survivors through donations and volunteers. "It's very difficult to see these terrible living conditions, and as part of the project that I initiated, every three weeks we bring them food, but the refrigerator does not work and the kitchen is broken.

The Lema'anam project distributes basic food packages to 25 Holocaust survivors, and during Passover the volunteers distributed 70 additional packages. "A few years ago I started the project on my own. I asked the Netanya Municipality Welfare Department for the addresses of two Holocaust survivors in distress, and today we are dealing with dozens of others," says Nir. "Every year, some of the Holocaust survivors we help die, and there are always other people who need help, and our goal now is to bring a proper refrigerator to Ernest and his wife and fix the marble and sink in the kitchen."

'What do I have to live for?'

Zvi Weinberg, 84, is a Holocaust survivor from Romania who lives alone in Ashdod. 20 years ago, he lost his wife, Mardina. These days, a young student occasionally accompanies him outside the house. On Pesach, he stayed with the student's parents. Another volunteer visits Zvi every week, but sometimes the loneliness still wins out. "There are people who visit me now, but it was not always like that," says Zvi.

Zvi Weinberg (Photo: Avi Chai)

In the past year, Zvi has had a weekly meeting with a psychologist. A quick calculation shows that he sees people four out of 168 hours a week, not including his caretaker. "We don't see each other every week," he explains. "But I thank God for whoever comes by."

Weinberg is provided with an old-age pension from the National Insurance Institute of about NIS 1,800 and a stipend from the Treasury of NIS 2,200. In addition, he also receives a pension of NIS 3,000 from the Israel Railways. He does not, however, receive reparations from Germany. He lives in public housing and pays NIS 900 rent. "At my age, I need a lot of heating in the winter, and in the summer I need a lot of cooling; the electricity is my largest expenditure. You have to give up a lot of things to make it warm in winter and cold in the summer. Usually, you give up food, because you can't give up medication."

About a year ago, Weinberg went blind. "Is there anything worse? I can't even reach for a glass." He is entitled to a caregiver for two hours a day. "But what can you really do with two hours a day? There are days and weeks when I do not leave the house because there is no one to help me. The young student who assists me does not always come. Unfortunately, I find myself trapped inside the house."

In 1947, Weinberg immigrated to Israel as a child. "I served in four wars and served in combat engineering, and what do I get?" He says. "I do not have anyone, most of the time I'm alone at home, with four walls, and from the volunteers who come once a week you can't really ask for help. They come and talk to you and that's good, but that's not enough. There isn't anyone who truly represents Holocaust survivors; how can this be?"

A need for human contact

The survivors' harsh living conditions are also evident during a visit to the energetic and smiling Holocaust survivor Svetlana Zunis, 82, from Ukraine who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s. She lives in a tiny apartment in Netanya. "I remember terrible hunger in the eyes of a child. We ate bark and grass; there was nothing to eat," she says of the Holocaust. "Even in Israel, I settle for little, I am used to it from the war."

Svetlana Zunis (Photo: Assaf Kamer)

Although Zunis worked as a Russian teacher in the former Soviet Union, like many immigrants from Ukraine, she does not receive a pension and is forced to survive only from the National Insurance Institute. "In Ukraine there is chaos and war, they are miserable, and here I receive NIS 2,900 from the National Insurance Institute and pay NIS 2,060 for the apartment."

Zunis receives guests at her apartment (Photo: Assaf Kamer)

The occasional volunteer visit slightly alleviates Svetlana's loneliness. She sings Nir's praises, smothering him with caresses and kisses, and it is clear that she needs not only food and money for her medication, but also human contact.

President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, says that it is sad to see how thousands of elderly people and survivors continue to live alone and in need.

He goes on to say that while it is a failure and a moral stain on all of Israeli society, but apart from the state, it is the responsibility of every citizen in Israel to care for the quality of life of the survivors and all the elderly here, and not to neglect them. He adds that it is not enough to remember those who perished, but also imperative to act today for those who survived and are still living among us.

Mirit Harari, Chairman of the Board of Directors of volunteer organization Sahi, said that "This generation of founders and veterans who came from the Diaspora to Israel and built it through all the hardshipwe must not forget them for a moment."

Speaking about Sahi's volunteer work, Harari added that "Our young people renovate their homes, take care of their groceries, distribute flowers to them, and especially thank them. Thank you for building a state for us. Those who do not appreciate and cherish the heroes of the past who established the state cannot build a meaningful future."
President Reuven Rivlin and his wife hosted Wednesday the Danielle PrizeHealing with a Heart Awards Ceremony of 2017 at their official residence. A special prize was also awarded to the eponymous doctor immortalized in the 1998 film Patch Adams by the late Robin Williams.

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The Danielle Prize, presented to 12 doctors and nurses employed in hospital oncology units in Israel, acknowledges the efforts of hospital medical personnel who distinguish themselves in the compassion and care that they bestow upon their patients. This is the prizes second consecutive year.

Dr. Patch Adams hugging Nechama Rivlin (Photo: Mark Neiman/GPO)

Dr. Patch Adams, an American physician who pioneered the concept of hospital clowns to bring joy to suffering patients, was awarded the Danielle Prize in appreciation of his lifelong endeavors on behalf of patients that promote the cause of healing with the heart around the world.

Back row: Prize winners; front frow L-R: Eli Yishai, Yaakov Litzman, Reuven Rivlin, Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked (Photo: Mark Neiman/GPO)

Being a good doctor is more than just understanding the science of medicine; Its understanding the science of the human being, President Rivlin remarked at the event. Medicine, advanced as it may be, that lacks compassion, devotion, goodness of heart and love of mankind is sorely deficient.

A good doctor is more than just a skilled professional; he is one who manifests personal integrity and dedication. A good doctor is one who treats the patient, not just the illness. It was Maimonides who said that the illness of the body and soul must be treated jointly, and a good doctor views each patient as one and only, special.

After receiving his prize, Dr. Patch Adams shared, I can't imagine a prize more beautiful than a prize given for compassion. It is a thing that could save the world. It is a great honor to be called compassionate.

President Rivlin with Dr. Adams (Photo: Mark Neiman/GPO)

I've clowned in 83 countries. People hunger for love all around the globe. For me, clowning is a trick to get love close. As a clown I can do things that people are too frightened of love to allow you to do. According to my experience, love and compassion can cure; they are real pain relievers.

Among those attending the ceremony were Minister of Health Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau, Minister of Education Naftali Bennett, Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked and former ministers Professor Rabbi Daniel Hirschkowitz and Eli Yishai.

Full list of 2017 Danielle PrizeHealing With a Heart awardees:
US President Donald Trump said he struck "no deal" for the release of an Egyptian-American charity worker who had been detained in the country for nearly three years.

Aya Hijazi, 30, and her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, an Egyptian, returned to the Washington area Thursday. She met Friday with Trump in the Oval Office. Trump had hosted Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi at the White House at the beginning of this month. The two leaders discussed the case at the time.

"He was here, I said I really would appreciate it if you could look into this and let her out," Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I asked the government to let her out." Former President Barack Obama had worked on the case and "got zippo," Trump noted.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that Syria had dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retained chemical weapons, an issue he said would have to be taken up diplomatically.

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During a press conference alongside Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Mattis was asked whether the Syrian Army had moved warplanes to a Russian base in Latakia, likely as a way to protect themselves against another US attack.

Mattis (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"They have dispersed their aircraft, no doubt. They have dispersed their aircraft in recent days," Mattis said.

Mattis also reiterated that the United States believed Syria had retained some chemical weapons.

Mattis and Lieberman during their joint visit to the IDF Headquarters in Tel Aviv's Kiryah base

"The bottom line is, I can say authoritatively they have retained some (chemical weapons). It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically," Mattis said.

The United States launched dozens of missiles earlier this month against a Syrian air base in response to a chemical attack that killed 90 people, including 30 children. It says the Syrian government launched the attack from the Shayrat air base. The Pentagon has said that the strike had damaged or destroyed about 20 percent of the Syrian military's operational aircraft.

While human rights organizations such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons have said that sarin or a similar banned toxin was used in the April 4 strike in Syria's Idlib province, the Syrian government has denied it has any chemical weapons or that it was responsible for the attack.

"We think it was fabricated. To us, there was no chemical attack and no chemical depot. It was a fabricated play to justify the attack on the Shayrat air base, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Sputnik and RIA on Thursday.

The IDF said on Wednesday it believed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces still possessed several tonnes of chemical weapons.

In a 2013 agreement brokered by Russia and the United States, Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons.

Mattis meeting Netanyahu during his visit to Israel (Photo: Reuters)

In addition to Lieberman, Mattis met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin . Before the start of his talk with Netanyahu, Netanyahu said he was optimistic about relations between the two countries under the new US administration.

Mattis with President Rivlin (Photo: Reuters)

Later on Friday, air raid sirens sounded in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights when two mortars fired from the Syrian side of the frontier struck an open area, causing no damage or injuries, Israel's military said.

In response , the IDF said it "targeted the launch sites" by attacking in Syria. The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel or the security of its residents and will see the Syrian regime responsible for what happens within its territory.
Orthodox politicians said on Thursday that they would fight Wednesdays High Court of Justice ruling permitting mini-markets to remain open on Shabbat.

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Leaders of the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, as well as Bayit Yehuda Ministers Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convene an urgent session for coalition members to draft a series of measures to defend a verdict they consider a breach in the walls of the Shabbat.

Rabbis LR: MK Moshe Gafni, Minister Yaakov LItzman, Minister Aryeh Deri (Photos: Gil Yohanan, Alex Kolomoisky & Ohad Zwigenberg) (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg, Alex Klomoisky and Gil Yohanan)

In addition, Interior Minister Rabbi Aryeh Deri (Shas) asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to use his authority to ask the court to reconsider the issue with an expanded panel of judges, and Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) said his party would propose legislation that would seek to undermine the ruling. UTJ colleague MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni said the poor decision would turn Shabbat into a regular workday both in Tel Aviv and around the country.

Gafni also said the change in the religious status quo violates coalition agreements.

Notably, not all religious elements in Israel disagree with the ruling. The Hiddush organization, headed by Reform Rabbi Uri Regev and which bills itself as being for religious freedom and equality, hailed the decision, calling it a victory over religious coercion.

The High Court of Justice acted in a balanced, responsible way, once again heeding the will of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public, the core values of freedom of religion and conscience, as well as a profound respect for the Jewish Shabbat, Hiddush said in a statement. All proponents of democracy should welcome the courts decision, which emphasizes the will of the local citizenry, and views this as a proper expression of Israels identity as a Jewish and democratic state.

Some Orthodox groups also welcomed the decision, or at least expressed concern about political threats to re-institute civil laws to enforce Shabbat observance. David Stav, the chief rabbi of Shoham and founder of the Tzohar rabbinic organization, told TPS that religious authorities who want to promote the sanctity of religious law must inspire people to follow it, not force them.

Shabbat is a gift to the entire Jewish nation, and one of the foundation stones of the public sphere in the State of Israel.

Rabbi David Stav (Photo: Yossi Zeliger)

At the same time, the time has come for religious parties to understand that they cannot force people to observe Jewish law against their will via legislation, Stav said.

Asked whether the pledge to fight the High Court ruling was more than a show of political power, Stav said he did not want to talk about politics. But he quickly added that if Orthodox politicians are truly committed to the preserving the sanctity of Shabbat, they must be willing to demand that their followers pay a price to prevent non-observant Israelis from violating Jewish law.

For example, in two weeks, we will mark Lag BOmer on a Saturday night, he said. But in order to ensure public safety and security during the celebrations, thousands of policemen and firefighters will have to spend their Shabbat in violation of Jewish law.

If Shabbat is really that important to the Orthodox political parties, let the Orthodox parties call on their communities to push off Lag BOmer bonfires for 24 hours, to Sunday night. In my view, that is really the sort of test to indicate whether they are truly committed to the sanctity of Jewish law and the Sabbath, Stav said.

The courts decision stemmed from a 2014 attempt by the city of Tel Aviv to draft a bylaw to bypass national laws prohibiting most forms of commerce on Shabbat by allowing small (less than 500 square meter) mini-markets and kiosks to operate on Shabbat.

But the ordinance requires the signature of the interior minister to become law and the last three interior ministers  Gideon Saar, Silvan Shalom, and current Minister Aryeh Deri  all dodged the issue because of its strong religious and political implications. In February, the Tel Aviv municipality petitioned the court to force Deri to rule on the matter.

Additional reporting by Andrew Friedman
The clock is ticking.

Nebraska must quickly find short-term solutions for its troubled Corrections Department

Gov. Pete Ricketts has less than 10 days to decide whether the State of Nebraska wants to declare a corrections emergency or be sued.

ACLU Nebraska pledged Monday to file a federal lawsuit against the state Department of Correctional Services if Ricketts stands pat.

Earlier legislative efforts identified and analyzed many of the concerns the ACLU letter cites about the prison system, including inadequate staffing, inadequate safety and inadequate inmate access to health care and counseling.

The state is taking steps that are expected, in the long term, to improve prison staffing, safety, counseling and health care. Officials also appear to be following through on pledges to improve the prison systems rehabilitation efforts rather than simply warehousing inmates.

Ricketts two-year budget proposes spending another $20.1 million on prisons and staffing. He proposes spending $75 million over multiple years to add prison space for older inmates and those with mental illness. Those plans, if approved by the Legislature, would help set up the states prison system to succeed.

But improvements on that scale will take years.

The state needs to outline what more it can do in the short term to address prison crowding and staffing problems.

Last weekend brought another reminder of urgency, with inmate unrest and a fire at Lincolns Diagnostic and Evaluation Center. That follows previous trouble at Tecumseh, which has seen two deadly upheavals since Ricketts took office.

Progress has been slow in resolving such problems, as well as in hiring and retaining staff, despite efforts by the Legislature, the governor and court system.

Nebraskas prisons remain troublingly crowded. They hold about 2,000 more inmates than they were designed to house, above the 140 percent threshold that has triggered federal lawsuits in other states.

Ricketts, through a spokesman, expressed little interest this week in declaring a corrections emergency, which would require paroling eligible inmates until the state gets its prison population to a level the prisons director certifies as manageable.

Some state senators, frustrated with continued violence and staffing shortages, are considering yet another special committee on prisons. If they pursue that course, they should do so with a clear understanding of what they aim to accomplish.

One area worth probing: short-term options to buy the state time. What might ease crowding now? Could the state make more use of county jails? Does the Parole Board need to parole more inmates who are eligible but might pose moderate risk? Are there other steps that could bring relief quickly?

The state needs to find some answers for Corrections quickly. The clock is ticking.
YORK  Sydney Thieszen, who at the age of 14 killed his 12-year-sister, Sacha, at their Henderson-area home, has been serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Hes been in prison nearly 30 years.

But because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, saying juvenile defenders sentenced to life must be given the chance of parole, he was resentenced in the same courtroom where he was convicted in the first place.

On Friday, York County District Judge James Stecker pronounced Thieszens new sentence  70 years to life. That means that after good time calculations (in which his credit for time already served is determined), Thieszen could be eligible for parole in five years, as he must serve at least 35 years before being considered.

It should be noted that Thieszen is also serving a consecutive sentence for use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. That sentence, which was handed down in 1996, remains and was not considered by Judge Stecker. The department of corrections will determine how that sentence affects Thieszens parole eligibility, in terms of time served.

After Thieszen and 25 other Miller defendants (who had been sentenced to life as juveniles) were identified for resentencing in Nebraska, these types of proceedings have been taking place in district courtrooms across the state.

And Friday, in the courtroom in York County, dozens of people were on hand to hear allocution by the state and the defense . . . and witness Judge Stecker proclaim the sentence.

This crime was violent, brutal and utterly senseless, Judge Stecker said to Thieszen. In execution style, you shot her in the back of the head, put her in the tub and with precision shot her twice more, once in the head and once in the chest. You robbed her of the rest of her life, you took away her teenage years, her time in high school and college, you took away her opportunity to have a profession, to marry and have children. You left her with no escape, no way for her to be saved.

Prior to sentencing, Sharon Hanke, the adopted sister of Sydney and Sacha, read a victim impact statement.

My sister, Sacha, at the age of 12, was brutally murdered, Hanke said, with the courtroom audience becoming emotional. Violent crime such as a murder changes who you are, it changes how you see life, it changes how you live life. Nothing is ever the same again. This is a case where everything and everyone failed. His biological mother abused him. HHS put him with a family who was completely inadequate to care for such a child that had been so abused.

And in the end, he chose murder, Hanke continued. I will never believe he killed her for trying to stop him from running away. He planned this for months, it was carefully planned and calculated. Hed already decided which weapon he wanted to kill everyone with. Hes never shown remorse for what hes done to our family. He begged and pleaded to be adopted (at the age of nine, after living with them for five years), and then he says now that he never wanted to be adopted by our family. We loved him like a brother and we all felt he fit with our family. How can a person even wrap their head around such betrayal by someone you loved for years? My parents are in hiding, my siblings lives are in shambles, my lifes been forever changed and not for the good. I was the one who cleaned up Sachas blood  do you know what that does to a person?

When Ms. Hanke took the stand . . . as lawyers, we get immersed in books and the law and arguments and we forget about people, said Corey OBrien, an attorney with the Nebraska Attorney Generals office. We forget about people, emotions and loss. Ive been doing this 20 years, Ive handled many homicide cases and these Miller cases. The seriousness of it all is staggering. What this victims family had to endure . . . This dates back to 1987, as they dealt with the shock and awe because a family member committed a brutal murder of another family member. To deal with that tragedy  a brother who committed murder and a sister who was killed. It is mind blowing. The family began the long road to healing, but was delivered another jolt in 1996 when his conviction was reversed because some words were missing from a statute. And then they had to go through a jury trial, day after day of gut wrenching testimony. I feel for them. I realize the court system is an insensitive beast not designed for victims where defendants have more rights than they do. There was another conviction and this family was able to say they would never have to worry about this again. Then came the Miller decision which was another blow and now they have to go through this.

I dont have all the answers, but I do have an obligation to do whats right for this state, for the law, this family, this community and for the defendant, OBrien said. I do question if hes genuine in what hes told us, if he has accepted responsibility, if he does have the tools to live a law abiding life.

Thieszen also addressed the court, on his own behalf.

Last night, I was working on this, Thieszen said, becoming emotional. I couldnt find the words. It all just falls short. Sacha was a beautiful, innocent 12-year-old girl. She was a daughter, a sister and a friend. She had a lifetime of potential ahead of her. Theres not a day in my life that I dont feel sorry and remorse for what I did . . . I took the precious life of that little girl. She died alone and afraid at the hands of her brother, a person she loved and trusted. What I did was unfathomable. And the family and the community suffered as well. What is proven here today is that time does nothing to diminish this crime. It is nothing less than heartbreaking. It will never leave me, even after all this time. I wake up with it in the morning, I go to bed with it at night. The only relief I ever find are in the moments when I am giving of myself to others. My search for penance and atonement are sincere and never ending.

Jeffrey Pickens, Thieszens attorney, told the court, the murder of Sacha was tragic and senseless. Sacha was the victim, the family was a victim and he was a victim, too. He lost his family, they abandoned him before he was even sentenced. At 15, he went to prison without any support from the outside. At that age, he was placed in the general population of a maximum security prison. It is hard for me to imagine  that wouldnt happen today. We are not excusing kids who murder. No one is making excuses. They just cant be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, they cant be thrown away. He said that not a day goes by that he doesnt think about what he did. In his letter he said, I ended the life of a little girl and altered many lives. The ripple effect is immeasurable and Ill never forget it. The Supreme Court described this case as a tragedy in which she lost her life and his life (as it was) ended.

Prior to sentencing, Judge Stecker reviewed facts from the case as presented by both the prosecution and defense.

The psychological evaluations showed that you were immature and impetuous at the age of 14, Judge Stecker said to Thieszen. Your biological mother clearly abused you until the age of four. Then the Thieszens brought you up in a structure environment  it appears they were a loving family and they disciplined to fix your behavior. You did not modify your behavior. When you were younger, a relationship had developed (between him and the family), and at 12 your behaviors began to manifest themselves. In 1986, you sexually assaulted a foster child in the home. There were incidents at school in which you harassed girls in a sexual manner. I also have to note that your gun had been taken away due to you shooting at property and chickens, you stole money from your parents, you were peeking at your sisters and there was the sexual assault of a foster sister. At the time of the offense, you indicated no remorse  I do note that now you have remorse and regret for your actions. You indicated to your classmates that you wanted to kill your parents and a sister, although you hadnt specified which sister.

Judge Stecker also noted that during Thieszens time in prison, he has had more than 200 discipline reports, including one for threatening to kill an inmate, one for inappropriate touching of a female, multiple for testing positive for marijuana use and several for destroying property.

OBrien had argued for a substantial sentence so Thieszen will have time to acquire the skills to transition, to achieve a full realization of wrong, to protect society and send the message to other children that murder, not matter the age, is not acceptable. Its important the court sends a message that it is not acceptable to commit homicide, at any age, and society will not accept it.

Following sentencing, Thieszen was returned to the maximum security prison facility at Tecumseh where he will continue to serve his sentence.
LINCOLN  A proposal that would let Nebraska officials hide the identities of lethal injection suppliers drew criticism Wednesday from death penalty opponents but support from lawmakers who say the state needs it to resume executions.

It was unclear whether the bill had enough support to overcome a filibuster, but the senator who introduced it said he believes he has a decent chance to advance it through the Legislature.

Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell said the bill seeks to protect drug makers who would otherwise face public harassment from death penalty opponents. Commonly used lethal injection drugs have become scarce because many North American and European pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell drugs for use in executions.

I believe the harm created by this disclosure far outweighs any alleged benefit, said Kuehn, a veterinarian who said he has faced drug shortages in his practice.

Lawmakers began debate on the bill Wednesday but adjourned for the day without voting on it.

Kuehn said concealing the suppliers identity would allow Nebraska officials to purchase drugs from a domestic supplier, such as a compounding pharmacy, to circumvent the problems associated with importing overseas drugs.

Kuehn said he never wanted to deal with capital punishment when he ran for office, but he views the loss of legitimate drugs as too great a problem. He said the suppliers identity was irrelevant to the drugs quality.

I truly do believe this is an issue of social justice, he said.

Opponents said the state should keep its current transparent process that requires the Department of Correctional Services to disclose its suppliers.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, a staunch death penalty opponent, predicted the bill would trigger new appeals and that the courts would make mincemeat out of it. Chambers said death penalty supporters should blame themselves for the drug shortage.

They took something that was wholesome, something designed to promote health, and turned it into a killing substance, Chambers said.

Nebraska corrections director Scott Frakes has said he has already started to look for drugs to carry out executions, but told a legislative committee in February that it would be very difficult to acquire them if the department was forced to identify its suppliers.

Of the 31 states with the death penalty, 15 have enacted similar shield laws.

Gov. Pete Ricketts approved a new lethal injection protocol in January that gives the Department of Correctional Services greater flexibility to choose which drugs are used in executions. An early draft of the protocol included a secrecy provision, but Frakes said department officials removed it after deciding they first needed legislative approval.

Voters signaled their support for the death penalty last year when they overturned the Legislatures 2015 decision to abolish capital punishment. The issue was placed on the ballot through a referendum partially financed by Ricketts, who supports capital punishment.

Death penalty supporters portrayed the vote as a mandate for state officials to resume executions. Nebraska hasnt executed an inmate since 1997, using the electric chair. The state has 10 men on death row, but has never carried out the punishment with lethal injection.

We do not have the right to obstruct justice, and that is what is happening here, said Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte. Defendants sentenced to death are the worst of the worst of the human race. They chose their fate.

Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Omaha, a death penalty opponent, said voters never specified whether they supported concealing suppliers identities.
As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More
Zabka, Warszawa, 166 m2

Lokal znajduje sie w budynku apartamentowym Unimax Development w inwestycji Viva Vitolin, przy ul. Grochowskiej 87 w Warszawie. Bedzie dostepny w 4Q 2023 roku (podpisanie umow przeniesienia wasnosci).
Caracas: Armed gangs attacked a Venezuelan hospital where 54 children were housed on Friday, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said, blaming opponents of President Nicolas Maduro after another day of violent unrest.

"I denounce before the international community that armed gangs hired by the opposition attacked a maternity hospital with 54 children," Rodriguez tweeted, noting that Maduro had ordered the hospital's evacuation without specifying its location.
District of Columbia: A pilot preparing to land on the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, heading for waters off Korea, was forced to eject on his final approach, the Pentagon said Friday.

The unidentified pilot of the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet was picked up by helicopter from waters of the Celebes Sea, between Indonesia and the Philippines, according to a statement from the US Seventh Fleet. It said there were "no apparent injuries."

The supercarrier Vinson is the heart of a naval strike group that US officials said on April 8 was being sent toward Korea, amid soaring tensions there. The navy admitted Tuesday that the ships initially sailed in the opposite direction on an earlier mission before eventually turning north.
Los Angeles: An off-duty police officer from California has been detained in Taiwan for a week after alerting authorities that she had inadvertently flown there with a gun in her hand luggage, officials said on Friday.

Officer Noell Grant arrived in Taiwan on April 13, intending to vacation with her family, and notified authorities at the airport that she had mistakenly left a personal handgun in her carry-on bag, Lieutenant Saul Rodriguez, of the Santa Monica police department, told AFP.

He said Grant has been barred from leaving Taiwan until the matter is resolved, but was free to move about.

Federal officials today acknowledged that proper security procedures at the Los Angeles airport were clearly not followed given that Grant was able to board the flight with her gun.

Nico Melendez, of the Transportation Security Administration, said authorities had "determined standard procedures were not followed and a police officer did in fact pass through the (airport) checkpoint with a firearm."

Rodriguez said it was unclear whether Grant would face disciplinary measures on her return to California.


Itanagar: The powerful All Arunachal Pradesh Students` Union (AAPSU) on Friday described Beijing`s move to rename six places in the state as an "uncalled for" and unwarranted act.

It also termed Beijing`s move to rename six places in Arunachal in the backdrop of Dalai Lama`s recent visit to the state as intriguing and unnecessarily interfering into the internal affair of a sovereign nation.

"History is the living witness that Arunachal was never a part of China at any given point of time," AAPSU President, Hawa Bagang said.

"Such parochial approach and idea won`t have any takers in the state of Arunachal Pradesh who are one of the most patriotic people in the country," he said.

The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on April 14 on its website that it had standardised in Chinese characters, Tibetan and Roman alphabet names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls "South Tibet".

The six names are Wo`gyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidengarbo Ri, Mainquka, Bumo La and Namkapub Ri. The state-run Global Times, which reported the ministry`s move on Tuesday, did not say which six places in Arunachal Pradesh were being referred to.

China had strongly protested the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to Arunachal Pradesh, especially Tawang earlier this month.

Describing the development "uncalled for" and "unwarranted" act on part of the China government, Bagang said: "It is a deliberate plan to create confusion and commotion for their long term sinister design in the international community."

On Thursday, India had dismissed China`s act of giving its own names to six places in Arunachal Pradesh, saying "it doesn`t make illegally held territory legal".
Hyderabad: At least 20 people were killed on the spot and several others injured when a truck driver lost control and hit an electric pole before ploughing the vehicle into pedestrians, cars and shops the in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh on Friday.

According to news agency ANI, the tragic incident happened at around 1:45 pm, when a large number of people had gathered in front of the Yerpedu police station located on the Putalapattu-Nayudupeta state highway to stage a dharna to demand action against illegal sand mining in the area.

The incident took place at Yerpedu, which is about 25 km away from Tirupati.

20 killed in a road accident in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

Police, investigating the case, believes the truck driver was drunk. The heavily-loaded truck moving with high speed, when it lost control and hit an electric pole before crushing several people under its wheels.

The truck came to a halt after destroying several vehicles and road side shops, which were gutted in a fire that broke out in one of the shops due to impact of the accident.

The driver and the cleaner absconded after the accident.

Giving more details about the mishap, Renigunta Deputy Superintendent of Police KS Nanjndappa said six people were crushed under the wheels of the truck, while the remaining 14 died of electric shock with high tension wires falling on them and fire in the shops.

The traffic movement on the Yerpedu, Srikalahasti, Renigunta and Tirupati routes has been affected, ed.

Those injured in the incident have been shifted to Ruia hospital in Tirupati, while few others have been rushed to Chennai and Vellore. The condition of 10 of the injured is said to be critical.

The Andhra Pradesh government announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the deceased.
Hyderabad: A youth was detained on Friday over a derogatory post on social media against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, police said.



A police team from Guntur district took Ravi Kiran into its custody from his house in Shamshabad on the outskirts of Hyderabad.



Kiran allegedly made derogatory comments about Naidu, his son IT Minister N. Lokesh and the state legislative council and also posted their caricatures and photoshoped pictures on Facebook.



Police said a decision on whether to arrest Kiran or not will be taken after questioning.



A member of the legislative council had complained to council chairman Chakrapani about the posts. The police were then alerted.



Ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) suspect the involvement of some YSR Congress leaders in what it calls a campaign on social media to defame its leaders.
Patna: Expelled RJD MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav was on Friday released from Beur jail here after 25 days following his arrest on March 27.

The Madhepura MP secured bail from Patna High Court on April 19 and was released today, Beur jail officials said.

Yadav's supporters who gathered outside the jail celebrated his release by distributing sweets.

From the jail, the Janadhikar Party chief proceeded straight to Motihari to meet family members of two union leaders of a private sugar mill who died after self-immolation attempt on April 10 to protest against non-payment of arrears.

Yadav told PTI that he would provide Rs 50,000 to each of the two family on behalf of Janadhikar Party.

"Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad have no time to meet the two bereaved families. But, I thought I should go straightway to them in their hour of grief," he said.

Yadav was arrested from his residence in Patna on March 27 night after his party activists clashed with policemen during a programme to gherao the state Assembly.

However, he was arrested not in connection with the clash but in an earlier case in which he was charged with creating law and order problem on January 24.

His wife and Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan had raised in Lok Sabha the issue of Yadav's arrest and also his hand-cuffing during production in a Patna court. Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had lend support to her on the matter.

Subsequently, 11 policemen were suspended on April 6.
Designed as a pulpy thriller, Maatr is an astutely plotted, violent revenge saga which is presented to highlight the over 3 crore rape cases pending in the Indian courts.

Set in Delhi, it is the story of Vidya Chauhan, a history teacher, who is the victim of a terrible act of violence. She along with her daughter Tia, is brutally gang raped and left on a desolate road for dead. Tia dies but Vidya survives the brutal act only to face a harsher reality -- a complete break-down of her marriage and an unhelpful police force who fail to deliver her justice.

Left with no other choice, Vidya is a one-woman force who seeks revenge by eliminating her seven perpetrators one-by-one.

With a taut plot that seems straight from a novella, the writing by Michael Pellico is extremely vivid, far-fetched and full of overwrought melodrama. But with well-defining characters delivering gripping performances and right amount of action and drama, Director Ashtar Sayed succeeds in making the tale engrossing.

In an author-backed role, which is touted to be her come-back film, Raveena with her steely hauteur is utterly arresting in this provocative film. She exercises restraint, exudes an eerie calmness and yet injects fresh blood to her persona. This is clearly a performance no other actor in her age bracket could have pulled off with such ease. Even though her character is wounded, her spirited performance, though flaunted with faulty and excessive make-up, emerges as a compelling element in the film.

In a miniscule role, Rushad Rana as Vidya's spineless and inconsiderate husband Ravi, is aptly cast. You resent him for being a disgruntled and insensitive human being when he spews, "She should not have taken that turn...Did she think twice before taking that turn?" The line also sounds as an allegory to the situation.

Divya Jagdale is naturally charming as Vidya's friend, the artist Rita Adhikari, and she makes her presence felt with her under-written yet over-protective traits.

Of the antagonists, Madhur Mittal as Apurva Malik is every bit the obstinate and repulsive guy he is meant to be. He essays his character with ease.

With minimal dialogues and controlled camera work, the film offers a realistic feel. The songs, Zindagi Ae Zindagi sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Aisi Hoti Hai Maa sung by Kavita Seth are appropriately used to propel the emotional quotient of the narrative. The background score and the production design add to the viewing experience.

Overall, Maatr is a raw and powerful tale that is crisply told albeit a tad fictionalised.

By Troy Ribeiro
Mumbai: Veteran actress Sridevis upcoming thriller drama film Mom has been slated for release on July 7.

Sridevi will be making a comeback with Mom after five years. She was last seen onscreen in English Vinglish.

The movie, which was earlier scheduled to release on July 14, will now hit the screens on July 7, read a statement on behalf of the makers.

Directed by Ravi Udyawar, the film has been backed by Sridevi's husband Boney Kapoor and Zee Studios.

The film also features Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Akshaye Khanna.
New Delhi: An initiative to make a remote village cashless in the Naxal-affected Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh was on Friday rewarded for excellence in public administration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The award was received by Dantewada Collector Sourabh Kumar on behalf of the district administration for making Palnar village cashless.

During demonetisation, Kumar planned an indigenous strategy for making the district cashless.

He formed 11 experienced teams of various officials, social reformers, and institutions. These teams created awareness among the locals, shopkeepers and businessmen and taught them how to conduct cashless transactions.

Within three weeks, over 5,000 people in the district became members of the digital army and 12,800 people were trained in making digital transactions. Shopkeepers were encouraged to download applications on their mobiles and use it.

"It was a difficult task to make the whole village cashless as the village does not even have a mobile tower. Providing connectivity for cashless transactions was a big thing but we overcame this through our innovative approach. The village is now completely cashless," Kumar told PTI.

The district administration of Dantewada engaged BSNL for establishing free Wi-Fi internet facility for encouraging cashless transactions.

The efforts garnered positive results and Palnar, a remote village in Dantewada's Kuwakonda development block, became the first district of the state where all transactions are cashless.

The entire shopping complex in the region has Wi-Fi facility and businessmen have Point of sale (POS) machines and each shopkeeper has e-payment facility.

About 90 per cent of businessmen in Dantewada have adopted cashless payment mode. The district administration has now started the process of making all payments and pensions under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for all purchases at gram panchayat level through digital mode.

Prior to this initiative, Palnar had no banks or ATMs.

Besides this, other initiatives across the country were given the prime minister's awards.
New Delhi: Cab aggregator Ola is looking at raising up to USD 100 million in fresh funding from existing shareholders to take American rival Uber head-on.

The board of the Bengaluru-based company has approved a proposal to raise up to USD 100 million from existing shareholders in a recent meeting.

Both Ola and Uber have made multi-million dollar investments in their operations in India to ramp up number of vehicles on their platform as well as getting new riders on board.

The board approved the proposal to offer convertible securities at Rs 13,521 apiece through a rights issue at its meeting on March 22, 2017.

In a regulatory filing, ANI Technologies -- which operates Ola -- said its board has approved raising "up to USD 100 million (about Rs 670 crore) by issue of 495,526 Series 'l1' preference shares of face value INR 10 each at a price per subscription share equivalent to INR 13,521".

The filing, made to the Corporate Affairs Ministry under the Companies Act, added that the rights issue was scheduled for March 23.

However, it could not be immediately ascertained how much the company raised through the issue. A query sent to Ola did not elicit any response.

The filing said the objective of the issue was "to meet the growth and expansion of business and to strengthen financial position of the company".

Interestingly, Ola had recently raised about Rs 1,675 crore from its Japanese investor, SoftBank.

Ola, which has a presence in 110 Indian cities, has been aggressively expanding its portfolio of services. It is placing big bets on new technologies like electric vehicles to stay ahead of the competition.

Uber, which operates in 29 Indian cities, has made the country one of its top priorities.

After selling its China business to rival Didi, the company has sharpened its focus on strengthening its platform and expanding driver partner ecosystem in India.
New Delhi: In a big setback to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed the Aam Aadmi Party's plea to use second-generation EVMs with paper trail in the April 23 civic polls in the national capital.

Justice AK Pathak declined AAP's plea saying, "It would not be possible to give any such direction, as it would amount to interference in election process. The plea is dismissed."

The AAP and its candidate Mohammad Tahir Hussain had approached the High Court for using second generation EVMs attached with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in the elections to the capital's three municipal corporations.

The State Election Commission has opposed the plea, saying the petition was filed to stall the election.

The Election Commission maintains that EVMs can't be tampered with.

The VVPAT is connected with EVMs and dispenses paper proof so that voters can verify that their vote has been cast correctly.

The AAP and the Congress say that EVMs without VVPAT can be tampered with.

With IANS inputs
New Delhi: The Congress on Friday expelled Barkha Singh Shukla, a day after the senior leader described party vice president Rahul Gandhi as "mentally unfit".

Barkha Singh, on Thursday, also stepped down as Delhi Mahila Congress chief, but did not leave the party. The Congress, however, this morning said Barkha was being expelled for six years for "anti-party activities.

The action was taken by state unit`s Disciplinary Committee headed by former minister Narendra Nath. "Disciplinary Committee of the DPCC in its meeting has unanimously decided to expel Barkha Singh for a period of six years from the party for undertaking anti-party activities just before the MCD elections," a party statement said.

Responding to this, Barkha tweeted that #RahulGandhiMuktCongress is the new slogan.

In another setback to the Delhi Congress with the civic polls due on Sunday, Barkha Singh yesterday hit out at Rahul Gandhi and the party's Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken.

Responding to this, the Congress' women wing had issued a statement removing Barkha Singh from the post of president of Delhi Mahila Congress.

In a statement, All India Mahila Congress president Shobha Oza said: "This is to inform that Barkha Shukla Singh has been removed from the post of President, Delhi Pradesh Mahila Congress, with immediate effect."

A defiant Singh said she will adopt legal options against her removal and said she would not quit the party, claiming herself to be a "loyal soldier" of the Congress.

"I will not quit the Congress and continue to wage my war within the party," she said, adding that "I will move the court against my illegal removal".

In a press statement, the former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief had yesterday lashed out at senior party leaders. "Congress party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken has only used the issue of empowerment of women and women security to gather votes. The issue means nothing to them," she said.

"In an organisation where I myself am unsafe, how will I empower other women in that organisation? That is why I hereby resign from the post of President of Delhi Mahila Congress."

Singh, who had complained against "neglect" of women workers in ticket distribution for the municipal elections, alleged that the voice of party workers was "snubbed" and their grievances were not addressed.

"Rahul Gandhi is unfit to lead the party," she said.

"The one pertinent question we need to ask today is why is Rahul Gandhi in hiding? Why is he scared of meeting his own party members?" Singh said in a statement.

Several senior leaders had quit the party because of that very reason, she said.

"Rahul Gandhi is reluctant to address issues that exist within the organisation. Why does Rahul Gandhi shy away from meeting party leaders who ask him questions," she asked.

"He (Rahul) is only interested in meeting sycophants and not leaders who reason, question and ask," she added.

"Ajay Maken, Rahul Gandhi's nominee in the party, misbehaved not only with me but also with several office-bearers of the Delhi Mahila Congress. When the same was brought to the notice of Rahul Gandhi, our plea fell on deaf ears."

"It is because of this attitude of Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken that as many as five districts presidents and 75 block presidents resigned from the organisation. One of them has also filed a complaint of harassment against Ajay Maken and (All India Mahila Congress President) Shobha Oza," she added.

Delhi Congress' chief spokesperson Sharmishtha Mukherjee later said that Singh was settling her "personal grudges" and "hurting" party interests at a crucial time when MCD polls are round the corner.

"She is not a 'loyal soldier' but a back-stabber who is deliberately trying to harm the party at a crucial juncture," Mukherjee said.

The development came after former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and former Youth Congress leader Amit Malik quit the party and joined the BJP on Tuesday.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government has sought a fresh "technical evaluation" for the proposed international airport at Jewar in the state.

Against the backdrop of rising air passenger traffic, there have been discussions for setting up a second airport in the National Capital Region (NCR).

The proposal for technical evaluation for Jewar airport has been made by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led government which came to power last month.

"The current BJP government (in Uttar Pradesh) has requested us for a technical evaluation because the previous technical evaluation for Jewar airport was done many years ago. So we are doing that technical evaluation," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said at a press meet here.

There is a Greenfield Airport Policy in place for setting up new airports.

Last year, the Civil Aviation Ministry said it had received a proposal from the then state government for grant of site clearance for the proposed airport near Jewar.

The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital handles around 1,100 flights every day and plans are afoot to increase the aerodrome's capacity.

"Within a few years, we will be using the capacity of Indira Gandhi International Airport... We (would) have to add the second airport for NCR relatively soon," Sinha said.


Brussels: Britain may be leaving the EU but it will still have to settle the divorce bill in euros, not pounds, according to an EU document on the upcoming negotiations.

"An orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union requires settling the financial obligations undertaken before the withdrawal date," said the European Commission document seen by AFP Thursday.

"The agreement should define the precise way in which these obligations will be calculated... the obligations should be defined in euro," it added.

The document did not say how much the Brexit settlement might cost but EU officials have previously said it could be as much as 60 billion euros, sparking howls of outrage in London, which puts the figure nearer 20 billion.

Titled "Non Paper on key elements likely to feature in the draft negotiating directives," the document was drawn up for the European Commission, which will conduct the Brexit negotiations with Britain.

It covers in more detail the same ground outlined last month by EU president Donald Tusk in response to Prime Minister Theresa May`s official March 29 notification that Britain was leaving the bloc.Tusk stressed then that the EU will insist on agreeing the future of citizens in Britain and the Brexit bill first before considering London`s demand for a free trade pact.

The Commission document outlined its aims for a reciprocal deal for EU citizens in the UK and Brits elsewhere in the bloc, saying their rights should last "for the lifetime of those concerned" rather than giving a cut-off date.

The Brexit divorce settlement should not just be limited to workers, the paper said, and should also apply to family members who join citizens "at any point in time before/after the withdrawal date".

Residency and social security were also highlighted by the Commission as rights it will seek to protect in the two-year negotiations with London, as the two sides try to undo the mass of legislation agreed since Britain joined then European Economic Community in 1973.

Both the divorce bill and the fate of EU citizens are expected to be among the toughest areas to reach agreement on, following a Brexit campaign that rallied against Britain`s payments to Brussels and the number of migrants in the country.

Anticipating possible disputes, the draft paper envisaged setting up "an institutional structure to ensure an effective enforcement of the commitments under the agreement," while maintaining the primacy of the European Court of Justice.

For disputes outside EU law, "an alternative dispute settlement should only be envisaged if it offers equivalent guarantees of independence and impartiality as the ECJ," it added.

On a visit to London on Thursday, the head of the European parliament, Antonio Tajani, said that after Brexit, EU citizens living in the UK should have the "same rights as today".

"For us it`s important to ensure that Brexit does not have any negative effects on their life and the rights they are enjoying," he said, stressing that "it is a priority and it is a red line".

Tajani, who also met with Prime Minister Theresa May during his visit, said Britain could still change its mind on Brexit.

"If the UK wanted to stay, everybody would be in favour. I would be very happy," he said.

May, who called for snap elections for June 8 seeking to increase her slim majority before gruelling negotiations with Brussels, has said several times that there could be "no turning back" on Brexit.
New Delhi: The war of words between India and China over the Dalai Lama's recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh continues with the latter now warning the former of 'serious consequences' if it continues to host the Tibetan spiritual leader.

An article in the state-run Global Times claimed on Friday that New Delhi will 'pay dearly' for playing the Dalai Lama card in Arunachal Pradesh, over which Beijing claims sovereignty.

The Global Times op-ed, titled 'India playing Dalai Lama card worsens territorial spats with China', which was published today, also blasted the Indian media for its reaction over China recently announcing 'standardised' names for six towns in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Chinese move "unsurprisingly set the Indian media ablaze", the article, written by Ai Jun, reads. The Global Times piece also took offence with the comments of Brahma Chellaney, a professor at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Quoting Chellaney's tweet, which read, "SILLY: China claims India's Arunachal state but didn't have names for its various counties. Now it invents the names", the Global Times calls the argument and other such arguments "absurd."

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," the article said.

The state-run daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi.

"If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily said.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'.

China on April 19 announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action".

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

India yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."

He also said more standardised names will be announced later.

"In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names," he said.

Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said,"China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."

"Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," it said.

"India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table," it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.

With PTI inputs
New Delhi: Newly-inducted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arvinder Singh Lovely on Friday came down heavily on the Congress leadership, especially Rahul Gandhi for the grand old party's poor performance across the country.

Speaking exclusive to Zee Media, Lovely said the present Congress is not the same party, which it used to be, for which he devoted his 30 years.

Heaping praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, the ex-Congress leader said it took just one hour for him to have a meet with Shah, whereas, he wasn't able to meet the Congress high command even after trying for two years.

He also claimed that during closed door meetings, various Congress leaders applaud PM Modi.

When asked as to what factors made him join the BJP  the party which he has been criticising for 30 long years - Lovely replied saying, the present BJP under the leadership of PM Modi truly believes in 'Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas' and is moving in the direction to take India to new heights.

Lovely also took pot shots at his one-time mentor and former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, saying he chose to be a "traitor" by joining the BJP, which fights for the cause of soldiers, instead of being a burden on the Congress like Dikshit.

Dikshit, a Congress veteran, had termed Lovely's decision to join the BJP as 'betrayal'.

The former Delhi Congress president and ex-minister said Sheila Dikshit is completely dissociated from the Congress campaign for MCD polls and has turned out to be a burden, while he chose to join the BJP that has been holding country's ' interests high.

The BJP is giving a new direction to the country and many in the Congress who also believe this and are considering joining the BJP, Lovely claimed.

He said that several senior Congress leaders are "disgusted" with the selection of candidates for the Delhi civic polls and alleged that tickets were "sold" to the aspirants.

Hitting out at Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken, Lovely accused him of ignoring party members' concerns.

When asked whether he would be comfortable in speaking against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi during campaigning, the new BJP leader said, The present Congress is not the same what it used to be, adding that Congress leaders these days hesitate in visiting unauthorised colonies and jhuggis.

In a big political development, former Arvinder Singh Lovely joined the BJP on Tuesday.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said it could not pass an order for reclaiming the Kohinoor from the United Kingdom or to stop it from being auctioned.

Disposing of a plea seeking directions to bring the treasured diamond back to India, a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said it could not ask a foreign government not to auction a property.

The court made it clear it could not pass an order with regard to a property which was in another country.

"We are quite surprised that such petitions are filed for properties which are in the USA and the UK. What kind of a writ petition is this," the bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul, said.

The apex court referred to an affidavit filed by the Centre and said, "The government of India continues to explore ways and means with the UK government on the issue."

The petitions, filed by an NGO, the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front, and Heritage Bengal, a registered organisation, were tagged together by the court last year.
Mumbai: China on Friday said it would like India to be part of the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) that seeks to link Asia with Europe, adding if concerns of sovereignty over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was a hurdle, they would be "resolved."

"India is an important partner of the Belt and Road Initiative. It was, remains and will be so in the future," Liu Jinsong, Minister at the Embassy of China in India, said.

"Without hesitation, the Chinese side sincerely invites the Indian side to join many BRI forums, including the Forum to be held next month," Liu said.

"If this (concerns over China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) is the only reason that affects Indian friends' will to join the Belt and Road Initiative, this concern could be resolved," he said.

He was addressing a conference on "The Belt and Road Initiative: India's perspectives on China's ambitious plan for infrastructural connectivity in Asia, Africa and Europe," organised by Observer Research Foundation here.

"Transportation is the basis of CPEC, and connectivity between China and Pakistan will unavoidably pass through PoK area," he said.

"China has no intention to interfere in territorial and sovereignty disputes between India and its neighbours," he said, adding that China's position on the Kashmir issue has not changed either.

"President Xi Jinping will host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation from May 14 to 15 in Beijing. Leaders of 28 countries and the UN Secretary-General will attend the Forum," he said.

Referring to the debate on whether India should join the Belt and Road Initiative, he said, "India has always been on the Belt and Road", and cited travels of explorers from both the countries.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is an inheritance, revival and upgrade of the ancient Silk Route," he said.

The two countries should resume common efforts and work to revive the Silk Route, he said.

"In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which aims to provide financial support for infrastructure construction in countries along the BRI routes," he said.

"India gave a positive response to China's proposal and held the second round of negotiation working group meeting in Mumbai. India contributed 8 billion US dollars and became the second largest shareholder at the AIIB," he said.

"Over 40 countries have signed the BRI cooperation agreements with China. At the Forum next month, another over 40 countries and international organisations will discuss and sign cooperation agreements with China," he said.

"China and India, each with over 1.3 billion people, are still not connected by railways," he said.

There are only 40-plus direct flights between the two countries each week, considerably less than 1,000 direct flights per week between China and South Korea, he said.

Liu also referred to reports of a 61-year-old postman journeying through the Nathula Pass to exchange mail bags every day for 25 years, calling him "a civil envoy" promoting China-India friendship and connectivity.
New Delhi: The government on Friday said it would not take a decision on a Law Commission report, which has proposed stringent punishment against lawyers for misconduct, before holding consultations with the legal fraternity.

Various bar bodies have alleged that the law panel prepared the report to amend the Advocates Act without properly consulting them and taking their views on board.

Members of the Bar Council of India, Adhivakta Parishad and various bodies representing advocates of Delhi courts today met Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to protest the recommendations.

Prasad said the lawyers have expressed their "serious concerns" over the recommendations of the law panel.

"The government has not taken any decision on these recommendations... I have instructed my ministry to hold effective and meaningful consultations with lawyers' bodies to understand their concerns. Till the consultations are complete, no action will be taken on the (law panel) report. After the consultations I will apply my mind," he told reporters here.

Lawyers' bodies have alleged that the Commission has proposed amendments hastily, without inviting stakeholders' suggestions.

Quoting the report they have alleged that if the recommendations are used to amend the law then the certificate of practice of an advocate can be cancelled or suspended on a complaint about his behaviour or conduct made by a judge or a judicial officer.

The amendment bill proposes imposition of fine of Rs 3 lakh and cost of proceedings in a complaint filed by a litigant against a lawyer. It further provides for payment of compensation up to Rs 5 lakh to a person aggrieved by a lawyer's misconduct.
New Delhi: India and South Korea signed an agreement on Friday to firm up bilateral cooperation in defence shipbuilding.

Under the MoU, conceived under the umbrella of the special strategic partnership, the two sides will nominate one shipyard each for this purpose.

India has already picked Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) while Korea will make the nomination soon, Secretary (Defence Production) Ashok Kumar Gupta said.

Gupta and Korea's Minister of Defence Acquisition and Programme Administration Chang Myong Jin signed the agreement here.

"It will enable HSL to upgrade and modernise its facilities so as to enable it to execute naval projects in a timely manner," Gupta said, adding the whole initiative was part of the Centre's 'Make in India' initiative.

Jin said the agreement will form the basis of defence cooperation between the two countries in shipbuilding.

Gupta also said that the agreement will be useful for the development of vendors for supply of material.

"That will generate huge employment and will also increase the turnover of HSL," he said.
New Delhi: Indian Navy successfully test- fired the land-attack version of Brahmos supersonic cruise missile on Friday.

A top navy official said the test-firing yielded desired results.

The test-firing of the missile took place in the Bay of Bengal and it was very successful, he said.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh today asked all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris living in different parts of the country.

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiris, the Home Minister said they are like any other Indian and an advisory is being sent by the Home Ministry to all states to ensure the safety and security of people from the Valley.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris," he told reporters here.

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were being threatened after the latest incidents of stonepelting and assualt on security personnel by Kashmiri youths in the Valley.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said that it will hear arguments on the plea challenging the government's move to make Aadhaar mandatory for procuring Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards on April 25.

The SC asked the government to justify the need for making Aadhaar card mandatory.

How can you make Aadhaar card mandatory when we have passed an order to make it optional, asked a bench of Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan.

Responding to this, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that they have found that people were giving details of PAN cards which have been procured on the basis of fake documents.

Rohatgi said there were instances that one person was having a number of PAN cards and these fake cards were being used to divert funds to shell companies.

We found a number of PAN cards being used to divert funds to shell companies. To prevent it, the only option is to make Aadhaar card mandatory, said Rohatgi.

To this, the bench asked the Attorney General, "Is this the remedy that you need to have Aadhaar for having PAN? Why has it been made mandatory?"

Responding to this, Rohatgi said that earlier too they have found people procuring SIM cards for mobile phones on fake identity cards and the apex court had asked the government to have a check on it.

Senior counsel Shyam Divan and Arvind Datar, appearing for the petitioners, including a former judge of Karnataka High Court, said it was extremely difficult to follow the rule as many people did not have an Aadhaar card.

There was also a constant mismatch of individual details in the two identity cards.

On March 22, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that Aadhaar may become the only identity (ID) card in future while making it mandatory for the filing of Income Tax returns is necessary to curb tax evasion and frauds.

The Supreme Court had on March 27 made it clear that the unique identification number - Aadhaar - can't be made mandatory for availing benefits under social welfare schemes.

A bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had, however, said Aadhaar could be required for other schemes.

An August 11, 2015, apex court order had limited the use of Aadhaar number for getting foodgrain and kerosene under PDS and LPG. This order was modified on October 01, 2015, to permit the use of Aadhaar card for MNREGA, old age pension scheme, provident fund, and Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana.
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday met European Union High Representative and Vice President Federica Moghereni who is on an official visit to India.

"Carrying forward a valuable partnership. EAM @SushmaSwaraj meets EU High Representative/Vice President @FedericaMog," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted along with pictures of the two leaders.

Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar is scheduled to hold delegation-level talks with Moghereni on Friday.

The EU leader will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi later in the day.
Bhopal: At least 14 people were charred to death and scores of others injured when a massive fire broke out at a packed ration shop in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara district on Friday.

According to media reports, the toll may increase as the condition of some of the injured are said to be very serious.

Several fire-tenders were rushed to the spot to douse the inferno.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 4 lakhs for the next of kin of those killed in the fire.
Latur: The Bharatiya Janata Party won in 36 wards in Latur municipal corporation election in Maharashtra. In 2012 polls, the BJP had not won any seat in Latur.

The Congress could just won victory in 33 wards, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in one.

Congress had won 49 seats, NCP - 13, Shiv Sena - 2 in 2012 polls.

In a message on Twitter, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said: "Thank you #Latur for grand,historic mandate to BJP,showing faith on our Govt's policies!Congratulations to @sambhajipatil77 ! #LaturPattern"

In the 70-member Latur corporation, it was a test of political clout for BJP leader and state minister Sambhajirao Nilangekar and the local Congress MLA Amit Deshmukh.

Sixty percent turnout was registered in the polling held on Wednesday for the Latur municipal corporation.

Congress, which controls the corporation, had also got a drubbing in the recent local body polls in Latur district.

The city had faced acute water crisis last year and government had to transport water by railway wagons at the peak of summer.

Here, 407 candidates were in the fray whose fate was decided by 2.78 lakh voters.
Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday scripted outstanding victories in elections to Latur and Chandrapur municipal corporations in Maharashtra.

The BJP's winning streak was, however, obstructed by Congress in Parbhani, which wrested its control from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Around 62 percent turnout was registered in the polling held on Wednesday for the Chandrapur, Parbhani and Latur municipal corporations.

After winning the elections, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis congratulated all katyakartas who worked hard for this victory! And @BJP4India 's epic winning spree continues..., the CM tweeted.

We will work harder and continue to work for every citizen with our mantra of good governance to serve the last man !, he further said.

By winning 36 seats this time from zero in 2012, the BJP has scripted history in Latur. Out of 70 seats, Congress has won only 33 and Nationalist Congress Party one.

In the 70-member Latur corporation, it was a test of political clout for BJP leader and state minister Sambhajirao Nilangekar and the local Congress MLA Amit Deshmukh, the son of former chief minister late Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Congress, which controls the corporation, had got a drubbing in the recent local body polls in Latur district.

The city had faced acute water crisis last year and government had to transport water by railway waggons at the peak of summer.

Here 407 candidates were in the fray whose fate was be decided by 2.78 lakh voters.

Thank you #Latur for grand,historic mandate to BJP,showing faith on our Govt's policies!Congratulations to @sambhajipatil77 !#LaturPattern  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) April 21, 2017

Chandrapur (in Vidarbha), the home turf of senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, saw the BJP winning 36 out of 66 seats. Congress, which had been at the helm, finished at the second spot with 12 seats; Bahujan Samaj Party  8, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena  2, Nationalist Congress Party  2, Shiv Sena  2, Independent  4.

Thank you #Chandrapur for giving BJP an absolute majority for devpt!

Congratulations to @SMungantiwar ji, @ahir_hansraj ji & NanaShamkuleji!  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) April 21, 2017

Finally, the good news came for Congress from Parbhani where it won 31 out of 65 seats.

The Nationalist Congress Party grabbed 18 seats; BJP  8, Shiv Sena  6, Others 2.

The Parbhani municipal corporation was earlier seen as the battle between the incumbent NCP and Shiv Sena.

It was seen as a test for district guardian minister and senior Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote. There were 418 candidates in the fray; number of voters was 2.12 lakh.

The elections to three municipal corporations were considered as an acid test for the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress and the NCP.

A total of 1,285 candidates were in the fray for the 201 seats in the three municipal corporations, whose fate was decided by 7.93 lakh voters across 1,038 polling stations.

The stakes were high especially for the BJP as it was not in power in these three municipal corporations.
Parbhani: The Congress on Friday won in 31 wards in the election to Parbhani municipal corporation in Maharashtra.

The incumbent Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) finishes second with victory in 18 seats; Bharatiya Janata Party  08 and Shiv Sena  06, Others - 02.

Seventy percent turnout was registered in the polling held on Wednesday for the Parbhani municipal corporation in Maharashtra.

In the 65-member Parbhani municipal corporation, the battle was seen mainly between the incumbent NCP and Shiv Sena.

It was said to be a test for district guardian minister and senior Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote.

There were 418 candidates in the fray; the number of voters is 2.12 lakh.
Benchmark Sensex frittered away a good start to finish 57 points lower today, with investors choosing to book profits amid mixed global cues.

The 30-share index had soared about 162 points to hit a high of 29,584.34 in early trade, but surrendered gains in mid-session selling, which dragged it down to 29,259.42. The barometer finally ended at 29,365.30, down 57.09 points or 0.19 percent.

The broader NSE Nifty closed lower by 17 points, or 0.19 percent, at 9,119.40 after shuttling between 9,183.65 and 9,088.75.

On a weekly basis, the BSE Sensex fell 96.15 points, or 0.32 percent, and the Nifty 31.40 points, or 0.34 percent, sliding for the second straight week.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 168.84 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.

"The quarterly results till date have painted a mixed picture while concerns over upcoming French election is adding risk to the market. A hawkish tone of RBI in its latest minutes has also added pressure on the downside," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.

Among sectoral indices, the BSE FMCG fell the most at 0.97 percent, followed by healthcare 0.76 percent, metal 0.59 percent, auto 0.41 percent, IT 0.36 percent, teck 0.21 percent and PSU 0.17 percent.

Realty, power, capital goods, oil & gas and consumer durables closed higher by up to 2.37 percent.

Sun Pharma emerged as the top loser in the Sensex pack by plunging 2.41 percent to Rs 640.05, followed by Cipla (1.84 percent).

Other laggards were ITC (1.81 percent), Adani Ports (1.72 percent), Power Grid (1.44 percent), Wipro (1.36 percent), ICICI Bank (1.34 percent), Lupin (1.31 percent), M&M (1.28 percent), Coal India (1.12 percent), Maruti Suzuki (1.10 percent), HUL (1.08 percent) and SBI (0.97 percent).

HDFC Bank was the biggest gainer, rising 2.38 percent to Rs 1,496.75 after the company report an 18.2 percent growth in net profit at Rs 3,990 crore for the March quarter.

Reliance Industries remained at the centre of brisk activity and surged 2.22 percent to Rs 1,399.75.

NTPC, Asian Paints, L&T, Hero MotoCorp and ONGC too ended in green, rising up to 1.83 percent.

Outshining the Sensex, the broader markets put up a better show, with the small-cap index rising 0.25 percent and mid-cap gaining 0.02 percent.

Globally, US markets ended higher overnight amid revived hopes of tax cuts, while Bank of Japan said it will keep accommodative policy in place.

Asian markets were mostly mixed with Hong Kong's Hang Seng falling 0.06 percent, while Japan's Nikkei rose 1.03 percent. China's Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.03 percent.

Europe was in the grip of weakness in early session, with Paris CAC 40 falling 0.37 percent after the latest terror attack on the city, while Frankfurt's DAX slid 0.16 percent. London's FTSE shed 0.17 percent.
New Delhi: Tamil megastar Kamal Haasan on Friday was reportedly summoned by a court at Valliyoor for alleged derogatory remarks on Hindus. It is being said that the 62-year-old actor has been asked to appear on May 5 this year for his 'controversial' remarks about the Mahabharata.

Earlier, Members of Hindu Makkal Katchi filed the PIL in this regard in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli District Court.

The PIL came after Kamal, in an interview to a Tamil channel, made a comment about Mahabharata, the ancient Hindu epic.

The actor had said, "In Mahabharata, Panchali was used as a pawn while the men gambled. She was used as a collateral and India is a country that respects and honours a book that revolves around men using a woman to gamble away as if she was a mere object."

(With ANI inputs)
New Delhi: 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay' will always be named amongst the biggest blockbuster daily soaps on Indian television. It not only served TV viewers an interesting storyline but also introduced some memorable actors who could instantly strike a chord with the audiences. Shriya Sharma, who essayed the role opf 'Sneha Basu' carved a special place in our hearts with her adorable antics.

You will be amazed to know that, several years later, she put up splendid performances in films and advertisements. Shriya's charm and grace are only multiplying with time: Have a look at some of her latest pictures:

A post shared by Shriya Sharma (@shriyasharma9) on Nov 12, 2016 at 5:38am PST

A post shared by Shriya Sharma (@shriyasharma9) on Dec 9, 2016 at 9:06am PST

A post shared by Shriya Sharma (@shriyasharma9) on Apr 17, 2017 at 5:33am PDT

A post shared by Shriya Sharma (@shriyasharma9) on Mar 7, 2017 at 4:55am PST

A post shared by Shriya Sharma (@shriyasharma9) on Dec 31, 2016 at 10:38pm PST

If her images are to be judged, it wouldn't be wrong to say that Shriya is stunning enough to be the next big thing in the showbiz arena.
New Delhi: Even after so many weeks, there is still no sign of Sunil Grover returning to 'The Kapil Sharma Show'. Things have escalated pretty quicky after his alleged mid-fight brawl with Kapil Sharma. But, now the situation seems to be sorting out a bit. At least, Sunil's latest comment on Kapil is taking the audience by surprise.

Instead of criticising or slamming Kapil, Sunil actually praised him and even talked well about his skillset. According to a BollywoodLife report, originally attributed to Gulfnews.com, Sunil said Kapil is 'a great comedian who makes the whole nation (India) laugh'.

WOW! Now, that is interesting. Is this a sign of patch-up from Sunil? Well, only time can answer this question.

For the record, Sunil, along with Ali Asgar and Chandan Prabhakar, quit 'TKSS' after Kapil rumouredly misbehaved with them in an inebriated state during a flight.
New Delhi: Millions of provident fund subscribers can now access their account on EPFO's online service.

Subscribers who have activated their Universal Account Number, can also furnish a lot of details on the EPFO portal as per the government requisition like PAN, Aadhaar, National Population Registry, driving licence, passport, voter ID and ration card.

Here is a step by step guide on how to link your EPF with Aadhaar

First go to the EPFO website: https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in

Punch in your Log in and password details. Your login will be your activated UAN number and the password that you have chosen.

Once you punch in your details, you will be able to view the KYC section. Take the mouse there ad you will be given the option to link your Aadhaar card with EPF.

Feed in the Aadhaar details like your name, your Aadhaar number and save it.



Retirement fund body EPFO has extended the deadline for submitting Aadhaar number to April 30, 2017 for its over four crore members.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation had set March 31, 2017 as the deadline for submitting Aadhaar number earlier.


Gurdaspur: Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu today suspended a sub-divisional officer of water supply and sewerage board here on charges of dereliction of duty.

He took the decision during his visit to the border town of Dera Baba Nanak in the district.

He was here to review the various development projects undertaken by the previous government led by Parkash Singh Badal.

Sidhu said SDO Jugal Kishore was negligent in the construction of a treatment plant in Dera Baba Nanak and that its polluted water was entering the agriculture field of farmers, destroying the crops.

He reiterated that the present government led by Captain Amarinder Singh was committed to review the various development protects undertaken by the previous dispensation.

Giving an example of the Jaica project in Amritsar, related to sewerage in the holy city, Sidhu said the previous government had declared it a Rs 400 crore-worth project whereas omly Rs 100 crore was spent on it.

Sidhu said he has called for a vigilance probe into the misuse of funds to the tune of Rs 300 crore.
Mumbai: Actor Sathyaraj, who essays the role of Kattappa, one of the central characters in SS Rajamoulis Baahubali has apologised to Kannadigas for the remarks on the Cauvery Water dispute, he had made nine years ago!

The veteran, who was reportedly under tremendous pressure to tender an apology, said that his remarks were not against the people of Karnataka.

Here's a rough translation of Sathyaraj's statement: I apologise to the Kannada people from the bottom of my heart. Baahubali is a huge film and I am just a small part of it. A number of people have worked hard for the film, stakes are high and I do not want them to be affected because of me. Rajamouli's too have appealed to the people to allow the release of the film."

Pro-Kannadiga groups in the state of Karnataka had threatened to stall the release of the second half of the magnum opus  Baahubali 2  and had demanded an apology from Sathyaraj.

Filmmaker Rajamouli, who had addressed Kannadigas through a video message on Twitter Thursday, requested them to allow the release of the film as the stakes involved were really high.

Heres a rough translation Rajamoulis video message to people in Karnataka - Namaskar to all. I am not fluent in Kannada, so if I make a mistake, please forgive me. My producers and I wish to give a clarification regarding Sathyarajs comments. He made those comments many years ago and that may have offended many. But we have no connection with the remarks that were his personal views. He made the remark 9 years ago. Since then, a number of films in which he had acted were released in Karnataka. Even Baahubali Part 1 had released. Sathyaraj is not the director or the producer of Baahubali. He will not be at a loss. However, the repercussion of the protest will affect many others who are associated with the film. I request you to allow the release of the film. Heartfelt thanks. Namaskara.
New Delhi: Ever since its existence, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has proved its efficiency time and again.

Giving scientists hope of discovering evolutionary secrets of the universe, Hubble has helped unearth massive revelations, most of which have turned out to be breakthroughs in the world of space.

Helping scientists reach out into the depths of the universe and discover numerous things that would have otherwise, been impossible, Hubble has been highly dependable and has played the role of astronomers' and scientists' third eye, often digging out information that was least expected.

Now, upon completing 27 successful, and more importantly, fruitful years, the US space agency celebrated the anniversary of its launch (April 24, 1990) by capturing a portrait of a stunning pair of spiral galaxies.

This starry pair offers a glimpse of what our Milky Way galaxy would look like to an outside observer.

As per NASA, the edge-on galaxy is called NGC 4302, and the tilted galaxy is NGC 4298. These galaxies look quite different because we see them angled at different positions on the sky. They are actually very similar in terms of their structure and contents.

From our view on Earth, researchers report an inclination of 90 degrees for NGC 4302, which is exactly edge on. NGC 4298 is tilted 70 degrees.

NASA further reported that, both galaxies are approximately 55 million light-years away. They reside in the constellation Coma Berenices in the Virgo Cluster of nearly 2,000 galaxies. Both were discovered in 1784 by astronomer William Herschel. Such objects were first simply called "spiral nebulas," because it wasn't known how far away they were. In the early 20th century, Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies are other island cities of stars far outside our Milky Way.

The Hubble observations were taken between January 2 and January 22, 2017 with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument in three visible light bands.
New Delhi: Earlier considered the 'new kid on the block', the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is leaving no stone unturned to change that image.

From launching 104 satellites at one go to taking the lead in providing energy security, ISRO has successfully established itself as a forerunner in the space race.

Now, in its latest move, ISRO is working on mining lunar dust, which is rich in Helium, and transport it back to India.

Sivanthu Pillai, an ISRO scientist who earlier worked as the chief of the Indo-Russian venture, BrahMos Aerospace, revealed the plan at a conference, saying that all India's energy requirements could be met by Helium-3 mined from the moon.

With an aim to help India meet its energy needs from the moon by 2030, the move will help India cut down on its oil imports.

According to Pillai, the upper layer of the moons surface, Regolith, has abundant Helium 3 to meet the energy requirements of the entire planet and not just India. An isotope of Helium, Helium 3 can fuel nuclear reactors to provide an enormous amount of power without any harmful carbon emissions or radioactive products, Sputnik News reported.

In the backdrop of Indias plan to cut down import dependence in hydrocarbons by 10 percent by 2022, this lunar dust mining plan comes with a lot of hopes riding on its potential success.
Chennai: Amid demands for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the death of then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, a nephew of Sasikala Natarajan has threatened to make public the clips of the former Tamil Nadu chief minister with her aunt in a Chennai hospital.

Sasikala's nephew Jeyanandh Dhivakaran, in a Facebook post, said the clips will clear the kind of relationship Amma (Jayalalithaa) and Chinnamma (Sasikala) shared.

The post was deleted quickly, reported NDTV.

"Even after been coined as a murderer, Amma's pic was not revealed by Sasikala as her enemies should not see her clad in a green gown, said the post on Facebook.

It added: We kept her as a mighty lion until her death and bid adieu. But OPS, just to garner votes, placed her in a coffin and paraded her."

The post added: "Truth is strong and what if the videos of Amma's and Chinnamma's conversations surface one day? What should we do to PH Pandian and Manoj K Pandian.

Jayalalithaa died on December 05 after a prolonged illness, leading to developments that broke up the AIADMK into two factions - one faction is led by Sasikala and the other by O Panneerselvam.

A majority of the legislators had lined behind Sasikala and her nominee E Palaniswami was elected as the Chief Minister.

Although the ruling AIADMK faction has more supporters in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, it is in deep trouble after the Delhi Police filed a case against Sasikala's nephew and top leader TTV Dinakaran on charges of trying to bribe voters in Chennai.

The ruling AIADMK has decided to sideline Sasikala and Dinakaran and let a panel of leaders run the party.

However, a senior leader in Panneerselvam's camp, KP Munusamy, has cleared that the rival camp now led by Chief Minister K Palaniswami must secure the resignation of the jailed Sasikala and her nephew Dinakaran from their party posts.

In February, Sasikala before going to jail had inducted Dinakaran into the party and appointed him as the Deputy General Secretary.
Hyderabad: The ruling TRS in Telangana on Friday passed a resolution at its plenary meeting here urging the Centre to link the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) with agriculture.

Farmers were facing shortage of labourers due to NREGA during the agricultural season, TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said.

"We see a situation today that workers are not available for farming during season.

NREGA scheme, though it helped the poor to some extent, is causing some inconvenience. Farmers are facing trouble during agricultural season because of NREGA," said Rao, who moved the resolution.

"I will emphatically convey this to the Prime Minister at NITI Ayog meeting on April 23," he said.

In his opening speech at the day-long meeting, Rao announced a new scheme where the state government would give Rs 4,000 per acre to farmers during Kharif and Rabi seasons.

Noting that 97 per cent of farmers hold less than 10 acres of land, he said the scheme would be extended to all the farmers in the state.

Observing that there are associations for other professionals or tradesmen but not for farmers, Rao said the state government would organise farmers into `societies'.

Farmers' societies would be formed at the village, mandal, district and state level, he said.

The state-level farmers' federation would be provided with seed capital of Rs 500 crore in the next budget, he said.

"One or two rupees" would be collected from farmers and together with the funds provided by the government, the total fund should be to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore in two or three years, he said.

Farmers' societies would negotiate with traders for selling the farm produce, and the farmers need not sell their produce individually, he said.

The federation of farmers would look into cultivation of crops and the quantity to be produced so that there is no excess production, Rao said, adding his goal was to "make farmer the king".
Agra: Taj Mahal  the world famous iconic monument of love  is at the centre of a fresh controversy, and this time, a fight has erupted between the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and right-wing outfits.

A Times of India report said on Friday that a controversy erupted after CISF officials barred the contestants from several countries participating in a super model contest from visiting the 'Taj Mahal' wearing scarves bearing Hindu religious symbols and words like 'Jai Shri Ram'.

Right-wing organisations including Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) said that the religious sentiments of Hindus were hurt with the incident.

Members of HJM had on Thursday protested outside the office of the Archaeological Survey of India office at Mall Road in Agra.

The ASI and the CISF later said that they only acted as per rules and the controversy was uncalled for.

At least 34 foreign models, who are in India to participate in the Supermodel International Contest being held in Delhi from April 12-22, had visited the Taj Mahal with some of them covering their heads with saffron scarves to protect themselves from the heat.

When they were about to enter the monument, they were asked by the CISF personnel to remove those scarves.

Bhuvan Vikrama, senior ASI official, has written a letter to the CISF asking it ''to explain what transpired''.

Vikrama, however, cited rules and said under Section 8 (d) of Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Rules, 1959, tourists are generally stopped from carrying such objects.

Brij Bhushan, commandant, CISF, said, "ASI through an order has stated that all sorts of religious symbols are banned from being taken inside a protected monument. Our intention is not to hurt anyone's religious sentiments".

Reacting to the controversy, Brij Bhushan, commandant, CISF, also said that the models were also carrying flags of their nations and items promoting brands, which too were not allowed inside.

A Twitter user shared a video in this regard which has now become viral.
Ayodhya: Backing the construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, Muslim Karsevak Sangh (MKS) president Mohammad Azam Khan on Friday said that Lord Ram was from the community of warriors, adding the Muslims want to support the decision to eradicate the feeling of hatred and spread love and unity among the people.

"I am Pathan. Our ancestors would be Kshatriyas and I can claim that Lord Rama would also have been Kshatriya. Indian Muslims want to now support the construction of Ram temple to spread love, unity and end hatred among people," Khan told ANI.

Earlier on April 19, the Supreme Court allowed the CBI's appeal in the Babri Masjid demolition case and restored criminal conspiracy charges against the BJP veterans Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti besides Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh.

However, Kalyan Singh, who was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1992, enjoys constitutional immunity as the Rajasthan Governor and can be tried only after he leaves office.

The apex court ordered that two separate cases in Lucknow and Raebareli against Advani, Joshi and Bharti and unknown 'kar sevaks' shall be brought together in one trial.

The Supreme Court also directed the trial court in Lucknow to commence the proceedings in four weeks and hear the matter on a day-to-day basis so as to complete the hearing in two years. The apex court also said there will be no 'de novo' (fresh) trial.

The CBI has been ordered to ensure that at least one prosecution witness appears in the trial court for recording of testimony.

To ensure speedy trial, the top court has given two important directions - first, no party shall be granted adjournments without the sessions judge being satisfied of the reasons for it; second, the trial judge hearing the case shall not be transferred till the judgement is delivered.

The Supreme Court also said that its order should be followed in letter and spirit. If the parties involved feel that the top court's order is not being followed in letter and spirit then they will be having the liberty to approach the apex court.
Ayodhya: Amid heightened expectations that there will be an amicable solution to the Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, a group of Muslims under the banner of Muslim Kar Sevak Manch (MKM) arrived in Ayodhya on Thursday evening with a truck full of bricks for the construction of a Ram temple.

People of Ayodhya were left amused when they saw the members of the group going around the town chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'.

Azam Khan, president of Sri Ram Mandir Nirman Muslim Kar Sevak Manch, said that they want to aid in the construction of a Ram temple. Members of the group said they had come from Lucknow, Basti and other nearby districts.

After the police disallowed their plea to enter the area, on the grounds that the Ram Lalla temple was closed for the day, they tried to contact local members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to hand over the bricks for safe keeping, reports said.

Later, the district administration persuaded them to return to their homes.

Khan had recently hit the headlines when he put up posters in Lucknow in support of the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Yogi Adityanath effect? Muslims put out banners in support of building Ram Mandir

Importantly, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has offered his government's help to resolve the contentious Ram temple issue and called for both sides to re-establish dialogue to settle the lingering dispute.

He also supported the Supreme Courts recent observations on an out-of-court settlement of the dispute and said, "Both the sides should re-establish dialogue and resolve the matter.

The apex court had said that Ayodhya dispute was a "sensitive and sentimental" issue and suggested that it should be resolved amicably through dialogue between the parties.
Meerut: In the wake of incidents of stone-pelting on security forces in Kashmir, banners calling for a boycott of Kashmiris and asking people from the Valley to leave Uttar Pradesh have come up in the district.

Not a much-known outfit, Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena, is behind the act.

The banners and hoardings have been put up along the Partapur bypass outside the colleges where Kashmiri students study, said Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena chief Amit Jani.

"Boycott those Kashmiris who pelt stones at Indian Army. Kashmiris leave UP or...," the banner reads.

A FIR has been lodged against Amit Jani in this case. The Uttar Pradesh Police has vowed to take action against the perpetrators.

However, the outfit remained defiant and said it is only the first step. We will launch a "halla bol" campaign from April 30 to "banish" the Kashmiris who do not leave the state on their own, said the group.

A video clip of some youths assaulting soldiers on their way to poll duty in Kralpora area in central Kashmir's Budgam district had gone viral on social media recently, drawing nationwide outrage.

On Thursday, six Kashmiri students studying in Mewar University were beaten up by some locals in Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan.

Condemning the attack on Kashmiri students, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday appealed to all state governments to ensure the safety of Kashmiris.

(With Agency inputs)
Washington: Once a supporter of Britain's decision to leave the EU, President Donald Trump has now said a "strong" Europe is "very, very important" for the US.

"Yes, a strong Europe is very, very important to me as President of the United States. And it is also, in my very strong opinion, important for the US," he told reporters yesterday at a White House press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

"We want to see it. We will help it be strong, and it is very much to everybody's advantage," said the US President, who had once said Britain would be "better off" without the European bloc.

To a question on his visit to Italy this summer to attend the G-7 Summit, he said he looks forward to meeting Pope Francis.

Gentiloni said he is confident in the future of the European Union.

"I told President Trump that we have confidence, even though this is a difficult moment, in the future of the European Union and certainly in the importance of the relationship between the US and Italy," he said.

"We are going through a difficult time, but I have confidence that the European Union will continue to be a positive response to this," he said.
Washington: China on Wednesday put its land-attack, cruise-missile-capable bombers "on high alert" and the US sees it as evidence that Beijing is preparing to respond to a potential situation in North Korea, a US defense official told CNN.

According to the report, the official said the US has also seen an extraordinary number of Chinese military aircraft being brought up to full readiness through intensified maintenance.

These recent steps by the Chinese are assessed as part of an effort to "reduce the time to react to a North Korea contingency".

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Friday that he was "aware of the relevant reports" of a heightened alert in the Chinese Air Force but added he has "no information to give."

This comes in the wake of multiple North Korean missile tests.Beijing has long been concerned about potential instability in North Korea should the regime in Pyongyang collapse, fearing both an influx of refugees and the potential of reunification under a South Korean government closely allied to the US.

Meanwhile, China is also opposed to the US military`s presence in South Korea, protesting the recent decision to begin deploying elements of the THAAD missile defense system.

Given the close economic links between North Korea and China, the US military officials have said that Beijing is critical to solving the North Korean situation, with President Donald Trump recently commending his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for Beijing`s efforts to curb Pyongyang`s activities.
Seoul: Even after disembarking from North Korea`s Air Koryo plane at Pyongyang airport, it`s difficult to miss the airline`s brand. The Air Koryo conglomerate makes cigarettes and fizzy drinks, besides owning a taxi fleet and petrol stations - and all have the same flying crane logo as the carrier.

The military-controlled airline expanded into consumer products in earnest in recent months, visitors to the isolated country say. It was not clear if the diversification into the domestic market was related to the loss of many international routes when the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Washington is now considering tougher measures, including a global ban on Air Koryo itself, to punish North Korea for continuing weapons tests, US officials have said.

But any US action on Air Koryo would not be binding on other nations and would have little effect unless joined by China and Russia - both of which have sought to introduce exceptions to United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the past.

"China may indeed agree to this kind of ban on Air Koryo since it seems like China and the US have reached an agreement that North Korea needs to be dealt with in some way. But the question is whether Russia will agree to sanctions against Air Koryo," said Sun Xingjie, an associate professor at China`s Jilin University.

North Korean officials are rarely accessible to reporters, and it was not possible to get comment from Air Koryo or from the Pyongyang government.

Air Koryo now flies only to Beijing and three other cities in China, and to Vladivostok in Russia. Flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait were dropped last year but just last month, Air Koryo added a route from Pyongyang to the Chinese city of Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries..

Air Koryo has 15 active planes on its fleet, either Russian or Ukrainian-made, and uses refuelling, maintenance and repair facilities in China and Russia, according to aviation databases and UN documents.

The airline has a number of domestic flights connecting the capital Pyongyang to Orang, Sondok and Samjiyon towns, according to a schedule available last year.

Businesses in secretive North Korea do not publicly share information about revenues or costs, so it was not possible to determine what effect any existing sanctions have had or may have in future.

But visitors to North Korea say the Air Koryo conglomerate, owned by the country`s air force, is clearly expanding.

CABS, GAS STATIONS

In 2015, the conglomerate launched its own brand of sky-blue taxis which now parade the streets of Pyongyang alongside cabs from at least eight other state-owned companies.

Air Koryo colas and cigarettes are available in shops across Pyongyang.

Air Koryo started branching into soft drinks late last year, said Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which organises travel to North Korea.

It got into retail sales of petrol in January. "They have at least one petrol station in Pyongyang, perhaps two," Cockerell said.

"I wouldn`t be surprised to see more Air Koryo products make it to market before too long".

A United Nations panel which investigates North Korean sanctions infringements said in a report in February there was an "absence of boundaries" between Air Koryo and the air force.

"The airline`s assets are actively utilised for military purposes," the report said.

"Outwardly, this seems like a commercial airline, but in effect, this is run by the government," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.

The United Nations has not sanctioned Air Koryo, although it has accused it of being involved in the smuggling of banned goods. Civilian aircraft are exempt from the U.N. ban on jet fuel exports to North Korea when refuelling overseas. Member states are required to inspect any cargo originating from North Korea, including on Air Koryo flights.

In December, the United States designated Air Koryo, 16 of its aircraft and 10 of its offices as "sanctioned entities", meaning that U.S. citizens are generally prevented from engaging in transactions with them. It was not clear if the ban extended to Americans flying on the airline for tourism.

Officials at Pyongyang`s airport said they were unconcerned about any attempts by the global community to strengthen sanctions that could target Air Koryo directly.

"We are not afraid, we have our own counter actions prepared," said a customs official, without elaborating, standing at the Air Koryo check-in counter.

Kim, the South Korean professor, said any sanctions on Air Koryo would have mostly a symbolic effect.

"It will not cause huge damage to the North Korean economy," he said in the Korean language. "Air Koryo is not a `dollar box`(which makes a lot of foreign money)".
New Delhi: As tensions rise between North Korea and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear threat, Washington digs deep into ancient Chinese texts to find a possible solution.

It has sought the help of Sun Tzu, who was a Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher in ancient China.

His battle strategy had hardly failed and the Americans are only too aware that their answer may lie in Sun Tzu's famed work.

The Chinese general authored the book The Art of War which is considered a widely influential work of military strategy.

Watch this video to know more about how the US delving deep into Sun Tzu's work to tackle the North Korean crisis.
Tehran: Campaigning began on Friday for Iran`s presidential election with incumbent Hassan Rouhani facing a tough battle against hardliners, though not from former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was barred from standing.

Ahmadinejad`s disqualification by the conservative-run Guardian Council was no surprise -- he had been advised not to run by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said it would "polarise" the nation.

Ahmadinejad`s populist economics and defiant attitude to the establishment had alienated even his hardline backers during his tenure between 2005 and 2013.

"Once the supreme leader had told him not to stand, it became impossible for him to be cleared by the Guardian Council," said Clement Therme, research fellow for Iran at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"By his second term, (Ahmadinejad) was even challenging the clerics. He was not useful anymore for the system."

The mood in Tehran has been subdued -- many are disillusioned with Rouhani`s failure to kick-start the economy despite broad support for his efforts to rebuild ties with the West, notably through a nuclear deal with world powers that ended many sanctions.

The election commission ruled on Thursday that live TV debates would be banned, without giving a reason -- a decision criticised by Rouhani and other candidates.

Campaigning, which the Guardian Council announced could begin immediately, had not been supposed to start for another week, so little activity was expected on Friday.

But experts say the authorities are keen to excite interest in the vote.

"They need that for legitimacy -- the turnout is even more important than the result," said Therme.

Iran`s elections are tightly controlled, with the Guardian Council allowing just six people -- and no women -- to stand for the May 19 vote out of 1,636 hopefuls that registered last week.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent, a run-off between the top two is held a week later.

Rouhani, a politically moderate cleric, squeaked to victory last time with 51 percent in the first round, helped by a divided conservative camp.

The Guardian Council has resisted efforts by Iran`s parliament, the Majles, to clarify the criteria by which they choose candidates.

The constitution adopted after the 1979 revolution offers only vague guidelines that candidates should possess "administrative capacity and resourcefulness... trustworthiness and piety".The build-up to the vote has injected more interest than many predicted just a couple of months ago, when Rouhani was seen as a shoo-in for a second term if only because the conservative opposition seemed unable to offer a strong candidate.

Since then, the 56-year-old former judge and cleric Ebrahim Raisi has emerged as a front-runner for the conservatives.

Little-known on the political scene, Raisi runs a powerful religious foundation and business empire in the holy city of Mashhad and is seen as a close ally of -- and possible successor to -- supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But despite emphasising his care for the poor, many say Raisi`s hardline judicial background and entourage will turn off voters.

"He seems like a good and calm person himself, but the people around him are scary," said a tour operator in Yazd, echoing a widely heard sentiment.

Some think he may drop out at the last minute in favour of Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who came second to Rouhani in 2013.

Ghalibaf is a war veteran, former Revolutionary Guards commander and police chief -- and could be the preferred choice of powerful backroom hardliners.

The other three candidates have been less prominent so far.

They include two moderate reformists, Mostafa Hashemitaba and vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri, and a veteran hardliner Mostafa Mirsalim -- a selection that appears designed to give an even balance to moderates and hardliners in the upcoming debates.There were mixed reactions to Ahmadinejad`s disqualification.

Despite controversial rhetoric against Israel that worsened ties with the West, and somewhat reckless financial management, he retained considerable popularity, particularly among the poor.

"I think Ahmadinejad should not have been disqualified," said Mohammad Barkhordar, 20, doing his military service.

"He was the kind of president that took risks, like distributing money among people and giving houses to the poor, and he had big ambitions for Iran`s nuclear programme. Rouhani doesn`t take any risks."

But many were glad to see the back of him.

"It was right for Ahmadinejad to be disqualified but it happened 12 years too late," said one Twitter user.
Tehran: Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday reiterated his country`s commitment to a nuclear agreement it signed with six major powers in 2015, and asked the US to do the same.

Zarif was responding to statements from Washington that called for a revised nuclear deal as Iran continued to pose a threat to the world, Efe news reported.

"The worn-out allegations by the US cannot cover the country`s admission of Iran`s implementation of its nuclear deal undertakings," Zarif said.

He said that the implementation of the pact by Tehran required the US "to change its path and act upon its undertakings."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said this week in a letter that Iran was fulfilling its commitments but warned that the White House was reviewing the agreement.

Tillerson insisted that the nuclear deal was a failure as it only delayed and does not avert Iran`s goal of becoming a nuclear state.

In addition, US President Donald Trump affirmed on Thursday that Iran "is not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear agreement, which he described as terrible and badly negotiated.

Meanwhile, at the UN, US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley tried unsuccessfully to place Iran at the centre of the Security Council`s Middle East agenda, accusing Iran of being the main culprit in regional conflicts.
Tel Aviv: Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said during a visit to Israel on Friday that there can be "no doubt" that Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis, speaking during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, declined to comment on the number of weapons Washington believes Syria has retained.

US President Donald Trump's administration carried out a strike against a Syrian airbase earlier this month over an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.
Lahore: Pakistan Interior Ministry has conveyed to the Lahore High Court that no laws were violated in issuance of the detention orders against Jamaat-ud- Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his aides.

In a written reply submitted to the court on Thursday, the ministry defended the detention of the JuD leaders saying the orders were issued under section 11EE of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, which deals with the proscription of person, reports the News International.

The reply said the ministry issued the impugned notification in exercise of the powers conferred by sub section (1) of section 11D of the ATA, 1997 and placed JuD and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) in second schedule of the Act.

It also said the JuD and FIF had been kept under observation on the basis of a report sent by the foreign affairs ministry. In light of that report, the federal government had reasons to believe that JuD and FIF were engaged in certain activities which could be prejudicial to peace and security and in violation of Pakistan`s obligation to the United Nations Security Council resolution.

A division bench headed by Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan examined the report and adjourned hearing of the petition for April 27.

Hafiz Saeed, Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid had challenged their detention through Advocate A.K Dogar.

The lawyer argued that the government detained the JuD leaders without any justification.

He said the UN resolution followed by the government did not seek detention of any citizen.He also alleged that the government detained the petitioners to please India and US.

The Punjab government had placed Saeed, the alleged Mumbai attack mastermind, and other party leaders under house arrest earlier on January 31.

The JuD has already been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States in June 2014.The JuD chief also carries a reward of USD 10 million announced by the US for his role in terror activities.
Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled there was insufficient evidence to order Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif`s removal from office over corruption allegations levelled by the opposition, but it ordered further investigations.

A verdict to dismiss Sharif would have left his party in power but would have brought turmoil at a time when Pakistan is experiencing modest growth and improved security, and the civilian government and powerful military have appeared to come to uneasy terms.

Two of five judges on the court bench recommended Sharif should step down, saying he was dishonest "to the nation as well as to the parliament", but they were out voted.

Presenting its 549-page judgment amid tight security in the capital Islamabad, the court ordered a joint investigation team be formed to look into allegations around three of Sharif`s four children using offshore companies to buy properties in London.

The team has two months to complete its inquiry, after which a special bench will decide what action to take, the court said in a ruling that opens with the epigraph from Mario Puzo`s novel "The Godfather": "Behind every great fortune there is a crime".

The prime minister and his children deny any wrongdoing.

Pakistan`s stock market jumped after the court`s decision with the benchmark index closing up 2.39 percent. Sharif is seen as pro-business.

Analysts and opposition politicians said the ruling was a blow to Sharif`s credibility and the inquiry`s findings could yet weaken the prime minister as he heads into a general election, due by May 2018.

But for now, Sharif and his ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, are celebrating.

Sharif`s daughter and his presumptive political heir, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, posted a photo on Twitter of the family welcoming the court`s decision.

"We are ready for all kinds of investigation," Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told reporters outside the court.

The Supreme Court agreed last year to investigate the Sharif family`s offshore wealth after opposition leader Imran Khan threatened protests after the leaking of the "Panama Papers".

"The prime minister should immediately resign at least for the 60 days until JIT completes its work," Khan told reporters, referring to the joint investigation team. "What moral grounds does he have to continue in office?"

`CLOSE CALL`

Documents leaked from the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm appeared to show that Sharif`s daughter and two sons owned offshore holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and used them to buy properties in London.

The opposition accuses Sharif of failing to explain the source of offshore money and of lying to parliament.

Sharif, one of Pakistan`s richest men, told parliament last year that his family wealth was acquired legally in the decades before he entered politics.

The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association said the ruling showed that none of the judges had accepted the truthfulness of Sharif`s speech to parliament. "That is very damaging to the prime minister," Rasheed Razvi said.

Farogh Naseem, a Supreme Court lawyer and sitting senator, said Sharif could breathe easy, for now.

"It was a close call for the prime minister," he told Reuters. "There is no clean chit for the prime minister, but for the time being he has been saved from being disqualified."

Naseem said with three of the institutions involved in the joint investigation under Sharif`s control, a decision against him was unlikely.

Khan`s party has indicated that it would not launch new street protests if it was disappointed by the judgement.

Pakistani politicians of all stripes have over the years been accused of corruption, which remains endemic.

Saadia Toor, associate professor at City University New York, said the scourge of corruption extended far beyond Sharif and offshore wealth.

"Definitely there should be accountability regardless of who is in power but it`s important to have governments that sit out their terms because there is so much instability," Toor said.
Islamabad: Pakistan's former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif left for Riyadh on Friday to head a 41-nation Islamic military alliance after getting the government's approval, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said amidst concerns here about the Saudi-led grouping.

Asif told Geo News that Sharif had been "given permission to head the military alliance after completion of all legal formalities and requirements" by the federal government.

Media reports suggested that the 60-year-old former chief of army staff was granted approval to serve as head of the alliance for three years.

A military source, while speaking to Dawn.Com, said approval for Sharif's departure had also been granted by General Headquarters Rawalpindi according to established procedures.

Sharif, who has army chief for three years till his retirement on November 29, 2016, left for Riyadh today on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother.

It was not immediately clear if the government had discussed its decision with opposition parties, which recently expressed serious misgivings regarding the issue in light of the possibility that the alliance may be used against Iran, Dawn reported.

The news also seemed to go against what the defence minister himself had assured Parliament of on April 13, the report said.

Asif had informed the house that the Saudi government would hold a grand meeting in May, where it would unveil the alliance's Terms of Reference (ToR).

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former COAS Gen Raheel Sharif will attend the event," he had said.

He had further said that the former COAS would formally apply for a No Objection Certificate after the ToR was made public.

He also said that the ToR and the aims and objectives of the alliance would be presented to Parliament before a formal decision would be made on whether Pakistan should become a part of it or not.

The 41-nation armed coalition was initially proposed as a platform for security cooperation among Muslim countries and included provisions for training, equipment and troops, and the involvement of religious scholars for devising a counter- terrorism narrative.

Since news of the alliance first surfaced, there have been concerns in Pakistan about its nature and how it may affect a pre-existing parliamentary resolution on Yemen passed unanimously by lawmakers calling for "neutrality in the conflict" in 2015.

On April 13, Asif had told the National Assembly: "We will stick to our prerogative when it comes to Yemen, and the agreement we have will remain binding."

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's (PTI) Shireen Mazari had raised concerns, saying that a military alliance cannot be a solution to terrorism. The PTI urged the government to determine the nature and purpose of the alliance and make its Terms of Reference clear.

Earlier this week, in a meeting at GHQ in Rawalpindi, Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had assured Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Honardoost that Pak-Iran ties would "remain unaffected by recent developments".

"Pakistan greatly values historic Pak-Iran relationship and the same shall continue based on mutual trust and respect for each other's interests," Gen Bajwa had told Honardoost.

Extraordinary importance was attached to the meeting by diplomatic circles because it was the second between the two in around six weeks, a rare happening in Pakistan-Iran relations given the mutual mistrust, the Dawn said.

Earlier this month, Honardoost had said that Iran had reservations on the appointment of Gen Sharif as the head of the Saudi-led Islamic military alliance, warning that it may "impact" the unity among Muslim countries.

"We are concerned about this issue... That it may impact the unity of Islamic countries," Honardoost said, adding that Tehran had conveyed its concerns to Islamabad.
Jerusalem: US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday that there can be "no doubt" Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad`s regime not to use them.

Mattis made the comments during a one-day visit for talks with Israeli leaders, who strongly supported a recent US strike against a Syrian airbase in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community`s mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," Mattis said during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman.

"It`s a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it`s going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they`d be ill-advised to try to use any again. We`ve made that very clear with our strike."

Mattis added that Syria had "dispersed their aircraft in recent days."

An Israeli military assessment has found that Assad`s regime was still in possession of "a few tonnes" of chemical weapons, an army official confirmed.

Some Israeli media reports put the number at between one and three tonnes. Lieberman declined to comment on the assessment at Friday`s press conference in Tel Aviv.

Assad, backed by his ally Russia, has strongly denied the allegation that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, describing it as a "100 percent fabrication".

He has said repeatedly that his forces turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.

The agreement was later enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution.Mattis, the first member of President Donald Trump`s cabinet to visit Israel, later held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, followed by President Reuven Rivlin.

Israel and the United States have long had close strategic ties, with Washington providing Israel more than $3 billion per year in defence aid and Trump pledging unstinting support for the country.

Despite tensions over Israeli settlement building, Barack Obama`s administration signed a new agreement with Israel before he left office increasing the amount to $3.8 billion for a 10-year period beginning in 2018.

Mattis sought to hear directly from Israeli leaders on their concerns and what they expect from the Trump administration, a US defence official said.

Iran`s influence is at the top of the list for Israel, a worry shared by the United States.

Mattis accused Iran of "destabilising activities," including threatening Israel and other nations in the Middle East with ballistic missiles, cyber activities and proxy groups.

Netanyahu welcomed Mattis`s comments on Iran and Syria, calling the Trump administration`s approach a "welcome change."

Israel is closely watching Iran`s presence in Syria, where it is backing Assad.

Israeli enemy Hezbollah is also fighting with Assad in Syria. Israel fought a devastating war against the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement in 2006.

Israel has sought to avoid being dragged into the six-year civil war in Syria, but acknowledges carrying out air strikes there to stop what it says are deliveries of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.Testy relations between Obama and Netanyahu reached a low point over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, led by Washington.

Obama pushed hard for the agreement, but Netanyahu fiercely opposed it, arguing it will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and that the lifting of sanctions would allow it to support proxy groups.

Trump also harshly criticised the deal, and on Thursday said Iran was "not living up to the spirit" of the agreement, adding that the United States would set out its position on it soon.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered a review of the deal to be led by his National Security Council, although the State Department admits Iran has so far stuck to its side of the bargain.

Mattis said on Friday that Iran appeared to be living up to the agreement, but that it "in no way mitigates against or excuses the other activities of Iran in the region."

In a further sign of close relations, Israel is to receive three more F-35 stealth fighter jets on Sunday, adding to two which arrived in December.

They are among 50 that Israel has agreed to buy from US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

Mattis`s visit was part of a tour of the Middle East and Djibouti. He had previous stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and was fly on to Qatar later on Friday.
Manila: A group of Filipino fishermen have accused China`s coast guard of shooting at their vessel in disputed South China Sea waters, Philippine authorities said Friday.

Philippine officials said they were investigating the reported attack on the Princess Johann boat, which the crew said occurred near a Chinese-occupied section of the Spratly archipelago on March 27.

There were no casualties during the incident, authorities added.

"(Princess Johann) was reportedly fired upon seven times by a Chinese speedboat with seven Chinese coast guards on board," a Philippine Coast Guard statement said.

The armed speedboat approached the Filipino vessel after it dropped anchor about 3.7 kilometres (two nautical miles) off the Chinese side of the Union Banks atoll, it said.

"The crew hid and eventually cut their anchor line and fled the area," the statement added.

Representatives at the Chinese embassy in Manila could not be reached for comment Friday.

If confirmed the incident would be the first hostile episode in nearly a year involving the two countries, which have seen warming relations since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was elected in mid-2016.

Both the Philippine coast guard and military are investigating the incident.

"(The Union Banks) is located inside the Philippines` exclusive economic zone," military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea grants coastal states exclusive rights to develop and exploit natural resources in the waters that extend up to 370 kilometres off their coasts.

But China claims most of the South China Sea and in recent years has been building up disputed reefs into artificial islands that can house military facilities.

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the Spratlys either wholly or in part.

Reversing the course set by predecessor Benigno Aquino, Duterte has sought to improve his nation`s relations with Beijing by adopting a non-confrontational approach over their competing claims in the strategically vital waters.

Since then, Duterte said China has allowed Filipinos to fish in waters around the Scarborough Shoal, another outcrop in the South China Sea that Beijing seized in 2012 after a stand-off with the Philippine Navy.
Dhaka: Thousands of supporters of a hard-line Bangladeshi Islamist group staged protests Friday calling for the removal or destruction of a controversial statue from the nation's highest court.

The statue of "lady justice" has ruffled feathers in the Muslim-majority nation, with hardliners demonstrating in recent weeks against what they say is a Greek god unbefitting Bangladesh.

Protesters want the statue of the blindfolded woman holding scales, said to represent justice, destroyed and replaced with a Koran, despite Bangladesh`s secular constitution.

Supporters of Islami Andolan Bangladesh (IAB) gathered after Friday prayers outside the country`s national mosque, Baitul Mukarram, in central Dhaka, chanting and wielding placards with slogans such as "Demolish the statue on the court premises".

"Nearly 10,000 protesters attended the rally. Security has been beefed up at the area," local police chief Rafiqul Islam told AFP.

IAB spokesman Atiqur Rahman said they also wanted the removal of the country`s chief justice because of his "procrastination" in removing the statue.

"We want the statue of the Greek Goddess to be removed immediately," he told AFP.

Last week Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told a meeting of top Islamic seminary teachers that she too disliked the statue, boosting the hardliners` stance.

Secular rights groups accused her of "kowtowing" to the Islamists in preparation for an early general election.

Court officials have defended the statue as a symbol of justice.

Conservative Bangladesh has experienced increasing tensions between hardliners and secularists in recent years, suffering a spate of killings of atheist bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Unfound Daisies by photographer and writer Edgar Harutyunyan leads the list of YEREVAN BESTSELLER project of ARMENPRESS.

The book is about complex human relationships: love, friendship, betrayal. This is the authors second book.

Aram Pachyans novel Goodbye, Bird is ranked 2nd in the list. The book was published for the first time in 2012. This is the authors first novel.

Mark Arens Where wild roses bloom comes next. This is the second novel of the author which describes the inner world of an Armenophobic Turkish former serviceman, when he, already an old man, suddenly hears a lullaby song that reminds him of his mother and later finds out that the song is in Armenian: realizing his parents were Armenians. The same former serviceman spends his remaining life searching the graves of his parents, without knowing that it was a misunderstanding.

Oscar Wildes The Picture Of Dorian Gray is ranked 4th in the bestselling list of the week. Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian's beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life.

Edgar Harutyunyans another book Art of Devotion or Ode to Rose is ranked 5th in this weeks list.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is ranked 6th in the list. It is a 2006 Holocaust novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. Unlike the months of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end.

Stefan Zweigs Collected Stories this week is ranked 7th. Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular writers in the world. The book was translated by Ara Arakelyan and Margarit Arakelyan.

Spencer Johnsons Who Moved My Cheese is ranked 8th in the list. Published on September 8, 1998, Who Moved My Cheese is a motivational business fable. The text describes change in one's work and life, and four typical reactions to those changes by two mice and two "little people," during their hunt for cheese. A New York Times business bestseller upon release, Who Moved My Cheese? remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list. It has sold more than 26 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books.

The Alchemist by Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho returned the list and is ranked 9th. The novel is about having a dream and the dedication to making it come true, coupled with love, kindness and the ability to recognize a new country.

Animal Farm by George Orwell concludes the "Bestseller Books List. Animal Farm is an allegorical and dystopian novel, published in Englandon 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to theRussian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Orwell, ademocratic socialist, was an outspoken critic of Joseph Stalin and, especially after experiences with the NKVD and the Spanish Civil War, he was actively opposed to the controversial ideology of Stalinism. The book is banned in China, North Korea, Burma and a number of Islamic countries.

The following bookstores took part in a survey for the bestseller project: Bookinist (53-74-13), Narek (51 91 36), Zangak (23 26 49), Antares (091 90 01 23) and the 7th Bookstore (077 24 54 81).

Yerevan Bestseller project presented by Angela Hambardzumyan
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The pre-election campaign period for the upcoming Yerevan City Council election kicks off on April 21.

The campaigning period will last until May 12.

Three political forces  the Republican Party of Armenia, the Yelk bloc and the Yerkir Tsirani (Apricot Country) party are running for office.

The Republican Partys proportional list is led by the incumbent Mayor of Yerevan Taron Margaryan.

Yelks list is led by opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan, and Yerkir Tsiranis list is led by opposition MP Zaruhi Postanjyan.

The Yelk bloc launched its campaign at midnight from the Victory Park.

On April 21, Yelk members will begin a march from Moskovyan, Isahakyan and Teryan Streets in Yerevan, proceeding to the Northern Avenue where a gathering and a concert are planned.

The Republican Partys campaign will kick off from the Erebuni district, where candidates will meet with residents. Mayor Taron Margaryan will also be present at the meetings.

Yerkir Tsirani will launch its campaign from Liberty Square at 17:00 with a bicycle-march.

The City Council election will be held on May 14.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Artsakhs Ministry of Defense told Armenpress the Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire regime 35 times firing shots from various caliber small arms at the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

The Ministry issued a statement which says: On April 20 and overnight April 21 the Azerbaijani forces violated the ceasefire regime 35 times by firing more than 400 shots from various caliber small arms at the Armenian positions in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. In the eastern direction of the line of contact the Azerbaijani forces fired also 60 mm mortar (1 shell).

The Defense Army forces of Artsakh took countermeasures to suppress the Azerbaijani activeness and continued confidently fulfilling their military tasks.




YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The Ombudsman of Artsakh presented the 2016 report on April 20 at the plenary session of the countrys Parliament, the Ombudsmans Office told ARMENPRESS.

Ombudsman Ruben Melikyan presented the statistics of applications and touched upon the strategic directions of the Ombudsmans Offices activities, including strengthening dialogue with the civil society, raising the legal culture among the public and issues of guaranteeing human rights in penitentiaries.

Melikyan specially emphasized the need to design, adopt and initiate a strategy of human rights of the Artsakh Republic.

He also mentioned he expects the assistance of the Diasporas structures in designing the strategy.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The gunman who shot dead a policeman in Paris on April 20 has been identified from papers left in his car, but French officials are yet to release his name, BBC reported.

Local media say the 39-year-old lived in the city's suburbs, and had been seen as a potential Islamist radical.

The gunman also wounded two police officers before he was killed by security forces on the Champs-Elysees.

President Francois Hollande is to chair a security cabinet meeting, as France readies for Sunday's presidential poll.

So-called Islamic State (IS) said one of its "fighters" had carried out the attack.

A car pulled up alongside a police bus just before 21:00 (19:00 GMT) and a man got out, opening fire on the bus with an automatic weapon, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

After killing an officer, the man attempted to run away while shooting at other officers, two of whom he injured, the spokesman added.

The whole of the Champs-Elysees was evacuated.

The French presidential candidates expressed their solidarity with the police and the victims family.

Ms Le Pen, Mr Fillon and Mr Macron have announced they are cancelling campaign events scheduled for Friday, the last day of canvassing for votes.

Islamist threats were one of the main topics during the French presidential election campaign debates.

The first round of the election will be held on April 23.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Governments of 9 Latin American countries have condemned the recent clashes in Venezuela between police and protesters.

The governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay strictly condemn the violence in Venezuela, and are sorry that the international communitys urges were unheard, which said the protests should pass in a calm situation and without violence, the foreign ministries of the countries said in a joint statement.

Three people died in the clashes, including a National Guard officer. More than 200 were injured.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Recently media were focused on MEP Frank Engel from Luxembourg and his Armenian fiancee Tatev Manukyan, who lives in Belgium. She studied in the State University of Economics of Armenia and later continued her studies in Swedens Dalarna University.

She relocated to Belgium afterwards, and currently works in the AGBU Europes Brussels office.

In an exclusive interview with ARMENPRESS, Frank Engel and Tatev Manukyan presented their love story  from a random meeting in the Tatev Monastery to wedding planning.

Photos by Mkhitar Khachatryan

Lets start from the beginning. Where and how did you first meet?

F. Engel  Of course, I am already used to answering this question. Actually, this can be called a flight story. I was going to Mongolia to participate in the parliamentary assembly ahead of the EU-Asia summit. A rather short travel was scheduled, and I had to return to Armenia afterwards in order to be here on the Armenian Genocide anniversary day. There were some problems during the Istanbul-Ulan Bator flight, and we landed in Bishkek, where the passengers were requested to exit the plane. The bad thing was that no other flight was suggested, because we found out the weather conditions were really bad in Ulan Bator, and we didnt even know when we would be able to reach it. There was nothing else left then cancelling it. I stayed in Bishkek for one day, and the next day I organized a flight to Yerevan. And it so happened that in Armenia I and Tatev coincidentally appeared in the same car, which was going to the Tatev Monastery. The monastery and the surrounding view were simply wonderful, perhaps this is what inspired us. The mysterious beautify of the two Tatevs (my bride and the monastery) were very harmonious.

T. Manukyan  Yes, this was in fact the time following the April War  the second half of April, when I arrived in Armenia for 10 days. I had asked a common friend of me and Frank to take me to Tatev Monastery, and after being in the same car with Frank, I found out that Frank had also requested the same person for the same favor prior to arriving in Armenia, who didnt hesitate to send both of us to Tatev on the same car.

Speaking about intercultural dialogue, what new discoveries have you managed to do about each other as representatives of different nations?

F. Engel  I dont know whether Im the most typical representative of Luxembourg, but anyhow, Tatev, what have you discovered? Actually Tatev had never been to Luxembourg.

T. Manukyan  Really, I hadnt been to Luxembourg. It was an entirely new discovery for me  the people, the country, I have already started to learn Luxembourgish. I cant say the same about Frank, since he has more than discovered Armenia already. He told me once : I have to take you, and you have to see your Fatherland and know it from end to end. We drove 2500 kilometers in one day in Armenia and Artsakh, travelling in the north and south of Armenia and Artsakh  from Noyemberyan to Meghri, from Martakert to Hadrut.

I am often asked  Did you show Frank Armenia?, to which I respond smilingly, yes, Frank showed me Armenia.

F. Engel  By the way, on a white Niva, what any Armenian man must do [laughingly]. Yes, asking an Armenian woman on a date requires a bit more of a constructive approach than a representative of another nation, but I can say Tatev is the kind of person who completely matches me.

What will you say about language issues? If, of course those exists.

F. Engel  A bit time is necessary for me to finish my Armenian lessons and bring my language skill to a normal level. Armenian isnt one of the easiest languages, in which case one can at least find some similarities with the languages I know. We speak English to each other. We also speak Dutch in Belgium, it is more convenient for communicating with Tatevs family.

T. Manukyan  Sometimes I simply say  If in the future you want to understand your children, then you must learn Armenian. Our common languages are English, Dutch and French, while Armenian and Luxembourgish are yet to come.

F. Engel  Our children will of course speak also Armenian and Luxembourgish. Tatev in her turn is trying to learn Luxembourgish.

T. Manukyan  Yes, one of the upcoming goals of my life is learning Luxembourgish, because I see how much Frank respects my language and culture, and I have to show the same respect for his language and culture.

And how did your friends and family respond to your decision on being together?

T. Manukyan  They were very excited.

F. Engel  Really?

T. Manukyan  Perhaps you missed that part [laughing]

Why am I asking. Perhaps youve seen the photo of an Armenian woman wearing Armenian national clothes, with her black husband and their son, which was rather widely discussed among the public. Different things were said around the photo, which gave the reason to think about the somewhat environment of intolerance. I would like to know what you think about this issue?

F. Engel  But we also saw that even Armenians display more tolerance, when its about a black woman, in this case Serena Williams, and this doesnt disturb anyone. In terms of the Luxembourg society, I havent noticed it to create any concern there, since there are many mixed marriages in Luxembourg.

T. Manukyan  I had heard about it, I had seen those negative comments. I have also read all comments regarding an article which was written about us, which were mostly positive, but I was asking myself why? Is it maybe because Frank is a public figure? This really angers me, because it shows the discriminative attitude which we have towards foreigners. During our history we have been persecuted for many times for being religious and ethnic minorities, and now, in fact, we are the ones who discriminate others. That incident was a stereotype breaking in our society, in which the Marashlyan Photo Atelier had an important and right role.

What are the most important qualities which you appreciate in one another?

F. Engel  Tatev has a unique lightness for various issues, calmness and tranquility, which I dont usually have. This seems to be a complementary factor. She is very understanding towards everyone, something which I dont always display. She is like that towards me also. For me, she is the unique combination of femininity and intelligence, fair towards others and extremely responsible for her actions.

T. Manukyan  There is a relevant word in Armenian   [cosmopolitan].

I think, this describes him the best. Frank is very open for different cultures, I can say also for different religions and ideas. In my opinion, I have lots to learn from him in this regard. He has a wide outlook, and as a political figure I can say he is very determined in terms of his convictions. He says what he thinks, what many can dislike. He is among those who struggle for the rule of justice in this world. As a partner, I always mention he is the source of my emotional and intellectual supply.

Have you already decided the date and place of your wedding?

F. Engel  Yes, it is decided. It will be in Armenia and Artsakh. We will leave other details undisclosed yet.

Interview by Syuzi Muradyan

Photos by Mkhitary Khachatryan
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Armenia is a supporter of peace and is confident that the region has no other future, Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan told reporters on April 21, commenting on the public concerns according to which Armenia under the programs of I have the honor and Its me has refused from peace and moves on the societys further militarization path, Armenpress reports.

Armenia has never refused from peace, we continue to remain the supporter for peace and we are confident that this region has no other future. However, in line with this, we must take steps aimed at increasing the level of our security. We have to do everything for our security to be at the highest level, the Minister said.

He added that the proposed programs do not suppose militarization of the society, increase of the number of servicemen, the programs are on voluntary basis.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Vigen Sargsyan wants to continue his service in the post of the Defense Minister of Armenia, reports Armenpress.

In a meeting with reporters on April 21, the Minister expressed hope the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) will provide him that chance.

I want to continue my service to the Fatherland as Defense Minister, as I have said many times before, and I hope I will have that chance, he said.

The Minister said he will be one of the happiest men if he has a chance to continue his work as Defense Minister.

Parliamentary election was held in Armenia on April 2. During the first session of the newly formed Parliament the Government must resign and new Government will be formed.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires declared of interest "for the promotion and defense of human rights" the central act "for the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish State, to be held next April 24 under the slogan 'Memory, truth, justice and reparation'" during the session on Thursday 20 April, Prensa Armenia reported.

The resolution, presented by Legislator Jose Campagnoli, president of the Commission on Human Rights, Guarantees and Antidiscrimination of the Legislature, with the co-author of Carlos Tomada, second vice-president of the Legislature, refers to the act to be held on Monday, April 24 in front of the residence of the Ambassador of Turkey, after a rally organized by the institutions of the Armenian community.

In that sense, the Legislature also approved, on the initiative of Legislator Javier Andrade, an adhesion to the activities that will be carried out that day.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The probability of adopting a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide is under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Ambassador of Armenia to the Czech Republic H.E. Tigran Seyranyan told ARMENPRESS.

The Armenian Genocide has been recognized and condemned by President of Czech Republic Milos Zeman, the foreign relations committee of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament, officials and parliamentarians, the Catholic Church of Czech Republic, many other structures and renowned figures. He possibility of adopting a resolution in this regard is also under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, the Ambassador said.

On April 14, 2015, the foreign relations committee of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which condemned the denial of genocides.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan held a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to Armenia Jerzy Nowakowski, press service of the Government told Armenpress.

The PM attached importance to the development and deepening of bilateral cooperation in various spheres, mainly in economy.

Karen Karapetyan mentioned examples of Polish companies successful activities in Armenia and highlighted the need to further intensify the works of the Armenian-Polish inter-governmental commission, as well as to hold business forums. We have numerous investment initiatives and expect your assistance in terms of presenting them to the Polish businessmen. I am convinced that we have a great potential to intensify and develop the economic ties, the PM said.

In his turn the Polish Ambassador attached importance to the cooperation between the businessmen of the two countries, the increase of trade turnover volumes and assured that necessary steps are being taken on this path.

Jerzy Nowakowski said numerous Polish businessmen are interested in entering the Armenian market and ready to be engaged in the projects on energy, construction, transportation and other fields.

The sides also attached importance to the resumption of Warsaw-Yerevan flights. They also discussed other issues of bilateral interest.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute almost every day hosts Turkish visitors, Director of the Institute Hayk Demoyan said at a press conference on April 21, reports Armenpress.

This no longer surprises us, we will just state that the exhibition opened at the Museum with its quality creates an interest among Turks. I highly appreciate this since the Turkish audience is one of the targets of our work, Hayk Demoyan said.

He informed that this year is full of events and interesting since the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex is celebrated.

This year we will present the chronology, historical photos from the construction process, how people took part in the construction works through a modest exhibition, Hayk Demoyan said, adding that already two years have passed since the new renovation and there are already positive reactions over the exhibitions.

Demoyan identified the opening of a permanent exhibition on the Armenian Genocide in Riga among the major events of the year. He informed that the number of visitors to the expo comprised 15.000 in the period from May, 2016 to December.

This is the second permanent exhibition which was created by the assistance of our partners, as well as the Armenian community of Latvia. The large number of visitors is very impressing, majority of them are Europeans. Another important event was the temporary exhibition dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Armenias Independence Demoyan said.

Talking about the Genocide, he said last year the recognition of the Genocide by the German Bundestag was very important.

It was not just a recognition. Not only the genocide term was mentioned, but also there was a reference to facing with the history, Germanys involvement. We, of course, dont publicize our contributions in any event, developments related to the Genocide, I would just say that you will find our contribution in the course of time. The Promise movie will be available soon. Here we as well have our modest contribution in terms of providing advice over materials, he said.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Today the launch of a "United Nations (UN) Corner" took place in the Masis Youth (MY) Center in the town of Masis, Ararat province of Armenia organized jointly by the UN Information Office in Yerevan and the Masis Development Foundation, the UN Office in Armenia told Armenpress.

The launch of this UN Corner, which is the 17th of its kind, is aimed at providing the Youth Center visitors and interested parties with access to the UN publications and other promotional and visual materials. Thus, this could help them to get acquainted with the United Nations values and objectives, its worldwide mandate and policies and its all-inclusive areas of action with diverse themes. The overall result of this can be the empowerment of youth and their involvement and action towards the achievement of the UN global agenda.

Armineh Haladjian, head of the UN Information Office in Yerevan, stressed the importance of UN corner opening in Masis: Within our cooperation with new partners especially outside Yerevan, and having the main goal of reaching out to our main target group -- the YOUTH, UN Information Office in Yerevan on behalf of UN Armenia is launching this UN Corner in Masis Youth Center. I am pleased to inform the audience here today that this Corner can be a good start to bring the members and visitors of this facility closer to the United Nations even being not physically in the UN House. We look forward to further cooperation and bilateral visits in the near future.

In his welcoming speech, Executive Director of the Masis Development Foundation Stepan Hovhannisyan, congratulated the residents of the town on this landmark event and stated: We highly appreciate the cooperation with the United Nations. The UN Corner, opened today, will help the youth of Masis learn more about the work of the United Nations both in Armenia and around the world. Joint educational and enlightenment projects will help the children from the Youth Center learn more about the principles of the UN work. In the activities of Masis Development Foundation and the Youth Center, we also adhere to similar values, and strive to develop in the youth an active, not indifferent attitude to the development of civil society, human rights, preservation of the environment. We hope that together we will contribute to the development and prosperity of Masis and Armenia.

Presentation of MY Center members, screening of the "See You" animation film about the UN activities in Armenia, interactive discussion with participation of UN Development Programme and UN Population Fund staff members, followed the official part of the "UN Corner opening. A cultural program organized by Masis youth closed the event.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. A Turkish Court has delivered a verdict regarding the compensation to the family of Sevag Balkc, the ethnic Armenian soldier of the Turkish Army who was murdered in 2011.

Istanbuls Armenian Agos newspaper reported the Court ruled to pay Balkcs family a compensation of around 11 thousand dollars.

The familys attorney said the amount is extremely small compared to other similar cases. He said they have appealed the Courts ruling in the Court of Appeals.

The murder trial of Sevag Balkc is still ongoing.

The ethnic Armenian soldier was shot dead on April 24, 2011, only 23 days short from being demobilized.

Immediately after the murder, the command of the military base announced the incident happened during a joke with a co-serviceman, by an unintentional discharge.

Sevags parents however, insist their son was killed for being Armenian.

In 2013, a military court sentenced the shooter Kvanc Agaoglu to 4 and a half years imprisonment for murder, and a corporal, Sedrettin Ersyoz, was sentenced to 5 months for misconduct.

In 2014 a military court overturned the ruling on grounds that the facts are insufficient and the murder was unintentional.

After the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, a new decree was adopted on dissolving military courts, thus on February 2 the Sevag Balkc case was transferred to the Kozluk criminal court.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Pyunik Human Resource Development Foundation planted a fir tree at the Memorial Park in Tsitsernakaberd on the occasion of the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, reports Armenpress.

The event was attended by Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobyan, Minister of Education and Science Levon Mkrtchyan, Culture Minister Armen Amiryan, acting Director of Matenadaran Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan, Director of Komitas Museum-Institute Nikolay Kostandyan and others.

A memorial board with a note From Co-Chairmen of Pyunik charity foundation Levon Sargsyan and Gabriel Chenberjyan to the memory of the victims of Mets Yeghern was placed next to the fir tree.

Of course, on the occasion of April 24, we had an honor to plant a tree on behalf of the Foundation since it carried out huge works on the reconstruction of the Genocide Museum. We wished to have a tree next to famous people, Gabriel Chenberjyan said.

The Foundations representatives also paid tribute at the Eternal Flame in the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The European Court of Human Rights released its judgment regarding the Grigoryan and Galstyan vs. Armenia lawsuit.

The applicants insisted that their rights under the European Conventions paragraph 1 article 6 and article 1 of protocol 1 were violated in the process of taking their property (eminent domain) for the publics and states needs under the 2002 government decision N 1151 on alienating property.

Based on the Armenian governments decision, the European Court ruled the lawsuit to be unacceptable for the mentioned articles, as for the other parts it ruled it as clearly unfounded.

The ECHR released the judgment on April 20, 2017.
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Midfielder of Armenia national team and Manchester United club Henrikh Mkhitaryan has expressed solidarity with the families of those who fell victim to a tragic event in Nigeria while watching Europa Leagues Manchester United-Anderlecht match. Armenpress reports Mkhitaryan made the following post on his Facebook page.

I am deeply saddened by the tragic news from Nigeria. Praying for the eternal repose of our fans and wishing strength to all those affected by the tragedy.

30 people were killed by an electric shock in Nigerias Calabar city while watching Manchester United-Anderlecht match.
Just as Napa Valley has attracted the worlds wine connoisseurs, Denver has become the go-to destination for marijuana aficionados since Colorado legalized recreational pot in November 2012.

One marijuana enthusiast, Michael Eymer, saw an early opportunity to cash in on the $1.3 billion legal marijuana industry. He founded Colorado Cannabis Tours in January 2014, the year it became legal to sell recreational weed in the state.

The business began as a rudimentary model, with Eymer driving four people around in a sedan to check out a couple of dispensaries. These days, Cannabis Tours takes around 200 people in six party buses every weekend. Though the bus ride itself is the main attraction, tourists get to check out a few dispensaries, including Medicine Man (aka the Walmart of weed) as well as a live glassblowing demonstration.

Now, although Eymer, a 35-year-old single dad, runs his company out of his home, he raked in $1.8 million in sales last year. Hes up 66 percent this year so far.

Pot is my passion, Eymer told Yahoo Finance. I keyed into the business opportunity early on. Ive always had some involvement in the industry even before it was official. Then, seeing all these changes happening in Colorado, I just thought it was the perfect time to seize the opportunity.

The business of weed

Eymer, an avid cannabis consumer since he was 15 years old, first saw the possibility of building a business around his pastime in December 2009, when Colorado legalized medical marijuana. He decided to move to Denver when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana use. (Weed sales didnt begin until 2014 in either state.)

Legal cannabis is now a $6 billion industry in the U.S., and analysts expect it to be worth $50 billion by 2026. Pot legalization in Colorado has increased the amount of money coming into state coffers, legal pot opponent and former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter acknowledged in an interview with Yahoo Finance. Still, Ritter believes the state Legislature  rather than the voters  should have decided whether to legalize pot.

Story continues

We did this through our constitution. We didnt write a piece of legislation that could really deal with all the issues. It was passed by the voters in the constitution. It was like using a blunt force instrument to try and do this when we should have been using surgical instruments, he said.

Ritter isnt alone in opposing marijuana legalization. Just over 53 percent of Coloradans voted in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana, which mirrors the countrys divide overall. Only 49 percent support nationwide legalizing recreational marijuana, according to an exclusive Yahoo News/Marist Poll, Weed & the American Family.

Moreover, most people dont see weed as a worthwhile venture despite the economic opportunities: 72 percent of Americans would not be likely to invest in the marijuana business, according to the same Yahoo News/Marist Poll.

A controversial cash cow

Despite its divisive nature, pot has been lucrative for Eymer. Originally from south Florida, he moved to Colorado to help start and manage dispensaries around Denver. After a couple of failed ventures, he decided to forgo that business amid a glut of competitors. Dispensaries line Denvers streets, and there are 459 retail marijuana stores across Colorado. Thats more than the total number of Starbucks stores in the state.

He decided to build an experiential tour company instead. Anyone could seek out dispensaries on their own, but not everyone could facilitate a decked-out party bus that hit the streets of Denver. Colorado Cannabis Tours is one of a handful of companies that have built their businesses around weed tourism without selling the drug itself.

Because federal law prohibits banks and credit unions from taking marijuana money, the overwhelming majority of dispensaries operate only with cash. CCT has a massive advantage over other pot-related ventures, though. As an ancillary business, its found banks and merchant-service providers to work with and accepts credit card payments.

All aboard the cannabis tour bus

Yahoo Finance joined a 30-person tour with a wide range of attendees, hailing from all over the U.S. and representing different ethnic and age groups.

The youngest participants were three Hispanic 23-year-olds from Chicago. The oldest was a Caucasian grandmother from New York City, whose nephew took her on this trip to commemorate her 69th birthday.

Sherri Doll, a 50-year-old visiting from Dallas, Texas, came to Denver with her best friend to see the city from a weed-friendly perspective.

We are on a bus in Denver, Colorado, being chauffeured to smoke pot. Thats unbelievable. Younger, in my early teens, we wanted to smoke weed and were too afraid because every time you turned around, the police was pulling you over, she said in disbelief.

She said she would definitely return with her adult kids: I would come back. I would want them to experience the good, the bad and the ugly.

Members have to be at least 21 to get on the bus, but Eymer says he has made a few exceptions for those who are over 18 if they have a medical marijuana card.

The tour itself costs $99, and it makes three stops. The first stop is Medicine Man, aka the Walmart of Weed (appropriately so, given its the largest dispensary in Colorado). Tourists there learn how to grow marijuana indoors, and they are shown the nutrients needed to produce a healthy plant. Next, they stop at a dispensary called River Rock. Finally, they stop at Glasscraft and see a glassblower make a pipe.

A tour guide accompanies the crowd, and his primary role is to pass around a bong and keep guests happy and hydrated (especially given Colorados mile high altitude).

The tour begins at noon and ends, fittingly, at 4:20 pm.

Entrepreneur  and a family man

Now, with 30 employees, CCT has evolved to offer much more than its namesake tours.

Eymer and his business partner Heidi Keyes, a visual artist, offer Puff Pass and Paint, a cannabis-friendly painting class, and an edible-making demo called Cooking with Cannabis, taught by a Culinary Institute of the Arts-trained chef who teaches people how to infuse coconut oil with cannabinoids. Eymer and Keyes are planning to expand to California, Nevada, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., starting in January 2018.

Mike Eymer with his family (Source: Mike Eymer)

As his business enjoys continued success, Eymer hopes to chip away at the stigma surrounding cannabis and its users.

I want to show that [my customers] are just normal people. This is just a plant they enjoy consuming. And when non-cannabis users can realize that  by seeing them and by them not being hidden  then perhaps once the stigma is completely dropped, well see the laws dropped, too. And hopefully, 10 years from now, a company like mine wont even be necessary.

As CCT continues to grow, Eymer has found it increasingly difficult to operate the business out of his home, especially as the single father of a 5-year-old daughter. Despite his current entrepreneurial success, he says that being her father is the most important thing in my life  far beyond my business.

For now, hes been able to avoid talking to her about marijuana entirely. But he anticipates the conversation will change imminently.

I havent had any [conversations] yet. I havent needed to have any yet. When your child is that young, theyre still in a bit of a bubble. Shell leave that bubble in the next few years.

So what does his daughter think he does for a living?

Im a travel agent, he said. She just thinks of cannabis as a plant.

_____

Read more from the Yahoo Weed & the American Family series:
Volkswagen has agreed to pay more than $23 billion in fines and compensation in the United States in one of the costliest corporate scandals in history

A US judge on Friday sentenced Volkswagen to pay a $2.8 billion criminal penalty in the diesel emissions cheating scandal, in line with a deal struck between the automaker and the US government.

The district court judge in Detroit also placed the German auto maker on three years of probation, settling the US criminal case over the scandal that has roiled the firm since 2015.

The German automaker has agreed to pay a total of more than $23 billion in fines and compensation in the United States -- including penalties to federal and state authorities, as well as consumers and car dealers -- in one of the costliest corporate scandals in history.

With Germany conducting its own probe, the final bill could be even higher.

VW in January agreed to plead guilty to three felony charges of defrauding the United States and conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act by installing so-called defeat devices on diesel-powered cars to evade emissions standards.

In addition to the criminal penalty, which it agreed to under the plea agreement, VW will pay a separate $1.5 billion civil penalty. It also agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.

"The agreements that we have reached with the US government reflect our determination to address misconduct that went against all of the values Volkswagen holds so dear," the company said Friday in a statement.

"Volkswagen today is not the same company it was 19 months ago -- the change process under way is the biggest in our history."

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Larry Thompson was appointed to monitor the company's compliance with the terms of the deal.

"This is a case of deliberate massive fraud perpetrated by VW management," Judge Sean Cox said during the sentencing hearing in Detroit.

One aspect of the case that remains unresolved is the fate of VW executive Oliver Schmidt who US authorities arrested in Miami in January, one of seven company employees who have been charged.

Judge Cox refused to release Schmidt on bond, agreeing with prosecutors that he risked fleeing to Germany, which does not extradite its citizens.

Story continues

Five other company officials charged in January are believed to be in Germany.

Regulators in 2015 discovered that Volkswagen diesel cars, marketed as clean, in fact spewed up to 40 times the permissible limits of nitrogen oxide during normal driving, but this was hidden during emissions testing.

As many as 11 million vehicles sold worldwide were configured to cheat emissions tests. The car maker has agreed to buy back approximately half a million cars in the US.

VW developed the illegal technology in 2009 and, according to court documents, prosecutors believe senior employees attempted a cover-up after learning of the illegal technology in 2015.
CONCORD, N.H.As most people already know, the term "pornography" is a misnomer. It comes from the Greek, and means, literally, "the writing of prostitutes" (a profession which most will also recall had pretty high social status in those days). And while several collections of sexy tales are currently available from booksellers like SCB Distributors and Cleis Press, a lot of those aren't actually written by prostitutes. But the point is, it should be pretty clear that by that definition, sexually explicit "adult videos" aren't "pornography" in the literal sensebut there's little doubt that the term will continue to be used because most are too lazy to write, instead, "sexually explicit video recordings made by and for consenting adults."

But one of the biggest problems with not using the word "pornography" correctly is that American (indeed, the world's) society is saddled with the term "child pornography," and sadly, one hell of a lot of people (mainly religious conservatives) use those terms interchangeably, even though legitimate adult video producers go WAY out of their way to make sure that no one underage appears in any of their productions.

But perhaps a new day is dawning, thanks to the eight New Hampshire legislators who on April 13 introduced House Bill 220, whose sole purpose is to change the references to "Child Pornography" in the title and text of the state's Revised Statutes Annotated (RSA) 649-A to the more correct term "Child Sexual Abuse Images."

While the bill's text contains no discussion as to why the bill's primary sponsor, Rep. Robert Cushing Jr., chose to introduce the bill, it has already been approved by the House's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee with a unanimous recommendation that it pass, and it seems likely that both houses of the legislature will deem it worthy of enactment.

New Hampshire native Cushing, the Democratic representative of Rockingham's 21st District, has been a House member off and on since 1996, and even took part in the state Constitutional Convention in 1984. He's a member of the National Writers Union, which may explain why the particular words used in the statutes have special meaning for him.

A cursory look at the state's Criminal Code does not reveal any other uses of the term "Child Pornography" other than RSA 649-A, but if there are any, Rep. Cushing may want to introduce legislation to rename those as well. The Free Speech Coalition Legal Committee and Policy Committee have both voted to support this bill, which was part of an 89-bill docket that the national trade association is currently reviewing, and national anti-censorship groups such as the National Coalition Against Censorship (of which FSC is a member) as well as legal rights organizations like the ACLU may want to use House Bill 220 as a template for getting other states' "child pornography" laws reformed to better reflect what the term actually means.

(h/t Siouxsie Q)
SAN FRANCISCOWhen Cosmopolitan recommends, women listen, and in the May issue of the popular magazine, writers recommend Slippery Kitty Strawberry Lube, a tasty, likable lubricant from the ever-expanding TickleKitty.com boutique.

Were delighted that the print edition of Cosmo has selected our delicious, long-lasting sex lube to feature so prominently, said Tickle Kitty CEO Dr. Sadie Allison. Its so popular already, were looking forward to the added exposure among millions of readers worldwide who can follow the published TickleKitty.com link into our boutique.

The product recommendation, spotlighted in the feature, Be the Oracle of Oral accompanies a sex experts very best oral foreplay tips. And oral sex that tastes like a strawberry parfait is what Cosmo readers will be having.

Slippery Kitty water-based premium lube, a cornerstone of the Tickle Kitty product line, also comes unflavored, branded as Au Naturel. Both versions are female body-safe, pH balanced, hypoallergenic, non-staining, and contain no harsh parabens or glycerine. It is enriched with soothing botanicals, antioxidants, aloe vera and vitamin E, ideal for sensitive skin.

Can oral possibly feel and taste any better? Drizzle on some Slippery Kitty lube, suggests Dr. Sadie, and ask again!

The TickleKitty.com Boutique was founded in 2001 by Dr. Sadie, and features Slippery Kitty, sex toys and her line of bestselling how-to sex books, including Tickle His Pickle, Ride Em Cowgirl and The Mystery of the Undercover Clitoris. Dr. Sadie holds a Doctorate in Human Sexuality and is a member of AASECT.

For more information, contact Dr. Sadie at TickleKitty.com or (415) 876-3100.
LOS ANGELESLos Angeles is full of sexy, naughty history. From the Hustler Store, romps through the red-light district at the turn-of-the-century, burlesque and more and founder of the Naughty Empire and author of multi-award winning naughty travel guides, Sienna Sinclaire is ready to unveil her Naughty History of Los Angeles.

There are so many intriguing facts about Los Angeles, Sienna said. As a history buff and looking for untraditional facts about the cities I write about, Im constantly fascinated with what I discover touring new places, but uncovering the sexy and erotic places in my own backyard is a fun history lesson every day.

Drawing on her extensive research and visiting each place to compile the naughtiest places and her favorite sexiest spots, Sienna can discuss:

 The early beginnings of naughty Los Angeles

 The rise of naughty Hollywood

 Sexy Hollywood nightlife in the past  where promiscuous celebrities when to play, but kept quiet (unlike today!)

 The Will Hays Code and its effect on the movie industry

 Porno chic

 Madames

 Burlesque venues in the 50s and their revival in the 90s

 Current naughty history of Los Angeles

 Favorite naughty places in other cities like San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, Vancouver and even the Wild West

In fact, Sienna welcomes booking personal tours to show everyone whats lurking deep in and around the City of Lights.

For more information on Sienna Sinclaire, her Naughty Tours, Naughty Lifestyle Classes and her Travel Guides, visit NaughtyLifestyleExpert.com.
ONTARIO, Calif.CalExotics unveils two new remote controlled panty teasers. The new styles are guaranteed to put pleasure in just the right spot, each and every time.

Lock-N-Play is an upgrade to an old favorite. CalExotics was the first to offer remote controlled sex toys, and our team has worked diligently to enhance this selection. We are thrilled to add another product to our long list of innovations, said Susan Colvin, Founder, and CEO of CalExotics.

The Lock-N-Play panty teasers feature unique panty lock technology, which enables perfect panty placement. Users can find their favorite spot and secure the teaser in place by attaching the magnetic tabs to their panty. This creates a truly hands-free experience.

These unique panty teasers come in regular and petite sizes. They are made of premium, body-safe silicone, and are waterproof for play anywhere. Both sizes offer USB rechargeable motors that produce extreme power, with 12 different functions to choose from. As a bonus, the teaser can be used independently of the remote, making them even more versatile.

In addition to the Lock-N-Play styles, CalExotics offers other remote controlled vibrators that provide wireless fun for all. They are available in USB and battery operated designs and features the same powerful, 12-function motors. All remote controlled stimulators come equipped with an extended range. Each style can be operated from up to 32.75 feet/10 meters away. This feature allows for endless possibilities, and CalExotics encourages users to use their imagination and explore. Remote control toys are great for solo or couples play, on vacation or a date; they are great anytime, anywhere.

Everyone loves our remotes, Jackie White, executive vice president of CalExotics. They are powerful, easy to use and extremely affordable. This is a trifecta in the sales world. I suggest stocking these heavy.

To help aid in the sales process, CalExotics offers a wide range of support. On the company website, youll find detailed product information, downloadable videos, high-resolution images, marketing collateral and more. The company also offers in-person support; including training, merchandising support and more.

To learn more about CalExotics resources, and their new remote controlled toys, visit CalExotics.com.
Northern Irish sourdough specialist Ursa Minor Bakehouse has won international backing to set up a working expo to spread the message about artisan breads.

The business is the latest bakery to be named among the Economusee network, which celebrates the skills of artisan craft enterprises. It will showcase sourdough skills to visitors at the bakery.

Economusee (a working museum) is a concept that was developed in Quebec, Canada and involves partners from a number of countries, including the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It provides a platform for artisans to present their expertise to visitors and includes workshops on their produce and craft techniques.

Dara OHartghalle, owner of Ursa Minor Bakehouse, said it was fantastic to join the Economusee network of artisans.

It is a tremendous honour to be counted among a group of pioneering craftspeople across the world, OHartghalle said.

We look forward to creating working relationships with the artisans, as well as welcoming groups into our bakery and spreading the word about sourdough bread.

There are currently 70 mini museums across eight countries with an additional 20 to be launched by March 2018. Within Northern Ireland there are currently six Economusee workshops.
The Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood is to be the focus of a new baking series on Channel 4.

Commissioned by The Great British Bake Off producers Love Productions, A Bakers Life will comprise five episodes in which Hollywood opens up about his life.

Channel 4 said it was delighted to be able to give the audience a fresh insight into Pauls life before Bake Off, and how he came the baker he is today.

Throughout the series, Hollywood will visit the kitchens that inspired him and the chefs who taught him to bake. From his Merseyside roots to the Bake Off tent, he will be cooking new treats and reminiscing over the recipes that represent pivotal moments in his life.

Pauls credentials as one of Britains most knowledgeable bakers are beyond doubt, Richard McKerrow, creative director & executive producer at Love Productions, said.

How he came to become such a great baker with a passion for everything to do with baking is a fascinating story that hasnt been told. Were excited to be working with Paul and Channel 4 to tell that story.

Hollywood will welcome Prue Leith to the judging panel when the Channel 4 series of the GBBO is set to be broadcast in Autumn 2017.
FRIDAY, April 21, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- An old standby drug seems to help patients with advanced Parkinson's disease through the difficult times when their usual medication stops working, a new trial suggests.

As the movement disorder progresses, the effectiveness of the usual drug, levodopa, wears off more quickly after each dose, the researchers explained.

Patients can experience so-called "off" times, which can result in stiffness and leave them immobilized until the levodopa kicks in again.

During these off times, the injectable drug apomorphine (Apokyn) can significantly shorten the period before levodopa takes over, the investigators found.

"The results confirm what had been expected based on decades of clinical experience with apomorphine infusion in Europe," said lead researcher Dr. Regina Katzenschlager, a guest professor at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria.

"When fluctuations in the response to medication taken by mouth are no longer well-controlled and periods of bad mobility become burdensome, apomorphine infusion may provide relief to patients with Parkinson's disease," she added.

One Parkinson's expert said the findings give patients another option.

"This technology will hopefully offer a new avenue for patients requiring treatment for off medication periods. Although the results were not as robust as deep brain stimulation or the Duopa pump, it will add an important option to the treatment arsenal," said Dr. Michael Okun. He's medical director of the U.S.-based National Parkinson Foundation.

The Duopa pump, which was approved in 2015 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, delivers medication directly to the small intestine, significantly reducing off times, according to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

For the new 12-week phase 3 study, Katzenschlager and her colleagues randomly assigned 107 patients with advanced Parkinson's disease to either infusions of apomorphine or a placebo. Daily infusions were given over 14 to 18 hours via a small portable pump.

Patients given apomorphine had on average 2.5 hours less off time, compared with those receiving a placebo, whose reduction in off time averaged only 30 minutes.

The improvement was seen within the first week of treatment, and patients on apomorphine experienced an increase in "on" time -- without the involuntary movements that are often seen with levodopa, the researchers reported.

When patients were asked to evaluate their treatments, those who received apomorphine gave their treatment higher scores at week 12 than those who received a placebo, Katzenschlager's team said.

Among patients receiving apomorphine, 71 percent felt an improvement, compared with 18 percent of those who received a placebo. Nineteen percent of the patients receiving apomorphine worsened, compared with 45 percent of those on a placebo. Apomorphine was well-tolerated and no serious side effects were seen, the researchers added.

The study results are scheduled for presentation next week during the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, in Boston. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The study was funded by British-based Britannia Pharmaceuticals Ltd., the maker of apomorphine.

Apomorphine was first produced in 1865 and began to be used to treat advanced Parkinson's disease in the United States in 1950. Its use increased in the 1990s, when European doctors starting using infusions of the drug to treat fluctuations in mobility that could not be controlled by pills, Katzenschlager said.

Another U.S. neurologist said the new study backs up what was previously found.

"This is the first randomized study showing the positive effects of apomorphine, an old drug that has been available for the treatment of Parkinson's disease," said Dr. Paul Wright, chair of neurology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

"This study essentially confirms our knowledge from prior trials," he said.

The only drawback to apomorphine is that it has to be infused. "The drug, while effective, is not as easy to administer as a pill," Wright said.

More information.

For more information on Parkinson's disease, visit the National Parkinson Foundation.




Thats why the Alabama Senate passed the farcically-titled Fair Justice Act on Tuesday night, a bill that epitomizes unfairness. Its a bill that promises to add more innocent inmates to the states already overflowing  hell on earth  prisons and to-be-built mega-prisons. These wrongly convicted men and women will be warehoused in subhuman conditions for overly long periods of incarceration. And, unless the stain of capital punishment is soon cleansed by the United States Supreme Court and ruled unconstitutional, some will inevitably perish in torturous fashion by lethal injection  or a newly proposed abomination, gassing with nitrogen.





While nothing is fair about the Fair Justice Act, by far the worst provision requires death-sentenced defendants in Alabama to scramble to challenge their capital convictions based on postconviction claims such as ineffective assistance of counsel and juror misconduct  claims brought and proven with a disturbing regularity in Alabama  within 180 days. Current law mandates these claims be brought within one year. Historically, this period of time death penalty lawyers need to effectively investigate, research, and litigate their clients claims for postconviction relief was already shaved from two years to just one year in 2002. With the Fair Justice Act, Alabama is poised to halve this critically needed time yet again.





Additionally, like Californias new death penalty law now being appealed and stagnating in the courts, the Fair Justice Act violates basic separation of powers principles because it sets deadlines for judges to rule on death penalty appeals. The law just doesnt work like that.





You dont have to be a constitutional law whiz to know that one branch of government doesnt have the constitutional authority to tell another branch how to do its job. As Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall famously declared in Marbury v. Madison in 1803: It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. By constitutional design, judges will always get to decide just how much time is needed to fairly and properly resolve a criminal appeal  not politically motivated legislators, family members of crime victims, or prosecutors.





Being that theyre the most serious and complicated criminal cases our legal system has, it should come as no surprise that death penalty appeals take a long time to resolve. It can take a whole year or more before the trial transcript of a capital case (sometimes spanning tens of thousands of pages, or more) is even ready for an appellate lawyer to review. Moreover, in postconviction or habeas cases, defense lawyers have a constitutional and ethical obligation (just as the direct appeal lawyers do) to not only scrutinize all the transcripts and trial exhibits looking for non-frivolous issues to appeal, but also, they are obligated to go outside of the record too; they must, often years after the crime, conduct a brand new investigation into the charges, the clients background, and the trial and appellate proceedings. This requires extensive meetings with the condemned client, consulting (hiring, and collaborating with) specialized experts, tracking down old witnesses and jurors  and many other things that take time, lots of time. And, all this is even before an appeal or postconviction motion is filed, the state responds, and any subsequent proceedings and/or oral arguments are held.





Together with a team of committed professionals, I prepared and filed a postconviction petition for a death-sentenced client in Alabama that was granted; the clients conviction and death sentence were overturned by the trial court. During the slightly less than one year that we had to work on the petition, myself and many others worked on the case night and day, on weekends, and yes, on holidays too.





I remember one of the first things I did to prepare to work on the case was to read a manual Alabamas renown Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) publishes to assist capital defense attorneys litigating in Alabama. To this day I can remember the tremors of fear coursing through my body when I read that the main thing standing between a condemned client and execution was the amount of effort expended by their lawyer. It was a crippling, paralyzing fear that was hard to overcome.





Critically, however, I had almost a full year to buck up, work like hell, and get it done. Not 180 days. That would have been impossible.




From barefoot fishermen to software millionaires, Belize is a melting pot. Today's immigrants include 50-somethings raised on the Rolling Stones and 20-somethings looking for a place to make their mark. Farmers, environmentalists, budget-minded retirees and big-time investors are all making their way to this little country with a Caribbean coast and a rainforest interior.

[See: 10 Places to Retire Overseas in 2017.]

The draw is obvious: The white sand and azure water of the Caribbean cayes and coast, the eco-adventures and the Mayan history inland. But it's more than that, too. The common denominator among people making their way to Belize's shores today -- from scuba enthusiasts and eco-adventurers to missionaries and billionaire investors -- is a desire for a simpler, freer, more private way of life. With everything going on in the world these days, Belize's back-to-basics approach to living is increasingly, almost irresistibly alluring.

Most people you meet in this country have two other common characteristics. They are hospitable, and they are fiercely independent. The average Belizean -- including those who've adopted this country as their homeland -- would choose to live in a humble home and off the land and sea rather than be beholden to someone else. This country operates according to an old school mentality that many of the world's more developed nations have forgotten.

Perhaps the best way to consider whether Belize might be the best place for you to launch an adventure overseas would be to understand who wouldn't be happy here. While Belize is a beautiful, sunny, affordable and easygoing haven, it certainly isn't perfect. Living here, like anywhere, you'll encounter challenges and frustrations. Here are seven signs you won't be happy in Belize:

You're a hobby shopper. There's little opportunity for non-essential shopping in Belize, and there are no big chain stores. You won't be able to shop at Wal-Mart, Costco or Sam's Club. This is a small country where life is simple. You'll find everything you need, but probably not everything you might want.

Story continues

[See: 10 Tips for Finding a Great Place to Retire.]

You're looking for peace and quiet. Parties, festivals and music are loud in Belize and can last all night. Belizeans of all ages love to party. The louder the music, the better, and the party can continue until 4 or 5 a.m. The churches love amplifiers. Everyone sings along, and singing in key isn't considered important.

If you can't appreciate the Belizeans' zest for living life to the fullest, you have three choices. You could move to an isolated area, which is easy to find in this country. You could escape during the festival weekends, though there are lots of them. Or you could steer clear of Belize and, frankly, most of Latin America.

You have serious health care needs. This is a small country, and its health care resources are limited. When you consider that the entire country is home to fewer than 350,000 residents, it's not surprising that you don't find the breadth of health care specialists and facilities you might be used to elsewhere. You will find competent, dedicated general practitioners and some highly qualified specialists. However, if you have a sensitive medical condition, you'll likely want to head to Mexico or the United States for care.

You can't stand the heat. Belize is a subtropical country. In other words, yes, it's hot and humid here, as it is throughout nearly all of Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean (with highlands exceptions). Also, like the rest of the tropics, Belize has bugs, snakes, scorpions, spiders and dengue fever. You will be bitten by mosquitoes, no-see-ums and other insects at the beach. You might cross paths with a snake or a noisy monkey in the jungle.

You're a theater or opera buff. If you need a regular fix of traditional European-style culture, you'll feel deprived living here. Belize is a beautiful country that is archaeologically and historically rich, boasting many annual festivals plus local music and dance traditions. But the only Broadway-style musicals are put on by the local high school. However, if you like to dance to live music on the beach, you'll be happy indeed. You'll find many musical styles including rock 'n' roll, country, punta and salsa.

You feel the need to be vocal about how to improve things. Sometimes you will feel frustrated by the lack of efficiency in this country. But if you are the kind of person who can't learn to take frustration in stride or who will respond by becoming demanding or rude when people don't meet your expectations, you won't do well here. Belizeans are helpful and good-natured, but they are also proud and independent. They respond to polite people. Those who are critical of Belizeans will find that things become even more difficult and take longer.

[See: 10 Places to Retire on a Social Security Budget.]

You're looking for extensive services. There is little infrastructure and limited services and amenities in Belize. The people who do well here find this to be a big part of the appeal. The culture is more concerned with conservation than consumerism.

If you're interested in a lifestyle supported by the diversions and distractions of a big, cosmopolitan city, Belize is definitely not for you. If you're delighted by the diversions and distractions of a wide-open land where life revolves around the sea and the sun and where independence and self-sufficiency are prized above all else, then Belize could be exactly the paradise you seek.

Kathleen Peddicord is the founder of the Live and Invest Overseas publishing group.





More From US News & World Report


(Adds further comments)

By Andrea Shalal

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., Sept 16 (Reuters) - Boeing Co on Wednesday said it had rejected an unsolicited bid from Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc for United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 rocket launch venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp.

"The unsolicited proposal for ULA is not something we seriously entertained," Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said.

Boeing said it remained committed "to ULA and its business, and to continued leadership in all aspects of space, as evidenced by the agreement announced last week with Blue Origin," a company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos that is designing the engine for a new rocket being designed by ULA.

Lockheed declined comment, saying it did not discuss transactions with other companies.

A source familiar with the matter said Lockheed's refusal to comment did not reveal any disagreement between Lockheed and Boeing, and both companies agreed to reject the bid.

Aerojet spokesman Glenn Mahone declined comment, saying the company had a policy not to comment on negotiations with other companies until some agreement had been signed.

Sources familiar with the matter last week told Reuters that Aerojet board member Warren Lichtenstein, the chairman and chief executive of Steel Partners LLC, submitted a preliminary $2 billion cash offer on behalf of the engine maker in early August.

Boeing and Lockheed did not take the bid seriously because it lacked details and the due diligence usually present in more formal offers, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

However, Aerojet remains interested in ULA, despite Boeing's public rejection, and is still engaged in discussions about presenting a more formal bid, the sources said.

Analysts said the bid was a strategic move by Aerojet to shut out rival Blue Origin, whose new engine is favored by ULA for use in its new Vulcan rocket. ULA has said Blue Origin's engine program is about two years ahead of Aerojet's work on the AR-1 engine, a claim Aerojet disputes.

Story continues

Air Force General John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, said the decision was up to Boeing and Lockheed.

"Our job is to make sure that we have assured access to space. The business side of the house, that's their business, Hyten told Reuters at the Air Force Association conference.

Hyten told a news conference later that he saw a far more robust launch industry now than a decade ago when delays in government launches and a dearth of commercial orders prompted Boeing and Lockheed to merge their launch businesses.

He said investment by privately-held companies like Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, and Blue Origin had also changed the dynamic, since they were looking at opportunities with NASA, satellite operators and even in deep space travel.

Chris Chadwick, president of Boeing's defense division, said Boeing had not given any serious consideration to the Aerojet bid, and was not looking for other offers.

"You look at ULA with 99 consecutive launches without an accident. We're the best in industry. Others are trying to attain the record we have," he told reporters at the conference. "We think we have a real good competitive position, and we're committed for the long term." (Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Editing by David Gregorio and Christian Plumb)
UNITED NATIONS, April 6 (Reuters) - Bolivia has requested the U.N. Security Council hold closed-door consultations on Friday about the U.S. cruise missile strikes on Syria, a senior Security Council diplomat said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week, saying he acted in America's "vital national security interest" against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Reporting By Michelle Nichols; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Stephen Coates)
By Oleg Vukmanovic and Dasha Afanasieva

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government said it will sell the Green Investment Bank (GIB) to a consortium led by Macquarie Bank (MQG.AX) in a deal worth 2.3 billion pounds ($3 billion), which critics said failed to guarantee its future.

The Australian bank's purchase of GIB, which backs green projects with public funds, had been expected since a court rejected the claim of a rival bidder earlier this month, but it has been vehemently opposed by environmental groups and some UK lawmakers.

They say Macquarie will strip the bank of its assets, potentially diluting its purpose of investing in green projects.

The government set up GIB in 2012 as a commercial venture to spur private investment in green projects. It has invested more than 2 billion pounds in projects such as offshore wind farms and waste management.

The deal comprises a 1.7 billion pound price tag and approximately 600 million pounds in funding commitments for existing GIB projects.

The government has provided 1.5 billion pounds since 2012, meaning that the transaction price at the date of signing represents a 160 million pound premium on total government funding.

The government decided to sell a majority stake in 2015, saying that would give the bank more freedom to borrow, free it from state aid restrictions and allow it to attract more capital.

"ENVIRONMENTALLY TOXIC"

The consortium's structure - comprising Macquarie Group, Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 5 and Universities Superannuation Scheme - includes a "special share" arrangement whereby GIB's mandate would be safeguarded by five independent trustees, Macquarie said.

Macquarie pledged on Thursday to invest 3 billion pounds in green energy projects over the next three years. There were no guarantees on GIB's headcount as part of the deal but Macquarie said it would continue to operate from offices in London and Edinburgh, managing more than 4 billion pounds of green infrastructure assets and projects.

Story continues

Critics said the government had failed to guarantee the future for the GIB's green credentials and criticised it for a lack of transparency.

"Selling the Green Investment Bank is environmentally irresponsible, and on the eve of an election is politically dubious. The government clearly hopes to avoid parliamentary scrutiny," said Ed Davey, former Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, referring to a national election in Britain to be held on June 8.

Bankers close to the deal, who did not want to be named, said there was little an investor could do with the bank except sell its assets.

"The GIB loses money, with two offices it is hugely expensive and there are no synergies between the businesses it runs," said one.

Daniel Wong, head of Macquarie Capital, Europe, said the bank would stand by its commitments.

"We understand the responsibilities that come with this ownership, and we are fully committed to maintaining its green purpose as we grow the business," Wong said.

A spokeswoman for Britain's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said Bank Of America Merrill Lynch [BAC.N] advised on the sale but declined to disclose its fee.

(Editing by Nina Chestney and Susan Fenton)
* Greece swings to general government surplus in 2016, after 21 years

* Beats primary surplus target, delivers 3.9 percent of GDP savings

* Primary surplus under bailout terms at 4.19 pct of GDP (Adds IMF statement)

By Lefteris Papadimas and George Georgiopoulos

ATHENS, April 21 (Reuters) - Greece far exceeded its international lenders' budget demands last year, official data showed on Friday, posting its first overall budget surplus in 21 years even when debt repayments are included.

The primary surplus -- the leftover before debt repayments that is the focus of International Monetary Fund-European Union creditors -- was more than eight times what they had targetted.

Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT -- to be confirmed on Monday by the EU -- showed the primary budget surplus at 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015.

This was calculated under European System of Accounts guidelines, which differ from the methodology used by Greece's in bailout deliberations.

Under EU-IMF standards, the surplus was even larger.

Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the primary budget surplus under bailout terms reached 4.19 percent of gross domestic product last year versus the 0.5 percent of GDP target.

"It is more than eight times above target," Tzanakopoulos said in a statement. "Therefore, the targets set under the bailout programme for 2017 and 2018 will certainly be attained."

Debt-strapped Greece and its creditors have been at odds for months over the country's fiscal performance, delaying the conclusion of a key bailout review which could unlock needed bailout funds.

The IMF, which has reservations on whether Greece can meet high primary surplus targets, has yet to decide if it will fund Greece's current bailout, which expires in 2018.

The 2016 outperformance could lead the fund to revise some of its projections. The IMF's participation is seen as a condition for Germany to unlock new funds to Greece.

Story continues

Athens hopes to discuss the fund's participation and its projections at the sidelines of the IMF's spring meetings in Washington. EU and IMF mission chiefs are expected to return to Athens on Tuesday to discuss the bailout review.

After meeting Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Washington, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said: "We had constructive discussions in preparation for the return of the mission to discuss the two legs of the Greece program: policies and debt relief."

ELSTAT said the overall surplus including debt repayments reached 0.7 percent of GDP compared with a 5.9 percent deficit in 2015.

Analysts attributed the outperformance to the implementation of bailout measures and increased efforts to improve the state's revenue collection capacity.

"It's an impressive outperformance versus the bailout programme target for the primary surplus," said Athens-based Eurobank's chief economist Platon Monokroussos.

"The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout programme is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario," he said.

Athens faces a primary surplus target of 1.75 percent of GDP this year.

(Additional reporting Renee Maltezou, Angeliki Koutantou and Marc Jones; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
The OPEC flag and the OPEC logo are seen before a news conference in Vienna, Austria, October 24, 2016. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

By Rania El Gamal, Roslan Khasawneh and Richard Mably

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Leading Gulf oil exporters Saudi Arabia and Kuwait gave a clear signal on Thursday that OPEC plans to extend into the second half of the year a deal with non-member producers to curb supplies of crude.

Consensus is growing among oil producers that a supply restraint pact that started in January should be prolonged after its initial six-month term, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said.

"There is consensus building but it's not done yet," Falih told reporters at a conference in the United Arab Emirates.

Kuwait's oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said he expected the agreement to be extended.

"Russia is on board preliminarily ... Compliance from Russia is very good," Marzouq said.

OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo, noting that Marzouq chairs a committee that measures compliance with the cuts, said: "It is significant that the Kuwaiti minister has come out in public and said this."

OPEC is keen that non-member producers play their promised part in supporting the group's efforts to lift prices, which have recovered to $53 a barrel from lows last year below $30.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC meet on May 25 to discuss extending the curbs that total 1.8 million barrels daily, two-thirds of that from OPEC.

OPEC sources said an internal assessment was that if they failed to extend the agreement, oil could slide back to $30-$40 a barrel.

INVENTORIES STILL HIGH

Falih said his main concern was to reduce global oil inventories, calling that "the main indicator for the success of the initiative".

While inventories held at sea and in producer countries have dropped, they remain stubbornly high in consumer regions, particularly in Asia and the United States.

The International Energy Agency said last week that inventories in industrialized countries were still 10 percent above the five-year average, a key gauge for OPEC.

Story continues

OPEC seems to be encouraged by the contribution of non-OPEC producers to the output cuts.

Marzouq said there was a "noticeable increase in compliance from non-OPEC". Joint compliance among OPEC and non-OPEC in March was above 90 percent, he said.

Russia has not yet publicly committed to prolonging its curbs, although Energy Minister Alexander Novak said this month that Moscow would start consultations with producing companies about the possibility of doing so.

Marzouq said another African nation, which he did not identify, had expressed interest in joining the 24-country effort.

One hold-out for an extended deal may be Iraq. Baghdad might seek to be exempt and ask to boost its own output, the leader of the nation's Shi'ite ruling coalition, Ammar al-Hakim, told Reuters.

Speaking in Cairo, Hakim cautioned that Baghdad could ask to be exempted from taking part in the supply curbs as the OPEC member country needed its oil income to fight Islamic State.

"Given these sensitive circumstances, it is the right of Iraq to hope for an exemption by the other OPEC member states and have an opportunity to increase its production," Hakim, an influential cleric, said in an interview late on Wednesday.

"But we are with the principle of reducing the overall OPEC supply to lift prices."

Iran does not look likely to become an obstacle. The current deal granted Tehran permission to lift output, hit by Western sanctions that ended just over a year ago.

"Iran is not an issue. We know they can't raise their production much more," an OPEC source said.

(Additional reporting by Stanley Carvalho in Abu Dhabi and Mahmoud Mourad in Cairo; Editing by Dale Hudson and Richard Mably)
The General Electric logo is seen in a Sears store in Schaumburg, Illinois, September 8, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young

By David Lawder and Lewis Krauskopf

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Turning up the pressure on Congress to revive the U.S. Export-Import Bank, General Electric Co (GE.N) said on Thursday it would open a new development center for turboprop engines in Europe because it cannot access U.S. export financing.

The GE's move was the latest effort by a big company to raise the alarm in Washington about the shutdown of new financing by EXIM, so far with little evident impact on Congress.

GE said the $400-million turboprop project would create 500 to 1,000 jobs. It said it will develop, test and produce engines for larger aircraft, a new market for GE Aviation.

The largest U.S. industrial conglomerate also said it will invest $55 million in Celma, Brazil, to build a new engine testing facility, and will spend $23 million on expanding its engine testing capability in Winnipeg, Canada.

Several European locations are being considered for the turboprop center, including in the Czech Republic, where GE now builds turboprop engines for small aircraft, GE spokesman Rick Kennedy said. Talks are underway with export credit agencies in those countries for financing and loan guarantees.

GE stopped considering U.S. locations for the new facility after Congress allowed EXIM's charter to expire on June 30, the result of a campaign by conservative Republicans against the bank, which they say exemplifies "corporate welfare."

On Tuesday, GE announced plans to shift up to 500 U.S. power turbine manufacturing jobs to Europe and China because it can no longer access EXIM financing.

The warning shots, along with a visit by GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, thus far have not jolted Congress into action to revive EXIM. House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling and a vocal group of other conservative Republicans have blocked legislation to reauthorize the 81-year-old bank.

House Republican lawmakers said on Thursday there have been no discussions of trying to attach EXIM legislation to a spending bill needed to keep the government open past Sept. 30.

Story continues

GE has said it is bidding on $11 billion worth of international projects that require export credit agency financing and has started talks with several foreign export credit agencies since EXIM's lending authority expired.

Kennedy said EXIM's closure would put GE Aviation at a competitive disadvantage with its rival in the turboprop business, Pratt & Whitney Canada, a division of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), because Pratt can provide government-backed credit assistance from Canada to its customers.

GE Aviation employs 25,000 U.S. workers, including 9,000 in the southwest Ohio area where the division is headquartered.

Those facilities are close to the Ohio district represented by Republican House Speaker John Boehner. He has supported EXIM in the past, but has been largely silent about whether he will allow renwal legislation to proceed.

"The only commitment the speaker has made is to give Chairman Hensarling the opportunity to amend any Senate-passed vehicle that may include Ex-Im," said Boehner spokeswoman Emily Schillinger. "Chairman Hensarling asked the speaker for this consideration and he agreed to it."

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and David Lawder in Washington and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Mohammad Zargham, Bernadette Baum and Andrew Hay)
(Changes source, adds background)

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - Target Corp has agreed to pay $10 million in a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit related to a huge 2013 data breach that consumers say compromised their personal financial information, court documents show.

Under the proposal, which requires federal court approval, Target will deposit the settlement amount into an interest bearing escrow account, to pay individual victims up to $10,000 in damages.

The claims will be submitted and processed primarily online through a dedicated website, according to the court documents.

The proposal also requires Target to adopt and implement data security measures such as appointing a chief information security officer and maintaining a written information security program.

"We are pleased to see the process moving forward and look forward to its resolution," said Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder.

CBS News, which earlier reported the settlement, said a court hearing on the proposed settlement was set for Thursday in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Target has said at least 40 million credit cards were compromised in the breach during the 2013 holiday shopping season and may have resulted in the theft of as many as 110 million people's personal information, such as email addresses and phone numbers.

A U.S. judge in December cleared the way for consumers to sue the retailer over the breach, rejecting Target's argument that the consumers lacked standing to sue because they could not establish any injury.

The case is In re: Target Corporation Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, No. 14-md-02522.

(Reporting by Peter Cooney in Washington and Supriya Kurane in Bengaluru; Editing by Eric Walsh and Anupama Dwivedi)
A sign is seen outside the headquarters of JP Morgan Chase & Co in New York, in this file photo taken September 19, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Lindsay Dunsmuir

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge tossed out a lawsuit brought by non-profit group Better Markets that sought to block a $13 billion settlement JPMorgan Chase & Co reached with the U.S. Justice Department over shoddy mortgage loans sold to investors before the financial crisis.

Judge Beryl A. Howell accepted a motion by the Justice Department filed last May to dismiss the lawsuit, which argued that the group founded in 2010 to advocate for tough Wall Street reforms lacked standing to sue.

"The plaintiff has failed to meet its burden to show

it has suffered an injury in fact," Howell wrote in her opinion, filed on Wednesday in the District Court for the District of Columbia.

Better Markets sued the Justice Department last February, contending that the then-record settlement reached in November 2013 was "unlawful" and gave JPMorgan Chase & Co "blanket civil immunity" for its conduct without sufficient judicial review.

The Justice Department reached a wide-ranging deal with the largest U.S. bank that included a $2 billion civil penalty and a $4 billion consumer relief package.

Better Markets was seeking to have the court prevent the Justice Department from enforcing the settlement until a judge reviewed it.

Better Markets Chief Executive Officer Dennis Kelleher said in a statement that the law allowing settlements remained deficient, not the advocacy group's lawsuit.

"Such backroom deals should not be allowed in a democracy worthy of its name. We will be carefully evaluating the court's opinion before determining our next steps," Kelleher said.

JP Morgan Chase & Co declined comment.

In a statement, the Justice Department welcomed the decision and reiterated that it remains "serious about examining the root causes of the financial crisis, and holding the appropriate people and companies accountable."

(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Tom Brown and David Gregorio)
Sept 17 (Reuters) - United Technologies Corp is unlikely to hit its traditional target of growing earnings by at least 10 percent in 2016, as it confronts challenges to its jet engine and China businesses, the U.S. conglomerate's chief executive officer said on Thursday.

"That's always the goal for UTC - double-digit earnings growth forever," CEO Greg Hayes told a Morgan Stanley investor conference. "As I stand here today, I don't see it for next year." (Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
(Adds CEO comments from conference)

By Lewis Krauskopf

Sept 17 (Reuters) - United Technologies Corp is unlikely to hit its traditional target of growing earnings by at least 10 percent in 2016, as it confronts challenges to its jet engine and China businesses, the U.S. conglomerate's chief executive officer said on Thursday.

"That's always the goal for UTC - double-digit earnings growth forever," CEO Greg Hayes told a Morgan Stanley investor conference. "As I stand here today, I don't see it for next year."

The comments seem to fall in line with Wall Street's general thinking: Analysts on average have been expecting UTC to increase earnings per share by 9.3 percent next year, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

United Tech shares were up 0.2 percent at $94.09 in afternoon trading. They have fallen some 18 percent this year, as the company has cut its 2015 profit forecast three times.

The company has dimmed its expectations for its Otis elevators division, including for new equipment sales in China, a big market for the unit. Concerns over the health of the world's second-biggest economy has rattled investors in a wide range of industrial companies exposed to it.

Hayes said United Technologies' China business, which represents 6 percent of UTC's overall revenue, could fall 10 percent next year.

UTC's Pratt & Whitney division is increasing production of a new commercial jet engine that is set to propel revenue for many years.

But in the near term, the launch of the engine will pressure UTC's profit, Hayes said. Jet engines tend to suffer from high initial sales costs and inevitable lag in the most lucrative piece of the business: repairs and overhaul.

Hayes has said for months he was interested in striking a major acquisition, but on Thursday he said he did not foresee any big deals "right now."

Instead, he said the company is poised to use cash to buy back more shares. UTC has already repurchased $4 billion in shares this year, including $1 billion in recent weeks after the stock swooned following the most recent quarterly earnings report.

"There is no better big deal than to buy my own stock," Hayes said.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Christian Plumb)
By Lewis Krauskopf

(Reuters) - United Technologies Corp (UTX.N) is unlikely to hit its traditional target of growing earnings by at least 10 percent in 2016, as it confronts challenges to its jet engine and China businesses, the U.S. conglomerate's chief executive officer said on Thursday.

Thats always the goal for UTC  double-digit earnings growth forever," CEO Greg Hayes told a Morgan Stanley investor conference. "As I stand here today, I dont see it for next year."

The comments seem to fall in line with Wall Street's general thinking: Analysts on average have been expecting UTC to increase earnings per share by 9.3 percent next year, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

United Tech shares were up 0.2 percent at $94.09 in afternoon trading. They have fallen some 18 percent this year, as the company has cut its 2015 profit forecast three times.

The company has dimmed its expectations for its Otis elevators division, including for new equipment sales in China, a big market for the unit. Concerns over the health of the world's second-biggest economy has rattled investors in a wide range of industrial companies exposed to it.

Hayes said United Technologies' China business, which represents 6 percent of UTC's overall revenue, could fall 10 percent next year.

UTC's Pratt & Whitney division is increasing production of a new commercial jet engine that is set to propel revenue for many years.

But in the near term, the launch of the engine will pressure UTC's profit, Hayes said. Jet engines tend to suffer from high initial sales costs and inevitable lag in the most lucrative piece of the business: repairs and overhaul.

Hayes has said for months he was interested in striking a major acquisition, but on Thursday he said he did not foresee any big deals "right now."

Instead, he said the company is poised to use cash to buy back more shares. UTC has already repurchased $4 billion in shares this year, including $1 billion in recent weeks after the stock swooned following the most recent quarterly earnings report.

"There is no better big deal than to buy my own stock," Hayes said.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Christian Plumb)
DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

US Dollar to Rise on Hawkish Rhetoric Even if FOMC Forgoes a Rate Hike

Outright Tightening to Weigh on Commodity Dollars, Boost Japanese Yen

See Economic Releases Directly on Your Charts with the DailyFX News App

The markets are firmly focused on the outcome of the Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting in the hours ahead. The split in economists expectations for the likely outcome is nearly even. A survey of 113 Fed-watchers polled by Bloomberg reveals a 59-54 preference for rates to remain unchanged this time around. The markets themselves are a bit more skewed in their priced-in outlook. Fed funds futures imply a 32 percent chance of a rate hike while OIS-based measures dismiss the possibility of such an outcome altogether.

On balance, this suggests a rate hike would amount to the most violent reaction from asset prices in that it would be a surprise to the largest contingent of market participants. Such a scenario is likely to deliver a strong advance for the US Dollar and weigh heavily on risk appetite, disproportionately punishing the sentiment-geared Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Dollars while offering haven-flow support to the Japanese Yen.

The absence of outright tightening may not be significantly market-moving in and of itself because that much is probably priced in. In this scenario, the focus will turn to text of the policy statement, the updated set of FOMC economic and policy forecasts, as well as the press conference with Fed Chair Yellen following the announcement. The cumulative take-away from these various components of the central banks forward guidance suite seems more likely to favor a stronger greenback.

The Fed has been stressing its preference to raise rates in 2015 since the beginning of the year. Most recently, key FOMC officials including Vice Chair Stanley Fischer made it explicitly clear that recent tumult in the financial markets has not decisively altered the central banks policy-setting calculus. This makes sense: the Feds medium term objectives are meant to be reached within a 2-3 year window, so a single month of jittery price action should not trigger an about-face on strategy.

Story continues

With only two meetings left for the year, this means opting for the status quo this time will require a hawkish turn in official rhetoric. This will serve to set the stage for tightening in October or December, preserving the credibility in the Feds communicated intentions. While this would not generate as potent of a positive response as a rate increase, it would underscore the acute disparity between the trajectory of US monetary policy and that of the rest of the G10, boosting the benchmark currency.

Needless to say, the absence of a pro-tightening shift in commentary or the appearance of a dovish lean are likely to energize risk appetite and weigh heavily on the US unit. The probability of either scenario seems decidedly lower than the alternative.

New to FX? START HERE!

Asia Session

GMT CCY EVENT ACT EXP PREV 22:45 NZD GDP SA (QoQ) (2Q) 0.4% 0.6% 0.2% 22:45 NZD GDP (YoY) (2Q) 2.4% 2.5% 2.7% 23:50 JPY Trade Balance (AUG) () -569.7B -540.0B -268.1B 23:50 JPY Trade Balance Adjusted (AUG) () -358.8B -377.3B -368.8B 23:50 JPY Exports (YoY) (AUG) 3.1% 4.3% 7.6% 23:50 JPY Imports (YoY) (AUG) -3.1% -2.5% -3.2% 01:30 AUD RBA FX Transactions Government (AUG) -404.0M - -710.0M 01:30 AUD RBA FX Transactions Market (AUG) 336.0M - 674.0M 01:30 AUD RBA FX Transactions Other (AUG) 85.0M - 50.0M

European Session

GMT CCY EVENT EXP PREV IMPACT 05:45 CHF SECO September 2015 Economic Forecasts - - Low 06:35 JPY BOJ Governor Kuroda Speech - - Medium 07:30 CHF SNB 3-Month Libor Lower Target Range -1.25% -1.25% High 07:30 CHF SNB 3-Month Libor Upper Target Range -0.25% -0.25% High 07:30 CHF SNB Sight Deposit Interest Rate -0.75% -0.75% High 08:00 EUR ECB Publishes Economic Bulletin - - Medium 08:30 GBP Retail Sales Ex Auto Fuel (MoM) (AUG) 0.1% 0.4% Medium 08:30 GBP Retail Sales Ex Auto Fuel (YoY) (AUG) 3.8% 4.3% Medium 08:30 GBP Retail Sales Inc Auto Fuel (MoM) (AUG) 0.2% 0.1% Medium 08:30 GBP Retail Sales Inc Auto Fuel (YoY) (AUG) 3.8% 4.2% Medium 09:00 EUR Eurozone Construction Output (MoM) (JUL) - -1.9% Low 09:00 EUR Eurozone Construction Output (YoY) (JUL) - -2.3% Low

Critical Levels

CCY Supp 3 Supp 2 Supp 1 Pivot Point Res 1 Res 2 Res 3 EURUSD 1.1061 1.1168 1.1229 1.1275 1.1336 1.1382 1.1489 GBPUSD 1.5055 1.5253 1.5373 1.5451 1.5571 1.5649 1.5847

--- Written by Ilya Spivak, Currency Strategist for DailyFX.com

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Contact and follow Ilya on Twitter: @IlyaSpivak



original source

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from FXCM.
TORONTO, April 20, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Macedonian Human Rights Movement International President, Bill Nicholov, continued his ongoing meetings with senior officials from Global Affairs Canada and called for Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, to immediately retract her contradictory statement on Macedonia, and show support for Macedonias struggle against foreign interference.



In a statement issued about Ukraine, Minister Freeland said, Canada is unwavering in its support to Ukraine, both in helping to preserve and protect Ukraine's sovereignty, and in providing assistance to Ukraine to implement key reforms. An identical statement could have been issued about Macedonia, but Minister Freeland chose to undermine Macedonias sovereignty by calling for a mandate to be given to a coalition whose public goal is to change Macedonias name, identity, flag, anthem and coat of arms, and which threatens Macedonias territorial integrity. In addition to campaigning on this platform, the anti-Macedonia coalition recently formally presented it in parliament. Macedonians have been protesting, en masse, against this platform and in defence of their country.

To indulge Minister Freelands apparent reason for this statement, to be in compliance with the constitution, the Macedonian constitution clearly states that a mandate cannot be given to a coalition that threatens the unitary character of Macedonia. Understandably so. To ignore the foreign interference, turmoil and mass protests in Macedonia shows a complete lack of judgement on Minister Freelands part and, at best, shows that she is out of touch with the current situation and, at worst, is complicit in supporting foreign interventionism in Macedonia.

The United States, some European Union countries, and sadly, Canada, have turned the Macedonian peoples defence of their country and ethnic origin into a left vs. right issue. This is not a matter of political ideology, but a non-partisan defence against a US-backed platform, drafted in Albania under Albanian Prime Minister Edi Ramas guidance, aimed at redefining Macedonians ethnicity and sovereignty. Canada used to stand up against such attacks, now it participates in them. Minister Freelands remarks go against Canadas long-standing policy against foreign interventionism, and is an affront to Canadian values of self-determination and human rights.

MHRMI called for Minister Freeland to explain her reasons for issuing this statement, and to announce when a retraction can be expected. Staying silent on this issue is not an option, especially when her statement is fueling ethnic tensions in Macedonia. This is not the Canada that we know.

--- Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) has been active on human and national rights issues for Macedonians and other oppressed peoples since 1986. For more information: 1-416-850-7125, info@mhrmi.org, www.mhrmi.org, twitter.com/mhrmi, facebook.com/mhrmi, mhrmi.org/OurNameIsMacedonia
English Dutch

REGULATED INFORMATION

GHENT, Belgium, 21 April 2017 - Ablynx [Euronext Brussels: ABLX; OTC: ABYLY] today announced, in conformity with Title II of the Law of 2 May 2007 and the Royal Decree of 14 February 2008, that an additional 57,125 common shares have been issued by the Company in exchange for 398,801.77 as the result of the exercise of warrants.

As a result of this transaction, Ablynx now has 61,133,199 shares outstanding.

The total number of rights (warrants) to subscribe to not yet issued securities conferring voting rights currently is 2,388,305 which equals the total number of voting rights that may result from the exercise of these warrants. Currently 1,000 convertible bonds are outstanding entitling the holders thereof to 7,733,952 shares of the Company in the aggregate, upon conversion of such convertible bonds.

About Ablynx

Ablynx is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of Nanobodies, proprietary therapeutic proteins based on single-domain antibody fragments, which combine the advantages of conventional antibody drugs with some of the features of small-molecule drugs. Ablynx is dedicated to creating new medicines which will make a real difference to society. Today, the Company has more than 45 proprietary and partnered programmes in development in various therapeutic areas including inflammation, haematology, immuno-oncology, oncology and respiratory disease. The Company has collaborations with multiple pharmaceutical companies including AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eddingpharm, Merck & Co., Inc., Merck KGaA, Novartis, Novo Nordisk and Taisho Pharmaceuticals. The Company is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium. More information can be found on www.ablynx.com.

For more information, please contact

Ablynx:

Dr Edwin Moses

CEO

t: +32 (0)9 262 00 07

m: +32 (0)473 39 50 68

e: edwin.moses@ablynx.com

Lies Vanneste

Director IR

t: +32 (0)9 262 01 37

m: +32 (0)498 05 35 79

e: lies.vanneste@ablynx.com

Follow us on Twitter @AblynxABLX

Ablynx media relations: FTI Consulting:

Julia Phillips, Brett Pollard, Mo Noonan, Matthew Moss

t: +44 20 3727 1000

e: ablynx@fticonsulting.com

Attachments:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/633cfd55-8e30-43b9-bbf3-e4dd9400e3c6
English German

Initiation of ceftobiprole pivotal phase 3 clinical program under BARDA contract anticipated within the next three to six months

Basel, Switzerland, April 21, 2017 - Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. (SIX: BSLN) announced today that it has reached agreement with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Special Protocol Assessments (SPAs) for its two planned phase 3 clinical studies of Basilea's antibiotic ceftobiprole. The two studies will evaluate ceftobiprole for the treatment of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (bloodstream infections) and acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections. If successful, the studies would be cross-supportive for a US registration in both indications and could separately support label extensions in other parts of the world.

Prof. Achim Kaufhold, Basilea's Chief Medical Officer, said: "With the agreement on the SPAs, we are on track to initiate the pivotal phase 3 program under our contract with BARDA within the next three to six months. We plan to initially seek US registration for the treatment of bloodstream and skin infections as there is a significant medical need in these indications. In particular, there are only a limited number of approved therapies available for the treatment of bacteremia caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus."

In 2016, Basilea entered into a contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for the clinical phase 3 development of ceftobiprole to support a potential regulatory filing in the US.1 BARDA is providing initial funding of approximately USD 20 million for the preparation of the phase 3 program. The total value of the BARDA contract could reach USD 100 million over a period of 4.5 years if pre-defined milestones are met.

Both phase 3 studies will be multi-center, double-blind, randomized non-inferiority studies. One study will compare ceftobiprole with daptomycin in the treatment of adult patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, including infective endocarditis. The FDA-agreed primary endpoint is overall success at a post-treatment visit 70 days after randomization, assessed by an independent Data Review Committee. The other study will compare ceftobiprole with vancomycin and aztreonam in the treatment of adult patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections. The FDA-agreed primary endpoint of this study is early clinical response at 48-72 hours after start of treatment.

Ceftobiprole provides Gram-positive antibacterial coverage with rapid bactericidal activity against both methicillin-susceptible and resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (MSSA, MRSA) and also covers clinically important Gram-negative bacteria.2, 3 Previously conducted phase 3 studies demonstrated the potential utility of ceftobiprole in the treatment of bacterial skin infections.4 The potential of ceftobiprole in the treatment of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia is supported by preclinical data that showed rapid clearance of heart valve bacterial vegetations and also by data of patients with bacteremia treated in previously conducted phase 3 studies.5, 6

About Special Protocol Assessments (SPAs)

An SPA provides agreement between the study sponsor and the FDA that the design and planned analysis of a clinical study adequately address the objectives necessary to support a regulatory submission for the approval of a drug.

About ceftobiprole

Ceftobiprole is a cephalosporin antibiotic for intravenous administration with rapid bactericidal activity against a wide range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including methicillin-susceptible and resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA, MRSA) and susceptible Pseudomonas spp. The drug is approved for sale in 13 European countries (European trade name Zevtera or Mabelio, depending on the country) and several non-European countries for the treatment of adult patients with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) and hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia (HABP), excluding ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia (VABP).2 Basilea is currently marketing the drug in Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Austria and Switzerland. Ceftobiprole received Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) designation from the US FDA for the potential treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) and acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). The drug is not approved for commercial sale in the United States.

About Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia

Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia is a leading cause of bloodstream infections, responsible for a broad variety of complications and has been associated with significant morbidity and a mortality of 20 to 40%.7, 8 Several studies have demonstrated that MRSA bacteremia is associated with a significantly higher mortality rate compared with methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) bacteremia.9, 10 Infections of the inner lining of the heart or heart valves (infective endocarditis) and bone infections (osteomyelitis) are common complications of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia.

About acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections

Acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSIs) are among the most common infections encountered in both community and hospital settings, and include infections with resistance to previously effective antibacterial treatments.11 Increasing in incidence, they have become a challenging medical problem associated with high direct and indirect costs to both the medical system and society.12 Infections due to bacteria with resistance to previously effective antibacterial treatments, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), are increasing in incidence and have led to higher rates of complications and hospitalization. MRSA has emerged as the most common cause of pus-forming infections in the United States and many other areas.

About Basilea

Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. is a biopharmaceutical company developing products that address the medical problem of increasing resistance and non-response to current treatment options in the therapeutic areas of bacterial infections, fungal infections and cancer. The company uses the integrated research, development and commercial operations of its subsidiary Basilea Pharmaceutica International Ltd. to discover, develop and commercialize innovative pharmaceutical products to meet the medical needs of patients with serious and life-threatening conditions. Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (SIX: BSLN). Additional information can be found at Basilea's website www.basilea.com.

Disclaimer

This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information, please contact:

Peer Nils Schroder, PhD

Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

+41 61 606 1102

media_relations@basilea.com

investor_relations@basilea.com

This press release can be downloaded from www.basilea.com.

References
Dear shareholder of AS Pro Kapital Grupp

We announce that the management board is calling for the annual general meeting of AS Pro Kapital Grupp (registration code 10278802, located at Sojakooli 11 Tallinn Republic of Estonia) (hereinafter referred to as the Company) shareholders which shall take place on the 24th of May 2017 at 17.00 at the premises of the Company, Sojakooli 11 Tallinn Republic of Estonia. Registration of the shareholders for the meeting shall start on the 24th of May 2017 at 16.45 and shall end at 17.00 at the location of the meeting.

The reason for calling the annual general meeting is to decide on approval of the annual report for the financial year of 2016, deciding on covering the loss, election and remuneration of the auditor. The proposal to call the annual general meeting of shareholders was made by the Management Board of the Company.

The agenda of the meeting is as follows:

1. Election of the Chairman and Secretary of the annual general meeting of shareholders

The Councils and Management Boards proposal:

Elect Ervin Nurmela as the Chairman of the annual general meeting of the shareholders. Elect the Secretary of the meeting as per suggestions made at the meeting.

2. Approval of the audited annual report of the Company for the financial year of 2016

The Company has prepared the annual report for the financial year of 2016. The report has been audited and the audited report has been made available to the shareholders. It is the competency of the shareholders to approve the annual report.

The Councils and Management Boards proposal and draft of the resolution:

Approve the audited annual report of the Company for the financial year of 2016.

3. Resolution of covering the loss

The Companys net loss for the financial year which ended 31 December 2016 was in the amount of 3 913 thousand Euros. As per the commercial code it is the shareholders competency to decide on the allocation of the profit and/or loss.

The Councils and Management Boards proposal and draft of the resolution:

Cover the net loss for the financial year which ended 31 December 2016 in the amount of 3 913 thousand Euros with retained earnings of previous periods.

4. Election of the auditor

In financial year of 2016 AS Deloitte Audit Eesti has provided audit services to the Company in relation to the audit of the annual report.

In the opinion of the Council the auditor has performed the services in accordance with the agreement and the Council does not have any objections as to the service provided.

The auditor has confirmed as required by the corporate governance recommendations that it has no work, economic or other relations that would threaten its independence while rendering auditing service.

The Management Board of the Company in 2016 took offers for the audit from different audit companies for audit of next three years. The recommendation of the audit committee and the Council is to continue the collaboration with AS Deloitte Audit Eesti as their price offer and quality of work is considered to be in the best proportion.

The Councils and Management Boards proposal and draft of the resolution:

Elect AS Deloitte Audit Eesti as the auditor of the Company for the financial year of 2017.

To approve the principles for remuneration of the auditor as per the agreement to be signed with the auditor. Approve the fee payable to the auditor for the audit of Company and its subsidiaries for the financial year of 2017 in the amount of 45 700 Euros (net of VAT).

According to the Commercial Code  297 section 5 the set of shareholders entitled to take part in the annual general meeting of shareholders shall be determined as at seven days before the date of holding the general meeting, i.e. on 17.05.2017 at 23:59.

A shareholder has the right to receive information on the activities of the public limited company from the management board at the general meeting. The management board may refuse to give information if there is a basis to presume that this may cause significant damage to the interests of the public limited company. If the management board refuses to give information, the shareholder may demand that the general meeting decide on the legality of the shareholder's request or to file, within two weeks after the general meeting, a petition to a court by way of proceedings on petition in order to obligate the management board to give information.

A general meeting may decide on calling the next meeting and settle submissions concerning operational issues related to the agenda or to the procedure for holding the meeting without including such matters in the agenda beforehand, and to discuss other matters at the general meeting without deciding on such matters.

Shareholders whose shares represent at least 1/20 of the share capital may present the draft of the resolution for each subsection of the agenda. Right specified in previous sentence may be exercised not later than three days before the meeting. The draft of the resolution shall be presented in written to AS Pro Kapital Grupp, Sojakooli 11, Tallinn, 11316.

Shareholders whose shares represent at 1/20 of the share capital, may demand the inclusion of additional issues on the agenda of the general meeting if the respective demand has been submitted no later than 15 days before the general meeting is held.

The shareholder can until 23rd of May 2017 at 16:00 inform the Company of appointing a representative or of renouncing the power of attorney of the representative, by sending the digitally signed notice to prokapital@prokapital.ee or by sending the written notice to the office of the Company at Sojakooli 11 Tallinn.

If you have any questions in regards to the annual general meeting of shareholders, please contact us by phone + 372 6 144 920 or by email at prokapital@prokapital.ee. Questions and answers related to the agenda of the shareholders meeting shall be published on the website of the Company www.prokapital.com under the section Investors.

The shareholders of the Company can acquaint themselves with the drafts of the resolutions and proposals, the audited annual report, the auditor opinion and written report of the Council on the 2016 financial year on the webpage of the Company www.prokapital.com under the section Investors or at the location of the Company at Sojakooli 11 Tallinn during the business days from 09:00 until 17:00.

Documents needed to participate at the meeting

Natural person shareholders are kindly asked to bring along a valid identification document, representatives are kindly asked to bring along a valid identification document and a valid written power-of-attorney.

In the case of shareholders who are legal entities we request you to bring an extract from the relevant register, where that legal person has been registered and a valid identification document of the representative. For persons representing a legal entity under power of attorney we kindly ask to bring in addition of the referred documents also a valid written power of attorney.

Each document issued by a foreign countrys official must be either legalized or authenticated with a document certificate apostille and translated into English.

Best regards

Management Board of AS Pro Kapital Group
PRESS RELEASE

April 21, 2017

The shareholders in Saniona AB, Reg. No. 556962-5345, are hereby invited to attend the annual shareholders' meeting (Sw. arsstamma) to be held at the premises of Setterwalls Advokatbyra AB at Stortorget 23 in Malmo, Sweden on Tuesday 23 May 2017 at 4.00 p.m.

The English text is an unofficial translation. In case of any discrepancies between the Swedish text and the English translation, the Swedish text shall prevail.

Right to participate in the meeting and notice of participation

Shareholders wishing to attend the annual shareholders' meeting must:

Trustee registered shares

Shareholders who have their holdings trustee-registered must temporarily register the shares in their own name in order to be entitled to participate in the annual shareholders' meeting. Such temporary re-registration of ownership must be implemented no later than as of Wednesday 17 May 2017, meaning that the shareholders must well in advance before this date request their trustees thereof.

Proxies etc.

A proxy representing a shareholder must bring a written, dated and by the shareholder signed power of attorney to the annual shareholders' meeting. The validity term of the power of attorney may be at the longest five years if this is specifically stated. In case no validity term is stated, the power of attorney is only valid for one year. Should the power of attorney be issued by a legal entity, a certified copy of a registration certificate (Sw. registreringsbevis) or equivalent document shall be presented at the meeting. In order to facilitate the preparations before the meeting, a copy of the power of attorney and other proof of authority should be attached to the notice of participation. A template power of attorney can be found at the company website (www.saniona.com), and will be sent to the shareholders who request it and state their address.

Proposed agenda

0.Opening of the meeting.

Election of chairman of the meeting.

Preparation and approval of the voting list.

Approval of the agenda.

Election of one or two persons to verify the minutes.

Consideration as to whether the meeting has been duly convened.

Presentation of the annual report and the auditor's report and the group annual report and the group auditor's report.

Resolution on

adoption of the profit and loss statement and balance sheet and the group profit and loss statement and the group balance sheet,

allocation of the company's loss in accordance with the adopted balance sheet, and

discharge of liability of the directors of the board and the managing director.

Determination of the number of members of the board, deputy members of the board as well as the number of auditors and deputy auditors.

Determination of remuneration for the board members and the auditors.

Election of members of the board and accounting firm or auditors.

Resolution on instruction and charter for the Nomination Committee. Determination of Remuneration Policy for senior executives. Resolution on authorization for the board of directors regarding new issues.

Resolution on (a) employee option program; and (b) directed issue of warrants and approval of transfer of warrants. Closing of the meeting and authorization

Resolution proposals

Item 1: Election of chairman of the meeting

The Nomination Committee, consisting of Sren Skjrbk, representing Jrgen Drejer, John Haurum, representing Thomas Feldthus, and the chairman of the board, Claus Braestrup, proposes that attorney Ola Grahn is elected as chairman of the meeting.

Item 7 (b): Resolution on allocation of the company's loss in accordance with the adopted balance sheet

The board of directors proposes that no dividends are paid and that available funds are carried forward to a new account.

Item 8: Determination of the number of members of the board, deputy members of the board as well as the number of auditors and deputy auditors

The Nomination Committee proposes that the board of directors shall be composed of four ordinary board members without deputies until the end of the next annual shareholders' meeting. Furthermore, it is proposed that one registered accounting firm is appointed as auditor until the end of the next annual shareholders' meeting.

Item 9: Determination of remuneration for the board members and the auditors

The Nomination Committee proposes that board remuneration shall be paid with SEK 110,000 to each of the members of the board who are not co-founders of Saniona AB (SEK 75,000 previous year). Based on the proposal to the board of directors in accordance with item 10 below, remuneration is only proposed to be paid to Carl Johan Sundberg. No remuneration is proposed for committee work.

Remuneration to the auditor is proposed to be paid in accordance with customary charging standards and approved invoice.

Item 10: Election of members of the board and accounting firm or auditors

The Nomination Committee proposes re-election of Claus Braestrup, Leif Andersson, Jrgen Drejer and Carl Johan Sundberg as ordinary board members and that Claus Braestrup is re-elected as chairman of the board.

The Nomination Committee proposes that Deloitte AB is re-elected as accounting firm. Deloitte AB has notified that the certified accountant Elna Lembrer Astrom will continue to be the auditor in charge.

Item 11: Resolution on instruction and charter for the Nomination Committee

The Nomination Committee proposes that a Nomination Committee shall be appointed before coming elections and remuneration, and that an instruction and charter for the Nomination Committee shall be adopted in accordance with the following substantial terms.

The Nomination Committee shall be comprised of three members representing the two largest shareholders as of last September, together with the chairman of the board of directors. With "largest shareholders" are meant the shareholders registered with Euroclear Sweden AB as of last September. If any of these two largest shareholders refrain from appointing an owner representative, or if an owner representative resigns or relinquishes the position before the assignment is completed and the entitled shareholder does not appoint another representative, the chairman of the board of directors shall invite the next shareholder (i.e. first the third largest owner) to within a week of the request appoint an owner representative. The procedure shall continue until the Nomination Committee is composed of three members.

If a substantial change of ownership occurs no later than seven weeks before the annual shareholders' meeting, a new shareholder representative shall be appointed. The chairman of the board of directors shall then contact the one of the two largest shareholders without an owner representative and request such shareholder to appoint a representative. When such a representative has been appointed, such representative shall be a member of the Nomination Committee and replace the former member of the Nomination Committee who no longer represents one of the two largest shareholders.

Item 12: Determination of Remuneration Policy for senior executives

The board of directors proposes that a Remuneration Policy regarding determination of remuneration and other benefits for the managing director and other senior executives in the company shall be adopted in accordance with the following substantial terms.

Fundamental principles: Remuneration shall be payable on terms that enables senior executives to be recruited and retained. Remuneration to senior executives may consist of basic salary and other customary benefits which can be considered reasonable in relation to market practice. Fixed salary: The managing director and other senior executives shall be offered a fixed salary based on the individual's work duties, expertise, position, responsibilities, performances and other considerations. Salary shall be determined per calendar year with salary revision on 1 January each year. Variable remuneration: Saniona does not offer any variable remuneration to the managing director or other senior executives. Pensions: Saniona does not offer any separate pension benefits to the managing director or other senior executives. Certain part of the senior executive's fixed salary is however allocated to pension payments. The proportion of such pension payments can be selected by the senior executive. Termination etc.: Upon termination by the company, the notice period for the managing director and other senior executives shall not exceed six months. However, an adjusted notice period may be applied for the managing director and the CFO during an initial period of six months after a transaction with the outcome that a majority shareholding in Saniona or Saniona A/S has been acquired by one or more persons. The adjustment shall mean that the notice period, upon termination by Saniona, may be extended to twelve months immediately after the relevant change in ownership. The notice period shall thereafter be reduced by one month for every month that passes after the change in ownership until the notice period is consistent with the normal notice period of the employment agreements. Severance payment, apart from salary during the notice period, shall not occur. Deviations from the guidelines: The board of directors shall be entitled to deviate from the guidelines in individual cases if there are special reasons for doing so.

Item 13: Resolution on authorization for the board of directors regarding new issues

The board of directors proposes that the annual shareholders' meeting resolves to authorize the board of directors to, at one or several occasions, during the time up until the next annual shareholders' meeting, with or without deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights, resolve to issue shares, convertibles and/or warrants. A new issue should be able to be made with or without provisions regarding contribution in kind, set-off or other conditions. In case the authorization is used for a new issue with deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights, the number of shares, that may be issued or alternatively be issued through conversion of convertibles or by exercise of warrants, shall not exceed 30 per cent of the total number of existing shares in the company at the time of the annual shareholders' meeting and the subscription price shall be on market terms (subject to customary new issue discount, as applicable). The purpose of the authorization is to be able to source working capital, to be able to execute and finance acquisitions of companies as well as to enable new issues to industrial partners within the framework of partnerships and alliances.

Item 14: Resolution on (a) employee option program; and (b) directed issue of warrants and approval of transfer of warrants

The board of directors proposes that the annual shareholders' meeting resolves to adopt an employee option program for certain employees and key consultants who are active within the Saniona Group in Denmark.

The purpose of the proposed employee option program (the "Employee Option Program") is to secure a long term commitment for the employees and key consultants within the Saniona Group through a compensation system which is linked to the company's future value growth. Through the implementation of a share based incentive program, the future value growth in the company is encouraged, which implies common interests and goals for the shareholders of the company and key persons. Such share based incentive program is also expected to increase Saniona's possibilities to retain competent persons.

A. The board of directors' proposal to resolution on employee option program 2017/2022

The board of directors proposes that the annual shareholders' meeting resolves to adopt the Employee Option Program in accordance with the following substantial guidelines:

1. The Employee Option Program shall be comprised by a maximum of 38,750 employee options.

2. Each employee option entitles the holder a right to acquire one new share in the company against cash consideration at a subscription price amounting to 100 per cent of the average closing price of the company's share on Nasdaq First North Premier during ten trading days after the 2017 annual shareholders' meeting. The thus calculated subscription price shall be rounded to the nearest whole ore, whereupon 0.5 ore shall be rounded upwards. The subscription price and the number of shares that each employee option entitles right to may be subject to recalculation in the event of a bonus issue, split, rights issue etc., wherein the recalculation terms in the complete terms and conditions of the warrants shall be applied.

3. The Employee Option Program shall comprise fifteen employees and key consultants within the Saniona Group. The board of directors shall, within the framework of the resolution from the annual shareholders' meeting, determine the number of employee options that each participant shall be allotted in according with the following principles.

Senior employees and key consultants (8 individuals): at maximum 12,500 options per individual

Technical employees (7 individuals): at maximum 500 options per individual

Employees who are also members of the board of directors, managing director or larger shareholders in the company shall not be entitled to participate in the Employee Option Program.

4. Allotment shall take place no later than as of 15 July 2017.

5. The allotted employee options will be vested with 1/48 during 48 months after allotment. Vesting requires, with the exemptions stated below, that the participant is still operational within the Saniona Group as of the date when the respective vesting occurs. If the participant ceases to be operational within the Saniona Group after a vesting date has occurred, but before the last date of exercise, the already vested employee options may be exercised on the ordinary dates of exercise, but further vesting will not take place with the exemption of what is stated below.

For employees in Saniona A/S (the "Subsidiary") who are subject to the Danish law (Dan. lov om brug af kberet eller tegningsret til anparter m.v. i ansttelsesforhold (lov nr. 309 af 5. maj 2004)) the following will apply regardless of what has been stated above:

(i) If the Subsidiary terminates the employee's employment in the Subsidiary, without the employee having violated the employment relationship, the employee has the right to retain and exercise the allotted and unexercised employee options in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Employment Option Program (including that vesting shall continue in accordance with the terms and conditions), regardless of the termination of the employment.

(ii) If the employment is terminated by the employee due to the fact that the Subsidiary, in a substantial way, has violated the employment relationship, the employee has the right to retain and exercise the allotted and unexercised employee options in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Employment Option Program (including that vesting shall continue in accordance with the terms and conditions), regardless of the termination of the employment.

(iii) If the employment is terminated due to the fact that the employee (i) achieves the retirement age as defined from time to time within the Saniona Group; (ii) qualifies for Danish retirement pension (Dan. Folkepension) or (iii) suffers of invalidity, the employee has the right to retain and exercise the allotted and unexercised employee options in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Employment Option Program (including that vesting shall continue in accordance with the terms and conditions).

(iv) If the employment is terminated by the employee and the Subsidiary has not in a substantial way violated the employment relationship, all rights to the allotted unexercised employee options will expire on the date of the termination of the employment relationship, without notice and without any consideration, regardless if the employee options are vested or not.

(v) If the Subsidiary terminates or dismisses the employee due to the employee's violation of the employment relationship, all rights to the allotted unexercised employee options will expire on the date of the termination of the employment relationship, without notice and without any consideration, regardless if the employee options are vested or not.

6. The employee options shall not constitute securities and shall not be able to be transferred or pledged. However, in the event of death, the rights constituted by the employee options shall accrue to the beneficiaries of the holder of the employee options.

7. The employee options shall be allotted without consideration. The holders can exercise allotted and vested employee options during 30 days from the day following after the announcement of the company's quarterly reports, or for full year, the year-end report, the first time after the announcement of the quarterly report for the first quarter of 2021 and the last time after the announcement of the quarterly report for the third quarter of 2022. If the company does not render any quarterly report or year-end report after the end of any calendar quarter, the allotted and vested employee options may instead be exercised during the last month of the following calendar quarter, the first time in June 2021 and the last time in December 2022.

8. Participation in the Employee Option Program requires that such participation is in accordance with applicable laws, as well as that such participation can take place with reasonable administrative costs and financial efforts according to the company's opinion.

9. The employee options shall be governed by separate agreements with each respective participant. The board of directors shall be responsible for the preparation and management of the Employee Option Program within the above mentioned substantial terms and guidelines, and by taking into account such minor adjustments that may be required due to tax reasons in Denmark. In extraordinary cases, the board of directors is entitled to limit the extent of the Employee Option, or terminate the Employee Option program in advance, in whole or in part.

B. The board of directors' proposal to resolution on a directed issue of warrants and approval of transfer of warrants

In order to enable the company's delivery of shares under the Employee Option Program, the board of directors proposes that the annual shareholders' meeting resolves on a directed issue of a maximum of 38,750 warrants in accordance with the following terms and conditions:

1. The warrants shall be issued without consideration and the warrants may only, with deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights, be subscribed for by the Subsidiary. The reason for the deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights and the reason for that the warrants are issued without consideration are due to that the warrants are issued as part of the implementation of the Employee Option Program. In the light of the above, the board of directors considers that it is for the benefit of the company and its shareholders that key persons within the Saniona Group are offered to participate in the Employee Option Program.

2. Subscription shall be made no later than as of 31 July 2017. The board of directors shall be entitled to postpone the last day for subscription.

3. Each warrant entitles the holder a right to acquire one new share in the company against cash consideration at a subscription price amounting to 100 per cent of the average closing price of the company's share on Nasdaq First North Premier during ten trading days after the 2017 annual shareholders' meeting. The thus calculated subscription price shall be rounded to the nearest whole ore, whereupon 0.5 ore shall be rounded upwards. The subscription price and the number of shares that each warrant entitles right to may be subject to recalculation in the event of a bonus issue, split, rights issue etc.

4. The warrants may be exercised during the time period from and including the registration of the warrants at the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Sw. Bolagsverket) to and including 31 December 2022.

5. The shares issued upon exercise of a warrant shall confer right to dividends as from the first time on the record date for dividends that occurs immediately following effectuation of subscription.

6. If all warrants are exercised for subscription of new shares, the share capital will increase with SEK 1,937.50.

Further, the board of directors proposes that the annual shareholders' meeting shall resolve to approve that the Subsidiary may transfer warrants to the participants in the Employee Option Program without consideration in connection with the exercise of employee options in accordance with the terms and conditions under Section A above.

Other information regarding the Employee Option Program

The proposal of the Employee Option Program has been prepared by the board of directors. When preparing the proposal, the board of directors has considered that the Employee Option Program is intended for individuals who are active in Denmark. The terms and conditions of the Employee Option Program have therefore been prepared in order to comply with market practice in Denmark.

The board of directors has made the assessment that the Employee Option Program will trigger accounting salary costs. Based on the assumption that 100 per cent of the employee options in the Employee Option Program will be vested, the total reported salary cost for the employee options is calculated to amount to a total of approximately SEK 1,132,612 during the time period 2017-2022 (based on a value for each option of approximately SEK 29.23). The employee options do not have a market value since they are not transferable. However, the board of directors has calculated a theoretical value of the employee options using the "Black Scholes" formula. The value per employee option in accordance with this calculation amounts to approximately SEK 29.23 per employee option. Restrictions in the disposal rights have not been taken into consideration in the valuation. It shall be noted that the calculations are based on preliminary assumptions and are only intended to provide an illustration of the outcome.

In case all warrants under the Employee Option Program 2017/2022 are exercised for subscription of shares, a total of 38,750 shares will be issued, which corresponds to a dilution of approximately 0.19 per cent of the company's share capital and votes after full dilution, calculated on the number of shares that will be added upon full exercise of all warrants which have been issued under the Employee Option Program 2017/2022. The key figure earnings per share before taxes for the full year 2016 had thus been changed in such way that the loss per share after taxes had been decreased by SEK 0.0002 from - SEK 0.1064 to - SEK 0.1062.

Since previously, there is one employee option program 2015/2019 outstanding for employees and key consultants within the Saniona Group, which was resolved upon by the annual shareholders' meeting of 20 May 2015. In that employee option program there are a total of 64,000 employee options outstanding. Each employee option entitles the holder to subscribe for one new share in the company at a subscription price of SEK 20.72 per share. The employee options can be exercised during 30 days from the the announcement of the company's quarterly reports, or for full year, the year-end report, the first time after the announcement of the quarterly report for the first quarter of 2018 and the last time after the announcement of the quarterly report for the third quarter of 2019. In case all of these warrants are exercised for subscription, a total of 64,000 new shares will be issued and the company's share capital will increase with SEK 3,200, which corresponds to a dilution of approximately 0.31 per cent of the company's share capital and votes after full dilution, calculated on the number of shares that will be added upon full exercise of the warrants which have been issued under the employee option program 2015/2019.

Item 15: Closing of the meeting and authorization

The board of directors proposes that the annual shareholders' meeting resolves to authorize the chairman of the board, or anyone appointed by him, to make the minor formal adjustments of the resolutions from the annual shareholders' meeting which may be required for registration with the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Sw. Bolagsverket).

Particular majority requirements

For a valid resolution on the proposal pursuant to item 13, the proposal has to be supported by shareholders representing at least two-thirds of the votes cast as well as of all shares represented at the annual shareholders' meeting. For a valid resolution on the proposal pursuant to item 14, the proposal has to be supported by shareholders representing at least nine-tenths of the votes cast as well as of all shares represented at the annual shareholders' meeting.

Duty of disclosure at the annual shareholders' meeting

The shareholders' are reminded of their right to request information at the shareholders' meeting pursuant to chapter 7 section 32 of the Swedish Companies Act (Sw. Aktiebolagslagen (2005:551)).

Accounting documents and complete proposals

Accounting documents, the audit report and complete proposals for resolutions will be available for the shareholders at the company's office at Baltorpvej 154, DK-2750 Ballerup, Denmark and at the company website (www.saniona.com) as from no later than 2 May 2017, and will be sent to the shareholders upon their request to the company, provided that such shareholders state their current address. Copies of the documents will also be available at the annual shareholders' meeting.

Number of shares and votes in the company

The total number of shares and votes in the company amounts to 20,841,467. The company does not hold any own shares.

____________________

Malmo in April 2017

Saniona AB (publ)

The Board of Directors

For more information, please contact:

Thomas Feldthus, EVP and CFO, Saniona, Mobile: +45 2210 9957, E-mail: tf@saniona.com

This information is information that Saniona (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 08:00 CET on April 21, 2017.

About Saniona

Saniona is a research and development company focused on drugs for diseases of the central nervous system, autoimmune diseases, metabolic diseases and treatment of pain. The company has a significant portfolio of potential drug candidates at pre-clinical and clinical stage. The research is focused on ion channels, which makes up a unique protein class that enables and controls the passage of charged ions across cell membranes. Saniona has ongoing collaboration agreements with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc., Productos Medix, S.A and Luc Therapeutics, Inc. Saniona is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, where it has a research center of high international standard. Saniona is listed at Nasdaq First North Premier and has about 4,500 shareholders. Pareto Securities is Certified Advisor for Saniona. The company's share is traded under the ticker SANION. Read more at www.saniona.com.

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b2e94f83-ed49-4d2a-94d1-e18b222d9768
English Lithuanian

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017-04-21 14:32 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NOTIFICATION FOR IKKB OMX BALTIC BENCHMARK FUND ADDITIONAL ORDINARY SHAREHOLDERS MEETING AND DRAFTS DECISIONS

IKKB OMX Baltic Benchmark Fund, code 111713358, office address: A.Tumeno g. 4, Vilnius (hereinafter  the Company), managed by UAB Orion Asset Management, code: 111707985, office address: A.Tumeno g. 4, Vilnius (hereinafter  Management Company), ordinary shareholders meeting which was scheduled for 20 April 2017 did not occurred.

By the decision of the Management Company, additional ordinary shareholders meeting shall be convened (hereinafter  Meeting). The Meeting will take place at the Management Company registered office on 5 May 2017, 11 am. Meeting record date: 28 April 2017.

The right to participate in the meeting and to vote may be exercised only by those who are registered as shareholders or other persons mandated by shareholders, or other persons who has the right to vote according to the agreement between the parties.

A. Agenda of the meeting:

1. Approval of the Companys financial statements for the 2016 year.

2. Appropriating the Company`s profit (loss) for the year ended 31 December 2016.

B. Drafts decisions

1. To approve Companys financial statements for the 2016 year.

2. To appropriate the profit (loss) of the Company after expiration of the financial year (ended on 31 December 2016) as follows:

a. Retained result  profit (loss) at the end of the previous fiscal year  loss of 219 586 EUR;

b. Net result of the fiscal year  profit loss of  343 241 EUR;

c. Unrecognised profit (loss) in the account  none.

d. Transfers from the reserves  none.

e. Shareholders contributions to cover losses  no indications.

f. Distributable result  profit (loss) at the end of fiscal year  none.

g. Part of profit assigned to the legal reserve  none.

h. Part of profit assigned to the reserve for own shares  none.

i. Part of profit assigned to the other reserves  none.

j. Part of profit assigned for dividends payments  none.

k. Part of profit assigned for annual payments  none.

l. Retained result  profit (loss) at the end of fiscal year  none.

C. Voting procedure

Initiator of the Meeting does not allow to participate and vote in the Meeting through electronic communication instruments. Draft decisions, agenda of the Meeting, documents which will be submitted to the Meeting and the information related with shareholders subjective rights, shall be published on the website at www.am.orion.lt. Select general menu, column on the left Funds management, item OMX Baltic Benchmark Fund. Also, this specific information for shareholders is available at the Management Company office, on working days from 11.00 until 12.00 and from 14.00 until 16.00.

By registering to participate at the Meeting, shareholders or other persons mandated by shareholders must provide identification cards. Persons mandated by shareholders must present mandate (power of attorney). Mandate which was issued by natural person, must be approved by notary. Mandate which was issued in a foreign country must be translated into Lithuanian language and legalized according to the legislation. Mandated person can be authorized by more than one shareholder and can vote separate due to indication of the shareholder.

Shareholder can mandate natural or legal person to participate and vote in the name of shareholder at the meeting via electronically means of communications. There is no obligation to approve such mandate by notary.

Mandate which was issued using electronic communication instruments must be confirmed by shareholder electronic signature (using certified software) which one is confirmed as safe. Shareholder must inform initiator of the Meeting about mandate which was issued using electronic communication instruments by email, this information must be sent to oam@orion.lt, no later than one day before shareholders meeting 04.00 pm.

Mandate and notification must be of the written form. Mandate and notification must be signed by shareholders electronic signature (not only the email should be signed). Shareholder which provides notification must indicate internet address where software which may be used to inspect the validity of electronic signature can be downloaded.

There is no specific form of mandate approved.

Shareholder or other mandated person can vote by correspondence (filling and signing voting ballot).

If shareholder requires, initiator of the meeting must send general voting ballot by registered mail or personally serve it, no later than 10 days before shareholders meeting. General voting ballot must be signed by shareholder or other mandated person. If ballot was signed by mandated person, additional document proving the right to vote must be attached.

Filled and signed general voting ballot must be submitted to the initiator of the Meeting. It must be sent by registered mail or presented directly. Completed ballot will have power only if it will be received until shareholders meeting.

On the website www.am.orion.lt, column on the left Funds management, item OMX Baltic Benchmark Fund, News shall be indicated following information:

- Notification about shareholders meeting;

- Drafts of the decisions due to agenda issues and other related documents which will be submitted to the meeting;

- General voting ballot.

D. Procedure of submission of questions and sumplements of agenda

Shareholders dont have the right to propose any additional modification of the agenda. At this Meeting agenda must be the same content as it was prepared in the previous ordinary shareholders meeting.

Shareholders whose shares are carrying voting rights at least 1/20 of the all votes, have the right to propose new projects of decisions, which are included in the agenda of the Meeting. Proposals must be submitted on paper or must be e-mailed.

Proposals which are submitted on paper must be presented until 09.00 am to the initiator office or can be sent by registered mail. Proposals which are submitted on paper can be presented to the chairman of the Meeting after the announcement of agenda, but no later than before shareholders will start to consider issues which are indicated in the agenda. Proposals which are submitted by email must be sent to oam@orion.lt. Shareholders meeting will considerate all decisions projects proposals (due to questions indicated in the agenda) which would be sent no later than on 5 May 2017, 09.00 am.

Shareholders have the right to submit additional questions regarding the item included in the agenda of the Meeting. Questions submitted on paper must be presented to the initiator office or must be sent to oam@orion.lt, no later than 3 working days before shareholders meeting.

Annex.

1. General voting ballot.

2. Companys financial statements for the 2016 year.

Respectfully,

UAB Orion Asset Management

CEO

Ramunas Baranauskas
French English

Revenues resisted well in First Quarter 2017

Rapid progress in Fnac Darty integration

 First quarter 2017 saw a strong comparison basis related to the change in the digital television standard in France in April 2016.

 Revenues were resilient in the first quarter of 2017:

Group revenues down -3.2% at constant exchange rates compared to first quarter of 2016 ,

Over a two-year period, France-Switzerland recorded growth of +1.3%.

 Gross profit margin is growing2

 Rapid progress in the Fnac Darty integration process and implementation of synergies





2017 FIRST QUARTER REVENUES - PRO FORMA

Q1 2017 in m Variation vs Q1 2016 Actual at constant exchange rate on a same-store basis France-Switzerland 1,300 -3.6% -3.6% -3.2% Iberian Peninsula 147 -0.9% -0.9% 0.6% Benelux 211 -2.2% -2.2% -3.2% Group 1,668 -3.2% -3.2% -2.9%

FIRST QUARTER 2017 HIGHLIGHTS

Group revenues totaled 1,668 million in the first quarter of 2017, up 104.8% in reported figures. Pro Forma revenues decreased by -3.2% actual and at constant exchange rates.

The first quarter saw a high comparison basis, mainly related to the change in the digital television standard in April 2016 in France. Growth had been +5.1% in the France-Switzerland region and +3.8% at Group level, in the first quarter of 2016. 2017 first quarter revenues have increased over the last two years, both in France (+1.3%) and at Group level (+0.4%).

Internationally, the Group is returning to growth on a same-store basis in the Iberian Peninsula, in both Spain and Portugal. In the Benelux region, Belgium is showing steady growth thanks to a solid expansion. In the Netherlands, revenues were down in a very competitive market, and priority was given to monitoring the commercial business model and the operational recovery plan.

Accelerating transformation: Digital, Omnichannel, Expansion and Diversification.

Online sales were very dynamic in the first quarter. The efforts to improve the flow of the customer experience and personalization are bearing fruit. In addition, marketplaces continued to expand, with an increase in gross merchandise volumes of over 40%.

Thanks to the improvement in digital platforms in all countries and continuous expansion of the territorial network, omnichannel sales grew by almost 3 points4 compared to the first quarter of 2016, and reached more than 44% of Internet orders.

The pace of expansion continued, with 11 store openings in the first quarter.

The Group continues to pursue its goal of around 50 store openings in 2017, mainly in franchise.

New product families recorded high growth and were driven by the Kitchen, Toys and Games and Home & Design categories.

At the end of March, Fnac Darty announced an industrial and financial partnership with Deezer that will allow its customers to enjoy advantageous access offers for music streaming services.

The number of members grew over the quarter. The Fnac+ card confirms its attractiveness and enjoys a growing of membership base.

A growing gross margin

In highly competitive markets, the gross margin is increasing. This performance is the result of good management of commercial operations, stronger partnerships with key suppliers and the initial benefits of synergies.

Synergies and stand-alone cost-savings plans

The Fnac Darty integration made rapid progress in the first quarter.

In commercial terms, initiatives launched at the end of 2016 were expanded. For example, it is now possible to pick up fnac.com purchases at around 150 Darty stores. New initiatives were launched, such as the first shop-in-shops (a space for one brand in a store of the other brand), which will be opened in May 2017.

As regards cost synergies, yearly commercial negotiations were concluded satisfactorily. The renegotiation of indirect purchases continued. IT and logistics platforms' conversion were launched. In addition, the Group announced its intention to unify its head offices in Belgium.

At the same time as these synergy actions, stand-alone cost-savings plans continued in all Group entities.

ANALYSIS OF PRO-FORMA REVENUES BY REPORTING SEGMENT

France-Switzerland

Markets declined during the first quarter in France in an environment of sluggish consumption. The historical comparison effect was very significant as the first quarter of 2016 benefited from the calendar effect linked to the leap year and the strong growth in the television segment.

Group revenues grew by +5.1% in France-Switzerland in the first quarter of 2016.

In this context, France-Switzerland revenues totaled 1,300 million, down -3.6% at constant exchange rates. In 2016, the strong growth in the television market mainly benefited Darty, which recorded a decline over the quarter. Fnac, did not benefit as much from the television market growth last year, revenues are growing in 2017 first quarter.

Over a two-year period, revenues for the France-Switzerland region grew.

Online growth was very strong, and was primarily boosted by high levels of activity on Fnac.com. Omni-channel sales continued to increase. Fnac and Darty marketplace sales momentum remained strong, growing by over 40%.

The expansion of the network continued during the period with the opening of 6 Darty franchise stores. In addition, 8 Fnac stores have opened on Sundays since the end of March.

Iberian Peninsula

Revenues totaled 147 million, up +0.6%6 on a same-store basis.

In Portugal, the Group is benefiting from its main strategic initiatives and optimal market conditions.

In Spain, new commercial actions and omnichannel functionalities are bearing fruit. Both countries experienced growth compared to the first quarter of 2016 on a same-store basis.

In Spain, the Diagonal del Mar store in Barcelona moved to the Glories site in March.

Benelux

Revenues totaled 221 million, down -3.2%8 on a same-store basis.

The Vanden Borre-Fnac integration process made good progress in Belgium during the quarter. At the same time, commercial activity is growing thanks to the conversion of stores acquired by Vanden Borre from Kitchen Market in 2016.

In the Netherlands, the Group has been implementing a transformation plan since the end of 2016. Revenues were down for the quarter, with priority being given to recovery of operations and control of the commercial business model in an increasingly competitive environment.

OUTLOOK

The strong comparison basis will continue to be felt in the second quarter of 2017. As a reminder, the Group's revenues grew by 6.3% in the second quarter of 2016 due to strong growth in the television segment, following the change in digital standard in April 2016 in France. The second half of 2017 will return to a more normative historical base.

Over the next few quarters, Fnac Darty will continue its integration program and the implementation of its strategic projects, which include development of new product and service offerings, opening of new proximity stores in franchised, online acceleration via omnichannel and marketplaces, establishment of common support and purchase structures.

Fnac Darty confirms its objective of 130 million of synergies in 2018, with at least half achieved by end of 2017.

FIRST QUARTER 2017 REVENUES

Matthieu Malige, Chief Financial Officer, will host a conference call for investors and analysts on Friday, April 21, 2017, at 6:00 p.m. (CET); 5:00 p.m. (UK); 12:00 p.m. (East Coast USA).

Conference call dial-in numbers:

France: + 33 1 70 77 09 41

UK: +44 203 367 9454

US: +1 866 907 5925

Replay dial-in numbers (available until Wednesday, May 31, 2017)

France: +33 1 72 00 15 00

UK: +44 203 367 9460

US: +1 877 642 3018

Replay access code: 307975#

CONTACTS



ANALYSTS & INVESTORS Stephanie Constand stephanie.constand@fnacdarty.com

+33 (0)1 55 21 18 63 PRESS Laurent Glepin laurent.glepin@fnacdarty.com

+33 (0)1 55 21 53 07

APPENDICES

FIRST QUARTER 2017 REVENUES - REPORTED

Q1 2017 in m Variation vs Q1 2016 Actual at constant exchange rate on a same-store basis France-Switzerland 1,300 107.6% 107.4% 107.9% Iberian Peninsula 147 -0.9% -0.9% 0.6% Benelux 211 455.3% 455.3% 434.6% Group 1,668 104.8% 104.7% 105.1%

STORE NETWORK - PRO FORMA

31-dec-16 Opening Closing 31-mars-17 France and Switzerland 465 6 -1 470 Traditionnel Fnac 81 0 0 81 Peripherie Fnac 14 0 0 14 Travel Fnac 20 0 0 20 Proximite Fnac 31 0 0 31 Connect Fnac 4 0 0 4 Darty 315 6 -1 320 of which franchised stores 152 6 0 158 Iberian Peninsula 52 1 -1 52 Traditionnel Fnac 40 0 0 40 Travel Fnac 2 0 0 2 Proximite Fnac 8 1 -1 8 Connect Fnac 2 0 0 2 of which franchised stores 2 0 0 2 Benelux 147 4 -2 149 Traditionnel Fnac 9 0 0 9 Proximite Fnac 1 0 0 1 Darty 137 4 -2 139 Fnac Darty group 664 11 -4 671 Traditionnel Fnac 130 0 0 130 Peripherie Fnac 14 0 0 14 Travel Fnac 22 0 0 22 Proximite Fnac 40 1 -1 40 Connect Fnac 6 0 0 6 Darty 452 10 -3 459 of which franchised stores 154 6 0 160

The France-Switzerland zone includes 4 stores abroad (1 in Morocco, 2 in the Ivory Coast and 1 in Qatar) and 10 stores in the French Overseas Territories.

The Brazil zone has 12 stores.

DEFINITIONS OF ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE INDICATORS



CHANGE IN PRO-FORMA REVENUES AT CONSTANT EXCHANGE RATES AND COMPARABLE SCOPE OF CONSOLIDATION

The change in revenues at constant exchange rates and comparable scope of consolidation means that the impact of exchange rate fluctuations has been excluded and that the effect of changes in scope is corrected to not take modifications (acquisition, sale of subsidiary) into account. The exchange rate impact is eliminated by recalculating sales for financial year N-1, based on the exchange rates used for financial year N. The revenues of subsidiaries acquired or sold since January 1 of financial year N-1 are excluded from the calculation of the change. This indicator can be used to measure the change in revenues excluding the effects of exchange rates and scopes of consolidation.

CHANGE IN PRO-FORMA REVENUES AT CONSTANT EXCHANGE RATES, COMPARABLE SCOPE OF CONSOLIDATION AND ON A SAME-STORE BASIS

The change in revenues on a same-store basis means that the impact of exchange rate fluctuations has been excluded, that the effect of changes in scope is corrected to not take modifications (acquisition, disposal of subsidiary) into account and that the effect of directly-owned store openings and closings since January 1 of financial year N-1 has been excluded. This indicator can be used to measure revenues excluding the effects of exchange rates, scopes of consolidation and directly-owned store openings and closings.

DEFINITION OF PRO-FORMA INFORMATION

Fnac Darty's 2016 revenues include data from Groupe Darty plc as from August 2016. The data is therefore not directly comparable with historically reported data. To gain a more accurate picture of the new entity's economic performance, the company decided to present the pro-forma data for 2016 and 2017, which retraces the activity of the two groups as if Darty had been purchased on January 1, 2016.

Reported data

Pro-forma data
- Nemesis has finally caught up with a 23-year-old man in Benue state

- The young man is notorious for deceiving men in the state by acting like a woman

Samuel Aondafa, a 23-year-old man, was arrested by the police for disguising as a woman to make men trip for him and get money from them.

Aondofa, popularly known as Deborah, appeared before a Makurdi Chief Magistrates court charged with criminal deception.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), one Vivian Enger, a resident of International Market area, Makurdi, reported the case at the E Division police station. This was made known by the police prosecutor, Mr Omaye Ujata.

READ ALSO: I am not proud to be a Nigerian  Man shares ugly experience with the police in Warri (photos)

Ujata quoted Enger as saying that the accused, a resident of Tyogbenda Jagh-Kur village in Buruku Local Government Area of Benue, disguised himself as a woman and was employed as a sales girl at her (Enger)s beer parlour located in the said village.

He further quoted Enger as saying that Aondofa changed his name to Deborah so as to attract the attention of male customers.

The accused was later discovered after series of complaints from customers. He was arrested and, during police investigation, confessed to the crime, the prosecutor told the court.

Ujata said that investigation into the matter was ongoing and pleaded with the court for additional time to complete it.

He said that the offense contravened Section 285 of the Penal Code Laws of Benue state.

However, when the case came up for mention, the accused denied all the allegations.

READ ALSO: Be careful of who touches you on your wedding day - Lady warns

The Magistrate, Ibrahim Mohammed, granted the accused bail in the sum of N50,000 with one reasonable surety in like sum, who must be resident in Makurdi town.

Mohammed adjourned the case until May 11 for further mention.

Watch the Legit.ng video below to see what Bobrisky, the male barbie doll, is up to this time around:

Source: Legit.ng
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
The Samsung Galaxy Book line of computers are 2-in-1 devices that you can use as a tablet or a notebook. First introduced in February, the Galaxy Book comes in 10.6 inch and 12 inch models, and both go up for pre-order in the United States starting April 21st.

Prices are expected to start at $630 for the smaller model, and $1300 for the larger version, which also features higher-end specs.

Both models feature a tablet, a detachable keyboard, and a digital pen. And both have some features in common, including 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, fast charging support, USB 3.1 Type-C ports, and microSD card readers.

But there are also some key differences.

The Galaxy Book 10.6 has 1920 x 1280 pixel TFT display, a low-power Intel Core M3-7Y30 processor, 4GB of RAM, and either 64GB or 128GB of eMMC storage.

Samsungs 12 inch model has 2160 x 1440 pixel AMOLED display, a Core i5-7200U laptop-class processor, 4GB and 8GB RAM options, and 128GB and 256GB SSD options (which should provide faster read and write speeds than eMMC.

While the 10.6 inch model has a single USB Type-C port, the 12 inch Galaxy Book has two. And Samsung will also offer a Galaxy Book 12 LTE model with support for LTE Cat 6 networks. Theres no 4G version of the Galaxy Book 10.6.

The smaller tablet measures 10.3 x 7.1 x 0.35 and weighs 1.4 pounds with a 30.4 Wh battery, while the Galaxy Book 12 is 11.5 x 7.9 x 0.29 and weighs 1.7 pounds with a 39.04 Wh battery.


Ronald Reagan

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

Albert Einstein

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

Winston Churchill





It isnt so much that liberals are ignorant. Its just that they know so many things that arent so.

With integrity nothing else counts; Without integrity nothing else counts.

Winston Churchill





Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.

Harvey S. Firestone





It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. H. L. Menken



Referenda insure all have a voice in land use decisions.

U.S. Supreme Court

Listen carefully to first criticism of your work. Note just what it is about your work the critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

Jean Cocteau
Results from a study presented today found that the incidence of HEV RNA in asymptomatic blood donors from Germany is higher than previously reported. The study, presented at The International Liver Congress 2017 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, showed that 0.11% of donations tested were HEV RNA positive (15 out of 13,441 donors) and that one of the asymptomatic HEV RNA positive donors had previously donated HEV RNA positive blood products, which were then transfused into nine immunocompromised patients. Screening for HEV RNA at blood donation centres has been debated in recent years but is not compulsory as yet.

There are an estimated 20 million new infections with HEV worldwide every year. However, HEV infection is often asymptomatic and will usually clear within two to six weeks.1 HEV infection can persist in immunocompromised individuals,2 leading to development of liver cirrhosis or liver failure.3,4 For this reason there have been calls to introduce routine HEV RNA screening of blood donations.

"We identified a higher percentage of HEV RNA donors in our study cohort than has previously been reported in Germany," said Dirk Westholter, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, and lead author of the study. "Since HEV infection can have serious consequences among the immunocompromised and a single positive donor can give rise to HEV infection in several other patients, there is a need for longer term studies to analyse the effectiveness of routine HEV blood donor screening, and to determine whether this process should be implemented at blood clinics everywhere."

Blood donations (n=13,441) at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf were tested from October 2016. Pools of 24 donations were screened using an HEV PCR assay, with reactive pools tested individually to identify HEV RNA positive donors.

Out of 15 HEV RNA positive donors identified, 14 were healthy and asymptomatic and one presented with acute self-limiting hepatitis. Of the asymptomatic donors, one had been HEV RNA positive for over three months and had donated blood products prior to this screening, which had then been transfused into nine immunocompromised patients. Interestingly, eight of these patients did not go on to develop Hepatitis E, and only one patient had detectable serum HEV RNA before death due to acute-on-chronic liver failure complicated by pseudomonas sepsis.

"The proportion of HEV RNA positive donors found in this study is higher than previously reported and quite worrisome. Given the suboptimal, inconsistent sensitivity of commercially available anti-HEV antibody assays, and in view of the serious consequences that may occur in immunocompromised recipients, screening for HEV RNA of blood donor minipools should be discussed promptly," said Prof Francesco Negro, Divisions of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of Clinical Pathology, University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland and EASL Governing Board Member.

More information: Abstract: Blood-borne HEV transmission: first experience with global HEV screening at a tertiary center (PS110), The International Liver Congress 2017. Abstract: Blood-borne HEV transmission: first experience with global HEV screening at a tertiary center (PS110), The International Liver Congress 2017. References: 1 World Health Organization. Hepatitis E Factsheet. July 2016. Available from: www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs280/en/. Last accessed: April 2017. 2 Debing Y, et al. Update on hepatitis E virology: implications for clinical practice. J Hepatol. 2016;65(1):200-212. 3 Pischke S, et al. Hepatitis E virus; infection beyond the liver? J Hepatol. 2017; Article in press. 4 Krain LJ, et al. Host immune status and response to hepatitis E virus infection. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2014;27(1):139-165.

Provided by European Association for the Study of the Liver
Patients are stuck for a blood draw almost every day they are admitted to a hospital. Lab tests are one of the most common orders placed by doctors, but research indicates that nearly one-third of these tests are not needed. Hospitals nationwide are seeking ways to use price transparency - displaying the price of lab tests at the time when doctors are placing the order - to nudge doctors to consider whether the benefits are worth the cost. But, results of a new study show that simply displaying the Medicare allowable fees did not have an overall impact on how clinicians ordered these tests. The results, from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, are published today in JAMA Internal Medicine and presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine annual meeting in Washington, DC.

"Price transparency is increasingly being considered by hospitals and other health care organizations as a way to nudge doctors and patients toward higher-value care, but the best way to design these types of interventions has not been well-tested," said senior author Mitesh S. Patel, MD, MBA, MS, an assistant professor of Medicine and Health Care Management in Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School, and director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. "Our findings indicate that price transparency alone was not enough to change clinician behavior and that future price transparency interventions may need to be better targeted, framed, or combined with other approaches to be more successful."

In the new study - the largest of its kind - researchers randomly assigned 60 groups of inpatient laboratory tests to either display Medicare allowable fees in the patient's electronic health record (intervention arm), or not (control arm). The randomized clinical trial was conducted at three hospitals within the University of Pennsylvania Health System over a one-year period and compared changes in the number of tests ordered per patient per day, and associated fees, for more than 98,000 patients (totaling over 142,000 admissions).

Results of the study showed that in the year prior to the study, when cost information was not displayed, the average number of tests and associated fees ordered per patient per day was 2.31 tests totaling $27.77 in the control group, and 3.93 tests totaling $37.84 in the intervention group. After the intervention, when cost information was displayed for the intervention group, researchers noted the average number of tests and associated fees ordered per patient per day did not change significantly and was 2.34 tests totaling $27.59 in the control group, and 4.01 tests totaling $38.85 in the intervention group.

Though the study found no overall effect, the authors noted important findings in specific patient groups that have implications for how to improve price transparency in the future. For example, there was a slight decrease test ordering for patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit - an environment in which doctors are making rapid decisions and may be more exposed to the price transparency intervention. The authors also found that the most expensive tests were ordered less and the cheaper tests were ordered more, suggesting that future interventions might be more successful if they are better designed to framed relative pricing.

"Electronic health records are constantly being changed, from how choices are offered to the way information is framed," said C. William Hanson, MD, chief medical information officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and a member of the steering committee for the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. "By systematically testing these approaches through real-world experiments, health systems can leverage this new evidence to continue to improve the way care is delivered for our patients."

"Price transparency continues to be an important initiative, but the results of this clinical trial indicate that these approaches need to be better designed to effectively change behavior" said Patel, who is also a staff physician at the Crescenz VA Medical Center, and whose work is supported by the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics.
A new European study presented today demonstrated that patients with chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and severe liver damage, taken off the liver transplant list as a result of successful direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy, had a favourable outcome over a year later. The study, presented at The International Liver Congress 2017 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, showed that 38 of 142 patients (26.7%) could be removed from the waiting list due to clinical improvement. Of the 38 patients taken off of the transplant list, one (2.6%) died as a result of rapidly progressing HCC while two other patients (5.2%) had to be relisted or considered for relisting.

Severe liver damage, also known as decompensated cirrhosis, is a life threatening condition in which extensive scarring of the liver results in its inability to function properly.1 Decompensated cirrhosis is a leading reason for liver transplantation. Chronic HCV is the leading cause of liver transplantation in adults.2 Over 8,500 people in Europe3 and over 16,000 people in the United States of America are waiting for a liver transplant, with this number expected to increase.4

"The results of this study are very encouraging with clinical improvement due to direct-acting antiviral therapy lasting over a year in nearly all patients," said Dr Luca Belli, Gastroenterology and Hepatology Liver Unit, Niguarda Hospital, Milan, Italy and lead author of the study. "We still need to follow these patients for much longer to confirm the results and assess the long-term risks of deterioration, but so far the risk of dying after delisting is much lower than that of dying after receiving a liver transplant."

The retrospective European study followed 38 patients who originally had decompensated cirrhosis without liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) and were taken off the liver transplant list as a result of clinical improvement after DAA therapy. The median follow up time was 28 months from start of therapy and 15 months from delisting.

Of the patients included in the study, 37 of the 38 were alive at the end of the study and one patient had to be relisted for clinical re-decompensation. Median Model of End-Stage Liver Disease scores at the start of DAA therapy were 14 (IQR:12-17) and improved to 9 (IQR:8-11) 78 weeks afterwards; median Child-Pugh scores at the start of DAA therapy were 9 (IQR:8-10) and improved to 6 (IQR:5-6) after 78 weeks. The advantages of delisting are two-fold as any liver saved by delisting a patient can be offered to another patient.

"This study is very important as it shows that HCV therapy may be effective in avoiding or reducing the need of transplantation in a significant number of cases. It is an excellent example of the fact that clearing the Hepatitis C virus can provide immediate advantages for patients, in addition to the longer term advantages," said Prof Marco Marzioni, Professor of Gastroenterology, Universita Politecnica delle Marche - "Ospedali Riuniti" University Hospital of Ancona, Italy and EASL Governing Board Member.

More information: Abstract: Delisting of liver transplant candidates with chronic HCV infection after viral eradication: outcome after delisting: a European study (PS063), The International Liver Congress 2017. Abstract: Delisting of liver transplant candidates with chronic HCV infection after viral eradication: outcome after delisting: a European study (PS063), The International Liver Congress 2017. References: 1 Franciscus A & HCV Advocate. HCSP Fact Sheet - HCV Disease Progression. Available from: hcvadvocate.org/hepatitis/fact  ts_pdf/cirrhosis.pdf. Last accessed: April 2017. 2 Gane E.J., Agarwal K. Directly Acting Antivirals (DAAs) for the Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Liver Transplant Patients. American Journal of Transplantation. 2014;14(5):994-1002. 3 European Commission. Organ donation and transplantation: Facts and figures. Published November 2014. Available from: ec.europa.eu/health/blood_tiss  _factsfigures_en.pdf. Last accessed: April 2017. 4 Habka D, et al. Future Economics of Liver Transplantation: A 20-Year Cost Modeling Forecast and the Prospect of Bioengineering Autologous Liver Grafts. PLoS One. 2015; 10(7):e0131764.

Provided by European Association for the Study of the Liver
This normothermic perfusion machine pumps the liver with warm, oxygenated blood and nutrition at or just below body temperature for up to 24 hours before transplant. Credit: UAB News

Physicians in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Surgery have transplanted Alabama's first patient with a cadaver liver that was recovered from the donor and "kept alive" and preserved at body temperature instead of the standard cold solutiona technique that enables the patient to receive a liver that surgeons can watch produce bile before it is transplanted.

The transplant was performed recently by UAB Medicine surgeons on Lana Wiggins, a Valley, Alabama, resident, as part of a clinical trial using a normothermic machine perfusion technique developed by OrganOx. Surgeons place the cadaver liver in the normothermic machine, which then pumps the organ with warm, oxygenated blood and nutrition at or just below body temperature for up to 24 hours before transplant. Devin Eckhoff, M.D., director of UAB's Division of Transplantation, says the technique has shown great success in European studies and appears to provide a significant improvement in the quality of the transplanted cadaver organ.

"Because there is a large shortage of livers available for transplantation, the transplant community is continuing to push the boundaries to increase the availability of organs," Eckhoff said. "These normothermic machines enable us to preserve the liver under near perfect physiological conditionsas opposed to the usual hypothermic conditions in which the organ is typically transplanted. With the normothermic preservation, the liver maintains all aspects of graft function throughout the preservation process; it allows for pre-transplant assessment of organ function and thereby viability to predict suitability for implantation and the delivery of potential agents such as stem cells to further improve the tissue damage caused when blood supply returns to the tissue after a lack of oxygen."

UAB's School of Medicine and UAB Hospital have joined 14 other transplant centers in the United States in this study. Research efforts like this clinical trial have focused on overcoming the limitations of cold storage, which is the current universal standard for organ preservation, with a move toward normothermic machine perfusion.

Wiggins, who educated and aided families on the value of being an organ donor as a registered nurse at East Alabama Lanier Hospital for 25 years, says she feels better than she has in three years. That was when the combination of a blood clot, fatty liver disease and medications she had taken her whole life for lupus converged to cause the beginning of liver failure.

"I'm doing fantastic, just wonderful, and I'm already back home doing everything I did before my transplant," said the 63-year-old. "It's ironic that I would be the one in need after all of the years of talking about organ donation with patients or patient families. Even before I was a donor coordinator, I believed in organ donation. I signed up when I was in my early 20s. I'm beyond grateful to have received this gift now."

Normothermic preservation advantages

Although limited in terms of the duration of preservation, cold storage has the major advantages of simplicity, portability and affordability. However, with increased use of marginal organs in recent years because of the dearth of livers available, the limitations of static cold storage are a major factor influencing patient and graft survival rates.

Preliminary evidence from clinical trials in Europe have shown organ preservation by normothermic machine perfusion is superior to static cold storage, a breakthrough that could be a major benefit to those with end-stage liver disease. Credit: UAB News

The machine that houses the liver to preserve it prior to transplant is the first completely automated liver perfusion device of its kind. It works similar to a greenhouse, and is constructed from basic components that make up conventional cardiopulmonary bypass, including basic roller pumps, oxygenators and heat exchangers.

"This machine can really help in a number of ways," said Stephen Gray, M.D., liver transplant surgeon and director of UAB's Abdominal Transplant Fellowship. "The fact that the machine can perfuse the organ with oxygenated red blood cells at normal body temperaturejust as it would be inside the bodyand that we can observe it making bile before transplant is just an extraordinary feat, and a significant benefit to us as surgeons and our patients. With these normothermic machine-perfused livers, we can assess whether it is going to work before we transplant it into the patient, whereas we typically do not know if the liver will work until the transplant takes place."

This kind of advancement could mean livers can eventually be shipped from coast to coast in the United States, an impossibility for cold-stored livers. If that is the case, geography would not be as much of a hurdle to transplant those most in need. It also means surgeons would not have to operate overnight if a liver can be kept viable for up to 24 hours.

"You can use a liver for transplant that was placed in cold storage for up to 12 hours; but cooling the organ to ice temperature to slow down its metabolism does not stop it from deteriorating, usually within the first six to eight hours," Gray said. "And if the organ is damaged in some way, perhaps by being deprived of oxygen, the combined effect can be catastrophic for the organ. The perfused machine would allow us to extend the storage time and only enhance the viability of the liver."

Eckhoff added that preliminary evidence from clinical trials in Europe have shown organ preservation by normothermic machine perfusion is superior to static cold storage, a breakthrough that could be a major benefit to those with end-stage liver disease.

"If this is as successful as it appears it can be, it will be a significant benefit to those in need of liver transplantation," Eckhoff said. "About 60,000 patients die of liver disease annually in the United States, and many of them could theoretically have been treated with a liver transplant. This device has the potential to change that radically by enabling us to transplant many organs that are simply unusable with current techniques."

The clinical trial at UAB is expected to last 18 months.

For Wiggins, she is just happy to have a second chance at a healthy life.

"It's hard to describe how you feel about someone who makes the decision to give life to others after they are gone by choosing to be an organ donor," Wiggins said. "I had a cousin who died when he was 19, and his parents donated all of his organshis heart, kidneys, livereverything they could. He was a healthy young boy who helped save several lives. To have someone do the same for me is overwhelming. A tremendous blessing."
The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism has launched a constitutional challenge against the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) and unregulated bulk interception.

RICA serves as the basis for the lawful interception of citizens communications, but we contend that there are fundamental flaws in RICA and that various sections are inconsistent with the Constitution, said amaBhungane.

We are going to court, starting with the high court in Pretoria, so as to strengthen the protection of journalists and the public against the abuse of this arguably necessary, but intrusive legislation, it said.

The complaint addresses two categories:

The areas where RICA regulates surveillance, but does so inadequately. Where it fails to regulate certain monitoring activities at all.

Where RICA does regulate, amaBhungane argues that there are five constitutional flaws:

The target of the interception order is never informed of the order  even after the period of interception has ended and an investigation concluded. RICA is silent about the procedure state officials should follow when examining, copying, sharing, and storing the intercepted data. Where the interception is found to be irrelevant, there is no certifiable procedure for the data to be destroyed. RICA requires private companies to store certain information, but does not provide oversight mechanisms. There are deficiencies in the regime for oversight by the retired judge nominated to rule on interception applications. RICA fails to protect targets of interception who have a legal duty to protect the confidentiality of communications and sources, such as lawyers and journalists.

There is a second category of problems with RICA, in that it does not regulate certain kinds of interception at all.

RICA does not cater for the regulation of bulk interception, which uses computers to scan massive flows of data.

RICA does not provide an approval mechanism regarding interception or surveillance of foreign signals, which may ensnare people in South Africa.

The intelligence community presently monitors such communication without a warrant.

We argue that because it inevitably limits fundamental rights it is essential that its implementation is subject to proper checks and balances, said amaBhungane.

The founding papers were served on the Minister of Justice, police, state security and communications, and interested parties last week.
CNN reported that the US has prepared charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The US will seek to arrest Assange, who is currently residing in the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

Assange cannot easily leave the Embassy, as there is a request for his extradition to Sweden where he is facing allegations of sexual assault and rape.

Assange denies the allegations, and is concerned that after he has been extradited to Sweden, he will be extradited to the US for his role in disclosing secret American documents.

In 2010, WikiLeaks published a series of leaks, provided by Chelsea Manning, which included the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and CableGate (November 2010).

Manning was convicted for violations of the Espionage Act in July 2013.

According to CNN, prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Assange, but now believe they have found a way to move forward.
Thirty-six years ago, President Reagan did what no president dared to do since: He used the term genocide to reference the horrific acts that took place between 1915 and 1923  the systematic eradication of the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, reads the article published by Anthony Barsamian. Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), and organization's trustee Noubar Afeyan published on The Hill.

According to the authors, there are overall10 million Armenians worldwide, of which 1.5 million reside in the U.S., this becoming possible because of the ''heroic acts undertaken by individuals who acted as saviors in the face of adversity.''

''Armenians were the first large scale refugee population of the 20th century and sadly, history repeats itself today as we see some 65 million displaced populations fleeing for their own safety and security,'' the article reads.

In their words, failing to acknowledge the truth is dangerous but forgetting it is even worse.

''In 1951, the United States. memorialized the violent acts against Genocide victims with the International Court of Justice, stating: "The practice of genocide has occurred throughout human history. The Roman persecution of the Christians, the Turkish massacres of Armenians, the extermination of millions of Jews and Poles by the Nazis are outstanding examples of the crime of genocide. Yet memory is fragile and largely inconvenient for modern diplomatic expediency.''

Since then, presidential candidates from both parties have promised they would formally recognize teh Armenian Genocide when elected but sadly, ''political sensitivities took precedence when these candidates assumed office.''

''Compared with the many issues confronting a sitting president, categorizing the Armenian atrocity as a genocide might seem quite small, but history demands a proper accounting. Some have compared President Trump to President Reagan, especially when he disrupts the old order. For historys sake, on this April 24th  the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian genocide  let us hope Trump can pick up where Reagan left off 36 years ago,'' the authors conclude.
Global South needs $2 trillion year to fight climate crisis

U.S. officials secretly ask major banks to continue doing business with some Russian firms

19fortyfive: Is America tired of the war in Ukraine?

EU replaces pipeline Russian gas with imported Russian LNG

Kommersant: China split the 'unity' of the West

Expert estimates level of Azerbaijan's information attack on Armenia in September, comparing it to 44-day war

UK wants to work more with the U.S. on gas supplies

Donald Trump votes in Florida midterm elections

EU admits: It is impossible to set a ceiling on gas prices that will not affect contracts or security of supply

Most valuable metal of year is named

Mehr: Nikolai Patrushev arrives in Tehran

Turkish TV company confesses that Ankara and Israel were arming Azerbaijan against Armenia

Who is Baku threatening? Armenia's former deputy defense minister decodes Aliyev's statements

Army Commander-in-Chief: Even those who claim to be superpowers do not dare to attack Iran

Iran and Russia to build joint pipeline

India to continue buying Russian oil

Businessman Zhong Shanshan becomes richest man in China

Armenia and Poland emphasize OSCE role in promoting stability in South Caucasus

Banks are searched in Germany in case of money laundering by Russian businessman

Armenian President reacts to Aliyev's speech at League of Arab States summit

Armenia increases trade with EEU member states by $1.2 bln

Cavusoglu: Sweden and Finland have not yet fulfilled all Turkey's conditions

Oldest member of Rothschild dynasty die in Britain

Armenian National Security Council head and Polish Secretary of State discuss regional security issues

Stepantsminda-Lars highway faces restrictions

Kyiv realizes if China starts supplying ammunition to Russian troops it will be terrible

State Department: U.S. remains committed to supporting peace in South Caucasus region

Iran condemns thousand protesters and calls for retaliation against rest

Delegation from Israel visits Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide

Media: London is close to agreement with Washington on LNG supplies

Aliyev in fact confirms fact of Azerbaijani aggression against sovereign territory of Armenia

Toivo Klaar: Important meeting held in Washington between Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs

Aliyev switches from threatening Armenia to insulting foreign leaders

Karabakh ombudsman: Todays occupation does not change status of Shushi

Envoy briefs Kazakhstan human rights commissioner on consequences of Azerbaijan aggression against Armenia

Dollar, euro continue to rise in Armenia

U.S. Ambassador to UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield arrives in Kiev

EU partners welcome justice sector reforms in Armenia

Armenia government to have academic city project development working group

Rybar: Publication of Iranian film about 'skeletons' of Aliyev family is blow to positions of Aliyev family

Zelenskyy to attend G20 leaders' summit

Voting for midterm elections to Congress begins in U.S.

Russian MFA offers Tehran and Riyadh to mediate dialogue

Survey: Georgia residents say Armenia is their friend

Arman Yeghoyan to Poland colleague: Armenia needs support from European platforms

State Department official: American side is impressed by Armenia Police reforms

Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte: I realized that this project is the right one

Heads of general staffs of CSTO countries armies to discuss military cooperation development

President: Climate change agenda continues to remain priority for Armenia despite challenges, security concerns

Armenia discusses issue of EEU citizens' stay in country for more than 180 days

Economy minister: 74% of Diaspora Armenians ready to invest in Armenia

Constitutional Court of Georgia revokes ban on pornography

158 people die in Philippines storm

Close to $7.5M allocated for Armenia scientific infrastructure, material, technical base modernization

Byblos Bank Armenia finances the construction of two major solar parks

Bloomberg: EU mechanism to provide Ukraine with $18 billion implies conditions

Turkey voices its full and unconditional support for Azerbaijan

Ombudsperson attends Armenia-EU Human Rights Dialogue session, presents facts recorded in her ad hoc reports

Israeli embassy congratulates Azerbaijan on 'Victory Day'

World gold prices going down

Ankara offers its storage capacity for Russian grain

Zelenskiy calls key conditions for talks with Russia

Bitcoin price goes down

Copper price goes down

World oil prices dropping

Blinken: Armenia and Azerbaijan are taking courageous steps to achieve peace

Newspaper: What changes expected in "Brussels package" of Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization talks?

13 billion cubic meters of natural gas found off Israel coast

State Security Service of Azerbaijan is scared by YouTube video about situation in Nakhichevan

Newspaper: There were serious problems in organizing Global Armenian Summit

MFA: Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs agree to expedite their negotiations

President: UAE is a responsible energy supplier as long as the world needs oil and gas

EU has serious concerns about US inflation reduction act

Head of IMF: The global surge in consumer prices may be close to the high point

Germany wants EU to resume trade talks with US as soon as possible

Pashinyan's closed meeting with MPs of ruling Civil Contract faction is over

Hungary will not support EU efforts to help Ukraine with joint funds

Greece to soon ban sale of spyware

U.S. military delegation arrives in Turkey

German industry calls for postponement of global minimum corporate tax

Podolyak: Ukraine has never refused to negotiate

Elon Musk calls on 'independent-minded' voters to vote for Republicans

Bezos Earth Fund pledges $1 billion by 2030 to protect carbon stocks and biodiversity

7 people killed in collision between truck and passenger bus in Turkey

Nikol Pashinyan holds closed meeting with members of ruling party faction

Qatar's foreign minister calls criticism of West 'arrogant' and 'racist'

Algeria officially applies to join BRICS group

Delegations headed by Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs meet in Washington

French Finance Minister calls on EU to oppose U.S.

Armenian President: Aliyev's statements about intentional destruction of mosques have nothing to do with reality

German MFA reports constructive talks in EU on new sanctions against Iran

Kazakhstani President Tokayev instructs to increase oil supplies bypassing Russia

President of Artsakh holds expanded working meeting

Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports to receive more than 250 billion drams in 2023

Borrell says EU is dependent on supplies from China

Armenia official: Peace treaty implies restoration of sovereign territory

Guterres thinks mankind is heading for climate hell

Dollar, euro gain value in Armenia

General: Iran riots were US plan to derail nuclear deal

Minister: 'Lydian Armenia' may start exploitation of gold mine on Mountain Amulsar
YEREVAN.  The talk between three of the merchants of several markets in capital city Yerevanand who on Friday are protesting outside the Government of Armenia Buildingand Hayk Zohrabyan, the Prime Ministers assistant on coordination of tax issues, has just finished.

After the meeting which lasted about 1.5 hours, one of the merchants that took part in it informed that they were asked to set up working group made up of 10 to 15 people, and whose proposals will be submitted to Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, and that they will try to find a solution to the problem, the Armenian News-NEWS.am reporter informed from on location.

The merchants waiting outside the government building, however, did not agree to form such a working group.

The demonstration ended, and the picketers decided to again assemble outside the government building early in the morning on April 25, since they do not agree to set up a working group.

Earlier, the demonstrators were demanding that PM Karapetyan personally come outside and respond to their queries.

These merchants say the tax authorities are conducting inspections in their stands for the past several days, and asking for documents from their customers.

As per these merchants, the documentation of products will be an additional financial burden on them, since they now will need to hire a new employee who will carry out this work.

In 2014, when the government decision on documentation of products entered into force, merchants of numerous markets staged protests for several months, forcing the authorities to suspend this law.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be solved in a peaceful way, without military means, what is very important.

Ambassador Herbert Salber, European Union (EU) Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, who wrapped up his visit to Azerbaijan, told about the aforesaid to Trend news agency of the country.

In his words, during the visit and his talks with Azerbaijani leaders, he tried to see where the Karabakh conflict is now.

The EU is not directly involved as the mediator to the Nagorno-Karabakh resolution process, he said. We recognize that this is the prerogative of the OSCE Minsk Group.

When I hear criticism against the OSCE Minsk Groups activity, I have to say one thing, the peace deal has to be made between the sides of the conflict, Salber noted. International community can only assist, can only make proposals; but the international community cannot somehow push two sides into an agreement.

A political settlement is possible if the ceasefire is respected, he added.
Representatives of international and Azerbaijani non-governmental organizations called upon Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland and Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe to support a full, thorough and independent investigation into the corruption allegations involving Azerbaijan, with full civil society oversight.

We welcome the decision of the PACE Bureau on 27 January 2017 to set up an independent investigation body to shed light on hidden practices that favour corruption.[6] The Bureau has also committed to revising the Assemblys Code of Conduct and invited GRECO (the Council of Europes Group of States against Corruption) to provide advice to the Rules Committee, charged with the investigation, the statement reads.

The organizations urge Thorbjorn Jagland to make a very strong statement to affirm that there will be no tolerance of any corruption, including bribery, trading in influence or taking up of roles that imply a conflict of interest, in the Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe in general.

Commitment to the rule of law, integrity, transparency, and public accountability should be effectively enforced as the key principles of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly. If such a decision is not made now, reputational damage to PACE may become irreparable, preventing PACE from fulfilling its role as a guardian of human rights across the Council of Europe region.

The statement is signed by 56 organizations.
Michigan's Governor Thanks Utility Linemen

"As we saw with the destructive windstorm that swept across our state in March, utility workers play an important role in power restoration efforts and in our everyday lives," Gov. Rick Snyder said. "I thank these hard-working men and women for working tirelessly to keep our communities powered and our residents safe."

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder issued a proclamation this week thanking the nation's utility linemen for their response during emergencies to restore electric power as quickly as possible. Snyder's proclamation declared April 18 to be to Lineman Appreciation Day in Michigan.

"As we saw with the destructive windstorm that swept across our state in March, utility workers play an important role in power restoration efforts and in our everyday lives," the governor said. "I thank these hard-working men and women for working tirelessly to keep our communities powered and our residents safe."

His proclamation says there are about "115,000 highly trained and skilled linemen in the United States, servicing 9 million miles of wire;" and they "work under dangerous conditions in order to construct and maintain the energy infrastructure of the United States. They are often the first responders during storms and other catastrophic events, making sure the scene is safe."

"The job that line workers do is important to assuring our state's energy future for the health and safety of our citizens," said Valerie Brader, executive director of the Michigan Agency for Energy. "We thank them for the work they do every day for the citizens of Michigan, often under trying conditions."

Sally Talberg, chairman of the Michigan Public Service Commission, also thanked linemen working in Michigan for their response following March 2017 storms. "The March storm proved once again the professionalism of Michigan's utility workers in addressing a widespread power issue," Talberg said. "Utility workers serve on the front line to make sure the state has a secure and reliable energy system."
The latest

Motorcyclists question safety of streetcar tracks

At least three motorcyclists have stepped forward and claimed they were injured while attempting to turn on The Hop route. With the Harley 115th approaching, what can be done to ensure safety for all?
A deal is in the works for the former Red Dot space at 2498 N Bartlett Ave., and a new upscale casual concept called The Original is set to move in as soon as late summer.

The Original is the vision of business partners Eric and Jennifer Rzepka as well as Craig Rzepka, Eric's brother and an industry veteran who has spent the past 15 years managing restaurants in the Chicago area.

Eric Rzepka, a Chicago native who now calls Milwaukee home, says the partners are currently working to close on the sale of the building, after which they will make a number of aesthetic updates to the space, including new lighting and refurbishment of the art deco bar.

"The idea is to create a space that offers higher end dining in a well-polished, but casual atmosphere," he says. "We want to focus on a small, well-executed menu and really high quality cocktails at an affordable price."

In some ways, Eric says, the idea is to create a sort of modern speakeasy  something off the beaten path thats welcoming, where guests can enjoy themselves and "speak easy."

He adds the menu will focus on New American fare with an eye for seasonality and locally sourced fare. A hyper local focus will also pertain to the restaurants beverage program, which will focus products from local companies like Bittercube, distilleries like Twisted Path, Central Standard and Great Lakes, along with Milwaukee-based craft beer.

"In some ways, were still tackling the idea of what a modern speakeasy looks like," he remarks, "but components that appeal are inclusiveness, quality and a hyper local feel. There are so many companies to work with  from local distilleries to craft breweries  and well really have a focus on sourcing from those companies."

And hospitality, he says, will be at the core of what they do.

"Our focus will really be on welcoming people the first time they come, and then welcoming them back time and time again," he says. "That attention to detail is something weve lost over the years, but its an element of hospitality we really want to be a part of The Original."

Getting there

Eric Rzepka, who moved to Milwaukee over 20 years ago to attend MSOE, spent over 10 years working in the service industry in Milwaukee. In fact, he met his wife Jennifer while waiting tables at the former John Ernst Cafe.

An electrical engineer by trade, Eric says he always had a sense that he wanted to own his own business. In fact, hes been involved in numerous transactions over the years including the purchase of his wifes company, Svinicki Association Management. More recently, he says, his interests moved toward the restaurant industry. When he proposed the idea to his brother, he says plans began moving forward.

"My original idea was to open in Walkers Point," he notes. "And we were scouting locations when a friend of mine, Noah Benjamin Sumner, posted the article from OnMilwaukee about the sale of Red Dot."

Eric says the article piqued his interest. He liked the location, which was neatly tucked away, and there was character to the building which he appreciated.

"Interestingly," he says. "Id just tried to go Red Dot with an electrician buddy of mine who I was talking to about partnering on an electrical engineering consulting business I was thinking about starting. We hadnt realized it was closed at that point. And suddenly, things felt as if theyd come full circle."

Eric notes the name, The Original, was derived from a conversation with Red Dot owner, Martin Beaudoin, during which he shared a story about how, even after hed started and remodeled the Wauwatosa location of Red Dot, his kids always said they liked "the original" best.

"The name just clicked," says Rzepka. "We want to create something classic, something quality, something original. And we liked the idea that the name pays a bit of homage to the history of the restaurant. It was the original Calderone Club, and then the original Red Dot."

In fact, he says the plan is to retain the Red Dot in the flooring tiles of the restaurant as a reminder of the past and those relationships.

Kickstarting The Original

There are still a few months before Milwaukeeans can get a taste of The Original. But, in the meantime, the Rzepkas have launched a Kickstarter campaign to assist in raising start-up capital for the restaurant.

Among the spiffs are the first and only T-shirt printing for The Original, ownership of seating in the restaurant and the opportunity to get your cocktail concept or dish on the menu. The goal for the campaign is $50,000 and it runs through May 19.

"This is about people helping us, but in exchange were offering them a stake and stories that will be embedded in the restaurant itself," says Eric.

"As a kid in Chicago, there was always something exciting happening in the city," he adds. "There were things like Untouchable Tours and Ed Debevics and even things as simple as Portillos, a brand that really grew and became more refined over the years. So much of Chicago grew up around those things. Milwaukee is one of the most emerging cities in the nation right now. And I believe were on the verge of a boom. So, to start something iconic at this time is really exciting. This is my way of being part of that growth and really giving back in terms of service."

Once open, The Original is likely to offer lunch and dinner along with brunch on weekends.

Follow progress on the The Original by staying tuned in to OnMilwaukee. You can also follow the restaurant on Facebook and Twitter.
US President Donald Trump has called for drastic cutbacks across multiple federal agencies that track and analyse climate

The gutting of US-funded climate science would cripple research agendas worldwide and hamper the global fight against climate change, say scientists outside the United States, some of whom will take to the streets Saturday to make that point.

US President Donald Trump has called for drastic cutbacks across multiple federal agencies that track and analyse climate by gathering data from satellites, the deepest ocean trenches, and everything in between.

Tens of thousands of scientists are set to converge on Washington DC in protest, with hundreds of smaller marches planned in cities around the world.

"An unprecedented attack on science, scientists and evidence-based policymaking is underway," said Kenneth Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based policy institute.

"And nowhere is the attack more ferocious than on the issue of global warming."

Indeed, proposed cuts to research budgets in the Departments of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationtotalling billions of dollars and thousands of jobsare concentrated on climate science, which Trump has notoriously dismissed as a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese.

Scientists in Europe, Asia and Australia express alarm not just at the slowdown in US research, but the knock-on consequences for their own work.

"The impacts may range from troublesome to disastrous," Bjorn Samset, research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, told AFP.

"We use US climate-related dataparticularly from satelliteson a daily basis."

The United States, driven by its big federal agencies, "has become THE global provider of high quality, long-term datasets," he added.

A glacier is seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft above Greenland, studying how polar ice has evolved over the past nine years

Beyond raw data

Some of the programmes targeted for axing, for example, are crucial for tracking how much carbon is vented into the atmosphere, or how the distribution of cloudsone of the key uncertainties in projections of future climate changemight evolve over time.

"This would impair our ability in the future to keep our observations, and understanding, up to speed," said Joeri Rogelj, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, one of the world's leading centres for climate modelling.

For Myles Allen, head of the University of Oxford's Climate Research Group, the damage from a US pullback would go well beyond raw data.

"If we lose that intellectual firepower, it is obviously going to make dealing with the problem that much harder," he said in an interview. "We need American technology and innovation to find solutions."

Allen noted that the European Union and China are "stepping up their game" in monitoring climate, but said Washington may not see that in a positive light.

"Does the US want to rely on observations made by overseas agencies in measuring the impact of Chinese emissions on the US weather?", he wondered.

Three of six major international platforms shared by climate modellerswho calculate the risks of future climate changeare maintained and operated in the United States, and could be in peril.

"If we lose one or two of these data distribution centres in the US, it could collapse the entire coordinated system for sharing these simulations of future climate," said Valerie Masson Delmotte, research director at France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and a lead scientist of the UN's climate science panel.

Cutaway of Antarctica with data on the glaciers and ice shelf

'Darker days ahead'

New visa and travel restrictions in the United States likewise threaten future collaboration, said Samset, noting that almost all important climate research crosses national boundaries.

"This has already gotten harder to arrange within the US, or abroad with US participation," he said.

Shun Chi-ming, director of the Hong Kong Observatory, said he was "highly concerned" that impending US cuts in climate research could also affect "weather and disaster monitoring".

When it comes to taking their concerns into the street with a slogan on a placard, Allen, Rogelj, and other researchers are clearly torn.

"Demonstrations and protests are usually far outside the comfort zone of scientists," said Samset.

But Trump's disregard for scientific consensusseen in the appointment of outright climate deniers to key administration postshas forced many to reconsider the boundary between their role as scientist and citizen.

"Scientists need to be very careful about coming out in favour of one position or another," said Allen, adding that he hoped the marches didn't get "sidetracked" into environmental campaigning.

But for Alena Kimbrough, an expert on the Australian-Indonesian monsoon system at Australia National University and co-organiser of Saturday's marches in Australia, scientists "can no longer afford to stand at the sidelines."

"I am deeply disturbed that this movement is required, but we have much darker days ahead of us if we don't start here," she told AFP.

 2017 AFP
Fertilization in plants. Credit: Nagoya University

An international group of plant biologists discovered for the first time on how factors arising from the mother and father in flowering plants cooperate to develop the shape of their child. Until now, it has been unknown whether paternal factors cooperate or conflict with each other to bring about zygote asymmetry. The outcome of this discovery is expected to shed light on the exact mechanism of plant body shape formation and possibly lead to the generation of new hybrid plants.

A group of plant biologists at the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) of Nagoya University, have reported in the journal Genes and Development, on their discovery on how plant's maternal and paternal factors cooperate for the child to grow in the proper shape.

In a research led by Dr. Minako Ueda, a lecturer at ITbM, the group discovered that upon fertilization, the factor originating from the father's sperm cell activates a particular protein in the zygote (fertilized egg cell). In addition, this activated protein cooperates with the factor derived from the mother's egg cell for the zygote to develop in the correct manner. This research shows for the first time how father- and mother-derived factors cooperate in the child development of plants.

In a similar manner to animals, a zygote (child) is generated upon fertilization of the mother's egg cell by a father's sperm cell in plants. Subsequently, the generated zygote contains a mixture of genes and proteins derived from both parents' cells. The nutritive tissue surrounding the zygote is also formed from fertilization, and it is known that a parental conflict phenomenon exists in this tissue, where the paternal and maternal factors oppose each other.

Development of the plant body. Credit: Nagoya University

In plants where multiple seeds are made from a single pistil (female reproductive organ = mother), all the seeds in the pistil are considered as children of the mother. On the other hand, pollen (male reproductive organ = father) that is generated from different male species can attach to a single pistil, and even though it is within the same pistil, only the seed that is generated from its own sperm cells is considered as the father's child. In other words, the mother can have children from different fathers within its pistil, and the father does not consider seeds resulting from other fathers as its own child. Due to this difference in perception between males and females, the mother tries to evenly distribute the nutrients to each child, whereas the father tries to concentrate the nutrients on its own child. This opposition between the maternal and paternal factors is called parental conflict.

"Although parental conflict in nutritive tissues has been known before, it has remained a mystery whether the parental factors counteract or cooperate with each other in the zygote," says Ueda. "Since starting this investigation in 2011, we were able to show that the plant's mother and father actually cooperate in their child's development." This research was carried out through the international collaboration of researchers at Nagoya University (Japan), Nara Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), Ghent University (Belgium) and Freiburg University (Germany).

During the process of plant body formation, the zygote elongates in the vertical direction and divides to form the embryo. This asymmetric cell division leads to small and large cells on the top and bottom part of the embryo, respectively. The small top cell forms a round tissue and eventually grows into flowers and leaves of the plant, whereas the large bottom cell elongates to form roots. Therefore, elongation of the zygote and the direction of cell division determine the vertical axis of the plant body. Ueda's group found that in the zygote, the factors derived from the parents cooperate with each other to bring about asymmetric division of the zygote and appropriate development of the embryo.

Previous studies from Ueda's group have shown that a protein derived from both the maternal and paternal cells, WRKY2, is responsible for making the shape of the zygote and embryo. WRKY stands for the amino acids (represented in a single letter code), which are present in the core of the protein (W = tryptophan, R = arginine, K = lysine and Y = tyrosine). In addition, they also found that a factor called SHORT SUSPENSOR (SSP), generated in the sperm cell, is important for cell division of the zygote and development of the embryo. In this study, Ueda and her colleagues investigated the relationship between WRKY2 and SSP in plant body development.

Zygote (left) and embryo (right) of the wild type and a mutant lacking parental factors. Credit: Nagoya University

"We found a signaling pathway, where SSP phosphorylates the WRKY2 protein in the zygote, thus activating WRKY2," explains Ueda. "We also identified which sites on the protein were phosphorylated and found that the five serine residues inside the cluster contained in WRKY2 are important for the protein function."

Ueda's group performed experiments to show that phosphorylation activates WRKY2 by using mutants absent of SSP and replaced serine residues in WRKY2 with asparagine by base exchange, which mimics serine phosphorylation. The mutant with activated WRKY2 resulted in asymmetric division of the zygote.

Ueda's group also discovered HOMEODOMAIN GLABROUS11 (HDG11) and HDG12, the factors derived from the egg cells, which are responsible for controlling the asymmetric division of the zygote and development of the embryo. The group previously reported that WRKY2 acts upon the WUSCHEL (WUS) HOMEOBOX8 (WOX8) gene to synthesize the WOX8 protein, which leads to asymmetric division of the zygote. In this research, they found that HDG11/12 also act upon the WOX8 gene. HDG11/12 are not expressed in the sperm cell, and the HDG11/12 derived from the egg cell lead to asymmetric division of the zygote. Therefore, HDG11/12 derived from the mother cooperate with WRKY2, which is activated by SSP derived from the father, to generate the WOX8 protein, the key factor for early stage plant development.

Through their studies, they observed that zygotes absent of SSP, WRKY2, and HDG11/12, do not develop properly and their cell division no longer becomes asymmetric. In addition, the embryo fails to develop in an appropriate manner and is unable to grow in the correct shape.

Mechanism on how maternal and paternal factors cooperate in plant growth. Credit: Nagoya University

"We were able to prove by our research that the cooperation between factors of from the father and the mother is essential for the development of zygotes and embryos in Arabidopsis plants," says Ueda.

The group also detected that the WOX8 protein was only synthesized in small amounts in zygotes absent of both SSP (related to the father) and HDG11/12 (related to the mother). Therefore, the group hypothesized that paternal factors are cooperating with each other to synthesize a sufficient amount of WOX8 to help shape the child's plant body. In a zygote absent of SSP or HDG11/12, the group artificially synthesized the WOX8 protein, which led to asymmetric division of the zygote. This provided evidence that the WOX8 protein is important for shaping the plant body.

This research shows for the first time, that the cooperation of paternal and maternal factors in the plant zygote helps to shape the child's plant body from the early stage of development. This is an opposite observation to the parental conflict theory proposed in the nutritive tissue surrounding the zygote.

Ueda's group has demonstrated a new parental relationship in the zygote, where the parental factors cooperate with each other. This discovery of the cooperation mechanism is expected to lead to further understanding on the strategy of how parental factors control child development in plants. In addition, the group was able to show that artificial synthesis of the WOX8 protein in the absence of parental factors (SSP and HDG11/12), also leads to embryo development. By applying this approach, it may become possible to generate hybrid plants between different plant species, where the parental factors do not necessarily match.

"Plants have evolved to develop a different growth mechanism to animals," says Ueda. "This observation of parental cooperation, where the paternal factor plays a role in early stage development may be the plants' unique adaptation strategy, which may also exist in other plant species."

Relationship between maternal and paternal factors within the nutritive tissue and zygote in a seed. Credit: Nagoya University

More information: Minako Ueda et al. Transcriptional integration of paternal and maternal factors in thezygote, Genes & Development (2017). DOI: 10.1101/gad.292409.116 Journal information: Genes & Development
Estonia plans to launch a CubeSat into space in early 2019 aiming to test advanced technologies, including a plasma brake for deorbiting satellites and electric sail propulsion. The mission, named ESTCube-2, will serve as a prototype of Estonia's future moon-orbiting spacecraft.

ESTCube-2 is a three-unit CubeSat developed mostly by the students of the University of Tartu in Estonia as well as other students worldwide in the ESTCube program. The satellite consists of the following subsystems: electrical power system (EPS), communication subsystem (COM), on-board computer (OBC), attitude and orbit control system (AOCS) and structure (STR).

All the subsystems fit within 0.6 CubeSat units and will be integrated with the satellite's bus built by the Estonian Student Satellite Foundation (ESTCube Foundation) in cooperation with Tartu Observatory and the University of Tartu.

This integrated structure will have several important goals once it reaches Earth's orbit. The spacecraft's main objectives are to test plasma brake deorbiting capabilities and electric solar wind sail (E-sail) propulsion. Moreover, the satellite will also take images of Earth, test a high-speed communication subsystem and test a corrosion resistant coating in space.

"The main goal of the mission is the test plasma brake deorbiting technology which is very similar to the electric solar wind sail," Andris Slavinskis, ESTCube-2 Satellite Project Manager told Astrowatch.net.

Plasma brake deorbiting is based on the electrostatic Coulomb drag effect that results in momentum exchange between a negatively charged body and ion flow by using a long thin electrically charged tether. That is why ESTCube-2 will deploy and charge a 984-foot (300-meter) tether, which will be used to reduce the orbit altitude of the satellite. This long tether could deorbit a satellite from an altitude of 435 miles (700 kilometers) to 310 miles (500 kilometers) in a half-year.

"We expect to deorbit ESTCube-2 much faster than it would happen with natural aerodrag. It takes more than 20 years to deorbit from a 650-kilometer orbit. We estimate that a plasma brake with a 300-meter tether would do the job in less than a year. When tested, the plasma brake would be a strong component in space debris mitigation," Slavinskis said.

Schematics of plasma brake experiment. Credit: Iakubivskyi et al., 2017/Tartu Observatory

The tether should have a mass of about 1.06 oz. (30 grams) according to estimates. Therefore, the plasma brake is a lightweight, efficient, cost-effective, and scalable deorbiting system with the potential to address the space debris issue at critical altitudes of 560 miles (900 kilometers) and less.

E-sail is a propulsion technology based on extracting momentum from solar wind plasma flow and uses a positively charged tether, while the plasma brake is charged negatively. A previous test of this technology was attempted by ESTCube-2's predecessor, the ESTCube-1, which was launched into space in May 2013. However, the attempt was unsuccessful, as the sail cable unwinding mechanics did not survive the rocket takeoff vibration. Hence, the Estonian scientists place great hopes on the ESTCube-2, expecting that it could successfully test this novel technology, essential for future cheap, fast space exploration. Moreover, they see this CubeSat as a prototype of a more complex and difficult mission to the moon.

"The main goal of ESTCube-2 is to test technologies for ESTCube-3 to avoid problems in much less forgiving and more expensive moon orbit. The reason why we want to launch ESTCube-3 to the moon orbit is that E-sail's authentic environment is the solar wind, which in low Earth orbit is blocked by the Earth's magnetosphere. From satellite design point of view, the lack of a magnetic field changes the way we can control the satellite's attitude. Instead of electromagnetic coils and magnetometers we are have to use reaction wheel, propulsion and star tracker," Slavinskis revealed.

Besides testing E-sail and plasma brake propulsion, ESTCube-2 will take images of our planet. It will be equipped in the Earth observation imager (EOI), a small, lightweight, two-spectral imaging system. Near-infrared (650-680 nm) and infrared (855-875 nm) spectral bands of this instrument could be very helpful for vegetation monitoring purposes.

ESTCube-2 will be also used to conduct a corrosion protection experiment in order to test material corrosion resistance in space. Moreover, the satellite will test a high-speed communication system which uses a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), allowing "firmware-defined radio."

Currently, the ESTCube-2 team is now testing prototypes and working toward engineering model which is scheduled to be ready in summer 2017. Then, they would like to have the flight model ready in summer of 2018, which will give the team about a half-year to test it and hand it over at the end of 2018.

"We hope to launch the satellite early 2019. We are negotiating the launch now. If everything goes well with ESTCube-2, then ESTCube-3 could be launched early next decade, but we don't know yet how difficult it is to get a launch to moon orbit," Slavinskis said.

Provided by Astrowatch.net
a) This is a multilayered spherical hyperlens structure. Metal and dielectric thin films are deposited on a spherical shape of substrate. b) This is a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of the cross-section of a replicated hyperlens c & d) Tilted view for the quartz master mold and the replicated substrate e) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of the sub-diffraction scale objects. f) Far-field optical image after hyperlens. The small object below diffraction limit is clearly resolved by the hyperlens. Credit: POSTECH

The concept of a perfect lens that can produce immaculate and flawless images has been the Holy Grail of lens makers for centuries. In 1873, a German physicist and optical scientist by the name of Ernst Abbe discovered the diffraction limit of the microscope. In other words, he discovered that conventional lenses are fundamentally incapable of capturing all the details of any given image. Since then, there have been numerous advances in the field to produce images that appear to have higher resolution than allowed by diffraction-limited optics.

In 2000, Professor Sir John B. Pendry of Imperial College Londonthe John Pendry who enticed millions of Harry Potter fans around the world with the possibility of a real Invisibility Cloaksuggested a method of creating a lens with a theoretically perfect focus. The resolution of any optical imaging system has a maximum limit due to diffraction but Pendry's theoretic perfect lens would be crafted from metamaterials (materials engineered to have properties not found in nature) to go beyond the diffraction limit of conventional lenses. Overcoming this resolution limit of conventional optics could propel optical imaging science and technology into realms once only dreamt by common Muggles.

Scientists all over the world have since endeavored to achieve super-resolution imaging that capture the finest of details contained in evanescent waves that would otherwise be lost with conventional lenses. Hyperlenses are super-resolution devices that transform scattered evanescent waves into propagating waves to project the image into the far-field. Recent experiments that focus on a single hyperlens made from an anisotropic metamaterial with a hyperbolic dispersion have demonstrated far-field sub-diffraction imaging in real time. However, such devices are limited by an extremely small observation area which consequently require precise positioning of the subject. A hyperlens array has been considered to be a solution, but fabrication of such an array would be extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive with existing nanofabrication technologies.

Research conducted by Professor Junsuk Rho's team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology in collaboration with research team from Korea University has made great contributions to overcoming this obstacle by demonstrating a scalable and reliable fabrication process of a large scale hyperlens device based on direct pattern transfer techniques. This achievement has been published in the world-renowned Scientific Reports.

The team solved the main limitations of previous fabrication methods of hyperlens devices through nanoimprint lithography. Based on a simple pattern transfer process, the team was able to readily fabricate a perfect large-scale hyperlens device on a replicated hexagonal array of hemisphere substrate directly printed and pattern-transferred from the master mold, followed by metal-dielectric multilayer deposition by electron beam evaporation. This 5 cm x 5 cm hyperlens array has been demonstrated to resolve sub-diffraction features down to 160 nm under a 410 nm wavelength visible light.

Professor Rho anticipates that the research team's new cost-effective fabrication method can be used to proliferate practical far-field and real-time super-resolution imaging devices that can be widely used in optics, biology, medical science, nanotechnology, and other related interdisciplinary fields.

Provided by Pohang University of Science & Technology
Credit: University of Glasgow

A new online digital resource has been launched to bring to life one of Scotland's most important prehistoric settlement landscapes.

Led by the University of Glasgow the new digital resource aims to widen public engagement with the ongoing archaeological research in Perthshire.

Supported by a grant from Historic Environment Scotland, the SERF Project app was developed in collaboration with the 3DVisLab at the University of Dundee. It incorporates 3-D images, enabling the user to grab, rotate and closely examine some of the artefacts which have been unearthed at the hillfort sites. It also features drone aerial footage of the hillforts, superimposed with artist's reconstructions of what the sites may have looked like.

Dr Tessa Poller, Director of the SERF hillforts project and an archaeologist at the University of Glasgow, said: "This app is about wider public engagement surrounding the work we are doing, to not only show people the geographical area where these hillforts lie but to also explain how, throughout the various discoveries we have already made, we are able to challenge perceptions about what life must have been like back then.

Dr Tessa Poller. Credit: University of Glasgow

"The drone photography and artistic reconstructions puts everything into perspective and will hopefully bring the research we are doing to a much wider audience. It can be used as an education tool for schools and in fact we have already had a lot of pupils coming to visit us on the sites, with local schools very keen to get involved."

The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) Project began in 2007 in a diverse archaeological area of eastern Strathearn, located in the heart of Scotland. Archaeologists from the University of Glasgow have been exploring and excavating the ten hillforts which lie within the rural and remote landscape. The results of the long-term research will be published in a series of academic papers and a monograph.

The new digital app aims to explore ways to present a practical approach to current issues of representation and audience engagement within archaeology, an interactive online platform which shows how archaeologists craft their interpretive narratives on site. The resulting resource showcases different ways to engage with a selection of our archaeological discoveries and the interpretations we have made from the SERF hillforts project.

Dr Poller explains: "Archaeological visualisation, or the act of picturing the past in the present, is a complex area of research which exists at the convergence of evidence, interpretation, scientific data collection and artfully crafted storytelling. It is a process which at its core relies on a personal engagement between practitioner, practice and the archaeological record.

"Traditional modes of representation ask for visuals which embody a somewhat conclusive and didactic voice. But we wanted to try and change that and ask how then might we use visualisation to better reflect the fluidity of the interpretive process and engage audiences more meaningfully with the ways in which the excavated evidence challenges archaeologists? This digital resource strives to explore creative methodologies and outputs which more accurately reflect the multi-layered, multi-vocal and ambiguous processes involved in archaeological interpretation."
Credit: Sherman Cahal / shutterstock

The Paris Agreement commits nations to limiting global warming to less than 2C by the end of the century. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, to meet such a massive challenge, societies will need to do more than simply reduce and limit carbon emissions. It seems likely that large scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere may be called for: so-called "negative emissions".

One possibility is to use waste material from mining to trap CO into new minerals, locking it out of the atmosphere. The idea is to exploit and accelerate the same geological processes that have regulated Earth's climate and surface environment over the 4.5 billion years of its existence.

Across the world, deep and open-pit mining operations have left behind huge piles of worthless rubble  the "overburden" of rock or soil that once lay above the useful coal or metal ore. Often, this rubble is stored in dumps alongside tiny fragments of mining waste  the "tailings" or "fines" left over after processing the ore. The fine-grained waste is particularly reactive, chemically, since more surface is exposed.

A lot of energy is spent on extracting and crushing all this waste. However, breaking rocks into smaller pieces exposes more fresh surfaces, which can react with CO. In this sense, energy used in mining could itself be harvested and used to reduce atmospheric carbon.

This is one of the four themes of a new 8.6m research programme launched by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, which will investigate new ways to reverse emissions and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Spoil tips from current and historic mining operations, such as this gold mine in Kazakhstan, could provide new ways to draw CO from the atmosphere. Credit: Ainur Seitkan, Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge

The process we want to speed up is the "carbonate-silicate cycle", also known as the slow carbon cycle. Natural silicate rocks like granite and basalt, common at Earth's surface, play a key part in regulating carbon in the atmosphere and oceans by removing CO from the atmosphere and turning it into carbonate rocks like chalk and limestone.

Atmospheric CO and water can react with the silicate rocks to dissolve elements they contain like calcium and magnesium into the water, which also soaks up the CO as bicarbonate. This weak solution is the natural river water that flows to the oceans, which hold more than 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere. It is here, in the oceans, that the calcium and bicarbonate can recombine, over millions of years, and crystallise as calcite or chalk, often instigated by marine organisms as they build their shells.

Today, rivers deliver hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon each year into the oceans, but this is still around 30 times less than the rate of carbon emission into the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning. Given immense geological time scales, these processes would return atmospheric CO to its normal steady state. But we don't have time: the blip in CO emissions from industrialisation easily unbalances nature's best efforts.

The natural process takes millions of years  but can we do it in decades? Scientists looking at accelerated mine waste dissolution will attempt to answer a number of pressing questions. The group at Cambridge which I lead will be investigating whether we can speed up the process of silicate minerals from pre-existing mine waste being dissolved into water. We may even be able to harness friendly microbes to enhance the reaction rates.

Another part of the same project, conducted by colleagues in Oxford, Southampton and Cardiff, will study how the calcium and magnesium released from the silicate mine waste can react back into minerals like calcite, to lock CO back into solid minerals into the geological future.

Whether this can be done effectively without requiring further fossil fuel energy, and at a scale that is viable and effective, remains to be seen. But accelerating the reaction rates in mining wastes should help us move at least some way towards reaching our climate targets.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The goal to offset rises in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations by increasing soil carbon storage by 4 per mille (0.4%) per year is unrealistic, say scientists from The Netherlands, The United Kingdom and the United States in an opinion piece in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

The plans to store more carbon in the soil ("4P1000") were launched at the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Paris. The soils of the world contain approximately three times the amount of carbon in organic matter as currently held in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." Increasing this soil organic matter stock at a rate of 4 per mille per year could, in theory, fully compensate the rise in atmospheric CO2. Such an increase could come about by e.g. changes in land management, or by using different crop rotations.

"In principle, the 4P1000 goal is great," says Jan Willem van Groenigen, Professor at Wageningen University & Research and lead author of the paper. "Generally speaking, more carbon is good for almost any soil. If we could combine that with slowing climate change, that would be a double win. The problem is that the numbers don't add up."

Extra nitrogen needed

To store additional carbon in the soil, you need other nutrients, such as nitrogen. "You cannot build a house with only a pile of bricks but no mortar. Similarly, you cannot produce soil organic matter with only carbon," explains Kees Jan van Groenigen, co-author of the paper and senior lecturer at the University of Exeter. "You need enormous amounts of nitrogen, and it is unclear where that nitrogen would come from. For example, to store the quantity of carbon mentioned in the 4p1000 goals, you would need extra nitrogen equivalent to 75% of current nitrogen fertilizer production, and for it to be in the right places. Practically speaking, that is just impossible."

Does that mean that we should abandon the 4p1000 goals? "Absolutely not," says Jan Willem van Groenigen: "Let's not throw away the baby with the bathwater. The 4p1000 goals are a great inspiration to do everything we can as farmers, soil scientists, agronomists and policy makers to help fight global warming and at the same time improve our soils." Instead, the authors appeal to the scientific community to think about the role of nutrients in reaching the 4p1000 goals. "For instance, this could mean that additional soil carbon should be stored in areas where nutrients are also available," van Groenigen explains. "In other soils the best approach might be to focus on minimizing emissions of other greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane."
Diagram of 61 Bell inequality violation values. Credit: Carvacho et al. Nature Communications

(Phys.org)For the first time, physicists have experimentally demonstrated the violation of "bilocal causality"a concept that is related to the more standard local causality, except that it accounts for the precise way in which physical systems are initially generated. The results show that it's possible to violate local causality in an entirely new and more general way, which could lead to a potential new resource for quantum technologies.

The physicists, Gonzalo Carvacho et al., from institutions in Italy, Brazil, and Germany, have published a paper on the demonstration of the violation of bilocal causality in a recent issue of Nature Communications.

In general, the idea of local causality is usually taken for granted: objects can influence other objects only when they are physically close together, and any correlations between distant objects must have originated in the past when they were closer together. But in the quantum world, distant particles can be correlated in ways that are impossible for classical objects, unless these distant particles can somehow influence each other.

To determine whether local causality has been violated, physicists perform Bell tests, which attempt to violate Bell inequalities. If a Bell inequality is violated, then either locality or realism (or simply "local realism") has also been violated.

There are dozens of different versions of Bell inequalities, but currently they all make the same assumption: that the correlations between particles all originate from a single common source. In real experiments, however, particles and their correlations can come from many different sources.

To address this issue, the new paper considers a new type of Bell inequality that accounts for the fact that the two sources of states used in the experiment are independent, the so-called bilocality assumption. By violating this new type of Bell inequality, the researchers have for the first time violated bilocal causality, indicating the presence of non-bilocal correlations that are completely different than other types of quantum correlations.

The researchers also showed that, in certain situations, it's possible to violate bilocal causality but not any other type of local causality. This finding further suggests that this type of violation is truly different than any standard local causality violation.

"Our work is an experimental proof-of-principle for network generalizations of Bell's theorem," coauthor Fabio Sciarrino at the Sapienza University of Rome told Phys.org. "We experimentally demonstrated how bilocality can be considered a powerful resource enlarging our current capabilities to process information in a non-classical way."

Overall, the results contribute to the perspective that the standard Bell inequalities are just one particular type of more general phenomena. Further exploring this idea could guide the design of future experiments that may reveal greater insight into the violations of local causality and how they might be used in applications. The new non-bilocal correlations, for instance, could be used as a resource for establishing highly secure quantum communication channels in complex quantum networks.

In the future, the researchers plan to extend the experimental demonstration to larger quantum networks. They also noted that the current experiment is subject to loopholes, just like any other Bell test, other than the recent loophole-free Bell tests. The physicists hope that one day a loophole-free test may also be developed for bilocal causality violation.

"A natural next step is to experimentally realize larger quantum networks by adding more nodes and more entangled sources," Sciarrino said. "Our current research plans address the study of the bilocality in quantum networks under strict conditions of reference frames between the different parties in order to highlight another characteristic of this new resource."

More information: Gonzalo Carvacho et al. "Experimental violation of local causality in a quantum network." Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14775 Journal information: Nature Communications

 2017 Phys.org
The maps created by UC's Space Informatics Lab show how neighborhoods in Cincinnati have become more racially diverse in the past 20 years. The maps provide the most detailed look yet at racial diversity in America. Credit: University of Cincinnati

A geography professor at the University of Cincinnati repurposed NASA maps to show the changing racial diversity of every neighborhood in the continental United States.

Tomasz Stepinski, who previously served as a longtime researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, applied NASA mapmaking techniques to 20 years of data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to build one of the most detailed racial-diversity maps ever created.

The zoomable map shows at a glance how the racial composition of neighborhoods changed between 1990 and 2010.

"People don't realize that the United States is a diverse country but at the same time is still very segregated," Stepinski said.

Stepinski and his postdoctoral researcher, Anna Dmowska, created the map at UC's Space Informatics Lab. They published a paper about the map in the open-access journal PLOS One in March and will present the project at the Population Association of America conference on April 27 in Chicago.

Stepinski, an astrophysicist, came to UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences as a Thomas Jefferson Professor of Space Exploration in 2010. Prior to that he worked on methods for surveying craters and valleys in Mars for the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

His interactive map was the culmination of years of work to combine land-cover mapping techniques with cumbersome volumes of federal data collected every 10 years in the census.

"There is a lot of novelty to it," he said. "All of it adds up to much, much easier access to census data by population and race."

The interactive map is publicly available and will be hosted indefinitely on the university's computer servers. Dmowska thinks it will have broad appeal to journalists, policymakers and researchers.

"The maps can tell us much more about racial composition and can be used by everyone," she said. "They don't require expert knowledge to understand the results, so I think maps can be used by a broader community."

The U.S. Census Bureau has the ability to release data by household but compiles it into geographic blocks and tracts to protect individual privacy. After all, census takers collect sensitive information about household income that people might not want to share publicly.

A typical urban tract defined by the census occupies an area the size of nearly 3 square kilometers. Rural tracts occupy an area of 108 square kilometers.

This results in a visual map that by design isn't particularly precise and, in some cases, might be grossly inaccurate, the researchers found.

By comparison, the maps that Stepinski and Dmowska compiled take advantage of NASA land-cover grids made up of 30-square-meter blocks. Using this grid system, they can more precisely group people where they actually live by recognizing lakes, parks, factories and otherwise uninhabitable areas.

A 1990 map shows how Detroit was sharply segregated by race along 8 Mile Road. Credit: University of Cincinnati

"Then you can assign people to each 30-by-30-meter cell, down to fractions," he said.

That's rightdown to half a person.

Few social scientists who study national data need maps that are so precise. But it's very helpful when looking at particular cities or even neighborhoods over time, Stepinski said.

These at-a-glance comparisons could be of interest to researchers, journalists, political strategists and social-service agencies. For example, researchers could compare the population maps with separate data such as grocery stores, bus routes or medical clinics to examine whether any neighborhoods are underserved by government services or businesses.

"The closer you look, the more problematic census data becomes," said Jeffrey Timberlake, an associate professor of sociology at UC who studies urban inequality and residential segregation.

Timberlake said Stepinski's maps are useful to study change at the neighborhood level.

"I find them fascinating. I spent an hour just looking at it," he said.

"When you look at a couple neighborhoods in Los Angeles, you see a big difference between 1990 and 2010 in the shrinking black population and the growth of the Latino population," he said. "This is the kind of tool that could unlock a lot of research."

Dmowska, who now works at the Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, said updating the maps in future census years will be relatively simple.

"Our grids are ready to use for multiyear comparison," she said.

The maps allow users to create their own smaller study area and then glean data from it.

In some cities, they tell the story of recent immigration in America. For example, the maps demonstrate the influx of Asian immigrants in San Francisco over the last 20 years. Many of these newcomers are Southeast Asians who were drawn to the area by the Silicon Valley boom, Stepinski said.

And in Cincinnati, too, the census maps track the changing racial composition of the city. Neighborhoods that were predominantly white or black in 1990 are far more diverse now.

But they also show the way that racial segregation has defined some cities. For example, in the Detroit neighborhoods popularized by the Eminem movie "8 Mile," the map from 1990 clearly shows the segregation of black and white communities on either side of 8 Mile Road. Here, too, neighborhoods have become less homogenous over the last two decades.

"If you put the population geography together with an understanding of the social meaning of that road," Timberlake said, "you can tell a pretty powerful story about what segregation means."

More information: Anna Dmowska et al. Comprehensive framework for visualizing and analyzing spatio-temporal dynamics of racial diversity in the entire United States, PLOS ONE (2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174993 Journal information: PLoS ONE
A recent study provides new information that may help researchers monitor the effects of common agricultural chemicals on farmers' health.

Concern over how the regular use of pesticides may affect the health of farmers is not new, but a lack of data specific to the Australian context has hampered efforts to develop evidence-based guidelines.

Now, the results of a study by the National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH), a partnership between Deakin University's School of Medicine and Western District Health Service, will help develop a new test to monitor farmers' exposure to pesticides and provide valuable longitudinal data about Australian farmers and their chemical use.

The study, funded by the Shepherd Foundation Victoria, followed 64 farmers from different regions and farming types over 12 months, testing them each month for levels of cholinesterase enzymes.

Cholinesterase enzymes are essential to a healthy nervous system, as they prevent the accumulation of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and associated overstimulation of muscles and nerves.

Exposure to certain types of pesticides commonly used on farms can lower cholinesterase levels, resulting in an accumulation of acetylcholine and lead to symptoms ranging from excessive sweating, nausea and dizziness in cases of mild exposure to diarrhoea, irregular heartbeat and abdominal pain after more extreme exposure.

Preliminary results from the study found cholinesterase enzymes were lower in farmers with high exposure to organophosphate pesticides.

Dr Jacquie Cotton, from Deakin's School of Medicine and NCFH, said farmers often raised concerns about the effects agrichemicals might be having on their bodies during the regular health checks offered as part of the Centre's work with farmers, farmworkers and their families.

"Over the years, we've worked with around 2,500 farmers through programs like our Sustainable Farm Families, so we were aware that farmers do worry about chemical use and want to know more about its effect on their health," Dr Cotton said.

"Our initial research was to see if we could incorporate a test for cholinesterase into health checks, so it becomes as normal to farmers as having their cholesterol and blood pressure checked."

Dr Cotton explained the results of that first six-month study in 2013 showed that cholinesterase testing could work in the health check environment, but also revealed the need for a clearer picture of farmers' chemical use over the year.

"Greater amounts of chemicals are used at certain times of the year than at others, and chemical use also varies between different types of farming, such as cropping or animal production," she said.

"Now that we have completed this 12-month study and tested farmers each month, we have a clearer picture of their cholinesterase activity, chemical exposure and chemical use across a calendar year."

Dr Cotton said the study's results would hopefully lead to the development of an annual test. This would make it more convenient for farmers to have their cholinesterase levels tested, as well as helping to collect valuable Australian longitudinal data on agrichemical use.

"Right now, such data doesn't exist for Australian farmers. We have to rely on data from the United States about the possible health effects of chronic, low-level exposure to agrichemicals," she said.

"We're aiming to develop a test that is accurate, individual and gives instant results about levels of chemical exposure. We also want to provide a personalised indication of chemical exposure that doesn't compare our farmers to a US population, but rather to what's normal for an Australian farmer population."
Joachim Weickerts method to improve data compression techniques draws on a process observed in nature and follows the same rules as those governing the propagation of heat. For the five-year period 2017 to 2022, Professor Weickert will receive up to 2.46 million in EU funding to support his research. Credit: Oliver Dietze

According to the statistics portal statista.com , the amount of digital data created worldwide in 2015 was about 8.5 billion terabytes. By 2020, the volume of data created annually will have increased almost five-fold to the gigantic figure of 40 billion terabytes (equivalent to 40,000 exabytes or 40 zettabytes). A large portion of this digital information arises from online video services and from images of ever higher resolution.

While it is true that the capacity of modern digital storage media is also growing, it will simply be unable to keep pace with the rising flood of digital data. The data therefore needs to be compressed using a special set of computational rules ('data compression algorithms') so that it can be stored more efficiently. Common compression methods currently in use, such as JPEG for photos or MPEG4 for videos, reduce the data volume by storing visually less relevant information less precisely or even simply eliminating it. Up until now this has been done in the frequency domain. Just as audio signals can be considered to be composed of different frequencies, optical images can be treated as two-dimensional signals that can be decomposed into individual frequencies. If the compression process is successful, the observer should barely be able to distinguish the compressed image from the original. However, these techniques have their limits. Put simply, if too much information from the original is ignored and the image is compressed too strongly, the difference between the original and the compressed image will be noticeable. The resulting image suffers from unpleasant artefacts and the loss of information will be readily apparent to the observer.

Joachim Weickert, Professor of Mathematics and Informatics at Saarland University, is taking a quite different approach to image compression. He and his research group in Saarbrucken are working on a method that only needs to store a few particularly important pixels but is still able to reconstruct a high-quality image. Using only a very small fraction of the pixels in the original image, their technique can achieve excellent compression ratios. Weickert has been able to show that at high compression rates techniques of this type have the potential to do better than the established standard methods such as JPEG.

The technique makes use of a phenomenon that Weickert has copied from nature. Using variations of the heat equation, which scientists use to describe and compute how the distribution of heat in materials changes with time, Weickert is able to reconstruct images with high precision. The underlying idea is not difficult to explain: 'The stored pixels can be thought of as tiny air conditioners. The brighter a pixel, the higher its temperature. Just as heat diffuses through space, so too does pixel information, spreading into those neighbouring areas where nothing was stored,' explains Joachim Weickert. Starting from a just few stored pixels, the missing pixels can be reconstructed to yield a surprisingly good visual image. Over the last seven years, Joachim Weickert has been able to lay the foundations of this research field using the money awarded with his Leibniz Prize. The ERC Advanced Grant has been awarded to Weickert in recognition of the success of this earlier research work. The award of up to 2.46m over a five-year period follows on seamlessly from the Leibniz Prize and affords Weickert the opportunity to continue his research into these promising ideas so that they can be incorporated into future coding standards. Before that can happen, however, there are a number of very difficult problems to solve.

'One challenge consists of deciding precisely which pixels to select so as to get the best result,' says Weickert, explaining one of the avenues to be explored in the coming years. 'Intuitively it seem pretty clear that the pixels to be stored should be chosen close to edges, that is at locations where things change a lot, such as at the edge of a face that is contrasted against a background. That helps up to improve the reconstruction of the original.' But which pixels are they exactly? That is something that the researchers know only in a few rather simple special cases. If they could find the answer to that question, it would represent a huge step forward in the quality of the image reconstruction process.

This is where mathematics comes into play. To illustrate the complexity of this task, Joachim Weickert offers the following example: 'Playing the lottery is a pretty hopeless undertaking. The probability of predicting the right six numbers from the 49 numbers in the German lottery is very low. It's about 1 in 14 million. If I now have an image made up of 8,000,000 pixels, and I wanted to choose the best 400,000 pixels so that I could produce an ideal reconstruction of the original picture, the probability of making the right choice is now one in a number that contains 689,710 digits!' Put another way, without the help of good mathematical theories it is practically impossible to determine the ideal combination of pixels for storage that will enable the 'least lossy' reconstruction of the original.

Another problem concerns the large amount of computing power required. Computer simulations of the heat equation require a great deal more computing power than frequency-based methods such as JPEG. This is an area where the researchers need to make significant progress by developing new and considerably more efficient algorithms that are able to make full use of the options offered by modern graphics processors.

Joachim Weickert has an ambitious goal: 'In five years' time, we want to be able to use our methods to compress 4K videos and then decompress the resulting file in real time. To do that, our algorithms need to get faster by a factor of about 100.' But he is optimistic: 'Ten years ago, well-respected colleagues were telling me: "Forget it, you'll never do it." Then we were awarded the Leibniz Prize. And now we've received the ERC Grant.' And that's a measure of research success that's hard to argue with.
A simulated galaxy is pictured, showing the main ingredients that make up a galaxy: the stars (blue), the gas from which the stars are born (red), and the dark matter halo that surrounds the galaxy (light grey). Credit: Durham University

Further evidence of the existence of dark matter  the mysterious substance that is believed to hold the Universe together  has been produced by Cosmologists at Durham University.

Using sophisticated computer modelling techniques, the research team simulated the formation of galaxies in the presence of dark matter and were able to demonstrate that their size and rotation speed were linked to their brightness in a similar way to observations made by astronomers.

One of the simulations is pictured, showing the main ingredients that make up a galaxy: the stars (blue), the gas from which the stars are born (red), and the dark matter halo that surrounds the galaxy (light grey).

Alternative theories

Until now, theories of dark matter have predicted a much more complex relationship between the size, mass and brightness (or luminosity) of galaxies than is actually observed, which has led to dark matter sceptics proposing alternative theories that are seemingly a better fit with what we see.

The research led by Dr Aaron Ludlow of the Institute for Computational Cosmology, is published in the academic journal, Physical Review Letters.

Most cosmologists believe that more than 80 per cent of the total mass of the Universe is made up of dark matter  a mysterious particle that has so far not been detected but explains many of the properties of the Universe such as the microwave background measured by the Planck satellite.

Convincing explanations

Alternative theories include Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND. While this does not explain some observations of the Universe as convincingly as dark matter theory it has, until now, provided a simpler description of the coupling of the brightness and rotation velocity, observed in galaxies of all shapes and sizes.

The Durham team used powerful supercomputers to model the formation of galaxies of various sizes, compressing billions of years of evolution into a few weeks, in order to demonstrate that the existence of dark matter is consistent with the observed relationship between mass, size and luminosity of galaxies.

Long-standing problem resolved

Dr Ludlow said: "This solves a long-standing problem that has troubled the dark matter model for over a decade. The dark matter hypothesis remains the main explanation for the source of the gravity that binds galaxies. Although the particles are difficult to detect, physicists must persevere."

Durham University collaborated on the project with Leiden University, Netherlands; Liverpool John Moores University, England and the University of Victoria, Canada. The research was funded by the European Research Council, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, COFUND and The Royal Society.
Health Studies professor Treena Orchard has been studying women engaged in sex work on the streets of small- and mid-sized cities to improve social services available to this marginalized section of the population. Credit: Adela Talbot // Western News

Treena Orchard believes the size of the city should not matter for sex workers seeking a safer, healthier environment. And now, after wrapping her most recent study, the Health Studies professor hopes communities across southwestern Ontario will evolve how they help these marginalized groups.

Although sex work is not limited to major metro areas, most Canadian research on the subject has focused on large cities, like Toronto and Vancouver, Orchard said.

And those findings are familiar:

Sex workers are often stigmatized and at risk of violence, poor mental and physical health. Sex workers in street-based settings, who account for the smallest percentage (10-15 per cent) of sex workers in the country, are at an even greater risk. Research shows they are most likely to struggle with poverty, addiction, traumatic events, violence, and discrimination.

But do those findings hold true for those involved with street-based sex work in smaller cities, like London? Is it easier, or more difficult, for those in smaller locales to access health and social services? What factors determine their overall health and safety?

These are questions that Orchard has sought to answer over the last several years by way of four studies involving women in sex work in the Forest City.

"I'm interested in smaller places," Orchard said. "The research from large cities doesn't really align with the experiences of different kinds of women, and with all the different kinds of sex work throughout the country."

For instance, Orchard noted, there is a lot of mobility among sex workers within small- to medium-sized cities in southern Ontario  individuals who often don't want to work in the city they're from. In London, Orchard found a number of street-based sex workers from the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge area. This finding helped develop her most recent research project, a study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, exploring the factors that contribute to the health risks and resilience among street-based women and trans women in that tri-city area that has experienced a significant economic downturn in recent years in addition to seeing a rise in the number of street-based sex workers.

"There hadn't been much in the way of sustained research on women  and especially transwomen  in sex work in that area," Orchard said. "I wanted to build on the work we've done in London, where we did both interviews and 'social mapping.'"

Social mapping consists of asking study participants to mark on a physical map the locations where most of their sex work occurs, where they live, where they get their health-care and social services, and places they avoid or have experienced violence.

"That gives us an in-depth understanding of how space shapes health," Orchard said. "That information is useful for service providers who might think, 'Maybe we should shift some of our services to partner with the folks over on this part of the city because it seems that's where a lot of people spend a lot of their time.'"

Orchard's data spans a year and a half and just wrapped this spring.

Interviews were conducted with 35 women and seven trans women. To recruit study participants, Orchard's team relied on word of mouth, posters, and established local agencies that see people in street-based sex work on a regular basis. Trans women, who are among the most marginalized groups in Canada and are often excluded in health research, were much more difficult to contact.

"We connected with a trans leader in that region, and that made a big difference," Orchard said. "Most of the sex work done by transwomen is set up online. So, they don't frequent the same kinds of services as other women who do street-based sex work."

The 60-minute interviews covered topics such as health concerns; who they rely on for support; areas they avoid in the tri-city region; how their gender identity affects their health-related and everyday experiences; where they go for their health care and social services and how the location of those services affects how often they access them.

"If they've experienced stigma or barriers to care, we asked them things like, 'Is there another place in the city that you think would work better for you?,'" Orchard said. "It's not about them just telling us about their terrible experiences. We might say, 'Okay, so how might things be better? How should they look?"

Beyond the usual academic avenues, the team aims to hold a town hall-style meeting to share their research results, as well as share through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Investment in building a company's brand is not just about generating sales but also has a measurable impact on the business's ability to raise funds, a new study has found.

Researchers found that improving brand perception by just 10 per cent increased the financial resources available to the average business in their study by nearly $US400 million over subsequent years.

The study appears in the latest issue of the prestigious International Journal of Research in Marketing.

"A strong brand sends a positive signal to funders and investors," says Professor Marc Fischer of UTS Business School, who conducted the study with Assistant Professor Alexander Himmer of Kuehne Logistics University, Germany.

At the same time, by contributing to revenue and profit growth, it also reduces the need to take on debt.

The worlds of marketing and finance officers intersect more closely than they might have thought, Professor Fischer says of the findings.

"Marketing and finance executives have different objectives and focus on different stakeholder groups: marketers want to create sales impact, while finance executives are concerned about the financial health of the firm. As a result, their worlds tend to be rather disconnected day to day.

"But our research shows that investment in building a strong brand improves key financial metrics such as financial leverage and cost of capital  lifting the financial resources available to companies to run and grow their businesses."

Professor Fischer says this is because a strong brand lowers expected risk, which can translate into a better credit rating, for example. That means fresh capital can be secured at a lower cost from capital markets.

The study is the first to show how marketing and financial metrics dynamically interact with each other in what the researchers have dubbed the "financial brand value chain".

It is also the first to quantify the extent to which brand building activities contribute to capital raising efforts.

This means it has implications for senior executives and for the investor community.

"If marketing and finance officers don't fully appreciate the interplay of their key metrics, companies may be forgoing a substantial amount of money that is crucial for financial wellbeing and growth," Professor Fischer says.

The researchers studied seven years' of brand perception and financial data for 155 business-to-consumer firms from 10 industries, internationally, in conducting the study.

More information: Marc Fischer et al. The financial brand value chain: How brand investments contribute to the financial health of firms, International Journal of Research in Marketing (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2016.05.004 Journal information: International Journal of Research in Marketing
The phrase "criminal justice system" may conjure images of courtrooms, juries and prison. But "when justice is doled out, it increasingly impacts the pocketbook," according to Alexes Harris, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington.

Harris leads a team of researchers at nine universities who are exploring the role of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system. They recently completed a review of financial punishments in the laws of each of their home states. Based on their preliminary findings, the impact to a person's pocketbook depends largely on his or her location on a map.

"There is an extreme amount of variationboth between states and within stateson how, when and where monetary sanctions are imposed by court officials," said Harris. "It's a mess, and there are few guidelines and no national framework governing the use of monetary sanctions."

Monetary sanctions include fines, court fees, restitution, surcharges and even interest on unpaid sanctions. They are imposed for offenses ranging from traffic violations and misdemeanors to felony convictions. Though these types of financial punishments have a long history in the United States, state and local governments have been imposing monetary sanctions with increasing frequency over the past 30 years. The result is a national patchwork of financial punishments, which Harris and her team are working to map as part of a five-year grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

On April 20, 2017, the group released a detailed report of their first year's work, a comprehensive review of financial punishments, law and policy across nine states: California (Bryan Sykes), Georgia (Sarah Shannon), Illinois (Mary Pattillo), Minnesota (Chris Uggen), Missouri (Beth Huebner), New York (Karin Martin), North Carolina (April Fernandes), Texas (Becky Pettit) and Washington. These states account for more than one-third of the nation's 2.2 million incarcerated people. These nine states also are home to more than 40 percent of people in the U.S. who are under community-based supervision.

In general, the researchers found wide variation on the fine and fee amounts sentenced to rule breakers, the circumstances in which they're imposed and even when courts allow people to pay their financial obligations. But all nine states impose monetary sanctions on a routine basis. In some states, the fines are specific: Washington, North Carolina and Georgia have detailed lists of mandatory fees for each offense.

Usually, the offense, rather than the person's ability to pay, determines the amount of the monetary sanction. Harris and her colleagues found that judges and other officers of the court often have little leeway in imposing monetary sanctions. In Washington, judges can waive interest payments on certain fines once the principal has been paid. Missouri courts are advised to consider a person's ability to pay when imposing certain fines. But these are exceptions. In general, these sanctions cannot be revokedonly paid.

"There are few ways to find relief from a sanction once it has been imposed," said Harris.

The researchers also found variation among states and municipalities not just in the size of the monetary fines and the crimes for which they are imposed, but also the consequences for failure to pay. Though debtors' prisons have long been abolished, courts can still issue warrants for persistent non-payment or impose other penalties. Since people in the criminal justice system are more likely to be poor, the consequences for falling behind in payments can be far-reaching.

"In many states or jurisdictions, non-payment of any legal fine can lead to suspension of a driver's license, which can affect a person's ability to get to a job," said Harris. "In other states, persistent non-payment leads to a suspension of voting rights."

That variation stems from the absence of a national framework governing monetary sanctions, Harris said. But in 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice went so far as to issue a "Dear Colleague" letter on fines and fees. In 2015, Missouri's Ferguson Commission noted how monetary sanctions can contribute to inequality in the justice system. As these and other efforts draw attention to the disparate monetary sanction policies across states, they may prompt states to revisit those policies.

"On paper, monetary sanctions make sense. If you commit a crimeand are duly convictedthen you pay," said Harris. "But is it fair to set up a sanction that a person has no ability to pay? What is the true purpose of this punishment? These are the underlying issues states must ultimately confront as they consider reforms to monetary sanction laws and statutes."

Harris and her colleagues are building on this initial review by conducting analyses in nine states of fines and fees from state court data, observing court proceedings and interviewing court officers and debtors. Harris' previous work in "A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as a Permanent Punishment" suggests that these sanctions have expanded as a result of another modern trend in the criminal justice system.

"Since the 1970s, there has been a massive, 500 percent increase in incarceration rates, and states have had to look for ways to fund that," said Harris. "And starting in the 1990s, states have created statutes to increase fines and fees or create new ones."

The national research team's endeavors will help resolve the details of monetary sanctions and how they differ among states. They will also examine, among other questions, the underlying question of why monetary sanctions have become such a prominent part of the modern criminal justice system nationally.

More information: Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System: www.monetarysanctions.org/wp-c  gal-Review-Final.pdf
Credit: Texas A&M University

Before the Industrial Revolution, custom products were handmade by highly skilled individuals. Basic products that most people have in their homes today were very expensive and considered luxuries because of the time and skill that it took to make just one. What the Industrial Revolution brought about was the ability to mass-produce identical items. The result? Millions of units of a single product could be manufactured in short amount of time, increasing availability and reducing the cost for consumers.

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University want to take things even further, with custom cyber manufacturing, using the technology behind origami and kirigami manufacturing. The goal is to give non-manufacturers the ability to design and customize products such as chairs, lamps and desks for their own use.

When one hears the word origami the first thing that usually comes to mind is an ornate figure made out of a single sheet of paper that has been folded many times. Origami manufacturing consists of the same basic idea. Manufacturers start by placing a flat sheet of material (metal or some kind of polymer) in a machine containing a robot that can fold it into the desired shape. Some machines can fold material using gravity, twisting and turning it so it bends in a specific direction. A kirigami machine has the ability to cut and fold the material. This is currently done for a select number of large-scale parts but has not yet been used to make commercial items for the public.

"It enables regular people to take their ideas and make something customized that's as good as what they would get if they bought it in a store," said Dr. Arun Srinivasa, co-director of the Institute for Manufacturing Systems and associate department head and Holdredge/Paul Professor in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M.

Credit: Texas A&M University

This type of technology is most needed in the field of orthotics, such as leg and wrist braces. Mass-produced braces are made the same way and not customized to fit each individual patient, which can make them extremely uncomfortable to wear. With custom cyber manufacturing, uncomfortable braces would no longer be an issue because patients could have braces molded to fit the shape of their wrists or legs. This type of technology has the potential to make commercial consumer items like jewelry, lamp shades, boxes or anything that is hollow or shell like.

In addition to its versatility, custom cyber manufacturing can also help open up employment in the manufacturing field. According to Srinivasa, a cyber manufacturing job will allow the person operating the machine to design what their product will look like. The merging of technology and creativity will not only appeal to engineers, but also non-engineers as well. Custom cyber manufacturing also frees up the machine operator from mundane tasks like cutting and folding since the machine has the ability to notify them when the object has been folded perfectly.

Some may ask, "Why go through all of this? Can't you accomplish the same thing with 3-D printing?" The answer is no. 3-D printing and origami manufacturing are very similar, yet each has its own capabilities and strengths. For example, 3-D printing would not be the best way to make custom products we use on a daily basis that are thin and shell-like. Objects made in a 3-D printer are deposited from power and the end product is solid. They are very versatile, and can potentially make many intricate shapes but are slow and have difficulty with slender or thing parts. Origami manufacturing is also efficient, faster and costs a great deal less. Where a 3-D printer can take nearly three hours to make a single object, an origami manufacturing printer can take three minutes to make the same object.

Researchers are in the process of building a large origami manufacturing machine, which will be housed on the Texas A&M campus, with a robotic arm inside to fold the material.

"My dad was a machinist and could see that the other machinists would make amazing toys with scrap metal that was left over in their free time. I never used to buy toys when I was young because my dad's friends would make toys for me," said Srinivasa. "If we are able to provide that kind of thing to people, it will unleash their creativity."
A man was seen harassing and slapping an American in an MRT train on Wednesday (19 April). (Photo: Screenshot of video posted on Facebook by Joe DeMarini)

UPDATE: Police said on Saturday (22 April) that they have arrested the man.

A viral video of a man who harassed and slapped an American on an MRT train earlier this week has prompted an outpouring of support from Singaporeans for the victim.

Joe DeMarini, who is on a working holiday here as a TV development producer, told Yahoo Singapore on Friday (21 April) that he was touched by the encouraging messages from Singaporeans.

Ive received hundreds of messages from total strangers saying, We hope you are OK, Please file a police report, This isnt Singapore, Its not your fault. So I dont feel bad about it anymore, said DeMarini.

A number of Singaporeans praised DeMarini, 25, for not retaliating against the man during the incident. In one message, a Singaporean told DeMarini, I would rather have you in Singapore than that uncle.

The American was travelling with a female friend in a train on the North East Line towards Serangoon MRT station on Wednesday night when the incident happened. DeMarini recounted the incident in a video post on his Facebook page, which has garnered more than 1 million views and shared almost 17,000 times since it was posted on Thursday morning.

The man, who claimed to be gay, was heard taunting DeMarini in the video and saying, Im your friend. I want you to f**k me tonight. The man accosted and touched DeMarini despite the American telling him not to do so. Singapore is not like America, we can touch you, the man said.

A Caucasian woman was seen walking over to the man and trying to calm him down. The man persisted in approaching DeMarini, saying, Im very touchableCan I kiss you? I want to kiss you now.

After being told off by DeMarini, the man slapped the American, prompting another male commuter to intervene in an attempt to stop the harassment.

DeMarini told Yahoo Singapore that he and his friend boarded the train at Chinatown MRT station and they sat in the middle of a carriage.

Story continues

Before the incident happened, DeMarini noticed the man was sitting on a priority seat and trying to talk to a woman seated next to him. After the woman moved away, the man walked towards DeMarini and stood in front of him. His first words to DeMarini were, I like you, according to the American.

Joe DeMarini, a 25-year-old American on a six-month working stint Singapore, recounted his experience in the MRT train when he was slapped by a man on Wednesday (19 April). (Photo courtesy of Joe DeMarini)

On Friday, DeMarini went to a police station to lodge a report about the incident.

The reason why I went to the police to submit a report is that if he does it again and gets caught, I want them to have more evidence against him. I dont want someone else to go through what I went through.

Despite the incident, DeMarini hopes to extend his six-month working stint in Singapore. The American, who has been in Singapore for the past two months, first visited the Republic more than three years ago during a short holiday and found it to be a cool city.

DeMarini said, The incident could have happened anywhere, it just happened to be here. Im not going to let it change my views of the people of Singapore. Im very positive about Singapore.
By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - "Famine-like conditions" have been detected in areas of Yemen, although an official declaration of famine has yet to be made, the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters on Thursday. Yemen is reeling from two years of civil war that pits the Iran-allied Houthi rebels against a Western-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia. At least 10,000 people have been killed in the fighting that has unleashed a humanitarian crisis. The impoverished country is among four - along with South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria - that face famine, although it has only been declared in some areas of South Sudan. "There are famine-like conditions in the country (Yemen)," WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella told Reuters in response to a query. Such conditions prevail in parts of Taiz, Hodeida, Lajh, Abyan and Sadaa, although access is difficult, she said, speaking from WFP headquarters in Rome. "Those are priority governorates, districts where there are areas where there are famine-like conditions," she said, adding that families in these areas receive full rations. Some 6.7 million people in Yemen are classified in phase 4 on an international scale of food security, with phase 5 constituting a famine, she noted. "We really need to act now before it falls into official famine." The United Nations is hosting a major pledging conference for Yemen in Geneva on Tuesday. The world body has appealed for $2.1 billion to provide food and other life-saving aid, saying that Yemen's economy and institutions are collapsing. The U.N. refugee agency warned this month that the risk of mass starvation in the four countries is rising rapidly. In all, about 20 million people are at risk in areas where harvests have failed and acute malnutrition rates are increasing, particularly among children. For famine to be declared, there are three criteria. More than 20 percent of the population has an "extreme food gap, meaning they can't feed themselves"; 30 percent or more of children under age 5 suffer acute malnutrition; and there is a doubling of the rate of mortality, Casella said. This would mean more than 4 deaths for every 10,000 children every day. The Houthis control the capital Sanaa and large swathes of territory. The Saudi-led coalition is trying to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, including through a devastating aerial bombing campaign. The Yemeni government and its Arab allies are preparing an assault on Hodeidah port, which has been the entry point of nearly 80 percent of food imports, because they say the Houthis use it to smuggle weapons and ammunition. Hodeidah port remains key to commercial trade and humanitarian goods, Casella said, adding: "Alternatives are being looked at." But she cited concerns about the road structure around some other ports and limited availability of vehicles to move cargo. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in London; editing by Ralph Boulton)
By Crispian Balmer ROME (Reuters) - Italian officials played down on Friday suggestions that U.S. President Donald Trump had snubbed efforts by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to get Washington more involved in bringing political stability to Libya. Gentiloni met Trump at the White House on Thursday, telling reporters he was seeking support to help deal with the North African state that fragmented and descended into chaos after the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. "The U.S. role in this is very critical," Gentiloni told a news conference standing alongside Trump. The U.S. president immediately responded: "I do not see a role in Libya. I think the United States has right now enough roles." Italian commentators said Trump appeared to have brushed aside Gentiloni's request for help. "Libya divides Trump and Gentiloni," the pro-government la Repubblica newspaper said in a headline. "The alliance in difficulty," it said. However, reporters following the news conference said Trump had not been listening to the simultaneous translation when Gentiloni had made his remark and an official close to the Italian prime minister said the meeting had gone well. "There was no snub at all," said an official close to Gentiloni, adding that two-thirds of the leaders' talks on Thursday had centred on Libya. As proof of the U.S. involvement in Libya, Italian officials said Washington had invited Fayez Seraj, who heads a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, and Khalifa Haftar, a prominent commander in eastern Libya, for talks in the U.S. capital later this year. There was no immediate confirmation from Washington. Haftar, who is backed by Russia and Egypt, is a figurehead for east Libyan factions. Italy has thrown its support instead behind Seraj in the west and warns that the divisions could split Libya apart, with dire consequences for the whole region. Rome is especially anxious to restore peace because Libya has become a hub for human traffickers, with more than half-a-million migrants reaching Italy over the past three years on a flotilla of rickety ships and inflatable boats. "Now is the moment for the U.S. and Italy to work together to stabilise the situation and broaden the support for the Tripoli government to other actors," Gentiloni said in a speech in Washington on Thursday before he saw Trump. "The division of Libya is not a good idea. It would be dangerous for Egypt, dangerous for Tunisia and for the interests of Europe," he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He added that NATO countries including the United States had an especial responsibility to Libya, saying their 2011 military intervention had got rid of Gaddafi but had ushered in mayhem. "It was evidently an intervention that lacked a vision or perspective for the future," Gentiloni said. Italy is worried that the United States might eventually throw its weight behind Haftar at the request of Egypt, which promotes the general as a bulwark against Islamist militants. (Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
A Qatari hunting party kidnapped in southern Iraq in late 2015 has been freed and was flown back to Doha on Friday, Iraqi officials said. Sources close to the negotiations said their release was part of a far-reaching regional deal involving the evacuation of civilians in neighbouring Syria. "The interior ministry has received the Qatari hunters, all 26 of them," the minister's adviser, Wahab al-Taee, told AFP. "They will be handed over to the Qatari envoy." Footage released by the Iraqi interior ministry showed some of the former hostages wearing white gowns and red head scarves as they were greeted by officials in Baghdad's "Green Zone", where the country's main institutions are based. Some of them could be seen later in the video boarding a Qatar Airways plane at Baghdad airport and state media later confirmed they had landed in Doha. "Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, received Qatari nationals who were kidnapped in the Republic of Iraq on arrival at Doha International Airport this evening, " read the statement released by the Qatar News Agency. The statement gave no details about their detention. A large motorcade was seen heading to the airport and then returning through central Doha at around 1600 GMT. The group of hunters, believed to include one or several prominent members of the Qatari royal family, were kidnapped in mid-December 2015 during a hunting trip in southern Iraq. Very little information had surfaced since their kidnapping as to their whereabouts or condition. In a statement, Interior Ministry Qassem al-Araji -- a member of the Iran-backed Badr organisation -- praised his ministry's and the intelligence services' work in ensuring the hunters' release. The ministry would not provide details of the terms of their release but a source close to the negotiations told AFP on condition of anonymity that it was part of a broad regional deal. - Syria deal - "The Qataris are now in (Prime Minister) Haider al-Abadi's office following a deal between Jabhat al-Nusra and the kidnappers," the source said, referring to the former Al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Fateh al-Sham Front. There was never any claim for the kidnapping of the hunters who were seized in a Shiite area of Iraq and widely believed to have been nabbed by militias with close ties to Tehran. The source said the deal included the evacuation of thousands of people from the northern Syrian villages of Fuaa and Kafraya, which are government-controlled but have been besieged by rebels. The evacuations were under way on Friday, with hundreds being taken to Aleppo, which has been under full government control since late last year. The evacuees were forced to spend two nights in their buses at a marshalling area after last-minute disagreement over the release of prisoners held by President Bashar al-Assad's government. The evacuations began last week but were delayed after a suicide car bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, at the transit point in Rashidin on April 15. Assad on Friday blamed Nusra for the bombing in an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency. The evacuations mark the end of the first stage of a deal brokered by regime ally Iran and Qatar, a longtime supporter of Syrian rebel groups. The release of the Qatari hunters follows a similar pattern to that in 2015 of 18 Turkish workers, who were freed as part of a deal that also saw the lifting of sieges on Shiite villages in northern Syria. Qatar and Turkey have long had ties with Syria rebel groups.
Ugandan motorbike taxi driver Sadiq Agotre grumbles as he waits for a rare client among thousands of South Sudanese refugees hoping to receive food rations in the outskirts of his town. "Business is not good. These people don't have money," he says, gazing out over a vast area that in only eight months has transformed from scrubland and trees to the world's biggest refugee settlement, Bidibidi, which houses more than 270,000 people. Uganda has been praised for its warm welcome of refugees, but as civil war in neighbouring South Sudan continues to push more than 2,000 people a day into the country, local communities and aid agencies are buckling under the strain. Many residents of Yumbe district -- population around 500,000 -- are frustrated that the massive aid effort in their backyard has not translated into more jobs but instead has spread already scarce resources even thinner. "This (the refugee crisis) has changed the town so much. It has caused a lot of stress, stress for jobs. The food prices have gone up and up. It's bad for our environment because they cut down the trees," said Nachal Dovelay, a shopkeeper in Yumbe town. Bidibidi opened in August last year to cope with a flood of people fleeing fighting when a peace deal between South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and his rival and former deputy Riek Machar collapsed, plunging the country back into a civil war that erupted in 2013. In a matter of months it has overtaken Kenya's Dadaab -- hosting mainly Somali refugees -- as the world's biggest refugee camp. But the 250-square-kilometre (97-square-mile) settlement is only the tip of the iceberg. A total of 830,000 South Sudanese refugees have entered the country and the UN expects this figure will reach more than a million by mid-year. The number of refugees in the East African nation -- one of the world's poorest countries and the size of the United Kingdom -- is comparable to the number of mostly Syrian refugees who fled to Europe at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015. "This emergency is like a tsunami, you know, very high speed," said Robert Baryamwesiga, the Ugandan government official in change of running Bidibidi. - Food rations stretched, delayed - On a recent afternoon a fierce dust-devil tore through a crowd waiting for food rations, sending people reeling and knocking supplies to the ground. When calm returned, a girl aged about seven carefully raked up her family's fallen maize kernels and scooped them back into a sack. Every scrap of food is precious. Refugees who arrived in Uganda before mid-2015 have already had their rations cut by half. This month food distribution was two weeks late. "We are hungry. The food is for one month but it lasts less than that and now it's 15 days late. This is really challenging," said David Kepo, 41, a traditional chief who fled fighting in his community three months ago. Cheryl Harrison, the World Food Programme's (WFP's) deputy head in Uganda, admits that the logistics involved in delivering 15,000 tonnes of food per month are daunting. "We try to ensure that everyone knows that we're going to be late. If people have warning they're able to cope. They reduce the amount of food they eat and try to make their resources stretch." Before the renewed fighting, WFP spent $6 million (5.6 million euros) per month on food aid for refugees in Uganda. That figure has now soared to more than $16 million. The agency is $50 million short for the next six months. Last month UN refugee chief, Filippo Grandi, described the situation as at "breaking point". - Anger growing in host community - Getting water to the refugees in the arid area is another headache, with more than four million litres required a day. Boreholes have been drilled but the vast majority of the water is trucked in from the River Nile at great expense. The use of natural resources has lead to tensions with the host community. In a desperate move local residents recently blocked access to one borehole for several hours, saying that they were not benefiting from the influx of refugees. "The issue of the use of natural resources -- building materials, wood, fuel -- that one has been a disaster. With 272,000 people the effect is great and unemployment here is very high," said local government official Jacob Batemyetto. In February about 100 people, unhappy that nine local staff had been fired for misappropriating aid, held a protest, holding up signs threatening to attack the settlement, according to NGO staff. And last month the chief government official in Imvepi -- a newly opened nearby settlement -- was taken hostage by a group of machete-wielding youths and marched around the area to see the poor living conditions local people are forced to tolerate before being released. - A very fragile situation - Uganda has long been praised for having one of the world's most progressive refugee policies. The government allows refugees to work and move around the country while communities in the north have donated land for settlements. Refugees receive a plot of land to build a shelter and it was planned that land would be allocated for people to farm but in Bidibidi that has yet to happen. "We can't feed ourselves because they have yet to set up any agriculture programme and there's no land," said Wila James, 40, a former agricultural officer who fled to Uganda last year. Bidibidi settlement chief Baryamwesiga highlighted the dangers of a growing population unable to produce their own food. "They will automatically go and steal and stealing will create violence so you'll find that the coexistence that we're enjoying between refugees and the host community will collapse. "It's a very, very fragile situation."
A Spanish man was sentenced to death by a Thai court Friday for the grisly murder of a fellow Spaniard whose dismembered body parts were discovered in Bangkok's main river last year. Artur Segarra, 38, was convicted of kidnapping and killing David Bernat in an effort to steal tens of millions of baht from the businessman, according to the verdict read out by a judge at the Bangkok criminal court. "Forensic evidence such as blood stains and fingerprints on (Segarra's) electric grinder had DNA that matched the victim," the judge said, adding that CCTV footage and testimony from Segarra's maid and girlfriend also implicated him in the killing. Police believe Segarra held Bernat in his Bangkok apartment for several days and tried to extort him for money before murdering the 40-year-old and dumping his chopped up body parts in the Chao Praya river. Segarra, who had denied all the charges, appeared calm while the verdict was read and translated to him in Spanish. When he arrived at court he held his hand up to show the the Bible citation "Luke 23:34" written in ink on his palm -- a reference to some of crucified Jesus's final words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." While death sentences are still on the statute books in Thailand, it is rare for prisoners to be executed. The last execution was in 2009. Segarra's lawyer, Jessada Piyasuwanvanich, told reporters his client would likely file an appeal and "fight the case to the end". The macabre murder came to light last January after Thai police began retrieving body parts from different locations along the city's Chao Praya River. It took them several days to identify the victim. Segarra fled to Cambodia after the killing but was arrested and returned to Bangkok a few weeks later. It is not uncommon for foreigners to get swept up in Thailand's sprawling criminal underworld. Earlier this month an Australian man was sentenced to death for the murder of a former Hells Angels member found beaten and naked in a shallow grave in Pattaya, a popular Thai beach town known for its raunchy nightlife and links to organised crime. In September, Thai police arrested three Americans in Bangkok after discovering the frozen body parts of another foreigner inside their freezer. The men were charged with multiple offences and are being held in prison while they await trial.


A missile is fired from a naval vessel during the test-firing of a new type of anti-ship cruise missile to be equipped at Korean Peoples Army naval units. REUTERS/KCNA

U.S. President Donald Trump praised Chinese efforts to rein in the menace of North Korea on Thursday, after North Korean state media warned the United States of a super-mighty preemptive strike.

Trump told a news conference some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours, and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would try very hard to pressure Beijings ally and neighbor North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

While Trump gave no indication of what the moves might be, U.S. officials told Reuters that the United States was aware of a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signaling a possible heightened state of readiness. The officials played down concerns and left open a range of possible reasons.

Those possibilities included defensive exercises or Chinese concerns over North Korea. None of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested alarm or signaled that they knew the precise reason for such Chinese activity.

U.S. officials have been saying for weeks that North Korea could soon stage another nuclear bomb test, something both the United States and China have both warned against.

Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has proceeded with nuclear and missile programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump, who took office in January, has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile.

Story continues

Trump has focused his efforts on North Korea on trying to persuade China to put more pressure on its ally and could view any unusual Chinese military movements as supportive of this.

He told a news conference with the visiting prime minister of Italy on Thursday that the United States was in very good shape on North Korea and that Chinas Xi, whom he met this month for a summit in Florida, was working hard to help.

We dont know whether or not theyre able to do that, but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very very hard.

Trump repeated a past comment that he had told Xi in Florida that China would make much better deal on trade with the United States if you get rid of this menace or do something about this menace of North Korea.

SUPER-MIGHTY PREEMPTIVE STRIKE

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Koreas ruling Workers Party, struck an aggressive tone earlier on Thursday.

In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes, it said.

Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, which followed a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.

South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying that the U.S. Air Force had dispatched a nuclear sniffer aircraft on Thursday to the east of the Korean Peninsula in anticipation of a possible nuclear test.

he U.S. Defense Department does not comment on deployments of the WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft used to collect samples from the atmosphere to detect and analyze nuclear explosions.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday condemned North Koreas latest failed missile test and demanded it not conduct any more nuclear tests.

South Koreas acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.

The South Korean defense ministry said U.S. and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion.

We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever, South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemys intention to provoke us.

William Perry, who served as U.S. defense secretary from 1994 to 1997 and negotiated with North Korea, said he did not believe Pyongyang was planning a surprise attack, despite the fiery rhetoric.

But he warned: They are doing a lot of bluster and a lot of threats, and they might misplay that hand and blunder into a war.  By Steve Holland and Phil Stewart | WASHINGTON

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, William James in London, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Idrees Ali in Riyadh, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Kim Do-gyun in Gunsan, South Korea; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel and Alistair Bell)

The post Trump praises Chinese efforts on North Korea menace, Pyongyang warns of strike appeared first on UNTV News.
MANILA  The daily water consumption of Manila Water consumers has increased by 100 million liters so far this year, compared to that of last year.

This is the reason seen by Manila Water as to the quick decline in La Mesa Dams water level.

At around 4:00 p.m. yesterday, the water level in La Mesa Dam was 78.39 meters. This is low compared to the normal level of 79.3 meters.

Kung last year ang production namin due to demand is around 1450 mld daily, ngayon pumapalo na sya ng 1,525-1,550mld daily. So thats additional 100 million liters a day na demand (If last year our production due to demand was around 1,450 mld daily, now it is around 1,525-1,550mld daily. So thats additional demand of 100 million liters a day), La Mesa headworks manager, Teddy Angeles said.

Manila Water will conduct an inspection on the water conduits from Angat Dam to La Mesa Dam to avoid leakage.

Manila water said this will not affect consumers for now. However, if the water level in La Mesa Dam continues to decline, Manila Water may lessen pressure.

The worst kung magkaroon ng water interruption for rationing pero based on our projections until end of June pa yung 77 mari-reach with by that time siguro umuulan na, Angeles added. (The worst, if there is water interruption for rationing. But based on our projections, the water level may reach 77 meters until end of June. Perhaps itll be rainy that time.)

Manila Water also said there must be additional water sources.

This is to prepare for the succeeding years since water consumption may double.

Manila Water supplies to 6 million households in the east zone of Metro Manila.

Use it wisely, report for any leak na nakikita nila sa kalye (seen on streets ) or even illegal connection, Angeles said.

The National Water Resources Board said there is enough water reserve in Angat Dam.

The board is willing to increase water allocation if needed in La Mesa Dam.  Rey Pelayo | UNTV News & Rescue

The post Water in Angat Dam declines from its normal level appeared first on UNTV News.
When it comes to securing your business future and increasing its profitability, diversifying your business is key. Diversifying essentially means to vary your business range of products or field of operation  a strategy that small businesses can learn a thing or two about from IKEA.

Why You Should Have a Side Business

Lessons for Diversifying Your Business Portfolio

IKEA, a multinational furniture retailer headquartered in the Netherlands, recently revealed it is considering opening a chain of standalone restaurants.

The furniture retailer that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, has always had restaurants in its stores since the 1950s when it launched. The restaurants serve bargain meals and snacks, a carefully crafted diversification and customer acquisition strategy that helps to lure in customers for more furniture sales.

Weve always called the meatballs [sold in restaurants within their stores] the best sofa-seller,' Gerd Diewald, who oversees IKEAs food programs in the U.S., told Fast Company.

Its hard to do business with hungry customers, Diewald added. When you feed them, they stay longer, they can talk about that wardrobe, sofa or bed and make a decision to buy there and then.

IKEA Food and Restaurant Business

IKEA reportedly serves some 650 million diners a year, across 48 countries around the world. Of these diners, 30 percent visit IKEA just to eat.

Annual food sales for IKEA added up to around $1.8 billion in 2016 and about $1.5 billion in 2013. While these sales figures pale in comparison with IKEAs main home-goods business revenue, which topped $36.5 billion last year, the company welcomes the additional revenue generator.

The retail chains executives say they plan to expand IKEAs food business further and have standalone restaurants dot cities around the world in coming years. Already IKEA has opened temporary standalone restaurants in Paris, London and Oslo.

If you are a small business looking for ways to increase revenue, you might want to follow IKEAs lead and develop a complementing side business hustle. For a small cafe, that might entail expanding your offering to include meals or baked foods. For a small restaurant operation with a specialty item like ice cream, it might mean starting to sell your own brand of ice cream retail.

The results of your side hustle and the extra revenue generated can open up new avenues for growth.
Voters and consumers feel powerless and angry. But sometimes the system does actually work, after a fashion.

Sometimes, we have more power than we think. (Source: TASR)

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What is getting everyones goat?

The world is richer and more peaceful than at any time in history, but many people  especially in developed economies  are angry.

They feel their economic prospects are stagnating; they resent politicians failure to punish anyone for the financial crisis; they fear their traditional values are being challenged.

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A common element in these grievances is a perceived lack of accountability.

British people, at least in part, voted to regain sovereignty  however ill-defined  from a European Union they see as remote.

US voters rejected the establishment candidate in favour of a businessman with no political experience and few coherent policies, but who promises to represent the forgotten.

It is not just politicians. People see how corporations misbehave with impunity.

When the BBC recently alerted Facebook to an apparently thriving trade in sexualized images of children on its network, the company asked the investigating journalists in question to send it examples  then immediately reported them to the police for sharing illegal images.

If a large dot-com can bully the BBC without a second thought, what hope for the rest of us?

Well, maybe there is some. I offer this trivial example.

Arriving recently in Budapest, my hotel  reserved through a very popular booking site  informed me that the fitness centre was closed for renovation. When I pointed out that the fitness centre was one of the reasons I had chosen the hotel, the receptionist shrugged.

I called the booking site, and after a predictably long wait, was told that the hotel doesnt give discounts (I hadnt asked for one). The hotel would, at most, arrange for alternative, unnamed accommodation.

These things happen, was the nearest I got to an apology.

Having already enjoyed my fill of Hungarian public transport for that day  and learned from experience that its always better to stand your ground in these situations  I declined the alternative. But I asked for the name of the person I was speaking to, adding that I felt I had been sold something under false pretences.

I did my job, my anonymous interlocutor retorted, refusing to identify himself, or even his location. I pointed out that he had my name, my address, my telephone number and my card details  so it seemed a little churlish of him not to reciprocate. He hung up.

Seconds later, reception called to offer me a discount. It seems that protecting their improbably high rating was worth a few forints, after all. A customer who calls to complain, they presumably surmised, is the kind of customer who might write a very negative review.

The moral? Buyer beware  and complain like hell. Sometimes, we have more power than we think.
The book BA!! Places of Living Culture 1989-2016 brings authentic accounts about 38 independent cultural spots in Bratislava.

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It was a dilapidated house and in the end it was pulled down. But we managed to rent another place from the city council  the one where we have been until today, 20 Kozia Street, said Vladimir Michal, a co-founder of the iconic bookshop Artforum when reflecting on memories of the first Artforum which used to be located on the then-Ulica Cervenej Armady Street, now Grosslingova Street.

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Artforum is one of 38 independent cultural spots that emerged  and vanished or moved  in Bratislava after the fall of the communist regime in 1989. Art historian and curator Zuzana Duchova and musicologist, musician and curator Slavo Krekovic map them out in a less traditional way in the book BA!! Places of Living Culture 1989-2016. The book comprises interviews, accounts and recollections of founders and owners, but also visitors of theatres GUnaGu and Stoka; film clubs FK 901 and FK Nostagia; music clubs U.Club, Fuga and Propeller; or galleries Bastart and Photoport.

All these places emerged spontaneously and only thanks to the strong determination of people to bring some creative energy, a human as well as a poetic dimension or a generational spirit into their local environs. The book is thus actually a map of non-existing places. None of these 38 cultural places operates today at their original address or by their original founders  in the better cases they moved to a new place, in the worse ones, they disappeared.

BA! and BA!!

The book BA!! is a continuation of the Slovak-English book BA! From UFO to UFO.

The impulse for writing the first book was that we were a group of like-minded people around art and the association Atrakt Art publishing Tristvrte magazine, Duchova recalled for The Slovak Spectator.

Their ambition, however, was to make something more permanent than a magazine and thus they published the book BA! From UFO to UFO in 2007.

We call it the U-fu-touristic guide to contemporary Bratislava, said Duchova. Instead of the well-known past or classic historical monuments it offers a subjective collage of interesting spots, stories, facts and pictures.

Though the printed version is sold out for quite a long time, it is available for free on the website of the association Atrakt Art.

Now it seemed to us that the time was ripe for re-opening this topic, said Duchova. We agreed with Slavo Krekovic upon the concept of this book, which is neither fiction nor non-fiction. It is a collection of interviews or recollections of founders, owners or visitors of these places.

Spots of independent culture

The basic reason why places of independent culture, i.e. beyond the state-managed structures, started to emerge in Bratislava was the zest of people to create something and bring into their environs something that, until then, had been missing. For this purpose they used also places that became vacant after the fall of the communist regime and filled them with their concept of culture.

For example, film fans launched the film club FK 901 in the building of the former district committee of the communist party at Racianska street where there was a preserved congress hall with projectors. Or the music club which placed Bratislava on the world map of electronic music, U.Club, was launched in a former nuclear bunker and tunnels under the Bratislava castle.

The alternative theatre Stoka found its permanent scene in the former industrial zone near the Danube River. In fact, the place on which the building once stood and Stoka performed, now serves as a parking place next to Eurovea. So, its demolition about 10 years ago was not at all necessary.

One chapter is also dedicated to Cvernovka. Last year, the community of the so-called creatives had to move out as these premises of the former thread factory will be rebuilt into a new residential area. Now the community is building new ateliers in a former secondary school on Racianska Street.

Enthusiasts usually started without any experience and with little money. Despite this, they created unique places of culture, drawing people of the same blood group. They closed when the originally low rent at such places increased to unacceptable levels, when racketeers were too greedy, or simply when they got married, had children and no longer had the time for such activities.

For the book we chose places with artistic production, not focusing only on fun, said Duchova, adding that it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between a pure pub and a pub into which people went also to hold philosophical debates.

Thus, the book maps out the history of a certain segment of culture, which is, in the view of the authors of the book, a bit underrated.

I would call many of the places we map out in the book punk as they originated from below and now exist only in the memories of people, said Duchova. It seemed important to us to also preserve this layer of our culture and past in such a rigid medium as a book is.

This also led to some problems when preparing the book as several of these places, contrary to official ones, do not have a properly preserved archive.

Someone had only photos freely deposited on a disc and we had to laboriously go through them and somebody else had precise archives with all the documentation properly sorted out, said Duchova. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting and fascinating historiographical work.

She does not see the theme of independent culture to be too young for examination.

It is already possible to have a hindsight view, said Duchova. Our form is something between expert and journalist-popularisation style. But we also wanted to show the diversity of these places. Because we believe that they deserve to be remembered.

Nevertheless, such places continue to emerge  and vanish  also today.

Conditions for their launch are in something similar and in something different, said Duchova, who sees as important that young people get a chance to create something and stand behind it.
RUZ has begun to believe that discussing the minimum wage is a waste of time.

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The quality of the business environment in Slovakia continued to decline last year partly due to legislative changes that led to hikes in costs for employers. Representatives of the Republican Union of Employers (RUZ) said this at the associations congress session on April 20.

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RUZ criticised in particular the introduction of a tax on dividends, changes in levy caps and an extension of and increase in the special levy for regulated entities. The competitiveness of companies was also affected by low-quality and non-transparent regulatory policy in the energy sector, which has led to the fact that Slovakia has some of the highest electricity prices in the European Union.

We dealt with all of the issues that have an impact on the business environment and have been discussed with government officials, said RUZ president Miroslav Kiralvarga as cited by the TASR newswire. We emphasised that we are advocating the unification of employers forces, creating a strong employer organisation that could communicate its position within negotiations with the social partners.

Among the flaws affecting Slovak companies, RUZ also stated difficulties in enforcing the law, an ineffective judiciary and a high level of corruption.

Overall, we see that the business environment isnt improving, said RUZ first vice-president Lubos Sirota. The measures that are being adopted have come too late. Weve been speaking about the lack of a labour force for two years; [warning] that this situation would appear. Two years have passed and the government is [only] now saying that were in this situation.

Employers also discussed the minimum wage for next year. Earlier this month the Trade Union Confederation (KOZ) proposed that the minimum wage should be increased to 492 per month in 2018. In response to KOZs initiative, the Federation of Employers Associations (AZZZ) proposed that a formula should be put in place whereby the minimum wage increase would be based on pre-set indicators. This measure should simplify annual talks on the minimum wage between the social partners.

Read also:

Read also: Trade unions propose to hike minimum wage to 492 Read more

Responding to these proposals, Sirota said that RUZ has begun to believe that discussing the minimum wage is a waste of time after so many years of bad experience in this area.

The minimum wage is decided long before anybody asks us to sit behind the negotiating table, said Sirota, adding that RUZ is always ready to hold talks on the matter but the proposal must be meaningful. A sudden big hike in the minimum wage could push entrepreneurs into the so-called black economy, he added.
Purchase will cost 1.2 billion euros.

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Slovak soldiers could get new armoured vehicles in the next year. The Defence Ministry wants to buy 81 vehicles with 8x8 chassis and 404 vehicles with 4x4 chassis.

The Ministry estimates the costs for 8x8 vehicles to be 417 million euros and for 4x4 vehicles, 782.7 million euros, altogether almost 1.2 billion euros. The Ministry has also factored logistic costs, ammunition and infrastructure into this price.

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Currently, the army does not have this type of vehicle, considered an important part of the armoury of NATO member countries. The current army technology is at the end of its lifespan, according to Defence Ministry.

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Read also: Military technology will be moved through Slovakia Read more

This year, the Ministry plans to agree on financing with government and conclude a contract for the purchase. Next year the army should get the first ten 8x8 armoured vehicles and seven 4x4's. Series production and sequential delivery should come into being during the years 2018 - 2029.
If Interior Minister Robert Kalinak decides to dismiss Police president Tibor Gaspar for political reasons, he will respect it.

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The 5000-7000 people attending the anti-corruption march that called for police chief Tibor Gaspar to resign did not persuade him to do so.

Organisers of the anti-corruption march taking place April 18 presented a memorandum to the government office demanding the investigation of corruption scandals like Basternak or Gorilla, and also the dismissal of Interior Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer), special prosecutor Dusan Kovacik and police corps president Tibor Gaspar from their posts.

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Gaspar responded by saying that he does not feel the need to resign for any professional failure.

My role as police president is to ensure the fight against corruption from the material and personnel points of view, to provide police training and a certain strategy, Gaspar told the press, adding that he isn't personally responsible for investigating corruption offences.

Read also:

Read also: Why big fish are not in jail Read more

The police chief went on to say that if Interior Minister Kalinak decides to dismiss him for political reasons, he will respect the decision.
Research showed, that nurses are not satisfied with their salaries.

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21 percent of nurses have earn monthly earnings from 601 to 700 euros, according to research, made by the Slovak chamber of nurses and midwives, with 2,298 nurses from state and private hospitals participating .

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Further, 19 percent have an average salary from 701 to 800 euros, 19 percent from 801 to 900 euros and 11 percent from 501 to 600 euros.

Two percent of those asked earns from 405 to 500 euros monthly and less than 405 euros is earned by one percent of respondents.

Currently the average salary of nurses in state health care services is almost 1,100 euros, said the spokesperson of Health Ministry, Zuzana Eliasova, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

Salaries of nurses have grown faster than the average salary in recent years, the Health Ministry stated.

The Health Minister Tomas Drucker (nominee of Smer) is ready to discuss the salary question, according to Eliasova.

Read also:

Read also: Health care improving but slowly Read more

Nurses complained also about overwork. Research showed that only one quarter of respondents do not have to work overtime. Those nurses who have to work overtime, do not necessarily get paid or get a day in lieu.

The Ministry reacted by saying that nurses have less work because of health-care assistants who help in hospitals. They praise this step according to feedback from hospitals but nurses agreed that with assistants came chaos, because not every hospital respects the new competences.

Salaries increased at the beginning of 2016 through legislation. Medics are against it, because they asked for a higher guarantee of salaries.

The legislation regulates salaries in more than 20 healthcare professions in state or private hospitals, such as pharmacist, nurse, and hospital attendant. Doctors and institutions such as spas and social services were exceptions.
Networking and Wireless

Olathe Public Schools Embraces IoT on New Network

The second largest and fastest-growing school district in Kansas, Olathe Public Schools (OPS), recently deployed an enterprise-grade WiFi solution to support a 1-to-1 initiative for more than 29,000 students and 4,000 faculty across 58 schools and 21 support facilities.

The school district first deployed a WiFi network in 2004, installing 3Com access points in school libraries before wireless was in high-demand, according to a case study. A few years into using 3Com, however, OPS experienced growing network demands from the influx of devices and implemented a trapeze network. The trapeze network later proved unreliable when the district started its 1-to-1 program. OPS needed to upgrade again to 802.11ac technology across all its schools.

Olathe has installed AP230 from Aerohive Networks, and plans to install AP245X, AR250 and AP550 access points as the deployment expands and new schools open. Image Credit: Aerohive Networks.

With more than 22,000 Internet of Things (IoT) devices in 2014, the district compared network management systems from Aruba, Meraki, Ruckus and others. OPS chose to install access points from California-based computer networking company Aerohive Networks. The district will use Aerohives Private Pre-Shared Key (PPSK) to onboard more than 22,000 users onto HiveManager system this summer. For guests, OPS is using CloudPath from Ruckus to get guests onto the Aerohive network.  Soon, guests and users requiring BYOD will be routed by PPSK to a separate SSID with a captive web portal for optimal security and firewall management, according to the case study.

Jay Merkle, wireless network engineer, Olathe Public Schools, said, PPSK is especially ideal for environments like Olathe Public Schools that are embracing IoT since complex configuration is not required and support is extended even for devices where 802.1X may not, providing greater security for our schools. Olathe has several thermostats on the wireless network and other devices such as blood sugar monitors for certain students that automatically send reports to school nurses. Other departments, such as the district TV studio, may have needs to request PPSK as more operations eventually move to wireless devices.

To learn more, read the case study on the Aerohive site.
Travelling the length and width of Vietnam we came across all walks of life, weathers and landscapes. But in completing our original task of riding from Saigon to Hanoi we knew we had one last adventure left, and it turned out to be the best. After 2 gruelling but amazing days on the bike, passing through the amazing little villages of Yen Bai and staying with a wonderful family in a homestay, it was time to reach the picture perfect rice terraces of Sapa. Located in the very north of Vietnam along the border with China the weather was much colder and harsher up here. The mountains dominated the landscape and hill tribes, in particular the HMong and Red Dao people populated this rugged but beautiful place. To get the most out of this fascinating and stunning location we headed off trekking in Sapa with some of the HMong women for a 2 days that turned out to be the highlight of our 7 weeks in Vietnam!

Heading up into the mountains and seeing the landscape change

Gliding up the winding road from the city of Lao Cai where we had ridden alongside the Chinese border the air began to become thinner and with more bite. A perpetual fog clung to the mysterious town of Sapa that sat at the top of this mountain we were slowly climbing with each wilding and snaking contoured bend. Breaking through the mist it was like being teleported into a different land.







From the modern city below the roads were now filled with traditionally clad villagers, their dark black clothing decorated with colourful patterns and chains. Carrying machetes and hauling wicker baskets on their backs full of bamboo up the steep tracks it was like stepping back in time.

Looking over the thin roads to the steep drop below we eventually ended up in the cloud covered and chilly Sapa standing at 1500 meters (4,921 feet) elevation.

Meeting up with our local guide, a HMong villager and setting off up into the mountains

After a couple of days exploring the region ourselves riding around this wonderful town, through the terrace lined mountain passes and roaring waterfalls it was time for our trekking tour. Cloud had whisped its way over the town for the 3 days we had been here already, breaking only momentarily before it enveloped the mountain tops and swept through the valleys below like a creeping serpent. The weather in this region is a cruel temptress, changing hour to hour giving you a peak at the beauty hidden behind the mist that often accompanies such a high altitude location.

Luckily the morning of the tour, after a tremendous thunderstorm the previous evening, we awoke to blue skies and and the gentle chatter of the birds in the trees. It was almost like the first day of Spring had arrived and the whole place was awakening from its damp slumber.

We arranged to meet our guide, Mao and the rest of the small trekking group at the local market. Here we prepared for the hike to come with some local dishes and drinks in this noisy and pungent atmosphere.

Trekking for 18km through rice terraces and mountain passes whilst learning about the HMong ways

Our first day was a jump into the deep end of mountain trekking in Sapa, with a whole host of local tribeswomen in tow, including children and old women in wellington boots, we were well and truly put to shame! This steep and exhausting climb took up sharply out of town and into the mountain above. From our first real stop off we could see for miles, Sapa itself just an insignificant dot below and towering above us still was Fansipan, the highest mountain in IndoChina.

We trekked through so much diverse landscape in one day, from the wild mountaintops where nothing much grows to thick bamboo forests creaking around us to waterfalls, thick jungles and villages with wild pigs, ducks, dogs and chickens running around. Up here the only traffic we saw was the odd buffalo, trekking local and shrieking children shouting hello before running off through the maze of rice terraces. It was truly full emersion into village and Hmong life up here without another westerner or modern convenience in sight.

Spending a night in a tiny village homestay with our host: Mao

After a hard day trekking in Sapa it was time to retire to Maos lovely traditional home. Built on two levels entirely out of wood it was a simply but homely set up. As is usual the living quarters were below, where we would share a tasty and traditional meal together with the family, and the sleeping quarters were above. The arrangement was a small mattress on the wooden floors, a blanket, pillow and mosquito net, much more comfort than many of the locals have who often sleep just on the wooden floors.







As the light faded and the various animals and insects began their song we huddled around the family table, after such an intense day we had all firmly become friends and shared stories and tales from our various travels.

Mao herself again told us of the traditional HMong ways before encouraging us to drink way too much rice wine or happy water, a home brewed moonshine that resembles paint thinner in taste! It did however help keep us warm and allowed a good nights sleep to be had by all, maybe these HMong people are on to something!

After a traditional breakfast we trek again, into villages and yet more stunning scenery

The second day of trekking in Sapa was a little less intense on the legs that the first, after a long trek and night sipping rice wine we were all ready for the refreshing mountain air. This time we would traverse the mountainside, heading deeper into and across the rice terraces that characterise this area rather than being above them as we were the day before.

This gave us a much better chance to see these incredible feats of traditional engineering up close. Some of these rice terraces have been providing work for local families for thousands of years, the same methods employed today as their ancestors would have done before them. The landscape here is tough to tame, steep and unforgiving and yet these hardy people have survived and thrived here and yet its remoteness has allowed the tribes people to retain these unique and fascinating cultures.

Wandering through the many tiny villages up here Mao would often chat to those who we passed, she was a well known character in these parts, villages spread several kms apart where everyone knows everyone and their business! She explained to us along the way, waving to a man in traditional baggy Hmong dress who she told us was her brother, that family life is still very traditional up here.

People here are farmers, they tend the rice fields in the warmer and wetter months and usually have animals too. They eat almost anything, from dog to snake, it is about survival. However she did say those two were off the menu for her these days after having a pet dog as a child! She married early and had children by the age I was packing up for university. Trekking in Sapa offered us much more than great views, but great insights too.

It is just a way of life, the girls are often uneducated as they will go and live with their husbands family and tend to them, she was lucky to have been able to pick up English from the passing tourists. Many here dont even know Vietnamese until they are much older, a girl of around 12 washing her families clothing in the river as we passed by had no clue as to what we were saying when we greeted her with Cin Xiao let alone Hello. It was both shocking and refreshing for someone to be so isolated from even the most basic words that most know anywhere in the world in many different languages.

Tourism in these parts is a double edged sword, in many ways it is diluting the culture here, making it more sterile and prepackaged for visitors. But at the same time it brings hope to the many women and girls of these tribes. No longer tied down to their husbands wishes they can make money on their own from trekking and selling their wares. They can learn English and all about outside cultures, breaking free from the isolation many of them were condemned to for years.

Mao expressed her hope for her own daughters, now they could receive a proper education and maybe wait longer before getting married, maybe even travel and take advantage of the many opportunities that simply werent an option for her at their age. Though at the same time she is also hopeful they will keep the HMong traditional alive, however with tourism booming up here it seems that with the hunger of visitors to observe these ways it will keep going for generations to come.

The best way to experience this amazing place and get up close to the unique culture here!

Reflecting on trekking in Sapa it became clear it is an absolute highlight of our time in Vietnam. We not only saw some of the most stunning landscapes in the country, having access to areas we would never have known about, but were able to see the local tribes and villages in a much more personal manner. Visiting these types of places it can often feel hard to interact and truly immerse yourself in their guarded culture, this trek allowed us to become part of the family instead. We also met some amazing people too, both local and fellow travellers, many of which we have kept in touch with and met up with afterwards.

How to do this trekking in Sapa tour yourselves:

Getting up close to these tribes and their REAL way of life rather than just the touristy stuff on show in town is something not everyone has the chance to do whilst in Sapa. This isnt so easy to organise yourselves so thanks to the wonderful people over at Lilys travel agency we were able to have such a wonderful and authentic Sapa experience.

Book your transport across Vietnam and Asia here:

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We went on the 2 day one night Trekking with Mao tour listed here, which costs around $65:

www.lilystravelagency.com/project/sapa-trekking-with-mao

www.lilystravelagency.com

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As well as trekking in Sapa Lily also organised Ha Long Bay tours, trips up to Ha Giang, Ninh Binh and elsewhere as well as transport around the country and internationally and budget options such as boat tickets to Cat Ba.

Book your amazing Sapa experience here:

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Book your transport across Vietnam and Asia here:

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Book your accommodation here

Hey, youve got your Travel Insurance sorted havent you?

Travelling and especially backpacking is a wild adventure, but make sure you are covered just incase something goes wrong, which if youre living it up to the fullest its always a possibility!

Check travel insurance prices with World Nomads here!

Have you ever been trekking in Sapa with a hill tribe?

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Disclaimer: This post was sponsored by Lilys Travel agency. As always, all opinions are our own!
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In this episode of The Anthill podcast we delve into the world of memory. We talk to psychologists, historians and political scientists about how and why we remember some things and forget others.

First up, our science editor, Miriam Frankel, finds out why people are susceptible to remembering things that didnt actually happen to them. Psychologists Martin Conway, a professor at City University, and Sue Sherman, a senior lecturer at Keele University, describe some of the many experiments that have been done to implant false memories into peoples brains. This may explain why one The Conversation editor has a memory of being born (which also features on the podcast).

While it may not matter so much if your memories of childhood are a bit hazy, the phenomenon of false memories poses significant problems for the criminal justice system. In fact, common misunderstandings of the nature of memories can be detrimental to the way that crime is investigated and judged.

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From memories of things that didnt actually happen, we turn to the act of deliberate forgetting. The Anthill producer, Gemma Ware, takes a look at the politics of history teaching. She speaks with historian Sean Lang from Anglia Ruskin University about the different ways that governments attempt to whitewash their past.

As well as posing problems for students, the way that curricula are written can also lead to diplomatic spats. Take Japans beef with its neighbours over the way that various details of World War II are taught. Taku Tamaki, lecturer in international relations at Loughborough University, explains the controversy over comfort women  and why it is an enduring flashpoint in Japans relations with South Korea especially.

Lastly, we ponder the effect of social media and the ubiquity of smartphones on the public figures of the future. Now that much of our stupid behaviour and opinions get recorded, will this lead to a world where public figures have to be squeaky clean? Or will we learn to accept that most young people do things that they go on to regret? To investigate, Will de Freitas spoke to Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, a professor at Cardiff Universitys school of journalism, media and cultural studies.

Story continues

Click here to listen to more episodes of The Anthill, on themes including The Future, Beliefs and Self-experimentation.

The Anthill theme music is by Alex Grey for Melody Loops. Music in the false memories section is Anamalie by Kevin MacLeod and music in the history textbooks section is by Drone D, by Kevin McLeod. The news clip about David Cameron is from the BBC, the clip about South Korea and Japans fallout over comfort women is from France24, the clip of Empire Day is from the Great British Archive and the clip of Barack Obama is from MSNBC.

A big thanks to City University Londons Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Theresa May

REUTERS/Christopher Furlong/Pool

As prime minister, Theresa May has been at pains  rhetorically, at least  to stress her commitment to keeping the United Kingdom together.

In her inaugural public appearance on the steps of Downing Street last July, in the wake of the Brexit campaign that left the kingdoms various nations bitterly divided, the newly minted premier declared that preserving the three-centuries-old union is very important to her.

A few months later, at the Conservative Party conference, May doubled down on her commitment to unionism. I will never allow divisive nationalists to undermine the precious union between the four nations of our United Kingdom, she promised.

Stirring stuff. But for all the rousing rhetoric, Mays actions suggest a rather more ambivalent attitude to the United Kingdom and the threat of its demise. The latest signal that her priorities, in reality, lie elsewhere: this weeks decision to call a general election.

Viewed from London  or even Berlin or Washington  the British prime ministers move makes cold, calculating sense. The Conservatives enjoy vertiginous poll leads over a divided Labour Party. Mays majority is slim. Now is the time  in the words of the Daily Mail  to crush those who oppose Brexit.

But viewed from Edinburgh or Belfast  both capitals of regions (Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively) that voted to remain in Europe  the decision looks very different. The general election will take place at a time of almost unprecedented constitutional tumult on the fringes of an increasingly attenuated union.

Last month, Scotlands nationalist-controlled parliament voted to demand the powers to hold a second independence referendum. The British prime minister has, so far, demurred, saying there was no mandate and such a vote would be destabilizing ahead of Brexit. That logic  somewhat strained to begin with  will be much harder to sustain in the wake of Mays decision to call her own vote. And it will become even harder still after June 8  the scheduled date for the election  if, as expected, the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) once more wins the vast majority of Scotlands seats in Westminster.

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The situation in Northern Ireland is even more fraught. The once restive region is now relatively peaceful, but its government collapsed this year amid much rancor and recrimination over a botched green energy-related scheme. The prospect of an imminent reinstatement is slim.

The largest parties, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, must form a coalition under Northern Irelands power-sharing arrangement, but talks between the two have been at loggerheads since Marchs snap elections.

The March elections produced a record vote for Irish nationalist parties  a sign of rising anger at the prospect of the province being dragged unwilling out of the European Union. For the first time since the foundation of the state almost a century ago, unionists  those who favor remaining within the U.K.  no longer enjoy a majority.

The general election campaign in Northern Ireland will almost inevitably reopen contentious debates about identity and the past, making post-election compromise in Belfast even more difficult, if not downright impossible. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland will almost certainly begin the process of leaving the EU  with all the uncertainty around trade and the Irish border that it entails  without a functioning government.

Nicola Sturgeon

Sky News

For all her talk of the special union in office, May has displayed a remarkably tin ear for the differing demands of the U.K.s constituent parts. Unlike her predecessor, David Cameron  whose patrician unionism was arguably outdated but sincerely held  the current Tory leader appears out of touch with the regions. It was noted, for instance, that the prime minister did not even visit Belfast during her most recent Brexit tour. In Scotland, Mays interventions have often managed to fan the nationalist flames.

During a visit to Glasgow in March, for instance, with talk of independence in the air, May took the opportunity to declare that she would fight against further decentralization within the U.K.  that is, she would make sure, post-Brexit, that no powers went from Brussels to Edinburgh. Within days, SNP leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced her intention to hold a second independence referendum.

In Scotland, the election will be fought on the independence question; there seems little doubt that the nationalists, who won all but three of Scotlands 59 constituencies in national parliament in 2015, will once again take a commanding majority in the regions Westminster delegation.

The Northern Irish vote will also revolve around constitutional questions, with unionists looking to reassert supremacy after their recent bruising election results. Indeed, this election looks likely to confirm what has become increasingly clear for some time: There is no such thing as British politics anymore, only regional versions.

The main British parties  the Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats  hold just a single seat each in Scotland and none in Northern Ireland. This is unlikely to change come June.

Mays widely anticipated victory will come in England. Indeed, Labours weakness there is why this election has been called. But the price of an English Conservative triumph will be a deepening sense of detachment from Westminster in the so-called Celtic fringe.

Margaret Thatcher

REUTERSHistorically, the union has always been weakest when the political disparity between England and Scotland has been greatest.

In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher was widely reviled north of the border; the Tory vote plummeted, and support for Scottish devolution grew.

A decade later, Scottish support provided the bedrock of Tony Blairs Labour successes; these years saw a Scottish parliament established in Edinburgh.

But even in Thatchers heyday, the Conservatives held Scottish seats well into double digits. Now, there is a very strong possibility of sustained Tory rule in London with minimal Scottish representation and no realistic prospect of an alternative Labour government.

Even the coming campaign itself looks poised to add to English-Scottish tensions. During the 2015 general election campaign, Cameron aggressively played on English fears of a nexus between Labour and Scottish nationalism, running ad campaigns featuring then-Labour leader Ed Miliband literally in the pocket of former SNP boss Alex Salmond.

Such hard-line tactics won Cameron a majority, and May is already using the same playbook, issuing dire warnings of Sturgeon propping up an implausible Jeremy Corbyn minority government. Playing on English fears of insurgent Scottish nationalism is smart party politics, in London at least. How it squares with the prime ministers devotion to the precious union is another matter.

The United Kingdom is a construct from a different political age. The kingdom was a tool of empire: Ships that sailed the world were built in Glasgow, Belfast, and Liverpool. The threat of foreign invasion (and Catholics) forged a common sense of identity  Britishness  particularly among Welsh, Scots, and Protestant settlers in Ireland.

Those days are over. But in the right hands, the union could be repurposed, reimagined for the 21st century. Scottish and Northern Irish opposition to Brexit would have provided the perfect cover for a re-engineering of the U.K.s own constitutional architecture. Instead, May has declared that there will be no opt-out from Brexit  the U.K. will leave the EU as a single entity.

The official title of the party May leads is the Conservative and Unionist Party. If she is to retain the second part of that title, the prime minister will need to show more than just rhetorical commitment to the union, and soon. Otherwise, she could easily find herself going down in history as the Tory leader who delivered a massive Conservative election victory  one that helped precipitate the end of the U.K. as we know it.

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Some argue that hypnosis is just a trick. Others, however, see it as bordering on the paranormal  mysteriously transforming people into mindless robots. Now our recent review of a number of research studies on the topic reveals it is actually neither. Hypnosis may just be an aspect of normal human behaviour.

Hypnosis refers to a set of procedures involving an induction  which could be fixating on an object, relaxing or actively imagining something  followed by one or more suggestions, such as You will be completely unable to feel your left arm. The purpose of the induction is to induce a mental state in which participants are focused on instructions from the experimenter or therapist, and are not distracted by everyday concerns. One reason why hypnosis is of interest to scientists is that participants often report that their responses feel automatic or outside their control.

Most inductions produce equivalent effects. But inductions arent actually that important. Surprisingly, the success of hypnosis doesnt rely on special abilities of the hypnotist either  although building rapport with them will certainly be valuable in a therapeutic context.

Rather, the main driver for successful hypnosis is ones level of hypnotic suggestibility. This is a term which describes how responsive we are to suggestions. We know that hypnotic suggestibility doesnt change over time and is heritable. Scientists have even found that people with certain gene variants are more suggestible.

Most people are moderately responsive to hypnosis. This means they can have vivid changes in behaviour and experience in response to hypnotic suggestions. By contrast, a small percentage (around 10-15%) of people are mostly non-responsive. But most research on hypnosis is focused on another small group (10-15%) who are highly responsive.

In this group, suggestions can be used to disrupt pain, or to produce hallucinations and amnesia. Considerable evidence from brain imaging reveals that these individuals are not just faking or imagining these responses. Indeed, the brain acts differently when people respond to hypnotic suggestions than when they imagine or voluntarily produce the same responses.

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Preliminary research has shown that highly suggestible individuals may have unusual functioning and connectivity in the prefrontal cortex. This is a brain region that plays a critical role in a range of psychological functions including planning and the monitoring of ones mental states.

There is also some evidence that highly suggestible individuals perform more poorly on cognitive tasks known to depend on the prefrontal cortex, such as working memory. However, these results are complicated by the possibility that there might be different subtypes of highly suggestible individuals. These neurocognitive differences may lend insights into how highly suggestible individuals respond to suggestions: they may be more responsive because theyre less aware of the intentions underlying their responses.

For example, when given a suggestion to not experience pain, they may suppress the pain but not be aware of their intention to do so. This may also explain why they often report that their experience occurred outside their control. Neuroimaging studies have not as yet verified this hypothesis but hypnosis does seem to involve changes in brain regions involved in monitoring of mental states, self-awareness and related functions.

Although the effects of hypnosis may seem unbelievable, its now well accepted that beliefs and expectations can dramatically impact human perception. Its actually quite similar to the placebo response, in which an ineffective drug or therapeutic treatment is beneficial purely because we believe it will work. In this light, perhaps hypnosis isnt so bizarre after all. Seemingly sensational responses to hypnosis may just be striking instances of the powers of suggestion and beliefs to shape our perception and behaviour. What we think will happen morphs seamlessly into what we ultimately experience.

Hypnosis requires the consent of the participant or patient. You cannot be hypnotised against your will and, despite popular misconceptions, there is no evidence that hypnosis could be used to make you commit immoral acts against your will.

Hypnosis as medical treatment

Meta-analyses, studies that integrate data from many studies on a specific topic, have shown that hypnosis works quite well when it comes to treating certain conditions. These include irritable bowel syndrome and chronic pain. But for other conditions, however, such as smoking, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder, the evidence is less clear cut  often because there is a lack of reliable research.

But although hypnosis can be valuable for certain conditions and symptoms, its not a panacea. Anyone considering seeking hypnotherapy should do so only in consultation with a trained professional. Unfortunately, in some countries, including the UK, anyone can legally present themselves as a hypnotherapist and start treating clients. However, anyone using hypnosis in a clinical or therapeutic context needs to have conventional training in a relevant discipline, such as clinical psychology, medicine, or dentistry to ensure that they are sufficiently expert in that specific area.

We believe that hypnosis probably arises through a complex interaction of neurophysiological and psychological factors  some described here and others unknown. It also seems that these vary across individuals.

But as researchers gradually learn more, it has become clear that this captivating phenomenon has the potential to reveal unique insights into how the human mind works. This includes fundamental aspects of human nature, such as how our beliefs affect our perception of the world and how we come to experience control over our actions.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Devin Terhune has received funding from the European Commission.

Steven Jay Lynn has received government funding from the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S. in the past.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan troops killed 52 al Shabaab fighters in an attack on the militants' camp in southern Somalia on Friday, a military spokesman said. Colonel Joseph Owuoth, spokesman for Kenya Defence Forces, said the incident happened in Badhaadhe in Lower Juba. Rifles, three improvised explosive devices and bomb making materials were recovered in the assault, he said. "The intelligence led operation was executed after surveillance assets sighted al Shabaab terrorist concentration on the location. Ground troops supported by mortar and artillery fire were employed to neutralise the camp thereafter," the statement said. "Following the operation, the initial assessment indicates that 52 terrorists were killed while others fled with injuries." Al Shabaab, whose assessment of casualties often differs markedly from official versions, could be immediately reached for comment. Kenya has thousands of its troops in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to help curb al Shabaab and improve security as part of a reconstruction drive after two decades of civil war that shattered the country. Kenya initially sent troops into Somalia in 2011 after a series of attacks on Kenyan soil by the al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab. The Islamist group has been fighting for years to impose its own harsh interpretation of Islam on Somalia. It once controlled much of Somalia and wants to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and drive out the peacekeeping force, which is also made up of soldiers from Djibouti, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia and other African countries. In January, al Shabaab said its fighters killed dozens of Kenyan troops when the group attacked a remote military base in Somalia, while Kenya's army said nine soldiers had died and 70 militants were killed. In January 2016, al Shabaab said it had killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers in El Adde, a camp near the border with Kenya. The military did not give details of casualties in that attack, but Kenyan media reports suggested a toll of that magnitude. (Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Alison Williams)
A man arrested in France over an "imminent and violent attack" ahead of the first round of France's presidential election was also wanted in Belgium, it has emerged.

Clement Baur, 23, was detained on Sunday along with another man, named in reports as Mahiedine Merabet, 29.

On Wednesday, Belgium's federal prosecutor revealed Baur was wanted for questioning, but did not disclose why.

In a statement, the prosecutor said: "However, there has been no trace of him in Belgium since the end of 2015."

Belgium had co-operated with the French authorities as they sought Baur, it added.

:: What you need to know about the French elections

According to officials Baur, a French national, had links to Belgian jihadi networks.

After the two men were arrested in Marseille, police found guns, explosives and an Islamic State flag.

They were known to be "radicalised", according to interior minister Matthias Fekl.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said both had criminal records, and were suspected of planning "an imminent, violent act on French soil, though we don't know precisely the day, the target or targets".
Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrives to chair a meeting of the Pobeda (Victory) Organising Committee, with a focus on developing humanitarian cooperation at the government and public level with other countries, in order to promote objective information on Russias history and present, including its role in the victory over Nazism, at the Kremlin in Moscow on April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Alexander Nemenov/Pool

Thomson Reuters

As the French prepare to vote Sunday in a presidential election marked by acrimonious debate about Russian influence in Europe, theres little doubt about which candidate Moscow backs.

Last month, the combative populist Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front flew to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

It was a display of longtime mutual admiration. The frontrunner in a field of 11 candidates, Le Pen shrugs off allegations of corruption and human rights abuses against Putin, calling him a tough and effective leader.

Her hard-line views on immigration, Islam and the European Union win praise from Putin and enthusiastic coverage from Russian media outlets. Her campaign has been propelled by a loan of more than $9 million from a Russian bank in 2014, according to Western officials and media reports.

Meanwhile, aides to Emmanuel Macron, the center-left former economy minister who is Le Pens top rival, have accused Russia of hitting his campaign with cyberattacks and fake news reports about his personal life. Although French officials say the computer disruptions were minor and there is no conclusive proof of links to the Russian state, President Francois Hollande and other leaders have warned about the risk of interference comparable to hacking operations that targeted the U.S. elections. The French government, aided by briefings from U.S. agencies about their experience last year, has beefed up its cyber defenses.

American politics was jolted when 17 intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia had covertly intervened in the 2016 presidential campaign with the aim of electing Donald Trump. Such activity is nothing new in Europe, where Russia has launched a series of clandestine and open efforts to sway governments and exert influence, according to European and U.S. national security officials, diplomats, academics and other experts interviewed by ProPublica in recent weeks.

The Russians have had an aggressive espionage presence here for a long time, a senior French intelligence official said. The Russians now have more spies, more clandestine operations, in France than they did in the Cold War.

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European and U.S. security officials say Russian tactics run the gamut from attempted regime change to sophisticated cyber-espionage. Russia has been linked to a coup attempt in Montenegro (the Balkan nation had dared to consider joining NATO); an old-school spy case involving purloined NATO documents and an accused Portuguese double agent; a viral fake news story about a 13-year-old girl in Germany supposedly raped by Muslims, and a caper by suspected Russian hackers who briefly seized control of an entire television network in France.

One of the reasons Russia has been so successful has been its ability to develop tactics and techniques it selectively uses depending on the target country, said Andrew Foxall, director of the Russia Studies Center of the Henry Jackson Society, a London think tank. Theres a nuance to it as well. Thats something that in the West we fail to grasp.

French Presidential candidates

Reuters

The French elections are the latest front in what is likely to be a conflict for years to come. Officials say France and Europe are vulnerable because of converging crises: immigration, terrorism, structural economic inequities, the Brexit vote in Britain last year, the rise of populism and extremism. The French election offers a particularly tempting target to the Kremlin, which wants to weaken and divide the West and multinational institutions such as the European Union and NATO, according to Western officials and experts.

Le Pens proposed policies align closely with Moscows geopolitical goals. She promises to reinstate national borders, abandon the euro currency and hold a referendum on whether France  which will be the EUs remaining nuclear power after Britains departure  should remain in the 28-member bloc.

For Russia, there is a desire to display power, said Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations, a think tank in Paris. They have openly chosen their candidate. Its very serious. If Le Pen is elected, which is not impossible, that would be part of a chain of events including the Brexit and the election of Trump that would amount to a spectacular reconfiguration of the Western political family. The Russians want to weaken Europe, and to break NATO. The stakes are very high.

Marine Le Pen

REUTERS/Benoit TessierPre-election polling in France shows that no candidate has enough support to receive the required 50 percent, which means the likely result of Sundays vote will be a May 7 runoff pitting Le Pen against Macron or another strong challenger. Experts worry about a potential Russian spy operation, such as a Wikileaks-style disclosure of compromising information about a candidate, intended to tip the scales during that showdown.

No such direct intervention has been detected to date, and Russian officials reject allegations that they are trying to manipulate elections in France or elsewhere.

The Putin government has no intention of interfering in electoral processes abroad, said Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, in February. He complained about a hysterical anti-Putin campaign in certain foreign countries.

Intelligence operations  especially in the high-tech realm  are difficult to pin conclusively on a state. Moreover, Russian spy agencies have developed sophisticated capabilities in the gray areas of information warfare and political influence.

We dont see cyberattacks for the moment here affecting the campaign, the senior French intelligence official said. There are Russian influence efforts, news coverage by Russian media, the standard activity. But most of it is not illegal.

Even some Western intelligence officials concerned about Moscows aggressiveness think there is a tendency to exaggerate the problem. Although European experts generally agree with the U.S. intelligence communitys conclusion that Russia interfered with the presidential race last year, those interviewed did not think it had a decisive impact on the victory of President Trump.

Russias impact has been greatly underestimated, but it shouldnt be overestimated either, Gomart said.

As far as European spy-catchers are concerned, the Cold War is back  if it ever ended. An early sign came in 2006 with the assassination of Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko in London.

putin alexander Litvinenko

ReutersLitvinenko was an outspoken foe of Putin and a veteran of the powerful Federal Security Service (FSB), which Putin once led. In 2000, Litvinenko fled to London. He spent the next few years helping British and Spanish intelligence and law enforcement investigate ties among Russian mafias, politicos and security services.

In November 2006, Litvinenko died after three weeks of agony as the result of being poisoned with polonium-210, a rare radioactive toxin, by two Russian agents at a luxury hotel in London, according to a British court inquiry. The probe that ended last year confirmed the conclusions that Western governments and Russian dissidents reached long ago. The presiding judge, Sir Robert Owen, found that the FSB killed Litvinenko on orders from the highest levels of the Russian state, probably including Putin himself, according to Owens report.

The 329-page report detailed the extremes to which Russian spies were capable of going in the heart of the West. The killers used a devastatingly lethal poison of a kind that is manufactured in secret Russian government labs, according to the report. The physical effect on the victim was comparable to ingesting a tiny nuclear bomb. The symbolic effect was to send a mocking message to the world about the impunity of the masterminds, since there was a good chance that the cause of death would be discovered and connected to Moscow.

Because the brutish assassins apparently did not know theyd been given polonium, they left radioactive trails across Europe during three separate missions to London, failing in their first attempt to kill Litvinenko by slipping the poison into his drink, according to the report. Although British prosecutors charged the duo with murder and sought extradition, the suspects remain free in Russia. One of them, KGB veteran Andrei Lugovoi, was elected to the Russian parliament in 2007. (Both men, and the Kremlin, deny the charges.)

The relationship between Moscow and London has never recovered, according to officials and experts in Britain and elsewhere. The scope of Russian spying in Europe has escalated steadily and dramatically, Western security officials and diplomats say. After shifting much of their energy to fighting Islamic terrorism in the early 2000s, European counterintelligence agencies have been forced to redeploy personnel and resources to confront the Russian threat.

The spy-versus-spy activity with the Russians is very intense, the senior French intelligence official said. And occasionally we expel them, or give them a tap on the shoulder and tell them to cut it out. These matters are often resolved service to service, rather than through prosecuting people. The FSB still cooperates well with us on antiterrorism, even if we know their partner agencies are trying to pick our pockets and steal secrets.

Russian cadets

Ivan Sekretarev/AP

The cloak-and-dagger duel occasionally has an old-school air. Last May, a plainclothes team of Italian police detectives arrested two men meeting in a small cafe in the riverfront Trastevere area of Rome. The two had been under surveillance by Portuguese counterintelligence officers and other Western spy services for some time.

One suspect was Frederico Carvalho Gil, then 57, a veteran of Portugals spy agency. The other was identified as Sergey Nicolaevich Pozdnyakov, 48, described by European national security officials as a senior officer in the SVR, Russias foreign intelligence service. He had once been stationed in Italy, but was allegedly operating as an illegal  a spy without diplomatic cover  when he was caught. He was accused of serving as a handler for Carvalho, paying him to obtain secret intelligence related to NATO, according to Italian and Portuguese authorities.

The investigation indicated the Portuguese intelligence officer had drifted into a double life after a difficult divorce, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Carvalho allegedly had relationships with Eastern European women and posted references on social media about his travels in Russia, according to the Corriere.

Italian police say Carvalho went to Rome to slip his handler NATO documents in exchange for 10,000 euros in cash, one of a series of such meetings in Italy and elsewhere. Still, the contents of the secret papers confiscated in Rome seemed relatively banal for a Russian spy to expose himself to possible capture, an Italian national security official told ProPublica.

Carvalho, who has denied the charges, awaits trial in Portugal. Italian authorities held the Russian, then sent him back to Moscow after an appeals court rejected an extradition request from Portugal.

Russian operatives take surprising risks, according to European and U.S. officials. The attempted coup in Montenegro last year is a case in point.

Montenegro, a strategically situated Balkan nation with a population of only 600,000, applied to join NATO last May. Russia lobbied strenuously against the impending membership, using diplomatic and non-governmental resources including the Orthodox Church. Russian agents stirred up protests against NATO and funded busloads of demonstrators.

Then came an uproar. Montenegro prosecutors charged that two Russian spies and two Serbian nationalists plotted last October to deploy a band of gunmen to assassinate the prime minister, storm Parliament and install an anti-NATO government. The accused spies, one of whom had previously been expelled from Poland, eluded capture. The Serbians are being prosecuted. A complex investigation continues, but Western officials say they have obtained information confirming Montenegros charges that Russian spies attempted the overthrow of a European government.

The thesis is they escalated to that level because the Russian government was not happy with the way Montenegro was going, a U.S. official said. They were unhappy with the inability of their people operating on the ground to influence politics.

If the Montenegro plot showed a willingness to resort to brute force, Russia-watchers say the larger strategy features more high-tech methods, such as the mix of cyberattacks and information leaks during the U.S. elections.

Hacking is another tool in the toolbox, the U.S. official said. This appears to be trending toward state sponsorship and involvement. This is what worries us. The use of state power, intelligence and other methods, to affect the democratic process in European nations.

russian troops crimea

REUTERS/Pavel Rebrov

Russia is not alone in using cyberwarfare, but it is the only nation to have combined it with conventional warfare, according to Foxall, the scholar at the London think tank. Such hybrid offensives took place during Russias war with Georgia in 2008 and its annexation of Crimea in 2014, he said.

Nations outside Russias buffer zone have not been immune, according to experts and Western officials. During the past few years, experts and officials say, suspected Russian hackers have penetrated targets including the Italian foreign ministry; the Warsaw stock exchange; a German steel mill; the European Parliament; and the computer files of a Dutch air safety team investigating a missile attack by pro-Russian fighters that downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014, killing 298 people.

If you think of all these incidents as a whole, you reach a worrisome conclusion, Foxall said.

The crippling hack of France TV5 Monde sent a clear message. It took place in April 2015 amid tension in Europe about the intertwined threats of Islamic terrorism and an influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants into Greece, many of them refugees fleeing Russian-backed military onslaughts in Syria.

On the day of the cyberattack, two French government ministers visited the headquarters of the network, which airs 11 channels and broadcasts in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and other Francophone nations, to celebrate the launch of a new channel. The hackers took over the networks programming and social media accounts, filling screens with Islamic jihadi propaganda. It took the network hours to regain control of its broadcasts and prevent its systems from being destroyed.

The hackers had breached TV5s defenses via its email messaging networks months earlier, according to Nicolas Arpagian, a French cybersecurity expert affiliated with government think tanks. Although the hackers claimed allegiance to a CyberCaliphate, the investigation points at culprits linked to the Russian state, according to Arpagian and Western officials.

The goal seems to have been destabilization, Arpagian said. A demonstration of capability, of the potential to disrupt.

Definitive proof of Russian state involvement is elusive, however. Experts say the Kremlins 21st century approach to what the Soviets once called active measures, combines cyber-operations with the overt continuum of fake news, internet trolling, and state-controlled media.

An opposition supporter gestures as he blocks a police van transporting detained anti-corruption campaigner and opposition figure Alexei Navalny during a rally in Moscow, Russia, March 26, 2017.

Thomson ReutersThe strategy emerged in response to the anti-Kremlin color revolutions of the early 2000s, when throngs of ordinary citizens took to the streets to demand the ouster of Moscow-backed leaders in Ukraine and Georgia, experts say. Russian leaders believed the United States was using soft power means, such as the media and diplomacy, to cause trouble in Russias domain. The Russians decided to develop a comparable capacity. But the result wasnt soft very long, especially as the Kremlin became concerned that events such as the Arab Spring could spark unrest in Russia, experts say.

The logic of influence and projection overseas was replaced by the concept of confrontation with the West and the image of a besieged fortress, wrote Celine Marange of Frances Institute for Strategic Research at the Military Academy, in a study this year. Without completely disappearing, the notion of soft power has been eclipsed by that of information war, whose acceptance is literal and extensive in Russia. In Russian defense and security circles  and in numerous prime-time television debates, there is an almost unanimous thesis: a worldwide information war at the global level pits Russia, like the Soviet Union in its day, against the West.

The combatants range from teams of trolls in warehouses who bombard selected targets on social media to provincial journalists who concoct wild tales following general directives rather than explicit orders, according to experts and intelligence officials. Putins government is presented as the lone guardian of traditional Christian values fighting barbaric Muslim hordes and a soft, decadent West. The relentless narrative: Europe is under assault by crime, Muslims, terrorism, immigration, homosexuality, political correctness and effete bureaucrats.

Occasionally, fake news stories go viral and flood into the venues such as the Russian-backed RT television network and the Sputnik news agency, whose slick content reaches an increasing audience in Europe and the United States.

One example: the horrifying tale of Lisa, a Russian-German teenager who told police she was kidnapped and raped by three men resembling Muslim immigrants. The case erupted in January of last year. Europe was on edge because of the very real and ugly spate of sexual assaults on women by groups of men, many of them of Muslim descent, during New Years Eve celebrations in Cologne, Germany.

Sergey Lavrov

AP Photo/Ivan SekretarevThe German authorities insisted from the beginning that there was no proof of the girls allegations. But the Lisa story gained momentum, driven by heavy, sometimes inaccurate coverage on Kremlin-backed and pro-Russian outlets as well as social media. The frenzy reached the point that Russias foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said at a news conference that German authorities appeared to be hushing up the incident out of political correctness, according to news reports.

Soon, however, the teenager admitted to lying. She had stayed overnight at the home of a 19-year-old male friend without permission and invented the rape story to explain her disappearance, according to media reports.

There is no evidence Russian operatives played a role in creating the initial story. But the German government and other critics have rebuked the Kremlin and the Russian media, saying they amplified and distorted the case even after it was shown to be untrue.

The story was totally fake, Foxall said. This is a well-established pattern. Other stories have travelled such a path, but without the same kind of success.

Nonetheless, Russian influence campaigns find a more welcoming political atmosphere in Europe than in the United States. After all, leftist parties in France, Italy and other nations had strong ideological and financial ties to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. There is also a pro-Russian tradition, often fomented by anti-Americanism, among some rightist and nationalist parties.

Russia spends considerable money and energy wooing sympathetic European politicians and activists. They are often, though not always, populist, nationalist, fascist, far-left, anti-system or just plain disruptive. The most powerful unabashedly pro-Moscow figure is probably Le Pen, whose presidential campaign has thrived partly because of her effort to distance herself from the angry, anti-Semitic image of her father, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Nigel Farage

Photo by Carl Court/Getty ImagesThe list also includes Nigel Farage, the brash British politician who oversaw the underdog campaign for the Brexit, and admires both President Putin and President Trump; Nick Griffin of the far-right British National Party, who after observing Russian legislative elections in 2011 pronounced them much fairer than Britains; and Matteo Salvini of the rightist and separatist Lega Nord (Northern League), which along with the populist 5 Stelle party constitutes a large pro-Moscow bloc in Italy.

To be sure, more moderate leaders in Europe also favor stronger ties to Russia and have good relationships with President Putin. Among them is former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, the center-right presidential candidate competing for a spot in the runoff election.

Russian officials and their European allies argue that Moscows legitimate diplomatic outreach is being demonized. But European government officials worry about activity that crosses the line into funding, recruitment and manipulation by spy agencies.

I think some of our political parties are vulnerable to infiltration, the Italian national security official said. They dont have the experience, the anti-bodies, to fend off such formidable intelligence services.

And there are concerns about wider repercussions. In January, the Center for International Research at Sciences Po, one of Frances most prestigious universities, abruptly canceled a scheduled appearance in Paris by David Satter, an American author. Satter is a well-regarded foreign correspondent who has spent four decades covering Russia. In 2013, he became the first U.S. journalist expelled from the country by the Kremlin since the Cold War. His latest book, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep, details allegations that Russian intelligence services were covertly involved in mass-casualty terrorist attacks in Russia.

The cancellation caused a fierce debate about censorship when a leaked email revealed that administrators made the decision because they feared reprisals against Sciences Po students and researchers in Russia, citing the current context of tensions, according to Le Monde newspaper.

Despite the tensions in Europe and the concerns about interference, recent elections in the Netherlands went off without problems, with the party Moscow favored running well behind. The next test will be Sundays vote in France, where cybersecurity agencies are on alert. The government has taken precautions such as requiring the estimated 1.8 million French voters living overseas to cast their ballots by mail or proxy, rather than online, according to French officials.

What we have seen so far is enough to conclude that the Russians have carried out an influence campaign, a French diplomat said. But I dont think it will have a significant impact on the outcome of the election. We have to stay calm.

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Putin will be keeping silent on potential military movement. (Bild: AP)

Vladimir Putin is refusing to comment on media reports that Russia is quietly moving military hardware and troops towards the border with North Korea.

According to the RIA news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that deployments of Russian troops inside Russias own borders were not a public matter.

Unverified video footage appears to show a train, believed to be one of three, loaded with military equipment and headed towards the 11-mile border between Russia and the secretive hermit state.

Another video appears to show military helicopters moving towards the Russian border as well as army combat vehicles moving across rugged terrain.

A report from primemedia.RU claims: Railway trains loaded with military equipment moving towards Primorsky region via Khabarovsk have been noticed by locals.

A military official added: The movement of military equipment by different means of transport to southern areas is being observed across Primorsky region over the past week.

South Korea on heightened alert

Meanwhile, South Korea confirmed on Friday morning it was on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary north of the border, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang.

U.S. officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signalling a possible heightened state of readiness by Beijing, reclusive North Koreas sole major ally, although the officials played down concern and left open a range of possible reasons.

Kims extraordinary threats

Yesterday, Kim Jong-un issued a stark warning to the U.S., telling them that they face a super-mighty preemptive strike in an astonishing threat.

State controlled media claimed North Korea could immediately wipe out the US mainland and reduce its enemies to ashes, warning Donald Trump: Dont mess with us.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Norths ruling Workers Party, said: In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes.

Story continues

The statement came as footage emerged of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un smiling and waving as cheering crowds watched a simulation of a U.S. city being wiped out by a nuclear attack.

North Korea showed off its military might with a display of missiles at a parade (Rex)

Tensions have been rising between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump (Rex)

North Korea claimed earlier this year that it had successfully tested a new type of medium- to long-range ballistic missile.

However, last week it conducted a failed missile test, drawing international condemnation.

A war of words has broken out recently after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, warned that the era of strategic patience with North Korea is over, adding that any attack would be met with an overwhelming response.

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China has moved 150,000 troops to the notoriously secretive state, while Russian president Vladimir Putin has also reportedly relocated troops to its border with the country.

Russian military spokesman Alexander Gordeyev refused to say why troops and equipment had been moved but said exercises had recently ended in the TransBaikal region of Siberia.

Moscows deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said: Unfortunately, we have to admit that the risk of a serious conflict in this region has substantially increased.

Above pic: Rex

The movement comes only a day after Russia and the US clashed at the UN over a UN security council statement, drafted by the US, which condemned North Koreas latest failed test.

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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: Were reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to re-engage with us.

Hwang Kyo-ahn, the acting president of South Korea, has also called for security agencies and international regimes to remain vigilant after North Korea launched a missile into the sea last week.
By Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian authorities detained a former lawmaker and the deputy chief of state energy firm Naftogaz in a case related to the embezzlement of $17.3 million through selling uranium concentrate at inflated prices, prosecutors and the anti-corruption bureau said on Friday. The anti-corruption bureau NABU suspects former lawmaker Mykola Martynenko of benefiting through an Austria-registered company from the uranium sales to a state-owned enrichment plant in 2014, at a time when he was the head of the energy committee in parliament. He says the case is politically motivated. Sergiy Pereloma, first deputy chairman of state-run Naftogaz, was also detained, suspected of being an intermediary. His lawyer denied his involvement. Naftogaz said the matter related to activities before he joined the company. "The investigation found that the amount of losses inflicted on the state is more than $17 million dollars," chief anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytskyi told a news conference. Kiev needs to prove to its Western backers that it has become serious about tackling corruption, which it must do as part of a $40 billion bailout rolled out after street protests in 2013/2014, the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of separatist fighting in eastern Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund has previously criticised Kiev for not prosecuting and convicting corrupt high-level officials. In April, the IMF said Ukraine's anti-graft drive had yet to achieve "concrete results". Martynenko is the most high-profile person to be detained for corruption since Roman Nasirov, the head of the fiscal service, who is now under house arrest over the alleged embezzlement of around $75 million. Nasirov denies wrongdoing. "This case is political and is not backed by any evidence," Martynenko said in a video posted on the website of his People's Front party. Pereloma's lawyer Igor Cherezov told Reuters: "He is accused of collusion with Martynenko." Cherezov said his client was "extremely surprised". "He has as much involvement in the case as you or I," he said. Naftogaz's spokeswoman said the accusations against Pereloma related to his activities before he joined the company, and that Naftogaz was willing to cooperate with the investigation. Naftogaz has undergone Western-backed reforms since 2014 but the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has warned that these changes are in danger of unravelling. (Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Alexandra Ulmer and Anggy Polanco CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's security forces are finding that low salaries, fear of violent clashes, and opposition to President Nicolas Maduro are hurting their recruiting and retention efforts, sources in or close to the armed forces and police told Reuters. Maduro, a leftist who is facing the fiercest protests against him in three years, has promised to boost the armed forces, police, and civilian defence groups to guard against what he says is an attempt to overthrow "21st century Socialism." To help meet the needs, Venezuela's National Guard, a branch of the armed forces and the main group in charge of maintaining public order during demonstrations, has reduced training time, increased service time, and waived certain hiring requirements, the sources said. Police, meanwhile, are struggling with resignations and lack of equipment, they added. The difficulties highlight a risk for Maduro amid a surge of street demonstrations in recent weeks and a devastating economic crisis that has wiped out salaries and left many Venezuelans struggling to eat properly - including low-level soldiers and their relatives. To be sure, there is no outward sign of dissent in the armed forces, which frequently pledge their loyalty to Maduro. Maduro's predecessor, the late leader Hugo Chavez, an army lieutenant colonel, turned the military into a bastion of "Chavismo" after a short-lived coup against him in 2002. The military brass stands to lose should the opposition, which accuses top officers of trafficking drugs and engaging in corrupt business deals with the government, come to power. Authorities deny systemic wrongdoing and say they are cracking down on a few bad eggs. But behind the impassive faces of ordinary National Guards troops blocking protesters who chant "No to dictatorship!" during rowdy marches, similar anger sometime lurks. "As soon as I finish my 15 years of service next year, I'm out," said a National Guard serviceman, asking to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to media, complaining of a lack of professionalism and salaries that amount to a few dozen dollars a month on the black market. Given a lack of public information about the armed forces, which number about 140,000, it is not possible to get a sense of the extent of the discontent or statistics for resignations or hires. The Information and Defense Ministries did not respond to requests for comment, although in the past authorities have described criticism of the armed forces as smear attempts. 'QUANTITY NOT QUALITY' Amid Venezuela's deepening crisis, green uniformed-National Guard troops have also been sent to control food lines at supermarkets, man checkpoints, and guard against theft in hospitals and isolated oil fields. Maduro said in January he wanted to train 10,000 more police officers and 10,000 more members of the National Guard by July, citing the need to combat crime in violent Venezuela. On Monday he also said he wanted to boost the militia - similar to civilian reserves - to 500,000 this year and arm them all with rifles to held fend off what he says is a U.S.-backed opposition attempt to foment a coup. "A rifle for each militia man, a rifle for each militia woman!" said Maduro, sporting a green military hat as he addressed the armed forces. "The big aim... is to organise and form one million militia men and woman, trained and armed to defend the peace, sovereignty and independence of our fatherland," he said, pointing to a deepening militarization in a country of around 30 million inhabitants. Washington has expressed concern over the situation in Venezuela. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday the United States is worried Maduro is silencing the opposition. Training times for National Guard service members dropped from around a year and a half to just six months two years ago after the last wave of major protests, according to three National Guard members, military analyst Rocio San Miguel, and a former general who has turned against the government. The National Guard has also responded to lack of applicants by extending enrolment periods and ignoring certain hiring stipulations, for example that new recruits cannot have tattoos. "The aim is quantity, not quality," Cliver Alcala, the former "Chavista" general who is now an outspoken critic of Maduro. "And shorter training is proportional to the number of resignations. Problems are deepening." A decade ago, many poor, rural young men saw joining the National Guard or becoming a police officer as a good career path that led to solid salaries and benefits. Now, some sell clothes, shoes, or import goods from neighbouring Colombia to help make ends meet, one high-ranking National Guard officer said. The country's various police forces are also struggling with resignations, according to five internal sources, as officers are exposed to Venezuela's violent streets and often lack adequate protective gear. Of a police force that numbered around 5,000 officers until a few years ago in the northwestern state of Falcon, for instance, around 2,000 have resigned, most of them last year, a source in the police told Reuters. Some of the officers have to buy their own bullets as these are no longer supplied, the source added. The Falcon state government did not respond to a request for comment. (Additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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An authentic Native American pairing dinner set inside the Indian Pueblo Cultural Centers museum will please the eyes and the taste buds.

Bow and Arrow Brewing Co. and Pueblo Harvest Cafe inside the cultural center have joined forces to present the Bow & Arrow Pairing Dinner & Museum Experience on Wednesday, April 26. Museum Director Monique Fragua of Jemez Pueblo will guide guests through the museums pueblo art and its history.

Shell be directing people through this whole meal and explain what each dish is, where it comes from, and kind of how it relates to the Native culture, said David Ruiz, Pueblo Harvest Cafe executive chef.

The dinner begins with Chicos Stew paired with Wayward Arrow Hefeweizen.

I think (Wayward Arrow Hefeweizen) goes well with the sweetness of the smoked corn kernels that lend to the stew a nice sweetness, said Shyla Sheppard, Bow & Arrow owner and CEO.  Its a German wheat with aromatics of banana cream and a little bit of cloves that will go well with the savory stew.

Next is Rainbow Quinoa with grilled asparagus, shaved sunchokes, wild peas and beets, served with Sun Dagger Belgian Saison. It will be followed by an elk tamale course.

A lot of Native American pueblos they eat wild game, Ruiz explained.  We decided to go with elk and we wanted to use it with something that is common here in New Mexico so we decided to go with tamales, which is obviously a Latin American kind of dish. We decided to kind of fuse the two because you see tamales cooked on the pueblos.

The elk tamale will be paired with Crossed Arrows Scotch Ale.

We felt that the Crossed Arrows Scotch Ale paired perfectly with that, Sheppard said. The scotch ale has got that roasted malt character with maple and sarsaparilla notes as well. We were both convinced it would be a great pairing for that heavier, richer dish with smoked organic mushrooms. There is smoked peated malt in the scotch ale. Its subtle but its there. It will complement and bring out (the flavors) in this enjoyable dish.

A braised lamb osso buco with red corn polenta, charred baby corn elote and golden raisins will be complemented by Flint & Grit English Mild Hybrid for the fourth course. Flint & Grit has a nice caramel, toasted character is made with 100 pounds of local blue corn, according to Sheppard.

The finale is a Navajo creme brulee with Navajo tea, corn husk meringue and Wojapi syrup paired with Bock in the Day Doppelbock.

They take berries like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and what they do is they cook it down with a little bit of sugar and just a hint of vinegar, Ruiz said. They cook it down so it becomes a syrup. You dont see Wojapi here in New Mexico. You do see is it a lot in the Northern Plains and the Central Plains and even in the Northeast. Wojapi is a very famous dish that is basically baked like a berry crisp. They make it into a syrup and top it with almost like a crumble and then they bake it in an horno.

Bow & Arrow Pairing Dinner & Museum Experience

WHEN: 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 26

WHERE: Pueblo Harvest Cafe inside the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th NW

HOW MUCH: $65 per person, tax and gratuity not included. Reservations, call 724-3510
In the past year as Miss Indian World, Danielle TaSheena Finn has traveled around the world.

Shes experienced places in the world, she only dreamed of.

One of the coolest moments from the last year is that I was on Abbey Road, she says. I walked across the road with all my regalia on. Its crazy to me, because Native Americans dont get too many chances to go to England.

As she looks back at her yearlong reign, shes full of many emotions.

This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she says. Ive done so much. One year is 365 days, and I was scheduled to do something every single day.

When she was crowned, Finn was a full-time law student at Arizona State University.

By overloading on classes during the beginning of the week, it left her time to travel to her engagements at the end of the week.

I look back at how I did it all, and Im not sure how it came together, she says.

Finn, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, is from Porcupine, N.D.

She is the daughter of Brenda One Hawk Finn and John E. Finn.

She competed against 24 Native American women representing different tribes and traditions. Each was judged in tribal knowledge, dancing ability, public speaking, and personality.

I competed for my people, she says. When I was named, they announced from Standing Rock, and I knew it was immediately me. I am the first to be crowned from Standing Rock. It was special because my tribe has been going through so much this year with the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Being named Miss Indian World came with a lot of honor.

Miss Indian World is one of the most prestigious honors in the Native American and indigenous world, and the winner will serve as a role model for all Native Americans, says Melonie Mathews, coordinator of the Miss Indian World Pageant.

Finn focused on three platforms  suicide prevention, higher education and language revitalization, along with talking about her home, where the Dakota Access Pipeline was being protested.

There want to put a pipeline through our only water source, she says. I think being Miss Indian World helped give the tribe a better platform.

Finn also encouraged youths to reach for their dreams and keep furthering their education.

I think when (the message) comes from someone like me, they listen more, she says. School isnt for everyone, but there are so many other ways to educate yourself and make a better future.

As her reign comes to a close, Finn is looking forward to getting some rest before she takes the bar exam in the summer. She intends to practice federal and tribal law.

Im going to be inside for two months studying, she says with a laugh. I cant wait to start practicing.

Miss Indian World 2017

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday, April 27; doors open at 6 p.m. Winner is crowned at 7:30 p.m. April 29

WHERE: Kiva Auditorium, 401 Second NW

HOW MUCH: $15 at the door or gatheringofnations.com

Gathering of Nations

WHEN: 9 a.m.-midnight April 28-29

WHERE: Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico, 300 San Pedro NE

HOW MUCH: $18 one-day, $36 two-day at gatheringofnations.com or at the door; General public will enter at Gate 8 off Louisiana NE
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Public Service Company of New Mexico is proposing to shed all of its coal-fired electricity in the next 14 years and replace it with solar, wind, natural gas and nuclear power.

The companys latest integrated resource plan  which looks out over 20 years to determine the cheapest, most reliable and environmentally friendly mix of resources  has found that shutting down the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station near Farmington in 2022 and relinquishing the utilitys 13 percent share in the nearby Four Corners Generating Station in 2031 would save consumers money in the long term.

The company published a first draft of the resource plan late Thursday. Its now open for public comment before a final version is filed with New Mexico Public Regulation Commission in July.

The 20-year plan, which PNM is required by law to submit to the PRC every three years, outlines the most effective way to deliver reliable, affordable and environmentally stable energy going forward, said PNM Resources Chairwoman, President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn.

Market forces are driving a rapid evolution of energy resources, and the current data clearly supports the replacement of the coal in our portfolio with an energy mix that includes more renewables and natural gas as the best, most economical path to a strong energy future for New Mexico, Vincent-Collawn said in a statement.

PNM is already committed to closing two of four generating units at the San Juan plant next year to meet environmental regulations. To gain support from other organizations and the PRC for that partial shutdown, it agreed to begin evaluating other alternatives to San Juan in 2018, opening the possibility for full-plant closure after 2022, when San Juans current coal supply contract expires.

In preparing the new resource plan, the company compared the costs and benefits of two future scenarios, one with San Juan still operating after 2022 and one without. It modeled hundreds of different energy mixes under both scenarios to determine the lowest-cost option for consumers, which now appears to be not only shutting down all of San Juan, but exiting all holdings in the Four Corners plant, as well, when the coal supply contract there ends in 2031, said PNMs planning and resources director, Pat OConnell.

The plan would get PNM entirely out of coal, OConnell said. It would be replaced by hundreds of megawatts more of solar and natural gas, some nuclear and possibly wind resources.

After the two San Juan generating units are shut down next year, PNM will still rely on coal for the production of about 700 megawatts of power.

The company has already issued requests for proposals to build more solar capacity on its grid to meet state mandates that it derive at least 20 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020, OConnell said.

Additional wind will largely depend on new transmission lines to transport electricity from New Mexicos gusty eastern plains. Todays transmission capacity is booked solid with current and planned wind projects.

As for nuclear, PNM already owns 288 megawatts of electricity output from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona. It leases another 114 MW, which the utility proposes to acquire after those leases expire in 2023 and 2024.

Nuclear and natural gas generation are critical baseload resources that can supply electricity 24/7, filling in for solar and wind when the sun doesnt shine or the wind doesnt blow.

If we reduce our nuclear capacity, wed have to replace that 24/7 baseload with carbon-emitting resources, OConnell said.

The integrated resource plan includes a four-year plan of action to continue testing all long-term assumptions on cost savings while paving the way for implementation in following years. That includes filing for full abandonment of San Juan in 2018, securing the Palo Verde leased capacity, initiating RFPs for alternative resources to fully validate cost assumptions, and identifying opportunities to expand transmission capacity from eastern New Mexico.

The company will also consider adding energy storage facilities to the grid, something that is still not cost-effective but could become so after San Juan is shut down, OConnell said.

Many things have made alternative resources cheaper than coal. That includes low natural gas prices and declining costs for solar and wind.

But the key factor is changes in electricity consumption patterns, with energy efficiency and customer-sited solar installations significantly slowing growth in electricity demand, OConnell said. The company expects rooftop solar and direct industrial use of renewable resources to grow a lot more in coming years.

As a result, the traditional model of relying almost wholly on 24/7 baseload plants to meet demand is a thing of the past.

We need a new resource portfolio that accounts for all these changes, one thats more flexible than what we have now, OConnell said.

Given all the changes, the cost of environmental regulations on carbon emissions is no longer a big factor in abandoning coal.

Its market forces that are driving these decisions, PNM spokesman Pahl Shipley said.

Still, if the PRC approves PNMs plan, ratepayers would face costs for shutting down PNM coal generation, and the economies of the Farmington area and the Navajo Nation would be affected.

While this plan offers significant environmental benefits and is the most cost-effective for customers, we know that it will have an impact on the economy of the Four Corners area and the families and businesses that depend on the coal industry for income, Vincent-Collawn said. PNM will work with the communities that will be most affected and other stakeholders to mitigate the effects of these changes.
Richard P. Cook, a bastion of Espanolas business community for decades, passed away on Monday at age 91, his family has disclosed.

His widespread interests in northern New Mexico have included Espanola Transiit Mix, a concrete, sand and gravel supplier; the Cooks Home Center hardware store; his role as a founding member of Valley National Bank; and land development projects across the region.

I would say that Richard Cook was a giant in northern New Mexico commerce, said Joseph Maestas, the former Espanola mayor who now serves as a Santa Fe city councilor.

Maestas noted that Cook had lived in a modest house on Espanolas west side for decades even though he was probably a millionaire several times over.

Katharine Fishman, Cooks daughter, said, If you transferred him to a big city, you would never know how successful he was.

He wore the same things all the time  jeans and button-down shirts, she said. Fishman said Cook also drove the ugliest cars that were dirty inside from rock samples he carried around. He would always be prospecting, she said.

Fishman said her fathers life will be celebrated on Saturday with a parade through Espanola featuring Cooks varied vehicle fleet  cement mixers, flat-bed trucks, and trucks and trailers from mining operations. Other truckers who worked with him and possibly a couple of firetrucks  Cook was volunteer firefighter  also may join in, she said.

The parade will start at noon and, at 1 p.m., there will be a community celebration at the Ohkay Owingeh Hotel Resort and Casino Ballroom.

Cook, a native of Espanola, was a World War II-era Navy veteran. He was often in the news in relation to his business projects, including numerous tussles with local and state regulators over his mining operations. He and his family have been working in recent years on a planned 420-acre commercial development near the Santa Fe Airport, including by constructing the states first privately funded freeway interchange at Jaguar Drive and N.M. 599.

I think he was the single largest private sector employer, probably in northern New Mexico, said Fishman.
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe gave its blessing to the proposal to tax distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages this week after one of its priests reportedly came out against the tax with posts on his personal Facebook page.

On Wednesday, the archdiocese issued a statement in support of a 2-cents-per-ounce tax that is expected to raise more than $7 million per year to help fund local early childhood education programs. Early voting has already started for a special election that will decide the matter on May 2.

The soda tax is a good attempt to address the dire conditions in which our children are living, said the statement from the Archdiocese of Santa Fes office of communications. In good conscience, we cannot let our children stagnate in the plight they are in, with some of the worst wellbeing outcomes in the nation.

The statement notes that New Mexico ranks No. 1 in the nation for children living in poverty and second-highest for children living in hunger. It says that because of the New Mexico state Senates failure to support a constitutional amendment to earmark more from the states largest permanent fund to finance early education programs, municipalities must seek funding for essential programs.

We must put our children first. If the State fails to address this, then we commend municipalities for taking action to address the wellbeing of our children.

Allen Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, in an interview Friday said the church hadnt weighed in on the soda tax proposal in Santa Fe until now because the debate is just now reaching a boiling point.

The statement from the archdiocese came the same day the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that the rector at the Cathedral Bascilica of St. Francis in Santa Fe had come out against the tax with a post on his personal Facebook page. Vote NO on the sugar/soda tax!, Rev. Adam Lee Ortega y Ortiz, reportedly said in a message since deleted. I fully support Pre-K for Santa Fe BUT THIS TAX IS WRONG!!

Sanchez said thats not what prompted Archbishop John Wester to release a statement. But it does bring up the issue that maybe we need to have one clear voice on the issue, he said.

Sanchez said the church has been having a dialogue with Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales. He commended the mayor making the children of the community a priority.

Mayor Gonzales thanked the archdiocese for the endorsement in a statement. It is a direct reflection of Pope Francis when he said always care for the children, not counting the costs,' the mayor said. He reminded us that Every child who begs on the streets, who is denied an education or medical care, is a cry to God,' the mayor said.

Asked for his response to the endorsement of the tax by the archdiocese, David Huynh of Better Way for Santa Fe & Pre-K, a political committee opposing the tax, said, Theres clearly some division within the Catholic church on who supports and who does not. Were happy with support were getting throughout the community.

On Thursday, Santa Fes Interfaith Coalition for Public Education also came out with an endorsement of the tax. In a news release, it said that this tax and the implementation plan provide a solid foundation for improving the health and educational outcomes of our children, particularly our neediest children.
Our dangers are from within

WHILE DIANE Dimond has written some thoughtful columns off and on, I really have to take issue with her on her (April 8) column about Russian influence, real or imagined, in our latest presidential election. First of all, the United States itself has meddled in the activities of other countries, including those of Russia, for at least 72 years. We even rigged political elections in the Western European countries of Italy and France in the 1940s and early 1950s, in Australia during the early- to mid-1970s when we deposed the democratically elected government of Prime Minister (Gough) Whitlam, or in engineering the unseating of a democratically elected president in Chile, Salvador Allende, and replacing him with a brutal tyrant named Augusto Pinochet who committed far more human rights violations than Allende did.

Second, the nations most dangerous enemies are all domestic and all come from the right end of the political spectrum: the neocons; the neo-liberals; and fringe white militia groups. The neocons include the Deep State  a cabal of unaccountable governmental officials from the NSA, CIA, etc.  and individuals like Hillary Clinton who are willing to have a pre-emptive nuclear war with Russia and the Palestinians/Arabs. 

Trump is the next most serious threat to our country with his xenophobia, crude sexism, his appointment of extremist Supreme Court justices and Cabinet members, and his willingness to use torture and mass murder, etc., to further his agenda. Beside the(se) domestic threats, we have the  white hate groups that dwarf any threat Mexicans, Arabs, etc., could ever pose to our country.

WILLIAM R. DELZELL

Albuquerque

Its time to seek peace

RECENT NEWS has covered the missile attack on a Syrian airbase ordered by Donald Trump. A poor example from a president that campaigned on not bombing Syria. A president who campaigned on making America great again, wasting millions of dollars of taxpayers money. What did this missile strike really do when they were flying aircraft out of the very same airbase by the next day?

Did we really need to launch this attack? Why do our countrys leaders continue to involve us in foreign military conflicts that have nothing to do with our country? Our military is meant for national defense, not for regime change and nation building. Its time we stop sending our troops into pointless military action, stop putting our youths lives at risk for nothing more than government agenda and greed. As one of the biggest super powers in the world, there was absolutely no reason to send 59 Tomahawk missiles into a small country (like) Syria.

Arent we as a nation tired of war? Arent we tired of watching politicians use our military and our youth to further their agendas? We need peace in our country, not an absolute addiction to war. For the past 15 years, our troops have been involved in military conflicts around the world, predominantly in the Middle East, yet weve never been attacked by any of these countries in how long? September 11 happened over 15 years ago, and no attacks since, yet here we are sending 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria. How can you look at this any other way than as an act of war ordered without congressional approval. Its time we move our country toward peace and liberty, not more war.

STEPHEN DESPIN JR.

Albuquerque

Lawyers want status quo

I WOULD be less skeptical about the eventual outcome of the commission named by the state Supreme Court to investigate the scandal involving court-appointed guardianship of elderly family members if this 16-member body werent so overloaded with representatives of the legal industry. Im afraid there are way too many lawyers and judges on it who could stand to gain, in one way or another, by preserving the status quo. Its too tempting to issue a final report months from now that whitewashes the present legal scheme they may have had a hand in establishing.  Maybe the Supreme Court thinks lay people arent smart enough to delve into this issue; I submit they are indeed and would almost certainly act without prejudice.

JOHN GILLIS

Santa Fe

Its time to cut the military

FIFTY YEARS AGO, on April 4, 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the war in Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. He said: A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Today in the United States, just over half of all federal discretionary spending goes to the military. And the White House has proposed U.S. military spending be increased by $54 billion next year. Yet, the United States already spends more on its military than the next seven nations combined  China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, France and Japan. Is it really necessary for us to spend more on our military than the next seven nations combined in order to defend ourselves? Is it really necessary to our national security for the nation to maintain a network of some 800 military bases in 160 countries all around the world? Or has our military spending become a national addiction over which we seemingly have no control  a result of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex about which President Dwight Eisenhower warned? 

There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, King said, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

REV. ROGER SCOTT POWERS

Pastor, St. Andrew Presbyterian Church

Albuquerque

Time to wean off oil, gas

THERE ARE SO many issues that could be addressed in Doug Turners sarcastic and misleading (April 3) op-ed, Keep it in the ground movement naive to realities, but Id like to address just a few.

First: Chaco Canyon. Drilling and fracking anywhere and, in particular, just outside of and on the way into the World Heritage Site is damaging. Drilling pads, derricks, industry truck traffic, air pollution, light pollution, noise pollution are all damaging the environment surrounding Chaco right now.

Hydraulic fracturing damages more than just water sources and, according to publicly available data from the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, in 2016 an average of 1,609 gallons of crude oil was spilled each day, along with 9,052 gallons of produced water, salty wastewater often laden with toxic chemicals.

Second: Reality. No one is ignorant of the fact that oil and gas has contributed to the states economy while enjoying the profits they make.  We also know the state pays a price  in the form of pollution, degraded land and related health issues in spite of (current) regulations. 

Third: Technology. We know solar and wind energy are plentiful and technology is rapidly lowering their cost while employing thousands of New Mexicans.  The Department of Energys U.S. Energy and Employment Report, released in January, showed the solar industry creates more electricity-generation employment than oil, gas, coal and nuclear combined.

the longer we wait, the more we put jobs and our economy at risk as the rest of the nation moves ahead of us by embracing these new technologies. It is naive to think otherwise.

LYNNE FISCHER

Santa Fe
If a 2-cents-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is approved by Santa Fe voters in a special election on May 2, would the City Different be any different from other places where so-called soda taxes have been imposed?

Studies  including two prominent reports funded by the pro-soda tax side  on the effect similar taxes have had in Mexico and in Berkeley, Calif., suggest a sharp decline in sales and consumption of sugary drinks, especially among low-income families, as consumers turn to water or other healthier drinks.

Whether a sales decline is good or bad is part of the argument in Santa Fes special election campaign.

Opponents of the tax say fewer sales of sugary drinks means a loss of jobs. Proponents say less consumption of sweetened beverages is a win-win, helping produce a healthier population, even as the tax generates revenue  estimated at more than $7 million a year  to finance an expansion of pre-kindergarten programs in Santa Fe.

Regular population growth and Santa Fes tourist trade will help sustain tax revenue as a funding source for pre-K as per-capita soda consumption goes down, they say. Opponents doubt that and cite recent developments in Philadelphia, where a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on distributors of sweetened drinks went into effect Jan. 1.

Shops are reporting sales losses as people shop outside the city, Barry Kiess, CEO of Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Santa Fe, said in a statement to the Journal. As a result, small businesses are making layoffs, they arent hiring and hard-working peoples paychecks have decreased.

Philadelphias supermarkets and distributors there report a 30 percent to 50 percent drop in sales of sugary drinks after the first two months of the tax and some have threatened layoffs. The city and Mayor Jim Kenney have stridently disputed those reports, calling the soda industrys claims fear-mongering.

Just this week, the Public Health Institute in Oakland released a study by PHI and researchers from the University of North Carolina examining the impact a 1-cent-per-ounce sugary drink tax has had in Berkeley. The study says consumers didnt end up with higher grocery bills overall and local businesses werent harmed by the tax over its first year.

The Berkeley tax is a home run, Lynn Silver, a PHI researcher who was the lead author of the study, said. Residents chose healthier options, it raised revenue for promoting health and we saw no evidence of higher grocery bills for consumers or harm to local business revenue.

The study follows another one released last fall by researchers at the University of California Berkeley that focused on the impact of the tax on lower-income households in the first six months. That study found a 20 percent drop in consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages in Berkeleys low-income neighborhoods, while consumption of the same types of drinks rose by 4 percent in nearby Oakland and San Francisco, both of which have now passed soda taxes that havent yet gone into effect.

It also found that Berkeley residents reported a whopping 63 percent increase in the consumption of bottled or tap water.

The new PHI study used a years worth of data that included 15.5 million consumer checkouts at 23 stores not just in Berkeley, but also in the surrounding Bay Area for comparative purposes. It also conducted phone surveys of nearly 1,000 Berkeley residents before and after the tax.

Among the findings were:

 Sales of sugary drinks dropped 9.6 percent in Berkeley, while they increased 6 percent in stores located in Bay Area cities where there was no tax.

 Sales of water increased by 15.6 percent, meaning people purchased more ounces of water than what was measured as the decrease of ounces of sugary drinks.

 Overall, the sales of untaxed healthier beverages, like fruit and vegetable drinks, tea, and plain milk, increased by 3.5 percent.

 The $1.4 million generated by the tax in the first year translates to $12 per capita in Berkeley.

 About two-thirds of the penny-per-ounce tax on distributors was passed through to consumers. It was fully passed through for soda and energy drinks, and at large and small chain stores and chain gas stations, but only partially passed through at smaller corner stores and independent gas stations.

Kiess, of the Santa Fe Coke bottling firm, says that, if approved, the tax on sugary drinks would likely be fully passed through to consumers  $1.44 per six pack of 12-ounce cans, for example. It would be hard for any business in Santa Fe to absorb a 100 percent tax, he said.

A win-win

Pre-K for Santa Fe, a political committee supporting the tax, was quick to hail the new study in a news release with quotes from restaurant owners and Kelly ODonnell, an economist who conducted her own analysis used to support the idea of a soda tax. These findings are consistent with the economic forecasts I conducted on the soda tax in Santa Fe. It truly is a win-win for the community, she said.

The study was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable group of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a huge financial supporter of pro-soda tax campaigns, including Santa Fes. According to campaign finance statements, Bloomberg so far has contributed $329,750 of in-kind services to Pre-K for Santa Fe.

Asked whether it was fair to question the study considering its funding source, Sandra Wechsler, a spokeswoman with Pre-K for Santa Fe, said, The study was published in a peer review medical journal and conducted by well-credentialed public health researchers and scientists.

David Huynh of Better Way for Santa Fe & Pre-K, the political committee opposing the tax, said the study actually supports what his group has been saying. It shows that the tax would be passed on to consumers, that people are willing to shop outside the city and that beverage sales would decline, he said.

Huynh said for those who see the tax as a way to reduce obesity, the tax in Berkeley is a failure. He points to data from the study that show the tax resulted in a reduction of just six calories per day from sugared drinks for Berkeley residents, which was more than offset by a 32-calorie-per-day increase from non-taxed beverages like milkshakes and yogurt smoothies.

Those are the same points made by the American Beverage Association in a blog post in response to the study. The ABA is the main contributor to the anti-tax Better Way for Santa Fe & Pre-K, which so far has received more than $1 million in support of the campaign against the tax.

Bloomberg Philanthropies also helped fund a previous study on what amounts to a 10 percent tax on sugary beverages in Mexico after its first two years.

Examining store purchases from 6,645 households, the study found a 5.5 percent reduction in the sale of sugary beverages in 2014, followed by another 4.2 percent decrease in 2015. Like the Berkeley studies, the greatest decline in Mexico sales occurred among lower socioeconomic households.

A prior study by the Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica published in the British Medical Journal had found a bigger reduction after the first year the tax went into effect. Its survey of 6,200 households in 53 Mexican cities showed a 12 percent drop in sales the first year of the tax. Again, the greatest reduction was in the poorest households where purchases of sugary drinks dropped 17 percent.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

On Monday, 6-year-old Joel Anthony and 9-year-old sister Ariana were in the car with their mother, Antoinette, on their way to spend their Easter money on Legos and other toys.

At the same time, a police officer responding to a call, with emergency lights on, was driving north on Eubank. The two vehicles collided as Antoinette turned left onto Indian School, leaving the two children critically injured.

Thursday evening, the family told the Journal the decision had been made to take Joel off life support.

Leah Nielsen, the childrens aunt, was in tears as she relayed a message from their mother.

We lost the most loving child, she said. Hes a fighter and hes on a new journey now.

Nielsen said Joels sister Ariana has broken bones and remains in critical condition. She is in and out of consciousness and has not yet been told about her younger brother.

Ariana has a really long road left, Nielsen said. They seem more optimistic, but its tough.

She said the childrens mother is very bruised, very sore and completely devastated.

Antoinette hasnt left their side, Nielsen said. Shes just walking back and forth from each room, rooting them on and holding their hands.

Joels father has been there, too, she said.

The police officer involved in the crash, Johnathan McDonnell, is a nine-year veteran of the force. He suffered a broken femur and other injuries and was still sedated in the hospital Wednesday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque Police Department.

APD said Monday night that McDonnell had been responding to reports of a man armed with a machete at an Albertsons grocery store on Juan Tabo and Candelaria, but spokespersons have not answered any other questions about that call, including whether the man was taken into custody.

Officials havent released any other information about the crash, including how fast the officer was going and when he turned on his emergency lights.

Based on video footage of the crash recorded from a street-side business and analysis of the traffic light patterns at the intersection, it appears both drivers had a green light.

The Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office is the lead agency investigating the crash, and spokeswoman Felicia Romero said the investigation is ongoing. She said the department will not release any more information without a request filed under the Inspection of Public Records Act.

Everyone ran in to help

When the two cars collided shortly after 6 p.m. Monday, the sound of the crash echoed through the streets. Neighbors, bystanders and passersby rushed to help.

I heard tires squealing and a bang, said Amy Diaz, who lives nearby. I looked out the window and could see smoke and dust. The cop is laying there and people are just rushing in and pulling the kids and the mother out of the vehicle.

She and Robin Candelaria said they ran out to help and watched as a woman performed CPR on a little boy before paramedics arrived.

Someone  I dont know who  asked someone for a knife, and they cut his seat belt and laid him on the ground, Candelaria said. The boy was unconscious. It was sad to see him lying there lifeless.

Candelaria said some people went to help the officer, while others tended to Antoinette and tried to keep her away from the sight of her children.

She was sitting on the curb yelling, My kids! My kids!  Candelaria said. She was banged up and screaming and crying.

Ambulances arrived and took all four to University of New Mexico Hospital.

Family and friends heard the news and rushed to be with them, taking shifts sitting with Antoinette and Joels father.

Nielsen said most of the family lives in the Northeast Heights, not far from where the crash occurred. She said its been hard to drive past the intersection each day and watch a memorial of flowers and stuffed animals grow around the light pole. Someone attached a cape around the pole, in honor of Joels love of superheroes.

Nielsen said Joels favorite hero was Batman, and last Halloween he dressed up as the character Woody from the film Toy Story, while her son dressed up as Buzz Lightyear.

She said his older sister Ariana loves puzzles and animals and is always talking about books and ideas. Ariana had been hoping to buy some materials to make a necklace Monday evening.

She said Antoinette has been struggling with feelings of disbelief and guilt since the crash and has been trying to come to terms with everything that has happened.

The kids are just everything that Antoinette has, Nielsen said.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Arkansas push to put eight men to death in less than two weeks has so far resulted in just one lethal injection, and legal experts say that shows the risks of pursuing the nations most ambitious execution schedule since the death penalty was restored in 1976.

Ledell Lee was executed minutes before his death warrant was set to expire late Thursday. It was the first time since 2005 that Arkansas had put an inmate to death.

Three other planned executions were canceled this week because of court decisions. Another inmate scheduled for execution next week has received a stay. And three remaining lethal injections face similar hurdles.

If I were in the states shoes, I would be prepared for almost double the level of scrutiny, said Brian Gallini, a law professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

At the heart of Arkansas plans is the sedative midazolam, one of three drugs used in lethal injections. The state is racing to carry out the executions before its supply of midazolam expires at the end of the month.

State officials said Friday that they were prepared to move forward with the remaining executions, starting with a double execution on Monday and a single execution on Thursday.

Gov. Asa Hutchinsons office acknowledged that the original plan confronted tall obstacles.

He knew there was a chance that not all of them would go through, said J.R. Davis, a spokesman for Hutchinson. Its not surprising that some of the executions have been stayed, but obviously last night we felt the right decision was handed down.

Lawyers for Marcel Williams and Jack Jones, the two inmates set for execution Monday, have filed several legal challenges in hopes of the stopping the executions. A federal judge on Friday rejected claims that the inmates poor health could make their lethal injections especially painful. Williams has also filed a challenge that claims his lawyers at trial were ineffectual.

Jeff Rosenzweig, an attorney for Jones, said the inmates conditions raise the likelihood of complications that were not apparent in Lees execution. Williams is obese and diabetic. Jones has diabetes, high blood pressure and has had a leg amputated in prison.

Authorities received the go-ahead to execute Lee after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last appeals. At least one high court justice expressed reservations about the states push to execute the inmates before its drug expired.

In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote Thursday in a dissent.

The legal fight over the executions also included an effort to prevent the state from using another lethal injection drug that its maker said it was misled into selling the prison system, not knowing it would be used for capital punishment.

Vecuronium bromide halts an inmates breathing. The state Supreme Court lifted a judges order preventing its use hours before Lees execution.

Inmates attorneys also failed in efforts to block the executions based on concerns about midazolam, which has been used in flawed executions in other states.

There were no apparent signs of complications or suffering during Lees execution, which lasted 12 minutes. But critics of midazolam say that does little to allay their concerns that the drug may not render inmates fully unconscious before they receive drugs to stop their hearts and lungs.

I dont know what the state is thinking, but just because this one appears to have gone off without a hitch doesnt meant that there are not problems, said Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender who witnessed Joseph Rudolph Woods slow death in a lethal injection that involved midazolam in 2014 in Arizona.

Attorneys for the inmates have complained the schedule is stretching their resources thin as they work against the clock. Its also posing a challenge for the states attorneys, who have been fighting on multiple fronts. The attorney generals office says 20 to 30 of its attorneys have been handling cases related to the inmates executions.

We are working to ensure that those sentences are carried out and that justice is served, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said.

Gallini said trying to salvage the rest of the execution schedule could invite even more intense legal battles because what started out as kind of a press release and a decision has ballooned into trending hashtags and international news coverage.

That extra attention, he said, has brought some major litigation players to the table.

___

Associated Press Writer Jill Bleed contributed to this report

___

Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo .
HOUSTON  An ex-Harris County district attorneys office investigator must serve five years probation and repay $157,000 in an evidence theft case involving rare comic books.

The Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/2oc5WLp ) reported Thursday that a federal judge sentenced Lonnie Blevins, who pleaded guilty to interstate transport of stolen goods. Prosecutors say Blevins sold some of the more than $1 million in collectibles at trade shows in San Antonio and Chicago.

Blevins testified against ex-partner Dustin Deutsch, also formerly an investigator with the DAs office. Deutsch was convicted in state court of theft by a public servant and received five years in prison.

Officials say the items were among evidence against a man later convicted of embezzling from a company. Restitution goes to the company and to dealers who bought stolen items from Blevins.

___

Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com
ST. LOUIS  A gunman who killed two utility workers in St. Louis before killing himself had a long criminal history, including drug and assault convictions, along with financial troubles leading to bankruptcy, court records show.

Police on Friday identified the gunman as 51-year-old Clinton Willis, who lived about a mile from where the Laclede Gas employees were shot Thursday. Police identified the slain workers as Alex Boschert, 27, and William Froelich, 52.

Police declined to discuss a possible motive, saying only that the shooting did not appear to be racially motivated. Willis was black, and both workers were white.

Electric utility Ameren Missouri confirmed in a statement that Willis had an account with the company but said he was not under the threat of disconnection of electricity. The statement followed a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report, citing unidentified sources, that Willis was upset about an unpaid electric bill. Police have not released a motive and declined to speculate on whether that could have been one.

Willis criminal history dates back more than 20 years and includes convictions on drug trafficking, assault and armed criminal action. Court records show he was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 1997, was paroled in January 2008 and released from supervision in September 2009.

While in prison, Willis was written up nearly three dozen times for creating disturbances, possessing contraband, disobeying orders, stealing and making threats, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. The records do not provide details on the misconduct.

Willis also filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and emerged from it the following January, according to court records.

Police said Willis walked up to the workers in a residential area of western edge of St. Louis and opened fire without saying a word. Both workers were shot in the chest; the gunman was shot in the head, and a gun was found next to him.

Boscherts family remembered him as a hard-working young man who loved the outdoors and being on the farm, adding in a prepared statement that he treasured his family and his friends. The family declined to field questions and requested privacy.

A man at Willis home told reporters Friday to leave out of respect for the family, then reiterated that insistence when reporters sought to speak to neighbors.

The shooting prompted precautions from several utilities. Laclede Gas and Ameren took workers off the citys streets Thursday, and Missouri American Water and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District removed workers from the immediate area of the shooting. Workers for all four utilities were back in the field Friday, but working with an abundance of caution.

Laclede Gas spokeswoman Jenny Gobble said employees were given safety instructions, but she declined to elaborate. Ameren and the sewer district said they also had conversations with workers about safety.

Missouri American Water spokesman Brian Russell said meter readers and other workers who typically work alone were given the option of working in pairs. The utility will also consider long-term changes. Our security team is going to review what happened after we get more details from police, Russell said.

The shooting came two days after a man wanted in the slaying of a security guard gunned down three men, including a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. employee, in unprovoked attacks in downtown Fresno, California. Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, who is black, was arrested shortly after the rampage, and posts on what appeared to be his Facebook page discussed wanting to kill white people.

St. Louis has one of the highest homicide rates in the U.S. The city recorded 188 killings in both 2015 and 2016 and had 45 this year through April 18, according to police.

___

Associated Press reporter Jim Suhr contributed to this story from Kansas City, Mo.
SANTA FE  A simmering budget dispute between Gov. Susana Martinez and the Democratic-controlled Legislature is headed to the states highest court.

Top-ranking legislators asked the states Supreme Court on Friday to invalidate some of Martinezs line-item vetoes on a budget bill, arguing the Republican governor overstepped her authority by striking down funding  roughly $779 million in all  for legislative branch agencies and higher education.

The governors political ideology is not above the law, Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, said in a statement.

The petition was filed by the Legislative Council, a group of leading lawmakers from both political parties. It accuses Martinez of trying to govern by executive fiat in axing funding from the budget bill passed by lawmakers during the 60-day session that ended last month.

Martinez has insisted her vetoes were on solid legal footing as the state Constitution gives governors the authority to use line-item vetoes  or strike down some parts of appropriations bills.

Theyre suing the governor because they want to raise taxes, and shes the only one standing in their way, Martinez spokesman Michael Lonergan said Friday. Its disappointing because it shows a refusal to compromise as this is nothing but an attempt to bully her by short-circuiting the legislative process before a special session.

The court challenge is the latest saga in an ongoing showdown over the states budget. In addition to her line-item vetoes, Martinez struck down a $350 million package of proposed tax and fee increases that the Democratic-controlled Legislature had approved to help pay for government operations.

The governor is expected to call a special session on the budget in the coming weeks, but her administration and leading Democratic lawmakers have been unable to reach an agreement, and the Legislatures lawsuit could now complicate matters.

Specifically, the court challenge alleges Martinez violated the state Constitution by vetoing all funding for legislative agencies, colleges and universities.

The undue encroachment by one co-equal branch of government upon another, through the imposition of improvident vetoes which attempt to eviscerate the ability of the other branch to perform its essential functions, violates the essence of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, the petition states.

Top-ranking lawmakers have criticized Martinez for the vetoes, which were enacted April 7, and authorized the lawsuit during a recent closed-door meeting.

House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, said the governors veto of nearly $750 million in proposed funding for higher education has threatened the states already sluggish economy and led to high stress levels for college students and their families.

We have heard from families across the state who are saying they do not want the governor to use our education system as a political pawn, Egolf said.

The Governors Office has insisted the vetoes were aimed at bringing legislators back to the negotiating table, and that higher education and legislative funding will be part of a stand-alone appropriations bill passed before July 1, the start of the states new budget year.

But the vetoes have generated concern among university leaders, and could also affect other entities included in the higher education budget  including the New Mexico School for the Deaf, the University of New Mexico Heath Sciences Center and the UNM Carrie Tingley Hospital in Albuquerque  if the impasse is not resolved in the next two-plus months.

Meanwhile, Papen described the Legislatures action as a necessary step.

The stroke of a governors pen must never undermine the Constitution that creates the system of government which serves New Mexico families, Papen said Friday. Todays action is important to check the power of the executive and protect against any overreach on behalf of those we represent.

Its unclear whether the five-member Supreme Court will decide to take up the matter, but a decision is expected to be made soon given the urgency of the situation.

Its also unclear what impact the lawsuit might have on the timing of a special session. A Martinez spokesman said Friday there were no new developments on the issue, but that the governor still planned to call such a session soon.

If the Supreme Court ultimately sides with the Legislature and invalidates the vetoes, lawmakers would still have to come up with additional revenue to cover spending in what was originally a $6.1 billion budget bill.

Legislative Council v. Martinez  Petition by Albuquerque Journal on Scribd
WICHITA, Kan.  Former Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle has been found guilty of aggravated battery, aggravated burglary, criminal threat and marijuana possession after striking three people with his car as he left a house party in Kansas.

KAKE-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2oukZMr ) that the jury couldnt reach a verdict Friday on two charges of aggravated battery and a count of criminal damage to property. A mistrial was declared on those counts. Judge Kevin OConner put those back on the May 1 docket.

Randle is accused of kicking in the door at a home in Wichita in 2016, then hitting three people with his car as he fled what he called a hostile situation.

Hes also charged with running from police officers trying to serve him with a warrant following the attack.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  U.S. Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Scott Blackburn says a top priority of the agency is to find ways to curb suicides among veterans and boost access to mental health care.

Blackburn visited with patients, doctors and administrators at the VA hospital in Albuquerque on Friday. Staffing shortages were among the concerns raised.

Blackburn, an Army veteran, said its unacceptable that about 20 veterans a day commit suicide. Of those, data shows about six receive care through the VA system and only half of them see a mental health provider.

Administrators acknowledged that recruiting psychiatrists has been a challenge in New Mexico but that the shortage extends beyond the VA system.

Hospital officials said New Mexico currently has a shortage of about 130 psychiatrists and is in need of dozens of primary care physicians.
CONCHAS, N.M.  New Mexico State Police are investigating a fatal motorcycle accident that left a 76-year-old Australian man dead.

Police say John Scully was on State Road 104 in a remote area in the northeast part of the state on Wednesday when he lost control and crashed.

Scully was pronounced dead on scene. Police say he is from Toorak, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

Police have not released any additional details. An investigation is ongoing.
The search is on for a new Metropolitan Detention Center chief.

Nine months after retired court administrator Tom Ruiz was brought in as the interim jail administrator, Bernalillo County has launched a national search for the position and is hoping to hire a new chief late this summer.

Bernalillo County is committed to becoming a national leader on jail and mental health reform, which saves tax dollars and improves public safety, County Manager Julie Morgas Baca said Friday in a news release. Were looking for a permanent jail chief who will continue to make safety a priority for the Metropolitan Detention Center staff and inmates, while also focusing on efficiency, transparency and accountability to the community we serve.

The county posted the position on its website on Thursday and is also advertising on several job sites. The posting comes less than six weeks after the Bernalillo County Corrections Officer Association announced a no-confidence vote against Ruiz, saying it had no faith in his leadership and that his abilities were not appropriate for leadership at MDC.

This doesnt have anything to do with the no-confidence vote, Morgas Baca told the Journal . I have the utmost confidence in (Ruiz).

In its news release, the county states that Ruiz has stabilized the jail since his arrival, and that he will help train the new chief and remain at MDC to support the county managers mission to improve the Metropolitan Detention Center for staff, inmates and taxpayers.

A lot of hard work and tough decisions have been made, and we want to sustain those going forward by keeping Mr. Ruiz on board during the transition and to continue to assist the county on phasing out of the McClendon lawsuit, Morgas Baca said.

I want to ensure that the incoming chief will have all of the tools he or she needs for success, including the opportunity to hire individual members of the management team, such as assistant jail chiefs.

The county jail marked a major milestone last year when a federal judge adopted a settlement that outlines a path to ending 20 years of litigation over conditions inside MDC.

The settlement was due, in part, to the jails progress in reducing its inmate population after years of overcrowding. The detention center has also been working to improve medical care and overhaul mental health services.

Nevertheless, county commissioners continue to be frustrated by overtime at the jail, among other things. The county spent more than $7 million on overtime for detention center employees last fiscal year.

Anyone interested in the job has until May 20 to apply.

The county has had difficulty hiring MDC chiefs in the past.

Last July, the county manager rescinded a job offer to Michael Watkins of Texas after county staffers had trouble verifying his work history. And former MDC Chief Phillip Greer resigned in October 2015 just 10 months after he was hired through a national search.
AirAsia Berhad is acquiring a 50% stake in online travel planner Touristly Travel Sdn Bhd (Touristly) through an asset injection and loan deal valued at INR 168 million.

The transaction will see AirAsia Berhad inject the digital platform of its Travel 3Sixty inflight magazine, valued at INR 95 million, into Touristly via AirAsia Investments Ltd and extend a INR 73 million convertible loan to Touristly for working capital and development.

The digital platform comprises the online brand for the Travel 3Sixty inflight magazine, touchpoints on airasia.com and online advertising assets, which will allow the startup to reach AirAsia's 60 million guests annually.

Touristly, which will operate under the Travel 3Sixty brand following this deal, will also gain access to offline advertising assets, including the physical version of the inflight magazine, overhead cabins and seat trays on AirAsia aircraft.

In addition, AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes will serve as Chairman of the Board for Touristly upon completion of the acquisition.

The deal will strengthen AirAsia's ancillary portfolio by offering its guests on-ground activities such as restaurants, theme parks, attractions, spas and tours at more than 70 destinations that the airline operates to. Touristly currently sells more than 800 activities in Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Touristly CEO Aaron Sarma said, Working with AirAsia has been on our minds since our inception. The insight we can gain from AirAsia's 15 years in the travel industry will help us better understand the Asia Pacific market and quickly adapt to deliver real value to our customers. Our dream was to help travellers to Asia Pacific find amazing things to do in the region and we're truly excited about this opportunity to be able to share our platform with more people."

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said, "We see enormous potential in Touristly, which perfectly complements AirAsia's existing travel offering. Our guests will be able to choose from thousands of activities when purchasing a flight and this brings us a step closer to becoming a truly one-stop digital airline."

In May 2016, Touristly successfully raised an undisclosed pre-Series A round from Tune Group startup incubator Tune Labs, headed by Fernandes, Datuk Kamarudin Meranun and Lim Kian Onn.

Touristly was also one of two startups selected at Pitch@Palace Malaysia in June 2016 to represent the country at Pitch@Palace Global, which was held at St James Palace in London, UK in December 2016.
The LIA Chinese Creativity Show is the first global awards show that integrates creativity conceived, written and produced solely in the Chinese language as part of its global awards program. While it carries with it the coveted London International Awards name, as well as the same LIA Statue curated in a red color for the Chinese language market, this show only accepts work in Chinese from anywhere in the world. The Grand LIA and Of The Year statues are the same exclusive LIA Black Statues. Finalists will be awarded certificates.

Just like LIA, the Chinese Creativity Show will also award statues for Agency of the Year and other of the Year Awards based on the number of winning points. Winners will also be given points in the prestigious LIA global ranking whether they are part of a global network or a local company.

All entries must be submitted in Chinese. So, there are no translations needed or the fear of ideas and meaning being lost in translation. As this show hopes to inspire and boost even greater Chinese creativity, the jury panel will comprise top Chinese speaking judges from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia who truly appreciate the cultural perspective and nuance of the language.

The first round of judging will be held in China in early September. The final judging will run concurrently with the rest of the LIA International Juries at Encore, Las Vegas during their judging period. The Chinese language jury will convene from 1st until 3rd October.

There will be an Awards Show gala for the Chinese Creativity Show to honor and celebrate the winners in Beijing on 25th November 2017.

In its inaugural year, entries will be accepted into the following media:

Print

Poster

Out of home

Design

Package Design

TV/Cinema/Online Film

Production/Post Production

Branded Entertainment

Digital

Integration

Marketing Effectiveness

Public Relations

The Chinese Creativity Show is accepting entries until 31st July.
Amazons Alexa is a service that finds much of its strength in its ability to link up to third party apps, and today, its getting just a little bit stronger in that regard with the ability to link to a G Suite accounts calendar. As of today, G Suite customers can not only have Alexa help them keep up with their calendar and give them reminders, but they can set up calendar events and reminders right from Alexa as if theyre using Google Assistant. Customers can simply say, Alexa, whats on my calendar? to have their calendar information read to them, just like with any other calendar that Alexa can integrate with. Commands like Add in a meeting with Cory and John at three P.M. tomorrow, among others, should now all work seamlessly for G Suite customers. G Suite users can link up their calendar through the associated menu in the Alexa app, just like they normally would for their Google Calendar.

Amazons virtual assistant has had the ability to link to a normal Google Calendar for some time, but G Suite customers have been left high and dry until now. While G Suite and Google Calendar are functionally alike as far as end users are concerned, their authentication protocols and some other aspects meant that Amazon had to get specific cooperation from Google and do a good amount of extra work to get G Suite accounts calendars to connect with Alexa.

The list of cloud calendar services that Alexa supports by default is still a bit on the short side, though IFTTT recipes allow you to make some changes. The addition of G Suite brings the number of supported services to four, with the other three being Google Calendar, as mentioned above, along with Microsofts Office 365 Calendar and their Outlook Calendar. Thats still more than some other ecosystems can offer, including that of Google. Google Assistant can only use Google Calendar and G Suite Calendar out of the box, though much like Alexa, you can use IFTTT and Tasker to expand on that functionality if you want to take the time to set up the requisite skills and commands. Microsofts Cortana is a bit more versatile, boasting support for both Microsoft and Googles calendar products out of the box.
A device bearing the model number SM-J530FM/DS thats widely believed to be the upcoming Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017) was certified by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as revealed by a set of documents published by the federal agency on Thursday. The listing itself doesnt disclose many details about the handset, though several variations of its model number have already been the subject of a number of reports and benchmark listings that suggested the Galaxy J5 (2017) will be a rather modest device in terms of specs, likely aimed at people looking to get the most value for their money.

According to previous reports, the Galaxy J5 (2017) will feature a display panel boasting a diagonal thats between 4.8 and 5 inches long, featuring a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels. While the phones 2016 predecessor sported a 5.2-inch screen, it seems that Samsung opted for a more compact design this year. Furthermore, the phone is expected to be powered by the Exynos 7870 system-on-chip (SoC) and 2GB of RAM, in addition to featuring 16GB of internal storage that will likely be expandable via a microSD card slot. The rear panel of the Galaxy J5 (2017) is said to accommodate a 13-megapixel sensor, but theres currently no information on the front camera of the device. Finally, Samsungs upcoming entry-level smartphone will ship with Android 7.0 Nougat running out of the box, a listing on Wi-Fi Alliances website suggested earlier this year. An alleged image of the handset even leaked online several days ago, though it didnt reveal many details about the device.

While its currently unclear when the Galaxy J5 (2017) will be hitting the market, the fact that the handset was certified by the FCC all but confirms that the phone will eventually launch stateside. The South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer has yet to officially announce its new entry-level smartphone, though the company will likely unveil it in the coming months. In the meantime, Samsung will be busy with the launch of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus, its latest pair of Android flagships that officially started hitting the market today and are expected to become huge commercial hits.
Ajit Pai, Chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), met with representatives of Facebook, Apple, and several other major companies from the Silicon Valley with the goal of discussing net neutrality and the current rules regulating the open Internet, Recode reports. Pai discussed the topic with former FCC chairman Kevin Martin whos now employed by Facebook, in addition to meeting with Apples Chief Legal Officer Bruce Sewell and Ciscos Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins, sources with knowledge of the meeting told Recode. In a statement provided to the media earlier today, Pai confirmed his recent dealings with representatives of various tech giants in the country and said hes been asking for opinions on net neutrality and related issues from some of the top experts in the field.

The FCC Chairman also confirmed that his stances on net neutrality havent changed as he still opposes a portion of the agencys current rulebook that defines Internet service providers like utility services, thus regulating them in a manner that forces them to treat all Internet traffic equally. Regardless, Pai once again labeled himself as a proponent of open Internet principles while speaking to reporters on Friday, but implied that the existing rules regulating net neutrality that were adopted by the FCC under the former Obama administration will be revoked in the near future. Pai is currently in the process of considering ways in which those rules could be replaced, the FCC Chairman said today, but didnt provide more details on the matter.

Regardless, the Trump-appointed Commissioner previously revealed one specific alternative to the current net neutrality rules, as industry sources said the FCC Chairman asked the telecom giants in the country to willingly adopt many open Internet principles that are currently being enforced by the federal agency. Pai is reportedly asking Internet providers to adopt most of the same principles in their terms of service, though critics of that approach argue that its seemingly no different to the existing rules with the exception of not being legally binding and enforceable. On the other hand, Pai is advocating for free market principles and believes that the market will be able to regulate itself, i.e. punish broadband and wireless Internet providers that end up violating open Internet principles.
Google Home still lacks the ability to create calendar reminders just by using your voice, which is seemingly a pretty simple task that the device should be able to handle with little to no effort on its part. Alas, the smart speaker just recently had a small update which brought in multi-user support and unfortunately for those with a Google Home speaker that may be waiting on this function, the capability to create reminders or add calendar appointments was not included. This is a feature which will be added to Google Homes list of skills at some point, its just unclear when that is going to be.

Why Google Home doesnt have this option yet is unclear, but Google must have their reasons for not having implemented it yet. Other than the fact that it isnt available, the idea of not knowing when it will be added might be the more torturous element of not having access to the feature, as it could be months and months away or it could be just around the corner with the next update that the speaker will receive. Even without this feature though Google Home is certainly making progress. Having multi-user support is a big feature and it was definitely one that Google Home was sorely missing.

Now that the speaker supports multiple users, those who have multiple people in the house that might want to use Google Home will be able to do so while utilizing data thats actually tied to their own Google account instead of the one thats tied to the owner. One speaker will support up to six unique Google accounts so it seems like that is more than enough for the average household, even more so for those that have more than one Google Home speaker set up. For those still waiting on Google Home being able to create a new reminder for something, the feature is at least on the way, and for now you can still use Google Assistant through your smartphone to create those reminders if you still want to forego having to type everything in, which is still fairly easy even if you do have to interact with your phone a bit.
Samsungs Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus will be the first Samsung devices to have Google Play Music as their default music app, and according to a blog post from Google thats announcing its new partnership with Samsung, they wont be the last. Not only will Googles streaming music service be the default listening app on Samsung phones and tablets that run Android going forward, but Samsung is going to be helping Google develop the app. Naturally, this partnership is going to result in the creation of some Samsung-exclusive features in Google Play Music. While there are no new Samsung-specific features for the two partners to boast about right now, Samsung owners using Google Play Music will see some exclusive perks while they wait for new features.

The biggest perk is double the song storage that most Google Play Music users get; Samsung owners can now have up to 100,000 of their songs uploaded on the service at no extra cost. On top of that, consumers that buy a new Samsung device from now on will get three free months of YouTube Red and Google Play Music. YouTube Red is not available in all territories worldwide just yet, so Samsungs customers in regions where service isnt supported will unfortunately only get Google Play Music. Finally, Google Play Music will be integrated seamlessly into Bixby, so all music-related commands that dont specify a different app will go through Google Play Music by default.

Googles blog post does not specify if the free three-month subscription offer applies to people buying older Samsung flagships that are still being sold such as the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S7 Edge, and even devices as old as the Galaxy S5 that are still offered by smaller carriers. Likewise, the blog post does not mention whether owners of legacy Samsung devices will be able to take advantage of the double storage for Google Play Music thats on offer. Likewise, its currently unclear what sort of Samsung-exclusive features are in development for Google Play Music users in the future, though more details on the matter will hopefully be available shortly.
Taiwanese tech giant HTC announced the first three recipients of its VR For Impact initiative that aims to fund virtual reality content, as well as related products and services in an effort to drive the adoption of that emerging technology. In a press release sent to media outlets on Friday, the Taoyuan-based company said it will finance Tree and Honey Bee VR experiences, in addition to funding SpaceVR, an ambitious space project that aims to combine satellites with VR solutions.

Developed in collaboration with the American ice cream brand Haagen-Dazs, Honey Bee is a virtual reality experience designed with the goal of raising awareness about bee populations that are growing extinct. The experience will see users adopt the perspective of a bee and learn all about the dangers to their existence from their perspective, HTC said. While Honey Bee is aiming to raise awareness about dangers to bees, Tree is looking to do the same with rainforests. The reportedly powerful and emotional VR experience will attempt to put deforestation-related issues into the spotlight at both the Tribeca Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival where it will soon debut. Finally, the SpaceVR project that HTC is funding is aiming to create the first VR satellite ever. Simply called Overview 1, the satellite is scheduled to be launched into space at some point this year by SpaceX. Once operational and orbiting the Earth, Overview 1 will continuously stream VR video.

All three projects that are now set to receive funding through VR For Impact are just the latest step in HTCs endeavor to grow the VR ecosystem. The companys development program will invest $10 million into similar projects in the coming years, and depending on the results of its investments, HTC might even opt to renew it. The Taiwanese consumer electronics manufacturer didnt clarify on how much funding the aforementioned initiatives are set to receive but did reveal that all three were chosen to be revealed today to commemorate Earth Day. More details on HTCs efforts related to VR products and services will likely follow later this year as the company is expected to announce the successor to its Vive headset in the near future.
A number of Huawei P10 and Huawei P10 Plus owners have complained that their phones are benchmarking slower than expected, and we now know the reason is due to Huaweis use of slower eMMC 5.1 memory on select models. Huawei Business Group CEO Richard Yu explained that the company had to rely on eMMC memory, rather than the faster UFS 2.0 or UFS 2.1 chips, on some Huawei P10 and Huawei P10 Plus models that shipped due to a serious shortage of flash memory. With the slower eMMC chips, sequential read speeds of 250 MB per second from the internal storage drive were roughly half of the speeds of UFS, benchmarks revealed. Despite the slower benchmarked performance, however, Yu claims that Huawei is still able to deliver solid real world performance on these phones, regardless of the type internal storage, due to software and hardware optimization. The executive also blamed Huaweis rivals for shining a spotlight on the problem in trying to tarnish the companys reputation on quality.

The Huawei P10 is powered by Android 7.0 Nougat with the companys custom Emotion UI 5.1. The phone ships with a 5.1-inch full HD IPS display, a HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor, 4 GB RAM and either 32 GB or 64 GB of storage. The larger Huawei P10 Plus has a larger 5.5-inch QHD display and either 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage or 6 GB RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. For its part, Huawei did not give specifics about the type of flash memory used inside the phone. For US customers, concerns about flash storage speed shouldnt be a problem. While the Huawei P10 series is available internationally, Huawei has not revealed plans to bring that range to the US market. Instead, the company points to the Huawei Mate 9 flagship for US customers looking to get a high-end Huawei phone with a dual optics camera system thats co-branded by German camera manufacturer Leica. The Huawei Mate 9, Yu said, uses the much faster UFS storage, and comes with a larger display and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor rather instead of a front-mounted one on the Huawei P10.

The memory shortage is only the latest issue in recent weeks to plague the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus phones. Prior to this, users were upset that the P10 didnt come with an oleophobic coating on the glass screen to repel oils and fingerprints. That coating, instead, was used on a factory-applied plastic screen protector that ships on the phone. If the screen protector is removed, the phone would become a magnet for fingerprints, and some were concerned Huawei made cost-cutting measures to its premium phones. However, in the same post on Weibo, Yu explained that the coating interfered with the Gorilla Glass in-cell panel. Since then, Huawei has come up with a new coating technology, and customers in China can take their phones to a Huawei store to have an oleophobic coating applied with the new technology.
Moto and Lenovo have officially announced the two winners of the Transform The Smartphone Moto Mod design contest, as well as four honorable mentions that will be joining the Moto Mods Accelerator Program. The two winners, eligible for up to a million each in funding from Lenovo Capital, are the magnetic Digiframe Mod, and the MACAY TrueSound HiFi Mod. The developers behind the Keyboard Mod that surfaced in some photos not too long ago will find themselves on the fast track to distribution thanks to being in the first developer class in the Moto Mods Accelerator Program, as will the developers behind Ultimate Wireless Charging Moto Mod, the notification-centric Edge one, and the Solar Z Charger With Battery accessory.

The Digiframe essentially turns your Moto Z into a sticky note. A low-power, always-on process like a single image, note, or a widget is displayed while the phone is stuck to a metal surface like a refrigerator. The creation is powered by open web standards and is open to widget developers. This means that almost any widget you can use on your home screen or lock screen could potentially serve as a sticky note. The other big winner was the MACAY TrueSound HiFi Moto Mod which not only provides high-fidelity digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital interfaces for optimum sound quality but also gives your Moto Z several extra ports for connecting it to music equipment. Along with relevant apps, this Mod could theoretically allow someone to record, mix, master, and distribute an album from start to finish directly from their Moto Z. These two winners will have to abide by rules set forth by Lenovo Capital, but if they do, theyll be funded with up to $1 million, and could even end up being sold directly by Moto on the Moto Zs page, alongside the existing Hasselblad, JBL, and projector Mods.

The four mods that didnt make the cut for Lenovo Capital funding will get into the Moto Mods Accelerator Program. Their developers will be provided with hands-on help in programming, manufacturing, and publishing their Mods. Moto and Lenovos people will be helping them every step of the way and potentially even assist them with starting mass production, the company said, adding that those who follow the program until the end will have their Mods end up in Verizon stores. Since the Moto Z2 Force, and possibly the regular Moto Z2, are reportedly not going to be Verizon exclusives, the Mods could find themselves sold in other carrier stores, as well.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are the two newest smartphones from Samsung and both have been available to pre-order over the last couple of weeks. However, if you are the type of person who would prefer to just buy when the devices are available to ship, then that time has now come. Samsung has now opened up general availability for both smartphones and likewise so have all the major carriers and retailers in the US. Which does mean that when it comes to the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus, there are plenty of places and options to choose from.

To help make the decision of where to buy a little easier, here are the details and prices on most of the places you might want to consider.

AT&T

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If you go the AT&T route, both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are available in either Arctic Silver, Midnight Black, or Orchid Gray.

Samsung Galaxy S8

For those looking to purchase in full via AT&T, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is priced at $749.99 outright. Alternatively, the Galaxy S8 can be picked up through AT&T Next for $25 per month, over 30 months, with $0 down. AT&T customers also have the option to go through AT&T Next Every Year. This route comprises of 24 monthly payments of $31.25, with $0 down, and comes with the option to upgrade the Galaxy S8 after 50-percent of the cost of the smartphone has been paid off.

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Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

In terms of the Galaxy S8 Plus, to buy outright, the Galaxy S8 Plus via AT&T is priced at $849.99. If going through the AT&T Next route, the Galaxy S8 Plus costs $28.34 per month, over the 30 months, with $0 down. While if opting for AT&T Next Every Year, the Galaxy S8 Plus can be picked up for $35.42 per month, with $0 down, and the same option to upgrade after 12 months.

Verizon

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Verizon also has the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus available in either Arctic Silver, Midnight Black, or Orchid Gray. In fact, Verizon is a little cheaper than most of the other carriers for those looking to buy outright.

Samsung Galaxy S8

Through Verizon, the Galaxy S8 is available for a one-time cost of $720. Those looking to pay monthly can opt to pay $30.00 per month, over 24 months, with $0 down.

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Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

For the Galaxy S8 Plus, Verizon is currently selling the larger Galaxy S8 model for $840 outright. On the monthly side, the Galaxy S8 Plus is available through Verizon at $35.00 per month, over 24 months, with $0 down.

T-Mobile

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If the self-proclaimed uncarrier is where you plan to pick up your Galaxy S8, then both the standard Galaxy S8 and the larger Galaxy S8 Plus are now available through T-Mobile. Like AT&T and Verizon, T-Mobile also has both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus available in either Arctic Silver, Midnight Black, or Orchid Gray.

Samsung Galaxy S8

The Galaxy S8 is available as an outright purchase through T-Mobile for $750. While those looking to pay monthly can opt for the companys EIP which will set a buyer back $30 per month, over 24 months, with $30 down.

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Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

Alternatively, the Galaxy S8 Plus is available as an outright purchase for $850. While the monthly cost comes in at the same $30 per month, over 24 months, the difference with the Galaxy S8 Plus is that T-Mobile requires a $130 down-payment  $100 more than the down-payment for the Galaxy S8.

Sprint

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If you plan to purchase through Sprint, then the carrier also has a number of options for you to consider on both devices. Like the previous carriers, Sprint has both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus available in either Arctic Silver, Midnight Black, or Orchid Gray.

Samsung Galaxy S8

In terms of the Galaxy S8, Sprint is offering the standard Galaxy S8 at an outright price of $750. Alternatively, you can pay monthly through Sprint at a cost of $31.25 per month, over 24 months, with $o down. Likewise, there is also the option to lease the Galaxy S8 through Sprint. Via this route, the Galaxy S8 can be picked up at the same $31.25 monthly cost, although only over 18 months. This route comes with Sprints Galaxy Forever option which lets you upgrade to the next Galaxy smartphone after 12 payments.

Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

For the Galaxy S8 Plus, this one is available through Sprint at an outright cost of $850. If going the monthly route, then the Galaxy S8 Plus can be picked up for $35.42 per month, over 24 months, with $0 down. Likewise, the lease option is also available and via this route the Galaxy S8 Plus is available for the same $35.42 per month, over an 18-month period, and with the same option to upgrade after 12 payments.

B&H Photo

Of course, you do not have to buy either of the smartphones through any of the carriers and instead can opt to go through a retailer like B&H Photo. If you do, then both the Galaxy S8 and the S8 Plus are available as unlocked models. These are GSM models and therefore, primarily work on the likes of AT&T and T-Mobile. Compared to the carriers, B&H Photo currently lists both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus as available in Arctic Silver, Coral Blue, Maple Gold, Midnight Black, and Orchid Gray.

As this route is through a retailer, there are no plans on offer. Instead the Galaxy S8 is simply available to buy for $829.99, while the Galaxy S8 Plus is priced at $929.99. It is also worth noting that B&H Photo does not collect tax outside of New York and New Jersey, so if that applies to you, the $829.99 and $929.99 prices are the total prices you will pay when checking out.

Samsung

Last but not least, there is always Samsung. If you are not interested in purchasing the Galaxy S8 or the Galaxy S8 Plus through a third-party retailer or a carrier, then you can opt to buy directly from Samsung. If you do opt for the direct route, then Samsung is currently selling all the carrier versions of both devices and at exactly the same prices the carriers are. So there is no major difference between ordering directly through Samsung, with prices starting from $720 for the Verizon Galaxy S8.

However, Samsung does also offer a financing option and through this option consumers can pick up either smartphone and pay off monthly. Through Samsung Finance, prices start from $30 per month, over 24 months, for the standard Galaxy S8.

Reminder

If you need a reminder on what is on offer with the latest smartphones from Samsung, then generally speaking, most of the specs and features are common to both smartphones. Which means that whether you opt for the Galaxy S8 or the Galaxy S8 Plus, then you will be getting a smartphone that is made from metal and glass and comes with a front panel that is all display  a general design which is already proving popular. On both models, the Super AMOLED Infinity display curves on both sides and makes use of a QHD+ (2960 x 1440) resolution. Inside, both smartphones come equipped with 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, and both are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC in the US. Likewise, both come with a 12-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. As well as an IP68 certification against water and dust, Samsung Pay compatibility, Android 7.0 (Nougat), Samsungs new Bixby AI assistant, and more.

Which means the main differences between the two smartphones lie in the size, with the Galaxy S8 adopting a 5.8-inch display compared to the 6.2-inch display on the Galaxy S8 Plus, and the battery capacity, with the Galaxy S8 coming loaded with a 3,000 mAh battery compared to the 3,500 mAh battery included with the Galaxy S8 Plus.

Win a Galaxy S8

Of course, you can always enter our contest where you could win the Samsung Galaxy S8 for free.
Snapchat maker Snap acquired a patent for Geofilters from Israel-based Instagram competitor Mobil that Facebook was also looking into acquiring, industry sources told TechCrunch. This purchase made Israeli tech history with Snap setting a new record for the highest price paid for an Israeli technology patent, beating Googles $2.7 million purchase of a patent for Google Maps. Mobil patented the idea of geo-photo filters back in 2012 and given that it may not have a use for the patent anymore due to Instagrams dominance in its field, Mobils co-founder Moshe Hogeg sold the patent to Snap for $7.7 million. This patent, called Methods and Systems of providing visual content editing functions, covers the server-side application of Geofilters. The major advantage of applying Geofilters server-side is to prevent numerous updates of the social networks applications for every new Geofilter designed and also reduces the size of the application as there is no need to store the filters within the app itself.

While $7.7 million may be a big price to pay for a single patent, considering that the usual price for patents sold in Israel ranges from $10,000 to around a million dollars, the ownership of the patent, no matter how expensive it may be, is reportedly important for the future of Snaps operations. Geofilters, which are location-based filters applied to photos, are sold to advertisers and currently comprise the majority of Snaps revenue. According to documents filed by the company as requirements for its IPO, Geofilters accounted for $360 million, or 90 percent of the companys $400 million revenue in 2016. If the owners of Mobil succeeded in selling the patent to Facebook, that course of action might have made Snap vulnerable to litigation that could have prevented the social network from using its primary revenue generator.

This event marks another chapter in the long-lasting rivalry between Facebook and Snap. In order to compete with Snapchat, Facebook recently launched a number of Snapchat-inspired features like Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories is currently a major problem for Snap and its social media service, as that sole feature attracts more daily active users that its entire platform. Meanwhile, Snap has attempted to poach executives and other employees from Facebook, though with varying degrees of success.
Verizons newest advertisement uses one of their very own network engineers as a mouthpiece to boast about how well Samsungs new flagship performs on their network, all while an unidentified man appears to nab himself a couple of Galaxy S8 units that seem to be in use for some kind of testing. The commercial starts out innocently enough, with the soon-to-be thief grilling a Verizon network engineer named Ammara Bhaimeah on why Verizons version of the Galaxy S8 is so great. This commercial is the first of many in the Network Superhero series, meant to celebrate the people behind Verizons network and service.

After the man in the commercial asks for a reason that Verizons Galaxy S8 is a great device, Ammara launches into her explanation, touting the fact that Verizons network is Americas largest 4G LTE network. The man grabs a nearby Galaxy S8 from an empty desk to poke and prod at while Ammara talks about Verizons network, much to the chagrin of whoever will likely be coming back from their break soon to find it gone. Once hes convinced Amara is distracted, he stuffs the phone into his sportcoat. He even tries to distract her to do it again as she tells him about Verizons unlimited plans featuring full HD video, but she outright watches him snatch up the second device and pocket it. Ammara ends the segment by addressing the thief in a sarcastic tone, but surprisingly not about the phones he swiped, and then just walks off. Verizon ups the ante on the stealing implication with the commercials tagline; if you really want the best, switch to Verizon.

The commercial comes alongside a press release celebrating Ammaras legacy with Verizon. In her seven year tenure, she attended the companys leadership development program, which landed her in the job shes in today, testing Verizons network to help ensure that customers are getting the best possible speed and coverage. Before that, she earned a Masters Degree from UCLA for electrical engineering. As a bonus of sorts, those who click over to YouTube rather than watching the embedded video inside the press release will find a blurb in the description about the fact that Verizon is currently offering the Galaxy S8 for only $15 per month, and theyre running a trade-in deal that grants new or upgrading customers a $50 Visa gift card when they trade in a qualifying device.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JitArE67A8
Case in point with the GT4 we have here, which, thanks to the Paint To Sample magic, is covered in Olympic Blue.As die-hard Porschephilles will tell you, the hue is associated with the 914, which might just mean that this Cayman could offend those with an overly sensitive ego. And it all has to do with the tale of the classic mid-engined Porscha.That's because the German automaker introduced the 914 as a follow-up for the 912 four-cylinder sibling of the 911. Many still see the 914, which came around back in 1969, as more worthy of the Volkswagen badge, since the project was a collaboration between the two brands. And the 1.7-liter four-pot occupying the middle section of the sportscar is one of the reasons for this.Since we discussed the retro nod delivered by the Porsche Cayman GT4 we have here, we added a few pics of an Olympic Blue 914, which you can find in the gallery to your right.Despite the eye-catching shade of this Zuffenhausen athlete, the most extreme GT4 we've shown you to date remains the police-trolling example we discussed last fall. Sporting a rusty Polizei wrap , the said Cayman is simply impossible to ignore, even if Porsches are not your thing.Oh, and by the way, if photos such as the one above inspire you to go out there and order a GT4, you should know that the uber-Cayman is no longer available. So you'll have to turn to the used car marker, where microscopic mileage isn't an issue, as you as you're willing to put enough of a dent in your bank account.
MQB

The Iberian carmaker took advantage of the visit made by the Catalonias government President, Carles Puigdemont, to announce the decision.The tour was scheduled to observe the start of production for the new Ibiza, and the sum is part of a larger plan that focuses on the Spanish branch of the Volkswagen Group.While the new B-segment hatchback entered production this week, its crossover brother, the Arona , is scheduled to start its manufacturing phase in the second half of this year.Both will be made on Line 1 in the Martorell facility, which is SEATs core factory. The Ibiza and Arona are built on theA0 platform, which enables a high level of flexibility in design and production.According to the automaker, the same plant makes the greatest number of vehicles in the country, which is something impressive if you consider that several other brands have similar factories in the country.Renault, Ford, and Opel are among the competing automakers with facilities in Spain . The Volkswagen Group also made Audi Q3 at the establishment in Martorell, and the A1 is scheduled to share the line with the Arona and its sibling.SEATs first Ibiza was launched in 1984, and the nameplate has 5.3 million sales behind it. The model is the best-selling product of the brand, and the first units of the new generation will reach showrooms this June. Its launch coincides with the amplest product offensive planned by SEAT.The German conglomerate has decided to invest 3.3 billion euros in SEAT over the course of four years, and the recently allocated sum is part of that program. The Catalan Governments leader has thanked the company for its commitment to the area and the continued effort to strengthen the brand.
According to the filing (PDF below), the three plaintiffs claim that the Autopilot system is not as Tesla advertises it on its website, and that the system is defective. They request compensation for themselves and others in similar situations from the automaker.The plaintiffs have stated that their cars are dangerous because of Autopilot, and they have complained against their status of beta testers of half-baked software.The complaint has been registered in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, Bloomberg informs, and it has the goal of obtaining class-action status for the owners of all Model S and Model X cars marketed in 2016 and 2017 in the USA.If the three plaintiffs get their way, they will get about 47,000 customers involved, but theres a chance that not that many people are unhappy with the system.Tesla has already replied to the allegations, and company representatives have stated that the legal action is a disingenuous attempt to secure attorneys fees posing as a legitimate legal action, and the automaker motivates its claims by explaining that its accusers have misrepresented many facts.The statement also said that the plaintiffs had an inaccurate and sensationalistic view of our technology, and that it is exactly the kind of misinformation that threatens to harm consumer safety.Tesla has underlined the fact that the Autopilot system was a beta feature, but its critics have always complained about this policy. The legal action mentioned in this article is focused on the second-generation Autopilot system, which debuted last fall.We must underline the fact that the electric vehicle brand has always told owners to keep at least one hand on the wheel at all times, and that its system does not take the responsibility of driving from the human behind the wheel.
In its homeland, the name Chuanqi means legendary in a relaxed translation, but they felt a new name was needed for foreign markets.Back in 2010, they named the brand Trumpchi , because they thought the products would "trump its competitors." The suffix chi was added to signify that they were from China.The brand is owned by GAC Motor , which planned to sell new automobiles in the USA in 2018. The program has met slight delays, as they must be sure that all their products will comply with all applicable US market regulations, from safety to emissions standards.The GA5 model, the first Trumpchi creation, is based on Alfa Romeo 166 platform, which was discontinued in June 2007. A year after Alfa stopped making it, Type 936's underpinnings were sold to the GAC Motor, which stands for Guangzhou Automobile Group.The Italian company never sold the 166 on American soil, and it is believed that the platform will not reach the USA in its Chinese derivative because Trumpchi has launched new products since the GA5, which was its first car. However, the second model in the Trumpchi range shared the same underpinnings.At this years Shanghai Auto Show, the president of the GAC Group, Feng Xingya, was asked by Reuters why the brand is named Trumpchi, and if they plan to do anything about it when selling cars in the USA.Mr. Xingya explained that the situation is a complete coincidence, and that they could not predict that Donald Trump would become President of the USA.At first, he admitted, the management of the company thought about keeping the Trumpchi name, but eventually discovered that opposition against Mr. Trump was high, and decided to consider a change. The new name will be decided after they will analyze all possible options, CNN informs.
Egyptian American charity worker, Aya Hijazi  who has been imprisoned in Cairo for three years and became the international face of Egypt's crackdown on civil society  was released late Thursday following a series of quiet negotiations between Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi.

Flashback: Hijazi, her husband, and four other humanitarian workers were held on child abuse and trafficking charges that were broadly dismissed as bogus by human rights workers and U.S. officials. The Obama administration tried, and failed, to pressure Sissi to free them. But as the Washington Post points out, it wasn't until Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt that Sissi considered releasing the group.

Between the lines: Trump's focus on repairing relations between the U.S. and foreign countries has helped him become more successful with his international policy goals. The president's attitude toward the leaders of China, Turkey, Israel and Russia have largely departed from that of Obama.
The House Intelligence Committee sent two letters Friday inviting five people to testify before the committee related to their investigation of Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election.

The guest list:

James Comey, FBI director

Mike Rogers, NSA admiral

John Brennan, CIA director

James Clapper, director of national intelligence

Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general

Why this matters: These are the first public hearings (though one will be a closed session) related to the investigation of Russian hacking, which many speculate was ordered by Vladmir Putin to help Donald Trump's campaign.

On the Twitters: "The 'Intelligence' briefing on so-called 'Russian hacking' was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!" Trump wrote on Jan. 3.

Don't forget: On Jan. 6, Clapper, Comey and Brennan briefed Trump on the intelligence committee's unofficial findings, relaying the message that the CIA, FBI and NSA believed "Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency."

Save the date: May 2. Comey and Rogers were invited to appear at a closed hearing, while Brennan, Clapper, and Yates were invited to an open hearing.
Aya Hijazi was the face of Egypt's crackdown on civil society while imprisoned the last three years, and now she's the face of two drastically different approaches to freeing American prisoners and foreign policy.

Why it matters: America is putting security cooperation in the Middle East first, a significant change from years of balancing military partnerships and showcasing a commitment to human rights.

Former President Obama temporarily stopped delivering weapons to Egypt in 2013, and later provided military vehicles and $1.3 billion annually in an attempt to pressure President el-Sisi to release prisoners. He refused to invite el-Sisi to the White House, showing his refusal to work with an administration that oversaw human rights violations. But the Obama administration remained largely quiet during the time Hijazi was held.

President Trump hosted el-Sisi at the White House earlier this month, which was seen as crucial leverage to shifting relations with Egypt. Trump had direct conversations with el-Sisi, who oversaw Hijazi's return home. The administration praised el-Sisi's leadership efforts, and is open to being allies in the fight against ISIS in the Middle East.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will reject Exxon Mobil's application to the Treasury Department to get a waiver from U.S. sanctions on Russia. It wanted to continue its joint venture with Russia state oil giant PAO Rosneft.

The Trumpworld connection: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's last job was as Exxon's CEO.

Bigger picture: The Treasury "will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions."

Update: Exxon Mobil told Axios its take on the matter: "We understand..." The Treasury Department did not immediately return request for comment.
Donald Trump Jr. hopped on the Montana campaign trail Friday with tech entrepreneur Greg Gianforte, who is gunning for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's vacated House seat.

Don't forget: Last year Gianforte failed to win a bid for the governor's seat to a Democrat.

Why it matters: All eyes are on Montana after the GOP won by a narrower margin than usual in the Kansas special election and now that the Georgia special election is headed to a hotly contested runoff. Like Kansas and Georgia, the seat is usually a shoo-in for GOP candidates, but the DCCC announced their six-figure investment Thursday, ramping up the stakes for Gianforte.

Context: Trump Jr. is following in his father's footsteps; President Trump robo-called for both candidates in Kansas and Georgia.

Prairie dogs: You read that right. Trump Jr. and Gianforte are hunting prairie dogs later today  Jr. is an avid hunter  although the Humane Society of the United States condemned it, per the AP.




First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Modified On Apr 21, 2017 01:35 PM By Anonymous for Renault Duster 2016-2019

The French carmakers best selling SUV will now sport a 1.5-litre engine with a CVT gearbox

Renault will soon launch its top-selling SUV, the Duster, in a petrol automatic avatar. The upcoming update to the SUV will, however, not just include the two-pedal technology but will also involve a change of heart.

Sources close to the French carmaker inform us that the upcoming Duster petrol with an X-tronic CVT, with 6-step semi-manual mode, will get a 1.5-litre engine dishing out a maximum power of 106PS at 5600rpm and peak torque of 142Nm at 4000rpm. The combination is said to return a claimed fuel efficiency of 14.99kmpl, which betters the petrol manual Duster's claimed figures of 13.06kmpl by a considerable margin.

Currently, the Duster petrol comes with a 1.6-litre, 4-cylinder engine that makes 104PS of maximum power at 5750rpm and 148Nm of peak torque at 3750rpm. This engine is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission and is available in a 2WD format only.

The petrol automatic Duster will be available in a new RXS variant positioned above the RXL grade. In addition to the features on the Duster RXL, the RXS will get dual front airbags, black front grille and 16-inch alloy wheels. The Duster will also get a new 'Fiery Red' exterior colour with red interior elements on the doors and air con vents.

The Duster 1.6-litre petrol with manual transmission is presently available in RXE and RXL variants and is priced at Rs 8.65 lakh and Rs 9.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) respectively. Renault is expected to price the Duster petrol automatic at a premium of around Rs 1 lakh over the 1.6-litre petrol Duster RXL. Bookings for the Duster petrol automatic are underway and Renault is expected to launch the automatic SUV in a week's time.

Read More on : Duster price
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Updated: April 21, 2017
Opening

The Hyundai Xcent hasnt been a blockbuster product for the Korean carmaker. Sure, it sells around 2,500 units or thereabouts on a monthly basis, which is exactly what most other compact sedans like the Ford Aspire, the Tata Zest and the Volkswagen Ameo sell. So, no fire there.

But, when you consider that Hyundai has the second largest market share in the passenger car segment, and most of its other successful models (read the Grand i10 and the Creta) sell in excess of 10,000 units a month, one simply cant term the Xcent a success. Hyundai, understandably, wants to change that.

Right on cue then, three years after the Xcent was first launched, heres the facelifted version of the car. Hyundai believes, with the styling changes and the addition of a few more features, the Xcent now has what it takes to get the cash registers ringing. Lets find out

Appearance Exterior

The big changes on the new Xcent are on the outside. It gets a new, more aggressive looking front bumper that also holds an all-new, chrome-garnished grille. The idea here is to make the Xcent look more like the Verna and the Elantra instead of the Grand i10 upon which the compact sedan is based. And with it, the car brings in an air of elegance to the design. Theres no change to the headlamp, but the fog lamps are new and the new Xcent gets LED DRLs too.

The rear styling sees a significant change as well. The tail lamps now run into the boot lid and add visual width to the car. The boot lid itself has been completely redesigned and is less curvaceous than before. It gets a chrome strip and along with a flatter looking bumper, it gives the Xcent much-needed freshness.

Theres no change to the profile of the car, including the alloy wheel design, which is carried as is. But, look closer and youll see the addition of the shark-fin antenna instead of a regular one.

Appearance Interior

The changes on the inside are pretty limited in comparison. The fabric design for the seats, front and rear, is new; the steering gets a button for voice activation; and theres a new 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system. The latter also comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to give the user better in-car connectivity.

Otherwise, the climate control, the rear AC vents, the electric function for the ORVMs, keyless entry and start, and the plethora of stowage spaces inside the cabin are identical to the previous model. What also remains the same is the interior room on offer. The Xcent can hold four adults in comfort, the seats are reasonably large and supportive, and the ingress though not as high as some tallboy design hatchbacks, is still acceptable by sedan standards.

Performance Drive

The new Hyundai Xcent comes with two engine options  a petrol and a diesel. Both are mated to a 5-speed gearbox. The petrol is the same 1.2-litre Kappa 2 from the older car, but the diesel is a new engine. Its a 1.2-litre, three-cylinder engine that develops 75bhp of max power. It does, however, have substantially more torque compared to the older 1.1-litre diesel the previous car came with.

Our test car is the 1.2 diesel. And the improvement in performance, especially in the low to mid engine rev range, is very perceptible. The throttle response is sharper, the turbo lag is less apparent, and its much easier to overtake with the new car than the older diesel powered Xcent. Now the new engine might rev up to 5,000rpm but its best to upshift at 4,000rpm to extract the best drivability from the car. Plus, the higher you rev the engine, the more granular and louder it sounds.

In terms of ride and handling, the new Xcent is pretty similar to the older car. So, the ride at low speeds is quiet and comfortable but it does get noisy and a bit harsh at higher speeds and over poor roads. The handling, thanks to the lack of connect from both the steering and the chassis in general, is not the most involving. The new Xcent will go around bends without feeling wayward or loose, yes, but its not something you look forward to like you would in the Amaze or even the Dzire.

Tech Specs

Make Hyundai Model Xcent Fuel Diesel Variant 1.2D SX(O) Engine Capacity 1186cc Max. Power (bhp@rpm) 75 @ 4000 Max. torque (Nm@rpm) 190 @ 1750-2250 Gears five-speed manual Length mm 3995 Width mm 1660 Height mm 1520 Wheelbase mm 2425 Fuel Capacity (in litres) 43 Tyre size 175/60 R15

Features

Features 2 airbags Yes 15-inch multi-spoke alloy wheels Yes Apple CarPlay / Android Auto Yes Rear AC vents Yes LED DRLs Yes Reversing camera Yes Music system with USB, aux, four speakers Yes ABS with EBD Yes Rear defogger Yes

Competition All Specs

Specifications Hyundai

Xcent Maruti Suzuki

Dzire Variant 1.2D SX(O) ZDI Fuel Diesel Diesel Engine Capacity 1186cc 1248cc Max. Power (bhp) 75 @ 4000 75 @ 4000 Max. torque (Nm) 190 @ 1750-2250 190 @ 2000 Gears five-speed manual five-speed manual Length mm 3995 3995 Width mm 1660 1695 Height mm 1520 1555 Wheelbase mm 2425 2430 Fuel Capacity (in litres) 43 42 Tyre size 175/60 R15 185/65 R15

Conclusion

There were two big challenges for the new Hyundai Xcent to overcome before it could set the sales charts on fire. First, was uninteresting styling, which you would agree with us, has been sorted. The new Xcent not only looks fresh, it also has an air of premiumness to it now.

The second issue was the sales in the taxi segment. I dont know about other cities, but in Mumbai, every second taxi is an Xcent. Naturally, not many people wanted to associate with a car that was being used as public transport. But Hyundai says it will not put the new Xcent on the taxi market? but would instead continue to sell the older model to feed that demand.

On both counts then, the Xcent seems to be on good footing. But, will that translate into higher sales? Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you are looking at buying one, our suggestion would be to go for it; you cant really go wrong with this one.

Pictures : Kapil Angane

Hyundai Xcent  N/A Onwards

Hyundai | Xcent | Hyundai Xcent
8 quotes on the Queen's Christian faith for her 91st birthday

The Queen will celebrate her 91st birthday in private today with her official birthday celebrations held in June.

The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery will fire 41 volleys in her honour at midday in Hyde Park. A further 62 volleys will be fired at the Tower of London an hour later.

Her Majesty has been stalwart in her faith since she committed herself to a life of service under God in a radio broadcast on her 21st birthday.

On this day in 1947 she said: 'I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

'But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given.

'God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share it.'

Here are nine quotes from Her Majesty which demonstrate her Christian faith, drawn from the Christmas messages in which she speaks directly to the nation.

1. 'It is true that the world has had to confront moments of darkness this year, but the Gospel of John contains a verse of great hope, often read at Christmas carol services: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it"... Despite being displaced and persecuted throughout his short life, Christ's unchanging message was not one of revenge or violence but simply that we should love one another' (Christmas message, 2015).

2. 'For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate today, is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ's example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people, of whatever faith or none' (Christmas message, 2014).

3. 'For Christians, as for all people of faith, reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in God's love, as we strive daily to become better people. The Christmas message shows us that this love is for everyone. There is no one beyond its reach' (Christmas message, 2013).

4. 'This is the time of year when we remember that God sent his only son 'to serve, not to be served'. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ. It is my prayer this Christmas Day that his example and teaching will continue to bring people together to give the best of themselves in the service of others. The carol, In The Bleak Midwinter, ends by asking a question of all of us who know the Christmas story, of how God gave himself to us in humble service: 'What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a wise man, I would do my part'. The carol gives the answer: 'Yet what I can I give him  give my heart'' (Christmas message, 2012).

5. 'Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves  from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person  neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive... It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord' (Christmas message, 2011).

6. 'For me, as a Christian, one of the most important of these teachings is contained in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when Jesus answers the question, 'Who is my neighbour?' It is a timeless story of a victim of a mugging who was ignored by his own countrymen but helped by a foreigner  and a despised foreigner at that. The implication drawn by Jesus is clear. Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour. The need to look after a fellow human being is far more important than any cultural or religious differences' (Christmas message, 2004).

7. 'To many of us our beliefs are of fundamental importance. For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ's words and example' (Christmas message, 2000).

8. 'I know just how much I rely on my own faith to guide me through the good times and the bad. Each day is a new beginning, I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God. Like others of you who draw inspiration from your own faith, I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian gospel' (Christmas message, 2002).
Are Trump-supporting evangelicals isolating themselves from the unchurched they want to reach?

A recent poll of presidential approval ratings in America may indicate a growing chasm between evangelical Christians, especially white evangelicals, and the people they are trying to reach with the gospel. While only 51 per cent of all Protestants support President Trump's presidency so far, a striking 78 per cent of white evangelical Protestants remain committed to Trump.

This high approval rating means that there has been virtually no decline in evangelical support for Trump, despite his executive orders targeting Muslims, health care plan that would strip benefits from many, destructive environmental policies, budget that would remove critical social safety nets, and threats to strike North Korea. Consequently, Trump's approval ratings nationwide have hovered around 40 per cent for the month of April.

Evangelicals aren't just supporting some troubling policies that are hard to reconcile with the teachings of Scripture. They're also moving in the opposite direction of the wider culture. While their own support for Trump solidified during his controversial, if not bumbling, first 100 days in office, Americans who are unaffiliated with a religion are largely opposed to Trump. A striking 23 per cent approve of Trump's presidency. These are the people evangelicals are trying to reach with the gospel, despite being almost the complete opposite on Trump's controversial presidency.

Although the future of the Trump administration is far from certain, there are significant storm clouds on the horizon for Trump and potentially for evangelicals who have associated themselves with his administration. A New York state investigation into Trump's mafia ties has been picking up steam, and the FBI's case regarding the Trump campaign's collusion with Russia for the 2016 election appears to be quietly building. Key political allies in Congress are either being removed from investigations or considering resignation.

As questions rise about the future of Trump and his divisive presidency, many evangelicals in America will need to face the consequences of being associated with a public figure who is viewed as toxic by many. Should collusion with Russia or illegal activities prompt Trump to resign or lead to his impeachment, evangelicals will have to face the possibility of finally drawing a line with a president who has courted them with anti-abortion policies and vague promises to be 'for' evangelicals.

In addition, the apparent division of white evangelicals from people of color within their own movement has come into sharper focus. Even as the evangelical-driven Urbana missions conference notably included Black Lives Matter in its range of topics, will this ongoing support for Trump add to existing divisions and strained relationships?

It's likely that a majority of evangelicals will continue to support conservative politicians for the foreseeable future. That inclination may not sit well with the unaffiliated, but this doesn't have to be a deal-breaker between Christians and the unchurched. There is significant common ground that Christians can pursue in their communities, from providing after-school programs and tutoring, to helping with local charities, to uniting in the pursuit of moral laws. Rev William Barber in North Carolina has modeled this creation of a moral movement that has a distinctly Christian foundation without becoming beholden to a partisan agenda.

Perhaps evangelicals who support Trump struggle to see that his controversial policies aren't just disagreeable to 60 per cent of Americans. They are viewed as unnecessarily cruel, such as detaining Muslim families in handcuffs for hours on end and threatening to separate undocumented mothers from their children. They aren't just disagreeing with 77 per cent of the unaffiliated. They have aligned themselves with a potential political pariah.

With the real possibility of Trump's presidency coming to a dramatic end in the near future, evangelicals will need to consider how their future will unfold if they are associated with one of the cruelest presidents in recent memory. If we hope to reach those who are unaffiliated, Trump may well undermine our efforts to find common ground.

Ed Cyzewski is the author of 'A Christian Survival Guid'e and 'Pray, Write, Grow'. He writes at www.edcyzewski.com and is on Twitter as @edcyzewski.
Christian campaigners horrified by Arkansas execution

Christian campaigners have been reacting to the news that Arkansas executed its first inmate in 12 years on Thursday.

A protracted legal battle threw into question aspects of the death penalty in the United States, which fell to a quarter-century low in 2016.

Ledell Lee, 51, was pronounced dead at 11:56 pm CDT at the state's death chamber in its Cummins Unit prison, a Department of Corrections spokesman said. Lee did not make a final statement.

Lee was convicted and sentenced to death for beating Debra Reese to death with a tyre iron in 1993. Reese's relatives were at the Cummins Unit and told media Lee deserved to die for a crime that ripped their lives apart.

Lawyers for Lee, who had spent more than 20 years on death row, had filed numerous motions in various courts ahead of the lethal injection that had put the process on hold.

Lee had maintained his innocence for years and was seeking DNA tests his lawyers said could prove his innocence.

He was the first person in a group of what had been eight men Arkansas originally planned to execute in 11 days, the most by any state in such a short period since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Courts have halted four of those executions.

The cases have drawn huge criticism from campaigners who are seeking to abolish the death penalty. Shane Claiborne, the evangelical activist and speaker, has just published a book about the death penalty and was calling for Christians to contact their representatives to prevent the execution. Addressing Arkansas' Governor and Attorney General on Twitter, he wrote: 'Don't forget @AsaHutchinson @AGRutledge It was Christ who stopped an execution by saying, "Let the one without sin cast the first stone."

Don't forget @AsaHutchinson @AGRutledge

It was Christ who stopped an execution by saying, "Let the one without sin cast the first stone."  Shane Claiborne (@ShaneClaiborne) April 21, 2017

Activist Sister Helen Prejean tweeted in response to the execution: 'Arkansas has killed Ledell Lee. Pray for his family. Pray for peace for the family of Debra Reese. Pray for an end to all forms of violence.'

Arkansas has killed Ledell Lee. Pray for his family. Pray for peace for the family of Debra Reese. Pray for an end to all forms of violence.  Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) April 21, 2017

The state's plan prompted an unprecedented flurry of legal filings that argued the process should be halted, citing problems with US death chamber protocols and lethal injection drug mixes.

Back-to-back Arkansas executions set for Monday were halted indefinitely.

Lawyers for the eight inmates, including Lee, had argued the state's rush to the death chamber amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, violated the inmates' right to counsel and their right to access the courts and counsel during the execution process.

The US Supreme Court denied the petitions for the group. One of them was a five to four decision in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with the four other conservative justices in denying the motion, while the court's liberals dissented.

Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson set the execution schedule because one of the three drugs used in Arkansas executions, the sedative midazolam, expires at the end of the month.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said he took issue with the state trying to use the drugs before their expiration date.

'In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random,' he wrote.

One of the drugs in the Arkansas mix, midazolam, had been used in flawed executions in Oklahoma and Arizona, where witnesses said the inmates appeared to twist in pain on death chamber trolleys.

Reports said there were no visible reactions from Lee after the drug mix was administered.

'I pray this lawful execution brings closure for the Reese family,' Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement.

Attention will now turn to other impending executions in Arkansas. The US Catholic Bishops have issued a strong statement condemning the planned executions. 'This Easter, let us ask the Lord for the grace to infuse our justice with mercy,' it says. 'May those in Arkansas who hold the lives of these individuals on death row in their hands be moved by God's love, which is stronger than death, and abandon the current plans for execution.'

Additional reporting by Reuters.
Does the Church in Wales have a future? 'Absolutely', says senior bishop

Does the Church in Wales have a future?

'Absolutely', says its most senior Anglican bishop.

The Welsh Church has seen steady decline in attendance in recent decades, but the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon John Davies sees great opportunities ahead, according to Wales Online.

'I've got absolutely no doubt whatsoever now with the resources we have, with the people we have, there is every likelihood that we've got a strong future,' he said.

Davies says that the Church needs to better articulate itself for the younger generation.

He said: 'I find with young people...They have got the most admirable sense of justice. They've got the most admirable understanding of injustice and feel outraged at some of the injustices that are perpetrated both in our own country and elsewhere.'

'They find Jesus an attractive individual. They find the gospel message immensely attractive because it's about truth and justice...

'I think the question that perhaps we are being challenged to ask of the institutional Church is: Do we actually articulate that call, that gospel? Do we embody it or are we just perceived as an institution creaking on in the direction of celebrating its centenary, clinging on by its fingertips?'

In 2020 the Church in Wales will celebrate a century since its disestablishment from the state  it was formerly part of the Church of England.

Davies added: 'I want us to get to 2020 with clear plans, clear strategies for re-imagining what the Church is going to be. If we can do that [we] will have a wonderful future.'

Barry Morgan, former Archbishop of Wales since 2003, stepped down in January and has not been replaced. The average adult attendance at a Sunday service has fallen from 33,783 in 2011 to 29,019 in 2015. In 2004, it was over 40,000.

Davies emphasised the priority of innovation for the future: 'If you do what you've always done you'll get what you've got always got.'
General Election 2017: 10 Christian Labour MPs who could lose their seats

Labour MPs are fearing annihilation at the snap general election on June 8 with one top pollster saying previously safe seats with majorities of 5,000 were at serious risk.

Others in Leave areas with even larger majorities of up to 8,000 where the MP voted Remain have been told they are now fighting a 'tight marginal', according to the Mirror.

The paper quotes one Shadow Cabinet source as saying: 'I think anyone under 10,000 is on the front line, to be honest.

'There will be some under 5,000 who are fine  and some on 6,000 or 7,000 who could be in trouble. It all depends on the local picture.'

So who are the Christian Labour MPs who could be in trouble at the 2017 general election?

Wes Streeting, Ilford North  majority of 589

One of the country's tightest marginal seats with just 589 votes separating Labour from the Conservatives, Ilford North was one of the few seats that swung from Conservatives to Labour at the 2015 general election.

But Wes Streeting, an outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn, is highly likely to lose his seat especially given his outspoken opposition to Brexit in an area where 52 per cent voted to leave.

John Woodcock, Barrow and Furness  majority of 795

John Woodcock narrowly held off a strong Conservative challenge in 2015 but faces a near impossible task this time around.

Nearly 12 per cent of voters backed UKIP in 2015 and polling shows many of those now flocking towards the Conservatives.

Highly critical of his leader, Woodcock has made the unusual move of admitting he would not vote for Corbyn, despite standing as the Labour candidate for the area.

But his strong criticism of Brexit is likely to be his undoing in an area where around 57 per cent backed Leave.

Cat Smith, Lancaster and Fleetwood  majority of 1,265

Another rare gain for Labour from the Tories in 2015, Cat Smith's Lancaster and Fleetwood is highly likely to turn blue again on June 8.

A shadow cabinet minister and loyal sidekick to Jeremy Corbyn, Smith has been highly critical of her parliamentary colleagues' opposition to their leader.

But her part in Labour's Remain campaign is unlikely to win her support in Lancaster, who backed Brexit by around 51 per cent.

Karen Buck, Westminster North  majority of 1,977

Karen Buck was first elected in Tony Blair's landslide win in 1997 but has a fight on her hands this time around.

With a majority of less than 2,000 she is well within the 'danger zone' of target seats.

Her saving grace may be that Westminster North strongly backed Remain  like her  and the only party promising to hold a second referendum, the Liberal Democrats, are unlikely to pose much of a challenge, coming a distant fourth in 2015.

With the Conservatives coming second in 2015, Buck will hope to hold them off by fighting on her anti-Brexit stance and her record as a longserving MP.

Susan Elan Jones, Clwyd South  majority of 2,402

Describing the EU referendum result as a 'disaster for our country' in an area where 60 per cent voted to Leave was probably not a smart move for Susan Elan Jones.

Despite what would normally be considered a comfortable majority, the former shadow Welsh minister is in real trouble.

More than 15 per cent of voters in Clwyd South backed UKIP in 2015 and assuming they follow the national trend of converting to the Tories, that majority is suddenly looking very tight indeed.

Rob Flello, Stoke on Trent South  majority of 2,539

An outspoken Catholic MP, Rob Flello is another who is likely to be punished for his anti-Brexit stance.

Despite his best attempts, more than 70 per cent of his constituents backed Leave in one of the most anti-EU areas in the UK.

With a large amount of Stoke's UKIP voters, who made up 21 per cent of the share in 2015, likely to convert to the Tories, it is difficult to see Flello surviving.

Mary Creagh, Wakefield  majority of 2,613

Mary Creagh argued strongly to Remain in the EU and is another in a fiercely Leave area where 62 per cent backed Brexit.

In an article for Christians on the Left she said: 'To leave would putting at risk decades of progress that we have achieved by working together with our neighbours  be it on women's rights, environmental standards, or maintaining peace inside our borders. Britain is a more powerful, prosperous and secure country by being a member of the European Union.'

She compounded her hard anti-Brexit stance by ignoring her party whip and voting against triggering Article 50.

The 18 per cent of UKIP voters from 2015 will not enjoy those moves and are likely to want to punish her. If most of them go Conservative, Creagh could be seeing the end of her parliamentary career.

Helen Goodman, Bishop Auckland  majority of 3,508

The pattern is developing  another ardent Remainer in a Brexit dominant area.

Goodman was formerly one of Jeremy Corbyn's loyalists but switched her allegiances against him after the EU referendum because of his failure to campaign firmly enough for Remain.

'I am just off to do my constituency surgery where I will meet a lot of people I can do nothing for,' she told The Independent the day after the Brexit vote.

Her problem may be the people of Bishop Auckland agree.

Neil Coyle, Bermondsey and Old Southwark  majority of 4,489

Neil Coyle faces a completely different challenge.

With a constituency in metropolitan London, his backing of Remain was in line with 73 per cent of his constituents.

But he could be punished for the opposite reason to many of his colleagues  Labour's perceived failure to stop or halt Brexit.

Coyle snatched the seat away from longstanding and well respected Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes in 2015. Hughes, who is also a firm Christian, is planning to stand again in June and with the Lib Dems perceived as the only party willing to block Brexit in Parliament, Bermondsey may repent of their decision in 2015 and vote for Hughes again.

Jon Cruddas, Dagenham and Rainham  majority of 4,980

With a relatively comfortable majority of nearly 5,000, Jon Cruddas would not have considered himself to be fighting a marginal seat.

But Dagenham and Rainham was one of a few seats in 2015 where UKIP came second with 12,850 votes and nearly 30 per cent of the vote.

With their aim of leaving the EU complete, where these UKIPers decide to find their home this time around will be decisive for Cruddas' future.

Cruddas admitted he was not 'a great fan of the EU' during the campaign but still opted to vote Remain. How the 70 per cent of his constituents who backed Brexit react to that will largely determine his future.
Pray for Paris as policeman shot dead in latest terror attack

A French policeman was shot dead and two others wounded in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack described as 'cowardly' by President Francois Hollande.

The assailant was also shot dead police as the incident struck the Camps Elysees boulevard - the heart of French tourism and history  that leads to the Arc de Triomphe.

Coming days before presidential elections, the shooting was quickly claimed by ISIS, with Hollande saying he was convinced it was an act of terrorism.

The area had been crowded with Parisians and tourists enjoying a spring evening moments before. Police were praised for preventing a bloodbath that could have ensued.

'The sense of duty of our policemen tonight averted a massacre ... they prevented a bloodbath on the Champs Elysees,' Interior Minister Matthias Fekl told reporters.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said the man had been identified, but investigators were still assessing if he had accomplices.

A police arrest warrant issued earlier on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters after the attack, warned of a dangerous individual who had come into France by train from Belgium on Thursday. It was unclear if that man was the attacker or linked to the shooting.

Officers searched the home of the dead attacker in a town east of Paris, a police source said.

Explaining what happened, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet, said: 'A little after 9 PM a vehicle stopped alongside a police car which was parked. Immediately a man got out and fired on the police vehicle, mortally wounding a police officer.'

France has lived under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France and Belgium and that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

Witness Chelloug, a kitchen assistant, told Reuters he was walking out of a shop and saw a man get out of a car and open fire with a rifle on a policeman.

'The policeman fell down. I heard six shots, I was afraid. I have a two year-old girl and I thought I was going to die... He shot straight at the police officer.'

ISIS, which is being driven out of its areas of territorial control in Iraq and Syria by Western-backed coalitions and has hundreds of French-speaking fighters, claimed responsibility for Thursday's shooting via its Amaq news agency, naming the attacker as Abu Yousif al-Belgiki.

The claim came quickly and the naming of the assailant suggested a degree of direct contact with Islamic State.

The group also claimed responsibility for a car attack in London last month killing four, but gave no name or details.

Police sources said the man was known to intelligence services. French television networks reported that he was a 39-year-old French national known for previous violent crimes.

The incident came as French voters prepared go to the polls on Sunday in the most tightly-contested presidential election in decades.

'We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election,' said President Hollande, who is not himself running for re-election.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
Queen sends private message of condolence to widow of Martin McGuinness as sources tell of strong rapport over faith

The Queen is to send a private letter of condolence to the widow of Martin McGuinness, it was revealed today.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman confirmed to the Belfast Telegraph that a message will be conveyed to McGuinness's wife, Bernadette.

McGuinness had met the Queen on a number of occasions. The pair shook hands in 2012 at a charity event in Belfast at the Lyric theatre.

Asked what he thought of the meeting, Mr McGuinness quipped: 'I'm still a republican.'

After a meeting in Hillsborough Castle last June, McGuinness greeted the Queen by asking if she was well, and the Queen replied: 'Well, I'm still alive.'

But a well placed source who knows both the Queen and McGuinness told Christian Today that they had a real connection over their shared faith.

'I believe in Jesus Christ,' McGuinness once said. 'There are many others throughout the world who don't believe in Jesus Christ, but this is what I believe. I respect what they believe, and all I ask is that they respect what I believe.'

In a highly significant and historic statement, the Queen in 2011 referred to the IRA killing of her cousin, the Earl of Mountbatten before expressing regret over certain events on the British side.

Speaking at Dublin Castle, she said of the Troubles: 'These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy. We can never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.'
St Anselm was one of the most influential Christians of the last 1,000 years. But who was he and what did he believe?

Being a Christian isn't just about believing 'in the Bible', or 'in the Church'. Although these are two of the pillars of our faith, what we believe about the Bible, the Church, sacraments, worship, prayer and much more, has been shaped by generations of believers before us.

Many Christians will have heard of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and Wesley. They'll be familiar with DL Moody, Billy Graham and those people who shaped doctrine and practice in the modern day.

But a less well-known name is that of Anselm of Canterbury  truly one of the most influential Christians of the past 1,000 years. St Anselm (as he became) died on this day, April 21,1109, at around 78 years of age. Today is still marked as his feast day by some Churches.

Born on the border of modern-day France and Italy, he trained as a monk and became a bishop, being consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093.

He engaged in debate with the Eastern Church over the nature of the Holy Spirit, sparred with English royalty about the role of the Church and wrote theological books and essays.

Here we look at three of his most influential legacies.

1. The Atonement

One of the key doctrines of salvation, the atonement describes the work of Jesus on the cross. What was achieved? How does it reconcile God to humankind?

Anselm's approach was based on 'satisfaction'  the idea that God doesn't hold humans accountable for sin, because Jesus' death on the cross was 'satisfactory'. But he differs from those earlier and later thinkers who thought of the cross as a 'ransom'. Instead, Anselm argued that the primary way we owe a debt to God is in terms of 'honour'. So, Jesus, being infinitely great, brings great honour to God, by his death on the cross.

This idea was refined by Aquinas to become a significant Roman Catholic way of understanding the atonement. However, it was also influential on Calvin's theology, so has gone on to play a large role in the way Reformed churches teach about salvation.

2. The Ontological argument for God's existence

There are many arguments for the existence of God, but one that is most fiercely defended by its proponents (and yet sometimes baffles amateurs) is the 'ontological argument'.

Anselm formulated it by saying God is 'that than which nothing greater can be thought'. Anselm doesn't offer external evidence for this, but rather argues that God is, by definition, the greatest possible being. If our minds can conceive of such a being, then it exists in reality because to exist is great than not existing.

This argument was taken up first by the French philosopher Rene Descartes and then by the German thinker Gottfried Leibniz. Although it has been criticised by heavyweight philosophers and theologians, it remains a favourite argument of some. Today, it can be seen in the work of influential Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga.

3. The Community of St Anselm

Having made two large contributions to theology and philosophy, this third legacy is much more practical. As well as being a scholar, Anselm was a spiritual leader and pastor. He also first sought to enter the monastic life at only 15 years old. Despite being rejected, he returned and by his late 20s was on the path to becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.

When setting up a new community of prayer for young people at Lambeth Palace in London, Anselm's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury  Justin Welby  spoke of his aims. 'Living in a praying community is the ultimate wager on the existence of God,' he said. '[It] is anything but comfortable or risk-free. Through it people subject themselves to discipline, to each other in community, and, above all, to God.'

But why choose to name a community of young people after Anselm? The community's website explains. It says, 'His motto of "faith seeking understanding" reminds us that the faith journey begins with an active love of God  and from this love a deeper knowledge of God follows. Anselm became a monk when he was 27.'

So, although he may not be a name on the tip of our tongues, we owe a debt to Anselm. Some do realise it  he had a Christian band named after him a few years ago...
Terrorism will not divide us, say UK faith leaders

Terror attacks in the name of religion are an 'affront to faith', say 24 UK faith leaders.

In an open letter calling for unity and understanding following recent terrorist attacks, the leaders including Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Sikhs describe the attacks in Westminster, St Petersburg, Stockholm and Egypt as 'barbaric acts of senseless violence'. The letter was released before last night's Paris attack.

They say: 'Now more than ever faith groups are uniting in the face of those who would wish to sow fear and spread mistrust between the people of this country.

'These attacks seek to divide us, and together we must show them that they will never succeed.

'Instead of voices being raised in anger, we will continue to be calm and resolute.

'Instead of responding with violence we will continue to show respect for others and love.

'And instead of hatred we will continue to show that the British people are defined by the tolerance and respect that we have seen in abundance over the last few weeks, and that symbolises this country at its best.

'We will continue to echo the positive voices of people and communities the length and breadth of Britain, with harmony, peace and unity.'

The signatories were invited to attend a meeting at New Scotland Yard the day after the terror attack in Westminster, where they met with Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

Among the Christian signatories were Rt Revs Christopher Chessun, Bishop of Southwark and Adrian Newman, Bishop of Stepney, Rev Tony Miles, deputy superintendent of Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, Rev Eustace Constance, operations director of the Ascension Trust, and Rt Rev John Wilson, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster.
#ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear: How a Twitter hashtag reveals two very different worlds

Christian women hear all kinds of things. Some are positive and life-affirming, some most definitely are not. This week many voices came together on a spontaneous Twitter hashtag to share what had been said to them in churches, Bible colleges, job interviews, and other situations where being Christian and a woman came with expectations.

Posting on the #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear hashtag, women reported judgments on their calling to ministry, parenting, sexuality, bodies, roles in church and marriage, work, behaviour, and intelligence. Did I miss anything?

'So you want to get more involved in church, have you thought about children's ministry?' wrote a UK theology student of her experiences.

So you want to get more involved in church, have you thought about children's ministry? #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear  Anna Greenwood (@anna_greenwood1) April 20, 2017

'What do we call you then? Vicaress? Priestess?' wrote British vicar Kate Wharton.

"What do we call you then? Vicaress? Priestess?" #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear  Kate Wharton (@KateWharton27) April 20, 2017

The tag brought together experiences from UK and US Christianity, after being started as a throwaway thought by author Sarah Bessey. Angry objections followed, with rumours of threats, which seem to be almost compulsory in any event of women speaking up online about any negative experience. The more mildmannered objections came in the shape of hand- wringing about unity. Why draw attention to all the bad, asked one man, let's focus on the good and the truth (but not that truth, OK ladies? Be reasonable).

Instead of pointing out sexism or hypocrisy why not talk about the good things Christianity does? It's truth. #thingsonlychristianwomenhear  Jason J Fleagle (@jjfleagle) April 19, 2017

Meanwhile, author Eric Metaxas was deeply saddened by the departure of Fox TV presenter Bill O'Reilly who had parted ways with Fox 'by mutual agreement' after reports of sexual harassment dating back decades. But only after advertisers began to boycott his show. Becoming financial kryptonite for employers (who also parted ways with chairman Roger Ailes last year after similar allegations emerged) is often the trigger for change. Mr O'Reilly had activities lined up to keep him busy, including a photo opportunity with the Pope and attending to climbing sales of his latest book, Old School, about family values and the importance of decency; sales had seen a boost around the time allegations of his alleged predatory behaviour towards women had become public.

Metaxas bemoaned his exit, feeling the airwaves would be poorer for what he described as 'fairness, boldness & radical commonsense', a view in itself controversial (O'Reilly has also lost custody of his children over domestic violence claims). When challenged that the same man had left over the scandal of subjecting women to years of degradation he replied this was 'perhaps the saddest part'. Perhaps.

The cognitive dissonance with which the elements of the conservative Church and political culture can separate the theory and the practice of their figureheads and institutions rolls on. Write a book about how women shouldn't be objectified while being accused of objectifying women? No problem. Speak out about why harassing women is a crime and a disgrace? Hey, you're messing with the unity and possibly  one man suggested  connected to a cabal of paid left-wing agitators trying to bring down the Christian faith.

Men will mourn the removal of other men from public life as more of a tragedy than the harm those men have done to women, and they will ask women to be quiet about the harm done to them. This is finally starting to be confronted in conservative circles. 'Why Are So Many Evangelicals Condoning Sexual Assault?' asked a starkly-titled, effectively-argued piece by The Gospel Coalition's editor Joe Carter in November 2016, just after American evangelicals were being credited with promoting Donald Trump to power. Conservative women like professor and author Karen Swallow Prior are increasingly challenging themselves and others in their circles to understand the reality of this disconnect.

For some, the Christian faith in its true form is under threat and pesky women are the reason. This was apparent in the latest post from American pastor John Piper, who responded to the concerns of 'a soon-to-be pastor in the UK' who was worried for his future employment prospects in a land of egalitarian embrace (yes, still the UK). 'Is male headship a lost cause?' was the question asked and answered with reassurance. Of course male headship wasn't going anywhere, responded Pastor John, because it was what God wanted, it was reflective of men's and women's true nature, it prevented the disobedience of women preaching and being pastors when only men truly could, and should complementarianism cease it would be a sign God had stopped loving humanity. It was that fundamental.

Should women be welcomed as pastors, which was the main concern of the piece, it would be reflective of End Times tribulations. He cited verses from Matthew 24, and equated holding on to male headship as the equivalent of not growing cold, and enduring to the end in order to be saved. John Piper is no small-time figure with a niche audience. He is a writer and preacher with almost a million Twitter followers (his tweet shortly after posting his article asked: 'There's nothing beautiful about a sharp mind in the service of a hard heart. With every shrewd assessment are you moving towards helpfulness?' Which is a really great question, and possibly rhetorical).

And here we come full circle. Many of the things Piper specified are many of the #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear because many people, particularly men, still believe them. 'It's not that we think women are inferior, it's just that women are called to be submissive to men' wrote one tweeter, echoing the arguments in Piper's post. In this worldview men are in charge, valued for their contributions to Christian and political thought and discourse, and women incidental as supporters, as God intended.

While John Piper and others like him hold to their interpretation of Scripture, women will be hearing many similar things for years to come. Social media allows these views to be heard more widely  in both directions - and for those of differing opinions to see the impact of their words. Too often what Christian women hear is that they are not wanted or valued. Read through the positive words on the #ThingsChristianWomenShouldHear hashtag that appeared in response to the original, but be aware that this is a conversation between very different worlds of Christian thought and it will continue to roll on.

Vicky Walker is a writer and speaker, among other things. She is author of 'Do I have to be good all the time?' and is currently writing a book on how to navigate Christian culture's teaching on dating, relationships and marriage
Who are the Jehovah's Witnesses? 5 things you should know

Russia's Supreme Court has formally banned Jehovah's Witnesses from the country, calling the religious community an extremist organisation.

The court ordered state seizure of the group's property and the closing of its headquarters, according to USA Today. Russian justice ministry attorney Svetlana Borisova said Jehovah's Witnesses 'pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security'.

The move is deeply significant, leaving the religious community  and other groups  fearing for their security and freedom.

But the group, though many have heard their name - remain obscure and mysterious to many, including Christians.

Here are five things you should know about Jehova's Witnesses.

1. It started with a Bible study

The group was founded by a man names Charles Taze Russell, who started a Bible study group in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1870. Russell soon began disputing traditional Christian teachings, however. His teaching emphasised the present reality as the 'last days', with the return of Christ as imminent. His group became known as the 'Watch Tower Society', the name often associated with it today. They use their alternative translation of the Protestant Bible, known as the New World Translation.

2. Are they Christians?

Jehovah's Witnesses reject the Christian teaching about the Trinity, so insofar as they deny an essential of the orthodox creeds, they aren't Christians. They teach that Jesus was created by God, not pre-existent with God as Christians believe. The Holy Spirit, rather than being a person of the Godhead, is more like God's 'applied force'. The focus is on God himself, named as 'Jehovah', a representation of the Tetragrammaton, God's Hebrew name given in the Old Testament (usually translated as Yahweh).

3. They don't celebrate Christmas, Easter or birthdays

Jehovah's Witnesses emphasise a separateness from society. For example, they don't celebrate Christmas, Easter, birthdays, national holidays or any occasion that appears to honour someone other than Jesus. So that Jehovah's Witness children do not feel deprived from the lack of birthday celebration, some opt for spontaneous giving of gifts.

4. They don't serve in politics or the military

Another example of their distance from mainstream society is that they attempt to be politically neutral, do not seek public office and are discouraged from voting. Instead, they emphasise citizenship of Christ's heavenly kingdom.

They also reject patriotism, including national service and pledges of allegiance, and they do not serve in the military. They emphasise a brotherhood that transcends national boundaries.

They also famously, and controversially reject the medical practice of blood transfusions, even in life-or-death situations. In the case of the Russian ban of the group, the country said the Jehovah's Witnesses' stance on blood transfusion was in violation of Russian health care laws.

5. They're active and evangelical

The group and its Watchtower publication can be found all across the world, and its advocates can often be found on street corners, inviting passers-by to learn more about their faith. In 2016, the group reported a global average of 8.13 million 'publishers'  the name given to the group's active preachers. It claims to be growing by 1.8 per cent every year.
The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age, by David Callahan (Knopf, 352 pp., $28.95)

In The Givers, David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, provides an exceptionally thorough and necessary service in identifying the major figures in American philanthropyand, through interviews, exploring the causes they support and their motivations for doing so. For some readers, Los Angeles real-estate magnate Eli Broads passion for biomedical research and charter schools will be old news; so, too, hedge-fund billionaire John Arnolds heterodox enthusiasms (through the John and Laura Arnold Foundation) for public-pension and criminal-justice reform. But for many readers, the detailed accounts of the philanthropy of Rockefeller and Carnegies contemporary heirs will be revelatory.

Callahan, however, mingles these useful accounts with a recurrent question about the concentration of societal power among philanthropists, to which he appears to believe the answer is self-evident. Regarding the support of Bill and Melinda Gates for a common core in K-12 education, Callahan asks: do we think its okay overall for any philanthropists to have so much power to advance their vision of a better society? As for Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenbergs $155 million gift to support the development of a new park on Manhattans West Side waterfrontmatched with just $40 million in public fundsCallahan asks, What sort of way was that to make decisions about public spaces? Regarding the $490 million that Eli and Edith Broad, among others, have contributed to support the growth and operation of Los Angeles charter schools, Callahan remarks, Broad disputes the idea that there is anything undemocratic about his tactics. Like many philanthropists throwing their weight around in ways that ordinary citizens cant imagine, Broad sees himself as expanding the dialogue, not dominating it.

The theme is clear: Who elected these guys? Why should they have anything more to say about public policy (or anything else) than the rest of us? For Callahan, major decisions about public policy should be in the province of democratic governmentwhich, in his view, has been starved by those who have kept tax rates too low and who now fill the vacuum with their pet causes and theories, supported by their ostensible generosity. Why, for instance, should Facebooks Sean Parker have influence on finding cancer cures when the requisite expertise lies at the National Institutes of Health?

Beyond this broad criticism, Callahan offers policy prescriptions to rein in what he views as an expanding, unaccountable elite. Because the tax code helps amplify upper-class power, he writes, he would limit the charitable deduction (and presumably private foundations) to causes for which we can easily agree that the benefits are overwhelmingly positive and fairly distributed. He would empower a government agency akin to the Congressional Budget Office to determine which charitable endeavors are definitively worthy, imagining that it is possible to derive an objective, scientific assessment from essentially values-based precepts.

Such steps would inevitably discourage and diminish philanthropy. Callahan certainly demonstrates that the wealthy today are promoting their favorite causes and institutions at a high historical rate. But, apart from highlighting the process through which rich people seek influenceby giving their money away, mind youhe fails to demonstrate that the United States is worse off as a result.

Its worth confronting the essential question Callahan raises: what if the wealthy, to indulge their own interests, effectively hijack government to impose their agenda on the public? That would be difficult to defend, but only one example in The Givers approaches such a scenario. In 2012, Joshua Rechnitz offered New York City $40 million to build a velodrome in Brooklyn Bridge Park, in order to satisfy his passion for indoor bicycle racing. But after the parks management (a public-private partnership) accepted the gift, a backlash occurred, and Rechnitz had to withdraw his offer. In our democracy, a donor cannot simply appropriate a public space over the objections of his neighbors.

Callahans book is full of other examples that undermine his thesis of affluent elites calling the shots for everyone else. Take the interest of Bill Gates and his foundation in small high schools and the Common Core curriculum, which had significant influence on Michael Bloombergs mayoral administration in New York City and ultimately on the federal Department of Education. Foundations rarely invent policy ideas out of whole cloth: the small-schools movement predated Gatess interest, and E.D. Hirschs influential writing about the importance of curriculum dated back to the 1980s. Gatess aggressive promotion of Common Core did not prevent the concept from becoming controversial or stop many states from rejecting it. Indeed, the Gates endorsement itself became an object of controversy and a talking point for Common Core opponents. Again, democracy had not been repealed and replaced by the whims of a billionaire. There would be no charter schools in Los Angelesor anywhere else, for that matterif governors and elected school boards had not given them the green light while installing overseers with the power to shut them down. For that matter, George Soross (unfortunate) success in promoting marijuana legalization could not have occurred without ballot approval and grassroots advocacy dating back to the early 1970s.

Callahan promotes the idea of radical transparency for philanthropic donors, such that those who fund public-policy research (presumably such as the Manhattan Institute) and advocacy organizations should no longer receive a tax deduction, which they currently do, in recognition of their educational purpose. Indeed, Callahan objects to the very idea of anonymous giving, whether for political advocacy or other pursuitsbecause without (transparency) citizens dont know whos shaping decisions that affect them and what their motives might be. But hes indifferent to those worried about serious retaliation, as was the case with donors to the NAACP in the Deep South during the 1950s. He airily dismisses such privacy concerns. They are understandable, but ultimately should not trump the publics interest in greater transparency at a time when a wealthy minority exerts growing influence over public policyand peoples lives. He exaggerates the degree of anonymous givingassuming, for instance, that those with their own, personal donor-advised funds always give without attribution. In fact, anonymity is an option for such funds, not a requirement.

Yet, perhaps unwittingly, Callahans extensive examples make clear that these wealthy are hardly a united front, pursuing a common agenda. No single voice dominates public debate through philanthropic giving. Charles Koch supports right-leaning groupsbut George Soros supports the left-leaning. Indeed, the charitable tax deduction even helps support groups such as the Center for Responsive Philanthropy, which largely shares Callahans values. As Eli Broad tells Callahan, I think everyone is getting heard. Were getting heard, the philanthropists. The unions and administrators are getting heard. Overall, were creating debate.

Callahan may view philanthropy as veiled rule by elitesbut one might more accurately call it a marketplace of ideas that enriches democracy. There are no independent think tanks, after all, in China. Perhaps Callahan would prefer wealthy elites with no concern for the public interest. That American elites, their limitations notwithstanding, act otherwise is a civic strength that deserves praiseand protection.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
After a particularly soppy winter refilled Californias gasping reservoirs and swelled the Sierra Nevada snowpackto 175 percent above its historical average, in some spotsgrateful residents hailed the end of a dry spell that stretched back six years. Governor Jerry Brown has declared that the states drought is mostly over, though he cautions that conservation must remain a way of life.

But for the farmers of the San Joaquin Valley, which covers roughly 400 miles from north to south and averages about 50 miles in width, water poverty continuesand in their case, the drought is mostly man-made. While the rain and snow have eased general water-use rules in place during the drought, California farmers continue to operate under strict environmental-regulatory constraints that have left this land parched.

For example, fresh water needed by farmers will still be diverted into the San Francisco Bay1.4 trillion gallons from 2008 through last springto protect the Delta smelt, a three-inch baitfish that has landed on the Endangered Species List and now gets preferential political treatment over farmers. The smelts defenders fear that the pumps that move critical water supplies to farmers could harm its chances for survival. So the fresh water is dumped into the ocean instead. To no avail, as it turns out: Jason Peltier, deputy general manager of the Central Valleys Westlands Water District, told National Geographic that a survey that netted only six delta smelt is further proof that redirecting water from human use to environmental use in the name of helping the fish is not working.

Its possible that as much as half of the water that is impounded in the states systems of dams and reservoirs and flows through its network of aqueducts, canals, and pipelines gets diverted for an environmental agenda. Smelt protection is a federal policy. But California has the largest representation in Washington of any state. Why couldnt this politically powerful delegation apply pressure in the right places to fix the problem? Maybe because most of Californias Senate and House members side with the environmental agenda over human needs.

State regulations also hold back the extraction of water, including a groundwater sustainability plan that when fully implemented will limit the volume of underground water that farmers can pump. Historically, landowners have had the right to determine how much water they pull out of the ground.

The state has also failed to address its glaring shortage of water infrastructure. Californias aqueducts and storage facilities simply cannot handle the volume of water needed to keep the Golden State sated over the long term. The California Farm Water Coalition says the state has a broken water system that creates the risk of permanent water shortages during even the wettest of years, and ever-escalating disaster during multi-year droughts if its not repaired.

Two years ago, voters approved a $7.5 billion water bond to improve this situation. The funds would be spent on surface and groundwater storage, water supply management and conveyance, and drought relief. As much as $2.7 billion was earmarked for water storage projects, dams, and reservoirs. But critics say that California is sitting on needed projects.

The San Joaquin Valley is called the breadbasket and food basket of the world for good reason. Its 20,000 square miles produce 8 percent of the nations agriculture output by value, about a quarter of its food, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and 40 percent of the fruits, nuts, and other table foods consumed in this country. Its an indispensable resource.

Despite the valleys importance, Congressman Devin Nunes believes that environmentalists want to drive farmers out of it through water deprivation. With the San Joaquin Valley now in its third decade of a government-caused water shortage, its hard to argue with the Republican, whose valley district is home to nearly 4,000 farms. Hes met with the extreme Greens and seen their plans, which are disastrous for his constituents.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images
Its Friday again, dear reader and, yeah, how was your week? It was probably going along just fine until around about 11:15 am on Tuesday. And then, like some horrible bolt from out the blue, Theresa May only went and called a snap election, didnt she? Cheers for that, Theresa.

So, in the spirit of whats been another trying old week in the ongoing cyclical soap opera that we must all collectively refer to as life, Society Diary is mostly going to be talking politics this week. Politics, and why 8 June is going to be a truly momentous day for all of the UK.

We need to talk about Gina

Can you remember, dear reader, what life was like in December 2015? Life was so much simpler then, free of the plodding, daily grind of uncertainty, pain and fear that is Brexit and Trump and Marine Le Pen and ah, forget it.

It was also easier back then to know what to think of businesswoman, philanthropist and all round litigious malcontent Gina Miller, particularly if you worked in the charity sector. Just prior to Christmas 2015, Millers True and Fair Foundation released a report about charity spending helpfully entitled The Hornets Nest.

The report basically said that all large charities didnt spend enough money on charitable activities and anti-charity papers, including the Telegraph, took up the report to cudgel the sector. In response, NCVO, the Charity Commission and just about every other charitable membership body, umbrella organisation and regulator decried the report as deeply flawed, prejudicial and just downright wrong.

However, the binary idea that existed in the sector all that time ago (i.e. Gina Miller = bad) has rather shifted in the last few months. And, like just about every other deeply confusing and frankly annoying thing that has happened in the world since, its all down to Brexit.

Yes, Gina Miller has become one of the UKs most high-profile and effective pro-EU campaigners. Shes been doing a far more competent and demonstrable job of stopping the Tories from driving this country off the fiscal cliff of hard Brexit than either Jeremy Corbyn or Tim Farron has.

First she challenged (and defeated) the government in the High Court over allowing parliament a final vote on the issue and now shes taken to crowdfunding to raise money to launch a tactical voting initiative against hard Brexit.

Diary is now stuck in the position of loving Miller for her Bremaineering, while still having a few suspicions about the report. This column is effectively both unable to like and unable not to like her, at the same time.

It's a bit like quantum mechanics - that bit where an electron passes through two places at the same time. Diary's uncertainty about how to proceed is not just normal uncertainty, but Heisenberg level uncertainty. And it will continue to be that way until we leave the EU, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has to be rebranded because it's too foreign, and it becomes Nigel's Uncertainty Principle instead.

The day the votes came in

On June 8, we will see the outcome of a rigorous selection process - one which identifies the best and brightest of our leaders, those seen by the people as most inspirational, who will serve as the future of our country.

People from right across the United Kingdom will come together, their fingernails bitten down to the quick and dressed in their best finery, eagerly awaiting the tallying of the votes that will shape and mould the future of the British Isles for the foreseeable future.

Thats right. Its our annual Charity Awards!

Also on that day, Theresa May will be returned to government in a landslide, but who cares about that?

It's safe to say that there wasn't universal joy in Society Towers when the Prime Minister called a snap election on the day of our annual awards ceremony, not least because editorial staff tend normally to have quite a light day afterwards, and that might be tricky if there's just been an election.

Although on the plus side, it does mean we get to watch the election at our awards night, on one of the world's biggest tellies.

The choice of date for the snap election also perhaps gives a telling insight into what the PM really means when she says shes working for a 'shared society'  i.e. a world where we have to share the date of our annual knees up with her partys quest for total, electoral domination.

We had the date booked first!
Here is a selection of emails and Facebook comments weve received since March 1. Please send correspondence to letters@cjr.org, along with your name, address, and any relevant affiliation. Reader feedback has been edited for length and clarity.

White House reporting through the Gateway Pundit looking glass

I was dismayed by the overall tone of the piece by David Uberti on the panel I participated in with two of my colleagues from the White House Press Corps. While Mr. Uberti may have characterized my contributions as dull jokes, they were in fact responses to (a) a question about whether I worried that my personal reputation would be hurt by my work at Sputnik and (b) a joke someone else made,implying that Russian was [my] favorite language. In a subsequent email exchange, Mr. Uberti expressed regret that I was not able to make more of an affirmative case for my publications presence at the White House. Id like to take the opportunity to do that now.

While many people in the American journalism community are concerned about a Russian-owned and state-sponsored news outlet like Sputnik having a presence at the White House, the truth is that the United States is actually one of the only countries in the world without an inward-facing state-owned news agency (Voice of America is state-owned, but does not broadcast inside the US). That said, regardless of ownership, a state-owned news agency is still a news agency. The journalists I work with at Sputniks Washington bureau are just journalists. Most of Sputniks writers are Americans who have chosen journalism as a profession, and we do our job the same way we would if we worked at Reuters, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The New York Times, or any other media outlet. We report the truth as it happens, quickly, but above all, accurately. The difference between those reporters and us is that we have the responsibility to look for an alternative perspective to tell the Untoldwhich is in fact Sputniks mission statement. With 14 million subscribers reading our content on social media alone, it seems the American public is as hungry for an alternative perspective as we are to provide it.

I cannot speak for my entire news organization, and I cant speak for my co-panelists either, but when it comes to so-called alternative media, I would urge the journalism community to take a hard look at the content a media organization puts out before making judgments based entirely on who owns it. Some of us may disappoint and even disturb you, but some of us may surprise you. When it comes to our coverage of Donald Trumps White House, it is my sincere hope that I and my colleagues will do the latter.

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Sputnik News

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Spare the indignation: Voice of America has never been independent

I worked at Voice of America nearly as long as Dan Robinson did, serving as correspondent in Islamabad and Bangkok and as National Security Correspondent. I have the greatest respect for his work and his professionalism, but his move along, theres nothing to see here (or just lie back, relax and accept it) attitude towards the increasing politicization of VOA is deeply misguided.

Despite his assertions that VOA has never been truly independent, VOA has enjoyed considerable autonomy. The battle for that freedom was hard-fought. There was great pressure put on VOA by the Nixon administration over Watergate and Vietnam, which VOA resisted. The 1976 Charterwhich Robinson mentions near the end almost as an afterthoughtwas passed after that specifically to prevent political interference. It was thought then, and remains true today, that any suggestion of messaging or an agenda would compromise VOAs credibility. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (modeled after the board that oversees the BBC) was created specifically to create a bipartisan firewall after the US Information Agency was abolished. (Even Edward R. Murrow, when he was director of the United States Information Agency, wanted to make VOA more like the BBC.)

The Obama reform, an initiative by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), really undercuts the Charter and puts VOAs credibility at risk. In 2014 VOA journalists rose up as a group to object to the original bills proposed language that would have required VOA news copy and broadcasts to promote US foreign policy positions. The pushback was so strong that the offensive wording was dropped. (The bill itself, for which Royce marshaled bipartisan support, was passed by the House, but never made it to the Senate.) In 2016 Royce and his allies put new language in 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Obama signed.

Yes, the BBG firewall could be porous, and individual members have tried to exert influence. And, yes, no question that there was and is serious mismanagement. The term dysfunction has been used, and it is not wholly inaccurate, but the board washowever flaweda bipartisan check on unilateral executive or congressional politicization of VOAs journalistic function. The new legislation concentrates power in a single chief executive officer picked by the president, subject to Senate confirmation, and serving at the presidents pleasure. Is his or her loyalty to the credibility and integrity of the journalistic product? Or is it to his or her political masters in the White House? So there is a genuine and legitimate concernnot hysteria, as Robinson and his associates of the rabidly anti-VOA blog BBG Watch like to label itabout a politically appointed broadcasting czar.

I have said repeatedly (including in my own CJR pieces) that there is an inherent institutional schizophrenia in being a government organization that is also a journalistic organization, but the BBC World Service (which is directly funded by the British Foreign Office) is able to avoid countering extremism desks and keep its journalistic credibility high.

There is little question that VOA is being increasingly pushed into a propaganda role. You can counter disinformation simply through accurate, thorough, and balanced reporting. But when you create countering extremism desks in a new operation you are crossing a line from journalism into advocacy.

Thats why current and former VOA journalists are concerned about, and deeply opposed to this transformation of VOA. It is not hysteria. Its a matter of integrity, pride in the craft of journalism, and sorrow at political efforts to cheapen that craft. Even though, as Robinson notes, every two weeks they accept government paychecks, VOAs writers, editors, and correspondents remain committed journalists, and hew to journalistic standards, no matter who signs the paychecks. If the government wants more messaging and advocacy, that is officialdoms call. If that is to be the case, then it should stop trying to peddle the resulting product as journalism. It is a disservice to VOAs employees and listeners, and to the craft of journalism.

Gary Thomas

Senior Correspondent, Voice of America (ret.)

Breitbart editor slams mainstream media in Pulitzer Hall

Okay. Give Breitbart a seat at the table for now. It will never be able to complete with the MSM on issues of substance. Breitbart should enjoy the ride because it will not last. Certainly not more than four years, or until Trump is escorted to the door.

Mel Myers

Columbia University is undermining journalism by inviting this propagandist. This is not open mindedness; it is a craven failure to protect and promote real journalism. I am so disappointed in my alma mater.

Julia C. Mead

When you give people like [John] Carney a platform, you are encouraging readers to equate this type of reporting with real journalism and you do a disservice to the profession.

Gloria Watanabe

CJR? Normalizing Breitbart? You should be ashamed of yourself. Unbelievable.

Ann Savage

Accusing others of what you do first, is an old and tired tactic. Pedantic distractions. Your bodacious spin wont wash with intelligent people. You will soon be sinking, as the yellow journalistic fishwrapper you are, Breitbart. Enjoy your 15 minutes.

Marianne Donnelly

A recipe for journalism that works

Kyle Pope overlooks an important option for funding journalism: taxation. We wouldnt dare have for-profit police or for-profit courts. Many people believe for-profit health care is immoral. Why should we accept for-profit journalism or accept that there is a market solution to funding it?

One business model that Pope does endorse is the partisan press, but that introduces bias and further bifurcates the alternate realities experienced by liberals and conservatives. The same criticisms apply to journalism funded by wealthy benefactors.

Government is needed to provide the common good precisely in cases for which the market system cant deliver. Indeed, the founders of the country recognized the special role of the press and subsidized it via the postal system.

Of course theres little chance republicans would agree to spending tax dollars on journalismthey already want to eliminate funding for NPR. Given the importance of the press for democracy, its time to advocate for tax-funded journalism with a wall protecting journalists from political meddling.

Donald A. Smith

PhD, Democratic Precinct Committee Officer

Bellevue, WA

Podcast: CJR, BBC collaborate for audio documentary on journalism in America

I listened to your recent breaking news podcast and I have the following comments:

This American Life had a recent episode in which the editor of the Dallas newspaper met with two conservative readers. The two readers did a good job of articulating the bias they saw in the Dallas newspapers coverage. The two readers were better than the people that you spoke to in New York because they had specific examples rather than a sort of wild-eyed the media is biased approach. I particularly liked one readers observation: the newspaper is staffed with liberal reporters who try and correct for their bias, but they have so many blind spots that the corrections fail.

I think you overlooked part of the story. The media wanted Trump to be the Republican nominee because the media, generally, wanted Clinton to win. As a consequence, the media did a lousy job of covering Trump during the primaries. Where was the reporting of Trumps dealings with shady real estate developers in third-world countries (e.g. a recent article in The New Yorker)? Why are those stories only coming out now? A more charitable explanation might be that the media did a lousy job of covering Trump during the primaries because they never thought he would win. If true, that speaks about some sort of problem with the media particularly once it became clear that Trump stood a chance of winning the nomination.

The media has decided that Trump is illegitimate and that, therefore, the normal rules governing reporting do not apply. The New York Times is particularly bad; The Washington Post is less so. I now read stories that are wholly based on anonymous sources. Stories are filled with editorial asides and language that any conservative properly reads as biased. The media does not do itself any favors when it tries to correct for the mistakes of the voters or for its own poor coverage by gunning for Trump. The media should stop viewing itself as part of the resistance or the public will be justified in viewing reporters as players in the political process that should not be trusted.

You didnt touch on how reporters are now trained and how that affects their coverage. I worked as a reporter for a small weekly (then bi-monthly and then monthly) newspaper. I did not restrict my reporting to what I learned on the internet or what I got from a press release. Many young reporters limit their reporting to practices like repeating what other reporters have said and calling that taking the pulse of voters.

Although I lay a lot of blame at the feet of reporters, some of the blame has to be reserved for editors who write inflammatory headlines that are not supported by the story (again, the NYT is particularly guilty). Instead they skew coverage by biased story selection and do not properly train or correct reporters excess.

I did not vote for Trump, but I am a conservative and I can see how and why so many Trump supporters have lost their trust in the media. I have touched on some of the problems above, but there are others. In sum, I think the media needs to  as Pooh would say  go and have a good think.

Sincerely,

Don Padou

I listened to your episode about the media and Trump, and found it quite fascinating. What struck me is something that seems to be overlooked by many, if not all, in the media. That is how the uber wealthy, like the Koch Brothers, have been systematically working to erode the publics faith in the media and think tanks like the Brookings Institution (not to mention the Ivy League and other universities). It has been quite covert, but steady and constant, and well documented in the book Dark Money by Jane Mayer. She describes how the Kochs and others have been relentless in their efforts; in fact much of the rhetoric we hear today is rhetoric the Kochs have written/spoken about decades ago. I do not think Trump is what the Kochs expected from their efforts, so there is one small blessing there, but it is clear from reading her work that they are a significant force in the public turning against the liberal media. I am wondering if you are familiar with Ms. Mayers work and your thoughts about this. I really wish it were discussed more by journalists, although in this day of alternative facts I do not think it would change the minds of many people.

Best,

Jami Parrish

When you have a president that gets his information from a clearly 100-percent biased news source, positioned as real news, any other actual reality is fake news. There are a lot of people who only get their news from Fox News. Those people might actually believe him when he says at 6:55 in this video that he is at his all time high in the polls. That is completely laughable because virtually every poll has him currently at his low point for the year and sinking. It is truly a terrifying situation we are confronted with.

Dan Lynch

I enjoyed much of your BBC Documentary on eroding public trust in the media, and I thought you and those you interviewed made many good points. I really hope you do a sequel because theres a few important points that werent covered.

Representation/diversity: Theres been a huge push to make newsrooms more diverse, but as you can see from this Indiana University study from a few years ago, the percentage of Republicans in the media has declined steadily over the years, from about 25 percent in the 1970s to just seven percent today. I think everyone agrees that we need people of different races (and more women) so that the media looks more like America, but what about tackling the Groupthink problem? The seven-percent GOP figure is probably even lower at elite media outlets. Are there any reporters or editors at The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc who voted for Trump? Any at all? If there are, Im not aware of them. Its not just about Trump: Trust in the media declined during the 2016 election, but it has been eroding gradually for many years, mostly among independents and republicans. Im 44 years old, and Republicans have never trusted the mainstream media in my lifetime. Fake news: You interviewed a few people who wanted to dwell on Trumps lies,misstatements, and how much supposedly great reporting the press has done on Trump. Fair enough, but I didnt hear anyone make the point of how many glaring mistakes have been made, especially since he took office. The Federalist had a list of these which is not at all comprehensive. I think the key issue here is when you have a group of people who despise someone so much, they become willing to believe anything bad about him. We have seen so many cases where a story gets thrown out without the usual vetting and the outlet has to walk much of it back later. Twitter: All readers/viewers/listeners who suspect that a reporter might be biased can simply spend 60 seconds scrolling down his or her Twitter feed to see the proof. Reporters and editors feel completely at liberty to express their core beliefs on Twitter, and the stuff they tweet and retweet makes it quite obvious what their political leanings are. Weve seen so many cases of false negative stories about Trump going viral on Twitterretweeted without any questioning or verifying. The usual standards of journalism have essentially been thrown out the window.

Finally, I appreciate your optimistic conclusion, but I dont see the mainstream media winning back the trust of Republicans and many independents (like myself) anytime soon. Listen to the woman from the NYT you interviewed. Shes still in denialtalking about how the national polls were right. Large segments of the mainstream media still think that Trump won because of the Comey letter, Russian interference, etc. In short, they still dont get it.

Dave Seminara

Unpacking WSJs watershed Trump editorial

The article repeats BuzzFeeds false claim that Louise Mensch gained notoriety for tough parliamentary questioning during the News of the World phone-hacking scandal (BuzzFeed: gained international attention as a member of Parliament for tough questioning of the Murdochs during the News of the World phone-hacking scandal).

Whether she gained media fame or not, the idea she was a tough questioner of the Murdochs is simply false. Reading the transcript of the evidence session with James and Rupert Murdoch will show you in short order. In fact, many of her questions were very general and did not yield significant information. They were in the rich tradition of MPs on committees using evidence sessions to grandstand for the benefit of the media, instead of actually focusing on the crucial details of the case. Contrast this with the questions asked by the Labour MPs Paul Farrelly and Tom Watson, and you will see what I mean. See if Louise Mensch crops up at all in Hack Attack, the book Nick Davies wrote on how the scandal was uncovered.

Moreover, if she had been the toughest questioner on the committee who had picked holes in the Murdochs defence, do you really think she would have been given a column in The Sun shortly afterwards? Or that she would have been made the editor of a new News Corp-funded websiteHeat Street, a poor attempt to create a British Breitbart? If there is another example of such employment being given to a tough critic of the Murdochs, I have yet to find it.

Maybe instead of repeating junk about Louise Mensch uncritically copied from another website, you might care to do a bit of investigation into how she came to have such a good relationship with News Corp, which might have alerted you to the fact that she was not, in fact, a particularly tough questioner on the committee. (She also ultimately voted against the committees report because it was too critical of News Corp in her view.)

Yours sincerely,

Leo Watkins

This is not Huge. This is exactly what happens when democracies slowly segue toward demagoguery. Previously supportive conservatives wake up to the fact that the autocrat-in-progress wants to control the place for his purposes. They arent traditional purposes. His supporters love this stuff because, not only do they not care what elites think, but also they want to wreck the joint. Look at Duterte. And Putin. And Orban. And Erdogan. And most importantly, look at our white western history.

Rick OBrien

Once Rupert Murdoch bought WSJ, you knew things were eventually going to change. Now his son, James Murdoch, is taking over. James Murdoch was one of the largest contributors to the Clinton Foundation giving $20 million or so. And Murdochs wife works for the Clinton Climate Initiative. This is not your fathers WSJ anymore.

Tom Markowski

Newsrooms should follow two simple rules for reporting on womens bodies

Same goes for mens bodies. Samantha Bee just had to do a big mea culpa because her brand of opinion journalism includes mocking mens haircuts.

I know the article suggests covering mens bodies the same as women, but we already do that. Thanks to the tireless efforts of journalists at outlets like Vanity Fair, The Daily Show, and Rachel Maddow, we all know John Boehner and Donald Trump are orange. (Dont make me start dropping links). We also know Donald Trump has really tiny hands. We also know which male celebrities are best-dressed, which are probably gay (poor James Franco), and which ones sport dad bods (poor Leo).

Stop pretending the obsession with the bodies of public figures is limited to women, and acknowledge that journalism has a hot take and edutainment problem.

Deome Deome

Unless its a medical breakthrough or an integral part of a larger story, making anyones body the subject of a story is incredibly low-brow.

Chris Bashaw

It is demeaning and sexist to overlook the power of her speech and the need for such a message. The shoes she has on have no bearing on the message she has. God bless her and her babies. I think she is a fantastic role model for young women everywhere. Wise up New York Times and Daily Mail. I am appalled at that level of journalism.

Norma Wierman

The Final word on the Oxford comma

As a writer I use the Oxford comma for one simple reason: While it may not always be necessary, it is also never wrong.

Hal Millard

Heres the thing: There is ambiguity in Parents, kids enjoy snow day, as it can be read as direct address to parents. Just sayingthe root of most writing errors is the difficulty seeing what you didnt intend.

Marie C. Collins

The issue is not with the comma, but the ordering of the elements. The Oxford comma just trades one problem for another. In a series of three elements, the Oxford comma can make the middle element look like an appositive for the first: He had dinner with his father, Pope Francis, and a nun. The reason the debate never ends is that neither choice is incorrect.

Michael Hewitt

At last, a kitchen-sink letter from a former CJR subscriber

I have been a CJR subscriber for many years, and I have held it as an icon of thoughtful and insightful journalismuntil Donald Trump became president. The intent solidarity of the media to destroy his presidency is abundantly clear. He is right, mainstream media has declared war on him. You have declared war on average Americans as wellyou have forgotten how to be fair. Too busy chasing made up strawmen. The Russian connections??

Re: Obamacare: In my opinion you all have been worshipping at the Obama shrine to the point that it is almost sickening. Even President Bill Clinton openly stated that Obamacare was a disaster. Yet not one more mention of his statement has been picked up. Instead it is all about the terrible GOP fix and how all the millions of people would be without healthcare. If the media were fair, the fact that Obamacare was failing and why would have been worthy news, but nothing appeared that might have somehow supported the Presidents drive to repeal it.

You must know, millions of workers cannot afford Obamacare. These are people without any kind of healthcare. My personal example: My son is employed by a large agricultural company that supplies him (singular) with healthcare; the cost of which covered his family before Obamacare. Now in order to cover his wife and son it would be upwards of $500 per month. He cannot afford it. If you think this is an anomaly you are wrong!

Perhaps you are genuinely in the dark as to why people who voted for Donald Trump did so. If that is the case, you need to look farther into the lives of real people who left the Democrats and left Hillary and the political menagerie of lobbyists, professional politicians, and beltway insiders. Thank God Trump is not a Washington insider! So far the insiders have all but ruined middle class America. No, not just middle class Americans, but America itself. There is no longer respect for truly free speech if it doesnt sing the liberal left melody. That is true of the media as well.

I have cancelled my subscription to The New York Times, The Atlantic, and now CJR. We live in the real world. Our local newspaper reflects both sides of an issue. We get all of the news stations including PBS. Once I held journalists in very high esteem. I believed them to be brave, idealistic in some cases, fair, and for the most part, patriotic. I am sure there are still a few that reflect most of those values. Perhaps Ill stumble onto them someday soon.

Sincerely,

Shirley E. Viall

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.
THE MISSOULA INDEPENDENT, the decades-old western Montana alt-weekly, was acquired last week by Lee Enterprises, the states largest newspaper chain. Around the time Indy staffers were filling out their new W4 forms, The Missoulianthe citys daily paper, a Lee publication whose offices are just blocks from the Indy headquarterspublished an online story about the deal.

The next day, The Missoulians print issue ran more coverage of the deal on A-1, above the fold (and news of President Donald Trump dropping the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan). On Facebook, Indy editor Brad Tyer posted a photo of the dailys front page along with a comment: We beat the fucking bomb.

The Missoulians scoop was a bit of a turnabout; the alt-weekly, which has been independently owned since its founding in 1991, has a history of aggressively watchdogging its corporate competitor-turned-owner. Just hours after hearing about the takeover, Indy reporter Derek Brouwer took to Twitter and reminded local readers of precisely that.

Brouwer, who defected from a Lee Enterprises newspaper in 2015 for less money and more freedom in the alt-weekly world, posted links to every story he wrote about the Missoulian. Headlines included: Former Missoulian editor sues publisher, company, Missoulian editor addresses gun incident, awaits fate, Without any editors, Missoulian gets relief from Billings, and Rogue publisher settles. Then Brouwer wrote this:

Hearing from ppl 2day asking if this aspect of coverage will continue. Holding media accountable is small but imp. part of our role #mtmedia  Derek Brouwer (@derekwbrouwer) April 13, 2017

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And thats true. Ever since alt-weeklies began popping up in cities with a daily newspaper presence, lobbing bombs at the dailies and keeping them on their toes has been key to an alt-weeklys role in its community. In Missoulaa mountainous college town with a bohemian vibe, a civically engaged community, a rich literary history and an active outdoor culturethe Indy has been particularly diligent about that.

At one point, you had the former [Missoulian] editor and the former publisher all in lawsuits with the Missoulian-slash-Lee at the same time that the new editor was suspended indefinitely for bringing a firearm to the newsroom, former Indy editor Skylar Browning told me. And we covered all that stuff.

TWO YEARS AGO, THE BIGGEST MEDIA NEWS in Montana came when Lee Enterprises restructured its state bureau in Helena, losing two prominent journalists in the process. At the time, I wrote about how the move sparked talks of new approaches to public affairs coverage in Montana, and asked whether a new journalism project might emerge to fill what one University of Montana professor called a void. Since then, no such independent statewide project has emerged.

However, Lee hired two reporters to aggressively cover statewide issues for its newspapers in MontanaJayme Fraser, who came from The Houston Chronicle, and Holly Michels, a former city editor at The Billings Gazette. The two cover the capitol and have crisscrossed Montana offering compelling coverage of state government since 2015. Elsewhere, a digital news startup, Missoula Current, launched, and TreeSource.org, a new online magazine, seeks to fill the gaps in forest reporting.*

Whether the Indy will be able to continue its role as a local media watchdog along with retaining its independent voice has been a critical question for its staff and readership since the sale.

I think The Missoulian gives us the chips and the Indy gives us the salsa, says Henriette Lowisch, a journalism professor at the University of Montana who oversees the Montana Journalism Review. That means they both are hugely valuable for the community.

Missoula is a town that takes its journalism seriously. The university hosts a journalism school run by a former national security correspondent for NPR, and a creative writing program whose faculty includes a former Newsweek editor and a Knight-Wallace fellow. Jon Krakauer scrutinized the citys response to sexual assaults for a book that bears the citys name. Several New Yorker contributors have called the city home; one, Dan Baum, worked for the Indy in 1999.

The citys investment in the quality of its reporting colored statewide coverage. Its a media sale that surprised many, one broadcaster said. Did Missoula just get a little less weird? asked Montana Public Radio. The AP carried a wire report, and various blogs ran with their own (often insightful) takes.

The news also prompted some local activism. On Monday, Indy staffers found that someone had defaced the sign outside their building by coloring in the first two letters of the papers name to make it read dependent.

IN ITS FIRST ISSUE UNDER NEW OWNERS, the Indy covered its sale with the same vigor it previously devoted to covering The Missoulian. The editorial department scrapped its planned feature for this weeks issue and instead devoted the cover package, which came out Thursday, to reporting and analysis of the deal and what it means for Missoula. The Missoulians story on the deal totaled more than 1,300 wordsno small number for a daily paper. Coverage in the Indy, however, topped 5,000.

Indy reporters explored the reasons why Lee and the alt-weekly chose to merge, checked in with other alt-weeklies around the country that have been bought by MSM papers to find out what happened in other markets, and sought counsel from the Indys founders. Under the headline Daily chain, on life support, buys a helping Indy hand, a columnist offered a snark-filled humorous take.

The Indy also provided its readers with more background on Lees finances than The Missoulian did:

Lees recent woes are well known to many Indy readersthis paper has covered them for years. The defining moment arrived in 2005, when Lee took on more than $1 billion in debt to purchase the Pulitzer chain of newspapers. It was a bad time for a newspaper company to enter into debt. by 2011 Lee sought bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt payments. Since then, Lee, like every media company, has been in a race to cut costs more quickly than its revenues are falling, while also using substantially all available cash to pay down debt

The Indy also offered some context for how Lee handled one previous acquisition of a weekly:

Announcing the purchase to Indy staff, Gulledge made mention of Lees 2004 purchase of the Casper Journal, a community weekly in Wyoming that was started as a competitor to the Lee-owned Casper Star-Tribune. Dale Bohren sold the Journal to the Star-Tribune and today is executive editor of both publications. He says the Journal continued to operate separately for several years as he searched for ways to find a margin, of course. Over time, Bohren says, it made sense to integrate his old weekly into the primary product.

We kind of drew a line in the sand, Indy editor Tyer told me about his papers public response. Still, he says, I dont want to give a false impression that this is like the last resistance or something. Lee Enterprises owns the Indy, says Tyer. Theyre going to do what they want with it and theres really nothing we can do about that. And were not here to fight them. Were going to try our best to lead them to water.

Kathy Best, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Seattle Times editor who became The Missoulians editor in June, says the opinion in her newsroom is Lee bought the Indy to help it reach a different audience, not to change it. She hopes the paper keeps doing what it doesand that includes keeping watch on Lee and The Missoulian.

Ive worked in Seattle and Baltimore and St. Louis, all of which had alt-weeklies, all of which loved beating up on the daily, she said. And thats part of their job. And I appreciate that, and I think its healthy. We need somebody whos going to poke us with a sharp stick. All I ask is that they do it with thorough reporting and that theyre fair. Were not perfect, so thats OK.

The Indys coverage of the sale got kudos from Mike Gulledge, vice president of publishing for Lee Enterprises and publisher of The Missoulian.

I thought they did a nice job, and I think we need to prove that were going to be able to do the right thing in building on the strengths of an alt-weekly, and I was fine with the coverage, he told CJR. It was what I expected. He did have one caveat. Ive never been linked to a Disney character before, that was interesting, he said. (A reporter had written that Gulledge looks a lot like Fantasia-era Mickey Mouse when he smiles.)

Gulledge reiterated that the alt-weekly and the daily will remain editorially separate and he does not see a path to a merger at this point. The Indy has its own voice and audience, and Lee wants to build on it, he said, not try and build it into the audience of the Missoulian.

Based on my experience with the company, do I have the most confidence that the Indy will become stronger and have an even stronger alternative voice than it has had in its history? Not particularly.

Reasons for the alt-weekly takeover seem simple enough: Dwindling display ad revenue in the face of digital migration where the online ad dollars dont add up. And the Indy isnt the first alt-weekly to get gobbled by the corporate MSM: It joins the ranks of The Anchorage Press, The Chicago Reader, The Baltimore City Paper, The City Pages in Minneapolis, and my own alma mater, the Columbia, South Carolina Free Times.

Indy publisher Matt Gibson says he realized more than a year ago that he had to make some kind of move to keep his paper sustainable. He had been in talks with Lee for a while.

Looking down the road, I think its hard to imagine a little independent weekly in Missoula, Montana, growing, he told me. So that was the challenge: How can I sustain this over the long haul? And I think partnering with Lee Enterprises gives us by far the best chance to continue the work.

Gibson, now a Lee employee, will remain the Indys publisher, and says the papers will be stronger together. He expects the news operations to remain separate and the alt-weekly to keep its voice. The Indy will retain ownership of its building and will lease it to Lee. Gibson declined to share the sale price with CJR.

AFTER THE INDYS COVERAGE of the sale had filled newspaper boxes around Missoula, Brouwer retweeted a few links to his colleagues work:

The @Missoula_Indy team doesn't pull many punches as they report on the paper's sale to Lee. #mtmediahttps://t.co/ycKz4XUJmt  Eric Dietrich (@eidietrich) April 20, 2017

Brouwer says Lee Enterprises plays an outsized role in Montana as the states largest newspaper chain. He tells CJR that his job isnt designed for him to focus exclusively on the company and its papers, which now include his own, but its a valuable endeavor.

No one has said anything to us in an attempt to discourage or stop that kind of coverage, he tells me. Its a little counterintuitive, but the way theyve sort of framed it is that our brand of journalism is our value to the company, and, from that perspective, they dont want to stop that.

Whether readers in Missoula will trust such coverage going forward is something the Indy staff will have to prove through their work. A sticker recently appeared on at least one newspaper box with a slogan inspired by the deal: Missoulian Independent: The Death [of] Journalism in Missoula.

Brouwer says his only fear is a potential for self-censorship.

I think this is a new experiment for the company and we dont know how it will turn out, he says. Based on my experience with the company, do I have the most confidence that the Indy will become stronger and have an even stronger alternative voice than it has had in its history? Not particularly. But I dont think the door is shut. I dont think the future is set in stone.

*This story has been updated with new information about Lee Enterprises state capitol coverage. CJR deeply regrets the omission of that information from its initial report.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Corey Hutchins is CJRs correspondent based in Colorado, where he teaches journalism at Colorado College. A former alt-weekly reporter in South Carolina, he was twice named journalist of the year in the weekly division by the SC Press Association. Hutchins writes about politics and media for the Colorado Independent and worked on the State Integrity Investigation at the Center for Public Integrity; he has contributed to Slate, The Nation, the Washington Post, and others. Follow him on Twitter @coreyhutchins or email him at coreyhutchins@gmail.com.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Friday said more than 100 New York auto dealerships would pay a $1,000 as part of a settlement for selling vehicles to New Yorkers without informing the purchaser the vehicle was under a safety recall. Schneiderman spoke in a news conference at his Syracuse regional office at 615 Erie Boulevard West. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN)

SYRACUSE, N.Y.  More than 100 auto dealerships statewide will pay a $1,000 fine for selling vehicles to New Yorkers without informing the purchaser the vehicle was under a recall.

The recalls were for dangerous unrepaired safety issues such as unintended acceleration, airbag problems, vehicle fires, steering, and brake loss.

More than half of the dealerships involved in the investigation are located in the Syracuse, Watertown, and Binghamton areas, according to a news release that the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued Friday afternoon.

Schneiderman also provided details on the settlement for local reporters during a news conference at his Syracuse regional office at 615 Erie Boulevard West.

The settlement requires the auto dealers to provide consumers with advance notice of any existing and unrepaired recall, among other measures.

The attorney general calls the first in the nation agreements groundbreaking, saying they seek to protect consumers and to improve public safety on our roads and highways.

An extensive investigation by my office found hundreds of used cars with serious, uncorrected problems, problems that had been identified in safety recalls but that were sold to unwitting consumers all across New York with no notice of the problems or the fact that safety recalls had been issued, Schneiderman said in his remarks during the news conference.

The investigation is ongoing, the attorney general added.

Complaints from consumers and consumer advocates that started in December 2015 prompted the investigation, Schneiderman said.

His office conducted an investigation that found while many prospective car buyers reasonably assume that any known and existing safety issues have been repaired or disclosed by the dealer, that is often not the reality of car buying in New York.

As part of its probe, Schneidermans staff surveyed advertisements, monitored vehicles covered by safety recalls, and identified auto dealers that advertised vehicles with unrepaired safety recalls.

Settlement requirements

As part of the settlements, the participating auto dealers are required to follow a set of guidelines to alert consumers that their vehicles may have unrepaired recalls.

Dealers that advertise used vehicles online must include information that enables consumers to check the recall status of advertised vehicles. The information will include the SaferCar.gov website that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) operates, Schneidermans office said.

Those dealers who advertise in print or other media must also disclose in the advertisement that the vehicle is subject to a safety recall.

In addition, dealers must place a decal notice in the window of used cars, which includes information that allows consumers to check the recall status of the vehicles, including the SaferCar.gov website and mobile application operated by NHTSA.

Two days prior to any sale, dealers must provide consumers with a copy of the NHTSA recall status report for a vehicle with an unrepaired safety recall, and obtain a written acknowledgment from the consumer.

Dealers must send notices to customers who have purchased vehicles with unrepaired safety recalls that are still unrepaired from January 2016 to present. Manufacturers franchise dealers must also cover up to five days of a loaner car for consumers if their vehicle requires repairs that will take longer than one day.

Dealerships hit with fines

Schneidermans news release listed all the dealerships involved in the settlement, including the following located in the Syracuse, Watertown, and Binghamton areas.

GREATER SYRACUSE REGION

1. Bill Rapp, Inc (2 Dealerships)

2. Bridgeland Auto Brokers

3. Cortland Used Cars

4. Liverpool World Car, LLC

5. Par-K Enterprises

6. TDK Property Company of Oneida, LLC

7. TDK Property Co. LLC

8. TRK-2 Operating Company, LLC (3 Dealerships)

9. Tecforce Automotive, LLC

10. Drivers Village, Inc. (13 Dealerships)

WATERTOWN AREA

1. FX Caprara Dealerships (14 Dealerships)

2. Waite Motor Sales, Inc.

GREATER BINGHAMTON REGION

1. Butler Auto Sales, Sidney

2. Chambers & OHara Truck Center, Inc., Sidney

3. North Norwich Motors & Trailer Sales, LLC, North Norwich

4. SHB Associates LLC (Serafini Nissan Volvo), Vestal

5. VanDervort Service Center, Inc., Vestal

6. Ridge Road Imports, LLC, Lansing

7. Milller Motor Car Corp (2 Dealerships), Vestal

8. Royal Ford Motors, Inc./Royal Chrysler Motors, Inc. (2 Dealerships), Owego

9. Gault Auto Mall, Inc. (3 Dealerships), Endicott

10. Gene Balmers Auto Sales, Elmira

11. Jeff Kies Auto Sales, Inc., Apalachin

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
04/21/2017

Brandon Coats (Photo via Facebook) The broadcasting corporation Dish Network is headquartered in Colorado, where residents first voted to legalize medical marijuana in 2000. Yet it's perfectly legal for Colorado companies to fire disabled patients for using medical marijuana, as Dish has done.

In 2010, well after marijuana could legally be used as medicine in the state, Dish submitted some of their local employees to random drug tresting. Brandon Coats, among the group selected, had worked for the company for three years. A car accident years earlier left him paralyzed. Confined to a wheelchair, Coats used medical marijuana to control painful muscle spasms. He even had a state-issued license to use it. None of this mattered to Dish.

The company fired Coats when they detected THC in his blood. Not long after, Coats sued for discrimination, beginning a long legal battle that ended up in the hands of the Colorado Supreme Court. The judges were tasked with deciding whether lawful use of marijuana outside of work hours could protect employees from strict zero-tolerance workplace policies.

Coats consumes medical marijuana at home, after work, and in accordance with his license and Colorado state law, the judges said in their 2015 ruling, explaining that Coats was not breaking any local laws. But because marijuana is still illegal under federal law, the Court ruled that Coats had no protections from getting fired.

Having decided this case on the basis of the prohibition under federal law, we decline to address the issue of whether Colorados Medical Marijuana Amendment deems medical marijuana use lawful by conferring a right to such use, the court said, ruling in Dish's favor.

Since then, Colorados marijuana regulations have loosened. Recreational as well as medical marijuana use are now legal in Colorado and contribute to a multi-billion dollar industry. On Thursday, to coincide with April 20, the worlds first known drive-through dispensary opened its doors in the Colorado mountain town aptly called Parachute. Dishs policies, on the other hand, have not changed. As a national employer, DISH remains committed to a drug-free workplace and compliance with federal law, Dish's corporate office tells ConsumerAffairs in a brief statement, otherwise declining to comment.

Coats' life after Dish

Brandon Coats estimates that he has applied to as many as 70 jobs in the years since he was fired from Dish. Once employers discover why he lost his last job, "they kind of get a look on their face, like, Im sorry. Youre not going to get the job, Coats tells ConsumerAffairs.

Coats pays his bills now with the help of his mother. Finding work as a quadriplegic was already difficult, and the $750 in disability benefits that he receives from the government isnt nearly enough.



At Dishs offices in Littleton, Coats counseled customers who needed help fixing their cable before the company would send a technician over to their home. "I was really good at my job, he says. Theres not a whole lot of things that Im able to do. I can work the computer and work the phone, so it was the perfect job for me."

Before turning to medical marijuana, constant muscle spasms made it difficult for Coats to sit still. He began using a combination of legal medication and marijuana on the advice of other quadriplegics. "It's really common," he says.

He did not realize that Dish randomly drug-tested its employees until the day that the company selected him and about 40 others for testing. Since then, Coats says, hardly anyone will give him an interview, let alone a job. Of the dozens of places he has applied to, only one hired him -- a website that advertised marijuana dispensaries. But the site didnt make enough money to stay in business. Its pretty hard to find work as a quadriplegic period, he says, and the lawsuit, those things together make it really hard.

Despite that, he doesnt regret filing the suit. The lawyer he hired warned him in advance that the case would be an uphill battle. Before then, no one knew if disabled people who need medical marijuana could be shielded from zero-tolerance employment policies. "I think it should be legalized and me bringing the lawsuit forward will help with that. Small steps."

Marijuana and injury compensation

The Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project, which had filed a brief in support of Coats, made the argument in court that the federal Controlled Substances Act should not apply to legal or medical use of marijuana.

But the courts clearly do not agree. Since April 2016, employers have prevailed on all nine cases filed in the past 18 months by employees involving medical marijuana, Law360 reported last year, even in states with liberal marijuana laws, such as California, Colorado and Washington.

Liberal marijuana laws can also conflict with workers compensation policies. According to a report published November by the California Workers Compensation Institute, injured employees can be denied benefits or even fired if marijuana is discovered in a post-accident drug screening.

As other examples, the institute cites a Washington state court decision that an employer was within its rights to fire an injured worker with marijuana in his system. And injured workers in Colorado can lose disability benefits if they fail a drug screening, the institute found.
04/20/2017

When a Wikileaks email dump last year revealed that leaders of the Democratic Party worked to tilt their primary in Hillary Clintons favor against opponent Senator Bernie Sanders, a similar but lesser-known political battle between an established politician and an underdog reared its head in the state of Florida.

Tim Canova, an attorney, economist, and professor who currently teaches at Nova Southeastern University, challenged incumbent and then-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz last year in a bid to represent Floridas 23rd congressional district in the House of Representatives. Some of the major issues that Canova centered his campaign around included his support for a total ban on fracking in Florida and his opposition to the Sabal Trail Pipeline, a proposed $3 billion project that its backers say will deliver natural gas from Alabama and Georgia through Florida by June 2017.

The project, the EPA warned in 2015, could contaminate the Floridan Aquifer, where much of the state gets its water, but the EPA reversed its position one year later. Community groups and environmental groups, on the other hand, have continued to wage a campaign against the project. While the pipeline was a major focus of Canovas campaign, the issue never came up in Wasserman Schultzs.

Never uttered the words

As far as I know, shes never uttered the words Sabal Trail Pipeline, Canova tells ConsumerAffairs. "Most of the political class in Florida has also remained silent. When you look at the state of Florida, a great number of politicians here have taken campaign donations from either Flower Power & Light, or Duke Energy, or NextEra," the same group building the Sabal Trail Pipeline.

Wasserman Schultz ultimately beat Canova by 6,775 votes, about 28,000 votes to his 21,000. But now, with the election in the rearview mirror, there is a sign that the congresswoman is at least paying attention to the controversial project. "Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she wants to know more," Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, an organizer with Sierra Clubs Florida chapter, tells ConsumerAffairs.

The Sierra Club is one of several groups currently suing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to stop the Sabal Trail Pipeline. Malwitz-Jipson recalls getting a phone call from one of the congresswomans staffers about a week ago. The staffer, she says, wanted to know about the public and what the public was doing about the pipeline, so Malwitz-Jipson emailed him public documents detailing testimony that people gave about the project. (The congresswomans office did not return messages left by ConsumerAffairs).

What the staffers sudden interest means is anyones guess, but Malwitz-Jipson notes that their only hope to stop the project lies with national leaders. "Federal leadership is ultimately the one thats responsible for federal permitting.

Numerous risks to Florida's water

Florida is a state that experts say is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, due in part to the $69 billion worth of coastal property at risk of being inundated by a rising tide and the porous limestone that cities like Miami are built on.

That limestone sediment means that Floridas land is prone to both sinkholes and flooding. And the oil that Florida produces isnt as high quality as oil found elsewhere. Yet despite all this, Florida continues to attract more oil and gas projects, says Jacki Lopez, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Florida is becoming this destination and hub for oil and gas exportation, she tells ConsumerAffairs.

The Sabal Trail Pipeline is just one of several projects that local organizers say could threaten the states fragile aquifer system. In January, Florida Power & Light won approval from Governor Rick Scott to store radioactive waste underneath south Floridas Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to the region.

The National Park Service last year gave drilling companies the go-ahead to conduct seismic exploration in the Big Cypress National Preserve, a protected wetland and another source of drinking water. Meanwhile, President Trump is planning to expand off-shore drilling along the Atlantic coast.

The states overall geology makes our aquifer system and our natural resources really vulnerable to contamination, Lopez adds.

Lawmakers respond

At the state level, lawmakers are considering bills to both ban fracking and to expand it. Nationally, Republican Senator Marco Rubio hasn't lifted a finger on this issue, Lopez says, other than to write letters expressing his support for more oil and gas development.

Floridas Democratic Senator Bill Nelson has publicly expressed concerns about seismic exploration in the states protected wetlands as well as fracking. He has been very strong at asking questions to the Department of Interior, Lopez says, and in saying that we don't want that in Florida.

Nelson has not yet spoken out for or against the Sabal Trail Pipeline however. His office has consulted with environmental groups about their concerns, representatives from the groups tell ConsumerAffairs. (Nelsons office has not yet returned an interview request). "They listened, says Sierra Clubs Malwitz-Jipson. However, we still dont see any movement from it, in terms of ending it.

Former House candidate Canova recalls attending a hearing in West Palm Beach that Senator Nelson organized regarding climate change. The witnesses, Canova says, mostly talked about the ways that Florida should adapt to climate change.

There was no discussion really about how do we really quickly become a leader in solar, wind energy and renewables? How do we get off of this addiction to fossil fuels?"

FPL and solar

With its sunny and suburban atmosphere, Florida would seem to be the ideal place for the solar industry to take off. Many Florida consumers are in fact using government and company rebates to install solar panels on their own homes, a move that is not welcomed by local or out-of-state energy companies.

Sabal Trail Pipeline backer Florida Power & Light, which is also the states largest utility, spent a reported $20 million backing a proposed state amendment last year that experts said would have discouraged consumers from purchasing solar panels. The amendment failed, and Florida Power & Light at the same time pledged to expand its solar forms, enough to comprise just four percent of the states energy needs by 2023.

Florida Power & Lights parent company, as former candidate Canova notes, has donated to the campaigns of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Wasserman Schultz. Her former opponent sounds cynical about her offices apparent, newfound interest in the Sabal Trail Pipeline.

They realize that I might run against her again, he speculates. They probably want to figure out how to deal with that issue, whether it means her flip-flopping now, or just trying to find holes in our argument.
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New York, April 20, 2017A military court in Cameroon today convicted Ahmed Abba, a journalist for Radio France Internationales Hausa service, on charges of non-denunciation of terrorism and laundering of the proceeds of terrorist acts, according to his lawyer and RFI. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Cameroonian authorities not to contest the journalists appeal and to release him without delay.

Abbas lawyer, Clement Nakong, told CPJ that Abba, who has been jailed since July 2015 in relation to his reporting on the extremist group Boko Haram, could face the death penalty on the first charge and a maximum of five years in prison on the second charge at a sentencing hearing scheduled for April 24. Nakong said Abba would appeal the conviction after the sentencing hearing. RFI reported that the military tribunal acquitted the journalist of the charge of apologizing for acts of terrorism.

The military courts conviction of Cameroonian radio journalist Ahmed Abba on terrorism charges that could carry the death penalty is an outrage, CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney said. Covering terrorism as a reporter must not be equated with committing acts of terror. Each day Abba spends behind bars is a travesty of justice.
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New York, April 21, 2017The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Turkish authorities to stop jailing journalists and suppressing dissent in the wake of a referendum to change Turkeys system of governance from parliamentary to presidential. In the past week, police arrested at least three journalists and raided the newsroom of leftist website Sendika for reporting on protests over alleged irregularities in the referendum.

The crackdown on press freedom in Turkey has devastated the countrys once-vibrant media landscape, said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. If Turkish authorities want citizens to accept the referendum results they must allow critical voices to speak freely, without fear of retaliation. We call on officials in Ankara to turn a new leaf in media policies and embrace an independent press.

Police yesterday raided the newsroom of Sendika and arrested its news editor, Ali Ergun Demirhan, the website reported. Demirhan tweeted details of the raid and his arrest. A translation of his post read, Our office was raided at 5:50 [a.m]. I am being detained on the accusation of making the yes [referendum vote] seem illegitimate.' Police arrested Demirhan for inciting people to hatred, being hostile to a public officer, and insult for allegedly trying to present the referendum result as illegitimate, Sendika reported. The report added that police confiscated a computer hard drive and cell phone.

Istanbul police also arrested Murat Bay, a reporter for Sendika, on his way back from covering protests on April 17, according to the news website Evrensel. Bay was detained in relation to reports on the protests and for allegedly providing details of rallies in advance.

Also on April 17, police in the western city of Izmir detained Kazm Kzl, a photojournalist for the website Kamera Sokak, who was covering a protest against alleged irregularities in the constitutional referendum, according to Demokrat Haber and Ben Gazeteciyim, a volunteer association of Turkish journalists formed to show solidarity with their threatened colleagues.

The raid and arrests are a continuation of Turkeys crackdown on independent reporting. Separately this week, Istanbuls Chief Prosecutors Office charged six journalists under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which prohibits insults to Turkish identity, over their reporting of Turkish military actions in predominantly ethnic-Kurdish cities in southeastern Turkey, according to Evrensel. The journalists are Selman Keles, Ozgur Paksoy, Kenan Krkaya, and Aziz Oruc, from the shuttered pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency ( DIHA); Ersin Caksu, editor of the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgurlukcu Demokrasi; and Ihsak Yasul, news editor of Ozgurlukcu Demokrasi.

Turkey is a leading jailer of journalists, according to CPJ research. For over a year, CPJ has documented press freedom violations there in its daily Turkey Crackdown Chronicle.
By now youve probably watched the video of the doctor being dragged from his seat off a United Airlines flight to make room for one of the airlines own employees. Maybe you also heard the story of a first-class passenger who was threatened with being handcuffed if he didnt hand over his fully paid-for fare and ticket on a United flight so another passenger deemed a higher priority could have his seat.

The list of grievances against United goes on.

It would appear from many, many conversations, social media posts and articles that United Airlines culture is in desperate need of some changes. It is also clear that the business model of focusing inwardly (on your employees and higher-ups) isnt a successful long-term plan.

Of course, if you are in the credit union industry, where your members are your No. 1 priority, you already know this and model a consumer-first standard very well. In fact, I believe that anytime your customers (or members) come first, you will find success and a sustainable business model for years to come.
If you are managing the social marketing content at your credit union then youll want to read these 6 credit union marketing tricks that work every time. As a content marketing agency for credit unions, we know first hand what tricks work every time.

Offer an Internal Staff Contest to Gain More Followers

Is your credit union relatively new to social media? Maybe you are looking to grow your followers? The first place we typically start with new clients is to have their credit union offer an internal contest to their staff on Facebook (but this can be replicated on any platform, like Instagram).

Simply ask your staff to build up your followers with their family and friends to be entered to win a monetary reward (i.e. $100 Visa Gift Card). For every friend the staff member gets to like the CUs Facebook page, his or her name will go into the pot to win! If 10 friends like the CUs page, then that staff members name will be entered 10 times to win! This type of contest has been proven to be successful for several clients, and it also helps to boost excitement around the social movement among the staff at a CU.
Want To See What The Pros Expect Of Oil In Q2? Access The Q2 Market Forecasts HERE

Talking Points:

Crude Oil Technical Strategy: Long above Q2 Opening Range @ $49.91/bbl

Libya reopens El-Feel Oil Field in West Libya, Returning unneeded Oil Supply to market

Saudi Arabia's oil minister remarks on likely renewal of the OPEC supply curb

While OPEC may be winning in their battle to balance the global Oil market, it is not necessarily happening on the timeframe they would prefer. Naturally, it is not helpful that Shale production is at its highest levels since 2015. The U.S. Shale resurgence coupled with OPECs supply management continues to provide hope for Oil bulls. While Crude dropped ~3% on Wednesday, there is also likely to be volatility on expiration-position squaring is occurring as May WTI contract expires Thursday.

The weekly chart below of the May contract shows key support in the $50.38-$49.59 zone. $50.38 is the 50% retracement of the March range, $49.91 is the April Opening Range low, and $49.59 is the 61.8% retracement of the May range.

Should these levels fail to hold up the price, traders will likely turn their attention to the Trendline drawn off the August 2016 low near $47.90, which held support well in March. This Trendline aligns well with the 55-WMA (blue line on the chart.) The sentiment picture is aligning with the downside view as will be explained below.

The resistance that would turn the focus away from further downside is the April 12 high of $53.74/bbl.

Interested in Joining Our Analysts, Instructors, or Strategists For a Free Webinar? Register Here

Chart Created by Tyler Yell, CMT

Crude Oil Sentiment:

Oil - US Crude: As of April 20, retail trader data shows 54.4% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 1.2 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 40.0% higher than yesterday and 15.3% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 30.1% lower than yesterday and 31.7% lower from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests Oil - US Crude prices may continue to fall. Traders are further net-long than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger Oil - US Crude-bearish contrarian trading bias.

(Emphasis Mine)

---

Shorter-Term US OIL Technical Levels: Thursday, April 20, 2017

For those interested in shorter-term levels of focus than the ones above, these levels signal important potential pivot levels over the next 48-hours.

Written by Tyler Yell, CMT, Currency Analyst & Trading Instructor for DailyFX.com

To receive Tyler's analysis directly via email, please SIGN UP HERE

Contact and discuss markets with Tyler on Twitter: @ForexYell
They've made their mark  in science, the arts, public affairs, business, health care, local communities and more. And now, as Dalhousie prepares to celebrate thousands of new graduates this spring, the university is also preparing to celebrate these nine outstanding individuals with honorary doctorates  the highest honour Dalhousie can bestow. Honorary degrees recognize people who've demonstrated inspirational leadership in, or in service to, society, outstanding contribution to a field or discipline, and/or outstanding contributions to the university.

Honorary degree presentations will take place at nine of the 16 convocation ceremonies at Dalhousie this spring. Proceedings begin on Friday, May 12 with the ceremony for graduates of the Faculties of Agriculture and Graduate Studies on the Agricultural Campus. Ceremonies then resume in Halifax on Friday, May 26 and run through Saturday, June 3. For more information, visit the Convocation website.



Dr. Lan Siren A transformative force in international agricultural education.

Friday, May 12 (2 p.m. ceremony  Truro)



An internationally renowned landscape architect and expert in forestry development, national forest parks, wetland parks, and urban landscape planning and design, Dr. Lan Siren is President of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in China (FAFU)  an institution with which Dalhousie has had a long and valued relationship.



Dr. Lan completed a Bachelor of Agriculture at the Fujian College of Forestry, then qualified as a senior engineer. He holds a Master of Economics from Xiamen University and a Doctor of Agriculture from Beijing Forestry University. Since taking over as President in 2010, he has transformed the FAFU property into a haven of innovative landscape architecture that helps reduce pollution and makes the campus a living classroom. FAFU has grown from just 4,000 students in 1998 to around 40,000 today, much of that during Dr. Lans tenure as President.



Dr. Lan is also a leader in international cooperation for education and research. In his time as President of FAFU, he has enthusiastically embraced and strengthened his institutions long partnership with Dalhousies Faculty of Agriculture through articulation agreements and FAFUs Overseas Education College. Dr. Lan is also Vice Chairman of the Forest Park Branch and Bamboo Branch of the Chinese Society of Forestry, Chairman of the Fujian Forestry Society, and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Fujian Government Economic Development Research Center. He has held a series of prestigious government appointments and won numerous awards and honours for his research in China.

Dr. Ronald D. Stewart One of Nova Scotias shining lights in health policy, practice and education

Friday, May 26 (9 a.m. ceremony)



Dr. Ronald D. Stewart is a gifted clinician, administrator, and educator known for building solutions to difficult public health challenges. Originally from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, he earned a BA from Acadia University and an MD from Dalhousie. He has devoted much of his career to developing training and standards for paramedics, and designing and implementing systems for emergency medical care.



Dr. Stewart has worked in emergency medicine in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Halifax, making lasting contributions to the field in each. In Pittsburgh, for example, he was not only Medical Director of the citys Department of Public Safety, but established the Center for Emergency Medicine, now the largest institution of its kind in North America. He also shaped Nova Scotias health-care system as Minister of Health (1993-1996), including creating the Emergency Health Services (EHS) system we depend on today.



After first coming to Dalhousie as a faculty member in 1990 (Professor of Anaesthesia and Emergency Medicine), Dr. Stewart later served as Director of Medical Humanities from 2004 to 2009. In that role, he integrated the arts and history into medical study to promote creativity and empathy in the medical profession, in particular through the Music-in-Medicine initiative. Now Professor Emeritus of Medical Education, he is an Officer of the Order of Canada, has received Queen Elizabeth II Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals and the Order of Nova Scotia, and has been presented with honorary degrees from Acadia and Cape Breton Universities.

Ms. Elizabeth Gallion Cromwell An inspiring advocate for Black Loyalist history and heritage

Friday, May 26 (12:30 p.m. ceremony)



For more than 30 years, Elizabeth Cromwell has been on a mission to bear witness to Black Loyalist history and culture and make it accessible to Nova Scotians and Canadians. Thanks in large part to Ms. Cromwells tenacity, vision and determination, the rich story of Black Loyalist endurance and resilience is finally being told.



Born in Shelburne, Ms. Cromwell studied at the Halifax Vocational School, graduated in 1969 as a social welfare worker, and spent her career working with the Childrens Aid Society of Shelburne County. She is a founding member of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society (BLHS) and served as President until 2002 and again from 2008 until 2016. Through her efforts, the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre opened its doors in Birchtown in 2015, commemorating the lives and experiences of Black Loyalists in what was once the largest settlement of free Blacks outside Africa.



Ms. Cromwell was determined that Black Loyalist history be recognized as a key building block of our provincial and national identity. For her tireless efforts, she has been awarded an honorary degree by Mount Saint Vincent University, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the Multicultural Volunteer of the Year Award from Volunteer Nova Scotia. Under her leadership, the BLHS also won a Race Relations and Human Rights Award from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.



Mr. Steve Blank Global leader in entrepreneurship theory and education

Tuesday, May 30 (9 a.m. ceremony)



Author and educator Steve Blank literally wrote the book on modern startups. He sparked the experimental, evidence-based Lean Startup movement with his 2003 book The Four Steps to the Epiphany, informed by his more than two decades as an early employee or founder of eight different high-tech startups. The book, which began as notes for an entrepreneurship course and went on to become a global bestseller, posited the revolutionary idea that startups are not just smaller versions of big companies  they need their own tools and processes to move from idea to execution to product.



In 2011, Mr. Blank created the Lean LaunchPad, an entrepreneurship class that puts customer development and lean business model design principles together in a fast-paced, real-life environment. The model has been adopted at more than 75 universities around the world; has become the standard for the commercialization of science in the U.S.; is driving defense innovation in the U.S.; and is firmly embedded at Dalhousie in the form of the universitys Starting Lean course and Launch Dal entrepreneurial programming. A number of enterprises have sprung from this multidisciplinary initiative on campus  including biomedical, big data and innovative product design companies  and many of the programs students have stayed in Nova Scotia and become part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem helping drive the provinces economy.



A prolific writer and speaker who is widely recognized as a thought leader on startups and innovation, Mr. Blank teaches entrepreneurship at the University of California Berkeley, Columbia University, New York University and Stanford University. Named to the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of 12 Masters of innovation, Steve is also Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University. This is his first honorary doctorate.

Dr. Carol Lillian Richards Trailblazer in stroke research and care

Wednesday, May 31 (12:30 p.m. ceremony)



Dr. Carol Richards has always been ahead of her time. One of the first physiotherapists in Canada to earn a doctorate, she led the charge to position physiotherapy as a valid contributor to basic and clinical research, greatly advancing the field as an academic discipline and improving the lives of stroke survivors in Canada and worldwide.



Dr. Richards has a BSc in Physical Therapy from McGill University, an MSc in Rehabilitation Science from the University of Saskatchewan and a PhD from McGill in Experimental Surgery. She was founding director of two Quebec rehabilitation agencies: the Quebec Rehabilitation Research Network (REPAR) and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (CIRRIS). Her work has revolutionized the way patients and families are treated, placing knowledge translation at the heart of stroke care research in Canada.



Today, she is a Professor at Universite Laval, researcher at CIRRIS and the Quebec Rehabilitation Institute and holds the Universite Laval Research Chair in Cerebral Palsy. She is a past Canada Research Chair in Rehabilitation. Among her many honours are the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Edith Aston Memorial Lectureship at McGill in 2013 and the exceptional contribution award from the Quebec Foundation for Heart and Stroke. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, an Officer of the Order of Canada and holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Ottawa and Sherbrooke.



Dr. Nergis Mavalvala Pushing the boundaries of human knowledge  and for greater diversity in the sciences.

Friday, June 2 (9 a.m. ceremony)



Physicist Dr. Nergis Mavalvala has been a key part of the team at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) for more than two decades. Recently, the ultrasensitive LIGO telescope captured one of the most significant scientific discoveries of our time: the first observation of the gravitational waves predicted by Einsteins General Theory of Relativity.



From Karachi, Pakistan, Dr. Mavalvala came to the United States to study at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she earned a degree in Physics and Astronomy and graduated Magna cum Laude. This was followed by a PhD in Physics at MIT, were she developed a theory for and experimentally demonstrated the automatic alignment sensing and control system now used in Initial LIGO detectors. Dr. Mavalvala joined the faculty at MIT in 2002 and today is Marble Professor of Astrophysics.



Dr. Mavalvala describes herself as an out, queer person of color, and has demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting diversity in the sciences. She is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and of the American Physical Society, which awarded her the Joseph Keithley Prize in 2013. She won the MIT School of Science Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2012, and the Edgerton Award for Faculty Achievement at MIT in 2007, and was co-recipient of the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. And in 2010, she received a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, a research prize commonly referred to as a Genius Grant.

Dr. Kenneth G. Davey A prolific insect researcher who has shaped Canadas research landscape

Friday, June 2 (4 p.m. ceremony)



Dr. Kenneth G. Davey is a Canadian biologist who for the past 60 years has exercised a prolific and profound influence on his own field of insect physiology and on how research is funded, organized and shared in Canada. He is known worldwide for his contributions to the fields of biology, entomology, endocrinology and physiology.



After earning both a BSc and an MSc in zoology from the University of Western Ontario, and a PhD in insect physiology from Cambridge University, Dr. Davey became Director of the Institute of Parasitology at McGill University. In 1974 he moved to York University, becoming Chair of the Department of Biology, Dean of Science, Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Fellow of the Institute of Social Research. Since 2000, Dr. Davey has been a Distinguished Research Professor of Biology Emeritus. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and mentored more than 60 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. He has served extensively as an advisor and committee member for NSERC, CIHR, the Networks of Centres of Excellence and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and his contributions as an editor at the Canadian Journal of Zoology span 30 years.



Dr. Davey is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. He has won three Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Medals, is an Officer of the Order of Canada and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Western Ontario.



Ms. Chantal St-Cyr Hebert Nationally-renowned journalist, political commentator and author

Saturday, June 3 (9 a.m. ceremony)



Journalist, commentator and author Chantal St-Cyr Hebert is one of the most respected and authoritative figures in the Canadian media landscape, contributing her razor-sharp intellect and astute analysis to her work in newspaper, television and radio. Ms. Heberts ability to communicate with equal precision in both official languages affords her a unique perspective on the political and social tides that have shaped recent Canadian politics and history.



Ms. Hebert earned a BA in Political Science from York University. Her journalism career began with Radio-Canada, CBCs French language service, and eventually led to covering federal politics on Parliament Hill. She has also served as Parliamentary bureau chief for Le Devoir and La Presse. Today, Ms. Hebert writes for the Toronto Star and LActualite, and is a regular member of The Nationals At Issue panel on CBC television. She has written two books: French Kiss: Stephen Harpers Blind Date with Quebec and The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was.



Chantal Heberts awards include the 2005 Public Service Citation of the Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX), a 2014 National Magazine Award (gold) and the 2006 Hy Soloman Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and has been awarded several honorary doctorates, including from Bishops, York, Concordia, Mount Saint Vincent and the University of Western Ontario. She is also a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto.


Apple is set to begin trialling smartphone production in India from May without waiting for a governmental response to its tax concessions plea.

The US device giant struck a deal in February with manufacturer Wistron to begin assembling more affordable iPhone models in India at a newly established factory in Bengaluru (Bangalore), Indias technology centre.

While the firm put in a request for tax concessions with the Indian government at the time, it seemed intent to commence production regardless. That said, reports have indicated that the Bengaluru facility will be a pilot project for Apple, with its requested tax breaks a key factor in its Indian manufacturing business going forward.

Apples demands for tax breaks were initially posited as a prerequisite for it commencing production in India, with the firm asking for a 15-year waiver on custom duties for importing all components and equipment. It also asked to be exempt from Indias 30% local sourcing requirement.

However, these demands were denied by Indias Department of Revenue in March, with Indian officials stating that no one firm should be able to attain such preferential treatment. However, the government is looking to revise its manufacturing policy to better support its Make in India campaign, as well as draw in foreign investment.

A state official for Karnataka noted: We are working to see that [Apple] brings its entire component making ecosystem to Bengaluru and begins to export from here. We are not much concerned about Apple making iPhones for the domestic market, which will happen anyway.
Vietnamese market leader Viettel has officially launched its 4G service.

The operator has claimed that its network will provide average download speeds of 30Mb/s to 50Mb/s, making it between seven and ten times faster than its 3G network. It has also claimed that its 4G data tariffs will at launch be around 40%-60% cheaper than its original 3G tariffs.

Viettel stepped up its 4G infrastructure deployment in March with the aim of achieving nationwide coverage by this month; in the past six months, it has installed 36,000 LTE base stations. It claims to be the first operator in Vietnam to accomplish this goal, stating that its 4G coverage extends across 95% of Vietnams population.

Hoang Son, deputy general director of Viettel Group, noted that the network should allay concerns among customers that the rapidly-advancing technology would become inaccessible to them in terms of pricing, saying: We want to bring 4G to all Vietnamese people across the country, even in the most remote areas. With the view of building a 4G network for everyone Viettel will not let any Vietnamese stand outside the development of the technology.

In October 2016, four operators were awarded 4G licences in the 1.8GHz band by Vietnams Ministry of Information and Communications. While number three VinaPhone was technically first when it launched commercial 4G in November, its coverage was limited to Phu Quoc Island. It has now begun offering the service in Dong Nai province, after conducting trials in January across 100 base stations in Ho Chi Minh City.

Viettel, which is run by the countrys military, leads the Vietnamese market with 51 million subscribers giving it a 37% share.
Egyptian fixed incumbent Telecom Egypt has signed a national roaming agreement with Orange Egypt as it readies its mobile launch.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding, Orange Egypt will allow Telecom Egypt to provide 2G, 3G and 4G services over its network. Telecom Egypt is currently deploying its own radio network across Egypt, which will lower its dependency on roaming deals with rival operators.

Ahmed El Beheiry, MD and CEO of Telecom Egypt said: We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that Telecom Egypt is ready to launch commercial operations as swiftly and smoothly as possible. This agreement signals the strength of our commercial cooperation with Orange Egypt. We have reached commercial terms on 2G, 3G and 4G access as well as transmission services.

Telecom Egypt was previously a fixed-only operator, but in August 2016 gained a licence allowing it to offer mobile services, followed by a 4G licence in October last year. Along with its ongoing network deployment, it is developing systems for billing, point of sale and customer relationship management.

The operator has until now only had involvement in the mobile sector via a 44.95% stake in Vodafone Egypt. In the fixed space however it is a major regional player, with 6.5 million subscribers across its footprint.
The owner of Camden Market in London, Market Tech Holdings, agreed on Friday evening to be taken over by Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi's LabTech Investments for almost 900m, with the shares down 35% since floating two and a half years ago.

Market Tech, which was founded by Sagi and is 71% owned by his LabTech vehicle, has agreed to a cash offer where shareholders will receive 188p in cash per share.

Sagi, who also owns FTSE 250-listed gambling software Playtech, floated Market Tech on AIM in 2014 at a price of 220p per share.

Since arriving in its initial public offer with 11 acres of Camden real estate, the 45-year-old has since grown this to 16 acres across Camden, including the Stables Market, Union Street Market, Camden Lock Market, the Camden Lock Village, plus property assets on Camden High Street, Kentish Town Road, Primrose Hill and Chalk Farm.

LabTech said it was taking Market Tech private as the fall in the share price to a material and persistent discount to NAV was making accessing capital more expensive for the company and restricted its ability to expand.

One of the factors weighing in the shares, Sagi's press release admitted, was the unusual mix of real estate and technology assets within Market Tech, while macro events and the wider performance of UK real estate shares had both weighed of late.

"Independently from Market Tech, LabTech has continued to invest in central London real estate assets, outside of the Market Tech Camden Town estate, and further develop its own global co-working offering. The board of LabTech believes that these interests are now best combined with Market Tech."

The offer therefore offers shareholders an opportunity for some cash liquidity in a short timeframe, even though this was 35% less than any investors from the time of the IPO.
Cell-based therapeutics developer ReNeuron Group updated the market on its cell therapy development programmes targeting degenerative diseases of the retina on Friday, reporting that it had successfully developed a cryopreserved formulation of its human retinal progenitor cell (hRPC) therapeutic candidate.

The AIM-traded firm said the ability to cryopreserve its retinal cell therapy candidate at drug product level represented a major step forward for its retinal disease programme and mirrored the earlier breakthrough it achieved with the cryopreservation of its CTX cell therapy candidate.

It said the new hRPC formulation enabled the cells to be frozen for shipping and storage and easily thawed at the point of clinical use.

This freeze-thaw modality enables a greatly enhanced shelf life for the product, lower prospective cost of goods and the capability to ship the cells for clinical and commercial application anywhere on the globe, its board said in a statement.

As a result of the development, ReNeuron said it would shortly file an application to the FDA seeking approval to switch from the fresh hRPC formulation to the new cryopreserved formulation for dosing of the third and final Phase I dose cohort of its ongoing US Phase I/II clinical trial in retinitis pigmentosa (RP) patients.

The study, which was being conducted at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, was described as an open-label, dose escalation study to evaluate the safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of its hRPC stem cell therapy candidate in patients with advanced RP.

The new hRPC formulation has also allowed an expansion of ReNeuron's clinical programmes in ophthalmology, the board explained.

Firstly, subject to regulatory approval, we intend to expand the Phase II element of the ongoing Phase I/II clinical trial in RP from six to 20 patients in order to provide a richer data set from which to embark on a subsequent Phase II/III pivotal study.

In order to maintain patient recruitment pace and reduce reliance on a single clinical site, ReNeuron said it also intended to open up further US clinical sites to the study.

As a result of those changes, the board said it expected safety and tolerability data from the Phase I part of the RP study in the first nine patients later this year, with longer term safety data as well as efficacy readouts from the enlarged Phase II part of the study in the second half of 2018.

Secondly, we intend to expand our hRPC retinal disease programmes into a further disease indication, cone-rod dystrophy (CRD).

In contrast to RP, where the initial impact is a loss of rods leading to a deterioration in peripheral vision and night vision, CRD is a group of rare eye disorders associated with a loss of cone cells in the retina that initially results in deterioration of central visual acuity and colour vision.

ReNeuron said CRD frequently affected patients in childhood and had no cure, with the inherited orphan disease affecting roughly 1 in 40,000 people.

The board said the expansion of its ophthalmology programmes into CRD was part of a broader strategy to evaluate the efficacy of its hRPC therapeutic candidate across a range of genetic diseases of the eye.

It said it intended to file an application to commence a Phase II clinical trial later in the current year in patients with CRD, to be run alongside the Phase II part of the ongoing RP clinical trial.

We are delighted to be able to report these very significant positive developments with our retinal disease programme, said CEO Olav Helleb.

The successful development of a cryopreserved formulation of our hRPC retinal cell therapy candidate enables an expansion of our clinical programmes in ophthalmology and also gives ReNeuron a significant commercial advantage in terms of prospective cost of goods and ease of use of a retinal disease therapy.

Helleb said the expansion of its retinal disease programmes into cone-rod dystrophy and the enlargement of the Phase II part of the ongoing clinical trial in retinitis pigmentosa reflected its strong belief in the potential of the hRPC platform to benefit patients severely affected by retinal diseases, where no effective treatments are currently available.
Public relations firm SEC has completed the acquisition of a 60% stake in Polish communications company Martis Consulting for 1.1m.

The acquisition was conditional on the spin-off of Martis property, securities and bank loans.

Martis, which will continue to be run by its exiting management team, conducts public and corporate affairs for companies in the oil and gas, energy and environment, financial services, healthcare, housing, justice and legal, as well as property development and transport sectors.

It generated 1.44m in unaudited revenue in 2016, with pre-tax profit of 223,689.

The acqusition is part of the companys strategy to develop an integrated marketing services business and it follows recent deals made in Brussels and the UK to expand its presence in Europe.

SEC is aiming to make further acquisitions in new territories.
Retailer Marks & Spencer got a boost as Barclays initiated coverage of the stock at overweight' with a 410p price target, which implies 14% potential upside.

The bank acknowledged that like the rest of the UK general retail sector, M&S currently faces some significant headwinds given weakening consumer sentiment and FX pressures on input prices, especially in the demand-elastic Clothing & Home segment.

However, it highlighted the fact that M&S Food has a good track record over many years, noting that the company is becoming increasingly food-focused over time. In addition, Barclays said it sees plenty of opportunity to add more stores, 200 in the next two years on a base of around 600.

It also pointed out that recent stores have been performing well with sales in new stores 17% ahead of plan at the 1H16/17 stage.

Barclays said that in Clothing & Home, the turnaround plan is likely to offset headwinds.

M&S cannot avoid the industry headwinds although its older and wealthier customer base might give it some protection.

However, the new CEO has outlined a comprehensive and sensible plan to improve its store estate and its product offering. Initial results appear encouraging with M&S delivering its first full price market share gains in over five years.

Dominos Pizza

Peel Hunt upgraded Dominos Pizza to buy from hold following recent weakness.

Dominos has generated a 23% profit before tax compound annual growth rate and a 25% earnings CAGR over the last 14 years. We believe the companys long-term investment case is intact, and offers increasing competitive advantages as well as the potential for forecast upgrades over the medium term.

The brokerage noted that like-for-like sales slowed to 1.5% in January-February 2017 versus a 14-year historic average of 8.8%, causing the shares to de-rate to around 21x P/E, 2011-13s level.

We view this is as being unfair. Since 2013, franchisee profits per store have risen by 60%; the UK expansion rate has increased by 62%; and the overseas operations have moved from a 7.6m loss to a forecast profit in 2017E.

Peel Hunt said that management stated at its conference that it expects LFL sales to recover to 5-6% and the brokerage agrees. It said sales should pick up as a result of Dominos stepping up its promotional/advertising activity and improving the functionality of its app, which has been downloaded around 15m times, before considering the benefit of easy comps in the second half of the year.

The brokerage said its pre-tax profit forecasts are slightly above consensus simply as its numbers factor in the companys investment and expansion plans for The Nordics. However, it reckons there is at least a further 3% EPS forecast upside in 2017E from UK margin growth, and 1% EPS forecast upside in 2017E from possible additional share buy backs.

Peel has a 400p price target on Dominos.

Debenhams

Deutsche Bank upgraded retailer Debenhams to hold from sell as it cut the price target to 50p from 52p.

The bank said Debenhams faces many challenges, including a long-lease property portfolio, a weak apparel market with online channel shift, a recovering competitor, adverse margin pressures and limited scope to save costs.

In addition, it pointed out that the group is operationally and financially leveraged in an uncertain consumer environment.

Still, DB said that while Thursdays strategy update did not answer many questions, it kick-started a range of trials which may bear fruit in the future.

Though capex guidance was raised, the most important thing today was the protection of the dividend, it said, adding that yielding more than 6%, a peak level, limits the downside after Thursdays share price drop and the 7.5% decline year-to-date.

On Thursday, Debenhams' new chief executive Sergio Bucher unveiled his strategic vision for growing the department store group, centred around making the stores a more enjoyable destination for 'social shopping' and driving efficiency through 'simplifying and focusing' the business.

Interim results, reported alongside this strategic update, were unexceptional but in line with expectations, with UK like-for-like sales rose 0.5% and gross transactions up 2.9% to 1.7bn.

Profit before tax fell 6.4% to 87.8m and earnings per share dropped 6.5% to 5.8p. The interim dividend was held flat at 1.025p per share.

At 1020 BST, the shares were down 0.2% to 52.40p.

Glencore, South32 and Rio Tinto

Analysts at Barclays sounded a positive note on the EU mining sector, flagging the potential for large cash returns from Glencore, South32 and Rio Tinto over the medium-term.

Critically, the broker believes the best part of the iron ore price slide is now past.

Hence, the "vicious mini down-cycle" in Chinese steel and iron ore prices has opened up an interesting opportunity in the space.

China's economy was still solid, supply discipline is generally holding despite the higher prices and sector valuations are still compelling, analysts Amos Fletcher and Ian Rossouw said in a research note sent to clients.

They highlight how spot free cash flow yields are at 14% and 16% for 2017 and 2018, which together with strong balance sheets meant the majority of those monies would be funelled into cash returns.

On their estimates, their favoured names, Glencore, S32 and Rio Tinto were capable of returning the equivalent of 63%, 62% and 39% of their market capitalisation, respectively, over the coming four years without breaching their gearing targets.

"We remain positive on the EU mining sector."
Steelmakers in Britain are on alert as Donald Trump launches an investigation into steel dumping in the US and suggested new tariffs will be levied on imports.

The US President cited issues of national security during the announcement, which was made at the White House with a host of US steel executives present.

A group representing the UK's steel firms warned of the potential damage to the industry if such tariffs are introduced, with 350m worth of steel being delivered to the US annually. With the impact of Britains impending departure from the EU, to which the firms send 70% of their exports, steel firms are wary of their ability to compete in the near future.

"Whilst the full details of the scope of this investigation are still unclear, this is undoubtedly a worrying development," said UK Steel Director Gareth Stace. "The UK sector is entirely supportive of measures taken to tackle dumping of steel products and unscrupulous trading practices but this move has the potential to go much further than necessary."

A group representing the UK's steel firms warned of the potential damage to the industry

China has often been accused of importing vast amounts of steel to the US, undercutting domestic producers. However, Trump denied that the investigation was specifically targeted towards China.

A statement released by the commerce department affirmed that "the artificially low prices caused by excess capacity and unfairly-traded imports suppress profits in the American steel industry".

Stace added that a trend towards such trade policies would ultimately harm global trade in the long run.

"Trade defence instruments must be seen as a last resort to protect domestic industries and ultimately boost global free trade. This move at least has the potential to cross the line into protectionism which in the long term can only be harmful to the global sector."

Shares in United States Steel, Steel Dynamics, AK Steel Holding and Cliffs Natural Resources were among the corporations that rose strongly following the administration announcement.
Theresa May is not looking for Britain to exit the European Union without clinching a Brexit deal with Brussels, one of the bloc's highest-ranking officials said on Friday.

In remarks made on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's spring meetings in Washington, European Commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis told Bloomberg: "The signal were hearing from the UK government, from Theresa May, is that the UK government is entering the negotiations willing to reach an agreement."

"Lets go into those negotiations in the spirit of reaching the agreement," Dombrovskis added.

"We are interested in close cooperation."

Theresa May's view that "no deal is better than a bad deal" has been widely criticised -- by a cross-party parliamentary committee and EU senior figures from Donald Tusk to Jean-Claude Juncker.

After May fired the starter's gun on the two-year negotiating process to separate from the EU by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty at the end of last month, the EU will meet to discuss the priorities and principles of the talks at a 29 April summit.

These formal guidelines will be handed over to the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier and his Task Force 50 department.

With the second round of France's presidential election on 7 May and the UK ballot on 8 June, there may be little progress on negotiations until late summer, with Germany's elections in September are also likely to add delays.

Next month, the Queen's Speech will outline the 'Great Repeal' that will incorporate those thousands of EU laws into the statute book wherever practical, so that the government can begin amending or repealing laws it does not like before the exit process is complete.

During the two-year negotiation period, EU laws would still apply to the UK but the Government will also need to pass a dozen or more pieces of complex primary legislation to prevent commercial and legal chaos in two year's time.
The government on Friday shelved a controversial plan to introduce what critics had called a stealth tax on death in a move that will cost the Treasury 300m.

The proposed increase in probate fees - charges levied on the distribution of an estate after someone dies  would have lifted some costs to 20,000. The government said the extra raid on taxpayers was necessary to fund the courts system.

With the snap General Election only seven weeks away, the Ministry of Justice said it could not get the necessary legislation through parliament in time.

The plans had attracted scorn from MPs and legal profession. A cross-party parliamentary committee suggested the MoJ had exceeded its legal powers.

In trying to avoid claims of introducing a death tax the MoJ was going to introduce the law by calling it a fee and using a Statutory Instrument (SI), which would mean that the measure did not need parliamentary scrutiny. The committee said the plan would make an unexpected use" of the power attached to SIs.

The fee changes had also been opposed heavily during the public consultation process with only 13 out of 831 respondents agreeing with the proposals.

Under the new fee system, estates valued at up to 50,000 would pay nothing, with tiered increases up to 20,000 for estates worth more than 2m. They would have replaced a previous flat rate of 215 if an application was made by an individual or 155 if from a lawyer.

A Freedom of Information request tabled by mutual insurer Royal London in April found that the MoJ did not actually know what the costs of handling a probate application were.

The company accused the ministry of treating bereaved families as a "nice little earner". The request also asked for the cost of handling applications broken down by the size of the estate.

In the reply, the MoJ said not only did it not have this information but that it had 'no business or managerial' reason to have it.

Former pensions minister and now Royal London's director of policy Steve Webb said the plans were "clear evidence that the new charging structures are nothing to do with recovering the reasonable cost of processing probate applications and are simply a backdoor way of raising money from people in their time of greatest need".

"It is one thing to make a reasonable charge for the provision of a public service. But the Ministry of Justice has now admitted it does not know the unit cost of handling a probate application and sees no reason to find out what it is," said.
London's FTSE 100 was flat at 7,117.67 in afternoon trade as investors digested disappointing UK retail sales data.

Retailer Marks & Spencer got a boost as Barclays initiated coverage of the stock at overweight' with a 410p price target, which implies 14% potential upside.

The bank acknowledged that like the rest of the UK general retail sector, M&S currently faces some significant headwinds given weakening consumer sentiment and FX pressures on input prices, especially in the demand-elastic Clothing & Home segment.

However, it highlighted the fact that M&S Food has a good track record over many years, noting that the company is becoming increasingly food-focused over time.

In addition, Barclays said it sees plenty of opportunity to add more stores, 200 in the next two years on a base of around 600.

Equipment rental firm Ashtead was clawing back some ground, having fallen sharply in the previous session after results from US peer United Rentals showed rental rates were under pressure in the first quarter.

Aviva pushed higher after buying VietinBank's entire 50% shareholding in its life insurance joint venture VietinBank Aviva Life Insurance Limited and signing a new distribution agreement with VietinBank to sell life and health insurance products through its network of more than 1,100 branches.

Mondi and Smurfit Kappa recovered after declining on Thursday as their stock went ex-dividend.

On the downside, Rentokil fell despite announcing that its Rentokil Pest Control business has been awarded The Queen's Award for Enterprise for International Trade, recognising the business's outstanding achievement in global trade.

Consumer goods group Reckitt Benckiser was on the back foot after it reported flat sales for the first quarter.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,129.14 0.15%

FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,377.38 -0.01%

techMARK (TASX) 3,416.94 -0.00%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Babcock International Group (BAB) 901.00p 2.39%

Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 359.50p 1.64%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,114.00p 1.50%

Convatec Group (CTEC) 294.60p 1.41%

Antofagasta (ANTO) 837.50p 1.39%

Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,601.00p 1.33%

Aviva (AV.) 513.00p 1.28%

Mondi (MNDI) 1,960.00p 1.24%

CRH (CRH) 2,705.00p 1.08%

Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 1,983.00p 1.07%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Micro Focus International (MCRO) 2,462.00p -1.44%

Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 1,822.00p -1.25%

Rentokil Initial (RTO) 239.40p -1.24%

Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 2,867.00p -1.17%

Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 7,190.00p -1.17%

Mediclinic International (MDC) 721.00p -1.10%

Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,575.00p -1.07%

Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,577.00p -0.88%

Kingfisher (KGF) 326.60p -0.79%

Severn Trent (SVT) 2,323.00p -0.73%
Public relations firm SEC has completed the acquisition of a 60% stake in Polish communications company Martis Consulting for 1.1m.

The acquisition was conditional on the spin-off of Martis property, securities and bank loans.

-

Shares in Strategic Minerals were higher after the company said it had entered a cash generative phase and was considering new projects.

Key to the company's outlook, sales of magnetite from its New Mexico, US Cobre tailings operations more than tripled during the first three months of 2017 to hit 14,264 tonnes for $834,000 of proceeds, versus a tally of -$227 for the same period of the previous year.

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Cell-based therapeutics developer ReNeuron Group updated the market on its cell therapy development programmes targeting degenerative diseases of the retina on Friday, reporting that it had successfully developed a cryopreserved formulation of its human retinal progenitor cell (hRPC) therapeutic candidate.

The AIM-traded firm said the ability to cryopreserve its retinal cell therapy candidate at drug product level represented a major step forward for its retinal disease programme and mirrored the earlier breakthrough it achieved with the cryopreservation of its CTX cell therapy candidate.

-

Gaming Realms Slingo Original portfolio of games has won a license and will be launched in the New Jersey in the US.

The AIM-listed gaming company has already received a transactional waiver from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in 2016, and following the launch of the Slingo games in the UK, Gaming Realms has signed agreements with several operators to bring its game library to the regulated New Jersey market through its own remote game server.

-

Shares in Vernalis tumbled on Friday despite the drug developer announcing it had received a $2m milestone under one of its existing research collaborations.

The collaboration was to discover novel small molecules against an undisclosed target using Vernalis' fragment and structure-based drug discovery platform.

-

Copper and silver miner Metal Tiger has raised 4.39m, from a private placement and a further 460,000 through a placing and subscription of shares to fund development at its Botswana site.

A placing of 161.66m new shares at a price of 3p each raised gross proceeds of 4.85m and the issue of 161.66m warrants to subscribe for 1.66m new shares at a price of 6p per warrant.

-

Clean water technology company HaloSource has made a raft of changes to its board and management team, including a new chief executive and chairman.

The AIM-listed company has appointed James Thompson as chief executive with immediate effect to replace Martin Coles who has resigned as president and chief executive, but will remain part of the company as strategic adviser to the board during his leave of absence.

-

AIM-listed investment management firm Rasmala is to buy a further stake in its subsidiary Rasmala Holdings Limited (RHL) from minority shareholders for $6m.

This will result in Rasmala's total shareholding in RHL increasing from about 76.3% to 90% and will be paid with 28.94m shares worth about $6m.

-

AIM-listed merging markets property developer Plaza Centers has opened the Belgrade Plaza, its 34th shopping centre and its second in Serbia, on Thursday.

The shopping centre is 97% let and is expected to be fully leased in the coming months.

-

Technology commercialisation company Touchstone Innovations, which was spun-out from the Imperial College London, has invested 2.9m in the 25m placing of portfolio company Abzena.

Innovations first invested in Abzena, formerly Polytherics, a technology provider to the biopharmaceutical sector, in 2007 having led a 2.3m investment round into the company.

-

Productivity software developer BOS Global Holdings updated the market on Friday on the conditional agreement to acquire a 40% interest in Call Design, which was announced on 20 March.

The AIM-traded company advised that it had satisfied one of the major conditions precedent, having completed due diligence to the satisfaction of the board.

-

Oilex announced the award of two key contracts to Schlumberger and Baker Hughes as part of its 2017 work programme at the Cambay PSC on Friday.

The AIM-traded firm said Schlumberger and Baker Hughes would advise on the optimal well and stimulation design required to achieve potential commercial flow rates.

-

SolGold reported drilling at its Cascabel site in Ecuador had extended the known length of copper-gold mineralised by 20%.

Hole 21 at the Alpala section of its 85%-owned Cascabel project extended the known strike length of the deposit by some 150m to 900m, with assay results from the lower portion of the hole between 650m and the end of the hole at 1619.2m

-

Ultra high temperature gasification waste to energy systems company PowerHouse Energy Group announced on Friday that the first phase of the re-commissioning of the its G3-UHt unit had been completed, with the successful production of gas from the system.

The AIM-traded firm said the G3-UHt unit operated at a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, demonstrating its capacity to gasify any historically difficult waste material and generate synthesis gas.
AERA has announced that it is live-streaming 31 sessions at its 2017 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, April 27-May 1. The free livestreamed sessions will feature prominent scholars and policy experts speaking on key issues, including educating immigrant students, the role of education in politically tumultuous times, and the ethics of data collection in education research, among others. Livestream registration is open. Follow the live conversation on Twitter using the session hashtags.

Live-streamed Sessions, Listed Chronologically:

All times are Central Time

* Increasing the Opportunity for Academic and Life Success: Trauma-Informed Schooling and Consequences

Thursday, April 27, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. CT

Trauma is increasingly becoming a catch-all term associated with problems with schooling, achievement and adaptation. This session will examine critical issues around the meaning and indicators of trauma as well as its contexts and consequences. It will also explore the conceptualization of trauma and its relationship to educational opportunity and equity.

* Solving Teacher Inequities by Putting Knowledge into Action

Thursday, April 27, 4:05 p.m. - 5:35 p.m. CT

This session will examine recent research on teacher shortages and the inequitable distribution of teachers in relation to policy and practice initiatives designed to address these issues more effectively than has often been the case in the past. The symposium will highlight knowledge leading to action by presenting research providing national and state level data and projections on growing teacher shortages that disproportionately affect our most disadvantaged students, and research that suggests how solutions can be achieved.

* Learning and Schooling of African American Students: Three Critical Paradigms Shaping the Field

Thursday, April 27, 4:05 p.m. - 6:05 p.m. CT

This session will focus on issues of identity, achievement, and assessment within broader discussions of educational equity and opportunity, drawing upon the research of Edgar Epps, Ed Gordon, and Sylvia Johnson. The three renowned researchers' work challenged paradigms and contributed to re -conceptualizations, frameworks, and approaches to the study of African American and low-income students.

* Opening Plenary: The Challenges of Higher Education in a Diverse and Divergent World

Thursday, April 27, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERAOpening

* The Long-Term Outcomes of Early Child Care and Education and What to Make of Middle Year's Fade-Out (AERA-Society for Research in Child Development Special Joint Symposium)

Friday, April 28, 10:15 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. CT

* The Science of Measurement: Using Testing Standards to Increase Research Validity

Friday, April 28, 10:35 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. CT

The last decade has witnessed enormous attention to increasing the rigor of educational research through scientific design and sophisticated data analysis methodologies. Emerging technologies have provided new assessment tools for measuring a wider range of research processes and outcomes.

* AERA Distinguished Lecture: Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education; Harvard Graduate School of Education

Friday, April 28, 12:25 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERADistinguished

* AERA Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award (2016) Address: Micki Chi

Translating ICAP on Student Engagement Into Practice Friday, April 28, 12:25 p.m. to 1:55 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERAContributions

* Using Big Data: The Ethics, Dilemmas, and Possibilities for Educational Opportunity

Friday, April 28, 2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. CT

Given the increasing debates focused on the affordances and possibilities for the use of big data, what does the use of big data offer in identifying and responding to the needs of children and families in and out of school? Does the utility of the data for change outweigh concerns about the accessibility of the data? What are the potential constraints of using big data and how do we reconcile these constraints and the potential strengths?

* The Meaning of a Just Society in a Period of Massive Change

Friday, April 28, 2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. CT

This session will re-examine the ways in which "just society" has been framed, by whom, and for whom? With sweeping changes in government at all levels, what is the pathway to enacting a meaningful approach to ensuring justice and access?

* Advocating for Federal Research Support--Navigating New Waters in Challenging Times

Friday, April 28, 4:05 p.m. - 5:35 p.m. CT

* Innovative Strategies for the Diffusion and Utilization of Education Research

Friday, April 28, 4:05 p.m. - 5:35 p.m. CT

* Education, Democracy, and Citizen Justice

Saturday, April 29, 8:15 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. CT

What do we understand to be the salient issues associated with democracy and education as these relate to justice for individuals and institutions in contemporary society? How do we negotiate differences in attitudes, beliefs, and practices; conceptualize and act on them in relation to our roles in a democracy; engage the broader domains of disagreement; and respond to the human experience and condition?

* Strategic Pathways for Improving Access to Higher Education

Saturday, April 29, 10:35 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. CT

* From Disparities to Social Determinants: Toward a Culture of Education and Health Equity

Saturday, April 29, 10:35 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. CT

This session will focus on the role of health and educational equity in enhancing opportunity, reducing disparities, and understanding the role of social determinants in both. Drawing upon the National Academy of Medicine's recent study Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States and research on educational disparities, participants will examine cross-cutting policy issues as they are framed and implemented across education and health and the implications for efforts advancing social justice.

* Awards Luncheon

Saturday, April 29, 12:25 to 2:25 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERAAwards

* Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda and Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences--Two Recent Academies Reports

Saturday, April 29, 2:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. CT

* Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture: Ruben G. Rumbaut, Distinguished Professor of Sociology; University of California, Irvine

Saturday, April 29, 2:45 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERAWallace

* AERA Presidential Address: Vivian L. Gadsden, AERA President; Penn Graduate School of Education

The Promise of Education Research and the Public Trust

Saturday, April 29, 4:35 to 5:50 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERAPres

* Conversations Around the Collection and Use of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data

AERA Sessions Cosponsored with Queer Studies SIG, Committee on Scholars and Advocates for Gender Equity in Education

Sunday, April 30, 8:15 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. CT

Increasingly, data are gathered on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). As these data collection efforts proliferate and evolve, this panel will discuss topics including (a) the history of federal interagency efforts to include SOGI item guidance, (b) the development of the new SOGI items in HSLS, (c) best practices for SOGI data collection, (d) considerations around ensuring SOGI data validity with large datasets, and (e) how research societies are capturing and collecting gender identity.

* Toward Democratic Possibilities: Another Kind of Public Education Revisited

Sunday, April 30, 10:35 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. CT

This session will address critical issues related to students' experiences within the larger context of feminist ideologies, racial theories, and practical realities of schooling. Drawing upon epistemologies and frameworks addressing questions of equality and equity, participants will focus on multiple questions, among them, the representation and empirical study of gender in educational research, the role of teaching, knowledge production and learning, and the consequences of gendered identities for students in school and society.

* Research, Statistics, and Data: The Vital Role of the Institute of Education Sciences in Retrospect and Prospect

Sunday, April 30, 10:35 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. CT

* Education Unbordered: Immigrant, Refugee, Detained, and Undocumented Children and Families

Sunday, April 30, 12:25 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. CT

This session will focus on the individual and collective issues associated with immigration, refugee, detained, and undocumented children and families. How do we imagine schools as boundless in the context they engage and the opportunities they can afford for all children, and especially for children who enter the country? What is the status of research and how is it informing change for these children and their families? What is the role of schools, and what is needed in policy and practice to mediate the hardship and complexity of both the process and effect of policies?

* Former Presidents Respond to Annual Meeting Theme

Sunday, April 30, 12:25 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. CT

The session is designed as a venue for former AERA presidents to offer perspectives and insights on the 2017 theme, Knowledge to Action: Achieving the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity. Presidents from the past three decades will provide brief commentaries on the issues raised in the theme and the role AERA can play in shaping the future of educational research.

* Racial Conciliation, Interest Convergence, and the Role of Education and Schooling

Sunday, April 30, 2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. CT

This session will examine the role of education research and practice within the context of current debates around race and racial equity. It will address three questions: Is it possible to measure racial progress and chart a path toward further progress? Are racial conciliation and interest convergence panaceas to quell discontent and to avoid difficult issues, or are they viable pathways to promote access and justice? What is the role of educational research, practice, and policy in this discussion?

* Technology, Digital Media, and Implications for Learning Sciences

Sunday, April 30, 2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. CT

This session will focus on emerging technologies and their uses in epistemological framings, teaching, and the construction of knowledge. Technology and digital media have the potential to play a powerful role in shaping educational research, practice and policy. This power is evident when we consider how recent social movements have developed. Current complexities such as the digital divide will be considered in terms of how technology and digital media both afford and constrain teaching and learning.

* A Town Hall Meeting on the Role of AERA as a Research Organization in Socially Challenging Times

Sunday, April 30, 4:05 p.m. to 5:35 p.m. CT

* Social Justice in Education Award Lecture: Estela M. Bensimon

Making Higher Education Just

Sunday, April 30, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. CT

Session Hashtag: #AERASJ

* Equal Educational Opportunity, Neighborhoods, and Geospatial Dimensions of School and Schooling

Monday, May 1, 10:35 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. CT

This session will highlight the shifts in our knowledge of the challenges to equal educational opportunity in light of neighborhood research and examinations of neighborhood effects. It will focus on the uses and barriers to geospatial research in unpacking critical issues related to schools, students, and families.

* Democratic Education, Race, and the Classroom: Content and Pedagogy in a Diverse Society

Monday, May 1, 12:25 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. CT

In this session, participants will focus on critical issues around teaching and curriculum in relation to three areas: advancing our understanding of culture, language, race, class, gender, and other forms of difference; creating pedagogical approaches that engage ideas that are deemed uncomfortable; and examining classroom content that promotes students' engagement with historical and contemporary problems.

* Mexican American Educational Experiences and the Historical Struggle for Equal Educational Opportunity: A Critical Conversation

Monday, May 1, 2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. CT

This session examines the struggle for equal educational opportunity by Mexican Americans over time, space and in different regions of North America. Historians and sociologists of education offer a unique perspective on the experiences of Mexican Americans across the U.S. This session specifically engages in a critical conversation with a group of accomplished historians of education whose work explores how Mexican Americans have struggled for equal educational opportunities over time.

###
A new laboratory technique developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions can rapidly test the effectiveness of treatments for life-threatening breast cancer metastases in bone. The study appears in Nature Communications.

"For a number of breast cancer patients, the problem is metastasis -- the dissemination of breast tumor cells to other organs -- after the primary tumor has been eliminated," said corresponding author Dr. Xiang Zhang, associate professor of molecular and cellular biology and the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor. "Metastases, however, tend to respond differently than the primary tumor to the treatment in part due to residing in a different organ with a different microenvironment."

Until now, there has not been an effective experimental platform to study metastatic tumors in their new microenvironment.

"We have created an experimental system in which we can mimic the interactions between cancer cells and bone cells, as bone is the place where breast cancer, and many other cancers too, disseminates most frequently," said Zhang, who also is a McNair Scholar at Baylor. "We have developed a system that allows us to test many different drug responses simultaneously to discover the therapy that can selectively act on metastatic cancer cells and minimize the effect on the bone."

Bone-in culture array

To mimic the interactions between metastatic breast cancer cells and bone cells in a living system in the lab, Zhang and his colleagues developed a bone metastasis model, called bone-in culture array, by fragmenting mouse bones that already contain breast cancer cells.

The scientists determined that the bone-in culture maintains the microenvironmental characteristics of bone metastasis in living animal models, and the cancer cells maintain the gene expression profile, the growth pattern and their response to therapies.

Using the bone-in model, the researchers determined that the drug danusertib preferentially inhibits bone metastasis. They also found that other drugs stimulate the growth of slow-growing cancer cells in the bone.

In addition to determining the effect of drugs in the growth of metastasis in bone, the bone-in culture can be used to investigate mechanisms involved in bone colonization by cancer cells.

Implications for cancer treatment

"We think that this new system has the potential to be applied not only to breast cancer but to other cancers that also metastasize to the bone," Zhang said. "This technique can be scaled up to larger sample sizes, which would help accelerate the process of discovering metastatic cancer treatments. We have already found a few interesting drugs. We will keep looking for more and focus on those that are most promising."

In the future, the scientists expect to develop this platform into a standardized system that can be used in the clinic to find specific drugs that can better treat metastatic cancer.

###

Other contributors to this work include Hai Wang, Lin Tian, Amit Goldstein, Jun Liu, Hin-Ching Lo, Kuanwei Sheng, Thomas Welte, Stephen T. C. Wong, Zbigniew Gugala, Fabio Stossi, Chenghang Zong, Zonghai Li and Michael A. Mancini. The authors are affiliated with one or more of the following institutions: Baylor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston Methodist Hospital and the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston.

Financial support was provided by the U.S. Department of Defense (DAMD W81XWH-16-1-0073, DAMD W81XWH-13-1-0296), the National Cancer Institute (CA183878), the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Susan G. Komen (CCR14298445), and the McNair Medical Institute. This work was also made possible by the CyVerse Collaborative, funded by the National Science Foundation (No. DBI-0735191), the Integrated Microscopy Core at Baylor College of Medicine with funding from the National Institutes of Health (HD007495, DK56338, and CA125123), the Pathology Core of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the John S. Dunn Gulf Coast Consortium for Chemical Genomics.
Researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found patients with hyperpigmentation, a medical disorder that leads to darkening or increase in the natural color of the skin, are more likely to use sunscreen but do not use other protection measures.

Sun protection is recommended for maintaining healthy skin and preventing skin cancer, but for patients with hyperpigmentation it is also essential to their treatment. There have been many studies on the general populations' sun-protective behaviors, but until now there has been little research into how hyperpigmentation patients are shielding themselves from the sun.

The survey looked at 404 adults who had a diagnosis of cutaneous hyperpigmentation. The majority of the patients reported using sunscreen, a number significantly higher than the general public. Women were more likely to wear sunscreen, as were white and Hispanic patients, which is consistent with other studies. Patient's answers were also significantly affected by their particular diagnosis. Those with melasma, which causes brown patches on the face, were more likely to wear sunscreen than those with other disorders.

While researchers found hyperpigmentation led to an increased use of sunscreen among patients, few reported taking other sun protection measures or reapplying sunscreen every two hours. Nearly half of the sunscreen users didn't know if their sunscreen provided broad spectrum protection.

"It is important for providers to educate patients on the many ways to keep their skin safe in the sun," said Neelam Vashi, MD, Director of the Center for Ethnic Skin at Boston University and Boston Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Dermatology at BUSM, who led the study. "It's encouraging that so many patients are utilizing sunscreen, but we can still improve the practice of safe sun behaviors by improving counseling early in patients' diagnosis, recommending sunscreen use for all ethnicities, and providing a wide range of methods to decrease sun exposure."

###

The study was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and was funded by the Boston University Department of Dermatology.
ILC 2017: Results from a hepatitis E virus (HEV) RNA screening centre in Germany suggest need for routine screening to prevent viral transmission to the immunocompromised

April 21, 2017, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Results from a study presented today found that the incidence of HEV RNA in asymptomatic blood donors from Germany is higher than previously reported. The study, presented at The International Liver Congress 2017 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, showed that 0.11% of donations tested were HEV RNA positive (15 out of 13,441 donors) and that one of the asymptomatic HEV RNA positive donors had previously donated HEV RNA positive blood products, which were then transfused into nine immunocompromised patients. Screening for HEV RNA at blood donation centres has been debated in recent years but is not compulsory as yet.

There are an estimated 20 million new infections with HEV worldwide every year. However, HEV infection is often asymptomatic and will usually clear within two to six weeks.1 HEV infection can persist in immunocompromised individuals,2 leading to development of liver cirrhosis or liver failure.3,4 For this reason there have been calls to introduce routine HEV RNA screening of blood donations.

"We identified a higher percentage of HEV RNA donors in our study cohort than has previously been reported in Germany," said Dirk Westholter, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, and lead author of the study. "Since HEV infection can have serious consequences among the immunocompromised and a single positive donor can give rise to HEV infection in several other patients, there is a need for longer term studies to analyse the effectiveness of routine HEV blood donor screening, and to determine whether this process should be implemented at blood clinics everywhere."

Blood donations (n=13,441) at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf were tested from October 2016. Pools of 24 donations were screened using an HEV PCR assay, with reactive pools tested individually to identify HEV RNA positive donors.

Out of 15 HEV RNA positive donors identified, 14 were healthy and asymptomatic and one presented with acute self-limiting hepatitis. Of the asymptomatic donors, one had been HEV RNA positive for over three months and had donated blood products prior to this screening, which had then been transfused into nine immunocompromised patients. Interestingly, eight of these patients did not go on to develop Hepatitis E, and only one patient had detectable serum HEV RNA before death due to acute-on-chronic liver failure complicated by pseudomonas sepsis.

"The proportion of HEV RNA positive donors found in this study is higher than previously reported and quite worrisome. Given the suboptimal, inconsistent sensitivity of commercially available anti-HEV antibody assays, and in view of the serious consequences that may occur in immunocompromised recipients, screening for HEV RNA of blood donor minipools should be discussed promptly," said Prof Francesco Negro, Divisions of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of Clinical Pathology, University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland and EASL Governing Board Member.

###

About The International Liver Congress

This annual congress is the biggest event in the EASL calendar, attracting scientific and medical experts from around the world to learn about the latest in liver research. Attending specialists present, share, debate and conclude on the latest science and research in hepatology, working to enhance the treatment and management of liver disease in clinical practice. This year, the congress is expected to attract approximately 10,000 delegates from all corners of the globe. The International Liver Congress 2017 will take place from April 19 - 23, at the RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

About The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)

Since its foundation in 1966, this not-for-profit organisation has grown to over 4,000 members from all over the world, including many of the leading hepatologists in Europe and beyond. EASL is the leading liver association in Europe, having evolved into a major European Association with international influence, with an impressive track record in promoting research in liver disease, supporting wider education and promoting changes in European liver policy.

Contact

For more information, please contact the ILC Press Office at:

Email: ILCpressoffice@ruderfinn.co.uk

Telephone: +44 (0)7841 009 252

Onsite location reference

Session title: Parallel session: Challenges in hepatitis B and E

Time, date and location of session: 16:00 - 18:00, Friday 21 April, Forum

Presenter: Dirk Westholter, Germany

Abstract: Blood-borne HEV transmission: first experience with global HEV screening at a tertiary center (PS110), 17:45 - 18:00

Author disclosures

None.

References

1 World Health Organization. Hepatitis E Factsheet. July 2016. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs280/en/. Last accessed: April 2017.

2 Debing Y, et al. Update on hepatitis E virology: implications for clinical practice. J Hepatol. 2016;65(1):200-212.

3 Pischke S, et al. Hepatitis E virus; infection beyond the liver? J Hepatol. 2017; Article in press.

4 Krain LJ, et al. Host immune status and response to hepatitis E virus infection. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2014;27(1):139-165.
ILC 2017: Of 38 patients (26.7 percent) that were delisted due to clinical improvement, one died as a result of rapidly progressing hepatocellular carcinoma while two (5.2 percent) other patients had to be relisted or considered for relisting

April 21, 2017, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: A new European study presented today demonstrated that patients with chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and severe liver damage, taken off the liver transplant list as a result of successful direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy, had a favourable outcome over a year later. The study, presented at The International Liver Congress 2017 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, showed that 38 of 142 patients (26.7%) could be removed from the waiting list due to clinical improvement. Of the 38 patients taken off of the transplant list, one (2.6%) died as a result of rapidly progressing HCC while two other patients (5.2%) had to be relisted or considered for relisting.

Severe liver damage, also known as decompensated cirrhosis, is a life threatening condition in which extensive scarring of the liver results in its inability to function properly.1 Decompensated cirrhosis is a leading reason for liver transplantation. Chronic HCV is the leading cause of liver transplantation in adults.2 Over 8,500 people in Europe3 and over 16,000 people in the United States of America are waiting for a liver transplant, with this number expected to increase.4

"The results of this study are very encouraging with clinical improvement due to direct-acting antiviral therapy lasting over a year in nearly all patients," said Dr Luca Belli, Gastroenterology and Hepatology Liver Unit, Niguarda Hospital, Milan, Italy and lead author of the study. "We still need to follow these patients for much longer to confirm the results and assess the long-term risks of deterioration, but so far the risk of dying after delisting is much lower than that of dying after receiving a liver transplant."

The retrospective European study followed 38 patients who originally had decompensated cirrhosis without liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) and were taken off the liver transplant list as a result of clinical improvement after DAA therapy. The median follow up time was 28 months from start of therapy and 15 months from delisting.

Of the patients included in the study, 37 of the 38 were alive at the end of the study and one patient had to be relisted for clinical re-decompensation. Median Model of End-Stage Liver Disease scores at the start of DAA therapy were 14 (IQR:12-17) and improved to 9 (IQR:8-11) 78 weeks afterwards; median Child-Pugh scores at the start of DAA therapy were 9 (IQR:8-10) and improved to 6 (IQR:5-6) after 78 weeks. The advantages of delisting are two-fold as any liver saved by delisting a patient can be offered to another patient.

"This study is very important as it shows that HCV therapy may be effective in avoiding or reducing the need of transplantation in a significant number of cases. It is an excellent example of the fact that clearing the Hepatitis C virus can provide immediate advantages for patients, in addition to the longer term advantages," said Prof Marco Marzioni, Professor of Gastroenterology, Universita Politecnica delle Marche - "Ospedali Riuniti" University Hospital of Ancona, Italy and EASL Governing Board Member.

###

About The International Liver Congress

This annual congress is the biggest event in the EASL calendar, attracting scientific and medical experts from around the world to learn about the latest in liver research. Attending specialists present, share, debate and conclude on the latest science and research in hepatology, working to enhance the treatment and management of liver disease in clinical practice. This year, the congress is expected to attract approximately 10,000 delegates from all corners of the globe. The International Liver Congress 2017 will take place from April 19 - 23, at the RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

About The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)

Since its foundation in 1966, this not-for-profit organisation has grown to over 4,000 members from all over the world, including many of the leading hepatologists in Europe and beyond. EASL is the leading liver association in Europe, having evolved into a major European Association with international influence, with an impressive track record in promoting research in liver disease, supporting wider education and promoting changes in European liver policy.

Contact

For more information, please contact the ILC Press Office at:

Email: ILCpressoffice@ruderfinn.co.uk

Telephone: +44 (0)7841 009 252

Onsite location reference

Session title: Parallel session: Liver transplantation: clinical and experimental

Time, date and location of session: 16:00 - 18:00, Friday 21 April, Amtrium 1

Presenter: Luca Belli, Italy

Abstract: Delisting of liver transplant candidates with chronic HCV infection after viral eradication: outcome after delisting: a European study (PS063), 16:00 - 16:15

Author disclosures

Grant/research support from Gilead, AbbVie and Bristol.

References

1 Franciscus A & HCV Advocate. HCSP Fact Sheet - HCV Disease Progression. Available from: http://hcvadvocate.org/hepatitis/factsheets_pdf/cirrhosis.pdf. Last accessed: April 2017.

2 Gane E.J., Agarwal K. Directly Acting Antivirals (DAAs) for the Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Liver Transplant Patients. American Journal of Transplantation. 2014;14(5):994-1002.

3 European Commission. Organ donation and transplantation: Facts and figures. Published November 2014. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/health/blood_tissues_organs/docs/ev_20141126_factsfigures_en.pdf. Last accessed: April 2017.

4 Habka D, et al. Future Economics of Liver Transplantation: A 20-Year Cost Modeling Forecast and the Prospect of Bioengineering Autologous Liver Grafts. PLoS One. 2015; 10(7):e0131764.
Lugano, Switzerland, 21 April 2017 - The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) have announced that the 2017 Heine H. Hansen (HHH) Award will be given to Rafal Dziadziuszko, a global leader in clinical thoracic oncology. The award will be presented at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017, held 5 to 8 May in Geneva, Switzerland.

The HHH Award recognises the lifetime contribution of Heine H. Hansen1 to lung cancer research and education globally. Heine Hansen was a president of ESMO, a founder of IASLC and a mentor to many in the field of lung cancer. The HHH Award is presented annually by representatives of both organisations at ELCC, where the recipient will give a keynote lecture.2

The HHH Award acknowledges a lung cancer investigator who has made a special contribution to lung cancer research and education on an international basis. Rafal Dziadziuszko is currently Deputy Head and National Consultant in Radiation Oncology, Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, Medical University of Gdansk, and Professor, Medical University of Gdansk. He is a member of ESMO and was previously a member of the ESMO Educational Committee (2011-2016), and the ESMO National Representative for Poland (2009-2011). Dziadziuszko is a member of the IASLC and was a member of the IASLC Pathology Committee during 2011-2013.

Commenting on the importance of the award, Dziadziuszko said: "I met Heine Hansen on several occasions early in my career when he participated in events in Poland and Central-Eastern Europe to motivate us to join pan-European collaboration. This was before the iron curtain and shortly after, when access to international research projects was limited. He believed that our region needed to be fully integrated with European lung cancer research and motivated young oncologists to broaden their research capabilities. I feel I am one of his followers to realise this task."

Dziadziuszko completed his training in radiotherapy (2001) and medical oncology (2004) at the Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, Medical University of Gdansk. He subsequently completed a translational cancer research fellowship at the University of Colorado Cancer Center which was funded by IASLC and the International Union Against Cancer. Between 2005 and 2007 he worked on predictive assays for EGFR targeted therapies in lung cancer, including immunohistochemistry, gene copy number, and activating mutations.

"I spent three very fruitful years at the University of Colorado Cancer Center with one of Heine Hansen's close colleagues from Denmark - Fred R. Hirsch, who mentored me in translational lung cancer research," said Dziadziuszko.

Dziadziuszko's main interests are lung cancer translational and clinical research, and he is a co-author of more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on this topic. He has helped organise several academic clinical research studies in Poland and Central Europe and is Vice-Chairman of the Central and East European Oncology Group. His current work includes identification of novel molecular targets for early lung cancer trials, evaluation of novel radiotherapy strategies in thoracic malignancies, and research on lung cancer screening programmes.

Recognising the contribution of others to his career, Dziadziuszko acknowledged John Horton, who advised him to become a clinical oncologist, Jacek Jassem, who introduced him to translational and clinical research in lung cancer at the international level, and Witold Rzyman, lead researcher in lung cancer screening projects.

Dziadziuszko said: "This honour is recognition for our lung cancer group of physicians and allied health care professionals in Gdansk and Poland. Together we have created a team focused on improvement of patient-centred practice with strong emphasis on translational and clinical research. The award motivates us to be more active and to further improve our performance."

ELCC Steering Committee representative for ESMO, Rolf Stahel, said: "Rafal Dziadziuszko trained in both medical and radiotherapy of lung cancer and is now a leader in clinical thoracic oncology. He has been the principal investigator of many large international clinical trials and is carrying out his goal to realise the vision of Heine Hansen."

ELCC Steering Committee representative for the IASLC, Fred R. Hirsch, said: "Dziadziuszko is a global leader with extensive international collaborations and a true follower of the ideas of Heine Hansen. Dziadziuszko is a brilliant researcher, a real clinical doctor who cares for his patients, and with a personality, which makes him very much liked and respected all over the world."

###

Notes to Editors

References

1. Heine H. Hansen started translational research in lung cancer and collaborated with many investigators in Eu-rope and the US. Early on he saw a need for a formal collaborative framework for investigators focusing on lung cancer and was one of the visionary founders of the IASLC and its journal Lung Cancer. He later became the IASLC's President and first Executive Director. Prof Hansen played a significant role in ESMO's evolution and was ESMO President in 1996-1997. At ESMO he contributed to the development of a global curriculum for medical oncology and was instrumental in developing medical oncology as a recognised specialty in Europe. He was also very active in educational activities in the previous Eastern European countries and implemented many clinical trials in this part of Europe.

2. The Heine H. Hansen Award will be presented to Prof Dziadziuszko during the Heine H. Hansen Award Lec-ture on Friday, 5 May 2017 at 13:45, Room B. Keynote lecture: "The Heine Hansen legacy: How can we im-prove lung cancer research and practice?"

3. See Prof Dziadziuszko's profile here: http://esmo.org/Profiles/Rafal-Dziadziuszko

About the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017

The European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) has become the reference event in Europe for professionals treating lung cancers. It is organised by the European Society for Medical Oncology and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

ELCC provides a comprehensive multidisciplinary overview of the latest as well as of the state-of-the-art knowledge in thoracic malignancies, covering different aspects such as prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment modalities and the results of basic, clinical and translational research, presented by top international academic experts. Around 2,000 attendees are expected from throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With more than 15,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 130 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. We are committed to supporting our members to develop and advance in a fast-evolving professional environment. http://www.esmo.org

About the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)

The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated to the study of lung cancer. Founded in 1974, the association's membership includes more than 5,000 lung cancer specialists in over 100 countries.

http://www.iaslc.org

###
Foods should be investigated as a potential source of spread of Clostridium difficile, according to research presented at the 27th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) [1].

Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) causes gut infections and can be particularly dangerous for elderly patients. Because it is resistant to commonly used antibiotics it can emerge in patients who are already being treated in hospital for unrelated conditions.

The new research used DNA fingerprinting to examine which particular types of the bacteria were causing infections in patients and how widely they are distributed in Europe.

Some strains were found clustered within a particular country, suggesting they were possibly being passed around within hospitals -- a well-recognised route of transmission. However, because some other strains were found dispersed in several different countries, this adds weight to the idea that C. difficile could also be transmitted via our food.

The research was presented by Dr David Eyre, a clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He explained: "We know that C. difficile lives in the gut in a small proportion of healthy people, where it causes no symptoms. However, its resistance to antibiotics means it can grow uncontrollably in patients treated with the drugs, causing diarrhoea that can be severe or even fatal. It is the most frequent cause of infectious diarrhoea in hospitalised patients, and the increase in the use of antibiotics has allowed C. difficile to spread more effectively.

"Lots of effort has gone into controlling its spread including infection control interventions such as hand washing campaigns, and reducing the use of antibiotics that can lead to infection. Despite these measures, people are still getting C. difficile infections and the routes of transmission are not completely understood."

Other sources of transmission that have been suggested include asymptomatic patients, children -- who carry C. difficile more commonly than adults -- and farm and domestic animals.

The new research included all the stool samples submitted on one day in summer and one day in winter in 2012/2013 from 482 European hospitals [2]. Dr Eyre and his team selected the ten most common types of C. difficile found in the samples. In each case, they used DNA fingerprinting to examine how widespread the type was within countries and between countries.

Dr Eyre told the congress: "We know that C. difficile infection can spread within hospitals. If this was the only route of transmission, we would expect to see each type of the bacteria concentrated within one area. However, because we also saw some types that were spread around several countries, this suggests the bacteria are moving around by other means."

The research indicated that five of the types were clustered within countries while five others were not. One type, for example, was found in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

Another type which was spread around Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and UK has previously been associated with pig farming.

Dr Eyre continued: "We don't know much about how C. difficile might be spread in the food chain, but this research suggests it may be very widespread. If that turns out to be the case, then we need to focus on some new preventative strategies such as vaccination in humans once this is possible, or we might need to look at our use of animal fertilisers on crops.

"This study doesn't give us any definitive answers, but it does suggest other factors are at play in the spread of C. difficile and more research is urgently needed to pin them down."

To investigate further, Dr Eyre hopes to repeat the study but, at the same time, obtain samples from food, the wider environment and hospitals, to better understand where the source of infection might be.

###
It all started with a one-line entry - "Manuscript copy, on parchment, of the Declaration in Congress of the thirteen United States of America" - in the catalog of a tiny records office in the town of Chichester in the south of England.

As part of an effort to assemble a database on every known edition of the Declaration of Independence, Emily Sneff, a researcher with the Declaration Resources Project, stumbled upon the listing in August 2015.

And though she didn't think much of it at the time, that short description would set her and Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, on a two-year journey into American history.

"I'd found vague descriptions of other copies of the Declaration that turned out to be 19th century reproductions of the signed parchment in the National Archives, so that was what I was expecting," Sneff said, of her initial impression based on the catalog listing. "What struck me as significant was that it said manuscript on parchment."

Sneff contacted the archive, the West Sussex Record Office, which was unable to send images of the document online, and instead mailed her a disc with photos of the document.

"When I looked at it closely, I started to see details, like names that weren't in the right order - John Hancock isn't listed first, there's a mark at the top that looks like an erasure, the text has very little punctuation in it - and it's in a handwriting I hadn't seen before," she said. "As those details started adding up, I brought it to Danielle's attention and we realized this was different from any other copy we had seen."

"We knew we had a mystery," Allen said. "We had a big, big mystery."

"There are three key questions we want to answer," she continued. "One is: Can we date this parchment based on the material evidence? Second, who commissioned it and why, and third, how did it get to England?"

Allen and Sneff are providing some answers to that mystery with a pair of papers. The first, which is currently in the final revision stage with the Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America, uses handwriting analysis, examination of the parchment preparation and styling, and spelling errors in the names of the signers to date the Sussex Declaration to the 1780s.

The second paper, presented at a Yale University conference, argues that the document was probably commissioned by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who later aided in drafting the Constitution and was among the original justices appointed to the Supreme Court.

But the document isn't simply a previously-unknown piece of American history - it also affords Allen and Sneff a unique window into the political upheavals of the early Republic.

In the immediate aftermath of its signing, Allen said, there was a period of "breaking news" in which the Declaration was reproduced and printed in a variety of formats as the news spread through the colonies and eventually made its way across the Atlantic to England.

"The versions that people would have seen in July and August 1776 were broadsides and newspapers, starting with John Dunlap's broadsides, which was printed on the night of July 4," Sneff said. "Those copies would have made their way across to England as well - there are Dunlap broadsides in their National Archives."

But it wasn't until approximately a decade later that the Sussex Declaration was produced, amidst what was one of the most challenging periods for the new nation.

"Victory was not sweet," Allen said, describing the post-war atmosphere. "There was financial disaster, the Articles of Confederation were not working...so the 1780s were a period of great instability, despite victory. And this parchment belongs to that decade."

Among the chief political debates of the era, Allen said, was whether the new nation had been founded on the basis of the authority of the people or the authority of the states.

By re-ordering names of the signers, arguably the most conspicuous feature of the parchment, the Sussex Declaration comes down squarely on one side of the argument.

On most documents, Allen said, the protocol was for members of each state delegation to sign together, with signatures typically running either down the page or from left to right, and with the names of the states labelling each group. An exception was made for a small number of particularly important documents - including the Declaration, which was signed from right to left, and which omitted the names of the states, though the names were still grouped by state.

"But the Sussex Declaration scrambles the names so they are no longer grouped by state," Allen said. "It is the only version of the Declaration that does that, with the exception of an engraving from 1836 that derives from it. This is really a symbolic way of saying we are all one people or 'one community' to quote James Wilson."

Going forward, Allen and Sneff will continue to pursue research into exactly how the parchment reached England from the U.S. Also, they are working on a project in collaboration with the West Sussex Record Office, the British Library and the Library of Congress to perform hyper-spectral imaging on the parchment and other non-invasive studies in the hope of reading some text that appears to have been scraped away at the top of the document.

###
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Wind-driven expansion of marsh ponds on the Mississippi River Delta is a significant factor in the loss of crucial land in the Delta region, according to research published by scientists at Indiana University and North Carolina State University.

The study found that 17 percent of land loss in the area resulted from pond expansion, much of it caused by waves that eroded away the edges of the pond.

The findings add to scientists' understanding of the processes that shape the Delta and present new challenges for scientists and engineers seeking ways to protect sensitive coastlines.

"The Mississippi Delta is undergoing collapse as land disappears from the coast and marshes," said study co-author Douglas Edmonds, assistant professor and the Malcolm and Sylvia Boyce Chair in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at IU Bloomington. "Yet we know surprisingly little about what processes are driving land loss."

River deltas are ecologically important and highly productive, and they are home to about 5 percent of the world's population. Under naturally occurring processes, coastal land is created in deltas when river sediment is deposited. But sea-level rise and human engineering of river channels have starved the Mississippi Delta of sediment, creating widespread land loss. Any hope of reversing the trend, Edmonds said, requires a clear understanding of the processes at work.

To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed satellite images taken from 1982 to 2016 across the Delta.

"In total, we looked at 10,000 images and classified approximately 1.29 billion pixels into land or water," said Samapriya Roy, a doctoral student at IU in geography and another co-author on the paper. "To do this we took advantage of the supercomputing resources at Indiana University."

Much of the pond expansion the researchers observed was in a southwesterly direction, driven by prevailing winds from the northeast. Expansion was significantly greater in ponds larger than 300 meters in diameter, where larger waves were more likely to erode the edges.

"Our analysis shows that ponds across the deltaic plain are moving and expanding in the same direction as the wind," said Alejandra Ortiz, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. "That such evidence emerged over this expansive study area was surprising, because we thought sea-level rise would be the dominant control on pond expansion. We were also surprised by how important pond expansion is to total land loss on the Mississippi River Delta."

The study points to the importance of river-borne sediment. Because scientists thought sea-level rise and storm surges were dominant threats to coastlines, coastal protection has largely focused on building walls, embankments and other structures to combat rising seas and adding land to replace what's lost or left underwater. But the expansion of ponds would take place even if sea levels weren't rising.

"Most current restoration strategies call for diverting sediment to the coastline where rising sea level is a threat," Edmonds said. "Our work points out that sediment should also be diverted to marsh ponds to halt expansion."

On the Mississippi, dams and flood-control barriers have changed the flow of the river and reduced the amount of sediment deposited at the Delta to replace land that is lost to flooding and erosion. But it's also possible to build diversions that direct river sediment to where it is needed.

"Restoring these pathways of sediment movement is key to reversing the trend of land loss," Edmonds said. "Sediment is a valuable resource in the Mississippi Delta, but unfortunately it is in short supply."

###

The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters and funded by the National Science Foundation.
WASHINGTON, D.C. April 21, 2017 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) today announced $18 million in available funding to foster the next generation of agricultural science professionals. Funding is made through NIFA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill.

"There is a significant shortfall in the number of qualified applicants for jobs in agriculture-related fields," said NIFA Director Sonny Ramaswamy. "NIFA investments are strengthening the pathways to these jobs, from engaging more primary school students in STEM education all the way to fellowships for new scientists in the agricultural research, extension, and education arena."

The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative is America's flagship competitive grants program that provides funding for foundational and translational research, education, and extension projects in the food and agricultural sciences. In FY 2017, the AFRI's Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Human Sciences Education and Literacy Initiative (ELI) seeks to boost the number of qualified graduates in the food, agriculture, natural resources, and human (FANH) sciences through support for:

professional development opportunities for K-14 teachers and education professionals;

training of undergraduate students in research and extension; and

fellowships for predoctoral and postdoctoral candidates.

The application due dates are:

Professional Development for Secondary School Teachers and Educational Professionals: Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates: Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Predoctoral Fellowships: Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Postdoctoral Fellowships: Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Applications may only be submitted by eligible entities. Eligibility is linked to the project type. See the request for applications for details.

Among recent projects, the University of California Santa Cruz created a research and mentoring fellowship program for underrepresented undergraduate students in agricultural-related fields. A recent postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Houston used a combination of mathematical methods to evaluate the interplay of host and pathogen genetics. The postdoctoral fellow is now an assistant professor at a major research university.

###

NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education, and extension and promotes transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges. NIFA support for the best and brightest scientists and extension personnel has resulted in user-inspired, groundbreaking discoveries that combat childhood obesity, improve and sustain rural economic growth, address water availability issues, increase food production, find new sources of energy, mitigate climate variability, and ensure food safety. To learn more about NIFA's impact on agricultural science, visit http://www.nifa.usda.gov/impacts, sign up for email updates or follow us on Twitter @USDA_NIFA, #NIFAimpacts.

USDA is an equal opportunity lender, provider, and employer.
The concept of a perfect lens that can produce immaculate and flawless images has been the Holy Grail of lens makers for centuries. In 1873, a German physicist and optical scientist by the name of Ernst Abbe discovered the diffraction limit of the microscope. In other words, he discovered that conventional lenses are fundamentally incapable of capturing all the details of any given image. Since then, there have been numerous advances in the field to produce images that appear to have higher resolution than allowed by diffraction-limited optics.

In 2000, Professor Sir John B. Pendry of Imperial College London -- the John Pendry who enticed millions of Harry Potter fans around the world with the possibility of a real Invisibility Cloak -- suggested a method of creating a lens with a theoretically perfect focus. The resolution of any optical imaging system has a maximum limit due to diffraction but Pendry's theoretic perfect lens would be crafted from metamaterials (materials engineered to have properties not found in nature) to go beyond the diffraction limit of conventional lenses. Overcoming this resolution limit of conventional optics could propel optical imaging science and technology into realms once only dreamt by common Muggles.

Scientists all over the world have since endeavored to achieve super-resolution imaging that capture the finest of details contained in evanescent waves that would otherwise be lost with conventional lenses. Hyperlenses are super-resolution devices that transform scattered evanescent waves into propagating waves to project the image into the far-field. Recent experiments that focus on a single hyperlens made from an anisotropic metamaterial with a hyperbolic dispersion have demonstrated far-field sub-diffraction imaging in real time. However, such devices are limited by an extremely small observation area which consequently require precise positioning of the subject. A hyperlens array has been considered to be a solution, but fabrication of such an array would be extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive with existing nanofabrication technologies.

Research conducted by Professor Junsuk Rho's team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology in collaboration with research team from Korea University has made great contributions to overcoming this obstacle by demonstrating a scalable and reliable fabrication process of a large scale hyperlens device based on direct pattern transfer techniques. This achievement has been published in the world-renowned Scientific Reports.

The team solved the main limitations of previous fabrication methods of hyperlens devices through nanoimprint lithography. Based on a simple pattern transfer process, the team was able to readily fabricate a perfect large-scale hyperlens device on a replicated hexagonal array of hemisphere substrate directly printed and pattern-transferred from the master mold, followed by metal-dielectric multilayer deposition by electron beam evaporation. This 5 cm x 5 cm hyperlens array has been demonstrated to resolve sub-diffraction features down to 160 nm under a 410 nm wavelength visible light.

Professor Rho anticipates that the research team's new cost-effective fabrication method can be used to proliferate practical far-field and real-time super-resolution imaging devices that can be widely used in optics, biology, medical science, nanotechnology, and other related interdisciplinary fields.

###

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grants of Young Investigator program, Engineering Research Center program, Global Frontier program, Pioneer Research program, and the Commercialization Promotion Agency for R&D Outcomes (COMPA) grant, all funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) of the Korean government.
People with multiple sclerosis can show signs of something wrong five years before the onset of disease, much earlier than previously thought, according to a new analysis of health records from people with the condition.

The new research, published today in Lancet Neurology, is a first step to identifying red flags to help doctors screen for the disease and start interventions earlier. This could point researchers in a new direction for finding the root cause of the disease.

"Proving that people with multiple sclerosis have already changed their behaviour in the five years before even the earliest medical recognition of the condition is very important because it means we have to look beyond those five years to understand how it is caused," said Helen Tremlett, senior author of the study and a professor in the department of medicine at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health.

Multiple sclerosis is thought to be an autoimmune disease where the body attacks the protective coating, known as myelin, around brain cells. Once a person is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a physician will try to pinpoint the onset of the disease, sometimes known as the patient's first demyelinating event, and can include problems with vision or motor control.

The researchers examined health records of 14,000 people with multiple sclerosis from B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia over a 20-year period and compared them to the health records of 72,000 people without the disease. They were looking for something called a prodrome, an early set of symptoms that can indicate the onset of a disease.

Prodromes have been identified for other neurological conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The recognition of these prodromes has provided clues about how the diseases might begin and has stimulated new research into causes or triggers.

This study of patients from across Canada revealed that there is a phase where people begin to show symptoms before multiple sclerosis is medically recognized. During this phase patients tend to visit their physicians, be admitted to a hospital and fill prescriptions more than the general population.

"There's something going on here that makes this population of people unique," said Jose Wijnands, first author of the manuscript, a postdoctoral fellow and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research trainee.

"When other degenerative brain diseases have a prodrome, it suggests that something may be happening," said Tremlett. "We hope to uncover what this might be in multiple sclerosis."

Going forward, the team of researchers will try to understand why these patients had been using the health-care system differently, and whether there are trends in illnesses reported and prescriptions filled that point to a specific set of symptoms that doctors could use to help identify multiple sclerosis earlier.

###

Background

This research was funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, a U.S.-based charity, but the data comes from Canada where researchers can access data on health-care system use across the country.
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the largest maritime oil spill in U.S. history. Almost seven years to the day after the start of the environmental disaster, researchers have published a price tag of the damage done to natural resources: $17.2 billion.

The paper, in the April 21, 2017 issue of Science, puts a monetary value on injuries to natural assets that don't have a market price, caused by the April 20, 2010 accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform. Before the blowout on the well was capped in August of that year, it released 134 million gallons of oil into the ocean, polluting the water, soiling beaches and marshes, and killing marine life.

Environmental economist Richard Carson of the University of California San Diego was one of the principal investigators on the valuation study.

"This is the biggest research project ever done in environmental economics and defines the state of the art for valuating ecosystem services," said Carson, a professor and former chair of the Department of Economics in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences.

The study was undertaken on behalf of state and federal trustees of the Gulf's natural resources and conducted under the guidance of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was initiated in May 2010 and ran concurrently with assessments by natural scientists. Estimates from the valuation study, Carson said, were available in advance of the settlement reached out of court in 2016.

The Science paper and the paper's supplementary materials are a summary of more detailed materials prepared for NOAA over the course of about five years of research, Carson said. The data collected as part of this work is also online.

The study's $17.2 billion estimate is based on a nationally representative stated preference survey, assessing people's willingness to pay a one-time tax to prevent the effects of the 2010 BP oil spill from occurring in the future.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 3,656 randomly selected adults. An additional 1,492 individuals, who were not interviewed in person, were surveyed by mail and phone to make sure they didn't differ substantially from the respondents on whom the estimates are based.

The in-person questionnaire included descriptions of the Gulf's natural resources before 2010, injuries to the Gulf as a result of the oil spill, a proposed program for preventing a similar accident in the future, and how much the person's household would pay in extra taxes if the program were implemented.

People were randomly assigned to consider either a smaller or larger set of injuries to natural resources. The smaller set included "the number of miles of oiled marshes, of dead birds and of lost recreation trips." The larger set included those in the smaller set, "plus injuries to bottlenose dolphins, deep-water corals, snails, young fish and young sea turtles." People were also randomly assigned different tax amounts for the prevention program. They voted for or against the program at a specific tax amount that they would pay.

The researchers estimate, conservatively, that the average household is willing to pay a $153 one-time tax to prevent the larger set of injuries. The figure of $17.2 billion is derived from multiplying $153 by the number of U.S. households represented.

Carson said he hopes that the prevention program described in the survey will eventually be implemented. After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, Carson served as a principal investigator on economic damage assessments for the State of Alaska. The plan put into place after that survey, he said, has now prevented several subsequent spills.

Stopping a well blowout like the one in the BP oil spill incident involves drilling a relief well to intersect the original well and pumping in concrete at very high pressure, Carson said. The survey's proposed prevention plan suggests drilling a relief well at the same time as the original well. In 2010, starting from scratch, it took three months to cap the flow of oil into the ocean. A predrilled well could cap it in a matter of days.

The Science study not only puts a dollar figure on the natural-resource damage from the BP oil spill, Carson said, it also solves a number of technical challenges in valuations that drive policy and will help policymakers.

"Effective policy decisions frequently require knowing the implicit economic value that people place on goods and services not normally bought and sold in the marketplace. These range from the value of time spent in traffic congestion and security lines to the value of providing outdoor recreation opportunities or reducing risks from exposure to toxic chemicals," Carson said. "This study made major advances in developing techniques for measuring these values, including improved ways of presenting information about complex ecosystems to people, and enhancing the statistical reliability of estimating people's willingness to pay for nonmarket goods and services."

###

The full list of authors is, alphabetically: Richard C. Bishop, University of Wisconsin; Kevin J. Boyle, Virginia Tech; Richard T. Carson, UC San Diego; David Chapman, U.S. Forest Service; W. Michael Hanemann , Arizona State University; Barbara Kanninen, BK Econometrics; Raymond J. Kopp, Resources for the Future; Jon Krosnick, Stanford University; John List, University of Chicago; Norman Meade, NOAA; Robert Paterson, Industrial Economics, Inc.; Stanley Presser, University of Maryland; V. Kerry Smith, Arizona State University; Roger Tourangeau, Westat; Michael Welsh, independent consultant; and Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, Michigan State University. Providing research support were Matthew De Bell of Stanford, Colleen Donovan of Abt Associates, Matthew Konopka of Prospect Analytics and independent consultant Nora Scherer.

To learn more about efforts to restore natural resources in the Gulf: NOAA Gulf Spill Restoration.
The University of Cincinnati's new zoomable map shows the changing racial composition of every neighborhood in the continental US

A geography professor at the University of Cincinnati repurposed NASA maps to show the changing racial diversity of every neighborhood in the continental United States.

Tomasz Stepinski, who previously served as a longtime researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, applied NASA mapmaking techniques to 20 years of data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to build one of the most detailed racial-diversity maps ever created.

The zoomable map shows at a glance how the racial composition of neighborhoods changed between 1990 and 2010.

"People don't realize that the United States is a diverse country but at the same time is still very segregated," Stepinski said.

He and his postdoctoral researcher, Anna Dmowska, created the map at UC's Space Informatics Lab. They published a paper about the map in the open-access journal PLOS One in March and will present the project at the Population Association of America conference on April 27 in Chicago.

Stepinski, an astrophysicist, came to UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences as a Thomas Jefferson Professor of Space Exploration in 2010. Prior to that he worked on methods for surveying craters and valleys in Mars for the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

His interactive map was the culmination of years of work to combine land-cover mapping techniques with cumbersome volumes of federal data collected every 10 years in the census.

"There is a lot of novelty to it," he said. "All of it adds up to much, much easier access to census data by population and race."

The interactive map is publicly available and will be hosted indefinitely on the university's computer servers. Dmowska thinks it will have broad appeal to journalists, policymakers and researchers.

"The maps can tell us much more about racial composition and can be used by everyone," she said. "They don't require expert knowledge to understand the results, so I think maps can be used by a broader community."

The U.S. Census Bureau has the ability to release data by household but compiles it into geographic blocks and tracts to protect individual privacy. After all, census takers collect sensitive information about household income that people might not want to share publicly. A typical urban tract defined by the census occupies an area the size of nearly 3 square kilometers. Rural tracts occupy an area of 108 square kilometers.

This results in a visual map that by design isn't particularly precise and, in some cases, might be grossly inaccurate, the researchers found.

By comparison, the maps that Stepinski and Dmowska compiled take advantage of NASA land-cover grids made up of 30-square-meter blocks. Using this grid system, they can more precisely group people where they actually live by recognizing lakes, parks, factories and otherwise uninhabitable areas.

"Then you can assign people to each 30-by-30-meter cell, down to fractions," he said.

That's right -- down to half a person.

Few social scientists who study national data need maps that are so precise. But it's very helpful when looking at particular cities or even neighborhoods over time, Stepinski said.

These at-a-glance comparisons could be of interest to researchers, journalists, political strategists and social-service agencies. For example, researchers could compare the population maps with separate data such as grocery stores, bus routes or medical clinics to examine whether any neighborhoods are underserved by government services or businesses.

"The closer you look, the more problematic census data becomes," said Jeffrey Timberlake, an associate professor of sociology at UC who studies urban inequality and residential segregation.

Timberlake said Stepinski's maps are useful to study change at the neighborhood level.

"I find them fascinating. I spent an hour just looking at it," he said.

"When you look at a couple neighborhoods in Los Angeles, you see a big difference between 1990 and 2010 in the shrinking black population and the growth of the Latino population," he said. "This is the kind of tool that could unlock a lot of research."

Dmowska, who now works at the Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, said updating the maps in future census years will be relatively simple.

"Our grids are ready to use for multiyear comparison," she said.

The maps allow users to create their own smaller study area and then glean data from it. In some cities, they tell the story of recent immigration in America. For example, the maps demonstrate the influx of Asian immigrants in San Francisco over the last 20 years. Many of these newcomers are Southeast Asians who were drawn to the area by the Silicon Valley boom, Stepinski said.

And in Cincinnati, too, the census maps track the changing racial composition of the city. Neighborhoods that were predominantly white or black in 1990 are far more diverse now.

But they also show the way that racial segregation has defined some cities. For example, in the Detroit neighborhoods popularized by the Eminem movie "8 Mile," the map from 1990 clearly shows the segregation of black and white communities on either side of 8 Mile Road. Here, too, neighborhoods have become less homogenous over the last two decades.

"If you put the population geography together with an understanding of the social meaning of that road," Timberlake said, "you can tell a pretty powerful story about what segregation means."

###

View the map: http://sil.uc.edu/webapps/socscape_usa/
New research suggests that some firms manipulate the content and tone of their company reports despite an initiative to make them more concise and balanced.

The study, led by Dr Gaia Melloni at the University of East Anglia (UEA), examined a sample of firms involved in a pilot programme to produce integrated reports. These combine usually separate financial and sustainability - environmental, social and governance - details of a company's performance.

An integrated report should communicate "concisely" about how a firm's strategy, governance, performance and prospects, in the context of its external environment, lead to the creation of sustainable value. At the same time, it needs to be "complete and balanced", broadly including all relevant information, both positive and negative.

However the study's findings, published in the Journal of Accounting & Public Policy, show that in the presence of a firm's weak financial performance, the integrated report tends to be significantly longer, less readable and concise, and more optimistic - and so less balanced - suggesting attempts to "greenwash" the true performance picture.

The researchers also found that firms with worse social performance provide reports that are "foggier" and disclose less information on their environmental, social and governance issues.

Dr Melloni, a lecturer in accounting at UEA's Norwich Business School, said: "Our evidence implies that early adopters of integrated reporting manipulate the content and tone of their reports as an impression management strategy. The lower the performance, the poorer the disclosure.

"The results also suggest that such strategies depend not only on the level of firms' performance but also on the type of performance, for example financial versus sustainability.

"One of the main challenges when you are studying communications on sustainability is whether companies are reporting what they are actually doing. The big issue here is that companies are using integrated reporting to greenwash, to make up for very poor actions on their environmental and social impact."

The findings follow a growing consensus that increasing the amount of corporate information disclosed does not necessarily imply better disclosure. In particular, investors and financial analysts have denounced a perceived 'information overload' from financial disclosures without an increase in corresponding quality and usefulness for users.

As part of efforts to bring the length of financial reporting disclosures under control and to increase their quality, the International Integrated Reporting Council introduced the first framework for integrated reporting in December 2013, representing the latest attempt to connect a firm's financial and sustainability performance in one company report.

This emerging approach represents a shift from existing reporting practices, which generally involve the production of financial statements in accordance with financial accounting standards and a separate, mostly voluntary, stand-alone sustainability report, encompassing the social, human, environmental, and other dimensions of a firm's operations.

It has been suggested that having separate reports makes the relationship between the different dimensions of performance difficult to understand, and that integrated reports will ultimately help in reducing the reporting burden for many organisations.

Some countries, for example South Africa, have made such reports mandatory, while current EU legislation on annual financial statements addresses the disclosure of non-financial information and raises the debate on the role of integrated reporting in supporting companies to comply.

Dr Melloni and colleagues Dr Ariela Caglio from Bocconi University, Italy, and Dr Paolo Perego of Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, focused on 148 integrated reports issued by 74 firms. They examined conciseness and completeness/balance in the reports, which covered industries including oil and gas, utilities, financial and consumer goods, healthcare, and technology and telecommunication. They looked at the quality of communication and the relationship between what was reported and performance.

Dr Melloni said producing good quality reports had implications for firms' reputations: "Companies cannot only report the positives if they want to be credible. Integrated reporting allows firms to talk about the future, something traditional reports don't particularly like. If they include less positive details but set out what actions are going to be taken to address those, shareholders will want to know that.

"If there is a consistent message and firms are seen to be taking action, it can improve their reputation and make them more appealing, for example to staff, as a potential employer and to investors."

Because integrated reporting is at an early stage, Dr Melloni said firms may not fully understand it and might need time to improve their reporting in this way.

"From a user perspective, for example shareholders, they should be sceptical about basing decisions on these reports at the moment," said Dr Melloni. "From a company perspective, they should put more effort into including reliable performance information, both financial and non-financial.

"While the results so far are not very encouraging, we are not suggesting that integrated reporting is wrong, it has very strong potential. However, companies need to plan and if they want their report quality to be good, they need to be concise and balanced."

###

'Saying More with Less? Disclosure Conciseness, Completeness and Balance in Integrated Reports', Gaia Melloni, Ariela Caglio and Paolo Perego, is published in the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy.
Deprived of oxygen, naked mole-rats can survive by metabolizing fructose just as plants do, researchers report this week in the journal Science.

Understanding how the animals do this could lead to treatments for patients suffering crises of oxygen deprivation, as in heart attacks and strokes.

"This is just the latest remarkable discovery about the naked mole-rat -- a cold-blooded mammal that lives decades longer than other rodents, rarely gets cancer, and doesn't feel many types of pain," says Thomas Park, professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led an international team of researchers from UIC, the Max Delbruck Institute in Berlin and the University of Pretoria in South Africa on the study.

In humans, laboratory mice, and all other known mammals, when brain cells are starved of oxygen they run out of energy and begin to die.

But naked mole-rats have a backup: their brain cells start burning fructose, which produces energy anaerobically through a metabolic pathway that is only used by plants - or so scientists thought.

In the new study, the researchers exposed naked mole-rats to low oxygen conditions in the laboratory and found that they released large amounts of fructose into the bloodstream. The fructose, the scientists found, was transported into brain cells by molecular fructose pumps that in all other mammals are found only on cells of the intestine.

"The naked mole-rat has simply rearranged some basic building-blocks of metabolism to make it super-tolerant to low oxygen conditions," said Park, who has studied the strange species for 18 years.

At oxygen levels low enough to kill a human within minutes, naked mole-rats can survive for at least five hours, Park said. They go into a state of suspended animation, reducing their movement and dramatically slowing their pulse and breathing rate to conserve energy. And they begin using fructose until oxygen is available again.

The naked mole-rat is the only known mammal to use suspended animation to survive oxygen deprivation.

The scientists also showed that naked mole-rats are protected from another deadly aspect of low oxygen - a buildup of fluid in the lungs called pulmonary edema that afflicts mountain climbers at high altitude.

The scientists think that the naked mole-rats' unusual metabolism is an adaptation for living in their oxygen-poor burrows. Unlike other subterranean mammals, naked mole-rats live in hyper-crowded conditions, packed in with hundreds of colony mates. With so many animals living together in unventilated tunnels, oxygen supplies are quickly depleted.

###

"Fructose-driven glycolysis supports anoxia resistance in the naked mole-rat" (science.aab3896) co-authors are Bethany L. Peterson, Gregory Blass, Brigitte M. Browe, Daniel T. Applegate, Victoria Gavaghan, Vince G. Amoroso and Vidya Govind of UIC's Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience; Richard D. Minshall and John Larson of the UIC College of Medicine; Gary R. Lewin, Jane Reznick, Damir Omerbasi?, Tetiana Kosten, Ole Eigenbrod, Valerie Begay, P. Henning J.L. Kuich, Christin Zasada, Stefan Kempa, Wiebke Hamann, Michael H. Radke and Michael Gotthardt of the Max Delbru?ck Center for Molecular Medicine and Ewan St. J. Smith, now at the University of Cambridge; and Nigel C. Bennett and Heike Lutermann of the University of Pretoria.

The research was supported by National Science Foundation (grant #0744979), the European Research Council (grant 294678), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft SFB 665, and the National Institutes of Health (grants HL71626 and HL60678).
For the elderly and people with neurodegenerative conditions, balance is not taken for granted. UNC and NC State biomedical engineers are using a new virtual reality system that might one day be used to reveal balance impairments currently undetectable du

CHAPEL HILL, NC - Every year, falls lead to hospitalization or death for hundreds of thousands of elderly Americans. Standard clinical techniques generally cannot diagnose balance impairments before they lead to falls. But researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University have found evidence that virtual reality (VR) could be a big help - not only for detecting balance impairments early, but perhaps also for reversing those impairments and preventing falls.

In a study published in Nature Scientific Reports, a research team led by Jason R. Franz, PhD, assistant professor in the Joint UNC/NC State department of biomedical engineering, used a novel VR system to create the visual illusion of a loss of balance as study participants walked on a treadmill. By perturbing their sense of balance in this way and recording their movements, Franz's team was able to determine how the participants' muscles responded. In principle, a similar setup could be used in clinical settings to diagnose balance impairments, or even to train people to improve their balance while walking.

"We were able to identify the muscles that orchestrate balance corrections during walking," Franz said. "We also learned how individual muscles are highly coordinated in preserving walking balance. These things provide an important roadmap for detecting balance impairments and the risk of future falls."

Young and healthy adults rely predominantly on the mechanical "sensors" in their feet and legs to give them an accurate sense of body position. So, healthy people usually have no trouble walking in the dark or with their eyes closed. But this sense of proprioception declines in the elderly, as well as in people who have neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, leading to a much greater reliance on visual cues to maintain balance. In their study, Franz and colleagues chose to use a VR-based method to perturb the visual perception of balance. The subjects walked on a treadmill in front of a large, curved screen depicting a moving hallway.

"As each person walked, we added lateral oscillations to the video imagery, so that the visual environment made them feel as if they were swaying back and forth, or falling," Franz said. "The participants know they aren't really swaying, but their brains and muscles automatically try to correct their balance anyway."

In a setup like those seen in Hollywood motion-capture animation studios, Franz and his team used 14 cameras to record the positions of 30 reflecting markers on the legs, back, and pelvis of each subject. This allowed them to see, in detail, how the specific muscle groups that control postural sway and foot placement worked to correct a perceived loss of balance.

In response to the visual perturbations, the subjects took wider and shorter steps, as expected. And their head and trunk swayed further sideways with each step. The variability of these measures - their tendency to change from one step to the next - increased much more strikingly. Electrodes attached to the skin of the subjects also revealed coordinated electrical activity among the muscles that control postural sway and foot placement, including the gluteus medius, external oblique, and erector spinae.

"These findings give us important insights into the detailed mechanisms of walking balance control," Franz said.

The data also provide key reference measurements that could be used in future clinical procedures to detect balance impairments before they cause people to fall. Franz and his team have ongoing studies in elderly people and plans for studies in people with multiple sclerosis to help develop early-detection procedures. In their earlier work, they have shown that using this VR setting can identify age-related balance deficits that are not otherwise apparent during normal walking.

"We think there's a big opportunity to use visual perturbations in a VR setting to reveal balance impairments that would not be detected in conventional testing or normal walking," Franz said. "The key is to challenge balance during walking, to tease out those impairments that exist under the surface."

Franz and his colleagues also are examining the potential of their VR setup as a physical therapy tool to teach balance-impaired people how to improve their balance and avoid falls. "Early work in our lab suggests it's possible to use these visual perturbations to train a person's balance control system to respond better to imbalance that occurs in daily living," Franz said.

###

The other co-authors of the study were undergraduate research assistant Heather Stokes, who was first author of the Scientific Reports paper, and graduate student Jessica Thompson.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences funded this research.
Philadelphia--It's been 47 years since Philadelphians filled Fairmount Park for the first Earth Day here, led by a group of University of Pennsylvania students. This year, amidst the day's celebrations and other collective observances comes word that, if humankind is to truly coexist with biodiversity, we have to re-structure our landscapes on a vast scale.

In a forum on global urbanization, biodiversity and policy held at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design today, Richard Weller, Martin and Margy Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture, presented the results of a 3-year research project entitled Atlas for the End of the World, which is published online at http://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com.

Hotspots are regions of the world recognized by the global scientific and conservation community as containing an exceptional and irreplaceable diversity of life that is threatened with extinction. When put together, the hotspots are the sum total of the world's genetic inheritance. The loss of these landscapes, Penn's Weller explains, would be "akin to bulldozing the world's libraries and burning all the books."

The Atlas is a collection of hundreds of maps which cover 2 critically important subjects: 1) how the world's 36 biodiversity hotspots are performing in regard to meeting 2020 United Nations conservation (protected area) targets and 2) which cities in the hotspots are growing and are on a collision course with endangered species.

He shared the stage with PennDesign Dean and Paley Professor Frederick Steiner and Eugenie Birch, Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Education & Research. Steiner is an internationally recognized authority on design and ecology, who helped organized one of the Earth Day events in 1970; Birch leads sustainable development efforts for the UN as Chair, UN-HABITAT's World Urban Campaign, and President, General Assembly of Partners.

A key finding of the Atlas is that currently only 14 of the world's 36 hotspots have achieved the UN target of 17% protected area. In order to reach the target, the equivalent of almost 700,000 New York Central Parks will need to be legally secured in the next 3 years. The purpose of the Atlas is to help determine where, from a global land policy and development perspective, this additional protected area could be allocated.

The challenge for governments seeking to meet the UN targets is that it is not enough to make more protected areas in the hotspots that currently have shortfalls. It is also necessary for protected areas to be connected together into larger landscape matrices so that species can migrate and adjust to climate change. As Weller points out in the Atlas, forming such connectivity is very hard to achieve because it challenges existing land uses.

With regard to the 422 main cities in the world's hotspots, the Atlas concludes that 383 of them are sprawling directly into remnant habitat containing threatened species.

Furthermore, many of these cities do not appear to have urban planning strategies to avoid this calamity. Similarly, many of the nation's presiding over the worlds hotspots don't have national land use plans which seriously incorporate the long-term preservation of biodiversity.

The Atlas is designed to help the global conservation movement to focus and prioritize its efforts. It is also meant to be a wakeup call to the design and planning professions. According to Weller, while the planning and design professions have done a good job of improving the livability of cities in developed parts of the world, they have been largely oblivious to much of the carnage that's taking place elsewhere.

"If you really want to make a difference, this atlas shows you where to go," he said.

And that's exactly what he plans to do: Weller is asking foundations and NGOs to now fund a network of 36 demonstration projects, one in each of the world's 36 hotspots.

Collaborating with Weller on the Atlas were PennDesign students Claire Hoch and Chieh Huang.

###

The Atlas is online at http://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com.

About PennDesign

PennDesign prepares students to address complex sociocultural and environmental issues through thoughtful inquiry, creative expression, and innovation. As a diverse community of scholars and practitioners, we are committed to advancing the public good-both locally and globally-through art, design, planning, and preservation.
PHILADELPHIA - Patients are stuck for a blood draw almost every day they are admitted to a hospital. Lab tests are one of the most common orders placed by doctors, but research indicates that nearly one-third of these tests are not needed. Hospitals nationwide are seeking ways to use price transparency - displaying the price of lab tests at the time when doctors are placing the order - to nudge doctors to consider whether the benefits are worth the cost. But, results of a new study show that simply displaying the Medicare allowable fees did not have an overall impact on how clinicians ordered these tests. The results, from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, are published today in JAMA Internal Medicine and presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine annual meeting in Washington, DC.

"Price transparency is increasingly being considered by hospitals and other health care organizations as a way to nudge doctors and patients toward higher-value care, but the best way to design these types of interventions has not been well-tested," said senior author Mitesh S. Patel, MD, MBA, MS, an assistant professor of Medicine and Health Care Management in Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School, and director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. "Our findings indicate that price transparency alone was not enough to change clinician behavior and that future price transparency interventions may need to be better targeted, framed, or combined with other approaches to be more successful."

In the new study - the largest of its kind - researchers randomly assigned 60 groups of inpatient laboratory tests to either display Medicare allowable fees in the patient's electronic health record (intervention arm), or not (control arm). The randomized clinical trial was conducted at three hospitals within the University of Pennsylvania Health System over a one-year period and compared changes in the number of tests ordered per patient per day, and associated fees, for more than 98,000 patients (totaling over 142,000 admissions).

Results of the study showed that in the year prior to the study, when cost information was not displayed, the average number of tests and associated fees ordered per patient per day was 2.31 tests totaling $27.77 in the control group, and 3.93 tests totaling $37.84 in the intervention group. After the intervention, when cost information was displayed for the intervention group, researchers noted the average number of tests and associated fees ordered per patient per day did not change significantly and was 2.34 tests totaling $27.59 in the control group, and 4.01 tests totaling $38.85 in the intervention group.

Though the study found no overall effect, the authors noted important findings in specific patient groups that have implications for how to improve price transparency in the future. For example, there was a slight decrease test ordering for patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit - an environment in which doctors are making rapid decisions and may be more exposed to the price transparency intervention. The authors also found that the most expensive tests were ordered less and the cheaper tests were ordered more, suggesting that future interventions might be more successful if they are better designed to framed relative pricing.

"Electronic health records are constantly being changed, from how choices are offered to the way information is framed," said C. William Hanson, MD, chief medical information officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and a member of the steering committee for the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. "By systematically testing these approaches through real-world experiments, health systems can leverage this new evidence to continue to improve the way care is delivered for our patients."

"Price transparency continues to be an important initiative, but the results of this clinical trial indicate that these approaches need to be better designed to effectively change behavior" said Patel, who is also a staff physician at the Crescenz VA Medical Center, and whose work is supported by the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics.

###

Other Penn authors on the study include Jennifer S. Myers, Dylan S. Small, Irving Nachamkin, Dana Murray, Gregory Kurtzman, Jingsan Zhu, Wenli Wang, Deborah Mincarelli, Daniel Danoski, Brian P. Wells, Jeffrey S. Berns, Patrick J. Brennan, C. William Hanson, and C. Jessica Dine. Lead author Mina Sedrak conducted the study during a fellowship in Hematology-Oncology at Penn and is currently at the City of Hope.

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania(founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $5.3 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 18 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $373 million awarded in the 2015 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2015, Penn Medicine provided $253.3 million to benefit our community.
A federal jury has sided with the widow of a deceased Chicago attorney in her generic Paxil suicide lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), ordering the pharmaceutical giant to pay $3 million.

The jury verdict resolves allegations in the trial of Dolin v. Smithkline Beecham Corp. (D/B/A GlaxoSmithKline-GSK) over the paroxetine-induced wrongful death of Wendy Dolin's late husband, Stewart Dolin, who was a partner at the Chicago law firm Reed Smith when he took his own life in 2010.

"We are very pleased with the jury's verdict and are grateful for their diligent service," said Brent Wisner, co-lead trial counsel for Ms. Dolin in the Paxil suicide case. "We feel justice has been served, and are hopeful this verdict will result in a labeling change to warn that people of all ages are at risk. This should send a clear message to GSK and other drug manufacturers that hiding data and manipulating science will not be tolerated. Brand drug manufacturers have the ability and responsibility to make their drug labels accurate. If you create a drug and know that it poses serious risks, regardless of whether consumers use the brand name or generic version of that drug, you have a duty to warn."

On July 10, 2010, 57-year-old Stewart Dolin began taking the prescription antidepressant medication paroxetine. The brand name version of this medication is called Paxil, which was researched, developed, manufactured and marketed by GSK. Paroxetine and Paxil are the same chemical compound and both use the same product information labeling. GSK created and was responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the Paxil label.

In the early afternoon on July 15, 2010, Stewart Dolin died when he was struck by a CTA Blue-Line train in the subway station near Washington Street in Chicago. Just before this, a nurse at the subway station who did not know Mr. Dolin noticed him pacing back and forth while looking in the direction of an approaching train that was not yet in sight. When the moving train appeared, the nurse observed Mr. Dolin leap in front of the train, where he was struck. Mr. Dolin was pronounced dead from the injuries he suffered due to the collision and his contact with the electrified track after the collision.

The lawsuit alleged GSK failed to adequately warn Mr. Dolin's doctor about Paxil/paroxetine's association with an increased risk of suicidal behavior in adults of all ages. The Court previously ruled that, although GSK did not manufacture the pills Mr. Dolin ingested, the company was responsible for the label and knew or should have known any failure to warn would result in harm to those taking generic versions of the drug.

"Glaxo has known for two decades that Paxil can cause people of all ages to commit suicide. The company not only hid the risk, but stuck its head in the sand and ignored countless suicides that occurred in its clinical trials," said attorney Michael Baum, who also represented Ms. Dolin. He added that the drug's Black Box warning  which states there is a suicide risk for children, adolescents and young adults, but the risk ends at age 24  is "just wrong."

During the five-week trial, GSK swore off its responsibility for ensuring the truthfulness of the label, arguing that, because the FDA never made GSK warn of a suicide risk, the company should be exonerated. According to Baum, this argument is "akin to a car speeding past a cop, the cop doesn't stop the car, and the car crashes into another car and kills someonethe driver who killed someone cannot state it's not his fault because the cop didn't stop them."

In the end, the jury disagreed with GSK's arguments, finding that the drug maker cannot sluff off its responsibility for its labeling just because the FDA let the company get away with it.

Wendy Dolin was represented in her case by R. Brent Wisner and Michael Baum of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman and David E. Rapoport and Matthew Sims of Rapoport Law Offices P.C

For more information about the trial, visit baumhedlundlaw.com or MISSD.co

Dolin v. GSK Trial Transcripts

Dolin v. GSK Trial Exhibits

About Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, P.C.

Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, based in Los Angeles, has represented thousands of victims across the nation in wrongful death and personal injury claims involving pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, and consumer products. The firm has also handled over a thousand cases stemming from commercial transportation accidents. Over several decades, the firm has recovered over $1.5 billion for its clients.* The firm also represents whistleblowers.

*Past results are not a guarantee of future outcomes.
Website: www.delval.edu

Type of college: 4-year private

Campus address: 700 E. Butler Ave., Doylestown, PA 18901

Enrollment: 1700

Full-time tuition (not including room and board): $25,000-$35,000 per year

Agriculture majors: Agribusiness, animal science, equine management, equine science, horticulture, dairy science, crop science, food science, food technology, pre-veterinary.

Natural resources majors: Conservation and wildlife management, small animal science, zoo science, environmental science, sustainable ag sciences, turf management.

Majors added within the last 5 years: Added emphasis for environmental science, landscape architecture, landscape design/build

About: Delaware Valley University is an independent, nonprofit university with more than 25 undergraduate majors in the natural sciences, business, and humanities.

DelVal has small class sizes, an applied and theoretical approach to learning and individualized attention; Student-faculty ratio is 15:1. Faculty know their students by name, forging strong mentoring relationships with them.

How this information was compiled: Farm and Dairy emailed forms to universities and colleges within Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that offer a major or program in agriculture or natural resources. If your college or university offers an agriculture or natural resource program and is not listed here, email editor@farmanddairy.com to be added to our online directory.
Location: Flushing, Ohio

College/University attended: Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (2007)

Major: Agricultural Education

Career: Agriculture teacher at Union Local High School in Belmont County. (Previously taught four years in western Kansas.)

Why did you choose Ohio State?

Because of the proximity to home and I just felt it was well-known for the ag education program. I was also encouraged to go to OSU by my high school ag teacher, Jaime Chenevey, and I loved it there.

Did you always want to be a teacher?

I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I really enjoyed my high school freshman year of ag with Keith Nowels and decided then I wanted to be an ag teacher.

I took ag classes in high school because of my involvement in 4-H and I fell in love with FFA and Career Development Events, especially parliamentary procedure, public speaking, and ag sales.

How are you using what you learned in college?

I frequently think back to lessons learned in the teaching methods courses, and classroom management practices. I use those classroom and teaching foundations on a regular basis.

Did you grow up on a farm?

I grew up on a small family farm outside of Glenmont (Holmes County). Both my parents are retired teachers. My grandfather raised a small beef herd, and my father raised meat goats and practiced rotational grazing, while renting the crop ground.

Advice for students considering college:

You can always come home, but I think you owe it to yourself to get away from home for a few years and see what else is out there. College isnt for everybody, but you owe it to yourself to get an off-the-farm experience.
Website: www.potomacstatecollege.edu

Type of college: 4-year public

Campus address: 101 Fort Ave., Keyser, WV 26726

Enrollment: 1,500

Full-time tuition (not including room and board): Under $5,000 per year.

Agriculture majors: Agriculture and environmental education, agriculture technology, animal science, equine production and management, general agriculture, horticulture, pre-veterinary medicine, resource management.

Natural resources majors: Parks and recreation, resource management, wildlife resources, wood industries.

Majors added within the last 5 years: Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship (SAGE)

About: Potomac State College of West Virginia University has been helping agriculture and forestry students turn their dreams into careers for more than a hundred years. PSC has three farms, 800-plus acres of land, numerous livestock enterprises, crops, advanced labs, and dedicated faculty.

Potomac State College has dedicated a $4.2 million gift to: Launch new two- and four-year degree programs in Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship (SAGE); Provide need- and merit-based student scholarships for agriculture and forestry students; Update technology and farm facilities; And develop a co-op where students, alumni and local farmers work together. For more information call 800-262-7332 or email Go2PSC@mail.wvu.edu.

For more college listings click here.

How this information was compiled: Farm and Dairy emailed forms to universities and colleges within Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that offer a major or program in agriculture or natural resources. If your college or university offers an agriculture or natural resource program and is not listed here, email editor@farmanddairy.com to be added to our online directory.
UK animal scientists are set to take to streets this weekend to call for better support for livestock research as part of a global march for scientists.

Thousands of scientists, science advocates and science-friendly citizens are expected to flood the streets in the 'March for Science'.

The British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) will join thousands around the country to call on government to recognise the need for policies which are based on sound science and fact.

The society will also urge policy makers to understand the risks Brexit poses to UK livestock research, and identify ways it can ensure the country remains a world leader in animal science.

Taking place in more than 500 locations around the world, including London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Manchester in the UK on Saturday (22 April), the March for Science has been organised by scientists who are concerned that the sector is being trivialised and politicised by policy makers.

Researchers want government to recognise how important science is to the countrys economy, and address their concerns that Brexit could lead to funding and research opportunities being limited.

Just this week, two major research institutions have announced significant funding boosts that will help protect UK livestock against damaging diseases.

'Sound science'

BSAS chief executive Bruce Beveridge said the need for sound science is more important than ever in the agricultural sector.

At a time when the world is facing some of its biggest challenges around food security and climate change, the need for sound and properly-funded science is more important than ever.

The livestock sector plays a vital role in supporting the UKs economy and food security, but to be able to thrive it needs to be properly supported by a research sector which has the capability to develop solutions.

Mr Beveridge said that animal scientists were already expressing concerns about access to funding outside the European Union, and said the government needed to provide clear assurances that the sector would be properly supported post-Brexit.

We want a world-leading, competitive and profitable food and farming sector that is supported by the latest research, he added.

Without support from government, we risk our livestock sector being irreparably damaged, with fewer animals, an altered landscape and destroyed rural communities.

We believe we can continue to lead animal animal science outside the EU, but we need to be given the all the tools to do that.
A thief has stolen more than 200 unhatched birds after stealing an incubator and a quad bike from a breeder in Essex.

Posh Poultry of Broadley Common, Epping, was targeted in a suspected burglary between 3.30pm on Easter Sunday (April 16) and 8.30am on Monday (April 17).

The unhatched birds will have now died.

The suspects forced entry through a panel in the barn and took the incubator that contained eggs which were ready to hatch.

They also stole a red Honda 350 quad bike which could be sold on for more than 3,000.

Posh Poultry also show their chickens to schoolchildren for events and missed a booking because of the break-in.

Jamie Berrecloth, 42, business owner is now appealing for people to assist with an Essex Police investigation.

He said: "We want people to come forward, it would help us.

"It does affect our business. It will affect us in a big way."

Inquiries are ongoing. Anyone with more information should call Essex Police on 101 quoting 42/56971/17.
A French winegrower has been slapped with a speeding ticket for driving his tractor at 93mph in a 75mph zone.

But little did he know, he has also broken the world record... or has he?

This would, in reality, make it the fastest tractor in the world, beating the current world record of 88mph set by a Valtra T234.

But Remi Gervais, a winegrower from Montagnac in southern France, has denied the charge and claims his tractor cannot do more than 20mph, and that he wasn't even in Belgium when he supposedly did the 93mph run.

Mr Gervais told French online newspaper France Bleu Herault, "I have never been to Belgium and I think I have more chance of winning the lottery than reaching that speed,"

"You have to laugh. Maybe my tractor can get into the record books."

Mr Gervais contacted the Belgian police to explain the problem and has sent all the relevant documentation to try and prove his innocence.

According to French newspaper The Connexion, it is believed that the incident was either a case of mistaken identify or fake number plates being used fraudulently.
Entering its third year, the Rural Business Awards will commence in June as the only UK-wide programme dedicated to showcasing the success of rural businesses.

And, the Rural Business Awards has announced that Amazon will join the CLA as a supporter of this years awards, with entries now open through 30th June.

The rural sector in the UK employs in excess of 3.4 million people in over 600,000 businesses.

Were incredibly proud that the Rural Business Awards have reached such a great scale, three years from inception, and to have Amazon on board in addition to our long-standing partner, the CLA, is testament to this progress, said Anna Price, Co-Founder, Rural Business Awards.

The awards are organised by rural business for rural business, with winners in the 14 categories - ranging from Best Rural Start-up and Rural Innovation Of The Year; through to Rural Entrepreneur Of The Year and Champions Of Champions - decided by an independent panel of judges drawn from the rural business sector, rural public sector agencies, and rural charitable organisations.

'Help shine a spotlight'

Were delighted to be backing the Rural Business Awards to help shine a spotlight on the best of rural businesses  small and large alike, said Doug Gurr, UK Country Manager, Amazon.

I live in a small Yorkshire village and see every day how the internet is unlocking the potential of rural businesses through services like our own Amazon Marketplace, which helps rural companies reach customers across the UK and around the world.

We know how important rural businesses are to the UK, which is why were proud to partner with the Rural Business Awards and celebrate their success stories.

Over a hundred rural businesses entered the awards last year, and 2017 is set to be a record for entries.

Award organisers will launch a Rural Business Awards Roadshow, touring rural parts of the UK with previous winners, on the hunt for the best and brightest rural business talent to encourage them to shout about their success.

'Beating heart'

Helen Woolley, Director General, CLA said: The CLA partners with the Rural Business Awards because we believe that rural businesses are the beating heart of our countryside and make a vital contribution to the overall economy.

The Awards are an important showcase for our most innovative and creative rural enterprises, boosting their profile and recognising their success and hard work.

At the 2016 Rural Business Awards, the overall Champion of Champions was Landmark Computer Systems Ltd, from Sussex, which offers tailored software helping agricultural clients manage their business effectively.

In a message to rural businesses thinking about submitting for an award, 2016 Champion of Champions winner Nigel Parsons, Founder-Director from Landmark said: The RBAs are a tremendous way of engaging the whole company in a common goal.

The amount of work involved to apply is well worth the experience of being able to benchmark your product or service, acknowledge and reward your staff, and to involve your customers with the application process. We at Landmark wish all entrants the best of luck for the 2017 awards.

The Rural Business Awards night will take place on 5th October 2017 at Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey. Rural businesses can submit their award entries until 30th June in up to 14 categories here.
Five things for farmers to watch out for in Autumn Statement
Most people reasonably think of Altria Group (MO 0.04%) for its Marlboro brand of cigarettes, which has gained worldwide renown and is a marketing colossus. Yet what many people don't know about Altria is that it owns a wine business, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. Although Ste. Michelle is quite small compared to its tobacco operations, Altria still sees substantial sales and profit from the unit, and it provides useful diversification. Below, you'll find five things you should know about Altria's wine business.

1. What is Ste. Michelle Wine Estates?

Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is a group of estate wineries, with a concentration in the Pacific Northwest. The namesake Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodinville, WA dates back more than a century, built on the estate of Seattle lumber baron Frederick Stimson. Now, the company boasts 18 different wineries in the Pacific Northwest, along with seven in California.

Ste. Michelle Wine Estates also has partnerships with partners in the U.S. and internationally. With exposure to wineries in Spain, New Zealand, Chile, and numerous other wine-growing regions of the world, Altria's wine unit has a commanding view of the industry.

2. How did Altria come to own Ste. Michelle?

Ste. Michelle became part of Altria when the tobacco company bought smokeless tobacco company UST in 2008. Overall, the deal cost Altria $11.7 billion, but the acquisition allowed Altria to expand beyond cigarettes, adding the key Copenhagen and Skoal brands to the company's portfolio.

In many ways, Ste. Michelle seemed like an afterthought during the transaction. Altria's statements about the offer focused on the impact of the acquisition in complementing its tobacco offerings, and only brief mentions were made about the wine business. Yet the fact that Altria has held onto the business is a sign of its value to the tobacco giant.

3. What relationship does Altria have with Ste. Michelle?

There's always concern among customers that when a major corporation takes over a smaller business, quality will be a casualty. Some wine connoisseurs are far from pleased with Altria's ownership of Ste. Michelle, but the tobacco giant has largely taken a hands-off approach toward the wine unit.

In particular, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates has a philosophy it refers to as the "String of Pearls." In essence, Ste. Michelle believes that each winery is unique, and allowing each winery to make its own business and wine-making decisions ensures that the company's diversity will continue. Chateau Ste. Michelle has a special place as "our first pearl," in the words of unit President and CEO Ted Baseler, but from Washington State to the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Napa region of California, different traits give each of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates' wines its own character.

4. How successful is Ste. Michelle?

Ste. Michelle is among the top 10 producers of premium wines in the U.S. currently. Brands like Columbia Crest and 14 Hands have joined Chateau Ste. Michelle in gaining acclaim, and a host of other properties appeal to wine connoisseurs both in the U.S. and around the world.

From a business perspective, Ste. Michelle is profitable and has produced significant growth. With $721 million in sales in 2016, the wine business makes up less than 4% of Altria's overall revenue. But pre-tax profit of $164 million gives Ste. Michelle an operating margin above 20%, and the unit's profits have nearly doubled over the past five years.

5. What's ahead for Ste. Michelle?

Altria doesn't talk a lot about Ste. Michelle in its earnings calls, preferring to leave the company as independent as possible. But the company is proud about its success with wines, noting in a recent discussion with analysts that the winery had received more than 260 ratings of 90 or better for the second consecutive year.

Altria doesn't get a huge amount of money from its wine business, but Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is a valuable asset in its arsenal. With Chateau Ste. Michelle celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2017, investors should keep an eye on Altria's wine business to see how it will affect the tobacco giant going forward.
Investors have been optimistic about Philip Morris International (PM 1.76%) lately, believing that the tobacco giant would be able to balance its hopes for a future in which reduced-risk products replace traditional cigarettes with the harsh reality of needing to rely on cigarette sales for years to come. The stock has reflected hopes that an end to the U.S. dollar's advance might finally let earnings grow more dependably, and coming into Thursday's first-quarter financial report, Philip Morris investors wanted further signs of solid performance on the top and bottom lines.

Unfortunately, Philip Morris wasn't able to give investors that level of reassurance, as cigarette shipments were unexpectedly weak. Despite promising signs about the company's long-term future, few shareholders were happy with Philip Morris' current situation. Let's look more closely at Philip Morris International to see how it did and why many are nervous about the tobacco giant.

Philip Morris deals with a tough start to 2017

Philip Morris International's first-quarter results didn't inspire a huge amount of confidence among shareholders. Revenue net of excise tax was down a fraction of a percentage point to $6.06 billion, which was far worse than the roughly 6% growth in the top line that most investors were looking to see. Net income fared a bit better, climbing 4% to $1.59 billion. But after making allowances for some one-time tax items, adjusted earnings of $0.98 per share were flat from last year's first quarter and fell $0.04 per share short of the consensus forecast among those following the tobacco stock.

The scariest number in the whole report came from shipment volumes of traditional cigarettes. Philip Morris suffered an 11.5% decline in cigarette shipments to 173.6 billion units. The company saw huge drops across all of its major regions.

More broadly, weakness across Philip Morris' business was unusually uniform. Net revenue from combustible products dropped almost 7%, and all four of the company's geographical regions were within a few of percentage points of that figure. Asia fared the best with a 4% drop in revenue, maintaining its position as the largest sales producer among Philip Morris' four regions. Europe was unusually weak, with the Eastern Europe segment faring a bit worse than the European Union. Currency impacts also hit the company in Europe, even though it helped Philip Morris in Asia. Performance in Latin America and Canada was fairly close to the overall company total.

The best news in the quarterly release came on the reduced-risk product front. Revenue rose nearly eightfold to $435 million, with Asia dominating the scene and producing more than 90% of Philip Morris' overall reduced-risk sales. Sales volume of heated tobacco units was up almost tenfold to 4.4 billion units.

What's coming for Philip Morris down the road?

CEO Andre Calantzopoulos tried to put the company's weakness into a broader context. "Our results were in line with our previously communicated expectation of a relatively weak first quarter," Calantzopoulos said, because of "lower cigarette volume -- primarily related to low-price brands in specific markets where the impact on our profitability was limited -- and certain timing factors." The CEO also highlighted the success of the iQOS heated tobacco product, noting that 1.8 million consumers have made the switch away from regular cigarettes.

More importantly, Philip Morris doesn't see the quarter's weakness affecting its full-year results. In fact, the company actually increased its earnings projections for 2017, now expecting bottom-line figures between $4.84 and $4.99 per share. However, Philip Morris was careful to note that the upward movement was due solely to a tax-related item and not from fundamental business performance.

Philip Morris shareholders were nervous about the news, and that's a big part of why the stock fell nearly 4% during the trading session following the morning announcement. Philip Morris has the ability to bounce back from a sluggish quarter, and the disappearance of currency-related impacts to its bottom line was welcome. But to succeed, the tobacco giant can't afford to give up entirely on cigarettes just yet.




Haiti - FLASH : Bus accident in the South West at least 18 victims





Thursday at midday, a bus identified "Lionel Express" from Chardonnieres (Southwest) heading to Les Cayes overturned on a bend near Carrefour-Joute, killing two passengers and injuring 16 others (provisional balance sheet).



Residents assisted by rescue workers and agents of the Haitian National Police (PNH) have released some of the injured people who have been trapped in the bus. The injured were transported to the Les Cayes General Hospital by the National Ambulance Center (CAN) and PNH vehicles.



Inspector Jean Guito Calas, Head of Traffic Department of the Southern Department, points to the negligence of the driver and the poor condition of the vehicle. A mechanical or brake problem could be the cause of this accident, although this can not be confirmed at the moment, since the driver had fled.



TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Politics : Fructuous Forum of the Diaspora





Thursday, as part of the commemoration of the National Diaspora Day (JND), during the Diaspora Forum, convened by Stephanie Auguste, Minister of Haitians Living Abroad (MHAVE), held at the Center Of the Convention of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH), several subjects were debated.



Among other themes of discussion: Advocacy for the creation of a fund for investment and development of the diaspora, presented by Herve Denis, Minister of Defense; Diaspora Investment Opportunities in Tourism in Haiti, presented by Ulrick Noel, Director of Investments, Ministry of Tourism; Guaranteeing the investments of the diaspora, presented by Claudy Pierre, Director General of the Ministry of Justice; Legislation in trade in Haiti, presented by Me Philippe Volmar, specialist on investment and business law matters; Project of return of compatriots from abroad entitled "Diaspora welcome back", presented Mrs. Aude Sicard.



Three workshops were organized:



The first, attempted to answer the question "How to involve the diaspora in the economic and social development of Haiti ?"



The second, dealt with "Diaspora, promotion and marketing of Haitian products abroad".



The third, examined the question "How can we use Haitian skills in the service of modernity ?"



Members of the various workshops submitted a number of proposals, including: the opening of MHAVE offices in all Consulates of Haiti abroad; Providing adequate training for young people; To realize a synergy between the Haitians abroad and those of the soil to determine the skills of the diaspora and better channel them to the country.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20715-haiti-flash-promises-of-president-moise-to-the-diaspora.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20701-haiti-politics-for-a-better-integration-of-the-diaspora.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Beijing : China is known for adopting harsh measures when it comes to making its citizens follow the state policies. Unperturbed by criticism of being human rights violator, China has come up with its own way of clamping down on religious extremism in the far western region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people.

Hundreds of people have died in recent years in Xinjiang in unrest blamed by Beijing on Islamist militants and separatists, though rights groups say the violence is more a reaction to repressive Chinese policies.

The government strongly denies committing any abuses in Xinjiang and insists the legal, cultural and religious rights of Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, are fully protected.

Pakistan, the all-weather ally of China, has chosen to stay mum on the ordeal of Muslims in Xinjiang.

Here are a range of measures, from increased surveillance to strict controls of Muslim activities, implemented by China in Xinjiang:

In some cities in Xinjiang, people wearing headscarves and beards have been banned from riding buses.

Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of Chinas ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs. In mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armoured paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.

Shopkeepers must, at their own expense, instal password-activated security doors, panic buttons and cameras that film not just the street outside but also inside their stores, sending a direct video feed to police.

Education rules say parents or guardians cannot organise, lure or force minors into attending religious activities. They are also not permitted to promote extremist beliefs in children, or force them to dress in extremist clothing or other symbols.

In Xinjiang, weekly flag-raising ceremonies are held. Uighurs are required to attend to denounce religious extremism and pledge fealty under the Chinese flag during the ceremonies.

News agency Reuters reported that at one such event in Hotan, over 1,000 people filed onto an open-air basketball court where Party officials checked their names against an attendance list and inspected their dress and appearance.

Hotan authorities offer CNY 2,000 (USD 290) rewards for those who report face coverings and robes, youth with long beards, or other popular religious customs that have been radicalised.

Source : Zee News
New Delhi : Hitting back at China over Arunachal Pradesh, India on Thursday said that assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh was an integral part of India.

Assigning invented names to towns of your neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal. Arunachal Pradesh is and will always be an integral part of India, Baglay told reporters.

When asked if India has taken up the matter with China, he said the Chinese government has not communicated anything officially so far and the ministry has seen only reports on the development.

China had yesterday announced that it had standardised official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh and had termed the provocative move as a legitimate action.

Their move had come days after Beijing had lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lamas visit to the frontier state.

The state media in Beijing had said that the move was aimed at reaffirming Chinas claim over Arunachal Pradesh.

China claims the state as South Tibet.

Chinas Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on April 14 that it had standardised in Chinese characters, Tibetan and Roman alphabet the names of six places in South Tibet, which India calls Arunachal Pradesh, in accordance with the regulations of the central government, state-run Global Times had reported.

The official names of the six places using the Roman alphabet are Wogyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidengarbo Ri, Mainquka, Bumo La and Namkapub Ri.

These names reflect Chinas territorial claim over South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is supported by clear evidence in terms of history, culture and administration, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had told reporters, as per PTI.

Defending the action to standardise the names, Lu had said, to issue these names is actually carried out in accordance with the regulations about the names of the localities and it is a legitimate action by the Chinese government.

Let me stress that about the Indian governments indulgence of (the) Dalai Lama activities in disputed eastern section of the India-China boundary and also about his anti- China activities, this is something we are firmly against. These activities are also against the Indian governments commitments to China, Lu had added when asked about the significance of standardisation of names.

Asked why it took China so long to standardise the names and whether the sudden move was in retaliation to the Dalai Lamas recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, he had further said that China chose this time to announce the standardisation as it was now doing a second census of names of localities and an important part of it was to standardise names in ethnic languages.

In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names, he had gone on to say said.

Reiterating that Chinas claims over the east section of India-China boundary in Arunachal Pradesh were clear and consistent, Lu had said, these names have been passed on from generation to generation by people who have lived there for generations, the Tibetan ethnic and Monpa ethnic groups. It is also an example that shows China has clear administration over these areas and there are many activities by the Chinese people in that area.

Chinas move had come just days after the Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh, which was seventh since the 81-year-old spiritual leader fled from Tibet through Tawang and sought refuge in India.

During the Dalai Lamas Arunachal Pradesh visit, China had warned India that it will take necessary measures to defend its territorial sovereignty and interests.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.

The two sides have so far held 19 rounds of Special Representatives talks to resolve the boundary dispute.

Source : Zee News
A canteen leaseholder at Bangladeshs prestigious Dhaka University has been fired for serving beef to Hindu students and hurting their religious sentiments, a media report said on Thursday.

The university has formed a committee to investigate the incident. The committee has been asked to submit a report within a week.

Zakir Hossain, a class-four employee who became the leaseholder of Faculty of Fine Arts canteen, was expelled on Sunday for creating disorder on Pahela Baishakh when thousands of students gathered on the campus to celebrate the Bangla New Year.

The students of the faculty said beef was never allowed in their canteen considering the fact that it is forbidden for Hindus.

He was running the canteen without permission (from the authorities), acting proctor Amzad Ali was quoted as saying by bdnews24.

The students ordered Tehari for breakfast after working overnight to prepare for the Mangal Shobhajatra procession.

Zakir admitted to making the Tehari with beef, but alleged that Bangladesh Chhatra League leader Sohag and his associates in the Pahela Baishakh Celebration Committee intentionally ordered the beef Tehari and fed it to their Hindu co-students, the report said.

Zakir said they did so because he did not agree to their demand to pay extortion money.

Source : The Hindu
eZee Launches a New Version of Cloud Based Hospitality Solutions

Global hotel solutions provider announces much awaited updates and new integrations in latest versions of cloud hotel PMS, online booking engine and channel manager along with new mobile App for hotel PMS.

eZee Technosys, all-in-one hospitality solutions provider, announced release of new versions for cloud based product trio, viz. eZee Absolute Property Management System, eZee Centrix Channel Manager and eZee Reservation Booking Engine. Hundreds of hoteliers using eZee software will benefit from this immediately available update.

We kept in mind customary requirements for our products that improve ease of use and convenience. eZee engineers have focused on addressing pain areas of hoteliers and introduced newer ways to do more with our systems. These feature updates and integrations will enable them with optimized operations and easier than ever business management, said eZees CTO Harshdeep Khatri.

Keeping up with customer oriented approach, eZee has covered the extra mile by identifying what 21st century users require and developing those characteristics in systems. Below given are more details.

Hoteliers can do more with eZees online PMS and its mobile app

eZee Absolute hotel PMS streamlines all guest operations right from check-in of a guest to his check-out and a lot more. In this new version, complex folio operations are simplified to easier one-step process. Besides, advanced housekeeping keeps hotel staff up-to-date with their to-dos and they will even stay vigilant for assigned tasks through SMS alerts. The notifications generated from system are reflected in mobile app for eZee PMS as well. Hotelier using this app gets push notifications for every received or updated booking and more. Additionally, the app also facilitates printing for vouchers, receipts and guest registration cards.

Users from UK will be able to utilize integrated payment gateway SagePay with eZee Absolute. Front desk managers willing to assign a complimentary room to guests can do it in just a click. There are myriad of new additions made to this version. Interested hoteliers can find more details here.

Whats new in online Booking Engine eZee Reservation

Hold and release booking is a feature that a hotelier frequently uses; and it gets more convenient when you get a timely reminder to release any held up booking. Users can even add a custom CSS to extensively customize look and feel of booking engine in your website. There is a price widget that gives a comparison of room rates on different OTAs to the booker, making it easier to decide and go ahead with the booking. Other updates include French language notation, chat script plugin, filter options, keeping track of guests coming from Google Hotel Ads and much more. Here is more about booking engine updates.

eZee Centrix adds 5 More OTAs and develops interface with Chaletmanager

eZee Centrix Channel Manager gets integrated with PMS ChaletManager and various OTAs such as Atlantis, Busyrooms (Europe), Xcaliber (Thailand), DirectWithHotels (Malaysia) and Tiket.com (Indonesia).

About eZee Technosys

eZee Technosys is one of the few complete hospitality IT solutions providers in the world. Offering solutions that cover hotel management, Booking management, online room distribution, restaurant management, guest feedback and hotel mobile apps. eZee offers on-premise along with cloud based solutions as well as mobile applications for eZee solutions. Founded in 2005, eZee Technosys today serves more than 6000 clients in more than 140 countries across the globe. Visit eZees corporate website for more.
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Edupliance Covers Tax Levies and Creditor Garnishments In New Webinar

Posted by Aman Verma on Friday, 04-21-2017 5:22 am

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Edupliance announces webinar titled, Tax Levies and Creditor Garnishments: Payroll Compliance 2017 that aims to update attendees on how to be in compliance and step-by-step calculation for tax levies and creditor garnishments while avoiding penalties from processing incorrectly. The webinar goes LIVE on Thursday, May 4, from 01:00 PM to 02:30 PM, Eastern Time. Tax levies and creditor garnishments can be some of the most complex tasks required of any payroll department. If garnishments are not handled correctly, you may find yourself facing situations that become extremely costly both financially and emotionally. Courts, federal and state regulations, bureaucracies, lawyers and a multitude of other factors can complicate even the most basic procedures. Add in the emotional turmoil that often accompanies garnishment orders and even small errors can become major disasters. The reality is that all of the people and entities involved with tax levies and other types of creditor garnishmen...

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New CompScope" Studies Examine Trends in Claim Costs and Impact of Reforms in 18 State Workers Compensation Systems

Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 04-21-2017 5:18 am

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The claim costs and other metrics of 18 state workers compensation systems are analyzed in depth in a new series of studies, CompScope" Benchmarks, 17th Edition, released by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI).The research can help policymakers and other stakeholders identify current cost drivers and emerging trends in a wide variety of workers compensation system components, said Ramona Tanabe, WCRIs executive vice president and counsel.The studies examine trends in workers compensation medical and indemnity payments in a number of states with significant changes, either through new laws or through court rulings. They also examine how income benefits, medical payments, duration of disability, litigiousness, and benefit delivery expenses changed over time, and they compare how these measures differ from state to state.The following are sample findings for some of the study states: California: Total costs per claim remained stable between 2010 (claims with expe...

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Know the most common types of coverage Business owners know they need insurance - but figuring out exactly what types of coverage and policy limits they need can be pretty complex. Coverage needs vary greatly depending on things like your businesss location, employee headcount, and industry. So what types of insurance should a small business owner consider purchasing to ensure theyre covered on all fronts? Here are some of the most common types of coverage and when theyre applicable to your business. General Liability Insurance General Liability insurance protects your business from third party injury and property damage claims. As an example, lets say you own a store and a customer slips on water that had been spilled on the floor earlier, sustaining an injury. Your business can be held liable for the resulting injury, including medical treatment and any legal costs. Without a General Liability policy, youll likely have to pay these costs out of pocket and, depending on the situation, even a minor incident could bankrupt a small business. This coverage is applicable to a wide variety of businesses, particularly those that have frequent physical interactions with clients or partners. Its applicable whether you have a storefront, visit a clients property, or simply host non-employees in your office space. In some cases customers will require proof of General Liability coverage before ente...
Posts from Harvey the Bernese are my favorite on Instagram. I dont have a Bernese and I dont know Harveys family. In fact, Harvey lives in the UK and he alternates between running around outside in the mud and sleeping on the family couch. Yet Harvey has more than 12,000 followers on Instagram and receives loving notes from his human fans on a daily basis. Whats Harveys secret to success? His doggie mom does a brilliant job of using fresh, compelling content and hashtags to share Harveys story. She posts several times a day, using photos and videos that reveal Harveys trials and tribulations, which bring him to life for people around the world. Harvey has achieved social media nirvana: his followers interact with him. In contrast, when it comes to most B2Bsocial media, its a one-way street. Companies fall back on an old model that was made popular during the early days of online job postings called post and pray. It didnt work in the past and it works even less now. Its the equivalent of opening your refrigerator door and shouting at the vegetables. They have no reason to care, theyre not going to answer you, and youve just expended a lot of energy for nothing. Not dialogue nor following or even a conversation is being had. If youre sincere about establishing a strong engaging presence on social media  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and...
About Webcast

In addition to their regular employment, nearly 68 million Americans work as part-time caregivers for a family member or friend. While the majority of people say caregiving is a rewarding part of their life, there is evidence that this responsibility is taking its toll. Research shows that those who juggle both work and caregiving responsibilities experience stress, fatigue and a number of other risks.



The responsibilities of todays caregivers are having a ripple effect on the work environment and productivity of corporate America. Companies are experiencing the financial impact of missed workdays, lost revenues and drained employees who are juggling both caregiving priorities and work responsibilities. Todays caregivers are looking to their employers for support, guidance and assistance, and organizations can no longer ignore this call for help.



Ceridians 2015 Caregiving Research Study investigates the role of working caregivers and the personal and professional implications of these responsibilities. Using insight from interviews of more than 1,600 full- and part-time workers, the report examines the demands and effects of caregiving. Additionally, these survey findings very clearly highlight the pressing need for employers to better recognize, support and better accommodate these individuals.



In this engaging 60-minute webinar, we will explore the rise of the working caregiver in North America. Join us to discuss and better understand the growing caregiving phenomenon, including numbers of those impacted, attitudes toward caregiving and employees most urgent needs. Well also overview what employers can do to lighten the load for caregiving employees and respond meaningfully to their needs.

By registering for this webcast you will receive email communications and notifications from the sponsor(s).
With data breaches at an all-time high and identity fraud the No. 1 consumer complaint in America, (on average, an identity is stolen every two seconds), HR managers are reconfiguring their benefits packages to protect employees and their companies.



The stakes are high. Just consider the impact the Sony or Anthem breaches had on employees, customers and the reputation of the companies.



At this webinar, HR professionals will gain an understanding of identity fraud  the risks, dangers and measures that can help safeguard employees and companies alike. Such information has never been more important, considering that last year alone, nearly 13 million individuals were victims of identity fraud, according to the 2015 Javelin Strategy & Research Report. Not only do cybercrimes turn victims lives upside down, employers also feel the effects in the form of lost productivity. This includes up to 165 hours of employee work time to remediate the situation.



Whats more, those victimized by ID fraud also are absent from work five times more than average, use medical benefits four times more than average and use twice as much sick time as an average employee. Its no wonder why progressive organizations that once offered identity fraud detection and protection as a supplemental benefit are now considering this as a core employee benefit. The opportunity for organizations to pro-actively protect their employees from identity fraud is gaining traction.



In addition, webinar participants will glean information about the growing presence and usage of social media in the HR sphere based on findings from new InfoArmor research.

By registering for this webcast you will receive email communications and notifications from the sponsor(s).
Several arrested by police on Wednesday

ANGOLA  The following people were arrested Wednesday by law enforcement officers working in Steuben County and lodged in the Steuben County Jail.

 George W. Foley, 23, of the 12000 block of North Hodson Avenue, Muncie, arrested at Hanselman and Bill Deller roads on a felony charge of possession of a legend drug and misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia.

 Jason P. Gromaski, 39, of the 700 block of East Broad Street, arrested on a misdemeanor fugitive warrant.

 Jeffrey B. Ice, 19, of the 1000 block of West Fourth Street, Anderson, arrested at Hanselman and Bill Deller roads for misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia and felony charge of possession of a legend drug.

 Jerad M. Pease, 24, of the 200 block of Lane 100 Lake Charles East, arrested at home on a misdemeanor charge of invasion of privacy.

 Steffan W. Timmer, 19, of the 53000 block of Vineyard Lane, Mattawan, Michigan, arrested at Hanselman and Bill Deller roads on a felony charge of possession of a legend drug and misdemeanor charges of possession of paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.

 Mary E. Wellman, 35, of the 700 block of McBrayer Road, Clearfield, Kentucky, arrested in the 400 block of West U.S. 20 on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery.

 Samantha J. Zimmerman, 32, of the 200 block of North C.R. 700E, arrested on a fugitive warrant.
California African American Heritage includes commemoration of the Battle of Puebla by CM Boxley

Surrounding French Camp, San Joaquin County, California we join Natchez, Mississippi and Vadalia, Louisiana commemorating the Battle of Puebla, and ultimately leading to mutually beneficial hard fought victories in 1865.

Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-CM Boxley, edited by Khubaka, Michael Harris



May 2017 will be the 155th anniversary of Cinco de Mayo and once again Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-CM Boxley continues sharing living history while wearing a U. S. Colored Troops replica period uniform at celebrations throughout Natchez, Mississippi and Vidalia, Louisiana.



Cinco de Mayo, May 5, 1862 commemorates the Battle of Puebla, near Vera Cruz, Mexico.



Today, few are aware of this major battle and the importance of delaying the French army advances and limited ability to offer assistance to the Confederate Army during the critical days of the US Civil War.



What if they French had been successful at the Battle of Pueblo? What would have been the military impact of French support to the Confederate Army?



Some historians have argued that powerful forces in France had the goal of helping break up the American Union, in the midst of a US Civil War, by helping the Confederate States of America.



The Mexican people had won a great victory that kept Napoleon III from supplying the confederate rebels for another year, allowing the United States to build a powerful army. This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the Battle of Puebla. The Battle of Gettysburg provided the occasion for President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, September 21, 1862.



The consequence of Cinco de Mayo to the United States has been thus recognized: "The defeat of the French army had consequences for America as well...the French Army defeat denied Napoleon III the opportunity to resupply the Confederate rebels for another year.



Dr. Donald W. Miles adds, "at the time, there were fears in the United States that the French would use Mexico as a base to back the Confederacy, so President Lincoln and his Secretary of State went out of their way to appear 'neutral' in the Mexican situation. They did not want to take on the French and the Confederates at the same time". Dr. Miles goes on to explain that "Napoleon III had hesitated to take on the United States directly, but now the news of the Civil War changed everything".



It meant that the Americans would be occupied with their conflict between North and South for some time. Upon hearing the Spaniards and the British had sailed off to grab the customs house in Veracruz to start collecting their duties, Napoleon decided he would not only send the French navy, but would also start looking for someone to place as emperor in Mexico. He would then use Mexico as a base to help the Confederates win their war against the United States . Napoleon saw this as an opportunity not to be missed.



Dr. Miles concludes, "The Emperor of France ordered his generals to spend a few months taking on Mexico and then - using Mexico as a 'base' - help the Confederates win their war against the United States.



What if they had succeeded?



The United States may never have become the Unified world power that is is today... the rural indigenous community, formerly enslaved people of African descent and Mexican soldiers defeated the French in the battle of Puebla, now called Cinco de Mayo.



By the time the French were able to establish a French empire in Mexico; it was in 1863, the Freedom summer of 1863, when thousands of formerly enslaved and free people of African descent became US Colored Troops. Over 200,000 US Colored Troops joined the US Army and Navy becoming freedom fighters on the way to Juneteenth and the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, ending legal slavery throughout the United States of America.



! Viva Cinco de Mayo!


From the Archive U Win Tin: Burmas Revolutionary Journalist

U Win Tin was a true believer in democracy and press freedom. His unrelenting, sharp criticism of Burmas past and current government will be greatly missed.

Three years to the day since Burma lost one of its leading intellectual figures, U Win Tin, The Irrawaddy looks back on his enduring legacy. A beloved democracy activist, journalist, founding member of the National League for Democracy and a former political prisoner, U Win Tin lives on as an emblem of persistence and bravery for those seeking true democratic change in Burma.

U Win Tin spent 19 years in prison for his opposition to the former military regime, but his principles never wavered. With this article from The Irrawaddy archives, originally published on the day of his death, we revisit what it was he stood for and his relevance today.

Burmese journalist U Win Tin was a true believer in democracy and press freedom. He never hid his disdain for the repressive military regime and continued to challenge Burmas current nominally civilian government.

U Win Tin spent seven thousand nights in Rangoons notorious Insein Prison, but he had no regrets and continued to boldly carry the flag of democracy and helped keep the opposition movement alive. The dictators can only detain our bodies, not our souls, he once said while in prison.

The way he confronted Burmas repressive rulers was so uncompromising and inspiring that the generals feared him, and with good reason. In Burma and beyond, many loved and respected the man who, together with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has become a symbol of the countrys long struggle for democracy.

As I learned the news of his passing this morning I thought of his determination, intellectual steadfastness and the principles he upheld, and, most importantly, his contribution to the democracy movement.

Among his fellow political activists and contemporaries, U Win Tin stood out as a bit different and, though it was not his intention, he outshone many other opposition figures.

One reason for this was his unbending stance and sharp reading of the political situation during the repressive regime and the current democratic transition. He remained very critical and cautious of the ongoing political reformsa healthy and welcome approach in my view.

U Win Tin was always ready to express his opinions to the media, he was eloquent and precise, and unlike many other opposition members he didnt shy away from criticizing his party leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Devoted to Political Life

U Win Tin was never married, but devoted his life to books, newspapers and politics. Many adored him as an example of a completely selfless man who cared about Burmas people and showed particular concern for the younger generation.

Even when he became older and suffered from increasing health problems, he would not bother people around him with his ailments; instead he would ask them to leave him while always thanking them for their visit.

Right up until the end he was quick to offer his witty or harsh criticism of the former junta leaders, the current government, while also occasionally criticizing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Last year, he said that the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader has been too reconciliatory toward the current government. Some of us would like to push the military into the Bay of Bengal, he told The Washington Post, She only wants to push them into Kandawgyi Lake, a reference to a lake in central Rangoon.

During my first visit back to Burma in 2012, I went to meet him and asked whether it was the right decision for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to enter the by-elections that year and enter Parliament.

He paused, looked at me with smile and said, You know she enjoys a Hollywood star status and she is a really popular figure.

After he was released from prison in 2008, we spoke on the phone and he outlined some of the differences between himself and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi is a VIP prisonerwe spent our times in dog cells and we were treated inhumanely. Our feelings and sentiments towards the generals is not the same as Aung San Suu Kyi. She always looked at them with some understanding and she sees the military as her fathers army. But we dont, he said.

Despite such frank remarks, he never expressed any doubt about Daw Aung San Suu Kyis leadership of the NLD and maintained she was the only political figure capable of leading Burma to democracy.

Nearly Two Decades Imprisoned

In 1989, U Win Tin was a journalist when he backed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for the leadership of the NLD that she had formed.

The same year he was thrown into prison under trumped up charges and accused of being a communist by the military regime that had taken power in a coup. He would spend almost two decades in prison.

I had a chance to speak with U Win Tin shortly before the 1988 uprising began during a literary talk of the kind that were regularly held in a discreet manner in the old socialist Burma of former strongman Gen Ne Win.

At a friends house in downtown Rangoon, some 30 writers had gathered to hear the bespectacled U Win Tin speak about the increasingly tense political situation.

I noticed he was outspoken but calm, and he voiced concern over the fate of Burmas youths and students in those difficult times.

Looking back, Ive wondered if he foresaw the uprising at the time or that he would soon face decades in detention and become one of the most prominent and longest serving political prisoners in Burma.

The regime would later find out that it had been wrong to put the iron-willed U Win Tin in prison. Unable to break him physically or psychologically, the generals finally gave up and ordered him released in September 2008.

He continued to oppose them even then and refused to sign a form outlining conditions that he should follow upon his release. Prison officials dragged him from his cell and dropped him at his friends house.

While in prison, he was often visited by foreign diplomats, US congressmen, International Red Cross officials and UN Human Rights investigators. He became one of Burmas most well-known political prisoners and reports of his ailing health regularly appeared in the international press.

Western governments, human rights organizations and press freedom groups repeatedly tried to intervene in order to free him. U Win Tin pressed on in spite of his health problems and maltreatment in prison, where he remained politically active.

In the 1990s, he asked Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to stay the course when the regime applied a divide- and-rule strategy against the NLD in order to pressure the party into joining a military-backed national convention to draft a new constitution.

At one point, he and his prison inmates secretly compiled an 83-page human rights report and smuggled it out through a visiting UN special rapporteur.

Enraged prison officials raided cells and dug up books, papers, news bulletins, two radios, and publishing materials. U Win Tin and dozens of political prisoners were punished with solitary confinement in tiny dog cells and received extended jail sentences.

His former inmates recalled how U Win Tin always encouraged them to unite and stand up against any unjust treatment imposed on them in prison.

Ironically, he also spent time with some members of the former regime who were imprisoned after Snr-Gen Than Shwe ordered a purge of U Khin Nyunts powerful Military Intelligence (MI) units in 2004. Several high-ranking MI officers, including one who had been in charge of U Win Tins case, were thrown into prison and shared a cell next to his.

Win Tin also spent time in prison with the grandsons of former dictator Gen Ne Win, who were convicted on high treason charges in the early 2000s by Snr-Gen Than Swhes regime. Late last year, when they were released, one of Gen Ne Wins grandsons immediately went to see the old political activist.

During a funeral in Rangoon in October, former spy chief U Khin Nyunt walked up to U Win Tin to shake his hand. U Win Tin showed no anger, but later told The Irrawaddy that the MI officers should apologize to the nation for what they had done.

U Win Tin was a keen, unrelenting government critic to the very end, intent on taking down all the obstacles on Burmas long road to democracy.

Without his guiding light, its hard to imagine how the democracy movement will treat the many challenges ahead during this unpredictable democratic transition, where there are still many wolves in sheeps clothing.
From the Archive Win Tins Lessons for Burma

U Win Tin, pictured in 2013. / The Irrawaddy

Three years to the day since Burma lost one of its leading intellectual figures, U Win Tin, The Irrawaddy looks back on his enduring legacy. A beloved democracy activist, journalist and former political prisoner, U Win Tin lives on as an emblem of persistence and bravery for those seeking true democratic change in Burma.

U Win Tin spent 19 years in prison for his opposition to the former military regime, but his principles never wavered. With this article from The Irrawaddy archives, originally published on April 22, 2014, we revisit what it was he stood for and his relevance today.

Burma has much to learn from the life of veteran journalist and pro-democracy activist Win Tin, a man of courage and integrity who passed away on Monday morning while seeking care for several health ailments at a general hospital in Rangoon.

The 84-year-old was a founding member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She called him a man of courage and integrity and said he was instrumental in spearheading the countrys democracy movement.

But for any oppressive government, Win Tin was a great enemy. Due to his political activities, the former regime put him in jail for nearly two decades, tortured him, withheld medical treatment and confiscated his home. When they eventually released him in 2008, they demanded that he remain on parole. Still, despite their pressure, he never backed down from his principles.

While in prison, Win Tin created a motto, known in Burmese as Suu Hlut Twe, which laid out a simple and suitable path toward democracy. If Burmas ruling leaders are even remotely serious about their current reform process, they would do well to take his message to heart.

Suu stands for Suu Kyi and the release of all political prisoners. Hlut, a shortening of the Burmese word Hluttaw, or parliament, refers to the assembly of a national legislature with representatives who were chosen in the 1990 election, which the NLD won by landslide. Twe, the Burmese word for meeting, refers to political dialogue between the ruling government and opposition groups.

This motto was quickly embraced by political prisoners and opposition politicians, but calls for Suu Hlut Twe fell on deaf ears within the former military regime, led by dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Today under President Thein Sein, the dictators hand-picked leader for a reformist government, some progress has been made on the first of Win Tins three principles. Since 2011, nearly 2,000 political prisoners have been released from jail, although some remain behind bars.

The second principle, Hlut, has never fully come to fruition. The results of the 1990 election were nullified by Than Shwes regime, which subsequently rigged the 2010 elections to ensure that the majority of seats in Parliament were filled by representatives of the ruling party. Still, free and fair by-elections in 2012 saw Suu Kyi and other NLD members earn 43 seats in the legislature, moving somewhat closer toward Win Tins vision.

Political dialogue, the last principle, is the most important. Opposition groups have called repeatedly to negotiate with ruling leaders over the past two decades, with support from the United Nations and others in the international community, but political dialogue has yet to occur. In dealing with ethnic groups, Naypyidaw continues to delay substantive talks about political issues, saying it must first secure a nationwide ceasefire. Meanwhile, Suu Kyis requests for four-way talks with Thein Sein, the army chief and the speaker of Parliament have been ignored, in an embarrassing show of the governments shaky commitment to reform.

Perhaps we should look elsewhere for advice on these matters. In particular, the Burmese today can learn from South Africas struggle to dismantle the apartheid system. During a speech in 2012 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, former South African President F.W. de Klerk shared how he and Nelson Mandela worked to adopt their countrys first fully democratic constitution in late 1993. He offered five lessons for transitioning to democracy.

First, if you want to break out of the cycle of violence, if you want to lay the foundations for a more prosperous society, if you want to democratize, then the departure point is that leaders must become convinced that fundamental change is necessary, he said.

The movement to end apartheid eventually won support from both black and white leaders in South Africa. But in Burma, despite some progress over the past three years, the government does not seem convinced that fundamental change is necessary, especially since limited reforms have already won praise from the international community.

Secondly, de Klerk said, any new dispensation will best succeed if it is based on agreements forged in inclusive negotiations. Why do I put the emphasis on inclusive negotiations? In most conflicts there are many parties involved in the conflict, with different agendas, with different concerns, with different fears and different aspirations.

And only if you reach an agreement based on a broad consensusone that is inclusive of an overwhelming majority of the population, who then say, We take ownership of this new constitution, of the principles of this agreement reached in negotiationscan you be sure that it will last.

In a third and related point, the former president said, Such negotiations, and the agreements reached as the result of negotiation, must accommodate the reasonable concerns and aspirations of the parties to the conflict. This means sacrifice from all sides. It means that the negotiation process should not end with victor and vanquished. The point I want to make is the negotiations must be on a give-and-take basis. Everyone has to have some pain, but everyone also has to get some satisfaction out of the negotiations.

In Burma, inclusiveness is scant. There is no give and take in negotiations, as the government allows only limited input from opposition and ethnic groups.

Fourth, de Klerk said it was necessary to strike a balance between unity and diversity.

The challenge is how to accommodate diversity, how to manage diversity. And if you want to resolve the problems, if you want to bring peace to those countries in transition, you need to strike a balance between unity and diversity, he said. Important minorities need to feel that they are not marginalized, that they are recognized as important constituent parts of the whole.

This is a complicated issue for Burma, a country comprising many ethnic minority groups which have fought against the government for several decades. The ruling party remains unwilling to establish a federal system, as ethnic groups have requested.

Finally, de Klerk spoke about finding a formula for dealing with past political crimes.

In many countries there is one big stumbling block to successful negotiation. It is one that prevents leaders from taking initiative to change the situation, to move toward democracy, toward greater freedom. It can be summed up in two questions: But if I lose power, will I go to jail? Will there be retribution against me? he said.

Burmas former generals definitely live in a similar state of fear, as do the countrys current military leaders, government officials and lawmakers from the ruling party. In this regard, the option of a mass amnesty might be discussed during political dialogue between the government and opposition groups, following in the footsteps of negotiations in South Africa. Opposition leaders here would likely be willing to let go of desires for retribution in exchange for full inclusion in a genuine reform process.

But again, this can only happen if political dialogue occurs, which brings us back to the third principle of Win Tins motto: Twe. Without dialogue, this country will never reach democracy. And unless the ruling leaders, including military leaders, believe that fundamental change is necessary, dialogue will never take place.

Unfortunately, although the ruling leaders who viewed Win Tin as hard-liner might shed crocodile tears on his death, they will likely not take his political suggestions seriously. The past three years of reform have offered little indication that the countrys military leaders believe in fundamental change.

As a pragmatist, Win Tin understood this, which is why he did not trust Thein Seins government. During an interview at his home in 2012, the veteran journalist told me that leading members of the current government could be seen as a bunch of thieves.

He added, All of us, including journalists, are still in the tunnel. Journalists must break out if there is no exit.

Living alone for many years, even before his arrest, Win Tin seemed to have just one attachment in life: the fight for democracy. I will try to dismantle the military dictatorship until my final breath, with all my remaining strength and power, he told The Irrawaddy before the 2010 elections.

Until the very end, he stayed true to that promise. With his passing, Burma has lost a great man.
Asia S. Korea on Heightened Alert as Isolated North Readies for Army Celebration

A soldier salutes from atop an armoured vehicle as it drives past the stand with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a military parade in Pyongyang on April 15, 2017. / Damir Sagolj / Reuters

SEOUL, South Korea  South Korea said on Friday it was on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang.

US officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signaling a possible heightened state of readiness by Beijing, reclusive North Koreas sole major ally, although the officials played down concerns and left open a range of possible reasons.

US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions, something both the United States and China have warned against.

North Korea marks the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean Peoples Army on Tuesday, a key anniversary that comes at the end of major winter military drills, South Koreas Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said.

South Korea and the United States have also been conducting annual joint military exercises, which the North routinely criticizes as a prelude to invasion.

It is a situation where a lot of (military) exercise equipment is amassed in North Korea and also a lot of strategic assets are situated on the Korean peninsula because of the South Korea-US military drills, Lee told a briefing.

We are closely watching the situation and will not be letting our guards down, Lee said.

US President Donald Trump praised Chinese efforts to rein in the menace of North Korea on Thursday, after North Korean state media warned the United States of a super-mighty preemptive strike.

Trump told a news conference some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours, and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would try very hard to pressure Beijings neighbor North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

Trump gave no indication of what the moves might be. None of the US officials who told Reuters about the heightened level of activity by Chinese bombers suggested alarm or signaled that they knew the precise reason for such activity.

An official Chinese newspaper said on Friday there was optimism about persuading the North to end its pursuit of a nuclear program without the use of force, now that even the once tough-talking Donald Trump is onboard for a peaceful solution.

Beijing has demonstrated due enthusiasm for Washingtons newfound interest in a diplomatic solution and willingness to work more closely with it, the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile.

The isolated countrys military will mark the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Peoples Army on Tuesday amid speculation Pyongyang will use the occasion to test-launch a ballistic missile or conduct a nuclear test.

The joint US-South Korea military drills are due to finish at the end of April, and a US aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, is also heading towards the Korean Peninsula, Trumps administration has said.
Burma Police: Ship Officer Killed Publisher Over Affair With Wife

Suspect U Aung Ko Ko in police custody / Yangon Police / Facebook

RANGOON  A cargo ship officer has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death a publisher for allegedly having an affair with his wife, according to Rangoon police.

Ko Wai Yan Heinn, 27, the publisher and editor of weekly news journal the Iron Rose, was found dead with 15 stab wounds in the chest and abdomen at his office in Pazundaungs Ward 2 on April 16.

Police arrested U Aung Ko Ko, an officer for a Singapore-based shipping company, for the crime and said in a statement that the murder was not linked with Iron Rose stories that criticized generals of Burmas former junta.

Ko Wai Yan Hein and Daw Al Ni (Rosy) had been in contact on Facebook for the past eight months, according to police. The ship officer became suspicious in October, said the statement, when a car parked near his marital home in Rangoons Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township sped away as he came home.

U Aung Ko Ko reportedly found the car belonged to Ko Wai Yan Heinn and was told by a friend that Daw Al Ni was seeing the publisher. The ship officer then allegedly locked his son and wife in their home on April 11, causing Daw Al Ni to phone U Wai Yan Hein for help.

The publisher broke the lock and brought the woman and her son to a hotel in Lanmadaw Township on the same day, said police. U Aung Ko Ko then reportedly phoned Ko Wai Yan Heinn before traveling to his office on April 14, where he is suspected of killing him and taking his iPhone.

The ship officer then picked up his wife and son from the hotel and fled to Pyin Oo Lwin in Mandalay Division, home to his parents, on April 15, said the statement, adding that he threw the iPhone away during the journey. After receiving clues, police found and arrested U Aung Ko Ko on April 19.
Burma Rangoon Judge Throws Out Defamation Case Against Journalist

Ko Swe Win in front of the Kyauktada Police Station earlier this month. / Chan Son / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  Kyauktada Township judge U Than Naing Htwe rejected the defamation charge against Myanmar Nows chief editor Ko Swe Win on Friday, pointing out that the lawsuit had not been directly filed by the aggrieved party, according to legal adviser U Khin Maung Myint.

Kyimyindaing Township resident and follower of Ma Ba Thaa Burmese acronym for the Association for the Protection of Race and ReligionKo Thet Myo Oo filed the case against Ko Swe Win in court in March, alleging that the journalist had defamed leading Ma Ba Tha monk U Wirathu.

Editor Ko Swe Win had shared comments on social media stating that U Wirathus act of thanking National League for Democracy legal adviser U Ko Nis assassinafter the lawyer was gunned down on Jan. 29 outside Rangoons airportwas unpardonable conduct in the monastic practice.

The Ma Ba Tha follower also accused Ko Swe Win of insulting Buddhism.

Ko Swe Wins legal adviser, U Khin Maung Myint, recalled the judges explanation to The Irrawaddy on Friday, emphasizing that the prosecution had to be carried out by U Wirathu himself in order to be valid. The judge also said that Ko Swe Win had not harmed the religion itself with his comments.

The reason why the judge objected to the lawsuit was that if the monk Wirathu felt that he was insulted [by Ko Swe Win], then he must be the one to file the case, said U Khin Maung Myint.

Although the case in Rangoon chapter has now been officially dropped, Ko Swe Win continues to face charges of violating Burmas telecommunications law in Mandalay Division. The case there was also filed by a Ma Ba Tha follower, U Kyaw Myo Shwe.

U Khin Maung Myint admitted that the lawsuit in Mandalay could extend until late May. The police procedure has been ongoing for weeksin order for it to proceed to court, comment will be required from the Maha Aungmyay Township law officer and the communications ministry.
Burma Shan State Regional Dialogue to Proceed, But Ethnic Dialogue Stalled

Ethnic delegates attend the 21st Century Panglong Conference, which began on September 2, 2016 in Naypyidaw. / Pyay Kyaw / The Irrawaddy

The government will convene the regional national-level dialogue in the Shan State capital of Taunggyi from Sunday until Tuesday, April 23-25, but the ethnic-based political dialogue led by the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) remains unable to proceed.

The public consultations for national-level political dialoguesbased on region, ethnicity and themehave been conducted by the government and the signatories of the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) since December 2016.

The dialogues mark a mandatory step in the process laid out by the NCA, in which the regional stakeholders raise their concerns and recommendations at large-scale public consultations, which are shared by representatives at the Union Peace Conference. These dialogues have been held in areas of several of the eight NCA signatories, but not by the RCSS in Shan State or the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) in Arakan State.

The RCSS has organized a series of pre-consultations, gathering public opinions in townships, but they do not yet have the common positions that need to be agreed upon for the main ethnic Shan political dialogue to go ahead.

We have not acquired our common perspectives to share at the upcoming peace conference, said Lt-Col Sai Ngin, the spokesperson of the RCSS, of the second session of the 21st Century Panglong event slated to be held in May.

The start of the regional political dialogue in Taunggyi is out of step, he said, noting that the RCSS was told by the Burma Army not to conduct a large-scale public consultation in the state capital, but to do so in remote towns in RCSS-controlled areas.

The Tatmadaws reluctance to agree to allow the RCSSan NCA signatoryto gather the public in the state capital has delayed the process.

It is also inconvenient for us to arrange for more than 700 representatives. As you know, we have multiple ethnicities in Shan State, said Sai Ngin, adding that it is inconvenient to travel to a remote town.

We want to do it in Taunggyi, he said.

The issue will be put forward for discussion at the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting on the NCA in Naypyidaw on Monday, April 24, which the State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will be attending, he added.

The RCSS representatives will likely join the Taunggyi dialogue on Sunday, as they have been in talks with the Shan political parties and civil society representatives, said Lt-Col Sai Ngin.

Shan politicians have said that they have no specific expectations of the government-led national dialogue, as they feel it is being rushed. Four hundred people have been invited to the event, and the preparation time for Sundays dialogue is four daysin contrast to extensive pre-consultations carried out by Shan civil society groups and the RCSS.

The government should not be too hasty in conducting this national dialogue, as these are political affairs and not childs play, said Sai Nyunt Lwin, the secretary of the political party the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.

The eight NCA signatories are the Karen National Union (KNU), RCSS, Chin National Front (CNF), Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), Karen National Liberation Army-Peace Council (KNLA-PC), All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) and Arakan Liberation Party (ALP).

Among them, only the ALP has not been allowed by the government to hold public consultations, citing the instability due to ongoing conflict in Arakan State.

The KNU had gathered their common policy recommendations in January and the Pa-O and Chin did the same in February of this year.
News Declassified Files Show Seoul Suspected North Korean Hand in Death of Burmese Student

Soldiers hold weapons while sitting on a vehicle carrying rockets as it drives past the stand with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. / Damir Sagolj / Reuters

A diplomatic dossier recently declassified by the South Korean government indicates that Seoul suspected that the daughter of a Burmese judge who sentenced a north Korean agent to death for his role in an assassination attempt on dictator Chun Do Wan during a state visit to Burma in 1983, was herself killed in revenge by Pyongyang.

Among the 230,000 pages of declassified documents is a December 1986 diplomatic cable from South Koreas then Ambassador to Geneva, Lee Sang-ok that was sent following a meeting with his Burmese counterpart, U Thein Tun, to discuss the suspicious death of the judges daughter while she was studying in Japan in 1985.

It was a case that we could not get to the bottom of. Hints of North Korean cigarettes were found at the scene and the victim did not show any signs of suicidal tendencies prior to her death, reads a translated excerpt of the cable published by the Korea Herald.

According to the Korea Herald, the declassified dossier does not reveal the circumstances of the students death. The suspicious death of the judges daughter is far from the only reported case of North Korean agents taking part in illicit activities Japan. Following years of denial, North Korea admitted in 2002 to abducting 13 people from Japan between 1977 to 1983, including a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

It remains unclear however if either the Burmese regimewhich was headed by Ne Win at the timeor authorities in Japan, concurred with the assessment from the South Koreans about the possible involvement of North Korea in the death of the judges daughter. South Koreas intelligence services have in recent years been subject to a series of scandals that have damaged their credibility and raised questions about their competence.

A number of South Koreans convicted during the Chun Do Hwan era for their alleged ties with North Korea were later exonerated after it emerged the convictions were based false confessions obtained by torture carried out by members of the intelligence services.

The North Korean agent in question, Kim Jin-soo, was part of a three-man hit squad sent to kill Chun Do Hwan, during a wreath laying ceremony at the mausoleum dedicated to Aung San and his colleagues who were assassinated before independence. A bomb planted on the roof of the building was detonated while the Korean strongman was still en route to the mausoleum. A total of 17 South Korean officials who were waiting for Chun Do Hwan were killed, including the deputy prime minister and foreign and trade ministers. Four Burmese, including three local journalists, were killed as well.

Kim was captured two days after the attack following a failed suicide attempt using a grenade which resulted him losing an eye, both his arms and a leg. According to media accounts of his capture, he did not cooperate with Burmese authorities, only giving his name and rank in the Korean Peoples Army. Another agent, Shin Ki-chul, was killed in a gunfight with police while a third, Kang Min-chul, also blew off his hand during his unsuccessful attempt to avoid being captured alive. Kim was executed in 1984 while Kang, was spared and instead sent to Insein prison, where he lived out the rest of his life until reportedly dying of liver cancer in 2007.

A former deputy director of the South Korean National Intelligence Service, Ra Jong-yil, who later wrote a book about Kang, was able, with the help of intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, to arrange for South Korean diplomats to visit Kang in prison. Following Khin Nyunts purge in 2004 the visits ended.

Burma broke off diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in the wake of the bloody events at the martyrs mausoleum; ties were rekindled in the late 1990s. Formal diplomatic relations were officially restored in 2007. In November 2008, the then third ranking of member of Burmas military regime, Shwe Mann, led a high-level Burmese delegation to North Korea where he signed a memorandum of understanding with his North Korean counterparts covering bilateral military ties.
Specials A Tide of Trash Swamping Setse Beach

Litter dumped in Setse Beach, Mon State / Aung Kyaw Thu

THANBYUZAYAT, Mon StateSetse Beach and its iconic Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, built upon a rocky promontory about 900 feet from the shore, are among the top attractions in southern Burmas Mon State.

Stretching for 5.6 kilometers, the brown-sand beach in Thanbyuzayat Township faces the Gulf of Martaban in the Andaman Sea and can be reached by car in one and a half hours from the state capital Moulmein.

Despite being a popular resort since the 19th century, successive governments attempts to turn the strip into a well-facilitated, clean destination have been hindered by mismanagement and littering.

These days, plastic bags, water bottles, coconut husks, and other rubbish strewn across the sands spoil the beach; vendors and their customers contribute to the eyesore by flinging their trash on the ground.

An environmental committee formed of lawmakers from the Lower House and the state parliament visited the beach on April 19 after receiving complaints about the litter.

The state parliamentary committee had to make the field survey because the regional authorities are not ensuring the sanitation of the resort, Lower House lawmaker U Nyan Hein of Thanbyuzayat Township told The Irrawaddy.

The committee found creeks blocked by rubbish; sand taken from the beach and sold to construction sites; an absence of waste systems in hotels and bungalows; and unlicensed shops.

Some bungalows just dump sewage into ditches, said U Nyan Hein. The sewage then may dissolve into the sea when the tide comes in. The situation was quite bad in Kayinthaung village, where the graveyard is almost submerged now [because the creeks are blocked by litter].

People are also flouting bans on motorbikes and the sale of food on the beach, which continues the stream of rubbish.

More than 20 government departments including Myanmar Railways, the labor department, and Thanbyuzayat Township own land there.

Since the time of the Myanmar Socialist Program Party, departments have built bungalows here for their heads to stay during visits, said U Min Min Latt, the chairman of Thanbyuzayat Township.

Those bungalows are still managed by the same departments. Our municipality has leased out our land for 30 years, and 21 Paradise Hotel is the only one operated by a private businessman, he said.

U Nyan Hein said the so-called hotels and bungalows built and operated by the departments on the beach do not have adequate facilities.

Former Mon State chief minister U Ohn Myint of the U Thein Sein administration tried to renovate the area. He formed management committees at state, township and village levels to oversee the running of the beach, but bad management and a lack of funds stifled the initiatives.

Mon State chief minister Dr Aye Zan said the state government began implementing plans to develop Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, Setse Beach, and Moulmein as tourist destinations when it took office.

The states resources and environmental conservation minister, Dr Min Ky Win, said he had told managers of hotels and bungalows on the beach to follow the rules and regulations, and report violations.

We have instructed hotels to dump their waste properly. If they fail to follow the instruction, we will take disciplinary action, depending on the degree of their violations. We can suspend their operation, but weve never done it before, he said.

Only time will tell whether U Aye Zan and his colleagues can solve the problems plaguing Setse Beach and realize its potential to be one of the countrys best retreats.
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By Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) |  

Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen OBrien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries  Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan  as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid. We are at a critical point in history, he declared. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the U.N. Without coordinated international action, he added, people will simply starve to death [or] suffer and die from disease.

Major famines have, of course, occurred before, but never in memory on such a scale in four places simultaneously. According to OBrien, 7.3 million people are at risk in Yemen, 5.1 million in the Lake Chad area of northeastern Nigeria, 5 million in South Sudan, and 2.9 million in Somalia. In each of these countries, some lethal combination of war, persistent drought, and political instability is causing drastic cuts in essential food and water supplies. Of those 20 million people at risk of death, an estimated 1.4 million are young children.

Despite the potential severity of the crisis, U.N. officials remain confident that many of those at risk can be saved if sufficient food and medical assistance is provided in time and the warring parties allow humanitarian aid workers to reach those in the greatest need. We have strategic, coordinated, and prioritized plans in every country, OBrien said. With sufficient and timely financial support, humanitarians can still help to prevent the worst-case scenario.

All in all, the cost of such an intervention is not great: an estimated $4.4 billion to implement that U.N. action plan and save most of those 20 million lives.

The international response? Essentially, a giant shrug of indifference.

To have time to deliver sufficient supplies, U.N. officials indicated that the money would need to be in pocket by the end of March. Its now April and international donors have given only a paltry $423 million  less than a tenth of whats needed. While, for instance, President Donald Trump sought Congressional approval for a $54 billion increase in U.S. military spending (bringing total defense expenditures in the coming year to $603 billion) and launched $89 million worth of Tomahawk missiles against a single Syrian air base, the U.S. has offered precious little to allay the coming disaster in three countries in which it has taken military actions in recent years. As if to add insult to injury, on February 15th Trump told Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that he was inclined to sell his country 12 Super-Tucano light-strike aircraft, potentially depleting Nigeria of $600 million it desperately needs for famine relief.

Moreover, just as those U.N. officials were pleading fruitlessly for increased humanitarian funding and an end to the fierce and complex set of conflicts in South Sudan and Yemen (so that they could facilitate the safe delivery of emergency food supplies to those countries), the Trump administration was announcing plans to reduce American contributions to the United Nations by 40%. It was also preparing to send additional weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the country most responsible for devastating air strikes on Yemens food and water infrastructure. This goes beyond indifference. This is complicity in mass extermination.

Like many people around the world, President Trump was horrified by images of young children suffocating from the nerve gas used by Syrian government forces in an April 4th raid on the rebel-held village of Khan Sheikhoun. That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me  big impact, he told reporters. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And Ive been watching it and seeing it, and it doesnt get any worse than that. In reaction to those images, he ordered a barrage of cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base the following day. But Trump does not seem to have seen  or has ignored  equally heart-rending images of young children dying from the spreading famines in Africa and Yemen. Those children evidently dont merit White House sympathy.

Who knows why not just Donald Trump but the world is proving so indifferent to the famines of 2017? It could simply be donor fatigue or a media focused on the daily psychodrama that is now Washington, or growing fears about the unprecedented global refugee crisis and, of course, terrorism. Its a question worth a piece in itself, but I want to explore another one entirely.

Heres the question I think we all should be asking: Is this what a world battered by climate change will be like  one in which tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people perish from disease, starvation, and heat prostration while the rest of us, living in less exposed areas, essentially do nothing to prevent their annihilation?

Famine, Drought, and Climate Change

First, though, lets consider whether the famines of 2017 are even a valid indicator of what a climate-changed planet might look like. After all, severe famines accompanied by widespread starvation have occurred throughout human history. In addition, the brutal armed conflicts now underway in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen are at least in part responsible for the spreading famines. In all four countries, there are forces  Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, assorted militias and the government in South Sudan, and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen  interfering with the delivery of aid supplies. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that pervasive water scarcity and prolonged drought (expected consequences of global warming) are contributing significantly to the disastrous conditions in most of them. The likelihood that droughts this severe would be occurring simultaneously in the absence of climate change is vanishingly small.

In fact, scientists generally agree that global warming will ensure diminished rainfall and ever more frequent droughts over much of Africa and the Middle East. This, in turn, will heighten conflicts of every sort and endanger basic survival in a myriad of ways. In their most recent 2014 assessment of global trends, the scientists of the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that agriculture in Africa will face significant challenges in adapting to climate changes projected to occur by mid-century, as negative effects of high temperatures become increasingly prominent. Even in 2014, as that report suggested, climate change was already contributing to water scarcity and persistent drought conditions in large parts of Africa and the Middle East. Scientific studies had, for instance, revealed an overall expansion of desert and contraction of vegetated areas on that continent. With arable land in retreat and water supplies falling, crop yields were already in decline in many areas, while malnutrition rates were rising  precisely the conditions witnessed in more extreme forms in the famine-affected areas today.

Its seldom possible to attribute any specific weather-induced event, including droughts or storms, to global warming with absolute certainty. Such things happen with or without climate change. Nonetheless, scientists are becoming even more confident that severe storms and droughts (especially when occurring in tandem or in several parts of the world at once) are best explained as climate-change related. If, for instance, a type of storm that might normally occur only once every hundred years occurs twice in one decade and four times in the next, you can be reasonably confident that youre in a new climate era.

It will undoubtedly take more time for scientists to determine to what extent the current famines in Africa and Yemen are mainly climate-change-induced and to what extent they are the product of political and military mayhem and disarray. But doesnt this already offer us a sense of just what kind of world we are now entering?

History and social science research indicate that, as environmental conditions deteriorate, people will naturally compete over access to vital materials and the opportunists in any society  warlords, militia leaders, demagogues, government officials, and the like  will exploit such clashes for their personal advantage. The data suggests a definite link between food insecurity and conflict, points out Ertharin Cousin, head of the U.N.s World Food Program. Climate is an added stress factor. In this sense, the current famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen provide us with a perfect template for our future, one in which resource wars and climate mayhem team up as temperatures continue their steady rise.

The Selective Impact of Climate Change

In some popular accounts of the future depredations of climate change, there is a tendency to suggest that its effects will be felt more or less democratically around the globe  that we will all suffer to some degree, if not equally, from the bad things that happen as temperatures rise. And its certainly true that everyone on this planet will feel the effects of global warming in some fashion, but dont for a second imagine that the harshest effects will be distributed anything but deeply inequitably. It wont even be a complicated equation. As with so much else, those at the bottom rungs of society  the poor, the marginalized, and those in countries already at or near the edge  will suffer so much more (and so much earlier) than those at the top and in the most developed, wealthiest countries.

As a start, the geophysical dynamics of climate change dictate that, when it comes to soaring temperatures and reduced rainfall, the most severe effects are likely to be felt first and worst in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America  home to hundreds of millions of people who depend on rain-fed agriculture to sustain themselves and their families. Research conducted by scientists in New Zealand, Switzerland, and Great Britain found that the rise in the number of extremely hot days is already more intense in tropical latitudes and disproportionately affects poor farmers.

Living at subsistence levels, such farmers and their communities are especially vulnerable to drought and desertification. In a future in which climate-change disasters are commonplace, they will undoubtedly be forced to choose ever more frequently between the unpalatable alternatives of starvation or flight. In other words, if you thought the global refugee crisis was bad today, just wait a few decades.

Climate change is also intensifying the dangers faced by the poor and marginalized in another way. As interior croplands turn to dust, ever more farmers are migrating to cities, especially coastal ones. If you want a historical analogy, think of the great Dust Bowl migration of the Okies from the interior of the U.S. to the California coast in the 1930s. In todays climate-change era, the only available housing such migrants are likely to find will be in vast and expanding shantytowns (or informal settlements, as theyre euphemistically called), often located in floodplains and low-lying coastal areas exposed to storm surges and sea-level rise. As global warming advances, the victims of water scarcity and desertification will be afflicted anew. Those storm surges will destroy the most exposed parts of the coastal mega-cities in which they will be clustered. In other words, for the uprooted and desperate, there will be no escaping climate change. As the latest IPCC report noted, Poor people living in urban informal settlements, of which there are [already] about one billion worldwide, are particularly vulnerable to weather and climate effects.

The scientific literature on climate change indicates that the lives of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed will be the first to be turned upside down by the effects of global warming. The socially and economically disadvantaged and the marginalized are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change and extreme events, the IPCC indicated in 2014. Vulnerability is often high among indigenous peoples, women, children, the elderly, and disabled people who experience multiple deprivations that inhibit them from managing daily risks and shocks. It should go without saying that these are also the people least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming in the first place (something no less true of the countries most of them live in).

Inaction Equals Annihilation

In this context, consider the moral consequences of inaction on climate change. Once it seemed that the process of global warming would occur slowly enough to allow societies to adapt to higher temperatures without excessive disruption, and that the entire human family would somehow make this transition more or less simultaneously. That now looks more and more like a fairy tale. Climate change is occurring far too swiftly for all human societies to adapt to it successfully. Only the richest are likely to succeed in even the most tenuous way. Unless colossal efforts are undertaken now to halt the emission of greenhouse gases, those living in less affluent societies can expect to suffer from extremes of flooding, drought, starvation, disease, and death in potentially staggering numbers.

And you dont need a Ph.D. in climatology to arrive at this conclusion either. The overwhelming majority of the worlds scientists agree that any increase in average world temperatures that exceeds 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial era  some opt for a rise of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius  will alter the global climate system drastically. In such a situation, a number of societies will simply disintegrate in the fashion of South Sudan today, producing staggering chaos and misery. So far, the world has heated up by at least one of those two degrees, and unless we stop burning fossil fuels in quantity soon, the 1.5 degree level will probably be reached in the not-too-distant future.

Worse yet, on our present trajectory, it seems highly unlikely that the warming process will stop at 2 or even 3 degrees Celsius, meaning that later in this century many of the worst-case climate-change scenarios  the inundation of coastal cities, the desertification of vast interior regions, and the collapse of rain-fed agriculture in many areas  will become everyday reality.

In other words, think of the developments in those three African lands and Yemen as previews of what far larger parts of our world could look like in another quarter-century or so: a world in which hundreds of millions of people are at risk of annihilation from disease or starvation, or are on the march or at sea, crossing borders, heading for the shantytowns of major cities, looking for refugee camps or other places where survival appears even minimally possible. If the worlds response to the current famine catastrophe and the escalating fears of refugees in wealthy countries are any indication, people will die in vast numbers without hope of help.

In other words, failing to halt the advance of climate change  to the extent that halting it, at this point, remains within our power  means complicity with mass human annihilation. We know, or at this point should know, that such scenarios are already on the horizon. We still retain the power, if not to stop them, then to radically ameliorate what they will look like, so our failure to do all we can means that we become complicit in what  not to mince words  is clearly going to be a process of climate genocide. How can those of us in countries responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions escape such a verdict?

And if such a conclusion is indeed inescapable, then each of us must do whatever we can to reduce our individual, community, and institutional contributions to global warming. Even if we are already doing a lot  as many of us are  more is needed. Unfortunately, we Americans are living not only in a time of climate crisis, but in the era of President Trump, which means the federal government and its partners in the fossil fuel industry will be wielding their immense powers to obstruct all imaginable progress on limiting global warming. They will be the true perpetrators of climate genocide. As a result, the rest of us bear a moral responsibility not just to do what we can at the local level to slow the pace of climate change, but also to engage in political struggle to counteract or neutralize the acts of Trump and company. Only dramatic and concerted action on multiple fronts can prevent the human disasters now unfolding in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen from becoming the global norm.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for Whats Left. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.

[Note: On Saturday, April 29th, folks from all over the United States will participate in the Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C. You can get information on the march by clicking here. Joining the march, or otherwise supporting its objectives, is a good way to begin the resistance to climate genocide. For those who wish to aid the victims of famine in Africa and Yemen, donations can be made to the U.N.s World Food Program by clicking here.]

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Dowers The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, as well as John Feffers dystopian novel Splinterlands, Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardts Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2017 Michael T. Klare

Via Tomdispatch.com
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By Manon Flausch | EURACTIV.fr | translated by Samuel White |  

Poverty and insecurity can be factors in radicalisation. [Manon Flausch]

From South America to the Middle East, the effects of climate change appear to exacerbate the problems of organised crime and terrorism. The UN and German think tank Adelphi have raised the alarm. EURACTIV France reports.

Millions of people in the Lake Chad region are threatened by drought and famine. But on top of the impending humanitarian crisis, the UN is worried about the broader societal impact on a region that is already fertile recruiting ground for the terrorist group Boko Haram.

The correlation between extreme climate events and radicalisation was also raised in a report published on 20 April by Adelphi, which concluded that while climate change does not directly lead to the emergence of terrorist groups, it creates the conditions in which they can thrive.

Africa builds Great Green Wall against extremism and misery

With food insecurity, terrorism and migration to Europe reaching unprecedented levels, Africa is hoping that a wall of trees can help protect its people and stop these threats becoming global crises. EURACTIV Germany reports.

In the most vulnerable areas, climate change makes farming and rearing livestock more difficult, increasing competition for resources such as water. This can lead to violence between rival populations, population displacement, water shortages and famine, all of which undermine the rule of law and the power of the state.

It is these secondary consequences of climate change that provide the ideal conditions for the rise of terrorist or criminal groups. People affected by hunger, drought and poverty are more likely to be receptive to their financial promises and violent, angry rhetoric.

What is more, terrorist or organised crime groups often try to fill the spaces where weak states cannot act, providing basic services and rooting themselves in society.

Control over resources is increasingly a source of funding for these groups. In Syria, terrorist groups IS and Al-Nusra deal in oil, weapons, drugs and antiquities. It is this kind of economic power that wins the acceptance of local populations.

Climate change is not just about the environment. It is also about people. Frances Minister for Development, in conversation with EURACTIV France, following this weeks UN Climate Summit in New York.

Organised crime

These strategies are not just used by terrorists but are also staples of organised crime. This is particularly true of Guatemala, for example, one of the countries worst affected by extreme weather events.

After 36 years of civil war and with large parts of the economy dependent on climate and pollution-sensitive agriculture, the Central American country faces constant threats to its food security.

This has pushed large, poverty-stricken sections of the population to move to the overcrowded cities in search of work, or to find employment in illicit trades like drugs trafficking. The situation is aggravated by inefficient, often corrupt police services and an abundant supply of weapons, left over from the years of conflict.

Climate finance: The Global North is failing on its $100 billion promise

A report by the OECD has found that efforts will need to be stepped up if developed countries plan to honour their promise of providing $100 billion per year to the Global South from 2020. Journal de lEnvironnement reports.

Strengthening and harmonising

And there is no shortage of other examples, from human trafficking in Bangladesh to the opium trade in Afghanistan. But in light of the many challenges this problem throws up, what can be done to tackle it?

Adelphi identified several areas in which action could be taken to cut the risk from terrorism, beginning with the protection of the climate, support for development and the strengthening of local governments in vulnerable countries. Support for the rule of law and local institutions also strengthens the hand of governments in the fight against terrorists and organised criminals.

The think tank also called for a holistic approach to tackling climate change, development, the threat of terrorism and security, in order to avoid aggravating certain problems while attempting to solve others.

For Adelphi, cities and agriculture also have a major role to play. Investing in climate adaptation for the agricultural sector would mean fewer farmers would lose their livelihoods as a result of climate change. And the populations of cities with plans to cope with expanding populations and increasing pressure on resources will be less likely to fall prey to terrorist groups and criminal gangs.

Cities and regions against climate change

Ahead of COP21, EU cities and regions are seeking a bigger role and an expanded toolbox to implement any climate agreement reached in Paris.

Via EurActive.com



Related video added by Juan Cole:

Big Think: Climate Change Formula: Rising Sea Levels + Coastal Megacities = Forced Migration | Parag Khanna
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By Steven Harper | (BillMoyers.com) |  

If you look at these Cabinet appointees, they were selected for a reason. And that is for the deconstruction [of the administrative state].

At its best, government saves the environment from polluters, prevents companies from exploiting consumers, safeguards individuals against invidious discrimination and other forms of injustice, and lends a helping hand to those in need. None of those principles guides the Trump/Bannon government.

Two months into Trumps presidency, historian Douglas Brinkley said it would be the most failed 100 days of any president. David Gergen, a seasoned adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, agreed. But theyre using a traditional scorecard. With the help of Trump Party senators and loyalists, Steve Bannon and his boss are remaking America. Future generations wont judge kindly those who let it happen. Then again, if Trumps trajectory continues, maybe there wont be many more future generations anyway.

After losing his seat on the National Security Council, Bannons influence over US foreign policy may have waned. But regardless of his future, he has already had an indelible impact on the country. At CPAC, he declared that key members of Trumps Cabinet were selected for a reason. In the first 100 days of Trumps presidency, that reason has become clear. They have demonstrated a collective determination to deconstruct not only the administrative state, but also the essence of America itself. They hold views that are anathema to the missions of the federal agencies they now lead. They blend kleptocracy  government by leaders who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed  and kakistocracy  government by the worst people.

Bill Moyers Essay: Scott Pruitt Will Make America Great

Again  For Polluters

Anyone who lived through the 1960s  or observes China and India today  knows what happens when polluters get a pass. Bill Moyers Jan. 31, 2017 video essay previewed how Scott Pruitt was poised to return the nation to the darkest chapter in its environmental history: contaminated water unfit for drinking or swimming; smog-filled air unfit for breathing; a deteriorating planet careening toward a time when it will be unfit for human habitation. In 1970, President Richard Nixon created the EPA for a reason. Now its the victim of a hostile takeover.

After the election, Trump asked one of his billionaire friends, Carl Icahn, to screen candidates for the job of EPA administrator. As an unpaid adviser, Icahn wasnt subject to the stringent ethics and conflict of interest reviews facing Cabinet appointees. During his interview of Pruitt, Icahn asked specifically about an ethanol rule that was costing one of Icahns oil refineries more than $200 million a year. Pruitt said he opposed the rule; Icahn then supported Pruitt for the EPA job.

Along with Icahns blessing, Pruitt had other uniquely Trump qualifications for the position. As Oklahomas attorney general, he sued the EPA 14 times; 13 of the lawsuits included co-parties that had contributed to Pruitt or Pruitt-affiliated campaign committees. He sided consistently with his states poultry farms, energy producers and other polluters. Explaining why for the first time in its 50-year history the Environmental Defense Fund opposed Pruitts nomination to head the EPA, the EDFs president said, [A]t some point when the nominee has spent his entire career attempting to dismantle environmental protections, it becomes unacceptable.

On Feb. 16, 2017, an Oklahoma state court judge gave Pruitt five calendar days to release his email exchanges with the fossil fuels industry. But before another 24 hours passed, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and fellow Trump Party senators gave America the bums rush and confirmed Pruitts nomination to lead the EPA. A few days later, the release of 6,000 pages of Pruitt emails provided more proof of his cozy relationship with the industries he now regulates.

Once in office, Pruitt wasted no time. On March 9, 2017, he dismissed the impact of human activity on climate change: I would not agree that its a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. That put him at odds with the EPAs findings and contrary to international scientific consensus. But hes in line with Trump, who has called climate change a hoax.

Trumps budget director, Mick Mulvaney, labeled climate science expenditures a waste of money I think the president was fairly straightforward: Were not spending money on that anymore. And they arent. Trumps proposed budget would slash EPA funding by more than 30 percent  to its lowest level in more than 40 years. It would reduce by half the EPAs Office of Research and Development. It would cut civil and criminal enforcement personnel by 60 percent. It would eliminate regional water cleanup programs from the Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, from San Francisco Bay to the Great Lakes and from Long Island Sound to South Florida. Superfund money for cleaning up contaminated sites would decline by 30 percent. Appropriations for vehicle emissions and certifications would all but disappear.

While endangering the planet, Trump and his minions stage photo ops to support an ongoing disinformation campaign about illusory benefits from their unprecedented environmental destruction. At the EPA on March 28, Pruitt, Vice President Pence and a group of coal miners surrounded Trump as he signed a sweeping executive order aimed at reversing President Obamas signature initiatives. His actions, which included rolling back emissions standards and lifting the moratorium on mining federal lands, wont bring back coal jobs that were lost to technology, cheaper sources of cleaner energy and competitive market forces. But the Trump/Pruitt agenda will provide short-term profit incentives that encourage American companies to cede leadership in the development of innovative solutions to China, which has been doubling down on clean energy research for the long-term.



Secretary of Energy Rick Perry

Rick Perrys appointment to head the Department of Energy is a perfect complement to Scott Pruitts selection for the EPA. During a 2011 Republican presidential debate, Perry had such disdain for the Department of Energy that he vowed to eliminate as president. Now he heads it. In April, he replaced Steve Bannon on the National Security Council.

In Secretary Perrys first address to his department, he said Trump had told him to do with American energy what you did for Texas. But an approach that might work for one state competing with others doesnt work for the zero-sum game that is the country as a whole. Even worse, there was a dark side to Gov. Perrys lower taxes, less regulation approach. Texas public schools are among the worst in the nation; rates of teen moms and uninsured kids are among the highest, as is its rate of uninsured citizens: 27 percent. Residents of the states two largest cities, Dallas and Houston, are the least health-insured of any major metropolitan area in the country.

Perrys agenda is consistent with his oil industry connections. Until Dec. 31, 2016, Perry served as a board member of Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, which jointly developed the Dakota Access Pipeline that the Army Corps of Engineers had stopped before Trump took office. Four days after the inauguration, Trump blew past protesters carrying No DAPL signs and issued an executive order approving it. After the temporary employment of construction labor to build the controversial pipeline ends, it will create approximately 40 permanent operating jobs.

Two months later, Perry stood nearby as Trump announced his approval of the Keystone Pipeline that President Obama had stopped in 2015. Obama had said approving the project would have undercut Americas global leadership on fighting climate change. Reversing Obamas order, Trump called it the first of many infrastructure projects and a great day for jobs. The pipeline will produce 35 permanent jobs.



The next installment in this series looks at what the secretary of education, the secretary of health and human services and the Attorney General have done during Trumps first 100 days.

Steven Harper blogs at The Belly of the Beast, is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, and contributes regularly to The American Lawyer. He is the author of several books, including The Lawyer Bubble  A Profession in Crisis and Crossing Hoffa  A Teamsters Story (a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year). Follow him on Twitter: @StevenJHarper1.

Via Bill Moyers

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

The Young Turks: EPA: Everybody Pollute Anywhere
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Attorney-General Jeff Sessions was caught on tape saying the following:

We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.

Hawaii is the ultimate stumbling block for the white supremacist Trump administration. It is, along with California and New York, among the more ethnically diverse states in the country, with persons of Hawaiian islander, Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, and Latino heritage in the overwhelming majority. Persons of northern European heritage make up only about a quarter of the states 1.4 million people.

Sessions remark was un-American in several respects. He questioned, as Tricky Dick Nixon once did, the ability of the judiciary to overrule a president. And in the service of diminishing the judge in Honolulu who struck down Trumps second Muslim ban, Sessions attempted to demote Hawaii from being a state to being a mere island in the Pacific. Is one reason Sessions wants to put down Hawaii that it has an Asian-American majority?

If people like Sessions didnt want Hawaii as a state, all they had to do is not make an illegal coup against the sovereign royal family there in 1893.

Sessions spent his career in Alabama politics but left it decidedly less well off (despite how great Alabamans themselves are) than Hawaii. Let us just compare the two places a bit.

Median household income in Hawaii is $64,514, (12th of 50 states).

Median household income in Sessions Alabama? $44,509 (47th of 50 states)

Alabama has, at 75.4, the lowest life expectancy in the country, unfortunately.

Not only that, but for those persons over 65, Hawaii has the highest life expectancy in the United States!

In Alabama, 68 percent of his voters do not have a higher degree. Over-all, 44.88% of Alabamans have some higher education. Alabama has the 2nd-worst record in the Union in funding education, with the expenditures down 17% since 1945. Just to make sure that nobody there can read and write, Sessions and his ilk have cut higher education funding 36% just since 2008.

In contrast, as the Hawaii state government notes,

Hawaii had more educated people than the national average. 62.6 percent of population aged 25 and over in Hawaii had at least some college education, 4.2 percent age points higher than the national average.

People like Sessions have run Alabama into the ground, whereas Hawaii is among the best states in in the country on some measurements, and perhaps that is why Sessions is threatened by it.



Related video added by Juan Cole:

Newsy: Jeff Sessions on Hawaii: Island in the Pacific'
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - April 21, 2017) - Condor Resources Inc. ("Condor" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:CN) is pleased to provide an update regarding the Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with Chakana Resources S.A.C. ("Chakana") on the Company's wholly owned Soledad project in Ancash, Peru, as announced on February 24th.

As disclosed in our news release of March 31st, Chakana and the Company agreed to extend the time period to conclude the comprehensive agreement until April 21, 2017. While the comprehensive agreement is substantially complete, both parties have now agreed to a second extension until May 9th, 2017 in order to finalize. All other terms remain unchanged.

Pursuant to the MOU, Chakana has the option to earn a 100% interest in Soledad, over a period of 4.5 years, subject to a 2% net smelter return royalty in favour of the Company. To earn the 100% interest, Chakana is required to complete 12,500m of drilling (or work equivalent), make cash payments totaling US$5.375 million, and issue 500,000 Chakana shares to Condor.

The Company also wishes to announce that it has reached agreement to settle up to $111,180 in accounts payable by the issuance of up to 1,482,000 shares at $0.075 per share, subject to TSXV approval. Any shares issued will be subject to a four month hold period.

About Chakana

Chakana is a private Peruvian mining company focused on acquiring and exploring base and precious metal projects with high potential to host economic deposits.

About Condor

Condor is a project generator focused exclusively on Peru, and our objective is the discovery of a major new precious metals or base metals deposit. Project acquisition and development is managed by our Lima based exploration team.
US sends nuclear sniffer plane to Korea: source

The U.S. Air Force dispatched a nuclear sniffer aircraft Thursday to the east of the Korean Peninsula amid the possibility of North Korea's imminent nuclear test, a government source said.

"The WC-135 Constant Phoenix, a special-purpose U.S. plane, made an emergency sortie today over the East Sea," the source said, requesting anonymity.

Its mission is to collect samples from the atmosphere in order to detect and identity a nuclear explosion.

It arrived at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, early this month amid indications that the North is preparing for another nuclear test.

Thursday's flight appears meant to check whether the secretive communist nation has detonated a nuclear bomb.

It also tests operational readiness in the event of an actual provocation by the North, added the source.

There was an unconfirmed rumor that North Korea has notified China of its nuclear experiment plan.

South Korea's military said earlier the North seems all set to conduct what would be its sixth nuclear test at its Punggye-ri site in its northeastern region anytime on the leadership's decision. (Yonhap)
This is the fourth in a series of interviews with international experts on North Korea to see how its nuclear issues will unfold down the road and seek ways to secure stability on the Korean Peninsula.  ED.



North Korea's fear-based control system is showing cracks

By Kim Jae-kyoung

Tara O

To make North Korea behave, the United States and allies should target Kim Jong-un's "critical vulnerabilities," said Tara O, an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies).

She said that Kim's regime is losing its legitimacy and becoming more vulnerable because its control system, based on fear and information control, is cracking as a result of economic difficulties and the inflow of outside information.

"We can make far more aggressive effort in drying up the regime's financial support, which includes secondary sanctions against Chinese banks and front companies," O said in an interview.

O, the author of "Collapse of North Korea: Challenges, Planning and Geopolitics of Korean Unification," said the sanctions against North Korea are weaker than those against Iran and Syria, and there is room to tighten the screws further.

"Certain Chinese individuals, companies and banks help sanctioned North Korean entities conduct dollar transactions, and they are ripe for secondary sanctions," she said.

Based on her expertise on the Korean contingency and unification, she explained how the U.S. can block or penalize the involved banks through secondary sanctions without China's help.

"If China is unwilling to crack down on North Korean access within the Chinese financial system, then the U.S. Treasury can disrupt the correspondent relations of these Chinese banks and companies that work on behalf of or support North Korean entities linked to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and proliferation," she said.

In September 2016, the U.S. Justice Department charged Chinese nationals who used front companies to open Chinese bank accounts, which then conducted dollar transactions through the U.S. financial system on behalf of a North Korean bank under sanctions.

"The Chinese banks must use correspondent banks in the U.S. to clear dollar transactions, thus they fall under U.S. jurisdiction," she said.

"Without the ability to transact in dollars, these banks and related firms could go bankrupt, and if large enough in scale, significantly affect the Chinese economy, and that is a big stick," she said.

According to her, the previous U.S. administration took a slower approach to secondary sanctions, because it did not want to strain its relations with China.

The former editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Korean Studies said the Trump administration may use more powerful and effective financial and enforcement measures available.

"I believe President Trump is far more willing," she said. "With the current administration, I think there's the political will to devote more resources internally toward tracking and finding the illicit funding sources that support North Korea's WMD program."

"Congress has also been more active in passing laws to strengthen sanctions. So solving the problem without them' does not necessarily mean a military attack."

Another effective option available is more efforts to get information into North Korea.












More than 100 South Korean and U.S. warplanes have joined an annual combined defense exercise under way on the peninsula, South Korea's Air Force said Thursday.



The Max Thunder training, which started on April 14 for a two-week run, also involves around 1,200 troops, including some American personnel stationed in Japan.



South Korea has dispatched F-15K, KF-16, FA-50, F-4E and F-5 fighter jets, as well as C-130 cargo and E-737 airborne early warning and control aircraft.



The U.S. has also sent various types of assets, including F-16s, U-2 reconnaissance aircraft from the 7th Air Force, AV-8Bs from the 12th Marine Aircraft Group and EA-18Gs from the Electronic Attack Squadron 132.



In the Max Thunder operation at Kunsan Air Base, the two sides have conducted a simulation-based precision strike drill.



They also staged a war game in two teams -- Blue Air and Red Air.



On Friday, the air force commanders of the allies plan to fly in each other's aircraft in a symbolic goodwill gesture.



Lt. Gen. Won In-chul, commander of South Korean Air Force Operations Command, will be aboard an F-16, with Lt. Gen. Thomas Bergeson, 7th U.S. Air Force commander, on board an FA-50.



"Through the training this time, the South Korean and U.S. air forces have demonstrated the capability to perfectly overwhelm an enemy and respond to any form of provocation anytime and anywhere," Won said, according to the Air Force.



The U.S. commander was also quoted as saying that the joint exercise offers a good opportunity to train together and improve tactical skills indispensable in the security of the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)




South Korea on Thursday began the process to build a new airport in the southern part of the country to meet growing local demand.

The government has started the bidding process to select a company that will conduct an extended feasibility study and basic planning for the new airport in Gimhae, 450 kilometers south of Seoul, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation.

Once a preferred bidder is selected, it will carry out feasibility studies and basic designing for the regional airport for 12 months, starting in June, a ministry official said.

The government plans to inject 5.96 trillion won ($5.2 billion) to build the new Gimhae airport by 2026. It is expected to serve a total of 38 million passengers a year, it said.

The new airport will absorb the existing airport facilities that currently handle about 18 million passengers a year, he said. (Yonhap)
By Kim Rahn



Political offensives are escalating against Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, over his relatively flexible stance on security and North Korea issues.



This is mainly because security could become a key campaign issue amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula.

But critics say such offensives are unlikely to affect the frontrunner's approval, because most of Moon's supporters are from the younger generation that are less sensitive to security, and this issues has not had much influence on elections in recent years.



In a live TV debate aired Wednesday night, four other candidates said Moon flip-flopped on the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here. He initially opposed the installation of the anti-missile system and said the next government should decide on it. But he recently softened his stance, saying the deployment could be inevitable if the North conducts more nuclear tests and China fails to curb these.



Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung's criticized Moon's "strategic ambiguity" over the THAAD deployment, saying a head of state should have a clear view about the issue. Moon answered, "We need strategic prudence for this intense diplomatic and security matter."



Pointing to Moon's emphasis on the talks with Pyongyang, Bareun Party candidate Yoo Seong-min asked him if he thinks North Korea is South Korea's main enemy, adding the defense ministry's white paper states this.













Moon answered that it was the ministry's job, not a president's, to label the North as the main enemy. After Yoo said a president is the commander-in-chief of the nation's forces and thus they need to have the same stance as the ministry, Moon replied, "The president in the South should resolve the North Korean issue. When needed, we need to hold inter-Korea summits. The defense ministry has its role and the president has a separate role."



The Liberty Korea Party candidate Hong Joon-pyo said the Roh administration provided $4.4 billion in cash kind to Pyongyang when Moon was the chief secretary to former President Roh Moon-hyun, and this eventually helped fund the North's nuclear development which now threatens the South.



But Moon said former President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy and Roh's engagement policy toward North Korea are what the nation has to maintain in order to improve the inter-Korea relations. "The North's nuclear issue has become much more serious and resolving it should be our priority. But without taking such policies, how can we embrace the North and achieve unification?"



Hong also attacked Moon's pledge to resume the operation of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the North and expand its size, saying this will create jobs for North Koreans, not South Koreans.



Moon countered by saying, "It will help South Korean companies make inroads into the North, and they will work with many companies in the South for raw materials, and this will help revive the South's economy and create jobs here."

Many citizens recognized Moon's flexible views about North Korea issues, saying highlighting confrontation with the North is an outdated tactic in elections.



"What good things happened when former Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye treated the North as the main enemy? For our future, we need to initiate talks," an internet user, with ID nagu**, said.



"North Korea is an enemy but for a peaceful unification, it is also a partner for conversation," another user, ebene***, said.
By Yi Whan-woo

Presidential frontrunner Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is getting more aggressive in defending himself from political attacks by his rivals over his relatively flexible stance on North Korea.

Moon had previously remained low-key over such political offensives. However, he is taking campaigning tactics questioning his ideology and framing him as a North Korean sympathizer more seriously.

On Friday, a former security official unveiled a memo suggesting the Roh Moo-hyun administration consulted with North Korea before it abstained from voting on a U.N. resolution on the North's dire human rights situation in 2007. Moon was the presidential chief of staff at the time.

Using aggressive words, Moon criticized such offensives, Friday, as a new version of the "North Wind," a method of political sabotage allegedly employed by conservatives in the past to highlight issues on North Korea and national security to smear progressive candidates.

Moon also called such attempts "a new theory of color of ideology" aimed at painting him as a communist.

"This is a new version of the North Wind as we have seen from the 2012 presidential election," Moon told reporters after attending a forum in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, while on the campaign trail. "It's also a new, despicable theory of color of ideology to influence the election."

He referred to a memo disclosed by former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon in a JoongAng Ilbo interview.

Song, who also served under Roh, said he decided to release the document, purportedly obtained from Cheong Wa Dae, because Moon has been repeatedly denying Song's claim related to the 2007 U.N resolution as written in his memoir.

Song claimed the Roh administration consulted North Korea in advance before abstaining from the U.N. vote in his memoir published October 2016.

Song said there was a document backing his argument. He also said it was Moon as presidential chief of staff who proposed consulting with North Korea.












South Korea's foreign minister will attend a United Nations Security Council meeting scheduled for next week to discuss North Korea's nuclear threats and efforts to make the North go nuclear-free, a ministry source said Thursday.

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will join the UNSC meeting to be held in New York on April 28 that will focus on North Korea's nuclear stalemate and its denuclearization, the source told Yonhap News Agency.

The meeting will be presided over by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has invited the foreign ministers from council member states and others involved in the North Korea issue. Yun was invited as the minister of a stake-holding country.

He will be given a chance to speak to the gathering for a few minutes. His speech is expected to focus on issues related to the North's denuclearization.

Preparations are also under way to arrange meetings on the sidelines between Yun and his counterparts from other countries including Tillerson, the source added.

The UNSC meeting comes amid speculation that the North might conduct an additional nuclear test. Tensions remain high, sparked by the North's continued saber-rattling and the U.S.' threat to use all options including military action.

The North conducted two nuclear denotation tests and more than 20 ballistic missile launches last year alone in violation of multiple UNSC resolutions. (Yonhap)
The Bangor and Area Historical Society will hold its annual spring luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sunday, May 7, at the Old Baptist Church in Bangor.

Its one of the biggest fundraisers of the year, BAHS President Greg Wagner said.

The BAHS has hosted the annual luncheon and fundraiser for nearly 40 years.

Wagner said Bangor and area residents are invited to come out to enjoy lunch and support the historical society. Meal tickets will be available for $6 per plate.

Following the lunch, the historical society will honor four community members, Delores Althoff, Letha Noth and the late Hildreth and Mildred Streeton, in the church sanctuary.

As elders, they have played an important role in preserving the history of Bangor, Wagner said.

Delores Althoff, 92, a native of Middle Ridge and later Bangor, was honored for her years of volunteerism in the Bangor community.

Id prefer not to be in the limelight, she said, but Im actually very honored.

She spent 33 years in service to the town of Bangor 4-H and decades of service to the Bangor Business Clubs welcome program. She was also an active parishioner at St. Marys Catholic Church and served for many years as director of the church choir and an officer of the Altar Society. She still sings in the church choir today. In 2010 she received the Deanery Woman of Light Award from the Diocese of La Crosse.

Althoff was also honored for her contributions to the BAHS.

Delores Althoff has been one of our oldest donors of historic documents, Wagner said. She has been a part of the village history for a long time.

Her contributions included historic documents, newspapers and photos which have helped to bolster the historical societys collection.

I donated a lot of things that I had in my archive, Althoff said.

Noth will also be recognized for years of service to the BAHS.

Wagner said after Noth joined the BAHS in 1995, she became one of their most important volunteers.

Noth said she was honored by the recognition but said it wasnt necessary.

I have gladly put into the historical society for years, she said. I really dont need credit for it because I enjoyed it.

Noth served as a guide at the historical society museum where she helped visitors discover the history of the small town.

I guided tours, she said. If they were looking for specific information we would try to look for it for them.

Receiving a posthumous award this year are Hildreth (1918-2010) and Mildred Streeton (1932-1997) for their contributions to the historical preservation of the old Baptist Church in Bangor.

Hildreth served as the deacon of the church for many years. In 2000, the congregation, then just six remaining members, elected to deed the structure to the historical society.

Wagner said the transfer of the historic church wouldnt have been possible without Hildreths help.

The lives of Mildred and Hildreth straddle important changes in U.S. history, he wrote.

Hildreth who began his career farming corn with a horse and wagon, ended his career doing so with a GPS guided tractor.

Following the ceremony, Jackie Everson will lead an exhibit at the Bangor Historical Society Museum on the Vietnam War era in U.S. History.

Proceeds from the luncheon will be used to help maintain society resources and fund the restoration of the Old Baptist Church and the old opera house downtown.
by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, April 20, 2017

Oracle is moving deeper into supporting data for television advertising through technology it has built and then some it has acquired from companies such as BlueKai and Datalogix.

"We've been doing this in digital for a number of years and the natural progression is to move it into other major media like television," said Joe Kyriakoza, VP and GM of automotive and TV solutions.

This week Oracle also entered into a partnership with Charter Communications that will allow brands to target connected TV audiences, which matches its data with Charter's streaming and smart-TV viewer data The news was announced at the Data Summit.

Then on Tuesday Oracle said it would acquire the measurement firm Moat, with plans to join the company into its Oracle Data Cloud division, though it will remain an independent platform.

Kyriakoza said that the move into television could also see Oracle forge relationships with metrics companies like Nielsen.

advertisement advertisement

Over the top (OTT) is part of this effort as well. Oracle is in talks with companies to support OTT and streaming on a variety of devices, Kyriakoza said. "It would let marketers customize promotions and experiences," he said. "The ones that offer advertising will be more likely to work with us because they will have a much more targeted framework."

Kyriakoza called OTT a much cleaner approach to advertising that Oracle would naturally fit into.

Earlier this month, Oracle also partnered with Simulmedia to make the household-level purchase data from the Oracle Data Cloud available through its Performance TV platform, so brands can reach existing and prospective customers through television.

The idea that advanced data sets can both predict and target consumers with the perfect message isn't completely new, but in this case it's really about finding the untapped audience by linking them to in-store purchases without using personally identifiable information.

Simulmedia's technology uses event stream processing (ESP). Through audience data and technology that can predict TV viewership, the company claims its platform produces more sales per media dollar spent by brands and return on investment at a higher average of between 30% and 100% for every campaign.

Oracle Data Cloud's purchase data will integrate with Simulmedia's minute-by-minute television viewing data to better target national TV ads to those watching the programming. Much of it is based on household transactional data from Visa Advertising Solutions offline and in store purchases that will help to show advertisers their ads resulted in actual sales.
Drawbridge, Taboola, AerServ, and Beachfront Media were among the ad-tech companies launching new products, services, and partnerships for the week of April 17.

Ooyala Names Jonathan Huberman CEO

Video ad-tech firm Ooyala has appointed Jonathan Huberman CEO. Before joining Ooyala this week, Huberman was CEO of the software-as-a-service company Syncplicity. Huberman also served as CEO of Tiburon, a company focused on public safety software.



Jon DeGennaro Joins Drawbridges North American Sales Team

Digital identity firm Drawbridge has appointed Jon DeGennaro regional vice president of sales for the East. Degennaro is tasked with increasing the adoption of Drawbridge products, including its Cross-Device Platform.

DeGennaro will be based in Drawbridges New York office. Previously, DeGennaro served as senior director of platform partnerships at AOL. He joined AOL after stints as vice president of platform and programmatic sales at Tapad, and regional vice president of sales at Turn.



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AerServ Launches DataServ To Find Audiences For Mobile Publishers

AerServ, an ad management and supply-side platform, launched DataServ, a data-as-a-service product that combines CRM data with offline and mobile datasets to help track down additional audiences for mobile publishers.

"Mobile publishers are now in a unique position. Beyond creating mobile content, theyre building mobile audiences, which marketers and even companies outside of advertising are eager to reach," stated Josh Speyer, CEO AerServ.

Bloomberg Reups With Taboola

Content discovery platform Taboola said Bloomberg renewed a deal in which Taboolas personalized video and editorial recommendations will continue to appear on desktop and mobile Web for another three years. In addition, Taboola will be integrated into Bloombergs mobile app platform.

Our industry is rapidly evolving as more users are consuming content on mobile," Adam Singolda, Taboola Founder and CEO, told Real-Time Daily via email, noting that Taboola's implementing "mobile in-app recommendations [is] the next step in connecting Bloomberg's readers to discover things they may like and never knew existed. Taboola said mobile accounts for more than half of its business globally.

Choozle Opens London Office

Choozle, a self-service programmatic ad platform, said it opened a London office in a bid to expand in Europe.

The company said Austin Saunders and Kristen Ditsch will manage the companys European operations.

Saunders was named commercial director of U.K., overseeing all U.K. and European commercial sales. Sanders was formerly GroupM Business Director at The Exchange Lab.

Kristen Ditsch, the company's senior manager of client success, will relocate to London from Choozles Denver-based headquarters to lead client support and client education. Shell also serve as an account strategist for Choozles international clients, advising them how to use programmatic in-house to grow their business.

Media technology company MAZ Digital chose SpotX as its video-ad-serving partner on its TVX platform.

The partnership gives MAZ Digital partners access to over-the-top app monetization solutions. MAZ Digital serves a mix of content including short-form, long-form, live, and on-demand formats on platforms including Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Fire TV.

Velocidi Updates Cloud-Based Intelligence Platform

Marketing data intelligence firm Velocidi launched a new version of its marketing intelligence platform aimed at further integrating various data points to create deeper insights. The updated cloud-based marketing intelligence platform allows marketers to cleanse and ingest data from various data sources.

Beachfront Media Launches Two-Way Transparency Suite For Programmatic Mobile Video Advertising



Supply-side platform Beachfront Media launched a new product its calling Creative Review Suite, to add a deterministic layer of control to programmatic video advertising.

The company said the product offers publishers data and tools to understand, analyze, and approve the ads running on their owned-and-operated sites and apps.

Beachfront Media said that publishers will be able to preview the advertisers that have bid on the inventory, and approve or block as needed based on content, quality, channel conflicts, and more, in real time. The offering attempts to address concerns about brand safety.

The new feature will incorporate ad blocking and approvals, allowing users to apply either blacklists or whitelists of individual demand-side platforms, content categories, or advertisers.
by Jess Nelson , April 21, 2017

Copying people unnecessarily on emails not only wastes time and clutters the inbox, but can also make employees feel less trusted, according to a recent study by researchers at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.

As described in an article for the Harvard Business Review, a series of tests on working adults illustrated a correlation between email Ccing and organizational distrust. The more often an employee had their boss Cced on email correspondence, the less trusted they felt.

To make matters worse, my findings indicated that when the supervisor was copied in often, employees felt less trusted, and this feeling automatically led them to infer that the organizational culture must be low in trust overall, fostering a culture of fear and low psychological safety, writes David De Cremer, KPMG professor of management studies at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.

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Email overload also influences mental health, and being constantly on has been shown to increase stress levels. Consumers are quite literally overloaded by email messages, and every day seems to be a constant battle to that illustrious Gmail message, Woohoo! You've read all the messages in your inbox.

The Radicati Group estimates that more than 215 billion email messages were sent per day in 2016, and email isnt about to slow down anytime soon. Worldwide email users are expected to grow at a steady rate of 3% year-over-year until 2020, and daily email volume is expected to increase 4.6% year-over-year to reach 257.7 billion by the end of 2020.

Considering the high volume that workers sift through every day, unnecessary emails are simply a waste of time and mental energy. Being copied on irrelevant emails is one of the biggest culprits of wasted time on email, per a 2016 study by Robert Half that suggests professionals lose as much as a fifth of their work week to irrelevant email messages.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, April 21, 2017

Google is using machine learning to make its display ad network smarter. It now can automatically target and bid on specific advertising units on publisher sites, pulling from pre-existing copy and content that advertisers pre-set to use.

The Smart display tool gives marketers a way to personalize ads served to consumers, based on machine-learning technology and the data Google collects across its network of sites, such as searches and clicks, to improve the relevancy of the ad served.

Although Google does not specifically point to using data from entries in calendars or keywords in Google Home and Gmail, the platform learns from online and offline behaviors. They could also include travel, by pulling data from Google Maps for each user signed into the network on their mobile device.

For Smart display campaigns, advertisers add pre-set headlines, descriptions, logos and images to create responsive text, display and native ads, so the platform can pull the ads and display them in real time. The system determines the likelihood of the conversion based on the predetermined price for the bid and target CPAs, for each auction.

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Trivago, Hulu Japan and Credit Karma tested the new campaign type.

For example, the hotel travel site Trivago used Smart display to help travelers find rooms. Marketers created headlines such as "Find Great Hotel Deals," and added images, hotel listing, and its logo, along with a target CPA and daily budget.

AdWords created more than 25,000 custom ads and served them to travelers shopping for hotel deals. Travelers searching a travel blog might see a message with Trivagos "Find Great Hotel Deals" headline and an image of the Coliseum in Italy.

During the test phase, Trivago drove 36% more conversions at the same CPA, compared with its other similar display campaigns, David Margines, product manager at Google AdWords, wrote in a post.
by Sara Guaglione , April 21, 2017

Warner Bros. Digital Networks, which acquired Machinima last fall, made it known today that it will not participate in the NewFronts this year, joining Yahoo, BuzzFeed, and Fullscreen.

Instead, the publishing companies will hold their own events for advertisers and clients.

In a statement obtained by Adweek, Warner Bros. Digital Networks said: We will not be presenting at this years NewFronts on May 5th in New York. However, we are eager to connect with you and all of our partners early this summer to share our robust plans and the latest developments for the Warner Bros. Digital Networks.

NewFronts were created in 2012 as the digital publishing version of the TV upfronts, an annual week of events when channels woo advertisers for their upcoming programming. NewFronts last two weeks in New York each spring and give digital media companies the opportunity to host events to pitch advertisers on their Web video content.

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Doug Ray, president of product and innovation at Dentsu Aegis Network, told The Wall Street Journal: What clients are looking for is scale There are very few digital video platforms that can truly deliver premium video content at scale. Therefore, [are] the NewFronts, where youve got dozens of suppliers rolling out and having conversations with clientsreally needed anymore?

Yahoo will hold smaller, regional events around the country for agencies and brand partners. BuzzFeed will host an interactive opportunity to show clients how it uses technology to develop content. Studio71 will stream its presentation online.

AOL will hold a private event for its presentation, a reversal from last years takeover of South Street Seaport, which featured celebrity guests like Snoop Dogg and Demi Lovato.

However, not all big digital publishers are passing on NewFronts this year.

BBC and LittleThings will partake in the event, as well as YouTube, Hulu, AwesomenessTV, Bloomberg Media, Defy Media, DigitasLBi, Disney Media-Maker Studios, Group Nine Media, Refinery29, Astronauts Wanted, Hearst Digital Media, the New York Times, Popsugar, Conde Nast, Time Inc., Turner and Vice Media.

Twitter will host its first NewFront this year, as will Millennial-male focused digital media company Uproxx.
by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, April 21, 2017

KFC is taking on rival QSRs with its spicy chicken sandwich, the Zinger  and actor Rob Lowe, playing the Colonel, is helping the famed chicken chain promote an epic marketing stunt for the launch.

Following teasers on KFCs social media channels, the campaign, from Wieden + Kennedy, is kicking off with a 90-second video (below). Lowe  sporting a white, doubled-breasted spacesuit  is shown announcing, in a televised press conference to the nation, that KFC is not only launching the sandwich in America; it will launch the sandwich into space.

KFC says that the chicken sandwich space launch is no yolk, and that it will release specifics later this spring.

I have no idea how well launch a chicken sandwich into space, but the marketing team thinks they can do it, Kevin Hochman, KFC U.S. president and chief concept officer, claimed in the brands tongue-in-cheek release.

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The Zinger has been a KFC favorite in other markets for decades and is currently sold in 120 countries, according to the company.

In the U.S., Hochman has said that KFC hopes that the Zinger can challenge other QSRs chicken sandwiches, which include McDonalds popular Hot n Spicy McChicken and Burger Kings new Crispy Chicken Sandwich. KFCs entry will be hand-breaded and fried in-store, as opposed to the refrying frozen, breaded chicken pieces on site, as the other big chains do.

Fried chicken sandwiches account for 40% of all fried chicken served at U.S. QSRs, versus chicken-on-the-bones 18%, Hochman told Business Insider.

Further, if the Zinger is a hit, it could springboard KFC into being a major player in sandwiches. Thats a mouth-watering prospect for KFC, given sandwiches convenience advantage in a world of mobile, snack-on-the-run consumers.

In fact, the company invested $80 million in operational and service improvements to prepare for the Zinger, which will, at least initially, be available for 14 weeks.

The Zinger will be sold on its own for $3.99, or as part of a $5 Fill Up meal that includes wedges, a medium drink and a chocolate chip cookie.

Lowe, who says he met Colonel Sanders as a child because his grandfather was the head of the Ohio chapter of the National Restaurant Association, is the latest in a series of actors to play the Colonel since 2015, including Norm Macdonald, Jim Gaffigan, George Hamilton, Vincent Kartheiser and Billy Zane.
Matador Resources Company, an independent energy company, engages in the exploration, development, production, and acquisition of oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through two segments, Exploration and Production; and Midstream. The company primarily holds interests in the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring plays in the Delaware Basin in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas. It also operates the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas; and the Haynesville shale and Cotton Valley plays in Northwest Louisiana. In addition, the company conducts midstream operations in support of its exploration, development, and production operations; provides natural gas processing and oil transportation services; and offers oil, natural gas, and produced water gathering services, as well as produced water disposal services to third parties. As of December 31, 2021, its estimated total proved oil and natural gas reserves were 323.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, including 181.3 million stock tank barrels of oil and 852.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The company was formerly known as Matador Holdco, Inc. and changed its name to Matador Resources Company in August 2011. Matador Resources Company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
Every year the West Salem and Bangor-Burns annual fire department dances attract hundreds of area residents to come out and support their local fire departments, and enjoy some good music, food and refreshments.

The Pat Watters Band will perform during the Bangor-Burns Fire Department dance on Friday, April 28, starting at 8 p.m. at the fire station in Bangor.

A week later in West Salem, Garys Ridgeland Dutchmen, a polka band out of Sparta, will kick off the annual West Salem firefighters dance on Saturday, May 6, at the West Salem Fire Department.

After the Dutchmen will be perennial favorites Trouble Shooter, which will play from 8 p.m. to midnight.

In addition to music, Big Boar BBQ will serve food and refreshments.

Both dances serve as fundraisers for the departments. Money raised helps the departments purchase, upgrade or replace the equipment they depend on.

Donations have allowed the department to purchase equipment like cold weather rescue suits and the Jaws of life and upgrade electrical service.

Much of the departments equipment has to be replaced in compliance with state mandates.

The cost for attendance in West Salem is $5 per person.
Yelp Inc. operates a platform that connects consumers with local businesses in the United States and internationally. The company's platform covers various local business categories, including restaurants, shopping, beauty and fitness, health, and other categories, as well as home, local, auto, professional, pets, events, real estate, and financial services. It provides free and paid advertising products to businesses, which include cost-per-click search advertising and multi-location Ad products, as well as enables businesses to deliver targeted search advertising to local audiences; and business listing page products. The company also offers other services comprising Yelp Reservations that provide online reservations for restaurants, nightlife, and other venues directly from their Yelp business pages; Yelp Waitlist, a subscription-based waitlist management solution that allows consumers to check wait times and join waitlists remotely, as well as businesses to manage seating and server rotation; Yelp Knowledge program that offers business owners local analytics and insights through access to its historical data and other proprietary content; and Yelp Fusion, which offers free and paid access to content and data for consumer-facing enterprise use through publicly available APIs. In addition, it provides content licensing, as well as allows third-party data providers to update and manage business listing information on behalf of businesses. Further, the company offers its products directly through its sales force; indirectly through partners; and online through its website, as well as non-advertising partner arrangements. It has strategic partnership with Grubhub for providing consumers with a service to place food orders for pickup and delivery. Yelp Inc. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Free Fire, like a lot of movies, ends with a big gunfight. But the one in Free Fire is an hour long. And the movie itself is only 90 minutes.

British director Ben Wheatley is known for making films with a vicious sense of humor (High-Rise, The Kill List) that tend to go too far. Working for the first time with a wide theatrical release and big stars (Armie Hammer, Oscar winner Brie Larson), its perversely nice to see he hasnt tamed himself for the raucous and bloody Free Fire.

The setting is 1970s Boston, at an abandoned factory where a major deal is about to go down. Two IRA terrorists (Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley) are looking to buy a vanload of assault rifles from a flashy South African arms dealer (Sharlton Copley). Brokering the deal are two American go-betweens, Justine (Larson) and Ord (Armie Hammer).

The mood in the warehouse is tense, but the guns and the money are exchanged. And then, just when everyone is ready to skedaddle, a lowlife thug on one side recognizes a lowlife thug on the other side from a bar fight the previous night. Words are exchanged, then fists. Then a shot is fired, everybody goes for their guns, and Free Fire goes haywire.

The last hour of the movie is an extended standoff between all three sides, bullets whizzing back and forth and richocheting off the sides of the crumbling warehouse. Unlike the exquisitely choreographed gunfights of John Woo movies, Wheatley delights in humiliating his characters, as the shooters crawl, scramble and flop in undignified fashion across the filthy warehouse floor, looking for a clean shot or a piece of cover. Everybodys got unlimited ammunition, apparently  until they run out of bullets at the worst possible moment.

I thought it was a lot of fun, but your patience may vary with a movie that plays the same note over and over like this. Wheatley (along with co-writer and co-editor Amy Jump) is a virtuoso action filmmaker, adept at helping us keep track of the 10 shooters in the kill zone and their relationships (and rivalries) with each other. Just when things start getting repetitive, Wheatley adds complications, whether its a new pair of gunmen or a suggestion of a double cross among the combatants.

Free Fire is very funny, especially Copley as the vain South African arms dealer Vern (Watch and Vern! is his catchphrase) and Hammer as the dapper smartass Ord. There is also a good running joke where people complain more about minor ailments (allergies, a splinter) than the bullet wounds they are sustaining.

Larson is wry and strong as Justine, continually underestimated by the men in the room to their peril. And if theres anyone to root for, it might be Murphys fatalistic IRA terrorist, who doesnt see why a gunfight should get in the way of his ongoing flirtation with Justine.

While the violence is relatively restrained at first, Wheatley turns up the gore as the movie progresses, adding some bloody punchlines towards the end.

Some critics have viewed Free Fire as a parable for Americas obsession with guns and the dangerously ridiculous idea that if everybody has guns, everyone will be safe. But I think that gives Wheatley both too much and too little credit. Free Fire is just an action movie stripped down to the bone and pushed to the edge. Theres no need to pretend its more than that.
KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. engages in designing, building, overhauling, and repairing military ships in the United States. It operates through three segments: Ingalls Shipbuilding, Newport News Shipbuilding, and Technical Solutions. The company is involved in the design and construction of non-nuclear ships comprising amphibious assault ships; expeditionary warfare ships; surface combatants; and national security cutters for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. It also provides nuclear-powered ships, such as aircraft carriers and submarines, as well as refueling and overhaul, and inactivation services of ships. In addition, the company offers naval nuclear support services, including fleet services comprising design, construction, maintenance, and disposal activities for in-service the U.S. Navy nuclear ships; and maintenance services on nuclear reactor prototypes. Further, it provides life-cycle sustainment services to the U.S. Navy fleet and other maritime customers; high-end information technology and mission-based solutions for Department of Defense (DoD), intelligence, and federal civilian customers; nuclear management and operations and environmental management services for the Department of Energy, DoD, state and local governments, and private sector companies; defense and federal solutions; and unmanned systems. Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Newport News, Virginia.
National Grid plc transmits and distributes electricity and gas. The company operates through UK Electricity Transmission, UK Electricity Distribution, UK Electricity System Operator, New England, and New York segments. The UK Electricity Transmission segment provides electricity transmission and construction work services in England and Wales. The UK Electricity Distribution segment offers electricity distribution services in Midlands, and South West of England and South Wales. The UK Electricity System Operator segment provides balancing services for supply and demand of electricity on Great Britain's electricity transmission system; and acts as an agent on behalf of transmission operators. The New England segment offers electricity and gas distribution, and electricity transmission services in New England. The New York segment provides electricity and gas distribution, and electricity transmission services in New York. It also engages in the provision of transmission services through electricity interconnectors and LNG importation at the Isle of Grain; sale of renewables projects; and leasing and sale of commercial property, as well as insurance activities in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
Some of UWs most important players in 2017 could be transfers who have yet to play a down for the Badgers. Cornerback Nick Nelson (Hawaii) was already named the starting replacement for Sojourn Shelton prior to the start of spring practice, and running back Chris James (Pittsburgh) could very well beat out Bradrick Shaw for the No. 1 job at one of the programs marquee positions. Outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, from Iowa Western Community College, has taken second-team reps throughout the spring and looks certain to play a role this fall. All three of these players will be redshirt juniors this season. Get a first look at them Friday night.
The Allstate Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides property and casualty, and other insurance products in the United States and Canada. The company operates through Allstate Protection; Protection Services; Allstate Health and Benefits; and Run-off Property-Liability segments. The Allstate Protection segment offers private passenger auto and homeowners insurance; specialty auto products, including motorcycle, trailer, motor home, and off-road vehicle insurance; other personal lines products, such as renter, condominium, landlord, boat, umbrella, and manufactured home and stand-alone scheduled personal property; and commercial lines products under the Allstate and Encompass brand names. The Protection Services segment provides consumer product protection plans and related technical support for mobile phones, consumer electronics, furniture, and appliances; finance and insurance products, including vehicle service contracts, guaranteed asset protection waivers, road hazard tire and wheel, and paint and fabric protection; roadside assistance; device and mobile data collection services; data and analytic solutions using automotive telematics information; and identity protection services. This segment offers its products under various brands including Allstate Protection Plans, Allstate Dealer Services, Allstate Roadside Services, Arity, and Allstate Identity Protection. The Allstate Health and Benefits provides life, accident, critical illness, short-term disability, and other health insurance products. The Run-off Property-Liability offers property and casualty insurance. It sells its products through call centers, agencies, financial specialists, independent agents, brokers, wholesale partners, and affinity groups, as well as through online and mobile applications. The Allstate Corporation was founded in 1931 and is based in Northbrook, Illinois.
My dear readers, I get all sorts of letters  most of which I dont answer because Im too lazy. Some of them are worth printing. I wanted to share the one below because its one of those.

I dont have an answer to this letter writers problem because medical care and its attendant insurance issues often are a political hot potato. I will let you make your own diagnosis.

In case you didnt read the column this writer is reacting to, it concerned an indigent worker whose employer  the person who wrote to me  got free medical care for him from a doctor friend to treat a case of Lyme disease. When it came time to get a prescription, the doctor said it would only cost about $20, but it was rung up by the pharmacy for more than $100. They said if the guy joined the pharmacys frequent-buyer program, the price of the prescription would drop to $35.

The person involved in that case wrote that he was angry with the pharmacist. I called the situation bait and switch. This is the more recent letter writers response to my opinion.

Dear Dr. Zorba: Regarding the column you wrote regarding the uninsured gentleman who was overcharged for an antibiotic to treat Lyme disease, then offered a reduced member cost for the same drug, perhaps some of the column was edited out? I am having trouble understanding why the pharmacy was the bad guy in this situation.

The writer states that the patient was an old guy who helped out on my farm, in other words, an employee. An employee who was likely paid less than a living wage and not offered health insurance, nor elected to purchase his own or seek subsidized health coverage.

Luckily for that writer, he has a doctor friend who is willing to give away his billable time to diagnose and prescribe for this poorly paid employee. Luckily also for that writer, he had a pharmacist who offered a creative way to minimize the cost of the drug. My personal response to an offer of reduced prescription cost would be gratitude, not ire.

Even if these gentlemen had paid full price for the prescription, it would have been $170 for examination, prescription and treatment of a rather serious disease. I pay full price for all office visits because of a several-thousand-dollar deductible, despite paying $800 monthly for insurance premiums.

Those of us who actually pay allow physicians and pharmacists to give away time and product; $170 seems like an awesome deal to me.

I am pondering why anyone bothers to purchase health insurance when we can just pitch a screaming fit in a pharmacy and demand the price we want. Why on Earth would you reinforce this writers irresponsible behavior?  M.G., RN

Dear M.G.: You bring up some good points. But the answer is not black and white. I lived in Nova Scotia for a while where everything relating to health care was government-run. Seems like that could be the answer, but since I have kept in touch with my doctor friends there, I have learned that system is no panacea either.

In Canada, each province runs its own plan with differing levels of reimbursement. Nova Scotia, being a poorer province, has too few cardiologists so things fall through the cracks. One of our good friends had to travel to another province for cardiac care because there simply were not enough doctors and equipment to care for his needs.

My spin: Who knew medical care could be so complex? Stay well.
The following companies are subsidiares of Thermo Fisher Scientific: 236 Perinton Parkway LLC, 27 Forge Parkway LLC, ABR--Affinity BioReagents, ACI Holdings Inc., ARG Services LLC, ASPEX Corporation, Abgene Inc., Abgene Limited, Acoustic Cytometry Systems Inc., AcroMetrix LLC, Acros Organics B.V.B.A., Advanced Biotechnologies Limited, Advanced Scientifics (ASI), Advanced Scientifics Inc., Advanced Scientifics International Inc., Affymetrix Biotech Participacoes Ltda., Affymetrix Biotech Shanghai Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, Affymetrix Japan K.K., Affymetrix Pte Ltd, Affymetrix UK Ltd, Afora S.A.U., Ahura Scientific, Alchematrix Inc., Alchematrix LLC, Alfa Aesar, Alfa Aesar (China) Chemical Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific A/S, Fisher Scientific AG, Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Limited, Fisher Scientific Biotech Line ApS, Fisher Scientific Brazil Inc., Fisher Scientific Central America Inc., Fisher Scientific Chile Inc., Fisher Scientific Colombia Inc., Fisher Scientific Company, Fisher Scientific Company L.L.C., Fisher Scientific Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Fisher Scientific Europe Holdings B.V., Fisher Scientific GTF AB, Fisher Scientific Germany Beteiligungs GmbH, Fisher Scientific GmbH, Fisher Scientific Holding Company LLC, Fisher Scientific Holding HK Limited, Fisher Scientific Holding U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific Holdings (S) Pte Ltd, Fisher Scientific International LLC, Fisher Scientific Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Fisher Scientific Ireland Investments Unlimited, Fisher Scientific Ireland Limited, Fisher Scientific Japan Ltd., Fisher Scientific Jersey Island Limited, Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd, Fisher Scientific Latin America Inc., Fisher Scientific Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Fisher Scientific Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific Mexico Inc., Fisher Scientific Middle East and Africa Inc., Fisher Scientific Norway AS, Fisher Scientific Operating Company, Fisher Scientific Oxoid Holdings Ltd., Fisher Scientific Oy, Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific S.A.S., Fisher Scientific S.L., Fisher Scientific SPRL, Fisher Scientific The Hague I B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague II B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague III B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague IV B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague V B.V., Fisher Scientific U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company 2, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company Limited, Fisher Scientific Unipessoal Lda., Fisher Scientific Venezuela Inc., Fisher Scientific Worldwide (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Holdings I C.V., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Inc., Fisher Scientific de Mexico S.A., Fisher Scientific of the Netherlands B.V., Fisher Scientific spol. S.r.o, Fisher Servicios Clinicos (Chile) LLC, Fisher Servicios Clinicos Chile Ltda, Fisher WWD Holding L.L.C., Fisher Worldwide Distribution SPV, Fisher Worldwide Gene Distribution SPV, Flux Instruments, Fuji Partnership, G & M Procter Limited, G V Instruments Limited, GV Instruments Canada Ltd., GV Instruments Inc, Gatan Inc, General Scientific Company Sdn Bhd (M), Genomed molekularbiologische und diagnostische Produkte GmbH, Gerhard Menzel B.V. & Co. KG, Gold Cattle Standard Testing Labs Inc., Golden West Indemnity Company Limited, Goring Kerr Detection Limited, Greenville Service Company Inc., HENO GmbH i.L., Hangar 215 Inc., Helmet Securities Limited, Henogen, HighChem, HyClone International Trade (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Hybaid Limited, I.Q. (BIO) Limited, IDnostics AG, ILS Laboratories Scandinavia AB, Inel Inc., Inel SAS, InnaPhase Inc., InnaPhase Limited, IntegenX, Intrinsic BioProbes Inc., Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc., Invitrogen (Shanghai) Investment Co. Ltd., Invitrogen Argentina SA, Invitrogen BioServices India Private Limited, Invitrogen Europe Limited, Invitrogen Finance Corp., Invitrogen Holdings LLC, Invitrogen Holdings Ltd., Invitrogen Hong Kong Limited, Invitrogen IP Holdings Inc., Invitrogen Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ion Torrent Systems Inc., Ionalytics Corporation, JSC Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jouan LLC, Jouan Limited, Jouan SA, Kendro Containment & Services Limited, Kendro Laboratory Products Ltd, Kettlebrook Insurance Co. ltd., Keystone Scientific, KonTEM GmbH, Kyle Jordan Investments LLC, LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, LTC Tech South Africa PTY Ltd., La-Pha-Pack GmbH, Lab Vision (UK) Limited, Lab Vision Corporation, Lab-Chrom-Pack LLC, Lab-Line Instruments Inc., Labomex MBP S. de R. L. De C.V., Laboratoire Service International - L.S.I, Laboratory Management Systems Inc., Laboratory Specialties Proprietary Ltd., LambTrack Limited, Laser Analytical Systems Inc., Liberty Lane Investment LLC, Liberty Lane Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Life Sciences International (Poland) SP z O.O, Life Sciences International Holdings BV, Life Sciences International LLC, Life Sciences International Limited, Life Technologies AS, Life Technologies Australia PTY Ltd., Life Technologies BPD AB, Life Technologies BPD UK Limited, Life Technologies Brasil Comercio e Industria de Produtos para Biotecnologia Ltda, Life Technologies Chile SpA, Life Technologies Clinical Services Lab Inc., Life Technologies Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostic (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Europe B.V., Life Technologies Finance Ltd., Life Technologies Finland Oy, Life Technologies GmbH, Life Technologies Holdings PTE Ltd., Life Technologies Inc., Life Technologies International B.V., Life Technologies Japan Ltd., Life Technologies Korea LLC, Life Technologies Limited, Life Technologies Magyarorszag Kft, Life Technologies New Zealand Ltd., Life Technologies Norway Investments US LLC, Life Technologies Polska Sp z.o.o., Life Technologies SA, Life Technologies SAS, Life Technologies s.r.o, Linkage Biosciences Inc., Linkage Biosciences S.a.r.l., Loftus Furnace Company, Lomb Scientific, Lomb Scientific (Aust) Pty Limited, MTI-GlobalStem, Marketbase International Limited, Matrix MicroScience Inc., Matrix MicroScience Ltd., Matrix Technologies Corporation Limited, Matrix Technologies LLC, Maybridge Chemical Company Limited, Maybridge Chemical Holdings Limited, Maybridge Limited, Medical Analysis Systems Inc., Medical Analysis Systems International Inc., Medical Diagnostics Systems Inc., Metavac LLC, Microgenics Corporation, Microgenics Diagnostics Pty Limited, Microgenics GmbH, Microm International GmbH, Microm Laborgerate S.L.U, Molecular BioProducts Inc., Molecular Probes Inc., Molecular Transfer Inc., NAPCO Inc., NERL Diagnostics LLC, NOVODIRECT GmbH Labor- und Industrie- Megerate, Nalge (Europe) Limited, Nalge Nunc International (Monterrey) LLC, Nalge Nunc International Corporation, Nanjing WeiKangLe Trading Industrial Co Ltd, NanoDrop Technologies LLC, National Scientific Company, Navaho Acquisition Corp., Neomarkers Inc., New FS Holdings Inc., NewcoGen PE LLC, Nihon Dynal K.K., Niton Asia Limited, NovaWave Technologies Inc., Nunc A/S, ONIX Systems Inc., OXOID CZ s.r.o., Odyssey Holdings Corporation, Odyssey Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 1 S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 2 S.a r.l., Odyssey Venture Corporation, Omega Data Systems, One Lambda Inc, Onix Holdings Limited, Orme Scientific Limited, Owl Separation Systems LLC, Oxoid (ELY) Limited, Oxoid 2000 Limited, Oxoid AS, Oxoid Australia Pty. Limited, Oxoid Company, Oxoid Deutschland GmbH, Oxoid Holding SAS, Oxoid Holdings Limited, Oxoid Inc., Oxoid International Limited, Oxoid Investments GmbH, Oxoid Limited, Oxoid N.V., Oxoid New Zealand Limited, Oxoid Pension Trustees Limited, Oxoid Senior Holdings Limited, Oxoid UKH LLC, PAX - DSI Acquisition LLC, PE AG, Pacific Rim Far East Industries LLC, Pacific Rim Investment LLC, Panomics L.L.C., Panomics S.R.L., Patheon, Patheon API Inc., Patheon API Manufacturing Inc., Patheon API Services Inc., Patheon Austria GmbH & Co KG, Patheon B.V., Patheon Banner U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon Biologics (NJ) LLC, Patheon Biologics Australia Pty Ltd, Patheon Biologics B.V., Patheon Biologics LLC, Patheon Calculus Merger LLC, Patheon Cooperatief U.A., Patheon Development Services Inc., Patheon Finance LLC, Patheon France SAS, Patheon Holdings B.V., Patheon Holdings I B.V., Patheon Holdings II B.V., Patheon Holdings SAS, Patheon I B.V., Patheon I Holding GmbH, Patheon Inc., Patheon International AG, Patheon Italia S.p.A., Patheon KK, Patheon Life Science Products International GmbH, Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Patheon Pharmaceuticals Services Inc., Patheon Puerto Rico Acquisitions Corporation, Patheon Puerto Rico Inc., Patheon Regensburg GmbH, Patheon Softgels B.V., Patheon Softgels Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings LLC, Patheon UK Limited, Patheon UK Pension Trustees Limited, Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Perbio Science (Canada) Company, Perbio Science AB, Perbio Science BVBA, Perbio Science France SAS, Perbio Science Inc., Perbio Science International Netherlands B.V., Perbio Science Invest AB, Perbio Science Nederland B.V., Perbio Science Projekt AB, Perbio Science Sweden Holdings AB, Perbio Science Switzerland SA, Perbio Science UK Limited, Phadia AB, Phadia Diagnosticos Ltda, Phadia GmbH, Phadia Holding AB, Phadia International Holdings C.V., Phadia Korea Co. Ltd, Phadia Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Phadia Malta Holdings Limited, Phadia Oy, Phadia Real Property AB, Phadia Sweden AB, Phadia Taiwan Inc., Phadia US Inc., Phadia s.r.o., Pharmacaps Mexicana SA de CV, Phenom-World B.V., Phenom-World Holding B.V, Phenom-World Innovations B.V., Phinotex, Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Pierce Milwaukee Holding Corp., Pierce Milwaukee Inc., Polychromix, Power Sweden Holdings I AB, Power Sweden Holdings II AB, Power Sweden Holdings III Aktiebolag, Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments LLC, Princeton Security Technologies, Prionics AG, Prionics Asia Ltd., Prionics Deutschland GmbH, Prionics France SAS, Prionics Italia S.r.l., Prionics Lelystad B.V., Prionics USA Inc., Priority Air Express LLC, Priority Air Express Pte. Ltd., Priority Air Express UK Limited, Priority Air Holdings Corp, Priority Solutions International, Promedica Pty Limited, Proxeon, Proxeon Biosystems ApS, Qiagen, REP GBP I-B Blocker Inc., Raymond A Lamb Limited, Remel Europe Limited, Remel Inc., Richard-Allan Scientific Company, Robbins Scientific LLC, Robocon Labor- und Industrieroboter Gesellschaft m.b.H, Rupprecht and Patashnick, Rupprecht and Patashnick (R&P), Russell pH Limited, S.C.I. du 10 rue Dugay Trouin, SCI Inno 92, STC Bio Manufacturing Inc., Samco Scientific (Monterrey) LLC, Samco Scientific LLC, Saroph Sweden AB, Schantz Road LLC, Seradyn Inc., Shanghai Life Technologies Biotechnology Co. Limited, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (C-I) Trading Co. Ltd, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (S) Trading Co. Ltd, Southern Trials (Pty) Ltd., Specialty (SMI) Inc., Spectra-Physics AB, Spectra-Physics Holdings Limited, Spectra-Physics Holdings USA LLC, Spectronex, Staten Island Cogeneration Corporation, Sterilin Limited, Stokes Bio Ltd., Sweden DIA (Sweden) AB, SwissAnalytic Group GmbH, Systems Manufacturing Corporation, TFLP LLC, TFS Breda B.V., TFS LLC, TFS Singapore HK Limited, TFSL Financing GP LLC, TFSL Senior GP Holdings 2 LLC, TK Partnership, TKA Wasseraufbereitungssysteme, TMOI Inc., TPI Real Estate Holdings LLC, TSP Holdings I LLC, TWX LLC, Technology Design Solutions Pty Ltd, Thermedics Detection de Argentina S.R.L, Thermo Allen Coding Limited, Thermo Asset Management Services Inc., Thermo BioAnalysis LLC, Thermo BioAnalysis Limited, Thermo BioSciences Holdings LLC, Thermo CIDTEC, Thermo CRS Holdings Ltd., Thermo CRS Ltd., Thermo Cambridge Limited, Thermo Cayman Holdings Ltd., Thermo Corporation, Thermo DMA Inc., Thermo Detection de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Dutch Holdings Limited Partnership, Thermo EGS Gauging LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings I LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings II LLC, Thermo Eberline LLC, Thermo Electron (Calgary) Limited, Thermo Electron (Chile) S.p.A., Thermo Electron (Karlsruhe) GmbH, Thermo Electron (Management Services) Limited, Thermo Electron (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Electron A/S, Thermo Electron Australia Pty Limited, Thermo Electron Export Inc., Thermo Electron Holdings SAS, Thermo Electron Industries, Thermo Electron LED GmbH, Thermo Electron LED S.A.S., Thermo Electron Limited, Thermo Electron Manufacturing Limited, Thermo Electron Metallurgical Services Inc., Thermo Electron North America LLC, Thermo Electron Pension Trust GmbH, Thermo Electron Puerto Rico Inc., Thermo Electron SAS, Thermo Electron Scientific Instruments LLC, Thermo Electron Sweden AB, Thermo Electron Sweden Forvaltning AB, Thermo Electron Weighing & Inspection Limited, Thermo Elemental Limited, Thermo Environmental Instruments LLC, Thermo Fast U.K. Limited, Thermo Finland Holdings LLC, Thermo Finland Holdings MT1 B.V., Thermo Finland Holdings MT2 B.V., Thermo Finnigan LLC, Thermo Finnigan Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Malta Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN-I) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (CN-II) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings I Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings II Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings 2) LLC, Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) II Limited, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Heysham) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Kandel) GmbH, Thermo Fisher CHK Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust II, Thermo Fisher Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Thermo Fisher Cyprus Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Detection Mexico LLC, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics (Ireland) Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AB, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AG, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Aps, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Austria GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics B.V., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics K.K., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics NV, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.L.U., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.p.A. , Thermo Fisher Diagnostics SAS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Thermo Fisher Eurobonds Ltd., Thermo Fisher Financial Services Inc., Thermo Fisher GP LLC, Thermo Fisher German Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Germany B.V., Thermo Fisher India Divestco Private Limited, Thermo Fisher India Holding B.V., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Thermo Fisher Israel Ltd., Thermo Fisher Production et Services SAS, Thermo Fisher Project Cyprus LLC, Thermo Fisher Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Asheville) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Australia) C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Barbados) Holdings Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Breda) Holding BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (CN) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China-HK) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (DE) Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ecublens) SARL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance II) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fuji) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Holding II) B.V. & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Johannesburg) (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mexico City) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Milwaukee) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mississauga) Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Monterrey) S. De R.L. De C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (NK) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) Austria Holding GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-I) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-II) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN1) UK Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) Dutch LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Praha) s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) GmbH & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Schweiz) AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Instruments Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Suzhou) Instruments Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific AL-1 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific AU II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Aquasensors LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V.B.A., Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (I) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (II) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics UAB, Thermo Fisher Scientific Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Biosciences Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brahms LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Instrumentos de Processo Ltda., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Servicos de Logistica Ltda, Thermo Fisher Scientific C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cayman Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chemicals Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific China (C-I) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China (S) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings IV B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings Aps, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus IV C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus V C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Denmark Senior Holdings ApS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie 1 Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Europe GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC Finance C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSUKHCO Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Falcon Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Finance Company BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific GENEART GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Germany BV & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific HR Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) I, Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) II , Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings Europe Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific IT Services GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Pvt Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Malta) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments Malta (Sweden Financing) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Invitrogen Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific K.K., Thermo Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific LSI Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments III S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments IV S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life NL Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Netherlands Holding C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Switzerland Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Tech Korea Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Enterprise Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investments Holding LP, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Luxembourg Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Enterprise Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg German Holdings S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Life Technologies UK Holding S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings I S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings II S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malta Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Mexico City S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Middle East Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Milano Srl, Thermo Fisher Scientific NHK Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Holdings, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway Holdings AS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway US Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Operating Company LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Oy, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 C.V, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Panama I Cayman Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Peru S.R.L., Thermo Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific SL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Financing LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Holdings Australia LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific South Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific SpA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg I S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Investments Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Switzerland Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific TR Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Taiwan Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific West Palm Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Wissenschaftliche Gerate GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Worldwide Investments (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific eCommerce Solutions LLC , Thermo Fisher Senior Canada Holdings LLC, Thermo Foundation Inc., Thermo Gamma-Metrics Holdings Pty Ltd., Thermo Gamma-Metrics LLC, Thermo Gamma-Metrics Pty Ltd, Thermo Holding European Operations LLC, Thermo Hypersil Ltd, Thermo Hypersil-Keystone LLC, Thermo Informatics Asia Pacific Pty Ltd., Thermo Instrument Controls de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Thermo Kevex X-Ray LLC, Thermo Keytek LLC, Thermo LabSystems Inc., Thermo LabSystems S.A., Thermo Life Science International Trading (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Thermo Life Sciences AB, Thermo Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo MF Physics LLC, Thermo Measurement Ltd, Thermo Measuretech Canada Inc., Thermo Neslab LLC, Thermo Nicolet Limited, Thermo Onix Limited, Thermo Optek (Australia) Pty Ltd., Thermo Optek Limited, Thermo Optek S.A., Thermo Orion Inc., Thermo Portable Holdings LLC, Thermo Power Corporation, Thermo Process Instruments GP LLC, Thermo Process Instruments L.P., Thermo Projects Limited, Thermo Quest S.A., Thermo Radiometrie Limited, Thermo Ramsey Italia S.r.l., Thermo Ramsey LLC, Thermo Ramsey S.A., Thermo Re Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Pte Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Sdn Bhd, Thermo Scientific Portable Analytical Instruments Inc., Thermo Scientific Services Inc., Thermo Securities Corporation, Thermo Sentron Canada Inc., Thermo Sentron Limited, Thermo Shandon Inc., Thermo Shandon Limited, Thermo Suomi Holding B.V., Thermo TLH (UK) Limited, Thermo TLH L.P., Thermo Trace Pty Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Biochemical Product (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ThermoLase LLC, ThermoSpectra Limited, Trek Diagnostic Systems LLC, Trek Diagnostic Systems Ltd., Trek Holding Company II Ltd., Trek Holding Company Ltd., Trex Medical Corporation, USB Corporation, Union Lab Supplies Limited, United Diagnostics Inc., VG Systems Limited, Westover Scientific Inc., ZAO PE Biosystems, eBioscience GmbH, eBioscience Ltd, eBioscience SAS, and picoSpin LLC.

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FanRags Jon Heyman tackles a number of slow-starting teams in the intro to his weekly notes columns, getting the opinions of rival scouts and executives on the slow starts from the Cardinals, Giants, Blue Jays and Rangers. Heyman spoke to Giants GM Bobby Evans on his clubs issues in left field, with Evans conceding, We dont have a true left fielder. Were going to have to mix and match. Heyman notes that veteran infielder Aaron Hill is expected to get some looks in left field. San Francisco elected to move on from Angel Pagan this offseason and entered the year with a platoon of Jarrett Parker and Chris Marrero in left field, but Parker will now miss significant time following a broken clavicle. And it appears to be too late to turn back to Pagan, who told El Vocero yesterday that hes planning to sit out the 2017 season to spend time with his wife and children.

Here are some highlights from Heymans National League and American League roundups
Celebrated young Ghanaian female artiste, Noella Wiyaala, has been invited to perform at the launch of the sixth edition of Ghana UK-Based Achievement (GUBA) Awards which will be launched today at the British High Commissioner's residence in Accra.

Wiyaala is expected to thrill invited guests with her songs like 'Make Me Dance', 'Rock My Body', among others.

According to the organisers, the main awards ceremony is slated for Saturday June 3, 2017 at the Intercontinental Hotel O2 London.

The awards ceremony will be hosted by Eddie Kadi and Starr FM's Anita Erskine, as well as witness live musical performances from Bisa K dei and the Davidson Band.

The GUBA Awards is being organised to recognise and celebrate outstanding individuals and group achievement within the British Ghanaian community.

The sixth GUBA Awards ceremony will commemorate Ghana's 60th anniversary, with tributes to historical national achievements 60 years after independence.

A statement issued by the British High Commission said the launch will follow a dinner reception, where the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin, will host chief executives and high profile government officials at his residence on the same day.

Speakers at the launch include Steven Gray, Chief Executive Officer of Atuabo Free Port, and Jon Benjamin.

About 40 individuals have been nominated in seven categories for the awards this year.

Starrfmonline
21.04.2017 LISTEN

Banking in Nigeria has greatly advanced. In the past, you will find long queues but today the opposite is the case. Many of them have embraced technology and have simplified the banking process. Regardless, there are still some annoying things that these banks do that are very frustrating. In line with this, Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency shares some of these things.

Asking you to bring utility bill to open an account

Whenever you visit a bank in Nigeria to open an account, you are asked to bring a utility bill to confirm your address. Sometimes you begin to wonder, what you really need a utility bill for when you have BVN. BVN has every information about an individual including the fingerprints. You cannot change your fingerprint but you can change your address.

They deduct your money due to unnecessary charges

You know one of the annoying alerts you get every month are the charges from your bank. The way some banks remove your money will tempt you to go to the bank to withdraw all of it and transfer it to another one.

They cannot process your complaint because your names are different

If you use two names in one document and use three names in another document, some banks will never accept or process the document from you. They will tell you the process may get stuck because of the name difference.

You have to wait for days when the ATM refuses to dispense money and you have been debited

A faithful morning, you use the ATM of another bank to withdraw but the ATM refuse to dispense and your account is debited. Just be prepared for a long battle with your bank because you will not get your money back in 24 hours. First, you have to complain to your bank for them to reverse and depending on the bank, it can take weeks or months. If you dont have money, you are on your own for that day. The question is why cant they reverse it immediately?

And you need money urgently and they tell you no network

You dont have money and you have tried several ATMs and they are not dispensing cash. You have no choice than to withdraw money at your bank. You walk into your bank and they tell you that there is no network, you will just get frustrated. The annoying thing is that if there is no network at that branch, it will be same at other branches. And without the network, they cannot do anything! Just start praying that the network comes back!
21.04.2017 LISTEN

The Kumawu chieftaincy dispute in its final stretch is getting more interesting and hilarious, if not murkier. Those who had all along made us believe that they are law unto themselves; they can take decisions that no judge or court in Ghana can reverse no matter how preposterous such decisions may turn out to be, are now shaking like leaves come under the intense batting of the Harmattan wind.

The lies they spewed out are catching up with them under the government of His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo. The President has said, and reiterated at any least opportunity that under his watch, the rule of law will reign supreme with peoples human rights respected irrespective of how poor or rich they are. Under his government, the law will assert its authority of not being a respecter of persons regardless of the law sometimes being circumstantially an ass.

I have always stood by my conviction that no matter how long it takes and how tortuous the route to proving that the alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua (Dr Yaw Sarfo) was illegitimately imposed on Kumawuman as their paramount chief by Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and his teeming accomplices for their selfish persuasions and interests, the truth will out one day. Now is the time!

I do not back the winning rogue horse but the genuine horse no matter its state at any particular time until it succeeds. This explains my support for Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V who has been enstooled according to prevailing Kumawu traditions and customs but not Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua, a puppet imposed on Kumawuman by Asantehene and his accomplices for all dubious reasons.

I know Kumawu history. I have researched Kumawu history. Therefore, with the evidence available to me and/or is already in the public domain, dating from 24 February 2014 when Kumawuhemaa Abenaa Serwaah Amponsah claimed on recorded video to have offered bribes to some Kumawu kingmakers up to the fraudulent gazetting of Dr Yaw Sarfo (alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua), I can confirm and conclude that Dr Yaw Sarfo is not Kumawu Omanhene.

On his fraudulent gazetting, some concerned Kumawuman elders and Kumawuman Subjects Living Abroad (KSLA) have made official requests to have a true certified copy of the Declaration of Chieftaincy Form 1B that Dr Yaw Sarfo filled out consequent upon the authenticity and acceptance of which he was gazetted by the National House of Chiefs as Kumawu Omanhene. The request was made to the registrars of both Kumawu Traditional Council and the Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs. The registrars failing to respond to the requests, a court order (mandamus) was sought. However, the move was collusively scuppered by the Chief Justice for reasons only best known to her.

Now that a new government that believes in the rule of law and the respect for individuals human rights irrespective of their status has come to power, Dr Yaw Sarfo and his accomplices are panicking. After their efforts to use the Ashanti Regional Minister Hon. Simon Osei-Mensah and Minister for National Security Hon. Albert Kan Dapaa who might have dispatched police and military personnel to assault Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V and his sub-chiefs on Thursday, 16 February 2017 at Bodomase failed miserably, Dr Yaw Sarfo and his accomplices are now running, playing hide and seek with the long arm of the law that is chasing them like kakai.

They can run but they cant hide. No matter how long it takes, a court order that will expose their criminality will be served on them in one form or the other. If Dr Yaw Sarfo is the legitimate Kumawuhene as he claims to be, why is he running away from being served a court summons? If Asantehene is the real overlord of Asanteman who can bend any rule in Ghana to favour him without anyone able to challenge him, why is he running away from the ugly long arm of the law? Again, why is he hiding the Declaration of Chieftaincy Form 1B filled out by Dr Yaw Sarfo in his Manhyia Palace? Is it not a public record that should be made accessible and available to any sane and interested person for public scrutiny?

Time changes indeed! President Mahama helped them to dodge the laws. Hon. Simon Osei-Mensah and Hon. Albert Kan Dapaa also tried to help them abuse the law using police intimidation but they have failed.

Their lies are catching up with them and in less than no time, Dr Yaw Sarfo and his accomplices will be exposed big time.

The battle is the Lords and as it worked for Nana Akufo Addo, so shall God manifest his purposed intentions for the people of Kumawuman and more especially, for Barima Tweneboa Kodua V (in private life as Mr John Kwasi Oduro).

Let them run, but they cant hide. Has anyone been able to run away from God without Him seeing the runaway person? No!!!!! There we go!

Inshah Allah, the days of Dr Yaw Sarfo as the illegitimate occupant of the Kumawu Kodua Stool are numbered.

Rockson Adofo

(Written on Thursday, 20 April 2017)
Johannesburg (AFP) - South African opposition parties, religious groups and civil society activists on Thursday launched a new alliance to try to force President Jacob Zuma to step down.

Called the Freedom Movement and backed by retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, it plans to hold a mass rally on April 27, the annual holiday marking South Africa's first post-apartheid election in 1994.

Zuma's sacking of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan last month fanned years of public anger over government corruption scandals, record unemployment and slowing economic growth.

"Never before has there been a more urgent need to build unity of purpose to stop South Africa's current trajectory," said the movement at its launch in Soweto, a hotbed of the struggle against apartheid.

Tutu, seen as the country's leading moral authority, said in a tweet that he supported the movement, adding "it is important that we unite as South Africans to bring an end to state capture".

"State capture" is a term that refer to the alleged corruption among Zuma and his associates.

Tens of thousands of South Africans have in recent weeks staged demonstrations demanding Zuma's resignation.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance party and several small opposition parties backed the alliance as well as some trade unions and the National Religious Council.
21.04.2017 LISTEN

The Volta Regional House of Chiefs has suspended the Paramount Chiefs and Queen Mothers of Nkonya and Alavanyo indefinitely for their inability to maintain peace between the two traditional areas.

The sanctions are in response to a shooting incident at Nkonya purported to have been done by unknown assailants from Alavanyo on Wednesday, which led to the death of two people leaving the third, severely injured.

Nana Soglo Alloh IV, President of the House, told the Ghana News Agency that the Standing Committee of the House decided to sanction the chiefs after a meeting with the Regional Minister on Thursday.

He said the suspension was to make the traditional leaders take responsibility for the actions of their subjects.

Nana Alloh said the two Chiefs had on several occasions, committed themselves to peace arrangements mediated by various institutions but to no avail and that punitive measures are needed to be applied.

The two traditional areas have been engaged in a 94-year-old land dispute which seemed unending despite efforts by religious bodies, the National Peace Council and government.

In the latest incident, three men from Nkonya who allegedly went to their farms at about 1430 hours on Wednesday to tap palmwine were fired upon by unknown assailants, killing one Akando instantly.

A police source at Nkonya told the GNA that the situation was under control but checks indicate that there could be a reprisal attack.

Recently, Mr Clemence Gyato, the Nkonya/Alavanyo Peace Ambassador, reiterated an appeal made to government to take over the disputed land and use the resources for national development.

He told the Ghana News Agency that his call had become necessary because the rhetoric is too much and assurances from the two areas are no longer inspiring.

Mr Gyato said it is unfortunate that though the two traditional areas have had several reconciliation durbars and performed rituals invoking the gods against anyone who attacked the other and yet killings were still being recorded.

He recalled how churches in the two traditional areas held prayer and fasting sessions for peace but to no avail and said the only way out was for government to take over the piece of land.
The La Crosse Board of Park Commissioners on Thursday evening approved 10-year plans created by its Environmental Leadership Forum to improve outdoor recreation and trails in the eastern part of the city.

Community members spilled over into the waiting area outside the packed, 49-person-capacity Cottonwood Room of the Black River Beach Neighborhood Center, where the public was invited to offer opinions about final plans.

The plans include restoration of existing trails and the creation of three new trails on city-owned bluffland and marshland, and filling in gaps in the trails through acquisition of land from agreeable owners. Initial plans were narrowed down to three choices though public forums and talks within ELF, a group of representatives of environmental and recreational organizations organized through the citys Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department.

One proposed trail, according to city parks director Steve Carlyon, would connect Chad Erickson Memorial Park to State Road Elementary School and a senior living facility through trails on La Crosse County, city of La Crosse and La Crosse School District property.

Parks superintendent Jay Odegaard said that while proposals included land acquisition, no proposal would use eminent domain to take land from owners unwilling to sell. At no point is the city going to go in and force anybody to sell their property, Odegarrd said to concerned property owners.

Residents of the town of Shelby who live near Mickel and Hagen roads, near some proposed trail locations, complained they were only now hearing about hoped-for trail additions. Town of Shelby residents were also concerned improved and additional trails could contribute to increased traffic near their homes.

Carlyon stressed the importance of residents not confusing the ELF and city plan with the county plan, which included plans to build parking lots at trail heads. The city did not adopt the countys plan, Carlyon said, because it stretched spending of tax dollars too far.

Other residents expressed concern about the possibility of multi-use trails, potential conflicts among users, and the effect of some uses on the durability of trails.

Removing invasive species and preserving wildlife were among other concerns. Forest management coordinator Sunshine Love said the trails would be built and updated with consideration of the flora and fauna that inhabit the area.

Despite logistical concerns, supporting outdoor activity was a common theme among nature enthusiasts of all types who spoke during the public hearing. Lisa Young, a new La Crosse resident from South Dakota, expressed her and her husbands appreciation of the outdoor opportunities that drew them to the La Crosse area.

Young said she encouraged the establishment of multi-use trails as she has seen their benefits for her and her family, and she encouraged participants in all activities to participate in improving the trails.

(I) wanted everyone to come together so we can actually enjoy and protect this unique Driftless Area, Young said.

The plans face committee scrutiny on their way to the La Crosse Common Council next month.

The plans include restoration of existing trails and the creation of three new trails on city-owned bluffland and marshland, and filling in gaps in the trails through acquisition of land from agreeable owners. Initial plans were narrowed down to three choices though public forums and talks within ELF, a group of representatives of environmental and recreational organizations organized through the citys Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department.
Investigators have been left scratching their heads as to why a treasure trove of gold coins was hidden in an old piano.

The collection of 913 coins, declared as treasure by a coroner on Thursday was found hidden beneath the instrument's keyboard at a school in Shropshire as it was being retuned.

It is reported the hoard could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, though it still has to be formally valued.

Experts from the British Museum say the coins range in date from 1847 to 1915 and include 633 full sovereigns and 280 half-sovereigns.

They were found neatly stacked in several hand-stitched bags and would have been worth around 773 at the time they were hidden, well above the average house price of 619.

A treasure inquest is being held in Shropshire to determine what should happen to the hoard.

The collection is yet to be formally valued

The majority of the coins date from the reign of Queen Victoria and were found to be 91.7% pure gold.

At an inquest into the discovery, coroner John Ellery ruled that the gold coins were treasure but said: "We simply do not know how they came to be concealed."

An international media appeal, as well as local research, failed to shed any light on who put the 6kg hoard into the piano.

The instrument previously belonged to Graham and Meg Hemmings, from Saffron Walden in Essex, but they donated it to Bishop's Castle Community College in Shropshire after moving nearby in 2015.

A Gold Sovereign from the reign of Queen Victoria, dated 1847, was the oldest coin in the hoard.

A gold sovereign from the reign of Queen Victoria, dated 1847, was the oldest coin found

The couple had owned it for 33 years without any knowledge of its secret.

The hoard was discovered by tuning technician Martin Backhouse, 61, who initially thought the "gobsmacking" discovery was "moth repellent" before realising it was too heavy.

After slitting the stitching with his penknife, he realised there was "rather a lot of gold in this".

Both Mr Backhouse and the school could be in line for a windfall from the hoard's sale.

The collection of gold coins were found in this piano.

The collection of gold coins was found in this piano

Mr and Mrs Hemmings said they did not regret donating the piano to the school.

Mrs Hemmings said: "The sadness is, it's not a complete story. They've looked and searched for the people and they, unfortunately, haven't come forward.

"It's an incomplete story - but it's still an exciting story."

During the hearing, Peter Reavill, from the British Museum, said one of the packets contained an old Shredded Wheat advertising card, meaning the hoard was probably "repackaged" sometime during the Great Depression era.
Kunta Kinteh Island (Gambia) (AFP) - As the rebel slave who defied his captors, Kunta Kinte, immortalised in print and on screen in "Roots", put The Gambia on the map for historical tourism.

But the island where he and tens of thousands of west African slaves faced the horrors of being chained, branded and separated before leaving their homeland forever, is under threat from sea erosion and neglect.

Kinte's descendants, along with heritage officials, warn that without urgent action, 550 years of history could be lost.

They are pressuring the new government to preserve the country's historical memory for the next generation of Gambians and tourists.

The island's namesake sprang to fame as the central character in American author Alex Haley's "Roots: The Saga of an American Family".

The late Haley claimed to be a descendant of Kinte but doubts have been cast over the authenticity of this claim.

Although "Roots" has been criticised for historical inaccuracies, it indisputably heightened awareness of the horrors of the slave trade when published in 1976.

Mariama Fofana, believed to be an eighth-generation descendent of Kunta Kinte, sits in her home in Juffureh in The Gambia

The UN's cultural agency awarded the island World Heritage status as a memorial to an "important, although painful, period of human history", spanning the arrival of Portuguese traders in the mid-15th century through to its use as a holding cell for illegal slavers after Britain's abolition of the trade in 1807.

The parched-looking trees and brick ruins that occupy the island once housed dozens of captured west Africans awaiting passage to the New World, but whole sections of the slaves' quarters have already been reclaimed by the river's salty waves and high winds.

Decades of neglect

For Hassoum Ceesay, a historian and official at The Gambia's National Centre for Arts and Culture, it is time to seize the chance to reverse what he describes as two decades of neglect under former leader Yahya Jammeh, or risk losing the island.

The remains of buildings on Kunta Kinteh island in the Gambia River, previously used for the slave trade

"We are very hopeful that with this new government there will be more attention paid," he told AFP in a book-lined room at his home near the capital, Banjul, referring to President Adama Barrow, who took office in February.

"There was a lot of pressure, particularly from the former president, to sort of sift the history of the island," he said. "We resisted, and that resistance made the government reduce its attention and support."

He said that Jammeh even added mandatory days in his home village, Kanilai, to a tour aimed at diaspora tourists as part of a "Roots" festival, even though it is unrelated to the site.

Tourism numbers were badly hit by the protracted political crisis caused by Jammeh's refusal to quit after 22 years at the helm when he lost an election in December, another concern for heritage experts.

Kunta Kinteh island, on the Gambia River

UNESCO, which declared the island and its nearby villages a World Heritage site in 2003, describes it as "extremely vulnerable to erosion" and "needing protection". It is dispatching a team this summer to assess the site's condition.

Visitors need only glance at old maps to see by how much the former fort, which passed between Portuguese, Dutch, French and British hands, has already receded -- to a sixth of its original size by some estimates.

"The island was reclaimed from the river, so as time went on, with global warming, erosion became more pronounced," Ceesay said.

He wants the international community to undertake a total revamp of Kunta Kinteh island and related sites, which include a colonial warehouse and a Portuguese settlement.

Ceesay hopes the island can attract funding to ensure its future and wants to see investment in tour guide training, a resource centre, more focused educational tours and the development of the River Gambia for pleasure cruises.

National hero

In this small, poverty-stricken and largely rural nation, national heroes such as Kinte are few and far between and citizens feel that much is at stake.

Speaking at her family compound in the village of Juffureh close to the island, Mariama Fofana, believed to be an eighth-generation descendent of Kinte's, said young Gambians see him as "a role model and someone who believes in the values they stand for."

It was, she said, "a concern to everyone, (that) the island is getting eroded each and every day," urging international donors to provide funding that the cash-strapped government may not be able to afford.

Everything from naval ships to beach bars are named after Kinte in The Gambia, and his story has seen a renaissance with a recent remake of the "Roots" mini-series, and a name check in US rapper Kendrick Lamar's recent single "King Kunta".

But the slave who refused to take the name given to him by his American owners, and whose foot was cut off after multiple escape attempts, according to Haley's account, still inspires pride.

"We need to know about our history. That is the only way we can truly understand our potential," said Lamin Jammeh, a 17-year-old secondary school student who was waiting to visit the island for the first time.

Learning about Kinte was a way to "learn and start moving forward," he added.
A stakeholders consultation has been held to discuss the implementation of Ghanas National Cyber Security Policy and Strategy (NCSPS). The workshop which was designed to build knowledge on cybersecurity, allowed agencies involved in fighting cybercrime to share cutting-edge knowledge on their cyber security initiative as well as status of their activities and efforts twards implementing the NCSPS. It also provided a platform for stakeholders to discuss the implementations of the Ghana National Cybersecurity policy and strategy that was approved by cabinet in November 2016.

It was organised under the auspices of the US Department of State as part of the Security Governance Initiative which has cyber security as one of the key focus areas.

Mr. Joe Anokye the Acting Director General of the NCA who also doubles as the team lead for Focus Area 3 of the Security Governance Initiative (SGI) in his welcome address applauded the US governments efforts to assist Ghana to improve Ghanas security sector governance and capacity to tackle key security challenges in addressing three jointly identified focus areas which are the Maritime Security, Border Management and Integration and Cyber Security and Cyber Crime.

He expressed hope that the end goal of the Focus Area 3 will be to ensure that the Government of Ghana has effective systems, legal framework and capacity to ensure cybersecurity due diligence in preventing, detecting and prosecuting cybercrime.

Mr. Anokye said he was delighted with the diverse group of participants drawn together by shared dedication to combat cybercrime. He said the national team was expectant that the workshop would equip participants with knowledge of best practices, identify gaps and weaknesses in the strategy and make recommendations on how Ghana can best implement the cybersecurity policy and strategy to the benefit of all stakeholders.

The US Department of State was represented by Ms. Cari McCahren-Shah reaffirmed the US Governments commitment to support developing countries fight cyber related crimes. She said that they were happy to have a not for profit organisation, MITRE Corporation, to support them in this endeavour.

In his address, the Hon. Deputy Minister for Communications, Mr. Vincent Sowah Odotei called for a multi stakeholder approach to harness national and international best practices in implementing the approved policy and strategy. The Hon. Minister charged participants at the workshop to commit to collaboration and dedication in order to ensure a successful implementation of the National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy.

He reiterated governments efforts to roll out the National Identification Project which is key to synchronizing efforts within the government mechanism as well as avoid duplicating costs. In addition he stated that citizens will be able to use their ID for multiple and various services including passport acquisition, driving Licence acquisitions, social security registration, voters ID acquisition, births and deaths certificates among others when the project is effectively rolled out.

There were presentations from various agencies on their approach to managing cyber related crimes, their difficulties and their collaboration with both private and public institutions.

The participating organisations included Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affars, ECOCO, CERT-GH, Bureau of National Investigations, US Department od state, Financial Intelligent Centre, the Justice and Juditial Services and the Ministry of Gender.

Others were the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney Generals Department, MITRE Corporation, Natiol Security Council Secretariat,Computer Emergency Respons Team Ghana

In the discussions, Johanna Vazzana of MITRE praised Ghanas strategic goals, saying that they were well-thought out and ambitious, she however cautioned participants that these goals could not be achieved without collaboration and a connection of the objectives to the business goals.

Ms. Vazzana urged participating agencies to also think about analysing and managing risks of all Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) and IT systems instead of focusing on the vulnerabilities.

Ghanas National Cyber Security Policy and Strategy (NCSPS) was developed to address one of the four thematic gaps identified during the review of the Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) policy. The NCSPS policy has nine policy pillars and includes effective governance, legal framework, technology framework, response readiness and international cooperation.

Five special initiatives have been included in the first five-year strategic plan. These initiatives include establishment of institutional frameworks, creating awareness, ensuring coordination of cyber security initiatives and enforcement of cyber standards in Ghana. When fully implemented, Ghana will have a solid cyber security framework base to address its cyber needs.
His Excellency Robert Porter Jackson, the United States Ambassador to Ghana has paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Energy, Honourable Boakye Agyarko. The meeting which took place at the Ministry was meant to discuss happenings in the Energy Sector.

Welcoming the Ambassador, Hon. Agyarko thanked H.E. Jackson for the visit and acknowledged the US Governments support over the years.

The Minister gave an overview of Ghanas Energy Sector as well as initiatives Government is currently implementing to ensure that Ghana has a modern, diversified, efficient, and financially sustainable Energy Sector.

The Dignitaries also discussed other pressing issues as well as the upcoming Offshore Technology Conference (OTC).

The Ambassador on his part thanked the Minister for the warm reception and hoped for future dialogue.

Present at the meeting were officials from the US Embassy in Ghana and the Ministry.
21.04.2017 LISTEN

The 2016 National Best Farmer Robert Crentsil has expressed unhappiness about how after winning the national laurel he has not been invited to any national programs. Robert Crentsil who emerged overall winner of National Best Farmer in November last year explained that, after picking his laurel there was no national program that he and other winners have been invited to, a situation he said is not motivating enough to people who are contributing to the growth of the coutry.

The 43-year-old farmer, who hailed from the Ejumako-Enyan-Essiam District in the Central Region, was adjudged the winner of 2016 National Best Farmer last year held in Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo Region. Besides large acres of cocoa, rubber and varieties of food crops farms, Robert Crentsil is also into livestock production.

However after attending and picking his medal and other rewards at the Kintampo National program, Robert Crentsil told Bright Kwesi Asempa on Onua Fm morning Show Yen Nsem Pa that since the award, he has not been invited to any national event, adding that it seems as if he does not exist. Commenting on the Planting for Food and Jobs policy launched by the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo at Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region yesterday, the 2016 National Best Farmer noted that, as a major stakeholder and contributor to the countrys food hub, he was surprised he was not given an invite to attend the all important program. Explaining further, Robert Crentsil said the action is serving as disincentive to him and the rest of his compatriots.

When the host asked him how he felt watching the program from afar, the Best National Farmer for 2016 observed that, it would have been best if past and current national best farmers were invited to the program which directly falls in their domain. He reiterated that We also have something to contribute so at least the Minister should have first consulted us for our inputs. We are major stakeholders and industry players so our contributions are also important

Sharing his thought on the policy, Robert Crentsil believed that if the necessary push is given the policy, it would achieve its intended purpose, adding that when similar policy was introduced with code name Operation Feed Yourself it did not only give jobs to Ghanaians but also saw food in abundance across the country at the time.

He also called on the youth, especially those without jobs to embrace the policy.
Immigrant Ghanaian youth in Toronto-Canada are being offered the opportunity to discover their hidden talents in music and arts through a show dubbed TALENT AFRIQUE or AFRICAN GOT TALLENT to be held in June, 2017.

First ten finalists of the show will sign a contract with a major recording company in North America to produce their songs.

The first prize winner of the music and arts competition will sign a contract with a major recording studio in North America to produce his/ her songs, receive a cash prize of 3,000 dollars and a free trip to Africa.

Second prize winner will take home 2,000 dollars cash in addition to 40 hours free studio time to work on his or her music whiles the third prize winner will receive 1,000 dollars in addition to 20 hours free studio time to work on his music.

Mr. Emmanuel Quaye, a prominent Ghanaian resident in Toronto is the brain behind this maiden talent show being supported by God Dust Productions.

He disclosed these in an exclusive interview on April 20, 2017 when contacted to comment about how immigrant Ghanaian youth are falling victim to gun injuries and related assault violence in Toronto and America.

Mr. Emmanuel Quaye, observed that immigrant Ghanaian youth in North American more particularly Canada and United States of America, have rough diamonds of which lacking knowledge of how to polish them into precious minerals have fallen victim to fire arms injuries and assault related issues

He explained that African children in Canada the reason they are falling into this whole gangster image is because they do not recognize who they are and where they came from.

They bought a lie of where they came from and somewhere along the line we have to address the lie, remove the deception and live a different vision, a different portrait of what a young black man or black woman can actually achieve he held.

Mr. Emmanuel Quaye, noted that, African Canadians and African Americans are trying to find their true identity. But many of them are still confuse as to who they are and where they came from.

He further noted as a result of that some of our younger children are now finding themselves in uncultured and bad practices generation which is easy to find suffering assaults as a result of that they are searching for themselves through expression of music and arts.

It is for this reason Mr. Emmanuel Quaye, disclosed being supported with major sponsors are going to hold the first ever African Got Talent Show in Toronto to mentor these talented youth who otherwise falls victim to gun injuries to become stars.

So far, many Ghanaians in Toronto have applauded the effort of the organizers of the show since according to them it will help keep majority of the youth away from gun injuries and related assault issues.

Immigrant children and youth from Africa and Central America have been found to be three times likely to be shot than Canadian residents of the same age.

Again it has also been found that immigrants from Africa and Central America accounted for almost 70 percent of assault-related gun injuries in Canada.

These findings were contained in a special document by researchers who analyzed hospital records to determine which groups of people are most at risk for gun related accidents or violence assault in Ontario province.

According to the report which was first published by Toronto Sun newspaper, fire arms injure a child or youth almost every day in Ontario province.

The research finding was that there were 355 fire arms injuries an average each year among children and youth about 70 percent which resulted in death.

Shocked by the news this prominent Ghanaian with support from Gold Dust Productions are coming out with this maiden show to help immigrant Ghanaian youth stay away from gun crimes.

Audition and registration for the competition is free as interested persons can contact the organizers through [email protected] or call 001-647-657-1112 or 001- 647-569-8618 or 001-647-388-5751.
21.04.2017 LISTEN

My trip from Lagos (the commercial capital of Nigeria) to Accra had been littered with stress and complications. But Id know idea that ahead of me laid a more convoluted case. Id learned that confusion and complexity are not blood-related but whenever the two words cross path they spark fire and create controversy.

Yet, that wont stop me from looking into this inevitable question: Is Amale in bed with AMERI? Amales name has been trending everywhere. When you go there they say Amale, when come here they say Amale. Amale is at the coffee shop, Amale is in Makola Market Mr. Writer tell me who at all is this Amale girl, is she the most beautiful in this romantic city?

Oh Olusegun, the name is not Amale its rather AMERI so get over it, come out of the state of confusion. Be reminded were back in Accra, Ghana. And even though Manna has ceased to fall there are still some people whore lusting after the heavenly bread. In apropos, AMERI is an acronym for --Africa & Middle East Resources Investment Group LLC (Ameri Energy), a Turkish power giant.

Indeed AMERI has generated controversy across the nation but beyond that its caused individuals and institutions to lock horns amid scathing words. Here is one example: You are confused about aspects of Ameri deal, said IMANI a policy think tank to a former deputy Attorney General in the \Mahama-administration.

So if the chief attorneys are purported to be confused what would the traders in Makola do? It certainly begs the question. Thank Goodness the ink hasnt dried yet. This AMERII case seems like the biblical Sabbath story to me. Isnt the son of Man Lord over the Sabbath?

My question is: Why are we shooting ourselves on the foot? Who would throw $150 million into the drain for the sake of conflict of interest when its been established that value for money had been compromised or you got duped for a purchased product?

Who wouldnt accept boarding and lodging fees from the person who supposedly acted in bad faith over transaction, if thats the only way to redeem your lost money/? Why would you sell your cash-cow for a lame-duck? In other words, would you spend more money to redeem that which is lostflying a team to Dubai and spending days in the oil-rich Arabian city? At whose expense the nation thats already been robbed and bleeding?

Who refuses this, when the one who allegedly duped you says hes now open for renegotiation (come lets talk), not only that he would also foot your bills as you pursue justice and value for money?

The argument in support of conflict of interest is tenable no doubt about that. But ultimately youd break the Sabbaths ordinance which forbids you to go to the corn farm when your children are dying of starvation.

Ordinary speaking, when a committee is going to investigate a matter, it is true that the person or institution that is going to be investigated should not be seen to be giving benefits or providing facilities for the committee investigating the matter, but in the peculiar situation of this case there is a twist, said a former commissioner for Commission For Human Rights & Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Justice Emile Short.

..But in the peculiar situation of this case there is a twist. I like that line. Indeed there is a twist. But where is the twist, the twist is embedded in the Sabbath story.

The legal luminary said the Addison committees Ameri-sponsored trip to Dubai would require a thorough investigation since the situation is complex. According to Mr. Short although the incident appeared to be conflict of interest, the context in which it occurred makes it peculiar and complicated.

He further explained that the situation looked rather complex and it required some thoughtfulness before conclusions can be made. We have to look at the special circumstances of this case. The provision of government especially with regards to this Ameri deal and the fact that the company was the one that insisted the committee should travel abroad. So these are the parameters which any institution investigating the matter would take into consideration. It is not your normal situation, Mr. Short stated.

A-17-member committee chaired by Philip Addison was constituted by the government to investigate a $510 million power agreement with Turkish giants --Ameri Energy signed by the previous Mahama government.The committee said it discovered the former administration paid $150million more than they were expected to pay.

Meanwhile the Minority in Parliament says the committees report was biased and compromised by AMERIs sponsorship of the teams trip to Dubai to meet with the companys executives\. On Tuesday 18 April 2017, Minority Spokesperson on Finance Cassiel Ato Forson told the media in Accra that: What comes to us as a shock is that a three-day trip was extended to a week for reasons known to members of the committee?

Strangely the (Energy) ministers brother who is Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon who is not a member of the committee joined the trip on the second day of their visit, also under sponsorship of AMERI. A situation that is embarrassing, unethical and shameful, stated Mr. Forson.

In a sharp rebuttal the Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo says the Addison committee did not compromise itself by allowing AMERI to fund its trip to Dubai.

Elsewhere in the capital a policy think tank IMANI Ghana had locked horns with Mr. Dominic Ayine a former deputy Attorney General of the NDC government over the controversial $510 million power agreement with the Turkish power-giant. IMANI believes that the power agreement signed by the previous was a swizz.

And if you thought the confusion was over, it had rather oiled its squeaky gears gathering momentum The IMANI-AMERI team had copied Myjoyonline.com a statement regarding the power deal and had squarely put the blame on the deputy state Attorney General. In part the statement alluded that Mr. Ayine who led the legal transaction of the AMERI deal may either have been confused about aspects of the deal or let down by specialists at the Volta River Authority.

Led by the Vice President of the think tank, Bright Simons, the IMANI AMERI team maintains the power agreement was a rip-off. Here is an abridged form of the statement.

.

IMANI principals have been locked in a debate over the last week with the former Deputy Attorney General ("ex-DAG") who led the Ghanaian side in the AMERI deal.

Our exchanges with the former Government functionary on Facebook in recent days have however brought us to the sudden realisation that the ex-DAG may be completely confused about certain fundamental aspects of the deal he led.

Aspects so fundamental and elementary as to suggest that he was either woefully let down by his VRA specialist advisors or he failed to heed to their counsel.

Since the best path forward for Ghana is to get him and the former Power Minister to testify on our side, enthusiastically and emphatically, in any mediation or arbitration, to the effect that Ghana was lied to by AMERI regarding the costing of the "balance of plant" work and the derivative calculations for the implied tariff, we are going to add to our list of goals for this our longstanding AMERI advocacy project.

Top of that new list is the need to find more elaborate means to "demonstrate" the deceits this country has endured at the hands of AMERI.

Firstly, let us address the two main defences of the AMERI deal being canvassed by the ex-DAG and his supporters.

1. He is still unwilling to back down from the position that there was some massive extra work done by AMERI on the GE-made TM2500+ power plant-complex supplied by PPL through Metka.

He believes that AMERI or its subcontractors paid $120 million in order to get the machines ready to start supplying power to the Ghanaian grid despite our very clear explanation of the scope of work using the contract annexes, the GE product manuals, and a bill of quantities approach. So let us try a more vivid approach.

A. There is no dispute that Ghana secured ten TM2500+ power plants from AMERI. This is confirmed in the contract.

B. The TM2500+ is a compact, "power plant in a box" and NOT just a gas turbine.

It is the gas turbine PLUS several components of the "electrical balance of plant" and "mechanical balance of plant", mounted on four mobile trailers, needed to complete the "power plant in a box" concept of the TM2500+

C. The actual gas turbine inside the TM2500+ is the LM2500, a derivative of the CF6/Tf39 jet engines made by GE.

D. The LM2500 is sold on the open market for $9.5 million

E. Everyone knows that the TM2500+ is also sold on the open market for $22 million.

F. That means that in addition to the gas turbine, there is at least $12.5 million of additional components added to the LM2500 in order to complete the TM2500+ package.

Well that isnt the end of the IMANI-AMAERI statement and its certainly not the end of the confusion and the complexities of the whole power deal. But it is an eye-opener and food for thought. Going forwarded we have to be guided by the principles of value for money and due diligence.
Washington, DC, April 22, 2017  In an impassioned speech delivered at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, April 19, African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina spoke about Africas enormous potential, and the Banks ambitious development agenda, which he said was well underway.

The Washington think tank was an apt venue for Adesina to take stock of his first 19 months in office. Two years earlier, on April 16, 2015, the then Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development participated in a debate in that same room with other candidates vying for the AfDB Presidency ahead of the Banks Presidential elections in May 2015.

Africa was in the limelight for a very good reason, Adesina said ahead of a panel discussion on The Challenge and Logic of Greater Financing for Africa on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings. The African Development Bank set the leadership tone for all MDBs for the transparency in electing its President through an open and competitive process, he added, referring to the Banks live-tweeting of the election results.

Two years on, Adesina told the packed room that the vision he outlined in his inaugural speech, the five development priorities known as the High 5s, are being rolled out across the continent.

Our vision for Africa at the Bank is encapsulated in the High 5s: Light up and power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialize Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa, Adesina said, enumerating an impressive list of initiatives the Bank is undertaking.

We launched the New Deal on Energy for Africa, with a commitment of $12 billion from the Bank over the next five years, with the goal of leveraging $45-50 billion. Our goal is connect 130 million people to the grid, 75 million via off grids and provide some 150 million with clean cooking energy.

Weve set up a whole new Vice Presidency just for Power and Energy: the first and only Multilateral Development Bank to do so. Last year, we financed $1.7 billion in the power sector across 19 countries, and will increase this to $2 billion this year, leveraging $5-7 billion. Weve launched a $500 million Fund for Energy Inclusion with $100 million seed capital, to provide affordable finance for companies investing in renewable energy.

Just as electricity powers an economy, so does food provide energy for people. Africas annual food import bill of $35 billion, estimated to rise to $110 billion by 2025, weakens African economies, decimates its agriculture and exports jobs from the continent, Adesina said, noting that $35 billion is just about what the continent needs to close its power deficit.

To rapidly support Africa to diversify its economies, and revive its rural areas, we have prioritized agriculture, he continued. The Bank has committed $24 billion towards agriculture in the next 10 years, with a sharp focus on food self-sufficiency and agricultural industrialization. The recent drought and famine facing some countries (South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda) deserve swift action, as 20 million face food insecurity and severe malnutrition. The Bank is taking action and is planning to deploy $1.1 billion, following Board approval, to address the crisis and ensure that drought does not lead to famine.

Were taking action to level the playing field for women in Africa. Thats why we launched the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) with the goal of mobilizing $3 billion for women entrepreneurs.

Weve taken on the biggest social issue facing Africa today: the high youth unemployment rates. Today, a third of Africas 230 million youths (about 20% of the global youth population) are unemployed or discouraged, another 1/3 are in vulnerable employment largely in the informal sector while only 1/6 are in wage employment.

To tackle that problem, the AfDB has launched the Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment (ENABLE) Youth initiative for young Agripreneurs in several countries, including Nigeria and Sudan. It has also partnered with the European Investment Bank to launch the Boost Africa initiative for young innovative entrepreneurs, and is investing in training for young people in science, technology and math to prepare them for the jobs of the future.

Our vision for Africa is clear, said Adesina as he outlining some of the institutions successes in 2016:

 3.3 million Africans benefitted from new electricity connections;

 3.7 million Africans benefited from improved access to water and sanitation;

 5.7 million Africans benefitted from improvements to agriculture;

 9.3 million Africans benefitted from access to better health care services;

 7 million Africans benefitted from improved access to transport.
The Ministry of Finance has announced the establishment of a Solutions Service Unit at the ministry to give the general public an opportunity to offer information that could lead to the retrieval of revenues from tax evaders.

The Unit is to provide an additional channel for taxpayers to report their complaints and receive timely feedback and fair treatment.

Speaking to Citi Business News on the move, a tax analyst with Ali Nakyea and Associates, William Owusu Demitia lauded the move but called for resources to help the unit perform its mandate fully.

It is good to have a mechanism that will allow whistle blowers to report tax evasion but you need the political will. You have to work on the information that people give you. For me, that is critical, he said.

Even though the move is not new, Mr. Dimitia was of the view that moving it to the Ministry of Finance may be a calculated plan to make it more effective.

It is a good step. It is nothing new, it already exist just that now we are putting it under the Ministry of Finance. What we need to do is to get them the resources so that when the information is given we don't just shelve it, we go a step a further to investigate it and make sure that the perpetrators are brought to book, he stressed.

He observed that issues of tax evasion must be addressed since it critical to the improvement of revenue generation in the country.

A few people cannot be paying taxes for the majority of people to enjoy. So everybody would have to contribute their share.



By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
21.04.2017 LISTEN

Dormaa-Ahenkro (B/A), April 20, GNA - President Nana Akufo-Addo on Thursday said his government would institute regulations to guide and control indecent social media content.

He said regulating indecent communication was essential and could help control content posted on social media, which would also avoid denigrating Ghanaian societal norms and values.

The President noted this would instill some level of sanity and decency in the way information was disseminated in the advent of social media and technology.

President Akuffo-Addo said this when he paid a courtesy call on Osagyefo Oseadeyo Agyemang Badu II, the Paramount Chief of Dormaa Traditional Area on the final day of a two-day working visit to the Brong- Ahafo Region.

He had been to Goaso in the Brong-Ahafo on the first day to launch the 'Planting for Food and Jobs' initiative.

The visit was also to thank the people of Dormaa for voting him into power.

The President was responding to a remark made by the Omanhene to the effect that many Ghanaians were deliberately employing social media to indiscriminately and unreservedly malign, castigate, abuse and destroy the hard-won reputation of some highly respected and prominent personalities in the country.

President Akuffo-Addo expressed his government's preparedness to cooperate and work with traditional rulers irrespective of their political, ethnic and religious inclinations.

He reiterated his government's commitment and resolve to fight the galamsey menace and called for a concerted effort towards its total elimination noting that it was extremely crucial and vital to safeguard and preserve the country's natural resources for posterity.

He added that although the resources bequeathed to him by his predecessor was meagre and his government was determined to prudently find ways of managing and generating resources to prosecute Ghana's development agenda.

Touching on the emergence and activities of vigilante groups, he said people who committed criminal offences should be made to face the full rigours of the law irrespective of their status in society.

'Nana, even if you should go against the law you will be punished. Because the law is not a respector of persons', he stated.

He indicated that he would continue to seek the advice of the country's former surviving Presidents and hold periodic meetings with them to draw on their valuable experiences and wisdom to shape his government.

'This will not be nine-day wonder', he added.

The President tasked the Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister to work with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to ensure that a veterinary laboratory facility was provided to help poultry farmers in Dormaa to diagnose diseases of live birds and for research purposes.

'In the same manner, I will work to find solutions to taxes on medicines for poultry and construct cocoa roads', he emphasised.

On victims in Dormaa-Ahenkro whose households were struck with severe rainstorm in March causing extensive damage to property and several injuries, he tasked the Regional Director of NADMO to work together and help provide assistance to the victims.

The President expressed his determination to fulfil all campaign promises including executing and implementing the one district one factory agenda, free SHS policy and restoration of nurses training allowance.

Osagyefo Oseadeyo Agyemang Badu II, Paramount Chief of the Dormaa traditional area commended President Akufo-Addo for his recent initiative to seek the advice and consult the former Presidents of the land.

He described it as unprecedented in the history of the nation and asked him to make it a routine occurrence.

He appealed to the President to continue with the good works started by his predecessor in the provision of infrastructure for Dormaa including roads, development of a University Campus in Dormaa, and to complete the Community Day SHS in Danyame.

Osagyefo Oseadeyo Agyemang Badu II, pledged his full support as well as that of his subjects towards the success of Akuffo-Addo administration. GNA

By Robert Tachie-Menson, GNA
There are times when I think I shouldve gone into public relations, making good money shilling for some major corporation.

But then comes a firestorm like the one that engulfed United Airlines last week, and I say to myself, Man, am I glad Im not working for THOSE jokers!

Im not saying my job is all gumdrops and rainbows. There are times when the city council tables the most newsworthy item on its agenda, forcing me to  at the last minute  make a story out of Mabel Thistlewhistle being named to the Weed Commission.

But as tough as things get, Ive never had to put a positive spin on my employer revoking the service it had promised a paying customer and then, after he understandably objected, beating him up.

Youve all heard the story by now, and many of you have seen the video. United overbooked a flight from Chicago to Louisville, and, when no passengers volunteered to take a later flight, the airline picked Dr. David Dao at random to leave the plane. Dao needed to get to Louisville to treat patients, and refused to deplane.

United called in police to forcibly remove Dao, who was left bloodied, concussed and missing two teeth. Video of this violent eviction, posted online by other passengers, calls to mind the scene from Airplane! where everyone from Leslie Nielsen to a nun lines up to slap a hysterical passenger.

In the aftermath of this embarrassing gaffe, United got smacked around. As the companys value nosedived by an estimated $250 million, Uniteds PR hacks tried to control the damage: They said the airline was merely trying to re-accommodate the passenger.

I hereby introduce you to 2017s new word of the year, ready to be applied to myriad situations. Mike Tyson can now claim he merely re-accommodated Evander Holyfields ear. Wall Street simply re-accommodated the national economy in 2008. And now skittish United stockholders can re-accommodate CEO Oscar Munozs quarterly dividends.

Munoz didnt do his PR staff any favors, initially praising the flight crews handling of a disruptive and belligerent passenger. Fly the friendly skies, where well take your money, knock out your front teeth and blame you for it.

His response created further turbulence, prompting Munoz to issue a second statement declaring that the passenger wasnt to blame, and that the airline is ashamed. These are the days when the PR staff earns is fat paychecks. And considers leaving it all to start a rock band called Violent Eviction.

These also are the days when they consider leaving corporate PR for public sector work. But life isnt exactly perfect there, either. Just ask White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who got himself in trouble last week for dropping a Holocaust reference. After the U.S. bombed Syria in response to chemical weapons attacks, Spicer intimated that Bashar al-Assad is worse than Adolf Hitler, because Hitler never used chemical weapons. No, the Nazi leader merely re-accommodated millions of people.

Everyone but United Airlines, which was glad to have company in the international dunk tank, responded venomously. Its one thing to stand idly by while Kellyanne Conway insists our microwaves are watching us. Its quite another to compare Hitler favorably to ... anyone.

Spicer quickly apologized. These days, working in public relations means always having to say youre sorry.

Its times like these when Im happy to cover the Weed Commission. I just hope Mrs. Thistlewhistle agrees to an interview before my deadline, so I dont have to re-accommodate my laptop.
Kubriso (E/R), April 20, GNA - Mr Yaw Amponsah, the Upper West Akyem Mine Inspector, has incurred the anger of Mr John Peter Amewu, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, for being drunk on duty.

The Minister asked the mine inspector, who was visibly drunk during the tour of some mining sites in the Eastern Region, to report to the Ministry in Accra.

'How can such a person be responsible for monitoring? If you put people like this to work, there is no way you can expect any accuracy in terms of monitoring'.

'One person cannot be responsible for this huge area,' the Minister fumed.

Mr Amewu gave the directive when he led a team to tour some mining sites in the Upper West Akyem Municipality, Atiwa East and Denkyemboar districts in the Eastern Region on Wednesday.

Mines inspectors are responsible for monitoring the activities of players in the mining industry and report to the Mining Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission for the necessary action.

The tour followed a three-week ultimatum the Minister gave to illegal miners to evacuate their machines and leave all mining sites. The ultimatum expired on Tuesday, April 18.

The team, comprising officials of the Minerals Commission as well as some police personnel, visited communities including Akenten, Pianaman, Moseaso and Kubriso.

The minister expressed concern about monitoring of mining sites across the country and blamed the Inspection Division for lack of effective supervision.

Mr Amewu said the Government would increase the number of mining inspectors and equip them with motorbikes to ensure effective supervision.

Some illegal miners who were working on some concessions left the site upon seeing the team.

There were excavators abandoned at the mining sites while others were parked in front of houses.

GNA

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA
An illegal miner in the Eastern region says he feels betrayed by the governing New Patriotic Party which he supported to come to power.

Kojo  not his real name  who has been involved in ilegal mining, known locally as galamsey, for the past seven years, claims that the NPP in opposition promised to regularise the operations of galamsey - a promise he and other miners bought and decided to vote for the New Patriotic Party during the 2016 general elections.

He, therefore, feels deceived that after winning the elections, President Akufo-Addo has waged a war against illegal mining.

In an interview on Joy FMs Super Morning Show, Kojo said We are highly disappointed in this governmentthe president promised us that when he comes he is not going to ban galamsey but all of a sudden he has done a u- turn on us.

Illegal mining and the lack of strong regulations in the mining sector is having devastating effects on Ghanas water bodies.

The Ghana Water Company, earlier this year, had to shut down its Tanoso treatment plant in the Brong Ahafo region due to the drying up of the River Tano which has been attributed to the activities of illegal miners in the area.

The Ankobrah River in the Western Region, Pra and Brim, both in the Eastern region have been muddied due to persistent mining in them.

Officials of the Ghana Water Company have served notice that the country might import water from its neighbours by 2020 if something is not done about the illegal activity.

Alarmed by the repeated reports of destruction caused by the illegal miners, the Lands and Forestry Minister, John Peter Amewu has launched a campaign to bring the situation under control.

Related: Galamsey will be dealt with once and for all  Akufo-Addo assures

But the illegal miners are not happy about the development. Although some have agreed to halt the activity and allow the government to find more structured ways of doing it, some are not ready to stop.

For Kojo, it is never true that the activities of illegal mining are polluting river bodies.

He said none of the miners he knows uses chemicals in their mining activities, therefore the harmful effects the activity is said to cause is a lie, because nobody puts chemicals in the water.

He said banning illegal mining will be unfair to the four million miners who depend on the activity to fend for their families.

We all know that it is not good, but if the government helped us to do it in a better way or put measures on it, that will be better than saying it should be banned.

Related: Drunk mines inspector to be transferred as Minister tours galamsey sites

He said even if the government insists on banning the activity, it should first create opportunities for the many jobless youth.

If Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo wants to do the right thing, then he should first fulfil his one district, one factory promise.

In a response to how governments decision to clamp down on the activity is being received by the miners, Kojo said it is causing a lot of outrage amongst galamseyers.

He said because most of these miners are breadwinners of their families, they are uncertain of their future after illegal mining is banned.

Most of them are crying, their families are also crying, he said.

He, however, said the miners will get back at the NPP during the 2020 elections if President Akufo-Addo goes ahead with the plan.

They think they are in power today so they can take our food from our mouth. We are making plans for 2020 and no miner will vote for them. I will not vote for them and my family will not for them either, he said.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected]
The family of Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu aka JB, Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa North in the Eastern Region, who was murdered in cold blood last year, has made a passionate appeal to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to order the security agencies to re-open the whole case again.

Although two young men are currently standing trial at an Accra High Court over the gruesome murder of the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP, the family is insisting that justice might never be served due to the way in which the security agencies, particularly the Ghana Police Service, have handled the case so far.

A petition jointly signed by N. Kwaku Solomon and Kofi Atta, spokespersons for the Acheampong family which they say represents JB said, Just as the Ghanaian people want to know, tens of questions are lingering on the minds of the late J.B. Danquah-Adu's family which includes you (Mr. President) requires immediate steps to unravel the mystery behind his murder and arrest and prosecution of all those who have a hand in this.

Security Mistrust

In the petition, the family recounted instances that have given them cause to come to the conclusion that the late JB's killers might never be found if the president does not intervene.

It said in the petition titled, 'Petition to re-commission investigations into late Hon. J.B. Danquah-Adu's murder due to the lack of evidence by the Ghana Police Service' that, We are not happy with the Ghana Police Service. To us as a nation, we have confidence in them but their action has put their integrity on the line.

Clear Instances

Citing examples, the agitated family said, Credible media reports and preliminary accounts by the prime suspect, Daniel Asiedu, immediately after his arrest suggest that he was hired to kill J.B. Danquah-Adu, a man who held the centre of our family and thousands of his constituents among others.

The family added, A DAILY GUIDE newspaper publication reported that the suspect, Daniel Asiedu, told the police he was contracted to kill our cousin J.B. Danquah-Adu, for a price of GH2,000, part of which he used to buy shoes, adding, Interestingly enough, his accounts at the police station changed shortly after he was sent to the BNI cell and subsequently to the court. He claimed to have gone on a robbery expedition!

No Robbery

The spokespersons said, Mr. President, it is worthwhile to note that a number of security analysts ruled out robbery as the motive for the murder and that everything points to a premeditated attack. Meanwhile, the suspect reportedly mentioned names of his accomplice and others who may have hired him to commit the crime during the preliminary stage of the investigations but later changed his statement in court.

Mr. President, if the society we live in cannot protect its citizens or seek justice for such an honorable and astute businessman, who as a matter of fact is your cousin and his family fought with their blood to attain independence for our dear nation, then what is the faith of the ordinary hawker on the street and millions of homeless Ghanaian citizens if they fall into such circumstances? they wondered.

Shock News

On February 9, 2016, Ghanaians woke up to the shocking news of the murder of JB at Shiashie, near East Legon, Accra.

The Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, then led by COP Akuffo Dampare, quickly swung into action and arrested a suspect called Daniel Asiedu, aka Sexy Don Don  a native of Larteh in the Eastern Region  after two days of the gruesome murder.

Asiedu, in his first statement, had made what was described as 'mind-blowing' revelations upon his arrest and even mentioned the amount of money paid him by his 'recruiter(s)' as well as the role allegedly played by an unnamed MP, a supposed member of a certain political party.

JB's security man was said to be part of the plot, according to Asiedu.

BNI Custody

However, when the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) took over the case for further investigation, Asiedu made a sudden U-turn, allegedly changing his thumb-printed statement by claiming that he had gone to the late JB Danquah-Adu's house to rob and not to kill him.

Later on May 19, 2016, after being tossed between police and BNI custodies, Asiedu reportedly insisted that the statement he gave to the police on February 11 should be taken as the true reflection of what happened.

In the said statement extracted from him by the police in Accra, Asiedu, who had been returned to the police from BNI custody following a court order, had admitted that he committed the gruesome murder for a reward of GH2,000.

MP's Assignment

He had said emphatically in his statement that it was one Junior Agogo, who appeared to have been identified as Vincent Bosso, and another called Avenger who recruited him for the alleged crime and that when he asked them about the source of the money, the two had told him it was an MP's assignment.

Avenger was reportedly arrested by the police and it came at a time Asiedu had left the BNI cells.

Whilst at the BNI, Asiedu was said to be in solitary confinement and at one point claimed in court that the security operatives wanted to kill him through food poisoning.

Interesting Narration

I was at Zongo Junction dealing in second-hand mobile phones when my friends, by names Junior and Avenger, approached me and said they had a job for me to execute for an amount of GH2,000. They did not tell me the type of job and I thought it was a stealing operation (sic), Asiedu claimed in his statement.

He had told interrogators that on the following day, Tuesday, February 9, his two friends came in a taxi to pick him up at Madina Zongo Junction, went in the direction of Shiashie and stopped in front of a house and said there were flowers planted in front of it.

Ladder

It was Junior who called the security man on duty and told him he had arrived. In the vehicle, Junior was also talking to someone on his phone but I could not tell whether it was the security man or any other person, he had said, adding that the security man assisted them with a ladder and a table and Junior climbed first, followed by Avenger and then he (Daniel) followed after sometime.

JB's Room

The three of them, he said, entered the room through JB's window while he was sleeping.

He said Junior took the late MP's two phones and a catapult and handed them over to him.

It was Junior who stabbed JB with a knife, Daniel had claimed, adding that he (Sexy Don Don) left the catapult and his slippers behind.

He claimed he was paid the GH2,000 before they got to the crime scene and that he later used GH300 out of the GH2,000 to buy some clothes.

Daniel added that he kept the MP's Samsung mobile phone and told the other two what he got from the room.

Suspected Cover-up

On the eve of JB's funeral last year, then NPP MP for Obuasi East, Edward Ennin, had lambasted the authorities for not doing enough to bring the perpetrators of the heinous crime to book and said on Adom TV that he suspected an official cover-up.

According to the vociferous former MP, there was a video recording that appeared to show the moment the assailants of the murdered MP left the crime scene at his Shiashie residence.

CCTV Footage

A close circuit television (CCTV) appears to have captured that moment when Mr Ennin said a white Nissan Altima left the scene after the gruesome murder at dawn that February 9, 2016.

He said what he saw in the video clearly showed that the security agencies investigating the gruesome murder had not done enough to track down the perpetrators of the dastardly crime.

I am telling you that I have watched a CCTV video footage. The assailant had dressed like someone ready to fight karate. He was in black attire. A resident in the area had his/her CCTV camera capturing the assailant.

There was a white car (Altima K45), which is popular in town. What was the car doing in the area at that material moment? he queried.

By William Yaw Owusu


President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated that the processes leading to the creation of the Ahafo Region would be completed within 18 months.

According to the president, The time for the creation of the Ahafo Region is due. I promise you that within the next 18 months, the opportunity is going to be given for you to have the Ahafo Region.

President Akufo-Addo made this known on Wednesday when he visited the Acherensua Senior High School as part of his two-day tour of the Brong-Ahafo Region.

The president's statement drew a rapturous response from the hundreds of townsfolk, students and traditional rulers of Acherensua who had gathered at the school.

Thanking the chiefs and people for the support they gave him in the run-up to the 2016 elections, and for standing firmly behind the New Patriotic Party, President Akufo-Addo noted that his administration needs their support now more than ever.

The task ahead of us is an arduous one. We inherited a very bad economy. Nonetheless, and with God's guidance, we are beginning to turn things around and we are confident that we will succeed.

This is why from September 2017, the Free SHS policy, which was a major campaign pledge, will commence, beginning from those who qualify for entry in the 2017/2018 academic year, he said.

Touching on the specific needs of Acherensua SHS, President Akufo-Addo assured the authorities and students of the school that the ministry of education would address their concerns  the construction of a dormitory block and an ICT lab.

The rehabilitation of your science laboratory is one that is dear to my heart, and I will pay a lot of attention to it. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics education is one we have to pay much attention to if we are to succeed in this country, he pointed out.

President Nana Addo thanked the school for producing the Minister for National Security, Albert Kan Dapaah, stressing that Ghana is grateful to you for such a brilliant man. Perfect understanding and perfect cooperation is what I am getting from him.
All those who were making these statement will reflect back and regret even thinking of that statement and not even talking of voicing it out, and my follow Ghanaians will also reflect back and say why did we punish ourselves with hardship for good 8 years of NDC incompetent and backwards rule.

Nana Akufo Addo has never failed and will never fail, with just 100 days of his presidency the results are far better than NDC 8 year rule. Even my friends at NDC grassroot are testifying that President Nana Akuffo is making life better than their own party rule.

We can see the hope of better life, the hope of employment the hope for food, now my brothers and sisters at the training colleges have regained their financial strength, my wives and mothers nurses have also gained their monthly economic power back. This has created direct employment at the various training colleges across the country. Now student can afford to take their allowance and buy goods and other items in the provision kiosk on campus and their parents can also invest the money they will have send to their children on campus into their businesses and therefore creating employment

Reduction of fertilizers for farmers, I ask myself so he is able to do all these within 100 days and we allow ministers like OkuZeto Ablakwa to head a ministry that corrupted the teachers allowance and there were sharing the money.

I head the minority is asking for an investigation into the 100 days lavish parties of the president. If I could advise them to keep quiet because many of them make politics to be a crime people that could not analysis what to do to make Ghana developed. When I listen to OkuZeto Ablakwa saying there are stopping the allowance to allow many students to get admission to the college when student have graduated the college since 2012 and they are in the house without a job and he could not analyze this then we have a long way to go.

Ato Forson is there making all the noise when he was in the ministry of finance they could not employ nurses and teachers and just within 100 days the Competent president Nana Akuffo has given clearance to employ all the nurses and the teachers. I think they should have been making press conferences to acknowledge the emergency solution to the problems there created and could not solve for years, wisdom.

Nana Addo has gone beyond his critic of not a presidential material to unifier of the nation, when NDC government could not even invite their own founding father to the flagstaff house President Nana Akuffo Addo has invited all the former presidents to the presidency. Wisdom

My question is do we have to vote in 2020 my simple answer is no he should just continue his presidential second term and I hope Ghanaians will agree with me. If NDC want to contest him then they should remember they will be relegated to third party opposition.

President Nana Akuffo Addo has been very consistency in his vision for Ghana and to complete his fathers dream of developed Ghana. In his early years as a lawyer abroad he left that job abroad and returned home to fight for democracy and worn. His consistency in his choice of vice presidency for three consecutive times none of our presidential candidates has ever achieved this.

I will therefore ask EOCO to investigate the performance of the minority for and the money they took from national service registration, the teachers and nurses allowance and the ghost names in the government pay roll when the were in office to serve as a deterrent to them and the bad leadership of the NDC government.

The development of Ghana should not been seen as partisan but give credit to a leader who is experience, who is competent with excellent team of executives.

Thank God for our president.

Abongo Mashood

Interim chairman NPP Russia
The 2016 All People's Congress flagbearer Hassan Ayariga has said although he endorsed President Mahama in the 2016 elections, he knew the NDC candidate was going to lose.

He said President Mahama's campaign was doomed to fail because the disconnect between the party and the grassroots was glaring.

This disconnect became obvious to him after he found out that out of the 200 people who came to register to join his six-month-old party daily, 90% were defectors from the NDC.

He said he founded his party largely from NDC defectors who felt sidelined. Providing further evidence to back his claim of a despondent NDC grassroot, he said the 2016 election results validate his views.

According to him, the NPP largely maintained its 2012 votes but the NDC lost at least a million of its 2012 votes.

Yet before the election, Hassan Ayariga, disqualified by the Electoral Commission, endorsed the NDC incumbent John Mahama.

John Mahama

The APC leader explained he endorsed John Mahama because he called to console him for his political misfortune.

He told Joy FM Super Morning Show Friday this act of commiseration was also followed by similar calls from the CPP Presidential candidate Ivor Greenstreet and an independent candidate Jacob Osei Yeboah.

'The NPP never called me,' the businessman said.

At a meeting to choose which party to endorse, Ayariga said the regional executives voted to endorse John Mahama.

He said he cast the last ballot to throw his party's untested weight behind the tested candidature of President John Mahama who eventually lost.

Expect more...

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|[email protected]
A female resident who also sustained injury at her back after she was also beaten

The residents of Half-Assini and Ekpu, both fishing communities in the Jomoro District of the Western Region, have vehemently condemned the alleged brutality meted out to them by personnel of the Ghana Police Service who stormed the two communities to arrest some suspects recently.

According to the people, the two communities became 'ghost towns' immediate after the purported police brutality, as the residents ran for their dear lives.

They have, therefore, called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the Interior Minister to, as a matter of urgency, sanction officers who embarked on what they described as the barbaric attack on the people of Ekpu and Half-Assini.

Until justice is done us, we would not relent in our efforts to ensure that the culprits of these barbaric acts are brought to book, they indicated.

Over 200 police personnel, led by the Western Regional Police Command, DCOP Kwesi Duku stormed Ekpu, near Half Assini in the Western Region in the morning of Tuesday, April, 11, 2017 to harass and beat up residents.

The raid, according to sources, could be linked to an earlier attack on a police station in the area by the youth following the death of a resident, Assuah Buah in police custody.

The angry youth vandalized the police station and attacked the officer who was on duty at the time.

The police headquarters, in conjunction with the Western Regional Police Command, deployed eight officers and 284 other ranks to conduct a swoop at Ekpu in an effort to arrest the suspects. 50 residents were arrested in the process.

According to the residents, the police officers, who wielding batons, indiscriminately beat residents in the town, throwing the entire fishing communities into chaos.

Press Conference

Mark Asmah Arthru, Secretary to the Jomoro Youth Association, noted that even physically challenged in the communities were not spared by the police who used brute force.

The police officers who came from Accra and Sekondi also arrested students who were writing their WASSCE exams and their teachers, he asserted.

He alleged that the police acted unlawfully by failing to grant bail to the deceased who was in their custody after numerous attempts by the family members and some opinion leaders in the area.

The concocted story being peddled around that the deceased was beaten to death by fellow inmates is not only fallacious but gross insult of our intelligence, he added.

The MP

Paul Essien, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jomoro, who is also the Deputy Minister for Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, in an interview with the police, expressed surprise at the action of the police.

According to him, he had already booked an appointment to meet the IGP and the Interior Minister to find a lasting solution to the problem.

16 In Court

Meanwhile, after screening the 50 suspects, 16 suspects were hauled before court by the police.

They pleaded not guilty and were granted bail in the sum of GH2,000 each with three sureties to be justified. They are to reappear on May, 17, 2017.

Counsel for the suspects Lucy Blay disclosed that she would pursue the case to the latter.

She mentioned that some of the residents were injured by the police during the operation.

She also indicated that one Leonard Blay Morkeh, a physically challenged, who was assaulted, was receiving treatment at the Half Assini Government Hospital.

From Emmanuel Opoku, Half-Assini
DAILY GUIDE has gathered that minors in the Northern Region mostly ride tricycles also known as 'Yellow, Yellow.'

Most of the tricycle riders have dropped out of school to make money.

The Road Safety Department in the region has stated that the tricycle riders do not have legal backing to operate commercially.

Tanko Iddrisu, a Junior High School (JHS) student, who has dropped out of school to ride the tricycle, indicated that he makes GH150 daily, out of which GH50 goes to his master, GH50 for fuel and the rest into his pocket.

A cross-section of residents, who spoke to DAILY GUIDE, were of the view that the tricycle riders charge low fares compared to the taxi drivers, but indicated that it was not healthy for minors to operate vehicles.

Because the tricycle operators charge low fares, they get more customers and make more money which discourages minors from going to school because they get easy money daily.

A customer told DAILY GUIDE that he does not patronize tricycles operated by minors.

It is dangerous to board tricycles being operated by minors, who lack experience and do not know road safety rules.

I personally confronted a minor and asked him why he decided to operate the tricycle instead of going to school, it's a very sad development.

From Eric Kombat, Tamale


The power of witch-hunting allegation as a tool of stalling investigations in polarized political systems such as ours in which state institutions are begging for reforms is beyond imagination.

It is the most preferred means of attracting negative attention to investigations into suspected instances of major financial malfeasances against the state by mischievous political players.

In systems where state institutions work according to the statutes setting them up, such allegations have no place and would usually not have any effect on sincere efforts to bring culprits to book.

We have observed in the past few days since the Economic & Organised Crime Office (EOCO) began dealing with issues before them about growing efforts at presenting the state agency as a witch-hunting body obsessed with chasing former government functionaries and businessmen. Nothing could be far from the truth.

It is unfortunate that a few members of society would traverse such dangerous tangent and expect not to be regarded as villains and nation wreckers.

Fortunately, we can count on majority of Ghanaians to be against such bunkum which is nothing but a useless project to stall the efforts of the agency.

Ghana is certainly at the crossroads. We have, as a people, a rare opportunity to change the way things are done in a modern society where development is the cornerstone of all state policies.

We cannot witness growth when the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Agency (GRA) receives post-dated cheques for the payment of imports. It is not done and therefore considered an aberration which falls short of best practices. Indeed, it is a breach of the standard in this country.

Are those screaming their hearts out about EOCO doing its work comfortable with this arrangement and the blatant breach of standards by state institutions such as the Customs Division of the GRA? Such persons cannot pass for patriotic Ghanaians who are ready to let the interests of the nation overshadow their individual and myopic considerations.

EOCO, it is our position, should identify the customs officers at the highest level who allowed the regulations guiding payment of duties to be so abused.

It is certainly not a norm to accept cheques for the payment of customs duties let alone post-dated ones for two years. Such selective application of regulations does not make for good governance and optimum revenue collection.

The bending of the rule could not have been allowed by the lowly customs officers at the Port of Tema without an order from the topmost hierarchy of customs administration.

By this commentary, we demand the identification of whoever such persons are in the GRA so they can be questioned and possibly charged for negligence and other related charges.

If we want our country to work again, we should not shy away from taking actions intended to reverse the retrogression which the country witnessed in the past years.

EOCO and other investigative agencies must look beyond direct perpetrators of financial loss to the state. They must haul in for questioning public servants who facilitated the rip-off.

Until this is done, the dividends of the change we so love would not come to us.

Countries which have witnessed radical growth adopted similar hotheaded measures to reach where they are today.

Those who cheat the state and their accomplices in public service must face similar charges and possible prosecutions. EOCO, carry on and let truth be your guiding principle.
THE OKYENHENE, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, has dismissed claims that galamsey operators are digging under his palace at Kyebi in the East Akim municipality of the Eastern Region.

He has been criticized severally for looking on unconcerned as illegal miners destroy water bodies and lands in the Akyem Abuakwa state.

The Okyenhene has also been accused of engaging in galamsey (illegal mining) but the Akyem Abuakwa overlord in an interview, rubbished allegations that he condones galamsey and is involved in it.

People are saying the palace is being dug; go round it and see. If I wanted to do mining, I would take my land, I don't have to ask anybody, go to the Minerals Commission and secure proper licence to do proper mining.

Why would I turn around and steal my land to engage in such dirt? he questioned, adding, I don't support galamsey.

To ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the allegations, media practitioners took a walk around the palace.

One side of the palace is a walkway and also shares a wall with other residents, which makes it impossible for galamsey activities to be undertaken there without the residents noticing.

The other side faces the main street that leads to the Kyebi funeral grounds as well as the Ghana Water Company pump station. The southern wing of the palace, which has the back gate, faces the Doctor J. B. Danquah Street.

Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, who expressed optimism that the recent fight against illegal mining would be successful, stressed the need to preserve the environment for future generations.

Yes, there may be some chiefs clandestinely doing this [galamsey], but I can tell you, I'm not holding brief for them; most of what goes on is beyond the chief's power, he said.

The Okyenhene explained that they [the chiefs] are only custodians of the land, but what is underneath the land does not belong to chiefs. According to the traditional ruler, Most of what you hear is not chiefs granting lands; its individual farmers who are approached by these galamseyers to buy their land and then they proceed to inform the chiefs that 'the Minerals Commission has issued me a licence to come and do this and so these persons have granted me the land' and so they give the chief what we call drink money.

Osagyefo, who is the President of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, advised chiefs and politicians who are in the galamsey business to the extent of conniving with foreign nationals, to desist from the practice so as to preserve the environment.

BY Daniel Bampoe
LaRon McKinley spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement.

After a months-long hunger strike in 2016, McKinley was moved in October from Waupun Correctional Institution to the Wisconsin Resource Center, a facility run by the state Department of Health Services for inmates with mental illnesses.

Now 61, McKinley rejects the diagnosis that he is delusional. But in a phone interview  allowed under DHS rules  he acknowledged that spending about 28 years in solitary damaged him psychologically.

McKinley was placed in administrative confinement  a form of solitary with no set end date  after two violent incidents in the late 1980s.

One was a physical altercation with a fellow inmate. The second was an escape in which McKinley shot a sheriffs deputy and a second deputy was injured when he jumped from the vehicle used to transport McKinley. The gun came from a female jailer, who was later prosecuted for her part in the escape.

McKinley has committed other acts that have kept him in solitary. Over the years, he has received 17 conduct reports for battery or assault, most recently in 2013, when he threw feces on a correctional officer, according to the DOC.

McKinley is suing the state Department of Corrections in federal court, arguing that the continued isolation impairs his capacity to process information and function normally, which puts him in a Catch-22 of indefinite isolation that they know he is unable to extract himself from.

In a response to his lawsuit, the DOC denies some of McKinleys alleged conditions in confinement, including the constant screaming and banging, extreme high or low temperatures and abuses by security staff.

McKinley spoke to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalisms managing editor, Dee J. Hall, by telephone from the Wisconsin Resource Center. Here is part of the transcript of that conversation.

Q: Are you the longest person serving in this status in the state of Wisconsin, as far as you know?

A: Yes, to my knowledge.

Q: Can you tell people what daily life is like in that status?

A: In the DOC, you spend 23 or more hours a day in a cell alone in an environment that has little meaningful stimulation, you know, mental or physical isolation from not only from your family and whatnot but even the people around you, other prisoners. Its an environment where, you know, you experience a real deep loneliness and isolation from people  your own social group, society, your family, and its an environment that is psychologically dangerous, you know, from my experience.

Q: How did you end up at the Wisconsin Resource Center?

A: In the course of that hunger strike, which lasted about 82 days and I believe I was force-fed about 67 of those days, the DOC, through the warden and deputy warden there at Waupun, approached me with an offer to send me here and to engage in programming that, if completed, then .... I would be able to work my way out of administrative confinement and I would be sent to another DOC system, because the DOC officials agreed that I would be set up for failure if placed in the DOC system in Wisconsin. Because they seem not to be able to let go of my past.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your past and how you ended up in administrative confinement.

A: In 1988, October 24th of 1988, I was in the general population of Waupun, working in the prison industries  and told to train another prisoner, which I started doing. ... He attacked me with weapons and these were tools we were working with  He got injured real bad and I ended up with no  not even a scratch on me. But he ended up with multiple and pretty serious injuries and so they charged me with battery.  and from that point they placed me in administrative confinement, and it was a slippery slope from then on.

Q: There was an incident in which you attempted to escape and some deputies were injured. Do you want to tell me about that?

A: I befriended a female deputy sheriff and she helped me escape by bringing me a weapon into the jail, and deputies were hurt doing a transport from Milwaukee to Madison, and I escaped for a short period of time and I was recaptured  maybe a matter of several hours. And this crime is one of the crimes that I was also placed in administrative confinement (for).  Police or criminal justice officials are a fraternity, so if you do something to one somewhere, then you know these officials everywhere have a problem with you ... They have a long memory of that.

Q: The Wisconsin Resource Center is a place for inmates that have mental illness. Can you tell me what your diagnosis is?

A: They diagnosed me, I was diagnosed with delusional disorder, but this is something that I deny.  They induced these symptoms through these coercive psychological techniques that they engaged in just to pay me back for my crime in Milwaukee with the deputy sheriffs and other conduct that I engaged in, you know, assault against DOC officials over 25 years ago. This was a retaliatory thing that they engaged in against me and it induced these symptoms. So, Im fine. I refute, I deny that I have any type of mental illness.

Q: What is your ability right now to deal with people? Youve been largely shielded from normal human interaction for quite a long time.

A: After being isolated for so long you become distrustful of people and you feel uncomfortable in large groups and you have to readjust to just being in proximity of other people and interacting with them and whatnot. Even now, Im very sensitive to stimuli. I have hypersensitivity to noise and sound. Strong startle reaction. So, Im still wrestling and struggling with the effects of long-term isolation, but the staff here are very skilled and theyve given me a chance to demonstrate that I can work myself through this.

Q: What was the goal of your hunger strike and do you feel like maybe youre accomplishing some of those goals right now?

A: I believe that some of my own personal goals in terms of to get myself out of the mental and physical abuse that I was being subjected to and the lack of opportunity to show that I could progress out of administrative confinement ... I believe I accomplished that. But we still have a lot of work for the individuals who are being held in long-term solitary confinement now  So we still need to have a cap, a limitation, placed on that type of confinement.

Q: Anything else youd like to say?

A: I would like to say that there needs to be emphasis, re-emphasis, placed on the concept of rehabilitation  to deal with high management and difficult-to-manage prisoners and administrative confinement prisoners to stop them or prevent and help them from being held in long-term isolation. Because its a psychologically dangerous form of confinement. Its harmful to humans. And there needs to be something done about it. Legislatively or otherwise, negotiation  by any means necessary.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC ) Member of Parliament for the Keta Constituency, Richard Quashigah, is on the heels of the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, demanding an apology from him for calling the Minority ignorant over the sale the domestic bond issued by government.

The Minority at a recent press conference accused the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta of conflict of interest, for allegedly selling the $2.25 billion domestic bond to his cronies.

But Dr. Bawumia speaking to media at the IMF/World Bank Spring Meeting in Washington, described the Minority as ignorant for criticizing government over the bond.

Dr. Bawumia (L) Ken Ofori-Atta (R)

A statement signed by the Deputy Ranking Member on Employment, Richard Quashigah, described the Vice President's statement as jaundiced.

If indeed those were his words, then it is not only unfortunate, but a very jaundiced conclusion to have been made by him, Mr. Quashigah said.

Mr. Quashigah in the statement further cautioned Dr. Bawumia to be mindful of his comments saying his words could cause Ghana an international embarrassment.

If indeed the reportage as put out by the media is accurate, then he is advised to learn to speak with diplomacy and dignity expected of a Vice President or else before long he could cause this nation an incalculable international embarrassment. Assuming without admitting that the minority got it wrong, couldnt he have clarified without insults?

He further called the Vice President to do the honourable thing by apologizing.

Mr. Bawumia, the current Vice President of Ghana, must do the excellent thing by withdrawing and must apologize to the good people of Ghana. The use of intemperate language is unbecoming of the Vice President, the statement added.



By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
The Volta Regional House of Chiefs has suspended indefinitely, the Paramount Chiefs and Queen Mothers of Nkonya and Alavanyo for their inability to maintain peace between the two traditional areas .

This follows renewed troubles which left two people dead and others in critical condition at Nkonya .

The President of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, Nana Soglo Alloh, confirmed the suspension to Citi News after a closed-door meeting with the Volta Regional Minister on Thursday.

He explained that, the House of Chiefs took the decision because they were not happy with developments in those areas.

We are saying that, as far as we are concerned, even though we are not blaming them for their direct involvement, we think they have a responsibility of bringing peace in their traditional areas.

Nana Alloh further explained that, the Nkonya and Alavanyo chiefs and queens have also been stripped off any privileges they enjoy including financial benefits until a peaceful solution is attained and the issue is resolved.

Nkonya killings will be treated as a criminal matter  Minister

Meanwhile, the Volta Regional Security Council has said it will handle the recent killing of the two persons at Nkonya Zongo on Wednesday evening as a criminal matter.

During a media briefing on Thursday, the Volta Regional Minister and Chairman of the Council, Dr. Archibald Letsa, sought to in the meantime, isolate the killings from the long-standing land dispute between the Alavanyo and Nkonya communities.



By: Godwin A. Allotey & King Norbert Akpabli/citifmonline.com/Ghana
21.04.2017 LISTEN

In this report, Odimegwu Onwumere writes that there are loggerheads surrounding the Health Insurance scheme, causing intricacies in the areas of regulation and implementation, thereby creating loopholes for funds to go down the drain

A clash of interest has been brewing between the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the parent body of Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) in Nigeria, Health and Managed Care Association of Nigeria (HMCAN).

A seeming fraud has allegedly been exposed in the Health Management Organisations (HMOs) by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare, early March this year, to the tone of N350b.

Irked by the shoddy picture, Chairman of the Representatives Committee, Chike Okafor frowned that the money in question was the eventful efforts of Nigerians in making the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), an initiative of the federal government since 2005 after the Health Act of 1999, was made. Okafor therefore advised the NHIS to hold back from funding HMOs till examination into the matter was completed.

The federal government had although convinced the citizens that there was going to be NHIS monthly capitation under the National Health Insurance Scheme Act Cap N42, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, meant to actualise the universal health coverage for the citizens but especially for children, women and the vulnerable in the society, through inexpensive cost and diverse prepayment systems. This was after the institutionalisation of NHIS in 1999 via Decree (now Act) 35 of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Owing to the fact that health insurance is regarded as one of the most influential insurance policies, the NHIS was given a mandate to see that Nigerians did not lag in their overall health concern. But this exquisite initiative might have lost its focus as fraud and irregularities have supposedly been characterising the effort to give Nigerians a befitting health insurance.

Experts judged that there was a glaring misinterpretation in the way the health insurance has been handled on the part of government officials that hypothetically wanted to implement and regulate. The experts were consequently calling on the authorities for a talk in order to take a stand, given what the law has said. They believed that the government should not be the implementer of the health insurance and as well, as the regulator. In their effort, they wanted the government to come in as a regulator whereas the implementer would be the HMOs.

Speaking to newsmen on the issue in February, Prof. Mustapha A. Danesi, a consultant physician/neurologist at the College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL)/Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said, So at present the government seems to dabble into implementations rather than keep strictly to regulation and I believe it is in the interest of everyone to make sure that government keeps to its role as regulator and facilitator.

In the cause of investigation, Mahmud Yusuf, NHIS Executive Secretary threatened to resign when the Pandoras Box was discovered in the health insurance agency and he did not sing a different song to that of the Representatives, saying that the health insurance agency has not lived up to the responsibility it was formed. Yusuf said that not upto 5 per cent of Nigerians have been covered by the insurance scheme as against 60 per cent that was the nomenclature on ground at the formation of the health insurance agency.

Given the slapdash practices in the way funds meant for health insurance have been handled, some private health organisations in the country had earlier raised their voice in the way remittances were made in the NHIS monthly capitation. Some private organisations in a state like Plateau State made this known. In February, Chief Medical Director of Sauki Hospital in Jos, Dr. Daniel Gana, who was a former Chairman of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Plateau State Branch, was angst-ridden.

Gana said that the federal government has only been keen in staying at the NHIS office in Abuja, but allowed other individual health and other organisations to totter. Ganas words were that some organisations that include Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) were paid up front, every quarter, by the federal government. Literarily, Ganas statement suggested that hospitals nationwide hardly get their salaries as at when due. For instance, checks revealed that as at February 24, 2017, no hospital across the country received their salaries, making what the hospitals are doing now as just humanitarian services.

There are obviously many challenges facing the health sector in the country. The 2017 budget of 4.15 per cent for health, for instance, is the fraction of 3.65 per cent it was in 2016, as against 15 per cent WHO and African Heads of State declared for countries healthcare in a meeting at Abuja in 2001. The federal government was oblivious or it knew but pretends to shy away, that health insurance has been hardly penetrated in the country given its (federal government) unconcern attitude to the health sector.

Pundits in the health sector like the Chief Executive Officer of Novo Health Africa Ltd, Dr. Dorothy Jeff-Nnamani said, "with the objective of providing healthcare delivery solutions across Nigeria and internationally through collaborative partnerships", while in a public presentation in 2015, that the government has not really made the citizens to understand what insurance really is.

Jeff-Nnamani was of the opinion that aside the health sector, the citizens were still aloof in the understanding of insurance in its entirety. Manifestly in a religious country like Nigeria, the source added that majority of the citizens dont agree in preparing for the unanticipated circumstances that might befall them hence the churlish for insurance. On the assertion that the federal government has only been sitting at the NHIS office in Abuja, Nigerias seat of power, to supervise the health insurance scheme, the source added that federalism has been part of the culprits besetting the health insurance.

The highlight of this is that the federal government insures public servants in its employ, but the state governments most times do not follow up, thereby not relieving their employees the insurance they needed. In a nutshell, the specialists believed that the authorities have made health insurance unattractive to the citizens in a country known for nepotism. Those who know better were of the view that health insurance should not have any barrier in how people access healthcare.

While fielding questions to newsmen in January this year, Danesi said, Nigerians do not need free health but free access to health. Free access to health is only available to those who have a lot of money. Danesi had a view that lack of finance was not only the barrier in accessing healthcare; many people that had the money hardly get healthcare as at when due.

In a quest to proffer a solution to resolve the crisis rocking the Health Insurance scheme, Danesi added, Regulation means, make sure that the laws are implemented and make sure every accredited HMOs are quality HMOs, and make sure that accredited health care providers are quality providers. Those are regulatory issues and make sure that the money that is paid is properly kept and disbursed to the HMOs in order to pay the providers and so on, and that is facilitation. If we are housing the money that is paid, disburse it as fast as possible so that there will be no hitch in the implementation.

The source, however, frowned at the situation where a patient lineup in the hospital for hours to see a doctor; something that ought to be easy for the patient. Adding, it stated that in a state where free access to health is fad, it means that a patient sees the doctor on arrival to the hospital and not need donkey hours to see a doctor. This is even as a Senior Director for the Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice at the World Bank, Dr. Tim Evans, said, Universal health coverage is an essential ingredient to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity within a generation. Putting peoples health needs ahead of their ability to pay stems poverty and stimulates growth.

It is believed by connoisseurs that the only way to get free access to health is through health insurance.

Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet, Writer and Consultant based in Rivers State. He contributed this piece via: [email protected]
Issues of the child marriage and teenage pregnancy have become foremost in the fight for equality for women in society.

According to UNICEFs State of the Worlds CHILDREN 2016 Report, 21% of Ghanaian girls are married before they are 18, with the rates being as high as 39% in the past.

Speaking at the 23rd F Zonta International District 18 conference, First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo said although government has done a considerable amount of work in the area, there is much left to be desired.

There has been a growing concern about child marriage in Ghana mainly from civil society organizations, the government and other donors.

Although recent data shows that the practice is reducing, one in five young women get married before the age of 18.

Speaking at Zonta International District 18 conference under the theme Empowering women through education on safe motherhood and advocating against teenage pregnancy and early child marriage of girls, First Lady Rebecca Addo urged all women to join the fight against child marriage and teenage pregnancy. When women come together, we are a formidable force to reckon with.

"This formidable force made up of our collective energy, wisdom, political consciousness, passion and Doggart persistence is needed even more in the coming years, she said.

She referred to the 2030 target for the attainment of the SDGs as an international acknowledgement of the power of women across the world.

Speaking on the goals of the new NPP government in gender issues, the first lady assured the public that although the government has made strides in womens issues, there is still much more to achieve.

We have a good number of women in our current government as Members of Parliament, Ministers and in other key positions, but we all know we can do better.

She said, Our president Nana Akufo-Addo has made gender equality a priority by assuring the nation that the affirmative action bill will be passed soon."

Speaking to JOY BUSINESS, Zonta Conference Coordinator Oppeibia Omaboe said the conference is a great avenue for stakeholders to discuss ways in which the practice and occurrence of teenage pregnancy and child marriage can be reduced and eventually eradicated.

This is a forum for all women to come together and address the issues. We must be doers and not just speakers of the words we preach

The conference brings together over 200 and like-minded organizations from across the continent to push the fight against discriminatory practices against women.
Now Ghana, our beloved country is free forever Dr. Nkrumah emotionally said. When he made this profound statement, our would-be great grandparents, grandparents and parents went into raptures; However, I always get confused whenever I compare the uproar in the footages after that declaration and the prevailing conditions in the country 60years after the same. I sometimes wonder whether free forever is synonymous to terror and suffering forever; if also because of the several lives that would be lost as a result of the several military disruptions that ensued. Such that, 60years on, we are now boasting of maintaining 24 continuous years of political stability.

As our wise elders say but if you hate a duiker, not its swiftness. The whole world fought and vehemently opposed the apartheid in south Africa until their late attainment of independence in the early nineties, but compare their level of development vis-a-vis the development of Ghana and see how dwarfed ours is, with all our first black African nation to attain independence mantra.

Just take a look at areas like Cantonments, Labone and all the British designed areas, and compare them with areas like Agbobloshie, Bukom and the many other slums created by our own Ghanaian natives, and pass your own judgement. Again, consider the design of schools like Achimota School and the University of Ghana, and personally assess if the colonial masters left nothing we can emulate. Indeed formal education, the potent tool that bridges the gap between the rich and the poor is their handiwork.

Interesting enough, even Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who declared the so-called independence, acquired all his political models and/or ideologies during his stay abroad. He acquired all his advanced school certificates from schools in the U.S.A and the land of his colonial masters, who, he would immediately expedite the already initiated processes to wrestle power from, upon his return.

It is also worthy to underscore the fact that within the stable, although shockingly long overdue, 4th republican dispensation, only one of our presidents; namely, Flt. Lt. J.J Rawlings, acquired all his educational qualification in Ghana. Ironically though, he alone would get unto the apex seat through a military coupe, before the formation of the 1992 constitution, after which he got democratically elected.

Leaders come and leaders go, but the story of our beloved country remains the same. Now I strongly believe that had the British not come to colonize us, we would still be walking naked today. No leader is willing to change the status quo, except to grab all the titles in the world and amass as much wealth as possible before they are voted out for the others to come and enjoy the same!

Which western nation will beg illegal gold miners and give them ultimatum to speed up with the criminality and accumulate as much gold as possible before the deadline, beyond which the already existing laws would then be enforced? Come to think of it, how could a Chinese ambassador threaten us to refrain from talking about their illegal gold mining nationals, or else incur their wrath to end their donor support, which is far below the wealth those perpetrators accumulate from perpetrating those illegalities? Only Africa!

I am tempted at times to share the idea of those, who are of the view that we go back to renegotiate with the British, just like what the prodigal son in the bible did when he came back to his senses, telling them we are sorry. They should forgive us and take us back. And tell them to give us some of their fringe economic players to come down here and manage the country for 50 years, and share we the citizenry among the EU nations and America, after which we can come back for resettlement if we so wish.

In any case, most of our citizens are already in a hurry to acquire citizenship of more advanced countries with the least opportunity. We even scandalously topped the recent rankings as the country with the highest American lottery applicants. And even our leaders, who are supposed to lead the way; do not miss the opportunity to take their wives to America to deliver their kids so as to automatically acquire their citizenship. But had the founding fathers of America also shied away from developing their countries, would acquiring their citizenship be attractive to us today?...hmmm

Even though our leaders have taken us for ransom, there are some others, who, in their own small ways have contributed immensely to the course of mother Ghana. For example, I remember the utmost level of sacrifice and patriotism that Supt. Salifu Dagarti, demonstrated to maintain the unity of the nation, when he threw himself in the way to take the bullet aimed to assassinate the then president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. I also remember the likes of Prof. Adu Boahen, who led the movement who advocated for the end of the culture of silence in a very hostile environment. Again, I remember Yaa Asantewaa; a woman, who did not sit unconcerned when her people were in captive, but rose up, took the bull by the horn and liberated them.

These people among a legion of many others always gives me hope and belief that there are still patriotic individual who can sacrifice through thick and thin, like the founding fathers of the westerners, to form a solid foundation for the unborn generations.

Email address: [email protected]

A concerned citizen.
21.04.2017 LISTEN

By Regina Benneh

Nkoranza (B/A), April 21, GNA - Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Satina Aboagye, Brong Ahafo Regional Coordinator of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU), has called on the public to support the fight against early and force marriages in the society.

She observed that child marriage has increased greatly in the society especially in the rural areas thereby destroying the lives and future of children.

DSP Aboagye made the call at a review meeting jointly organised by DOVVSU, the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).

The meeting, attended by 25 representatives drawn from market women, queen mother's Associations, media, farmers, religious groups, Ghana Federation of the Physical Challenged, dressmakers and hairdressers and beautician associations, was aimed at assessing performances and challenges of the 25 people.

They were trained to be ambassadors and advocates against early and force marriages of children in their communities.

DSP Aboagye urged the public not to shield perpetrators of such harmful acts, but to assist by reporting at the appropriate quarters for the law to take its course.

She stated that there were laws that dealt with child marriages and DOVVSU would continue to draw educational programes which would be aired to sensitize the public against the practice.

He urged the public to know their rights to be able to resist early and force marriages and advised parent not to neglect their children by pushing them to stay in the homes of those who impregnated them, but rather, they should assist the girls to take care of the babies to enable the teenage mothers to continue with their education.

Some of the participants appealed to the organizer to organized special early and force marriages programes for opinion leaders especially men, to alert them on harmful effect of the practice, since they were the head and decision makers of the family.

They also called for the implementation of the puberty rights in a very modernise way to check the young girls from engaging in premarital sex.

GNA
Rights are entitlements that people demand: a conversation with Dr. Isaac Annan, Deputy Director, Human Rights Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice

Ghanas human rights record comes up for review at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, in November 2017.

The review is conducted under the UN Universal Period Review (UPR) with submissions from civil society groups and government. Prior to the review, about 70 civil society groups under the Ghana Human Rights NGOs Forum held a pre-UPR submission workshop in Accra, Ghana, in March. Dr. Isaac Annan, Deputy Director in charge of Human Rights at CHRAJ addressed participants at the workshop.

A few days later, I sat down with Dr. Annan in his office to probe his perspective on human rights in Ghana. Introducing myself as an ACILA/Fulbright researcher, I told Annan that I was interested in learning more about the challenges that Ghanaians face in securing and defending human rights in the country. He immediately responded by challenging my own definition of human rights, asserting a much more profound and complex understanding than common American and European notions of human rights. Our provocative conversation ranged across issues of international cooperation, democracy, education, class dynamics, political promises, and peoples power. The text is lightly edited for length.

JH: So tell me a bit about yourself and how you came to a certain perspective on human rights?

IA: I started here, from 1993 when the commission was set up. I studied law in Ghana, then did my masters in human rights at Essex University, then my PhD at Leeds, emphasizing economic, cultural, and social rights, specifying the right to development as a human right. I was taking a cue from, motivated by, provisions that the most secure democracies are those that provide the basic necessities, including education, housing. That was where my research focused. So Im de-emphasizing human rights within the context of civil liberties. And deconstructing human rights as seen by intellectuals and lawyers, human rights from purely American perspectives. So my thesis is about securing human rights and whether after two decades, human rights in Ghana are secure. I did it in the context of international cooperation, the role of international development partners, whether they have an obligation to our states given the non-availability of resources to implement economic, social, and cultural rights.

JH: So do you find that frustrating, when youre working with the US and the US sees human rights in the narrow way?

IA: Yes, I find that frustrating. Because when the US talks about human rights, its about liberty. And the average Ghanaian intellectual, a lawyer, or the elite understands human rights this same way, from the perspective of, you know, right to vote, freedom of the press, and those sorts of civil liberties. Academia has not been able to rise above that. So if you review law programs, then theyre talking about legal rights and you dont have talk of human rights apart from legal education, which is so narrow. Human rights is not taught as a core subject in most faculties of law. They are electives. And where it is taught, I wonder about the background of those who are teaching it. Because of our background, we came from a revolutionary background, a dictatorship, so people have understood rights to be freedom of the press, freedom to participate in the electoral process, etc. Freedoms.

Freedom means that people are free to form political parties, you have a voice. And that ended the debate. And then there are politicians telling you that we have promised to give you rights. You dont promise to give people rights. So that is where I see a real poverty of ideas, a real deficit. Thats my position. And that is one of the major findings of my thesis. Because rights are entitlements. Theres a great deception among politicians that theyre giving people rights. You dont give rights. Rights are entitlements that people demand.

JH: A part of CHRAJs work is collecting reports of human rights abuseswhat are the challenges you face in getting people to come forward?

AI: Our services are free. And weve done a lot of public education so they easily can walk into our offices and just lodge their complaint. I think you are going back to the American way of thinking, that people are tortured or intimidated. Theres no inhibition. In Ghana the challenge we have, and Im going to say it forcefully, people dont understand the whole gamut of rights that they have, that they have to demand. So if the average elite says they are championing human rights in Ghana, ask them what are human rights. Because human rights are about making sure that the most vulnerable and marginalized can gain access to basic necessities. So this whole thing about the negative rights, preventing the state from interfering in civil society, from torturing, its not very relevant. You cant talk about torture in Ghana.

It is nonexistent. So what are the rights that Ghanaians should be focusing on, and that is the question. So the ordinary man, he might not understand why this institution even exists. Because hes been made to understand that human rights is about voting every four years, to change government, because there was a dictator. So when you come to pick one at the ballot box, you have the right to participate, the right to vote, even criticize the president.

But voting is not the real issue with regard to human rights. Not the real thing, which is holding public servants accountable.

JH: So I see your point, you are saying that the biggest challenge is to change that point of view so people should know thats their right an they should always be demanding it.

IA: They should be holding public servants accountable. If the school is not fixed, if they went to the hospital and they cant get the doctor to look after them, this has not been perceived as a human rights issue. So there must be a whole movement to deconstruct this understanding of human rights. Otherwise, I can tell you, people will be angry that theyve been deceived. They were told that when they got rid of the dictator, they would get the basic necessities. I will also tell you that most complaints do not even get to human rights institutions. What I know through observation is that when people undergo classical rights violations, where the policeman has arrested me unlawfully or harassed me, then they go to the radio station.

So the media is very effective in addressing those, what some people would call first generation rights. Such as I was not allowed to vote, or I didnt get my voters registration. So those are the things they see as rights, voting and media freedom, the removal of criminal libel. But if you are only shouting and you cannot get the basic necessities, and those who even shout are not the ordinary people because they have no voice. Its the elites who access the media.

Though now we have radio stations which do programs in local languages. But we need to understand that human rights goes beyond just voting or just media freedom.

JH: So how do you do that then?

IA: So now, an institution like this needs to set the agenda to educate the people to know that human rights goes beyond what weve been doing over the past twenty years. We have a constitutional body, maybe youll have to go and interview them, the National Centre for Civic Education, the NCCE, their constitutional mandate is to create awareness and one of their challenges is to get people to know what their rights are.

And I can bet you, Im sure, when you get the educators on rights, the average view is about what Americans see as human rights.

JH: Do you think theres a difference between how the Mahama government saw human rights and the current government?

IA: That is still the problem that Im having because what are human rights that you are saying that somebody.I can say with authority that all the governments since we became a constitutional republic have respected human rights. So unless you can pinpoint something.

JH: Yes, so I completely agree that human rights also means your right to an education, your right to lead a healthy life, to feel secure in your house

IA: Along those lines, you know, you are looking at political manifestos, in terms of civil liberties, all the political parties have passed that test, what is contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

What rather is coming now is all this thing about vigilante groups, the parties having their own police or security guards as a danger to rights. What is human rights when impugnity reigns? So when you trace rights from regimes, look at the institutions. Look at the Electoral Commission, thats the body that respects the right to vote, and government does not interfere. And I can tell you in this commission, since 1993, nobody has come to intimidate me. So you can say that for this commission. I dont know for the judges, at the end of the day, the judiciary is the last stop in a democracy.

So I can say that the political parties over the years have respected rights within the confines of civil and political rights and you have active civil society which keeps the political parties on their toes.

JH: So if human rights also mean all of the social and development side then some people might see the NDC as promoting more that side. Do you see it that way?

IA: That was what NCD was doing, social democracy, the vulnerable people, infrastructure. But NPP also introduced those things earlier when they started national health insurance, the school feeding program. And the NDC also continued with them. But they are doing these things not because they see them as rights. They see them as gifts that they are giving to the people. When it comes to voting, people dont see these things as gifts. (Through voting), the people call for reforms.

So the basic question of my thesis is, over twenty years, what do you understand as your rights? Are your rights secure? Because if you dont take care, people will just say, Ah! This whole thing about democracy and human rights or whatever is not serving my purpose.

JH: Yes, I agree that the idea of human rights should be much broader, it should include ideas about equality, employment, fairness in the economy, as well.

IA: So one of my conclusions is basically that human rights is equity, equality, nondiscrimination. So if you are giving me voting rights every time and you talk about human rights in terms of human dignity, to enhance the dignity of man,, then what if I cant get food to eat, I cant access basic services? Then my dignity is gone.

JH: I completely agree.

IA: Then human rights become discriminatory. Theres a whole thing on human rights and poverty. At the minimum, people should get access to education, health, basic necessities. If you dont take care, people will tell you that that dictators are better because they provide you with basic needs for the people. What has happened in Ghana is capture of political power by elites. And so, ok, democracy is about elections. You wait, and you also become part of the elite who can capture power.

The elite in this context is not about the educated but people who get access to power and resources and that is what that the ordinary people know about democracy, you wait and your time will come, democracy is about patience. Its about due process. Wait and your due process will come to you. If you get real understanding of human rights, then the politicians become just strategists who will just be overseeing. And thats real peoples power. But I see it as a very long journey, a generational thing. And it must start from the universities. If you go to any ordinary university, I was just at a debate about a week ago, they were debating human rights, that was the topic. It was done in the department of philosophy. So what is this right, is it for the individual? And that is where the problem comes.

That is the American model, that the individual should not be violated. But human rights are connected to the community. So when you focus only on the individual, you dont provide that community, that group, with the rights that we are talking about here. Thats why there is a peculiarity when it comes to the African Charter on on Human and Peoples Rights. And that is the only charter in the world that talks about the right to development as a human right.

So there should be a strong movement to reshape the thinking of the average educated Ghanaian. Human rights is not just a legal issue. Its a basic subject that everybody must learn.
On Monday, a team of senior government officials, led by the Vice President, Senior Minister, and Minister of Finance, embarked from Accra on a trip to London, Washington D.C., and New York. The delegation also includes the Chairman of the Finance Committee, the Governor of the Central Bank, the CEO of GIPC, the Presidents Advisor on Media and Special Projects, and the Deputy Minister of Energy, among others.

The purpose of the Non-Deal Roadshow is to meet with Ghanas bond holders, potential investors, US government officials and other key stakeholders to share the governments transformational economic agenda to address the countrys debt, attract new investment and create jobs. The delegation will also participate in the annual spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

On Tuesday in London, the team held a series of meetings with Ghanas bond holders to discuss the pillars of the governments economic management agenda: revenue growth expenditure management, debt management, wage bill management and capping of earmarked funds to free up fiscal space. The delegation also met with the Ghanaian community at the High Commission to share the governments plans for the revitalizing the countrys economy.

On Wednesday in Washington, the Vice President and Minister of Finance addressed an enthusiastic crowd of more than 300 in an event held by the Center of Strategic and International Studies entitled, Spotlight on Ghana. The audience was comprised of US government officials, policy makers, journalists, NGOs, members of the Diaspora, think tanks, and the private sector.

The Vice President presented opening remarks regarding the governments immediate priorities to reignite the countrys economy by creating jobs in the agriculture sector, cutting taxes and removing other barriers to investment and increased production.

The Minister of Finance was joined on a panel by John Rice, the Vice Chairman of the General Electric Corporation, and Alain Ebobisse, CEO of Africa50. The Minister presented the governments strategy for addressing the significant budget deficit and debt inherited from the previous administration.

He also responded to questions from the audience by detailing the steps being taken to improve the investment climate in the country and enhance local capacity by improving education, as well as enforcing local content requirements for new investments.
President Nana Akufo-Addo says programmes designed to help the poor and vulnerable must have clear-cut exit strategies, and is, therefore, urging the citizenry not to be unduly reliant on long-term aid projects.

He said such aid programmes and initiatives must be structured to enable beneficiaries strike out and be able to lead an independent life.

I remember when the LEAP programme was envisaged and introduced under President Kufuor, we were clear in our minds that, whereas we wanted it to cover all those who would qualify under the definition of the programme, it was meant to be a hand-up, not a handout, he said.

The President continued, If someone has to go on the LEAP programme, it should not be for the rest of that persons life. There should be a definite time limit to being a LEAP beneficiary, and the beneficiary should be able to stand on his or her own after the stated period.

Some visitors from Togo

President Akufo-Addo made this known on Friday, 21 April 2017, when he delivered the keynote address at the 4th Rotary International District 9102 Conference, held at the Accra International Conference Centre.

The President, himself a Paul Harris Fellow of The Rotary Club, Accra South, explained that after 60 years of independence, I want us, in Ghana, to break out from our aid dependent and charity driven economic outlook.

"I want programmes that would be dynamic in content and help us to think big and be dissatisfied with remaining poor.

Touching in the Six Areas of Focus of Rotary, President Akufo-Addo noted that members of the Rotary Club have always been well placed to influence events and policies in Ghana.

In the area of health, he stated the infection rates of poliomyelitis, one of the six childhood killer diseases, had been reduced from an annual worldwide infection rate of 350,000 cases in over 125 countries to a mere 75 cases in only 3 countries. This feat, he noted, has been achieved thanks to the efforts of Rotary.

You have taken on the other great killer of our part of the world, malaria, and I wish to congratulate Rotary on your Roll Back Malaria project. It does look as though we are finally making headway in the fight against malaria. This is also the result of collaboration between government and non-governmental organizations.

Touching on the Water and Sanitation area of focus, President Akufo-Addo stated that I am pleased to learn that you have started the second phase of a US$6 million Rotary International/USAID Water Collaboration.

We could not ask for a better partner than Rotary as we seek to implement our governments programme to provide potable water and good sanitation to all our people.

On Basic Education and Literacy, another area of focus of Rotary, the President stressed that education is the only way to give a good head start and provide equal opportunities for all our children.

This government believes that a lot hangs on the success of our education programmes, and we welcome enthusiastically all the help that we can get from organizations such as Rotary in delivering quality education to our people.

President Akufo-Addo also charged Rotary to partner with the Minister for Inner City and Zongo Development, in its Economic and Community Development area of focus, in the development of initiatives and projects which would help people in the rural areas, in particular those who are dependent on such initiatives.

He also urged Rotary to partner government in in the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, which was launched in Goaso, in the Brong Ahafo Region, on Wednesday, April 19, and also in the implementation of the 1-District-1-Factory programme.

It is a programme in which private sector participation is essential. Come and join us make a success of it. You have a lot of people with good business acumen and experience amongst your ranks. There are a lot of opportunities and I invite you to join us bring prosperity to our people, he added.

In concluding, President Akufo-Addo told the gathering that we are determined to build a new Ghanaian and African civilisation, where the rule of law works, where individual liberties and human rights are respected, and where the principles of democratic accountability are the foundation of public policy.

We are determined to forge a new Ghanaian and African, who is neither a victim nor a pawn of the world economic order, but who will be a dignified member of a successful, thriving, prosperous society.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
21.04.2017 LISTEN

The NDC MP for Keta says the minoritys misgiving with governments recent local bond issue has to do with its failure to follow the provision of the Public Financial Management Act (921) 2016.

Richard Quarshiga said the issues the NDC MPs raised about the bond were not made out of ignorance but rather based on documents that are available to them.

Speaking to Dzifa Bampoh on Joy FM's Top Story Friday, he said Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia's reference to their queries as ignorant was in bad taste.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia

The Vice President fired at the minority when he said its condemnation of government's local bond issue showed they lack "understanding."

Government issued a 15-year bond at the rate of 95 percent which was bought by Templeton Investment Limited, a company Trevor G. Trefgarne Director at Enterprise Group Limited (EGL) is on as a Board of Director. Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is a co-founder of EGL. The bond was issued for $2.25 billion.

But the NDC MPs said the bond was shrouded in secrecy to the extent that Ghanaian investors were denied the opportunity to participate in the deal.

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta

They claimed Mr Trefgarne's presence on the Templeton Investiment Limited may have influenced the way the bond was issued. They called for a Parliamentary probe into the matter to uncover a possible case of conflict of interest in the bond issue.

Speaking to Joy Business at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s Spring Meetings at Washington Friday, Dr Bawumia said he cringed when he heard the argument of the NDC MPs who should have known better.

"The Minority has never understood this economy and it is just amazing that people on their side who were actually in charge of managing the economy would be making such statements," he said.

But Mr Quarshiga said the Vice President's lowered his status as the second gentleman of the country. "A high ranking position needs someone who is decorous."

"The right thing to do is to apologise for not being dignified in his choice of words," he said, adding they found Dr Bawumia's suggestion that they should read, very insulting.

"I dont think it should be coming from his mouth...we hold the position which differs from his [Vice President]."

NPP MP for Ablekuma Central, Ebenezer Nartey, insisted government did no wrong with the issue of the local bond.

He said the minority's argument that the bond was issued to an ally of the Finance Minister was not tenable because during the late President John Evans Atta Mills' tenure most government transactions were done through Unibank that was founded by former Finance Minister, Kwabena Duffuor.

"Was it conflict of interest?" he quizzed, adding the call for Parliamentary approval before issuing the bond was also unsustainable because it is only when an international bond is going to be issued that approval is sought from Parliament.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected]
RACINE, Wis.  Catholic churches are often named for saints, but for the parishioners of St. John Nepomuk the story of their namesake has always been a special one  so special that murals depicting the life and tragic death of the heroic priest grace the archway above the churchs altar.

Now the paintings, which church leaders say date back more than 50 years, have received a much needed facelift.

Last year, church leaders commissioned Illinois-based Religious Arts Corp. and a Greek artist to recreate the paintings, which were damaged eight years ago as a result of a bad roof leak.

Alexandra Grammatikaki  who lives in Heraklion, on the island of Crete, just off the shores of mainland Greece  made four visits to the United States to work on the project between April and June of last year, spending time at the church in Racine and at the Rock Island studio of fellow Greek Jim Stathopoulos, the owner of Religious Arts Corp.

Her last visit, which ended last week, lasted about a month.

On Wednesday, she and Stathopoulos visited the church, 1903 Green St., to put the finishing touches onto the last of the murals.

While basically identical in form to the originals, the new paintings have more detail and color.

After drawing the images, Grammatikaki used a combination of acrylic, wax, milk, and chalk paints to make the images pop.

Gone are the days of toiling day and night on scaffolding to create such murals. For this project, Grammatikaki used large sheets of stretched and primed canvas on which to design and paint the images.

If you see, it has a little shine to it, Stathopoulos said, pointing the painting of St. John Nepomuk and the river he was thrown into for keeping the seal of the confession. The head is highlighted with jewels, the cross; the sleeves. There is a little detail on his robe, right above his feet. These are the little things that make a difference.

Now completed, the paintings, seven in total, will be seamlessly affixed to the wall. One of murals, a painting of the Lamb of God, has already been put up, and Stathopoulos said he expects to have the rest up by the first week in May.

You dont see the lines, Stathopoulos said of the technique.

Seated on part of the metal frame of the scaffold, Stathopoulos chatted animatedly on Wednesday as he held the paint jar for Grammatikaki.

When the Rev. Steven Varghese, pastor of St. John Nepomuk and St. Joseph parishes, cautioned him to be careful, Stathopoulos laughed.

This is my home. I get hurt when I am down there, he said. I have all bruises from pews. Never here, Thank God, Thank God.

For Varghese, seeing the murals completed and ready to mount is a joyous time for both him and the wider church community.

We have been looking at redoing these paintings for six years. So, when I spoke to the people . (they) were very generous, he said. We are so happy that we can do this.
Tamale, Apr 21, GNA - Factions in the Nanum squabble at Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District of the Northern Region have been advised to accept dialogue as the only means of maintaining peace for socio-economic development of the area.

Mr Albert Yelyang, National Network Coordinator of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP-Ghana) who gave the advice said it was also necessary for the people of Bimbilla to avoid actions and attitudes that might affect dialogue and preventive diplomacy in the peace process.

He was speaking at the opening of a two-day training for key and influential youth at Bimbilla, organized by WANEP-Ghana on the theme: 'Enhancing Capacity of Youth to facilitate Dialogue in Bimbilla'.

The training formed part of the Northern Ghana Governance Activity, which is a five-year USAID sponsored programme being implemented by a consortium of NGOs comprising CARE International, ActionAid-Ghana, SEND-Ghana, End-Ghana and WANEP-Ghana.

The training aimed at enhancing the awareness of the participants about the NGGA project, and on the basic principles of conflict and peace dialogue, mediation and negotiations among others.

Mr Yelyang said it required regretting of past incidences, forgiveness and the impartial support from every stakeholder especially situations where the dynamics of ethnic, chieftaincy and land conflicts tended to change when there was a change in political regimes, for peace to reign.

He said though the Bimbilla conflict was manageable and solvable, it needed more efforts from all stakeholders because people could not imagine shifting posts on their positions and interests as well as the hope for a win-lose outcomes in favour of either faction seemed high.

He observed that the perennial violent incidences, attitudes and behaviours had constantly created mistrust, fear and insecurity among members of the factions and that it was important to stop fighting to allow farmers to move freely as the rainy season set in.

Mr Yelyang said passions, emotions, lack of patience by both the youth and elders had become a hindrance in addressing the problem despite the important value placed on the cherished tradition of chieftaincy.

Mr Michael Alandu, Chief of Party of CARE International, said the youth represented the hope of their communities and that engaging in conflict would not help in the development of their areas.

He assured that CARE International would continue to work with its partners and other stakeholders to ensure that there was peace at Bimbilla for the needed development to address poverty and hunger.

GNA

By Caesar Abagali, GNA
22.04.2017 LISTEN

Miss Bert Frimpong, a 21-year-old first year Health Assistant Clinical (HAC) student at the Mampong Nursing & Midwifery Training School in the Ashanti region, has committed suicide after taking a substance believed to be DDT. She died at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in the early hours of today.

Briefing the Media today, Chief Superintendent Wisdom Lavoe, Mampong Divisional Police Commander, said the police had information that the deceased was rushed to the Mampong Hospital in the early hours of Thursday, April 20 after complaining of stomach pains.

He said their investigations at the hospital revealed that she alledgely took a substance believed to be DDT.

Chief Superintendent Wisdom Lavoe said the information collected by the police in their investigation was that the deceased left a written note that she was not happy about the programme offered her at the school for she wanted to do Genteral Nursing

A Medical Assistant at the Mampong Hospital, Mr Yaw Tayyi, confirmed the story and said the deceased was taken to the hospital Casualty Ward by two students around 12.40 am on Thursday.

He said the hospital staff tried their best but when she was not responding to treatment she was referred to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital on Thursday at about 12.noon.

All attempts to talk to the principal of the school failed as she was not around.

Some portions of the note alledged to have been written by the deceased chanced upon by the police read:

"Lord please forgive me everyone. I didn't deserve to eat this fruit because of my ungrateful. Please forgive me everyone."
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22.04.2017 LISTEN

The National Identification Authority (NIA) was established by an Act of Parliament Act 2006(Act 707) with the core mandate of registering all Ghanaian Citizens both resident and non-resident (those in the Diaspora).

In order for the NIA to be effective and comprehensive in the delivery of their mandated Functions and Powers in accordance with the Act 707, there is the need for the NIA to closely collaborate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for accurate Data collection, processing and storage of Ghanaians in the Diaspora so that no Ghanaian Citizen is left behind as far as the management of Ghanas National Database is concerned.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would provide accurate information about Ghanaian Citizens living in other Countries to the NIA. This arrangement will compel the NIA to set up satellite branches or units at Ghanas Embassy in all Countries that Ghanaians are living there.

Our National Population Database to be managed by the NIA should not be limited to only resident Ghanaians but it must include non-resident Ghanaians as well in fulfillment of the Act 707.

The effective collaboration between the NIA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will help the Nation to determine the accurate total population of Ghanaians both residents and non-residents at any given time.

President Akufo-Addo indeed deserves commendation for the visionary role of resourcing the NIA to carry out its core functions. This laudable agenda to transform the NIA will help the Nation in the planning and execution of well-informed developmental projects and programmes to the benefits of all Ghanaians both home and abroad.

I equally applaud President Akufo-Addo for appointing a competent Executive Secretary for the NIA in the person of Professor Ken Agyemang Attafuah.

I do believe that a competent Governing Board too will be constituted by President Akufo-Addo to assist the Executive Secretary to bring about a total transformation in the administration, operations, finance and management of the National Identification Authority (NIA).

It is very sad that the incompetent NDC Government neglected the NIA for 8 years but thanks to President Akufo-Addo for revamping the NIA.

Signed

Hon. Randy Collins Owusu Amankwaa

MP for Manhyia North Constituency
From the point of view of taxpayers, that video is an example of a pointless vetting exercise by a largely ill-prepared group of MPs most of whom considered themselves "small boys" in the matter. In the case of the Ghana oil contracts and policy, that joke of a job interview was not even fit for the position of Senior Dog-Catcher in an abandoned railway yard long overtaken by weeds and rats, let alone for the important position of Deputy Minister of Energy for Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana. But, then, maybe it fit. After all, that position is one of 3 deputy minister of energy positions created under Akufo Addo's government-so-large.

The simple fact is, in that interview Dr. Amin Adam did not offer a single comparative data point to support his case that there was a "convergence" in fair oil revenues for Ghana, and as such, the refusal by the NDC government, and now, the Akufo Addo government, to adopt a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) for Ghana, is really "not bad".

And yet, here we were, reading comments from individuals who will tell us they went to school, persons who thought Dr. Amin Adam made a good case for the so-called Ghana Hybrid System that the Fair Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh/PSA) has proven has cost Ghana more than $6 billion in lost oil revenue over the last 5 years, and counting.

The burden is on the Dr. Adams and the government to show that 86% of revenues going to the foreign oil companies is "not bad" for Ghana.

GhanaWeb Video: The title to the YOUTUBE video read, "Dr Mohammed Amin Anta appears before Appointments Committee - Highlights"

Oddly, in that side-bar discussion with several members of that online group last week, it was as if there were actually 20 versions of that same 29 March, 2017, video interview for the "deposition" of Dr. Amin Adam, for a position of Deputy Energy Minister in President Akufo Addo's government.

How is that possible?

Miracle!

We even noticed a new twist to the name. It is now Dr Mohammed Amin Anta in the video, forget "Adam".

But, in several depositions by ACEP to the US Congress, it surely was always Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, proudly, same "senior brother" from ACEP.

Frankly, we did not know that ACEP's Dr. Mohammad Amin Adam was actually with the NPP as recently as during Kufour's government. Or that, in 2014, while still the leader of ACEP and receiving funds from the UK government, while NPP's own Kobina "Hybrid" Hammond was abetting the NDC in their support for the Ghana Hybrid System so-called, Dr. Adam was reported to have accepted $5,000 from Akufo Addo to support Akufo Addo's presidential ambitions.

If we had known all those facts, we certainly would have added that as another one of the ethical violations by ACEP in the discussions on adoption of the PSA for Ghana more than 2 years ago.

But, we've seen many fast-talkers who bamboozle people with the flow of meaningless words without data at bottom. Dr. Amin sure knows what to say. ACEP's Dr. Amin Adam surely fits that role given his turnarounds, then, and now.

Fact!

The John Mahama-Kwabena Donkor NDC party and ACEP are in actuality part of the same crew that have resisted more oil money for Ghana because according to "expert" civil society organization (CSO) agents like Dr. Adam, Ghana does not have enough qualified professionals to negotiate with the Foreign Oil Companies (FOC), and as such, the measly 14% of oil revenues Ghana is getting for its own oil resource is "not bad".

So, is "Not bad" good enough for Ghana in the eyes of the nameless vetting committee and Ghana, for the nameless officials who did not even find time and cause to ensure there were placards sitting in front of themselves with their names so people would know who they interrogating Dr. Adam?

We do not know about the others. But, it surely does not take much reflection to understand that the audition of Dr. Amin Adam for a position as Deputy Minister of Energy poorly served Ghana. To the point, in the matter of Ghana's oil revenues, none of the nameless MPs did any homework. In fact, many of them recognized themselves as "small boys" incapable of asking the "big man" serious questions about Fair-Trade Oil Share for the sake of Ghana.

In sum, they failed to realize that it was not a private business meeting.

They failed to realize that it was not a gathering to discuss family affairs.

They failed to realize that it was the business of Ghana.

"Not bad"!



Ghanaians and Ghana supporters ought to know this: That crooked Ghana Hybrid System was created and blessed by the NPP when they were in government, when Amin was with them - running for power from Tamale. ACEP was formed in 2010, after the loss of power by the NPP, while Amin Adam was still privy to the going-ons in the power circles - both political and administrative, and who knows what else.

Ghanaians and all Ghana supporters should also know that when you (e.g. ACEP, Petroleum Commission, etc.) are making and taking thousands of pounds sterling from an oil company through their governments, you will have precious little fortitude, little hunger, little yearning, etc., to holler to those same interests that your country and your poor countrymen are being raped because those interests are paying little for the resources they are taking from your lands.

14%.

That is all Ghana is getting!

So now, Mr. Kwabena Donkor was the other day telling Dr. Amin Adam that he Adam, was biased.

Does this bias and cheating not go both ways?

In the video we've referenced above, Amin Adam of "Biased ACEP", does not say why 14% of oil revenue is "Not Bad", or, how it compares to a single other country in Africa, let alone Asia, or South America. So, how, tell us, why are these same "biased" people the arbiters of whether Ghana received, and is now receiving, fair share of its own revenues under Kuffour's NPP, under Mahama's NDC, and now under Akufo Addo's NPP?

How have they being neutral in this matter all these years, and now?

Finally, what reason does one have to give all the benefit to the government and their enablers who have all the resources to show proof, when individuals with little personal resources are using the little resources at their disposal to merely ensure the plunder of Ghana's oil resources is nipped in the bud, that Ghana will begin to receive fair compensation for it oil resources?

Go figure!

Watch the video and decide for yourself!

So it goes, Ghana!

To be continued.......

SOURCES

1. VIDEO, "Dr Mohammed Amin Anta appears before Appointments Committee - Highlights", (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQtRtdM7Qk).

2. Godwin Allotey Akweiteh. I rejected Nana Addos money but I support him now  Amin Anta, (http://citifmonline.com/2014/10/14/i-rejected-nana-addos-money-but-i-support-him-now-amin-anta-2/#sthash.BHrbtZmS.dpuf).

2. Biased ACEPs AMERI analysis not credible  Kwabena Donkor, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Biased-ACEP-s-AMERI-analysis-not-credible-Kwabena-Donkor-525576).

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Biased-ACEP-s-AMERI-analysis-not-credible-Kwabena-Donkor-525576

Visit for more information:

www.GhanaHero.com .

Read Mo'! Listen Mo'! See Mo'! Reflect Mo'!

Prof Lungu - Real Data, Real Current!

Subj: ACEP's Dr. Adam insults Ghana as they triple-dip and gorge on free UK money (1)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/professorlungu

Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana Campaign/Petition

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com31 Mar 17.
The Cannabis Sativa plant is the worlds most interesting plant. As the name suggests its the plant we get cannabis from.

You might also know cannabis by its other names. These include, weed, pot, 420 or grass. There are more, but you get the point.

The plant has many uses. Over history there are examples of it in industrial fibres, food, oils, as a relaxant, and of course as medicine. But its most infamous use is recreational.

Its important to know tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in cannabis is the psychoactive part. And, cannabidiol (CBD), which is one of many cannabinoids, is not psychoactive. Youll see why this is important in a moment

The Nixon Tapes reveal all

Recreational and medicinal use of marijuana was common in the 19th century. As its properties were misunderstood, it gradually had increasing restriction put on it. And by the 20th century it was in effect considered a poison.

Then during his presidency Richard Nixon took things a big step further. Nixons War on Drugs put marijuana in the same category as heroin.

Nixons views on marijuana were hard. They were also against recommendations from his own governments research.

The Nixon Tapes are over 3,000 hours of secret recordings from the White House during Nixons tenure. They explain a great deal about his stance on marijuana.

Here are some of his views,

RN: Well, let me tell you one thing that just happened here because it probably wasnt, Im sure it wasnt in the press here, I had a press conference in California which was not televised, but, I was asked about marijuana because a study is being made by a, group, [unintelligible] the government. Now, my position is flat-out on that. I am against legalizing marijuana. Now Im against legalizing marijuana because, I know all the arguments about, well, marijuana is no worse than whiskey, or etc. etc. etc. But the point is, once you cross that line, from the straight society to the drug society  marijuana, then speed, then its LSD, then its heroin, etc. then youre done.

Later in this same conversation with HR Bob Haldeman, Nixon would say,

RN: Now, this is one thing I want. I want a Goddamn strong statement on marijuana. Can I get that out of this sonofabitching, uh, Domestic Council? HRH: Sure. RN: I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them. I see another thing in the news summary this morning about it. You know its a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose its because most of them are psychiatrists, you know, theres so many, all the greatest psychiatrists are Jewish. By God we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss, I want to find a way of putting more on that. More [unintelligible] work with somebody else with this. HRH: Mm hmm, yep. RN: I want to hit it, against legalizing and all that sort of thing.

But it gets worse

In a Harpers Magazine article from April 2016, author Dan Baum wrote about his meeting with John Ehrlichman in 1994. Ehrlichman was one of the co-conspirators of the Watergate scandal.

Ehrlichman also had explosive comments to make about Nixons stance on the war on drugs. Speaking to Baum, Ehrlichman said,

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what Im saying? We knew we couldnt make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

The result has been over 45 years of failure. The number one form of drug arrest in the US is for marijuana. In 2015 of all drug arrests in the US, 43.2% were for marijuana.

You can thank Nixon. However, change is afoot. And the world is finally waking up to the potential benefits of marijuana. Of course we dont advocate use of any illegal substance. But the irony is marijuana is one of the most exciting frontiers of biotech.

In fact research suggests there could be more benefit to weed than any perceived harm.

My first taste of legal cannabis

Research into the benefits of marijuana is increasing. With better access to it, more biotech companies are starting clinical trials into its benefits.

Research is showing it has clinical benefit in everything from arthritis and fibromyalgia to cancer. This research is still early stage. But its leading to a surge in the worlds awareness of marijuana. And its seeing marijuana stocks boom on markets around the world.

We think its the most exciting development in biotech in decades. And when you start to view marijuana companies as biotech stocks, then you start to see this opportunity for what it really is.

These marijuana companies will be the founders of the legal weed trade in Australia. And they could deliver life-changing returns to shareholders as the world opens its eyes to the legal weed trade.

Now as we said in todays headline, we just bought some weed. Now before you think the cops are going to kick down our door, hear this. It was 100% legal.

To be 100% accurate, we bought a CBD vaporiser pen, and three CBD canisters. The device we have is called a Medipen. Its easy enough to Google search. Take a look for yourself.

Its easy to use. Just screw the canister into the pen and puff away.

Theres an important caveat here. Its got no THC content at all. Remember, THC is the mind-altering aspect of weed. The cannabis we bought is CBD oil mixed with pharmaceutical grade coconut oil. The medical benefits, without the recreational effects.

That makes it 100% legal. And its completely safe. William Norcutt is a pain specialist at James Paget University Hospitals in Great Yarmouth, UK. Speaking to New Scientist, he said at least CBD is unlikely to do any harm. In his own words, The only way you could kill someone is by dropping it on their head.

The Medipen is also getting a run within the hospital system. The National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK is currently testing Medipens.

Managing Director of Medipen, Jordan Owen says,

As the first consumer cannabis product to be tested by the NHS, we are confident that this will go a long way towards creating a properly regulated cannabis market in the UK and are extremely excited to see what the future holds.

This is exactly the kind of change were talking about. Availability of legal weed for everyone.

Expect this little research experiment of ours to be the norm. Over the next few years youll find the use of cannabis widespread.

Recreational marijuana will be as commonplace as alcohol or cigarettes. Medical cannabis as easy to come by as paracetamol or ibuprofen.

Thats a huge change in society. One that is well overdue.

Regards,

Sam

PS: If you think marijuana stocks have massive, explosive potential, youd be right. But its not the only part of the market that could see returns that have the potential to make 10-times your money. Jason Stevenson also thinks hes found a select group of companies that could do just that  deliver 10-times your investment. He calls them Gigastocks. Youd be crazy not to see what hes got to say.
Sonora, CA  Sonora High School senior Levi Lowe is preparing to head out to Washington, DC to participate in next weeks Poetry Out Loud national competition.

After winning the statewide high school competition on March 13, he and 52 other students will now compete for the top prize in the nation.

Lowe competed as a sophomore in 2015. He tells Clarke Broadcasting, Im really excited because the people there are extraordinary individuals. The competition itself is so exciting because you expect or hope everyone there to be interesting, or enthralling with their poems. When I was there sophomore year there were definitely some individuals that just exceeded, and it was amazing to watch them. You can see the time they spend with their poetry, and the understanding. Its amazing, and thats what Im excited to see.

Lowe notes that one of the highlights two years ago was joining some of the other competitors at the Lincoln Memorial for somewhat of an impromptu poetry recital.

Lowe selected three poems for this years competition. They are Death of Allegory by Billy Collins, Chorus Sacerdotum by Baron Brooke Fulke Greville and Self Inquiry Before the Job Interview by Gary Soto.

A live webcast of the entire national competition will be available by clicking here. The Tuolumne County Arts Alliance reports that a local viewing party is scheduled from 2-5pm, Tuesday, at the Sonora High School Library for the semi-finals. If Lowe is one of nine to transfer to the finals, a second viewing party will be Wednesday at 4pm in classroom C3.
Western Technical College student Amanda Coughlin was named one of this years 16 technical college state ambassadors at a ceremony Wednesday in Madison.

The students will champion opportunities in technical education at events and in publications throughout the coming year. Baird, an employee-owned, international financial services firm headquartered in Milwaukee, has sponsored the WTCS State Ambassador program since its inception more than two decades ago.

The ambassadors backgrounds include traditional students attending college immediately after high school graduation, as well as those returning for additional education mid-career. One of the programs objectives is to develop greater public awareness and appreciation of the role and value of technical education for individuals, employers and the states economy.

Having the opportunity to recognize these students, and to watch them celebrate with their families and college leaders, is a highlight of my year, Wisconsin Technical College System President Morna Foy said. The determination and promise of these students is inspiring.
These wealthy women in Nigeria have proven that they can compete in richness with men. Who is the richest woman in Nigeria? How did she become more successful than other people in Africa? Let`s start with top 10 rich women in Nigeria to find out who is the richest of them all. Their assets and experience in life can speak for themselves.

How to find the richest woman from Africa? It`s easy as they do not tend to hide their riches from people. Some of them are self-made businesswomen, others have become rich due to their family heritage. Still, each person on this list has earned the right to be called the richest woman!

Folorunsho Alakija

She is the richest woman billionaire in Nigeria. According to her biography, Folorunsho Alakija did not attend any university, but it did stop her to become a successful woman. She is a female billionaire that founded the Famila Oil  one of the biggest oil companies in Nigeria. Folorunsho Alakija net worth is tremendous, more than $2.1 billion.

She also has real estate with the overall price of more than one hundred million dollars and a private jet worth $46 million. She is 66 years old. She has spent most of her life earning this sum of money. In 2014, she was presented at Oprah Winfrey`s program as the richest woman in Africa!

Hajia Bola Shagaya

She is surely one of the richest people in Africa. She is also one of the few billionaire black women in the world. Hajia Bola Shagaya was born in 1959 in Ilorin, Kwara. She started her career at audit department of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Her business started when she introduced photographic materials of the Konica brand to Nigeria. That was only the start. Now she is a director of Practical Limited  one of the largest oil companies in Nigeria. She owns a Gulfstream G650 aircraft! Hajia Bola Shagaya net worth is about $1.9 billion.

Diezani Alison Madueke

READ ALSO: David Oyedepo house and cars

She is a Nigerian politician and the first female president of OPEC. Diezani Alison Madueke also worked as Minister of Transportation in Nigeria in 2007-2008. She later moved to Mines and Steel Development in 2008 and was appointed Minister of Petroleum in Nigeria.

She was appointed to the cabinet with the help of President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2015, Reuters reported that Diezani Alison Madueke was arrested by the UK`s National Crime Agency on suspicion of corruption. Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission also raided her real estates in Nigeria. She supposedly has about $2 billion dollars on her various bank accounts.

Daisy Danjuma

She is a strong woman and considered to be the richest woman entrepreneur in Nigeria. She is a wife of one of the richest men in Nigeria  General Theophilus Danjuma. She got a lot of presents from her billionaire husband including super jet which cost over $40 million. She also runs several companies across Nigeria provided her by the husband.

In 2003 she was elected as Senator of Nigeria, that only helped to boost her bank accounts. Daisy Danjuma also worked on various committees as Senate Committee Chairman on Women Affairs and Youth Development and Chairman of the ECOWAS Parliament`s Women and Children`s Rights Committee. Her husband helped her to earn more than $1 billion of her net worth.

Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi

She is considered to be one of the richest women in the world, but now she also worked as the Federal Minister of Aviation in Nigeria. She has close relations with former President Goodluck Jonathan as she served as his campaign`s Director of Administration and Finance.

Before that, she worked at the NNPC and later created Sea Petroleum&Gas Company Limited. Now she struggles with financial problems as her company has been closed with indebtedness over $16 billion. She currently has about $1 billion in various bank accounts which she can still use.

Florence Ita Giwa

Florence Ita Giwa was born in 1946 in Cross River State. She was elected Senator of this state. After her leaving the Senate she joined the People`s Democratic Party, where she became Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters of President Olusegun Obasanjo. She was suspected of corruption by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. She currently has from few hundred million dollars to one billion on various bank accounts.

Cecilia Ibru

Cecilia Ibru was born in 1946 in Nigeria and worked as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank. Later she became the CEO of the Union Bank of Nigeria. Ibru appeared in various scandals connected with multibillion frauds. Anti-corruption police confiscated almost all her properties when she was found guilty to fraud charges. However, she might have about one billion dollars on her secret accounts today.

Fifi Ekanem Ejindu

Fifi Ekanem Ejindu is an architect and businesswoman. She is also one of the richest woman according to Forbes. According to her biography, she is a great granddaughter if King James Ekpo Bassey. Her father was a famous Professor Sylvester Joseph Una. In 1995 she returned from the USA to start her own business in Nigeria.

In 1995 she started Starcret Group Investment Ltd, Starcret Industries Ltd and Starcrest Associates Ltd which was involved in building constructions, gas and oil. Fifi Ekanem Ejindu describes her architectural style as Neo-traditional. She defined building with tribal old style features. Her current net worth is about $600 million.

Dr Stella Okoli

Dr Stella rose into the world of billionaires with her urgent drive to make healthcare affordable in Nigeria. She is a CEO of Emzorpharmaceutical Industries Limited, which produces over thirty types of pills consumed by millions of Nigerians.

The company is on the market for over 35 years. Her drive provided her not only money but the world`s recognition too. She also started a Non-profit Organisation called the Chike Okoli Foundation. The main goal of the organisation is to fight poverty and diseases in Africa. She also founded the Chike Okoli Centre for Entrepreneur. Dr Stella Okoli is a woman with more than $500 million of her net worth.

Bimbo Alase

Mrs Bimbo Alase is on the list of the richest woman from Africa. She managed to cement her place in the high society of Africa. She started with a small furniture store in Lagos many years ago. Since then it has been developed to one of the biggest furniture companies in Nigeria!

Her small business is now known as Leatherworld Furniture Company. This company is partnered with NIERI  one of the most popular Italian Furniture Company. Therefore, Leatherworld Furniture Company sells one of the best furniture in Africa. She is a proud mother of one child and her Leatherworld Furniture Company provided over $400 million.

So who is the reachest woman in Nigeria? It is beautiful Folorunsho Alakija!

READ ALSO: Okwudili Umenyiora House

Source: Legit.ng
Ultimate Cycler is the most dynamic investment program in Nigeria and a number of other countries. It even received more positive feedback from people than MMM did at the initial stage. The reason cannot be contrived. Being told that you can earn N50,000 for one week, with an investment of N12,500 is enough to tickle someone else's imagination, and with the current economic downturn in the country, Nigerians are prone to any lucrative scheme that will not only pay a good profit, but within a short period of time.

Ultimate Cycler review

Here's all you need to know about Ultimate Cycler and how it works.

Ultimate Cycler is one of the hottest online business networks in Nigeria today, like MMM, iCharity, etc. In Ultimate Cycler, members will donate money to members, which means that you do not pay money to the site system. This is a mutual community in which members help other members.

How does Ultimate Cycler works and how to join Ultimate Cycle in Nigeria to get paid easily and quickly

When you register, you will need to donate an amount of N12,500 to one of the family members, and then a person will confirm your donation.

Your registration will be completed when you send N12,500 ($ 25) to the person with whom you are in agree.

After that, log in to your Cycler account, click on "My profile" when your profile is loaded, scroll down to the part with the inscription "Payment orders". Delete the default text that you do not need, and enter your bank account details there.

Note. You will receive a payment on the bank details specified in the section "Payment Instructions". So make sure it's right.

Whenever you receive payment, go to your Ultimate Cycler account, and confirm that the person has paid you, then activate that person's account so that he can send his referral link to others. This is also very important.

READ ALSO: Ultimate Cycler founder and CEO denies his Ponzi scheme is dead, invites people to invest massively

The system (Administrator) will place 4 other registered individuals from secondary sources who will also pay you N12,500 each to your bank account, amounting to N50,000. You can also invite people to register under you, if you cannot wait until the system does it for you.

After you have 4 people under you, you can go to level 2, where you will need to pay N25,000 from your N50000 to the second member of class 2, and now you do not need to worry about how to attract people at this level, the system will bring 16 people under you who will pay N25000 to you each, after that you will have N 400 000.

Level 2

You increase your income by $ 50 (N25,000).

This is also a 2  2 matrix.

Because your downlines follow you, along with the secondary effects from your uplines, you use the cycle $ 50 x 4 = $ 200 (N100,000). Re-enter as you did in the $ 25 matrix. You continue to make a profit with a $ 200 cycle without any limit, giving you $ 150 each time you cycle, which is N75,000 profit again and again and again without end.

Level 3

This is also a 2  2 matrix.

In the same way, you have to go to this matrix with $ 100 (N50,000).

At this level, you earn $ 100 X4 = $ 400 (N200,000), which give you a net profit of N150,000 many times and almost endless.

Level 4

This is also a 2  2 matrix.

In the same way, you move to this matrix from $ 200 (N100,000).

At this level, you earn $ 200 X4 = $ 800 (N400,000), which give you a net profit of N300,000 over and over again without restriction.

Level 5

This is also a 2  2 matrix.

In the same way, you go to this matrix with $ 400 (N200,000).

At this level, you earned $ 400 X4 = $ 1,600 (N800,000), which gave you a net profit of N600,000 again and again without end.

Level 6

This is also a 2  2 matrix.

In the same way, you go to this matrix with 800 dollars (N 400 000).

At this level, you earn $ 800 X4 = $ 3,200 (N1.6 million), which give you a net profit of N1 million 200,000 over and over again without stopping while you continue to ride the Cycler. It is noteworthy that all these business centers operate independently of each other.

Ultimate Cycler compensation plan

Step 1

$ 100 (N50,000)

Step 2

$ 200 (N100,000)

Step 3

$ 400 (N200 000)

Step 4

$ 800 (N400,000)

Step 5

$ 1,600 (N800,000)

Step 6

$ 3,200 (N1,600,000)

Important notice / update

Please make sure that you have the needed N12,500 on hand before registering Ultimate Cycler account through the referral link of our team.

The reason for this is that if you register without being willing to pay your investment fee that is N12,500 within the next few minutes to the person to whom the system has designated you to pay, this will affect other new members who are trying to register using the Referral link of your team on site that will make them unable to pay accounts to other team members (as new members can be assigned to the payment, but you have not paid the others, and it's tiring your team), so please read through again this instruction, try to have the money on hand before registering that after registration you can activate your account, while others may pay you.

You cannot be assured that the Ultimate Cycler Nigeria is profitable. You can make a profit here, but you can also lose everything. Lear more about Ultimate Cycler before investing money not to lose the latest!

READ ALSO: How to spot difference between legit investment and ponzi schemes

Source: Legit.ng
Sir Frederick (later Lord) Lugard was to play a fundamental role in the subsequent history of colonial Nigeria. His aim was to merge two parts of a country into a single colony. Despite resistance to this process in Lagos, the rest of the territory did not cause problems. Here we will talk about one of the most epic event in Nigerian history.

Lord Lugard biography

Initially, he arrived in Northern Nigeria in 1895 from Uganda to the military campaigns of George Goldie authorized Royal Niger Company and was the man who conquered northern Nigeria militarily. Sokoto, the seat of the caliphate, was the last Northern Territory captured by the British in 1903.

His military campaign in the north of Nigeria included his famous march to Borgu and race on Nikki, who formed the basis of Britain's claim to Northern Nigeria. This was a result of his successful military campaign in the north, which was on the 1st of January, 1900. He was appointed first British High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria, after the district administration of the Royal Niger Company was brought to an end, and formally a British protectorate was established there. It was about 15 years after the separate and distinct British protectorate was established in Southern Nigeria.

British plans on Nigeria

Even then, England had no definite plans for the future of its new colony. There was no real debate in the British House of Commons on what to do with their new colony, as there was no real enthusiasm among the leading British politicians on the acquisition of new territories. The emphasis in the British colonial office was deposited with the barest minimum cost of administering this vast territory.

It was a little long-range planning in the UK for the future of their new colony. In the case of Nigeria it was left and ruled in three separate pieces, subsequently reduced to two units, North and South Nigeria, and in 1912 under Sir (later Lord) Lugard as the first British governor general colonial Nigeria.

Amalgamation of Nigeria

Between 1900 -12 it was the one in which the two halves of the protectorate, inheriting a fundamentally different form of government and the major political and social structures that differed radically in the administrative and political styles.

Administrative structures in Nigeria before establishing the associations were very diverse. It was as if Britain does create two different countries. When Lugard returned to Nigeria as Governor-General in 1912 and presented the association in 1914, mainly for financial reasons, the content of enlargement had been profoundly influenced by previous experience of Lugard in Northern Nigeria and its disregard for the South of Nigeria.

In fact, there was little or no unification, as Lugard simply superimposed on the existing structure of the colony in northern Nigeria, particularly troublesome system of indirect rule. Lugard did not make any serious efforts to bring North and South Nigeria under the sole and central administration. Most of the time he ran a colonial territory while he was in the north in the administrative system, which was so obviously incongruous.

READ ALSO: How old is Nigeria?

When talking about his political memoranda, amalgamation Reports, and his numerous works on the new colony, it was doubtful that Lugard, or most of his successors in the colony, in fact, were thinking about the future of Nigeria with a view of a single political entity. In 1919 Lugard's successor as the governor-general, Hyu Klifford, warned that 'the coordination of all administrative work should be directed from a single centre'.

His successor, Richard Palmer, did not agree with this view but instead claimed that Nigeria was a geographical expression, he named three divergent although contiguous chunks of Africa. British colonial policy in Africa was very different from the French colonial policy of assimilation, which later provided its colonies to the French state. Lugard and most of his administrative successor in Nigeria had a different vision for the country.

The amalgamation was being celebrated by the federal government. It was certainly very unpopular in both North and South of Nigeria at the time, and was vigorously opposed by the educated elite of Lagos. In the north, the powerful emirates were against it, as it was feared that a centralized administrative system would weaken their power, which was actually dependent on the British rule, while in the south it was feared as it could have led to the introduction of an unpopular system of indirect rule and collapse few political rights. Lagos based on the educated elite enjoyed the legislative council system.

Sir Arthur Richards, another Governor General, when considering the 1923 Clifford Constitution, stated that his primary objective was to promote the unity of Nigeria. But due to his creation of regional councils in the three provinces in which Nigeria was divided, he managed to strengthen the already existing trend towards regionalization in Nigeria. Richards justified his new constitution for Nigeria. It was based on the fact that the Northern Nigeria would have little or nothing to do with the South.

This view was subsequently reflected in the 1940's as the Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Sir Ahmadu Bello, who said it was clear that they both considered Nigeria as a mere geographical expression, rather than a single country. In fact, Sir Ahmadu Bello later complained publicly that "error 1914" (i.e., association) came to light. It was a compromise that the federal system had introduced as the best suited for the Nigerian environment.

Unification established modern Nigeria, but not without some strains, as it forced the various ethnic groups in Nigeria to a single political entity. It was like trying to make a political alliance between France, Germany and Great Britain. Belgium is an excellent example of a country in which two separate and different nationalities were combined with predictable results, similar to the situation in Nigeria.

In fact, it was only in Nigeria that the British colonialists used the word "amalgamation". The term had not been applied to any of their other colonies in Africa or elsewhere. Whatever they considered the dignity of enlargement, it was not an event to celebrate.

One Professor Tamuno, chairman of the celebration of the planning committee, noted historian, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, said:

'It's humiliating. We just have to mark it as an important event in the political development of Nigeria. I do not know of any other former British colonies, which celebrated its purchase in this manner. The idea has advantages in Africa.

It was the British colonial genius that made Nigeria. But they will not celebrate it, for obvious reasons. In fact, if they tried to celebrate this event, we have to oppose it as demeaning to us. Our African brothers, of course, consider the planned celebration rather strange. As a nation, we have worked tirelessly to keep the nation united. But we should not celebrate the event in our colonial history, which we should not be proud of.

Of course, Union was a historical event in Nigeria and cannot be forgotten entirely. The intention here is not completely blackened the British rule in Nigeria, as it has made the country something good. It introduced Western education in the south and a justice system that is fair in general. But this is my opinion is well thought out, that we just have to mention the merger with workshops, not to celebrate him, as if it was the idea of our nation and leaders.

It's unfortunate that Nigerian and African history is not seriously taught in our schools and universities. If they were, we would, of course, take a different view of the plan to mark this episode of our history'.

He understands the meaning of evrything done here. It would be better for him to advise the government that instead of the planned complex of celebrations, we just have to mark the occasion by holding lectures and seminars across the country. It would be much cheaper, more relevant and more meaningful. What we need is a sober reflection of the fact, what the union has really meant for Nigeria.

READ ALSO: After 56 years of independence: What hope for Nigeria?

Source: Legit.ng
- Senators are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to dissolve the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption (PACAC), led by Professor Itse Sagay, SAN

- The senators say Sagay and his team are incompetent

- Sagay accuses the Senate of working assiduously to whittle down the anti-corruption war of the government

What looks like a fresh crisis between the Presidency and the Senate may be gathering steam following reports that senators are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to dissolve the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption (PACAC), led by Professor Itse Sagay, SAN.

According to Vanguard, the senators have based their decision on the incompetence of the Sagay-led board.

Their demand comes weeks after the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly summoned Sagay for describing senators actions as childish and irresponsible, a summon he failed to honour.

The call for the dissolution was made on Thursday, April 20, by the Chairman of Senate Ad hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North East, Senator Shehu Sani, Kaduna Central.

Speaking with journalists, Senator Sani, said that President Buhari does not need a forum of advisers on corruption to effectively fight corruption.

Senator Shehu Sani calls for the dissolution of PACAC, led by Prof. Itse Sagay

He said the suspension of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, was a clear indication that the committee, which once defended the SGF, was not competent.

READ ALSO: N13billion Ikoyi cash: Osinbajo-led panel quizzes Magu, others

Sani said: President Muhammadu Buhari should, as a matter of urgency, dissolve his Presidential Advisory Council on Corruption. It is a moribund and irrelevant assemblage.

The Presidential Advisory Committee, headed by a man who defended the SGF is without honour. Professor Sagay attacked me for my report on PINE, now that the President has taken steps in the direction of the committee report, I hope the Prof will muster the courage to also attack the President. The advisory committee was looking for corruption in Sokoto, while its there in Shokoto.

It is sad that most of the mercenary forces hired to rubbish the integrity of the Senate Committee and defend those indicted have suddenly lost their voice.

He, however, lamented that the humanitarian situation in the North East was made an industry where government officials and even NGOs profited from the suffering and hardship of millions of victims.

According to him, while some people saw the millions of orphans and widows produced by the crisis as victims, others saw them as cash cows.

Senator Shehu Sani calls for the dissolution of PACAC, led by Prof. Itse Sagay

READ ALSO: Buhari says he wont let Nigeria down - Lawan

But in a swift reaction, Prof Sagay accused the Senate of working assiduously to whittle down the anti-corruption war of the government.

Sagay slammed the Senate for making such a recommendation, as he accused senators of working towards ensuring that the anti-corruption war was whittled down.

Sagay said: Their reactions show that they are ignorant and they are also prejudiced because of the role we are playing in frustrating their attempt to water down the anti-corruption struggle.

So, this is a reaction to the fact that we are supporting the struggle against corruption by upholding Ibrahim Magu, who has been very successful in that struggle. They (Senate) are frustrated.

Let me say this, this Senate is supposed to have been elected on the platform of All Progressives Congress, APC, but from all indications, it is a hostile character and a big mistake to have been elected on the platform of the APC.

Infact, it is agents of the PDP and other unsavoury characters in the Senate who are ruining this country for no just cause. So, I am not surprised, it is against the anti-corruption struggle and they would not want us to survive because our continued role and presence will make it more difficult for corruption to continue. So they are against us.

Legit.ng had earlier reported that Senate on December 14, 2016, called for the resignation and prosecution of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Mr Babachir Lawal, following alleged complicity in the diversion of North East humanitarian funds.

The Senate Ad hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crises in the North-East had, in an interim report, indicted Lawal in the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on the North-East, PINE.

The call for Lawals resignation followed alleged contravention of the provisions of Public Procurement Act and the Federal Government Financial Rules and Regulations pertaining to award of contracts.

President Buhari suspended Babachir Lawal on Wednesday, April 19 and set up a three-man committee made up of Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general of the federation; Babagana Monguno who is the national security adviser and vice president Professor Yemi Osinbajo to carry out a two weeks investigation on allegations of violations of law and due process made against the SGF in the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on the North East.

In the video below, Legit.ng asks Nigerians if they believe President Buhari has taken the country out of recession as stated in a recent report. Watch:

Source: Legit.ng
This letter is being written for the shameful actions taken by the higher-ups at the Tomah VA against the non-profit Veterans Assistance Foundation for the homeless veterans.

The foundation started at the VA hospital late in 1998. They have done some wonderful things for the homeless men and women who have also served their country. Yes, like everything in life there are failures, but the Veterans Assistance Foundation has had far more success than failures.

I feel what the Tomah VA has done is being jealous of the things and help the VAF has done and now the VA is not going to refer more vets to this group of people who have worked so hard to bring these men and women back into jobs and to society. Please, to our politicians who state they are there for the vets: Why arent you looking into why the VAF was kicked out of the VA. Or do you not care?

To the new chief of the Veterans Administration in Washington, you are from Chippewa Falls, Wis. Ask the congressmen and senators from Wisconsin to look into this.

Please, these men and women have served their country. They have issues like all of us and until the VAF can find ways to continue to help these vets. People stand up for them, also the American Legion, the VFW.

The Veterans Assistance Foundation was told to move out the end of January.

God bless all our past and present men and Women who have served our country here and abroad.
MINNEAPOLIS  For members of Princes 1980s backing band The Revolution, reuniting and hitting the road for a spring U.S. tour is how they are coping with the Purple Rain pop superstars unexpected death a year ago.

Were taking it to the people who are grieving like we are, and letting them have a little bit of relief, guitarist Wendy Melvoin, sitting on a couch with other members of the band during a break at their Minneapolis rehearsal space, said Wednesday.

When Prince died of an accidental painkiller overdose, members of The Revolution were mourning at a Minneapolis hotel and made an impromptu video, promising to reunite for shows honoring their one-time flamboyant front man. After three sold-out shows at the fabled First Avenue nightclub (the setting of Princes hit 1984 movie Purple Rain) in September, The Revolution is back, preparing to kick off a tour Friday at Paisley Park in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen on the anniversary of Princes death.

The tour includes stops in Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco before ending in Seattle on July 15.

Melvoin is joined by bassist BrownMark, keyboardists Matt Fink and Lisa Coleman, and drummer Bobby Z. The reunited Revolution plans to play Princes synthesizer-heavy 1980s music through his lauded 1987 double album Sign o the Times.

We have the ability now to give people a glimpse of what we experienced with him, BrownMark said. And I think thats a powerful thing. I know it helped me heal.

While Prince had a reputation as a perfectionist, members of The Revolution remember the good times goofing in the studio.

We had fun. We had a lot of fun. Sometimes we would be rehearsing and wed crack up, wed just laugh for an hour, cracking jokes, BrownMark recalls.

Wed go play softball, keyboardist Fink said. OK, were not going to rehearse today, lets go play softball.

After years of recording and touring with The Revolution, Prince did what any boss would do and just put it (the band) to bed, Bobby Z. said.

That intense run we had, all those years, it was starting to come apart at the seams, with personalities and under that kind of pressure, just like human beings do, and he just kind of made a decision, the drummer said.

And he wanted to move on as basically a solo artist with a backing band, no disrespect. But this was a band he was a very critical member of.

Whether The Revolution will continue beyond this tour is an open question.

Wed love to be able to see if there are some legs with this, Melvoin said.
With the spotlight focused on Canadian markets lost to American dairy processors in recent weeks, dairy is shaping up to become a contentious issue in future trade talks.

The latest salvo came in a letter from David MacNaughton, Canada's ambassador to the United States, to Gov. Scott Walker and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

It was a response to a joint letter to President Donald Trump from the governors, who said protectionist trade policies by Canada were to blame for a market disruption that will soon leave dozens of Wisconsin dairy farmers without a buyer for their milk. On Tuesday, Trump vowed to resolve the trade dispute with Canada.

"Dairy farmers globally, not just in the U.S., are facing many challenges," MacNaughton wrote in the letter Tuesday. "In particular, both Canadian and American farmers have been dealing with international pressures of low world prices and a surplus of skim milk solids."

Canada has 'strategy'

He said Canadian farmers are also trying to adapt, which led the Canadian dairy industry to develop a new "national ingredient strategy." That has resulted in a new set or class of dairy products (known as Class 7) and new prices for ultra-filtered milk, a processed, high-protein ingredient typically used in cheese production.

While the new classification does not impose a new tax or additional tariffs on U.S. dairy exports to Canada, the pricing structure does make the cost of U.S. ultra-filtered milk more expensive for Canadian processors, encouraging Canadian processors to buy it domestically.

MacNaughton said the move does not affect Canada's international trade obligations. And under the North American Free Trade Agreement, he said, the U.S. still has duty-free and quota-free access for milk protein substances, including ultra-filtered milk.

U.S. dairy officials weren't buying it.

"It's absurd for the Canadian government to assert there is no relationship between its new Class 7 policy and the lost U.S. milk sales there," said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the Virginia-based National Milk Producers Federation.

"When customers in Canada, who have been purchasing milk products from American suppliers for years, suddenly decide to switch to domestic suppliers after Canada implements a major change in milk pricing, it is abundantly clear that the lost business incurred by U.S. farmers is directly tied to Canada's milk pricing system," Mulhern said.

U.S. dairy experts also said they don't know what methodology Canada uses to set prices for ultra-filtered milk.

Milk pricing is based on commodity dairy pricing usually seen on commodities exchanges.

The government's role typically is to determine what external factors go into setting the price for a commodity, including production costs.

Canada has indicated its prices would be competitive with the world market but offered no specifics, according to Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at UW-Madison.

"That really means they are not determining a price based on market demand or needs but are basing it on what competitors would supply it for," Stephenson said. "If you know what your competition's price is, then you will make yours a little less. That's what we'd call restraint of trade, and that's not playing fair."

'Sense of urgency'

On Thursday, Wisconsin lawmakers held a conference call with Canadian government and agricultural representatives to discuss the crisis, although it appears little was resolved.

"I am disappointed that the representatives of the Canadian government have not demonstrated the sense of urgency that we in Wisconsin feel about the crisis impacting so many of our local dairy farms," Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said in a statement afterward, adding that he was encouraged that a dialogue had at least been opened with Canada.

Grassland Dairy Products Inc., of Greenwood, informed 67 dairy farms in early April, most from Wisconsin and some from Minnesota, it no longer would accept their milk after May 1, citing Canada's new pricing policy. The move left farms producing more than 1.3 million pounds of milk a day needing new buyers.

State officials and dairy organizations have been working with the affected farmers to find buyers for their milk. Forward contracts with at least three dairy farms that received the letter meant Grassland had to continue accepting their milk, and Mullins Cheese in Mosinee began taking milk from eight of the affected dairy farms.

Stephenson said Canada did not want dairy included in the original NAFTA talks in the early 1990s, but it was part of earlier agreements laid out by the World Trade Organization.

When existing trade deals were negotiated, Stephenson said, ultra-filtered milk did not exist.

Over the years, technology advanced and milk processors invested to make high-protein dairy ingredients with numerous applications.

"What Canada has done with this new Class 7 is to encourage making (ultra-filtered milk) domestically and pricing it in a way that there's no reason for Canadian processors to buy it from the U.S.," Stephenson said.

Trade numbers

Ultra-filtered milk exports to Canada represented about $150 million in annual business to American dairy processors. Estimates from the Dairy Business Association say Grassland commanded about two thirds, or $100 million, of that business, while two other companies in New York represented the rest.

All U.S. dairy exports to Canada in 2016 totaled $631.6 million, a 14 percent increase from 2015, according to the U.S. Dairy Export Council. Canada was the third-largest destination for U.S. dairy exports, behind Southeast Asia and Mexico last year.

MacNaughton said the U.S. enjoys a dairy trade surplus with Canada. He said Canada imports 6.3 percent of its cheese, 10 percent of its butter and 10 percent of its milk powders from the U.S, while the U.S. imports 3 percent of its cheese, 3 percent of its butter and 8 percent of its milk powders from Canada.

In overall goods trade, the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. In 2015, shipments of Canadian-made goods to the U.S. totaled $295 billion, while U.S.-made goods going into Canada totaled $280 billion. That $15 billion gap was down 14 percent from 2014, the trade office said.

"There is a decent chance" the issue over ultra-filtered milk will go before the WTO, said John Holevoet, director of government affairs with the Dairy Business Association, but that could take years to litigate and doesn't provide a solution for dairy farmers now searching for milk buyers.

As far as trade deals go, Holevoet said agreements should yield benefits for all sides.

"It may be true we have a dairy trade surplus with Canada, but it's not true for overall trade," he said. "Canada is our second-biggest trading partner and we're operating in a trade deficit. Canada has benefited significantly from fair trade and access to U.S. markets."
- A divorcee, Yusuf Saidu, has approached an Upper Area Court at Karu in Abuja to seek refund of the money he spent on the wedding of his former wife

- Saidu is pleading with court to compel his ex-wife, to refund N400, 000 he spent on their wedding three years ago to enable him marry another wife

- Saidu and his former wife got married in 2014 and that she got tired of the union early this year and divorced him

A divorcee, Yusuf Saidu, on Friday approached an Upper Area Court at Karu in Abuja to seek refund of the money he spent on the wedding of his former wife.

Saidu is pleading with court to compel his ex-wife, named Habiba, to refund N400, 000 he spent on their wedding three years ago to enable him marry another wife.

He told court that he and Habiba got married in 2014 and that Habiba got tired of the union early this year and divorced him.

READ ALSO: Presidency reveals 11 things that show Nigerias economy is out of recession

Saidu said that before the dissolution of the marriage, they had relocated to Abuja from Kaduna State but that Habiba sued him at a court in Kaduna.

My lord, I need the exact sum of N400, 000 to marry a new wife.

I dont want any amount less than that because the marriage did not last long and for the money I spent not to be a waste, I need full refund.

We were also blessed with a two-year-old boy. I want to have his custody.

I am not the one that said I am tired of the marriage but my ex-wife, so I need full refund of all my expenses during the wedding, Saidu pleaded.

Counsel to the respondent, Mr Abidan Aminu, noted that his client received the court summons with shock.

He told court that the marriage was dissolved by a Sharia Court in Kawo, Kaduna State last month.

The summons is coming less than a month when the court at Kawo granted my clients request on grounds of gross domestic violence visited on her.

The court also awarded the sum of N 70, 000 as compensation to be paid by my client to the plaintiff being the exact amount of dowry paid on her.

She had paid the money through the court.

I was also surprised to find out from the court in Kaduna that he refused to come and pick up the N70, 000 until we were served this summons in Abuja.

Another surprising thing is that he did not heed the advice of the court to appeal its judgment at the Sharia Court of Appeal in Kaduna and he failed to also seek legal knowledge on the issue.

He urged the court to award Habiba N20, 000 as compensation for expenses and inconveniences caused to her by the actions of Saidu.

However, the Judge, Abdullahi Baba, in his ruling, struck out the case for lack of merit.

The judge said that the matter was filed at the court as a fresh matter and that was why it was entertained.

Baba advised Saidu to seek redress on the matter in the state where the divorce was granted.

You (plaintiff) are not supposed to bring this matter here since it started in another state.

READ ALSO: The Richest Woman in Nigeria 2017 - Top 10 Read more:

I am certain that the judge of the Sharia Court in Kaduna would have told you in his judgment that you have a right to appeal within 30 days that the judgment was given.

If you are not clear with any language of the court, seek professional opinion.

I will advise you to go back to Kaduna where the matter started and appeal at the Sharia Court of appeal if you are not satisfied with the judgment given, Baba ruled.

He, however, did not award any compensation to Habiba.

Can you marry a spouse who is way older or younger than you? Watch Nigerians' reactions below:

Source: Legit.ng
But these are still barks, he added. So far, no bites.

Mr. Trumps steel investigation is much broader than dozens of anti-dumping cases against China and other exporters filed by the Obama administration and its predecessors. It invokes a somewhat novel principle of using national security as the criterion for whether the imports are damaging the United States. The narrow argument is that a depleted American steel industry would be unable to produce enough steel to supply the military. More broadly, White House officials say an economically vibrant country is better able to defend itself.

It is unclear what steps Mr. Trump will take once the investigation is completed  within 270 days but probably sooner. The most obvious would be to impose tariffs on steel imports. Mr. Hufbauer said the United States could also use the results as leverage to persuade countries to accept voluntary export restraint agreements, such as those in the 1980s.

We are groping here to see whether the facts warrant a comprehensive solution to deal with a very wide range of products from a very wide range of countries, Wilbur L. Ross, the secretary of commerce, told reporters on Thursday. Mr. Rosss department will run the investigation.

While the directive does not single out any country, the Chinese are clearly in the cross hairs. China accounts for only 2 percent of direct steel exports to the United States, but its excess capacity drives down steel prices worldwide. Surplus Chinese steel, shipped to other countries, ends up in the United States in other manufactured products. Mr. Ross noted that steel imports from China had continued to rise, despite the governments pledge to cut back its overcapacity.

Still, the White Houses competing aims with China were on display as it rolled out the order.

When Mr. Trump was asked whether the investigation would affect his efforts to obtain Chinese cooperation on North Korea, he replied: This has nothing to do with China. This has to do with worldwide, whats happening. The dumping problem is a worldwide problem.

Critics of the administration questioned its invocation of national security. Most of Americas largest steel suppliers are friendly countries, like Canada, South Korea and Germany. Analysts also noted that the value of steel imports declined 26 percent from 2015 to 2016, though the White House noted that imports rose 20 percent between February 2016 and February 2017.
The buildings interior looked like a prosaic conference room except for the startlingly bright turquoise walls. Our minder told us to stand in a circle around the rooms large table. Those of you on that side are in the North, he said, pointing, well, north. The other half of the circle was still standing in the South.

Image I couldnt resist taking a photo of my sneakered feet on the North side of the room. Credit... Motoko Rich/The New York Times

As we moved around the room, we could look through the windows and see the low concrete slabs that mark the line between the North and the South. Outside, we were prohibited from crossing that line. But inside this one building, the border was penetrable. I couldnt resist taking a photo of my sneakered feet on the North side of the room.

It all seemed a bit detached from the geopolitical crisis, although I admit after we went back outside I felt a ripple of apprehension when North Korean guards came down a flight of stairs and walked to the back of the building we had just been inside. Apparently there was no need to worry: Su-Hyun Lee, a researcher and interpreter in The Timess Seoul bureau, noticed a clump of five North Korean soldiers standing on a nearby balcony taking selfies with us as the backdrop. Of course then we needed to take selfies, too.

Image One of the public affairs specialists from the Combined Forces Command whipped out Flat Stanley. Credit... Motoko RIch/The New York Times

In keeping with that spirit, one of the public affairs specialists from the Combined Forces Command that represents the United Nations and the United States military in South Korea whipped out Flat Stanley, a cutout figure of a character from a childrens book series. Her colleague had asked her to bring Stanley to the DMZ and take a photo of him there on behalf of a school project of the colleagues son.

With his purple hair, pink shirt and gentle smile, I thought he looked as if he had the kind of resolve this situation could use.
In late morning, a murmur of prayers rose from the front pews of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in the Bronx, a soft cloud of Spanish words that floated toward the soaring vaults of the nave.

Santa Maria, Madre de Dios 

At the back of the church, a plaque commemorates scores of donors whose might and money restored the church a half-century ago: Toscanos and Fioritos and Giantasios, a roster of the Italian families who lived in this parish for much of the 20th century, when it became known as the Bronx incarnation  and by far the most authentic  of New Yorks Little Italies.

Stacked on a table were leaflets inviting people to contribute their thoughts on the restoration of the church for the 100th anniversary in September of its first Mass. The pastor of Mount Carmel, the Rev. Jonathan Morris, says the parish plans to spend $1.6 million on brick-and-mortar repairs, and on expanding its services to a community of immigrants  many of them Mexican, and quite a few of those living without legal authority to be in the country.

Then there is this.

A rumor has taken hold in the neighborhood that Bill OReilly, the recently deposed Fox News host, has contributed an eye-popping portion of the funds needed for the centennial. Father Morris would not discuss any details about the contribution of Mr. OReilly or anyone else, but said they had met and become friends at Fox News, where the priest provides occasional religious commentary. Moreover, he said the church had raised only half its budget.
There is an undeniable dollop of hypocrisy in Prime Minister Theresa Mays call for a snap election on June 8 after insisting all along that she would not do something so self-serving. But in this case Mrs. May made the right call.

The election cannot change the outcome of last years referendum in which British voters shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union. She is stuck with that. But what she will need is the backing of the British people for the extraordinarily difficult negotiations with the union to determine how, at what pace and at what cost to the British economy the separation is to be achieved. Its also best for the European Union to know who its dealing with as it grapples with major challenges to its own future.

Mrs. May claimed she changed her mind on an election only recently and reluctantly because opposition parties and the House of Lords were weakening her negotiating stance. The real reason is more prosaic: The Labour Party under the far-left Jeremy Corbyn is a mess, and unless something startling happens in the next seven weeks, Mrs. Mays Conservatives will greatly expand their majority in Parliament. Elections will also give the prime minister, who took power last July without a national vote, a personal mandate.

Most important, a strong showing should give Mrs. May the flexibility and authority she will need once the enormously complex and fraught negotiations get going  after France and Germany hold their own national elections, the former this weekend and the latter in September. The European Union will resist making major concessions to Britain for fear of encouraging other members to exit, so Mrs. May will be under considerable pressure to make compromises that hard-core advocates of Brexit will strongly resist.
For all the talk about the Fillon scandals, Emmanuel Macrons great prospects or Jean-Luc Melenchons last-minute surge, most commentary about the French election essentially still comes down to one concern: Could Marine Le Pen really become president?

In both casual conversation and specialized coverage, in France, Europe and elsewhere, the answer to that question is often amazingly presumptuous: Ms. Le Pen will make it to the second round of the election, but she wont become president. Hardly anyone seems to contemplate the possibility of her winning outright, with a simple majority, in the first round of voting this Sunday. Most polls promise the reassuring prospect of a final duel.

Why? Some analysts point to the heavy political baggage she has inherited from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the far-right National Front party before her. Others invoke various mathematical impossibilities. In any event, Marine Le Pen will not be president  the idea has become commonplace, a kind of political verse, a comfortable mental habit.

But it masks a peculiar form of denial no one wants to recognize as a potentially terrible mistake. And it leads to this contradiction: Even as the mainstream discusses the need to mobilize against a Le Pen presidency  with a vote utile, or tactical vote  it dismisses the very possibility that she might win.
FRONT PAGE

An article last Friday about a report that said 12 teachers had sexually abused students at Choate Rosemary Hall, the elite Connecticut boarding school, over several decades misstated how many of those faculty members have since died. It is three, not five. Because of that error, the article misstated the number of accused faculty members The New York Times tried to reach. It was nine, not seven. The errors were repeated in an article on Saturday about school administrators who helped hide the accusations for decades.

INTERNATIONAL

An article on Thursday about Secretary of State Rex W. Tillersons diplomatic efforts with Iran erroneously included Bahrain among allies of the United States that have a Sunni Muslim demographic majority. It is majority Shiite (though the family that leads Bahrain is Sunni).



An article on Wednesday about an attack on a police checkpoint near St. Catherines Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt misstated the monasterys denomination. It is Greek Orthodox, not Egyptian Orthodox.



An article on Thursday about political unrest in Venezuela misstated, in some copies, the total number of people who had died in recent protests against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. It was seven, not eight.
Another inmate, Ledell Lee, was executed Thursday night after courts rejected his last stay requests. Other executions are scheduled for Monday and Thursday next week.

The inmates were all found guilty of terrible crimes. In a Supreme Court brief, the state denounced requests for stays of execution that it said were nothing more than an attempt to prevent Arkansas from carrying out petitioners execution decades after petitioners brutally took the lives of young mothers, children and men who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The reason for Arkansass planned assembly line of executions struck some as unseemly: The states supply of midazolam, one of the chemicals in its lethal injection protocol, was about to expire, and it was unsure whether it could get more.

In a brief, Arkansas officials blamed anti-death-penalty activists for the shortage, saying they had a long history of keeping states from obtaining lethal drugs for use in lawful executions by subjecting manufacturers and suppliers to threats and intimidation.

When the Supreme Court heard arguments in 2015 in its last major death penalty case, Glossip v. Gross, Justice Samuel A. Alito seemed to agree, saying activists had engaged in what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty.

The upshot of those efforts, he said, was that states are reduced to using drugs like the sedative midazolam, which give rise to disputes about whether, in fact, every possibility of pain is eliminated.
For the International Church of Cannabis in Denver, there were three reasons to celebrate on Thursday.

First, it was opening day. The church, a more than century-old building recently adorned with brightly colored paintings by the artists Kenny Scharf and Okuda San Miguel, welcomed the public early in the afternoon, at which time no cannabis consumption was allowed inside.

It seemed to be a nice steady flow of people, said Lee Molloy, a founder of the church and a member, who estimated that a couple of hundred people had come by.
John T. Curtin, a federal judge whose rulings forced Buffalo to desegregate its schools and the Occidental Chemical Corporation to clean the chemical wastes at the toxic Love Canal landfill, died on April 14 in Orchard Park, N.Y. He was 95.

His death, at a nursing home, was confirmed by his daughter Patricia Curtin.

Buffalos schools were largely segregated in 1976 when Judge Curtin made his first major decision in a lawsuit filed by a councilman, the N.A.A.C.P. and a local civil rights group against the citys superintendent of schools, its Common Council, the New York State Board of Regents and the state commissioner of education, among others.

Twenty-nine of the citys 98 public schools were 90 percent white. Twenty others were more than 90 percent nonwhite. Only 3,000 of Buffalos schoolchildren, out of about 50,000, were being bused to achieve racial integration.

In his first of a series of rulings, Judge Curtin wrote that the defendants had violated the 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the laws by intentionally causing and maintaining a segregated school system.
Ivanka Trump said on Thursday that she would donate the unpaid portion of her advance for writing a book called Women Who Work to charitable groups that help children in urban areas. She also will forgo a book publicity tour to avoid using her government perch to promote her private product.

In announcing her plans to donate $100,000 each to the National Urban League and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Ms. Trump, the presidents daughter and adviser, released a statement calling the book part of a continuing effort to empower women that has been central to my mission throughout my career.

Ms. Trump said her book aims to supply advice and tips on leadership, entrepreneurship, juggling work and family and building cultures where multidimensional women can thrive  now and in the future.
WASHINGTON  Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke dismissively about the State of Hawaii while criticizing a Federal District Court ruling last month that blocked the Trump administration from carrying out its ban on travel from parts of the Muslim world.

I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power, Mr. Sessions said this week in an interview on The Mark Levin Show, a conservative talk radio program.

Mr. Sessionss description of Hawaii, where the federal judge who issued the order, Derrick K. Watson, has his chambers, drew a rebuke from both of the United States senators who represent the state. Annexed as a territory of the United States in the late 19th century, Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959.

Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences  including my own, Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, wrote on Twitter. Jeff Sessions comments are ignorant & dangerous.
WASHINGTON  When Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the militarys top commander in the Pacific, ordered the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to sail north from Singapore this month, he was oblivious to the larger  and incorrect  impression that he was rushing a naval strike force to confront an increasingly belligerent North Korea.

Four days later, when Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. dropped the most powerful conventional weapon in the American arsenal on Islamic State fighters in a tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan, he not only seized headlines around the world but also unintentionally signaled to dictators in Syria and North Korea that they might be the next target of what the Pentagon called the mother of all bombs.

Instead of simply achieving tactical objectives, the timing of their actions surprised their bosses at the Pentagon, upset edgy allies and caught the White House flat-footed. Taken together, the episodes illustrate how even the militarys most seasoned four-star field commanders can fail to consider the broader political or strategic ramifications of their operational decisions, and some current and former senior officials suggested that President Trumps decision to unshackle the military from Obama-era constraints to intensify the fight against terrorists risked even more miscues.

There are lots of decisions that military commanders make every day on their own without asking, Mother, may I? said Robert M. Scher, a former senior Pentagon official. But they have to realize and take into account that their actions can have strategic impact outside of their areas of responsibility.
A video has emerged that appears to show members of the Egyptian military shooting unarmed detainees to death at point-blank range in the Sinai Peninsula and staging the killings to look as if they had happened in combat.

The leaked video, which was posted on social media on Thursday, could undercut claims made by the Egyptian Army in December that the men were suspected terrorists who died in a fight with the military.

The video was released the same day that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met in Egypt with its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to discuss improving their countries military relationship. It also comes after human rights groups accused the Egyptian military of killing up to 10 men in January in a staged counterterrorism raid in Sinai.

The three-minute video, which was released through a channel associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, appears to depict part of a raid that the Egyptian Army highlighted in a Facebook post on Dec. 6, 2016. That post included photos of three bloody men in a grassy area with rifles next to them. The post said they had been killed in a military raid on a terrorist base and an explosives storehouse.
Archival research doesnt get much more exciting than the 2004 heist movie National Treasure. Nicolas Cage, playing a historian named Benjamin Franklin Gates, discovers a coded map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Globe-spanning intrigue ensues  accompanied, offscreen, by a tsunami of eye-rolling by actual historians.

But now, in a bit of real-life archival drama, a pair of scholars are announcing a surprising discovery: a previously unknown early handwritten parchment of the Declaration, buried in a provincial archive in Britain.

The document is the only other 18th-century handwritten parchment Declaration known to exist besides the one from 1776 now displayed at the National Archives in Washington. It isnt an official government document, like the 1776 parchment, but a display copy created in the mid-1780s, the researchers argue, by someone who wanted to influence debate over the Constitution.

It may not hold the key to a Masonic conspiracy, as in National Treasure. But its subtle details, the scholars argue, illuminate an enduring puzzle at the heart of American politics: Was the country founded by a unitary national people, or by a collection of states?
Pictures of a 5-year-old girl from suburban Seattle, dressed up as her heroines  Angela Davis, Rosa Parks and other African-American women who fought for freedom  were shown at the International Center of Photography recently. On Thursday night, they were followed by images of displaced migrants in a Tunisian refugee camp.

Where the museum chooses to display these powerful shows  on the facade of its Bowery building, from dusk to dawn  is a sign of a growing global trend among arts institutions that are trying to make an artistic statement while engaging visitors, both returning and new.
Magdalena Abakanowicz, a Polish sculptor who transformed sisal and burlap into brooding forms that evoked the weight of political oppression, the desperation of the individual and the sufferings of the natural world, died on Thursday in Warsaw. She was 86.

She died after a long illness, her husband, Jan Kosmowski, said.

Ms. Abakanowicz (pronounced ah-bah-kah-NO-vich), who once described her sculpture as a search for organic mysteries, first attracted critical attention in the 1960s with free-standing woven works made from sisal that she unraveled from discarded ships ropes and dyed.

These Abakans, as they became known, were monumental, some more than 15 feet tall, hollow at the core and fitted with slits and folds. Hanging from the ceiling, nearly touching the floor, they resembled shrouds, twisted tree trunks, cocoons or druid priests  strange forms summoned from the lower depths of the collective unconscious.

Like all of Abakanowiczs cycles, the Abakans lead outward, away from what they might appear to represent, into psychology and history, toward fundamental links between human beings and nature that are always waiting to be recognized and explored by the imagination, the critic Michael Brenson wrote in Art Journal in 1995.
In addition to reviews, features and news during the week, our critics and reporters collect the best of what theyve heard: notes that sent shivers down their spines, memorable voices, quotations that cut to the heart of the story.

Read the rest of our classical music coverage here.
Start with two sibling creations: say, Beethovens Piano Concerto No. 2 and Timo Andress The Blind Banister, a concerto closely related to it, at least in the mind of Mr. Andres. Add two unrelated works with, for whatever reason, an eye toward chaos.

You could hardly create a less coherent program than the one the New York Philharmonic is presenting this week, opening with excerpts from Berliozs dramatic symphony Romeo et Juliette and closing with Elgars symphonic poem In the South (Alassio). Conducted by Courtney Lewis and with Jonathan Biss as piano soloist, it juxtaposes disparate moods, dramatic conceits and musical personalities to produce  no surprise  warring sound worlds.

True, you can muster sympathy for Mr. Lewis, 32, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the music director of the Jacksonville Symphony in Florida. He was an assistant conductor of the Philharmonic from 2014 to 2016 and is leading his first subscription concerts with the orchestra.

The Andres work is part of a commissioning project organized by Mr. Biss to create sequels of sorts to Beethovens five piano concertos, so the two substantial works were undoubtedly visited on Mr. Lewis as a package, leaving little room for creative choices of his own. He was presumably rewarded with a chance to conduct a favorite British work, which he led at David Geffen Hall on Thursday from memory and with obvious affection.
Those story lines all veer into dangerously melodramatic territory, which makes sense when you learn that one of the shows executive producers is Tassie Cameron, the creator of the soapy Canadian police show Rookie Blue. (Mary has a largely female provenance: It was created by Tara Armstrong, a young writer, and all six episodes were directed by the TV veteran Holly Dale.)

What makes the show different is the dark comedy of Mary and Dess missions. (Their clients are identified by a nurse at Marys hospital.) The show opens with a jolting scene that morphs from somber to slapstick when the drugs dont work. Later, when Mary and Des help a woman die at her favorite beach, the camera pulls back as they walk away, joking and bickering, with the womans body lying in the background like a piece of driftwood wrapped in a pink blouse.

Pitching the death scenes that way is a smart decision; you wouldnt want to watch a show in which they were all solemn or teary. And Ms. Dhavernas and Mr. Short pull them off, adroitly underplaying Marys slightly loopy intensity and Dess facade of sarcasm.

The counterintuitive humor helps make up for the less wise choices, mostly involving the sexual tension between Mary and the cop whos on her trail. Also distracting, though more believable, is the domestic-drama story line in which Mary, a divorced mom with two daughters, supports her loser husband but still has to put up with his snide digs about how shes hurting their children by being gone so much at night. If he only knew.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. What do you think of it? What else are you interested in? Let us know: thearts@nytimes.com.

High Holiday

Thursday was April 20, the unofficial holiday for marijuana smokers. And the late-night hosts rose to the occasion.
Shakespeares message of madness is to be found in those characters who are anti-life  whether Angelo in Measure for Measure, or Lady Macbeth, or Leontes in The Winters Tale. In the late plays there is a cure for madness: Lear dies sane, Leontes repents. But the dangerous, subversive question of the history plays  and in Blooms book, were reading both parts of Henry IV as well as Henry V  is, what is power worth?

Falstaff, excessive, loving, outrageous, overblown, but true, stands against Hals counterfeit. Prince Hal, morphing into Henry V, may be a great leader, but he dumps his friends, rewrites his past, and in carnage is a self-aggrandizing commander of the Death Star. Falstaff is on the side of life; messy, silly, unplanned, all for love, life.

Shakespeare was a showman, and his Henry plays played to English jingoism and mythmaking. They look as if theyre about nation building, kingship and pride in warfare. But Falstaff is the comic counterpoint to all that posturing.

In a wonderfully comic scene, cited at length by Bloom, Falstaff will play dead like a circus dog in order to avoid being killed in Hals war.

Falstaff: To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man. But to counterfeit dying when a man thereby liveth is to be no counterfeit but the true and perfect image of life indeed.

Image

In other words  what exactly is worth dying for?

Bloom frankly accepts that he is an old man losing his friends to death. He knows he doesnt have much time left himself. His interest is in how we expand the time we have  old or not. Falstaff, himself cartoonishly expanded on the outside, is also a human Tardis, much bigger inside than out, a kingdom got not by usurpation or bloodshed, but by pressing his being so close to life that he becomes the imprint of it.
Dromgoole explains that he set the troupe up in the full expectation that not everyone would last the full two years. Hence his insistence that all the actors learn multiple parts so that they could switch around at a moments notice. As it happened, the same 16 people miraculously made it through the whole tour. Perhaps changing roles from time to time helped them build the collective sense of trust that sustained them. Perhaps too, as Dromgoole suggests, they drew upon the gentle support of each line of verse, so that even in the most trying of circumstances Shakespeares iambic pentameters kept them upright and somehow kept them moving forward, into the story and towards the audience.

Image

Touring is particularly resonant for Hamlet, since Shakespeares tragedy features a traveling company of players who arrive in Elsinore and are greeted warmly by the prince. Hamlet makes clear that he has a lively interest in the theater, but that interest is not purely aesthetic. He asks the players to stage a court performance of an old play, The Murder of Gonzago, to which he says he has added a few lines. His secret intention is to see if the play triggers in his uncle an involuntary display of guilt, thereby confirming the charge of murder made by his fathers ghost. In the event, the uncle does arise in a rage and brings the performance to a halt, but like almost everything else in the tragedy, the signs are ambiguous. The poor players, in any case, could have no way to grasp why their show provoked such a response. A wonderful production I saw years ago showed them hastily packing up their bags in fear and rushing away.

The Globe company, of course, was always packing up and rushing away to the next venue. They did not deliberately set out to provoke moral crises and confessions of murder, even in the most benighted of the countries they visited, but they certainly hoped that the tragedys celebrated interrogation of social and psychological ills  Thoppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely, / The pangs of despised love, the laws delay, / The insolence of office  would have some beneficial influence. Tragedy, Shakespeares contemporary Sir Philip Sidney wrote, openeth the greatest wounds, and showeth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue; it maketh kings fear to be tyrants. Hamlet seems particularly suited to this task because of what Dromgoole calls its protean nature. It seems to work equally effectively in the urban heart of the most advanced industrial country and on the shores of the remotest Pacific island.

Dromgoole heightened this adaptability by refusing to give the production any strong interpretive twist. The best way to avoid a misconception, he observes, is to have no conception at all. As a reviewer in Sao Paulo wrote admiringly, The text was acted in plain mode  no verbal excesses or unnecessary shouting, just a harmonious recitation of words combined with essential corporal movement. If there was a special emphasis at all, it was on the princes lightness and wit. Hamlet was less the melancholy Dane than the jester in a corrupt world bent on outlawing laughter. Our show didnt dazzle or explode, Dromgoole concedes, but it worked.

Looking back on the initial motivations for his wildly ambitious project, Dromgoole ruefully notes two delusions: first, that Hamlet charted a journey toward peace, leading the troubled prince to a serene recognition that readiness is all; second, that it would have a comparably beneficial effect upon its audiences, leading them in some small way toward a resolution of their social and political problems. In reality, over the course of the two years, global problems only seemed to get worse, and the story of the prince, as the company performed it, seemed to tell not of spiritual enlightenment but rather of a bright young light that flamed for a moment only to fade and die.
THE STRANGER IN THE WOODS

The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

By Michael Finkel

203 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95

Michael Finkel is eating breakfast when a hermit jumps out of his newsfeed and into his heart. The hermits name is Christopher Knight, and he would still be living undisturbed in the Maine woods had he not been caught stealing junk food from a summer camp kitchen one night. With neatly cropped hair and wearing dad jeans and glasses, Knight doesnt look very hermit-y, but he confesses to burglarizing camps, cabins and houses about 40 times a year for as long as hes lived in the woods. And just how long is that? the cops ask. Knight has to think. What year was the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster?

Finkel, a journalist based in Montana, feels two things reading this local news story gone viral. The first is a need to know how someone could survive 27 years in the wild without death or detection. The second is kinship. Finkel presents himself as an introvert, an outdoorsman and the survivor of a 10-day silent retreat in India, among other spirit-seeking adventures. The hermit appeared to have the same passions on an exponentially grander scale, he writes. I thought about Knight as I vacuumed the breakfast crumbs, and I thought about him as I paid bills in my office. I worried that someone with no immunity to our lifestyle, physically or mentally, was now being exposed to all our germs.

After several admiring letters, and a few not entirely truculent jailhouse responses, Finkel shows up uninvited for visiting hours, and The Stranger in the Woods launches on its short, short, short way. You may have noticed some repetition in that sentence. Thats because The Stranger in the Woods started as a 2014 GQ magazine article, and its journey to a petite 200-page book is similar to the one a meatball takes on its way to becoming a meatloaf. Theres something tasty here. Theres also a good deal of filler.
Even in the martini-drinking Eisenhower era, when such womanizing was seen as acceptable male prerogative, Kahns behavior was shocking stuff. Still, Kahn hardly fits the profile of a successful Lothario. Born Leiser-Itze Schmulowsky in Estonia, in 1901, Kahn moved with his family to the United States when he was 5, and he grew up desperately poor in North Philadelphia. A childhood accident left his face as stippled as the rough concrete of the Salks walls. He was short and often disheveled from all-nighters at the drafting table. Yet women and men alike were mesmerized by his vigor and poetic brilliance. A charming mystic, he was given to anthropomorphizing architectural elements. The title, You Say to Brick, is one of his classics.

Image Credit... Patricia Wall/The New York Times

Kahn was also a romantic, and his relationships with Tyng and Pattison were true love affairs. After each woman became pregnant, Kahn did his flawed best to be a supportive father, commuting among his three households. While Kahn was absent for long stretches, his children  Sue Ann Kahn, Alexandra Tyng and Nathaniel Kahn  have loving memories of him. Whatever bitterness Kahns families harbored, their commitment to him never wavered. Neither Anne Tyng nor Harriet Pattison ever married. And hows this for complex family dynamics: Alex Tyng wrote her dissertation on her fathers work, then ended up marrying his grandnephew. Nathaniel devoted years to making My Architect.

For Kahn, there was never a line between love and work, and Lesser effectively shows how each of his long-term relationships was crucial to his development as an architect. Esther supported him financially during the Depression, when he struggled to get his career started. Part of what makes Kahn such a heroic, literary character (and what should give us all heart) is that he didnt hit his stride until he was in his 50s. That also happens to be when the affairs with Tyng and Pattison began. Compared with the output of a protean force like Frank Lloyd Wright, Kahns body of work is tiny, and by Lessers estimation includes just 14 great buildings. Nearly all were designed in the last two decades of his life, an intense period that began in 1950 after a three-month architects residency in Rome opened his eyes to the monumental power of ancient, masonry buildings. Mass and weight became especially important to him during this period, Lesser writes. Kahn began to envision a way in which his deep-seated affection for the old and his admiration for the new could come together.

Tyngs contribution to Kahns development has long been recognized, if grudgingly, but Lesser portrays their early projects as collaborations between equals. Tyng, one of the first women to earn an architecture degree from Harvard, introduced a rigorous, mathematical approach to their designs. Her obsession with geometry gave the Yale Art Gallery its most distinctive feature, a dropped ceiling that looks something like a fishnet petrified in concrete. Not only does the decorative treatment bring the plain interior to life, the diamond openings also shield an overhead cavity that houses the wiring and ducts. While standard today, setting aside a dedicated channel for the buildings infrastructure was an important functional innovation, one that would lead Kahn to make such segregated served and servant spaces a hallmark of his designs. Vincent Scully, the influential Yale art historian, would go on to praise the museum for its masculinity. Its huge critical success raised Kahns profile and paved the way for the commissions that made him famous.
1. President Trump predicted that Thursdays attack in Paris will have a big effect on the countrys coming presidential election.

The gunman was identified as Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old French citizen with a long record of violent crime. A note found near his body expressed support for the Islamic State.

The police officer he killed, Xavier Jugele, was remembered for defending gay rights. Above, tourists returned to the Arc de Triomphe, near the scene of the shooting.
Ms. Enders and other analysts believe that the deal will ultimately be approved, but it is also clear that Sky is an asset the Murdochs do not want to risk losing out on a second time. That appears to be particularly true of James Murdoch, who is the chief executive of 21st Century Fox and the chairman of Sky.

It will set up his future as a chief executive officer, Ms. Enders said.

Sky is both a giant cable and broadband provider in Britain and a producer of shows like The Young Pope, the Jude Law vehicle that Sky developed with HBO and Canal+. It has divisions in Italy and Germany and deals with Britains Premier League and the Bundesliga soccer league in Germany. Its Sky Atlantic channel has rights to American hits like Game of Thrones.

From a business perspective, the timing of the deal is good.

Sky has a reasonable valuation, and it has become highly profitable. It also has direct experience with consumers that 21st Century Fox lacks, as a provider of cable and broadband services and through NowTV, its rival to Netflix. That expertise is valuable at a time when many consumers are abandoning bundled cable offerings.

A generic problem for a lot of media companies everywhere, in the U.K. or the U.S., is, how do you crack the direct-to-consumer nut? said Thomas Singlehurst, an analyst at Citigroup. And here is a company that has been doing it very successfully, and thats part of the consideration alongside the cheap valuation, the weak sterling, and the fact that the group just throws off a lot of cash.

Mr. Singlehurst said he expected that the government would ultimately approve the deal.

At the end of the day, you do have to have proper evidence of something that has gone wrong, and that evidence has to have been provided definitively one way or the other, most likely in a court of law, he said.

With the fit-and-proper test, Ofcom is trying to determine whether the people who would be running the company are fit to do so. While relatively rare, the test is familiar to the Murdochs. The last such review by Ofcom began in 2011, and also examined the fitness of Sky, then called British Sky Broadcasting, amid a bid by News Corporation to acquire full control of the company.

News Corporation has since split into two companies, including 21st Century Fox. Sky ultimately passed the review, but James Murdoch was criticized in Ofcoms report for mishandling the hacking matter, and the proposed acquisition was abandoned.
 Honeywell International said it had higher-than-expected profit in the first quarter.

 The annual spring meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund bring government officials, central bankers, journalists, and members of academia and the private sector to Washington for briefings on the global economy and development. Emerging markets are showing signs of strength.

 Samsung Electronics continues the rollout of its Galaxy S8 and has packed it with new features: taller, curved screens; encrypted facial recognition; deeper display colors; systemwide voice control and the ability to turn into a desktop computer.

 Dont forget to read the DealBook Morning Agenda.

General Electric Results Beat Forecasts

General Electric  which has been under pressure from the activist investor Nelson Peltz  has pared back its assets to focus on its industrial division, but it still faces trouble.

Its revenue dropped less than expected in the first quarter compared with the same period last year. In an effort to return to its core industrial focus, the company shifted its headquarters to Boston from Fairfield, Conn., tried to recast itself as a more digital company, shed its appliance division and pared down GE Capital.

But there was pain in the oil and gas division, where sales were down 9 percent compared with the year before. The company is set to merge its energy business with Baker Hughes in a deal that it expects to close this year.

The companys stock at one point was up more than 2 percent in premarket trading on Friday.  AMIE TSANG

U.S. and Indonesia Announce $10 Billion in Deals

Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin and G.E. were among the big American names in 11 deals signed on Friday in Jakarta as part of Vice President Pences visit.
HOUSTON  The Trump administration delivered a setback to Exxon Mobil on Friday, announcing that it would not grant the oil giant a waiver from sanctions against Russia that would allow drilling in the Black Sea.

The decision, reinforcing barriers erected by the United States over Russias intervention in Ukraine, was another sign that President Trump has been unwilling or unable to improve relations with the Kremlin early in his term, after pledging as a candidate that he would seek a thaw.

In consultation with President Donald J. Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a terse, prepared statement, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions.

The prospect of a waiver had drawn denunciations from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. When news of Exxon Mobils proposal emerged this week, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, wrote in a Twitter post, Are they crazy?
Two top bankers cant agree on whether lenders are too big to fail.

The boss of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, reckons the problem is solved. The Fed banker Neel Kashkari disagrees, because using debt to absorb losses is flawed. Markets suggest Mr. Dimon is closer to the mark.

Mr. Dimon argues that banks will not need rescuing again because they have enough reserves and capital to be wound down. Mr. Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, reckons regulators wouldnt dare use so-called bail-inable debt (instruments that could be converted into equity in an emergency) anyway.

Mr. Kashkari has reasons to doubt. The insolvency of Lehman Brothers sent shock waves through money and credit markets. That forced governments to rescue other lenders. He is right that using debt to fund resolutions could amplify shocks, as it is marked down.

Yet there are reasons to hope that Lehman-style contagion should be reduced. Banks are now carving out specific tranches of debt, or issuing it from separate companies to prevent resolution destabilizing their main business. Regulations deter them from owning one anothers bail-inable securities.
The protest over a Department of Homeland Security investigation that began in December and threatened the jobs of several immigrant workers at Tom Cat Bakery in Long Island City, Queens, was meant to begin at 6 a.m. on Friday.

But at 3 a.m., a few protesters arrived at the factory and chained themselves to the bakerys trucks, disrupting morning deliveries. Four people were arrested, the police said.

By 7, more than 100 people had gathered in the rain, carrying signs that read No Human Is Illegal and Rise and Resist. Members of a marching band, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, played as a group of 100 people marched back and forth along 10th Street, chanting in both Spanish and English.

Others in the food business around New York joined in the demonstrators call for A Day Without Bread. Eli and Max Sussman, brothers who run the Brooklyn restaurant Samesa, posted signs drawing attention to the protest, and to the rights of immigrant workers. On Friday, they donated 50 cents from the sale of every item that includes pita bread to a fund set up for workers. And at the register, they collected additional money.
The Sonoma Coast has been on my mind quite a bit lately.

First came a wine panel tasting in February of pinot noirs from the region. Now, we have followed up with a tasting of 20 Sonoma Coast chardonnays from recent vintages.

In both tastings, we found wines that combined intensity with balance and subtlety, indicating that the Sonoma Coast is a region of great promise. The region remains difficult for consumers to grasp, partly because it is geographically unwieldy, encompassing a stretch not just along the Pacific coastline but also extending far inland, bringing together wildly different vineyard areas.

The jumble of regions means that racy wines from the coast and richer, fruitier wines from inland may wear the same appellation. Even among the wines made near the ocean, stylistic differences abound. Thats both a problem and an incentive for consumers to get to know the producers and their styles rather than pay strict attention to appellations.

As far as wines that come from the coastal region, I feel as if we are just beginning to understand its potential. While the region has concentrated on Burgundian varieties like pinot noir and chardonnay, it also produces superb syrahs and whites from Rhone grapes like marsanne and roussanne. Ive had an intriguing trousseau, a red mostly associated with the Jura, and a terrific Sonoma Coast cabernet sauvignon.
Dolly Levi certainly knows how to make an entrance. But then, of course, so does Bette Midler.

On Thursday night, about two hours after she had basked in a full-throated standing ovation from the celebrity-studded crowd at the opening night of Hello, Dolly!, the twice Oscar-nominated actress, who plays the title role, appeared at the top of the steps of the New York Public Library dressed in a midnight blue, floor-length custom Marchesa gown. As she strutted into the party, John Pizzarelli and his band played  what else?  Hello, Dolly!

Accompanied by her husband, the artist Martin von Haselberg, who smiled wryly at her side, she beamed and gave a slightly regal wave as guests shouted out her name, hummed along to  have you back where you belong, and took out their smartphones to capture the moment for their Twitter and Instagram accounts.

A few minutes later, after weaving through a crowd that included a wide swath of New Yorks celebrity elite  among them Sigourney Weaver, John McEnroe, Greta Gerwig, Lorne Michaels, Sarah Paulson, Zadie Smith, John Slattery, Andrew Rannells, Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue  Ms. Midler stood off in a corner of one of the librarys towering spaces and talked about what it was like to take on an iconic role that had been played over the years by such legends as Carol Channing, Ann Miller, Martha Raye, Pearl Bailey and, on film, Barbra Streisand.
Mr. Doak raised alarms last month when he wrote in a letter to Gov. Mary Fallin, a fellow Republican critic of the health law, that Blue Cross was making preparations to withdraw from the marketplace. Blue Cross, which is operated as a nonprofit insurance company, said it had not made a final decision about next year.

We certainly want to continue to offer products in 2018, said Kurt Kossen, an executive at Health Care Service Corporation, Blue Crosss parent company.

Mr. Doak said that without any stabilization funds or other federal efforts to stabilize the individual insurance market, another round of steep premium increases was inevitable here.

But Blue Cross plans have been doing better in the marketplaces, and Health Care Service Corporation, which offers plans in Oklahoma, New Mexico and three other states, is losing less money. It aggressively raised prices last year, with a 75 percent average rate increase in Oklahoma.

A major factor in the insurers losses was the decision by Congress not to fully fund a program aimed at protecting insurers during the early years of the Affordable Care Act, when the companies did not know what to charge. Mike Rhoads, the deputy insurance commissioner, said Blue Cross started too low, with some of the lowest prices in the country in 2014.

Regulators in both states say that now, the fate of the marketplaces depends very much on the actions of Congress and the Trump administration.

Were just a little boat in this ocean, said Mr. Franchini, the New Mexico superintendent. If theres a tidal wave from Washington, it could scuttle us.
Students

1. Watch the 11-minute film above. While you watch, you might take notes using our Film Club Double-Entry Journal (PDF) to help you remember specific moments.

2. After watching, think about these questions:

 What moments in this film stood out for you? Why?

 Were there any surprises? Anything that challenged what you know  or thought you knew?

 What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?

 What questions do you still have?

3. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

4. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the Reply button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
Marcel Ophuls says that The Memory of Justice is his best movie. This catches your attention, given that another movie he directed, The Sorrow and the Pity, might be the best documentary ever made.

I think its the most personal and sincere work Ive ever done, he said recently about The Memory of Justice, a four-and-a-half-hour examination of war crimes and guilt from 1976 that focused on the Nuremberg trials and the Vietnam War. And it disappeared.

The films history is a drama in itself, part thriller, part tragedy. It involves an American Army base, the late-night pilfering of film canisters, a screening that left Mike Nichols in tears and a fatal review. The long final act ends in redemption at the hands of Martin Scorsese (among others) and includes the films long-delayed television premiere, on HBO2 on Monday, April 24.
Outside Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan on a recent weekday, two police officers peered over a pink iPhone, laughing at whatever was on the screen. Beside a golden revolving door, a counterterrorism officer sipped a smoothie in front of the Fifth Avenue home of the president of the United States. In the thin crowd outside, a pair of tourists stopped to take a selfie with the buildings golden lettering behind them, mugging with faces of pantomimed horror.

In the early days of Donald J. Trumps presidency, throngs of people descended on the building, gawking, protesting or selling buttons and books. But these days, in the tranquillity outside the 58-story tower where his wife, Melania, and their son, Barron, live, tumbleweeds may as well roll.

Despite his frequent excursions from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr. Trump has not returned as president to his hometown, where for weeks after his election protests erupted, sometimes several a day. Without his presence as a fulcrum for the citys ire, the response to his presidency has been reshaped, taking on a new dimension and renewed earnestness, activists say.

Today, its not like were just yelling at a tower where he may or may not emerge, said Alex Kramer, 26, an actor from Fort Greene, Brooklyn, who runs Action Party, an organization working to mobilize voters around opposing Trump policies. It has caused us to be more creative, and ultimately more effective, in strategizing how to reach him, because we cant just show up and make noise. People are having to think now: What specific targeted actions can we take that are actually going to get under his skin?
It was just a given, said Patricia Light, who grew up in Dannemora and whose home is just a short walk downhill from the prison. It was quite an ordeal for us, and it was scary because we had no idea where they were.

Sure enough, idle chatter over the Hollywood treatment has turned into something real. It is not necessarily the big-budget blockbuster that some might have envisioned, but a made-for-TV movie, to be broadcast on Sunday on the Lifetime network. It seems likely to draw an audience of residents here eager to watch  some quite skeptically  a production based on their communitys true story.

The movie, New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell, centers on Ms. Mitchell, who worked in the prison tailor shop. Officials said she smuggled in hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools to help the prisoners, Richard Matt and David Sweat, forge a way out. But she failed to show up as planned with a getaway car, forcing the men to scuttle plans to flee far from the area and instead head into the regions thick woods.

Mr. Matt was fatally shot by a United States Border Patrol agent after he refused to drop a shotgun, and two days later, Mr. Sweat was shot and captured near the Canadian border. Ms. Mitchell, who pleaded guilty to aiding in the escape, was sentenced to up to seven years in prison, describing her actions as by far the worst mistake I have made in my life.
Yet in the face of this urgent challenge  one that affects all of humanity, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, America and the rest of the world  President Trump has chosen to accelerate climate change. He and his aides are encouraging pollution.

What can you do about it?

You can get involved politically, and you should. Participate in efforts to persuade the administration and Congress to take a different tack. Strive to elect people who take climate change seriously. But such work has a long lead time and an uncertain outcome.

In the meantime, you can do something else, as well: Look for ways to influence companies, communities, cities and states, all of which can have a big effect on the climate. In these realms, there is reason for optimism  and room to do so much more.

This week, Walmart announced that it planned to remove one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain by 2030. Thats more than the annual emissions of Germany, writes Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, which is working with the company. Its the equivalent of taking 211 million cars off the road every year.

Cities  including New York, Mexico City, Shenzen and others  have also taken big steps. Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope, the former head of the Sierra Club, have a new book out, with many more details on what can be done. (Tom Friedman talked about their book in his column this week.)
SYDNEY, Australia  How can I tell you what I have done? Let me start with a doorway. I am looking in at a patient handcuffed to the rails of a hospital bed, arms spread out in a crucifixion pose. The prison guards who have brought the patient to the hospital explain what has happened. I hide my horror behind my calm and neutral doctor face as I unfurl crepe bandages from self-inflicted wounds. Just another set of wounds to add to all the others in my head, the weeping pressure sores of nursing home residents, the gangrenous toes that you can smell from the other side of the room.

The job of a doctor in training is unspeakable. It is hard to find the words to describe what we do. It is hard to work out whom to tell. We cannot speak of these things to people outside medicine because it is too traumatic, too graphic, too much. But we cannot speak of these things within medicine, either, because it is not enough, it is just the job we do, hardly worth commenting on.

When I started working as a doctor last year in a metropolitan public hospital in Sydney, rotating through the emergency department and the surgical and medical wards, as all doctors do in their first year of practice in Australia, my experiences were no better or worse than those of any of my colleagues. Nor are they dissimilar to the experiences of junior doctors around the world. But we are speaking about these things now, where I am from, because my colleagues are killing themselves.

It has long been recognized that physicians are more likely than the general population to kill themselves, especially if they are female. A meta-analysis of studies around the world on doctor suicide found that female doctors were more than twice as likely as the general population to die this way.
The United States is as vulnerable to an attack today as it was the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Information in the press about national security is misleading or flat-out wrong, offering a false sense of security. The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security perform heroic work day and night for a largely ungrateful nation. If members of Congress are unhappy with the Trump administrations crackdown on illegal immigration, they should pass new laws or shut up.

Those were the main takeaways from Homeland Security Secretary John Kellys first extensive remarks about how he intends to lead a vast bureaucracy on the front lines of immigration enforcement, passenger screening and cybersecurity.

Make no mistake, he said Tuesday during a speech at George Washington University. We are in fact a nation under attack.

Of course it is necessary to take seriously threats from extremist groups and criminals, and take measures against them. But they do not justify Mr. Kellys incendiary message to his work force. The tone he sets can only encourage abusive behavior among his officers further down the chain of command against immigrants, and also lead to the curtailment of Americans civil liberties and privacy.
Actually, no.

First, no one is taking biospecimens from patients bodies without their permission. Patients have consented to the clinical procedure as important to their medical care. What harm could come from using leftover materials, which would otherwise be thrown away, for research?

Perhaps we should be concerned about risks to a patients privacy, but that is why we remove the identifying information. Although researchers have shown that it is possible to de-anonymize specimens  using clues to link them back to individuals  there have been no reports of anyone doing this for nefarious reasons. And even if there were, the answer would be to sanction the culprit through fines or criminal charges, not to make it harder for researchers to get these samples in the first place.

What is left, then, is our claim to autonomy: Many of us intuitively feel we should be able to control how biospecimens derived from our bodies are used. But leftover biospecimens are just medical waste to most of us, as we lack the expertise to imbue them with scientific value. Nor have we done anything to make them valuable, other than being born with a particular genetic variant or afflicted with a particular malignancy.

This is why calls to pay patients are misplaced. In addition, unlike HeLa, in which one patients biospecimens led to dramatic advancements, most developments come from studying materials from many patients  each biospecimen contributes only marginally to the result.

These relatively weak claims to control and compensation do not justify the demands more restrictions would place on biospecimen research. Hindering this research is worrisome because its benefits are so great. Among many examples, they include the identification of mutations in tumors (lung, skin and others) that can be targeted with drugs that markedly improve quality of life and survival.
Between 1935 and 1975, Will and Ariel Durant published a series of volumes that together were known as The Story of Civilization. They basically told human history (mostly Western history) as an accumulation of great ideas and innovations, from the Egyptians, through Athens, Magna Carta, the Age of Faith, the Renaissance and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The series was phenomenally successful, selling over two million copies.

That series encapsulated the Western civilization narrative that people, at least in Europe and North America, used for most of the past few centuries to explain their place in the world and in time. This narrative was confidently progressive. There were certain great figures, like Socrates, Erasmus, Montesquieu and Rousseau, who helped fitfully propel the nations to higher reaches of the humanistic ideal.

This Western civ narrative came with certain values  about the importance of reasoned discourse, the importance of property rights, the need for a public square that was religiously informed but not theocratically dominated. It set a standard for what great statesmanship looked like. It gave diverse people a sense of shared mission and a common vocabulary, set a framework within which political argument could happen and most important provided a set of common goals.

Starting decades ago, many people, especially in the universities, lost faith in the Western civilization narrative. They stopped teaching it, and the great cultural transmission belt broke. Now many students, if they encounter it, are taught that Western civilization is a history of oppression.
Anyone wanting vivid examples of the unjust consequences of Homeland Security Secretary John Kellys hard-line immigration policy need look no further than Maribel Trujillo-Diaz, a mother of four children living near Cincinnati, who is her familys main breadwinner and who has no criminal record. Or Juan Manuel Montes, a 23-year-old Californian who came to the United States when he was 9 and had been shielded from deportation under President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Neither fits the profile of a criminal alien or threat to the homeland. On the contrary. Ms. Trujillo had applied unsuccessfully for asylum and had been ordered deported to Mexico. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials sensibly saw no good reason to remove her, and allowed her to remain and care for her children  who are 3, 10, 12 and 14, and are American citizens  as long as she checked in regularly with them. That she did, faithfully, until she kept her appointment under the new administration, which showed no compassion. Now she is gone.

There are conflicting accounts between Mr. Montess lawyers and Homeland Security about whether his permission to stay under DACA was voided after he crossed into Mexico and tried to get back in. But there is no disputing he is a Dreamer  brought here illegally as a child, through no fault of his own, and by no means part of the cohort of alien predators feverishly evoked by Mr. Kelly.

Americans need to recognize and reject this great conflation of unauthorized immigrants with criminals.
HAMBURG, Germany  Imagine a German politician accusing another countrys government of using Nazi methods, while demanding the reintroduction of capital punishment and the incarceration of both the opposition and journalists. Hilarious and untenable? Not in the eyes of many Turks who live here in Germany.

There are about 1.5 million Turks living in Germany who can vote in Turkish elections. Of those who participated in last weekends constitutional referendum, about 63 percent approved of granting immense unilateral powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan  who has attacked journalists and compared the German government to Nazis. These changes, which narrowly passed, make him a modern-day sultan.

With this result, Germanys Turkish electorate proved to be a more reliable force of support than the one at home; in Turkey itself, only 51.4 percent voted in favor of Mr. Erdogans constitutional reform.

Whats wrong with you, my fellow countrymen and countrywomen?

The answers are all the more urgent, because as much as Germany has struggled to integrate generations of Turks, it suddenly has yet another problem on its hands: the one million immigrants who have come here since 2015.
On todays episode:

 Adam Nossiter, a New York Times reporter based in Paris, gives the view from a city on the verge of a hotly contested presidential election.

 We call up Andrew Higgins, a Times reporter in Russia, who has been paying attention to Russia paying attention to the French election.

Background reading:

 Why the French presidential vote matters.

 Seven of the best New York Times articles on the French election.

Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Tweet me at @mikiebarb. And if that isnt enough, we can even text.

How do I listen?

If you dont see an audio player on this page or to subscribe to The Daily for free, follow the instructions below.
Line Up Your Team

THE BROKER. Sellers, not buyers, pay the broker fee. So, your broker works for you at no direct cost. A broker will shepherd you through the process from the first open houses until you close on the sale, helping to negotiate and navigate any sticking points along the way. To find the right one, talk to friends and listing agents at open houses, and look for agents with expertise in the neighborhoods you like. Try an agent matching service like the Find Me an Agent feature Barbara Corcoran recently added on her website.

THE LENDER. If you need a loan, shop around by talking to lenders at banks both large and small, and to mortgage brokers.

THE LAWYER. You will need a real estate lawyer to negotiate the contract, review the buildings financial statements and board minutes, and make sure there are no violations against your apartment. A lawyer also orders title insurance and works with your lender to make sure you close on time. Get referrals from your real estate broker, friends and colleagues. Expect to pay your lawyer around $3,000.

Unexpected Costs

CLOSING COSTS. These are the fees, taxes and insurance payments due when a buyer signs a mortgage and takes possession of the property. Closing costs vary based on the purchase price and mortgage size, but they often total in the five figures. Closing costs are substantially higher for condos and houses than they are for co-ops because co-op buyers do not pay a mortgage recording tax, which is about 2 percent of the mortgage. If a property in New York sells for $1 million or more, it triggers a 1 percent mansion tax on the purchase price.
Theyre more number crunchers than anything else, he continued. America goes through cycles, but it always seems to win, and they see it as a long-term investment, not a quick buck.

Numbers for the first quarter of 2017 bear that out. While overall investment across all categories of real estate was down compared with the first quarter of last year, dropping to $4.03 billion from $9.6 billion, and foreign investment in the institutional market fell to $1.63 billion from $2.03 billion, the percentage of foreign versus domestic investment in the market leapt to 40 percent from 21 percent, according to numbers provided by Real Capital Analytics (which do not include individual apartment sales or deals under $2.5 million) . First quarter numbers from residential firms show that overall deal volume is up, though they do not distinguish between domestic and foreign buyers.

Gary Barnett, president and founder of Extell Development Company, said that he fully expected that with the anticipation of a significant corporate tax cut driving up the stock market, people will be motivated to invest in real assets, further burnishing New Yorks reputation as a safe haven for foreign capital. From a real estate investment perspective, theres one country that has stability, rule of law, thats a place you can invest in, he said. And thats the U.S.

Royce Pinkwater, founder and chief executive of the residential brokerage Pinkwater Select, said while sales this year have been markedly better than last year, she was seeing a lot of confusion in the market. People are stunned and when people are stunned they avoid commitments, she said. Without a doubt Trump has made certain groups of people feel extremely unwelcome.

One of the largest unanswered questions about the Trump presidency is whether Mr. Trumps business instincts will prevail over the nationalistic, protectionist ideology favored by some of his top advisers and the base that helped propel him into power.

Many in the industry, however, said that they were confident New York City real estate was in Trumps blood  and that he would look out for their interests.

A number, for example, expressed certainty that Mr. Trump would prove an ally when it came to EB-5, though the president has yet to offer any statement on the program. Abteen Vaziri, a director at Greystone EB-5, an arm of a real estate advisory firm that connects investors with qualifying projects, said that he thought the program might even expand under Mr. Trump.
A couple of years ago, it seemed as if everyone I knew was on the verge of divorce.

Hes not the man I married, one friend told me.

She didnt change, and I did, said another.

And then there was the no-fault version: We grew apart.

Emotional and physical abuse are clear-cut grounds for divorce, but they arent the most common causes of failing marriages, at least the ones I hear about. Whats the more typical villain? Change.

Feeling oppressed by change or lack of change; its a tale as old as time. Yet at some point in any long-term relationship, each partner is likely to evolve from the person we fell in love with into someone new  and not always into someone cuter or smarter or more fun. Each goes from rock climber to couch potato, from rebel to middle manager, and from sex crazed to sleep obsessed.
ISTANBUL  The world seems awash in chaos and uncertainty, perhaps more so than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

Authoritarian-leaning leaders are on the rise, and liberal democracy itself seems under siege. The post-World War II order is fraying as fighting spills across borders and international institutions  built, at least in theory, to act as brakes on wanton slaughter  fail to provide solutions. Populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic are not just riding anti-establishment anger, but stoking fears of a religious other, this time Muslims.

These challenges have been crystallized, propelled and intensified by a conflagration once dismissed in the West as peripheral, to be filed, perhaps, under Muslims killing Muslims: the war in Syria.

Now in its seventh year, this war allowed to rage for so long, killing 400,000 Syrians and plunging millions more into misery, has sent shock waves around the world. Millions have fled to neighboring countries, some pushing on to Europe.
VIOLETTE GREW UP ABOUT TWO MILES down the road from where he lives now. His family moved to Ithaca around 1960 because his father wanted to study with Vladimir Nabokov at Cornell, but by the time they got there, the author had left the university. So Violettes father ended up racing motorcycles instead. Violette became a teenage punk rocker, drug addict and high school dropout. At 19 he left Ithaca for Hawaii, got clean, and a few years later, landed in the M.F.A. program at Columbia University, finishing the degree in 1999. His career began in earnest upon graduation. Jose Freire, a onetime music tour manager who had recently opened Team Gallery in Chelsea, saw Violettes M.F.A. show and wrote the artist a note in the exhibitions signature book: Look, I love your work. Please call me.

Violettes debut at Team opened in the winter of 2000. His work somehow blended the austerity of minimalism with the anarchic violence of a Slayer album cover. That first show included a plaster-and-aluminum sculpture dangling a deaths-head heavy metal necklace from the twin-lightning-bolt insignia of the SS, and installations inspired by a 1987 suicide epidemic among teenage heavy metal fans in Bergenfield, N.J.

Violette fostered a gloomy persona and encouraged dark interpretations of his work. For a 2005 solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, he built the skeletal remains of a burned church, based on a tradition of ransacked sacred spaces  including ones in Norway that had been burned and destroyed by members of the countrys black metal scene. Violette felt a strange kinship with these subjects. If you can find this compelling as an aesthetic experience, he says now, thats one step down a queasy slope to putting yourself right next to the person whos lighting the match. You realize, I am clearly capable of doing exactly the same thing in the right set of circumstances. Some fans approached Violette on Myspace, eager to discuss the joys of murder.

Over a handful of shows, Violette developed a following among curators and collectors  making him an accidental figurehead for the growing commercialism of the art world  as well as for metalheads and disaffected hangers-on. His work began to exert a cultish influence on other artists. New York magazine noted at the time that the gallery district in Chelsea looked like a teenager going through its goth phase.
The yearlong celebration of Shakespeares 400th death-i-versary ends on Saturday. But before the clock strikes midnight, the American Shakespeare Center, a theater company in Staunton, Va., is announcing a future-oriented tribute: a 20-year contest to create 38 modern companion pieces to his plays.

The project, called Shakespeares New Contemporaries, invites writers to submit plays inspired by each of Shakespeares, on a schedule coordinated with the theaters season. Two winners will be chosen each year, and will be performed in repertory along with the Shakespeare play that inspired them, starting in 2019. (Each winning playwright will receive $25,000.) The final year will consist of a retrospective of the best work from the project.
You may have questions about Hawaii. Many Americans do. After all, Hawaii is quite far from the mainland United States  about 2,390 miles from the West Coast. Thats almost the distance between New York and Los Angeles (about 2,450 miles). So perhaps it should be no surprise that at least one high-ranking federal official thinks of Hawaii as a distant island.

Here are some answers to questions about Hawaii.

Can you drive to Hawaii?

Of course not. It is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. There are eight main islands: Hawaii Island, Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Lanai, Molokai, Kahoolawe and Niihau.

Is Hawaii a state?

Yes.

An independent kingdom that traded with Europe after the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778, Hawaii was annexed in 1898 by the United States several years after foreign residents  including 162 American Marines  overthrew Queen Liliuokalani (That was front-page news).

The first Hawaii statehood bill was introduced in Congress in 1921, followed by the introduction of at least 48 more over the years, The New York Times wrote in 1959.
VARNER, Ark.  The State of Arkansas, dismissing criticism that it intended to rush too many prisoners to their deaths too quickly, on Thursday night carried out its first execution in more than a decade. Using a lethal injection drug that has been the subject of sharp constitutional debate, the state plans to execute three more men by the end of the month, before its supply of the chemical expires.

Ledell Lee, who was condemned to death for the murder of Debra Reese more than 20 years ago in a Little Rock suburb, died at 11:56 p.m. Central time at the Cummins Unit, a prison in southeast Arkansas, after the reprieves he had won in federal and state courts were overturned. He received injections of three drugs: midazolam, to render him unconscious; vecuronium bromide, to halt his breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop his heart.

State officials administered the lethal injection at 11:44 p.m., after Mr. Lee, who requested holy communion as his last meal, wordlessly declined to make a final statement. Sean Murphy, a reporter for The Associated Press who witnessed the execution, said Mr. Lee was not visibly uncomfortable as he was put to death. The prisoner, Mr. Murphy said, was not responsive when the authorities performed consciousness checks.

An evening of appeals kept Mr. Lee, 51, alive as his death warrant neared its midnight expiration. The United States Supreme Court, as well as a federal appeals court in St. Louis, issued temporary stays of execution while they considered his legal arguments. In Little Rock, the Arkansas capital, Gov. Asa Hutchinson monitored developments at the State Capitol.
BERKELEY, Calif.  In explaining why it had canceled a speech by Ann Coulter scheduled for next week, the University of California, Berkeley, said that it had very specific intelligence that Ms. Coulter might be in grave danger.

To Ms. Coulter and her supporters, it was another example of Berkeley showing intolerance of any opinions other than the liberal ones it is famous for. But the university that championed free expression in the 1960s has become known, in the polarizing first months of the Trump presidency, as something more: a meeting ground for those wanting to express themselves with wooden clubs and fists.

Days after fights broke out between anarchists and right-wing groups near campus, and a couple of months after masked protesters smashed windows and set fires to stop a speech by the incendiary right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos, the police are preparing for a possible replay if Ms. Coulter follows through on her vow to show up anyway on Thursday.

The city and campus have become the stage on which the national political tensions are playing out, said Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university. Coming here, they know they will be able to find an opponent pretty easily.
Los Angeles, he said, is a vision of what America is reaching for tomorrow.

When others try to pull us apart, we pull together, he said. While others are obsessed with the most powerful person in our country, we are empowering the most vulnerable in our own backyard.

Some highlights from the speech:

Homelessness

As mayor, theres no issue I spend more time on  because I believe that homelessness is the moral issue of our time.

The mayor said that thanks to Measure H, which voters approved in November, the city will have $55 million a year to expand mental health and substance abuse programs and triple the number of supportive housing units in the next two years.

Housing

Anyone who writes a check at the beginning of the month knows that the rent in this city is just too high. Too many people are getting priced out.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the city spend more than half their income on rent or live in severely overcrowded housing, the mayor said. Allowing more homeowners to build in their backyards and making it easier to build affordable housing would ease the burden, and he urged council members to approve a new fee for developers.
SACRAMENTO  For Robert Friend, home was a tent pitched down by the American River off 12th Street. It was quiet, secluded in the bushes, a respite from life on the pavement downtown.

Or at least it was until the storms came.

I got flooded out, said Mr. Friend, 48, looking weary on a recent afternoon as he stood on the sidewalk he had escaped to a few blocks from the river. This is the worst winter Ive known in the 10 years Ive been here. Last night and the night before I was just under a tarp, waiting it out. It was freezing-raining all night long.

The rains that lashed California this year, continuing with yet another wave of downpours through last weekend, have pulled this state out of a historic drought. But they also exposed the extent and agony of homeless women and men who have long made homes along the banks of the now-swollen rivers across California, and particularly in Sacramento, a city of 480,000 where a largely hidden community has lived on the outskirts since the Great Depression. According to city and state officials, about 2,700 of the 118,000 homeless people in California live here.

The rains  the most during Californias rainy season since the state started keeping precipitation records nearly a century ago  overwhelmed the two rivers that converge on the northwest side of the city, the Sacramento and the American. They ripped away the cloak of shrubbery along the rivers banks, forcing people camped there to move to more exposed ground. Cold, soaked and stranded, they used makeshift rafts to float to safety, or waited for rescue by the Fire Department from their camps two miles from the State Capitol and within walking distance of the Governors Mansion.
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration flew Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker, home to the United States on Thursday evening after negotiating her release from three years of captivity in Egypt on charges of child abuse and human trafficking, two senior administration officials said.

Ms. Hijazis case had become an international symbol of Egypts treatment of aid workers, and President Trump had been criticized by human rights advocates for not publicly raising her plight during an Oval Office meeting with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt early this month.

But the two administration officials said that despite the public silence, the United States had quietly secured a promise by Egyptian officials for her release before Mr. Sisi arrived at the White House, efforts that culminated over the weekend when a court cleared her. Ms. Hijazi, who grew up in Virginia, near Washington, returned aboard a government jet that landed at Joint Base Andrews, accompanied by her family and top American officials.

In a statement, lawyers for Ms. Hijazi said that they had worked closely with the Trump administration to ensure Ayas case was prioritized at the highest levels, and we are deeply grateful to President Trump for his personal engagement in resolving Ayas case.
Two Russian TU-95 Bear bombers were spotted flying about 41 miles off the coast of Alaska on Tuesday, just hours after two US F-22 fighter jets intercepted the same type of Russian aircraft in the area.
WASHINGTON  Barack Obamas extended post-presidential vacation is about to end. After spending weeks in French Polynesia  including time on the yacht of the movie mogul David Geffen along with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey  Mr. Obama will return to Chicago on Monday for his first public event as a former president.

His self-imposed silence since Inauguration Day will end with a series of events over the next four weeks. A Monday event with students at the University of Chicago will be followed by an awards ceremony in Boston; a series of public remarks as well as private paid speeches in the United States and Europe; and an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

And yet, Mr. Obamas supporters, who have been waiting eagerly for the former president to respond to his successors accusations and policy reversals, are likely to be disappointed.

Even as he witnesses President Trumps relentless and chaotic assault on his legacy, Mr. Obama remains stubbornly committed to the idea that there is only one president at a time. Those closest to him say the former president does not intend to confront Mr. Trump directly on immigration, health care, foreign policy or the environment during any of his events.
 Ijeoma Oluo in The Stranger:

It is white supremacy that told an unhappy and outcast white woman that black identity was hers for the taking. [...] It is white supremacy that decided that it was worth a book deal, national news coverage, and yes  even this interview.

Ijeoma Oluo didnt want to write about Rachel Dolezal, the former head of a N.A.A.C.P. chapter who passed as a black woman for nearly a decade until she was outed as white. But were glad she did. In this profile, Ms. Oluo confronts a woman she believes profoundly misunderstands the nature of white privilege. In the process, Ms. Oluo lets go of her anger toward Ms. Dolezal and comes to a deeper understanding of the nature of white supremacy. Read more 

_____

 Luke Savage in Current Affairs:

The West Wing is an elaborate fantasia founded upon the shibboleths that sustain Beltway liberalism and the milieu that produced them.

If you love Aaron Sorkins cult political drama, The West Wing, you might want to read Luke Savages critical perspective on the show. Youll definitely want to read it if you hate the show. Mr. Savage explains how the shows valorization of pragmatism and process, rather than any specific policy or ideological gains, is the idealized state of establishment liberal politics. It reflects the smug view that politics is less a terrain of clashing values and interests than a perpetual pitting of the clever against the ignorant and obtuse. Read more 
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration escalated its confrontation with so-called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, threatening them anew Friday with the loss of grant money if they do not remove certain barriers.

The Justice Department sent letters to officials in New York City, Philadelphia, California and other places singled out last year by the agencys inspector general for regulations that interfere with the ability of police or sheriffs to communicate with federal immigration authorities about the status of prisoners in their custody.

Many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime, the Justice Department said in a news release.

The agency cited the rising murder rate in Chicago and cast blame for gang murders in New York on what it labeled a soft on crime stance. It also complained that after the recent arrests of 11 members of the MS-13 Salvadoran street gang, the deputy police chief of Santa Cruz, Calif., stressed that the raid was unrelated to immigration instead of warning other MS-13 members that they would be next.
WASHINGTON  President Trump promised on Friday that he would unveil a massive tax cut for Americans next week, vowing a big announcement on Wednesday, but he revealed no details about what is certain to be an enormously complicated effort to overhaul the nations tax code.

Mr. Trump offered his tax tease in an interview and again during remarks at the Treasury Department on Friday afternoon as he raced to stack up legislative accomplishments before his 100th day in office at the end of next week.

His announcement surprised Capitol Hill and left Mr. Trumps own Treasury officials speechless as he arrived at the Treasury offices to sign directives to roll back Obama-era tax rules and financial regulations. Earlier in the day, when reporters asked Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, how far away a tax overhaul proposal was, he said he could not give an answer. Tax reform is way too complicated, he said.

Mr. Trump told The Associated Press in the interview that his tax reductions would be bigger, I believe, than any tax cut ever. But he faces an enormous fight among clashing vested interests as Congress tries to rewrite the tax code.
It is a complex condition with traits of both schizophrenia (a thought disorder) and bipolar (a mood disorder). Basically, my son had a psychotic break. Thats what they call it when someone disintegrates from his psyche.

When we drive home, I look at him in my rearview mirror to see where he splintered. He looks whole to me.

I slow down under the Cahuenga overpass and notice the growing encampment of homeless. There are canvas tents and sturdy couches, and I smell sausages cooking on a camp stove. We snake around Runyon Canyon in time to witness the screamer (as locals call him) hiking up to the Mulholland overlook, yelling obscenities at people that only he seems to see.

I tell myself that my son wont ever be homeless or scream in the street. He is clever like John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician. He will get better, and we wont have to mention this chapter in history to anyone. Ever.

It wont be the first time that my family has buried something in our ancestral hall of shame. I never met my grandmother, who spent 40 years living behind impenetrable gothic walls at Banstead Mental Hospital in England.

I open the car windows to let out some of the stifling melancholy.

When night comes, I sleep fitfully, burdened with self-reproach. If something I have done or said is causing my sons brain to short-circuit, flood with dopamine, lose cognitive function and short-term memory, then surely a change on my part will suffice to bring about a cure.

My boy is restless too. I hear the pull and push of the refrigerator door as he feeds through the dark hours like a fruit bat. Then he is here on the threshold of my bedroom. He may have been crying, but I cant be certain.
DONG TAM, Vietnam  Residents of Dong Tam, a village on the outskirts of Vietnams capital, have been holding hostages for nearly a week to protest a government attempt to evict villagers from disputed land. The standoff has riveted a nation where farmers land is often taken from them for development.

Some of the more than three dozen officials and police officers taken hostage last weekend were later released, but others were still being held in Dong Tam on Friday, according to rights activists and state news outlets. Residents had erected barbed-wire barricades to block access to a part of the village where the hostages were said to be held.

The episode has developed into one of the more dramatic confrontations in recent years between ordinary Vietnamese and their authoritarian government. The top city official in Hanoi, the capital, was expected to meet with villagers on Friday. State-run news outlets reported that officials had promised to review the underlying reasons for the land dispute, and to refrain from using violence.

A blogger near Dong Tam who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said people simply wanted to return to normal life.
SYDNEY, Australia  Vice President Mike Pence assured Australian leaders on Saturday that the United States was committed to the countries strong and historic alliance, and he reaffirmed that the Trump adminstration would honor a refugee deal that President Trump disparaged in a January phone call with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr. Pence is wrapping up an Asia-Pacific tour in which he has sought to affirm Americas commitment to the region after President Trump sent mixed signals to close allies, including Australia.

The tense phone call in late January between Mr. Trump and Mr. Turnbull set off a storm of criticism in Australia just as some in the country were calling for reconsidering its alliance with the United States and tilting more toward China.

During the call, Mr. Turnbull pressed Mr. Trump to honor an agreement, reached near the end of the Obama administration, to accept hundreds of refugees from Australian offshore detention centers. Mr. Trump abruptly ended the conversation and posted on Twitter that the agreement was a dumb deal.
GROZNY, Russia  It was supposed to be a night out. But for the young man who calls himself Maksim, as for scores of other gay men arrested in a pogrom this month in Russias Chechnya region, it pivoted into nearly two weeks of beatings and torture.

Maksim said it had started with a chat room conversation with a very good old friend who is also gay, and who suggested that they meet at an apartment. When Maksim arrived, however, he was greeted not by his friend but by agents who beat him. Later, they strapped him to a chair, attached electrical wires to his hands with alligator clips and began an interrogation.

They yelled, Who else do you know? Maksim said, and zapped him with current from time to time. It was unbearably painful; I was hanging on with my last strength, he added. But I didnt tell them anything.

Gay men have never had an easy life in Chechnya. But the targeted, collective punishment of gays that began last month under its pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, is a new turn in the regions long history of rights abuses.
VERBANIA, Italy  The last time Emma Morano left her apartment, she was 102 years old. Fame came late in life  after she hit 110. Last year, she was feted as the oldest person on earth. She had fans the world over. The mayor of her Italian town thanked her for putting it on the map.

Ms. Morano, the last person documented as being born in the 1800s, died peacefully on April 15. She was 117 years, 137 days, 16 hours and some minutes old.

The few worldly possessions she left behind, accumulated over the course of more decades than you or I will probably live, didnt take up much space in the tiny two-room church-owned apartment where she spent the last 27 years of her life.
If Mr. Trump is keeping score, however, as he most assuredly is, he would have to admit the Trump wave has yet to rise. In Austria in December, voters narrowly chose a Green Party candidate over one from the far-right Freedom Party as president. In the Netherlands last month, the Party of Freedom fell short of being the largest party in the House of Representatives. Some European analysts speak of a Trump backlash.

Ms. Le Pen still has a chance of winning. But Frances presidential election has become a fragmented affair, with her and three other candidates  a conventional conservative; a centrist, a former banker; and a rising leftist  all vying to emerge from the pack in a campaign that has been driven as much by concerns over the economy as terrorism and security. Voters will choose among 11 candidates in the first round of national voting on Sunday.

Moreover, Mr. Trump is unpopular in France, and as a result, Ms. Le Pen does not invoke his name on the campaign trail, even if his campaign is in some ways a blueprint for hers.

There is little doubt he favors Ms. Le Pen. In an interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Trump said Friday that though he would not endorse her, the fatal shooting of a police officer on the Champs-Elysees, an act claimed by the Islamic State, would help her because she was the candidate who is strongest on borders, and shes the strongest on whats been going on in France.

Ms. Le Pen seized on the attack to turn the election into a referendum on what she calls radical Islam.

She and Mr. Trump do not know each other, but early on, she clearly sought to tie herself to his success. After his election, Ms. Le Pen exulted that it had made possible what had previously been impossible. In January, during the transition, Ms. Le Pen was photographed having coffee at the Trump Tower cafe, prompting a flurry of rumors about whether she was in Manhattan to meet the president-elect. (Mr. Trumps aides denied it.)
PARIS  It has almost become routine in France: A terrorist attack shatters the rhythms of daily life, bringing bloodshed and anguish. The assailant turns out to be someone known to the authorities.

What is different now is the timing, as Paris is again on high alert, less than 36 hours before the country goes to the polls on Sunday in one of the most tumultuous and unpredictable presidential races in memory.

The brazen assault on Thursday by Karim Cheurfi, 39, a French national with a history of violence, left one police officer dead on the sidewalk of the Champs-Elysees.

It has also provided a potent opportunity for conservatives, primarily Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right National Front, to use the violence to try to stoke hostility toward immigrants and Muslims, as well as fears about whether citizens can be protected from terrorism.
PARIS  He was a proud gay man and a committed policeman.

He was among the officers who responded to a terrorist attack at the Bataclan concert hall in November 2015, and he was in the crowd when Sting helped reopen the 19th-century building a year later.

Xavier Jugele, 37, a Paris police officer since 2010, himself fell victim to terrorism Thursday evening. He was in a police vehicle on the heavily guarded Champs-Elysees, Pariss most famous boulevard, when a gunman opened fire, killing him and wounding two other officers, along with a bystander.

The gunman was shot dead as he tried to flee; the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack a short while later.

Officer Jugele was mourned on Friday by friends and fellow officers.

He was a simple man who loved his job, and he was really committed to the L.G.B.T. cause, said Mickael Bucheron, president of Flag, a French association for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender police officers. He joined the association a few years ago, and he protested with us when there was the homosexual propaganda ban at the Sochi Olympic Games.
The three cases are part of a campaign by Saudi women, who have been broadcasting daring videos with their cellphones, using Facebook to organize street protests and posting Twitter messages to challenge the very idea of male supremacy in their famously patriarchal society.

The campaign, started by a loose network of activists who have enlisted young, media-savvy women, has gone far beyond earlier protests against the kingdoms reaffirmed ban on female drivers, and has become a challenge to the pervasive guardianship system. In this entrenched system of guardianship, a male relative  usually a father or a husband, but sometimes a brother or even a son  has the legal right to control a womans movements.

What use is the right to drive, the young activists ask, if a woman still needs a mans permission to leave the house?

Even among some of the activists themselves, there has been surprise at the response. Im very impressed; a few years ago I thought I was the only one who thought this way, said Moudi al-Johani, 26, a Saudi woman who said she was locked up by her family when she returned from Florida during a college vacation.

Ms. Johanis father was angered by her independence and held her at home against her will for months, she said. She fled last year to the United States, where she has applied for asylum. She was among those who started an online campaign, #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen, which she claimed has been trending for more than 230 days.
WASHINGTON  President Trump welcomed Aya Hijazi, an American aid worker detained for three years in Egypt, to the Oval Office on Friday after quietly working to secure her release this week.

We are very happy to have Aya back home and its a great honor to have her in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said during a brief photo opportunity less than 24 hours after a government plane landed with her at an Air Force base outside of Washington.

Ms. Hijazi, who holds dual American and Egyptian citizenship and attended George Mason University in Virginia, was arrested in Egypt in 2014 on charges of child abuse and human trafficking.

Human right groups had mocked the charges against Ms. Hijazi and her husband, who worked at the Beladi Foundation, a nonprofit organization that she founded to care for street children in Cairo. Her case had become a symbol for the treatment of aid workers by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
A Chicago man was arrested by the Wisconsin State Patrol Tuesday for drunk driving with four children under the age of 16 in the vehicle.

Police were seeking Brian Pride, 39, Chicago, who was involved in a domestic incident at Three Bears Lodge in Warrens. Pride was intoxicated and heading back to Illinois with four children in the car. Prides vehicle was located by a State Patrol officer in the village of Warrens, where Pride was placed under arrest.
MANKATO, Minn. (AP)  John D. Lukacs recently was reading a war diary for research when he noticed the name Linus Schramski popping up in entries written by a fellow POW.

The documentary filmmaker was on his computer doing research on Schramski when he found a Free Press article about a scrapbook kept by the family of the World War II soldier as a way to better understand his experiences as a prisoner and a survivor of the Bataan Death March in 1942.

Lukacs decided to reach out to Schramskis widow and two daughters, who live in Mankato.

His widow three years ago told The Free Press that when the subject of prison camps came up in conversations, Schramski kept his comments brief. Vivian (Schramski) Borak said when the second lieutenant returned home, he seldom spoke about what it had been like to be captured by the Japanese.

If he was asked about something (relating to his war experiences), all he would say was, Yes, that happened.

Borak was again interviewed a few days after Lukacs contacted family members and shortly after the 75th anniversary of the start of the Bataan Death March.

Actually, the ninth of April is always observed by my family, she said.

Borak appreciated Lukacs efforts and shes grateful to have some blanks filled in Schramskis story.

I am happy my daughters have a way to get the facts  the diary, letters, the books, the newspaper articles.

Mary Brose remembers her father as a gentle and humble man. She said he was being protective when he refrained from giving details about being a POW.

He would always sideline us.

Schramski would tell his girls how hed place a banana in a coffee can that had a hole cut into it, then wait for a monkey to get its arm stuck when making a grab for the fruit. He left out one detail  the monkey became a meal for hungry prisoners.

A scrapbook project years ago had sparked a renewed interest in her fathers story for Terry Kruse, who also began delving into the history of POW camps in the Philippines.

I wanted to find out what really happened, she said.

Kruses history book collection includes several about the war in the Philippines, including two with references to Schramski. Another includes a black-and-white photo of him in a hospital bed.

Wounds he suffered when hit by shrapnel and health problems that resulted from imprisonment contributed to Schramskis death at age 47. Brose was 16 and Kruse was 11 when their father died in November 1963.

Linus Schramski was a graduate of Loyola High School who enlisted in the military in 1938. His parents, Leo and Florence Schramski, were living on Rock Street when they were informed their son was a prisoner of the Japanese.

His mother used a large cloth-covered book to store the 1943 news clipping about her sons capture, the short and heavily censored notes he sent during the 3 1/2 years he was in prison camps, and all the correspondence and military memorabilia about him.

My grandmother Florence was so anxious to get any word  like any mother would, Brose said.

She began reorganizing her late grandmothers scrapbook several years ago.

Things had gotten pretty raggedy, she said. The 18-inch by 24-inch scrapbook now has a revamped cover page and title A Survivors Story. Brose also took measures to prevent further deterioration of its fragile contents, regluing the photographs on acid-free paper, putting the letters in chronological order and labeling the books pages.

Nothing particularly earth-shattering had been written about Schramski in the diary found by Lukacs. His documentarys primary focus is a captured unit commander, Lt. Col. Ed Dyess.

Still, I thought his kin might be interested in what Linus was doing 75 years ago right about now.

April 9 was the 75th anniversary of the start of the Bataan March in which POWs were forced to walk for days through jungle terrain in the Phillippines. A thousand U.S. soldiers died trying to get there.

While Schramskis unit is mentioned quite a bit throughout my film, he isnt directly, Lukacs said.

But there are a considerable amount of Minnesota connections to the Death March and Dyess stories. One of the 11 escapees who participated in the breakout with Dyess was from Ironton.

I had a ton of material that I couldnt fit into the book and film, so Im trying to use it now.

Lukacs has been publishing daily updates on his books Facebook page regarding Dyess, his men and the other Defenders of Bataan.
Malloula, Syria

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)" are reputedly among Jesus' last words on the Cross at Calvary. Today Christ's words can be said to apply to all Christians in the Middle East who in this birthplace of Christianity are increasingly facing the most intense persecutions since the Roman Empire and the Bolshevik revolution.

As is widely known, Christians are being targeted in this region and pushed out of Christianity's birth place of 2000 thousand years ago and there is no Richard the Lion Hearted on the horizon to protect them. According to some analysts in approximately twenty years Christians will be virtually extinct in the Middle East.



Iraqi Christians moving Church icons to hoped for safety near Mosul.

(Image by Courtesy of M. Jalloum) Details DMCA



Today, Christians number fewer than four per cent of the region's more than four hundred million people. They have been subject to vicious murders at the hands of terrorist groups, forced out of their ancestral lands by civil wars, suffered societal intolerance fomented by Islamist ideology, and increasingly the victims of widespread institutional discrimination spreading today in the legal codes and official practices of many Middle Eastern governments.

This Easter, Christians are going through hell in the Middle East. Last year, approximately 100,000 Christians were killed in this region as a result of their beliefs, according to the Center for the Study of World Christianity. Outside the Arab world, persecution is also growing in India and Southeast Asia, according to the Open Doors organization, which has concluded that, in total, 215 million people on the planet suffer "high levels of persecution" simply "for belonging to the flock of Jesus of Nazareth." There are mounting calls to declare the atrocities perpetrated against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East as genocide or if this noun is deemed problematical under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, using the adjective 'genocidal' is becoming commonplace.

The Christian minorities in the Middle East -- Copts in Egypt; Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq; Melkites and other Christians in parts of Syria; Maronites and Armenians in Lebanon face increasing injustices and are targets of attacks and discrimination while increasingly being relegated to the status of second-class citizens in their own countries. Since their ascendancy in 2014 in Iraq and Syria, various Islamic State militiamen stigmatize Christians and mark their houses and properties with the letter "N" in the Arabic alphabet, for "Nazarene" or allegedly from Nazareth Palestine.

The largest number of killings of Christians are in areas of Iraq and Syria under IS control. The Iraqi Christian clerical leadership is urging those who have not yet fled not to remain in Iraq warning that as ever fewer remain and their numbers even further decline it will mean the end of their ancient communities. The Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako recently told Agence France-Presse "For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians."

ISIS may or may not soon be defeated in Iraq or replaced by a more vicious terrorist movement. Meanwhile Christians and other minorities may receive short term protection in Ninewah Province, but many voices of despair from inside the Church are admitting that there is no likely future for Christians in Iraq. Increasingly students of the subject are claiming that it is also likely true of the whole Middle East.

Just like Iraq, Syria hosts an array of Christian confessions, distinguished by the positions their forebears took in church councils of up to 1500 years ago. Some are in communion with Rome, others with Greek and Russian Orthodoxy; still others characterized by subtle doctrinal differences with all attempting to preserve mutual respect and friendship with their co-religionists across Syria. Under Syria's Hafez al-Assad and son Bashar, Christians have been 10 percent of the population and today are protected by the regime in areas it still controls. A majority of Christians remaining in Syria back Assad's government against the terrorists of the Islamic State and al-Qaida, whose victory would likely mean their expulsion or death. Still at least half of Syria's Christians have fled since March 2011. The flight is so pronounced that in 2013, Gregory III, the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, issued an open letter to his flock, urging them: "Despite all your suffering, stay here! Don't emigrate!"

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By Robert Weiner and Ryan Powers

Article originally published in the Boca Raton Tribune

For most parents across America, access to quality education for their children is a top priority. During a March 3 visit to Saint Andrew's School in Boca Raton, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reaffirmed her position that school choice is the solution to the fundamental problems of education in the United States.

"Parents deserve the right to choose the education that is best for their child," she said. "Children should not be denied the right to attend a high-quality school that allows them to pursue the American Dream."

Instead of focusing on policy solutions for children in subpar public schools, Secretary DeVos continues to insist that school choice is under attack.

In reality, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that "from school years 2010-11 through 2014-15, the number of students participating in these private school programs grew from approximately 70,000 to 147,000 students." The funds provided for these students "increased substantially, from approximately $400 million to $859 million."

With school choice on the rise, it seems that Secretary DeVos' argument is misguided and a distraction from substantive education improvement. Her visit to Saint Andrew's highlights how out of touch she is with legislation that she is responsible for overseeing.

In 2016, Governor Rick Scott pioneered House Bill 7029, a measure that implemented statewide school choice across Florida. In her press release, Secretary DeVos stated that school choice has a "transformative and positive impact" on student development.

Though she is correct about the effect of private schools like Saint Andrew's, she fails to acknowledge that House Bill 7029 has largely been used to help students move from one public school to another. This is primarily because many students still cannot afford private school, even with vouchers. At Saint Andrew's, a Florida voucher worth $5,000 covers less than 20% of the total $26,910 annual tuition expense for an elementary-school student.

In other words, she seems to confuse the terms "school choice" and "private school." In reality, school choice means being transferred from one public school to another, as shown in Florida. Saint Andrew's is a K-12 private school, which boasts students from over 40 countries and an 8:1 student-to-faculty ratio. No public school in Florida fares nearly as well. Even so, public school is the only feasible option for most families, school choice or not.

Secretary DeVos cited Florida student Denisha Merriweather, a young woman "who was able to attend a private school when her public school did not meet her needs." She uses Merriweather to explain how school choice is valuable, but conveniently omits how Merriweather was one of few to benefit from the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program only distributes scholarships for students who meet very specific criteria, catering primarily to extreme cases like Merriweather's. The primary recipients are students placed in foster care and students with a "household income level that does not exceed 260 percent of the federal poverty level." To put this in perspective, a regular family of four with a household income of $65,000 makes too much money to be eligible for the program. For the average family in Florida, this program serves virtually no benefit.

At Saint Andrew's, the $55,700 tuition for high school boarding students exceeds the average $47,507 annual household income for Floridians. Even if parents are able to "choose" this school for their child, how will they "choose" to pay for it?

School choice is great for the small percentage who have the financial means to afford a top-notch education. For everyone else, school choice poses more problems than it is worth.

Robert Weiner is a former spokesman for the Clinton White House and House Government Operations Committee. Ryan Powers is education policy analyst at Robert Weiner Associates and Solutions for Change.


(Image by Egberto Willies) Details DMCA



Donald Trump continues to lie to the American people about the imminent passage of a new Obamacare repeal and replace bill. Ultra Conservative George Will explains, in this excerpted video, why it will not happen and the reason will shock many.

George Will realized that America's health care reality means that not only is Obamacare unrepealable but that we are on our way to a single-payer system. He seemed resigned to the fact that the failed market-based health care system he wants to retain is likely dying a slow qualified death.

"Barack Obama said as a candidate that he would prefer a single-payer plan but couldn't get there," George Will said. "As President when they were going through the Obamacare agonies, he said, look upon Obamacare as a starter home. The beginning, the thin end of an enormous wedge heading toward that. What does Donald Trump say? 'Single-payer works fine in Scotland.' So I don't see any particular animus he has as you say against a single-payer plan. And, what we've learned in this debate about repealing Obamacare is that the essence of Obamacare is the expansion of Medicaid. Who has benefited from that? Probably disproportionately white working-class males, Trump voters."

It's about time that Conservatives come to the realization that those that benefit the most from the policies enacted by Progressives are people in the Red States (here& here). Ironically if Trump, Ryan, and their Republican cohort were successful in repealing Obamacare and instituting their draconian health care policies, their constituents would bear the brunt of the pain. While that eventuality would likely flip both the House and Senate, it is something we cannot wish on our brothers and sisters who bought into the lie.

This is why we #resist -- not only for ourselves but the country as a whole.
This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.





Among Global Research's most popular articles in 2016 by Mark Taliano author of Voices from Syria, 2017. Click link to order

Two years ago, "Majd" wrote these words on a Facebook posting:

... I am Syrian... living in Syria in the middle of everything. We have seen horrors. It was never a revolution nor a civil war. The terrorists are sent by your goverment. They are al Qaeda Jabhat al Nusra Wahhabi Salafists Talibans etc and the extremist jihadists sent by the West, the Saudis, Qatar and Turkey. Your Obama and whoever is behind him or above him are supporting al Qaeda and leading a proxy war on my country.

We thought you are against al Qaeda and now you support them.

The majority here loves Assad. He has never committed a crime against his own people... The chemical attack was staged by the terrorists helped by the USA and the UK, etc. Everyone knows that here.

American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country and everyone.

Every massacre is committed by them. We were all happy in Syria: we had free school and university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF-controlled bank, state-owned central bank that gives 11% interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank.

Life before the crisis was so beautiful here. Now it is hard and horrific in some regions.

I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my country which has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda. These animals slit throats and behead for pleasure... they behead babies and rape young kids.

They are satanic. Our military helped by the millions of civilian militias are winning the battle against al Qaeda. But now the USA wants to bomb the sh*t out of us so that al Qaeda can get the upper hand.

Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government.

Impeach that bankster puppet you have as president... support Ron Paul or Rand or anyone the like who are true American patriots. but be sure of one thing... if they attack and I think they will... it will be hell.

Be sure that if it were to be a world war, many many will die. Syria can and will defend itself and will sink many US ships. Iran will go to war... Russia and China eventually if it escalates... and all this for what? For the elites who created al Qaeda through the US government and use it to conduct proxy wars and destabilize countries that do not go along with their new world order agenda !!?

American people... you gotta regain control of your once admirable country. Now everyone hates you for the death you bring almost everywhere.

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On that date, 11 days before the Comey disclosures caused the gap to collapse, leading to Trump's Electoral College victory, Clinton was up by 7.1 points, or 15%. It looked like a blowout, and Trump was preparing his excuses for losing.

Then, after the FBI intervention caused the Clinton lead to collapse, Trump went on to lose by 2.8 million public votes but through the slave era devis.e of he Electoral College, meant as a firewall against the majority, Trump was able to gain power.
by Paul Craig Roberts and John Whitehead

"Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience" Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem" people are obedient, all these herdlike people." -- Howard Zinn

If truth be known, Americans are no more free than were Germans under Gestapo Germany. "Freedom and Democracy America" is the greatest lie in the world.

Countries sink into tyranny easily. Those born today don't know the freedom of the past and are unaware of what has been taken away. Some American blacks might think that finally after a long civil rights struggle they have gained freedom. But the civil rights that they gained have been taken away from all of us by the "war on terror." Today black Americans are gratuitously shot down in the streets by police in ways that are worse than in Jim Crow days.

American women might think that finally they have gained equality, and they have--the equality to be abused by police just like men. As John Whitehead reports, women are forced by police to strip naked, often in public, and have their viginas explored as part of a "drug search." When I was a young man, society would not have tolerated any such intrusion on a woman. The officer and police chief would have been fired and if not prosecuted for rape, would have been beat into bloody pulps by the enraged men.

Tyranny was brought to Americans intentionally by their government. Perhaps it began in 1992 with the unaccountable use of police power against an American family at Ruby Ridge. Randy Weaver's 12 or 13 year old son was shot in the back and murdered by federal marshalls. Then his wife was murdered with a shot through her throat while she stood at the door of her home holding a baby in her arms. There was no justification for this gratuitous violence against a peaceful American family, and the federal marshalls who murdered were not held accountable. The Congress, "the people's representatives" held a hearing, and those responsible for murdering a family told the representatives that they had "to trust the police".

A year later, 1993, the Clinton regime murdered, using poison gas as well as gun fire, more than 100 members of the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas.

Women and children comprised most of the victims of "freedom and democracy America." The Branch Davidians had done nothing except be different. They were a threat to no one. But the Clinton criminal government knew that it could portray the Branch Davidians, as they were different, in unfavorable lights. They were said to be in possession of, and perhaps manufacturing, illegal machine guns. They were said to be having sex with underage girls in their collective.

When the Branch Davidian compound was attacked by a tank spewing chemical warfare and then burnt to the ground, insouciant Americans were told that justice had been done to child abusers. No one objected that the same "justice" had also been done to the allegedly abused children.

Again the "representatives of the people" held a hearing. The result was that the Clinton criminal regime and Janet Reno got approval for dealing effectively with those who violate gun laws.

Ruby Ridge and Waco established the precedents that the US government could murder large numbers of Americans, and at Waco some foreigners, without consequence. The "representatives of the people" accepted the executive branch's lies in order to avoid having to hold the executive branch accountable for what were clearly without any doubt capital crimes against American citizens for which the federal perpetrators of these crimes should have been tried and executed.

These two instances established the precedent that the US government could murder US citizens at will.

The next step was to take away the constitutional and legal protections of citizens that are in the Bill of Rights, the amendments to the US Constitution, and are, or were, institutionalized in legal practices.

The false flag attack of September 11, 2001, was the instrument for deep-sixing the bill of rights. The George W. Bush regime made us "safe" by taking away our civil liberties. Habeas corpus, the foundation of liberty, was destroyed by the executive branch's assertion that the President on his sole authority, the US Constitution notwithstanding, can detain US citizens indefinitely without evidence, without going before a court, without any accountability to law whatsoever.

The Obama regime not only endorsed this murder of the US Constitution, "American's First Black President" even went further. Obama declared that he had the power to sit in his office and write down names of US citizens whom he could murder at his will without accountability.

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"A renewed Black peace movement is the only antidote to the corruption of Black Democratic office holders, who are joined at the bank account to a party that is now positioned to the right of Donald Trump on war with Russia and its allies."

When Maxine Waters goes gung-ho crazy for the War Party, it tells us that the Black political class -- overwhelmingly Democrats -- are utterly useless to any movement for peace and social justice. In the throes of a terminal case of "Anti-Russia Dementia," otherwise known as "Putin Derangement Syndrome," the California congresswoman told a Tax March crowd in front of the U.S. Capitol that President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin somehow conspired to arrange both the chemical event that killed dozens in northern Syria and the U.S. missile strike on a Syrian military airfield that followed. In a interview with a Huffington Post reporter, Water said:

"I don't believe there's any real tension" between Trump and Putin. "I think they're putting on a show. And I think Putin is gonna come back and make it look as if he's gonna hold the line somewhat on Syria now, and then want something in exchange for that -- and that exchange is, lift the sanctions."

Waters has clearly lost her mind, her brain operating at the cartoon level. But, her mental and moral disintegration differs only in degree from that of the Congressional Black Caucus as a body, which has been drifting to the dark side on war ever since the First Black President got his hands on the nuclear button. Even Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, appears to accept the manifestly false allegation that the Syrian military used chemical weapons in al-Qaida controlled Idlib province. She demands only that the U.S. Congress be allowed to play its part in the aggression.

"The Congressional Black Caucus as a body has been drifting to the dark side on war ever since the First Black President got his hands on the nuclear button."

"There is no question that Syrian President Bashar Assad must be held accountable for his heinous crimes against humanity. And the world community must do more to prevent the use of chemical weapons and barbaric attacks on innocent men, women and children," Rep. Lee wrote in an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle. She wants the Congress called back into session to "debate the costs and the consequences of war in Syria," warning, "if Congress does not act to rein in the president, he will pursue unsanctioned military action without our input." Rep. Lee deplored Trump's "turning away vulnerable families fleeing conflict and violence."

Rep. Keith Ellison and other leaders of the Progressive Congressional Caucus issued a similar statement, declaring that President Trump "is not empowered to commit our troops to a new war on a whim, however brutal the actions of President Assad." However, Ellison simply wants the chance to cast his vote for more and deeper war against Syria. He described the 2011 U.S.-NATO attack on Libya as a "good example" of "international community intervention to protect civilians and, in 2012, called for a similar approach in Syria. "I think that if we set up a safe zone now and the international community stood together, that alone would cause [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad to be very reluctant to attack an internationally supported safe zone designed to protect civilians." The next year, in 2013, when the U.S. falsely accused the Syrian government of a sarin attack on civilians -- an attack staged at the precise moment when UN observers, summoned at the request of the Syrian government, were checking into a Damascus hotel only a few miles away -- Ellison assumed Syrian guilt and backed Obama's threatened bombing raid:

"If the facts warrant it," he said, "if the facts show that it was a gas attack authorized by the Assad regime, and if it's true that there were 1,500 people killed, I just don't think the world can stand by and say that's ok, that's not our business, we don't have to worry about it."

"Ellison simply wants the chance to cast his vote for more and deeper war against Syria."

In the summer of 2011, after allowing Libya's infrastructure to be destroyed by months of non-stop bombing, the Congress got its chance to vote on Obama's unprovoked war against an African country. Only six members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted both to stop the bombing and to withhold further funding for the war: John Conyers, Jr. (MI); Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL); Barbara Lee (CA); Laura Richardson (CA); Bobby Scott (VA); Maxine Waters (CA).

Who knows how Maxine Waters would vote on Trump's air strike on Syria, when Congress returns from recess, since she is under the crazed delusion that Trump and Putin are in cahoots on the gassing and the retaliation?

Congress didn't have an opportunity to vote on President Obama's threatened air strike against Syria in 2013, because Obama backed off, reportedly after hearing from National Security director James Clapper that the evidence of Syria's guilt wasn't "a slam dunk." Polls showed that nearly six out of ten Americans opposed bombing Syria at that time. However, more Blacks than whites -- 40 percent vs. 38 percent -- favored an air strike, the first time in polling history that Black public opinion was more warlike than whites. There is no doubt that the sea change in the Black stance on war had everything to do with newfound Black identification with U.S. power (imperialism), in the person of the commander-in-chief.

The current Washington Post-ABC poll shows 54 percent of the public supports Trump's bombing of Syria, with the results dramatically skewed by party. Only 37 percent of Democrats approve of the air strike, while Republicans seem jubilant, at 86 percent. However, there is no racial breakdown in any of the major polls -- and, no wonder, since there is little organized Black fight-back against Washington's (formerly) proxy war against Syria, and virtually no principled opposition among the Black Misleadership Class and its denizens on Capitol Hill. The corporate media perceive no Black peace opinion worth measuring.

"There is little organized Black fight-back against Washington's (formerly) proxy war against Syria."

Only 14 years ago, a Zogby poll, conducted only weeks before the start of the Iraq war, showed that just 7 percent of Black Americans favored an invasion "that would result in the death of thousands of Iraqi civilians," compared with supermajorities of white males and a bare majority of white females. Has the Black worldview been so dramatically mangled by war, in such a short span of time? That's highly unlikely, but there has surely been a whip-lash effect in experiencing, first, a Black Democratic warmonger in the White House, followed by the orange personification of white supremacy. The Black Radical Tradition in pursuit of peace and global social justice has taken more than a few hits since Dr. Martin Luther King's break with President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War, in 1967. "Putin Derangement Syndrome" -- a mind-corroding epidemic in Democratic -- and, therefore Black, precincts -- is just the latest deformity.

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Pakistan's apex court, which has a history of supporting incumbent governments and military dictators, Thursday (April 20) ruled in favor of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the so-called Panamagate money laundering case. Two months after concluding hearings of the case, the apex court gave a 3-2 split judgment favoring Nawaz Sharif by calling for a fresh probe into the money laundering scandal.

The two judges who ruled against PM Nawaz Sharif said he should be disqualified as he could no longer be considered 'honest' and 'truthful', whereas the other three were in favor of forming a Joint Investigation Team to definitively answer the question of whether the allegations against the prime minister were true or not.

For many the Supreme Court verdict was not unprecedented. Tellingly, if you Google "Pakistan Supreme Court favors Generals" the pictures of three military dictators, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Ziaul Haq and General Parvez Musharraf, will pop up.

Here are some controversial judgments of the Supreme Court:

- In 1955, the Apex court led by Chief Justice Munir supported the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by Governor General Ghulam Mohammad in the "Tamizuddin Khan Versus Federal of Pakistan" case. The court relied on the Bracton's maxim, that "which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity." The Assembly speaker Molvi Tamizuddin Khan challenged the action of Ghulam Mohammad in the Sind Court and won it. However, on appeal the Supreme Court dismissed the judgment of the Sind Court on the ground of 'state necessity.'

- In 1958, the Supreme Court first provided the legal validation of the martial law imposed by President of Pakistan Iskander Mirza. When President Mirza was dismissed in two weeks by Chief of Army Staff General Ayub Khan his action was also to be held valid by the apex court.

- In November 1977, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition by Nusrat Bhutto, wife of the deposed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto challenging the military coup by General Ziaul Haq. The apex court sanctioned the imposition of martial law under the 'doctrine of necessity.'

- Shortly after General Musharraf overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the 1999 coup d'e'tat, the opposition challenged the legitimacy of the coup and asked the court to rule on its legality. On May 12, 2000 the Court rendered a nuanced verdict which sanctioned the coup on the grounds of the doctrine of state Necessity.

Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court on Thursday provided relief to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court ordered extensive probe into the money trail in the Panama Papers scandal citing "insufficient evidence."

Tellingly, 26,000 pages of evidence were submitted in the case. The petitioners in the case against Sharif were: Advocate Tariq Asad, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf chief Imran Khan and Awami Muslim League head Sheikh Rashid Ahmed who had sought disqualification of the Prime Minister and his close family members for their alleged investment in offshore companies.

The apex court ordered the government to constitute a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), involving members of Military Intelligence, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to investigate the case in the next sixty days.

Details of the Sharif family's offshore assets surfaced when papers from the Panama-based law firm of Mossack Fonseca were leaked in 2016. The assets, mostly in London, were managed through offshore companies owned by Sharif's children.

Last year, the Panama Papers scandal rocked several governments worldwide, exposed high-profile personalities, including Prime Minister Sharif and his family, triggered scores of investigations around the world and dealt a blow to Panama as an offshore financial hub.

The Panama Papers revealed that Prime Minister's children Maryam, Hasan and Hussain Nawaz "were owners or had the right to authorize transactions for several [offshore] companies". At least eight offshore companies were found to have links to the Sharif family in the documents that were leaked following which the case was filed by various petitioners.

A trove of 11.5 million digital records from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca last year revealed how many of the world's wealthy used offshore companies to stash assets.

In the aftermath of the leaks, Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson had been forced to resign after it was revealed that his family sheltered assets offshore.

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On April 17th, my Berkeley Indivisible group hosted a two-hour discussion on "Reaching out to Trump voters," featuring UC professors Arlie Hochschild and George Lakoff. Participants learned how to approach a group that some consider a lost cause.

After November 8, many progressives were dismayed to learn that one or more members of their family had voted for Donald Trump. It wasn't some random Republican in a remote red state, it was someone they had shared holidays and vacations with. It was a beloved member of their family.

Indivisible was founded with two primary values in mind: inclusivity and nonviolence. Reaching out to a Trump voter is a reflection of inclusivity, including everyone in the conversation. Involving every voter regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, or how they voted on November 8th.

The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn defined nonviolence as "love in action." Certainly reaching out to a family member who voted for Trump is love in action.

Conflict-resolution studies suggest ten tips for talking to difficult people; ten lessons that are applicable to talking to a family member who voted for trump: First, do it in private. This is not a conversation that should take place in a typical family setting such as Thanksgiving dinner after a couple of drinks. Second, leave plenty of time for the conversation. This is not a conversation that will consume only a few minutes; allocate several hours. Third, begin with the well-formed intention to listen to the member of your family who voted for Trump. Fourth, make sure that you have the energy to do this. If you are getting over a cold and didn't sleep the night before then today is probably not a good time to have a difficult conversation with "Uncle Al." Fifth, sustain eye contact. This is a good practice in all intimate conversations but particularly important in dealing with difficult people.

Sixth, recognize when you are "triggered." Recognition of triggers is worthy of a special training; suffice it to say that if, during your conversation with Uncle AL, you suddenly feel very angry or you have gone numb, you are likely "triggered." Seventh, if you are triggered it's okay to ask for a timeout. Take the time you need to collect yourself. Eighth, it's a good idea to practice your interaction with Uncle Al ahead of time; that is, have a friend play the part of Uncle Al and practice a conversation about why Uncle Al voted for Trump. Ninth, it's okay to take more than one session to talk to Uncle Al. If after an hour, you feel your energy drain, it's okay for you to say, "We've accomplished a lot. How about scheduling another meeting." Finally, if more than one member of your family voted for Trump, take them one at a time. (Save Aunt Minnie for later.)

After reading Hochschild and Lakoff, I deduced seven observations they share about reaching out to Trump voters:

1. Listen: Trump voters expect liberals to disrespect them. Therefore, no matter how outrageous Uncle Al's statements may be, listen, and perhaps comment, "I'm interested that you think that."

2. Do not insult Trump. Hochschild and Lakoff's writings make it clear that Trump voters identify with Trump; to them, he's successful, politically incorrect, and a guy who has beaten the system. When they say something positive about Trump, reply, "I hear what you say but I'm worried about corruption and safety. Corruption because Trump will not reveal his tax returns and safety because of his ties to Russia. What do you think?"

3. Clarify your own values: Trump voters have different values from liberals. Before you talk to Uncle Al, be clear about your own values. For example, do you believe that we are "our brother's keeper and our sister's keeper?" Search for common ground. For example, does the Trump voter believe in "the Golden Rule?" How does that belief apply to treatment of people of color?" George Lakoff suggests: we ask Uncle Al, "What actions are you most proud of?"

4. Recognize worldview: Trump voters see the world as an elaborate hierarchy (with rich American white straight Christian guys at the top). Nonetheless, most Americans cherish the myth of "the little guy who started out with nothing and fought his way to the top." Search for common ground on the concept of fairness; everyone deserves a chance.

5. Be careful about climate change: Most Trump voters do not believe in global climate change. Rather than take on this issue in general, talk about a specific local issue such as contaminated drinking water. Say, "I believe that we should protect our children from contaminated water. Don't you agree?"

6. Be careful about race, ethnicity, and national origin: Many Trump voters live in segregated communities and do not know immigrants or have social contacts with people of color. Search for common ground by referring to "the Golden Rule." "What would Jesus do if he saw a Black man being beaten by the police?"

7. Take back patriotic symbols: Search for common ground using the symbols of patriotism: flag, constitution, and love of country. You can say, "I'm reaching out to you because I love you and I love America."

Trump voters are not "deplorables." There's a way to reach out to beloved family members who voted for Trump. It begins with listening.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Wonderful work! An insightful, integrative adventure into what makes humans flourish. Rob Kall shows us that we know how to do this, that most of human history was about connection and that there are ways to make it happen again. He offers real solutions and practical suggestions for taking back the world for community, connection and well-beingaway from hierarchy, exclusion, and destruction. A new handbook for the necessary revolution!"



Darcia Narvaez, Professor of psychology, Notre Dame, University, author of Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom
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The word has been out for a few years about Richmonds burgeoning craft beer scene, but in 2016, the capital of Virginias restaurants garnered their share of ink in national publications for good reason. National Geographic Travel proclaimed Richmond one of its Where to Travel for Food destinations in 2016 alongside other international culinary heavyweights like New Orleans and Tokyo. Even the citys sprawling West End, a suburban area to the west of the city, is in on the action with Shagbark, a new venture by acclaimed chef Walter Bundy that opened in June and has already been hyped in USA Today.

Here are five Richmond neighborhoods serious foodies should visit and some of the treasures theyll find.

1. Downtown



Photo by Stuart Thornton

Tourists and a young drinking crowd have long headed to downtown Richmond for fun. Now, a vibrant restaurant scene is causing foodies to make the trip down to the citys urban center.

For seafood lovers, Rappahannock is a must-visit establishment. This restaurant, named after one of the states rivers, showcases the bounty of Virginias waters from a smoky tasting wood grilled monkfish to a menu of raw oysters on the half shell that nearly steals the show. Rappahannock is the brainchild of an oyster farming company, so its no surprise that their saltwater mollusks (pictured above) are some of the best youll ever slurp.

Half a block away, Pasture does Southern food in Spanish tapas style with small plates for grazing and larger items for sharing. Dont miss the crispy ham cured pork ribs, while a pro-tip is to order the pork rinds appetizer with the pimento cheese dish as a dipping accompaniment.

2. The Fan



Photo by Stuart Thornton

The Fan, a neighborhood named for its streets that fan out, is where many Virginia Commonwealth University (V.C.U.) students reside. In the past that meant the area was known more for its drinking establishments than its restaurants. One individual changing notions about The Fans dining options is chef Joe Sparatta of Heritage. The popular restaurant serves up many stellar dishes from a fried broccoli appetizer that is so crunchy and salty that it could be a bar snack to a hickory smoked pork belly so tender it dissolves in your mouth to a housemade Bolognese pasta plated with a dollop of burrata cheese that looks like a poached egg in the middle. The great range of drinking options swings from meticulously crafted cocktails to a nice beer list with a Staff Beer, which is an opportunity to drink like a cook with a canned domestic brew served in a koozie.

Adding spice and creative Tiki inspired cocktails to The Fan is Sabai (pictured above), which does a fresh take on Thai street food in a location right on Broad Street. The menu includes hot pots, curries, classics like pad Thai and a whole fresh fish that can be cooked up in one of four ways. The restaurants playful interior includes light bulbs dangling off wooden beams like flowers and two sets of tables and benches that allow diners to swing back and forth while eating.

Also worth a mention is The Betty on Davis, located two and a half blocks from Sabai, a neighborhood joint that does a terrific house-cured pastrami.

3. Church Hill



Photo by Stuart Thornton

A historic neighborhood known for being where Founding Father Patrick Henry gave his give me liberty or give me death speech, Church Hill is currently home to several independent-minded restaurateurs. The small (capacity: 38) Metzger Bar & Butchery (pictured above) brings German cuisine to the capital city with a nice charcuterie menu that includes a handful of items done in-house and hearty fare like schnitzel. Cozy up at the long wooden bar or one of the tables, all made from one single giant white oak tree.

A James Beard Award semifinalist in 2014, chef Lee Gregory and his restaurant The Roosevelt give Southern food a twist with items like smoked chicken wings and a poutine that utilizes pickles and pimento cheese. The wine list is composed solely of Virginia-made wines, while the cocktail program is highly regarded.

Sub Rosa Bakery is another reason to head to Church Hill. The wood fired bakery has an on-site stone mill for grinding grain and serves breads, croissants, tarts, cookies and quiches. Its also the site of the uber popular Longoven pop-up dinner series that occurs one to two times a month. The dinners are announced via their website, Instagram and Facebook, and usually sell out within just three minutes. Three chefs behind the series aim to open a brick and mortar location in the Scotts Addition neighborhood this summer.

4. Oregon Hill

There are two reasons for foodies to visit Richmonds Oregon Hill neighborhood: Mamma Zu and LOpossum. The former is a longtime Italian restaurant known for its scattershot service and excellent food. The fried oysters, veal Marsala and penne Gorgonzola, and the off-menu white pizzas are all recommended.

An alumnus of the prestigious Inn at Little Washington, chef David Shannon brings a French twist to the Richmond dining scene with LOpossum. Like the eclectic decorincluding a wall devoted to commemorative Star Wars plates and a bathroom decorated with paintings of clownsthe food is adventurous, featuring dishes like escargot served with a ham biscuit and a Faberge egg bedazzled with caviar. LOpossum just made online restaurant reservation website OpenTables 100 Best Restaurants in America 2016 list.

5. Jackson Ward

Jackson Ward has a handful of neighborhood bars and fine dining establishments. One worth seeking out is Saison. The restaurant nods to Latin American cuisine with items like oxtail sopes and a hangar steak with a roasted corn salad, charred shishito peppers, ancho aioli and manchego cheese that has made an appearance on the menu. You also cant go wrong with the Chicken a la Braza or a mixed drink from their award winning cocktail list.

Also known for its mixed drinks and food menu is The Rogue Gentleman. Start every meal with Drews Parker House Rolls then dig into offerings including the fried chicken skins, the pork arancini or the smoked celery root. Or hand over the reins for the chefs Tasting Menu (minimum of three courses, $14 a course).

Stuart Thornton is a Richmond native that lives in coastal California and is the author of the Moon Coastal California Handbook, the Moon Santa Barbara & The Central Coast Handbook, Moon California Road Trip, and the recently released Moon Monterey & Carmel Handbook.
My guess is the majority of Americans dont really care who wins the French election. The ones who do only really care about it not being Marine Le Pen. Then theres the special type of US citizen with a rose emoji next to their name on Twitter talking about how Macron is a shill, Hamon is unexciting and Melenchon is the only way for the French to go. No matter which camp you fall into, none of us really know that much about French politics if were being honest. So heres your handy Paste Magazine guide to round one of the French election coming up on Sunday.

Yeah, thats how the French do things. The only way Sunday will be the end of the line is if one of the candidates gets over 50% of the vote right off the bat. With five major candidates each polling pretty well and even more candidates out on the fringes, thats pretty unlikely. To clarify, its not just unlikely in a Trump will never win and Brexit will never happen sense, its unlikely in an its practically a mathematical certainty this wont happen sense.

France is far from a two-party system, especially in this election. Currently, lefties have three choices out of the main five and right-wingers have two. Even within these broader ideological frameworks, the candidates are all pretty different from each other and chart in all sorts of weird quadrants on that left-right-authoritarian-libertarian graph weve all seen.

A Communist-backed member of the Unsubmissive France partywho wants a 100% tax on income over 360,000may duke it out against a nationalist who wants to turn out immigrants, despite both these candidates agreeing about renegotiating terms with the EU or outright leaving it. Alternatively, the final two might be of the same ideological makeup overall. Or maybe itll come down to the two most centrist candidates on opposing sides.

There are a lot of outcomes here but, regardless, the two candidates with the most votes on Sunday will proceed to duke it out until second round voting starts on May 7. Whoever wins that round becomes the president of France.

When it comes to Le Pen and the National Fronts policies, the operative word is lockdown. Le Pen wants the borders clamped, French economics to take on a more protectionist bent and more emphasis on national security. She wants to put France first. Wow, whos this starting to sound like?

Therell be no tolerance for illegal immigration in Le Pens France and legal immigration procedures will be made much more difficultthe National Front wants to reduce legal immigration from 200,000 to 10,000 people to give you a general idea of which direction she wants to head in. All to say, shes probably not polling well with Muslims, refugees and downtrodden migrants.

In order to make these sorts of sweeping changes to immigration and economic policy, Le Pen will need to rework Frances attachment to the EU. This has some worried about a Frexit and its a justified fear. Shes talking a lot about dropping the Euro and the free movement of people amongst European territories is something she clearly has a problem with. Needless to say, if France leaves the union, itll be hard for its existence to continue.

This guy really comes across as the Barack Obama of the race. Hes running a change campaign despite the fact he largely wants to uphold the status quo and is liberal yet friendly towards big money. A former investment bankerhe literally worked for the Rothschilds, if youre of a conspiratorial bentand neophyte politician, Macron formed his own partyEn Marche!in the lead-up to this election. For a newbie, hes doing really well and has a decent shot of taking this whole thing home.

He wants to cut corporate taxes, build bigger prisons, exempt certain low-earners from welfare and wants to inject a ton of money into the economy for stimulus purposes. As for Islam, hes no fan of burka bans but he also really loves secularism and wants it to continue being emphasized in French society. Also, under his rule, 18 year olds would get a stipend from the government to spend on concert and movie tickets. Im not kidding.

If youve heard of this guy, its either because youre still super angsty about Bernie losing or you read about him appearing as a hologram in six French cities. Hes part of a new(er) party called Unsubmissive France and hes literally backed by Communists. If you were looking for Sanders on steroids, Melenchon is your guy.

His critics say hes a Putin stooge and its hard to tell whether thats a fair critique or not. On the one hand, hes understandably critical of certain Western shibboleths (arent most of us lefties?) and its getting pretty tiresome to hear how everyone whos disgruntled with the status quo must want the Russian autocrat to take over the world. On the other hand, its impossible to ignore how Melenchons desire to weaken the EU plays right to Putins deepest desires. On the bright side, theres something the far-left and the far-right candidate in this race have in common. So we can all get along after all.

He wants to make use of billions of euros for government stimulus, hopes to tax certain high-earners at 100% past a certain point on their income (i.e. he wants to impose a maximum wage) and increase labor rights. He also wants to weaken his own presidency with a rewrite of the constitution that places more power in the hands of parliament rather than in the executive branch.

While Fillion is probably the most experienced in the race, hes also the most scandal-ridden. He was Sarkozys Prime Minister but is also alleged to have embezzled substantial sums of money to pay his wife for work she didnt actually do. Hes starting to look sort of like the Jeb Bush of this race, a predicted shoe-in who gets shafted. He wants tax cuts, increased spending on defense and massive economic deregulation; hes against abortion and same-sex marriage but doesnt seem too keen on trying to make them illegal. So hes sort of the uncool Macron.

Benoit Hamon, the poor bastard, is running for the Socialist Party at a time when everyones fed up with his former boss, fellow party member and current French president, Francois Hollande. Hamon has as much a right to the French Bernie mantle as Melenchon (he may not be as extreme but hes still pretty damn leftist) but he just doesnt seem to have the pizzazz to pull it off.

And there you have it. You can now use the above information to impress (read: annoy) all your friends by showing off your profound grasp of French politics. This is a super close race so make sure to rub it in everyones face if you pick the right winner. No one will care but you will, for a moment, feel more important than you actually are! I know thats what Ill be doing on May 7 if I get it right.

Can we all make a promise though? No matter who wins the first or second round of this election, lets not wag our fingers at the voters over in France. Lets not grandstand and talk about how they shouldve learned from Trump or Brexit or the Turkey referendum or whatever else. Theyve been through some serious shit in the last couple years.

And lastly, these sons of bitches seriously better not elect Le Pen, I fucking swear to God.
When I was in Japan at the end of last year, I was keen to see not just menswear crafts, but traditional crafts in other areas as well.

Previous articles on swordmaker Sasuke and kimono maker Motoji attest to some of that, but there were also three makers in and around Kyoto that were highly recommended.

Hosoo

One was a mill - Hosoo. And although it had many things that would be familiar to the weavers of Huddersfield or Biella, the end product was startlingly different.

Hosoo has long been a traditional weaver of cloth for kimonos and interior fabrics - going back to its establishment in 1688.

But in the past 7 years, Masataka Hosoo (pictured above) has transformed part of the family business into an incredibly innovative and fashion-orientated weaver.

He has taken traditional techniques and looms, and applied them to unusual and ultra-luxurious fabrics that have been used by the likes of Dior, Chanel and Commes des Garcons.

These are mostly for interiors, but the cloths have also been used on shoes, backpacks, and recently coverings for Leica cameras.

Below is an example of the most complicated cloth Hosoo has ever made - and perhaps the most complicated in the world.

Ten to 15 different layers of silk are woven together in different thicknesses across the cloth, creating a 3D effect that resembles and rolling gold landscape.

In another example, Japanese paper coated with gold leaf is shredded, and then woven into parts of the cloth. The base cloth itself is also woven so as to be virtually transparent on one side, but opaque on the other.

"The nice thing about these recent developments is that they make use of lots of different family businesses in the Kyoto area," says Masataka.

"We bring together traditional paper making, and gold work, and combine them into this innovative cloth."

Often the traditional 32cm-wide looms are used, but more recently large 150cm versions have also been co-opted, with dozens of alterations and new elements added.

"The market for kimonos has shrunk 90% in the past 30 years, so we needed to look at something different," says Masataka.

"Many of the traditional makers around here were closing too, but around 5 years ago there was a resurgence of interest, and now everyone in the area is working together to help support the survival of crafts."

Kaikado

One of those local makers is Kaikado, a 141-year-old maker of metal tea caddies.

I've owned and used a Kaikao caddy for years, having seen them in London at Margaret Howell on Wigmore Street.

Although outwardly simple, they are made with a precision that keeps out all humidity from the inside - without the need for a clamp.

Indeed, the quality-control test (shown above) is for the elder lady of the workshop to place the top on the caddy, and watch the speed with which it slides over the bottom. It should do so slowly but smoothly, not stopping until it is resting on the bottom.

Interestingly, no machine currently exists to replicate this process - the precision involved would require a bespoke piece to be created.

The workshop is down a small back street in Kyoto, behind a rather modern and attractive little shop (above).

Inside the workshop, around a dozen people work on shaping the metals (tin, brass or copper) and soldering them together.

It is ordered and efficient, but still very low-tech, with most work being done on the floor with workers sitting cross-legged.

The caddies were originally all made from tin imported from England, but brass and copper were added later for the outer layers (the inside is always tin).

All three materials age in different ways, gaining a variety of patinas.

Those patinas won't be to everyone's taste - the tin essentially turns black over a period of 50 years, with shades of grey in between.

But I like the copper (which mine is made of). Particularly the fact that the patina is heavily dependent on who uses it and how - I take it down every day, once a day, and have fairly oily hands, which creates a deeper, blotchier pattern.

The caddies are available at Margaret Howell in the UK, as well as Postcard Teas on Dering Street in Mayfair.

Kohchosai Kosuga

Last on our Kyoto tour was Kohchosai Kosuga, a fifth-generation maker of bamboo products.

A huge variety of things can be made with bamboo, but the most elegant are the plant pots and light holders made by weaving strips of the plant (shown above).

Tatsuyuki Kosuga showed us round, and explained how he had modernised the family's traditional designs in recent years.

"The products used to be quite narrow and suited to traditional decorations," he says. "We've added some practical things, as well as new looks - lacquered bamboo, for example, and a new technique for dying the bamboo black."

The workshop outside Kyoto is still family run and has about eight people working full time.

They are stocked in around 500 stores around Japan, and also in Postcard Teas in London.

Touring the various makers, it struck me how organised and international they were.

All knew each other and worked together (even if they were in the same field) and organised exhibitions, tours and collaborations.

The Danish design house OeO had worked with all three makers mentioned here, and its products (including a beautiful desk) were on display at Hosoo.

The increased interest in craft in Japan has come around the same time as that in the UK and elsewhere in the western world.

On the eve of London Craft Week here in the UK, it would be nice to think we could learn something from the way the Japanese have coordinated and worked together.

During London Craft Week I will be chairing a discussion at the French institute with master craftsmen Serge Amoruso (leather goods), Michel Heurtault (umbrellas) and Samuel Gassman (cufflinks).

The talk is on Wednesday, 3rd May at the French Institute, 17 Queensberry Place from 7pm. If you would like to attend, please email [email protected]. The makers products will also be on display in St James's market during the day.

Photography: Jamie Ferguson @jkf_man
Fox Transfer Dropper and AX Fork for Road Bikes

AX Step Cast fork, reduced to a 40mm stroke.



Cut-down Transfer dropper seatpost. The Pivot has a dropper-friendly seat tube diameter.

Shimano XTR changer adapted to Dura Ace STI lever with a Wolf Tooth Tanpan roller cam.

Shimano STI lever, modified to operate the Fox dropper post.

Foes Racing made a pair of 150mm-travel Mutz at bikes to showcase the latest slider from Manitou

Manitou's Monster: 150mm Mastodon Fat Bike Fork

Vintage Willys Jeep at Shinola

...stylin' a sweet copper-plated city bike in the bed.

Fox Racing's Mike Redding said that their crew were based in the Sea Otter camp grounds, where Fox brought in an inflatable screen and treated campers to a free showing of their new movie, Ride Your F**king Bike" last night. Redding, who produced the film, said that Fox was there just to ride bikes and enjoy the show this year.

Whyte's S-150 CRS 29er was so fresh that the paint was still drying when they put it on display.

Whyte's Take on the Ultimate 29er AM/Trailbike

Clevis-type journals on the seat stays and swingarm.

Plenty of clearance for up to 2.6-inch rubber up top... Water-bottle mounts on the down tube are a plus.

...And excellent tire clearance in the bottom bracket area.

Made in Fresno, California, 321 Project hubs use magnetized freewheel pawls. Magnetic force increases dramatically with proximity, which means the pawls run nearly friction free when they are disengaged, but clamp tightly against the ratchet wheel when locked against the magnets.

321 Project freehubs feature over 200 engagement points and can be purchased in either a loud or a quiet configuration.

Abbey Tools Partners With RockShox

Abbey Tools partnered with RockShox to offer a range of specialty tools for its most popular forks and shocks. They will be sold through RockShox's on-line and retail channels.

Abbey Tools Charger and Reverb wrenches.



Aluminum six-point top cap sockets Bushing press removes and installs the eyelet bushings in RockShox dampers.

HD cassette spline and Reba top cap wrench has a 3/8" driver.

Abbey's seal driver kit has two Delrin plugs that nest into RockShox fork bushings to ensure perfect alignment.

Fox debuted a Pivot Vault cyclocross bike equipped with a modified Transfer dropper seatpost and a 40-millimeter-stroke AX 32 Step-Cast fork. The one-by XTR drivetrain was converted to shift with a Shimano Dura-Ace lever via a Wolf Tooth roller cam, while the left-side brake lever was modified to operate the Transfer dropper. Product manager Mark Jordan says the project falls under Fox's "Open Project" development program where the R&D staff is free to reveal concepts as they progress towards possible production. Jordan says he has been crushing his Strava times on XC style training loops aboard the disc-brake-equipped Pivot speedster.Manitou launches today, what may be the largest single-crown suspension fork known to man. The 150-millimeter-stroke Mastodon was mounted to this equally massive Foes Mutz fat bike, which also features 150-millimeters of travel and, like the Mastodon, it can handle the largest tire and rim combinations presently sold. Manitou says that the Mastodon damper is derived from the Mattoc Pro's MC2 damper, with an air spring from the Dorado. The damper and the Mastodon's internal bits have been imbued with internal workings designed to shrug of sub-zero temperatures, and the travel can be adjusted from 60 to 150 millimeters. Mastodon forks are offered for 26 or 27.5 wheels and at two price points: The Pro at $849 and the Comp at $649 USD.Whyte Bikes USA took possession of the new S-150 CRS only a few hours before the big show began. The 150-millimeter-travel 29er has a carbon front section, while the rear suspension is aluminum. The all-new chassis features sturdy clevis-type suspension pivots at the upper and lower stay positions, a collet-adjustable swingarm pivot, and a new upper rocker that has been beefed up considerably. Retained are Whyte's sealed cable and seatpost entry points, and its internal seatpost clamp. The geometry is just right for hard chargers, with a 66-degree head tube angle, 74-degree seat tube angle, and generous reach measurements across the size ranges. The Whyte's low-profile top tube means they can spec 150-millimeter dropper posts on the small and medium sizes and 170-millimeter droppers on the large and XL frames. The S-150 CFS will also be offered in a more-affordable aluminum version. Whyte USA will be sending PB a test rig for review when the first shipments arrive early this Summer. Can't wait. @SramMedia , @foxracingshox, @pivotcycles
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Big Names Make It Through To partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Day 3

April 20, 2017 Simon Hoffmann

Another fantastic day of tournament poker is on the books at Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham, where Day 2 of the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS 5,300 Main Event kept staff, dealers and hundreds of players busy throughout the afternoon and evening.

The 1,240 entries from qualifiers and direct buy-ins, along with the many buy-ins from online qualifiers and satellites hosted in partner casinos around Europe, have totaled a combined prize pool of 6,017,395, eclipsing the guaranteed 6,000,000.

Every one of the remaining 220 players from today, as well as the 36 players who already advanced to Day 3 from playing in either San Remo, St. Vincent or Vienna, are guaranteed a payout of 5,000. The final prize distribution is yet to be worked out by the number crunchers at Dusk Till Dawn and will be released on Day 3 but it's clear this event is one of Europe's biggest poker tournaments ever.

Phase 1 Live Entries 2,705 Phase 1 Online Entries: 4,062 Main Event direct entries: 564 Total 5,300 entries: 1,240 Net prize pool: 6,017,395

When Day 3 commences, local player Jeremy Pantin will be the man to beat. Pantin managed to bag up no less than 20,915,000 chips, equating to more than 170 big blinds when the tournament clock starts its countdown with blinds at 60,000-120,000 (10,000 ante).

When Day 3 commences, local player Jeremy Pantin will be the man to beat.

Other big stacks include Stephen Chidwick (13,230,000), Iaron Lightbourne (12,600,000) and Jan-Eric Schwippert (11,400,000), while at least three partypoker Ambassadors, Mike Sexton (10,050,000), Tony Dunst (2,485,000) and Anatoly Filatov (approximately 1,800,000) are still in contention for the MILLIONS title.

Also through in the very top is UK-based Spaniard and online pro Vicente Delgado (15,885,000). He overtook the chip lead late in the day thanks to two big hands against Steven Warburton.

In one of the biggest pots of the day, Delgado flopped a set of sixes and succeeded in getting Warburton to commit his chips on the turn with top pair and a gutshot. Delgado did lose a couple of million chips during the last level of play but is still sitting comfortably with close to three times the chips of an average stack.

Position Player Country Chip Count 1 Jeremy Pantin United Kingdom 20,915,000 2 Thomas Boivin Belgium 17,880,000 3 Andreas Hoivold Norway 17,855,000 4 Grzegorz Grochulski Poland 17,020,000 5 Vicente Delgado Spain 15,885,000

Unfortunately, Day 2 was also the end of the road for some household poker names. Thomas Muehloecker, Martin Kabrhel, Johnny Lodden, Sam Grafton, Dominik Panka, Jason Wheeler, Niall Farrell and Charlie Carrel were all sent to the rail during the first seven levels play.

Shortly before the end of the day, David Vamplew joined them after busting in spectacular fashion. The EPT London champion ran kings into the aces of Ludovic Geilich. Despite the elimination, Geilich wasn't able to make it through either, as he failed to get away from top pair against an opponent's set shortly after.

According to the screens, there were 220 players remaining after Day 2, and they will be joined by 36 qualified players from other live venues. The recipe for tomorrow is the same as it was today - eight levels of 75 minutes, good for a total 10 hours of play.

Don't forget to tune in again tomorrow at 1 p.m. local time. Follow along in the dedicated live reporting blog. The PokerNews live reporting team will, of course, be on site to bring you all the action.
Inside Gaming: Straub Wants to Open TEN in June, CT Casino Debate Continues

April 21, 2017 Martin Harris

It's all about casinos in this week's installment of Inside Gaming. Starting in Atlantic City, the purchaser of the old Revel Casino  now called TEN  has announced plans to reopen part of the property in June, two different casinos catch fire in Las Vegas (with no injuries, thankfully), and Connecticut tribes and others continue to battle over casino expansion in Connecticut.

Owner Announces Another Opening Date for TEN

This week Glenn Straub, owner of the former Revel Casino in Atlantic City that closed in 2014 and has been renamed TEN, announced a plan to open the hotel-only portion of the property on June 15.

"If that sounds familiar, it is," reports the Press of Atlantic City, adding that Straub made a similar announcement last year about a June 15, 2016 opening. He also previously announced a plan to open in February of this year.

Straub remains optimistic, however, and on Tuesday explained there would be 1,500-2,000 rooms open with a $4 million computer system up and running in the hotel.

However, before TEN can open Straub will still have "to meet several Casino Reinvestment Development Authority conditions, including providing a landscaping plan and traffic study," neither of which have been provided.

Meanwhile Straub has not obtained a casino license, and has hopes that the New Jersey Superior Court will waive that requirement for his company as he has leased casino operations to another party. With that case still being decided, Straub wants to move ahead with the opening of the hotel.

Straub purchased the property in August 2015 for $82 million. Since then "Straub claimed it would open on several occasions. After each missed deadline, the wealthy developer claimed state and local agencies were holding up the opening."

Visit the Press of Atlantic City for more regarding Straub's plans for TEN.

Two Fires in Two Days at Las Vegas Casinos

The temperatures have yet to reach boiling conditions of summer out in Las Vegas, a climate with which annual visitors of the World Series of Poker are familiar. But things were nonetheless heating up last week with fires occurring at two different Vegas casinos.

A week ago Thursday saw a huge fire break out at the Bellagio along the rooftop of a shopping area. Dramatic videos were shared across social media, some showing flames visible through the famous Bellagio fountains continuing to operate.

Windy conditions forced employees to evacuate, with Las Vegas Boulevard even being shut down for a period while the fire was contained. No injuries were reported, and while the fire did not make its way inside the building the shops sustained an estimated $450,000 worth of damage.

According to the Clark County Fire Department, a faulty light fixture on an exterior wall was the cause of the fire, News3LV reports.

Thankfully the blaze was swiftly contained, as the outdoor rooftop area of the Bellagio is made of highly flammable styrofoam. "The material is used on properties all along The Strip to create the unique appearance seen on many of the rooftops," explains News3LV.

Then on Friday night a smaller fire erupted downtown at the Golden Nugget Casino when an awning over the casino employee entrance caught fire.

According to KVVU-TV in Las Vegas, the fire was already extinguished by the time firefighters arrived. Some smoke filled the hallway connected to the entrance, but besides the awning no damage resulted, no one was hurt and hotel operations were unaffected. There was no estimate of the cost, with the fire's cause later reported to be a burned out elevator motor.

Las Vegas history unfortunately includes several hotel fires, including one of the worst in U.S. history back in 1980 when an electrical fire at the old MGM Grand (now Bally's) resulted in 85 fatalities and prompted many design changes at hotel-resorts to improve fire safety.

Pressure from All Sides in Connecticut Casino Expansion Debate

They're still debating casino expansion in Connecticut, where legislators had another hearing this week to consider whether or not to allow the building of a casino in the state off of tribal lands, reports the Hartford Courant.

The Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans, operators of Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun, respectively, have partnered up to devise a plan for a new casino in East Windsor in the northern part of the state. Meanwhile MGM Resorts International is also part of the debate, arguing for "opening up the process to more potential casino operators" than the two tribes  including MGM.

Adding pressure to the situation is the ongoing construction of the MGM Springfield just across the northern border in Massachusetts, a $950 million resort casino scheduled to open in 2018. As reported here last spring, the prospect of the Springfield casino is prompting some in Connecticut to want to make a move soon in order for its casinos not to lose business.

Thus are lawmakers being asked to decide between a couple of alternatives  the tribes' plan to build in East Windsor, and the MGM's interest in building a casino in the southwestern part of the state "to tap into the New York market, where MGM does not have a presence."

The current bill being considered is the third different one Connecticut lawmakers have looked at already this year. The first supported the tribes' plan, the second MGM's plan to open up the process to other operators, and this new one is also "framed to set up competition."

"Since the debate over casino expansion in Connecticut began two years ago, three casinos have opened in New York, Springfield is well underway and Rhode Island has approved a casino in Tiverton, near the Massachusetts line," explained the tribes' consultant Clyde Barrow.

"Connecticut does not have luxury of time," commented the state's Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (who leans toward supporting the tribes). "In fact, the clock is ticking."

Learn more about the complicated casino debate in Connecticut from the Hartford Courant.

Image: tenacnj.com.
When Israel and Palestine come up at the dinner table one of two things usually happens. Polite coughing and a gentle prompt to move on, or a biting argument. It feels like there has never been a time when the Gaza Strip has been more than a few moments away from rotating back in to the twenty-four hour news cycle. There isn't a circumstance where it is not a divisive topic of conversation, and yet, many of us seem to have only the barest grasp of the issues at end. Myself very much included. I had not heard of the Oslo Accords until I did preliminary reading before reviewing this play. The historic treaties that were meant to create a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine were as much a mystery to me as synchronized swimming likely is to guinea pigs. I would say that, thanks to Oslo, the play now gracing Lincoln Centre's Vivian Beaumont Theatre, I am better informed. But is that the only measure of political theatre? Political theatre needs to be truly didactic, to teach and entertain. How does Oslo measure up to those standards?

This first thing to know about Oslo is that the pacing is ferocious. J.T. Rogers's script has a lot of ground to cover and fast. Bartlett Sher's direction ensures that this happens. Between light narration from Jennifer Ehle's Mona Juul and projections on the back of the stage (designed by 59 Projections) we get the details we need to launch in to the quagmire. Terje Rd-Larsen (Jefferson Mays) is a Norwegian diplomat (married to Mona). They plan an officially unsanctioned meeting between representatives of Israel and Palestine on the neutral ground of his home country, Norway. He is met at every turn with skepticism, and occasionally ridicule, but his unconventional approach eventually leads to a meeting between convivial, well-connected Israeli professors (Daniel Oreskes, Daniel Jenkins) and hair-triggered senior figures of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (Anthony Azizi, Darisuh Kashani). Though there is no shortage of animosity, shockingly, the talks begin to yield results. As the process gathers steam and credulity, more senior figures are brought in (Michael Aronov, Jeff Still). Eventually it seems like an agreement may be reached, but the process is intensely fragile, and threatens to self-destruct at any moment, but the potential promise of a peace drives everyone onward.

Daniel Oreskes, Michael Aronov, and Anthony Azizi (foreground) with Daniel Jenkins and Jeb Kreager (background)

You couldn't ask for a better cast here. They are a formidable force. Each of them carries the weight of the situation their characters are living through, and yet also, titanically, are able to find the humor in the piece. There is rich a vein of dark comedy running through Oslo that the cast plumbs with great regularity. The mercurial Michael Aronov as Uri Savir is particularly good at this. His anecdotes and flights of fancy are a thrill to watch. Oslo's humor serves as a much needed counterpoint to the severity of the situation presented, and allows the world to feel real and human. Which is what this play speaks to the most: The common humanity of all the people involved. When nationality, geopolitics and ideology are stripped away, these are all just human beings. They have families, senses of humor, and a love for drink and waffles. Oslo is a decidedly humanist play, as well as a political one.



As the action of the play ramps up further and further, as sets are switched round with increasing complexity (using an intricate pattern devised by Michael Yeargan and Cambra Overend), and as the tension at the negotiating table gets higher and higher it becomes easy to forget that the Oslo accords never produced the results they were hoping for. Oslo is such a dynamic, gripping piece that the watcher periodically forgets the reality of the world they live in. So much time is spent at the edge of the seat, that when the play's final moment of reflection comes, after the accords are signed, the tone is glisteningly uncertain. Terje re-affirms his mantra "Trust the process. Look back, not forward," and he's not wrong, but he's not wholly right either. The cast impersonally share anecdotes about the (often tragic) fates of the real people involved. A disturbing ennui strikes up in the audience. However, we are given one last reminder of the humanity of these people to offset the dissatisfactions of reality. As long as there is the possibility of dialogue, the play seems to posit, there is hope. Oslo is a triumph, and everyone should see it.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 16:02:01

A.M. Best Assigns Credit Ratings to Peak Reinsurance AG

A.M. Best

Vivian Cheung, +852 2827 3421

Senior Financial Analyst

vivian.cheung@ambest.com

or

Christie Lee, +852 2827 3413

Director, Analytics

christie.lee@ambest.com

or

Christopher Sharkey, +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159

Manager, Public Relations

christopher.sharkey@ambest.com

or

Jim Peavy, +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5644

Director, Public Relations

james.peavy@ambest.com

A.M. Best has assigned a Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and a Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of a- to Peak Reinsurance AG (Peak Re AG) (Switzerland). The outlook assigned to these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable.

The ratings reflect Peak Re AGs sound business plan, supportive risk-based capitalization and retrocession support provided by its parent company, Peak Reinsurance Company Limited (Peak Re). Peak Re established a Zurich branch office in September 2015. In December 2016, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) awarded Peak Re AG a subsidiary license to underwrite non-life reinsurance business. A.M. Best expects Peak Re AG to operate with a high degree of integration with Peak Re, which will include retrocession support and the sharing of branding and core operational functions such as underwriting, pricing, marketing, reserving and risk management.

Positive rating actions are not likely in the short term. Negative rating actions may occur if Peak Res ratings are downgraded, or if A.M. Best determines that Peak Re AGs level of importance to Peak Re has diminished materially.

Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended subsequent to that communication.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on A.M. Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see A.M. Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Understanding Bests Credit Ratings.

A.M. Best is the worlds oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright  2017 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201704210054
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Elevators And Escalators Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2016-2026" report to their offering.

Elevators And Escalators Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 06:19:04

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Elevators and Escalators are the two unavoidable parts of everyday life of humans. Multifarious malls and skyscrapers make elevators and escalators the must-haves in every building. Busy time schedules and increased number of ageing population necessitate the facility of escalators and elevators in residential apartments across the globe. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the ageing population (above 65 years) held 8.5% share of the total population worldwide during the year 2015 and is projected to increase its share to 12.0% by 2030. Moreover, factors like rapid urbanization, changing demographics and increasing constructional activities around the world is expected to drive the growth of the global elevators and escalators market rapidly. Safety is considered as the prominent factor in selection of elevators and escalators service providers.Elevator systems consist of hydraulic elevators, geared elevators, non-geared elevators and machine room less elevators (MRLs). Nowadays, MRLS are preferred over conventional geared elevators as they are technologically advanced, save space and consume less energy. Based on services, new installation service dominates the global elevators and escalators market due to increasing demand from the developing countries like China. However, maintenance and repair service is projected to grow at a significant rate over the forecast period. The manufacturers are focusing on improving the efficiency of the elevators and escalators coupled with the focus on neat and clean environment.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2417 Elevators and Escalators Market: DriversOne of the major factors driving the growth of the elevators and escalators market is the increasing demand from the end use sectors like residential, commercial, hospitals, etc. Additionally, increasing focus of government towards high rise infrastructures coupled with increasing need of rapid transit are expected to fuel the growth of global elevators and escalators market. Moreover, continuous investment for the improvement of infrastructure at public places like railway station, airports, shopping malls, etc. is further expected to upsurge the demand for elevators and escalators during the forecast period. Tourism is another sector which encourages the demand for elevators and escalators in places of importance for the ease and convenience of the tourists visiting the respective countries.Elevators and Escalators Market: RestraintsA key factor affecting the growth of the elevators and escalators market negatively is its high initial cost of installation. Moreover, lack of skilled labour for the after sales maintenance is expected to hamper the growth of elevators and escalators market. Furthermore, escalation in consumption of energy and power by elevators and escalators is anticipated to retard the growth of the market during the forecast period.Elevators and Escalators Market: SegmentationThe global elevators and escalators market can be viewed as two separate niches too, namely elevators market and escalators market. Elevators, on the basis of its capacity are segmented into 450 kg  1150 kg, 1150 kg  1500 kg and 1500 kg  2000 kg. On the other hand, escalators are further segmented into moving walkway and moving stairs escalators.Global elevators and escalators market can be segmented on the basis of carriage type, application and region. On the basis of carriage type, the elevators and escalators market is segmented into passenger and freight. On the basis of application, the market is segmented into commercial, residential, hotels, transportation, parking and hospital. On the basis of regions, the global elevators and escalators market is segmented into North America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan and Middle East & Africa (MEA).Elevators and Escalators Market: Region-wise OutlookBased on regions, Asia Pacific led by China and India, holds about 65% share in total ageing population of the world and is expected to be the most prominent revenue generation region in the global elevators and escalators market. Europe followed by North America is expected to witness positive growth during the forecast period.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2417 Elevators and Escalators Market: PlayersSome of the examples of the players identified in the global elevators and escalators market are as follows:Otis Elevator CompanyKone CorporationSchindler GroupThyssenkrupp AGFujitecHitachi, Ltd.Mitsubishi Electric CorporationToshiba Elevators and Building Systems CorporationHyundai Elevator Co., Ltd.SJEC Corporation
PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 19:13:10

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for EVITRADE Health Systems Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - EVITRADE Health Systems Corp. (CSE:EVA). has issued a press release with the following headline:EVITRADE Announces Final Share Record Dividend date for SubsidiariesTo 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 EVITRADE Health Systems 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/EVITRADE Health Systems Corp.Source: EVITRADE Health Systems Corp. (CSE: EVA, OTCQB: AXHLF)Date: April 21, 2017Time: 1:13 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of EVITRADE Health Systems 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: 2017-04-21 17:39:02

Heijmans has completed the sale of its German subsidiary Heijmans Oevermann GmbH to PORR Deutschland GmbH. The sale has been approved by the appropriate antitrust authorities and the expected net proceeds of  60 million have been realized.

As reported previously, on 6 March 2017, Heijmans reached agreement concerning the sale of all shares in Heijmans Oevermann GmbH to PORR Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of the Austrian construction group PORR AG. The sale of Oevermann contributes significantly to further debt reduction and results in a structural improvement of the financial ratios.





Recently, Heijmans also sold its German foundation specialist Franki to PORR. This sale was completed on 18 January 2017. With its disinvestment in Oevermann, Heijmans now has disposed of all of its operating activities in Germany.





About Heijmans

Heijmans is a listed company that combines activities related to property development, residential building, non-residential building, roads and civil engineering in the fields living, working and connecting. Our constant focus on quality improvements, innovation and integrated solutions enables us to generate added value for our clients. Heijmans realises projects for private consumers, companies and public sector bodies and, in partnership with its clients, is building the spatial contours of tomorrow. You will find additional information on www.heijmans.nl.





For additional information / not for publication:



Media

Marieke Swinkels-Verstappen

Communications

+31 73 543 52 17

mswinkels-verstappen@heijmans.nl



Analysts

Guido Peters

Investor Relations

+31 73 543 52 17

gpeters@heijmans.nl





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: Heijmans NV via Globenewswire


PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 23:11:08

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd. (TSX Venture:IDL). has issued a press release with the following headline:IDC Receives Health Canada Approval for Aquarius DR Imaging DevicesTo 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 Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd., 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/Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd.Source: Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd. (TSX Venture: IDL, WKN: A1W7AQ, ISIN: CA4519203000)Date: April 21, 2017Time: 5:11 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd. 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: 2017-04-21 18:11:01

WESTCHESTER, Ill., April 21, 2017 - Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE: INGR), a leading global provider of ingredient solutions to diversified industries, today released its sixth annual Sustainability Update, a publication that reviews the Company's sustainability efforts around the world.

The Update reflects Ingredion's sustainability agenda - to become the company of choice for a sustainable tomorrow - and highlights goals and progress in eight important focal areas: governance, integrity and trust, safety and health, social accountability, environmental conservation, operational excellence, sustainable sourcing, innovation and community engagement.

"The Sustainability Update reflects our commitment to sustainability and we are proud of our progress. Sustainability is a priority for the Company, as well as for our employees. Together we are dedicated to improving the environment, operating safely and making a difference in the communities where we operate," said Bob Stefansic, senior vice president, operating excellence, sustainability, IT and chief supply chain officer.

The Update is available on the Company's website at: ingredionincorporated.com/corporateresponsibility.

ABOUT INGREDION

Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE: INGR) is a leading global ingredient solutions provider. We turn grains, fruits, vegetables and other plant materials into value-added ingredients and biomaterial solutions for the food, beverage, paper and corrugating, brewing and other industries. Serving customers in over 100 countries, our ingredients make crackers crunchy, yogurts creamy, candy sweet, paper stronger and add fiber to nutrition bars. Visit Ingredion.com to learn more.

###

CONTACT:

Investors: Heather Kos, 708-551-2592

Media: Claire Regan, 708-551-2602





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: Ingredion Incorporated via Globenewswire


Oral Solid Dosage Pharmaceutical Formulation Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027 Research Report By Future Market Insights

Oral Solid Dosage Pharmaceutical Formulation Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 07:30:19

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# 732 Words

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: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Oral solid dosage forms are pharmaceutical formulations which are administered orally to achieve desired concentration of drug in the blood stream. Oral solid dosage forms are in prominent demand in the pharmaceutical market and these forms are remained dominant in the pharmaceutical market despite increasing number of biologics and small molecules which are administered parenteral or other routes of administration. Majority of these formulations are available in tablets and capsule forms which are widely accepted in the market place. Companies in this market facing mounting pressure for cost effectiveness combined with increasing high potency molecules and competition from generic manufacturers. Oral solid pharmaceutical dosage forms are used across the pharmaceutical candidates and it is one of the most commonly used drug delivery method across the patient groups.Oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is driven by increasing approvals for New Molecular Entities (NME) in oral solid dosage format, for instance, in 2014, 46% of the new molecular entities (NMEs) approved by the US Food and Drug Administrations Centre for Drug Evaluation and Research were solid dosage products. In addition, increasing rationalization of solid-dosage capacity on the pharma side and overall industry consolidation, availability of wider range of formulation methods such as hot-melt extrusion, spray drying, multiparticulate systems, and lipid-based drug delivery for poorly soluble APIs expected drive the oralsolid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market over the forecast period. Apart from aforementioned factors availability of fixed dose combinations, extended release and paediatric forms, traditional blockbuster OSD products which are now off-patented will continue to increase in demand for oral solid dosage pharmaceuticals. However, new chemical entities coming out of discovery continue to have poor solubility and bioavailability challenges, high regulatory requirement for high potency drugs, hard to swallow traditional solid tablets are expected to hinder the market growth over forecast period.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2782 Oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market has been segmented on the basis of dosage form type, drug releases pattern, distribution channel and region.Based on the dosage form type, the oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is segmented into the following:TabletsCapsulesHard Gelatin CapsulesSoft Gelatin CapsulesLozengesBased on the drug releases pattern, the oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is segmented into the following:Instant Release (Dose Dumping)Sustained ReleaseExtended ReleaseEffervescent TabletsChewable TabletsEnteric ReleaseBased on distribution channel type, the oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is segmented into the following:Hospital PharmaciesRetail PharmaciesOnline PharmaciesDrug StoresRequest For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2782 Oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is undergoing market changes due to the higher competition among key players and companies coming up with innovative and differential oral solid dosage forms. Majority of the pharmaceutical companies are looking to more strategic partnerships, acquisitions and mergers to consolidate market position. Companies are striving to increase the production volumes to get advantage of the economies of scale, adoption of multiple continuous unit operations are coupled into an integrated system application in the market place. Contract Manufacturing Originations (CMO) and Contract Development Manufacturing Originations (CDMO) are playing pivotal role in oral solid dosage pharmaceuticals value chain in the market place with its strong expertise in formulation development. By dosage from type, sub segment such as tablets in the oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is expected to grow in positive traction owing to its wider application, ease of usage, availability and effectiveness in treating various ailments.Geographically, oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market is segmented into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America and Europe region is projected to maintain its lions share over the forecast period. Advanced healthcare infrastructure, availability of newer technologies and increased purchasing power is expected to propel the demand for oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation during the forecast period in the above mentioned region. Asia Pacific region is expected to be the fastest growing regional market. Growing healthcare facilities, increased healthcare awareness in the emerging countries like India and China and availability of skilled manpower in oral solids manufacturing are mainly generating the demand for oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation products in the region.The players in oral solid dosage pharmaceutical formulation market include AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Eli Lilly and Company,Gilead Sciences, Merck & Co. Inc., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., AbbVie Inc. to name a few.
Porridges Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027 Research Report By Future Market Insights

Porridges Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 07:29:28

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# 643 Words

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: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Growing number of single individuals along with rising number of working women has led consumer shifting preference towards ready to eat breakfast food products. Porridges are the breakfast food products which are made up by starch plant specially the grains such as wheat, barley, oats and others. Presently the marketer is positioning and marketing porridges as instant ready to eat breakfast option to the consumers. Increasing consumer inclination towards convenience food products coupled with rising consumption of health fortified breakfast options is expected to drive the market growth over the forecast period.Porridges Market SegmentationPorridges market has been segmented on the basis of source which includes rice, barley and oats. Among all these segments oats is expected to occupy the largest value share during the forecast period. Availability of wide variety of product variants in oats based porridges is expected to support the segment growth during the forecast period. Rice based porridges is expected to register a favorable growth in the near future. Increasing demand for rice based porridges in country such as China and Japan is expected to support the segment growth over the forecast period.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2781 Global porridges market is also segmented on the basis of distribution channel which includes hypermarket/supermarket, retail stores, convenience stores, online, others. Among all these segment hypermarket/supermarket is expected to account for relatively higher value share over the forecast period. Increasing penetration of retail industry especially in developing countries is expected to support the segment growth in the porridges market over the forecast period. Convenience stores is further expected to account for favorable growth during the forecast period.Porridges Regional AnalysisGlobal porridges market is further segmented on the basis of region which includes North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East & Africa and Japan. Geographically, Western Europe is expected to be the major market in terms of value for porridges market, owing to increasing consumer shifting preference towards convenient breakfast options. Among the countries, U.K. is expected to remain major markets in terms of consumptions for porridges followed by Germany.North America is expected to represent the favorable market for porridges in terms of consumption. In the region the U.S. is expected to represent major value share during the forecast period. Increasing consumption of instant and on-the-go breakfast alternatives is expected to support the market growth in the country. Asia Pacific is expected to represent a rapid growth in porridges market. China is expected to be the largest consumer of porridges in the region. Continuous new product launches is expected to support the market growth in the country. Moreover, among ASEAN countries Singapore is expected to represent potential market both in terms of value and volume consumption.Porridges Market DriversGrowing number of single individuals along with rising number of working women across the globe is expected to drive the porridges market across the globe. For instance, according to the European Commission, the proportion of women employed in EU-28 increased from 51.4% in 2004 to 55.5% in 2014. Also, employment rate for women was pegged at 59.6% in 2014. In addition, continuous introduction of new porridges products such porridges combined with fruits and nuts is expected to fuel the market growth over the forecast period. In addition increasing awareness among the consumers through aggressive advertisement by the manufacturers is expected to drive the market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, increasing per capita expenditure on prepared food coupled with rising demand for convenience breakfast products is further expected to fuel the market growth in the near future.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2781 Porridges Market Key PlayersSome of the key players operating in porridges market includes Quaker Oats Company, Kellogg Co., General Mills Inc., Dole Food Company Inc, Weetabix Limited and H. J. Heinz Company among others.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the High-Performance Insulation Materials Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2016-2026" report to their offering.

High-Performance Insulation Materials Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-21 06:23:33

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# 680 Words

616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Insulation is defined as a complete barrier to transfer of heat through walls, floor and ceilings by trapping it into small cavities that helps in maintaining indoor temperature, save energy costs, and creates a healthier & comfortable living environment. Smaller the cavities, better performance of insulation material which leads to an effective thermal barrier. Insulation materials have some important properties namely low thermal conductivity, density, thickness of insulation, surface emissivity and thermal bridging which exhibits product effectiveness. These properties enhance the function and performance of insulating materials. High-performance insulation material depends on the type of raw material used, process takes place during manufacturing and skilled labor force. Aerogel is a type of raw material used to manufacture insulation materials which are 1,000 times less dense than a glass and are environmentally benign. High-performance insulation material delivers 40 times more insulation that the fiberglass and can be used at -200 C to 650 C temperature without flammable.High-Performance Insulation Materials Market:Drivers and RestraintsHigh-performance insulation materials market are witnessing maximum growth owing to increasing demand for specialized products, new product development, high durability and appropriate thickness of the material. Moreover, increasing use of extruded polystyrene and polyurethane insulation materials which are 90% less harmful to earths ozone layer, and rising environmental concern are some of the other factors that increase the growth of high-performance insulation material market in near future.However, the risk of flammability with insulated materials, foam products that contain CFC are relatively detrimental to the environment and high cost of production are a major barrier to the high-performance insulation materials market.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2421 High-Performance Insulation Materials Market:SegmentationThe high-performance insulation materials market has been classified on the basis of product type, raw material, and application.Based on product type, the high-performance insulation materials market is segmented into the following:Insulating BricksCalcium Silicate BlocksInsulation MattressesBased on raw material, the high -performance insulation materials market is segmented into the following:Ceramic FiberVermiculiteAerogelGlass BubblesOthers (Fiber Glass, Foams)Based on application, the high-performance insulation materials market is segmented into the following:ConstructionOil and GasTransportationAutomotiveIndustrialPower generatorsOthersHigh-Performance Insulation Materials Market:Market Segmentation OverviewHigh-performance insulation materials market witnessed substantial growth owing to low thermal conductivity, sound absorption, water repellency and thermal shock resistance properties of insulation materials. By material type, aerogel is anticipated to hold the major share in the high-performance insulation materials market owing to its properties such as light weight, tensile strength, thermal insulation, superior fire resistance, easy installation, high compressive strength and low density. Ceramic fiber insulating materials include substances such as blankets, modules, boards, and papers are extensively used which is expected to boost the global high-=performance insulation materials market in near future. Based on the application type, when high-performance insulation materials are used for an industrial purpose they help in allocating the heat consistently, diminish the overall noise, vibrations and energy consumption which will enhance the growth of the market during the forecast period.High-Performance Insulation Materials Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on the geographic region, High-Performance Insulation Materialsmarketis segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia=Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific dominates the High=Performance Insulation Materials marketfollowed by Europe, Japan and North America owing to high infrastructural investment and availability of insulation material suppliers. Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa hold huge potential and shows substantial growth in terms of wide acceptance of new technologyowing to increase in the consumption of oil & gas and rising manufacturing facilities in these regions which will further boost the demand for insulating materials to reduce greenhouse effect, global warming, and less energy consumption.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2421 High-Performance Insulation Materials Market:Key PlayersSome players of high-performance insulation materialsmarket are as follows:Aspen Aerogels, Inc.Morgan Advanced MaterialsIsolite Insulating Products Co., Ltd.The 3M CompanyUnifrax LLCNano High-Tech Co., LtdCabot CorporationAlison hi-tech company LtdIbiden Co. Ltd.Shandong Luyang Share Co., Ltd
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.




Songlines Music Travel has created the ultimate trip to Colombia combining amazing musical events with all the famous sites of this colourful country. The trip departs on 9 August.

By: Songlines Music Travel

Enjoy the music of Colombia (c: Gareth Richards)

Contact

Mick Thompson, Travel Dog PR

***@traveldogpr.co.uk Mick Thompson, Travel Dog PR

End

-- Specialist UK operator Songlines Music Travel, is offering both music lovers and open-minded travellers the chance to embark upon a unique journey to discover the rich, diverse sounds and culture of Colombia, known as 'the land of a thousand rhythms'. The trip is from 9-22 August 2017. Since the end of hostilities with the FARC, Colombia has become South America's most appealing musical destination.The multi-centre itinerary will include stays in Bogota, Cali, Medellin, Baranquilla and Cartagena, with live music performances and the chance to meet artists and musicians in the company of tour leader Russ Slater, one of the UK's leading experts on Latin American music.In addition to the musical activities, the trip will include plenty of free time to discover all the famous sites of this colourful country.The itinerary will also include time at the Petronio Alvarez Festival in Cali, an opportunity to explore the hip hop community of Medellin and a visit to the freed slave village of San Basilio de Palenque, the birthplace of champeta music near Cartagena.Other highlights of the trip will include a city tour of Bogota  including the famous Gold Museum, the Museo de Botero and Monserrate Hilltop  local Food by Foot tour and a visit to Matik Matik for a meeting with the leader of some local bands, to hear about their latest projects and listen to live music. The tour of Cali includes the Artisan market and Cali River, and a salsa tour of the pioneering neighbourhood of Barrio Obrero. There will also be a chance to visit the best salsa bars and salsatecas.The visit to Medellin includes Parque de los Pies Descalzos and Parque de las Esculturas, a visit to a local record company, a hip hop tour of the communities of Crew Peligrosos and Son Bata. The city tour of Barranquilla includes the El Prado Quarter, Founders Park, Carnival House and the Caribbean Museum plus some memorable musical encounters.The itinerary ends with three nights in Cartegena, one of South America's most charming cities, including a city tour, meeting street musicians, relaxing on the beach and a celebration 'Champeta' party on the final evening.The holiday costs from 3,450 per person (two sharing) which includes 13 nights' B&B (two sharing a room), airport transfers, internal flights, all ground transportation, visits and musical activities as per the itinerary, and an expert Songlines guide throughout.International flights extra, bookable through Songlines Music Travel.
Transworld's Prep to Sell Program to provide support to local business owners one to three years out from selling their business.

By: Transworld Business Advisors of Denver

Contact

Marketing Coordinator

***@tworlddenver.com Marketing Coordinator

End

-- Transworld Denver has developed "Prep to Sell," an innovative and proprietary program to support business owners that are preparing to sell their business in the next one to three years.Transworld Denver's Prep to Sell Program (http://www.tworlddenver.com/prep-sell-program/)(http://www.tworlddenver.com/prep-sell-program/)is for business owners who plan to sell one to three years from now, but would like to maximize their business's value now. The program provides owners with the consultative support they need to add value to their business and address potential buyer concerns. The program topics Transworld Denver has chosen to highlight were chosen specifically by the Transworld team to provide comprehensive support and information on preparing a business for sale. Sample topics to be discussed during the program are: How to Maximize the Value of Your Business The Importance of Clean Books and Records Addressing Legal Deal Killers Dealing With Emotional AttachmentDuring the 12-month program, participants will receive access to an experienced broker consultant as well as exclusive content and guidance to prepare owners and their business for a future sale. The top benefits of the program are as follows: reduced buyer concerns, improved financial considerations, and transition assistance. For more information on Transworld Denver's Prep to Sell Program, visit our website at www.tworlddenver.com.Transworld business Advisors is the top and largest business brokerage firm in Colorado, specializing in helping visionary entrepreneurs with their strategic plans for the future. Transworld's team of brokers have the widest range of business listings for purchase, inclusive of 100+ annually. Transworld's service offerings focus on the Denver Metro, Boulder and Golden areas and help customers to buy a business or sell a business in the state of Colorado. To learn more please visit our website at www.tworlddenver.com
By: Above the Board

Chamberlogo

Contact

Above the Board

Jeanne Sweeney

***@aboveboardchamber.com Above the BoardJeanne Sweeney

End

-- For its next luncheon meeting, Above Board Chamber of Florida presents "Ethics in Business" from 11:30 a.m.  1 p.m. on Monday, May 8 at Hilton Naples, 5111 Tamiami Trail North and Thursday, May 11 at Pelican Preserve, 9802 Pelican Preserve Blvd. in Fort Myers. Reservations are required.There are many different people you answer to in business: customers, employees and shareholders. Mastering these complex dynamics while adhering to a defined set of moral rules can become your biggest business-building tool. Our panels will show you how "doing it the right way the first time and every time" means much more than technical expertise in your industry.The Naples meeting will be emceed by Eric Dent, Ph.D., Uncommon Friends Endowed Chair of Ethics in the Lutgert College of Business at Florida Gulf Coast University, and feature a panel including Michael Wynn, president of Sunshine Ace Hardware; Theo Etzel, CEO of Conditioned Air Corp.; and Jim Henderson, President of William C. Huff Companies.The Fort Myers meeting will be emceed by Cindy McCurry-Ross, executive editor of the News-Press, and feature a panel including Michael Wynn, president of Sunshine Ace Hardware; John Albion, associate director at Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Property Southwest Florida; and Leslea Ellis, managing member at Leslea Ellis, LLC.Registration on or before Tuesday, May 2 will be $25 for members, $30 for guests. After May 2, registration will be $30 for members, $35 for guests.Registration on or before Wednesday, May 3 will be $25 for members, $30 for guests. After May 3, registration will be $30 for members, $35 for guests.The Naples and Fort Myers meetings will be sponsored by Theo Etzel, CEO at Conditioned Air Corp., and Marc Devisse, president at Tri-Town Construction, LLC.Non-members are encouraged to attend two meetings, then consider joining us to be part of the Above Board Chamber of Florida. To become a member, contact Jeanne Sweeney at 239.910.7426.Special thanks to our 2017 yearly sponsors: CONRIC PR & Marketing, Fuller Online Solutions, E. Sue Huff and Associates, Pulse Technology Solutions, LLC, Spada Salon & Day Spa, Your Walking Billboard, Charlie McDonald Photography, Lady in Pink Photography and Signarama North Fort Myers.The Above Board Chamber of Florida is dedicated to bringing people of all faiths together within the community, in the workplace and amongst one another. Their mission is to supply members with the tools that will allow them to take every aspect of their lives Above Board. For more information on the event or on how to become a member of the Above Board Chamber, contact Jeanne Sweeney at 239.910.7426.
Over the past five years, Iranian officials and state media have touted the "indigenous" ingenuity in the Islamic republic's mass-produced Mohajer-6 combat drone, which Russia has deployed in its war against Ukraine.

But a new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, has found that electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 are far from homegrown.



The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of such technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes  dual-use technology.

The presence of these components in the Mohajer-6 does not mean their producers are in violation of U.S. or EU sanctions, and RFE/RL does not have evidence that this is the case.

The investigation also found Mohajer-6 components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm that said it was "very sorry" that its products were being used in war.

At least one major foreign-produced component of the Mohajer-6 has previously been identified by reporters in a Mohajer-6 recovered from the battlefield by the Ukrainian military: an engine made by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products.

But Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Iranian combat drone contains components from nearly three dozen different technology companies based in North America, the EU, Japan, and Taiwan, the Schemes investigation has found. A majority of these companies are based in the United States.



A Schemes reporter who personally inspected the foreign-made drone parts identified components produced by at least 15 of these manufacturers.

These include parts made by the U.S. technology firm Texas Instruments, which said in a statement that it does not sell into Russia or Iran and complies with applicable laws and regulations.

To identify these components, Schemes reporters examined parts of the Mohajer-6 drone that the Ukrainian military shot down over the Black Sea near the Mykolayiv region coastal town of Ochakiv. They also reviewed Ukrainian intelligence records on the sources of these components.

The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China.

Both Western officials and experts on illicit technology transfers say Iran has built a broad, global procurement network using front companies and other proxies in third countries to obtain dual-use technology from the United States and the EU.

"Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they'll think that they're selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran," Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told RFE/RL.

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions specifically targeting Iranian companies that Washington links to the production and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for deployment in its war on Ukraine. Fighting rages with no sign of an end more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion on February 24.

"Non-Iranian, non-Russian entities should also exercise great caution to avoid supporting either the development of Iranian UAVs or their transfer, or sale of any military equipment to Russia for use against Ukraine," U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement announcing the sanctions.

Chinese Cameras, California Chips

Development of the Mohajer-6, the latest model in a series of drones Tehran has used since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, began in 2017, while mass production began the following year. During a ceremony commemorating the Islamic Revolution, then-Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that the new tactical drone could perform surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as help destroy targets.

Hatami extolled what he described as the drones domestic design, a portrayal echoed in later reports by Iranian media.

"The homegrown drone was made through cooperation among the army, Defense Ministry, and Quds Aviation Industries," the English-language Tehran Times quoted an Iranian military official as saying in July 2019.

The dismantling of the Mohajer-6 drone recovered by the Ukrainian military shows that the UAV is packed with foreign components.

One of these parts is a bright-orange real-time mini-camera produced by the Hong Kong-based company RunCam Technology. Documents seen by Schemes show that Ukrainian intelligence has also identified RunCam as the producer of the camera, which likely assists in remote guidance of the drone.

Founded in 2013, RunCam is involved in the development and production of so-called "first-person-view" real-time cameras. "Our users are our friends," the company's website states. The site says that RunCam has two authorized Iranian dealers.

Reached by Schemes for comment about the use of its camera in the Iranian drone deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine, RunCam said in an e-mailed response: "We are very sorry to know that RunCam's products were used in warfare. RunCam is specialized in producing products for model aircraft hobby. We never contact any customer related to military."

The provenance of the Mohajer-6 drone-s thermal-imaging camera is more difficult to determine. A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reviewed by Schemes indicates it could be the Ventus Hot model produced by Sierra-Olympic Technologies, based in the U.S. state of Oregon, but that it also resembles a cheaper analog available for sale by the Chinese company Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology.

Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology said in an e-mailed statement that the company did not "have any business with Iran," because "it will affect our business." The company said it specializes in marine services and is not involved in manufacturing. It also said that it did not have a single successful order for its online advertisement of the thermal-imaging camera resembling the one recovered from the Iranian drone.

Sierra-Olympic Technologies did not respond to a request for comment on the possible use of its thermal-imaging cameras in Iranian combat drones in time for publication.

Microchips recovered from the drone also featured the logos of the California-based company Linear Technology Corporation and its parent company, the Massachusetts-based semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). ADI did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the possible use of its technology in the Iranian combat drone.

Schemes reporters also observed among the components of the Iranian drone a voltage step-down converter produced by Texas Instruments. The company said in an e-mailed statement that it "does not sell into Russia, Belarus, or Iran."

"TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and does not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren't designed for," Texas Instruments said.

Schemes reporters also saw several components produced by the California-based technology manufacturer Xilinx, whose parent company is the multinational semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also based in California.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, one of these Xilinx components was integrated into a video data-link module located in the wing of the Mohajer-6 that helped carry out attack missions.

"This module transmits information from the board to the missile head. That is, guidance for the missile. With the help of this module, it was possible to guide the missile to the target," a Ukrainian military intelligence representative told Schemes.

AMD did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

'No Authorization'

Previous media reports about the components of the Mohajer-6 drone, including by CNN, have shown evidence that its engine was produced by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, whose parent company is the Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP).

The Canadian company responded to the reports on October 21, saying in a statement that it "has not authorized and has not given any authorization to its distributors to supply military UAV manufacturers in Iran or Russia."

"As soon as we were made aware of this situation, we started an investigation to determine the source of the engines," BRP said. .

But Schemes reporters found that the authorized Rotax distributor listed on the Austrian manufacturer's website advertised itself as a Rotax aircraft engines distributor for Iran as recently as December 2020.

The distributor, the Italian company Luciano Sorlini S.p.a., has posted multiple magazine advertisements on its websites in which it describes itself as a Rotax distributor for numerous countries. Prior to January 2021, Iran was listed among these countries.

The Rotax website also lists a Tehran-based company -- MahtaWing -- as an official service center for its engines. The company, known in Persian as Mahtabal, conducts repairs of Rotax engines, including the Rotax 912 iS, the engine that was found in the Mohajer-6 combat drone recovered in Ukraine.

BRP said in an e-mailed statement on November 4 that while Luciano Sorlini S.p.a. is the appointed distributor of Rotax aircraft engines in Iran, "since 2019, no Rotax engines have been sold in Iran, and we will not sell any engines to Iran moving forward."

The Canadian company said it had "internal controls" that "significantly" restrict the sale of its products for military purposes.

"For example, the sale of any BRP product to operators with any military activity in Iran, Turkey, and Russia is strictly prohibited," BRP said. "We conduct our business in compliance with all EU, Canadian, and U.S. applicable regulations."

BRP described the Iranian company MahtaWing as a "local service center" that "offers maintenance services for previously sold aircraft engines."

Shahriar Siami of RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius says the recent NATO deployments to the Baltic region and elsewhere in Eastern Europe are a sign that the Western alliance will do anything to defend the security of member nations.

In an interview on April 20 with Current Time TV, Linkevicius also said Vilnius desires normal relations with Russia but that they should be based on "principles and values."

Linkevicius spoke to the Russian-language network, run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, as the 28-member alliance is bolstering its presence in the region to reassure member nations in the face of a renewed aggressive foreign policy by neighboring Russia.

Particularly worrisome is Moscows illegal annexation of Ukraines Crimea region and its continued support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has also been accused of interfering in the affairs of countries looking to move closer to the NATO alliance.

NATO has deployed four battalions to Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, led by U.S., German, Canadian, and British troops and each with about 800 troops.

Linkevicius told Current Time TV that the level of threat from Russia against the Baltic states -- all NATO members and all former Soviet republics -- remains high.

"The situation has not really improved since [last year], he said.

Linkevicius denied the NATO deployments should be seen by Moscow as a threat, given their small size compared with the level of Russias forces in the region.

"If we compare figures, there are 300,000 servicemen in the Western Military District of the Russian Federation, plus the three more divisions whose deployment has been announced just recently," he said.

But Linkevicius said the NATO presence should be seen as a sign of its commitment to the regions security.

"The main thing is that we are not talking here about competition or escalation, he said.

What we are doing is meant to leave no doubts for anyone that the NATO alliance will do everything necessary to guarantee the security of its territories and population, the foreign minister said.

Linkevicius said there was a war of sorts already taking place in the region -- the so-called hybrid war of unconventional methods, including disinformation and fake news.

"This war already is taking place -- a cyberwar, an information war. In general, the understanding of security has been expanded," he said.

"Once, there were times when before a real fight, an artillery barrage took place.... This is no longer needed. It may be sufficient to use brainwashing to create the staging ground for [military] action.

I am deeply convinced that this is what happened in Crimea," Linkevicius said.



"A ban or some type of censorship are not solutions. It is necessary to set up alternative sources [of information] and to fight those tendencies directly, in a positive way," he said.



On relations with Russia, Linkevicius said there have been few contacts in recent times between Vilnius and Moscow.

"It has been a while since we have had any high-level meetings, he said. We do not think this is because of our position.

In the future, we do want to have relations like normal neighbors. But [relations] should be based on some principles and values, and this is very important."

Linkevicius noted that next month a Russian forum will be held in Lithuania where scholars, journalists, and political science experts will be invited.

Politicians will be there, too, he said. "We will talk about the future of Russia and of Russia in Europe and about freedom of speech.

And, by the way, we will be speaking in Russian."

With reporting by AP and AFP
Pakistani police say three women dressed in burqas killed a man who had been accused of blasphemy in 2004 in a northeastern Pakistani town -- the second murder over alleged insults to Islam in a week.

The three young women have confessed to the killing, police said April 20.

Fazal Abbas, who was in his 50s and belonged to the minority Shi'ite branch of Islam, was gunned down at home in what his family have called a sectarian hate crime.

Abbas had fled Pakistan in 2004 after being charged with committing blasphemy, but returned earlier this year to fight the case and was granted bail, police said.

The women -- apparently sisters -- entered Abbas's home in the small city of Sialkot on April 19, and one of them shot him in the chest, police said.



A relative of the victim said the attacker, whose name is Afshan, was known to the family and was a lecturer at a seminary connected to the anti-Shi'ite militant group Lashkar-e Jhangvi.

The family said that Abbas was the victim of a blasphemy case targeting him because he was a Shi'ite. About one-fifth of predominantly Sunni Muslim Pakistan's 202 million people are Shi'ite Muslims.

Police official Mohammad Farooq said the women had confessed and were in custody.

The latest killing came in the wake of a government drive to prosecute blasphemy, a hugely sensitive charge in conservative Muslim Pakistan.

Last week (April 13) a mob beat student Mashal Khan to death when blasphemy accusations spread across a university campus in the northern city of Mardan.

Police are now investigating a number of university students and faculty for their involvement in the attack.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and dawn.com
The United States and the European Union have denounced a Russian Supreme Court decision to brand the Jehovahs Witnesses an extremist organization and ban its activities.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said in a statement that it was "disappointed, but not surprised" by the court's move.

USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad.

The courts decision sadly reconfirms the disregard of the government for religious freedom in present-day Russia," the statement quoted USCIRF chair, Thomas J. Reese, as saying.

"Individual and community expressions of faith, and even private religious beliefs, are not safe from state-sponsored repression and coercion in Russia today, Reese said in the April 20 statement.



Reese also dismissed the Russian Justice Ministry's statement that the Jehovahs Witnesses pose a threat to the rights of citizens, public order, and public security as simply a politicized assault on a religious group known worldwide for its pacifism and avoidance of politics.

Reese went on to say that, "With this decision, the Russian government takes another unnecessary step away from the international community and toward isolation, and urged Russia's judiciary to "overturn this unjustified ruling" if the Jehovahs Witnesses choose to appeal it.

Meanwhile, EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini's office said on April 21 that the ruling could make it possible to launch criminal prosecutions against Jehovah's Witnesses for mere acts of worship.

"Jehovahs Witnesses, like all other religious groups, must be able to peacefully enjoy freedom of assembly without interference, as guaranteed by the constitution of the Russian Federation as well as by Russia's international commitments and international human rights standards," it said in a statement.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the courts April 20 decision was a terrible blow to freedom of religion and association in Russia.

A senior British government official also said she was "alarmed" by the Russian court's move.

"This ruling effectively criminalizes the peaceful worship of 175,000 Russian citizens and contravenes the right to religious freedom which is enshrined in the Russian Constitution," Baroness Joyce Anelay, human rights minister, said in a statement on April 21.

"The United Kingdom calls on the Russian government to uphold its international commitment to this basic freedom," the statement said.

The Jehovahs Witnesses denomination in Russia, which says it has 170,000 adherents and 395 local branches in the country, said it would fight the ruling.
The Kremlin says it will not comment on media reports that say Russia has been moving heavy military equipment toward its border with North Korea amid tension between Pyongyang and the United States.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on April 21 that troop movements inside Russia are "not a public matter."

Local media in the Russian Far East have reported that residents have witnessed large military convoys traveling by train and road toward the short border with North Korea since last weekend.

A video posted on local news site DVHab.ru showed a train carrying heavy military equipment, including Tor surface-to-air missile systems, traveling through the city of Khabarovsk -- purportedly moving south toward Vladivostok, which is 160 kilometers from the border.

"This is the third train of equipment weve seen since this morning," a man can be heard saying in Russian.

Vostok Media said local residents have seen armored personnel carriers, helicopters, and other equipment traveling south on the Khabarovsk-Vladivostok highway. A Russian military spokesman was quoted as saying it was part of "routine" military exercises.

Tensions over North Korea have risen sharply following two nuclear weapons tests by Pyonygang in 2016 and a series of ballistic-missile tests.

On April 19, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence vowed an "overwhelming and effective" U.S. response to any attack.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on April 21 that provocative statements by North Korea have often proven to be hollow, suggesting they cannot be trusted to reflect actual plans.

"As far as North Korea's latest words [are concerned], I think we've all come to hear their words repeatedly. Their word has not proven honest," Mattis told a news conference in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on April 20 strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its "highly destabilizing behavior."

The council demanded in a unanimous statement that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests," adding that Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond."

The council threatened to "take further significant measures including sanctions" to tackle the issue of North Korea's missile launches.

While previous statements have warned of further measures, the agreed text made specific mention of sanctions, signaling a tougher stance from the council.

"If we have to start looking at sanctions or other actions, we will," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters.

The U.S.-drafted statement was agreed upon after Russia insisted that language stressing the need to achieve a peaceful solution "through dialogue" was included in the final text.

Moscow had blocked an earlier version of the statement -- which comes after North Korea carried out a failed missile test on April 16 -- although China, Pyongyang's only major ally, had expressed its support for it.

With reporting by The Telegraph, AFP, Vostok Media, RIA Novosti, Reuters, and DVHab.ru


The 2020 Mahindra Scorpio BS6 does not carry any major improvement over its BS4 counterpart

Amid the COVID-19 lockdown, Mahindra has updated its popular Scorpio SUV to BS6 specifications. The 2020MY Mahindra Scorpio BS6 comes at a starting price of Rs 12.40 lakh for the base S5 model. For the BS6 era, it is available only in four variants: S5, S7, S9 and S11.

The previous entry-level S3 variant has been discontinued. The top variant costs Rs 16 lakh while the mid-level S7 and S9 variants are priced at Rs 14.21 lakh and Rs 14.84 lakh, respectively. Compared to its BS4 model, prices of the updated Scorpio have gone up by an average of Rs 60,000. The figures mentioned here are ex-showroom.

Besides discontinuing its S3 variant, the company has also ditched the 2.5-litre m2DICR diesel motor as well as the lower 120bhp tune of its 2.2-litre mHawk diesel mill. Previously, the top-spec Mahindra Scorpio was available with 4WD but the new range consists only RWD variants. In terms of design, the ladder-frame SUV remains unchanged.

The list of equipment is also the same as the BS4 version. In the top S11 trim, it packs dual airbags, ABS, rear parking sensors and camera, cruise control, 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system, automatic climate control, etc. It is fair to say that the Mahindra Scorpio is quite outdated compared to its rivals as well as other modern-day products from the Indian automaker. However, Mahindra is reportedly working on a next-gen Scorpio which was spotted on multiple occasions in test mule avatars.

The 2020 Mahindra Scorpio comes powered by a 2.2-litre mHawk diesel four-cylinder unit. As mentioned before, the power plant remains unchanged other than becoming compliant to the new emission norms. As part of this, Mahindra has installed an SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) system and a dedicated urea tank. Urea, or AdBlue systems, in modern diesel vehicles help reduce NOx emissions.

Output figures are roughly the same at 140bhp and 320Nm of torque. This is sent to the rear axle via a 6-speed manual gearbox. Mahindra does not offer an automatic transmission for the Scorpio.

Indias automotive industry is going through tough times like never before due to COVID-19 outbreak. Major OEMs have started focusing on online sales platforms to make the best out of the worst. Mahindra has also started accepting online bookings for select models. After the Indian government relaxes its lockdown protocols, the entire car-buying scenario could be different  know more details.
The extent of damage caused by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan demonstrated that the outcomes of disaster mitigation research were not fully applied in reality. Computer simulations are normally used to develop effective evacuation strategies. However, a gap remains between computer-generated results and what is actually feasible for people, since simulations are not usually tested in real life.

Led by Professor Michinori Hatayama, researchers at Kyoto University combined computer simulations with fieldwork done in partnership with the residents of Mangyo, Kuroshio in Kochi prefecture in southern Japan. It is thought that the Kuroshio area will be the most affected in the event of a long-anticipated earthquake and tsunami originating in the Nankai Trough, a depression at the bottom of the ocean about 900km off the southern coast of Japan's mainland.

The team's aim was to facilitate effective communication between disaster mitigation professionals and society at large so that research outcomes are better utilized. They also wanted to encourage the locals to develop practical evacuation plans to help them feel less pessimistic about their survival odds. Some residents had previously expressed hopelessness to the media should such a disaster happen.

Hatayama and his colleagues interviewed the residents to find out how they would react in the case of a tsunami warning and what issues make them feel pessimistic. They then put the responses into a computer simulation system that includes geographical information and tsunami hazard data. The output, which was shared with the locals in workshops, showed an animation of how they would react to a tsunami, allowing them to identify what challenges they faced in order to evacuate successfully. This was followed by discussions about what the locals perceived to be issues, such as an elevated shelter being too far away, and possible alternative plans, such as using a much nearer evacuation tower. The researchers conducted evacuation drills so that the residents could experience the alternative plans.

They found that this method made evacuation drills more efficient. Contrary to previously practiced drills, the researchers placed problem awareness ahead of practice, which helped shorten the time needed to determine possible alternative solutions.

The field activities also allowed some residents to realize evacuation was possible; something they were unsure of before. They regarded alternative plans as feasible evacuation options.

However, some locals tended not to accept the alternative plans as they might involve some risks. For example, they preferred to evacuate by car rather than on foot, despite the fact that roads are often blocked by debris or are congested in a disaster.

New research should look into real life examples in order to find a solution to these problems, the researchers conclude.
Lyme disease is among the most common vector-borne illnesses in North America, Europe, and some parts of Asia. A spirochete bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi causes the disease, and blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are responsible for the majority of North American transmissions. Commonly known as deer ticks, blacklegged ticks exhibit two-year life cycles with the following four stages: eggs, larvae, nymphs, and adults. Larvae primarily attack white-footed mice, then become nymphs upon obtaining a blood meal. At the beginning of their second year, nymphs transform into adults and prey almost solely on white-tailed deer. Female ticks produce approximately 2,000 fertile eggs throughout their lives, nearly all of which hatch and continue the sequence.

In the past, researchers have used various modeling techniques -- including reaction-diffusion models, simulation models, and temperature-driven maps -- in attempts to better understand Lyme disease. In a paper publishing in the SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, Xiunan Wang and Xiao-Qiang Zhao present a periodic time-delayed model of Lyme disease that incorporates seasonality and climate factors. "Seasonal variations in temperature, humidity, and resource availability have a strong effect on tick population dynamics," Wang said. "Climate impacts tick survival mostly during nonparasitic periods of the life cycle. Outside certain ranges of temperature and rainfall, tick populations cannot survive because these conditions directly kill the ticks or inhibit host-seeking activity."

Previous models of the disease inspired the authors' current model, which handles seasonality and tick feeding activity particularly well. "We incorporate seasonality by assuming that the birth rate of ticks, the biting rate of ticks, and the strength of density dependence for adult ticks are positive, continuous, and periodic functions," Wang said. The authors address the larvae, nymph, and adult stages of the deer tick, and incorporate mice and deer as host populations. They identify three parameters to represent the different feeding durations of larvae, nymphs, and adults.

"We need to be clear with the life cycle of ticks, including when they feed on two different hosts and how long they stay on the hosts," Wang said. "Involvement of three different tick life stages and two different hosts results in an eight-dimensional non-autonomous model with three different time delays." Wang and Zhao also identify variables for the densities of susceptible and infected mice, the densities of both uninfected and infected ticks at all stages of life, the density and birth rate of deer, mortality rates and feeding durations of all involved parties, susceptibility to infection, and individual biting rates of ticks.

The authors evaluate all parameters and apply their model to Lyme disease transmission in Long Point, a hamlet in Ontario, Canada where the disease is widespread. "In recent years, northward invasive spread of the endemic tick vectors from the United States to nonendemic Canadian habitats has become a public health concern," Wang said. "Migratory songbirds play an integral role in the wide dispersal of ticks. Long Point Provincial Park on the northwestern shore of Lake Erie is famous for its migrating birds during spring and fall, and attracts thousands of birdwatchers. It is also one of the places where infected ticks are commonly found."

Wang and Zhao utilize an existing algorithm to derive the basic reproduction ratio (R0), which acts as a threshold parameter when defining the model's global dynamics. They then use published data about monthly mean temperatures in Long Point from 1981-2010 to experiment with R0 levels, given changes in tick larvae birth rate. If R0<1, Lyme disease will likely die out in the area; if R0>1, it will likely persist and exhibit periodic fluctuation.

Ultimately, the authors' model yields a disease-free periodic solution. If nothing is done in the next few years, Lyme disease will be continue its prevalence in Long Point and exhibit periodic fluctuation. However, reducing the recruitment rate of tick larvae could eliminate it. The authors offer a few suggestions on how best to reduce this rate and prevent tick eggs from hatching into larvae. "It may be helpful to regularly search for the spots where adult ticks usually lay eggs, like in sheds, in woodpiles, under rocks, and in the crevices of walls," Wang said. "Since tick eggs are static, it is more feasible to focus on the clearance of eggs than to think about killing ticks of the other three life stages." However, because tick eggs are not macroscopically visible, Wang and Zhao suggest that the invention of equipment to detect them would certainly be useful.

As long as the corresponding data is available, Wang and Zhao say that researchers can apply their model to the study of Lyme disease transmission in other parts of the world. They also hope to more thoroughly investigate ticks on songbirds, given the northward spread of the parasite to areas of Canada during migration season. "Since the ticks removed from songbirds consist of susceptible and infected nymphs, we may add a periodic function term into the susceptible and infectious nymph equations of our model, respectively," Wang said. "Such periodic terms can reflect the effect of seasonal migration of songbirds."
A new study of Spanish-English bilingual children by researchers at Florida Atlantic University published in the journal Developmental Science finds that when children learn two languages from birth each language proceeds on its own independent course, at a rate that reflects the quality of the children's exposure to each language.

In addition, the study finds that Spanish skills become vulnerable as children's English skills develop, but English is not vulnerable to being taken over by Spanish. In their longitudinal data, the researchers found evidence that as the children developed stronger skills in English, their rates of Spanish growth declined. Spanish skills did not cause English growth to slow, so it's not a matter of necessary trade-offs between two languages.

"One well established fact about monolingual development is that the size of children's vocabularies and the grammatical complexity of their speech are strongly related. It turns out that this is true for each language in bilingual children," said Erika Hoff, Ph.D., lead author of the study, a psychology professor in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, and director of the Language Development Lab. "But vocabulary and grammar in one language are not related to vocabulary or grammar in the other language."

For the study, Hoff and her collaborators David Giguere, a graduate research assistant at FAU and Jamie M. Quinn, a graduate research assistant at Florida State University, used longitudinal data on children who spoke English and Spanish as first languages and who were exposed to both languages from birth. They wanted to know if the relationship between grammar and vocabulary were specific to a language or more language general. They measured the vocabulary and level of grammatical development in these children in six-month intervals between the ages of 2 and a half to 4 years.

The researchers explored a number of possibilities during the study. They thought it might be something internal to the child that causes vocabulary and grammar to develop on the same timetable or that there might be dependencies in the process of language development itself. They also considered that children might need certain vocabulary to start learning grammar and that vocabulary provides the foundation for grammar or that grammar helps children learn vocabulary. One final possibility they explored is that it may be an external factor that drives both vocabulary development and grammatical development.

"If it's something internal that paces language development then it shouldn't matter if it's English or Spanish, everything should be related to everything," said Hoff. "On the other hand, if it's dependencies within a language of vocabulary and grammar or vice versa then the relations should be language specific and one should predict the other. That is a child's level of grammar should predict his or her future growth in vocabulary or vice versa."

Turns out, the data were consistent only with the final possibility -- that the rate of vocabulary and grammar development are a function of something external to the child and that exerts separate influences on growth in English and Spanish. Hoff and her collaborators suggest that the most cogent explanation would be in the properties of children's input or their language exposure.

"Children may hear very rich language use in Spanish and less rich use in English, for example, if their parents are more proficient in Spanish than in English," said Hoff. "If language growth were just a matter of some children being better at language learning than others, then growth in English and growth in Spanish would be more related than they are."

Detailed results of the study are described in the article, "What Explains the Correlation between Growth in Vocabulary and Grammar? New Evidence from Latent Change Score Analyses of Simultaneous Bilingual Development."

"There is something about differences among the children and the quality of English they hear that make some children acquire vocabulary and grammar more rapidly in English and other children develop more slowly," said Hoff. "I think the key takeaway from our study is that it's not the quantity of what the children are hearing; it's the quality of their language exposure that matters. They need to experience a rich environment."
After a 29-year quest, Ian Duncan, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has finally pinpointed the cause of a serious neurologic disease in a colony of rats.

His new study, now online in the journal Annals of Neurology, is more than the conclusion of a personal and intellectual odyssey, however. Duncan has just shown that the rat abnormality closely resembles a rare human mutation that results in severe neurologic dysfunction. The human disease can affect many parts of the brain and has been called H-ABC.

Indeed, both conditions arise from mutations in the same gene.

Crucially, both abnormalities affect the production and maintenance of myelin -- the white, fatty insulation that nerves need to carry electrical signals. The deterioration of myelin in the brain causes the common neurologic disorder multiple sclerosis. Myelin defects are also at the root of the leukodystrophies -- genetic disorders that include H-ABC. Duncan's examination of nervous system tissue from both conditions revealed a telltale overgrowth of tiny tubes known as microtubules in oligodendrocytes, the cells that make myelin and deposit it on nerve fibers.

The Annals study offers a window on a rare disease -- and also on the broader issue of myelin formation. "For a human disease, we have provided a model that did not exist before," Duncan says, "and we've shown that it's based on microtubule accumulation in oligodendrocytes. Now we've seen similar changes in the rats and the human cells."

The roots of the new publication include a chance observation by two Chilean scientists, a couple of eyebrow-raising trips across the U.S. border, and the drive and persistence that have fashioned Duncan into a long-distance skier and competitive triathlete.

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In 1988, Duncan learned that Bjorn and Ruth Holmgren, who had fled the Pinochet regime in Chile and settled in Mexico, had isolated rats with "an interesting tremor" at their laboratory in Puebla. Through a chain of colleagues, they identified Duncan for his interest in disorders of myelin, and offered him some nervous system tissue.

The handoff went down at a neuroscience meeting in Toronto, Duncan says. "I was standing by my poster when I detected the strong smell of fixative (chemicals used to preserve biological samples). A leaking bag containing rat brain and spinal cord samples was given to me by a Mexican scientist. While returning to Madison, the U.S. customs agent wanted to know what I was carrying. I said, 'It's fixed brain tissue, it's non-infective,' and he let me through."

Later, when Duncan decided to breed the rats in Madison, he visited Puebla. On his return, "I was waved through the O'Hare airport customs with a cageful of rats -- and no questions asked. That was before 9/11."

As Duncan's lab studied the rats, they observed the rampant growth of microtubules, and identified the general location of the gene responsible. But they could not identify it precisely.

Microtubules are structures in a cell's internal skeleton that supply both mechanical stiffness and a "railroad track" to transport molecules within the cell. The system goes haywire when the cell gets clogged with microtubules that block normal transport, Duncan says. "Microtubules accumulate with time, and they are everywhere in the cell and along all the processes that grow out from it. This affects the transport of myelin basic protein, which is a major constituent of myelin."

On a separate track, Marjo van der Knaap, a world-renowned pediatric neurologist at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, was studying a new syndrome in children, and named it H-ABC for its effect on myelin and certain nerve cells. In 2012 and 2013, van der Knaap and others identified a mutation in the TUBB4A gene, which makes a protein for microtubules.

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In early 2016, Duncan learned about van der Knaap's work from John Svaren, a fellow professor of veterinary medicine at UW-Madison. "I read the study and thought, 'This has to be what the rat has,'" Duncan says. "Originally, we thought this was a rat disease with no apparent human counterpart."

Svaren also searched databases on rat genes and noted that the Tubb4A gene was exactly where Duncan and his colleague Fang-Yuan Li had previously predicted. Shortly thereafter they identified a mutation in the rat Tubb4A gene.

Finally, in May 2016, Duncan and van der Knaap went over their findings. "She had postmortem tissue from a patient who had succumbed to the disease, and under the electron microscope, I saw the same microtubule abnormality in human oligodendrocytes as we described in the rats. That was critical."

The new rat model could become a testing ground for medicines that inhibit microtubule formation, Duncan says. It could also support insights into the larger group of leukodystrophies, genetic disorders with a wide range of causes and symptoms.

And, Duncan says, an improved understanding of how oligodendrocytes form and maintain myelin, and how those essential processes go awry, "could open a new window of understanding on the more widespread myelin diseases."
At a first glance, the Witwatersrand basin, the largest known gold resource on our planet, is not automatically related to ocean research. However, in its 3 billion years old geological history, the Witwatersrand basin in South Africa has been covered by seawater, but experienced also episodes of drying out, flooding and erosion by rivers and the repeated coverage by seawater. In 1852, the English prospector J.H. Davis discovered the first gold in the Witwatersrand, leading to the South African gold rush and the discovery of much more gold deposits within the basin. Although the Witwatersrand has been subject for decades of research, the genesis of gold and uranium ore is still unclear.

A group of scientists from Canada and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre of Ocean Research Kiel, successfully unravelled some mechanisms of the ore-forming process using complex analytical techniques. The results were recently published in the scientific journal Precambrian Research.

In this study, the scientists analysed samples from the Witwatersrand ore deposits with high-resolution scanning- and transmission-electron microscopes, and the processed their data using novel 2D and 3D software. "We were able to find out that fossil oil, that has been formed by organic matter derived from the first living organisms on Earth, mobilized uranium in the basin. Uraninite nanoparticles flocculated in the oil and formed uranium ore," explains Dr. Sebastian Fuchs from the GEOMAR, the first author of the study. "Hot hydrothermal fluids, similar to those fluids that we find today in modern seafloor Black Smoker systems, transported dissolved gold and formed oil-in-water emulsions at the site of the deposits. The oil droplets in the hydrothermal fluids initiated the efficient chemical precipitation of native gold and the formation of very complex-structured gold and uranium ore."

Using high-resolution imaging techniques, the researchers were able to visualize a to date unknown ore-forming process, in which migrating oil plays the dominant role in the distribution and concentration of metals. "With our method we have been able to show remnants of fossil oil entrapped in gold for the very first time" says Dr. Sebastian Fuchs.

"We are surprised to see such an intimate spatial relationship between the oil products and the metals," reports Dr. Fuchs. "We hope that our study gives new impulses to industry and science to explore new mineral deposits. Perhaps it is possible at some day to extract gold and other metals from mined crude oil."

With the methods used, it is now possible to study not only ore particles on the ocean floor in the range of millimetre to nanometre, but also the smallest fossils and living organisms, such as micro-organisms. "We are curious about what else we might discover on the ocean floor in the future," Fuchs concludes.
Invited speakers at neuroimmunology conferences in 2016 were disproportionately male, and not because male scientists were producing higher quality work, according to a new study. Instead, qualified female scientists were overlooked by organizing committees. Robyn Klein, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine, of neuroscience, and of pathology and immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discussed the findings, published online April 18 in Nature Immunology.

Why did you start investigating this issue?

A postdoctoral fellow in my lab pointed out that the preliminary speaker list for an international neuroimmunology conference included only 13 female speakers out of 93 total. I contacted the conference organizers, and they responded that there weren't enough accomplished female neuroscientists at senior ranks to invite. So I thought, "That's a hypothesis that I can test."

How did you test the hypothesis that there is a larger pool of accomplished men than women in neuroimmunology?

I began by assembling an ad hoc committee of neuroimmunologists and asked them to send me the names of women neuroimmunologists who would be good speakers at an international meeting. After receiving 29 names -- the number that would achieve gender balance for the meeting -- I analyzed the number of publications in relatively high-impact journals in the last two years for each of the invited speakers as well as my list of female scientists. I found that while there was no gender difference among the investigators with the very highest impact publications, there were many more women with papers in the next tier of journals compared with men. Importantly, 21 percent of the men had no publications that met my criteria in the past two years, compared with only 5 percent of the women. So I concluded that the hypothesis was not correct; there were plenty of women who had published high-impact papers recently who could have been invited and would have improved the scientific impact of the meeting.

Why does this problem exist?

I learned two things while doing this study. One, the composition of the organizing committee matters. I looked at all the neuroimmunology conferences held in 2016 worldwide, and I found that as you approach 50 percent women on the organizing committee, you approach 50 percent female invited speakers. So if you want gender parity in speakers, first you need to include more women in organizing and planning committees. Two, speaking out about gender balance makes a difference. The organizers of the first conference asked for my list of overlooked female neuroimmunologists and invited several of them. They ended up doubling the number of female speakers at their conference, and that raised the quality of the conference. The speaker list was much stronger once they included more women. But it would not have been improved if we hadn't spoken out. It's important to notice if people are being overlooked because of unconscious bias and to bring that to the attention of others who are seeking speakers, and leaders. This also is required to combat bias due to race, ethnicity, and nationality. Naming the problem is the first step in solving it.

How do your findings fit into the larger question of gender bias in the sciences?

There's a growing body of research showing that female scientists' contributions to their fields are often not reflected in the number of speaker invitations they receive, and that this under-recognition hurts their careers and slows the pace of scientific progress. While this bias may be unconscious, data from sources such as BiasWatchNeuro -- founded in 2015 to track the proportion of female conference speakers relative to the proportion of female faculty in the relevant field -- show that it is widespread. Encouragingly, the data also show that bringing such biases to light helps to reduce their impact.
Our brains process foreign-accented speech with better real-time accuracy if we can identify the accent we hear, according to a team of neurolinguists.

"Increased familiarity with an accent leads to better sentence processing," said Janet van Hell, professor of psychology and linguistics and co-director of the Center for Language Science, Penn State. "As you build up experience with foreign-accented speech, you train your acoustic system to better process the accented speech."

A native of the Netherlands, where the majority of people are bilingual in Dutch and English, van Hell noticed that her spoken interactions with people changed somewhat when she moved to central Pennsylvania.

"My speaker identity changed," said van Hell. "I suddenly had a foreign accent, and I noticed that people were hearing me differently, that my interactions with people had changed because of my foreign accent. And I wanted to know why that is, scientifically."

Van Hell and her colleague Sarah Grey, former Penn State postdoctoral researcher and now assistant professor of modern languages and literature at Fordham University, compared how people process foreign-accented and native-accented speech in a neurocognitive research study that measured neural signals associated with comprehension while listening to spoken sentences.

The researchers had study participants listen to the sentences while they recorded brain activity through an electroencephalogram. They then asked listeners to indicate whether they heard grammar or vocabulary errors after each sentence, to judge overall sentence comprehension.

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The listeners heard sentences spoken in both a neutral American-English accent and a Chinese-English accent. Thirty-nine college-aged, monolingual, native English speakers with little exposure to foreign accents participated in this study.

The researchers tested grammar comprehension using personal pronouns, which are missing from the Chinese language, in sentences like "Thomas was planning to attend the meeting but she missed the bus to school."

They tested vocabulary usage by substituting words far apart in meaning into simple sentences, such as using "cactus" in place of "airplane," in sentences like "Kaitlyn traveled across the ocean in a cactus to attend the conference."

The listeners were able to correctly identify both grammar and vocabulary errors in the American- and Chinese-accented speech at a similarly high level on a behavioral accuracy task, an average of 90 percent accuracy for both accents.

However, while average accuracy was high, Grey and van Hell found that the listeners' brain responses differed between the two accents. In particular, the frontal negativity and N400 responses -- features of an EEG signal related to speech processing -- were different when processing errors in foreign- and native-accented sentences.

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In a more detailed follow-up analysis, Grey and van Hell tried to explain these differences by connecting the EEG scans with a questionnaire asking listeners to identify the accents they heard.

When relating the EEG activity to the questionnaire responses, the researchers found that listeners who correctly identified the accent as Chinese-English responded to both grammar and vocabulary errors and had the same responses for both foreign and native accents.

Conversely, listeners who could not correctly identify the Chinese-English accent only responded to vocabulary errors, but not grammar errors, when made in foreign-accented speech. Native-accented speech produced responses for both types of error. The researchers published their results in the Journal of Neurolinguistics.

Van Hell plans to expand on these results by also studying how our brains process differences in regional accents and dialects in our native language, looking specifically at dialects across Appalachia, and how we process foreign-accented speech while living in a foreign-speaking country.

The results of this study are relevant in the United States, van Hell argues, where many people are second-language speakers or listen to second-language speakers on a daily basis. But exposure to foreign-accented speech can vary widely based on local population density and educational resources.

The world is becoming more global, she adds, and it is time to learn how our brains process foreign-accented speech and learn more about fundamental neurocognitive mechanisms of foreign-accented speech recognition.

"At first you might be surprised or startled by foreign-accented speech," van Hell said, "but your neurocognitive system is able to adjust quickly with just a little practice, the same as identifying speech in a loud room. Our brains are much more flexible than we give them credit for."
New research by scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA overturns a long-standing paradigm about how axons -- thread-like projections that connect cells in the nervous system -- grow during embryonic development. The findings of the study, led by Samantha Butler, associate professor of neurobiology, could help scientists replicate or control the way axons grow, which may be applicable for diseases that affect the nervous system, such as diabetes, as well as injuries that sever nerves.

As an embryo grows, neurons -- the cells in the nervous system -- extend axons into the developing spinal cord. Axons are then guided to reach other areas of the body, such as the brain, to establish a functioning nervous system. It has been generally understood that various guidance cues, which are cellular molecules such as proteins, either attract or repel axon growth as the axons reach out from neurons to find their destination in the nervous system.

Previous research suggested that a particular guidance cue, called netrin1, functions over a long distance to attract and organize axon growth, similar to how a lighthouse sends out a signal to orient a ship from afar. However, previous research also shows that netrin1 is produced in many places in the embryonic spinal cord, raising questions about whether it really acts over a long distance. Most notably, netrin1 is produced by tissue-specific stem cells, called neural progenitors, which can create any cell type in the nervous system. Yet, it was not understood how the netrin1 produced by neural progenitors influences axon growth.

Butler and her research team removed netrin1 from neural progenitors in different areas in mouse embryonic spinal cords. This manipulation resulted in highly disorganized and abnormal axon growth, giving the researchers a very detailed view of how netrin1 produced by neural progenitors influences axons in the developing nervous system.

They found that neural progenitors organize axon growth by producing a pathway of netrin1 that directs axons only in their local environment and not over long distances. This pathway of netrin1 acts as a sticky surface that encourages axon growth in the directions that form a normal, functioning nervous system.

Butler's study is a significant reinterpretation of the role of netrin1 in nervous system formation. The results further scientists' understanding of the contribution neural progenitors make to neural circuit formation. Determining how netrin1 specifically influences axon growth could help scientists use netrin1 to regenerate axons more effectively in patients whose nerves have been damaged.

For example, because nerves grow in channels, there is much interest in trying to restore nerve channels after an injury that results in severed nerves, which is seen often in patients who have experienced an accident or in veterans with injuries to their arms or legs. One promising approach is to implant artificial nerve channels into a person with a nerve injury to give regenerating axons a conduit to grow through. Butler believes that coating such nerve channels with netrin1 could further encourage axon regrowth. Her continued research will focus on uncovering more details about how netrin1 functions and how it could be used clinically.
The concept of a perfect lens that can produce immaculate and flawless images has been the Holy Grail of lens makers for centuries. In 1873, a German physicist and optical scientist by the name of Ernst Abbe discovered the diffraction limit of the microscope. In other words, he discovered that conventional lenses are fundamentally incapable of capturing all the details of any given image. Since then, there have been numerous advances in the field to produce images that appear to have higher resolution than allowed by diffraction-limited optics.

In 2000, Professor Sir John B. Pendry of Imperial College London -- the John Pendry who enticed millions of Harry Potter fans around the world with the possibility of a real Invisibility Cloak -- suggested a method of creating a lens with a theoretically perfect focus. The resolution of any optical imaging system has a maximum limit due to diffraction but Pendry's theoretic perfect lens would be crafted from metamaterials (materials engineered to have properties not found in nature) to go beyond the diffraction limit of conventional lenses. Overcoming this resolution limit of conventional optics could propel optical imaging science and technology into realms once only dreamt by common Muggles.

Scientists all over the world have since endeavored to achieve super-resolution imaging that capture the finest of details contained in evanescent waves that would otherwise be lost with conventional lenses. Hyperlenses are super-resolution devices that transform scattered evanescent waves into propagating waves to project the image into the far-field. Recent experiments that focus on a single hyperlens made from an anisotropic metamaterial with a hyperbolic dispersion have demonstrated far-field sub-diffraction imaging in real time. However, such devices are limited by an extremely small observation area which consequently require precise positioning of the subject. A hyperlens array has been considered to be a solution, but fabrication of such an array would be extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive with existing nanofabrication technologies.

Research conducted by Professor Junsuk Rho's team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology in collaboration with research team from Korea University has made great contributions to overcoming this obstacle by demonstrating a scalable and reliable fabrication process of a large scale hyperlens device based on direct pattern transfer techniques. This achievement has been published in Scientific Reports.

The team solved the main limitations of previous fabrication methods of hyperlens devices through nanoimprint lithography. Based on a simple pattern transfer process, the team was able to readily fabricate a perfect large-scale hyperlens device on a replicated hexagonal array of hemisphere substrate directly printed and pattern-transferred from the master mold, followed by metal-dielectric multilayer deposition by electron beam evaporation. This 5 cm x 5 cm hyperlens array has been demonstrated to resolve sub-diffraction features down to 160 nm under a 410 nm wavelength visible light.

Professor Rho anticipates that the research team's new cost-effective fabrication method can be used to proliferate practical far-field and real-time super-resolution imaging devices that can be widely used in optics, biology, medical science, nanotechnology, and other related interdisciplinary fields.
A geography professor at the University of Cincinnati repurposed NASA maps to show the changing racial diversity of every neighborhood in the continental United States.

Tomasz Stepinski, who previously served as a longtime researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, applied NASA mapmaking techniques to 20 years of data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to build one of the most detailed racial-diversity maps ever created.

The zoomable map shows at a glance how the racial composition of neighborhoods changed between 1990 and 2010.

"People don't realize that the United States is a diverse country but at the same time is still very segregated," Stepinski said.

He and his postdoctoral researcher, Anna Dmowska, created the map at UC's Space Informatics Lab. They published a paper about the map in the open-access journal PLOS One in March and will present the project at the Population Association of America conference on April 27 in Chicago.

Stepinski, an astrophysicist, came to UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences as a Thomas Jefferson Professor of Space Exploration in 2010. Prior to that he worked on methods for surveying craters and valleys in Mars for the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

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His interactive map was the culmination of years of work to combine land-cover mapping techniques with cumbersome volumes of federal data collected every 10 years in the census.

"There is a lot of novelty to it," he said. "All of it adds up to much, much easier access to census data by population and race."

The interactive map is publicly available and will be hosted indefinitely on the university's computer servers. Dmowska thinks it will have broad appeal to journalists, policymakers and researchers.

"The maps can tell us much more about racial composition and can be used by everyone," she said. "They don't require expert knowledge to understand the results, so I think maps can be used by a broader community."

The U.S. Census Bureau has the ability to release data by household but compiles it into geographic blocks and tracts to protect individual privacy. After all, census takers collect sensitive information about household income that people might not want to share publicly. A typical urban tract defined by the census occupies an area the size of nearly 3 square kilometers. Rural tracts occupy an area of 108 square kilometers.

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This results in a visual map that by design isn't particularly precise and, in some cases, might be grossly inaccurate, the researchers found.

By comparison, the maps that Stepinski and Dmowska compiled take advantage of NASA land-cover grids made up of 30-square-meter blocks. Using this grid system, they can more precisely group people where they actually live by recognizing lakes, parks, factories and otherwise uninhabitable areas.

"Then you can assign people to each 30-by-30-meter cell, down to fractions," he said.

That's right -- down to half a person.

Few social scientists who study national data need maps that are so precise. But it's very helpful when looking at particular cities or even neighborhoods over time, Stepinski said.

These at-a-glance comparisons could be of interest to researchers, journalists, political strategists and social-service agencies. For example, researchers could compare the population maps with separate data such as grocery stores, bus routes or medical clinics to examine whether any neighborhoods are underserved by government services or businesses.

"The closer you look, the more problematic census data becomes," said Jeffrey Timberlake, an associate professor of sociology at UC who studies urban inequality and residential segregation.

Timberlake said Stepinski's maps are useful to study change at the neighborhood level.

"I find them fascinating. I spent an hour just looking at it," he said.

"When you look at a couple neighborhoods in Los Angeles, you see a big difference between 1990 and 2010 in the shrinking black population and the growth of the Latino population," he said. "This is the kind of tool that could unlock a lot of research."

Dmowska, who now works at the Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, said updating the maps in future census years will be relatively simple.

"Our grids are ready to use for multiyear comparison," she said.

The maps allow users to create their own smaller study area and then glean data from it. In some cities, they tell the story of recent immigration in America. For example, the maps demonstrate the influx of Asian immigrants in San Francisco over the last 20 years. Many of these newcomers are Southeast Asians who were drawn to the area by the Silicon Valley boom, Stepinski said.

And in Cincinnati, too, the census maps track the changing racial composition of the city. Neighborhoods that were predominantly white or black in 1990 are far more diverse now.

But they also show the way that racial segregation has defined some cities. For example, in the Detroit neighborhoods popularized by the Eminem movie "8 Mile," the map from 1990 clearly shows the segregation of black and white communities on either side of 8 Mile Road. Here, too, neighborhoods have become less homogenous over the last two decades.

"If you put the population geography together with an understanding of the social meaning of that road," Timberlake said, "you can tell a pretty powerful story about what segregation means."

Find the map online at: http://sil.uc.edu/webapps/socscape_usa/
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France has obtained sufficient export orders (from India, Qatar and Egypt) to justify the cost of another major upgrade of electronics and weapons systems in their new Rafale jet fighters. This latest upgrade is called F4. The first Rafale were the F1 and it was equipped only for air combat. It was not until F2 appeared in 2005 that Rafale could handle smart bombs and ground attack in general. The F3 standard followed in 2008 that added more weapons capabilities (including nuclear). F4 will add more communications capabilities, especially with foreign aircraft and those equipped to exchange digital data quickly and automatically. There will be many changes to the electronic systems in general that will make it easier to develop and install future upgrades. F4 is not expected to enter service until 2025 and it will take longer because F4 involves improving engine performance as well as extensive electronics modifications.

Although it entered service in 2001 Rafale didnt get any combat experience until 2007 when six were sent to Afghanistan. Three French Air Force Rafale F2s operated from Tajikistan. From there, the Rafales could fly down to Afghanistan and make themselves useful. Three navy Rafale F2s arrived on the carrier Charles de Gaulle, which was operating off the Pakistani coast. These F2s were the first Rafales with the hardware and software required for precision bombing (laser or GPS guided smart bombs). In 2011 Rafale carried out combat missions over Libya followed by service over Mali since 2012. Since 2014 Rafale has been active in Syria and Iraq.

The export sales were difficult to obtain initially and the first two orders (both for 24 aircraft) came in 2015 with the third (for 36) came in late 2016 when India finally signed a contract for 36 Rafale fighter jets with an option to buy 18 more in three years.

At the time of the first export sale France was the only user with 180 Rafales ordered and about 130 delivered. As of early 2017 180 have been delivered and 45 more are on order because France can now afford to build 225 for itself.

The Rafale design is a further evolution of the Mirage 2000 (from the same manufacturer) and has the Delta Wing configuration common with the Mirage designs but with canards (a small forewing is placed ahead of the main wing) added. Rafale has a maximum speed of 2,450 kilometers an hour and a range of over 3,700 kilometers. It is equipped with a 30mm cannon and can carry nearly ten tons of weapons. It is now a battle tested aircraft that has seen service in Afghanistan, Mali, Libya and Iraq. No Rafales have been lost in combat but four were destroyed in accidents. There is a naval version of Rafale that has operated off French and American carriers.

After 20 years of trying the Rafale has gone from an export zero to export hero in 45 days. France has had nothing but hard times trying to find export customers and had to cut the production rate to 11 aircraft a year, but now they will have to do the opposite. Furthermore we are observing growing interest in French made fighter and among potential buyers in the Middle East are United Arab Emirates, and maybe Kuwait together with Bahrain
Israel has tweaked (modified) the software in its two AWACS (Airborne Early Warning Aircraft) so the CAEW (Conformal Airborne Early Warning) radar system can spot small, low flying UAVs as well as manned aircraft.

These CAEW aircraft were developed in Israel and the first one entered service in 2008. This AWACS uses a long range business jet (the 40 ton Gulfstream G550) and Israeli made radar and electronics. The Israeli Air Force operates two CAEW AWACs and three similar ELINT (electronic intelligence) aircraft based on the slightly smaller G500 aircraft. The CAEW AWACS has also been sold to Italy, Singapore and the United States. Tweaks for improved performance or new capabilities (finding UAVs) are frequent for Israeli military systems because Israel is constantly under attacks (or threat of attack) and gear it makes for itself is constantly being used and improved. This is very attractive to many potential foreign buyers.

The CAEW AWACS carries a Phalcon conformal (it is built into the lower fuselage) phased array radar plus SIGINT equipment (to capture and analyze enemy electronic transmissions) and a communications system that can handle satellite signals as well as a wide array of other transmissions. There are six personnel on board to handle all this gear, plus the flight crew. The Gulfstream G550 used for this can stay in the air for nine hours per sortie and can fly at up to 13,200 meters (41,000 feet).

The G550 is a larger version of the Gulfstream G400, which the U.S. Army uses as the C-20H transport. The U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, and Navy also use militarized Gulfstreams (usually as C-37Vs). The 30 meter (96 foot) long aircraft has two engines and was built for long flights (over 11,000 kilometers). Current Gulfstream G550s cost about $50 million each.

The Phalcon radar is, in some respects, superior to the one used in the American AWACS. For example, Phalcon uses a phased array radar (thousands of small radar transmitters are fitted underneath the aircraft). The phased array radar, in combination with the latest, most powerful computers and other antennas for picking up a variety of signals, enables Phalcon to be more aware of what electronic equipment (airborne or on the ground) is operating up to 400 kilometers away. The phased array radar allows positions of aircraft on operator screens to be updated every 2-4 seconds, rather than every 20-40 seconds as is the case on the United States AWACS (which uses a rotating radar in a radome atop the aircraft). The first Phalcon system was fitted on a Boeing 707, although somewhat limited versions could be put onto a C-130. On a larger aircraft you can have more computers, and other electronics, as well as more human operators. But the major advantage of the Phalcon is that it is a more modern design. The U.S. AWACS dates to the 1980s and has undergone upgrades to the original equipment. The Israeli air force first installed Phalcon radar systems in an old Boeing 707 but the G550 replaced it.
In early April the Syrian Assad government apparently used chemical bombs on a rebel controlled village. The attack killed 89 people, most of them civilians, including 20 children. The victims showed symptoms of nerve gas being used and subsequent chemical analysis confirmed this. The Syrian government accused the rebels of making the attack or having stored chemical weapons in one the buildings the bombs hit. But the U.S., NATO and Israel soon confirmed that it was the Assad forces who delivered the nerve gas. Russia continued to back the Syrian government but several major intelligence agencies worldwide agreed that the evidence against the Assads was pretty compelling. Even the Chinese agreed and refused to go along with a Russian effort to block a UN condemning the Assads.

There was more to this than was reported. For several years Israeli intelligence analysts have quietly urged their Western counterparts to take a close look at who still had chemical weapons in Syria because there was general agreement that they were still being used. Everyone blamed the Islamic terrorists but the Israelis pointed out that a growing number of those incidents appear to have been the work of the Assad forces and the Israelis were getting information indicating that the 2013 Russian brokered (and guaranteed) deal to get the Assads to surrender all their chemical weapons was not being observed or enforced.

It is still unclear how much the Russians know but Western intel agencies were paying more attention to who was saying what to whom about chemical weapons in Syria before the April 4th nerve gas attack in Syria. After April 4th priority was placed on analyzing a lot of the collected, but not thoroughly analyzed, data (mainly communications intercepts) the U.S. had. There has long been a problem with more data being collected than could be thoroughly analyzed but nothing is thrown away. Now that there was a definite use of nerve gas (medical experts from several nations agreed on that) the deep dive into the intel data was ordered and it did indeed find evidence of the Assads retaining stocks of chemical weapons, including nerve gas, and apparently using it in the belief that they could get away with blaming the rebels. That gambit fell apart under close examination and now Russia (and to a lesser extent Iran) find themselves in an embarrassing situation. Russia supplied support for the Assads to find targets and the Assads used that to find the target for the nerve gas attack. Iran is one of the few nations to use nerve gas in combat (during the 1980s war with Iraq) and has experts in that subject who may have been advising the Assads. After all, Iran has openly discussed using nerve gas against Israel, which is why Israeli intel continued to monitor the nerve gas situation after 2013.

The most famous example of catching up with deciphering data backlogs occurred after World War II when American code breakers decided to decrypt messages sent by the Japanese government between the time Japan surrendered and the U.S. occupation forces arrived and took control of all government offices. Some of these decrypted messages were shocking. That was because Japan had secretly decided, according to the decrypted diplomatic messages, to play the victim. This was a long-term plan and the Japanese government had come up with it even before their surrender in 1945. In part this was to create some kind of defense for war crimes prosecutions that were already underway against German officials when Japan surrendered. Thus Japan sought to play the victim when it came to their responsibility for horrific wartime actions. The secret messages to Japanese embassies after the surrender contained details on how to spin the fact that Japan, rather than invincible as it had long claimed, was now defeated because it tried to keep the evil West out of Asia. Japanese diplomats were ordered to play up the Japan is a victim angle. While this played well in Japan, it annoyed and disturbed the neighbors. Some Japanese understand what is going on here, but because the Japanese educational system is based on this 1945 decision (which played down Japanese atrocities in Japanese textbooks and media in general) most Japanese cannot understand the reaction of foreigners when it comes to Japan and World War II. Searching through raw intelligence backlogs has become more of an issue since World War II because a lot more information is being collected and only a fraction of it can be decrypted or simply translated and searched. This is one of the dirty little secrets of the intel community and it continues to resurface when least expected.
The chaos that has crippled Libya since 2011 is not resolving itself quickly enough to prevent widespread hunger and privation throughout the country. This is not acceptable to the UN and the West but no one has a quick solution. Russia is openly backing the HoR (House of Representatives) faction that is opposed by the UN but is gaining support within Libya. Most Libyans have concluded that if they dont establish some form of national government (or understanding) soon the country will literally starve. Libya has depended on oil income for decades and the current population cannot feed itself without oil money to pay for the food and other necessities. Worse, most Libyan have a sense of entitlement because of all the oil wealth and resist taking responsibility for all the corruption and factionalism that is keeping the country in chaos and broke. Without a central government Libyans have fallen back on tribal or clan leaders. There are over a hundred recognized (even by Kaddafi) tribes and major clans. With Kaddafi gone it took a while for many of these tribes to rebuild their leadership capability and ability to serve tribal members. About a third of these tribes are large enough, and well led enough to be treated as a separate entity (usually because of a tribal militia) and it is these tribes that are now willing to work with Hiftar but not the GNA.

The UN recognized GNA (Government of National Accord) has occupied the capital (Tripoli) since early 2016 but has been unable to gain the loyalty or cooperation of the many factions that have been keeping the country, especially western Libya, in chaos since 2012. GNA controls all the government ministries located in Tripoli but the rival HoR government based in Tobruk controls eastern Libya and, more importantly, most of the oil export (and many oil fields) facilities. HoR is better organized, united, less corrupt and more hostile to Islamic radicals and terrorists of any sort.

The GNA made a major mistake early on by underestimating the revived Libyan Armed Forces and its leader general Khalifa Belgacem Hiftar. HoR and Hiftar gained allies throughout Libya while the GNA proved itself indecisive and ineffective. For example, Hiftar has the support of many of the Berbers who tend to live in western Libya. Since then more militias in western Libya are reconsidering their loyalties. This dispute is mainly about terms for transferring power (now held by tribes, militias and powerful men like Hiftar) to a new national government.

The basic problem is that the UN and most Western nations continue to back the GNA despite the fact that the GNA relies too much on Islamic conservative militias and senior Libyan Islamic clerics who favor imposing Islamic law on Libya, something most Libyans dont want. The GNA is also more tolerant of corruption, in part because GNA is the conduit for most foreign aid and thus there is more to steal. Western groups are pressuring the UN to concentrate on prosecuting militia leaders, especially those loyal to Hiftar, for war crimes. But most Libyans note the majority of alleged war crimes being committed by militias aligned with the GNA and rarely criticized by the UN. This reinforces Libyan distrust of the UN as a foreign force trying to impose itself on Libya. This is one of the best recruiting tools for Hiftar who, so far in 2017, has gained the allegiance of a number of tribes who see Hiftar as decisive, organized, reliable and very opposed to Islamic terrorists of any kind. That appeals to other Arab states in the region. The West tends to see Hiftar as another Kaddafi (a military officer who staged a coup to replace the Western backed Libyan monarchy). The Arabs and most Libyans dont see a similarity between Hiftar and Kaddafi and are mystified that so many in the West do.

The UN is beginning to change its attitude towards Hiftar and has been meeting with Hiftar and HoR officials to try and work out the disputes with GNA. This is mostly about factionalism and people not wanting to give up access to the enormous wealth that had enabled the former (and deceased since 2011) dictator Kaddafi to control the country for half a century by using that money to buy peace and maintain control.

One thing the GNA and HoR eventually agreed on was to cooperate when it comes to the Central Bank and NOC (National Oil Company). Both these institutions are essential to pay for needed imports. With this understanding, and the more capable Hiftar forces controlling most of the oil facilities the NOC sees an opportunity to get production from 650,000 barrels a day at the end of 2016 to a million barrels a day by the end of 2017 and double that by 2022. Pre-2011 production was 1.6 million barrels a day. One thing that all Libyans can agree on is that the standard of living has declined sharply since 2011. Per capita income is about 30 percent of what it was in 2011 and that will further decline until oil shipments get back to pre-2011 levels. Mass starvation is no longer a theoretical threat or conspiracy theory. It is happening and that is causing many factions to become cooperative, for now.

In an unsurprising development the GNA is under enormous pressure to determine how 44 percent of oil revenue for the first three months of the year disappeared. There was supposed to be $3.87 billion but the Ministry of Finance can only account for $2.2 billion of it. The GNA has been trying to get foreign loans and the potential lenders wanted to see the financial records. That did not end well but it is no surprise as Libya is one of the ten most corrupt nations on the planet.

The most obvious example of corruption is the PFGs (Petroleum Facilities Guards). These are tribal militias hired (or bribed) by previous governments to keep oil fields, pipelines and port facilities secure. Soon many, if not most, PFGs went rogue, shut down the facilities they guarded and, in effect, tried to blackmail the government into paying them more. This was driven by tribal feuds over how oil revenue should be allocated. Libya has always been very corrupt and Kaddafi remained in power for decades by playing the tribes off on each other with oil income. Those who cooperated got more, those who caused trouble got less. With Kaddafi gone many tribes want payback for past injustices (real or imagined). Many of the PFGs have now backed the GNA but as long as some of them continue to resist oil income is crippled and the much feared food crises is still approaching. General Hiftar and the HoR government have been successful negotiating with the PFGs and offering a better deal (larger share of oil income) and less corruption. Hiftar has a reputation for being much less corrupt. PFGs often shut down oil fields and ports because GNA has not paid them. In these cases GNA has often delivered the cash but some or all of it was stolen by PFG leaders who deny they are stealing. The GNA has to collect and publicize enough evidence of the theft to convince other militias and tribal leaders that the corrupt PFG men must be replaced. This is difficult to do and meanwhile PFGs are constantly demanding adequate compensation before they will allow oil to be pumped, moved via a pipeline to the export facilities or loaded on tankers. The details of how much adequate compensation any PFG is paid is usually kept secret because in Libya the feeling is that no one group is getting their fair share of the oil wealth that has kept the country functioning since the 1970s. Without the cash provided by oil exports Libya could not import enough food and other essentials to keep the population alive. PFGs are acutely aware that if they lose control of the facilities they protect they lose their jobs so there are extremely defensive and paranoid. The overall problem is that PFG compensation has little relationship to how dangerous the work is but rather is more a matter of tribal politics. It has taken several years for tribes in areas where there are oil facilities to realize that it they do not cooperate everyone will suffer, which is what has been happening and is getting worse.

Desperately Seeking Foreign Intervention

Italy tried to get the new U.S. government interested in providing military support for the GNA in its fight with HoR. The Americans declined but will continue helping with efforts to destroy surviving ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) groups in Libya. The U.S. has agreed to work more closely with Egypt, which has long backed HoR and Hiftar forces to keep ISIL and Islamic terrorists out of Egypt. The U.S. also has good relations with Tunisia, which has also established effective border controls.

Italy and the rest of Europe want peace in Libya mainly because that is the source of most of the illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean and landing in Italy where, because of EU treaties and European sensibilities, Italy must absorb these illegal migrants or allow them to move on to other EU countries that offer better economic opportunities. In 2016 181,000 of these illegals reached Italy and that volume will continue as long as Libya is in chaos. About half the illegal migrants entering Europe are coming in via Italy. The criminal gangs (and some Islamic terror groups) that control the Libya based people smuggling are getting rich (over a billion dollars a year) off this business and can afford to bribe local militias to leave them alone.

Russia has a problem with the GNA because of seven Russian sailors under arrest since their Russian owned freighter was seized on March 5th and the crew accused of trying to smuggle out scrap metal. Until this matter is settled Russia is not interested in showing any public support for GNA. Meanwhile Russia has been unwilling to back HoR and its successful, and pro-Russian, military commander Hiftar.

The GNA has responded to EU demands that, in return for support, it do something about the people smuggling from the western coast of Libya. GNA technically controls this coastline and has a small force of coast guard vessels to patrol some of it. The coast guard does occasionally stop a boat loaded with illegal migrants but usually that boat is operated by someone who bribed the wrong people and is being taught a lesson.

Most of the people smuggling gangs are in western Libya, where it is easier and cheaper to bribe the local militias and government officials. This smuggling is big business and the gangs often demand more cash from their clients before putting them on a boat. The Illegals need cash to pay for transit from their homeland (usually Nigeria and neighboring countries) to the Mediterranean coast and onto a smuggler boat. The price often changes along the way and those who cannot or will not pay are either killed or forced to pay in other ways. One other way is working off the debt. This is a form of indentured servitude and many illegals from Asia agree to this sort of arrangement to pay for getting to North America or other safe Western nations. The smuggling gangs have not been able to establish a network of enforcers in EU or source nations to make this work the way it does in the U.S. and Canada so they have resorted to other solutions. The one that attracted some mass media attention was slave markets where illegal migrants in need of more cash are auctioned off to someone who will pay a lump sum and the illegal migrant will be obliged to work off the debt. That process could take years, or for life because slavery, especially of black Africans by Arabs, is still common (although technically illegal, to placate the West and the UN) throughout North Africa and parts of the Middle East.

War In The East

Fighting continues in Derna (200 kilometers southwest of Benghazi). This was once an ISIL stronghold. By the end of 2016 most of the remaining ISIL members and their families (a thousand or so people, most of them armed) fled south from their former bases in Sirte and Benghazi. HoR forces followed the ISIL remnants to Derna, which had been largely free of ISIL control since early 2016. ISIL had spent several months trying to take Derna and failed. Derna is about the same size (100,000 population) as the former ISIL capital Sirte. The ISIL reverses at Derna were the result of stubborn local militias and the recent arrival of Hiftar forces, which were unsuccessful in establishing control. Hiftar was not popular with some of the Derna militias, especially those composed of Islamic conservatives and these groups eventually fought back. Now they are under attack again by Hiftar forces and being pushed out of the area. The GNA accuses Hiftar of illegally attempting to take control of Derna while Hiftar says he wants to remove any Islamic conservative or terrorist militias still in Derna. Meanwhile the pro-GNA militias that drove ISIL out of Sirte in mid-2016 are much less enthusiastic about chasing ISIL remnants south into desert. That is one reason GNA is calling on NATO for military assistance. Aside from the occasional airstrike and a hundred or so special operations troops on the ground, NATO prefers to keep its people out of Libya. Russia has a similar attitude as do the neighboring countries. All of these openly support Hiftar and note that Hiftar is able to keep up the pressure on ISIL in eastern Libya while the ISIL refugees from the central Libya coastal city of Sirte find that the GNA forces are not nearly as effective in dealing with potentially hostile militias in the south.

War In The South

In the south most of the violence down here is in or near the town of Sabha, which is 770 kilometers south of Tripoli and astride the main road going to the Niger border. It is the biggest city in the largely desert south. Current fighting is at Timnahent airbase (30 kilometers northeast of Sabha) and Samnu (a town 50 kilometers northeast of Sabha). Pro-GNA forces hold the airbase (or at least most of it) and Samnu against advancing HoR forces. Both sides are sending reinforcements south.

Normally the fighting down here is between Awlad Suleiman and Gaddadfa tribesmen and is usually over who controls smuggling routes and has been flaring up regularly since the 2011 revolution. The fighting is a continuation of ancient animosities between tribes divided by ethnicity as well as loyalty to the former dictator Kaddafi, who used tribal loyalties to maintain power and favored certain tribes. Some of the pro-Kaddafi Tuareg tribes kept fighting after Kaddafi died in 2011. The violence is not so much about putting Kaddafi followers back into power, but holding on to Kaddafi era privileges and avoiding punishment for crimes committed to support Kaddafis rule. After 2011 violence continued on the southern border in part because the pro-rebel Tabu (or Tebu) tribesmen were put in charge of border (with Sudan, Chad and Niger) security. There they constantly skirmished with the Tuareg tribes over control of the smuggling business. Another element of this rivalry was that the Tabu are black African while the pro-Kaddafi tribes are Arab. Kaddafi tended to support Arab domination over black Africans, something many Arabs still support. However, in some cases Kaddafi favored black tribes in the north, and used them to keep the population in line. By 2015 the Tabu were still technically in charge of the border but mostly concerned with their control over smuggling (of fuel, drugs and people). The Tabu and Tuareg leaders have worked out agreements on dividing smuggling business but discipline in the tribes is not all that tight and fights keep breaking out.

April 10, 2017: In Tripoli armed members of a militia broke into the home compound of the Central Bank governor in an effort to force action to reduce surging prices in the market places. This was caused by a recent Central Bank effort to shut down illegal money changers. Manipulating the currency is one of the many scams present in Libya and usually there is no one person to blame. In this case the Central Bank was responding to demands by donor nations to clean up the corruption. That is why the armed men could not find the Central Bank governor as he was in Europe meeting with EU bankers.

March 30, 2017: Algeria is seen as the major reason why the main factions in Libya are still talking to each other. Algeria has not provided any material support to any faction and provides a convenient and safe place to hold the frequent meetings between faction officials and diplomats from the UN and neighboring countries. Algeria has provided similar assistance for Mali.

March 28, 2017: In the southwest, across the border in Algeria (Illizi Province) Algerian troops patrolling the border came upon and arrested a known Islamic terrorists in a border town. Southern Libya is still a sanctuary for various Islamic terrorist groups who maintain a low profile in Libya itself.

March 26, 2017: The GNA has formed a 3,000 man force to provide security in Sirte, which still contains some ISIL members. The Sirte force will be paid and GNA is seeking foreign aid to help pay for it.
The new (as of February 22nd) president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has a lot of popular support, especially in the security forces and is making the most of that by appointing a new head of the military and declaring support for more vigorous action against al Shabaab. The new president has been fighting corruption for years and made progress in reducing the incidence of corrupt officials (often senior officers) stealing payroll and other money meant for the soldiers and police. The new president also called on al Shabaab to make peace, but that was promptly rejected by the al Shabaab leaders. The new president formed a new government in record time and al Shabaab responded with defiant threats of more violence. That may be because this sort of religion inspired terrorism is quite common in Somalia and has appeared no matter what the local political situation. Each outbreak fades away after a while and then returns in a generation or two.

Piracy

The Somali pirates are still active, but not very successful. In the last month there were three attacks on smaller ships (coastal freighters and fishing trawlers) and these were closer to Yemen than Somalia. Two of these attacks failed but the pirates did manage to get away with an Indian trawler and its eleven crew. Somali security forces later found and freed the trawler but only two of the crew were rescued.

There are still occasional attempts to take large commercial ships. The last example was in October 2016 when, for the first time since mid-2013, pirates attempted to take a large ship. Some 600 kilometers off the Somali coast a 51,000 ton (DWT) British chemical tanker was attacked by a speedboat containing armed men. The armed guard on the tanker fired on the speedboat as it approached the tanker and the men in the speedboat fired back. The tanker increased speed, changed course and got away. These large ships still carry armed guards and crews who know how to deal with Somali pirates.

There were problems with pirates in the north for a while, but these seagoing brigands were mainly preying on foreigners and the foreigners with navies responded. The pirates were largely out of business in 2012, the last year they captured a large ship that could yield a multi-million dollar ransom. The few pirates still in business now try to grab the smaller foreign fishing ships. Even that became more difficult because the international anti-piracy patrol was still off the coast and during the first six months of 2016 pirate activity off the Somali coast reached its lowest levels since 1995. Since then much of the foreign anti-piracy patrol has been disbanded but the large foreign ships stay away from the coast and keep their armed guards. Smaller coastal freighters and fishing trawlers are warned to proceed at their own risk.

Paranoia

Since late last year over a dozen Kenyan al Shabaab members have been accused of spying on al Shabaab and executed for it. As a result many more Kenyan members of al Shabaab have deserted and returned to Kenya. Some were arrested and interrogated while others spoke freely with family and friends about their experience. They all confirmed the paranoia the Islamic terror group was struggling with. Al Shabaab continues to suffer from problems with their secret locations being found out and attacked. Most of these situations are the result of better intelligence work and more civilians willing to pass on information about al Shabaab movements. Cell phones make that a lot easier. Because of the arrival of cell phone networks after 2000 al Shabaab has a hard time hiding their presence even in the most remote areas and does not like to admit that local civilians are the source of these tips.

The cell phone is itself a key player in the two decades of civil war in Somalia. By 2000 clan militias and warlords had created enough stability to enable growth in commercial activity. For example, by 2004 three cell phone companies competed to provide service ($10 a month for free local calls, 50 cents a minute for international calls and 50 cents an hour to get on the Internet.) Each new cell phone transmitter installed required that the local clan chief or warlord get a payment. Everyone recognizes the value of the new phone service, after having gone without for years after the old government run phone company was looted and destroyed. As a result, phone company equipment really is protected by the clans and warlords, who do not want to lose their dial tone. The new phone service is cheaper and more reliable than the old government owned landline phone network. This is because there is competition, no government bureaucracy and no taxes (other than the necessary bribes and security payments). There is some fear that if a new government gets established well enough regulations and taxes will greatly increase the cost of service, and reduce reliability. Not yet and for years all of Somalia had better, and cheaper, phone service than any of the other nations in the region. But thats another story. Even al Shabaab had to respect the cell phone network, even though they tried to shut down cell towers some of the time to avoid detection. Al Shabaab lost that battle. Cell phone service became one of the things nearly all Somalis would fight for.

April 19, 2017: In Mogadishu a roadside bomb hit an aid convoy from the UAE (United Arab Emirates) that was moving food to drought hit areas. There were no casualties and the convoy proceeded to its destination. UAE aid efforts have been increasingly active in Somalia since 2015. This is part of a more active and determined attitude towards aid to Moslem nations suffering from violence and natural disasters. As recently as 2014 the UAE regularly warned its citizens to stay away from Somalia (as well as Afghanistan, South Sudan and many other areas) due to security concerns. Yes the UAE has centuries of commercial relationships with the coastal cities of East Africa. But Somalia is a special case since it has never been a united country, just a few coastal towns and cities to trade with and has resisted unification. Like Turkey, the UAE saw an unfilled need for more Moslem-to-Moslem charity especially this time of year, as Ramadan approaches and Somali is the neediest area in northeast Africa.

April 16, 2017: In Mogadishu police attacked several al Shabaab men who were firing a mortar at the airport. Two of the Islamic terrorists were killed and then an automobile they had with them exploded, which enabled some of the al Shabaab to escape.

April 15, 2017: South of Baidoa (250 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu) warplanes made several attacks on a major concentration of al Shabaab fighters, killing over a hundred of them. The attacks on the al Shabaab camp outside the town of El Adde began at 2 AM and went on until daylight. At first many Somalis thought the aircraft were American but the U.S. quickly denied that and said the last American airstrike in Somalia was in January. The Kenyans are suspected as Kenyan peacekeepers suffered heavy losses in this area during a January 2016 al Shabaab attack. But Kenya didnt take credit for the bombing.

In the Gulf of Aden a Chinese warship freed a small freighter that had been captured by Somali pirates. In addition to rescuing the crew the Chinese boarding party also captured several Somali pirates.

April 14, 2017: The U.S. is sending about 40 soldiers to help train the Somali Army. These American troops will join a group of over a hundred EU (European Union) troops who have been training Somalis since 2014. This is in preparation of the departure of 22,000 AU (African Union) peacekeepers by 2020.

April 10, 2017: In Mogadishu an al Shabaab suicide bomber attacked an army camp killing nine soldiers and wounded even more. Elsewhere in the city a government official died when a bomb hidden under his car went off.

April 9, 2017: Shortly after the new head of the military was sworn in an al Shabaab suicide car bomber attacked the convoy general Mohamed Ahmed Jimale was part of in an attempt to kill him. That failed but the bomb killed five soldiers as well as eight civilians in a nearby bus.

April 8, 2017: In the south (Jubaland) Kenyan and Somali troops attacked a group of al Shabaab preparing to attack a military base and killed three of the Islamic terrorists, including Bashe Nure Hassan, known to be the head of Al Shabaab logistics and surveillance for southern Somalia.

April 7, 2017: In Mogadishu two mortar shells fired towards the airport landed in a residential area and killed three civilians. Al Shabaab was believed responsible, they usually are.

April 6, 2017: The newly installed president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed declared Somalia a war zone and replaced the heads of the military and intelligence.

In the southeast (Lower Shabelle region) a minibus hit a landmine and that killed 17 and wounded six civilians.

April 5, 2017: In Mogadishu an al Shabaab bomb attack on a restaurant left seven dead and ten wounded.

April 4, 2017: In the north (Galmudug, an autonomous region of Somalia just south of Puntland) al Shabaab gunmen seized the town of El Bur after Ethiopian peacekeepers left (after three years of guarding the place.) Many Ethiopian peacekeepers are being recalled to help with security problems in Ethiopia. There are not always enough peacekeepers to replace them. In Galmudug local clan militias will often be organized to deal with situations like this and these clan gunmen have fought and defeated al Shabaab before.

March 28, 2017: In the north (Puntland) one soldier was killed and one wounded when their vehicle was attacked by some ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) gunmen using a bomb and rifle fire. The other troops returned fire and the ISIL men fled. The ISIL members up there are largely former al Shabaab men who wanted more violence or whatever.

March 27, 2017: In the south (Jubaland) Kenyan peacekeepers attacked two al Shabaab bases, killed 31 of the Islamic terrorists and destroyed large quantities of weapons and equipment. The Kenyans used armed helicopters and artillery during the operation.

March 23, 2017: In the south (the port town of Barawe) an al Shabaab attack was defeated after a long gun battle. Three of the Islamic terrorists died as did four soldiers and three civilians. Many more people were sounded.
Michael Patrick O'Neill and his brother, Joe, were swimming in Crystal River, Florida, when they saw something pretty distressing  a young 3-year-old wild manatee with four long scars stretched across his torso. It looked like the manatee had been struck by a boat propeller. "It's heartbreaking, to say the least," O'Neill, a wildlife photographer, told The Dodo. "To start life this way is just not right. I think he was just lounging or swimming near the surface and he got nailed."

Fortunately, this wild manatee's injuries appeared to be superficial, according to O'Neill, and the manatee seemed to be living a relatively normal life. But other manatees aren't so lucky. These slow-moving animals are frequently struck by boats, which can lead to deep wounds, internal damage and even death.

A manatee with wounds from a boat strike | Save the Manatee Club

"Manatees are these wonderful, graceful, large aquatic animals, but the fact of the matter is, they don't move fast," Jenna Golden, science and outreach coordinator for Save the Manatee Club, told The Dodo. "They're also mammals, so they frequently come up for air, and it's difficult to see a manatee at the surface."

A manatee surfacing near a boat propeller | David Schrichte

Manatees live in the coastal waters all around Florida, and many waterways have speed regulations in place to protect manatees from getting hit by boats. But this often isn't enough.

Dodo Shows Odd Couples Dog And Wild Dolphin Play Whenever They See Each Other

A manatee touching her snout to a boat propeller | David Schrichte

In 2016 alone, 104 manatees died from boat strikes in Florida, which is the highest number ever recorded, according to Golden.

A manatee with deep wounds across her body | David Schrichte

Golden believes that even this number is conservative, and that boats are killing more manatees than estimated. "There's always a very large number of unknown deaths, and it's likely that many of those are also related to boat strikes," she said. It's particularly tragic when a boat kills a manatee with a milk-dependent baby.

A mother and baby manatee | Save the Manatee Club

"If the mom is hit, and the mom dies, that can obviously then lead you to a situation where you have an orphaned calf," Golden said. "So if a manatee is rescued in response to a boat strike, and it has a dependent calf with her, they rescue the calf as well, because the calf cannot survive on her own."

A mother and baby manatee | Save the Manatee Club

Some manatees who survive being struck by boats can be successfully rescued and rehabilitated. Others have simply learned to live with their injuries. Golden knows of one manatee who gets around without two-thirds of his tail - he's been aptly nicknamed "No Tail."

One of many manatees with a tail injured by a boat strike | David Schrichte

"He showed up one winter at Blue Spring with a particularly severe, yet healing, tail injury, where most of it was missing after a presumable boat strike," Golden said. "We do know that he has been around quite a while. Amazing what these animals can survive - he still gets around just fine!"

One of many manatees with a tail injured from a boat strike | David Schrichte

It's estimated that 90 percent of Florida manatees bear scars from boat collisions.

A mother manatee with her child | Save the Manatee Club

But it's not just boats that threaten the lives of manatee families. In recent years, algal blooms (also known as "red tides"), caused by nutrient runoff from agriculture and water treatment plants, have created out-of-control algae growths that kill off the seagrass that manatees eat. With their normal food gone, manatees tend to eat red seaweed, but this is deadly because it contains lots of toxins. Despite all of these pressures on the species, the U.S. government recently delisted Florida manatees as an endangered species - now the species is merely classified as "threatened."

Save the Manatee Club

This delisting has a lot to do with the species' growth in population - there are now 6,620 Florida manatees, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. While this might seem like good news to some, Golden doesn't think this delisting was a wise move, especially as this past year saw a record number of manatee deaths by boat strike.

Save the Manatee Club

"People are celebrating, because sure, it sounds like a good thing, right?" Golden said. "Manatees are no longer endangered. But unfortunately, there's a lot more behind it that people are unaware of." She said the manatees still face a number of threats, including an increasing number of boaters, and need as much protection as they can get. "We are strongly opposed to manatees being taken off the endangered species list," she added.

Save the Manatee Club

The good news is that there are plenty of ways to help Florida manatees. If you live in Florida, or you plan on visiting Florida and getting on a boat, you can help protect manatees by reviewing boat safety tips. Another way to help is to sign up for the Save the Manatee Club's action alerts, or to sign this petition.

Save the Manatee Club
Songbirds all across the wild jungles of Indonesia are so loved by locals, there are bird song competitions, where people try their best to sound like the colorful little birds. But the love for these songbirds is literally killing them.

Adam Miller/Planet Indonesia

Yellow-crested cockatoos, often kept as pets in Indonesia, stuffed in plastic bottles in Surabaya to be smuggled | Petrus Riski/Mongabay

Even though most of these songbirds are found nowhere else in the world, hundreds of thousands of birds are plucked out of the wild every year all across the islands of Indonesia, but especially on the island of Java. They're stuffed in cramped cages and sold at 80 to 100 bird markets on the island or even by the side of the road. Many birds die during capture and while being smuggled to the markets. Selling wild birds is technically illegal, but the law lacks enforcement, and these open-air markets operate in plain view and are even listed as tourist destinations.

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Cages full of birds at the Jatinegara bird market in East Jakarta | Harry Pearl/Mongabay

"What I saw there was worse than I'd anticipated," Eleanor Paish, a zoologist and filmmaker based in the UK, said of her visit to the markets. "I had the classic knee-jerk reaction any animal lover would have had: I completely condemned everyone involved in the trade."

Adam Miller/Planet Indonesia

But Paish realized that rather than getting angry she needed to understand what gave the trade such a stronghold, even as bird populations are plummeting. She discovered that the domestic bird trade is deeply rooted in a centuries-old tradition of keeping birds, which means that the survival of these species depends on changing the minds of locals so they can see the birds as worth more in the wild than in cages.

Adam Miller/Planet Indonesia

That's why Paish is starting a campaign to make an educational documentary to show to the local communities, explaining the real threats the domestic trade poses for the very existence of these birds.

This browser does not support the video tag. Eleanor Paish

"She wants to help stop the open sale of Indonesia's wild birds, and if she manages to change the behavior of just one poacher through her outreach, it could save the life of literally thousands of birds and maybe even entire species from disappearing forever," Theodore Squires, a bird researcher at Hokkaido University in Japan who is helping Paish with the project, told The Dodo. "People across the main island of Java prize the birds for their music, but are usually unaware that their pets are causing the forests to become silent."

Because of the bird trade, there are fewer than 250 Rufous-fronted Laughingthrushes left in the world. | Cikananga Wildlife Center

"As a wildlife researcher, every day I ask myself how I can translate my work into real impacts and policy change," Squires added. "[This] project ... can make an immediate difference."

Eleanor Paish

Nick Hall
Heres a quiz. Name the company referred to in the quotation below.

First and foremost, DELETED follows a strategy built around the customer  not around price, process, brand, technology, or any other corporate tactic or buzzword you can think of. When the company considers how it can improve service and results, it asks itself one question: What would the customer want?

What is the corporate name that first comes to mind?

Rogers Communications?

Of course it does not. Rogers has been a consistently low performer in this regard, leaving customers to murderously obsess about the customer service in phone, cable, Internet, et cetera.

The word obsess has been used purposely here. At his coming out party this week (the annual meeting), Rogers CEO Joe Natale announced that team success can be won only if employees obsess over the customer experience.

An interesting choice of words for a chief executive officer. To obsess. To preoccupy. To haunt. To fill the mind continually.

Clearly this has not been the case at the company that Ted built. Consider the 2016 J.D. Power Canadian wireless customer care study. Top of the pack: Koodo Mobile, rated among the best. In fourth spot, Telus Mobility, rated better than most. Tied for last place, in a ranking labelled the rest, are Rogers Wireless and Bell Mobility. The study was based on responses from more than 5,500 wireless customers.

Those comparators have been chosen with purpose here too, because Natale spent more than a decade at Telus as chief commercial officer before he became that companys CEO. There are many distinguishing features between Telus and Rogers. Heres one: Telus has a branded personality (meerkats, hippos, chameleons colour-shifting from green to purple). Rogers does not.

Koodo is Teluss flanker brand, intended to woo a different consumer than the parent brand. Rogers has Fido.

Granted, Rogers is in an industry that excels in poor CRM  customer relationship management. Look at Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, et cetera. U.S. customers consistently rank those companies top of the pile in lousy customer service.

Natales promise doesnt merely address corporate demeanour. Companies have to wake up to the strategic imperative of getting better at customer care. That J.D. Power report found that millennials contact customer care twice as often as baby boomers, and do so with the expectation that problem resolution will be efficient and swift. The obvious conclusion: satisfaction influences customer loyalty.

And the ultimate for the service providers is satisfaction across multiple platforms, which explains why Rogers came in for grief when it launched its Rogers First Rewards program in 2013. Existing Rogers customers enjoying a discount on bundled services lost that discount if they signed up for the loyalty program. Clearly, were not doing a good job of explaining the program to customers and we need to make some changes, a Rogers spokesperson told the Stars Ellen Roseman at the time.

Two years later Rogers announced the First Rewards program would be discontinued due to low participation. (The program awarded points per dollars spent on Rogers services which could then be redeemed on more data, more minutes, etc.)

Fair to say Rogers customers did not feel the emotional bond that companies seek in establishing customer loyalty.

This has to be fixed. Forrester, an American market research firm, explains it this way: Companies use CRM data in conjunction with finance and product usage data to gauge a customer's health and intervene when surfacing signs of distress. Actively managing customer relationships affects a company's revenue by reducing churn and increasing customer lifetime value and advocacy. In 2017 companies are becoming increasingly cognizant of the economic value of managing customer relationships. Forward-thinking companies invest in customer success by articulating a customer success strategy and high-level measures of success as well as forming customer success teams that have clear retention metrics and revenue goals for accounts under management.

So lets wish Joe Natale well. Hes been smart to highlight the customer as the first order of business. And that mystery company in the opening quote? Thats Nordstrom. The quote is taken from The Nordstrom Way To Customer Service Excellence. Over the years, theyve learned that the more service theyve provided the better their business became. Its as simple as that, the authors state.

Joe Natales goal should be to make Rogers the Nordstrom of his industry. In fact, he should obsess about it.

jenwells@thestar.ca

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FREDERICTONNew Brunswicks trade-policy minister says hes confident Atlantic Canadian lumber exports will remain excluded from U.S. duties once President Donald Trump sees the facts.

Roger Melanson, who is also president of the provinces Treasury Board, says hes been working alongside the federal government to secure exclusions in place since 1982.

The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to release a preliminary decision by Tuesday whether to impose duties on Canadian softwood, which American producers say is overly subsidized and unfairly floods their market.

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Trump has called Canadas actions a disgrace when it comes to dairy, lumber, timber and energy.

There have been estimates the duties could range from 20-40 per cent.

We do not know for sure what the determination will be, but certainly a duty in that range would have an impact on the New Brunswick economy, and certainly on New Brunswick communities where the forestry industry is so important, Melanson said Friday.

He said there could be very serious local impacts if specific mills are idled or permanently closed.

Duties have the potential to impact 14 companies operating a total of 25 sawmills in New Brunswick. Representatives of those companies declined any comment as they entered a meeting with the provincial government Friday afternoon in Fredericton.

More than 86 per cent of the province is forested. The forestry industry contributes $1.45 billion to the New Brunswick economy each year and employs more than 22,000 people.

For more than 30 years, Atlantic Canada has been excluded from every softwood lumber agreement and all trade litigation due to unique market conditions.

Melanson said he has had meetings in recent weeks with state officials in Massachusetts and Maine to explain why the exemptions should continue.

I think when we show the facts, and the results, to the new administration in Washington, I think theyll get it, he said.

The minister uses the example of Junction Lumber in Bathurst, N.B., which he says creates 20 jobs in New Brunswick because of the partnership and access to the U.S. market. Can-Am Cedar, which creates playground equipment with wood from Junction Lumber, creates 12 jobs in Maine.

The New Brunswick government has set up a task force to address the possible duties. Melanson said it aims to determine and mitigate the impact that next weeks ruling could have on New Brunswick communities.

Opposition critic Ross Wetmore says the task force is a case of too little, too late.

A month before the duties are to take place, they decide to appoint a task force, he said. We should have been at the table long ago.

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Anniversaries, typically, are occasions for reaffirmation: To look back at past glories as building blocks of an even more glorious now.

Not so Canada 150, which is shaping up to be the most circumspect sesquicentennial on record. Converging as it does with darker moments in Canadas history, including facing up to our countrys disgraceful mistreatment of indigenous people, July 1 looms as a complicated marker for a nation as much at odds with its past as it is hopeful for its future.

Nothing is ever as tidy as history suggests, and at times like these, challenges to the official line have been as rare as they necessary. Helping to complicate the picture are several new books on Canadian art whose challenge to officialdom resides in a mission to broaden the narrowcast view of our cultural history.

None of these new books will produce watershed revelations regarding our sense of national self. But taken together, they help to suggest how much has been left in the margins.

About that official history: Early 20th century art in Canada is home to our most dominant cultural mythology, the Group of Seven, which, along with Tom Thomson, has been yoked so long to the plow of Canadian culture that theyve choked the growth of virtually everything else.

Evelyn Walters, a Toronto-based historian, reminds us  again  that other people were making art in Canada as Modernism, a European notion, began to arrive on our shores. But even Modernism has been a hard pill to swallow for G7 devotees, who have largely preferred to see, in their unpeopled renderings of northern wilderness, a true north strong and free of the meddling influence of a global esthetic movement.

Walters The Beaver Hall Group and Its Legacy, her second book on the expansive, inclusive crew of young Montreal painters formed around the same time, is a necessary muddying effort. Montreal, the countrys financial and cultural heart at the time with close ties to Europe, was quick to embrace its innovations and trends.

Beaver Hall painters included Edwin Holgate, Kathleen Moir Morris, Mabel Lockerby, Henrietta Mabel May and A.Y. Jackson, a native Montrealer doing double-duty as a charter member of the Group of Seven (in 1920, he became the Montreal crews president.) Their first exhibition in 1921 featured 11 men and eight women, a surprisingly co-ed crew for Modernisms mostly-boys clubs, and the work, which ranged from urban scenes to portraits to nudes, had almost nothing to do with the rugged wilderness of its Toronto counterparts.

Thats likely why Beaver Hall became the footnote and the Group of Seven the main event: Canada wasnt ready for full-blooded Modernism, and the Group was more easily shaped to fit a patriotic mould of untamed wilderness uncoupled from larger trends. The Beaver Hall Group, not so pliant to typecasting  flag-bearing wasnt its thing  lasted only a couple of years.

That said, it seeded the first serious association of female artists in Canada, the 10-strong Women of Beaver Hall. They never challenged the Groups enduring bromance in the annals of our cultural history  nothing ever has  but in this moment of circumspect flag-waving, the time seems ripe for them to be seen as more than a footnote.

About those bros: The Groups dominance of Canadian art history is the fault of many, partly theirs, and Jacksons in particular. Taking up residence at the McMichael Collection of Canadian Art in his final years, he became the flag-bearer for recasting the Groups Modern painting project as an isolated expression of a purified Canadiana.

Lawren Harris, whos enjoyed a highly-selective renaissance at the hands of U.S. comic Steve Martin recently, might be the best argument against that narrowcast view. Higher States: Lawren Harris and His American Contemporaries, is the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition of the same name, now at the McMichael, and it makes Harris out to be something else entirely.

Higher States, a show of his abstract works  to which he devoted his last years, and the bulk of his career  debunks the popular legend of Harris as an isolated manifestation of a peculiar kind of Modernism-north. It puts him where he was: In New York and Boston, hobnobbing with avant-gardists such as Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia OKeeffe; and in New Mexico, where he was the co-founder of the Transcendental Painting Group, a gang of secular spiritualists painting abstractly to achieve, well, a higher state.

Higher States is about Harris, but its also about us: A selective myth countered by a fuller version of perhaps our best-loved artistic icon, whose complications are often left in the margins in the service of promoting simplified patriotism.

A touchstone of our current cultural moment, and perhaps the most powerful opportunity that Canada 150 represents, is the evolving official response to increasing calls by indigenous communities to use the occasion to own up to our own ugly history. Plenty of indigenous artists have stated that 150 is an arbitrary and offensive measure apart from reality  and they want nothing to do with it.

Big institutions across the country have acted, some of them (such as the National Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario) reinstalling their permanent collections to reflect a more inclusive view.

A start toward bridging that gap is opening those institutions, and minds, to the breadth of difference to be found under the broad heading of indigenous. Heather Igloliortes new book, SakKijajuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut, helps. SakKijajuk, in the Labrador dialect of Inuktitut, means to be visible, which Iglolortes community, the Nunatsiavummiut, have not largely been.

Last year, The Rooms museum in St. Johns, NL, looked to change that with a broad display of art and craft from indigenous people of the Nunatsiavut region. The book, a handsome catalogue of the shows content, runs the gamut from contemporary expression (an arresting digitally-manipulated photo of a man astride a snowmobile, Michelle Baiikies The Hunter, from 1998, is lurid electric fuchsia) to traditional craft (moccasins and mittens).

We dumb southerners equate Inuit cultural output with carvings and drawings, which the Nunatsiavummiut produce as well. But their home turf  sub-Arctic, below the permafrost, where things could grow in the earth  meant the development of such things a robust weaving practice, used to make intricate and beautiful basketry, and a unique tradition of textile art.

The Nunatsiavummiut, Igloliorte points out, were among the first indigenous people to make contact with Europeans. Thats meant a profoundly different arc of cultural development for a group that defies conventional understanding.

Igloliorte calls the group little known outside its immediate region, and a colonial compulsion to classify indigenous peoples and cultures in tidy boxes has no doubt contributed to that. But if Canada 150 is good for anything, maybe its to understand history isnt so tidy, and the boxes should be emptied for good.

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The images are striking: Female surgeons, in surgical caps and masks, peering down from above, their eyes piercing and full of pride.

What started as a magazine cover  an illustration of an all-female surgical team rendered in beautiful blues  has since turned into a rallying cry for women surgeons from around the world, from France to Kenya, Newfoundland to Texas and now Toronto.

Every day since The New Yorker posted the April 3 cover for its Health, Medicine & The Body Issue, female surgeons have gathered in operating rooms to recreate the illustration, snapping photos and posting them online with the hashtag #ILookLikeASurgeon.

At first, the photos came from the U.S. after Dr. Susan Pitt, a surgeon from Wisconsin, challenged her peers to replicate the magazine cover. Soon after, photos taken by surgeons from operating rooms in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, among others, were shared on social media.

Now surgeons from Torontos St. Michaels Hospital are joining the movement, wanting to rise up with their peers from around the globe to show that women are strong and capable leaders  the equals of men  in the operating room.

Seeing myself on the cover of The New Yorker as something normative is amazing, said Dr. Nancy Baxter, chief of general surgery at St. Michaels Hospital, who plans to pose for a photo in her hospitals OR on Friday morning.

On Thursday, her colleagues in general and plastic surgery reproduced The New Yorker cover, posting the photograph on Twitter with the hashtag #NYerORCoverChallenge, the alternate label for the online movement.

On Wednesday, Dr. Carmine Simone, chief of surgery at Michael Garron Hospital, part of the Toronto East Health Network, shared on Twitter a photo of four female surgeons, including Dr. Laura Tate, who in 2001 became the hospitals first female chief of surgery.

Baxter, who plans to frame The New Yorker cover, said there have been only a handful of times in recent years when all the medical staff at a particular time in an OR at St. Michaels Hospital were women.

We pause for a moment and take note, she says. Its a tremendous change from when I started out in medicine.

Malika Favre, the well-known French artist who created The New Yorker cover, entitled Operating Theatre, did not expect her image to become an inspirational call to arms for female surgeons.

In an email to the Star, Favre, who is based in London, England, and whose clients include The New Yorker, Vogue and Penguin Books, said her idea for the cover came from my own experience of having an eye operation as a child.

I wanted to create an image that everyone has seen and can relate to, which was that moment before going to sleep on the operating table, Favre said. My surgeon was a woman back then so I also decided to celebrate that and create a sort of homage piece to her and other women surgeons.

Pitt, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin, said it was the gorgeous colours and bold imagery of The New Yorker cover that first caught her eye. On the second look, she realized the cover depicted an all-women surgical team.

It was a bit of a shock. It is so completely foreign that someone would show only women, she says, during a phone call with the Star. Its so against the standard gender bias.

Pitt, 39, who specializes in endocrine surgery, immediately took a photo with colleagues that mimicked the cover and posted it on Twitter on April 4. After seeing responses from a few female surgeons, Pitt issued a challenge for more of her peers to join the movement.

At first, the response was slow. Then, after about a week, the posts took off.

Now, more than a thousand photos of female surgeons are circulating on Twitter, Pitt said. She would know; she has personally responded to each image, hoping to keep the excitement building.

I think what we are all trying to say is: This is what women surgeons look like. Here we are. See us. This is not just a novelty on the cover of a magazine.

It has been amazing to see this camaraderie amongst women surgeons from around the globe.

Favre said she finds it empowering to see so many photos replicating her illustration on social media.

For some it raised the questions of gender bias, diversity and equal pay in the medical world and for others it was simply the opportunity to celebrate all these incredible women.

Dr. Molly Zirkle, a surgeon at St. Michaels Hospital and assistant professor of otolaryngology (head and neck) surgery at the University of Toronto, said female surgeons are a growing population, that being a female leader of an operating room is not unique as it was in the 1970s or 1980s.

We have benefited from the legacy of those who came (before) us, says Zirkle, 49, who posed for a photo with peers at St. Michaels Hospital on Thursday. She is also director of the U of Ts FitzGerald Academy.

I dont think along the lines of males versus female in my job, which I think is a success, she says.

Being a surgeon is an amazing career. Im fortunate to do this kind of work and it should be open to anyone who has the interest and aptitude.

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WASHINGTONHeres some good news for Canadian pot smokers: high taxes will not join the munchies, the pasties and short-term memory loss as unwelcome side effects of smoking up.

The Canadian government is hinting it wants to keep pot taxes low.

As the feds design taxation policy for soon-to-be-legalized marijuana, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Friday that he will be guided by one main goal: squeezing out the black market.

Health Minister Jane Philpott says protecting kids is ?at the centre? of the Liberals? new legal-marijuana regime. The much-anticipated legislation unveiled Apr. 13 would make it against the law to sell cannabis to youth unde

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Marijuana enthusiasts say legalization will light up 4/20 celebrations

He is adamant that maximizing federal revenues is not, and will not be, the priority on pot, suggesting Ottawa favours keeping prices competitive against the street value in order to push the local pusher out of business.

The driver as we look at taxation in this sector will be, How do we tax in a way that makes sure we get criminals out? ... That gives you context for the way were thinking about it, Morneau said in a roundtable interview.

The key issue is to make sure we eliminate the black market. Its straightforward. The first issue has to be our focus on that. Which means we are thinking about taxation in the context of how we get at that first objective ...

Revenue maximization is absolutely not our goal.

A new C.D. Howe report puts a price tag on the goal Morneau describes.

It finds that 90 per cent of the illegal market would disappear if pot cost $9 per gram, and governments applied only existing sales taxes, producing $675 million a year in federal and provincial revenues.

But the report concluded illegal sales would retain half the market if governments tried squeezing $1 billion in revenue from the sale of marijuana  and thats the scenario Morneau says he doesnt want.

But dont expect to hear the feds trumpeting Canadians ability to get high without high taxes. Ottawas messaging on the issue has been extremely sober, emphasizing the goal of displacing black-market vendors who sell to kids.

Our current approach on marijuana is failing Canadians, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference Friday on Parliament Hill.

We need to make it more difficult for underage Canadians to access marijuana; we are not doing that right now, the current prohibition does not work, which is why were going to legalize and control the sale of marijuana ...

Were going to end the billions of dollars in profits that flow into organized crime and criminal street gangs every year through the sale of this illicit drug.

In public, Morneau has avoided any deep discussions about marijuana taxation and its potential revenue impact.

Another thing the government has avoided discussing is the potential consequences of disrupting the criminal market.

A lengthy, detailed piece in Esquire magazine charts how Mexican criminal gangs saw U.S. states starting to legalize marijuana a few years ago, figured that market would soon dry up, and ramped up production of another product: heroin.

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In the big picture, the world is probably having a decent week when Donald Trump turns his rhetorical guns on Canada rather than on North Korea or Russia. On the scale of a nuclear showdown, the stakes involved in a Canada/U.S. milk war are  to put it mildly  in a different league.

But even in the name of offering the international community a much needed, albeit brief, respite from more lethal presidential musings, it is no laughing matter for Canada to find that, despite its best efforts, it has become Trumps latest punching bag.

In that spirit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wisely resisted the temptation to throw in a few jokes about his up-and-down relationship with Trump as he hosted the annual Public Policy Forum dinner in Toronto on Thursday evening.

Those in the standing-room-only crowd of policy wonks, political junkies and lobbyists of every persuasion who had hoped to glean some insights into the prime ministers mindset went home empty-handed.

But that did not prevent Trump in absentia from being the elephant in the room.

Just a few hours earlier, the president had fired the second of two verbal missiles at Canadas trade arrangements with the U.S.

The first had come earlier in the week when Trump agreed with Wisconsin dairy farmers that Canadian policies were responsible for their financial woes  and promised to fix them.

At the time, the optimists among Canadian Trump-watchers opined that the president had reverted to his campaign persona for a day. They predicted it would be a temporary state of affairs.

But after the president doubled down from the Oval Office on Thursday and called Canada a disgrace for its trading practices on fronts ranging from dairy to lumber to energy, the seers retreated behind a wait-and-see wall of prudent platitudes.

It is possible to concur with the notion that what happened this week might ultimately amount to less than a significant watershed moment and still believe that something of note has happened.

For one, the facade of selfreassurance that Canada was not really on Trumps radar except in a collateral way via its association with Mexico under the NAFTA umbrella is now shattered. It was always little more than wishful thinking.

In the face of Trumps fighting words and the contrast they offer with his previous positive comments about the two countries trade relationship the already modest capital of trust accumulated since the inauguration stands depleted.

If there is an upside for Canada it may be that those fighting words may come across as a call to arms to the many American constituencies that do benefit from the current trading arrangements between the two countries.

If NAFTA was not mutually beneficial, it would not have endured through a succession of American administrations including some that had a stronger protectionism gene in their political DNA than the Republican party the current president hails from.

The Canada/U.S. file was already monopolizing more political energy in the federal capitals and in the provinces than at any time since the negotiation of the 1988 free-trade agreement. It is about to suck even more attention away from other issues.

In contrast with past negotiations with the U.S. but also with Europe and the Asia-Pacific countries, Canada is for the most part playing defense. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that it is doing so absent a commonly agreed upon set of rules.

No one for instance could immediately fathom what specifically is causing the president to have a bee in his bonnet over Canadas energy policies. And as for the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers, its root cause is a flooded global market.

It is easy to understand that Trump needs a diversion from an unimpressive first 100 days in power. Turning his guns on Canada likely helped appease some of the warring factions within his White House.

But a Canadian prime minister no more lives in a public opinion vacuum than an American president. With every anti-Canada Trumpism, pressure mounts on Trudeau to harden his own tone.

Picking his words very carefully Friday, the prime minister again firmly rejected the presidential accusatory contentions. The overriding impression was that Trudeau was trying hard to keep as much of his powder dry as possible. He does not have any to waste on a president who may yet be shooting blanks.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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At the core of current angst over the future of transit building in the GTA and environs is this: past and current decisions suggest that the projects we get do not deliver the benefits promised.

The planners, the politicians, the public, all of us are swept along in a furious spending binge with no guarantees of the desired results.

Commuters have demonstrated they will use transit if it is fast, reliable and competitive. We are not talking those who are stuck on the bus because they have no access to a car. The rest of the populace willingly supports transit spending with the expectation the expenditure will improve their commute.

Anyone who pays attention to transit decisions here knows that such faith is misplaced. No jurisdiction is immune. Similar projects all over the world suffer from delusionary projections from planners, false assumptions and political deception.

In his book, The Railway Metropolis, available on Amazon, Torontonian transit planner Michael Schabas delves into the entrails of one of the worlds most celebrated systems, the London transit system over the last 35 years. Schabas exposes more than a few missteps and mistakes. Compared to the TTC, the London transit map evokes envy. Still, Schabas gives London a score of seven out of 10. Toronto?

Up to the 1970s Toronto was about an eight  leading the world with such innovations as integrating bus and subway travel, practicing zone fares and the like. Sadly, he says, its been downhill ever since  maybe a three now  with the chance of rebounding if Metrolinx can implement GO RER (electrification and all-day service) and fare integration with the local transit bodies and insist on positive cost-benefit analyses before backing projects.

You would have to travel far and wide to find a city foolish enough to build a one-stop subway to an area that will deliver only 2,000 new passengers and save five minutes  especially when it could have delivered similar benefits by refurbishing and modernizing the Scarborough RT for one-tenth the cost, Schabas says.

Hed said as much in a report he filed for the Neptis Foundation  before the final decisions were made on the Scarborough subway. It fell on deaf ears.

So, how do we end up stomaching this, accepting it, praising it, even? Politics, for one.

An LRT is planned from Kennedy station to the Scarborough Town Centre in the late 1970s. The Bill Davis Conservative government replaces it with an experimental made-in-Ontario technology, and the RT is born in 1985 as a demonstration project. TTC staff recommend it be modernized, even as Vancouver races ahead, expanding the RT technology several times. Mayor David Miller proposes the return to the LRT idea in Transit City and the provincial government agrees, funding it 100 per cent. But Rob Ford becomes mayor and before you can say crack pipe, a subway is born in the corridor. Looking for votes, the Kathleen Wynne Liberal government flip flops and backs a subway. Then John Tory becomes mayor promising SmartTrack, with multiple GO station stops in Toronto. City staff are mortified. The SmartTrack stations cannibalize the subway stations. So they come up with a gerrymandering solution: bend the subway east to McCowan, not to pick up passengers, but to move it away from SmartTrack. The subway is to make the longest uninterrupted journey on the system. But fewer people have access to it. Bus rides are longer to get to the subway/RT/LRT. Projected passengers volumes drop after council votes the switch. And the cost escalates.

Meanwhile, taxpayers, planners, editors, opinion leaders barely mutter under their breaths.

Not a single planner has resigned over this, one former senior planner called to grouse on the day of the vote.

I once challenged a senior city bureaucrat with Why didnt you jump up and down in council and tell them how wrong they are? His answer was, I told them. What do you want me to do, stand on the table and scream. They know what they are doing. Nothing I say would change their minds.

And so we are where we are.

The 2005 edition of Journal of American Planning published a comprehensive study across 20 countries and concluded that planners and politicians not only misinform but deceive the public when building large infrastructure projects.

In a follow-up study released in 2009, in the California Management Review, little had changed  costs end up 45 per cent higher than projected; ridership numbers fall 50 per cent lower than forecasted.

The size and perseverance over time of the problem of misinformation indicate that it will not go away by merely pointing out its existence and appealing to the good will of project promoters and planners to make more accurate forecasts.

The problem of misinformation is an issue of power and profit and must be dealt with as such, using the mechanisms of transparency and accountability we commonly use in liberal democracies to mitigate rent-seeking behavior and the misuse of power.

The principal author Bent Flyvbjerg calls this a violation of their code of ethics  that is, malpractice. Such malpractice should be taken seriously by the responsible institutions. Failing to do so amounts to not taking the profession of planning seriously.

In essence, the planners have sunk to the level of propagandist politicians, leaving the public at sea.

Later: Rail against the norm.

Royson James column appears weekly. rjames@thestar.ca

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Andrea White cried out to her husband just before she died.

The last thing she said was, Bobby, I got shot. Bobby, I got shot,  Whites best friend Narissa Persaud testified in court Thursday, the second day of the murder trial surrounding Whites 2014 death in a drive-by shooting.

White was in the garage of her home with several people, including Persaud and her husband, Bobby Lewis, on Forest Creek Pathway, in the area of Morningside and Old Finch Aves., when she was fatally struck by a bullet on the night of April 12, 2014.

Alwayne Bigby, 26, and Michael Davani, 24, have been charged with first-degree murder. Both men have pled not guilty.

In her testimony, Persaud told the court shed known White for eight years, and, that, for the three years leading up to her death, shed visit Whites home every other day or so.

The night of April 12, 2014, started off as usual.

(We did the) same thing we did every night: sip on a drink, smoke cigarettes, listen to music, Persaud said. They also discussed plans for Whites birthday the next week, she added, and had opened the garage door to clear out the cigarette smoke.

Persaud began sobbing when Crown attorney Rob Fried asked her what happened next.

According to Persaud, she and White were standing on the edge between the garage floor and driveway, chatting, when they noticed a white SUV with tinted windows drive by. It passed by again four of five minutes later, Persaud said, but this time, it slowed down in front of the house.

All I heard were popping sounds, Persaud said, and Lewis told everyone to get down.

Persaud said she looked up briefly and saw the SUVs front passenger window rolled down about two inches with a driver and passenger inside before the vehicle sped off.

When the shooting stopped, Persaud said, Lewis told everyone to get into the house, but White remained on the floor of the garage, holding her side.

White cried out that shed been shot.

I said, No, youre okay, you just fell,  Persaud recalled, and said she tried to help White out of the garage and to the front door of the house. But White collapsed on the walkway, Persaud said, and had to be carried to the house by her husband.

Once inside, Persaud said, she found a rag and held it against Whites wound while trying to keep her awake by saying, Keep breathing. Keep looking at me. Youre going to be OK, but Whites breaths had become really short and she was foaming at the mouth.

Whites mother, who was in the courtroom listening to the testimony, began sobbing. Several other family members left the room in tears.

When paramedics arrived, Persaud continued, she left to move her car to make room for the ambulance, but wasnt allowed back in the house after. She said she looked through the doorway just in time to see someone putting a blanket over Whites body.

An agreed statement of facts read in court said Whites cause of death was internal bleeding caused by a single gunshot wound to the right side of her abdomen.

In his own testimony, Lewis told a slightly different story, recalling that he and White had been at the back of the garage when they heard gunfire and stepped out to see what was going on.

By the time my wife turned around and hit the ground, there were already shots inside her, said Lewis, who appeared calm and collected while delivering his testimony, but broke down outside the courtroom after.

After carrying White inside their home, where three of the couples four children were, Lewis said, he and Persaud tried everything to keep White alive until paramedics arrived, but five minutes before the ambulance showed up, she took her last breath in my arms and that was it.

Lewis also said hed seen the white SUV with two people in the front, but only when the shooting began; however, in his cross-examination, Davanis lawyer, David Wilson, pointed out that Lewis had told police in his statement hours after the shooting that he hadnt seen anyone in the vehicle.

I just lost my wife. It was a hard night for me, Lewis responded, adding that some details came back to him later.

Bigbys lawyer, David Bayliss, also cross-examined Lewis, repeatedly saying White probably wouldnt have been shot if she hadnt moved from the back of the garage.

What happened was, you and Andrea accidentally ran into the line of fire, Bayliss said at one point.

You cant accidentally run into a line of fire when the bullets are coming into the garage, Lewis responded.

Bayliss also repeatedly referred to White as Angela throughout his cross-examination, prompting one family member watching the proceedings to shout out, Its Andrea!

The brief testimonies of two Toronto police officers, including the first officer to arrive on scene, concluded Thursdays proceedings.

The trial continues Monday.

Correction  April 21, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly attributed a statement said by David Bayliss to Alwayne Bigby.

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An arrest has been made in a homicide case in Torontos Riverside neighbourghood.

Glenn Gaetan, 25, was charged with first-degree murder after he turned himself in to police on Thursday evening, police said in a news release.

Gaetan was wanted in connection with the death of Martin R. W. Hauck, 56, who was killed on Monday. Hauck was found at Queen St. E. and Booth Ave. at around 1:50 p.m., suffering from apparent injuries, and was pronounced dead on scene.

His death was ruled a homicide Tuesday. On Wednesday, police announced Gaetan was being sought.

Gaetan will appear in court Friday morning.

Police said Haucks murder is the 16th homicide in Toronto this year.

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York Regional Police say an undercover operation has resulted in the arrests of dozens of men who sought to buy sex with children over the internet.

We stopped 104 men from purchasing 104 children, Det. Sgt. Thai Truong told a news conference Friday.

The four-year operation, dubbed Project Raphael, zeroed in on men who sought sex with girls they believed were between 13 and 16 years old.

Most of the would-be customers lived in other parts of the GTA and Ontario, but the alleged offences occurred in York Region, police said.

The men, who ranged in age from 21 to 71, offered to pay between $80 and $300 for encounters of between 30 and 60 minutes with the children.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of married men, Truong said. Occupations from all walks of life, ethnicities from all walks of life.

Officers posing as underage sex workers chatted online with the men, who were then charged with offences including communicating for the purposes of obtaining sexual services of a person under 18, and internet luring.

When they arrived to essentially complete the transaction, they were arrested, Truong said.

Punishments ranged from three to seven months custody for first offenders.

They received fines and probation, and their names were entered on a sex-offender registry.

Their names were also made public.

Truong said the investigation also brought police into contact with 85 girls who were involved in the sex trade online. Many of them showed signs of physical abuse.

The world of human trafficking is an ugly world, he said. We see a lot of lives destroyed.

Forty-nine of their pimps were charged, Truong said.

We will continue to do whatever we can to rescue the victims of this horrible crime, Deputy Chief Tom Carrique said.

We found that the average age of entering into prostitution was 14.8, Truong said. That was a big concern for us.

He noted that pimps use social media to connect girls with customers, and urged parents to monitor their childrens online activity.

The pimp will target vulnerable girls, Truong said. If the child has parental supervision, they have an advantage.

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Look at the glorious rings of Saturn, flat elliptical plates in mauve and green like over-the-top 1970s dishware. They look like pale vinyl LPs or auto racetracks or circles of stadium seating, theyre ovoid single brushstrokes of contrasting paint.

In the photos sent back to Earth by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft this week, these rings are the best, the most spectacular rings in the history of planetary circular devices, dont get me started on moons. The Trump-style superlatives would keep spurting.

And what do we see there just between the rings? A dot! Its drab and tiny, its very ... dotty. Its us, Planet Earth. The Cassini, an orbiter-probe that looks like a golden bee wearing a gray radar hat, is taking an Earth selfie from 1.5 billion km away. We dont photograph well.

The Cassini has been on this mission since Oct. 15, 1997Princess Dianas death is all I recall of that distant yearbut we were young then and full of hope that this earnest baby bug would fly past Venus twice, nose around Earth and Jupiter and arrive at Saturn in seven years and study all things bright and promising. Humans working in harmonya coalition of three space agencies and 17 nationshoped the Cassini would still be of interest to other humans in 2017.

As it turns out, they were right. But the reasons are tarnished.

Face it, space missions arent done for pure science. They have capitalist aims, one of them being to find a planet where humans have even the faintest shot at starting up again because weve wrecked our own home. Earth used to be a blue ball of wonder; now its filthy, stormy, baking, melting, gasping for groundwater and a battleground for the nations who like blowing things up real good. If you doubt this, ask Naomi Klein.

If Earth were a building it would be a shotgun shack. If it were a state of mind, it would be a panic attack. Are we proud of that?

I have been reading about living conditions in medieval and Elizabethan England, I suspect in a subconscious effort to take comfort in modern civilization. We all cope with Trump in our own way.

As it turns out, the Middle Ages werent so bad. Survival depended on that years crop, which kept most people too busy with the growing and storing of food to make mischief. Effective medicine was non-existent. For a throat abscess, take a fat cat, flay it well, and draw out the guts. Take the grease of a hedgehog, the fat of a bear, resins and virgin wax and stuff the cat with it. Then roast the cat and gather the dripping and anoint the sufferer. I hope they didnt mean internally.

Fatal illness was the great trauma of the 14th century. There were three waves of plague, killing 5%-10% of the population early, 30%-40% by mid-century, and another 15%-25% by the end. There were 5 million people in 1300 but not again until the 1630s, writes historian Ian Mortimer.

If climate change does this to usit is possibleit will have been worse than the Black Death because it was self-inflicted. No one knew what caused the plague.

The Elizabethans were extremely cruel to animals, somewhat less so to humans. But so are we now: the Americans bomb almost as a reflex, criminals are executed, beheading is back, Elizabethan tortures return, animals suffer en masse, not like the individual bear-baitings of Shakespeares era. Its not as if Daesh has come up with new cruelties.

Given the technology that humans created for comfort and ease, we should be better than the Elizabethans. We are worse. We need another planetary teardown.

Heres a gift from the loyal Cassini-Huygens, our international pet. It found the moons of Saturn and photographed dozens shaped like a sweet potato (Prometheus), a regular potato (Pandora), a meatball (Janus), and even a sponge (Hyperion). Some have a gnarled, irregular shape and texture like a dirty ice-ball (Epimetheus), as its website describes them.

But the best is stylish Enceladus, a moon of brightest white with a salty plume. Only 500 km in diameter, it reflects almost all sunlight that strikes it. Its the Oslo Opera House of space. Ice boulders the size of houses sit on its surface. Oh yes, it is cold but some areas are less cold.

Scientists think there is a subsurface ocean in Enceladus. This sounds promising. Warm jets are travelling up through the ice cracks, they say. Is there not some way to move to Enceladus and sit in its planetary bath? Make haste, humanity.

Of course getting there wouldnt just be difficult, it would be an obstacle course. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of lethal space junk surround Earth now, each bit speeding at 40,000 kmh and a constant threat to the International Space Station. The Washington Post reports that India just launched 104 tiny satellites into space. There are thousands to come from every nation. Its like landfill out there.

Even if humans made it to Enceladus, wed wreck it. A thousand years later, someone would toast a cheese sandwich on a smart plate in the tub and melt the place. Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. Wed love Enceladus the way we loved our Earth. Our love would assassinate.

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A dog that went missing in Hamilton after being mistakenly flown there from Atlantic Canada has been found safe and sound.

His owner, Terri Pittman, said Friday that finding Cooper, a labradoodle, was amazing and overwhelming, compared to when she heard that he was lost, which was the worst day of [her] life.

The dog was found right outside airport gates, on Airport Rd. in Hamilton, said Hans Ashton, Pittmans cousin.

He was frightened, muddy and wet, but uninjured, Ashton said.

According to Ashton, there had been numerous sightings of Cooper around the airport on Thursday and Friday morning, and a person who saw him around 9 a.m. on Friday managed to lure him into a fenced area and keep him there until his owners arrived.

Pittman and her roommate, Chelsea Simon, who co-own the dog, approached him slowly so he wouldnt be startled, and then he recognized them, Ashton said.

Cooper was supposed to be flying from Halifax to Deer Lake, N.L. on Wednesday afternoon to be dog-sat while Pittman and Simon vacationed in Jamaica next week.

But there was a mix-up with the airline and the dog was mistakenly put on a flight to Hamilton. And then when he arrived, Cooper was let out to pee  and got off his leash.

Simon said she got the bad news late Wednesday night, when a WestJet representative called them in Halifax around midnight.

She and Pittman immediately flew to Hamilton. She says the airline paid for them to travel here to hunt for the dog.

They were very apologetic. They keep apologizing, but unfortunately apologizing cant bring him back, Simon said when reached by phone Thursday, in the middle of their rain-soaked search.

This was their first trip to Hamilton, and they did not know the area at all.

On Thursday, WestJet spokesperson Lauren Stewart said that the safety and care of pets is always a top priority.

We sincerely apologize to the pets owner for what has occurred. We have flown the owner to Hamilton and have made arrangements for hotel/meals while required, Stewart said in an email.

WestJet issued a second statement Friday.

We have offered to pay for Coopers vet bill and will work on getting them back home as soon as they are rested, Stewart said in the release.

In the days ahead, we will review our procedures in an effort to determine what happened and make changes if needed to prevent future, similar occurrences.

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In a lot of ways, a friend recently pointed out to me, former Toronto mayor John Sewell is a kind of anti-Tory  in as much as two older white lawyers-turned-politicians, who have lived their lives in the central city and are both named John, can be considered opposites.

Where our current Mayor John is sort of the definition of an establishment man  born into wealth and influence, schooled in Big Blue Machine backrooms, familiar with corporate boardrooms and executive suites  former mayor John has spent his whole career kicking the establishment in the shins, or disregarding it altogether, organizing the rabble in street demonstrations and church-pew rallies. While Tory is famously agreeable, justly proud of being known as a conciliator and cooperator, always looking for middle ground in an argument, Sewell is cantankerous, not just willing but often apparently eager to point fingers. While our current mayor is relatively new to city hall and sometimes approaches longstanding issues with outsider eyes, Sewell has spent a career as an activist, politician and writer working relentlessly on the same few issues: land use, policing, governance, and, especially, public housing.

And where Tory is famously diplomatic and verbose  his sentences often winding through multiple clauses and digressions and qualifiers before winding around to their resolution, Sewell can tend to be very blunt.

This last contrast was on display when Sewell addressed Torys executive committee on Wednesday on the topic of closing some public housing units.

Sorry, youre going the wrong way on affordable housing, Sewell said. Youre not increasing the stock. Its decreasing. Thats the problem.

Ill just follow up, if I may, Tory responded, by asking whether youre aware of the advocacy exercise by a number of members of this council, including myself, to the other governments  and I think were maybe seeing some fruit from the federal government getting back into housing, and the provincial government to help us with that on the basis that we cant expend $2.6 billion on repairs that are needed by ourselves?

I realize you can go out and beg money from them, and then when they dont give it you can blame them, Sewell said. Spend your own money.

It was bracingly direct. A simple message. And he kept it up not just for his five-minute presentation, but for the 35 minutes of questioning from city councillors that followed. Asked by peacemaker Mary Margaret McMahon what compliments he might have for the current administration to go alongside his complaints, he seemed disgusted by the olive branch. Theres no compliments from me on the affordable housing file for the city council.

His message was simple, but it isnt as if his understanding of the issue is simple-minded. Sewell built his career first by advocating for residents as public housing projects in Regent Park, Don Mount Court, and Treffan Court during the 1960s; he was a pivotal member of the reform council that built public housing in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood in the 1970s; he was the chair of Metro Toronto Housing Authority in the 1980s; he wrote a book about different models of redeveloping public housing in the 1990s. He knows the file.

And here was his key message about it: I think we have to call it what it is. Its not about the small questions, its about the big issue. This is a major failure of the citys political leadership. The this in that last sentence refers to the current state of affairs, in which city council has established itself as the worst landlord in Toronto. In which, with 177,000 people on the waiting list for subsidized units, the city is closing 425 units this year, and may close 7,500 in the near future because of the sky-high bill for necessary repairs to keep the housing stock habitable. The city has put $250 million into its budget this year to address a backlog worth 10 times that much. The mayor and councillors have been demanding money from the province and the federal governments. Still, the units are closing. The waiting list is getting longer.

Its clearly not enough, Sewell said.

What he suggested the city do, specifically, was the opposite of slowing the rate of unit closures incrementally. He suggested building new units. Lots of them. I think the city has to show that it is serious about building new affordable housing, and if it cant get the funding and support from other levels of government, its going to go ahead on its own. With a substantial program, not a small program. And I believe the place to start is redeveloping 110 public housing projects.

Such redevelopments, he suggested, done in partnership with the private-sector developers who would build market units in the same places, could add as many as 20,000 new units on land the city already owns, and rebuild virtually all of the existing ones.

If the city did so, he said, his experiences with Regent Park and especially St. Lawrence Market leads him to believe the provincial and federal governments would want to come in and invest and be a part of it, no begging required. But either way, the city could and should forge ahead without waiting for anyone elses help.

What we need, he said at one point in response to a question, is not the begging initiative, but the one that says were gonna do it.

Maybe theres room to do both at city hall. Maybe theres a place for diplomacy, and consensus building, and making incremental improvements in all kinds of areas.

But on this issue, at a time when poor people are lined up waiting for a place to live, and were closing too many of the places we have already, it sure feels like the blunt approach Sewell brought to the meeting is desperately needed.

This is a long-term failure, Sewell said. We need much stronger leadership.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire

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Norman Feliks, a Toronto Transit Commission bus operator who drives and lives in Parkdale, is worried the two condo developments proposed for the intersection where he lives will destroy his neighbourhood.

We could be having the opposite conversation, about strategy to reduce traffic and density in the area, he said.

I live in this area, and I feel like its endangered.

Feliks believes the proposed projects at the intersection of King St. W. and Dufferin St. will not only add too much density to the neighbourhood, but will take away from the community-feel that attracted him to the community in the first place.

In the case of Parkdale, it really displaces something beautiful, whether they can see that or not, he said.

Feliks is not alone.

Many residents raised concerns at a meeting earlier this week over the proposed developments, taking issue with many aspects of the projects, including the increased density, heights, and expressed fears over affordable housing.

The original proposal submitted by Lifetime Development in October 2015 for 1221 King St. W. featured a 19-storey tower with 301 residential units on a seven-storey podium, while the plan for 1181 King St. W. was a 21-storey tower and 448 residential units on a seven-storey podium.

Both plans were met with opposition from some local residents.

This week, at a second community meeting, the developer unveiled a new plan.

We sincerely hope the changes that we made have gone a long way to addressing concern, Peter Smith, a partner at Bousfields Inc. told the group of more than 100 residents.

The proposed building at 1221 is now 14-storeys tall, with 292 residential units sitting atop a four-storey podium, while 1182 is now 17-storeys tall, with 408 residential units atop a four-storey podium.

Both buildings are also further away from the sidewalk, and feature more brick facades to match existing buildings.

The process is not done, but we certainly think weve made significant revisions that have addressed the concerns that have come from the community, said Danny Roth, a spokesperson for Lifetime Developments.

I wouldnt say that we are closing the door . . . , but, certainly, on behalf of the applicant and their team of industry-best consultants, we think the current iteration is the right approach to the site.

Some residents at Tuesdays meeting agreed, and said this type of development is exactly what Parkdale needs, while others were still concerned with the new proposals.

Lynda Macdonald, the citys west community planning manager, said the city sees the existing properties as being underutilized.

There is retail at both properties, which is good on main streets, but there are opportunities where you can still incorporate retail . . . and actually create more housing, she said.

Macdonald said the province has given cities a clear directive expecting them to intensify. With transit, schools and other facilities nearby, there is a potential opportunity for the neighbourhood.

It is an area where we can look at it and say, Is a one-storey retail really the best potential for this property?  she said.

Most residents at the meeting said the new plans were not enough to alleviate worries about increased density, congestion, the displacement of residents and businesses, and, in particular, the need for affordable housing.

People are fed up with governments relying on the private market to solve our housing problems, said Coun. Gord Perks, who attended Tuesdays meeting.

We need public investment in affordable housing right now and we need it from all orders of government.

Of the 700 units between the two buildings, 71 per cent will be one-bedroom apartments with dens, from between 550 and 680 square feet, Smith said at last weeks meeting. The remaining units are two- and three-bedroom units, of between 820 and 960 square feet.

Some residents took issue with the number of one-bedroom condos, arguing that it will bring a transient community to Parkdale, instead of more families.

Ric Amis, secretary of the Parkdale Residents Association, is among many who hope the developer goes back to the drawing board and makes more considerations.

He wants Lifetime Development to look at the area to the west of Dufferin St., as opposed to the east, where the glassy towers of nearby Liberty Village dominate the skyline.

This is going to change the neighbourhood. We just want to make sure it changes it for the better, he said.

Its not that were afraid of development; its that we want it to be planned. They have to improve our community, not just make a lot of money.

The plans include retail spaces at the bottom of both buildings, and three levels of underground parking.

Perks said city staff will take advice and comments from the public consultation and push the developers on a few points, before the plan is discussed at council later this year.

Feliks is concerned about transit and driving through the area, which, he says, as a TTC operator, is already a nightmare. While Perks is hopeful a future pilot transit project on King St. will alleviate those concerns, Feliks still struggles to see a way forward for his beloved neighbourhood.

They are going to destroy Parkdale, he said.

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DARWIN, AUSTRALIAWhen Nhan Do heard that Australia planned to make it more difficult to become a citizen of the country he had called home for 25 years, he was overcome with confusion.

I have to ask, Why do they keep making it harder? said Do, 41, who fled Vietnam with his family as a teenager. Its hard enough.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull proposed tough new requirements for would-be citizens, including stricter standards for English-language proficiency, an Australian values test and a four-year wait. Do, a citizen who has made his life here in Darwin, now worries that his wife, Lahn, a permanent resident who can barely read or write, will never obtain citizenship and fully belong.

We want this to be our country, Do said. Weve been here a long time.

The proposed changes are the latest challenge to Australias proud multicultural image, after a tightening of skilled worker visas this week. Taken together, the moves put Australia at the forefront of a global movement to limit migration, and to turn citizenship from something meant to help people integrate into what Turnbull called a big prize  a reward for having assimilated.

Those who favour raising the barriers, including members of the Trump administration, argue that citizenship is a privilege that should be given only to those who can prove they have made a significant effort to adapt to their new country.

Populists in Europe, the United States and elsewhere  including, in Australia, Pauline Hanson, a senator who has called for a ban on Muslim immigration  have often relied on this argument to rally frustrated working-class voters who fear Islam or believe they are competing with immigrants for jobs or government resources.

Here in Darwin, a northern outpost closer to Indonesia than it is to Sydney, and across Australia, there is little doubt that Turnbull is focusing on immigration because his government is at risk of being toppled, by rivals on the right or left.

Citizenship and immigration policy is being used specifically for political ends, said Henry Sherrell, a research officer in the Development Policy Center at Australian National University.

Ben Saul, the Challis chair of international law at Sydney Law School, agreed, saying there was no apparent need for the changes. There is little evidence that the current Australian citizenship processes are being abused or admit the wrong kind of citizens, he said.

Australia has been a quiet example of successful mass immigration, perhaps more so than much of the world realizes. About 27 per cent of its population is foreign-born, from more than 200 countries  roughly double the ratio in the United States and in England.

The country already requires new immigrants to have substantial knowledge of English and civics. Its extensive citizenship test can only be taken in English, and it includes questions about freedom of speech and other democratic norms.

Criminal background checks are also required. And immigrants who receive the most common temporary work or study visas must sign a values statement that includes principles like: Australian citizenship is a shared identity, a common bond which unites all Australians while respecting their diversity.

Kevin Kadirgamar, an immigration lawyer in Darwin and president of the Multicultural Council of the Northern Territory, a non-profit group that hosts citizenship classes for immigrants, said that if the goal was inclusion and integration, Australia had much to build on. And in his view, Turnbulls new proposals run counter to what has made it work.

Citizenship is a voluntary thing, said Kadirgamar, 28, who said he became a citizen in 2005 after arriving with his family from Sri Lanka. Its an extra step people take to feel part of the Australian family. And now were putting up new barriers to that.

Im bewildered as to how some of these changes, such as the English-language testing requirement and the longer wait for citizenship, align with Australian values, he said.

Supporters of the shift argued that the new policies would reinforce values like fair treatment of women and children. Turnbull said that the additional requirements were good for immigrants as well as the country.

I mean, does anybody doubt that if you want to succeed, if you want to even have a chance of succeeding in Australia, you need to be able to speak English? he said.

The immigrants most likely to be affected are those who have come on humanitarian visas, since those who arrive with work or study visas already must pass rigorous English tests.

Do, who was picking up his son Thursday at a school for children with special needs, said his wife was eager to become a citizen because of the peace of mind it afforded her when she visited relatives in rural Vietnam. It is the same peace of mind he feels, having fled political oppression in that country.

When you have that passport, you feel safe, said Do, who said his father was thrown in jail by Vietnams Communist government when he was a child. If something goes wrong, theyll protect you.

At the Multicultural Councils headquarters, just persuading people to prepare for the current citizenship test has been a challenge.

Letty Heartburns, 41, an Australian citizen from Zimbabwe, said the English classes she taught often included refugees from war-torn countries like Congo, people who are eager to belong but limited in their educations.

I had 40 students here one time, and the only thing every one of them could say was Hi, she said.

The hurdles often go beyond language, Heartburns said.

The whole test is on the computer, and they are so scared to just hold the mouse, she said. You have to take them and show them that this thing wont bite you.

It is unclear how many legal residents are eligible for citizenship but do not apply. Border officials did not respond to a request for those figures.

In the United States, millions of immigrants who could become citizens do not do so, often citing the expense and challenge of the citizenship test. Many immigrants here are said to express similar concerns.

In 2015-16, 102,029 people took the citizenship test, and 3,447 people failed it more than three times, according to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

Under the new rules, which must be approved by Parliament, three failures would mean the end of a persons attempt to become a citizen. Those who are most likely to fail and keep trying, according to the figures: immigrants who reached Australia as refugees.

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Bill OReilly is leaving Fox News with a payout of up to $25 million, the equivalent of one year of his salary, two people briefed on the matter said Thursday.

For 21st Century Fox, the networks parent company, payouts related to sexual-harassment allegations at Fox News now total more than $85 million. The vast majority of that  up to $65 million in exit packages  is being paid to the men who were ousted from the network because of the harassment allegations.

OReilly, 67, was forced out of the network on Wednesday following the disclosure of a series of sexual-harassment allegations against him and an internal investigation that unearthed more women with complaints about his behaviour.

His ouster was a stunning departure for 21st Century Fox, which long stood by OReilly as the allegations and settlements started to pile up. OReilly, who started at Fox News in 1996, was considered the networks top asset. His nightly program, The OReilly Factor, generated high ratings and pulled in hundreds of millions in advertising revenue.

Read more:

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But pressure mounted on the company to take action after a New York Times investigation found that OReilly and the company had reached settlements with five women who had complained about sexual harassment or other inappropriate behaviour by him. The agreements totalled about $13 million, the majority paid by him.

Earlier this year, the network extended OReillys contract by four years. At the time, the company was aware of multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him and had even reached two settlements involving such complaints. His previous contract had been set to expire in 2017.

But the new contract provided the company with some protections. Those included a provision that OReilly could be dismissed if the company was made aware of other allegations against him or if new ones arose, according to one person briefed on the matter. The contract also included provisions meant to get OReilly to address his behaviour, the person said.

Although the contract was extended, it also modified the companys financial commitment to OReilly if he was dismissed, so that he would receive a maximum of one years salary, according to two people. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

The exact financial terms of OReillys exit package are not known, but it is expected that the company will disclose them in future regulatory filings.

Last summer, Roger E. Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, left the network with an exit package worth $40 million after several women made sexual-harassment allegations against him. The company has reached settlements with at least six women who accused him of sexual harassment, according to a person familiar with the matter.

One was Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News anchor. She sued Ailes last July and left the network with a $20-million settlement.

Ailes and OReilly have denied the allegations.

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MONTREALIn the space of a week, Roland Lescure has gone from overseeing more than $200 billion in bonds and equities at Canadas second-largest pension fund manager to handing out political leaflets on the streets of Montreal. He swears he has no job lined up and couldnt be more thrilled about the move.

Lescure, a 50-year-old Frenchman, quit as chief investment officer of the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec on April 5 to enter French politics. He announced the next day he was joining the campaign of independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, whos emerged as the front-runner in recent weeks, for the presidential and parliamentary elections.

In one of the tightest races in recent memory, candidates such as Macron are making every effort to woo 1.3 million French expatriate voters, who tend to vote for fiscally conservative candidates. If history is any guide, theyll need lots of wooing: only 39 per cent of expatriates cast a ballot in the first round of the 2012 elections, compared with 79 per cent for French voters overall.

If I can convince French expats to go out and vote, I will have done something, Lescure said Tuesday in an interview at Bloombergs Montreal office. Anything can happen in this election. Its not going to be a walk in the park.

While overseas voters picked then-incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012  in contrast to their France-based compatriots who elected the Socialist Partys Francois Hollande  a recent poll suggests Macron is attracting expats this time around. He would receive 36 per cent of their votes, ahead of Republicans candidate Francois Fillons 31 per cent, according to a BVA poll for Le Petit Journal done last month.

In the French-speaking province of Quebec, where more than 67,000 French nationals are registered to vote, Lescure is going granular, riding a media buzz that the news of his resignation has given the campaign. He recently attended a meeting of 45 people in a cafe in Quebec City and the team organized a rally in Montreal, days before the first-round vote that takes place April 22 in North America  a day earlier than France. If no candidate wins a majority, the top two vote-getters compete in a runoff two weeks later.

Lescure first met Macron during a 2012 meeting with investors at the French presidential palace, where he then worked as an aide to Hollande, and says he was impressed by his quick grasp of the European debt crisis. He kept tabs on him as Macron went on to become economy minister and created his political movement before quitting the government.

Both men share an attachment to the European Union, which for Lescure is rooted in his experience as a young economist in the 1990s  first as an intern at the European Commission in Brussels and later at Frances Finance Ministry, when he helped negotiate rules for the future monetary union. He links his desire to get involved to the two of the biggest political surprises of 2016: Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

Brexit was a real thunderbolt. I didnt want to look back at 60 and realize I had a chance to make a contribution and did nothing, he said.

The election of National Front Leader Marine Le Pen or far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, vocal critics of the EU, would mark the end of a partnership between Germany and France thats helped overcome the regions economic crises of the past 25 years, he said.

Europe might not explode on the day after the election, but it would shake up markets, likely widening bond spreads and jeopardizing corporate investment plans, according to Lescure. Bracing for a referendum on EU membership or clashes with Germany would also leave the region more vulnerable in case of outside shocks or another debt crisis, he said.

While he acknowledges fiscal concerns have played a key part in expats past votes, Lescure said he feels this election goes beyond and is about defining France and Europe for the next 20 years, something people with an outside perspective would be keen to weigh in on.

Lescure has lived in Montreal since 2009, when he was brought on board by chief executive officer Michael Sabia in part to help the Caisse strengthen its risk-management practices following a record loss. At the $271-billion Caisse, Lescure was responsible for investments in public and private markets, which represent more than three-quarters of assets under management.

Lescure  who earned $2.2 million in 2015, the most recent year for which compensation figures are available  acknowledges his career earnings give him the means to make the jump. He said he has no guarantee that his involvement will lead to a job, should Macron become president, or a candidacy in the June French legislative elections.

I have no career plan, he said. I dont have a job. Do I hope this will result into something? Yes, but I have no idea what this will be. For me, this is an obstacle race and its best to take them one at a time.

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In the final days before Frances presidential election on Sunday, Emmanuel Macron was tramping through the snow, high in the mountains near the Spanish border, for a critical campaign stop near this tiny village where his grandparents once lived.

With the race exceptionally tight, it seemed an unlikely place for any candidate. Hardly a voter was in sight. Instead, Macron later described it as a pilgrimage, some 20 journalists in tow, that was, in part, intended to show his human side, to reflect his connection to a terroir  a definable place and personal history  that French voters could latch onto.

With no political party to speak of, and never having held elective office, Macron, 39, a one-time investment banker and former economy minister, is leading an improbable quest to become modern Frances youngest president. His profile is that of an insider, but his policies are those of an outsider. If the ever-precocious Macron is to succeed, his first challenge is to sell a product still largely unfamiliar to almost everyone: himself.

Read more:Frances 11 presidential candidates to face off in election debate

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Uncertainty prevails ahead of French election

That Macron is such an unknown underscores his unusual position in a French election that, to some degree, is a referendum on the future of Europe. The far-right leader Marine Le Pen threatens to take France out of the European Union. By contrast, Macron is ardently pro-Europe and has portrayed himself almost as the anti-Le Pen.

The race is truly up in the air. As much as 30 per cent of the French electorate is still undecided and four of the 11 candidates, including Macron, are polling within 3 or 4 percentage points of one another. The top two vote-getters in the elections first round will face off in a final vote on May 7.

Macron is so close to Le Pen, leader of the National Front, that it is difficult to say who is the front-runner. But Macron is buoyed by the fact that more than half of French voters support candidates other than those from the traditional, mainstream parties.

Macron has begun a new political movement, En Marche!, which means Forward or Onward, that draws from both sides of the political spectrum. He is gambling that his post-partisan philosophy matches the national mood.

But the smartest kid in the class is not always the one who wins. Though he has already checked virtually every box required for a successful career among the French elite, Macron may actually be the kind of change agent France fears.

In a runoff  presuming both he and Le Pen get through to the final round  she would be the political placeholder, the vote to preserve or restore a nostalgic (critics say outmoded) vision of France and one that revives nationalism and fans anti-Muslim sentiments. She has expanded her movement by assailing globalization  the European Union, the loss of French jobs and an influx of migrants.

Macron is the establishments anti-establishment candidate. He tilts at sacred cows  retirement benefits, employee protections  with an eye toward making France more business-friendly, while professing he will preserve its social safety net. Many question whether he will really be able to do both at the same time.

Despite the political risks, Macron has proudly embraced an unpopular European Union and preached tolerance toward immigrants and Muslims never beloved in France, and even less so since the 2015 terrorist attacks.

Yet he has clearly struck a chord with many voters, despite being an unidentified political object, as Pascal Perrineau, a political science professor at Sciences Po in Paris, described him.

This is a man who, certainly, began his career in the Socialist Party and he says that he is not a centrist, Perrineau said. Yet, he is, as he says, from the right and from the left and this is an invention that our political family has not seen before.

The visit to Bagneres-de-Bigorre  almost four years to the day since Macrons grandmother died  was a chance for the candidate to further define himself. At once sincere and strategic, the excursion was designed to portray him as someone with roots in the real France of villages and hardworking rural people.

The journey I made today brought to mind many memories, Macron later told a crowd of 5,000 at an evening rally nearby in Pau, a city of nearly 80,000, adding that it was where he used to reunite with his grandmother, whom I loved so much.

It was her and my grandfather who for years and years led me to live in Bagneres-de-Bigorre, to walk there, to run there, to learn how to bicycle, to ski, to be rooted in our country, he said.

Born and raised in Amiens, about 113 kilometres from Paris, Macron is the eldest of three children. Both parents are doctors. He attended a parochial school founded by Jesuits. When he was 15, he met Brigitte Trogneux, a teacher of French and drama with whom he fell in love. About 24 years his senior, she tried initially to discourage him, but he was determined and she was, eventually, smitten.

In a documentary broadcast on the France 3 television network, she recalled the year he went off to finish high school in Paris at the prestigious Lycee Henri IV. He called me all the time, she said. We spent hours on the telephone. Little by little, he conquered all my resistance in a manner that was incredible  with patience.

She ultimately divorced her first husband and the father of her three children. One of them, a daughter, is working on Macrons campaign. The student and his teacher married in 2007.

Their love affair was the kind of audacious undertaking that has defined Macrons life and career. His sheer drive, his focus and his willingness to leapfrog in a country where most success is built step by step make him more like the entrepreneurs he admires than a typical politician.

A product of top schools, including the prestigious Sciences Po and the Ecole Nationale dAdministration, Macron won a coveted place in an elite auditing body at the Finance Ministry before leaving to join the investment bank Rothschild & Co.

Although he knew little about investment banking, in four years at the firm, Macron was promoted from director to managing director. He earned nearly 2.9 million (about $4.2 million) in those years, according to the financial disclosure form from when he was economy minister.

By 2014, at 36, he was appointed minister of economy under Frances current Socialist president, Francois Hollande, before leaving to begin his campaign. His one significant achievement was passage of what became known as the Macron Law, a hodgepodge of economic policies mostly designed to cut red tape and make markets more flexible.

Those who have worked closely with Macron, both in government and in the private sector, are almost uniformly impressed by his grasp and dedication, but some said that at times they felt misled as Macron pursued his ambitions.

Francis Vercamer, a member of the center-right Union of Democrats and Independents, remembers proposing several amendments to the Macron Law in private and said that the economy minister spoke positively about them. But when Vercamer later brought them up in debate on the legislation, Macron turned down every one, he said.

I dont want to say it was dishonest because thats not the right term, said Vercamer, who was a vice-president of the committee that examined the bill. But for someone who comes to a private meeting and says, This is good, and then comes to a public meeting and doesnt support you and doesnt give a reason, thats not worthy of a representative of the Republic.

The idea of what Macron represents as a candidate  a novel amalgam of pro-business and pro-social welfare policies, with an optimistic outlook on Frances future  often seems to inspire more than Macron himself.

At his recent rally in Pau, the crowd seemed a bit more enthusiastic before he spoke than afterward, when some seemed baffled by his lofty proposals. He has been criticized as being technocratic, abstract and sometimes lacking in empathy.

An episode last year during a visit to an event in southern France, when Macron was heckled by a 21-year-old union activist in a black T-shirt, seems emblematic.

The young man called out to the neatly attired former banker, saying he had not a penny to pay for a suit like that one.

Macron responded: The best way to pay for a suit is to work.

Ive worked since the age of 16, the man shot back, in an exchange popularly interpreted as having put Macron in his place.

Macrons policy proposals, while numerous, have been assailed as vague and hard to define politically, particularly for a country that thinks in terms of the political left and right. But to others, that is his appeal.

Jacques Attali, an economist, writer and longtime adviser to French politicians, said that many of Macrons ideas were forged working on a prestigious non-partisan economic commission set up under the former right-leaning president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The idea behind the commission was to do something that should have been done by either the left or the right, or by both, but that had not been done by anyone, said Attali, who served as the commissions chairperson.

That embrace of bipartisanship can result in neither side trusting him.

In a way, the left doesnt really believe in him; in a way, the right doesnt really believe in him, said Frederic Martel, a well-known writer on politics and culture, who also hosts a popular radio program on France Culture.

Yet there are many people who do, particularly among the urban, educated and relatively young.

He has a kind of free spirit that one can see in the choices hes made, said Amelie Castera, a longtime friend of Macrons who studied with him at the Ecole Nationale dAdministration and now holds a senior position at AXA, the French insurance giant.

He has this freedom that comes from his confidence in his destiny, she said.

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They ate lobster salad and lamb chops, with baked Alaska for dessert. The dinner-table conversation veered from hunting and music to the Supreme Court. There was also a White House tour  led by their host, U.S. President Donald Trump.

And, of course, they documented every magical moment.

Trumps Wednesday-night dinner guests  Sarah Palin and conservative musicians Ted Nugent and Kid Rock  popped up in pictures after their visit to the White House, becoming quite a topic of conversation.

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Sarah Palin dines with Trump at White House

Sarah Palin delivers rambling endorsement of Donald Trump

One photo in particular has drawn attention  the one in which the three high-profile visitors are seen posing in front of the official portrait of Hillary Clinton, when she was a first lady.

In the picture, Palin, Nugent and Rock appear to be mocking Clinton, who has been the subject of sharp criticism and sometimes crude insults from the trio.

The photo, posted on Palins Facebook page without a caption, has ricocheted around social media, thrilling Clinton haters and upsetting others who have called it disrespectful and straight up classless. Some in the latter camp have referred to Palin and her rock-star friends as the redneck holy trinity.

What a bunch of disrespectful idiots, one person wrote beneath the photo. You call yourselves proud Americans and behave like 3rd graders in the White House. I dont care if you like her or not. You are disrespectful.

Even Paul Begala, a former White House counselor to President Bill Clinton, had something to say about it.

Its a white trash Mount Rushmore, the CNN pundit said Thursday on Anderson Coopers show. I love it. Look at them. Thats just perfect.

Then he tweeted about his televised remarks:

Perhaps I meant it as a compliment.

A post on Palins blog noted that Trump invited the former Alaska governor to dinner and told her to bring some friends.

It was the highest honor to have great Americans who are independent, hard-working, patriotic, and unafraid share common-sense solutions at the White House, according to the blog post, BEHIND THE SCENES: Photos From An Awesome Evening At The White House.

She added: Asked why I invited Kid Rock and Ted Nugent I joked, Because Jesus was booked. 

As the Washington Posts Emily Heil reported, Nugent and Kid Rock (Robert James Ritchie) were among the few celebrities to support Trump on the campaign trail. Nugent is an outspoken Barack Obama critic and has regularly slammed Trumps presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

Nugent told the Detroit Free Press that it was his wifes idea to take the photo in front of Clintons portrait.

She said, You guys have to stop here; Ive got to get a picture of this,  he told the newspaper. Ever the thoughtful wife, yeah. And I guess that its made its rounds.

Thats another thing about it. Getting to that s---kicker term  nobody said, You cant do this and you cant talk about that, you cant go here and you cant touch that. It was a damned free-for-all. The president had faith that we knew how to conduct ourselves, regardless of what someone might have printed in Creem magazine about the Motor City Madman.

According to the New York Times, Nugent said one member of the group  he wouldnt say who  asked the three to extend their middle fingers beneath the portrait. I politely declined, he said. Let the juxtaposition speak for itself.

On Palins Facebook page, some of her supporters cheered the photo.

Awesome....and the expressions are as appropriate as they are priceless! one person wrote.

Plain looks Great w Killary the Global Socialist Queen in the background, wrote another.

Why the hell is that picture even still up. That would be the first thing I burn in the fireplace, another person wrote.

Still, the criticism kept coming.

Among those chiming in, with an Instagram subtweet: Obamas former White House photographer.

Pete Souza, who often uses his archival photographs to compare his old boss with Trump, posted a photo Thursday showing Obama sitting with former White House chief of staff Bill Daley under an official portrait of Ronald Reagan.

The caption: Being respectful.

On CNN, after making his white-trash Mount Rushmore remark, Begala went to say that he does admire Palin.

She has spoken out when she has been the target of really vicious sexism from the left  and good for her, Begala said Thursday. She has defended her children when they have been attacked.

So its kind of unfortunate that shes buddying up with Nugent, who . . . has said the most vile things about Hillary you can say, he added. And I think when those things had been said about Sarah Palin  and they have, it was outrageous then  I wish she would hold her friends to the same standard.

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PARISThe gunman who shot and killed a police officer on the Champs-Elysees just days before the French presidential vote spent 14 years in prison, including for attacking other officers, Francess anti-terrorism prosecutor said Friday.

Yet, despite an arrest as recently as February, the 39-year-old assailant, Karim Cheurfi, had shown no signs of radicalization, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said, and was released for lack of evidence of a threat.

That all changed Thursday when Cheurfi, a Frenchman born in the Paris suburbs, opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the crowded boutique-lined boulevard, striking a police officer with two bullets to the head and wounding two others before being shot and killed by police.

Security forces found a note praising Daesh at the scene of the attack, which apparently fell from the gunmans pocket. That, along with an unusually quick claim of responsibility by Dthe Islamic State group were the only signs that he had entered the world of Islamic extremists, Molins said. Scraps of paper scrawled with the addresses of police stations and a satchel of weapons, munitions and the Muslim holy book were discovered in his car.

The slain policeman was identified as Xavier Jugele by a French association of LGBT police officers. Its president, Mickael Bucheron, told the AP Jugele would have celebrated his 38th birthday at the beginning of May.

Jugele was among the officers who responded to the gun-and-bomb attack on Paris Bataclan concert hall on Nov. 13, 2015, among a wave of assaults that night. He returned to the concert venue for its reopening a year later with a concert by Sting.

Thursdays shootings followed the arrest this week of two men in Marseille on suspicion of plotting an attack around Sundays hotly contested first-round presidential vote, fuelling Frances worst fear: a terrorist attack as crowds gather at polling stations across the nation.

Polls suggest a tight race among the four top contenders, with far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen  who rails at Frances Socialist government for being lax on crime  and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, in the lead.

French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve criticizes presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's reaction to Paris shooting, accusing her of to using the attack to score political points and divide people.

However, conservative former prime minister Francois Fillon, whose campaign was initially derailed by corruption allegations that his wife was paid as his parliamentary aide, appeared to be closing the gap, as was far-leftist, Jean-Luc Melenchon.

The attack in Paris appeared a perfect fit for Le Pen and her barbed criticism of authorities she accuses of being naive on terrorism. The outcome of the election was being closely watched for signs that Europe is moving toward nationalist candidates like Le Pen.

U.S. President Donald Trump waded into the fray Friday, asserting in an interview with The Associated Press that the attack will stoke Le Pens chances.

Shes the strongest on borders and shes the strongest on whats been going on in France, Trump said in the Oval Office interview, noting that he was not specifically endorsing the far-right candidate.

Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election.

Le Pen, who wants France to exit the EU, says her first move if elected will be to regain control of the nations borders, something she says is a critical component of sovereignty and a way to end what she calls a sieve for terrorists.

The French president will be chosen in a runoff of the top two candidates on May 7.

The attack appeared to fit a pattern of European extremists targeting security forces and symbols of state to discredit, take vengeance on or destabilize society. It recalled recent attacks on French soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris: at the Louvre museum in February and at Paris Orly airport last month.

Whether voters will cast a ballot for security, normalcy or not at all is up for grabs. But pollsters are doubtful the attack will sway the vote.

People unfortunately have grown accustomed to such violence, said Emmanuel Riviere of the Kantar Public consultancy firm.

The focus of the French presidential campaign shifts to security and immigration after the shooting of a policeman by a gunman just days ahead of the first round of polls.

What could have an impact is if the candidates try to use the attack for political gain, he said. They would pay a heavy price for that.

Read more:

Daesh claims responsibility for attack that killed Paris police officer

In French election, Emmanuel Macron is in an unusual position

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VERBANIA, ITALYThe last time Emma Morano left her apartment, she was 102 years old. Fame came late in life  after she hit 110. Last year, she was feted as the oldest person on Earth. She had fans the world over. The mayor of her Italian town thanked her for putting it on the map.

Morano, the last person documented as being born in the 1800s, died peacefully on April 15. She was 117 years, 137 days, 16 hours and some minutes old.

The few worldly possessions she left behind, accumulated over the course of more decades than most people will probably live, didnt take up much space in the tiny two-room church-owned apartment where she spent the last 27 years of her life.

Those of us consumed by consumerism may have difficulty understanding Morano.

We have too many things, too many distractions, too many items offered to us, too many messages, and a person like Emma struggles to emerge, the Rev. Giuseppe Masseroni, who himself is 91, said at Moranos funeral on Monday.

Her simplicity is sculptural  and out of step with modernity, he said.

Next to her bed, Morano had hung photos of her parents and siblings  five sisters and three brothers  along with some religious images. Inside the drawer of her night table was a supermarket-aisle anti-aging cream that she had applied every evening before going to sleep.

For health reasons, Morano moved as a teenager to Verbania, a small town on Lake Maggiore, in Piedmont. It forms a recurrent backdrop to the photos of a record-worthy lifetime. In 2015, when the New York Times interviewed her, she recalled: The doctor told me to change air, and Im still here.

Her father, Giovanni, worked in a foundry in Villadossola, a nearby town. Eventually, he went blind. Her mother, Matilde, made slippers by layering fabrics and cutting out a shoe shape. Her family instilled strength of character in Morano and her siblings.

All the sisters were determined, her niece Rosemarie Santoni said.

As a young girl, she would sneak out at night to go dancing with her sisters, her nieces said. This is how Morano recollected it: My sisters and I loved to dance and wed run away to the dance hall and then our mother would come looking for us with a birch stick.

The reason for her longevity has long been pondered, and investigated, by researchers and fans. Could the lakes mild climate be a factor? Or the three raw eggs she ate every day for nearly a century?

Or an unfortunate marriage and separation in 1938 that made her never contemplate marriage again?

Emma did not put up with the humiliation of being subservient to a man, Father Masseroni, also known as Don Giuseppe, said at the funeral.

She herself had said: I didnt want to be dominated by anyone.

She was devout, wearing her rosaries for decades, though she did not wear them recently because her nieces, her principal caregivers, were afraid she might choke on them. She hung the rosaries next to her bed, near a photo of her only child, a son who lived from January to August 1937.

That photograph was buried with her, according to her wishes.

She loved clocks and owned several. She loved to hear them chime, especially those that sounded like Big Ben in London, Santoni said.

Morano worked until she was 75, proud that she could pay for whatever she owned. After her separation from her husband, she had a bedroom set custom-made by a local furniture maker.

She always said, I paid for it; I had it made, Santoni said.

Morano hadnt left her apartment for years, Santoni said. For a time, she had a cat, Lola. And she briefly tried to raise a pet pigeon and feed other birds, until that caused problems with the neighbours.

She cooked for herself until she was 112, usually pasta, to which she added raw ground beef. Until she was 115, she did not have live-in caregivers, and she laid out a place setting for herself at her small kitchen table at every meal.

She was very house-proud, said Maria Antonietta Sala, another niece.

When visitors brought children to see Morano at her previous home, she would put newspapers on the floor so their feet wouldnt dirty it.

After she reached 110, every sunrise increased her fame. Certificates acknowledging her celebrity multiplied. She was honoured by a host of organizations, Italian presidents and schoolchildren. The local gas company even gave her a certificate for being a loyal customer.

She dressed in a varying combination of a housedress and vest or shawl or both for the last years of her life. Thats how most visitors found her. People came to see her from around the world. Some kept in touch. One man, who was blind, came every Christmas and Easter.

A woman who attended Moranos funeral told Ms. Sala that she had a file of newspaper clippings on her. On the day of Moranos funeral, as her coffin was being lowered into the ground, the woman called out, Emma, Im counting on you to give me as long a life as you had!

Morano always took care of herself, going regularly to a hairdresser when she still went out in public, and she even fretted that she had to be well groomed because of the pilgrimage of visitors.

She was always polite and patient, Santoni said, but after a while, she would turn to me and say in dialect, Are they ever going to leave?

Morano was buried in the local cemetery, in the family tomb.

At the funeral, Verbanias mayor, Silvia Marchionini, thanked her for making the town famous. We are enormously grateful, Marchionini said.

We dont know if its true that living on the lake helps you live longer  certainly its nice to believe this, she said. Verbania thanks you. We are proud.

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WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump waded into France's upcoming elections Thursday, saying he believes an attack on police officers this week will help Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump said that while he is not explicitly endorsing Le Pen, the attack played to her strengths.

"She's the strongest on borders and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France," Trump said in the Oval Office interview. "Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election."

On Thursday, an attacker in Paris used an automatic weapon to shoot officers in the centre of the Champs-Elysees. One officer was killed, as was the gunman, and Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, claimed responsibility.

U.S. presidents typically avoid weighing in on specific candidates running in overseas election. But Trump suggested his opinion was no different from an average observer, saying, "Everybody is making predictions on who is going to win. I'm no different than you."

Trump, in a break with his predecessors, has not been shy in casting terror attacks in political terms. In November 2015, he took to Twitter to blame Frances strict control laws for a Daesh terror attack at multiple sites in Paris and its suburbs that left 137 people dead.

Read the latest on U.S. President Donald Trump

And last year, he tweeted that he would appreciate the congrats for being right about the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism in the aftermath of the Florida nightclub shooting that left 49 dead. The shooter was a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent.

Sunday's vote is the first round in the French elections, with the top two candidates advancing to a runoff. The high-stakes contest is viewed as something of a vote on the future of the European Union, with Le Pen calling for a referendum on France's membership in the bloc.

Le Pen has also echoed some of Trump's hard-line rhetoric on immigration, calling for hardening French borders to stanch what she describes as an out-of-control flow of immigrants.

Trump was a supporter of the British decision to exit the European Union and has stated his preference for one-on-one trade and defence agreements with U.S. allies.

This week, Trump met with Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni. At a joint news conference on Thursday, he said Iran is failing to fulfil the spirit of its nuclear deal with world powers and that the 2015 agreement shouldnt have been signed.

He pointedly stopped sort of telegraphing whether or not the U.S. would remain in the agreement.

They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that, Trump said of the Iranians on Thursday, though he did not mention any specific violations. The administration has certified to Congress that Iran was complying  at least technically  with the terms of the deal, clearing the way for Iran to continue enjoying sanctions relief in the near term.

Trump has taken an aggressive tone on foreign policy of late, launching missiles into Syria in the wake of a chemical attack and while warning North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. He also said the U.S. is committed to a strong Europe, but he didnt say directly whether he prefers that the European Union stay intact.

Read more:

Paris gunman who killed one officer had shot at police before, officials said

In French election, Emmanuel Macron is in an unusual positioned

Disgruntled French workers turn to far-right candidate Le Pen as first presidential vote nears

The killing of a policeman in an Islamist militant attack overshadows the last day of France's unpredictable presidential election campaign as centrist Emmanuel Macron holds onto his status as frontrunner in the polls.

Trumps wrangling on international issues comes amid debate in the U.S. over his priorities at home ahead of the possibility of a looming government shutdown. He was poised Friday to sign an executive order and memorandum at the Treasury Department on financial regulations. And White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said money for Trumps border wall must be part of the legislation passed to fund the federal government, along with money to hire more immigration agents.

Trump is approaching his 100th day in office, a benchmark often cited to measure a new administrations achievements. On Friday, he declared the benchmark as a ridiculous standard.

He tweeted, No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!

His statement ran counter to his statement earlier this week that no administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days.

Since taking office, Trump has managed to get a Supreme Court justice confirmed and is pursuing tougher regulations on immigration. But his health care bill didnt come up for a vote in the House, his travel ban was twice blocked in the courts and his West Wing has been plagued by infighting and the resignation of his first national security adviser amid an ongoing investigation into contacts between Trump aides and Russian officials.

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BOSTONPeople looking for the perfect family pet tend to choose a dog based on appearance or breed  but thats barking up the wrong tree.

If you think theyre cute, you bring them home, said Jodi Andersen, a dog trainer and author.

Thats why Andersen, along with MaryAnn Zeman and Sharon Mosse, founded the new online business How I Met My Dog. It works like Match or eHarmony, fitting humans with dogs based on what really matters: personality, lifestyle and behaviour.

Several other online services match people with pets, but the founders of How I Met My Dog say they take things to a new level with a more detailed, science-based questionnaire that narrows the number of dogs that meet a human adopters lifestyle and expectations.

The service is needed because about 4 million dogs per year are handed over to shelters and rescues, they said. Too many end up back in shelters, and too many are being euthanized because they cant find good homes.

The system were using now is broken and has to be fixed, Andersen said.

Placing a pet in the wrong home is one of the biggest concerns at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which finds homes for thousands of dogs and other animals every year, spokesperson Rob Halpin said.

Persuading adopters not to fall in love with the first dog they see is a major issue.

Sometimes our emotions take leave of our senses, said Halpin, who was not familiar with How I Met My Dog.

The MSPCA has adoption counsellors who try to ensure people are matched with the right dogs, but Halpin embraced the idea of services that smooth that process.

We welcome the notion of technology helping people do some of the hard work it takes to pick the right pet, he said.

How I Met My Dog, which also helps people who want to find a new home for a dog they just cant live with anymore, so far has partnered with 24 Boston-area shelters and rescues.

The plan is to role it out nationally by the end of the year.

A person looking to adopt fills out what the founders call a PET profile for personality, expectations and training style. Are you a couch potato or an active athlete? Do you want a dog that gets along with children? Are you a disciplinarian when training a dog or more laid back?

The dog profiles are completed either by the shelter staff or the current owner.

The algorithm matches the humans with dogs that complement their lifestyle.

For example, if you have kids, you will never see a dog from us that doesnt get along with kids, Zeman said.

Once the website matches someone with a dog, its up to the adopter to meet that dog in person. The shelter or owner ultimately determines whether theres a match.

Pawfect Life Rescue, of Uxbridge, Mass., was one of the first rescue organizations to sign on with How I Met My Dog.

They have been pretty spot on so far with having the right people come and look at the right dog, Pawfect Life founder and president Julie Uthoff said.

The Fredette family, of Waltham, Mass., adopted their dog, Roscoe, from Pawfect Life after being matched through How I Met My Dog. Kate Fredette, her husband and two children had been thinking of getting a new dog for about a year, but they just didnt know how to ensure they would get a good fit.

It was confusing, Fredette said.

They obviously wanted a dog that gets along with children. They wanted a dog they could take on family trips. They wanted a social dog they could take to the park.

They couldnt be happier with Roscoe, a 4-month-old mixed breed.

Mornings are so much better around here, Fredette said.

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Deep social change happens so slowly it looks like nothing is happening. Not just over years but decades, maybe longer. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Then WHAM. The imminent legalization of (nonmedical) marijuana is a perfect example. Its perfectness even has a generational, father to son, symmetry.

Back in 1969 the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau appointed a royal commission to recommend policy on marijuana. Its head was a future Supreme Court justice. They heard hundreds of witnesses, including John Lennon, and in 1973 reported. Two of the three members recommended decriminalization for possession and cultivation; the third supported legalization. No one suggested keeping it criminal. It must have been what Trudeau wanted. You always select people knowing what theyll give you. Then nothing nothing nothing  till the son.

Why finally now? Who knows? But thats how it goes: there is social ferment yet no official policy or law reflects it. You feel its hopeless. Then it bursts forth whole. Too bad for devotees of the cause who died in the interim.

In the same era, the 1960s, came the sexual revolution. It questioned heteronormative sex. It was like the drugs, music and political revolutions. Anti- capitalist authorities, such as Herbert Marcuse, theorized about the possibility of nonrepressive desublimation. Intellectual guru Norman O. Brown advocated polymorphous perversity versus uncomplicated (marital only) intercourse.

Then 30 years of nothing. Gary Hart dropped his 1988 Democratic run for president because he was spotted on a sailboat with not-his-wife. In 1998 Bill Clinton was caught having oral sex in the oval office (making every word in that phrase sound sexual) with an intern. The sole achievement of his eight years as president was resisting the stigmatization and staying in office. (It seems to me Donald Trump owes Bill Clinton for the fact that his pussy tape didnt cost him victory.)

The official marker for change on this front was same-sex marriage, which became legal nationally in the U.S. in 2015. WHAM, finally.

What about Bill OReilly, the mighty mouth at Fox News, who this week was booted for harassment of women working there? Did the Murdochs just find out? I think its unfortunate that OReillys harassment history got intertwined with Foxs right wing ideology  because the very same things have happened for years at other media outlets of all stripes. Womens lives were blighted and careers destroyed at more liberal or progressive institutions by behaviour as ugly and sometimes far worse than his including, bien sur, the CBC.

But why now? Nobody knows. It seemed to coalesce at the time of the Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby cases two or three years ago. Then, why then? I dont think theres an answer. (Which should make people wary of declaring causes of anything, like wars and recessions.) But thats when women who had been fighting these battles for decades began saying they sensed a sea-change. The lesson is obvious: dont fret about lack of results; just keep on battling.

Personally, I find it regrettable that the arrival of the cannabis legislation hasnt been more celebratory. I know laws are dry things and Parliament, a dreary place. Besides, everyone can say they saw it coming. Still, people celebrate birthdays and anniversaries though theyre inevitable. Since you never know the precise moment of a WHAM, it should be worth a cheer.

Maybe its because fighting when the outcome is uncertain, or hopeless, is more fun. Pierre the dad had an insouciance in office that his son lacks. Even 10 years into power, he pirouetted for the cameras behind the Queens back, as they went into a formal dinner. Meaning what exactly? Maybe: Believe me, all this prestige and rank means nothing, though Im enjoying it while it lasts.

Justin had that before his political ascension: when he called Peter Kent a piece of shit; boxed, defying the odds, against Patrick Brazeau; or two years later, said nothing f---ing matters in the ring except who you truly are. Im sure he has his reasons, including the dad he had, but now, over 10 years younger than Pierre was when he pirouetted, he sometimes seems older.

All the more reason to take pride in delivering the knockout blow in the case of pot. He should have learned how long it can take to finish something thats clearly right.

Maybe little Hadrien will get around to electoral reform.

Rick Salutins column appears every Friday.

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A new report on the evolution of Ontario's opioid problem over the past 25 years provides troubling, but useful, new perspective on a growing public health crisis.

In 2015, a stunning 734 people in this province, or roughly two a day, died of opioid-related causes, according to a report by researchers with the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, St. Michaels Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

That number is almost four times higher than the tally of opioid-related deaths in 1991, the first year of the study. The problem is now so bad that, for instance, in 2014, far more Ontarians died using opioids than in motor vehicle collisions. Many of these deaths, almost 60 per cent, affect a fairly young population  those between the ages of 15 and 44.

How did we get here and how do we work to help push down these disturbing numbers?

A big part of the problem is over-prescription. Opioids, drugs such as codeine, oxycodone, fentanyl and hydromorphone, are typically prescribed to treat pain. The report notes that the rate of opioid prescribing has increased dramatically in the last two decades.

Tara Gomes, a scientist at ICES and the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michaels Hospital, and one of the principal investigators on the study, says recent data from the province shows that in the fiscal year 2012 there were 7.4 million opioids dispensed through prescriptions. By 2014, that number had risen to 9 million.

Treating pain is tricky for doctors. Its hard to know which drug is most effective for which individual.

Some researchers say that in the past two decades medical schools have, with input from pharmaceutical companies, focused on the use of opioids, suggesting they are safe and effective for treating chronic pain. But too often patients develop a tolerance to the drugs, dont get the same pain relief when they use them over a long period of time, and become addicted, with sometimes-fatal consequences.

Last month, both British Columbia and Alberta adopted guidelines to curb the overprescribing of opioids in those provinces. Ontario ought to follow their lead.

The report also makes clear that the province must do more to help those already addicted and to prepare for and try to prevent an epidemic of overdoses.

Those who are dying accidently run the gamut from the middle class to street-involved individuals who may be using drugs like heroin laced with an opioid like fentanyl.

Training on how to administer the opioid antidote naloxone is being given to front-line city staff at agencies such as the TTC, and it seems quite reasonable that the availability of naloxone kits should be expanded to other parts of the province.

After much political wrangling, Toronto is finally getting three safe injection sites, and one is set for Ottawa, but the report makes clear that opioid-related deaths are becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the province. The government should move quickly to open more of these life-saving sites

This new report is just the latest indication that Ontario is in the midst of a deepening opioid crisis. The government should use every tool at its disposal to get ahead of - and if possible prevent - the sort of devastating overdose epidemic we are seeing elsewhere in the country.

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Updated from 5:54 a.m. EDT

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Here are five things you must know for Friday, April 21:

1. -- U.S. stock futures were rising slightly Friday after General Electric (GE) - Get Free Report topped earnings forecasts while European shares declined ahead of the first round of voting in France's closely watched presidential election.

France goes to the polls Sunday in an election that could decide the fate of the European Union and which is proving as unpredictable as it is important.

Eleven candidates will be in the initial round of voting. Any of four of them, spanning the spectrum from extreme-right to extreme-left, could progress to a second round of voting on May 7, when the two most popular candidates will face off.

The election will be closely monitored by financial markets and the continent, especially since it comes after Thursday's shooting on Paris' Champs-Elysees boulevard that killed a police officer and wounded three other people. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

In the U.S. on Friday, the economic calendar includes the PMI Services Composite Flash for April at 9:45 a.m. EDT, Existing Home Sales for March at 10 a.m., and the weekly Baker Hughes Rig Count at 1 p.m.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari will take part in a Q&A on the state of the economy, the role local community developers play in our financial health, and what lies ahead for community development corporations at the Hamline University Community Economic Development Symposium in St. Paul, Minn., at 9:30 a.m.

2. -- Visa (V) - Get Free Report reported profit higher than analysts' estimates amid accelerating payment growth and the integration of a former European subsidiary it repurchased.

The credit card giant's adjusted earnings of 86 cents a share in its fiscal second quarter topped forecasts of 79 cents. Payment volume climbed 39% to $1.7 trillion.

"Similar to the first quarter, our business momentum was broad-based with solid payment volume growth, a double-digit increase in cross-border revenue and healthy metrics from all of the regions," CEO Alfred Kelly, who succeeded Charlie Scharf, said on an earnings call.

Revenue rose 23% to $4.5 billion and surpassed estimates of $4.3 billion. The revenue gains was aided by the Visa Europe acquisition, which the company completed in June 2016.

The stock was rising 2.6% in premarket trading.

3. -- General Electric posted first-quarter adjusted profit of 21 cents a share, 4 cents above estimates, and revenue of $27.66 billion topped Wall Street forecasts of $26.4 billion.

Organic revenue grew 7%, and orders were 10% higher from a year ago, GE said. The stock declined slightly in premarket trading.

Honeywell International (HON) - Get Free Report earned $1.71 a share in the first quarter vs. year-earlier earnings of $1.56. Honeywell said it expects earnings in 2017 of $6.90 to $7.10 a share, up 7% to 10%.

Honeywell rose 0.1% in premarket trading.

Schlumberger (SLB) - Get Free Report also is expected to report earnings on Friday.

GE and Schlumberger are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells GE or SLB? Learn more now.

Watch: Here Is What Jim Cramer Expects From Schlumberger's Earnings

4. -- Samsung's (SSNLF) newest smartphone, the Galaxy S8, goes on sale in the U.S. on Friday and investors are hoping sales of the phone will make up for the company's disastrous recall last year of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, which was known to overheat or catch fire.

The S8's key features include an edge-to-edge OLED "infinity" screen, a new Bixby voice assistant, an iris scanner and facial recognition.

The South Korea-based electronics company, a rival to Apple (AAPL) - Get Free Report , said that pre-orders for the S8 exceeded those of its predecessor, the S7, which was released last March, according to Samsung's mobile chief D.J. Koh.

A report from South Korea claimed that the smartphone has exceeded 1 million pre-orders in South Korea, the highest ever for a smartphone in the country. The phone was originally unveiled on March 29 with pre-orders being accepted starting April 7.

The company said it the Galaxy S8 selling a total of 60 million units this year, vs. about 48 million S7 units sold in 2016, according to the report.

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5. -- Tesla (TSLA) - Get Free Report CEO Elon Musk said his latest company, Neuralink, is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices, Reuters reported.

Neuralink is aiming to bring to the market a product that helps with certain severe brain injuries due to stroke, cancer lesion etc., in about four years, Musk said in an interview with website Wait But Why.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will create computers so sophisticated and godlike that humans will need to implant "neural laces" in their brains to keep up, Musk said in a tech conference last year, Reuters noted.

The technology could take about eight to 10 years to become usable by people with no disability, which would depend heavily on regulatory approval timing and how well the devices work on people with disabilities, Musk was quoted as saying in the Wait But Why article.

Neuralink was registered in California as a "medical research" company last July, and he plans on funding the company mostly by himself, according to Reuters.
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Verizon (VZ) - Get Free ReportChairman and CEO Lowell McAdam was not trying to break the Internet when he told Bloomberg that the telecom is amenable to deal talks with Walt Disney (DIS) - Get Free Report, Comcast (CMCSA) - Get Free Report or CBS (CBS) - Get Free Report .

McAdam's words were "a little taken out of context," CFO Matt Ellis clarified during a Thursday morning earnings call, in which Verizon missed earnings and revenue expectations. "He was asked a question about if somebody called, would we take the call and would he have a conversation with them?" Ellis explained. "Of course we would."

Expectations that Verizon would pursue a mega-deal are understandable, Craig Moffett of Moffettnathanson LLC wrote in a Thursday report. "Verizon has become something close to a pure play wireless operator, and the wireless business is not a happy place,' Moffett suggested.

Verizon lost 389,000 post-paid phone subscribers in the first quarter, before the company reversed course and launched unlimited plans--something Verizon previously disregarded. The company turned it around in the rest of the quarter, but still lost 289,000 post-paid phones.

While Verizon has gone small with the acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo! (YHOO) , rival AT&T (T) - Get Free Report has taken the much bigger step of agreeing to buy Time Warner (TWX) to package with DirecTV. Changing course and buying Disney or merging with Comcast would give Verizon access to a major content trove, though it might not solve the problems the business faces.

"Investors will naturally assume that the way out is M&A," Moffett wrote. "But there is no obvious acquisition or merger that would neatly solve Verizon's problems, or, more importantly, that would fix what ails the wireless business (although a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, if it comes, might help)."

After McAdams' comments to Bloomberg, Barclays Capital analyst Kannan Venkateshwar suggested in a report that the communications industry is moving towards just three or four vertically consolidated telecoms. They will compete against companies such as Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report , Alphabet's (GOOGL) - Get Free Report Google and Amazon (AMZN) - Get Free Report , which have powerful internet platforms but do not own infrastructure, Venkateshwar noted.

The two camps "are likely to use video as a way to attract subscribers into their respective ecosystems and then cross sell other products in order to monetize their platforms," the analyst wrote. The telecoms would have bundles of "wireless and wireline broadband, video, home security" while a competitor like Amazon would package "free shipping, music, echo, video, etc."

The Magic Kingdom of Verisney, a combination of Verizon and Disney, would certainly have plenty of video, by adding Disney's film studios, as well as ESPN, ABC and other media properties to Verizon's telecom offerings.

For the moment, Verizon may only be hypothetically amenable to talks with Disney, Comcast and CBS.

Until recently, however, Verizon was not open to going unlimited -- before subscriber numbers fell off a cliff at the start of the first quarter. Likewise, in January 2015 Verizon called reports it was in talks to buy AOL "not accurate." The telecom then announced that it would buy AOL in May.

If punishing wireless competition continues, Verizon's position on actually pursuing a mega deal could change.

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Editors' pick: Originally published April 21.
In a tech landscape where Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Free Report is embracing open-source software and Intel (INTC) - Get Free Report is manufacturing ARM-based processors for third parties, maybe it shouldn't be that shocking to see a report that Alphabet/Google (GOOGL) - Get Free Report plans to bake an ad-blocker into its Chrome browser. Like Microsoft and Intel, Google realizes that likely-futile attempt to resist a big industry trend that threatens some of its existing businesses is less in its long-term interests than embracing the trend, while perhaps gaining some say in how it unfolds.

But in Google's case, the conflicts of interest created by its reported attempt to co-opt a threat could hurt its ability to successfully do so. That's both because consumers might decide that Google's offering is too compromised, and because regulators might view it as an attempt to use a leading position in one market to quash smaller rivals in another where it also looms large.

The Wall Street Journalreported on Wednesday evening that Google plans to integrate an ad-blocker into both the PC and mobile versions of Chrome that "could be switched on by default" and would block ads "deemed to provide bad experiences." The solution could be launched "within weeks," though it's also possible that Google might cancel its plans.

Importantly, the report said that Google's ad-blocker will only focus on blocking ads that failed to meet the Coalition for Better Ads' recently-announced standards. On PCs, such ads include "pop-up ads, auto-play video ads with sound, prestitial ads with countdown and large sticky ads." On mobile devices, they include "pop-up ads, prestitial ads, ads with density greater than 30%, flashing animated ads, auto-play video ads with sound, postitial ads with countdown, full-screen scrollover ads, and large sticky ads."

Based on those standards, Google's bread-and-butter AdWords search ads shouldn't be affected by its ad-blocker. Neither should many of the ads shown by the company's AdSense, DoubleClick and AdMob display ad platforms.

YouTube is a big question mark. The site often shows pre-roll video ads that appear before a video plays, and thus technically qualify as "auto-play video ads with sound." But Google could exempt them on the grounds that they're attached to a video rather than ads accompanying an article or some other content. Beyond that, it's hard to imagine Google damaging what's likely its second-biggest ad business after search.

Meanwhile, Google's ad-blocker could ignite a fresh battle with Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report, which recently began auto-playing videos with sound turned on by default. Facebook took steps to combat PC ad-blockers last year, and might try to deal with Google's ad-blocker the same way. Regardless, with Facebook having received 84% of its ad revenue from mobile devices last quarter, and the lion's share of this revenue believed to have come from its apps rather than its mobile site, its exposure to browser ad-blockers is limited.

Ultimately, Google appears to be hoping that consumers who have embraced ad-blocking will opt for its relatively limited solution than more comprehensive ones such as AdBlock Plus, which surpassed 100 million active users last spring thanks to the popularity of its PC browser plug-ins -- they "whitelist" Google's search ads, but block many other Google ads. Ad services firm PageFair estimates PC ad-blocker users grew by 17% globally last year to 236 million systems.

PageFair also estimates mobile ad-blocker usage rose by 30% to 615 million devices. But a large portion of these users are either in China, where Google's services are mostly absent, or in developing countries whose low per capita incomes limit their digital ad spend.

In developed markets, there has been some adoption of ad-blockers supported by mobile browsers from Apple (AAPL) - Get Free Report, Samsung and Mozilla, but uptake hasn't been massive. The fact that so much mobile online activity involves using apps rather than browsers undoubtedly has a lot to do with this.

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Still, with rumors of the PC's death greatly exaggerated -- PC browsing still accounted for close to a third of U.S. digital time spent as of last summer, according to comScore -- there's plenty of incentive for Google to take on the ad-blocking threat. Especially since younger and higher-income users coveted by marketers are more likely to use PC ad-blockers in the U.S. and Europe.

And Chrome's enormous popularity guarantees that any ad-blocker built into the browser will be widely used. Google claimed last November there are over 2 billion copies of Chrome in active use. Research firm StatCounter estimates Chrome now a 52.8% global browsing share, and a 62.8% PC browsing share.

In addition, Google's effort could gain the backing of publishers whose ads meet the Coalition's standards. A growing number of web publishers have begun demanding that visitors disable their ad-blockers to see their content. Some might make an exception for Google's ad-blocker if they think it will do little harm, in the hopes that visitors will avoid using something like AdBlock Plus.

On the other hand, it's quite likely that many existing ad-blocker users will decide that Google's offering simply doesn't go far enough if they see that many video and animated ads are still appearing. For example, someone used to watching an hour of ad-blocked video each day on his or her PC browser is unlikely to stop using AdBlock Plus.

It's also likely that third-party ad tech firms depending on ads that falling short of the Coalition's standards will take umbrage at Google's move. These firms, many of whom are already struggling to contend with Google and Facebook's online ad dominance, could argue that a built-in Chrome ad-blocker that exempts most of Google's ads amounts to unfair competition. And it's not hard to imagine EU regulators that have already filed charges against Google over other ad practices hearing them out.

But even if regulators give Google a pass, its Chrome ad-blocker will need to be one part of a multi-part strategy to discourage the use of third-party ad-blockers. In addition to promoting an alternative, Google and third-party publishers will need to convince those relying on tools such as AdBlock Plus that it's no longer worth it to keep using them, due to things like workarounds and prompts demanding an ad-blocker be disabled for site access.

And that's going to cause more friction with web users than Google would prefer.
Data released on Friday shows that debt riddled Greece actually exceeded its international lenders' demands for budget saving last year, Reuters reports. Greece surpassed 2017's target and the data presents a solid case for unlocking further bailout funds.

"It's an impressive outperformance versus the bailout program target for the primary surplus," Athens-based Eurobank's chief economist Platon Monokroussos told Reuters. "The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout program is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario."

Greece owes creditors a payment of more than 7 billion euros come July.

(What will move markets this quarter and how should investors position themselves ahead of time? Jim Cramer sat down with four of TheStreet's top columnists recently to get their views. Click here to listen to his latest Trading Strategies roundtable with them and read their advice for stocks, bonds, forex and gold.)
A fight over whether to fund a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border could shut down the government next week.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on Thursday that money for President Trump's proposed border wall must be part of the spending bill Congress must pass by April 28 to avoid a shutdown of the federal government. Democrats, however, aren't going for it.

The former South Carolina congressman said in an interview with the Associated Press that the wall is a "tremendous priority" for the Trump administration and will be a top request on the White House wish list for spending legislation.

"We want wall funding. We want (immigration) agents. Those are our priorities," Mulvaney said. "We know there are a lot of people on the Hill, especially in the Democratic Party, who don't like the wall, but they lost the election. And the president should, I think, at least have the opportunity to fund one of his highest priorities in the first funding bill under his administration."

Matt House, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), shot back at Mulvaney's remarks.

"Everything had been moving smoothly until the administration moved in with a heavy hand," he said. "Not only are Democrats opposed to the wall, there is significant Republican opposition as well."

Democrats have been resistant to funding a border wall. They've warned that including funding for it, or defunding Planned Parenthood, would be "poison pills" in any budget legislation. To get a spending bill through the Senate requires 60 votes, and Republicans have 52 seats, meaning at least eight Democrats will have to get on board.

The deadline for Washington lawmakers to approve a federal government budget is April 28, leaving members of Congress with just a handful of days when they head back to work on Monday to reach an agreement. Throwing a wrench in the process even more is the GOP's renewed push to tackle health care before the end of Trump's first 100 days in office -- April 29, the same day a shutdown would begin if there's no budget agreement.

The federal government has had 12 shutdowns since 1982, lasting an average of five days. The last time it happened was in 2013. The government shutting down with the same party in control of the presidency and both houses of Congress would be a major embarrassment for the GOP.

Despite heated rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats, many on Wall Street continue to believe the odds of a government shutdown next week are low.

Compass Point LLC's Isaac Boltansky said in a note on Friday that he gives the odds of a government shutdown at about 20%, though headline risk will likely intensify in the days ahead. "Our expectation is that lawmakers will return from recess, clear a short-term extension, and then pass a funding package in early May that punts the issue to the fall," he said.

Height Securities gave a shutdown next week 25% odds in a Friday note, forecasting that a deal will include a funding boost for "border security" funds rather than funds specifically earmarked for a border wall and some additional supplemental funding for the military, though short of the full $30 billion request.

Goldman Sachs (GS) - Get Free Report policy analyst Alec Phillips said this week the government has about a one-in-four chance of shutting down on April 29, arguing the real red flag won't arrive until October.

If the government does shut down, it won't do so completely. Instead, it will come to a partial halt -- national parks would close, and many federal employees would be furloughed. Others, however, would stay on, and the U.S. mail would continue.

"A shutdown is never a desired end and neither is it a strategy," Mulvaney told the AP on Thursday. The clock is ticking for lawmakers to at least temporarily figure it out.

Correction: This story previously identified Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader. He is the Senate Minority Leader.
The struggles continue for Bausch & Lomb owner Valeant (VRX) .

Shares of the Laval, Quebec-based drugmaker fell as much as 5.9% on Friday after Wells Fargo lowered its price target range to $7 to $9, from $10 to $13. The analyst argues that the company's free-cash flow won't be enough to pay back all of its obligations.

Valeant shares began the day in the green, rising 1.2% $8.99, then fell to as low as $8.36. The stock ended the trading session at $8.51, down 4.2%.

Meanwhile, Valeant said Friday it priced psoriasis treatment Siliq at $3,500 per month. The company noted that it's the lowest priced injectable biologic for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

Comparing Siliq with other treatments such as Taltz and Cosentyx, Stifel analyst Annabel Samimy said by phone on Friday: "In my view, Siliq provides more value relative to its price and efficacy than others when comparing list price and the dosing schedule of each drug."

Stifel has a price target of $45 and a buy rating on Valeant's stock.

Siliq is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adult patients that are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy and have failed to respond or have lost response to other systemic therapies.

On April 5, Valeant's stock closed below $10 for the first time since 2008.

Valeant has been floundering for over a year due to questions initially raised by short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research in 2015. He wrote a scathing report alleging that Valeant and its mail-order pharmacy Philidor, along with one of its customers, had engaged in a scheme to improperly raise revenues.

Then in March 2016, Valeant blamed its former CFO and former controller, Howard Schiller, for misstatements of earnings. Schiller left the company, as did former CEO J. Michael Pearson.

Valeant has since been scrutinized for its alleged accounting problems and steep price hikes on drugs it acquired.

Pearson had also completed a series of acquisitions that bolstered Valeant's price to a high of nearly $252, but had been funding them with debt.

The company is now mired in nearly $30 billion in debt. Valeant refinanced that debt earlier in March.

Since then, Pershing Square fund manager Bill Ackman pulled his entire stake from Valeant, taking a $2.8 billion loss. While activist investor ValueAct Capital bought up some of the shares Ackman divested, it wasn't enough to turn around the company's stock.

- Bret Kenwell contributed to this article
It's no secret that Tesla's (TSLA) - Get Free Report Elon Musk is a genius within his generation. He's made game-changing electric cars, was a part of PayPal's (PYPL) - Get Free Report beginning, founded SpaceX and has played a big role in solar energy. That's why there should little surprise about his involvement in Neuralink.

Musk, who will now be the company's CEO, will look to link human brains to computers. This is a potential rise against artificial intelligence, which Musk has expressed concern about in the past.

The goal with Neuralink is to implant tiny electrode devices in the brain, allowing it to speed up communications. It has other applications though, too. Musk says it could help treat brain injuries like strokes and cancer lesions in as little as four years.

He also said the technology could allow for "consensual telepathy."

And while Musk is concerned with A.I., investors may be concerned about his expanded duties. The eccentric chief executive is now CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink. He was previously the chairman of SolarCity, but Tesla acquired the company last fall. Still, investors know Musk is likely heavily involved in its operations.

All of this piles up to ask, can Musk handle it? So far, Tesla investors are optimistic that he can, with shares still hovering near all-time highs.

Shares of Tesla closed at $305.60 Friday, up 1%.

Whether you're an avid or casual user of

Snap's

(SNAP) - Get Free Report

Snapchat service, you're likely familiar with the company's "Geofilters" capability. It allows users to snap pictures or selfies and swipe to add a filter based on their location in the picture. Geofilters can range from "life at the lake" to "Bourbon Street" and everything in between.

It's a feature that millions of users active and inactive alike take advantage of. So you'd think Snap owns the technology for this, right?

That assumption would have been incorrect earlier this week. But according to Mobli, the company that did own the patent, Snap now owns it after paying $7.7 million.

According to Snap's S-1 filing, about 90% of its revenues came from Geofilter sales. So in that regard, locking down the technology and ensuring it won't face a potential patent litigation makes a ton of sense.

In that light, it almost seems like Mobli could have justified charging more for the patent, despite it by far being the largest patent purchase in Mobli's home country of Israel. The previous record was just $2.7 million.

Either way, Snap made a great move acquiring this patent.

Snap closed at $20.93 Friday, down 1%.

As we have covered in a multitude of articles over the past, Uber has hit of number of road bumps in 2017. Some of them haven't been its fault -- like certain regulatory decisions or actions taken in some countries -- but most have been self-inflicted wounds.

Through numerous resignations, arrogance over its self-driving plans in California and spying on Lyft with a program dubbed "Hell," one of Uber's dirtier stains revolve around a sexual harassment claim.

While this is just a claim at the moment, its blemish is almost as damning in the public eye.

The company's investigation into its workplace environment was supposed to conclude at the end of April. However, that deadline is reportedly being pushed back, with expectations for it to now conclude at the end of May.

Uber confirmed the delay, saying the leader of the probe, Attorney General Eric Holder, has asked for more time. Uber hired Holder to lead the investigation, for what it's worth.

Still, it's unclear if this foreshadows a worse outcome for Uber or not. It could mean nothing, other than Holder would like more time.

If Uber can put the issue behind it, that would be best for repairing its damaged image. But should the investigation validate the original claims, Uber will be slammed in the media once more.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, a technology company, focuses in the areas of automation and digitalization in Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, and Australia. It operates through Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, Mobility, Siemens Healthineers, and Siemens Financial Services segments. The Digital Industries segment offers automation systems and software for factories, numerical control systems, motors, drives and inverters, and integrated automation systems for machine tools and production machines; process control systems, machine-to-machine communication products, sensors and radio frequency identification systems; software for production and product lifecycle management, and simulation and testing of mechatronic systems; and cloud-based industrial Internet of Things operating systems. The Smart Infrastructure segment offers products, systems, solutions, services, and software to support sustainable transition in energy generation from fossil and renewable sources; sustainable buildings and communities; and buildings, electrification, and electrical products. The Mobility segment provides passenger and freight transportation, such as vehicles, trams and light rail, and commuter trains, as well as trains and passenger coaches; locomotives for freight or passenger transport and solutions for automated transportation; products and solutions for rail automation; electrification products; and intermodal solutions. The Siemens Healthineers segment develops, manufactures, and sells various diagnostic and therapeutic products and services; and provides clinical consulting services. The Siemens Financial Services segment offers debt and equity investments; leasing, lending, and working capital financing solutions; and equipment, project, and structured financing solutions. Siemens Aktiengesellschaft was founded in 1847 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany.
Mattel posted a drop in sales for the first quarter that was more than was expected, as U.S. as well as some retailers in Europe were left with too much inventory following a holiday shopping season that was muted.

New CEO Margo Georgiadis said the company viewed its results for the first quarter as disappointing and was not reflective of what can be delivered by Mattel.

Get

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alerts:

Georgiadis has been the CEO since February after running the commercial operations for Google in the United States.

Mattel addressed the majority of its inventory issues but work to lower the bloated inventory left over from the holiday shopping season did not go as fast as had been expected.

Mattels dip in its net sales dropped by a more than an expected 15% ending the quarter at $735.5 million while the loss per share was 32 cents. Analysts on Wall Street were expecting sales of $790.4 million a loss per share of 18 cents.

Stock at Mattel was down 6.5% in trading after hours following the release of the quarterly results. Declines in sales were broad based across several of the core brands at Mattel.

Worldwide sales were down 13% for its Barbie and were down 12% for its American Girl.

Sales for Fisher-Price were down 9% while sales dropped by 38% for the art & crafts and construction brands. Its wheels category that encompasses the ever-popular Hot Wheels brand, ended up as the only bright spot with an increase in revenue of 4%.

The gross sales for its other girls brands dropped by 34%, but that was in part due to the loss of an important Disney Princess doll license which hurt revenue badly after being awarded to Hasbro the primary rival of Mattel.

While the new CEO said that the first three months was a difficult start to 2017, she was bullish about the remainder of the year.

The first quarter of each year is the lightest quarter for sales for all toy makers, which generates the majority of its sales near the last half of the year especially as the toy industry prepares its run up to the key holiday shopping season.

Beginning in the second quarter, the toy maker is expecting help from toys that it made to coincide with the Cars 3 release by Disney, which will hit theaters during that three-month period.

That particular property by itself could give a boost of $300 million to Mattel.

Mattels CEO said while the revenue trends for the first quarter had been disappointing, trends in stores were strong for the most popular Mattel brands.
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From now on, thirsty visitors can refill their own bottles at water fountains or grab a reusable cup in the cafeteria.

The Vancouver Aquarium has taken a bold and admirable step in banning single-use plastics from its facility. Water bottles, straws, cup lids, and disposable cutlery will no longer be sold on the premises, as the Aquarium strives to align its retail practices with responsible ocean stewardship. It is the first aquarium or zoo to do so in Canada, and will hopefully inspire others to follow.

Visitors are encouraged to bring reusable water bottles that can be refilled at four new water fountains and bottle-filling stations located throughout the Aquarium and even outdoors. In a pinch, there are reusable cups available in the cafeteria  a practice which is frequently rejected by restaurants on the basis of hygiene, but seems to be coming back into fashion, thankfully.

Sometimes a powerful visual presentation is the easiest way to convince a skeptical audience. The Aquarium has created a temporary art installation showcasing the number of plastic water bottles sold in the cafe between September and November last year. It looks like a giant trash heap, and yet is only a fraction of the approximately 37,000 bottles sold on-site in 2016.

Lounging in plastic trash isn't so sweet. Vancouver Aquarium / Facebook

Inside the window, a 20-foot model of a humpback whale swims among waves of 1,200 plastic bottles  the average number of bottles that will be eliminated from the Aquariums waste stream every two weeks, now that the policy has changed.

John Nightingale, president, and CEO of the Vancouver Aquarium said in a media release:

Humans are producing tremendous amounts of plastic at a time when the problem has never been more pressing. Currently, there is enough plastic in the ocean to cover every meter of the worlds coastlines. There is a great dependency on single-use plastic water bottles that we must curb and the Aquarium, as an ocean conservation organization, is fully committed to doing our part.

The trend away from single-use water bottles is gathering steam. Last week Business Insider called bottled water the new smoking and, in a bizarre ad for Soda Stream, celebrity Paris Hilton even took an anti-plastic stance:

Plastic bottles are poisoning our planet. Think how stupid and how 2003 you look carrying your plastic bottles home from the store.

I dont ever listen to Paris Hilton, but shes hit the nail on the head this time. Way to go, Vancouver Aquarium, for getting with the times and realizing that single-use water bottles really have no place. May others follow your example.
Once upon a time, we posted about a provocative essay suggesting that the whole of Kentucky could be powered by solar installed on former mountaintop removal coal mines. Needless to say, we're a very, very long way off from this ambitious goalbut Bill Estep over at the Lexington Herald Leader reports that developers are seriously exploring the possibility of building Kentucky's largest solar farm on several hundred acres of a former strip mine in Pike County.

Projected to be in the 50 to 100-megawatt range in terms of capacity, the farm would easily be Kentucky's largest if it becomes a reality. (Currently, 10-megawatt is about as big as it gets in Kentucky.)

Such a project would be of more than just symbolic significance. By leveraging the old, polluted vestiges of a fossil fuel era and turning them into job creating projects for a cleaner time, we can begin to shift the false narrative about climate action being a net job loser. From coal museums now powered by solar to coal mining unions calling for a just transition to renewables, we've already seen plenty of examples of coal country getting enthusiastically on-board with the inevitable transition.

We've got a very long way to go before Kentucky is powered predominantly by renewables of any kindlet alone by solar on old mines. But a 100% renewable energy future is looking less like a pipe dream all the time, and some have even laid out roadmaps for each state on how to get there.

It's good to see Kentucky getting started on its journey.
Militants launched 47 attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in ATO area in Donbas over the past day.

This is reported by the ATO press center.

The tensest situation was observed in Donetsk direction, where the enemy used tanks, 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns to shell Ukrainian positions near Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk). Militants also fired at ATO troops near Butovka coal mine (11.4km north-west of Donetsk), using tanks, 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Ukrainian soldiers outside Kamyanka (62km south of Donetsk), Zaitseve (67km north-north-east of Donetsk) and Pisky (12km north-west of Donetsk) came under anti-tank grenade launcher and heavy machine gun fire.

In Mariupol direction, illegal armed formations fired at Ukrainian positions in Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk) and Krasnohorivka (29 km west of Donetsk), using 82mm mortars and grenade launchers. Ukrainian marines near Pavlopol (30 km northeast of Mariupol) and Talakivka (20km north-west of Mariupol) came under grenade launcher and heavy machine gun fire.

In Luhansk direction, militants used 82mm mortars and grenade launchers to fire at Katerynivka (64km west of Luhansk). Ukrainian troops in Novozvanivka (70km west of Luhansk), using grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

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Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the ATO zone in eastern Ukraine over the past day, Defense Ministrys Spokesman for ATO issues Colonel Andriy Lysenko said.

Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and eight servicepersons were wounded over the past day, he said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

Lysenko added that one soldier was wounded as a result of enemy attacks near Marinka and others were wounded near Avdiivka.

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Canada should finally allow Ukraine buying defensive weapons.

James Bezan, the Official Opposition Critic for National Defence and member of Conservative Shadow Cabinet, said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

"Russia is strengthening its positions in Donbas, pulling artillery and weapons there. The Minsk Agreements have failed. The militants and the Russian military continue to ignore them. Therefore, I advocate including Ukraine in this list and opening of access to the Canadian arms market," Bezan said.

According to him, the Government of Canada should also immediately begin to supply a variety of weapons to Ukraine.

The Automatic Firearms Country Control List defines the countries, which Canada allows its domestic producers to supply weapons to. Currently, there are 35 countries on the list, including Botswana, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Colombia. Ukraine is not on the list so far.

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The question in the title of this post is prompted by this Washington Post piece by Paul Waldman headlined "Will Jeff Sessions launch a War on Weed? If so, it could accelerate marijuana legalization." Here are excerpts:

A CBS poll out today shows that 61 percent of Americans favor full legalization, the highest number the poll has recorded, while a Quinnipiac poll puts the number at 60 percent, with an incredible 94 percent saying people ought to be able to get it if their doctors prescribe it (CBS put that figure at 88 percent). Perhaps more important, 71 percent in the CBS poll and 73 percent in the Quinnipiac poll said that the federal government should leave states that have legalized it alone.

But theres one person who doesnt agree, and he happens to be the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. government. In fact, if theres a single thing that Attorney General Jeff Sessions hates more than undocumented immigrants it might just be marijuana, which is why he appears to be planning what amounts to a return to a 1980s-style War on Drugs. We dont yet know what practical steps Sessions will take, because things are still in the planning stages. But allow me to suggest that in the end, Sessions might actually accelerate the countrys move toward the eventual goal of full legalization....

[T]he big unanswered question is how the attorney general will approach the states that have passed some form of legalization. He could follow the (mostly) hands-off approach that the Obama administration did. Or he could send out federal agents to start shutting down dispensaries across the country. Or he could do something in between. But given his strong views and the fact that marijuana is still illegal under federal law  which gives him substantial power to go after the burgeoning pot industry in states that have legalized it  its hard to believe there isnt some kind of crackdown coming from the Justice Department.

Sessions may already be having a deterrent effect. The Colorado legislature was all set to pass a law regulating marijuana clubs but backed off after the governor warned that doing so could incur Sessionss wrath. But in other places, the movement toward legalization continues. Just yesterday, West Virginias governor signed a law passed by the legislature to create a medical marijuana system in the state.

Which means that if and when he attacks legal marijuana, Sessions will be going after a movement with extraordinary momentum. And its not just the opinion polls; its also whats happening at the ballot box. In 2016, marijuana initiatives were on the ballot in nine states and won in eight of them. California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada legalized marijuana for recreational use, while Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota passed medical marijuana initiatives. Only Arizonas recreational measure was narrowly defeated....

So consider this scenario. Sessions initiates some kind of new War on Weed, one that results in lots of splashy headlines, dramatic video of state-licensed businesses being shut down and thoughtful debates about the proper balance between federal and state power. Then the backlash begins. Even many Republicans express their dismay at the Justice Departments heavy-handed actions. Pressure builds on President Trump (whose comments on the topic have been mostly vague and noncommittal) to rein Sessions in. The controversy energizes cannabis advocates and the voters who agree with them. More and more candidates come out in favor of legalization, or at least a new federal law that would remove the drug from Schedule 1 (which puts it in the same category as heroin) and leave it up to states to decide how to handle it without any federal interference.

Then in 2020, we see the first major-party nominee who advocates full legalization of marijuana. That last part might not happen three years from now (though some past and future nominees have already sponsored bills to allow medical use). But it will eventually, because politicians inevitably follow where the public has moved.

Most of them do, anyway. But on this issue, Sessions is not such a politician  hes going to pursue that demon weed no matter what the public thinks. We all know where America is heading on this issue, and Sessions may end up pushing us there just a little faster.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has expressed a decisive protest over the holding of the so-called Yalta International Economic Forum by Russia in the temporary occupied territory of Crimea, the ministrys press service reports.

The note of protest by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its strong protest to the Russian Federation its intention to conduct on April 20-22, 2017 the so-called Yalta International Economic Forum in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol," the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed in its statement released on Thursday

In this connection, the Ukrainian diplomats once again stressed that holding this event is a gross violation by the Russian Federation of the state sovereignty of Ukraine, its legislation and generally recognized norms of international law.

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This summer in London at a conference dedicated the issues of Ukraine, the Ukrainian government will present a plan for promising solutions and reforms.

This has been stated by Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman, the governments press service reports.

"A large conference on Ukraine will be held in London in July. This is a wonderful world site, where we will tell what we have already managed to do, what we plan and must do, the Ukrainian prime minister said.

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Despite the fact that the EUs leading economies have suffered great losses from anti-Russian sanctions, this step was the right response to Russias aggression against Ukraine.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni stated this during his visit to Washington, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Neither the US nor the European Union should forget about the Ukrainian crisis," the head of the Italian government said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

When asked about the relations with Moscow, Gentiloni noted that Italy and Germany had suffered the greatest losses from imposition of sanctions against Russia after it had occupied the Ukrainian Crimea and supported separatists in Donbas.

"However, we were right, reacting to what happened," the Italian leader said.

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The International Court of Justice urged Russia to fully implement the Minsk agreements having recognized it as a party to the Minsk process, not an intermediary. For the first time, this recognition is not a political, but legal assessment.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said this at the meeting with Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Kostiantyn Yelisieiev and Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Olena Zerkal, the press service of the Head of State reports.

The UN ICJ urged Russia to fully implement the Minsk agreements. It means that Russia is a party to the Minsk agreements, not an intermediary as it initially claimed to be. For the first time, this recognition is not a political, but legal assessment, which is very important for us, Petro Poroshenko said.

The Head of State is confident that it is necessary to focus on the best way to outline Ukraines position in the court and define the country-aggressor. He is confident that it will already create a mechanism of legal liability not for individuals, as Russia wanted, but for the state in general, which must bear responsibility for financing the terrorism and violating the UN Convention.

For the first time, the mechanism of the International Court of Justice has been applied to bring the country-aggressor, the country that finances terrorism, to justice, Petro Poroshenko emphasized.

The President also noted that the court had adopted a very important decision to sustain a case in the form of Russias obligation to make several steps: from the restoration of the Mejlis to ensuring the right for Ukrainian citizens to study Ukrainian language in the occupied Crimea.

ol
Delegates of the Congress of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine have prepared an appeal to the President of Ukraine on the need to hold an open meeting of the Council on the Protection of the Rights of Journalists.

This has been reported by Chairman of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine Serhiy Tomilenko on Facebook.

"The delegates to the Congress of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine have unanimously supported the appeal to the President of Ukraine to hold an open meeting of the Council on the Protection of the Rights of Journalists under the President mode. The authorities and security officials have to publicly report on progress in cases concerning violations of journalists' rights. In the presence of the media and the public. The time of closed doors has passed. We want a real progress," he wrote.

ish
As reported in this local article, headlined "WV governor signs medical marijuana into law," the latest state to reform its marijuana laws is the Mountain State. Here are the details:

Gov. Jim Justice signed a comprehensive medical marijuana bill into law Wednesday, wrapping up what might have been the legislative underdog story of the session. Justice signed Senate Bill 386, which will put a medical cannabis commission into place to begin forming the regulatory infrastructure for the Bureau of Public Health to begin issuing marijuana patient ID cards on July 1, 2019.

This action makes West Virginia the 29th state to legalize medical marijuana.

Surrounded by Democratic legislators who helped push the bill through, Justice said the law will help those who are suffering obtain access to a treatment approved by the medical community. Our doctors are telling us, this is a pathway to help those people [who are suffering], Justice said. How could you turn your back on that? How could you turn your back on a loved one who is really suffering? To have a vehicle to be able to help, and to turn our back on it and say, No, were not going to do that. To me, thats not listening to the wise, and its not being charitable and caring, like we ought to be.

The new law will allow patients suffering from 16 conditions to apply for a card with permission from their doctor, who must be approved to recommend marijuana by the Board of Public Health. Acceptable conditions include terminal illnesses, cancer, HIV or AIDS and Parkinsons disease.

The law does not allow patients to grow or smoke marijuana. Only a licensed dispensary can issue marijuana in the form of pills, oils, topicals (gels, creams, ointments), tincture, liquid, dermal patch or non-whole plant forms for administration through a vaporizer or nebulizer.

Sen. Richard Ojeda, D-Logan, who sponsored the legislation and served as its point man, said he thinks the bill will help ease suffering of fellow veterans who have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and simultaneously cut into the states opioid crisis, by taking money out of illegal drug dealers pockets.

Sporting a cannabis leaf-shaped pin on the breast of his jacket, Nitro resident Rusty Williams watched Justice sign the bill. Williams survived a late-stage diagnosis of testicular cancer. He said his doctors prescribed him aggressive doses of chemotherapy to combat the cancer, and he used illegally purchased marijuana to help him handle the treatments....

Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, said that, although some might be frustrated by the gap between the bills passage versus its 2019 full activation date, it will be a good thing for the state to not botch such a promising, although complex, initiative. He said other states have tried to shoot the moon and get things rolling prematurely, and it only served to their detriment. Woelfel also pointed out that the Legislature can revisit the bill in any session down the road and add to it, as needed.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The title of this post is the headline of this notable new article from the May 2017 issue of Inc Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

There's some evidence that women are finding it easier to break into cannabis than other sectors of corporate America. One 2015 survey of 630 marijuana professionals found that women held leadership roles in 36 percent of those businesses, compared with 22 percent of U.S. companies generally, according to the trade publication Marijuana Business Daily, an Inc. 500 company that was co-founded by two women -- Cassandra Farrington and Anne Holland. "I hit that glass ceiling at 100 miles an hour," Farrington, a former Citigroup employee, says. "There's no question this is a huge area for entrepreneurship, and there are so many women fed up with the corporate arena" who find marijuana more appealing. Like Farrington, many of the women already running marijuana-focused businesses have extensive -- and seemingly boring -- resumes at banks, hedge funds, law firms, consultancies, insurance giants, and other traditional, highly regulated corporations. They not only know how to cut through the red tape -- they welcome it. "I just got up one morning and read all the Colorado rules," shrugs Peggy Moore, who spent 33 years working for United Health Group before becoming the CEO of Denver-based pot bakery Love's Oven. "After dealing with all of the insurance industry's regulations, it wasn't that complicated."

Another lengthier article in the same issue is titled "How the Queen of Legal Weed Is Targeting the Chardonnay Crowd." Here is how it starts:

Nancy Whiteman still mourns those candied, spice-dusted almonds. "They were so good. They were so stinking good," she sighs longingly. And so stinking hard to make -- legally. Because Whiteman, the unlikely co-founder and co-owner of the most successful specialized candy business in Colorado, didn't stop with the curry powder and sugar and salt. She also dredged those almonds through syrup infused with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. After all, that's what her seven-year-old company, Wana Brands, makes: treats that can get you really, really high. The Boulder-based business, which Whiteman runs with her ex-husband, ended last year as the best-selling purveyor of marijuana-infused edibles in its home state of Colorado, according to industry data firm BDS Analytics. Whiteman may have begun her legal-pot career rummaging through weed-extraction videos on YouTube and testing recipes in a kitchen that was "one step up from an Easy-Bake oven," but Walter White she is not. Nor is she even Mary-Louise Parker's Nancy Botwin, the housewife-dealer of Weeds. A 58-year-old mother of two, Whiteman presents as more sales rep than drug lord: russet hair in a sensible bob, a sly sense of humor tucked beneath a Northeastern reserve, and the professionally tidy business casual of someone who started her career in suits. "Whatever your stereotype might be of somebody in the marijuana business, I'm probably not it," Whiteman, a former insurance marketing executive, wryly acknowledges. "I think a lot of times people are just surprised."

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/marijuana_law/2017/04/why-women-founders-are-ruling-legal-marijuana.html
UNICEF/UN019996/Gilbertson VII Photo

Download multimedia content here: http://uni.cf/2oqS8sd

NEW YORK / GENEVA, 21 April 2017  According to UNICEF estimates, more than 150 children have died crossing the Central Mediterranean from North Africa to Italy so far this year. Yet the true number of child casualties is almost certainly higher given that many children on the move are unaccompanied, so their deaths often go unreported.



Since the start of the year, nearly 37,000 refugees and migrants, 13 per cent of whom are children, have reached Italy by sea via the Central Mediterranean  an increase of 42 per cent when compared to the same time period in 2016. This increase comes despite the grave risks involved in traveling one of the most perilous migration routes in the world. At least 849 people have been lost at sea along the route since January.



It is deeply concerning that vulnerable people, including thousands of children, are risking their lives to reach Europes shores using this incredibly dangerous route, said Afshan Khan, UNICEF Regional Director and Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe. This is further evidence that when safe and legal pathways to migration are cut off, desperate children and families will do whatever they can to flee conflict, poverty and depravation.



Even over the past few days, calmer waters and warmer weather in the Mediterranean have been accompanied by a surge in refugees and migrants attempting to cross. During the Easter weekend alone, more than 8,300 people were rescued from the sea between Libya and Italy.



More attempted crossings bring more death, with eight migrants reported to have drowned over the weekend. The fatality rate for the Central Mediterranean migrant route currently stands at 3 per cent for 2017.



The number of unaccompanied and separated children risking their lives on the Central Mediterranean has also dramatically increased, with 1,875 arriving in Italy during January and February this year  a 40 per cent increase over 2016.



###



Notes to Editors:

UNICEFs GLOBAL POLICY ASKS FOR CHILDREN ON THE MOVE

1. Protect child refugees and migrants, particularly unaccompanied children, from exploitation and violence

2. End the detention of children seeking refugee status or migrating

3. Keep families together as the best way to protect children and give children legal status

4. Keep all refugee and migrant children learning and give them access to health and other quality services

5. Press for action on the underlying causes of large scale movements of refugees and migrants

6. Promote measures to combat xenophobia, discrimination and marginalization in countries of transit and destination
Argentina hopes to have an agreement on a free-trade deal between the European Union and the South American Mercosur bloc by year's end, its foreign minister said Thursday.

The European Union and Mercosur launched trade negotiations in 1999, but they have faced multiple setbacks, partly because of the leftist rule in Argentina that lasted more than a decade.

That government has now replaced by a more pro-business government since late 2015 that advocates trade.

"We hope that it will be by the end of the year, but it is not a deadline. It could be in the first quarter of the coming year," Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra told reporters in Brussels.

"We would like to at least make an announcement at the WTO meeting in Buenos Aires that things are sufficiently close," she added.

Trade ministers will convene in Buenos Aires in December for a meeting of the World Trade Organization.

Malcorra named issues related to rules of origin as well as food safety measures as important points that still needed to be discussed.

The EU and Mercosur exchanged market access offers in May 2016, including lists of imports that each side was prepared to liberalize.

The full members of the Mercosur trade bloc are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, which was suspended in December.
Two members of Congress are expressing concern over President Donald Trump's plan to slash foreign aid as parts of Somalia and nearby countries move closer to famine.

Speaking in Minneapolis at a forum on the drought situation in the Horn of Africa, U.S. Representative Tom Emmer (R-Minnesota) said the administration's proposed 31-percent cut in foreign aid would hurt both humanitarian relief efforts and programs to curb terrorism.



Terrorist groups like al-Shabab have demonstrated a history of capitalizing on this type of crisis and and we can't allow to be that case today," he said.



Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) said the U.S. needs to help drought and famine victims in their own country, before they are forced to flee.

We have so many people here from Somalia that have relatives and friends, and when you dont help people in their own country it kind ends up on your shores anyway," she said. "We need to help people help themselves to get through touchy times and make sure their economy is strong.



Somali Finance Minister Abdirahman Dualle Beileh told VOA the drought situation in the country is getting worse.



The drought is very serious and much more serious than the one we had in 2011. Its a grave and its a serious one, said Beileh.

The 2011 drought killed an estimated 260,000 people.



The minister said the international community is responding to the call to help drought-affected populations avert famine.



I pray to God that famine does not come," he said. "Its a sad story. I think the assistance that we are getting from around the world is such that famine can be avoided.


Hawaii's Democratic lawmakers on Thursday criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions after he expressed amazement on a radio show that a "judge sitting on an island in the Pacific" could stop the president's travel ban.

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono responded by trying to give Sessions a civics lesson on Twitter, saying Hawaii has been a U.S. state for 58 years.

The senator said later in a telephone interview the remarks showed a lack of awareness about the separation of powers between the judiciary and executive branches.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson last month blocked President Donald Trump's executive order prohibiting new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries and temporarily halting the U.S. refugee program. The Trump administration appealed the ruling.

Sessions told the Mark Levin Show he's confident the president will prevail with his administration's appeal of Watson's travel ban ruling.

"I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power," Sessions said.

Hirono also said Sessions' remarks suggested he is prejudiced against Hawaii.

"Why isn't a federal judge from Hawaii as able as any other judge from anywhere to issue rulings?" Hirono asked.

She told Session on Twitter "we won't succumb to your dog whistle politics."

Both Hirono and Sen. Brian Schatz emphasized that Sessions voted as a senator to confirm Watson as a judge.

Schatz chided Sessions more on Twitter by telling him the island where Watson made the ruling is named Oahu.

"It's my home. Have some respect," he said.

U.S. Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said in an email that Sessions was questioning one judge's ability to block the president's executive order for the travel ban.

"Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific  a beautiful one where the Attorney General's granddaughter was born," Prior said. "The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the President's lawful exercise of authority to keep the entire country safe."
A key U.S. Republican congressman who said this week he would not seek re-election or run for any other office next year now says he may leave Congress before his term in the House of Representatives runs out in early 2019.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, rose to prominence on Capitol Hill through his dogged investigations of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election.

Chaffetz made headlines Wednesday when he wrote on Facebook: "After long consultation with my family and prayerful consideration, I have decided I will not be a candidate for any office in 2018." He made his decision more specific Thursday, saying: "My future plans are not yet finalized, but I haven't ruled out the possibility of leaving [Congress] early."

Chaffetz has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor of Utah, or for one of the state's two U.S. Senate seats. He did not mention those possibilities in announcing his decision to leave the political arena, just five months after his re-election to Congress for a fourth term.

"Let me be clear I have no ulterior motives," Chaffetz wrote on Facebook. "I am healthy. I am confident I would continue to be re-elected by large margins. I have the full support of Speaker [Paul] Ryan to continue as chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee."

Chaffetz was re-elected four times in one of the most Republican congressional districts in the country. However, he has been confronted with an unexpected challenge from Democratic newcomer Kathryn Allen. Allen raised more than a half-million dollars in the first three months of 2017, partly in reaction to Chaffetz's comment during the Capitol Hill debate on health care, when the Utah congressman suggested Americans of limited means should devote more of their income to buying health insurance, instead of purchasing expensive iPhones.

As House Oversight chairman, Chaffetz also was strongly criticized by Democrats for saying he had no intention of investigating possible conflicts of interest between Trump's global business empire and his presidency. Before last year's election, Chaffetz had vowed he would investigate Clinton "for years" if she won the presidency over Trump.

Chaffetz is at least the seventh House Republican this year to resign or announce retirement plans; those seven include four members who left to join Trump's Cabinet.

In his public farewell on Facebook, Chaffetz did not close the door entirely on the possibility of another foray into politics: "After more than 1,500 nights away from my home, it is time. I may run again for public office, but not in 2018."
NATO member Romania plans to buy Patriot missiles from U.S. company Raytheon to help protect its airspace, a senior Defense Ministry official said Thursday.

The purchase will be a key part of the European Union country's plan to modernize its military, benefiting from a gradual increase in annual spending.

The defense budget in Romania  a NATO member since 2004 and one of Washington's staunchest allies in Eastern Europe, along with Poland  was 1.7 percent of its gross domestic product in 2016 and was set at 2.0 percent this year.

"The Patriot missile defense system is part of the multilevel air defense system of Romania's airspace. We're assessing all options to develop this [acquisition] program," General Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca, chief of the General Staff, told reporters. "It is important to say the program will start this year."

The missiles would be part of an integrated air defense system comprising six newly acquired F-16 fighter jets as Romania is brings its forces up to NATO standards. Outdated communist-era MiGs are to be retired.

"Romania has announced their intent to enhance their defensive capability by procuring Patriot," a Raytheon spokesperson said. "Raytheon has a long-standing relationship with Romania and will work closely with the U.S. and Romanian governments to ensure this NATO partner achieves its defense objectives."

The size of the planned acquisition and the budget for it are still unknown.

Polish deal

Poland expects to sign a $7.6 billion deal with Raytheon to buy eight Patriot missile defense systems this year, Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said last month.

Romania, a country of 20 million people, hosts a U.S. ballistic missile defense station and has contributed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. military, which says the defense station is needed as protection against Iran rather than to threaten Russia, switched on the $800 million Romanian part of the shield in 2015. Another part of the shield was due to be built in Poland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow views the missile shield in Eastern Europe as a "great danger" and that Moscow will be forced to respond by enhancing its own missile strike capability.
The deadline to sign up for this free community event that is open to all is Nov. 16.

Kennebunk Post

"We need to invest in our kids," said resident Brenda Robinson. "That's how we keep graffiti out of Waterhouse Center and mischief out of the downtown on Saturday night."
The Russian Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian sect, are an "extremist" group and ordered their Russian property turned over to the government.

Supreme Court Judge Yuri Ivanenko declared the denomination's Administrative Center, its head office in Russia, an "extremist organization" and, on that basis, ordered the Jehovah's Witnesses group in Russia "dissolved" and its activities banned.

Russia's Justice Ministry had sought the order, which the group said it will appeal.

Jehovah's Witnesses, best known worldwide for their door-to-door preaching and distribution of religious literature, has 175,000 adherents and 395 branches in Russia.

It registered in Russia as a religious organization in 1991 and again in 1999. But Russian authorities repeatedly targeted the group in a wide-ranging crackdown on religious freedom.

In 2006, Russia changed its definition of extremism, eliminating the requirement for violence or hatred, but saying the criteria included "incitement of ... religious discord."

Russia blocked the Jehovah's Witnesses' international website two years ago over alleged extremism, and the group's Bibles were banned last year.

Russian authorities had also placed several of the group's publications on a list of banned extremist literature. Prosecutors claimed that the organization destroys families, foments hatred and threatens lives, which Jehovah's Witnesses says is a false characterization.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a previous Russian judgment against the organization was "unlawful."

Jehovah's Witnesses has more than 8 million adherents worldwide, but the group stands apart from key aspects of Christian doctrine as practiced by Roman Catholics and numerous Protestant denominations.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not observe Christmas, Easter, birthdays and other holidays, which they consider to have pagan origins that are not compatible with Christianity. They also reject military service and blood transfusions.

Human Rights Watch condemned the Russian Supreme Court's ruling against Jehovah's Witnesses in a statement Thursday.

"The Supreme Court's ruling to shut down the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is a terrible blow to freedom of religion and association in Russia," said Rachel Denber, the New York-based group's deputy Europe and Central Asia director. "Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are now given the heartrending choice of either abandoning their faith or facing punishment for practicing it."
The Syrian army advanced into the town of Taybet al Imam in Hama province on Thursday, expanding its territory along the strategic western highway between Damascus and Aleppo, the army and rebels said.

The government forces were backed by heavy Russian aerial strikes across a large swathe of territory to the west of the M5 highway held by rebels in their six-year civil war, they said.

The rebels said the army was also joined by Iranian-backed militias in the push into Taybet al Imam, which was seized by rebels last year from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Dozens of aerial strikes also hit the nearby towns of Halfaya and Latamneh, which rebels had seized only last month. Their alliance of jihadists alongside moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups have been trying to defend them in recent days.

Sources gave slightly different versions of the current state of the conflict in Taybet al Imam, which lies 18 km (11 miles) north of Hama city.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had now taken the town, after a ground assault this morning that caused losses on both sides after days of heavy bombing.

A rebel source confirmed the army had taken over the western outskirts of Taybet al Imam and said rebels were retreating from parts of the town to cut losses from the heavy aerial bombing.

State media, quoting army sources, said the army was making significant progress in its campaign to take over the town but gave no details.

The media unit of Lebanon's Hezbollah Shi'ite militia said the town had fallen to loyalist forces. It said pro-government militias had pounded rebel outposts with artillery gunfire and rockets.

A rebel commander said Russian jets had escalated their bombing campaign in the area in the past few days, deploying a "scorched earth" strategy using incendiary and phosphorous bombs on civilian areas that had left scores of injured and dead.

"Russian jets are bombing us every second and leaving whole towns in Hama countryside in ruins and totally destroyed. Only after this are regime troops able to make any advance," said Abu Saleh from the Jaish al Izza rebel group.

Thousands of families had fled the fighting in the last few days, he added.

The army's capture earlier this week of Soran, a town just east of the highway, meant government forces had now regained most of the territory that rebels had seized in their major offensive last month in Hama province.

Soran is the army's northern gateway to the city of Hama, the provincial capital, and opposition control of it threatened the city.

The army has its eyes now set on the town of Morek, the next town after Soran going north on the highway crucial to control of western Syria.
Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican woman seeking to avoid deportation from the United States, sought a safe place in the basement of a church in Denver, Colorado, in mid-February.

This week, she filed her federal tax return.

On Thursday, she was named one of the "2017 Time 100"  Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

"This award, hopefully, helps to take away the label, the tag, that those of us who are undocumented have  that we are criminals [and] that we don't contribute," Vizguerra said with the help of a translator during a news conference at the First Unitarian Church  the place she has been living in to avoid being arrested by immigration officials and deported.

"This has been a 20-year journey. A 20-year journey of building partnerships, creating spaces, opening new movements and new doors," Vizguerra said.

Arrested, jailed

Her legal team says her story is well-known. Reports say she was pulled over in 2009 for driving with expired registration tags. She was arrested for presenting fake documents and spent 23 days in jail.

Julie Gonzales, Vizguerra's legal representative, told the Los Angeles Times that her client pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of possessing a forged instrument.

Since then, Vizguerra has been in deportation proceedings. She checked in with immigration officials many times in the past, but after the election of a new president and seeing others check in only to get deported, she decided to find refuge in a church.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidelines, places like schools, hospitals, churches, synagogues and mosques are considered sensitive locations, which means ICE is still following its practice of not entering to arrest those living there.

ICE spokespersons have told VOA that enforcement actions at sensitive locations "should generally be avoided, and require either prior approval from an appropriate supervisory official or exigent circumstances necessitating immediate action."

Left in 2012

Reports say Vizguerra left the U.S. in 2012 to visit her mother, who died before she arrived. When she tried to return to Colorado, Vizguerra was arrested for entering the country illegally.

She was detained again, pleaded guilty, and was released pending check-ins with immigration officials. But under President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration, she is now a priority.

The order signed in January makes undocumented immigrants with pending criminal cases priorities for deportation, whether they have been found guilty or not.

Former President Barack Obama prioritized deportations of those convicted of serious crimes.

Vizguerra's profile on Time's website was written by America Ferrera, an actor and activist whose description of the mother of four differs from the rhetoric used during the last presidential campaign.

"The current administration has scapegoated immigrants, scaring Americans into believing that undocumented people like Jeanette are criminals," Ferrera wrote. "She came to this country not to rape, murder or sell drugs, but to create a better life for her family. She shed blood, sweat and tears to become a business owner, striving to give her children more opportunities than she had. This is not a crime. This is the American Dream."

Worked as janitor, organizer

Vizguerra came to the United States from Mexico in 1997 with her husband and oldest daughter. She worked as a janitor and union organizer. She also was the founder of the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition.

"Jeanette moved to the U.S. to be a janitor, working as an outspoken union organizer and building her own company before becoming an advocate for immigration reform  a bold and risky thing for an undocumented immigrant," Ferrera wrote.

Her daughter is protected from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program. She also has three U.S.-born children, all under age 12.

Vizguerra said she was not expecting any award, did not know whether this recognition would help her case and did not expect anything from it. She does, however, hope that her selection by Time encourages people to think differently and more deeply about the labels being used by critics of past immigration policy.

"This award doesn't change anything. I'm committed to this fight  whether or not I have papers," she said.
Efforts to enlist more help from the United States in addressing Europe's migrant crisis appear to be falling short, with the Italian prime minister seemingly rebuffed during a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.

"I do not see a role in Libya," Trump told reporters Thursday when asked about doing more to stabilize the North African country, which has become a focal point for the migrant crisis. "I think the United States right now has enough roles."

"I do see a role in getting rid of ISIS," the president added, using an acronym for Islamic State. "I see that as a primary role, and that's what we're going to do whether it's in Iraq or in Libya, or anywhere else."

The answer is unlikely to satisfy Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who moments earlier called on the Trump administration to follow up its counterterrorism efforts with a political commitment.

"The U.S. role in this is very critical," Gentiloni said. "We need a stable and unified Libya."

Gentiloni's comments seemed to build on remarks he made earlier Thursday, when he described the need for Italian and U.S. action in Libya as "absolutely crucial." He said continued chaos could allow the Islamic State terror group to retrench, using it as a base to destabilize neighboring countries and launch more attacks against Europe.

"Stabilizing Libya is fundamental," Gentiloni said during a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "We can avoid [transforming] Libya into a new theater for competition of external powers, both regional and global, which is a risk."

Italy, in particular, sees Libya as a focal point for the migrant crisis, with 97 percent of the migrants who arrive on Italy's shores either originating from the country or using it as a transit point.

Last month, the Italian coast guard said the number of migrants saved in rescue operations this year had surpassed 15,000. Meanwhile, the last estimates by the United Nations refugee agency put the number of dead in 2017 alone at 440.

Prior to their meeting Thursday, Gentiloni said he planned to push Trump to keep the U.S. focused on Libya and the migrant crisis, both during the White House visit and again during next month's G7 Summit.

He warned that without more urgent action, Europe could be engulfed by what he described as "waves of chaos" from across the Mediterranean Sea.

"Too many Europeans have been living under the illusion that they could separate their destiny from the Mediterranean and from the crises originating from this region," Gentiloni said. "The task that governments have in Europe is to defeat smugglers and traffickers and manage the migration flow now, in the next months."

Gentiloni also urged the U.S. and other world powers to "Please keep Africa on top of our agenda," saying various conflicts and crises in sub-Saharan Africa have also helped fuel the migrant crisis.

"We can't consider Africa as the second Chinese continent," the Italian prime minister said, noting Beijing's ever-increasing role in providing aid and spurring development.

"We should do perhaps our part more strongly."
U.S. officials are reviewing Venezuela's seizure of General Motors' assets in the country, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday.

"We are reviewing the details of the case," Toner said in a statement, saying the United States hoped to resolve the matter "rapidly and transparently."

GM said Wednesday that Venezuelan authorities had taken over its plant in the industrial hub of Valencia, adding that it was halting operations and laying off 2,700 workers due to the "illegal judicial seizure of its assets."

The largest U.S. automaker vowed to "take all legal actions" to defend its rights. The seizure comes amid a deepening economic crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.

The seizure is the result of a civil dispute with a Venezuelan concessionaire dating back to 2000 and does not represent a nationalization as such, according to local media reports.

GM, the market leader in Venezuela for 35 years, said in a statement that in addition to the plant seizure "other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities."

Total auto production in Venezuela fell to a historic low of 2,849 cars in 2016, nearly 75 percent less than the year before, according to Venezuela's automotive industry group.

In the first two months of 2017, GM has not produced any vehicles, while total Venezuelan auto production was just 240 vehicles, down 50 percent over the same period last year. The New York Times reported the GM plant had been closed for the last six weeks as a result of a takeover by members of one of its unions.

Nearly all vehicles built in Venezuela in the first two months this year were assembled by Toyota Motor Corp, which said Thursday that its plant was operating normally.

But a spokesman added the automaker was "only producing based on orders that come in."

Venezuela's car industry has been hit by a lack of raw materials stemming from complex currency controls.

In early 2015, Ford Motor Co wrote off its investment in Venezuela when it took an $800 million pre-tax writedown. The company said Thursday it was not producing vehicles in Venezuela.

The South American nation's economic crisis has hurt many other U.S. companies, including food makers and pharmaceutical firms. A growing number are removing their Venezuelan operations from their consolidated accounts.
A Zambian court will rule next week on whether to throw out a treason case against the leader of the main opposition party whose lawyers say the charges are ambiguous, a magistrate said on Thursday.

United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema was arrested last week in a police raid on his home and charged with trying to overthrow the government.

His lawyers asked the court on Wednesday to dismiss the case, saying the charges were not specific.

Magistrate Greenwell Malumani said he needed time to decide whether to dismiss the treason charge and consider other preliminary issues that had been raised by the defense.

"The issues involved are many and complex and therefore I cannot hurriedly make a ruling. I will adjourn the matter to Wednesday, 26th April for ruling on the preliminary issues raised," Malumani said.

Hichilema has been charged with plotting with other people from Oct. 10 last year to April 8 to overthrow the government.

The arrest has raised political tension in Zambia, Africa's second-biggest copper producer.

President Edgar Lungu said on Thursday he may consider declaring a state of emergency in some areas after protesters suspected to have been enraged by Hichilema's arrest destroyed public infrastructure.

Some of the destroyed properties include court rooms and markets, presidential spokesman Amos Chanda said.

"If people think they will pressure him [the president] into dialogue by engaging in criminal activities, that can never happen," Chanda said.

The Southern African country has traditionally been relatively stable but relations between the government and opposition have been fraught since last August, when Lungu's Patriotic Front (PF) party beat the UPND in a presidential election marred by violence.

The opposition says the vote was rigged but Hichilema has so far failed in his legal challenge against the result.
AUTO INDUSTRY

VW gets probation in emissions settlement

A federal judge in Detroit on Friday sentenced Volkswagen to three years probation and independent oversight for the German automakers diesel emissions scandal as part of a $4.3 billion settlement announced in January.

This is a case of deliberate and massive fraud, U.S. District Judge Sean Cox said in approving the settlement that requires Volkswagen to make significant reforms. Cox also formally approved a $2.8 billion criminal fine against VW.

The automaker pleaded guilty in March to fraud, obstruction of justice and falsifying statements after installing secret software in 580,000 U.S. vehicles to evade U.S. emissions standards.

 Reuters

RETAIL

Mattel earnings fell, as Barbie orders dropped

Toymaker Mattel posted first-quarter results Friday that fell far short of Wall Street estimates, renewing concerns that its comeback is faltering. Excluding some items, the loss was 32 cents a share, wider than the deficit of 17 cents that analysts predicted.

New chief executive Margo Georgiadis joined Mattel in February and set about trying to reinvigorate brands such as Barbie, Mattels biggest property, which saw sales fall 13 percent in the quarter.

A lackluster Christmas season in North America created a glut of inventory that slowed orders in the new year, Georgiadis said.

 Bloomberg

EARNINGS

GE reports big drop in 1st quarter cash flow

General Electric reported a sharp drop in cash flow on Friday, further denting the company after some investors grew anxious about recent results.

Our cash performance was worse than we expected to start the year, chief executive Jeffrey R. Immelt told anaylists. Industrial operating cash flow fell to negative $1.6 billion in the first quarter, about $1 billion worse than GE expected.

The results amplify the pressure on Immelt to get GE back on track after the oil-price slump and sluggish economy constrained growth and weighed on shares last year.

The cash weakness stained an otherwise solid quarter.

First-quarter sales rose 17 percent at gas turbine maker GE Power, the company said. GE Aviation increased first-quarter revenue 8.7 percent.

 Bloomberg

Also in Business

Wells Fargo said it would expand its class-action settlement related to the lenders retail sales practices to include customer accounts as early as May 2002. The lender said it would add $32 million to the previous agreement for a total settlement of $142 million.

Tesla disclosed Thursday that its billionaire chief executive, Elon Musk, paid at least $593 million in income taxes last year. He got hit with the big tax bill after exercising stock options set to expire at the end of 2016, a filing shows. He paid the taxes by selling some of the shares he got from the options.

Apparel retailer Bebe said Friday that it would close all its stores by the end of May, barely a month after saying it was exploring strategic alternatives following four years of losses. The company, which had 180 stores at the end of 2016, did not discuss plans. Bebe also plans to liquidate merchandise and fixtures in the stores, it said in a regulatory filing.

Pinterest is launching its first major advertising campaign in the United States this summer. Chief executive Ben Silbermann told Bloomberg that the challenge is getting people to understand that Pinterest isnt a social network but rather a source of inspiration. The company is considering spending on billboards, websites, newspapers and magazines to get that message across and attract more users.

 From news reports
After the 1987 stock market crash, sculptor Arturo Di Modica spent two years and $300,000 secretly working on a gift he hoped would lift the spirits of a demoralized city. He deposited the 11-foot, 3-ton Charging Bull statue in front of the New York Stock Exchange in the middle of a wintry night.

Today, that icon of Wall Street prosperity is staring down another statue that has become a potent symbol in its own right  a petite girl in high-top sneakers. The Fearless Girl, fists curled at her sides and face held high in seeming defiance of the giant bull galloping before her, has drawn international attention since it was unveiled last month and tapped into growing frustration around the struggle female executives face rising into leadership positions, particularly on Wall Street.

Di Modica sees something else: Fearless Girl, he argues, has turned his bull into a symbol of male chauvinism. His attorneys said he may sue if the statue isnt removed.

But the city isnt budging, and the standoff has turned into a high-profile debate over the role of public art, intertwined with visceral feelings about Wall Street and the role of women.

The origins of the two works of art could not be more different. Fearless Girl belongs to one of the largest banks in the world, Boston-based State Street, which commissioned the work last year as part of an advertising campaign. The statue, the bank says, is part of an effort to use its financial might to encourage companies to put women in more prominent leadership positions. (It initially included a plaque that mentioned one of the banks funds.)

A battle is heating up between two iconic New York statues, the legendary "Charging Bull" and new kid on the block "Fearless Girl," with gender equality, artistic integrity and copyright issues at stake. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

Di Modica says his statue was a work of conviction.

The 76-year-old gray-bearded sculptor has generated some sympathy, particularly from other artists. Gabriel Koren, whose bronze sculpture of Frederick Douglass looks into Harlem from Central Park, says she would be offended by another artist placing a competing piece of art near her creation without permission.

Every sculpture needs space. That is the nature of sculpture, she said. If you put something else there, it changes it. Fearless Girl, she said, is cute, but you dont stand up for womens rights at the expense of the artists rights. Each right is equally important. I am saying this as a woman.

Yet others say the meaning of Di Modicas bull began to change long before Fearless Girl arrived. During the height of the Occupy Wall Street protests, New York City police put barricades around the statue to protect it from demonstrators.

Lets be blunt, the Charging Bull is a celebration of unfettered capitalism, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said recently on WYNCs The Brian Lehrer Show. You could say it is about the spirit of optimism, sure  thats what the artist was thinking, thats great. But it is a symbol of Wall Street. And Wall Street, to say the least, is a double-edge sword.

This comes as the financial industry struggles to shed its reputation as a boys club where women struggle to succeed. None of the countrys megabanks, such as JPMorgan, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, are led by women. Even State Street has been forced to acknowledge its own shortfalls  the bank only has three women on its 11-member board of directors and five women on its 28-member leadership team.

We ourselves are being challenged on how do we help address the lack of women in leadership positions, said Stephen Tisdalle, chief of marketing at State Street Global Advisors, a subsidiary of the bank. Were taking a very humble approach to this.

Fearless Girl, the bank says, was not meant to change the meaning of the bull statue but to create a potent symbol to show that women can  and should  be an important part of the financial sector.

A growing market is exactly what we want to have happen, Tisdalle said. The question is who provides the talent and who provides the leadership to fuel that growing market, and we believe that women do.

I am not against women

The city has refused to remove the statue, which has a permit to stay put for another year.When asked for comment, de Blasios office pointed to a series of tweets the Democrat issued after Di Modica complained the new statue violated his rights. Men who dont like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl, he said in one tweet. In another, he said, We wouldnt move the Charging Bull statue if it offended someone. The Fearless Girl is staying put.

Years before Di Modica donated his iconic statue, he had developed a reputation for foisting gifts on New York that the city didnt want. In 1977, again in the middle of the night, he reportedly dropped several marble statues in front of Rockefeller Center and in 1986 he sneaked a big bronze horse in front of Lincoln Center.

Di Modica, who is from Sicily, created Charging Bull in his Lower Manhattan loft, then had it bronzed in a Brooklyn factory. Friends helped him put the black-patina bull in a truck and maneuver it into place with a crane in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

Unimpressed city officials initially evicted the statue, calling it a traffic hazard and a nuisance before relenting under public pressure and moving it two blocks away.

There it stood for 30 years and it became a very popular icon. It has been said that the bull is the most visited statue in New York next to the Statue of Liberty, said Marc Gordon, a partner at Spacesmith, an architecture firm two blocks from New Yorks Bowling Green Park, where the battle over the dueling statues is taking place.

Di Modica has repeatedly fought to protect the statues reputation. He sued Walmart and several other companies for using the bulls image in advertisements. When Random House put a picture of Charging Bull on the cover of a book about the fall of Lehman Brothers, Di Modica complained again.

The bull, he has said, is not only among his most meaningful work, but a symbol of prosperity that transcends gender. I am not against women, he said at a news conference this month in which he appeared frail and was surrounded by his attorneys. I am against this advertising trick.

Di Modica owns the copyright to the statues image, his attorney Normal Siegel said. But it unclear whether he makes money from the reproduction of its images. Di Modicas attorneys said the artist was not available for comment.

Fearless Girl, meanwhile, is the byproduct of State Streets aggressive effort to address concerns raised by one of its biggest customers: the California State Teachers Retirement System, the nations second-largest public pension fund. The fund, known as CalSTRS, had become concerned that more women were not represented on company boards and leadership teams.

Wall Street got started under Alexander Hamilton, and it was almost exclusively a province of males and it has just continued that way, said New York University financial historian Richard Sylla.

State Street began looking for ways to invest in companies that had women in prominent positions and settled on exchange-traded funds, which are popular with mom-and-pop investors. The typical fund tracks a basket of stocks, allowing the investor to follow their ups and downs without buying each stock individually.

State Streets fund, known as SHE, tracks the stock of more than 100 companies that the bank says do the best job in their industries of putting women in leadership positions. Companies with diverse leadership teams perform better over the long term and make better investments, the bank says.

SHE was launched last year with more than $200 million in assets from CalSTRS, but State Street wanted to broaden its audience and began working with McCann New York on a way to draw attention to the effort. The bank says it considered several options before commissioning Delaware artist Kristen Visbal to build a sculpture that would stand in front of Wall Streets famous bull in time for International Womens Day on March 8.

It could have been a woman [instead of a girl], but there is something about the future in young people. We wanted a symbol that could represent today and tomorrow, Tisdalle said.

The statue immediately developed a cult following  and SHE has received a boost from investors. At the spot where tourists have spent decades rubbing the nose of Charging Bull and climbing onto its horns, suddenly Fearless Girl fans were jockeying for the best position for a selfieSen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posted a picture of herself with the pint-sized statue recently and De Blasio bent his more than 6-foot frame nearly in half to get into the perfect frame.

Fearless Girls many fans say Di Modicas concerns are misguided. The new statue does not detract from Charging Bull and all that work stands for but, rather, calls for collaboration between men and women in decision making, Visbal said in an email. There is room for both sculptures at Bowling Green Park and to deny Fearless Girl a presence is to deny women increased visibility in business.
"Feud" (FX at 10, Sunday) The first installment of Ryan Murphys latest anthology ends with Bette and Joan (Jessica Lange) reflecting on the misplaced resentment that caused their rivalry. (Suzanne Tenner/Suzanne Tenner/FX)

(All times Eastern.)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (HBO at 8) Oprah Winfrey stars in the film adaptation of journalist Rebecca Skloots best-selling book about the African American woman whose cancer cells were extracted without her consent in 1951 and used for decades of consequential biomedical research. Winfrey plays Lackss daughter, Deborah. Skloot is portrayed by Rose Byrne.

[In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, science gives way to an emotional process]

Sunday listings

Fox News Sunday (Fox at 9 a.m.) Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

White House Chronicle (WETA at 9) Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Sunday Morning Futures (Fox at 10) Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and Peter T. King (R-N.Y.).

This Is America & the World (WETA at 10 and WHUT at 7:30 p.m.) The weekly program examines revitalization efforts in Japans Miyagi Prefecture.

Government Matters (WJLA at 10:30) Maj. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, director of operations at the Armys rapid capabilities office.

Meet the Press (NBC at 10:30) Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Face the Nation (CBS at 10:30) Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Premieres

Mary Kills People (Lifetime at 10) Caroline Dhavernas (Hannibal) plays an emergency-room doctor who runs a secret assisted-suicide business in this drama, reviewed by Hank Stuever

[In Mary Kills People, assisted suicide becomes a dangerous side business]

This Is Life Live (TLC at 10) This four-night docu-series follows families as they experience pivotal milestones in real time.

Documentary

The Lost Tapes: L.A. Riots (Smithsonian Channel at 8) The networks documentary series examines the 1992 Los Angeles uprising using only audio recordings and video footage taken in the days following the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

Returning

Silicon Valley (HBO at 10) Season 4.


Shrimp and mussels with squid ink linguine is sharpened with chile flakes at Rosario. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

After the popular Pasta Mia went dark last spring in Adams Morgan, Logan McGear, the chef at Smoke and Barrel, approached his boss, John Andrade, about reviving a similar concept in the space.

What do you know about Italian? the restaurateur recalls asking McGear, 35, to which the chef replied, You should have asked what I knew about barbecue before hiring McGear at Andrades Southern eatery six years ago.

As it happens, the chef, an Arkansas native, cooked in a few Italian restaurants in Little Rock before he decamped for the District. Barbecue was merely something he and his crew did at the house, on Monday, when we were closed.

[Tiger Fork review: Down an alley, find a playful take on Hong Kong-style cooking]

While Andrade didnt land the vacant Pasta Mia, the seed for doing something Italian in Adams Morgan stuck with him, and he eventually acquired the former Libertine space, revamped the interior and branded it Rosario. Im a big fan of Adams Morgan and excited about its direction, says the principal behind the District-based Pint Size Hospitality Group. McGear, who always wanted to open an Italian restaurant of his own, got to name the place. The 60-seat Rosario is a tip of the toque to the chefs former Sicilian employer, the late Rosario Patti, who taught the chef much of what he knows about Italian cooking.



Arancini Bolognese are small bites that taste like a complete meal. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

A whimsical Caesar salad presentation is nestled in a Parmesan basket. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

McGear says his motto is simple but nice, a theme underscored by appetizers in particular. Affixed to their plate with herb sauce, nubby arancini break apart to find Bolognese in their centers; dredge the rice fritters through the sauce, and each tastes like a complete meal. Caesar salad is presented in a fluted basket fashioned from Parmesan, while white anchovies get tricked out with orange zest and garlic chips. Linguine tinted black with squid ink comes scattered with mussels and shrimp, their light tomato sauce sharpened with crushed red pepper flakes. Veal can be eaten four ways, one of them as a saltimbocca dressed with sage, prosciutto and Marsala. Theres a saffron-scented risotto, too, meaty with pork cheeks and juicy with diced apple.

[Arroz finds a flavorful niche in Mike Isabellas growing D.C. dining empire]

Rosarios meh fried calamari and occasional overcooked pasta wont be confused for the finery produced by a Fabio Trabocchi; then again, neither will the prices. Down the line, McGear says he might offer the killer lasagna his dad makes for him when he visits home, perhaps as part of a Sunday Supper.



The Arrivederci Felice (St-Germain, cantaloupe, prosecco and sage). (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

Executive chef Logan McGear started Rosario after six years in the kitchen at Smoke and Barrel. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

Think of Rosario as an elevated neighborhood spaghetti house. The drinks are very good, and theyre shaken and stirred by bartenders who are happy to give you a taste of a new spirit theyre keen on. (Warm weather finds me asking for an Italian Greyhound, refreshing with grapefruit and rosemary.) Pistachio cannoli shatter, as you want them to, while the tiramisu whispers of coffee. The fine points extend to snug tables for two on the mezzanine that overlook the bar scene.

Andrade is right. Adams Morgan is looking up.

Rosario helps.

2435 18th St. NW. 202-791-0298 . rosariodc.com. Entrees, $16 to $62 (whole leg of lamb).
(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

The accuser was wavering. She wanted to go public, to tell the world about her claims that the Fox News megastar Bill OReilly ogled her at their workplace and suggestively called her hot chocolate.

But Perquita Burgess was afraid, her attorney Lisa Bloom said. Afraid of Twitter trolls and other haters. Afraid that a powerful man would ruin her life for daring to cross him. So, Bloom invoked civil rights history to say the words that finally persuaded Burgess, a former Fox temp worker who is African American.

Do you think Rosa Parks decided she was not going to do what she needed to do because people were going to say nasty things to her? Bloom said, citing the heroine of the Montgomery bus boycott. This is your time.

She also explained to her client in stark terms what she hoped to accomplish: The mission was to bring down Bill OReilly.

The accusations by Burgess  who first disclosed her claims anonymously through her attorney on Tuesday and has now publicly identified herself  added one more discordant note to a crescendo of scandal that has shaken Americas most watched cable news network over the past year. At a moment when the conservative juggernaut might have been strutting with Republicans in the White House and firmly in control of Congress, the network is instead operating in an almost continuous cycle of bad publicity and damage control.

The departure Wednesday of OReilly, Foxs biggest star, caps a bruising 10-month slog during which the networks all-powerful guiding light and chief executive officer, Roger Ailes, was forced to resign over multiple sexual-misconduct allegations, and some of its biggest names, including anchors Greta Van Susteren and Megyn Kelly, left to join competitors. The melodrama coincides with a generational shift in leadership as Rupert Murdochs sons, Lachlan and James, assert more control over a lucrative channel that has played an outsize role in shaping the U.S. political landscape over the past two decades.

There could be more troubles ahead. In an interview Thursday, Nancy Erika Smith  the attorney who represented former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson in the legal claim that triggered Ailess downfall  said she would file additional lawsuits next month.

[Bill OReillys gone  with $25 million in severance. Now the hard work really starts for Fox News.]

OReilly has called the claims against him unfounded and Fox has remained a ratings force. Even as the OReilly accusations were prompting an advertiser boycott, his show remained atop the list of most-watched cable news programs. Still, the cavalcade of developments dampened morale among rank-and-file staffers, according to current and former Fox employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution or because of non-disclosure agreements.

Smith says it is hard for her to imagine a major culture shift at Fox; many key executives she described as enablers of Ailes and others remain in top executive positions. A former staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, agreed: Ailes and OReilly might be gone, but the rest of the power structure is unchanged.

Fox executives are eager to counter the notion that nothing will change. Fox has brought on a new human resources director, and all employees have now undergone sensitivity training, company officials said. And the New York-based news operation has assigned a human resources employee to work out of its large Washington bureau.

Gretchen Carlson, shown on Friday in New York, filed the complaint that led to the downfall of longtime Fox News chief Roger Ailes. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Such moves could address workplace and financial concerns: Companies that spend large sums settling sexual-harassment complaints can draw the ire of shareholders. Ailes, who has denied wrongdoing, got a $40 million payout when he resigned, while OReilly walked away with $25 million. Carlson settled her lawsuit for $20 million, and according to a New York Times investigation, OReilly and 21st Century Fox have paid $13 million to settle complaints lodged by five women dating to 2002.

What became clear over the past 10 months is that the best way to attack a news company is by making news. Smith said she wrangled with attorneys for Ailes, who wanted to deal with Carlsons sexual-harassment allegations through a secret, non-public arbitration process. When her client refused and went public with her complaint that Ailes thwarted her career because she would not have sex with him, that opened the floodgates for other accusers, Smith said. Within days, numerous women came forward with similar harassment claims. Smith says her firm alone was eventually contacted by nearly 30 women.

By bringing Fox into the light of day, weve been able to show how secrecy hurts all of us, Smith said.

The scandal took a toll inside the news organization.

There were a lot of mid-level staffers, especially women and minorities, who were  are  seriously considering leaving Fox, a Fox News staffer said on Thursday as the newsroom was still absorbing OReillys departure.

[From December 2000: Pugnacious, kinetic and confrontional, Bill OReilly is a rising star for Fox]

In her pursuit of OReilly, Bloom took a similar tack to the one used by Smith in her case against Ailes, pushing the story into the public realm as much as possible. Bloom  the daughter of famed publicity-savvy attorney Gloria Allred  gained enormous leverage when the Times published its blockbuster April 1 story about the OReilly settlements. But she feared that interest would fade.

She needed to keep the buzz going. So she persuaded Wendy Walsh, a Los Angeles radio personality who had been a guest on OReillys show, to hold a news conference on April 3. There were two goals, Bloom said: Keep the story alive, but also draw out more accusers.

A mediagenic psychologist with her own radio show, Walsh had no intention of suing but did offer a compelling tale. She had made occasional appearances on Fox but said OReilly dangled the idea of making her a regular contributor, which would have substantially raised her national profile. After a dinner in Los Angeles, she said, OReilly tried to lure her to his hotel room. She rebuffed him, she said, and not long thereafter, her opportunity to become a regular contributor evaporated. (An OReilly representative would later call Walshs story false.)

After Walshs news conference, Bloom started hearing from other women  just as she had expected.



A news conference by psychologist and radio personality Wendy Walsh, right, prompted other women to contact attorney Lisa Bloom, left, with complaints about OReillys behavior. (Kevork Djansezian/Reuters)

At this point, something unusual happened. The usually aggressive Fox public-relations squad fell atypically mute on the OReilly matter, issuing no statements in his defense. It was clear: OReilly was on his own. He brought on his own spin team, including an old Clinton White House hand, Mark Fabiani.

But, in Blooms estimation, he had made a big mistake.

On the day the Times story hit, Bloom says, OReilly had handed her a beautiful, gift-wrapped present in his public statement rebuffing the allegations. The statement said: Just like other prominent and controversial people, Im vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity. But his statement rested part of his defense on a claim that no one had ever complained about him to the human resources department or called in to an anonymous hotline.

It was an aha moment for Bloom. After consulting a company handbook she had acquired during a previous case, she determined that Walsh was eligible to call the hotline, even though she was not a full-time employee. Bloom was so excited about the idea that the catchy disco-era song Hotline kept running through her head: Hotline, hotline, callin on the hotline.

Blooms staff videotaped Walshs call to the hotline, and sent the lengthy recording  which included spates of time when she was left on hold  to Walshs tech-savvy nephew. He edited it into a shorter version to share with the media, including the moment when the hotline operator asks Walsh to spell OReillys name. On April 5, Bloom posted the tape to her Facebook page.

While several Fox stars rushed to defend Ailes, above, seen in 2015, before he resigned over harassment allegations, they kept silent when OReilly came under fire. (Charles Sykes/AP)

So now an official complaint was on the record, in just the form OReilly had deemed legitimate. On April 9, Foxs parent company announced it was bringing in Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison  the same firm that looked into allegations against Ailes  to examine claims about OReilly.

By April 11, as more and more sponsors pulled their ads from the OReilly Factor, the combative commentator announced his departure for what he called a long-planned vacation in Italy.

According to Bloom, the attorneys brought in by Foxs parent company seemed to be in a hurry to close the books.

They were very eager for everything to happen ASAP, she said. They were the ones pressing us to go, go, go. By the end, I thought they were looking for a reason to fire him.

Still, she felt she needed more.

Enter Burgess, the reluctant witness. Bloom could tell she would require delicate handling. Walsh was used to being in the public eye. Burgess was not. In mid-April, Bloom flew to North Carolina for dinner with the former Fox News clerical worker who said she had been subjected to OReillys coarse comments.

She left the meal thinking Burgess was on board. But the next morning, Bloom says, Burgess called to say she had changed her mind. At that point, the lawyer brought up her Rosa Parks example. She put the question to Burgess like this: You mean to tell me that because of Twitter trolls, youre not going to stand up for whats right? Is that what youre telling me?

Burgess came around. For the time, she would remain anonymous  and, like Walsh, she had no intention of suing for damages. But, knowing that the attorneys conducting an internal inquiry would be alerted, she agreed to call the hotline to outline her complaint, which dates back to her short tenure at Fox in 2008. And, just as crucially, she okayed allowing Bloom to put out the news.

On Tuesday, Bloom sent out a headline-grabbing tweet: I represent a new woman who just phoned in a complaint of sexual and racial harassment against Bill OReilly to the Fox News hotline.

Bloom booked a flight to New York in hopes of getting big play on the cable news shows. She got it, and OReillys camp seemed to notice.

That same day, the anchors attorney, Marc Kasowitz, issued a statement about the still-cloaked Burgess allegation: It is outrageous that an allegation from an anonymous person about something that purportedly happened almost a decade ago is being treated as fact, especially where there is obviously an orchestrated campaign by activists and lawyers to destroy Mr. OReilly and enrich themselves through publicity-driven donations.



Protesters gathered outside News Corporation headquarters in New York on Thursday to cheer Fox News cutting its ties with OReilly. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

Kasowitz said his client was being subjected to a brutal campaign of character assassination that is unprecedented in post-McCarthyist America. Without revealing specifics, Kasowitz said his firm had uncovered evidence that the smear campaign is being orchestrated by far-left organizations bent on destroying OReilly for political and financial reasons.

When Ailes came under scrutiny, several of the networks stars publicly came to his defense. It was a testament to his power but also to a reservoir of good will he had accumulated among some of Foxs stars. OReilly, whose television persona was often caustic and snide, mounted as vigorous a defense as possible from his Italian vacation, deploying a professional spin doctor to attack Walshs claims. But, within Fox, he was much less popular than Ailes and the networks big names mostly kept silent.

[In the fight of his career, OReillys side swings back on harassment charge]

By Wednesday, 21st Century Fox was ready to make its move. OReilly was out.

This was a major step, I feel, in the right direction, a staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. There is still a lot of systemic work that the network needs to do to ameliorate the situation.

Within hours, women were appearing on CNN to share their own stories about him. Former Fox personality Margaret Hoover said that while OReilly never sexually harassed her, she still had some experiences where Im uncomfortable enough for me to know never to put myself in a position where I was alone with Bill.

Later, Kirsten Powers, a USA Today columnist and former Fox commentator who is now a CNN analyst, talked on air about the time OReilly thanked her on air for her blondness. Feeling disrespected, Powers went directly to the top, complaining to Ailes.

What am I going to do? I dont like him, but he makes so much money, Ailes told Powers, according to her account of the conversation. You know Bill, he likes to put up dirty pictures and ask pretty girls to talk about them.

I told the story I told because it says a lot about the culture, Powers said in an interview Thursday. That even if you did everything right  meaning you complained all the way up the ladder  it didnt really make any difference.
The writer-director Adam Leon made an impressive debut in 2012 with Gimme the Loot, an antic New York comedy about graffiti artists out for revenge. Leon delivers on that promise with Tramps, a similarly spirited, lively urban bagatelle, this time about a young couple who go unexpectedly on the lam when a shady deal goes wrong.

As Tramps opens, an aspiring young chef named Danny (Callum Turner) is conscientiously cooking dinner for his mother, who runs a bootleg betting parlor out of her cramped Astoria apartment. When his brother calls from jail in Atlantic City, asking Danny to pick up a briefcase and make a trade for him, the younger, cleaner-living sibling is reluctant. But hes roped in, resulting in a moment of mistaken identity, a frantic attempt to set things to rights and an escalating series of events that ultimately sends Danny to the New York suburbs with his erstwhile wheel-woman, a tough cookie named Ellie, played by Grace Van Patten.

Whats in the briefcase? more than one character asks in Tramps. But that couldnt be more beside the point in a film that calls on Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard and George Cukor for its inspiration, balancing crafty toughness with a bracing, knockabout likability. Leon, here working from a story he conceived with Jamund Washington, evinces a canny gift for staging, framing and pacing; he gets things moving quickly and keeps them afloat with a lightness thats much more difficult to achieve than it looks.

Carefully doling out information about the criminal enterprise behind Danny and Ellies misbegotten caper while keeping them constantly on the move through New Yorks scruffy streets and, later, through the prosperous, leafy other-world of Westchester, Leon maintains a buoyant energy thats given even more bounce by the films lively score and soundtrack, which includes hip-hop, R&B and bluegrass. He engages in some ambitious camerawork  theres a crane shot early in the film that lends Tramps a French Connection sense of muscularity and verve  but hes not afraid to hold the camera still, simply observing his two protagonists as they get to know one another and (you think?) fall in love.

Because Tramps is essentially a romantic screwball comedy a la It Happened One Night, casting the right actors is essential: Hes found just the right actors for a movie that depends 100 percent on the winsome appeal of its romantic leads. (It doesnt hurt that one of the supporting players is the comedian Mike Birbiglia, in an amusing example of casting against type.) Turner especially is a revelation; with his hangdog sweetness, he could play Adam Drivers younger brother. His ability to project naivete and street smarts helps infuse Tramps with an air of innocence thats both endearing and refreshing. Just because something happened one night doesnt mean it cant happen again, with just as much winning, infectious charm.

Tramps (82 minutes, unrated) is available on Netflix. It contains profanity, smoking and adult situations.
There are more spawning-age female blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay than there have been in at least 28 years, a sign that efforts to help the species withstand natural population swings are working.

However, an annual survey of the bays crab population found that there are fewer crabs overall in the bay than there were a year ago  about 455 million, down from 550 million.

That is because tides and currents carried less larval crabs up the estuary. The number of adult male crabs also fell.

Despite the modest number of young crabs, the total population remains stable and the number of spawning-age females  a major scientific benchmark for the health of the species  rose, said David Blazer, director of fishing and boating services for the state Department of Natural Resources. This is testament to the states adaptive and effective management of the fishery.

Crab season began April 1 and continues through the fall. The survey results likely foreshadow a strong first half of the crab season for Maryland watermen  until midsummer, they will be catching many of last seasons abundant juveniles that have matured enough to be harvested.

But into the fall, crabs that meet the harvest size minimum could become scarcer, state natural resources officials said.

Chris Moore, senior scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, called the results a mixed bag that show signs of resilience in the crab population, but also cause for concern.

The low number of juveniles suggests we need to keep in place the suite of crab management regulations first agreed to in 2008 by Virginia and Maryland, he said. We also must maintain federal funding for critical crab management programs, such as underwater grasses restoration.

Gov. Larry Hogans administration acknowledged last month that it might be open to revising catch limits, such as a midsummer increase in the minimum crab harvest size. Wednesdays release of the population survey results launches an annual process of reviewing the regulations and whether they can or should be changed.

Blazer said any such changes will only be considered after we receive input from all parties involved.

Bay advocates meanwhile are also pressing against President Trumps budget proposal that calls for elimination of the Environmental Protection Agencys Annapolis-based Chesapeake Bay Program. That office coordinates cleanup efforts across the bay watersheds six states and the District of Columbia.

The regulations established in 2008 focused on boosting the population of spawning-age female crabs and, among other things, restricted Virginia crabbers from dredging up pregnant females during their winter hibernation. A target population of 215 million spawning females was established.

The 2016 survey results mark the second time since then that the target has been exceeded, with an estimated 254 million spawning-age female crabs in the bay. That was a 31 percent increase over 2015, a jump similar to the one reported when the target was last achieved in 2010.

Blue crab numbers are naturally prone to swings because of the species complex and short life cycle. After being spawned in Virginia bay waters, larval crabs spend the earliest stage of their life in the Atlantic. Wind and weather carry them up the bay to grow and spend the winter burrowed in mud. The following season, they emerge and resume growing, with an average life span of two years.

The state Department of Natural Resources and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science have conducted the annual crab population survey since 1990. It involves sampling numbers of hibernating crabs dredged from the mud.

A group of scientists that sits on the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee will analyze the survey results and advise fishery managers in Maryland and Virginia who decide on harvest policy changes.

For the first time in years, Marylands longtime crab fishery manager, Brenda Davis, will not be part of the process. Natural Resources Secretary Mark Belton fired her in February without explanation.

Watermen said they had been frustrated with Davis for what they saw as inflexibility in loosening harvest rules.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who is seeking to lease apartment buildings for homeless families, addresses a community meeting at Friendship Baptist Church in Ward 6 in February 2016. (Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post)

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser is seeking to lease apartment buildings for homeless families, a consequential shift in her administrations efforts to combat a housing shortage that could prove controversial among District residents and elected officials.

The city has issued a solicitation for buildings with up to 50 apartments that it would lease for the next two to three years. D.C. Department of Human Services Director Laura Zeilinger cast the move as an attempt to reduce the citys use of hotel and motel rooms, where more than 500 homeless families are being housed  at a cost of roughly $80,000 per night  because of crowded conditions at the Districts primary homeless shelter.

We know that we have a reliance on motels right now that is very expensive, Zeilinger said. To the degree we can replace that with apartments, we would like to.

Zeilinger said the city does not yet have a goal for how many homeless families it would house in leased buildings or cost estimates. She said she anticipates that families would typically stay in the buildings for about 120 days, the shelter systems current average.

Kate Coventry, a senior policy analyst at the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, said the attempt to shift families from hotel and motel rooms  which are often small and lack a kitchen  into apartments looks like a step in the right direction.

But some council members say they still have unanswered questions about the plan.

Depending on the location of the apartment buildings, Bowser (D) could also face pitched political battles of the kind that have dogged her effort to replace the main family shelter at the former D.C. General Hospital site with smaller shelters throughout the city.

The city is looking for complexes within one to two blocks of Metro rail stations, amid some of the Districts most desirable real estate.

Bowsers initiative is the latest step in her efforts to address the Districts high rate of family homelessness, an issue at the center of her 2014 mayoral campaign and on which she has spent considerable political capital since taking office, with mixed results. Between 2007 and 2016, the Districts population of homeless families grew by 191 percent.

The mayor has earned praise from homeless advocates for expanding family shelter access year-round. Under the Districts previous policy, families were admitted only on nights cold enough to trigger a hypothermia alert.

But her plan for leasing private property throughout the city for smaller family homeless shelters to replace D.C. General was dramatically altered by the council after The Washington Post reported that the city would have paid above market rate for those leases and that some of the contracts would enrich the mayors political donors.

Bowser and the council ultimately agreed on a plan to build or buy the shelters. Since then, progress on some of them has been hindered by legal battles with neighbors.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said the city should be cautious in its latest homelessness initiative  for instance, by making sure it does not overpay for the leases.

Theres a lot of risk here, he said. Although the council only has a formal say on contracts of more than $1 million annually, he said, he expects the councils Committee on Human Services to have an oversight role for the plan.

I think, as a practical matter, well be involved, he said.

D.C. Council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7), Bowsers predecessor as mayor and a former director of the Department of Human Services, said council members should have been consulted about the plan while it was being developed.

Gray, chairman of the councils Health Committee and a likely rival for the mayors job in 2018, said he was surprised that the plan did not come up in testimony before his committee last week by HyeSook Chung, the deputy mayor for health and human services.

Chung testified that the city was on track to reduce its annual spending on hotels and motels from $24 million this fiscal year to $16 million next year, and to stop using the plan altogether in the next two to three years. She did not mention any new plans to house homeless families in apartment buildings.

Had the deputy mayor raised it at our hearing, I would have had a number of questions about it, Gray said. If its going to improve the conditions of these families, especially the children, then its a good idea. But its hard to evaluate an idea I know nothing about at this point.

Kevin Harris, a spokesman for the mayor, wrote in an email that Bowser believes the council is an important partner in this effort and there will be many opportunities for input and oversight, same as there has always been.


Alex Scott, 45, who has cerebral palsy, laughs at Inova Loudoun Hospital in Leesburg, Va., where he has been stranded for 23 days while his family and group-home caregivers argue about the need for a feeding tube. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Alex Scott cannot speak.

If he could, he might be able to answer a crucial question that has pitted the people who speak for him against one another and left him stranded in a Northern Virginia hospital for three weeks.

At issue: Does the 45-year-old with cerebral palsy need a feeding tube?

Scotts relatives say the group home where he has lived for two decades told them it would not take him back without a feeding tube. His family says the medical procedure is unnecessary and would benefit group-home employees more than Scott.

The struggle over the feeding tube, advocacy groups say, illustrates what can happen to people with disabilities when caregivers disagree about what is best for them.

The family has filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department and contacted the Office of Human Rights within Virginias Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

In the meantime, Scott remains at Inova Loudoun Hospital, with his sister, Samantha Tunador, cataloguing each day on social media with the hashtag #takeAlexhome.

Day 11, Tunador wrote April 10 on Facebook. I promise you Alex, we are doing everything we can to get you out of the hospital and back to your home.

End of Day 12, and no confirmation that Alex is going home. This just sucks.

Day 20, she says in a video that has been viewed 1,800 times. We really are not much further.

As of Friday, Scott had spent 23 days in the hospital. He arrived at the end of March with a slight fever and possible bronchitis and was supposed to be discharged a few days later, his family said.

Margaret Graham, director of Loudoun Countys Department of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services, which oversees the group home, said her agency has been in contact with Scotts family but, because of privacy concerns, she could not discuss the matter publicly.

We can tell you that as in any situation, [the agencys] group home providers are committed to promoting health and wellbeing through the provision of individualized supports, Graham wrote in a statement. When a person is hospitalized, the staff works together to come up with a discharge plan, and, in that planning, must ensure that an individuals required support and medical assessment can be safely met in a group home setting. 

Tunador said the family fears that if Scott is unable to return to the group home, the hospital will find a nursing home for him that will offer less social stimulation and may be farther from his relatives in Loudoun.

People keep saying to me, Why do you want him to go back to this group home, where the problem is?  Tunador said. Thats his home. Thats what he knows. Its where his friend are. Its where hes happy. And the unknown is scarier.

While Scott cannot speak, Tunador said he has been clear about what he wants: to leave the hospital. A video of Scott shows him in bed, shaking his head and screaming. Tunador posted it on Facebook and wrote alongside it that he wanted the nurses to remove his IVs so he could go home: He has lived in a Loudoun County group home for 20+ years. He has not changed and his level of care is the same. They have changed and it is not fair!



Peggy Johnson, who cared for Scott for more than 20 years ago, surprises Scott with a visit to his hospital room. Scotts sister, Samantha Tunador, is at left. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Tunador said she was worried that by sharing her brothers story, and videos of him, she would face criticism for exposing him. But the response, she said, has been overwhelmingly positive, with thousands of people rallying behind Scott and sharing their own stories of aging parents and loved ones with disabilities.

Underneath all of this is the same principle of how do we make decisions for and on behalf of people, said Tina Campanella, the executive director of the District-based nonprofit Quality Trust for Individuals With Disabilities.

[Virginia woman with Down syndrome seeks power to live the way she wants]

In Scotts case, she said, a feeding tube can help if he is at risk of aspiration  drawing food into his airway or lungs  but, at the same time, he would no longer be able to taste food.

If eating is clearly a pleasurable experience for him, Campanella said, that should be taken into account in the decision-making process. Conversely, if he didnt care, and he was in distress during the eating process, that might be a piece of evidence that a feeding tube could add quality to his life.

Tunador said her brother eats in a way that might be jarring to someone observing him the first time. He holds his head back and makes a gurgling sound. It can take him 30 minutes to finish a meal. But he has eaten that way his entire life, she said, and he loves food, especially anything soft and chocolate flavored.

His teacher from high school, Susan Walker, recently visited him after learning about his situation through Facebook. He looked the same, she said. He weighs less than 100 pounds, but he was always thin.

Other than the gray hair hes starting to get, its the same old Alex, Walker said. I think its heartbreaking that they wont take him back.

Scotts father, Robert Scott, said his son was one of the early residents of the group home and that in his two decades there he has formed wonderful relationships. But in the past few years, the family says they have begun to notice changes in his care, including questionable hospitalizations and made-up problems like malnutrition and worsening of swallowing. When the family started collecting medical records, they also found reports they hadnt seen, including one that read, Family in denial.

Our family position is that we have always welcomed any surgical procedure that solves a serious problem like eating or bloating or fecal waste management, Robert Scott wrote in a letter outlining his sons situation, which he sent to county officials. But the experts have ultimately advised against surgery. It is our opinion that Alex has changed little in his lifetime. So much is difficult today just as it was when he was a child. But he is a happy and mostly healthy guy.



Helena Talbot, Scotts mother, holds a photograph of him when he was 4 or 5 years old. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Scott, now 45, is less than a year old in this family photo. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, said Scotts civil rights are at stake.

What might seem like, Well just give him a feeding tube, whats the big deal?,  opens the way to more interventions, Decker said. Whats next that they will come up with?

All too often, caregivers are willing to prioritize the ease of a persons care over that persons quality of life, Decker said. He pointed to the Ashley Treatment, a term named for a girl born in 1997 in Seattle who, at her parents bidding, received hormones to limit her growth, underwent a hysterectomy and had her breast buds removed.

Robert Scott shared parts of his sons medical records with The Washington Post. In a report from last April, a doctor wrote that Alex Scott was accompanied by his caregivers, mother and sister for an evaluation for the possible feeding tube placement.

His caregivers are most concerned about the episodes of abdominal distention and possible decrease in by mouth intake, the report reads. His mother and sister believe that the abdominal distention is no different than his baseline, report he is not losing weight and believes his by mouth intake is at baseline.

The doctor found that he was well-developed, well nourished, in no acute distress.

She wrote, I cannot strongly recommend a feeding tube at this time, and though everyone clearly has Mr. Scotts best interests in mind there is disagreement between his mother and caregivers.

On Day 23, Tunador posted an emotional video saying that the family had been hopeful in recent days, but that ended when her brothers doctors met with county employees Friday. They maintained their stance. He still wasnt going home.

I just cannot believe that they would do this to him, she said, crying as her brother watched from his wheelchair behind her. The county is asking her family to choose a high-risk surgery over Scott  and they cant, she said. Were not going to. Were going to stand up for him.

I cant even believe this is his home right now, she said, looking back at her brother. Sorry, buddy.


Michelle Roberts, 43, is accused of intentionally aborting her unborn baby in her third trimester of pregnancy. She was arrested March 29 and charged with producing abortion or miscarriage. (Chesterfield County Sheriffs Office )

 The police brought cadaver dogs to search the small redbrick rancher in this suburban community south of Richmond.

On that March day more than a year ago, they were seeking any evidence associated with the delivery and death of a newborn child whether alive or deceased, according to the affidavit for the search warrant.

What they found buried in the back yard  the skeletal remains of a fetus  led to the indictment last month of a 43-year-old woman who lived there. Michelle Frances Roberts is accused of self-aborting in the third trimester of her pregnancy. She was arrested March 29 this year on felony charges of producing abortion or miscarriage.

The rarely invoked law, written in 1950, prohibits giving a pregnant woman a drug or taking any action with intent to destroy her unborn child.

Roberts, who remains in jail in Chesterfield, has denied the charges. According to the police, she told investigators she gave birth to a baby boy in the house, but he died afterward, and she buried him in the back yard.

Police and prosecutors have revealed little about the evidence that led to the unusual charge against Roberts, who court records show has a history of drug use.

Commonwealth Assistant Attorney Shawn Gobble refused to comment on the case. Robertss defense attorney, H. Pratt Cook III, also declined to talk about the charges his client is facing. She is scheduled to appear in court Monday for a status hearing on the case, which has alarmed womens rights advocates in Virginia.

It is unclear from the questionable, selective release of information by the Chesterfield police exactly what happened here, said Gail Deady, the Secular Society Womens Rights legal fellow for the Virginia ACLU. But it appears that this is another example of overreach and targeting of a pregnant woman in an attempt to shame and punish her for her circumstances.

But a neighbor who saw the police cars arrive on their street said the discovery of the remains near a big tree in the back yard sent chills through her body: It wasnt right. She should have gone to a doctor. If you dont want the baby, you go to the doctor.

The law has been used at least once before by Virginia authorities to charge a woman with harming her unborn child, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In 2005, a Suffolk woman was prosecuted for shooting herself in the abdomen on her due date and then blaming her injury on a man. But a circuit court judge dismissed the charge, saying the law was not intended to punish expectant mothers. It was aimed at the actions of others.

Repeated efforts by state legislators to pass a law making it a crime for a pregnant woman to self-abort were unsuccessful.

Deady said she is concerned about the repercussions of the Roberts prosecution.

It could mean anyone who has a miscarriage could be subjected to an investigation by police and thrown in jail, she argued.



The North Chesterfield, Va., home where Michelle Roberts was arrested last month. ( DeNeen L. Brown/The Washington Post)

Police said they found fetal remains buried in the back yard in a box during a search last year. ( DeNeen L. Brown/The Washington Post)

It was the mother of Michelle Robertss boyfriend, Danny Coppola, who tipped police off to the missing baby, according to court records.

Before Coppola went to prison in 2015 for violating his probation in a 2011 forgery case, he told his mother, Linda Castillo, that Roberts was pregnant with a baby boy, according to police. The couple also have an adult daughter, Lauren Coppola.

Roberts, police said, acknowledged to Castillo that she was five months pregnant. Castillo asked Roberts which doctor she was going to. Michelle told her that she was going to check with the doctor at the methadone clinic because they would not judge her, police said.

Since 2012, Roberts had been visiting the Richmond Southside Treatment Center, where she received low doses of methadone four times a week, police said. Detectives said the clinic director verified Roberts was a regular patient at the clinic, but he had no record of Roberts ever being pregnant.

By Castillos calculations, her new grandchild should have been born around September or October 2015. But she never received an announcement.

Castillo told police she next saw Roberts in October 2015 at a hospital where Lauren Coppola had been admitted after a car accident. At the hospital, Castillo asked Lauren about her mothers pregnancy, police said.

Coppola, now 21, told her grandmother that she needed to talk to Michelle about that, police said, and that she didnt want to be involved.

Castillo walked into the hospital hallway, where she saw Roberts. She noticed Roberts no longer appeared to be pregnant, police said.

Roberts told Castillo, This isnt anything we need to discuss here.

About a month later, Coppola and her boyfriend, Dylan Kidwell, had an argument at the house on Philbrook Road in Chesterfield, where they lived with Roberts and Robertss stepfather, police said. Castillo arrived during the tumult.

At one point, Kidwell shouted something at his girlfriends mother that made Castillo suspicious, police said.

You better watch yourself, Kidwell yelled at Roberts. Because I know whats buried in the back yard.

Castillo asked Roberts what was buried in the back yard.

Michelle told Linda that the baby had been born in the house, according to police.

She said the baby took one breath, at which point she passed out, police said. Michelle said that Lauren woke her up and told her that the baby died and that she and Dylan dug a hole in the back yard and buried it.

Castillo died on March 12 last year, five days after police executed a warrant to search the back yard of the house on Philbrook. Castillo was 56.

Chesterfield County police said Lauren Coppola and Dylan Kidwell have not been charged in the case. Neither could be reached for comment.

At this time Michelle Roberts is the only one charged in this matter, said Capt. G. Netherland, a spokesman with the Chesterfield County police.

Before his mothers death, Danny Coppola, who is incarcerated at the Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, Va., wrote three letters to her in which he mentioned Michelles baby, police said.

The police search of the home and the back yard, court records say, yielded: human remains; two Samsung galaxy cellphones; a disc thumb drive; a white tablet; and a journal.

The house, where pink azalea bushes are blooming in the front yard, is now for sale.
We present the short story "The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock" by O. Henry. The story was originally adapted and recorded by the U.S. Department of State.

Prince Michael of Valleluna sat in the park on the seat he liked best. In the coolness of the night, he felt full of life. The other seats were not filled. Cool weather sends most people home.

The moon was rising over the houses on the east side of the park. Children laughed and played. Music came softly from one of the nearer streets. Around the little park, cabs rolled by. The trains that traveled high above the street rushed past. These cabs and trains, with their wild noises, seemed like animals outside the park. But they could not enter. The park was safe and quiet. And above the trees was the great, round, shining face of a lighted clock in a tall old building.

Prince Michaels shoes were old and broken. No shoemaker could ever make them like new again. His clothes were very torn. The hair of his face had been growing for two weeks. It was all colorsgray and brown and red and green-yellow. His hat was older and more torn than his shoes and his other clothes.

Prince Michael sat on the seat he liked best, and he smiled. It was a happy thought to him that he had enough money to buy every house he could see near the park, if he wished. He had as much gold as any rich man in this proud city of New York. He had as many jewels, and houses, and land. He could have sat at table with kings and queens. All the best things in the world could be hisart, pleasure, beautiful women, honor. All the sweeter things in life were waiting for Prince Michael of Valleluna whenever he might choose to take them. But instead he was choosing to sit in torn clothes on a seat in a park.

For he had tasted of the fruit the tree of life. He had not liked the taste. Here, in this park, he felt near to the beating heart of the world. He hoped it would help him to forget that taste.

These thoughts moved like a dream through the mind of Prince Michael. There was a smile across his face with its many-colored hair. Sitting like this, in torn clothes, he loved to study other men. He loved to do good things for others. Giving was more pleasant to him than owning all his riches. It was his chief pleasure to help people who were in trouble. He liked to give to people who needed help. He liked to surprise them with princely gifts. But he always gave wisely, after careful thought.

And now, as he looked at the shining face of the great clock, his smile changed. The Prince always thought big thoughts. When he thought of time, he always felt a touch of sadness. Time controlled the world. People had to do what time commanded. Their comings and goings were always controlled by a clock. They were always in a hurry, and always afraid, because of time. It made him sad.

After a little while, a young man in evening clothes came and sat upon a seat near the Prince. For half an hour he sat there nervously. Then he began to watch the face of the lighted clock above the trees. The Prince could see that the young man had a trouble. He could also see that somehow the clock was part of the trouble.

The Prince rose and went to the young mans seat.

I am a stranger, and I shouldnt speak to you, he said. But I can see that you are troubled. I am Prince Michael of Valleluna. I do not want people to know who I am. That is why I wear these torn clothes. It is a small pleasure of mine to help those who need help. First I must feel sure they are worth helping. I think you are. And perhaps your trouble may be ended if you and I together decide what to do about it.

The young man looked up brightly at the Prince. Brightly, but he was still troubled. He laughed, then, but still the look of trouble remained. But he accepted this chance to talk to someone.

Im glad to meet you, Prince, he said pleasantly. Yes, I can see you dont want to be known. Thats easy to see. Thanks for your offer to help. But I dont see what you can do. Its my own problem. But thanks.

Prince Michael sat down at the young mans side. People often said no to him, but they always said it pleasantly.

Clocks, said the Prince, are tied to the feet of all men and women. I have seen you watching that clock. That face commands us to act, whether or not we wish to act. Let me tell you not to trust the numbers on that face. They will destroy you if they can. Stop looking at that clock. What does it know about living men and women?

I usually dont look at that clock, said the young man. I carry a watch, except when I wear evening clothes.

I know men and women as I know the trees and the flowers, said the Prince, warmly and proudly. I have studied many years. And I am very rich. There are few troubles that I cannot help. I have read what is in your face. I have found honor and goodness there, and trouble. Please accept my help. I can see that you are wise. Show how wise you are. Do not judge me by my torn clothes. I am sure I can help you.

The young man looked at the clock again, and his face grew darker. Then he looked at a house beside the park. Lights could be seen in many rooms.

Ten minutes before nine! said the young man. He raised his hands and then let them fall, as if hope had gone. He stood up and took a quick step or two away.

Remain! commanded Prince Michael. His voice was so powerful that the young man turned quickly. He laughed a little.

Ill wait ten minutes and then Ill go, he said in a low voice, as if only to himself. Then to the Prince he said, Ill join you. Well destroy all the clocks. And women, too.

Sit down, said the Prince softly. I do not accept that. I do not include women. Women are enemies of clocks. They are born that way. Therefore they are friends of those who wish to destroy clocks. If you can trust me, tell me your story.

The young man sat down again and laughed loudly.

Prince, I will, he said. He did not believe that Prince Michael was really a prince. His manner of speaking proved that. Do you see that house, Prince? That house with lights in three windows on the third floor? At six tonight I was in that house with the young lady I am going towas going to marry. Id been doing wrong, my dear Prince, and she heard about it. I was sorry. I wanted her to forget it. We are always asking women to forget things like that, arent we, Prince?

 I want time to think, she said. I will either forget it forever, or never see your face again. At half-past eight, she said, watch the middle window on the third floor of this house. If I decide to forget, I will hang out a long white cloth. You will know then that everything is as it was before. And you may come to me. If you see nothing hanging from the window, you will know that everything between us is finished forever.

That, said the young man, is why I have been watching that clock. The time was passed twenty-three minutes ago. Do you see why I am a little troubled, my torn Prince?

Let me tell you again, said Prince Michael in his soft voice, that women are the born enemies of clocks. Clocks are bad, women are good. The white cloth may yet appear.

Never! said the young man, hopelessly. You dont know Marian. She is always on time, to the minute. That was the first thing I liked about her. At 8:31, I should have known that everything was finished. Im going to go West. Ill get on the train tonight. Ill find some way to forget her. Good nightPrince.

Prince Michael smiled his gentle, understanding smile. He caught the others arm. The bright light in the Princes eyes was softening. It was dream-like, clouded.

Wait, he said, till the clock tells the hour. I have riches and power and I am wiser than most men. But when I hear the clock tell the hour, I am afraid. Stay with me till then. This woman shall be yours. You have the promise of the Prince of Valleluna. On the day you are married I will give you $100,000 and a great house beside the Hudson River. But there must be no clocks in that house. Do you agree to that?

Sure, said the young man. I dont like clocks.

He looked again at the clock above the trees. It was three minutes before nine.

I think, said Prince Michael, that I will sleep a little. It has been a long day.

He lay down on the seat, as if he had often done it before.

Youll find me on this park on any evening when the weather is good, said the Prince. Come to me when you know the day youll be married. Ill give you the money.

Thanks, Prince, said the young man. That day isnt going to come. But thanks.

Prince Michael fell into a deep sleep. His hat rolled on the ground. The young man lifted it, placed it over the Princes face, and moved one of the Princes legs into an easier position. Poor fellow! he said. He pulled the torn coat together over the Princes body.

It was nine. Loud and surprising came the voice of the clock, telling the hour. The young man took a deep breath, and turned for one more look at the house. And he gave a shout of joy.

From the middle window on the third floor, a snow-white wonderful cloth was hanging.

Through the park a man came, hurrying home.

Will you tell me the time, please? asked the young man.

The other man took out his watch. Twenty-nine and a half minutes after eight.

And then he looked up at the clock.

But that clock is wrong! the man said. The first time in ten years! My watch is always

But he was talking to no one. He turned and saw the young man running toward the house with three lighted windows on the third floor.

And in the morning two cops walked through the park. There was only one person to be seena man, asleep on a long park seat. They stopped to look at him.

Its Michael the Dreamer, said one. He has been sleeping like this in the park for twenty years. He wont live much longer, I guess.

The other cop looked at something in the sleepers hand. Look at this, he said. Fifty dollars. I wish I could have a dream like that.

And then they gave Prince Michael of Valleluna a hard shake, and brought him out of his dreams and into real life.

Download activities to help you understand this story here.

Now it's your turn to use the words in this story. Do you feel that you are often in a hurry? How often do you stop to enjoy the world around you? Let us know in the comments section or on our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

prince  n. a male member of a royal family

cab(s)  n. a car that carries passengers to a place for an amount of money that is based on the distance traveled

beating  v. to make the regular movements needed to pump blood

comings and goings  idm. the activity of people arriving at and leaving a place

nervously  adv. done in a way showing feelings of being worried and afraid about what might happen

pleasantly - adv. done in a way that is friendly and likable

hopelessly  adv. done in a way that shows no feeling of hope

cop(s) - n. a person whose job is to enforce laws, investigate crimes, and make arrests
A Muslim group can move forward with plans to build a mosque in Culpeper after reaching an agreement in a religious discrimination lawsuit it filed against officials who had denied it a zoning permit.

The agreement closes a chapter on a case that the group framed as a fight for religious freedom but county officials cast as a routine zoning skirmish over a sewage permit.

[Muslim group sues Virginia county for denying mosque permit]

We can finally move ahead and start building our mosque so we can fully meet the needs of our religious community, Mohammad Nawabe, director of the Islamic Center of Culpeper, said in a statement. Our members have lived in Culpeper County for decades, and all we have ever asked for is to be treated the same as everyone else.

The settlement was announced Friday by Muslim Advocates, a California-based group that represented the center in the case.

The site where the Islamic Center of Culpepers mosque is to be built (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

The dispute began last year when the county denied the Islamic Center a permit to pump and haul away sewage on the rural site it purchased outside the town of Culpeper. The Justice Department filed a civil rights lawsuit, and the center followed with a lawsuit of its own this year.

The settlement agreement requires the county to pay the center $10,000 for its expenses. As part of the settlement, Culpeper County officials did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.

The countys Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 3 Tuesday to approve the agreement.

Bill Chase, a board member who voted against the agreement and proposed a motion to deny the permit last April, said this week that he maintains that his decisions were based on the fact that the group did not meet the countys requirements. Such permits are designed for situations where no other option exists.

It had nothing to do with religion, it had nothing to do with faith, it had nothing to do with people  it was a piece of land without a building on it, he said.

Weve never approved one like that, he added. Our policy was that pump-and-haul was to be used for emergencies only when a building was there, and there was a failing draining field  it was approved for a pump-and-haul for a temporary basis.

[A small Virginia county put brakes on plans for a mosque. Was it discrimination?]

The center has noted that when the permit was denied in a 4-to-3 vote last year, the move was celebrated by the crowd in attendance as well as on anti-Muslim websites. Three of the board members who voted for the permit said they were barraged with calls and emails expressing concerns over Islamist terrorism.

The county continues to defend itself against the Justice Department lawsuit.

Federal officials said in December that by denying the permit, county officials violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. In an April 12 response to that lawsuit, the county said it did not illegally discriminate against the ICC based on religion or any other prohibited basis.

[Justice Dept. sues Virginia county over denial of permit to build mosque]

In the Justice Department case, the county said a Culpeper official met with an Islamic Center representative who said that another sewage system had been identified at the site. The representative said the system would cost between $20,000 and $25,000 and that the price was too high. Members of the Islamic Center currently worship in an empty building with no heat next to a car dealership owned by Nawabe.
A Seat Pleasant liquor store owner pleaded guilty Thursday to bribing two state delegates in connection with Sunday liquor sales in Prince Georges County.

Authorities said Young Jung Paig, 61, paid then-Dels. William A. Campos (D-Prince Georges) and Michael E. Vaughn (D-Prince Georges) in 2015 and 2016.

Paig paid Campos to help ensure passage of a bill to allow Sunday sales, according to court papers. He paid Vaughn in an effort to limit the number of additional Sunday permits that would be authorized  and the competition his store would face.

Campos, who left the legislature in late 2015, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in January. Vaughn resigned from the legislature in January and was indicted in March.

Paig faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He must pay restitution of at least $175,000  and forfeit all property obtained, directly or indirectly, from the offense. Sentencing is scheduled for July 26.
A quick-thinking boat captain pulled a burning 21-foot powerboat away from the Solomons Yacht Club in Southern Maryland, and into deeper water, likely preventing a bigger problem, officials said.

A man was refueling his boat at the dock in Calvert County on Thursday evening. Once he finished, he tried to restart the engine but there was an explosion, according to Candy Thomson, a spokeswoman with the Maryland Natural Resources Police.

The boat owner was thrown back into the cabin, she said, and suffered second-degree burns on his legs. Another man  his father  was stepping onto the boat at the time and was either thrown in or fell into the water. He was not injured.

Out on the water  about half-a-mile away  Lee Tippett, a charter boat captain, was coming back with seven other people from rock fishing near the mouth of the Patuxent River.

Tippett recalled Friday how he spotted the boat on fire and went to help. He asked the seven people on board to stay in the cabin.

He then backed up his own boat, called the Fin Finder, to the burning one and threw an anchor on it. A crew member helped him.

Tippett then towed the flaming vessel out  away from the dock by almost two miles into deeper water. A fire department later put out the flames.

A video that was taken of the incident shows Tippetts boat pulling the burning boat with red flames and black smoke coming from it, away from the pier.

Tippett said he saw the boat was on fire and somebody was in the water, along with people he knew on the dock trying to help.

I just was doing what I could to help out, said Tippett, 40, of Nanjemoy, Md., who has been in the charter fishing boat business for 12 years.

Thomson said her department plans to recognize Tippett for his efforts.

Hes clearly very good at what he does, Thomson said of Tippetts rescue efforts. Hes got a cool head, and our hat is off to him.

She said the fuel tanks on the pier, plus people and other boats parked at the dock all made for a dangerous situation with the boat on fire.

It could have been much worse, she said.

The man who suffered the burns was taken to a hospital for treatment. Officials said the states fire marshal is investigating the cause of the explosion and fire.
Responding to a bullying incident caught on video, a jury has said Prince Georges County schools must pay $100,000 to the family of an elementary student who was assaulted by another girl on a school bus as other children agitated for a brawl.

The assault on Saraia Collins, who was a 9-year-old Highland Park Elementary School student at the time, was captured on cellphone videos by other students, and left her with a concussion and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to her attorney and her mother. The family contended the school bus driver should have stopped the vehicle or intervened sooner as the girl was being pummeled and screaming, Stop! Stop!

Tierra Holland, Collinss mother, said bringing the lawsuit wasnt about money but about holding the school system accountable in the 2015 incident.

They never apologized, not one time, said Holland, 32. If I had gotten an apology or something disciplinary to students, I wouldnt have done this, but I needed some kind of justice.

The jurys verdict was returned Wednesday in county circuit court.

Asked about the case, a spokeswoman for the school system, Lynn McCawley, said that it is not our policy to comment on legal matters.

Brian K. McDaniel, the attorney for Hollands family, said video of the girls beating was disseminated on YouTube among students, adding to her trauma.

[Former school aide, choir director pleads guilty to child porn charges]

The jury took into consideration the actual assault was captured on video and that it is something she will have to deal with for the rest of her life, McDaniel said.

The incident happened on the afternoon of May 8, 2015, he said. Saraia, a fourth-grade student at the time, was on her way home from school when students on the bus began yelling that they wanted to see a fight.

The bus driver stopped and went to the back of the bus to address the disruption, then returned to the front, McDaniel said.

Another girl on the bus, a second-grader, confronted Saraia at that point, challenging her to fight, video of the incident shows.

Im not fighting you! Saraia is heard screaming repeatedly on video.

The driver again stops and confronts the students.

He tells the young lady threatening Saraia, Im going to take you back to school,  McDaniel said. He goes back to the front. Then she is assaulted for two minutes.

The video shows Saraia screaming, Get out of my face, Im not going to fight you, before the second-grader climbs on Saraias seat, towers over her and starts to slap her.

Video shows the second-grade girl pinning Saraia down with one arm and repeatedly punching her head with the other. The bus appears to remain in motion while children jump and scream.

[For years, Pr. Georges didnt strengthen school sex-abuse policies]

The other kids on the bus are yelling and screaming, and the bus driver doesnt do anything, McDaniel said. He doesnt file a report or call the police.

The end of the video shows Saraia curled up in a ball in her seat and crying. A boy mimics and mocks her sobs.

Holland said she was brought to tears when she first saw the video.

Holland said her family had complained to school administrators in the past about incidents involving the student seen on video attacking her daughter, but said the school system never reprimanded the girl. She had to take the video to Prince Georges County police to get action in her daughters case, Holland said.

What we are teaching these children and bullies out there is if you do something wrong, you get a slap on the wrist, she said.

Hollands daughter is now 11 and attends private school.

In the two years since the bus attack, Holland said her daughter has changed. The once outgoing social butterfly is withdrawn and quiet. She wont sleep unless a light remains on because shes afraid of the dark, her mother said.

Im hoping that eventually she will go back to being her, Holland said. I want her to get her youth back and be a child.
William George Moore Jr. was charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Rawle Farley. Police are seeking two additional suspects. (Prince George's County Police)

A Maryland man has been arrested in connection with a fatal shooting last month in College Park, but police are still searching for two other suspects, authorities said Thursday.

Rawle Farley, 36, was fatally shot by acquaintances on March 26 during a robbery in his apartment building in the 9600 block of Milestone Way, Prince Georges County police said. Another person was shot but survived his injuries, according to the police statement.

On Thursday, police said 31-year-old William George Moore Jr. of Dundalk, Md., was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the shooting.

Police also released surveillance video they said showed three suspects, including Moore, walking into the victims apartment building just before the 4 p.m. shooting. They asked anyone with information about the incident or the people in the video to contact them at 301-772-4925 or submit a tip online at pgcrimesolvers.com.
D.C. police on Friday arrested a suspect in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred last month on a busy street in the Fairlawn neighborhood of Southeast Washington, according to authorities.

Antione Kingwood, 24, of Southeast, was charged with second-degree murder while armed. He was arrested by the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force.

Police said Kingwood is charged in the shooting death of Steven Edward Stewart Jr., 33, of Southeast.

Stewart was shot about 8:55 a.m. March 17 in the 2200 block of Minnesota Avenue SE in front of a convenience store and across the street from Orr Elementary School. He lived less than half a mile from where he was killed.

A police report says that officers responded to the shooting and found Stewart lying on his back in front of the store with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was pronounced dead at a hospital about 9:30 a.m.

Police did not comment on a possible motive.
Adam Eidinger was among the eight people who were arrested Thursday during an event at which joints were distributed near Capitol Hill. Eidinger was part of a group participating in the First Joint Session, where volunteers planned to give free joints to members of Congress, congressional staff, Capitol Hill support staff and credentialed journalists older than 21. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

Prosecutors dropped charges against six of eight activists arrested Thursday on Capitol Hill at an event where free joints were distributed to congressional staffers.

Authorities on Friday said they would continue to pursue drug possession charges against two people, Adam Eidinger, 43, of Northwest Washington, and William Angolia, 60, of Southeast Washington. The two men are part of a group pushing for further marijuana legalization.

[At least seven arrested in free joint giveaway near the U.S. Capitol]

Eidinger is the head of DCMJ, an activist group formerly known as the D.C. Cannabis Campaign that organized the giveaway. He was arrested for having 78 rolled marijuana cigarettes, amounting to 2.06 ounces of marijuana, in a clear zipper bag, according to charging papers.

All eight people arrested in the incident were initially charged under federal law, which makes any marijuana possession a crime. But prosecutors chose to pursue the cases against Eidinger and Angolia under D.C. law, which allows people to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and to give away small amounts.

During the event, the participants said they believed they had done nothing to violate D.C. law.

Eidinger repeated that contention after his Friday hearing in D.C. Superior Court.

I was on D.C. land. I am definitely fighting this, he said. District law says I can possess marijuana anywhere in Washington, D.C., and the Capitol is within Washington, D.C.

This was an unlawful arrest. At first they told us they were arresting us under federal charges. And then they reduced it to local charges. Its still unlawful.

In court Friday, Angolia wore a polo shirt that read DC Cannabis Co-op Club. He is accused of loading two six-foot-tall marijuana plants into his SUV during the protest, according to court papers. Police also found two marijuana cigarettes weighing 0.005 ounces each inside the SUV as well as two containers with green, leafy substances, the documents state.

At Thursdays giveaway, on the marijuana-themed holiday 4/20, members of Congress, congressional staff, Capitol Hill support staff and credentialed journalists older than 21 were invited to take two free joints.

The 1st Annual Joint Session, as it was called, was intended to be a less-confrontational prelude to Monday, when activists plan to illegally smoke marijuana on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Instead, eight people were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police, possibly setting up a showdown over whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions  who said in February we dont need to be legalizing marijuana  intends to enforce marijuana laws in places where the drug has been legalized. But, at least in this case, prosecutors chose to rely on D.C. law, not federal law.

Nikolas Schiller, co-founder of DCMJ, said he believes Capitol police targeted the group to thwart their planned protest on Monday. He argued that authorities improperly included the weight of rolling paper when weighing the marijuana.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office declined to comment on the case.

In an interview Friday afternoon, Angolia said he is a supporter of President Trump. Even after spending the night in jail, he said he doubts that Sessions and the administration would bother prosecuting marijuana cases.

They dont want to spend their money on cannabis, he said. Theyve got more important things to do. I might be totally wrong, but thats how Im calling it.
Victor Mestanza is one of the Ecuadoran farmers who sued DynCorp in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking damages in a case over aerial spraying during a U.S.-Colombian coca-eradication program. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

A U.S. jury in Washington declined to award damages in a trial testing claims by the first six of 2,000 Ecuadoran farmers who allege that they were poisoned by an American security contractor in a years-long coca-eradication campaign by the U.S. and Colombian governments.

Human rights attorneys for the farmers said trials would continue, but the verdict Thursday marked a victory for the contractor, McLean-based DynCorp International. The farmers accused the firm of recklessly spraying them, their families and crops when fumigant drifted south across the Colombia-Ecuador border.

The spraying was coordinated by DynCorp and conducted by pilots working for a subcontractor and also at times by pilots for the Colombian National Police, evidence showed. The 10-person jury found DynCorp responsible for the subcontractors pilots between 2000 and 2007, but not for employees of Colombian law enforcement.

Because farmers could not say which pilot was at the controls of any individual plane, the jury rejected any claim before roughly April 2003  the time frame when the Colombian police agency was engaged and when the six farmers in the case alleged they were sprayed, according to court filings and both parties.

Attorneys for the farmers sought damages of up to $500,000 a person, not counting potential punitive damages, if DynCorp were found liable for inflicting emotional distress and recklessly spraying the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup.

A plane in 2006 fumigating over coca fields in San Miguel, close to the border with Ecuador, some 400 miles south of Bogota, Colombia. (FERNANDO VERGARA/AP)

[Were peasant farmers poisoned by the U.S. war on drugs? A jury has the case.]

The verdict came in an initial trial that both sides had agreed to use as a test to shape the resolution of remaining cases.

Attorneys for the farmers said they were disappointed by the verdict, but pleased jurors found DynCorp could be held responsible for its subcontractors actions after April 2003. The attorneys said that they would continue to fight on behalf of a significant number of farmers who say they were sprayed after that point.

We look forward to continuing to pursue a full measure of justice for those harmed and to send a strong message that no firm should be allowed to absolve itself of responsibility after committing such actions, plaintiffs attorney Theodore J. Leopold said.

The next trial could come as soon as December, and it could take four or five tries before both sides are satisfied that representative verdicts are reached for the large group of plaintiffs, said co-counsel Terrence P. Collingsworth, director of International Rights Advocates.

[How Washington learned to love Latin American intervention again]

In a statement, DynCorp said, The unanimous jury verdict in DynCorps favor follows a series of earlier rulings in which the court rejected plaintiffs claims that the spraying operations had resulted in physical injuries and property damages.

Over an eight-day trial, DynCorp attorneys denied that anyone acted recklessly or intentionally to spray the farmers and argued there was no evidence of spray drifting at the times and places alleged by farmers.

No spray mission using the Monsanto-manufactured herbicide were conducted near the Putumayo border without direction and prior approval of the State Department and the Colombian government, defense attorney Eric G. Lasker said, which were cooperating under Washingtons $10 billion Plan Colombia counternarcotics effort.

[WHO adds one of worlds most popular weedkillers to list linked to cancer]

One juror reached after the verdict said the panel was torn, sympathetic to the farmers claims but divided over DynCorps liability.

We felt like our hands were tied once we made that decision that DynCorp was not responsible for police pilots, said the juror, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay a view of the closed-door deliberations.

I dont think anyone felt comfortable about it, because we certainly felt for the Ecuadorans. We didnt have any reason to discount or disbelieve the things they experienced, which were very moving in several cases. But the decision that would feel the best wasnt the same decision the law was telling us we needed to make, the juror said.

Colombia ended spraying in 2015, citing concerns of a cancer link to glyphosate, and agreed to pay Ecuador $15 million in 2013 to resolve allegations at the International Court of Justice.

[Peace with FARC may be coming, so Colombias farmers are on a massive coca binge]

Ecuadoran authorities at one point reported that spraying prompted at least 60 percent of farmers on the border to abandon their farms, damaged crops, and caused incidents of high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and skin problems.

What one first felt was the itchiness in the eyes and nose, and then after that in the throat, farmer Victor Mestanza testified during the trial. But the rash, that didnt come until the following day.
Security has been tightened across France, after a suspected terrorist attack killed a police officer ahead of the countrys presidential election on Sunday.

A gunman shot and killed a policeman and wounded two other officers in the attack Thursday night in Paris.

Officials say the gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon on a police vehicle on the citys famous Champs-Elysees. The gunman then fled and was killed by police in a gun battle that injured the two officers. A German tourist was also injured.

Officials told the Associated Press the gunman was detained in February for threatening police, but was let go.

He was also reportedly convicted in the past of attempted murder in the shootings of two police officers.

French President Francois Hollande called the attack "terrorist-related."

The Islamic State (IS) terror group claimed that one of its "fighters" had carried out the attack. But the group identified the gunman as a Belgian national, while French officials believe he was a French citizen.

The shooting was the latest in a series of attacks by Muslim extremists in France in recent years. The attacks have killed more than 230 people.

The Paris attack came as the presidential campaign was coming to an end, with voting in the first round set to begin Sunday.

President Hollande said the countrys security forces were committed to protecting the election process. "We shall be of the utmost vigilance," he said in a statement.

Issues in the presidential campaign

Terrorism and national security have been major issues throughout the presidential campaign. Candidates have also focused on Frances future in the European Union, a weakening economy and high unemployment.

Four candidates have emerged as the top contenders. The two receiving the most votes will advance to a runoff election to be held May 7.

One of the leading candidates is far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has pushed anti-EU, anti-immigration measures. She said the Paris attack showed the current government is weak on national security. She promised to beat Islamic terrorism.

Le Pen, leader of the National Front party, urged the outgoing Socialist government to immediately re-establish border controls. French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve accused her of trying to politicize the Paris attack.

Current opinion surveys show Le Pen is running a close second behind Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister. He is seen as a centrist candidate, running without major party backing.

In a video posted after the attack, Macron said the French people must not give in to fear, division and intimidation.

He said the goal of terrorists was to destabilize the country. He added that it was the role of president and commander-in-chief to protect the French people from enemies and said, I am ready.

Macron has called for an increase in police and military forces to improve national security. He also wants to strengthen intelligence services and step up French military operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Conservative Francois Fillon and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon each have about 20 percent support. A new opinion survey showed up to 30 percent of French voters were still undecided going into Sundays vote.

Fillon also spoke about the latest attack. He wants to continue a state of emergency put in place after a series of deadly attacks in November 2015. "The fight for the French people's freedom and security will be mine. This must be a priority," he said.

Melenchon is running for president for the second time after finishing in fourth place five years ago. He has promised to tax the rich and renegotiate France's role in EU and international trade agreements. He also wants to give more power to parliament and stop the use of nuclear power, the source of nearly 80 percent of Frances electricity.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on material from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

utmost  adj. greatest or highest in degree

vigilance  n. carefully watching for problems or signs of danger

runoff  n. second or final election for the top candidates

intimidation  n. intentional attempt to make someone afraid

emerge - v. to become known or regarded as something

step up - phrasal verb. to increase in amount or speed

priority  n. something important to be dealt with before other things
The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church has named the Rev. Darryl Roberts as its new pastor. He has vowed to continue the legacy of a 177-year-old District congregation that seeks to remain at the vanguard of social change and justice.

Roberts, 41, who is succeeding the Rev. Derrick Harkins at the church on 16th Street NW, was previously senior pastor for five years at Mount Welcome Missionary Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga. He also was an assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, whose pulpit was once occupied by Martin Luther King Jr.

Roberts received his doctor of philosophy degree in ethics from Emory University. He also earned a juris doctor degree from Boston College Law School and a master of divinity degree from the University of Chicago.

Roberts was interviewed by former Washington Post religion writer Hamil R. Harris. The transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Harris: How do you build a strong congregation that is vibrant and attractive to young families while preserving the legacy of a proud historic congregation?

Roberts: We are blessed that, for over 177 years, the members of Nineteenth Street have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to exalt Jesus Christ through excellence in Christ-centered worship, spirit-filled witness, and good works. [Civil rights pioneer and Baptist pastor] Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker once said that no two elements are more important to the black worship experience than preaching and music. While preaching/teaching must be multigenerational, music must be sensitive to the musical tastes of the entire congregation.

We are also working to strengthen programs that teach people how to live their best Christian life: classes on marriage, being single, financial stewardship, health education and spiritual purpose. All of this would occur to help make every member of Nineteenth Street a stronger witness for Christ in the world.

Another critical element to success moving forward is our ability to build upon our strong foundation of ministries that share Gods love with others on the local, national and global levels.

Harris: Your resume states that you have been an advocate of marriage equality. Do you plan to reach out to gay families or speak on the issue of marriage equality?

Roberts: I have worked all of my life to advocate for those who have been denied civil and human rights, including African Americans, women, gays, etc. I fundamentally believe that God affirms and loves all persons because all that God has made is good. None of us is to do or say anything that makes others feel unloved or less than as children of God. It is because of those fearless advocates of marriage equality that the law of the land supports the right to marry as same-sex couples as a fundamental right protected by both the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. I fully support our congregations position not to perform same-sex marriages. However, we have been and will continue to be a church that welcomes all people, regardless of sexual orientation, to join and serve our church.

Harris: Where is the African American church today in terms of urban areas that continue to gentrify? Is it time to make a push to integrate and if not, why not?

Roberts: We have a multiethnic, multinational, multigenerational and economically diverse membership. I dont think it is incumbent upon any church to change its identity just because the demographics of the immediate community change. However, the church must always be a place that seeks to respond to the needs of the community writ large in fulfillment of Acts 1:8, which is why we are looking for opportunities to serve the broader D.C. community and beyond. We welcome anyone, including members of the surrounding and broader community, to participate in the life of our church.

Harris: In years past, the Rev. Jerry Moore Jr. and Dr. Derrick Harkins invited Republicans and Democrats to this church. Will you invite President Trump?

Roberts: We are delighted to host the president of the United States, senators, congressional leaders as well as state and local politicians. We have been blessed to host President Barack Obama on several occasions, as well as President George H.W. Bush. We have also hosted members of the executive Cabinet, ambassadors and leaders of other countries. These visits were, in large part, due to our churchs distinguished history as D.C.s oldest black Baptist church, as well as our legacy of prophetic pastoral leaders like Rev. Walter Brooks, Rev. Jerry Moore Jr., and Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins who understood the call to serve in this pulpit as a call to serve in public pulpits throughout this community, nation and world.

We have already begun the process of reaching out to the current administration.

Harris: One of the churchs greatest challenges is how to continue to be relevant and responsive to the needs of young people.

Roberts: To get young adults in the church we have learned that we must specifically appeal to them. We make clear through our worship, our ministries, our budget and our internal and external communication that we welcome young people. Youth are interested in age-specific responses to their needs. They are at a stage in life where they are addressing identity questions, employment issues, sex and sexuality, school, career planning and purpose. I work with our youth pastor, youth leadership team and lay leaders to design ministries and programs that meet their specific needs while supporting spiritual development of young people.

Although youth are drawn to certain worship styles  those that are lively and spirit-filled  they are even more concerned with being affirmed, ministered to and receiving opportunities to participate in ministries that allow them to feel useful.
One candidate takes money from an international activist group that doesnt disclose the names of the overwhelming majority of its donors. The other takes money from Virginias biggest utility, which is also the top lobbyist in the state.

As Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former congressman Tom Perriello battle for the Democratic nomination for governor, their fundraising is emerging as an issue that defines them as much as their slim differences on policy.

Northam has called on Perriello to renounce dark money, just days after Perriello disclosed $230,000 in contributions from an international activist group called Avaaz, which Perriello helped found a decade ago.

[Perriellos governors bid boosted by several big donors]

As a 501(c)(4) charity, Avaaz is not required to disclose its individual donors, which it says come from among nearly 45 million members in 194 countries.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who is running for governor. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

The organization says it accepts no money from governments or corporations and itemizes any donations greater than $5,000 on its tax filing; in 2016, 26 such donations were reported, representing 0.7 percent of Avaazs total revenue.

Perriello co-founded Avaaz with two colleagues who had helped him start an earlier nonprofit called Res Publica, which was aimed at promoting international justice on behalf of the religious left, as Perriello told the National Catholic Reporter in 2004. One of those colleagues, Ricken Patel, a Canadian, is now Avaazs executive director. The organization was formed in collaboration with MoveOn.org, the Democratic online activist group that has received funding from billionaire George Soros  who also is a major Perriello campaign contributor.

Avaaz says it sets priorities for its lobbying campaigns and protest events through online membership polls. Among the top causes in 2016 were protecting sea life, supporting the Paris climate agreement and breaking the grip of big agribusiness companies such as Monsanto.

Although the organization spent some $400,000 to oppose President Trumps election campaign last year, according to OpenSecrets.org, its website doesnt reflect much participation in elections. The donation to Perriellos campaign was the first of its kind, Avaaz spokesman Will Davies said: The first time Avaaz has ever donated to a political campaign in the U.S.

Because the organization is not required to disclose individual donors, it is hard to tell whether the Avaaz money came from foreign sources, which would violate federal election law.

Emma Ruby-Sachs, the deputy director of New York-based Avaaz, said the big Perriello donation is actually hundreds of small online donations from hundreds of Americans who are members of Avaaz that were transferred in one lump sum.

The organization has a system to ensure the money is coming from U.S. donors, similar to methods used by other online fundraising groups such as ActBlue, Ruby-Sachs said.

Ruby-Sachs said 71 percent of Avaaz members in the United States voted in an online poll to support Perriellos campaign.

The Perriello campaign listed a $200,000 Avaaz donation on Jan. 5, the same day the former congressman stunned Virginias political establishment by announcing that he would compete against Northam for the nomination.

That raised questions about how Avaaz could have polled its members in time. But the organization and campaign said Friday that the listed date was incorrect and that the Avaaz money arrived on Jan. 19 and Jan. 27 . A Perriello spokesman said the campaign would correct the filing.

The seed money from Avaaz was among several large donations included last week in Perriellos first campaign finance disclosure, which showed that he outraised Northam in the first three months of the year but has less cash on hand.

Northam was prohibited by state law from fundraising for the 46 days the General Assembly was in session.

Perriellos biggest donation was $500,000 in kickoff money from Sonjia Smith, a Democratic contributor from his home town of Charlottesville.

Overall, however, Perriello drew far more from out-of-state sources than Northam  57 percent for Perriello compared with 11 percent for Northam  according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP).

Northam has been quick to emphasize the differences in the two candidates donor bases. After Smith published an essay in the Roanoke Times titled I contributed $500,000 to Tom Perriello. Heres why, the Northam campaign jabbed back with a piece titled I contributed $50 to Ralph Northam  heres why, highlighting seven of his grass-roots donors.

Perriellos campaign declined to comment specifically on the Avaaz contributions. Instead, a spokesman highlighted money that Northam has received from the states biggest utility  Dominion Power  and from the health insurer Anthem.

Toms largest contributions came from people long familiar with his advocacy work on progressive causes, not from individuals or corporations with business interests before the state like Dominion or Anthem, Perriello spokesman Ian Sams said. So when it comes to money influencing politics, well let Virginians decide which of these sources of contributions are more troubling.

Northam reported $5,000 from Dominion chief executive Thomas F. Farrell II in the first quarter of this year and took more than $20,000 from the corporation in 2016, according to VPAP.

This comes at a time when Dominions huge influence in Richmond is under scrutiny. More than 60 Democratic candidates in upcoming House of Delegates races have signed a pledge refusing to take money from Dominion, and Perriello has rejected the utilitys money as well.

Northams campaign emphasized that 92 percent of his contributions were $100 or less and said he is not influenced by big money.

The only influence on Ralph Northams vote is whats in the best interest of Virginians, campaign spokesman David Turner said.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the dates that Avaaz made two donations to the Perriello campaign. This story has been updated.
Bill Ponn, left, greets Manassas Mayor Hal Parrish (R) after casting his ballot for him for state senate at Weems Elementary School in Manassas, Va., in 2015. (Fenit Nirappil/The Washington Post)

Manassas Mayor Harry J. Hal Parrish II (R) has dropped his primary bid for the legislative seat held by Virginia House Del. Jackson H. Miller (R), according to Manassas voter registrar Susan Reed.

Parrishs name will remain on the June 13 ballots because they are already printed.

Miller, who is majority whip in the legislature, lost a Tuesday special election for Prince William County Circuit Court Clerk to Democrat Jacqueline Smith. If he had won, he would have had to resign from the legislature.

Democrats hailed the result of the obscure, low-turnout contest as a sign of widespread voter anger at the ascendance of President Trump and other Republicans in November.

Parrish, whose father, Harry J. Parrish, held the delegate seat from 1982 until 2006, said he never intended to challenge Miller if the veteran lawmaker ran for reelection, and always intended to drop out of the legislative race if Miller lost his bid for the clerks office.

Miller faces no other opposition in the Republican House primary. His Democratic opponent in the November general election will be Lee Carter.

Parrish raised no campaign funds from others during his brief candidacy, he said. The mayor lost a 2015 race for state senate to Democrat Jeremy S. McPike. He was reelected to a four-year mayoral term in the fall.
Signs warn about city sewage where it enters the Potomac River at the Oronoco outfall in Alexandria, Va. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a controversial bill Friday that forces Alexandria to move faster than it planned to replace Old Towns 200-year-old combined sewers, which dump runoff and sewage into the Potomac River after rainstorms.

The statute, pushed by lawmakers from several downstream districts, demands that the city replace the sewers at all four of its overflow sites by 2025.

Alexandria had planned to address the three outfalls that flow into Hunting Creek first, leaving work on the biggest outlet, at Oronoco Bay, until the mid-2030s or later.

But environmentalists, local residents and some legislators raised an outcry, arguing that the city should move faster on what is expected to be an expensive and disruptive project, with local tax and fee increases set to rise later this year to help pay for it.

One legislator wanted to penalize Alexandria by stripping all state funding from the city if it didnt replace the sewers by 2021.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) (Steve Helber/AP)

That provision was removed, and the deadline was pushed back to 2025.

McAuliffe (D) sought to amend the bills to give the city until 2029, but the Republican-controlled General Assembly refused to agree.

Three weeks ago, Alexandrias elected officials asked McAuliffe to veto the bill, arguing that the 2025 deadline is unrealistic.

The governor supports the outcome the bill is trying to achieve, and he recognizes that there are still multiple General Assembly sessions through which the city can petition for more time if they are unable to meet the deadline the bill imposes, McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said.

Alexandria officials plan to work as quickly as possible to comply with the new deadline, city spokesman Craig Fifer said, although our in-house and consulting engineers with extensive combined sewer experience have indicated that it is not feasible to complete this work by 2025.

State Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who led the fight against the accelerated deadlines in Richmond, said its unfortunate that well have a law with a timeline that experts say cant be met. Due to the unique condition of the historic shoreline, this is no routine tunnel.

Oronoco Bay was the third-busiest port in Colonial times and was lined by industrial plants during the 19th century.

Remnants of that period could pose obstacles to new construction that, along with federal environmental requirements, could slow the pace of building underground tunnels and storage tanks, Ebbin said.

State Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax), one of the legislators who sought faster action, argued Friday that Alexandria has dragged its feet on a problem it has known about for years. Americans built the Hoover Dam in six years, put a man on the moon in eight years, and we built the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel in 43 months, he said. Im sure Alexandria can build a storage room the size of a high school gym, along with a pipe to connect the storage chamber with a sewage line, in eight years.

McAuliffes decision to sign the bill was hailed by environmental activists in the state.

This is great news for everybody who spends time on the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, said Rebecca LePrell, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Virginia.Now there finally is a strict deadline for ending these sewer overflows.
 Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has turned down a compromise offer to speak next month at the University of California at Berkeley, insisting she plans to stick with next weeks planned appearance that was canceled by officials over security concerns.

Coulters rejection opened the latest showdown after days of dueling in which Berkeley called off the speech then later reversed the decision but offered a different date and venue.

It also again thrusts this liberal haven in the center of ideological struggles between campus free expression and protest movements after repeated violent outbursts at protests and speeches on this campus and elsewhere since President Trumps election.

Rallies in and around Berkeley have devolved into near-riots that have included bloody fistfights and molotov cocktails. Left-wing activists have clashed with Trump supporters, and anarchists in black masks have squared off against self-proclaimed militia groups.

But in a series of tweets Thursday night, Coulter criticized the university, saying Berkeley officials were adding burdensome conditions to her speech. She said she had already spent money to hold the event on the original April 27 date and is not available May 2  the alternative date proposed by Berkeley.

A University of California at Berkeley student stands atop the crushed roof of a campus police car during Free Speech Movement demonstrations in Berkeley, Calif., in 1964. (AP)

She also pointed out that May 2 would coincide with a reading period before final exams, when there are no classes on campus and fewer students around.

She vowed that she is going to speak in Berkeley on the originally planned April 27 date, whether the university approved or not. Meanwhile, a potential legal battle took shape.

A lawyer representing the college Republican group that invited Coulter sent a letter late Thursday to the university threatening relief in federal court if the university does not allow Coulter to speak on campus April 27.

Known for decades as a bastion of free speech, Berkeley has become an ideological  and actual  battleground, where even proposals to bring a polarizing speaker to campus are creating a wrenching dilemma. Now, the university  known as the birthplace of the 1960s Free Speech Movement  has been forced to weigh the values of free expression that it has long championed against the safety of its students and community.

[Berkeley gave birth to the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. Now, conservatives are demanding it include them.]

For weeks now, the most extreme and often violent activists on the far right and far left have been flocking to this city to duke out their differences.

It feels like weve become the O.K. Corral for the Hatfield and McCoys of the right and left, said Dan Mogulof, the universitys assistant vice chancellor for public affairs. Were the venue for these showdowns taking place.

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The showdowns are, for many on the far right, part of a successful strategy: schedule a controversial event on campus or in town, wait for the liberal outrage and threats of violence to grow, and when the event is canceled, point out the hypocrisy and oppression against free speech. Ever since a February event involving right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos  a Breitbart News senior editor at the time  drew major unrest, Berkeley has become the biggest target.

If I said Id be at the center of Berkeleys campus in 48 hours, how long do you think it would take to see 100 communists show up trying to kill me? said Richard Spencer, a self-proclaimed white nationalist leader and a founder of the alt-right, a movement that seeks a whites-only state and whose adherents are known for espousing racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view. Berkeley is home base to the left. Its the headquarters not just to the academic left, but the activist left. Thats what makes it a platform.

Spencer spent this week engaged in a skirmish of his own after Auburn University in Alabama tried to cancel a speech he was supposed to give there. After a federal judge ordered the event to proceed, a fistfight erupted outside the event and three people were arrested. Spencer declared it an absolute victory.

Trumps election has changed something fundamental in the war between the far right and far left, Spencer said. For years, their battle was mostly confined to the Internet and social-media platforms such as Twitter.

Now its really a battle over physical space, Spencer said. Do I have a right to speak? Can I speak in this place?

Openly hostile

Being a conservative student on the liberal public school campus in the Bay Area has long been a challenge. But Berkeley in 2017 seems openly hostile to Republican groups, some conservative activists say. Classmates spit on you and make obscene gestures. Your signs get ripped up. The label fascist follows wherever you go.

And now, when Republican students want to invite prominent speakers to campus as part of a free exchange of ideas, they fear the university will cancel the event because of possible violence.

Berkeleys first high-profile burst of violence occurred Feb. 1, when antifascist protesters smashed windows, burned property and threw objects at police to protest Yiannopoulos. The riots caused officials to shut down the campus and cancel the event, prompting a tweet from Trump, who threatened to cut funding to the university if it would not allow free speech.

[Trump lashes back at Berkeley after violent protests block speech]

The cancellation of the Yiannopoulos event further galvanized activists on the far right, who viewed it as a call to arms and proof that conservatives around the country are being oppressed.

I wanted to know that I wasnt the only one outraged over what happened. I knew we had to go back to Berkeley, said Rich Black, 26, a Los Angeles libertarian. He formed the Liberty Revival Alliance, with the specific goal of staging more right-wing, pro-Trump events in Berkeley and daring liberal groups to try to shut them down.

Black is getting what he wants at Berkeley. While pro- and anti-Trump rallies occurred nationwide on March 4 and last Saturday, Blacks rallies here had something none of the others did: violent clashes and breathless cable news coverage.

At his latest rally, roughly a dozen people were injured and 20 or so arrested after activists violently clashed in a popular Berkeley plaza.

Black, a technical grant writer by day, said the point is to expose the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to free speech and to fight  physically, if necessary  for the right of conservatives to say what they want.

If a city isnt blue or radically progressive, whats the point of going there as a conservative? he said. A place like Berkeley is an indoctrination factory for the left. Its the canary in the coal mine for the rights of people like me.

Jesse Arreguin, Berkeleys 32-year-old mayor and a participant in the Occupy movement and Black Live Matter protests, said he wants to ensure all opinions can be expressed in his city. But he wont condone violence in the name of free speech.

Whats happening is that outside groups have decided to make an example of Berkeley and to challenge our commitment to freedom of speech, Arreguin said. Berkeley has become the center of a convergence of these two sides, and its a very challenging situation.

Inflaming the far-left

The mere appearance of far-right activists in Berkeley  from white supremacists to militia and anti-immigrant groups  has inflamed the far left, convincing them that they need to fight back harder, using force if necessary to oppose all whom they deem fascists.

They see the recent conservative rallies not as examples of free speech, but cunning attempts to hit liberals in one of their strongholds.

Yvette Felarca, a middle-school teacher in Oakland, leads the regional chapter of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a far-left militant group that has been at the center of many of the violent clashes in the past few months. The group takes its name from a line in a famous Malcolm X speech.

BAMN and the regions anarchists, also known as antifascists, have organized most of the counter-demonstrations against conservative speakers and right-wing protesters who descend on the area.

The petite 47-year-old showed off scars from past rallies and talked about how she was pummeled at recent clashes at Berkeley. She said she is proud that left-leaning protesters like her were able to stop Yiannopoulos from speaking, even if it took violence.

Anarchists trying to disrupt the conservative rallies have been employing the Black Bloc tactic  with participants dressing in all black clothing and black masks to conceal their identities. They act as a cohesive unit as they engage in property destruction and violence.

Felarca said the far-right groups were the ones who have instigated physical violence, while the far-right groups say the opposite is true. But Felarca said she does not see it as a matter of free speech when someone is spewing fascism.

The fascists could have been stopped in Germany if they were stopped when they were small, she said.

Free speech

Many Berkeley residents and alumni have been appalled at the violence, but some are even more alarmed that the fights have bled into an argument over free speech  an issue that strikes at the citys soul.

This was where students in the 1960s risked suspension, expulsion and even endured jail time, they point out, to win the right to say what they want on campus.

Even during the heyday of the fight for free speech, you never saw violence like youre seeing these days, said historian Robert Cohen, 61, who participated in Berkeleys anti-apartheid protests as a graduate student and eventually devoted his academic career to chronicling the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Its sad and I disagree with the university canceling these events, but what these college Republicans are doing in inviting these hate-mongering speakers, its not about free speech. Its a hustle game. Theyre just baiting the left. But theres real damage being done.

He pointed to a speech given by student leader Mario Savio in December 1964, the day after students finally won the right to say what they want on campus. On that day, Cohen noted, Savio urged his students to recognize just how precious their right was and realize that with it comes responsibility. Otherwise, Savio said, it could bring disgrace upon our university.

Thats what I find so painful and disrespectful about all of this now, Cohen said. The right that some of these people are invoking in this ugly fight back and forth  there were students at Berkeley who risked their careers over it, who were willing to go to jail for it.

Wan reported from Washington. Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.
Former Maryland Rep. Larry Hogan Sr., the father of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, gives a thumbs up to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during a campaign stop in 2015. Gov. Hogan is standing behind his father. (Brian Witte/AP)

Lawrence J. Hogan Sr., a combative Maryland political figure who rose to national prominence in 1974 by being the first Republican member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to call for President Richard M. Nixons impeachment, died April 20 at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. He was 88.

His son, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Jr. (R), announced the death. A spokesman for the governor said the elder Mr. Hogan died of complications from a stroke.

A onetime FBI agent, Mr. Hogan projected an image as a scrappy politician and conservative stalwart as a three-term congressman in the 1960s and 1970s and later as Prince Georges county executive.

Nevertheless, he possessed an independent streak, most visibly when he put his political future at risk by turning against a president from his own party during the Watergate scandal.

After being an early volunteer for his fellow Massachusetts native, Democratic presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy, Mr. Hogan switched parties during the 1960 campaign and threw his support to Nixon.

Undated image of Larry Hogan Jr., right, with his father, former U.S. Rep. Larry Hogan Sr. (Office of Gov. Larry Hogan/Office of Gov. Larry Hogan)

Mr. Hogan first sought office in 1966, losing a bid for Congress. Two years later, when Nixon won the presidency, Hogan was elected to the House of Representatives. Prince Georges County was undergoing rapid change from a rural, largely white and working-class suburb to an urbanized community with a growing black population.

Mr. Hogan campaigned as an old-guard champion of conservative causes, gaining crossover support from conservative Democrats for, among other things, his opposition to forced busing to desegregate the countys schools. He sought to enlist the White House and Justice Department in an attempt to block a federal court order mandating desegregation in Prince Georges. He was easily reelected in 1970 and 1972, winning more than 60 percent of the vote each time.

On July 23, 1974, one day before the House Judiciary Committee was to begin debate on whether to impeach Nixon over his actions during the Watergate scandal, Mr. Hogan took his most notable public stand.

Richard M. Nixon has, beyond a reasonable doubt, committed impeachable offenses and participated in an extended and extensive conspiracy to obstruct justice, Mr. Hogan declared at a news conference.

That night, Mr. Hogan purchased 15-minute time slots in four Maryland television markets to explain why he would vote to impeach the president.

The evidence convinces me that my president has lied repeatedly, deceiving public officials and the American people, he said.

Until that point, Mr. Hogan had been seen as a loyal Nixon supporter and a reliably conservative Republican voice in Congress. The effect of his blistering declaration of independence, syndicated columnist George F. Will wrote, brought Mr. Hogan national recognition and left the White House feeling as though it had been slugged on the base of the skull with a sock full of wet sand.

Undated image of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Jr. with his father, Larry Hogan Sr. (Office of Gov. Larry Hogan/Office of Gov. Larry Hogan)

Mr. Hogan was the only Republican member of the Judiciary Committee to vote for all three articles impeachment against Nixon. In a letter to his GOP colleagues, Mr. Hogan urged them to put party allegiance aside to uphold deeper constitutional principles.

While the travesties of Watergate were perpetrated outside the regular channels of Republican Party organizations, they were all committed by Republicans for the benefit of a Republican president, he wrote. Do we want to be the party loyalists who in ringing rhetoric condemn the wrongdoings and scandals of the Democratic Party and excuse them when they are done by Republicans?

Nixon resigned the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974.

At the time, Mr. Hogan was the leading candidate in the Republican primary for Maryland governor. His stance on Watergate almost certainly cost him his partys gubernatorial nomination, which was won by Louise Gore a month after Nixon left office. Gore lost the general election in a landslide to Democrat Marvin Mandel.

Critics from both parties charged that Mr. Hogans call for Nixons impeachment was an opportunistic effort to gain statewide publicity during the governors race. But in a 1987 interview with The Washington Post, he said he had no such calculated purpose in mind.

I assumed that in coming out for impeachment I would lose the nomination, which I did, he said. It had absolutely nothing to do with politics. I still resent people saying that now.

Lawrence Joseph Hogan was born Sept. 30, 1928, in Boston and grew up in Washington. His father, a bookbinder, was a Democrat and an ardent union member.

Mr. Hogan graduated from Gonzaga College High School in 1946 and from Georgetown University in 1949. He received a law degree from Georgetown in 1954 and a masters degree in public relations from American University in the mid-1960s.

He joined the FBI in 1948 while still in college and spent more than a decade with the law enforcement agency. He opened a public relations firm in 1959 and later became a lecturer at the University of Maryland in the 1960s, known on campus for his 8 a.m. lectures and tough grading.

In 1978, four years after his failed gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Hogan returned to public life by running for Prince Georges county executive. That year, inspired by Californias budget-

cutting Proposition 13, Prince Georges leaders pushed through the Tax Reform Initiative by Marylanders, placing a cap on county property taxes.

Mr. Hogan capitalized on that trend, making lower taxes and fiscal restraint the central themes of his campaign. Brandishing a report on how he could cut the county budget by $43 million, he castigated county leaders for lavish spending on schools, social programs and personnel. He was elected by a 3-to-2 margin over incumbent Winfield M. Kelly Jr.

As county executive, Mr. Hogan eliminated more than 3,000 jobs, including those of more than 500 teachers. He slashed the budgets for libraries and schools, and infrastructure spending fell to a bare minimum.

From the start, Mr. Hogan had a bitter relationship with the County Council, often battling over political appointments. Once, in a fit of rage, Mr. Hogan threatened to castrate Democratic Council Chairman Parris N. Glendening, who eventually succeeded him. Glendening served as Maryland governor from 1995 to 2003.

Mr. Hogans strained relations with labor leaders helped precipitate a 1980 strike, in which 1,500 county employees walked off the job for 11 days. Amid the tumult, a prisoners riot broke out at the county jail. Mr. Hogan fired 121 jail guards, and the other employees went back to work without a contract.

During his four-year term, Mr. Hogan reduced the countys property tax rate by 20 percent, cut the countys budget and eliminated 2,400 public employees from the county payroll. He was also credited with improving the countys low-income housing program and with doubling the number of African American police officers, including naming the first black deputy police chief in Prince Georges.

As the only Republican officeholder in a heavily Democratic jurisdiction, Mr. Hogan attributed many his problems as county executive to partisan rancor.

The Fraternal Order of Police, which had supported Mr. Hogans run for county executive in 1978, turned against him after contract disputes and other quarrels. The leader of the police support group called Mr. Hogan a little Napoleon.

Mr. Hogans final campaign for public office came in 1982, when he challenged Democratic incumbent Paul S. Sarbanes for the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Hogan was criticized for being slow to renounce negative television ads run on his behalf by the National Conservative Political Action Committee and for calling Sarbanes a do-nothing senator and other, more derogatory names.

Maryland needs a more aggressive and more faithful U.S. senator, Mr. Hogan said on the campaign trail. And, heaven help me, if nothing else, I am aggressive.

Despite the presence of Ronald Reagan in the White House, Mr. Hogan had only tepid support from the GOP establishment. Sarbanes won the election with more than 63 percent of the vote, and Mr. Hogan never sought office again.

You cant have a burning passion as a Republican candidate in Maryland, he said after his losing Senate bid. Every time you run, its like putting your head on the chopping block.

Mr. Hogan moved to Frederick, Md., where he opened a law firm with his second wife, Ilona Modly, whom he married in 1974.

His first marriage, to Nora Maguire, ended in divorce.

Besides Modly and Larry Hogan Jr., survivors include four sons from his second marriage, Matthew Hogan of Costa Rica, Michael Hogan of Portland, Ore., Patrick Hogan of Frederick and Timothy Hogan of Annapolis; two sisters, Mary OConnell of Wheaton, Md., and Audrey Love of Alexandria, Va.; a brother, William Hogan of Ashburn, Va.; 11 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

A daughter from his first marriage, Mary Theresa Lazarus, died in 2016.

While Larry Hogan Jr. was running for the Maryland governors office in 2014, he often cited his fathers stance toward Nixon as an example of political courage.

After the 2016 election, the governor revealed that he wrote in his fathers name on the presidential ballot, rather than vote for either of the major-party candidates.

In announcing his fathers death on Facebook, Larry Hogan Jr. called his father an American hero.

He taught me more about integrity in one day than most men learn in a lifetime, the governor said, and Im proud to be his son.

This obituary has been revised and contains additional, updated information.


The head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week strongly defended how his agency is dealing with what he sees as threats to the country.

Former Marine general John Kelly said he is tired of the criticisms directed at his workers by some members of the media, lawmakers and others. He said his agents are just enforcing the law. And his agents are protecting Americans.

Make no mistake, we are in fact a nation under attack. We are under attack from people who hate us, hate our freedoms, hate our laws, hate our values, hate the way we simply live our lives.

Kelly spoke Wednesday at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He said his departments stronger enforcement of immigration laws has led to a drop in the number of detentions of people trying to cross into the southwestern United States from Mexico.

He says that helps people on both sides of the border.

Fewer people crossing the border illegally means fewer deaths in the desert.

Kelly says there are other borders to worry about, as well. They include some that are vulnerable to militants who once fought for the Islamic State terrorist group.

Kelly says large numbers of these fighters have already begun to return to their home countries. He says he is worried about those who are returning to European countries. Agreements between many European countries and the United States permit citizens to enter the U.S. without a visa.

Homeland Security officials are also worried that terrorist groups and criminal organizations are working together. Secretary Kelly warned that these groups have become so good at smuggling that they can move almost anything around the world.

The department says the network of criminal groups and smugglers has brought hundreds of tons of drugs into the U.S. And until recently, it was moving tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Kelly said the group could move other things, too -- including biological weapons or even a nuclear bomb.

European security officials have similar worries. Intelligence officials believe that criminal networks have helped terrorists across North Africa and the Middle East launder money, profit from the drug trade and secretly become rich.

Im Phil Dierking.

VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin reported this story from Washington. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

vulnerable  adj. open to attack, harm or damage

wreak havoc  v. to cause (something very harmful or damaging); to create a situation in which there is much destruction or confusion

smuggle  v. to move (someone or something) from one country into another illegally and secretly

launder  v. to put (money that you got by doing something illegal) into a business or bank account in order to hide where it really came from
People protest on April 14 outside a courthouse in San Francisco where a federal judge will hear arguments in a dispute over federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities. (Haven Daley/Associated Press)

We are a nation of immigrants. I do not know anyone who does not support legal immigration. But advocates obscure the real issues by cherry-picking the most sympathetic cases and ignoring the problems caused by overarching, irresponsible policies such as sanctuary cities. All sides need to set aside the politics of fear and personal attacks.

Our policies are intended to strengthen those relationships and to avoid engendering reluctance on the part of anyone to interact with public safety professionals. It is not our policy to inquire about immigration status or to enforce federal immigration law in the course of routine, community-based police work. We will not train community-based law enforcement professionals in enforcing immigration law.

We are working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in our jails to identify people who have committed serious crimes and who are in the country illegally. We will train several detention department personnel in the appropriate manner of interviewing individuals for that purpose. We wish to comply with federal law and assist immigration officials in returning these individuals to their countries of origin.

We are negotiating with the federal government to lease unused space in our Glen Burnie detention center to house illegal immigrants who have committed crimes and are in the deportation process.

I look forward to working with pro-immigration organizations to continue the strong relationship between the Anne Arundel County government and our diverse citizenry. Anne Arundel County can be a national model for a moderate, measured approach to immigration enforcement.

Steve Schuh, Pasadena

The writer is the Anne Arundel County executive.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stands on the balcony of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London on Feb. 5, 2016. (Frank Augstein/Associated Press)

The April 17 letters Mr. Assanges arrogant claims were very critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. They claimed that Mr. Assange seeks refuge when in reality he has essentially been under house arrest in London.

Mr. Assange has carried out a service to humanity by exposing egregious wrongdoing in a wide field of misdeeds by government officials.

Mr. Assange exposed, inter alia, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.s lie to Congress when he denied that the National Security Agency was collecting data on millions of Americans. Mr. Assange also exposed the Democratic National Committees sabotage of Bernie Sanderss candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded in February 2016 that Mr. Assange is unlawfully detained in Britain.

Alfred Gluecksmann, Silver Spring
John A. Surratt, one of the conspirators behind Abraham Lincolns assassination, photographed in his Papal Zouaves army uniform. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

In the April 14 Retropolis article The global chase after accused Lincoln assassin  [Metro], readers were told, Once [John Surratt] escaped from prison by leaping off a ledge into a pile of human excrement.

There is no mention of this in any authoritative source. My nine years of research for a book on the Lincoln assassination,  They Have Killed Papa Dead!  The Road to Fords Theatre, Abraham Lincolns Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance,  found that Surratt, a conspirator in Lincolns assassination, was locked in a cell of a monastery on the slope of a mountain near Veroli, Italy. In the early hours of the morning, while being escorted near the gates, he bolted, leaping over a balustrade and falling to a rocky ledge 35 feet below. He fled in the darkness, eluding shots from above and an armed chase.

Years later, a Dutch-born member of the Papal Zouaves army, Henry Lipman, derided the official account, disclosing that he and other guards connived with Surratt, enabling him to escape through a sewer several hours before they fired wildly in a make-believe attempt to stop the phantom runaway.

Surratt later gave contradictory versions of his escapades, at first laughing heartily at the notion that he jumped from a high precipice, saying it was a lower embankment, but later declaring he jumped into a void, landing on a ledge about 35 feet below.

Whether you believe Lipman or Surratts contradictions, there is no mention of his leaping into a pile of human excrement.

Anthony S. Pitch, Potomac
Hamadu Husseiny, 28, searches for beans that have fallen during a food distribution in Monguno, Nigeria. (Jane Hahn/For The Washington Post)

The famine in South Sudan and the approaching famines in Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen constitute the worst humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II [Famine looms in Africa, editorial, April 16]. Millions could starve if Congress fails to act.

Thankfully, members of both parties agree we must do something. I recently circulated a bipartisan letter urging Congress to provide $1 billion in emergency funding to address these famines. When Congress reconvenes at the end of the month, securing this aid should be a top priority. This is not a moral imperative and in our national security interests. Congressional inaction could further destabilize the affected regions and exacerbate an already unprecedented global refugee crisis. While aid alone would not solve the problems in these regions, it would save millions of lives and avert catastrophe.

Barbara Lee, Washington

The writer, a Democrat, represents

Californias 13th District in the House.
This weekend marks the 47th Earth Day, an annual celebration of our pale blue dot. As we reflect on the ground beneath our feet and the flora and fauna whose lives are entwined with ours, its worth giving equal consideration to the vast oceans just beyond our shores. The high seas are as vital to life on Earth as terra firma, and with their hugeness and depth, they provide that much more room for myths and mysteries. Here are five of the most persistent.

Myth No. 1

Coastlines are clear boundaries between land and sea.

In a book on landforms and disasters, two scientists call shorelines the most conspicuous boundary on Earth. Writing about Torontos relationship with the sea, author M. Jane Fairburn notes that the name of the shore town Scarborough is apt, as the word scar is related to the Saxon word sciran, meaning to divide  and the shore divides the land from the water. This is certainly how maps are drawn, too: The land ends and the ocean begins.

But the distinction isnt really that clear. Every few seconds, waves move the edge of the sea in and out. In six-hour cycles, the pull of the moon shifts the level of the water. The combination of waves and tides means the edge of the sea is dynamic, depending on the moon, the wind and the steepness of the shore, which itself changes over time due to erosion.

This movement creates an area of mingled land and sea where certain species thrive in a half-shore, half-ocean zone. Mangroves are some of the only trees that can grow in sea water, some by secreting salt crystals through their leaves to rid themselves of saline. They expand from soil into the shallows as they grow, trapping sediment and creating new land. Marsh grasses do the same, helped by animals that live among their roots and fertilize them. Corals are probably the most stubborn of this group of in-betweeners: They live around mountainous islands, and as the mountains sink under the sea, the corals keep growing toward the surface. Eventually, the mountains disappear, leaving only a ring of coral called an atoll: neither land nor sea, but a space in between.

Myth No. 2

The deep sea is totally dark.

Its hard to imagine a more forbidding place than the icy cold, pitch black, crushing environment of the deep ocean, according to the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History. The New York Times has similarly described the deep sea as frigid and lightless.

Its true that daylight penetrates the oceans only weakly: Below about 3,200 feet deep, there is virtually no sunlight. But there is other light: a starry flickering of blue and green luminescence thanks to an enzyme called luciferase that generates light by breaking down high-energy molecules and producing photons instead of metabolic energy in the bodies of bacteria and some deep-sea fish.

This glittering abyss was captured by the first person to ever travel there: William Beebe, a pioneer of the deep-sea bathysphere . As he sat in his tiny globe in the night of the sea, what stuck with him was not any of the fantastic predatory fish he saw. It was the lights. We were the first living men to look out at the strange illumination, Beebe wrote in his book Half Mile Down . And it was stranger than any imagination could have conceived.

Myth No. 3

Oceans are big enough to dilute pollutants safely.

According to one high school textbook, Oceans can dilute, disperse, and degrade large amounts of raw sewage and other types of degradable pollutants, making them handy dumping grounds for human waste. As a handbook on environmental health put it, describing an old way of thinking, The phrase the solution to pollution is dilution epitomizes the common pollution management strategy used over the past centuries, based on the assumption that human actions could not significantly impact such a large diluent as the ocean.

That was probably true long ago, when the vastness of the ocean could not be harmed by any of the trickling products of scattered human villages. But today, the scale of human industry is so great that even the oceans cannot contain its waste safely.

Over the past two centuries, the concentration of mercury in the top 300 feet of the oceans has tripled because of human activity, including the burning of coal. Likewise, carbon dioxide levels in the air have gone up about 25 percent since 1958 . A great deal of this extra CO2 has dissolved in the oceans, where carbon levels have also increased. Carbon dioxide dissolves in water to create carbonic acid, and an excess of CO2 is leading to higher acidity across the worlds oceans. Despite the vastness of the sea, these pollutants are affecting marine life and ocean ecosystems, dissolving the shells of some creatures and leading to higher mercury content in some species of fish.

Myth No. 4

The hottest parts of the oceans are in the tropics.

If you go looking for the warmest waters around, many sources will probably point you toward the tropics. Climate.gov, for instance, states that the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans have some of the warmest . . . temperatures in the world, and the news site KQED Science notes that the tropical western Pacific, south of Guam, is the opposite of Antarctica: the warmest part of the ocean.

But those sites are talking about surface temperatures. The warmest waters in the sea are much deeper, and not necessarily in tropical areas. Far below the waves in places where the planets crust runs thin, fiery magma courses just beneath the ocean floor, and burning-hot water screams through underground channels like steam through an old radiator. In the water, superheated minerals mingle and bind into exotic sulfurous compounds. This brew bubbles through small gaps in the ocean floor and can emerge at over 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Thats impossible at the surface; water in your kitchen boils into steam at a little over 200 degrees. But water behaves differently at the base of the world. Its boiling point increases with pressure, so that even 600 degrees cant induce a boil. The result is, instead, a plume of poisonous fluid so hot it practically glows.

Myth No. 5

Oceans are experiencing unprecedented changes.

Sylvia Earle and Linda Glover preface their book Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas by noting that the ocean is undergoing unprecedented change, including rising sea levels, declines in marine life and shifting temperatures. Likewise, Duke Universitys Nicholas Institute has warned of unprecedented changes in ocean ecosystems.

But massive sea changes are not new. Over the past 6,000 to 18,000 years, sea levels have has risen more than 300 feet, drowning shorelines that once were high and dry. Ancient seas have disappeared and been reborn: The Mediterranean, for example, dried up about 5 million years ago, but one of the planets major spectacles, the Zanclean flood, refilled the entire sea in as little as two years.

Marine life, too, has vastly changed. Once, the chief predators in the sea were giant cephalopods related to squids and octopi: Some had coiled shells as wide as a human is tall. Then, 400 million years ago, sharks evolved their trademark teeth and have used them effectively ever since to avoid mass extinctions. Some of the newest major animal groups are the most spectacular: Modern baleen whales, the largest creatures ever to live on Earth, evolved just 25 million to 35 million years ago.

What sets todays transformations apart is not their size or the oceans stability until now, but the culprit (human beings), the number and the rate at which these changes are taking place. As Earle and Glover rightly point out, human activity is now altering the oceans at a pace that far outstrips what they have adapted to before.

outlook@washpost.com

Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
The Bill OReilly saga has three villains: the revolting former anchor himself, the network that ignored accusations of serial abuse, and a broader system that punishes confrontation and enables silence and complicity. Each deserves flaying  along with President Trump, so eager to vouch for OReilly and dismiss suggestions of wrongdoing.

OReillys behavior  allegedly pressuring women to have sexual relationships, retaliating against them if they refused and warning them about coming forward  doesnt require much more in the way of condemnation. Lets focus, instead, on the disgraceful circumstances of his departure from Fox News.

When the New York Times reported this month that the network and its star anchor had paid about $13 million to settle sexual harassment suits brought by five women, OReilly cast himself as a target of extortion and said his decision to settle was driven by  get this  a sense of paternal responsibility. He was settling to spare my children, OReilly said, as a father . . . who would do anything to avoid hurting them in any way. If there is anything more sickening than OReillys reported behavior, it is stooping to use his own children as a shield and the excuse of fatherly love to evade responsibility.

OReillys lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, one-upped his own client in moral repulsiveness when, on the eve of the anchors departure from Fox News, he complained that OReilly has been subjected to a brutal campaign of character assassination that is unprecedented in post-McCarthyist America.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy used the power of his office to make unfounded smears of treason, and helped ruin the lives and careers of hundreds of Americans. Here, OReilly is the figure with McCarthyite power, not the victim, no matter how hard he tries to present himself as one. Invoking the ghost of McCarthy should be done nearly as carefully as making a Hitler analogy. At least White House press secretary Sean Spicer was deploying the Holocaust analogy in the service of denouncing war crimes.

If anything, Fox Newss conduct is even more contemptible than that attributed to OReilly, driven as it seems to have been not by sick compulsion but by cool financial calculations: Paying off its anchors alleged victims made better business sense than cleaning up its already soiled workplace. Most astonishing, the network signed its latest contract with OReilly not only after the forced departure of Fox News chairman Roger Ailes over similar complaints but also when it was fully aware of the impending publication of the Times article. As The Posts Paul Farhi reported, Times reporters had sent Foxs executives a long list of questions, placing senior executives on alert months in advance of its publication.

In other words, it wasnt necessarily a problem for Fox News if OReilly was harassing women, or even if OReillys behavior was costing it millions in settlement money  so long as his market power was such that he made the network millions more in advertising revenue and cable fees. The news that OReilly will walk away with a severance package worth a reported $25 million is salt in the wound inflicted on every woman who works at Fox News  no, make that every Fox News employee who believes in a workplace free of such behavior.

It would be nice to think that the rest of corporate America will no longer tolerate OReilly-esque behavior. Certainly, the public outcry against OReilly and advertisers consequent flight from his program are evidence of change. Companies now have mandatory sexual harassment training and HR departments that are supposed to intervene. Yet in practice, the tolerance may be greater than zero for those who are star performers, and while the Fox News culture may be particularly toxic, it is not unique. See the description by a former engineer at Uber about what happened when she complained of sexual harassment there.

Meanwhile, legal constraints and societal repercussions combine to dissuade women from coming forward. Complaining of sexual harassment remains risky business. Women fear looking like troublemakers  or worse. Staying in your job may become untenable, finding another impossible if you have taken legal action. At the same time, rules requiring that disputes be mediated, or settlements reached only with the proviso of gag orders prohibiting disclosure, as happened in OReillys case, serve to keep harassment hidden and to protect harassers.

Finally, there is Trump, who, in the aftermath of the Times article, declared, I dont think Bill would do anything wrong. He probably doesnt  and doesnt see anything wrong with someone in his position rushing to OReillys defense. Just another disturbing twist in an already dispiriting tale.

Read more from Ruth Marcuss archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
On June 8, Britain will hold an election that will look, at first glance, much like any other British election. The date is a little sooner than planned  the prime minister, Theresa May, has called the vote early to give herself a broader mandate during Britains upcoming negotiations with the European Union  but snap elections are hardly unheard of in British politics. Those have been held before; there have also been plenty of elections, in the past century or so, dominated, as this one will be, by the center-right Conservative Party and the center-left Labour Party. But this time, they are not battling for the center.

Instead, this will be, in Britain, a battle between two parties that would have looked crazy and extremist  far-right and far-left  to their own members only a few years ago. Mays Tory Party differs so radically from David Camerons Tory Party, which was victorious in 2015, as to be unrecognizable. It is not just Euroskeptic; it will take Britain out of the European Union in the most definitive manner possible, cutting economic, trade and legal links, something no Conservative leader since the 1970s would have contemplated. It has muted Camerons green conservatism, and taken over the anti-immigration agenda of the UK Independence Party, the fringe group it once feared as a rival; it will probably dispense with Camerons commitment to foreign aid as well.

Tony Blairs centrist Labour Party, meanwhile, has been replaced by Jeremy Corbyns quasi-Marxist leftists, who will campaign on an agenda of much higher taxes, much more spending and heavy skepticism not only toward the E.U. but also toward NATO, the United States and all remaining trade organizations, international organizations and historic British allies. Corbyn wants Britain to give up its nuclear deterrent; he has appeared on both Russian and Iranian state TV. He has a long track record of supporting the Irish Republican Army, dating to the era when the IRA staged terrorist attacks on British targets.

Meanwhile, a different kind of radicalism will be on display in Scotland, where the pro-independence Scottish National Party may well sweep the board. Because Scotland voted to stay inside the European Union, an SNP victory may set the stage for another referendum on independence, and even for an end to the United Kingdom. May has promised this will not happen; Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has promised that it will.

Curiously, the three parties do have one thing in common: They all claim to be fighting for the people against an unnamed and ill-defined elite. They all offer their followers a new sort of identity: Voters can now define themselves as Brexiteers, as class warriors or as Scots, opposing themselves against enemies in (take your pick) journalism/academia/the judiciary/London/abroad/financial markets/England. If you were wondering whether populism was nothing more than a political strategy, easily tailored to elect any party of any ideology, you have your answer. Left-wing radicals, right-wing radicals and Scottish radicals all share a style, if not an agenda.

There remains only one unknown: What happens to everybody else? What about the centrists, the significant portion of the country now uncomfortable with both major parties? What happens to the 48 percent who voted to keep Britain in the E.U. ? What happens to people who are neither Brexiteers, nor class warriors nor Scottish? Not all of them (indeed hardly any of them) can actually be characterized as elite, but that doesnt mean they want any of the three populist projects on offer. They do have one political option: the Liberal Democrats, Britains third party, which sometimes does well in odd years like this one, and which will try, like Emmanuel Macron in France, to create a broad centrist base. But the Liberal Democrats havent got the structure or the funding to fight for every seat in the country. Instead, centrists will probably choose a lesser evil, stay loyal to their old party and hope for the best  or not vote at all.

If the polls are right, the result will be a Conservative landslide, in parliamentary seats if not the majority popular vote (sound familiar?). The Brexiteers will claim a mandate, not just on Europe but on all other issues, too. Everything in Britain will look, at first glance, much the same. But everything will be completely different.

Read more from Anne Applebaums archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
BRITISH PRIME Minister Theresa Mays decision to hold early elections in June, reversing what had been a firm public position, surely reflects her recognition that Britains exit from the European Union will be far more complicated and painful than voters were promised when they supported it in a referendum last year.

The leave campaign promised that migration from the other 27 E.U. countries would be curtailed and the jurisdiction of E.U. bureaucrats and the European Court of Justice abolished, without damage to an economy that is heavily dependent on free trade with Europe. In fact, as Ms. May has begun to acknowledge, regaining control of Britains borders will mean a costly exit from the common market. In addition, Brussels could hand Britain a bill for tens of billions of dollars in residual payments, and a new trade deal could take years to negotiate.

By 2020, when the election would have been held under the usual schedule, Britons are likely to be suffering the heavy costs of a decision that so far has not had much practical impact. A vote now could extend the term of Ms. May and the Conservatives to 2022, giving them more time to manage the fallout. More importantly, it is likely to substantially increase the governments small, 17-seat majority in the 650-member House of Commons, thanks to the abysmal state of the opposition Labour Party.

Unfortunately, the election will strand many of the 48 percent of voters who opposed and, according to opinion polls, still oppose Brexit. Under far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour is weakly ambivalent on the issue. The small Liberal Democratic Party has taken a firm stand against leaving the union, but while it is expected to gain seats, for now it is polling at around 10 percent and appears unlikely to stop a Conservative landslide.

For Ms. May, who replaced David Cameron nine months ago and has not yet won her own election, the most important question may be not the size of her margin over Labour, but the composition of the new Conservative parliamentary group. To succeed in negotiations with E.U. leaders she will need the flexibility to overrule party hard-liners who will oppose any concession on borders and regulation; that would be difficult in the current Parliament. A more moderate majority will be essential to deals preserving British access to the European market in key areas, such as finance and auto manufacturing, without which the economy could be severely damaged.

For now, Ms. May remains carefully vague about the terms of an exit agreement. Apart from saying in a January speech that control over migration and escape from the European Court of Justice were priorities, and a departure from the single market and customs union a consequence, the prime minister has been unclear on a range of issues, such as whether Britain will consent to pay the huge exit bill that some E.U. officials say it will owe. No doubt she will be pressed during the campaign to tell her supporters more clearly what they are voting for; but for the same reasons she decided to call an election, Ms. May will likely demur.
Lally Weymouth is a senior associate editor at The Washington Post.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni leads a country facing a deluge of migrants from northern Africa, as well as an economy plagued by low growth and high youth unemployment. Meanwhile, Romes tumultuous political environment has led to a constant turnover of prime ministers  Gentiloni became the fifth in five years. Just before departing for the White House, where Gentiloni hoped (but failed) to win U.S. military assistance in Libya from President Trump, he spoke with The Washington Posts Lally Weymouth in Washington. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: What do you want from your meeting with the president?

A: It is very important to have good relations with the United States. We will also discuss how we can best use the meeting we will host of the G-7 in Sicily [in May]. Finally, we need to come up with a joint initiative on Libya.

Q: Are you worried about the protectionist aspect of the Trump administration and the talk of a proposed border tax on imports?

A: We are in favor of free trade. We are not particularly worried at the moment about the decisions that are being discussed in the U.S. But we will see.

Q: Will you talk about trade with the president?

A: It is more a cultural discussion for the moment than a discussion of specific measures we are worried about.

Q: In Libya, Russia is supporting Gen. Khalifa Hifter, who is fighting the U.N.-backed coalition government based in Tripoli. The U.N. coalition seems to be weak.

A: It is very clear that we should avoid the division of Libya [so it does not become] a tool of external powers.

Q: Do you mean Russia?

A: Not only Russia but others. The Sunni world is very divided on the future of Libya, and many powers would not accept a Libyan government under the rule of Gen. Hifter.

Q: Who wouldnt accept it?

A: For sure, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. Our way forward is to support the government in Tripoli and broker discussions with those that oppose it.

Q: So you dont see Gen. Hifter as the next ruler of Libya?

A: Hifter should play a role, but he will not be the ruler of Libya.

Q: Some say Russia and ISIS are using Libya to push migrants into Europe. Do you believe that?

A: There was an attempt to build a stronghold of Daesh [the Arabic name for the Islamic State] in Libya, particularly in Sirte. Tripoli, supported by the U.S., defeated this. Now there is a genuine risk of instability and a failed state, [which would enable] traffickers and smugglers. They are the main reason for the migration route towards Italy and Europe. With the Tripoli authorities, we are trying to defeat them  training and assisting Libyas newborn coast guard. We will deliver, this weekend, the first patrol boats to the Libyan coast guard, which is trained by our navy.

Q: Last year, 180,000 migrants arrived in Italy. In the first quarter of this year, the flow increased by at least 25 percent. It seems like the volume is rising. What are you going to do about this?

A: We need an alternative strategy. We are working on policies to return the refugees who come to Libya to the African countries from which they fled.

Q: I understand that 75 percent of the migrants from Libya are actually not citizens of Libya but are refugees from other countries.

A: Yes. You need the United Nations working to guarantee humanitarian conditions and [creating] return policies. We signed an agreement with Niger financing this operation with 50 million euros. The majority of the migrants from Libya trying to cross the sea come [through] Niger. It was difficult to reduce the flows in the Balkan routes, but the E.U. spent something like 6 billion euros. The E.U. commitment in North Africa is incomparable.

Q: Do you feel that the E.U. is not sharing the burden but leaving it all to Italy and Greece?

A: In a sense, yes. If you look at what the European migration policy was until two years ago, it was nothing, so something has been done. But if you look at the dimensions of the problem, very little has been done. The idea of sharing the burden is not yet accepted by many European countries.

Q: Should Italy stay in the E.U.?

A: We are staying in the E.U., but many things have to change.

Q: Germany is doing well, and many Europeans believe that Italy and other southern European countries are getting the short end of the stick.

A: We also have to get away from Europes current economic policies, which are anti-growth. Now is a positive moment because the European economy is recovering. We have a decent growth rate all over the E.U., and we need pro-growth measures.

Q: What do you mean by pro-growth measures? Stimulus?

A: Stimulus and budget rules that are more adequate to the necessity of stronger growth.

Q: Should Italy undertake deregulation?

A: No. We have some rules under discussion in the E.U. connected with the ratio of deficit to GDP.

Q: The 3 percent rule?

A: Yes. If you have decent growth and you squeeze it with severe [austerity] measures, the consequence will be that you will not have a positive result for jobs and for the middle class.

Q: So are you saying ease up on austerity?

A: We are doing reforms. . . . Italy has had a primary surplus for the last 15 years, and I think we are the only European economy with such a primary surplus. But we have the burden of our debt. To cope with the situation, we need some flexibility.

Q: What did you think of President Trumps strikes on Syria and Afghanistan?

A: Our assessment of the situation in Syria was that it was a motivated decision after the use of chemical weapons. This was a war crime, and the message to President Bashar al-Assad was a positive one. But from our point of view, this does not mean you will get a military solution to the conflict in Syria.

Q: Does Assad have to go?

A: The issue is when. You can have a military solution to the Daesh presence in Raqqa but not to the Syrian crisis. You can react  correctly, as President Trump did  to horrible things like the use of chemical weapons. But then you have to have political negotiations and a transition. Some of our friends and allies say no negotiations before Assad has left power. We say, look, the Assad regime is there, and we have to negotiate with the regime. Assad is stronger than he was two years ago.

Q: Thanks to the Russians?

A: Thanks to the Russians, that is true.

Q: Are you worried about the rise of the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment political party, and of populism in Italy?

A: If I say that this is not a serious challenge, I would be wrong. But I am not worried that these kinds of movements can really win in my country. They will not win in any other European country. This is my opinion. In the last weeks and months, we had some risks in Austria and the Netherlands. Then reality showed that we have a pro-Europe majority. But this majority is under stress because Europe is failing to deliver on two main issues  migration policy and economic growth. If we dont deliver on these two issues, I am not saying we will lose the government, because they are minority movements, but they will be stronger.

Q: Italy has very high youth unemployment  35 percent.

A: Yes, especially the youth in the southern part of Italy.

Q: How do you encourage more growth when the U.S. is demanding that Italy spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense? Will you ask President Trump to let you increase defense spending slowly as your economy improves?

A: Yes.

Q: But the new administration is saying: Increase your defense spending now.

A: We will gradually reach the goal.

Q: So will you say to President Trump that Italy will do it by 2024 but not now?

A: I am saying that we have a commitment and will respect the commitment gradually, with the timing that was decided at the NATO Wales Summit in 2014 . [Lets not forget that] Italy is the fifth-largest contributor to NATO.

Q: Arent there 33,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Italy, and doesnt the U.S. use five of Italys military bases for key operations?

A: Yes, and we are happy and proud to host them. It is part of the American strategy and presence in the southern part of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Q: Your president, Sergio Mattarella, just went to Moscow. What did Russian President Vladimir Putin tell him? What do you expect from the Italian-Russian relationship?

A: With Russia, [Europe needs] to maintain our unity. It is not always easy for us, because our economy and the German economy were the most affected by these sanctions against Russia [after the Ukraine invasion].

Q: Will Italy vote to renew sanctions in July?

A: We will maintain a common decision and not disrupt our unity. We have to show, if needed, that we are not weak.

Q: Former prime minister Matteo Renzi is reported to be staging a comeback. He is running for your partys leadership in a contest to be decided April 30. Clearly he is thinking of becoming prime minister in the future. Do you have similar aspirations?

A: It is not up to me to decide this kind of thing. We will have elections next year, and the president of the republic is the one to make this decision. I am committed in these months to help my country in a moment that could be very productive for growth.

Twitter: @LallyWeymouth

Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.


Opponents of the Venezuelan government have promised to continue street protests aimed at forcing out President Nicolas Maduro.

The opposition warning came a day after at least two people were killed and hundreds arrested in Venezuelas largest anti-government demonstrations in years.

Thousands of Venezuelans filled the main streets of the capital, Caracas, on Wednesday. Many demonstrated in support of the president. Many others protested against Maduro and socialist policies.

Security forces armed with tear gas were deployed in a neighborhood on the west side of Caracas. One teenager shot in the head near an anti-government protest died while doctors operated on him. Pro-government militias were blamed for his death, as well as the killing of a woman in the city of San Cristobal.

Venezuelan officials are investigating the events leading up to both deaths.

A National Guard soldier was reported killed during protests in Miranda state, near Caracas.

At least eight people have been killed since the political unrest started three weeks ago.

Wednesdays protest fell on an important date for Venezuelans. On April 19, 1810, Venezuelans began their drive for independence from Spain.

U.S. reaction

In Washington, United States officials are worried the Venezuelan government is working to suppress the opposition.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said We are concerned that the government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in a way that expressed the views of the Venezuelan people.

We are concerned about that situation, he added. Were watching it closely and working with others  to communicate those concerns to them.

Tillerson spoke at the State Department on Wednesday.

In recent protests, security forces have fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons.

The demonstrations began after a Venezuelan Supreme Court ruling on March 30. The court said it would take away the legislative powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. However, the court overturned its position after national and international criticism about an attempt to seize power.

Opponents call for democratic customs

Maduro's opponents gathered in Caracas on Wednesday to pressure his administration to respect the assembly's autonomy. They also want the government to hold long-delayed elections, free political prisoners and restore other democratic customs.

The National Socialist Party has ruled Venezuela for 17 years. Economic pressures have grown in recent years. The price of oil, Venezuela's chief export, began falling in 2014. Venezuelans also face severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

In related news, the American car manufacturer General Motors has stopped doing business in Venezuela after the government took control of its only factory in the country.

In a statement Thursday, the company said vehicles and other property were also seized, causing irreparable damage to the company.

Im Jonathan Evans.

Alvaro Algarra wrote this story for VOA News.com with contributions from Nike Ching. Jonathan Evans adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

______________________________________________________________

Words in this Story

autonomy  n. the power or right of a country or group to govern itself

socialist  adj. of or related to a system in which there is no private property

tear gas  n. a liquid or gaseous substance that is used mainly to break up protests; the substance causes an allergic reaction in the body

allow  v. to permit; to let

view  n. the act of seeing or watching something; a pictorial image
President Trump appears with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Vice President Pence in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on March 24. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Regarding the April 16 front-page article Dont hit panic button on Trump, GOP urges:

The GOP urges Americans to have patience when it comes to fulfilling the partys promises. Havent we been patient long enough? Republicans underestimated voters anger at all the failed promises they made in the past decade. And with the debacle that was the GOPs American Health Care Act, the people are starting to realize the Republican Party is less interested in helping citizens who are struggling with job or health issues than it is in maintaining its hold on power.

Republicans obstructed progress for President Barack Obamas eight years by refusing to work with Democrats to make peoples lives better. And now they want us to have patience? What hubris. As long as party politics takes precedence over citizens welfare, we will have no more patience.

Jeff Gates, Silver Spring
For those of us convinced that President Trumps defects of character, lack of knowledge, encouragement of social division and disregard for democratic norms outweigh any good he may do  the rough definition of being #NeverTrump  these are confusing and challenging times.

Trumps solid basis of support is relatively homogeneous. It is fed up with foreigners, with foreign entanglements and with the political class as a whole. Its worst temptation is dehumanization  reducing migrants, refugees and Muslims to threatening types.

Trump opponents, in contrast, could hardly be more ideologically diverse  from conservatives (like me), to libertarians, to the hardest of the hard left. We have little in common but a hashtag. And our worst temptation is also dehumanization  turning Trump supporters into threatening types. It is a habit of mind that may help consolidate Trumps control of the GOP and thus his prospects for reelection.

Apropos is a recent, excellent article by Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic, arguing that the tone and approach of liberal, late-night television are invading and discrediting a serious Trump critique. The typical monologue, as Flanagan describes, is an excoriating, profanity-strewn, ad hominem tirade against the president (and by extension against anyone who might agree, in any small measure, with his actions).

(The Washington Post)

Flanagan recounts how late-night personality Samantha Bee set up and ridiculed a young Trump supporter (for which Bee later apologized). Trump and Bee, Flanagan argues, are on different sides politically, but culturally they are drinking from the same cup, one filled with the poisonous nectar of reality TV and its baseless values. . . . Trump and Bee share a penchant for verbal cruelty and a willingness to mock the defenseless.

It is far more consequential, of course, when Trump does the mocking. But Flanagan is correct that the attitude of late-night television gets mixed up in the public mind with the mainstream media and appears to many as a monolith of cruel, establishment bias.

On the whole, people can better tolerate being shouted at than being sneered at. And the sneer of the knowledge class was clearly a motivating factor for many Trump voters. They felt condescension from the commanding heights of the culture and set out to storm its highest point. The pose of late-night television  duplicated by many on the left  is a continuing provocation. It is the general, obnoxious attitude in which it is somehow permissible for the Democratic National Committee to hawk a T-shirt on its website saying, Democrats give a sh*t about people.

This leads to a second, divisive and counterproductive tendency among anti-Trump forces. For many on the left, the energy of opposition to the president is useful only to drive an existing agenda  and to drive the Democratic Party leftward. When women marched on the day after Trumps inauguration, their platform included open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion  as though this was the natural position for all who have deep concerns about the president. Some talk of growing discontent as a left-wing tea party  as though this were finally the chance for MoveOn.org and the Occupy movement to complete their October Revolution in the Democratic Party.

Warns former Barack Obama official Michael Wear: The Democratic Party should view Donald Trumps takeover of the GOP as an opportunity to build a lasting majority. Instead, they view Trump as offering license to move further to the left on policy and still win.

Consider where trends might take us. At the presidential level, there is currently no center-right party in the United States. With the ascendancy of its Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders wing, there would be no center-left party in the country. The ideological and cultural sorting of the two parties would be complete, and nearly every issue would become a culture-war battle.

It is safe to say that many recent presidents have been saved by the radicalism, overreach and foolishness of their opposition. Some on the right went a bridge too far in impeaching Bill Clinton and discredited themselves with conspiratorial accusations about the death of Vince Foster. Some on the left were off-puttingly feverish in their presentation of George W. Bush as an election-stealing cowboy who may have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Some on the right used overheated rhetoric against Obamas supposed socialism and obsessed over his birth certificate.

A substantive, centrist response to Trump has a chance of releasing his hold on the GOP and the country. A sneering, dismissive, dehumanizing, conspiratorial, hard-left-leaning response to Trump is his fondest hope.

Read more from Michael Gersons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .
In his April 17 op-ed, We dont call it Nationalists Day, E.J. Dionne Jr. favored patriotism over nationalism as an impulse less likely to devolve into aggressive tribalism. To me, both harbor equal dangers; hypernationalism promotes war, while chauvinism keeps blood and treasure flowing to the Front. Both exaggerate security and stifle dissent.

Neither, however, is as insidious as homeland, which entered our lexicon forcefully after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was meant to focus attention on attacks here rather than abroad  Pearl Harbor rather than Tehran. But its a loaded term, connoting a single, exclusive culture. Thats why the German equivalent, Heimat, was stressed by Joseph Goebbels over the more traditional Vaterland. The homeland is where you have an age-old right to be, where your blood relations (Volk) have their roots and people without those roots dont really belong. Its what Serbs and Croats fought for in the Homeland Wars following Josip Broz Titos death. Its not the pluralistic nation of immigrants we Americans call home. And, frankly, it sends shivers up my spine.

Robert D. Croog, Chevy Chase
Years of lead and zinc mining near Picher, Okla., turned the area into a Superfund site with sinkholes and tainted water. (Charlie Riedel/Associated Press)

Regarding the April 17 front-page article In advice to Trump, industry targets EPA:

As a 9-year-old playing in rural East Nassau, N.Y., I stumbled on a glistening puddle, and thinking its bluish sheen pretty, prodded it with sticks. When told about this discovery, my mother ordered me to stay away from the area, which contained poisonous chemical waste. This area in East Nassau is now known as the Farrel Property Superfund site.

East Nassau is seven miles from the Dewey Loeffel Landfill Superfund site , where General Electric and SI Group dumped 46,000 tons of chemical waste from 1952 to 1970. For decades, local and state officials tried to deal with the site. Finally in 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency made a $10 million deal with GE and SI Group to clean up the site. The full extent of contamination of the local aquifer, groundwater and residential wells is still being assessed.

The Trump administration plans to reduce the EPAs regulatory power. Without EPA regulations, how will corporations be made accountable to clean up or prevent future chemical dumping grounds and kept from harming communities by potentially causing cancers, lupus and other conditions resulting from pollutants?

Lori Barth Choudhury, Alexandria

I suppose its no surprise that the Trump administration has invited industry to weigh in on regulations. But even in these cynical days, it shocks me that the Pavement Coatings Technology Council is still lobbying to limit research on the environmental effects of coal tar when used as a parking lot sealant. I followed this issue for many years as a public affairs representative for a trade association in the transportation industry.

Coal tar has been known to be a human carcinogen for more than 50 years. It is a Group 1 carcinogen, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Aside from the coal industrys desire to sell this toxic byproduct, there is no conceivable rationale for its use in parking lots or anywhere else.

Coal tar is a threat to the environment and to the health of the workers who apply it. If more research in this area is needed, I hope it goes forward. But to many, the evidence is already clear enough to ban this unsafe product from the market.

Margaret Cervarich, Frederick
A video board displays the numbers after the closing bell of the Dow Industrial Average at the New York Stock Exchange on April 20 in New York. (Bryan R. Smith/Agence France-Presse viaGetty Images)

The April 19 editorial A new Glass-Steagall? discussed the pros and cons of the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented investment banks from combining with commercial banks. The editorial did not go far enough.

As former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke pointed out in his excellent book The Courage to Act, if Glass-Steagall had been in effect in 2008 when the financial system was on the brink of collapse, the federal government could not have induced Bank of America to take over and rescue a failing Merrill Lynch. Similarly, federal authorities could not have earlier arranged for JPMorgan Chase to rescue Bear Stearns. Financial markets nearly collapsed after the failure and bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The consequences of allowing an even larger investment bank, Merrill Lynch, to follow Lehman into bankruptcy are unimaginable. We should be very wary of restoring Glass-Steagall, which would resurrect barriers to arranging such mergers in the interest of saving the financial system.

Dodd-Frank, while not perfect, has enhanced the safety of our financial system. In particular, the introduction of the Volcker Rule has effectively limited the ability of our largest financial institutions to engage in unwise and risky financial activity.

Alexander R.M. Boyle, Chevy Chase
House Republicans are apparently ready for yet another attempt to snatch health insurance away from constituents who need it. Someone should remind Speaker Paul Ryan of a saying often attributed to his legendary predecessor Sam Rayburn: Theres no education in the second kick of the mule.

Having failed miserably to win passage of an abomination of a bill  the American Health Care Act  Ryan (R-Wis.) and his minions are back with something even worse. A draft framework being circulated this week would pretend to keep the parts of Obamacare that people like, but allow states to take these benefits away. We see what youre doing, folks.

This is getting silly. What part of forget it do Republicans not understand?

I realize there is great pressure to follow through on the GOP promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. And I realize that President Trump, nearing the 100-day mark, sorely needs a legislative victory to tweet about. King Pyrrhus needed a win, too, but that didnt work out too well for him.

Republicans dont talk much about the practical reason for moving urgently on health care, which is to set the stage for tax reform: They want to take money now used to subsidize health care for low-income Americans and give it to the wealthy in the form of big tax cuts. Again, we can see you.

Im sure the crowds at GOP town halls will be understanding. Just be sure to check attendees at the door for tar and feathers.

The new proposal  brokered by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), of the moderate Tuesday Group, and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), of the far-right Freedom Caucus  is like a parody, as if life-or-death access to health care were fodder for a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Nominally, the MacArthur amendment would retain the Essential Health Benefits standard imposed by the ACA, which requires insurance policies to cover eventualities such as hospitalization, maternity and emergency care  basically, all the things youd ever need health insurance for.

The amendment would also appear to maintain the ACAs guarantees that anyone could buy health insurance, including those with preexisting conditions, and that parents could keep adult children on their policies until age 26. That all looks fine  but its an illusion.

After specifying that these popular provisions will stay, the amendment then gives states the right to snatch them away. States would be able to obtain waivers exempting them from the Essential Health Benefits standards. They would also be able to obtain waivers from the preexisting conditions requirement by creating a high-risk pool to provide coverage for those who are unwell.

There would no longer be a prohibition, however, against charging high-risk individuals more  so much more, in fact, that they would potentially be priced out of the market. We would go back to the pre-ACA situation in which serious illness could mean losing a home or filing for bankruptcy.

This may satisfy GOP ideological imperatives  Ayn Rand would be so proud  but it is atrocious policy, even if you put aside considerations such as compassion and community.

We live at a time of enormous economic dislocation. The manufacturing sector has shrunk dramatically, and now retail may be starting down the same path; long-lost jobs in industries such as coal mining are not coming back, no matter what Trump says. Workers need to be able to move to where jobs are being created  which means that health insurance should ideally be portable. But Republicans are heading in the other direction by trying to set up a system with radically different health-insurance rules in different states. In todays world, how does that make sense?

Unchanged from last months failed bill are provisions that would strip massive amounts of money out of Medicaid, by far the nations biggest source of payment for nursing-home care. So Republicans might not want to show their faces anywhere near retirement communities.

The Affordable Care Act changed the way most people in this country think about health care. It did not, however, change the thinking of many House Republicans, who continue to believe individuals should be held financially liable for a genetic predisposition toward diabetes or a random cellular mutation that leads to cancer.

Another abject failure to repeal the ACA would be a terrible political outcome for Republicans. But far worse, looking ahead to the 2018 midterms, would be for Trump to sign this latest monstrosity into law.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
HAVING DECLARED that the shackles [are] off deportation agents, the Trump administration has made clear it intends to accelerate arrests and removals of undocumented immigrants. Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly says agents will focus enforcement on undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but numbers from the administrations first weeks in office suggest a different, and concerning, pattern.

As The Posts Maria Sacchetti reported, arrests of unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions more than doubled through mid-March under the new administration, compared with the same span last year. Arrests of those with criminal records increased by a more modest 15 percent.

The statistics offer a snapshot of less than two months of enforcement activity, not a predictive trend. Nonetheless, the numbers are jarring: Some 5,400 noncriminal undocumented immigrants were arrested in seven weeks or so, and many of them were picked up not along the border but in cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia and St. Paul, Minn., where large numbers of such immigrants have been in the country for more than 15 years, and many have children and other relatives who are U.S. citizens. In the District, noncriminal arrests for that period spiked from 38 a year ago to 174 this year. And given the administrations proposal to hire 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, plus 5,000 new Customs and Border Protection officers, its fair to wonder if the next four years will be marked by the sort of indiscriminate roundups that President Trump at times threatened in his campaign rhetoric.

Starting in late 2014, the Obama administration explicitly targeted illegal immigrants with serious criminal convictions for enforcement, leaving those with clean records relatively, though not entirely, safe from the threat of deportation. Before that, it is true that deportations did spike, leading some immigration advocates to refer to President Barack Obama as the deporter in chief. But the spike then was driven largely by immigrants picked up and deported along the southwestern border; many of those deportees had only recently entered the country.

Now, ICE agents, having heard the message about their unshackling, may be acting with a freer hand. Mr. Kelly asserts that policy has changed to target undocumented immigrants with even a single nonviolent criminal conviction (such as drunken driving), and he acknowledges that no unauthorized immigrants are immune from arrest  including those with no criminal record, whom the president has referred to as the good ones and terrific people.

Stepped-up enforcement will shatter families and communities. Evidence suggests it is already deterring Latino victims of sexual assaults and other offenses in cities such as Houston and Los Angeles from reporting the crimes to the authorities, for fear they will end up being deported.

Law enforcement involves priorities, as Mr. Kelly acknowledges; he is also right that it is up to Congress to reform a dysfunctional system. In overseeing enforcement for this administration, however, he will be judged by whether policy is measured, sensible and humane. Early signs are not encouraging.
Jacquelyn Gill is an assistant professor at the University of Maine in the School of Biology and Ecology and the Climate Change Institute. She is a co-host of the climate change podcast Warm Regards.

Hundreds of thousands of people will march for science this weekend in cities around the world in what is arguably the largest scientific event in history. This March for Science is a direct response to recent attacks on our scientific institutions  on climate and environmental science in particular (including many of the scientists who do this work) and even on the value of evidence-based decision-making by our elected officials.

Since its announcement in January, the March for Science has become a microcosm of the problems we face as a scientific community: Is science political? Should scientists be advocates  or even activists? How do we increase public support for science? Whom does science leave out, and whom have we harmed? Addressing these questions is a painful but much-needed exercise, especially if scientists are to ask others to stand with us.

These discussions are necessary because the war on science is, for the most part, really a war on public science  that is, science for everyone. Today, the majority of scientific research in the United States is publicly funded, administered through the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other agencies. Much of this research takes place in state and federal institutions, including universities and national laboratories. This taxpayer-funded science has a mandate to support the national interest. It is science of, by and for the people.

I am an assistant professor at the University of Maine  a public, Land and Sea Grant university with a student body drawn from a population that is mostly rural and working-class. I grew up in the rural, working-class towns that we often heard about during the last election. I am the child of parents who served in the Navy and later worked in steel, coal and oil. And I am a scientist who researches climate change and biodiversity.

My identities as a scientist, an educator and an advocate for science are deeply interconnected with my identity as a citizen and the challenges we face together as a nation. Despite the fact that Ive devoted my life to a career in science, I believe the real stakeholders in the war on science arent scientists; they are all of us.

When science is for everyone, it is transparent, accessible and broadly communicated. It has direct benefits to public health and our economy, contributes to a culture of innovation and discovery, and supports education and engagement at all stages of life. The intersections between science and politics may feel new, but theyre not. The outcomes of scientific research have always extended well beyond the lab and the boardroom. Our work has implications for our environment, public health, civil rights, economics, education and national defense. This means science has always been political. And I believe that this is a feature, not a bug.

The age of ivory tower science is over, and it must not return. Scientists are everywhere: in classrooms and churches, factories and farms. Were on sidewalks, in cafes, on the airwaves and in your Twitter feeds. Public support for evidence-based decision-making, and the institutions that do and support science in the public interest, can grow only if the public values science, understands how it works and what our agencies do for us. Most people cant name a living scientist. Most fields of science are still woefully poor at reflecting the diversity of the populations we serve. And yet, people are benefiting from the work of science now more than ever.

We face unprecedented challenges in the coming century: feeding 10 billion people by 2100, confronting emerging infectious diseases, navigating the transition away from a fossil fuel-based civilization, addressing climate change and its impacts on people and wildlife. To address these challenges, one of our most powerful tools will be science, but it must be for everyone.

The March for Science may have been envisioned as a response to external attacks, but it has  perhaps even more importantly  catalyzed much-needed discussions within our community about sciences political intersections. On Saturday, fellow biologist Terry McGlynn will carry a sign reading Everyone needs science. Science needs everyone.

As we march  or dont  we must remember this truth: If we are to build the trust and support we need to survive and even thrive, so that we can in turn serve, science must be for everyone, from its creation to its application, from its sponsors to its beneficiaries.
Regarding the April 9 front-page article Americans adrift:

As a Canadian, I take issue with the use of remote in the pieces secondary headline, Can a remote island in Canada become a safe harbor for those who want to flee Donald Trump?

The word choice served to reinforce stereotypes about the United States northern neighbor. While it takes almost five hours to drive from Halifax, Nova Scotias capital city, to Glace Bay (and considerably less time from Sydney, Cape Breton Islands main city, to Glace Bay), Im almost certain most Canadians would not classify Glace Bay as remote. Cape Breton is part of Nova Scotia; it is joined to the mainland by the Canso Causeway.

Islands in Canada to which the descriptor remote would aptly apply might include Baffin Island, Fogo Island and Melville Island. There are many remote islands in Canada, so remote that most Canadians have never visited them. Perhaps, though, Canadians have a different view of what remote means. Canadians tend to measure driving not in the number of kilometers but in the number of hours it takes to get from this place to that place. By that measure, Glace Bay, while taking many hours to reach, doesnt come close to being remote.

Allen McAvoy, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Every American administration takes a while to settle into a basic approach to the world. President Trumps team has had a rockier start than most, with many important positions in every key agency still unfilled. More worrying, the administrations basic foreign policy is coming into view, and it is not a reassuring sight  bellicose rhetoric, hollow threats, contradictory voices and little coordination with allies. The approach is being tested on the most difficult foreign policy problem of all: North Korea.

There is a pattern to Trumps approach so far. It begins with bravado, the repeated use of rhetoric that is not backed up by much. The president constantly insists that if China doesnt help deal with North Korea, the United States will. Really? How? A military strike is close to impossible. South Korea would vehemently oppose any such move, as it would face the brunt of North Koreas retaliation; Seoul is only about 35 miles from the border. Japan would also oppose a strike, and, of course, any military action would enrage China. Plus, a bombing campaign would be ineffective because North Koreas nuclear sites are scattered, buried deep and, in some cases, underwater.

Trump has not been alone in his bravado. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the United States historical policy of strategic patience with North Korea had ended, and that the United States has a new policy. The danger of this kind of rhetoric is that it is becoming readily apparent that Washington does not in fact have a new policy. And if it does, Washingtons key allies, especially the South Koreans, are terrified by it. With the administrations bluster, its mistake with the USS Carl Vinson and Trumps repetition of Beijings line that Korea was once a part of China, South Korea has become deeply uneasy.

Tough talk is supplemented by aggressive military reflexes. Whether that means using bigger bombs in the Middle East or sending ships  eventually  into East Asian waters, these tactics can be useful if there is a strategy behind them. So far, however, they look more like tactics in search of a strategy, the flexing of military might in the hope that this will impress the adversary. But all the shock and awe in Iraq did not help when there was a faulty plan to secure the peace. More bombs in Syria will not answer the question of how to defeat the Islamic State without abetting President Bashar al-Assad. Threatening North Korea without the ability to carry out that threat only makes Washington look weak.

The United States has had roughly the same strategy toward North Korea for decades. It is a policy of sanctions, threats, intimidation, pressure and isolation. And it has not worked. Even the brief effort at cooperation during the Clinton years was halfhearted, with Washington failing to fulfill some of its promises to North Korea. In any event, the rapprochement was quickly reversed by the George W. Bush administration. The results have been clear. North Korea has continued to build its nuclear program and engage in provocative tests. As isolation and sanctions have increased in recent years, Pyongyang has only become more confrontational.

In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, John Delury wonders whether it is time to try another approach. If the United States really hopes to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula, it should stop looking for ways to stifle North Koreas economy and undermine Kim Jong Uns regime and start finding ways to make Pyongyang feel more secure. This might sound counterintuitive, given North Koreas nuclear ambitions and human rights record. But consider this: North Korea will start focusing on its prosperity instead of its self-preservation only once it no longer has to worry about its own destruction. And North Korea will consider surrendering its nuclear deterrent only once it feels secure and prosperous and is economically integrated into Northeast Asia.

We tend to view North Korea as an utterly weird country run by a loony dictator with bad hair. And theres evidence to support this characterization. But it is also a regime that wants to survive. I recall many similar arguments made about Iran before the nuclear deal, that it was a fanatical country run by mad mullahs. We were told they could never be negotiated with, would never accept a deal, would never disconnect their centrifuges and would violate any agreement within weeks. So far, all these predictions have proved wrong. It might be worth trying a new policy with North Korea. It might not work. But the old one certainly hasnt.

Read more from Fareed Zakarias archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
President Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)

The USS Carl Vinson, 1,100 feet long, has a displacement of 97,000 tons and sails with two nuclear reactors and about 60 aircraft. Its escorted by a guided-missile cruiser and two destroyers.

So how did President Trump lose it?

In an interview with Fox Business taped on April 11, Trump confirmed a dramatic escalation in the nuclear standoff with North Korea, saying he was redirecting Navy ships to the area. We are sending an armada  very powerful, Trump said.

Tough talk  except the Vinson strike group was not heading toward North Korea. It was continuing previously scheduled exercises with Australian forces in the Indian Ocean. Four days after Trump spoke of his Korea armada, a military trade publication noticed that photos released by the Navy showed the carrier off Indonesia  3,500 miles from the Korean Peninsula  and apparently heading the other way.

Was the Vinson looking for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370? Had Percy Jackson lured it into the Sea of Monsters, from which it would emerge somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle with Amelia Earhart, Grand Duchess Anastasia and Jimmy Hoffa?

There has been much speculation about Trumps nonsense talk about his armada. Administration officials suggested a miscommunication between the Pentagon and the White House. Others suspected deliberate psy-ops against North Korea and China.

I put the question to my former colleague Tom Ricks, military writer and national security specialist at the New America Foundation. Rickss hypothesis: Trump didnt have any idea where his armada was. He probably saw it on TV.

Trump, who tends to eschew security briefings, spends much of his day watching Fox News, often tweeting about what he sees. And Fox News was beating the drums of war in the days and hours before Trump spoke of his armada:

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, which had been previously scheduled in port in Australia, has turned around and will be proceeding out to the Korean Peninsula.

The president ordered the aircraft carrier group to reverse course.

The super aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is now steaming toward the waters off the Korean Peninsula.

He was sending a powerful message to North Korea, deploying an aircraft carrier group.

The U.S. Pacific Command had indeed said on April 8 that the Vinson would sail north, attaching the move to rising tensions with North Korea. But there wasnt any rush. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson encouraged people not to read too much into routine movements, saying there was no particular objective. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said shes just on her way up there because thats where we thought it was most prudent.

Trumps version sounded more like Fox Newss.

This would appear to be another disturbing case of life imitating cable news. Ive argued that Trumps many falsehoods arent necessarily lies; he seems not to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, believing that whatever he says is true.

Ricks, author of the forthcoming history Churchill & Orwell, argues that Trumps tendency to speak nonsense isnt necessarily a bad thing when it comes to national security. Mattis and his generals are running foreign policy while the president, in over his head, hangs out in the White House watching TV and getting a nudge from the first lady when its time to put his hand over his heart for the national anthem at the Easter Egg Roll.

Were now experiencing what a decapitation strike would be against the U.S. government, Ricks said. You can have nobody, effectively, at the White House and still run the country. Its a post-nuclear environment. Trump may have no clue, but his national security team is solid, Ricks argued. The less the White House knows these days, the better.

And allies  notably Germanys Angela Merkel, whose hand Trump was reluctant to shake after a tense meeting  are coming to discount Trump because they recognize he is out of his depth. Foreigners understand that you cant stand by anything Trump says, Ricks said. Instead, the world is learning to watch what he does, not what he says  and watch what his underlings do.

At home as well as abroad, people are coming to recognize this emperors state of undress. Gallup this week reported that only 45 percent of Americans think Trump keeps his promises, down from 62 percent in February.

The Carl Vinsons peregrinations show why. On April 11, White House press secretary Sean Spicer proclaimed that it was a huge deterrence to see a carrier group steaming into an area like that. Eight days later, he argued that his previous hogwash had become true: We have an armada going towards the peninsula. Thats a fact.

Yes, its a good thing people dont believe this White House.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
An Egyptian American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years and became the global face of Egypts brutal crackdown on civil society returned home to the United States late Thursday after the Trump administration quietly negotiated her release.

President Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers. Trump dispatched a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Va., and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a haven and rehabilitation center for street children in Cairo.

[Who is Aya Hijazi, the American freed from jail in Egypt?]

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and U.S. officials as false. Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates canceled. Human rights groups alleged that they were abused in detention.

The Obama administration unsuccessfully pressed Sissis government for their release. It was not until Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt by embracing Sissi at the White House on April 3  he publicly hailed the autocrats leadership as fantastic and offered the U.S. governments strong backing  that Egypts posture changed. Last Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others.

What the White House plans to celebrate as vindication of its early diplomacy comes at the end of a week in which the administration has combated charges of foreign policy confusion. Although the president received wide praise for his decision to punish Syria for its presumed chemical weapons attack with a barrage of cruise missiles, the administration has been criticized for contradictions over policy toward Syria and Turkey, and misstatements on the U.S. response to North Koreas weapons activity.

A senior administration official said that no quid pro quo had been offered for Hijazis release but that there had been assurance from the highest levels [of Sissis government] that whatever the verdict was, Egypt would use presidential authority to send her home. The official said the U.S. side interpreted that to mean that a guilty verdict and sentencing would be followed by a pardon from Sissi, but they were pleasantly surprised.

The dropping of charges set in motion the release of Hijazi and Hassanein from custody and their journey to the United States, which was personally overseen by Trump and detailed Thursday by the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the national security sensitivities of the case.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, who were already planning to visit Egypt this week, met with Sissi on a range of topics. Meanwhile, Trump also sent his military aide, Air Force Maj. Wes Spurlock, to escort Hijazi and her family on the plane home to Washington.

Hijazi and Hassanein reunited with the Hijazi family in Cairo this week, and as Mattis traveled on to Israel, Powell, who was born in Egypt and has helped smooth relations between the two countries, stayed behind to accompany the group, the senior administration official said.

The travelers touched down at Joint Base Andrews about 10 p.m. Thursday. Hijazi and her brother, Basel, are scheduled to visit the White House on Friday to meet with Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had followed Hijazis plight, the senior administration official said.

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.

Its been a roller coaster of emotions the past couple of days, Basel Hijazi said in a telephone interview Thursday from aboard the plane. Were crying with relief to have them out.

He added: Were very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. Were so grateful.

Since Sissi came to power in a 2013 coup, his authoritarian government has presided over a lurching economy, with massive debt, high unemployment and allegations of corruption. A $12 billion loan last year from the International Monetary Fund and strict austerity measures have led to slow improvements, but Egypt still needs major outside investment and favorable financing.

During his U.S. visit, Sissi met with the heads of the IMF and the World Bank, along with the chief executives of Lockheed Martin and General Electric. Sissi has sought billions of dollars in financing from the U.S. Export-

Import Bank for massive infrastructure investments.

During his campaign, Trump suggested that the United States could do well without the Ex-Im Bank. But last week, he reversed himself by nominating former Republican lawmakers Scott Garrett and Spencer Bachus to vacant positions on the banks board.

The senior Trump administration official said the agreement for Hijazis release was the product of Trumps discreet diplomacy  meaning the presidents efforts to cultivate warm relations with strongmen such as Sissi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, in part by avoiding public pronouncements on human rights that might alienate the foreign governments.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who said he recently advocated for Hijazis release in his own talks with Sissi and was briefed on the latest negotiations, said Trump handled it the way things like this should be handled.

The United States can sometimes lead with things, and do it publicly, [in ways] that are offensive to people and likely not get the kind of result that wed like, whereas working it quietly and making it a priority, but doing so in a way that is not a public embarrassment to the other party, thats the way they worked this, Corker said in an interview Thursday.

Former Obama administration officials, who were at times criticized for not making a more public case out of Hijazis imprisonment, expressed skepticism that Sissi got nothing from Trump in exchange for Hijazis freedom.

The robust praise and support the president has given to Sissi, which stands in some contrast to what we did, had to have some price, and maybe this is it, said Antony J. Blinken, who worked on the Hijazi case as deputy secretary of state. At least its a positive development in which everyone can take some satisfaction.

At the same time, Blinken warned, such support could have the opposite effect of simply reinforcing [Sissis] crackdown at home, in a way I think someday is going to rebound against him, and probably rebound against us. . . . You can try to repress your problems away, but at some point, they will explode.

During Sissis visit to Washington, Trump made no public mention of Hijazis imprisonment. Nor did he appear to pressure the Egyptian leader on his record of human rights abuses.

But the senior administration official said Trump had been following Hijazis case.

I want her to come home, Trump told his top aides and deputized them to work directly with the Egyptian government to secure her release, according to the senior administration official. Officials at the State Department and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo helped facilitate Hijazis departure from Egypt, while attorney Wade McMullen and other leaders from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit advocacy organization, also worked to free her.

Kerry Kennedy, the groups president, said in a statement that her team had worked with the administration, and we are deeply grateful to President Trump for his personal engagement in resolving Ayas case.

Sissi, a former army chief who led the coup that overthrew Egypts elected president, had been barred from the White House by the Obama administration for human rights abuses. Sissis post-coup crackdown has been particularly severe against civil society groups, especially those receiving money from abroad. They are frequently denounced by the government and pro-government media as trying to destabilize the country. Thousands of people remain imprisoned.

While President Barack Obama was uneasy with the elected government of Mohamed Morsi, whose political organization was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, his administration rejected Sissis charges of terrorism ties. After the coup, Obama withheld aid from Egypt  for decades, the second- largest recipient of U.S. military assistance, after Israel, at more than $1 billion a year.

During his presidential campaign, Trump expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders he felt were tough on terrorism and derided what he called Obamas weak leadership.

This month, as Sissi smiled beside him in the Oval Office, Trump said warmly: We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that he hopes to use negotiations to keep the government open past April 28 in an effort to force Democrats to back some funding for creating a new wall along the U. S-Mexico border  a risky move that could provoke a spending showdown with congressional Democrats next week.

Mulvaney said the White House would be open to funding some of the Democrats priorities  such as paying insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act  if Democrats agree to fund some of the more controversial parts of President Trumps agenda, notably the border wall.

The new request threatens to undermine weeks of negotiations between Republican leaders and Democrats in Congress to pass a stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. The negotiations so far have excluded talk of the border wall, which Republicans have argued should be taken up later to keep the government open.

We have our list of priorities, Mulvaney said at an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance. We want more money for defense. We want to build a border wall. We want more money for immigration enforcement, law enforcement.

Mulvaney stopped short of saying that the White House would refuse to sign a spending agreement that does not include those priorities, but he made clear that he expects Democrats to reopen talks. Democrats saw Mulvaneys comments as evidence that the White House is meddling to undermine what they described as successful, bipartisan talks.

Everything had been moving smoothly until the administration moved in with a heavy hand, said Matt House, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Not only are Democrats opposed to the wall, there is significant Republican opposition as well.

[White House turns up heat on Congress to revise the Affordable Care Act]

Republican leaders and members of the House and Senate appropriations committees had hoped to avoid a spending confrontation early in Trumps administration by negotiating directly with Democrats, whose votes will be necessary to pass any spending bill. Republicans hold a slim 52-to-48 advantage in the Senate, meaning they will need at least eight Democrats to reach the 60 votes required to pass spending measures in that chamber.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said the White House comments make it more difficult to reach an agreement, arguing that there is intense opposition to the wall from Democrats in both the House and Senate.

Mulvaney said that the White House is willing to negotiate, but only if Democrats bend on funding the wall.



If they tell us to pound sand, I think thats probably a disappointing indicator of where the next four years is going to go, Mulvaney said. If they tell us, however, that they recognize that President Trump won an election, and he should get some of his priorities funded for that reason, elections have consequences, as folks who win always like to say.

Read more at PowerPost
A submarine-launched ballistic missile is displayed in Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade in Pyongyang to celebrate the 105th birthday of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder and grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un.

April 15, 2017 A submarine-launched ballistic missile is displayed in Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade in Pyongyang to celebrate the 105th birthday of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder and grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un. Wong Maye-E/AP

North Korea held a huge military parade to mark the 105th birthday of its founder Kim Il Sung and displayed a series of new and technologically advanced missiles in front of leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea held a huge military parade to mark the 105th birthday of its founder Kim Il Sung and displayed a series of new and technologically advanced missiles in front of leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea held a huge military parade to mark the 105th birthday of its founder Kim Il Sung and displayed a series of new and technologically advanced missiles in front of leader Kim Jong Un.

If the United States were to strike North Korea, Kim Jong Uns regime would retaliate by unleashing its conventional weaponry lined up on the demilitarized zone that has separated the two Koreas for about seven decades.

And that conventional weaponry is reliable, unlike North Koreas missiles, and could cause major devastation in South Korea, which is a staunch ally of the United States.

This becomes a very limiting factor for the U.S., said Carl Baker, a retired Air Force officer with extensive experience in South Korea.

As tensions between North Korea and the outside world have risen over the past month, there has been increasing talk about the United States using military force either to preempt a North Korean provocation or to respond to one.

That talk continues even after it emerged that the Navy had not sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean Peninsula region, as officials, including President Trump, had implied.





Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that he supported striking North Korea to stop it from developing the capability to reach the United States with a missile  even if that came at a huge cost for the region.

It would be terrible, but the war would be over [in South Korea], it wouldnt be here, Graham said in an interview with NBC.

[ White House warns North Korea not to test U.S. resolve ]

Although most of the recent focus has been on North Koreas ambition to be able to strike the continental United States with a missile, the people of South Korea have been living under the constant threat of a conventional North Korean attack for decades.

North Korea has a tremendous amount of artillery right opposite Seoul, said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a senior imagery analyst at 38 North, a website focused on North Korea.

The Second Corps of the Korean Peoples Army stationed at Kaesong on the northern side of the DMZ has about 500 artillery pieces, Bermudez said. And this is just one army corps; similar corps are on either side of it.

All the artillery pieces in the Second Corps can reach the northern outskirts of Seoul, just 30 miles from the DMZ, but the largest projectiles could fly to the south of the capital. About 25 million people  or half of the South Korean population  live in the greater Seoul metropolitan area.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Its the tyranny of proximity, said David Maxwell, who served in South Korea during his 30 years in the Army and now teaches at Georgetown University. Its like the distance between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Imagine a million-man army just outside the Beltway with artillery they could use to terrorize Washington.

About half of North Koreas artillery pieces are multiple rocket launchers, including 18 to 36 of the huge 300mm launchers that Pyongyang has bragged about. State media last year published photos of the system during a test firing that Kim attended.

The 300mm guns could probably fire eight rounds every 15 minutes, Bermudez said, and have a range of about 44 miles.

[ Here are the missiles North Korea just showed off, one by one ]

This could do a lot of damage, he said. If they hit a high-rise building with a couple of rounds of artillery, people get into their cars, causing huge traffic jams, so North Korea could target highways and bridges in cascades.

If North Korea were to start unleashing its artillery on the South, it would be able to fire about 4,000 rounds an hour, Roger Cavazos of the Nautilus Institute estimated in a 2012 study. There would be 2,811 fatalities in the initial volley and 64,000 people could be killed that first day, the majority of them in the first three hours, he wrote.

Some of the victims would be American, because the U.S. military has about 28,000 troops in South Korea. The higher estimates for the 300mm rocket launchers range  up to 65 miles  would put the U.S. Air Force base at Osan and the new military garrison at Pyeongtaek, the replacement for the huge base in Seoul, within reach.

This prospect of extensive damage and casualties has restrained successive U.S. administrations, however provocative North Korea has been.

Every U.S. administration, as they have looked at this problem, has said that all options are available. But thats not really true, said Baker, who is at the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We really dont have a military option.

Vice President Pence, speaking in Seoul this week, said that all options are on the table for dealing with North Korea, echoing statements that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made in Seoul last month.

[ N. Korea didnt test a nuclear weapon, but it did try to launch another missile ]

There was a similar discussion in 1994, when North Korea threatened to go nuclear, sparking talk of surgical strikes.

People in Washington were saying, We have the capability to do this, but those of us who were sitting in Seoul said, You cant do that,  Baker said.

It is not just South Korea that would suffer. Such action would be devastating for North Korea, too, because the U.S. and South Korean militaries have spent decades developing their counter-battery capability, as well as developing plans for airstrikes to take out North Koreas facilities.

Defending Seoul against such a threat is the top priority for the alliance, said Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general in the South Korean army who served as commander of South Koreas Special Warfare Command.

The U.S. and South Korean response would be immediate. We have assets along the DMZ dedicated for doing this job and counter-battery units trained to conduct these missions, Chun said.

Although the White House has doubled down on its statements on the USS Carl Vinson heading to the Korean Peninsula  Its happening, spokesman Sean Spicer said this week  former military officers on both sides of the alliance say they are sure that Trump will not put South Korean lives at risk.

I believe that General [Jim] Mattis and General [H.R.] McMaster are well aware of this, Maxwell said, referring to the defense secretary and the national security adviser.

Of course it concerns me, Chun said of the recent talk about strikes, but Ive always believed that, with good common sense and engagement, cooler heads will prevail.

Read more

North Koreas display of new missiles is worrying, analysts say

With both the U.S. and North Korea saber rattling, is conflict imminent?

U.S. defense officials may have spoken too soon, but Trumps missing armada finally heading to Korea

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
French authorities on Friday identified a small-time criminal, apparently inspired by the Islamic State, as the perpetrator of a deadly attack on police officers in a shooting that set France on edge and darkened the final day of campaigning in the countrys pivotal presidential election.

Despite a promise not to campaign following the attack Thursday night on Pariss renowned Champs-Elysees boulevard, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen reinforced her anti-immigrant message in a Friday speech, calling on the French government to immediately reinstate border checks and expel foreigners being monitored by the intelligence services.

My government of national unity will implement this policy, so that the republic will live, and that France will live, she said at an impromptu news conference.

Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve rejected early calls to postpone Sundays first round of voting, telling reporters Friday morning that nothing should hinder this fundamental democratic moment for our country. He pledged heightened security, including deployments of heavily armed soldiers from a two-year-old counterterrorism campaign called Operation Sentinelle, as French voters go to the polls.

[French election could bring a jolt to Western security, no matter who wins]

1 of 14 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The scene in Paris after a shooting on the Champs-Elysees View Photos Three police officers were shot, one fatally, near a metro station on the renowned boulevard. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Caption Three police officers were reportedly shot near a metro station at the center of the heavily traveled avenue. French news media, citing the Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency, reported that the terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack. April 20, 2017 Police secure the Champs-Elysees, a busy avenue in Paris. Christian Hartmann/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

In Washington, President Trump waded into Frances political morass with predictions that the Champs-Elysees attack would have a big effect on the election and would probably help Le Pen, who has raised many of the same anti-immigrant and security issues that Trump promoted during his campaign.

One police officer was killed and two others were seriously injured when a gunman, formally identified Friday as Karim Cheurfi, opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle on a police patrol parked on Pariss best-known thoroughfare, sending pedestrians fleeing into side streets. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Cheurfi was then shot dead as he tried to escape, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters. Investigators subsequently found a number of knives and a pump-action shotgun in Cheurfis car, as well as a message apparently scribbled in support of the Islamic State.

The note praising the extremist group apparently fell out of Cheurfis pocket, Molins said, adding that pieces of paper with addresses of police stations were found in his car.

[Anti-Muslim rhetoric permeates French presidential election campaign]

Cheurfi, a 39-year-old of Algerian descent who was born in the Paris suburbs, had a criminal record and was well-known to authorities, Molins said. In a profile that mirrored those of perpetrators of other recent, smaller-scale attacks, Cheurfi had been convicted at least four times since 2003 and had spent nearly 14 years in prison for crimes ranging from burglary and theft to attempted murder.

In 2001, he fired on and wounded two men, one of them a plainclothes police officer, who were chasing him as he drove a stolen car. He was released from prison in October 2015 and lived with his mother in an eastern suburb of Paris.

(The Washington Post)

Earlier this year, Molins said, French authorities became aware that Cheurfi had sought to purchase weapons and had made statements about wanting to kill police officers. As recently as April 7, Molins said, authorities had interviewed Cheurfi following a trip to Algeria. However, a judge decided not to revoke his probation.

Cheurfis former lawyer, Jean-Laurent Panier, told BFM TV on Friday that his client was extremely isolated and a psychologically fragile character whose problems went untreated. He said Cheurfi never spoke about religion, adding that he talked mainly about how to fill his daily life with video games.

The slain police officer, identified as Xavier Jugele, 37, was a member of the LGBT police association and had spent his entire career in Paris, police officials said.

In November, according to LExpress newspaper, Jugele had attended a concert that reopened the Bataclan Theater, the main target in a series of Islamic State attacks on Paris in November 2015. This concert is meant to celebrate life, he told People magazine. To say no to terrorists.

[What you need to know about the French election]

It was not immediately clear whether the timing of Thursdays attack was linked to the presidential election. But it appeared that way to many French voters, coming as the 11 candidates in the race were speaking in a widely watched televised debate.

The election has become a critical test of strength for Le Pen and her National Front party at a time when nationalism has overshadowed other votes in the West, including Trumps victory and last years British referendum on leaving the European Union.

Le Pens opponents, meanwhile, have urged France to stand against the hard-line rhetoric that has dominated her campaign.

In an interview Friday with the Associated Press, Trump predicted that the attack would likely boost Le Pen, who has been sharply critical of Islamist terrorism for weeks. Trump said he was not explicitly endorsing her but that he believes she is the candidate who is strongest on borders, and shes the strongest on whats been going on in France.

Trump also told the news agency that he is not worried about emboldening terrorists by saying that an attack can have an impact on a democratic election.

Another terrorist attack in Paris, Trump wrote earlier Friday in a Twitter post. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!

The attack was claimed with unusual speed Thursday night by the Islamic State through its affiliated Amaq News Agency, which said it was carried out by a Belgian national it identified only by the pseudonym Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki. But authorities and analysts urged caution in interpreting that claim.

[45 years of terrorist attacks in Europe, visualized]

Its never happened in the past so quickly, said Jean-Charles Brisard, an intelligence expert and director of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, referring to the Islamic States tendencies in claiming attacks.

Perhaps the individuals in question had some kind of coordination and were in contact with the Islamic State, he said, but we should also not rule out the possibility that Amaq was too hasty in releasing its statements.

Molins agreed. Regardless of Le Pens exhortation to expel all those in what sometimes is called Frances S File, a list of approximately 10,000 names that authorities suspect of potential Islamist radicalism, Cheurfi was never included in that file. According to Molins, at no point in his long period of incarceration did he show signs of radicalization or proselytism.

Now, it is a matter of determining the precise context of the act and possible complicities in its execution, he said.

Branigin reported from Washington. Souad Mekhennet in Frankfurt, Germany, Michael Birnbaum in Brussels and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more

Europe may face a grim future with terrorism as a fact of life

How terrorism in the West compares to terrorism everywhere else

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
 Of the four candidates with a realistic chance to become Frances next president, three oppose Western sanctions against Russia.

Two would take France out of NATOs military command, or perhaps remove it from the alliance altogether.

And the one candidate who fits neither category would dramatically increase European defense cooperation to lessen dependence on what he regards as an unreliable United States.

When French voters make their choices Sunday in the first round of the countrys utterly unpredictable presidential race, the status quo for Western security wont be on the ballot. Instead the election could become yet another convulsive moment for a decades-old international security order that is still wobbling from the turbulence of President Trump.

[What you need to know about the French election]

In the run-up to the vote, attention both inside and outside France has focused on the political and economic consequences of a potential Frexit from the European Union or the euro currency. With the killing of a Paris police officer Thursday night in an attack claimed by the Islamic State, proposals to close borders and aggressively crack down on domestic security threats are also at the center of debate. But the elections impact on NATO and other elements of Western defense could be equally profound.

Victory for either the far right or the far left  candidates representing either extreme are among those locked in the four-way contest for a ticket to the second round  would mark an especially pronounced break for a country that is one of two nuclear-armed powers in Europe, with the worlds sixth-most-powerful military and a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

It would be catastrophic  the undoing of 65 years of foreign and security policy, said Francois Heisbourg, an analyst with the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research and a former defense ministry official. This is big.

If theres peril for the West, theres opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia meddled in the U.S. election to help Trump, according to U.S. intelligence agencies. Whether Russia is interfering in the French vote is less clear. But analysts say the election undoubtedly offers another potentially disruptive moment for the West that Russia would relish  and likely seek to exploit.

Putin would take advantage, Heisbourg said. The risk of war in and out of Europe would be quite high.

Not that anyone in France has been talking about it much.

With immigration, the economy and Frances European Union membership topping the campaign agenda, international security and defense are hardly mentioned in stump speeches.

(Sarah Parnass,Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

To the extent that the issues are raised at all, its to promise a boost in spending for the countrys battle-weary armed forces. That, at least, is one area where theres consensus among the main candidates.

Yet on more fundamental questions that have largely been overshadowed, there are sharp disagreements  as well as promises of a radical departure.

No matter who wins, a recent analysis by the London-based European Leadership Network concluded, Frances security and defense policy will not be the same, and some candidates would bring revolutionary changes.

[Against all odds, a leftist soars in French election polls]

The most dramatic shift would come if either the far rights Marine Le Pen or the far lefts Jean-Luc Melenchon manages to pull off a win  a prospect once dismissed as anything from unlikely to impossible, but now being seriously contemplated across Europe.

Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both candidates are hostile toward NATO. Melenchon has dismissed the alliance as a Cold War anachronism and an emblem of U.S. imperialism that he wants France to leave behind.

Le Pen also argues that NATOs time has passed and that France should at least abandon the alliances integrated command structure, if not ditch the 28-member organization altogether.

An admirer of Trumps, she recently took rare issue with the U.S. president when he reversed course on his earlier criticism of NATO and approvingly described it as no longer obsolete.

I am coherent, Le Pen told France Info radio in a dig at Trump and a confirmation of her own anti-NATO views. I dont change my mind in a few days.

Le Pens antipathy for the alliance at the heart of Western security since the aftermath of World War II appears to be rooted in her fondness for Putin. She even went so far as to make a visit to Moscow for a personal audience with the Russian president part of her campaign last month.

Le Pen, whose party received a 9-million-euro loan from a Moscow-based bank in 2014, has endorsed the Russian annexation of Crimea, called for a lifting of Western sanctions and proposed a new global power axis among Putin, Trump and, assuming she wins, herself.

[Marine Le Pen wants to be Frances future. But can she escape the past?]

A new world has emerged in these past years, she said during her Moscow visit. Its the world of Vladimir Putin, its the world of Donald Trump in the United States, its the world of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi in India, and I think that probably I am the one who shares with these great nations a vision of cooperation and not a vision of submission.

But shes hardly the only major candidate with pro-Russian views.

If anyone other than independent candidate Emmanuel Macron wins the vote, Putin would, at the very least, have a more sympathetic counterpart in the Elysee Palace.

Melenchon, for instance, has accused the West of provoking Russia with its missile-defense systems and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. He wants to lift sanctions and revive historically close Russian-French ties, while weakening links across the Atlantic to the United States.

Center-right candidate Francois Fillon, meanwhile, has also emerged as a sharp critic of sanctions, arguing that the measures intended to punish Russia for its military intervention in Ukraine end up hurting the French economy.

Fillon, the subject of often-approving coverage in the Russian media, has long-standing ties to Moscow and was paid tens of thousands of dollars to arrange a meeting between Putin and a Lebanese billionaire, according to reports in the French media. His campaign has denied the allegation.

[Frances National Front co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen says the battle is already won]

Unlike Le Pen and Melenchon, Fillon believes in the necessity of NATO  though he has often been skeptical of it.

The only major candidate who does not favor a softer line on Russia is Macron. The 39-year-old goes out of his way in speeches to criticize Putin, knocking the leaders well-documented reputation for political oppression and arguing that France, as the cradle of the Enlightenment, has a responsibility to speak out.

Do not surrender to the siren call of those who argue that our principal ally will be Russia, he told thousands of cheering supporters at a recent Paris rally. Well have to talk to Russia. But shouldnt we be outraged when human rights are violated?

Macrons plans for French security policy are less dramatic than those of his rivals. But he doesnt advocate the status quo, either.

Instead, Macron has pushed for Europe to develop its own integrated defense networks outside the structures of NATO. Its an idea  shared by Fillon  that has long been kicked around on the continent, but it has gained currency amid fears that Trump will withdraw or weaken the United States protective umbrella.

Those fears are well-founded, said Vincent Desportes, a retired French general.

Le Pen and Melenchon say the defense of France needs to be French, he said. Macron and Fillon say the defense of France must be European.

Common among their views is a recognition that France will need to invest more in a military left beleaguered by repeated deployments, including in Mali, the Central African Republic and the streets of Paris to guard against terrorism.

In a sign of the times, Desportes noted, no one is arguing that the protection of France should be American.

Virgile Demoustier contributed to this report.

Read more

The police officer killed in the Paris terrorist attack had been at the Bataclan, too

A youth revolt in France boosts the far right

Growing anti-Muslim rhetoric permeates French presidential election campaign

A republic in turmoil: Frances two-party system is breaking apart

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Striking truckers meet in Manas, in Dagestan. They are among thousands of truck drivers across Russia protesting a private toll system run by a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The price, truckers say, is cutting into their already bare-bones incomes. (David Filipov/The Washington Post)

It stretched from horizon to horizon, like some giant, many-colored, mechanical caterpillar, and it was angry, very angry. It was a long line of truck cabs, air horns booming, mighty engines revving, clogging the narrow highway that skirts the Caspian Sea coastline of the restive southern Russian province of Dagestan.

Their drivers, hundreds of them, were trying to send a message to a federal government that seems to tune out quieter civic protests, except to send police and national guardsmen in riot gear: Just you try to tune this out.

The truckers in this recent rally in Dagestan were part of a nationwide strike by thousands of drivers who say that a road tax, which the Russian government just increased, is making it impossible for them to earn a living. The drivers, who stopped working March 27, complain that the tax is ineffective at best and suspicious, given that its collected by a private company with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Like many of the protesters in the nationwide rallies against corruption that brought out tens of thousands on March 26, the truckers say their demands are economic, not political. And although the anti-corruption protest was a one-day event, the truckers are still out there.

Russian authorities are treating this as a political challenge. Putin is expected to run for president in 2018, and by all accounts, the Kremlin is looking to demonstrate the solidity of his approval ratings, which havent dipped below 80 percent in three years.

Shamil, who asked that his last name not be used, is a cabbage farmer in Dagestan, an impoverished region in Russias restive North Caucasus, where a strike by truckers is hurting his ability to get his goods to market. (David Filipov/The Washington Post)

As they did with the anti-corruption rallies, authorities have responded to the truckers with intimidation tactics and media blackouts. Organizers of the strike have been arrested on what they say are trumped-up charges, or for no reason other than for authorities to show what they can do.

[ Russian police arrest Navalny, hundreds more in nationwide rallies ]

That happened this month in Moscow to Rustam Mallamagomedov, a representative of the Dagestan truckers, who had just finished a news conference when four plainclothes officers took him to a local station, held him for a bit and then let him go.

They were just trying to frighten him. Its a common practice, said Nadezhda Prusenkova of Novaya Gazeta, an independent Moscow newspaper that organized the news conference, and one of the few media outlets in the Russian capital covering the strike. State-run television, where most Russians get their news, has ignored the truckers protests.

In Dagestan, the lack of coverage is cause for distress. The drivers union leaders say more than 30,000 truckers have stopped work; 4,000 trucks are parked in and around this roadside town of Manas, the focal point of the protests. Magomed Ibragimov, who, like many of the protesters in Dagestan, owns his truck and operates as an independent contractor, spelled out the problem.

We pay and pay and pay everywhere, and thats it, he said, tugging on a hand-rolled cigarette. I no longer see the point of working.

He stood beside a line of about 300 cabs  mostly Volvos, a few Dutch DAFs, the odd American Freightliner  parked along storefronts and in an adjacent lot on the side of the highway that links Russia and Azerbaijan.

We pay and pay and pay everywhere, and thats it, striking trucker Magomed Ibragimov said. I no longer see the point of working. (David Filipov/The Washington Post)

Ibragimov spoke on a recent Friday, when most of the cabs owners were still at prayer. Muslim faith is strong in Dagestan, which waited out two civil wars in neighboring Chechnya and has more recently weathered its own slow-burning Islamist insurgency, along with rampant corruption, gang warfare and an authoritarian regional government that has sent officials to talk to the protesters but mainly has told them to keep it down.

The truckers are protesting Platon, a toll-collecting system that charges heavy trucks by the kilometer. It was first rolled out in 2015. Truckers protested at the time, despite the governments insistence that the toll was necessary to improve roads and that nepotism had nothing to do with the fact that the company that manages the system is run by the son of a wealthy businessman who is Putins former judo sparring partner.

[ Russian truckers threaten crippling Moscow traffic jam in rare protest ]

The truckers went on strike this time after the Russian government announced it would double the Platon tariff as of April 15. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs government softened that blow in March, temporarily raising the fee by a lesser amount, to about 3.4 cents per kilometer.

That doesnt seem like much. But Ibragimov says he travels 100,000 kilometers in a year, which would add up to $3,400. His annual income, he said, is $6,500 in the best of times. Given fuel expenses and wear and tear, he is looking at a net loss. He and other truckers have decided its better to stay home in protest than work.

If we dont get this Platon annulled, I dont see the point, Ibragimov said.

Truckers arent the only ones affected by the strike in Dagestan. Shamil, a cabbage farmer who asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution  understandable, given the large presence of police and national guard troops  said he has had trouble getting his goods to market since the strike. Dagestan truckers take perishable fruit and vegetables to the rest of Russia, and its easier for Shamil to find buyers when the truckers are working.

But he supports the strike. He sipped his tea at a roadside cafe where the dairy products, processed snacks and soft drinks all come to Dagestan by truck.

What happens to the truckers affects all of us, he said.

So say truckers in Vladivostok in the Far East, in St. Petersburg in the north, across Siberia and along the Volga, and on the outskirts of Moscow.

The protest has spread to more than 60 cities, said Ilya Shablinsky, a member of Russias Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. He said he had raised the truckers grievances with Putin, but the president gave a fuzzy response.

Truckers say they understand the need to pay taxes, but they condemn the Platon system as opaque.

We want to know where the money is going, said Andrei Bazhutin, chairman of one of Russias truckers unions, who has been arrested twice since the protests began. We dont need a corrupt system.

[ Russia dismisses sweeping corruption allegations against Medvedev ]

The company that runs Platon directed a request for comment to Rosavtodor, the government agency that oversees Russias roadways.

Dmitry Ignatiev, the agencys spokesman, said the problem is not the Platon system, which he described as typical of tolling systems in Europe. All the money collected goes straight to the road fund, he said, and the governments payments to the vendor for its services are totally transparent.

The Platon system, he said, is opposed by transportation business owners who were avoiding taxes and underpricing their services. Drivers for businesses that operate legally will not be affected by Platon, he said.

Kamal Magomedov, a trucker here, said the last point may be true for large companies. But self-employed truckers and small companies, he said, are unfairly burdened.

Nothing short of canceling Platon will make us stop the strike, he said.

How will the Kremlin respond to Russias mass protests?

Heres how to understand Putins jaw-droppingly high approval rating

Hallmarks of Soviet postwar building boom are finally meeting their demise

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Even for a legend like John Wayne, there's bound to be some duds on his resume. A look at the best and worst of the Duke.
Disguised in army uniforms, a group of Taliban insurgents stormed an army base in Afghanistans most secure northern Balkh province Friday, killing several dozen soldiers in one of the bloodiest such attacks in years, officials said.

More than 100 military personnel were killed or wounded, according to reports Saturday from the Associated Press and the BBC, citing officials from the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

There were conflicting reports as to how the guerrillas made their way inside the vast, heavily fortified base, with some reports saying they managed to enter the compound of the 209th Corps by joining a convoy of military vehicles returning to the base from a restive neighboring province.

An army spokesman for the region, Qahar Aram, gave a different account in a phone interview. He said one of the bombers detonated a vehicle laden with explosives at the main entrance of the base, paving the way for as many as nine insurgents to rush inside.

From the gate, they headed to a dining facility and a mosque, he said.

The attack came six weeks after local affiliates of the Islamic State stormed Afghanistans major military hospital in Kabul, killing at least 50 people.

Most of the carnage was caused by one of the suicide bombers near the mosque, said Mohammad Abdeh, a lawmaker from Balkh.

The militants managed to pass two security gates in two army vehicles, pretending to be carrying wounded soldiers for treatment inside the base, he said.

Aram said the militants opened fire on anyone they encountered outside the mosque and the dining hall. The attack was quelled after a gun battle lasting more than six hours, with responding troops hampered by being unable to distinguish the assailants from friendly troops because of the army uniforms the attackers wore.

Aram said he was aware of only 10 deaths among Afghan troops.

The attack on the 209 Corps today shows the barbaric nature of the Taliban, Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, said in a statement. They killed soldiers at prayer in a Mosque and others in a dining facility.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied reports that militants had targeted troops outside the mosque. He said the assailants opened fire on troops who were in their rooms or barracks.

The Taliban said four of the attackers had served as soldiers in the corps until recent years and had switched allegiances.

The soldiers and officers killed in the attack were mostly unarmed, according to sources.

The corps is the main operational center for several thousand troops who conduct routine raids against the resurgent Taliban in various parts of the northern region.

Abdeh described the attack as unprecedented in Balkh, which borders on Uzbekistan. He said it was one of the bloodiest of its kind in many years.

Read more:

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday demanded that nine jurisdictions produce proof that they are communicating with federal authorities about undocumented immigrants or risk losing grant funding.

Sessions sent letters to the nine jurisdictions, including Philadelphia, New York and Chicago, in the latest sign that the Trump administration intends to punish what are sometimes called sanctuary cities that do not cooperate in its promised crackdown on illegal immigration.

[Sanctuary cities debate has jurisdictions weighing whether to defend the policy]

President Trump signed an executive order in January declaring that sanctuary jurisdictions would not be eligible to receive federal grants, and Sessions vowed last month during a White House news conference to take Justice Department money from such places.

How far Trump can go, though, and what jurisdictions can do to avoid his ire, remains unclear.

In a news release, the Justice Department said that the places were identified in a Justice Department Inspector Generals Office report from May 2016 as potentially having policies that hindered communication with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The letters were addressed to officials in New Orleans; Philadelphia; Chicago; New York City; Clark County, Nev.; Miami-Dade County, Fla.; Milwaukee County, Wis.; Cook County, Ill.; and the state of California.

Additionally, many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime, the Justice Department wrote in a news release, casting aspersions on New York, Chicago and the Bay Area in particular.

The release said New York, for example, continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the citys soft on crime stance. New York, in fact, has seen significant recent reductions in crime. The statement said crime in Chicago had skyrocketed. And it said that after a raid on MS-13 members in the Bay Area, city officials seemed more concerned with reassuring illegal immigrants that the raid was unrelated to immigration than with warning other MS-13 members that they were next.

The grants at stake provide federal funding for a host of functions in the criminal-justice system  including policing, victim-and-witness initiatives, crime prevention, drug-treatment programs and technology improvements.

Representatives of the jurisdictions said they believed that they already had been complying with federal law and disputed Sessionss characterization of what was happening.

[Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeats Trump threat that sanctuary cities could lose Justice Department grants]

(The Washington Post)

Zach Butterworth, the director of federal relations for the city of New Orleans and executive counsel to the mayor, said that the city welcomed the letter and would respond next week telling Sessions they were fully complying with federal law. He said that sanctuary city was an ill-defined term and New Orleans did not accept the moniker.

Theres a lot of political talk, but theres no legal analysis, Butterworth said. We say were not one because we follow federal law.

While the city tells its police officers not to ask people they encounter about their immigration status, it does not block them from talking to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Butterworth said. He said the city updated its policy to better reflect federal law last year.

If they need one more letter, were happy to send it, and well get it turned around quickly, Butterworth said.

Michael Hernandez, the communications director for Miami-Dade County, said Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez (R) strongly believes that we are in compliance with the law, and noted that the county had begun earlier this year to honor all requests from ICE to detain potential undocumented immigrants taken into custody on local charges. That move prompted Trump to praise the county in January. Right decision. Strong! he wrote on Twitter. Sessions himself said in a recent Fox News appearance he was pleased that Miami complied.

Hernandez said the county had stopped honoring the requests in 2013 because the federal government was not providing reimbursement for the cost of detaining suspected undocumented immigrants, but, fearing the loss of federal funding, officials had decided to change course.

We never proclaimed to be a sanctuary community before then, and we havent since, Hernandez said. We always have worked with federal authorities on all matters, including immigration.

Seth Stein, a spokesman for city hall in New York City, said the administrations push was nothing new and the grandstanding shows how out of touch the Trump administration is with reality.

Contrary to their alternative facts, New York is the safest big city in the country, with crime at record lows in large part because we have policies in place to encourage cooperation between NYPD and immigrant communities, he said.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said in a statement officials were in compliance with the law and will share the required legal opinion by the date requested, though the Justice Departments comments about illegal immigration and violent crime were neither accurate nor productive.

Milwaukee County has its challenges, but they are not caused by illegal immigration, Abele said. My far greater concern is the proactive dissemination of misinformation, fear, and intolerance.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) said in a statement: Neither the facts nor the law are on their side. Regardless, let me be clear: Chicagos values and Chicagos future are not for sale.

The law that Sessions wants enforced is very narrow, and it would not bar any of the policies that people generally associate with sanctuary jurisdictions.

When someone is arrested on a local crime, their fingerprints are run through the FBI database, and  whether local authorities like it or not  ICE can tell if they are in the country illegally. It then often will send a request to local authorities to detain such people.

Refusing to honor such a request would not necessarily violate federal law. But telling local police officers, for example, that they could not give information to their ICE counterparts might.

The Obama administration also had considered compliance with the law a requirement for receiving Justice Department grants, and in response to the Inspector Generals Office report, even issued guidance on the subject. Cities, though, have said they are worried that Sessionss threats are not mere talk.

Seattle, San Francisco and Santa Clara County have sued over the matter, asking a federal judge to block Trumps executive order and stop Sessions from making good on his threat. The Justice Department has fought the cases in court, and acting assistant attorney general Chad Readler argued at a recent hearing that it was premature for the judge to consider because the Justice Department had not yet taken any sort of enforcement action.
Israels Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis walk after holding a joint news conference at the Ministry of Defense on Friday in Tel Aviv. (Heidi Levine/Pool photo by Reuters)

The Syrian government has retained an unspecified amount of chemical weapons and dispersed its aircraft after a U.S. cruise-missile attack this month, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.

Mattis spoke alongside his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, as part of a tour of the Middle East, and addressed reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still had a significant amount of chemical weapons.

There can be no doubt in the international communitys mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt, Mattis told reporters.

Mattis did not provide evidence to back up his claim.

On April 7, the U.S. launched dozens of cruise missiles at Shayrat air base in Syria in response to a chemical weapon attack in Idlib province three days earlier that killed nearly 100 people, including 30 children.

U.S. officials said the Syrian aircraft that conducted the attack took off from Shayrat.

An unnamed Israeli military officer told reporters Wednesday that Assad still had a few tons of chemical weapons despite his pledge to destroy them under a 2013 agreement. It is unclear whether the Israeli officer was talking about sarin  the type reportedly used in the April 4 attack  or chlorine. Assad has regularly used chlorine during the five-year-old war.

Sarin was last used in Syria in 2013. The attack killed hundreds and nearly saw the U.S. launch strikes on Syrian military facilities. A last-minute deal, brokered in part by Russia in October 2013, instead made Syria pledge to destroy its chemical weapon stockpiles and sign the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons ban to ensure that the weapons were not used in the future.

The same group confirmed that sarin  a prohibited substance under the ban  was used in the April 4 attack.

The bottom line is, I can say authoritatively, they have retained some [chemical weapons]. Its a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and its going to have to be taken up diplomatically, Mattis said.

Mattis also addressed reports that Syrian warplanes had relocated to Russias air base in northwestern Syria to avoid future attacks after the U.S. cruise-missile strikes. While he would not say where the planes had gone to, Mattis said Syrian forces had dispersed their aircraft in recent days.

Pentagon officials said that the cruise-missile strikes had destroyed roughly 20 Syrian aircraft. If true, the lost jets would moderately hamper a Syrian air force already significantly reduced after dozens of losses over the years.

Read more:

Chemical weapons watchdog confirms sarin use in Syria attack

For Trump, alleged use of sarin in Syria prompted different reaction

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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As opponents of President Nicolas Maduro confront his government with intensifying protests, they are also challenging him in a high-stakes battle for the sympathies of Venezuelas armed forces.

The recent demonstrations have drawn huge crowds but appear unlikely to force Maduro to accept demands for new elections and a return to democratic rule. So opposition leaders are making unusually direct appeals to the countrys military leaders, imploring them to rein in the president and defy orders to suppress the demonstrations.

Their calls have highlighted the central role of Venezuelas powerful military commanders in the struggle for the countrys future. Protesters have urged them to restore constitutional order and prevent a confrontation that would force soldiers to choose between defending Maduro and gunning down civilians.

Aware of Venezuelas history of military rebellions, Maduro has worked to secure the loyalty of commanders, granting them influential roles and benefits. But with fissures emerging in his government, and the economy cratering, the opposition sees an opportunity to apply pressure on the embattled president through an institution crucial to his survival.

The leader of the opposition-controlled legislature, Julio Borges, has made repeated statements in recent weeks asking the armed forces to break their silence. He insists that Maduro has kidnapped once-prestigious military institutions, making them complicit in government corruption and human rights abuses.

1 of 34 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Photos: Venezuelas opposition clashes with police View Photos The countrys political crisis intensified after its supreme court curbed the powers of the opposition-controlled legislature, then reversed the rulings days later. Caption The countrys political crisis intensified after its supreme court curbed the powers of the opposition-controlled legislature, then reversed the rulings days later. April 19, 2017 Demonstrators clash with police during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas. Venezuela braced for rival demonstrations for and against the president, whose push to tighten his grip on power has triggered waves of deadly unrest that have escalated the countrys political and economic crisis. Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Part of our daily struggle is for the armed forces to no longer be held hostage by a powerful few and become democratic forces fighting for Venezuelas constitution, Borges said last week.

He and other Maduro opponents say they are not calling for a military coup. With Venezuelas economy spiraling downward and the presidents approval rating hovering around 20 percent, they want the government to schedule elections as soon as possible, confident in a path to power through the ballot box, not the barracks.

But they also appear desperate for a referee in their standoff with the government, given that international mediation attempts by the Vatican and others have stalled.

They also appear energized by recent, rare displays of public dissent from top members of Maduros government, most notably after supreme court judges tried to strip the opposition-controlled legislature of its authority last month. Venezuelas top prosecutor denounced the court ruling as unconstitutional, and the judges mostly reversed the decision.

[Venezuelans flood streets in big demonstration against Maduro]

Phil Gunson, a Venezuela-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, said he thinks there are limits to military officers loyalty to the government, especially if Maduro fails to show an ability to avert a financial collapse.

As the saying goes, they are willing to accompany Maduro to the cemetery but not be buried with him, Gunson said.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

The chances that high-level officers would openly break with Maduro appear slim. He has named his hard-line vice president, Tareck El Aissami, to lead a special anti-coup commission to sniff out dissent. And Maduro has filled the highest ranks of his government with loyal generals, several of whom are facing U.S. indictments on corruption and drug trafficking charges.

Rather than rebel, military leaders could force the government to negotiate with the opposition by signaling an unwillingness to use escalating force on protesters, Gunson said. The unrest has left 20 dead this month, and Venezuelans dressed in white held a silent march through the capital Saturday to honor those killed in the violence.

As to whether they will do that, the signals are mixed, Gunson said. Many at the top are likely to go down with the ship, since their prospects of staying out of jail are poor. To some extent, a deal involving some immunity from prosecution would help in that regard.

The Venezuelan president has pointed to Borgess statements as evidence that his opponents want to unseat him by force. He told cheering supporters at a government rally last week that Borges is a coupmonger, warning him, The law is coming for you.

Hugo Chavez, Maduros mentor, was temporarily ousted in a 2002 military coup that split Venezuelas armed forces. Several commanders played a decisive role in helping masses of Chavez supporters restore him to power.

But unlike Chavez, Maduro does not have a military pedigree and has tried to win the loyalty of the armed forces by promoting thousands of officers supportive of his government, vastly expanding the number of generals and admirals.

He has bestowed Gen. Vladimir Padrino, the defense minister, with extraordinary powers, including oversight of the importation and distribution of food in a country where as much as 80 percent of residents are not getting enough to eat.

An investigation by the Associated Press last year found that military leaders have used their powers over food imports for personal enrichment, skimming millions in public funds.

Several high-ranking officials in Venezuelas military and security services also face U.S. indictments on corruption and drug trafficking charges, accusations that would leave them vulnerable to prosecution if Maduro and his United Socialist Party lose control of the government. Maduro and his supporters dismiss those allegations as politically motivated smears.

[Venezuelas opposition holds its biggest protests in years. Will they change anything?]

Opposition leaders say part of their strategy is to force Venezuelan security forces to think twice about engaging in repressive tactics, knowing they may be held accountable if the government changes hands.

We are trying to say to them that if they commit a crime, they wont be able to escape from responsibility, opposition lawmaker Rafael Guzman said in an interview. It doesnt matter if they were following orders.

The opposition also wants to appeal to rank-and-file soldiers unhappiness over the deprivation their families are suffering, along with the rest of society. Many members of the armed forces are not eating enough, either, he said.

Rocio San Miguel, a Venezuelan lawyer who leads a nonprofit that advocates for greater civilian oversight of the military, said Maduro, like Chavez before him, has encouraged a caste system that rewards generals and admirals with wealth and power, making them partisans of the ruling party.

But that doesnt mean everybody inside the armed forces benefits from this structure of power, she said.

Maduro is embattled but not isolated. His party lost control of the legislature in 2015, but he has stacked the judicial branch with supporters and uses the courts to stifle the opposition agenda or send rivals to jail. He also controls the state-run oil industry, the countrys economic lifeblood.

But Venezuelas armed forces hold the balance of power. As a hedge against possible disloyalty, Maduro is intent on putting a gun in the hands of almost anyone who backs his government. This week, he announced plans to increase the number of civilian militia members  essentially pro-government activists with little training  from 100,000 to 500,000.

Padrino, the defense minister, recently affirmed the militarys unconditional loyalty to Maduro on national television.

Retired Gen. Manuel Andara said the Maduro government is using the countrys chronic shortages as a kind of cynical leverage over military officers, securing their loyalty by making them fear the loss of their privileges.

Andara said he was saddened to see public perceptions of the military sinking with those of the government, adding that he has felt contempt from other Venezuelans when they find out he is a former general, even though he retired in 1996. He said he knows current officers who experience the same thing.

Today, many soldiers prefer to dress as civilians, rather than wearing their uniforms, because they are so ashamed, he said.

Read more

In a hungry Venezuela, buying too much food can get you arrested

Venezuelans are storming markets and attacking trucks as supplies dwindle

Venezuelans are so desperate they are streaming over the border to buy food

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W&M team shines (again) at WorldMUN conference

The team Bottom row (L to R): Isabella Louvain, Seth Fiderer, Connor Currie, Hannah Major. Top row (L to R): Venu Katta, Jakob Cordes, Somya Shankar, Blake Phillips, Ani Sinani, Alexandra Quinn. Courtesy Harvard World Model United Nations

Celebrating The WorldMUN conference wasn't all work. Taking a break are (from left) Hannah Major, Seth Fiderer, Somya Shankar and Ani Sinani. Courtesy Harvard World Model United Nations

We are New Zealand The W&M team was assigned to represent New Zealand at the 2017 WorldMUN conference. Courtesy Harvard World Model United Nations Photo - of - Hide Caption

William & Marys participation in the 2017 World Model United Nations conference in mid-March continued the universitys long-standing streak of excellence.Nine W&M students traveled to Montreal for this years WorldMUN conference, hosted by Harvard University and Canadas Dawson College. The W&M team members, assigned to represent New Zealand, were placed on the following committees: the World Health Organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and the Historical General Assembly.Delegates spent the week discussing topics ranging from the reform of the global pharmaceutical industry to the current refugee crisis to offshore tax evasion to the protection of cultural heritage sites to the formation of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.We all worked with students from all over the world -- Belgium, Lebanon, Peru, Australia, Japan, Germany, India, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Egypt just to name a few -- to come up with creative and innovative resolutions for some of the worlds most pressing problems, said Somya Shankar 18, the teams head delegate.William & Mary has historically been very successful at the WorldMUN conference. In both 2005 and 2006, in Edinburgh and Beijing, W&M won the best Large Delegation award. In Melbourne in 2013, the university was recognized with the best Small Delegation award.Although W&M did not win a school award this year, the team ended with a top-five small delegation finish for the first time since 2013, behind only Washington University in St. Louis, the United States Military Academy at West Point and Claremont McKenna College. Four team members  Connor Currie 17, Hannah Major 19, Isabella Lovain 20 and Seth Fiderer 20 won diplomacy awards. Four others  Ani Sinani 17, Alexandra Quinn 17, Shankar 18 and Blake Phillips 20  won verbal commendation awards.William & Mary attracts people to its prestigious government program, Phillips said. In order to do well in MUN, one has to be interested in government; ergo, William & Mary tends to do well at these competitions. Our training also has something to do with our success, but every school trains. Our natural talent and competitiveness on the American circuit and our natural talent pool are some of our greatest assets.Phillips was a member of the World Health Organization, and knew hed be representing New Zealand at the Montreal conference. To prepare, he spent about three weeks studying the countrys stances on public health and medicine distribution.New Zealand has a fairly liberal stance on international financial regulation, and a very liberal stance on public access to healthcare, so that is a mixed bag you dont often see internationally, he said. Typically, countries on par with New Zealand in Europe have a tight grip on advertising and banking, but also distribute medicine like New Zealand does. In a way, New Zealand is like America when it comes to financial regulation and like Europe when it comes to medicine.Phillips and the rest of the team began familiarizing themselves with New Zealands policies as soon as they were selected last November. That was the gateway to a more strenuous three-week period of preparation in which they met as many as three times a week, engaged in writing and speaking drills and traveled to two other conferences for training.Intense and rigorous is how Shankar described the process.As the head delegate for the team, it is incredibly rewarding to see the hard work put into training pay off in the most competitive and most prestigious conference that William & Mary competes at year after year, Shankar said I am incredibly proud of our strong performance, and hope that this momentum can roll over into the competitive season for next year.The odds of that happening would appear to be good. Four of the nine delegates who participated in this years WorldMUN are freshmen.The strong performance of this young William & Mary team can be attributed to each and every persons dedication to representing William & Mary to the best of our abilities, Shankar said.Shankar has attended WorldMUN every year shes been at William & Mary. Beyond the lessons she has learned, the places shes seen and the friendships she has forged, Shankar said that WorldMUN has continually reinforced my faith in diplomacy and in Model UN in general.It has given me hope that tomorrows world leaders will strive to compromise to make this world a better place, she said. But, perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from attending WorldMUN is that the world is an incredibly small place. Knowing that I have real friends everywhere from Luxembourg to Lebanon is an incredibly humbling feeling.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and the new Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez have teamed up for a cross-country tour in the Democratic Partys latest effort to corral opposition to the Trump administration back into the safe channels of the two-party system.

The duo will hit several states by the end of the week, concentrating mainly on regions that went Republican in the 2016 election: Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska and Utah. Nevada will be the only stop that the Democrats won, while Maine had a split electoral vote. The tour, called Come together and fight back, is being promoted as an effort to increase grassroots activism.

The trip marks another stage in Sanders role as a representative of the Democratic Party aimed at blocking the emergence of any independent movement of the working class.

The speeches given by Sanders up to this point in the tour indicate a return of the more left-sounding slogans that brought him success in his primary campaign last year. Sanders is appealing to the crowds by acknowledging the very real and serious domestic issues affecting working-class families across the country. Throughout his nearly hour-long speeches, he rails against the billionaire class, mass incarceration, the destruction of the environment, the drug epidemic, failing infrastructure, the attack on health care, growing student debt, and more, without ever explaining the origins of these problems beyond a denunciation of Donald Trump.

The issues Sanders identifies were around long before Trump came to office. However, it is not surprising that Perez and Sanders say nothing about the track record of the Democratic Party.

In Tuesdays appearance in Kentucky, Sanders noted that for the first time since the AIDS epidemic, life expectancy in the US has gone down. He did not note that this has come on the heels of eight years of the Democratic Partys health care reform plan, the Affordable Care Act. He denounced the billionaire class and the enormous spike in inequality without any mention that it was Obama who oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in world history.

Possibly more damning than what is contained in these speeches is what is left out. Not one word has yet been uttered about the US war drive, which Sanders and Perez, and their colleagues in Washington, support. The Democrats have focused their criticism of Trump on his allegedly soft attitude toward Russia, and they have cheered the recent bombing of Syria, which threatened to spark a war with nuclear-armed Russia.

Sanders did his part, appearing on a series of news programs in the aftermath of the Syria attack to voice his opposition, not to the attack itself, which he fully supported, but to Trumps unilateralism. Sanders accepted and promoted the propaganda of the US government and media about the chemical weapons attack and backed regime change, insisting that Assad has got to go.

The Democratic Party has hailed the reckless escalation of military tensions since the bombing of Syria, including sending the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson off the shores of Korea, and the dropping of the largest nonnuclear bomb in history in Afghanistan. Moreover, it has supported the appointment of many of the orchestrators of these attacks, including ex-military general James Mad Dog Mattis, Trumps defense secretary.

Sanders support for US militarism is the clearest refutation of his demagogic rhetoric on domestic policy. It is impossible to support the foreign policy of the billionaire class while opposing its attack on the working class, as the two go hand in hand.

The fact that Sanders is touring with Tom Perez is itself significant. The election for Democratic National Committee chairman was held in February and portrayed as a contentious fight between opposing factions of the party. Sanders opposed Perez, Hillary Clintons preferred candidate, and supported Keith Ellison, who was ultimately defeated. In the aftermath of the election, Sanders voiced his concerns over the result, stating, Its imperative Tom understands that the same-old, same-old isnt working.

However, this opposition has been carefully calibrated. The obvious hostility to Hillary Clinton among broad sections of the working class, revealed in the election, required Sanders to distance himself to some degree. The purpose of his left posturing about transforming the Democratic Party is to prevent workers and young people from breaking with this right-wing organization.

The divisions that exist within the Democratic Party between the Obama-Clinton wing and the Sanders-Warren wing are over tactics, not principle. They all serve to uphold the political domination of the capitalist two-party system.

This has been proven in the trajectory of Sanders political career over the last two years. The senator from Vermont, by calling himself a socialist, demanding a political revolution and attacking the billionaire class, tapped into the enormous amount of discontent in the working class and was able to win 13 million votes in the primary. In this he was aided by a wide array of upper-middle-class organizations that orbit around the Democratic Party.

What happened to Sanders political revolution? After losing the primary, he abandoned his criticisms of Clinton and insisted that voting for her was the only way to stop the Trump administration, giving Trump a monopoly on rhetorical opposition to the status quo. Days after the election, Sanders proclaimed his willingness to work with Trump upon taking office, promoting the fiction that the new administration might pursue policies beneficial to the working class. Sanders economic nationalism, moreover, is closely aligned with that of Trump.

After Trump was inaugurated, Sanders backed many of his cabinet nominations, even voting to confirm ex-general Mattis, claiming that he would exercise a moderating influence on Trump.

A recent Harvard-Harris survey found that Sanders is the the most popular politician in the country, at least among the 16 Trump administration officials and Congressional leaders included in the poll. He has a 57 percent favorable rating, compared to Trumps 44 percent and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers 27 percent.

That the only politician identified in popular consciousness with socialism is also the most popular indicates the broad leftwing and anti-corporate sentiment of workers and youth. However, it only underscores Sanders role in propping up the Democratic Party in an effort to prevent this sentiment from finding a genuine, anti-capitalist and socialist form.
The government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporations (ABC) flagship program Four Corners this month initiated a campaign against the populist right-wing, anti-immigrant One Nation party and its leader Senator Pauline Hanson, alleging breaches of electoral laws.

The April 3 program, airing accusations by former members about One Nations inner workings, could signal a turn by the media and political establishment against Hanson. There is fear in these circles of her potentially destabilising impact on the increasingly discredited two-party parliamentary order on which capitalist rule has depended.

The ABC program alleged that One Nation, Hanson and her chief of staff, James Ashby, breached the Commonwealth Electoral Act by failing to declare income used for the benefit of One Nation. Under the act, donations or gifts to a political party from an individual or organisation totalling more than $13,000 must be declared to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), including the donors name, address and/or the name of the donor organisation.

Four Corners highlighted dissension in the party, centring on Ashbys influence and a brutal dictatorship by him and Hanson. Disaffected former One Nation candidates and office-bearers aired various grievances, including the disendorsement of candidates, arbitrary expulsions, demands that candidates use Ashbys printing services and a preference vote-swapping deal negotiated with the Liberal Party in last months Western Australian state election.

The central allegations made by former party treasurer Ian Nelson and ex-national secretary Suraya Beric are that Hanson had use of a plane during last years federal election campaign that was not declared to the AEC. It is also alleged that Victorian property developer Bill McNee donated the funds to purchase the Jabiru light plane and $70,000 in cash, also undeclared. McNee denied making any donations.

Exploiting the ABC allegations, the Labor Party immediately wrote to the AEC to demand an investigation, raising the possibility of criminal charges being laid. Greens spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon supported Labors call, advocating repercussions for any breaches of the legislation. The federal governments Special Minister of State Scott Ryan also wrote to the AEC requesting an investigation.

James Ashby came to prominence in 2012 when, as a staffer of the then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Peter Slipper, he alleged Slipper had sexually harassed him. The Federal Court threw out Ashbys legal action in December 2012. The judge ruled that it amounted to a politically-motivated abuse of judicial process in which Ashby had conspired with several people, including Liberal National Party (LNP) powerbroker in Queensland Mal Brough.

Ashby appealed to the Full Federal Court, which ruled his case could proceed to a hearing, but in June 2014 Ashby dropped it. Within a few months, he had contacted One Nation with a printing offer described by Nelson as too good to be true. By early 2015, Ashby was appointed to One Nations executive. Then he became Hansons chief of staff, running the party office.

There are echoes of the late 1990s frame-up orchestrated against Hanson and One Nation by the corporate media and the Howard Liberal-National Coalition government. After adopting many of Hansons anti-refugee and anti-welfare policies, John Howards government moved against her when One Nation secured 25 percent of the vote in the 1998 Queensland state election, threatening the two-party system.

A concerted political dirty tricks campaign resulted in the jailing in 2003 of Hanson and One Nations co-founder David Ettridge for supposed breaches of anti-democratic political party registration legislation. The conviction on trumped-up charges was eventually overturned on appeal after they had served three months of their three-year non-parole sentence, but One Nation was crippled. Tony Abbott, then workplace relations minister, played a leading role in the operation against One Nation.

Whatever the veracity of the present allegations, the decision to air them now is bound up with political calculations. Hansons use of the plane has been known for almost two years and many of the other grievances have festered since last Julys federal election. Comparatively speaking, the amounts allegedly involved are tiny compared to the millions of dollars received and spent by the two major parties during their election campaigns.

As in the 1990s, the mechanism being utilised against One Nation is electoral legislation that requires all political parties to submit detailed, audited, annual returns listing donors and all expenditure. Parties without sitting members of parliament must provide extensive membership lists to obtain registration to contest elections. These measures, which trample over basic democratic rights, are particularly designed to impose onerous conditions on new and smaller parties.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called an election last July in a bid to clear the Senate of third-party crossbench members and secure the passage of legislation that had been blocked since 2014 because of intense public opposition to the governments austerity cuts to health, education and other essential social programs.

The result was the opposite. Due to the deepening popular disaffection with both the government and Labor, more than 26 percent of votes in the election were cast for other parties, boosting their Senate numbers. This trend, fuelled by deteriorating living standards and widening social inequality, has intensified. Recent media surveys indicate that the level of support for other parties is reaching 30 percent.

The initial beneficiaries of this discontent have been right-wing populist formations such as One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team, which have been used to channel the hostility in nationalist and xenophobic directions. While claiming to represent ordinary people mistreated by the banks and political elites, One Nation blames the most vulnerable sections of societyimmigrants, the unemployed, indigenous people and welfare recipientsfor the growing distress and insecurities of vast sections of the population.

Because of One Nations usefulness in diverting the mounting unrest, the media and political establishment were at pains after the July election to treat One Nation as a legitimate participant in political debate. Former Prime Minister Howard, under whose government Hanson was prosecuted and jailed, declared she was entitled to be treated in a respectful fashion by the rest of the parliament.

Turnbull government ministers applauded Hansons maiden Senate speech, which was afforded uncritical blanket coverage. In it she declared the country was in danger of being swamped by Muslims or being taken over by the oppressive communist Chinese government. Single parents and jobless youth were thieves collecting thousands of dollars a week. She called for bans on Muslim immigration and the wearing of burqas, advocated the monitoring of mosques, and called for an Australian identity card.

For all Hansons oppositional posturing, One Nations senators have been the Turnbull governments most reliable parliamentary supporters. It has relied on One Nations four votes in the Senate to pass 90 percent of the legislation that it has managed to enact since last Julys election. This relationship may be shifting. In response to the Four Corners program, Hanson has threatened to withdraw support for all government bills unless the government cuts the ABCs funding by $600 million over four years in the May 9 federal budget.

The campaign to destabilise One Nation has nothing whatsoever to do with any political differences with Hansons reactionary program. Instead, it is driven by anxieties that One Nation could threaten the stability of the parliamentary system, even more than it did in the late 1990s, amid ever-deepening inequality and social tensions. With a Queensland state election due early next year, and some media poll predictions that One Nation could win enough seats to be included in the next state government, measures are being taken that could undermine or break up Hansons party.

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Pauline Hansons One Nation returns to Australian parliament

[14 July 2016]
An estimated 1,700 workers in New York City and in Bergen County, New Jersey are on strike against Spectrum, a provider of cable television, internet and voice services. The striking field technicians, warehouse workers and engineering department workers are opposing company demands to shift the cost of health care and pensions onto workers, as well as the elimination of funding for union provided benefits.

The workers who are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 have been working without a contract since 2013. The company was known as Time Warner cable prior to its purchase by Charter Communications in 2016. It has roughly 2.5 million residential and business subscribers in its New York area.

As in the strike by 39,000 Verizon workers a year ago one of the primary issues is the disciplinary action the company is using against workers. At issue is the rate of repeaters a technician may havethat is, the reoccurrence of a trouble condition within a given period after a previous repair dispatch.

Repeaters are often beyond the control of the technician. The technicians who spoke with the World Socialist Web Site Telecom Workers Newsletter said they are often blamed for problems that arise from the company cutting corners. Repeaters, they said, are frequently caused by faulty or outdated equipment in the field, which is failing after years of inadequate maintenance. In some cases, complaints about internet speeds are simply the result of the company not building out enough capacity in growing neighborhoods. All of this is the result of the cost-cutting to boost short-term earnings and share values.

In February of this year, New York State Attorney General Eric Schniederman filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications and its Spectrum-TWC subsidiary for allegedly misleading and defrauding customers for promising internet service the company knew it couldnt provide over its network.

One worker in Manhattan, who wished to remain anonymous, said, Our engineering team said it wasnt possible for the network to run at the speed the company is saying, but we are being blamed for the speed. There is also old language in the contract that was never applied before, and now has become very important.

Another worker on the picket line in Queens, New York said micromanagement is a problem. We could do better if they would just leave us alone. Instead they try to micromanage everything we do. They track our position all day with GPS. We have to answer for every move we make often being second-guessed by a manager who doesnt understand conditions in the field.

As in logistics, transportation and other industries, technology is used to monitor, harass and discipline telecom workers to maximize productivity. This monitoring creates a very stressful work environment for workers who are made to account for every second of time.

As the WSWS recently wrote, science and technology has made it possible to secure a decent standard of living for every person on this planet but under the profit system technology is made the instrument of repression.

The telecoms are all demanding painful concessions even as they squander billions on mergers and acquisitions, stock buyback programs and dividend payments to further enrich their top stock holders. The $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications in 2015 is part of a decades-long process of consolidation, which has resulted in a cartel of large corporations controlling internet, television, voice, or, in short, all telecom service in the United States and internationally.

AT&T and Time Warner Inc., which is a separate company from Time Warner Cable, are still working towards a merger and Verizon recently purchased XO Communications, while it has announced it is open to merger talks with Disney. There is also speculation that Google may be planning on purchasing Verizons landline network.

This process, which has led to the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs and wave after wave of concessions, has generated enormous windfalls for some. Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge was awarded a total compensation package last year valued at an estimated $98.5 million.

Several striking workers commented on the lack of media coverage of their strike. The corporate media, which has deep connections with the telecom industry, has no interest in spreading news of the strike for fear it would encourage militancy within other sections of the working class.

As for its role, IBEW Local 3 has kept the workers isolated and news of the strike suppressed. There have been token shows of support by various bureaucrats from other unions, notably the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents hundreds of thousands of workers nationally at Verizon, AT&T and other telecom companies.

The CWA and IBEW, which covered workers in New England, were complicit in the betrayal of last years Verizon strike, which led to increases in health care costs and the destruction of jobs. Local 3 kept Spectrum workers on the job without a contract last year and did not bring them to join the Verizon strikers. Far from working for the unity of the telecom workers, IBEW and CWA have pit their respective members against one another, particularly in telecom premise wiring in New York City.

We should all go on strike together, a picket in Manhattan said. If we were all out it would go a lot faster. The CWA and IBEW should be out together. Far from taking such action, a worker noted that the IBEW has made members stay on the job even as others walk the picket lines. There is another [IBEW] local that works here. They had contract issues a while back and we supported them but we still had to go to work. Now we are on strike and they are working.

If this fight is not to be defeated and sold out like the Verizon strike, then workers must take the conduct of the struggle in their own hands. They should elect rank-and-file committees, independent of the IBEW and other unions, utilize social media to establish lines of communication with all other telecom workers, and fight for the broadest mobilization of all workers to back their struggle.

New York City is seething with class tensions over the immense level of inequality. A serious appeal to the working class throughout the city will win widespread support from workers and young people opposed to inequality and the Trump administrations attack on immigrants and threats of war.

Telecom services are a vital necessity for the millions of people who rely on them and those who are employed in the industry. This sector must not remain subordinate to the dictates of finance capital and the vicissitudes of the market. To ensure social needs are met, the telecom industry, along with other vital industries, must be nationalized and placed under the collective ownership and democratic control of the working class.
Tennessee investigators on Thursday announced an end to a weeks-long hunt for Elizabeth Thomas and Tad Cummins, a missing 15 year-old girl and the former teacher who had allegedly abducted her.

The pair vanished from Tennessee in March before being discovered in Northern California this week, state authorities said.

In the weeks between their disappearance and discovery, many details surfaced about who Cummins was - and what he allegedly may have been doing to Thomas.

Here are five things to know about the case.

1. Teen Warned Family to Call Police If She Didnt Come Home

On the morning that Elizabeth Thomas was allegedly abducted by the 50-year-old Cummins, she told her family she was spending the day with a female friend, but to call police if she wasnt home by a certain time that night, her familys lawyer told PEOPLE.

She confided in one of her siblings that if she was not back by 6 p.m. that day and she was to disappear, to call the police, attorney Jason Whatley said.

Thomas, a high school freshman at at Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tennessee, where Cummins taught health sciences, was picked up from her home the morning of March 13 by a female friend.

By 12:41 that afternoon, she was declared missing by the Maury County Sheriffs Department.

The last reported sighting of her was at 7:45 a.m., when someone spotted her at a local Shoneys restaurant.

Elizabeth Thomas

2. Kidnapping Suspect Allegedly Groomed Teen

Authorities allege that Cummins was caught kissing Thomas on school property in January, and prosecutors claimed the two exchanged romantic messages via his school email.

Cummins was later fired from his job at Culleoka after being named as a suspect in the Thomas disappearance.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

This is a 15-year-old girl - and if they are together, she has been groomed by a 50-year-old authority figure, Whatley, the Thomas familys attorney, said in March.

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A court petition obtained by PEOPLE in April alleged that Cummins was a masterfully manipulating predator who pressured Thomas to go out with him by threatening her with repercussions at school.

3. The Pair Were Gone for Weeks - and Spotted Across the Country

Before Cummins and Thomas were found in California this week, they were seen together in Oklahoma City, two days after disappearing, according to investigators.

Numerous false sightings circulated of the pair as well, and authorities had said they believed Cummins may have been keeping Thomas off the grid.

Authorities even said in late March that they could be in Mexico.

From left: Elizabeth Thomas and Tad Cummins.

4. Family Says Teen Girl Was Bullied Before Meeting Teacher

Thomas sister Sarah has told PEOPLE that she was interested in a career in the medical field and idolized Cummins because he had worked for a decade in the health care industry.

He took that interest to kind of manipulate, to gain control over her, to gain her favor, Sarah said. (Cummins also told Elizabeth he had worked for the CIA and FBI, her family said.)

Elizabeth was at a vulnerable point coming into the 2016-2017 school year because she had been bullied the year before, according to Sarah.

Last year was Elizabeths first in the public school system, after being home-schooled until eighth grade, her family said.

Elizabeths father, Anthony, told PEOPLE that Cummins helped her with homework and [gave] her money, bought a microwave so she would heat food up in his room [and] try and get her out of trouble.

Cummins, meanwhile, had been teaching at Culleoka since 2011, according to a copy of his employment application that was obtained by PEOPLE.

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, he wrote in his application, adding that teaching was his ideal second career.

5. Pair Is Found at Last

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced the break in the case on Twitter on Thursday, saying Elizabeth has been safely recovered in Northern California, while Cummins was taken into custody.

An arrest warrant had been issued for him on charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor (the latter charge stemming from the alleged kiss in January), according to the TBI.

TBI spokesperson Josh Devine tells PEOPLE, Someone in California saw them and called authorities. Thats the power of the public in a situation like this, in an AMBER Alert.

Devine says the pair was found in a cabin. The TBI announced it would reveal more details at a 4 p.m. ET press conference.

NEWS ALERT: Tad Cummins is under arrest and Elizabeth Thomas has been safely recovered in Northern California. More details soon! pic.twitter.com/QezSERDzHV

- TBI (@TBInvestigation) April 20, 2017

Elizabeths older sister, Kat Bozeman, told PEOPLE of the news, Were absolutely thrilled and blessed to have her safe and on her way home.

Its amazing. This is the best day we could have imagined.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com

Watch NBC TODAY Show on Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.
Photo credit: Getty

From Redbook

One of the worst things that ever happened to me as a mother didn't actually happen to me. I'd just had my second son when I saw I had seen a news segment about cars exploding into flames while fueling at the gas station. Suddenly, all I could think about was the possibility of my car bursting into flames. I'd cry and beg my husband to fill up the car for me and when I had to do it myself I'd unbuckle both kids as a precautionary measure because I didn't know how I'd get them both out in time and couldn't bear to choose between them. This constant worry about fiery death wasn't my first brush with mommy anxiety, unfortunately.

You know how some moms get postpartum depression? Well, I get crippling postpartum anxiety. I worry about everything - SIDS, meningitis, choking, the weird man at the park - to the point where I stop eating and sleeping. With my first son, I sat by his crib to watch him breathe, only sleeping in fits which I'd wake up from in a total panic, sure that he'd died. It was hard to enjoy my infants because I was consumed with worry. Thankfully, my doctor caught on to what was happening and when I had my third son, they put me on anti-anxiety medication the second he was born.

I'm not alone. Anxiety is the second most common mental illness in America, and women are twice as likely to be affected, according to the American Psychological Association. And 10 to 15% of women suffer from postpartum mood disorders (PPMDs), which can include postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and postpartum psychosis. One of the hardest parts of dealing with anxiety as a mom is that people assume it's normal for you to worry about your kids and so they brush off your fears as no big deal. But there's anxiety and then there's anxiety.

So for all the moms who worry too much, you're so not alone! I understand you, and I'll never laugh when you confess you stayed up all night Googling fetal alcohol syndrome after taking a dose of NyQuil. In fact, I'll see your crazy and raise you one. Here are some of the biggest fears anxious moms face:

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1. How stressful the everyday school drop-off can be. "My biggest struggle is leaving Riley at school. Of course I have the little fears every child deals with, like bullying and academic troubles, but my real fear - that I worry about every single day - is kidnapping and school shootings. I do realize that these are less likely to happen then the other problems, and yet every time I drop him off at school it's all I can think about." -Lia F., 26, Denver, CO

2. Worrying that you'll pass your anxiety on to your kids. "I've lived with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder almost my whole life so I know how incredibly painful and debilitating it can be. Sometimes I see my kids doing things or worrying like I do and it scares me. I have anxiety that I'm giving my kids anxiety!" -Cassie S., 31, Sacramento, CA

3. Not being able to enjoy it when your kids sleep in. "Whenever my kids take longer than normal naps or sleep in, my first thought is that they're dead. Most moms would enjoy the extra quiet time, but I can't help but think of the worst. It's so not a normal response but it's always the first thing I think. I still check on them during long naps and in the morning if they sleep later than normal." -Candace A., 28, Arvada, CO

4. Never wanting to let your kids out of your site, ever. "I am terrified to let my kids play alone in the front yard or be out of my sight. I'm so scared they will get taken or hurt and I won't be around to protect them. Oh, and they're 14 and 9 - it's not like they're toddlers! To help myself feel better, I've had them start taking self-defense classes. If I feel more secure in their ability to protect themselves, maybe I won't be so scared to have them away from me." -Amanda S., 32, Houston, TX

5. Watching your kid choke. "I'm always worried about choking, to the point where I see choking hazards everywhere. I continue to cut my toddler's food smaller than it probably needs to be and am constantly reminding him to chew (as if he'll forget if I don't tell him and just start swallowing everything whole?). I'm already overly anxious about my 5-month-old choking and she hasn't even started solid food yet." -Lindsay L., 32, Columbus, OH

6. Feeling like every time you say good-bye could be the last time. "Every time my husband and kids leave together, I'm overcome by this intense panic that they'll get in an accident and I'll never see them again. I think about what the last thing I said to each one was and what they said to me. I actually get weepy about our 'last words' - and that's before they make it off our street. A couple of times I've actually had to take a Xanax and go to sleep to stop from having a full-blown panic attackbecause they're going to Chuck E. Cheese." -Maria H., 29, Seattle, WA

7. Feeling guilt for things that haven't (and probably won't) happen. "I have this constant thought that if I choose to stay back and work and let my kids go with my husband on a fun day out, it will be the last time I'll see them and I'll have to live the rest of my life knowing I chose work over family. Then I start second-guessing all my life choices and worrying that I haven't prioritized my kids and I'll regret it forever." Emily K., 30, Las Vegas, NV

8. Seeing germs everywhere. "When my twins were born, they were premature so they were more susceptible to infection. I had to be really vigilant about hand washing and germs. But even as they've gotten older and their immune systems have developed just fine, I still worry. It's to the point where I've been diagnosed with OCD, over my fear that I could make them seriously ill as a result of some contamination." -Selma A., 39, Istanbul, Turkey

9. Having a mortal terror of parks. "Parks are some of the best places for kids! But they're also a huge source of anxiety for me. My girls are still really little but I can't even sit on a swing without starting to panic thinking about them being older, swinging way too high, and me watching them fall. It gives me a panic attack." -Jennifer G., 32, Hartford, CT

10. Imagining the worst possible conclusion to every situation. "I constantly struggle with the fear of having both of my kids in the car with me and finding myself in a situation where I might need to save one before the other. How would I even decide who to pick? What if I couldn't get them both out? It makes me feel physically sick. Some days are better than others, but it's something I just can't shake." -Courtenay H., 33, Albany, NY

11. Being so afraid of your kids falling that you can't enjoy normal activities. "I have so much anxiety about ledges and high places, especially ones in nature where there are no safety engineers regularly inspecting things. It absolutely shuts me down, which is a big challenge for someone who loves the outdoors as much as I do! My fear of falling is actually quite embarrassing in addition to being debilitating. And when my kids are with me, it's 10 times worse and I'll even have nightmares for a few days afterwards. I can't even handle knowing my parents are taking my kids to a place with ledges, so I've forbidden my parents from ever doing so. It's so bad that I've made my eldest son almost equally as neurotic about it as I am." -Shanna F., 38, Layton, UT

12. Not being able to watch or discuss the news. "Years ago, before I even had kids, I saw a news segment about a family who got trapped in their car underwater when it went off a bridge. The mother was able to make it out but her kids all died. Then, when I had my first baby, suddenly that story was all I could think about. I'd have nightmares about it. I even bought a seatbelt cutter to keep in the car, just in case, and will avoid driving over bridges unless there is no other way. But as I've had more kids, I've found it's not just that one story, it's any news story where a child is hurt or killed. It will haunt me for days. I'll feel sick about it and even cry uncontrollably. My husband has banned NPR in our house!" -Heidi B., 34, New Orleans, LA

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Remember that TV show about the three British grandmothers going to Amsterdam to smoke weed for the first time?

SEE ALSO: 11 best stoner movies to watch on 420

Well, now it's the turn of three Irish mums. To celebrate 420, comedy YouTube channel Facts. sent three Irish mothers to Amsterdam, introduced them to a large joint, and then asked them to describe how it felt.

Oh, and they also played a mildly stoned version of F*ck, Marry, Kill with the members of One Direction, because why the hell not?
Easier isn't always better. Never has this been more true than with body mass index, or BMI.

A measure that takes into account one's height and weight, body mass index has been used since the 1800s as an easy way to estimate body composition and, by extension, health. After all, coming across a scale and tape measure isn't too difficult. To calculate your BMI, that's all you need.

BMI has been strongly linked with America's most common diseases, conditions and causes of death, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and even cancer. That means, as BMI goes up, so does your risk of serious disease. For instance, an adult male who stands 5 feet, 10 inches and weighs 170 pounds would have a BMI of 24.4, which is the upper end of what is considered healthy. (A BMI of 25 is considered overweight.) That same BMI number would apply to a woman who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 142 pounds .

BMIs of 40 or higher are linked with a significantly shorter lifespan, with the average person with a BMI of 55 to 59.9 living 13.7 fewer years compared to the average person with a normal BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, according to a 2014 review published in PLOS ONE.

[See: How to Weigh Yourself the Right Way.]

"When studying large populations, we need an easy way of accessing body composition," explains Dr. Lisa Neff, an endocrinologist who specializes in diabetes and metabolism at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "That's why BMI is the marker most often used in health outcomes research. However, when we are studying BMI, what we are really hoping to get an assessment of is body fat. That's the primary detrimental aspect of body composition. When we talk about risk, it's body fat, or excess body fat, with which we are really concerned."

But unfortunately, BMI and body fat are anything but the same thing. BMI is all about quantity and body fat looks at quality. For instance, if you have a high BMI, you could either be overweight (aka overfat) or, on the flip side, you could just really be muscular and have a perfectly healthy or extremely low body fat percentage, explains San Diego bariatric surgeon Dr. Julie Ellner. And, in fact, 2016 research published in the International Journal of Obesity shows that BMI incorrectly labels more than 54 million Americans as "unhealthy." That's nearly half of all overweight men and women -- and 29 and 16 percent of those classified as obese or severely obese, respectively.

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Meanwhile, if you have a normal BMI, you could be healthy -- or you could be silently suffering from normal weight obesity, often referred to as being "skinny fat." With normal weight obesity, weight and BMI check out fine, but body fat levels are just as high as they are in those typically considered obese. The same 2016 study found that more than 30 percent of people with so-called "healthy" BMIs have poor cardiometabolic health -- that includes hypertension, high cholesterol, excess inflammation and/or insulin resistance. That's exactly what BMI is supposed to help identify, and why your doctor probably has a BMI chart hanging in the exam room.

[See: The Best Olympic Sport for Your Body Type.]

While athletes, bodybuilders and anyone who regularly strength trains is at risk of being mislabeled as overweight or obese, BMI is most likely to miss normal weight obesity in women as well as older people who may be suffering from age-related muscle loss known as sarcopenia, according to Neff. In many such older individuals, weight can actually be quite stable, she notes. In many men and women, as muscle levels wane, metabolic rate dips and any potential weight loss is mediated by an increase in fat. Year after year, weight stays about the same, although body fat percentage gradually grows, increasing the risk of obesity-related illnesses.

Better Than BMI: Body Fat, Waist Circumference and Waist-to-Hip Ratio

Since BMI is really just an estimation of body fat, it makes the most sense to stop tracking your BMI and start evaluating your body fat percentage, Ellner says.

"My advice to patients is to get a good body composition scale for home use," she says. "It will calculate body fat percentage and will give credit to the patients who work out and are above-average healthy, while putting those who are at a 'good weight' but are unhealthy on notice that they need to change their program."

These scales aren't 100 percent accurate -- technology still has a ways to go before consumer scales are on par with expensive dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans, underwater weighing and caliper skin-fold measurements at determining exact body fat levels, but they are as precise as anyone vying for good health or healthy weight loss needs. While there is no one mutually agreed upon healthy body fat range, body fat percentages greater than roughly 21 in men and 31 in women point to obesity. Men and women need to maintain levels of body fat of at least 3 and 12 percent, respectively, for optimal physiological function.

While w aist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, like BMI, estimate body fat indirectly, they focus on where you store the fat that you have. That's because visceral fat, which lies in and around the vital organs, is more highly correlated with chronic disease compared to fat stored elsewhere in the body, Ellner explains. "Abdominal obesity" is strongly linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, regardless of BMI, according to the Journal of Cardiovascular Disease Research.

[See: 17 Ways Heart Health Varies in Women and Men.]

Per the American Heart Association and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a waist circumference of greater than 35 inches in women and 40 in men is a marker of abdominal obesity. A waist-to-hip ratio (divide your waist measurement by the circumference at the largest part of your hips) of greater than 0.85 in women and 0.9 in men also denotes abdominal obesity, according to the World Health Organization.

To track your waist circumference, wrap a flexible measuring tape or string around your waist, marked by the top of your hipbones. Divide that number by the circumference of your hips at their largest point, and you'll have your waist-to-hip ratio.

K. Aleisha Fetters, MS, CSCS, is a freelance Health & Wellness reporter at U.S. News. As a certified strength and conditioning specialist with a graduate degree in health and science reporting, she has contributed to publications including TIME, Women's Health, Men's Health, Runner's World, and Shape. She empowers others to reach their goals using a science-based approach to fitness, nutrition and health. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram, find her on Facebook or the Web or email her at kafetters@gmail.com.
The world discovered modern surfing through Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, a Honolulu native who became an Olympic medalist swimmer at age 21. It was 1912. Duke's good looks, graceful style and unusual hobby of "wave sliding" attracted attention from onlookers. By his death in 1968, the Duke -- Hawaii's Official Ambassador of Aloha -- won eight Olympic medals, appeared in 28 Hollywood movies and rode a monster wave in Waikiki for 1 miles -- the longest ride ever recorded. Fast forward to today, and beginners can experience the thrill of surfing in artificial wave pools and take lessons around the world, including these five destinations where the surf's up.

[See: 8 Affordable Beach Towns Across the USA.]

Honolulu

Make the pilgrimage to Waikiki Beach, where the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort towers over the land where the Duke was born. He's featured in old photo murals near Lappert's ice cream shop and on the hotel's History Wall; his life-size statue on Kalakaua Avenue is one of Honolulu's top selfie stops.

Dave Carvalho, who founded Big Wave Dave in 2010, runs one of the many recommended surf schools a few blocks from the beach breaks. "Once the fundamentals about balance and focus are revealed, surfing is a sport that takes practice and instinct because no two surf days are ever the same,he says. On flat days, try stand-up paddleboarding among sea turtles, hike Diamond Head, shop or visit Pearl Harbor. AccesSurf teaches those with disabilities adaptive surfing and swimming on the first Saturday of every month at Barbers Point Beach Park. What's more, Waikikis affordable lodging ranges from the efficient Aqua Aston Hotels to the high-style Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club, a boutique property whose Surf Concierge arranges private lessons and guides.

Santa Cruz, California

California boasts hundreds of surf breaks, many with year-round swells. Historians say the sport began in 1885, when three Hawaiian princes arrived at military academy in San Mateo, California. Recognizing rolling surf when they visited Santa Cruz, the princes made o'lo style surfboards of local redwood and hit the waves. Surfers like Daniel McGregor III, a San Francisco Uber driver whose surfboard is always strapped to the roof of his car, takes advantage of the ideal surfing conditions. "Santa Cruz has 15 world-class surf spots in one town," he says. "You could drive 2,000 miles up the Pacific coast and never even find one spot like that," he adds.

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Adding to this upscale beach town's allure is Jack O'Neill, a local sailor who invented the wet suit and a surf brand. Santa Cruz is also one of nine surfing reserves around the world, designated to preserve its 23 surf breaks and surrounding environmental and cultural assets. Drop by Club Ed Surf School and Camps or the Richard Schmidt Surf School for gear and lessons. Parents who check into the stylish Dream Inn Santa Cruz can watch kids learn from the Jack O'Neill Lounge terrace. On flat days, head to the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, a family memorial to a son killed while practicing the sport he loved.

[See: The 10 Best California Beaches.]

Oahu's North Shore, Hawaii

The world-famous reef breaks off Oahu's North Shore can be up to 50 or 60 feet high in winter, when spectators hope to catch champions in town for the Hawaiian Cup, Billabong and Vans competitions. "There's a reason people come here from all over the world to surf -- the surf is better," says Regan Constad, an entrepreneur from Williamsburg, New York, who takes lessons from Uncle Bryan's Sunset Suratt Surf Academy in calmer Haleiwa. "It's more predictable; waves break with a certain rhythm, and far enough from shore so that you have time to get up and catch your balance for a long ride in," he says, adding "The water's warm so you don't have to wear a wet suit, there's no seaweed and the views are just gorgeous."

Beginning surfers can bunk at the luxury Turtle Bay Resort, spectacularly situated on a peninsula. Beginners, kids and dogs surf off its protected sandy beach in summer and, around the point, in calmer Kalewa Bay in winter. Turtle Bay has a legendary sunset view pool bar, a surfing school, a shrine to pro surfer Andy Irons in the lobby and abstract photos of surfing elites acing Banzai Pipeline, the enormous wave off 'Ehukai Park.

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

A Panamanian province of tiny islands, Bocas del Toro draws beach bums, nature lovers and surfers thanks to its golden beaches and crystalline Caribbean waters. Surfing conditions vary seasonally with the most reliable months between December and April. Instagram-worthy surf spots catering to surfers of all skill levels include reef breaks that can be shallow and dangerous, point breaks and beach breaks. Base yourself on Isla Colon, Isla Carenero or Isla Bastimentos (all of which areconnected by boat), and find lessons and rental gear at the Mono Loco, Escuela del Mar and La Buga Surf Schools.

Most island inns and hostels are owned by surfers or have in-house guides. The popular Selina has lodging with community living areas, coworking spaces and bedding ranging from suites to hammocks. Their two Bocas del Toro locations are the Selina Isla Colon, perched on a beach ideal for surfing, and the solar-powered Red Frog Bungalows on Isla Bastimentos, which is just a short ferry ride from the must-see nightlife in Bocas Town.

Sayulita, Mexico

Surfers love Mexico's Riviera Nayarit not only because of its accessibility from Puerto Vallarta International Airport, but also its variety of long and short waves off the Pacific Coast. While Stinky's and El Anclote are the closest breaks to the luxury Punta Mita development -- a popular place to find the lavish second homes of A-listers and Hollywood celebrities -- most surfers prefer the friendly, counterculture beach town vibe of Sayulita, a half-hour drive north.

[See: The Best Scenic Getaways in Every State.]

New arrivals check-in at the beachfront Lunaazul School and ask for El Papas, one of the top local surfers. At Lo de Marcos Surf Skool, you can also partake in stand-up paddleboarding and snorkel sessions on flat days. Even better, Sayulita is packed with shops, galleries, a vibrant nightlife and great eateries. Check out Chocobanan, Tacos Nati and Paninos for a memorable bite; youmay even spot a celebrity having pizza at La Rustica. Visitors who don't want to sleep on their board will find Sayulita accommodations at all price points, including camping, private villa rentals and the popular Villa Amor Hotel.
It's often called credit card hopping: applying to multiple credit cards and opening new accounts and sometimes closing old ones -- usually, to take advantage of a new cash bonus, rewards points or other offers. It's a strategy sometimes promoted by personal finance experts and naturally by credit card comparison websites.

And it can be a fine strategy. If you credit card hop without any problems, you may well come out ahead, constantly earning extra cash bonuses, months of zero interest cycles and rewards points that pay for airfare and hotels. It can also, of course, be the dumbest thing a consumer can do, in which you enter a world of exorbitant annual fees and -- if you stumble and start missing payments -- a universe of late fees, revolving debt and a plummeting credit score. If you're going to credit card hop and don't want to end up hopping mad, you'll want to follow these rules.

[See: 10 Completely Careless Credit Card Mistakes You're Making.]

Be organized in how you pay the cards back. Ben Luthi is a Provo, Utah-based staff writer for the website StudentLoanHero.com. He says that he currently has 12 credit cards but has cycled through close to 30 over the last couple years.

"To avoid having things blow up in your face, I recommend using a budgeting software that offers direct import [with your credit cards]. This way you can keep track of all your accounts and transactions in one place. You should also keep track of your due dates in a spreadsheet so you can avoid late payments," Luthi says.

And any personal finance expert will tell you, if you want the perks of having multiple credit cards to benefit you -- pay the card back in full every month. Carrying debt from one month to another, unless perhaps you're in a zero-interest cycle, will wipe out any financial gains you make on extra rewards points and cash bonus offers.

Pay attention to your credit score. If you're applying for a new credit card every several months or so to chase rewards points and cash bonuses, be sure to occasionally monitor how that's affecting your credit score -- and be careful about opening new accounts if you're planning on making a big purchase soon, warns Kristin McGrath, an Austin, Texas-based editor for the website CreditCardForum.com.

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"Opening new cards dings your credit score a bit and can make you look credit-hungry," she says. "So, if you're on the cusp of getting a major loan, like a car loan or mortgage, this isn't a game you want to play."

[See: 7 Signs Your Romantic Partner Is Financially Unstable.]

Learn everything you can about each credit card. Yes, the perks and rewards points are important, but don't forget to read up on everything as well. Maybe once you get familiar with a card, you'll realize you aren't thrilled with its high annual percentage rate (which won't matter if you pay everything off every month, but which will if you don't). You may not like the grace period -- that is, the time you have to pay off a new balance from the moment you receive your bill until you receive finance charges.

"It's all about reading the fine print," says Matt Freedman, head of credit card products at Navy Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia.

Freedman suggests carrying one or two credit cards that fit your lifestyle, but he concedes, "If you're a very responsible spender, it can be beneficial to have multiple cards. For example, if you eat out often but use a certain airline regularly, have one card that rewards you for restaurant purchases, and another card that enhances your travel rewards on that specific airline. As long as you're paying your monthly balance, you won't fall into debt."

But pay close attention to the fees, especially the annual fees, McGrath cautions.

"A lot of the most coveted rewards cards have annual fees. If you're paying a $450 annual fee on one card, $95 annual fees on two more and a $49 annual fee on another, you really need to make sure you're earning those fees back by using the cards' perks and rewards structures to your advantage," she says. "If you aren't organized, don't have enough spending to go around or simply get overwhelmed by all the programs' fine print, you could end up paying more in annual fees than you get back in rewards and perks."

[See: 9 Financial Tools You Should Be Using.]

Be careful about closing accounts. You've likely heard that if you close a credit card account, your credit score will drop a little. The same thing happens, though, if you open a credit card account.

All of this means that it isn't a tragic error on your part if you do close an account, and it may be smart, even if your credit score is slightly knocked around. You simply might not want to keep track of 15 credit cards.

Still, you also don't necessarily want to automatically close one credit card every time you open a new one. For starters, lenders like to see that there's a lot of credit that you aren't using. It's known as the credit utilization ratio -- the amount of credit you're using versus how much credit you have. Typically, lenders like to see that you're using less than 30 percent of the credit available to you. So closing a card could potentially upset that credit utilization ratio and damage your credit.

That said, many credit cards have hefty annual fees, Luthi points out, and if you aren't using a card, and it has a fee of $450, you're wasting $450 every year. It's worth pointing out that if you stop using a credit card and have several accounts you never use, the decision to close the account may be done for you. Some credit companies will close down an unused account, typically after a year, and so you may end up losing the card eventually, anyway.

Use common sense. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and always find it something of an adventure to get bills paid on time, credit card hopping is a lousy idea. But if you consider yourself extremely organized, and you make a healthy income and aren't likely to max out one of your credit cards and fall behind on the debt, then this may work out beautifully. Still, you never really know.

"There are people out there with more than 50 cards who manage them all impeccably with a spreadsheet and have FICO scores above 800," McGrath says. "And there are people who have just one card, get another for a zero percent balance transfer deal, and then double their debt and sabotage their credit practically overnight."
By Tom James

(Reuters) - A man accused of murdering a motel security guard and gunning down three white men in a racially motivated Fresno, California shooting spree was ordered to undergo a psychiatric exam on Friday after entering a courtroom yelling "let black people go!"

Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, had been scheduled for an initial court appearance on murder charges stemming from the death of Motel 6 security guard Carl Williams when the postponed the proceedings, said Steve Wright of the Fresno County District Attorney's Office.

The judge also ordered Muhammad, who goes by the nickname Black Jesus, to undergo a mental competency exam by court-appointed physician at the request of a public defender appointed to represent him, Eric Christensen.

That doctor was expected to report back to the court on May 12.

The Fresno Bee newspaper reported that Muhammad, who was shackled and wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit, entered the courtroom shouting: "Let black people go!" and "reparations!"

Prosecutors say Muhammad was angry over being evicted from his room when he opened fire on Williams and a second security guard in the parking lot of the Fresno-area Motel 6 on April 13.

Prosecutors have not yet filed charges against Muhammad in connection with the shooting rampage, in which he is accused of shooting three white men in quick succession in downtown Fresno on Tuesday.

Fresno Police spokesman Mark Hudson said the investigation would likely conclude within days, and that the department would likely deliver its findings to prosecutors by early next week. Muhammad faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted of the two charges filed against him on Thursday in the motel case.

Although Muhammad shouted "Allu Akhbar" as he was taken into custody following the shooting, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer has said the case did not appear to be an act of terrorism.

"Kori Muhammad is not a terrorist, but he is a racist, and he is filled with hate, and he set out this week to kill as many people as he could," Dyer said on Wednesday.

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Police say Muhammad opened fire 17 times at about 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday as he walked and ran along several blocks in Fresno, killing the three men in less than four minutes. A fourth man was missed by the bullets.

Fresno is an agricultural hub in California's central valley, about 170 miles (275 km) southeast of San Francisco.

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Marguerita Choy)
Geopolitical tensions flare every spring on the Korean peninsula, but analysts say the anxiety of recent weeks has been magnified by the unpredictable new player in the annual drama: Donald Trump.

North Korea always intensifies its rhetoric when Seoul and Washington stage annual large-scale joint military drills that it condemns as rehearsals for a potential invasion.

But this time threat and counter-threat from both sides sent tensions spiralling, generating lurid headlines and focussing global attention on the region.

The North says it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself and observers agree it is making progress towards a long-dreamed-of rocket capable of delivering a warhead to the US mainland.

With multiple sets of UN sanctions failing to quell its ambitions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last month said US military action was an "option on the table".

Pyongyang promised "the toughest counteraction" to any attack while Washington pledged an "overwhelming response", with Trump himself tweeting that the North "will be taken care of".

Even so the North has carried out two rocket tests this month alone and paraded its arsenal, including a suspected new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), through the streets of Pyongyang.

Speculation has also mounted that it could carry out a sixth nuclear test, following two last year, although that has yet to happen.

Pyongyang's threats and actions are not unusual -- it has gone further in the past, sinking the South Korean corvette Cheonan with the loss of 46 lives in 2010, and three years later urging foreigners to leave the South to escape what it said was a looming nuclear war.

But cooler heads always prevailed in Washington and the two sides never came to blows. Analysts now point to the new US administration as a key factor behind the intense fears of conflict this time.

"The big change was from Washington," said Koo Kab-Woo, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

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After years of "strategic patience" under Barack Obama, he said the US is "reacting more sensitively" to claims by leader Kim Jong-Un Kim that his country is in the final stages of developing an ICBM.

- 'Turning It Up to Eleven' -

A missile strike in Syria and the dropping of the "Mother of All Bombs" in Afghanistan sent ominous signals that the new administration is prepared to unleash US firepower.

And after a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump doubled down on a vow to act unilaterally against Pyongyang if Beijing fails to rein in its unpredictable ally.

"The ascendancy of Donald Trump introduces a greater element of uncertainty about America's moves," said Mark Fitzpatrick, executive director at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Washington.

"His threatening tweets make people wonder whether he would also attack North Korea," he told AFP.

The North itself is already renowned for belligerent statements.

Mason Richey of Hankuk University of Foreign Affairs in Seoul described its propaganda as "ranging from insulting to bellicose to ludicrous" in a recent paper titled "Turning It Up to Eleven" -- a rare reference in diplomatic analysis to the 1984 rock mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap".

But he found no correlation between the North's verbal hostility and its actual actions.

"US civilian and military decision-makers should greatly discount North Korea's threat rhetoric" unless it is accompanied by other signals, he said.

- 'Commitment trap' -

Analysts say Trump's tweets -- which often use unrefined and harsh rhetoric -- and his unpredictability have also unsettled Beijing.

"Both China and North Korea are stunned by Washington's change," said Choi Kang, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

But the US has yet to translate words into action and its misstep over the deployment of a naval strike group to the Korean peninsula, which turned out to be thousands of kilometres away, has caused embarrassment.

Questions have been raised whether Washington's statements will create a "commitment trap" where it feels obliged to act to maintain its credibility.

"It can be hard to distinguish bluff from real intentions, and President Trump is a master at keeping the other side guessing," said Fitzpatrick.

But the commander-in-chief "does not seem to care much about following through on past promises", he added. "He is infinitely flexible in his policy choices."
WARNING: This video contains explicit language that some may find offensive. Covington police pulled Broner over in an SUV riddled with bullet holes and arrested him early Thursday morning in Covington, according to Cincinnati Police Lt. Steve Saunders. He was booked in the Kenton County jail and released around 5 a.m., jail records show. Jail records indicate that Broner was arrested on an open warrant early Thursday morning and charged with "failure to appear," a misdemeanor charge. The open warrant was for a public intoxication charge from 2014.
Everyone loves Lego, but not everyone is allowed to enjoy the new Legoland Discovery Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

According to The Guardian, members of the Adult Fans of Lego community (AFOL)  yes, this is a thing  were outraged after learning they couldn't access the center's playground because of their age. So outraged, in fact, that one man went so far as to threaten to file a human rights complaint against Legoland.

For goodness sake, Lego  sometimes grown adults just want to have fun.

SEE ALSO: A meadow of Lego daffodils has sprouted in the center of a city and it's delightful

The complaints against the Discovery Centre, which just opened on Tuesday, stem from the fact that it reportedly prohibits adults from entering the center unless they're accompanied by a child age 17 or younger.

Though the center holds special themed "adult nights," which prohibit kids, unaccompanied adults who want to enjoy all the Legoland attractions offered on any given day, and those who claim to have already bought annual passes with no knowledge of the age restrictions were seriously disappointed after being turned away at the playground's door.

The issue was discussed further on the center's Facebook page, which is now home to several scathing one-star reviews from dissatisfied adult Lego lovers who feel a deep sense of betrayal.

One especially disappointed fan, Mark Robinson, wrote he was "absolutely disgusted" to hear that Legoland sets restrictions based on age. "Lego is something that is enjoyed across all the ages ... and it's clear that many adults without children will want to experience the attractions." He then went on the explain that if the center were to ever prohibit him from entering based on age he would file a complaint to the Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal in Melbourne as a violation of equal opportunity and human rights. Yeeesh.

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Another AFOL community member wrote, "Absolutely appalled by the fact I was unable to enter without somebody under the age of 16. Lego is not just for children and I'm sure the majority of people would agree with me. I understand it's a play center but I have no intention on climbing around, simply just to look and admire."

Okay, adults. We get you love to play, but to be fair, the promotional video for the center does look very kid centric.

A spokesperson from Legoland replied to Robinson's review, explaining why the age restriction policy is in place and encouraging Robinson to attend a adult night. "Discovery Centres are not theme parks but small, indoor attractions specifically designed to provide safe and fun environments for families with children aged 3-10 to enjoy together. Many of the key features in the attraction therefore are not suitable for grown adults."

"In order to constantly maintain a welcoming environment in which to play, the Centres do not permit entry to any groups of adults, adult couples, or lone adults, who are not accompanied by a young child or children," the spokesperson went on.

Despite the explanation, other fans began posting negative reviews on the page, reiterating that Lego products are enjoyed by people of all ages and declaring they would no longer attend the attractions. There were, however, some loyal and understanding AFOL members who came to Lego's defense.

Ryan Evans shared his belief that the regulations aren't discrimination, rather, they're common sense. "As a member of the AFOL community, I apologise wholeheartedly for their lack of understanding of this policy and indeed the intentions of the centre. Please be reassured we are not all like this. Most of us 'get it,'" he wrote.

According to The Guardian, the same age limits are in place throughout the 17 other Legoland Discovery Centres worldwide, and it should also be noted that unaccompanied adults are still permitted to enter the Lego shop.

So maybe just chill, adults. Let the kids have their fun.

Mashable reached out to Lego for comment.

WATCH: This Lego camera actually works
Climate change is not an abstract debate for the villagers of Kivalina, an island off of Alaskas northwest coast  its a matter of survival.

As Yahoo News reported previously, the indigenous whaling communitys remote home island vanishes into the surrounding Chukchi Sea little by little each year, as Arctic sea ice melts due to global warming.

The islanders knew they should relocate in the 90s because of overcrowding, but time started to run out quickly in 2004. Sea ice that typically served as a protective barrier from violent storms failed to form. Every year since, the roughly 450 residents have seen torrents wash away more and more of their island.

Joe McCarthy, a content creator for Global Citizen, a social-action platform dedicated to addressing the worlds most serious problems, traveled to Kivalina earlier this month for three days. He spoke to the villagers about how climate change is wreaking havoc on their home, the financial hurdles of relocating and their fight to preserve their rich cultural heritage and tight-knit community for his recent feature Climate Change Refugees: How a Tiny Alaska Town Is Leading the Way on Climate Change.

When Yahoo News asked McCarthy what he learned from his journey to Kivalina that was not clear from reading literature on the community beforehand, he focused on the resiliency of the villagers. Whereas some might see them as merely the first victims of climate change, McCarthy saw a proud community that was determined to keep their world from being torn apart.

Residents of Kivalina. (Photo: Hans Glick/Global Citizen)

I wanted to convey how even though they are being dramatically affected by climate change  more so than anywhere else in the U.S.  they are also versed in whats going on, in the complexities of bureaucracy and the government processes that could unlock the funding that they need and that they are doing all they can to take charge of situation, McCarthy said.

Theyre not going to just allow their lives to fall apart. Theyre really trying to develop a framework and a way forward that ultimately other communities that are facing coastal erosion can follow and take guidance from.

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McCarthy saw the city counsel, relocation committee and tribal leaders spearheading these efforts on their own, without much state or federal support at all. There simply isnt enough political will among outsiders to spend the amount of money needed for relocation when it would benefit fewer than 500 people.

Christine Shearer, program director for an energy research organization called CoalSwarm, told Yahoo News that relocation might cost up to $100 million. But time is of the essence: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that Kivalina could be uninhabitable in 2025.

They really have to do all of the clamoring to drum up support. Otherwise, theyre just going to be abandoned, McCarthy said.

A view of Kivalina, Alaska. (Photo: Hans Glick/Global Citizen)

He described the townspeople as generous and hospitable. They welcomed him into their homes and were eager to share their stories.

McCarthy said the community led a nomadic lifestyle for centuries but had been forced to settle on the island by the federal government in the early 1900s. They have identified a nearby site where they would like to relocate and studies are underway to determine if its a viable option.

If they were forced to abandon it because the island just disappeared, who knows what would happen, McCarthy said. They might have to be scattered to other communities in the region, and that would shatter their cohesiveness and the cultural integrity theyre trying to preserve.

You can read more about the crisis facing the people of Kivalina on the Global Citizen website.

Kivalina is about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle. (Photo: Hans Glick/Global Citizen)

Read more from Yahoo News:
Thousands of immigrants allowed entry to the US to escape from West Africas recent Ebola outbreak now face deportation, as the program that allowed them residence is ending.

An estimated 5,900 immigrants from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone arrived in the US under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program between 2014 and 2016. However the US Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed this week that the program will expire May 21. The widespread transmission of Ebola virus in the three countries that led to the designations has ended, the agency said in a statement.

The last new cases of Ebola in West Africa emerged in 2016. Today the World Health Organization is focusing on recovery efforts in the countries affected, including an experimental Ebola vaccine.

Lawrence Beah is one of those who came to the US under the TPS program. Beah and his family left Sierra Leone in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak. He sent his mother, sister, and other relatives to Mauritania. But before he could join them, Mauritania issued a travel ban on immigrants from Ebola-affected countries. Beah then traveled alone to the US, arriving just as the Department of Homeland Security established TPS, allowing people from Ebola-affected countries to remain in the US and legally work. Now Beah works as a security guard in New York.

Read more: With the end of an immigration program comes Ebola fears for West Africans in the US

Beah fears he will have to leave the US.

Mauritania will not let me in, Beah said, noting that countrys recent wave of crime and terrorism. He would have to return alone to Sierra Leone. I cannot get a job there, he said.

More generally, Beah said, he feels less safe as an immigrant in America these days, although he he hasnt heard of any deportations of people with TPS documentation. Because I see people getting deported in other cases, he said, I cannot sleep, and I am afraid to go out anywhere.

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Immigrants and their advocates had hoped that TPS, which had been extended twice, could be extended again, perhaps indefinitely.

Beah and other West Africans are talking to immigration attorneys, hoping they can get green cards or asylum. But most of them dont qualify [to stay in the US] under any other category, especially now, said Amaha Kassa, executive director of African Communities Together, an immigrant advocacy organization in New York.

Advocates argue that the secondary effects of the Ebola epidemic remain a threat to the economies and health of affected countries like Sierra Leone. Many of the 11,000 people who died during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak were health care workers, which has devastated the health care infrastructures of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.

The damage from epidemics will take years to fix, said Kassa. The number of health care providers plummeted during these epidemics. There is also the loss of foreign investment in those countries, and there have been effects on the food supply and widespread malnutrition.
Whenever Im pondering the Middle Easts love-hate relationship with America, I flick through the pages of a book I discovered recently. In the wake of President Donald Trumps recent military strike against Syria and the avalanche of conflicted reactions it provoked in the Middle East  from jubilation to fear to anger  I picked up the short work again.

In the preface, the author writes, I have made my plea to America to undertake the reconstruction of Syria, explaining that the purpose of his brief volume is not to give an exhaustive treatment of its subject but to voice the desire of an oppressed people for deliverance. It is a brief expression of the ardent hope that America will heed the call of the oppressed as well as that of her greater destiny and go to the rescue of the Near East.

Youd be forgiven for thinking this was written as a call to either Barack Obama or Donald Trump to intercede in the six-year-long Syrian conflict on the side of the rebels in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad.

Except for the words Near East, which are not commonly used anymore. Or, of course, the reference, in another paragraph, to the Asiatic Turkish provinces and the call to be saved from Turkish misrule and European complications.

Indeed, America Save the Near East is a strange little book, written in 1918 by Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, a theologian and political writer who immigrated to the United States in 1891. Rihbany was originally from the town of Shweir in present-day Lebanon, which was back then part of Greater Syria and the Ottoman Empire.

His book seems to encapsulate the hopes pinned on America by a region where so many cant seem to give up on the Land of Opportunity. Although written during the horrors of World War I, which brought a devastating famine to the region, it is a reminder of more innocent times, both for the United States and its relationship with the Arab world.

That was before the United States actually got involved in the Middle East, before the creation of Israel, and before American support for both Israel and strongmen across the Arab world. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2009, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, said: We used to love America in the region in the 40s. [President Woodrow] Wilsons principles of [national self-determination] represent freedom facing a Europe that was colonizing us. Fadlallah, who was Lebanons most influential Shiite cleric and the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, points to Americas unwavering support for Israel as a turning point in how Arabs look to the United States.

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And yet hope springs eternal. Even today, as I write this from Beirut, the Syrian opposition and the rebel groups just across the border have been cheering Americas military strike, heartened by the 59 Tomahawks and hoping that the United States will now help save them from Assad.

On social media, Trump has earned the affectionate nom de guerre of Abu Ivanka el Amriki, Father of Ivanka the American, as a sign of gratitude for taking on the Syrian president and perhaps a nod to his daughter who reportedly pressed him to do something about Assads use of chemical weapons.

Kinda Kanbar, a journalist in the United States and Syrian opposition supporter, wrote on her Facebook wall that if Assad falls during Trumps time in office, Syrians should name a square after the American president in her Syrian hometown of Deraa, where the Syrian uprising started in March 2011. She makes a comparison to Kosovo, where a statue of former President Bill Clinton was erected in recognition of his intervention during the Balkan war that brought down Slobodan Milosevic.

America has learned few lessons from repeated failures and dire consequences of its interventions, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Latin America, but those in the region who look to the United States for salvation have short memories, too. When I asked a senior Obama administration official why they werent heeding calls for more forceful involvement in Syria, he looked at me puzzled: Name me one successful American military intervention after World War II?

But in their Twitter posts, Facebook updates, and published articles, those who oppose Assad and his allies Iran and Hezbollah  in Syria but also in neighboring Lebanon, which Syria occupied for 30 years  were jubilant and relieved. For six years, the opposition has been waiting for this moment as various Syrian opposition leaders, civil society activists, and their supporters in the United States pleaded with the Obama administration to be more forceful in its deterrence of Assad and more generous with weaponry for the rebels.

Despite some hope that the new administrations anti-Iran stance would have an impact on the Syrian conflict, by January, exhausted and disillusioned with a feckless Washington, the anti-Assad camp did not expect the Syrian leaders recent winning streak on the battlefield to be put on pause by a president whod also banned Syrian refugees from entering America.

The real effect of the strike and the follow-up strategy are still unclear, and those cheering the Tomahawks are only too aware of that. But this was not just another American military strike against an Arab country. Trump did something no other Western leader has ever done: use force against the Assad family, which has ruled Syria since 1971 with cunning and brutality. Aside from one, brief cross-border strike into Syria by U.S. forces in Iraq targeting al Qaeda militants in 2008, and various ineffectual sanctions, the Assads have mostly eschewed paying a price for the use of force against their own people; their support for militant organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas; or their alleged connections to various violent incidents, including a car bomb in Paris in 1982 and a string of assassinations in Lebanon.

Syrians who have lived under Assads oppressive rule and Lebanese who have lived under Syrian occupation had long tried to convince American officials that the only language the Assads understood was the threat or use of force. When Turkish tanks seemed poised to roll into Syria in 1998, after a war of words over Syrias support for Kurdish separatists, Hafez al-Assad did what no one expected him to do: He backed down.

Trump may not intend to unseat Assad. And, yes, both Trump and his predecessor have sought to disentangle the United States from a messy region. And sure, Russia thought it could supplant American influence there. But for now, Washington remains key because its influences are deeply embedded in the alliances and architecture of the wider Middle East  for good and ill.

So while people resent America for its support of strongmen like Egypts Hosni Mubarak and now Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi or its willingness to overlook human rights abuses in Bahrain, they also know that, perversely, only America has the power to alter those dynamics in favor of more freedom. Indeed, the United States is simultaneously the indirect oppressor and the savior, a dynamic that sustains a conflicted love-hate relationship.

In late February 2011, as the Libyan uprising was underway and Muammar al-Qaddafi threatened to hunt down his opponents alley by alley, I was struck by a feverish imploration, carried live on CNN, by a woman speaking from Tripoli in broken English: Please help us, Mr. Obama, please help us! How could this be, in a region where just seven years earlier, the United States had been criticized, resented, and attacked for invading and botching the occupation of Iraq?

In late August 2013, I was en route from Washington to Beirut when Assad crossed Obamas chemical weapons red line and the drums of war were rolling. The Syrian opposition and armed rebels were hopeful that Assads hour had finally come. In Lebanon, the initial reaction in the anti-Assad camp was also positive. But as Obama prevaricated and consulted Congress, and as headlines turned from retribution to the shuttering of Lebanese airspace and ports, even some of those who had been actively advocating for strikes against Syria were seized by dread.

When the strikes were called off and the chemical weapons deal was announced, much of the Syrian opposition  the rebels but also the civilians being shelled by government planes  was overwhelmed by a deep feeling of abandonment, a realization that they were truly on their own. Some described it to me like a rip in their heart. The chemical weapons deal did nothing to stop death from the sky as barrel bombs and other munitions continued to rain on civilian populations. In a conversation a year later with a Lebanese Sunni, Western-educated, progressive politician, I was surprised to hear the vehemence with which he decried how Obama had abandoned the Syrians to their fate. The United States and the West, he said, should never again speak of their role as defenders of freedom and democracy.

So has that now been restored, with Trumps strikes? He certainly acted quickly enough that there was no buildup of angst, despite the whiplash of a policy reversal on getting involved in Syria. But if you read the newspapers and listen to the television commentary, its clear that no one is under any illusion about Trumps motivations. What the Syrian opposition wants is to leverage his willingness to strike to their advantage. Bassma Kodmani, a member of the Syrian oppositions High Negotiations Committee, wrote that the strikes were a major first step to end the chaos and lay the foundation for a peace process in Geneva.

But theres a new layer added to the complex codependency with America because of the nature of Trumps presidency. I found confusion alongside the jubilation. People are torn. Are we really cheering a sexual predator who banned Syrian refugees from entering the United States? Can we celebrate the wrong man doing the right thing after a good man refused to do so?

And then theres the deeply conflicted relationship with American military force.

Kodmani acknowledges that while the strike could help set the stage for peace talks, watching her own country be a target of American missiles wasnt easy. In a powerful article in the Wall Street Journal, Kassem Eid, a survivor of the 2013 gas attacks, wrote that Trump has given my people hope and asked important questions: Where were the throngs of Americans who had protested against Trumps travel ban on refugees? Why did they not mass outside the White House to demand that Trump stand up to Assads use of chemical weapons? If Americans truly care, they can help remove Syrias tyrant, he wrote, echoing Rihbanys 1918 book.

The answers to his questions lie partly in the American Lefts ambivalence or outright rejection of the use of force, even when it comes to the so-called responsibility to protect.

In this codependent relationship its hard to find a steady middle ground. What Obama didnt understand was that by the time he had come to power, the region had stopped seething from the Iraq invasion. By the time Assad started killing peaceful protesters, the region had come full circle and bemoaned his unwillingness to intervene.

What Trump needs to understand is the lesson George W. Bush learned standing at a podium in Iraq, next to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in December 2008: The liberator celebrated one day can have a shoe thrown at his head the next.

What might help Trump deal with the yo-yo of emotions America stirs up in the Middle East is that hes as emotive and reactive as we are. Just last month, he cared little about the plight of civilians dying under Syrian government and Russian shelling. Now he calls Assad an animal and talks about the beautiful babies who died in Khan Sheikhoun.

Today, some people in the Arab world are cheering him. He shouldnt be surprised then if tomorrow the same people are cursing his name.

Photo credit: MAJID SAEEDI/Getty Images
By Lawrence Hurley and Jon Herskovitz (Reuters) - Newly appointed conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch helped clear the way for Arkansas to hold its first execution in 12 years, a sign of the challenges facing other inmates seeking to block their executions next week. In his first recorded vote, President Donald Trump's pick for the court sided as expected with its renewed conservative majority. The justices voted 5-4 to reject an emergency application brought by several inmates before Arkansas executed convicted murderer Ledell Lee. Lee's lethal injection for the 1993 beating death of Debra Reese was the only one carried out so far by the state this month, despite an original plan to execute eight inmates in April before its supply of one of the three drugs used expires. The executions would be the most by any state in the shortest period since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in the United States in 1976. Four of those executions have been indefinitely delayed by stays for matters including DNA testing, clemency consideration or to allow for a decision in an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case. Gorsuch's vote could again be crucial next week when Arkansas plans to execute three more inmates. On Monday, the state will try to put two inmates to death on the same day, something that has not been done in the United States in 17 years. Arkansas also plans a single execution for Thursday. As a conservative justice in the mold of the man he replaced, Antonin Scalia, Gorsuch is seen by most court-watchers as unlikely to undermine the death penalty. Kent Scheidegger, a lawyer with the pro-prosecution Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said Gorsuch is "not one who will further delay justice when it has already been badly delayed merely because the lawyers for a death row inmate bring weak claims at the last minute." The court has rejected stays for the eight men, including Lee. Their lawyers have argued that Arkansas' rush to the death chamber amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and violated the inmates' right to counsel and their right to access the courts and counsel during the execution process. What a possible Gorsuch vote means for the upcoming Arkansas executions depends largely on the individual legal issues raised by the inmates and whether lower courts intervene. The Supreme Courts default approach to emergency applications is to deny them, whether from a state or a prison inmate. There may be further indications on how Gorsuch will approach such cases on Monday, when the court hears oral arguments in a death penalty case from Alabama. It concerns inmate James McWilliams, sentenced to death for a 1984 rape, robbery and murder. The question is whether McWilliams has a right to an independent medical expert to assess whether he is mentally disabled and therefore ineligible for execution. Two of the Arkansas death row inmates the state had planned to execute this week, Don Davis and Bruce Ward, had their cases put on hold by the Arkansas Supreme Court pending the U.S. high courts decision in the McWilliams case, due by the end of June. There are no signs that the U.S. Supreme Court is inclined to tackle the broader question of whether the death penalty is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The court's conservatives, including Gorsuch, would be expected to uphold capital punishment. (For a graphic on the number and method of executions in the United States since 1976, see: http://tmsnrt.rs/20uUlkC) (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)
By Steve Barnes

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - Arkansas executed its first inmate in 12 years on Thursday after a protracted legal battle that questioned aspects of the use of the death penalty in the United States, which fell to a quarter-century low in 2016.

Ledell Lee, 51, was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m. CDT at the state's death chamber in its Cummins Unit prison, a Department of Corrections spokesman said. Lee did not make a final statement.

Lee was convicted and sentenced to death for beating Debra Reese to death with a tire iron in 1993. Reese's relatives were at the Cummins Unit and told media Lee deserved to die for a crime that ripped their lives apart.

Lawyers for Lee, who had spent more than 20 years on death row, had filed numerous motions in various courts ahead of the lethal injection that had put the process on hold.

Lee had maintained his innocence for years and was seeking DNA tests his lawyers said could prove his innocence.

He was the first person in a group of what had been eight men Arkansas originally planned to execute in 11 days, the most of any state in as short a period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Courts have halted four of those executions.

The state's plan prompted an unprecedented flurry of legal filings that argued the process should be halted, citing problems with U.S. death chamber protocols and lethal injection drug mixes.

Back-to-back Arkansas executions set for Monday were halted indefinitely.

Lawyers for the eight inmates, including Lee, had argued the state's rush to the death chamber amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, violated the inmates' right to counsel and their right to access the courts and counsel during the execution process.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petitions for the group. One of them was a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with the four other conservative justices in denying the motion, while the court's liberals dissented.

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Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson set the execution schedule because one of the three drugs used in Arkansas executions, the sedative midazolam, expires at month's end.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said he took issue with the state trying to use the drugs before their expiration date.

"In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to

random," he wrote.

One of the drugs in the Arkansas mix, midazolam, had been used in flawed executions in Oklahoma and Arizona, where witnesses said the inmates appeared to twist in pain on death chamber gurneys.

Pool reports said there were no visible reaction from Lee after the drug mix was administered.

"I pray this lawful execution brings closure for the Reese family," Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement.

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Numbers and methods of U.S. executions http://tmsnrt.rs/26wAN2v)

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(Reporting by Steve Barnes in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Bill Trott, Paul Tait and Michael Perry)
Washington (AFP) - The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US "priority," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the fugitive anti-hero.

"We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," Sessions, America's top cop, said at a news conference in response to a reporter's question about a US priority to arrest Assange.

The Justice Department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented.

"This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious," he said.

"Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail."

Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter.

Several other media outlets also cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange. The Justice Department declined to comment on the reports.

Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies.

He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010.

Assange's case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic party.

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US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election.

Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump.

Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agency's top-secret hacking operations.

The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence.

Supporters of WikiLeaks say it's practicing the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.

- 'Hostile intelligence service' -

CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week branded WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service," saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators.

Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States.

"WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence... And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations," said Pompeo.

"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is -- a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia."

The day before Pompeo spoke, Assange published an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which he said his group's mission was the same as America's most respected newspapers: "to publish newsworthy content."

"WikiLeaks's sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths," he said, professing "overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America."
Los Angeles (AFP) - The University of California at Berkeley on Thursday reversed its decision to cancel a talk by right-wing commentator Ann Coulter, offering a new date and venue for the event.

University officials on Wednesday had defended their decision to scrap the firebrand pundit's April 27 appearance at the famously progressive campus, citing security concerns and several recent political protests that had turned violent.

Coulter had lashed out at the decision, saying it was an attack on free speech, and had vowed to defy the university and speak at the campus anyway on the scheduled date.

University Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said Thursday that given Coulter's insistence on giving her talk despite security threats, a new venue was sought.

"Fortunately, that expanded search identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available on the afternoon of May 2," Dirks said in a statement. "While it is not one we have used for these sorts of events in the past, it can both accommodate a substantial audience and meet the security criteria established by our police department."

But Coulter appeared to balk at the new date and venue, saying in a tweet that the school was imposing new restrictions on the event.

"Berkeley just imposed an all-new arbitrary & harassing condition on my exercise of a constitutional right," the post said.

It was unclear if she would agree to the new date.

The decision to shelve Coulter's appearance at the campus that gave birth to the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s came days after opponents and supporters of President Donald Trump clashed in the city.

It also echoed a similar cancellation in February of a planned speech at the university by right-wing provocateur and former Brietbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, following violent protests.

University officials said they had learned that some of the groups that took part in recent clashes planned to target Coulter's appearance.

They said security concerns mounted last week after posters appeared on the walls of campus buildings threatening disruptions.
Brussels (AFP) - Britain may be leaving the EU but it will still have to settle the divorce bill in euros, not pounds, according to an EU document on the upcoming negotiations.

"An orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union requires settling the financial obligations undertaken before the withdrawal date," said the European Commission document seen by AFP Thursday.

"The agreement should define the precise way in which these obligations will be calculated... the obligations should be defined in euro," it added.

The document did not say how much the Brexit settlement might cost but EU officials have previously said it could be as much as 60 billion euros, sparking howls of outrage in London, which puts the figure nearer 20 billion.

Titled "Non Paper on key elements likely to feature in the draft negotiating directives," the document was drawn up for the European Commission, which will conduct the Brexit negotiations with Britain.

It covers in more detail the same ground outlined last month by EU president Donald Tusk in response to Prime Minister Theresa May's official March 29 notification that Britain was leaving the bloc.

- Citizens' rights -

Tusk stressed then that the EU will insist on agreeing the future of citizens in Britain and the Brexit bill first before considering London's demand for a free trade pact.

The Commission document outlined its aims for a reciprocal deal for EU citizens in the UK and Brits elsewhere in the bloc, saying their rights should last "for the lifetime of those concerned" rather than giving a cut-off date.

The Brexit divorce settlement should not just be limited to workers, the paper said, and should also apply to family members who join citizens "at any point in time before/after the withdrawal date".

Residency and social security were also highlighted by the Commission as rights it will seek to protect in the two-year negotiations with London, as the two sides try to undo the mass of legislation agreed since Britain joined then European Economic Community in 1973.

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Both the divorce bill and the fate of EU citizens are expected to be among the toughest areas to reach agreement on, following a Brexit campaign that rallied against Britain's payments to Brussels and the number of migrants in the country.

Anticipating possible disputes, the draft paper envisaged setting up "an institutional structure to ensure an effective enforcement of the commitments under the agreement," while maintaining the primacy of the European Court of Justice.

For disputes outside EU law, "an alternative dispute settlement should only be envisaged if it offers equivalent guarantees of independence and impartiality as the ECJ," it added.

On a visit to London on Thursday, the head of the European parliament, Antonio Tajani, said that after Brexit, EU citizens living in the UK should have the "same rights as today".

"For us it's important to ensure that Brexit does not have any negative effects on their life and the rights they are enjoying," he said, stressing that "it is a priority and it is a red line".

Tajani, who also met with Prime Minister Theresa May during his visit, said Britain could still change its mind on Brexit.

"If the UK wanted to stay, everybody would be in favour. I would be very happy," he said.

May, who called for snap elections for June 8 seeking to increase her slim majority before gruelling negotiations with Brussels, has said several times that there could be "no turning back" on Brexit.
London (AFP) - The leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats pitched his party Friday as the best chance of softening the blows from Brexit, as he began campaigning for an election in which he is hoping to sweep up pro-European votes.

Tim Farron, whose centre-left party holds just nine seats but is hoping to make gains in the surprise election on June 8, said only the Lib Dems could prevent a so-called "hard Brexit", which would involve Britain leaving the European single market when it quits the EU.

He condemned Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to head for a hard Brexit, saying voters should see the election as a "historic opportunity to change the direction" of the country.

Britain remains deeply divided after last June's referendum on whether to quit the EU, when 51.9 percent voted for Brexit.

May made the surprise call for an election this week, hoping to capitalise on bitter infighting in the main opposition Labour party and secure a boosted majority for her Conservative party going into two years of gruelling Brexit negotiations with Brussels.

The Lib Dems too are hoping to pinch votes from Labour, which is split on how to approach Brexit as well as the future of its embattled leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Farron, making his first campaign stop in the northern city of Manchester, said the Conservatives "now assume a coronation" but that they had "every reason to be afraid of the Liberal Democrats".

The Lib Dems were junior partners in a Conservative-led coalition government from 2010 to 2015 but were then crushed in a general election when voters abandoned them due to their broken promise to halt large hikes in university fees.

A YouGov poll released Thursday put the Lib Dems on 12 percent of voting intentions, well behind the Conservatives at 48 percent.

May holds a slim majority of 17 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and polls suggest she is likely to strengthen her grip on power.

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But the premier still warned her party against complacency on Friday.

"I'm not taking anything for granted," she said on the campaign trail in her home constitutency of Maidenhead, southern England.

"The result is not certain."
By William James MAIDENHEAD, England (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that she was not taking anything for granted as she geared up for a snap election in June, in which polls suggest her Conservative party was heading for a landslide victory. May called the national election in a surprise move on Tuesday, saying it was necessary to boost her majority and provide stability as Britain gears up for two years of negotiations with the European Union about its departure from the bloc. Polls give May's governing Conservative party a lead of around 20 percentage points, enough to potentially give her a parliamentary majority of more than 100 seats, but May said she was not complacent. "The election campaign has only just begun. I'm not taking anything for granted. The result is not certain," she said in a speech at a GlaxoSmithKline factory in her electoral area of Maidenhead, west of London. The Labour party has been riven by divisions over its leader Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit, while May's commitment to a clean break with the EU has undermined support for the eurosceptic UK Independence Party. SPENDING PLEDGES While many specific policy positions have yet to be filled out, both May and her finance minister, Philip Hammond, gave the first indications on how the party's spending plans on key voter issues like foreign aid, pensions and tax will look. May reaffirmed a commitment on foreign aid spending - a pillar of predecessor David Cameron's attempts to soften the image of the Conservative party. May said that the pledge to spend 0.7 percent of national income on foreign aid would remain. Media reports had said it would be scrapped in the Conservatives' election manifesto amid opposition from some lawmakers and newspapers who said it should be spent at home instead. "Let's be clear - the 0.7 percent remains, and will remain," she said. "What we need to do, though, is to look at how that money is spent, and make sure that we are able to spend that money in the most effective way." Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who chairs the charity Christian Aid, had earlier called on May to wear the commitment as a "badge of honour". Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also called for spending to be maintained. May avoided committing to renew the government's policy of increasing old-age pensions by a minimum of 2.5 percent each year, when asked to do so by a reporter. That position was echoed by Hammond, speaking in Washington, who said the government had solved the problem of pensioner poverty. Hammond also said that 2015 manifesto commitments not to raise key taxes, made before he was appointed, were hampering his ability to manage the economy. (Additional reporting by David Milliken and Alistair Smout in London and David Lawder in Washington; editing by Michael Holden, Larry King)
We're all for interspecies friendship, but this one seems more of a case of mistaken identity.

Moonshine, an old-ish mare who resides on a farm in the south-west of Queensland, Australia, was found tending to a random orphaned calf  barely a week old  by cattle grazier Gerda Glasson.

"I'm thinking the calf must've got lost and I was looking around for the mother cow, but [the] calf got up and started walking over to Moonshine," Glasson told ABC News .

"Moonshine put her nose down as if to say, 'this is mine,' and the calf started trying to drink."

Moonshine has never raised a foal, although she did birth one a decade ago, which died. Maybe she needs a fresh opportunity in the calf. But because she doesn't produce any milk, her human owners have stepped in to feed the horse-loving baby cow.

They won't be inseparable forever, though. Moonshine is a polocrosse horse for Glasson's child.

"I can't see myself dragging a calf around to the polocrosse carnivals  it'll be a bit of a sight," Glasson told the news outlet.
By Omar Younis

MERCED, Calif. (Reuters) - The Sisters of the Valley, California's self-ordained "weed nuns," are on a mission to heal and empower women with their cannabis products.

Based near the town of Merced in the Central Valley, which produces over half of the fruit, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States, the Sisters of the Valley grow and harvest their own cannabis plants.

The sisterhood stresses that its seven members, despite the moniker, do not belong to any order of the Catholic Church.

"We're against religion, so we're not a religion. We consider ourselves Beguine revivalists, and we reach back to pre-Christian practices, said 58-year-old Sister Kate, who founded the sisterhood in 2014.

The group says its Holy Trinity is the marijuana plant, specifically hemp, a strain of marijuana that has very low levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in the plant.

Members turn the hemp into cannabis-based balms and ointments, which they say have the power to improve health and wellbeing.

More than two dozen U.S. states have legalized some form of marijuana for medical or recreational use, but the drug remains illegal at the federal level. California legalized recreational use of marijuana in November 2016.

"A sister becomes a sister through a commercial relationship and earning a wage or a commission and we want to grow this way because we want to free the women, we don't want to make them more dependent," said Kate, whose real name is Christine Meeusen.

She said the group had roughly $750,000 in sales last year, the most since it started selling products in January 2015.

President Donald Trump's administration and his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime critic of marijuana legalization, have worried some in the country's nascent legalized marijuana industry.

But the "weed nuns" say the new administration has strengthened their resolve.

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"The thing Trump has done for us is put a fire under our butts to get launched in another country," said Kate. "Our response to Trump is Canada." The group makes online sales to Canda, and hopes to launch an operation there in two months.

Sister Kate adopted the nun persona after she took part in an Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011 dressed as a Catholic nun, a look that led her to be known by protesters as "Sister Occupy.

We've gotten a few hate calls but, by and far, the Catholics understand what we're doing," she said.
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada announced new sanctions against Syria on Friday targeting officials and entities linked to the use of chemical weapons.

The measure follows an initial round of sanctions announced last week, Canada's first against Syria and its president, Bashar al-Assad, since 2014, when a conservative government was in office in Ottawa.

The United States -- which fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield on April 7 after Syria allegedly used chemical weapons against a civilian neighborhood -- has also sanctioned some Syrian entities and individuals.

The latest Canadian sanctions "affect 17 high-ranking individuals in the Assad regime and five entities linked to the use of chemical weapons in Syria," the Foreign Ministry said.

It said the new measures were meant to help pressure Syria to "immediately stop the repeated and heinous attacks against its own people."

On Wednesday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that "incontrovertible" test results had shown sarin gas or a similar substance was used in an April 4 attack that killed 87 people in Khan Sheikhun.

The sanctions target five research centers and chemicals manufacturers, as well as 17 people, the ministry said.

"Today's announcement of additional sanctions against key officials in the Syrian regime sends a strong, unified message to the Assad regime that their war crimes will not be tolerated and that they will be held accountable," Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement.

She said Canada was helping with an international investigation of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The Canadian government has allocated Can$1.6 billion ($1.2 billion) over three years to finance security, stabilization, humanitarian and development assistance in Syria and Iraq.

Canada has also welcomed more than 40,000 Syrian refugees since November 2015.
Ottawa (AFP) - Pope Francis will grant a private audience to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau next month after a G7 summit in Italy, the government in Ottawa said Friday.

"Prime Minister Trudeau will have an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis for the first time," the government said in a statement after Trudeau met with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

Trudeau was quoted saying he looked forward to seeing the pontiff.

"He is the religious leader for millions of Canadians, and our meeting will allow us to explore how Canada and the Holy See can further collaborate on a range of international issues."

The Vatican visit will be the final stop of a European tour that will take the Canadian leader to Brussels for a NATO summit on May 25.

"I look forward to next months meeting where we will reaffirm Canada's unwavering commitment to NATO, and take important steps to promote international peace and security, and a safer world for all," Trudeau said.

Canada's Senate recently lamented the North American country's low defense spending, which fall short of its NATO commitments.

Trudeau will then attend the Group of Seven summit in Sicily along with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States on May 26-27.

In Rome, Trudeau will again meet with Gentiloni.
Jeremy Corbyn has officially made the beautiful transition from leader of the Labour Party to leader of the Meme Party.

On Thursday, the internet trolled the Labour leader yet again after a very special cartoon image of Corbyn dabbing  yes, dabbing  was posted by a fan account to Twitter.

SEE ALSO: 10 things you need to know about Jeremy Corbyn's big Labour Party speech

The image featured the British politician's memorable quote from an interview on Thursday, about the rebellious plans he has in store ahead of the general election in June.

"They say I dont play by the rules  their rules ... Theyre quite right I don't," Corbyn said, practically begging to be memed.

Throw out the rules of this rigged economy and change them to benefit the many, not the few. #VoteLabour #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/5jXGWQEyBo  Jeremy Corbyn for PM (@JeremyCorbyn4PM) April 20, 2017

The internet followed the pro-Corbyn account's lead and took his epic quote (and the cringeworthy illustration of him dabbing) to another level.

@JeremyCorbyn4PM They say I don't play by the rules. pic.twitter.com/Tb7WsJHQG5  Martin Young (@martin_c_young) April 20, 2017

They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/Y0Hhzbt6z1  Sarah O'Connell (@SarahO_Connell) April 21, 2017

They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/UK20HgHUGq  Craig (@CraigWijckaans) April 21, 2017

@mrdavidwhitley They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/vXpDlAF7So  Sharon O'Dea (@sharonodea) April 20, 2017

They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/crtu4zXYfH  An Individual (@Citizen751908) April 20, 2017

"They say I don't play by the rules - their rules. They're quite right. I don't." pic.twitter.com/CNeJLPNxKf  Ern Malley (@GeoffShadbold) April 20, 2017

They say I don't play by the rules - their rules. They're quite right. I don't. pic.twitter.com/74kKM31Irc  Mr Roger Quimbly (@RogerQuimbly) April 20, 2017

"They say I don't play by the rules - their rules. They're quite right. I don't." pic.twitter.com/93LLBXXq9F  Ern Malley (@GeoffShadbold) April 21, 2017

@GeoffShadbold "They say I don't play by the rules - their rules. They're quite right. I don't." pic.twitter.com/bwgKsPSwGL  Ian MacGilp (@IanMacGilp) April 20, 2017

"They say I don't play by the rules - their rules. They're quite right. I don't." pic.twitter.com/qb1pfQjk4s  Gavalaaaaa (@gavla2505) April 20, 2017

They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/D7Nhb6oMnD  James (@matkinsj) April 20, 2017

They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/Fda4mjkrr1  Handle With Kerr (@RossKerrTweets) April 20, 2017

They say I dont play by the rules - their rules. Theyre quite right. I dont. pic.twitter.com/1raEWryM0E  Mike Pullen (@MikePullen1969) April 20, 2017

The UK general election is on June 8, and a vote for Corbyn is clearly a vote for memes.

WATCH: Lady Gaga FaceTimed with Prince William to discuss a very important issue
Paris (AFP) - A gunman shot and killed a policeman and wounded two others on the world-famous Champs Elysees avenue in Paris on Thursday night, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Here is what we currently know about the shooting, which took place just days before the first round of the French election.

- The attack -

At approximately 9:00pm (1900 GMT), the gunman pulled out an automatic weapon and opened fire on a police van just a few hundred metres from the iconic Arc de Triomphe on one of the world's most famous boulevards.

One officer was killed and the gunman fled on foot. During the ensuing gun battle -- witnesses spoke of a short but intense exchange of fire -- the suspected attacker was killed and two other officers wounded.

The Champs Elysees, busy with tourists and locals on a pleasant spring evening, became a scene of panic. Diners in some restaurants took refuge in basements while pandemonium broke out in the nearest metro station, according to witnesses.

Police sealed off the area immediately with dozens of emergency vehicles and helicopters buzzed overhead.

- Was it terrorism? -

Anti-terror prosecutors immediately took up the investigation and President Francois Hollande said it was "of a terrorist nature."

Police said the shooter was a known terror suspect who had been convicted in 2005 of three counts of attempted murder -- two of them against police officers.

The Islamic State jihadist group claimed that one of their "fighters" carried out the attack but said it was "Abu Yussef the Belgian", whereas French authorities believe the perpetrator was a 39-year-old Frenchman living in the Paris suburbs.

This raised concerns that a possible second attacker could be on the loose.

On Friday, France said they were hunting for a new suspect based on a Belgian alert received a day earlier, but it later emerged the man had handed himself into a police station in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

Story continues

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, US President Donald Trump was in no doubt, saying: "It looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It just never ends."

- What impact on the election? -

France, which has suffered from a wave of bloodshed over the past two years killing more than 230 people, has long feared an attack on the presidential election, the first round of which takes place on Sunday.

Authorities foiled an attack in the southern city of Marseille just a day before a campaign appearance by far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Polls suggest that voters have been influenced more by France's sluggish economy and sky-high unemployment than terror fears but analysts have always stressed that this would change in the event of bloodshed.

Le Pen is seen as the "hardest" on the terror threat and has switched her campaign rhetoric back to core issues of immigration and the fight against terrorism in recent days.

Some analysts have speculated that the attack could benefit conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister seen as an experienced hand at a time of crisis -- despite an expenses scandal that rocked his campaign.

The inexperienced front-running centrist Emmanuel Macron and late-surger from the far left Jean-Luc Melenchon are not seen as particular experts on security and foreign policy.

Macron is currently leading the polls but any of these four candidates could feature in the second-round run-off on May 7, surveys suggest.

burs-ric/gj/hmw
NextShark

Young An, 42, was allegedly attacked by her husband, Chae Kyong An,53, in her home on Oct. 16 after they spoke about their ongoing divorce and finances. Chae allegedly punched Young multiple times before binding her eyes, hands and body with duct tape. Before Young was driven into woods near Lacey to be buried, she managed to contact 911 and send a notification to her emergency contacts using her Apple Watch.
On Friday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced settlements with 104 car dealerships that sold vehicles with unresolved safety recalls without informing the buyers.



The settlements allow dealers to market used cars with open safety recalls as long as they disclose the issue in their advertising and in the showroom before the sale.

It's the latest wrinkle in a consumer-unfriendly trend that has opened up the sale of more potentially unsafe used cars to the public.

The settlements with the dealerships come weeks after the Federal Trade Commission gave dealers across the nation authorization to market used cars with unresolved safety recalls, as long as they provide a general statement in advertising that the cars might be subject to a recall.

The FTC settlement, from March, requires used car dealers tell customers how to check for open safety recalls. It's unclear, however, if the settlement requires dealers to disclose open recalls they already know about.

A Threat to Public Safety

Consumer groups say the incidents of consumers buying used cars with open safety recalls are becoming more common. More cars are being recalled, with automakers reporting defects in more than 50 million vehicles in each of the last three years. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 25 percent go unaddressed.

Consider the case of Christine Teasley, a mother of two in Kansas City, Kan. Twice after she purchased a 2013 Nissan Altima last July the hood flew up while she was driving, one time while she was on the highway with her kids in the back. Teasley searched for the reason this was happening online and discovered the car had two safety recalls, one for a problem with the hood latch and another for a problem with the airbag sensor. The dealer had told her about neither.

"I was just so angry," she says. "If there had been a car in front or behind me, I could have injured somebody or we could have been injured ourselves."

Story continues

The FTC settlement also resolves earlier complaints by the agency that dealers had been misleading consumers by advertising "certified preowned" and other used cars as having passed rigorous inspections or reconditioning but then selling them even if they had open safety recalls.

Consumer advocates, who had called for an outright ban on this practice, say that the recent FTC settlement could encourage more dealers to sell cars that are unsafe.

They're allowing car dealerships to mislead buyers about the safety of their cars, says Rosemary Shahan, president of the California-based Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, which is suing the agency in federal court. Two other groups are also part of the lawsuitthe Center for Auto Safety and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The new FTC rule also preempts state laws that might hold dealers liable if they sell cars with open safety recalls, says Norman Silber, who teaches consumer law at Hofstra University in New York.

Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization division of Consumer Reports, has criticized the settlement. "No company should offer to sell a car that has a defect that hasn't been fixed. It's an irresponsible practice that could put consumers at risk," says William Wallace, a Consumers Union policy analyst. Its even more deceptive, he says, if the car has been labeled certified pre-owned.

While saying that unresolved recalls pose a serious threat to public safety, the FTC noted that no federal agency currently has the authority to ban the sale of such cars outright.

Legislation for a ban has failed to advance in Congress. Federal law already prohibits dealers from selling new cars with safety recalls, and it bans car rental companies from selling or renting them.

Schneiderman's office says it doesn't have the authority to ban the sales but that Schnedierman supports state legislation that would.



In a statement released after the FTC settlement, CarMax, one of the dealers named in its complaint, said it was committed to making sure customers know about unresolved recalls on any used vehicle it sells. The company also says that because only authorized dealers can handle recall-related repairs, consumers are often better off taking their cars directly to the dealer.

Franchised car dealers have no interest in selling cars with open recalls but they often have to because the parts needed to repair the car can take months to procure, says Jared Allen, a spokesman for the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Safety Check

If youre buying a used car, be sure to take these precautions:

Check for unresolved recalls. Never take the seller's word that there are no outstanding recalls, even if the vehicle is advertised as certified, safe, or having undergone dozens of safety checks, advises Shahan. Although car history reports such as Carfax may show some outstanding recalls, Shahan says to check for recalls on the NHTSA website by entering the vehicle identification number.

Make sure any safety recalls have been addressed. Shahan recommends that before paying for the car, ask for a work order as proof.

Have the vehicle checked by a mechanic. No matter how new or clean the car appears to be, have it carefully checked by a certified mechanic for a second opinion, preferably by one experienced in auto body work in case the car was involved in an accident, says John Ibbotson, chief mechanic at the Consumer Reports auto test center. Expect to pay about $100 for the service.





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples



Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright  2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc.
By Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Friday sought to discredit billionaire businessman Guo Wengui, painting him as a "criminal suspect" whose allegations of corruption within the highest levels of the Communist Party should not be believed. Guo, a flamboyant property mogul who has held close ties to disgraced former Chinese intelligence official Ma Jian, has courted international attention with his explosive claims, most recently aired during a live television interview with the U.S government-funded Voice of America (VoA) on Wednesday. China said on Wednesday that Guo was subject to an Interpol "red notice", a fact Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang reiterated at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday. "If you are willing to believe what he said then that's your business," Lu said. "We don't believe it." The Chinese government had pressed VoA to cancel the interview ahead of time, including by summoning one of the broadcaster's Beijing-based correspondents to a meeting on Monday, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The ministry's comments come amid an apparently concerted damage-limitation effort within China highlighting Guo's reputation as an unreliable narrator. A 23-minute video, purportedly of Ma Jian confessing in detail to accepting 60 million yuan ($8.72 million) in bribes from Guo, has circulated on Chinese social media since Wednesday night without being removed by government censors who are often quick to delete politically sensitive posts or unsubstantiated rumors. The video, which was produced and posted online anonymously, has also been reported on widely by mainland media outlets, all of which are regulated by the government. Reuters was unable to independently verify the veracity of the video. The widely read Beijing News newspaper, and the respected financial magazine Caixin, also published lengthy investigations into Guo's business dealings and ties with Ma, a disgraced former state security vice-minister who was first detained in early 2015 and expelled from the Communist Party in December last year. Guo has said he left China in late 2014 after being tipped off about Ma's imminent arrest, and has not returned since his company premises were raided amid a heated dispute with state-backed Founder Securities. Since leaving, he has spent most of his time in the United States. After laying low for two years, Guo resurfaced in February and has since made wide-ranging but unverified allegations of corruption against several top Communist Party officials - past and present - and their families. He says the information was obtained from Ma, whom he concedes he held a close relationship with but denies bribing. At Friday's Foreign Ministry briefing, Lu rejected suggestions the timing of the Interpol red notice was connected to the airing of the VoA interview. "Interpol has been around for 100 years and has 190 member states," he said. "For this kind of international organization we think their actions are solemn." (Reporting by Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China has issued standardized spellings of the names of six places in a region disputed with India, in what China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday was an assertion of sovereignty. China was upset when exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom it considers a dangerous separatist, visited the contested stretch of land on the India-China border this month. Arunachal Pradesh is an eastern Himalayan region administered by New Delhi but claimed by China as Southern Tibet. Last week, China's civil affairs ministry released a list of six places in the region with what China considers to be their formal names, in Chinese, Tibetan and English. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the move was appropriate and reflected the names used by Chinese ethnic groups, such as the Tibetans, over a long time. "These names also reflect, and explain from one aspect, that China's territorial claims on Southern Tibet have an obvious historical, cultural and administrative jurisdiction basis," Lu told a daily news briefing. Indian officials have dismissed China's criticism of the Dalai Lama's second visit to Arunachal Pradesh in eight years, saying he is a spiritual leader who has a devoted following in the region. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India from Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule, says he wants genuine autonomy for his remote homeland rather than independence. Despite efforts by China and India to improve ties over recent years, deep suspicions persist, especially over their border dispute. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China must work more closely with journalists and non-government bodies to expose incidents of water pollution, an official said on Friday, after activists this week discovered two untreated cesspits filled with hazardous industrial waste. The call for a greater role for non-government organizations (NGOs) in holding polluters to account comes just when China has sought to put such groups under tighter scrutiny, amid a broader push to control civil society and keep a lid on dissent. The environment ministry and the provincial government of Hebei launched an investigation after a team of volunteers reported the cesspits, which had contaminated farmland in the northern province's Dacheng county. It was unclear how many similar pits China has, said Tian Weiyong, an official of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), urging the closer cooperation as a way of putting pressure on companies to improve environmental practices. "We are extremely open to all kinds of NGOs, the public and the media helping to provide oversight, so we can improve our environment," Tian, head of the ministry's monitoring unit, told a news conference to which foreign media were invited for the first time. Reporting on environmental violations was a form of community service, he said, adding that there were 240,000 followers of the ministry's public account for such reports on popular messaging app WeChat. "We are particularly keen for NGOs to make the most of their unique capacity and to work on this issue from another perspective, by bringing public interest lawsuits in this area." The cesspits were uncovered by the Chongqing Two River Volunteer Development Centre, based in southwest China. Its findings were "basically true", the environment ministry said on Wednesday, the same day authorities launched their inquiry. Full treatment to restore the two sites will cost 38.48 million yuan, or $5.6 million, the Hebei provincial environmental protection agency estimated on Friday. It said the pits belonged to a brick factory and a fertilizer plant, with arrests made as early as 2013 at both sites, though repeated waste treatment efforts by authorities there had proved unsuccessful. The environment ministry said it had ordered the nearby cities of Tianjin and Langfang to clean up as many as 18 cesspits in 2014, most caused by the illegal dumping of "acid waste". But the two Dacheng sites are among three in the region that remain untreated, it added. In its first "environmental census" published in 2010, China identified 5.9 million sources of pollution and 209.8 billion tonnes of accumulated wastewater nationwide. Work on an updated census will wrap up in 2019. (Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong and David Stanway; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
By Sijia Jiang HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's TCL Group on Friday said U.S. protectionism is the biggest hurdle to Chinese firms going global, and that the electronics maker had been told it may not win approval in its bid to buy a U.S. technology firm. "We have an acquisition deal in the U.S. It's been over half a year. It is still not approved by the government," Chairman Li Dongsheng said on the sidelines of an event in Hong Kong. He did not elaborate on the deal beyond saying the target is a high-tech company with product sales in the United States and manufacturing in China. "Protectionism is the biggest roadblock to Chinese companies' internationalisation," said Li, who founded the group that makes consumer electronics, display panels and home appliances. TCL is the world's third-largest maker of television sets after South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and LG Electronics Inc, and is also China's second-largest display maker. It also ranks as the world's seventh-largest handset vendor, known as the maker of phones for Alcatel SA and Blackberry Ltd. Li said the U.S. deal was "very close to approval" before President Donald Trump assumed office, after which all administrative reviews were frozen. TCL was then required to resubmit all material related to the deal and was told it may not be approved, Li said. "(The target company) has nothing to do with military. That's why I am unhappy they would not approve it," he said, declining to elaborate. He said the group is still working towards the deal and "hoping for a miracle". TCL was also seeking acquisitions in Israel and was looking at over 10 potential targets, Li said. He said the group is interested in technological companies related to TCL's business, especially in smart manufacturing, new materials, big data and internet applications. TCL Corp, the group's main entity listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange, in a statement late on Thursday said trading in its shares would be halted from Thursday, pending an announcement of a major plan. It did not elaborate. (Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Christopher Cushing)
(Reuters) - A Chinese citizen pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of trying to illegally export to China high-grade carbon fiber used primarily in aerospace and military applications, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

Fuyi Sun, 53, who pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York federal court, admitted he tried to procure the carbon fiber for the Chinese military, the statement said. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison when sentenced on July 26, it said.

A lawyer for Sun could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sun was arrested last April after he traveled to obtain M60 carbon fiber, which is used in military drone aircraft, from people working as undercover U.S. law enforcement agents, prosecutors said.

Sun began trying to acquire the carbon fiber around 2011, prosecutors said. He repeatedly told the agents the fiber he wanted would go to the Chinese military, with which he said he had a close relationship, according to charges filed against him.

Prosecutors say Sun asked the undercover agents about buying about 450 kilograms of carbon fiber for more than $62,000. When he met the agents in New York last April, they say, Sun agreed to pay $25,000 for carbon fiber.

He took steps to conceal the purchase from U.S. authorities, including asking the undercover agents to use "banana" as a code word for "carbon fiber" and falsifying customs documents.

His arrest underlined tensions between the United States and China over intellectual property rights. The FBI has said cases of economic espionage rose 53 percent in 2015, the majority of which involved Chinese nationals.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Additional reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Eric Walsh and Bill Trott)
Washington (AFP) - The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack Friday on an office of Russia's main domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, in the country's far east, a US-based monitoring group said.

Amaq News Agency, an IS propaganda arm, made the claim in a brief report in Arabic distributed on the social media application Telegram that cited a "security source."

According to the text translated into English by the SITE monitoring group, the source said an IS "fighter" attacked an FSB office in Khabarovsk, killing three people and wounding others.

Russian officials say two people were killed in the incident -- an FSB employee and a civilian. One other person was reported wounded.

The assailant was shot dead, the FSB said, adding: "There is information about his belonging to a neo-Nazi group."

The Amaq report came one day after the Islamic State group claimed an attack in Paris that left a policeman dead and two other officers wounded.

Deadly attacks on Russian law enforcement officials are rare outside the country's volatile North Caucasus region.

The country has seen significant support for far-right groups that have sparked brutal confrontations with immigrants from the former Soviet region.

Russia has been on heightened alert since an alleged suicide bomb attack on the metro in the second city of Saint Petersburg on April 3 left 15 people dead.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks at the annual LGBT Center dinner on April 20, 2017, in New York City. The Center gave Clinton its Trailblazer Award. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton jabbed at President Trumps record on LGBT rights, warning Thursday, We may not ever be able to count on this administration to lead on LGBT issues.

Clinton was receiving an award at a fundraiser for The Center, an LGBT community center in New York City, where she made the critical remarks. After losing the race for the presidency in November, Clinton initially avoided publicly criticizing her former opponent. However, after recently declaring she was ready to come out of the woods, the former secretary of state has been increasingly vocal in speaking out against the White House.

During her address, Clinton listed specific examples of Trump administration moves she said threatened the progress that we fought for, that many of you were on the frontllines for.

When this administration rescinded protections for transgender students, my heart broke, Clinton said, then pivoted to Trumps proposed budget. When I learned about the proposed cuts in funding for HIV and AIDS research, I thought about all our efforts to try and achieve an AIDS-free generation.

Some of the changes that were seeing should seem small, but they matter a great deal if youre the person affected, she continued. Others carry historic significance, like the future of the Supreme Court.

Clinton ran on a decidedly pro-gay rights platform in 2016, though she was criticized for her previous stances on some issues, such as her opposition to same-sex marriage.

As secretary of state, Clinton proclaimed, Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights, repurposing a famous line from her time as first lady. In a quieter but still significant move, she also approved a measure that allowed transgender people to change the gender listed on their passport with a doctors note.

I know the election hit a lot of us hard, Clinton told the audience Thursday. I can tell you this: Even when it feels tempting to pull the covers over your heads, please keep going.

Read more from Yahoo News:
PARIS (Reuters) - The first round of France's presidential election may be too close to call when polls close on Sunday because initial projections will not be available as early as in the past, pollsters and their watchdog said on Friday. Most polls see centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen qualifying on Sunday for a May 7 runoff, but conservative Francois Fillon and leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon are not far behind and within the margin of error. Adding to the suspense, the first polling stations to close will do so later than in previous votes. That means pollsters may not have had time to calculate first projections from partial results before 8:00 PM (1800 GMT), when media are allowed to report results. "The tighter it is, the longer we are going to wait to put something reliable out," Ifop's head of political studies Francois Kraus told Reuters, adding that only in a best-case scenario would the pollsters have a first estimate ready before 8:00 PM for media. In previous elections, the first polling stations closed at 6:00 PM, but that has been pushed back to 7:00 in part because there were too many leaks of partial results on social media and foreign news outlets before the closure of all stations at 2000. That means pollsters will only have an hour to collect partial results from the first polling stations to close, which are mostly in smaller towns, before they can run algorithms to estimate projections, Kraus said. Better projections based on results from larger towns may not be available until 8:45 PM, he added. With the later closure, anything circulating on the Internet before 8:00 PM purporting to reflect partial results would be probably be based only on rumor, the head of France's polling watchdog said. Even after that, the smoke might not clear immediately, Matthias Guyomar told Reuters. "Everything is possible. There may be big divergences (between scores) and so at 8:00 there'll be estimates. Or it may be tight and caution will prompt (pollsters) to hold off or give ranges," Guyomar said. (Reporting by Leigh Thomas; editing by John Irish)
By Sue-Lin Wong and James Pearson PYONGYANG/SEOUL (Reuters) - Even after disembarking from North Korea's Air Koryo plane at Pyongyang airport, it's difficult to miss the airline's brand. The Air Koryo conglomerate makes cigarettes and fizzy drinks, besides owning a taxi fleet and petrol stations - and all have the same flying crane logo as the carrier. The military-controlled airline expanded into consumer products in earnest in recent months, visitors to the isolated country say. It was not clear if the diversification into the domestic market was related to the loss of many international routes when the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Washington is now considering tougher measures, including a global ban on Air Koryo itself, to punish North Korea for continuing weapons tests, U.S. officials have said. But any U.S. action on Air Koryo would not be binding on other nations and would have little effect unless joined by China and Russia - both of which have sought to introduce exceptions to United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the past. "China may indeed agree to this kind of ban on Air Koryo since it seems like China and the U.S. have reached an agreement that North Korea needs to be dealt with in some way. But the question is whether Russia will agree to sanctions against Air Koryo," said Sun Xingjie, an associate professor at China's Jilin University. North Korean officials are rarely accessible to reporters, and it was not possible to get comment from Air Koryo or from the Pyongyang government. Air Koryo now flies only to Beijing and three other cities in China, and to Vladivostok in Russia. Flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait were dropped last year but just last month, Air Koryo added a route from Pyongyang to the Chinese city of Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries.. Air Koryo has 15 active planes on its fleet, either Russian or Ukrainian-made, and uses refueling, maintenance and repair facilities in China and Russia, according to aviation databases and U.N. documents. The airline has a number of domestic flights connecting the capital Pyongyang to Orang, Sondok and Samjiyon towns, according to a schedule available last year. Businesses in secretive North Korea do not publicly share information about revenues or costs, so it was not possible to determine what effect any existing sanctions have had or may have in future. But visitors to North Korea say the Air Koryo conglomerate, owned by the country's air force, is clearly expanding. CABS, GAS STATIONS In 2015, the conglomerate launched its own brand of sky-blue taxis which now parade the streets of Pyongyang alongside cabs from at least eight other state-owned companies. Air Koryo colas and cigarettes are available in shops across Pyongyang. Air Koryo started branching into soft drinks late last year, said Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which organizes travel to North Korea. It got into retail sales of petrol in January. "They have at least one petrol station in Pyongyang, perhaps two," Cockerell said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see more Air Koryo products make it to market before too long". A United Nations panel which investigates North Korean sanctions infringements said in a report in February there was an "absence of boundaries" between Air Koryo and the air force. "The airline's assets are actively utilized for military purposes," the report said. "Outwardly, this seems like a commercial airline, but in effect, this is run by the government," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea. The United Nations has not sanctioned Air Koryo, although it has accused it of being involved in the smuggling of banned goods. Civilian aircraft are exempt from the U.N. ban on jet fuel exports to North Korea when refueling overseas. Member states are required to inspect any cargo originating from North Korea, including on Air Koryo flights. In December, the United States designated Air Koryo, 16 of its aircraft and 10 of its offices as "sanctioned entities", meaning that U.S. citizens are generally prevented from engaging in transactions with them. It was not clear if the ban extended to Americans flying on the airline for tourism. Officials at Pyongyang's airport said they were unconcerned about any attempts by the global community to strengthen sanctions that could target Air Koryo directly. "We are not afraid, we have our own counter actions prepared," said a customs official, without elaborating, standing at the Air Koryo check-in counter. Kim, the South Korean professor, said any sanctions on Air Koryo would have mostly a symbolic effect. "It will not cause huge damage to the North Korean economy," he said in the Korean language. "Air Koryo is not a 'dollar box'(which makes a lot of foreign money)". (Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Washington (AFP) - The Group of 20 major economies have reached a "broad consensus" that a continued rise in protectionism would be damaging to the global economy, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Friday.

"The general mood of the discussion was a broad agreement in the direction that free trade is better for global growth," Schaeuble said following a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington.

"Protectionism would be damaging to the global economy and the concerned economies as well," Schaeuble, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the G20, told reporters, adding: "There was a broad consensus."

The ministers also agreed that growth must be made "more inclusive" in order to stem the rise of protectionism, he said.

"We need to tackle this, otherwise we will see more protectionism," Schaeuble said, adding that officials had agreed on the "need to do more" to share the proceeds of growth more equitably.

Schaeuble deflected repeated questions about the stance of the United States, saying Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had told his counterparts the incoming administration has not made any decisions on specific trade policies.

Rising protectionist sentiment in major economies, including President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on countries that have surpluses with the United States, created a tense atmosphere at the normally placid gathering of finance ministers.

The G20 officials were meeting ahead of the semi-annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, which has flagged protectionism and possible trade wars as a threat the global economic recovery, which is finally gaining momentum.

German central bank chief Jens Weidmann said the G20 is focusing more on inclusive growth because "rising inequality puts strain on potential growth" and as a result "people become more disenchanted with globalization."
Washington (AFP) - The Group of 20 major economies sent a message Friday on the threat that rising protectionism poses to the global economy, but the United States cast doubt over its adherence to that stance.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reiterated the Trump administration's emphasis on defending America against what it sees as unfair trade practices, and called on the IMF to do more in its watchdog role.

His comments came just hours after a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington which saw Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble say there was "broad agreement" that "free trade is better for global growth."

"There was a broad consensus" that "protectionism would be damaging to the global economy and the concerned economies as well," the German minister, whose country holds the rotating G20 presidency, told reporters.

That seemed to mark a striking change of tone since the last finance ministers meeting in Germany, one month ago, when the United States prevented the G20 from including a traditional pledge against protectionism in its final communique, calling the language "irrelevant."

It was unclear how far the renewed "consensus" extended. The group did not release a communique this time, and Mnuchin's statement appeared to weaken Schaeuble's declaration of unity.

Rising protectionist and anti-globalization sentiment in key economies has created a tense atmosphere at the normally placid and formulaic gathering of finance ministers, where the G20 officials met ahead of a semi-annual meeting Saturday of the International Monetary Fund.

Concerns have been fuelled by President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on countries that have trade surpluses with the United States, by the British decision to leave the European Union, and anti-internationalist rhetoric by some candidates in the French presidential election campaign.

In a short but tough statement, Mnuchin said the United States "will continue to promote an expansion of trade with those partners committed to market-based competition, while more rigorously defending ourselves against unfair trade practices."

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Trump officials have directed some of their most aggressive language at Germany and China. Mnuchin said "excessively large trade surpluses... are not conducive to supporting a free and fair trading system."

"Countries with large external surpluses and sound public finances have a particular responsibility for contributing to a more robust global economy by deploying fiscal policy aggressively to boost growth and help facilitate global rebalancing," he said.

He said the IMF should to do more to monitor these countries and "identify specific policy adjustments" they should implement.

- Make growth more 'inclusive' -

The IMF has flagged rising protectionism and possible trade wars as a threat to the global economic recovery, just when it is finally gaining momentum.

And German central bank chief Jens Weidmann said the G20 finance ministers "underlined the negative growth effects of raising barriers to trade."

"Almost everybody underscored the importance of (an) open market and free market access," he said.

Schaeuble said the G20 ministers also agreed that economic growth must be made "more inclusive" in order to stem the rise of protectionism.

"Many people feel that they do not benefit from the advantage of growth and globalization, and we need to tackle this, otherwise we will see more protectionism and countries retreating from globalization down the road," Schaeuble said.

Officials agreed on the "need to do more" to spread the benefits of growth and globalization, which includes investments in education and infrastructure.

That echoes the repeated urgings of IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde who this week has turned up the volume on the call to wealthy countries to help those left behind by global prosperity.

- US policy undecided -

On the issue of financial regulation, Weidmann said there was consensus about continuing reforms agreed previously and there were few fears about the risk of seeing erosion of the regulations implemented in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The "debate about the regulatory 'race to the bottom' has disappeared" from G20 discussions, Weidmann said.

But there, too, US actions contrasted with that statement as Trump on Friday signed an order directing Mnuchin to review the US financial regulations known as Dodd-Frank that were erected in the wake of the crisis.

"A significant amount of time has passed since the crisis. With the passage of time and with your leadership, we are now well-positioned to evaluate what works and what doesn't," Mnuchin said on Friday.

"Where we can do so, we will lift the burden of excessive regulation to make sure that banks can lend, small businesses can borrow, and American workers can thrive," he said.
On Wednesday evening, hours after early counting revealed his electoral victory, the new governor of Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, celebrated his victory at Istiqlal, the Indonesian capitals biggest mosque.

He was welcomed by Rizieq Shihab, the leader of the hard-line group Islamic Defenders Front (known by its Indonesian initials FPI). Also present were Bachtiar Nasir - a Muslim cleric who, along with Rizieq, organized a series of massive Muslim protests against Anies opponent, the incumbent governor - and Prabowo Subianto, chairman of Gerindra Party, which endorsed Anies candidacy.

Jakartas high-profile gubernatorial election is the most viciously fought in Indonesia, and seen as a stepping stone to national politics. (Indonesias current leader, President Joko Jokowi Widodo, is himself a former governor of Jakarta.) Anies won 58% of the vote according to early tallies (official results will be announced next week) and his victory is widely seen as a triumph for religious conservatism in Indonesia - momentously so. For although the country is the most populous Muslim nation in the world, political Islam has hardly made inroads until now.

A former Education Minister, Anies had been thought of as a religious moderate, but during campaigning he made unexpected overtures to hard-line Islamist groups that were using racist and Islamist rhetoric to stir up opposition to Anies ethnic Chinese, Christian rival, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (popularly known as Ahok), and calling for him to be jailed for blaspheming Islam.

Ahok, Jakartas first Christian governor in half-century, had won praise for his no-nonsense approach in managing a sprawling city of 10 million that faces numerous, seemingly insurmountable infrastructural problems. He won the most votes in the first round of election, but it was always going to be an uphill battle after his criticism of Muslim hard-liners in a campaign speech backfired and landed him in court on blasphemy charges. (Ahok is attending a hearing Thursday during which the prosecutors ask for a one-year jail sentence with two years of probation, the Associated Press reports.)

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On a visit to Jakarta on Thursday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence praised Indonesias moderate Islam following a meeting with Jokowi. But there was nothing moderate about the leading players in Jakartas elections this year. They were distinguished by their religious bigotry and fundamentalism. Rizieqs FPI thugs are notorious for raiding and vandalizing bars and night spots during Ramadan. Bachtiar has chaired a pro-family group of academics that is asking the Constitutional Court to criminalize adultery and sodomy. On Tuesday, a day before polling booths opened, Anies even compared the election to the Prophet Muhammads Battle of Badr. At that time, the Prophet said, Allahs assistance would come and the help would come if we battled to defend the poor, to defend the oppressed, he said, perhaps referring to slum-clearance schemes initiated by Ahok.

Anies victory is a victory of religious sentiment, says Alissa Qotrunnada Munawaroh, daughter of late President Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid and founder of the Gusdurian Network, which advocates for democracy and diversity. Conservative Islamic groups everywhere [in Indonesia] will surely learn from this experience. Politicians will also learn to use populism as well, she tells TIME.

Pre-election polls showed that 76% of voters were actually satisfied with Ahoks performance in running the city - but at the same time many Muslims were persuaded they should only vote for a Muslim leader. (Among them was the prominent Indonesian comic artist Ardian Syaf, who joined an anti-Ahok protest last December and later inserted Islamist references into the Marvel comic book X-Men Gold #1. Marvel has since fired Ardian.)

Read More: The Blasphemy Trial of Jakartas Governor Puts Indonesian Secularism in a Shockingly Poor Light

The coalescing of an Islamic vote is a surprisingly new development in a political scene that has always been dominated by secular parties. Indonesias Presidents have largely hailed from secular, nationalist parties (the exception was Gus Dur, a Muslim cleric whose commitment to diversity earned him the title Father of Pluralism). The main parties backing the candidates in the Jakarta election were also secular.

It is not uncommon for religious issues to factor into the electoral process in Indonesia, but they have never really been decisive. When Jokowi ran in the Jakarta gubernatorial election in 2012, with Ahok as his running mate, their opponents played the religious card against Ahok, telling Muslim voters it was haram (forbidden) to elect an infidel. The campaign didnt work: Jokowi was elected governor, and when he became President in 2014, his deputy Ahok succeeded him as Jakartas top official.

But this time, religious campaigns were aggressively conducted on social media and through sermons at mosques. There was psychological intimidation of Muslim voters as well. A number of mosques in Jakarta erected banners stating that they would not perform funeral rites for any supporters of the blasphemer. Rape threats were made on Facebook against women who voted for Ahok, echoing the rapes that took place during the anti-Chinese riots in 1998 in Jakarta.

The grassroots believes in this religious propaganda, says Suratno, an anthropologist at Paramadina University in Jakarta who specializes in political Islam. This is a failure of the pluralism that we have been proud of. He chalks up Anies victory to the same kind of populist forces responsible for a Brexit Britain and a Trump White House.

Says Alissa: A changing worldview, from inclusivity to religious exclusivity, has been going on for a while. In this election, it was amplified and became the most influential sentiment.

It is clear that the success of political Islam in the Jakarta vote lies not in party politics but in a grassroots movement. There are worries that the tactics may be emulated in Indonesias presidential election two years from now, in which Jokowi is expected to run. He is seen as a clean politician but his commitment to tolerance and diversity make him a target for hard-liners. And the brutal treatment of Ahok also raises questions over whether a member of a minority can politically succeed in a country that has - as its increasingly ironic motto - Unity in Diversity.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Photo credit: Facebook/Natalie Kennedy Zarour

From Redbook

Fact: Keeping the gender of your baby a secret and then filming the reveal is a good way to go viral (for better or worse) in a hurry. That was definitely the case for New Jersey dad Kennedy Zarour, whose over-the-top reaction to the news of his son's birth is making the rounds online.

Zarour's wife Natalie filmed his reaction to the big announcement from the vantage point of her hospital bed after her C-section was performed, sharing it to Facebook with the caption, "My husband's reaction was so worth not finding out the gender!!!!" (Let's also just take a second to appreciate the fact that Natalie had the wherewithal to film this priceless video literally moments after undergoing a Caesarean.)

It's not too shocking that a man might be excited at the idea of having a son, but Zarour's reaction was as loud, emotional, and joyful as it was for a very specific reason - he's already got 5 daughters. The new baby is the family's first boy.

Zarour, who has 3 young daughters with Natalie and adult twin girls from his first marriage, was fully prepared to hear that he'd had another daughter. "I was just waiting for them to tell me it was a girl, and they told me it was a boy, and I guess my reaction was a little insane,'' Zarour admitted to TODAY. "Insane" indeed - the now dad of 6 went from 0 to 60 in a heartbeat as soon as one of the nurses told him the baby's gender, repeatedly shouting "oh my god!" and "yeah, baby!" until the doctor literally had to tell him to sit down several times.

Natalie, for her part, was "elated" about how overjoyed her husband was and equally surprised and happy. "It wasn't a case of being excited," the New Jersey mom told Inside Edition. "We were both stunned. After 5 girls, the odds seemed to be against us, so we couldn't help but celebrate." Baby Gerard joined the Zarour family on March 8. Natalie uploaded her footage the day after his birth, but the video really went viral after being shared by Caters News on April 14.

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(h/t TODAY)

Follow Redbook on Facebook.

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Caracas (AFP) - About 50 children were evacuated from a Caracas hospital Thursday which the Venezuelan government blamed on an attack by armed gangs but the opposition attributed to tear gas used to quell unrest.

As protests and looting continued into the night following another day of clashes between police and demonstrators in the capital, the government and opposition traded blows over the events at the maternity hospital.

"I denounce before the international community that armed gangs hired by the opposition attacked a maternity hospital with 54 children," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez tweeted, noting that President Nicolas Maduro had ordered the hospital's evacuation.

But Freddy Guevara, an opposition leader, rejected the allegation, calling Rodriguez "irresponsible" and saying the evacuations were "the fault of tear gas bombs of your dictatorship."

Demonstrators have vowed not to flinch in their campaign to oust Maduro, despite three weeks of protest violence that has left eight people dead, including three on Wednesday.

Earlier Thursday police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up thousands of marchers as they reached a vital freeway in Caracas, then edged back slightly as masked protesters pelted them with stones and Molotov cocktails.

Protesters blame Maduro -- heir of the leftist "Bolivarian revolution" launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999 -- for an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Maduro says the protests seeking to oust him are backed by the United States.

On Thursday, Maduro said the opposition was ready to begin a political dialogue, which his opponents denied.
A partnership including the DuPont Co. and the University of Delaware has applied for $5 million in grants from the cash-strapped Delaware state government to help prepare the DuPont Experimental Station outside Wilmington to recruit new tenants, in hopes of generating tech jobs at small firms after DuPont cutbacks.

Delaware Innovation Space Inc. "is seeking a Delaware Strategic Fund Grant in an amount up to $5,000,000 over three years in partnership with the University of Delaware and DuPont" to get started at the Experimental Station, according to the agenda for Monday's meeting of the Delaware Economic Development Authority's Council on Development Finance.

The three-year grant, plus state economic and job programs, would be used to help attract "start-up, small, or expanding businesses with a potential for providing enhanced employment opportunities" in Delaware, according to the council.



In a statement after I asked about the request, DuPont said the company, the state and the university "are excited to establish a new hub of science and technology  a business incubator to support early-stage science-based businesses, spur creativity, and attract and retain scientific talent in Delaware. We look forward to discussing the partnership with the Council on Development Finance on Monday and sharing additional details."

DuPont, the pesticides, plastics, and synthetic fabrics-maker that was the most valuable U.S. company in the mid-1900s, built the station to develop new products.

In early 2016, the company reassigned, retired, laid off, or transferred most of its Central Research and Development group in advance of its planned merger with Dow Chemical Co. Work by groups assigned to individual DuPont businesses continues, as do projects run by Chemours Inc. and other DuPont spin-offs. See here and here and here.

CEO Edward Breen in January said the company plans to spend up to $200 million upgrading the station, which could provide research and development support for Dow and DuPont's successor companies (they plan to split into three).



Then-Gov. Jack Markell told me last year that DuPont was also seeking new tenants to share expenses at the sprawling property, which occupies dozens of brick and concrete buildings in a bend of Brandywine Creek across from the company's historic gunpowder mills at Hagley.

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The state and the company also approached the University of Delaware, whose chemical engineering department has long enjoyed close ties to DuPont, about playing a role at the center.

The station partnership is seeking cash at a time when new Delaware Gov. John Carney and state legislators are scrambling to fill the holes in their budget created last year when Delaware agreed to corporate tax cuts worth tens of millions a year to help convince Dow and DuPont to leave the headquarters for two of their planned successor companies in the state.

Delaware leaders chose to try and hang onto well-paid management and scientific jobs, and gave up taxes they were likely to lose anyway if the businesses moved to other states which were recruiting them. Now they're being asked to invest more in a post-DuPont future.

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THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Dutch timber trader Guus Kouwenhoven was convicted on Friday as an accessory to war crimes for selling weapons to Liberia's then-President Charles Taylor between 2000 and 2003 in violation of a U.N. embargo. The 74-year-old Kouwenhoven, who denied wrongdoing, was sentenced to 19 years in prison. The businessman, known in Liberia as "Mister Gus," ran two timber companies in Liberia between 2000 and 2003 and used them to smuggle weapons into the country, judges at the Den Bosch appeals court found. At the time, the country was in the grip of a civil war between Charles Taylor's government forces and several rebel groups. "These weapons were used by Taylor in an armed conflict with rebels, in which over a period of many years countless civilians were victimized," judges said in a written summary of their ruling. Kouwenhoven "has right up to the present day denied the facts and not given any clarity about his motives". Judges said they hoped that his case would serve as an example to others that do business with government's like Taylor's "that they can thereby become involved in serious war crimes". Liberia's string of conflicts since the 1990s left an estimated 250,000 people dead. Thousands more were mutilated and raped and all sides in the conflict used child soldiers. Taylor stepped down in 2003. In 2012 he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Kouwenhoven was initially sentenced to eight years by the Dutch district court for Den Bosch in 2008 on weapons smuggling charges, but was acquitted on appeal. The Dutch Supreme Court ordered a retrial on war crimes charges that led to Friday's appeals court decision. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Toby Sterling, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Egyptian-American woman detained in Egypt for nearly three years on human trafficking charges was flown back to the United States on Thursday on a U.S. military plane, accompanied by a top White House official, a senior administration official said. Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian who holds U.S. citizenship, was acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday along with seven others who had worked with street children. Hijazi was released from jail on Tuesday, having been held for nearly three years. She was flown to Joint Base Andrews, the U.S. military airfield on the outskirts of Washington. President Donald Trump had privately asked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to help out in the case when Sisi visited the White House on April 3, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Trump did not mention the case publicly when he met with Sisi. U.S. officials had raised Hijazi's case with the Egyptians soon after Trump took office on Jan. 20, the official said. Hijazi was accompanied on the flight by Dina Powell, the deputy White House national security adviser for strategy. Powell had been in the region traveling with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis. Hijazi, 30, founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children. She had been in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months. (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
The Muppets are getting ready to embark on a new mission: venturing to camps holding millions of child refugees from the Syrian civil war.

In Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, there are some 2 million Syrian children who have fled the horrors of the 6-year-old civil war to live in primitive camps. Aid organizations struggle to ensure they get the basics  food, shelter, and (relative) safety  but little else.

Thats where the team behind Sesame Street saw an opening, said Sherrie Rollins Westin, executive vice president of the shows nonprofit arm, Sesame Workshop. If there are major issues that have an impact on children, we look for where we can make a difference, Westin said, speaking this month on the sidelines of Foreign Policys CultureSummit in Abu Dhabi.

Sesame Street teamed up with the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian aid organization, to begin testing programming for children in Syrian refugee camps in Jordan in 2016. If all goes well, they hope to have Sesame Street programming running in the camps within a few years, tailored to children whose lives were upended by conflict.

Bringing furry American Muppets to Syrian refugee camps may sound like the fuzziest kind of soft power. But it could offer a glimmer of hope to children whove been robbed of a childhood. And retired military and former government officials say it could have another big side effect: helping starve terrorist groups like the Islamic State of its next generation of fighters. Cookie Monster, Elmo, and friends, that is, could pack as powerful a punch as a drone strike.

I think its a brilliant idea and phenomenally positive, said David Barno, a retired U.S. Army ranger and former commander of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. The military alone could never root out terrorism, he told FP, while childhood education is one of the most potent and underappreciated antidotes to extremism.

If were not doing enough in aid, development, childhood education, were going to have to keep fighting terrorists, he said. Almost all military folks who served out in Afghanistan and Iraq recognize that.

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The Islamic State certainly does. The terrorist group set up its own education programs to groom the next generation of fighters in Iraq and Syria. Through textbooks and phone apps, the Islamic State teaches kids math with AK-47s and grammar with tanks.

The extremists are preying upon younger and younger children, said Farah Pandith, who held senior positions in three Republican and Democratic administrations. It isnt just 25-, but 8-, 10-, 12-year-olds we need to focus on, said Pandith, former U.S. special representative to Muslim communities. The United Nations recorded 274 cases of the Islamic State recruiting child soldiers in 2016, using children to fight, execute hostages, and carry out suicide bombings.

Sesame Street offers a real alternative, said Ammar al-Sabban, a Muppeteer for the Arabic version of Sesame Street based in the United Arab Emirates; younger fans would know him better as Cookie Monster or Elmo. His passion for childhood education drove him to dump a cushy, 10-year career as an architect to grab hold instead of a red, fuzzy, bug-eyed critter.

The first Arabic version of Sesame Street kicked off in 1978 but came to an abrupt end in 1990, when its studio in Kuwait was destroyed in the first Gulf War. The United Arab Emirates revived the regional broadcast in 2015, and Sabban joined shortly thereafter.

We dont flat-out talk about it here, but whatever extremism happens usually happens because theres no alternative for people, he said. Thats where I think we make a huge difference. We get to deliver really positive messages of equality, of tolerance, of acceptance for other peoples, he said  all antithetical to the Islamic States ideology. Education is what can counter extremism.

If it sounds corny, theres hard research to back it up. A slew of neuroscience studies show the greatest return on investment is early childhood education, where brains under 5 develop at the fastest rate  and when they are most affected by conflict or trauma.

Sesame Street is in 150 countries around the world, and local versions do indeed appear to have made a difference. Take Sesame Streets show in Afghanistan, Baghch-e-Simsim, for example. The show reaches 3 million children around the country. It features Zari, a wildly popular female Muppet that focuses on female empowerment and education in a country where the United Nations estimates only 17 percent of women and girls can read or write. One study of 101 children who watched Baghch-e-Simsim showed a 29 percent increase in measures of gender equity than among children who didnt watch the show.

Or Sisimpur, the Bangladeshi version of Sesame Street that reaches 11.5 million children. Sesame Workshop commissioned a study that found 4-year-olds who watch the show scored 67 percent higher on math and literacy than those who didnt watch. Or Takalani Sesame, the South African version that was widely lauded by international organizations for introducing Kami, an HIV-positive Muppet, in 2002 at the height of the countrys AIDS epidemic.

Westin said the show hopes to have a similar impact in Syrian refugee camps, where countering violent extremism is but a welcome byproduct of the main goal: childhood education. Something more is sorely needed on that front, she noted. Only 2 percent of funding for refugees worldwide goes toward education, and only a sliver of that is focused on the early years.

This is now about how do you create a future, she said. If were not reaching children with education, then what is their path?

Reaching refugee children is as important as it has been in decades. The U.N. said that refugee numbers in 2016 are higher than at any time since World War II. Of the 65 million refugees worldwide, nearly half of whom are children, and of those 8 million are under the age of 8. And theyre not short stays. The average refugee lives in a camp for 17 years.

Pandith said the soft-power approach has to be part of a bigger, sustained effort. We tend to look at a program and say, Can this thing solve everything? It isnt just a one-off, she said. She lauded Sesame Workshops plan, and said, We need to build it into a larger mosaic of experiences. But she said the U.S. government is very slow in understanding that.

Its getting slower. President Donald Trumps proposed budget would cut all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the public TV that usually carries Sesame Street. And he has vowed to gut the soft power side of American power like the State Department and USAID, a move widely criticized by military veterans and experienced diplomats and development experts. We dont do soft power, Nikki Haley, Trumps U.N. envoy, said in April.

Barno calls that type of thinking strategic malpractice.

But Westin and her team arent waiting for the debate in Washington to play out. Theyve begun testing programming tailored to children in refugee camps, and Sabban and his friends Elmo and Cookie Monster are hopeful.

These puppets can really pack a huge punch, he said.

Photo credit: RYAN HEFFERNAN/Sesame Workshop
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The head of the European Union's executive arm will meet U.S. financier George Soros next Thursday, a spokeswoman said, as part of consultations on a new Hungarian law that has threatened to force the closure of a university he funds. The Central European University is at the heart of the latest dispute between Hungary and the European Commission in Brussels, which voices concern in many Western EU states that Budapest is infringing on rule of law and democratic standards. The Commission's spokeswoman on Wednesday said its deputy head Frans Timmermans and two other commissioners will also meet Soros next week, after Brussels already threatened Hungary with legal action over rights issues and the Soros school. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel)
By Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has no special plan if the two anti-EU candidates reach the final round of France's election on Sunday, diplomats said, leaving the bloc to brace itself and hope for a centrist victor. Even without a shock outcome, Brussels worries that neither of the more mainstream candidates can revive France's economy or help Germany confront doubts about the EU's future if they are victorious in a May run-off. Despite repeated Islamist militant attacks in France, the euro zone's No. 2 economy remains Brussels' overriding worry. Diplomats said France needs a leader who will modernize heavily-regulated sectors of the economy and tackle the rigid French labor market, helping to reverse its decline as an economic power relative to Germany over the past two decades. There is concern that neither youthful independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, who lacks experience, nor center-right former prime minister Francois Fillon, whose campaign was dogged by scandal, would have the vision or authority to bring change. "If Marine Le Pen wins the election, the European Union as we know it ceases to exist," said one senior EU diplomat who formerly served in Paris of the far-right leader who threatens to leave the EU without a quick renegotiation. "Then we have to think about other models ... There is no Plan B," the diplomat said. "The city is shivering inside," the diplomat said of Brussels. Klaus Regling, the managing director of the euro zone's bailout fund, told a forum in Washington this week he doubted Le Pen would gain support to change France's constitution to take the country out of the EU or the euro zone. "But it would mean a standstill, growth would remain low," he said of a Le Pen victory. Despite improving economic data, France's national debt is rising and the economy is barely growing. It remains uncompetitive and suffers from falling productivity, the European Commission has said, adding that recent reforms are not enough. EU leaders will be able to take stock of any first-round surprise at a summit on April 29 arranged to discuss preparations for Britain's exit negotiations. But diplomats insisted there was no plan if Le Pen and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon go into the May 7 run-off. MACRON FAVOURED IN BRUSSELS, BERLIN In a vote too close to call, some EU diplomats see pro-European Macron, 39, as the best bet to defeat Le Pen in the second round and heal Franco-German rifts inside the EU. As a former economy minister under outgoing President Francois Hollande, Macron won fans among France's EU partners through his enthusiasm for pro-business reforms. "Macron's unabashed pro-integration positions, his orthodox economic ideas and his insistence on the key relation with Berlin make him - on paper - a likely Berlin favorite," said Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, a Paris-based political analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank. With Brexit pending, Germany needs a strong France to reinvigorate the EU and make the euro zone stronger and more sustainable. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received both Macron and Fillon in Berlin. "The fact that Le Pen and Melenchon didn't go to Berlin speaks volume about the difficulties which would arise if either was elected," Lafont Rapnouil said. Macron's advisors say he wants a "new deal" with Berlin that could overcome years of tensions over reform of the euro zone, now the economic core of the 60-year-old European project. Germany is unwilling to directly help poorer euro zone states to underpin the currency area while Macron has warned that without solidarity among its 19 members, the euro may not exist in 10 years' time. President Macron would also need to show he can deliver on his economic plans. His "En Marche!" ("Forward!") movement has no seats in parliament and his pledge to cut spending by 60 billion euros ($64.48 billion) is likely to provoke protests like those against Hollande's money-saving measures in 2015. Barclays Research predicts elections in June will result in a hung parliament, with four political forces holding a roughly equal share of seats. Fillon, 63, whose poll standing is slowly recovering after a financial scandal, also speaks the language the pro-business European Commission likes to hear but wants to reduce the role of EU institutions in French life. His calls for warmer ties with Moscow are a turn-off for most European capitals seeking unity against what they see as a newly aggressive Russia. "His desire to reverse the EU's sanctions policy vis-a-vis Russia are at odds with those of Merkel," said Yann-Sven Rittelmeyer, an analyst at the Brussels-based think-tank EPC. (Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski in Washington; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Warsaw (AFP) - Europe's largest wooden church has recovered its original splendour after three years of restoration work, the coordinator of the project in southern Poland said Friday.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Lutheran Church of Peace in Swidnica was built in the mid-17th century and can hold up to 7,500 people. Its restoration was financed by Norway.

"It's a great day for our church and for the entire little protestant community in Swidnica which wouldn't have been able to finance the work by itself," coordinator Bozena Pytel told AFP.

The work cost 4.1 million euros ($4.4 million) and notably involved restoring the organ, pulpit and altar "of what is an exceptional example of Baroque art", Pytel added.

Bells chimed to mark the end of the makeover, which coincides with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the 1517 schism that created a Protestant branch of Christianity which rebelled against papal rule.

The construction of the evangelical church along with two other Protestant churches was allowed in Roman Catholic areas after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War, in what was then the Holy Roman Empire.

The church itself was intended to symbolise the end of the war and religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants.
LONDON, April 21 (Reuters) - Politicians who attack the EU agency that ruled the weedkiller glyphosate probably does not cause cancer are in danger of undermining the effectiveness of a body that is key to keeping Europeans safe, its chief warned. Bernhard Url, executive director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), said his agency is facing unprecedented criticism after concluding in November 2015 that glyphosate - one of the world's most widely used pesticides and an ingredient in Monsanto's big seller Roundup  was "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans". Attempts to discredit his agency over its assessment were "unacceptable and short-sighted", he told Reuters in a rare interview, accusing his critics of undermining science to pursue a "political agenda". "If political actors discredit scientific organisations because they don't like the outcome in one out of 100 cases, they diminish the reputation of an organisation that they as policymakers will need to rely on in future," he said. "From a political perspective it's very unwise". An international dispute over glyphosate's possible risks to human health has prompted investigations by congressional committees in the United States, and in Europe has forced a delay to a re-licensing decision for Roundup. The EU decision is now due by the end of 2017. The row erupted after the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a semi-autonomous part of the World Health Organization (WHO), said in March 2015 that glyphosate was "probably carcinogenic". Many other regulators besides the EFSA have since determined it does not pose a cancer risk, however, including the European Chemical Agency (ECHA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a joint committee of the WHO and the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Opposition in the European Union has been driven by the European Parliament's Greens-European Free Alliance and by others, including Greenpeace and a group of scientists led by Christopher Portier from the U.S.-based non-governmental organisation, the Environmental Defense Fund. Greenpeace called the EFSA review a "whitewash" that "defied the world's most authoritative cancer agency in order to please corporations like Monsanto". Portier and more than 90 scientists signed an open letter to European Health Commissioner urging EU authorities to ignore the EFSA's opinion. The Green alliance asked the EFSA to withdraw its assessment and last month urged European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to delay a decision on glyphosate until the dispute has been sorted out. It says the EFSA review was unduly influenced by industry-backed studies. Members of the European parliament (MEPs) have "serious concerns regarding the influence of industry on some of the studies used in their assessment," Bart Staes, the alliance's food safety spokesperson, told Reuters in an email on Friday. Several MEPs have asked for all the studies included in the EFSA assessment to be made public, which it says is impossible because doing so would contravene European law protecting corporate intellectual property. The agency has, however, published some 6,000 pages of data and analyses considered in the assessment, according to Url. "POLITICAL AGENDA" Url asked why complaints about EFSA's work seemed to emerge only in response to opinions that clashed with a particular "political agenda". The same political groups protesting now applauded the EFSA when it said in 2013 that pesticides known as neonicotinoids posed a risk to honeybee health, he said. "Then they said EFSA had done a great and important job and made a big contribution to the protection of public health. "But when the same system, the same people, using the same methods, produces something that doesn't fit their political agenda - an agenda that could include for example a different way of doing agriculture in Europe, or banning pesticides... they try to discredit the scientific organization." The EU imposed restrictions on the use of neonicotinoid chemicals - made and sold by various companies including Bayer CropScience and Syngenta - after EFSA pointed to risks for bees, which are crucial for pollinating crops. Since its foundation 15 years ago EFSA has issued around 8,000 scientific opinions on subjects from food additives such as acacia gum and lecithin, to plastic containers, to livestock illnesses such as African swine fever and lumpy skin disease. The vast majority of these have gone unchallenged, Url said, and have been used as intended to inform policymakers as they draft legislation on how the benefits and risks of such substances should be managed in foods for European consumers. Staes maintained his group values "the important role that ESFA plays in contributing towards the health and safety of the European public" and said it and the ECHA should be supported with more funding and better access to publicly-funded studies as "a welcome counter balance to industry driven research". Asked why he thinks glyphosate has generated such an intense battle, Url said: "Glyphosate is a very widely used weedkiller; it's linked to Monsanto; Monsanto is linked to genetically modified organisms; so it's about money, obviously, but also about the way agriculture is done in Europe. There are many people who say we shouldn't use large amounts of agrochemicals." Url said the EU's current system for risk management "works", and as a result, food is generally safe and public health is protected. Undermining its credibility poses risks for public health and for society, he argued. "If trust in scientific advice is diminished, the likelihood will be higher that ... the decisions taken will not be the best for society," he said. (This story corrects Bernhard Url's title) (Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
By P.J. Huffstutter and Michael Hirtzer CHICAGO (Reuters) - A fungus that causes vomitoxin has been found in some U.S. corn harvested last year, forcing poultry and pork farmers to test their grain, and giving headaches to grain growers already wrestling with massive supplies and low prices. The plant toxin sickens livestock and can also make humans and pets fall ill. The appearance of vomitoxin and other toxins produced by fungi is affecting ethanol markets and prompting grain processors to seek alternative sources of feed supplies. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture first isolated the toxin in 1973 after an unusually wet winter in the Midwest. The compound was given what researchers described as the trivial name vomitoxin because pigs were refusing to eat the infected corn or vomiting after consuming it. The U.S. Corn Belt had earlier outbreaks of infection from the toxin in 1966 and 1928. A vessel carrying a shipment of corn from Paraguay is due next month at a North Carolina port used by Smithfield Foods Inc [SFII.UL], the world's largest pork producer. The spread of vomitoxin is concentrated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Iowa and Michigan, and its full impact is not yet known, according to state officials and data gathered by food testing firm Neogen Corp. In Indiana, 40 of 92 counties had at least one load of corn harvested last fall that has tested positive for vomitoxin, according to the Office of Indiana State Chemist's county survey. In 2015 and 2014, no more than four counties saw grain affected by the fungus. And in a "considerable" share of corn crops tested in Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana since last fall's harvest, the vomitoxin levels have tested high enough to be considered too toxic for humans, pets, hogs, chickens and dairy cattle, according to public and private data compiled by Neogen. The company did not state what percent of each state's corn crop was tested. Smithfield would not confirm it had ordered the corn from Paraguay, but two independent grain trading sources said Smithfield was the likely buyer. A company source said corn Smithfield has brought in from Indiana and Ohio, to feed pigs in North Carolina, has been "horrible quality due to the presence of mycotoxins. TOXIN LEVELS The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows vomitoxin levels of up to 1 part per million (ppm) in human and pet foods and recommends levels under 5 ppm in grain for hogs, 10 ppm for chickens and dairy cattle. Beef cattle can withstand toxin levels up to 30 ppm. Alltech Inc, a Kentucky-based feed supplement company, said 73 percent of feed samples it has tested this year have vomitoxin. The company analyzed samples sent by farmers whose animals have fallen ill. "We know there is lots of bad corn out there, because corn byproducts keep getting worse," said Max Hawkins, a nutritionist with Alltech. Neogen, which sells grain testing supplies, reported a 29 percent jump in global sales for toxin tests - with strong demand for vomitoxin tests - in their fiscal third quarter, ending Feb. 28. "We're polling our customers and continually talking to them about the levels they're seeing. Those levels are not going down," said Pat Frasco, director of sales for Neogen's milling, grain and pet food business. The problem, stemming from heavy rain before and during the 2016 harvest, prompted farmers to store wet grain, said farmers, ethanol makers and grain inspectors. The issue was compounded by farmers and grain elevators storing corn on the ground and other improvised spaces, sometimes covering the grain piles with plastic tarps. Grain buyers say they will have a clearer picture of the problem later this spring, as more farm-stored grain is moved to market. Iowa State University grain quality expert Charles Hurburgh said the sheer size of the harvest in 2016  the largest in U.S. history  complicates the job of managing toxins in grain, especially in the core Midwest. "Mycotoxins are very hard to handle in high volume," he said. "You can't test every truckload, or if you do, you are only going to unload 20 trucks in a day. By comparison, corn processors in Iowa unload 400 or more trucks a day. BIOFUEL IMPACTS Ethanol makers already are feeling the impact. Turning corn into ethanol creates a byproduct called distillers dried grains (DDGs), which is sold as animal feed. With fuel prices low, the DDGs can boost profitability. But the refining process triples the concentration of mycotoxins, making the feed byproduct less attractive. DDG prices in Indiana fell to $92.50 per ton in February, the lowest since 2009, and now are selling for $97.50 per ton, according to USDA. Many ethanol plants are testing nearly every load of corn they receive for the presence of vomitoxin, said Indiana grain inspector Doug Titus, whose company has labs at The Andersons Inc, a grain handler, and energy company Valero Energy sites. The Andersons in a February call with analysts said vomitoxin has hurt results at three of its refineries in the eastern U.S. "That will be with us for some time," Andersons' chief executive Pat Bowe said. Missouri grain farmer Doug Roth, who put grain into storage after last years wet harvest, has seen a few loads of corn rejected by clients who make pet food after the grain tested positive for low levels of fumonisin, a type of mycotoxin. Roth said he paid to reroute the grain to livestock producers in Arkansas, who planned to blend it with unaffected grain in order to mitigate the effect of the toxins. "As long as this doesnt become a widespread problem, we're all fine," said Roth, who said toxins have shown up in less than 1 percent of the grain loads he has sold. U.S. farmers with clean corn are reaping a price bump. A Cardinal Ethanol plant in Union City, Indiana, is offering grain sellers a 10-cent per bushel premium for corn with less than one-part-per-million (ppm) or less of vomitoxin in it, according to the company's website. (Additional reporting by Karl Plume and Julie Ingwersen in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
First of all, Bangkok, the worlds street-food capital, announced that it was banning street food.

Now it has emerged that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and the Tourism Authority of Thailand want to hold a street-food festival in June.

Even more confusingly, a statement published by the state-run National News Bureau of Thailand (NNT) says that street food will be continually promoted in the Thai capital.

The announcement of the festival comes just days after the BMA reiterated its resolve to clear street vendors from all 50 districts of Bangkok.

It also comes at the same time as the granting of a partial reprieve for food vendors that occupy spots on Yoawarat - the main thoroughfare through Chinatown - and on backpacker haunt Khao San Road.

Authorities say the ban is aimed at improving food hygiene and follows complaints by residents that vendors are obstructing sidewalks. However, critics assert the crackdown is part of a series of measures by Thailands ruling junta enforcing public order and is detrimental to Bangkoks tourist appeal.

If you want to clean out all the vendors its like you are cleaning out our culture itself, Chiwan Suwannapak, who works for a Bangkok tour agency, told Agence France-Presse.

As for the street-food festival, the NNT says the number of participating streets and vendors has yet to be determined but that they will include major tourist streets in Bangkok. Few details have been offered on how the festival with coexist with the ban.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
A group of Florida firefighters showed a different display of heroism when they threw a baby shower for a soon-to-be-mother who lost all her belongings in a blaze the week before.

Read: Girl, 4, Hailed a Hero After Calmly Alerting Family to Smoke In Her Room, Stopping Potential Fire

Nicola Taylor, 30, of Broward County, was moved to tears when the Lauderhill Fire Department gifted her baby items, clothes, and a lease on a new apartment when they surprised her with a baby shower on Wednesday.

I didnt expect it, Taylor told InsideEdition.com. It took me by surprise.

The firefighters were inspired to raise money for a baby shower after they noticed baby items in what remained of the burned-out apartment after rescuing Taylor earlier this month, according to fire department spokesman Captain Jerry Gonzalez.

The soon-to-be-mom was just weeks from giving birth to a baby girl, Nickayleah, when she woke up from a nap to smoke filling her apartment. Also living in the apartment was her 50-year-old dad, her cousin, and her cousins baby.

I was blindsided," she recalled. "Getting out was my main goal at the time. The smoke was heavy and black. I couldn't see what was going on."

Read: Goat Gifted to 10-Year-Old as Early Birthday Present Saves Family From House Fire

Although she and her baby made it out safely, Taylor lost all of her belongings, including gifts from her birthday and a baby shower her coworkers threw for her just days before the fire.

The apartment was completely gutted down to the concrete, Gonzalez told InsideEdition.com. Theyre a low-income family. They had all these gifts in the apartment, and everything was lost.

Firefighters on the scene then watched as Taylor was wheeled to the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation. They later learned that she had lost her previous baby.

A lot of young guys we have in our department are new dads themselves, so it touched their hearts, Gonzalez explained. They wanted to do something.

Story continues

The firefighters started by collecting donations among themselves before reaching out to the community for help. Eventually, they started a GoFundMe campaign, and after a week, they had collected more than $5,000 in cash, and several thousand more in items like a crib, diapers, clothes and even beds for the family.

Read: Couple Loses 2 Children in Deadly Fire, Months After Blaze Claimed Their First Home

Using the money they raised, firefighters were able to find Taylor and her family a new apartment and put down a deposit as well as pay off the first three months of rent.

We really appreciate it, Taylor said, adding that their new home is nicer than the last one we had.

Watch: Firehouse Welcomes 6 Babies in 7 Months: 'We've Been Having a Baby Shower Every Month'

Related Articles:
A former police officer was arrested Thursday and charged with a string of armed robberies throughout Greater Cincinnati, according to the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office. Jacob Goodwin, 30, is accused of robbing five businesses -- three convenience stores, a CVS Pharmacy and Pearl's Bar -- between March 22 and April 15. A news release from the sheriffs office said Goodwin drove the same vehicle to each location and either brandished or implied possession of a firearm as he committed the crimes.
The attack Thursday on the Champs Elysees in Paris, which killed one police officer and wounded two others, is the latest terrorist assault in a country that has been repeatedly struck by jihadist militants in recent years. Since 2012, terrorists have attacked targets including a Jewish school near Toulouse; the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher market; the Bataclan concert hall and several other locations in Paris in a coordinated act of violence that killed some 130 people in November 2015; and a seaside promenade in Nice on Bastille Day 2016 in a truck attack that killed more than 80. In all, well over 200 people have died in the recent attacksand ISIS has claimed responsibility for many of them, including Thursdays.

That attack came three days before a crucial presidential election in which Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Front, is expected to reach the second round. Le Pen has channeled voters anger and frustration over terrorist violence to call for tougher immigration restrictions. Incidents like Thursdays that appear to show ISISs capability to strike at will in the heart of Europe could embolden her campaign and those of other far-right parties.

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Despite the mass-casualty assaults ISIS has claimed in Paris and Nice, many recent attacks attributed to the group have been smaller in scale; the toll from Thursdays so far stands at one fatality. But the psychological impact could be far-reaching. The incident has occurred in an environment of skepticism and fear about increased immigration; a migrant and refugee crisis stemming largely from the Syria civil war that Europe has been unable to cope with; and continuing economic upheaval.

Thursdays attack appears to have been carried out by a single gunman, and the ISIS claim of responsibility was unusually swift in coming; the group often waits a day or two before issuing a formal claim, if it does so at all. In asserting responsibility via its official news agency Amaq, the group identified the attacker by the name Abu Yusuf al-Beljikias Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times wrote on Twitter, this is a nom de guerre that translates to Abu Yusuf the Belgian. If indeed the attacker was Belgian, he would be the latest in a line of attackers in France who originated in Belgium. French authorities claim to have identified the attacker but did not publicly name him. Separately, Reuters reported Thursday that French police had issued an arrest warrant for a second suspect who reportedly arrived in France from Belgium by train.

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Belgian citizens were connected to the November 2015 Paris attacks. At least one of those attackers, in turn, was later linked to an attack in Brussels in March 2016 that killed 30 people. As I wrote at the time:

There were warning signsseveral of thembefore the Brussels attacks: Belgium has long been known as Europes hub for Islamist radicals. More Belgians have joined ISIS as a proportion of the population than have people from any other Western country. Many of the Paris attackers were Belgian nationals or residents. One particular Brussels neighborhood, Molenbeek, has come under scrutiny from counterterrorism officials as well as the media as the epicenter of Belgian jihadism. Another, Schaerbeek, where police raids in the aftermath of Tuesdays attacks were carried out, will likely face similar scrutiny soon. Europol, the EUs police agency, warned as far back as January that ISIS special forces had planned to target European cities in attacks like those on Mumbai, India, in 2008.

ISIS, despite recent territorial losses in Iraq and Syria, clearly remains capable of striking Europeor at least inspiring followers to strike there. In the closing stages of a heated presidential campaign in France, it may be capable of swaying the countrys politics, too.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
PARISWhen French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron stepped on stage at the AccorHotels Arena Monday afternoon for his final major rally before the first round of voting, 20,000 people filled the stands, and many others watched on screens outside. Do you hear the murmur of spring? Its the sound of a page of political life turning, that you are turning, he said. Do you know what will happen next week? On Sunday, we will win, and it will be the beginning of a new France!

That Macron can draw a thousands-strong crowd is stunning: A year ago, Macron had no party, no operation, and was still serving as economy minister under President Francois Hollande. Today, with a quarter of a million members in his En Marche (On the Move) movement, he has cemented his status as a frontrunner in the French electionand if the polls are correct, he is the likeliest next president of France.

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The 39-year-old candidate has managed to do something that, at least in France and certainly in the United States, is next to impossible: He has created a political movement of his own, one with a real chance at victory, and all in just over a year.

The political headwinds of 2017 have helped Macron along: Casting himself as an outsider in a season of extreme anti-establishment animus has bolstered his case, and hes benefited from center-right candidate Francois Fillons scandals and the shrinking support for Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon. Macron bills himself as a centrist candidate who can combat the populist appeal of the far-right National Fronts Marine Le Pen.

But if Macron advances to the second round of the French presidential election, it will be in large part because of the unprecedented operation of supporters and campaign volunteers hes built, using U.S.-style mobilization techniques that, in some ways, mirror the organizational style of Barack Obamas campaigns. Today, En Marche has more than 3,900 local volunteer committees and hundreds of small events each day across the country.

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Macrons team clearly welcomes the association with the former U.S. president: Just three days before the election, they released a video of their candidate speaking with Obama by phone, in which Obama wishes Macron good luck with his campaign and Macron responds by saying hed like to discuss how to work together with Obama. (Obamas team later clarified that the phone call didnt include any sort of formal endorsement.)

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Should Macron win the presidency, his victory will serve as a repudiation of the French political establishment and as a vindication of a type of technology-driven, volunteer-heavy campaigning that is still new in France. But if he underperforms on Sundayor, should he advance to the second round but then lose to Le Penit will be a signal that Obama-style mobilization efforts aren't enough to stop a populist candidate.

Macron, a product of the prestigious Paris Institute of Political Studies and Ecole National dAdministration, has the profile of an establishment figure in the French elite: After four post-graduate years at the Ministry of Economy, he left to work for Rothschild Bank, then returned to government in 2012 as an adviser to Hollande. In 2015, Macron announced he was no longer a member of the Socialist Party but an independent; he resigned his post as Economy Minister in August 2016, then formally launched his campaign that November. In a sense, having no solid electoral experience has made him something of a cipher, vulnerable to being characterized by the left as just another technocrat. In an anti-establishment environment, he needed to project an image different from that of his former Socialist Party colleagues.

As Macron mulled an independent presidential bid last spring, he and his advisers sought to answer one main question: What would help them succeed where other upstart political movements had failed? The cost of a campaign may be far lower in France than in the United States, but the two major political parties in France, the Socialists and the Republicans, are decades-old forces with extensive resources and party members that make it tough for anyone else to truly compete. Since the start of the French Fifth Republic in 1958, no independent candidate has successfully captured the presidency.

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So Macron turned to three young Frenchmen who got their start in politics as volunteers for Obamas 2008 campaign, and who now run a political consulting and technology firm in Paris. Guillaume Liegey, Arthur Muller, and Vincent Pons met in BostonLiegey and Muller studied at Harvards Kennedy School of Government, while Pons was a graduate student at MITand, after Obamas victory, decided to explore which Obama-style tactics theyd be able to bring to France.

While French privacy laws don't allow campaigns to target voters on an individual level, the Obama alums still saw an opening for the signature mix of technology and traditional in-person volunteer interactions pioneered by Obamas army of 2008 volunteers. Liegey, Muller, and Pons created an algorithm that combined census data with past precinct-level election results to narrow down where a particular campaign should focus its effortsnot to individuals, but to neighborhoods. They applied that approach when they ran ground operations for Hollandes 2012 campaign, aiming to knock on 5 million doors nationwide and using their data to determine which areas their 80,000 volunteers should emphasize. They credit the campaigns extensive canvassing effortwhich was, at the time, a brand-new concept in French politicswith helping Hollande notch a narrow victory over incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Macron, though, needed something completely different in 2016: He needed to get a head start on organizing for the 2017 campaign, in a way that actually connected with voters and potential supporters far out from Election Day, even before he had officially announced his candidacy.

What resulted was the Grande Marche, a nationwide door-to-door campaign that aimed not to secure votes but to function as a sort of listening tour across France. Macrons team wanted to know what French voters were thinking, which issues interested them most, and what they liked and didnt like about the countrys politics. They used Liegey, Muller, and Ponss algorithms to identify precincts and neighborhoods that were representative of France as a whole. The Grande Marche was a way for Macron to indirectly reintroduce himself to voters and cast his movement as one that was expressly of the people.

Through the spring and early summer, Grande Marche volunteers knocked on roughly 300,000 doors, collecting more than 25,000 interviews with voters. While typical door-to-door interactions lasted only a few minutes, the volunteers spent an average of 14 minutes with each person who opened the doors to let them inside.

The Grande Marche was unprecedented in France, both for its scope and for how long before Election Day it was conducted. The effort also benefited Macrons campaign because it served as a training ground for new volunteers, many of whom had never volunteered for a campaign before.

The idea was not to gain votes, but to get a better understanding of the country and to give meaningful experience to the new En Marche volunteers, because many of them had never knocked on doors, Liegey said. And they loved it.

Its quite a start-up model. Its not top-down management.

After the Grande Marche, Macrons team created a database of quotes from the tens of thousands of voters they interviewed. That database, searchable by issue and region, has helped inform the campaign teams communications with voters since: Whenever they needed a quote from a teacher in Strasbourg about education or a farmer in Provence about the European Union, they had relevant quotes on hand that had been collected by their own volunteers. The comments they received were then integrated in the months-long process of crafting Macrons programme, or policy platform, which was released in late February.

Since then, Macrons campaign has worked to implement some of the same kinds of grassroots volunteer structures pioneered by the Obama campaign in 2008: In Paris, for example, each one of the 20 arrondissements has a referent, or a local leader, who coordinates volunteer and campaign activity in that district.

You show people you care, because youre here, Laurent Saint-Martin, the referent for the 17th Arrondissement of Paris, told me during a recent meeting of local volunteers at a neighborhood cafe. The main risk [for people] to vote for populism is when they feel lost.

In the 18th Arrondissement, emails go out several times a week notifying supporters of potential volunteer opportunities. Justine Henry, 28, is the referente; nine group leaders report to her, all of whom help oversee the more than 150 regular volunteers (and the 3,000 supporters) in the neighborhood. On Tuesday night, Henry and 17 other Parisians gathered at a small cafe for one such event: a dinner aimed at introducing new supporters to the party. Going around the table, Henry asked the participants to explain why they were there. Did they have any questions about Macrons platform? Were they interested in volunteering during these crucial final days?

Its quite a start-up model, which is great because people can find a place if they want to, Henry said. That way of letting people take initiativethis is really good, its not top-down management.

Even though Macron has largely relied on volunteers for canvassing, all his strategy consulting and campaigning has come at a cost. In mid-March he said he was finalizing a personal loan to his campaign worth 8 million Euros, and by the start of April his campaign had reportedly raised 9.3 million Euros. Macrons commitment to U.S.-style politics, backed by data and technology, can be a major assetbut theres also the danger that, if it looks too sleek, his operation could turn off voters who in their desire for change are looking for something that feels more authentically insurgent. The two other non-major-party candidates doing well this year, Le Pen and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, are conducting decidedly less high-tech voter turnout operations, yet are both gaining ardent followers.

While the presidential election is En Marches first test, an equally important one will be in the parliamentary elections in June. Typically new presidents have no trouble winning strong mandates in the parliamentbut, should Macron win the presidency, hell have to start from zero with his parliamentary majority as well. Macron has said hell field candidates for all 577 legislative districts, with a focus on increasing representation among women and among people without government experience.

The Macron campaigns first announced candidates include a 33-year-old startup staffer in Paris, a farmer in the Creuse region of France, and a hospital director in Toulouse. To fill the hundreds of other candidate spots, En Marche put out a public call for people interested in running. By the end of March, the party had already received 14,000 responses.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Kunta Kinteh Island (Gambia) (AFP) - As the rebel slave who defied his captors, Kunta Kinte, immortalised in print and on screen in "Roots", put The Gambia on the map for historical tourism.

But the island where he and tens of thousands of west African slaves faced the horrors of being chained, branded and separated before leaving their homeland forever, is under threat from sea erosion and neglect.

Kinte's descendants, along with heritage officials, warn that without urgent action, 550 years of history could be lost.

They are pressuring the new government to preserve the country's historical memory for the next generation of Gambians and tourists.

The island's namesake sprang to fame as the central character in American author Alex Haley's "Roots: The Saga of an American Family".

The late Haley claimed to be a descendant of Kinte but doubts have been cast over the authenticity of this claim.

Although "Roots" has been criticised for historical inaccuracies, it indisputably heightened awareness of the horrors of the slave trade when published in 1976.

The UN's cultural agency awarded the island World Heritage status as a memorial to an "important, although painful, period of human history", spanning the arrival of Portuguese traders in the mid-15th century through to its use as a holding cell for illegal slavers after Britains abolition of the trade in 1807.

The parched-looking trees and brick ruins that occupy the island once housed dozens of captured west Africans awaiting passage to the New World, but whole sections of the slaves' quarters have already been reclaimed by the river's salty waves and high winds.

- Decades of neglect -

For Hassoum Ceesay, a historian and official at The Gambia's National Centre for Arts and Culture, it is time to seize the chance to reverse what he describes as two decades of neglect under former leader Yahya Jammeh, or risk losing the island.

Story continues

"We are very hopeful that with this new government there will be more attention paid," he told AFP in a book-lined room at his home near the capital, Banjul, referring to President Adama Barrow, who took office in February.

"There was a lot of pressure, particularly from the former president, to sort of sift the history of the island," he said. "We resisted, and that resistance made the government reduce its attention and support."

He said that Jammeh even added mandatory days in his home village, Kanilai, to a tour aimed at diaspora tourists as part of a "Roots" festival, even though it is unrelated to the site.

Tourism numbers were badly hit by the protracted political crisis caused by Jammeh's refusal to quit after 22 years at the helm when he lost an election in December, another concern for heritage experts.

UNESCO, which declared the island and its nearby villages a World Heritage site in 2003, describes it as "extremely vulnerable to erosion" and "needing protection". It is dispatching a team this summer to assess the site's condition.

Visitors need only glance at old maps to see by how much the former fort, which passed between Portuguese, Dutch, French and British hands, has already receded -- to a sixth of its original size by some estimates.

"The island was reclaimed from the river, so as time went on, with global warming, erosion became more pronounced," Ceesay said.

He wants the international community to undertake a total revamp of Kunta Kinteh island and related sites, which include a colonial warehouse and a Portuguese settlement.

Ceesay hopes the island can attract funding to ensure its future and wants to see investment in tour guide training, a resource centre, more focused educational tours and the development of the River Gambia for pleasure cruises.

- National hero -

In this small, poverty-stricken and largely rural nation, national heroes such as Kinte are few and far between and citizens feel that much is at stake.

Speaking at her family compound in the village of Juffureh close to the island, Mariama Fofana, believed to be an eighth-generation descendent of Kinte's, said young Gambians see him as "a role model and someone who believes in the values they stand for."

It was, she said, "a concern to everyone, (that) the island is getting eroded each and every day," urging international donors to provide funding that the cash-strapped government may not be able to afford.

Everything from naval ships to beach bars are named after Kinte in The Gambia, and his story has seen a renaissance with a recent remake of the "Roots" mini-series, and a name check in US rapper Kendrick Lamar's recent single "King Kunta".

But the slave who refused to take the name given to him by his American owners, and whose foot was cut off after multiple escape attempts, according to Haley's account, still inspires pride.

"We need to know about our history. That is the only way we can truly understand our potential," said Lamin Jammeh, a 17-year-old secondary school student who was waiting to visit the island for the first time.

Learning about Kinte was a way to "learn and start moving forward," he added.
A waitress was left in tears after a generous customer left her $500 for a new hearing aid.

Keri Marie Carlson met the kind stranger while seating a group of diners at GW Carsons in Branford, Conn., on April 10. As they chatted, the man noticed she was wearing a hearing aid.

Read: Waitress Receives $450 Tip as Gesture of Unity From Diner With Contrasting Political Beliefs

"We got into talking about not being able to hear," she told InsideEdition.com. "However, I kept asking him to repeat himself a lot. He asked me if two aids would help and I told him I normally wear two, I just broke one not too long ago."

She handed the table over to another server and settled down to have her own lunch.

"As I am stuffing my face with food, [the customer] comes in the back and says, 'I want you to have something,'" she recalled. "I look at him all puzzled."

Incredibly, he handed her $500 cash, and told her, "I am not taking no for answer, I want you to have this... Here is $500 to help you out with whatever you need," she said.

Carlson was stunned.

"My breathing and heart rate increased, tears came pouring out of my eyes and I cried in that man's arms," she said. "I was, and still am, in shock that it even happened."

Carlson lost her hearing when she was 4 in a car accident but it took her three years to get her first set of hearing aids. Before she did, "we just thought I had a learning disability," she said. "I stayed back in first grade due to that."

Over the years, her hearing has become worse and she now relies on lip reading and hearing aids to work at GW Carsons - a job she adores.

Read: Best of Friends: Deaf Girl Teaches Sign Language to Her Deaf Dog

She said she's so grateful to the man  whose identity she is keeping hidden  for helping her out when she needed it.

"Thank you so much from my humble heart for this amazing gift," she said in a message directed at her new friend. "You helped me believe there are still good people out there."

Story continues

Now the owner of GW Carsons, Jim Kirtopoulos, is following the man's example. He's donating a portion of the proceeds from the restaurants T-shirt sales to the American Society for Deaf Children.

Watch: Bride Signs Lyrics to Father-Daughter Dance Song for Deaf Dad

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This poor puppy might not have survived without the help of a good Samaritan, who walked into a busy highway to rescue the stray.

Read: After Stray Dog Joins Runner on Grueling 155-Mile Race, He Fights to Bring Her Home

Veterinary surgeon Ovidiu Rosu of Bucharest, Romania, noticed the dog, which appeared to be marooned in the middle of a busy freeway.

"She must've been abandoned right on the side of the motorway, he explained. And when trying to cross it, she must've gotten too scared to make it to the other side.

In dramatic footage shared by Caters News, Rosu could be seen crossing into the center median and attempting to pull the stray dog out of harms way as cars zoomed past them.

"The hardest part was to gain her trust as I approached her, the last thing I wanted was for her to get scared and run in front of traffic, he explained. Luckily, I managed to approach her quite easily. She really is a lovely dog.

Read: Dog Stabbed 19 Times Adopted by First Responder Who Rescued Her

He named the stray Berta, and was able to care for her at his house until he found a forever home for the pup.

And while they've found many potential adopters for the pup, Rosu said, I will be sad to see her go.

Watch: The Dramatic Transformation This Dog Made After She Was Discovered in Tar-Filled Container

Related Articles:
Paris (AFP) - Julianna Margulies, star of "The Good Wife", plans to produce a television series based on the stories of female reporters during the Vietnam War, the actress told AFP on Friday.

The 50-year-old American has teamed up with three other women including a writer and a director for her first production credit.

The as yet unnamed series will be based on the book "War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam".

"We're working on a pilot now," and have sold the series, said the actress in an interview at the Series Mania festival in the French capital.

Margulies recently turned down a role in "The Good Fight", sequel to "The Good Wife", in which her character returns to work as a lawyer after her husband is jailed in a corruption and sex scandal.

"I had to say goodbye to (Good Wife lead character) Alicia Florrick," after seven seasons in the role, she said.

"Alicia doesn't wear her emotions on her sleeves the way I do. I am an actress and a Jewish woman... very opinionated and emotional," said Margulies, laughing.

"I grew up with her, I got the time to experience her and change with her. I loved the challenge of playing someone very guarded."

This July, Margulies will play the role of a Syrian Jewish woman who changes her view on life while going through last stage breast cancer treatment.

The story, set in Brooklyn, is of a woman who no longer wants to be a complacent housewife, said the actress.

As for another television series, Margulies said she now had some conditions for such work.

"I am open to anything, it just can't be anything medical or legal," said the actress alluding also to her breakout role in medical drama "ER", also setting a 10-episode series limit.

"I can't sign up for 22 episodes again, it takes too much out of your life," she added.
Athens (AFP) - Greece in 2016 registered a primary surplus of 3.9 percent of output, the statistics agency said Friday, in a key announcement for the country's reform talks with its creditors.

Under the bailout, Greece needed to clock a primary surplus -- or budget surplus before debt repayments -- of 0.5 percent of output in 2016, followed by 1.75 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2018.

However, the state statistics agency insisted that the figures, although in line with EU guidelines, were not strictly comparable as they were calculated differently.

The statistics agency did not release a bailout-related surplus figure on Friday, and the agency did not respond to calls.

Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos later said the actual bailout-appropriate figure was 4.19 percent, an increase of over eight times the target.

Hours before the figures were released, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in an article to the Wall Street Journal that the economy had once again "overperformed".

The announcement came as Greek officials aim to reach agreement on reform goals with the creditors in talks resuming next week.

Also Friday, the International Monetary Fund convenes in Washington for its spring meeting where Greek officials hope to secure fresh pledges on debt relief support.

In its announcement, the Greek statistics agency said the debt stood at nearly 315 billion euros ($338 billion) or 179 percent of output, up from 177.4 percent in 2015.

Eurozone nations including Germany want the IMF to retain a central role in supervising Greek reforms, but the global lender says it will only do so if it is satisfied that estimates of Greek recovery are not over-optimistic.

The eurozone says Greece can deliver a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP in 2018 but the IMF has said only 1.5 percent is feasible.

In his Wall Street Journal article, leftist PM Alexis Tsipras said the EU-IMF squabble was holding back Greek recovery.

Story continues

- Temporary factors? -

"We have committed to fulfilling the obligations undertaken to our creditors despite the political cost," Tsipras said.

"But the safest way to ensure this is by boosting growth and ending the punishing policies of the past," he said.

In a report on Wednesday, the IMF estimated the Greek 2016 primary surplus at 3.3 percent, noting that it did not have final figures for a definitive result.

IMF fiscal affairs department director Vitor Gaspar acknowledged that the figure was "significantly stronger" than the agency's prior forecast, but attributed it to "temporary factors."

Critics note that the government secured the result partly by holding back over three billion euros owed to state providers.

In Athens, the government noted that just a few months earlier the IMF had predicted a primary surplus of 0.1 percent for 2016.

The IMF has consistently argued that Greece will need significant cuts to be able to reach a primary surplus of 3.5 percent in 2018.

"The IMF sees a primary surplus of 1.5 percent as an appropriate level to be sustained over the medium to long run," Gaspar had told reporters on Wednesday.

But the Greek government insisted that based on the performance of the economy, which it says the Washington-based lender has consistently failed to gauge accurately, there will be no need for additional measures in 2018.

"Targets for 2017 and 2018 will be attained," Tzanakopoulos said on Friday. "The 2016 result leaves no doubt on that."

A compromise is required to sign off on a second review of the bailout programme and unblock a tranche of loans Greece needs for debt repayments of seven billion euros this summer.

The review is expected to resume next week.
Cairo (AFP) - The Islamic State group's rushed claim of responsibility for Thursday's Paris shooting suggests it wanted to heighten the attack's impact, but in its haste may have mixed up the attacker's identity.

IS's initial claims of responsibility are usually released by their self-styled news agency Amaq on the social media application Telegram.

But Thursday's claim, which came briefly after the attack, was unusual both in its alacrity and also in identifying the attacker by his epithet: Abu Yussef al-Belgiki, or the Father of Yussef the Belgian.

In previous attacks in the West, claims on Amaq often came up to a day later. For example, IS claimed an October Hamburg stabbing almost two weeks later.

"The claim was much faster than it has ever been for this kind of attack," said Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College, London.

"The sooner the claim comes after the attack, the more easy it is for the organisation to amplify it," he added.

For their more spectacular attacks, the Amaq bulletin -- often a terse sentence saying the attacker belonged to IS -- is often followed by a longer statement with details on the attack and assailant.

This second statement, published on IS's "Nasher" Telegram accounts, may be followed by a picture of the attacker or a video of him pledging allegiance to IS, again sometimes days later.

But in the case of the latest Paris attack, in which the shooter killed a policeman, no further statement was forthcoming.

The identification of the attacker by Amaq, and naming him as a Belgian rather than the French assailant who was shot dead as he fled, also raised questions.

The 39-year-old assailant, Karim Cheurfi, had a long criminal record and had been briefly arrested on suspicion of wanting to attack police.

- Direct communication? -

He may have identified himself as Belgian in communications with IS handlers, but that is unlikely. French IS members are usually identified as such, with the epithet al-Faransi, or "the Frenchman".

Story continues

"The unusual willingness of IS to provide an alleged kunya (epithet) after the commission of yesterday's shooting in Paris suggests there may be more here than meets the eye," Jade Parker, an expert on IS, said on Friday.

"Whether IS had foresight of the event, mistook yesterday's attacker for someone else or simply made an imbecilic error remains to be seen," said Parker, Senior Research Associate on Terrorist Use of the Internet at TAPSTRI, a private counterterrorism firm.

Another expert on the jihadists, Amarnath Amarasingam, said Amaq's identification of the attacker and his description as an Islamic State "fighter" meant "they likely thought someone they knew had carried out the attack".

"It's probably why they were confident enough to name him," said Amarasingam, a senior research fellow with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank.

The mystery grew after police found a handwritten note praising IS near the slain attacker.

It suggested that he had wanted the group to be aware of his loyalties, possibly through media reports.

In its propaganda, IS had called on attackers in the West to leave behind such notes to enable the group to claim responsibility.

But the speed of the claim also suggested that IS had advance knowledge of the attack, and the presumed identity of the assailant.

"Let's say the ID of the guy was correct. What that claim demonstrates undeniably was the attacker was in direct communication with someone who has a line straight to Amaq," said Winter.

"It could be they thought one guy was carrying out the attack and it turned out to be another. It could just be they were plain wrong."
Hawaii lawmakers have been criticizing U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions who spoke dismissively Wednesday about the state of Hawaii. He made the comment while slamming a federal judge who implemented a temporary restraining order last month on President Donald Trumps new travel ban.

Sessions referred to the Hawaii federal judge Derrick Watson as "a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific" during an interview on The Mark Levin Show that was aired Wednesday, CNN reported.

"We won a case in Virginia recently that was a nicely-written order that just demolished, I thought, all the arguments that some of the other people have been making. We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power, Sessions said.

Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin reacted to Sessions' remarks Thursday. He criticized Sessions for his comments and said he had been wrong to dismiss the federal judge as he holds equal power under the U.S. constitution like any other state.

Our Constitution created a separation of powers in the United States for a reason. Our federal courts, established under article III of the Constitution, are co-equal partners with Congress and the President. It is disappointing AG Sessions does not acknowledge that, Chin's statement read.

Hawaii senators Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz responded to Sessions comments and clarified that Hawaii is a state just like other states in the United States.

Hirono tweeted saying: "Hey Jeff Sessions, this island in the Pacific has been the 50th state for going on 58 years. And we won't succumb to your dog whistle politics."

Story continues

Hirono also pointed out that Sessions had voted earlier for Watson whose decision he has been criticizing publicly now.

Sessions comment was clarified by Ian Prior, a spokesman for the Justice Department and he told CNN: Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific  a beautiful one where the attorney generals granddaughter was born. The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the presidents lawful exercise of authority to keep the entire country safe.

Related Articles
Rome (AFP) - A newly-discovered drawing by Renaissance master Michelangelo, found during the restoration of his "Sacrifice of Isaac", is to go on show in Rome, along with another drawing found by restorers 30 years ago.

"The discovery of this drawing is a really lovely story," Italy's Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said Friday as he unveiled the exhibition in the capital, which runs from Saturday until May 7.

Restorers painstakingly working last year on the "Sacrifice of Isaac", a biblical drawing executed in black pencil by the Florentine artist in 1530, found a hidden sketch for the same scene on the back.

"Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, (works of art done on) old sheets of paper were protected by sticking a piece of cardboard on the back," said Pina Ragionieri, head of the Casa Buonarroti foundation.

It was when restorers removed the cardboard that they discovered the secret sketch by the Italian sculptor, painter and architect who was famed perhaps above all for his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Ragionieri said the artist had made an initial sketch on one side of the sheet, before tracing it on the other with a light red crayon and developing the drawing to include an angel reaching down from heaven to stay Abraham's hand as he prepares to sacrifice his son.

The discovery followed a similar case in 1988 when restorers found a sketch on the back of the 1535 "Cleopatra", one of the artist's most beloved drawings, which Michelangelo made for his lover Tommaso dei Cavalieri.

While the Egyptian ruler celebrated for her beauty and love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony looks regal in the 1535 drawing, the version in the sketch on the back is somewhat grotesque and some experts believe it was Cavalieri that drew it.

In 1562, the Roman nobleman was constrained to donate the drawing to Duke Cosimo de' Medici, saying in the accompanying letter that losing it pained him as much as losing a child.
By Ross Kerber and Dan Freed

BOSTON (Reuters) - A high-stakes shareholder vote at Wells Fargo & Co <WFC.N> next week will determine whether the bank has done enough to retain investor confidence after its phony-account scandal, and whether a leading proxy adviser wields enough clout to help oust most of its board.

In one of its toughest shareholder notes, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended earlier this month that investors vote against 12 of the 15 directors on Wells Fargo's ballot at the company's annual meeting on April 25, including independent chairman Stephen Sanger. ISS argued they had all failed in their oversight duties.

The recommendation was another blow to the country's third-largest bank, which has been struggling for months to move past revelations that thousands of employees created as many as 2 million accounts in customers' names without permission to hit lofty sales targets. ISS's recommendation followed one by Glass Lewis, its closest competitor, which recommended votes against six directors for similar reasons. The ball is now in the shareholders' court. A sampling of investors who spoke to Reuters were split on how to vote.

It would be extremely unusual for most directors at a company the size of Wells Fargo to turn over suddenly, without pressure from an activist investor, but ISS's scathing review was also rare.

According to Proxy Insight, among the 2,780 meetings held by S&P 500 companies since 2012, ISS has recommended votes against 80 percent or more of directors in just seven cases besides Wells Fargo. Each involved a special circumstance, like only a few directors being up for re-election.

ISS's Wells Fargo recommendation was "among the harshest that I can recall," said Bruce Goldfarb, president of proxy solicitation firm Okapi Partners.

An ISS spokesman declined to comment. Wells Fargo representatives cited an April 7 statement calling the ISS recommendation "extreme and unprecedented."

Story continues

ISS is the largest proxy adviser, with about 1,700 clients versus Glass Lewis's 1,200, and has faced concerns it wields undue influence over corporate elections. On average, directors who ISS recommends "against" receive 17 percent to 18 percent less support, according to consulting firm Semler Brossy.

Activists have criticized big fund managers for blindly following ISS. Institutional investors have built up large corporate governance departments in recent years and say they make their own judgments.

But breaking with ISS and supporting the whole Wells Fargo board could be difficult for fund firms, said Michael Goldstein, a Babson College finance professor.

"This may be one of those cases where you don't want to have to answer a lot of questions about why did you support these people," Goldstein said.

DONE ENOUGH?

If shareholders do vote against some of Wells Fargo's directors, it does not mean they will immediately leave. The bank's guidelines require directors offer to resign if they fail to receive a majority of votes cast, but leaves the board wiggle room in deciding whether to accept a resignation.

In other cases with fewer directors at risk, shareholder sentiment mattered. Some of JPMorgan Chase & Co's <JPM.N> directors resigned in 2013 when they won only narrow majorities after the "London Whale" trading scandal.

Directors who fail to win majorities are in an even weaker position buy may not leave right away. For instance, two Chesapeake Energy Corp <CHK.N> directors received less than 30 percent support at its annual meeting in mid-2012 and offered to resign. The board accepted the resignation of one director two weeks later and did not accept the resignation of the other until the following March.

Wells Fargo's board and management have said the steps taken to fix problems and punish employees responsible for sales abuses show there is now strong oversight, and that directors nominated deserve to be elected. In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, Wells Fargo Chief Executive Tim Sloan said ousting most of the board would be "crazy."

The San Francisco-based bank paid $190 million in a September regulatory settlement for the unauthorized accounts, igniting a public firestorm that hammered its shares and led to the resignation of then-Chairman and CEO John Stumpf.

Since then, Sloan replaced Stumpf, and Sanger became the independent chairman. The board took steps like eliminating sales goals, revamping its compensation structure and withholding or clawing back tens of millions of dollars of bonuses.

Shareholders interviewed in recent days voiced a range of views about whether Wells Fargo's board needs an overhaul. Top investor Berkshire Hathaway Inc <BRKa.N> has already voted in favor of the board. Other big shareholders, including State Street Corp <STT.N> and Vanguard Group declined to comment or did not respond to questions.

Rhode Island Treasurer Seth Magaziner, who oversees funds that own Wells Fargo shares, said they will vote against directors flagged by ISS.

"Directors are meant to be agents for the shareholders, and watchdogs for the investors," he said. "Clearly that level of oversight was lacking at Wells Fargo."

Others were supportive. Gideon Bernstein, partner at wealth management firm Leisure Capital, said he plans to back the board. He was impressed with the bank's April 10 report describing what went wrong, and actions taken in response.

"The board has done a really good job drilling down," he said.

Thomas Russo, managing member at Gardner, Russo & Gardner, said he has not yet decided how to vote. He wants to see a smaller board with more banking experience.

"There's an elevated sense of urgency in a smaller board and a board that has more specific knowledge," he said.

Executives at American Century Investments also have not yet decided. Senior investment analyst Adam Krenn said the bank's oversight and initial response was lacking. But portfolio manager Michael Liss praised the eventual response.

"Even though they were late in reacting, they certainly came down strong," he said.

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston and Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Meredith Mazzilli)
(Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday: TRADE AND IMF The Trump administration delivers a simple but stark message to world financial leaders who gathered in Washington amid worries about rising U.S. protectionism: fair trade means tit-for-tat tariffs. NORTH KOREA Trump praises Chinese efforts to rein in "the menace of North Korea" after North Korean state media warns the United States of a "super-mighty preemptive strike." U.S. STEEL Trump moves against China and other exporters of cheap steel into the U.S. market, starting a federal investigation to determine whether foreign-made steel threatens U.S. steelmakers and national security. IRAN Iran and the United States trade barbs over the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Trump accusing Tehran of not living up to the spirit of the accord and Iran's top diplomat urging Washington to fulfill its own commitments. RUSSIA Russia dismisses as false a Reuters report saying a government think tank controlled by President Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Trump. U.S. ECONOMY American economic growth will not achieve the administration's 3 percent goal this year or next, even if some fiscal stimulus and changes to tax laws are implemented, according to economists in a Reuters poll. TRADE WITH JAPAN Japan has less room to compromise with the United States under a bilateral trade deal than under a multilateral agreement like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, its deputy prime minister says, taking a swipe at U.S. attempts to pressure Tokyo into opening heavily protected markets like agriculture. TAXES AND REGULATION Trump will sign on Friday an executive order on finding and reducing tax burdens and two memoranda ordering reviews of financial corporate regulations, a White House official says. Top Trump advisers say his tax reform plan will rely largely on future revenue gains from faster economic growth to justify major tax cuts. WHITE-COLLAR CRIME A senior Justice Department official says the Trump administration will be persistent in prosecuting white-collar crimes despite giving a higher profile to tackling violent crime. DAIRY TRADE Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brushes off an attack by Trump on Canada's system of dairy protections, saying every country defends its agricultural industries. EGYPT Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says he is optimistic about improving military ties with Egypt after talks in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, following a period of strain under the Obama administration. (Compiled by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Trott; Editing by Richard Chang and Lisa Shumaker)
(Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday: TAXES AND REGULATIONS Trump promises a big announcement about tax reform next week and orders an administration review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills. Trump tells the Treasury Department to examine two powers given to regulators to police large financial companies following the 2008 financial crisis. NORTH KOREA South Korea says it is on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang. HEALTHCARE Trump, striving to make good on a top campaign promise, is pushing fellow Republicans who control Congress to pass revamped healthcare legislation but the same intraparty squabbling that torpedoed it last month could do it again. SYRIA Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Syria has dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retains chemical weapons, an issue he says will have to be taken up diplomatically. SANCTUARY CITIES The Department of Justice threatens to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called "sanctuary cities" that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. EXXON MOBIL The United States will not make an exception for American companies, including oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, seeking to drill in areas prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding. RUSSIA The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee says it has invited FBI, National Security Agency and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. UNITED NATIONS U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with Trump at the White House for the first time since both took office earlier this year and amid a U.S. push to cut funding to the world body and its agencies. MEXICAN HEROIN The United States has offered to help fund Mexico's efforts to eradicate opium poppies, a U.S. official says, as Mexican heroin output increased again last year. (Compiled by Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Chris Reese)
So you think you're safe from snakes inside? Not in Australia.

Chantal Vaughan, the owner of Bokwa CQ gym in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia walked into work on Tuesday and discovered a large hole in the ceiling of her business.

SEE ALSO: WTF nature: Snake tries to bite a guy on a motorcycle

Vaughan told The Morning Bulletin that she figured it was just a possum, so she went on working like it was nothing. Big mistake.

"I didn't think too much of it and I thought, 'I hope it's not a snake,'" Vaughan told The Bulletin.

Guess what? It was a snake.

On Thursday Vaughan received a text from her cleaner, informing her that she found a massive snake inside the gym. We're pretty sure that message warranted a phone call, but we're not judging the cleaner for sending a text.

So, that means that Vaughan went a full two days working at the gym with a huge snake creeping around, and nobody noticed.

"I don't know where he [the snake] was between Tuesday and Thursday, but I was teaching classes here and I don't know where he was hiding," said Vaughan.

Vaughan put a call out to a local Facebook page that identifies and relocates snakes. She called the first number on the page and some professionals came out to take care of the intruder. The snake was safely relocated to a more appropriate location.

Fortunately, the snake didn't pose much of a problem, probably because it was so full.

"He was really well behaved actually because he was so full, you can clearly see that he had a possum in his belly," Vaughan explained.

The good news is that the gym no longer has a possum problem.

[h/t: UPI]

WATCH: Someone combined the best parts of the Kindle and iPad
Around 500 Baloch rebel militants on Friday surrendered to Pakistan's government as Islamabad pursues its development agenda linked to the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the southwest province.

Some 487 militants from four Baloch rebel organisations, including at least eight senior commanders, laid down their arms at an official ceremony in Quetta city.

The militants pledged their allegiance to the state of Pakistan at the ceremony, which was also attended by the provincial chief minister.

Pakistan has been battling insurgency in mineral-rich Balochistan since 2004, with hundreds of soldiers and militants killed in the fighting.

A greater push towards peace and development by Pakistani authorities, including starting work on roads and infrastructure under the Chinese-assisted CPEC project -- which connects Balochistan's deep sea port Gwadar to China -- has reduced the violence considerably.

"These militants had killed my own son and brother but I have forgiven them. The state of Pakistan also forgives them and I welcome them to be part of Balochistan's CPEC project," said Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri at the ceremony.

"We will arrange employment for you. Nobody will be allowed to destroy peace in the province," he said.

Those who surrendered were members of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Republican Army (BRA), United Baloch Army and Lashkar-e-Balochistan.

"We were misled by Brahumdagh Bugti. We have now come to know that he works for India. Why should we fight in our own country for another country," said Sarbaz Baloch, former spokesman of BRA, who has been fighting for 15 years.

Bugti is an exiled Baloch leader based in Europe who has applied for asylum in India, Pakistan's arch rival.

Baluchistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.
By Tom Finn and Ulf Laessing DOHA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Twenty-six Qataris, including members of the Gulf state's ruling royal family and two Saudis, were freed on Friday after being kidnapped and held in Iraq for nearly a year and a half, Qatari officials said. Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani greeting the men with hugs as they arrived in Doha on Friday on a private jet from Baghdad. Their release was a boost for tiny Qatar which has used its influence to free foreign hostages in war zones but was alarmed when 26 of its own citizens were seized by unidentified gunmen in 2015 while hunting in southern Iraq. Their abduction in territory dominated by militias aligned with neighboring Shi'ite power Iran led to long negotiations among Qatar, Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, according to an Arab diplomat in Doha. A Qatari official said the hostages' release was linked to a major evacuation of Syrian civilians and fighters from four besieged towns completed on Friday. The official said talks about the evacuations, involving Iranian officials and Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, were held in Qatar when Irans foreign minister visited on March 8. The complexity of the talks and the many players involved highlights Qatar's continued role as a mediator and a potential broker of deals in Syria's six-year conflict. In Riyadh, the Saudi foreign ministry said the two Saudi hostages landed there on a private jet late on Friday. "They are all in good health and they all left the Iraqi capital this afternoon," the ministry said, according to the Saudi state news agency SPA. The group was kidnapped Dec. 16, 2015 from a desert hunting camp in southern Iraq by dozens of armed men in pickup trucks. A Qatari royal and a Pakistani man were freed last year. No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the hunters, who were seized near a Saudi border area dominated by Shi'ite militias who have accused Doha of meddling in Iraq's affairs. Some Iraqis, especially in the Shi'ite-majority south, are critical of Qatars stance in the Syrian civil war and accuse it of complicity in the rise of Sunni Islamist militants. Qatar, a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, denies supporting extremist groups. It had called on Iraq to take the lead in freeing the hostages, who had been granted permits by Baghdad to hunt in the area. Iraqs interior ministry said the hunters had failed to heed government instructions to stay within secured areas. Hunters from rich Gulf states travel to Iraq's desert in the winter months to buy falcons and hunt the rare houbara bustard, a bird whose meat is highly prized. (Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad, Sami Aboudi in Dubai, Omar Fahmy and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Washington (AFP) - As the global recovery gathers pace, the IMF is turning up the volume on its call for wealthy countries to address popular anger over the impact of globalization and head off the threat of protectionism.

The renewed push comes as finance ministers from 189 countries gather for the fund's semiannual meeting Friday and Saturday, in a tense atmosphere of rising anti-trade rhetoric in many advanced economies.

"This sentiment of populism in the views of many is fueled by the feeling of being excluded, or being left out," IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said Thursday night.

"What better than more growth, more equitably shared, in order to respond."

The fund for years has been calling for countries to drive towards what it calls more inclusive growth with programs to help those hurt by globalization and trade -- including safety nets for those who lose their jobs -- but typically it has centered on developing nations.

Now the focus is on advanced economies and the message has taken on greater urgency, amid anti-internationalist sentiment evident in the election of US President Donald Trump, in last summer's British vote to leave the European Union and in the bitter French election campaign.

Lagarde repeatedly has stressed that giving in to protectionism will not help those on the margins and in fact will make matters worse by driving up prices and eroding global growth.

But as the IMF raised its forecast for global economic growth to 3.5 percent for this year -- a rare upward revision -- Lagarde said it is time to address these concerns from "an economic point of view," to help spread the benefits of growth to marginalized groups.

- Developing countries concerned -

And now instead of advanced economies warning about problems in the developing world, it is the turn of developing nations to be concerned about the rising wave of protectionism in the world's major economies, that could undermine the gains from global trade.

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The protectionist complaints coming from advanced countries are particularly jarring for emerging markets that incurred huge costs and public anger in their efforts to reform their economies to compete in a global market.

The developing nation caucus at the IMF, the Group of 24, said in their communique that their members have benefitted from trade but only after "bearing the cost of adjusting to competitive pressures and technological change."

Now they warn that "A likely rise in inward-looking policies in some (advanced economies) poses a substantial source of risk to the growth prospects" of emerging markets and developing countries.

They called for strong efforts to "preserve an open and rules-based global trading system, and ensure that its benefits are widely shared."

And Brazil Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said in his statement to the IMF meeting that addressing the "perception of unfairness" in the world economy is "crucial to garner political support for furthering global integration and productivity. "

- 'New thinking' -

Former India central bank chief and IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan said the legitimate concern in advanced economies "reflects a cry of anger and for help."

Governments should respond with "broad-based rehabilitation" of communities hurt by lost manufacturing -- a situation nearly entirely due to technological advances rather than trade, even though trade is blamed, he said.

"We need to think seriously about rebuilding these communities... to lift up the forgotten man," Rajan said in a lecture at the IMF entitled "Popular Insurrections," which Lagarde attended.

That echo of Trump's campaign promises means helping the majority white male community as well as the inner cities, by bringing economic activity, he said. But this requires funding and "new thinking."

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said early Friday "we can only tackle the big challenges of our times" with "stronger international coordination."

"And for this we need the US," he warned.

But for the moment the Trump administration is focused on aggressive rhetoric, attacking individual countries that have trade surpluses with the United States, including Germany, as well as China and Mexico.

White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said Thursday the United States was only seeking "fair" treatment, so tariffs on US exports would be met by a tariff on imports from that country.

"We treat you in reciprocal fashion. That is fair," he said.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then global carmakers are basking in the compliments at Shanghai's auto show, where some Chinese-made models bear striking resemblances to famous foreign brands.

The annual exhibition is the biggest automotive showcase in the planet's largest car market, but also an event that revives persistent accusations of Chinese businesses copying foreign designs.

The show opened this week with automotive media and internet wags highlighting a range of Chinese models with more than a passing likeness to their Porsche, Land Rover, Mercedes and other counterparts.

Intellectual-property theft is rampant in a range of industries in China, and foreign automakers have taken legal action over the years against Chinese competitors for suspiciously similar designs.

But Mercedes' China boss Hubertus Troska laughed it off when asked by reporters about a Chinese-made car on display across from the Mercedes stand which looked just like the German manufacturer's G-Class SUV.

"We take it as a compliment," Troska quipped.

Other automotive doppelgangers include one by little-known Chinese brand Zotye which sells for 100,000 yuan ($14,500) and could be mistaken for Porsche's sporty Macan SUV, which has a sticker price of $87,000.

A Porsche spokeswoman brushed it off, stressing that foreign automakers compete for different market segments and income levels than their Chinese counterparts.

"We are absolutely sure that car enthusiasts will easily be able to tell the difference between the original Porsche Macan and the copycat due to design, perfection and overall quality," said Anja Wassertheurer, Porsche's director of product and technical communications.

- Land war -

Land Rovers Range Rover Evoque SUV also is on display in Shanghai, as is a model by similarly-named Chinese carmaker Landwind that has sparked a legal battle between the two.

The British manufacturer in 2014 launched a bid to void Landwind's patent on its X7 SUV, prompting a tit-for-tat move by the Chinese company in a fight that continues.

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The chances of a foreign carmaker winning an auto patent case in China are "extremely low" due to the way the country's patent laws are written, said Li Yanwei, an analyst with the China Automobile Dealers Association.

"A conviction can only be made when the two vehicles' design and size match exactly," he said.

"Companies like Zotye only need to slightly adjust some parameters and the other brand won't be able to win."

Global automakers largely have to just accept such mimicry and focus on the fact that they compete for different buyers.

Chinese carmakers involved in such disputes did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Honda filed a lawsuit in 2004 against Chinese carmaker Shuanghuan Automobile, accusing it of copying the exterior of the Japanese manufacturer's popular CR-V SUV, but lost the case in 2015.

Honda had to cough up 16 million yuan for legal fees and "reputation damage" inflicted on Shuanghuan, which folded last year.

Industry watchers say the number of such disputes are expected to diminish as Chinese manufacturers' design capabilities grow.

"There was a time when design was not at the core of the (Chinese carmakers') concern. It was more about delivering a product. But now, original design creation in China is blossoming," said Christophe Cayrol, head of French car brand Citroen's design centre in Shanghai.
By Tom Allard JAKARTA (Reuters) - A polarizing election for Jakarta governor saw Islamic identity politics come to the fore and exposed fractures in Indonesian president Joko Widodos fragile ruling coalition, an exit poll has revealed. Widodos political ally Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the ethnic Chinese Christian incumbent, was resoundingly defeated by Muslim rival Anies Baswedan in a vote seen as a litmus test of the secular traditions of the worlds largest Muslim-majority country. Unpublished data from an exit poll by Litbang Kompas, which Reuters reviewed, found same religion was by far the most common reason why voters supported the victor. Just under 34 per cent of the 1,289 respondents surveyed at 400 polling stations across the Indonesian capital cited religion as the primary reason for backing Baswedan, followed by 14.9 per cent who cited being with the common people. "The biggest share of Anies supporters based their choice on similarity in religion and ethnicity, said Bestian Nainggolan, a researcher at Litbang Kompas, a leading pollster. Programmes and performance were not a dominant consideration. The exit poll also showed voters who were allied to political parties in Widodo's unwieldy parliamentary coalition, often rejected Purnama - a key ally of the president. The trends in the Jakarta race are being closely scrutinized for pointers in the next presidential election in 2019, when Prabowo Subianto, who backed Baswedan, may again challenge President Widodo. Subianto lost the 2014 contest to Widodo. Before he won the presidency in 2014, Widodo was the governor in Jakarta and Purnama his deputy. Widodo, the first Indonesian leader to come from outside the political and military establishment, relies on an unstable coalition of parties in parliament needed to pass his reform programme. DIDN'T MOBILIZE VOTERS Supporters of the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), two Islamic parties in Widodo's coalition, mostly voted for Baswedan - despite the parties formal backing for the incumbent governor. Just 29 per cent of PKB supporters, and 11 per cent of PPP loyalists, supported Purnama, known by his nickname Ahok. Its hard to know if the leaders of these two parties were serious about supporting Ahok or they just wanted the money, the funding for the campaign, said Ade Armando, a researcher at SMRC. They did not do a lot to mobilize their supporters. More worrying still for the president were the voting patterns of supporters of two bigger parties in his coalition - Hanura and Golkar - that also supposedly backed Purnama. Just 38 per cent of supporters of Hanura, the party of Widodos co-ordinating minister for security Wiranto, backed Purnama, the poll found. Six out of 10 supporters of Golkar, the party of Vice President Jusuf Kalla, voted for him. Golkar, the party created by former authoritarian president Suharto, is Indonesia's second largest. As a delighted Baswedan declared victory on Wednesday, he was flanked by Aburizal Bakrie, a former Golkar chairman. Also with him was Erwin Aksa, another Golkar figure and Kallas nephew. NO VOTE FOR NON-MUSLIM A blunt-talking reformer, Purnama enjoyed soaring public approval as governor for policies targeting infrastructure, flood mitigation, waste management and corruption eradication in Indonesias teeming, clogged capital. That support - at least when it came to voting intentions - dramatically reversed in October after Purnama was accused of insulting a passage of the Koran interpreted by some as prohibiting Muslims from voting for those of other faiths. Amid large, well-funded rallies in November and December, where hundreds of thousands of protesters heard calls for his imprisonment, Purnama - widely known by his nickname Ahok - was put on trial for blasphemy. A little over a week ago, pollster SMRC found 76 per cent approved of Purnamas performance as governor, while 48 per cent said they would vote for him. The divide between Purnamas performance rating as governor and voter approval could be explained by the potency of the message that Muslims could not support a Christian candidate, SMRC's Armando said. While the Jakarta election points to the rising influence of conservative Islam in Indonesian politics, and his ally defeated under extraordinary circumstances, Widodo remains personally popular. "The vote (Wednesday) was not a rejection of him or his policies  rather, other factors were at play," political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said in a research note. (Reporting by Tom Allard; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
In November 2016, Interpol, the international police body, received its first Chinese president, Meng Hongwei. This wasnt strange: China is a member in good standing of the organization, and Meng, who had previously served as vice minister of public security in Beijing, was duly elected by its general assembly. But Mengs ascension also aroused suspicion because of Chinas own record on blurring police work and politics  a pattern that some feared would carry over into Interpols work.

Those simmering suspicions bubbled over this week. After a Chinese billionaire based abroad threatened to reveal high-level corruption in his home country, Beijing rapidly requested and was granted an Interpol red notice against him  that is, an official request for his arrest and extradition issued by the intergovernmental organization that facilitates police cooperation among its 190 member countries. The timing gives reason to believe that Chinas motive is purely political and that Interpol is in danger of becoming an extension of the increasingly long reach of the Chinese state.

In March, Guo Wengui, a charismatic real estate tycoon who left China two years ago and now resides in the United States, gave two interviews to a U.S.-based Chinese-language media outlet in which he claimed that one of Chinas most powerful families has enriched itself by leveraging political connections to gain holdings in large companies.

Guo said he had learned through business dealings that the family of He Guoqiang, a former member of the Politburo, the highest ruling body in China, controlled a large but hidden stake in one of Chinas biggest brokerage firms, and threatened to reveal further details of the He familys wealth. But his allegations went largely unnoticed until a New York Times investigation, published on April 15, traced the He familys business holdings and backed up some of his claims.

Three days later, Interpol issued a red notice alleging that Guo had bribed a former top Chinese official who is now under investigation for corruption. Beijing reportedly requested the red notice, according to anonymous sources who spoke to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the news but took no responsibility, stating only, We have learnt that the Interpol has issued a red notice on suspect Guo Wengui.

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Guos residence in the United States puts him out of the direct reach of the Chinese Communist Party  but not of harassment conducted through Interpols easily abusable system. Interpol red notices are essentially a data-sharing mechanism between police forces in its member countries, allowing law enforcement to communicate internationally about wanted criminals. The notices are not legally binding and are enforced differently in different countries, or not enforced at all.

But some countries  especially Russia, the Central Asian nations, Turkey, Venezuela, and China  issue politically motivated red notices against dissidents, activists, and journalists. Issuing such warnings, even if they do not lead to arrest, can harm the reputation of the targets, turn routine financial matters into criminal actions, and make it harder to live an ordinary life. Interpol has previously refused to issue some red notices on the grounds that they involve purely political charges, such as the attempt by the Russian government to harass American-born whistleblower Bill Browder.

Its no surprise that China is using every tool it can to go after Guo. High-level corruption is a sensitive topic in China, where President Xi Jinping has led a sweeping anti-corruption campaign and political purge that has felled some of the countrys most powerful political elites, including former security czar Zhou Yongkang and former military chief Xu Caihou. The anti-corruption campaign has cemented Xis own power, sweeping away opponents and helping make Xi the most influential Chinese leader in decades.

He Guoqiang, however, has faced no official allegations of corruption; he was the top anti-graft official under former Chinese President Hu Jintao. And the Chinese Communist Party wants to be the only judge of its members purity. Charges of corruption originating outside the party against unauthorized targets are rarely tolerated. China experts and human rights watchdogs suspect that is the true reason for the Interpol red notice  to silence an embarrassing critic.

The 19th Party Congress is only about six months away, Bill Bishop, author of the Sinocism newsletter and longtime observer of Chinese elite politics, commented on April 19. Xi does not want to lose control of the narrative and any credible revelations of high-level infighting or corruption by the family of Wang Qishan  another top official Guo mentioned in his interview  could create enough noise to hinder Xis preferred personnel arrangements at the 19th Party Congress.

In recent years, China has made use of red notices as it has expanded its anti-graft campaign beyond its borders. In 2015, China hailed the issuance of 100 red notices against economic fugitives, largely as part of its Sky Net operation, which seeks to repatriate and punish corrupt Chinese officials and businesspeople who have fled abroad. Chinese media have repeatedly emphasized the power of the Chinese authorities to reach anywhere in the world, broadcasting scenes of fugitives, such as former official Yang Xiuzhu, being escorted by police through Beijings airport.

Interpols red notice system is vulnerable to weaponization by abusive regimes in the guise of criminal prosecution of dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, and others fleeing persecution, said Rebecca Shaeffer, a senior legal and policy advisor at Fair Trials, a Brussels- and London-based advocacy organization that has closely followed Interpol red notices for years, in an interview with Foreign Policy.

Interpol has several organizational flaws that make it particularly vulnerable to abuse. Like the police bodies from which its built, the opaque organization is often unwilling to divulge information publicly. Most red notices are not made public, and there is no public database to search the more than 100,000 notices in active circulation. The evidence backing up the allegations is also frequently kept private, making it difficult to verify whether or not an alert is justifiable. Until recent procedural reforms, it was often difficult and time-consuming to get politically motivated red notices removed from circulation.

What we can say is that the timing raises serious questions about the integrity of Interpols internal vetting procedures for issuing red notices, said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty Internationals regional director for East Asia, in a phone interview with FP.

The vast majority of notices are not politically motivated. But those that are can be difficult to detect. Most of the time, if someone is wanted for a legitimate red notice, people stay hidden. They know that its for a valid arrest warrant, Michelle Estlund, a Florida-based lawyer who specializes in defending against Interpol red notices, told FP in a phone interview. The people who come looking for assistance to deal directly with Interpol feel that the red notices issued against them are invalid.

Estlund explained that it isnt Interpols job to determine innocence or guilt when evaluating a request for a red notice. Rather, it determines whether or not the requesting country has followed appropriate laws and procedures to request the notice.

The tricky part is for Interpol to know this information when they receive the red notice. Its almost impossible for them to know that, Estlund said. There is a basic criteria that Interpol requires upon receipt of the application, and there is a review process in place, but for Interpol to review every application would be virtually impossible.

In other words, the system is based in large part on trust  a trust that politically motivated red notices violate. China and Russia arent the only actors who have gamed the system, but they have abused the trust on which the system rests, Bequelin said. Interpol does play a role in fighting international crime. If the system is broken and becomes perceived as a political tool, then it will hinder law enforcement efforts worldwide.

But red notices are just one tool available to a Chinese state increasingly seeking to extend its influence over unruly citizens abroad  and they are highly effective, often resulting in frozen bank accounts and travel restrictions. Others include threats, coercion, and kidnappings. In 2015, four booksellers in Hong Kong and one in Thailand went missing. All Chinese-born, the five men had published books containing information that Beijing deemed sensitive. They later turned up in custody on the Chinese mainland. Upon release, one described how he had been kidnapped and spirited over the border into the mainland without normal judicial procedure. The kidnappings have cast a chill over Hong Kong, once believed to be beyond the reach of Chinese political oppression.

As a result, Mengs election further alarmed international human rights advocates, including Bequelin. This is extraordinarily worrying given Chinas longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad, Bequelin said at the time. Unlike most law enforcement agencies around the world, the Chinese police have  in addition to the classic law-and-order mandate  a political mandate to protect the power of the Communist Party.

The concern is that extralegal methods and political motivations are being merged within international rules and institutions and that, with a Chinese public security official in an influential position, Interpols bureaucratic incentives might tilt away from facilitating legitimate investigative work.

Estlund told FP that Mengs election was concerning primarily due to the lack of sufficient rule of law or human rights protections in China. I think that anytime the leadership of a law enforcement organization like Interpol comes from a country where there are significant human rights concerns  of course that is going to be a concern, she said. I would not say that that concern is limited only to this particular president. I would have a concern if the president hailed from any one of a variety of countries where there are routinely documented human rights violations.

Chinese state-run media have suggested that Mengs election will be a boon to the international expansion of Chinas own anti-graft campaign. One November 2016 article in the party-affiliated Beijing Youth Daily hailed Interpol as the most effective platform for combating international crime and pursuing stolen goods and highlighted how well that fit with Chinas own recent emphasis on fighting corruption and recovering assets lost through corruption. Against this backdrop, a Chinese person has been elected as the head of Interpol, continued the article, which undoubtedly further reflects the recognition that Interpol and international society now give to Chinas own rule of law.

Another sign of Chinese influence over the international crime-fighting organization is the continued exclusion of Taiwan. China claims sovereignty over the self-ruling island and has worked steadily to reduce its participation in international organizations where its membership might be seen as a sign of Taiwanese nationhood. Interpol rejected Taiwans bid to participate in the November 2016 general assembly in which Meng was elected.

But Shaeffer expressed less concern about direct Chinese influence over Interpol, telling FP that the position of Interpol president is largely ceremonial. Meng Hongweis presidency of Interpols executive committee has brought attention to Chinas history of using Interpol red notices to pursue dissidents, activists, and others who have fled its persecution over the years, she said. But presidents of Interpol dont have the power to issue alerts. That role sits with Interpols secretariat, who are bound by Interpols rules and constitution, which were beefed up at the end of last year to prevent abuse.

The problem, according to Shaeffer, is that any country already has the ability to issue politically motivated red notices if desired. These rules must now be implemented and enforced to stop countries, including China, from misusing this global crime-fighting tool, she remarked.

Those rules have not yet seemed to protect Guo. But the red notice hasnt silenced him. On April 19, he gave an interview to Voice of America in which he made further claims of corruption and misbehavior among several high-ranking Chinese officials and their relatives. Whether hell be able to keep making those claims  and what other techniques Beijing will bring to bear against him  is another question.

Photo credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi forces in Mosul have freed an 11-year-old Yazidi girl who was kidnapped and sold as a slave by the Islamic State group in 2014, the federal police said Friday.

The girl was taken by the jihadists from the village of Kosho, south of the Yazidi hub of Sinjar in northern Iraq, together with her mother and sisters.

She was freed during an operation by the security forces on Thursday in the west Mosul neighbourhood of Tanek, federal police chief Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat said in a statement.

The elite Counter-Terrorism Service has been operating in the area and secured more than half of the neighbourhood on Thursday.

"They who kidnap these children are monsters," Major General Jaafar al-Baatat, Jawdat's top aide, said in a statement which was released with a video showing the girl at a police base south of Mosul.

Vian Dakhil, a prominent Yazidi lawmaker who helped bring her minority's plight to the world's attention when IS jihadists swept through the region in 2014, said the girl's release had been carefully planned.

"When Daesh (IS) took her village on August 15, 2014, she was eight years old and she was kidnapped with her mother and her sisters," she told AFP. "She was initially taken to Tal Afar and was sold on to Mosul."

Yazidis are neither Arab nor Muslim and when IS swept across northern Iraq almost three years ago, it carried out massacres against the minority which the United Nations said qualified as genocide.

Most of the several hundred thousand members of the minority live in northern Iraq, mainly around Sinjar, a large town which anti-IS forces have now retaken but was extensively destroyed.

- Sisters held in Syria -

IS jihadists captured Yazidi women and turned them into sex slaves to be sold and exchanged across their self-proclaimed "caliphate". Around 3,000 of them are believed to remain in captivity.

On the police video, the girl stands silently, wearing a light green head scarf as officers try to reassure her.

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"She has two sisters who were sold and sent to Raqa," said Dakhil, referring to the Syrian city that is still controlled by IS and the other main hub of the "caliphate". "They are still there."

Dakhil explained that the girl's two other sisters and mother were bought back from IS, a method which has been used by the authorities and Yazidi organisations to free hundreds of women, and now live in Germany.

The girl and her family are originally from Kosho, the same village Yazidi rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nadia Murad is from.

Vian Dakhil said the girl's father had a disability.

"Her cousin who lives in a camp for the displaced near Dohuk (in autonomous Kurdistan) is coming to fetch her," she said.

The Yazidi community, which follows a unique faith, celebrated their New Year on Thursday.

Many of towns and villages have now been retaken from the jihadists by the Iraqi security forces but they are often still unsafe or need to be completely rebuilt.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Dozens of Japanese lawmakers, including one cabinet minister, visited a shrine to Japan's war dead on Friday, in a move that could spark protests elsewhere in Asia where the shrine is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine spring festival, which takes place as Japan seeks greater cooperation with China and South Korea in the face of rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Asian neighbors have been outraged in the past by Japanese politicians visiting the shrine in downtown Tokyo as it honors 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with the other war dead. Around 95 members of parliament paid their respects en masse on Friday, NHK national television said, including Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi, who usually visits during the shrine's twice-yearly festivals and on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's World War Two surrender. Health Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki sent a ritual offering, like Abe, but neither was expected to visit, NHK added. Abe has visited the shrine only once, in December 2013, since becoming premier the previous year. Rather than attend in person, Abe has instead opted to send ritual offerings on several occasions, in an effort to improve ties with China and South Korea, which have been strained by territorial and other disputes. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China was consistently opposed to such "wrong moves" by Japanese politicians as the shrine commemorated war criminals. There was no sign that Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, who has been accused by China of recklessly misrepresenting wartime history, had visited or made an offering at the shrine. (Reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Elaine Lies; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Petco Animal Supplies is not responsible for the death of a 10-year-old boy who died after contracting an illness from a rat bought at one of the pet store chain's California locations, a jury decided Thursday.

The jury determined that Petco did enough to warn consumers about the dangers of owning a pet rat and was neither negligent nor liable in Aidan Pankeys 2013 death, which the San Diego County medical examiners office ruled was caused by whats commonly known as "rat-bite fever."

Little Aidan was rushed to the hospital with severe stomach pains and died within two days in June 2013 after being given a pet rat by his grandmother, Sharon Pankey, she told reporters.

The CDC later confirmed the boys pet rat was infected with streptobacillus moniliformis, or rat-bite fever, and had passed it on to Aidan.

Read: Daughter of Doctor Dragged Of United Flight: 'We Were Horrified and Shocked'

In his lawsuit against Petco and Barneys Pets  which supplied the rat to Petco  Aidans father, Andrew Pankey, claimed Petco knew its rats are likely to carry the infectious disease, but buried information about the dangerous bacteria on the back of an animal companion card, CNS-TV reported.

John Gomez, Andrew Pankeys attorney, said in closing arguments Tuesday there was no way to predict if a consumer was going to get an infected rat from Petco.

He argued that the pet store giant could have tested each rat it planned to sell for rat-bite fever to determine if the rodents carried the bacteria or stopped selling rats, the television station wrote.

Petco attorney Kimberly Oberrecht said the company provides clear warnings about the danger of the disease and does everything it can to prevent the disease. She also noted there was no way to determine the percentage of rats living with the disease.

Read: Hospital Must Answer Mom's Questions After Allegedly Losing Stillborn Baby's Remains: Suit

They [Petco] warn about it because they know they can't get rid of it,'' Oberrecht told the jury.

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"It's still very rare, she said of the disease.

Andrew Pankey's lawsuit sought $20 million.

Jurors took just one day to determine neither Petco nor Barneys Pets was liable for Aidans death, telling reporters that the liability form Sharon Pankey signed heavily influenced their decision.

Gomez, Andrew Pankeys attorney, said he was surprised with the verdict and plans to appeal.

Watch: Parents Sue Petco After 10-Year-Old Son Dies From Pet Rat Bite Fever

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Julian Assange's future just got a little less certain.

On Thursday, CNN reported  citing "officials familiar with the matter"  that U.S. authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of the WikiLeaks founder.

The charges, and the full status of the case, are currently unclear, but the news doesn't sound promising for Assange.

SEE ALSO: Get creeped out by this tense trailer for the new WikiLeaks documentary

A Justice Department investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks dates back several years, to at least 2010, when the site published diplomatic cables and military documents obtained by Chelsea Manning.

Under Obama, the Justice Department did not charge WikiLeaks, on the basis that it would be akin to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information. It also wrestled with interpretations of the First Amendment and the fact that other newspapers including the New York Times published material.

In Trump's department, however, the case  which was never formally closed  has been reexamined. A memo drafted by prosecutors includes possible charges of conspiracy, theft of government property, and violating the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reports. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said Thursday that Assange's arrest was a "priority."

WikiLeaks responded to the news in a tweet, asking supporters to contribute financially to his defense.

US admits it has charges to arrest Assange according to CNN https://t.co/qopTAaRbPc



Contribute to his defense: https://t.co/77ASQfcNXt  WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 20, 2017

It's unclear if prosecutors are looking at WikiLeaks' role in publishing DNC emails or those of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, both of which are believed to have been hacked by the Russian government.

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In January, Obama cleared the way for Chelsea Manning's release from prison  due to be effective May 17, 2017. The news came just a few days after WikiLeaks promised that Assange would agree to U.S. extradition if such clemency was granted. That tweet, which Assange might now be regretting, is still up. However, Assange  who's still living at the Ecuadorian embassy in London with his cat  quickly backpedalled from the claims.

If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case https://t.co/MZU30SlfGK  WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 12, 2017

More recently, WikiLeaks unleashed a new document dump aimed at exposing the CIA's hacking techniques. It claimed the CIA could access encrypted messages on WhatsApp and Signal and even hack into your car (but not your microwave).

Last week, CIA director Mike Pompeo said that WikiLeaks "directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information, and it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States." He called it a "non-state hostile intelligence service."

WATCH: F8 makes it abundantly clear that Facebook has ambitions way beyond your social network
By Katharine Houreld NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's ruling coalition annulled party primaries held on Friday, the organization's secretary general said, and reports of widespread anger over chaotic voting raised fears that poorly organized national polls in August could spark violent protests. "Today's have been canceled, those on Monday and Tuesday could still go ahead," an official with the ruling Jubilee coalition told Reuters. "The turnout was more than anticipated, we had anticipated it would be a party affair but it was more like a general election kind of turnout." The coalition had tried to hold primaries in 21 of the country's 47 counties on Friday. Local media showed pictures of angry voters burning ballots amid complaints that voting had started late in some areas and that some candidates' names had been left off the ballot. The party official said they were unable to comment on those reports because they were still unconfirmed by party officials. Kenya is still haunted by violence that convulsed the country after a disputed presidential poll in 2007, when more than 1,200 people were killed in widespread ethnic violence. In the most recent elections in 2013, electronic tallying equipment failed, stoking voter concerns of fraud. But this time the opposition took its complaints to the Supreme Court instead of the streets and there were only a handful of deaths in protests. The opposition alliance, known as NASA, is also holding polls around the country this month but has staggered them over two weeks. It has also said a recount will be held in Busia county and a few local races amid concerns over the primaries.
A day of celebration turned to turmoil Thursday when shots rang out at a children's birthday party in Georgia and two youngsters were shot inside an inflatable bounce house.

Witnesses to the College Park shooting told police they heard some 20 to 30 shots before dusk. One woman was then faced with a horrifying sight.

Watch: 8-Year-Old Girl Dies From Suffocating on Dad's Birthday Balloon: Family

Deanna Titus told reporters her 3-year-old grandson was shot in the back while inside the bounce house. He was one of two children shot. A third person, approximately 20 years old, was also shot.

It was Titus' daughter, the boy's mother, who ran into the bounce house following the shots and found her injured son.

Titus' grandson was taken by helicopter to a hospital, where his condition was unknown Friday morning.

The 20-year-old and a 5-year-old girl are reportedly in stable condition.

Watch: 7-Year-Old Girl Dies After Bouncy Castle Blows Away During Easter Fair

Witnesses told cops they saw unknown subjects leaving the scene in a vehicle, according to WGCL.

Police are now searching for those responsible.

While that happens, Titus and her family have found themselves in a tragically familiar situation. The grandmother told reporters her own son was previously shot in the back and killed in New York City.

Watch: Gunshots Miss 4-Year-Old Girl by Inches in Horrifying Surveillance Video

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(Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm KKR & Co LP and Japanese government-backed fund, Innovation Network Corp of Japan (INCJ), will submit a joint offer for Toshiba Corp's <6502.T> memory chip unit, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday. Toshiba, the second-biggest NAND chip producer after Samsung Electronics <005930.KS>, wants to sell the majority - or all - of its flash-memory chip business, as it seeks to cover charges at its U.S. nuclear business, Westinghouse. KKR is expected to participate next month in a second bidding round after performing due diligence on Toshiba's memory chip business, the Nikkei report said. INCJ could invest in the Toshiba business if it made sense, Japan's industry and trade minister had said on Wednesday. Toshiba has narrowed the field of bidders to four suitors, people familiar with the process have said: Western Digital Corp , Broadcom Ltd , South Korea's SK Hynix <000660.KS>, and Foxconn <2317.TW>, the world's largest contract electronics maker. KKR and INCJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Reporting by Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
A shooting on Paris Champs-Elysees Thursday night left one police officer dead, along with the suspected shooter. Two other officers were injured, as was a female tourist. The violence occurred at one of the worlds most renowned boulevards, just three days before Frances presidential election.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria claimed responsibility for the attack, and the actual identity of the attacker has been verified, according to the Associated Press. The attacker, who was shot by police, is thought to have been a 39 year-old from a Paris suburb; searches are underway for possible accomplices and evidence.

French President Francois Hollande said before ISIS took responsibility that the circumstances of the shooting indicate a terrorist attack.

Heres what you need to know:

What happened?

Around 9 p.m. Paris time (3 p.m. Eastern) gunshots were heard around a Marks & Spencer store on Champs-Elysees in central Paris, prompting passersby and tourists to flee the area in panic. The attacker came out of a car, and, using an automatic weapon, began shooting police officers. Three police officers were hit, according to Reuters, one of whom was killed. Although initial reports said two officers were shot dead, a spokesman for the French Interior Ministry said the second policeman had not actually died of his wounds as initially reported.

This is the third terrorist attack the city of Paris has endured in two years. France has been in a state of emergency since 2015 in the wake of numerous terrorist attacks that have killed over 200 people.

Who fired the shots?

One attacker fired the shots with a machine gun and was subsequently killed by law enforcement. Paris prosecutors detained three of his family members for questioning. He has been identified as a 39-year-old man from an eastern Paris suburb, though police have not yet released his name. On Friday, French officials told the AP that he was detained in February for threatening police, then freed due to lack of evidence. He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in shootings on two police officers.

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A second man, suspected of being linked to the shooting, surrendered himself in Belgium, but authorities later said there was no link. A prosecutor in Belgiums Antwerp told the AP: That man came to police late yesterday after he saw himself appear on social media as terror suspect No. 1 relating to yesterdays facts, adding: He was not part of a terrorism investigation.

Is ISIS involved?

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but even before that, French President Francois Hollande said the circumstances of the attack likely indicate terrorism, the AP reports. The suspect was reportedly given a pseudonym by ISIS, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, which may mean he has a connection to Belgium.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested terrorism as motivation, before Hollandes remarks. Its a terrible thing...it looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say. It never ends, he said at a press conference on Thursday.

Is the area closed?

Champs-Elysees was closed off immediately following the attack. Paris metro subway is not stopping at stations near the area for the time being.

What have world leaders said?

Many world leaders widely condemned the attack and passed on their condolences to President Hollande. Downing Street released a statement saying the U.K. strongly condemns the appalling terrorist attack in Paris, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would remain strong and determined alongside France.

Mariano Rajoy, Spains Prime Minister, described the incident as a heinous attack on Twitter, adding: the pain caused only manages to strengthen our unity in defense of peace and freedom.

Mi rotunda condena del execrable atentado en Paris.El dolor causado solo logra reforzar nuestra unidad en defensa de la paz y la libertad MR - Mariano Rajoy Brey (@marianorajoy) April 21, 2017

How will this affect the election?

The shooting occurred during a prime time television debate between all 11 official candidates, just three days before the first stage of the countrys general election.

Candidates Emmanuel Macron, Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen called off their campaigning events on Friday, the BBC reports. In response to the incident, the far-right Le Pen tweeted: Once again, it was our policemen who were targeted and paid the price of blood in the fight against Islamism.

The far-lefts Jean-Luc Melenchon also took to the social media platform, writing: Thought[s with] the dead and wounded policemen and their families. Terrorist acts will never go unpunished, accomplices never forgotten.

Speaking after an emergency security cabinet meeting, French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said security forces were on top alert for Sundays election. The Government is fully mobilised, he said in a statement, ABC reports. Nothing must be allowed to impede the fundamental democratic process of our country. It falls to us not to give in to fear and intimidation and manipulation which would play into the hands of the enemy.

According to the AP, more than 50,000 police and gendarmes are mobilized to protect Sundays first-round vote, with an additional 7,000 soldiers also on patrol.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
South Korean presidential candidate Hong Joon-Pyo Friday denied his own autobiographical confession of complicity in an attempted date rape, as voter outrage mounted.

The firebrand prosecutor-turned-politician and candidate of ousted president Park Geun-Hye's conservative party has been compared to Donald Trump for his outspoken rhetoric and sexist remarks.

While a first-year student at the prestigious Korea University, Hong wrote in a 2005 memoir, a roommate at his boarding house "asked us to obtain a stimulant" and then mixed it into a beer for a girl he had a crush on.

The man returned to the dormitory after midnight, his face scratched and his shirt torn, according to the book.

"He said the drug did not work," Hong wrote. "When he attempted to remove her clothes, she woke up and put up strong resistance, biting and scratching him in the face.

"He asserted that if the drug been authentic, it should have worked. We said: 'Yes, it is real. It is used to get pigs to copulate in the countryside and we've been told it is also effective with humans'."

Hong later became a criminal prosecutor and acknowledged in the book "how seriously wrong such mischief was", calling the incident a prank.

"If I went back to that time, I would never join in such an escapade again," he wrote.

But his confession has become the centre of furious controversy ahead of the election on May 9.

"A sex crime as a prank? You are not up to being a presidential candidate," posted one netizen.

- Criminal psychology -

The former governor of South Gyeongsang province is backed by the Liberty Korea party, which changed its name to distance itself from the impeached president.

"How could a person like him become a presidential candidate?" rival conservative candidate Yoo Seung-Min told journalists.

"He joined in a sex crime and boasted of this experience in writing. He should be the subject of a case study in criminal psychology."

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Hong tried to distance himself from the account Friday, saying he had "overheard" the story from other residents of his boarding house, who were studying at a different school, and did not take part in the plot himself.

He told reporters he "made a clarification" when the book was published -- at a time when he had a much lower profile and reaction was limited.

"This is because I've emerged as a strong candidate, isn't it?" he said.

Hong stands third in the presidential race with nine percent support in a Korea Gallup poll released Friday, far behind front-runner Moon Jae-In of the liberal Democratic Party on 41 percent and the People's Party's former IT tycoon Ahn Cheol-Soo with 30 percent.

Sexist attitudes towards women endure in parts of Korean society.

Hong, 62, is renowned for his incendiary rhetoric, and said Tuesday that "washing dishes is women's work".

But he insisted he was confident of an upset victory, comparing his run to Trump's ultimately successful campaign for the White House.

"Trump became president despite biased news media," he said.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday declined to comment on media reports that Russia was moving military hardware and troops toward the border with North Korea, the RIA news agency quoted him as saying. Peskov said that deployments of Russian troops inside Russia's own borders were not a public matter. Some media in Russia's Ear East have cited local residents as saying they have seen military hardware being moved toward North Korea as tensions with the United States over its nuclear program escalate. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Kuwait City (AFP) - Prominent Kuwaiti opposition leader Mussallam al-Barrak was released from prison Friday after serving a two-year sentence for insulting the emir in public.

Barrak, 61, walked out of Kuwait's central prison to a frenzied reception by hundreds of his relatives and supporters who broke through tight fences and surrounded his vehicle.

The former lawmaker, who served six consecutive terms from 1999 to 2012, openly critiqued the government upon regaining freedom.

"One day I said and I repeat: History will jail those who sent me to jail," Barrak shouted to the cheering crowd.

In February 2015, Barrak was sentenced to two years in prison for comments he had made at a public rally in 2012 which undermined the status of Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

Barrak had been protesting changes to the kingdom's electoral law which he argued would allow authorities to manipulate election results. He has denied that his speech amounted to undermining the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state.

He is the most senior, and the most popular, opposition leader to be jailed in an unprecedented government crackdown on dissent in the kingdom.

Dozens of opposition activists in Kuwait are either in jail or are facing trial for insulting the emir, including via social media.
Kuwait City (AFP) - Prominent Kuwaiti opposition leader Mussallam al-Barrak was released from prison Friday after serving a two-year sentence for insulting the emir in public.

Barrak, 61, walked free from Kuwait's central prison to a frenzied reception by relatives and supporters who broke through a security cordon and surrounded his vehicle.

The former lawmaker, who served six consecutive terms from 1999 to 2012, openly criticised the government upon his release.

"One day I said and I repeat: History will jail those who sent me to jail," Barrak, still wearing a beige prison uniform, shouted to the cheering crowd.

Hundreds of family members and supporters braved scorching heat and dusty winds and waited for more than three hours for Barrak's release outside the central jail, 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of Kuwait City.

The jubilant crowd sang and chanted slogans praising Barrak, hailing him as "the conscience of the people".

Barrak gave a brief speech before a long motorcade drove him to his residence, where more supporters were waiting.

In a defiant speech there, Barrak said he was not given a "fair trial" and denied he had insulted the ruler as he had only expressed his "political opinion".

He said the situation in the Gulf state has deteriorated with authorities issuing freedom-curbing laws, punishing political opponents and revoking their citizenships.

"The only way to forge reforms is through an elected government with its leader winning through the ballot box," Barrak said.

Under Kuwait's political system, the prime minister has always been a senior member of the ruling family appointed by the emir regardless of the outcome of an election.

In February 2015, Barrak was sentenced to two years in jail for comments he made at a 2012 public rally which undermined the status of Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

Barrak had been protesting against changes to the kingdom's electoral law which he argued would allow the authorities to manipulate election results.

Story continues

He is the most senior, and the most popular, opposition leader to be jailed in an unprecedented crackdown on dissent in Kuwait.

Dozens of opposition activists are either in jail or are facing trial for insulting the emir, including via social media.

Barrak's release comes months after a majority of his partners in the opposition alliance ended a four-year boycott of general elections.

The alliance won about half of the 50 parliamentary seats in snap polls in November.

The oil-rich emirate is widely viewed as a pioneer in operating a parliamentary system among the Gulf monarchies.

The OPEC member state sits on about seven percent of global crude reserves and pumps around 2.8 million barrels of oil per day.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri asked the United Nations on Friday to help Lebanon and Israel move toward a permanent ceasefire and end what he called Israel's "continuous violations" of Lebanese territory. Israel and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah group fought a month-long war in 2006 that concluded with a cessation of hostilities but without a formal peace deal. "I urge the U.N. secretary general to support efforts to secure, as soon as possible, a state of permanent ceasefire. This is long overdue and my government is committed to move this agenda forward," Hariri said. Hariri was speaking on a visit to south Lebanon a day after Hezbollah officials staged a media tour near the same area to view what they said were recent Israeli fortifications on the border and to state their preparedness in case of any new war. The tour drew a response from Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, who said in a Facebook post that Hezbollah's media tour was to "shake their sabres and pound their chests". Under U.N. resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army is responsible for security on its side of the border in a zone from which any other armed force, including Hezbollah, is banned. The United Nations also maintains a peacekeeping force on the border. Resolution 1701 also required Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Lebanon says that Israel has not fulfilled this because it continues to occupy a disputed area known in Lebanon as the Shebaa Farms. (Reporting By Angus McDowall and Ellen Francis; Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Naqura (Lebanon) (AFP) - Lebanon's Hezbollah sought Thursday to show that Israel is building up defences in anticipation of another conflict, after a string of statements from Israeli officials warning of a potential confrontation.

The powerful Shiite group, which fought a devastating war with the Jewish state in 2006, brought dozens of journalists on a rare and highly-choreographed trip to the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel.

"This tour is to show the defensive measures that the enemy is taking," said Hezbollah spokesman Mohamed Afif, on a hilltop along the so-called Blue Line.

A military commander identified as Haj Ihab, dressed in digital camouflage and sunglasses, said the Israeli army was erecting earth berms up to 10 metres (30 feet) high, as well as reinforcing a military position near the Israeli border town of Hanita.

"Because their position is directly by the border and the enemy fears that the resistance will advance on it, they have constructed a cliff and additional earth berms and put up concrete blocks," he said.

"The Israeli enemy is undertaking these fortifications and building these obstacles in fear of an advance" by Hezbollah, he said.

As he spoke, an Israeli military patrol of two armoured cars and a white bus wended their way along a road behind a fence, as two yellow bulldozers moved earth nearby.

There has been rising speculation about the possibility of a new war between Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese paramilitary organisation, more than a decade after their last direct confrontation.

The 34-day conflict in 2006 led to the deaths of 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Israel's army chief warned recently that in a "future war, there will be a clear address: the state of Lebanon and the terror groups operating in its territory and under its authority."

There have been periodic skirmishes along the UN-monitored demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon, longtime adversaries which are technically still at war with each other.

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- 'We don't fear war' -

Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, after an 22-year occupation.

Thursday's tour sought to paint Israel as afraid of a new conflict, while depicting Hezbollah as ready for war despite having committed thousands of its fighters to bolstering Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

Journalists were taken from the southern Lebanese town of Naqura, with Hezbollah fighters in full military regalia stationed along the route alongside the group's yellow flag -- despite an official ban on any armed paramilitary presence in southern Lebanon.

Faces smeared with black and green camouflage, they stood silently holding guns and RPG launchers.

On the demarcation line, officially patrolled by the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, there was little sign of tension.

The scents of wild thyme and yellow gorse mingled in the air, the landscape peaceful beyond the noise produced by the sudden scrum of visitors.

While eager to discuss the measures they say Israel has been taking, Hezbollah officials refused to be drawn on their own preparations for war, beyond insisting on their ability to fight if one comes.

Some analysts believe Hezbollah would be hard-pressed to fight on two fronts, Syria and Israel, but others note the group's combatants have also gained new experience during years of battle in the Syrian conflict.

"We don't talk about what the resistance will do," said Haj Ihab.

"But we do not fear war, we don't hesitate to confront it. We yearn for it and we will confront it if it is imposed on us, and God willing we will win."

Despite the bellicose tone, Afif insisted that Hezbollah believes "the chances of war are remote."

"These defensive measures show that Israel is the one who is afraid the resistance and it is not the resistance that is afraid."
Ledell Lee, who was convicted in the murder of Debra Reese in 1993 in a Little Rock Suburb, was executed by the Arkansas Supreme Court Thursday night, authorities said. His death was the first execution carried out by Arkansas since 2005.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge released a statement following his execution in which she condemned the murder and prayed for the Reese family. "I pray this lawful execution helps bring closure for the Reese family," Rutledge said.

Lee died of lethal injection. He received three injections consisting of three drugs: potassium chloride to stop his heart, midazolam to render him unconscious and vecuronium bromide to stop him from breathing.

He was given the lethal injection at 11:44 p.m. local time (12:44 a.m. EDT) and was pronounced dead 12 minutes later by the officials at the Arkansas Department of Correction.

A spokesman for the department Solomon Graves said that Lee requested Holy Communion as his last meal and did not make any final statement before his execution was conducted. According to the Apostolic Church: "Holy Communion is a meal of remembrance because it first of all commemorates the death of Jesus Christ as a unique event which is valid for all times. The remembrance of this event is important because it emphasizes that Jesus Christ is true Man who had to suffer real death. It also recalls the situation at the institution of Holy Communion in the circle of the Apostles. This highlights the importance of the Apostles for the proper administration of Holy Communion."

Apart from Lees execution, the Arkansas state also planned to execute eight death row inmates over a period of 10 days starting April 17, however four among them received stay orders for various reasons, according to New York Times.

Lee was convicted in 1995, after he murdered Debra Reese in February 1993 at her home in Jacksonville, Arkansas. 27-year-old Lee was accused of robbing and strangling Reese inside her house and then beating her with a tire thumper that Reeses husband gave her for protection. She had a six year old son named Joseph Lucky.

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Lee denied the accusations and maintained his innocence for 21 years while serving on death row in Arkansas. His court documents also revealed that Reese was not his only victim but there had been other crimes he had committed against women all in the Jacksonville area.

Reeses son Lucky said during Lees trial: "My mother was everything to me. When she was ripped from my life, it started a spiral that I almost didn't recover from. My family has lived in the shadow of this event our entire lives."

"He is the embodiment of the evil that should never have to exist in this world," Lucky added.

Prior to the announcement of the execution, Lucky requested the state to put an end to the pain their family has been through for twenty-four years since Reeses murder, Arkansasmatters.com reported.

"Let us have some closure," he said. "Let this end. Let us step out from this shadow."

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Its just a few days before the French vote in the first round of their pivotal presidential elections, and three hundred people are packed into a lecture hall to show support for front-runner Emmanuel Macron. Our movement is like no other before it, Ygal El Harrar tells the crowd, to applause.

Its the kind of scene taking place across France - but in fact this event took place a hundred or so miles north in Londons Westminster University, on April 18. The mainly expat crowd made up just a tiny percentage of the estimated 300,000 French citizens in London, a number that makes the famous but possibly apocryphal claim that Britains capital is the sixth-largest French city by population.

The first round of voting is being held on Sunday, April 23, and the Financial Times polls of polls are showing the top two candidates, pro-European Macron and far-right National Front leader Le Pen, within two percent of each other. France Unboweds Jean-Luc Melenchon and Les Republicans Francois Fillon are just three percent behind, each on 19%. The closeness of the race means French expatriates-who number some 1.3 million-could be a deciding factor in which of the four leading candidates will secure the two places in the second round of voting on May 7.

Among Londons cosmopolitan French community, Macron is surely the favorite. A March 31 poll found that the pro-E.U. candidate has a lead among French nationals living abroad, globally: 36% would vote for Macron and 33% would go for right-wing Fillon, while Le Pen is at 9% and far-left Melenchon with 8%.

El Harrar, who is an equity broker at French company, is upbeat about his candidates chances. He describes the former Socialist economy minister as a candidate who has crossed the traditional right and left political spectrum. This is illustrated by the range of supporters present at Westminster University: Corporate city-types, families with children, French Muslim voters and students.

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We are in the middle of a massive revolution in the French political system, El Harrar, who says hes a personal friend of Macron, tells TIME before Tuesdays campaign event. Macron has emerged as one of the key leaders by basically showing that...we can favor the corporates while also favoring the employees, we can favor freedom and favor fraternity, we can favor liberalism but also favor the protection of the individual, he says.

Rola Hageali, 36, a French lawyer who has worked in London for three years, tells TIME on the sidelines of the event that she would vote for Macron because he proposes things that speaks to me which include his pledge to move into renewable energy, his pro-E.U. stance as well as the support of globalization and the need to reduce economic disparities she says.

Macrons campaign clearly sees London as a potentially important constituency; under El Harrars watch, campaigners have leafleted 100,o00 doors, have a presence in almost every university in Britain, and drew more than 3,000 French expats to Macrons Feb. 21 rally in London. The biggest issue for them is Brexit, explains El Harrar, noting that since the June 23 vote up to 30% of E.U. nationals in the U.K. have had their applications for permanent residency rejected.

The solution, he thinks, will be Macrons proposed economic reforms in France; of fiscal restraint, more public spending and de-regulation. French white collar workers flock to London for higher-paying jobs with lower tax burdens but under the young centrist that may change. We want to reform France to make it ready to attract both French people and non-French, El Harrar says.

Le Pens campaign in the U.K. stands in stark contrast to Macrons well-oiled London machine. The far-right leader has never held a rally in the U.K. and monthly London events held by the National Fronts U.K. representatives typically attract just a couple of dozen participants. Still, Le Pens lead campaigner in the city, Max Begon-Lours, says his enthusiasm is undimmed.

The 30-year-old financial trader talks glowingly of the far-right populists calls for economic protectionism, tough immigration controls and opposition to the E.U. The French governments, on the right and left, have been big supporters of unrestricted free trade which puts French workers in competition with China Begon-Lours tells TIME from a conference room at his workplace. Which means we are losing jobs to people working for cheap in worse social conditions he says.

The loss of French identity and immigration are two of his chief concerns and the key reasons why he dislikes Macron and Fillon, the races other conservative candidate. Begon-Lours says even though Fillon has co-opted the language of the far-right when it comes immigrants, I dont think I can trust him to achieve what he claims to achieve he says, while deploring Macrons convergence of French identity into a European identity.

Le Pens controversial stance on immigration doesnt trouble these immigrants. Fabien, a freelance journalist who has lived in the U.K. for 17 years and asked his last name not be published for fear of professional reprisals, tells TIME he believes her policies are rooted in patriotism. Marine Le Pen is not a racist, she does not want all the immigrants out, she just wants the bad immigrants out he says.

Neither of these men fear being repatriated when Britain leaves the European Union and attempts to limit immigration. Im not worried because France and England have been allies for more than a 100 years, and even if England is out of E.U. I dont see them asking qualified French people to leave Begon-Lours tells TIME.

They may be part of a small minority of Britains French expatriates voting for Le Pen, but Thursdays attack, that appeared to be an act of terrorism in Pariss Champs-Elysees, has only reinforced their beliefs. Terrorist attacks, they confirm my vote for Marine le Pen because I think she is the only one who can put France back into order Fabien says.

Britain too has an election coming up, following Prime Minister Theresa Mays shock announcement on Tuesday, but some politicians here are deeply invested in what happens across the English Channel. At Mondays rally, former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg showed up to lend support to his fellow Europhile Macron. I think Emmanuel Macron could be pivotal in Europes history Clegg, a noted polyglot, said in note-perfect French. He can push through the reforms we need.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
When Jim was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer two years ago, it sounded like a death sentence. But hes still here to tell his remarkable story of survival against the odds.

Jim first noticed something was wrong when he began throwing up shortly after eating. When he visited the doctor, he received a diagnosis of stage 3 pancreatic cancer  and was told that the survival rate for all pancreatic cancers was one percent. Jims doctors told him the tumor had grown too large for surgery.

It felt like, literally, someone turned me inside out, says Debby, Jims wife of 40 years. Jims niece, Erica McGraw, is the wife of The Doctors executive producer Jay McGraw. She offered to help Jim get any doctor in the United States, but I felt I had a good team of doctors. I trusted them, he says, and he stuck with them.

Watch: Understanding Pancreatic Cancer

Jim began chemotherapy and radiation. The chemo really beat me up bad, he says. Debby was with him every step of the way. She tells The Doctors, You cry in the shower, because you dont want him to see you as this weak person.

After three-quarters of a year of aggressive treatment, the tumor had not shrunk. Jim made his will and resolved to live the best life he could with the time he had left. Erica and Jay took the extended family on a trip to Las Vegas to spend time together.

After a year, Jims surgeon wanted to do exploratory surgery to see if the cancer had spread. But the procedure revealed that Jims tumor had responded so well to treatment that instead of stopping at exploratory surgery the surgeons performed the Whipple Procedure, a treatment that has been effective in prolonging the lives of some pancreatic cancer patients. The surgery spanned 11-and-a-half hours, removing portions of Jims digestive tract and searching for signs the cancer had spread. At the end of the ordeal, Jim was completely cancer-free! He had beat a deadly cancer.

Watch: Pancreatic Cancer Awareness

Story continues

To put it in perspective for people, 71 percent of people who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer will die within one year, says ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork. But here you are, against all odds.

Im feeling wonderful! says Jim. Im walking three miles a day  I never used to do that. Hes able to eat normally, after being told at one point that he would never eat solid food again. I feel blessed. I appreciate what Ive got here.

Jim and Debby are closer than ever. I always loved her, but its in a different way than it used to be, he says. I couldnt have done it without her.

I said were going to do this! And we did, she responds. She hid her tears through the whole ordeal. I never did see her cry, says Jim. He jokes that he thought maybe she didnt care!

Jims surgeon, Dr. Mark Hill, joins the conversation. He says Jims tumor was unusually large for a pancreatic tumor and surgery was unlikely to remove enough to stop the cancer recurring. The hope was that treatment might shrink it enough to make it possible to remove. When he came in for his follow-up scans, it indeed looked like the tumor had responded. But the only way to know whether the tumor could be removed was exploratory surgery. Its great to see you now and see how well youre doing! he tells Jim.

Jims nieces, identical triplets Jaclyn, Erica, and Nicole, are in the audience to wish him well! And Palace Resorts are sending Jim and Debby to their all-inclusive Moon Palace resort in Cancun, Mexico, to celebrate his remarkable recovery, with flights provided by NTST Healthcare Consultants. Its party time! Dr. Stork tells them.
A reportedly homeless man recently broke into a Colorado home, where he ate a snack, kicked off his shoes and took a nap on the couch, police said.

A homeowner in Fruita called police before dawn Monday after he said he was woken up by his child, who told him a stranger was in the house.

Watch: Burglar Caught on Surveillance Stealing From Store in a Dance Leotard: Cops

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, a little girl in the house said suspect Matthew Keith Dunham woke her up and she saw him standing over her bed with his hands raised and saying things like, "I am harmless. I need help."

According to the report, there was a pair of boots located next to the couch, an empty box of Oreo cookies and a glass of milk with cookie crumbs in it on the kitchen table.

Cops say there was also a series of notes scrawled on paper towels and the refrigerator by the suspect, which read things such as, "Harmless no clue where I am @t?? Sleep on couch" and "help 2:43 harmls."

When the homeowner asked the suspect to leave, he reportedly just repeated that he needed help before the homeowner dragged him out.

When police arrived, Dunham told them he last remembered being at a truck stop in Fruita and remembered nothing else before waking up in the house.

He was arrested and booked on charges of burglary, criminal mischief and theft. He remains held as of Friday.

Read: Is Fabio the Latest Victim of 'Knock Knock Gang'? Burglars Take $200G in Valuables From His Home

At a bond hearing, Dunham's public defender said her client was seeking mental health treatment, employment and a place to live.

Dunham is due in court April 28.

Watch: Woman Holds Alleged Burglar at Gunpoint Until Cops Arrive

Related Articles:
The story of one man who survived a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest in 2015 is opening up in a new documentary about the disaster.

Read: Big Rig Seen Dragging Car Along Highway for a Half Mile After Accident

The deadly avalanche was triggered by an earthquake and claimed the lives of 200 people.

Michael Churton was in the middle of it as a wave of ice, snow, and boulders suddenly came barreling toward him.

"So this is how Im going to die, he recalled telling himself in an interview to Inside Edition.

His story is featured in the upcoming Smithsonian Channel documentary, Nightmare on Everest.

The challenge of climbing Mount Everest in Nepal is unmatched and each year, adventurers from around the globe are drawn to the mountain.

Churton, a filmmaker from Brooklyn, N.Y., was in a tent at base camp when the 7.8 magnitude quake hit.

"I saw this avalanche coming at us. It was like the Empire State Building of ice, and rock, he told Inside Edition. There was no running and I knew we didn't have a lot of time.

He added: "It seemed like death was imminent, so it seemed like getting low wouldn't be enough, but that's what I did.

Read: Good Samaritan Rescues Stray Dog Stranded on Busy Highway

Churton grabbed his camera to capture the historic images after the dust settled, but soon realized he was too injured to carry on. He had broken bones in his face and a concussion.

The survivors had to walk seven miles before they were flown to safety by a helicopter.

Despite what happened, Churton said he would certainly go back.

Watch: Watch Boy's Dramatic Rescue After He Was Buried in Hotel by Avalanche

Related Articles:
Caracas (AFP) - The death toll in three weeks of violence at anti-government protests in Venezuela jumped to 20 people after a night of clashes and pillaging left 12 people dead in Caracas.

Riot police and pro-government vigilantes fought running battles with protesters demanding the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro on the capital's east, west and south sides, witnesses said.

"It was like a war," said 33-year-old construction worker Carlos Yanez, a resident of the southwestern district of El Valle.

"The police were firing tear gas, armed civilians were shooting guns at buildings. My family and I threw ourselves to the floor. It was horrible," he told AFP.

Eleven people were killed in the neighborhood, according to officials.

Eight of them were reportedly electrocuted while trying to loot a bakery amid the chaos. The rest were shot.

At nightfall on Friday, more protests and pockets of unrest were reported in eastern Caracas, and in Macuto in the neighboring state of Vargas. There was a heavy security presence in the city.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

Police fired teargas to disperse crowds in the Caracas district of Palo Verde, where burning barricades of trash were set up. Armed men on motorbikes also sparked panic, witnesses told AFP.

- Hospital evacuated -

The opposition accuses the government of sending gangs of armed thugs to attack them.

Videos shot by El Valle residents on Thursday night showed people throwing bottles and other objects out their windows at the gunmen in the streets below, shouting "Murderers!"

At one point, street protesters hurling Molotov cocktails managed to set fire to one of the armored police trucks firing tear gas at them, lighting up the night sky.

Fifty-four people, including newborn babies, were evacuated from a maternity hospital in the neighborhood.

There were conflicting explanations about the reason.

The government said "armed gangs hired by the opposition" had attacked the hospital. The opposition rejected the allegation, saying the children had to be evacuated because of tear gas fired by Maduro's "dictatorship."

Story continues

The hospital's director, Rosalinda Prieto, told AFP the evacuation was prompted by the stench of burning trash set on fire by protesters.

A man was shot dead in protests in the eastern neighborhood of Petare, the local mayor said. Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation.

Opposition leaders have called new protests for Saturday and Monday.

On Saturday, they plan to march in silence to the Catholic Church's episcopal seats nationwide. They plan to erect roadblocks on Monday to grind the country to a halt.

- Maduro sees US plot -

Protesters blame Maduro -- heir of the leftist "Bolivarian revolution" launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999 -- for an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Maduro says the protests against him are part of a US-backed coup plot.

On Thursday, he said the opposition had agreed to new talks. But his opponents denied the claim, saying the only way forward was to call elections.

Senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles slammed Maduro as a "dictator" and "mythomaniac."

Pressure on Maduro has been mounting since 2014, as falling prices for Venezuela's crucial oil exports have sent the once-booming economy into a tailspin.

The crisis escalated on March 30, when the Supreme Court moved to seize the powers of the legislature, the only lever of state authority not controlled by Maduro and his allies.

The court partly backtracked after an international outcry, but tension only increased when the authorities slapped a political ban on Capriles two weeks ago.

According to pollster Venebarometro, seven in 10 Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro, whose term does not end until 2019.
Tegucigalpa (AFP) - A man suspected of the 2014 murder of Miss Honduras and her sister -- his girlfriend at the time -- declined to testify in a Tegucigalpa court on Friday on grounds of mental illness.

Plutarco Antonio Ruiz, 34, appeared to act oblivious to court proceedings once he was led in by police, court officials said.

He did not respond to questions directed to him in the Supreme Court, as the mother and a sister of the victims looked on.

Prosecutors accuse Ruiz of killing his 24-year-old girlfriend, Sofia Trinidad Alvarado, and her 19-year-old sister, Miss Honduras beauty queen Maria Jose Alvarado, on November 13, 2014.

The women's bodies were found buried on the banks of a river six days later -- on the date Maria Jose was meant to have flown to London to compete in a Miss World pageant.

Prosecutors believe Ruiz fatally shot the sisters in a jealous rage and then buried them with the help of accomplices.

The director of Honduras' forensic medicine institute, Julissa Villanueva, said that Ruiz "was completely competent" to stand trial and urged the judge to continue with proceedings.

The mother of the slain sisters, Teresa Rivera, said she believed Ruiz "wanted to get himself declared crazy so he can escape justice."

If convicted of murder, Ruiz faces up to 40 years behind bars for each of the victims.
Miami (AFP) - Budget cuts and political assaults on science are expected to draw thousands of demonstrators to the streets in more than 500 cities worldwide Saturday for the first March for Science.

Organizers insist that the demonstrations -- anchored by a major rally in Washington on Earth Day, April 22 -- are not aimed specifically at US President Donald Trump or any political party.

Rather, they say, the goal is to defend the vital role of evidence and scientific research when formulating public policies, and to speak out against travel restrictions that prevent the free flow of information and expertise.

"The organizers of the march have taken great pains to say this is not partisan, it is not about any particular public official or political figure," Rush Holt, a physicist and former US congressman told reporters on a conference call, noting that scientists are "often reticent" to wade into the political fray.

"For years now, going back far before the election of last fall, there has been a concern among scientists and friends of science that evidence has been crowded out by ideology and opinion in public debate and policy making."

Holt, who heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science, described the trend as "appalling" and said it has driven anxiety to new heights.

The idea for the science-specific march arose during the Women's March on January 21, which drew more than two million protesters into the streets worldwide in support of human rights, he said.

"Scientists started breaking out spontaneously in the Women's March," and several of them connected on social media to forge the plans for a demonstration in support of science, he said.

- Trump 'catalyzed' march -

In the months and years prior to the 2016 election, Trump declared climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, but since taking office he has delivered mixed messages regarding his views on global warming.

Story continues

He has signed, however, an executive order to roll back environmental protections enacted by his predecessor Barack Obama, and has nominated climate-science skeptics to top posts in his administration.

Trump has also kept people guessing on whether or not the United States will remain committed to the Paris Climate Accord of 2015, which called for curbing fossil-fuel emissions.

Media reports have pointed to deep divisions within his administration on the matter and no announcement is expected before May.

One of Trump's most alarming moves, according to many scientists, was his budget proposal -- yet to be approved by lawmakers -- that would slash funding for the National Institutes of Health and would eliminate one third of the staff at the Environmental Protection Agency while boosting spending on the military.

This decrease in research funding could "prevent an entire new generation of scientists from ever getting started," said Nobel laureate Carol Greider, professor of molecular biology at Johns Hopkins University.

Lydia Villa-Komaroff, a molecular cellular biologist and honorary national co-chair of the March for Science, said the problem is not new, and that federal support for research has been declining since the 1960s.

"I think it is fair to say that this administration catalyzed the happening of this march, there is no doubt about that," she told reporters.

"But it is nonpartisan. It is aimed not only at both sides of the aisle, where there are people who are dismissing the use of evidence in decisions and policy, but at the public at large where there seems to have become this disconnect between what science is and its value to society."

A 2009 Pew Research poll found that most scientists identify as Democrats (55 percent), while 32 percent said they are independent and six percent claimed to be Republican.

- Worldwide marches -

Celebrities set to appear at the March for Science in Washington will include the musician Questlove of the hip-hop group The Roots, and television personality Bill Nye the Science Guy, who currently heads the Planetary Society.

The US capital rally begins Saturday at 8:00 am (1200 GMT), and will be capped with a march from the National Mall to the Capitol at 2:00 pm.

More than 500 satellite marches are planned across the United States and worldwide, including in Australia, Brazil, Canada, many nations in Europe, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria and South Korea.

For those wondering what to wear, the marchforscience.com website urges scientists to "come in your work clothes -- a lab coat, goggles, a stethoscope, field gear," it said.

"Or just wear your comfortable 'I'm ready to be politically active and send a message about the need for science in policy' outfit."

Elias Zerhouni, president of global research and development at French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and a former director of the US National Institutes of Health, said science "is a universal language driven by facts and reason.

"This is not just an American issue. It is a global issue because at the end of the day we are all tied together on this planet."
Paris (AFP) - Max Richter, the prolific German-born British contemporary composer whose influences range from Bach to Brian Eno, will next month release a double-album from his career in film music.

Richter wrote the electronic-infused score to Ari Folman's "Waltz with Bashir" and has worked on a range of other films from the breakthrough Saudi drama "Wadjda" to the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi".

His music for films -- which also include Folman's "The Congress", Gilles Paquet-Brenner's "Sarah's Key" and Henry Alex Rubin's "Disconnect" -- will appear on the album "Out of the Dark Room" set for release May 19.

The composer described music as "my natural language."

"It is what happens when I wake up in the morning. There's stuff playing in my head," he told AFP.

"It has always been like that, and actually I think I feel very privileged to be in a position where I can do this," he said.

Richter was speaking on a visit to Paris to promote the third season of the HBO series "The Leftovers" for which he also wrote the score.

The composer said he was drawn by the "absolutely fantastic" script of Damon Lindelof, who based the series on Tom Perrotta's novel about the mass disappearance of a large segment of the human population and the resulting effects on religion.

He said that the show asked the "big questions" that have always interested him -- "Why do we do stuff? Why we get through the day? What it all means?"

- The worlds of Virginia Woolf -

Richter said he saw a parallel to his latest album "Three Worlds" which was inspired by three novels of Virginia Woolf -- "Mrs Dalloway", "Orlando" and "The Waves."

The album, composed in tandem with a ballet, touches on the novels but it is also about Woolf herself, who struggled with mental illness before committing suicide in 1941.

Story continues

"Her project is all about using creativity to go from point A to point B in your life. That's what is impressive about her, really," he said.

"She lived a very challenging life psychologically. She had a very hard time, very difficult childhood. But in spite of that we have this incredible body of work," he said.

Richter has also finished the soundtrack to a period Western called "Hostiles", starring Christian Bale and directed by Scott Cooper, which he said would come out by the end of the year.

Richter said he was influenced by a generation of musicians who dared to mix genres and who "opened up a space which wasn't really there before."

Among them are two collaborators of David Bowie, English ambient artist Brian Eno and Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese synthesizer innovator who brought in African rhythms, as well as minimalist composers Michael Nyman and Philip Glass.

But Bach reigns supreme in the personal pantheon of Richter, who listens to the 18th-century master every day.

"It all started with Bach, really. Bach did more than compose, he wrote a language. That's another thing completely," he said.

His other touchstone is Henry Purcell, "the English Bach", whom he credits with "amazing techniques and lots of feelings."

Richter said he is also working on an orchestral album with the tentative title "Voices".

"I've been working on it for approximately 10 years. I need it to be finished," he said.
Max Richter, the prolific German-born British contemporary composer whose influences range from Bach to Brian Eno, will next month release a double-album from his career in film music.

Richter wrote the electronic-infused score to Ari Folman's "Waltz with Bashir" and has worked on a range of other films from the breakthrough Saudi drama "Wadjda" to the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi".

His music for films -- which also include Folman's "The Congress", Gilles Paquet-Brenner's "Sarah's Key" and Henry Alex Rubin's "Disconnect" -- will appear on the album "Out of the Dark Room" set for release May 19.

The composer described music as "my natural language."

"It is what happens when I wake up in the morning. There's stuff playing in my head," he told AFP.

"It has always been like that, and actually I think I feel very privileged to be in a position where I can do this," he said.

Richter was speaking on a visit to Paris to promote the third season of the HBO series "The Leftovers" for which he also wrote the score.

The composer said he was drawn by the "absolutely fantastic" script of Damon Lindelof, who based the series on Tom Perrotta's novel about the mass disappearance of a large segment of the human population and the resulting effects on religion.

He said that the show asked the "big questions" that have always interested him -- "Why do we do stuff? Why we get through the day? What it all means?"

- The worlds of Virginia Woolf -

Richter said he saw a parallel to his latest album "Three Worlds" which was inspired by three novels of Virginia Woolf -- "Mrs Dalloway", "Orlando" and "The Waves."

The album, composed in tandem with a ballet, touches on the novels but it is also about Woolf herself, who struggled with mental illness before committing suicide in 1941.

Story continues

"Her project is all about using creativity to go from point A to point B in your life. That's what is impressive about her, really," he said.

"She lived a very challenging life psychologically. She had a very hard time, very difficult childhood. But in spite of that we have this incredible body of work," he said.

Richter has also finished the soundtrack to a period Western called "Hostiles", starring Christian Bale and directed by Scott Cooper, which he said would come out by the end of the year.

Richter said he was influenced by a generation of musicians who dared to mix genres and who "opened up a space which wasn't really there before."

Among them are two collaborators of David Bowie, English ambient artist Brian Eno and Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese synthesizer innovator who brought in African rhythms, as well as minimalist composers Michael Nyman and Philip Glass.

But Bach reigns supreme in the personal pantheon of Richter, who listens to the 18th-century master every day.

"It all started with Bach, really. Bach did more than compose, he wrote a language. That's another thing completely," he said.

His other touchstone is Henry Purcell, "the English Bach", whom he credits with "amazing techniques and lots of feelings."

Richter said he is also working on an orchestral album with the tentative title "Voices".

"I've been working on it for approximately 10 years. I need it to be finished," he said.
Rome (AFP) - Around 100 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean according to shipwreck survivors, raising the death toll for the perilous crossing to Italy to over 1,000 victims in 2017, the UN's refugee agency said Friday.

"This latest tragedy pushes the number of people dead or missing in the central Mediterranean to 1,073 so far this year," the UNHCR told AFP.

Among the 8,000 or so migrants plucked from flimsy dinghies over Easter weekend were survivors who told the agency about 100 of their fellow passengers had been claimed by the waves.

At this point last year, 853 people had lost their lives or were feared drowned.

Overstretched migrant aid groups describing "unprecedented mass rescues" of people fleeing horrors in conflict-torn Libya over Easter had warned more people risked drowning without EU action.

Italian tugboat Asso 29 disembarked 1,170 of those rescued in Vibo Valentia in Calabria on Tuesday, including families from Syria, Tunisia, Bangladesh and Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Some of those who arrived in Vibo Valentia told us there were around 100 people who died during the crossing," UNHCR's Federico Fossi told AFP, stressing that as always in these situations it was "difficult to get precise details on what had happened".

- 'Incredibly dangerous' -

More than 36,700 people have been pulled to safety and brought to Italy so far this year according to the International Organization for Migration, an increase of nearly 45 percent compared with the same period last year.

At least 150 of those lost were children, though the figure is likely to be higher as many underage migrants travel unaccompanied so their deaths often go unreported, UNICEF said Friday.

"It is deeply concerning that vulnerable people, including thousands of children, are risking their lives to reach Europe's shores using this incredibly dangerous route," said Afshan Khan, UNICEF special coordinator for Europe's refugee and migrant crisis.

Story continues

Several days of calm weather off the coast of Libya saw traffickers set dozens of dinghies or boats out to sea together.

Italy has hopes of shutting down the route, though a deal signed with Libya in February -- fiercely criticised by rescue groups and human rights campaigners -- is in doubt after it was suspended in March by Tripoli's Court of Appeal.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said Friday Rome would supply Libya with 10 coastguard boats by the end of June in its bid to make the Libyan coastguard "the most powerful unit in northern Africa".

But critics have scoffed at the idea of making any deal with Libya and questioned the legality of returning those picked up at sea to a country where migrants are kept in detention centres and report cases of torture, rape and slavery.
Say hello to Steve.

Steve isn't a person. Steve is actually the unofficial name of a mysterious purple streak of light observed by some social media savvy skywatchers keeping an eye out for the northern lights.

SEE ALSO: I am so unreasonably jealous of this view of the southern lights

The Alberta Aurora Chasers  a Facebook group devoted to the northern lights  caught sight of Steve in photos taken of the curtains of the auroras (and decided to name him).

The one issue is that no one was quite sure what Steve was. That is, until a high-powered spacecraft got involved.

One of the three European Space Agency's Swarm satellites actually flew through a Steve phenomenon, according to Eric Donovan of the University of Calgary.

The aurora.

Image: NASA

Donovan matched up images taken of Steve from the ground with observations taken by the satellite and found something surprising.

As the satellite flew straight though Steve, data from the electric field instrument showed very clear changes," Donovan said in a statement.

It looks like Steve is actually a flow of hot gas moving much more quickly than the air around it, and while there's still a lot more to learn about the astronomical phenomenon, this is a good start.

And Steve's not all that rare.

It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadnt noticed it before," Donovan said.

"Its thanks to ground-based observations, satellites, todays explosion of access to data and an army of citizen scientists joining forces to document it."

The fact is that Steve couldn't have been discovered in earlier decades.

In 1997 we had just one all-sky imager in North America to observe the aurora borealis from the ground, Donovan said.

Back then we would be lucky if we got one photograph a night of the aurora taken from the ground that coincides with an observation from a satellite. Now we have many more all-sky imagers and satellite missions like Swarm so we get more than 100 a night.

Story continues

Thanks to these observations we know that auroras are created when charged particles from the sun bombard Earth's upper atmosphere, interacting with neutral particles and making them glow.

This creates the beautiful green and red curtains of the northern and southern lights. And also, we guess, Steve.

WATCH: I am so unreasonably jealous of this view of the southern lights
The missing student who has not been seen since vanishing with her teacher more than a month ago has been found safe in Northern California.

Elizabeth Thomas, 15, was "safely recovered" following weeks on the run with her former teacher, Tad Cummins, near the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Siskiyou County, authorities said.

Cummins was arrested at the same time, officials said.

An unidentified man called the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's tip line and also contacted local law enforcement late Wednesday to report a possible encounter with the pair in a remote area of Cecilville, TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said at a press conference Thursday.

It is believed they were staying in a cabin in the very rural area, about 120 miles south of the Oregon state line, authorities said.

NEW: Here's the mug shot of Tad Cummins from California. He's now facing state and federal charges. pic.twitter.com/2LYWL7QlSt  TBI (@TBInvestigation) April 20, 2017

Police confirmed Thursday morning a Nissan Rogue found on the property belonged to Cummins and kept the vehicle under surveillance for several hours before taking the former teacher into custody.

Read: Teacher Accused of Kidnapping 15-Year-Old Student Is Running Out of Life-Saving Meds: Authorities

Agents from the TBI, FBI and deputies with the Maury County Sheriff's Office flew on TBI aircraft to California to meet with Thomas and fly her back home.

Jack Smith, acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said Cummins has been charged with transportation of a minor across state lines with the intent of sexual intercourse.

Cummins had previously been charged with aggravated kidnapping and misdemeanor sexual contact with a minor.

The discovery of Thomas and the arrest of Cummins come nearly six weeks since the pair disappeared on March 13.

Story continues

Thomas's disappearance triggered a nationwide Amber Alert.

Our intelligence analysts and agents have worked tirelessly since issuing this Amber Alert to process more than 1,500 leads from all 50 states, TBI Director Mark Gwyn said in a statement Thursday.

What happened in California this morning, however, proves it only takes one person to lead to a successful end," he said. "We are extremely thankful the hard work of all partners in this search has paid off. Were also grateful for the publics support and vigilance throughout this search effort."

The last public sighting of the pair had been two days after they vanished. Surveillance cameras captured images of the duo shopping inside an Oklahoma City Walmart.

Read: Teacher, Missing Student Spotted in Out-of-State Walmart Days After Disappearing

Cummins, a married father and grandfather, left a note for his wife, Jill, the morning he vanished, Cooper said. The prosecutor declined to reveal the letters contents, but called it a diversionary tactic designed to buy time.

Jill Cummins filed for divorce after her husband and the girl went missing.

He was charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor. Authorities warned he was armed.

Cummins had been suspended in February from his teaching duties after the pair was discovered in his classroom. The school district had ordered him to have no one-on-one contact with the girl after a classmate reported the two had been seen kissing on school property in January.

Both denied having any inappropriate contact with the other.

One day after their disappearance, he was fired by school authorities.

His family had pleaded for him to surrender to authorities.

No matter where you are, daddy, no matter what youve done, we just want you to come home," daughter Erica Osbourne, 29, told ABC News last week. "We miss you so much. Were here for you, no matter what, any time, any place, anywhere."

Watch: Wife of Teacher Who Disappeared With Student: I Love Him but I Don't Trust Him

Related Articles:
(Reuters) - Elizabeth Thomas, a missing 15-year-old Tennessee girl who was found with a former teacher in a remote corner of Northern California on Thursday will return home Friday, her family said in a television interview.

Speaking on ABC News' Good Morning America program Friday morning from Tennessee, Anthony Thomas, the girl's father, said he was looking forward to seeing Elizabeth later in the day when officials fly her back.

Sheriff deputies in Siskiyou County on Thursday rescued Thomas and arrested Tad Cummins, 50, a former teacher at her school in Maury County, Tennessee, from a cabin near Yreka, California, about 60 miles (100 km) south of the Oregon border.

The two became the subject of a nationwide search after he apparently lured the girl into his car outside a restaurant in Columbia, Tennessee, about 45 miles south of Nashville.

During the television interview on Friday, Elizabeth's sister, identified as Kat Bozeman, said she did not believe that Elizabeth had gone willingly with Cummins. Asked directly whether he thought Elizabeth had been "brainwashed" by Cummins, Anthony Thomas said, "Yes."

He said the family planned to offer Elizabeth therapy, and understood that she would need time to recover.

Cummins, whose wife filed for divorce after he disappeared with Elizabeth, has been fired from his teaching job.

He was apprehended on a fugitive warrant charging him with aggravated kidnapping and unlawful sexual contact with a minor, law enforcement officials said, and was set to be arraigned on Friday in Yreka.

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Searching for answers Marilyn, Angels mother, through the curtains in her house in San Cristobal, Venezuela, close to the Colombian border. (Photo: Fabiola Ferrero)

Angel, 5, was diagnosed with a stage 4 neuroblastoma in September 2015. Every two weeks since then, he and his mother, Marilyn, have made the 14-hour bus trip from their hometown of San Cristobal, near the Colombian border, to the capital of Caracas, where he receives chemotherapy. The Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation estimates that the country is lacking roughly 80 percent of basic medical supplies, so Marilyn must rely on the help of family, friends, and nongovernmental organizations to find medicine for her son. When she does, she stores as much as she can in a box.

If another mom needs one, I give it to her, she says. Were here to help each other through this.

Since last year, Marilyn and Angel have been waiting for a reagent (Iodine-131) that is not available in Venezuela but is necessary for the tests Angel needs to have before his second surgery. In the meantime, Marilyn continues traveling, calling friends, and borrowing rooms in Caracas, determined to make sure her son survives cancer in a country wracked by a health crisis.

Text and photography by Fabiola Ferrero

_____

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Tumblr.
London (AFP) - The British government on Friday gave Northern Ireland's bickering political parties until June 29 to strike a power-sharing deal, pushing back the deadline for the fourth time.

The previous deadline of "early May" was abandoned after Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election for June 8, as the parties acknowledged that the campaign could make it difficult to reach compromises.

"If an agreement is not possible before the general election, it is right that we provide flexibility for an incoming government to act in the best interests of Northern Ireland and the space for the parties to conclude a deal," James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said after introducing the new legislation.

"This bill gives the parties the legal authority to convene the assembly, appoint ministers and get on with the resumption of devolved government at any point up to 29 June," he said.

The new legislation will also let a gridlocked Northern Ireland collect the household tax payments that are needed to finance local council services.

The power-sharing executive is the cornerstone of a peace process that ended three decades of violent conflict between Catholic Irish nationalists and Protestant British unionists.

It fell apart in January when the republican Sinn Fein party pulled out after months of bad blood between them and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

A snap election followed on March 2, which boosted Sinn Fein and saw unionists lose their outright majority in the Belfast assembly, though the DUP narrowly remained the largest party.

An initial three-week deadline for Sinn Fein and the DUP to resolve their differences passed with no resolution and the British government granted more time.

If the feuding parties are unable to form a semi-autonomous government in Belfast, a new election will be called or the province will be fully governed from London, the British government has warned.

Story continues

Negotiations so far have only underscored the disagreement over how to deal with legacy issues from the decades of violence before 1998, including a bill of rights and the status of the Irish language.

Britain's vote to leave the European Union is also casting a shadow over the talks.

Northern Ireland will have the only land border between the UK and EU territory, and is highly dependent on cross-border trade with the Republic of Ireland.

During a visit to London on Friday, Sinn Fein's deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said designated special status for Northern Ireland within the EU was the only way to protect Irelandas economic interests.

"There is deep concern that the draft EU Council resolution is so weak in relation to Ireland and, without a major change of approach from Taoiseach Enda Kenny, we are on route to a bad deal for the peace process, a bad deal for our agriculture sector and a bad deal for the wider economy," she said.
Top federal, state, and town officials declared a State of Emergency in Niagara County today as rising lake levels are pushed higher ahead of the weekend. Officials are holding a press conference today at 2:00 p.m. at the Olcott Yacht Club to outline preparation information in the event of flooding along the Lake Ontario shore, followed by a Q & A with the County Manager, the Niagara County Sheriff, and the Director of Emergency Services. The county has been monitoring the lake level since last week after boaters were asked to observe a 500-foot no wake zone of the Lake Ontario shore.
Tel Aviv (AFP) - Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said during a visit to Israel Friday that there can be "no doubt" that Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis, speaking during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, declined to comment on the number of weapons Washington believes Syria has retained.

US President Donald Trump's administration carried out a strike against a Syrian airbase earlier this month over an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," Mattis said.

"It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they'd be ill-advised to try to use any again. We've made that very clear with our strike."

An Israeli military assessment has found that Assad's regime was still in possession of "a few tonnes" of chemical weapons, an army official confirmed.

Some Israeli media reports put the number at between one and three tonnes. Lieberman declined to comment on the assessment at Friday's press conference.

Assad, backed by his ally Russia, has strongly denied the allegation that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, describing it as a "100 percent fabrication".

He has said repeatedly that his forces turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.

The agreement was later enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution.

Addressing North Korea, Mattis called comments from Pyongyang "provocative" but added that "their word has not proven honest."

Story continues

"They've not lived up to any statements they've made in the past years, decades actually, about stopping their ballistic missile and their nuclear programmes," Mattis said.

"So I would just take their words at the same value we've always given them as we've learnt not to trust them."

North Korea is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

Vice President Mike Pence vowed on Wednesday that the United States would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.
By Steve Holland and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump praised Chinese efforts to rein in "the menace of North Korea" on Thursday, after North Korean state media warned the United States of a "super-mighty preemptive strike." Trump told a news conference "some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours," and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would "try very hard" to pressure Beijing's ally and neighbor North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. While Trump gave no indication of what the moves might be, U.S. officials told Reuters that the United States was aware of a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signaling a possible heightened state of readiness. The officials played down concerns and left open a range of possible reasons. MORE FROM REUTERS: * COMMENTARY: The next super weapon could be biological http://reut.rs/2oVooHc * COMMENTARY: The worrying lessons of the Syria chemical attack http://reut.rs/2o6r55r Those possibilities included defensive exercises or Chinese concerns over North Korea. None of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested alarm or signaled that they knew the precise reason for such Chinese activity. U.S. officials have been saying for weeks that North Korea could soon stage another nuclear bomb test, something both the United States and China have both warned against. Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has proceeded with nuclear and missile programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump, who took office in January, has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile. Trump has focused his efforts on North Korea on trying to persuade China to put more pressure on its ally and could view any unusual Chinese military movements as supportive of this. He told a news conference with the visiting prime minister of Italy on Thursday that the United States was "in very good shape" on North Korea and that China's Xi, whom he met this month for a summit in Florida, was working hard to help. "We dont know whether or not theyre able to do that, but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very very hard." Trump repeated a past comment that he had told Xi in Florida that China would make much better deal on trade with the United States "if you get rid of this menace or do something about this menace of North Korea." 'SUPER-MIGHTY PREEMPTIVE STRIKE' The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, struck an aggressive tone earlier on Thursday. "In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes," it said. Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, which followed a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang. South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying that the U.S. Air Force had dispatched a nuclear sniffer aircraft on Thursday to the east of the Korean Peninsula in anticipation of a possible nuclear test. The U.S. Defense Department does not comment on deployments of the WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft used to collect samples from the atmosphere to detect and analyze nuclear explosions. The U.N. Security Council on Thursday condemned North Korea's latest failed missile test and demanded it not conduct any more nuclear tests. South Korea's acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance. The South Korean defense ministry said U.S. and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion. "We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever," South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. "Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy's intention to provoke us." William Perry, who served as U.S. defense secretary from 1994 to 1997 and negotiated with North Korea, said he did not believe Pyongyang was planning a surprise attack, despite the fiery rhetoric. But he warned: "They are doing a lot of bluster and a lot of threats, and they might misplay that hand and blunder into a war." GRAPHIC: Carl Vinson strike group - http://tmsnrt.rs/2p1yGTQ GRAPHIC: North Korea's nuclear program - http://tmsnrt.rs/2lE5yjF (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, William James in London, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Idrees Ali in Riyadh, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Kim Do-gyun in Gunsan, South Korea; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel and Alistair Bell)
A Minnesota man killed a jogger when he lost control of his SUV. The driver failed a field sobriety test because he sounded and acted impaired, but then passed a breathalyzer analysis. His strange demeanor on the scene was explained three days later, when he was diagnosed with four brain tumors.

He has now been released without charges and is undergoing treatment. Should he go free, or should he have known something was wrong before he got behind the wheel?

Watch: Epilepsy Caused by Brain Tumors

In this case, says criminal defense attorney Sara Azzari, to find him guilty of vehicular manslaughter there has to be gross negligence. And somebody who doesnt know they have lesions and doesnt know they arent safe to drive, theres no way you can find them guilty of a crime.

This case is so sad, ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork responds. However, we are seeing more and more individuals who use a medical excuse for committing crimes. Sometimes even in the medical world, we cant always make sense of whether theyre using this as an excuse.

Watch: Manslaughter Charges Over Allergy-Related Deaths

In this case, however, the man actually denied having a medical condition when questioned by the police, because he didnt know about the tumors. He feels terrible, says Sara. He says he wishes he had been the dead guy.

Dr. Stork recalls, years ago, seeing a car in a parking lot ram into three other cars at high speed  the driver was in the throes of a seizure. When youre walking or biking, you always have to be aware, he concludes. Things happen. He wishes well to everyone involved in this terrible case.
The following material contains mature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

Students at a California high school had their phones confiscated and searched under threat of suspension after one student took nude photos of a school administrator at an off-campus gym. The student who took the photos was arrested and has now been expelled, but the families of some of the students who shared the pictures think they have been punished too severely.

Watch: Dad Sends Dirty Pic

Criminal defense attorney Sara Azari joins The Doctors to discuss this case. She notes that everyone has a right to privacy, including high-school students. There are two issues here  the phone the perpetrator used to take the photos and share them on Snapchat, and those of his classmates who merely received the images from him.

ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork wonders how schools cope at all now that students have cell phones  the devices are a distraction in class and make bullying and gossip easier than ever. And how can the victimized administrator ever get these images removed from circulation now?

Watch: Judy Smith on Revenge Photos

Sara agrees that its a real problem. Increasingly images of people taken without their knowledge or consent  or misused after the fact  are showing up on the Internet. Although states are passing statutes to deal with revenge porn and similar problems, they can be hard to enforce.

The school in question was not able to comment on the story because the legal investigation is ongoing.
Pete Souza is back at it again with the Instagram shade, and this time he's coming for Sarah Palin and her famous band of sidekicks.

Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock (author's note:   ) hung out with President Trump on Thursday. And afterward, the former Alaskan governor shared photos of her visit on Facebook, thanking Trump for the invite. But one picture in particular caught Souza's eye.

Standing before Hillary Clinton's official White House portrait, the very mature Palin, Nugent, and Kid Rock posed in very mature ways.

SEE ALSO: Trump never has to buy sunglasses again because Obama's photographer will shade him forever

Palin, in her off-the-shoulder top, is seen pointing to the portrait with an extraordinarily salty "huh, remember her?" look on her face. Nugent appears to be giving Clinton the old heave-ho hand signal. And Kid Rock? Well, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to be aware a photograph is being taken, he still has his arms crossed.

Very classy.

But for those peeved by the photograph, have no fear. Obama's heroic photographer is here with the shade.

Digging deep into his nostalgic archives, Souza responded to Palin's photo by sharing a snapshot of Obama and his former White House chief of staff, Bill Daley, sitting together beneath Ronald Reagan's official White House portrait.

Being respectful. A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Apr 20, 2017 at 12:22pm PDT

Without even mentioning Palin's name, Souza got his message across with a short caption: "Being respectful."

So simple. So effective.

WATCH: Eric Trump is now a front-runner for the Most Oblivious Thing Ever Said About the Internet by Anyone, Anywhere

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A new ocean debris drift analysis shows missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 is most likely within a proposed expanded search area rejected by Australia and Malaysia in January, the Australian government's scientific agency said on Friday.

A A$200 million ($150.54 million) search for the aircraft, which went missing in 2014 with 239 people onboard, was suspended when the two nations rejected a recommendation to search north of the 120,000 sq km (46,000 sq mile) area already canvassed, saying the new area was too imprecise.

The new debris drift analysis suggests the missing Boeing 777 may be located in a much smaller 25,000 sq km (9,652 sq mile) zone within that proposed northern search area.

This new work leaves us more confident in our findings, Dr David Griffin, a principal research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said in a statement.

The CSIRO report featured data and analysis from ocean testing of an actual Boeing 777 flaperon cut down to match the one from MH370 found on Reunion island off the coast of Africa in 2015, rather than the wood and steel models used in a previous test.

"Weve found that an actual flaperon goes (drifts) about 20 degrees to the left, and faster than the replicas, as we thought it might," said Griffin. "The arrival of MH370s flaperon at La Reunion in July 2015 now makes perfect sense."

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

The location of MH370, which went missing on a flight to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, has become one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester said he welcomed the new CSIRO report but said it was important to note it did not provide new evidence leading to a specific location of MH370.

He said a copy of the report had been provided to Malaysia for consideration in its ongoing investigation into the disappearance of the aircraft.

Malaysia is the lead investigator and any future requests in relation to searching for MH370 would be considered by Australia, at that time," Chester said.

(Reporting by Jamie Freed; Editing by Michael Perry)
The oldest person in the world is now mourning the death of her 97-year-old son.

The eldest son of 117-year-old Violet Brown, Harland Fairweather of Jamaica, died Wednesday in their rural Duanvale home. He was 97.

Read: 117-Year-Old Jamaican Woman Says It Took 'Hard Work' to Become Oldest Person in the World

He had been unwell for some time but we didn't expect him to go like this," caretaker Elaine McGrowder told The Associated Press. McGrowder was one of two caretakers home at the time of his death.

She said they had believed he recovered from his illness, but when he awoke Wednesday morning, he reported feeling dizzy before daying later that day.

After spending most of his life in Great Britain, Fairweather, nicknamed Uncle Alan, enjoyed his days with his mother at their home in northwestern Jamaica, where both he and his mother had been born. The house was passed down from Fairweathers great-grandparents, and has been in the family for nearly 200 years.

Surprisingly, the 97-year-old is survived by his mother, also known as Aunt V., who is believed to be the oldest person in the world with credible birth documentation.

She was born March 10, 1900, and spent most of her life as a sugarcane farmer. Brown credits her long life to her deep faith in Christianity.

I spent all my time in the church from a child to right up, Brown told APTN.

Brown is believed to be the oldest person in the world, according to Gerontology Research Group, a group of volunteer researchers that keeps detailed records on the worlds oldest people.

Read: 113-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor, the Oldest Man in the World, Has Bar Mitzvah 100 Years Later

She is considered the next to hold the title after the death of Emma Morano of Italy, who died earlier this month. Morano was also considered the last person to be born in the 20th century.

She has not yet been officially declared the worlds oldest person by Guinness World Records, considered to be the official authority over the title.

Story continues

The organization is still researching different candidates who might be next to hold the title.

Watch: 85-Year-Old Plans to Become the Oldest Man to Climb Mount Everest... Again

Related Articles:
Panama City (AFP) - The co-founder of the law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal says the fallout has set off a "thriving" boom in the creation of tax shelters in the United States.

Juergen Mossack, who partnered with Ramon Fonseca to create the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, said in a document obtained Thursday by AFP that after the Panama Papers leak a year ago, the number of new tax shelters created has fallen by 30 percent in Panama and elsewhere.

"However, jurisdictions such as Delaware, Nevada and others located in the United States, where virtually no due diligence is required... incorporations are thriving!" Mossack said.

"Whilst Panama tries hard to be whiter than white, others are profiting," he wrote.

The Panama Papers, published a year ago in a leak of more than 11 million documents belonging to Mossack Fonseca, spurred fresh government action against the secretive world of tax fraud and evasion.

Before the scandal exposed the global extent of offshore tax havens, Panama was the last major financial center refusing all exchange of banking information.

But since then, Panama has adopted new legislation and signed up to the international fight against tax fraud, with all the transparency required.

Law firms in Panama have been required to undertake due diligence -- to know their clients and the final beneficiaries of the companies they create -- since 2015.

Mossack said US jurisdictions have "zero transparency" and that is why, after the scandal, there has been an increase in clients creating tax shelters in the US who previously would have gone to Panama.

According to the Panamanian economy ministry, the creation of offshore companies fell 27 percent in 2016 from the prior year.

No one has been arrested in the Panama Papers leaks scandal. In this Central American country, tax evasion is not a crime.

But Mossack and Fonseca have been placed in provisional detention on money-laundering charges as part of a sprawling Brazilian corruption probe dubbed "Operation Car Wash."

Story continues

Mossack's letter, written from detention, was dated April 10.

Panama's chief prosecutor, Kenia Porcell, said his office was cooperating with European countries investigating tax fraud revealed in the Panama Papers.

The Panama Papers linked some of the world's most powerful leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, former British prime minister David Cameron and others to unreported offshore companies.

Mossack said more than 98 percent of his firm's clients were not Panamanian nationals and that 85 percent of the companies noted in the Panama Papers were set up to comply with other jurisdictions.

According to him, "less than one percent of all the companies incorporated" by Mossack Fonseca could have "a possible wrongful use."

If some of the companies set up by Mossack Fonseca were used by their owners to try to cheat on their taxes "we would not have been aware of that, since no client in his right mind would tell people he has never met that he would use the company for an illegal purpose," he said.

"Such a disclosure would automatically disqualify him from being accepted as a client."
US Vice President Mike Pence announced $10 billion in deals between American and Indonesian companies during a visit to Jakarta Friday, as he pushed for greater access to Southeast Asia's top economy.

Eleven deals were signed. Energy firm Exxon Mobil, General Electric, and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin were among the American companies involved in the agreements.

"These deals represent the tremendous excitement that American companies feel about opportunities in Indonesia, said Pence.

Exxon Mobil will sell liquefied natural gas to Indonesian state-owned energy company Pertamina, General Electric will provide technology for Indonesian power plants, while Lockheed Martin will provide new weapons systems for F-16 fighter jets.

During the visit to Indonesia, his latest stop on an Asia tour, Pence has been pushing to help US firms who want to do business in Indonesia -- one of several countries targeted by Donald Trump's administration for running a trade surplus with the US.

During a meeting at a Jakarta hotel Friday where the deals were announced, Pence told business leaders that he and President Joko Widodo had "very candidly and very respectfully" discussed how to improve market access for US firms in Indonesia when they held talks.

He said earlier on the visit that Washington wanted to "break down barriers" for exporters seeking to enter the Indonesian market.

Indonesia has long been targeted by foreign investors, as it has enjoyed robust growth in recent years, driven by exports of its key commodities even as many developed countries have struggled.

The country of 255 million people is home to a rapidly growing middle class and an army of consumers whose spending power is increasing.

But Indonesia can be a notoriously difficult place to do business due to nationalistic policies, complex bureaucracy and problems with corruption, and foreign firms have often run into trouble.

The latest example of a US company facing problems is a row between the government and mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, which runs a huge gold and copper mine in Indonesia, after authorities demanded they obtain a new licence to operate.

Pence departed Indonesia Friday for the next stop on his tour, Australia. He has already visited South Korea and Japan on a trip that is aimed at smoothing some of the rougher edges of Trump's rhetoric.
Sydney (AFP) - US Vice President Mike Pence will try make a disastrous first telephone call between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull ancient history when he meets the Australian prime minister on Saturday.

After a surly first conversation between the two leaders in January that rattled the United States and Australia's long-standing alliance, Pence will take a more amiable approach and try to focus on cooperation on trade, defence and more.

Trump reportedly exploded and cut short the call when he was told about a deal to move some refugees from Australia to America.

That left some in Australia questioning the mercurial president's commitment to the decades-old relationship.

"I really do think it's ancient history," said a White House foreign policy advisor, ahead of Pence's arrival in Sydney late Friday. "We're really focusing on the positives."

"We've got historically a very, very strong relationship with Australia, we've got a great relationship with their government officials, we've already had many meetings with them considering we are not even at 100 days."

Under Trump, friction points between Washington and Canberra have piled up, despite the administration's belated decision to uphold the refugee agreement.

Trump has also cancelled an already completed trans-Pacific trade deal that would have given Australian firms better access to markets in the United States and several key regional markets.

That reversal only deepened the belief, held by some Australian officials, that the country's interests would be best served by rebalancing toward China, a vast market on its doorstep.

With that in mind, Trump administration officials are striking a markedly more conciliatory tone.

"We are the number two in the economy in this sense," said the White House advisor. "Obviously they lead with China. They are in the region, proximity matters to them."

Story continues

"They are a bedrock in the Asia-Pacific region, they have had those long-standing economic ties to China as well."

China will also loom large when discussions turn to the South China Sea, where Beijing has been flexing its muscles to realise controversial territorial claims.

The Trump administration has been far from clear about its response to that issue -- one that will have massive repercussions for the freedom of shipping and for Australia's export-driven economy.

According to the White House foreign policy advisor, the administration will be looking to tap Australia's deep understanding of the issue.

"The wonderful thing about relationships is that much like a marriage it's about speaking and listening," the official said.

The South China Sea is one of 15 issues that Trump's National Security Council has identified as being in need of review.

"We look forward to Australia's input and ideas on how we can better formulate that strategy on the South China Sea."
JAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday an attack in central Paris is the latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere and at anytime, and the United States would not relent in its efforts to end terrorism. Pence made the remarks at the start of a roundtable with businessmen in Jakarta, where he was ending a two-day visit to Southeast Asia's largest economy. A French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack carried out days before presidential elections and quickly claimed by the Islamic State militant group. President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the "cowardly killing" on the Champs Elysees boulevard, in which the assailant was himself shot dead by police, was an act of terrorism. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
By Jane Wardell and Roberta Rampton SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to discuss trade and regional security when he meets Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, Australian and U.S. officials said. Pence landed in Australia late on Friday, his fourth stop on a 10-day tour of U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region that has included a series of roundtables with business executives in South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia. His trip to Australia is the first by a senior official in President Donald Trump's administration as the United States looks to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation amid disputes in the South China Sea and tension on the Korean peninsula. Pence will emphasize the long-term partnership between the two countries on defense and the economy, even as Australia eyes the merits of developing a closer relationship with China, a White House foreign policy adviser said. "We're the number two in the economy in this sense," the adviser told reporters traveling with Pence. "Obviously they lead with China. They are in the region, proximity matters to them." An official in Turnbull's office noted Pence has already met and spoken by phone with several ministers about the Trump administration's commitment to the bilateral relationship. "The prime minister will enjoy the chance to talk about opportunities for building on that partnership," said the official, who asked not to be identified. Australia's relationship with the new administration in Washington got off to a rocky start when Trump lambasted Turnbull over a refugee resettlement arrangement that Trump labeled a "dumb" deal. Details of an acrimonious phone call between the pair soon after Trump took office made headlines around the world. 'ANCIENT HISTORY' It is unclear whether that deal, agreed with former President Barack Obama, will be discussed on Saturday. "I really do think it's ancient history," the White House foreign policy adviser told reporters, noting Pence had discussed the deal with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop earlier this year. Under the deal, the United States agreed to resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in offshore processing camps on South Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. In return, Australia would resettle refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The deal has taken on added importance for Australia, which is under political and legal pressure to shut the camps, particularly one on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island where violence between residents and inmates has flared. Pence will also meet Australian business executives in Sydney on Saturday, following similar meetings in Seoul, Tokyo, and Jakarta that have been thick with executives from Fortune 100 companies. His message at each of those stops was to reassure political and business leaders that Trump's "America First" policy meant that the United States was open to foreign investment, and that his administration wanted to work with business leaders to knock down barriers for U.S. products. He has also confirmed that Trump will attend this year's gathering of the Association of South East Asian Nations, scheduled for the Philippines in November. While in Australia, Pence and his family will also meet some local wildlife at Sydney's zoo, take a harbor cruise and tour the world-famous Sydney Opera House. (Reporting By Jane Wardell and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)
WASHINGTON  The beleaguered pharmaceutical industrys top lobbying group spent about $8 million to influence the federal government during the first quarter of 2017, a roughly 33 percent hike over last year at this time  and its biggest expansion in at least five years.

The surge is not a surprise. Earlier this year, a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, PhRMA, told STAT they planned to donate less and lobby more. They also raised their members dues to pay for more lobbying power.

Read the rest...
Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana flew to a disputed South China Sea island on Friday, brushing off a challenge by the Chinese military while asserting Manila's territorial claim to the strategic region.

"This is just a normal visit within our territory, which we believe and we know is (our) territory," the minister told reporters who accompanied him on the brief trip.

China claims most of the South China Sea, including Thitu island which Lorenzana visited and the Philippines calls Pag-asa island.

In recent years Beijing has been building up disputed reefs into artificial islands, including on Subi Reef about 26 kilometres (14 nautical miles) from Thitu, which can house military facilities.

Lorenzana said construction would start "within the next few weeks" for a quay on Thitu where construction materials will be landed for repairs on an existing airstrip on the largest of nine Philippine-garrisoned outcrops in the Spratly archipelago.

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the Spratlys, either wholly or in part.

As the military transport plane bearing Lorenzana and local officials of Palawan island, the largest land mass close to the Spratlys, prepared to land, the minister said the pilots received a warning from Chinese forces on Subi.

He said the pilots were warned the aircraft was illegally entering Chinese territory, a routine for all Philippine aircraft landing on the Thitu airstrip since China reclaimed Subi. He said his pilots disregarded the warning.

"That's their protocol. That's procedural. We also reply that we are flying over Philippine territory," he said.

Lorenzana visited Thitu more than a week after President Rodrigo Duterte pulled back from an announcement to visit the island on June 12 and raise the Philippine flag there.

Duterte said later he had called off the trip "because we value our friendship" with Beijing.

Reversing the course set by predecessor Benigno Aquino, Duterte has sought to improve his nation's relations with Beijing by adopting a non-confrontational approach over their competing claims in the strategically vital waters believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves.

Story continues

Lorenzana however said Duterte was not backing down from his orders for the military to reinforce its installations in the Spratlys, and has alloted 1.6 billion pesos ($32.16 million) for these.

He said both China and Vietnam have long been fortifying their own garrisons on nearby outcrops.

"We all know that China is the most powerful country in our neighbourhood, they are economically powerful, also militarily," Lorenzana said.

"We are trying manage the issue and talk to them... settle this dispute in the South China Sea."

As Lorenzana flew to Thitu, the Philippine coast guard announced a group of Filipino fishermen have accused China's coast guard of shooting at their vessel in another section of the Spratlys.

Philippine officials said they were investigating the reported attack on the Princess Johann boat, which the crew said occurred near the Chinese side of the Union Banks atoll on March 27.

There were no casualties during the incident, authorities added.

"(Princess Johann) was reportedly fired upon seven times by a Chinese speedboat with seven Chinese coast guards on board," a Philippine Coast Guard statement said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters at a regular briefing that Beijing had "no information" on the matter.

If confirmed, the incident would be the first hostile episode in nearly a year involving the two countries, which have seen warming relations since Duterte came to power.
Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana flew to a disputed South China Sea island on Friday, brushing off a challenge by the Chinese military while asserting Manila's territorial claim to the strategic region.

"This is just a normal visit within our territory, which we believe and we know is (our) territory," the minister told reporters who accompanied him on the brief trip.

China claims most of the South China Sea, including Thitu island which Lorenzana visited and the Philippines calls Pag-asa island.

In recent years Beijing has been building up disputed reefs into artificial islands, including on Subi Reef about 26 kilometres (14 nautical miles) from Thitu, which can house military facilities.

Lorenzana said construction would start "within the next few weeks" for a quay on Thitu where construction materials will be landed for repairs on an existing airstrip on the largest of nine Philippine-garrisoned outcrops in the Spratly archipelago.

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the Spratlys, either wholly or in part.

As the military transport plane bearing Lorenzana and local officials of Palawan island, the largest land mass close to the Spratlys, prepared to land, the minister said the pilots received a warning from Chinese forces on Subi.

He said the pilots were warned the aircraft was illegally entering Chinese territory, a routine for all Philippine aircraft landing on the Thitu airstrip since China reclaimed Subi. He said his pilots disregarded the warning.

"That's their protocol. That's procedural. We also reply that we are flying over Philippine territory," he said.

Lorenzana visited Thitu more than a week after President Rodrigo Duterte pulled back from an announcement to visit the island on June 12 and raise the Philippine flag there.

Duterte said later he had called off the trip "because we value our friendship" with Beijing.

Reversing the course set by predecessor Benigno Aquino, Duterte has sought to improve his nation's relations with Beijing by adopting a non-confrontational approach over their competing claims in the strategically vital waters believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves.

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Lorenzana however said Duterte was not backing down from his orders for the military to reinforce its installations in the Spratlys, and has alloted 1.6 billion pesos ($32.16 million) for these.

He said both China and Vietnam have long been fortifying their own garrisons on nearby outcrops.

"We all know that China is the most powerful country in our neighbourhood, they are economically powerful, also militarily," Lorenzana said.

"We are trying manage the issue and talk to them... settle this dispute in the South China Sea."

As Lorenzana flew to Thitu, the Philippine coast guard announced a group of Filipino fishermen have accused China's coast guard of shooting at their vessel in another section of the Spratlys.

Philippine officials said they were investigating the reported attack on the Princess Johann boat, which the crew said occurred near the Chinese side of the Union Banks atoll on March 27.

There were no casualties during the incident, authorities added.

"(Princess Johann) was reportedly fired upon seven times by a Chinese speedboat with seven Chinese coast guards on board," a Philippine Coast Guard statement said.

Representatives at the Chinese embassy in Manila could not be reached for comment Friday.

If confirmed, the incident would be the first hostile episode in nearly a year involving the two countries, which have seen warming relations since Duterte came to power.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte toured a visiting Russian warship on Friday for the second time in barely four months as he highlighted his growing closeness to Moscow.

"The Russians are with me, I shall not be afraid," Duterte was quoted as saying during a visit to the Russian guided missile cruiser 'Varyag' which is on a port visit to Manila.

Duterte toured the ship, posing for pictures with Russian sailors and in front of the vessel's huge missile-launchers, on what was the fourth ever port call by a Russian naval ship to the Philippines.

Since taking office in June, Duterte -- who describes himself as a socialist -- has been distancing himself from the Philippines' traditional ally, the United States and moving closer to its rivals, China and Russia.

In an indication of these closer ties, two Russian ships led by the submarine-hunter Admiral Tributs, made a "goodwill visit" to Manila in January, when Duterte also toured the Russian vessel.

Duterte has said he plans to purchase military equipment from Russia rather than the United States and is due to visit in May to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier, Philippine navy spokesman Captain Lued Lincuna said the visit of the Russians was "a manifestation of good relations with them, to enhance our maritime cooperation," he told reporters.

Captain Leo Miado, one of the Philippine naval officers overseeing the visit, said sailors from the two countries would engage in training, adding "we can view the advanced equipment of the Russian navy in line with our modernisation efforts."
A New York woman returned home one day to discover uninvited visitors settling into her Brooklyn apartment  a nesting pigeon and her eggs.

Read: Man Can't Stop Adopting Elderly Dogs: 'There's Something So Special About the Old Ones'

Genevieve Roman, 33, was getting back to her apartment in Williamsburg after a two-month-long trip when she found a pigeon and her nest inside an orange pasta strainer in her kitchen.

When I opened the door, I heard like flapping and banging and noise, Roman said, according to WCBS. I could tell it was a bird.

She named her new roommate Adelaide.

I think Im probably going to let her stay, Roman said, after reaching out to different conservation organizations to no avail.

She explained the bird flies in and out of her apartment several times a day as she pleases through her kitchens open window. But, Adelaide has always returns to care for her unhatched chicks.

Read: Goat Gifted to 10-Year-Old as Early Birthday Present Saves Family From House Fire

Despite their reputation, Roman said the pigeon is a clean houseguest and never defecates inside her home.

Theres no poop, she confirmed.

Watch: Couple Has House-Trained Buffalo Named 'Wild Thing' as a Pet: 'He's Really a Gentleman'

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The anniversaries from the World War I era keep coming - this week marks the arrival of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov - Lenin - in St. Petersburg to take control of the spontaneous Russian revolution.

Historian Ted Widmer gives a fascinating account on the New Yorker's web site of Lenin's 8-day rail journey from Zurich, Switzerland, to the Finland Station in St. Petersburg, a trip set up by the German government, Russia's enemy in World War I. Lenin arrived in St. Petersburg on April 16, 1917, a date that marks a major shift in world history.

While the aging Lenin was stewing in Zurich, the Russian people revolted against war losses and food shortages. At last, the czar abdicated in March, 1917, raising Lenin's desperation to return to Russia. The Germans, believing Lenin's revolutionary agitation would further disrupt Russia and bring its withdrawal from the war, set up the journey.

Lenin and around 30 associates traveled in a single rail car, equipped with two toilets. They were watched by German soldiers, separated from the Russian revolutionaries by a chalk line that represented the border between the two countries. A new book by Catherine Merridale, "Lenin on the Train," chronicles the the journey. Earlier, Edmund Wilson wrote about the event in his 1940 classic, "To the Finland Station."

Widmer also discusses the return to Russia of another revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, who was at the time living in the Bronx in New York City and working at the small Russian language revolutionary newspaper, Novy Mir, at 77 St. Mark Place. Trotsky commuted to work every day on the elevated train, sometimes stopping for a cheap meal at the Triangle Diary Restaurant.

Like his comrade Lenin, Trotsky heard about the people's revolution and hurried to get to Russia. He was detained for a few days in Nova Scotia, but then allowed by the British government to continue his trip.

A later Soviet-era painting of Lenin's arrival at the station shows Joseph Stalin standing behind Lenin. But Stalin, at that time still an unknown local revolutionary, was not there. He seized power much later, ousting Trotsky after Lenin's death.

Lenin's arrival came 10 days after the United States declared war on Germany. That's why the Germans were desperate for Russia to withdraw. With Russia no longer fighting, the Germans could bring men from the Eastern Front to counter the arrival of the Americans.

After a brief reign of a liberal parliamentary government, Lenin's Bolsheviks took control of Russia, defeating the more moderate Mensheviks in a brutal civil war. The Bolsheviks created the Soviet Union, eventually led by Stalin. The German sponsorship of Lenin's trip brought about the Germans' defeat in World War II by Stalin's troops.

After World War II came the Cold War, and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. Now Vladimir Putin downplays the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, as he seeks to revive the power of the imperial Russia destroyed by Lenin and his colleagues.
A group of 53 people have been charged in Nigeria after they were arrested last week from what police say was a party celebrating an unofficial gay wedding.

The group pleaded not guilty to charges relating to conspiracy, unlawfully assembly and membership in an unlawful society, the BBC reports.

Homosexuality has been illegal in Nigeria since 2014, and homosexual acts could result in a maximum jail sentence of 14 years.

A defense lawyer for the group said in court that the defendants were mostly students, and that the group had been illegally detained for more than 24 hours, according to local media reports cited by the BBC.

LGBT rights activists refute the polices report that the men were celebrating a same-sex wedding, saying the event in the northern city of Zaria was a birthday party.

Maria Sjodin, deputy executive director of OutRight Action International, a group advocating for LGBT rights internationally, told NBC News that the arrests were part of an attempt to suppress an emerging LGBTQ movement in the West African country. Sjodin said Nigerias laws prohibiting gay marriage are being used as a way to crack down on anyone advocating for human rights of LGBT people.

[BBC]

This article was originally published on TIME.com
President Trump wants to meet Pope Francis when he visits Europe next month. But the two world leaders have clashed in the past.

Obviously, wed be honored to have an audience with His Holiness, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at Wednesdays press briefing. In response, Archbishop Angelo Becciu told the Italian news agency ANSA that Pope Francis is always ready to receive heads of state who request an audience.

But should they meet, the detente would come just a little more than a year after Pope Francis made remarks that some took as targeted at Trump, leading Trump to fire back at him.

The feud began in February 2016, when Pope Francis planned to make a trip to pray with migrants along the U.S. border with Mexico. Then-presidential candidate Trump implied Mexico was using Pope Francis as a pawn and said, I think that the pope is a very political person, the New York Times reports.

Pope Francis fired back days later aboard his papal plane returning from Mexico, in response to a question about Trumps plan to build a border wall and deport undocumented immigrants.

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, Francis said. On Trumps accusation about him being political with Mexico, he said, Aristotle defined human person as animal politicus. So at least I am human person.

And on whether American Catholics should vote for Trump, he said, I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.

Trump immediately criticized the head of the Catholic church as disgraceful. He said in a statement he was proud to be a Christian and that he will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened.

If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISISs ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened, Trump said.

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Since this back-and-forth, Pope Francis has made broader comments condemning populism that seem to have been directed at Trumps political career. In January 2017 around Trumps inauguration, Pope Francis was asked by Spanish newspaper El Pais if he was concerned about rising populism in the U.S. and Europe. Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933, he responded, BBC reports. Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didnt steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people.

But Pope Francis said it was too early to tell about how the new U.S. president would lead. Well see what Trump does, he said.

Already, the Vatican has urged Trump to change course on dismantling President Obamas climate change policies. Fortunately, in the United States, there are dissenting voices, people who are against Trumps positions, Cardinal Peter Turkson, who works on environmental, immigration and development for Pope Francis, said in March 2017, Reuters reports. This, for us, is a sign that little by little, other positions and political voices will emerge and so we hope that Trump himself will reconsider some of his decisions.

While Trump and Pope Francis would enter a meeting with this tense backdrop and widely divergent views on immigration and climate change, there could be hope for their relationship, and maybe some common ground. In 2013, the year Francis became Pope, Trump tweeted, The new Pope is a humble man, very much like me, which probably explains why I like him so much!

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Paris (AFP) - The gutting of US-funded climate science would cripple research agendas worldwide and hamper the global fight against climate change, say scientists outside the United States, some of whom will take to the streets Saturday to make that point.

US President Donald Trump has called for drastic cutbacks across multiple federal agencies that track and analyse climate by gathering data from satellites, the deepest ocean trenches, and everything in between.

Tens of thousands of scientists are set to converge on Washington DC in protest, with hundreds of smaller marches planned in cities around the world.

"An unprecedented attack on science, scientists and evidence-based policymaking is underway," said Kenneth Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based policy institute.

"And nowhere is the attack more ferocious than on the issue of global warming."

Indeed, proposed cuts to research budgets in the Departments of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- totalling billions of dollars and thousands of jobs -- are concentrated on climate science, which Trump has notoriously dismissed as a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese.

Scientists in Europe, Asia and Australia express alarm not just at the slowdown in US research, but the knock-on consequences for their own work.

"The impacts may range from troublesome to disastrous," Bjorn Samset, research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, told AFP.

"We use US climate-related data -- particularly from satellites -- on a daily basis."

The United States, driven by its big federal agencies, "has become THE global provider of high quality, long-term datasets," he added.

- Beyond raw data -

Some of the programmes targeted for axing, for example, are crucial for tracking how much carbon is vented into the atmosphere, or how the distribution of clouds -- one of the key uncertainties in projections of future climate change -- might evolve over time.

Story continues

"This would impair our ability in the future to keep our observations, and understanding, up to speed," said Joeri Rogelj, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, one of the world's leading centres for climate modelling.

For Myles Allen, head of the University of Oxford's Climate Research Group, the damage from a US pullback would go well beyond raw data.

"If we lose that intellectual firepower, it is obviously going to make dealing with the problem that much harder," he said in an interview. "We need American technology and innovation to find solutions."

Allen noted that the European Union and China are "stepping up their game" in monitoring climate, but said Washington may not see that in a positive light.

"Does the US want to rely on observations made by overseas agencies in measuring the impact of Chinese emissions on the US weather?", he wondered.

Three of six major international platforms shared by climate modellers -- who calculate the risks of future climate change -- are maintained and operated in the United States, and could be in peril.

"If we lose one or two of these data distribution centres in the US, it could collapse the entire coordinated system for sharing these simulations of future climate," said Valerie Masson Delmotte, research director at France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and a lead scientist of the UN's climate science panel.

- 'Darker days ahead' -

New visa and travel restrictions in the United States likewise threaten future collaboration, said Samset, noting that almost all important climate research crosses national boundaries.

"This has already gotten harder to arrange within the US, or abroad with US participation," he said.

Shun Chi-ming, director of the Hong Kong Observatory, said he was "highly concerned" that impending US cuts in climate research could also affect "weather and disaster monitoring".

When it comes to taking their concerns into the street with a slogan on a placard, Allen, Rogelj, and other researchers are clearly torn.

"Demonstrations and protests are usually far outside the comfort zone of scientists," said Samset.

But Trump's disregard for scientific consensus -- seen in the appointment of outright climate deniers to key administration posts -- has forced many to reconsider the boundary between their role as scientist and citizen.

"Scientists need to be very careful about coming out in favour of one position or another," said Allen, adding that he hoped the marches didn't get "sidetracked" into environmental campaigning.

But for Alena Kimbrough, an expert on the Australian-Indonesian monsoon system at Australia National University and co-organiser of Saturday's marches in Australia, scientists "can no longer afford to stand at the sidelines."

"I am deeply disturbed that this movement is required, but we have much darker days ahead of us if we don't start here," she told AFP.
Kautokeino (Norway) (AFP) - Winter temperatures in Norway's Lapland could rise dramatically this century, with potentially devastating consequences for the region's reindeer and the indigenous Sami people who make their living herding them.

A vast frozen tundra, the mountainous Finnmark plateau in Norway's far north, is experiencing a hot spell -- relatively speaking -- wreaking havoc on the centuries-old Sami way of life.

"We already feel the effects of global warming here," says Per Gaup, a colourful reindeer herder in his 60s out on the job. "I can see that we're losing more reindeer because of climate change."

Here, the continental climate with cold and dry winters is gradually becoming more like that of coastal areas, with milder temperatures and more rain.

The change affects grazing conditions for the 146,000 or so semi-domesticated reindeer in the region who feed on lichen and moss under the snow.

"When there's more snow and it turns hard, the animals die because there's less to eat, especially the young ones who are at the bottom of the hierarchy," says Gaup, astride his snowmobile with an orange lasso slung across his chest.

- 318 words for snow -

One of the Sami dialects counts no fewer than 318 words to describe different types of snow. "Seanas", for example, means a kind of grainy snow ideal for reindeer, making it easy for them to dig out the lichen and moss with their hooves.

But it has to be very cold to have that kind of snow. While temperatures in Kautokeino, Norway's main reindeer-herding hub, used to regularly drop to minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit) for several weeks at a time, nowadays this happens only rarely and briefly.

And today's conditions are just a taste of what is to come. The mercury is expected to rise by seven to eight degrees Celsius in winter in Finnmark by the end of this century, according to Rasmus Benestad, a researcher at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.

Story continues

A recurring problem for the reindeer now is alternating periods of thaw and freezing, which create thick layers of ice that the starving reindeer are unable to penetrate with their hooves.

When reindeer can't access the lichen and moss on their herder's grazing grounds, the flocks seek out other pastures. This can cause conflicts between herders over grazing grounds, which are not officially demarcated, and may require the herders to resort to the onerous and heavy task of putting out fodder.

The changing climate also complicates the twice-yearly transhumance, when the herders move the reindeer from their summer grazing grounds along the coast to their winter pastures in the Finnmark mountains, and vice versa.

Because of longer autumns, the ice, now often thinner and unpredictable, can give way under the weight of the reindeer as they cross waterways, sometimes taking the animals, and even their herders, into the deep.

"It's getting worse and worse," says another herder, alarm in his voice. "Last year, I lost at least 12 reindeer that fell through the ice. They died. I wasn't able to get them out," he says.

In November 2009, almost 300 animals from a single flock drowned in a river in neighbouring Sweden.

- Arctic too hospitable -

"The reindeer have always lived with the changing climate and they've learned to adapt to nature," notes Anders Oskal, the director of the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry.

"Our main concern is that the Arctic is becoming increasingly accessible as it gets warmer, leading to an explosion of human activity," he says.

Prospecting and development of mining and wind energy, along with the construction of roads and holiday cabins all compete with the Samis' ancestral practices, encroaching on their pastures.

"The reindeer may be a semi-domesticated animal but it will always try to stay away from anything it associates with man, especially the females and the young," says Oskal.

Mathis Andreas, a 47-year-old herder, is worried about the potential impact of a Canadian mining company's alleged interest in land near his pastures.

"We can't welcome with open arms people who come and destroy our livelihood, our way of life, our traditional lands," he says.

"No one besides us has ever lived here. A company would just turn up one day and grab what has belonged to us from generation to generation, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years?"
The Department of Justice has sent letters to Philadelphia and eight other jurisdictions, threatening to withhold funds for failing to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

The notifications were sent Friday to officials in Philadelphia, as well as Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, Cook County, Ill., and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The letters, posted online by the Los Angeles Times, asked for proof that the cities are cooperating with immigration enforcement and indicated that the jurisdictions could be at risk of losing grants.

Philadelphia's letter, addressed to Mayor Kenney, warns that the city "is required to submit documentation" to the Justice Department affirming its compliance with a federal law that prohibits jurisdictions from restricting communications with the Immigration and Naturalization Service about individuals' immigration statuses.

That documentation must be received by June 30.

"Failure to comply with this condition could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grant, ineligibility for future [Office of Justice Programs] grants or subgrants, or other action, as appropriate," the letter said.

The letters come after Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned last month that so-called sanctuary cities were at risk of losing funds for failing to comply with federal immigration law.

Philadelphia police officers are barred from asking about the immigration status of people with whom they come in contact.

The other cities that received letters also have policies that restrict the ability of local police and jails to hand people who are in the country illegally over to federal immigration authorities.

Since President Trump's election, Mayor Kenney has repeatedly insisted that Philadelphia would maintain its sanctuary city status.

Last month, mayoral spokeswoman Lauren Hitt called Sessions' threat a "direct attack on public safety" and said the city had no plans to change its sanctuary policy.

Story continues

Some experts do not expect Philadelphia and other cities to have difficulty complying with Friday's letters because it only requires that local law enforcement not impede communication between local and federal authorities, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Most Popular on Philly.com
For some people it was a lengthy drive, but they were determined to head to Stockbridge to talk to Representative Mike Bishop. They all showed up with one agenda, to hear what he had to say about taxes and environmental issues. People there wanted money to go toward schools that are struggling versus the ones doing alright with what they have.
Michael Reagan speaks at a rally for Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle in 2010. (Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Michael Reagan, son of late President Ronald Reagan, defended disgraced Fox News host Bill OReilly, who was ousted this week after advertisers boycotted the show en masse amid a sexual harassment scandal.

The firestorm started after the New York Times revealed that OReilly and the network had shelled out $13 million in settlements to various women who had accused him of sexual harassment.

But in two tweets sent late Thursday evening, Michael Reagan first specifically referenced one of the allegations against OReilly  that he called a black woman hot chocolate and leered at her  and then suggested that women invite attention by how they dress.

Hot Choclare used to be a compliment on your looks today it is called sexual harassment..@oreillyfactor  Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) April 21, 2017

If women are going to wear low cut dresses that show cleavage don't be harassed when we men look.Or shld we sue for sexual arousal?  Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) April 21, 2017

The tweets ignited a firestorm of criticism. The latter post had over 2,000 replies as of Friday afternoon.

@ReaganWorld Michael, I'm so glad you tweeted this and I'm looking forward to the feedback you'll receive from the people who use this website  Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) April 21, 2017

Reagan, who serves as the president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation, did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more from the Yahoo Weed & the American Family series:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian military said on Friday it was not building up its forces near the border with North Korea, denying earlier media reports which said it was, the Interfax news agency reported, citing an army spokesman. Some media in Russia's Ear East have cited local residents as saying they had seen military hardware being moved toward North Korea as tensions with the United States over its nuclear programme escalated. "These are totally pre-planned military exercises, which are in no way related to political issues," Alexander Gordeyev, a spokesman for Russia's Eastern military district was quoted as saying. He said the hardware that people had seen was being transported back to the bases where it was permanently deployed after the end of the exercises. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
By Dustin Volz

(Reuters) - A Russian national who was arrested earlier this month in Spain has been charged with criminal hacking offenses in relation to operating the Kelihos botnet in an eight-count indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in Connecticut, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.

Peter Yuryevich Levashov, 36, was indicted on Thursday by a grand jury in Bridgeport and charged with causing intentional damage to a protected computer and wire fraud, among other counts, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Last week the Justice Department announced it had launched an effort to take down the Kelihos botnet, which has infected computers that ran Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system, after Spanish authorities arrested Levashov while he was on vacation with his family in Barcelona.

The Kelihos botnet is a global network of tens of thousands of infected computers,

Levashov used Kelihos for years to distribute during any given 24-hour period more than 2,500 spam emails for various criminal schemes, including pump-and-dump stock fraud, password thefts and distribution of malware, including ransomware, the indictment alleges.

Levashov remains detained under an international arrest warrant. The Justice Department said it is seeking his extradition to the United States to face charges.

The Russian Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment. It could not be determined if Levashov has retained a lawyer.

The Kelihos botnet has been a source of criminal activity targeting computer users worldwide since at least 2010, a Justice Department official told reporters last week. The botnet at times grew larger than 100,000 simultaneously infected devices, the official said.

Botnets are often rented out for multiple criminal uses as well.

Russian-state media service RT reported earlier this month that Levashov was arrested in relation to the U.S. government's belief that Moscow interfered in last year's U.S. presidential election to help Republican Donald Trump win.

Story continues

The Justice Department official said, however, that the Kelihos case was not connected to election hacking, and the indictment makes no mention of it.

Levashov, who has long been considered the likely identity of an online persona known as Peter Severa, spent years listed as among the world's 10 most prolific computer spammers by Spamhaus, a spam-tracking group.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh and Leslie Adler)
American and Canadian fighter planes scrambled to intercept two Russian TU-95 Bear bombers Thursday night, marking the fourth consecutive night of Russian probes near the Alaskan coast, U.S. defense officials said Friday.

At no point did the Russian aircraft cross into American or Canadian airspace, but the incursions into the Air Identification Zones  which extend beyond the territorial waters of the U.S. and Canada  represent a sharp increase in activity in the area, which has seen no Russian activity at all since 2015. The flights may also herald the return of Moscows 60-year-old nuclear capable bomber to the international stage, after the entire fleet was grounded in 2015 after a rash of accidents.

Over the past several years, Moscow has played a high-speed game of cat-and-mouse with U.S. and NATO aircraft and naval vessels in the Baltic and Black Seas regions, but this level of activity hasnt been seen near Alaska since 2014, one defense official told FP.

Its unclear what the overall objective of the Russian passes are, but theyre in keeping with tactics Russian pilots have employed in recent years in the Baltic and Black sea regions, where NATO pilots regularly intercept aircraft sent by the Kremlin to skirt the airspace of NATO countries.

Over the Baltic, just off the coastlines of NATO members Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Russian military aircraft were intercepted 110 times by allied planes in 2016. That was a decrease from the 160 recorded intercepts in 2015, but it has been enough to keep both sides well-versed in the protocols of flying in close proximity.

In February, several Russian aircraft buzzed the USS Porter in the Black Sea in an incident the skipper of the American guided missile destroyer called unsafe. That included passes by an Il-38 sub-hunting plane, followed by two Su-24 fighter-bombers and a Su-24.

The latest round of flights began Monday night, when two Bear bombers were tracked near Alaska, prompting the scramble of two U.S. F-22s to intercept them. Two more Bears showed up on Tuesday night, during which U.S. officials say an AWACS E-3 surveillance plane was sent to track them. On Wednesday, a Russian IL-38 maritime patrol and anti-submarine plane was spotted in the same area, and was followed by American planes.

Story continues

A spokesperson for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) told FP that on Thursday evening, the American F-22s and Canadian CS-18 Hornets didnt attempt to make radio contact with the Russian bombers, and the Russians never attempted to communicate with U.S. or Canadian military installations on the ground. But at no time did the Russian bombers enter sovereign North American airspace, on any of the four nights, the spokesperson said.

According to information provided by NORAD, U.S. aircraft have intercepted Russian planes about 60 times since 2007.

Earlier this month, Japan scrambled 14 fighter jets to intercept the Bear bombers and an IL-20 surveillance plane that had crossed to within 40 miles of the Japanese coast, and in late January, a pair of Russian bombers circumnavigated Japan for the first time in a year.

Photo Credit: U.S. Navy
The New York Times

Olivia Dunne is a gymnast on Louisiana States womens team. She was an All-American in her freshman year and made the Southeastern Conferences honor roll as a sophomore majoring in interdisciplinary studies. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Before the start of her junior season, Dunne is also at the leading edge of a movement shaking the old foundations of college sports: a female student athlete raking in cash thanks to the passage in 2021 of new rules allowing colle
Call it the publishing version of repeal and replace: the Journal of the American Medical Association this week retracted and then republished a study with significant clinical implications  showing in the process how journals and researchers, working in concert, can correct the scientific record quickly and transparently.

The paper in question was published in 2014 by a team of researchers across the Netherlands. It reported, with much fanfare, the findings of a large study looking at interventions to reduce antibiotic resistance in intensive care units.

But two years later, another group of researchers discovered an error when analyzing the data for a different study. One of the 16 ICUs had miscoded its data, turning what was essentially no difference between the two methods into a small but clear advantage for one. The group called first author Evelien Oostdijk, whod led the study, and told her about their discovery.

The authors reanalyzed their findings with the correct information and they did in fact conclude that the new stats doomed their original results. But they didnt stonewall, and they didnt just retract, either: They requested that JAMA remove the paper and replace it with a new version. To its credit, this week, the journal agreed with the request.

Read more: Scientists are getting proactive about self-corrections

And that, on the whole, represents a remarkably virtuous series of events: Data made available for reanalysis, a journal that promptly responded to the outcomes of that reanalysis, and a finding that could save lives.

In a blog post timed to this weeks retraction, Marc Bonten, an infection control specialist at University Medical Center Utrecht who was one of the authors of the JAMA study, walked readers through what went awry. Each month the ICU had delivered an Excel file containing admission and discharge dates, with hours and minutes in the same cell. To harmonize these data with those from other ICUs, the hours and minutes needed to [be] removed, requiring several copy and paste procedures. And that is where the human error occurred, Bonten wrote.

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The lessons are threefold, Bonten said: Think of the unthinkable when it comes to checking the quality of your data; If you think that all possible has been checked, check again; Always let others use your original data for new (or just the same) analyses.

Bonten has high praise for Oostdijk, whom he calls a shining example of scientific integrity in the event. We agree. After all, even if she couldnt very well have ignored the news, she could have delayed acting on it or taken other steps to safeguard the original publication.

And we think JAMA deserves applause, too. Faced with such a devastating error, the journal had to retract the paper. But it could have stopped at that and rejected the resubmission for any number of reasons that would have been acceptable: Given one major error, were others from the group likely to emerge? Wouldnt it be better to conduct the whole trial from the ground up?

But JAMA put its faith in the integrity and competence of the researchers and in so doing helped to illustrate how science at its best is transparent and self-correcting  as long as the definition of self is broadened to include the entire community of scientists.

The paper marks the fourth time JAMA and its sister publications have retracted-and-replaced a paper. Annette Flanagin, executive managing editor of the JAMA Network, said the option is useful for addressing issues of honest pervasive error (i.e., unintentional human or programmatic errors that result in the need to correct numerous data and text in the abstract, text, tables and figures, such as a coding error) without the current stigma that is associated with retraction.

The Lancet has done this, too. Self-correction in science: Now thats cause for celebration.
With Adam Rawnsley

There it is. Speaking in Israel on Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis confirmed recent press reporting that Syria still possesses chemical weapons, and has been moving its military planes around the country in the wake of the American cruise missile attack on an air base earlier this month.

I can say authoritatively they have retained some, its a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and its going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike, Mattis said during a press conference with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Earlier this week, Israeli officials said that Syria retained round three tons of chemical weapons materials.

We on an award tour. On the day Mattis landed in Tel Aviv, Lebanese Hezbollah representatives took reporters on a tour of the southern Lebanese border to point out the defensive measures Israel is taking to shore up the frontier between the two countries.

Tensions have increased between the two sides in recent weeks, leading to fears that the fragile peace that has held since 2006 could be broken. Israeli officials say Hezbollah has more than restocked its supply of weapons since the war, and leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which supplies Hezbollah, have bragged the group has around 100,000 rockets and missiles at its disposal. For the first time in the history of this enemy, its doctrine has switched from an offensive to a defensive one, a Hezbollah military commander said. The tour was coordinated with the Lebanese army.

Iran plan. Mattis also confirmed that Iran was keeping up its end of the bargain when it comes to the 2015 deal struck with Washington and other Western allies to curb its nuclear weapons program. As our secretary of state said about three days ago, Iran appears to the degree we can determine it  we are pretty confident  they appear to be living up to their part of the agreement, he told reporters. Just hours earlier, President Donald Trump was decidedly more vague when describing Iranian compliance, warning that Iran is not living up to the spirit of the agreement. The State Department certified to Congress earlier this week that Iran is honoring the accord, but Trump administration officials have said theyre reviewing the deal.

Story continues

North Korea watch. Both South Korea and China appear to have placed their armed forces on high alert in recent days U.S. officials have told multiple news outlets, ahead of another North Korean military parade and an expected nuclear test. Officials have said they have noticed Chinese bombers and military aircraft being prepared to launch quickly.

President Trump swiped at the crisis during a press conference on Thursday, saying some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours in North Korea  he didnt elaborate  but that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would try very hard to pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

Gaming out the North. The regime in Pyongyang is ruthless and reckless, but theyre not crazy, said William Perry, a former defense secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Perry, speaking on a conference call on Thursday, said three generations of family rule by the Kim dynasty in Pyongyang have shared one unifying philosophy: Keeping the regime in power. FPs Robbie Gramer and Paul McLeary have lots more international fallout from the recent war of words between Pyongyang and Washington in a new story here.

Freedom isnt free. The Trump administration has given military commanders far more discretion for conducting their own operations without the approval of the White House, a new way of operating that has won the praise of those commanders, but has led to a few recent SNAFUs.

Not only was there a disconnect between the U.S. Pacific Command and Washington over the deployment of the USS Carl Vinson strike group in the far western Pacific recently, but the decision by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan to drop the massive MOAD bomb on Islamic State tunnels has also been questioned by the Pentagon in retrospect, according to the New York Times. Commanders always want more freedom to act within their own judgment, said Adm. James A. Winnefeld, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sometimes those same commanders may not sense which of their decisions will bleed over into the strategic level.

Spies add up the numbers. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secretive judicial branch responsible for approving surveillance requests made by the intelligence community, published its first batch of statistics from 2016  a requirement since reformers passed the USA Freedom Act. In 2016, the court received 1,752 applications, 1,378 of which were approved immediately. Of the remaining requests, 339 were modified, 26 partially denied, and 9 denied in full, which were more rejections than any other previous year. The reporting comes after disclosures made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who described the court as a rubber stamp that approved nearly every request without question. Since then, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, requiring more information about the courts annual activities.  Jenna McLaughlin

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

France attack. A gunman shot and wounded two policemen in an attack at the Champs Elysee in Paris on Thursday in an apparent terrorist attack. Police shot and killed the man as he tried to escape on foot and at least one suspected associate of the attacker has turned himself into authorities in Belgium. The man had previously been imprisoned in over a decade ago for a similar attack on police, according to the BBC. The Islamic State has since claimed the man as one of its fighters.

Syria. Russia has suffered one of its highest-ranking casualties yet in Syria, losing a marine major in an artillery attack on a Russian base. Reuters reports that Major Sergei Bordov, who had previously commanded a reconnaissance unit, was killed in an attack that took place on Tuesday. Russia claims it has lost around 30 troops in the fighting in Syria but reporting indicates the death toll is much higher than the official tally.

Carrier fallout. The Trump administrations misleading claim about an aircraft carrier heading to Korean Peninsula has cost it some goodwill and trust among South Korean allies, according to the New York Times. Trump had claimed that an armada was steaming towards Korea earlier in the week but it was soon revealed that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier was actually in the Indian Ocean and headed south, away from Korea. Coming amidst heightened tensions with the North and a presidential election campaign, South Korean media and defense experts have slammed the U.S. for the apparent misdirection, characterizing it as a reckless bluff and an embarrassing blunder.

WikiLeaks. The U.S. Justice Department is preparing to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a scoop from CNN. Prosecutors reportedly believe that Assange played a role in helping National Security Agency contractor leak a massive cache of top secret documents stolen from the agency. Assange had previously been a supporter of President Trumps campaign, championing him against Hillary Clinton and publishing hacked emails from the Clinton campaign on the WikiLeaks website. But despite praise from Trump himself during the campaign, the Trump administration has since changed its tune, with CIA Director Mike Pompeo labeling it a non-state hostile intelligence service in a speech earlier this week.

Gulf. Anonymous officials tell Reuters that the U.S. is willing to step up arms sales to help the Saudi-led coalition in its war in Yemen, but only if members agree to take additional steps to prevent civilian casualties. A group of Democratic lawmakers in Congress has pushed back hard against the sale of additional munitions to Saudi Arabia, citing the high cost to civilians of its air war in Yemen, with over 4,800 civilians killed in the conflict so far. The Trump administration is hoping that adding a conditionality for the protection of civilians will help it pass the sale of $390 million worth of munition guidance kits through Congress.

Bomb damage assessment. How many people were killed in the much-talked about use of the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan? SecDef Jim Mattis told reporters Friday that frankly, digging into tunnels to count dead bodies is probably not a good use of our troops. Mattis said hes not that interested in the enemy body count, dismissing the metric as a misguided relic of the Vietnam War. Earlier in the week, Afghanistans TOLO News reported that 96 people had been killed in the bombing of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, with the majority of casualties coming from the Pakistani Taliban alongside 13 Islamic State commanders.

Spending. The Trump administrations defense spending will not live up to President Trumps rhetoric about a massive buildup of the military, according to private conversations between Secretary of Defense Mattis and Congress. CNN reports that Mattis told lawmakers that next years budget wont cover any of the big ticket items Trump has called for, including a 350 ship Navy, more fighter jets, and increased end-strength across the services. Mattis has reportedly pushed President Trump for more funding along the lines proposed by defense hawks like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), but lost the argument to fiscal hawk and White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

Photo Credit STR/AFP/Getty Images
By Ju-min Park and Ben Blanchard

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - South Korea said on Friday it was on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang.

U.S. officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signalling a possible heightened state of readiness by reclusive North Korea's sole major ally, although the officials played down concern and left open a range of possible reasons. Beijing denied its aircraft were on an increased level of alert.

In Russia, the RIA news agency said a Kremlin spokesman declined to comment on media reports Russia was moving military hardware and troops towards the border with North Korea.

U.S. and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions, something both the United States and China have warned against.

North Korea marks the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People's Army on Tuesday, an important anniversary that comes at the end of major winter military drills, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said.

Top envoys from the United States, South Korea and Japan are due to meet on Tuesday, South Korea's foreign ministry said, to "discuss plans to rein in North Korea's additional high-strength provocations, to maximize pressure on the North, and to ensure China's constructive role in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue".

South Korea and the United States have also been conducting annual joint military exercises, which the North routinely criticises as a prelude to invasion.

"It is a situation where a lot of exercise equipment is amassed in North Korea and also a lot of strategic assets are situated on the Korean peninsula because of the South Korea-U.S. military drills," Lee told a briefing.

Story continues

"We are closely watching the situation and will not be letting our guards down."

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday praised Chinese efforts to rein in "the menace of North Korea", after North Korean state media warned the United States of a "super-mighty preemptive strike".

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday North Korea's rhetoric was provocative but he had learned not to trust it.

"UNUSUAL MOVES"

Trump told a news conference "some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours", and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would "try very hard" to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Trump gave no indication of what the moves might be. None of the U.S. officials who told Reuters about the heightened level of activity by Chinese bombers suggested alarm or signalled that they knew the precise reason for such activity.

China's Defence Ministry denied its aircraft were on high alert, saying in a brief statement late on Friday that its forces on the border with North Korea were maintaining a state of normal combat preparedness and training.

Asked earlier about Trump's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Xi and Trump had had a full and deep discussion about North Korea when they met this month.

"I can only say that via deep communications between China and the U.S. at various levels including at the highest levels, the U.S. now has an even fuller and more correct understanding of China's policy and position and has a more rounded understanding of China's efforts," Lu said. "We feel very gratified about this."

An official Chinese newspaper said there was optimism about persuading the North to end its pursuit of a nuclear programme without the use of force, "now that even the once tough-talking Donald Trump is onboard for a peaceful solution".

"Beijing has demonstrated due enthusiasm for Washington's newfound interest in a diplomatic solution and willingness to work more closely with it," the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

In Russia's Far East, some media have cited residents as saying they have seen military hardware being moved towards North Korea, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said deployment of Russian troops inside Russia were not a public matter.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile.

"RED LINE"

North Korea has said it would test missiles when it sees fit and a South Korean analyst said he believed the country would do so.

"Without crossing the red line such as a nuclear test or a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, until the April 25 anniversary of the Korean People's Army, North Korea is expected to continue to launch mid-range missiles," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at Sejong Institute outside Seoul.

The joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises are due to finish at the end of April.

A U.S. aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, is heading towards the Korean Peninsula, Trump's administration has said.

North Korea test-fired what the United States believed was a mid-range missile on Sunday. It blew up almost immediately.

The failed launch came a day after the 105th anniversary of the birth of North Koreas founding father, Kim Il Sung, the current leader's grandfather.







There is concern the North will use the next big day on its calendar, April 25, to show off its strength.

"Although North Korea attempted a missile launch but failed on April 16, considering the April 25 anniversary of the Korean People's Army, there are concerns that it can make another provocation again at any time," South Korea's acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn told top officials on Thursday.

He called on the military to maintain readiness.

(Addtional reporting by Polina Devitt in MOSCOW, Idrees Ali in TEL AVIV; Editing by Jack Kim, Robert Birsel and Alex Richardson)
South Korean presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in is pulling ahead in the polls as a May 9 election looms. The 64-year-old civil rights lawyer is viewed as a moderate willing to pursue diplomatic engagement with the erratic and nuclear-armed regime to the North.

Yonhap News Agency reports that Moon, chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, now has more than a 10-point lead on his primary opponent, software magnate Ahn Cheol-soo of the centrist Peoples Party. A recent nationwide survey concluded Moon had an approval rating of 41%, widening his lead over Ahns 30% and the distant runner-up Hong Joon-pyo at 9%.

Speaking to TIME in an exclusive interview earlier this month, Moon described his vision as one of a mature democracy, prosperity, human rights, and peace on the Korean peninsula. Moon said he was willing to both negotiate with the North Korean regime and work with U.S. President Donald Trump toward those ends, as tensions between them are becoming an urgent security threat for Seoul.

The Trump administration has roused North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un by suggesting it could pursue a military option to curb the countrys nuclear missile program. Pyongyangs goal is to develop a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching the American homeland, but at present it is believed to be capable of devastating U.S. allies South Korea and Japan.

Experts say U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, as well as the countrys capital of more than 10 million people, would almost certainly be targeted in retaliatory attacks if the U.S. advances militarily against North Korea. Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have attempted to pressure China into helping resolve the issue, but warn that the U.S. could act unilaterally if Beijing does not cooperate.

Moons position on unilateral action is clear. Any decision by the U.S. should be made in close consultation with South Korea, its ally, he told TIME.

If the U.S. makes a preemptive strike against the North... South Korea will suffer, not the U.S. But that will also cause damage to U.S. troops based in South Korea and to many American citizens living in South Korea, says Moon. Human history shows that, even if not intended, an accidental clash can result in war.

Read TIMEs full interview with Moon Jae-in here.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Madrid (AFP) - With arrests, raids and tears, Spaniards this week watched another episode in a long-running corruption saga that has hit the ruling conservative party... but left Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unscathed.

On Tuesday, the 62-year-old conservative leader was summoned to testify as a witness in a graft trial involving former members of his party.

While not accused of anything, he will be the first acting Spanish prime minister to take the stand. One defendant has already claimed the party ran a slush fund, prompting a separate investigation and parliamentary probe.

On Wednesday, police arrested 12 people in Madrid -- including the former Popular Party (PP) regional president -- in an inquiry into embezzlement of public money.

Police a day later raided several companies accused of bribing the party in exchange for contracts.

And that same day, Esperanza Aguirre, another former PP president of the Madrid region, broke down in tears on television while pledging she was unaware of the alleged corrupt activities of those once her closest advisers.

- 'Sons of bitches' -

These are but some of a series of corruption twists and turns that have tarnished the PP's image over the years.

But despite the opposition's constant criticism and general corruption fatigue in Spain, Rajoy himself has only been marginally weakened by the scandals, analysts say.

Angry voters have flocked to two relatively new parties -- far-left Podemos and centre-right Ciudadanos -- but the PP still managed to win a general election last year, albeit without the absolute majority it won in 2011.

As a result, Rajoy now heads up a minority government with considerably less power than before.

But according to Jose Pablo Ferrandiz of polling institute Metroscopia, the most recent scandals don't threaten him.

"He's lucky not to have to fight any elections in the near future," he said.

"He will go to the end of his mandate to try and clean up his image."

Story continues

Ferrandiz also points to recent polls that show voter intentions unchanged since elections last June, with the PP remaining ahead with 33 percent.

"The PP has an advantage over other parties in that its voters have pretty much accepted (the corruption allegations)," says Fernando Vallespin, politics professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

"Their frame of mind seems to be: 'they're sons of bitches, but they are our sons of bitches'."

- Divided opposition -

And while Rajoy rules at the head of a minority government, the opposition has found itself unable to rally and fight.

The PP's traditional rival Socialist party, which has also been hit by its own corruption scandals, is in the throes of a fierce leadership contest after its previous chief Pedro Sanchez was ousted.

Ciudadanos, which supports the PP in parliament while still criticising it, is also locked in constant conflict with Podemos.

"If there were a consensus, then maybe one of them would dare table a vote of no confidence," says Vallespin.

The PP, meanwhile, defends itself by pointing to a string of anti-corruption laws voted in when it still had an absolute majority.

Rajoy also regularly insists on Spain's economic recovery under his direction, with a sharp drop in unemployment -- even if Spain remains the second worst performer in Europe after Greece.

And on Thursday, he calmly downplayed the court's summons, saying it was "his duty" to take the stand.

"I will gladly reply to what they ask, and clarify what they want me to clarify," he told reporters.
A Spanish man was sentenced to death by a Thai court Friday for the grisly murder of a fellow Spaniard whose dismembered body parts were discovered in Bangkok's main river last year.

Artur Segarra, 38, was convicted of kidnapping and killing David Bernat in an effort to steal tens of millions of baht from the businessman, according to the verdict read out by a judge at the Bangkok criminal court.

"Forensic evidence such as blood stains and fingerprints on (Segarra's) electric grinder had DNA that matched the victim," the judge said, adding that CCTV footage and testimony from Segarra's maid and girlfriend also implicated him in the killing.

Police believe Segarra held Bernat in his Bangkok apartment for several days and tried to extort him for money before murdering the 40-year-old and dumping his chopped up body parts in the Chao Praya river.

Segarra, who had denied all the charges, appeared calm while the verdict was read and translated to him in Spanish.

When he arrived at court he held his hand up to show the the Bible citation "Luke 23:34" written in ink on his palm -- a reference to some of crucified Jesus's final words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

While death sentences are still on the statute books in Thailand, it is rare for prisoners to be executed. The last execution was in 2009.

Segarra's lawyer, Jessada Piyasuwanvanich, told reporters his client would likely file an appeal and "fight the case to the end".

The macabre murder came to light last January after Thai police began retrieving body parts from different locations along the city's Chao Praya River. It took them several days to identify the victim.

Segarra fled to Cambodia after the killing but was arrested and returned to Bangkok a few weeks later.

It is not uncommon for foreigners to get swept up in Thailand's sprawling criminal underworld.

Earlier this month an Australian man was sentenced to death for the murder of a former Hells Angels member found beaten and naked in a shallow grave in Pattaya, a popular Thai beach town known for its raunchy nightlife and links to organised crime.

In September, Thai police arrested three Americans in Bangkok after discovering the frozen body parts of another foreigner inside their freezer.

The men were charged with multiple offences and are being held in prison while they await trial.
Madrid (AFP) - The Spanish king's brother-in-law, who was sentenced to over six years in jail for syphoning off millions in a case that shamed the royals, will appeal to the Supreme Court, judicial authorities said Friday.

Inaki Urdangarin was one of seven who formally announced they would appeal in the so-called Noos case, said the High Court of the Balearic Islands -- which oversees all courts in the archipelago where the trial was held.

The husband of Princess Cristina was given a jail sentence of six years and three months in February for syphoning off millions of euros between 2004 and 2006 from a foundation he headed in the island of Majorca.

Cristina herself was also tried on charges that she helped her husband evade taxes, but the 51-year-old princess was acquitted.

Urdangarin's former business associate Diego Torres, who was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison, will also appeal as will others involved in the case including Jaume Matas, former conservative regional president of the Balearic Islands, the court said.

The Supreme Court will either confirm, overturn, reduce or increase the sentences, and its decision will be final.

The corruption scandal involving Urdangarin, which broke out in 2010, sparked outrage at a time when the country was going through a devastating crisis, becoming a symbol of the elite's perceived corruption.

It soured the end of the reign of king Juan Carlos, who gave up the throne in June 2014 hoping his son Felipe VI who replaced him could freshen up the image of the monarchy.

Since the scandal erupted in 2010, Urdangarin and Cristina have been excluded from all of the family's official public appearances.
Photo credit: McDonald's

From Delish

McDonald's has been hurling itself into the limelight lately - by crafting a burger ATM, giving away bottles of its top-secret Big Mac sauce, and (finally) working on mobile ordering. It's latest attempt to remain relevant, however, seems off.

In a new ad for the Golden Arches actress Mindy Kaling stands in front of a red backdrop wearing a yellow dress. During two 30-second spots, she never says "McDonald's." Ever. Instead, Kaling name-drops Coca-Cola and Google. Hmm. Why?

The simple answer is that the company wants you to literally Google search for "that place where Coke tastes SO good." But just how effective is that? Will anyone even do it?

Adweek describes this tactic as a "sly campaign" and the New York Times explained that it was created to target "teens and twentysomethings, who prefer word-of-mouth and their own research about products and brands."

Apparently neither of the clips won't be posted on any of Mickey D's social channels, including Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube; though Kaling posted one of the videos to her own account.

We're still not sure how we feel, so tell us what you think about the odd, "brand-less" commercials.

Follow Delish on Instagram.

You Might Also Like
By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) - Starbucks baristas have taken to social media to complain about the coffee chain's entry into the latest food craze: Unicorn Frappuccino. The sparkly color-changing frozen beverage has become one of the top posts on photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram since its release on Wednesday. But Starbucks baristas are not happy with the popularity. Complaints have been rolling in on social media website Reddit Inc, with one barista calling the new beverage "Frap from hell" and others sharing the joy of running out of ingredients to make the drink. Another barista shared an image of 56 Unicorn Frappuccinos that constituted one order, and others gave thanks to customers with simple orders like a black coffee. On Twitter, just hours after the release of the new drink, Starbucks barista Braden Burson shared a 100-second tirade, saying he had "never been so stressed out in his life." His post was shared more than 1,000 times. "I have never made so many Frappuccinos in my entire life," he said in the clip. "My hands are completely sticky. I have unicorn crap all in my hair, on my nose. I have never been so stressed out in my entire life." A barista from Florida, Tina Lee, wrote: "As a barista, just know that every time you ask me to make this, a part of me dies #unicornfrappuccino." The drink is available only until Sunday. "Weve seen tremendous positive feedback on the Unicorn Frappuccino from both customers and partners (employees/baristas)," said Starbucks spokesperson when asked if the company is aware of complaints from its baristas. Starbucks shares closed up 0.9 percent at $60.61 on Friday. (Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
By Ellen Francis BEIRUT (Reuters) - The evacuation of Syrian civilians and fighters from four besieged towns was completed on Friday after a 48-hour halt, as part of a mediated swap deal between the warring sides, state media and a rebel official said. Thousands of civilians and pro-government fighters from the Shi'ite towns of al-Foua and Kefraya arrived in army-held Aleppo, a war monitor said. Evacuees from the two rebel-besieged towns had been stuck at a staging area outside the city, where a bomb attack on an evacuation convoy killed scores of people last week. In exchange, busloads of rebels and their relatives from Zabadani left a second nearby transit point for rebel territory, state television said. The towns of Zabadani and Madaya, which had long been under siege by pro-government forces near Damascus, came under state rule this week after Sunni rebels and civilians were evacuated. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the 48-hour suspension was due to rebel demands for the government to free 750 prisoners under the deal. Rebels reached an agreement on Friday with the government for it to release 500 prisoners who will cross into opposition areas as part of the wider deal, a rebel official told Reuters. Mohamad Abu Zeid, a spokesman for the Ahrar al-Sham group, said negotiations over the issue had concluded and the prisoners would arrive at a rebel-held area near Aleppo "within hours". The Syrian army could not immediately be reached for comment. UPPER HAND A senior Arab diplomat in Qatar involved in the talks told Reuters that Iranian officials and Ahrar al-Sham held discussions about the four-towns swap in Qatar when Irans foreign minister visited Doha in March. Those discussions also involved the freeing of 26 Qatari hostages held by unidentified gunmen in Iraq, he said. During evacuations on Saturday, a bomb blast hit a packed convoy carrying evacuees from al-Foua and Kefraya, killing at least 126 people, including more than 60 children, who were waiting on Aleppo's outskirts. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was cited as saying the former Nusra Front carried out the bombing, which no group has yet claimed responsibility for. The Nusra Front was al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until it broke off its allegiance to the global militant movement and rebranded itself last year. It merged with a number of insurgent Islamist factions in January under a new jihadist alliance called Tahrir al-Sham. Thousands of Syrians have been evacuated mostly out of besieged opposition areas in recent months, under deals between Assad's government and rebels fighting for six years to unseat him. The opposition has denounced this as a deliberate policy of demographic change to forcibly displace Assad's opponents away from the main cities of western Syria. Fighters and civilians have poured into rebel-held Idlib province in northwest Syria over the last year, shuttled out of other areas the army and its allies captured. With the help of Russia and Iranian-backed militias, the government has gained the military upper hand against the wide array of rebel groups, including some supported by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies. U.N. Syria humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said there had been more evacuation deals this year than before, but that they appeared driven more by military priorities than humanitarian concerns. "They seem to follow a military logic, they do not seem to put the civilians at the heart of the agreement," he told reporters in Geneva on Thursday. The United Nations was not involved in the evacuation of the four towns. Egeland said that it was misleading to consider them voluntary evacuations when the towns had been besieged for years. "Besiegement should end by being lifted," he said, "not by places being emptied from people." (Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Tom Finn in Doha; Editing by Alison Williams)
Rashidin (Syria) (AFP) - Thousands of evacuees from besieged Syrian towns reached their destinations Friday after a delay that left some stuck for 48 hours at the site of a devastating bomb attack.

Villagers from government-held Fuaa and Kafraya arrived in Aleppo province, travelling on 45 buses, after waiting two days at a marshalling point in rebel-held Rashidin, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

They had waited under the guard of dozens of rebels seeking to head off another attack.

All 11 buses evacuating civilians and fighters from Zabadani and two other rebel-held areas around Damascus meanwhile crossed into opposition-held Idlib province, the Britain-based Observatory said.

A total of 3,000 evacuees left their homes in Fuaa and Kafraya at dawn on Wednesday as part of a deal under which residents and fighters are also being evacuated from rebel-held areas surrounded by government forces.

But the evacuees were forced to spend two nights on buses at the marshalling area after last-minute disagreement over the release of prisoners held by President Bashar al-Assad's government.

"After all the buses have left, 750 prisoners will be freed. God willing, this question will be resolved," Abu Obeida, a rebel official overseeing the operation, told AFP in Rashidin.

The head of the Observatory said a first batch of 50 prisoners, including at least 15 women, were released from regime prisons and arrived in Rashidin.

Rami Abdel Rahman said the remainder would be freed, in groups, over the next 24 hours and given the choice to stay in regime-controlled areas or head to rebel-held territory.

The evacuations began last week but were delayed after Saturday's suicide car bombing killed 150 people, 72 of them children, at the transit point in Rashidin.

The toll in the bombing had previously been given as 126, but the Observatory on Friday said more people wounded in the attack had died.

- Assad accuses ex-Al-Qaeda group -

Story continues

Saturday's attack was one of the deadliest since Syria's six-year civil war began, and was widely denounced for targeting civilians.

"Someone pretending even to distribute aid and attracting the children produced that horrific explosion," UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.

Witnesses said a vehicle distributing bags of crisps to children exploded near the buses transporting the evacuees.

In an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency published on Friday, Assad blamed the former Al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Fateh al-Sham Front.

"It was Jabhat al-Nusra, they haven't hidden it from the very start, and I think that everyone agrees that it was Nusra," he said, using the group's former name.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was condemned by Syria's political opposition and the powerful Ahrar al-Sham rebel group.

The evacuations mark the end of the first stage of a deal brokered by regime ally Iran and Qatar, a longtime supporter of Syrian rebel groups.

The deal also involved the release of a Qatari hunting party kidnapped in southern Iraq in 2015, according to sources in Baghdad.

All 26 of the hunters -- believed to include prominent members of the Qatari royal family -- have been freed and were being handed over to a Qatari delegation in Baghdad on Friday, a senior Iraqi official told AFP.

There was never any claim for the kidnapping of the hunters who were seized in a Shiite area of Iraq and widely believed to have been abducted by militias with close ties to Tehran.

When the current phase of Syrian evacuations is complete, a total of 8,000 people should have left Fuaa and Kafraya in exchange for 2,500 civilians and rebels from opposition areas.

A second phase is due to begin in June.

Assad's regime has presented evacuation deals as the best way to end Syria's war, which has killed more than 320,000 people and forced more than half the population from their homes.

The opposition says the evacuations amount to forced relocation after years of bombardment and siege.

The UN is not involved, and the head of its humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, said such deals were "spurred by military logic not by humanitarian principles".
Beirut (AFP) - Hundreds of frightened Syrian evacuees were on the move again Friday after being blocked for 48 hours at a transit point where a bomber killed dozens of their fellow townspeople, a monitor said.

Some of the 60 buses carrying civilians and loyalist fighters from the besieged government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya left the marshalling area in rebel-held Rashidin, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Some of the 11 buses evacuating civilians and fighters from Zabadani and two other rebel-held areas around Damascus were also on the move, the Britain-based monitoring group added.

A total of 3,000 evacuees left their homes in Fuaa and Kafraya at dawn on Wednesday as part of a deal under which residents and fighters are also being evacuated from the rebel-held areas surrounded by government forces.

The evacuations began last week but were delayed after Saturday's suicide car bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, at the transit point in Rashidin.

The process resumed on Wednesday but evacuees were forced to spend two nights in their buses at the marshalling area following an 11th-hour rebel demand for the release of prisoners held by President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Beirut (AFP) - Hundreds of frightened Syrian evacuees were on the move again Friday after being blocked for 48 hours at a transit point where a bomber killed dozens of their fellow townspeople, a monitor said.

Ten of the 45 buses carrying civilians and loyalist fighters from the besieged government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya left the marshalling area in rebel-held Rashidin, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

All of the 11 buses evacuating civilians and fighters from Zabadani and two other rebel-held areas around Damascus were also on the move, the Britain-based monitoring group added.

The buses from Fuaa and Kafraya entered second city Aleppo, under full government control since December, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The buses from Zabadani and surrounding areas entered rebel-held Idlib province in the northwest.

A total of 3,000 evacuees left their homes in Fuaa and Kafraya at dawn on Wednesday as part of a deal under which residents and fighters are also being evacuated from the rebel-held areas surrounded by government forces.

But the evacuees were forced to spend two nights in their buses at the marshalling area following an 11th-hour rebel demand for the release of prisoners held by President Bashar al-Assad's government.

The evacuations began last week but were delayed after Saturday's suicide car bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, at the transit point in Rashidin.
Mazar-i-Sharif (Afghanistan) (AFP) - Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms killed at least 50 soldiers in a gun and suicide attack at a base in northern Afghanistan, the US military said, as the extremists ramp up their campaign against beleaguered government forces.

Two of the attackers blew themselves up and seven were killed in the assault near Mazar-i-Sharif city on Friday which lasted several hours and targeted soldiers at a mosque and dining facility, the Afghan defence ministry said.

One of the assailants was detained.

A US military spokesman said "more than 50" Afghan soldiers were killed in the attack claimed by the Taliban, while Afghan officials put the death toll at eight with 11 wounded.

General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, praised Afghan commandos for bringing the "atrocity to an end".

The latest deadly attack against an Afghan military site underscores rising insecurity in the war-torn country as it braces for an intense fighting season in the spring.

Afghan security forces, beset by killings, desertions and non-existent "ghost soldiers" on the payroll, have been struggling to beat back insurgents since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014.

According to US watchdog SIGAR, casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed.

Nicholson in February told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that he needed "a few thousand" more troops to help train and assist the Afghan forces.

The US has around 8,400 troops in the country with about another 5,000 from NATO allies assisting a much larger Afghan force in the war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

- Military sites targeted -

Several military helicopters hovered over the base during Friday's attack and ambulances later took away the bodies of the victims, an AFP correspondent said.

The facility in Balkh province is home to the Afghan army's 209th Corps.

Story continues

The last major attack against a military site was in early March when gunmen disguised as doctors stormed the Sardar Daud Khan hospital -- the country's largest military hospital -- in Kabul, killing dozens.

Afghan officials put the death toll at 50, but security sources and survivors told AFP more than 100 were killed in the brazen and savage attack.

The Islamic State group claimed it was behind the operation -- hours after the more powerful Taliban denied responsibility for the raid.

That assault came a week after 16 people were killed in simultaneous Taliban suicide assaults on two security compounds in the capital.

More than a third of Afghanistan is outside government control and many regions are fiercely contested by various insurgent groups, as Kabul's repeated bids to launch peace negotiations with the Taliban have failed.

Earlier this month the US military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State group hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, killing nearly a hundred militants.

The attack triggered global shockwaves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered as big a threat as the resurgent Taliban.
Paris (AFP) - In the panic that followed the rattle of gunfire on Paris's famed Champs Elysees on Thursday, tourists and locals dashed for their lives, took refuge where they could and hoped the bullets wouldn't find them.

"People were running, bumping into each other and crashing into tables", said a 39-year-old woman who had been dining in a restaurant off the boulevard bustling with visitors.

In the end, the attacker who opened fire with an automatic weapon killed one police officer and wounded two others, one of them seriously. A foreign tourist was hit in her knee by shrapnel.

The gunman was shot dead in return fire while trying to flee on foot, police sources told AFP.

Nobody understood what was happening, "especially the foreign tourists," said the woman who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The waiters told us to get out the back of the restaurant, but there was no exit so we had to hide in a back courtyard," she said, as the lights of dozens of emergency vehicles flashed.

The two-kilometre (1.2-mile) road that links the Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde is lined with high-priced real estate, luxury shops and theatres.

- 'Want to go home' -

In the moments after the attack, which was claimed by Islamic State jihadists and came just three days before France's presidential election first round, people hid where they could.

Some took cover in restaurants or shops, others ran into cinemas to get off the strip that is nicknamed "the most beautiful avenue in the world."

"I heard shots and I went to see what it was. I saw two bodies on the ground and people screaming, running everywhere," said Mehdi, a communications consultant. "I was afraid. I left. I didn't even pay the bill!"

The attack's impact on the outcome of one of the most unpredictable election contests in decades is unclear, but far-right leader Marine Le Pen and scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon immediately cancelled their campaign events on Friday.

Story continues

The burst of violence and rush of police action left visitors bewildered, and saddened by the new reality of a steady threat of terror attacks in the French capital.

Jihadist-inspired assaults have killed more than 230 people in France since 2015, with many of the victims being people who had gone out for the evening.

Isabel, a 34-year-old Australian tourist, was unable to reach her lodging because of the police lines.

"I just want to go home," she said.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - The coronation of Thailand's new King Maha Vajiralongkorn is likely to take place at the end of the year, a deputy prime minister said on Friday. King Maha Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne in December, following the death in October of his father, the revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned for seven decades. The king's coronation is widely expected to signal the resumption of politics following a year-long mourning period for King Bhumibol and a general election should follow soon after. "Around the end of the year there might be a coronation," Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam told reporters on Friday, without specifying a month. The king's coronation will take place after his father's cremation, set for Oct. 26. King Maha Vajiralongkorn endorsed Thailand's new military-backed constitution this month, an essential step toward democracy after the military seized power in a 2014 coup. But restrictions on political activities will remain in place until after King Bhumibol's cremation and the new king's coronation, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has said. The new constitution is Thailand's 20th since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932 and critics say it will give the generals a powerful political say for years, if not decades. A date has not yet been fixed for a general election, which had initially been promised by the junta for 2016. (Reporting by Pracha Hariraksapitak; Writing by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Clarence Fernandez)
With its magnificent natural landscapes, diverse and unique wildlife and unforgettable scenic beauty, South Africa prides itself as a premiere African safari destination.

For travellers looking to have a memorable safari experience in a tranquil and exclusively set South African safari destination, here is a selection of the three top private nature reserves in South Africa.

Ulusaba Private Game Reserve

The award-winning Ulusaba Private Game Reserve is an epitome of luxurious and exclusive safari experience. Set in the heart of the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, Ulusaba Private Game Reserve offers one of the most tranquil early morning and afternoon private game drive experiences.

With over 13,500ha of flora and fauna, rich South African bushveld, visitors can also enjoy the African bush on guided bush walks.

#ulusabaprivategamereserve #southafrica #ulusaba A post shared by ulusaba game reserve (@ulusabagamereserve) on Dec 15, 2016 at 5:44pm PST

Apart from providing luxurious accommodation, Ulusaba's two lodges give visitors exclusive Big Five sightings, and breathtaking views of the setting sun or stars at night. And, you can also use the bush observatory for those memorable views of stars at night.

Timbavati Private Nature Reserve

Home to rare white lions, and with its diversity of wildlife and luxurious lodges and tented camps, Timbavati Private Nature Reserve is yet another best pick for the traveller looking for the best safari experience in a private setting.

Sightings and close encounters with the Big Five are guaranteed in Timbavati, as it shares an unfenced border with the Kruger National Park.

Apart from guided morning and afternoon game drives, Timbavati offers guided bush walks where visitors get to sample the unique African flora and fauna. Visitors can also enjoy uninterrupted game viewing at the reserves waterhole, as they watch the sun set in the horizon or have a view at the stars.

Luxury lodges and tented camps offer a unique dining and accommodation experience for visitors to Timbavati Nature Reserve.

Phinda Private Game Reserve

The Phinda Private Game Reserve offers the best safari experience for big cat viewers and cheetah lovers, as well as unique rhino safari experiences featuring the endangered white and black rhinos.

Safari Selfie with the my amazing Phinda family! #safariselfie #bushlife#andbeyondrangers #phindaprivategamereserve #lovinglife A post shared by Ricci (@riccichristen) on Aug 29, 2016 at 12:14pm PDT

A safari experience at Phinda Private Game Reserve offers guided day and night game drives and safari walks, with spectacular Big Five viewings, and the reserve also hosts uniquely designed lodges that are designed to afford privacy and seclusion, while at the same time offering the privilege of indoor game viewing.
Can you imagine it: Prime Minister Louis Theroux? Hey, it makes just as much sense as anything else going on in UK politics lately.

Because they know a perfect, lovely human being when they see one, thousands of British citizens are petitioning online for just that  the election of documentarian and adorable investigator of weird stuff, Louis Theroux himself. Louis for PM!

SEE ALSO: The Church of Scientology is making a documentary about Louis Theroux

Surely fans of the insightful and awkward media figure could list millions of reasons why Theroux should be the United Kingdom's new leader but petition organisers, a publication called Konibi UK, put it thusly:

"Since the EU referendum in Britain, politicians, experts and those with the country in their hands have failed to show they are capable of leading the nation during this complex time," they write.

"As one of the most understanding, smart and trusted men in the UK, Mr Theroux (probably) has more skills to work out what is best for post-Brexit Britain than May, Farage and Corbyn combined. And if he fails, at least he can make a bloody good film about it ..."

Is that not the most sensible thing you've read re: the general election yet?

Think about it: He's the most nonjudgemental guy around, having hung out with all kinds of extreme groups. And even when people say unbelievably offensive things, he stays polite.

He's also up for anything, if it'll make a good story. And being a world leader would be a good yarn.

Instead of debating in parliament, he could try his hand at a rap battle (again).

"Okay, so were obviously kidding  the guy hasnt even responded to our tweets yet, Konibi write on their website, explaining the petition.

"It might only be a pipe dream that we'll one day pay our taxes to the non-fiction revolutionary, but it might be our only hope of a stable nation. (We're also still up for an interview Louis, if you're keen.)"

Oh, you guys were just joking? Us too, us too *backs away slowly*

WATCH: The new Google Earth puts stunning Earth porn right in Chrome
By M.B. Pell, Joshua Schneyer and Andy Sullivan

BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - Laicie Manzella lived in a rundown house on Buffalos east side when three of her children tested with dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. Her oldest son suffered nosebleeds, body rashes and a developmental disorder requiring speech therapy.

Checking her apartment, county health inspectors found 15 lead violations, all linked to old paint in this blue collar city plagued by lead poisoning.

A Reuters investigation found at least four city zip codes here where 40 percent of children tested from 2006 to 2014 had high lead levels, making Buffalo among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America. The rate of high lead tests in these areas was far worse  eight times greater  than that found among children across Flint, Michigan, during that citys recent water crisis.

Federal support has helped Manzella and other families in Buffalo and beyond. This month, her family moved into a gleaming, lead-free apartment renovated by a local nonprofit with funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This type of assistance may not last much longer. President Donald Trump is advocating deep federal budget cuts that would sap billions from programs used by state and local governments to protect children from the lifelong health impacts of lead exposure.

If they go and snatch these funds away, where are we going to get help from? Manzella said.

Its a question being asked in cities across the United States bracing for cuts in programs that identify and eradicate lead poisoning hazards. Awareness of lead poisoning escalated following Flints crisis, and more recently from Reuters reporting that has identified more than 3,300 areas with childhood lead poisoning rates at least double those found in the Michigan city.

Some of the areas slated to be hit hardest supported Trump in Novembers election, though he lost Erie County, where Buffalo is the county seat.

Story continues

At least eight of the nine federal agencies sharing responsibility for lead poisoning prevention face potential budget cuts. But the heaviest lifting falls to HUD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trumps budget would cut at least $4.7 billion from programs at HUD and the EPA that support healthy housing and lead pollution cleanup efforts, a Reuters analysis found. Funding for a CDC program that assists states with poisoning prevention is uncertain.

Cuts would be felt across the country. The Trump administration would eliminate a $27 million program that trains private contractors on lead removal, and a $21 million program that funds lead abatement projects in Alaska, Illinois, Ohio, Oklahoma and California. It would kill a program that provided funds to a Rhode Island nonprofit to upgrade housing, and end a $970 million affordable-housing program that has fixed up dilapidated homes in hundreds of U.S. cities, including Flint.

If the cuts clear Congress, some experts fear the fight against lead could stall out for years.

We are dooming future generations, said Dr. Gale Burstein, health commissioner in Erie County. Exposure to high lead levels causes brain damage to kids, learning disabilities and behavioral challenges.

Instead of saving money, the cost of inaction could spiral, Burstein said. More children would be afflicted by learning disabilities and other neurological problems, leaving localities to foot the bill for treatment programs.

White House officials declined to comment.

Decades of lead abatement have sharply curbed childhood lead levels across the United States. But studies have shown no level of lead in the blood is safe, and poisoning persists in thousands of locales.

PINPOINTING HOTSPOTS

In December, Reuters used previously undisclosed data obtained from 21 states to pinpoint nearly 3,000 U.S. neighborhoods where poisoning rates among tested children were at least twice as high as in Flint.

Reporters have since obtained testing results covering eight additional states and expanded data from two more, including New York, Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia, New Hampshire and California. The new data reveal another 449 neighborhoods with rates that high.

The communities stretch from affluent neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area to an impoverished quarter of Shreveport, Louisiana, to a rural town in Salem County, New Jersey, where Trump won 56 percent of the vote in November.

The data paints a partial picture. Reuters has not obtained neighborhood-level testing results for 21 states and the District of Columbia. These areas cited privacy concerns or said they do not have the data.

Still, the available results show the toxic metal remains a threat to millions of children.

Federal programs fund testing for children, cleanup of industrial lead hazards and poisoning-awareness efforts. Other programs require inspections or abatement in housing built before 1978, when lead was banned from residential paint.

The few planned funding increases under Trump may not be as beneficial as they appear. HUDs Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control Program is slated to receive a $20 million boost, but the agency has proposed eliminating $4.1 billion worth of grant programs local officials say play a bigger role in reducing risks.

I think youre going to see more children, not fewer children, exposed to lead, said Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat who has sought more funding for lead-abatement programs on the Senate subcommittee that funds HUD.

Congress, which controls federal spending, may not go along. A spokeswoman for Senator Susan Collins described lead-based hazards as one of the most prevalent health issues facing children today. She said the Maine Republican would use her position as head of the subcommittee that controls HUDs budget to oppose cuts.

BUFFALO A HOTBED FOR LEAD

Buffalo has long fought a legacy of lead contamination. Blood data shows 17 city zip codes where the rate of tested children with high lead levels was at least double that of Flint  about 8,000 children over nine years.

Nobodys talking about Buffalo as ground zero for the lead problem, but when it comes to the levels of lead thats been identified in children, its higher than what you see in Flint, said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

Buffalos problem stems from a simple equation: Old houses plus high poverty equal lead poisoning. Older homes are often blanketed with lead paint, and the water pipes and fixtures typically contain lead. In poorer neighborhoods, homes are frequently neglected, leading to exposure from peeling paint or dust. Fifty-eight percent of the citys housing was built before 1940; nearly 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

Still, Buffalo and Erie County have made progress. In 2007, three city zip codes had 50 percent of tested children with high lead levels. By 2014, the prevalence in those zip codes dropped to an improved, but still worrisome, 30 percent.

Progress came thanks to millions of dollars in federal assistance flowing to local programs.

From 2012 through 2016, Buffalo was granted $27.7 million from the now-threatened HUD HOME Investment and Partnerships Program. HUDs blessing brought far greater resources to bear, with city, county and nonprofits using the grant to attract another $200 million to revitalize or replace 1,125 housing units, making them all lead-safe.

Among those helped: The Chowdhurys, a family of five who moved to the east side of Buffalo in 2010, settling in a neighborhood with one of the highest lead poisoning rates in the country.

Within two months, their one-year-old daughter, Nabiha, was found to have a lead level about twice that of the elevated threshold set by the CDC, five micrograms per deciliter. Any child at or above CDCs threshold warrants a public health response, the agency says.

MD Chowdhury, a restaurant waiter, and his wife, Nazneen Fatema, didnt know how their daughter was poisoned or how to help her, but Buffalo and Erie County did.

Local officials dispatched housing inspectors, nurses and contractors to identify and repair the lead hazards in the familys home. Replacing the lead-paint coated windows and siding and installing a new roof cost about $40,000. Federal grant programs footed the bill.

Erie Countys Health Department receives $244,000 a year from the CDC to help fund five full-time employees and three part-time employees who refer at-risk children for testing, investigate the causes of lead poisoning and conduct educational home visits. Those staffers helped the family.

Chowdhury also took EPA-funded classes on how to safely remove lead-based-paint so he could do additional work himself.

Two years ago, the couple had another daughter. She has never tested high.

Without these programs, its hard to know about lead, and my income is not enough to do all of the work we needed, Chowdhury said.

Trumps budget proposal would kill much of the funding that helped the family through its ordeal.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the case illustrates the larger peril of potential funding cuts. There would be people who would fall through the cracks, he said.

CARSONS MIXED MESSAGE

While working as a pediatric neurosurgeon in Baltimore, Dr. Benjamin Carson saw the irreversible damage lead can cause in the brains of children living in substandard housing.

At his confirmation hearing in February to serve as Trumps secretary of HUD, Carson told the Senate Banking Committee he would be vigorous in his efforts to reduce the tally of hundreds of thousands of poisoned children across the country.

Im looking forward to, you know, the Safe and Healthy Homes Program at HUD and enhancing that program very significantly, Carson said.

But even Carsons requested $20 million increase for HUDs lead removal program falls short of the $29 million his agency says is needed to comply with a new policy that requires lead remediation of HUD properties where children have tested above the CDC threshold.

Other housing programs that play a bigger, if more indirect, role in protecting childrens health would be eliminated altogether.

Among them: the $125 million Choice Neighborhoods program, which provided funding to remove lead paint from New Orleans aging Iberville housing project, and the $970 million HOME Partnerships program, which helped the Chowdhurys clean up their house in Buffalo.

The biggest casualty could be HUDs $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program.

Local officials use CDBG grants to fund projects from curb construction to rehabilitating old housing, with only a small portion, $10 million, directly used for lead safety standards in the most recent fiscal year.

But CDGB is crucial to poisoning prevention, since housing-related projects it helps are required to meet HUD guidelines for lead safety, said Marion McFadden, who oversaw HUD's grant programs under President Barack Obama.

If (cuts are) enacted, it would be a huge step backward, McFadden said.

CDBG funds went toward lead-paint removal in cities including Milwaukee, Syracuse and Shreveport, Louisiana. All three had neighborhoods with documented lead poisoning rates at least twice Flints.

BUDGET CUTS IN AMISH COUNTRY

Health officials in the small city of York, Pennsylvania, two hours west of Philadelphia in Amish country, know how budget cuts like this can play out.

The city and surrounding York County, where Trump won 70 percent of the vote in November, have a serious lead poisoning problem. From 2005 through 2014, at least 30 percent of children tested in all but one of Yorks census tracts had elevated lead exposure, according to CDC data. In one census tract, more than half of all tested children had high lead levels.

Trump lost the city of York, but other patches of the county hit hard by lead poisoning, including the borough of Red Lion, where 21 percent of children tested had high levels, overwhelmingly supported him.

In the mid 1990s, York had seven full-time and part-time employees working in the citys lead prevention program who conducted screening and investigated lead exposure sources. Since then, CDC cuts have left the program with one part-time employee and no ability to conduct screening.

The results are telling. In 2005, 1,641 city children were screened for lead. In 2014, 169 kids received a lead test.

Trumps plan to eliminate the $375,000 in Home Partnership funds the city uses to develop lead-safe housing would have dire consequences, said James Crosby, deputy director of the citys Bureau of Housing Services.

It would mean we would be out of business, Crosby said. If he eliminates the home program, we would have absolutely nothing.

A HUD spokesman declined to comment on the impact the cuts would have. HUD will continue to work very closely with state and local health and housing officials through targeted investments in specific programs to reduce childhood lead poisoning, he said.

CUTS AT THE EPA

A similar pattern is emerging at the EPA, where Administrator Scott Pruitt is highlighting some lead remediation efforts while pushing to gut funding to enforce pollution laws and clean up contaminated sites.

During the confirmation process, Pruitt told lawmakers he would work to reduce exposure to lead. On Wednesday he visited East Chicago, Indiana, where the EPA has secured $42 million from chemical companies to remove contaminated soil from neighborhoods near a former lead-smelting plant. In one neighborhood, up to 20 percent of tested children had elevated lead-blood levels.

Trumps budget proposal would preserve funding for the EPA program that helps cities like Flint buy new water pipes.

But Pruitt would slash other federal efforts, including a one-third cut of EPAs Superfund and Brownfield programs, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars less to clean up areas contaminated by lead mining in southeast Missouri, tainted yards and parks in Omaha and old school buildings on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.

Pruitt would also eliminate a $27 million program that trains private contractors on safe lead removal from buildings, internal documents show.

An EPA spokesman said the agency is weighing strategies to save taxpayers money while protecting the environment. Were trying to restore some accountability to these and other programs so that we can examine what has worked  and most especially, what hasnt, wrote spokesman J.P. Freire.

Funding levels for the CDC, which spent $17 million last year through the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention program to help state and local governments, have been the subject of great uncertainty.

Earlier this year Trump lobbied for a Republican health-care bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act. In the process, the bill would have eliminated the pool of public-health money that funds the CDCs lead program. In March, the bill collapsed in the House of Representatives.

Last week, a White House official told Reuters the administration intends to keep funds flowing to the CDC program. By Monday, however, the official had backed away from that commitment and said the programs fate is uncertain until the administration produces a more detailed budget proposal in May.

The last round of cuts to the CDCs lead budget in 2011 slashed assistance to many state poisoning prevention programs.

Those cuts were a reason why Flints problems didnt come to light sooner, said Mary Jean Brown, a public health specialist at Harvard University who directed CDCs lead program at the time. Without the CDC lead program, Michigan conducted less monitoring of childhood blood levels from 2011 to 2014, and stopped reporting test results to the CDC.

This created a big gap in data, Brown said, contributing to Flints crisis going unchecked or being ignored by Michigan officials until a pediatrician, scientists and activists presented proof children had been sickened.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)
Caracas (AFP) - Venezuela, mired in a political and economic crisis for months, has been rocked by violence over the past three weeks which has claimed 20 lives.

Dozens of people have been injured and some 600 arrested since the crisis escalated in late March, according to the rights group Foro Penal. A chronology of key events follows:

- Supreme court stokes fires -

March 29, 2017: Venezuela's high court, which has consistently backed leftist president Nicolas Maduro, strips lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for them to face prosecution.

March 30: The Supreme Court takes over legislative powers, after ruling the opposition-majority National Assembly is in contempt of court in an ongoing power struggle with Maduro.

"Nicolas Maduro has staged a coup," says National Assembly speaker Julio Borges.

Maduro continues resisting opposition efforts to hold a vote on removing him, vowing to continue the "socialist revolution" launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez.

- International outcry and U-turn -

March 30: The international community expresses concern.

The US State Department calls the court's move "a serious setback for democracy."

Brazil's foreign ministry says it is "a clear break with constitutional order." Peru, Chile and Colombia recall their ambassadors from Caracas.

The hardest line comes from the head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who in a statement echoes Maduro's opponents' claims of an internal "coup d'etat."

Publicly criticized for the first time from within his own camp, Maduro denies any break with constitutional order.

The court later partially reverses the rulings, but keeps in place other measures limiting the assembly's powers.

- Rising fatalities -

April 6: As tensions rise, a 19-year-old man is shot dead and dozens of Maduro opponents are injured in Caracas during clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

Story continues

April 7: Henrique Capriles, a leader of the Venezuelan opposition and runner-up in the 2013 presidential election, is banned from politics for 15 years, preventing him from standing in 2018.

The protests escalate over the following days, and the death toll rises.

April 19: Hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets of Caracas and other towns across the country in what the opposition hails as the "mother of all protests."

April 20-21: Twelve people are killed overnight, as riot police and civilian vigilantes fight running battles with protesters.

- More protests -

April 16: Maduro announces he is deploying the army across the country.

April 17: Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez declares the army's "unconditional loyalty" to Maduro.

April 19: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Washington is worried the Maduro government "is violating its own constitution."

Maduro denounces the US for giving a "green light (to) a coup."

The opposition calls for a nationwide march in silence to the Catholic Church's episcopal seats on April 22, and urges supporters to erect roadblocks on April 24 to grind the country to a halt.
Venezuelan democracy was pronounced dead on March 29, when the countrys Supreme Court arbitrarily seized the functions of the National Assembly, setting the government of President Nicolas Maduro on a dangerous collision course with the Venezuelan people. This sad tale of a death foretold began over three years ago, when Maduro assumed the presidency in November 2013 by the slimmest of margins and chose to govern through repression instead of seeking common ground with pragmatic elements of the opposition ready to collaborate in addressing Venezuelas growing security and economic problems.

In the course of a few years, the Venezuelan government eliminated the freedom of the press and assembly necessary for a legitimate political debate. It demonized and arrested political opponents, including political leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was arrested during a peaceful protest and sentenced without proof in 2015 to nearly 14 years of prison for the laughable crime of inciting violence through subliminal messages. Today, the countrys currency reserves are all but gone, grocery store shelves are bare, medicine is scant, violence is rampant, and the government is confronting protestors with deadly force and arming pro-government vigilante groups. Maduros actions have lost him any remaining semblance of legitimacy, taking him to another crossroad: continue entrenchment as the country flies off the precipice or call for elections to rescue Venezuelan sovereignty.

The U.S. response to date is to be applauded. Secretary of State Rex Tillersons approach of building upon the diplomatic efforts begun at the end of the Bush administration and largely continued by President Barack Obama have removed the United States as a foil to distract attention away from the countrys democratic breakdown. Tillerson stood up for universal human rights at a press availability on Wednesday, underscoring grave concern that the government of Maduro is violating [its] own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in a way that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people.

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Further, President Donald Trumps February meeting with Lopezs wife, Lilian Tintori, highlighted the plight of Venezuelan political prisoners. And Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) designation of Vice President Tarek El Aissami as a drug kingpin (the highest-ranking official ever to make the list) sent ripple through the Venezuelan kleptocracy. Such statements and actions by the President of the United States, the U.S. secretary of state, and OFAC send an important message and are helping to galvanize a regional response.

It is important to recognize such efforts as the culmination of years of work, across Republican and Democratic administrations, by the professional career men and women of State, Treasury, Justice, and the rest of the so-called deep state so maligned by this administration.

There was a progression, of course. Obama opted largely for policy continuity on Venezuela when he assumed office in 2009, with some important distinctions. One was a conscious effort to reduce the decibel level of public sparring with the Venezuelan government in order to cede the space necessary for the Venezuelan people to engage in an active debate about the future of their country. I recall one meeting where a well-respected U.S. diplomat summarized our approach with a famous quote from Bernard Shaw often attributed to President Lyndon Johnson: I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

As Venezuelas economic situation sharply deteriorated due to mismanagement, Vice President Joe Biden spent two years working to marshal an international response to counter  and prepare for the end of  Venezuelan petropolitics through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. When the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014 passed, the White House strengthened its implementation by adding corruption prongs intended to aggressively target corruption and the growing Venezuelan narcostate. Biden also walked up to Maduro during the 2015 Brazilian presidential inauguration in front of a giant camera spray in a last-ditch effort to secure the release of political prisoners and convince him to engage in real dialogue with the opposition (thats my shiny bald head in the picture trying to block the cameras) and met with Tintori upon his return from Brazil.

The Obama administration also diverged from its predecessor through a concerted effort to carve out areas of common interest with the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA)  Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and others. The intent was to make inroads were possible, particularly if the United States had a unilateral interest, but more importantly to eliminate the misperception that Washington fostered hemispheric polarization, and to create a space for the adults in the region like Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru to lead a regional solution. Coupled with the 2014 Cuba policy changes, this approach successfully undermined the coherence of ALBA.

However, the Obama administrations decision to continue the Bush-era focus on the Organization of American States (OAS) as the premier multilateral forum for the region to defend democratic institutions was perhaps the most important. The Inter-American Democratic Charter created a hemispheric consensus in favor of democracy and established a mechanism for its collective defense.

Adopted on Sept. 11, 2001 during a special session of the OAS General Assembly, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and then Deputy Permanent Representative Thomas A. Shannon implored OAS member states support the charter in solidarity with the United States, just after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Now, following several failed efforts by the Union of South American States to broker a negotiated solution between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and the Mexican government are leading a successful hemispheric effort to pressure the Venezuelan government to re-legitimize through free and fair elections.

As we near the likely end game in Venezuela  and there is no guarantee that Maduro will (or even has the power to) do what is right for the country by holding elections  continued entrenchment and repression by the government will have lasting repercussions for all of Latin America and the Caribbean. The U.S. approach to Venezuela thus far represents a rare instance in this administrations foreign policy where diplomacy  the notion of working with others and leveraging multilateral institutions  is prevailing over strongman-ism. It is the proper course; diplomats are scoring important wins for U.S. leadership and regional cooperation. And the press is shouting the Trump administrations accolades. Dont undermine it by trying to wrestle the pig.

Photo credit: ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images
More details are emerging of the man who carried out yesterdays attack in Paris that killed a police officer.

Arkansas carried out its first execution since 2005 after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a temporary stay.

Were tracking the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4).

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
A toddler is lucky to be alive after being brutally attacked by a dog as he played outside in his upstate New York neighborhood Thursday evening, community advocates told InsideEdition.com.

Surveillance footage of the terrifying ordeal posted to social media appears to show a group of young children playing outside a Spring Valley home when suddenly, a black dog charges at the group from across the street, grabbing a hold of a little boy and dragging him along the pavement.

The dog, which had been identified as a pit bull, appears to lose its grip on the child at one point, jumping on him again before its dragged away by a man, according to the video posted by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council [OJPAC].

GRAPHIC VIDEO: Pit bull attacks Orthodox Jewish toddler in Spring Valley after being out on the loose multiple times in recent weeks. pic.twitter.com/0PpkQckWsy  OJPAC Hudson Valley (@OJPACHV) April 21, 2017

The child, who is 2 years old, was left with scratches and puncture wounds across his cheek and neck, a photo posted to Twitter shows.

He was rushed to a nearby hospital and released later that night, Yossi Gestetner, co-founder of OJPAC, told InsideEdition.com.

Read: Pit Bull Attacks Owners When They Try to Dress Him in a Christmas Sweater

He said the little boy needed stitches and did not attend school Friday.

Hes very shaken; [he] and his siblings are very shaken, Gestetner said. The community is shaken. This was not a one-off situation.

Gestetner said the dog had previously gotten loose and chased residents of the Rockland County neighborhood, but this was the most serious incident.

The dog needs to be leashed and in the control of a responsible adult, he said. Maybe the pit bull thought it was playing with the children, but that doesn't absolve the owner... it does not absolve the police department.

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Gestetner said police removed the dog from its owner at about 10:30 p.m., more than four hours after the attack.

They knew it was an attack, they were on the scene and it makes no sense to leave the dog, he said. I dont blame the police [for the attack]. We do see a good relationship with the law enforcement and the community... [but] police have dropped the ball here.

The Spring Valley Police Department did not immediately return a message from InsideEdition.com seeking comment.

Police Chief Paul Modica said that a girl living at the same home of as the owner of the dog went outside Thursday and the dog followed her, and then ran, The Journal News reported.

Read: Girl, 5, Leaves Hospital, 2 Months After Dog Attack That Killed Her Best Friend

SVPD did not have much of a history of complaints involving the dog, Modica said, noting that they received a generic report of a dog running loose in March.

Residents told us after the attack that this dog had been roaming around, but they didn't report it, he said.

The dog's owner was issued summonses for allowing her dog to run loose in connection to Thursdays incident, officials said.

The Rockland District Attorneys Office was continuing to review the case, Modica said.

The dog was brought to the Hi-Tor animal shelter pending a decision on what to do next with it.

Officers needed to use a dog pole to get the animal under control, as it became aggressive when they first attempted to put it into a police cruiser, he said.

After learning of the incident, OJPAC was the first to post images and surveillance footage of the attack on social media, where it quickly went viral.

"Horrific," Chelsea Clinton tweeted at 11:07 p.m. Thursday. "No child should suffer this. No animal (or person) should ever be in a position to do this to anyone, certainly not a child."

Watch: Dad Defends Letting His 1-Year-Old Son Nap and Cuddle With Huge Pit Bull

Related Articles:
Saint Petersburg (AFP) - Russian authorities said Friday they had posthumously stripped the suspected Saint Petersburg metro suicide bomber of his citizenship.

The interior ministry said in a statement that 22-year-old suspected suicide bomber Akbarjon Djalilov, a Russian national born in Central Asian Kyrgyzstan, had posthumously been stripped of his Russian citizenship.

Djalilov's father has also been deprived of his Russian citizenship because he provided false information on his application, the ministry said.

The move comes as Russia raises the possibility of taking away the passports of naturalised citizens accused of involvement with the Islamic State jihadist group.

No one has claimed responsibility for the Saint Petersburg attack, but the authorities said they are probing ties to IS jihadists, who have threatened to strike Russia in revenge for its intervention in Syria.

Earlier Friday a woman injured in the bombing died in hospital, taking the death toll from the attack to 15.

The region's deputy governor Anna Mityanina said a woman born in 1960 had died from serious injuries sustained in the April 3 blast which ripped through an underground train.

Another 23 people are still in hospital, four of them in a serious condition, she said.

Ten men from Central Asia have been detained in connection with the bombing, including Kyrgyz-born Abror Azimov, who officials say was one of the organisers.

Both he and his elder brother Akram -- who the FSB security service alleges was in contact with global terror groups -- are in custody.

FSB head Alexander Bortnikov told reporters on Thursday that the agency was close to establishing who ordered the bombing, Russian news agencies reported.
Paris (AFP) - Tourists were back on the Champs Elysees early Friday with a mixture of shock and defiance, a day after a jihadist shot dead a policeman on the world-famous avenue on the eve of France's election.

"I needed to get out, to come back here and see the sunshine and that everything was OK," said Lebanese tourist Zeina Bitar, 45, who was shopping on the boulevard with her children when the gunman struck.

Nearby, a police officer laid a white rose at the site where the shooter felled his comrade with an automatic weapon, unleashing a firefight in which the assailant was killed and two other officers were wounded.

"We heard the shots and people were running in every direction," said Bitar, adding that her children were in tears. "But people were calm, we were well treated and they gave us hot chocolate."

Under a cloudless spring sky, the dozens of emergency and security vehicles of the night before had been replaced by media trucks on the glitzy tree-lined avenue -- a symbol of Paris.

Passers-by snapped pictures of shop windows punctured by bullet holes.

"What's happening here?" asked Indian tourist Chaintnya Veeraghanta, 25, who had been unaware of the shooting.

"I knew there were terrorism attacks in France last year, but I thought it was over," she said.

More than 230 people have been killed in jihadist attacks in France since early 2015, leading to a ramping up of security, with thousands of troops deployed to patrol key sites.

Eric Winkler, 51, an American visiting the French capital from Boston, told AFP: "It was scary. We heard the shots so we ran to our hotel... and found out it was terrorism by watching the news."

- 'Vive Paris!' -

But he and his 16-year-old daughter Hailey took it in their stride.

"It's happening all over the world, also in America," Winkler said. "We have to deal with it, they're not going to stop us from living and doing what we want to do."

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Bitar's friend Pascale Saad, 42, also from Lebanon, said she was worried about the effects the attack would have on France's presidential election starting with its first round of voting on Sunday.

"I really don't know what's going to happen Sunday," she said. "I'm afraid that things will degenerate and that people will all vote for Marine Le Pen."

The far-right presidential candidate, who is riding high in the polls, is seen as the most hardline on the issue of terror attacks and advocates harsh limits on immigration.

Visiting from Los Angeles, 60-year-old Felix Cervantes said he could have been at the Champs Elysees on Thursday evening but had gone to the Louvre museum instead.

"I'm not afraid at all," he said. "We're going to stay in Paris till next week whatever happens."

Scottish tourist Lesly Douglas, 55, had mixed feelings: "We're convinced that Paris is the safest place in the world, but of course we were scared seeing the policemen with their guns."

But her 62-year-old husband Michael was adamant that the couple would visit the French capital "for years to come", adding: "Vive Paris!"
The Treasury Department said it will not give Exxon Mobil a waiver to drill for oil in Russia despite U.S. sanctions against the country.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday in a statement that the administration, will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions, according to the Associated Press.

Exxon was seeking a waiver in order to continue drilling in the Black Sea, the AP reports. The company previously had an agreement with Russian oil company PAO Rosneft.

Exxon would not confirm whether or not it was seeking the waiver at all earlier this month, Reuters reports. Exxons former chief executive Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lobbied against the sanctions in 2014.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called the request for a waiver crazy last week in a tweet linking to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

The move comes as the FBI and Congressional intelligence committees are investigating Russian hacking that allegedly attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election, as well as possible contact between Russian officials and members of President Donald Trumps campaign.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
After months of speculation about when the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall proposed by President Donald Trump will start, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Fox News Thursday that it will start by the end of summer. The announcement comes a day before the scheduled visit of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Kelly to San Diego to observe federal operations at the border with Mexico, reports said.

"Just in the last 60 to 90 days, the movement of illegal immigrants up from Central America through Mexico has dropped off 70 percent," Kelly told Fox News. "Were at about a 15, 16 year low, and frankly, we havent done all that much yet," he added.

Read: Why Is Trump's Mexico Border Wall Being Sued?

Although there has been much debate about whether or not Trump's proposed border wall be able to curb the illicit flow of people and drugs, the environmental damage which it will cause cannot be overseen. The existing 654 mile wall and fences on the U.S.-Mexico border has harmed the local ecology already. The wall has cut off, isolated and reduced populations of some of the rarest animals in North America such as the jaguar and ocelot, which is also known as the dwarf jaguar. The wall has led to creation of roads through wild lands and has caused ecological imbalance, according to Vox.

The new proposed border wall will threaten 111 endangered species as it passes through four key wildlife reserves on the U.S. side of the border and also several nature reserves on the Mexican side. Several migratory birds such as the bald eagle  Americas national bird  will be affected along with marine animals such as manatees or sea turtles.

Another factor is the emission produced during the construction of border wall. Conservationists pointed out that the amount of concrete needed to build a solid wall across the whole border would produce huge amounts of carbon dioxide with Bloomberg New Energy Finance calculating a figure of up to 1.9 million tons depending on how high it might be.

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Related Articles
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump on Friday hosted a US-Egyptian charity worker in the White House who was freed after nearly three years in detention in Egypt on charges human rights groups denounced as "arbitrary."

A Cairo court acquitted Aya Hijazi last weekend along with her Egyptian husband and six others of accusations they were complicit in alleged sexual abuse of children at the foundation the couple ran.

Her release came days after a meeting between Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Washington in which the two men exuded warmth and expressed strong mutual support.

"We are very happy to have Aya back home and it's a great honor to have her in the Oval Office," Trump said.

His administration is keen to forge closer ties with Egypt after Washington had kept the country at arm's length for years. Former president Barack Obama notably harbored concerns about Sisi's purge of political opponents and rights activists.

Hijazi's supporters say she was targeted at a time when the authorities were cracking down on civil society groups and protests, trying to paint protesters as paid agents of foreign entities.

One charge against her was that her Belady Foundation, founded in 2013, had not properly registered as a non-governmental organization.

She and the others accused had been kept in detention pending trial since their arrest in May 2014.

Human Rights Watch last month said the lengthy captivity "appears to amount to arbitrary detention," calling the trial "nothing less than a travesty of justice."

Several prosecution witnesses recanted testimonies supporting the sexual abuse claims.

Trump's spokesman, Sean Spicer, said the US president "directly engaged behind the scenes" to have Hejazi released and returned to the United States.

"The president discussed the issue privately with President al-Sisi when he visited the White House a little while ago," he said.

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Critics accuse Sisi's regime of seeking to quash the drive to democracy started during the Arab Spring in 2011, when huge demonstrations led to the ouster of Egypt's longtime strongman and US ally Hosni Mubarak.

After elections produced a short-lived government led by the Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohamed Morsi, Sisi seized power in 2014.

He has brooked no dissent or opposition since then, earning criticism over his treatment of human rights.

But the United States under Trump has stepped up support of Egypt, which receives an annual $1.3 billion in military aid and serves as a linchpin in Middle East politics.

The Egyptian president told Trump's visiting Pentagon chief Jim Mattis on Thursday that he wanted to "strengthen the ongoing military cooperation between the two countries."
President Donald Trump said during his campaign he would reveal his plan for defeating the Islamic State group within the first 30 days of his presidency. That didnt happen. In January, he promised to work on cybersecurity after he was briefed on Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election  and missed the 90-day deadline for handling that issue as well.

Whether it is our government, organizations, associations or businesses we need to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks, Trump said in January. I will appoint a team to give me a plan within 90 days of taking office. The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm. ... Americas safety and security will be my No. 1 priority.

In a series of tweets in January, spurred by the release of a dossier with strong claims against him, Trump again mentioned the deadline and vowed to deliver a report on the Russian hacking.

My people will have a full report on hacking within 90 days! he tweeted.

Trump missed that deadline Thursday, Politico noted. Apparently Trump doesnt have a team or plan, and there is no definite answer from the White House on who would work on that.

Regarding the deadline, a White House spokesperson did not say why it was missed, but told Politico the president has appointed a diverse set of executives with both government and private sector expertise who currently are working to deliver an initial cybersecurity plan through a joint effort between the National Security Council and the Office of American Innovation. 

Since his promise in January, there have been more revelations of connections between Trumps aides and Russia, including national security adviser and former Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Meanwhile, the Russian hacking is still under investigation by the FBI and congressional committees. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the accusations.

Related Articles
By Richard Cowan and David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a U.S. government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding. With Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, keeping the federal government operating is a basic test of their ability to govern, but their task could become even more complicated if they insist on using the spending legislation to bring about contentious policy changes. Not only must Republicans overcome intraparty ideological divisions that stopped major healthcare legislation last month, but they will have to win over some opposition Democrats with provisions that could be distasteful to conservatives. With the Senate reconvening on Monday and the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a two-week recess, lawmakers will have only four days to pass a spending package to keep the government open beyond April 28, when funding expires for numerous federal programs. "I think we want to keep the government open," Trump said on Thursday, adding he thinks Congress can pass the funding legislation and perhaps also a revamped healthcare bill. Democratic support depends on what provisions Republicans demand in the bill. Democrats have signaled they would not cooperate if it contains money for one of Trump's top priorities, a southwestern border wall intended to combat illegal immigration, or if it ends federal subsidies to help low-income people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which Republicans want to repeal. Democrats also want federal funds maintained for Planned Parenthood, which many Republicans oppose because the women's healthcare provider performs abortions. Another obstacle would be if Trump demands large defense spending increases coupled with deep cuts to domestic programs Democrats want to protect. BALANCING ACT Late on Thursday, leading House Democrats were voicing skepticism a deal could be reached by the deadline. In a telephone call for House Democrats, Representative Nita Lowey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said: "I don't see how we can meet that deadline" and avoid having to pass a short-term extension, according to an aide on the call. The second-ranking House Democrat, Representative Steny Hoyer, told his fellow Democrats that they should only support such a short-term measure if a deal on long-term bill is reached and only finishing touches remained, the aide said. Republican leaders face a familiar balancing act: satisfying the party's most conservative members while not alienating its moderates. Rules in the 100-seat Senate mean Trump's party also would need the support of at least eight Democrats even if the Republicans remain unified, giving the opposition party leverage. House Republican leaders would need some Democratic votes if the most conservative lawmakers object to the bill, as they did to the healthcare plan championed by Speaker Paul Ryan. With congressional elections looming next year, Republicans acknowledge the stakes are high. "Even our most recalcitrant members understand that if you shut down the government while you're running it and you control the House and the Senate, you can't blame anybody but yourself," said Representative Tom Cole, a senior House Appropriations Committee Republican. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said the Trump administration was willing to talk to Democrats about funding for Obamacare subsidies in exchange for their agreement to include some Trump priorities such as the wall, the defense hike and more money for immigration enforcement. "It is ripe for some type of negotiated agreement that gives the president some of his priorities and Democrats some of their priorities. So we think we've opened the door for that," Mulvaney said. Democrats reacted negatively. "Everything had been moving smoothly until the administration moved in with a heavy hand. Not only are Democrats opposed to the wall, there is significant Republican opposition as well, said Matt House, a spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. FURLOUGH 'LADY LIBERTY?' The government was last forced to close in October 2013, when Republican Senator Ted Cruz and some of the most conservative House Republicans engineered a 17-day shutdown in an unsuccessful quest to kill Democratic former President Barack Obama's healthcare law. "These kind of bills can't pass without a reasonable number of the party of the minority in the Senate, and we are optimistic we will be able to work all that out," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the start of the spring recess. A deal is needed because Congress was unable to approve funding for the entire 2017 fiscal year that ends in September and has relied on stop-gap spending legislation. Congress has passed no major legislation since Trump took office in January, and he has ambitious hopes for major tax-cut legislation, infrastructure spending and other bills. With the difficulty passing a bill with so many divisive elements, lawmakers next week might need to buy time by passing a short-term bill lasting possibly one to three weeks, maintaining current spending levels. "That would be a setback: not catastrophic, but not a good thing, and a sign that you can't govern," Cole said. A federal closure would shutter National Park Service destinations like the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Government medical research would be suspended. Thousands of federal workers would be furloughed with thousands more working without pay until the shutdown ends, including homeland security personnel. Some veterans benefits could be suspended. Time would stand still in the U.S. Capitol with nobody on duty to wind the 200-year-old "Ohio Clock" just outside the Senate chamber. (Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Will Dunham)
Vice President Mike Pence visited the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday. ASEAN, which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year, is the cornerstone of Asias multilateral institutions, so we can hope that President Donald Trumps distrust of multilateralism becomes the next foreign-policy position that he reverses. Last week, Trump gave up some vociferously held positions  China is a currency manipulator, NATO is obsolete, the Export-Import Bank is unnecessary  in favor of more reality-based ones, so theres cause for guarded optimism.

Every foreign-policy issue consequential to Americas wellbeing today requires a multilateral solution. If a border wall could halt diseases, nuclear material, terrorists, traffickers, and weather, then national security and the job of the president would be much easier. But that is not our world.

ASEAN is a collection of 10 small (except for Indonesia), non-threatening, wildly diverse countries that decided to band together to keep the peace among themselves. At this they have succeeded. Economic growth is strong because ASEAN means that officials talk out their differences rather than fight them out.

So ASEAN is important to the United States for economic reasons  the bloc is Americas fourth-largest export goods market, responsible for over half a million jobs in the United States already. The ASEAN consumer class, hungry for U.S. products and services, is exploding, especially in countries like Vietnam.

ASEAN members are also increasingly coordinating themselves on transnational threats that affect Americans  foreign terrorist fighters returning from Iraq and Syria, illegal fishing, and human trafficking, to name a few. ASEAN is working toward tactical cooperation and common standards. And ASEAN members Thailand and the Philippines are U.S. treaty allies.

The association is the convener of Asia. Every year, it hosts a number of meetings with eight key dialogue partners  Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States  including the East Asia Summit, which is maturing into a very useful forum for leaders to discuss political and security issues like North Koreas illicit nuclear program and the South China Sea.

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ASEAN is also vital because, as a collective, its members have championed international law. It is a central organization in the effort to press China into abiding by international law when it comes to the South China Sea dispute. Many if not all of ASEANs members want U.S. engagement to bolster the strategic independence they seek. Some want much more.

But military engagement is not sufficient for ASEAN and does not do justice to Americas already-strong, 40-year, economic, cultural, and personal ties with this region. Especially after the tragic rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, onto which four ASEAN nations signed, ASEAN will want to see evidence of U.S. economic commitment. ASEANs main project is to integrate its 10 members into the ASEAN Economic Community, which the United States ought to encourage. When I was the U.S. ambassador to ASEAN, with the help of the American private sector, we started a low-cost strategic framework to pull together all U.S. economic, public, and private initiatives in ASEAN under one rubric: U.S.-ASEAN Connect, to better coordinate lines of work and showcase our commitment. An investment in Connect would be one way to signal U.S. engagement. No doubt, there are others.

In Asia, bilateral efforts on trade and security are not enough. China knows this, which is why it has proposed so many huge economic initiatives that capture the imagination of ASEAN members and others, even if these initiatives  such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Maritime Silk Road, and One Belt, One Road  do not deliver immediate results. ASEAN will always want China as a partner, but will always want the United States too, not to mention India, Japan, and others.

Pence announced a very important commitment on Thursday. He said that Trump would attend the East Asia Summit and the U.S.-ASEAN Summit on November 14 in the Philippines, as well as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vietnam. The American president showing up in Asia will reassure ASEAN and all U.S. partners there of Americas continued engagement. Perhaps in the run-up to those meetings, Trump will begin to learn of the benefits and necessity of multilateralism and will bring to the table tangible steps toward renewed American leadership in Asia.

Photo credit: MAST IRHAM/AFP/Getty Images
Helsinki (AFP) - Actor and artist Shia LaBeouf on Thursday dismissed as "lonely" and "resentful" a group of US President Donald Trump's supporters who disrupted his new art project in the Finnish Arctic.

As part of his latest art performance launched on April 12, "Alone Together" focussing on loneliness, LaBeouf is spending a month in an isolated cabin in northern Finland.

His only link with the outside world is typed messages that visitors can read on a screen inside a cabin at the Kiasma Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki.

But within days of the opening, the museum was forced to place a guard outside the cabin as a group of young men dressed all in black or wearing Trump-supporting "Make America Great Again" hats entered and disrupted visitors' contact with LaBeouf.

"They come to antagonise and threaten and disrupt in hope of having an effect.... They're lonely and resentful," LaBeouf told AFP on Thursday via a video link from a secret cabin in Lapland, some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of Helsinki.

"They live in their phones -- rarely look up... they're always male and always white," LaBeouf said about the men, accusing them of "hate speech".

Visitors, who can see LaBeouf through a video link, may talk to the actor or his two other colleagues, Nastja Ronkko and Luke Turner. The three artists can only type comments back and not talk to each other.

LaBeouf's comments can be seen by anyone on the performance's live stream online.

The young men filmed their visits on their phones and then posted them on anonymous internet forums where threats to track down the location of LaBeouf's secret hideout in Lapland have also been posted.

Ronkko, a Finnish citizen, called the men "trolls" and described them as "school bullies but online" via her separately streamed video connection.

The Kiasma museum refused to comment on the disturbances, while the artists said they had not kept track of how many "trolls" they have seen via the video link.

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Known for films such as "Disturbia" (2007), "Transformers" (2007) and Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" (2013), LaBeouf was arrested in January when he allegedly grabbed and pushed a man outside the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

The Hollywood star has said the charges against him were subsequently dropped.

The 30-year-old had launched an anti-Trump project with Ronkko and Turner on the day President Trump was inaugurated on January 20 outside the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

But the project was shut down the following month as it quickly became "a flashpoint for violence", the museum said, with Trump fans acting aggressively toward LaBeouf's apparent leftist supporters who were invited to repeat "He Will Not Divide US" in front of a streaming video camera outside the museum.

After New York, the trio set up their "He Will Not Divide US" performance in the US state of New Mexico in February, but the video camera was quickly vandalised.

The performance in Finland is to continue until May 12.
U.S. President Donald Trump elbowed his way into the French presidential elections in the only way he knows how: Twitter. A day after a terror attack in Paris that left one dead and three wounded, Trump took to the social media site to weigh in.

Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election! Trump wrote Friday morning. Trump lathered more praise on the candidate in an interview with Associated Press later Friday, saying she is the strongest on borders, and shes the strongest on whats been going on in France. (Though he stopped short of endorsing her explicitly.)

Theres a lot riding on the French election. The far-right and anti-EU Marine Le Pen and three other candidates  Francois Fillon, Jean-Luc Melenchon, and Emmanuel Macron  are in a neck and neck race that ends Sunday, when French take to the polls for the first round of voting. Le Pen, who has ridden a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, has vowed to withdraw France from the European Union and shut its borders to immigrants.

Terrorism has also been a major campaign issue after a spate high-profile and deadly terror attacks in recent years. On Thursday, a gunman wielding an assault rifle with purported links to the Islamic State killed one police officer and wounded three others before being shot dead on Pariss famous Champs Elysees boulevard. The attack came conspicuously in the middle of a primetime televised debate for the four frontrunners and seven other presidential candidates, spurring speculation the assailant, Karim Cheurfi, was actively trying to sway the election.

The candidates learned about the attack on air, and adjusted their closing remarks accordingly. Enough of laxism, enough of naivety, Le Pen said. The fight against terrorism must be the absolute priority of the next French president. Le Pen blamed radical Islam for the attack in a follow-up statement Friday, the last day candidates are allowed to campaign before Sundays vote.

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Pollsters warned a last-minute event could impact the tight race, and some French political analysts predicted the latest attack inch up Le Pens poll numbers. Her campaign lost steam in recent weeks as centrist, pro-EU Macron gained ground.

Macrons final debate remarks starkly juxtaposed Le Pen. They want France to be afraid; they want to disrupt the democratic process; they want the French to yield to unreasonableness and division, he said. Our challenge is to protect the French, not to give up who we are, to stay unified and build a future.

ISIS claimed credit for the attack within hours. Police found a note defending ISIS ideology next to Cheurfis body. On Friday, French prosecutors announced Cheurfi had four prior criminal convictions for crimes including attempted murder.

He had spent 15 years in prison and was released in October, 2015. Police said they briefly detained him in February after they received reports he was collecting guns and planning to harm police, but at the time they said they found no links to Islamic extremism.

Photo credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Tunis (AFP) - The first public hearing into the June 2015 attack in the Tunisian resort of Sousse that killed 38 foreign tourists has been set for next month, the prosecution said Friday.

"The trial on the attack at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel will begin on May 26," spokesman Sofiene Sliti told AFP.

A total of 33 people are being prosecuted in the case, including six members of the security forces who are charged with "not assisting people in danger".

On June 25, 2015, gunman Seifeddine Rezgui killed 38 people, including 30 British tourists and three Irish citizens, in a shooting spree at the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

The killings have also been the subject of an inquest in Britain.

In February, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said after several weeks of hearings that the Tunisian police response to the massacre was "at best shambolic, at worst cowardly".

"Their response could and should have been more effective," he said.

A report by a British embassy staff member conducted in January 2015 on security at hotels was also read out in court in London by Andrew Ritchie, a lawyer representing 20 victims' families.

"There seems to be little in the way of effective security to prevent or respond to an attack" from the beach, he quoted the Tunisian report given to Britain as saying.

More than 20 months after the massacre, London still advises against non-essential travel to Tunisia, a restriction Tunis would like to see lifted.

Before the beach attack, more than 400,000 British tourists visited the North African country each year.

Last year, just 20,000 British visitors were logged, official figures show.

The Imperial Marhaba Hotel, which had been closed since June 26, 2015, reopened on Tuesday with the new name of the Kantaoui Bay Hotel.
Ankara (AFP) - Turkey's main opposition party launched a legal challenge at a top court Friday to last-minute changes to voting rules in the referendum that saw President Recep Tayyip Erdogan win expanded powers.

The 'Yes' side won 51.4 percent of the vote in last Sunday's referendum on creating an executive presidency, axing the role of prime minister from 2019.

But there was controversy after the Supreme Election Board (YSK) made a last-minute decision to accept ballot documents in envelopes without an official stamp, which the opposition argues opened the way for fraud.

The Republican People's Party's (CHP) lawyer Atilla Kart formally lodged the petition with the Council of State on Friday afternoon, telling reporters the move was not "just for the 'No' voters" but for the protection of all voters' legal rights.

The Council of State, set up during the Ottoman empire, is Turkey's highest administrative court.

Kart added there were also 'No' voters among the unstamped ballot envelopes the YSK allowed, describing the situation as "complete lawlessness".

Earlier, CHP deputy leader Bulent Tezcan said the party would open a case calling for the cancellation of the YSK's decision to allow the rule change.

Together with the third largest pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and another opposition party not in parliament, the CHP called for the referendum to be annulled this week.

On Wednesday, 10 members of the YSK decided against annulling the vote, while only one voted in favour.

Tezcan earlier urged the results not to be finalised until the case was concluded. The results are expected to be confirmed on April 27 or 28.

"Whether citizens said 'Yes' or 'No', we will continue our legal fight until the end to protect the rights of the 49 million citizens who voted," Tezcan said.

- 'Wasting time' -

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim responded by saying it was "not the democratic way to go to court, to make complaints to fix the people's decision".

Story continues

Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Yildirim said the CHP and others had the right to challenge but "there was nothing we could say about using this".

Yildirim added: "The people have made their decision.... Disagreeing with the people's decision suggests not believing in democracy as much as necessary."

He described such efforts as "futile" and said there was "no point in wasting more of everyone's time".

Election monitors criticised the referendum process and the YSK's ruling on unsealed envelopes earlier this week.

Cezar Florin Preda of the joint mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said the late changes in counting procedures "removed an important safeguard".

Kart said the CHP was evaluating whether one of the ways to challenge the vote included applying to the Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

"Right now, an application can be made to the Constitutional Court or ECHR," he said.

But Erdogan on Thursday mocked the CHP's suggestions that it could go to the two courts with requests to cancel the referendum.
How much is credible, factual, internet-based information worth?

A lot, evidently.

Question-and-answer website Quora has raised a fresh round of $85 million dollars in its quest to become the go-to resource for people with questions  and people with answers.

The round values the company at roughly $1.8 billion, according to a company spokesperson (who said that the valuation had roughly doubled from its previous valuation of $900 million).

Quora launched privately in 2009 but and quickly drew buzz in the tech community in part because it was started by two well-respected early Facebook employees. The website opened to the public in 2010, serving as something of a high-end message board where people can ask questions and get solid answers.

The site currently serves 190 million unique visitors a month, according to a blot post from Sam Altman, president of YCombinator.

YCombinator's YContinuity venture fund led the round along with Collaborative Fund.

Altman pointed to the website's quality and personalization as why he believes it's worth the hype  and the notion that it could contain all human knowledge.

"The combination of their ever-improving machine learning and the increasing amount of knowledge shared means the product gets better as it gets bigger. The content I see from Quora constantly gets more personalized for me," Altman wrote. "I also believe they have some of the highest-quality user-generated content on the internet, and a real chance at being one of the few places that contain all human knowledge."

About a year ago Quora began introducing advertising as a way of making money. Details about its business side are scant, but CEO Adam D'Angelo told VentureBeat that the company is planning to go public at some point  meaning the website still need to be able to convince investors that there's a viable business behind Quora.

Story continues

We wanted to give Quora a shot, so I posed a question on the website about why the company should be valued as it has been (we also tweeted that question out with a link).

A couple good responses far:

Read David S. Rose's answer to Why should Quora be valued at $1.8 billion? on Quora

Read Yuval Ariav's answer to Why should Quora be valued at $1.8 billion? on Quora

WATCH: Scientists discovered a rare giant black worm monster in the Philippines
Paris (AFP) - Two French journalists who had been held in Venezuela since April 11 on drug charges have been freed, and returned to Paris on Friday, the Capa news agency said.

"Capa's employees are delighted that Sebastian Perez and Didier Barral have been released and are back in France," the agency said.

The two reporters were arrested at the Caracas airport on April 11 as they were returning from preparing a documentary on the economic and social crisis gripping the country.

They were being held on what Capa denounced as "the unjustified pretext that they were transporting drugs."

The Venezuelan authorities had not disclosed why they were being held.

The South American country is engulfed in violent protests over a deep economic crisis that has seen President Nicolas Maduro moving to tighten his grip on power, which have left several people dead.

Capa said it wanted to thank "all those who have been working for their release, in particular the French Embassy in Caracas and the Foreign Ministry."

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault thanked his Venezuelan counterpart, Delcy Rodriguez "for her contribution" to getting them released.
(LONDON) - Two of Israels most renowned authors and an Argentine first-time novelist are among six finalists for the Man Booker International Prize for fiction.

David Grossmans A Horse Walks Into a Bar, Amos Ozs Judas and Samanta Schweblins Fever Dream are on a six-book shortlist announced Thursday for the 50,000 pound ($64,000) prize.

Edinburgh International Book Festival director Nick Barley, who chaired the judging panel, said Grossmans portrait of a failing standup comic and Ozs story of history and betrayal were masterworks by mature writers with big international reputations.

Schweblin is comparatively unknown. Barley said her beautiful and nightmarish debut novel Fever Dream is a rush of a novel that can be read in 90 minutes but leaves the reader shaken.

The other contenders are French writer Mathias Enards insomniac odyssey Compass, Norwegian author Roy Jacobsens island family epic The Unseen and Danish novelist Dorthe Nors tale of driving lessons and self-doubt Mirror, Shoulder, Signal.

The winner will be announced in London on June 14.

The award is the international counterpart to Britains prestigious Booker Prize and is open to books published in any language that have been translated into English. The prize money is shared evenly between the author and their translator.

The judges read 125 eligible books, and Barley said the six finalists were those with the greatest generosity of spirit and the best empathy toward their characters - books which help (us) to understand that human beings are imperfect, fallible, fascinating creatures.

The prize was previously a career honor, but changed last year to recognize a single book in a bid to increase the profile of international fiction in English-speaking countries, where translated literature forms only a small part of publishers output.

Last years Man Booker International winner, The Vegetarian by South Koreas Han Kang, has sold 160,000 copies in its British edition alone.

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I think international fiction is on a roll, Barley said. At a time of bombastic politics and the building of walls, we need to be able to get inside the minds of people who have other perspectives, who think in other languages.

Id like to send Donald Trump this shortlist for his birthday.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
While the Obama administration prosecuted more leakers of classified information than all previous administrations combined, there was one target they could never quite figure out how to go after without getting ensnared in the First Amendment rights of journalists. From his perch at the Ecuadorean Embassy, the journalist-cum-transparency activist Julian Assange could expose the U.S. governments mostly closely held secrets  and American prosecutors could do nothing about it.

But now the Trump administration is considering throwing out its predecessors conclusion that a prosecution of Assange could open the door to legal attacks on mainstream journalism. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Justice Department is planning to charge Assange. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called his arrest priority.

The sudden vilification of Assange and WikiLeaks, which candidate Donald Trump cheered endlessly during his presidential campaign for its role in disseminating harmful information about his rival, represents an abrupt change of stance. CIA chief Mike Pompeo just slammed WikiLeaks as a hostile intelligence service  the site had released details of CIA hacking tools  which marked a sharp departure from the previous summer, when Pompeo tweeted out WikiLeaks publication of hacked DNC emails.

And the change of heart comes as FBI and congressional investigators continue to zero in on the Trump campaigns possible coordination with WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence to hack political rivals and publish harmful information ahead of the election.

In an email to Foreign Policy, Assange lawyer Barry Pollack said Pompeos attack on his client demonstrates that there has never been a time in our history when independent reporters disseminating truthful information has been more important.

My hope is that the Department of Justice will come to the conclusion that no one should be the subject of a criminal investigation for their role in publishing accurate information, Pollack said. Such investigations chill free speech and deprive the public of its right to truthful information.

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Ultimately, the administrations efforts to bring charges against Assange might carry a bigger symbolic and political punch than legal impact. Given the Ecuadorean governments unchanging support for sheltering Assange in its London embassy  thus preventing extradition to the United States  its not clear that presenting formal charges would actually bring him any closer to a U.S. courtroom.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration appears poised to go further than the Obama administration ever would, since it was fearful of opening a legal can of worms that could undermine press freedoms on the United States.

Bringing charges under the Obama administration wasnt a problem of a lack of will, said a former Justice Department official familiar with the case.

Following the public disclosure of a huge trove of U.S. diplomatic cables and military reports in 2010  at the time considered to be the largest breach of classified information in American history  senior officials across the U.S. government wanted to bring charges against Assange, the former official said.

But the Justice Department could find no way to structure the case to ensure that it would survive a free speech challenge. DOJ would have brought this case a long time ago if they thought they could win, the former official said.

How to charge Assange presents some thorny legal questions. Assange describes himself as a journalist, and case law and the U.S. Constitution provides strong protections for outlets that publish classified but sensitive information deemed to be in the public interest. A successful prosecution of Assange, legal scholars argue, could make reporters at mainstream media outlets liable for publishing government secrets, and could set a legal precedent that would seriously undermine the medias ability to hold government officials to account.

Obama administration lawyers grappled with this problem and could never find a way around the numerous First Amendment questions in prosecuting Assange.

The problem with the investigation was finding a case that you could bring against Julian Assange that wouldnt also apply to reporters from every major U.S. media outlet, the former official said.

That could be just what recommends the move to Trump administration officials. As a candidate, he suggested using the power of the presidency to go after media outlets, and talked of strengthening federal libel laws (there are none) to make it easier to go after adversarial journalists.

Still, slapping Assange with criminal charges would represent a breathtaking about face for President Donald Trump. As a candidate, Trump declared, I love WikiLeaks for the role it played in undermining the campaign of his opponent. Trump famously called on Russia to hack into the email account of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and he cited WikiLeaks scores of times at rallies during the final month of his campaign.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, Russian operatives passed documents stolen from computers of the Democratic Party to WikiLeaks, which published them online, exposing and exacerbating serious divisions within the party.

FBI and congressional investigators are currently examining whether Trump lieutenants coordinated with Russian intelligence the publication of documents damaging to Clinton. That sprawling inquiry has burdened the early months of the Trump administration.

The Trump administrations legal strategy against Assange remains shrouded in mystery. Prosecutors may use communications between Assange and Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who passed a huge archive of classified military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, to argue that the transparency activist incited the soldier to break the law.

In 2011, American prosecutors presented chat logs purportedly documenting conversations between Assange and Manning in which the two men discussed how to crack a password to a an Army database. Assange told Manning that he had tools for doing so, which may serve as the basis of a conspiracy charge against Assange.

Whether American prosecutors possess evidence that Assange provided such help remains unknown.

Regardless, legal experts argue that even if Assange provided such help, his actions could still be defended under journalists First Amendment rights. Journalists routinely advise government officials how to pass them information without getting caught by their superiors or investigators.

Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday he was optimistic about improving military ties with Egypt after talks in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, following a period of strain under the Obama administration. Earlier this month President Donald Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt, hosting Sisi for talks at the White House and giving him firm backing, including in the fight against Islamist militants. "I left Cairo very confident, very confident in the avenues we have to advance our military-to-military relationship, which has been a bedrock and has stood solid all these years," Mattis told reporters in Tel Aviv, without elaborating. A U.S. defense official said Mattis' meetings with Sisi and Egypt's defense minister had focused on building trust to allow for stronger military ties. Trump's predecessor Barack Obama froze aid to Egypt for two years after Sisi, then a general, overthrew President Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013 after mass protests against Mursi's rule. Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, had been elected the previous year. The Trump administration has proposed massive cuts to U.S. foreign aid, but has signalled that Egypt will continue to receive its $1.3 billion worth of annual military aid. Mattis is the first cabinet level official to visit Egypt from the Trump administration. A statement from Sisi's office said Egypt was keen "on further advancing bilateral relations under the new American administration". (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Gareth Jones)
By David Ingram SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Homeland Security Department's inspector general said on Friday he was investigating possible abuse of authority in a case that triggered a lawsuit against the department by Twitter Inc . Inspector General John Roth described the probe in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who had asked for an investigation due to concerns about free speech protections. In a lawsuit on April 6, Twitter disclosed that it received a summons in March from the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, an agency within Homeland Security, demanding records about an account on the social media platform identified by the handle @ALT_uscis. The account has featured posts critical of President Donald Trump's immigration policies, leading Twitter to complain in its lawsuit that the summons was an unlawful attempt to suppress dissent. The agency dropped its demand of Twitter the day after the suit was filed. The people behind the account have not disclosed their identities, but the use of "ALT" with a government agency acronym has led many to assume government employees were behind the tweets critical of Trump. The lawsuit said the account "claims to be" the work of at least one federal immigration employee. USCIS is the acronym of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, a component of Homeland Security. Roth's office is charged with investigating waste, fraud and abuse within Homeland Security. He wrote in his letter that he was looking at whether the summons to Twitter "was improper in any way, including whether CBP abused its authority." "DHS OIG is also reviewing potential broader misuse of summons authority at the department," he added. Wyden's office posted the letter online. A representative for Roth could not immediately be reached for comment. CBP officials also could not be reached. A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment. (Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Tom Brown)
The United States will continue to train local forces in the fight against the Lords Resistance Army, a rebel group active in central Africa, tempering the announcement last month that the U.S. would withdraw its troops from the region.

The announcement comes amid fears that the removal of U.S. trainers might create a security void that could revitalize the rebel group, which has operated for almost three decades in parts of Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. Despite plans by the new Trump administration to rein in sprawling U.S. security commitments around the globe, including the 6year fight against the LRA, there simply is no other global power willing and able to fill that gap.

In March, U.S. Africa Command stated that it would remove dozens of Special Operations Forces troops from the region. But on April 20, the U.S. appeared to take a step back from its previous assertion that the LRA no longer posed a serious regional threat.

We obviously have concerns about the possibility of the LRA coming back to fruition, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command, said in a phone briefing reported by Reuters. We will continue to work with those countries with training and exercises, Waldhauser continued. We are certainly aware of the fact that we do not want to leave a void there.

In a statement, Ugandas military announced on April 19 that it would withdraw its troops from the Central African Republic, where they had helped search for Joseph Kony, the Ugandan leader of the LRA and its self-proclaimed prophet. Joseph Kony with less than 100 armed fighters is now weak and ineffective. He no longer poses any significant threat to Ugandas security and northern Uganda in particular, the statement said.

But a U.N. memo expressed concern about Ugandas withdrawal, stating that it would likely bolster the L.R.A.  likely leading to a rise in attacks against civilians and serving as a deterrent for future L.R.A. defections, according to an internal memo reported on April 20 in the New York Times.

Story continues

Kony rules over the cult-like insurgency that became infamous for kidnapping and recruiting tens of thousands of children to join his insurgency as child soldiers and sex slaves. The International Criminal Court charged Kony with war crimes in 2005, and the United States designated him a terrorist in 2008.

Kony 2012, a short video produced by U.S. nonprofit Invisible Children and released in March 2012, quickly went viral, racking up tens of millions of views within days. It sparked a grassroots campaign in the United States to get the U.S. government involved in the hunt for Kony, though the LRA has never tried to directly attack the United States or its overseas interests.

In October 2011, President Barack Obama deployed 100 U.S. troops to the region to help hunt down Kony, sending additional several aircraft and a contingent of Air Forces Special Operations forces in 2014.

But in January, the Trump transition team expressed doubt about the value of a continued U.S. role in the fight against the LRA, part and parcel of a radical reappraisal of what U.S. interests actually are.

Weve been hunting Kony for years, is it worth the effort? was one of the queries included in a four-page document of questions about Africa the transition team sent to the State Department. The LRA has never attacked U.S. interests, why do we care? Is it worth the huge cash outlays? I hear that even the Ugandans are looking to stop searching for him, since they no longer view him as a threat, so why do we?

The Ugandans did indeed call it quits. But that, as the Africa Command made clear this week, just makes it all the harder  not easier  for U.S. troops to pack up and leave, too.

MATT BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday for the first time since both took office earlier this year and amid a U.S. push to cut funding to the world body and its agencies. Guterres met with Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, and then "had an opportunity to meet with President Trump," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. "The secretary-general and the president agreed to meet again in the near future," Dujarric told reporters at the United Nations. "In his meetings at the White House, the secretary-general felt he had had an interesting and constructive discussion on cooperation between the United States and the United Nations," he said. U.N. Security Council ambassadors are due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, diplomats said. The United States is president of the 15-member council for April. Trump has proposed a 28 percent budget cut for diplomacy and foreign aid, which includes an unspecified reduction in financial support for the United Nations and its agencies, as well as enforcement of a 25 percent cap on U.S. funding for peacekeeping operations. The United States is the biggest contributor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of the $5.4 billion core budget and 28.5 percent of the $7.9 billion peacekeeping budget. These are assessed contributions agreed by the U.N. General Assembly. The United States currently owes the United Nations $896 million for its core budget, U.N. officials said. The United States is also reviewing peacekeeping missions as their mandates come up for renewal in a bid to cut costs. U.N. agencies such as the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the children's agency UNICEF, and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), are funded by governments voluntarily. The State Department said this month it was ending funding for UNFPA, the international body's agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries. Guterres warned that the cut could have "devastating effects" on vulnerable women and girls. In 2016, the United States was the top contributor to the UNDP's core budget, with an $83 million donation; the leading donor to UNICEF's core budget in 2015 with $132 million; and the fourth-largest donor to the UNFPA, giving $75 million in core budget and earmarked contributions. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
(BERKELEY, Calif.) - University of California, Berkeley officials said Thursday they have a grave concern of violence on campus if Ann Coulter follows through on her threat to speak next week at the university.

Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks instead proposed an alternate May 2 date for the conservative author.

Dirks said police have very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, her audience and protesters and urged Coulter to come speak at the later date instead.

Campus Republicans invited Coulter to speak at Berkeley April 27 on the subject of illegal immigration.

On Wednesday, UC Berkeley officials announced they were was calling off the event because of security concerns, prompting Coulter to say she plans to come anyway.

Dirks said Thursday that Coulters reaction led him to launch an expanded search for an appropriate, protectable venue.

Young Americas Foundation, a conservative group that books Coulters campus speeches, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Berkeley has been the site of clashes between far-right and far-left protesters, most recently at a rally last weekend called in support of President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.

In February, masked agitators shut down a speaking event by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former editor of the conservative Breitbart News site.

University spokesman Dan Mogulof said campus police learned that some of the groups that appeared to be responsible for the violence last weekend and at the Yiannopoulos event planned to target the appearance of Ann Coulter on campus.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday held a brief first meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, ahead of a visit of Security Council ambassadors to Washington next week.

Guterres, who took over from Ban Ki-moon in January, also met with the US national security advisor, General H.R. McMaster.

The UN chief had an "interesting and constructive discussion on cooperation between the United States and the United Nations," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Guterres and Trump "agreed to meet again in the near future," he added.

UN Security Council ambassadors will hold a luncheon meeting with Trump on Monday and meet with US lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Those meetings are likely to focus on North Korea, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and US cuts to UN funding that have raised concerns about the US administration's support for the world body.

The United States is the biggest contributor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of the $5.4 billion core budget and 28.5 percent of the $7.9 billion peacekeeping budget.

But the Trump administration has cut $32.5 million from the UN Population Fund, which provides family planning in 150 countries, and is seeking to draw down and close peacekeeping missions.

Dujarric declined to give details about discussions about US funding, but stressed the importance of the first high-level exchange with the US administration.

"It's an important relationship and we are very pleased that the meeting happened," the UN spokesman said.

Guterres met with Trump for 15-20 minutes at the Oval Office after holding a longer discussion with McMaster.

During his election campaign, Trump dismissed the United Nations as "just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time."

It remains unclear whether Trump will attend the General Assembly high-level debate in September, which would see him deliver his first address at the United Nations.

The United States holds the presidency of the 15-member Security Council for the month of April, providing the new administration with an opportunity to showcase its foreign policy priorities.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley tweeted Friday that she was looking forward to "taking the members of the Security Council to the White House Monday to have first hand dialogue with the president."
Washington (AFP) - It is "urgent" to reach an agreement on a loan program for Greece but a commitment is still required from Athens on reforms and from Europe on debt relief, a senior IMF official said Friday.

"It is urgent that we agree on a program and that we conclude these discussions because it's taking a toll on the Greek economy," Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF's European department, said.

"There is no doubt about that, it's serious," he told reporters.

Talks between Greece, the International Monetary Fund and the eurozone have dragged on for many months. But Athens needs a fresh infusion of funds soon to make its debt payments due in July.

Despite pressure from European heavyweight Germany, the IMF so far has refused to participate in the 86 billion euro loan program the eurozone agreed with Greece in mid-2015, the third since 2010, largely over the issue of the nation's debt sustainability.

On the reform side, while some outstanding issues remain, Thomsen said "good progress" has been made with the Greek authorities in recent weeks, including on budget issues. An IMF mission will be back in Athens "next week."

- Budget surplus -

Greece announced on Friday a budgetary surplus (excluding debt charges) of 3.9 percent of GDP in 2016, in line with a target set by Europeans.

European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici welcomed the result.

"This should contribute to the will for the steps that lie ahead to find a lasting and comprehensive solution," he said on the sidelines of the IMF Spring meeting.

French Economy Minister Michel Sapin also was optimistic about a deal.

"I am quite confident that we will find, with the IMF and Germany, a solution that will help Greece and thus the EU to stabilize the situation," he told AFP.

Thomsen, however, said disagreements persist over the period of time in which Athens will have to meet the surplus objective, which the IMF considers too ambitious.

Story continues

The eurozone says Greece can deliver a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP in 2018 but the IMF has said only 1.5 percent is feasible.

The IMF also needs more clarification from Europe on the how it will implement the promised debt relief for Greece, he said.

If these two issues are resolved, the IMF will be able to participate financially in the aid plan, as it did in 2010 and 2012, Thomsen said.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Friday met with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and she had "constructive" discussions, but did not provide further details.

She has stressed that the fund cannot participate in any loan program unless the debt level of the country is considered sustainable.
Jerusalem (AFP) - US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday that there can be "no doubt" Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis made his comments during a one-day visit for talks with Israeli leaders, who strongly backed a recent US strike against a Syrian airbase in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," Mattis said during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman.

"It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they'd be ill-advised to try to use any again. We've made that very clear with our strike."

Mattis added that Syria had "dispersed their aircraft in recent days".

An Israeli military assessment has found that Assad's regime was still in possession of "a few tonnes" of chemical weapons, an army official confirmed.

Assad, backed by his ally Russia, has strongly denied the allegation that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, describing it as a "100 percent fabrication".

He has said repeatedly that his forces turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.

The agreement was later enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution.

- Talks with Netanyahu -

Mattis, the first member of President Donald Trump's cabinet to visit Israel, later held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, followed by a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin.

Israel and the United States have long had close strategic ties, with Washington providing Israel more than $3 billion a year in defence aid and Trump pledging unstinting support for the country.

Story continues

Despite tensions over Israeli settlement building, Barack Obama's administration signed a new agreement with Israel before he left office increasing the amount to $3.8 billion for a 10-year period beginning in 2018.

Mattis sought to hear directly from Israeli leaders on their concerns and what they expect from the Trump administration, a US defence official said.

Iran's influence is at the top of the list for Israel, a worry shared by the United States.

Mattis accused Iran of "destabilising activities", including threatening Israel and other nations in the Middle East with ballistic missiles, cyber activities and proxy groups.

Netanyahu welcomed Mattis's comments on Iran and Syria, calling the Trump administration's approach a "welcome change".

Israel is closely watching Iran's presence in Syria, where it is backing Assad.

Israeli enemy Hezbollah is also fighting with Assad in Syria. Israel fought a devastating war against the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement in 2006.

Israel has sought to avoid being dragged into the six-year civil war in Syria, but acknowledges carrying out air strikes there to stop what it says are deliveries of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Hours after Mattis left Israel, three mortar rounds fired from Syria hit the northern Golan heights, an army spokeswoman said.

The army said in a statement it responded by targeting the source of the fire inside Syria, but gave no further details.

- Iran nuclear deal -

Testy relations between Obama and Netanyahu reached a low point over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, led by Washington.

Obama pushed hard for the agreement, but Netanyahu fiercely opposed it, arguing that it will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and that the lifting of sanctions would allow it to support proxy groups.

Trump also harshly criticised the deal, and on Thursday said Iran was "not living up to the spirit" of the agreement, adding that the United States would set out its position on it soon.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered a review of the deal to be led by his National Security Council, although the State Department admits that Iran has so far stuck to its side of the bargain.

Mattis said on Friday that Iran appeared to be living up to the agreement, but that it "in no way mitigates against or excuses the other activities of Iran in the region".

Mattis's visit was part of a tour of the Middle East and Djibouti. He had previous stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and flew to Qatar later Friday.
Washington (AFP) - US forces operating in Syria have killed a senior member of the Islamic State group blamed for an attack on a nightclub that left 39 dead, officials said Friday.

"We will reach you anywhere," Brett McGurk, the US diplomat who coordinates the coalition fighting the jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, said in a tweet confirming the death.

Officials identified the slain militant as Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, and described him as a close associate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State's self-declared "caliphate."

They said he helped coordinate the movement and funding of foreign fighter cells, and was behind the January 1 gun attack on revellers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul.

He is said to have been killed on April 6 in Mayadin, a town on the Euphrates river near Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, in an area that is regularly targeted by coalition air strikes.

dc/sst
Washington (AFP) - The US House Intelligence Committee on Friday said it has requested FBI director James Comey and others to testify as part of its Russia probe, one of the investigation's first steps since its leader stepped down.

The committee said in a statement that it had sent letters Thursday to Comey and National Security Agency director Mike Rogers inviting them to appear at a closed-door hearing on May 2.

It also asked several senior national security figures in the previous administration to appear for an open hearing after May 2: former CIA director John Brennan, former director of national intelligence James Clapper and ex-deputy attorney general Sally Yates.

The invitations come two weeks after House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes stepped aside as the Republican leader of the House investigation into Russian interference in November's presidential election, after being criticized for compromising the probe in visits to President Donald Trump's White House.

Nunes faced criticism from Democrats for seeking to turn the investigation away from Russia and toward Trump's allegations that Barack Obama's administration had abused its powers by spying on Trump and his advisors.

The probe is now headed by Mike Conaway, a seven-term Republican congressman from Texas tasked with restoring credibility to the bipartisan House investigation.

"Back on track," tweeted congressman Adam Schiff, the panel's top Democrat, noting he sent the letters along with Conaway.

Nunes's actions had cast a cloud over the investigation into Russian interference in last year's presidential campaign and whether any Trump aides or associates collaborated with Moscow.

In January, US intelligence chiefs said Russian President Vladimir Putin had masterminded the hacking and disinformation campaign that aimed to damage Trump's rival Hillary Clinton and tip the vote in favor of the real estate magnate.

Trump has repeatedly called that charge "fake news."

Testifying before Nunes's committee a month ago, Comey confirmed the FBI was probing the Trump campaign's links to Russia last year and repudiated the president's claim that he was wiretapped by Obama.
Washington (AFP) - The US Treasury on Friday said it would not waive trade sanctions for US companies seeking to resume oil drilling in Russia, including ExxonMobil.

The announcement followed media reports that Exxon had sought a waiver to resume a joint venture with Russia's Rosneft oil company.

"In consultation with President Donald J Trump, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to US companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions," the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Having failed to win a waiver from the Obama administration in 2015, ExxonMobil began pressing the Treasury to grant an exemption in March, shortly after the company's former CEO Rex Tillerson became secretary of state, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Tillerson, who while with ExxonMobil had forged close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and with Rosneft, had recused himself from the decision.

ExxonMobil has sought permission to drill in several areas that are currently off limits, including the Black Sea.

The Trump administration has extensive ties to the energy sector and has vowed to promote oil exploration and production, slash regulations and allow for more development.

In a statement, ExxonMobil said it understood the Trump administration's decision but underscored its position that it was hamstrung by the restrictions.

"Our 2015 application for a license under the provisions outlined in the US sanctions was made to enable our company to meet its contractual obligations under a joint venture agreement in Russia, where competitor companies are authorized to undertake such work under European sanctions," the statement said.

The decision comes as relations between Moscow and Washington have soured in recent weeks following a US missile strike in Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack on civilians.

Trump also remains in the glare of congressional and federal investigations into alleged Russian efforts to tip November's presidential elections in his favor.

Trump eventually acknowledged the existence of election-related Russian cyber-attacks but denied that they had affected the outcome.
Caracas (AFP) - The number of people killed in three weeks of street protests against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro soared to 20 on Friday after one of the deadliest nights of unrest in Caracas.

Eleven people died -- some reportedly electrocuted while looting a bakery, and others shot -- and six people were wounded in riots in the capital's southwestern district El Valle, the public ministry said in a statement.

The neighborhood witnessed pillaging and violent clashes between police and protesters, according to residents, some of whom took images of an anti-riot vehicle charred by Molotov cocktails.

"It was like a war," resident Carlos Yanez told AFP.

"The police were firing tear gas, armed civilians were shooting guns at buildings. My family and I threw ourselves to the floor. It was horrible," said the 33-year-old construction worker.

The opposition accuses the government of sending gangs of armed thugs to attack them, and says the security forces have been repressing protesters.

Videos taken by locals showed residents throwing bottles and other objects out their windows at the gunmen in the streets below, shouting "Murderers!"

At one point, street protesters throwing Molotov cocktails managed to set fire to one of the armored police trucks firing tear gas at them, lighting up the night sky.

Fifty-four children were evacuated from a hospital in the neighborhood.

There were conflicting explanations why.

The government said "armed gangs hired by the opposition" had attacked the hospital. The opposition rejected the allegation, saying the children had to be evacuated because of tear gas fired by Maduro's "dictatorship."

Riot police firing tear gas also fought running battles with protesters overnight in eastern Caracas.

Besides the 11 people killed in El Valle, another man was shot dead in the Petare neighborhood in the east, said the local mayor.

"We demand that the culprits be investigated and punished," said Mayor Carlos Ocariz, a Maduro opponent. Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation.

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- More protests planned -

There was a heavy security presence Friday in the capital, as residents and workers cleaned up the destruction left by the clashes -- as well as by bouts of looting.

The two sides looked set to spend the day regrouping after massive protests Wednesday and Thursday erupted into unrest in the flashpoint western city of San Cristobal and several other cities.

Opposition leaders have called new protests for Saturday and Monday.

On Saturday, they plan to march in silence to the Catholic Church's episcopal seats nationwide. They plan to erect roadblocks on Monday to grind the country to a halt.

- Maduro a 'mythomaniac': Capriles -

Protesters blame Maduro -- heir of the leftist "Bolivarian revolution" launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999 -- for an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Maduro says the protests seeking to oust him are part of a US-backed coup plot.

On Thursday, he said the opposition had agreed to new talks, but his opponents denied the claim, saying the only way forward was to call elections.

Senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles slammed Maduro as a "dictator" and "mythomaniac."

- 'The country is calm' -

Pressure on Maduro has been mounting since 2014, as falling prices for Venezuela's crucial oil exports have sent the once-booming economy into a tailspin.

The crisis escalated on March 30, when the Supreme Court moved to seize the powers of the legislature, the only lever of state authority not controlled by Maduro and his allies.

The court partly backtracked after an international outcry, but tension only increased when the authorities slapped a political ban on Capriles on April 7.

Hundreds of thousands took part in Wednesday's marches, in which a 17-year-old teenager and a 23-year-old woman died after being shot in the head by masked gunmen. Maduro's camp said a soldier was also killed.

The ruling Socialist party accused the opposition of sowing violence to chase headlines.

"These delinquents want to make people believe Venezuela is in chaos. The country is calm," said Freddy Bernal, a party leader.

Figures published by pollster Venebarometro show seven in 10 Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro, whose term does not end until 2019.
By Eyanir Chinea CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday he had ordered an investigation of mobile phone operator Movistar, a unit of Spain's Telefonica SA , for allegedly sending mass messages calling for protests against his leftist government. The country is undergoing a wave of anti-government unrest, with the opposition holding what it called the "mother of all marches" on Wednesday. The government said those taking to the streets were "terrorists" who were plotting to oust the president in a coup. Maduro said in a televised address on Thursday evening that Movistar received money from the opposition to send out information about the march. "I denounce (Movistar) and have asked for an investigation," said Maduro. "They joined the call for a coup against the country." Maduro said Movistar sent millions of messages to users of its popular network, costing more than $100 million. The company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Additional reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Hay)
By My Pham HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party Secretariat said on Friday it was punishing four high-ranking government officials over the so-called Formosa incident, the government said in a statement on Facebook. The Secretariat has rebuked Nguyen Minh Quang, the former environmental minister of Ha Tinh province, and dismissed his two deputies and the former party chief secretary of the province, Vo Kim Cu. The statement did not say when the punishment would take effect. The Formosa incident occurred a year ago at a steel mill being developed by Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Corp. An accidental release of chemicals, including cyanide, phenols and iron hydroxide, eventually polluted more than 200 km (125 miles) of the Vietnamese coast. More than 50 violations at Formosa's steel mill, including the unauthorized use of a dirtier production process, led to the disaster. It sparked several public protests, with coordinated rallies in major cities and an outpouring of anger on social media. The officials were "irresponsible and loosened their management and supervision on environment safety, leading to serious damage to the environment and local people," the statement said. Those punished were among 11 government, provincial and industry officials who were named in February, 11 months after the disaster. Formosa agreed last June to pay $500 million in compensation. The environment ministry has said it will probably take a decade for the affected region to completely recover from the accident. (Reporting by My Pham, editing by Larry King)
By Stephen Nellis SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When Gokul Gunasekaran was offered a full scholarship for a graduate program in electrical engineering at Stanford University, he saw it as the chance of a lifetime. He had grown up in Chennai, India, and had a solid job offer with a large oil company after getting his undergraduate degree. He came to America instead, got the Stanford degree and now works as engineer at a data science in Silicon Valley. But for the past five years, he has been waiting for a green card that would give him full legal rights as a permanent resident. In the meantime, he is in a holding pattern on an H1-B visa, which permits him to live and work in the United States but does not allow him easily to switch jobs or start his own company. "It was a no-brainer when I came to this country, but now I'm kind of regretting taking that scholarship," said Gunasekaran, 29, who is also vice president with a non-profit group called Immigration Voice that represents immigrants waiting for green cards. Immigration Voice estimates there are some 1.5 million H1-B visa holders in the country waiting for green cards, many of whom are from India and have been waiting for more than a decade. Many of these immigrants welcomed President Donald Trump's executive order this week to the federal departments overseeing the program to review it, a move that may lead to H1-B visas being awarded to the highest-paying, highest-skilled jobs rather than through a random lottery. Their hope is that merit-based H1-Bs might then lead to merit-based green cards. "I think less random is great," said Guru Hariharan, the CEO and founder of Boomerang Commerce, an e-commerce startup. Hariharan, who was previously an executive at Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc, spent 10 years waiting for his green card and started his own company as soon as he got it. Green cards can be a path to naturalization and Hariharan expects to become a U.S. citizen soon. H1-B visas are aimed at foreign nationals in occupations that generally require specialized knowledge, such as science, engineering or computer programming. The U.S. government uses a lottery to award 65,000 such visas yearly and randomly distributes another 20,000 to graduate student workers. 'INDENTURED SERVANTS' The H1-B and the green card system are technically separate, but many immigrants from India see them as intimately connected. The number of green cards that can go to people born in each country is capped at a few percent of the total, without regard to how large or small the country's population is. There is a big backlog of Indian-born people in the line, given the size of India's population - 1.3 billion - and the number of its natives in the United States waiting for green cards. That leaves many of those immigrants stuck on H1-B visas while they wait, which they say makes them almost like "indentured servants," said Gaurav Mehta, an H1-B holder who works in the financial industry. Mehta has a U.S.-born son, but he could be forced to take his family back to India at any time if he loses his job and cannot find another quickly. "He's never been to my country," Mehta said of his son. "But we'll have no choice if we have to go. Nobody likes to live in constant fear." The H1-B visa is tied to a specific employer, who must apply for the visa and sponsor the employee for a specific job laid out in the visa application. To switch employers, the visa holder must secure their paperwork from their current employer and find another employer willing to take over their visa. Some H1-B holders suspect that employers purposely seek out Indian immigrants because they know they will end up waiting for green cards and will be afraid to leave their employers. But changing the green card system away from country caps to a merit-based system would require an act of Congress. Some executives also worry that allocating H1-Bs and green cards based on salary - while it would be done to counter the argument that immigrants undercut American workers - would hurt startups that cannot afford high wages. In the meantime, H1-B holders like Nitin Pachisia, founding partner of a venture capital firm called Unshackled Ventures, are taking more practical measures. His firm specializes in taking care of the legal paperwork so that H1-B holders can start their own companies, a process that is possible but tricky. Pachisia is hopeful that changes to the H1-B visa program could revive interest in making the entire system, from H1-B visas to green cards and eventual citizenship, more merit-based and focused on immigrants who are likely to start companies and create jobs. "If the purpose of our high-skilled immigration program is to bring in the most talented people, let's use that as a lens. From that perspective, it's a good thing we can focus on the most talented, and I'd say most entrepreneurial, people," he said. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Frances Kerry)
The president of war-torn Afghanistan is creating a tourism ministry in a bid to attract visitors to the country endowed with stunning landscapes and archaeological sites, but wracked by nearly four decades of conflict.

Ashraf Ghani issued a presidential decree this week ordering the ministry be established and naming Ghulam Nabi Farahi, a former parliamentary affairs minister, as the new "State Minister for Tourism Affairs".

The order, criticised by many because it had bypassed parliament, included no other details, such as the ministry's aims or budget.

Afghanistan boasts pristine mountains and medieval ruins, but many are located in areas plagued by insurgency, and insecurity and kidnappings have made life difficult for tourists in the country.

Last August Taliban insurgents attacked a group of American and European tourists in western Herat, a timeworn city near the Iranian border renowned for its citadel and blue-tiled mosque.

The attack, which left some of the tourists wounded, brought into sharp focus global thrill-seekers who imperil their lives to vacation in war zones.

Afghanistan has, however, welcomed travel to what it considers safe areas where Taliban militants -- seeking to topple the government and return to power -- are not deemed a threat.

A few such areas can be safely reached by air, such as the ancient city of Bamiyan, currently at the centre of efforts to boost tourism revenue.

Bamiyan is famous for gaping hillside niches that once sheltered giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.

The surrounding province, a landscape of russet-hued cliffs, was once a caravan stop along the fabled Silk Road and also boasts Afghanistan's first national park.

The northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, famous for its blue-tiled mosque, and the spectacular Panjshir Valley, known for its snowcapped peaks and precious stones, are some other relatively peaceful areas.
By Julia Edwards Ainsley and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice threatened on Friday to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called "sanctuary cities" that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

President Donald Trump has vowed to cut off federal funds to dozens of state and local governments that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration agents, arguing that they are putting public safety at risk when they do not hand over illegal immigrants suspected of crime for possible deportation.

"Sanctuary cities" in general offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to advance the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Many of these localities say they do not have the funding or space to hold illegal immigrants until federal agents can apprehend them.

Those threatened include: the state of California; New York City; Chicago; Philadelphia; Clark County, Nevada; New Orleans; Miami Dade County, Florida, and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Cook County, Illinois also received a warning, even though it did not get money from the Justice Department last year.

The jurisdictions until June 30 to provide evidence to the federal government that they are not violating any laws.

At stake is roughly $29 million in federal law-enforcement aid under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which helps local governments pay for everything from forensics labs to drug courts.

The grants in question are among the largest handed out under the program, collectively amounting to 11 percent of the $256 million distributed under the program in the last fiscal year.

In a statement, the Justice Department singled out Chicago and New York as two cities that are "crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime," even though New York City is experiencing its lowest crime levels in decades and experts say Chicago's recent spike in violent crime has little to do with illegal immigration.

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That drew a defiant response from several cities.

"New York is the safest big city in the country, with crime at record lows in large part because we have policies in place to encourage cooperation between NYPD and immigrant communities," said Seth Stein, a spokesman for New York City mayor Bill DiBlasio.

A spokeswoman for the California Board of State and Community Corrections said some of the funding in question has been distributed to local communities after emergencies in the past, including San Bernardino after a mass shooting there in 2015.

Officials in Philadelphia, Milwaukee County and Cook County said they believed they were complying with immigration laws.

"Milwaukee County has its challenges but they are not caused by illegal immigration. My far greater concern is the proactive dissemination of misinformation, fear, and intolerance," said Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.

The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union, told Trump in a meeting last month that they were concerned the cuts could threaten public safety.

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley and Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Joseph Ax in New York, Tom James in Seattle and Chris Kenning in Chicago Editing by Sandra Maler)
Injectable and nasal spray formulations of naloxone, which can be used to block the potentially fatal effects of opioid overdoses, are shown at an outpatient pharmacy at the University of Washington. (Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)

As the U.S. government and health care providers grapple with the exploding rates of opioid abuse across the country, the Clinton Foundation has expanded its partnership with Adapt Pharma, maker of Narcan nasal spray, by donating 40,000 doses of the opioid overdose reversal drug to colleges and universities throughout the United States. Narcan, a brand of the generic drug naloxone, is used for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose.

We know that most overdose deaths dont happen in hospitals, which is why were working with Adapt Pharma, the American School Nurses Association, and a number of other partners to make FDA-approved naloxone Narcan nasal spray available in high schools, colleges and universities, and other community centers where people already are, said Alex Chan, director of National Health for the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation.

President Bill Clinton has spoken about young men he knew who had suffered from accidental drug overdoses, and it prompted the Clinton Foundation to look closely at the issue of prescription drug misuse, and identify what we might be able to do, Chan added.

Hillary Clinton also expressed her passion for combating the crisis. During her presidential campaign last year, she laid out a detailed plan for tackling the epidemic, vowing to put $10 billion over 10 years toward a coalition she called the Initiative to Combat Americas Deadly Epidemic of Drug and Alcohol Addiction. It was an exhaustive plan in which, among many other details, Clinton promised to require better training and monitoring for opioid prescriptions, improve barriers to care to create more preventive efforts and treatment programs, reform the criminal justice system to avoid putting drug users in prison, and offer easier access to naloxone for first responders.

Among the universities receiving naloxone from the new partnership are 53 member schools in the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio. Ohio is a state with one of the highest rates of death due to prescription and illicit overdoses in the country.

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This initiative further equips colleges and universities to take a proactive approach to the growing opioid epidemic, Robert Helmer, president of Ohios Baldwin Wallace University, said in a statement.

Patented in 1961 and approved by the FDA in 1971, naloxone is not addictive and is most commonly administered intravenously, though a more user-friendly nasal spray is now available. Some have called naloxone the Lazarus drug, because it can feel like the person administering it is raising someone from the dead.

As the opioid addiction crisis has exploded throughout the U.S., experts across the country have been working to make naloxone more readily available to the public  members of law enforcement, firefighters, first responders, departments of health, local school districts, colleges, community-based organizations, and homeless shelters. No area of this country is safe from this epidemic, said Jennifer Plumb, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah and founder of Utah Naloxone.

While the FDA technically requires a prescription for the drug, the majority of U.S. states now allow a person to purchase naloxone from a pharmacist without one. Over the past year, CVS and Walgreens  among other pharmacy chains  have also expanded over-the-counter availability of the ocerdose reversal drug.

Some critics worry that naloxone is a Band-Aid for a complex problem, calling the drugs accessibility an excuse for opioid users to continue consuming it. But most experts, while trying to get a handle on the crisis, praise the expanded efforts, especially on the heels of a CDC review that found heroin-related overdose deaths have more than quadrupled since 2010. Unless people are alive, they cant recover, said Thom Duddy, communications director of Adapt Pharma.

Opioids  prescription medications and street drugs such as heroin  now are the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. They killed more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record, according to the CDC. About half of the deaths involved prescription opioids. That number surpasses HIV/AIDS deaths in 1995, at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. While the U.S. makes up about 5 percent of the global population, it consumes more than 80 percent of the opioids in the world.

Naloxone isnt going to cure this crisis, but until we get a better grip on getting people the help they need, its acting as the proverbial fire extinguisher, said Plumb. Having greater access will also inspire a lot of dialogue in school about drug use as well.

The Clinton Foundation doesnt have formal partnerships with rehabilitation or treatment centers, but it does collaborate with such centers and health agencies to ensure that individuals have access to support services when seeking treatment for addiction.

Chan of the Clinton Foundation said it is working to make sure everyone has a seat at the table by working toward a multidimensional approach to figuring out how to advance the solutions overall.

Read more from Yahoo News:
By Anne Harding (Reuters Health) - A next step in wearable health sensors might be a device that causes a patch of skin to sweat, then analyzes the perspiration to monitor or even diagnose disease. Researchers used a prototype to extract sweat from volunteers with the lung disease cystic fibrosis, measure specific compounds that are signatures of the disease, then transmit the data wirelessly for further analysis. They did a similar experiment to see if sugar levels in sweat rose in tandem with blood sugar. With the technology that weve made use of we could really move faster into personalized care by using devices that can allow for real-time monitoring, study coauthor Dr. Carlos Milla of Stanford University in California told Reuters Health. Theres a large number of things that you can measure in sweat that can be very valuable. While sweat testing offers a noninvasive and rich source of information, Milla and his team write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the difficulty of collecting adequate amounts of sweat in sedentary individuals has limited its usefulness in cystic fibrosis (CF) diagnosis. Presently, CF testing must be done in certified labs, in a two-step process that takes hours and typically requires two technicians. The prototype consists of an interface that stimulates sweating then draws the sweat, integrated with an analysis platform. It can do the job in a single step, without causing discomfort to the patient, the researchers write. Readings can be transmitted via smartphone for review by a specialized center, which transmits results back to the phone. In their experiment, the researchers tested the device in six healthy individuals and three CF patients to measure levels of sodium and chloride in sweat. The healthy volunteers had normal sodium and chloride levels while levels in the individuals with CF were about four times higher. The investigators also tested sweat glucose levels in seven healthy individuals who consumed 30 grams of oral glucose after fasting. In six of the study subjects, sweat glucose levels rose along with glucose levels in the blood. Using the device to test sodium and chloride in sweat currently takes about half an hour, Milla noted, and the researchers are working to speed up the process. They are also planning large studies to investigate how sweat-sensor readings correlate with health. Our solution opens the possibility for a broad range of noninvasive diagnostic and general population health monitoring applications, the researchers conclude. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2oPuHf0 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online April 17, 2017.
"Where is everybody?" the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi once asked, when faced with the apparent contradiction between the high probability for the existence of alien life and the lack of any conclusive evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials.

Over the years, several solutions to the "Fermi's paradox" have been put forward, including one that points out that the universe is staggeringly huge and that Earth and its denizens are mere specks of dust floating in one of its billions of galaxies. For the pessimists, though, the lack of any clear extraterrestrial signals is evidence that we might just be alone in the vast and cold void of the universe.

Two new studies, based on observations conducted by two separate teams, seem to bolster the pessimists case. The observations, made using the Keck 10-meter telescope in Hawaii and the Green Bank observatory in West Virginia, found no evidence that aliens exist  or if they do, that they are trying to communicate with anyone.

The first study details observations of 692 stars (belonging to all spectral types) made by the Stephen Hawking-backed $100 million Breakthrough Listen project during the first year of its operation. The project, which used the Green Bank telescope to scan these stars in the 1.1 gigahertz to 1.9 gigahertz frequency  believed to be the most promising bandwidth in the hunt for ET  did find 11 promising signals, but detailed analysis indicated that it is unlikely that any of these signals originated from artificial extraterrestrial sources.

The basics of searching for signatures of extraterrestrial technology are quite simple. Artificial signals can be distinguished from natural processes through features like narrow bandwidth; irregular spectral behavior, pulsing, or modulation patterns; as well as broad-band signals with unusual characteristics. However, human technology emits signals (known as radio frequency interference) similar to the ones being searched for. This means that algorithms must be designed to ensure that signals are coming from a fixed point relative to the stars or other targets being observed, and not from local interferers (including Earth-orbiting satellites), Breakthrough Listen explained in the study. From these results we can infer that fewer than  1 percent of stars within 50 pc possess transmitters emitting narrow-band radio signals between 1-2 GHz a t a level equal to Earths brightest transmitters in the same band.

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The other study, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, took a different approach. It sifted through high-resolution spectra of 5,600 nearby stars  at least 2,000 of which are warm, Earth-like planets  to look for laser emissions in the 3 kilowatt to 13 megawatt range.

Scientists have previously hypothesized that technologically advanced aliens could be using some kind of directed energy systems (read lasers) to either broadcast their presence or to propel their spacecraft. If so, Earthbound scientists should be able to detect these signals.

However, analysis of data collected by the Keck Telescopes high-resolution spectrometer over the past decade failed to reveal any unusual laser bursts.

Of course, one might wonder if an advanced civilization could fool us by purposely beaming laser emission lines having wavelengths consistent with those that arise naturally in chromospheres of stars, the researchers wrote in the study. It would be difficult for us to distinguish such purposeful, nefarious camouflage from naturally occurring chromospheric lines. Indeed, all stars exhibiting emission lines in their spectra could be interpreted as laser emission from shy civilizations attempting to hide among the chromospheric weed.

So, to get back to the initial question  where is everybody? Even if we presuppose that there are several intelligent alien civilizations capable of beaming out signals to the universe, and even if these signals are continuously washing over us, it is possible that we might still lack the technology to detect them.

The other possibility, of course, is that intelligent civilizations are either extremely rare in the universe or extremely short-lived.

Either that, or they don't exist.

A common suggestion is that advanced civilizations would be thousands or millions of years more advanced than humans. If so, they would likely know of our existence and our technological capabilities (and limitations), the authors of the study wrote. We rule out models of the Milky Way in which over 0.1% of warm, Earth-size planets harbor technologies that, intentionally or not, are beaming optical lasers toward us. We may begin to wonder if arguments along the lines of the so-called Fermi paradox have some merit.

Related Articles
President Trumps desire for a signature achievement as he approaches his hundredth day in office has prompted the White House to revive the failed bid to repeal Obamacare as part of a must-pass spending bill next week. The gambit has thrown Congress into a state of confusion that further jeopardizes its ability to keep the government open.

Lawmakers return to Washington next week with a hard deadline of Friday to pass a plan that would keep the lights on at government agencies. Leaders in both chambers are scheduling conference calls in the coming day to brief lawmakers. But with the spending bill in flux and the White House pushing for a speedy vote on a third try to scrap and replace Affordable Care, there is no clear picture about what, exactly, is on the table.

The deadline comes with deep risks. The market for individual insurance plans is on shaky ground, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warned the White House to tread carefully lest it send some providers into a death spiral. A hasty repeal could further undermine that marketplace. Shuttering the government could tank financial markets and send dangerous ripples around the globe. Neither would help Trump, who is especially mindful of public perceptions of his Administration as he nears his 100-day mark, or a Republican Party still trying to prove itself capable of governing,

Yet with the shutdown looming, the White House is discussing merging the spending measure with a repeal of Obamacare. A draft of the legislative language for the spending bill could circulate among lawmakers before they return on Monday. Separately, a compromise between the leaders of the House GOPs centrist and far-right blocs is also afoot to deal with health care. And some of the strongest social conservatives are urging colleagues to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood-even though no one in party leadership is eager to take up that fight at this time.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate say that taking up two difficult challenges on a compressed timeline is simply not realistic. This fell apart in the House last time. Why would they go down this road again, with the stakes this much higher? asks a senior aide to Republican leadership in the Senate, noting the revised plan to kill Obamacare has not had a hearing, the nonpartisan budget office hasnt had time to estimate its costs and the Senate is no more eager to take up a straight party-line bill than it was before.

Story continues

Another sign that the party wasnt prepared for the health care reboot? Its chief champion of a do-over, Vice President Mike Pence, is in Asia. House Speaker Paul Ryan, meanwhile, is visiting Europe. And with Congress on recess, there arent many lawmakers around for the White Houses team of lobbyists to woo.

The funding bill might be the best option for the Presidents team to notch a win before the clock strikes 100 days, an event that will be furiously hyped on the cable news programs the President watches constantly. Two White House officials say the Obamacare repeal provisions are in the works, though they also stressed that nothing has been finalized. The President himself is pushing hard-and looking at a shutdown as a way to deliver on his campaign promises. He has sought to marry a scaled-back repeal plan with the government-funding plan as a take-it-or-leave-it gamble.

We have a good chance of getting it soon, the President said Thursday during a press conference in the East Room. I believe we will get it, and whether it is next week or shortly thereafter.

Privately, Republicans who work in Congress are grousing that Trump still hasnt figured out how to guide legislation through their hallways. Pushing an Obamacare repeal alongside a government funding plan faces tough odds, if not impossible ones. One top adviser to House leadership suggested that the whole gambit was ill-conceived and might not even see the light of day. The last time I checked, the White House doesnt control our calendar, the adviser says.

The Senate is similarly reluctant. The chamber is not prone to quick action, and thats unlikely to change just because Trump wants a win in stories grading his first 100 days. We are going to need Democratic votes, a second aide in Senate Republican leadership says with exasperation. Why would we piss them off with these sideshows?

Democrats are not going to support a spending provision that includes anything resembling a repeal of Obamacare. Though many recognize the law needs tweaks, they are none too eager to give Trump a win on this. Nor will they allocate money for a brick-and-mortar border wall, or anything that looks like the deportation force that Trump proposed during his campaign to round up immigrants in the country illegally. They may, however, go along with a slight boost to Pentagon funding or even boosted technology to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border.

If the President doesnt interfere and insist on poison pill amendments to be shoved down the throat of the Congress, we can come up with an agreement, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters this week. I want to come up with an agreement, I think my colleagues want to come up with an agreement. Our Republican colleagues know, since they control the House and the Senate and the White House, that a shutdown would fall on their shoulders and they dont want it. We want to make sure its good budget that meets our principles. But so far, so good.

With lawmakers scattered across the country, at home in the districts and states they represent in Congress, the plans for avoiding next weeks potential shutdown began to resemble a game of telephone: text messages and emails among colleagues distorting the realities with every iteration. Yes, a health care overhaul is part of it. No, it isnt. Funding for a border wall with Mexico is part of it. No, it isnt. More cash for the Pentagon is part of it. Again, no, it isnt.

The result is broad confusion about what awaits with the clock ticking down. Deadlines are often the only catalysts for action in Washington. A crisis has to be on the horizon for lawmakers to take decisive action, and even then theres no guarantee. The last government shutdown was in 2013, when Sen. Ted Cruz tried to use a funding deadline to scrap President Obamas health care law. Instead he shuttered the government and tanked the GOP in public opinion polls, forcing the bruised party to relent with Obamacare still on the books.

Few Republicans want to repeat that debacle. As a backup plan, the partys leaders are preparing a one-week temporary funding measure to keep the doors open should things collapse. One senior aide likened it to an in-case-of-emergency parachute-no one really wants to use it. Instead, party leaders are trying to nudge their members to a compromise proposal that pushes these big-ticket ideas to the falls budget negotiations.

Thats right. Congress will have to do all of this again in in a few months, because the government has been running on an interim spending plan negotiated while President Obama was still in office. Lawmakers from both parties have said they would fund the government for the full fiscal year starting in October-a novel move these days.

- With reporting by Zeke J. Miller and Sam Frizell.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Everyone loves a winner, but who are they? Let us help you figure it out. Each Friday, we will provide a quick rundown of individuals or companies that accomplished something worth noting. But to be fair, we will also point out those who, well, had a rough time. And if you have a nomination, send us a note. We would not want anyone to feel left out, even the losers.

Winners

Consumers: A federal court jury ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3 million to the widow of an attorney who committed suicide after taking a generic version of its Paxil antidepressant. This is significant because consumers have almost always failed to successfully sue a brand-name drug maker if they claim to have suffered harm after taking a pill made by a generic company. Federal regulations do not allow generic companies to independently change product labeling after learning of potential risks, unless such a change has already been made to the corresponding brand-name drug. The regulation was upheld six years ago in US Supreme Court ruling. Admittedly, it is premature to call this verdict a game changer. Glaxo will appeal and the decision only applies to one state. But if the appeal flops, the outcome it could sway other courts to allow consumers to sue brand-name drug makers.

Read the rest...
LONDON (Reuters) - The World Bank's private sector investment arm and European asset manager Amundi have agreed to form a $2 billion green bond fund to help provide more financing for low-carbon investments in emerging markets, they said on Friday. Green bonds are used to raise funds for projects which help tackle environmental problems such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste management. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) said it would invest up to $325 million in the so-called Green Cornerstone Bond Fund, which will buy green bonds issued by banks in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Amundi will raise the rest of the $2 billion from institutional investors worldwide, the IFC said in a statement. The global market for green bonds was worth over $90 billion last year and is forecast to grow to around $120 billion this year, according to Moody's Investors Service. However, the IFC said that few banks in developing countries have issued such bonds and its fund should encourage more local financial institutions to do this. "This green-bond fund will lower the risk for the private sector and attract new investors  essentially creating a market where there was none," said IFC chief executive Philippe Le Houerou. "We've already identified dozens of banks in many developing countries around the world that could be interested in this fund. It's a win-win supporting the green economy and deepening access to international markets for emerging market issuers," he added. The fund should be fully invested in green bonds within seven years, the IFC added. (Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In an era of shrinking government contributions to development financing and "exploding" loan demand in poor countries, World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim is looking to the private sector for help.

And he said U.S. President Donald Trump likes the idea.

Kim told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that he is looking to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars now parked in low-yield government bonds for development finance, earning higher returns for investors. The World Bank would pave the way to reduce risk.

"Speaking with President Trump directly, I told him about the need to make this shift, to work more effectively with the private sector. He was very enthusiastic about that," Kim said. "I'd love to see President Trump champion this approach to development finance."

The potential new business model is part of Kim's pitch to promote the multilateral lender's role as a facilitator in developing new markets - and attract political support and new capital along the way.

Trump's initial budget plan in March floated a $650 million funding cut multilateral development banks over three years. However, it is Congress, not the White House, that ultimately decides spending levels.

"What I'm trying to convince everyone of is, if we get this right, we can actually spur global growth, create markets for American products, create opportunities for American companies," Kim said of his pitch to Congress, the White House and other stakeholders.

The new business model would aim to use the World Bank Group's technical expertise and guarantees to prepare and "de-risk" projects and markets to make them "bankable" for risk-averse investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, Kim said.

Work by the lender's International Finance Corp arm in Zambia last year to set up auctions for private firms to build solar generating plants provides a model for his proposed approach.

Story continues

The bank estimates that some two-thirds of current manual labor jobs in developing countries will be eliminated by automation in future years so Kim said massive investments are needed now to help develop new jobs.

"Our job should be to use our money to prepare the country to bring in lots more money that's ready to go but is not moving because of the perception of risk or because the projects are not," Kim said.

Kim said he is encouraged by his engagement so far with the Trump administration, including interest from Ivanka Trump in the bank's work on women's issues.

"We're interacting with them quite a lot and they're asking us very specific questions about how we think about solving certain problems," he said.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao and Bill Trott)
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia will allow monitored maize exports this year as the country expects to have a surplus of the staple crop, President Edgar Lungu said a Friday, after foreign sales were suspended in 2016 as a drought threatened output and pushed up prices. Lungu said in a statement the private sector has expressed concern over the ban on exports. "The worry is that substantial maize surplus may spill into the new season," he said. Zambia's maize crop is seen above the 2.87 million tonnes produced last year, while its annual consumption is 1.8 million tonnes. (Reporting by Chris Mfula; Writing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by James Macharia)
A series of video frames shows the Chelyabinsk meteor passing through the skies above the Siberian city of Kamensk-Uralskiy on Feb. 15, 2013. (Aleksandr Ivanov / Popova et al. / Science / AAAS)

If an asteroid strikes, dont head for the hills, or the windows: Head for the basement.

A study aimed at sorting out the effects of a catastrophic asteroid impact found that violent winds and pressure shock waves would be the biggest killers, accounting for more than 60 percent of the lives lost in simulated scenarios.

This is the first study that looks at all seven impact effects generated by hazardous asteroids and estimates which are, in terms of human loss, most severe, Clemens Rumpf, a senior research assistant at the University of Southampton in Britain, said today in a news release from the American Geophysical Union.

Rumpf is the lead author of the study, which is published in Geophysical Research Letters, an AGU journal.

The seven effects on Rumpfs list are wind blasts, shock waves, heat, flying debris, tsunami waves, cratering and seismic shaking. The researchers lumped wind blasts and shock waves together because those phenomena would tend to occur together in the wake of an asteroid strike.

The winds whipped up by an impact would carry enough power to hurl human bodies and flatten forests, while the spike in atmospheric pressure would set off shock waves strong enough to rupture internal organs.

To gauge the damage, the researchers ran 50,000 simulated scenarios with artificial asteroids ranging from 15 to 400 meters (49 to 1,312 feet) across. They found that land-based impacts would be roughly 10 times as dangerous as ocean impacts.

Large asteroids hitting the ocean could generate huge tsunami waves; however, the waves energy would tend to dissipate as it traveled. Tsunamis accounted for more than 70 percent of the deaths associated with an ocean impact, but only about 20 percent of the lives lost across all scenarios.

Heat effects were implicated in nearly 30 percent of the deaths in the land-based simulations, and heres where Rumpf offered his advice. He said affected populations were likely to avoid harm by hiding in basements and other underground structures.

Story continues

Cratering and airborne debris each accounted for less than 1 percent of the deaths. Seismic shaking was of the least concern, causing only 0.17 percent of the casualties in the simulated scenarios.

Rumpf emphasized that the risk of an asteroid strike is low, ranging from once every 1,500 years for a 190-foot-wide space rock to once every 100,000 years for a 1,300-foot-wide monster.

The scenarios suggest that most asteroids on the lower end of the spectrum burn up in the atmosphere. An asteroid would have to be wider than 60 feet across to be lethal. Thats roughly the width of the asteroid involved in the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor blast, which injured hundreds of people in the vicinity of the Siberian city but caused no known deaths.

Most of the injuries in Chelyabinsk occurred when the shock wave from the blast sent broken window glass flying into the faces of spectators.

Purdue geophysicist Jay Melosh, who wasnt involved in the study, said the report represents a reasonable step forward in trying to understand and come to grips with the hazards posed by asteroids and comet impactors.

Rumpf said the findings could help Earthlings plan for future asteroid strikes.

If only 10 people are affected, then maybe its better to evacuate the area, he said. But if a million people are affected, it may be worthwhile to mount a deflection mission and push the asteroid out of the way.

Rumpf plans to present his findings at the 2017 International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference, set for next month in Tokyo.

More from GeekWire:
Samsungs best phone yet is finally available for purchase in stores, with preorders already shipping to early buyers. If you were looking to get your hands on the phone before you buy it, you can finally check it out. And just in case you do want to purchase a Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+, it doesnt mean you have to pay full sticker price for either model. Best Buy, which had a great preorder deal for the phone, is back with a brand new Galaxy S8 launch day promotion.

If AT&T is your carrier of choice, then you should know Best Buy will get you two Galaxy S8/S8+ phones for the price of one on a new line activation as long as you have DirecTV with AT&T. If you want a Sprint Galaxy S8/S8+, Best Buy will let you lease two Galaxy S8 models for the price of one as long as you activate a new line on Sprint.

Verizon customers looking to stay with the carrier can purchase the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ for as little as $15 per month with a trade-in. The deal requires an unlimited plan from Verizon and is good for both new and existing customers.

As expected, Best Buys new Galaxy S8 deal doesnt cover T-Mobile.

To take advantage of any of Best Buys new Galaxy S8 promotions you can visit a local store or purchase online on BestBuy.com. For AT&T and Sprint deals, you can also check with your local carrier shops. Best Buy specifically says the Verizon deal is different from Big Reds own deals for the handset, which means the AT&T and Sprint offers may differ elsewhere as well.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
FILE PHOTO: Tesla Chief Executive, Elon Musk enters the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York, U.S., January 6, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo (Reuters)

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc <TSLA.O> founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk said his latest company Neuralink Corp is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices.

Neuralink is aiming to bring to the market a product that helps with certain severe brain injuries due to stroke, cancer lesion etc, in about four years, Musk said in an interview with website Wait But Why.

"If I were to communicate a concept to you, you would essentially engage in consensual telepathy," Musk said in the interview published on Thursday. http://bit.ly/2oWJcMw

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will create computers so sophisticated and godlike that humans will need to implant "neural laces" in their brains to keep up, Musk said in a tech conference last year.

"There are a bunch of concepts in your head that then your brain has to try to compress into this incredibly low data rate called speech or typing," Musk said in the latest interview.

"If you have two brain interfaces, you could actually do an uncompressed direct conceptual communication with another person."

The technology could take about eight to 10 years to become usable by people with no disability, which would depend heavily on regulatory approval timing and how well the devices work on people with disabilities, Musk was quoted as saying.

In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had launched a company through which computers could merge with human brains. Neuralink was registered in California as a "medical research" company last July, and he plans on funding the company mostly by himself.

(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
An artists conception shows a fusion-driven rocket powering a probe toward Mars. (MSNW / University of Washington Illustration)

Fusion-driven rockets, remote control systems for space robots, and satellites that build themselves up in orbit are among the made-in-Washington projects getting a share of $49.9 million in NASA grants.

Seven businesses in Washington state will benefit from NASAs latest round of Small Business Innovation Research grants and Small Business Technology Transfer grants, announced today.

The two programs, known as SBIR and STTR, are aimed at encouraging the development of commercial innovations that could come in handy for NASAs space missions.

The SBIR and STTR programs selection of nearly 400 proposals for further development is a testament to NASAs support of American innovation by small businesses and research institutions, Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for space technology at NASA Headquarters, said in todays announcement.

In all, 399 proposals from 277 small businesses and 44 research institutions across the U.S. were chosen for Phase I funding, out of a total of 1,621 submissions.

The next step is for NASA to negotiate contracts with the winners. SBIR contracts last for six months, while STTR contracts last for 12 months, both with maximum funding of $125,000.

Ten contracts will go to the seven Washington-based teams. One of the companies, Bothell-based Tethers Unlimited, had four of its SBIR proposals accepted:

MakerSat: This small-satellite mission is aimed at demonstrating techniques for growing structures that could increase a satellites size by a factor of 10 to 100. The Phase I work would concentrate on developing the architecture for such a mission.

Automated X-Link for Orbital Networking Connector: The AXON connector is a concept for a device that could link up spacecraft components autonomously in space.

Metal Advanced Manufacturing Bot-Assisted Assembly: The MAMBA process would provide an alternative to 3-D printing in space. Instead, metal could be formed into an ingot, and then milled and machined to produce a precision part.

COBRA-Bee Carpal-Wrist Gimbal for Astrobee: COBRA-Bee would serve as a robotic manipulator for Tethers Unlimiteds Astrobee free-flying satellite. The Phase I grant would cover design work for an assembly that could serve as the wrist of a robotic hand.

Story continues

Six awards were made to these other Washington state teams:

For the full list of winning proposals and their sponsors, including a plan to design drills capable of probing the hidden oceans of icy Europa and Enceladus, check out NASAs lists for the SBIR and STTR programs.

More from GeekWire:
By Anjali Athavaley and Aishwarya Venugopal (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday reported its first-ever quarterly loss of subscribers, even as it offered an unlimited data plan, raising questions on whether the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier may need a larger acquisition than Yahoo to diversify its business. Verizon has been struggling to fend off smaller rivals T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp in a maturing market for U.S. wireless service, and in February offered an unlimited data plan for the first time in more than five years. While it has pursued other revenue streams, including a $4.48 billion deal for Yahoo Inc's core business, analysts have questioned if it should pursue a more transformative combination. "We continue to believe that the company needs a strategic transaction to support their wireless business for the long-term," analysts at New Street Research said in a note. Meanwhile, Verizon's main competitor AT&T Inc plans to diversify its business through an $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc, which would give it control of cable TV channels like HBO and other coveted media assets. Verizon's shares were down 1.2 percent at $48.33 in midday trade. Earlier this week, Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam said in an interview with Bloomberg News that he is open to deal talks with companies ranging from Comcast Corp to Walt Disney Co. On Thursday, Chief Financial Officer Matthew Ellis clarified the comments, saying that while the company would consider deals that are in the interest of shareholders, it is confident in its assets. "The ecosystem is constantly changing, and if there's somebody who comes to us with an idea of how we can kind of leapfrog forward in that environment, we're going to listen to them," Ellis said in an interview with Reuters. But he added, "We are very confident with the strategy that we have." In the first quarter, Verizon said it lost 307,000 retail postpaid subscribers or those who pay a monthly bill. Analysts on average were expecting net additions of 222,000, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount. Churn, or customer defections, among wireless retail customers who pay bills on a monthly basis, increased to 1.15 percent of total wireless subscribers, compared with the average analyst estimate of 1.03 percent, according to FactSet. Ellis noted that churn rose in the first half of the quarter but came down in response to the relaunch of unlimited plans. "It really was a tale of two halves," he said. But analysts viewed the results as disappointing. "They badly missed on every important subscriber metric, and it just underscores that the wireless business is a severely growth-challenged business at the moment," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson in an interview.Net income attributable to Verizon fell to $3.45 billion, or 84 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $4.31 billion, or $1.06 per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, earnings per share was 95 cents. Total operating revenue fell to $29.81 billion from $32.17 billion a year earlier. According to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, analysts had expected adjusted earnings per share of 99 cents and revenue of $30.77 billion. (Reporting by Anjali Athavaley in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Bernard Orr)
What if we told you there was a phone as powerful as the Galaxy S8 for half the price? It exists, and it's called the Xiaomi Mi 6.

The Chinese smartphone maker just took the wraps off of its latest handset, which boasts flagship-quality specs for about $360. The real kicker here is the phone's Snapdragon 835 processor: a blazing new chip that debuted on the Galaxy S8.

The Mi 6 even one-ups Samsung's flagship by packing a 12-megapixel dual-lens camera, which is the same kind of camera tech you'll find on heavy hitters such as the iPhone 7 and LG G6. The display is on the small side at 5.15 inches, but the rest of the specs seems solid, including 6GB of RAM, 64GB and 128GB storage options and a 3,350-mAh battery.

Interestingly, Xiaomi has taken a page out of Apple's playbook; the Mi 6 has no headphone jack.

MORE: The Best Smartphones You Can Buy

Xiaomi's new phone is certainly a looker, with curved glass panels on the front and pack and a stainless steel frame holding it all together. The phone is splash-resistant, and comes in white, black and blue.

Launching on Xiaomi's online store in April, the Mi 6 will cost the equivalent of roughly $360 for the 64GB model and about $420 for the 128GB variant. There's also a special ceramic version of the handset that will cost about $435.

Of course, there's a big catch. Like virtually all Xiaomi phones, the Mi 6 isn't slated to arrive in the states. However, the company began testing its handsets on U.S. networks last year.

The Mi 6's unveiling comes just two days before the launch of Samsung's Galaxy S8, which we called the "best Android phone you can buy" in our review. Still, Samsung's flagship starts at at a steep $750, and if strong competitors keep showing up at half the price, ultra-premium flagships could be in trouble.

Image Credits: Xiaomi

See also : Most Anticipated Phones of 2017
In recent times the media has been filled with stories about Ghanaians in the diaspora making a great impact on the world.

Get more news about inspiring Ghanaians here

And it just keeps on getting better.

READ ALSO: Still trying to understand their loss in 2016, NDC suspends three executives

Ghanaian architect, David Adjaye makes history; named part of 100 Most Influential

TIME magazine recognized Ghanaian born architect David Adjaye as "one of the great architectural visionaries of our time" and added him to the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World list.

This is the first time that a Ghanaian has made it to this enviable list which was unveiled by the magazine on Thursday.

Ghanaian architect, David Adjaye makes history; named part of 100 Most Influential

The list included a widely-ranging group that includes global leaders and their advisers, musicians and movie stars, world-class athletes and chief executives.

David Adjaye received critical acclaim when he design the National Museum for African American History in Washington DC.

Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem praised Adjaye saying, [he] made us aware of how can a building be true to the earthbound burdens of centuries of oppression and struggle, while at the same time displaying the faith, joy and triumphs of African-American life".

Keep making Ghana proud, David Adjaye. YEN.com.gh is proud of your story.

READ ALSO: Local practitioner alleges that men are natural cheats

Know any other Ghanaian making giant strides, send us a message via Twitter, Facebook or send an email to us at info@yen.com.gh

Source: YEN.com.gh
Chinas foreign minister recently likened the U.S. and North Korea to two speeding trains hurtling toward each other, an analogy that would seem to place China in the role of helpless bystander. And indeed, while tensions have risen, Beijing has been frustrated by its declining influence over the Korean Peninsula.

China has a grandstand seat but no control, said University of Virginia China scholar Brantly Womack.

The U.S. is piling the pressure on Beijing to use its clout with North Korea to rein in its nuclear and missile programs. China is the Norths most important trading partner and ally, but Pyongyang has ignored Beijings calls for a suspension of those programs and its requests for high-level bilateral talks. Chinas relations with South Korea, meanwhile, have plummeted over Beijings vociferous objections to the deployment of a sophisticated anti-missile shield.

Chinas approach to the peninsula is under the same strains that its been under before. The difference is that, this time, the Americans appear to be applying more overt, real pressure, said Dean Cheng, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

A slew of recent missile launches and North Koreas expected test of a sixth nuclear device have heightened concerns that the country is drawing closer to being capable of striking the U.S. with a nuclear weapon  something sure to bring the crisis to a head.

Also complicating matters: The unpredictability of President Donald Trump, who earlier this month tweeted that the U.S. welcomed Chinas help in resolving the crisis, then added, If not, we will solve the problem without them!

Uncertainties also reside in South Koreas election next month to replace disgraced former President Park Geun-hye; her successor is likely to be more conciliatory toward the North. Meanwhile, China continues to insist that it wont stand idly by while Seoul deploys the missile system, known as THAAD, driving home its point by halting package tours to the South and retaliating against a supermarket chain and other South Korean business interests within China.

While THAAD appears to be a done deal, China is playing a long game of reminding South Korea that, as a smaller and weaker nation, it needs to subordinate its security interests to those of China, said Cheng.

South Korea has been put on notice that future defense efforts will likely also incur costs, Cheng said.

Such criticisms have been reinforced by state media, with the Communist Party newspaper Global Times writing Wednesday that South Korea was also responsible for fanning the flames of tensions on the Korean Peninsula by deploying THAAD and failing to encourage Washington to enter into talks.

Beijing is also dealing with divided public opinion domestically. Younger Chinese with only a passing knowledge of the 1950-53 Korean War, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops died fighting alongside their North Korean allies, are increasingly cynical about the traditional friendship between the two countries.

Criticisms of North Korea that were once quickly scrubbed from the internet are now being allowed to circulate, including a scathing speech by historian Shen Zhihua in which he accused Pyongyang of directly working against Chinas interests.

Analysts say critics may even include Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is said to be deeply frustrated with North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns intransigence since taking power in 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

In the years since, Xi and Kim have never met. Liu Yunshan, a member of the ruling Communist Partys Politburo Standing Committee, is the last important Chinese official to visit North Korea. He attended a military parade and mass rally marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers Party of Korea in October 2015, in what appears to have been a one-off attempt to get relations back on track.

Other affronts to Beijing include Kims execution of his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who had been the regimes main point of contact with China, and the killing earlier this year in Malaysia of Kims half brother Kim Jong Nam, who was said to live partly under Chinese protection in the gambling enclave of Macau. Malaysia is seeking four North Korean suspects.

While it has less reason to fear a North Korean nuclear weapon, China intensely dislikes instability in its neighborhood and worries about South Korea and Japan responding by going nuclear themselves.

So while it opposes actions that might topple Kims regime and possibly send a wave of refugees across the Chinese border, China has agreed to successive rounds of sanctions since 2006. In February, it suspended imports of coal from North Korea, depriving the country of an important source of foreign currency.

The U.S. wants Beijing to do more, possibly including cutting off fuel supplies. Trump has floated the idea of offering advantageous trade terms in exchange for help in although no details have been released.

I think Beijing is prepared to tighten the screws  but only so much. Theres no question that Xi Jinping strongly dislikes, even probably detests, Kim Jong Un and wants to resolve this issue, said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

However, the range of Chinas action remains limited by its priorities on North Korea: No war, no instability, no nukes, in declining order of importance, said Haenle. The Chinese are never going to go as far as we would like in terms of putting pressure on the regime in Pyongyang.

China has repeatedly called for dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, either bilaterally or through the six-party process thats been on ice since 2009. China has also urged, to little response, that North Korea suspend its nuclear weapons and missile programs in return for the U.S. and South Korea halting annual wargames that the North considers a prelude to an invasion.

Chinas sanctions and persuasion have been so far not very effective, but China is still making its best efforts, said Lu Chao, director of the Border Study Institute of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.

Lu said China is still hopeful a negotiated settlement can be obtained if the U.S. reaches out to North Korea and the international community convinces Pyongyang that no one is planning to attack it or seek regime change.

As U.S. officials have pointed out, the U.S. is not seeking the collapse of the North Korean regime. Thats a very positive expression. Christopher Bodeen, Beijing, AP
Macau-born artist Daniel Vicente Flores is hosting his first exhibition at Albergue SCM.

For his debut, Flores  who lived in Macau between 1989 and 1999, and visits frequently  presents a series of 33 Chinese ink drawings. In these, he explores topics such as the self and intimacy, as a way of communicating what goes on inside his mind, which is troubled by several disorders that he is not afraid to discuss.

Neurosis, obsession, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are some of the ailments that Flores translates into various art forms  illustration and more recently, poetry and music composition.

In his art, he takes a private and critical stance toward heavy topics that materialize as a disquieting reality. Self-portraits such as Psychotic and Paranoid self-portraits, as well as Fear, Dyonisia, Manic Depression and Consumed by Consumption are just some works that serve as examples of this.

The works were created between 2006 and 2016, and depict different stages of the artists life.

Flores told the Times that the works have different collections, but the topic that brings them together is always me  it is very personal and about myself.

Although the works on display date back to 2006, most of the art displayed at the exhibition was completed in the last five years.

There is a big difference [between the old and new collections]  I kind of lost my way of drawing when I decided to learn how to compose [music]. I had to relearn how to draw, which influenced me and changed my style, said Flores.

These changes primarily involve the introduction of musical elements into his art, said Flores, who is currently using [parts] of music composition in [his] drawings.

Nevertheless, Flores says the way he sees his self remains the same over time, explaining that what he learned from music is more tools [to perform my artist work].

The exhibition will be on display at Gallery A2 until June 4. The artist has also launched a book of his drawings and poetry, titled Impressoes (Impressions).
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop urged China yesterday to do more to help out in the international effort to pressure and persuade North Korea to stop escalating nuclear and missile threat.

Bishop said that China has a unique and specific role to play in pressuring North Korea to cease its illegal behavior. Australia plans to work closely with Japan, South Korea and the U.S., and with China, to ensure that China can use its unique position.

She made the remark to a group of reporters in Tokyo, where she is joining foreign and defense ministers talks between Australia and Japan to discuss deepening defense cooperation in time of the growing North Korean threat.

While supporting the U.S. governments shift to a tougher stance, Bishop said further effort for dialogue and economic sanctions are necessary.

China is the source of energy, of ideas, of innovation, of expertise, she said, noting 95 of direct investment in North Korea come from China and that the Norths exports mainly goes to China. There is a far greater role that China can play in assisting the region and the global community in bringing North Korea into line so it ceases a nuclear and missile program that is clearly designed to attack the United States.

The North Korea situation makes military cooperation particularly crucial, Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada told Australian counterpart Marise Payne when they met ahead of the talks. They agreed to expand joint exercises and arms-equipment trade.

China and the South China Sea are also likely topics when Japans Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida joins the other ministers. The four ministers are also expected to review President Donald Trumps first three months in office, according to a Japanese foreign ministry official who briefed reporters on customary condition of anonymity.

The Australian ministers visit come on the heels of U.S. Vice President Mike Pences trip to Japan and South Korea earlier this week as part of a 10-day Asia tour to reassure allies of Americas commitment to the region.

Tension on the Korean Peninsula has risen this month, with the Trump administration stepping up pressure on North Korea and two major anniversary events in North Korea.

Japan, a staunch U.S. ally that hosts about 50,000 American troops on its turf, has in recent years developed military cooperation with other countries, including Australia, France and Britain. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sought to expand Japans defense role and capability in the face of North Koreas threat and Chinas increasing assertive maritime activity in the East and South China Seas. AP
Following the exchange of messages and letters between the Macau Portuguese and English Press Association (AIPIM) and the Legislative Assembly Electoral Affairs Committee (CAEAL), AIPIM issued a statement yesterday expressing concern over the uncertainty surrounding the news coverage related to the upcoming Legislative Elections. According to the association, CAEALs instructions may impede journalists work. AIPIM believes that it is crucial that the right to information and press freedom are fully respected in all instances and at all times  including before the election campaign begins  in accordance with what is enshrined in the Basic Law and the Press Law. This includes interviews and news coverage involving candidates running in the election, the statement reads. It is important that the Electoral Affairs Committee does not issue any guidelines or instructions to media outlets or journalists pertaining to news coverage during any specific period of time.

CE to attend AL meeting today

The Chief Executive, Chui Sai On, will attend a plenary session of the Legislative Assembly today to answer lawmakers questions on government policy and social issues. The session will commence at 3 p.m. and will be broadcast live on television and radio channels of public broadcaster TDM. Besides attending plenary sessions of the Assembly every year to deliver the Policy Address for the following fiscal year, the CE also attends two similar sessions each year.

Mainland woman arrested for robbery

An unemployed 32-year-old woman from the mainland has been arrested for robbing a mainland man of HKD400,000 with pepper spray. Around 9 p.m. on April 3, the woman, surnamed Tu, contacted the victim to exchange HKD400,000 in cash. Tu did not know the man prior to the robbery, and claimed to have obtained the victims phone number from a friend. Tu and the victim agreed to meet at a Cotai hotel room. When the victim entered the room, Tu attacked him with pepper spray. Two other men then tied the mans hands and feet, stuffing his mouth with a towel. The three suspects then left with the victims HKD400,000. The victim eventually escaped and called the police. According to the Judiciary Police (PJ), the three suspects have since fled to the mainland. Tu was spotted crossing the border last Monday. She admitted to her crime and said that she had received HKD10,000 for her part in the robbery. PJ is now investigating the money trail.

Lok Kok restaurant wall demolished

One of the former Lok Kok Restaurants walls has been demolished, according to media reports. The Director of the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) stated that no engineering licenses were issued for the project. However, a statutory engineering plan was approved. The Macau government has listed the restaurant as a local heritage site. Li said DSSOPT and Cultural Affairs Bureau staff had gone to the site for a review earlier this week, but has no information regarding the current status of the restaurants walls.

Education subsidies to increase in 2017/2018

The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) will increase subsidies to local non-tertiary schools for the 2017/2018 academic year. The allowance for classes at different levels of education will be increased from MOP918,200 to MOP1,404,400. The subsidy for individual students will be increased from MOP18,490 to MOP22,950. In view of the growing number of students, there will be a total of eight types of subsidies with a combined worth of more than MOP4.9 billion, an increase of MOP400 million from the previous academic year. DSEJ will also increase the quota of special subsidies for tertiary education with 70 more offers for tertiary education funds, totaling 460 offers.

Four buses will no longer stop at CEM

Starting tomorrow, the buses 2A, 10B, 17 and 18 will no longer stop at Venceslau De Morais/CEM, the Transport Bureau announced on Wednesday. DSAT says that the stop, which will no longer be in use, may interfere with other bus routes on the opposite side of the road.
Coca-Cola is possibly the worlds most recognizable brand, an almost inescapable symbol of the global appeal of American-style consumer culture. There are only two countries in the world where Coke doesnt officially operate, and one of them is North Korea.

But even the North is developing quite a taste for cola  though the iconic red-and-white labeled bottles the cola comes in likely are not exactly the Real Thing and their twist tops need a bit more than the usual caution. They have a tendency to leak or refuse to come off at all.

North Korea and Cuba are the only countries where Coca-Cola Co. has no operations, said communications director Ann Moore. Coke doesnt do business with either because of sanctions.

That doesnt stop Coke making its way over the North Korean border, however.

Coke bottled in China and bearing Chinese labels isnt hard to find in North Koreas relatively affluent capital, Pyongyang. It is sold in upscale grocery stores that cater to the capitals elite and a growing number of middle class residents, who are increasingly earning enough hard cash through entrepreneurial side businesses to purchase more than bare necessities.

Coke from China can also be quaffed in international hotels frequented by both locals who can afford their high prices and foreign tourists and business people, most of them from China as well. Pepsi sightings are rarer.

The cola served at restaurants and lining the shelves in stores where more typical North Koreans shop are likely to be local imitations, though one of the more popular ones could, from a distance, easily pass as a Coke.

Its 1.25-liter bottle has the same Coke shape, the Coke-like red and white label, the distinctive red cap. But instead of the usual Chinese phonetic characters for Coca-Cola, it has Cocoa-flavored Sweet Soda Drink splashed across its label in yellow Korean lettering.

The label also prominently features a bar code and the universally recognized anti-littering logo of a person responsibly tossing his trash in a bin. It includes a calorie count and the address and phone number of the bottler, the Wonbong Trading Co. in Pyongyang. Such numbers can only be accessed by North Koreans using the North Korean phone network.

So no comment there.

How does it taste?

Not bad, it turns out. Good fizz. Indistinguishable appearance. If you like Coke, its a very good facsimile. Some other similar sodas claiming to be cocoa-flavored but not aiming to match Cokes taste do in fact taste like chocolate.

Back in 2000, when ties between the U.S. and North Korea were going through something of a thaw, there were widespread rumors that Coke was on the verge of officially breaking into the market. Blame North Koreas decision to develop nuclear weapons for dooming that plan.

The locally bottled versions of Coke-like drinks have filled the vacuum.

Air Koryo, the countrys flagship airline, recently introduced its own brand of cola on flights to and from Beijing. Thats not quite as odd as it might sound. Like many large state-run enterprises, the airline also operates a fleet of taxis, has at least one gas station in Pyongyang and puts its name on other soft drinks in order to turn a profit. Eric Talmadge, Pyongyang, AP
The trial of former Prosecutor-General Ho Chio Meng continued yesterday at the Court of Final Appeal. Former Chief of the Prosecutor General of the Public Prosecutions Office, Lai Kin Ian, was present to testify. Lai had previously testified last January.

The court continued to process matters involving Wang Xian Di, a mainland-

born woman who was hired to work at the Office of the Prosecutor-General. She was reportedly paid by the MP despite never having completed any work. Wang was hired for two terms, separated by a gap of three to four years.

Lai remarked that Wangs second term of employment should have been granted by the Chief Executive. He added that the Personnel and Finance Department at the Office of the Prosecutor-General informed Ho that hiring non-local workers required approval by the CE, a rule with which Ho agreed.

The office then applied for a quota for a non-local worker, which was approved. As for whether the quota had been approved by the CE, Lai said if the human resources office issued the approval, the CE should already have known about it.

Wangs two terms of employment were also endorsed by Ho Chio Meng, who stated that Wangs English was good and she had connections with the mainland.

When Wang was hired for the second time, the salary information on her recruitment form  which Ho filled out by hand  remained empty.

For her first term of employment, her salary was fixed at a level, between that of an office head and that of a department head.

Lai said that Wang might have been an intern at the time. While Lai was testifying, Ho took notes and gave the thumbs up once in a while.
Emirates will shift aircraft to destinations in Malaysia, Oceania and Africa as the airline scrambles for alternatives after eliminating 25 weekly flights to the U.S. in the fallout from President Donald Trumps travel restrictions.

Planes on U.S. routes usually fly more than 80 percent full in the summer season but are now percentage points less than that, hurting the flights profitability, Emirates President Tim Clark said in an interview at company headquarters in Dubai. The airliners might be redeployed to markets ranging from countries in the Pacific to Africa and Europe, he said.

Emirates can reinstate the capacity if the U.S. relaxes H-1B work visa and general entry rules, helping traffic, Clark said. Unintended consequences need to be dealt with by the U.S., as its also losing out on pretty robust and powerful spending capacity of families making leisure visits from the Middle East, he said.

The state-owned carrier outlined plans Wednesday to scale back capacity as of May on five of the 12 U.S. routes it serves, citing the countrys tightening visa restrictions and a ban on carrying personal electronics from some locations, including Emirates Dubai hub. The capacity cutbacks mark an unusual move for an airline that in recent years was known for huge plane orders to add flights and routes across its network, which currently comprises 155 destinations.

The flight reductions are also a sign that Emirates is backing down from an ambitious expansion that Clark was pushing in defiance of U.S. competitors efforts to fend off Persian Gulf airlines from their home market. Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori outlined plans in 2013 to serve 15 U.S. cities by 2018, and Clark predicted three years ago that the market would become one of Emirates three largest sources of revenue.

Emirates traffic growth rates have already been fading. The carrier posted its first annual revenue decline in a decade for the 12 months ended March 2016, and sales since then have been hurt by lower oil prices reducing Middle East business travel as well as terrorism attacks in western Europe, Turkey and North Africa that have discouraged tourism. Deena Kamel Yousef, Bloomberg
Fitch Ratings expects gaming revenue in Macau to grow by 12 percent this year, thanks to equal contribution from VIP and mass-market revenues. According to the report, the year-to-date growth through March has been 13 percent, with February growing 18 percent year-on-year.

Fitchs 2017 forecast assumes low single-digit range month-to-month sequential growth for the balance of the year, compared to 4 percent average sequential growth since July 2016.

Fitch notes that the forecasted growth rate takes into account tougher year-over-year comparisons in the second-half of 2017, and raises the possibility that the tighter monetary policy and increased real estate restrictions may slow economic growth on the mainland. Fitch added that VIP growth has exceeded expectations, growing 17 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017.

Stronger economic indicators on the mainland  such as players acclimatizing to Chinas crackdown initiatives on both corruption and casino marketing by foreign companies based outside Macau  may have contributed to the higher performance.

The VIP gross gaming revenue (GGR) currently has a similar level to that of 2010, leaving plenty of headroom for growth, subject to regulatory and other conditions.

Fitch also expects fixed investments in China, an important driver for VIP gaming, to grow 4.3 percent in 2017, down from 5.7 percent in 2016. Given the nature of the VIP segment (56 pct of GGR in 2017 Q1), the company said its forecast is considered cautious.

As for the mass-market segment, Fitch predicts that it will be driven by healthy consumer spending that should grow by 7.5 percent in 2017 due to greater room capacity in casino resorts, which will encourage longer stays.

Fitch believes the mass-market segment will remain underpenetrated in the Asia-Pacific region in the long term.

The company added that despite delays to major infrastructure projects  such as the HKZM bridge, the Taipa passenger ferry terminal, a rail link to Zhuhai airport and the Light Rail project in Macau  new casino openings on Cotai are performing in line with Fitchs expectations. Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands produced annualized incremental EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) of USD100 million and USD200 million, respectively. These figures also account for cannibalization at existing properties.

Fitch expects the incremental benefits of Cotai investments to improve throughout 2017 as the Light Rail and MGM Cotai construction conclude.
An elusive overseas billionaire who for months publicly threatened to expose high-level corruption in Chinas ruling Communist Party was named in an Interpol arrest notice before he appeared live on a U.S. broadcaster, which abruptly cut off the interview just as he hinted at his allegations.

Guo Wengui gave a Chinese-language interview with the U.S.-government-funded Voice of America for about 80 minutes yesterday [Macau time] before the hosts cut short the program, which was to be three hours. The cutoff raised heckles from VoAs online audience and questions about Chinese political interference behind the scenes, which the broadcaster denied.

The interview was less than six hours after foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced that Interpol had issued a red notice seeking Guos arrest. Lu gave no details about Guos alleged crimes, but The South China Morning Post reported that he is suspected of bribing a disgraced top intelligence official.

In messages to The Associated Press earlier yesterday, Guo said he believed the Interpol notice was intended to pressure him to drop out of the VoA interview later in the day.

Guo did not respond to questions about his relationship with the former top intelligence official but dismissed the Interpol notice as a meaningless ploy from the Chinese leadership.

Interpols red notice for Guo could also revive concerns over the election of a top Chinese police official as Interpols president in November. Guo is believed to be in the U.S. or Britain, two countries that do not have extradition treaties with China.

As Guos live interview with VoA began, the programs hosts told viewers that Chinese officials had summoned VoA representatives in Beijing to warn them against giving Guo a platform for unsubstantiated allegations.

The program abruptly ended just as Guo launched into a meandering description of the intrigue and mutual suspicions gripping senior party leaders, including President Xi Jinping and one of his closest allies. The on-air VoA host said they needed to immediately stop due to certain kinds of reasons.

Twitter soon lit up with commentary among overseas Chinese dissidents and political observers about possible political interference. Guo took to Twitter himself to say that Chinas foreign ministry was behind the sudden cut.

In a statement, VoA spokeswoman Bridget Serchak said a one-hour interview was planned to be simulcast live on TV, radio and social media, and any additional material was meant to be packaged for editing.

We had multiple plans to conduct additional interviews with the subject for social media and late yesterday made the editorial decision to record this material, edit and post it in the coming days, Serchak said. In a miscommunication, the stream was allowed to continue beyond the first hour. When this was noticed the feed was terminated.

Bill Bishop, a Chinese political watcher who publishes the Sinocism newsletter, said party leaders appear to be increasingly concerned that Guo will reveal information that would cripple high-level officials who are being lined up for key jobs at the party congress.

A bombshell that screws up the personnel arrangement is exactly the kind of thing that Beijing does not want, Bishop said, adding that Guos allegations of rampant corruption involving even the top official in charge of the partys anti-graft agency has thoroughly undermined the partys propaganda efforts.

Guo allegations have highlighted the real issue that corruption unfortunately appears to be in the DNA of Chinas system, Bishop said.

Rights advocates have warned that the abuses and lack of transparency within Chinas legal system meant there was the potential for Interpol to be misused to attack Beijings political opponents.

Our warnings about the risk of political instrumentalization of Interpol after putting high ranking (Chinese Communist Party) official at the top were not overblown, Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty Internationals regional director for East Asia, wrote on Twitter.

Days before the Interpol notice for Guo, The New York Times published a report citing corporate registration documents and interviews that appeared to corroborate at least some of Guos claims about business dealings among party elites. MDT/AP
Following the MSARs new restrictions on the duration of stay for non-resident workers who leave their place of employment, migrant workers are more likely to cling to recruitment agencies in hopes of finding immediate employment.

Yet these firms are the stuff of horror stories. Indonesian domestic helpers complain of paying placement fees ranging between MOP2,500 and MOP3,000 a month  totaling almost MOP24,000 for an eight-month period  while Filipino helpers reportedly fork out a one-time payment of up to MOP5,500.

Some recruitment agencies refused to assist victims altogether. A few such firms require a non-refundable payment just for a chance to be interviewed by a potential employer.

Yosa Wariyanti, president of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union, revealed that around 10 Indonesian helpers sought the associations assistance this year regarding their mistreatment at the hands of employers. These individuals were refused help from the same recruitment agencies through which they were hired.

According to Wariyanti, the recruitment agencies were unwilling to help the victims of maltreatment, even in cases where employers refused to grant them a day off.

[The agencies] keep their passports. Some agencies only give them part-time [jobs] until the visa for two months is finished, she told the Times.

Waranti said she is aware of cases where an employer fires their helper and the agency adds an extra two-month fee, forcing the helper to give up a total of ten months salary.

If they dont want to continue with this agency or if they choose to find another agency, they must pay around MOP16,000.

These abusive practices are also common in Hong Kong.

Hans Ladegaard, Head of English at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, has written a book that examines the patterns and causes of helper abuse in Hong Kong, involving more than 300 domestic workers.

In the 300-plus stories I have recorded in Hong Kong, I do not have a single example to show that a helper received any help from the agency to which she has paid almost her entire salary for half a year or more, Ladegaard stated in a report by the South China Morning Post.

According to the report, most agencies in Hong Kong offer a buy one, get one free deal, which permits employers to try one or more helper for three months with no additional fees.

Although most agencies in Macau place notices outside their doors that state We will not help foreigners who hold travel visas to find a job, or Tourist visa holders cannot apply for jobs in Macau, for some agencies, these are just for show.

As tourist visa holders in Macau are not encouraged to seek jobs, most have to accept any offer they can get from the agencies despite the large fees they incur, especially when their visas are about to expire.

Meanwhile, the duration of stay for non-resident workers who have been in the MSAR for more than six months, and whose contract has been terminated or run its course, has been reduced to eight days. This means migrant workers face greater pressure to find employment quickly.

Melody Lu, an assistant professor of the Department of Sociology at the University of Macau argued that this policy would leave migrant workers more vulnerable.

We already know the common practice right now: that migrant workers always find a way to start looking for a job; and [when] you make the [allowed stay] shorter, you just make them more vulnerable for they will feel obliged to accept undesirable working conditions, she told the Times.

Or they will [] pay for the higher fee next time to brokers that will put them in debt. [] So this measure of shortening the days is not going to be effective in controlling illegal migration but [] you make them more vulnerable, you make the gray area much more visible.

The Times visited several local recruitment agencies, but only a few agreed to an interview. Some claimed that they only accept payments from employers, not employees.

We only accept payments from local employers and help them process the documents in the immigration, claimed one agent.

The employers shoulder the fee for its employees, said another.

These agencies said they had only asked employers to pay them around MOP1,000.

However, a few Filipino domestic migrant workers outside the same recruitment centers said they were required to pay up to MOP5,500 or an amount equivalent to one months salary.

If youre really looking for a job, you would really grab it despite the amount, because you need it, said a worker who did not want to be identified. She previously worked as a domestic employee in Hong Kong.

Questioned on the differences between contracts in Hong Kong and Macau, she lamented that, in Hong Kong, contracts are submitted to immigration, so the employers follow the contract. Here in Macau, only a few employers follow what is written in the contract.

She added that the six-month ban is problematic for domestic workers, particularly if there are no grounds for the ban.

The Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) said it plans to solve the problem of non-residents entering the region as visitors and then switching to non-resident workers.

The bureau said it plans to work with the Public Security Police Force (PSP) to require non-residents engaged in non-specialized and domestic work to hold a work-related permit issued by the Macau immigration authorities before entering the region and being granted a stay permit as worker.

In a reply to the Times, DSAL claimed that the measure distinguishes between non-residents entering Macau for work-related purposes instead of tourism.

It will help to strengthen the importation management of non-specialized and domestic workers, the bureau noted, adding that it is in contact with other departments regarding improvements to relevant laws and regulations.

However, Melody Lu argued that such policies would mean that employers would not be able to choose employees, and vice versa.

She added that the proposed policies would increase the risks of not finding a suitable migrant worker, and increase agency costs.

The [agency fee] has to be shared between the employer and the employee because if you only [assign] all the risk and the fee to the workers, and the documentation to the migrant workers, I can tell you none of them will come to Macau, the professor argued.

The scholar also reasoned that while the local government aims to protect local jobs, it should separate domestic work from other employment sectors.

As local residents refuse to work for wages as low as those of foreign domestic workers, Lu stressed that Macau is quite dependent on domestic work, citing the huge demand for female labor in the hospitality and gaming industries.

At the moment, Macaus wage is way lower than Hong Kong and Taiwan [] The laws in Taiwan and Hong Kong offer more protection in terms of labor law and human rights, she said.

So if youre paying less and it is more difficult, they cant change employer, or they have a risk of these [rights violations], who would want to come to Macau?

Lu concluded that that if such policies must be revised, laws such as an increase in salaries and housing allowances, along with a protection law should be implemented.

Otherwise none of [the] migrant workers will come for sure. If they dont come, how can Macau be ready to handle that?

The scholar reiterated her belief that the government must first devise measures to protect migrant workers before tightening industry regulations.
One of Macaus major banks has granted more than MOP3 billion (about USD375 million) to support companies doing business in the Belt and Road regions since 2016, local media reported yesterday.

Macao Daily reported that Macao Branch, Bank of China (BOCMacao) has worked with the Macau SAR government as well as countries and regions along Chinas Belt and Road.

BOCMacao has granted loans to companies from Macau, the Chinese mainland and overseas to develop programs in Vietnam, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel, Indonesia, Myanmar, and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

The programs mainly support finance, port construction, energy development, and production capacity cooperation.

The report added that BOCMacaos programs benefited from the many advantages of Macaus financial system and pro-investment regulations, such as low taxation, no foreign exchange control, and good cross-border financial services.

BOCMacao also has business ties with regional organizations. MDT/Xinhua
Luis Barreto Xavier and Goncalo Matias  Catolica Global School of Laws director and deputy director, respectively  are in Macau to establish contacts and partnerships with local institutions.

In an exclusive interview with the Times, they discuss the schools focus on international legal education and the partnerships they intend to establish in Macau and China.

Founded in 2009 at the Law School of the Catholic University of Portugal, Catolica Global School of Law is becoming an important center of graduate teaching and research in law from a global perspective in Lisbon, according to promoters. Luis Barreto Xavier and Goncalo Matias are expected to travel to Shanghai today.

Macau Daily Times (MDT)  Your visit to Macau could lead to the establishment of local partnerships that facilitate the expansion of Catolica Global School of Law. Which institutions do you plan to contact during your stay here?

Luis Barreto Xavier (LBX)  We are here to present the activities of Catolica Global School of Law to educational institutions. The University of Saint Joseph [which is partly owned by Catolica] is our natural partner, but we will also contact other universities. We are also here to make contact with law firms and foundations, like the Rui Cunha Foundation. Basically, we are meeting important institutions in Macau that relate to the activity we develop in Lisbon, which has been attracting international students from around 50 countries. We have programs that are tailored to attract people from all over the world, including China and Macau.

MDT  What are the concrete plans for Macau? Establishing a delegation here or partnerships with local institutions?

LBX  We are not thinking about a delegation here. We want to cooperate with local institutions. The fundamental idea is to create links that promote Macau students attendance of our courses in Lisbon. Today [Wednesday] we also discussed the possibility of sending some of our students to work in Macau, or have some internship experience here. For universities, we have been discussing the possibility of setting up student exchange programs and joint initiatives with local institutions.

MDT  Is there any time frame for the implementation of those plans?

LBX  Our way of working is always that decisions must be made while keeping both feet on the ground  with ambition, but also realistically. Therefore, I think that while some of these initiatives can begin quite soon, others will probably take time.

MDT  You mentioned that the University of Saint Joseph is a natural partner. Are there any plans you want to disclose?

LBX  There are some projects by the University of Saint Joseph, but I wouldnt want to speak in their name nor in the Catholic Universitys name, because I think it may be premature.

MDT  Does Catolica Global School of Law offers only English language courses?

LBX  The Law School of the Catholic University in Lisbon has several programs in Portuguese. The international unit inside the faculty, namely the Global School of Law, has English programs.

MDT  Are those all post-graduate programs?

LBX  We have post-graduate programs  the LL.M [Master of Laws]  which have Anglo-Saxon roots. We have a PhD program in English, which is unique in Portugal, and in the Law degree, which is mainly in Portuguese, we have several academic disciplines in English, which we call Transnational Law and are coordinated by my colleague Goncalo Matias.

Goncalo Matias (GM)  The program [Transnational Law] is not focused on the legal system of any country in particular. It gives the students knowledge about transnational law. It includes introductory subjects in order to understand this issue, which is a new reality but still under construction. Furthermore, it covers more specific themes, such as public law, universalization of human rights, private law and property rights. It therefore covers several areas of transnational law in English with lecturers who come from the most prestigious universities all over the world.

MDT  Does that type of transnational program have the potential to attract local and mainland Chinese students?

LBX  We already have a batch of students from Macau and a small group from mainland China in the post-graduate program. The interest is already there but we want it to grow.

MDT  What is your opinion of Macau law and its relationship with Portuguese law?

LBX  The idea I have, following these first contacts and the prior knowledge I had, is that it is dynamic, which is very interesting. The Macau law is obviously Portuguese [in origin], but it has developed. There is interest in training new legal experts to work and develop the Macau law so it becomes useful to the development of Macaus economy. The concrete application of Macau law, which presupposes academic knowledge, is essential, so that it wont fade when the 50-year transitional period expires [in 2049].

GM  On the other hand, we also feel that this legal system makes sense. It doesnt exist only because it was set up during the transitional period [prior to the handover]. It used to be said that Macau law was condemned to disappear, but it also makes sense in the Chinese and lusophone contexts. This legal system has an added value worth preserving and developing.

MDT  Macau is being positioned as a platform between China and the Portuguese-speaking countries. The previously mentioned Transnational Law has a strategic interest to Macau

GM  It has, and I think that China has an interest in fostering that relationship. We must not forget that all the lusophone world has a common judicial culture and language. To have Macau serve as a platform, it is also important to have a legal system with a lusophone basis.

Catholic University rector visits Macau

The rector of Catholic University (UCP), Isabel Capeloa Gil, will be visiting Macau until April 27 to meet local civil and ecclesiastic authorities and witness joint initiatives between the University of Saint Joseph and UCP. The rector, who grew up in Macau, is making her first visit to the territory following the inauguration of the new directorate council in October 2016. During the visit, she will discuss new possibilities for cooperation with the regions universities. According to a UCP press release, the university is developing an internationalization plan and many students from Macau already attend its courses of Law, Translation, and Portuguese Studies, as well as teacher courses for Portuguese as a Second Language. UCP is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
A Tibetan Buddhist monk set himself on fire in an apparent protest against Beijings rule, a monitoring group and a U.S. government-backed radio station said.

The monk set himself ablaze in a public square on Saturday morning in Kardze, also known as Ganzi, according to Radio Free Asia and Free Tibet, an advocacy group based in Britain.

The unidentified monk was taken away after the fire was extinguished by security forces, reports said. It was unclear if he survived.

A man who answered the phone at the local police station yesterday said he was unaware of the case and not clear about the situation. The government for Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which includes the town of Kardze, referred questions to police.

A YouTube video purported to be of the incident showed two men spraying fire extinguishers on what appeared to be a body at the edge of a busy street as a crowd gathered.

Free Tibet acquired the video from a witness who posted it on social media, according to John Jones, a spokesman for the group.

If the self-immolation is confirmed, it would be the 148th recorded case of a Tibetan self-immolating since 2009, according to Radio Free Asia and Free Tibet. At least 125 have died, according to monitoring groups.

China claims Tibet has been part of its territory for more than seven centuries and regards the Dalia Lama, Tibets exiled Buddhist leader, as a dangerous separatist. Many Tibetans insist they were essentially independent for most of that time and have protested what they regard as Chinas heavy-handed rule.

Self-immolations peaked in 2012 with 83 that year, Jones said. A security crackdown has made it more difficult to confirm subsequent incidents, particularly in the Tibetan Autonomous Region that includes Tibets regional capital, Lhasa, he said.

Before lighting themselves on fire, many cried out for Tibetan independence or prayed for the return of the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959, eyewitnesses have been quoted as saying.

The most recent previous incident, also in Kardze, was in mid-March, when a Tibetan man identified by monitors as Pema Gyaltsen set himself on fire. Jones said Monday that the 24-year-old farmers fate remains unknown.

Chinese officials last week lashed out at India for hosting the Dalai Lama near their disputed border and said that, by allowing the Tibetan spiritual leaders visit, India was violating its commitment to respect Chinas claims to the region. Matthew Brown, Beijing, AP
COEUR DALENE (AP)  A former Kootenai County Sheriffs deputy accused of kidnapping and beating his estranged wife has pleaded not guilty to four felonies.

Gavin D. Brodwater, 39, maintained his innocence to charges of first-degree stalking, second-degree kidnapping, domestic battery and violating a no-contact order, The Coeur dAlene Press reported Friday.

Brodwater has been accused of twice luring his wife into his vehicle after calling her on her cellphone, which violated the no-contact order, police said. He is also accused of driving her to his house and forcing her to stay despite her efforts to leave.

The couple were separated and living apart when the incidents occurred. In one case, Brodwater allegedly kept his wife for six hours against her will in his Post Falls home.

The woman told police the incident was the second in a series of violations of the no-contact order, including an incident in February in which Brodwater allegedly struck her, causing her to bleed from the nose and mouth.

In the February incident, the woman told police she left a bar in Post Falls and noticed Brodwater following her.

Gavin had been blowing up her phone that day and she was not speaking with him, according to a report by Post Falls Police Officer Alex Clark.

When she pulled over, Brodwater forced her into his vehicle, drove her to his house and kept her there for six hours against her will, police said.

Brodwater is a former Coeur dAlene Police reservist. He had worked for the county sheriffs office from 2001-11 and had his Idaho police certification revoked in 2013. He more than anyone would understand the ramifications and seriousness of violating (the no-contact order), Detective John Mason wrote.

District Judge Scott Wayman did not set a jury trial date, but unless the defendant waives his right to a speedy trial, the court has six months from Brodwaters March indictment to have a trial. The trial will likely be set between July and September, according to Waymans office.
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In order to showcase the states doing right by Mother Earth, WalletHubs analysts compared the 50 states in terms of 20 key metrics that speak to the current health of the environment and the environmental impact of residents daily habits. The data set ranges from total municipal solid waste per capita to energy-efficiency score to carbon-dioxide emissions per capita.
BOISE  New hunter? Or a hunter new to Idaho? You're invited to the Idaho Big Game Hunting 101 workshop by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The May 6 outdoor skills workshop will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Fish and Game Headquarters, 600 S. Walnut in Boise. Cost is $15.

Topics will include how to apply for controlled hunts, Idahos Hunter Education requirements, the big game regulation book, proper field dressing of big game and more. Participants will be served a venison lunch.
TWIN FALLS  Chobanis founder Hamdi Ulukaya was named to the 2017 TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

This is the first time the CEO of an Idaho business has been named to the list.

Each year our TIME 100 list lets us step back and measure the forces that move us, Nancy Gibbs, TIME editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs, said in a statement. One way or another they each embody a breakthrough: they broke the rules, broke the record, broke the silence, broke the boundaries to reveal what were capable of.

Ulukaya founded Chobani in New Berlin, N.Y., in 2007. Then in 2012 he opened the worlds largest yogurt manufacturing facility in Twin Falls. In May 2016, Ulukaya announced a $100 million investment to the Twin Falls plant. Chobani was recently named by Fast Company as one of the 10 most innovative companies in the world and No. 1 in its food and social good categories.

I think its a tremendous honor for Hamdi and Chobani and something we can be proud of here in Twin Falls, Twin Falls Mayor Shawn Barigar said.

Ulukaya came to the U.S. from Turkey 23 years ago on a student visa. Today, he is a billionaire and philanthropist. He founded the Tent Foundation, which aims to help end the global refugee crisis, and committed the majority of his personal wealth to the cause. For his work, he was named an Eminent Advocate by the United Nations Refugee Agency and received the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Award. He also sits on the board of the International Board of Special Olympics, the Pathfinder Village and The American Turkish Council.

Last year, Ulukaya announced a profit-sharing program for his companys 2,000 employees. He also created a six week, fully paid parental leave program for all of the companys mothers and fathers.

It really recognizes him for the brave business sense he has, Barigar said. Chobani as a company is not that old. It recognizes him for his business, but also points to his personal philosophies and his support of immigrants and his personal commitment to some of the challenges of the refugee crisis internationally.
DECLO  A man charged with killing his wife in a slaying authorities called shocking and horrifying pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder.

Ronnie Gene Kincaid Jr., 36, will spend a minimum of 15 to 20 years and possibly up to life in prison for the murder of his wife, 34-year-old Melissia Dawn Kincaid.

Attorneys on both sides have agreed to the life sentence, and Kincaid will be eligible for parole no sooner than 15 years and no later than 20 years, depending on the sentence imposed by District Judge John Butler.

Kincaid submitted an Alford plea Thursday, meaning he maintains his innocence while acknowledging a jury likely would have convicted him at trial, which was set to begin May 1 on a first-degree murder charge and five other felonies.

Prosecutors will dismiss the other charges  including mayhem, destruction of evidence and two counts of sexual penetration by forcible use of a foreign object  in exchange for the murder plea.

Ive had numerous conversations with the victims (family), and theyre on board with this agreement, Cassia County Prosecutor Doug Abenroth told the court Thursday. I dont know if theyre super excited about it, but they are in agreement.

The lesser second-degree murder charge to which Kincaid pleaded guilty to accuses him of killing his wife with malice aforethought but without premeditation  by penetrating her vagina and/or rectum with a foreign object, causing exsanguination, or bleeding to death.

Defense attorney Tony Valdez told Butler his client would have entered a straight guilty plea to manslaughter as opposed to the Alford plea to second-degree murder because Kincaid disputes the malice and intent of the crime, but not the cause of death.

An autopsy revealed Melissia Dawn Kincaid bled to death from vaginal and rectal trauma. Her husband told deputies she had recently been experiencing female medical problems and she became unresponsive after the couple had sex about 2:30 a.m. on Sep. 6, 2015.

Kincaid said he put her in the shower to try to wake her up, then put her in bed, went to sleep next to her and didnt call 911 until 9 a.m.

When a coroners deputy arrived, he said rigor mortis was already setting in. Investigators also found evidence Melissia Kincaids body had been washed and the crime scene had been cleaned before they arrived.

Kincaids son, Ronnie Kincaid III, was initially charged with accessory to murder and destroying and concealing evidence. Deputies said he helped his father wash DNA and blood from his stepmothers body.

But prosecutors dismissed the charges against the younger Kincaid last April. Abenroth said at the time he planned to refile charges, but has yet to do so more than a year later.

The prosecutor said the plea deal was reached after negotiations began in January, stalled for six weeks, then started back up March 16 during a mediation session with Senior Judge Richard St. Clair.

From that point on, this case has been negotiated quite heavily, Abenroth told the court.

When Butler asked Kincaid how he wished to plea, Kincaid paused several seconds before answering.

Uhm, pursuant to the Alford plea, I plead guilty, he answered.

Butler ordered Kincaid to undergo a presentence investigation, typical in any felony case, and a psychosexual evaluation given the underlying circumstances.

Kincaid, convicted of third-degree rape in Klamath County, Ore., in 2001, also faces a probation violation for failing to register as a sex offender. That issue will be taken up at sentencing, scheduled for June 9.
David R. Stoker, 80, of Twin Falls died Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at his home. Arrangements are under the direction of Reynolds Funeral Chapel of Twin Falls.

Louie Parks, age 87, of Burley, died Thursday, April 20, 2017, at Park View Rehabilitation and Care Center. Arrangements are pending and will be announced by the Rasmussen Funeral Home of Burley.

Mary Belle Powell, 88, of Hansen, passed away Wednesday, April 19, 2017 with her loving family at her side. Arrangements are under the direction of Parkes Magic Valley Funeral Home, Twin Falls, Idaho.

Marilyn Margaret McKim, 89, of Idaho Falls, and formerly of Heyburn, passed away Wednesday, April 19, 2017, at her home in Idaho Falls. Arrangements are pending and will be announced by the Rasmussen Funeral Home of Burley.
April 16, 1943  April 18, 2017

WENDELL  Bobby J. Barker, age 74, of Wendell, passed away at the Twin Falls Care Center, in Twin Falls, on Tuesday, April 18, 2017. Services will be at Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel, in Mountain Home, on Friday, April 21, 2017, with a viewing at 11:30 a.m. and funeral services at 1:00 p.m. Burial with military honors will follow at Mountain View Cemetery, in Mountain Home.

Bob was born on April 16, 1943 to Clifford & Rose Barker, in Harrison, Arkansas. During his early years, Bob worked at Jordons Buffalo Ranch, located in the panhandle of Oklahoma. He learned to handle horses and life lessons, from the old hands at the ranch.

In the mid 1950s, Bobby Joe and his mother Rose, relocated in Jerome, Idaho. At the age of sixteen, Bob enlisted in the United States Army, something he would never forget and often said that he would do over again if ever given the chance. He attended boot camp at Fort Ord in California, breezing through his basic training as he knew how to handle himself from prior jobs, such as the one in Oklahoma.

Fort Knox, Kentucky was his next home away from home, leaving from there to his next posting in Germany where he served for three years. While in Germany, he met his first wife Heidi. They were married and had two children, Robert and Anna-Christine, returning with them to the states at the end of his tour. Bob, not being one to sit still, re-enlisted and was sent to Vietnam for a second tour, where he was attached to an Armored Infantry Division, starting out as a tank driver, then being promoted to a Sergeant rank and a tank commander. Bob and Heidi later separated while he was on his second tour and their children finished schooling in Filer, Idaho, before setting out to make their way in the world. Following his Honorable Discharge and being awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in combat, Bob spent many years exploring this nation behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler.

Bobby Joe later met Barbara Nelson in the spring of 1989, whom he later married. Bob and Barbara enjoyed their years together, watching grandchildren grow and meeting the great grandchildren as they came into their lives.

Bob is survived by his wife Barbara of Wendell, his sons David Nelson, of Kimberly, Shane Barker, of Wisconsin, Robert Andreason, of Boise, his daughter Anna and her husband John Pons, of Burley, his brother Tom Pegram, of Crouch, his sisters Margaret Bitz of Emmett, Rose Crowder, of Horseshoe Bend, and Sue Wood, of Mountain Home. He was preceded in death by his parents, sister Judy, and his brother David.

The family suggests donations in Bobs memory be sent to a favorite charity.
October 1, 1983April 11, 2017

On April 11, 2017 Catherine Elin Gregerson nee Burkhalter and her unborn son passed away. She will be missed more than any words can express.

Cadie was born in Landstuhl, Germany on October 1, 1983, raised in Sandy, Utah and attended Jordan High. Cadie moved to Twin Falls, Idaho in 2012.

Cadie is survived by daughter Lilly, mother, Suzanne Burkhalter (Las Vegas), father, Ed Burkhalter (Philadelphia), brothers Ian (Las Vegas), Jimmy (Philadelphia) and Eddie (MI). She also leaves behind grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Cadie was preceded in death by her beloved grandmother, Darlene Simmons.

Her death has left a hole in our hearts.

Memorial Services will be held in Twin Falls, Idaho on April 29th. Cadies ashes will be interred at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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After five weeks on the run, a Tennessee teacher who kidnapped and fled with his 15-year-old student was arrested Thursday deep in the mountains of northern California, authorities said.

"I'm glad this is over," 50-year-old Tad Cummins said after his arrest, according to Siskiyou County sheriff's Sgt. Mike Gilley.

Elizabeth Thomas was found safe in a remote cabin in Cecilville, northwest of Redding. The pair spent one night in the cabin before the arrest, but they may have been in the area for about a week, Gilley said.

The cabin's caretaker alerted law enforcement to their presence and helped them hatch a plan to draw Cummins from the residence unarmed and without Thomas, the cabin's owner told CNN.

The arrest ends a nationwide manhunt that began on March 13, when Cummins fled with Elizabeth from their small town of Culleoka, Tennessee. Cummins face federal and state charges stemming from her disappearance.

But the search for answers is far from over.

"There aren't words in the English language to describe the level of relief and elation experienced by the Thomas family," said Jason Whatley, attorney for the family. "Now begins another hard chapter, but for now, we celebrate."

Alert residents assist capture

The pair disappeared as a police investigation into their relationship was heating up. Cummins had been suspended after a student reported seeing them kissing in a classroom.

Surveillance video showed the pair at a Walmart in Oklahoma City on March 15. But after that, the trail went cold.

The break came when someone encountered Cummins in Siskiyou County, more than 2,000 miles from Culleoka, and called the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation tip line.

The caller said Cummins had taken up residence in Cecilville, about two hours from the nearest police station. Siskiyou County deputies searched the area and found a silver Nissan Rogue parked outside the cabin, TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said. They confirmed through the VIN number that it belonged to Cummins.

The TBI earlier had said the two were found in a commune, but later backed off that description. The cabin is close to a commune called Black Bear Ranch but it's not part of the commune, said the cabin's owner, Monk O'Hare. He was not on the property when the pair was there.

The cabin's caretaker spoke to the couple, O'Hare said. He added that a friend of his was also at the property and saw the couple.

The friend told him something didn't seem right, O'Hare said. Cummins told O'Hare's friend that he was 44 years old, the young woman with him was 22 and they were recently married. He added that when Thomas wanted to share something she would whisper stuff in Cummins ear and then Cummins would repeat it.

Their vehicle did not have license plates and he noticed that the young woman would not get out of the car when the man got out. The property caretaker called the sheriff's department and helped them devise a plan to capture Cummins, O'Hare said,

That next morning, the caretaker asked Cummins to come outside and help him build a rock wall on the property. When Cummins went outside, investigators were there to arrest him, O'Hare said.

Gilley confirmed that his team worked with a neighbor to draw Cummins out of the cabin in order to separate him from Elizabeth. Snipers surrounded the cabin as Cummins exited the cabin and was taken into custody. Elizabeth was walking behind him and was detained.

He described her condition as alternating between "stoic" and "emotional," understandable given the circumstances, he said.

"It was a very traumatic experience for her. Her mood was very alternating," he said. "The two obviously have a relationship ... her response to us and to law enforcement escalated up and down."

'It only takes one tip'

Elizabeth is in federal custody and arrangements are being made for her return home as soon as Friday. As of Thursday evening, her family was waiting to communicate with her before speaking publicly.

The main concern is for her emotional well-being, TBI Director Mark Gwyn said.

"As we have said from the start, it only takes one tip," Gwyn said. "This is yet another example of the value of the public helping us to rescue a kidnapping victim."

After the capture, Cummins was charged with one federal count of transportations of a minor across state lines for the purpose of criminal sexual intercourse, said Jack Smith, acting US attorney for Middle District of Tennessee. The charge carries a minimum of 10 years.

He faces state charges of sexual contact with a minor and aggravated kidnapping, the TBI said last month.

But state law allows children older than 12 to decide whether to leave their families, unless their removal or confinement "is accomplished by force, threat or fraud."

That means to prove a kidnapping took place, prosecutors will have to show Elizabeth was unlawfully removed or had her freedom restricted.

Estranged wife speaks out

Cummins' estranged wife, Jill Cummins, was "very emotional" when she learned both were found safe, her attorney, Michael Cox, said.

"She is excited that they were found and nobody was hurt," Cox said. "She has not spoken to Tad."

Jill Cummins had filed for divorce, saying she felt betrayed by her husband. She had no idea why her husband went to northern California.

"This is not somewhere they had frequently visited," her attorney said. "I'm not aware that they had ever been there."

CNN's Sara Sidner reported and wrote from Yreka, California. CNN's Holly Yan and Emanuella Grinberg wrote and reported from Atlanta. Journalist Burt Staggs, CNN's AnneClaire Stapleton, Roxanne Garcia, Natisha Lance, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Artemis Moshtaghian and HLN's Mike Galanos contributed to this report.
A man who shot a Parisian police officer to death on the Champs-Elysees Thursday night was known to French security services for radical Islamist activities, a source close to the investigation told CNN.
First impressions matter, our parents told us. Comb your hair, tuck in your shirt, put on a smile and give a firm handshake.

So we should all be applauding the $4.3 million in upgrades to the Twin Falls airport. For a lot of visitors, the airport makes the first (and last) impression for what folks will think of Twin Falls.

Twin Falls has grown up, County Commissioner Don Hall said Wednesday at the dedication ceremony for the newly remodeled airport. This is a huge part of our economic development.

How?

SkyWest Airlines, the airports only carrier, said the upgrades have the potential to bring expanded services. Officials also hope the remodel increases the chances travelers will fly out of Twin rather than driving to Boise or Salt Lake City to catch flights.

The Transportation Safety Administration called the project a milestone for a community like Twin Falls.

The upgrades were designed to speed up security lines (which were already blazingly fast compared with the above-mentioned airports) and provide more comforts to travelers.

Theres now free wireless internet. The seating area is larger, illuminated by more natural light. There are also bathrooms once you get through security. And the security line has been repositioned to allow for better flow throughout the airport. And if you accidentally left that big bottle of shampoo in your bag and it needs to be searched, it wont happen in clear view of everyone else in line. The remodel included a more private bag-search area.

Its going to be a considerable savings, definitely, convenience-wise, which will result in efficiency and save time, said TSA Idaho Federal Security Director Andrew Coose.

The city and county co-own the airport and split the costs for the upgrades: just $179,000 total. The feds picked up the other 95 percent of the cost. Thats a heck of a deal for the local governments, who were able to make a small investment that could yield big dividends if more people choose the Twin Falls airport over other larger regional hubs.

Factor in gas, parking, travel time and a hotel room if you have to catch an early flight, and the Twin Falls airport starts to look a lot more attractive than those other airports, especially now with the upgrades thatll make traveling out of Twin Falls even smoother.
Amid the increasingly intense discussions surrounding the inevitable replacement of some 350,000 15-year-old diesel-fed jeepneys around the country, the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines has expressed optimism about replacing even just a small chunk of those vehicles with electric jeepneys.

EVAP president Rommel Juan says the association believes its members are now ready to help the governments Jeepney Modernization Program by replacing the traditional jeepneys, which often belch smoke, with cleaner EJeepneys.

The requirement is huge, so that is why we are confident there is room for everybody. As one, EVAP members are ready to supply the demand not as competitors but as partners, Juan said.

The EJeepney movement in the country started eight years ago through an NGO called Green Renewable Independent Power Producer and the Philippine Parts Makers Association, with its affiliate Philippine Utility Vehicle Inc. as the pioneer manufacturer and assembler.

Initial units were deployed in Makati under its Makati Green Route. Now, there are EJeepneys plying routes at Filinvest City Alabang, Muntinlupa City, Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University, Meralco, and other resorts and establishments.

ADVERTISEMENT

Juan explains that EJeepneys are the natural progression of the traditional public utility vehicles.

They are environment friendly, pollution free, quiet and economical. Now that the government is serious about the Jeepney Modernization Program, we at EVAP are ready to take on the challenge, he said.

We just finished updating our EV Industry Roadmap, so we know exactly how to go about it. We are now encouraging investors to set up one of the most important EV infrastructure, the battery charging and swapping stations, so they would be in place in strategic locations before we bring in EJeepneys in big volumes.

EVAP is also encouraging foreign players to come in, Juan revealed.

But rather than putting up facilities by themselves and pouring in huge investments right away, we encourage them to partner with EVAP members first. Our members already have the proper business licenses and local know-how to cut the learning curve, he said.

This will also give them better control of the QCD (quality, cost and delivery) aspects of the business.

We are looking forward to a greener and brighter future for the Philippine public transport sector, Juan said, so that is why on June 29 to 30, 2017, EVAP is organizing with the Board of Investments and Meralco the first-ever ASEAN Electric and Hybrid Vehicles Summit 2017 at the World Trade Center.

We can show everyone that our EV industry is not far behind our ASEAN neighbors, and is ready to take on the challenge of jeepney modernization.

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At the end of the Egyptian-Sudanese political consultation committee meetings on Thursday in Khartoum, the foreign ministers of the two countries held a joint press conference renewing their efforts to foster the ties between their governments after the recent setbacks in their relations. Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour said the government will not allow any Egyptian opposition group to carry out negative activities from Sudanese territory. Both sides have traded accusations of supporting opposition groups from each others country. He added that it is important to prevent opposition groups from our countries, especially armed groups, from carrying out negative activities against both countries.

The visiting Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry noted that the rise in regional and international terrorist activities has increased the importance of cooperation with our Sudanese brothers to face these challenges. He gave assurances that Cairo would work hand in hand with Khartoum to boost the bilateral relations. Egypt thinks that the media is contributing to hampering ties between the two states with its irresponsible handling of reports concerning the two countries.

Ties between the two countries have been marked with opposing views over the Halayeb Triangle and Khartoums support to the Ethiopias Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. Cairo considers the dam as a threat to its livelihood because it will affect its Rive Nile supply which is its main source for water.

Sudan had threatened to take the matter of the Halayeb Triangle to the UN as a reactionary measure for Egypts alleged support to the Sudanese opposition. Halayeb is a sparsely populated 25,000-sq.-km border region occupied by Egypt in 1995 as relations between the two countries reached its lowest level. It seems as if the political consultations were fruitful as both sides agreed to submit the matter of their respective presidents. Sometimes, some issues require communication to resolve any problem or misunderstanding, because this relation should always be based on mutual respect and appreciation, Shoukry said.

Earlier this month, Sudan issued an order requiring male Egyptian citizens between 18 and 49 years of age to obtain an entry visa from Sudans embassies and consulates when visiting the country. Since 2004, Egyptians enjoyed visa-free travel to Sudan.
Italys Prime Minister Paolo Gentilonis call for the US to undertake a significant role in war torn Libya has been turned down by President Donald Trump. In a joint press conference at the White House, Gentiloni stated that we need a stable and unified Libya and the US role in this is critical. Trumps response to his remarks was swift. I dont see a role in Libya, he stressed before highlighting that we have enough roles. We have a role everywhere with reference to the numerous US military engagements around the world.

The Italian Prime Minister highlighted the contribution of the US Special Forces in defeating the Islamic State group that established a caliphate in Sirte. He also dwelled on the common commitment against terrorism between Rome and Washington as well as the necessity to socially and economically collaborate with Muslim communities to effectively combat it.

Trump said the US has a role in getting rid of ISIS describing it as the primary role which will come to an end at a certain point. He said the process of battling the extremist group has proven to be very effective.

The instability in Libya has been ongoing since the end of Gaddafis regime in 2011 and successive authorities that have emerged have failed to unite the country. Gentiloni warned that a divided country and in conflict would make civility worse. The North African country is being used as a gateway to Europe by illegal immigrants and Italy has been struggling to deal with the phenomenon. It is seeking a post-conflict nation-building plan including the eventual return of the illegal migrants to their home countries.

President Trump is unlikely to welcome such plans after stating that the priority was getting rid of ISIS and well be able to go back home and rebuild our country. Trump held his presidential campaign under the banner America First and had vowed in April last year that the US, under his presidency, will be getting out of the nation-building business.
Ahmadinejads application to be a candidate is Irans May presidential election has been rejected by the Guardian Council, the body that vets applicants, according to the Interior Ministry. The decision does not seem to come as a surprise after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneis urged him not to run for elections because it is not in his interest and that of the country.

Ahmadinejad served as Irans president from 2005 to 2013. He said there was no reason for his disqualification. Although not in the race, he told Al Jazeera that everyone, including Iran, must change their policies, especially in Syria before explaining that there should be a serious call for dialogue and peace based on the many common issues between us. Khamenei considers him as a person that would create bipolar opposites and divisions in the country as president which he believes is harmful for the country.

Ahmadinejad registered alongside his former vice president Hamid Baghaie saying that his presence and registration is only to support him. More than 1600 people registered as candidates for the May 19 election but the Guardian Council only approved six; amongst them current President Hassan Rouhani and rival Ebrahim Raisi.

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a close ally of Ahmadinejad, downplayed Ahmadinejad and Baghaies exclusion because they only registered out of national, religious and revolutionary duty, in a post on the social media. Thank god, the Guardian Council removed the duty from their shoulders, he wrote.

Tehran-based political analyst Soroush Farhadi, said the former president was an unwanted guest in the election, but would try to be active during the campaign to create a quasi-opposition face for himself for the future.

Ahmadinejad told reporters after his registration that Khameneis statement was just advice and an advice was not a ban on his candidacy as claimed by some people.
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.
The World Bank cut its growth projection for sub-Saharan Africa this year after a tumultuous period in 2016.

According to the bank, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow at a moderate rate of 2.6 percent in 2017.

Growth this year will be better than the 1.3 percent in 2016, the lowest in two decades, but we are not out of the woods yet, World Bank Africa Chief Economist Albert Zeufack told reporters in a video conference on Wednesday.

The bank reduced its forecast for the regions expansion in 2018 to 3.2 percent from 3.6 percent in January.

Note that, Nigeria which is in its first recession for two decades following the crash in oil prices; continue to struggle with shortages of foreign currency.

South Africa which is also resource-reliant economy and commodity exporter has been hard hit by the slump in prices that began in 2014. While commodity markets have stabilized, prices remain subdued.

Among non-resource intensive countries, such as Ethiopia, Senegal, and Tanzania, growth is expected to remain generally solid this year, supported by domestic demand, the Bank said.
The Cameroonian government on Thursday restored internet services to the countrys Anglophone regions after over 90 days shutdown and international campaigns.

The government suspended services for Southwest and Northwest province after a series of protests that resulted in violence and the arrest of community leaders in late 2016 and earlier this year.

Hours before the restoration on Thursday, the Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary in a statement urged the populations of these regions to be vigilant (and) to continue to nip in the bud the activities of extremists, secessionists and enemies of the Republic.

In his words, the conditions that preceded the suspension of the internet to that part of the national territory have much changed.

According to Internet without Borders the shutdown has cost businesses in the affected areas an estimated amount of $723,000.

A bilingual country since independence, Cameroons government and institutions are dominated by the French-speaking majority.

Residents of the central African nations two English-speaking provinces have longstanding grievances against the largely-francophone central government, complaining of economic marginalization and the imposition of French legal and education systems upon them.

Note that the Anglophone regions account for just 20% of the Cameroons 23 million population.


@PatriciaMazzei @MaryEllenKlas

TALLAHASSEE -- Sen. Frank Artiles is expected to resign from the Florida Legislature on Friday, consumed by a scandal that erupted three days earlier over a diatribe of insults the Miami Republican unleashed against two lawmakers at a Tallahassee bar.

Word about Artiles impending resignation began to spread Friday morning in Tallahassee and Miami. Several sources confirmed to the Herald/Times that the senator intends to step aside.

Senate President Joe Negron forced Artiles to apologize on the Senate floor Wednesday for his alcohol-fueled racist and sexist Monday night tirade against Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville. But black lawmakers outraged at Artiles for calling Gibson a bitch and a girl  and for referring to some Republicans as niggas  said saying sorry was not enough: They formally sought his expulsion from the Senate.

Negron, whom Artiles had derided in his rant as a pussy, ordered an investigation. Artiles, an ex-Marine known for his combative style, hired a sharp-elbowed Tallahassee lawyer and vowed to fight.

But by Thursday afternoon, even Artiles friends in the state Capitol, convinced he couldnt possibly redeem himself, had begun to say privately that Artiles had to go. The most evident sign of his looming exit: Political hounds started chatting about his competitive seat soon becoming open.

Frank has acted honorably in his decision, and my prayers are with him as he moves on from this process, future House Speaker Jose Oliva of Miami Lakes, a longtime Artiles friend, said in an interview Friday morning.

More here.
@MaryEllenKlas

Just months before his resignation Friday, Sen. Frank Artiles scored a coup in November when he unseated Democrat Dwight Bullard with an aggressive $1 million campaign in a district that favored Democrats.

But the long list of expenditures filed with the Florida Division of Elections by Artiles political committee, Veterans for Conservative Principles, also raised some questions. Why did the committee hire a former Hooters calendar girl and a Playboy model with no political experience as consultants? Were the payments related to a trip to the Kentucky Derby or a fishing tournament in Key West? What was the more than $51,000 in reimbursements to Artiles for?

Heather Thomas, a former Hooters calendar girl and waitress at 101, a restaurant and bar in Tallahassee, was paid $2,000 between March and June of last year. The expense report lists the purpose as consultant. Her friend, Brittney Singletary, is a waitress at Stetsons on the Moon in Tallahassee. She was paid $1,500 with three checks covering three of the same dates and listing the same purpose.

Artiles political consultant David Custin refused to comment on why they listed the expenditures as consultants.

You dont have a leg to stand on to be asking these questions. Theres nothing there, he said. He referred questions to the committees treasurer, Tallahassee lobbyist Dave Ramba, who did not respond to requests for comment. He noted that Artiles, the chair of the political committee, would not be commenting.

Artiles, a Republican and a Marine Corps veteran, entered the race for the southwest Miami-Dade County district after it was redrawn last year following a bitter redistricting battle. His race became the second most expensive legislative campaign in the state.

It was a brief victory. More here.

Photo: Before departing Tallahassee for a fundraising fishing trip to Key West, Taylor M. Lockwood posted this. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. Heading to Key West in style, she wrote. #thanksfrank. via Instagram






via @learyreports

There are donations from Elizabeth Warren, Al Gore and Steven Spielberg, but Floridians powered Sen. Bill Nelsons first fundraising quarter. Nearly 80 percent of his individual contributions came from within the state, a review shows.

Nelson raised more than $2 million for the first three months of the year, a showing that dispels any talk he would not seek a fourth term in 2018. Nelson, 74, has $3.6 million in the bank.

He raised about $1.3 million from individuals, of which 78 percent came from within Florida. The rest of Nelsons haul came from PACs, including $10,000 from Sen. Warrens committee.

Is this why Nelson votes with Warren 92% of the time? asked the NRSC, which will again seek to cast the Florida Democrat as too liberal for the state, a strategy that has floundered before. Nearly identical voting records and now $10k from Warren makes it pretty clear that Nelson isnt the moderate he pretends to be.

Nelson also got $5,000 from the Moderate Democrats PAC.

Several members of Congress contributed to Nelson, either through their PACs or individually. Charlie Crist personally gave $1,000; Val Demings gave $500. Ted Deutch used his PAC to send Nelson $2,000. Former Rep. Gwen Graham did the same.

Spielberg kicked in $2,700 while his wife, Kate Capshaw, contributed $5,400. Jeffey Katzenberg of Dreamworks also maxed out with $5,400.

There are special interests galore, from Boeing to Wawa. U.S. Sugar, long a benefactor of Nelson. FEC records show five executives contributed a combined $10,500.

Nelsons report also reveals the outline of his campaign team. On his payroll are familiar names: Pete Mitchell, Dan McLaughlin, who is listed as a research consultant.

Diamond Strategies, a St. Petersburg firm run by Christina Diamond, whose husband, Ben, serves in the Legislature, took in $26,000 for fundraising work. Kevin Cates shop took in nearly $19,000 for digital advertising.

Nelson spent $12,500 for polling from Ohio-based EMC Research.

 Alex Leary, Tampa Bay Times, with Eli Murray
via @adamsmithtimes

More to come later, but John Morgan charmed an overflow crowd at the Tampa Tiger Bay Club today, where he was asked about that 2014 viral video of him, drink in hand, addressing a crowd at the Boots N Buckles saloon in Lakeland while campaigning to legalize medical marijuana in Florida.

Good question, considering how many of the people who doubt Morgan's strength as a candidate mention booze. (Morgan was charged with driving under the influence in 1997 and 1993.)

"First of all, I was not drunk when I was on that video," said Morgan, laughing off the question and explaining that he had had two drinks at Outback before that video was filed. "I guess if I use the f-word, f-bombs, people think I'm drunk. If that's the case, I'm drunk every damn day of my life. ... When I got on my bus to go back to my beach house, I got drunk. And when I got to my beach house, I got drunker. But I was not drunk at Boots N Buckles. But I do love Boots N Buckles it will be in my heart forever."

If he runs for governor  and many people in the crowd today thought he sounded more likely to run than not  Boots N Buckles may be his unofficial campaign headquarters, Morgan said.

And as for the question about whether a Morgan candidacy could survive surprise cell phone videos that might emerge, Morgan said that does not worry him a bit. "I'm never going to not be me."

"What I would say to people who make that point is this: Let all the perfect people vote for somebody else, and let all the sinners and imperfect people vote for me. I'll win in a landslide," Morgan said to applause.

He also said he had been advised that he would have to lose a lot of weight if he ran and that a doctor told him his ideal weight would be 158 pounds.

"My head alone weighs 50 pounds," he scoffed, assuring the crowd that he will not be following the Jeb Bush weight loss model if he runs. He barely recognized the former governor when he saw a picture of Bush announcing his presidential campaign.

"He was so skinny. I actually thought it was Rick Scott with a toupee."

Photo credit: CHARLIE KAIJO / Tampa Bay Times
@NewsbySmiley

It looks like Tomas N. "Tommy" Regalado, the eldest son of Miami's mayor, is preparing to run for Miami city commission.

Regalado, a producer at the federally funded TV Marti, filed paperwork this week to appoint a campaign treasurer and open a campaign account at Sabadell United Bank. Regalado has been talking for months about launching a campaign.

He says, however, that he hasn't yet committed to running for the open District 3 commission seat being vacated by term-limited Frank Carollo, and will make a final decision and announcement next week.

"I'll be making my announcement on Tuesday," he said.

The field running for Carollo's seat, which represents a district that includes West Brickell and Little Havana, is already crowded. Frank's brother, former Mayor Joe Carollo, is raising money, as is Zoraida Barreiro, the wife of County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro. Former state senator Alex Diaz de la Portilla is also strongly considering his own campaign.

Meanwhile, Alex Dominguez, Olidia "Lee" Hernandez, Alfonso Leon, Miguel Soliman, Daniel Suarez, and Jose Suarez have also filed campaign paperwork.
via @learyreports

United Airlines has snubbed Sen. Bill Nelson.

The Florida Democrat, who joined a letter demanding answers to the worldwide controversy of violently removing a passenger from a flight, says United did not sufficiently respond.

Were disappointed that neither United Airlines nor the Chicago Department of Aviation has yet provided substantive answers to the straightforward questions we asked about the forcible removal of a passenger on April 9, 2017," reads a letter from Nelson and other senators. "Getting answers for the public about what happened and what can be done to prevent such an incident from happening again is a priority for the members of our committee. We find any further delay in getting necessary answers unacceptable.

The statement was drafted by Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Nelson, who serve respectively as the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation along with Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) who serve as the chairman and ranking member of the Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security Subcommittee.

--ALEX LEARY, Tampa Bay Times


@PatriciaMazzei @MaryEllenKlas

Here's the text of the resignation letter Miami Republican Sen. Frank Artiles sent Senate President Joe Negron on Friday:

April 21, 2017

Dear President Negron,

Seven years ago, I began my public service with one goal in mind, and that was to serve a cause greater than my own.

Serving my constituents and improving their lives is why I serve. On many important issues, caring for the elderly, education and job creation, I have made it my personal mission to put others first. Its the way I was raised, and the way I still choose to live my life today.

As a Marine, this attitude was embodied in our motto: Semper Fidelis, or Always Faithful. Be faithful to God, to country and to our fellow soldiers.

As a father and husband, despite the daily demands of elected office, I always keep the promises that I make to my two beautiful daughters, Bella and Giavanna, and my loving wife Aimee. Im a fulfilled man, because of their unconditional love and support.

It is clear to me my recent actions and words that I spoke fell far short of what I expect for myself, and for this I am very sorry. I apologize to my family and friends and I apologize to all of my fellow Senators and lawmakers. To the people of my district and all of Miami-Dade, I am sorry I have let you down and ask for your forgiveness.

My actions and my presence in government is now a distraction to my colleagues, the legislative process, and the citizens of our great State.

I am responsible and I am accountable and effective immediately, I am resigning from the Florida State Senate.

Its clear there are consequences to every action, and in this area, I will need time for personal reflection and growth.

I leave this office knowing that despite my shortcomings, I have fought hard to change the status quo while remaining true to myself. Im grateful for those that have stood by my side, including my family, friends, and supporters.

Serving my community in the Florida Legislature has been the honor of a lifetime and I do not leave this process lightly. I will discover ways to continue to serve my community in the future.

God bless the great state of Florida and our great country.

Sincerely,

Senator Frank Artiles
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is expected to push Trump to support the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia at their first meeting at the White House next month. He wants the Trump administration and Congress to maintain the $450 million in foreign aid promised by former President Barack Obama to implement the plan to end Latin Americas longest armed conflict.

The meeting between Trump and the former presidents, Alvaro Uribe and Andres Pastrana  Colombia news media have reported it was arranged by an influential U.S. critic of the plan, Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida  was not on the presidents schedule and was not disclosed to reporters who traveled with him to Palm Beach.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer initially declined to answer questions about the meeting, leading to a rash of speculation in Colombian media. Colombian newspapers, websites and radio stations debated the meetings significance  and whether it actually had happened. I dont have anything for you at this time, Spicer said Wednesday when asked.

The White House later confirmed the meeting to McClatchy but downplayed its significance, saying it was a mere coincidence that both former leaders opposed to the peace pact were at the presidents club. Aides to Rubio declined to comment.

They were there with a member from the club and briefly said hello when the president walked past them, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. There wasnt anything beyond a quick hello.

More here.

Photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press
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If youve ever wondered how writers make a living, join the club. Writers wonder the same thing.

In Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, edited by Manjula Martin, writers discuss their financial lives in essays and interviews. Turns out their bank accounts vary as widely as their books.

There is such an enormous difference between being the kind of writer who has a steady full-time job and minimal debt and no student loans versus the kind of writer who goes without health insurance and cant make rent and all the varieties of writers in between that generalities here are impossible, writes author Mallory Ortberg.

Even success doesnt always meet expectations, reports Cheryl Strayed, who grew up in Minnesota and is best known for Wild, her 2012 memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

Strayed received a $100,000 advance for her 2006 debut novel, Torch. That sounds like a writers dream come true until you learn that the checks were spread over four years, minus agents fees, leaving her earning $21,000 a year. By the time she sold Wild, her family was on the verge of losing their house. But her advance on Wild was $400,000. The book spent a year on the New York Times best-seller list, inspired Oprah to re-establish her book club and was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. These days, Strayed says, she can buy boots not in thrift stores.

But even a best-seller does not guarantee riches. People hear NYT best-seller and they think Oh, hes a millionaire or something, which is just ridiculous, as anyone whos been on that list can tell you, says New York Times-best-selling author Austin Kleon.

A handful of writers, including novelists Jonathan Franzen, Nick Hornby and Jennifer Weiner, enjoyed early financial bounty. Others may forever rely on alternate sources of income  teaching, public speaking, higher-earning spouses.

And sometimes money isnt enough. Weiner grew up poor after her father disappeared and ran up bills he failed to pay. As her family was hounded by creditors, Weiner longed for financial security. She writes novels that are beloved by legions of readers who relate to her heroines problems. But they dont win much critical praise.

Now Weiner has expensive clothes and cars, a summer house on Cape Cod. But she likens her fate to a fairy tale in which good fairies gather around a baby and grant lovely wishes, while the bad fairy says, Critics will revile you and say youre a terrible writer  youll have all the money you could ever want but absolutely no respect.

Rich as she is, Weiner is still longing for security in the form of that literary respect.
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2017 by Ted Kooser, Look for Me." Poem reprinted by permission of Ted Kooser. Introduction copyright  2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
BILLINGS  Donald Trump Jr. begins a two-day barnstorming tour of Montana for U.S House candidate Greg Gianforte on Friday. His itinerary reveals which voters Republicans are targeting in the final month of the special election.

Its all about the base.

Kalispell, Hamilton and Billings anchor the counties Republicans cannot lose in the state. Trump Jr. visits all three Friday and then follows up Monday with an evening fundraiser in Bozeman, seat of Gallatin County, which delivered the third highest number of Republican votes to Gianforte, in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in 2016.

The thing about special elections is that turnout will usually be lower. So, It makes sense to go where your base is, to really try to get out the people who have more than a passing interest, said Jeremy Johnson, a Carroll College political scientist.

Democrat Rob Quist, Gianfortes opponent, will undoubtedly do the same sometime next month, when Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont stumps for the Montana Democrat in locations yet to be disclosed. Theres also likely to be some crossover.

Billings is a key community for both candidates as they campaign to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as Montanas lone congress member. Libertarian Mark Wicks is also in the mix. Zinke, a Republican, resigned in March to join President Donald Trumps Cabinet. Montanans can begin voting at county election offices as early as April 25. Absentee ballots will be mailed out May 1. The final day to vote is May 25, the Thursday before Memorial Day.

Depending on turnout, Yellowstone County, anchored by Billings, is one-eighth to one-seventh of the state vote. The community leans Republican. Zinke won 42,677 votes in Yellowstone County in last years U.S. House race. GOP candidates cant win without Yellowstone County. Democrats have to at least keep the Yellowstone County vote tight.

Flathead County, anchored by Kalispell, is the fourth-largest county in the state, but it has the second-largest block of Republican voters. Zinke won 30,768 votes in Flathead County. Gianforte, in his bid for governor won 26,384 votes.

Ravalli County is the seventh-largest county in the state, but is strongly Republican and is ground zero for Libertarians, who have been the difference maker in the tight statewide races Republicans have lost. Peeling off Libertarian votes could make the difference for Republicans in a squeaker May 25.

A tight race is what Democrats will be hoping for, said Rob Saldin, University of Montana political scientist. With few exceptions, like former Rep. Pat Williams and former Sen. Max Baucus Democratic wins at the top of the ticket have depended on a tight race.

Since Pat Williams retired, since the Democrats have lost some of those figures that have just been big figures  Pat and Max Baucus, those guys won with relative ease  its been tough, said Rob Saldin, University of Montana political scientist. When you think about it, these races are either overwhelming landslides by Republicans, or super-close nail-bitters for Democrats.

Gianfortes camp is hopeful the U.S. House race will keep delivering the lopsided wins its given Republicans for 21 years, ever since Pat Williams left office. Theyll need strong turnout in the communities on the Trump Jr. tour to pull that off.

Brock Lowrance, Gianfortes campaign manager, likes the chances of the winning streak continuing. Montana Republicans won all but one statewide election, Gianfortes, in November. They adopted the Twitter hashtag #sweep16 and nearly ran the table. Gianforte lost by 4 percentage points, at little more than 19,000 votes statewide. Thats close enough to build upon, the campaign manager said.

Theres nothing to indicate that the momentum has changed six months later, Lowrance said. What I would point out to you is that Democrats finish in the low 40s, thats the ceiling.

The Quist team says its running a grassroots campaign with a lot of local support, that this race is competitive.

Rob has traveled to over 40 counties and is continuing to talk to all Montanans  Democrats, Republicans and Independents  across the state, said Tina Olechowski, Quist spokeswoman. Hundreds of people are coming to Rob's events and supporting his message of being an independent voice for the people of Montana. Unlike New Jersey multi-millionaire Greg Gianforte who has been holding invitation-only events and spending millions of dollars on TV ads to try to buy this race, Rob is focusing on talking to Montanans and that is how he will win this election."

Its been a peculiar race for Democrats, with very little backing from groups outside the state, the kind that usually bring the heat with digital and TV ads. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hinted Thursday that it will make a late investment in the Montana special election, but didnt put an amount to the pledge reported by the Huffington Post.

Montanas two statewide elected Democrats have been relatively quiet. Both Gov. Bullock and Sen. Jon Tester have chaired major national fundraising committees for Democrats running for governor and for U.S. Senate. Those chairmanships come with powerful Rolodexes for raising money. Those resources arent visible in this House race.

Gov. Bullock has been stumping for Rob Quist at fundraisers, including Mansfield-Metcalf, and has sent fundraising emails on his behalf. Gov. Bullock also plans to join Rob out on the campaign trail once the legislature wraps up to help get his message out to Montana voters, said Ronja Abel, Bullocks communications director.

The governors office did not respond when asked to put numbers to the fundraisers and emails done on Quists behalf.

Tester has leant two staff members to the Quist campaign, said Marnee Banks, the senators communications director. He too backed Quist at the Mansfield Metcalf dinner, the Montana Democratic Partys spring event. Banks said Tester probably has another, smaller event with Quist since the campaign began. The senator plans to stump for Quist next month, as does Bullock. He tweeted an endorsement of Quist after the House candidate was nominated in early March.

U.S. Republican Sen. Steve Daines, has leant staff to the Gianforte campaign and has been on guest conference calls supporting Gianforte. He is the person who invited Trump Jr. to campaign for Gianforte. Hes also waged a Twitter war against Quist.

Third party Republican groups out of state have spent more than $1 million on the race. After close special election races in Kansas and Georgia, those groups are ready to spend more. Though Jack Pandol of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the Montana race is much different than Kansas and Georgia. A statewide House race like Montanas is unique, Pandol said.

Theres a sense among Republicans in the state that Gianforte left votes on the table last November in his bid for governor, the difference between Zinkes Republican haul and Gianfortes, just in the three counties Trump Jr. will visit Friday, was 14,861 votes. Picking those up will be crucial.
Unfortunately, Missoulas pristine rivers are sometimes treated as a garbage can by the thousands of people who recreate on or near them every year. From hub caps to Styrofoam, river cleanup efforts net literally tons of trash every year. Thats why its important for those who care about our water resources to pitch in and care for them every once in a while.

On Earth Day this Saturday, April 22, the nonprofit Clark Fork Coalition will host one of Missoulas largest and most popular volunteer events  the annual Clark Fork River Cleanup. It draws hundreds of families, groups and businesses that fan out on foot and on buses to collect trash and recyclables from 15 miles of riverbank in and around town. If you want to help out, show up for the volunteer check-in at Caras Park at 9:30 in downtown Missoula, and the effort runs from 10 a.m. until noon. Gloves, bags and transportation will be provided free-of-charge, or participants can bring their own supplies and rides to designated cleanup sites. Afterward, volunteers are treated to a free barbecue and prize drawing.

Every year, trash trophies are awarded to those who collect the most unusual items. In previous years, volunteers have found everything from mannequins to computers to Christmas trees still adorned with ornaments to go along with the usual grocery carts and beer cans. Participants also can enter a raffle that will support the Coalitions work to prevent the spread of invasive mussels into the Clark Fork watershed.

Missoula is a river town through and through, said Karen Knudsen, executive director of the Clark Fork Coalition. Not only do people depend on the Clark Fork for work, play and inspiration, theyre also passionate about it and know how to treat it right. Its inspiring to see so many people from diverse walks of life pitching in every year to keep the river clean and healthy.

The weather on Saturday looks to be beautiful. The Clark Fork Coalitions outreach and marketing director, Holly Biehl, said 700 volunteers showed up last year.

Last year we removed four tons of trash, she said. This is the 12th year of the event. Every year we remove less and less. Its still a lot, but when you think about six to eight years ago, it was eight tons. So its going down.

Biehl said that although some volunteers float the river, the Coalition isnt really coordinating that this year because the water is high and theyd rather have people on the ground. However, Missoula County Search and Rescue members will be standing by in case there are any accidents.

Over the years, many local businesses have supported the event.

Like our volunteers, our local businesses are excellent caretakers of the Clark Fork, said Knudsen. Their commitment to clean water makes this cleanup possible and were thrilled to partner with them again to do right by the river.

The cleanups headline sponsors include REI, Good Food Store, First Security Bank, Herrera Environmental Consultants and Providence Health and Services Western Montana. A total of 40 other businesses have contributed with sponsorship dollars and donations, and Missoula Fresh Market and Bravo Catering are putting on the barbecue afterward.

The Clark Fork Coalition, now in its 32nd year, works to improve the health of the watershed through stream restoration, pollution removal, river education and advocacy. Other river service opportunities are available for those who cant make it Saturday through the Volunteer River Corps. For more information about the event visit clarkfork.org.
The parent company of KECI, a local television station in Missoula, has been purchased by conservative local news operator Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Sinclair announced Friday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the stock of Bonten Media Group Holdings, Inc. for $240 million.

Bonten owns 14 television stations in eight markets, which reach approximately 1 percent of U.S. TV households. In Montana, Bonten owns KECI in Missoula, KTVM in Butte and Bozeman and KCFW in Kalispell, which are all NBC affiliates.

Sinclair Broadcasting has earned a reputation as a conservative-leaning news operator. Last week, the company announced that President Donald Trump's ex-spokesman Boris Epshteyn would be its new chief political analyst. It was announced that in that role, he would be appearing across 173 stations that Sinclair owns or operates across the country.

According to a report from Politico, in 2016, Sinclair struck a deal to broadcast Trump interviews without commentary in exchange for more access to the candidate. Sinclair later asserted that the Politico report was inaccurate and that it doesn't give preferential treatment to candidates from either party.

However, the Baltimore-based company is well-known for broadcasting conservative documentaries and other programming, according to Variety magazine. Sinclair is the nation's largest TV station owner when measured by the number of stations. The company, which is publicly traded, now will own 191 television stations in 89 markets, broadcasting 551 channels.

We look forward to welcoming the Bonten employees into the Sinclair family and are pleased to be growing our regional presence in several states where we already operate, said Chris Ripley, president and CEO of Sinclair, in a statement. We believe our economies of scale help us bring improvements to small market stations, including investments in news, other quality local programming, and multicast opportunities with our emerging networks of Comet, Charge! and TBD.

Tamy Wagner, KECI's general manager, declined to comment, saying the station would let Sinclair handle any media inquiries.

KPAX, the local CBS affiliate, is owned by Cordillera Communications, a division of Evening Post Industries of South Carolina.

KTMF, the local ABC/FOX affiliate, is owned by Cowles Company out of Spokane, Washington.
The way John Limbert sees it, Barack Obama caught Iran wrong-footed when he took office in 2009.

The president called for negotiations. He talked about mutual respect between the two proud countries.

Hes quoting Persian poetry to them, hes praising their great culture, Limbert said Thursday. And they didnt know how to respond. It took them about three years to do anything.

Limbert is a veteran diplomat who worked in the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, when he and 51 other Americans were taken hostage during the Islamic Revolution.

For the second time in four months hes traveled from his home in Virginia to Missoula, where he was keynote presenter Thursday night at the 15th annual International Conference on Central and Southwest Asia on the University of Montana campus.

Limbert spent most of the first year of the Obama administration as the State Departments point man in Iran before resuming his position as the endowed chair of Middle Eastern studies at the U.S. Naval Academy.

His wife, Parvaneh, is a native Iranian who accompanied Limbert to Montana and recalls the phone negotiations in 2010 between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a Naval Academy admiral over Limberts pending return to academia.

U.S.-Iran relations were at a stalemate at the time and showed no signs of resolution, Limbert said. Under President Donald Trumps administration, for better or worse, thats changing.

Trump promised on the campaign trail to tear up the 2015 Iran Deal that dismantled Irans nuclear program in exchange for trade concessions from the United States and five other nations. Ninety-one days into his tenure he has yet to do that, though just hours before Limberts presentation in Missoula, Trump maintained again that Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement during a joint press conference in Washington with the prime minister of Italy.

On Tuesday, Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, waist-deep in explosive diplomatic issues ranging from North Korea to Afghanistan to Syria, added Iran to the list. He said Iran is in compliance with the treaty, but the United States is reviewing its policy toward Tehran. The next day Tillerson accused Iran of alarming and ongoing provocations to destabilize Middle East countries and undermine U.S. interests in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

I think what youre seeing in this, at least on the surface, is a reversion to what went on for 35 years, Limbert said in an interview with the Missoulian. We bash them, they bash us. We call them a rogue state, we call them the worlds No. 1 sponsor of terrorism. They call us the Great Satan.

Now were comfortable again. People like having what they know.

Iran is abuzz with talk of presidential elections  the one that happened in the United States in November and one thats taking place in Iran on May 19.

Limbert said he was hearing concern from Iranians before the U.S. election about a more hard-line stance by the United States under presumed President Hillary Clinton and her potential secretaries of state, who appeared to be more hawkish toward Iran than John Kerry was.

The game changed with Trumps upset win.

At least under Clinton things were foreseeable, said Limbert. Theyre never predictable, but you would know what to expect. Now all bets are off.

Irans is a different election system. Current president Hassan Rouhani is among hundreds in the running. So was polarizing former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad until Thursday, when state media in Iran reported he had been disqualified from the race. The decision was made by the Guardian Council, a clerical body that Limbert said forms the real core of power in Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had urged Ahmadinejad not to run.

Confounding an already complex scene are reports that Khamenei is on his deathbed, battling an advanced stage of cancer.

Limbert first visited Missoula in December for a program sponsored by the Montana World Affairs Council. Much of his talk then centered on his 444-day hostage experience in 1979-81. Things have changed considerably since Trumps inauguration, and this weeks conference was the ideal time to invite Limbert back, said Mehrdad Kia, director of UMs Central and Southwest Asian Studies Center.

One strong diplomatic tie between the countries during the Obama administration was that of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Both are nuclear scientists who served as deputies to Kerry and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during negotiations of the Iran Deal in 2015. They didnt know each other, but Moniz was on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1970s at the same time Salehi was a graduate student.

That was some very effective diplomacy, probably in some ways more important than the relations between Kerry and Zarif, Limbert said. I somehow doubt that Secretary (Rick) Perry has the same relationship with Dr. Salehi.

He has no inside knowledge on the workings of the Trump administration, but Limbert is clearly concerned when it comes to its approach to Iran.

What were going back to is a kind of Cold War, which from time to time has become more than cold, he said. Its dangerous. A misunderstanding or somebodys mistake could have real consequences. What I worry about is the apparent absence of communication, at least at the foreign ministry level.
The $2 million the Legislature has proposed for offering buyouts or early retirement for Montana college professors would be taken out of the money used to fund state emergency dispatch services.

The Montana University System, legislators and the governors office collaborated to find $2 million in the budget to fund faculty termination costs," Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education spokesperson Kevin McRae said Wednesday.

The money would be taken out of dollars that fund the states emergency dispatch system.

Money for Montanas 911 systems are collected through $1 monthly fees on landline and wireless phone bills, according to a report filed with the Federal Communications Commission by Montanas Information Technology Services Division. The FCC started tracking how states used their 911 fund in 2009, after state legislators started to use the fund for expenditures other than emergency services.

Since the FCC began tracking these funds, Montana has not used the account  containing, on average, $13 million  for anything other than funding emergency dispatch services or administrative costs of running the 911 systems.

The Legislature had to change the law in order to make this $2 million transfer possible, Missoula County Chief Operating Officer Chris Lounsbury said. Lounsbury said he has a lot of trust in what the Legislature is doing, but that anything with money makes him nervous.

The 911 system is undergoing significant and costly changes over the next biennium, Lounsbury said. As of April 7, the account had a balance of $12 million, according to the information and technology service division. About $5.5 million is set to be diverted to pay for new switches in Missoula and Billings to allow 911 dispatchers across the state to receive text, photo and video messages, Lounsbury said.

Billings, Helena and Great Falls all have plans to update their dispatch systems to allow for text messaging. The bill allowing for this update was passed by the Legislature Thursday, and is waiting for the governors signature.

Missoula already has the ability to receive text messages through an internet provider, Lounsbury said. This recently helped emergency responders rescue hunters who had enough cell service to send texts, but not enough to make a voice call, he said. If the parent of a missing child could send dispatchers a photo while police are still responding, think how much faster police could release the photo to the public, Lounsbury said.

There is a saying among emergency responders, Dispatchers save seconds and saving seconds saves lives, Lounsbury said.

Updating the switches will modernize one part of the system, but there are 53 emergency answering points in Montana, Lounsbury said. Some will struggle to pay for updated phone systems, which will allow for them to receive text messages, he said.

Transferring the $2 million out of the fund wont stop that process, Lounsbury said. But it might slow it down.

After the switches are upgraded, a little under $6 million will be left in the account, according to the services division. With the transfer of $2 million to the university system just under $4 million will be left, with the potential for that amount to increase if the state receives federal grant funding in 2018.

Those grants are squishy and cant be relied upon, Lounsbury said

Senator Tom Facey, D-Missoula, negotiated the funds for the college professor faculty costs. He said he made sure removing the funds wouldnt jeopardize federal funding for the states 911 systems.

Everything the Legislature did was legal and appropriate, he said. Every three months, about $300,000 is put back into the 911 fund from the fees on phone lines, Facey said.

This $2 million could help reduce tuition increases across the state, Facey said. Legislators are trying like crazy to help the universities, Facey said. This is a way to do that and to help out families of students in Missoula, who fear the next tuition increase.

Higher education spokesperson McRae said the money would help the university system scale down the faculty already considering retirement. Many faculty members may be considering leaving any of the universities, but have fears about their financial stability, he said. The hope is to buy out these professors, rather than fire them, resulting in expensive termination fees, McRae said.

From a funding perspective the University of Montana needs to reduce their faculty to better reflect their enrollment numbers, McRae said.

The up-front costs this year will save money over the next several years, McRae said.
HAMILTON  For Tara Walker Lyons and the hundreds of other childhood sexual abuse survivors she has met over the past two years, the ink scribbled at the bottom of House Bill 298 will be much more than just a signature.

When youre a victim of childhood sexual abuse, youre left with a feeling of helplessness, said the mother of two from Hamilton. Theres an inability to fight back when something like this happens to you and your family.

This has offered a chance for many to believe that if you work hard enough, you can make a difference, Lyons said. Taras Law has given a lot of kids a goal.

On Friday morning, Walker will join Rep. Ed Greef, R-Florence, and a small group of supporters  including four girls between the ages of 7 and 12 who themselves are childhood sexual abuse survivors  to watch Gov. Steve Bullock sign the legislation that will provide public schools with the framework to help educate both children and educators on how to address childhood sexual abuse.

Its been a long time coming.

Lyons was 12 when she was sexually abused by a relative.

She didnt really understand just how deeply that impacted her life until she found herself in treatment at the Montana Chemical Dependency Center for her abuse of alcohol.

When I first started treatment, I felt like my life was worthless, she remembered. I had no hope at all.

While she was there, Lyons discovered that she wasnt alone.

I found out how pervasive childhood sexual abuse is, Lyons said. I had always felt like I could smooth things over and get through it by drinking. I found others who were living their lives with the same pattern. I learned that I definitely was not alone.

In July 2015, Lyons took the first courageous step to offer her story to the public. With her young daughter asleep in the next room, she sat down in front of a video camera and told her emotion-charged story.

The 11-minute video went viral and doors that Lyons never knew existed began to open.

She began telling her story to inmates as part of the Montana Department of Corrections Victim Impact Panel. She created a Facebook page called Defending Innocence to spread the word. And she learned about a nationally recognized program, Erin's Law, that requires childhood sexual abuse prevention be taught in schools.

Erins Law is named after author and activist Erin Merryn, who was molested by a family member between the ages of 11 and 13. When Lyons began her journey, Montana was one of six states in the nation where the law had yet to be considered.

As of today, there will be five.

Its going to be a big day, Greef said. Tara will be front and center for all of the victims that she represents. This bill is just a beginning. It brings this issue into the spotlight. Now, people have to recognize that it exists.

Greef named Montana's version of Erin's Law after Tara.

In order for the bill to pass during this financially challenged legislative session, Greef was forced to amend it to remove any source of funding.

The early estimate was $190,000 a year,'' he said. "While OPI was very much on board and committed to the program, we all recognized that if we insisted on that funding, the bill wouldnt have gone through. I think this is a good place to start.

Considering the fact that Greef didnt even know Lyons existed until the second week of January, the longtime legislator is in awe of just how quickly everything came together.

A normal track for a bill like this would be two sessions, he said. The story itself on how this came together is remarkable. Doors were opened, contacts were made, green lights were given by leadership and OPI came on board. Every time you turned around, another door opened.

Whether that be happenstance or divine intervention, it would be up to you to decide, Greef said. Having been here four times, Ive never had a bill take the fast track like this one.

That journey began with an email from Lyons, who asked the legislator if he might have a few moments to visit on a Wednesday afternoon.

I didnt know what she wanted to talk about, he said. She said she was from Ravalli County. I said I would be getting out of a committee meeting at 4 p.m.

At about five minutes to 4, Greef remembers looking up to see a young woman walk into the rear of the committee meeting room, but didnt make the connection.

I sent her a text saying I would be available in about five minutes, Greef said. She answered back that she was sitting in the committee room.''

And so as the janitors went to work to clean the room, Greef listened to Lyons story. When he asked her if she had a solution, she told him about Erins Law.

She told me that many of these kids dont have much of a home life, Greef said. Their first positive contact by an adult is often a teacher. A teacher is someone they can trust and someone who cares about them. They can talk to them.

By now, it was nearly 5 p.m. and the Capitol was starting to empty.

I asked her if she had the time to walk up to the third floor to see if we could find anyone to share this idea, Greef said.

Around the first corner, they ran into Rep. Kim Dudik, D-Missoula. After chatting with her, they took a few more steps and found Rep. Diane Sands, another Democrat from Missoula.

Then they went upstairs and found House Majority Leader Ron Ehli, R-Hamilton, still in his office. Five minute later, Speaker of the House Austin Knutson, R-Culbertson, walked by and Lyons told her story once again.

Here, in just a short period of time, she had met five key people, Greef said. Those doors were opened and it just continued on that way.

The bill would eventually pass the House 93-5, and the Senate 46-4.

Lyons said the legislative session was an emotional rollercoaster for her, but she gathered strength from the four young girls who bravely told their own stories in an early committee hearing.

I think, in the end, everyone could see the urgency, Lyons said.

Fridays signing ceremony isnt an ending for Lyons.

Its really just a new beginning, she said.

Next week, shell speak to inmates at the prison in Shelby. She wants to start a camp for childhood sexual abuse survivors. And Lyons wants to spearhead an effort to fund therapy for the victims of that crime.

Beyond all that, she is also planning on making the rounds to meet with Montana educators to ensure the education on the prevention of childhood sexual abuse actually takes root.

And when the Legislature meets next time, Ill be there to try to get funding put in place, she said. This is too important. This has the ability to change lives.
Last winters big snowpack has caused some odd ripples in western electricity markets, affecting everything from wind generation to fish survival.

California has been adding a lot of renewable energy, but that win-win doesnt work when you have different sets of technologies, said Ben Kujula, power division director for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. The council oversees energy production throughout the Pacific Northwest, including major players like the Bonneville Power Administration.

We used to have mostly thermal plants that you could turn on and off to save money, Kujula explained in a discussion of oversupply curtailment issues. When you turn off a wind or solar plant, youre not saving anything, because all the cost went into building the plant. So Californias surplus impacts what we can do shipping power down south

Add hydropower dams to the mix and it gets even more complicated. When those California plants meet the states electricity market needs, demand for Pacific Northwest power falls. The owners of hydro dams have contractual authority to curtail local wind electricity generators to give priority to their water-powered turbines. So far through 2017, BPA has curtailed more than 75,000 megawatt hours of electricity, which has mostly come out of the production plans of wind-power plants in Washington and Oregon.

"We end up paying for the energy twice, NPPC Idaho representative Jim Yost said. Once for the energy we get, and again through the curtailment.

BPA spokesman David Wilson said the power utility turns down wind power supplies first, because they provide the lowest-cost electricity to the system.

Anything we pay out for curtailment, has to get passed on to our customers, Wilson said. When we have too much generation and not enough load (electricity demand) we need to curtail some types of power generation.

To further complicate things, BPA hydropower dams on the Columbia River drainage such as Libby Dam and Hungry Horse Dam in Montana do more than generate electricity.

Their reservoirs hold back water that might otherwise flood downstream areas in spring, and keep those areas wet later in summer. That water also fills irrigation systems that farmers depend on for crops. And several agreements and Indian treaties control water supplies for fish like Pacific salmon and bull trout.

Interfere with the expected timing of those water flows, and lots of dominoes fall. If the dams cant run water through their generating turbines, they must spill it to keep the irrigators and fish wet. But spilled water absorbs atmospheric gas bubbles as it falls over the dam in ways that can give downstream fish a form of nitrogen poisoning similar to what human scuba divers call the bends. So the releases must be carefully phased or restricted to reduce dissolved gas levels.

This year's expected runoff has already started earlier in March than previous oversupply years of 2010, '11 and '12. This year is forecast to exceed the flow levels of all three of those years, meaning an oversupply of potential hydroelectricity.

When you have the California market saying, We dont need your power, finding a place that needs electricity is a challenge, Kujula said. That energy has to go somewhere.
A Butte man who pleaded guilty to raping a 15-year-old girl in 2015 was sentenced to 30 years in the Montana State Prison on Thursday in Butte district court by Judge Kurt Krueger.

Richard McLarnon, 36, was arrested in November of 2015 for engaging in sexual acts with a minor under the age of 16 between April and November.

Charged with three counts of child sex crimes, McLarnon pleaded not guilty in December and spent the next year trying to fight the charges. In November of 2016, he pleaded guilty to one count of rape.

The probation and parole officer who prepared McLarnon's pre-sentencing investigation testified Thursday that McLarnon gave "mixed signals" in an interview to determine whether he took responsibility for his actions.

The victim's mother prepared a statement to the court that was read by a cousin, who said the victim was overwhelmed by grief and trauma.

She said the victim still had nightmares of the rapes that destroyed her childhood and teenage years.

Deputy County Attorney Ann Shea said McLarnon still doesn't take responsibility for his actions and asked Judge Krueger to sentence him to 30 years in the state prison, twice what was recommended in the pre-sentencing report. Shea said that prison sentence would still be easier than the victim's life.

McLarnon's defense attorney Victor Bunitsky said his client had no prior criminal history and that a child rape sentence is "a tough way to begin your criminal career." Bunitsky asked for leniency, considering McLarnon made an open plea instead of going to trial, and requested 15 years with the Department of Corrections with 11 suspended.

"You have given your victim a sentence as well," Krueger said before sentencing McLarnon to 30 years in the state prison with 10 suspended and 520 days' time served. McLarnon must also register as a Tier 1 sex offender.
A poaching case which drew local attention and outrage is closed. A 20-year-old Butte man pleaded guilty this week to killing the trophy mule deer buck on North Main Street in Uptown Butte in September 2016, according to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Kyler Olsen pleaded guilty to several charges including unlawful possession, shooting with artificial lights and within city limits, shooting from a vehicle, and abandoning a big game animal.

On the morning of Sept. 12, 2016, FWP wardens received a call about an injured deer in the Uptown Butte area. When responding, game wardens found the deer had died from a gunshot wound. They immediately put the call out for tips through the media and local sportsmens groups.

The investigation was helped by information provided by the public and the tracing of the bullet which was recovered from the deer, a news release said.

Olsen also pleaded guilty to two charges related to the shooting of another mule deer buck during the general hunting season - unlawful possession and taking a deer over the limit.

Olsen will have to pay a total of $11,695 in fines and restitution. That includes $8,000 in trophy restitution to Montana for the 5x5 mule deer killed in September. Olsens hunting, fishing, and trapping privileges have also been suspended for five years.

"FWP appreciates the help of the public as many cases might go unsolved without that valuable information," a news release said.

The best way to alert FWP to wildlife crime in Montana is to call 800-TIP-MONT. Callers may remain anonymous.
Police reports

JAIL SUICIDE STOPPED

A female inmate at the Butte tried to kill herself Thursday around 9 p.m. before being stopped by jailers, police said Friday. The woman tore a bed sheet, wrapped it around her neck, tied the other end to the support bar around the toilet, and then leaned forward. Guards doing rounds saw the woman, cut her down, and called an ambulance. Police said the woman was breathing normally and was returned to jail after being taken to the hospital.

RUNNER BACK IN JAIL

A Butte man who fled from police at the Butte-Silver Bow County Courthouse after being arrested after a car chase is back in Butte's jail after spending a few nights at the Montana State Hospital secure treatment center. James Wasson appeared before District Judge Kurt Krueger on Monday on a request to be transferred to the state hospital for a mental health evaluation. When he was brought back from the hospital on Tuesday for the second part of the hearing, he fled police custody on foot and was later recaptured.

ALLEGED STALKER ARRESTED

Police arrested a Butte man around 3 p.m. Thursday on the first block of West Granite Street after they said he violated a restraining order. Daniel Grady, 24, had a restraining order filed against him in late March by an ex-girlfriend who told police he has recently been calling her on other people's phones. Grady was arrested on a justice court warrant and booked into jail for felony stalking.

MAN THREATENED WITH GUN

A man called police around 3:30 a.m. Friday to report being assaulted with a weapon. Police said the man got into a fight with another man on the 200 block of Alaska Street when the two accused each other of being snitches. The other man allegedly said he had a Derringer handgun in his pocket, though he did not pull it.
After deciding on how to spend money on 16 community-based grants Thursday  including $100,000 toward the Basin Creek park idea  the Butte Natural Resource Damage Council must now determine what to do with the $120,000 that is left.

The nine-member, all-volunteer council began with $1 million in 2014 to put toward local projects that are restoration related. The money comes from a state settlement with Atlantic Richfield Co. that was reached in 2008.

The council went into Thursday's meeting with about $600,000 to spend. Pat Cunneen, the councils environmental science specialist, said initially the remaining pot totaled $525,000, but with interest, that sum bumped to about $600,000.

The 16 projects requests exceeded $900,000  more than the council had left in the bank. The council whittled the projects to 12 for a total of $479,903. About half of the money being spent in this round goes to Montana Tech professors and students for various cleanup-related studies.

Gov. Steve Bullock has the final say on who gets what and is expected to announce those decisions by this summer.

The council will likely address the leftover cash question at its next meeting, said Natural Resource Damage Council program chief Doug Martin.

Following are the 12 proposals the BNRC is recommending to Bullock:

 George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited: $100,000 for preliminary development of a recreational area around Basin Creek near the reservoir. The focus of the funding will go toward building a fishery, reconstructing a channel, designing and installing a fish passage, putting in seeds, and planning and engineering further development. The overall project is expected to cost $840,000.

 Montana Tech professor Robert Pal: $95,747 to build a greenhouse to grow trees for BSB's tree-planting project.

 Tech professor Alysia Cox: $50,306 to look at microbes in Silver Bow Creek and Blacktail Creek to better understand creek sediment.

 Retired hydrogeologist Joe Griffin: $49,700 to create a computer simulation of the aquifer running along upper Silver Bow Creek.

 Watershed Restoration Coalition executive director Ted Dodge: $40,000 to improve Blacktail and Basin Creeks watershed resiliency with beaver mimicry projects.

 Tech professor Chris Gammons: $37,425 to sample Blacktail and Silver Bow Creek beds from Father Sheehan Park to the Interstate 15-90 overpass bridge.

 Tech professor Raja Nagisetty: $35,000 to create a feasibility study for cleanup plans of zinc in Grove Gulch, an intermittent stream south of Butte.

 Butte citizen Crystal Vandermeulen: $29,230 to revegetate a dump site on Montana Street near the courthouse. The funding comes with a contingency that Butte-Silver Bow supplies a match of approximately $10,000 for irrigation water.

 Science Mine board of directors member Lois Podobnik: $19,000 to help create a traveling Science Mine exhibit on Butte cleanup.

 Tech graduate student J. Trilling: $11,170 to look at areas that arent being reclaimed on the Butte Hill to understand the potential for what could grow at those sites.

 Tech graduate student Joao Nascimento: $4,900 to develop software to track seeds planted by Tech.

 East Middle School eighth-grader Taryn Stratton: $1,278 to $7,425 to install markers on storm drains to heighten community awareness that what enters into a storm drain travels to the creek.
HELENA  Montana lawmakers on Thursday confirmed "one of our own," as one senator put it, as the next commissioner in charge of making sure they follow campaign laws and of enforcing any violations they commit.

In a whirlwind 24 hours, former Democratic legislator Jeff Mangan was appointed by Gov. Steve Bullock, coasted through a Senate committee hearing and was confirmed as commissioner of political practices on a 48-1 vote.

"This is probably the lightning appointment of all time," said Sen. Dee Brown, R-Hungry Horse.

Mangan will serve a six-year term and replace outgoing Commissioner Jonathan Motl as the overseer of the state's campaign, lobbying and ethics laws. He said he plans to take over by the third week of May, when he is sworn in.

Until then, he plans to work with Motl to get up to speed on a variety of pending complaints, court cases and pending legislation involving the commissioner's office.

Mangan said in an interview after his confirmation hearing that he wants to erase the perception that the commissioner's office has a partisan bias by increasing its transparency and accessibility. However, he said he doesn't plan a lot of changes from the way that Motl has been running things.

"At this point, I don't see myself doing anything different," Mangan said. "But it's so premature that I haven't had the opportunity to sit down with anybody at the office or with the commissioner and start digging into what's all out there."

Both Republican and Democratic senators lauded the former Democratic legislator from Great Falls. Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, said Mangan has a reputation for fairness and that he holds the Legislature in high regard.

Senate Minority Leader Jon Sesso, D-Butte, said Mangan seemed to be a perfect fit.

"It's important that we had one of our own be nominated," Sesso said.

Mangan said that his status as a former legislator and his existing relationships with current legislators won't impede his ability to do his job, or to make decisions against those people.

"I don't think my relationship with anyone is going to be seen other than he's someone that can be fair and understands what the process is," Mangan said. "I'm sure at some point not everybody's going to be happy."

Mangan will be the fifth commissioner since 2010 and the first since then to be confirmed to a full six-year term. The office's frequent turnover is largely due to Republicans believing current and previous Democratic governors' appointments were politically biased against the GOP.

Nobody has been more of a lightning rod than Motl. The outgoing commissioner pursued civil cases against nine Republican candidates who received campaign aid from nonprofit corporations affiliated with the National Right to Work Committee in 2010.

Motl has maintained that he pursues cases based on their merits, not on political parties.

Bullock praised Motl for his enforcement actions and for clearing the commissioner's office of a years-long backlog of campaign complaints, and said that the outgoing commissioner is leaving the office in good shape for Mangan.

"He steps into an office that is certainly ready to face the challenges of the upcoming elections, and I think that the expectations of Montanans, Democrats and Republicans, for that office have been enhanced in the last few years," Bullock said.
BILLINGS  Donald Trump Jr. begins a two-day barnstorming tour of Montana for U.S House candidate Greg Gianforte on Friday. His itinerary reveals which voters Republicans are targeting in the final month of the special election.

Its all about the base.

Kalispell, Hamilton and Billings anchor the counties Republicans cannot lose in the state. Trump Jr. visits all three Friday and then follows up Monday with an evening fundraiser in Bozeman, seat of Gallatin County, which delivered the third highest number of Republican votes to Gianforte, in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in 2016.

The thing about special elections is that turnout will usually be lower. So, It makes sense to go where your base is, to really try to get out the people who have more than a passing interest, said Jeremy Johnson, a Carroll College political scientist.

Democrat Rob Quist, Gianfortes opponent, will undoubtedly do the same sometime next Month, when Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont stumps for the Montana Democrat in locations yet to be disclosed. Theres also likely to be some crossover.

Billings is a key community for both candidates as they campaign to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as Montanas lone congress member. Libertarian Mark Wicks is also in the mix. Zinke, a Republican, resigned in March to join President Donald Trumps Cabinet. Montanans can begin voting at county election offices as early as April 25. Absentee ballots will be mailed out May 1. The final day to vote is May 25, the Thursday before Memorial Day.

Depending on turnout, Yellowstone County, anchored by Billings, is one-eighth to one-seventh of the state vote. The community leans Republican. Zinke won 42,677 votes in Yellowstone County in last years U.S. House race. GOP candidates cant win without Yellowstone County. Democrats have to at least keep the Yellowstone County vote tight.

Flathead County, anchored by Kalispell, is the fourth-largest county in the state, but it has the second-largest block of Republican voters. Zinke won 30,768 votes in Flathead County. Gianforte, in his bid for governor won 26,384 votes.

Ravalli County is the seventh-largest county in the state, but is strongly Republican and is ground zero for Libertarians, who have been the difference maker in the tight statewide races Republicans have lost. Peeling off Libertarian votes could make the difference for Republicans in a squeaker May 25.

A tight race is what Democrats will be hoping for, said Rob Saldin, University of Montana political scientist. With few exceptions, like former Rep. Pat Williams and former Sen. Max Baucus Democratic wins at the top of the ticket have depended on a tight race.

Since Pat Williams retired, since the Democrats have lost some of those figures that have just been big figures  Pat and Max Baucus, those guys won with relative ease  its been tough, said Rob Saldin, University of Montana political scientist. When you think about it, these races are either overwhelming landslides by Republicans, or super-close nail-bitters for Democrats.

Gianfortes camp is hopeful the U.S. House race will keep delivering the lopsided wins its given Republicans for 21 years, ever since Pat Williams left office. Theyll need strong turnout in the communities on the Trump Jr. tour to pull that off.

Brock Lowrance, Gianfortes campaign manager, likes the chances of the winning streak continuing. Montana Republicans won all but one statewide election, Gianfortes, in November. They adopted the Twitter hashtag #sweep16and nearly ran the table. Gianforte lost by 4 percentage points, at little more than 19,000 votes statewide. Thats close enough to build upon, the campaign manager said.

Theres nothing to indicate that the momentum has changed six months later, - said. What I would point out to you is that Democrats finish in the low 40s, thats the ceiling.

The Quist team says its running a grassroots campaign with a lot of local support, that this race is competitive.

Rob has traveled to over 40 counties and is continuing to talk to all Montanans  Democrats, Republicans and Independents  across the state, said Tina Olechowski, Quist spokeswoman. Hundreds of people are coming to Rob's events and supporting his message of being an independent voice for the people of Montana. Unlike New Jersey multi-millionaire Greg Gianforte who has been holding invitation-only events and spending millions of dollars on TV ads to try to buy this race, Rob is focusing on talking to Montanans and that is how he will win this election."

Its been peculiar race for Democrats, with very little backing from groups outside the state, the kind that usually bring the heat with digital and TV ads. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hinted Thursday that it will make a late investment in the Montana special election, but didnt put an amount to the pledge reported by the Huffington Post.

Montanas two statewide elected Democrats have been relatively quiet. Both Gov. Bullock and Sen. Jon Tester have chaired major national fundraising committees for Democrats running for governor and for U.S. Senate. Those chairmanships come with powerful Rolodexes for raising money. Those resources arent visible in this House race.

Gov. Bullock has been stumping for Rob Quist at fundraisers, including Mansfield-Metcalf, and has sent fundraising emails on his behalf. Gov. Bullock also plans to join Rob out on the campaign trail once the legislature wraps up to help get his message out to Montana voters, said Ronja Abel, Bullocks communications director.

The governors office did not respond when asked to put numbers the fundraisers and emails done on Quists behalf.

Tester has leant two staff members to the Quist campaign, said Marnee Banks, the senators communications director. He too backed Quist at the Mansfield Metcalf dinner, the Montana Democratic Partys spring event. Banks said Tester probably has another, smaller event with Quist since the campaign began. The senator plans to stump for Quist next month, as does Bullock. He tweeted an endorsement of Quist after the House candidate was nominated in early March.

U.S. Republican Sen. Steve Daines, has leant staff to the Gianforte campaign and has been on guest conference calls supporting Gianforte. He is the person who invited Trump Jr. to campaign for Gianforte. Hes also waged a Twitter war against Quist.

Third party Republican groups out of state have spent more than $1 million on the race. After close special election races in Kansas and Georgia, those groups are ready to spend more. Though Jack Pandol of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the Montana race is much different than Kansas and Georgia. A statewide House race like Montanas is unique, Pandol said.

Theres a sense among Republicans in the state that Gianforte left votes on the table last November in his bid for governor, the difference between Zinkes Republican haul and Gianfortes, just in the three counties Trump Jr. will visit Friday, was 14,861 votes. Picking those up will be crucial.
WASHINGTON -- Before he joined the Supreme Court a decade ago, John Roberts proclaimed what he called "the cardinal rule of judicial restraint: If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more."

But as he heard arguments Wednesday in this term's much anticipated church-state case, the chief justice seemed to be practicing a different rule from the one he preached: More is more.

Restraint was in short supply during oral arguments in the Trinity Lutheran Church case at the high court. It was a manufactured controversy, cooked up by conservative interest groups that are hoping to chip away at constitutional provisions in 39 states restricting taxpayer money from going to churches. In this case, it wasn't only unnecessary to decide more -- it was unnecessary to decide it at all.

It wasn't a big deal to start with: A preschool in Missouri had applied for a state grant in 2012 to repave its playground with flooring made from old tires. The state rated the application highly but denied the grant because the school was run by a church. The church sued.

The complaint became irrelevant last week when the state's new governor, Eric Greitens, reversed Missouri's position and said he would allow religious organizations to compete for such grants. The lawyer hired by the state, James Layton, suddenly found himself arguing the position opposite of those who hired him.

The case would seem to meet the dictionary definition of moot, as in, "deprived of practical significance." Some justices thought so.

"Why isn't the case moot?" Stephen Breyer asked, adding that the governor "said he's going to give you the grants."

Sonia Sotomayor asked Layton: If representatives of the state "are not willing to fight this case, are they manufacturing adversity by appointing you?"

The short answer: Yes.

In front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Concerned Women for America, a conservative group, was displaying balloons and signs proclaiming "Every Child's Safety Matters." Said Annette Kiehne, the Trinity Lutheran preschool director, "This is about keeping our kids safe, wherever they play."

But it really wasn't about that. It was about interest groups whose business model depends on perpetuating the culture wars trying to frighten people into thinking Christianity is under siege. It was a springtime version of the annual "war on Christmas."

Michael Farris, CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Trinity in the case, was fairly straightforward about his motives, telling reporters in the plaza that "there's a broad concern among religious people in this country that we're becoming second-class citizens."

But if this supposed assault on Christianity is real, it has been going on for a long time. Opponents of the church-state language in state constitutions correctly say that these "Blaine Amendments" were shaped by anti-Catholic bigotry in the late 19th century. But their roots go back to the founding. Layton told the justices that Missouri in 1820 adopted language based on Thomas Jefferson's 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which said that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever."

What has changed now? Nothing -- except the rise of interest groups (on both sides) that justify their existence and boost their fundraising with such controversies. The goal this time: to roll back restrictions on public money going to churches. An article in the conservative National Review argued that "a victory for Trinity Lutheran would fundamentally alter the landscape of school choice."

Arguing for Trinity, David Cortman offered reasons the justices need to rule even though there isn't an actual dispute in this case: The governor could change his mind, or state courts could knock down the governor's new policy. Eventually, though, he admitted that "why we're here in the first place is the Missouri state constitutional provision" -- the one saying no public money may be used "in aid of any church."

So that's what it's about: Invalidating dozens of state constitutional provisions keeping public money out of churches. "There are 39 states with constitutional amendments like the one Missouri has. That's a history," Sotomayor said. "And the essence of that history is, basically, we don't want  the vast majority of states to fund houses of worship."

Justice Samuel Alito, in retort to Sotomayor, disputed the idea that the Missouri amendment "reflects an admirable historical tradition that should be respected."

No, anti-Catholicism wasn't admirable, but the American tradition that the government doesn't give cash to churches is venerable. A restrained judiciary wouldn't upend that tradition because of a manufactured conflict over a playground.

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank.

(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group
Two Russian TU-95 Bear bombers were spotted flying about 41 miles off the coast of Alaska on Tuesday, just hours after two US F-22 fighter jets intercepted the same type of Russian aircraft in the area.

An E-3 surveillance aircraft was scrambled in response to the second sighting of Russian bombers off the Alaskan coast in 24 hours, a US defense official told CNN.

It is unclear if these were the same planes that were intercepted by the F-22s on Monday, but defense officials told CNN that it was a separate violation.

On Tuesday, the two Russian TU-95 Bear bombers once again flew into the Alaskan Air Defense and Identification Zone, according to two US defense officials. The closest the bombers came was 36 nautical miles off the mainland Alaskan coast, and they flew 745 nautical miles southwest of Anchorage.

The first encounter was described by a US military official as safe and professional and took place about 100 miles from Kodiak Island.

US military officials downplayed Monday's midair interaction as "nothing out of the ordinary" and "not dissimilar from what we've seen in the past with respect to Russian long-range aviation."

But Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the Russians were "trying to show their teeth" by flying so close to the US coastline amid tensions between the two nations.

"This was a show of force by the Russians to show us that they are still here," Kinzinger said. It was "an attempt to come up as close as they could to our international borders to see what our reaction would be."
WAPELLO  More than 10,000 turkeys were killed Thursday morning after a farm southwest of Wapello caught fire.

By the time crews arrived at Gentle Ben's Turkey Farm, a 40-foot by 250-foot turkey barn had already collapsed and been consumed by fire, according to a news release from Wapello Fire and Rescue.

More than 10,000 juvenile turkeys died in the fire, and the total loss and damage is estimated at $300,000.

The fire was reported around 11:11 a.m., and Wapello Fire and Rescue was dispatched to the farm, at 7530 K Ave.

Crews isolated the electric and natural gas utilities and removed the steel roofing panels to better fight the fire. Firefighters continued extinguishing flames until 3:52 p.m. The fire was aided by high winds, a heavy fuel load and sawdust bedding.

No injuries were reported.

The same building was the site of a fire in February, when a heater malfunctioned and caught fire. The cause of Thursday's fire is unknown, although authorities do not believe the blaze to be suspicious.

Thirty firefighters responded to the scene, and Wapello Fire and Rescue was assisted by Oakville Fire Department, Morning Sun Fire Department, Columbus Junction Fire Department,Wapello Community Ambulance, City of Wapello Public Works, Louisa County Sheriffs Office and the Wapello Police Department.
Water meter tampering in Wapello is now officially prohibited.

The second reading of an amendment prohibiting the action was approved by the Wapello City Council Thursday, which also waived the third reading.

According to previous discussions, city staff suspected earlier this year that two city residents had altered or otherwise disturbed their water meters after meter readings indicated no water had been used by the residents.

When city personnel investigated at one residence, they discovered a portion of the water meter had been removed. City officials developed the ordinance amendment following that inspection.

It would make it unlawful for any unauthorized person (including a licensed plumber) to alter, tamper with, relocate, willfully damage or bypass a water meter.

It would also make it unlawful for anyone except a city of Wapello employee to reconnect a water meter after city personnel have disconnected it.

The amendment will go into effect once it is published.

The city council also approved a resolution setting a May 18 public hearing at 7 p.m. on the citys proposed fiscal year (FY) 17 budget amendment. After approving the resolution, the council had to backtrack on the motion and revise the meeting time for 8 p.m. because of a potential conflict with an elementary vocal music concert.

Council members Kenny Marlette and Eric Small said they would not be able to attend the 7 p.m. meeting and Mayor Shawn Maine also acknowledged he would likely have a conflict.

According to the budget amendment summary, an additional $33,455 in spending is proposed to cover a furnace replacement and air conditioning at the library, repair water damage at the Briggs Civic Center and repair storm damage at the north park.

An additional $24,755 in revenue is projected in the amendment, which leaves a negative balance of $8,700. That shortfall will be covered by the FY17 budgets ending balance, which will drop from $691,857 to $683,157.

Maine also reported to the council that he would be meeting on April 25 with the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to discuss revised replacement plans for the County Highway 99 Iowa River Bridge at Wapello.

The county is considering a new plan that would relocate the replacement bridge to the north of the existing structure. While that would allow traffic to continue to use the current bridge and would also shave around $1 million off the construction cost, two properties would need to be acquired.

Maine requested a couple council members also attend the meeting.

Updated quotes for LED speed reading signs will also be requested from suppliers, the council informally agreed. According to city clerk Mike Delzell, quotes were provided in 2015 for signs, but no action was ever taken.

Where are these going? Maine asked.

Councilmember Gene Arnold suggested the two sites on U.S. Highway 61 where the speed limit drops from 45 to 35 mph. Maine then pointed out highway traffic would change whenever the proposed Highway 61 bypass was completed and suggested Oak Street and South Fourth might be options.

In a final report, officials said a set of replacement keys for the citys police squads would remain on a wall in the police department. According to officials, an officer was recently unable to work his shift after a mix-up with the keys left the officer without access to a squad car.

Its been resolved, Maine said about the mix-up.
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 []
Jubilee goes to the poll today (Friday 21), and the battles are expected to be heated.

Unlike ODM which dished out direct nominations in many of its strongholds, Jubilee has decided to let their supporters go to the ballot.

A Jubilee win in most of Mt. Kenya and Rift Valley areas is interpreted as a win in August, and that explains why politicians have gone all out to carry the day.

Aspirants have displayed their financial might through branded helicopters, roadshow trucks, tens of branded vehicles and actual dishing out of bribes.

Initially, Jubilee had planned to carry out the nomination exercise in one day, but they later changed that after realizing it would have been a logistical nightmare. Most of the hotly contested strongholds like Kiambu, Muranga, Uasin Gishu etc will still go to the ballot today, but the main event  Nairobi, has been pushed to Monday.

The reason given for pushing Nairobis date was so that muslims can be given a chance to participate, but we believe this is just an excuse.

It is claimed that top leadership is still working om a backroom deal between Sonko and Peter Kenneth. It was alleged that Sonko has been offered a cabinet secretary position, but he insists on contesting for the governorship. The move to postpone Nairobis date is seen as a time-buying move in order to arrive at a consensus.

But if negotiations fail, Sonko and Peter Kenneth will face off on Monday and it is up to Jubilee supporters to decide.

If it gets there, whom will you vote for?
Days after President Uhuru Kenyatta appeared to endorse Peter Kenneth for the Nairobi gubernatorial race, the Head of State has clarified on his earlier statement saying that he was misquoted.

Addressing the media at State House on Thursday, Uhuru said in Swahili: Sikuwaambia wamchague. Nilisema wamuombee. Hiyo si kupigia mtu debe.

Muombeeniubaya uko wapi? Hata naombea aspirants wote

This loosely translates to: I did not tell them to vote for him. I asked them to pray for him. That does not amount to an endorsement.

Pray for him. Where is the problem? I am praying for all aspirants.

The President added that he and his Jubilee Party do not have favorites for the August 8 polls.

I will work with the people chosen by the wananchi, he said.

Uhuru appeared to endorse Peter Kenneth while addressing residents of Kirwara in Gatanga last Saturday after attending the burial of former Gatanga MP David Murathes father.

He told them to pray for their son so he can win the Nairobi race.

Peter Kenneth was given a chance to talk and he assured the crowd that he will fight it out and the next time he goes to visit will be as Nairobi governor.

The former Gatanga MP is facing touch opposition from senator Mike Sonko.
SACRAMENTO  Isadore Hall was a veteran Democratic legislator from Compton until he gave up his seat to run for Congress and lost. But Gov. Jerry Brown gave him a soft landing when he appointed Hall to a six-figure job mediating disputes between farmers and union workers.

Hall's former Democratic colleagues in the California Senate confirmed him Thursday to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board despite allegations that he threatened farmers who opposed his nomination and is too close to labor interests.

The obscure board often draws fierce partisan conflict between agriculture-backed Republicans and labor-supported Democrats. But the fight over Hall was especially touchy.

"The once thorough and extensive Senate confirmation process for appointees of the governor has been corrupted," said Sen. Andy Vidak, a Republican from Hanford in California's Central Valley agricultural heartland. "Isadore Hall is a classic case of someone who is completely unqualified, ill-suited and ethically challenged getting rubber-stamped rather than vetted."

According to Vidak, Farmers opposed to Hall's nomination told the GOP lawmaker that Hall threatened to "get" them during a confrontation at a Sacramento hotel bar the night before his confirmation hearing.

Vidak last month called for Hall's confirmation vote to be delayed pending an investigation. When Democratic leaders refused, he filed a complaint with the Legislative Ethics Committee. Vidak also asked Brown to withdraw Hall's nomination.

"It's not our practice to review or investigate barroom conversations," said Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles.

Hall was a well-liked lawmaker known for bantering and joking with colleagues. He represented Compton in the Assembly and Senate for eight years until he opted against a re-election bid and ran instead for Congress. He lost to fellow Democrat Nanette Barragan in November.

Brown appointed Hall to the $142,000 a year job in January. Hall has spent 15 years in public office and has a doctorate in theology but does not have a background in labor law or agriculture.

The board is a quasi-judicial agency that rules on allegations of unfair labor practices at farms and conducts elections for workers deciding whether to unionize.

The appointment smacks of "cronyism," said Sen. John Moorlach of Costa Mesa, among all 13 Republicans who voted against confirming Hall.

Some of the state's most influential agricultural organizations opposed Hall's nomination, alleging he's too closely tied with the United Farm Workers union. They said Hall received campaign contributions from the UFW, supported legislation sponsored by the union and marched with UFW members locked in a long-running labor dispute.

Mark Soble, the board's acting executive secretary, said Hall declined to comment on the alleged bar confrontation. He pointed to Hall's testimony to the Senate Rules Committee, in which he pledged to work with people from all sides. The alleged confrontation did not come up during that hearing.

"I can't make a decision with 50 percent of the knowledge," Hall said at the March 1 event. "I have to have information from all stakeholders in order to be an effective member of the board."

Democrats defended Hall's nomination, saying they know him well as a committed colleague who works hard to understand issues and build consensus.

"I see somebody that can serve in this position in an effective, fair manner," said Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose. "I do not see one incident that someone might bring up as a reason to turn down someone we've worked with, as I have, for eight years."

Evan Westrup, a Brown spokesman, said the governor's top priority is to select the best candidate for every appointment.

But Brown gave an unusually candid look into the political nature of his appointments in an offhand comment at the end of a speech Wednesday to the League of California Cities. He launched into a story from his first campaign for governor in 1974.

"I met a dentist in Lodi and he did a fundraiser for me," Brown said. "So after I got elected I put him on the dental board. And people said, 'Why'd you put this guy on the dental board?' And I said, 'Because I wanted some representation from Lodi,' which we didn't have."
Sitting next to an inflatable kiddie pool filled with sudsy water, the mermaid posed prettily for photos, smiling and waving at her fans.

Mermaid Rachel, as she identified herself, paid a visit to dry land on Thursday to be part of our world and celebrate Earth Day at Napa Valley College.

Im here to talk to people about ocean awareness, said the mermaid, who wore a shell bikini top and shell headpiece that complemented her silvery blue fin tail.

Living in the ocean, Im at ground zero of environmental changes, she noted.

The half-human, half-fish urged her visitors to be aware of how the products they use, such as plastics, can harm the ocean.

Use less plastic, or try to find alternatives, she said. And be careful of how you dispose of plastics. It gets stuck in my hair, said the mythical creature.

The Associated Students of the college hosted the Earth Day event, which included booths and activities from vendors and nonprofits including the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District, Noosa Yoghurt, a solar company, SpiritHorse therapeutic riding center, Land trust of Napa County and Friends of the Napa River.

Several hundred students and other visitors attended the event.

A group of Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) clubs also set up tables to spread awareness of their groups.

Students Sara Gonsalves and Melany Martinez, both 19, happened upon the event after their classes ended.

We got some free yogurt; that was pretty awesome, Gonsalves.

Speaking more seriously, Gonsalves, who is studying environmental science, said its important to have Earth Day events.

People take it for granted, she said, referring to the planet.

We treat our environment and resources as if we have an infinite supply, Martinez said. Its not sustainable.

Zarina Sultana, 20, helped staff a booth for the Napa Valley College pre-med student club. Her message on Earth Day was to urge students to recycle.

We only have one planet, said Sultana.

Staffing a table for the International Bird Rescue center in Fairfield, Joanne Contawe said she wanted to educate students about the hazards of fishing to birds. Lures, hooks, line and sinkers can get tangled with birds or even end up inside their bodies.

Even if students dont fish, she also hoped to expose students to careers in science, animal care, ecology or conservation.

Bird Rescue is a good place to get experience and insights for such careers, she said.

Student Martina Yturralde, 19, said she was enjoying the on-campus event. Most students at the community college leave campus immediately after class, Yturralde said. Theres not a lot of socializing. The Earth Day eventwith free food, music and activities  is a way for us to interact with each other.

Her friend, Kekoa Banayat, 18, agreed. This helps everyone get to know each other, he said.

For those who didnt get to see Mermaid Rachel flipping her fins in the sun at the college, the aquatic creature noted that when shes not attending Earth Day events, she and her companions can be seen swimming in a large salt water tank at a bar called the Dive Bar in Sacramento.
SAN FRANCISCO  A conductor of San Francisco's iconic cable cars has been charged with embezzlement for allegedly stealing cash he collected from riders.

District Attorney George Gascon says 61-year-old Albert Williams of Napa was arrested Wednesday on felony charges of misappropriation of public money and embezzlement.

Gascon says an investigation showed that Williams hid the true amount of cash he collected and pocketed hundreds of dollars in cash from cable car riders. How much Williams allegedly stole was not released.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency says it will strengthen its oversight of cash transactions and may no longer take cash payments in its cable car system.

Built in the 19th century, San Francisco's cable cars are one of the city's biggest tourist attractions.

A one-way cable car ride costs $7.
Police: Designer T-shirts recovered following shoplifting at Napa outlets

American Canyon Police arrested a shoplifting suspect Thursday afternoon who reportedly stole $900 in T-shirts from the Polo Ralph Lauren Outlet Store in Napa.

Store employees witnessed a 27-year-old male American Canyon resident taking 23 shirts from the store around 12:30 p.m. Staff contacted Napa Police dispatch and provided a description of the suspect, his vehicle, and the license plate. The suspect information was shared with the Napa County Sheriffs Department and the American Canyon Police.

American Canyon officers found the suspect and his vehicle in American Canyon where the suspect was detained.

Napa Police responded and continued their investigation and returned the stolen property to the Polo Ralph Lauren Store.
Four Bay Area hospitals  including Napas Queen of the Valley, one in Redwood City, and two in San Francisco  were among 14 facilities fined by the California Department of Public Health on Thursday after investigators determined that their staffs caused  or almost caused  serious injury or death to patients.

In total, the department imposed $1.1 million in fines for the incidents, which occurred from 2012 to 2016.

Queen of the Valley was fined $50,000 after a patient died in April 2013 when the hospital didnt ensure that his CPR monitoring and breathing support system was functioning while he was being transferred from the emergency room to a medical unit.

The Queen also was fined $75,000 after an emergency room staff member in May 2013 did not follow a doctors order to give a patient with a severe allergy epinephrine under the skin. Instead, she gave it to him intravenously. That lead to chest pains, causing him to be admitted to the hospital.

Queen of the Valley Hospital also was fined $100,000 for a November 2013 incident in which a patients breathing problems were not promptly reported to her doctor, leading to bleeding down the back of her throat, respiratory arrest and brain damage.

We deeply regret that these incidents occurred, Queen Chief Executive Larry Coomes said in a statement. Providing the safest environment and highest quality of care to all our patients is fundamental to our hospitals mission and values. Our hospital performs rigorous internal reviews of our quality and safety on a regular basis. We are confident that our focus on continuous improvement will uphold our commitment to providing a safe environment for our patients.

The CDPH penalty is related to events that took place in 2013. In keeping with our commitment to a culture of integrity, active compliance and the delivery of the highest-quality care, we self-reported these events to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) at the time and took immediate action to prevent any such event from happening in the future, he said. We submitted a plan of correction that was accepted by the CDPH and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the hospital remains in full compliance with these entities today.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area, the California Pacific Medical Center-St. Lukes Campus Hospital in San Francisco was fined $47,452 after the state said the hospital staff did not correctly assess a patients unwitnessed fall, after which she developed a blood clot that required brain surgery. She died from the injuries in April 2015.

Kaiser Permanente San Francisco was fined $47,025 after the state said the hospital staff failed to monitor a patients dialysis catheter in his groin. After one of the blood lines became loose and disconnected, the patient suffered massive blood loss and died of heart failure in December 2015.

Kaiser San Francisco was fined $100,000 after a patient died in April 2016 of respiratory failure when established procedures related to the patients tracheostomy tubes were not followed.

Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City was fined $47,452 after the hospital in February 2016 mistakenly removed a womans ovaries. As a result, she will need to be on estrogen replacement therapy for life.

The state Department of Public Health said that in addition to being fined the hospitals will be required to provide the state with a plan that explains how they will prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

Hospitals can appeal the penalties by requesting a hearing within 10 days.
Use permits are activities primarily at wineries (events, production and visitation quotas among others) loosely defined in the Zoning Code over which the county Supervisors have ultimate discretion in adjusting them as they see fit upon applicants' requests. On the face of it, one would think there is nothing wrong with that. This however, presupposes a fair and equitable government that enjoys the trust of the people.

The use permit process begins with the applicant spending thousands of dollars in preparing environmental impact reports and other studies for staff to review for a recommendation to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission conducts public hearings attended by staff, county legal counsel and the public. Such hearings may extend over two, even three, sessions before the commission approves or denies them. Its decisions may be appealed to the Supervisors involving additional public hearings. The Supervisors' decisions can then be contested in court at enormous costs, as is recently the case with the Syar quarry expansion and the Walt Ranch development.

While the applicant pays for the cost of staff time, he or she does not pay for the long-term costs of staff benefits and pensions, nor for the costs of the county facilities such as utilities, equipment, maintenance and depreciation. Nor does the applicant pay for the tens of thousands in consultants' fees paid by the appellant; that overwhelmingly being the public. One must also consider that a proliferation in use permit applications necessitates ever-increasing numbers of staff. These enormous long-term costs are all borne by the public.

There are also unaccounted costs in lost productivity. The recent application by the Palmaz family to allow it to fly a personal-use helicopter from its property on Hagen Road, has already had three public hearings, each time attended by over 100 citizens, with a fourth scheduled. By the time appeal hearings are over, this use permit process will have cost the citizens between 3,500 and 4,000 hours of unaccounted for loss in productivity. Whether it is for one winery to increase its visitors or for a single person to use his property for the recreational activity of flying his helicopter, this system in terms of public expenditure and in human capital investment is grossly out of balance in favor of the applicant.

Equally, if not more important, are ethics issues arising when commissioners and supervisors have more and more discretionary power, which is what use permits give them.

The amounts of money spent on supervisors' election campaigns has mushroomed to obscene levels, primarily funded by wineries and other special interests certainly not motivated by charity but in the hope of gaining favorable outcomes to their use permit applications. The system is so grossly out of kilter that even wineries that for years have been violating their use permits, not only receive forgiveness but are rewarded with many times over their production and visitations.

When the Reverie Winery received its forgiveness last year, including for serious environmental violations, it was also rewarded with triple its production levels and tenfold its visitations. Before the ink had dried on its new use permit, it turned around and sold it within days after the supervisors added millions of value in scandalous rewards.

If you are the director of corporate development for a winery tour company that relies on good winery relations for access, as one of our commissioners is, or a supervisor voting for a large donor's use permit, would it not be fair for the public to question the independence of their vote?

This is not a government that can be trusted - even in appearance - to make equitable and unbiased administration of the power it keeps giving to itself in the form of the use permit process?

There are measures that can be employed toward a solution.

First: For the government to regain credibility, any commissioners and supervisors who have a direct or proximate interest or have received substantial financial contributions from an industry or an individual seeking a use permit must recuse themselves from voting on them.

Second: A serious effort must be made to substantially tighten the Zoning Code - perhaps review it every five years - so that what is permitted and what is not, is clear. This will reduce the number of use permit applications, limiting the discretionary power of commissioners and supervisors. It will also reduce the cost in both monetary and human capital expended in the inefficient and unfair current system.

Finally, it will free up staff, commissioners and supervisors to allow them to devote their energy in addressing the fundamental issues the county is facing now and into the future.

George Caloyannidis

Calistoga
Martine Sauniers wines are sold mostly to restaurants, but a fewincluding the Feraud-Brunel and the Niepoort recommended hereare available at select retail stores. Other wines this week include an easy-to-find bag-in-a-box rose from Provence, a fine gruner veltliner from Austria and a racy albarino from Spain.

Great Value

Feraud-Brunel Cotes du Rhone Villages 2013, three stars, Rhone Valley, France, $20

Cotes du Rhone Village is a relatively modest appellation, but this is not a modest wine. It has the color of Bing cherries, and on the palate it tastes like cherries, meat and herbs. In other words, it has loads of flavor that doesnt quit. Alcohol by volume: 14 percent.

 Steininger Gruner Veltliner Grand Gru Cru Reserve 2015, three stars, Kamptal, Austria, $28

A fantastic vintage from one of my favorite Austrian producersyes, I have manythis classy white wine is limpid and deep. Its initial impression seems understated, but there is a lot of fruit, white flowers and peppery minerality to grab your attention. ABV: 13 percent.

 Niepoort Twisted Tinto 2015, 2.5 stars, Douro Valley, Portugal, $19

Dirk Niepoort is one of the Douro Valleys leading champions of table wines, in addition to the ports the region is known for. Douro winemakers have favored the powerful, tannic and alcoholic style of red wine, but Niepoort is moving in the opposite direction, toward elegance and finesse. The Twisted red blend features lively acidity and savory dark fruit flavors. Try this with steak, stew or . . . well, anything that makes you think of red wine. ABV: 14 percent.

 Nessa Albarino 2015, 2.5 stars, Rias Baixas, Spain, $17

Nessas albarino is classic, with racy, refreshing flavors of citrus and kumquat. This wine will be happiest when you pair it with seafood. ABV: 12.5 percent.

 Chateau Montaud Cotes de Provence Rose 2016, two stars, Provence, France, $26 (3 liters)

Who can argue against a delicious rose from Provence that comes in a three-liter box for a bargain pricethe equivalent of less than $7 a bottle? Its $13 in a 750-milliliter bottle. If you want to splurge, it is also available in a really cool-looking three-liter bottle for about $75. The box is easier and more fun. ABV: 12 percent.

Three stars: exceptional; two stars: excellent: one star: very good

Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor.
Its a young workers job market in 2017 as employers scramble to fill entry-level minimum wage jobs to service the graying population on Floridas Space Coast.



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As the above chart shows, the retiring population is far outpacing the working population in Brevard.

According to to the latest jobs numbers released by CarreerSource Brevard, nearly everyone who wants a job, has a job in Brevard County.

The local unemployment rate dropped from 5.3% in March 2016 to 4.5% in March 2017, which was entirely due to job growth outpacing an increase in the participation rate in the labor force.

Thats good news for teens and early twenty-somethings who can now command an entry-level salary of well over minimum wage because young labor is becoming more and more scarce to service the rest of Brevards residential and tourist customers. But thats bad news for employers with more demanding job positions that offer less pay and require more experience or education.

For example, the going rate of just a teenage babysitter in Brevard County with no experience is $10 per hour, with higher rates for more than one child, according to Care.com. Thats nearly $2 per hour more than Floridas 2017 Minimum Wage rate of $8.10 per hour.
MONROE COUNTY, Florida  Mutant mosquitoes were released in Florida on Tuesday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved field trials of the Oxitecs genetically engineered mosquitoes in the Florida Keys.



The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District released 20,000 male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes on Stock Island in the Florida Keys. The field trial involves the release of male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with a naturally-occurring bacterium called Wolbachia.



When a Wolbachia-infected male mates with a wild female Aedes aegypti, the resulting eggs do not hatch. During the 12 week evaluation, a thousand male mosquitoes, which do not bite, will be released from 20 different points in the trial area twice-a-week.



This is an important time at Mosquito Control, said Executive Director Andrea Leal. A successful trial with the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes could mean the availability of a new tool in the fight against the Aedes aegypti mosquito for not only our District, but for Mosquito Control Districts around the country.





Each tube contains 1,000 Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes. Photo credit: FKMCD



Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are very difficult to control, are the species that are primarily responsible for the spread of the Zika virus. The species can also transmit dengue fever, Chikungunya virus, West Nile virus, and Yellow Fever.
The Emory University Physician Assistant (PA) Program is gearing up for the 16th annual "Heel to Heal Superhero 5K and Fundraiser," scheduled for April 22. Students in the physician assistant program are raising money to purchase medications and supplies to provide free health care to farm workers in South Georgia, as well as to underserved families in Atlanta.Heel to Heal is an organization to help underserved people in Georgia, run by the Emory University Physician Assistant Program. The students travel to South Georgia for two weeks every June to take part in the South Georgia Farmworker Health Project."We set up tents and folding chairs, which act as temporary clinics, to provide basic medical care to 1200 to 1600 farm workers and their families," says Juliana Fritz, student in the Emory Physician Assistant Program and lead organizer for this year's 5K and fundraiser. "These people otherwise have little or no access to care. With the money raised from the 5K, we are able to purchase medical supplies and medications for our trip south."The PA students also volunteer their weekends to provide care to the uninsured, underinsured and at-risk population at several community health centers around metro Atlanta. Medical services include basic wellness checks, physical examinations and access to free medications.After the race there will be free massages, free food and refreshments, activities for children, live music and a raffle with lots of prizes. The best costume and the best pet costume will be awarded, so be sure to dress up!To help support a good cause, details are below:The Emory University Physician Assistant ProgramThe 16th Annual Heel to Heal Superhero 5K and FundraiserSaturday, April 22, 20178:30-9:30 am  Pick-up goodie bag and race bib. Bring ID to check in.9:30-10 am - Energizer warm-up10 am - Ready, set, go!11:30 am - Awards ceremony (Top males and females and best costume)Student Activity and Academic Center (SAAC)at Emory University's Clairmont Campus (start and finish line)1946 Starvine WayDecatur, GA 30033(You will be running through the enchanting tree-lined paths of Lullwater Park Preserve)The cost is $30 per person, and $35 per person on race day. Children 10 years of age and under run free with a paying adult.
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NASA, other eclipse partners to visit SIU in May

by Tim Crosby

CARBONDALE, Ill.  With the total solar eclipse only a few months away, the planning group at Southern Illinois University Carbondale is nailing down details on how the university and its partners will handle one of the highest-profile celestial events in the country in years.

To that end, officials from NASA, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and a solar instrumentation company are planning a two-day visit to SIU in early May to prepare for the event, which may draw as many as 50,000 people to the campus and city.

Details about SIUs plans for the Aug. 21 eclipse are available here.

The visiting contingent, which will include officials from the NASA EDGE webcast program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Lunt Solar Systems, is set for May 1-2. During the visit, officials will review plans and logistics for the eclipse education program, which will have great implications for sky watchers not only in Carbondale that day, but those all over the world.

NASA EDGE is a video podcast discussing the latest technology and research going on at NASA centers across the country. New episodes appear monthly and are transmitted to the public through several websites, including NASA TV, iTunes, YouTube, USTREAM and other podcast sites.

The show, which combines humor and education, provides an insider's view of NASA and updates the public on the most innovative and groundbreaking research. On eclipse day, NASA EDGE is planning a four-hour broadcast that will include live interviews and video of the eclipse as it crosses the country.

Blair Allen, the irreverent co-host and professional outsider of NASA EDGE, said the trip is an important planning event for the show.

During our trip there we will be confirming many of the logistics for our broadcast, Allen said. For example, we will finalize the placement of our set, test technical capability for sending our signal via the web and confirm camera placement, and such.

The NASA EDGE team also will work with Lunt Solar Systems, maker of solar telescopes and ultra-high definition heliostats, to determine the best solar observation sites near the programs set, and to run other tests for the day of observations, Allen said.

On Aug. 21, the eclipse viewing path and shadow will sweep across the country from northwest to southeast, with its point of greatest duration a few miles south of Carbondale. The total solar eclipse is the first over the mainland United States since 1979.

The universitys planning, led by a campus-community committee, has been under way for more than two years. Plans call for activities throughout the weekend before and day of the eclipse.

Lou Mayo, planetary scientist with NASA and program manager for the agency for the event, said NASA selected SIU as its site to cover the eclipse for a number of reasons.

SIU has excellent infrastructure that can accommodate a large number of people, Mayo said. It has an engaged community (and) it is on the center line and is the center of the eclipse (for greatest duration). It also has reasonable chances for clear skies.

As program manager for NASAs eclipse activities, Mayo said he will be helping coordinate operations while also staffing the NASA booth at SIU on the big day.

I am also an astronomer and will be involved in interviews about the eclipse, he said. Hopefully, I will have time to snap a few pictures as well.

Mayo said solar eclipses are wondrous events but are often too remote to attend. Many occur over the oceans that cover so much of the Earths surface.

This one is right in our backyard so millions in North Americans will have a chance to see it, he said. NASA often uses celestial events that capture the interest and imagination of the public to promote science education.

Allen said its next to impossible not to get excited about a total solar eclipse.

Eclipses and partial eclipses are rare, but this is bucket-list-level amazing, Allen said. The real excitement is being able to experience this significant astronomical event with the thousands of folks gathered at SIU and fellow observers all across the country. And when you can share it with people outside the path and give them an opportunity to participate, there is nothing like it.

Mayo said a scientific highlight of the event will be using a new and advanced sun-observing system, developed by Lunt Solar Systems.

The observing system is for near real-time, ultra-high definition imaging of the eclipse in white light, Hydrogen alpha, and Calcium K wavelengths, Mayo said. The images should be stunning and will be broadcast through our NASA EDGE programming.

Michelle Nichols, master educator with Adler Planetarium, will be part of the team visiting campus next month. On the day of the eclipse, Nichols will act as a roaming correspondent in Saluki Stadium during the NASA coverage.

I will be plugged in wherever they need me to talk to the crowd, get individual reactions and lead several quick educational activities, Nichols said. So (the May visit) will be the first time that the entire NASA and SIU teams, with me included, will be together to develop the elements of the broadcast. It will be an opportunity to further refine what the organizers will need me to do and when that will happen.

Nichols said the eclipse will connect millions of people through shared wonderment and experience, and through the past and present.

When you see a total solar eclipse, you are immediately and personally connected to the countless people who have seen them in the past  and you instantly understand why people were awed and frightened of them, she said. You are also immediately connected to the concept of the precise alignment of sun, moon, and Earth that makes this possible. It is incredible to be able to share this event with many people gathered together in a large group, so I am especially looking forward to that aspect of this event at SIU.
Warehousing giant Embassy Industrial Parks on Thursday announced the construction of a grade 'A' quality industrial and warehousing facility in its newly acquired property in Gurugram, Haryana. The 24 acres of land purchased by Embassy Industrial Parks is strategically located on NH-8 near Bilaspur Chowk. It is a major development after a 1,910 crore worth Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the Government of Haryana last year to grow operations in the state. The property has six lakh sq. ft. of leasable space containing a logistics park concept with a host of amenities. The land parcel approximately costs Rs. 38 crores. The area is developing at a fast pace and turning into a global manufacturing hub with the presence of various international giants. Companies from 3PL, e-commerce and FMCG sector account for almost 70 percent of the total demand in the Delhi-NCR. The manufacturing facilities of Maruti, Honda, Hero motors and Subros amongst others and warehousing facilities of Decathlon, Amazon, TCI, Gati, Flipkart and Blue Dart are in close proximity to the acquired plot. It is close to Delhi city (38 km) and the International airport (45 km), as well as the Delhi - Mumbai Highway NH8. This warehouse is being constructed by Embassy Industrial Parks to meet the ever growing demand of logistics of industry verticals such as Ecommerce, FMCG, retail, consumer durables, apparel and fashion, automotive, pharmaceutical and healthcare, high tech and telecom. "The warehousing sector has seen a steep growth in activity from 2013 till 2016- more than 55 percent growth in India; more than 45 percent growth in NCR. We have entered a significant phase in the evolution of the Embassy Industrial Parks brand in the NCR Region. It has a strong reputation and is a key focus area for the company to grow our operations," said Anshul Singhal, CEO, Embassy Industrial Parks. Post the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill proposal, warehousing activity in the region will move towards a more systematic mode of operation leading to an inflow of more institutional funding and formal sources of capital. A recent survey conducted by the Commercial Real Estate Services (CBRE) among leading warehousing occupiers in the country revealed that consolidation and expansion will be the key theme driving warehousing demand in the region. This will result in increased demand for larger, better quality warehouses leading to emergence of new warehousing hubs as well as expansion of the existing hubs. The survey also revealed that 30 percent of respondents said that they will further expand their footprint in the warehousing market of Delhi-NCR in the post-GST scenario. Given the significance of the sector in the overall growth of the economy, it has received a great push from the government, both in terms of policy initiatives as well as rationalisation of tax reforms. During 2016, the sector witnessed a great deal of investments and this trend is only likely to gain momentum going forward. An anticipated increase in demand from manufacturing companies will spur supply of quality warehousing, which is likely to lead to emergence of new warehousing hubs as well as expansion of the existing hubs. The potential for the growth of this market is the near future is significant. Recently, Embassy Industrial Parks invested Rs. 350 crore to build a 1.1-million sq ft industrial park at Chakan, Pune. The group is planning to invest about Rs. 1,600 crore as equity to build seven-eight industrial parks over the next six years. (ANI)
Indian engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Hanwha Techwin (HTW) of South Korea on Friday signed a contract to provide the Indian Army with 155 mm mobile artillery guns. After successful completion of the trials for 155mm/52 calibre Tracked Self-Propelled (SP) Gun programme by the Army, L&T was declared the sole qualified bidder based on the performance of its K9 VAJRA-T. The gun is an enhanced version of HTW's K9 Thunder with modifications for desert operations. Generally, artillery guns are towed by trucks but self-propelled guns are either mounted on a wheeled or tracked chasis, allowing them to move on their own. Jayant Patil, Head of Defence and Aerospace, L&T, said: "This contract marks an important milestone in L&T's Defence Business journey and in our relationship with Hanwha Techwin. "L&T plans to begin production of this vital weapon system at its Strategic Systems Complex at Talegaon near Pune and deliver the first batch of 10 guns. "L&T also has initiated setting up of a greenfield manufacturing line at Hazira, Gujarat, integral with a state-of-the-art test track, to produce, test and qualify the K9 VAJRA-T guns," he added. The Indian Army in 2011 came up with a Request for Proposal (RFP) under Buy (Global) category for 100 155mm/52 calibre Tracked Self Propelled (SP) Gun programme. The contract is expected to cost Rs 4,500 crore to government. Speaking on the indigenous content in the gun system, Patil said, "Most of the system of this gun will be done here. But there are some parts that we will not even attempt. Hundred gun is too small a scale to do something phenomenal." "The basic armament, the barrel, the beach, the muzzle will always be imported for all the guns. L&T has the ability to make that through the massive forging plant that we have at our own nuclear programme." The engine will be imported. "The hull, the turret, electronics, Fire control systems, auto loaders are indigenous. The human specific systems like air conditioning, NBC systems and direct fire system among others are indigenous. The value is close to equitable," he said discussing L&T contribution in the system. In 2013, field trials for the guns were conducted at Pokhran. In September 2015, L&T was declared the only company to qualify in trials. First ten systems will be imported from South Korea and rest 90 will be manufactured in India at the Hazira facility. As per the contract requirements, the first gun is required to be delivered within 18 months, but L&T feels it can supply the first gun within this financial year. Speaking on the special capability of this gun system, Patil said, "It is fitted out with a system that can see through night as well. What most artilleries in the world do not do is a direct line of sight, what a battle tank does." "We can use this gun not only for indirect fire up to 43-44 km but for four km line of site to hit a bunker," he added. Addressing the event the South Korean Ambassador to India, Cho Hyun said, "In early May we will have a new government. Our economy is going to be stronger." Speaking on the threat from North Korea, he called for a deepening cooperation between the two nations using each others' strength. The contract between the Indian Army and L&T is expected to be signed soon. The gun has 50 per cent Indian content. --IANS rs/rn ( 587 Words) 2017-04-21-20:52:08 (IANS)
India and the European Union on Friday agreed to strengthen security cooperation during a meeting here between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini. "Prime Minister Modi and Mogherini discussed regional and global developments of mutual interest," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement. "The Prime Minister and Mogherini agreed on the need to strengthen the security cooperation between India and EU, particularly on the issue of counter-terrorism," it said Modi recalled his visit to Brussels in March 2016 for the 13th India-EU Summit, and said that he was looking forward to the next India-EU Summit to be held in India in October 2017. Earlier in the day, Mogherini, who is on an official visit to India, also met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar. According to a statement by the External Affairs Ministry, they reaffirmed their commitment to deepening their Strategic Partnership and reviewed progress on the commitments made during the Brussels summit, including in the areas of counter-terrorism, migration and mobility, water partnership, clean energy and climate change action. Sushma Swaraj also condemned Thursday night's terror attack in Paris that claimed the life of a police officer. Emphasising that terrorism was the gravest threat to humanity today, she called for both to strengthen their cooperation to fight it. The statement also said that EU is one of India's largest trading partners with bilateral trade in goods reaching $85 billion in 2016, as well as the largest destination for Indian exports and a key source of investment and cutting edge technologies. "India seeks enhanced level of investments from EU companies in its flagship programmes like Clean India, Namami Gange, Skill India, Start-Up India, Smart Cities, renewable energy and next-generation infrastructure." According to the statement, both sides also discussed ways to take forward the India-EU broad-based trade and investment agreement. According to statement by the Delegation of the European Union here, during the course of Friday's meetings, the two sides discussed in depth a broad range of issues of common interest. It said that the EU and India "are natural partners, they share fundamental values of democracy and diversity, economic interests and robust trade relations, common security challenges, a direct interest in the stabilisation of many fragile areas, from the Korean Peninsula to Afghanistan". "The EU and India expressed their common interest and commitment to strengthen their cooperation on the world stage, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, on common priorities such as multilateralism, climate change, sustainable development, free and fair trade, security and defence - notably on maritime security - and counter-terrorism," it said. The two sides also agreed to take stock of progress made on decisions taken at last year's summit in Brussels, to deepen cooperation in foreign policy, security and defence, trade, investments, climate change, water, new and renewable energy, environment, ICT, space, research and technology, urbanisation, and to strengthen people-to-people contacts, including student exchanges. During her visit, Mogherini opened the EU@60 Treaty of Rome Exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture. This year, the EU celebrates the 60th anniversary of the treaty, which paved the way for the bloc's formation. --IANS ab/vd ( 545 Words) 2017-04-21-22:24:09 (IANS)
The O. Panneerselvam-led group on Thursday categorically stated that the merger between the two factions of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) would not be possible until an affidavit stating the removal of V. K. Sasikala and his nephew T.T.V Dinakaran from the party is submitted to the Election Commission. "We demand that an affidavit be submitted by the other camp stating that Sasikala and TTV Dinakaran no longer hold party position to the Election Commission. If this is done, we will consider it as first victory to our faction," former state minister and AIADMK member K. P. Munusamy told the media here. Munusamy further stated that they have asked the Edapadi K. Palanisamy-led government to initiate a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry to probe the mysterious death of late chief minister J. Jayalalithaa. "If they accept these demands only then there will be talks about the merger," he added. Casting aside speculations that Panneerselvam has asked for the chief ministerial post as a precondition for the merger, Munusamy said "Neither had we asked for Chief Minister's post nor we asked for the general secretary's post. We only demanded a CBI investigation into Jayalalithaa's death." The OPS camp further alleged that Palanisamy is devising new ways to prevent the merger from taking place. "Current Chief Minister Palanisamy, who was appointed at the mercy of Sasikala, is not acting as the AIADMK Chief Minister rather he is acting as the Chief Minister of Sasikala and her family," he said. Responding to a poser on Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar's assertion that Sasikala and family have been de-linked form the party, Munusamy said, "Jayakumar only said that Dinakaran has been ousted from the party, he never took the name of Sasikala." The latest development in Tamil Nadu's politics comes as AIADMK MP and deputy speaker M. Thambidurai and Jayakumar met Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao separately. However, the former described his visit as personal while the latter termed it official. "There is no political significance in the meeting. We did not speak politics at all. He is my friend, I have known him for years," Thambidurai said. "He is the Chancellor of the Fisheries University and by the virtue of being a fisheries minister I am the Pro-Chancellor. I discussed with him the appointment of a V-C for the university," he said. The talks for a merger gained ground after an FIR was registered against Dinakaran for bribing the Election Commission officials for staking claim of the 'Two Leaves' party symbol. Following this, Sukesh Chandrasekhar, Dhinakaran's alleged middleman, was arrested by police for striking a deal of Rs. 50 crore to help the AIADMK faction keep the 'two leaves' poll symbol. (ANI)
Asserting that Centre's move to ban the use of red beacon in vehicles belonging to dignitaries would not end VVIP culture, the Congress on Friday said the decision was not taken after careful consideration, adding that the important functionaries of the government should have some privileges in an emergency situation. "I don't think the decision was taken after careful consideration because in an emergency situation, important functionaries of the government should have some privileges. Prohibiting it completely is not the correct thing according to me personally and this not my party's opinion. VVIP culture is not going to over with the ban," Congress leader P.C. Chacko told ANI. He further said the Cabinet has the right to take any decision, but it would soon realise that it was not a wise one. "The Prime Minister does not care for the convention, practices and supremacy. He thinks by removing laal batti, they will remove VIP culture," he added. Another Congress leader Hidayatullah said that instead of banning red beacon, the ministers should leave their ministry image. "It is a routine announcement. Instead of banning lat batti, they should stay away from official and ministry image. Sometimes they will obey, sometimes not. There will not be any exemption for anybody, even for the Prime Minister," he told ANI. The Central Government on Wednesday banned the use of red beacon atop vehicles of dignitaries, including the central and state ministers and other VVIPs. The decision taken by the Union Cabinet will be implemented from May 1. It is reported that five categories would be exempted from the ban - the President, the Vice President, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Lok Sabha Speaker. The ban applies to union ministers, chief ministers, state cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and judges of the High Court and Supreme Court. (ANI)
Following the Pakistan Supreme Court's verdict on Panamagate, the Indian defence experts on Friday characterised it as 'considerable relief' to Nawaz Sharif, while others said it weakened the position of the Islamabad Prime Minister. "Nawaz Sharif's position has weakened ever since Panama leak appeared in the newspaper and his party also lost considerable support. With this judgement, Sharif's position has further weakened," defence experts Qamar Agha told ANI Defence expert Uday Bhaskar said that the apex court's verdict has given a big relief to Sharif. "I would characterise this judgement of Pakistan Supreme Court as providing considerable relief to Nawaz Sharif, because though it was slightly split verdict three judges were in favour of Sharif while two were against. This gives a lot of relief to the Prime Minister as there was no incriminating evidence that would call for further judicial action," he told ANI. Announcing the much-awaited Panamagate case verdict, the Pakistan Supreme Court yesterday neither gave a clean chit nor a disqualification to Nawaz Sharif, but ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe how money was transferred to Qatar. According to the Dawn, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told reporters outside the court that the verdict was split 3-2. "They have said what the PM already said in his letter - that a commission should be constituted to investigate the matter," he said. "We are ready for all kinds of investigation. It has been established today that any evidence or sacrifices given by our opponents in the SC were not enough. We have succeeded," he added. The Panama Papers, which refer to a massive trove of secret documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca - specialising in helping the global elite stash wealth in offshore tax havens - had said that the Prime Minister's children Maryam, Hasan and Hussain Nawaz "were owners or had the right to authorise transactions for several [offshore] companies." At least eight offshore companies were found to have links to the Sharif family in the documents that were leaked following which the case was filed by various petitioners - PTI chief Imran Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed - seeking disqualification of Prime Minister Sharif over his alleged misstatement in his address to the nation on April 5 and his speech before the National Assembly on May 16, 2016. The petitioners claimed that the Prime Minister lied about the investments made by his children in offshore companies, which led to the acquisition of four apartments in London's upscale Park Lane neighbourhood. (ANI)
Lauding the Centre's decision to ban the use of red beacon light on vehicles of dignitaries, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the move would eliminate the chaos caused in the past due to VIP vehicles. Speaking to ANI on Friday, BJP leader S. Prakash, while supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urged that it was important for politicians to be among the citizens and do what was required of them. "In the past, there has been confusion with regard to VIP cars. The move has been proposed, so that dignitaries also function as common men from May 1," he said. Prakash also urged that although most state governments have accepted the decision, states like Bihar, where the 'laal batti' culture is inherent, must also incorporate the same. "Those opposing the decision will eventually fall in line," he added. Hailing Prime Minister Modi as a 'people's Prime Minister', BJP leader Zafar Islam said the 'adorable' Prime Minister has reiterated his belief that everyone should be given equal importance in a country. "With the stroke of a pen, the Prime Minister has delivered a landmark judgement and unified every citizen of this country. Unlike before, our Prime Minister is concerned about the wellbeing of each and every citizen. This has never happened in the past 70 years," he said, while taking a jibe at the former UPA government. The decision taken by the Union Cabinet will be implemented from May 1. It is reported that five categories would be allowed to use the red beacon- President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India and the Lok Sabha Speaker. The ban applies to union ministers, chief ministers, state cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and judges of the High Court and Supreme Court. It was reported last week that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had called a meeting to discuss whether the red beacon should be discarded or restricted to certain dignitaries. Captain Amarinder Singh and Yogi Adityanath, the new chief ministers of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, have already taken steps to either end or restrict VIP culture. In its first cabinet meeting, chaired by Captain Amarinder, the newly formed Punjab Government decided to completely shun the VIP culture by removing the red, yellow and blue beacons from their official vehicles. (ANI)
The Delhi High Court will on Friday continue to hear the Najeeb Ahmed missing case. Nine students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were earlier asked to appear before a Delhi court in connection with the case. The Delhi Police had issued a notice to the students and asked them to appear before it for a lie-detector test. After receiving the summons, the students had opposed the police's move. Earlier in February, the Delhi Police was pulled up by the Delhi High Court over the slow progress in the case and was asked to explore other prospects of probe like polygraph test of other persons connected with the disappearance of Ahmed as all other leads in this case had not yielded any good result. "The student had gone missing in October 2016; it is February now. Nearly four months have gone by and none of the leads are going anywhere. We asked for a polygraph test as the other leads have not yielded any results," the court observed. The High Court was hearing an application by one of the nine students, who are suspects in the case, seeking recall of the High Court's order dated December 14 and December 22, 2016. The application had alleged that by means of these two orders, the court was regulating the manner of investigation which was prejudicing the probe and violating their rights under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution. The applicant had also challenged a notice issued to him by the Delhi Police to appear before the trial court to give consent for lie-detector test. The Delhi Government's counsel opposed the application, stating that the same student had moved a similar plea through another lawyer earlier and the High Court on January 23 disposed it off by asking the student to come forward. A habeas corpus plea was moved by Najeeb's mother Fatima Nafees, who sought direction to trace her son who has been missing since the intervening night of October 14-15. 27-year-old Najeeb, a first year M.Sc. student went missing from his JNU hostel, allegedly after a row with members of RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). (ANI)
The Supreme Court on Friday will continue to hear plea of social activist Teesta Setalvad, who is accused of misappropriation of funds that were meant for rehabilitation of Gujarat riot victims, for the extension of interim bail. Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta is appearing for the Gujarat Government, while senior advocate Kapil Sibal is appearing for Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand. Teesta, her husband and the two NGOs - Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace - approached the apex court challenging the October 7, 2015, verdict of the Gujarat High Court, which had rejected their pleas for defreezing their personal bank accounts. One of the residents of Gulberg Society had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that money was raised to make a museum at the Gulberg Society in the memory of those killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose. The high court had upheld the verdict of a lower court in this regard observing that the probe was at a serious point. In their plea before the apex court, the petitioners have alleged that their accounts were "illegally freezed" without following the due process of law. The Gujarat Police filed an affidavit in the apex court alleging that the funds collected by them for setting up of museum in memory of the riots victims of the Gulberg Society were spent on personal use. (ANI)
The apex court, earlier on January 17, warned that the problem of air pollution was very serious and it was 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 that there were 962 such centres in Delhi and each of them inspects around 5,000 vehicles every three months. (ANI)
The suspect identified as Mujamil alias Gazi Baba is a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Unnav and is accused of being involved in anti-national activities on the social media.

The 20-year-old man was arrested in a joint operation conducted by the UP ATS and the Jalandhar Police.

The man was living in Jalandhar for two-and-a-half years and used to work in the boutique here.

The police presented the accused before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Jalandhar following which the court handed him over to the U.P. ATS for a five-day transit remand.

The police have initiated an investigation for further information in the case.

Besides Jalandhar, the UP ATS also arrested two more suspects from Mumbai and Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh in a joint operation with police teams of five states.

The joint operation was carried out by Special Cell Delhi Police, Intelligence Cell Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra ATS, Punjab Police, Bihar Police and UP ATS. (ANI)
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also met Gandhi yesterday setting off speculation on the possibility of a united Opposition fielding a joint candidate for the upcoming Presidential election.

CPM has already decided after a thorough discussion in their Politburo that if there is a common Presidential candidate from the Opposition, they would extend support.

With President Pranab Mukherjee's term drawing to a close, there were reports that Rashtriya Sawayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat was one of the contenders and Shiv Sena, through its mouthpiece Saamna, also threw its weight behind Bhagwat.

Mukherjee, who took over as President on 25 July 2012, had to contest against NDA government's P.A. Sangma and prevailed with 713,763 votes while Sangma got 315,987 votes. (ANI)
Prime Minister Modi will confer the Prime Minister's awards for Excellence in Public Administration to Districts and other Central and State organisations for effective implementation of Programmes and Innovation.

The awards have been instituted with a view to acknowledge, recognize and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by Districts and Organizations of the Central and State governments for the welfare of common citizen.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh after inaugurating the 11th Civil Services Day celebrations, in his address yesterday said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision is focused on development and good governance and with the help of technology civil servants can improve service delivery mechanism. (ANI)
The Left Front government in Tripura was left red faced after a report surfaced of a new born son being sold at Rs 7,600 by a tribal mother to treat her ailing husband at Rangia Tilla of Haldia ADC village under Teliamura police station in West Tripura early this week. The incident rocked the administration, as it has become a tool for opposition ahead of crucial assembly election barely after eight months. However, neither the police nor the civil administration denied the report and rather stated that it was not informed to them formally. According to report, the distressed tribal family had no other option left with to survive and with the help of a neighbour, the baby was given to a childless couple of Khowai. The matter has already been brought to the notice of Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) Teliamura but the child is yet to be rescued. The report said a day labourer Usha Ranjan Debbarma has been suffering from multiple ailments for quite a long time and his wife Dinamala Debbarma was looking after the family. The worst thing happened when the mother of three sons Dinamala became pregnant and delivered another son on April 17 at home. When she was in a quandary over how to maintain the family, one of her neighbour came with the proposal to sell the child to a well-off couple, as they had been desperately trying to adopt a child. Accordingly, the deal was finalised and the couple made a commitment that Dinamala will be paid further if in need for treatment of her husband. The BJP leader of the area Sabda Kumar Jamatia yesterday rushed to the village and found truth in it. He immediately brought the matter to the notice of the SDM demanding rescue of the child and to extend financial help to the family, besides ensuring free treatment to Usha Ranjan. "With the information we have sent a team of officials to bring Usha Ranjan to the hospital but the family refused as there is none to accompany him in the hospital, as her wife has not yet recovered the trauma. Finally, after long persuasion they agreed to bring him into the hospital but the family and neighbour denied the report of selling of child," said SDM Teliamura Jayanta Dey. He further stated that the administration has been enquiring why the family did not enrol into the government's social support programmes and did not get a BPL card. The administration is extending all support to the poor but if anybody did not come forward, it becomes bit difficult for the officers to extend help to them, Mr Dey added. Meanwhile, BJP leader Jamatia alleged that it was another incident how the poor people are being deprived or ignored in this left ruled state. The village falls under Krishnapur assembly constituency being represented by minister for fisheries, fire services and co-operative Khagendra Jamatia consecutively for five terms but he turned a blind eye to the sufferings of the poor tribal. However, Jamatia was not available for comment on the issue.UNI BB AD -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-862540.Xml
This came as Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Deputy Director Andrew McCabe visited India earlier this month and met senior officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Speaking on the matter, a spokesperson for the NIA told ANI that the Deputy Director of FBI visited the NIA headquarter on April 3 during which both sides held discussions on Headley.

"We discussed regarding David Headley. This is a routine affair. Whenever any senior official visits the NIA (headquarter), we discuss issues related to that county," he added. (ANI)
Bhandari expressed her delight after taking the darshan of Lord Jagannath.

"President Pranab Mukherjee had invited me and I am grateful for the arrangements made by the Union and state governments and the respect I have received from the general public. I would take up the Kasturi shortage issue with the Nepal Government at the earliest," she told the media here.

Stating that both nations share cultural relationship since long, Bhandari further said that Nepal has an age-old relationship with the Jagannath temple.

"I hope both countries continue to maintain this friendly relation in the days to come," Bhandari added.

Accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising of Ministers, Members of Parliament and senior officials, the Nepal President is presently on a five-day visit to India.

The visit is taking place in the backdrop of intensified bilateral engagements both at the political and official level in recent times.

Bhandari is also scheduled to visit the Sun Temple in Konark. (ANI)
Terming her expulsion from the Congress party as 'illegal', former Delhi Commisison for women chief Barkha Shukla Singh today said she would go for a legal recourse against it.''The said expulsion done by a committee of the Delhi PCC is illegal. I will go for a legal recourse against it,''Mr Barkha Singh, who was expelled from the Congres party for six years for "anti-party activities ', said.Launching a vehement attack against Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Barkha Singh said ,''Rahul Gandhi has again proved to the people of this great nation that he considers the Congress party to be his family run feifdom.I want to know how does voicing opinion about Rahul Gandhi amount to anti-party activities ? I have not said anything against the Congress party. Is Rahul Gandhi trying to say that Congress is Gandhi family and the Gandhi family is the Congress?''She said that she would file a petition in the election commission against Rahul's election as Congress vice president.''Even the party has not held elections for the last 17 years and Rahul Gandhi has been purposely delaying elections in the organisaiton.Rahul Gandhi was not elected to the position of Congress vice president . I will be filing a petition in the election commission,''she said.Noting that in the current political scenario, the role of the Opposition has become more important, she said that the Congress has not been able to play the role of a strong opposiiton due to "mental and political incapacity" of Rahul Gandhi.''I urge and call upon all like minded Congress leaders and workers to contribute towards Nation building by giving the country a strong Opposiiton , rid the party of this intellectually bankrupt man named Rahul Gandhi who doies not know the difference between Ram and Rahim.There is no dearth of talent in the Congress party and let's not ridiule ourselves any further by rallying around a brainless man. We have enough seasoned and experienced leaders who are fit to run the party,''Ms Barkha Singh said.Earlier, cracking the whip on the senior leader, a day after her resignation from the party's women's wing and her attack on party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken, the Congress today expelled her from the party for six years.A statement from the Delhi Congress said the party has decided to expel Barkha Shukla Singh from the party for six years ''for undertaking anti-party activities just before the MCD elections''.''Disciplinary Committee of the DPCC, in its meeting dated April 21, has unanimously decided to expel Ms Barkha Singh for period of six years from the party for undertaking anti-party activities, just before the MCD elections. A resolution to this effect has been passed,'' a statement by the Delhi Congress said. The four-member Disciplinary Committee, comprises former Delhi Minister Narender Nath, Abha Chaudhary (former President Delhi Mahila Congress), Mahmood Zia and Congress leader Surender Kumar.Ms Singh had yesterday quit as chief of the women's wing of the Delhi Congress. ''Congress party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken have only used the issue of empowerment of women and women security to gather votes. The issue means nothing to them." Ms Singh said."In the current organisation, where I myself am unsafe, how will I empower women in that organisation? That is why I hereby resign from the post of President of Delhi Mahila Congress,''she said. Ms Singh is the second senior Delhi Congress leader to quit the party, ahead of MCD polls. Earlier, former Delhi Congress chief Aravinder Singh Lovely had quit the Congress and joined the BJP.UNI AR ADG 1536 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0092-862938.Xml
Nagaland Chief Minister Dr. Shurhozelie Liezietsu unveiled the Monolith dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Naga Labour Corps' participation in the 1st World War in particular, today at Kohima to marks the exact date, when the first batch of the Naga Labour Corps set sail in 1917 for the 1st Great War theatre in Europe. In his speech during the function, Dr Shurhozelie said one can hardly imagine the feelings that the Naga labour corps must have felt, leaving their homeland for the first time and crossing oceans to distant lands fighting for the then Crown. Certainly it was not India's war and it was definitely not the Nagas' war, but they participation and the bravery they exhibited during their battles in Europe and elsewhere would have ramifications much beyond the intended. Around 2000 Nagas seem to have been recruited and these groups of men were designated as the Naga labour corps. He said, according to some written documents quoted in various books the Naga labour corps arrived in France in two main groups (688 men on 21 June 1917 and 992 men on 2 July 1917). The Chief Minister said that the Naga labour corps were formed in the Naga hills under the command of deputy commissioner, Herbert Charles Barnes. These men were initially divided into the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th Naga labour companies. To avoid confusion with other Indian labour corps units serving in Mesopotamia at that time, these companies were renumbered as the 35th, 36th, 37th and 38th (Naga) labour companies. The men of the Naga labour corps worked in various places around France on salvage work, road repairs among others. Legend has it that the Nagas fearlessly carried out their designated duties despite facing the horrors of war in the battlefield and were in the forefront mindless of the possibility of death all around them, he said. In particular, the 35th company left the Naga hills as part of the labour corps on the April 21, 1917 and sailed for France on the April 26. Subsequently after the war, the 35th company moved to Marseille in April 1918 from where they embarked for India at the end of May arriving back in India in June 1918. Unfortunately during the Second World War in 1940, the building holding the lists of men of the Naga labour corps units was destroyed by Japanese bombings. The relative lack of historical records should however not deter us from commemorating their pioneering ventures which led to the subsequent state of Nagaland. There is no known Memorial in Nagaland to commemorate the Nagas who fought and the many, which died in France. But amongst all the tribes, who were sent to WW1 duties, the Nagas were the first to realise the need to organize and unite themselves. Men who returned from France formed a socio-political association called the Naga Club with branches in Kohima and Mokokchung immediately after their return in 1918. This was the association that later in 1929 submitted a representation to the Simon Commission and conveyed to them the right of choice of self-determination of the Nagas when the British left India. In fact, as mentioned, the state of Nagaland has its direct bearings to the Naga Labour Corps which went to France during WW1 and even for this purpose alone, their brave mission must be remembered appropriately for posterity, the Chief Minister said. He informed that the Government of Nagaland has therefore decided to build a memorial in honour of the Naga labour corps in Kohima. A memorial park will in due course be built around this hilltop to appropriately mark the 100th Anniversary. In the first instance, a Monolith is being unveiled today and a detailed blueprint of the Memorial is being worked out. " I have therefore chosen to pen a few words which will try to at least acknowledge their role in our modern history forever, which you see engraved in the Monolith as forever grateful to the Naga labour corps for the foundation they laid for the everlasting friendship and unity of the Nagas." The Naga labour corps created history for our present and for our better future. Let us never forget them for generations to come, Dr. Shurhozelie added. UNI AS AKM 1703 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-863177.Xml
In an unprecedented show of protest and anger, hundreds of Karbi youths representing 24 organisation staged an naked protest alleging lack of response to their demands which they have been raising for years. The protestors thronged in hundreds in Diphu, put off their shirts and trousers and took out a huge procession across the district headquarter town of Karbi Anglong district. The students warned of more rigorous protests if the government goes ahead in holding the Karbi Autonomous Council Elections without giving the tribal rights to the Karbi people in the state. Irked by the attitude of the government, the students demanded that their tribal rights under sixth schedule to be protected. The election to the autonomous council was likely to take place by May end. UNI ABI AKM 1737 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-863266.Xml
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh today said that cooperation, regular dialogue between legislators and bureaucrats will help in achieving the goal of providing good governance to the masses. The Chief Minister this was said while addressing the 12th civil service day function here at secretariat conference hall. Mr N Biren Singh said "Periodic dialogue and interaction between the legislators and civil servants is a necessity for good governance in the state." The chief minister said that the politicians are elected by the people and they are in touch with the masses at all levels. The politicians know the problems, requirements, sentiments of the people, he said. Civil servants know the rules and the regulations and the functioning of the government. Government policies and programmes are executed by the bureaucrats, he added. A symbiosis between the two is very much needed to bring good governance in the State, he added. He said, an interaction programme between the ministers and the civil servants would be held every month so as to have greater transparency and for smooth functioning of the Government. The Government would have zero tolerance on any activities, which is beyond the framework of the Indian Constitution, he added. He also appealed that the expectations of the people from the new Government should never be let down. Th. Biswajit Singh, minister of Information said that the system of check and balance should prevail in a democratic form of Government so that the Government could execute an inclusive policy for the welfare of the society and have a corruption-free State. Ministers, parliamentary secretaries, MLAs, officials both civil and police also attended the function. UNI NS AKM 1749 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-863313.Xml
Minister for Social Welfare and Cooperation Nemcha Kipgen has strongly condemned the recent gang rape of two teenage girls on April 14 during Cheiraoba festival and said that the culprits involved in such grievous and inhuman act should be punished so as to avoid recurrence of such ghastly incident. Ms Nemcha Kipgen said here today that police acted and apprehended the suspects. She also raised concern over such crime and appealed to all the young ladies to remain alert. The minister had also given assurance to extend all possible assistance to the girls. Meanwhile, a team of Manipur State Commission for Women led by its chairperson Dr K Sobita Devi and members along with chairperson, Manipur state social welfare board today enquired into the case and met the victims and their family members at Imphal. Necessary medical examination of the victims had been done after the consent of the victims. Both the victims were now staying with their respective parents. Chairperson of child welfare committee, Imphal east district, child protection officer and women police station, Imphal East also launched a manhunt to nab the culprits. So far, six persons have been arrested and are detained by now under the Porompat police, Imphal East against the FIR No. 15(4)2017WPS-IE u/s 376D/120-B/363/34IPC and 6 POCSO Act 2012 and interrogation is under process. Police said the two girls who were with their friends were kidnapped by a gang during the celebration of Cheiraoba festival and later raped. A male friend of the two girls managed to inform police about the matter which led to massive man hunt to rescue the girls and nab the perpetrators.UNI NS AKM 1758 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-863332.Xml
A court here on Friday awarded seven-year jail term to two members of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group after their application for pleading guilty to charges against them was allowed. Those convicted by District and Sessions Judge Amar Nath are Sheikh Azhar-ul-Islam alias Abdul Sattar Sheikh and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh alias Mohammed Rafiq Shaikh. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested Sheikh Azhar, Mohammed Farhan and one Adnan Hassan alias Mohammad Hussain in January last year on charges of involvement in a conspiracy to identify, motivate, radicalise, recruit and train potential members for the international militant group. While the first two have pleaded guilty, Adnan Hassan is currently in judicial custody and facing trial. "They were members of terrorist organisation and got themselves associated with their activities. That may be their folly either on account of misguidance or lack of maturity of mind and circumstances," Judge Amar Nath said. "This court needs to take into account positive aspect from their act of pleading guilty." The court felt that the convicts had realised their mistakes and were willing to repent for their acts and deeds. "In this case, the convicts should get an opportunity to reform themselves and be good citizens of this country," the judge observed. "Keeping in view the facts and circumstances, I am of considered opinion that there is a necessity to show some leniency while imposing punishment on the convicts, but at the same time, a wrong message should not go to the society," the court said while awarding them the jail term. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 12,000 on each of them. The NIA submitted before the court that the accused had shown their repentance for their acts and requested the court to consider that the accused's action was a move towards re-connecting with society. Sheikh Azhar's counsel had sought leniency for his client on the ground that he was young, unmarried and the sole bread winner of his family, while Mohammed Farhan's counsel sought leniency citing his poor family background and no previous criminal record. Both the accused requested the court to take a lenient view of their acts, which could give them an opportunity to lead a normal life. In their applications, both of them had pleaded that they were remorseful of their actions. "We want to return to the mainstream and be productive for society and want to rehabilitate ourselves," they said, adding that their guilty plea was made without any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence. Sheikh Azhar hails from Jammu and Kashmir while Mohammed Farhan is from Maharashtra. Adnan Hassan is a resident of Karnataka. The court observed that the accused were members of a terrorist gang, who entered into a criminal conspiracy and acted as a frontier group of the IS for inciting, motivating, inviting and facilitating people of different nationalities to leave their respective countries and travel to Syria to support its further activities. The court also noted that they organised meetings of like-minded persons and also instigated people who disregarded national boundaries and motivated people of different nationalities to travel to Syria. The court convicted them under Section 40 (raising funds for terrorist organisation) Section 39 (giving support to terrorist organisation), sections 38 (membership of terrorist organisation) and 20 (member of terror group), Section 18 (conspire to do a terrorist act) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. --IANS akk/nir/bg ( 588 Words) 2017-04-21-18:22:09 (IANS)
On receiving a tip-off about arms delivery, a trap was laid near Harkesh Nagar bus stand yesterday and one Taiyab (25), a resident of Uttar Pradesh was arrested along with 20 semi-automatic sophisticated pistols, police said.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that these weapons were collected by him from a supplier and the same were to be supplied to a person in the Harkesh Nagar area, police informed today.

A case under Section 25 of the Arms Act was registered against Taiyab, they said.

UNI DS RSA 1827

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Trinamool Chairperson and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today tore into the BJP and gave a clarion call to all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation. Slamming the ruling party at the Centre, she said, '' It is the need of the hour for all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation. My message to all regional parties is Be Together, Be United. '' She said, " Trinamool is targeted because we speak for the common people. How many leaders will you put in jails? I dare you to arrest all our MPs, Ministers, MLAs. They are carrying out malicious propaganda. Wherever I go, London, Puri or Delhi, they send workers to disrupt. " The Chairperson added, " Who are you to decide what a person can eat or wear? Trinamool works for people of all castes, creed, religions. I believe I am a worker of the party. In Trinamool, workers and not leaders are the biggest assets. " '' BJP is dividing people based on religious identities. We respect all religions but humanism is our biggest identity. They (BJP) have destroyed the democratic culture of the country with their vindictive politics and vendetta, " she said. Ms Banerjee lashed out at the BJP for indulging in divisive politics. She said, " Religion means peace and harmony. But BJP gave arms to children during their rally. BJP only believes in conspiracies not rule of law.I am proud of my religion. I am proud of all religions. Hinduism means tolerance. BJP is defaming Hinduism. Riots cannot be religion. Religion unites people, does not divide them. Be proud of the land you are born in. This is our motherland. We are proud of it. " She said, " We have to fight against the malicious propaganda and conspiracies. They are bringing cadres from other States to incite trouble in Bengal. We have to be very careful. " She also took on the BJP for their malicious propaganda on social media. " BJP spends crores on social media. They put fake photos and distort my words. We have to counter them. They post photos and videos of Bangladesh and say it is Bengal. They are spreading rumours, " she stated. She also reiterated that Trinamool will continue to fight for the people. " As a political party we have a responsibility. We have to fight valiantly. We will not tolerate politics of vindictiveness. India is a vast country with a lot of diversity. We will not allow politics of 'Divide & Rule'. Let us stand for unity, " was her message. She slammed the BJP for destroying the federal structure of the country. She maintained the voice of the press-media has been muzzled by the Centre. Eds : Pls Pick up suitably from earlier series.UNI SJC KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-863468.Xml
The functioning of various courts in the state was paralysed as the agitating lawyers abstained from attending the courts.

The lawyers held protest demonstration before the courts and burnt the report of the Law Commission of India.

The Odisha State Bar Council will organise a national convention here on tomorrow to be attended by the representatives of different state bar councils, the High Court Bar Associations to discuss on the report of LCI and decide the future course of action. UNI DP AKM 1806

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Union Minister for information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday asserted that Muslims do not vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but still the government has given them 'proper sanctity'. While addressing at the Mindmine Summit, Prasad asked, "We have got thirteen Chief Ministers of our own. Have we witnesses any Muslim gentleman working in the industry or service? We don't get Muslim votes. I acknowledged very clearly, but have we given them proper sanctity or not?" Taking on the Left and elements in the media attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prasad extended them his best wishes. "We have a problem with some of our friends. Mostly, the Leftist friends and journalists who entertain a pathological hatred against Narendra Modi. Good luck to them," Prasad quipped. The Union Minister went ahead to state that Left is "left out" all over the world and has also faced defeat in India. "They are left out in Bengal, are surviving in Kerala and Tripura, but the Left has got a very good campus in Delhi, which is the JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and I always say the Left also needs some consolation prize. So, JNU is their consolation prize, we don't mind that," Prasad said. Earlier in March, Prasad had said that Muslim women voted for the BJP during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections because the party raised the issue of triple talaq. Earlier in March, Prasad said Muslim women voted for the BJP during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections because the party raised the issue of triple talaq. Asserting that Triple Talaq was a menace crippling the lives of Muslim women in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to attack the issue on a grass-root level. "Our Muslim sisters deserve justice. We should try to solve this issue at the district level. We should also proceed on the formula of a new India. We can't simply move forward on a slow pace, but charge ahead with full speed," the Prime Minister said during the BJP National Executive Meeting here.(ANI)
The court has asked the actor to appear before it on May 5, 2017. The court issued the summons while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL).

The PIL alleged that the actor insulted Hindu sentiments by making objectionable remarks about Hindu epic Mahabharata.

In March 2017, Haasan reportedly told a Tamil News Channel that India was a country which respected and honoured a book (Mahabharat) in which a woman Panchali was depicted as an object and was used as a collateral in gambling by Pandvas. (ANI)
10 others were also injured while making bombs in Birbhum district.

According to police, a sudden explosion occurred in the afternoon where five people were killed and few others injured.

Earlier last month, two people were killed and another injured in a crude bomb explosion in West Bengal.

The explosion took place when the men were making bombs at an open ground in Bindarpur village in the early hours today, a police officer said.

Both the victims were in their 30s and their identities were yet to be established.

On May, 2015, a crude bomb blast took place at Trinamool Congress leader (TMC) leader Buro Hansda's residence in Ilambazar in West Bengal's Birbhum district which left his wife dead.

While earlier on March, 2015, the West Bengal Police also recovered over 200 crude bombs from a farmland in Bibhum district. (ANI)
Campaigning for April 23 polls for the three Municipal Corporations, which has become a matter of prestige for the Congress, BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, came to an end this evening. The election to the MCDs is slated to witness a triangular contest with Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP making its debut this time.Earlier, the fight to win the civic polls used to be bipolar between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.Delhi State Election Commission has made foolproof arrangements for the peaceful conduct of the polls.Tight security has been deployed for the smooth holding of the polling exercise. Besides, the Delhi Police personnel, paramilitary forces will be deployed to man security during the polling, which will take place at 13,234 centres across the capital. This time, 2,537 candidates are in the fray for the elections. 'Swaraj India' , set up by leader expelled from AAP, Yogendra Yadav, too, is testing the political waters in the MCD polls. Also in the fray are the Nationalist Congress Party, Janata Dal(U), Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and some other parties who have fielded their candidates on certain wards for the civic polls.The municipal polls have become a matter of prestige for the three key political factions. On the one hand, AAP, which had received a massive mandate in Delhi assembly elections in 2015 by annexing 67 seats in the 70-member house, is trying to overcome the recent setback of a defeat in the Punjab and Goa assembly polls while on the other hand, the BJP, fresh from its landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, is aspiring to retain the MCDs the third time by riding on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress, too, is striving hard to regain lost ground after being completely wiped out in 2015 in Delhi assembly elections. Heavyweight Congress leader and former minister Arvinder Singh 'Lovely' and Delhi Youth Congress President Amit Malik shifted allegiance to BJP just prior to the polls. It is being assumed that erstwhile Delhi Women's Congress President Barkha Singh's allegations, too, might dent the prospects of the party. All the three political parties have made 'cleanliness'' their key election plank . The BJP has promised that if voted to power in MCD, it would not impose any new tax for the next five years and said that under the 'Deen Dayal Antyodya Rasoi Yojana' scheme, it would provide food at Rs 10 to the needy . Congress, too, has come up with a bagful of promises , including that on winning, it too would not introduce any new tax for the next five years.The Congress has said that the 'Bhagidari' ( "Participation'' ) scheme will be re-implemented and proper tapping of resources would be done, besides eliminating corruption and making MCD financially independent within one year. The party has also promised that it would issue licences to vendors and hawkers and ensure excellent primary education and health services for the people of Delhi. More UNI SY/AR RSA RP1921 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0092-863488.Xml
Sambhu, a naxalite who was a comrade of Ramesh Poyum Gupiyapal Jumililia, was involved several naxalite incidents including the Jharkhati ambush attack.

Sambhu is carried a bounty of Rs. one lakh over his head.

In March this year, thirty-three naxals surrendered before the Jagdalpur police, whereas two naxalites were nabbed by the Bijapur police.

Out of the thirty-three Naxalites who surrendered before the Inspector-General (IG) and Superintendent of Police (SP), twenty-nine are males and 4 females.

However, with a motive to enlighten children in naxal-affected areas of Jharkhand's Palamau district, Jharkhand Police has initiated Tare Zameen Par program to encourage children to lead happy lives.

In January this year, Jharkhand police used light aircraft to drop pamphlets over naxal affected areas to increase the awareness among them. (ANI)
The British Library will be transformed like never before as the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival animates its iconic spaces for the first time in celebration as part of significant 70 years of India-Britain cultural relations. Held for two days on May 20-21, the fourth London edition of the ZEE JLF@The British Library will present a sumptuous showcase of South Asia's literary heritage, oral and performing arts, music, cinema and illusion, books and ideas, dialogue and debate, Bollywood and politics in the context of this broader view of India and its relationship to the Britain. The speakers at the programmer include: Oscar-winning British director Stephen Frears, Swapan Dasgupta, Shashi Tharoor, Shrabani Basu, Neel Madhav, Philip Norman, Tahmima Anam, Sarvat Hasin, Amit Chaudhuri, Kunal Basu, Amit Chaudhuri, Meera Syal, Prajwal Parajuly and Lila Azam Zanganeh, Anita Anand along with William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale. ZEE JLF@The British Library is the first of five cultural strands which form part of the Year of UK-India of Culture in 2017, celebrating the deep cultural ties and exchange in what is a year of great significance for the world's largest democracy as India marks 70 years as an independent democratic republic. "In only a decade the Jaipur Literature Festival has grown from 14 lost tourists to third of a million people and it's now the biggest festival of literature in the world. We can't wait to bring its energy and colour to the British Library: our Jaipur-on-Thames," author and ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival Co-Director William Dalrymple said in a statement. Namita Gokhale, author and ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival Co-Director said: "Delighted that the fourth edition of JLF in London will be hosted by the British Library. London is a uniquely cosmopolitan and literary city, and we look forward to celebrating diversity through a series of vibrant sessions that reflect the special spirit of Jaipur." Sanjoy Roy, Producer, ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, said: "Our collaboration with the British Library is reflective of the shared history between the sub-continent and the UK. The festival will continue to be a platform for diverse voices and will celebrate 70 years of India's independence." "The British Library is delighted to be hosting the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival this year as we celebrate the UK-India Year of Culture. The exciting programme reflects the richness of this new cultural partnership," Jamie Andrews, Head, Culture and Learning, The British Library, said in a statement. --IANS som-ss/lok/dg ( 416 Words) 2017-04-21-22:32:08 (IANS)
Knowing a man's education is as simple as looking at his fingers, according to a recent study. The National Research University Higher School of Economics researchers, men with a high 2D:4D ratio (i.e. those whose index finger is longer than their ring finger) tend to be better educated. A number of studies conducted in recent decades at the intersection of biology and economics have shown that certain characteristics of the pre-natal period can have a strong impact on certain aspects of personality, such as aggressiveness and appetite for risk, financial behaviour, academic performance and career choice. Since intrauterine data is hard to collect, researchers often use anthropometrics, e.g. the 2D:4D ratios, as a proxy. While finger length is easy to measure, this approach does involve a certain degree of risk. While some researchers associate 2D:4D with perinatal testosterone (PT) exposure, some others argue that PT is not associated with finger length; in addition to this, finger length itself can change over a lifetime. Yet the importance of perinatal development prompts further empirical analyses of 2D:4D ratios to add correlations and test known quantitative associations on new data. In Russia, researchers of the HSE International Research Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms led by Maria Yudkevich and John Nye were among the first to focus on this area. They have already established empirical associations for 2D:4D ratios in areas such as academic performance, uptake of financial services, and employment (income, career choice). The HSE researchers conducted a regression analysis using data from the 20th wave of RLMS-HSE, which also measured 2D:4D ratios of respondents from Moscow and the Moscow region. First, the HSE team analysed the differences in 2D:4D ratios for respondents with different levels of educational attainment. In particular, the research team was interested in the average 2D:4D values for respondents with university-level education (and above) as compared to those respondents without higher education. They then used the STATA 13 econometric package to build a regression model taking into account the level of education throughout the sample and obtained positive correlations between male respondents' 2D:4D ratios and levels of education. Specifically, men with higher 2D: 4D ratios for either or both hands were found to be better educated. No such correlation was found for women. The mechanism behind this established association may also involve aggression: a negative correlation between 2D:4D and male aggression has been established in literature, while some studies associate different levels of aggression with low academic performance, particularly in secondary school. Admittedly, the study's limitation is that it fails to pinpoint the 2D:4D effect, as some other characteristics may have contributed to educational outcomes, such as student age, parental education and type of settlement where respondents finished secondary school - these parameters were only partially addressed in the study. On the other hand, the authors successively fulfilled the research task of revealing a correlation between 2D:4D and educational attainment, conditional on available additional predictors of education. The authors' findings complement an earlier discovery of the link between 2D:4D and academic performance based on student data from Moscow, Manila and Spain. These findings are presented in the paper "2D: 4D and lifetime educational outcomes: Evidence from the Russian RLMS survey" in Personality and Individual Differences. (ANI)
A third source said the payout totals $25 million.

21st Century Fox and O'Reilly's representatives will not acknowledge the existence of a payout. A confidentiality agreement limits what the two sides can say.

The two sources also said the contract extended through the next presidential election, meaning it was set to expire either at the end of 2020 or sometime in 2021.

O'Reilly, however, will not be paid the entire amount he was owed. That's because Fox incorporated language in the new contract that gave the network some "outs."

Fox is only on the hook for one years' salary, according to one of the sources. That's why the payout totals $25 million.

Roger Ailes, on the other hand, was paid the entire remainder of his contract when he resigned under pressure last summer. Ailes, the founding CEO of Fox News, was accused of harassment by Fox employees.

Ailes was paid more than $40 million on the way out. (ANI)
Vice President Mike Pence praised Indonesia for its tradition of "modern Islam" on Thursday, sending a conciliatory message to the Islamic world as the Trump administration continues to cause unease among Muslims. Pence was speaking in the world's most populous Muslim nation midway through a 10-day swing in Asia meant to reinforce key U.S. alliances at the start of the Trump administration. He met with President Joko Widodo and toured the largest mosque in the region. Pence said the U.S. would continue working with Indonesia to combat terrorism and said the country's form of Islam should serve as an example to other nations. "As the largest majority Muslim country, Indonesia's tradition of modern Islam, frankly, is the inspiration to the world," he said. "We commend you and your people. In your nation as in mine, religion unifies -- it doesn't divide. It gives us hope for a brighter future. And we're all grateful for the great inspiration that Indonesia provides for the world." The Trump administration has caused concern among the world's Muslims for some of its proposals, including barring entry to citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations. That travel ban, however, remains stalled in courts and hasn't gone into effect. (ANI)
The council demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests", saying Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond."

The council threatened to "take further significant measures including sanctions" to address the crisis of North Korea's missile launches.

"At the end of the day we realised that North Korea is a problem," spokesperon Nikki Haley said.

"No one on the council wants to see North Korea move forward with any sort of testing or strikes," she added, saying that the agreed statement makes that "very clear".

While previous statements have warned of further measures, the agreed text made specific mention of sanctions, signalling a tougher stance from the council.

Moscow had blocked an earlier version of the statement - which comes after North Korea carried out a failed test on Sunday - even though China, Pyongyang's ally, had expressed its support for it.

U.S. vice-president Mike Pence vowed that the country would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.

However, Russian charge d'affaires Petr Iliichev denied blocking the statement, saying the U.S. had broken off talks on a consensus position in an "abrupt manner." (ANI)
"I look very much forward to meeting the pope," Trump said on Thursday, while addressing a joint press conference at the White House with Italy Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, The Guardian reports.

The U.S. president will be in Italy late May for a meeting of the G7 industrialised democracies.

Minutes later Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, admitted that the meeting has not yet been confirmed.

Trump and the Pope fell out in February last year after the Republican candidate had pledged to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

The head of the Catholic church said, "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian."

Trump responded that he was "proud to be a Christian" and described the pope's comments as "disgraceful". If the Vatican is attacked by Islamic State, he added, the pontiff would have prayed Trump was president to prevent it.

Pope Francis called for greater compassion for refugees less than a week after Trump tried to impose a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.

Last month, the Vatican also urged Trump to listen to "dissenting voices" and reconsider his position on climate change. (ANI)
"I am still puzzling over what PMLN is celebrating? They shd be asking NS to resign. But this reflects complete moral collapse of our elite," Khan tweeted.

In a series of tweet Khan hailed the apex court's verdict while demanding Sharif's ouster as Prime Minister.

"A great SC judgement which has completely rejected Nawaz Sharif's entire story.PM shd resign immediately as he has lost all moral authority," he tweeted.

He further said that in the apex court's judgement Sharif stood disqualified as five judges rejected his story.

In a 3-2 judgement on the case, the apex court yesterday ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to continue probing the allegations of financial irregularities and money laundering, while noting that at present, there is "insufficient evidence to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif."

The JIT has been given two months to complete the probe into the matter and his sons Hussain and Hasan, all of whom have also been directed to appear before the JIT. The investigators will also have to present bi-weekly reports to a special bench of the Supreme Court. (ANI)
United States President Donald Trump and Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni held a joint press conference at the White House and talked about varied topics, ranging from terrorism, and reciprocity to the recent Paris shooting. "Italy is key partner in the fight against terrorism," Trump said, while answering to a poser, adding, he seeks a "reciprocal trade deal with Italy." While addressing the possibility of a government shut down, Trump said, "I think we want to keep the government open." Trump also said the health care bill was "evolving." "Remember, it took Obamacare 17 months, I've really been negotiating this for two months, maybe less than that," Trump said. "The plan gets better, and better and better. And it's gotten really, really good." Answering a question on U.S.' intention regarding North Korea and its nuclear practice, Trump said North Korea was "a menace right now." Trump also asserted he had been talking trade with China. "I actually told him, I said, 'You'll make a much better deal on trade if you get rid of this menace or do something about the menace of North Korea. Because that's what it is, it's a menace right now," he said. Trump also condemned the Paris shooting incident in which one policeman was killed and two others wounded. "Our condolences from our country to the people of France. Again, it's happening it seems," Trump said, adding that he saw reports of it when he was first walking in. "It's a terrible thing ... It looks like another terrorist attack. And what can you say? It just never ends. And we have to be strong and we have to be vigilant, and I've been saying it for a long time." (ANI)
Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed responsibility for the shooting here in the French capital that saw a gunman open fire on a police van, killing one officer and injuring two, media reports said. The terrorist network's news agency identified the attacker as Belgian man Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki in a tweet taking credit for the Thursday night attack, the New York Post reported. IS said the assault was the work of one of its "soldiers". Cops killed the shooter at the scene - and said he was someone they had previously flagged as an extremist. At 9 p.m., the officers were stopped at a traffic light on the Champs-Elysees - a bustling boulevard popular with tourists and famed for its luxury stores and eateries. The gunman pulled up next to the police vehicle, took out an automatic weapon and started shooting, New York Post quoted Interior Ministry Spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet, Efe news reported. "On the face of it, the officers were deliberately targeted," Brandet said. Evidence and witness statements indicate that the attack was carried out by one man, Brandet said. Paris police ordered the immediate evacuation of the Champs-Elysees and suspension of service at nearby metro stations. The incident comes just three days before French voters cast ballots in the first round of the Presidential election. Although the police have also confirmed the identity of the gunman, they are withholding his name to allow time to determine whether he had any accomplices, Paris Chief Prosecutor Franois Molins said at the crime scene. Investigators have already searched the shooter's residence in suburban Paris. French President Francois Hollande, who has convened a meeting of France's Defence Council for Friday morning, said he was convinced the shooting was an act of a "terrorist character." "We have a great determination to battle terrorism here and everywhere our forces are engaged," the head of state said in a televised address. "With regard to the security forces, the nation's support is total," Hollande said, adding that the government would organise a tribute to the slain policeman. Authorities would remain on the highest alert, especially for possible threats to the election, he said. France has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, when more than 130 people were killed in a single night by coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris. Several of the candidates vying in Sunday's presidential poll issued statements of sympathy for the victims and their families, and some referred to the shooting as an act of terrorism. Two Presidential hopefuls cancelled rallies scheduled for Friday. US President Donald Trump, in comments prior to Hollande's televised address, said that the violence in Paris "looks like another terrorist attack." "It never ends," he said during a joint press conference in Washington with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, offering condolences to the French people. --IANS in/ ( 481 Words) 2017-04-21-08:46:08 (IANS)
During the meeting in Washington DC yesterday, Jaitley raised the issue of recent executive orders, which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime.

He outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.

Jaitley briefed the US Commerce Secretary on the strength of the Indian economy and the significant structural reforms the Government of India has undertaken over the last three years.

The US Commerce Secretary congratulated the Indian Finance Minister on making the GST a reality.

Jaitley is presently on a five-day official visit to the US. He is leading an Indian delegation to attend the Annual Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Over the next two days, the visiting minister is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, Australia, France, Indonesia and Sweden. He is also likely to meet the Finance Ministers from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. (ANI)
The Indiana Senate has recognised and acknowledged the significant contributions that American Sikhs have made across the United States and to the State. Indiana is home to about 3500-Sikh owned business, including gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, trucking and transportation businesses. It was a historic day for Hoosier Sikhs as a 'Sikh Resolution' was introduced and passed on Thursday in the Indiana State Senate 200 West Washington St, Indianapolis, Indiana, on the occasion of Baisakhi as "National Sikh Day." The resolution, introduced by Senator Aaron Freeman, recognised and acknowledged the significant contributions that American Sikhs have made across the United States and to the State of Indiana on this great occasion of Vaisakhi as "National Sikh Day." The spectators gallery was packed with Hoosier Sikhs who had come to witness the occasion. Sikhs Political Action Committee (SikhsPAC) founder and chairman Gurinder Singh Khalsa opened the session with Sikh Prayer. Mr Gurinder Singh Khalsa was introduced to the Senate by Lt Governor Suzanne Crouch. Hoosier Sikhs extended special thanks to President Pro Tempore of Indiana State, Senator Arron Freeman and Jack Sandin for introducing the Sikh Resolution. The Secretary of the Senate was directed to transmit a copy of the resolution to SikhsPAC chairman Gurinder Singh Khalsa. UNI XC RP1355 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-862524.Xml
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said today that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of an agreement to get rid of its entire stockpile."There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt," Mattis told reporters during a visit to Tel Aviv.Asked whether the Syrian military had moved its combat aircraft to a Russian base in Latakia, Mattis said: "They have dispersed their aircraft, no doubt. They have dispersed their aircraft in recent days." REUTERS SV 1347 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-862815.Xml
The Indian-American community in the United States has launched a petition seeking the Washington's intervention to bring justice to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was recently sentenced to death by a Pakistan court. "This petition seeks justice for Mr Kulbhushan Jadhav an Indian citizen and ex-naval officer aged about 46 years who was abducted from Iran and taken to Pakistan," reads the petition that was created on April 14. It adds that the charges against Jadhav of terrorism and spying for India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is totally false and baseless. "The fact that India isn't given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav are false and fabricated," the petition argues. "In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Mr Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which which he never committed. I also united nation to look in to this matter thank you," it added. The petition needs 97,271 signatures by May 14, 2017 to get a response from the White House. So far, 2,729 people have signed it. Jadhav was awarded death penalty on April 10 in an unprecedented decision that triggered diplomatic spat between India and Pakistan. The Pakistan Army has ruled out any consular access to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, saying he is not eligible for it as per the laws. "Kulbhushan is not eligible for consular access nor will be granted consular access," said Pakistan Armed Forces spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor. Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier warned Islamabad that it risked damaging bilateral ties with New Delhi if it went ahead with the execution of Jadhav. Jadhav was arrested in March last year in the restive Balochistan province and accused of being a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agent. India has, however, so far categorically denied such charges.(ANI)
The CoE's Secretary General, Thorbjrn Jagland expressed his deep concern at a press conference in Prague that many unaccompanied children were falling prey to child abuse and sexual exploitation by criminal networks, Efe news agency reported.

Many arrivals were completely on their own and in many cases unable to rejoin their families, even if they also happened to be in Europe.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that last Winter some 25,000 unaccompanied refugee children were trapped just in Greece and the Balkans.

Jagland explained that these children were completely out of any control of state authorities and it was obvious the human traffickers were making off with them.

He underscored that this unaccompanied child migration phenomenon was a "growing problem than required being addressed by national authorities, but also at European level."

The CoE secretary general regretted that the EU lacked a unified response to face the massive refugee influx, after the Brussels failure to assign asylum seeking national quotas among all member countries.

"We are very worried that there is no unified position on the European side. Some countries like Greece or Italy have been left to deal with the problem and that is why we have the growing problem of unaccompanied (refugee) children," said Jagland.

--IANS qd/

( 248 Words)

2017-04-22-00:44:07 (IANS)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-20 18:57:01|Editor: MJ

Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (2nd R), Defense Minister Tomomi Inada (1st R) and Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (2nd L), Defence Minister Marise Payne attend a joint press conference after their "two-plus-two" talks in Tokyo, Japan, on April 20, 2017. (Xinhua/Ma Ping)

TOKYO, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Japan and Australia on Thursday agreed to strengthen their cooperative efforts to respond to current tensions on the Korean Peninsular as well as boost logistic cooperation between their defense forces.

The so-called "two-plus-two" talks were held in Tokyo between Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and their Australian counterparts, Julie Bishop and Marise Payne.

Japanese officials said that security concerns pertaining to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and its nuclear and missile programs were discussed by both sides, who agreed that they would cooperate with the United States on the issue.

The ministers were also set to discuss the idea of revising a bilateral pact inked in January to extend logistic cooperation between the defense forces of both countries, officials said.

Also chaired for discussion was a possible agreement that would allow for the facilitation of joint exercises by both countries' defense forces on overseas visits to each other.

The reciprocal access agreement is set to be concluded this year, informed sources said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who also met Bishop and Payne ahead of the "two-plus-two talks" Thursday, said that continued cooperation between both countries was important to regional stability.

While Japan does not have security pact with Australia, Abe said the two countries share a strategic partnership.

Bishop said it was Australia's intention to bolster security and trade cooperation as both countries are good friends and share a common regional and global outlook.

In talks a day earlier between Inada and Payne, the pair agreed on joint drills using fighter jets starting next year.

Payne floated the idea of higher level joint drills being conducted by both countries following a potential bilateral defense tie-up between both countries and a trilateral tie up with the United States.

It was also agreed that both countries would step up cooperative activities involving infrastructural projects for countries in Southeast Asia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 03:14:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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UNITED NATIONS, April 20 (Xinhua) -- A United Nations envoy Thursday said that a "perfect storm" has engulfed the Middle East, and continues to threaten international peace and security.

Reporting on the dire situation across the Middle East region, Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the Security Council that the situation is marked by "the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, fractured societies, proliferation of non-State actors and unbelievable human suffering."

"Let us not forget that behind the images of savagery (there) are the millions (struggling) every day not only for their own survival but for the true humane essence of their cultures and societies," he said.

"Today, a perfect storm has engulfed the Middle East, and continues to threaten international peace and security," he added, noting that divisions within the region have opened the doors to foreign intervention and manipulation, breeding instability and sectarian strife.

In his briefing, Mladenov noted that developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict continued to resonate across the region and that the question of Palestine remained a "potent symbol" and "rallying cry," one that is easily misappropriated and exploited by extremist groups.

"Ending the occupation and realizing a two-state solution will not solve all the region's problems, but as long as the conflict persists, it will continue to feed them," he said.

The UN envoy also informed the 15-member Security Council of sporadic violence that continued to claim lives and reported on Israel's approval of the establishment of new settlements and declaration of "State land" in the occupied Palestinian territory.

On the Palestinian side, he noted multiple worrying developments that are "further cementing" the Gaza-West Bank divide and dangerously increasing the risk of escalation.

Turning to the wider region, Mladenov briefed council members on the ongoing crisis in Syria that continues to be a "massive burden" for other countries and called on the international community to do more to stand in solidarity with Syria's neighbours.

He also underlined the need for a political solution to the conflict, now into its seventh year.

Recalling Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for a "surge in diplomacy for peace," Mladenov urged UN member states, especially through a united Security Council, to assume the leading role in resolving the crisis.

"Multilateral approaches and cooperation are necessary to address interlinked conflicts, cross-border humanitarian impacts and violent extremism," he said.
Vitor Gaspar, director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Affairs Department, speaks during an interview with Xinhua News Agency in Washington D.C., the United States, April 19, 2017. Fiscal policy has a bigger role to play in promoting more sustainable and inclusive growth in China, Gaspar said on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Bao Dandan)

by Xinhua writer Gao Pan

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Fiscal policy has a bigger role to play in promoting more sustainable and inclusive growth in China, a senior official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday.

Following decades of fast growth, the Chinese economy is "undergoing a very profound broad transformation," said Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, noting the country is rebalancing the growth model from manufacturing to services, from investment to consumption, and from exports to domestic demand.

Going forward, "what is key is to guarantee that China continues on a sound and sustainable growth path," Gaspar told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, adding that fiscal policy could help facilitate China's economic transition.

"It can help for example by being inclusive, by trying to protect the segments of the Chinese population that are not benefiting as much as others from the benefits from the very fast growth that China is enjoying," he said.

"That can be done on the expenditure side of the budget through social spending and on the revenue side of the budget through increases in the progressivity of taxation," he explained.

China has realized very early on in the process of economic transformation that tax capacity is a fundamental pillar to build on state capacity and it has always regarded tax policy and revenue administration as part of the overall strategy, said the IMF official.

Citing China's nationwide value added tax (VAT) reform, Gaspar said the progress China has achieved so far in tax reforms is "really impressive" and "should not be underestimated," as the VAT is a crucial element of a modern tax system that China has already in place.

However, there's room for tax policy to support inclusive growth in China by being "more progressive" and "more redistributed" going forward, he said.

In terms of government debt risks, Gaspar said China's public debt levels are relatively low by international standards. If some investment activities which are off-budget were taken into account, the augmented government debt level would be higher, reaching about 60 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP).

But in contrast with what is prevailing in most emerging market economies, he noted, the net worth of the general government in China is positive, which means the financial assets are in excess of the financial liabilities.

Therefore, "I don't think that China has any issue concerning debt sustainability. On the contrary, the fiscal position is sufficiently comfortable," Gaspar said, adding that China has "fiscal firepower" to do whatever it decides to do in terms of management of the debt and credit growth risks.

"What we emphasize is the earlier that is done, the better the prospect for sustainable growth in the medium to long run and the lower the risks around that path, even if in the short run that adjustment may have short-run costs," he said.

The IMF has been collaborating with the Chinese Ministry of Finance on a number of areas over past several years, including public financial management, cash management, the management of debt in sub-national governments and how to implement the budget law, according to Gaspar.

In its flagship Fiscal Monitor report released Wednesday, the IMF also highlighted a bigger role of fiscal policy to foster global growth, as policymakers and researchers are realizing that the fiscal tool kit is broader and its tools more powerful than they previously thought.

The report put forward five key guiding principles for member countries to smartly use fiscal policy to achieve more policy objectives, noting that fiscal policy should be countercyclical, growth-friendly, inclusive, solidly grounded in tax capacity, and be conducted with prudence.
ROME, April 20 (Xinhua) -- A senator-bribing case against Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has timed out, a Naples appeals court ruled Thursday.

Berlusconi was initially sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison for bribing ex-senator Sergio De Gregorio with 3 million euros (about 3.2 million U.S. dollars) to switch sides and help topple the shaky coalition government of center-left premier Romano Prodi, which lasted from 2006-2008.

De Gregorio, who was elected senator with the small centrist Italy of Values party in 2006, switched to a coalition led by Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia party the following year, and ultimately voted against Prodi in a 2008 confidence vote that marked the end of the center-left government.

Berlusconi's coalition won the general election that followed. The media mogul and former AC Milan owner became prime minister, serving until November 2011.

In 2013, he was found guilty of tax fraud at his Mediaset media empire and sentenced to four years in prison. However, three years were suspended thanks to an amnesty and he served the remainder doing community service in a retirement home.

Berlusconi is currently on trial in a separate witness-tampering case.

He stands accused of bribing showgirls, who took part in so-called "bunga bunga" orgies at his home in Arcore near Milan while he was prime minister, to testify in his favor when he stood trial on charges of paying Moroccan dancer Karima El Mahroug for sex while she was still underage. He was acquitted.

Prosecutors in the current trial say Berlusconi paid El Mahroug and other defence witnesses over 10 million euros for testimony that helped him avoid a conviction.

Thursday's ruling by the Naples appeals court comes as the octogenarian billionaire tries to re-enter the political fray as the head of his Forza Italia party, which is hovering at consensus of 12-13 percent, according to Ixe pollster.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 07:11:18|Editor: MJ

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By Christopher Guly

OTTAWA, April 20 (Xinhua) -- While exploratory talks on a Canada-China free-trade deal are set to resume next week here, the Canadian Cabinet minister in charge of the trade file will be in China hoping to expand demand for a key Canadian export.

Currently, the largest market for Canadian softwood lumber is the United States. But Canada and the U.S. have been locked in a decades-long trade dispute over the wood, which could intensify next week when the U.S. Commerce Department is expected to announce whether it will impose a countervailing duty on Canadian softwood lumber imports.

"Diversification is part of the solution to that," Canadian International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told Xinhua in an interview here Thursday. "My role as chief marketing officer of Canada is to make sure the forestry industry throughout Canada is healthy."

In his view, there is a significant market opportunity for softwood lumber in China, the second-largest importer of the Canadian wood behind the U.S., which accounts for 78 percent of Canadian exports compared to China's 13 percent share, according to Canadian government figures.

Champagne, a 46-year-old lawyer and international trade specialist from the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec prior to entering politics in 2015, is leading a Canadian business delegation that will pitch Canadian softwood lumber as a must-have, environmentally friendly product during his first official visit to China that begins on Friday.

"I want to make sure that our Chinese friends understand that softwood lumber is a reliable, eco-friendly source of building new houses in China," he said. "There are a lot of people in the middle class there that are looking to move to cities, and my message to them is that wood is in vogue in Canada."

Champagne explained that he hopes Canadian softwood lumber can be part of China's "toolkit" to support the country's climate-change strategy and "promote environmentally friendly construction."

Appointed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Cabinet just four months ago, the International Trade Minister will visit four Chinese cities - Shanghai, Chongquing, Zhengzhou and Beijing - and will meet with several senior government officials, including Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan and Chen Zhenggao, China's Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

In Zhengzhou, Champagne will attend the 2017 China Green Companies Summit where he plans to position Canada as a source of "clean-tech" industry.

"As we have these exploratory talks on a possible free-trade agreement, trying to find areas where we can cooperate together for our mutual benefit is the right thing to do - and that is why I want to bring in softwood as part of our discussions," he said.
LONDON, April 20 (Xinhua) -- A team of scientists will be heading to the Arctic later this month on an expedition to uncover the secrets of the ancient and mysterious Greenland shark, believed to be the longest-lived vertebrate animal.

Taking part in the expedition is Dr. Holly Shiels from the University of Manchester, the only Britain-based scientist on the expedition aboard the research vessel Sanna commissioned by the Greenland government.

A spokesman at the university said: "The purpose of the mission is to understand more about the Greenland shark, a top predator in the Arctic, which lives for more than 272 years -- possibly more than 400."

"This extreme age was only revealed by scientists from Copenhagen last year. Little else is known about how the shark survives in the deep seas around the Arctic Circle," said the spokesman.

According to the spokesman, the shark has been seen to feed on seals, and been found with the remains of polar bears and whales in its stomach.

Shiels said more information is required to ensure the species is adequately protected.

"Greenland sharks are classified as data deficient. This means that we don't know enough to put measures in place to protect them from over-fishing, pollution or climate change," she said.

Shiels, who specialises in cardiovascular function, will also be looking for clues about how the sharks heart and circulation work in its usual habitat deep below the ocean surface.

Other areas of investigation include the shark's reproductive cycle. They are believed to take 150 years to reach sexual maturity -- growth and ageing. They will also seek to tag live sharks with accelerometers and satellite pop-up-tags so that their movements can be studied.

The research team will also seek to understand more about their toxicity. They are considered a delicacy in Iceland but have to be buried and part-fermented over a period of months to be edible.

"This expedition is one of the first to try and understand the physiology of Greenland sharks. With the expertise we have on the ship, we're confident that we can find out more about what makes this fish such an amazing creature," said Shiels.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 07:36:24|Editor: MJ

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MOSCOW, April 20 (Xinhua) -- The results of the vote determined by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on a draft decision to launch a new investigation into a suspected chemical attack in Syria was disappointing and was done under far-fetched and unconvincing pretexts, the Russian Foreign Ministry said late Thursday.

The OPCW convened earlier on the day to vote on the proposal put forward by Russia and Iran on the immediate beginning of a full investigation into the April 4 chemical attack in Syria's Idlib Province. According to the British delegation to the OPCW, the organization's executive council has "overwhelmingly rejected" the proposal.

"The results of the vote that just took place upset us... It should be said directly that the opponents of the proposal were primarily from the Western group." Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OPCW and Ambassador Alexander Shulgin, said in remarks published on the ministry's website.

Shulgin questioned the credibility of the ongoing investigation conducted by the OPCW, specifying that it is unclear where, how and when their samples were selected, especially since the fact-finding mission itself never left for Syria.

"The fact that the delegations of some countries, primarily from the Western group, are always shying away from accepting the solution proposed by us and the Iranians, suggest that they are in fact not interested in establishing the truth." Shulgin said, adding that the Russian side is willing to take any measures that it deems appropriate to shed light on what happened in Khan Sheikhun.

The OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said Wednesday that the organization's fact-finding mission of the investigation into the chemical attack has found traces of sarin gas in the victims' bodies.

Earlier on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry called the statement a "hasty" conclusion, saying that it raises big questions.

"Who took the samples, from where, and how ? Who precisely in the OPCW examined the bioassays?... If there really was Sarin in Khan Sheikhun, how can the OPCW explain White Helmets charlatans jumping in the vapor of Sarin without any protection means? Everybody saw it." the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.

"We would like to receive from Ahmet Uzumcu distinct answers to all these questions as soon as possible," he added.

"Only carrying out an objective investigation of the incident on the spot, in Khan Sheikhun, will help to establish the truth about the issues of what really happened there, and who should bear responsibility for it." Konashenkov said.

The White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operates in Syria's rebel-controlled areas with funding from the U.S., the UK and other western governments, has been repeatedly accused by the Russian Foreign Ministry of producing fake reports.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 07:46:25|Editor: Song Lifang

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U.S. President Donald Trump (R) attends a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 20, 2017. Despite his administration's certification of Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Iran of "not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear deal. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Despite his administration's certification of Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Iran of "not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear deal.

"They (Iranians) are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed. It was a terrible agreement. It shouldn't have been signed," said Trump here at a joint press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

When asked by a reporter whether the White House had any reasons to suspect that Iran was cheating on the nuclear deal, Trump appeared to ignore the question, answering only that his administration was analyzing the 2015 nuclear deal.

"We'll have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future," said Trump. He did not elaborate.

In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson certified that Iran was compliant through Tuesday with its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

It was the first certification of Iran's compliance issued by the Trump administration. Like his predecessor former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Tillerson is required to send the certification every 90 days.

However, calling Iran "a leading state sponsor of terror," Tillerson informed the Congress that the Trump administration had directed a full review of the 2015 nuclear deal to evaluate whether continued sanctions relief was in the U.S. national security interests.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized the Iran nuclear deal, calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated." He also suggested that he would force Iran to return to the negotiation table or risk the accord being dismantled.

Iran and six world major countries -- the United States, Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany -- reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July, 2015 that puts Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear program.

The deal sets limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it will take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and allows regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran.

In return, the United States and the European Union will suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran, with the lifting of all past UN Security Council sanction resolutions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 07:52:07|Editor: MJ

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CHICAGO, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures closed lower on Thursday with the wheat posting the biggest percentage loss since February.

The most active corn contract for July delivery fell 4 cents, or 1.09 percent, to settle at 3.6425 dollars per bushel.

July wheat delivery dropped 12.75 cents, or 2.93 percent to 4.2175 dollars per bushel. July soybeans was down 3.75 cents, or 0.39 percent, to 9.5675 dollars per bushel.

Although wheat and corn export sales for the week ending April 13 were within trade expectations, respectively 15.2 and 29.8 million bushel, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the wheat futures suffered a almost three percentage decline, as a result of plentiful stockpiles both in the U.S. and the world.

Corn futures were also pressured by the down-turn of wheat and closed with losses for the forth consecutive session.

As Brazilian farmers are not increasing soybean sales on the CBOT decline, US soybean futures are now in a position to compete with Brazilian offers for July and August, analysts with the AgResource company said.

However, a strong dollar would make U.S. products relatively more expensive on the export markets.
SYDNEY, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (PNG) Peter O'Neill called on government officials on Thursday to carry on the job of delivering services to the people, ahead of the national elections in June.

The official election process begins on Friday, with PNG Governor General Bob Dadae set to issue the writs to formally begin the electoral proceedings in the capital of Port Moresby.

O'Neill called the department heads to a meeting in Mendi in the Southern Highlands, according to local media, and issued them with a clear message on how to proceed during what could turn out to be a tumultuous time for the small island nation.

"I urge you to stay focused on your jobs. Over the next three months, you are tasked to maintain the public service and continue delivering to our people. Leave the politics to the politicians," O'Neill said.

The Papuan leader urged his executive staff to remain committed, despite the result of the elections, and called on them to set an example for good governance.

"If you stop functioning, it doesn't matter what policies and dreams we have as leaders, they will never be achieved," O'Neil said.

"It does not matter who comes into government, the main thing is that the public service must be resolute in its stand."

O'Neill told the civil servants that he was proud of their efforts for his government during his current term, stressing that they should come to him directly if anyone was found not to be doing their jobs over the coming months as the election process unfolds.

"If any of your ministers are not complying with the process and standards that is expected of him or her, you have every right to complain to me."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 10:34:08|Editor: Xiang Bo

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By Xinhua writer Yu Fei

BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Scientists around the world are looking for the "keys" to enable humans to regrow tissues or organs lost due to illness or injury, just like gecko can regrow a tail.

Their quest now extends into space.

Stem cell research on Tianzhou-1, China's first cargo spacecraft, is far from realizing this dream, but it's the first step to explore the possibility.

Scientists from the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) are conducting experiments on Tianzhou-1, which launched Thursday, to study the effects of micro-gravity on embryonic stem cell proliferation and differentiation.

The spacecraft is carrying embryonic stem cells and embryoid bodies of mice. Scientists will observe the process of their proliferation and differentiation in space through telescope images. Parallel experiments will be conducted on the ground to compare the results, says lead researcher Duan Enkui.

"We hope to get an initial understanding about the space micro-gravity effects on stem cell proliferation and differentiation," said Duan.

The basis of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine research, stem cell biology is regarded as one of the most important research fields of the 21st Century.

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells that have the potential to become any type of cell in the body. One of the main characteristics of stem cells is their ability to self-renew or multiply while maintaining the potential to develop into other types of cells. Stem cells can become cells of the blood, heart, bones, skin, muscles, brain or other body parts. They are valuable as research tools and might, in future, be used to treat a wide range of ailments.

The study of micro-gravity's effects on the proliferation and differentiation of stem cells is a hot topic in the field of space life science.

"In ground experiments simulating micro-gravity conditions, we found the differentiation ability of mouse embryonic stem cells is enhanced. We also discovered the key gene responsible for this change and the molecular signaling pathway," says Lei Xiaohua, a member of the research team.P "Can we use micro-gravity conditions to realize large-scale proliferation of stem cells and tissue engineering construction? That's what we want to find out," says Lei.

"As the ground experiments are conducted in simulated micro-gravity, we must move the study to a real micro-gravity environment in space to understand how it will affect the proliferation and differentiation of embryonic stem cells."

The experiment might provide a new method to better realize in-vitro expansion of embryonic stem cells, and might explore a new way to apply multi-potent stem cells in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, Lei says.

"Maybe scientists will be able to induce stem cells to grow into certain tissues or organs in space in the future to serve people on earth. In another scenario, if a human is injured and loses organs in future space migration, the lost organs might be regenerated," says Lei.

Previously, the research team conducted a series of space life science experiments on China's recoverable satellites Sj-8 and Sj-10.

"We expect to continue our research into embryonic stem cells on China's future space station. We aim to try to culture functional tissues, such as heart, kidney, liver and spleen tissues," Lei says.

The current life science experiments on Tianzhou-1 are remotely controlled, which is very difficult, he adds. Scientists hope to enter China's space station in future to personally conduct the experiments.
PHNOM PENH, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia's largest income earner, has seen a 7-percent growth in exports in 2016, according to the data of the General Department of Customs and Excise on Friday.

The Southeast Asian country exported apparel and footwear products in equivalent to 7.3 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 7 percent from 6.8 billion U.S. dollars in a year earlier, the data said.

Garment and footwear products accounted for 74 percent of the country's total export, and key markets for the products are Europe, the United States, and Canada.

The garment and footwear sector consists of around 1,000 factories with approximately 754,000 workers, according to the Labor Ministry.
by Xinhua Writers Deng Xianlai, Lan Jianzhong

TOKYO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo has recently decided to incorporate Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler's infamous autobiography and Nazi manifesto, into students' textbooks.

Given the nature of the book, on which the world has long reached indisputable consensus, the move has deeply upset Japan's neighbors which suffered tremendously from Japanese militarism in World War II (WWII). It also serves as a call for vigilance against a looming revival of Fascism in East Asia.

The highly controversial decision was made in a written response to questions raised by a lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Party and was approved by the cabinet.

This tolerance of Nazism is by no means an isolated case. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday sent an offering to the Yasukuni shrine that honors 14 convicted Japanese war criminals.

Earlier this month, the Japanese government endorsed the use of an equally controversial Imperial Rescript on Education, Japan's ideological weapon in the pre-war era that advocates loyalty to the Japanese emperor and has played a major role in promoting the growth of militarism in the country.

Fascism and militarism are the root causes of WWII and must be thoroughly uprooted. There should be no tolerance or ambiguity when it comes to historical issues of cardinal importance.

However, right-wing groups in Japan, both within the government and among the general public, show no regret for their country's war crimes. They have even shamelessly claimed that Japanese militarism has nothing to do with Fascism.

The rise of historical revisionism and denial of historical facts have increased the chances of a dangerous comeback of Fascism in Japan, and peace-loving people in Japan and around the world should all be vigilant against this dangerous trend.

In fact, quite a number of media reports in the past years have exposed links between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet members and home-grown Nazi supporters.

Two female members of the Abe cabinet, namely Minister of Internal Affairs Sanae Takaichi and Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, were reported in 2014 to appear in a joint picture with Yamada Kazunari, head of "National Socialist Japanese Workers Party" and a Nazi supporter.

The right-wing groups are continuously fanning nationalist sentiments among the public as well. One of the conservative groups once shouted extreme slogans such as sending Koreans into gas chambers in a street rally in 2013, and was seen carrying items with Nazi symbols in a 2014 protest.

Given the current political atmosphere in Japan, the country's pacifist constitution is becoming increasingly ineffective in holding back Abe's attempt to break the country's military restrictions, or in the prime minister's own words, to make Japan "a normal country." The result is that it will lead Japan onto the dangerous path of militarism.

Japanese militarists' aggressions brought immense catastrophes to both China and the wider world and have eventually brought Japan to where it is today.

Tokyo should deeply reflect on the historical lessons, educate the younger generation with correct human values and thoroughly eradicate Fascism and militarism.
PRETORIA, April 20 (Xinhua) -- South Africa is committed to the BRICS bloc of leading emerging economies and hopes being a member helps address the country's various challenges, a senior official said Thursday.

While addressing a seminar in Pretoria on Thursday, Dave Malcomson, chief director at South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said the country is satisfied with the progress achieved by the bloc and wants to continue using it to address the country's triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Malcomson said BRICS will assist the industrialization process in South Africa and the whole African continent by supporting infrastructure, investment facilitation and an upgrade of the manufacturing sector.

"We want to use BRICS to promote South South cooperation, change global architecture, respond to global challenges and bring about peace in the world," he added.

China will host the 2017 BRICS Summit in September as the current chair. The bloc will discuss global economic growth, promote cooperation and development then.

Noting that BRICS members, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have coordinated and cooperated in multilateral global bodies over major global issues such as climate change, Malcomson said the bloc will always remain relevant to global affairs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 12:24:31|Editor: Xiang Bo

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WELLINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Two Chinese companies Friday signalled their support for the New Zealand tourism sector with agreements made through Christchurch Airport.

China Southern Airlines has joined the Christchurch-based University of Canterbury (UC) in a new partnership which will benefit one of the South Island's most popular scenic attractions.

The airline signed an agreement to become as an official partner of the iconic University of Canterbury Mount John Observatory, New Zealand's pre-eminent optical research observatory, which sits at the heart of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.

The partnership also supported tourism in Tekapo, an alpine lakeside resort, with 10 percent of the agreement's funding provided to the Mackenzie District Council for tourism infrastructure in Tekapo.

"China Southern Airlines is showing a real commitment in this partnership to enhance the visitor experience at Tekapo," Mackenzie District Council Mayor Graham Smith said in a statement.

UC vice-chancellor Rod Carr said he hoped the partnership with China Southern Airlines is a sign of strong ties between the two countries.

"China is the largest and fastest growing international market for student recruitment at UC, so strengthening relationships with key organizations there will support that growth and provide students with employment opportunities," Carr said in the statement.

"This sponsorship is a direct show of support for an area Chinese visitors love to visit." Christchurch Airport chief executive Malcolm Johns said in a statement.

China Southern Airlines Australasian managing director Louis Lu said it was a meaningful partnership that benefited both tourism and science.

"We all share an interest in discovering more about the amazing space that is the sky. China Southern explores it from an aviation perspective, the team at UC and the observatory research its secrets and showcase the amazing stargazing opportunities it offers," Lu said in the statement.

The observatory enables UC staff and students to carry out cutting-edge astronomical research in a number of different areas, including the search for extra-solar planets, the tracking of near-earth objects and the study of pulsating, variable and exploding stars.

Christchurch Airport also announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Alibaba, the world's largest retail commerce company, to connect small and regional New Zealand businesses with Chinese visitors.

Chinese travellers would be able to use the Alibaba Group apps to plan their visit, while they toured New Zealand, including shopping and financial transactions, and after they returned to China.

Johns said the strategic partnership was pivotal to unlocking for New Zealand's regions the power of Alibaba's international ambition to have 2 billion consumers in micro trading relationships with tens of millions of businesses around the world by 2026.

"This agreement has the potential to super-charge regional development across New Zealand, by unlocking micro exporting using tourism as the basis for the first meeting between the parties," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 12:39:36|Editor: Xiang Bo

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PARIS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A Thursday attack in the French capital city Paris that killed one police officer and injured two casts new shadows on the security situation just three days before the French presidential election.

Conservative candidate Francois Fillon, who has spoken out against "Islamic totalitarianism," said on France 2 TV that he was canceling his planned campaign stops Friday.

Far-right contender Marine Le Pen, who campaigns against immigration and Islamic fundamentalism, offered her sympathy on Twitter for law enforcement officers "once again targeted."

She also canceled a minor campaign stop, and scheduled another.

The attack that "deliberately targeted" police officers happened Thursday evening on the renowned Champs Elysees shopping street.

The gunman, armed with a machine gun, got out of a car and opened fire at the police in front of the store on the street, reports quoted a witness as saying.

He then began running away and injured two other officers before getting shot in an exchange of fire with police.

The extremist group Islamic States (IS) then claimed responsibility for the shooting.

French President Francois Hollande called a defense meeting on Friday following the attack.

The president made a statement in front of the Elysee Palace after a meeting with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl.

He pledged "absolutely vigilant" security measures for the upcoming presidential election, which will start on Sunday.

"We must realize that our police force is exposed, and I repeat all the commitments I have made. Every effort must be made to ensure that these policemen and gendarmes are able to carry out their mission," he said.

On Wednesday, during a meeting at the Elysee Palace, Hollande discussed with some of his ministers and army chiefs "specific vigilance and protection measures, including those in relation with cyber filed, taken at all levels during election period."

"All appropriate means must be mobilized to ensure a good course of voting," he said.

"The terrorist risk is higher than ever," said French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl.

On Tuesday, French police arrested two men in Marseille, south France, suspected of planning "an imminent and violent act on French territory," on the eve of election.

According to local reports, main presidential candidates, Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pan and Francois Fillon, have been warned of the risk of an eventual attack.

A total of 50,000 policemen and gendarmes will be mobilized during the two rounds of presidential elections on April 23 and May 7, Fekl said.

France remains in a state of emergency and on high alert over possible terrorist attacks. A group of terrorists killed 130 people in a series of explosions and shootings in November 2015.

In 2016, 17 attacks were thwarted, and 420 individuals linked to terrorist networks were arrested in France thanks to operations of the intelligence services, according to then Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 12:44:37|Editor: MJ

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RIO DE JANEIRO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Argentinian midfielder Conca is close to making his debut for Brazilian giants Flamengo as he enters the final stage of his recovery from a serious knee injury, according to the club's medical staff.

Conca, who joined Flamengo on a 12-month loan from Shanghai SIPG in January, has not played since suffering knee ligament damage in August.

But this week he resumed training with the ball, raising hopes of an imminent return.

"He is back doing ball work but still has some physical restrictions which make his return unpredictable," Flamengo medical spokesman Daniel Goncalves told the Globo newspaper.

Conca is in his third stint in Rio following two separate spells with Flamengo's cross-city rivals Fluminense.

The 33-year-old has made 46 appearances for Shanghai SIPG since joining the Chinese Super League club in 2015.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 13:34:48|Editor: MJ

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CARACAS, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Violent anti-government protests in Venezuela's capital and 14 other states have left three people dead and 62injured, the Public Prosecutor's Office said on Thursday.

The victims included Paola Andreina Ramirez Gomez, 23, who was apparently shot in the head in western Tachira state; a 17-year-old man killed in Caracas during a demonstration he was not taking part in; and Niumar Jose San Clemente Barrios, a member of the Bolivarian National Guard, who died of a gunshot in northern Miranda state.

In a televised press conference, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said investigations showed Ramirez was killed by a militant member of the far-right Vente Venezuela party.

"It is evident this crime was deliberately planned as the suspect... altered the site of the incident, collecting 27 (spent) shells that officials later found on him," the minister said.

Officials provided video footage of the attack, explaining how it was carried out from a nearby rooftop.

So far, some 312 people have been arrested for acts of violence.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 13:49:54|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on Friday signed a framework agreement on cooperation between civil and military sectors in the oceanic field.

The two sides agreed to promote strategic cooperation in civil-military integrated innovation and development.

The agreement covered collaborations in strategy planning, policy making, comprehensive safeguarding and management measures, rights protection and law enforcement as well as human resources and exchanges in the maritime field.

The two sides pledged to promote integrated development between the civil and military sectors to support the building of a world-class navy for China.

According to the agreement, the two sides will enhance organization and communication for integrated development to improve efficiency in using marine resources as well as construction and investment.

The agreement also vowed to share resources between the civil and military sectors to lay a solid foundation for building China into a maritime power.
KATHMANDU, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A supposed avalanche on Barun river, an auxiliary river, has blocked Arun river in eastern Sankhuwasbha district of Nepal since Thursday afternoon, local authorities said.

Shivaj Raj Joshi, chief district officer of the district, told Xinhua over phone that Arun River has been blocked at Bhotkhola village, about 80 km north of district headquarters Khandbari since 4:00 pm Thursday. "As a result, only 25 percent of water has flown in the Arun downward," he said.

According to Joshi that although they are yet to confirm what caused the blockage on the Arun river because of remoteness of the area, avalanche has been believed to be reason as debris brought by Barun river blocked the Arun.

District Administration Office (DAO), Sankhuwasbha has not got any report of human causality due to river blockage on the river as of Friday morning. However, Joshi said they have received report that the path leading to Kimathanka, border point with China, has been damaged and some houses have been submerged due to rising water level.

"We have issued warning to people living close to river to shift to other places," said Joshi.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 14:10:01|Editor: MJ

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by Juan Manuel Nievas

BUENOS AIRES, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Argentina's bitter-tasting yerba mate tea is definitely an acquired taste, as evident from the fact that few outside Argentina drink it, or even know about it.

But there is one aspect of the mate tea tradition that people of all backgrounds immediately delight in: the beautifully crafted cups made of calabash gourds, called mates, and silver straws, called bombillas, which comprise a typical tea set.

Craftsman Ramon Vidal is helping to keep that tradition at his workshop in San Telmo District of the capital Buenos Aires, where cobblestone streets and old mansions dictate the pace of deliberate daily life.

"I always like to work with my hands," Vidal told Xinhua, during a visit to his shop.

Dabbling in sculpture and ceramics, Vidal, who once wanted to become an electromechanical engineer, was eventually led to work with metals, where he found his true calling.

"I gradually trained through the work, making made-to-order pieces. I also learned through books and tool courses with silversmiths who were much more experienced than I was," said Vidal.

Argentines drink yerba mate not only every day, but sometimes all day long. It's not unusual to see someone head out into the streets, a gourd in one hand and a thermos in the other, to regularly replenish his cup.

According to the National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM), more than 250 million kilograms of the caffeine-rich yerba mate were sold last year.

More than 90 percent of households consume yerba mate, with an average per capita consumption of 100 liters a year, compared with 30 for wine and 18 for mineral water in Argentina, the INYM said.

Not surprisingly, whether at home or at work, you'll often see a cup being passed around among family, friends and co-workers.

"More than just a pretty object, the cup represents getting together," said Vidal. "I try to make it beautiful, but not too beautiful, so people will use it and appreciate it."

"The cup is a piece that sells a lot. It is a tradition here in Argentina, and it is a pretty thing -- the combination of the gourd and the metal is pleasing," said the craftsman.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 14:25:05|Editor: ZD

Stephen A. Orlins (1st R), president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, delivers a speech during an event to celebrate the UN Chinese Language Day at the UN headquarters in New York, on April 20, 2017. The UN Chinese Language Day has been observed annually on April 20 since 2010 to celebrate the language's overall contribution to the world and encourage more people to take it up. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, April 20 (Xinhua) -- "If you can speak Chinese and can write Chinese characters, you can get to know China better," Stephen A. Orlins, an expert on U.S.-China Relations, said on Thursday night.

Joining a crowd of UN staff members celebrating the Chinese Language Day, Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, made the remarks in Chinese here at the UN headquarters.

The UN Chinese Language Day has been observed annually on April 20 since 2010 to celebrate the language's overall contribution to the world and encourage more people to take it up.

This year's celebration includes a calligraphy exhibition by Pang Zhonghua, a well-known pioneer of hard nib calligraphy in China, martial art performances and a showcase of cultural customs of the Qiang ethnic group mainly living in China's southwestern province of Sichuan.

The event also provided UN staff members with an opportunity to try writing Chinese calligraphy with the traditional brush, ink, and paper.

Martijn Dalhuijsen, a UN staff member who has been learning Chinese for four years, wrote the two characters of the word "China" on a piece of Xuan paper, a kind of specially made soft paper used for painting and calligraphy.

Dalhuijsen, who is from the Netherlands, told Xinhua that he has learnt traditional Chinese calligraphy through the UN's Chinese language program. During this process, he has gained a better understanding of the Chinese culture.

Dalhuijsen recalled that at the very beginning of learning calligraphy, he rushed to try writing with the brush and ink, but his teacher taught him to calm down and meditate for a while before starting to write.

With "peace in heart," the characters can be written more beautifully, said Dalhuijsen.

"Once I learnt how to write it in the stroke order, I have learnt much better to appreciate both the meaning and the etymology of the characters," he added.

The chosen date for the Chinese Language Day also is related to a legend of Chinese characters.

Every year, the celebration is held roughly at the same time in April around Guyu, which literally means "rain of millet," referring to the sixth of the 24 solar terms created by ancient Chinese to carry out agricultural activities.

Chinese people celebrate Guyu in honor of Cang Jie, a mythical figure who is presumed to have invented Chinese characters about 5,000 years ago.

Legend has it that when Cang Jie created characters, the deities and ghosts cried and it rained millets.

Nowadays, the Chinese language is the most spoken language around the world. More than 1 billion people speak it as mother tongue, which means one in six people in the world communicates using Chinese.
File photo shows a worker checks solar energy collecting tubes on the roof of a local hotel in Zigui County, China's Hubei Province, Dec. 24, 2008. (Xinhua/Zheng Jiayu)

NAIROBI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's solar water heating law will take effect on May 25 as part of efforts to promote the uptake of renewable energy, the energy regulator said Thursday.

Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said that under the new regulations, all industrial, commercial and large residential buildings in urban centers are required to install solar water heating systems.

"Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any of these regulations commits an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding 9,708 U.S. dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both," ERC said in statement released on Thursday.

The East African nation enacted the Solar Water Heating Regulations in 2012 and gave building owners a five-year grace period to implement the order.

The law requires that all premises within the jurisdiction of local authorities with hot water requirements of a capacity exceeding 100 liters per day to install and use solar heating systems.

In addition, all electric power distributors and suppliers shall not provide electricity supply to premises where a solar water heating system has not been installed.

ERC said that the law will help Kenyans reduce reliance on electricity produced by fossils fuels as they contribute to emission of greenhouse gases.

Government data indicate that Kenya has an installed electricity capacity of 2,325 megawatts as at December 2016.

ERC noted that the majority of Kenyans still rely on biomass and firewood for domestic cooking needs. "The deforestation is contributing to the climate change," said the energy regulator.
by Charles Happell

CANBERRA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- An Australian scientific body said it has pinpointed "the most likely location" of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has been missing for more than three years.

In a new report released on Friday, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said tests recently completed on an actual Boeing 777 flaperon revealed that MH370 was probably lying north of the actual search zone, in an area twice the size of greater Sydney (25,000 square-km).

This latest research confirms their earlier drift analysis made in a report released in November 2016.

A total of 239 passengers and crew members were on board of the flight travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 when it disappeared from aviation radars.

Dr. David Griffin, from the CSIRO, said on Friday that he was "confident" that the data obtained from ocean testing of a remodelled Boeing 777 flaperon had pinpointed a new search area for the missing flight.

Instead of using a replica flaperon as they did for their earlier drift analysis report, the scientists obtained and modified a genuine used Boeing 777 part so that it appeared identically damaged to the debris that washed up on the island.

"Testing an actual flaperon has added an extra level of assurance to the findings from our earlier drift modelling work," Griffin said on Friday.

"Earlier drift modelling was conducted using replicas of the flaperon found on La Reunion Island. Those replicas had been made of wood and steel, and were designed to float and behave like the original."

The original MH370 flaperon found on La Reunion is still being examined by the French judiciary. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States was able to assist in sourcing a genuine flaperon of the same model. This flaperon was cut down to match photographs of MH370's flaperon, and then testing was done in the waters near Hobart.

"We wanted to see if the genuine flaperon drifted straight downwind like the replicas, or off at an angle, and at what speed through the water," said Griffin.

"We've found that an actual flaperon goes about 20 degrees to the left, and faster than the replicas, as we thought it might. The arrival of MH370's flaperon at La Reunion in July 2015 now makes perfect sense.

"Knowing how the flaperon, and the other parts of MH370 that have been found, respond to wind and waves is just as important as knowing the currents of the Indian Ocean.

"We add both together in our model to simulate the drift across the ocean, then compare the results with observations of where debris was and wasn't found, in order to deduce the location of the aircraft."

The new report's findings support the conclusions of the first report, which indicates that the most likely location of MH370 is in the new search area identified and recommended by the First Principles Review report, and most likely at the southern end of that, near 35 degrees South.

This search area comprises thin strips either side of the previously-searched strip close to the 7th arc. "If the aircraft is not found there, then the rest of the search area is still likely to contain the plane. The available evidence suggests that all other regions are unlikely," Griffin said.

"We cannot be absolutely certain, but that is where all the evidence we have points us, and this new work leaves us more confident in our findings."

The search for the Boeing 777 was suspended in January 2017. About 120,000 square-km of the ocean bed had been searched to no avail, despite the operation costing more than more than 140 million U.S. dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 14:45:14|Editor: MJ

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LOS ANGELES, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Two U.S. Senators of Hawaii and other politicians on Thursday slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his remarks about a federal judge who halted President Donald Trump's revised travel ban last month.

As one of the most powerful law enforcement officials in the nation,Sessions said in a radio interview Wednesday that he was "really amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order" that stopped President Trump's executive order.

Sessions made these comments after Derrick Watson, a federal judge in Hawaii, last month issued an order that blocked Trump's ban on travelers from several Muslim-majority countries.

His remarks drew quick criticism nationwide, and his dismissal of Hawaii as "an island in the Pacific" sparked outrage in the state.

Hawaii's Democratic federal senator Mazie Hirono criticized Sessions' dismissal of Hawaii with three tweets in one day.

"Hey Jeff Sessions, this #IslandinthePacific# has been the 50th state for going on 58 years. And we won't succumb to your dog whistle politics," she posted early Thursday, then said hours later that "Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences -- including my own. Jeff Sessions' comments are ignorant & dangerous."

Another Hawaii federal senator Brian Schatz slammed Sessions' remark on Twitter as well, saying that "Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It's my home. Have some respect."

Meanwhile, a federal congresswomen from California, Judy Chu, accused Sessions of racial discrimination on her official Twitter account, saying that "When Sessions was nominated, we warned he didn't view all Americans equally" and dismissing Hawaii proved it.

On Thursday evening, the spokesperson of the Justice Department Ian Prior tried to clarified Sessions' statement.

"Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific -- a beautiful one where the Attorney General's granddaughter was born," he said. "The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the President's lawful exercise of authority to keep the entire country safe."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 15:20:32|Editor: An

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XIAMEN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A new freight train service started on Friday linking the east China port city of Xiamen with Moscow, making it the newest China-Europe freight train route.

At 9:30 a.m., the train with 40 containers left the station from Xiamen Free Trade Zone carrying goods worth 363,000 U.S. dollars including granite, lighting supplies, artificial flowers and shoes for Moscow.

A single trip on the 10,920-km route takes 13 to 14 days. Without the direct train service, it used to take at least 25 days to transport goods.

The train route connects the east and northeast Chinese cities of Nanchang, Nanjing, Jinan and Jinzhou, and crosses the border via Manzhouli Port in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Jiang Jingdong, assistant general manager of Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone Investment and Construction Management Co. Ltd., said the service is still in trial operations with three trips from Xiamen to Moscow per month. The freight train service will be normalized in the second half of this year.

Huang Changhong, manager of Trans-China Logistics Co.,Ltd., said that trade between Xiamen and Russia is complementary. Xiamen and its surrounding cities are export-oriented with machinery equipment and shoemaking industries, while it imports wood, paper pulp and vegetable oil from Russia.

Lin Jiangfan, an official with Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone, said that as the host city of the 2017 BRICS Summit slated for September, Xiamen welcomes a closer partnership with Russia, one of the BRICS countries. The Xiamen-Moscow freight train service could also strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative, driving trade in Xiamen.

In 2016, exports from Xiamen to Russia reached more than 5 billion yuan (727 million U.S. dollars), and imports from Russia totaled 1.9 billion yuan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 16:00:44|Editor: xuxin

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KHARTOUM, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Sudan and Egypt on Thursday agreed to leave their dispute over Halayeb area to be discussed at presidential-level meetings.

"We have agreed to discuss Halayeb issue in meetings of the two countries' presidents and to leave the consultations at the leadership level," said Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour at a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry.

He added that the two sides also discussed the issue of armed movements and agreed that both should completely avoid supporting any opposition in the two countries.

For his part, Sameh Shoukry said "Halayeb issue is of the powers of the two countries' leadership. There is understanding between the two presidents on what must be done."

Meanwhile, a statement by Sudan's Foreign Ministry regarding the joint political consultation committee meetings said "both sides stressed the depth of the historical relations between the two countries and agreed to continue exchanging support and coordination at all levels regionally and internationally."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 16:00:44|Editor: xuxin

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TRIPOLI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Mohamed Amari Zayed, Libya's presidential council member and minister of state for specialized council affairs, met on Thursday with Lt. Gen. Paolo Serra, security adviser of the UN mission to Libya, in the council's headquarter in Tripoli.

The two officials discussed the latest security developments in Libya, particularly in the south of the country, as well as the eastern oil crescent.

Serra informed Zayed of the mission's efforts and support for Libyan security and military institutions, as well as the latest security arrangements based on the political agreement.

Zayed stressed the mission's efforts to establish security and stability in Libya, and its support of a dialogue between Libyan parties.

Despite a UN-sponsored peace deal by Libya's political rivals and a unity government, the country is still suffering political division amid insecurity and chaos.

Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, Libya has been struggling to make a democratic transition.
(Source: Xinhua)

CASABLANCA, Morocco, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Morocco's leading TV channel 2M started on Thursday airing a Chinese series dubbed into Arabic.

The launching ceremony of the series "A Happy Life" was chaired by Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Mohammed Ghazali, the secretary general of Morocco's Ministry of Communication and Culture.

On this occasion, the Director General of China Radio International (CRI) Wang Gengnian and the Director General of 2M Salim el-Sheikh inked an agreement on broadcasting Chinese series and movies on the Moroccan channel.

Wang said the agreement comes to reinforce the cooperation between Chinese and Moroccan media, noting that this cooperation has been ongoing at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and through the exchange of visits between media officials in the two countries.

He stressed that CRI has established a strong and long-standing cooperation with various African media, adding that these media have aired throughout the years numerous Chinese series and movies in their local languages and were warmly welcomed.

He vowed to set with Moroccan media another successful example in the historical cultural exchange between the two countries.

On his part, el-Sheikh said the agreement builds another bridge between the cultures of the two countries, adding that through these series and movies the Moroccan public will get to know more about Chinese drama.

He said that he hopes to boost relations between the Moroccan and Chinese media.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 16:10:48|Editor: An

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VALLETTA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Maltese minister within the Office of the Prime Minister Konrad Mizzi said on Thursday that Chinese firm Shanghai Electric went a long way in contributing to the fast growth of Maltese economy.

He said this after an event commemorating 40 years since the establishment of Enemalta, the country's main electricity provider, in Marsa.

Shanghai Electric signed an agreement with Enemalta in March of 2014 to buy a 33-percent equity stake in Enemalta.

Mizzi told Xinhua that the electric tariffs in Malta are now the third cheapest in Europe because "the right partner had been found".

Enemalta and Shanghai Electric are equal partners, and Shanghai Electric had brought in not only capital but a lot of technical expertise, said the minister.

A 7-year business plan has been developed which is now delivering results, according to the minister. The next step in the collaboration is investment overseas.

A wind project in Montenegro has been developed and the companies are now looking at various other projects, he said.

"The formula for this success is that the Maltese side will help with European regulatory issues, whilst Shanghai Electric will provide the technical expertise, develop projects and finance. Together growth can be created in Europe," he added.

Mizzi also said that the successful partnership between China and Malta is opening doors for further projects in other avenues.

"The success that Shanghai Electric has achieved in Malta is paving the way for other companies to come to Malta," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 16:35:54|Editor: xuxin

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LUSAKA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Zambian President Edgar Lungu has threatened to declare a state of emergency if people do not stop setting ablaze public properties in the wake of the arrest of the country's leading opposition leader, local media reported on Friday.

The Zambian leader said in the southern tourist capital of Livingstone on Thursday night that he will be forced to declare a state of emergency unless people stopped damaging pubic property.

"Police, look out for these rabble rousers and trouble makers and bring them to book. You are forcing me to consider a state of emergency," Lungu is quoted by the News Diggers when he addressed supporters.

The Zambian leader however said the state of emergency would only apply to areas where there was trouble and not the entire country.

Zambia has witnessed sporadic fires where public buildings have been set ablaze since the arrest of Hakainde Hichilema who has been slapped with a treason charge.

On Thursday, the police warned people behind the fires that their days were numbered as they will soon be arrested.

The police suspect the fires were deliberately started to cause panic and alarm in the country.

Meanwhile Lungu laughed off claims that he will step down following the intense political environment caused by the arrest of the opposition leader.

Lungu narrowly emerged winner of last year's elections which have been disputed by the main opposition leader.
Source: Xinhuanet| 2017-04-21 16:59:17|Editor: Song Lifang

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By Dan Steinbock

A decade ago, Chinese Internet companies were still marginal internationally. Today, they are world-class industry innovators. In the Internet economy, the leadership is shifting from the advanced West to the emerging East.

Today, Chinas leading Internet companies rival their counterparts in the West in terms of scale, value and innovation. Yet, their impact outside of China is still relatively limited. Even the international leader Alibaba generates less than 10 percent of its revenue outside China.

But things are changing. Chinese Internet players are already expanding in other emerging economies particularly in Asia but also in Brazil and Latin America, as well as Africa. And as Chinese foreign investment has recently taken off, it is the Internet companies that are pushing outbound investment and mergers and acquisitions. Third, these companies are exporting their disruptive business models.

And this is just the beginning.

From the U.S. Internet revolution to Chinese e-commerce revolution

In the late 1990s, the United States was amidst a technology revolution and I interviewed most pioneers of the early Internet. It was an exciting time. America was the pioneer of the new cyberspace frontier.

Some 15 years later, I saw the coming of another transformation that would subvert the Internet economy from within. Thats when I predicted that China's e-commerce explosion will shake the world.

Today, most Chinese spend a lot of time on mobile Internet with WeChat and QQ, while three giant companies - Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu - accounting for a large amount of mobile time spent.

In the process. Chinese e-commerce companies have become as big or bigger as their peers in America. If the U.S. has its Wal-Mart, CVS, Kroger and Walgreens, China has its Alibaba, JD.com, China Resources and Suning.

In just one decade, Chinas leading Internet companies have shifted the center of gravity in the global Internet economy to the East. Investors are following in the footprints. In 2015, venture capital investment value in China-based Internet businesses was estimated at 20 billion dollars, which exceeded comparable VC investment in the U.S. (16 billion dollars), for the first time.

From imitators to innovators

In the U.S. and Europe, Chinese success is often explained as a simple result of a huge domestic market. While the latter has facilitated the drastic expansion of Chinese Internet giants, it does not explain their success, particularly the extensive ecosystems, disruptive business models and unique services of the Big Three -- Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

In the past, U.S. and European multinationals crafted their global strategies for the Chinese marketplace. The idea was that what works internationally will succeed in China. That was predicated on two assumptions: global services can be cloned for China and that Chinese companies pose no competition.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 16:55:59|Editor: An

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Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong (C) attends a seminar on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between Jordan and China in Amman, Jordan, on April 20, 2017. China and Jordan are keen to boost ties in various fields and explore further opportunities for increased cooperation, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong said here Thursday.(Xinhua/Lin Xiaowei)



AMMAN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China and Jordan are keen to boost ties in various fields and explore further opportunities for increased cooperation, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong said here Thursday.

The Chinese official made her remarks at a seminar Thursday on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between Jordan and China, where she stressed that ties between the two countries are strategic and solid in various fields.

"China supports the development process in Jordan and is keen on increased collaboration with Jordan," Liu said during the seminar.

Ties between Jordan and China are on the rise with trade exchange exceeding 3.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, she said.

She added that China is Jordan's second largest trade partner, noting that there are tens of Chinese companies investing in Jordan.

She also highlighted cooperation in the field of energy as key sector where there is tremendous potential for increased partnerships.

Jordan's Health Minister Mahmoud Shayyab said there are several agreements for cooperation between Jordan and China.

He added that there is large room for increased cooperation in the field of tourism.

According to Jordanian officials, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Jordan in 2016 increased by 40 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 17:00:57|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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URUMQI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Rich in resources but remote, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region isn't widely regarded as a medical tourism destination by Chinese. But for people from Central Asia, it's a different story.

Lubov Duhno felt a bit unwell after the two-hour flight from Kazakhstan's Astana to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang. The pain in her knees was much relieved when she saw the familiar airport and her translator waiting outside.

It was the same translator who had accompanied her to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University during years of treatment for the arthritis in her knees as well as obesity.

"I like the therapeutic schedule offered by Chinese doctors. It's a nice hospital and the medics are friendly. They arrange transportation and my favorite food every time," said Duhno, 62.

After a health check and group consultation, doctors offered their solutions -- acupuncture, massage, drug therapy and weight control therapy that involves surgically embedding catgut in acupuncture points on her body.

Within a week, her pain was relieved and she had started to lose weight.

Xinjiang's medical industry has become a promising part of the Belt and Road Initiative, a grand trade and infrastructure plan proposed by China in 2013.

As the regional capital, Urumqi boasts dozens of medical institutes and diversified traditional medical resources, including Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Uygur medicine, and Mongolian medicine. ( The skilled physicians, advanced medical equipment, free airport and hospital pick-up and translation services offered by Xinjiang's hospitals are a big draw for people in Central Asia.

In 2016, major hospitals in Urumqi treated 8,645 foreign patients, a year-on-year increase of 16 percent, according to the city's health and family planning commission.

Wu Yue, a top hospital official, has just completed an inspection tour in Kazakhstan, where many hospitals have old equipment and limited services.

"In addition to countries such as Germany and the Republic of Korea, a growing number of patients from Kazakhstan are choosing China as their new destination for medical treatment," said Wu.

The remote consultation is free and treatment fees are the same for both Chinese and foreign patients, according to Luan Xinping, deputy head of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University.

In a room filled with training devices and colorful toys, five-year-old Aguila and her twin sister are in rehabilitation training.

The twins from Uzbekistan were born with cerebral palsy and are unable to walk or even sit.

Their mother, a former architect, brought them to the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University last winter for one month of treatment. When they left, they could walk with their mother's help. The family came to Xinjiang again this April.

"We combine modern rehabilitation techniques with traditional Chinese Chiropractic, and adjusted our therapy based on weekly assessment of their condition. There is a big chance they will be able to live independently in the future," said Li Yongxia, a former doctor for the Chinese national swimming team.

Li came to Xinjiang last year. The region is encouraging more high-skilled doctors to work there to strengthen the international departments of hospitals and improve medical resources.

The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University set up an international department last October. In the first three months, it received more than 80 patients from countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and 90 percent of beds were occupied, according to hospital president Han Rong.

Xinjiang plans to add at least 500 beds for foreign patients in the following years.

The region is also trying to attract foreign medical tourists through an online network of hospitals. More than 10 hospitals in Xinjiang and over 20 hospitals in neighboring countries have joined the platform for remote consultation, online surgery instruction and remote training for doctors.

"Impressed by our considerable services, many foreign patients introduce their relatives and friends to our hospital after they return home," said Han.

Liubov Alifirenko, 61, is among them. Tormented by Achilles tendinitis for years, the Russian sought treatment in Urumqi and recovered early this year.

Borrowing a Chinese gesture of gratitude, she sent a red silk banner to doctors, which is hung on the hospital's wall and with a sentence in Russian: "I appreciate the goodness and dedication of Chinese medical workers."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 17:21:03|Editor: xuxin

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JAKARTA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The United States-based prominent travel reviewer website TripAdvisor has delivered its 2017 World's Best Destination Award to Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

The award handing-over was conducted on Thursday night by TripAdvisor Asia Pacific Head of Destination Marketing Sarah Mathews to Bali Deputy Governor Dewa Putu Sunarta, in Bali's lavish Seminyak Resort and Spa.

"Bali is a tour destination that provides the best experiences for all kinds of visitors, including for those eager to see natural views, cultural attraction as well as for gastronomic enthusiasts. No wonder they always wanted to share what they had been experienced in Bali to the world," said Mathews.

TripAdvisor's 2017 World's Best Destination Award for Bali was announced last month, resulted from its traveller choice program conducted to its readers in a 12-month period.

Winner of the award came up from millions of opinions and reviews submitted by the readers over destinations listed in the program, which later on ranked by TripAdvisor.

The title makes Bali the first Asian destination to earn TripAdvisor World's Best Destination, surprisingly brushing aside London, Paris, Rome, New York, Barcelona and Phuket which were listed in TripAdvisor's top 10 world destinations.

Besides Bali, TripAdvisor also puts Lombok, a destination near Bali, as one of the best 10 Asian destinations this year.

TripAdvisor reviews three main categories of accommodation, tour attractions and restaurant.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 17:26:09|Editor: Song Lifang

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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Friday urged Japan to "make a clean break with militarism" after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine.

China has always firmly opposed these kinds of acts by Japanese politicians, spokesman Lu Kang said at a routine press briefing.

Honoring 14 Class-A convicted war criminals of World War II, the Yasukuni Shrine is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Japan should abide by the spirit of the four political documents between the two countries, earnestly implement their four-point principled agreement reached in late 2014, and reflect deeply on the history of aggression, said Lu.

He urged the Japanese side to obtain the trust of neighboring Asian countries and the international community through action.

On Friday, around 90 Japanese lawmakers visited the Yasukuni Shrine and Seiichi Eto, an aide to the prime minister and a ruling Liberal Democratic Party upper house lawmaker, also made a visit.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 17:31:10|Editor: Song Lifang

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CAIRO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The 5th International Festival for Drums and Traditional Arts kicked off on Thursday night at the renowned Citadel of Salah Eldin in Egypt's capital Cairo.

The festival hosts shows, bands and groups from around 23 countries including China, Greece, Switzerland and Tunisia.

"The opening of the festival comes to assert that the Egyptian people will proceed with the way of life," Culture Minister Helmy el-Namnam said.

A slogan "Drums Dialogue for Peace" was raised at the festival, which will last until April 26 and aims at spreading tolerance and cultural awareness, the minister added.

"We will not allow any terrorist to spoil our life and we will face terrorism through the Armed Forces and police as well as through art and culture," he added.

Festival activities will be hosted at eight different cultural and historical hubs in the capital: Citadel of Salah Eldin, El Moez Street, Quba El Ghoury, Talaat Harb Cultural Center, Child Center for Civilization and Creativity, and other hubs in the southern city of Luxor and the northern province of Beheria.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 18:01:17|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called on the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (ICCIC) to continue international cultural exchanges and make new contributions to world peace and development.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a letter in reply to the ICCIC and Beijing Bailie University.

This year marks the 120th birth anniversary of Rewi Alley, the founder of the Bailie schools and a famous social activist who helped build friendly relations between China and New Zealand. He lived and worked in China for 60 years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 18:01:17|Editor: xuxin

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BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China said it believes the Venezuelan people can protect the country's stability and economic development following casualties caused by nationwide protests in the Latin American country on Wednesday.

China is aware the Venezuelan government hopes to resume talks with the opposition, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing.

"As a friend of Venezuela, China sincerely hopes and believes that the Venezuelan people can properly handle their domestic affairs," Lu said.

A power struggle between the ruling socialist party in Venezuela and the right-wing opposition has created an economic and political crisis, and provoked widespread protests.

According to reports, anti-government protests in Venezuela's capital and 14 other states have left at least two dead, 62 injured and some 300 arrested.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 18:41:19|Editor: An

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BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday stressed dialogue to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue after the UN Security Council strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

In a Thursday press statement, the 15-nation council demanded the DPRK immediately cease further actions that violate relevant Security Council resolutions banning the DPRK from missile launches and nuclear tests.

China remains committed to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, maintaining peace and stability there and resolving problems through dialogue and negotiation, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a regular news briefing.

"China has always emphasized that the UN Security Council resolutions on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue should be implemented in a comprehensive and balanced manner, which requires that all related parties should strive for peaceful solution to the Korean Peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation," Lu said.

The Security Council press statement expressed opposition to the missile launch and reiterated its stance on resolving problems through dialogue, Lu said.

He called on all sides to refrain from actions that escalate regional tensions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 18:46:22|Editor: xuxin

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PARIS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- France's former prime minister Dominique de Villepin said on Thursday that he would support centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron's presidential bid.

"There is a new path, which Emmanuel Macron wants to open, and that is to unite," Villepin was quoted as saying by local newspaper Le Parisien.

De Villepin, prime minister between 2005-2007 under then president Jacques Chirac, said that Macron was the best choice to face "the extremes that were determined to flip the table" and traditional parties, regardless the quality of candidates and projects, remain imprisoned by their own divisions.

According to an opinion poll unveiled on Thursday by market research firm Harris Interactive for the French national broadcaster, Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will lead in the first round of votes on Sunday, winning 25 and 22 percent respectively.

Regarding the outcome of the second round, scheduled for May 7, the poll predicted that independent candidate Macron will defeat Le Pen by 66 against 34 percent.

In a further sign of Macron's increasing chances of the presidency, former prime minister Manuel Valls and incumbent defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian of the ruling Socialist Party said they backed Macron's presidential bid.

"I decided to support Emmanuel Macron. His project is voluntarist and pragmatic," Le Drian said.

Le Drian, a close ally to Hollande, joined two members of the Socialist government -- biodiversity minister Barbara Pompili and Bernard Poignant, a close adviser to the French head of state -- in announcing their endorsement to the centrist front-runner.

Macron was the former economy minister under President Francois Hollande, who has decided not to seek a second term.

With a predicted 6 percent of support, centrist presidential candidate Francois Bayrou two months ago said he endorsed the ex-economy minister to overcome "a situation of extreme risk."

Two days ahead first leg of French election, Macron holds the lead in several polls released on Thursday.

On the May 7 run-off, he is predicted to win with a large margin against Le Pen from far-right National Front party.

Macron, a pro-business contender is proposing a multiform platform to appease voters of different political views.

"My approach, since the beginning, has been to bring together the left progressives, center and right-wing and civil society; that's what we are succeeding," he said in a recent TV interview.

"In this election, no candidate can claim to govern, rule with a single party, none...," he added.

If elected, Macron wants to raise taxes on consumption and wealthy pensioners, boost the defense budget, hire 10,000 police officers and raise funding for schools.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 18:51:27|Editor: xuxin

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JAKARTA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. and Indonesian companies signed agreements with a total value of more than 10 billion U.S. dollars in energy and defense sectors on Friday.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his Indonesian counterpart Jusuf Kalla witnessed the signing at the Sangrilla Hotel here.

"Those agreements represent the tremendous excitement that the U.S. firms feel about opportunity (to invest) in Indonesia," said Pence.

The agreements include ExxonMobil providing liquid natural gas (LNG) to Indonesia's state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina, Pacific Infra Capital selling turboprop engines to Indonesia's state-owned electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara, Lockheed Martin providing advanced weapons for Indonesia's F-16 jet fighters.

"The total of investment is about 10 billion U.S. dollars," Rosan Roeslani, chairman of Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said after the signing.

Pence ended his two-day visit in Indonesia on Friday and continued his tour to Australia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:01:28|Editor: xuxin

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NICOSIA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said Thursday that important differences still remain in his negotiations with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci seeking reunification of the long-divided country.

The leaders of Cyprus' divided Greek- and Turkish-speaking communities met for about three hours to resume a dialogue after negotiations were suspended for two months following Akinci's quitting earlier talks on Feb. 11.

"I do not wish to create pictures of either optimism or pessimism, but the fact is that important differences remain," said Anastasiades.

He said he raised concerns to Akinci, leader of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus -- which is only recognized by Ankara -- over a move by Turkey to send a ship to the Cypriot continental shelf to carry out seismic exploration.

The area is close to what Cyprus considers its own territory now occupied by Turkish troops.

Noting the "good atmosphere" during the talks, the president said what's important, however, is to ultimately reach an agreement.

The two also focused on Nicosia's relations with the European Union, the economy and governance, according to a statement by the Cypriot government spokesman made before the meeting.

The Mediterranean country remain divided since it was occupied by Turkish troops in 1974, in reaction to a coup staged against the Cypriot government by the military rulers of Greece at the time.

Successive peace negotiations over the past three decades have so far failed to result in lasting treaties due to profound differences over security and territorial issues.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:11:30|Editor: xuxin

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BRUSSELS, April 21 (Xinhua) --The Belgian federal prosecutor's office denied any link between Belgium and the attack on Thursday night on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, media reported on Friday.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said on Friday morning that any hypothesis is not excluded: "The investigation is underway. We can only say that the author is French. "

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel condemned this "cowardly and ignoble aggression." He, along with Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, offered his support to France which was struck by the attack just days before the first round of presidential elections.

Shortly after the attack on Thursday night, several French media reported that the Belgian authorities had notified France of the probable arrival in Paris on Thursday morning of a 35-year-old Belgian.

In a document cited by the French media, it is specified that the federal judicial police in Antwerp of Belgium conducted a search at the individual's home. Weapons and hoods had been found.

On Friday morning, the French Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the Belgian authorities had reported to the French authorities the man in question, Youssouf E. O., while specifying that the individual had presented himself at an Antwerp police station.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:26:37|Editor: xuxin

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ANKARA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's talks with Russia about the purchase of the S-400 air missile defense system have reached the "final stage," Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said on Friday.

"It is clear that Turkey needs a missile defense system but NATO member countries have not presented on offer which is financially effective," Isik said during a news conference in Ankara, local broadcaster CNNTurk reported.

"Work on the S-400 has reached a final point. But the final stage does not mean let's sign a deal tomorrow morning," he added.

The minister also clarified that Turkey will use Russian S-400 missile systems without integration to NATO defense systems.

Earlier in March, Isik told reporters that the uncompromising attitude of NATO member countries led Turkey toward purchasing Russia's S-400 missile defense system.

The Russian missile system will be used to fulfill Turkey's urgent requirement while the country will continue to develop its indigenous missile defense system, he stressed.

Sergey Chemezov, the chief executive of Russian state corporation Rostec, confirmed that Turkey is ready to buy S-400 missile systems with a loan granted by Moscow, according to Russian newspaper Izvestia.

The S-400 missiles are the latest generation of the Russian missile system. Turkey will be the first NATO member to purchase the system, if the country finally reaches a procurement agreement with Russia.
Police vehicles block the Champs Elysees shopping street in Paris, France on April 20, 2017.(Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

BRUSSELS, April 21 (Xinhua) --The Belgian federal prosecutor's office denied any link between Belgium and the attack on Thursday night on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, media reported on Friday.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said on Friday morning that any hypothesis is not excluded: "The investigation is underway. We can only say that the author is French. "

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel condemned this "cowardly and ignoble aggression." He, along with Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, offered his support to France which was struck by the attack just days before the first round of presidential elections.

Shortly after the attack on Thursday night, several French media reported that the Belgian authorities had notified France of the probable arrival in Paris on Thursday morning of a 35-year-old Belgian.

In a document cited by the French media, it is specified that the federal judicial police in Antwerp of Belgium conducted a search at the individual's home. Weapons and hoods had been found.

On Friday morning, the French Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the Belgian authorities had reported to the French authorities the man in question, Youssouf E. O., while specifying that the individual had presented himself at an Antwerp police station.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:41:36|Editor: An

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BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Outstanding loans to China's small business continued to grow in Q1, official data showed on Friday.

Outstanding loans to small business had totaled 21.9 trillion yuan (3.2 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of March, up 17 percent from a year ago, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement.

The growth was faster than that recorded by bigger businesses, the central bank said.

Small business loans account for nearly one third of total outstanding loans, 1.7 percentage points higher than a year ago.

The government is encouraging banks to support small businesses, which often have difficulty obtaining bank loans.

The banking regulator has differential regulatory policies to improve the coverage of loans for small businesses and reduce their financing costs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:41:38|Editor: xuxin

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TEHRAN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry has condemned a deadly shooting in Paris on Thursday evening ahead of French presidential elections, Press TV reported on Friday.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi urged world countries to join hands and help eradicate the threat of terrorism "with strong determination."

Qasemi criticized western support for "double standards" in dealing with the issue of terrorism, saying it has emboldened terrorists to launch another attack at the heart of Europe.

He described terrorism as "the first and most immediate threat against the global peace, stability and security," stressing that the scourge "cannot be eliminated without a consensus as well as a firm and honest will among members of the international community."

Thursday's shootout in central Paris, claimed by the Islamic States group, killed one police officer and injured two others, local media reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:46:41|Editor: An

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BANGKOK, April 21 (Xinhua) -- E-payment method has been growing dramatically in China, changing Chinese people's life and coming out with tourists to other countries, such as Thailand.

Thailand has been the hot destination for Chinese tourists in recent years and China the largest source of group visitors to Thailand.

WeChat Pay, one of the most popular payment methods in China, thus followed the steps of Chinese tourists into Thailand.

During the Songkran festival this year, which is the high season for Chinese tourists to visit Thailand, many Chinese tourists were seen use WeChat Pay in convenience stores, duty-free shops, restaurants and even massage parlors, no matter in Chiang Mai, Phuket or capital Bangkok.

"I don't need to take my wallet out, I don't need to wait for change, there is some discount and no commission, the payment method has so many advantages," said Liu, a woman from Beijing, while shopping in King Power's Bangkok Downtown Complex.

"That we have WeChat Pay here means we can get access to the huge population using WeChat, the most popular social media in China, and it will drive our sales to go up," said Kuang Wei, King Power's manager overseeing the international market.

Kuang said e-payment was introduced to the store at the beginning of 2016. Although only 20 percent to 30 percent of payments are paid by e-payment methods, e-payment is growing quickly as the store has many Chinese customers who are already used to use these methods to pay.

A Thai restaurant called Thevaros, where WeChat Pay was introduced 14 months ago, in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, told Xinhua that their revenue increased some 50 percent after introducing WeChat Pay.

When compared with traditional payments by credit or debit cards, Yin Jie, who is in charge of WeChat Pay's overseas service, said e-payment can help sellers to communicate with their customers and improve their service according to feedback from customers, which is a big advantage.

According to WeChat Pay, the transaction volume in Thailand grew dramatically during the Chinese lunar new year and Thai new year Songkran in 2017.

Yin told Xinhua that WeChat Pay's overseas service focus only on Chinese tourists now, as the service is available in 12 countries and regions such as South Korea, Japan, Canada, China's Taiwan.

"We may extend our service to the Thai market in the long term," Yin said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 19:46:42|Editor: xuxin

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TOKYO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Two Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers departed from Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture on Friday, local media reported.

The media quoted the Japanese Defense Ministry sources as saying the destroyers are likely to take part in a joint drill with the U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson strike group.

The Carl Vinson strike group, which includes the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser, is reportedly heading to waters off the Korean Peninsula, according to local media.

The exact date and location of the exercise, however, remains unknown, according to latest reports.

Noting that Japan's MSDF destroyers and the U.S. aircraft carrier conducted bilateral exercises twice in March, Kyodo News reported that the Japanese and U.S. governments have been considering another joint exercise amid concerns of heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported that Japanese defense officials had yet to determine the details of the exercise, but said U.S. Defense Department officials said the carrier strike group is expected to enter the Sea of Japan early next week.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 20:01:47|Editor: xuxin

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TOKYO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Friday accepted the resignation of lower house lawmaker Toshinao Nakagawa who quit the party after revelations he was involved in an extramarital affair.

The scandal-hit lawmaker resigned earlier this week from his position as Parliamentary Vice Economy, Trade and Industry Minister following demands from the main opposition Democratic Party for him to do so to account for his involvement in the scandal.

The LDP ethics committee accepted Nakagawa's offer to leave the party voluntarily after he made his involvement in the affair clear in a Facebook post.

In the post written on Thursday, Nakagawa apologized for his wrongdoing, stating that he had shown his constituents a "lack of virtue" and that now intends to "spend the rest of my life redeeming myself to my wife and family."

Nakagawa, 46, is the son of Hidenao Nakagawa, a veteran LDP member and former chief cabinet secretary.

He initially served as his father's secretary and was elected to the lower house in 2012 from a constituency in Hiroshima.

LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai lambasted Nakagawa, saying in a press briefing that his behavior was deplorable and that public figures elected by voters have a duty to act accordingly.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 20:11:51|Editor: xuxin

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PYONGYANG, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Friday sent a delegation of diplomats to visit some Arab countries amid mounting international sanctions clamped on it due to its missile and nuclear tests.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Sin Hong Chol and his delegation left here to visit some Arab countries, without specifying the countries.

Earlier, Kim Jong Un, the supreme DPRK leader, exchanged messages with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the anniversaries of each others' important national events, said KCNA.

In a message sent on April 18, Assad thanked Kim for having supported Syria and its people and "always having paid attention to them overcoming the present difficulties and encouraged the Syrian stand to solve the present crisis by peaceful means based on the national dialogue such as achieving territorial integrity of Syria."

Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti government also provided humanitarian aid to the DPRK for its flood damage last year.

The DPRK backed Arab countries in its wars with Israel and recognized the Palestinian state.

Pyongyang also has close ties with Egypt, whose company Orascom helped create the DPRK's cellphone network.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 20:11:52|Editor: xuxin

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LONDON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Official figures released Friday showed a new record has been set for tourists heading to Britain from overseas.

The official tourism agency VisitBritain said in the first two months of 2017 there were 5.2 million inbound visits to Britain, a 6 percent rise on the first two months of 2016.

The figures, based on statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), also revealed that in those two months, overseas visitors spent a record 2.7 billion pounds (3.45 billion U.S. dollars), up 11 percent compared to the same period last year.

Parliamentary under secretary of state for sport, tourism and heritage,Tracey Crouch said: "This record-breaking start to the year once more underlines the strength of our tourism industry."

VisitBritain director Patricia Yates said: "The figures show that 2017 is off to a cracking start for inbound tourism, one of our most valuable export industries."

"We must continue to build on our message of welcome and value in our high spending markets," she added.

Growth at the start of the year was led by long-haul markets, including North America with 400,000 visits, up 2 percent compared to the same period last year, as well as from other parts of the world up 15 percent to 790,000 visits. There were 3.6 million visits from the EU in January and February, up 5 percent on the previous year.

VisitBritain said it predicts that growth is set to continue in 2017 with 38.8 million visits and with spending reaching 23.9 billion pounds.

Latest flight booking data showed that flight bookings to Britain for April to September 2017 are up 21 percent compared to the same period last year.

Last year was a record-breaker for inbound tourism to Britain with 37.3 million visits, up 3.4 percent on 2015, with visitors spending 22.2 billion pounds. (1 British pound = 1.28 U.S. dollars)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 20:52:03|Editor: xuxin

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BAGHDAD, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A total of 26 Qatari hunters, including members of Qatar's ruling family, were released after being kidnapped during a hunting trip in southern Iraq in late 2015, a security official said.

"The Interior Ministry received all the 26 Qatari hunters, and is checking their IDs and passports and taking their fingerprints and they would be handed over to Qatar's embassy," Wahab al-Taa'i, an Interior Ministry advisor told reporters.

The Qatari hunters were kidnapped from their camp by gunmen in Smawa desert in Iraq's southern Muthanna Province in December 2015 after they legally crossed the Iraqi-Saudi border.

The Iraqi authorities launched an investigation and a wide-scale search, but found no information about their whereabouts or condition.

Their release is believed to be part of a complex deal, which has connection with the conflict in Syria.

The deserts and valleys of the provinces of Muthanna, Basra and Dhi Qar in southern Iraq have gained popularity as hunting grounds, attracting visitors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar to explore the vast wilderness in the three southern provinces.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 21:12:14|Editor: xuxin

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SARAJEVO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Four people were injured in a chain collision on Friday morning in Travnik, a city some 70 km northwest from the Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) capital, local authorities said.

The accident happened at 10:00 a.m. local time, when a chain collision occurred in which four people were injured, four vehicles and one truck were damaged.

An accident happened between the truck of brand Iveco, and four passenger vehicles of Opel, Ford, Hyundai and a very expansive Porsche worth of 200,000 euros (214,000 U.S. dollars).

"A cargo truck passed near Porsche, and then moved to the opposite side and hit one of the vehicles... The damaged vehicles are of great value and are subject to great material damage," said Rusmir Prohan, spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the canton Central Bosnia.

"Police observation is still ongoing and the local hospital still has no official information on the degree of injuries," added Prohan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 21:32:17|Editor: An

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ASTANA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia should further strengthen strategic cooperation and play a constructive role in maintaining world peace and stability as well as in seeking political settlement for international hot issues, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here Friday.

Hailing the close coordination and cooperation between Beijing and Moscow on international and regional issues, Wang, in a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, also noted that China, at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Executive Council meeting on Thursday, supported Russia's proposal to investigate the chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria, earlier this month.

In addition, China and Russia both insisted on resolving the nuclear issue in the Korean Peninsula through dialogue, Wang said.

The major task for the two countries at the moment, Wang said, is to prepare for Russian President Vladimir Putin's upcoming visit to China, during which he will attend the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation slated for mid-May.

Lavrov said that Russia and China bear special responsibility in maintaining international peace and stability, and that they cannot let hegemony and unilateralism dominate the management of international crises.

To Lavrov, coordination and cooperation between China and Russia in international institutions such as the UN Security Council and the OPCW have shown the importance of the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership.

Expressing the hope for enhancing high-level communication between the two countries, Lavrov said Russia is willing to take the Belt and Road forum as an opportunity to further align the Russia-led Eurasian Customs Union with the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

On the Korean Peninsula issue, Wang and Lavrov both recognized that this is a critical moment for setting the direction of the situation. The two sides are committed to strengthening their communication and coordination, jointly managing the situation and avoiding risky actions.

Meeting on the sidelines of the ongoing Foreign Ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Wang and Lavrov also discussed issues of common concern such as Syria.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 21:37:16|Editor: xuxin

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KATHMANDU, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The Nepalese government is working to review the country's foreign policy in line with the changing global order, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said here on Friday.

A 16-member high-level committee was formed in a recent Cabinet meeting to revisit the foreign policy under the leadership of Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat, the ministry said.

According to the foreign ministry, the committee will suggest the government to chalk out country's short-term, mid-term and long-term priorities to conduct its relationship with the neighborhood and the changing world.

The panel has four months to submit a report that will discuss various international emerging issues before coming up with an agreed text of Nepal's foreign policy.

The draft of the new foreign policy will be prepared on the basis of directive principles of the state, policies, fundamental norms and values of foreign relations enshrined in Nepal's constitution in order to fulfill core national interests.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 21:52:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, April 21 (Xinhua) -- At least eight military personnel and five attackers were killed and 11 people wounded after Taliban attacked an Afghan army's Corps in northern province of Balkh on Friday, the country's Defense Ministry confirmed.

The attack occurred in army's Corps 209 Shaheen on outskirts of provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif city, roughly at 02:00 p.m. local time. The counter-attack ended at around 06:30 p.m. as five militants were killed following hours of gunfight inside the base.

"The counter-attack ended after five enemies were killed and one was arrested together with a suicide jacket," the ministry said in a statement, adding "the casualties of the army so far remained in eight martyred and 11 injured."

Unofficial sources put the number of killed and injured as high as 60, saying eight people were involved in the coordinated attack.

The attackers, disguised in army uniform, arrived in two army jeeps and made their way after passing through front gate.

"They fired one rocket and attacked a mosque where army personnel were offering Friday prayer in the base," according to the statement. A dining hall was also targeted by the militants inside the fortified compound in the relatively peaceful province.

The Taliban militant group claimed the attack.

Afghan security forces' casualties have risen recently as they struggle against a surge in attacks across the country.

The Taliban insurgency has been on the rampage since the beginning of 2015, as the Afghan security forces assumed full responsibilities of security from the U.S. and NATO troops.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 21:52:22|Editor: xuxin

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PHNOM PENH, April 21 (Xinhua) -- London-based Jonathan Tucker Antonia Tozer Asian Art has returned to Cambodia a set of Angkorian-era gold jewels that were taken from the country illegally decades ago, according to a statement from Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts on Friday.

The antique dealer voluntarily delivered the gold artifacts, including a head cover, a pair of pectoral ear pendants, a pair of earrings, a necklace, a pair of armband, an upper-waist band and a lower-waist band, to the Cambodian embassy in Britain on Thursday, the statement said, adding that the jewels were used to decorate statues during the Angkorian period between the early 9th century and the early 15th century.

Cambodia identified the gold artifacts when the antique dealer placed them for sale in November 2016, the statement said. The Cambodian government then demanded the dealer to remove them from its sale and to give them back, it added.

"The voluntary return of the artifacts truly reflects the enhancement of the value of the Cambodian cultural properties," Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona said in the statement.

She expressed her appreciation to the British government for actively helping the Cambodian government to take back the artifacts.

Meanwhile, the minister also appealed to other museums and collectors around the world that are illegally possessing Cambodian artifacts to return them to Cambodia, saying that they are invaluable assets for the nation and people of Cambodia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 22:07:31|Editor: xuxin

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BERLIN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The German Federal Government has significantly cut the one-euro job program for asylum seekers, said a report by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The program, launched in August 2016 by Minister of Labor Andrea Nahles, intended to provide 100,000 one-euro or mini-jobs for those asylum seekers who have to wait for a prolonged time for a decision on their asylum status.

In March 2017, the total number of applications did not exceed 25,000. It is unknown how many of those jobs applied for have been filled.

The reason for the low number of applications is the fast asylum process in Germany -- less people are in need of the one-euro jobs because of the short period between applying for asylum and a decision being taken on whether they have permission to remain. Most of the asylum seekers with official status quickly receive basic security benefits.

Now a letter from the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social affairs has informed the German state ministries of a budget cut of 220 million euros for the year 2018 -- from 300 million to 60 million euros per year. The funds are provided by the support program for the "Measures of Integration for Refugees."

In the letter, Secretary of State Thorben Albrecht wrote that the remaining funds will be used to "bolster the budget for administrative expenses" of the Job Centers.

This measure faces criticism among German politicians since the money is now used to pay for personnel and maintenance costs of the "underfinanced" Job Centers and not for "its intended cause: the refugees," said Brigitte Pothmer, of the German green political party, The Greens. She declared the program a failure, demanding its cessation.

The Ministry of Labor defends the measure, claiming a successful start has been made that is in need of a longer startup period. Asylum seekers will profit from the additional funding for the Job Centers through "more personal and intensive support," Albrecht said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 22:17:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with his Uzbek counterpart Abdulaziz Kamilov on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, April 21, 2017. (Xinhua/Sadat)

ASTANA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed Friday that China and Uzbekistan step up cooperation by focusing on the Belt and Road Initiative and deepen communication and coordination within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) so as to open up a new chapter for their comprehensive strategic partnership.

Wang made the remarks while meeting his Uzbek counterpart, Abdulaziz Kamilov, on the sidelines of an SCO foreign ministers meeting.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of China-Uzbekistan diplomatic relations, said Wang, adding that China welcomes Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Beijing for the upcoming Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation next month, and for a state visit to China.

He said that President Mirziyoyev has actively pushed for domestic reforms, achieved steady economic progress, and consolidated the comprehensive strategic partnership with China.

For his part, Kamilov said Mirziyoyev's attendance at the Belt and Road forum and his China visit are of historic significance for bilateral ties.

He said Uzbekistan is ready to work with China to align their strategies and to expand cooperation in areas like trade, finance, investment, technology, and water conservancy to as to enrich their comprehensive strategic partnership.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 22:22:32|Editor: xuxin

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MADRID, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Virtually all of the parties involved in the Noos Corruption trial will appeal against the sentences which were handed out on Feb. 17th, the Spanish press reported on Friday.

The deadline to appeal the sentences in the long running corruption scandal, which has captured headlines in Spain for over a year, expired at 3 pm on Friday.

The Noos trial saw the sister of King Felipe VI of Spain, the Infanta Cristina de Borbon, sit among the accused and her husband Inaki Urgangarin was sentenced to six years and three months for various offences related to the siphoning off of public funds, by the supposedly non-profit making Noos Institute.

The sentences caused controversy when announced in Spain with many commentators surprised by their lack of severity after a trial in which only 7 of the 18 accused were found guilty and only three of those (Urdangarin, his partner Diego Torres and former President of the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas) were punished.

Spain's Anti-Corruption Prosecution service and the lawyers for the Balearic Islands will appeal in order to ask for tougher sentences, while the Balearic Island government wants to try and recover the money defrauded by the Noos Institute, a supposedly non-profit organization run by Urdangarin and Torres.

Urdangarin, Torres and Mata, meanwhile, will appeal against the length of the sentences, which were 6 years and three months for Urdangarin, 8 years and 6 months for Torres, and 3 years and 8 months for Matas, while Urdangarin was also fined 512,553 euros (around 560,000 U.S. dollars.

Finally the right wing union 'Manos Limpias' which presented a private prosecution against Infanta Cristiana will also appeal against the decision to make them pay costs after the Infanta was found not guilty of money laundering, although she was ordered to pay 265,099 euros (283,728 dollars) after being found to have benefitted from the fraud.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 22:22:34|Editor: Lu Hui

Deputy Secretary of State Tamas Molnar (5th R), who is responsible for customs and international affairs of the Ministry of National Economy and Duan Jielong, Chinese Ambassador to Hungary (4th R) cut a ribbon at the welcoming reception of a China-Europe freight train at Budapest, Hungary, on April 21, 2017. The first freight train from Xi'an, China to Budapest arrived here on Friday. (Xinhua/Attila Volgyi)

BUDAPEST, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The first freight train from Xi'an, China to Budapest arrived here on Friday.

"The arrival of the train is the symbol of the revival of the old Silk Road from an economic aspect," Deputy Secretary of State Tamas Molnar, who is responsible for customs and international affairs of the Ministry of National Economy, said at a welcoming reception of the train.

"It is also a recognition for Hungary and its entrepreneurs, who have yet again proven to be part of Europe's elite, as we have been chosen as the location for custom clearing," he added.

The cargo train left Xi'an, capital of China's Shaanxi province, for Budapest on April 1. It passed through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Slovakia before reaching Budapest.

According to Xi'an Logistics Park authorities, it's the fourth China-Europe freight train service in Xi'an.

The train, which has a total of 41 carriages, brought mostly clothes, toys and electronic products from Yiwu city in Zhejiang province.

"The time of travel of the goods between China and Hungary has been greatly reduced, thus, its efficiency has much increased," Duan Jielong, Chinese Ambassador to Hungary, said in his welcoming speech.

"This route plays a very important role in the bilateral trade," he added, thanking both the Chinese and the Hungarian governments for their joint efforts.

"I hope that our mutual efforts and cooperation will lead to new results," he added.

In 2016, the Sino-Hungarian bilateral trade volume reached 8.89 billion U.S. dollars.
HARARE, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday said the government is targeting to increase irrigation capacity to at least 300,000 hectares to ensure food security.

Addressing the inaugural maize value chain conference, Mnangagwa said at present only about 160,000 hectares of land was under irrigation, state media New Ziana reported.

"It is the government's desire to see the country's farming activities becoming more productive and cost efficient with an irrigable expanded maize crop area of a minimum of at least 300,000 hectares," he said.

Zimbabwe has many water bodies that has not been fully utilized due to limited financial resources and neglect of existing irrigation facilities.

Agriculture experts have challenged Zimbabwe to exploit its vast irrigation potential to combat the effects of climate change.

Mnangagwa said the completion of Tokwe-Mukorsi dam in southern Masvingo province would add an additional 25,000 hectares to the country's existing irrigation capacity, and more initiatives were being pursued to add further capacity.

He said it was also important to prioritize farm mechanization, adoption of modern farming methods and development of improved seed varieties.

Zimbabwe has over the past few years seen its agricultural production dropping on the back of changing weather patterns, unreliable rains as well as other production bottlenecks.

In the 2014/15 season, Zimbabwe wrote off about 300,000 hectares out of an estimated 2 million hectares that were planted after crops failure due to sporadic rains leading to a serious deficit that government met through imports.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 22:47:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (C) speaks at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, April 21, 2017. (Xinhua/Sadat)

ASTANA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Facing new opportunities and challenges, the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should promote all-round cooperation in areas of politics, security, economy and people-to-people exchanges, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi here on Friday.

Cooperation is vital for the SCO to remain a strong and reliable supporter for the stability and development of its member states, said Wang at an SCO foreign ministers meeting held in the capital city of Kazakhstan.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the SCO charter, which represents the Shanghai Spirit of equal treatment, win-win cooperation and open and inclusive attitudes, creating a brand new model for international relations, said Wang.

The SCO is an inter-governmental organization founded in Shanghai in 2001. It groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Since its establishment, the SCO has maintained a robust momentum of development and strongly protected the security and development interests of its member states, demonstrating its unique strategic value, said the top Chinese diplomat.

In June 2016, India and Pakistan signed the SCO's Memorandum of Obligations, kick-starting the process of their accession to the group. The two South Asian countries were expected to get full membership at a SCO Summit in Astana later this year.

After the expansion, the SCO will become a regional group covering the widest land area with the biggest population in the world, said Wang.

Wang said the member states should firmly support each other with solidarity and coordination, strengthen the construction of regional anti-terrorism organizations, and further lift the level of trade and investment facilitation and freedom.

Wang also urged more extensive people-to-people exchanges among member states.

During the meeting, other foreign ministers fully acknowledged the key role played by the SCO in maintaining regional stability and boosting development.

The ministers also signed a preparatory paper for the upcoming Astana summit.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 22:57:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Digital transformation will significantly increase Chinese manufacturers' overall competitiveness and accelerate productivity growth, a report showed.

With digital transformation, China's manufacturing productivity can achieve annual growth of 6.5 percent over the next 15 years, bridging its productivity gap with developed countries in the next 20 years, according to a report released by consulting firm McKinsey & Company Friday.

Of the 130 Chinese manufacturers polled, 76 percent believed that the "Industry 4.0 strategy" will increase their competitiveness, leading to revenue and cost improvements of at least 15 percent.

The number surpassed the 57-percent and 50-percent of their American and German counterparts, indicating higher level of optimism of Chinese manufacturers over what an industrial upgrade could bring.

The so-called "Industry 4.0 strategy," similar to China's "Made in China 2025" plan, promotes digital-enabled operational transformation to elevate the manufacturing sector up the value chain.

Despite Chinese companies' willingness for industrial upgrades, many are still not ready to implement the strategies, according to the report.

Only 57 percent of Chinese firms polled said they're prepared for digital transformation, compared with 71 percent in the United States and 68 percent in Germany.

"One of the biggest challenge for Chinese manufacturers is their lack of a systematic approach to implementing such initiatives," said Arthur Wang, partner at Mckinsey & Company.

Only 6 percent of Chinese companies have a clear roadmap for digitalization, contrasting 33 percent of companies in the United States and 35 percent in Germany.

To address the issues, Mckinsey & Company collaborated with Tsinghua University to set up a digital capability center in Beijing on Friday, hoping the display of digitalized assembly lines and supply chain management tools in the center will give Chinese firms an idea of how to improve their business.

"Every company, even those most successful, needs to upgrade itself to capture the opportunities presented by disruptive revolutions. The digital capability center answers the call for such changes," said Joe Ngai, managing partner of McKinsey Greater China.

China announced the "Made in China 2025" blueprint in 2015 as a way to move manufacturing up in the value chain, promoting development in 10 key sectors such as medical devices and robotics. Authorities have promised "multi-pronged financial support" to implement the strategy.
KIEV, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine will need 10 to 15 years to clear the landmines that had been planted during the conflict in eastern regions, the Defense Ministry said Friday.

"The mine-contaminated area is now estimated at 700,000 hectares. It will take between 10 and 15 years to clear it from the unexploded ordnance," ministry spokesman Maksym Prauta told a media briefing.

The conflict between the government and pro-independence rebels started in April 2014. So far only 3,000 hectares of land has been cleared of landmines, Prauta said.

Ukraine's demining experts plan to clear another 1,000 hectares by the end of 2017, he added.

During the three-year conflict, more than 150 civilians, including 42 children, were killed and over 600 others wounded in landmine explosions in eastern Ukraine.

Local experts have estimated that the operation to completely clear the area of landmines would cost half a billion U.S. dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-21 23:12:47|Editor: Xiang Bo

Afghan army soldiers stand guard in front of the army corps gate in Balkh province, Afghanistan, on April 21, 2017. At least eight military personnel and five attackers were killed and 11 people wounded after Taliban attacked an Afghan army's Corps in northern province of Balkh on Friday, the country's Defense Ministry confirmed. (Xinhua/Yaqoob Azorda)

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, April 21 (Xinhua) -- At least eight military personnel and five attackers were killed and 11 people wounded after Taliban attacked an Afghan army's Corps in northern province of Balkh on Friday, the country's Defense Ministry confirmed.

The attack occurred in army's Corps 209 Shaheen on outskirts of provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif city, roughly at 02:00 p.m. local time. The counter-attack ended at around 06:30 p.m. as five militants were killed following hours of gunfight inside the base.

"The counter-attack ended after five enemies were killed and one was arrested together with a suicide jacket," the ministry said in a statement, adding "the casualties of the army so far remained in eight martyred and 11 injured."

Unofficial sources put the number of killed and injured as high as 60, saying eight people were involved in the coordinated attack.

The attackers, disguised in army uniform, arrived in two army jeeps and made their way after passing through front gate.

"They fired one rocket and attacked a mosque where army personnel were offering Friday prayer in the base," according to the statement. A dining hall was also targeted by the militants inside the fortified compound in the relatively peaceful province.

The Taliban militant group claimed the attack.

Afghan security forces' casualties have risen recently as they struggle against a surge in attacks across the country.

The Taliban insurgency has been on the rampage since the beginning of 2015, as the Afghan security forces assumed full responsibilities of security from the U.S. and NATO troops.
LONDON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The government on Friday rejected calls to outlaw sexist dress codes which lay down what women should wear at their workplaces.

More than 150,000 people signed a public petition to the British parliament urging action after Nicola Thorp was told to go home from work without pay, after she arrived at PriceWaterhouseCooper to work in a temporary receptionist role in flat shoes. Thorp refused to comply with demands that she wear shoes with high heels.

But the government promised new guidelines on dress codes will be issued in the summer following the outcry.

Media in London were reporting Friday that the government response to the petition means employers can continue to insist that female employees wear heeled shoes, providing it is considered a job requirement and men are made to dress to an "equivalent level of smartness."

The government says it believes existing laws are adequate and already prevent companies from gender-based discrimination.

Instead, the Government Equalities Office has called on all employers to review their dress codes and consider whether they remain relevant and lawful.

The issue was discussed in parliament by the petitions and women and equalities committees of the House of Commons, who made recommendations to the government on workplace dress codes.

A parliament spokesman said: "The government has undertaken to produce guidance during this summer and to explore other options for raising further awareness of the law on dress codes. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has already run a social media campaign aimed at young women to promote awareness of the law."

MP Helen Jones, chair of the Petitions Committee, said: "The petition, and our inquiry, have already done a great deal to improve public awareness of the law. It is nevertheless very welcome that the government has accepted our recommendation that it should be doing much more to improve understanding among employers and employees alike, to prevent discriminatory practices in the workplace."

MP Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: "We welcome the commitments made by the government to increasing awareness of those rights, and hope that the next Government will monitor how this changes women's experiences of the workplace."
MADRID, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Spain's trade deficit stood at 5.74 billion euros (6.14 billion U.S. dollars) up to February this year, rising by 38.4 percent when compared with the same period last year, the Spanish ministry of economy reported on Friday.

Exports rose by 12.6 percent year-on-year to 43.51 billion euros, while imports increased by 15.1 percent to 49.26 billion euros, the ministry said.

Exports rose in Spain more than the eurozone average, which stood at 8.0 percent, and the European Union's (EU) average, which stood at 7.9 percent.

Regarding sectors, exports of capital goods rose by 7.5 percent, those of food, drinks and tobacco rose by 13.3 percent, and exports related to the automobile industry rose by 7.2 percent.

On the other hand, imports of capital goods rose by 13.9 percent up to February, those of energy products increased by 81.5 percent, while those of the automobile sector went up by 2.7 percent.

The ministry said that the rise in imports showed the consolidation of the country's economic recovery.

The government's economic growth forecast will be revised up from 2.5 percent to 2.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) growth at a Cabinet meeting next week. (1 euro = 1.07 U.S. dollars)
NAIROBI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has this week hosted the first China-Africa Conference on Population and Development, where views were exchanged on harnessing demographic dividend by investing in youth and enacting good policies.

At the conference, experts from China informed about the Chinese experiences of demographic transition and harnessing demographic dividend for social and economic development, with an emphasis on human capital, education and skill development as well as health transition.

Julitta Onabanjo, regional director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) East and South Africa Regional Office, noted that African countries still have a very youthful population, where young people below age 15 represent 41 percent of total population and those below 30 represent 70 percent.

"The total fertility rate is as high as 4.5 with high teenage pregnancy," Onabanjo said, highlighting the need to prioritize actions to harness the demographic dividends, including via committed national efforts to invest in young people and disciplined implementation of population policy, human resources development to address issues of fertility transition.

Babatunde Ahonsi, UNFPA Representative in China, highlighted opportunities for China-Africa cooperation on demographic dividend.

He shared China's best practices and experiences in four areas of population and development, namely employment and entrepreneurship, education and skill development, health and well-being, and rights, governance and youth empowerment.

Ahonsi proposed policy dialogue platform, technical cooperation focusing on transfers of know-how and capacity development exchange, tailored program assistance and institutional collaboration as the way forward between China and African countries.

The conference's theme was "Harnessing a Demographic Dividend in Africa", echoing the priority theme of the year 2017 set by the Africa Union Assembly.

The event was jointly organized by the China Population and Development Research Center (CPDRC) under the National Health and Family Planning Commission and Kenya's National Council for Population and Development (NCPD), with support from the UNFPA.

It brought together high-level government officials as well as top experts in the field of population and development from African countries and China, representatives from the African Union, UNFPA and other international organizations.

The conference represents a significant step towards fulfilling one of the important commitments of the "Beijing Call for Action," a roadmap adopted at the Strategic Ministerial Dialogue on South-South Cooperation in Population and Development, jointly convened in March 2016 by the Chinese government, UNFPA and the Partners in Population and Development.

The China-Africa Conference on Population and Development will be institutionalized on an annual basis to promote exchanges of views and experiences between China and African countries on population and development. China will host the second one in 2018.
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RIGA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Latvian former president Andris Berzins is preparing for a political comeback and plans to run in the upcoming local elections here this spring, local media reported on Friday.

After talks with Latvia's ruling Greens and Farmers Union, the former president has agreed to join the party's ticket for the 2017 local elections in the Latvian capital city, said Augusts Brigmanis, Greens and Farmers leader in the Latvian parliament, on Friday. According to Brigmanis, nobody can question the former president's extensive knowledge and experience, as well as his professionalism in economics and political management.

Berzins, 72, explained his motivation for the comeback, as wanting to share his vast political and administrative experience. "As a former president of Latvia, I am prepared to use all my expertise to develop Riga, not only as the geographical center of the Baltic states, but also the financial, cultural and political center."

"The Greens and Farmers Union is currently the leading government party, and with my contribution I will help it to develop," Berzins was quoted as saying on the Greens and Farmers Union's website.

On Friday, the party, which currently sits in opposition in the Riga City Council, submitted its list of candidates to Latvia's election authorities.

Berzins features on the Greens and Farmers ticket as candidate number two, while the party's chairman Armands Krauze has been nominated to run for Riga mayor.

Berzins was elected Latvian president in 2011.

Before that, he unsuccessfully ran for Riga mayor on the Greens and Farmers ticket in 2005 and was elected to the parliament in 2010.

Latvia will hold its next local elections on June 3, 2017.
OSLO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Norway's health minister Bent Hoie wants to save newborns' blood samples for an indefinite period of time, newspaper Aftenposten reported Friday.

All Norwegian infants are tested for 23 different diseases by taking a sample of blood from the their heels when they are few days old, and so far these samples would be deleted after six years.

The health minister will send a proposal for consultation on permanent storage of blood tests before summer, which will terminate the current requirement to delete the samples after six years, Aftenposten wrote.

Indefinite storage of newborns' blood samples shall be used for health care, quality assurance, method development and research.

"We have received feedback from the institute of public health and researchers that storage of samples can play a crucial role in the future research. It can be expanded to cover several rare diseases that require early treatment," Hoie said.

The minister expressed belief that both diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases can be improved by having a blood bank.

"The unique with the samples from the newborn screening is that they show how the child is doing early in life. Because the biochemistry in the blood is different in newborns than in adults, a potential new and better screening method must be tested on blood samples from newborns," he said.

The minister added that "it is important that there is a large material available for research and a six-year cohort means too small number of patients to assure quality and improve today's test methods."

Newborns are currently investigated for 23 rare severe congenital diseases through the newborn screening. Most are metabolic disorders. Even though these are rare conditions, about 1 in 1,000 children in Norway will be born with one of the 23 conditions in the screening panel, Aftenposten wrote.

Children are usually born without signs of disease, and testing is therefore the only way to detect these diseases.
NEW DELHI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- At least 19 people were killed Friday in a devastating fire at a public distribution system (PDS) shop in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, police said.

The fire broke out at Bargi-Harria village of Chhindwara district, about 272 km southeast of Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

"This afternoon a fire broke out at a PDS shop and it resulted in killing 19 people," a police official posted at Harria told Xinhua over telephone. "We have rushed police to the spot to take injured to hospitals besides overseeing firefighting operations and retrieving bodies."

PDS shops in India are meant to provide food grains, flour, sugar and kerosene to people at subsidised rates. According to locals, the people had assembled at the shop to purchase kerosene and food grains.

Police officials said they were investigating the cause of the fire.

"Initial reports suggest kerosene stored at the shop caught fire and immediately took the entire shop in its grip," a local resident said.

According to police, efforts to retrieve charred bodies from the ruins of the shop were going on.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan has expressed grief over the deaths and announced a compensation of 6,000 U.S. dollars to each of the families killed in the blaze besides 772 U.S. dollars to each of the injured in the incident.

Chances of fire in Indian are usually high as people usually ignore safety standards vis-a-vis fire and store fuel and combustible materials in a haphazard manner.
ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Xinhua) -- At least 434 militants have layed down arms in Quetta, the capital city of Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province on Friday, local media reported.

The Geo TV said that a ceremony was held in Balochistan assembly to mark the inclusion of the militants in the national mainstream.

Chief Minister of Balochistan Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, senior army officers, provincial ministers and other government officials attended the ceremony.

The militants belonged to different groups including Baloch Republican Army, Baloch Liberation Army, and different districts of the province.

Addressing the ceremony, Zehri said that the provincial government will provide all possible support to those laying down arms.

"It is our national and moral obligation," he said.

He said that extremist elements used innocent people of the province to kill other innocent people.

Balochistan government spokesperson Anwarul Haq Kakar said that so far over 1,500 militants have surrendered.
DHAKA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A team of Bangladesh police Friday busted a terrorist hideout and recovered large quantity of arms and ammunition in the country's Jhenidah district, some 178 km west of capital Dhaka.

An official of Bangladesh's Counter-Terrorism Police Unit told Xinhua that the law enforcers had surrounded a building since Friday afternoon suspecting presence of militants there.

There is a huge stash of arms and explosives including suicidal vests and pressure-cooker bomb and bomb making materials, said the official who did not like to be named.

"We now think there is no militant inside the building."

Law enforcers from Dhaka have already reached the spot to boost local police efforts to recover the arms and ammunition, he said.

No further details were immediately available.

Security has been tightened in Bangladesh since militants attacked a Spanish cafe in Dhaka's Gulshan on July 1 last year, killing 22 people, mostly foreigners.

Since the cafe attack, Bangladeshi law enforcers apparently have gone tough against Neo-JMB (an offshoot of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) which is blamed for the attack.

Last month Bangladeshi police conducted series of large-scale operations against militants in which at least 17 suspected militants were killed.

Six people, including two police officers, were killed last month in two explosions near a militant hideout in northeastern Bangladesh.
ZAGREB, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The planned deployment of Croatian troops with NATO in the Baltic is not directed against Russia, but rather a sign of solidarity with NATO allies, Croatian foreign minister Davor Ivo Stier said on Friday.

Stier made the comments at a joint press conference with visiting Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevicius, as a response to Russia's warning that it regarded the NATO troop buildup in the east as an act of provocation.

Referring to bilateral relations with Russia, Stier said Croatia behaved as a member of the European Union (EU) and NATO, but would be open to dialogue, particularly on the issues regarding the situation in southeastern Europe and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian News Agency HINA reported.

Stier is scheduled to visit Moscow later this month.

Linkevicius said the NATO troop buildup in the Baltic was not just a gesture, but a minimum in order to protect the countries in the region and to send a message that people's security there would be guaranteed by NATO.

Lithuania hopes to strengthen relations with Russia, but on the basis of international law and non-interference in internal affairs, he said.

NATO plans to deploy about a thousand troops each in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland this year.

Up to 300 Croatian soldiers will be included in the plan, according to a Croatian government proposal which has been submitted to parliament for approval. If passed, the Croatian soldiers will be deployed in Poland by the end of 2017, and in Lithuania in early 2018.
NAIROBI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan soldiers who are part of the African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) on Friday killed 52 Al-Shabaab in an attack in southern Somalia.

Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Colonel Joseph Owuoth said the soldiers also successfully destroyed an Al-Shabaab terrorist camp located 9km north of Sarira, Badhaadhe region of Lower Jubba.

"The intelligence-led operation was executed after surveillance assets sighted Al-Shabaab terrorist concentration in the location. Ground troops supported by mortar and artillery fire were employed to neutralize the camp thereafter," Owuoth said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

During the raid, the military spokesman said, seven AK-47 rifles, one PKM gun, two phones, 104 rounds of ammunition, three improvised explosive devices (IED), assorted IED-making material and food stuff were recovered.

"The KDF wishes to assure the public that operations against Al-Shabaab will continue until the terrorists are all eliminated in order to ensure Kenyans and their neighbours enjoy peace and security," Owuoth said.

The Kenyan soldiers have stepped up their air and ground operations against the militants in southern Somalia despite their continued resistance, at times targeting military camp.

Kenya has more than 4,000 troops in the 22,000-strong AU force in Somalia helping the UN-backed government battle Al-Shabaab, which is part of the Al-Qaeda allied terror network.
BANJUL, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The Gambia's interior Minister Mai Ahmad Fatty told news conference on Friday that gunshots between ECOMIG forces and Gambian soldiers on Thursday was a result of miscommunication.

He confirmed that three Gambians soldiers were shot and wounded on their legs but their injuries were not life-threatening. He said the incident was a result of miscommunication between the command bases of both sides.

"At the time of the incident, our arm forces did not get clearance from the Gambia Arm Forces command base. The Gambian soldiers could not allow ECOMIG access. Fundamentally, the Senegalese forces, acting within their mandate which allows them unrestricted access to that area, also felt that they have a right of access to the place," Fatty said.

"There was no intentional effort by Senegalese soldiers to shoot anybody. It was an accidental discharge that resulted into minor injuries. They were all taken to the hospital and released the same day. The incident was regrettable."

He said there is no cause for alarm and that there was no serious confrontation between the Gambia Arm Forces and ECOMIG forces on the ground. He said it was a miscommunication that resulted to what transpired.

"The meeting took place between the ECOMIG and Gambian sides and we have reaffirm our commitment to work together to secure the country. There is no confrontation," he emphasized.

Fatty further praised Gambian soldiers for the responsible and disciplined attitude with which they handled the situation.

"Our soldiers are very experienced and they are very disciplined. They did not return fire which really helped in deescalating the tension. All measures have been taken to avert this kind of a situation," he said.

Fatty said the incident has been used by people he called 'confusionists' to peddle rumours that the country is not safe or certain people are being targeted.

"ECOMIG forces are not here to be against us. They are here for us," he said.

The regional forces have been deployed in the Gambia on January 19 to restore democracy after country former president Yahya Jammeh refused to cede following an election defeat.
VILNIUS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- NATO allies will hold air force drill, Ramstein alloy, in the Baltic airspace next week, Lithuanian defense ministry announced on Friday.

The fourth edition of the air exercise is to be held on April 25 and 26, and will take place mainly over Lithuania, a small Baltic country and NATO member with a population of less than 3 million.

The exercise is to train the aircraft conducting Baltic air policing missions and enhance interoperability among allied air forces. The allies will train intercepting flights, refueling, search and rescue operations, diversions, the ministry said in a statement.

"Fighter jets from both Baltic air policing detachments, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Norway as well as a transport aircraft from Lithuania, a U.S. tanker and NATO AWACS aircraft will be involved in this live flying training event," said the statement.

The name of the exercise comes from the NATO allied air command, a top body of all NATO air forces which is based in Ramstein air base in Germany.

Zokniai in Northern Lithuania serves as an air base for NATO air policing missions in the Baltic skies.

Lithuania doesn't have its own air policing assets and has been assisted by rotating missions of allied air forces since 2004.
LAGOS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Police in Nigeria's southern state of Akwa Ibom said Friday it had rescued two Turkish nationals kidnapped in their hotel rooms at Eket area of the state.

The Turkish citizens are staff of BKS Construction Company in Onna Local Government Area.

Police chief in charge of the state Donald Awunah told reporters in Uyo, the state capital that the two expatriates were rescued along Oron/Calabar creeks on April 19.

He said five suspects have been arrested in connection with the crime.

"Following sustained Police activities in the waterways, deployment of technical platform, cultivation of actionable intelligence and skillful professional negotiation, the two Turkish gentlemen were released on April 19, 2017," he added.

According to him, the victims of crime have been reunited with their colleagues after medical assessment.

The police chief said the suspects would be arraigned after investigation.

Akwa Ibom is an oil producing state and a thriving hub of a new oil and gas business.

Abduction is common in Nigeria. The abduction of foreigners and high profile individuals in the country has been on the increase recently.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 02:39:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIRUT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri reiterated Friday his government's commitment to the UN resolution that ended the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group of Hezbollah in 2006.

Hariri spoke after a visit to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon headquarters in the southern border town of Naqoura accompanied by Defense Minister Yaacoub Sarraf and army commander General Joseph Aoun.

He stressed that the Lebanese armed forces are the legitimate force in charge of defending borders.

Hariri's visit came in a response to a media tour organized by Hezbollah along the border line with Israel.

This tour was met with high criticism by local and foreign officials and labeled as clear violation of resolution 1701.

Hariri therefore reaffirmed government commitment, with all its components, to the resolution, saying that the tour is "something that we, as a government, are not concerned with and do not accept."

He also mentioned Israel's continuous violations of Lebanon's sovereignty and the need to put an end to this.
MOSCOW, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Russia hopes to have a substantive discussion of ways to restore its cooperation with the European Union (EU) during EU foreign policy chief's visit to Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

EU's High Representative for Foreign affairs and Security Policy and European Commission Vice Presdent Federica Mogherini is scheduled to visit Moscow on Monday.

"We are ready for a full-fledged resumption and active support of channels for cooperation with the EU in various fields," the ministry's Information and Press Department said in a commentary ahead of Mogherini's visit.

Currently, EU remains Russia's key trade and economic partner, accounting for almost 45 percent of the country's foreign trade, according to the commentary.

Noting that Russia-EU relations are going through a difficult period, the ministry said cooperation still continues in a number of areas, such as regular bilateral talks on countering terrorism and organized crime, as well as regional cooperation.

"We are ready to build mutually beneficial relations with the EU and its member countries on the basis of equality, respect for national interests and objective interdependence of economies, conditioned by territorial closeness and complementarity," the ministry said.

During the upcoming talks, Mogherini and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will examine key aspects of bilateral relations, the commentary said.

They will also talk about international issues, including the situation in Ukraine, the Western Balkans, Syria, Iraq, Libya, the Iranian nuclear program and the Middle East settlement, it added.
by Christine Lagat

NAIROBI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China has helped African countries re-energize the war against malaria through biomedical research, training of health workers and provision of cheaper drugs, officials said on Friday during a China-Africa Symposium on eliminating the tropical disease.

The symposium was organized by Kenya's ministry of health in conjunction with China State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine.

In his opening remarks at the symposium, Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Health Cleopa Mailu hailed China's contribution toward the fight against malaria that is a leading cause of children and pregnant mothers in Africa.

"We applaud the Chinese scientists who discovered the ingredients for the Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACTs) which came at an opportune time when malaria treatment was proving to be a challenge globally," Mailu said.

He noted that China's sophisticated alternative medicine industry has inspired African countries to develop their own and enhance response to killer tropical diseases.

The China-Africa Malaria symposium was attended by senior policy makers and health experts from the continent.

Also in attendance were Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa, Vice Director of National Health and Family Planning Commission of China Wang Guoqiang and Director of Traditional Chinese Medicine Bureau of Guangdong Province of China, Xu Qingfeng.

Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for health said that robust Sino-Africa collaboration is critical to boost malaria prevention and case management.

For his part, Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa said Beijing is committed to helping African countries combat a high burden of malaria that is a drawback to economic progress and social renewal in the continent.

African countries are keen on harnessing Traditional Chinese Medicine to combat malaria that is to blame for an estimated 1.5 percent loss to Gross National Product (GNP) in high endemic countries.

Fouad Mohadji, the former Vice President of Indian Ocean Island of Comoros said that African countries have tapped into China's advanced knowledge in alternative and complementary medicine to re-invigorate malaria control and treatment programs.

"This continent should adopt alternative therapies from China that are cheaper yet have proved to be effective in treating malaria," Mohadji said.

Comoros was declared malaria free several years ago thanks to robust cooperation with China in a host of interventions aimed at containing the tropical disease.

Other African countries that have recorded a dramatic slump in malaria cases due a strong partnership with China include Kenya, Malawi and Togo.

Mohadji said Sino-Africa cooperation in research and development of new drugs will fast-track progress towards elimination of malaria in the continent.
JUBA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan on Friday hailed China's support for the youngest nation embroiled in more than three years of violent conflict, expressing hope that the two countries continue their cordial relations.

Deputy Minister of Information Paul Akol Kordit commended China for being a historical friend of Africa and particularly South Sudan.

"We have very strong ties with China. It has been supporting us in terms of development and diplomatically on the international arena. They have stood with the people of South Sudan and we hope the cordial relations continue," Akol said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mawien Makol said China has been helping the war-torn country since it won independence in 2011 from northern neighbor Sudan after decades of civil war.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013, as political disputes between President Kiir and his former deputy Machar caused fighting to spread along ethnic lines.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 3.5 millions from their homes, according to the UN.

And 7.5 million people are currently in dire need of humanitarian assistance amid famine having been declared in some parts of the country especially in the Mayendit and Leer Counties of the northern Unity state where 100,000 people are starving and a further one million on the brink.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 03:39:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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DAMASCUS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed that the alleged chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun town was fabricated, and a bunch of lies.

The president made the remarks during an interview he made with Russian media outlets, namely Ria Novosti and Sputnik, published on Friday, and released by state news agency SANA as well.

There was no toxic attack in Khan Sheikhoun town, Assad said, charging that the United States and the Western powers have prevented an investigation team from coming into Syria to look into the allegation, "because the team will find that all the narrative about what happened in Khan Sheikhoun was mere lies."

Two weeks ago, the U.S. launched 59 missiles on a Syrian air base in Homs province in central Syria, in retaliation to an alleged chemical attack launched by the Syrian air force on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, during which over 70 people were said to had been killed.

The Syrian government completely rejected the accusations, saying it is not in possession of chemical weapons and that there was no need to resort to such option as the Syrian army was advancing and using such tactic will do a big harm.

Asked about the Syrian air defenses, prior to the American strike against the Shayrat air base in Homs two weeks ago, Assad said the rebels' main target was the Syrian air defenses, noting that the country lost 50 percent of the air defense capacity during the war.

He noted, however, that negotiations are ongoing with Russia to buy new air defense systems.

"This is the case always, before and through the war, of course we have become in need for more weapons after the war, and this is part of the daily relations between the Syrian and Russian defense ministries," the president said.
DAR ES SALAAM, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) said on Friday Tanzania was losing 50 million U.S. dollars annually from viruses in cassava crop.

James Left, a principal scientist with IITA, an international research organization working across Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and malnutrition through research in agriculture, said the viruses affected half of the cassava crop produced in the east African nation.

Speaking at the 50th Anniversary of the IITA in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, Left said almost half of all crops produced in Tanzania were affected by diseases which hugely affected the country's agricultural sector.

Victor Mayong, IITA Eastern Africa Director, said a new banana bacteria was posing a threat to Tanzanian banana growers.

Mayong said the bacteria was recently discovered in Mozambique, Tanzania's southern neighbor, adding that IITA was working with Mozambican authorities to control the bacteria before it spread to Tanzania.

Mayong said the institute was now focusing on inventing technologies that will reduce different crop threats and ensure that the agricultural sector becomes an engine of growth.

"These technologies are vital in reducing rates of damage attained throughout the farming and harvesting process and increase productivity and improve lives of people," he said.

IITA research focus on tackling crop diseases such as cassava virus or banana bacteria, on reducing aflatoxin contamination in food, adding value to primary production and efforts to attract youth to agriculture.
UNITED NATIONS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The current spike of violence in Kasai Provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has forced over 11,000 refugees to seek safety in Angola, a UN spokesperson said Friday.

Police, military officials and civilians were being attacked by militia groups, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing.

"Some parents have sent their children across the border, worrying they would be forcibly recruited by the militias if they had stayed in the DRC," said Dujarric.

The situation among children is dire, as many arriving malnourished and sick, suffering from diarrhea, fever and malaria, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The UNHCR is currently coordinating refugee response with the government, local authorities and partners on the ground.

"We are also negotiating with the government for proper hosting sites as the current border locations are overcrowded and not suitable," said the UNHCR.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 03:54:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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JERUSALEM, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Masked Israeli settlers attacked activists assisting Palestinians in the West Bank, injuring seven of them, Israeli human rights groups said.

The two groups, Ta'ayush and Haqal, said they were accompanying Palestinian shepherds, who often suffer from harassment and violence by Israeli settlers, when they came under the attack.

The incident took place in the area of Auja, a village in the Jordan Valley north of Jericho.

A video footage released by B'Tselem, another Israel-based human rights watchdog, shows over a dozen of masked settlers youths running towards the activists, shouting obscenities, hurling rocks, and swinging bats.

In the footage, one of the settlers is seen beating a rights activist Rabbi Arik Ascherman in his legs while another hitting him with a club at his back and a third youth throwing a rock towards his head.

Two military helicopters are then seen in the clip flying very close to the ground, dispersing the assailants.

Haqal said in a post on Facebook that the settlers arrived from the "Baladim" outpost, an illegal settlement.

It is known for its "hilltop youths," an Israeli phrase used to describe violent Jewish settlers who have been carrying out attacks against Palestinians over the past years.
ARUSHA, Tanzania, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The unsatisfactory state of roads along the western Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park makes it practically impossible for a safe and cost-efficient access to the region's tourist attractions and products, an official said on Friday.

Located on the western border of Tanzania and the Congo, Gombe is one of Tanzania's smallest national parks, but rich in flora and fauna including the endangered chimpanzees.

Emmanuel Mtiti, the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) Project Director of Gombe-Masito-Ugalla Landscape, said that lack of a reliable road hampers the development of tourism sector in the area, which lies on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, the world's second deepest lake, after Baikal in Siberia.

"The area is very rich in biodiversity. And to be specific, it's the last remaining habitat for chimpanzees in Tanzania. But, it's the least visited area in the country," Mtiti said.

He noted: "This has been contributed with poor infrastructures. Roads getting into the area are impassable in some places, to the extent that some tourists prefer to use boats in Lake Tanganyika. This adds costs to tourists who are interested in visiting."

It is estimated that Tanzania has more than 2,500 chimpanzees, though large concentration is in the Gombe ecosystem.

Apart from the successful implementation of environmental conservation initiatives, Mtiti said that the challenge remains on how tourism sector can grow so that locals who are actively involving in the conservation of chimps habitats benefit out of conservation.

Dominick Tarimo, Gombe National Park warden said despite the inaccessibility challenge, the government has been working hard to open up the western part of the country with better roads.

"We believe that if the area is improved with better roads, we'll be receiving more tourists, similar to what is happening in northern tourism circuit," the official said.

The park receives tourists, who come through Burundi, Rwanda and DR Congo through Lake Tanganyika, the official said.

Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) has already expressed its intention of partnering with Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL) so that the national airline introduces a direct flight to Katavi and Kigoma regions, with more focus on tourism. If all goes to plan, the Tanzania's western sanctuaries of Katavi and Gombe national park will start receiving as more tourists as possible.

Tanzania received a total of 1,284,279 tourists last year, which is a 12 percent increase from the 1,137,182 tourists who arrived in 2015.

Arrivals increased last year despite the imposition of value added tax (VAT) on tourism services, which stakeholders had feared would lead to massive booking cancellations in Tanzania.

Statistics by the Tanzania's central bank show that the country's earnings from tourism rose by 11 percent last year to 2.23 billion U.S. dollars as a direct result of the increase in a number of tourist arrivals, up from 2.01 billion dollars in 2015.
DAR ES SALAAM, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian immigration officers said on Friday they had arrested a former convict of the recently-disbanded International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR).

Ally Dady, the Kagera Regional Immigration Officer, said they arrested Innocent Sagahutu in Ngara district while he was attempting to cross into Burundi.

Sagahutu, who was a captain of the Rwandan army before the 1994 genocide, was being interrogated by the Immigration officers in Bukoba, the capital town of Kagera region.

Dady said the former Rwandan army officer tried to cross into Burundi without valid papers, which led to his arrest.

The immigration officer said Sagahutu had completed a 15-year jail term for his role in the massacre in Rwanda in which nearly one million people were killed.

Dady said after serving his sentence, Sagahutu could not immediately find a country that would have hosted him, adding that he needed special clearance to travel out of Arusha in northern Tanzania.

Dady said Sagahutu did not possess the required documents that could have enabled him to travel out of Arusha or elsewhere.

However, Sagahutu claimed he had all papers which allowed him to travel out of Arusha region.

He said the immigration officers at Ngara could not read them well and that was why he was detained there for 11 days.

He added that the documents have the clearance from the United Nations offices in Tanzania, noting that he was travelling to Burundi to see his relatives.

Sagahutu added that in the recent past the same clearance permits have seen him travelling to Mozambique and Switzerland "without any problem or causing harm to anybody."

Sagahutu was among 10 Rwandan nationals who were yet to find countries to host them after serving their jail sentences for their role in the Rwanda genocide or after being acquitted.

Most of them were living in a special detention facility of the UN in Arusha.
by Denis Elamu

JUBA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Experts in South Sudan remain wary of hate speech and isolated targeted killings, but argue that genocide is not yet taking place in the country.

Since the renewed violence in July last year, fighting spread to once peaceful Equatoria region's Yei, Kajo Keji areas located South West of the capital, prompting the UN Secretary General's Advisor on Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng in November last year to warn that ethnic killings amid rising hate speech risked the youngest nation descending into genocide.

The government vehemently denies any existence of genocide, arguing that the state apparatus cannot be used against civilians but only against rebels.

Experts say that genocide is yet to occur and that the warring factions should commit to cessation of hostilities and implement the peace agreement to end the more than three years of conflict that has led to famine in some parts of the country amid huge humanitarian suffering.

"Adama Dieng was here in November last year and during his visit he warned about the signs and hallmarks of possible genocide. And certainly as the UN naturally we are worried about this warning, risk of genocide," the head of the UN humanitarian Coordination Office (OCHA) in South Sudan, Eugene Owusu, said on Wednesday.

"But what is important at this time is that all sides, everybody must be proactive in condemning ethnic related injustice and also persons that incite hateful speech. This issue is high on the agenda of the UN, UNMISS is monitoring hate speech and the government is also talking against hate speech," he revealed.

The conflict, since engulfing the oil-rich and yet impoverished country of 11 million people in December, 2013, initially spread along ethnic lines, pitting soldiers from President Salva Kiir's majority Dinka tribe against SPLA-in opposition (SPLA-IO) rebels from former Vice President Riek Machar's Nuer tribe.

Assistant Professor of Politics at Juba University Jacob Chol told Xinhua on Thursday that none of the warring parties has plans for carrying out genocide in the country.

"I don't really believe that there is genocide that has been planned by government or rebels. It is exaggerated with no evidence," he said.

Chol also observed that the isolated ethnic targeted killings and ambushes along major highway roads by some ethnic chauvinist groups are bad and can lead to deep ethnic animosity and division in the country.

Assistant professor of Economics at Upper Nile University James Alic Garang told Xinhua that no single ethnic group has yet declared to wipe out another since outbreak of fighting.

"I do not believe that genocide in its true definition is taking place in South Sudan. Yes, the conflict has taken ethnic dimension but I do not see principal leaders across the political divide involved or inciting such ethnic killings," Garang disclosed.

"No ethnic group in South Sudan has fully declared to wipe out another. Hence, I do not see Rwandan style genocide taking place in South Sudan," he added.

Garang called for stabilization of the humanitarian and economic situation to clamp down on banditry or criminality that is being disguised under ethnic tension.

"The region and international community have a role to play in preventing any mass atrocities by providing support to the full implementation of peace agreement as cornerstone to stability and external financial support to achieve humanitarian and macroeconomic stability," Garang revealed.
KIEV, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China's Belt and Road Initiative offers new opportunities for Ukraine to promote its development by enhancing cooperation with China and other countries along Silk Road, a Ukrainian expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"First of all, under this initiative, Ukraine gets a unique chance to increase cooperation with the driving force of the world's economy -- with China's economy," said Ruslan Osypenko, an Executive Director of China trade association in Ukraine.

The Belt and Road initiative, proposed by Beijing in 2013, has opened the door for Ukrainian companies to join hands with Chinese partners in implementing mutually-beneficial projects, he said.

"For instance, we could successfully develop projects in energy sector and agriculture. These priority areas are interesting for both -- for Ukraine and for China," Osypenko said.

He noted that Chinese businessmen are also ready to bring their capabilities to the development of seaports in Ukraine, helping the East European country to improve its logistic infrastructure.

"Chinese companies are ready to supply equipment to ports, implement dredging projects, built port plants and improve logistics chain," Osypenko said.

The renovation of the ports infrastructure would contribute to Ukraine's aspiration of becoming a transportation artery between Asia and Europe, he added.

Serving between 2011 and 2015 as a head of Foreign Economic Affairs department at Ukraine's Economic Development and Trade Ministry, Osypenko was one of the main enthusiasts in the Ukrainian government, who pushed forward Kiev's bid to join the Belt and Road initiative.

In 2015, Ukraine has formally entered the Silk Road project, launching a train to China via the sea-rail Trans-Caspian International Transport Route through Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Currently, Osypenko together with his colleagues is trying to expand the Silk Road from Ukraine westwards, establishing connections between businessmen from China and western countries, which work in Ukraine.

"We have created a platform for dialogue and exchange of experience between businessmen from China, Germany, USA, France, Turkey and Ukraine. And today we have a new tool for pushing forward our business relations," Osypenko said.

The newly-created platform, uniting business associations and chambers of commerce from six countries, opens up new opportunities for expanding commercial partnership throughout the world, he said.

"In fact, this is a mini-model of China's Belt and Road Initiative. We are implementing this initiative in Ukraine and implementing it successfully," Osypenko said.
MOSCOW, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Russia and the United States agreed on Friday to study the feasibility of organizing an objective inquiry into a chemical incident in Syria's Idlib Province, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the issue in a phone conversation, the ministry said in a statement.

In the phone talk, Lavrov expressed regret that Washington opposed Russia's initiative at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of sending inspectors to Syria to verify allegations of the use of sarin gas and of the presence of poisonous substances at the Syrian airbase Shayrat, the statement said.

"The interlocutors agreed to give instructions to study once again the possibility of an objective investigation of the incident under the auspices of the OPCW," the statement read.

The OPCW convened on Thursday to vote on the proposal put forward by Russia and Iran on the immediate beginning of a full investigation into the Apil 4 chemical attack.

According to the British delegation to the OPCW, the organization's executive council has "overwhelmingly rejected" the proposal.

While discussing issues on the bilateral agenda, Lavrov and Tillerson also agreed on the early start of the joint working group at the level of deputy foreign ministers in search for ways to remove irritants from bilateral relations, the statement said.
A Kenyan soldier from African Union peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) keeps guard in a patrol post in Kismayo, southern port city of Somalia, Feb. 4, 2013. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse)

NAIROBI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan soldiers who are part of the African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) on Friday killed 52 Al-Shabaab in an attack in southern Somalia.

Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Colonel Joseph Owuoth said the soldiers also successfully destroyed an Al-Shabaab terrorist camp located 9km north of Sarira, Badhaadhe region of Lower Jubba.

"The intelligence-led operation was executed after surveillance assets sighted Al-Shabaab terrorist concentration in the location. Ground troops supported by mortar and artillery fire were employed to neutralize the camp thereafter," Owuoth said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

During the raid, the military spokesman said, seven AK-47 rifles, one PKM gun, two phones, 104 rounds of ammunition, three improvised explosive devices (IED), assorted IED-making material and food stuff were recovered.

"The KDF wishes to assure the public that operations against Al-Shabaab will continue until the terrorists are all eliminated in order to ensure Kenyans and their neighbours enjoy peace and security," Owuoth said.

The Kenyan soldiers have stepped up their air and ground operations against the militants in southern Somalia despite their continued resistance, at times targeting military camp.

Kenya has more than 4,000 troops in the 22,000-strong AU force in Somalia helping the UN-backed government battle Al-Shabaab, which is part of the Al-Qaeda allied terror network.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attend a joint press conference in Moscow, Russia, on April 12, 2017. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

MOSCOW, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Russia and the United States agreed on Friday to study the feasibility of organizing an objective inquiry into a chemical incident in Syria's Idlib Province, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the issue in a phone conversation, the ministry said in a statement.

In the phone talk, Lavrov expressed regret that Washington opposed Russia's initiative at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of sending inspectors to Syria to verify allegations of the use of sarin gas and of the presence of poisonous substances at the Syrian airbase Shayrat, the statement said.

"The interlocutors agreed to give instructions to study once again the possibility of an objective investigation of the incident under the auspices of the OPCW," the statement read.

The OPCW convened on Thursday to vote on the proposal put forward by Russia and Iran on the immediate beginning of a full investigation into the Apil 4 chemical attack.

According to the British delegation to the OPCW, the organization's executive council has "overwhelmingly rejected" the proposal.

While discussing issues on the bilateral agenda, Lavrov and Tillerson also agreed on the early start of the joint working group at the level of deputy foreign ministers in search for ways to remove irritants from bilateral relations, the statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 04:59:42|Editor: huaxia

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CHICAGO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange rose on Friday as the market reacted to an terrorist attack in Paris and the investors were preparing their positions for the presidential election in France.

The most active gold contract for June delivery rose 5.3 U.S. dollars, or 0.41 percent, to settle at 1,289.10 dollars per ounce.

Investors are preparing their positions for the first-round vote of French presidential election on Sunday, which determines which two top contenders will participate in the run-off in May.

Investors are weighing the possibility of increased support for nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen after an terrorist attack on Thursday night.

Le Pen is generally seen by the markets as a potentially destabilizing factor as she has promised to hold a referendum on French participation in the European Union, which has led some investors to fear a repeat of Brexit.

Gold was given further support as a report released on Friday by U.K.-based Market Economics showed the U.S.'s PMI composite flash at a 52.7 level during the month of April, indicating a decrease from the previous month's reading of 53.2.

Investors note that this report is now signaling weakness and potentially driving investors to gold as a safe haven.

The precious metal was prevented from rising further as a report released on Friday by the U.S.-based National Association of Realtors showed existing home sales increasing by 4.4 percent during the month of March to a 5.710 million level.

Analysts note that this is the best rate since February 2007 and is slightly above consensus expectations.

Silver for May delivery fell 16.2 cents, or 0.90 percent, to close at 17.856 dollars per ounce. Platinum for July delivery dropped 3.6 dollars, or 0.37 percent, to close at 977.60 dollars per ounce. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 05:24:50|Editor: Lu Hui

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Fransbank Chairman Adnan Kassar (L) shakes hands with Jiang Zengwei, head of the China Council to Promote International Trade (CCPIT), in Beirut, Lebanon, on April 20, 2017. Jiang and Kassar signed Thursday a Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of Fransbank and the CCPIT to further promote the trade relations between Lebanon and China. (Xinhua/Li Liangyong)

BEIRUT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's President Michel Aoun asserted Friday his country's readiness to strengthen cooperation with China in all fields.

According to a statement by the presidency media department, Aoun met with Jiang Zengwei, head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), and discussed economic projects in Lebanon with the aim of strengthening bilateral ties.

Economy Minister Raed Khoury, former minister and head of the Fransbank Group Adnan Kassar and China's ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian also attended the meeting.

Jiang praised Aoun's election, saying it encourages business and "gives Chinese and Lebanese businessmen an opportunity to work together and improve ties."

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri received later in the afternoon the Chinese delegation in presence of Kassar who commended the depth of the relations between Lebanon and China, which dates back to the 1950s.

"We call upon the government to take all measures that will encourage Chinese companies to invest in Lebanon to expand cooperation in infrastructure, and to facilitate trade and investment in new energies and vital sectors such as agriculture and finance in a way that achieves common progress and development," Kassar said.

Jiang and Kassar signed Thursday a Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of Fransbank and the CCPIT to further promote the trade relations between Lebanon and China.

According to Lebanon's official statistics, China has been Lebanon's largest trade partner for four years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 05:54:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CARACAS, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's attorney-general confirmed Friday that 12 people have died during opposition protests.

In a statement on Friday morning, it said that 11 people had died during violence and looting on Thursday night and Friday morning in the capital of Caracas.

However, another death was then registered on Friday in the town of Petare of the state of Miranda, east of the capital, bringing the number of deaths to 12 since Thursday. A total of 15 have died since April 19.

During clashes in Caracas, six other people were injured, bringing the total number of wounded to 68.

According to the authorities, eight of the victims were electrocuted to death when they came into contact with a high-voltage cable during the looting of a bakery.

Another was reported to be a shopkeeper who was shot dead while trying to defend his store, according to preliminary reports.

The attorney-general has ordered a team of five prosecutors to investigate the 12 deaths.

Venezuela has been convulsed by protests between supporters of President Nicolas Maduro and opponents who blame him for the country's ongoing political and economic crisis.

Speaking Friday to the press, Venezuela's vice-president, Tareck El Aissami, said that the right-wing opposition was continuing to try and overthrow the government by stoking the violence.

"The right is full of hate. They are organizing a new spiral of terrorism plotting with criminal delinquents, and they are using criminal gangs to attack our humble people," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 06:04:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIRUT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Leading business groups from Lebanon and China signed here Friday two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) to boost the Belt and Road Initiative.

Signed by the Arab Chambers of Commerce and the China Council to Promote International Trade (CCPIT), the MoUs regulate to establish a "Business Council of the Silk Road."

In the presence of Fransbank Chairman Adnan Kassar and Chinese ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian, Jiang Zengwei, head of the CCPIT, and Nail al-Kabariti, head of the Arab Chambers, inked the MoUs and discussed ways to further promote the trade relations between China, Lebanon and the Arab world.

Kabariti stressed the necessity of strengthening the cooperation between China and the Arab countries to face the challenges and world economical changes to achieve the common interests and mutual benefits.

He suggested developing the Chinese-Arab cooperation to a level of strategic partnership, and mulling the first official document of its kind launched by China a year ago that calls for more cooperation with Arab countries.

Jiang mentioned Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in 2016, stressing Xi's speech delivered at the Arab League set landmarks of bilateral strategic cooperation.

"Cooperation between China and the Arab world has achieved a remarkable growth during the past years," Jiang said, hoping it will be further developed given "China and Arab countries need for each other."

Nabil Fahed, Vice Chairman of Beirut Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, pointed to the importance of establishing the "Business Council of the Silk Road" and hoped that "Lebanon will be a key center for the Silk Road."

Chinese ambassador Wang Kejian hailed the relations between China and the Arab world, highlighting the Belt and Road Initiative has entered into force and is carrying out giant projects in many countries along the Silk Road.

"Chinese government fully supports Chinese companies to invest in the Arab world and encourages Arab companies to develop their businesses in China," Wang said.

Kassar stressed the importance of Lebanon's role in the initiative, with advantages of location, human resources and relatively high-level security in the region.

He asserted readiness to cooperate with the Chinese side and to exercise a strategic role in the reconstruction of Syria and Iraq in collaboration with Arab companies.
RABAT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Moroccan police arrested on Friday three people with suspected links to the Islamic State (IS) in the northern city of Tetouan, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement.

The suspects had been planning to carry out terrorist attacks against sensitive sites in Morocco by using remote controlled explosives, the statement said, adding that they were also planning to assassinate security officials.

Investigations revealed that the leader of this cell has developed skills on making remote controlled explosives, and started, along with his partners, to buy materials used in manufacturing explosives.

According to the ministry, the police seized electronic equipment and devices likely to be used in remote detonation systems.

The north African kingdom has seen a growing threat from terror groups, especially IS.

According to official figures, Morocco busted 19 terrorist cells and arrested 273 suspects in 2016, most of them linked to the IS group.
RABAT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A picture exhibition opened Friday in the National Library of Morocco in the capital Rabat to showcase cultures of China and Morocco.

The opening ceremony was chaired by Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Andre Azoulay, adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Mohamed Laaraj, the Minister of Culture and Communication and Sun Shuzhong, Chinese ambassador to Morocco.

Held under the theme "Beautiful China, Beautiful Morocco" until April 28, the exhibition invites audience to taste various facets of the beauty of the two countries through hundreds of pictures depicting nature, monuments, people and traditions.

Speaking at the event, the Moroccan minister said that this exhibition is a part of the long-standing cultural exchange between the two countries, adding that this exchange has witnessed a significant increase in the last few years.

He stressed that the various bilateral agreements signed recently have created more opportunities for further promoting mutual understanding.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 06:30:03|Editor: Mengjie

Chinese Ambassador to the Netherlands Wu Ken delivers a speech at the first edition of "China-Netherlands Economic Cooperation Forum" in The Hague, the Netherlands, on April 21, 2017. A total of 41 intentions of cooperation were reached among more than 100 Chinese and Dutch enterprises during the first edition of "China-Netherlands Economic Cooperation Forum" held Friday. (Xinhua/Rick Nederstigt)

THE HAGUE, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A total of 41 intentions of cooperation were reached among more than 100 Chinese and Dutch enterprises during the the first edition of "China-Netherlands Economic Cooperation Forum" held Friday here.

The event was also hailed as a major event to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Chinese Ambassador to the Netherlands Wu Ken, in his welcome speech at the event, said it is openness that has made the Netherlands the gateway of Europe and the fifth largest exporter in the world, and that connects the Netherlands with China so closely as trade and investment partners.

"As for China, we couldn't have made the economic achievements without integrating into the global market. In the future, we will keep our commitments to further opening up," Wu said.

To illustrate the feature of "mutually beneficial and win-win" that marked the bilateral ties, the embassador cited the Chinese import of Dutch diary products as an example.

He also gave as example the partnership between China's BAIC group and Inalfa Roof Systems, which helped Inalfa double its sales thanks to better access to the Chinese market.

"Cooperation could generate enormous synergy and cooperation in advanced equipment not only benefits China and the Netherlands, but also promotes development in third countries," said Wu.

Praising the pioneering spirit and innovativeness of the Dutch people, the Chinese diplomat reminded the audience that Chinese companies have also kept innovating in their products, technologies, service and business models.

"In the past, China mainly exported labor intensive products to the Netherlands, like clothes and shoes. Since 2010, machinery and IT products have accounted for more than 60 percent in bilateral trade," he noted.

Wu refered to the BYD zero emission electric shuttle buses at Schiphol airport, the equipment at Euromax terminal in Rotterdam, and a soft and flexible thin-film solar power product by Hanergy, which was used for paving a bicycle path in North Holland last year.

"The trend of Industry 4.0 and Internet+ offers endless possibilities for cooperation. The urgent need to develop modern agriculture, smart city, and circular economy in China means Dutch experience and technologies would be extremely helpful," said the ambassador.

He added that both countries can work together under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative to boost connectivity among countries along the new Silk Road, and join respective expertise to tap the potential of third-country market.

Rene van Hell, Director of International Enterprise of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, co-host of the forum, also highlighted the fruitful past and bright future of bilateral relations. For him, the two giant pandas, Wu Wen and Xing Ya, who arrived in the Netherlands days ago and have produced a "pandamania" across the country, "are a sign of the special and long relationship between our countries, in which entrepreneurs have played a pivotal role."

"Of course China is on top of our list" for expanding economic ties, he said. "The Dutch businesses are focusing on China like never before."

"We very much welcome that China played a leading role in Paris to really come about with a global treaty to fight climate change. We also very much welcome the role that China plays in the G20 to address concerns that hit the world and need to be addressed," he said.

"The Netherlands operates under the slogan 'global challenges, Dutch solutions,' but what we are really keen to do is co-create and innovate with Chinese companies, and to also work with Chinese companies on the modernization of the Chinese economy," he added.

During the one-day forum, enterprises from both countries held rounds of networking and match-making by sectors. Some 41 pairs reached intentions to work together.

The Netherlands is China's second-largest trading partner within the European Union.
HELSINKI, April 21 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition named "The Forbidden City -- Life in the Court of Chinese Emperors" is open to public on Friday in Tampere, southwestern Finland.

This is the first time that the Chinese historical relics preserved in the Beijing Palace Museum are exhibited in the Nordic region.

The Chinese red is the predominant color in the exhibition venues, which are decorated with Chinese elements such as lanterns, pattern dragons, wood carvings, and columns. The exquisite illustrations, photos and cultural relics bring a shocking visual experience to the audience.

The relics on show include Emperor Qianlong's throne and robe, Emperor Kangxi's helmet and cotton amour, as well as some other antiques and art crafts, such as incense burner tables, screens and Four Treasures of the Study .

Marjo-Riitta Saloniemi, exhibition manager of the Museum Center Vapriikki in Tampere, told Xinhua that it is the first time that the Chinese historical relics of the Beijing Palace Museum are exhibited in Finland, and also the first time in the Nordic region.

In addition to Finnish local residents, visitors from Sweden, Estonia and other neighboring countries are also expected to come to visit the exhibition.

Vice president of the Beijing Palace Museum Song Jirong, said even though the exhibition is not as large as the previous ones held in major European countries, the over 100 pieces and sets of artworks are exquisite objects selected from the previous exhibitions, with some being displayed abroad for the first time.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-22 06:40:06|Editor: ZD

Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen(C) is seen before a family photo with G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, April 21, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading economies have reached a broad consensus that free trade and open markets is better for promoting global economic growth, German senior officials said on Friday.

The general mood of the discussion was a broad agreement in the direction that "free trade is better for global growth and better for every national economy concerned as well," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Friday after wrapping up a meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors here.

"Protectionism would be damaging to the global economy and the concerned economies as well. There was a broad consensus," Schaeuble, whose country holds the G20 presidency this year, said at a press briefing on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

"Almost everybody underscored the importance of open markets and free market access, so that was a consensus in the meeting," Jens Weidmann, president of the German central bank, said at the same press briefing.

Citing of discussions about current account balances during the meeting, Weidmann said, ministers agreed that the policy response would be "opening more markets" rather than raising trade barriers.

The task of the G20 finance ministers' meeting is to articulately discuss these issues in a way that's helpful to "get things moving to the right direction," Schaeuble said, noting that G20 policymakers have to do more to "make the economy more inclusive" and address negative effects of globalization.

"We need to tackle this, otherwise we'll see more protectionism," he added.

Weidmann also said the G20 should focus more on inclusive growth as the lack of structural reforms dampens growth prospects and "rising inequality puts the strain on potential growth."

"When the inequality rises, there is a risk of course of people increasingly becoming disenchanted with globalization," he said, adding reducing inequality with economies will remain at the top of the G20 agenda under the German presidency.

The IMF on Tuesday raised its forecast for global economic growth this year to 3.5 percent, but warned that inward-looking policies threaten global integration and the cooperative global economic order.

"Avoiding the damage from potential protectionist measures will require a renewed multilateral commitment to support trade, paired with national initiatives that can help workers adversely affected by a range of structural economic transformations including those due to trade," IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld told reporters.

The Group of 20 include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
BERLIN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Non-university research institutes have invested around 12.5 billion euros (13.4 billion U.S. dollars) in research and development in Germany in 2015, registering an increase of 1.3 percent compared to 2014, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said.

A total of 5.6 billion euros, almost half, 44.9 percent, of the expenditure on non-university research were invested in natural science. Just over a quarter, 27.4 percent, or 3.4 billion euros were spent on the engineering sciences. The remaining amounts went to human medicine, humanities, social sciences and agricultural science research.

Non-university research institutions include federal, state and local government institutions, as well as publicly-sponsored private nonprofit institutions.

In 2015, around 9.5 billion euros, or more than three quarters of all non-university research expenditure, were spent on private research institutes that are jointly funded by federal and state governments.

The Helmholtz centers spent 4.2 billion euros, the institutes of the Fraunhofer Society 2.1 billion euros, the institutes of the Max Planck Society 1.8 billion euros, and the facilities of the Leibniz Association 1.3 billion euros. The academies of the sciences accounted for around 0.1 billion euros.

According to preliminary calculations, the non-university research institutes accounted for 13.8 percent of total research and development expenditure in Germany in 2015.

Universities accounted for 17 percent. The largest share, 69.2 percent, of research and development was provided by the economic sector.

In total, 90.3 billion euros were spent on research and development across the three sectors in 2015, according to preliminary calculations.

This corresponded to 2.98 percent of German gross domestic product. The EU growth strategy -- called Europa 2020 -- set a target of a 3 percent share of gross domestic product for the year 2020. (1 euro=1.07 U.S. dollar)
An Exxon sign is seen at a station in this September 20, 2008 file photo in Manassas, Virginia. (AFP PHOTO/Karen BLEIER/FILES)

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday it will not issue drilling waiver to Exxon Mobil Corp. to work with a Russian state oil company as prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia.

"In consultation with President Donald J. Trump, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Exxon has reportedly been seeking the U.S. government's permission to work with Russia's state-run oil giant PAO Rosneft to drill for oil in the Black Sea, an area covered by U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia after the latter's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In response, Exxon said that it understands Mnuchin's statement that was issued in consultation with President Trump.

"Our 2015 application for a license under the provisions outlined in the U.S. sanctions was made to enable our company to meet its contractual obligations under a joint venture agreement in Russia, where competitor companies are authorized to undertake such work under European sanctions," Exxon said in a statement.

The Exxon joint venture agreement with PAO Rosneft was inked in 2012 when incumbent Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon's CEO.

The State Department is one of several U.S. agencies tasked with approving sanctions waivers, but Tillerson has said that he will recuse himself from making decisions involving his former company for at least two years.
Man guilty of manslaughter

Pierre was stabbed four times in the chest by Matthews at 7.35 am on May 15, 2008, along St Joseph Road, Arima. Alonzo was on his way to school at the time. Alonzo, a Form Four student of Barataria Senior Comprehensive School, died while being taken to the Arima Health Centre. At his trial, in the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court before Justice Carla Brown-Antoine, Matthew claimed he acted in self defence.

The jury rejected this defence but did find that provocation was an element in the killing. Pierre was walking along St Joseph Road in Arima with two friends. Pierre was on his way to get transport to go to school, when he saw a boy from another school, walked up to him and slapped him.

Pierre hit the boy because the boy had slapped his friend two weeks prior. Matthews then pulled out a knife and stabbed Pierre in the chest. As he slumped to the ground bleeding, Pierres friends raised an alarm and he was taken by passers-by to the health centre but died while en route.
Off-duty cop shoots homeless man

The incident occurred at midday.

A clerk who did not wish to be named, recalled the ordeal to Newsday, saying she felt that her safety was at risk when the scruffy-looking man entered the store.

The clerk said she was at the back of the store when she noticed a tall man standing in the doorway. She called out to a co-worker, but that person did not answer. As she went to the front of the store, the clerk said she saw her colleague cowering in a corner. I grabbed a chair and let him have it, the clerk said.

I hit him about two or three times with a metal folding chair but then he grabbed it and we started to scramble. Just then, I saw a police officer standing outside the store. My co-worker and I ran to the back of the store and jammed it with a table so he couldnt open it, the clerk said.

She added that while peeping through a crack in the door, she saw the man outside the store on the pavement. He quickly ran back into the store and slammed the door. The clerk said the man then stepped outside and confronted the police officer.

He was seen gesturing to the police officer and then he tried to snatch his gun. A scuffle ensued and the man was shot three times.

He ran a short distance before falling in the drain outside City Hall.

He was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where up to press time reports that he had died could not be confirmed. Investigations are ongoing.
State counters claim of alcohol not being a dangerous substance

In January, Pamela Elder SC, submitted to Senior Magistrate Rajendra Rambachan in the Princes Town Magistrates court, that there is no offence known to law that alcohol is a crime punishable, and therefore, he should discharge Reeshie Surajbally, 38, of Princes Town, on a charge of giving two young girls alcohol to drink in May of last year.

Magistrate Rajendra Rambachan is hearing a Preliminary Inquiry into charges that Surajbally gave alcohol to two sisters who are primary school students; that he kidnapped them; and that committed acts of indecency on the girls. The charges arose from an incident in which Princes Town Police Station, found children inside a van in Barrackpore on May 17. The girls and their mother have testified in the inquiry.

In January, Elder made a no-case submission on Surajballys behalf, arguing that alcohol could not be deemed a dangerous substance, in law, and therefore the accused has committed no offence.

In respect of the other charges, Elder submitted that the evidence was manifestly unreliable and as a result, Surajbally should be discharged.

Yesterday, State Attorney Sarah De Silva replied to the submission and stated that under Section 36 of the Childrens Act, a person has committed an offence if he or she administers a dangerous substance to a child. She said that the word dangerous, was in contention in order to determine whether the court could rule that alcohol falls into the category of dangerous substances.

The State attorney asked the magistrate to apply a specific principle in law known as ejusdem generis, when interpreting the issue of alcohol in relation to a dangerous substance in Section 36 of the Childrens Act. Ejusdem generis is rule of interpretation that where a class of things is followed by general wording that is not itself expansive, the general wording is usually restricted things of the same type, as the listed items.

De Silva submitted that the prosecution, therefore, has made out its case against Surajbally and he should be committed to stand trial in the High Court before a judge and jury. Elder told Magistrate Rambachan that she would want to do further research on the point given by De Silva. She will do so on May 26, after which, the magistrate would rule.
Woman tells cops: I am not missing

Jazmin Mohammed told police she was the victim of physical abuse and as such left her home.

The Chaguanas woman contacted an uncle, Azard Mohammed, and told him she was with a friend in Carenage and did not wish to return home.

Azard, who spoke with Newsday yesterday, said he will be taking his niece to the police so an investigation could be carried out into her allegations of abuse.

Azard said his niece also sent him photos of her hand and other parts of her body in which she received welts from a beating with a piece of cable prior to her leaving home. Yesterday, Newsday contacted Jazmins mother Yasmin, who confirmed that her daughter received two lashes for her deviant behaviour but denied that her daughter was the victim of abuse.

She said, All I want to know is that Jazmin is well and eating and is comfortable where she is, and then I would be able to rest comfortably.
Krysis: Police turning community against me

Wakeel said this yesterday morning to the media during a peace initiative organised by the Masjid of Peace (formerly known as Unruly ISIS) and the Islamic Front led by Umar Abdullah where the group distributed water, juices, and flowers to people making their way through Enterprise.

Several social media commentors criticised Dillon and Dick for the manner in which they spoke with Wakeel while he spoke about the underlying causes of crime in his community.

Since then, Wakeel said Central police have been fighting him down and trying to turn the community against him. On Wednesday evening, Wakeel said the police raided a mans home and said, You know the reason why we do this? and the guy said What? I dont sell drugs so there is no reason for you to be here. And he (the police) was like blame Krysis. The only place I does be right now is Crown Trace and they are trying to turn my own Crown Trace people against me because they telling them I is the reason why, you understand. Wakeel said this treatment made it hard for him to appear in public, but he was willing to do it to be an example for the young people in his community for whom he is a religious leader. Attempts, however, to reach Central Division Senior Supt Kenny McIntyre for comment were unsuccessful.

Yesterdays peace initiative was not attended by representatives of the opposing Rasta City gang. Asked whether their work was being supported by the Rasta City gang, Wakeel said Things does take time, you know. We do not expect America and Syria to sign a peace treaty and expect gunfire to stop bussing. No, that is not going to happen.

It have to have a perfect understanding and that not going to happen overnight. But they were willing, he said. If they was not willing then it would have still have all this bacchanal going on in Enterprise.

Ever since we had this lil talk in Enterprise, nothing has happened in Enterprise since.
Latin America, TT so close yet divided

Arizt?a made the statement at a press conference held on Wednesday to introduce the media to this years CineLit: a literary film festival held annually during the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

The conference was held at National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS), Hart and Abercromby Streets, Portof- Spain. Arizt?a was joined by his colleagues; Dolores Kunst, deputy head of mission, Argentine embassy; Tania Estevez, counselor, Dominician Republic embassy; Panamian ambassador Carmen Gabriela Menendez; Oriol Sola Pardell, deputy head of mission, Spanish embassy; Carmen Gil Erazo, deputy head of mission, Costa Rican embassy; and Mexican ambassador Jesus A Lopez Gonzalez.

The eight-day literary film festival will screen 27 films based on great literary works from Latin America, Spain and even TT , with three films on the late Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott being shown.

CineLit began on April 18 with a screening of Histiorias del Canal, which tells the story of five lives influenced by the building of the Panama Canal, at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus. The embassies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain and Venezuela, jointly, put together this years CineLit.

The festival is in its second consecutive year. Arizt?a said, Culture is beyond geographical space. Culture is beyond established regions and this is behind the concept of CineLit. Caribbean culture and Latin American culture, that lies only seven miles away from the shores of each other, can be enriched through dialogue.... The ideas of others can enrich our ideas and our creativity. The cultures of Latin America and Spain want to continue with this dialogue. CineLit is that attempt through its cinema, its film. We are so close but something happens that we appear to be divided in spite of the distance of seven miles between our respective geographical and cultural worlds. When asked about ways in which the divide could be bridged, Arizt?a and his colleagues mentioned several projects to deepen ties between their respective countries and Latin America.

Arizt?a mentioned that Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley would be visiting Chile, in late May for bi-lateral talks on trade, energy and other issues to, narrow the gap. While, he said, language can be a barrier, the films have English subtitles which bridges the linguistic barrier between Latin America and TT .

The films will be screened at three locations; NALIS AV room, UWI St Augustines Centre for Language and Learning auditorium, its Film Unit on Carmody Road, St Augustine and the Alma Jordan Librarys audio visual room. The official launch, with a free public screening of The Motorcycle Diaries, will take place today at NALIS amphitheatre, at 7pm.
LICKS FOR DOUBLES

Prior to the attack, Constable Judson Mohammed told the prisoner that it is the State which must provide him with his meals.

Yesterday, a High Court judge awarded PC Mohammed $30,000 in damages after he was successful in a lawsuit filed against the State for its continuing lack in providing metal detectors, batons and sufficient police officers to control the approximately 100 prisoners who arrive daily to the courthouse.

Mohammed is the second officer in almost a year, to be awarded damages after suing the State for injuries sustained in such attacks at the hands of prisoners.

Last May, Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh in awarding Constable Bunny Kameel Ali damages, called for an urgent assessment of court facilities which he, said must comply with the appropriate standards of safety and security. Ali was struck in the eye by a prisoner in the cell block of the same courthouse and sued on the ground that the ratio of police officers to prisoners, was too small.

Yesterday, Justice Margaret Mohammed found that the State was negligent and ordered it to pay PC Mohammed $30,000 for the injury inflicted by the prisoner. In his lawsuit, PC Mohammed contended that because he refused to buy doubles for the prisoner, he was attacked. Justice Mohammed, in a 39-page written judgement, recollected the evidence given by PC Mohammed, whom she said, testified that on the morning of January 14, 2011, a prisoner who was in the cell, called out to him.

The prisoner, the judgement stated, was reputed to be the leader of a gang known as the blood gang. The prisoner asked PC Mohammed to buy him some doubles. The judge stated that PC Mohammed refused the prisoners request, telling him; The State will provide you with breakfast. This refusal did not go down to well with the prisoner, whom Justice Mohammed stated, threatened PC Mohammed.

When PC Mohammed opened the cell gate, to take prisoners into the courtroom, the prisoner attacked him with a sharp metal object. PC Mohammed sustained a cut above the left eye. Justice Mohammed stated that other prisoners joined in and cuffed and kicked the bleeding officer. PC Mohammed later sought treatment at San Fernando General Hospital.

The grounds of the lawsuit, filed by attorney Saira Lakhan, were that the State ought to have provided a sufficient number of police officers to man the volume of prisoners.

Also, there was a lack of sufficient handcuffs, batons, locks for the cells, metal detectors, a handbook on safety and updated training on how to manage dangerous prisoners or those who are ill with contagious diseases. In fact, the judge added, the lawsuit stated that cops are not trained to deal with prisoners who may riot or revolt in the cell block. In reference to Mohammeds evidence, the judge stated that on the day of the attack, there were only five batons in the cell block, one of which was broken and held together with masking tape. There were 15 handcuffs to be used on 100 prisoners.

The State challenged the lawsuit and submitted to Justice Mohammed that there were seven to ten police officers on the morning of the incident and that was sufficient to deal with the volume of prisoners.

The duty of police officers assigned to the cell block, is to offload prisoners from the prison van, place them into a cell and then escort them upstairs into the dock of various courtrooms.

In giving her ruling, Justice Mohammed said the State failed in its duty to provide adequate staff and supervision on the morning of the incident. If there was a sufficient number of officers as well as adequate supervision, the risk of injury to PC Mohammed would have been minimised. She ordered the State to pay him $30,000 in general damages plus interest at 2.5%. The State must also pay his legal cost of $9,250.25.

The judge made no comment on the continued lack of manpower in the Holding Bay cells of the San Fernando Magistrates court, unlike Justice Boodoosingh who in the lawsuit filed by officer Ali, said, The State must do its part to ensure that no one is injured in the future as a result of a failure to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety and security of those who use our judicial buildings.
HDC owed $100M by tenants

This was revealed yesterday during sitting of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament chaired by Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe.

Some 3,155 errant clients owe $106 million in arrears to the HDC, corporation managing director Brent Lyons said in reply to a query from Opposition Senator Wade Mark. Lyons said the situation may be due to a misconception that HDC housing units are, free. While this situation is, not entirely encouraging, Lyons spoke of reaching out to delinquent tenants, saying the HDC is not in the business of evicting defaulters, but it could come to that. Come talk to us, he invited defaulters, saying a payment plan might be agreed. HDC acting finance manager Inskip Pollonais, said two debt collection agencies have in the past five months, respectively collected $2.4 million and $3.33 million of arrears owed.

He alluded to, certain negatives, arising whereby the HDC does not feel it gets its rightful share of the debt money collected.

Senator Mark asked if something was amiss, but Lyons blamed a time issue. He later said the recovery agencys fee is 15 percent of monies collected.

Lyons noted that the HDC has 180,000 applications for public housing, while 5,600 units are under construction and 1,000 units available for distribution. Earlier, the Housing Ministrys acting Permanent Secretary Marion Hayes could not say what the countrys overall demand for housing was, adding research on the issue is pending and the ministrys housing policy is under review.

She said a Canadian firms promise of 120,000 units would impact the ministrys mandate, even as Lyons otherwise noted keen replies to the HDCs advertisement for public private partnerships.

Minister of Public Administration Maxie Cuffie, asked the policy on persons inhabiting abandoned units, alleging that in a MPs office, a man was given a unit , with no contract with the HDC.

Just this week we have completed an exercise and identified 1,000 of those units you speak of.

Half are occupied by folks who would be a combination of illegal occupant and second, third and fourth generation family member.

The other 500 or so are units that are simply abandoned, but there is a live account that shows arrears, Hayes said.

The HDC has discovered that homes of defaulting clients were abandoned and it is formulating a scheme to secure and recover the units, some of which are still under a mortgage. Lyon said the HDC does not condone illegal activity and has used legal action against such.
Rotary club helps Shannen

The procedure, which will be performed at the Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome, Italy will cost 158,000 or approximately TT$1.2 million. In addition to the transplant, the Luke family will need to stay in Italy for seven months, to ensure Shannen recovers fully. On learning of Shannens plight, the Rotary Club of Chaguanas approached the family to assist them in raising $250,000.

At a cheque presentation at the Purivo Dialysis Centre, Chaguanas, President of the Rotary Club of Chaguanas Michael Ibrahim said the initiative was one that was guided by God Almighty. He recognised the family for their effort in raising the funds on their own which included them mortgaging their home.

Where there is effort, there is support. With the guidance of Chairman Sam Baldeo and all of the Rotarians of the Rotary Club of Chaguanas, we initiated a very simple project of $20 and that was focused on the citizens as against corporate giving, because we felt corporate giving would have been difficult in this recessionary time. The strategy was good and I stand here with a cheque for $200,000. Ibrahim said they had pledges for more donations and assured the family that the money will be deposited in their account. Shannens mother Michelle told the small gathering how thankful she was for their help. She also thanked the public in general for coming forward to assist.

Thank you to Rotary for the initiative. It is going to make a big difference, we really appreciate it, thank you to the public, to our family, friends, colleagues and well wishers who all came forward.

There are people I may never meet in person who contributed to Shannens case. God really sent His angels. Thank you to everyone, she said.

The family will leave Trinidad on April 25, as Shannen is expected to begin treatment on May 2. 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.
Bermudez appointed UWI Chancellor

In the case of TT, Garcia stated, Our government has been within the forefront of providing much needed funding. He added that he can show, we expend in excess of $650 million towards the UWI. The minister continued, The shift now is in the area of self-sufficiency. However, Garcia added, It does not mean that the contributing territories will cease contributions. Against this background, Garcia said Bermudez brings, a wealth of business experience. Bermudez is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bermudez Group of Companies.

He is also a non-executive director of the Massy Group. Incumbent chancellor George Alleynes term of office
Municipal police graduate from communication course

The course would enable the Municipal Police to work together with the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) with an integrated system through wireless communication.

During a graduation ceremony held in the Council Chamber at City Hall, Knox Street, Portof- Spain, director of OLEP, Keith Reno, said the wireless communication course was a step forward for the Municipal Police as it now made them equal partners with the TTPS in the fight against crime.

Over the years you have not been part of a service that was efficient, but now that is about to change, he said.

Reno said municpal policing was on a transformation drive as they would now be able to serve in remote areas and places where tourists and holiday makers frequented.

The nation is crying out for support and help, and clearly you would be able to give that support, Reno said.

PoS mayor Joel Martinez said the wireless communication system was introduced to develop an efficient communication system.

We have high expectations of you, your family has high expectations of you, and we are confident that training systems such as this will assist you. You are on the frontline in the fight against crime. While you may be assigned to different posts, you must be responsible for upholding the law.

It may sometimes prove to be a dangerous job, but you must continue to be honest, caring and efficient, Martinez said.
Salina was hiding in some bushes

Instead, the Siparia resident, a form four student, told police yesterday that she spent the two days hiding alone in some bushes behind her home.

Sanchezs mother Anjela Ramlakha confirmed that her daughter emerged from the bushes yesterday and subsequently went to the Siparia Police Station.

She said Sanchez went into hiding after she discovered a text message on Sanchezs phone. Ramlakha said Sanchez was fearful of the repercussion in the event a male relative had learnt about the contents of the text message.

We are just glad she (is) fine, Ramlakha said.

Newsday asked if Sanchez had any visible marks of insect bites. Ramlakha responded: Her skin seemed fine. On Tuesday at about 1.30 pm, Sanchez left her Syne Village to purchase an item from the bakery. When she failed to return home, relatives searched for her but she was nowhere to be found. All calls to her phone went unanswered.

Siparia police are continuing investigations.

Meanwhile, police are calling on members of the public to assist them in locating 15-year-old Akiede Thomas who is a ward of the St. Judes Home for Girls. Her mother Leann Alexander of Embacadere, San Fernando, said relatives last saw her at the house at about 8.30 am on Wednesday. At about 1 pm, Alexander reported her missing to San Fernando police.

Thomas was last seen wearing a pair of black three-quarter pants and a pink top. She is of African descent, five feet tall, stockily built with short black hair and of dark brown complexion, police said Anyone with information on her whereabouts can contact the nearest police station or 800-TIPS, at 555, 999 or 911.
Missing fisherman feared drowned

He has been identified as Samuel John of Henry Street, Orange Valley. Police said that at about 7 pm John and another man went out to sea near the fishing port in a pirogue and then transferred to a trawler. Police said the men had gone to do repair work on the trawler and while doing so, a rope which was fastened from the boat to the trawler became loose. The police were told that John jumped into the sea to stop the pirogue from drifting away. It was there he got into difficulties and disappeared.

Speaking to Newsday yesterday Johns cousin Jerome Mendoza, 30, said he believes the waters may have been rough.

My cousin has been a fisherman for the past ten years, so I know something went wrong in the waters, he said. Mendoza said he was informed that the man who accompanied John could not swim and was unable to enter the sea. He told us he heard Sammy cry out for help, but he could do nothing to save him and by the time he was able to get help it was too late.

When help came and everyone used their flashlights to search for Sammy he was gone. Mendoza said relatives believe John drowned but are hoping to recover his body to get closure.

Everyone is still in disbelief that he is gone. It is really sad to know what happened.
Garcia: No decision taken yet

Speaking after the post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns, Garcia said consultations with key stakeholders on this issue will take place over the next two weeks, before we get back to the principals. Reiterating that the ministry only received this proposal on Wednesday, Garcia said it is yet to be studied in detail.

He said this will happen on Monday at a meeting with the Chief Education Officer and other ministry officials.

Following this, Garcia said meetings will be arranged with TTTUTA and the National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA). The minister said the views of teachers and parents in particular are critical in reaching a final decision.

Admitting that several issues have been raised over the last 24 hours regarding this proposal, Garcia said, We feel the parents have an important part to play in all aspects of education. Where this is concerned, we would want to have consultations with parents before going forward. He continued, We have to engage in some in depth discussions on all these issues which have now been presenting themselves.

As soon as we have completed our discussions, we would be better able to make a pronouncement. Garcia said the proposal has merit.

Regarding a problem with laboratory facilities at the San Juan South Secondary School, Garcia said a contractor has been selected to refurbish those facilities and he hoped this would be done in the not too distant future.
No audited HDC accounts since 2006

Minister of Public Administration Maxie Cuffie asked how could the HDC function as such, while Opposition Senator Wade Mark said, Its a serious indictment, but not against newly-arrived officials. Saying Parliament gives hundreds of million of dollars each year to the HDC which further borrows on the market, Mark said the lack of accounts was highly irresponsible and a complete absence of accountability. Lyons said there has been a concerted effort to otherwise now have the unaudited management accounts up to 2016, adding, The audited accounts will take some time again. HDC acting manager of finance Inskip Pollonais said that by law the HDC needs to get the nod of the Auditor General to hire an external auditor and had gotten permission for KPMG to audit its accounts up to the year 2009.

He suggested that other auditing firms be brought in to assist KPMG to speed up the audits.
Nick Herringer claps along with a metronome. He draws lines on a big screen, repeating patterns drawn by the computer. He identifies icons of cars when they flash before his eyes. This is the 22-year-olds speech and cognitive therapy, which he has been doing at least twice a week. Every wee
The Egyptian army Thursday indicated that strikes conducted by military aircrafts in the Sinai have killed several militants of the Islamic State group (IS) including three prominent members of the terror group which has been inflicting losses to the army.

A total of 19 militants of the terror group were killed in the airstrikes. Three among them were respectively the organisations head of its Sharia law committee, official in charge of interrogations and another top official. Their names have not been released.

The airstrikes occurred a day after the group claimed an attack on a police check point in South Sinai, near the St. Catherines Monastery. The attack claimed the life of one policeman killed by gunmen.

Egypt is beefing up security ahead of Pope Franciss late April visit as country still morns the death of 45 Coptic Christians killed two weeks ago in two separate subside bomb attacks.

Countrys President al-Sisi has declared a three-month state of emergency and has vowed to hunt down the attacks masterminds.

Early this month the army also announced the death of a senior member of the terrorist group reportedly killed in March, in army airstrikes.

The army identified the IS official as Salem Salmy al-Hamadeen, Aka Abu Anas al-Ansari, said to be one of the founders of the group.

IS appeared in Egypt in 2014 after local militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to global terrorist group and dubbed itself Wilayat Sinai.

The then Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis militant group stepped up attacks against the Egyptian army and security forces in 2013 after incumbent president al-Sisi toppled first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi.

Attacks have caused death of more than 500 Egyptian forces according to state figures. Thousands of Jihadists have been also killed.
The African Lion military exercises kicked off with the participation of about 1300 military personnel from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Spain and Tunisia.

We are excited to conduct training with our Moroccan partners. African Lion gives us the ability to enhance our operational capabilities in an unfamiliar, yet non-austere, environment, said Commodore Leonard Lenny Lyon, Combined Joint Task Force African Lion, in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Rabat.

The African Lion 2017 is led by U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa and sponsored by U.S. Africa Command with support from the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and the Utah and Kentucky Air National Guards. The exercise also receives support from the United States Embassy, Rabats Office of Security Cooperation and the Defense Attache Office.

This training gives our service members the experience of joint and combined operations in support of regional cooperation with African nations and other multi-national security partners, the statement quoted the U.S. commander as saying.

The exercise is scheduled to end on or about April 28, with all U.S. forces returning to their home bases at the conclusion of the exercise.
Thousands took to the streets of Tizi Ouzzou in response to the call by the Movement for the Independence of Kabylie (MAK), on the occasion of the commemoration of the Amazigh Spring.

Thousands of protesters carried banners and the blue, yellow and red flags of the independent Kabylie state while chanting slogans demanding the self-determination of their region despite the heavy security measures deployed by the Algerian state to quell the march.

The protesters also denounced the crackdown by Algerian authorities on the leaders of the MAK while stressing the peaceful character of their independence-seeking movement.

The march started from the University of Tizi Ouzzou, which was named after the leading Amazigh writer Mouloud Mammeri. The latter was banned in 1980 from delivering a confrence in the same university on the need to recognize the Amazigh constituent in Algeria leading to widespread protests that came to be called the Amazigh Spring.

In 2001, the crackdown of the regime on Amazigh protesters demanding more rights and a halt of the arabization policy will take a bloody form leading to the death of nearly 160 protesters in the Kabylie region.

Since then, the movement for the independence of the Kabylie region (MAK) has been gaining ground among the population of the restive towns and cities in the Amazigh speaking mountains east of the capital Algiers.

The MAK is led by Ferhat Mhenni who lives in exile in France. The MAK invokes a series of grievances the Kabylie region witnessed after the independence of Algeria. They blame the Algerian regime for seeking to eradicate their linguistic and cultural particularities by imposing an arabization policy coupled with economic marginalization.

MAK militants also argue that their region has been attached by colonial France to an artificial Algerian state and that their historic leaders who fought for independence from France have been marginalized along with their region in post-independent Algeria.
French presidential election candidate for the far-right Front National (FN) party Marine Le Pen speaks during a press conference on April 21, 2017. Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

The sudden confluence of the British and French elections gives us, it seems to me, a front-row seat to the future of Western politics. In some ways, the campaigns reflect the last, turbulent American one. The choice in both countries is between versions of a Sanders, a Clinton, a Cruz, and a Trump. In France, old-school socialism has surged back in the candidacy of Jean-Luc Melenchon; Clinton/Blair-style neoliberalism has found a fresh, young, empty candidate, Emmanuel Macron (whom Obama just called yesterday); the traditional Cruz-style Republican is Francois Fillon, now rising; and the reactionary populist is, of course, Marine Le Pen, waning a little, but still in the lead. The polls are currently showing a four-way close race in the first round, just like the primaries in the U.S. And the second round, on current polling, would be a Macron-Le Pen showdown on May 7  an exact echo of Clinton-Trump, except that Macron appears to be charismatic and halfway competent.

Protests against Le Pens National Front in Marseille on April 19, 2017. Photo: Sylvain Thomas/AFP/Getty Images

In Britain, its a little more complicated because the Tory Party has somehow managed to hold together a coalition of mainstream conservatives and neo-reactionaries, but with the neos now in charge, empowered by the Brexit result. The Tories have essentially decided that they might as well go for it. If May waffled on this, her party would implode. And if shes going to negotiate an exit, and keep the country with her, shell need a big majority in Parliament to bargain hard with the Europeans, and to crush any remnants of pro-EU resistance in the Commons and the House of Lords (which has a sizable pro-EU majority and can throw a spanner into the works). The Daily Mail front page the day after the news of an early election was a classic: Crush the Saboteurs. The prime minister may have been quietly for Remain, but shes a hard Brexiteer now. (A good rule of British politics: Never underestimate the Tory Partys desire for power. Theyll shift positions in a heartbeat if they have to, and their blood is much colder than anyone elses.) Unlike the Trumpeteers, the Tories have managed to channel populism into reasonably credible government, under a traditional, experienced pol like Theresa May. And thats why theyre a whopping 20 points ahead of their 20th-century rivals, the Labour Party.

And when you look at Labour, its even more dispiriting than the Democrats. The party has essentially fallen apart under a Sanders-style leader, Jeremy Corbyn  a transatlantic warning sign to those who still feel the Bern. Its hard to overstate Corbyns unpopularity outside Britains young, progressive left (and old-school socialists among the union bosses). If asked to choose between the two major-party leaders, May or Corbyn, Brits currently prefer May by 5315 percent. To rub it in, even many Labour members of Parliament agree, and have been trying, without success, to oust their pitiful leader for some time now. The result is an internal cleavage so deep and so bitter it may mean the end of the Labour Party for good  especially since it has lost almost all of Scotland to the secessionists. The Blair-Cameron centrist legacy, meanwhile, staggers on with the Liberal Democrats, led by the lightweight Tim Farron. The Lib Dems are trying to leverage pro-EU sentiment to win the votes of the 48 percent of Brits who voted to remain last June. Most likely, theyll split the anti-Tory vote in half. It isnt pretty.

But for me, the key thing to watch is whether the reactionary wave is in any way past its peak. In Britain, a huge parliamentary majority for Brexit could shift the internal balance decisively toward the new nationalism. But France may be the more telling. There are a lot of undecideds, and Le Pen has been upping the ante in the closing stretch. Her campaign slogan  On est chez nous! or This is our home!  is almost as inspired as MAGA. Melenchon, in contrast, seems like a retread of the 1970s, Fillon of the 80s, and Macron of the 90s. The deep sense of a crisis of national identity  the merger with the rest of Europe, the influx of immigrants, especially Muslims  remains very much 2017. Scott McConnell has a vivid description of a recent rally in which Le Pen was on Trump-level form: In France we drink wine whenever we want. In France we do not force women to wear the veil because they are impure. In France we get to decide who deserves to become French! She went on, in her deep voice, to pledge that we will not be dispossessed of our history, our memory. I would not bet against the emotions that kind of rhetoric evokes.

A Muslim woman walks past an official campaign poster of Marine Le Pen in April. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images

But well soon see, wont we?

Im happy to say that, the week after Easter, the Free Speech Movement just rose from the dead! Yesterday afternoon, Berkeley reversed itself and decided, after all, that it would allow Ann Coulter (I know) to speak on campus. The day before, they said they couldnt guarantee the safety of the speaker or of those wanting to hear her  and so canceled the event scheduled for next Thursday. They were afraid of riots like those that followed Milo Yiannapouloss attempted talk at the college in February, when well over a thousand protesters filled the plaza that had once been the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, with the chants of No safe space for racists and This is war! Barriers were torn down, fires lit, new construction vandalized. Among the protesters were masked members of an anarchist group, who pioneered the violence. Yiannapouloss speech was canceled, hours before it was due to begin. Coulters was canceled a week before hers was scheduled. Coulter said shed go anyway  I was invited to speak, so Im going to go speak. Well see, maybe theyll arrest me  and now its on again for May 2 (if Coulter agrees the new date, anyway). Berkeley will probably have to be swamped with police to avoid another debacle. Our job is to stabilize the situation, said Captain Alex Yao of the university police department, and to minimize chaos.

Thats where we are on college campuses today: minimizing chaos. The symbolism of Berkeley makes it all the more poignant. Berkeley was where the Free Speech Movement began a little more than 50 years ago, when one student refused to obey the college administrations policy that airing off-campus political issues  like the question of civil rights  was prohibited on campus property. His was a left-wing protest, now seen by many as the beginning of the countercultural youth movement of the 1960s. And it became an iconic moment in American educational history. When the police came to arrest the student, a vast crowd of up to 3,000 surrounded the police car, and prevented it from moving for the next 32 hours  with no riots and no violence, just physical weight. In fact, speeches were given atop the car itself! The students simply insisted that they be allowed to say whatever they thought on campus, regardless of university policy  and beyond the mainstream of the Democratic and Republican Parties, if they so wished. They wanted to challenge the very basis of American society and culture. They wanted the right to speak their minds, regardless of whom they offended. And they were prepared to go to jail to defend this principle. Hundreds did, in the protests that followed.

People protesting controversial Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos take to the streets on February 1, 2017 in Berkeley, California. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

You have to think about those left-wing students today, as so many of their successors focus not on opening up a space for free speech of any kind, but on policing it with ever more diligence. The Coulter Kampf followed the mob attack on Charles Murray and his host, professor Allison Stanger, at Middlebury College, who is still in physical therapy for the concussion she suffered. It happened immediately after the successful sabotage of another talk scheduled to be given by Heather Mac Donald at Claremont McKenna College, in California, earlier this month. A student mob there did not gather to defend her right to speak, but rather to make sure she couldnt.

The campus left, having once pioneered the idea of free speech, is now, sad to say, its most dedicated foe. And this is not some random student foolishness. Its the logical consequence of an ideology actively taught and encouraged by faculty at elite colleges all over the country: that the power structures of a racist-sexist-ableist-queerphobic etc. society are so oppressive that non-p.c. speech is the equivalent of violence, and so must be shut down. The very existence of marginalized people is allegedly at stake.

Check out this recent staff editorial at the Wellesley News. It draws an explicit distinction between free speech and what it calls hate speech. The former is fine, the latter impermissible. How does the editorial define hate speech? Racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech. Oppose affirmative action? Free speech denied. Challenge the subjugation of women in Islam? Ditto. Support a traditionalist view of marriage? Silence the bigot! Wellesleys student journalists argue, moreover, that they are not being intolerant. They insist they are in fact in favor of free speech and quite forgiving of contrary views. Behold the compassion: Mistakes will happen and controversial statements will be said  It is vital that we encourage people to correct and learn from their mistakes rather than berate them for a lack of education they could not control. But there are, of course, limits. If you persist in your error, and are not successfully re-educated, then hostility may be warranted. That includes anyone who supports racist politicians or pay[s] for speakers that prop up speech that will lead to the harm of others. The latter category is so vast and vague it would essentially ban the speech of anyone who supported the campaign of our current president, i.e., 46 percent of the country.

Or see this student petition to prevent any disciplinary action against students who shut down the Murray event at Middlebury: Punishing protest is silencing dissent. Middlebury College must instead recognize and work to end its complicity in and perpetuation of systems of oppression. Of course, disciplinary actions being taken against students were not against their right to protest, but their successful bid to shut down a guest speakers talk altogether. Or check out this open letter by students at Pomona College, after the Heather Mac Donald debacle. The letter was in response to the following statement by Pomonas president, David Oxtoby: Protest has a legitimate and celebrated place on college campuses. What we cannot support is the act of preventing others from engaging with an invited speaker. Our mission is founded upon the discovery of truth, the collaborative development of knowledge and the betterment of society.

The discovery of truth? Historically, white supremacy has venerated the idea of objectivity, the students write, and wielded a dichotomy of subjectivity vs. objectivity as a means of silencing oppressed peoples. The idea that there is a single truth  the Truth  is a construct of the Euro-West that is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, which was a movement that also described Black and Brown people as both subhuman and impervious to pain. Recall the statement recited by the Middlebury mob? It rang a very similar bell: Science has always been used to legitimize racism, sexism, classism, transphobia, ableism, and homophobia, all veiled as rational and fact, and supported by the government and state. In this world today, there is little that is true fact. And so the very idea of a university  a place where good ideas chase out bad ones  is now the equivalent of racism.

We got a reprieve last week. I fear, given the ideology being taught by the faculty on so many elite colleges, it will not last for long.

Good news on the legal-weed front. If Jeff Sessions and John Kelly want to reboot the war on dope, they are throwing themselves into a wood chipper of public opposition. Support for legal cannabis is now at a record 61 percent of Americans, in a new CBS poll. (Gallup had it at 60 percent last October.) Thats up from 12 percent in 1969 and 35 percent as the new millennium dawned. Women now favor legal weed as much as men do; and only the over-65s  like Trump, Sessions, and Kelly  are in opposition. It remains an indelible shift of the Obama era, like support for gay rights. Ive become immeasurably depressed by the attempt not to reform but to reverse so much of Obamas legacy under Trump. But some deep cultural shifts are not changing at all  they are, if anything, entrenching themselves in the mainstream consensus. It seems in this case as if the actual science  that marijuana is less damaging to the body and mind than alcohol, and actually makes life better for millions  has won the day. Reason can indeed triumph eventually over prejudice. Score one for liberal democracy, the truth, and the Enlightenment! Or as I used to say, know hope.
Yes, you heard right. Enemas. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Days before the election, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who led the probe into Hillary Clintons private email server, told the Washington Post that he was prepared to devote the next few years to investigating the nations first female president.

Its a target-rich environment, said the Utah Republican. Even before we get to Day One, weve got two years worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it aint good.

But like many others, Chaffetz had his hopes dashed on November 8. Once Donald Trump was elected, he had a hard time coming up with anything worth investigating. Sure, everyone from the editorial board of Chaffetzs hometown paper to Democrats and Republicans on his committee called for him to probe President Trumps many conflicts of interest. But for some reason, Chaffetzs heart just wasnt in it. He made perfunctory calls for President Trump to release his tax returns and scold Kellyanne Conway, but nothing could match the thrill of examining a Clinton email scandal that the FBI had already resolved.

So, earlier this week, Chaffetz announced that he would not seek reelection in 2018. And hes decided to spice up the weirdly scandal-free Trump era by generating his own political intrigue.

On Thursday morning, Chaffetz told Utahs KSL News Radio that he might not even finish out his term. I will continue to weigh the options, but I might depart early, he said.

There were already a number of rumors flying around about why Chaffetz would opt out of a 2018 run. Some speculated that getting screamed at during town halls was not helping his possible 2020 bid for governor of Utah, others said he may be eyeing a lucrative deal with Fox News, and a few floated wild theories about Russian kompromat.

Chaffetz offered some more details on Thursday evening, along with plenty of odd remarks to decipher.

If I do step down early, it will be months from now, Chaffetz told The Wall Street Journal. Its hard for people to believe, I really do want to be with my family more. Maybe its more a midlife crisis more than anything else.

But the 50-year-old doesnt want to spend too much time looking family members in the eye. He said hes also exploring private sector work, and hasnt ruled out running for office in the future.

Chaffetz elaborated further on his sudden interest in private sector employment in an interview with Politico. I started poking around to see what I might be worth and what sort of possibilities are there, Chaffetz said. And I got a series of Let us know when youre serious. Well now I can say, Can you tell I am serious? Ill take a little bit of time to sort out. Id be thrilled to have a television relationship. But theres a number of things Id like to do.

The congressman did try to rule out one juicy theory, saying, absolutely, positively not, when asked if hes leaving due to a potential scandal. Not in any way, shape, or form, he said. Ive been given more enemas by more people over the last eight years than you can possibly imagine. From the Secret Service to the Democratic Party. I am who I am. If they had something really scandalous, it wouldve come out a long, long time ago.

Now that hes demonstrated his talent for quitting early and using weird metaphors, were sure the offers will come rolling in.
Gearing up for a prairie-dog hunt. Photo: Greg Gianforte/Twitter

Donald Trump Jr. will spend the next two days in Montana with Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate for the U.S. House seat vacated by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Their schedule is packed with rallies, fundraisers, and pumping prairie dogs full of hot lead.

As good Montanans, we want to show good hospitality to people, Gianforte, a tech entrepreneur, told the AP. What can be more fun than to spend an afternoon shooting the little rodents?

For ranchers in Montana, shooting prairie dogs is more recreational target practice than a real hunt. Theyre classified as agricultural pests in the state, the AP notes, though their numbers have been dropping in recent years. Still, its perfectly legal for a couple of millionaires to blow their furry limbs sky high with high-powered rifles.

The Humane Society on Thursday put out a statement condemning the hunt and noting that this time of year, female prairie dogs are likely pregnant or nursing. The statement says these animals need to be protected, not shot.

Gianforte wasnt very sympathetic to that appeal when speaking to the AP. Clearly theyve never shot a prairie dog, he said. They dont know how much fun it is.

Trump Jr. will no doubt agree. The avid outdoorsman is a known hunter, although he typically likes his kills to be much bigger.
In his very first vote, a deciding one, Gorsuch cleared the way for Arkansas to begin its speed-execution process before the lethal-injection drugs expire. Photo: Eric Thayer/Getty Images

A lot of conservatives hoped that Neil Gorsuch would make an immediate difference on the Supreme Court. Nobody much used the term a life-or-death difference, but for five death-row inmates in Arkansas, thats what it turned out to be, as the new Justice was the deciding vote in a 54 decision to deny a group petition for a stay of execution. The cases were part of a blitz of executions by the state designed to occur before its stockpile of lethal-injection drugs expires.

Immediately after the SCOTUS decision came down, Arkansas performed its first execution since 2005, lethally injecting convicted murderer Ledell Lee, 16 minutes before the states death warrant would have run out.

Clearly, Arkansas was a state in a hurry when it comes to capital punishment.

The five Court conservatives (John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, in addition to Gorsuch) who gave the green light for the execution of Lee (and soon to be four others) did not offer any opinion for their decision. In dissent, Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor express various concerns about Arkansass speed-killing spree and about lower-court applications of standards for reviewing lethal-injection cases.

Capital-punishment opponents will inevitably wonder what Merrick Garland would have made of this case. But its all theoretical now, while Neil Gorsuchs impact on the Court is very real.
Please come!

New York Citys tourism industry has grown steadily since the recession. But the city in 2017 is facing its first potential  and pretty steep  decline in international tourism, courtesy of President Donald Trump and his administrations less-than-welcoming policies and rhetoric. Officials estimate that, as a result, 300,000 fewer international tourists will be gridlocking Times Square this year. Thats going to add up: It could mean $600 million less in spending in the five boroughs, and New York City and the state could take a $120 million hit to tax revenue.

Chris Heywood, who helps lead global communications for the citys tourism board, NYC & Company, said the lower forecasts  which are based on a number of factors, including flight searches  are directly linked to Trumps tough talk, and, even if its on hold, the travel ban. Its created a considerable perception challenge, Heywood said. [New York City] is the number-one port of entry. We have the most to lose.

Foreign travelers only make up about 20 percent of the 61 million tourists who visit New York City annually. But unlike Americans, they stay much longer and spend a bit more freely  an average of $2,000 each. Overall tourism is still expected to tick up by about a million visitors in 2017, but its expected to be mostly domestic (a.k.a. thrifty) tourists.

So NYC & Company has launched a new campaign to try to head off these possible losses, one thats asking international visitors to, please, still vacation in Trumps hometown. The campaigns message is a slight dig at the president: New York City  Welcoming the World. Ads like the one pictured above have already popped up in the United Kingdom and Mexico, and will soon launch in Germany and other parts of Western Europe. The campaign is designed to counter negative rhetoric and remind the world that New York City is open for business, Heywood said, pointing out that the Statue of Liberty is front and center. It does not appear as if Trump Tower made the cut.
In between hanging out on a yacht with Oprah and penning his memoir, the former president of the United States took some time to make a long-distance call to French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. Politico reports that Macron made the first overtures to Obama. The 44th president apparently obliged, and the two reportedly chatted about the French presidential race and the importance of France-U.S. relations. Macron posted a short clip of their conversation, which proves conferencing over speaker phone is a universally awkward experience.

Lets keep defending our progressive values. Thank you for this discussion @BarackObama. pic.twitter.com/8rhNdHkLo8  Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 20, 2017

Obamas spokesperson said this was not a formal endorsement, but the former U.S. president doesnt appear to have called any other French presidential candidate. President Obama appreciated the opportunity to hear from Mr. Macron about his campaign and the important upcoming presidential election in France, a country that President Obama remains deeply committed to as a close ally of the United States, and as a leader on behalf of liberal values in Europe and around the world, said Obamas spokesman, Kevin Lewis.

Macron, a former banker and independent candidate, has been atop the polls  along with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen  but has seen his popularity slip a bit in advance of Sundays elections. (The top two candidates from the April 23 contest will face each other in a runoff May 7.) The call probably didnt hurt Macron, as Obama remains pretty popular in France. A group had even started a petition to get Obama on the ballot in France because he has the best C.V. in the world for the job.
Assange looks out of a window in the Ecuadorian embassy on February 5, 2016. Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images

President Trump declared We love WikiLeaks on the campaign trail and appeared to side with Julian Assange against 17 U.S. intelligence agencies in January. Yet last week, new CIA director Mike Pompeo called the organization a hostile intelligence service and its founder a narcissist and a fraud.

It seems the Trump administration has suddenly shifted its view of WikiLeaks now that its back to releasing information on the CIAs covert hacking program rather than Democrats emails  and they plan to do far more than just call Assange names.

On Thursday afternoon, the Washington Post reported that federal prosecutors are considering whether to bring criminal charges against members of WikiLeaks, while CNN said they have already prepared charges against Assange.

As CNN explained, the Obama administration had decided to hold off on prosecuting Assange because they could not figure out how to go after him without targeting mainstream outlets that publish classified information.

During President Barack Obamas administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasnt alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning. Several newspapers, including The New York Times, did as well. The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.



But now they may have found a way around that. According to CNN, investigators found what they believe is proof that WikiLeaks played an active role in helping Edward Snowden leak a massive trove of classified documents.

The Post says U.S. officials are only drafting a memo on potential charges, and taking a fresh look at Chelsea Mannings admission that Assange helped her figure out how to crack a password so she could anonymously gain access to a government computer. Manning was convicted of leaking sensitive diplomatic cables, but President Obama commuted her 35-year- sentence during his last days in office.

Even going after Assange for helping Manning could cause problems for journalists, as the Post noted:

But journalists routinely employ methods  or tell sources to employ methods  that will help them avoid being identified. Justice Department officials in the previous administration believed that prosecuting Assange or other members of WikiLeaks could open the door to prosecuting news organizations and journalists who published classified information, and so they opted instead to target people, such as Manning, who had clearances to access such information and gave it to reporters.

Its unclear how the U.S. actually charging Assange would change his current status. It would increase pressure on Ecuador to boot Assange from their embassy in London, where hes been living since 2012, but hes there to avoid an arrest warrant for rape allegations in Sweden, not U.S. charges.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggested on Thursday that the Justice Department would find a way around all that, calling arresting Assange a priority. He tied the Justice Departments potential prosecution of Assange to the Trump administrations larger effort to stamp out leaks.

We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks, Sessions said. Weve already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.
Nyet. Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Trump administration has denied ExxonMobils request to skirt U.S. sanctions on Russia and drill for oil in the Black Sea with the Russian state oil company, Rosneft. The decision was announced Friday in a statement by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

The oil giant, run by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the time, first submitted its request to ignore sanctions in 2015, the The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Imposed in 2014 after Russias annexation of Crimea, the sanctions effectively ended a 2011 agreement between Exxon and Rosneft, costing both a fortune. Tillersons subsequent criticism of the sanctions, along with details in the infamous Trump dossier, made his appointment and Exxons relationship with Rosneft a popular topic among conspiracy theorists.

In its application to waive the sanctions, Exxon argued that it had to begin drilling in the Black Sea by the end of 2017 or it would lose its oil rights. With the European Unions looser rules on companies conducting business in Russia, the Italian oil company Eni was likely to step in and claim the rights, Exxon said.

That line of reasoning made this a unique request for a sanctions exemption. The company wasnt arguing that it would be serving the public good by working with Rosneft, only that it would make major money if the sanctions were lifted. That argument was not good enough.

In fact, it was ridiculous, if you listen to some of the senators who criticized Exxons request this week. In a statement, Democratic senator Ben Cardin said, I am shocked and disappointed to hear that Exxon Mobil is seeking, and the Treasury Department is considering, waiving sanctions against doing business with Russia.

He added: Given Russias well-documented and troubling activities around the world, it is troubling Exxon Mobil would continue to press for its narrow economic advantage at the expense of our national interests.

Arizona Republican John McCain, meanwhile, limited his response to a simple three-word question:
Cant deal. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it, Donald Trump once paid someone to write. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then youre dead.

If his nostrils arent clogged, Chuck Schumer should be getting a big whiff of vital fluid right about now.

With the government set to run out of funds at the end of next week, congressional leaders were making steady progress toward a new, bipartisan spending bill  when the White House barged into negotiations with a list of weighty demands.

Specifically, President Trump is demanding billions in funding for a border wall, immigration enforcement, and the military. Democrats have already declared wall funding a nonstarter  and Republicans will need Team Blues votes to overcome the reflexive opposition of the tea-party hard-liners in the House and the filibuster in the Senate.

But the White House is insisting on its wall, nonetheless. And in a flood of leaks to major news outlets, the administration has signaled that its demands are nonnegotiable  because Trump is worried hell receive bad media coverage if he doesnt fulfill more campaign promises by April 29, the 100th day of his presidency.

By the way, few are talking about this one other big problem the wall would cause.

The president is so preoccupied by the fear of such bad press, hes already preemptively defending himself against it on social media.

No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017

To be fair, the 100-day milestone is arbitrary. But its also the deadline Trump set for himself in his Contract with the American Voter.

Last year, Trump released a Contract With The American Voter, outlining an agenda for the first 100 days. Here's the status of that agenda: pic.twitter.com/cujdxe30OT  Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) April 18, 2017

It makes sense, then, that the White House would want a victory on its big, beautiful wall (and, if possible, its hideous health-care bill) by the end of next week. But why Trump thinks he can force Democrats to hand him that win is harder to understand.

Trump has informed Democrats that he is deeply concerned about the optics of his 100th day. He has then ordered them to vote for his monument to American xenophobia  or else, he will force the government to shut down  on the morning of his 100th day.

If Trump dreads the prospect of having no major legislative accomplishments to tout by day 100, then he must be horrified by the idea of the government literally ceasing to function the moment he hits that milestone.

As Republicans well know, public anger over government dysfunction tends to fall hardest on the president and his party. Trump has the most to lose of any player in these negotiations  and hes gone out of his way to make sure his adversaries are aware of that fact.

And Democrats are using their leverage. Right now, the donkey party isnt just telling Republicans what cant be in the spending bill, but also what must be in it. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have signaled that permanent funding for Obamacares cost-sharing subsidies will be the price of Democratic cooperation. A federal judge has ruled that those subsidies require a new congressional appropriation. But the Executive branch is allowed to continue providing them, so long as it proceeds with an appeal of that judges decision. This means that Trump could unilaterally gut Obamacare in a heartbeat, simply by withdrawing the governments appeal. And, in recent weeks, the president has threatened to do just that.

At this point, Congresss best option is probably to buy more time for negotiations, by passing a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for an additional week or two. After that, their best bet may be a bipartisan deal in which Democrats agree to spending increases for immigration enforcement and the military in exchange for permanent funding for those Obamacare subsidies.

Of course, that would require the president to give up his beloved wall and precious hostage. But as every artful dealer knows, thats what happens when you let the other guy smell your blood.
Plutocrats first. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump likes playing the role of the economic nationalist. He loves railing against the traitorous corporate fat cats who sent our jobs overseas; lambasting the low-energy politicians who sold out our forgotten men and women to the Chinese; and saying the phrases America First, Buy American, and Fair Trade over the roar of grateful crowds.

But Trump also likes getting his policy advice almost exclusively from veterans of Goldman Sachs  and campaign contributions from international corporations.

These disparate tastes have produced plenty of conflicts. But after a rocky first month of travel bans and tariff threats, the president seems to have settled on a surefire strategy for reconciling his competing instincts: Be nationalist enough to afflict the powerless, but pragmatic enough to comfort the powerful.

Branding China a currency manipulator would be bad for Steve Schwarzmans portfolio. So Trump opted to go globalist on that score. Terrorizing undocumented victims of domestic violence, on the other hand, hurts no one Trump admires or takes money from. So the populist president is letting I.C.E. do its thing.

Similarly: A trade war with Mexico would get Gary Cohns friends sweating in their C-suites; deporting some Dreamers would not. So, no ones ripping up Nafta, and Steve King is lifting a glass to Border Patrol.

This week, Trump made some noises that would seem to fly in the face of this cynical narrative. The presidents Buy American, Hire American executive order was heralded as Steve Bannons comeback  a measure that put economic nationalism ahead of diplomatic relations with China or the tech industrys labor demands. But as The New Yorkers Adam Davidson notes, its not clear what Trumps order actually does:

The order states that it shall be the policy of the executive branch to maximize, consistent with law  the use of goods, products, and materials produced in the United States without setting any measurable definition of maximize. This is followed by a confusing timelinein sixty days, the Secretary of Commerce will lead a team, advised by the Secretary of State and others, that will issue guidance. Then, within a hundred and fifty days, the heads of agencies will explain what they are doing in keeping with that guidance. Sometime in mid-September, we will (or we wont) hear what the hundreds of agencies in the federal government are doing to meet a confusing mandate, with no obvious targets, that will (or wont) mean that more Americans have jobs.

One could argue that the orders lack of detail says less about the sincerity of the administrations economic nationalism than it does about the White Houses storied incompetence.

But, on Friday, the president signaled his commitment to putting plutocrats first. As The Wall Street Journal reports:

President Donald Trump will sign three documents Friday to advance his administrations push to reduce tax and regulatory burdens, including a measure that could roll back Obama administration efforts to prevent U.S. companies from shifting operations overseas to avoid taxes, administration officials said late Thursday.



One executive order to be signed at the U.S. Treasury will direct Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to review all tax regulations the department issued last year to examine whether any impose excessive financial burdens on U.S. taxpayers or add complexity to the tax code.



The review could cover regulations the Obama administration issued last year to crack down on inversions, in which U.S. companies take up foreign addresses through mergers with other firms to cut their tax bills.

So, what excessive financial burdens does discouraging corporate inversions impose on U.S. taxpayers? Government estimates project that Obamas tax rules will provide the Internal Revenue Service an additional $460 to $600 million every year.

Granted, Mnuchin has not yet made an official decision on those rules. But as of now, Trumps economic credo appears to be: Buy American, hire American  but feel free to relocate overseas to avoid paying American taxes.
Aya Hijazi after she was acquitted by an Egyptian court on April 16, 2017. Photo: Mohamed el Raai/AP

Earlier this month, President Trump welcomed Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to the White House for the first time, praising him for doing a fantastic job in a difficult situation. Sisi came to power through a military coup in 2013, and the Obama administration had barred him from the White House for human-rights abuses.

Last weekend, Egyptian-American aid worker Aya Hijazi, who had become an international symbol of Sisis harsh crackdown on aid groups, was cleared of child-abuse and human-trafficking charges in Cairo after three years in detention.

The 30-year-old, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, had established a foundation to aid street children in Cairo along with her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian. Human rights groups said the charges against them were not credible, and their hearing and trial dates were repeatedly canceled and postponed with no explanation. Hassanein and others arrested with the couple were released on Wednesday.

Late on Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration had quietly negotiated with Egypt to secure their release, and Hijazi and Hassanein had just landed at Joint Base Andrews aboard a government jet.

Hijazi and her brother, Basel, are scheduled to visit the White House on Friday, where they will meet with President Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who officials said had been following her story.

Were very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue, Basel Hijazi told the Post. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. Were so grateful.

The Obama administration had unsuccessfully pushed for Hijazis release, and at times her family complained that they werent doing enough. Trump set out to reset relations with Egypt, and there was no public mention of Hijazi or human-rights abuses during Sisis White House visit.

However, a senior administration official told the Post that behind the scenes, President Trump told top aides, I want her to come home. The official said there was no quid pro quo offered for her release, but the Trump administration had received assurances from Sisis government that whatever the verdict was, Egypt would use presidential authority to send her home.

Trump sent a military aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and Hassanein back to the U.S. They were escorted by Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who is Egyptian-American and had already planned to visit the Middle East this week with Defense Secretary James Mattis.

According to the New York Times, during Sisis visit the White House felt confident that Hijazi would be released, but they chose to take what they knew would be criticism in the news media and from political critics for not publicly mentioning her case. Aides reportedly see the case as vindication of Trumps diplomatic approach.

The Trump administration has faced criticism in recent weeks for being vague and inconsistent on foreign policy matters. A number of analysts concluded that there is no coherent Trump Doctrine, but a top administration official described the presidents diplomatic philosophy to the Post:

The senior Trump administration official said the agreement for Hijazis release was the product of Trumps discreet diplomacy  meaning the presidents efforts to cultivate warm relations with strongmen such as Sissi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, in part by avoiding public pronouncements on human rights that might alienate the foreign governments.

Antony Blinken, the former deputy secretary of State under President Obama, said that while hes pleased Hijazi has been released, hes skeptical that Sisi received nothing in return for her freedom. He told the Post that the White House offering public support for strongmen like Sisi could have the opposite effect of simply reinforcing [Sisis] crackdown at home, in a way I think someday is going to rebound against him, and probably rebound against us.  You can try to repress your problems away, but at some point, they will explode.

According to Reuters, human-rights groups estimate that Sisis government has detained at least 40,000 political prisoners.
Low risk, low reward. Photo: Ford Williams/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

Given all we know of him, its hard to imagine that, with the perspective of two weeks passage, Donald Trump could be much happier with the missile strike he ordered against Syria. Almost as soon as 59 Tomahawks were launched toward al-Shayrat Air Base from Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean, he was being hailed as decisive and statesmanlike and strong. Longtime critics, including many Democrats, extolled his resolve. Cable-news commentators marveled at the flashes of light as Pentagon footage played on loop.

No matter that Trump was defying his own all-caps advice from a few years before. No matter that the strike did little to change the battlefield or political dynamics in Syrias civil war. No matter that, within hours, Bashar al-Assads planes were taking off from the base and the same town targeted with chemical weapons earlier in the week was being bombarded once again.

Polling showed that 66 percent of Americans approved of the strike  marking it as one of the few popular decisions Trump has made since January 20. Conversation shifted sharply away from investigations of collusion between the Kremlin and his campaign. And maybe best of all, Trump could boast of doing the opposite of what his predecessor had done. Im not like Obama, he crowed, as if anyone needed reminding.

But if the takeaway from the missile strike was clear enough for Trump, the takeaway for the rest of us is another matter. The disquieting lesson of the order and its aftermath is not about Trumps vaunted unpredictability, or some betrayal of isolationist promises in favor of an Establishment-blessed foreign policy. It is how his combination of indiscipline and bluster, of swagger without strategy, invites crisis  and how his response to one crisis can sow the seeds for greater dangers down the road. In Syria, in the course of enforcing one red line, Trump drew many, many more.

The missile strikes themselves were a low-risk, low-reward response  Russians at the base were warned ahead of time, targets were chosen carefully to avoid igniting chemical-weapons stockpiles  and one Obama likely would have ordered himself had Assads most recent nerve-gas attack come while he was in office. (In that case, many of the commentators and politicians who drooled over Trumps show of strength would have mocked the actions scale.) Far from rendering the air base no longer usable, as Tillerson claimed afterward, the strike was meant to send a message. The problem lies in the Trump administrations inability to determine what, exactly, that message is supposed to be  thus undercutting the purpose of the strike in the first place.

Praise afterward centered on the notion of credibility. With our credibility restored, the United States can get back on offense around the world, proclaimed Republican senator Tom Cotton. It needed restoring, according to the prevailing logic, because of Obama. In 2013, following a nerve-gas attack by the Syrian regime just a year after he declared a red line against chemical-weapons use, Obama called off a much-hyped military response in favor of a diplomatic agreement to destroy Assads chemical-weapons stockpiles  undermining, the charge went, the soundness of American threats. Obama would voice disdain for Washingtons fixation on credibility (a disdain supported by academic research showing that credibility in international relations is hardly as clear-cut as pundits and politicians generally believe). But even his own advisers had often affirmed the conventional wisdom. So he could not have been particularly surprised when the argument was turned back on him  including by Trump, who rushed to blame Assads latest nerve-gas attack on the past administrations weakness and irresolution.

In fact, to the extent there was a credibility problem, it was of more recent creation. After all, the attack came not in the final three years of Obamas presidency, but in the first months of Trumps. (The Syrian government had evidently concealed and kept a small stock, contrary to its promises, something American officials had suspected but could not prove, as 1,300 metric tons of chemical weapons were extracted from the country.) Top members of the new administration had underscored what Trump expressed repeatedly during the campaign: Assad was not really our concern. Both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said so publicly, and Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that the message was intended. A few days later, Syrian aircraft dropped nerve gas on the town of Khan Shaykhun, and grisly images of the victims soon appeared on TV, for Trump and the rest of the world to see.

After the American response, the Pentagon promptly stressed the limited purpose of punishing Assad for his use of chemical weapons. But Trump, reading from a teleprompter at Mar-a-Lago, was expansive, summoning all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria. Haley reversed her previous statement and clarified that Washington would insist on Assads removal. Tillerson, with his singular ability to contradict himself so many times while speaking so few words, suggested that Assad did in fact have to go, then that he did not, then that perhaps he did. Spicer ended up intimating an entirely new red line against barrel bombs  a weapon already used regularly by Assads air force. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster tried to paper over incoherence with wishful thinking. Ending Assads rule was Americas objective, he explained, but we are not saying that we are the one who are going to effect this change. If youre confused, imagine trying to make sense of the cacophony from, say, Damascus or Moscow.

Trump, meanwhile, appeared to find the whole experience thrilling. He recounted his actions the night of the strike  we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that youve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it  as if they were battlefield heroics. And he cannot have failed to appreciate the small bump in his approval rating, or the freedom of action the commander-in-chief enjoys in foreign policy. There was no need to understand the vagaries of the legislative process, or haggle with the Freedom Caucus, or contend with pesky judges. He had only to huddle with his generals and before long the Tomahawks flew. Its so incredible, he gloated. Its brilliant. Its genius.

That thrill, combined with the muddle of goals and conflicting priorities and ambiguous new red lines that came with it, makes for an unsettling inaugural demonstration of national-security crisis management in the Trump era. Defenders invoke a version of Richard Nixons madman theory of foreign policy: Petrified by the crazed, erratic occupant of the Oval Office, nervous adversaries will give ground. Trumps own celebrations of unpredictability suggest a similar line of thinking. Unfortunately, the madman theory works only if there is a method to the madness; the madman cant simply be raving, his bravado and threat and imprecation unhinged from underlying strategy.

The administrations preferred phrase is on notice. The Syria strike put Assad on notice, said Haley. I think he has put them clearly on notice, said Spicer of the North Koreans. We are officially putting Iran on notice, said National Security Adviser Mike Flynn before his firing. On notice may sound tough and resolute. What it actually means is another question. The danger is that those on the receiving end will try to find out for themselves before anyone in the Trump administration has come up with a clear answer.
Get onboard with Memphis.

You mightve heard murmurs about Memphis Milano. Maybe you read that it inspired Millennial Pink, have seen hints of its brash style on Pinterest, or youve noticed all your cool friends started following @ettoresottsass on Instagram. However you mightve first come upon it, or even if you havent learned how to classify it just yet, the clashing colors, blocky shapes, and loud patterns of Memphis Milano are back.

The movement began in 1981 in Milan with a group of designers led by Ettore Sottsass (who died in 2007 and does not run that Instagram page, although his associates have approved the 25-year-old who does). It was a reaction to what he found as the staid, structured straight lines of mid-century-modern furniture, so he and his group disregarded good taste in favor of the radical, funny, and outrageous. It was a philosophy more than a design imperative. For the Memphis group, form did not need to follow function.

The legend is that theyre called Memphis because the group listened to Bob Dylans Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues on repeat for their entire first meeting. They debuted their first collection at the worlds premiere design show, Salone de Mobile, in 1981, using cheap materials like laminate, bright primary colors, and weird, surprising shapes like spheres for couch legs. Almost all of the pieces in that very first show were prototypes, which is common for design shows now only because of Memphis. Before, every piece of furniture presented needed to be ready for mass production, which is why manufacturers wouldnt take risks on new designers. Memphis, again, was a reaction to that. Memphis broke everything, says Dr. Alberto Bianchi Albrici, who has owned the Memphis brand since the 1990s.

Although its wacky look subtly influenced the late-80s (think Saved by the Bell) the furniture was for the most part commercially rejected. Instead it managed to attract a small, loyal group of obsessives before breaking up for good when Sottsass left the group, in 1986. Its the type of style you either love or find completely bewildering. Karl Lagerfeld bought Sottsasss entire first collection (and eventually sold it at auction in 1991). Theres a wedding photographer in Tennessee who will only decorate his home with original 1980s Memphis.

But it mostly disappeared from attention until 2007, when Sottsass died and Memphis began creeping back into the mainstream design world. By 2014, American Apparel had asked Nathalie du Pasquier, an original Memphis artist, to design a collection. That same year, Sofia Coppola wrote in W about how shes been obsessed with Memphis since she was a young girl. Last November, David Bowies estate auctioned his art collection at Sothebys where it was revealed that he had collected more than 400 pieces since he first met Sottsass in the 80s.

Now the Met Breuer is planning an Sottsass show for July and museums in Amsterdam, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis are all working on Memphis-related exhibitions for next year. I think we keep reexamining it because theres a part of it thats still very irreverent and jarring, says Lorry Dudley, president of the Modern Archive. It still has that shock value that it did so many years ago.

Lots of young designers, sick of mid-century-modern everything, are riffing on Memphis designs these days. But while theyre using a lot of the same patterns and shapes, the colors are generally a little less intense; whites and grays instead of primary reds, yellows, and blues. And though original Memphis designs are still available for purchase, weve collected some more affordable and surprising takes below.

So Sottsass decorative plate $151 In 2013, the London design store Darkroom launched a Memphis-inspired collection called So Sottsass. This colorful plate is so Sottsass. $151 at Yoox Buy

Candelabrum $234 This swooping design lives in the Memphis spirit, as does this other option from the design team called Menu that takes inspiration from Memphiss love of big round spheres. $234 at Yoox Buy

Note: This candelabrum is sold out, but here is another swooping option by De Vecchi.

Note: This is sold out, but a similar candleholder set is available here.

Eric Trine + Dusen Dusen Outdoor Lounge Chair $419 Brooklyn designer Dusen Dusens entire collection gleefully nods to Memphis. West Elm paired her squiggly cushion on top of designer Eric Trines mint-green base, and although its meant for outdoors, I can easily see this in the living room. $419 at West Elm Buy

Note: This is no longer available, but the outdoor sofa version is.

So Sottsass pillow $132 This one from Darkroom London stays quiet on the color side, but goes full pattern. $132 at Yoox Buy

Note: This bib pendant is sold out, but the same maker has a porcelain pendant in Memphis Peach.

Memphis Painted Cuff $158 New York City jewelry designer Susan Alexandra adds Memphis squiggles and shapes to her brass cuff. $158 at Anthropologie Buy

Note: Unfortunately this is sold out, but heres another fun painted cuff with squiggles and dots.

Mykonos barrette $66 A colorful hair piece by Dream Collective, whose entire brand is pretty much inspired by Memphis. $66 at Spring Buy

Note: This particular barrette is sold out, but there are a few left in another color, plus here is a great wavy barrette and another perfectly Memphis version.

Note: The entire bowl set is sold out, but there is still a singular bowl available here.

Note: This is no longer available, but here is a round towel with varying black-and-white stripes.

Note: This is sold out, but here is another more primary-colored wall hook.

Note: This is no longer available, but this Annie Costello Brown necklace is full of loops and shapes.

Note: This style is sold out, but Land of Nod has some other great patterns here and here.

Blue Milking Stool $1,100 Photo: Balarama Heller/BALARAMA HELLER bala@balaramaheller.com Even if we leave alone that stripe, just the idea of a stool specifically for milking is very Memphis. $1,100 at Coming Soon Buy

Pilastro stool $390 This Kartell stool was first released in 2015 as a tribute to Ettore Sottsass and Memphis. $390 at Y Living Buy

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Dr. Fakhruddin Attar.

Last week, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala of Michigan was arrested and charged with performing female genital mutilation on minors. A criminal complaint alleges that Nagarwala, an emergency-room doctor at Detroits Henry Ford Hospital, performed the procedure on girls aged 6 to 9 at a clinic in Livonia. As of Friday, the doctor who owns the clinic and his wife have both been arrested and charged in connection with the case.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, and wife, Farida Attar, 50, have been charged with conspiring to perform female genital mutilation. The complaint against them alleges that they allowed Nagarwala to use the Burhani Medical Clinic and helped arrange procedures; Farida is said to have held the girls hands in order to comfort them while they were being cut by Nagarwala.

Since news of the original charges came out, Nagarwala claimed that she wasnt actually cutting girls but performing a religious custom of the Dawoodi Bohra sect of Indian Muslims. She said it involved removing a membrane for the parents to bury in the ground; follow-up medical exams from doctors have shown evidence of mutilation on the girls. She faces five years to life in prison.
Bernie Sanders and Tom Perez.

The most disturbing thing to emerge from this weeks badly bungled Democratic Unity Tour staged by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and new DNC head Tom Perez was the fact that the only thing on which the two men seemed to easily agree was that reproductive rights are not necessarily fundamental to progressive politics. This led to uproar and outrage among some precincts of the left, and eventually to mea culpas and clarifications from Sanders and Perez. But it is worth closely examining this fight over the importance of reproductive rights in the party because it is an argument that the Democrats seem to rehash over and over and over again.

To recap: On Wednesday, Sanders gave an interview in which he said that he didnt know if Jon Ossoff, the Democrat who the day before had earned more than 48 percent of the primary vote in a longtime Republican House district in Georgia, was a progressive. It was an odd move for a powerful left-wing politician on a tour to rejuvenate Democratic politics to fire a shot of ambivalence at a Democratic candidate in any tight race, but it felt especially egregious given that Ossoff was now facing Karen Handel, a virulently anti-choice Republican who was forced to leave the Susan G. Komen Foundation in 2012 after trying to sever the organizations ties with Planned Parenthood, and who actively supported voter-suppression efforts as Georgias secretary of State.

Sanderss definition of what constitutes a progressive became even murkier when he suggested that the election of Heath Mello, whos running for mayor of Omaha, Nebraska  and who as a state senator sponsored a 20-week abortion ban and mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortions  would represent a shot across the board, that in a state like Nebraska a progressive Democrat can win. Not to be outdone, Perez amplified the message that reproductive rights are negotiable for the Democratic Party. If you demand fealty on every single issue, Perez said, then its a challenge. The Democratic Party platform acknowledges that were pro-choice, but there are communities, like some in Kansas, where people have a different position.

Well, sure. There are also communities in Kansas where voters have different positions from Democrats on immigration reform, labor protections, climate change, voting rights, and health care, and it would be vexing  and not at all progressive  for post-2016 Democrats to alter their stances on any of those issues.

This Unity Tour was supposed to be a means for Perez and Sanders to pull together left-leaning voters, still divided after the spirited primary between Sanders  the democratic socialist whose campaign brought in millions of voters excited about a left-leaning populist agenda  and Hillary Clinton, who was pulled to the left by Sanders and beat him by 3 million votes, becoming the ultimately unsuccessful nominee. Sanders, who is an Independent, has been describing this moment as a chance to radically transform the Democratic Party, and his aims are by many measures righteous: He wants to get big money out of politics and reduce the enormous power of what he calls the millionaire and billionaire class; he advocates for single-payer health care, free college tuition, and a higher minimum wage, and on this tour has insisted that it has got to be that those ideas are allowed to become the dominant theme of the Democratic Party and thats the choice Democrats are going to have to make.

The problem is that Sanderss vision  and the vision of Perez and the DNC  as they laid it out this week, looked less like a radical transformation of the Democratic Party and more like a return to mistakes the party has made in the past. These mistakes have nothing to do with economic equality, and everything to do with a willingness to sacrifice the rights of much of the partys base.

For some time now, Sanders  who, it should be noted, has an extremely strong legislative record on reproductive rights  has spoken somewhat carelessly about a populist strategy that exchanges some core Democratic beliefs for the set of issues that are most important to him. Once you get off the social issues  abortion, gay rights, guns  and into the economic issues, there is a lot more agreement than the pundits understand, he said in 2015. In January of this year, at a CNN Town Hall, he reiterated, Yes, of course, there are differences on issues like choice or on gay rights  But on many economic issues, you would be surprised at how many Americans hold the same views.

Sanders is wrong that reproductive rights (or gay rights, for that matter) are separate from economic issues. The ability to control reproduction is central to womens social, professional, and economic stability, and the women most likely to require abortion services and to be negatively affected by restrictions on access to reproductive health care are poor and low-income women, disproportionately women of color.

But he and Perez were also wrong to view compromising on abortion as part of a pragmatic political path forward and to hold up an aggressively anti-abortion Democrat as some exemplar of progressivisms future. Heaps of contemporary polling shows abortion is not the divisive issue it was long assumed to be. In 2015, polls showed that seven in ten voters, including independents  and even in Kansas  not only supported safe and accessible abortion but were willing to vote based on that support. A postelection Pew study found support for Roe to be at 69 percent, an all-time high. Omaha, the city where Heath Mello is running for mayor, was carried by Clinton  who made the most full-throated case for reproductive rights ever offered by a presidential candidate in her final debate against Donald Trump  by eight points. (For the record, Mello released a statement on Thursday claiming that, While my faith guides my personal views, as Mayor I would never do anything to restrict access to reproductive health care, which is a lovely sentiment, except for the fact that as state senator he literally did do lots to restrict access to reproductive health care.)

There is absolutely no need to abandon womens rights in the name of advancing progressive politics. And yet the party has done it time and again, often after losing presidential elections. It happened after the 2004 defeat of John Kerry, despite the fact that there was little evidence that Kerrys pro-choice politics had anything to do with his loss. I have long believed that we ought to make a home for pro-life Democrats, Howard Dean said in December of 2004, as he worked to become the Democratic party chairman. Many Democrats at the time reembraced the Clintonian formulation of safe, legal, and rare  a phrase long rumored to have been the invention of Hillary Clinton  which cast abortion not as a legal right necessary to womens autonomy and economic equality, but as a necessary evil. Clinton herself, then a senator from New York, was part of the stampede away from reproductive rights, telling a group of family-planning advocates in early 2005 that abortion is a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women.

The deprioritization of reproductive rights was part of the strategy that helped Rahm Emanuel, chair of the DCCC, win the House for Democrats in 2006. But Ilyse Hogue, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, argues that we should evaluate that strategy now with an understanding of its longer-term implications: It did not result in more progressive legislation or in a durable governing coalition, she says. It depressed the base and predicated the rise of the Tea Party.

Yes, the House majority allowed for a progressive win in the reform of health care, but it also led to a quagmire for progressives when anti-abortion Democrat Bart Stupak proposed an amendment to the ACA preventing federal insurance programs from paying for abortions; thanks in part to other anti-abortion Democrats, the amendment garnered enough support to pass the House, though it stalled in the Senate, and President Obama eventually broke the stalemate by promising an executive order that ensured that no taxpayer money would be used to cover abortion care. During that fight, there was much resentment directed toward the reproductive-rights activists and pro-choice Democrats who objected to passing health-care reform without equal protections and benefits for women: How could you stand in the way of greater progress?

This circular formulation, in which reproductive-rights advocates are told that they must sacrifice their issues in order to make progress on those same issues, was repeated by Sanders in an NPR interview on Thursday, in which he explained that, If we are going to protect a womans right to choose, at the end of the day we are going to need Democratic control over the House and Senate, and state governments all over this nation. And we have got to appreciate where people come from, and do our best to fight for the pro-choice agenda. But I think you just cant exclude people who disagree with us on this one issue.

Women have heard this argument again and again, and we have remained the reliable base of a party that has elected and elevated to positions of greater power anti-choice Democrats including Harry Reid, Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, and Bob Casey. In fact, its hard not to feel that its because of the dedication of women, and particularly women of color, to the Democratic Party  where else are they going to go?  that party leaders feel freer to take them for granted and trade their fundamental rights in obsessive pursuit of the great white male. This is how Dems always imagine that they can make inroads in red states. Its third-way centrist bullshit.

But right now, perhaps unlike at any other moment in history, it is also crazily blind to whats actually happening around the country, as this weeks fierce pushback to Perez and Sanders showed. As Hogue  who went on a Twitter tirade about the proposed compromise on Wednesday night  pointed out, in 2006 Rahm Emanuel could get away with de-emphasizing womens rights in part because the organized resistance of the moment was anti-war. This time, she says, the organized resistance is women. In fact, one recent poll showed that 86 percent of the people making daily calls to Senate and House offices are women, most of them middle aged. And after his better-than-expected showing in Tuesdays primary, Ossoff said, This is a story of women in this community, noting the thousands of volunteers and organizers  led by women who have been pounding the pavement and knocking on doors for months.

In the midst of one of the most activated, energized, ground-up movements in modern Democratic political history  where the energy is coming from women who remain underrepresented in state and federal legislatures  the Unity Tour, with its two men making pronouncements about what the party should do next, felt exceedingly out of touch. And the dynamic  the women doing the labor of organizing and protesting and campaigning, knocking on doors and making calls and sending postcards, while guys speak from the microphones about the need to compromise on their rights  is depressingly retro.

Open your eyes to where the resistance is really coming from, Hogue urged on Thursday. There are literally millions of women who have been pouring calls into Senate offices, House offices, going to town halls, filing to run for office; we are literally three months out from the largest protest in U.S. history that was overwhelmingly women, in the name of women; thats where the resistance is. This is the Democratic party base. So why is the place to start negotiating the place that pulls the heart out of the resistance?

In a sign that the political pressure of a female grassroots is more powerful than ever, both Perez and Sanders responded to criticism with course corrections on Friday afternoon. Perez released a statement reading in part: Every Democrat, like every American, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable. Perez also said he fundamentally disagrees with Heath Mellos personal beliefs about reproductive rights and that hell be meeting with women leaders from around the country next week to discuss how we can make sure our Democratic candidates and elected leaders are living up to these fundamental values. This is good news, though it prompts the question: Why werent women leaders central to the planning of the Unity Tour in the first place?

Sanders, meanwhile, didnt give much ground on opening up the progressive tent to anti-choicers, but he did offer an unequivocal endorsement of Ossoff: His victory would be an important step forward in fighting back against Trumps reactionary agenda.

Its unlikely that this will be the last we see of Democrats trying to shore up populist support by sidelining womens rights, but at least we know that this time around activists and advocates are energized and engaged and pushing back. Maybe the party wont be doomed to repeat some of its worst history after all.
Reese Witherspoon at a Tiffany & Co. panel discussion on Friday. Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Tiffany & Co.

On Friday morning, Reese Witherspoon joined Tiffany & Co. for a panel discussion on the fashion industrys role in protecting wildlife and the environment. Over bagels and avocado toast at NeueHouse Penthouse, the actress discussed supporting women and sustainability through her Southern-inspired clothing line Draper James and her film company Pacific Standard, which produced Gone Girl and Wild.

Tiffany & Co.s chief sustainability officer Anisa Costa moderated the panel with the companys interim CEO Michael J. Kowalski and activist Dudu Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants, which works to stop illegal hunting of elephants in Africa and ivory trading in countries like China, where the demand is high.

Witherspoon argued that celebrities and brands must support causes like sustainability. She discussed the importance of empowering women as well, describing how Draper James partnered with the nonprofit Girls Inc. to create a crash course on economics for young girls and how her film company Pacific Standard only produces films with female stars.

Inevitably, the questions turned to Big Little Lies: Will there be a second season? We are all really invested in the idea, it could possibly happen, Witherspoon said. I talked to Nicole Kidman yesterday and its definitely something were thinking about. The shows producers are reportedly brainstorming ideas now.

At the breakfast, Tiffany announced it will unveil a collection of elephant brooches and charms this fall, with all profits going to the Elephant Crisis Fund to support anti-poaching, anti-trafficking, and ivory-demand-reduction projects.
Photo: Lew Robertson/Getty Images

The cannabidiol tincture I drop under my tongue tastes a little bit like mint chocolate, with the unmistakable slip of coconut oil. Within minutes, I feel a little foggy and a little cozy, and all I want to do is watch The Great British Bake Off or perhaps do some crosswords. Ive taken too much on occasion, and it gives me a shaky feeling similar to smoking pot, but if I take just a few drops, I feel delightful. Maybe a little too delightful judging by the emails Ive sent people I care about, but its a small trade-off for me. (Sorry, everyone.)

Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a chemical found in marijuana, the yin to THCs yang; theoretically, its not psychoactive, i.e., it doesnt make you feel high in the same way as ingesting a high-THC strain of weed. People use it for everything from epilepsy to pain relief and anxiety, which was my main point of interest. CBD derived from hemp is legal in New York State, and its available at your local head shop or the obscure drug store; I bought mine online from a sleek lifestyle site that offers DIY salve recipes and hemp oils specifically for pets.

Anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression have followed me like a cloud since I was a child. The relief I found in little pre-Prozac-era pills cant be overstated; I cant imagine what my life would have been like  would be like  without antidepressants. But the thing with medication is that, for me, its merely another tool in an arsenal that includes talk therapy, meditation, acupuncture, aerial yoga (yes, really), and other more holistic treatments.

The popular benzodiazepine Klonopin has been my go-to for daily anxiety maintenance and panic attacks since I was 19. It makes me sleepy and dopey, and, as any Valley of the Dolls fan will tell you, benzos are highly addictive. As soon as I heard about CBD, my interest was piqued, but a quick Google will turn up many more sites extolling the virtues of the drug (and selling it) than any hard-and-fast data about how it works.

I turned to Dr. Margaret Haney, professor of Neurobiology and Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center for more information about CBD. Its a drug that seems to act at a wide range of brain sites, she said, so in terms of anxiety, one of its potential mechanisms could be acting at one of the serotonin receptors, so as you know, anxiety medications and antidepressants are often acting at the serotonin system. SSRI is [short for] selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. So, thats potentially one mechanism for CBD to affect anxiety, but again, we dont know.

Marijuana, along with heroin, LSD, and MDMA, is still a Schedule 1 drug, which makes it very difficult to study the same way you would, say, the next cash-cow SSRI. Haney explained, You would really want to study CBD as compared to [a] placebo and measures of anxiety, she said, adding, There have been a handful of studies giving CBD orally and looking at measures of anxiety, and there seems to be a suggestion that it has some anxiolytic effects  some effects that decrease anxiety  but in terms of comparing to FDA-approved anxiolytics or, you know, really assessing what daily use of cannabidiol for anxiety is, there is very little data.

As with most things in the marijuana field, society has jumped far, far ahead of the science. We still have a lot to do with cannabidiol, and so, again, to comment on whether its safe to combine with other medications or to compare to FDA-approved medications, we just dont have any data really on that.

Dr. Julie Holland is one of the few psychopharmacologists to study and write about the use of marijuana as an adjunct or alternative to psych meds. Holland, who is the author of Weekends at Bellevue, Moody Bitches, Ecstasy: The Complete Guide, and The Pot Book, offered me more information on the possible pros and cons of using CBD in lieu of Klonopin or similar drugs. They can help with anxiety but can make you less sharp cognitively  a little fuzzy, with memory problems or sedation. (Perhaps this explains why I can never find my keys, or my phone, or my Metrocard.) Benzos have risk of tolerance and withdrawal and [theyre] dangerous to mix with alcohol. CBD doesnt seem to have these issues.

As Holland pointed out, No one has done these sorts of drug-interaction studies, but my guess is that you could. I certainly have patients mixing cannabis and SSRIs. Before I embarked on my little science experiment, I ran the idea by my own meds doc, who more or less gave me the go-ahead. While I didnt ask, anecdotal data  i.e., me and my friends  suggests that Hollands patients arent the only people mixing pot and antidepressants.

While I tinker with my meds with help from my own psychopharm, looking for the ideal dose and balance that wont tip me into an insomniac mess or a snoozy lump on my couch, CBD is, at the very least, an interesting way to spend a few hours chilling out without getting the munchies or spinning out in my own brain. Its definitely not a magic bullet, and I wouldnt use it if I were in crisis or about to get on an airplane, but Im glad I found it. I look forward to the day I can use high-quality CBD derived from marijuana whenever I want.
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/courtesy of HBO

Youre such a Renata.

Depending on where your allegiances lie on The Great Cultural Moment that was HBOs Big Little Lies, thats either an insult or a compliment. All Ill admit on my part is that I was sitting alone in a restaurant when I heard a young gay waiter shriek this description at one of his fellow servers. She hadnt yet seen the show, so the meaning was lost on her. Still, it provoked a conversation among the staff and us solo-dining patrons, all of us strangers, whisper-shouting into our Negronis about how iconic Laura Dern and the female executive she played on Big Little Lies remains. The female bartender in front of us told us that she thought her other colleague was incorrect about their third colleague. And that, well, Renata was kind of a bitch.

I should mention that this was a nearly a week after the first season of Big Little Lies concluded. Its only been longer now  and yet the show still comes up near daily in my life, not just among friends and co-workers and people at restaurants I like, but in overheard discussions at coffee shops and subway stations and gay bars and all the other places where nervous, chatty city people let their private opinions become public. The passing of time has only seemed to strengthen the attachment people feel. As the sheer volume of television renders most shows obsolete as soon as their finale airs  if not before  its impressive that Big Little Lies has remained such a Thing.

These conversations usually meander their way toward one destination: The shows viewers  by which I mean women and gay men (did straight men watch this show? IDK)  declaring whether they or their friends are more of a Madeline (feisty!), a Renata (powerful!), a Jane (mysterious!), a Bonnie (achingly cool!), or some combination thereof. No one ever claims to be Celeste, probably because that would beg for further elaboration, which, catch-22, isnt a very Celeste thing to do in the first place.

If you havent argued about this with your friends, youve probably overheard others do it. Or seen, or perhaps taken, the seminal Buzzfeed quiz (Which Big Little Lies Mom Are You?), replete with fancy SUVs and glassed-out homes and Alexander Skarsgards that help you make sense of your psyche and its preferences. And if you find yourself still befuddled, Glamour U.K. went so far as to provide a helpful, bullet-pointed list.

This isnt the first time that HBO has managed to create the kind of characters that viewers like so much that they start to identify as them. Just over a decade ago, when I was finishing up college and first moving to New York City, it was impossible to be among a group of gay men and women without someone (someone who was possibly drunk) going on about a different show: Sex and the City. It, too, offered archetypal women  the protagonist, the prude, the slut, and the smart one  who viewers couldnt help but claim as their own. But it was easier then; the SATC squad was a bit more stereotypical. I dont mean that as women, but as pat little packages of personality that folks  gay men in particular  loved to see in themselves.

Of course, the distinctions between these shows also reflect our changing culture: Sex and the City was a comedy, created by a gay man who hired many gay writers, many of whom it was presumed were living out their rowdy fantasies (and freedoms) via Samanthas plotlines and one-liners. Big Little Lies is a drama, no doubt, developed by two famous women, adapted by two straight men, and based on a novel by a third famous woman. Its more emotional, darker. But the latter would not exist without the former. As Francine Prose put it in the New York Review of Books, Big Little Lies is Sex and the City in hell.

In between, we got Girls  the HBO show that most people probably look to when trying to define our Zeitgeist  though Ive never heard a friend say, over brunch, Im such a Hannah Horvath. Those characters personalities are simply less desirable. And the show inoculated itself from that sort of comparison from the very first episode, when it became a joke that Jessa had never seen Sex and the City, even though Shosanna thinks shes definitely, like, a Carrie, with some Samantha aspects and Charlotte hair  a really good combination. (Related, but not exactly: Elijah Krantz is a better gay character than we got to see on any season of Sex and the City.)

Thinking about all of this, I couldnt help but wonder  what is it about shows like Sex and the City and Big Little Lies that make gay guys so obsessed with identifying as female characters? It is some sort of reclamation of camp to proclaim that youre a total Madeline or Samantha? Or is this more about the grabbing fabulousness by its horns, bolstered by the fact that all these women on all these shows have incredible homes, and chic outfits, and hot husbands? Is it because these women can get away with being bitchier than any bitchy queen ever could himself? Or is it a way of participating in the long gay tradition that is drag without actually, you know, putting on a dress? All of the above, Id argue. By which I really mean: straight-up aspirational living.

When I was with my group of gay friends last weekend, the ones I see all the time, I brought this all up. Are gay men perhaps a bit overly obsessed with the women of Big Little Lies? The question bopped around the room, some refuting the idea, until one friend said something (in jest, I think?) that became the only answer anyone now remembers:

No, but seriously, guys, Im a total Bonnie.

He wasnt incorrect.

Another friend, Joey, a filmmaker with a degree in semiotics, suggested that it had less to do with gay mens obsessions with these specific characters and more to do with Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman themselves; the former because of her performances in Cruel Intentions, Election, and Legally Blonde (three movies so beloved by gay men that they have, at one point or another, been workshopped as musicals); and the latter because of Kidmans virtuosic roles in Gus Van Sants To Die For, considered a canonical gay classic, and Moulin Rouge.

He also gave me a book. Called My Diva, and edited by Michael Matlack, its a 2009 compendium of essays by gay writers on the bonds-from-afar theyve forged in their lives with the Julie Andrews, Bette Midlers, and Nina Simones of the world. In one of them, in which Edward Field goes deep on Sunset Boulevards Gloria Swanson, he writes: There is something about these larger-than-life movie stars that represents our yearnings for vindication, in which we see ourselves transcending the difficulties a gay man faces in the world. This argument is quoted in the books introduction, along with the idea that women like those in Big Little Lies and Sex and the City  divas, that is  protect us, guide us, and delight us. Perhaps in loving our divas, Matlack adds, we have found a way to love ourselves.

All of that is a bit rich for me, if Im being honest. (And Im not sure gay men circa 2017 need any more justification for loving themselves.) But just like the divas that came before Big Little Lies, and the ones that will hopefully come back for a second season of that eventual HBO campfest, I agree theres something larger-than-life about these associations, something cosmic even. Its not that different than astrology, that strange game in which people convince themselves that the date on which theyre born has some say in how they will act, in who they will become. Perhaps thats why, when I go on Facebook today, I still see people talking about Big Little Lies. Maybe theyre just catching up on the show, or maybe its just fun to look to the stars. I can admit that, as a great big gay fan of a great big gay show. And, too, as something else: A total Madeline, Renata rising.
Bizarre niggas have bizarre weeks. Gotta keep the world in equilibrium.

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It's our turn to shine!

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coke tastes like liquid pennies to me

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lol ia

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Great point

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someone stole my moms purse when i was 4

i saw her do it and if i ever find that bitch, i'm gonna give her a knuckle sandwich

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It's more likely that she saw something else that she shouldn't have and he doesn't want cops digging deeper.

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Did she hope that by stealing the Pepsi she could give it to the cops and get off scot free?

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LMAO

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LMAO

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LOL IRL

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omfg lmao

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your icon makes your comments so much funnier to me lmao

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lol thanks, Dahyun's power tbh! Looking at it now, I get what you mean haha.

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These Pepsi jokes/memes will never get old, idec.

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Lmaoo

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LMAO

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LOLLLLLLLLL

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LMAO SCREAMING

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Have you ever had your home broken into? Ever stole you something?



One summer night I was half asleep and my window was open/tv on. I heard this voice outside from the driveway of this kid and his friends mocking back what was on the tv so it woke me up. Then I heard them try to open my car door. I got my ass up so fast and turned the light on and ran downstairs as they were running off. The ugly little white boys were trying to steal change from my car. The dumbass ringleader lived directly across the street. I already had a feeling it was him cause he's a mess of a human. I called the cops to scare them and they came knocking on his door. That little greasy faced motherfucker and his friends were so scared. He's lucky I like his mom or else I would have made life much worse for him.



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Apartment that was placed exactly like my family's when I was young, in the same building but in a different porch, sold cheap alcohol 24/7, so we had a lot of shitfaced people trying to break into our house to give them more, and it usually was at, like, 3AM.

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lmao why tf are ppl so obsessed w/ drake

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mte

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lol oo burn

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did you see that ultra cringe dialogue where he said he was weird

it was fucking lame

a hot topic shirt qoute holy shit

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http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/20/15373148/riverdale-jughead-weird-meme

look at this shit look at this shit

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Omggg

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How did she have 3 cases of drinks on her? How tf big was the hoodie?

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Damn, I hope she found his bathroom, before they took her in.

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omg this is horrible and funny at the same time.

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drake is soft!

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we went to a house party once where we didn't know a single person and my friends decided to steal a load of the owners hoodies and noodles, dipped a clean tampon in ketchup then put it in the water jug in the fridge??? (I can't believe this was real) and ran home. I just stayed to pet his dog and then around 5am he started crying bc his favourite hoodie was missing, he started blaming his ex gf who he cheated on so at least he was an asshole I guess? and then people started screaming about the tampon. I was in this guys room watching disney movies at this point so nobody blamed me for my fucked up friends thank god

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lmao I've never really liked them tbh, they always had a huge problem with my school friends and thought they were weird af and did fucked up shit but then.... they do shit like that??

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I was like "wow, rude" until you said he cheated on someone and then I just kinda \_()_/

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no offense sis but your friends sound real shitty

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I just stayed to pet his dog



lmaaoooo me AF



me at any party-

person: hey

me: i'm just here for the dog/cat

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we never stole shit but senior year of high school if my girlfriends and i ended up at a party where we knew no one, we would slowly start rearranging all the decor in the house.

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what

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She probably saw some illegal shit and that's why Drake doesn't wanna press charges, just in case she might spill. Drake's "brother" Baka is back to his old ways of "recruiting women for videos" aka human trafficking/pimping and they use Drake's house to corral the women, so she most likely did see something.

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Holy shit, what? This is the first I've heard of this. D:

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To sum it up - Baka was using Drake's name to recruit women into a sex trafficking/prostitution ring and housing them on Drake's property. Baka's girlfriend was one of his original "hoes" and she tried snitching on him once he started using underage girls. Baka beat her up, she went to the police, they raided his house, and he went to jail. Drake's lawyers stopped a lot of details from leaking, but one of the women spilled a bunch of details on Lipstick Alley way back in the day.

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tbh this is the first thing i thought as well -_-

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lord

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omfg

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I guess Drake has something in common with Nicki, then... :l

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Gross

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Well I was more-so thinking it was a male ego/rapper pride thing. He would probably get a lot of shit for pressing charges against a woman. Other rappers would be gross/misogynistic and claim he was afraid of a woman.

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Drake and his friends messy and criminal as ever

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So they want more coins but Dwayne and Vin hate each other so much that they have to develop a spin-off, lmao.

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That said, nhf turning Decker into a good guy! Vin must be seething lol.That said, nhf turning Decker into a good guy! #justice4han

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In addition to the messed up timeline this movie gave us, the indifference to the fact that Han and Gisele were murdered by the Shaws pissed me off. I guess family isn't everything after all.

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apparently Han is still alive/is gonna show up in the next installment or something.. but what about Gisele??!!!

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Wait, Gisele wasn't murdered by the Shaws. She wasn't even technically murdered (she voluntarily let go of Han's hand to take out a henchman who was going to attack him).



But Han, yeah, apparently everyone just forgot about that... not to mention Dom's best friend, sister, and nephew could have been killed by that bomb Decker mailed to their house.

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THIS.. he tried to kill Brian, but it's ok now because he didn't die

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Our long national nightmare endures.

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i asked for gisele and han spin-off. no one deserves this

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mte



of all the spin-offs we could have...

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we could of had it all

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I can't believe these movies are so successful.

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my roommate does a thing where she bingewatches all of them in a row, i can't even count the number of times she's done it. it's scary.

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dude, I tired watching the fifth one (supposedly it's the best one or something) and couldn't even get passed the first 10 minutes. It was cheesy as fuck, the only reason I know whats up with the franchise is because my friend would tell me about it and I would be nice and listen to 30% of it.



Edited at 2017-04-21 07:58 pm (UTC)

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That's amazing. I used to do this until Paul Walker died. :(

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i do this sometimes (not regularly). it's comfort in how familiar and how much attention it doesn't take. same w/the underworld movies. and resident evil

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[ Spoiler (click to open) ] making him part of the family since he killed Han lol



That blue collar life though~



Edited at 2017-04-21 05:57 pm (UTC) I don't think I can get past them

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are you fucking serious.



after what happened in the last film???

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i had a dream the fifty shades of grey series was in the same ~universe~ as these fast and furious movies

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omg you need to write that into existence

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I really don't know how this franchise is still going.



But everytime I ask this question I think "well Donald Trump is president so", I guess that answers everything in this hideous universe.

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i'm ok with this because it means i don't have to watch it



i kinda hate that the rock came in and became such a big face of the franchise, as much as i love him

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i find him hard to watch bc his arms are so big in these movies that his hands can't be fully lowered and it is distracting

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lmao this comment made me laugh out loud

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Y'all better fuckin

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Wow. This is exactly what I wanted after seeing F8

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I haven't seen F8 but I thought Jason was hilarious in Spy. And I like the Rock so this can be a good combo.

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I just watched F8 and he's also so hilarious in it. I love his comedic timing.

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They're a good match, but Han?

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they'd be a good match inside of me :P omg

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Not enough room  I'm up for riding the one riding the other though.

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NO!!! & Didn't Mark blind a Vietnamese man? Trash.

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No he did not and the guy forgave him. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2868589/Mark-Wahlberg-s-blinding-race-attack-victim-Johnny-Trinh-backs-bid-pardon-saying-course-forgive-didn-t-blind-Communist-Vietnamese-did-that.html

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he attacked 2 Vietnamese men but apparently it's okay because one of them was already blind in one eye

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It's cool, Wahlberg already forgave himself!



No, but seriously Mark Wahlberg is a horrible person and has always been a horrible person so I'm not surprised no one saw how awful this would look.

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I gotta say, this Friday has really come through with the wank posts

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omg I know. Today has been ridiculous.



settlingin.gif

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has donnie done anything in particular?

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married jenny mccarthy and has adopted some of her shitty anti-science views

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The audacity of white men but especially white men who commit a violent crime.

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ugh marky-mark

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Wait, wait... he got a Vietnamese man blind and now he produces a product that makes Vietnamese burgers?



Does he have brain damage?

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mte!!!! "pan-asian" cuisine not even done right... eta i dont know why i would expect differently



Edited at 2017-04-21 10:05 pm (UTC)

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right? that's offensive enough in itself smh

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I read fast and thought this said Meghan Markle, I was like 'her too?!!!!'

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the levels to this fuckery

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The wank posts just keep coming and they don't stop coming

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Honestly wasn't even going to do a post but the comments in the other food post made me want to post this.

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where's your icon from???

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fed to the rules and i hit the ground running

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Yikes

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He must still be pressed about the judge refusing to strike the charges from his record. Suffer!

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Edited at 2017-04-21 10:03 pm (UTC) he's such a pos. and i'm trash for wanting to try this burger. i found this recipe . it looks wayyy better and has a banh mi bun!

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damn that looks delicious! i feel you on the bread, bb, just add pasta and rice and i'm a walking carbo-load.

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ahhaha I live in Sydney and got one for brekkie after the gym the other morning! such a perfect start to a day!

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I live in Boston and never seen this restaurant, didn't even know it existed. Trash.

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There's one in Logan.

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Really? I never seen it and the other one is at Fenway and I didn't notice either, but I'm rarely if ever in that neighborhood, maybe I have seen it and never made the connection that it was Mark Walhberg's restaurant.

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there's one at coney island lol. i almost want to go bc it's probably the only place near me that has a vegan burger but he's trash, so.

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There the one at the airport, the original is by Fenway (I think) and the newest abominations are in Lynnfield and Hingham. Ugh.

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i am so sick of white people putting throwing something together and calling it banh mi. i saw a "banh mi" taco on a menu and it was just a fucking taco. and also fuck the restaurants who charge $10+ for an actual banh mi.

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There's a place near my office that has a banh mi with onion rings and teriyaki sauce.

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semi-related but fuck restaurants who charge more than $4 a taco. I'll only pay that much if it has shrimp or something more cost-heavy on it but carnitas? For $6? Lol get fucked.

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THIS. I went somewhere last week that charged $4-5 per VEGAN taco. There's no way in hell I'm paying that much for a single taco, especially when there's only sprouts and cashew cream in it. The fuck.

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Yaaaaas exactly

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http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/12/512905725/cheap-eats-cheap-labor-the-hidden-human-costs-of-those-lists



Not attacking you BTW, I'm in grad school and actively search out cheap/delicious ethnic food because it's the best food that's wallet-friendly, and everyone loves a good deal. Just food for thought. To be fair, I've heard relatively good arguments (made by POC) that the idea that the celebration of ethnic food/restaurants as "cheap eats" has a lot of roots in racism:Not attacking you BTW, I'm in grad school and actively search out cheap/delicious ethnic food because it's the best food that's wallet-friendly, and everyone loves a good deal. Just food for thought.

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The U.S. shale sector continues to be the hottest spot in natural resources investment. But news this week suggests Americas oil and gas industry may have a new rival  as shale in a completely different part of the world gets ready to go commercial.

In Argentina.

The governor of Argentinas Neuquen province Omar Gutierrez said in a statement Monday that shale production is about to begin in earnest in his territory. With ExxonMobil reportedly about to push the button on a major project in the Vaca Muerta shale here over the coming weeks.

Governor Gutierrez noted that he was in Houston last week meeting with Exxon management. Who reportedly told him the company will enter the production phase on the companys Vaca Muerta projects this May.

Gutierrez didnt give additional detail on the specific projects that will be put into full-scale production. And Exxon itself hasnt made any announcements  but the move to commercial production would make sense, given that the firm launched a pilot project for shale production in the Vaca Muerta last year.

If the major is indeed going ahead, it would be one of the biggest developments weve seen for international shale. With Governor Gutierrez saying that Exxons investment in the Vaca Muerta by the end of 2017 will have already amounted to a full $750 million. Related: Will Autonomous Cars Transform The Energy Industry?

The Governor also said Exxon plans to ramp up production quickly here  noting that the major aims to hit 5 million cubic meters (176.5 million cubic feet) per day over the next two to three years.

That kind of production growth would clearly point to Argentina as the next big thing in shale. And would show that local gas pricing  where producers are currently being offered $7.50/MMBtu  is working in supporting development.

Watch for confirmation from Exxon on plans for the Vaca Muerta. And for increasing activity in the play, with a tender for 56 new oil and gas blocks here currently in market by Argentina officials.

Heres to being next.

By Dave Forest

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
OPEC continues to make progress on cooperation as they close in on an agreement to extend their production cuts for another six months. On April 20, several top OPEC officials voiced their most definitive statements yet on the extension, even as they caution that more work needs to be done.

There is consensus building but it's not done yet, Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in the United Arab Emirates. We are talking to all countries, al-Falih added, referring to the key role that Russia will play in whether or not an extension can be sealed. We have not reached an agreement for sure, but the consensus is building.

On top of that, OPECs Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said the deal is working  it just needs more time. We are optimistic the policy measures have already placed us on the path of recovery, Barkindo said in a speech. Our collective action will continue to prove effective. Barkindo told CNBC on the sidelines of the event that OPECs credibility is at stake.

The comments are so aggressive that it is hard to imagine an extension falling apart. But as suggested, Russia, will be essential to the success of the negotiations over the next few weeks. Russia has taken a bit longer than the rest of the participants in meeting its promised 300,000 bpd in cuts, although Russian officials said that production would trend downwards over the six-month period.

Nothing is for certain, but Russia has a lot more to gain from an extension than it would by going it alone, which would likely lead to the deal falling apart. Bloomberg reported that Russian government revenues from oil sales have shot up since the deal was announced in late November. Monthly revenues in February surged above 500 billion rubles, the largest monthly total since August 2015. The OPEC deal has been an inarguable boon to the Russian economy, with GDP expected to expand for the first time after several years of contraction. Related: Will Banks Allow Another Slew Of Oil Bankruptcies?

Moreover, Russia is benefitting from the higher oil prices that the OPEC deal sparked, while not having to sacrifice too much in the way of production. Russia has been a big financial winner from the output reduction agreed last year, Giovanni Staunovo of UBS Group told Bloomberg.

The agreement on the whole has been working, said Ildar Davletshin, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, in a Bloomberg interview. Russias reserves are picking up faster, increasing its economic resilience.

RBC Capital Markets chief commodities strategist, Helima Croft, said that she expects Russia to agree to an extension, especially with elections in 2018, which gives President Putin every incentive to keep oil prices from falling.

The OPEC meeting in late May will be without a doubt the most pivotal factor for crude oil prices for the remainder of the year. Oil could shoot up to $60 per barrel if the deal is rolled over for another six months, but prices could fall well into the $40s if it isnt.

So will Russia sign on to an extension? Things are looking good on that front. "Russia is on board preliminarily ... Compliance from Russia is very good. Everyone will continue on the same level," Kuwaits oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said at the UAE event this week. Marzouq even offered a teaser to reporters, hinting that an unnamed African country could join their production cuts after June, bolstering the agreement. The outlook from top OPEC officials seems more confident than ever.

Related: Alaska Needs Much Higher Oil Prices To Reverse Its Oil Fortunes

Still, it is not a done deal. Russias Rosneft said in March that the resurgence of U.S. shale poses significant risks to the OPEC deal, since cuts from OPEC and non-OPEC countries would merely cede market share to shale drillers.

Meanwhile, Russias energy minister put out an outlook for the second half of the year, which shows Russian oil production rising to 11.02 million barrels per day. Also, Russias Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said earlier this month that the oil prices gains from the OPEC deal have been disappointing.

But other than that, all signs from Moscow appear to be positive. Former Russian energy minister Igor Yusufov recently told Oilprice.com in an interview that the deal seems very productive, and an extension would contribute to the sustainable stability of international markets.

Well find out more next month.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Oil prices fell fast on Friday afternoon as traders see the rising rig count as yet another sign that the markets are still grossly oversupplied.

(Click to enlarge)

Friday, April 21, 2017

Oil is heading for its largest weekly drop in over a month as doubts resurfaced over OPECs resolve. That comes despite the highly optimistic comments from top officials from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There seems to be a growing consensus within OPEC in favor of an extension of the deal. But the one holdout could be Russia, without which an extension is uncertain. Russias energy minister Alexander Novak was guarded when asked about Russias support for an extension, declining to take a position while citing progress that has already been made in the reduction of oil stocks. "The situation has gradually been improving since the beginning of March," Novak said to reporters.

Goldman says ignore the crude selloff. Oil was down sharply over the past few days, but Goldman Sachs tried to reassure the markets, saying that there is no evidence to justify the price declines. The investment bank tells investors to keep their focus, pointing to ongoing declines in crude oil inventories, drawdowns that are expected to pick up pace this quarter. Goldman says this weeks price declines of about 4 percent were driven more by speculative moves than the fundamentals. As a result, prices should firm up.

Gasoline stocks rise unexpectedly. Goldman says there is nothing to worry about, but the U.S. EIA reported an unexpected increase in gasoline stocks last week, raising fears of softer-than-expected demand. The stock build sent a shudder through the oil market this week. If theres too much gasoline, then refineries turn off and thats bad for crude. This is the first week it has really been a concern, Sam Margolin, an analyst at Cowen & Co., told the WSJ.

Russia drilling in the Arctic, making technological progress on its own. The FT reported on Russias foray into the Arctic, describing the persistence from the state and the government owned-Rosneft to go it alone on some of the most complex oil projects in the world. International sanctions put on Russia back in 2014 were thought to prevent Russia from accessing the capital, drilling technology and expertise needed to tap oil in the Arctic as well as in Russian shale. But, the FT reports that sanctions have forced Russia to make progress on its own. Related: Oil Prices Crash Below $50 On Oversupply Fears

Global inventories falling. Oil inventories are declining around the world even as they remain near record highs in the U.S. OPEC compliance is high and the drawdowns are evidence that the OPEC deal is finally bearing fruit. But the market is still uncertain if the cuts will be enough to sufficiently drain stockpiles.

Glut of oil in North Sea. Brent futures have dipped into a contango, a warning sign that the Atlantic region is suffering from more supply than expected. The time-spreads could force oil onto floating storage if it widens further. "It will not take much before we see headlines about floating storage starting to increase again," Olivier Jakob, head of oil consultant PetroMatrix GmbH, told Bloomberg. The pricing structure suggests that the market is still oversupplied.

Global downstream sector suffering under flood of Chinese exports. China has overbuilt refining capacity, leading to an overabundance of gasoline and diesel in the Chinese market, pushing up refined product exports, according to the WSJ. The flood of gasoline and diesel from China is squeezing refining margins and inflicting pain on refiners around the world. The structural over-capacity in Chinese refining could keep a lid on crude oil prices.

Exxon gives XTO leeway to do its thing. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) is taking an unusual approach to its shale drilling unit, allowing XTO Energy, which is wholly owned by Exxon, to proceed with drilling in the Permian Basin with little oversight from corporate headquarters. Bloomberg reports that Exxons top brass is exempting XTO from much of the corporate bureaucracy in order to allow its drillers to move nimbly in the shale patch. The top-down and heavily structured approaches they use on megaprojectsbuilding a liquefied gas export complex or pumping crude that lies miles beneath the sea surfacewont work with shale, Bloomberg reported. Exxon recently paid $6 billion for a large swath of acreage in the Permian Basin in southeast New Mexico.

U.S. oil and gas industry entering new cycle of expansion. The rig count was up by 40 percent in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, employment is up by 9,000 people from its low point, drilling permits are up, and crude oil prices are much higher. These ingredients are creating a new cycle of expansion for the U.S. oil and gas industry, according to Texas Petro Index. Related: Oil Prices Fall Further As U.S. Rig Count Inches Higher

Dutch court investigating Exxon and Shell. A Dutch court ordered an investigation into a joint venture by ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) for potential criminal responsibility for causing earthquakes at the Netherlands large Groningen natural gas field. The earthquakes have damaged buildings in the Groningen province.

UK set to see first 24-hr period without coal since dawn of industrial era. The UKs National Grid said on Friday that the UK was in the midst of a 24-hour period without any coal-fired electricity, the first day without coal since the Industrial Revolution began more than a century ago. The UK government says it will entirely abandon coal by 2025. The increased use of natural gas and renewables are replacing coal.

Venezuela rocked by unrest. Caracas has ground to a halt amid the mother of all protests this week. Venezuelas economy has been in a spiral for a few years now, but the political crisis has deteriorated more recently. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to challenge what they view as the President trying to establish a dictatorship. Venezuela has emerged as a serious downside risk to global oil supplies because of the unrest.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Azerbaijans state-run oil company SOCAR will produce another 43,800 tons of oil and around 3.65 million cubic meters (129 million cubic feet) of gas per year after it commissioned a new well on the Guneshli offshore field.

The daily production from the well is 120 tons of oil and 10,000 cubic meters (353,100 cubic feet) of gas, Socar said on Thursday.

The Guneshli field is located offshore, on the prolific Absheron-Pribalkhan Trend, 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of the Absheron Peninsula. Guneshli is SOCARs largest fully owned asset and accounts for a large part of its oil and gas production. SOCAR operates the shallow water part on its own, while the deepwater part is developed jointly with foreign partners. SOCAR uses Guneshlis export revenue to subsidize the companys less profitable onshore fields, Wood Mackenzie says in a report on the field.

For the deepwater, Azerbaijan and a consortium of foreign oil companies signed back in 1994 a 30-year Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) for the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Guneshli (ACG) field. Foreign partners in the venture  alongside SOCARs 11.6 percent interest -- include BP, Chevron, INPEX, Statoil, ExxonMobil, TPAO, ITOCHU, and ONGC.

SOCAR has had troubles with a string of incidents on its Caspian Sea platforms. In December 2016, at least one oil worker died and another nine were missing, after an offshore oil rig operated by SOCAR collapsed into the Caspian Sea.

Related: What Does The Future Hold For Canadas Oil Sands?

In December 2015, more than 30 SOCAR workers lost their life after another offshore oil platformPlatform 10 at Guneshli fieldcaught fire during a storm. A more recent fire broke out at SOCARs Guneshli at the end of September 2016, although no one was reported injured from that incident.

Azerbaijan is part of the 11 non-OPEC nations that joined OPECs production cuts. Azerbaijan has pledged to cut 35,000 bpd out of non-OPECs 558,000 bpd share. Last month, Azerbaijan boasted a strong overcompliance with the cuts.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Mexicos energy giant Pemex is looking for partners for the development of two oil and gas-rich areas in the Gulf of Mexico, Maximino and Nobilis, unnamed sources have told Reuters. A spokesperson for the company confirmed that Pemex is in search for a partner, adding that the board will review the proposal.

If the board approves it, Pemex will approach the countrys oil and gas regulator to gain approval for the launch of a tender. Winners, according to the Reuters sources, could be announced in December. They will work with Pemex under the so-called farm-out contracts, which the Mexican government devised as part of efforts to attract more foreign investments for its energy industry after breaking down Pemexs monopoly.

Under Mexicos farm-out contract, the energy regulator is the one that chooses which foreign company will develop which field, rather than Pemex, which would usually be the case with farm-out contracts.

Mexico opened up its energy industry for private investment a couple of years ago, and last fall it held its first large-scale tender, offering 10 oil and gas blocks in the Gulf of Mexico. Among the winners were Chevron, Exxon, Total, Statoil, BP, and CNOOC.

With Pemexs monopoly now over after 75 long years, the auction will help to revitalize Mexicos energy industry with an influx of fresh investments. As a result, the US Energy Information Administration has upped Mexicos 2040 oil and gas production forecast by 76 percent.

Related: Reeling From Low Oil Prices, Saudis Look To Freeze Megaprojects

This, however, will only happen if the government holds more tenders. Last month, the National Hydrocarbons Commission warned that crude oil reserves fell by a tenth between 2015 and 2016, to 9.16 billion barrels. Since 2013, the decline has been more substantial, at 34 percent.

The head of the energy regulator, Hector Acosta, said along with the announcement that more new drilling is necessary, otherwise what remains of the countrys recoverable reserves will run out in less than nine years.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Russia has cut 250,000 bpd of its crude oil output, with another 50,000 bpd to go as per its agreement with OPEC, Energy Minister Alexander Novak told media today, adding that the other 50,000 bpd will be cut by the end of the month.

The undertaking took as basis the countrys record-high October output, which exceeded 11 million bpd. Earlier this month, Novak said that the ministry will start discussing Russias possible participation in the production cut extension that is currently being negotiated by OPEC members in order to increase prices further, having failed to push them up to $60 a barrel since the start of the year.

Novak said last week that It still remains unclear whether the agreement should be extended. Well have consultations with our companies and other countries in the nearest future, and we have to see how he situation unfolds in April and consider outlooks for May and June.

Separately, however, Novak said that crude oil output in Russia should hit a record-high 549 million tons (about 4 billion barrels) this year, despite the cut.

Just yesterday, Kuwaits Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouq said that Russia had given its preliminary consent to the extension. The minister was speaking on the sidelines of a conference in UAE, where Saudi Arabias top oil official confirmed that talks are ongoing and that consensus is building.

The need to extend the agreement, which was planned to cut off some 1.8 million bpd from global supply, became evident before the end of the first quarter, when it emerged that instead of declining, global supplies had actually increased.



Related: Oil Prices Fall Further As U.S. Rig Count Inches Higher

This was primarily attributed to excessive stockpiles and refinery maintenance season, which in the U.S. led to a string of seven-figure inventories increases, making markets nervous. Now that refinery maintenance is gradually ending across the world, demand for the commodity should pick up, especially in the second half of the year.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Three Canadian oil sands projects could be losing their British Petroleum backing soon, according to anonymous sources that spoke to Reuters on Thursday.

The British oil and gas company is reducing its role in non-core sectors of its business. Its 50 percent stake in the Sunrise project near Fort McMurray, Alberta, holds the highest value. The town was ground zero for the large forest fires that shut down one million barrels of output in the North American country last year.

BP owns another 50 percent stake in the Pike field, which is operated by Devon Energy. The firms third project is the Terre de Grace oil sands pilot project.

One of BPs spokesmen declined to comment at Reuters request, and other sources elected to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the coming sales. The people added that no final decisions regarding the three projects had been made, either.

One source said that selling off stakes in the projects would free up BPs capital for investments in the attractive Permian Basin, which has seen production grow substantially since prices began their slow ascent at the end of last year.



Related: Giant Libyan Oilfield Reopens After 2 Year Outage

Since the U.S. rig count bottomed out in May 2016, the industry has added 367 oil rigs back into action through April 18--the Permian accounted for more than 200 of those. No other shale basin comes even remotely close to those gains.

The surge in interest in the Permian continues to push up land prices in the area. Companies are paying more than $60,000 per acre, double the average paid back in 2014, and even twice as high as some deals signed in 2016. High land prices are not scaring away companies; interest in the Permian continues to rise.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
IS claimed killing of French policeman in Paris

A French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack carried out days before presidential elections and quickly claimed by the Islamic State militant group.



President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the "cowardly killing" on the Champs Elysees boulevard, in which the assailant was himself shot dead by police, was an act of terrorism.



The wide avenue that leads away from the Arc de Triomphe had been crowded with Parisians and tourists enjoying a spring evening, but police quickly cleared the area, which remained empty well into the night of all but heavily armed security forces and police vehicles.



Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said the man had been identified, but investigators were still assessing if he had accomplices.



A police arrest warrant issued earlier on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters after the attack, warned of a dangerous individual who had come into France by train from Belgium on Thursday. It was unclear if that man was the attacker or linked to the shooting.



Officers searched the home of the dead attacker in a town east of Paris, a police source said.



"The sense of duty of our policemen tonight averted a massacre ... they prevented a bloodbath on the Champs Elysees," Interior Minister Matthias Fekl told reporters.



"A little after 9 PM a vehicle stopped alongside a police car which was parked. Immediately a man got out and fired on the police vehicle, mortally wounding a police officer," Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.



France has lived under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France and Belgium and that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.



Witness Chelloug, a kitchen assistant, told Reuters he was walking out of a shop and saw a man get out of a car and open fire with a rifle on a policeman.



"The policeman fell down. I heard six shots, I was afraid. I have a two year-old girl and I thought I was going to die... He shot straight at the police officer."



The Islamic State group, which is being driven out of its areas of territorial control in Iraq and Syria by Western-backed coalitions and has hundreds of French-speaking fighters, claimed responsibility for Thursday's shooting via its Amaq news agency, naming the attacker as Abu Yousif al-Belgiki.



The claim came quickly and the naming of the assailant suggested a degree of direct contact with Islamic State. The group also claimed responsibility for a car attack in London last month killing four, but gave no name or details.



Police sources said the man was known to intelligence services. French television networks reported that he was a 39-year-old French national known for previous violent crimes.





Police authorities called on the public to avoid the area. The Arc de Triomphe monument and the top half of the Champs Elysees were packed with police vans, lights flashing and heavily armed police shutting the area down after what was described by one journalist as a major exchange of fire.



The incident came as French voters prepared go to the polls on Sunday in the most tightly-contested presidential election in decades.



"We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election," said President Hollande, who is not himself running for re-election.



Earlier this week, two men were arrested in Marseille who police said had been planning an attack ahead of the election.



A machine gun, two hand guns and three kilos of TATP explosive were among the weapons found at a flat in the southern city along with Islamic State propaganda materials, according to Molins.



That incident brought issues of security and immigration back to the forefront of the campaign, with the anti-immigration National Front leader Marine Le Pen repeating her call for Europe's partly open borders to be closed.



On Thursday, speaking after a television appearance, she said she was "deeply angry" as well as sad for the police victims "because not everything is done ... to protect our compatriots. They need more than our compassion."
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...
Mr Dominic Nitiwul, the Minister of Defence, says the Ministry is ready to collaborate with France to improve maritime safety and security in the Gulf of Guinea.



According to him, it was also high time Ghana cooperated with neighbouring countries to counter emerging threats like illegal fishing, piracy, other illegal operations, as well as challenges relating to oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Guinea.



A statement issued in Accra by Colonel Mbawine Atintande (rtd), Acting Director Public Affairs, said the Ministry would therefore work with France to address these and other challenges.



Mr Nitiwul was speaking at the Square, when he met with the French Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Francois Pujolas, in Accra.



He expressed concerned about illegal small-scale mining activities which, he said, was destroying lands and water bodies.



He said he had received complaints from Cote dIvoire expressing displeasure with Ghana over activities of the illegal small-scale miners.



The Ivoirians had complained that water bodies that take their source in the Western Region of Ghana were heavily polluted and threatened the livelihood of their nationals.



Illegal small-scale mining in Ghana had become an international challenge because some foreigners were involved. The Minister therefore asked France for support to curb the menace, Mr Nitiwul added.



The Defence Minister reiterated the long-standing relations between Ghana and France and expressed gratitude to France for the partnership in military training and support to Ghana in other areas.



Mr Francois Pujolas urged the Defence Ministry to work together with Cote dIvoire to share information to counter security threats like terrorist attacks.



The French Ambassador was accompanied by the Defence Attache at the French Embassy, Commander Guillaume Roquefeulle, among others.

Source: GNA









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For Immediate Release

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today called for an immediate, impartial investigation into the murder of a Congolese doctor slain at his home on the night of April 13. Dr. Gildo Magadju Byamungu was the medical director of the general hospital in Uvira, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). An obstetrician/gynecologist, Dr. Byamungu was a protege of Dr. Denis Mukwege, a longtime partner of PHR who has led efforts to treat survivors of sexual violence in eastern DRC and bring perpetrators to justice.

The following statement is attributable to Susannah Sirkin, PHRs director of international policy and partnerships:

Dr. Byamungus death is a tragic marker for all those who care for survivors of sexual violence. Congolese authorities must take every possible step to fully and impartially investigate his killing and hold the perpetrators accountable. For far too long, health professionals like Dr. Byamungu have been under threat, not just for treating their patients, but for speaking out on behalf of survivors of sexual violence and working for a Congo that will one day be free of unchecked violence. Dr. Byamungu will be remembered for his courage and his commitment to his patients. Our hearts are with his family, friends, and colleagues at this difficult time.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.
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.
FORT EDWARD  A teen who wrecked a stolen car early Thursday got traffic tickets but avoided criminal charges when the dealership that owned the vehicle declined to prosecute him and a friend for taking the 2017 Hyundai without permission, police said.

No one was injured in the 2:30 a.m. Thursday accident on Lower Allen Street near Park Avenue, which occurred as a 17-year-old who does not have a drivers license piloted a stolen vehicle to practice for his road test the next day, officials said.

Authorities described the case as follows:

State Police were called about a crash and found the new Elantra sedan had rolled over, but no one was with it.

The vehicle was registered to Lia Hyundai of Albany, and troopers learned it had been loaned to a customer from Saratoga County whose vehicle was getting repaired, State Police Sgt. Luke Splittgerber said.

State Police determined that the customers 18-year-old son had taken the vehicle without his mother knowing, and had gone to Hudson Falls to pick up a 17-year-old friend who wanted to practice for his drivers test the next morning. He has a learners permit.

The duo told troopers the driver lost control when a deer ran in front of them, causing the car to roll over.

The 17-year-old Hudson Falls resident who was driving could have been charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, but the dealership declined to file a complaint after consulting with its insurance company, police said.

He was issued numerous traffic tickets, including driving without a license, leaving the scene of an accident, failure to keep right and imprudent speed, police said.

The 18-year-old from Ballston Spa does not have a license either, and was ticketed for allowing unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, police said.

They told us he picked his buddy up because he wanted to practice for his road test the next day and they were driving around on back roads, Splittgerber said.

It was unclear whether he wound up taking the test.

Both were released pending prosecution. Their names were not released because of their ages.
World Direct Shipping will continue bringing refrigerated produce and other goods into Port Manatee from the Port of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz, while trade representatives from Colombia are seeking to boost ties with the Floridian Gulf Coast port.



Port Manatee has extended its agreement with World Direct Shipping to maintain its weekly service between Florida and Veracruz, and separately noted how it is looking to expand ties with Colombia.

In regards to the pact with World Direct Shipping, the Floridian Gulf Coast port said the agreement has been extended for another five years.

Under the agreement, World Direct Shipping has committed to bringing refrigerated produce and other goods into Port Manatee from the Port of Coatzacoalcos through 2019.

World Direct Shipping has been sailing between Veracruz and Port Manatee since 2014, carrying nearly 300,000 tons of cargo, including refrigerated produce to Florida and returning to Mexico with paper, recycled materials and over-sized cargo.

We are very pleased to have extended our agreement with Port Manatee as the ports proximity to Mexico has been very beneficial to us, said Carlos Diaz, director of World Direct Shipping. Our 2 1/2-day transit time offers the fastest short-sea connection between Mexico and the U.S. Southeast, Northeast and Midwest, and has led to the success of World Direct Shipping.

In addition to extended trade with Mexico, the port has seen increased interest with South American countries, particularly Colombia.

In an official visit to Port Manatee, Juan C. Barrera, general deputy director for the United States of ProColombia USA, said, We see significant opportunity for growing trade between our nation and Port Manatee. Both import and export opportunities exist for businesses in Manatee County and beyond, and we look forward to exploring these mutually beneficial possibilities.

Vanessa Baugh, chairwoman of the Manatee County Port Authority, said, Not only do we anticipate building upon the fertilizer trade, but we expect to grow our commercial links with Colombia in other commodity sectors as well.

Colombia is currently ranked as number nine for exports, propelled by fertilizer, and number 16 for imports, also led by fertilizer, Port Manatee said.

Trade options with more South American countries are on the table, with representatives of Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic having recently spoken at Manatee County Port Authority meetings.

Additionally, presentation meetings are tentatively scheduled for the coming months from trade leaders from Guatemala and Turkey.

Port Manatee is the closest U.S. deepwater seaport to the Panama Canal, with ten, 40-foot-draft berths serving container, bulk, breakbulk, heavylift, project and general cargo customers.
FORT EDWARD  Washington County officials approved on Friday a plan to spend asset forfeiture funds, despite opposition from one supervisor.

The county District Attorneys Office plans to spend $64,611 of money seized in criminal and civil asset forfeiture cases in 2017. Of that, $45,173 comes from federal asset forfeiture, with the remainder coming from state forfeiture.

District Attorney Tony Jordan said the money will be used in investigations and helping law enforcement.

Whitehall Supervisor George Armstrong commended Jordans office.

Its great that we can put these ill-gotten gains to good use, Armstrong said. I just turned 75 and Ive never had any problem with the law, so I have very little sympathy for those who have.

Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff, the lone no vote on accepting the funds, said its not that simple.

We talk all about indigent legal services, and its my understanding that the public defender does not represent forfeiture cases, Haff said.

He argued that, in cases of civil asset forfeiture, the charges arent against the accused, but effectively against the property they own.

Its not against you, its against the car you drive  bad car! Haff said. Property cannot be represented in court.

According to Cornell Law Schools Legal Information Institute, Haff is correct, at least when it comes to civil cases.

Unlike criminal forfeiture, civil forfeiture proceeds against the property, not the person, the groups website says.

Haff also said he was concerned about the source of the federal money, because the county has no way of telling if it was seized through criminal or civil asset forfeiture.

Civil asset forfeiture violates Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, because it does not require officers to convict someone of a crime before seizing their property, Haff said.

Armstrong defended the countys use of the funds.

Id love to see  without an increase in crime  a doubling of these funds, he said. We need to get this money out of the hands of people who denigrate our community.

Haff has long opposed the use of the money, citing cases from the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and multiple media reports. However, hes been unable to sway any of his fellow supervisors.

This year, $5,000 of the money will be used on drug and crime investigations, $25,000 on training, $26,612 on equipment and $5,000 for travel, transportation and awards.

Equipment the District Attorneys office will be purchasing includes surveillance cameras, identifying uniforms for on-scene investigations, computers and accessories and training equipment.

The issue has gained some national attention recently. Last month, Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., re-introduced legislation called the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act.

The bill would remove the profit motive, eliminate the equitable sharing program and require law enforcement to provide clear and convincing evidence before seizing funds, according to a press release from Pauls office.

No action has been taken on the bill yet. In 2014, a similar attempt from Paul never made it out of the Senate.

When reached by The Post-Star, Pauls office declined to comment on how the FAIR Act, if passed, would impact this program, saying, Well pass on commenting, but thanks for thinking of us.

In a press release, Paul said, The FAIR Act will protect Americans Fifth Amendment rights from being infringed upon by ensuring that government agencies no longer profit from taking the property of U.S. citizens without due process. It guards against abuse while maintaining the ability of courts to order the surrender of proceeds of crime.
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban gives President Donald Trump a middling grade for his performance so far as he nears the 100-day milestone in the Oval office.
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We produce contents across various categories including Politics, People, Love and Romance, Nature, Entertainment, Technology and pretty much everything else that Africans may find relevant.

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Tracing Isha Sesays Career Until CNN, Her Worth And Why She Divorce Her Husband As far as journalists of African origin go, Isha Sesay is one of the most famous on the continent  and by extension, the world. The Sierra Leonean and British journalist has had a successful career since she joined the industry in 1998. In that time, she has worked for a host of major media ...

Open Secrets of How Joanna Gaines Balances Her Career With Being a Wife and Mother Joanna Gaines is the co-founder of Magnolia Homes, a business she runs with one goal: converting houses to homes. She doubles as the lead designer of the company which she co-owns with her husband, Chip Gaines. Lady Gaines gained massive popularity when she became a co-star with her husband on the HGTVs show, Fixer Upper. ...

Juicy Details of Ayesha Currys Love Story With Stephen, Her Family Members and Recent Pursuits When your husband is one of the greatest basketballers that the NBA has ever seen, then it bestows on you the status of a celebrity wife  and may not even demand that you do anything extra to maintain that status. However, Ayesha Curry, the wife of multiple NBA champion, Steph Curry, is not one ...

What Is Tarek el Moussas Ethnicity, Why Did He Divorce His Wife and Who Is He Dating? Tarek El Moussa has made himself one of the most recognizable men on reality television, especially to fans of HGTV. Thanks to his expertise in the world of real estate, Tarek has become a national star. But even to his hardcore followers, there are questions about Tarek El Moussa that remain unanswered, such as his ...

Fun Facts About Natalie Beckers Lonely Childhood and Eventual Career Success Natalie Becker is an actress of South African descent who became famous for her appearance in films like The World Unseen and The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A multitalented individual, Natalie is also a television/radio presenter. She is also a co-founder of the Thought Leader Global Media which she runs together with ...

Top 3 Female CNN News Anchors You Didnt Know Were Africans CNN is one of the leading news agencies in the world. The satellite and cable news network was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner and has been one of the best sources of news for a number of years. It also boasts of the best journalists and presenters all around in media broadcasting. The company is a ...

Channels That Aided Katie Pavlichs Growth as a Journalist and All About Her Marriage To Friedson If you have ever come across any Fast and Furious featuring Barack Obama, it is the handiwork of Katie Pavlich. The book which claims to have exposed Obamas bloodiest scandal and the shameless cover-up thereof, has been earning Pavlich much praise and fame ever since it was published in 2012. Nonetheless, Pavlich is more famed ...

Is Oprah Winfrey Married? Husband, Children, Biography, House, Facts Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire philanthropist, talk show icon, producer, actress, and writer. The media icon famously dubbed The Queen Of All Media owns and hosts the highest-rated television program in the media circle. Read more about the powerful television star below. Oprah Winfrey Biography Oprah was born as Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954, to a ...

Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

Virginia Vallejo Biography And Her Love Story With Pablo Escobar Virginia Vallejo can be referred to as one of the oldest whistleblowers in history after her involvement with Pablo Escobar which made her famous. Over the years, many questions have been raised about her relationship with the drug lord and why she endangered her life to be with him despite his notorious acts. The death ...

Princess Love Bio  Ethnicity, Real Name & Parents For many people, Princess Love is simply Ray Js wife but there is so much more to this feisty lady than meets the eye. She is a star in her own right and has many feathers on her cap. Princess Love is a reality TV star, a model, video vixen, and fashion designer. She and her ...

Who is Papa Franku Also Known As Filthy Frank or Joji, Where is He Now? The social media as we all know today has given people the opportunity to be creative and innovative and at the same time, make something of themselves. YouTube is one of the known social platforms we have today that makes it possible for people to express their God-given talents and post videos they created to ...

Who Is Molly Qerim, How Did She Become a Famous Sports Anchor and Who Is Her Husband? Molly Qerim is an American sports anchor popularly known for moderating First Take, a highly rated sports talk show, on ESPN. Prior to joining ESPN, Qerim hosted Fantasy Live and NFL AM on NFL Network. It is quite obvious that the widely acclaimed television personality is in a class of her own when it comes ...

Safiya Nygaard  Height, Parents & Net Worth Safiya Nygaard is an American YouTuber, writer, content producer, and director who is popular for posting makeup, beauty and fashion videos on YouTube. Her videos regularly top at least one million views, thanks to her lively character as well as her willingness to experiment with outrageous outfits and different beauty products. Here are the things to ...

The Rigors of Sunlen Serfatys Career Journey Until CNN and Fun Facts About Her Personal Life CNN correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty is an Emmy Award-winning journalist known for covering a broad range of breaking news stories, national news, and Washington politics. She has been able to garner widespread recognition for herself which even goes beyond the sphere of her work. Her profile also increased with the extensive work she did in covering ...

Demystifying Jazz Jennings Real Name, Boyfriend & Family Of One The Youngest Transgenders Jazz Jennings is an unusual personality who became famous as a transgender activist and was recorded as the youngest documented public figure to be seen as transgender. She is also a YouTube personality and spokesmodel for brands, her fans, and other transgenders. She fought for acceptance in her high school with her super supportive family for over ...

Inside Fred Armisens Life  Ethnicity, Romantic Relationships and Gay Rumors Fred Armisen is an award-winning American comedian, he is also a writer, an actor as well as a musician. He was a cast member of the legendary comedy show, Saturday Night Live for 13 years and also one of the brains behind the successful satirical show Portlandia. Find out more about this incredibly talented guy ...

Ed and Lorraine Warren Biography: Cases, Kids, and Family Life Have you ever woken up with fear you could not explain, or felt a strange presence that made the hair at your nape rise or even experienced strange occurrences around you? Well, these were some of the promptings that made the well-known paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren delve into trying to explain the ideas ...

Truth About Tony Romos Wife, Kids and Life Since His NFL Retirement Tony Romo grew from the field as a quarterback to the screens as an American Football Analyst. He was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the richest football league in the world (NFL) before retiring. As a junior, he was honored as an All-Ohio Conference Member, an Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year and ...

Who is Brittany Venti, The Controversial Game Streamer and YouTuber? In recent times, many people live stream themselves playing video games. This has become a popular pastime on the internet and many highly skilled gamers have become internet celebrities through this means. However, some of them rather than becoming renowned for their gaming skills and great commentary, have become controversial and infamous. A good example ...

Rob Dyrdeks Family: His Kids And Relationship With Wife Bryiana Noelle Flores A multi-talented star and an elite pro skateboarder, Rob Dyrdeks success story began at a remarkably young age. Yet another proof that schooling doesnt always correlate with success, Rob has established himself not just as a phenomenal sportsman but also as a successful entrepreneur. Besides perfecting his skill as a natural talent on the board, ...

xChocobars  Biography and Everything You Should Know About Her Having distinguished herself and recorded massive successes in an industry notably dominated by men, it is very safe to say that Xchocobars deserves all the attention and cash she makes from her career. A household name on Twitch (a smart live streaming video platform), the online-gamer is popularly known for streaming classic games such as Stardew ...

Everything To Know About Mary Padian, Her Boyfriend and Net Worth Mary Padian is a famous American television reality personality best known for her involvements on the Reality show Storage Wars. She also has her own shop called Mary finds where she displays her antique collections. Since her childhood, Padian has been a creative learner. At the time, she used to create new items out of reusable ones and ...

Betsy Woodruffs Family Life: Is She Married or Related To Bob Woodruff? An old name in the world of journalism, Betsy Woodruff has warmed her way into the hearts of many with her impressive talents. Through hard work, Woodruff has carved a niche for herself in a very competitive field. Betsy has strong family and work values and is also an advocate for equal opportunities for everyone ...

Matpat (Matthew Patrick)  Wife, Height & Net Worth As far as internet business is concerned, Matpat remains one of the most dynamic and seasoned figures. He boasts a wealth of experience that has helped him in growing his business from one level of greatness to another. Like most successful people, MatPat started out small but today, he makes millions of dollars from his ...

Facts About Ricegum  His Girlfriend, Real Name & Net Worth Ricegum is an online gamer and YouTube sensation who ditched college; took advantage of the digital era, and made a name for himself on the internet. Though he began as a gaming YouTuber, Ricegum soon gained recognition as a controversial internet star following his many diss tracks. Here is everything you need to know about the youngster ...

Joy Taylor Once Married MLBs Richard Giannotti  Inside Look At Her Love Life and Family The erosion of the sexist idea that women have no business in sports broadcasting created a host of women celebrities who attained fame outside of modeling and acting. One of them, Joy Taylor, a radio personality and TV host for Fox Sports 1, has been in the industry since 2009, becoming one of the most ...

What To Know About Conan OBriens Wife, Kids & Family Today The name Conan OBrien is one that jumps right at you almost immediately you start talking about the most popular television hosts in the USA and this is no surprise because the man behind that name has risen to become one of the most admired men in the business. Known for hosting the late-night talk ...

David Letterman  Net Worth, Wife & Son In all of American, one man whose face has been seen frequently by late night TV talk show lovers is none but David Letterman. The comedian and TV show veteran has been hosting late night talk shows for more than three decades. His Late Night with David Letterman show began on February 1st, 1982 aired ...

Demystifying Sssniperwolfs Family Background And The Boyfriends Shes Had Since she launched her eponymously named channel in 2013, Sssniperwolf has been on the rise when it comes to video game influencers. She is one of the biggest names in the online gaming subgenre of YouTube videos. Real name Lia Shelesh, she started with Call of Duty: Black Ops II but has diversified with other ...

Lester Holt  Wife, Family & Net Worth Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, newscaster, reporter, and actor who has worked for notable media houses like WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC and among others. His remarkable feat in journalism has endeared him to the hearts of many and earned him some awards and recognitions. Read on to get acquainted with his biography, ethnicity, ...

What Is Louis C.K. Doing Now, Where Are His Family And How Much Is His Net Worth? It is not easy to make it in comedy. It takes more than a funny bone and the ability to elicit a few giggles from a listening audience. For all the complexities that go into making a successful career in comedy, Louis C.K, the Washington D.C-born comedian, did it. For years, he was at the ...

The Progression of Hoda Kotbs Career, Her Ancestry and Family Life Hoda Kotb gained fame as a television host and news anchor for NBC. She anchors the shows signature show Today, and it has been an excellent vehicle for her skills in front of a camera. Kotb has won several awards, including Daytime Emmys and Peabody Awards. Simply put, she is one of the most successful ...

Jerry Seinfelds Family: All About The Amazing Comedians Wife and Kids Apparently one of the highly important entertainers in America, Jerry Seinfeld is a man of many talents. A very funny man, he is considered to be one of the most successful comedians in the USA who has been in the business as a professional rib-cracker for more than 40 years. As an actor, he has ...

The Rigors Of Sarah Silvermans Rise To Prominence And Rundown Of The Men She Has Dated A comedian, writer, and actress, Sarah Silvermans art and craft is as unique as you would ever find. Her poignant use of comedy to discuss social issues such as race, sexism, politics, and religion has gained her an impressive following. As unorthodox as her style is, so is her life experiences. She previously suffered from epiglottitis ...

Who Is Hannibal Buress, Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend & Why Was He Arrested? Making people laugh when they are tense or not in the mood is a tough order and to ply the trade, it must indeed take some guts and expertise, this is what the humor maker, Hannibal Buress has been able to achieve and sustain after his inital teething process. The African-American is a screen writer, stand-up ...

The Success of John Mulaneys Career Efforts Since His Work On Saturday Night Live and Facts About His Wife John Mulaney had been working as a professional comedian for years before Saturday Night Live changed his status for life and like many who are now his fans, you probably did not know of him then. However, that changed when he joined the sketch comedy show in 2008. Since then, he has been one of ...

Jeff Dunham  Wife, Children and Net Worth Ventriloquism is a very subtle method of making an inanimate object (like a puppet, doll or dummy) appear to be saying words which are actually coming from the person (holding the inanimate object). In effect, the individual throws his/her voice to the puppet and can even appear to be having a conversation with it. Not ...

Ellen DeGeneres  Net Worth, Wife  Portia de Rossi & Parents Ellen DeGeneres is an American female standup comedian who has proven that whatever a man can do, a woman can also do. Since her journey as a standup comedian started in 1981, she has held swirl as one of the finest comedians America and the world at large has seen. She is often referred to ...

Revisiting Joan Rivers Death  The Daughter, Husband & Net Worth She Left Behind Joan Rivers was a renowned American comedian, TV host, writer, and actress. Her brand of comedy consisted of scathing one-liners and no individual or topic is spared. She hosted her own talk shows in the 80s and 90s and was a pioneer for women in stand up comedy. She was the first woman to host a late night ...

The Struggles of Margaret Chos Childhood, How It Influenced Her Career Growth and Love Life Margaret Cho is best described as a comic star who knows how to maneuver everything related to life into a rib-cracking joke. She is also known to criticize every social and political problem, especially those involving race and sexuality. Apart from her talents as a comic actress, she does amazingly well as a singer and ...

Where Is Eric Bolling Today? Who Is His Son & What Is His Net Worth? Eric Bolling who was once a notable figure on Fox News, is an American TV personality, an author, and versatile Journalist. As a political and financial analyst/commentator, he anchored discussions bothering on finance for Fox Business Channel. Here is everything there is to know about his career, family, and allegations that led to his exit ...

Who Is Chelsea Handler and Does She Have A Husband or Boyfriend? Chelsea Handler is one of Americas top female comedians. She is also an actress, writer, television host, producer, and activist. She is known to be very outspoken even with things that are very personal. In separate interviews with The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion twice when she was 16. She has authored five books ...

How Did Laura Lee Achieve Fame, How Much is She Worth and Who is Her Husband? Laura Lee is a popular American YouTuber, make-up artist and beauty blogger. From posting videos of her makeup routines on Instagram, Lee has transformed into a beauty influencer and a YouTube sensation. Today, her YouTube Channel has over 630 million views and 4.5 million subscribers. Asides having millions of followers across all social media platforms, ...

Madison Gesiotto Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Measurements Madison Gesiotto is no ordinary woman; although she excelled in quite a number of pageants and competitions while she was in school, it is her views on politics and issues in America that has made her name known to most people. She possesses beauty and intelligence in a seemingly equal measure and has been able ...

Who Is Lil Tay? Parents, Brother, Sister, Age, Net Worth, Ethnicity Child stardom is nothing new in the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, we have seen more stars made from the internet than ever before, and Lil Tay is one of them. Her uploaded rap videos trademark is cursing, swearing, cash-throwing, and use of obscene languages. Her fame went wild after she dropped ...

What To Know About Tig Notaros Wife, Kids and Family Today Tig Notaro is an American stand-up comic star, writer, actress, and radio analyst. Since she started her career in 2001, she has become one of Americas best comedians, particularly when it comes to observational comedy. One prominent aspect of her routine involves her family, which includes a wife and two children. Interestingly, Tig Notaro is part ...

Who Is Chantel Jeffries? What To Know About Her Age, Ethnicity & Net Worth Chantel Jeffries is a lady of many talents. Beyond being celebrated as a DJ, she has fared well as a model, an actress, musician, and as an artist. She first rose to fame on Instagram where she has a large following. However, in recent times, she has hit the spotlight for her rumored relationships with some ...

Is Ellen DeGeneres Married, Who Is The Brother  Vance DeGeneres and Family Members? Ellen DeGeneres is one of a kind celebrity in todays world as she has used her wealth for the greater good for many people. She has served a host of famous awards shows like the Grammy, Primetime Emmy and Academy Awards. Moreso, she is probably one of the most decorated entertainment personalities around the world and ...

Carli Bybel Bio  Height, Boyfriend & Net Worth Video blogging is now on the rise and YouTube is the place where most of it happens. If you are a lady who cares about her looks or a guy who likes to help his woman out with her looks, then one person whose name rings a bell when it comes to giving beauty tips ...

Who Is Lexy Panterra? What To Know About Her Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth Lexy Panterra is one of the YouTube personalities whose breakout came through the Twerk dance videos she posted on her social media handles and YouTube which has so far generated over 13 million views for her. From there on, she created her LexTwerkOut workout program in 2014. She is sure very talented as she as moved ...

Who Is AnneMunition? What Is Her Ethnicity & Does She Have A Girlfriend or Boyfriend? AnneMunition is a professional gamer and content creator of American origin. She is one of the most sought-after streamers on Twitch  a popular online platform for watching and streaming videos, especially video games. AnneMunition has almost half a million followers on Twitch and her channel has accumulated at least 13 million views. Her favorite games ...

Norm MacDonald  Former Wife, Son & Net Worth Recently, 59-year-old former Saturday Night Live stand-up comic Norm MacDonald caused a not-so-funny stir when he expressed his personal opinion about the #MeToo movement speaking in defense of Louis CK and Roseanne Barr. Following the backlash of his actions, he is diligently doing damage control for his questionable opinion by posting a public apology on ...

Inside Iliza Shlesingers Life With Husband and How Much She is Worth Now Witty, spontaneous, and truly humorous, Iliza Shlesinger is an American comedian who is clearly proving that the stereotypical claim that women are not really funny is not only incredibly wrong but completely outrageous. Having been in the game for more than 10 years, Shlesinger has grown bigger with each step, stunning fans with her incredible ...

Who Is Nessa Diab? Details of her Parents, Ethnicity & Relationship With Colin Kaepernick Nessa Diab has gained more fame as the girlfriend of different footballers than in her career. She is currently with the popular National Football League (NFL) player, Colin Kaepernick, and has stood by his side during his most trying times. Also known for her mononym, Nessa, she recently engaged in a tweet battle with the ...

Samantha Bee  Inside the Life of Full Frontal Comedian and Presenter We have over the decades seen various brands of humor and personalities who have walked the ropes. One of the formidable forces in the world of comedy is no other than the iconic Samantha Bee of the Daily Show who now runs her own television show on TBS channel. She is a Canadian-American political commentator, ...

What Happened To Jessica Williamss Boyfriend And Which Are Her Best Works? Jessica Williams is a woman who has a lot of feathers in her cap  and keeps acquiring more. The former senior political correspondent of the comic Daily Show, who is also a comedian and actress whose recent movie appearance include starring as a playwright just recovering from a recent split with her boyfriend, Damon, and ...

Who is Nicole Byer? Here are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Comedian Nicole Byer, an American comedian, actress, and writer, made a name for herself after she played supporting roles on MTVs prank show Ladylike and the reality show Girl Code. The latter was a series that featured comedians who analyzed in minute details, all the issues that young women deal with daily, from period to dating, to weird friendship dynamics and questions about sex. Currently, ...

A Closer Look At Bart Kwans Ethnicity, Height & Personal Life Bart Kwan is one of few Asians who is known for being successful in the comic industry at an international level. His fame broke out after the YouTube channel which he created with his close pal Joe Jo garnered up massive followings. The talented duo has been running the channel since 2007 and their success ...

Heres How VanossGaming Achieved Fame Online, His Worth and Other Facts About The Gamer For many years, the decision to drop out of college to pursue an online career was considered to be foolish and self-destructive by conventional wisdom. It was no different when Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, dropped out of college to pursue a YouTube career. However, that radical move paid off, and he stands shoulder to ...

Desi Perkins  Ethnicity, Net Worth & Husband YouTube is littered with videos of makeup tutorials by different people but if you are interested in learning how to do your makeup like a pro, there is just one person on that platform who you must follow. She is none other than Desi Perkins! She is a popular make-up artist, Instagram star, and vlogger. Desi, ...

The Phases of Casey Neistats Pursuits and His Love Story With Candice Pool YouTuber, vlogger, filmmaker, and creator extraordinaire; these are just a few hats that Casey Neistat wears and the story of how he got here is incredible. A native of Connecticut, Neistat started out by making refreshingly-authentic short films and videos that featured content that was based on everyday life and called attention to serious issues. He ...

Connor Franta  Inside The Life of American YouTuber YouTube has produced a lot of young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta happens to be one of them. Apart from being a YouTuber, the young American is also an entrepreneur, entertainer, and writer. His journey to fame began almost a decade ago when he started a self-named YouTube channel where he uploads content ranging ...

Rhett and Link  Bio, Who are Their Wives, Net Worth and Family Facts Rhett and Link refer to an American comedy duo who are very popular on YouTube. They are known for their comic songs, viral commercials, skits and the daily show, Good Mythical Morning. Good Mythical Morning is the most watched daily show online, averaging 100 million views in a month. The show has featured guests such ...

A Walk Through The Maze of Ryan Higas Career Pursuits And Relationship With Arden Cho Ryan Higa is not only celebrated as a YouTube star, but he is also famed for appearing on television screens as an actor and comedian. Nigahiga, his Youtube channel, has gathered over 20 million subscribers and billions of views with his different comic acts, short films, and music videos uploads. With the rise in his career, ...

What to Know About The Shows That Made Craig Ferguson a Star and His Family Ties Rising to the top of your profession can sometimes be a hard and difficult process. It requires days and nights of working consistently hard to be better than what you were yesterday. It requires not giving up when all of your experiences seem to be pushing you to quit. It is because of these challenges ...

David Dobrik Married Liza Koshy for One Month  Inside His Family and Relationships David Dobrik is a YouTube sensation who has garnered fame not just for his vlogs but his love life too. Given his career as a YouTuber, his channel is one place where he shares his romantic escapades. With a cute boyish look like his, this Slovakian young man is definitely a good catch, and not ...

Merrell Twins Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Boyfriend One of the beautiful things about modern life is social media. As rudimentary as it might seem, it could turn out to be the greatest thing that would be invented in the next 50 years because of its impact on human life. Very few tools have revolutionized human behavior and culture as much as social ...

Who Is Bunny Meyer, Is She Married & What Is Her Net Worth? Bunny Meyer is a YouTube celebrity who has amassed over 8.8 million subscribers with 1.5 million viewers on her channel. She is popularly known as Grav3yardgirl and is one of the highest-paid YouTubers in the world. She initially started out as a fashion designer and later chose the path of a YouTuber. Grav3yardgirl has used her knowledge on fashion, makeup, ...

Ninja  Inside The Life of The American YouTuber and Internet Personality Ninja is a talented video game player known for his mastery of Fortnite and other seemingly difficult games he plays with ease. The video gamer made a career out of what is ordinarily the hobby of many people and has since then amassed a huge online following. Find out about him here, including the controversies that ...

What Is Eva Gutowskis True Sexuality and How Did She Rise So Fast As an Influencer? Ever since Eva Gutowski joined YouTube in 2011, it has been an interesting journey for her, moving from one milestone to the other. Backed by an army of young women and teenage girl fans known as Evanators, she has risen to become one of the most-talked-about personalities in the digital stratosphere. She has also leveraged ...

Emma Chamberlain Biography  Age, Height & Net Worth Before now, people in the entertainment industry could only achieve popularity after many years of dedication and hard work but since social media came into the scene, massive success and overnight popularity became possible. That is the story of Emma Chamberlain who encountered fame as a fifteen-year-old. Emma is one of the many young people who became ...

Anna Akana  Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth There is a new crop of YouTubers known by their different contents with a very strong uniqueness that stands every one of them out, some upload video games, some fashion while some others have comedy video contents to showcase on their channels. Anna Akana has used her platform to showcase her comedy contents to the ...

Revealing Truths About Lilly Singhs Ethnic Background, Family and Her Relationship With Yousef Erakat Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian YouTube personality, actress, and comedian also known as Superwoman. She kicked off her YouTube career in 2010 with the launch of her channel IISuperwomanII and followed it up with a vlog channel in 2011. This paved the way for her fame and success which led to a world tour. The ...

Who Is Andrea Constand, Is She Married and What Is Her Connection With Bill Cosby? Many people got sexually molested but could not voice out due to the stigma victims suffer and what will become of them thereafter. Very few of the victims danm every consequence to seek justice and bring the perpetrator to the book, like Andrea Constand. She never got any media buzz, not until her friend cum molester; ...

Who Is Lazarbeam (Lannan Eacott)? Here Are Facts You Need To Know Lannan Eacott became a person of interest after his YouTube channel, LazarBeam pulled him to the limelight. Initially, he started with uploads of Madden Challenge videos before deciding to build his own channel in January 2015. Within the space of three years, his YouTube channel had gathered over 7 million loyal subscribers. Today, he has not ...

Puzzling Facts About Wengies YouTube Success and More About Her Fiance Among the many YouTubers who have succeeded in winning the hearts of millions of people is Wengie. She is a Chinese-Australian YouTube personality, vlogger, singer, and voice actress. Wengie is famous for a lot of things, from her simple life hacks, DIYs, craft ideas to fun experiments, tricks and pranks. Her content portfolio also includes hair tutorials, diet & fitness tips, lookbooks, ...

Is Jeffree Star A Billionaire and How Much Does He Make On YouTube? If looks can be deceptive then theres no other person who proves this maxim better than Jeffree Star. A quick look at Stars pictures would likely leave you wondering whether or not to tag him a male or female. But who says being controversial has to be a curse? For Star, his looks have caught ...

The Place of Rosanna Pansinos Career Hats In Her Rise To Fame and Facts About Her Personal Life There are a few phrases that could summarize Rosanna Pansinos rise to fame. None of them can do it better than the famous axiom, no knowledge is lost. Her popularity YouTube comes out of her foray into other professions, specifically acting. Although acting now occupies one of the major professional hats in Rosannas resume, it was ...

Muselk (Elliott Watkins) Biography  Age, Girlfriend and Net Worth The new and best in-thing in terms of career is video gaming and we have over time seen young men and women make massive income from an activity that was purportedly designed to serve as a hobby or a relaxation activity. One of such individuals is the Australian-born YouTube Celebrity and Twitch streamer, Muselk, whose ...

PopularMMOs Biography: 5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know We have over the years seen social media millionaires, especially on the YouTube social platform. These celebrities cum millionaires have made names for themselves after carving out niches on the internet, and a typical example of one of such exciting media personality on the YouTube is American Minecraft gamer and YouTube star, PopularMMOs whose channel ...

Jason Nash Once Married Marney Hochman  What To Know About His Ex-Wife and Kids The now-defunct video-sharing app Vine was the path that led Jason Nash to fame. With it, he built an audience of over two million followers, which he parlayed into a significant YouTube career. That move has seen him become one of the most popular personalities on the internet, with the cash income to go with ...

Where Does Dantdm Live? What Do We Know About His Net Worth, Wife and Brother? Most parents buy video games for their kids to occupy their time leisure, while other parents frown at their kids when they play video games. Despite the disparity, every parent would be proud of their child if he/she eventually turns a celebrity or millionaire through playing video games like Dantdm. Biography of Dantdm Dantdm was born Daniel ...

LaurDIY  Biography: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTuber LaurDIY is the YouTube channel of Lauren Riihimaki which she created on December 1, 2011, when she was still a college undergrad with the sole aim of giving Do It Yourself (DIY) as well as practical fashion and beauty tips to her followers. She has used the channel to establish herself as a YouTube personality ...

Lachlan Ross Power  Bio And Family Life Of Australian The YouTube Star It is amazing the varied sources of income that the internet has made possible in this day and age. Internet fame can get its holder a whole lot of monetary and social benefits, but it must be noted that it does not come easy or cheap. For those who desire fame, content is the sacrifice ...

Alfie Deyes  Bio and Net Worth: Everything You Need To Know Alfie Deyes is one internet personality you definitely would like to know about. He boasts of over 10 million subscribers on three of his YouTube channels and has three bestseller books to his name. He is probably the most renowned young personality on YouTube today and his vlogging empire continues to grow by the day. ...

Colleen Ballingers Love Story With Husband Erik Stocklin and How Much She Is Worth Now Colleen Ballinger is an American comedian and YouTuber who is a very funny, adventurous, and highly talented woman. She is also an actress, singer, and writer. Collen is widely known for her work on YouTube where she posts content on her channel, Miranda Sings. The comedian has gained many subscribers over the years and has ...

Who Are The Dude Perfect Members and How Much Are They Worth? Entertainment in the 21st century can be digested in many forms and with platforms like YouTube, the creators and purveyors of entertainment have been democratized. Today, one of the most popular platforms to exhibit ones creative talents is YouTube, even though there are other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, who suffer in comparison to YouTube because ...

Who Is Rudy Mancuso, What Is His Earning Power and What Do We Know About His Girlfriend? Rudy Mancuso started his internet journey on Vine. He would later transition to YouTube where he solidified his place among the internets most beloved comedic creators. He is now regarded as one of the renowned internet personalities in the world, with a presence in mainstream TV and film projects like Comedy Centrals Drunk History and ...

Vsauce (Michael Stevens) Biography and Net Worth: All You Need To Know The advent of YouTube and the internet as a whole revolutionized how human beings consume information. With each passing year, the percentage of learning that is done in a traditional classroom decrease as a seismic shift to internet-based learning happens in our education industry. From open courses online to YouTube classes and videos, there are ...

How did Jake Paul Make His YouTube Big Break and Who is His Wife? One of the most interesting Social Media personalities of the 21st century is the young and popular Jake Paul whose elder brother is the famed Vine star, Logan Paul. Jake has utilized the power of the internet to bring himself to the limelight with a channel named JakePaulProductions that has amassed up to six billion ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About Reaction Time (Tal Fishman)  The American YouTuber Before 2015, the leading meaning of reaction time was the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, until Tal Fishman started his channel, Reaction Time on YouTube and the dominant meaning changed. Today, a google search of Reaction Time would deliver Tal Fishmans videos and YouTube channel link with a few physics ...

Grace Helbig  Net Worth, Boyfriend and Family Life of The YouTuber Grace Helbig is an American internet personality, comedian, actress, and writer. She became popular due to her daily vlog series, DailyGrace, which ran on My Damn Channel from 2008 to 2013. Helbig is also popular for her own indie series on YouTube, ItsGrace, which she launched in 2014. Her vlogs which feature random stuff such as ...

Mark Wiens Bio  Ethnicity, Wife and Parents Food is a great way to connect with people. We all love to eat, if not for the pleasure of food, the satisfaction of quenching hunger, and the very process of providing and sharing that food is part of the strongest bonds that bind humanity together. Maybe it is our historical connection to food, where ...

Is Filthy Frank Dead, What Happened To Him and How Much Is He Worth? As George Kusunoki Miller, he was a nobody. However, as Filthy Frank, George was one of the most famous internet personalities on the planet. The Filthy Frank Show, a sketch series on his YouTube channel, TVFilthyFrank, was one of the platforms most influential creations. He is the reason a crazy dance song, Harlem Shake, made it ...

CaptainSparklez Bio  Net Worth, House and Cars of The Famous YouTuber Sometimes, what society wants from its citizens is quite different from what the citizens want for themselves. This is evident in the life and career of video blogger and American YouTube personality, Jordan Maron famous for his YouTube channel CaptainSparklez. He dropped out of school after discovering his talent in playing an online game called Minecraft. ...

Who is Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg)? Here are Facts You Must Know Canadian Youtube personality, Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg) originally started out polishing and designing nails even before it became a trendy culture in the social media. Simply Nailogica started out her showbiz career in her early days as a child actress, acting in commercials for game and toy companies. Aside from acting, she is blogger, vlogger, specializing ...

5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know About Huda Beauty In the world of entrepreneurship, it is interesting when an individual has a mentor who he/she looks up to, this yield more productivity on the part of the individual. The iconic and rich American beautician and makeup artist Huda Kattan nicknamed Heida is the founder of the Huda Beauty blog which is number one Instagram beauty blog ...

Is Dino MasterChef Gay? Details About His Ethnicity, Girlfriend, Where He Is Now Food, for the better part of the early years of human life, was nothing more than what we needed for survival. There was no artistry or curation to the method of cooking. The scarcity of food left no room for artistic expression until we figured out agriculture and we could make as much as we ...

Who Is Gabbie Hanna And How Did She Become Famous? As the world shifts to digital media and depends more and more on streaming services for its news and entertainment content, YouTubers have become one of the leading creators in the new media world. Their understanding of the online audience: how to create, maintain, and increase followers, are all handy skills that have primed them ...

Jacksepticeye  Height, Girlfriend & Net Worth Jacksepticeye is a YouTuber and actor who gained popularity with a series of gaming videos he uploads on his channel to the delight of millions of his subscribers. He is Known primarily for his comic video game series titled Lets Play and his vlogs. His channel was formerly ranked 46th in the list of most subscribed ...

Chris Heria Personal Details: About His Wife, Height & Ethnicity Background In this generation, keeping fit has become one of the major criteria for being hale and hearty. In fact, most occupations these days are majorly concerned with ones body mass, weight and looks. Unlike the past where most people have to register in a gym to keep fit, social media has made it quite easy ...

Everything You Need To Know About Game Grumps Gaming is becoming incredibly popular on YouTube these days with game vloggers make millions of dollars out of them yearly. One of the most popular up-coming gaming YouTube channels is Game Grumps. The Lets Play series was created in 2012 and celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 18th, 2017. In six years of its existence, the ...

Daithi De Nogla Biography, Girlfriend and Net Worth YouTube has created an avenue for many to make wealth and become famous from the comfort of their homes while having fun. Many have built a career out of the platform, uploading numerous videos that have earned them the admiration of viewers across the globe. For Daithi De Nogla, he is loved for his humorous commentary on ...

Does Phoebe Robinson Have A Boyfriend or Husband and What Do We Know About Her Family? Phoebe Robinson is a New York-based comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-host of the WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens. Just like some other female comedians, she never had any original plans of becoming a stand-up comedian even though, according to her, she took a class on a whim at Carolines on Broadway. After ...

Who Are Lex and Alana from Listed Sisters? What Is Their Ethnicity & Is the Show Cancelled? America is a country built on diversity. Everywhere you look all over the country, a countless number of immigrants or children of immigrants have become an integral part of the fabric of the country. From entertainment to business, immigrants are creating a niche for themselves and climbing to the summit of their respective professions. One ...

Riveting Facts About Danielle Lombard And What She Is Best Known For The American entertainment industry is one that provides many avenues for aspiring hopefuls to express their talents and become famous. From films to television shows and game shows, there is no shortage of ways for men and women who desire fame to pursue and earn it in the United States of America. Another tested medium ...

Unearthing New Details About The YouTube Success And Personal Life of Alex Burriss of Wassabi Productions Wildly hilarious and truly audacious, Alex Wassabi is an American YouTuber who has become a very popular face on the video-sharing platform after having garnered millions of subscribers over the years by keeping people glued to his channel with his witty parody video releases. If you have always loved parody videos, there is every chance ...

Everything You Need To Know About H2O Delirious H2O Delirious whose full birth name is reported to be Jonathan Gormon Dennis has successfully kept himself mystified by hiding his face behind the masks leaving his loyal fans speculating who he really is for many years. The American YouTube star is easily identified by the Jason Mask Style with make-up which he wears on his ...

Who Is HolaSoyGerman and What Happened To Him? German Garmendia has certainly seen it all when it comes to internet success. His channels, HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman are in the top twenty most subscribed channel on YouTube. The Chilean YouTuber found a way to tap into one of the worlds greatest inventions and make a living from it. He has been able to build ...

Who Are Glenn Becks Family, What Is His Net Worth And What Happened To Him? The American political commentary space is filled with different personalities. A few of them, through their rhetoric, charisma, and resources have been able to build a large following of men and women who listen to them for insight and direction for various political and social issues in the United States. For Conservatives, the story is ...

Following Charissa Thompsons Rise Through The Ranks Of Sports Casting and All About Her Boyfriend Superstar TV host and sportscaster, Charissa Thompson, has been hailed as one of the highest-profile women journalists in America, and the reason is there for all to see. She has worked for popular establishments such as Versus, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, GSN, and Big Ten Network. She currently hosts the popular pre-game show, Fox NFL Kickoff, ...

Is Chris Kattan Gay or Does He Have A Wife? What Is His Net Worth? Chris Kattan is a popular American comedian and actor. He has appeared in several comic movies and TV series such as The Middle, A Night at the Roxbury and Bunnicula. Kattan is, however, most popular for his six-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. During his time on the legendary show, he ...

Everything You Should Know About the Rise of Insta Star Claire Abbott and Why She Gave It All Up A lot of young Americans have shot into the limelight for uploading different kinds of videos on YouTube. Some of these young stars include Connor Franta, Desi Perkins, Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan Twins (Ethan and Grayson), and Claire Abbott. The latter became a social media celebrity for uploading sexy bikini pictures of herself on social media. Apart from ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTube Channel  h3h3Productions H3h3Productions is a YouTube channel that specializes on Comic responses or reactions of other contents or trendy stories. The celebrity couple that created the channel has over time racked up sizable views for their commentaries and contents. Even though they had their own fair share of copyright cases, thankfully they scored an unprecedented victory in all ...

Lilypichu Bio  Height, Brother and Love Story With Albert SleightlyMusical Chang Like most popular internet celebrities, Lilypichu is one of those Twitch streamers who spend their lives on camera. From daydreaming about the possibility of becoming a full-time professional streamer, she grew to live out her dreams on the popular live streaming platform where people play games, make crafts, and showcase their day-to-day activities. Given the rise of ...

KSI  What To Know About His Girlfriend, Brother  Deji Olatunji & Net Worth Assuredly, when Internet inventors Vint Cerf and Bob Khan created the technological masterpiece, they probably did not know how massive the creation will be harnessed by many for different purposes including as a platform for earning money through content creation. One of such person who smiles to the bank regularly today for spending time creating ...

The Interesting Progression and Highlights of Carrie Keagans Career as a Host and Actress Carrie Keagan has garnered huge fame through her various stints on television. She is not just your regular TV host but one with a difference. Keagan has hosted several high profile events and TV shows, including VH1s Big Morning Buzz Live and Fox News Channels Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. However, not many know she ...

The Gist On Elise Jordans Marriages And Her Rise To Prominence Political commentaries tend to be boring when it is handled by someone who does not have a knack for it. However, when you see the likes of Elise Jordan run the same commentary, you will have a lot of reasons to look forward to watching her again as the journalist is well-versed in the field ...

What Is Timmy Thick Best Known For and How Successful Is The Star? Thanks to the internet, many people whose talents would have ordinarily gone unnoticed have become famous. A very good example of this modern-day internet celebrity is Timmy Thick, an American social media star. He became popular on Instagram due to his penchant for posting raunchy pictures of himself. He also often posted videos of himself ...

What Does Heather Storm Do For a Living and Who Is She Dating? Reality Television is a great way to make a name for oneself as well as amass a fortune. Heather Storm can attest to this as she is one of those who have made a name and earned a lot from reality TV. She made her name appearing on shows like Car Fanatics, Awesome Autos, and, ...

Matt Carriker Biography  Net Worth, Wife & Height Unlike your regular veterinary doctor next door, Matt Carriker chose to spice up his noble profession with the unusual. Though he is known to many as a medical practitioner, Carriker is better renowned as a YouTube star and an animal lover. Having recorded huge successes on his various YouTube channels, the vet doctors name and ...

Jillian Mele of Fox News Career Achievements, Husband & Measurements There are quite a good number of presenters on radio and television who listeners and viewers may never wish to miss any of their shows because of their sensational golden voice, beauty or the special way or artistry they anchor their shows. Jillian Mele is one of such. She has been at the top of ...

Who is Gillian Turner of Fox News? Her Fiance or Husband and Net Worth Gillian Turner is well-known as a news correspondent for Fox News Channel but before she became a TV personality, she built an intimidating resume working for different institutions, including the American government. She served in different capacities at the White House National Security Council during the administration of former US Presidents  George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ...

Gloria Govan Bio  Age, Ethnicity & Height Even as Gloria Govan is famous as an American actress, author, a TV host, and reality television star, shes more popular as the wife of the former NBA player, Matt Barnes. She became known after appearing on the Florida version of the reality television series, Basketball Wives and later, Basketball Wives: LA  after Matt was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Sadly, ...

Michael Fishmans Interesting Start as an Actor and Why He Divorced His Wife of Many Years When one door closes, another one opens. As silly as that axiom may seem, it is the story of the resurgence of Michael Fishman, who plays D.J Conner on the popular show, Roseanne. Having played the character for several years as a child actor into his teenage years; when the show originally ended, Michael did ...

Who Is October Gonzalez  Tony Gonzalezs Wife? All You Need To Know October Gonzalez is a popular American TV host and media personality. Additionally, she is also a model. Gonzalez has hosted several TV shows such as Beat Shazam, Entertainment Tonight, and Rachel Ray. She has also featured in several reality TV shows. Gonzalezs fame is not just due to her profession but also because of her ...

Who Is Tony Berlin  Harris Faulkners Husband: His Children and Family Facts Tony Berlin is a popular American media guru. He has variously worked as a reporter, anchor, and producer for some of the biggest TV networks in America. They include CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC (where he hosted the popular Good Morning America). Berlin has now diversified into public relations and owns his own PR firm. ...

The Progression of Gianna Tobonis Journalism Career and Details About Her Marriage to Kyle Buckley Gianna Toboni may not be your ideal newscaster but her unusual reporting is what made her a household name. The American journalist is renowned for her hard-hitting and authentic reportage. A motivator and activist for total press freedom, Gianna loves to explore pervasive cultural issues. Not only does this unique and ambitious journalist call for all ...

Dog The Bounty Hunters Family Including Details of His Late Wife and Kids Popularly known as Dog, a name which he got from the television series, Dog The Bounty Hunter, Duane Chapman, an American bounty hunter, and one-time bail bondsman, went from being convicted for a felony to being a reality TV star. He was brought to the limelight following the capture of the convicted criminal, Andrew Luster in 2003 and this eventually made ...

Vicky Karayiannis, Chris Cornells Wifes Bio, Children and Family The world of showbiz is made up of different people who serve different roles, and function in a variety of capacities, and one of the most important people are those in the background. Publicists are undoubtedly one of these background people yet they are vital to the life and fame of most of our favorite ...

Joe Rogan Has A Step-Daughter and 2 Other Kids With Wife Jessica Ditzel  Meet His Family Joe Rogan is a popular American stand-up comedian and TV host. His journey to stardom began in the late 80s and has seen him host several shows, the most popular is the game show titled Fear Factor. The exciting show dares contestants to face some of their greatest fears and embark on challenging stunts. The ...

Josh Gates and Wife Hallie Gnatovich Have 2 Kids But Who Has the Higher Net Worth? Best known for his explorations and adventures, Josh Gates, is a television presenter with a voracious appetite for seeing the world and the beauties in it. Some of that beauty, however, is in his home, in the form of two children he shares with his wife, Hallie Gnatovich. Not excluded is their marriage which has lasted ...

Holly Sonders Wiki, Plastic Surgery & Why She Divorced Her Husband  Erik Kuselias After trying everything within her capacity to have a low key wedding, Holly Sonders was drawn to the public because of her husbands controversy at his workplace. Well, the two are rumored to be divorced but the article below will give more light on how true these rumors are. Meanwhile, Holly Sonders is yet to ...

Nadeska Alexis Bio  Age, Boyfriend & Net Worth Journalism is one diverse profession that allows the practitioners to choose their area of specialty, build a career on it by reporting the truth and facts which in the long run will distinguish them as deserving commendation and recognition among their peers. Some choose to specialize in political journalism, while to others it is sports ...

Media Platforms Charlamagne Tha God Has Explored and All The Controversies He Has Courted Charlamagne Tha God is an American on-air personality, radio presenter, and more recently, author. He is popularly known as a co-host on New York radios nationally syndicated show, The Breakfast Club, a program he has been hosting alongside DJ Envy and Angela Yee since 2010. However, his early years had no connection to his current career ...

A Look At Jimmy Fallons Net Worth and Family Including His Wife & Kids Sometimes, a childs passion for something is a pointer to what he/she would become in the future. As a child, Jimmy Fallon was literally obsessed with watching the late-night comedy program, Saturday Night Live (SNL). Then, his parents would tape the clean parts for him to watch and later, he and his sister would re-enact sketches from the ...

Kay Adams Biography  Does The Sportscaster Have A Husband or Boyfriend? When you hear the phrase sports enthusiast, women are hardly the first group that comes to mind. Well, thats changing pretty fast. Especially with the rise of female sports analysts and broadcasters like Kay Adams who is famed for knowing more about sports than most men do. And why not, shes paid handsomely for it ...

Ben Shapiros Family  Meet His Wife, Kids and Sister Who is Popular for the Wrong Reasons A multi-talented man, Ben Shapiro is a man of controversial nature, an attribute that has made him an unusual public figure. An intellectual whose career path was clearly defined even before he became a man, the Jewish conservative commentator has always had his way with words. He became popular by sharing his critical and often ...

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 ...

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Who is Josina Anderson of ESPN? Her Husband and Family Facts There has been a gradual paradigm shift in the world of sports which has today produced the likes of Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and other female athletes that are pulling great feats in different sporting fields. Their achievements have also been followed by the emergence of female sports journalists such as Jillian Mele, Eboni Williams, ...

Is Brittany Wagner Married, Who Is The Husband, How Old Is She? Brittany Wagner has been an inspiration to a lot of sports youngster. She has won the hearts of many athletic students with her role as a life coach and an academic counselor. She is well groomed in her career and has worked over a decade for The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and The National ...

Tati Westbrook Bio  Age, Husband & Net Worth With five videos dished out every week, alongside running her own brand, beauty guru, and YouTube superstar Tati Westbrook has proved to the world that theres utterly no impossibility or limit to whatever one is passionate about. Tati is best known for being the owner and manager of the worlds most-viewed beauty and lifestyle YouTube channel, ...

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Tucker Carlsons Love Story With Wife Susan Andrews, their Children and Net Worth Today On the TV screens, Tucker Carlson is that fiery fellow who passionately dishes out his conservative and often controversial views on issues of national importance. Such brazenness has fetched him many enemies, especially on the left-wing, but it has also helped him cement a reputation as one of the foremost broadcast journalists in America. His ...

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The Progression of Howard Sterns Career As A Media Personality And Why He Divorced His First Wife Howard Stern is a legendary American radio host, who has also done some notable work as an actor, producer, author, as well as photographer. The radio personality achieved worldwide fame as a result of his self-titled radio program, The Howard Stern Show. As a professional radio personality, he has worked in different radio stations. Since 2006, ...

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Dissecting Charles Paynes Sexual Allegations, Its After Effects and More About His Wife Charles Payne had a respectable career as an analyst on Wall Street before he made the transition to television and became a contributor and later a host on Fox. In that time, his expertise has come under scrutiny, and he has been at the center of at least one major controversy. The major controversy in question ...

Erik Asla And Tryra Banks Split: Everything You Need To Know Tyra Banks and Erik Asla have called it quits! The couple, who began dating in 2013 and have a son named York Banks Asla, has decided to end what everybody taught was the perfect relationship. Neither person has come out to give a reason for the breakup, but what is obvious right now is that ...

What to Note About Dr Terry Dubrows Qualifications, TV Works and Marriage to Heather Kent In the realm of people that we expect to see regularly on our screens, medical doctors are closer to the bottom of the list. Aside from the fact that their work has little correlation with TV, they are presumably too busy to pursue life as TV personalities. Yet, a few of them have usurped this ...

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Vigen Sargsyan sees his future still as the Minister of Defense of Armenia.

April 21, 2017, 11:26 Vigen Sargsyan hopes to continue working as Armenia defense minister

STEPANAKERT, APRIL 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: When askedat a press conference on Fridayhow he saw his professional future, Sargsyan responded that he wished to continue working as defense minister.

The Minister expressed hope the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) will provide him that chance.

I want to continue my service to the Fatherland as Defense Minister, as I have said many times before, and I hope I will have that chance, he said.

The Minister said he will be one of the happiest men if he has a chance to continue his work as Defense Minister.

Parliamentary election was held in Armenia on April 2. During the first session of the newly formed Parliament the Government must resign and new Government will be formed.
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The Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires declared for the promotion and defense of human rights the central act for the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish State, to be held next April 24 under the slogan Memory, truth, justice and reparation during the session on Thursday 20 April, Prensa Armenia reported.

April 21, 2017, 13:08 Buenos Aires declares April 24 Day of Armenian Genocide commemoration

STEPANAKERT, APRIL 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: The resolution, presented by Legislator Jose Campagnoli, president of the Commission on Human Rights, Guarantees and Antidiscrimination of the Legislature, with the co-author of Carlos Tomada, second vice-president of the Legislature, will be presented on Monday, April 24 in front of the residence of the Ambassador of Turkey, after a rally organized by the institutions of the Armenian community.

In that sense, the Legislature also approved, on the initiative of Legislator Javier Andrade, an adhesion to the activities that will be carried out that day.
The probability of adopting a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide is under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Ambassador of Armenia to the Czech Republic H.E. Tigran Seyranyan told ARMENPRESS.

April 21, 2017, 13:26 Possibility of adopting resolution on condemning Armenian Genocide under discussion in Czech Republic

STEPANAKERT, APRIL 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: The Armenian Genocide has been recognized and condemned by President of Czech Republic Milos Zeman, the foreign relations committee of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament, officials and parliamentarians, the Catholic Church of Czech Republic, many other structures and renowned figures. He possibility of adopting a resolution in this regard is also under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, the Ambassador said.

On April 14, 2015, the foreign relations committee of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which condemned the denial of genocides.
David McNew/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Treasury Department announced Friday that it will not waive sanctions for ExxonMobil to drill in Russia.



The move ends what could have been seen as a controversial conflict of interest for the Trump administration, with the oil giants former CEO Rex Tillerson now leading the State Department.



In consultation with President Donald J. Trump, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.



Exxon applied for a waiver from U.S. sanctions against Russia so that it could move ahead with a deal negotiated by Tillerson in 2012 to partner with the Russian state-controlled oil company, Rosneft. The deal would have allowed the two companies to work on projects exploring and drilling for oil and natural gas in the Kara Sea and Black Sea.



It is unclear when Exxon applied for this waiver, whether it was before or after Tillerson was sworn in, and for which specific deal they asked sanctions to be waived.



The State Department has said that Tillerson will recuse himself from any issue involving Exxon for two years.



He is not involved with any decision made by any government agency involving Exxon during this time period, a State Department official told ABC News Thursday.



Still, critics were quick to point to the waiver application as a potential conflict of interest.



Considering Russia's continued aggression in the Ukraine, its interference in our elections on behalf of the Trump campaign, the Trump Administration's many suspicious ties to Russia and the Kremlin, and the fact that Trump's own Secretary of State led ExxonMobil, alarm bells should be going off for the American public, said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. I have long said that we need to keep a watchful eye on Rex Tillerson.



The sanctions were implemented by the Obama administration in 2014 in response to Russias annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine. Those sanctions prohibit U.S. businesses from providing goods, services, or technology to five Russian energy companies, including Rosneft, the countrys largest oil company -- freezing the partnership with Exxon.



At a ceremony overseen by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tillerson in 2011, Exxon and Rosneft signed a Strategic Cooperation Agreement -- a partnership to jointly develop projects in Russia, the U.S. and around the world. The two companies later agreed to more ventures, including the 2012 deal for development in the Kara and Black Seas.



The announcement from Treasury comes amid still unanswered questions about ties between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign and transition teams. Two Congressional committees are still investigating the matter, as well as the FBI.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
There are 200 or more viruses that can cause a cold. These viruses infect a persons upper respiratory tract and are often grouped under the acronym, URTI.

So what is the difference between the common cold and influenza? Most people when they catch a cold should rest and drink plenty of water.

This year a single injection offering some protection against four strains of flu is being offered to the Australian population based on flu varieties currently circulating in the Northern Hemisphere.

HEIGHTENED awareness of the oncoming influenza season in Australia raises questions about whether Papua New Guinea is ready for a predicted severe flu epidemic.

A cold can lead to complications in people who are not in the best of health or those who catch a secondary infection, but most colds last just a few days before the person recovers.



While influenza is also a virus, its effects can be severe, especially in children, the elderly and those whose health has been weakened by other medical problems such as AIDS.

Viruses are not controlled by antibiotics which can only control bacterial infections. In many countries, the over prescription of antibiotics has had the unwanted result of creating super bugs that are now resistant to many antibiotics.

A virus can usually only be caught once and if the person recovers, they are usually immune from that strain of virus for life. However the nature of viruses is that they mutate quickly and immunity against a newly mutated virus rarely exists.

PNG has many other communicable diseases. Water borne diseases such as typhoid can be caught due to poor personal hygiene. Mosquito carried diseases like malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya can be prevented by ensuring you arent bitten.

Fungal diseases on the skin like tinea imbricata (grille in Tok Pisin), can be caught through contact with others who have this condition but may take some time to fully develop.

Viruses are extremely contagious. They are transmitted through personal contact or through the transfer body fluids or through the air when someone who has the virus sneezes or coughs, releasing hundreds of thousands of viruses into the air.

The infection can be transmitted simply by breathing in some of these.

Personal contact like shaking hands can transmit the virus unless the hands are washed well. However, this is not always practical or good manners.

Freezing a virus doesnt kill it. Only boiling infected material like a handkerchief for several minutes will kill most viruses.

The only way a person may have some immunity from catching a strain of influenza is to be inoculated against it. Inoculations against influenza are prepared by pharmaceutical companies and government laboratories that prepare injections containing parts of the virus but not the complete virus.

After being inoculated, a persons immune system creates antibodies against that variety of virus. The person doesnt catch the disease from the injection. Sometimes there may be a reaction as the body manufactures the antibodies. Some people may believe they have caught the disease but this is not so.

Some people believe inoculations are dangerous but medical authorities refute this as a falsehood.

There are currently a number of warnings about the oncoming flu season in the Southern Hemisphere. Health warnings in Australia have advised the flu viruses infecting the Northern Hemisphere are about to arrive.

The number of people now travelling by air ensures viruses can be taken around the world within a short space of time.

Even before modern air travel, the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 infected over 500 million people and resulted in the death of 50-100 million. The infection was helped to spread by the mass movement of people due to war.

My grandfather volunteered for the Australian Army in World War I. Stationed in England, on the night before he was due to be sent to the front in France, he went to sleep and woke up three days later. Hed caught the Spanish flu.

Even after he recovered, his health was so affected by the flu that he was sent home as an incapacitated veteran. He was never strong again.

Spanish Flu killed far more people than battle casualties in World War I. The death rate among Australian servicemen in that war (62,000) was roughly equivalent to the death rate of those who contracted this variety of influenza.

The origins of Spanish Flu are not known however it is thought that it may have originated in China in poultry and leapt the species barrier as have many recent virus outbreaks like bird flu and swine flu.

Recent studies on how a flu epidemic may affect PNG have revealed some important conclusions.

Comparing two cities of similar size, one in PNG and one in Australia, it was found that due to PNG having a larger young population and greater contact between individuals, there was a far higher risk of a flu infection quickly spreading throughout PNG.

The problem with an influenza epidemic is that it spreads quickly in heavily populated areas and often overwhelms health authorities.

PNGs health system is not well resourced and rural populations which contract influenza and are severely ill may have little opportunity to access public health facilities.

Public awareness of how people catch influenza is important in reducing its spread. In many Japanese cities, people can be seen wearing face masks in an effort to limit spreading infection.

The use of tissues rather than handkerchiefs is encouraged since these paper products can be disposed of in public garbage bins or burnt later.

Group immunity is another factor that is important to help protect individuals. If a group of people have some immunity to a disease, individuals are less likely to acquire it.

In developed countries annual flu shots (inoculations) help increase the communitys immunity to infection. In PNG, annual flu inoculations are often not available, especially in rural areas.

The most important aspect of any disease however is awareness of how it can be caught and what to do if you catch it. Access to health facilities is important if complications arise.

This is a significant factor for PNG public health officials to consider and have contingency plans ready should a pandemic occur.
Atacama Desert, Chile NASA

Few places are as hostile to life as Chiles Atacama Desert. Its the driest place on Earth, and only the hardiest microbes survive there. Its rocky landscape has lain undisturbed for eons, exposed to extreme temperatures and radiation from the sun.

If you can find life here, you might be able to find it in an even harsher environment  like the surface of Mars. Thats why a team of researchers from NASA and several universities visited the Atacama in February. They spent 10 days testing devices that could one day be used to search for signs of life on other worlds. That group included a team from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, working on a portable chemistry lab called the Chemical Laptop.

With just a small water sample, the Laptop can check for amino acids, the organic molecules that are widespread in our solar system and considered the building blocks of all life as we know it. Liquid-based analysis techniques have been shown to be orders of magnitude more sensitive than gas-based methods for the same kinds of samples. But when you scoop up a sample from Mars, the amino acids youre looking for will be trapped inside of or chemically bonded to minerals.

To break down those bonds, JPL has designed another piece of technology, a subcritical water extractor that would act as the front end for the Laptop. This extractor uses water to release the amino acids from a soil sample, leaving them ready to be analyzed by the Chemical Laptop.

JPL team Chiles Atacama Desert Chemical Laptop Automated extractor. The Chemical Laptop, a life-detecting device designed for other planets, was recently tested in Chiles Atacama Desert. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

These two pieces of technology work together so that we can search for biosignatures in solid samples on rocky or icy worlds, said Peter Willis of JPL, the projects principal investigator. The Atacama served as a proving ground to see how this technology would work on an arid planet like Mars.

To find life, just add water

Willis team revisited an Atacama site he first went to in 2005. At that time, the extractor he used was manually operated; in February, the team used an automated extractor designed by Florian Kehl, a postdoctoral researcher at JPL.

The extractor ingests soil and regolith samples and mixes them with water. Then, it subjects the samples to high pressure and temperature to get the organics out.

At high temperatures, water has the ability to dissolve the organic compounds from the soil, Kehl said. Think of a tea bag: in cold water, not much happens. But when you add hot water, the tea releases an entire bouquet of molecules that gives the water a particular flavor, color and smell.

To remove the amino acids from those minerals, the water has to get much hotter than your ordinary cup of tea: Kehl said the extractor is currently able to reach temperatures as high as 392 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius).

Liquid samples would be more readily available on ocean worlds like Jupiters moon Europa, Kehl said. There, the extractor might still be necessary, as amino acids could be bonded to minerals mixed into the ice. They also may be present as part of larger molecules, which the extractor could break into smaller building blocks before analyzing them with the Chemical Laptop. Once the extractor has prepared its samples, the Laptop can do its work.

This automated extractor uses water, high pressure and high temperature to release amino acids trapped inside of soil samples. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASAs own tricorder

The Chemical Laptop checks liquid samples for a set of 17 amino acids  what the team refers to as the Signature 17. By looking at the types, amounts and geometries of these amino acids in a sample, its possible to infer the presence of life.

All these molecules like being in water, said Fernanda Mora of JPL, the Chemical Laptops lead scientist. They dissolve in water and they dont evaporate easily, so theyre much easier to detect in water.

The Laptop mixes liquid samples with a fluorescent dye, which attaches to amino acids and makes it possible to detect them when illuminated by a laser.

Then, the sample is injected onto a separation microchip. A voltage is applied between the two ends of the chip; each amino acid responds to that voltage at a different speed, allowing them to be identified by how quickly they move. A laser shining at the end of the chips channel allows the Laptop to detect light emitted from the dye as the molecules move.

The idea is to automate and miniaturize all the steps you would do manually in a chemistry lab on Earth, Mora said. That way, we can do the same analyses on another world simply by sending commands with a computer.

The near-term goal is to integrate the extractor and Chemical Laptop into a single, automated device. It would be tested during future field campaigns to the Atacama Desert with a team of researchers led by Brian Glass of NASAs Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

These are some of the hardest samples to analyze you can get on the planet, Mora said of the teams work in the Atacama. She added that in the future, the team wants to test this technology in icy environments like Antarctica. Those could serve as analogs to Europa and other ocean worlds, where liquid samples would be more readily plentiful.

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OWASCO  U.S. Rep. John Katko visited Cayuga County Friday to highlight his recent calls for more federal funding to support water infrastructure projects in central New York.

Katko, R-Camillus, held a press conference at Emerson Park in Owasco to outline the need for more federal aid to help communities improve water infrastructure.

Specifically, Katko said he supports doubling two state revolving funds for clean water and drinking water projects. He spearheaded a letter that was sent to House Appropriations Committee leaders calling for increased federal aid for the two programs. The letter was signed by 77 House members from both parties.

New York has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the state revolving funds, Katko said.

"Funding needs to be increased because demand is skyrocketing," he said.

Katko also wants more money for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Water and Sewer Loan and Grant Program and the U.S. Geological Survey's Toxic Substances Hydrology Account. The latter funds research of harmful algal blooms.

Auburn, Owasco and communities served by Owasco Lake have dealt with harmful algal blooms in recent years. In 2016, toxins from blue-green algae entered the water supplies for Auburn and Owasco. The levels of the toxins didn't warrant a public health emergency, but officials are concerned that the problem could worsen this summer.

Katko backed providing $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative  a program President Donald Trump wants to eliminate. The congressman also wants adequate funding for other programs, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, which can be used to protect the environment in and around the Finger Lakes.

While Owasco Lake is on Katko's radar, he acknowledged water infrastructure challenges in other parts of the 24th Congressional District. Oswego has experienced sewer problems, he said, and Syracuse has dealt with water main breaks and ruptured pipes.

Similar problems have been reported across the country.

"Every day that we allow our nation's water infrastructure to deteriorate further, we risk public catastrophes like the one that occurred in Flint, Michigan last summer," Katko said, referring to the lead contamination in Flint's drinking water supply.

Local officials are backing Katko's call for more federal funding.

Auburn Mayor Michael Quill said the city would benefit from additional aid. Auburn, along with the town of Owasco, recently received $2 million from the state to make water system upgrades. Both municipalities are studying ways to protect drinking water supplies from the blue-green algae toxins.

"If we were to lose this lake for whatever means, it would be devastating to our community  the city of Auburn and the entire county," Quill said.

Owasco Supervisor Ed Wagner touted the benefits of one federal initiative supported by Katko  the USDA's Water and Sewer Loan and Grant program.

The town secured funding through both programs to improve its water and sewer infrastructure. The sewer financing allowed the town to take 200 homes off of septic systems on Owasco Lake.

The sewer project cost about $6.1 million, Wagner said. An additional water infrastructure project in the town cost $3.6 million.

"We have plenty of water and we need to protect it and make sure that it can get to homes and businesses safely and easily," Katko said.
AURELIUS  State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon appeared in Cayuga County Thursday to highlight the 2017-18 budget and how it benefits central New York.

One of the main initiatives in the budget touted by Reardon is the Excelsior Scholarship, which provides students whose families earn no more than $125,000 annually with free tuition to New York's public colleges and universities.

The scholarship was first proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in January. There were some provisions added to the final version of the tuition-free benefit, including a requirement that students who receive the scholarship must remain in New York after graduation or the aid will become a student loan they must pay back.

Critics have questioned everything from the residency requirement to whether the tuition-free college program will be an effective method for addressing college affordability.

Reardon, though, sees many benefits with the launch of the Excelsior Scholarship.

"I think it's magnificent. I really do," she said. "It's not a silver bullet. There's a lot of things that go into equipping young people for their future. There's no question that education beyond high school is going to be a requirement. It may not be a four-year college. It may be a two-year school. It may be an apprenticeship. It may be certificate programs. But very few people are going to be able to make a good living with a high school education."

Reardon conceded that it won't cover the entire cost of a college education. The Excelsior Scholarship will only apply to tuition costs. It won't cover other expenses, such as books and room and board.

The distribution of the scholarship is more complex than simply granting free tuition to students who qualify. Before receiving the aid, students must apply for federal Pell grants and support through the state's Tuition Assistance Program. Any funding received through those programs will be applied first. The remaining cost will be covered by the scholarship.

The program's benefits, supporters believe, will extend beyond college affordability.

Reardon thinks the scholarship will help address low on-time graduation rates in New York. In a letter to the New York Times, State Budget Director Robert Mujica said New York's on-time graduation rate at four-year schools is 39 percent. At community colleges, it's 9 percent.

With the Excelsior Scholarship, Reardon thinks this is a "real opportunity" for students who either want to earn their bachelor's degree, or may want to earn an associate's degree for completing a program at a community college.

"I think it's a great idea. It's a big idea," she said. "It's a first step. It's not the last step."
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand visited central New York Friday and spoke out against proposed cuts to two federal programs.

President Donald Trump, in his budget blueprint released this spring, called for the elimination of funding for the National Endowment of the Arts and the National Endowment of the Humanities.

The NEA and NEH each received nearly $148 million in federal funding in the latest fiscal year. Both programs provide funding to support arts and humanities projects across the country.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said New York institutions received 538 grants from the NEA in 2016 totaling more than $17 million. The state also received 111 grants from the NEH worth more than $12.6 million.

"If these programs are taken away, it would particularly hurt communities and towns like those through central New York," she said.

During her stop in central New York, Gillibrand visited the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The museum has received funding from the federal government, including NEA grants.

Natalie Stetson, executive director of the Erie Canal Museum, said the support from the NEA and other federal programs allows the facility to "remain relevant" to a new audience.

"The Erie Canal Museum tells a national story, reaches a national audience and relies on federal funding to serve our constituents in new and creative ways," she said.

Trump's proposed cuts to the NEA and NEH have been met with opposition in Congress, which controls the budget process. Even fellow Republicans have opposed the president's attempt to eliminate the arts and humanities funding.

U.S. Rep. John Katko, who represents four central New York counties in Congress, opposes Trump's effort to completely slash NEA and NEH funding.

Gillibrand has been one of the most outspoken members of the House or Senate on the NEA and NEH funding issue. In February, she joined nearly two dozen of her Senate colleagues in signing a letter urging Trump not to eliminate funding for the NEA and NEH.

"We should never allow these programs to be cut, and I will continue to do everything in my power to stand up for communities that don't have a lot of resources and rely on these programs," she said.
Workers from Brandt Construction Co. in Milan went on strike Thursday demanding safer working conditions as well as better pay and benefits.

Supported by members of the Quad-Cities Coalition for Worker Justice, about 30 people lined up in front of Brandt at 11:30 a.m. Thursday for a rally.

Scott Jones of Moline is a Brandt foreman who has worked for the company for 29 years, while his wife Cathy is a laborer who worked for Brandt for 16 years.

The Joneses stood on the picket line, Cathy Jones said, to support the striking workers and our fellow workers with the issues that continue to go on.

Theyre not giving the appropriate number of work staff, so we are working short-staffed and it puts the workers in unsafe situations not having enough people out there to watch traffic and everything when there should be, Cathy Jones added.

Representatives of Brandt did not comment on the rally.

Cathy Jones said enough workers must be present on each job to ensure the job is done safely and efficiently so everyone goes home at night.

She added that workers have questions about their wages but they have not been able to get them answered.

Sheilia Burrage of Davenport, a member of the Communications Workers of America Local 7110, Dubuque, said she supports the workers in their demands.

I am very concerned, she said. Physical labor means you put in all the blood, sweat and tears and you die with your aches and pains from your labor.

Burrage said the companys president, Terry Brandt, has been misled. His father built this company from the ground up and he built it by being fair and safe. I hope someone will sit down and get through to him. His father did not start this company for it to end up like this.

A similar rally was held at Brandt in September as two dozen people picketed in support of former workers of the company who had been injured on the job and were fired after walking out on strike.
On a now barren industrial site where generations of workers churned out Big Red combines, a pair of Hyatt hotels are finally giving East Moline its shot at riverfront development.

Fighting strong winds that swept across the sprawling site, developers of The Bend on the Mighty Mississippi broke ground Thursday on a dual-branded Hyatt Place and Hyatt hotel. The $40 million hotel project, being built on the former Case IH site, is part of an $80 million mixed-use development planned by Great River Property Development.

Using gold-painted shovels and donning matching hardhats, the development team and city leaders dug up scoops of gravel mix to kick off construction. More than 150 supporters  including past, present and future East Moline officials and business and economic development leaders  were on hand to witness the milestone in the city's development.

"It's taken a long time to get all the right pieces together," Dan Murphy, the president and CEO of Great River Property Development, said after the ground-breaking. "It took awhile, but it finally came together."

First announced in December 2010, The Bend project has had many chapters and re-inventions with changes to its ownership group and building designs as well as legal wranglings and a complex financing structure. Earlier this month, Dallas-based HALL Structured Finance, a private lender to the real estate industry, announced it had closed on a $23.2 million first lien construction loan with developers for the Hyatt House and Hyatt Place hotel.

"This is not just East Moline's day, it is the Quad-Cities' day,'' said East Moline Mayor John Thodos, who was presiding over what likely is his last major economic development project. On May 1, he hands the reins to Mayor-elect Reggie Freeman, who also participated in the ceremony.

"It's been a long road. People said, 'It ain't going to happen, not in East Moline,'" said Thodos, who inherited a vacant Case IH plant with the mayor's office. "It's happening here, and I'm very proud it's happening here."

The 150,000-square-foot hotel will be a single structure with two Hyatt brands. It will feature an illuminated blade element and a ninth-floor, glass-enclosed lounge.

The 233-room hotel was designed by Legat Architects, with an office in Moline, and will be built by Russell Construction, Davenport. The hotels will include 99 extended-stay rooms in the Hyatt House and 134 traditional rooms in the Hyatt Place.

Murphy said that once crews get to work on the site, construction will take about 14 months. The hotel is being developed by The Bend Hotel Development Corp., which is a partnership between Murphy, the former owner of Precision Pipeline, and Larry Anderson of East Moline Glass.

This marks the first major development project for Murphy, a Silvis native, who now lives in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with his wife, Jenna, who joined in the festivities.

The lengthy planning process  nearly six-some years  was a common thread among the speakers.

Contractor Jim Russell thanked the owners for keeping the project going and eventually bringing his company to the team.

"We did a lot more than be a builder to get to today. We helped convince the ownership group to fire all the first architects," he quipped.

Originally, the project had enlisted a Chicago developer, several world-renowned architects and was much larger in scale. The first phase of the project now includes the Hyatts and an apartment building, being developed by East Moline Glass' Anderson. Future commercial and office uses are expected in the long-term.

Tim Knanishu, the executive vice president of REDEEM East Moline, said The Bend not only will transform the riverfront but create hundreds of jobs and drive economic development downtown.

"It's going to give downtown merchants the impetus to examine how can they help this amount of people, perhaps 200 every night, who are looking for something to do," he said.

The project also brings East Moline its very first hotel in the city limits.

"There are two listed in the phone book in East Moline, but they're actually Carbon Cliff," Thodos said.

The development also creates additional revenues for the city, including a new hotel/motel tax, Mayor-elect Freeman said.

"Other cities have a lot more revenues, better than ours," he said. "East Moline has not had an economic development person for seven years. This is one of the first big steps."

Olympia Companies will be the hotels' operator when they open in 2018. The company's president and CEO, Kevin Mahaney, said its workforce will be made up of Quad-City employees.

"The people living here will be welcoming people (guests) from around the world," he said. "They will be the face of this project for 20, 40, 50 years.

"Hyatt is very excited about this. They are committed to building a quality project here."

Jerry Lack, executive director of Tri-City Building and Construction Trades Council, estimated the construction project will create 200 jobs.

"We're finishing up on some others," he said of the Campus Optimization Project at Genesis Medical Center-East Rusholme in Davenport. "But others are starting to go up, like the Hyatts and John Deere Road. They're all great jobs for the building trades, and when they make money, it gets circulated throughout the community."
A Florida woman sentenced in March to two years on probation in Broward County, Florida, on a charge of third-degree grand theft is now facing 16 felony charges after she cashed stolen checks in Davenport and Bettendorf, police said.

Elizabeth Ann Shamel, 37, who gave Bettendorf and Davenport police home addresses in Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach, Florida, is charged by Bettendorf police with four counts of forgery, one count of second-degree theft, one count of identity theft and one count of conspiracy.

Davenport police have charged Shamel with six counts of forgery and three counts of second-degree theft.

According to the arrest affidavit filed by Bettendorf Police Sgt. Brad Levetzow, Shamel admitted that she and her boyfriend, Marcus Levon Felder, 27, are part of a group that is in the Quad-Cities committing the thefts.

Felder is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a non-forcible felony.

All of the charges are Class D felonies that carry a prison sentence of up to five years.

Bettendorf Police Capt. Keith Kimball said that, We have had several of these groups come here and do this. They stake out fitness centers, daycare centers and the like. They target females who are leaving their purses in their cars or in their lockers. What they want is to get the womans identification and debit cards and check books so they can go around to different banks and cash checks and since they have an ID it all looks legitimate.

According to the arrest affidavits filed by Davenport Police Detective Errol Walker, on Saturday, Shamel went to three different I.H. Mississippi Valley Credit Union locations to cash stolen checks made out for more than $2,000. At 11:50 a.m., she cashed a check at the I. H. Mississippi Valley Credit Union, 2839 AAA Ct., Bettendorf. At 12:28 p.m., she cashed a stolen check at the branch at 2102 E. Kimberly Road in Davenport. Then, at 1:23 p.m., she cashed a check at the credit union branch at 3646 W. Kimberly Road, Davenport.

According to Levetzows affidavit, two Davenport women reported to Davenport police on Saturday that their purses were stolen from their vehicles.

On Monday, Shamel cashed three stolen and forged checks totaling $6,470 at the Ascentra Credit unions at 2339 53rd Ave., and 1710 Grant St., in Bettendorf, and 1515 W. 53rd St., Davenport.

Then, Tuesday morning, Shamel tried to cash another forged check at the Ascentra in Moline, but the credit union had a security alert on the checks and names, and Shamel fled.

Kimball said that Bettendorf officers were able to locate the car Shamel was driving and in which Felder was a passenger. They pursued the car into Moline where officers were able to stop the car by a car dealership near SouthPark Mall.

Felder tried to flee on foot but was quickly taken into custody.

The vehicle Shamel was driving had a rear Florida license plate covered by a stolen Iowa license plate.

Officers seized from the vehicle checks that had been stolen in Waukee, Iowa, and Memphis, Tennessee, as well as $2,791 in cash.

They were taken to the Rock Island County Jail. They waived extradition and were placed in the Scott County Jail on Wednesday. Shamels bonds total $50,000 cash-only, while Felders bond is set at $10,000 cash-only.

According to Broward County, Florida, court records, Shamel pleaded guilty to a charge of grand theft third-degree on March 1 and was sentenced to two years on probation.

On March 14, she pleaded guilty to a charge of grand theft in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was sentenced to eight days in jail.

Felder has convictions for burglary, grand theft third-degree and assault on a law enforcement officer in Broward County. He also has pending cases of burglary and strong armed robbery in Broward County and burglary, eluding and grand theft in Palm Beach County.
DES MOINES  A divided Iowa Supreme Court on Friday upheld a warrant to search a suspected drug dealer's residence, even though a deputy and a judge didn't properly fill out the authorizing paperwork.

The 4-3 ruling underlined divisions among the justices on whether officers and judges must be held to exacting standards or if seemingly minor bureaucratic oversights can be excused.

At issue was a warrant application that Scott County Sheriff's Deputy Dan Furlong prepared in 2015 to search a Davenport home where Maurice Angel lived.

Furlong, who had tracked Angel's movements for weeks, didn't sign the application spelling out why he thought there was probable cause. But he swore to the information under oath before District Court Judge Henry Latham, who signed the warrant. The judge failed to circle words in two spots indicating he found probable cause, as required.

Days later, officers searching the property found cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, along with two young children. Prosecutors filed drug charges against Angel and a woman, Kemia B. McDowell, who lived there, who also was charged with child endangerment.

District Chief Judge Marlita Greve later granted their motion to throw out the evidence found during the search, saying the warrant didn't comply with the law because it lacked a signature. She said Latham's failure to circle the two words supported her decision.

Writing for the majority Friday, Justice Edward Mansfield said Furlong's oversight was inadvertent and that the application was legal because the law doesn't require the applicant's written "oath or affirmation." He said there was no doubt that Latham found probable cause to issue the warrant.

Dissenting Justice Brent Appel said he thought the warrant was invalid because the law requires the applicant's written signature and the issuing judge must make clear the finding of probable cause.

Praising Greve's ruling, Appel said the process of obtaining a search warrant to authorize police to raid a home is "not a bureaucratic bother in which a lackadaisical, close-enough attitude toward legal requirements is good enough." He said judicial review of the warrant process must be "highly detailed and demanding," given the constitutional rights at stake.

"This court, however, falls well short of the mark by endorsing a sloppy, poorly executed search warrant process," he wrote.

Mansfield was joined by Chief Justice Mark Cady and Justices Thomas Waterman and Bruce Zager. Justices David Wiggins and Daryl Hecht concurred with Appel's dissent.

The case now returns to Scott County District Court for further proceedings.
Clinton police: Threat not credible

Clinton police have determined that a threatening post made on social media directed at Clinton High School students and staff is "not credible," police said Friday in a news release.

Police were notified about 9:30 p.m. Thursday about threatening posts made on Instagram. The posts were directed at Clinton High School students and staff and were to occur Friday.

Within three hours of the threat, police investigators and school resource officers from the police department were able to identify the source of the Instagram post and determined the threat was not credible. Police said a 15-year-old has been charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the threats.

 Times staff

Man injured in Thursday night shooting

The Davenport Police Department is investigating a shooting that left a 19-year-old man with non-life-threatening injuries.

Around 11:28 p.m. Thursday, police were called to the 3700 block of Esplanade Avenue for a report of shots-fired. No damage was reported.

While police were en route, the man arrived at Genesis Medical Center-East Rusholme Street.

No arrests have been made. Detectives are following up to determine if the two incidents are related.

Anyone with information is asked to call police 563-326-6125 or submit an anonymous tip via the departments mobile app, CityConnect Davenport, IA.

 Times staff

10,000 turkeys killed in Wapello fire

WAPELLO, Iowa  More than 10,000 turkeys were killed Thursday morning after a barn southwest of Wapello caught fire.

By the time crews arrived at Gentle Ben's Turkey Farm, a 40-foot by 250-foot turkey barn already had collapsed and been consumed by fire, according to a news release from Wapello Fire and Rescue.

More than 10,000 juvenile turkeys died in the fire, and the total loss and damage is estimated at $300,000.

The fire was reported around 11:11 a.m., and Wapello Fire and Rescue was dispatched to the farm at 7530 K Ave.

Crews isolated the electric and natural gas utilities and removed the steel roofing panels to better fight the fire. Firefighters continued extinguishing flames until 3:52 p.m. The fire was aided by high winds, a heavy fuel load and sawdust bedding.

Thirty firefighters responded to the scene, and Wapello Fire and Rescue was assisted by Oakville Fire Department, Morning Sun Fire Department, Columbus Junction Fire Department,Wapello Community Ambulance, City of Wapello Public Works, Louisa County Sheriffs Office and the Wapello Police Department.

 Sarah Ritter
Costco mania is coming to Davenport.

The city of Davenport teased the economic development news on its Facebook page Thursday morning and have confirmed that the largest membership-only warehouse store is coming to the city.

A spokesman for Costco declined to confirm the news, citing store policy.

Its great news, and theyve been interested in the community for some time, Mayor Frank Klipsch said. For months, even before I was elected, Id hear about residents saying, Try and get us a Costco. Its one of those retailers a lot of people want.

The proposed site is on roughly 17 acres of land immediately west of Fire Station No. 8 on the north side of East 53rd Street.

A public meeting has been scheduled for 6 p.m. May 4 at the Eastern Avenue Library, 6000 Eastern Ave., Davenport.

While Costco has worked with the property owner about building a store at the site, Klipsch said more details will come out at the public meeting, including working with residents about potential concerns.

To my knowledge, theyre not asking for any financial assistance, but theres still a lot of details to work out, Klipsch said.

The proposed site is in the 6th Ward, and although its alderman, Jeff Justin, has some concerns of his own, he was pleased that Davenport was able to attract the major retailer.

Weve been discussing bring a retailer like Costco for some time, Justin said. From what I gather, its a reputable business, and they treat their employees well. My concern with the location is the traffic and neighborhood impact, but Im confident well work things out, and it will be a great addition to the corridor.
President Donald Trump called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Thursday to discuss how to address Canada's "unfair" dairy pricing programs, Schumer, D-N.Y., confirmed in a statement released Friday.

"It is an unwise policy that violates our agreements and hurts our farmers, and we agreed to work together to immediately address the issue," Schumer said of his conversation with Trump.

Schumer said he suggested including House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, in the discussion about how to address Canada's trade rules affecting U.S. dairy farmers. Wisconsin, like New York, is a top dairy producing state.

Canada has adopted dairy pricing rules that favor domestic production of ultra-filtered milk, which is used to make cheese. Because of this, it's had a negative impact on several U.S. dairy producers, including Cayuga Milk Ingredients in Aurelius.

Kevin Ellis, CEO of Cayuga Milk Ingredients, said Wednesday that the company lost $30 million in sales to Canada because of the new pricing policy. Other producers in New York and Wisconsin have reported losses.

The Canadian government has defended its pricing program and attributed the losses reported by U.S. producers to global overproduction.

Schumer visited Cayuga Milk Ingredients last year and first raised concerns about Canada's attempts to limit imports of ultra-filtered milk. He urged then-President Barack Obama and his administration to take action and railed against the "protectionist" policies adopted by Canada.

He also said that Canada may be in violation of existing trade accords, including the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump, a critic of NAFTA, has called Canada's dairy pricing plan "very unfair."

"We can all agree that it is critical to level the playing field for our hardworking dairy farmers and make sure our Canadian neighbors rescind their unfair policy and again play by the rules," Schumer said.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska | A national environmental group is suing the federal government, claiming that a rule created to protect wolves and bears within Alaska wildlife refuges was illegally revoked this year through a seldom-used law.

The Center for Biological Diversity is challenging the constitutionality of the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law that allows Congress  by passing a joint resolution signed by the president  to repeal federal regulations adopted in the last months of a previous administration.

This year, Congress used the act to repeal a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule banning "predator control," an Alaska program to kill wolves, black bears or grizzly bears to boost moose and caribou populations for human consumption.

The act also bars the Fish and Wildlife Service from adopting a similar rule in the future unless Congress authorizes the agency to do so.

According to the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Anchorage, such "congressional overreaching" illegally constrains future rulemaking by agencies, violates the Constitution and undermines the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.

"The Congressional Review Act throws the balance of power out of whack and opens the door for politicians in Congress to meddle in decisions that ought to be made by experts at federal agencies," said attorney Colette Adkins in a prepared statement.

The Congressional Review Act was used only once before 2017. Since the Trump administration took office, the president and Congress have revoked 13 Obama-era regulations on environmental, education or energy measures, Adkins said.

Environmental organizations and animal rights groups have long objected to what Alaska wildlife managers call predator control or "intensive management."

Alaska's mandate for killing predators comes from a law passed by the state Legislature recognizing that certain moose, caribou, and deer populations are especially important human food sources. When those populations drop too low, the Alaska Board of Game, which regulates, hunting and trapping, can authorize killing of predators through liberal hunting and trapping laws or through extermination methods.

After repeatedly rejecting Alaska's requests to expand predator control to national wildlife refuges, the Fish and Wildlife Service last year adopted the blanket rule, permanently banning the shooting of bears from the air, culling wolf pups and adults from dens, allowing hunters to shoot grizzly bears over bait, or allowing bears to be snared.

Alaska's 16 national wildlife refuges cover about 120,000 square miles, an area slightly smaller than the state of New Mexico.

The federal law creating the refuges says they must be managed for natural diversity on Alaska wildlife refuges, Adkins said. Revoking the agency's rule through the Congressional Review Act, she said, makes it more difficult for agency officials to carry out their legal duty.

An Interior Department spokeswoman referred requests for comment to the Department of Justice.
Some soon to be open jobs in city government will remain that way for a little while longer.

Delaying the hiring of replacement city employees in the wake of reduced city sales tax revenues will save an estimated $338,000 through the end of 2017, Mayor Steve Allender said Thursday.

Lets dont call it a freeze, Allender said at a reporters use of the word at a news conference announcing the hiring slowdown. The mayor said the word "freeze" can have the connotation of being forever. This delay in hiring is for a preset amount of time.

Lets call it a temporary delay in the hiring of replacement city employees, he said.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the Rapid City Common Council, Allender announced what he called a moratorium in hiring new employees of between 30 and 90 days, depending on the size of the department.

Already announced job openings will continue to be filled. The moratorium is effective May 1 and comes in the wake of lower than projected sales tax revenues for 2016 and through the first two months of 2017.

Actual 2016 tax collections fell short of projected revenues by $178,366, Allender said.

The citys projected 2017 sales tax revenue of $26,466,558 is based on a 2 percent increase over 2015 actual collections and a two percent projected increase over 2016's anticipated revenue. But, for the first two months of 2017, sales tax receipts of $3,536,179 fell 2.21 percent under last year's receipts for the same time period.

Allender said for departments with 25 or fewer employees, including the mayors office, city attorney's office, community planning and finance, delays in hiring will be 30 days.

A 60-day delay in hiring will be in effect for departments with between 26 and 100 employees, including Community Resources, Library, Parks and Recreation, and Public Works.

Departments with 101 or more general fund employees, such as Fire and Police, the moratorium is scheduled for 90 days.

However the moratorium does not affect the hiring of police officers and firefighters, only openings in support positions within the departments.

Police and firefighters already have a delay in hiring, building up pools of applicants rather than hiring individually, he said.

We dont want to try to save a few dollars at the expense of public safety," he said.

Allender said between seven and eight percent of the citys workforce, or between 56 to 64 employees, will leave their jobs during the year.

Allender cited two reasons for the moratorium, keeping city revenues and expenses in balance for this year, and to put the city in better position during the 2018 budget process.

He attributed the decline of sales tax revenues to a drop in the number of people traveling and staying in motels, as well as a drop statewide in consumer spending.

He said job strength, unemployment and gross domestic product figures all look stable and expressed hope that travel and other spending will pick up as the summer tourism season gets going.

This is a small step to save a relatively small amount of cash in 2017, Allender said.

All the other revenues are steady, so we want to apply some kind of measure early on before it becomes a crisis, he said.

He said the hiring delays will save money, but at the cost of additional workload on city employees with decreased productivity and efficiency.

Those things are counter to our overall mission, he said.

Rapid City isn't the only South Dakota town seeing decreases to sales tax revenues this year.

The Associated Press also reported the city of Sioux Falls is preparing for a possible $1.2 million budget shortfall this year as city officials cut their budgets in response to sluggish sales tax revenues.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported that March sales tax revenue growth for the city came in at 2.5 percent, less than the 4 percent increase projected when the 2017 budget was adopted.

Sioux Falls finance director Tracy Turbak says the city's 12 department directors are trying to counter the slow growth by looking for places in their budgets to cut expenses, including limiting overtime hours, use of part-time employees and reducing out-of-state travel.

Turbak said Tuesday the directors expect economic indicators to worsen, with contingency plans prepared to reduce budgets by 5 percent. Details on the budget cuts were not provided.
"Outside of inclement weather or holidays, we very rarely close the driver exam stations, but we also value training for employees," said driver license director Jane Schrank in the release."We want to let the public know now so they can come to the exam station beforehand or renew online."
Last summer, Charles Weld received a donation for Hillside Children's Center.

As the director of residential services at Hillside's Finger Lakes Campus in Auburn, Weld had collected several donations over the years. But this one, he said, was special.

A young nurse had reached out to Weld in June to say she was getting married and, in lieu of wedding favors, she and her fiance decided to make a donation to the Auburn campus.

It had been nearly 10 years since she had been a resident at Hillside's intensive treatment unit, and she said it was time to pay it forward.

"It was wonderful for her to come back and see people that were still there that she remembered and for her to tell her story to kids that were engaged in the same struggles that she was at one time," Weld said. "It's a great memory for me."

That is just one of the special memories Weld has made at Hillside. The 65-year-old started at the center's Finger Lakes Campus in 1994, just one year after it opened on County House Road in Auburn. And that's where he stayed, working as a licensed mental health counselor until last week.

On Friday, April 14, Weld retired after a 20-plus-year career at Hillside and nearly 40 years in counseling.

But he wasn't always interested in mental health, he said.

Born and raised in Rochester, Weld initially went to school for English, getting his undergraduate degree at Cornell University. It wasn't until his third year of college, while living in a house on State Street in Ithaca, that he began to consider a career in counseling.

"Half of the people that lived in this house ... were college students and the other half were recently released young adults from (Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane)," Weld said. "It was the early '70s and it was the beginning of de-institutionalization, trying to figure out how to provide treatment for people with serious mental health issues outside of a big state institution. So that was very compelling."

From there, Weld went to Maine where he ended up working in community development at a local university. That further inspired him to get his Master's degree in counseling, he said, and he began working with adults at a hospital in Bangor before running a community-based halfway house for substance abusers.

Then, years later, Weld moved back to central New York and landed a job in residential childcare near Binghamton.

"That's when I found that (youth counseling) was a very good fit for me because it's very active," he said. "From the outside, it might seem kind of chaotic, but that's kind of what my family life has always been. I'm one of six siblings ... so that aspect of residential life didn't put me off at all. I actually felt quite at home."

After his work in the Binghamton area, Weld circled back to Ithaca and worked at the William George Agency for Children's Services for nearly a decade. But in the 1990s, he heard about Hillside, which was expanding its services throughout the state.

He was hired there in the spring of '94 as the coordinator of the intensive treatment unit. And three years later, he was promoted to director of residential services.

"It was still getting its legs underneath it when I started there," Weld said. "And it's gone through many, many changes over the years."

The Auburn residential campus currently has 58 beds; 42 of those are dedicated to long-term psychiatric care while the remaining 16 are part of a specialty program for adolescent girls.

As director, Weld said he primarily worked with a team of department heads in Auburn, keeping in close contact with the principal of the school, the director of nursing and the clinical manager. However, due to the smaller size of the campus  which consists of three buildings on 26 acres of land  he said he felt fortunate to still interact with the youth and staff.

"Compared to a lot of residential campuses, it's really compact ... and my office was on the main corridor," Weld said. "My office doors were usually open so I had a lot of contact with the kids."

And that's what many residents and staff remembered most.

Now 26 years old, the young nurse  who wished to remain anonymous  said she resided at Hillside's Auburn campus for nearly two years in high school, and she recalled Weld's open door policy as something special.

"Charlie always had his door open," the former resident said. "I would walk the halls for exercise and he would have his door open even though he was doing work, and you could say hi to him. ... It felt like he really genuinely cared about the kids."

"Charlie had a huge commitment to the families and staff that he worked with," said Jean Galle, who recently took over Weld's position as director of residential services. "It was not uncommon to see Charlie on campus riding bikes with the kids or playing games. ... He just had a way of making everybody feel welcome and special.

"The kids and families came first."

And according to Weld, they still do.

Although newly retired, Weld said his work as a counselor isn't finished yet, as he hopes to return to Hillside on a part-time basis after a short break backpacking in the Adirondacks.

"I still feel like I have a lot of energy," he said, smiling. "I think I'm going to take a few months off and then I'll probably get back into something with Hillside. ... I could see myself doing something a little less demanding and a little more discreet. But I'm not done yet."
Russian activist Dadin seeks $89,200 for unlawful prosecution

MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI)  Russian activist Ildar Dadin, who was convicted and later acquitted of numerous violations of protest laws, has lodged five million rubles ($89,200) lawsuit against Russian Finance Ministry for unlawful prosecution, RAPSI learned on Friday from lawyer Alexey Liptser.

The lawsuit was filed with the Zheleznodorozhny City Court of the Moscow Region. Dadin is seeking compensation for moral damages inflicted by unlawful prosecution as well as staying in detention and under house arrest for two years.

Dadin was convicted and sentenced on December 7, 2015. Initially he received a 3-year prison term. The Moscow City Court later reduced the sentence to 2.5 years. He was acquitted on February 22 when the Supreme Courts Presidium overturned his 2.5-year prison sentence and ruled to release him. The court held that criminal proceedings against Dadin should be dismissed because of the absence of elements of a crime in his actions.

The Supreme Court explained that the article of the Criminal Code prohibiting violations of protest laws excludes possibility of criminal prosecution if at the time of crime there were no active court rulings regarding administrative liability of a defendant. These rulings have to be issued at least three times in the period of 180 days.

Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said on Twitter that he welcomes the ruling of Russia's Supreme Court.
In November 1916, Montana voters approved a statewide ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages. The law, which went into effect at the end of 1918, was a reflection of the growing importance of female reform in Montana. However, not all Montana women supported temperance. In fact, for some enterprising women, the new ban creative lucrative opportunities.

Although Montana was at the forefront of the prohibition movement, the law didnt have that much effect on curbing drinking. In wide-open and fun loving Montana, it would be nearly impossible to enforce the new ban. Given the states remoteness and plentiful supplies of wheat, a thriving bootlegging economy was virtually a certainty.

When we think of bootlegging, we typically picture it as male-dominated, gun-toting activity. In fact, many women were quick to seize the economic opportunity by brewing their own moonshine and operating home speaks. Because making shine was easily done in the kitchen, it was an especially appealing industry for working-class women, as well as widows who could not easily find work outside the home.

In 1925, Emily Stone, the states only woman prosecutor, attended a meeting with the state attorney general. One of the topics discussed was the special case of women bootleggers who carry bottles in their blouses  where officers will not search.

One of Buttes more famous brewers was widower Nora Gallagher, who concocted her hooch in her kitchen because she wanted to purchase Easter outfits for her five children. Another Butte resident proved that age was no barrier when 88 year-old Lavinia Gilman was caught running a three-hundred-gallon still.

Mary Ann Moriarity was especially clever as she combined her existing business  washing clothes for local miners  with her moonshine enterprise. She delivered illicit booze hidden among clean clothes for fifty cents a pint or two dollars for a gallon. Her daughter was enlisted to help with this homegrown business.

It wasnt necessary for a woman to live in an urban area to make a decent living selling illegal alcohol. Married and single female homesteaders alike augmented their farm incomes with bootlegging. In eastern Fergus County, African-American Bertie Brown brewed what locals said was the best in the state. Unfortunately, Bertie would die before her time when her still exploded in 1933.

One of the more interesting stories of a homesteading bootlegger is that of former dance-hall girl Josephine Doody. Dan, a Glacier Park ranger and her future husband, fell in love with Josephine after seeing her at a dance hall. Dan was determined to rid Josephine of her opium habit. He tied her to his mule and proceeded to his homestead, where he locked her away until her opium dependency was broken. After Dan died, Doody remained at the homestead located just south of the park. In her little cabin, she would brew moonshine that would become legendary.

Her best customers were the men working on the Great Northern Railway. When the train stopped at Doody siding, each toot of the whistle signaled one gallon of moonshine. Navigating the Flathead River in a small boat, Josephine dutifully delivered her goods to the waiting men.

Of course, crime does not always pay. As was frequently the case, women convicted of bootlegging were confined to jail or sent to the state prison far more often than men, who many times just paid a fine.
April 21, 1962

Easter vacation means a change of pace at St. Alphonsus convent on Seminary Ave. Some of the nuns (Sisters of St. Joseph) will go on retreat next week to the Motherhouse in Rochester, some will stay here and sew, catch up on accumulated school work and housework and rest a little from the strenuous routine of daily teaching.

Twelve of them, plus six laywomen, teach 856 youngsters, kindergarten through eighth grade, at the school on E. Genesee St., the largest school of any kind in this country. The convent they live in is 150 years old. Perhaps by another Easter they will have a new one. A campaign is now under way to raise money for building a new convent at 8-10 Lewis St., near the school.

The new convent will have 15 sleeping rooms on the second floor, and on the first floor there will be a chapel, sacristy, community room, offices, kitchen, sunporch and music room. It will be made of brick to match the present church and school.

Sister Rose Gertrude, convent superior and school principal, has described the busy life of the St. Joseph's nuns as follows:

The sisters' day begins at 5:40 a.m. with their awakening community bell. At 6:05 a.m. they assemble in their little chapel for morning prayers. These are followed by a half hour of meditation, the spiritual exercise known also as "mental prayer." This serves as a preparation for the Sacrifice of the Mass, the central art of Catholic worship, celebrated in the convent daily except Sunday by one of the parish priests.

Breakfast, prepared by the sisters in their turn, is served at 7:30. It is not a leisurely one, for they must be ready to leave for school at 8:10. Five of the sisters have their driver's license, and they take turns chauffeuring the two station wagons to school.

The morning session ends at 11:30 when lunch in two shifts is served to the children in the school cafeteria. The sisters also eat in shifts in order to supervise lunch and recreational periods. At 12:45 p.m. the afternoon session begins, and it closes at 3 p.m.

From 3:45 until 4:30 p.m. and again from 6:15 until 7 p.m. the sisters are free to visit the chapel for personal devotions or to perform household duties. At 4:30 p.m. their convent bell summons them again to chapel for one hour. At this time, their devotions consist of the Rosary, 15 minutes of spiritual reading and another half hour of meditation. The Sisters of St. Joseph, according to Sister Rose Gertrude, are one of the few religions communities, if not the only one, engaged in active assignments, who meditate for one full hour each day.

At 5:30 p.m. the nuns have dinner, provided by their cook, Mrs. Joseph Samwebber, every day except Thursday, her day off. From 7 to 7:30 p.m. a recreation period lets them enjoy the radio, their record player, the piano and the newspapers  The Citizen-Advertiser for local news and the Catholic Courier Journal for diocesan news.

At 7:30 p.m. their community bell rings again to summon them to chapel for "night prayers." This final devotion, lasting 15 minutes, ends their official spiritual program for the day. From 7:45 to 9 p.m. the sisters devote their time to school work, study and scholastic pursuits. An additional hour is permissible for those who wish. Ten o'clock, the official time for retiring, brings to a close the nuns' busy day.
HELENA  A bill that would have exempted some seasonal outdoor recreation employees from state overtime laws and some other labor laws was vetoed on Thursday by Gov. Steve Bullock.

Under the bill, a narrow and clear exemption in existing law would be replaced with a broad and ambiguous exemption that could capture employees in any number of businesses that define themselves as part of the outfitting industry, the Democrat wrote in his veto letter. I cannot support changing the law when our existing exemption seems adequate and well defined.

Cosponsors Rep. Vince Ricci, R-Laurel, and Sen. Dee Brown, R-Hungry Horse, had argued that House Bill 496 was indeed necessary, noting that the existing definitions did not cover all the types of jobs outfitters had. The Montana Outfitters and Guides Association also had said it is difficult to track overtime because most of these jobs have long or irregular hours, often without clear delineation between someone is working and when they are simply sitting round the campfire.

The original version of the bill also would have exempted seasonal recreation employers from minimum wage laws, but that was amended out before being sent to the governor.

House Bill 496 is dead unless both chambers of the Legislature override the governors veto, which would take a two-thirds vote. The measure originally passed the House 55-44 and the Senate 28-20.
A former Ravalli County Justice Court clerk who embezzled $8,123 over a seven-year period will spend the next 14 days in the county detention center.

Charlene Ray Groves, 59, of Anaconda was sentenced to a 10-year term in the Montana State Womens Prison, all suspended, and $2,500 in restitution.

Groves appeared before Ravalli County District Judge James Haynes Thursday and apologized to the people she had let down.

I am ashamed that I let my personal life get so out of control that I took what wasnt mine to protect my children and to maintain the facade that was my life at that time, Groves said. I lived and continue to live with that guilt.

As I stand before you here today, Judge, I hope you know that I will continue to pay for the rest of my life for a decision I made 10 years ago, she said.

She was arrested in 2015 after discrepancies in the courts financial account came to light following a change in judges in justice court.

At the time that she served as court administrator for former Justice of the Peace Robin Clute, Groves' last name was Hanson.

Groves was a candidate for the judges seat, but lost to the current justice, Jennifer Ray.

The irregularities were found when Ray and her staff began the process of reconciling the 2014 financial accounts and the books didn't balance. An investigator from the Montana State Auditors office found that Groves had embezzled the money between Dec. 2006 and Sept. 2014.

When confronted, Groves admitted that she cashed personal checks out of the justice court account. She told investigators that she was going through a rough time and used the money to pay for gas, groceries and other household expenses.

At the time, Groves said she didnt know how much she had taken.

Ravalli County Deputy Attorney Thorin Geist said that while Groves lack of any former criminal record would allow for a deferred imposition of sentence, the recommendation was for a prison sentence.

Its punitive, in light of the fact she was an officer of the court, Geist said. It also protects the public and future employers from the actions of a criminal. So, on balance, Judge, the state agreed to a lower restitutionin exchange for a more severe sentence.

Groves has already paid the $2,500 in restitution.

Haynes agreed to accept the states recommendation.

Theft from a position of trust is really the most invasive kind of theft that can occur short of breaking in and burglarizing something, Haynes told Groves. You just had the keys to the money.

Groves was escorted from the courtroom to begin serving her 14 days of detention.
The Bitterroot College is hosting the second annual Bitterroot Water Symposium on Friday, April 28.

The community conversation about clean water features 19 guest speakers and panelists who are scientists, farmers, researchers and water advocates. The symposium ends with a panel discussion, and question and answer period.

This is our second Bitterroot Water Symposium in honor of my wife, Patti Furniss, who embraced this community as a volunteer, and as a professional with a sense of purpose, who gathered friends and enough momentum to start the Bitterroot College, said George Furniss geosciences adjunct instructor. The symposium will give wonderful information so that we can understand the steps we should take to protect clean water.

Furniss said the symposium is about ground water, soils, characteristics of the river and growth in the Bitterroot Valley.

This year, like last year, we are focused on understanding how to protect our aquifers and how to manage the Bitterroot River so it functions to add $28 million annually to our economy as a fishery, he said. New this year we expand the symposium to include a look at the value of agricultural soils, the major driver of our local economy. A panel discussion this year will delve into lessons learned about municipal growth and protecting clean water.

The schedule for Friday, April 28, is: 8:15 - check in; 8:45-9 a.m. - opening remarks by Victoria Clark, director, Bitterroot College UM; Nan Christianson, symposium moderator, longtime Bitterroot community activist for environmental, social and economic opportunities; 9-9:45 a.m. - Keynote: Future Growth Scenarios for the Bitterroot Valley-2017 by Larry Swanson, director, University of Montana O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West; 9:45-10 a.m.  break; 10-11:20 a.m. - Hamilton-Corvallis-Stevensville Aquifer Properties and Flow Scenarios, Aquifer Recharge and Storage by Ginette Abdo, senior research hydrogeologist and program manager; Kirk Waren, senior research hydrogeologist; Todd Myse, research hydrogeologist; Dean Snyder, research hydrogeologist; Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology  Groundwater Investigation Program; 11:20-12 p.m. - Best Practices for Protection of Soil and Groundwater by Jay Skovlin, Major Land Resource Area Soil survey leader, Natural Resource Conservation Service; Rod Daniel, registered sanitarian, Ravalli County Environmental Health.

From noon to 1 p.m. there is a hot lunch, served by Trapper Creek Job Corps, for those who have preregistered and the Watershed Education Network and the Environmental Science class will provide an interactive groundwater demonstration model to all interested parties.

From 1-2 p.m. - Characteristics of Bitterroot River and its Ecology by Marisa Sowles, geologist, water resource specialist, Geum Environmental Consulting; Larry Schock, civil engineering specialist, Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation; Heather Barber, executive director, Bitterroot Water Forum.

From 2-2:40 p.m. - Traditional and Specialty Agriculture: Best Practices for Water Conservation by Dan Huls, Huls Dairy, Ravalli County Committee Right to Farm and Ranch; Brian McGuire, commercial vineyard owner/operator.

The panel discussion Water-wise Community begins at 2:55 and ends at 4 p.m. Panel members Jeff Burrows, Ravalli County commissioner; Gene MimMack, former mayor of Stevensville; Karen Mahar, city attorney for Hamilton; Julie Foster, executive director, Ravalli County Economic Development Authority; Ran Pigman, principal, designer, project coordinator, Pigman Builders, Inc., Hamilton; Larry Schock, civil engineering specialist, Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation.

At 4 p.m. Nan Christianson, symposium moderator, will give the closing remarks.

Furniss said he values the speakers, presenters and individuals in his Environmental Science who care about the community and gave their time and effort making the symposium possible.

We are so lucky here to have such high quality amenities like snow capped mountains, forest lands, mountain lakes and clear water streams, Furniss said. Good clean plentiful water must be understood to be adequately managed and protected and thus sustained.

The Bitterroot Water Symposium takes place in Room 105 of the Bitterroot College UM building, located at 103 S. Ninth St. in Hamilton. For more information or to register, visit online umt.edu/bitterroot-college or call 406-363-0100.
The Hamilton Downtown Association is hosting its third annual Wine Fest, April 22. The wine tasting event has delectable wines, Characuterie Platters for purchase, live music by Bitterroot Jazz Band and games.

HDA coordinator Claire Kemp said the wine festival is a fun way to celebrate community.

If you like wine, this is the event to come to, she said. It supports all our efforts to make Hamilton an even better place to live.

Kemp said tasting wines will come from local, national and international wine sellers.

We have Blodgett Canyon Sellers, Missoula wineries and beyond, all selected by Marianne Holmes who owns The Wine Cave. She knows her wine, Kemp said. Each person will be given a passport which they can use to evaluate their wines, choose their favorites that can be ordered through The Wine Cave. There is usually a discount when you buy a case.

Commemorative wine glasses are a gift for everyone who attends.

I know there are wines coming from all over the world and I know the festival will be fun with games, prizes and great jazz music, Holmes said. It does not last super-late but will be lots of fun.

Kemp described Characuterie Platters as fancy meat and cheese trays.

Theres usually prosciutto, salami, a soft cheese, a hard cheese and Spanish olives, she said. Everything will be delicious.

Kemp said games include ring toss where the prize is  wine.

You are tossing a ring through the bottles and where ever your ring might land is your bottle of wine, she said. There are door prizes and other great ideas.

The Wine Fest is a fundraising event for the Hamilton Downtown Association and will be used for advertising for members, events, signage and decorations.

Kemp said the Wine Fest was once the big event of the Bitterroot Valley Chamber of Commerce that faded away, went through several transformations and has returned as a strong event for the community.

One of our goals is to support local independent businesses in our town, Kemp said. We are about supporting our small businesses and creating a community of engagement and fun and that creates connection to place. People have more of a connection to where they live when there are fun things to do amongst people they like.

Tickets cost $25 per person $30 at the door and they are available at Chapter One Book Store and The Wine Carve.

Sponsors are Ravalli Family Medicine, Art Focus, TrailWest Bank, Ravalli Republic, The Wine Cave, Bitterroot College, ATR Smart Procedures, Wetzsteon Electric and Bitter Root Brewery.

The Time for Wine HDA Wine Fest will be Saturday, April 22, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., in the Bedford Building, 223 S. Second St., Hamilton.
An Amsterdam man was arrested Friday in Aurelius for allegedly attempting to engage in sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl.

State police said they took Vergel-Marquez into custody before he had any contact with the child. He was arraigned in the Town of Owasco Court and was remained to the Cayuga County Jail without bail.
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Guwahati : Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Thursday met Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal in the latter's office chamber in Janata Bhawan and discussed with him issues on women and child nutrition and animal protection.

Vowing to bring country's nutrition scheme on track in Assam the Union Cabinet Minister and the Chief Minister discussed modalities to strengthen nutritional mechanism of women and children and provide nutritional food sachets in schools and other centres where women and children come and assemble.

Giving an overview of the State Government's initiatives in providing meals in schools and anganwadi centres, Chief Minister Sonowal said that his government is fully committed to implement nutritional food sachets schemes in letter and spirit to ensure nutrition to women and children in the State.

He also hoped that once the scheme is fully implemented in the state the issue of malnutrition will become a pass.

The Union Cabinet Minister also hailed the State Government's role in the conservation of rhino and other endangered species in the National Parks and other wild life sanctuaries in the State.

The duo also discussed on constitution of Animal Welfare Board in Assam and the Chief Minister said that all the modalities are being framed to constitute the welfare board in the State.

Minister of State (independent charge) for Social Welfare Naba Kumar Doley, Chief Minister's Media and Legal Advisors Hrishikesh Goswami and Santanu Bharali Chief Secretary VK Pipersenia, Additional Chief Secretary Ravi Capoor, Commissioner and Secretary to the Chief Minister Sanjay Lohiya and other senior officers of the administration were present at the meeting.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati : Following the Union cabinet decision to do away with the red beacons atop cars of ministers, bureaucrats, politicians and VVIPs, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has directed all in the state to remove 'Red Light' being used atop vehicles immediately.

Welcoming the Union cabinet decision the Assam CM said that, the removal of red beacons is a step towards Narendra Modi's vision of a new India.

Terming the step of the Modi led Union cabinet's decision as a historic and bold step, Sonowal said that the removal of red light culture will make the country's democracy stronger.

Following Assam CM's directive, several ministers of the state government including Pramila Rani Brahma, Keshab Mahanta, Atul Bora, BJP's Assam unit president Ranjit Das on Thursday had removed red beacons from their cars.

The BJP led Assam government cabinet had earlier decided in the first cabinet meeting not to use red beacons in the ministers vehicles including CM's vehicle.

On the other hand, Assam governor Banwarilal Purohit appreciated the Union cabinet's ban on using red lights atop vehicles of the VVIPs.

In the light of the cabinet decision the Assam governor ordered removal of red lights from his vehicles with immediate effect.

He also termed the decision as people friendly and said that the move would greatly help in ensuring greater equality which is one of the cornerstones of Indian democracy.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Kathmandu, Nepal: The meeting between United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) and the Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has on Friday ended with a positive note.

Though the meeting has not made any concrete decisions, it was ended with an agreement to sit again to discuss over the issues raised by UMMF at the next meeting, which would be held today evening.

During the meeting Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal urged the agitating Morchas leaders to participate in the scheduled local level elections.

It is said that Prime Minister Dahal also proposed second phase of elections in Teria districts. It is said that both the sides have agreed to hold further discussion in the next meeting.
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MANILA  The United States government said it would raise the dispute in the South China Sea when it hosts the 30th ASEAN-US Dialogue in Washington D.C. on May 4.

The US, to be represented by State Secretary Rex Tillerson, will not miss the opportunity to discuss very frankly with its allies in Southeast Asia the tension concerning disputed areas west of the Philippines, said Patrick Murphy, the deputy assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

"We can very much expect that the South China Sea issue will be addressed and talked about very frankly so that we can all continue to pursue what we hope will be the inevitable outcome, and that is peaceful resolution to these disputes," Murphy said.

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Murphy, however, emphasized that US support for freedom of navigation remains.

"We will continue to sail and fly where international law permits. I think that's our longstanding policy and that remains the case," he said.

The US government believes that the South China Sea should be the scene of unimpeded commerce and travel, Murphy said, and that the entire international community relies a great deal on unimpeded travel and commerce through this region.

Murphy said issues on terrorism would also be part of the agenda once Tillerson meets with his counterparts in the 10-member ASEAN.

"These are difficult times worldwide and Southeast Asia is no exception. This region faces challenges from traffickers, from crime in general, from terrorism, from territorial disputes. And I think we can envision all of these topics will be the subject of discussion," Murphy said.

Murphy said the meeting would also bolster US relationship with its allies in Southeast Asia.

"We hear consistently from them that they value US engagement and presence in the region. And they wanted to make it clear early on that as a strategic partner, ASEAN has been a strategic partner of the United States they wanted to continue with the United States administration, the new administration, this partnership, this relationship, and to ensure sustained U.S. engagement in the region," Murphy said.
sacw.net - 20 April 2017

(It is in response to Rahul Panditaas piece Gorakhpur and the Ghost of Gangadhar Adhikari: Whether liberals like it or not, the story of Hindu consolidation is not over yeta appeared in Open Magazine on March 24, 2017. It is a lengthy response as reproduction of many original documents from the RSS/Hindutva archives were needed to evaluate many takes of Rahul Pandita. Link: https://www.openthemagazine.com/article/cover-story/gorakhpur-and-the-ghost-of-gangadhar-adhikari->https://www.openthemagazine.com/article/cover-story/gorakhpur-and-the-ghost-of-gangadhar-adhikari )

It was about 10 days after Modi became PM of India in 2014, an old acquaintance of mine, a known RSS sympathiser, phoned me up and in a tone which was not friendly, warned that since a Hindu government had come to rule India after 1000 years I should be careful while writing on RSS and Hindutva politics and organizations. Realizing that he was not joking but serious about his message, without challenging his knowledge of history (that how despite aMuslima and aChristiana rules of 1000 years Hindus remain 80% of the population and in control of the national wealth), I shared the fact with him that Modi had won on development plank and as PM he and his ministers had taken oath to uphold a democratic-secular polity, so how their rule could be described as a Hindu rule. He did not want any argument and ended the call by telling me that world would know it soon and I would be doing on my peril if I failed to understand this phenomenon of the rise of Hindu power.

He was not the only one who announced the heralding of the Hindu rule in 2014. A senior RSS leader from UP, Rajeshwar Singh believing in the same thesis declared that by 2021, all Muslims and Christians would have to convert to Hinduism or leave India. [1] The perennial hater of Muslims, renowned VHP leader, Ashok Singhal described crowning of Modi as PM a aHindu revolutiona which would culminate in aHindu worlda by 2030. [2]

The mad frenzy around the ausheringa of Hindu rule in India in 1914, forced one of the most decorated police officers in Independent India, Julio Ribeiro to lament (March 2015) that, ain my 86th year, I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in my own countrya and being condemned afor practising a religion that is different from theirs. I am not an Indian anymore, at least in the eyes of the proponents of the Hindu Rashtraa . [3]

Interestingly, India was announced to be under Hindu rule in 2014, despite BJP securing only 31% of the polled votes and NDA committing itself to be loyal to democratic-secular Indian Constitution. Even if the votes polled by Shiv Sena (1.9%) which stood for a Hindu rashtra were included, the tally would be 32.9% votes. So according to RSS and flag-bearers of Hindutva politics 32.9% constituted majority out of 100% inventing a new Hindutva theory of calculating majority!

A similar Hindutva frenzy is brazenly on view after BJP and its allies clean sweep of 2017 UP assembly elections and subsequent installing of Mahant Yogi Adityanath as CM of the State. The RSS always claimed to be a cultural organization but Rakesh Sinha who goes around as an aideologuea of the RSS commenting on the UP victory wrote, that aRSS dominates Indiaas politicsa . [4] What he wanted to emphasise that though RSS had not contested the elections but it was Hindutva agenda of RSS which had won. Rahul Panditaas elation on Adityanathas crowning is to be read and believed. Some of the laudatory comments are worth noting: aAfter Yogi Adityanath was declared Uttar Pradeshas Chief Minister, his supporters and closet supporters have been arguing that he deserves a chance. That, he is getting already, whether some people like it or not. On social media, his supporters have mauled even right-wingers who have expressed their disagreement with this decision; they see Adityanathas shift from Gorakhpur to Lucknow as the new dawn of militant Hindutva.a

Rahul Pandita is sure that despite Adityanathas statement in athe Lok Sabha that his government will uphold law and order and that there will be no discrimination against anyonea there will be aan assertion on Hindutva lines even if he ensures that no communal riots break out in the statea . The Hindutva assertion means astrict action against cow slaughter, while the sealing of some slaughterhouses is underway. The new government is allocating 25 acres of land for setting up a Ramayana museum in Ayodhyaa .

Rahul Pandita seems to have intimate knowledge of Hindutva mind-set of UP chief minister when he tells, aunlike his predecessors, Adityanath will have no use of the symbolism of skullcaps and chequered Arab scarvesa . Without taking any stand on anti-Muslim and anti-women ideas of UP CM Rahul Pandita goes to glorify him in the following words: aThose who stand in opposition to Adityanath may put up video clip after clip of his anti-Muslim and anti-women remarks on social media. But those who are happy with his ascension to UPas throne see this as a special attribute and not a handicap.a

Modias victory in 2014 which was declared to be the beginning of Hindu rule is downgraded as Rahul Pandita writes that in 2014 athe vote was overwhelmingly for Modi, rather than the BJP. It is the same this year in UP, except that a clear consolidation of Hindu votes has happened this time, putting the BJP at an advantage which it is likely to be replicated in other electionsa . The cat is out of the bag when Rahul Pandita adds that a2017 vote is not for bridges or hospitals, but for Hindutva. This election has also exposed the implausibility of a Dalit-Muslim alliance. Whereas a significant number of Dalits and other backwards castes voted for Modi, it is also an election where the Muslim vote has become irrelevanta . And the concluding prophetic lines of Rahul Pandita convey in totality what he wants to convey finally. For him, aAdityanath is indeed the new realityaa reality that will have more layers in the coming days. This is New India. How it plays out is another mattera .

Rahul Pandita is absolutely right in underlining the fact that RSS/BJP fought and won UP elections openly on polarizing Hindutva agenda. Leading the charge was PM Modi whose main plank was appeasement of Muslims in UP by non-BJP governments. Building of Ram temple at the place of demolished mosque at Ayodhya was promised both directly and indirectly. The UP election was to be fought on Anti-Muslim agenda was made clear in the beginning itself when RSS/BJP decided to field not a single Muslim candidate. Rahul Pandita is right when he says that UP vote for Aditya is vote for Hindutva, which even Modi could not secure, as never in history of elections RSS/BJP used anti-Muslim/Islam rhetoric of this magnitude. Shockingly the Election Commission of India remained silent spectator to this polarizing game.

But Rahul Pandita who declares whole of the UP under the hegemony of Hindutva as a result of aclear consolidation of Hindu votesa misses one crucial fact that BJP with its allies secured only 42+ percent votes in this election, BJP securing only 39.7% of the polled votes individually. If all votes polled in favour of BJP and its allies were for Hindutva UP, how we should categorize 58% of the voters who voted against BJP and its allies. Should these not be categorized as anti-Hindutva vote? But according to Hindutva mathematics 31% votes for Modi in 2014 and 42+ percent votes for BJP and allies in UP in 2017, become 100% votes for declaring India under Hindutva!

Rahul Pandita in classical Hindutva mode churns out the oft-repeated argument that aconsolidation of Hindu votesa was a reaction to athe turning of a blind eye to Muslim fundamentalism, as practised by the Congress party and followed zealously by the Left and by Lohiaites, and their utter disregard of the Hindu identity have led to a large chasm that the Modi-led BJP has effectively filled. As more and more Hindus think their interests are being threatened, they are gravitating towards a more assertive form of Hindutvaa . Later in his masterpiece he adds, more names to the list like mainstream Left, extreme Left, Kobad Ghandy, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Amnesty International for facilitating the birth and growth of aMuslim sub-nationalism and fundamentalisma (I feel instead of Muslim it should be Islamic) and CPI leader, Gangadhar Adhikari.

This can be described only as total disregard of history and facts as those were unveiled. The names listed by Rahul Pandita as enemies of Hinduism and Hindus may have many-many more acrimesa to explain and defend but to claim that Hindus coming under the umbrella of Hindutva was due to these enemies is a blatant lie.

We need to refresh our memory to know few significant facts about growth of Hindu nationalism and Hindutva. The latter came into existence when none of the individuals/organizations listed as inimical to Hindus were even born.

TWO-NATION THEORY PRPOUNDED BY HINDU NATIONALISTS

Hindus and Muslims were not one nation, this thesis developed at the end of 19th century in Bengal. Raj Narain Basu (1826a1899), the maternal grandfather of Aurobindo Ghosh, and his close associate Naba Gopal Mitra (1840-94) can be called the co-fathers of two-nation theory and Hindu nationalism in India. Basu organized meetings proclaiming that Hinduism despite its Casteism presented a much higher social idealism than ever reached by the Christian or Islamic civilization. Basu not only believed in the superiority of Hinduism over other religions but also was a fervent believer in Casteism. He was the first person to conceive the idea of a Maha Hindu Samiti (All India Hindu Association) and helped in the formation of Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, a precursor of Hindu Mahasabha. He believed that through this organization Hindus would be able to establish an Aryan nation in India. [5] He visualized a powerful Hindu nation not only overtaking India but the whole world. He also saw, athe noble and puissant Hindu nation rousing herself after sleep and rushing headlong towards progress with divine prowess. I see this rejuvenated nation again illumining the world by her knowledge, spirituality and culture, and the glory of Hindu nation again spreading over the whole world.a [6]

Nabha Gopal Mitra started organizing an annual Hindu Mela. It used to be a gathering on the last day of every Bengali year and highlighted the Hindu nature of all aspects of Hindu Bengali life and continued uninterrupted between 1867 and 1880. Mitra also started a National Society and a National Paper for promoting unity and feelings of nationalism among Hindus. Mitra argued in his paper that the Hindus positively formed a nation by themselves. According to him, athe basis of national unity in India is the Hindu religion. Hindu nationality embraces all the Hindus of India irrespective of their locality or language.a [7]

R. C. Majumdar, a keen observer of the rise of Hindu nationalism in Bengal who is described as a Hindu historian by Hindutva camp, had no difficulty in arriving at the truth that aNabha Gopal forestalled Jinnahas theory of two nations by more than half a century.a [8] The Arya Samaj in northern India aggressively preached that Hindu and Muslim communities in India were, in fact, two different nations. Bhai Parmanand (1874a1948), a leading light of the Arya Samaj in northern India, also a leader of both Congress and Hindu Mahasabha, produced an enormous anti-Muslim literature, highlighting the differences between the two in the past. One of the pamphlets thus described the irreconcilability of Hindus and Muslims: aIn history, the Hindus revere the memory of Prithvi Raj, Pratap, Shivaji and Beragi Bir, who fought for the honour and freedom of this land (against the Muslims), while the Mahomedans look upon the invaders of India like Muhammad Bin Qasim and rulers like Aurangzeb as their national heroes.a [9]

Long before V. D. Savarkar (1883-1966) and M. S. Golwalkar (1906-73), who laid down elaborate theories of Hindu Rashtra allowing no place for minorities, it was Bhai Parmanand [1876-1947] who declared in the beginning of the twentieth century that followers of Hinduism and Islam in India were two different peoples because Muslims followed a religion which originated in Arab lands. Parmanand specialized in writing popular literature in Urdu in which the main emphasis would be on Hindus being true sons of India and Muslims as outsiders. [10] As early as 1908a9, Parmanand called for the total exchange of Hindu and Muslim populations in two specific areas. According to his plan, elaborated in his autobiography, aThe territory beyond Sind should be united with Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province into a great Musalman [sic] kingdom. The Hindus of the region should come away, while at the same time Mussalman in the rest of India should go and settle in this territory.a [11]

Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), a renowned leader simultaneously of Congress, Hindu Mahasabha and Arya Samaj, long before Mohammad Ali Jinnah pronounced his poisonous two-nation theory in 1939 and demanded a ruinous partition of India in 1940, the Mahasabha leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai and Savarkar had openly advocated this theoryaa [12] In 1989, Lajpat Rai published an article for the Indian National Congress in the Hindustan Review in which he declared that aHindus are a nation in themselves because they represent all their own.a [13]

In fact, it was Lala who proposed partition of India on communal lines. His plan of partitioning India of 1924 went like this: aUnder my scheme the Muslims will have four Muslim States: (1) The Pathan Province of the North-Western Frontier (2) Western Punjab (3) Sindh and (4) Eastern Bengal. If there are compact Muslim communities in any other part of India, sufficiently large to form a Province, they should be similarly constituted. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not a united India. It means a clear partition of India into a Muslim India and a non-Muslim India.a [14]

Another Hindutva icon, B. S. Moonje was another prominent Congress leader (who equally dabbled in organizing the Hindu Mahasabha and later helped the RSS in its formation) who carried forward the flag of Hindu Separatism long before Muslim Leagueas Pakistan resolution of March 1940. While addressing the third session of the Oudh Hindu Mahasabha in 1923, he declared: aJust as England belongs to the English, France to the French, and Germany to the Germans, India belongs to the Hindus. If Hindus get organized, they can humble the English and their stooges, the Muslims a The Hindus henceforth create their own world which will prosper through shuddhi [literally meaning purification, the term was used for conversion of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism] and sangathan [organization].a [15]

All such ideas of declaring India as a Hindu nation and excluding Muslims and Christians from it were further crystalized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his controversial book Hindutva as early as 1923. According to his definition of the Hindu nation Muslims and Christians remained out of this nationhood because they did not assimilate into Hindu cultural heritage or adopt Hindu religion. Savarkar decreed: aChristians and Mohamedan [sic] communities, who were but very recently Hindus and in majority of cases had been at least in their first generation most willing denizens of their new fold, claim though they might a common fatherland, and an almost pure Hindu blood and parentage with us cannot be recognized as Hindus; as since their adoption of the new cult they had ceased to own Hindu Sanskriti [culture] as a whole. They belong, or feel that they belong, to a cultural unit altogether different from the Hindu one. Their heroes and their hero-worship, their fairs and their festivals, their ideals and their outlook on-life, have now ceased to be common with ours.a [16]

Savarkar, the originator of the politics of Hindutva, later developed the most elaborate two-nation theory. While delivering the presidential address to the 19th session Hindu Mahasabha at Ahmedabad in 1937, Savarkar unequivocally declared: aas it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India, several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for the mere wish to do so. These were well meaning but unthinking friends who take their dreams for realities...Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary, there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.a [17]

Reacting to Savarkaras propagation of two-nation theory, BR Ambedkar as a contemporary of both Savarkar and Jinnah wrote: "Strange as it may appear, Mr Savarkar and Mr Jinnah, instead of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations issue, are in complete agreement about it. Both not only agree but insist that there are two nations in Indiaaone the Muslim nation and the other the Hindu nation." [18]

This politics of two-nation propagated by the Hindutva camp got further impetus with the appearance of the most prominent ideologue of RSS, M. S. Golwalkaras We or Our Nationhood Defined in 1939. Total assimilation or ethnic cleansing was the mantra prescribed by Golwalkar to deal with the problem of minorities in India. According to him, older nations solved their minorities problem by not recognising any separate elements in their polity. Muslims and Christians, who were aemigrantsa, must get themselves naturally assimilated into the principal mass of population, the anational racea. Golwalkar while declaring the determination to cleanse minorities from India on the models of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy where Jews had been almost annihilated warned: aIf they do not do so, they live merely as outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the nation, at the sufferance [sic] of the nation and deserving of no special protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minoritiesa problem. That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps the national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone keeps the nation safe from the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic of the creation of a state within the state. From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizenas rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races, which have chosen to live in our country.a

[19]

The RSS English organ, Organizer, on the very eve of Independence when India had decided to begin its historic journey as a democratic-secular polity, rejected the whole concept of a composite nation (14 August, 1947, editorial title aWhithera): "Let us no longer allow ourselves to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation [a] the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations".

There is no doubt that Muslim nationalists flying the banner of Muslim separatism led by MA Jinnah succeeded in destroying an all-inclusive India but there was no dearth of Hindu nationalists who set the ball rolling for it, former borrowing it from the latter.

RSS IS NOT JUST ANTITHETICAL TO MUSLIMS, BUT TO A DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIA AS WELL

For RSS Casteism, Hindu Nation and Hindu Nationalism are Synonymous

aHindusthana for Hindus only did not mean that it was for all Hindus. The Hindu nation would be governed by Manusmriti which decrees sub-human status to Sudras and women. Hinduism and regime of Casteism were declared to be synonymous. According to the most prominent ideologue of RSS, MS Golwalkar, the Hindu People is, athe Virat Purusha, the Almighty manifesting Himselfait is clear from the following description of the Almighty in Purusha Sukta wherein it is stated that sun and moon are his eyes, the stars and the skies are created from His nabhi (navel) and Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands, Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. This means that the people who have this fourfold arrangement, i.e., the Hindu People, is our God. This supreme vision of Godhead is the very core of our concept of anationa and has permeated our thinking and given rise to various unique concepts of our cultural heritage.a [20]

Golwalkar continued to preach for the regime of Casteism which is synonymous with Untouchability even after Independence. In a speech in 1961 he declared: "Today we try to run down the Varna system through ignorance. But it was through this system that a great effort to control possessiveness could be made...In society some people are intellectuals, some are expert in production and earning of wealth and some have the capacity to labour. Our ancestors saw these four broad divisions in the society. The Varna system means nothing else but a proper co-ordination of these divisions and an enabling of the individual to serve the society to the best of his ability through a hereditary development of the functions for which he is best suited. If this system continues a means of livelihood is already reserved for every individual from his birth." [21]

How Untouchability as an offshoot of Casteism continues to be practised in the RSS fraternity, the 2017 UP elections present a shocking example. BJP candidate from Iglas Reserved constituency (with 80% Jat votes), Diler, a Dalit while campaigning used to sit on floor at upper Caste houses and carry his own tumbler for drinking water/tea. He is MLA now. Rahul Pandita needs to read the story to know about the nature of Hindu consolidation in UP via link: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/15/return-of-untouchability/

Golwalkaras Racism: Denigrating Kerala Hindus specially Women

Golwalkar who was also boss of RSS during 1940-1973, was invited to address the faculty and students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he touched upon the issue of cross-breeding of human beings in the Indian society in history. He said: aToday experiments in cross-breeding are made only on animals. But the courage to make such experiments on human beings is not shown even by the so-called modern scientist of today. If some human cross-breeding is seen today it is the result not of scientific experiments but of carnal lust. Now let us see the experiments our ancestors made in this sphere. In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahamanas of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child.a [22]

The above statement of Golwalkar was highly worrying in many respects. Firstly, it proved that Golwalkar believed that India had a superior Race or breed and also an inferior Race which needed to be improved through cross-breeding. Secondly, a more worrying aspect was his belief that Brahmans of the North (India) and specially Namboodri Brahmins, belonged to a superior Race. Due to this quality, Namboodri Brahmins were sent from the North India to Kerala to improve the breed of inferior Hindus there. Interestingly, this was being argued by a person who claimed to uphold the unity of Hindus world over. Thirdly, Golwalkar as a male chauvinist believed that a Namboodri Brahman male belonging to a superior Race from the North only could improve the inferior human Race from South. For him wombs of Keralaas Hindu women enjoyed no sanctity and were simply objects of improving breed through intercourse with Namboodri Brahmins.

Astonishingly, Golwalkar expressed these Racist, anti-women and anti-egalitarian views not in the presence of some uneducated or lumpens crowd but before a noble gathering of gentry consisting of the faculty and students of a prime university in Gujarat.

What is going to be the status of Sudras and women in Hindutva rule of the dreams of RSS can be understood by a glance of some of the decrees of Manu about them. One can only shiver after going through the following Manu Codes.

Laws of Manu concerning Dalits/Untouchables

[This selection of Manuas Codes is from [23]. The bracket after each code incorporates number of chapter/number of code according to the above edition.]

1. For the sake of the prosperity of the worlds (the divine one) caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thighs and his feet. (I/31)

2. One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Sudras, to serve meekly even these (other) three castes. (I/91)

3. Once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin. (VIII/270)

4. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears. (VIII/272)

6. With whatever limb, a man of a low caste does hurt to (a man of the three) highest (castes), even that limb shall be cut off; that is the teaching of Manu. (VIII/279)

7. He who raises his hand or a stick, shall have his hand cut off; he who in anger kicks with his foot, shall have his foot cut off. (VIII/280)

8. A low-caste man who tries to place himself on the same seat with a man of a high caste, shall be branded on his hip and be banished, or (the king) shall cause his buttock to be gashed. (VIII/281)

As per the Manu Code if Sudras are to be given most stringent punishments for even petty violations/actions, the same Code of Manu is very lenient towards Brahmins. Shloka 380 in Chapter VIII bestowing profound love on Brahmins, decrees:

aLet him never slay a Brahmana, though he have committed all (possible) crimes; let him banish such an (offender), leaving all his property (to him) and (his body) unhurt.a

Laws of Manu concerning women

1. Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under oneas control. (IX/2)

2. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (IX/3)

3. Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling (they may appear); for, if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families. (IX/5)

4. Considering that the highest duty of all castes, even weak husbands (must) strive to guard their wives. (IX/6)

5. No man can completely guard women by force; but they can be guarded by the employment of the (following) expedients:

6. Let the (husband) employ his (wife) in the collection and expenditure of his wealth, in keeping (everything) clean, in (the fulfillment of) religious duties, in the preparation of his food, and in looking after the household utensils.

7. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; (thinking), a(It is enough that) he is a man,a they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly. (IX/14)

9. Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, they become disloyal towards their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this (world). (IX/15)

10. (When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a love of their) bed, (of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. (IX/17)

11. For women, no (sacramental) rite (is performed) with sacred texts, thus the law is settled; women (who are) destitute of strength and destitute of (the knowledge of) Vedic texts, (are as impure as) falsehood (itself), that is a fixed rule. (IX/18)

DENIGRATING THE NATIONAL FLAG

RSS and its offshoots keep on organizing aTirangaa (National Flag) yatras and demand that all Muslim madrasa must unfurl Tricolour on its buildings. Let us compare these with RSS denigration of our national Flag. The RSS English organ Organizer in its editorial (titled aThe Nationas Flaga), dated July 17, 1947, while reacting to the news that the committee of the Constituent Assembly of India on national Flag had decided in favour of Tricolour as the National Flag since it was acceptable to all parties and communities, wrote: aWe do not at all agree that the Flag ashould be acceptable to all parties and communities in Indiaa. This is sheer nonsense. The Flag represents the nation and there is only one nation in Hindusthan, the Hindu Nation, with an unbroken history extending over 5,000 years. That is the nation and the flag must symbolize that nation and that nation alone. We cannot possibly choose a flag with a view to satisfy the desires and wishes of all the communities. That is to complicate matters and is unwarranted and entirely unnecessaryaWe cannot order the choice of a flag as we order a tailor to make a shirt or coat for usaa

Shockingly, RSS organ Organizer on the eve of Independence of India carried a long piece, aMystery behind the Bhagwa Dhawaja, which while demanding hoisting of saffron flag at the ramparts of Red Fort in Delhi openly denigrated the choice of the Tricolour as the National Flag in the following words: aThe people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it never [sic] be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.a [24]

It was in July 1947 that the Constituent Assembly of Independent India deliberated on the issue of the National Flag of the country and adopted the Tricolour as the national Flag. However, RSS under the leadership of M. S. Golwalkar refused to accept as one. While addressing a Gurupurnima gathering in Nagpur on July 14, 1946, stated that it was the saffron flag which in totality represented their great culture. It was the embodiment of God: aWe firmly believe that in the end the whole nation will bow before this saffron flag.a [25]

Even after independence when the Tricolour became the National Flag, it was the RSS which refused to accept it as the National Flag. Golwalkar opposed this choice of the national Flag in an essay entitled aDrifting and Driftinga (reproduced from in the book Bunch of Thoughts, a collection of Golwalkaras writings in English published by the RSS in 1966). Citing examples of aDriftinga from the Hindutva goals by the Founding Fathers, Golwalkar wrote:

aOur leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitatingaIt was just a politicianas patchwork, just political expediency. It was not inspired by any national vision or truth based on our national history and heritageaHad we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly, we had. Then, why this void, this utter vacuum in our minds?a [26]

MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS & COMMUNISTS AS INTERNAL THREATS

The aHolya book for the RSS cadres Bunch of Thoughts, has a long chapter titled as aInternal Threatsa in which Muslims and Christians are described as threat number 1 and 2 respectively. Communists are played at number 3. This chapter opens with the following statement:

aIt has been the tragic lesson of the history of many a country in the world that the hostile elements within the country pose a far greater menace to national security then aggressors from outside.a [27]

While treating Muslims as hostile element number 1 he goes on to elaborate,

aEven to this day there are so many who say, anow there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all, they have no other place to go and they are bound to remain loyala...It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation of Pakistan. On the contrary, the Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country.a [28]

He goes on to spit venom against common Muslims in the following words:

a...within the country there are so many Muslim pockets, i.e., so many aminiature Pakistansaa The conclusion is that, in practically every place, there are Muslims who are in constant touch with Pakistan over the transmitteraa [29]

While deliberating on the aInternal Threata number 2, the Christians, he says,

asuch is the role of Christian gentlemen residing in our land today, out to demolish not only the religious and social fabric of our life but also to establish political domination in various pockets and if possible all over the land.a [30]

Golwalkaras hatred for Muslims was inexhaustible and never-ending. So far as his hatred for Muslims was concerned there was no difference in his views contained in We or Our Nationhood Defined in 1939, or his hatred for Muslims in 1960. In fact, this hatred got wilder. While addressing the leading RSS cadres of south India in Bangalore on November 30, 1960, he declared:

aRight from Delhi to Rampur, Muslims are busy hatching a dangerous plot, piling up arms and mobilizing their men, and probably biding their time to strike from within.a [31]

Shockingly, no proofs were given and law and order machinery was not informed about such a critical situation but this Guru of Hate continued spitting venom against patriotic Indian Muslims. His only purposed seemed to be to create mob-hysteria against Muslims. More shocking was that Indian State took no action against Golwalkar for creating enmity between 2 major religious communities of India.

For Golwalkar and RSS, Communists are described as aInternal Threata number 3 as the latter rise in defence of a democratic-secular Indian polity and challenge the Hindutva forces which are working overtime to undo an all-inclusive India. [32]

RSS DECRIED THE DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR CONSTITUTION OF INDIA

The second sarsanghchalak of the RSS, MS Golwalkar led the organization during 1940-1973. What RSS thought about the Indian Constitution would be clear from the following words of his reproduced from Bunch of Thoughts:

aOur Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various Constitutions of Western countries. It has absolutely nothing, which can be called our own. Is there a single word of reference in its guiding principles as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No! Some lame principles form the United Nations Charter or from the Charter of the now defunct League of Nations and some features form the American and British Constitutions have been just brought together in a mere hotchpotch.a

In fact, RSS wanted this Constitution to be replaced by Manusmriti or Codes of Manu. When the Constituent Assembly of India had finalized the Constitution of India RSS was not happy. Organizer in an editorial (aThe Constitutiona) on November 30, 1949, complained: aThe worst about the new constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bhartiya about it. The drafters of the Constitution have incorporated in it elements of British, American, Canadian, Swiss and sundry other constitutions. But there is no trace of ancient Bhartiya constitutional laws, institutions, nomenclature and phraseology in itaBut in our constitution, there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manuas Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.a [33]

RSS IS COMMITTED FOR CONVERTING DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIAN INTO A HINDU RASHTRA

Against Secularism

The RSS is committed to establish a Hindu Rashtra in opposition to a Secular India will be clear by the perusal of the oath (pratigya) which every member must take before admission into the RSS and prayer (pararthana) which is recited in its meetings.

Oath:

aBefore the all-powerful God and my ancestors, I most solemnly take this oath, that I become a member of the RSS in order to achieve all round greatness of Bharatvarsha by fostering the growth of my sacred Hindu religion, Hindu society, and Hindu culture. I shall perform the work of the Sangh honestly, selflessly with my heart and soul, and I shall adhere to this goal all my life. Bharat Mata Ki Jai.a [34]

Thus they are not faithful to the Indian Nation as it exists as a legal entity but want to subvert it into a theocratic state like Muslim League which created Pakistan in the name of Islam.

Prayer:

Affectionate Motherland, I eternally bow to you/O Land of Hindus, you have reared me in comfort/O Sacred Land, the Great Creator of Good, may this body of mine be dedicated to you/I again and again bow before You/O God almighty, we the integral part of the Hindu Rashtra salute you in reverence/For Your cause have we girded up our loins/Give us Your Blessings for its accomplishment...a [35]

RSS and its fraternal organization, Hindu Mahasabha were very angry when Indian Constituent Assembly adopted a democratic-Secular Constitution under the supervision of Dr. BR Ambedkar. VD Savarkar as leader of Hindutva believed: aManusmriti is that scripture which is most worship-able after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Lawa . [36]

AGAINST DEMOCRACY

What kind of political system the RSS wants to usher in and run will be clear from the following words of MS Golwalkaras speech which he delivered before the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS at Resham Bagh, the RSS headquarters at Nagpur in 1940:

aRSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.a [37] Interestingly, this ruling mantra was lifted from the programmes of Nazi and Fascists parties of Europe.

The above original documents from the RSS/Hindu Mahasabha archives go to prove one fact that with Hindutva politics taking over the Indian constitutional polity, no enemy is required to undo India.

HINDUTVA AND COW

Rahul Pandita seems to be enjoying Adityanathas guidelines to the police for

astrict action against cow slaughter, while the sealing of some slaughterhouses is underwaya . He does share the fact that slaughterhouses sealed were not slaughtering cows thus facilitating the spread of a stereotype against Muslims that they slaughter cows. This is the kind of rumour mongering which has resulted in lynching of innumerable Muslims who were seen transporting cows. Muslims found with cow are legitimate target for Hindutva zealots as witnessed recently in Alwar, Rajasthan. Rahul Pandita wants to remain oblivious, consciously or unconsciously that Hindutva gangas agenda of holiness of cow is a modern construct. Swami Vivekananda, regarded as a philosopher of Hindutva by the RSS, said: aYou will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions, he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.a [38]

Imagine what these gau rakshaks will do to Swami if he reappears today!

Rahul Pandita does not dare to question DOGHLAPAN (hypocrisy) of RSS/BJP on cow slaughter; their governments in Goa and many north-eastern States of India openly allow beef.

aThe assertive form of Hindutvaa is welcome only for teaching a lesson to Muslims who have been appeased by all except Hindutva brigade. Why should Rahul Pandita bother about the fact that 800 years of aMuslima rule and decades of pampering of Muslims of India by aseculara leaders, the community socially, economically and politically remains static at the lowest pedestal of aNew Indiaa.

Lastly, I would like Rahul Pandita not to trivialize the issue of persecution, repression and forced ouster of minorities, secular and liberal elements to the plight and brutalization of Kashmiri Pandits only. The Islam-o-fascists in league with intelligence agencies went after non-Pandit Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims also in order to convert Kashmir problem into a fight between Hinduism and Islam.

Shamsul Islam
M.N. Roy Lecture by Justice A. P. Shah (retired) was delivered on the 19th April, 2017, at 5.30. PM at Speaker Hall, Constitution Club,Rafi Marg, New Delhi. The event was organised under the aegis of The Indian Renaissance Institute, New Delhi

[Short excerpt of the lecture / Full text is available in PDF below]

A. Introduction

aA parochial, selfish, narrow minded nationalism has caused so much misfortune and misery to the world. A mad and exaggerated form of this cult of nationalism is today running rampant....a

This statement made by M.N. Roy, as far back as 1942, may resonate with many even today, particularly in these times we live in. Good evening, Justice Chalmeswar, Mr. Pancholi and distinguished members of audience. It is a privilege and an honour to be here to deliver the M.N. Roy Memorial lecture today.

M.N. Roy was a leading intellectual and thinker, and an activist philosopher, who was deeply involved in the Humanist Movement. He was critical of the fundamentals of Indian nationalism and the ideology of nationalism in general, particularly in light of the rise of Fascism and Nazism and the outbreak of the Second World War. Roy left India during the earlier part of the First World War as a full-blooded nationalist, but changed his views after much reflection and new political experiences. He founded the Communist Party of Mexico in 1919, the first Communist Party outside Russia. During the second World Congress of Communist International, Roy helped formulate the famous Thesis on the National and Colonial Question by Lenin, although he disagreed with Lenin on the class composition of the leadership of the nationalist movement in colonies. Subsequently, on account of disagreements with Stalin, Roy returned to India in December 1930.

His return, however, was short lived. In July 1931, he was arrested on charges of sedition for the Bolshevik Conspiracy Case and tried in Kanpur Jail, without any open trial. He was sentenced to jail for 12 years, and was eventually released within six years at the age of 36. Thereafter, Roy joined the Congress, although he ultimately fell out with them on account of their reluctance to support the British to oppose fascism (which he considered to be a greater evil) in the Second World War.

After India became independent, Roy became a chief proponent of the idea of aradical humanisma , which he described as aa new humanisma . He continued writing on nationalism and on its economic and political aspects. In 1944, he drafted a aConstitution of Free Indiaa , where he included a chapter on aDeclaration of Fundamental Rightsa which clearly stated that a aright to revolt against tyranny and oppression is sacreda .

B. The Situation Today

Royas ideas thus covered a broad range of topics, including speech and dissent. In fact, that is exactly why I have chosen to speak on Nationalism, Free Speech and Sedition for this memorial lecture.

Today, we are living in a world where we are forced to stand for the national anthem at a movie theatre, we are told what we can and cannot eat, what we can and cannot see, and what we can and cannot speak about. Dissent, especially in the university space, is being curbed, and sloganeering and flag raising have become tests for nationalism. We have a 21-year old University student who is subject to severe online hate, abuse, and threats, only because she dared express her views.

In any society, at any given point of time, there will always be people holding divergent views. Such views are integral and inevitable in a healthy, functioning democracy. Nowhere has this been better expressed than by the judgment of the Bombay High Court in F.A. Picture International v CBFC, where the Court said:

aHistory tells us that dissent in all walks of life contributes to the evolution of society. Those who question unquestioned assumptions contribute to the alteration of social norms. Democracy is founded upon respect for their courage. Any attempt by the State to clamp down on the free expression of opinion must hence be frowned upona

Unfortunately, however, our institutions of learning are under attack today and there is a concerted attempt to destroy any independent thought. Today, sadly, in this country I love, if anyone holds a view that is different from the governmentas aacceptablea view, they are immediately dubbed as aanti-nationala or adesh-drohia . This marker of aanti-nationala is used to intimidate and browbeat voices of dissent and criticism, and more worryingly, can be used to slap criminal charges of sedition against them.

All these factors have led me to choose the present topic to generate further discussion and debate. I think it is all the more important to discuss and talk about nationalism.

C. What is Nationalism?

At the very outset, I would like to caution against, what the celebrated Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie terms, the adanger of a single storya a the danger of understanding an idea only from a single perspective and ignoring the diversity of views present. Mridula Mukherjee points out the nuances in the word anationalisma and how it encompasses the ideas of progressive nationalism, a revolutionary pro-people nationalism, and a regressive and jingoistic nationalism.

Hitleras nationalism, after all, was very different from Gandhi and Nehruas nationalism. The European conception of nationalism, developed from the days of the Treaty of Westphalia and in the age of imperialist expansion, focused on the enemy within, whether the Jew or the Protestant. In contrast, the Indian conception of nationalism, developed as an opposition to an external imperialist British state, was more inclusive in uniting the people against them. This was then, an aanti-colonial nationalism, where the primary identity of an Indian was not their religion, caste, or language, but their unity as equals in their demand for freedom. It is thus important to remember that there is no single overarching arighta conception of nationalism.

How then did M.N. Roy understand nationalism? In Royas view, nationalism was representative of the desires and ambitions of a group of people within a certain geographical area, as opposed to people uniting on the basis of class. Nationalism thus emphasised the placing of oneas countryas interest over the interest of the rest of the world. There was a time in the 19th century, when countries were still isolated from each other, when nationalism was a historic necessity, under whose banner people came together and humanity progressed. However, he believed, it had now become a selfish, narrow-minded aantiquated culta , and the world should progress towards internationalism and international cooperation. The ambitions of different nations began to conflict with each other, contributing to an exaggerated and irrational form of nationalism, which manifest itself in the rise of Fascism and Nazism, eventually leading to the Second World War. Nationalism, in Royas eyes, had thus become a synonym for revivalism, whose advocates were consigned to glorify the past and advocate for a return to the bliss of the middle ages and a simpler life.

Rabindranath Tagore, the composer of the Indian national anthem, had even more radical views on nationalism. He believed that a fervent love for the nation represented a conviction of national superiority and a glorification of cultural heritage, which in turn was used to justify narrow-minded national interest. Writing in 1917, Tagore said, awhen this organisation of politics and commerce, whose other name is the Nation, becomes all powerful at the cost of the harmony of higher social life, then it is an evil day for humanity.a He thus cautioned against such an exclusionary and self-aggrandizing form of nationalism that was based on a hate culture against an imagined or actual Other, who was viewed as the enemy.

On the other hand, the revivalists focus on the glory of ancient India, going back to the Aryan race as the building block of the Indian civilisation. This takes the form of cultural nationalism, where anyone celebrating aWesterna festivals such as Valentineas Day or even couples merely holding hands are to be ostracised and attacked. As religious nationalism, it endorses the two-nation theory, which envisages a nation under Hindu rule, a Hindu rashtra in Akhand Bharat (a United India). This is premised on the belief that only a Hindu can claim the territory of British India as a land of their ancestry, i.e. pitribhumi, and the land of their religion, i.e. the punyabhumi.

As Vinayak Damodhar Sarvakar propounded, aHindu Rashtra (state), Hindu Jati (race) and Hindu Sanskriti (culture).a Muslims and Christians are viewed as foreigners, who are not indigenous to the territory of India, and whose religion originated in a separate holy land.

At this point, I would like to share my personal background. My maternal grandfather was the President of the Hindu Mahasabha in the 1940s, and the first literature that I ever encountered in my school days was Sarvarkaras writings. Writing in 1938, when Hitler was on the rise, Sarvarkar justified Hitleras policies towards the Jews and driving them away from the motherland. He said, aA nation is formed by a majority living therein. What did the Jews do in Germany? They being in minority were driven out from Germany.a

I am not sure whether his views changed after World War 2, and when the extent of the holocaust came to be known. Sarvarkar further believed that minority groups must lose their separate existence and separate identity if they want to live in India.

Roy, unsurprisingly, was critical of such views. While discussing the declaration made by the President of the Hindu Maha Sabha that athe majority is the nationa , Roy said that it sounds quite in atune with formal democracya , but in reality a particularly in the prevailing atmosphere of Indian politics, it means that in a nationally free India the Muslims, constituting nearly 1/3rd of the population, will have no freedoma . He was thus against removing an imperialist regime and replacing it with a nationalist regime, which would continue to deny real freedom to most of the Indian people.

It is important to remember that both Tagore and Roy wrote in the context of the First and Second World War respectively. They had thus, witnessed first hand, how the pursuit of the glory of the nation had resulted in the great wars, and betrayed the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity of the French Revolution. Today, in independent India unfortunately, having such views is almost blasphemous and perhaps seditious. [. . . ].

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ABC/Todd WawrychukDierks Bentley not only plays a pilot in concert and in his Drunk on a Plane video, he's also a pilot in real life. And soon, he may also be running an airport.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry has nominated the Black hitmaker for a volunteer position on the Metro Nashville Airport Authority. The 10-member board oversees the Nashville International Airport.

Dierks brings a unique perspective to the boardhaving flown into hundreds of airports worldwide, Barry told The Tennessean. He will lend an important voice to the Airport Authority, which will be managing the $1.2 billion capital investment in the MNAA facilities, while working to make our airport a true international hub for commerce and tourism."

"I love Nashville and I love aviation, Dierks responded. There are many big changes happening in our city right now as it continues to grow so rapidly. I am very excited to get a chance to be involved in facilitating and managing that growth as it pertains to our airports and aviation services."

Music Citys Metro Council will take up Dierks nomination during its next meeting on Tuesday, May 2.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Trump administration intensified its threats to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal immigration authorities, warning nine jurisdictions Friday that they may lose coveted law enforcement grant money unless they document cooperation.

Warning letters went to officials in California and major cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans, all places the Justice Department's inspector general has identified as limiting the information local law enforcement can provide to federal immigration authorities about those in their custody.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has warned that the administration will punish communities that refuse to cooperate with efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally. But some of the localities continued to resist federal pressure, despite risking the loss of funds that police agencies use to pay for everything from body cameras to bulletproof vests.

"We're not going to cave to these threats," Milwaukee County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic said, promising a legal fight if the money is pulled.

Playing off Sessions' recent comments that sanctuary cities undermine the fight against gangs, the Justice Department said the communities under financial threat are "crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime."

After a raid led to the arrests of 11 MS-13 gang members in California's Bay Area "city officials seemed more concerned with reassuring illegal immigrants that the raid was unrelated to immigration than with warning other MS-13 members that they were next," the department said in a statement.

The federal law in question says state and local governments may not prohibit police or sheriffs from sharing information about a person's immigration status with federal authorities. Friday's letters warn officials they must provide proof from an attorney that they are following the law.

The money could be withheld in the future, or terminated, if local officials fail to show proof, wrote Alan R. Hanson, acting head of the Office of Justice Programs. The grant program is the leading source of federal justice funding to states and local communities.

Kevin de Leon, leader of California's state Senate, rejected the administration's demand, saying its policies are based on "principles of white supremacy" and not American values.

"Their constant and systematic targeting of diverse cities and states goes beyond constitutional norms and will be challenged at every level," he said.

The jurisdictions also include Clark County, Nevada; Cook County, Illinois; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

They were singled out in a May 2016 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that found local policies or rules could interfere with providing information to immigration agents. Following the report, the Obama administration warned cities that they could miss out on grant money if they did not comply with the law, but it never actually withheld funds.

The report pointed to a Milwaukee County rule that immigration detention requests be honored only if the person has been convicted of one felony or two misdemeanors, has been charged with domestic violence or drunken driving, is a gang member, or is on a terrorist watch list, among other constraints.

It also took issue with a New Orleans Police Department policy that it said might hinder communication with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That city received nearly $266,000 in grant money through the program in fiscal year 2016, used to pay for testing DNA kits, police body cameras, attorneys for domestic violence victims and other expenses.

Zach Butterworth, Mayor Mitch Landrieu's executive counsel and director of federal relations, said the city drafted its policies in consultation with federal immigration and Homeland Security officials. It was reviewing the Justice Department's letter.

"We don't think there's a problem," he said.

Butterworth said the New Orleans Police Department has seen a 28 percent drop in calls for service from people with limited English since November.

"People are scared, and because of that, they're less willing to report crime," Butterworth added.

New Orleans police have no means or authority to enforce immigration laws or hold someone suspected of violating them, he said.

Other places also insisted they were in compliance. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the elected head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said the city and county were wrongly labeled sanctuary cities.

Police operate the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, where Lombardo said four jail guards are assigned to notify ICE when dangerous criminals are identified during booking. The federal agency then has 48 hours to take the detainees into custody.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said that city is hardly succumbing to violence.

"Milwaukee County has its challenges but they are not caused by illegal immigration," he said in a statement. "My far greater concern is the proactive dissemination of misinformation, fear, and intolerance."
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HIT: To a program helping to make sure everyone has something awesome to wear to the prom.

Wegmans employees in Auburn recently gathered gently-worn gowns so that they could be given to Auburn High students ahead of their May 13 prom. A total of 55 dresses were donated, and area girls were invited to come in and try some of them on for size. Attending formals can be expensive, with some dresses selling for hundreds of dollars, so this program took some of the pain out of the prom for local families.

MISS: We're always happy to hear stories about people doing the right thing  like finding something valuable and making sure that it gets back to its rightful owner. But some people in Auburn did just the opposite after finding a purse.

The purse had been accidentally left behind by a customer at a restaurant, and the couple who found it, along with the woman's mother, were all arrested after a credit card that was in the purse was used to make more than $300 worth of purchases at area stores.

One of the people involved, a 32-year-old with a history of theft in nearby counties, is expected to be sentenced to probation, with a stern warning from the court that a violation will send her to prison.

HIT: To an Auburn native on taking first place in a national design competition.

Monica Wilder attends the School of Architecture at Marywood University in Pennsylvania and collaborated with another student in a challenge to come up with the best design for a floor of a Dallas office building.

Six months  and countless hours  of work later, the students learned that they had won first place in the International Student Design Association Competition, a nice feather in the cap of any aspiring architect.
A man who shot a Parisian police officer to death on the Champs-Elysees Thursday night was known to French security services for radical Islamist activities, a source close to the investigation told CNN.

As featured on Paris gunman who killed police officer known to security forces, source says A man who shot a Parisian police officer to death on the Champs-Elysees Thursday night was known to French security services for radical Islamist activities, a source close to the investigation told CNN.
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CNN's Ed Lavandera talks with residents of Louisiana about climate change, some of whom don't believe it exists.

As featured on As the seas around them rise, fishermen deny climate change People live and die by the water in southern Louisiana.
SKANEATELES  Skaneateles resident and travel professional Kathy Crelot told her audience to "take this journey together" during a gathering at the Sherwood Inn March 28.

Crelot spoke about Globus Family of Brands, one of the many travel suppliers she represents, and she also represents Florida-based Cruises Inc.

She discovered this position after she retired and was on a cruise that happened to include a lot of travel professionals. Having a passion for travel herself, she decided to become a representative.

I accidentally got into the business, but it was meant to be, Crelot said, noting she has traveled all her life either with the military or personally.

It's a big world out there with plenty to see, so Crelot was thrilled to have Lori Nojaim, of Onondaga Hill and also a Globus representative, present as Nojaim is a former longtime representative for Royal Caribbean.

At the heart of the Globus brands is European river cruising, as this is how the company started. It has branched out to lead tours on rivers all over the world as well as land touring and ocean cruises.

River cruising is all about the views and the destinations, Nojaim said. The secret to river cruising is every boat is the same width, as they all go through the same locks.

What sets Globus' cruises apart are the size of their staterooms. Their designers removed the usual three-foot balcony in each room and instead added to the actual room with a seven-foot window for taking in the views.

These cruises don't feature big shows. Instead, it is about the view and the ports of call along the way. On these boats, you arrive right in the middle of your destination.

When you dock, you are literally in the middle of the site that you came to see, Nojaim said.

The biggest decision once you have decided on a river cruise is which river and on what continent. Most people start in Europe, she said.

The Rhine is known as the romantic Rhine because there are lots of castles. The Danube will take you to more cities and is usually cruised in portion because of its length.

A popular cruise is to start in Basel, Switzerland and travel to Amsterdam or to do the trip in reverse. You can add trip extensions where you desire, too, if you want to stay a few days in Amsterdam, for example.

Then, there are special interest cruises. Wine, beer and culinary tours are popular. Some people prefer to be more active and adventurous, so there are active discovery cruises that could include biking, hiking or even kayaking. There are cruises that focus on history or religion.

Globus guides are what their guests most often talk about. It's their knowledge.

They bring it to life for you, Nojaim said.

Nojaim went on to describe her company's approach to land touring, which can often include some cruising. The most popular destinations have been Italy and the United Kingdom. South America is also very popular, with Peru's Machu Picchu being No. 1 followed by an approach on smaller ships to the Galapagos Islands.

Now, Asia is opening up. This can be a daunting destination because the language is less familiar, Nojaim said, so having all your arrangements, including accommodations and meals, taken care of is ideal.

They have even smaller boats  36 passengers  that tour Myanmar and the Mekong.

Globus also has tours in Japan, several approaches to African safaris, tours to Hawaii and down under. Their latest destinations are the India and Cuba.

Nojaim said her husband always says, Why do we have to leave the United States?

The answer is you don't have to  Globus has tours all throughout the states, including Route 66 and the national parks, and there is even a JFK 100th anniversary tour that visits Cape Cod and the islands.

Nojaim also mentioned Alaska and the Canadian Rockies but added there just wasn't enough time in one evening to also cover Costa Rica, the South Pacific and so many other places.

She said air travel can be arranged through them or on your own. But, consider getting to the destination a little bit ahead if you do it on your own in case of missed connections.

Crelot thanked Nojaim and the audience, which she sent home loaded with travel catalogs.

She is the local connection for world travel working as an independent vacation specialist with Cruises Inc., which is owned by World Travel Holdings in Florida.

She works out of her home or wherever she takes her laptop. She has an extensive website to get you started thinking about your next trip. As a lifelong administrator both in the Navy and banking, she is serious about taking the work out of your play.

"I can work with any travel supplier whether it's a ocean cruise, river cruise, all inclusive destinations or land tours," Crelot said.
Youth Orchestra Northern Arizona will perform its season finale, Saturday, April 22, at 7 p.m., in Flagstaff High Schools Hurley Theater. YONA, made up of 50 of northern Arizonas young musicians, will perform excerpts from the great classical repertoire, as well as a selection from The Empire Strikes Back by John Williams.

These young people, in their first season as Flagstaffs new youth orchestra, will demonstrate their enthusiasm and sense of fun in performing orchestral music, as well as their prowess, said Artistic Director David Cripps. The music of Brahms and Bizet is represented as well as Williams, and we believe you will be truly amazed at how far these youngsters have advanced!

The program will be introduced and conducted by Cripps and Assistant Conductor Desmond Siu. Youth Orchestra Northern Arizona operates under the umbrella of Orchestra Northern Arizona.

Orchestra Northern Arizona will present its season finale on Saturday, April 29, also in Flagstaff High Schools Hurley Theater.

Orchestra Northern Arizonas final program of this season will be dedicated to the music of dance, opera and the Easter season, said Cripps. Rimsky-Korsakovs Russian Easter Festival Overture is a brilliant tour de force for orchestra, giving several of our players opportunities to shine in beautiful solos, as well as the whole orchestra to come together in a thrilling conclusion.

ONA concerts are free and open to all ages, with suggested donation of $5 per adult. For more information about either concert or orchestra, visit www.orchestrana.org or email admin@orchestrana.org. Flagstaff High School is located at 400 W. Elm, Ave., and is ADA compliant.

Art, activities, music and more celebrate youth

The focus will be on the children of the Colorado Plateau at Saturday's Youth Fest at the Museum of Northern Arizona. The event will be from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at the museum, 3101 N. Fort Valley Road.

Visitors will experience the artistry of the Hopi Canyon Warriors, Ballet Folklorico de Colores, Yavapai/Apache Dancers and musical performances by Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy students. There will be arts and crafts, face painting, a live mural project, engaging activities, food by Archuleta's Ice Cream and more.

Admission is $12 for adults, and free for youth ages 17 and younger. For more information, visit musnaz.org.

Community invited to join the March for Science

In partnership with the local scientific community and in coordination with the global March for Science campaign, the Flagstaff March for Science will take place Saturday in downtown Flagstaff. Following the march, speakers will discuss the role of the sciences in the Flagstaff community and, more broadly, of the tangible benefits of science to human life and the future of our world.

The Flagstaff March for Science, hosted by the NAU Committee for Evidence-Based Action, is a celebration of a passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. The event will include a gathering of students, professionals, families and community leaders who want to represent a voice for the sciences in society.

This movement cannot and will not end with a march, says Bo Stevens, CEBA co-chair. Our plans for policy change and community outreach start with marches worldwide and a teach-in at the National Mall, but it is imperative that we continue to celebrate and defend science at all levels  from local schools to federal agencies  throughout the world.

The march was organized in response to a mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, resulting in policymakers rejecting overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus. The Flagstaff March for Science is a stand for the need of science to inform our society. The march is not just for scientists, it is for anyone who supports science, science education and science policy to advocate for a scientifically sound future.

The Flagstaff March for Science will begin at Thorpe Park, at the south ramada (Thorpe Road and Santa Fe Avenue), on April 22 at 2 p.m. The march will proceed down Aspen Avenue to Humphreys Street, and down Humphreys Street to the Flagstaff City Hall lawn at the corner of Humphreys Street and Route 66. Speakers will start at the Flagstaff City Hall lawn at 3 p.m.
PHOENIX  Arizona is just one signature away from imposing its first-ever limits on the use of cell phones by teens.

On a 32-24 margin Thursday, the state House gave final approval to legislation which spells out that teens with learner's permits can neither text nor make calls from their cell phones while behind the wheel. SB 1080 also extends that to the first six months they have their actual Class G license, reserved for the newest drivers.

The measure, which previously was approved by the Senate on a 24-6 margin, now goes to Gov. Doug Ducey.

Gubernatorial press aide Daniel Scarpinato said only that his boss will review the bill.

But the issue could be more personal for Ducey: He has three sons, two of whom are driving age.

Thursday's vote came over the objection of some legislators who want Arizona to remain one of only two states in the country with no limits at all on cell phone use by motorists. They said their fear is that once Arizona restricts what teens can do, it's just a small step to extending that to others.

Rep. David Stringer, R-Prescott, said he shares that concern.

But Stringer agreed to vote for the measure after speaking with Sen. Karen Fann, R-Prescott, who shepherded the measure through the Senate.

She assured me last night when we spoke this is not the proverbial camel's nose under the tent, that she is only concerned with the Class G new driver, and this is not going to be an effort to expand it again and expand it again, he said. That, said Stringer, was enough to get him to go along.

There also were objections from the other side of the issue, with some lawmakers questioning why the limits should be so narrow.

The problem I have with this bill is I think it's a criminalization of young teenagers, said Rep. Ray Martinez, D-Phoenix. If we want to pass a texting bill, let's pass it for all of us.

Rep. Richard Andrade, D-Glendale, said he agrees with that sentiment. Andrade, a certified locomotive engineer, said that's why all use of cell phones is banned in his profession.

But he agreed to vote for this, saying, this will save lives.

Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, said there's a good reason to focus on the newest drivers. He said 11 teens die nationally every day while texting and driving.

More to the point, he said it's important to force the issue.

He cited a AAA study which found that 94 percent of teen drivers recognize the danger of texting and driving.

But 35 percent admitted to doing it anyway, Bolding said.

According to AAA, 46 states plus the District of Columbia ban text messaging by any motorists. But while there is no such law in Texas or Missouri, both do ban teens from using cell phones.

That leaves just Arizona and Montana with no restrictions.
A row of computers, TV screens and a wall-sized image of the surface of Mars fill a small room in the physical science building at Northern Arizona University. It's an unassuming setting but boasts an impressive mission  to allow planetary scientists, in collaboration with hundreds of others across the world, to help navigate a rover across the surface of the Red Planet.

The room is one half of the universitys new Mars Rover Operations and Analysis Laboratory, headed by Christopher Edwards, an assistant professor of planetary science at NAU and a participating scientist on NASAs Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover.

From the NAU lab, Edwards and postdoctoral scholar Kristen Bennett pull three to five shifts per month helping develop science operations plans for the Mini Cooper-sized Curiosity rover that landed on Mars in August 2012.They use specialized software that communicates with NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which engineered Curiosity, as well as other planning software, Edwards said.

When Bennett or Edwards are part of the command team, the day starts with a conference call between scientists where they review the latest data collected by the rover. Then they decide on activities for Curiosity to do that day depending on factors like the rover's power levels and certain targets they want to accomplish, Edwards said.

Perhaps the lab's flashiest tool is a pair of augmented reality goggles that put the user on Mars right next to the rover. Besides providing a fascinating view, the goggles help provide context and give the user a sense for the scale of features they are studying, Edwards said.

The NAU lab also gets access to data from the Curiosity rover and other orbiters around Mars, which are used by students studying different aspects of the Martian system from terraces on the planet's surface to differential temperature changes that contribute to an understanding for how dust moves around the planet's surface, Edwards said.

The other component of the lab is a still-empty room next door that will be used for designing small infrared instruments to be installed on satellites and other aerial platforms like drones, Edwards said.

NAU President Rita Cheng attended a ribbon cutting at the Mars laboratory on Tuesday and said Edwards brings a "different dimension" to the university. NAU has one of the larger undergraduate physics and astronomy programs in the United States, Cheng said. The goal with the Mars lab is to expand and deepen the research going on for masters and PhD students, she said.

David Trilling, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at NAU is a self-professed fan of the lab. Beyond raising NAUs local, regional and national profile in the astronomy and planetary sciences, Trilling sees potential for the lab to take advantage of science opportunities beyond Curiosity. There will always be another mission to Mars with the next best rover, the next best instruments and new ways to look at the planet and now NAU will be well positioned to join those as well, he said. The same is true for missions to Jupiter or the moon because the lab will already have the computers, the training, the credibility and the skills built up for such projects, he said.

Trilling also lauded the choice to install a glass wall to separate the computer-filled lab room from the adjacent hallway. So often science happens tucked away in offices or behind closed doors, Trilling said. Now, everyone from the president of the university to a new freshman can walk by and see science in action, he said.

I walk by that room every day and theres someone driving a rover, he said. So theres that cool factor.
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 "'Clientless' Prosecutors" | Main | Arkansas finally navigates litigation to complete one execution 

As reported in this new Washington Post piece, "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has commuted the death sentence of Ivan Teleguz, a 38-year-old man who was set to be executed Tuesday in the murder-for-hire of his former girlfriend." Here is more:

Teleguz has maintained his innocence in the 2001 slaying of 20-year-old Stephanie Yvonne Sipe in Harrisonburg. His lawyers have argued that two key witnesses have recanted their testimony, calling his guilt into question. Multiple courts have deemed those recantations unreliable, and the man who killed Sipe has never wavered in saying that Teleguz paid him to commit the murder.

McAuliffe said Thursday that while he believes Teleguz is guilty, the sentencing phase of his trial was terribly flawed and unfair. Teleguz will now serve life in prison without a chance of parole.

In their clemency petition, attorneys for Teleguz stressed that jurors were falsely told that Teleguz also was involved in a Pennsylvania murder  but that purported killing never occurred. Prosecutors pointed to testimony of that supposed crime as evidence that Teleguz solves problems with murder. The jury acted on false information, McAuliffe said.

In making his decision, McAuliffe said he reviewed over 6,000 pages of documents, including letters from Sipes family. He called her relatives before his news conference Thursday afternoon. My heart aches for the family of Stephanie Sipe, he said, but the Virginia Constitution and our sacred values of due process under law require me to act.

McAuliffe personally opposes the death penalty, citing his Catholic faith. But this marks the first time he has commuted a death sentence. As governor, he has presided over three executions, and at the behest of correctional officials he has pushed for more secrecy in the lethal injection process....

Teleguzs plea for a commutation attracted high-profile support, including from billionaire Richard Branson and former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr.

Investigators and Sipes family, however, are confident of Teleguzs guilt. There's no doubt in my mind that he hired these people to kill my sister, Sipe's sister, Jennifer Tilley, told the Harrisonburg television station WHSV last week. And it blows my mind, it really does, that he is still trying to fight and plead for his life....

The last time a Virginia governor commuted a death sentence was in 2008, when then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) stopped the execution of triple murderer Percy L. Walton. Kaine commuted Waltons sentence to life in prison without parole, saying that Walton was mentally incompetent and that putting him to death would be unconstitutional.
Taxes were due this week (if this is news to you, I'm sorry), and if you're a California resident paying state income tax, you may have once again been puzzled over a question on the tax form related to "Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payments." Perhaps, like me, you thought, "I wonder what the hell THAT'S all about," but then quickly moved on to the next possible exemption, only to forget about it until next April 15th.

Enter , a historical romance that sheds light on some 20th Century history that many don't know much about, even if they're reminded of it every April.

Oscar Isaac stars as Mikael, an aspiring doctor from Armenia. Lacking the funds to pay for medical school, he becomes betrothed to Maral (Angela Sarafyan, herself Armenian-American), a girl from his village, knowing that her dowry will pay for his tuition in Constantinople. But once there, he falls in love with Ana (Charlotte Le Bon, and her refreshingly era-appropriate teeth), an Armenian dance instructor, who is herself involved with an American reporter (Christian Bale, in a role befitting his intensity).

It's 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I, and while the Ottoman Empire is in its last days, Turkey's capital is still a fairly harmonious home to populations of Christian Armenians and Greeks as well as Muslim Turks. Mikael lodges with his rich uncle and cousins in their waterfront home, and evenings are spent in the opulent city, dancing and drinking absinthe. For small-town Mikael, it's heaven.

But not for long. When war breaks out, Mikael does his best to avoid enlistment, but soon he is forced into an even worse fate, as Armenians are singled out for a mass "deportation" that looks a lot like eradication. Like the similarly themed Bitter Harvest, released earlier this year, The Promise provides a look into a historical genocide that, to this day, continues to be denied by the country behind it.

Horrible things happen in The Promise, but we, as an audience, are supposed to care about the film's central love triangle, while around them mothers are being executed in front of their children, and whole villages are forced to walk across the desert to their certain deaths.

Christian Bale's reporter, as one member of the triangle, at least recognizes the bigger story going on around him. He often seems more annoyed by the ill-timing of Mikael and Ana's illicit romance than with its betrayal. As well he should!

It's an understandable trope, pushing a romance into a story that is, at its heart, about horrible things. The goal is to tell a story people will want to watch so the message will get through, like the proverbial spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down.

And granted, Oscar Isaac brings his reliably smoldering charisma to the role, even if he's not really allowed to use it much. It's like writer/director Terry George (who directed another genocide drama, Hotel Rwanda) knew putting too much emphasis on the romance would be in bad taste, but the result is just tepid distraction. We barely care about who ends up with whom, and I kept waiting for someone to say, "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

The film is a little better at the bigger story, not shying away from placing clear blame and calling genocide what it is: This is not a movie that will have many fans in Turkey. Where it falters is near then end, giving some American audiences what they clearly want  judging from the cheers from the crowd I saw the film with  with the appearance of a U.S embassy official (James Cromwell), swooping in and standing up to a Turkish official who has one character's life in his hands. (The scene ends with said official mentioning insurance policies held by Armenians, and a request for the names of American beneficiaries of those policies, a clear shout-out to that bit of California tax code!)

But because the story is never fully comfortable with its two narratives, it doesn't have the impact that was surely intended. It also doesn't delve too deeply into the whys. If you're wondering why the Turks felt the need to wipe out the Armenians, you'll get no answers here. But perhaps that's just as well. If we haven't learned by now that there is never a truly justifiable reason for the mass slaughter of millions of people, we probably never will.




The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, April 19:



Donald Trump has been president for only three months and already hes given up or reversed course or been stymied on a wide range of campaign promises. Given how awful some of those ideas were  ending Obamacare, declaring China a currency manipulator, ordering a blanket federal hiring freeze (done, but since lifted)  it is not necessarily a bad thing for the country that hes fallen down on the job.

Now, were mildly heartened to learn that Trump also may be moving away from his ill-advised campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement of 2015, under which nearly 200 nations pledged to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Climate change, of course, is viewed skeptically by the new president. He once described the idea that human activity is heating up the oceans and atmosphere in potentially catastrophic ways as a total, and very expensive, hoax that was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. He appointed a climate skeptic, Scott Pruitt, to run the Environmental Protection Agency, a department Trumps hopes to reduce by 31 percent, according to the budget proposal he sent to Congress. The administration also is pushing plans to roll back limitations on methane emissions from oil and gas wells on public lands (an effort that, fortunately, may die in the Senate), and to consider weakening the aggressive fuel-efficiency standards for motor vehicles established under President Obama.

Trump also has drawn a target on the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to significantly reduce emissions from primarily coal-fired power-generating plants responsible for a third of the nations greenhouse gases.

His hostility to the science of climate change poses a global risk. The U.S. is the worlds largest economy and second-largest emitter of carbon compounds and other greenhouse gases. It was instrumental in crafting the Paris agreement, a milestone in international environmental cooperation even if experts say its goal of capping the rise in temperatures by 2100 to less than 2 degrees Celsius isnt ambitious enough if the world is to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

Its slightly encouraging that there seems to be an internal debate underway between a set of Trump advisors who want the president to keep his promise to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement and another set urging him to stick with the pact but loosen the Obama goal of reducing U.S. emissions up to 28 percent below their level in 2005 by 2025. That the Trump administration is even debating the issue rather than blindly carrying out its ill-conceived campaign promise offers a hopeful sign that the presidents position could change, and that he might still join the rest of the world in trying to address the potentially existential threat of global warming. For the United States to back off from the Paris accord now not only would imperil the chances of global success, but would marginalize the U.S. as a leader in a defining issue of our era.

At the same time, if the U.S. were to stay in the Paris agreement while weakening the United States commitments, that still would be a losing proposition for the nation, and the world, given that emissions need to be even more sharply curtailed than already planned. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels is a difficult challenge, but it needs to be done. Yes, there will be economic hits to the oil and gas industries, but renewable energy already has become a significant part of the global economy and it is growing quickly. Given the worldwide damage that will be caused by rising seas  one estimate puts it at $1 trillion a year by 2050  insuring jobs today at the expense of the future is the definition of penny-wise, pound-foolish.

The president is in a position to prove his critics wrong  to demonstrate that he can weigh (actual, not alternative) facts and frame positions based on reality and in the best interests of the nation. We invite him to do so by sticking with the Paris agreement and the Clean Power Plan, and by directing the government to find ways to reduce U.S. emissions even further. Those are steps that a sagacious and respected world leader would take.

We hope Trump moves in that direction, away from his reckless campaign stance on this enormously important issue.
ELK POINT, S.D. | Lawyers for ABC have taken exception to how experts retained by Beef Products Inc. have calculated the amount of lost sales and business value in the company's $1.9 billion defamation lawsuit against the network.

The claimed actual damages are based on assumptions that any future drop in sales would be attributable only to ABC News reports on BPI's Lean Finely Textured Beef, rather than for other market factors, said Carl Metz, a member of the team of lawyers representing ABC.

"You can't prove loss from defamation five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now," Metz said during the final day of a three-day pretrial conference in Union County Circuit Court.

ABC is seeking to keep some of that expert testimony from being introduced at a jury trial, which is scheduled to start June 5. Metz said the expert's figures on BPI's future losses are speculative.

"He assumes that any loss in the future was caused by ABC," Metz said.

BPI's legal team responded that the figures were established using professionally accepted methods and concepts that look at BPI's historical sales figures and customer growth rate.

"This isn't him just making things up," BPI attorney Mike Meyer said of the expert's numbers.

Circuit Judge Cheryle Gering will issue a ruling on the issue and others at a May 5 hearing, exactly one month before opening statements are expected to begin in a trial that could last up to eight weeks.

BPI, based in Dakota Dunes, sued ABC, its correspondents, federal officials and a former employee in September 2012 and will attempt to prove that a series of stories and broadcasts that began in early March 2012 defamed the company's signature lean beef product. BPI alleges the "prolonged disinformation campaign" caused a backlash against the product, which critics repeatedly referred to as "pink slime," and led to a loss of $400 million in business, forcing the family-owned business to close all but its South Sioux City plant and lay off more than 700 workers.

Gering previously dismissed former "World News Tonight" anchor Diane Sawyer from the case, saying that Sawyer's role as an anchor limited her involvement in doing research and was not enough to establish defamation. The ruling left American Broadcasting Companies Inc., the parent of ABC News, and correspondent Jim Avila as defendants. ABC, Sawyer and Avila had sought the suit's dismissal in October.

BPI lawyers last summer voluntarily dismissed ABC News, network producer David Kerley, former U.S. Department of Agriculture officials Gerald Zirnstein and Carl Custer and former BPI employee Kit Foshee as defendants in the lawsuit.

BPI estimates that the reports did $1.9 billion in actual damages to the company and is seeking a jury award in that amount. If BPI wins at trial, its claim could be tripled to $5.7 billion under provisions of South Dakota's Agricultural Food Product Disparagement Act.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin May 31.

Gering told lawyers that the 350 potential jurors summoned in the case have been called to meetings on May 18 at which time they will fill out pretrial questionnaires that will be used to dismiss jurors from service prior to jury selection. A total of 12 jurors, plus four alternates will be seated for the trial.

Gering informed lawyers that there will be time constraints on the presentation of their cases, with BPI's attorneys being allotted 60 percent of the trial time because the plaintiff has a higher burden of proof.

She and the lawyers also discussed methods of submitting witness and exhibit lists and the trial setup of audio/visual equipment in the courtroom.
Somewhere, in the course of seven outings, those street racers from The Fast and the Furious became high-end James Bond spies.

Jumping buildings, defeating armies and ruining more cars than a lifetime of drivers ed students, the ragtag team is now a steely SEAL-level squad, able to take out the most heinous criminals in the world.

Thats fine, but the shift certainly changes the mood of the franchise and makes The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment, look like one of Tom Cruises impossible missions.

Although it starts with an old-school street race (in Cuba, no less), the film quickly escalates when a hacker named Cipher (Charlize Theron) takes Dom (Vin Diesel) hostage and forces him to play on another team. That arouses interest from the family and brings its members together to fight the supervillain and return their friend to his lady love, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). Before the obvious happens, theres enough mayhem to fuel several Avengers films.

Jason Statham returns to taunt Dwayne Johnson. Tyrese Gibson hangs in to toy with Ludacris. For good measure, theres a cameo by Helen Mirren and a walk-through by Kurt Russell that serves to goad the regulars and introduce Scott Eastwood.

Looking a lot like his dad, Eastwood is a butt of the Furious squads jokes and given more screen time than those who have been with this since Day One.

Director F. Gary Gray tries too hard to make this another car chase/action film. He covers more ground than Jason Bourne and toys with the idea of Russians as potential enemies.

Cipher, though, is the real threat. Theron, with long dread-like hair extensions, shows one emotion  anger  and never veers.

We dont learn why she has gotten to this position of power but she has so many toys (and minions) at her disposal its likely she owns a lair, too.

To keep Dom in tow, she brings back an old character (no, its not Paul Walkers Brian, although hes referenced). Its a good twist, but one that even a guy with a Speak and Spell could have figured out.

In addition to tearing up the streets of New York, the gang drives on ice and takes on nuclear submarines. Jumping the shark is definitely a hallmark and a way for Gray to stretch what should have been a 90-minute film into a two-hour-plus epic.

Fate of the Furious doesnt warrant the time or the huge cast but it does reset the franchise for at least two more films. It has closure, but its not the kind we thought we got with the seventh edition. That wrapped things nicely. This just tosses around the paper.
Compassionate men and women are being sought to take volunteer training offer by Hospice of Siouxland. The training will be held at the Akron Care Center, 991 Hwy 3, Akron, Iowa, on April 24 and 27, and May 1 and 4. Each class time will be 12:30-3:30 p.m. Contact the Hospice of Siouxland Office at 233-4144.

Screenings

Free blood pressure screenings, 9:30-11 a.m. Wednesdays at Countryside Senior Living, front lobby. No appointment necessary.

Programs/Self-Help Groups

Al-Anon Information Center, call 712-255-6724.

Al-Anon and Alateen, meetings locally. For times, dates and locations of area meetings, call 712-255-6724.

Alcoholics Anonymous, beginners information, call 712-252-1333.

Arc of Woodbury County, serving the mentally challenged, 5:15 p.m. meeting, second Monday of the month at Mid-Step Services, 4303 Stone Ave. For families and interested persons.

Child Care Resource and Referral, provides resources, education and advocacy for children, parents, and child care providers. Assists in child care needs. For more information, call 712-277-1180.

Co-Dependence Anonymous, 7 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays at First Lutheran Church, Fireside Room.

Co-Dependents Anonymous (CODA), 10 a.m. Saturdays at Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St.

Compassionate Friends, 7 p.m. fourth Wednesday of each month (third Thursday in November and second Sunday December) in Mercy Medical Center's Leiter Room. For families who have lost children. Contact Nancy Webb 712-212-4032 or Don Mulder 712-541-5512.

Clinics

Siouxland District Health immunization clinics, call for appointment, 712-279-6119 or 1-800-587-3005.

Information

Family and Addictive Illness series, for more information, call 234-2300.

Iowa Fathers, 6 to 8 p.m. fourth Tuesday of each month at Hope Lutheran Church, Education Building, 218 W. 18th St., South Sioux City, Neb. Support group to help single, divorcing and divorced parents residing in the state of Iowa.

Mercy Pathways Outpatient Program, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, on the third floor, Mercy's Central Medical Building, 801 Fifth St., Suite 360. Provides hope, help, opportunity to connect through group therapy for individuals experiencing personal, relationship, psychiatric issues. For more information, call 712-279-5991.

Narcotics Anonymous, meetings daily, various times, dates and locations. For more information, call 712-279-0733.

Overeaters Anonymous, 1 p.m. Tuesdays at Wesley United Methodist Church, 3700 Indian Hills Drive; 6 p.m. Tuesdays at St. John's Lutheran Church, 402 Lane Ave., Storm Lake; 7 p.m. Tuesdays at Church of the Nazarene, 226 N. Main St., Viborg, S.D.; 5:30 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m. Saturdays at Newman Center, 320 E. Cherry St., Vermillion, S.D.; 10:30 a.m. Saturdays at Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St. A 12-step recovery program for people who have problems with food and weight. No fees.

St. Lukes Outpatient Behavioral Health Program, 9 a.m. to noon Monday, Tuesday and Thursday on fifth floor of St. Luke's, located at 2720 Stone Park Blvd. Offers several levels of outpatient care including partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and group therapy. This program provides support and integrated treatment to individuals experiencing personal or relationship issues as a result of their mental illness. For more information and admission criteria, call 712-279-3906.

Sobriety By Faith, 8:30 a.m. Saturdays at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. For more information, call James Mothershead at 712-577-9715.

The Link-Recovery and Freedom, 1603 Glen Ellen Road; 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday workshop, and Christian 12-step meeting 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. For all ages. Call Dee at 389-7432.

Women in Recovery, meets monthly at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. For details, call 712-255-4623.

Tarahouse Meditation Center, 8 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 6:30 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, all at 3112 Rebecca St. Three easy 10-minute sessions in small group; beginners welcome. For more information, call 490-6410.

Blood pressure and blood sugar screening, 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays in the lobby at Westwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Free to public.

Support Groups

Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Hawkeye Club basement, 420 Jones St. For more information, call 277-5935.

Celebrate Recovery, Bible-based 12-step recovery group. Thursdays at 6 p.m. at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive. Childcare provided. 712-490-3343. All welcome.

PFLAG of Siouxland, (Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays), 7 p.m., fourth Monday of January, March, May, July, September and November. St. Mark ELCA Church, 5200 Glenn Ave., in the upstairs meeting area. 712-258-3116.

Singles widowed and divorced, all ages, 4 p.m., Sundays. McDonald's at Sixth Street and Lewis Boulevard. 712-252-2675.

GriefShare, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. every Tuesday until Dec. 6 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814.

HIV/AIDS Support Group, meets weekly. For more information, call Darla or Teri at Siouxland Community Health Center, 712-252-2477 or 888-371-1965.

Hospice of Siouxland, seeking volunteers. For more information, call 712-233-4144 and ask for a volunteer coordinator.

La Leche League of Siouxland, breastfeeding support group meets every third Thursday at 11 a.m. at Morningside Lutheran Church. Children are welcome. For more information, call Mary at 712-546-7280 or Jacquie at 712-255-2998.

Living Each Day Cancer Support Group, 7-8 p.m. second Thursday of the month, Floyd Valley Hospital, Conference Center Room 2, Le Mars, Iowa. Open to all cancer patients, cancer survivors and family members. No charge. Pre-register by calling 712-546-3441 or 800-642-6074, ext. 441.

Mom and Baby Support Group, 10-11 a.m. last Monday of the month at the Orange City (Iowa) Hospital, lower level. For new moms and babies. 712-737-5260.

Tri-State Sober Project, 12-step meeting, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Friendship Community Church, 305 Sergeant Square Drive, Sergeant Bluff. 6-7 p.m., Thursdays, Transitional Services of Iowa, 1221 Pierce St., Sioux City.

Doug's Donors Support Group, information for organ donors and recipients, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Fridays, 5:15-6:30 p.m. second Thursdays of the month at Mercy Cafeteria Woodbury Room. 712-277-1050.

Divorce Care, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. every Tuesday until Dec. 6 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814.

NAMI Siouxland, (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Support Group meets 6:30 p.m., second Tuesday of the month at Friendship House, 1101 Court St. For individuals and family members dealing with mental illness. 712-255-4209.

New Life Life Support Group, 3:30 p.m. every Saturday at 2929 W. Fourth St. Spiritual 12-step program. For more information, call Donald at 712-574-1744 or James at 712-255-7624.

Orphan Sunday, 3:30-5 p.m. Sunday at Sunnybrook Community Church loft, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive.

Post Polio Support Group, 11 a.m. first Thursday of the month at Perkins Restaurant by Menards. 712-490-8213.

Relationship Support Group, 7 p.m. Fridays at Marketplace Mall. For more information, call 239-3129.

Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, Individual and Support Groups. For more information, call CSADV in Sioux City at 712-258-7233; Plymouth County at 712-546-6764; Monona County at 712-423-3443. Advocacy and support available 24 hours a day at 1-800-982-7233. All services free of charge and confidential.

Sickle Cell Disease Support Group, 11 a.m. third Saturday of each month at St. Luke's Hospital, meeting room 1. For patients, their family and any concerned member. Call La'Keshia Rainey at 712-203-2019 for more information.

Single and Parenting, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. every Tuesday until Dec. 6 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814.

Sioux City Association of the Deaf, 7 p.m. third Saturday of the month at Morningside Church of Christ, 5015 Garretson Ave. Regular meeting, September-May; no meeting, June, July, August and December.

Siouxland Autism Support Group, second Thursday of the month at Northwest Area Education Agency, 1520 Morningside Ave. For more information, call Julie Case at 712-490-8939.

Siouxland Epilepsy Support Group, 5 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at Prestwick Apartment Clubhouse, 4230 Hickory Lane. For anyone diagnosed with seizures or epilepsy and family or friends. For more information, call Steve at 274-6927.

Siouxland IC support group, meets quarterly in Sioux City. For patients struggling with interstital cystitis. For more information, call Jacque Dundas 316-641-9766.

Siouxland Informational Group for the Blind, 2-5 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at Northern Hills Retirement Community, 4002 Teton Trace. For more information, call 712-266-8926 or 258-8151.

Grief support group, 5:30-7:30 p.m., beginning Oct. 5 for 13 weeks (may join at any time), Crescent Park United Methodist Church, 2826 Myrtle St., Sioux City. Scott, 712-899-6315.

Siouxland Ostomy Association, 2 p.m. first Sunday of each month (except September, which will be second Sunday; and no meetings June, July, August), in Room 300 at Mercy Medical Center, 801 Fifth St. For more information, call Dick Lindblom at 251-2453.

Siouxland Parkinson Disease Support Group, 1 p.m. fourth Monday of the month at Siouxland Center for Active Generations, 313 Cook St. For more information, call Sally Reinert at 402-987-3516.

South Sioux City Weight Support Group, 8:30 a.m. Wednesdays at St. Paul United Methodist Church, South Sioux City. For more information, call 494-1401 or 494-2133.

Disabilities Resource Center of Siouxland, 520 Nebraska St., Suite 101: Women's Support Group, 1:30 p.m. first Wednesday of the month; LGBT Support Group, 1:30 p.m. first Friday of the month; Adult ADHD, 6 p.m. second Tuesday of the month; Advocacy Group, 1:30 p.m. third Tuesday of the month. For more information, call 712-255-1065.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly, group meetings various times, days and locations in Siouxland. For information on the chapter in your area, call 1-800-932-TOPS.

Voice Disorder Support Group, meets as needed at Mercy Medical Center, Buena Vista Room. 712-279-2686.

Women's Peer Support Group, in Wayne and South Sioux City, Neb., for those who have experienced domestic abuse. For more information, call the Wayne office at 402-375-4633 or 1-800-440-4633; in South Sioux City, call 402-494-7592. Help and support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Services free and confidential.

Woodbury County D.M.D.A., noon-2 p.m. first Saturday of the month at Country Friendship Acres, 4501 West St.; 7-8 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at 515 Court St. in the Community Room; 7-8 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at 441 W. Third St. in the Community Room; 7-8 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at 409 W. Third St. in the Community Room. Support group for people with disabilities and mental disorders.

Natural Mamas in Siouxland, 1 p.m., third Tuesday of each month in the Garretson room of the Morningside Public Library. All ages of children are welcome to come with moms. For sharing natural living tips, recipes, natural remedies and health, homemaking, mothering, etc. For more information, call 402-913-0038 or visit their Facebook page.

A Step Beyond support group, 3:30 p.m. second Tuesday of the month, except for August, November and December when it meets at 5:30 p.m. (no meeting in January) at the Christy-Smith Resource Center, 1819 Morningside Ave. For more information, call 712-276-7319.

Divorce care, 5 p.m., Sundays. Fireside room, Morningside Lutheran Church, 700 South Martha St.

Gamblers Anonymous meetings, 4 p.m. Thursdays at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 315 Hamilton Blvd.; 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Morningside Presbyterian Church, 4327 Morningside Ave.; 7 p.m. Tuesdays, St. John Lutheran Church; 7 p.m. Sundays, Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St.. 712-277-2901.

Art therapy support group, 5:30 p.m. second Thursday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. Registration required, call 252-9387.

After Breast Cancer Support Group, 5:30 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. For more information, call Brenda, 252-9370.

After Prostate Cancer Support Group, 5:15 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. For more information, call 252-9426.

Alzheimer's Association, Big Sioux Chapter Support Group, 2 p.m. second Tuesday of the month; 4 p.m. third Tuesday of the month (under age 65) at 201 Pierce St., Suite 110 (Famous Dave's building); and 6 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at the Barnes and Noble Cafe. For more information, call Emily Lord at 712-279-5802.

Christy-Smith Funeral Homes of Sioux City, extensive grief library at the Morningside location. Open to the public during weekday hours. For more information, call 276-7319.

Chronic Pain/Chronic Illness Support Group, 7:30 p.m. fourth Wednesday of the month in the lower level of the Orange City Hospital. For more information, call 712-737-5260.

Connections Area Agency on Aging, and Mercy Medical Centers Older Adult Services Welcome to Medicare, 1:30-4 p.m., the first Friday of every month at Connections Area Agency on Aging, 2301 Pierce St. To pre-register, or for more information, contact Connections Area Agency on Aging at 712-279-6900.
Salad luncheon

SIOUX CITY | Riverside Lutheran Church and New Hope Community Church, 1817 Riverside Blvd., will host a salad luncheon from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. Saturday. There will be door prizes and a quilt raffle.

Bake sale

SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. | First Lutheran Church, 3501 Dakota Ave., will host its 26th annual salad luncheon and bake sale from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Cost of the luncheon is $7 per person. Advanced tickets are available at the church office or may be purchased at the door. Carryout will be available.

USD brass quintet to perform

SIOUX CITY | The University of South Dakota Brass Quintet will provide music at the 8:15 and 10:30 a.m. services on Sunday at St. Mark Lutheran Church ELCA, 5200 Glenn Ave.

Under the direction of Erik Mahon, the group will perform a wide variety of sacred and secular music.

NWC Theatre to perform biblical stories

ORANGE CITY, Iowa | The Northwestern College Drama Ministries Ensemble will present 10 stories scripted from the Bible at 4 p.m. Sunday in the Allen Black Box Theatre of the DeWitt Theatre Arts Center. Admission is free; first-come, first-serve.

Under the direction of professor Jeff Barker, the nine-member DME will perform The Good Samaritan (Luke 10), The Prodigal Son (Luke 15), and Were You There? (Luke 2224), about Christs death and resurrection.

Gospel music concerts

SIOUX CITY | Gospel music recording artists Phil and Pam Morgan will perform at 9 a.m. Sunday at The Church of All Nations, 3100 W. Fourth St., and at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at Trimble United Methodist Church, 1416 27th St.

The Morgans' message has been featured on several television shows including "Oprah."

For more information, contact Pastor Mark Anderson at 898-6854.

Organ concert

SIOUX CITY | The Cathedral of the Epiphany, 1000 Douglas St., will host Tyler Boehmer and Thomas Andrews in a concert of music for the pipe organ at 7:00 p.m. Friday. The concert is free and open to the public.

Boehmer and Andrews are graduate students at the University of Kansas in the organ and church music program. Their concert will feature works by composers of Spain and Germany.

Westminster Presbyterian welcomes new pastor

SIOUX CITY | Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2915 Glenn Ave., will welcome Erica MacCreaigh as a new pastor to the pulpit on Sunday. The Rev. MacCreaigh comes from Denver, Colorado.
FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2017

DEAR ABBY: More than 10,000 baby boomers in the U.S. turn 65 every day, and enter the "age of risk" for Alzheimer's disease. I have witnessed the devastating effects of this disease in my work as a neurologist, as a clinical researcher, and sadly, in my own family.

The good news is that we are now starting prevention trials to try to stop memory loss before it begins! The A4 (Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer's) Study is the first clinical trial designed for people who have the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease beginning in the brain, but don't yet have any symptoms of the disease. The A4 Study is enrolling healthy 65- to 85-year-olds across the country who may be at risk for memory loss due to Alzheimer's disease.

I feel a new sense of hope, but we really need volunteers to join us. Our motto for the A4 Study is "Now is the time," and now really IS the time to make a difference in defeating Alzheimer's disease. I hope your readers who are interested will call (toll-free) (844) 247-8839 or visit A4study.org to receive more information or to join us. -- REISA SPERLING, M.D., PROJECT DIRECTOR, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

DEAR DR. SPERLING: I'm pleased to alert my readers to your clinical trial. Living to a "ripe old age" can be a mixed blessing because the older we get, the greater the likelihood of Alzheimer's disease entering the picture.

Readers, Dr. Sperling is looking for subjects with a family history of Alzheimer's disease or who, through prescreening, have been discovered to have amyloid plaques forming in the brain. There are more than 65 study sites throughout the U.S. and several in Canada, so you may be able to find a location near you.

DEAR ABBY: I have been somewhat taken aback by two retirement party invitations I received lately. Both require an "entrance fee" of $15 to $20. I have never heard of or experienced something like this before. When I retired from teaching 10 years ago, I held my own retirement party at my home. I supplied the food and beverages and requested "no gifts, please."

Is there a new custom that requires people to pay an admission price to a party? If someone pays to go to the party, is he/she also expected to bring a gift? Honestly, I'm a little put off being asked to pay to celebrate my friends' retirements. Should I be, or is this an appropriate request? -- WONDERING IN OHIO

DEAR WONDERING: I don't blame you for feeling put off. I don't know who is supposedly giving the parties for your friends, but if you're being asked to pay for your food and beverages, it appears that no host is. If you pay to attend these parties, your PRESENCE should be your gift. And if you choose not to go, I wouldn't blame you.
SIOUX CITY | Two Northwest Iowa manufacturers are seeking to make changes to prior agreements the firms made with a state economic development board.

Curlys Foods has asked to terminate a contract with the state that would have required the Sioux City plant to create eight new full-time jobs in exchange for $360,000 in estimated tax credit benefits under the states High Quality Jobs Program.

The new jobs were part of an incentive package for Curlys $9 million expansion project announced in April 2015.

In a letter to the Iowa Economic Development Authority, Curlys requested the termination request because of changes to our business model for the Sioux City facility have resulted in impacts to our full-time workforce that make it unlikely we will be able to comply with other provisions of the agreement. The company pointed out its investment in new machinery and equipment in Sioux City has far exceeded the original estimates, but did not specify a dollar figure.

To date, Curlys has claimed not claimed any of the tax credits it was awarded by the IEDA board.

A division of Smithfield Foods, Curly's Foods processes ribs and other pre-cooked meats at the plant, 1000 Cunningham Drive. The company distributes its products to customers around the country, including national franchise restaurants.

At its monthly meeting Friday in Des Moines, the IEDA board also will consider a request from American Natural Processors Inc. related to incentives awarded to the company in February 2013. American Natural has asked for additional year to create the jobs it pledged as part of nearly $6 million expansion to its Galva plant.

The specialty oilseed and grain processor cited the early termination of a contract by one of its customers due to that company having operational and financial difficulties" as the reason for the delay. Losing that client forced American Natural to shift its product focus in Galva, according to IEDA documents.

Additionally, American Natural noted it is taking longer than expected to get one of its new process development lines fully operational, and the challenge of finding long-term employees in a sparsely populated area such as Galva, an Ida County town of 434.

American Natural also has facilities in Cherokee and Sioux City. In the latter city, the company has made extensive renovations to the former Sioux Tools plant along Floyd Boulevard.
SIOUX CITY | Zach Schoenecker listened intensely to the occasional hiss and scratch from the vintage "Pink Panther" soundtrack album he picked for $1 at a local secondhand store.

"There's something really comforting about vinyl records," the Morningside College mass communications junior said, while hunched over a turntable. "Digital recordings sound too smooth while vinyl has more character and a unique sound."

Schoenecker, the student engineer and operations manager for the college's radio station, will be getting plenty of turntable action when KMSC 92.9 FM will go to an all-vinyl format for a 24-hour period, from midnight to 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

The student-run KMSC is one of 72 radio stations participating in the second annual College Radio Vinylthon. Organized by the College Radio Foundation, a Hewitt, N.J.-based nonprofit, the special day of programming is designed to remind audiences that college radio still plays music not heard on other stations.

In Schoenecker's case, he must rely on the private collections of Morningside staffers to supply him with an entire day's worth of material.

"We have people rummaging through their music at home," he said, inside the radio station station lounge that will soon double as its temporary broadcast studio. "Hopefully, this entire room will be filled with vinyl on Saturday."

So far, Schoenecker's selection seems surprisingly slim. In addition to "Pink Panther," he has a few miscellaneous 45 rpm singles, Kenny Rogers' 1977 album "Daytime Friends" and a British radio remake of Orson Wells' "War of the Worlds."

Well, at least, he didn't have to spring for a new turntable. Luckily, the station already had one in storage.

For Schoenecker, who grew up listening to country music in his native Belle Plaine, Minn., vinyl is throwback to a more romantic time.

"I love all kinds of music," he said. "I'm into everything from classic country to classic rock."

However, Schoenecker's favorite musical genre happens to be jazz. Indeed, his DJ name happens to be "Jazzy."

"At least, that's what I call him," Morningside mass communications junior and KMSC announcer Taylor DeVary said with a smile. "I like Zach but I don't like jazz."

And what kind of music does DeVary like? A genre she called "grime."

"'Grime' originated in England and draws influence from garage bands, dance hall and reggae music," the Welcome, Minn. native explained. "You may not know about 'grime' now but you will six months from now."

Like Schoenecker, DeVary's musical education revolved around the country and rock sounds favored by her parents.

After she moved away from home, DeVary's musical tastes expanded to included music that is popular on the other side of equator.

"My DJ name is 'Aussie D' because I'm the girl who loves music that is currently popular in Australia," she said.

So DeVary's enthusiasm for "music from down under" essentially means she has no stray star vinyl records lying around, right?

"That's right, I have no vinyl," she admitted. "But I do like the sound."

Which is why DeVary has signed up for an afternoon shift at the "Vinylthon."

"I'm trying to fit it around my homework," she admitted.

Yet, Schoenecker is all in, tackling an overnight shift and, likely, concluding it nearly 24 hours later.

"I'll start it, go to my part-time job at Federal Express, get some sleep and head back to the radio station," he explained. "I'm planning to sleep in on Sunday."

And what will Schoenecker and his volunteer crew be getting in return? If they spin vinyl for 24 straight hours, KMSC will receive the College Radio Foundation's coveted Golden Slipmat Award -- which is actually made with the same synthetic material disc jockeys place on their turntable platters in place of a rubber mat.

In addition, they'll have the satisfaction of highlighting the quirky, anything goes appeal of college radio.

"We value the variety of the station," DeVary said. "A life without music is boring."

Schoenecker nodded his head in agreement.

"Vinyl is cool and it's also making a comeback," he said. "Maybe we can turn more people onto vinyl."
In this week's edition of On Iowa Politics, the crew talks about a Congressional candidate in Iowa who has some unique qualifications, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst's comments about President Trump's weekend travel schedules, and Gov. Terry Branstad signing off on the final legislative session of his tenure.

On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast which re-creates the conversations that happen when Iowa's political reporters get together after deadlines have been met. This week's show features Bret Hayworth of the Sioux City Journal, Christinia Crippes of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times and Gazette columnist Todd Dorman.

This week's show was produced by Sarah Binder. Chat with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @OnIowaPolitics, and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Know an Iowa musician who should be on our show? Send their band sound files to oniowapolitics@gmail.com
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man has pleaded not guilty to hitting his teenage daughter several times with a belt.

Ricardo Cordova-Larios, 42, entered his written plea Friday in Woodbury County District Court to serious assault.

According to court documents, Cordova-Larios hit the 14-year-old girl April 9 at their home in the 900 block of Eighth Street after becoming upset because she refused to do the laundry after being told to do so.

Cordova-Larios struck the girl in the back, neck and upper torso, court documents said, and police officers observed bruises on the girl's body that matched the outline of a belt.
SIOUX CITY | Police Chief Doug Young said Thursday's annual town hall meeting drew a record number of attendees for a reason.

"We have never had these many people at a town hall meeting before," Young told the crowd of 100 at the Sioux City Public Museum. "... I would like to think it's because of this topic."

Young said he was on a community panel last year and someone asked him "what governs police's use of force?"

"There wasn't enough time for me to really get into it so I thought the town hall meeting would be the best way to let people know," he said.

"We feel nationwide there are some misconceptions what people believe police are allowed to do and not allowed to do," said Lt. Pat Breyfogle.

Sgt. Ryan Bertrand, who is the force's Lead Defensive Tactics Instructor, gave a presentation called Myths and Realities of Police Use of Force to the packed room.

The presentation included information about training and tactics and laws regarding the use of force by police officers. It also discussed how the level of force an officer uses is determined by a number of factors including the size and weight of a suspect, their behavior, history, surroundings and severity of the alleged crime.

Bertrand also shared some "myths" often associated with the police use of force.

"We have to make split second decisions every day... when we have to use force it weighs on us," Bertrand said. "Police officers are human just like you. We have families and kids to get home to too."

The town hall is put on every year by the department to promote their community team policing philosophy which encourages officers and citizens to build relationships.

After the presentation, there was a crime analysis presentation and the handful of officers in attendance spoke with the members of the community to answer questions and concerns.

To find out more about the department's community team policing policy visit siouxcitypolice.com/community-team-policing.
If you live in Nebraskaespecially rural Nebraskayou are more likely to have Parkinsons disease.

According to Creighton University School of Medicine, Nebraska has the highest incidence rate of Parkinsons disease in the U.S. with around 329 people out of 100,000 diagnosed, thats nearly triple the national average. A lot of that is believed to come from pesticide use, but heredity plays a large part.

Its a growing concern, especially since the average age of people diagnosed with Parkinsons disease appears to be dropping as well. Currently, the disease isn't curable, but it is medically treatable. In addition to medication, keeping fit and limber is one big thing that can help with the symptoms of muscle and joint rigidity.

At the Beatrice YMCA, their Movement Improvement class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is aimed at keeping people with Parkinsons disease and other neurodegenerative disorders moving and living a normal life.

The class starts off with some chair movement, doing leg, arm and vocal exercises. It moves on to gait, posture and walking exercises that stretch and retrain muscles that can be atrophied by the stiffness that comes along with Parkinsons and other similar ailments.

It helps with balance and being able to move, said Audrey Faxon, a regular participant who recently missed a few classes due to bronchitis. As you get older, if you don't move, you're not going to get to do the activities that you need to do to keep up with your family and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

One thing youll notice with this class is that its a lot more vocal than your typical exercise class. Almost every action is narrated, whether its step right or push left or kick and lift.

Theres a reason for that, said Rachael Bauman, the health and wellness coordinator at the YMCA who teaches the Movement Improvement class. Making the connection physically and vocally helps retrain the brain, she said. Then it becomes second nature when youre doing everyday activities. Its like practicing fire drills in elementary school, youre preparing ahead of time so that when you do the real thing, your body just takes over.

As we age, we have that cognitive breakdown and those neurodegenerative issues come into play, Bauman said. This will help that aging process slow down, by working on those things.

The class has only been going for a few months now, but its already starting to pay off. The YMCA offers several classes for chronic diseases, diabetes and arthritis, in addition to their Silver Sneakers program, but this is the first class aimed directly at neurodegenerative illness.

That focus on getting back what might have been lost to the disease is really helpful, said Denise Elmer. She recently told her chiropractor that the exercises the class does have been more helpful to her than the ones given to her at the chiropractic office.

The concentration on form really helps, Elmer said. Some classes I've been to, they concentrate on speed, and I've ended up getting hurt. When I work with an instructor who concentrates more on form and tells you to go at your own pace, I definitely feel better.

For Anora Schoen, the few months of Movement Improvement mean shes been able to walk without a cane. She still keeps it with her, but while doing exercises in class, shes up and moving across the gym floor without it.

When muscles grow rigid, its hard to do regular exercises youd find at gym classes, Bauman said. Being able to move and flex your bicep isnt something thats really an option for people with Parkinsons, but by getting joints and muscles moving and warmed up, it can make a world of difference.

It's interesting, Bauman said. When people that have Parkinson's will sign in and then I have them sign out again when they leave, their handwriting is so much better. The tremors are a little bit better.
Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States, and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, Offshore, Canadian Manufacturing, U.S. Manufacturing, and Retail segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen and heavy oil in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. This segments Foster Creek, Christina Lake, Sunrise, and Tucker oil sands projects, as well as Lloydminster thermal and conventional heavy oil assets The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, Clearwater, and Rainbow Lake operating in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as interests in various natural gas processing facilities. The offshore segment engages in the exploration and development activities. The Canadian Manufacturing segment includes the owned and operated Lloydminster upgrading and asphalt refining complex, which upgrades heavy oil and bitumen into synthetic crude oil, diesel fuel, asphalt, and other ancillary products, as well as owns and operates the Bruderheim crude-by-rail terminal and two ethanol plants. The U.S. Manufacturing segment comprises the refining of crude oil to produce diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, asphalt, and other products. The Retail segment consists of marketing of its own and third-party refined petroleum products through retail, commercial, and bulk petroleum outlets, as well as wholesale channels. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
Credit: Igor VidyashevZakk Sabbath, former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde's Black Sabbath cover band, has announced a new live vinyl LP titled Live in Detroit. The record, which was recorded last October at The Fillmore in Detroit, will be released on June 16.

Live in Detroit includes three tracks: the entire Side A is a 13-minute rendition of "War Pigs," while Side B features covers of "Supernaut" and "Fairies Wear Boots." You can watch a live video of Zakk Sabbath rocking "War Pigs" now on YouTube.

Along with Wylde, Zakk Sabbath features Ozzy Osbourne bassist Rob "Blasko" Nicholson and ex-Queens of the Stone Age drummer Joey Castillo. The band will embark on a headlining tour starting May 18 in New York City.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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LTD., Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care LLC, Procter & Gamble Health & Beauty Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Health Belgium BV, Procter & Gamble Health Limited, Procter & Gamble Health Ltd., Procter & Gamble Health Poland Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Hellas Single Member Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holding Thailand Limited, Procter & Gamble Holdings UK Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Honduras S de RL, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership KKT, Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings Inc., Procter & Gamble Indochina Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica Limitada, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de El Salvador Limitada de Capital Variable, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala Limitada, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama S. de R.L., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International Sarl, Procter & Gamble Investment Company UK Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Italia S.p.A., Procter & Gamble Jiangsu Ltd., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea Inc., Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble L&CP Limited, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA Pty Ltd, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Thailand Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Tianjin Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Mataro S.L.U., Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Philippines Business Services Inc., Procter & Gamble Philippines Inc., Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo Higiene e Saude S.A., Procter & Gamble Product Supply U.K. Limited, Procter & Gamble Productions Inc., Procter & Gamble RHD Inc., Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services Sarl, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Switzerland SA, Procter & Gamble Singapore Pte. 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Ltd., Procter & Gamble Trading Thailand Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Vietnam Company Limited, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil Ltda., Procter & Gamble do Brazil LLC, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble doo Beograd, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Procter and Gamble Lanka Private Limited, Procter and Gamble SA Pty Ltd., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Recovery Engineering, Redmond Products Inc., Richardson-Vicks, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Riverfront Music Publishing Co. Inc., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Series Acquisition B.V., Seven Seas Limited, Shulton Inc., Snowberry, Snowberry New Zealand Limited, Sunflower Distributing LLC, TAOS - FL LLC, TAOS Retail LLC, THIS IS L, TULA, Tambrands, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving, The Art of Shaving - FL LLC, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Iams Company Inc., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company LLC, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., This is L. Inc., Thomas Hedley Co, US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon Shanghai Academy, VitaminHaus Pty Ltd, Walker & Co. Brands Inc., Walker & Company Brands, Wella AG, Zenlen Inc., Zirh, and iMFLUX Inc..

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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.
DAHLGREN, Va. - Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) scientists prepare for a lethality test in the Navy's Laser Lethality and Development Laboratory's 100 meter long, above ground tunnel. The tunnelcrucial to gun range operations during World War IIwas recently transformed into a vital new capability for testing laser technologies, NSWCDD officials announced April 21.

DAHLGREN, Va.

DAHLGREN, Va. - Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) scientist Chris Heflin prepares the next test sample during a high energy laser lethality test. The laser expert prepared the sample in the Navy's Laser Lethality and Development Laboratory which features an above-ground tunnel used for evaluating high energy laser weapon systems. The samplealso known as a couponis a small piece of material that can provide data on laser effects against similar materials on targets or systems of interest.

(, 2017)The Navy's top laser experts transformed a tunnel crucial to gun range operations during World War II into a vital new capability for testing laser technologies, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) announced April 21.For years, civilian scientistsincluding those who developed and installed the Laser Weapon System aboard USS PONCE (AFSB[I] 15)speculated about the long dormant 100-meter tunnel and its potential for laser lethality and system testing.Could it be converted to research, test, develop, and evaluate a new generation of laser weapon systems for integration aboard warships?Eventually, their question was answered and the old tunnel was upgraded. Now, it's integral to the Navy's state-of-the-art Laser Lethality and Development Laboratory."Our scientists and engineers are taking advantage of the Laser Lethality and Development Lab's capabilitiesincluding the above-ground tunnelto innovate and evaluate high energy lasers that are interoperable with Navy ships and electric weaponry," said CAPT Godfrey 'Gus' Weekes, NSWCDD commanding officer. "As we continue to develop and deploy laser weapons to the Fleet with the inherent advantages of directed energyspeed-of-light delivery, engagement precision, magazine depth, and scalable effectsour warfighters will have significant technological advantage over our adversaries."Navy leaders have made directed-energy weapons a top priority to counter asymmetric threats. In fact, Navy Sailorstrained by the NSWCDD Laser Weapon System teamproved how precise and effective a High Energy Laser weapon system can be during testing in the Arabian Gulf against small attack boats, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other moving targets in various weather conditions.Meanwhile, the laser experts are using the Laser Lethality and Development Facility's capabilities to support emerging initiatives to integrate future laser weapon systems aboard Navy ships. The facility features two labs where high power laser testing of materials, components, and sub-systems are conducted. The labs are connected by the above-ground tunnel which provides for the safe conduct of indoor testing at significant ranges while removing the effects and limitations of the highly variable outdoor environment."The facility, which is unique within the Navy, along with its suite of analysis tools are essential for designing, developing, and integrating laser technology into existing and future fighting forces and platforms," said Frank Dixon, NSWCDD Directed Energy and Pulsed Power Division head.The labprimarily dedicated to performing laser effects testingsupports programs sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Joint Directed Energy Transition Office, and Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems, among others. The testing determines environmental effects on laser performance, the response of target materials to laser energy, and provides input to the characterization of laser weapon system requirements."A capability such as this allows us to stay in front of high energy laser weapon lethality testing and modeling and simulation to support the current and growing number of Navy laser weapon programs", said Dr. Christopher Lloyd, NSWCDD's High Energy Laser Lethality lead."We'll be able to expand the tunnel's range furtherup to 300 meterswith some unique test configurations," said Lloyd. "It will soon enable testing in controlled environmental conditions to better replicate weather conditions in regions where deployed high energy laser systems may operate. We'll be able to study aspects such as beam propagation effects from turbulence and scattering/absorption and how that affects overall system performance."Currently, the laboratory's roof-top platform allows for operation and testing of laser systems across the Potomac River Test Range where naval guns have been tested since 1918. From this platform, high energy laser operations can be conducted over to the Combined Experimental Test Facility, a two story laser backstop located two to three kilometers across the water."The facilitycoupled with our indoor and outdoor laser test capabilitiesenhances the command's ability to design, develop, test, and integrate next generation laser weapon systems for the Navy and is critical to the transition of these systems to the Fleet," explained Dixon.Environmental controls and a test and diagnostics facility will be added to the laboratory this year. The test and diagnostics facility will be capable of supporting more system-level tests. Future upgrades include installation of a wind tunnel to study laser/material interactions of components under higher wind speed conditions.NSWCDD has provided leadership and technical expertise in the design, development, integration, and testing of directed energy systems for more than 15 years. The premier research and development center that serves as a specialty site for weapon system integration. The command's unique ability to rapidly introduce new technology into complex warfighting systems is based on its longstanding competencies in science and technology, research and development, and test and evaluation.
Housing officials say new development near Wilton Manors is ready to meet some of the demand of Broward Countys affordable housing needs.

Manors at Middle River, 1714 N. Dixie Hwy. in Fort Lauderdale, located 0.2 miles south of Wilton Manors, is a new 12-unit Key West-style townhouse development built to offer affordable housing options. The name is a nod to Wilton Manors because of the close proximity to the city. The Middle River part of the name stems from the fact that the development is in the Middle River Terrace neighborhood.

The available options are a 1,200 sq. ft. two-bedroom, two and one-half bath with a one-car garage and additional parking space for $1,750 per month, and a 1,500 sq. ft. three-bedroom, two and one-half bath with a one-car garage and additional parking space for $2,100 per month.

There is a tremendous demand for affordable housing in South Florida and we are extremely proud to introduce the Manors at Middle River, wrote Ann Deibert, assistant secretary of Building Better Communities, in a press release. Building Better Communities is a non-profit organization affiliated with the Broward County Housing Authority. This community was tailored to support the needs of the Fort Lauderdale/Wilton Manors workforce. It delivers quality, convenience and rents that are attainable while respecting the aesthetic standards of the Middle River neighborhood, Deibert said.

The development is described as luxurious and modern with bike racks, a gazebo and BBQ grill. Each townhouse will feature a fully-equipped kitchen, energy-saving appliances, dishwasher, microwave, garbage disposal, ceiling fans, ceramic floor tiles, laundry room with washer and dryer, hurricane-impact windows and doors, window treatments, a covered patio, landscaping, and is cable-ready.

The ribbon cutting for the development is scheduled for Thursday, May 11 at 10 a.m. The public is invited to attend. Those who want to attend are asked to RSVP at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The minimum qualifying annual income is between $60,960 for one bedroom and $75,600 for three bedrooms. The maximum income limit is 120 percent of the area median income. For leasing information, contact leasing coordinator Caprice Scott at 954-739-1114 ext. 1690 or 954-551-1567 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Wilton Manors is donating multiple pieces of its history.

City Manager Leigh Ann Henderson said the city will donating the Transgender Flag it flew for the first time at Jaycee Park on March 31, the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

It will also be donating the minutes from the meeting where the commission voted to fly the Transgender Flag, a letter from commissioners, and the first Pride Flag flown by the city in May of 2016. All the items will be donated to the Stonewall National Museum & Archives in Fort Lauderdale.

At the March 28 meeting where commissioners voted to fly the Transgender Flag, multiple transgender individuals said it would send a message of support to their community.

The Transgender Flag was donated by To The Moon owner Anthony Dumas. Henderson said Dumas also donated another Transgender Flag for the city to fly. Along with the International Transgender Day of Visibility, the city will fly the Transgender Flag three other times every year  Transgender Flag Day (Aug. 19), Transgender Day of Remembrance (Nov. 20), and the week of the citys Stonewall Festival in June.

We at Stonewall National Museum & Archives are honored to add these important symbols of the city's commitment to visibility and pride to our permanent collection, wrote Chris Rudisill, Stonewalls executive director, in an email. Since our founding here in South Florida 43 years ago, we have recognized the importance of the many lives and voices that make up this vibrant community and help shape a heritage for generations to come. These symbols will forever honor their creators, Monica Helms, and the recently-departed Gilbert Baker, along with this historic moment for the City of Wilton Manors.
Among the star-studded lineup entered to qualify Saturday morning at The Meadowlands is a stakes-winning pacing filly making her debut for new connections.

Trot Insider has learned that 2016 Breeders Crown winner Someomensomewhere was sold after her two-year-old campaign. She's entered to qualify on Saturday for new owners Diamond Creek Racing and Bob Boni. Diamond Creek's Adam Bowden told Trot Insider that the daughter of Somebeachsomewhere out of the tough pacing mare Omen Hanover was presented to him as available for purchase by co-owner Nick Surick and Boni at a price not disclosed.

"It was impossible to turn down the deal," said Bowden. "It was fair for both sides."

Previously owned by Surick and New York's KDM Stables Corp., Someomensomewhere assembled a solid rookie record of 4-6-1 from 13 starts and banked just shy of $490,000. Campaigned by the father-son duo of trainer Erv and driver Marcus Miller, Someomensomewhere picked up major stakes wins in the International Stallion at The Red Mile as well as the Kindergarten and a thrilling Breeders Crown at The Meadowlands.

Bowden and Boni have since entrusted Jimmy Takter with the training duties, and the filly will debut for her new connections in the seventh of 13 qualifiers at The Big M on Saturday morning. The card is loaded with returning stars from 2016 (click here for entries -- click here for a qualifier proof) including divisional honours sweepers Idyllic Beach and Hannelore Hanover, Dan Patch Award winner and top-ranked pacing colt Huntsville and O'Brien Award finalists Magic Presto and Pure Country. That filly was a star once again for Bowden in 2016, concluding her three-year-old season with a 10-4-3 summary from 21 starts and $1.157 million in purses en route to her second straight Dan Patch Award. Bowden is hopeful Someomensomewhere can duplicate some of that sophomore success.

"She has trained well in the lead-up to her qualifying on Saturday," noted Bowden. "Bob and I expect her to be very competitive this year. We think she fits well in this crop of three-year-old fillies. She is staked to everything and we will give her a shot as long as she tells us to."
The heat is turning up for the 2017 harness racing season at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park and a pair of pacers fresh from Ontario racing are sure to keep the temperature rising on Saturday evening.

First race post time is 6:00 P.M. for the 10-dash Saturday evening card with Adkins Hanover returning from competition at Rideau Carleton Raceway in Ontario in the $2,400 featured Red Shores pace. Adkins Hanover delivered a devastating 1:52.4 victory over Rideau Carleton in the dead of winter and draws Post 4 on the opening card for driver Corey MacPherson, trainer Trevor Hicken and owner Perry Burke of Quebec.

The pacer was flawless in his lone Island start before the meet shut down for the winter. That form is enough to secure the support of race analyst Les MacIsaac.

We only saw this guy for one start in the winter but in that one he secured the lead, hit another gear and never looked back, MacIsaac said of Adkins Hanover. Corey will likely want to employ a similar strategy in here and if they dont torture him, he could be the one theyll have to knock off.

The race also has Mr Irresistible making his East Coast debut from Post 3 for trainer Jennifer Trainor and owner Daniel Birt of Stratford. Jason Hughes will drive the 11-time winner, who is fresh off a 1:54.1 victory over the half-mile oval at Flamboro Downs in Ontario. Other entries include Pictonian Storm (Wade Sorrie), Junebugs Baby (Greg Bailey) and Eagle Jolt (Marc Campbell).

The P.E.I. Poker Challenge pace has a tight-knit field of six in Race 6 on the program. The $2,100 event has Mybestolxfriendray favoured from Post 2 for driver Campbell and conditioner Trainor, who co-owns with Helen Dunning of Stratford and Donna Van Meer of Ontario. Other top contenders include Simon Said (Adam Merner) and D Bs Rosco (Kenny Arsenault).

The $1,700 Greenhawk Pace in Race 10 has Smiley Bayama installed as the favourite from Post 7 for trainer-driver Ron Gass.

The winter meet ended with Campbell controlling the leaderboard with 10 wins to lead all drivers. MacPherson is second with eight wins while Merner and Arsenault are in a tie for third with seven victories each. Gass leads the training standings with six wins, ahead of Arsenault and Campbell tied with five wins each.

To view entries for Saturday's card, click on one of the following links:

 Entries

 Program Pages

(with files from Red Shores)
Good News Club Victory in Aloha State

Contact: Rachel Hamel, Child Evangelism Fellowship , 636-456-4321 ext 1177KAPOLEI, Hawaii, April 21, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- In a victory for Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in the Aloha State, its after-school Good News Club can now be held in Ewa Elementary, the largest elementary school in the Campbell-Kapolei Complex.The Hawaii Chapter of CEF was originally denied use of the school facilities, despite other comparable programs in Hawaii schools, such as A+ Program, Kama'aina Kids, Kumon, and Girls on the Run, all of which are permitted to use facilities after school. Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the school superintendent, which prompted a decision to allow the Good News Club to meet at the school.Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said, "The Campbell-Kapolei Complex School District made the appropriate decision to recognize that the Good News Club has equal access to provide character instruction to students. Public schools cannot discriminate against Christian viewpoints while allowing other organizations to meet in school facilities. This is a victory for the children and schools. Child Evangelism Fellowship gives children a biblically-based spiritual education that includes moral and character development. More than 87 percent of school administrators say the Good News Clubs are a positive experience for their school," said Staver.Liberty Counsel represents Child Evangelism Fellowship nationally and has never lost a case at any court of final resort regarding the Good News Clubs.Child Evangelism Fellowship is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been teaching the Bible to children since 1937. CEF has 400 offices in the USA and is organized in most nations of the world, with over 3,200 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of volunteers. In its last ministry year, CEF ministered to nearly 20 million children in its face-to-face teaching ministries.
The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
One issue most Americans agree on is the importance of investing in our infrastructure. Significant repairs are needed to keep our country strong and competitive.

In Nebraska, we know infrastructure is crucial to connecting rural communities. U.S. News & World Report included Nebraska in its April 2017 10 Best States for Infrastructure ranking, but there is still a lot of work to do.

President Trump made infrastructure one of his top priorities on the campaign trail, and for good reason. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, an additional $2 trillion in investment will be needed by 2025 to get our countrys infrastructure to a state of good repair.

During his address to Congress in late February, President Trump reiterated his support for revitalizing Americas infrastructure. Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land, he said.

In discussions on infrastructure, the President has pointed out the need for better negotiations to ensure we do not simply sink more money into the same number of projects. We also must prevent any infrastructure package from expanding unrelated programs or permanently growing the federal government. We saw this problem in full force in President Obamas stimulus package  in the end, only around three percent went to infrastructure.

As the White House works with Congress to make President Trumps revitalization vision a reality, irrigation infrastructure must be part of the conversation. Today, 55.3 million acres are irrigated in the U.S. using shared systems of canals and pipelines which are part of our nations broader water management infrastructure. Through irrigation, we can produce higher yields using less land, while also improving crop quality.

Producers, especially in the west, rely on irrigation to meet the ever-growing demand for food. Unfortunately, irrigation infrastructure has lagged behind other technological advancements in the industry.

At the Farm Bill listening sessions I hosted in Scottsbluff and Aurora this week, concerns were raised about the state of irrigation infrastructure in Nebraska and around the country. President Trumps commitment presents an opportunity to modernize our outdated irrigation infrastructure and increase our global competitiveness in agriculture. I am currently circulating a letter among my House colleagues to send to the President requesting irrigation projects be included in his infrastructure plan.

Since the release of President Trumps initial budget proposal, I have also heard numerous concerns about the future of the Essential Air Service (EAS). Access to reliable air service is vital for rural travelers and businesses. Though the Presidents budget is presented as a guideline, budgeting decisions lie with the legislative branch. I am committed to ensuring no final budget disproportionally impacts rural areas.

Last year, Congress included my legislation to help small airports in the FAA reauthorization bill, which shows an understanding of the need to support rural commercial air service. Senator Deb Fischer also provided crucial leadership in the Senate on these issues. Rather than ending the EAS program, we should examine potential reforms to ensure travelers are being well-served and taxpayer dollars are being spent as effectively as possible.

There is extensive work to be done to ensure our infrastructure can meet the modern needs of our country. I am optimistic about the opportunities to bring Americans together around fulfilling this important function of government.
The White House confirmed Wednesday that a US Navy fleet is indeed headed to North Korea.

Meanwhile, Russia announces it will defend North Korea.

It also appears that Russia is intent on strengthening its Eastern border. Meanwhile, the secretive and bellicose regime of Kim Jong-un sustains its spectacular media orgy of anti-Americanism and has suggested that it may continue missile tests on a weekly basis. RT Americas Alexey Yaroshevsky has the details:

Meanwhile in Russia: Russia speaks louder in actions than words and rarely ever gives away their secrets of what they intend to do. Reuters has reported a massive military movement by Russia and China to the border of North Korea. The Tor-1 the first air defense system in the world designed from the start to shoot down precision guided weapons like AGM-86. This is the latest train loads of defense system headed to North Koreas border to help defend the Communist nation from the US.

There is crisis for sure around North Korea. Will it end up with World War III?

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Play at the new site will be free and first come, first served through the...
The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day?

Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount.

Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what "Democracy" does exists.
A week before its official ending, Students in Need has met its fundraising target, and then some.

As of Friday, The Daily News drive to assist students at Lower Columbia College had raised $41,986. Thats about $2,000 more than the goal, and theres still a week to go before the drive ends on April 30.

The newspaper donates every penny it raises to the LCC Foundation, which will use it for the colleges Student Success Fund. The fund makes grants to students to help pay personal expenses to help them stay in school.

Were so glad our readers and the community rallied behind our effort to help students stay in college. We couldnt be more gratified that this effort will assist dozens of LCC students pursue their dreams of earning degrees and becoming productive and successful people, Daily News Publisher Rick Parrish said.

The first Students in Need drive was held last year, raising $38,500. It began as an effort to replenish the Student Success Fund, founded in 2013, which provides financial assistance to students most at risk of abandoning their education due to miscellaneous expenses. Most gifts average less than $500. But the fund, which is fed by donations from local businesses, foundations, community members and college staff, was depleted by last spring.

Donating is simple. Fill out the accompanying coupon and mail a check to the newspaper or go to TDN.com and click on the Students in Need Logo.

The coupon will appear in the paper daily until the drive ends April 30. The drive began March 19.

The latest donations:

$3,000: Evans Kelly Family Foundation.

$250: anonymous.

$100: two anonymous.

$50: Edward Sprague in honor of students, staff and faculty of Lower Columbia College; and anonymous in appreciation of the Lower Columbia College high-level nursing program.
PTI

Cable and internet service provider Hathway will invest around Rs 500 crore in South India over the next three years, as part of its plans to launch high-speed broadband service, a top company official said today. The Mumbai-based firm, which already provides internet service through "Docsis 3" technology has made commercial launch of the service through GPON Fibre to Home technology, Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd., Managing director Rajan Gupta said.

"We have seen an explosion in demand (for broadband internet) in the last one year in Chennai. Average broadband consumption across the country is 45 GB whereas in Chennai it is 90 GB per month.. From today, we are making the commercial launch in Chennai with GPON technology," he told reporters here. Elaborating, he said the company hoped to cover five lakh consumers over the next three years.

"Investments will be around Rs 400 to Rs 500 crore in the three-year period.. It will be for setting up data centre and other infrastructure.. We are hoping to cover five lakh customers in three years," he said. Noting that existing operators provided broadband service through copper wires, he said the company would offer it through fibre cables providing high speed services.

"Our package will be starting from Rs 999 onwards per month with speeds up to 150 Mbps and 1000 GB data unload per month.. Second option will be 200 Mbps and 1000 GB data at Rs 1,299 per month," he added.
tech2 News Staff

Nasa is working with private American companies to prime spacecraft for use as escape pods, to return to Earth quickly in case of a crisis. There has been no emergency situations on the International Space Station (ISS) so far, but the US space agency is preparing for any possible eventuality. Nasa astronauts are thoroughly tested to ensure their good health over the duration of a mission, but in the case of a medical emergency, there needs to be a vehicle for rapid evacuation.

Currently, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft does double duty as an escape vehicle. Every astronaut on board has a seat reserved, which limits the number of crew working at the ISS at any point of time. Nasa is working closely with Boeing and SpaceX for getting their spacecraft ready to use as lifeboats for the ISS. The CST-100 Starliner from Boeing and the Crew Dragon from SpaceX are being thoroughly tested on the ground. The critical functionality for use as a lifeboat is that all the systems required for a safe flight back should be up and running in short notice. The air circulation fans, the thrusters and the life support systems have to engage within minutes.

Kathy Lueders, manager of Nasa's Commercial Crew Program says "Some systems will take longer to bring online, but the idea is to have spacecraft that astronauts can get into quickly for survival and then use to pull away from the station and come home if that is needed. Defining exactly what that means, and what the companies can do to make it real was the hard part. That's why we took a teamwork approach from the start and why we've treated this as a partnership."

The spacecraft are also being prepared to be used as a temporary safe harbour, where the crew can sit it out while a problem gets fixed. Potential scenarios that require such a module to temporarily house the crew include an ammonia leak and failure in the electrical systems of the ISS. After the ground based testing, the spacecraft will be tested in orbit sans crew, and only then will the spacecraft be certified by Nasa for operational missions. The spacecraft could be docked to the ISS for months at a time.
IANS

British engine major Rolls-Royce on Thursday opened a defence Service Delivery Centre (SDC) to offer localised engineering support to Indian forces, said a company statement. According to the statement, the SDC will offer localised engineering support to improve frontline capability of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy (IN) aircraft, and of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). "The aim is to deliver the optimum support possible to over 750 aircraft engines which power the Indian armed forces," Rolls-Royce said.

The SDC, co-located with the Rolls-Royce Engineering Centre, will also have the capability to support new engine fleets. The centre was inaugurated by Dominic McAllister, British Deputy High Commissioner, Bengaluru. Rolls-Royce's President for Indian and South Asia Kishore Jayaraman and Lee Doherty, Senior Vice President - Defence, Asia Pacific, were also present on the occasion.

In his address, Lee Doherty said: "The opening of our first Service Delivery Centre in India demonstrates our commitment to be closer to our customers... With a highly skilled team, fully trained in engineering services, supply chain and operational support, we will continue to provide maximum engine readiness and availability." Calling it a "new chapter" in the relationship with India, Jayaraman said: "The opening of this Service Delivery Centre marks the beginning of a new chapter in the strong partnership that has existed for over eight decades between India and Rolls-Royce."

"It demonstrates our commitment to support India's growth capabilities by encouraging knowledge transfer, building highly skilled teams and developing the Indian aerospace ecosystem," he added. The centre will also support HAL through supply chain management with improved in-country support for manufacturing, assembly and test and repair capabilities. The SDC will also be the base from which field service representatives can be dispatched to frontline bases, subject to contract coverage, to provide on-ground technical support.

India operates Rolls-Royce's Adour engine, which powers both Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer and Jaguar combat aircraft; Gnome engine, which powers the Sea King helicopters; and the Dart, which powers the Avro aircraft (HS748).
Anirudh Regidi

Did you know that theres a drug out there that leaves you emotionally dependent on its presence, cranky in its absence and that anyone can partake of it? This drug is freely available -- young children use it regularly, requires minimal effort to consume and is considered to be more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes.

People addicted to this drug can sometimes lose touch with reality, are very moody and have really short attention spans. These people dont sleep well, constantly fidget, are easily distracted and rejoice at the most inane things. Paradoxically, these people are afraid of missing out on real world happenings, of being out of the loop and seek constant updates on the world around them.

In extreme cases, conversations degenerate and time has no meaning.

This drug is insidious, it has no scruples, it infects anyone and everyone indiscriminately, be they man or child. It has cost people their lives, their jobs and their friends. It has ruined lives, promising careers and relationships built up over many years.

The worst part about this drug is that people dont believe its addictive. They believe it to be a harmless distraction. Again, todays children are its most prolific users.

The makers of the drug know its potential. They spend millions on research, hire the most brilliant minds in the world and keep an army of minions who do nothing but refine the formula daily, making the drug ever more addictive and ever more insidious.

Theyve made it so addictive, in fact, that at least half the world is hooked onto it, and that includes yours truly and yourself, dear reader.

This drug is social media.

But dont take my word for it. The BBC quotes Nathan Driskell, a therapist who treats social media addicts, as saying, Its worse than alcohol or drug abuse because its much more engaging and theres no stigma behind it.

Researchers at the University of Chicago suggest that even sexual impulses and the desire for sleep cant hold a candle to social media. They found that people were more likely to give in to cravings of social media than for biological needs. Even with cigarettes and alcohol, theres an associated monetary cost, they found. With social media, the perceived cost is low and its available to all.

In a Cornell Information Science Study titled 99 days of freedom, researchers asked users to give up Facebook for 99 days. Few could survive the ordeal. The study found that many of those who held out the longest simply managed to do so because they had other outlets, like Twitter.

These results show just how difficult daily decisions about social media use can be, concluded Eric Baumer, a researcher who worked on the study.

Another report in Computer World talks about how social media apps are designed to keep you addicted. Comparing the practices to clickbait headlines, the report claims that the notification icon you see on your social media app is designed to make you tap on it. After all, you dont know what those 5 notifications are, do you? You want to click on the app and found out. It becomes compulsive.

The same report talks about the design of your social media streams. Theyre designed to keep you engaged, to draw you in and not let go. All this talk of algorithmic news feeds, auto-playing videos and everything else is part of this process. Taking a quote from the report, The tweaking of algorithmic filters for addiction means that in theory social sites get more addictive every day, and that the sites are in a war for survival where only the most addictive sites will survive.

Clearly, theres a lot of evidence proving social medias addictive nature. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Centre in California tells the BBC, We give people driving lessons and swimming lessons, but everyone gets a smartphone and off they go.

And this is the crux of the issue. Humans are inherently susceptible to addictive things. Our brain rewards us with dopamine every time it thinks weve done something worthy of reward. Dopamine is a neurochemical that many scientists have dubbed the reward molecule. You did something awesome? Heres some dopamine, thats just how our brain evolved to work. Its designed to reinforce any activity that gives you dopamine.

This activity, however, can be drugs like cocaine, and even social media.

A study published by RadiumOne, a San Francisco-based firm states that social media is dopamine gold. The report claims that we create expectation when we like, or comment or post something on social media. We feel a sense of belonging, states the report.

A report on the American Marketing Association website claims that, The same brain areas that are activated for food and water are activated for social stimuli.

Disturbingly, Mauricio Delgado, associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University in Newark says that even the predictor of a reward gets your dopamine up. This can include the buzzing of your phone, which can trigger a dopamine kick. You soon start seeking that kick.

As Rutledge suggests, social media is not something to be taken lightly. We arent naturally born with an innate sense of responsibility and an abundance of caution. Fire, for example, burns us at an early age, so we know to be cautious around it. Social media, on the other hand, is simply rewarding.

The algorithmic feeds and filter bubbles that social media create further increase our dependence on the platform. After all, the news feed is designed to cater to our needs.

The problem with social media addiction, as with other forms of drug abuse, is that the initial dopamine hits are not as pleasurable over time. We seek more and we get more extreme in our demands. Where earlier one hit of cocaine would be enough, youd now need two, then three, and so on so forth until youre permanently high and its still not enough.

Youll eventually reach a point where something snaps, mentally, and you either give in to your addiction completely or try to seek help.

Replace cocaine with social media, and you find yourself in the same situation.

When we give in, we do hurtful things, like murder people live on Facebook.

And this is the world that were letting our kids into. Letting your children use smartphones and social media at a young age can be as bad as dusting their cakes with cocaine.

Social media and communication isnt without its strengths and its not always harmful. It can be put to good use, to save lives, to spread a kindly word, to seek help, to inform.

We need to learn to use it responsibly, however, to fight the urge to give in to its addictive nature. This can only happen when we recognise it for what it is, and through education.
tech2 News Staff

The District Magistrate of Varanasi recently issued an administrative order stating that an administrator of a group on WhatsApp or Facebook is liable for prosecution if any rumour or fake news is circulated.

Fake news has been in the news a lot these past few months, coming to prominence in the wake of US President Donald Trumps election and the rioting in Jammu and Kashmir.

District Magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra and Senior Superintendent of Police, Nitin Tiwari are reported to have issued the order, which states that any fake news, rumour or misleading bit of information spread on social media could lead to an FIR (First Information Report) against the groups administrator, reports PTI.

As reported by PTI, the order apparently states that group admins should be prepared to bear responsibility for posts on the group, that any fake news, rumour, etc., needs to be reported to the police as soon as possible and that only those members personally known to the administrator must be included.

The order adds that if the group admin doesnt take strict action against posts and members of the group who are guilty of posting harmful content, the admin will be considered guilty and charged as per the law.

Since the order was issued by a district magistrate in Varanasi, the jurisdiction would normally be limited only to the geographical limits of Varanasi. However, Asheeta Regidi, a lawyer who specialises in cyber law, tells us that in the case of cybercrime, jurisdictions are treated differently. So long as the offending piece of news can be accessed in Varanasi, the group administrator is liable. The group administrator need not be physically present in Varanasi for the order to be applicable to him.

Since we dont have access to the full order yet, the exact implications are unclear. However, we can take an educated guess as to its impact based on historical data.

For example, if youre an admin of a group based in Mumbai that posted something that adversely affected Varanasi and someone filed a case against you in Varanasi, you will face charges in Varanasi and you might actually go to jail.

The Delhi High Court also passed a judgement on the same issue and took the exact opposite stance, but that might not save you since the Delhi HCs jurisdiction doesnt extend to Varanasi.

Taking the above example again, if an FIR was filed against you in both the Delhi HC and the Varanasi District Court for a harmful post made on a group that you moderate, you will have to resolve the matter in both courts. The Delhi High Court will set you free, but the Varanasi District Court might still have you thrown in jail.

Your only hope, if any, is to plead the Delhi HC judgement and hope that the District Court in Varanasi is more sympathetic.
Statutory cap on self-distribution seems to violate several parts of the constitution

Article I, Section 1:

All persons are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights [including] the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor.

Article I, Section 19:

No person shall be ... deprived of his life, liberty, or property but by the law of the land.

Article I, Section 32:

No person or set of persons is entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community but in consideration of public services.

Article I, Section 34:

Perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free state and shall not be allowed.

It would be hard to find a more blatant example of cronyism than the North Carolina law forbidding brewers who produce more than 25,000 barrels per year from selling their products directly to retailers. The law serves no legitimate purpose and exists for two reasons only: to protect the national and international beverage conglomerates from local competition, and to enrich the members of the wholesale distribution oligopoly to whom the craft brewers are forced to turn over their distribution operations. (For more information, see " Hard to Swallow ," a report released by the John Locke Foundation last fall.)The good news is that two bills to raise the cap on self-distribution have been filed in the N.C. House: House Bill 67 , which was sponsored by Rep. Michael Speciale, R-Craven, would raise it to 100,000 barrels; and House Bill 500 , which was sponsored by Reps. Chuck McGrady, Bill Brawley, Jon Hardister, and Pricey Harrison, would raise it to 200,000. The bad news is that, because the wholesale distributors constitute such a powerful lobby, there doesn't seem to be much chance that even this kind of limited reform will be approved.But the wholesalers and their friends in the legislature shouldn't be too complacent. In recent years, litigators in other states have successfully defended economic freedom on the basis of those states' constitutions. (I wrote about one such success in a previous blog post .) Because it's such a blatant example of cronyism, the beer distribution cap is vulnerable to challenge based on several provisions in the North Carolina Constitution, including:Arbitrary interference with private business and unnecessary restrictions on lawful occupations clearly violate the spirit of this clause. By forcing brewers to relinquish the right to distribute their own products as a condition for obtaining essential business licenses and permits, the distribution laws deny them right to enjoy the fruits of their labor.The North Carolina courts consistently have interpreted this clause to guarantee two kinds of rights. The first is the right to due process. The cap on self-distribution violates the right to due process because it is arbitrary and capricious, and because it is not rationally related to a legitimate government interest. Why permit a brewer who produces 24,000 barrels a year to self-distribute while forcing one who produces 26,000 barrels to distribute through a member of the wholesale distributor oligopoly? The law's purported rationale is to "maintain ... healthy competition," but, in fact, it does the opposite.It protects the distributors from competition by forcing brewers to distribute exclusively with them, and it protects the big national and multi-national brewers from competition by encouraging North Carolina's craft breweries to remain small. This kind of economic protectionism is not a legitimate government interest.The second right guaranteed by the "law of the land" clause has two parts: the right not to have one's property taken unless it is required for a valid public use; and the right to receive just compensation when it is. The distribution laws violate both parts of this right. The state is not acquiring the craft brewers' distribution operations for a public use; instead, it is forcing them to turn those operations over to other private parties. Nor can it be argued that this transfer of property from one private party to another somehow achieves a public purpose, because, as noted above, protecting the interests of wholesale distributors and out-of-state beverage conglomerates is not a valid public purpose. All of this would be bad enough if the craft brewers received just compensation for the loss of their distribution operations, but they do not. They receive nothing.The distribution cap grants the members of the wholesale distribution oligopoly the exclusive privilege of distributing the beer produced by every brewer that exceeds the 25,000 barrel limit. Do they perform a public service in return for this consideration? They do not!The distribution laws grant distributors the exclusive right to distribute the breweries' beer in perpetuity. While perhaps not technically a monopoly, it is certainly an oligopoly. As such, it is contrary to the genius of a free state, and it is forbidden by the North Carolina Constitution.Any one of these constitutional claims, if successful, could result in a declaratory judgment striking down the distribution laws, a permanent injunction blocking the enforcement of those laws, and an award of money damages and attorneys' fees to claimant. I'm sure those possibilities are not lost on North Carolina's craft brewers. They have, after all, already proven themselves to be a particularly creative and determined group of entrepreneurs.North Carolina should be encouraging such people rather than actively holding them back. If the General Assembly won't protect their economic rights, don't be surprised if they turn to the courts.
Logitech launched its new webcam, Logitech BRIO 4K Pro Webcam. BRIO comes packed with Logitech RightLight 3 with HDR, 4K Ultra HD video quality, and 5X zoom, plus support for Windows Hello and other secure infrared-based facial recognition applications. It is a powerhouse webcam for business and home-office users, streamers, YouTubers, vloggers, and anyone else looking for a top-of-the-line webcam. The Logitech BRIO will be available in India starting today at Rs. 24,995/-.

Ashok Jangra, Logitech Cluster Category Manager for India & South West Asia, said, We are extremely proud to launch the Logitech BRIO in India today. India is one of our key markets where we want to drive proliferation and adoption of VC solutions. The latest product from the Logitech Webcam portfolio- The Logitech BRIO is an elegantly designed feature-packed product that is especially shaped for an audience who want impeccable video quality Logitech BRIO takes webcams to an entirely new level. It delivers a premium video recording, streaming, broadcasting and desktop experience. Whether youre using it for business video collaboration, streaming a live event, or recording professional-quality video in 4K, BRIO experience is truly unparalleled.

Logitech BRIO allows users to take full control of their visual environment. In addition to featuring 4K and 5x zoom, support for Logitech RightLight 3 with HDR delivers great camera performance in all lighting conditions  from low light to bright sunlight, as well as challenging high-contrast or backlit conditions. BRIO users can select between 65, 78, and 90 field of view (FOV) to help ensure their camera is focused only on the area they want others to see. Logitechs advanced lens technology with autofocus offers remarkable video quality with great resolution, speed, fluidity, color balance and detail.

Logitech BRIO works with all popular business applications, including Skype for Business and Cisco-compatible certifications, as well as all Logitech Collaboration Program cloud video partners such as BlueJeans, BroadSoft, Vidyo and Zoom.

@Technuter.com News Service
Dedicated to the Restoration of Progressive Democracy
Pentagon chief warns Syria against using chemical weapons

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis takes seats for a meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel on Friday.

AP, Tel Aviv :

Syria still possesses chemical weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday, warning against the banned munitions being used again.

At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional U.S. strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Mattis spoke alongside Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," said Mattis. He said he didn't want to elaborate on the amounts Syria has in order to avoid revealing sources of intelligence.

"I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike," he said.

Israeli defense officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of President Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said "We have 100 percent information that Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels."

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government. Top Assad ally, Russia, has asserted a Syrian government airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mattis in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

"We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," Netanyahu said. He referred to the U.S. cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's "forthright deeds" against the use of chemical weapons.
KHULNA: Local people collaboration with the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources, Power and Port arranged a grand meeting to save Sundarbans at Shaheed Hadish Park in Khulna on Thursday.
CITF gaining momentum

Chittagong Bureau :

The month-long 25th Chittagong International Trade Fair has begun from March 19 at Railway Polo ground like every year. The royal Thailand is participating as partner country for 15th time. One of the main characteristics of this year's fair is Thailand's participation in it as a partner country. The air-conditioned Thailand pavilion comprises 25 booths.

A total of five foreign countries India, Thailand, China and Iran are taking part in the fair. Different foreign countries and leading companies of those countries will participate in the fair. Besides, the local leading companies of the country taking part in the trade fair with total 37 pavilions. Of these 16 are Premier Gold Pavilions, 5 Premier pavilions, 8 mini mega pavilions, 10 standard pavilions, 16 premier booths, 14 standard booths and IT booths. A total of 450 companies are participating at the CITF 2017.

The month-long Chittagong International Trade Fair (CITF) in port city gained momentum recently. Mahbubul Alam, president of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), the organizer of the show, told the Asian Age that many VIP's, Members of Parliament and elites have visited CITF. They are satisfied over the arrangement of CITF in the port city, he claims.

"The authorities of CITF particularly the organizing committee took special measures regarding the law and order situation and discipline at the Polo Ground and adjoining areas from very beginning of the trade fair," he said.

As a result, people can come to visit the trade fair spontaneously. Besides, the arrangement for female and children are better this year than previous years. So, people and businessmen feel interested to join the fair this year, he pointed out.

Alam said the investors and participants of the partner country Thailand and other countries like India, Pakistan and China etc are very happy to see the spontaneous gathering the people at the fair. "So, I hope that we will be successful for creating interest to the foreign investors for investing here."

Mahabubul Alam also said, the businessmen of Chittagong as well as all other parts of the country are getting a chance to exhibit their products before the international business community in the CITF.

"Chittagong Chamber is observing the 25 years of the CITF this year. We started CITF at outer stadium 25 years ago. Now, the CITF has passed its 25 years this year. But, we have no permanent venue. We demanded allocation of a permanent venue for CITF.

Senior Vice President of CCCI and Chairman of CITF 2017 Nurun Newaj Selim said, a temporary police camp has been set up there. The visitors are being checked with metal detectors at the entry points. The ticket price has fixed at Tk 10 and Tk 5 for the adults and children respectively.
Contract to be executed within 6 months

High Court Division :

(Civil Appellate Jurisdiction)

Quazi Reza-ul

Hoque J

JN Deb Choudhury J

Abdul Khaleque..............Appellant

vs

Government of Bangladesh represented by Deputy Commissioner and

anothers ................. Respondents

Judgment

June 5th, 2016

Transfer of Property Act (IV of 1882)

Section 54A

Limitation Act (IX of 1908)

Article 113

In every contract for sale there should be a time mentioned for execution and registration of the instrument of sale and if no time is mentioned it will be deemed to be 6 (six) months. .....(11)

Code of Civil Procedure (V of 1908)

Order VII, rule l1(d)

Limitation Act (IX of 1908)

Article 113

It is the settled principle of law that while the ultimate result of the suit is as clear as the daylight, such a suit should be buried at its inception so that no further time is consumed in a fruitless litigation.

The contract for sale dated 13-3-2007 be deemed for the purpose of execution and registration of the instrument of sale to be 6 (six) months and as such, 13-9-2007 was the last date for execution and registration of the instrument of sale and failing thereto in view of Article 113 of the Limitation Act, 1908, the last date for filing the suit was 13-9-2008.

Accordingly, the suit as filed on 25-1-2009 is hopelessly barred by limitation. . ..... (16 & 15)

Khan Mohammad Amir vs Atiqur Rahman, 5 ALR (2015) 307 ref.

Shasti Sarker, Advocate -For the Appellant.

None Appeared -For the Respondent.

Judgment

IN Deb Choudhury J : This first appeal has been filed against the judgment and decree dated 17-6-2009 passed by the learned Joint District Judge, Second Court, Narayanganj in Title Suit No. 31 of 2009, rejecting the plaint.

2. The plaintiff-appellant on 25-1-2009 filed Civil Suit No. 31 of 2009 before the Joint District Judge, Second Court, Narayanganj for specific performance of contract.

3. Plaintiffs case for the purpose of the disposal of this first appeal in short, is that the defendant No.1 agreed to sell the suit land at a consideration of Taka 11,02,000 in favour of the plaintiff and on receiving Taka 10,92,000, executed a registered bainapatra on 13-3-2007 and the plaintiff on different occasion approached the defendant No.1 and lastly on 1-1-2009 requested the defendant No. 1 to execute and register the kabala; but, the defendant No. I ultimately denied the same and accordingly, tiled the suit.

4. Defendant No.1 contested the suit by filing written statement and contended inter alia that the defendant No.1 being aged of 85 years and taking advantage of his ailment, the plaintiff created the bainapatra. The defendant No. 1 never received any amount from the plaintiff nor-given possession of the suit land. After knowledge of the bainapatra, defendant No.1 filed a criminal case being Petition Case No. 978 of 2007 under Section 341, 384, 506 and 109 of the Penal Code on 15-5-2007 against the plaintiff and in that criminal case on being negotiated by the local elderly persons, defendant No. 1 and plaintiff filed joint compromise petition and as per terms of the compromise the plaintiff undertook not to file any case pursuant to the bainapatra dated 13-3-2007 and also stated in the written statement that the present suit is barred by limitation.

5. The defendant No.1 on 31-3-2009 filed an application under Order VII, rule l1(d) of the Code of the Civil Procedure for rejection of the plaint on the ground that the bainapatra was executed on 13-9-2007 and the suit was filed on 25-1-2009 and in view of Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 and in view of Article 113 of the Limitation Act, 1908, the present suit is hopelessly barred by limitation.

6. The Trial Court by order dated 17-6-2009 on considering the statements made in the plaint and in view of Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 and Article 113 of the Limitation Act, 1908, rejected the plaint.

7. Being aggrieved the plaintiff preferred the instant first appeal and during pendency of the appeal filed an application for injunction and on 17-11-2009, Rule was issued being Civil Rule No. 911(F) of 2009 and ad-interim order was passed restraining defendent-respondent No.1 from dispossessing the plaintiff-appellant from the suit land and also from transferring the suit land 10 anyone till disposal of the Rule.

8. Mr Shasti Sarker, the learned Advocate appearing for the plaintiff-appellant submits that the trial Court while rejecting the plaint failed to consider the third column of Article 113 of the Limitation Act, 1908 which clearly provides under the hearing "Time from which period begins to run" is the date fixed for the performance or if no such date is fixed, when the plaintiff has notice that performance is refused and in the present case the defendant No.1 ultimately refused on 1-1-2009 and filed the suit on 25-1-2009 and as such the suit as filed cannot be held to be barred by limitation.

He next submits that the provisions of Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 are for the purpose of execution and registration of the instrument of the sale and have no manner of application in the present case. In support of his submissions he relied upon a case of Khan Mohammad Amir vs Atiqur Rahman, reported in 5 ALR (2015) 307 and on submitting the above he prayed for setting-aside the impugned judgment and decree of rejection of the plaint on allowing the appeal.

9. We have heard the learned advocate for the plaintiff-appellant, perused the plaint, written statement, application and the impugned judgment and decree of the trial Court.

10. Admittedly the bainapatra was executed and registered on 13-3-2007 and there is no period mentioned in the bainapatra for execution and registration of the instrument of the sate. The suit is for specific performance of contract has been filed on 25-1-2009 i.e. after almost 1 year 9 months 13 days from the date of bainapatra. Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act has been inserted by Act No. XXVI of 2004 which specifically mentioned that the same will come into effect from 1st July, 2005. Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 reads as follows:

"54A. Contract for sale to be registered, etc - Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, a contract for sale of any immovable property can be made only by an instrument in writing and registered under the Registration Act, 1908, whether or not the transferee has taken possession of the property or any part thereof.

In a contract for sale of any immovable property, a time, to be effective from the date of registration, shall be mentioned for execution and registration of the instrument of sale, and if no time is mentioned, six months shall be deemed to be the time."

11. From a plain reading of Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, it appears that the said Section starts with the words "Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Act or any other law for the time being in force" and it has also provides that in every instrument of contract for sale of any immovable property, the time to be effective from the date of registration, shall be mentioned for the execution and registration of the instrument of sale and if no time is mentioned, 6 (six) months shall be deemed to be the time. So, it appears that in every contract for sale there should be a time mentioned for execution and registration of the instrument of sale and if no time is mentioned it will be deemed to be 6 (six) months.

12. Admittedly the contract for sale in the present suit, executed and registered on 13-3-2007 and there is no time mentioned in the contract for sale for execution and registration of the instrument of sale and in view of Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the time shall be deemed to be 6 (six) months for execution and registration of the instrument of sale.

13. Article 113 of the Limitation Act, reads as follows:



14. It appears from the first and second column under description of suit for specific performance of contract and the period of limitation is 1 (one) year and under the heading "Time from which period begins to run" it has been provided that the time shall run from the date fixed for performance. As we have already found in view of Section 54A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, by operation of law the date fixed for performance shall be 6(six) months as no time was mentioned in the contract for sale. The second part of third column "or, if no such date is fixed, when the plaintiff has notice that performance is refused" cannot override the first Part of the third column.

15. In view of the above there is no option; but, to hold that the contract for sale dated 13-3-2007 be deemed for the purpose of execution and registration of the instrument of sale to be 6 (six) months and as such, 13-9-2007 was the last date for execution and registration of the instrument of sale and failing thereto in view of Article 113 of the Limitation Act, 1908, the last date for filing the suit was 13-9-2008. Accordingly, the suit as filed on 25-1-2009 is hopelessly barred by limitation.

16. It is the settled principle of law that while the ultimate result of the suit is as clear as the daylight, such a suit should be buried at its inception so that no further time is consumed in a fruitless litigation. In the present case from the admitted facts of the case it appears that the suit will certainly fail as being barred by limitation.

17. The decision referred to by the learned Advocate for the plaintiff-appellant, the case of Khan Mohammad Amir vs Atiqur Rahman, reported in 5 ALR 307, the facts, circumstances and interpretation not applicable in the present case.

18. Accordingly, we do not find substance in the arguments of the learned Advocate for the appellant.

19. In the result, the appeal is dismissed.

20. The impugned judgment and decree dated 17-6-2009 passed by the learned Joint District Judge, Second Court, Narayanganj in Title Suit No. 31 of 2009, rejecting the plaint, is hereby affirmed.

21. Connected Rule being Civil Rule No. 911(F) of 2009, is disposed of accordingly.

Send back the lower court's record along with a copy of this judgment and decree to the court concern.
BB warns 20 banks over default loans

Badrul Ahsan :

The Central Bank warned 20 state-owned and private sector banks of existential crisis, due to their poor performance in terms of loan recovery, sources said.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has recently cautioned the banks that the entities might face existential crisis unless effective measures are taken to recover their defaulted and written-off loans.

The banks were also asked to put special emphasis on recovering classified loan and introduction of rewards for better-performed employees and taking steps for speedy disposal of the cases pending with different courts for loan recovery.

The boards of directors of the said banks were asked to discuss their loan recovery status in every meeting, the sources informed.

"Overall bank position including income or profit, depends on its loan recovery, but the status of loan recovery is very poor comparing with other banks," S.K. Sur Chowdhury, Deputy Governor told The New Nation.

Poor loan recovery raises defaulted loans, while the defaulted loans require increased provisioning and subsequently reduces profitability, he said.

Considering the facts, the poor classified loan recovery of a bank ultimately leads the entity's existence at risk, the senior central banker added.

The Central Bank selected 20 banks considering their poor loan recovery performance between September 2015 and June 2016. The BB data showed that Janata Bank recovered only Tk 50.33 crore against its defaulted and written-off loans between July and September of 2016, Rupali Bank Tk 19.74 crore, BKB Tk 111.23 crore, RAKUB Tk 43.05 crore, AB Bank Tk 4.80 crore, DBBL Tk 3.42 crore, NCCBL Tk 11.01 crore, Jamuna Bank Tk 9.08 crore, Premier Bank Tk 8.88 crore, EXIM Bank Tk 29.75 crore, Farmers Bank Tk 6.84 crore, City Bank Tk 66.13 crore, Al Arafah Bank Tk 57.56 crore, Uttara Bank Tk 34.42 crore, Bank Asia Tk 56.97 crore, SBI Tk 0.05 crore, Woori Bank Tk 0.03 crore, ICB Islamic Bank Tk 3.58 crore, CBC Tk 2.36 crore and BCBL Tk 1.05 crore.

A BB official said that the country's banking sector had recently faced a number of loan scams which increased the amount of defaulted loans in the banking industry.

The Central Bank will set a roadmap for the banks to recover their defaulted and written-off loans, Sur Chowdhury said.

However, the defaulted loans increased to Tk 62,172 crore as of December 31, 2016 from Tk 51,371.22 crore as of December 2015 in the country's banking sector, the BB data showed.

The defaulted loans and the written-off loans comprised together Tk 1,04,846 crore as of last December 2016.

The banks wrote off loans amounting to Tk 42,674.04 crore as of September 30, 2016.

Banks are allowed to write off loans when those turn into defaulted loans - falling into bad loans or loss category.

Banks have to file lawsuits with Artha Rin Adalat against the defaulters and have to keep a 100-per cent provision, before writing off the loans.

Banks erase such loans to show a lower portfolio of unpaid loans on their respective financial balance sheets, but the practice is harmful for the banks' health, another BB official told The New Nation preferring not to be named.


12 hurt in DU BCL factional clash

DU Correspondent :

At least 12 activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League, student wing of ruling Awami League, were injured in sporadic clashes between the organization's two rival groups over occupying seats and establishing supremacy in Salimullah Muslim Hall of Dhaka University on Thursday night.

The injured were given primary treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital and University Medical Center.

Witnesses said, the clash took place around 11:30pm between the followers of the hall unit BCL president Tahsan Ahmed Rasel and the unit secretary Mehedi Hasan Taposh.

Hall sources said, the followers of Taposh displaced new student, supporter of Tahsan, and walloped him.

The activists of the two factions chased each other with iron rods, sticks, machetes and brick-bats. The fight lasted for half an hour, frightening general students.

University Proctor AM Amzad and senior leaders of Chhatra League rushed to the scene and brought the situation under control.

Taposh said, "My activists removed a bed from the pathway as it used to disturb us to move freely.

But Rasel's followers beat my five activists brutally with iron rods. They also vandalized around 30 beds of the new students on the balcony."

Rejecting the allegation, hall unit President Rasel said that they rather clubbed my activist, earlier and displaced his bed.

Taposh's follower chased us with rods and machetes and my seven activists were injured, he added.

Dhaka University chapter BCL President Abid al Hasan said organisational steps would be taken against the perpetrators.

Acting proctor AM Amzad said punitive measures would be taken after investigations.
IAB demands its removal from SC premises

Staff Reporter :

Members of Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB) from a rally on Friday demanded of the government removal of the 'statue' of the Greek Lady Justice from the Supreme Court premises before Eid-ul-Fitr.

They also threatened to launch countrywide tough movement if their demand was not met.

Thousands of the followers of Chormonai Peer gathered at the north side of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque after the Jumma prayers on Friday.

They were seen chanting slogans against the statue and the role of the government.

They also tried to parade different roads in the capital but the police stopped them at the Purana Paltan intersection.

Publicity Secretary of IAB Ahmad Abdul Qayyum said that thousands of their activists had come to Dhaka from across the country to join the rally.

He also demanded that the Themis statue be removed before the end of the month of Ramzan, threatening to blockade the Supreme Court premises after Eid if their demand was not met.

IAB's Ameer and Chormonai Peer Mufti Syed Muhammad Rezaul Karim was present at the rally, among others.

Maulana Halim Azad, a worker of the organisation, said, Islam doesn't support to set up statue or idle in any place. But the idol of Themis set up near the Jatiya Eidgah. There is no scope to keep it. If not removed, the result would not be good, he said.

Earlier on April 20, the IAB had also given an ultimatum to the Supreme Court regarding removal of the statue.
Strong movement to overthrow `unpopular` govt: Nazrul

UNB, Dhaka :

Describing the current government as 'unpopular and dispirited', BNP senior leader Nazrul Islam Khan on Friday said their party needs to launch a strong movement to dislodge it.

"The current unpopular and demoralised government can't defeat us if we together with people can take to the streets against it with courage. We need to initiate a movement immediately to get a victory over

it," he told a doa and milad mahfil. Dhaka city unit of Jatiyatabadi Hotel Sramik Dal organised the programme at BNP's Nayapaltan central office seeking salvation of the departed soul of its late president Mizan Hawlader.

Nazrul, a BNP standing committee member, alleged that the government is gradually intensifying its repressive acts to subdue BNP leaders and activists only to cling onto power. "Under the circumstances, I think we shouldn't allow the government to carry out repression on us anymore."

He claimed that people gave votes for BNP mayoral candidate in Comilla city polls braving various obstacles, pressures and threats by the ruling party as they have got fed up with the government's 'misrule and misdeeds'.

The BNP leader said the government has resorted to repressive acts as its only means to hang onto power since it is not elected by people's vote and accountable to them.

He said their party wants to join the next general election, but it has to be held in a fair and credible manner under a non-party administration.

Nazrul, however, said BNP should boycott it again if the government wants to stage a farce and mockery in the name of election.

He called upon the Sramik Dal leaders to get ready for waging a movement to force the government to hold an inclusive and acceptable election under a non-party and neutral administration.
Five killed in road mishaps

Staff Reporter :

Five persons, including three members of Bangladesh Coast Guard, were killed and several others injured in separate road accidents in Barguna and Mymensingh districts on Friday.

The injured persons were admitted to different hospitals and clinics near the accident spot.

In Barguna, three members of Bangladesh Coast Guard were killed when a bus hit their motorcycle at Amtoli Upazila on Friday.

The deceased were identified as Abdul Sadek, 30, from Nandail Upazila in Mymensingh district, Md Fuad Hossain, 23, from Kathalia Upazila in Jhalakathi district, and Md Anamul Haque, 38, from Ramgarh Upazila in Khagrachhari district.

All were posted at coast gourd base station at Durgapur in Patuakhali district, police said.

The bus of "Mayer Doa Paribahan" rammed into the motorcycle at Bandra

around 12:00noon when they were going to Kuakata from Amtoli, said Md Shahidullah, Officer-in-Charge of Amtoli Police Station.

Two of the victims died on the spot and the 3rd one succumbed to his injuries at Kalapara Upazila Health Complex, the OC said. Their bodies were sent to Barguna General Hospital for autopsy, he added.

The driver of the bus managed to flee though the law enforcers seized the vehicle soon after the accident, police said.

In Mymensingh, two persons were killed when a bus struck an auto-rickshaw at Kalarampur of Nandail upazila on Friday.

Ataur Rahman, Officer-in-Charge of Nandail Police Station, said the accident took place around 7:00am, leaving auto-rickshaw driver Safir, 25, and its passenger Sakib, 26, dead on the spot.
Indian Army Chief to visit BD again

bdnews24.com :

Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat is visiting Dhaka again from Apr 27 to 30, the Times of India reports.

The second visit in a month would follow Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina trip to India from Apr 7 to 10 when both sides signed agreements to strengthen defence relations.

India also offered a new $500 million line of credit

to Bangladesh for defence purchase based on, what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, Dhaka's own priorities and needs.

Citing sources, the ToI said Gen Rawat would discuss the different steps being taken to build military-to-military ties during his visit.

Earlier he visited Dhaka from Mar 31 to April 2.
HSC examinee dies at DMCH burn unit

Staff Reporter :

A female examinee of Higher Secondary Certificate died at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital early Friday, three days after she was burnt in an attack carried out by miscreants in Munshiganj.

The victim, Sonia Akter, was a student of Dr Abdul Gaffar School and

College of Gazaria in Munshiganj.

Sonia, who received 80 per cent burns in her body, died around 2:00am at the hospital's burn unit, said Hazera Begum, the victim's mother.

Miscreants set fire on Sonia's body by pouring flammable substance beside her house at Gazaria on April 17, she said.

A case was filed in this connection.
Only non-thinking people think a computer can think



The philosophy of artificial intelligence attempts to answer such questions as follows:

Can a machine act intelligently? Can it solve any problem that a person would solve by thinking?

Are human intelligence and machine intelligence the same? Is the human brain essentially a computer?

Can a machine have a mind, mental states, and consciousness in the same way that a human being can? Can it feel how things are?

These three questions reflect the divergent interests of AI researchers, Linguists, cognitive scientists and philosophers respectively. The scientific answers to these questions depend on the definition of "intelligence" and "consciousness" and exactly which "machines" are under discussion.

Important propositions in the philosophy of AI include:

Turing's "polite convention": If a machine behaves as intelligently as a human being, then it is as intelligent as a human being.

The Dartmouth proposal: "Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."

Newell and Simon's physical symbol system hypothesis: "A physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means of general intelligent action."

Searle's strong AI hypothesis: "The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds."

Hobbes' mechanism: "Reason is nothing but reckoning."

Wiki Source







The Turing test isnt a test of a computer. Computers cant take tests, because computers cant think. The Turing test is a test of us. If a computer passes it, we fail it. We fail because of our hubris, a delusion that seems to be something original in us. The Turing test is a test of whether human beings have succumbed to the astonishingly naive hubris that we can create souls. Its such irony that the first personal computer was an Apple.





Don't you think that we should actually try to develop the technique for humans to actually 'THINK' before we try to invent or create a computer to think for us?

Source research for this article.

Can a Computer think? Spock would say, "That is truly illogical." Have you ever wondered why they call computer thinking "Artificial Intelligence?" Would a computer ever ask that question? Back in 1968 we were introduced to a thinking a computer named "HAL." The opening scene proffered the assumption that mankind evolved. That word evolved always starts an argument so I offer the opinion that mankind has not progressed.My assumption is that the vast majority of what we humans think of as "Thinking" is nothing more than habit. If thinking involved the evaluation of facts, probabilities, and possible outcomes, I doubt many of us with ever get out of bed. If we ever were to develop a thinking computer, I suggest the we program it with only one response to every problem submitted to it.The danger of writing this article in April 2017 is that it could be totally wrong in May, 2017. Heck, it could be totally wrong now. However, being wrong has never stopped me from offering a viewpoint, however misguided it may be. The fact that I can come to a incorrect conclusion is one of my main points in claiming that a computer cannot "THINK." Absent a physical breakdown or a software glitch, a computer is nothing more than a calculation machine that follows a prescribed logic course to a solution to problems. It does not make mistakes. The software makes mistakes, They are called. Someone can insert malicious software in a program. It is called aOnly us humans tend to assign human qualities to computers. I don't think that a computer actually dreams up problems to solve like we humans do.A computer operates on the simple process of yes and no. I admit it does it at amazing speed and there is an effort for parallel processing of CPU (Central processing Units) to work simultaneously on a problem while communicating with each other along the way. But in the final analysis it is just a series of switches arranged in such a way as to reach a conclusion. Without a stop parameter even the most sophisticated and advanced computer will chug along forever just trying to solve the equation 22 divided by 7.Long ago (1950) a guy named Alan Turing ask the same question. "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?''' I learned this way back in 1964 when I was taking a computer science course at DeKalb Area Vocational School. I have written about that here on BCN before. (Changing Career Path) I admit I had to do research to bring myself up to date on his essay.Since Turing first introduced his test, it has proven to be both highly influential and widely criticized, and it has become an important concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.I will end this dissertation on computers and thinking with this conclusion:It may be of some interest that I had to do little "THINKING" to reach this conclusion. Those are not my words but a direct quote from an article from Evolution News and Science Today. Of course as a last resort we could always turn Hal off and start think for ourselves. Open the Pod Door Hal My real question, which is simple after this belabored article:
Funding from HUD to help homeowners cover a portion of their costs of recovering from the 2016 floods has arrived. The process for distributing it is in place.

With the April 10 funding approval letter from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Louisianas recovery efforts for homeowners hit by the spring and summer floods of 2016 can kick into a higher gear.

The Restore Louisiana Task Force created by Governor John Bel Edwards to coordinate the official federal, state and local disaster recovery efforts, meets Friday morning in the Capitol to get an update from involved state agencies on the effort.

You can view the agenda here.

The meeting is being streamed live. You can view it here.

Fifty-six of Louisianas 64 parishes were covered by disaster area declarations due to flooding in 2016. Flooding in August was severe in an area stretching from Jeff Davis Parish into southern Mississippi. Parts of Lafayette and Youngsville were hit particularly hard. Some Lafayette area homes had water in them for several weeks due to the slow decline in water levels in the Vermilion River.

FEMA dollars funded the immediate recovery effort. Only a small percentage of Louisiana homeowners are covered by the National Flood Insurance Program. The HUD money approved this month will help homeowners without that insurance to cover some of the costs theyve incurred recovering from the flood.

The state was awarded $1.2 billion in disaster recovery funds in December. Representatives of the Louisiana Office of Community Development told members of the Louisiana Senate's Committee on Homeland Security earlier this week that the April 10 release of funding is ahead of the schedule laid out in the December announcement. In the interim, the state presented HUD a plan for getting the funds into the hands of flood victims and HUD reviewed the plan.

The state recently hired a contractor to manage the program. The project was rebid after losing contractors objected to the process. The $300 million contract was rebid and the same firm won it. IEM of North Carolina (formerly of Baton Rouge) won the contract.

The wrangling over the contract did not actually cause any delays as the federal homeowners money had not been released. The Edwards administration says the states ongoing financial problems prevented it from hiring a contractor to run the program until the federal funds were released.

In order to access the HUD money, homeowners are required to fill out the Restore Louisiana Homeowners Assistance Program survey.
From 1932 to 2000, nearly 2.5 billion cubic centimeters of sediment have piled up in the Atchafalaya River Basin, as shown here at the base of a cypress tree.Photo by Dean Wilson Mere hours befor

From 1932 to 2000, nearly 2.5 billion cubic centimeters of sediment have piled up in the Atchafalaya River Basin, as shown here at the base of a cypress tree. Photo by Dean Wilson

Mere hours before the Senate Committee on Natural Resources questioned the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority about its annual plan on Thursday, it sympathized with the authoritys political opponent, the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, a non-profit dedicated to restoration of the basins ecosystems.

Basinkeeper representative Dean Wilson delivered an emotionally charged presentation to the committee, bemoaning the way in which the authority has realigned sediments into the basin.

And the basin is filling up fast  from 1932 to 2000, it has gained nearly 2.5 billion cubic centimeters of sediment, according to the presentation.

Wilson also related his groups concern about the CPRA tapping into public funds to build more land in the basin.

Thats criminal  to use public funds to fill swamps in the Atchafalaya Basin, Wilson said.

He noted the state spends nearly $600 per acre to restore bird habitats on islands that belong to oil companies, such as with Queen Bess Island.

Supplementing his testimony with before and after images of what was once wetland, Wilson revealed an area southwest of Plaquemines Parish where, in one year, a foot-and-a-half of sediment piled up on a crawfish trap.

These projects are based in a vision with the landowners at the forefront, Wilson said. But he wasnt referring to average, run-of-the-mill residents.

He argued that three landowners primarily benefit from the projects  one who has already cut down the trees on hundreds of acres of swamps that will never regenerate, another who logged swamps in the basin last fall and a third who Wilson said is on the record asking for projects to bring sediments so they can harvest their cypress forests.

Were talking multimillionaires here, Wilson said. Theyre making $150 an acre.

Sen. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzales, did not quite buy Wilsons argument. He said the real issue in areas such as his is that no freshwater is entering the basin.

Since that freshwater isnt pouring into the basin, Lambert noted, a floating mat, which he also referred to as a blanket of death, builds up, causing crawfish to die in their traps.

When that floating mat starts, it chokes out all of the vegetation.

Wilson argued that mud is part of that areas natural ecosystem and that his area of concern was north of Gonzales. You cannot fix it without destroying something else.

Committee chairman Norby Chabert, R-Houma, empathized with Wilson and promised they would remind the CPRA to be more specific with its plans.

Why arent we seeing a model of the Atchafalaya? Chabert asked.
The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.
By AM Thursday, April 20, 2017 Share Tweet Share Share Email









While workers in the western Kazakhstan oilfield suffer repeated waves of state repression  from the notorious police massacre of strikers at Zhanaozen in December 2011 to this years fines, arrests and bans on trade union organisation  investment funds based in New York and London profit directly from their labour.



Kushakbayev worked at the Oil Construction Company (OCC), an oilfield service company, where workers staged a two-week hunger strike in December last year, in protest at the winding-up of Kazakhstans independent union federation. It was OCCs management that complained to the court of his involvement.



Workers at Techno Trading Ltd also went on strike. Kushakbayev was convicted on 7 April of encouraging them to take action, and ordered to pay 25.2 million tenge (about $80,000) to the company in compensation (according to



Oil Construction Company is wholly owned by AktauNefteServis, which in turn is wholly owned by Kazmunaigaz. (See



Techno Trading is another oilfield service company that



Kazmunaigaz, like many national oil companies in producing countries, is a huge



Kazmunaigaz is solidly linked to Chinese oil companies through 50-50 joint ventures such as Mangistaumunaigas, and to the city of London and international investors through its Kazmunaigaz Exploration and Production (KMG EP). KMG EP is The companies that this month helped to jail trade union leader Nurbek Kushakbayev are linked, via Kazmunaigaz, Kazakhstans state-controlled oil and gas firm, to Chinese and international capital.While workers in the western Kazakhstan oilfield suffer repeated waves of state repression  from the notorious police massacre of strikers at Zhanaozen in December 2011 to this years fines, arrests and bans on trade union organisation  investment funds based in New York and London profit directly from their labour.Kushakbayev worked at the Oil Construction Company (OCC), an oilfield service company, where workers staged a two-week hunger strike in December last year, in protest at the winding-up of Kazakhstans independent union federation. It was OCCs management that complained to the court of his involvement.Workers at Techno Trading Ltd also went on strike. Kushakbayev was convicted on 7 April of encouraging them to take action, and ordered to pay 25.2 million tenge (about $80,000) to the company in compensation (according to a court press release ).Oil Construction Company is wholly owned by AktauNefteServis, which in turn is wholly owned by Kazmunaigaz. (See its annual report .) AktauNefteServis works mainly for Mangistaumunaigas, an oil production company operation in the Mangistau region of western Kazakhstan. Mangistaumunaigas is a joint venture between Kazmunaigaz and the Chinese oil company CNPC, valued at $2.6 billion when they bought it in 2009.Techno Trading is another oilfield service company that works almost entirely for Kazmunaigaz subsidiaries in the Mangistau oil fields.Kazmunaigaz, like many national oil companies in producing countries, is a huge holding company with subsidiaries that produce, transport and refine oil and gas, as well as oilfield service companies and other smaller units. Kazmunaigaz is 100% owned by the government, through the Samruk-Kazyna investment fund (90%) and the National Bank (10%).Kazmunaigaz is solidly linked to Chinese oil companies through 50-50 joint ventures such as Mangistaumunaigas, and to the city of London and international investors through its Kazmunaigaz Exploration and Production (KMG EP). KMG EP is owned 57.9% by Kazmunaigaz, 8.1% by itself through Treasury shares, and 34% by investors on the London and Kazakhstan stock exchanges. Among the largest of these ( according to Reuters ) are the China Investment Corporation, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund (in which the state keeps its foreign exchange), and BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust, a fund run by BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager that invests about $4 trillion of rich peoples money. (As of 31 December 2016, BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust plc listed KMG EP as 2% of its investments.)





Nurbek Kushakbayev entering court





KMG EPs minority investors last year clashed with Kazmunaigaz management, who wanted to strengthen their own control over KMG EP  and in August last year defeated their parent company.KMG EP has several senior managers who came from the British oil industry. KMG EPs chairman , Christopher Hopkinson, previously worked for Shell, Imperial Energy, as BG Groups senior vice president for North Africa, and for the Russian oil company TNK-BP, a partnership between Russian oligarchs and the UKs largest oil firm.KMG EP is not directly linked to the small service companies at the centre of this years anti-union crackdown. But the climate of fear that the Kazakh authorities are trying to create in the western Kazakhstan oil field is part of the context in which the company makes its money. One of KMG EPs two production subsidiaries , Ozenmunaigaz, was at the centre of the 2011 strike movement that ended with the police shooting of strikers in December that year. Several thousand of its employees formed the largest contingent in that strike, the biggest ever in the Kazakh oilfield. Ozenmunaigaz and Mangistaumunaigas are neighbours on the oil field. (KMG EP managers liked Mangistaumunaigas so much that they cut a deal with Kazmunaigaz to buy it, which fell through because state regulators would not approve it. (See KMG EPs annual report 2012 , p. 33).) KMG EP, with its links to the city of London, help to burnish Kazmunaigazs reputation on western money markets, helping it to keep the door open to western and Chinese money at the same time. A recent investor presentation boasted that since the initial public offering (IPO) of its shares in 2006, KMG EP had returned $4.6 billion to investors.On 12 April KMG EP held its regular Board of Directors meeting and agreed to distribute $63 million, or about 15% of the net profit for 2016, to shareholders.Who knows whether the gentlemen at the meeting discussed the cruel punishment that was dished out days before to Nushek Kushakbayev, for his part in furthering workplace organisation, and defending workplace rights, on the oilfield where they make their money? Certainly they didnt mention it in the announcement they made of their decisions via the London stock exchange.
CARBONDALE  U.S. Senator Dick Durbin sat down with local leaders in Carbondale Friday morning to discuss how President Donald Trumps proposed transportation cuts would affect Southern Illinois.

Trumps 2018 skinny budget calls for a 13 percent reduction in spending to the Department of Transportation, eliminating services that Durbin called critical to Southern Illinois University and the region.

The budget blueprint would terminate Amtraks long-distance routes, the TIGER surface transportation grant program and the Essential Air Service program, which helps connect remote airports to major hubs.

Durbin was joined Friday morning by Carbondale Mayor John Mike Henry, Carbondale City Manager Gary Williams, Southern Illinois University President Randy Dunn, Amtrak Senior Director Ray Lang and Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois Director Doug Kimmel.

During the round-table discussion, Henry said the city is already under stress due to the state budget impasse and declining enrollment at SIU.

We dont know where Carbondale is going to be five years from now, Henry said.

The skinny budget proposes the elimination of Amtraks entire long-distance network of 15 trains  including the overnight City of New Orleans train, which connects Carbondale to Chicago and New Orleans. About a third of SIU students are from Chicago, and many use the train to get home for breaks.

Theres a utility that comes from having short-distance and long-distance trains funded together, as routes typically overlap, Lang said.

Its an economic use of our asset because of that, and if you eliminate the long-distance trains, at a minimum you lose that, you lose that level of utility, he said.

Lang said the loss of the Amtrak long-distance train network would pose a real problem for college students around the country, who tend to rely on those services heavily. Amtrak set a ridership record in 2016, with 101,845 passengers in Carbondale last year.

Were going to do whatever we can to fight for it, Lang said.

Cutting funding to EAS program could force rural airports across the country to suspend services. Veterans Airport in Marion receives about $2 million in federal funding through the program each year.

Essential Air Service truly is, since 1978, the backbone of small community air service in rural America, Kimmel said.

With the expansion of the Southern Illinois tourism industry, Carbondale has the economic potential to grow to be the size of Springfield or Bloomington, but losing air services to the area would decimate that opportunity for growth, Kimmel said.

Paired with the ongoing state budget crisis, Dunn said the changes at the federal level make for a double whammy.

The hits just keep coming. Given all of the things that weve been dealing with on the state side, at least we were able to say, federally, things were fairly stable and the things that we depended on there that are critical to the operations of a university we could rely upon. Well, we now are in this perfect storm, he said.

Trumps budget would also kill funding for TIGER, an Obama-era discretionary spending program. Last year, Carbondale was denied a $14.64 million grant through the program to fund the modernization of its outdated Amtrak station and build a multimodal facility. The city was intending to reapply for the grant.

Williams said the loss of such programs "affects the most vulnerable of our population."

He said that in Jackson County, the per capita income is 46 percent lower than the state average, and the poverty rate is 30.4 percent  the second-highest county in the state after Alexander.

So many people come into Carbondale every day for education, for health care, for employment, and these transportation options in particular provide access to folks that dont normally have it, Williams said.

Lawmakers will be back in Washington next week to discuss the federal budget.

The budget thats been given to us by President Trump is devastating to Southern Illinois. It looks like theres a target on our back, as far as hes concerned, Durbin said after the meeting.

Durbin said he would support the presidents $1 trillion infrastructure project, but that so far it has just been merely campaign rhetoric.

We dont have anything. No proposal from the administration, no suggestion of how theyd pay for a $1 trillion program. I think we need to make that commitment, but you certainly dont achieve infrastructure growth by cutting back dramatically in TIGER programs and other programs currently available to help Southern Illinois and communities like Carbondale, Durbin said.

Asked whether it would be difficult to convince Southern Illinois residents, who predominantly voted for Trump, that the presidents proposed budget would have negative effects on the region, Durbin said Trumps campaign promises to restore jobs appealed to people who were desperate for good economic news, especially given the situation in Springfield.

And so they voted for him. Now they have to ask themselves the hard question: Did he deliver? Did he do what he said he was going to do? This budget does exactly the opposite. It cuts the opportunity for building Southern Illinois University Carbondale, for building jobs and businesses in the region, he said. So I hope some voters who supported him will ask the hard questions of their congressmen and others: what are we going to do now to keep that promise we heard from Donald Trump?
Gov. Bruce Rauner says he no longer supports expanding abortion coverage for state workers and Medicaid recipients because it's too controversial and Illinois needs to focus on other issues such as creating jobs.

As a candidate, the Republican stated in a 2014 questionnaire he disliked existing law restricting taxpayer-funded abortion coverage because it "unfairly restricts access based on income." He said he'd support a legislative effort to reverse the law.

But Rauner now opposes legislation Democrats are pushing.

He said Friday "what we should not do is take on controversial divisive issues right now." He says "we need to focus" on getting a balanced budget, reduced property taxes and lawmaker term limits.

Rauner supports existing law, which provides coverage in cases of rape, incest and for health and life of the mother.

 The Associated Press
Contact: Attila Nemecz

Attila Nemecz Attila.Nemecz@beaufortccc.edu

WASHINGTON, NC Community colleges across the state are feeling the impact of budget cuts for the 2017-2018 year. One of the budget priorities of the NC Community College System is to create a stop-loss provision for colleges experiencing significant enrollment declines. This proposed budget item would help community colleges like Beaufort County Community College to minimize the effect of changes in student population.Seven of the 58 community colleges will see their budgets drop by over $1 million. Forty-four of the community colleges are projected to see their budgets reduced in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. The colleges range from large urban systems to rural ones like BCCC.While North Carolina's unemployment rate continues to stay above the national average, it has trended downwards, dropping from its seasonally adjusted high of 11.3% in March 2010 to 5.1% in December 2016, according to the US Dept. of Labor. Throughout 2015 and 2016, unemployment has remained under 6%. Unfortunately, this trend sets into effect a cycle of punishment for community colleges. With local jobs more readily available, students skip college to enter the workforce, even at low wages.said BCCC president Barbara Tansey.Aging populations in many rural areas also mean less enrollment in community colleges and a decrease in birth rates. Every one of the counties serviced by BCCC has lost population over the last six years, with Washington County losing over a thousand residents. The average resident of Beaufort and Washington Counties is now 44-years-old.This cycle of decline and divestment further exacerbates the problem of rural depopulation. While most of the community colleges will feel the decline of their budgets in the next year, this formula will be increasingly difficult for rural communities to handle. Manufacturers and health care providers are less likely to locate in communities where they will have trouble recruiting employees with appropriate training. Without employers that can pay a living wage, working families will continue to leave in search of work.Stabilizing the budgets to protect from sudden drops in enrollment will help, but long-term solutions are also necessary. In BCCC's service area alone, three of the counties have poverty rates of one in four. Beaufort County has a poverty rate of one in five. Community colleges have the potential to help residents gain employment that will support themselves and their families, but legislators need to find ways to make college accessible in a way that is also sustainable. Our rural communities will depend on in.
Justin McDowell was 17 when he and a confederate shotgunned their way into a Allendale home, held a couple and their infant daughter at gunpoint and stole $300 and the keys to the family's black Chevy Impala. Like so many youth felonies, it was a stupid, tragic act. When McDowell was arrested a year later in 2002, he was working episodically for little money, laying foundations beneath double-wide trailer homes. He had no plans to return to school. The judge gave him 36 years.

By the time McDowell is eligible for parole in 2020, having served half his sentence, he will have cost Illinois taxpayers more than $396,000  the cumulative price of his incarceration. Will it prove an efficient investment for a state experiencing a severe budget crisis? It ought to, given McDowell's evolving eagerness over the past seven years to pursue an education and turn his life around. But for the Centralia Correctional Center inmate, now 33, the question remains open  as it does for most of the roughly 41,000 men and women currently incarcerated in Illinois prisons.

Last March, McDowell lost an important building block toward reconfiguring his life when Kaskaskia College summarily, indefinitely and reluctantly suspended the in-prison degree program it had administered at Centralia since 1983, and in which McDowell was enrolled. At the time, McDowell was more than halfway toward earning an associate's degree in general education. He previously had completed a six-month vocational tech program in construction management, earning straight A's.

"He'd been on a waiting list for almost two years, trying to get into that course," Steve Mandrell, his Kaskaskia professor, recalled. Mandrell found him so impressive, he later hired him as a teacher's aide.

Kaskaskia ended its program because the Illinois Department of Corrections, as a result of the state's ongoing budget crisis, had stopped payment on its three-year, roughly $1.2 million contract with the school. According to George Evans, Kaskaskia's dean of career and technical education, McDowell was one of approximately 1,400 prisoners the school has educated over the years.

The rehabilitative cost of ending post-secondary education opportunities for prisoners such as McDowell is substantial. "I went and talked to him the day before I left [my teaching position at Centralia]," Mandrell recalled. "He was telling me how wrong it was to not be able to complete his degree. He said, 'There may be something I can do as far as a job, and this is going to hinder that.'"

But there is an accompanying, steep price the rest of us pay.

As of July 2015, McDowell and his fellow inmates in Illinois correctional centers were costing state taxpayers close to $1 billion, annually.

According to a 2015 Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council study, about 97 percent ultimately will be released, through parole or completion of sentence  including those convicted of violent crimes. It is not unusual for a murderer to get 40 years and win parole after serving 20.

The same study found that 19 percent of those released recidivate within a year, 48 percent in three years. IDOC paroled about 30,000 prisoners in 2013, according to an NBC report. That means roughly 14,400 could possibly return to prison. The cost of housing, feeding and caring for a single prisoner varies among the state's 25 correctional centers, but averaged around $23,000 a year in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Based on all those figures, the taxpayer cost of housing people who recidivate, alone, is more than $331 million annually.

Factor in court costs, law enforcement costs and the social and economic losses suffered by new victims of parolees' crimes, and the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council study estimated in 2015 that the total cost of recidivism in Illinois over the next five years would be $16.7 billion.

The best chance to break the recidivism cycle, a 2013 Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Justice Department found, is by offering prisoners access to a college-level education. According to the study, those who took classes while incarcerated were 43 percent less likely to recidivate.

Yet Illinois' in-prison college programs are disappearing at an alarming rate. Around the time Kaskaskia ended its program, and for the identical reason, Richland Community College did the same. Danville Area Community College eliminated its vocational offerings.

Evans, the Kaskaskia dean, can't find the logic in it. "Over a three-year study, the highest recidivism rate we had was 10 percent in our culinary program," he said. "The lowest was 6 percent in the electronics program. Compare that to the 51.2 percent of those receiving no training whatsoever. Look at the [potential] savings. That has been presented numerous times to the DOC. It has fallen on deaf ears."

As the community college programs neared their end, the students  prisoners  began a letter-writing campaign, to the IDOC, to their state legislators, to the governor. "The governor's office was flooded with letters from inmates," Evans said. "The inmates filed grievances. We had gang members who came in and said, 'I got kids. I was a punk [when I was arrested], and my goal here is to make sure I never come back here.' It did no good. They [state and prison officials] just do not take education seriously. They may say that they do, but don't when it comes down to it."

A year has passed since Mandrell last taught at Centralia. He still worries about the effect the program's dissolution has had on McDowell. "My class was the first college course he took," Mandrell said. "About halfway through, it's like he softened up. Before, he was very negative  'You know, I'm never going to be able to get a very good job, because I've got this on my rap sheet.' Then he started talking positive. 'If I can do this, then I know I can make a living. I know I can go back into society and be productive.'"
Thumbs down to 660 days without a budget in Illinois. And, while were at it, another thumbs down to the General Assembly for having the chutzpah to take a two-week spring break when the state has gone nearly two years without a budget. At this point, Illinois taxpayers deserve better. Its not asking too much for legislators to commit to round-the-clock negotiations until a budget agreement is reached. The state is crumbling around us and Springfield still seems to lack a sense of urgency. That is perhaps the most distressing element of this saga.

Thumbs up to the River-to-River Relay on its 30th running. The race began as something of a novelty 30 years ago, but has grown into one of the regions signature events. Each year, the relay attracts 2,000 runners, many from Nebraska, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Kentucky, Minnesota and Indiana. Since its inception, runners have been nearly universal in their praise of the administration of the race. More importantly, the race has introduced thousands of visitors to the charms and natural beauty of Southern Illinois.

Thumps up to the Bill Harkins/Don Sanders Four-Man Bass Tournament on its 50th anniversary. The event, sponsored by the Southern Illinois Bassbusters, is believed to be the oldest bass tournament in Illinois. The tournament can not only claim the title for longevity, but anglers and the Bassbusters have raised thousands of dollars for Shriners hospitals over the years. Tournament weigh-in is at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Prairie Creek Recreation Area at Crab Orchard Lake.

Thumbs up to the resiliency displayed by the citizens of Cairo. In the past two weeks, Cairo residents have learned that Housing and Urban Development plans to displace nearly 400 individuals who live in the McBride and Elmwood housing units. Citizens are fighting to save their town. Last week, school children wrote letters to Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, describing their plight and asking for his assistance.

Thumbs down to more bad news for residents of the Elmwood and McBride complexes. March tests of drinking water at the housing units showed more than 15 parts per billion of lead in the drinking water. Although that standard is not considered enough to cause illness in adults, it can create problems for infants and children younger than age 6.

Thumbs up to John A. Logan College in Carterville for receiving accreditation from the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnership for its Dual Credit Program. The accreditation means students can receive college credits while still in high school. John A. Logan College has demonstrated to its peers that the college courses it offers in high schools are the same high quality as college courses offered on campus, said Victoria Zeppelin, chair of the NACEPs Accreditation Commission.

Thumbs down to the proposal to end Department of Housing and Urban Development block grants. The grants are frequently used by small towns to make necessary, and costly, infrastructure repairs. Gary Bartolotti, Christophers mayor, stated earlier this week that Christopher has been able to replace about 90 percent of its water lines through the grants. The grants are on the chopping block in President Donald Trumps proposed budget.

Thumbs up to Carbondales Ryan Povolish. He had to wait several weeks to find out what record he set, but it was finally announced this week that that 4-pound, 8.8-ounce crappie he caught at Kinkaid Lake earlier this spring was a hybrid. The state used DNA tests to determine the fish was a hybrid. Regardless, hybrid or black crappie, the fish would have been a state record.
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Burlington Northern Santa Fe this week permanently cut 55 employees, roughly half its workforce at its diesel shop in Glendive, a company official said Friday.

BNSF officials blamed slumping oil and coal demand for the cuts, which represent a roughly $2.8 million hit in lost wages to Dawson Countys economy. Its a tough blow for an area that has weathered bouncing oil prices and slumping commodities in recent years, local officials say.

Any job loss in our community is very detrimental, whether it be one job or 55 jobs. It all hurts Glendive has always been a big railroad town, as far as production and being a money maker for BNSF. And we hate to see them reduce their footprint here, Glendive Mayor Jerry Jimison said Friday.

Rail car mechanics in Montana made an average of $51,300 annually in 2015, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries.

Jimison said BNSF officials told him 60 jobs would remain at the railroads downtown round house, a nickname earned years ago for the buildings circular shape.

Jimison noted that many of the affected workers were hired during the Bakken boom in the early part of this decade. Many traveled from other regions, including South Carolina, Texas and Arkansas, for the work, and Jimison said he has heard workers would like to stay.

Finding jobs that pay as much would likely be difficult, however. Median wages in Glendive are about $41,250, below the state average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Ross Lane, a BNSF spokesman, said the railroad is working with affected employees to offer positions at vacancies in other areas. Employees may also be able to use union seniority to switch jobs, Lane said.

Falling demand for coal and oil shipments are the primary reasons for the cutbacks, Lane said. Coal shipments have picked up in 2017 but remain far below peak levels, according to analysts.

Additionally, record capital investment has resulted in more efficient and capable operations across the northern corridor. Consequently, BNSF has had to align resources with changing customer demand and traffic flows, Lane said in an email.

Shop employees are represented by five unions, according to Lane: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers, the International Association of Machine and Auto Workers, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers and the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen.

Union representatives could not be reached Friday.

BNSF handled 480,000 fewer unit trains on its networks in 2016 compared to the previous year, Lane said. Transport of coal, the railroads biggest cash cow, has fallen more than 30 percent since the peak in 2008, according to the American Association of Railroads.

The drop in transport is related primarily to utilities switch to power plants fired by natural gas, which is cheaper and more abundant than coal, according to industry experts.

Starting in 2012, BNSF invested $450 million in Montana to improve rail capacity, ease congestion and streamline operations. These improvements also contributed to the railroads decision in 2015 to relocate 55 workers on train crews from Glendive and Forsyth to Laurel, where Montana Rail Link operates the regions largest rail yard.

BNSF is one of the countrys largest rail companies and is a subsidiary of Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Jimison said hes concerned his town could take further hits.

Like many big companies, theyre finding ways to do more with less people. You always have that worry in the back of your mind, he said.
FLORENCE  Mary Jane Alexander is known around west Florence as the Good Samaritan, and her church, New Ebenezer Baptist Church, threw a surprise party Saturday to recognized her as a Good Samaritan.

Mary Alexander is a native of Darlington County, the daughter of the late Janie (Ham) and Baldie Coe. She was married to the late Peter Alexander and is the mother of five children: Major Felix Alexander, Carolyn Mitchell, Janie Davis, Sherry Black and Alberta McIver.

The Good Samaritan in the Bible helped an injured man, took him to a hospital and paid his medical bill. The Good Samaritan stepped forward to assist those in need  something Alexander has done for decades.

Even though she had her own kids, Alexander raised other kids in the neighborhood, took care of strangers and still does it at the golden age of 88.

"One of my earliest memories of my mother helping someone is when mama worked at the Colonial Hotel," said her daughter Carolyn Mitchell. "This must have been in the 1950s. This woman was on a bus travelling through Florence to go somewhere. The bus stopped for everybody to hit the restrooms or stretch. The woman left her purse, everything in it, on the bus, and when she came back, the bus had gone. Mama had finished a shift at Colonial Hotel and brought the woman home."

Mitchell said they lived in a three-bedroom house that was holding more people than it needed to.

"But I remember this woman particularly because every chore I had, the woman took it, because she felt it was the least she could do since mama let her stay with us for a few days," Mitchell said.

The woman only stayed for a few days until she could allocate her funds.

Mitchell added that even though her mother had to raise her and her siblings by herself, everyone in the community came over to eat. Alexander would have hot biscuits, peaches (from Alberta Peaches in the McBee area) and fat back meat to feed the multitude, sometimes up to 30 people on a daily basis back in the 1950s and 1960s, Mitchell said.

As of 10 years ago, Alexander's children told her she needed to slow down during the middle of the week on making such large Sunday dinners. Alexander cleans 3 to 4 pounds of meat every Saturday to prepare for Sunday dinners and such.

Vera White has known Alexander for the past 40 years and said she knows Alexander gives back what God blessed her. She says she knows that sometimes people bring meat to Alexander's house, and that enables her to prepare meals.

"Mary's mind is as sharp as an owl's," White said. "She has a sense of humor and discipline. Youth respect her because she teaches them from a young age. She teaches me, too, and I'm thankful for it."

"It is through the grace of God she can afford to do all of this," Mitchell said.

After time at the Colonial, Alexander worked for South Carolina Department of Mental Retardation. She retired from there, and in 1990 she started a residential home health care facility for the elderly. At the same time, she volunteered to work with a foster care program in the area. She opened her doors to disadvantaged children or whomever the Department of Social Services brought her way. For years she conducted both home health and foster care work out of her home.

Kenny and Joy Barnes have known Alexander for years. Kenny met her when he was in a fraternity with Alexander's son, Felix, at Francis Marion University in the late 1970s. Alexander met Joy when she worked with Alexander's daughter, Sherry, in the early millenium.

The two have witnessed how well respected Alexander is in her neighborhood. They said people tend to meet other people because of Alexander. They say Alexander becomes your family, and the others you meet through her become your family.

"She gives so much to the community," Joy said. "She is family oriented, and hospitality describes her, because she is a giver."

Kenny and Joyce laugh, because when they started dating each other, they both knew Alexander but did not even know it. They say she had a big part in their wedding.

The two think of her as a woman with wisdom who has never met a stranger.

"That's her strong faith in God," Kenny said. "She very seldom misses church. When she had knee surgery, she was still ushering, and we had to tell her to rest and sit down."

At the church, Alexander is known for her great meals and as the pioneer of the Youth Usher Ministry. She started it in the 1970s, and they have had more than 40 youth come through it. A few of them are still ushers at New Ebenezer.

"I originally started a youth Bible study in the early 1970s at my house," Alexander said. "We started to get a crowd for a weekly Bible study and we had to house hop for weekly youth Bible study. We eventually moved youth Bible study to the church. "

She said she started thinking about the Youth Usher Ministry, because the youth Bible study was working so well, and she noticed the kids were not doing something in church.

"Marie Jordan, a fellow usher, and I noticed we had so much small children in the church, but we needed to train them to do something," Alexander said.

In fact, Alexander is the oldest usher at the church. She has been an usher since she was 15.

They went to the reverend at the time, Rev. Chaney. They asked him if they could start the usher's ministry that trained the youth starting at the age of 6. He asked how they were going to train so many youth.

"We told him to give us a chance and we'll show you," Alexander said.

Alexander said every Saturday they trained the children on usher's protocol, and then they bought black-and-white material to make the uniforms for the youth. Over the years the Youth Ministry became too large, and they had to have females usher on Youth Sunday Service and the males on the third Sunday out of the month.

"She's compassionate about what she does. She has the spirit of hospitality," said New Ebenezer's present pastor, Rev. Norman Gamble. "She is the model for caretakers, respectful and care for others."

He said she is patient and punctual, and she has structure on how she does things. He believes she represents the virtuous woman described in Proverbs 31.

"My life has been richer because of Miss Mary Alexander," Gamble said. "She has the best cooking in the United States. She has always treated me with love and respect."

Even though Alexander has worked with the youth, Kenny and Joyce believe she has a great personality that can be matched with sternness. They believe that is how she gets along with the youth.

Ossie Brooks, Alexander's friend for more than 50 years, agreed.

"It's hard to find a person with a personality that Mary possesses," Brooks said. "She's a loving and caring person."

Brooks, also in her 80s, has worked with youth, too. She was a kindergarten teacher for 22 years. Some of the students she taught, Alexander brought through her usher ministry.

"If there is anything to be learned from her, the more you give, the more you receive," Brooks said. "She believes in the children and teaches being disciplined, be respectful of the elderly and others and study the Bible. But above all, she teaches to put God first."

After having back surgery last month, Alexander started off with a walker and now has a cane.

"I really appreciate the surprise, and I can't think them enough," Alexander said. "I am glad I was alive to see it and that they gave me my flowers while I was living."
HOLLY HILL -- A family escaped a house fire without injury on Wednesday afternoon.

Holly Hill Fire Chief Walter Kinsey said that the fire at the Caufield Court home started around 2:30 p.m. It began as a grease fire and then someone attempted to extinguish it with water.

That intensified it, Kinsey said.

On Thursday morning, Eric Hodges gathered clothing and other salvageable items from the home and placed them in the bed of his pickup truck.

Hodges said he was at work when he learned that his house was on fire.

His wife, daughter and a nephew were inside when it started, but they escaped without injury.

She said they left a pot on. They forgot the pot was on, he said.

You can imagine everywhere else maybe catching fire, but you cant imagine when it happens to you, Hodges added.

Hodges, along with his wife, daughter and son have lived in the home for the past 15 years.

The home suffered major smoke damage and several shattered windows. At least one room was damaged heavily by fire.

Kinsey noted that a kitchen fire extinguisher is the best thing to use in the event of a grease fire.

If a home is not equipped with a kitchen fire extinguisher, Kinsey said to cover the pot with metal or use baking soda or a large amount of salt.

The American Red Cross says: Never try to stop a grease or oil fire with water  it will only make the fire bigger.

When a grease fire starts, always call 911 immediately, Kinsey said.

The American Red Cross is assisting Hodges and his family while they cope with their fire-damaged home.
The South Carolina State University Department of Nuclear Engineering has been awarded a $288,060 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a way to predict nuclear accidents weeks before they occur.

The predictions could help prevent nuclear spills that would result in dangerous levels of radiation that could affect the health and safety of the public.

The new system will use a direct link between S.C. States nuclear department and the Savannah River Sites National Laboratory in Aiken County.

Dr. Zaijing Sun, principal investigator of the project and assistant professor of nuclear engineering, said the research has tremendous public value.

The implementation of this project will greatly improve the speed of emergency response in the case of a nuclear accident and cut costs within the nuclear industry with the use of less nuclear personnel on site, Sun said.

The effort will use big data -- extremely large and complex data sets that need to be analyzed by a computer -- to reveal patterns, trends and associations.

Nuclear sites, like automobile assembly lines, generate large amounts of data. This large amount of data is useful for finding unknown patterns of material failure, system breakdown and radiation leaking.

Sun hopes the research will enhance the universitys nuclear engineering program by expanding degree and course offerings, as well as providing additional academic opportunities for students.

Sun said, I want this program to grow, and this funding is a huge step in that direction. As the only historically black college offering a nuclear engineering program, we want more students to join and contribute to significant developments within the nuclear industry.

S.C. States bachelors degree in nuclear engineering is the only undergraduate degree of its kind offered in the state of South Carolina. The program also ranks among the nations top 25 nuclear engineering programs, according to collegechoice.net.

S.C. States Dr. Yong-Gyun Kim, associate professor of computer science, serves as co-principal investigator. Dr. Andrew Duncan is the lead engineer at the ISD Sensor Network Test Bed located at Savannah River Sites National Laboratory.
Left:A manicure session with the female patients at the Mental Health Centre. Right:Removing the decay from the Coutts Hall in readiness for a paint job.

The GHS RBTT Young Leaders 2017 continued their volunteerism DRIVE by tackling the Clean Coutts-Creative Cognition project as well as the Mortar Makeover project.





They also paid a surprise visit to the patients at the Mental Rehabilitation Centre, located in Glen.





On April 7th, 2017, the GHS Young Leaders got started on the Clean Coutts-Creative Cognition initiative, in keeping with marrying volunteerism with an environmental concern.





The Coutts Hall, constructed in 1954, was used as classrooms. The Hall became dilapidated over time, and after the relocation of the classrooms, it hall was used as a space for theatrical purposes. With that in mind, the Young Leaders 2017 decided to renovate the space. A meeting was held with alumnae to find out what the Hall was like before, so that the renovation work could be guided towards restoring some semblance of the original atmosphere.





Assisted by Ace Hardware and Coreas Hazells Inc, the Yoing Leaders, went about cleaning repainting and retiling the entire Hall.





The Mortar Makeover project also commenced on April 7th, 2017. This project focused on assisting a less fortunate person whose home needed some renovating. A home owner in Frenches, Kingstown, was selected. With much appreciated donations from General Hardware Store, which provided essential materials, and the Mustique Company Limited, which gave monetary aid, another team of GHS RBTT Young Leaders was able to embark on this undertaking. This project also comes under the girls environmental theme of voluntary impact.





On Sunday 9th April, 2017, the GHS RBTT Young Leaders visited with twenty-one (21) female patients at the Mental Rehabilitation Centre in Glen. The visit was not a project as such; its main focus was to cheer and treat the ladies, and was also seen as a measure aimed at eliminating stigma attached to mental illness here.

The Young Leaders manicured the nails of the patients, braided their hair and lent listening ears to some of the patients life stories. This was followed by a song and dance session and a serving of cakes. A brief detour was taken to the males section to serve cake as well. The companionship, temporary as it was, seemed to be well appreciated by the patients.





In reviewing these initiatives, the Young Leaders have been further convinced that the greatest investment that anyone can make is time. Time is priceless and once spent, cannot be regained. Time well used can assist others for the greater good and impact lives for a lifetime. Time spent in this regard can also impact positively on the lives of those extending helping hands.

Remember to volunteer today and make an impact.





Editors Note: This article was submitted by the GHS Young Leaders 2017
Left:Dr. Godwin Friday called on the government to come clean and clear on the accounts as they related to statutory entities. Right:Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves was fingered for not complying with Section 70 of the Constitution and the Finance Administration Act, 2004.

Leader of the Opposition Dr. Godwin Friday has accused the Unity Labour Party government, and more particularly its Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, of failing to account for governments finances in accordance with by the laws of this country.





At a media conference last Wednesday, April 19, at the New Democratic Party (NDP) headquarters at Murrays Road, Dr. Friday addressed, in particular, the lack of forthright accounting as it related to state-owned companies and entities.





He cited the case as it applied to the International Airport Development Corporation (IADC), the statutory corporation set up in 2004 by the ULP government, to oversee the financing and construction of the Argyle International Airport.





"Today, thirteen years later, not a single audited financial statement of the IADC has been brought to the House of Parliament by the Minister of Finance,Dr. Friday told the media.





"In other words, the IADC has operated for thirteen years and, in complete contravention of the laws of the country..,he added.





Dr. Friday also focused his attention on National Properties Ltd. (NPL), a statutory corporation established by the ULP government in 2001, in which state-owned lands and developed properties have been vested.





Tasked with the sale of state-owned properties

NPL was intricately linked to the financing of the IADC and by extension the construction of the AIA, through revenue earned from the sale of state lands on mainland St. Vincent and in Bequia, in particular.





Dr. Friday declared on Wednesday that not a single audited financial statement has been laid in the House of Assembly for the operations of the NPL, since its commissioning.





Similarly, Dr. Friday added, no audited financial statements for the companies that the government had established to operate the PetroCaribe scheme, have been laid before the House, even though millions of dollars have passed through that Scheme over the last ten years.





Reference was also made to like situations with respect to BRAGSA and the National Lotteries Authority.

"Companies dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars  YOUR DOLLARS  and no accountability to show how your money was used! Dr. Friday quipped.





"The laws of the country pertaining to financial transparency and accountability are being ignored, they are being neglected and they are being willfully broken by this ULP regime, he assessed.





Cost of constructing AIA





In detailing his reference to the cost of constructing the AIA, Dr. Friday presented a picture of conflicting figures in this regard.





"What actually was the cost to build Argyle? Is it $700 million as has been reported recently in some news media? he asked, then proceeded to refer to Senator Julian Francis statement on radio that the cost was EC$1.3 billion, EC$800 million of which was contributed by the state and nationals home and abroad, and EC$500 contributed in kind by other benefactors.





According to Dr. Friday, the Prime Minister had stated that the country owed EC$400 million that was borrowed specifically to build the airport, "but he (PM) brought no audited financial statements from the Director of Audit to support anything.





In Dr. Fridays assessment, it boiled down to a situation of whether or not citizens of SVG must accept the word of the PM/Minister of Finance.





"All sorts of numbers are being bandied about. Every time you turn around, you hear a different figure. Are we supposed to just believe the PM because he said so in the House? Dr. Friday questioned.





"In fact, the law says we must not take his word for it! the Opposition Leader declared with much emphasis.

"This contemptuous, unlawful behaviour cannot  and must not  continue. The Prime Minister and his cohorts have already shown their absolute contempt for the whole business of transparency and accountability, so we in the New Democratic Party now call on the Director of Audit, who is a constitutionally independent authority and a servant of the public interest, to break the silence on this matter of vital and fundamental national importance, Dr. Friday concluded.





The law to which reference was made reads, inter alia: The Director of Audit shall, no later than six months after the end of each financial year, make such examinations and inquiries  to enable him to audit the accounts of each statutory body for the previous year and report as required by this Act.




Lennox Scully Hunte had a message for mas makers that was derived from an integral involvement in the mas and arts culture here.

Mas designer, builder extraordinaire Lennox Skully Hunte told masmen and women gathered for a discussion at Victoria Park last Tuesday, that in order for mas to move forward, they must prepare themselves early, be ready to sacrifice their time, but enjoy the art of making (mas) costumes.





Renowned as a trend setter in carnival costume design and construction in his homeland St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Hunte migrated to the USA in the 1970s. He has returned home with an eye of making it permanent.





His continuing involvement, albeit peripheral, in mas design and production, made him an ideal choice, according to one masman, to impart not only knowledge about the art form, but also to share his passion which could serve as motivation for the current cadre of mas men and women here.





Hunte contrasted his period of direct involvement in mas with that of today, describing his day as a time when mas makers were driven moreso by a desire and quest to be creative and to contribute to the ongoing development of carnival. Today, he cited, the emphasis seems to be on financial gain.





In that light, he urged mas makers to understand that they have to make sacrifices - giving of their time, spending time away from family - but at the same time, they have to develop an attitude of enjoying what they have chosen to undertake.





The veteran masman also took aim at the modern day trend in mas costumes. "What I have seem are bikinis, bras  To me, its not the same. This is not a criticism because I dont know why it is there, why it is done. May be its easier to do and it takes less time, I am not too sure. But I feel a little out of place when I am trying to predict why that is so, said Hunte.





He told the gathering that a mas band must make a statement. "What are you saying? The band must educate the public about something they dont really know. In my time we used to do Commonwealth Extracts. In the Hands of Our people, Kabuki Theatre;.. these are some of the themes I worked with, said Hunte, and he repeated that in order to build good mas, "it takes sacrifice, and mas men must enjoy doing their work.

Hunte also called the mas makers attention to making early preparation. He said that in the past when he was involved in carnival, the attitude towards the production of costumes was different. "As soon as Christmas finished, mas men start putting their materials together for carnival. But,





of course, in those days, carnival was just prior to Lent, so on average we would have to start in January and, given the calendar, by early March we had to finish, said Hunte .





Pointing to todays reality of mas makers having a January to June period for production, Hunte lamented that ".. in the current situation, people dont come forward early enough to either choose a costume or register. By some chance they change their minds, and if their friends are not playing in that session, they not playing, and you really cant get things going, he further noted.





He, however, insisted that despite this fact, once preparations are made early, many of the issues that costume makers face can be avoided.





During a question and answer segmnent that followed Huntes address, one of the concerns raised was the sourcing of material from outside. He noted that sourcing materials from outside can enhance the appearance of the mas, but he encouraged the acquiring of materials locally as a first effort.





Also addressing last Tuesdays gathering were Ricardo Adams, Chairman of the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) and Hugh Ragguette, Chairman of the Carnival Bands Association (CBA).





Adams reminded the mas makers that, "CDCs role is to facilitate and support Vincy Mas, but the components are the building blocks of the festival.





While acknowledging that the quality of display today might not compare favourably with that of the past, Ragguette encouraged mas makers to embrace the fact that "the masquerading component has survived into the 21st century., and called for recognition, "of all those who were pioneers, who made the sacrifice to ensure that the people could enjoy a festival which has been branded as Vincy Mas. (KH)
Minister Frederick Stephenson wants to see the discussion on the operations of mini-buses to include but to go beyond the issue of playing loud and lewd music.

It is expected that the much anticipated revised Traffic Act will address issues relating to the playing of loud, lewd music in passenger vans.





But Minister of National Mobilization, Social Development, Family, Gender Affairs, Persons with Disabilities and Youth - Augustus Frederick Stephenson said, that while he had his views as to what ought to be done as it relates to the issue of the playing of lewd music in omni-buses, the situation warranted discussion and should involve parents, schools, the Police and the community.





He made the comment at the April 6 Sitting of the House of Assembly, in response to a question put forward by Opposition Senator, Marcia Barnwell.





She expressed the concern that loud and lewd music was a violation of the well-being of children, under Section (31) of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, and given that studies had shown that listening to loud music can have harmful effects on learning and memory, she inquired as to whether the government would be looking to implement an immediate ban on loud music in public transportation.





However, Stephenson went further to state that there were other areas related to public transportation that needed to be addressed.





In citing the situation as it relates to conductors, Minister Stephenson said that he witnessed on an occasion when before a mini-van had come to stop, the conductor was already standing.





He recalled the loud music coming from that bus, and added that even after six students had alighted the vehicle, and the conductor re-entered and closed the door, he was still in a standing position.

"We can put all the relevant legislation in place, but parents and the community and the schools have to be involved, Stephenson said.





"There is a Noise Act, and if I may say, as part of the new traffic regulations that should be coming on board soon, I believe that the government would seek to take a stance to further address the issue. (Stories by DD)
Chuck will be playing his guitar and banjo for the heavenly choir now. He left his earthly home on Thursday, April 20, 2017.

Chuck was born on Sept. 11, 1931, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William R. and Anna Marie Kosmann. He graduated from Carrick High School in Pittsburgh in 1951 and left shortly thereafter for Meeteetse, Wyoming. He was drafted in January 1953, served two years in Munich, Germany, as a U.S. Army CW radio operator (Morse code), and later used this talent to become a HAM radio operator, with the call letters of K7MOS.

Chuck married his high school sweetheart, Lois, in Pittsburgh in June 1955. They moved to Billings in 1956 where he was employed at Elliot's Furniture Store. Two years later, he opened his own business "Kosmann's Furniture Maintenance," which was handed down to his son Lance and has flourished because of Chuck's foundation.

Music was Chuck's passion. He started playing the guitar in 1946; he sang with the Big Sky Barbershop Chorus and in regional competition with three Billings West High School boys, including son, Lance. Chuck also played banjo with the Billings Banjo Band and enjoyed many playouts and trips out of town with them. Chuck and his wife, Lois, started square dancing in 1959 and had many fun times with good people. They belonged to the Hoedowners Club.

Chuck loved building various pieces of furniture for his home and his family. He also constructed several campers, motor homes and a 5th wheel. He and Lois loved to travel all over the U.S. and also went to Europe several times.

Chuck was predeceased in death by his wife Lois.

He will be missed by his brother Robert (Vivien) and sister Marlene and his five children Cynthia (Mike) Michelena, Diane of Roseville, CA, Keith, Lance (Vivian) and LeAnne (Andy). Also surviving are 12 grandchildren: Alicia, Bryan, Aaron, Valerie, Bradley, Marissa and Parker Kosmann; Nicholas, Charles and Noah Pearson and Taylor Faus, alone with numerous great-grandchildren.

Cremation has taken place, and the final resting place will be in St. Pius X Cemetery.

The service will be held at 11 a.m., Sunday, April 23, at Cremation and Funeral Gallery, 29 - 8th Street West, Billings, Montana.

Luncheon following at 4029 Kratz Lane, Billings, MT 59101. Arrangements are by Cremation & Funeral Gallery.

Condolences can be sent through www.cfgbillings.com through Our Families.
The 64th Meeting of the OECS Authority continued at the Beachcombers Hotel in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. (Credit: OECS Secretariat)

The sixty-fourth meeting of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Authority resumed in St Vincent and the Grenadines on Wednesday 12 April, after first being convened in St. Kitts/ Nevis on March 3, 2017.





The resumption continued under the chairmanship of Dr. Timothy Harris, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis. In attendance were four other heads of Government: Prime Ministers Gaston Browne (Antigua), Allen Chastanet (St. Lucia) and Dr. Ralph Gonsalves (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), and Premier of Montserrat Donaldson Romeo.





According to a communique released after the meeting, the following areas formed the meetings discussions and decisions:





Health Insurance





Even the Authority commended the progress that individual member states have made towards the implementation of national health insurance programmes, the OECS heads of government noted the need to implement a regional health insurance capable of providing specialised care to member states at reduced cost.





Financing of the OECS Commission





Recognising that the timely payment of contributions is essential to the efficient functioning of the Organisation, the Authority reviewed the financial obligations of Member States to the OECS Commission, with a view to improve the timeliness of subvention payments, and as an immediate response, urged Heads of Government so concerned, to make expeditious settlement of outstanding contributions.





Security Enhancement in the OECS





Commission will investigate the feasibility of a regional cooperation framework for policing in the sub region. This action follows the Heads of Government deliberation on current matters of regional security, border security and intelligence sharing. The Meeting recognised the importance of the Regional Security System (RSS).





Joint Representation





The Meeting received a detailed report on the current expenditures for external representation by Member States, and considered the recommendations for increased collaboration. Heads also reflected on the re-establishment of a joint diplomatic Mission in Canada, considered a stronger outreach into the African Continent/the African Union.





Agriculture and support services





The Meeting received a report on the progress of the Agri-shipping Initiative being piloted in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Noting the significant economic potential of the initiative, the Meeting proposed that the OECS Commission continue to work with St. Vincent and the Grenadines to ensure the engagement of all Member States.





Membership





The Authority considered the status of negotiations with St. Martin, and agreed that discussions should continue towards its logical conclusion.
L-R: OECS Director General, Dr Didacus Jules; Chairman and Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Dr Timothy Harris; President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, at the 64th Meeting of the OECS Authority. (Credit: OECS Secretariat)

Editors Note: The following is an OECS Media Release carried verbatim.





The Sixty-Fourth Meeting of the OECS Authority, which resumed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Wednesday, April 12th, 2017, was honoured by a previously unscheduled visit from His Excellency Nicolas Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.





OECS Heads of Government welcomed candid discussions with President Maduro and reflected on the shared history of the region and years of bilateral cooperation between OECS Member States and Venezuela. Heads further considered the current state of affairs in Venezuela and discussed a more constructive role to be played by the OECS to facilitate better dialogue, a reduction of tensions, and more collaboration in furtherance of the national interest of the people of Venezuela.





Among the statements made during President Maduros visit, the central theme revolved around "the use of the Caribbean Sea as a link to strengthen unity and achieve prosperity, stability and a good quality of life for our people through cooperation, solidarity and exchange.
St. Lucia is gearing itself to capitalize on what is expected to be an increase in cruise ship arrivals to the Caribbean beginning in the 2017 season.





And while some ports in the Caribbean because of their limitations cannot accommodate the mega ships that are ready to make calls to the Caribbean, and so account for a fair share of the expected increase, St. Lucia, if all goes according to plan, will welcome its first mega ship by December 1, 2017.





Towards this end, St. Lucia government is moving to extend the facility at its Breasting Dolphin Berth at Pointe Seraphine, Castries, at a projected cost of f US$15 million.





Caribbean 360 reported Minister for Ports Stephenson King as saying that due to the growth projections for the cruise sector "there is a greater need for us to place emphasis on the improvement, development and the enhancement of the cruise facilities and infrastructure on the island.





He continued, "This Government has made a firm commitment not only to improve Port Castries and to consider a new location for the establishment of a new commercial port, but also to continue to improve on the cruise ship facilities and by extension to look to the south of the country to establish a major cruise port in the south in Vieux Fort, that will complement a number of the economic initiatives that the Government has committed itself to, he said.

Minister King said government also hopes the project will place the island as the number one cruise ship destination in the Caribbean.





Once the berth is completed, St Lucia is expected to see an increase of 20 percent in the call of vessels to Port Castries, and an increase in passenger arrivals by 19 percent. (Source: Caribbean 360)
The World Pediatric Project (WPP) commenced its April 2017 General Orthopedic Mission with consultations at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital on Sunday 9th April. By days end, the team of specialists, led by Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Mark Miller, had seen a total of ninety-nine children, thirty-six of whom came from other countries within the Eastern Caribbean region.

For the next five days, the team of doctors from St. Louis, Missouri, turned their attention to providing surgeries from the simple to the intricate, on seventeen of these children.





Categories of cases seen





As far as team leader Dr. Miller and local orthopedist Dr. Charles Woods were concerned, the cases seen in this mission could be grouped into the following categories: Blounts disease, also called "bow legs; Cerebral Palsy with related complications; Spina bifida, where bones of the spine do not form properly around the spinal cord; Club foot, a condition in which a newborns foot or feet appear to be rotated internally at the ankle; Slipped capital femoral epiphysis, a fracture through the growth plate which results in slippage of the overlying end of the femur; Limb deficiency, where one limb is smaller than the other; Post traumatic orthopedic problems which include dislocations, extremity fractures, and the associated soft tissue injuries; Sickle Cell/ Hip Avascular Necrosis, a condition that occurs when there is loss of blood to the bone of sickle cell patients, which could cause the bone to collapse; Osteomyelitis, a bone infection; and Arthrogryposis, conditions that are characterized by multiple joint stiffness and involve muscle weakness throughout the body.

Not overwhelmed by the variety of conditions, the dedicated team set about to structure its operation to ensure that all patients received the appropriate surgical procedures. Of the seventeen surgeries completed, five referrals were identified for more complex operations in St. Louis.

The other members of the team were: Dr. Aaron Huser, Orthopedic Surgeon Fellow; St. Lucian volunteer Dr. Horatus Jeffers, Adult Orthopedic Surgeon; Dr. Jacob, Pediatric Anesthesiologist; Jill Hahn, Recovery Nurse; DeWayne Johnson, Surgical Technologist; Donna Griffin, Physical Therapist; and E-Scribe, Mallory Truthy. Brad Powell, Ortho-Pediatrics Instrument Distributor, was also near at hand to ensure proper functioning of the required equipment and instruments.





Testimonies





Seven-year-old Jadiel Primus of Richland Park was one of those who underwent surgery.





His grandmother, Ms. Leonora Primus, explained, "Jadiel was born with one foot shorter than the other, and he has a problem with his hip because he is missing part of the leg. Jadiel had been visiting the missions for over two years and was found to have a congenital deformity of his right hip and right leg. During the week of surgeries, he received his first intervention; a second will take place in St. Louis.





His grandmother was elated. "I feel happy because Jadiel had started to question the foot, why it was so short when his brothers legs were all long. This is the best help he could get and I trust the doctors. I believe in them.





Overcome with gratefulness, she expressed, "We didnt have the money to do it, and Im very grateful to these people who come here to help us out; Im very, very grateful!





Similarly, twelve-year-old Ariel Christmas from Dominica, who was diagnosed with Blounts disease which appeared around the age of ten, was able to give a scream of overwhelming joy when she was informed that she will no longer need her crutches. The surgical intervention allows her to walk freely.





Equally happy, her mother Theona Vechausay volunteered, "This is great!. You see, some of us dont have the money to pay for this type of surgery, and because we are given that special opportunity, its just great!

Her daughters journey, she described as, "She wasnt born this way, but when she was around ten, it started growing outwards, gradually until it had become so noticeable and she started having pains. Because she had not reached her growth plate, there was no need for any invasive procedure at the time, but now with so much pain, her doctor referred her to this programme.





It is poignant to note that both mothers, from different countries across the region, were able to access the services of the WPP. According to Eastern Caribbean Rep of the WPP, Jacqueline Browne-King, "There is a connection between the District Clinics and the hospital. Once the District finds children with issues that they think need to be forwarded, it is sent through the Out-Patient Department, and these are then forwarded to us.

This, therefore, provides easy access to the programme, and persons here are constantly encouraged to have their children with issues visit the District Clinic in their area, to receive referrals to the World Pediatric Project.
RIVERDALE, N.D.  It is a fish tale worth telling, again and again and again.

Without the assistance of dedicated fish biologists and the Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery, North Dakota would not have a salmon fishery. The chinook, or king salmon, that roam Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River are land-locked. Unlike the salmon that frequent coastal waterways, this state's salmon do not have access to a vast ocean where they can feed and mature, eventually returning to freshwater to spawn.

Salmon die after reaching spawning age, usually within 3 to 4 years of age, sometimes less. Since there is no natural reproduction of salmon in North Dakota, all of the state's salmon population would disappear without the assistance of the state's Game and Fish Department in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Game and Fish annually harvests chinooks during the spawning run in late fall. That's when salmon that had been released into Lake Sakakawea or the Missouri River return to the area of their release after roaming the reservoir or river, feeding primarily on smelt. The harvested salmon are taken to the Garrison Hatchery where the eggs are removed from the females and fertilized before being placed in large incubation jars in the hatchery.

Currently there are about 420,000 young salmon, products of last fall's artificial spawn, swimming in holding tanks at the hatchery's Salmon Building. They are about 3.5 inches long but will grow an inch or more longer before they are scheduled to be stocked out in late May.

"So far, so good. All are doing well," said Sean Henderson, of the Garrison Hatchery. "We had to move some of the fish from the tanks into the raceways to accommodate our numbers. They are eating well."

Last fall's egg take was excellent. Eye-up, the stage when a young fish's eyes are visible within the egg, meaning a good chance of hatching success, was higher than expected. It all added up to exceeding the goal of raising 400,000 salmon for stocking purposes.

"We should be stocking maybe 5 percent more than the request number, which is good," Henderson said. "I think we had something like 79 percent survival from spawn to first feed. Typical performance is about 63 to 64 percent."

North Dakota's water conditions do not allow salmon to spawn naturally. Salmon typically use shallow, clear-flowing streams to lay their eggs. Reservoir and Missouri River salmon do not have access to those types of conditions.

"The whole salmon fishery here is dependent on fisheries' biologists and the hatchery staff," Henderson said. "It feels great to contribute to people's enjoyment. I'm grateful I get to do it."

Salmon fishermen are a dedicated bunch. When the chinooks begin to show up on the lower end of Lake Sakakawea, they attract lots of attention from eager anglers.

"Last year, we stocked 140,000. This year we plan on stocking 400,000," said Russ Kinzler, NDG&F. "This year we could have three year classes spawning, which we haven't had for a while. We won't know until summer but indications are they are out there."

Last year, Kinzler said the bulk of female salmon in the spawning run were 2-year-olds and most of the males were 1. That is an indication of how strong the year's class is. Kinzler says he expects a good number of 3-year-old salmon to show up this year.

"Historically when we see good numbers of young male salmon in the fall, that says we should see good numbers the following year," Kinzler said. "We've got the second highest survey of smelt. There's plenty of forage out there. The biggest fish always show up in July. Most of the fish caught then are coming to spawn. I think the run this year will be as good as last year, if not better."
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A Billings woman accused of possessing methamphetamine for distribution as part of larger drug organization admitted federal charges on Thursday.

Christina Kamran-Kohnjani, 30, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to possession with intent to distribute as part of a plea deal to have other charges dismissed at sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan McCarthy said drug task forces began investigating a meth trafficking ring in Yellowstone County in 2015 in which one of the suspects, Victor Rivera, and associates were transporting multi-pound quantities of meth from California to Montana for distribution.

Kamran-Kohnjani and eight others were charged in a multi-count indictment.

Billings police officers arrested Rivera on Feb. 18, 2016, for possessing a concealed handgun at the Quik Spa, 2348 Grand Ave., which was owned by Kamran-Kohnjani, McCarthy said.

Rivera, of Mexico, who was later identified as Victor Miguel Rivera-Munoz, 31, and who admitted to being in the United States illegally, was charged separately. He was sentenced in November to 21 months in prison and referred for deportation for his guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

In monitored jail calls, Rivera mentioned that Christina from the salon owed money, McCarthy said. Agents believed Rivera was referring to Kamran-Kohnjani.

In an interview with agents, Kamran-Kohnjani admitted to getting seven ounces of meth from Rivera and confirmed that she owed him money, McCarthy said. She also said she was concerned for her safety and that Rivera had threatened her with a gun over her debt.

Kamran-Kohnjani denied getting more meth from Rivera, but in a search of her cellphone, agents found drug-related text message confirming she was distributing meth, McCarthy said.

Kamran-Kohnjani faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine. U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan said he would recommend that District Judge Susan Watters accept her plea. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

Another co-defendant, Sadey Kust-Myers, 21, pleaded guilty last month to possession with intent to distribute meth. Sentencing is set for July 26. Prosecutors said a purse containing more than two ounces of meth was found in Riveras vehicle after it was impounded and searched following his arrest. The purse was identified as belonging to Kust-Myers.

Kust-Myers admitted to agents that she had introduced several people to Rivera and his associates so they could distribute meth to them and that her fingerprints would be found on the two ounces found in her purse.
By Azertac





Azerbaijan and Algeria have signed the first Memorandum of Understanding on the legal and judicial co-operation. The document was signed by Azerbaijani Justice Minister Fikrat Mammadov and his Algerian counterpart Tayeb Louh in Algiers.





Speaking after the signing ceremony, Algerian minister Louh said that the signing of the MoU, the first on the legal and judicial co-operation, will allow the two countries to exchange experience and consolidate the bilateral cooperation. He stressed the importance attached by President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika to implementing reforms aimed at guaranteeing the public rights and freedoms of citizens and ensuring security and stability. Louh hailed President Ilham Aliyev`s role in ensuring development, stability and tranquility in Azerbaijan.





Minister Mammadov expressed Azerbaijan`s readiness to establish new avenues of bilateral cooperation with Algeria, notably in justice.





During his visit, the Azerbaijani minister also held meetings with Algeria`s Prime Minister, chairman of the Supreme Court and Prosecutor General.
By Rashid Shirinov

Israel will put efforts for blogger Alexander Lapshin, who is under arrest in Azerbaijan, to serve his sentence in Israel, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told Interfax news agency in Moscow.

Israel has made efforts and continues to make efforts to help Lapshin, who is a citizen of both Russia and Israel, she said. If he is convicted in Azerbaijan, we will do our best for Lapshin to serve the sentence in Israel.

Blogger Lapshin, who owns citizenship of several countries, will stand trial in Baku for his illegal visits to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

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) 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.

The blogger was arrested in Minsk in late 2016 and transferred to Baku in February 2017.
A gunman wielding an assault rifle on Thursday night killed a police officer on Pariss most iconic boulevard, the Champs-Elysees, a report said.



The gunman was shot dead by the police as he tried to flee on foot; two other police officers and a bystander were wounded, reported the New York Times.

The police quickly blocked access to the crowded thoroughfare, lined with restaurants and high-end stores, as a helicopter hovered overhead.



The attack set off panic and a scramble for shelter, and officers began searching for possible accomplices after the attack.



Near midnight, President Francois Hollande said in an address to the nation that the attack appeared to be an act of terrorism. The Islamic State claimed responsibility in a message posted on a jihadi channel, and the Paris prosecutor said he had opened a terrorism investigation.
Casper police are investigating the March death of a resident at the Wyoming Behavioral Institute.

Officers arrived at the psychiatric hospital about 6:30 a.m. March 31 after staff reported that one of the residents, Michael Schossow, was unresponsive in his bed, court documents show. Casper firefighters, who arrived on the scene first, told the officers that Schossow didnt have a pulse and was cold to the touch. He was later pronounced dead.

Supervisors at WBI told detectives that staff were supposed to check on Schossow every 15 minutes, per a doctors orders, according to the documents. A nurse discovered Schossow unresponsive just after 6 a.m., and medical staff attempted to revive him. They found no signs of trauma or that his airways were blocked.

One nurse told investigators that she had personally checked on Schossow at 3:45 a.m. and 4 a.m. and he appeared to be breathing. Another worker said she checked on Schossow about 5:45 a.m. and noticed Schossows breathing was more shallow than normal. She began to visit his room more frequently and at 6:10 a.m. she noticed that Schossow was not responsive, at which time she called for assistance.

One of Schossows roommates at the institute told detectives that Schossow had complained the day before that he didnt feel well.

Investigators used a search warrant to request medical records, documents related to staffing that night and video surveillance that would show who checked on Schossow that night and at what times.

Casper Police Sgt. Mike Ogden previously said investigators were waiting on further tests before proceeding. He said the department is investigating the case as a death under suspicious circumstances but declined to elaborate further.

The chief operating officer of Wyoming Behavioral Institute, Shea Ward, said in an emailed statement that the facilitys staff remains dedicated to its patients.

The management and staff of Wyoming Behavioral Institute are deeply saddened by the passing of one of our patients, and extend our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to family members and loved ones, he wrote. The care and safety of our patients, including their privacy, is Wyoming Behavioral Institutes top priority, he wrote. Due to stringent patient confidentiality and privacy laws, the facility is precluded from discussing any details regarding the care and treatment of any patient.
THERMOPOLIS -- Natrona County District Attorney Mike Blonigen accused the Wyoming Department of Corrections and the state Board of Parole on Thursday of releasing convicts from prison too soon.

Blonigen described to lawmakers on the Joint Judiciary Committee, which was meeting in Thermopolis, cases from the Casper area in which people were released from prison years earlier than their sentences mandated. Some, he said, served just over half their sentences, he said.

Were really not telling the public what were really doing when we tell the public someones going to prison for 10-15 years, he said. Did we really mean five or less? Is that something thats fundamentally dishonest?

Officials from the Corrections Department and Parole Board countered many of the DAs claims with their own data.

Blonigen spoke about problems with the two Wyoming agencies as part of a discussion with the Joint Judiciary Committee about why he disagreed with a bill it sponsored in the 2017 session. The criminal justice reform measure, which ultimately died, swapped lengthy prison sentences for drug treatment and community rehabilitation for nonviolent felons. Blonigens opposition to the bill was instrumental in its defeat in Cheyenne.

Lawmakers listened to Blonigen's testimony but took no action on the matter at this point.

The prosecutor told lawmakers more money was needed to bolster drug courts and drug test people on parole. He said it would be a good idea for parole officers to write reports to send to the courts about every parolee under their supervision.

Lawmakers asked Board of Parole Director Dan Fetsco about the cases that Blonigen brought up. Fetsco said hed be happy to review the files, but he didnt have access to them Thursday. It struck him as odd that people with criminal histories as described by Blonigen were being let out so early on good behavior, he said.

The board takes parole seriously, he said.

Parole officers do not have the time to write the types of reports requested by Blonigen on everyone they supervise, said Steve Lindly, Wyoming Department of Corrections deputy director. As with most workers, their job responsibilities have greatly increased over the past decade, he said.

Were trying to improve that communication (with Blonigen) to meet his expectations, he said. Ultimately were supervising for the court or the Board of Parole.
THERMOPOLIS  In Wyoming, a person can theoretically get 10 years behind bars for keying a car. But if he strangles his wife, he faces just five years, a prosecutor told lawmakers Thursday.

If someone beats up a person on the street, she faces a year of probation. Yet if she batters her spouse and kids, the law requires only six months of probation, said Brett Johnson, a Natrona County assistant district attorney who specializes in prosecuting domestic violence cases in the Casper area.

Johnson and a handful of attorneys, judges and victim-rights advocates testified before the Joint Judiciary Committee on Thursday in Thermopolis about weaknesses in domestic violence laws  including stalking, battery and the lack of statutes adding penalties when domestic violence is committed in the presence of children in Wyoming.

The committee is studying domestic violence laws in the months before the 2018 legislative session. Lawmakers listened to testimony and asked questions. They didnt take action on the issue. The committee may draft legislation to strengthen the laws in future meetings. But committee chairman Sen. Leland Christensen said more information needs to be gathered first.

Johnson recommended the Legislature increase penalties for strangulation and domestic battery and assault.

In Wyoming, domestic violence isnt taken as seriously as other types of violence, he said.

It sort of the step-child in criminal law, he said.

Many states have enhanced penalties in domestic violence cases when committed in the presence of children. Wyoming does not  despite research showing that children who live in violent homes grow up to abuse alcohol and drugs at higher rates, suffer from mental health issues and perpetuate violence or become victims, Johnson said.

Most states also have domestic violence statutes that criminalize creating fear of causing bodily injury, he said. The idea behind such laws is that one beating causes so much trauma that the victim lives in fear of being physically harmed in the future over slight confrontations with her significant other, Johnson said.

Once you have beat up your partner, youve strangled them or thrown them on the floor and kicked them, you dont have to do that again necessarily, he said.

Tara Muir, public policy director for the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, asked lawmakers to form a subcommittee to explore forming a holistic law on domestic violence.

Lawmakers didnt indicate whether they would form a such a group.

John Knepper, the chief deputy at the Wyoming Attorney Generals office, advised lawmakers to not think about how someone may or may not lose their gun rights when convicted on domestic violence charges as legislators craft new laws.

Most likely, people convicted of domestic violence-related crimes will not get their gun rights back, since the federal governments background check system has rejected offenders in recent years  even if their crimes were not misdemeanors or felonies. The courts have upheld the governments actions.

Recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court have broadened the application of the federal gun restriction, he said. State laws have been much less effective on these restrictions. The federal courts have been instructed to look at the actions that took place, rather than the state statutes.

Twelve men and two women serve on the Judiciary Committee.

It takes a significant amount of imagination for men to even comprehend what women in domestic violence situations experience, said Judge Tom Harrington, who presides over cases in Washakie, Hot Springs and Big Horn counties.

I would encourage the men on this committee and in the Legislature to get educated on these issues, he said. Discuss these issues with women. Imagine the terror they go through.
THERMOPOLIS  Lawmakers, for the third consecutive year, are hoping to create a law penalizing people caught with edible marijuana.

Two Wyoming judges have tossed out felony edibles cases in recent years, concluding that state law applies only to the plant form of cannabis. The Legislatures Joint Judiciary Committee, meeting Thursday in Thermopolis, discussed again creating a law with teeth on edibles. The lawmakers have been working on the issue since 2015 and have presented bills in the 2016 and 2017 legislative sessions. Those attempts have all failed.

In 2017, the bill died on the last night of the session. The bill, which originated in the House, was heavily amended in the Senate and the House rejected its changes. The bill was an overall reform of the states marijuana statutes, in both plant and edible form, said its sponsor, Rep. Jared Olsen, R-Cheyenne.

The challenge with edibles, crime lab analysts have said in the past, is that its difficult to test the amount of the drugs psychoactive ingredient, THC, in brownies and other foods. Equipment that does the testing is expensive for Wyoming, which has the nations lowest population, and its hard to separate THC from ingredients such as butter, sugar, cocoa and flour.

Lawmakers over the years have debated the amount that should constitute felony possession  from a few ounces to a pound. Olsens bill would have made possession of 8 ounces a felony.

On Thursday, lawmakers ordered its nonpartisan staff to prepare a draft bill for the 2018 session similar to the version of Olsens legislation that was amended midway through the legislative process.

They also instructed staff to draft a simpler bill that would add to existing controlled substance law a specification that possession of edibles and any other form of marijuana is illegal in the state.

Committee chairman Sen. Leland Christensen said that the bills wont necessarily end up before the Legislature next year, however. He said anything could happen with the draft bills.

As typical with the cannabis debate, forces before and against legalization testified about the efficacy of such laws.

Frank Latta, director of Wyoming NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, urged the committee to take its time and craft a thoughtful law.

This is not a huge problem, he said. Were not talking about a violent crime.

Byron Oedekoven, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, wants the state to make 3 ounces of edibles a felony. With the plant form of marijuana, a person in possession of 3 ounces or more faces a felony conviction.

Oedekoven said its the simplest fix on a topic that the Legislature has spent hours debating.

Leave the statute the way it is, he said.

Christensen, the chairman, said the committee will address the edibles weight at the next meeting.

Olsen, who sponsored the 2017 bill, said in its original form, the hole in the law on edibles was closed. And it addressed other possession issues as well. For instance, a person found with small amounts of pot three times faced a felony conviction. Olsen said his bill increased that to four times to align with the states driving under the influence law.

The legislator ultimately wants a law that closes the gap in the edibles law. But hes also concerned about current possession laws in the plant form, too, he said.

I do think we need significant reform of marijuana in general, he said.
Highway Patrol troopers will now have access to two defibrillators when responding to emergency calls thanks to a donation from the Wyoming Fraternal Order of Police.

The group bought the AEDs through a grant funded by the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation, which raises money for first responders. The defibrillators are used to treat sudden cardiac arrest by sending a shock to the heart and cost about $950. The devices will be especially useful in rural areas where it takes more time for ambulances to arrive or for transportation to hospitals.

Our thanks go out to the FOP for creating this partnership that will have a direct and positive impact on public safety, Highway Patrol Colonel Kebin Haller said in a news release. Simply put, having AEDs in our patrol cars will save lives.

Firehouse Subs awarded a $250,000 grant to the National Fraternal Order of Police, which then distributed the money across local chapters to buy a total of 263 AEDs, including the two donated to the Highway Patrol.

Haller said the Highway Patrol has multiple defibrillators in offices around the state, but the two donated AEDs will be the first to go on patrol with officers. Haller said the patrol is still deciding where to deploy the devices but that they are considering rural areas around Interstate 80, like Elk Mountain or Point of Rocks.

Wyoming FOP President Tina Trimble said this was the first time the order was able to donate AEDs to local law enforcement.

I wish we would have been able to purchase more, because there are so many agencies that work rural areas that arent equipped with AEDs in their cars, and some dont even have them in their buildings, she said.
Like many other types of businesses across the country, the Wyoming mining industry has been watching developments in Washington, D.C., with cautious optimism following the remarkable results of the November 2016 elections.

During President Barack Obamas two terms, Wyomings mining and fossil fuel industries were subjected to policies designed to reduce their competitiveness with favored industries. The burden of this over-regulation hurt employment in Wyoming and our states economy overall.

In the last three months, it has been exciting and encouraging to watch Wyomings congressional delegation work together with President Donald Trumps new administration to unroll the stifling regulations that handicapped the mining industry in recent years. There is now some room to breathe.

Wyoming has been the nations leader in coal production for the last three decades. We remain so today despite the flawed policies of the last eight years. Prohibitive emission standards, a moratorium on coal leasing, efforts to raise the cost of mining and dozens of misguided rules and regulations have contributed to decreased employment and production, as well as a general sense of counterproductive uncertainty. No doubt the market conditions for coal have changed, but elections and public policy also matter.

Throughout this time, our delegation has been steadfast in their support of our mining industry and workers. Now, Sen. Mike Enzi, Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Liz Cheney have an ally in the White House to bring their efforts to fruition. The dramatic shift in policy direction is most welcome.

We have seen results of their efforts in the lifting of the coal leasing moratorium and review the Clean Power plan, as well as the shelving of the ill-advised Stream Protection Rule and the BLMs Planning 2.0 initiative. It is important to know these initiatives were led and influenced by Wyomings delegation.

Their work on Wyomings behalf is not limited to coal. The delegation recently introduced the Soda Ash Competitiveness Act, legislation designed to help Wyoming trona producers compete against China and other countries in the global soda ash market. Wyoming trona accounts for 90 percent of the nations natural soda ash; it is Wyomings No. 1 export. This legislation is key to ensuring Wyomings soda ash remains competitive.

Under Barrassos leadership, bipartisan legislation has passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to modernize regulations on permitting new nuclear power facilities. This would give the nuclear industry a shot in the arm with a strong potential to benefit Wyomings uranium producers.

Wyomings congressional delegation is small compared to other states. It is critical we have three influential representatives in Washington fighting for us and for our miners. Our delegation deserves congratulations and thanks for the heavy lifting they have done on behalf of the mining industry so early in Trumps term.

There is a reason the members of our delegation poll high in popularity in this state: They listen to Wyoming and successfully address those issues that matter most. I am confident we will continue to see our delegations leadership benefit the people of Wyoming. We are indeed fortunate to have such strong and accessible advocates on Capitol Hill.
HELENA  The $10.3 billion state budget is headed to Gov. Steve Bullock after the Montana House gave it final approval.

The House voted 58-41 to pass the budget bill Friday.

The two-year spending plan is .6 percent higher than the 2015-2017 budget, but it also includes cuts across many state agencies.

Democratic lawmakers say some cuts go too deep, but the Democratic governor has not said whether he plans to sign the measure or make changes.

Bullock said Thursday he wants to see the companion bills to the budget before he decides a course of action.

The budget's passage marks the near-end of the 2017 legislative session. Lawmakers are still expected to take up a measure on whether to fund tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure projects through bonds.
In my first year as president of the University of Wyoming, I have made it a priority to travel around the state to hear from Wyoming people about their thoughts and expectations for the states university.

The message has come through loud and clear in these visits: The people of Wyoming care about their university, and they have high expectations for us. And while they recognize the financial challenges we have been contending with, they want and need us to do more to meet the needs of the state.

In fact, one of the central themes we have heard is that the people of the state want the university to do more, particularly when it comes to outreach efforts, off-campus degree programs and research to benefit the states economy. And, of course, they want us to stay focused on our primary mission of providing access to high-quality education for Wyomings students.

Theres no question that meeting the expectations for increased services at a time of declining revenues is a significant challenge  a task that requires excellent planning, prioritizing and execution. That is what we are attempting to do through the creation of a strategic plan to guide the university for the next five years.

A draft of the strategic plan may be viewed on the UW website at www.uwyo.edu/president/strategic-plans, and we are accepting comments on that site. Additionally, a public meeting to discuss the draft and accept comment is Tuesday, April 25, from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in Strausner Hall at Casper College. The session may be viewed online at https://zoom.us/j/322459559. I encourage you to participate.

At this point, the draft calls for advancements in academic quality, enrollment, statewide engagement, diversity and economic development over the next five years. Specifically, it aims to increase student recruitment, retention and graduation; degree programs that meet Wyomings workforce needs and more offered online and at UWs regional centers; collaborations with community colleges and K-12 schools; enhanced research funding; growing startup companies; and diversifying the universitys revenue streams, among other measures.

Accomplishing all of this will be a challenge during these tight financial times. Faced with budget reductions totaling $41 million for the current fiscal year, the university has had to rethink the way it does business at just about every level.

We are becoming a leaner, more focused institution, expecting to have about 400 fewer employees than at this time last year by the start of the new fiscal year July 1. We are making that reduction largely by not filling vacancies and through retirement and separation incentives, although some layoffs may be necessary.

We have worked to examine everything we do and to prioritize our work. Some services that arent essential to the universitys mission have been scaled back or considered for outsourcing or elimination. What we have not been willing to compromise is our educational, research and service mission to Wyoming.

You might have heard or read about some of the reorganization we are doing as part of this process. That includes assimilating the functions of the UW Outreach School into academic units across campus.

When it comes to UWs presence outside the Laramie campus, be assured we remain very committed to this important part of our mission. Any changes that take place at UWs branch campus in Casper and our regional centers will be about improving both effectiveness and efficiency, not about retreating from these regions. As the draft strategic plan indicates, we want to increase our distance offerings and even launch new four-year programs in conjunction with community colleges.

UW-Casper has been an important part of the university for 41 years, and it will continue to be in the future. Any decisions about changes in the programs offered in Casper will be made in close consultation with community leaders.

One example of efficiency and centralization from the reorganization is that UW-Casper and the regional centers now fall under one administrative structure in Casper with a reporting line to UWs chief academic officer, or provost. This centralized hub from Casper can better assist with service to the state and community colleges for program delivery, marketing and advising.

The University of Wyoming is a partner with the people of the state, and we are committed to our land-grant mission of teaching, research and service. With your input and ideas, we can advance UW to new heights as the states university.
The state House voted 35-18 Thursday to open areas of Mohave County to electronic billboards.

But not in and around Lake Havasu City. And nowhere near the Hoover Dam.

The version of SB 1114 which had cleared the Senate earlier this year would have opened up the entire area within 60 miles of Laughlin, Nev., to internally illuminated signs. And that area was far less than Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, had tried to get approved last year.

But even that proved too much for foes, including the astronomy community, which was concerned about the light pollution that would result.

Potentially more significant, Rep. Regina Cobb, R-Kingman, acknowledged that officials from Lake Havasu City made it clear they were not interested in having such billboards in and around their community.

So to get the votes, the legislation now extends the area where electronic billboards will be allowed out just 40 miles from Bullhead City.

And the measure specifically prohibits the signs south of Interstate 40  where Lake Havasu City is located  as well as any closer than about 40 miles to Hoover Dam.

The measure also contains illumination limits after sunset. Only 35 signs would be allowed within the area. And the signs have to be turned off each night at 11 p.m.

SB 1114 would be the first major departure from a deal negotiated in 2012 between the billboard industry and the astronomy community.

That legislation set up dark zones designed to protect the skies around existing telescopes in Flagstaff as well as in southern and southeastern Arizona.

In essence, under current law the only area of the state where such signs are allowed stretches from the eastern suburbs of Phoenix straight west to the Colorado River. Anything north, south or east of that is off-limits.

And even in those areas, there are limits on how bright the signs can be and their hours of operation.

But lobbyists from Lamar Advertising argued they were not part of that 2012 deal. And they specifically pushed to allow the signs in northwest Arizona, getting Borrelli to sponsor the legislation.

Cobb said this isnt just about creating cash-generating opportunities for Lamar and other billboard companies. She said officials in Bullhead City actually want the lighted signs.

They needed the lighted billboards to compete with some of the businesses they have across the river, Cobb said, referring to Laughlin on the other side of the Colorado River.

Still, she conceded, not everyone is of the same mind.

Theres other communities up in that area that did not want the lighted billboards, Cobb explained to House colleagues. So we condensed down the area.

That gives Bullhead City and Kingman the signs they want, she said.

It doesnt include up to Lake Mead, Cobb said. And Lake Havasu wanted to be excluded.

Even that, however, was not enough to blunt all opposition.

Rep. Richard Andrade, D-Glendale, said he fears that any further incursion of electronic billboards will mean fewer areas of the state will be suitable for astronomy.

The space and astronomy industry employs more than 3,300 individuals and has an economic impact of $252.8 million, he said, generating $12 million in tax revenues.

Andrade said its important to protect the dark skies in Arizona because the only other state with more telescopes is Hawaii. And he said theyre out of space for expansion there.

So this is something we need to protect, Andrade said. And he said it is wrong for lawmakers to tinker with the 2012 deal. How many more compromises before we compromise this out?

But Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, said the final version of the legislation make it a good compromise.

Rep. Ken Clark, D-Phoenix, however, said his vote against the measure comes down to a simple philosophy.

People come to Arizona for the beauty and we cover it will billboards, he said.
Tech Launch Arizona honored three people, a startup company and a key campus partner this week for helping further the agencys mission of bringing University of Arizona inventions to market.

TLAs fourth annual I-Squared Expo & Awards, held Tuesday at the Jim Click Hall of Champions at McKale Center, also featured a pitch session, allowing faculty startups to practice their business pitches in front of a TLA panel ahead of an upcoming event in Silicon Valley.

The expo featured exhibits of a number of UA technologies in development, including a living heart patch invented at the College of Medicine, a high-altitude inflatable antenna and a new tunable laser.

Honors awarded by TLA were:

Inventor of the Year, Physical Sciences: Douglas Loy , a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Science and professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Engineering. A prolific inventor, Loy has 15 inventions to his name, ranging from fluorescent epoxies to sunscreens to antioxidants. He has participated in the TLAs National Science Foundation I-Corps program, which aims to increase the impact of university research by helping to move promising inventions toward commercialization.

, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Science and professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Engineering. A prolific inventor, Loy has 15 inventions to his name, ranging from fluorescent epoxies to sunscreens to antioxidants. He has participated in the TLAs National Science Foundation I-Corps program, which aims to increase the impact of university research by helping to move promising inventions toward commercialization. Inventor of the Year, Life Sciences: Vijay Gokhale , director of computational chemistry at the UA Bio5 Institutes drug discovery and development initiative. Gokhale has worked with TLA and a number of scientists as a co-inventor on multiple projects related to drug discovery.

, director of computational chemistry at the UA Bio5 Institutes drug discovery and development initiative. Gokhale has worked with TLA and a number of scientists as a co-inventor on multiple projects related to drug discovery. Startup of the Year: MetOxs Electrochemical (faculty members Jinhong Zhang, Dominic Gervasio, Moe Momayez; co-inventor and partner Abraham Jalbout). MetOxs has licensed several UA technologies to address environmental and energy issues in mining, including molten-salt metal extraction methods, heat recovery systems and corrosion sensors, as well as a spinoff developing a fly ash-based substitute for concrete.

(faculty members Jinhong Zhang, Dominic Gervasio, Moe Momayez; co-inventor and partner Abraham Jalbout). MetOxs has licensed several UA technologies to address environmental and energy issues in mining, including molten-salt metal extraction methods, heat recovery systems and corrosion sensors, as well as a spinoff developing a fly ash-based substitute for concrete. Campus Collaborator of the Year: McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship TLA said the top-rated McGuire Center has been an indispensable partner in the agencys NSF I-Corps program.

TLA said the top-rated McGuire Center has been an indispensable partner in the agencys NSF I-Corps program. Ecosystem Impact of the Year: Katina Koller, CEO of Northwire Inc.

As a volunteer TLA commercialization partner, Koller is an active participant in TLAs weekly round-table discussions and has served as a mentor for NSF I-Corps teams, a proactive supporter of TLA projects and an overall enthusiastic contributor to the TLA mission, the agency said.

BUSINESS PITCHES

Four of the startup companies on the expo were picked by TLA to deliver 10-minute business pitches to a panel and answer rapid-fire questions.

One representative from each of the companies will have expenses paid to travel with TLA to Silicon Valley in early May to make a pitch at TechCode, a global startup incubator TLA has partnered with to increase the reach and effectiveness of UA inventions and startups.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some April 21 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages.
Parents of children with asthma can breathe easier thanks to a bill recently signed by Gov. Doug Ducey allowing Arizona schools to stock and administer asthma medication to children experiencing respiratory distress.

Before the new legislation, if a child didnt have an inhaler, schools had to either call a parent to bring one or call an ambulance.

The program will start in the fall at all Pima County schools  district, private and charter.

In Arizona, more than 174,000 children  11 percent of the youth population  have asthma. But 80 to 90 percent of children with asthma have no quick-relief medication at school because they forgot it, they cant afford it, they ran out, or the medication expired, according to Lynn Gerald, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona,.

So Gerald worked with Tucsons two largest school districts, Sunnyside and Tucson Unified, as well as the Diocese of Tucsons Catholic schools, to implement a school-based stock albuterol program for students with asthma.

The results were a 20 percent decrease in 911 phone calls and a 40 percent drop in ambulance transports.

Clearly what we want to do is not only allow safety of these children, but if theres an inhaler they can go to the health office and take a couple puffs on the inhaler and only miss 10 minutes of class instead of missing a day or a couple days because they dont have the inhaler with them, Gerald said.

Each of Sunnysides 21 schools are stocked with one to two inhalers with the opportunity to order more as needed, said Eugenia Favela, the assistant superintendent for student services at Sunnyside.

The schools are also stocked with spacers so the childs mouth is not touching the inhalers, making it possible for more than one child to use it.

School nurses, health clerks and non-medical personnel are trained on how to administer the medication, through an online program created by the University of Arizona.

The medication has no side effects and wouldnt be harmful if a student who is having a respiratory problem mistaken for asthma was given the medicine, Gerald said.

Our physicians like to say the only way a child would be harmed would be if they swallowed the inhaler, Gerald said.

Arizona is the 11th state to pass a law that allows schools to keep a supply of emergency asthma medication on hand.

It will help tremendously, these kids who come to school and not only get sick but who arent that sick and have to go to emergency rooms or go home, said Conrad Clemens, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arizona.

While the program was being piloted, Sunnyside paid for its own inhalers with money from the health services budget, Favela said.

Anything considered a supply comes out of that budget, Favela said. If we have to have it, we find it (the money). ... Were happy we can provide another service for students to help them stay in school and keep them from having to miss. ... Bottom line is, its whats good for kids.

Next school Banner-University Medical Center is donating $8,000 to $10,000 to cover the cost of at least one inhaler for every Pima County school.
PHOENIX  Legislation designed to protect student journalists from censorship hit a roadblock Thursday amid criticism from some lawmakers that theyre not entitled to such protection.

House Majority Leader John Allen, R-Scottsdale, yanked SB 1384 from consideration after more than an hour of debate over its merits. Allen said he was unsure whether there were sufficient votes on the floor for approval.

He said the measure still could be resurrected. But Sen. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix, who crafted the legislation and got it approved unanimously in the Senate, will have to convince some House foes to drop their opposition, he said.

SB 1384 would declare that student editors  and not administrators  are responsible for determining the content of school-sponsored media. The legislation would prevent administrators of traditional public and charter schools from censoring publications and preventing publication except under narrow circumstances.

It also would spell out that university and community college administrators have no right to block distribution of a publication. The only times that would be allowed for public schools is if the material is libelous, an unwarranted invasion of privacy, violates state or federal law, or creates the imminent danger of inciting students to violate the law or district regulations or materially and substantially disrupt the orderly operation of the public school.

And even then, the school would have the burden of providing lawful justification without undue delay.

Yee got the Senate to approve her bill in February after detailing her own experience in 1992 when she was a 17-year-old senior student at Greenway High School. Yee, a reporter and cartoonist for the Demon Dispatch, said there were numerous times when administrators refused to let items remain in the paper before it went to print, apparently because they believed they shed a bad light on the school.

Some House members, however, did not share her views that such protections are appropriate.

We dont even need the bill, argued Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert.

The First Amendment already exists, he continued. If schools are violating the First Amendment, then its an actionable offense.

Whether that right to sue exists for student journalists, however, is not clear.

During testimony in the Senate, Peggy Gregory of Greenway High school, who has taught journalism and advised students papers for 36 years, said student press freedom was the law of the land following a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring that it was protected by the First Amendment. But nearly 20 years later, she said, the same court partly reversed itself, declaring that student newspapers do not have the same constitutional rights as other publications.

The result was censorship, Gregory said.

The bigger problem for Yee is convincing colleagues that students, particularly in high school, should get the same rights and privileges as professionals.

Sen. Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, told colleagues that he teaches skills like welding. But I tell them, You become a welder when youve got the certificate in your hand, when you are hired, somebodys indemnifying your work, he said. But youre not a welder until then.

Bowers, a self-employed artist, said the idea of students learning journalism being considered real journalists is akin to people who conclude that their ability to use finger paints makes them an artist.

I have, in fact, seen work done by elephants and kangaroos in the National Gallery, where they put paint and have them walk around on large canvasses, he said. And I suppose they would be artists.

I would oppose the freedoms allotted by this bill, said Rep. Jay Lawrence, R-Scottsdale. I would say there has to be some sort of discipline that might not be exerted depending on the political bent of the teacher in the school.

But Rep. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, told members of the Republican-dominated House they should see the legislation as a protection against liberal viewpoints. He said some students testified in the Senate that quotes in political stories that appeared to favor Donald Trump were excised from stories.

At the other extreme, Rep. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, said the measure does not go far enough. She proposed expanding its scope to require any school that accepts students who receive empowerment scholarship accounts  the formal name for vouchers  to adopt written policies on student-run media that are consistent with and not more restrictive than what SB 1384 would require for public schools.

It is, after all, an empowerment account, Epstein said. So why would we empower them on one hand and take away this right?

Farnsworth said Epsteins proposal makes no sense. He said the First Amendment is designed to protect people from government actions, not from the actions and censorship of private individuals  or privately run schools.

You dont have freedom of speech in somebody elses house, he said.

And Rep. Noel Campbell, R-Prescott, argued that trying to extend the rights of student journalists to parochial schools, like those he attended, just cant work.

You would allow a student to go into a parochial school and say anything he wanted against the religious aspects of that institution, which just cant happen. he said.

Epstein said she doesnt share that view. Questioning and having serious debate, even a little bit of argument, is a very important part of Jewish tradition, she said. She said she doubts extending such freedom to students in all religious schools would create havoc.

If, in fact, the educators in parochial schools are doing a wonderful job of sharing the joy and beauty of the religion that they are teaching, then I dont really see that becoming a huge problem, she said.

This isnt the first time Yee has tried to get such a proposal through the Legislature. After her high school experience, she persuaded Sen. Stan Furman, D-Phoenix, to sponsor a similar measure, and got it through the Senate. But it died when it did not get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.
Anna Baffert Laos, a longtime businesswoman and community activist who supported the preservation of historical sites, died April 11 surrounded by family in her downtown home. She was 87.

Laos died peacefully in the home she and her late husband, Roy Elias Laos Jr., moved into decades ago. She worked tirelessly renovating the vintage 1897 home  doing the labor herself and also overseeing contractors on major restoration projects, said her son, Roy B. Laos, a former Tucson city councilman.

He said among the values his mother taught him and his four brothers was that education was necessary. She stressed for them to study and learn. It became important to my mom because her educational dreams were ripped away from her, said the younger Laos, recalling that Anna enrolled at the University of Arizona to study geology after graduating from Tucson High School in 1947.

He said his mother would say: I wanted to be a rock-licker, explaining that licking would uncover the beauty beneath the unpolished areas of a stone. Roy laughed remembering her words. Licking rocks is something excited rockhounds may do to study a stone they believe is a treasure.

However, he said a dean shut down Annas hopes when he told her the College of Mines was no place for a woman. He said his mother told him that she was told that space was needed for GIs returning from World War II.

Anna was discouraged and left the UA to go to work for her father in Baffert-Leon Wholesale Grocery Co. in Tucson. She was a member of a pioneering family and was related to the Baffert ranching and horse operation family in Nogales, Ariz.

She met her future husband, a UA pharmacy student who worked for his familys bus company  originally the Occidental Bus Line that later became Old Pueblo Transit Co. The bus line, which operated from 1923 to 1979, served Tucsons south and west sides.

Anna was born Dec. 26, 1929, and married Roy Elias Laos Jr. in 1952. For decades, the couple operated Roys Arizona Pharmacy at 647 S. Sixth Ave. Anna ran the store and her husband, who died in 2014, was the pharmacist. My dad was a Marine so he ran the family like a regiment, said the younger Laos. He was the disciplinarian and my mother was the mediator.

My dad would come home late at night and get us out of bed and give us the discipline, adding that he and his four brothers all worked at the store. No question about it. We learned from my dad discipline, order and the work ethic, said the younger Laos, explaining that his parents were a team.

The pharmacy eventually became a market and liquor store that was operated by Anna Laos. It now is Roys Corner Market, which is owned by the former councilman. Anna stopped working in the store in 2014.

Anna and her husband moved into the downtown neighborhood in 1962  living two blocks from the pharmacy. Anna cherished the integrity of her neighborhood and fought the proposed Butterfield Freeway in the 1970s, a project scheduled to tear down homes, schools and businesses in historic neighborhoods.

Decades later in the Armory Park del Sol development, Laos Street is named for Anna and Roy Elias Laos Jr.

Anna spearheaded a drive to form the Armory Park Historical District, and opposed the closings of inner-city schools because of declining enrollment. Laos also served on Tucson Unified School District committees proposing partial redistricting to handle court-ordered desegregation plans.

Among her preservation work, Laos helped get the downtown El Tiradito wishing shrine site on the National Register of Historic Places. The shrine is at 420 S. Main Ave., south of the Tucson Convention Center.

El Tiradito means castaway in Spanish. Visitors light candles and pray at the shrine in hopes of getting their needs resolved.

In a 2010 Star interview, Laos said El Tiradito was the only sanctuary in the United States dedicated to a sinner. According to the most popular legend, a man involved in a love triangle died on that spot after an altercation about 150 years ago.

Due to his sin he could not be buried in consecrated ground. Since it was unconsecrated grounds, people lit candles so that his soul would go to heaven, said Laos.

She is survived by her five sons, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 22, at St. Augustine Cathedral, 192 S. Stone Ave. A reception celebrating her life will follow from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Fraternal Order of Eagles hall, 1530 N. Stone Ave.
Two former Tucson police officers and an ex-Pima County sheriffs deputy are facing the loss of their peace officer certifications, officials say.

During a Wednesday meeting, the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board voted to initiate proceedings against Randy W. Quinn, Steven S. Pupkoff and Michael A. Villarreal, said board spokeswoman Sandy Sierra.

The board will forward formal complaints to all three men, who will have an opportunity for an AZPOST hearing in front of an administrative law judge, Sierra said.

Randy W. Quinn

Quinn, 32, was fired by the Tucson Police Department in December after a months-long internal investigation revealed he ran illegal records checks using the law enforcement computer database, according to department and AZPOST records.

A woman complained to the department that Quinn was running license-plate checks on cars that visited her home, at the request of her ex-husband, who was friends with Quinn. When confronted by investigators, Quinn said he didnt remember doing that, but admitted to writing down license plate numbers of cars he saw violating traffic laws when he was off-duty in order to identify the car and catch the driver committing a traffic violation when he was on-duty, in order to meet his ticket quota.

Investigators said these curiosity checks were felonies and referred the case to the Pima County Attorneys Office for prosecution.

Because statements made during internal police investigations cant be used as evidence for criminal proceedings, the Attorneys Office declined to prosecute.

Quinn, who was hired by TPD in 2007, appealed his firing with the citys Civil Service Commission in March, but it ruled in favor of the department.

Steven S. Pupkoff

Pupkoff, 45, was arrested last June for an off-duty DUI, after he crashed into a parked car, according to AZPOST records.

A citizen who approached the car after the crash found Pupkoff slumped over the driver side vehicle with the motor still running and in drive, the records show.

The citizen notified the owner of the parked car about the crash, who in turn called 911 to report the crash. Officers who responded to the scene noted that Pupkoff was initially unresponsive, but eventually woke up and rolled down the window.

Officers immediately noticed signs and symptoms of impairment and he refused to perform field-sobriety and breathalyzer tests. He was taken to a hospital and arrested for a DUI, but still refused to submit to a blood test. After officers obtained a telephonic search warrant, the blood draw was completed, and results showed that Pupkoffs blood alcohol level was 0.20, more than twice the legal limit, according to AZPOST records.

Pupkoff, who was hired by TPD in 1992, pleaded guilty in March to extreme DUI and was ordered to pay $3,840, spend 10 days in jail and 11 months on unsupervised probation.

Michael A. Villarreal

Former sheriffs deputy Michael A. Villarreal was fired in November after telling a coworker that deputies had been dispatched to her home for reports of underage drinking, according an AZPOST case overview.

On Oct. 30, Villarreal was dispatched to a home for a house party with underage drinking, which he knew to be the home of a Sheriffs Department employee.

Before starting his shift, Villarreal, 29, knew that his coworker was going to be throwing a party and agreed to give her a heads up if any 911 calls came in regarding the party.

After he heard the 911 call, Villarreal called the woman on her cellphone and told her to get the party under control, before meeting with a supervisor and other deputies for a briefing on how to respond to the party.

Villarreal, who graduated from the law enforcement training academy last February, told investigators that before he heard the 911 call, he had no knowledge of any underage drinking at the party.

The woman, who works for the Sheriffs Department as a corrections officer, was cited for contributing to the delinquency of minors by knowingly providing them with alcohol.

The case was not referred for prosecution, but Pima County Consolidated Justice Court records indicate that she completed an adult diversion class in connection with the misdemeanor citation.

Villarreal was completely forthright with investigators and said he told his coworker about the 911 call because they previously worked as corrections officers together.

Despite the fact that Villarreal agreed it was a conflict of interest, a lapse in judgment and something he would never do again, he was terminated from the department on Nov. 18.
HELENA  The ballot for Montana's special congressional election is set after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by three minor party and independent candidates who want to run in next month's race.

Justice Anthony Kennedy on Friday denied the request made by the Green Party's Thomas Breck and independents Doug Campbell and Steve Kelly.

The rejection means the May 25 election ballot will stand with Democrat Rob Quist, Republican Greg Gianforte and Libertarian Mark Wicks competing to replace former U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

The three would-be candidates argue Montana's steep qualification requirements don't give independents and small parties an opportunity to participate in the election.

A federal judge and an appeals court previously denied requests to place the names of the three men on the ballot, prompting the last-chance application to the nation's highest court.
Gov. Steve Bullock signed into law Wednesday a bill that would allow Lockwood to create its own high school district.

The move caps a multi-year saga between Lockwood and Billings Public Schools, the district high-schoolers from Lockwood's K-8 district attend.

School District 2 was one of the only groups to oppose this year's bill, a significant change after contentious proposals in previous legislatures. But SD2 officials were glad to have resolution going forward.

I think one of the advantages of the bill  its not something thats going to be continuing to come back at us every two years, said SD2 board chairwoman Greta Besch Moen. We'd end one legislative session and immediately go into a ramp-up for another legislative session.

The new law allows K-8 districts with more than roughly 1,000 students  currently only Lockwood, East Helena and Missoula Hellgate  to vote to create their own high school districts; after an initial vote, the districts have to pass a bond within two years to build a new school. If either vote fails, districts have to wait five years before a new high school vote.

The bill sailed through both houses with overwhelming support.

The law leaves out some of the most divisive components of previous bills, like an asset split between high school districts. But SD2 still objected to Billings voters not having a say on a district split and said that the possibility of a split could complicate long-term planning.

Besch Moen said the district would continue operating using its strategic plan until a Lockwood high school district actually happens.

We as a school district need to continue to plan for growth, she said.

Lockwood superintendent Tobin Novasio had initially guessed that it would be a few years before a high school vote came forward as the bill advanced through the Legislature. But he said there's been more early community support for the idea than he anticipated.

It may be on the ballot next spring, he said. The push needs to come from the community rather than the school.

Based on changes in tax base and student enrollment, SD2 Chief Financial Officer Mike Arnold estimates that Billings would loose about $1.6 million in budget authority in its current budget. His projections show a 2.65 mill increase in SD2's school year budget for Billings taxpayers. Previous Gazette projections and state projections also predicted a modest increase.

A series of meetings beginning in 2015 between Billings and Lockwood trustees were contentious early, inflamed by Billings' redistricting process that removed a high school choice provision that applied only to Lockwood students. Later meetings were more cordial but reached little resolution between the districts.

SD2 officials have repeatedly questioned the willingness of Lockwood voters to pay for a high school.

Lockwood overwhelmingly passed a bond levy in 2006 to build a new middle school and update existing facilities. Since then, of eight levies put up for a vote, a building reserve levy in 2013 and a technology levy in 2012 passed. Bond levies for a sewer system failed four times before passing.
A man several law enforcement agencies had been searching for since Tuesday was arrested Thursday evening after being found on a downtown rooftop.

Tyson Heisler, 32, was discovered on the roof of a building at 111 N. 30th St., which is the building that houses the Art House Cinema & Pub. He was arrested without incident and had no weapons on him, said Chief Deputy Rod Ostermiller of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Sgt. Scott Conrad with the Billings Police Department said his agency was dispatched to the area at about 5:30 p.m. By 6 p.m., Heisler had been arrested. A woman who had been with Heisler, Kelsi Cochran, 24, was also arrested, Conrad said. Cochran was booked into the Yellowstone County Detention Facility on misdemeanor criminal possession of drug paraphernalia, felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs and felony possession of imitation drugs with intent to distribute, Conrad said.

The U.S. Marshals followed a vehicle Cochran and Heisler were in and found it in an alley behind the Art House, Conrad said. Cochran was inside the car, and shortly after Heisler was discovered on the roof.

U.S. Marshals could be seen in the area with long guns and tactical vests. One Marshal went up the fire escape stairwell of a building on the 2900 block of Second Avenue North and could be heard shouting commands at Heisler before his arrest.

Members of the Billings Police Department helped block off the alley behind the building, and other officers could be seen watching Heisler from a parking lot across the street from his location.

A search for Heisler had been ongoing since Tuesday morning, when he abandoned his vehicle near Duck Creek and then ran from law enforcement.

Heisler was wanted on a probation violation. He was with a woman when he abandoned his vehicle, and Ostermiller said she was arrested.

The United States Marshals Service Violent Offender Task Force, Yellowstone County sheriff's deputies and Montana Highway Patrol troopers were involved in the search. An aircraft was also in use, Ostermiller said.

In 2009 in Yellowstone County, Heisler was sentenced to nine years in prison and to a six-year suspended sentence following his release for multiple felony charges, according to Gazette archives.

In 2003 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison with two years suspended for his role in a home-invasion robbery in a Billings neighborhood. Part of his sentence provided Heisler the opportunity to have his sentence reduced if he completed a state boot camp program.

During the robbery Heisler and two others posed as magazine salesmen and forced their way into a home. One of the men held a gun to the homeowner while Heisler and another ransacked the house. During that trial Heisler admitted to another burglary in which he kicked in the front door of a home and stole alcohol and guns.

While under state supervision in 2009, Heisler stole several TVs from a Billings motel. He gave false information and then ran from police when questioned at a casino three months later. After police pursuit he was arrested and meth was found in his shoe.
OPINION: "Let's keep our heads for the next few weeks. It could be chaotic, but we'll get through it. When the dust settles, we'll get to work figuring out if we still have a functioning democracy in Arizona," writes Curt Prendergast, the Star's opinion editor.
This week Gov. Steve Bullock will take a careful look at Senate Bill 117, a bill to revise laws relating to executing power of attorney for a minor. Unfortunately, the bill passed through both the Montana Senate and House on a partisan line vote, with Democrats opposing the measure. This is a dangerous piece of legislation for children, and we urge Bullock to veto the bill.

SB117 dangerously deregulates laws regarding custody transfers for children. It essentially allows for parents to give up custody of their children by simply transferring the power of attorney over to a different guardian. This would make it dangerously easy for negligent parents to re-home children through online websites that can be a recruitment hotbed for pedophiles, sex traffickers, and other abusers.

Reuters wrote an eye-opening story about where the lapses in this regulation can leave children in a dangerous place.

The Reuters investigation brought some horrifying specifics about bills like this to light. In the article, they told the story of Quita, an adopted child who was re-homed after her adopted parents struggled with raising her. The adopted parents found new guardians for Quita after placing an online ad, which they transferred custody to, using the power of attorney. Quitas new guardians had a horrific history of sexual abuse of children, something that wasnt discovered using the transfer of power of attorney method that SB117 makes legal.

Besides Quita and the many other children who have been put in danger by this custody loophole , we oppose this bill for a few other specific reasons. This bill offers no protection for children. Theres no requirement that a background check be conducted, no requirement for a home check after a child has been re-homed, and no standards for the safety or wellness of the child.

This bill unnecessarily opens our state up to a horrible problem, where predators and abusers are acquiring children whose parents want to re-home them. Imagine an innocent child be handed off to a stranger in a dark parking lot. This bill could make that imaginary situation a reality.

We urge Bullock to veto SB117.
A new venue and an additional panelist mean there will be plenty of seats and more information to share during the Star panel discussion on Tucsons weather.

A look at Tucson weather: Whats happened, what to expect, set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 25, has moved into the ballroom of the Tucson Jewish Community Center, 3800 E. River Road.

The larger room means there are still reservations available for this free, timely discussion. In addition, a senior forecaster from the National Weather Service has joined the panel lineup.

With Tucsons temperature flirting with the century mark, the panelists will discuss some of the burning (pardon the pun) questions on many Tucsonans minds:

What does this heat trend bode for late spring and summer?

What impact might it have for the fire season?

What impact might be seen for the monsoon?

Panelists include:

Tom Beal , Arizona Daily Star science reporter, moderator.

, Arizona Daily Star science reporter, moderator. Mike Crimmins , an associate professor with the Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science at the University of Arizona and a climate science extension specialist for Arizona Cooperative Extension. He compiles and interprets water and weather data for CLIMAS, the Climate Assessment of the Southwest.

, an associate professor with the Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science at the University of Arizona and a climate science extension specialist for Arizona Cooperative Extension. He compiles and interprets water and weather data for CLIMAS, the Climate Assessment of the Southwest. John Glueck , National Weather Service Tucson senior forecaster and climate program leader.

, National Weather Service Tucson senior forecaster and climate program leader. KOLD-TV chief meteorologist Kevin Jeanes , whos on the First Alert weather team and gives daily forecasts and updates for television and the Stars weather page.

, whos on the First Alert weather team and gives daily forecasts and updates for television and the Stars weather page. Heidi Schewel, public affairs specialist with the Coronado National Forest.

Reserve your seat for this free discussion at tucson.com/weatherpanel
will make the first public appearance of his post-presidency on Monday when he speaks at an event in his hometown of Chicago, his office said Friday.

It ends a three-month period of relative silence since Obama left office on Jan. 20, much of which he has spent on vacation in Palm Springs, Calif., on a Caribbean island with English billionaire Richard Branson and at an exclusive resort in French Polynesia.





Obama will participate in a town hall-style discussion with young people on community organizing and civic engagement at the University of Chicago, near the site of his planned presidential library.





This event is part of President Obamas post-presidency goal to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world, his office said in a statement.




More than 12 hours after a fatal head-on collision involving a semitrailer hauling explosives, U.S. Highway 212 has reopened west of Lame Deer.

The crash occurred at about 4:30 a.m. near mile marker 39. The driver of a pickup died when his vehicle collided with an 18-wheeler. The commercial truck's driver and a sleeping passenger sustained minor injuries, said Trooper Richard Drake, of Montana Highway Patrol.

After the roadway reopened at about 5 p.m., Drake explained that the prolonged closure was due to concerns over the explosives being hauled by the semitrailer. Because the vehicle was no longer operational, the explosives had to be loaded by hand to another vehicle, he said.

"For safety's sake we did not want any traffic in the area," he said.

Categorized as Class 1.1, the explosives were "high power," Drake said. Class 1.1 explosives qualify as a "mass explosive hazard" according to U.S. Department of Transportation regulations.

Numerous road closures and detours were in place during the cleanup. Road blocks were set up within two miles of the crash site in both directions, and residents of two homes nearby were asked to leave during the cleanup process, Drake said.

None of the explosives spilled, though some petroleum products from the vehicles involved in the crash did spill at the scene, Drake said.

Drake said the Bureau of Indian Affairs is leading the investigation with MHP assisting. He did not release any further details on the people involved in the wreck and declined to comment on whether speed, alcohol or drugs were factors in the wreck.
LARAMIE, Wyo.  A University of Wyoming student claims he was injured by police who took him out of a classroom.

Student Garret VonKrosigk tells the Laramie Boomerang police took him out of a classroom after he suffered a seizure in the hallway. UW Director of Institutional Communications Chad Baldwin says the police fetched the student after he returned to his classroom before emergency personnel had cleared him.

He says under Wyoming Title 25, officials are allowed to temporarily detain or involuntarily hospitalize individuals who might be a threat to themselves or others.

VonKrosigk claims his removal was involuntary. VonKrosigk says emergency personnel told him he could go back to class if he could correctly answer four questions, which he remembers doing. He says he suffered a bruising and a broken wrist as a result.

___

Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com
Help India!

TCN News

New Delhi: SIO delegation visited Pehlu Khans residence at Mewat, Haryana and handed over a milch cow as they had promised so.

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Earlier this month, Pehlu khan was stopped by cow vigilantes in Alwar area of Rajasthan and beaten to death while he was transporting cows. Father of eight children, Pehlu had a dairy farm as the only source of livelihood.

Even though they had owned proper Jaipur Nagar Nigam papers for carrying cows, cow vigilantes began to lynch them and some of them were trying to get the diesel from vehicle to burn them alive, according to Amzad. Amzad has lost his eye sight partially.Cow vigilantes also snatched 35 thousands from his pocket.

Family members of Pehlu Khan said to Thauseef Ahmed, National Secretary, SIO of India, Policemen had asked him 1 lakh to meet his brother and others, and they snatched 5000 rupees which he had with him. Shockingly, a case is also filed against the victims for stealing cow.
Help India!

By Twocircles.net Staff Reporter

The Kerala Police have decided to withdraw charges under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in 42 cases that were registered in the last five years. The police will submit a report before the court recommending withdrawal of UAPA in these cases.

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The decision comes after a panel headed by state police chief Loknath Behera found charges would not stand against the accused in these cases. The panel reviewed a total of 162 cases, in which UAPA was slapped in last five years.

The CPIM led LDF Government had drawn strong criticism following UAPA slapped in 26 cases after it came into power in May 2016.

The panel studied 162 cases in which UAPA was imposed. It found that the probe officers had imposed UAPA without checking the facts. Police chief Lokath General told media persons that UAPA would be imposed in only cases dealing with terror links.We have asked the investigators to remove the UAPA charges after reviewing these cases, said Behera.

The panel and a team of legal experts also checked whether such cases were registered based on sufficient evidence.

The police chief has directed the district police chiefs to provide details whether arrests have been made in connection with the UAPA cases.

The panel was constituted in December 2016 to re-examine the UAPA cases after several persons raised the allegations of police misusing the law. The panel examined cases which were registered in various police stations from 2012.

The panel found that in half the cases, UAPA was slapped on the accused allegedly for helping Maoists or pasting posters exhorting to boycott elections.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): The Delhi High Court on Friday asked Delhi Police to record the statement of witnesses present at the time of an altercation between JNU student Najeeb Ahmed and nine students of ABVP six months ago, about the nature of threat given to him.

A division bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Deepa Sharma asked why the statements of witnesses were not recorded by Delhi Police after Ahmed went missing in October last year after the altercation.

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What is the nature of threat? What words were used for threatening?, asked the bench, directing the police to record statements of persons present during the altercation.

Ahmed had slapped one of the nine students during an altercation in the hostel and in return they allegedly threatened him.

Police also submitted two sealed cover analysis reports of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad, regarding the contents of Ahmeds laptop and mobile phone and of the nine students mobile phones.

The movement of the mobile phones of the nine students reveals nothing, said the police, adding that their mobile phones were shown to be in the hostels during the time of Ahmeds disappearance, said the report.

Ahmed, 27, a first year M.Sc. student, went missing from his JNU hostel on the night of October 14-15, allegedly after an altercation with the members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs students wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

The court was hearing a habeas corpus plea filed by Ahmeds mother Fatima Nafees that her son be produced by police and the Delhi government before the court.

The bench also sought response from the government on an application filed by the mother to disband Delhi Polices Special Investigation Team (SIT), set up in October on the Centres direction and constitute a fresh team of SIT.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who appeared for the students mother, said the history of the case shows their collusion with the nine accused students.

He also asked the court that police be directed for custodial interrogation of the nine students as they assaulted and threatened Ahmed before he went missing.

Advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for the police, said the nine students have neither given their consent nor refusal for a lie detector test in the case. He said the students should come forward and take the polygraph test.

To this, the bench said that the students can not be forced to undergo polygraph test. They should agree but if they want to live with the needle of suspicion what can be done, said the bench.

The bench posted the matter for May 12.
Help India!

TCN News

New Delhi : National Investigation Agency (NIA) special court secured its first conviction of two accused persons in terror related cases on Friday.

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The accused persons namely Sheikh Azhar-ul-Islam(24) s/o Ab Satar Sheikh and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh(25) s/o Mohammed Rafiq Sadique Shaikh have been convicted for the commission of offences of criminal conspiracy, conspiracy of terrorist acts, membership of terrorist gang organization, supporting the activities and raising funds for the terrorist organization.

The Court has given punishment of 7 years of rigorous Imprisonment and fine to both the accused persons.

The NIA had registered this case on January 28, 2016 at NIA Police Station, New Delhi, under Section 120-B of IPC and Sections 18, 18A and 18B of UA (P) Act, 1967 against three accused persons. They were arrested on January 29, 2016 after their arrival from Abu Dhabi on Jan 28, 2016.

The charge sheet was filed against the aforesaid three accused persons on July 25, 2016 under sections 120-B IPC and 18, 20, 38, 39 and 40 of UA (P) Act, 1967 and charges were framed against all the three accused persons under 120-B IPC and 18, 20, 38, 39 and 40 of UA (P) Act, 1967 on February 21, 2017.

On March 29, 2017, accused Sheikh Azhar-ul-Islam and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh pleaded guilty for all the aforesaid offences. The NIA Special Court, New Delhi on April 19, 2017 convicted both the accused on account of their having pleaded guilty for the criminal conspiracy and acting as a frontier group of ISIS for inciting, inviting and facilitating people of different nationalities to leave their respective countries and travel to Syria to support furtherance of the activities of ISIS.

The NIA during the investigation had established that the aforesaid accused persons, with other associates in 2014-15 had hatched a criminal conspiracy to propagate ideology, recruit persons, raise funds and facilitate the travel of such recruited persons to Syria to join the ISIS and further its activities.

According to NIA, the accused persons had created multiple email IDs, used multiple mobile numbers obtained from their associates of different countries, formed various online forums and groups on facebook, twitter, telegram, surespot, Whatsapp, Kik, VKontakte, Viber and Skype, using internet and invited and associated lime minded persons, residents of different countries from different parts of the world.

NIA said in the statement, They formed a terrorist gang and acted as a frontal group of the ISIS and incited, motivated, invited and facilitated people of different nationalities to leave their respective countries and travel to Syria to join, support and further activities of the ISIS.

The third chargesheeted accused namely Adnan Hassan(36) s/o Mohammed Hussain Damudi, will face the trial which is scheduled to commence from June 6, 2017.
Help India!

Kolkata, (IANS): Opposing the idea of Uniform Civil Code, the West Bengal unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind on Friday once again argued in favour of the Muslim personal law and said the court should not interfere with the fundamental rights of Muslims.

Unlike other countries, the Muslim personal law only exists in India and it has an equation with the countrys Constitution. Following the Sharia laws are our fundamental rights and we should be permitted to exercise those rights. Therefore, we appeal to the court not to interfere with the Muslim personal law, Md. Nooruddin, the state president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, told the reporters here.

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He also opposed the idea of banning triple talaq saying the option of talaq should be available to people but some basic changes in the process is needed.

We think the option of talaq should be available to people. Sometimes separation between a couple is necessary if the relationship is not working out at all. It is far better to be separated than to kill someone over relationship disputes, he said.

However, the cleric admitted that a section of uneducated people are misusing these rights and said the Sharia law never supports giving talaq on baseless grounds and harassment of women.

Separation or talaq is a social issue and should be resolved socially. If all the incidents of family dispute start reaching the court then the families would be ruined, he said.

Stating that the Sharia laws always promote ethical growth, equality, justice and balance, Nooruddin appealed to all the political parties to come together for the initiative of equipping Muslims with authentic knowledge about Islam.

We appeal to all the political parties to overcome their political differences and come together in the initiative of educating Muslims about the real values of Islam in order to eliminate the violation of Sharia, he added.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JeIH) on Friday said it would hold a fortnight-long pan-India campaign from Sunday to create awareness about Muslim Personal Law.

JeIH President Syed Jalaluddin Umri said the campaign would not only educate non-muslims about Muslim Personal Law, but would also focus on those Muslims who dont follow it in its true letter and spirit.

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Addressing a press conference here, Umri said a large section of muslim society was presently suffering from ignorance about Islamic family laws.

It must be recognised that the primary reason for violation of Shariat is large-scale ignorance of muslim masses and lack of sincere commitment to Islamic norms, he said.

He added that their consequent faulty conduct while dealing with domestic disputes have created a distorted image of muslims and Islam.

Courts of the land often pass judgements contrary to the position of Islamic Shariat on disputes related to Muslim Personal Law and media portrays a one-sided image, he said.

Umri added through the awareness campaign, which would conclude on May 7, the organisation would try to change perceptions and attitudes by highlighting the ideology behind the Muslim Personal Law.

Today, it is being portrayed as if it is the only issue that is holding Muslims back and by doing away with the personal law, all problems would go away. It needs to be understood that this is not the case, he said.

He alleged the issue of Muslim Personal Law and triple talaq were being used to divert attention from all other issues that plague the muslim society.

Umri said over five crore muslims had signed a petition saying they wanted no change in the personal law.

If muslims are following it, one needs to understand, it is because there is a philosophy and rationale behind it. Those questioning Islam didnt even try to understand it first, he added.

Mohammed Jafar, the convenor of the organisation, said the campaign would start in all state capitals on Sunday and would then move to all district headquarters and smaller cities.

He added that a mobile app and a website have also been designed for the awareness campaign.
President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban government. The Taliban is an extremist Muslim organisation. It ruled Afghanistan by enforcing a primitive form of the Sharia and attacking everything connected with America. They also sheltered the notorious criminal Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban were defeated and the US installed a friendly government in Kabul.15 years down the line the war against the Taliban is still on and victory is not in sight. One can recall that in 2007 and 2009 a big surge of ground troops was ordered by the US presidents.

Despite this and a relentless air bombardment, the Taliban have not been defeated. The Afghan government's writ runs only around Kabul and some small pockets in the country. Despite heavy bombing by the USAF, the Taliban have consolidated their hold in 70% of the Afghan countryside. Victory is nowhere in sight.

US general staff failure

This is a sad commentary on the efficacy of the US general staff who have not been able to bring about victory in 15 years. Where is the chance that they will win the war in the next 15 years as well? Yesterday, B- 52 Bombers of the United States Air Force bombed the Taliban controlled area close to Kabul. Military analysts are wondering how one of the famous principles of warfare "control of the air" has not brought victory in the Afghan war.

The reasons are deeper and American general staff have to sit back and analyse as to why the American army has not been able to win the war after 15 years of fighting in Afghanistan

Pakistan factor

One reason the Americans have not been able to win is the involvement of Pakistan in Afghanistan. There is a failure by the American presidents to recognise this fact.

This has led to hundreds of American soldiers being killed in ongoing battles in Afghanistan. Pakistan is supporting one faction of the Taliban called the Haqqani group. They are given sanctuary inside Pakistan. The US government has also been treating Pakistan with kid gloves. They allowed Pakistan to go nuclear and no American president thought of bombing the nuclear facilities of Pakistan.

Pakistan is also guilty of nuclear proliferation and their head of nuclear research Dr Abdus Khan sold nuclear know-how to Iran and Korea. Earlier the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had indicated that Pakistan was supporting the Haqqani faction of the Taliban against the Kabul government. Nothing happened after this assessment.

Future

The war in Afghanistan will linger on and one wonders what plan the US has to bring about victory there. There is the stark fact that America either lost or created chaos, where ever they intervened after 1950. It's about time Donald woke up to this reality.
The State of Play.

As day three of the UK General-Election campaign dawns over the hallowed spires of the Great-Hall of Westminister; it is not particularly surprising what 48 hours bring to the fore. Whether unpredicted or not, Theresa May's snap decision will clear the political decks in the run up to Brexit and cause considerable political turmoil for all during the coming weeks.

No Surprises There Then?

On Wednesday afternoon, The commons, as expected voted overwhelmingly in favour of an early election, passing the motion by some 522 to 14. Easily surpassing the 434 votes needed to overturn the statute dictating that the next election need not be held until 2020.

At least ex-Chancellor, now confirmed backbencher George Osbourne is gone, not defending his Tatton Cheshire seat. No, as one might expect to stick adhesive on the thousands of tax-free rolls of wallpaper his father's company produces every day, but to edit - apart from his lucrative speaking engagements and lucrative consultancies - that great bastion of London News; the Evening Standard. Douglas Carswell has also decided not to stand again; which is frankly no great loss to any party he stood for. On the other hand, Jeremy Corbyn is facing a growing problem, 13 of his MP's have said they will not stand for re-election, almost all stating 'utter-confusion,' within Labour's ranks, amongst them such stalwarts as ex-minister Alan Johnson and Andy Burnham; leaving so he can concentrate on his bid to become Mayor of Manchester.

The Labour Position.

Mr Corbyn is muddying the waters further by contemplating a 'Coalition Government'? A joining of Labour/Liberal-Democrats/SNP/Welsh Nats and the Greens; as if none of them had learned any lessons from the Conservative/Lib-Dem pact of the early Cameron years. Even finding common ground would be a logistical nightmare.

Although it is pretty doubtful that combined with any other rogue MP's they may find floating around the House, they could muster up enough seats between them to form any sort of credible government. Behind it all is the intrusive hand of Nicola - Independence at any cost - Sturgeon, a woman who appears would sell Scotland down the river in order to get what SHE wants.

Although, as stated by her on Wednesday, the PM has turned, hands down the prospect of appearing in any televised, head-to-head debates with other party leaders preferring to hit the campaign trail instead. However, she is not adverse to a Question Time-style confrontation with the UK at large, as long as it does not include politicians? Her main means of communication a face-to-face, on the hustings, approach.

As we head for the weekend draught Manifesto pledges are being sought and witty slogans thought up for posters that will glower down at us all, from Exeter to Edinburgh. The real hard work will only begin when school, sorry I meant Parliament is let out, on May 2nd and the PM has her fateful final meeting with the Queen.
A little girl with a vision

Sara was very young when she discovered her power. The power which has helped so many people in the future. But not everyone thought that was a good idea to share. Her mother took her to the doctor to see if everything is ok with Sara. She was telling future predictions to her schoolmates and people around here, predictions which came true. The doctor who spoke with her told her and discovered that everything was fine with her but that she has to keep a secret and not to tell anybody about her power.

Helping the scientists

A scientist is probably a last person on the Earth to believe in these things such as in a psychic. But when they face Sara s talent and power they became speechless. In the TV movie "Glimpse of the future", you can see Sara looking at a scalp of a dead person and giving information about that person which she couldn't know about it if she wouldn't have a gift that she has. Sara Memic is not only able to have future visions but also visions from the past. She even helped archaeologists when they wanted to give up on archaeological finds When they explored certain place Sara told them to deepen the terrain because they will find more archaeological findings if they do so and she was right about it!

They found additional archaeological finds at the place they searched deeper.

Saving people's lives

It can be very dangerous when doctors can not find the reason of someone's pain and discomfort. Sometimes it can have a deadly result for a person struggling with unexplained pain. Sara saved many lives with her correct predictions about people's health and she advised them to go to the doctor, even when they didn't have a clue they have some kind of health issue.

She even sometimes does a sketch of a picture of someone's health problem on a paper, when people ask her for their health. Sara would like to help doctors with diagnosis in the future, that is her wish, to be able to help people with her preventive predictions.

Love bits of advice that are worth listening to

Sara Memic helped people to save their marriage by advising them how to change things in their life that brought them to this point.

She is aware that we can change our future with our actions that are why she points at things we would never know about. To hear that the person you love doesn't feel the same for you is one of the most hurtful feelings but it saves us from the long-term pain and directs us to the right path where we can meet the right partner for us.#SaraMemic #psychic
It looks like another Terrorist Attack... Thats what US President Donald Trump said last night after a gunman opened fire in Paris and killed a police officer. Paris has been fraught with terrorism for a couple of years now, ever since the rise of Islamic State extreme terrorist group ISIS to become the new al-Qaeda. Theyve targeted France a good few times, in addition to other European cities like St. Petersburg and London. Its getting old real fast.

Now, ISIS have claimed responsibility for last nights attack. They love releasing statements that claim responsibility for recent terrorist attacks that have gotten everyone in a tizzy.

They get a real kick out of it. Its like theyre bragging, and lets face it, they probably are. Trump also asked the rhetorical question, What can you say? and added, It never ends. This isnt the kind of mentality we want from a world leader if we are to stand strong against terrorism, but Trump did say, We have to be strong and be vigilant, so thats a bit better.

The statement claims the shooter was a Belgian ISIS militant fighter

The Paris attack that ISIS have taken the rap for was carried out by a Belgian ISIS fighter who killed one police officer and left two severely wounded in the attack. The shooting took place near the boulevard of Champs-Elysees (which is a busy shopping street so there were a lot of people around to be scared  the attack apparently took place in front of a Marks and Spencer, which they must be hoping wont affect business  which is probably why the Belgian ISIS guy picked it) in Frances capital city of Paris.

The dead officer was reportedly killed whist sitting in a car before the attacker was shot and killed shortly thereafter by the other cops on the scene.

Francois Hollande, the President of the French Republic, called the incident a cowardly killing of a police officer and had previously said he was convinced that it was a terrorist attack.

Obviously now that ISIS has claimed responsibility, hes been proven right. If it wasnt a terrorist attack, it wouldve been quite embarrassing for him, but it was pretty clear that this was a terrorist attack from the beginning, so its all fine.

Legal authorities in Paris claim to have identified the suspected ISIS gunman.

However, they will not reveal his name until they determine whether or not there were other people involved in the attack, as it could jeopardise the investigation. According to officials, the suspected assailant had already been flagged up by authorities as an Islamic extremist, but they didnt do anything about him and now hes gone and shot up a bunch of police officers.

Paris police are searching the suspects home

Paris police authorities (the ones that arent in hospital or in the morgue) are currently searching the slain assailants home, which is located in a suburb on the eastern side of Paris. Youve got to watch out for these people living in the burbs. Theyre harbouring pretty dark sides sometimes.

Some reports suggested that the shooting was to do with a robbery but police maintained that it was likely a terrorist act, and now ISIS are saying it was them, so that answers that question.

French legal people are saying that its too early in the investigation to make an assumption on why this ISIS attack took place. Its generally under the blanket of their march on capitalist western civilisation, but it has to be more specific than that. Why Paris? Why now? Why M&S? Well just have to wait and see. The French interior ministry has opened up a counter-terrorism inquiry that will revolve around the attack.
Located on the original lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis Nation in the heart of Turtle Island, the University of Manitoba campuses include a vibrant Indigenous community of thousands of students, staff, faculty and alumni.

The Indigenous campus community works together to build and expand our presence and visibility at UM while creating a safe environment for students and staff to work and learn.
During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump claimed that the system was being "rigged," which he continued to use as his excuse for losing the popular vote. The president has stuck by his allegation, which is now being challenged.

Trump's claim

When Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the new President of the United States last November, his victory shocked the world. However, while Trump did win the electoral college vote, he failed capture the popular vote in the process. In response, the former host of "The Apprentice" claimed, without evidence, that he only lost the popular vote to Clinton because as many as 5 million illegal immigrants had allegedly voted for the Democratic nominee.

As reported by The Hill on March 22, a top offical in the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is now demanding proof of voter fraud.

Ellen Weintraub, a commissioner with the FEC, sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday which called for Donald Trump to release proof of his voter fraud allegations, and to do so "immediately." "You have alleged that hundreds of thousands of voters were bused from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to vote illegally on Election Day 2016," the letter reads. Weintraub noted that American democracy is built on citizen's faith in the election system, which she believes is being compromised by the president. Weintraub, as The Hill points out, was appointed by former President George W.

Bush, and is "demanding that he (Trump) immediately provide evidence" of the voter fraud allegation.

FEC commissioner asks Pres. Trump to share voter fraud evidence from the 2016 presidential election: https://t.co/zTk2r5YvwR pic.twitter.com/v70cGNjvGF  CBS News (@CBSNews) March 22, 2017

"Your voter-fraud allegations run the risk of undermining that faith," Ellen Weintraub continued.

"Facts matter, Mr. President," the statement goes on to say, before adding, "The American people deserve to see your evidence." As of press time, the White House has not offered a response, while Weintraub's tweets to Donald Trump on the issue have remained unanswered.

Moving forward

No credible proof has ever been released by Donald Trump over the issue of voter fraud, with the exception of partisan and generally discredited "reports" by right-wing think tanks. After just two months in the White House, it appears that Trump is facing increased backlash on a daily basis.
President Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn't mind lashing out at those who he feels deserve it, despite the backlash that often follows. While even many supporters of the president disagreed with his comments about federal judges and the court system, it doesn't appear like Trump is ready to back off.

Trump goes rogue

Not long after Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for president, he made attacking his political opponents and critics a part of his daily routine. Whether it was his Republican primary opponents, cable news channels, or even celebrities who voiced their opposition, Trump found a way to make outlandish and often crude comments as part of his defense.

The former host of "The Apprentice" expressed his frustration and anger on the campaign trail, during interviews, and even on social media, which has increased ever since he was sworn into office last January. One of Trump's latest targets have been judges and the courts after his "Muslim ban" executive order was blocked. As reported by The Hill on March 21, Trump won't be ending his criticism of the court at any point in the near future as he threatened to continue his attack on judges if they rule against him in the future.

Trump: "The courts are not helping us...it's ridiculous. Someone said I should not criticize judges. OK, I'll criticize judges." pic.twitter.com/mYzCbpyfH0  Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) March 22, 2017

According to The Hill on Tuesday night, Donald Trump took time to address those in attendance at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner.

During his speech, the billionaire real estate mogul noted the trouble that he's faced from the court system in regards to pushing through his travel ban executive order.

Trump criticizes judges hours after Gorsuch says it's "disheartening" https://t.co/6kiVGKRfiu pic.twitter.com/KrncaQITGo  The Hill (@thehill) March 22, 2017

"We're also taking decisive action to improve our vetting procedures," Donald Trump said.

"The courts are not helping us, I have to be honest with you," he continued, before adding, "It's ridiculous." "Somebody said I should not criticize judges," Trump noted, while stating, "OK, I'll criticize judges." Trump's comments came just hours after his nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, pushed back at the president over the previous remarks he made about judges, calling them "disheartening."

Moving forward

After Donald Trump's first travel ban was struck down by a federal judge and the 9th Circuit court of appeals, he worked with his administration to produce a watered down revised version that they hoped would stand. However, after a judge in Hawaii once again blocked the order, the president and his team were forced back to the drawing broad.
As tensions rise between the United State and North Korea, all eyes are on what the next step will be in the conflict between both nations. For Donald Trump, he's decided to continue to nudge China to make a move on the issue at hand.

Trump on Twitter

Earlier this month, Donald Trump decided to make a major move when it comes to carrying out his foreign policy. After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad carried out a chemical weapons attack on his own people, the former host of "The Apprentice" called on the United States military to launch 59 tomahawk cruise missiles at an airbase in Syria.

Just a week later, Trump ordered the military to drop the largest non-nuclear bomb in history on a tunnel in Afghanistan that has been used by the Islamic State (ISIS). While most nations around the world gave their support to the United States, several pushed back with criticism over Trump's decision. One country that was not pleased with the actions of the Trump administration was North Korea, who used the latest incidents as an excuse to continue their nuclear weapons testing. The vice foreign minister of North Korea also went on to scold Trump over his "dangerous" use of Twitter. Despite this, Trump voiced his frustration with North Korea during a April 21 Twitter rant, while also dragging China into the equation.

China is very much the economic lifeline to North Korea so, while nothing is easy, if they want to solve the North Korean problem, they will  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017

Taking to his Twitter account on Friday morning, Donald Trump added fuel to the fire in the ongoing three-way feud between the United States, North Korea, and China.

"China is very much the economic lifeline to North Korea so, while nothing is easy, if they want to solve the North Korean problem, they will," Trump tweeted, appearing to call out China for not doing enough to push back at North Korea.

Trump: If China wanted to end North Korean aggression, it could https://t.co/YBVKlSHKGZ pic.twitter.com/LaFN3lrnEJ  Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 21, 2017

Continuing conflict

Just two weeks ago, Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jingping at his Mar-a-Lago private resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

The billionaire real estate mogul described their meeting as "great," while noting that China was offering to attempt to ease the tension with North Korea. While that might have been the case during the meeting, Trump doesn't appear pleased with Xi or how the nation has moved forward on the issue at hand.

Next up

During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump put forward a proposed foreign policy that appeared different then those of his fellow Republicans, and Democratic counterparts. While the president vowed not to intervene in foreign wars and to back the United States military out of multiple conflicts, Trump is receiving backlash for betraying his promise on the campaign trail.
The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction plans to integrate Native American culture and history into classroom instruction as part of a project that compiled interviews of Native American elders in the state. In addition, culturally relevant lesson plans and other curriculum were developed for teachers to use.

DPI launched its Native American Essential Understanding Project in 2015, which is a mirror of Montana's Indian Education For All program and the WoLakota project in South Dakota, according to Lucy Fredericks, director of DPI's office of Indian and multicultural education.

The first half of the project included interviews of elders from four federally recognized tribes in North Dakota: the Fort Berthold, Turtle Mountain, Spirit Lake and Standing Rock reservations. These elders identified seven "essential understandings" that all students, Native and non-Native, across the state should know about the tribes.

I think its been something that weve needed to have, Fredericks said. "There have been pockets here and there, like teachers teaching about Native Americans in North Dakota, but its usually only during Native American month or during a unit. But what we would like to see is for it to be included in all content areas, all grade levels.

On Tuesday, DPI held its second two-day training session for teachers and administrators. Fifty-two people signed up for Tuesday's training in Bismarck, Fredericks said.

The next steps with the project will be to do professional development for teachers and implement lesson plans and curriculum into all schools in North Dakota, Fredericks said.

We have almost a 10 percent Native American (student) population in North Dakota  so, why not develop culturally relevant curriculum or awareness for all schools in North Dakota?" Fredericks said.

North Dakota held its first Indian Education Summit in Bismarck in 2014. At that time, Denise Juneau, the Montana superintendent of public instruction, shared details about her state's program. In 1972, Montana voters approved a constitutional amendment, adding language to preserve Native American culture in the state. The Montana Indian Education for All Act passed in 1999, and, in 2005, lawmakers tied money to the program.

The idea was borrowed from Montana to say that we needed essential understandings, that all citizens in the state of North Dakota need to have a better understanding of the origin of our state so we could all become better, more informed citizens," said State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler.

The goal of the project also is to boost graduation rates of Native American students, Baesler said.

Our belief is that theres a link," Baesler said. "When we are able to become more culturally sensitive and have our teachers have a better understanding of what our Native American students have experienced, or what their culture and beliefs are, that theyll be better able to teach them."

Baesler said she recently held tribal consultation meetings at the four reservations in the state, and a recurring theme she heard from tribal leaders  and school district officials living near reservations  was a desire for students across North Dakota to have more knowledge and understanding of Native American language, culture and history.

The third annual Indian Education Summit will be held in Bismarck in July, when there will be another opportunity to provide the training, Baesler said.

Funding for the next phase of the project, including professional development for teachers, will be incorporated into DPI's existing budget for the next two years, according to Baesler, who said no new funding will be allocated for the training.

We have a lot of hopes, and were very optimistic about it," Baesler said of the project.
The manhunt is officially over for the searching of a man who killed an elderly man in Cleveland, Ohio on a gruesome Facebook live video. Steve Stephens appeared to have problems with a girl named Joy Lane and took his anger out on an innocent man. Although Steve had stated in another video that he had killed 15 people in one day, evidence later showed just one killing in the Cleveland area. But more investigations are being done to really see if this man is the reasoning for any more murders. There has been deaths around the Cleveland area which have caused speculation as Stephens made a strong claim about the number of people he had killed.

But like previously stated, only one case has been confirmed as a death at the hands of Stephens.

Dead in Pennsylvania

37-year old Steve Stephens has been found dead in his car in Erie County, Pennsylvania roughly 4 hours away from the place he once lived in Cleveland, Ohio. He was found with self-inflicted wounds which were sustained after a minor getaway from the police. According to the PA State Police, it is official. They made a statement on their Twitter about the situation.

Steve Stephens was spotted this morning by PSP members in Erie County. After a brief pursuit, Stephens shot and killed himself.  PA State Police (@PAStatePolice) April 18, 2017

This might not have been the most wanted result; many people wanted to see the man alive to have him handled in prison and to be interrogated for information about why he did what he did.

There was a bounty award of over $40,000 for anyone that can find the man that nicknamed himself "Stevie Steve." But at the end of the day, we can all be at peace with the death of a man who murdered an innocent man known as Mr. Robert Goodwin senior. A man who had a lot of people in his life that idolized him, with nine children and 14 grandchildren.

Cleveland can be at peace once again

This murder took a huge toll on the city of Cleveland and the state of Ohio. Many schools were on lockdown over the last few days due to news of the killer being on the run with intent to kill more innocent people. Not only did this affect Ohio, but it also affected neighboring states as people were told to keep their doors locked and children were not advised to attend school.

It's crazy how much of an affect one murder can have on so many people and so many cities. It could be due to the sheer manner of how the murder took place; the fact that it was in a Facebook live video had the world in awe. A man that doesn't care whether or not his face is seen in the video may not care about ending more innocent lives, and that's what had the city on lockdown.
The Chinese Dog Meat trade is still under considerable scrutiny while many animal advocates continue to work diligently to save dogs from a death sentence. Dogs raised for this purpose are often stolen from their families or just taken from the streets. They spend the remainder of their days in cramped, filthy wire cages in severe weather conditions, without any food or water, until they are slaughtered in horrific ways for their meat. One lucky puppy named Pang Pang (pronounced at Ping-Ping) came to the cruel flesh market in China after his mom was sold to the dog meat trade.

American Greyhound organization speaks out for Pang Pang

In a continuing effort to save dogs from slaughter and death at the Chinese dog meat markets, an organization known as the American Greyhound stepped in to save a helpless Greyhound puppy. Pang Pang the Greyhound was transported from Beijing to Kosciusko County and on to the United States. The foster coordinator of the American Greyhound organization, Stephanie Jones put together the efforts to save Pang Pang and brought him over to a shelter in Warsaw, Indiana until he gets the chance at finding a loving family and forever home. It appears that this little guy is only the second Greyhound to be saved from the dog meat trade and brought to the United States.

The other lucky one was Hui Hui who found shelter and a home in the Chicago, Illinois area.

Organization Duo Duo works to end China dog meat trade

Greyhound saved from Chinese dog meat trade now lives in Warsaw https://t.co/Yd2Lc6WhBB pic.twitter.com/iW3DRiSKKU  Melissa Hudson ABC57 (@MelHudsonABC57) April 18, 2017

The International Humane Society states that anywhere from 10 to 20 million dogs are slaughtered annually for the purpose of human consumption in China.

Other countries known to eat dog meat are Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, and India. Luckily, Pang Pang escaped these statistics by getting on a flight headed to the United States, but many other dogs do not. The strange fact is that China and others actually do not want to eat dog meat. IHS states that about 70 percent of these people never tried dog meat.

As Ms. Jones commented to the ABC news that she feels dogs are pets used as companion animals for people. No one is meant to eat a companion because it goes against nature. These animals deserve a better outcome in life in loving homes. She is hopeful that Pang Pangs story will inspire others to find homes for unwanted pups. Although he is in a shelter in Warsaw, Indiana, this adorable rescued Greyhound is now adopted and headed to his loving forever home in Wisconsin in June.
Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State, said while the US was unsuccessful in stopping Kim Jong-un from stockpiling missiles, the country was ready to take other approaches to end the North Korean leader's atomic weapons program. However, the media outlet that serves the North Korean state had cautioned that the country's military was equipped with weapons that could launch a massive preemptive strike against the U.S.A.

The U.S. President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader have taken a hard stance against each other. Both men have arguably promised to release fleets of very powerful arsenal against each other.

China tries to intervene in the US and N. Korea's feud

China, however, had stepped in to try and quell the tension that has become increasingly bitter over the past few weeks but was rebuked by the North Korean leader. And despite the warnings issued by the Donald Trump administration, Jong-Un and his military commanders continue to enhance the country's atomic weaponry program. However, the move by North Korea is against the agreement that governs the countries that are members of the United Nation Security Council.

The official news agency, Rodong Sinmun, reported the critical warning from the North Korean President. The state-owned media outlet declared that the country is capable of launching a super-strong preemptive strike that the military would release on the United States. And according to the report, the magnitude of the strike would reduce several U.S.

states to a plateau of fiery rubble. North Korea's President also warned that he had set in place a defense team that would wipe out the United States army once it invades the coastline of North Korea.

Jong-un boastfully parades stockpiles of military missiles

The outspoken Kim Jong-un consistently undermines the United State and has shown no constraint towards the neighboring countries of South Korea and Japan.

And while, the country's anticipated rocket launch failed miserably last Sunday, the young leader boastfully parades the country's large contingent of rockets in Pyongyang.

Recently, at a press briefing in Washington, Rex Tillerson told journalists that the U.S. President is taking a new approach to cut state sponsorship as well as pursue an alternate course of action that will put pressure on the North Korean administration.

However, the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, while he was on a diplomatic trip to several Asian countries stated that the period of strategic patience between North Korea and the United States was over.
Tad Cummins, the former Tennessee high school teacher, and Elizabeth Thomas, his teenage student, have been found in a commune in Cecilville, near the Oregon border. Cummins was arrested immediately in northern California. Thomas, who had been kidnapped, was found safe, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on Thursday, April 20, 2017.

Cummins has been Thomas' high school teacher at Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tennessee. They had been missing since March 13. An Amber Alert has been issued, but the pair managed to stay out of sight from the public until they were spotted on Thursday in a remote area that happens to be more than 2,000 miles from their home in Culleoka, Tennessee.

When the man was arrested, he allegedly said he was glad it was over.

The arrest and recovery

The 50-year-old former teacher and his 15-year-old student stayed in the headlines until they were found. There will be more news as authorities will do a thorough investigation. The kidnapper is being held in a California jail without bond. He awaits extradition to Tennessee where he will face charges of sexual contact with a minor and aggravated kidnapping. Elizabeth was taken to a local hospital to be checked out before she is returned to her family in Tennessee.

Officials processed more than 1,500 leads that came in from all over the entire country during the five weeks Cummins and Thomas were missing.

The nation breathed a sigh of relief when the breaking news came out that the pair had been found, and Elizabeth Thomas was safe.

An attorney for Elizabeth's family indicated that there is not a word in the English language to describe the relief members of the family experienced that this phase of the kidnapping is over. However, there will be another phase that involves Elizabeth's recovery after such a traumatic ordeal.

Cummins' family

Cummins has a wife, children, and grandchildren. His estranged wife, Jill Cummins, was very emotional when she heard the news. She and her daughters had recently spoken on television advising Tad to return. She has already filed for divorce because she feels Tad had betrayed her, and she can't understand why he put so many people through such a terrible ordeal.

Tad Cummins had been on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations 10 Most Wanted list. It was also reported that he had been grooming Elizabeth for a while before they went missing. It is unlikely that he will ever teach in a school again.
Republicans in the U.S. Congress and the Senate have made no secret of the fact that they fully support school vouchers, as well as making other targeted changes to public education in the U.S. This has been fully supported by fundamentalist religions like Christian Evangelicals who heavily bankrolled republican campaigns. With no separation of church and state in private or parochial schools students must say the Pledge of Allegiance. And there is no unions representing families and children in those schools, either. And when President Trump named republican and right wing Christian billionaire Betsy DeVos as his Secretary Of Education, he also bestowed on her the power to do whatever she wants.

Dr. John B King Jr pointed out changes to U.S. education policy

Like everything else the Trump administration has done to date, republicans immediately eradicated protections put into place President Obama. Dr. King, who had been the Secretary of Education under Obama, and who recently became CEO of the Washington based non-profit, Education Trust, reflected on those changes by saying that, "As a teacher, as a parent and as a citizen, its distressing to see the department walking away from its core responsibility of advancing equity,". One of the first things that President Trump did was to sign an executive order rescinding Obama's Every Student Succeeds Act, a law that included regulations holding states accountable for honoring the law.

Trump's education policies could also end the jobs of 500,000 public school teachers. More recently DeVos rescinded school diversity grants promoting socioeconomic integration in schools with little explanation. She also pulled back on civil rights enforcement, although President Trump promised repeatedly that he would protect African American's civil rights.

Apparently that didn't apply to education. Although President Trump had already signed an executive order rescinding educational civil rights for transgender students, Secretary of DeVos expanded it to cover all students.

There are signals republicans are considering changes in other areas as well

Dr. DeVos and other republicans do not think that there needs to be federal civil rights protections across a broad spectrum.

Republicans are also adamant about acting on education bill, H.R.610 which was sponsored by House republican Steve King of Iowa and titled The Choices in Education Act of 2017. It was sent to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on January 23rd, where it will brought to the floor sometime this year. Although primarily related to school vouchers, the bill also includes changes to the nutrition program for school lunches, and would completely repeal The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Repealing the act would also affect early childhood education programs like Head Start.

Tragically, protections under the Civil Rights Act, along with parent and teacher's rights in the education of their children, could become a thing of the past with republicans now controlling the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S.

government. And that is a very scary vision. Republicans have shown by the changes already made that the education of America's children is based on ideology and not on what is best for children and families.
President Donald J. Trump took to Twitter, explaining his stance on America using both American Steel and American labor. The President of the United States has been under fire for his use of social media, especially Twitter. President Trump has also been scrutinized about his many companies not using and selling products made in the United States.

In his tweet, President Trump stated:  We're going to use American steel, we're going to use American labor, we are going to come first in all deals.

Buy American

Throughout Trump's hard-fought campaign, he continually repeated how he was going to put America first in all things.

This included both safety and business. His latest tweet is simply him restating his stance on using American-made products and American labor.

Oklahomans react to Trump's tweet

We should use and buy as many products made in America as possible, Steve Russell, a machinist from Moore, Oklahoma stated in a recent interview. That is the best way to get Americans back to work. We need to support each other and our country, and we should be buying American stuff as much as possible.

Despite Trump's stance on buying American-made products, he has not always used American-made products. Many of the products, including ties for his clothing line for men, are made in countries other than the United States.

The use of foreign-made products did not change after the November election or the January inauguration. This has been pointed out, repeatedly, by both the media and those how to oppose Donald Trump's presidency.

Trump should practice what he preaches, Chloe Howard, a student at Oklahoma Baptist University, stated. He should be leading us, the entire country, by example.

Why should I buy American things when he doesn't?

We're going to use American steel, we're going to use American labor, we are going to come first in all deals. https://t.co/Ty5011oJjU pic.twitter.com/yC5ZuVavxK  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 20, 2017

Buying American helps

Buying American-made products appears to be an obvious way to help lower the country's unemployment rate, increase wages and improve America's economy.

This is not always possible due to the low cost of foreign-made products and the higher cost of American-made products. Until the costs are more equal, many Americans will continue to pay less for products not made in the United States.

President Trump has turned himself into a Twitter sensation. At the time of publication, he had 28.1 million followers. In a huge contrast to his number of followers, Donald Trump is only following 45 Twitter accounts. Those accounts include Kellyanne Conway, Roma Downey, Sean Hannity and several members of his family.
A federal U.S. air marshal was on a delta flight from Manchester in England to Kennedy International Airport in New York on April 6 when she accidentally left her loaded service weapon in the planes bathroom.

The service weapon was then discovered by a passenger on the flight, who handed it to a member of the flight crew. Flight crew then returned the weapon to the U.S. air marshal. However, the officer, who is based in New York, reportedly neglected to tell her superiors about the incident  which is required under agency policy  until several days later.

However, according to people familiar with the incident, despite this security lapse the same federal employee was assigned to another flight just a few days later.

Abandoning a loaded weapon is a significant security breach

According to a report by the New York Times, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is the parent agency of the air marshal service, had said in a statement it was aware of the incident, but could not comment on internal matters, except to say the circumstances of the incident are being reviewed.

According to current and former air marshals, leaving a loaded service weapon unattended is a significant security breach. They state this incident should have resulted in both the disciplining of the employee, along with an investigation.

Air marshal left a loaded gun in the plane's restroom; was still assigned to another flight a few days later. https://t.co/UrITUWmEoP  David Koenig (@airlinewriter) April 21, 2017

Air marshal service dates back to JFKs presidency

The air marshal service was reportedly launched when President John F. Kennedy was in the White House and was intended to protect against hijackings.

Officers, dressed in plain clothing, anonymously sit among normal passengers on a flight as the first line of defense against terrorist attacks and other threats.

As reported by Fox 5, Craig Sawyer  who used to work as an air marshal  commented that you cannot have inept people leaving their service weapons in a bathroom, adding that someone with ill intent could then easily get hold of that weapon.

According to people in the know, the air marshal concerned is a new hire. However, the TSA would reportedly not comment on that fact.

The Times went on to say that news of the incident comes at a time when officials have received intelligence which shows Islamic State militants are actively attempting to target aircraft by placing explosives inside electronic devices. This led to officials in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom barring passengers on direct inbound flights from ten Muslim-majority countries from bringing iPads, laptops and other larger electronic devices on board aircraft.

The service has its critics

Reportedly the air marshal service costs almost $1 billion a year to run and many critics in Congress say it is a waste of money and is unnecessary. Critics also say there is no evidence to show the program actually works and the current incident could give them the ammunition they need to put an end to the service.
Senator hurls Racial Slur at colleagues: - Miami State Senator, Frank Artiles, 44, apologized for using a racial slur towards two of his African-American colleagues during a private conversation on Monday, April 17. The incident took place around 10:00 pm at Tallahassees Governors Club, a members-only club near the state capital. Senator Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville and Perry Thurston of Fort Lauderdale approached Artiles at the club; a tense exchange was had and Artiles hurled a few insults at the women in an alcohol-fueled rant.

Angry outburst comes to light

According to Thurston, a witness to the incident, Artiles called Gibson a f**king asshole, a bitch, and a girl. He then went on to say that (white) Senate President Joe Negron rose to his leadership position because 6 [racial slur] in the Republican caucus had helped elect him. The question remains whom Artiles was speaking of as the black senators in the #Florida senate are all registered Democrats; none of whom backed Negrons bid either.

After being reported to Republican leaders, he personally apologized to Gibson on Tuesday afternoon, However, byTuesday evening, Negron called Artiles behavior "appalling" and demanded he formally apologizes on the senate floor on Wednesday.

During his three-minute and 45-second-long apology, Artiles tried to justify his actions, explaining that he used a slang pronunciation of the n-word he thought inoffensive. Additionally, he revealed he grew up in a diverse community (Hialeah). We share each others customs.

Artiles apologizes for 'crass and juvenile' comments

In an exchanged with a colleague of mine in the senate, unfortunately, let my temper get the best of me.

There is no excuse for the exchange that occurred and I have apologized to my senate colleagues and regret the incident profusely, Artiles stated on Wednesday. Despite apologizing to Gibson and Thurston, as well as Negron, Articles immediately lost his chairmanship of the Senate Communications, Energy, and Public Utilities.

A few hours later, Thurston filed a formal complaint seeking expulsion of Artiles over his rant.

Senator resigns

The shadow he has cast over our chamber deserves the most severe punishment available, Thurston stated. While Artiles apologized on the senate floor Wednesday, Thurston did not look at him once, instead keeping her back to him. Punishment for Artiles ranges from a reprimand to removal from senate. On Friday, April 21, Artiles submitted an official letter of resignation to the Senate presidents office. This comes four days after the incident, but he explains that his actions are now a distraction to his colleagues, the legislative process, and Florida.
china has put its military on high alert and the United States has observed increased activity around the fleet of Chinese military aircraft. These include bombers capable of carrying cruise-missiles and these are being made battle-ready so that they can participate in any action at short notice should North Korea would be involved.

The Chinese strategy

According to CNN, the activities that China has undertaken in respect to its military inventory is to keep them in readiness so that they can intervene at short notice in case of any contingency. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang has admitted that he was aware of reports about a heightened alert in the Chinese Air Force, but did not elaborate.

The situation in the Korean peninsula is volatile and Pyongyang added fuel to fire when their state media warned the US that if it carries out a pre-emptive strike, it would destroy the US as well as South Korea.

The worries for Beijing are the after effects of the collapse of the Pyongyang regime. If and when that happens, China would be faced with an influx of refugees from North Korea. Moreover, the collapse could set the stage for a reunification with the South Korean government which is an ally of the United States.

China can play a leading role

The economy of North Korea depends on the largesse of its ally China. As per estimates nearly 85 percent of its economic trade is from its ally who can use this as a lever to make North Korea see reason and work out a solution.

The strategy of the United States is to convince China to take an active part and ensure that its ally shelves its nuclear ambitions. China can play a crucial role to find a political solution to the problem. Analyzing the earlier failed negotiating efforts it is presumed that China has never really exerted enough leverage.

Of course, recent comments by Lu Kang, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, who spoke highly of Washingtons approach was a good sign. But the US administration feels that these are early times and the strategy must be worked out in such a way that it brings in the results.

Incidentally, the April summit meeting in Florida between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping paved the way to a better understanding of the problems.

Observers interpret this change in perception of Beijing as a positive sign and hope that a solution is found to ease the tension in the Korean peninsula. All concerned must realize that confrontation will not help matters.
By Jing Shuiyu in Zhuzhou,Hunan and Feng Zhiwei in Changsha | China Daily | Updated: 2017-04-21 08:23

Technicians assemble a maglev train at the CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co Ltd plant in Zhuzhou, Hunan province. [Photo by Xu Xing/For China Daily]

China's first 160 kilometer-an-hour magnetic levitation trains will be delivered this yeara breakthrough that will help accelerate the pace of developing a medium-to-low speed series of maglev family products, a leading rail sector executive said on Thursday.

A production line with intelligent manufacturing systems will be launched by the end of 2018, said Zhang Liqiang, vice-president and chief financial officer of CRRC Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co Ltd.

Zhang said the trains will be used in Central China's Hunan province, where the nation's first 100 km/h maglev rail line has been "operating safely and smoothly" since last year.

He said CRRC Zhuzhou had decided to research and supply maglev trainswith higher speeds between 160 kmh and 200 kph with lower construction cost and higher operation efficiency.

Zhang revealed his group's plans to a group of correspondents from Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states, on a visit to the company on Thursday, which was organized by the ASEAN-China Center.

Zhang said the trains would mainly target domestic markets, and added that several cities such as Wuhan in Hubei province had shown strong interest.

Maglev trains are considered safer and cheaper than constructing traditional metro and light rail systems. They use electromagnets and especially designed tracks to keep the trains from overturning or derailing.

The railway major's cutting-edge technology and product development have been fueled by the country's Made in China 2025 strategy, which was designed to promote high-end manufacturing.

To enhance its operating efficiency and product quality, the company will launch a production line with intelligent manufacturing systems by the end of 2018, Zhang said.

"By then, robots and robotic arms will get most work done in that production site."

Qian Qingquan, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at Southwest Jiaotong University, said China has already formed a complete industrial chain of middle-to-low speed maglev trains.

China's rail transit innovation and immense growth potential will provide a solid base for a maglev train industry, Qian said.

The world's first maglev line was launched in China in 2002, connecting a metro station to the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai.

The 30-km journey takes less than eight minutes to travel, thanks to train with the speed of up to 430 kph.

Contact the writers through jingshuiyu@chinadaily.com.cn
By Liu Kun in Wuhan and Yang Wanli in Beijing | China Daily | Updated: 2017-04-21 07:21

Pedestrians wait at closed turnstiles at a street crossing in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Wednesday.Miao Jian / For China Daily

Automatic gates have been installed at a busy crossroad in downtown Wuhan, Hubei province, to prevent pedestrians from crossing on a red light.

And if you break the rules, your face will instantly appear on a big display screen.

The gates, similar to the turnstiles at subway stations, have been placed near a major shopping mall on Jinyitan Road as part of the city's effort to crack down on jaywalking.

They are part of a pilot project to encourage people on foot to obey traffic rules, according to a head of the design team from Wuhan Xinhongkai Traffic Technology Co, who was quoted in a report by Chutian Metropolis Daily using only his surname, Zhu.

Synchronized with the traffic lights, the gates close on red and open on green.

A large electronic display screen was set up behind the gate, and cameras monitor the pedestrian action. Anyone breaking the rules is photographed and shown on the display.

The gates are still being tested, Zhu said, adding that guardrails will be built soon to prevent people from walking through the gap between the gate and curb.

Zhu said the system costs 300,000 to 400,000 yuan ($44,000 to $58,000).

The company is paying for the pilot. If the test is effective, the company will promote it in other places that have large pedestrian flows.

A source at the Wuhan Traffic Administration Bureau who asked not to be named, told China Daily on Thursday that the gates were installed by the company to evaluate new products.

"We are following this pilot project to see whether it is practical," the source said.

Zou Hao, 30, a Wuhan resident working in the public sector, said: "I think it is not a good deal. The cost is high and the results may be poor.

"To stop people from running red lights, raising people's awareness of safety and strengthening public morals is essential. Our public behavior will influence others. Ignoring traffic lights puts lives in danger, and traffic is sometimes blocked."
Chengdu, an attractive city in Southwest China, is on its way to becoming a low-carbon region.

The city government has prioritized an ecological belt project in recent years in order to promote its urban environment. The project, due to be completed in 2020, will cover an area of 133.11 square kilometers and will include areas flanked by the city's ring expressway.

Reservoirs and wetlands are key parts of the plan, with the construction of three reservoirs and six wetland areas expected to wrap up this year.

Chengdu has implemented protection regulations for the ecological belt, making itself the first city in China to release local regulations for such protection in specific areas of a city.

The ecological belt, on which construction started in 2012, has so far received more than 10 million visitors annually. Tourists have also given favorable comments on the beautiful environment and free access to the belt, Chengdu Daily reported.

The city recently issued a pilot implementation plan to build a low-carbon city, which outlines how Chengdu will promote this development in three phases.

The city aims to make its total carbon emissions peak before 2025 and become an advanced city domestically in terms of low-carbon development.

According to the plan, energy efficiency in Chengdu will remarkably increase by the end of 2020 and the carbon emission levels of the city's main industries will approach or be among the lowest globally. Total greenhouse gas emissions in Chengdu will also be reasonably controlled by then, according to the plans.

Local officials said market mechanisms to help save energy and reduce carbon emissions will be established at that time.

They added that Chengdu hopes to become a role model in western China in terms of low-carbon production and a green lifestyle.

The city government has put forward detailed goals to ensure the plans are implemented, aiming for consumption of non-fossil fuel energy to account for 30.3 percent of primary energy consumption. The administration aims to achieve forest coverage of 40 percent and central urban greenery coverage of 45 percent.

The Sino-French Ecological Park in the Chengdu Economic and Technological Development Zone will be an exemplary low-carbon area in Chengdu that will explore a new city construction path that integrates both the city's and industries' development in terms of low energy consumption and low carbon emissions.

The park is focusing on strategic emerging industries such as energy-saving and environmental protection, new energies, new materials and advanced equipment manufacturing. A representative from the park said their design concept is to bring nature into the city so that the park will be an attractive area with a pleasing environment.

Chengdu has embraced two innovative approaches to improve its environment.

One of them is to encourage enterprises and the public to participate in greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and to guide residents to have more environmentally-friendly and healthy lifestyles, including consumption habits.

In addition, the city government aims to explore and set up a traceability system to ensure the city's total carbon emissions will peak before 2025 as planned.

The system will be based on a data management platform.
World-leading environmental protection experience used to expand biodiversity of breeding habitats

Giant pandas, golden monkeys, snow leopards  the Sino-US nature documentary Born in China, which is being released in cinemas in the United States on Friday, showcases the wildlife and natural beauty that is unique to China.

Many US viewers have been loyal fans of the giant panda, one of the world's most beloved species. Bao Bao, a panda born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in the US, had been an international star before she returned to Chengdu on Feb 21.

Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, is a major habitat for giant pandas. It has been dedicated to improving its ecological environment, protecting rare and endangered animals and plants for years.

The city's government recently announced that a giant panda park will be established on west Chengdu's Longmen Mountain, covering an area of 1,616 square kilometers. The park is an important part of a national system to increase the protection of giant pandas and other rare wildlife species.

According to a related program, the park system stretching across Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces will cover more than 27,000 sq km, equivalent to the size of three Yellowstone national parks combined.

Hou Rong, director at the research center of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, said Chengdu's giant panda national park will help to strengthen protection of the natural ecosystem and the biodiversity of the panda habitat.

Hou also suggested establishing a research center at the national park, given that Chengdu has accumulated rich experience in protecting, researching and establishing international communication around giant pandas.

The city led the world in setting up a giant panda base  a non-profit research and breeding facility  in 1987, with six hungry and sick pandas rescued from the wild. By the end of 2016, the base had established the world's biggest captive breeding population, with 176 pandas.

Chengdu, also known as the City of Hibiscus, has featured in the works of many poets since ancient times. Li Bai in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Lu You in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) are prominent names among the many who have described its picturesque scenery.
Action star Jackie Chan has a young incarnation of himself fighting evil in his upcoming animation series, All New Jackie Chan's Adventures. [Photo provided to China Daily]

It is an issue that bothers most celebritieshow to stay young forever on the silver screen.

And it gets an answer from Jackie Chan in his upcoming Chinese animation series All New Jackie Chan's Adventures, where the kung fu giant has a young incarnation of himself, also called Jackie, fighting evil.

"Now I can always be young on screen," says the 63-year-old action star.

"I want children to be fans of the young Jackie from the animated series. And when they grow up, they can watch my live-action films and listen to my songs," he adds.

One of the earliest Hong Kong stars to find fame in Hollywood, Chan has impressed the Western audience with his stylish blend of stunts and comedy. But the tough guy behind 100-plus action movies now unveils his rarely seen softer side for the children's program, which targets those aged 3 to 10.

During a recent promotional event in Beijing, he sang and danced with a group of children and led a hairy llama on stage.

Chan says this is not his first animated series, and that one had been made in the United States around 20 years ago.

That work called Jackie Chan Adventures, a five-season US series, ran on The WB Television Network from 2000 to 2005, and was broadcast in 60 countries.

Action star Jackie Chan promotes his upcoming animation series, All New Jackie Chan's Adventures. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In the latest series, J-Team, a group of pupil superheroes led by the young Jackie try to stop a villain, who turns children's sweet dreams into nightmares.

In each episode, lasting around 12 minutes, Chan appears in the first and final scenes to show off stunts and offer tips on morality and values.

Chan says the current production is the first time that he has licensed Chinese studios to make an animated series named after him, and he hopes that the 104-episode series will grow into a franchise, including books, films and games.

Separately, a feature-length animated movie on him is set to be released in China in 2018.

Chan also says he hopes the upcoming series will promote Chinese culture and history in overseas markets.

Shi Ting, marketing director of VJ animation studio, one of the producers of the series, says around 150 Chinese animators worked on the 41-million-yuan ($6 million) series for six years.

"We specialize in children's animation. And, after we discovered that most children cannot tell the difference between dreams and reality, it inspired us to do a series about dreams," says Shi.

The research took place in seven major cities across China.

Related:

Jackie Chan, Chinese astronauts win 2016 influence awards

Jackie Chan exhibits artworks of movie props to promote recycling
Economist Tyler Cowen believes China has a culture of ambition and dynamism and a pace of change that harkens back to a much earlier America. Provided to China Daily

New book argues that complacency underlies US economic, social problems

Tyler Cowen's latest book has struck a nerve in the United States. He sees a failure of spirit underlying the many worrying trends his country has seen over the last 40 years  the lack of wage growth, declining life expectancy in some groups, increased inequality, growing monopolization of the economy, increasing racial and income segregation in schools and housing.

Fewer Americans now become richer than their parents. They move between cities much less often and start many fewer businesses. As the last election demonstrated, many Americans seldom meet, much less understand, fellow citizens with different backgrounds or worldviews.

Cowen, a frequent visitor to China, is a well-known free-market-oriented professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. His book, The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream  has provoked widespread discussion and has been reviewed and analyzed in all the leading newspapers and policy journals.

In an interview, Cowen explained that he defines complacency as "not feeling a sense of urgency about the problems of your society or your nation. This manifests itself in seeking more safety and security and moving away from dynamism."

In contrast to his worries about the US, he writes: "Even with its recent economic troubles, China has a culture of ambition and dynamism and a pace of change that harkens back to a much earlier America. China, even though in the midst of some rather serious economic troubles, makes today's America seem staid and static. For all its flaws, China is a country where every time you return, you find a different and mostly better version of what you had left the time before."

Asked why he believes that China is dynamic compared with developed countries and almost all developing countries, he says:

"There are plenty of practical reasons. Standing above all is that the Chinese people have an idea that they can believe in, that China should be great again. They believe this deeply, and, actually, in a fairly unified way, though they may disagree on how to get there. I think this is a strong feature of China. They have a sense of the continuity of their past and want to recapture this leading role.

"A lot of the more practical factors are able to operate because, at this intellectual and ideological level, people believe in something very dynamic. Make China great again, so to speak."

But, dynamism and striving can be hard. Life in the United States might be too easy and too oriented toward safety rather than effort or adventure. He says: "If you are an American and you just don't want to work that hard, and have a lower-middle-class existence, your life is pretty good, provided you don't abuse opioids or do something stupid. It's harder to do that in China and many other places."

His description of Americans as complacent and settled may shock many. After all, didn't the US create the internet and other technological marvels? Don't its tech companies dominate world markets?

Cowen says that the US, of course, has some incredible companies that employ the world's smartest workers. But Silicon Valley is not representative of the country.

US business has also become less competitive inside the country. Cowen says: "Startups as a percentage of overall business have declined gradually in each decade since the 1980s. In general, there are higher levels of monopoly and concentration in the US economy. Chain stores are much more important. The companies we have last longer and it is harder to start new companies. It is harder to turn new companies into successes.

"People see highly visible companies like Facebook or Uber and think there is lots of competition, but the economy as a whole is a different story."

In recent decades, China has seen more competition and lots of new business starts. Cowen says that the growth of nationwide companies has squeezed out the old provincial or regional monopolies.

Real wage growth in China has averaged more than 10 percent per year, while US wages have been basically flat for 40 years. Cowen says that US wealth is going to monopolists and other "rent-seekers"  people who take advantage of their special positions.

One symptom of US complacency is the inability to build great public works anymore. For example, the Washington metro system in 2000 started seriously planning an additional line intended to reach Dulles International Airport. So far, less than 50 kilometers have been built, not yet reaching the airport. Meanwhile, the Beijing subway system has added 17 lines and more than 500 km of track.

"There are more veto points in the US system," Cowen says. "There is less agreement on who should pay for things.

"Keep in mind that most of the subway lines in Washington are actually getting worse. It's not that we built the new line and maintained the rest. Overall, it is much worse. There is a lack of a sense of urgency. On any given day, you don't feel you need to fix it now, so it never gets done."

He says that his experience at George Mason University leads him to believe that much of China's dynamism comes from the opportunities it offers to non-elite young people.

"It is striking to me how many of the good Chinese students in the US come from rural areas and do not have very wealthy parents. They are not typically from the poorest families, but they are not just from the elite families in Shanghai.

"Part of it is the exam system. I think that for all the talk of corruption, China is fairly meritocratic in the sense that a smart person from a middle-class or poor family really can rise a great deal."

Looking around the world, Cowen sees few dynamic countries.

He believes Japan paved the way in complacency. There is even a special word in Japanese  otaku  for the numerous young men who have withdrawn from society, not even pursuing sex or marriage. They have a pretty comfortable life, but one without ambition.

"India is a more complex story, but certainly worth a look," he says. "The story for China is true throughout most of the country, but for India you have to tell a more diverse, heterogeneous story. It would not be as simple as the China story."

Cowen also sees promise in Nigeria and Ethiopia: "I wouldn't say they have passed the success threshold yet, but they are future candidates.

"Nigeria impressed me with its human capital, dynamism and ambition, even though the country is currently in recession. And, like the overseas Chinese, Nigerians have done quite well abroad.

"Ethiopia's recorded rates of economic growth were the highest in the world from 2014 to 2017 and have been high for a decade."

Despite its current dynamism, China should be wary of factors that could lead to complacency the way it has in other countries. There may be an inherent cycle that moves all societies toward stagnation.

An aging society will naturally become more complacent, but he believes there is currently so much dynamism in China that it has some time to deal with that.

More generally, he says, barriers will accumulate in any system. "Privilege will dig in. Elite schools will become more of a transmission belt of privilege. The US is much further down this path, but China will develop its own version."

China cannot be complacent about its current dynamism.
PARIS - One police officer was killed, and two others severely injured in a shooting incident Thursday evening on the Champs Elysees shopping street in Paris, authorities said.

Spokesperson of the French interior ministry Pierre-Henry Brandet told local broadcaster BFMTV that the police officers were "deliberately targeted", and the assailant was shot dead.

The gunman, armed with a machine gun, got out of a car and opened fire at the police in front of the store on the street, reports quoted a witness as saying.

He then began running away and injured two other officers before got shot in an exchange of fire with the police.

"We are asking all residents to avoid the Champs Elysees area in order to allow police operations to be carried out in serenity," said Brandet, adding that police investigation into the motive of the attack is underway.

The police are currently collecting statements from the various witnesses who were at the scene when the incident occurred, to verify the presence of a second assailant.

Meanwhile, the French prosecutors' office said the counter-terrorism office had opened an inquiry.

French President Francois Hollande will deliver a speech soon after an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl.

Cazeneuve paid homage to the killed policeman and expressed solidarity with the injured on his Twitter account.

The Champs Elysees street was closed off shortly after the shooting, while a helicopter started patrolling the area.

Police vehicles with flashing lights were seen lining up along the street, and passengers were told to move away from the area.

Concerns over security have been raised since Tuesday when two men were arrested for plotting an attack before the French presidential election, which is set to begin on Sunday.
SAN JOSE, Califonia - Facebook wants you to sit in your bedroom wearing a headset and take a virtual vacation with faraway friends and family. Or use your smartphone's camera to spruce up your dinky apartment, at least virtually.

The promise of augmented and virtual reality was a big focus of Facebook's annual conference for developers on Tuesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the gathering of programmers and other tech folks by talking about augmented reality tools he envisions on Facebook.

Augmented reality involves the overlay of computer-generated images into real-world surroundings. Zuckerberg said new phone-based applications might let you create a three-dimensional scene from a single two-dimensional photo or splatter the walls of your house with colorful digital art. You'd see the digital additions by looking "through" your phone at the augmented physical world.

Chores more interesting

Facebook executives stressed that the technology is still in its early stages, and that the "journey to the future of augmented reality is just 1 percent finished", as Deb Liu, vice-president of platform and marketplaces, put it.

Zuckerberg envisions the marriage of augmented reality and Facebook's camera feature enabling people to make even mundane chores, like doing the dishes, look entertaining with digital effects.

Of course, it could also result in people staring into their smartphones even more intently as they marvel at an alternate reality instead of their actual surroundings.

"Over time, I think this is going to be a really important technology that changes how we use our phones," Zuckerberg predicted.

Facebook also launched a virtual world, called Facebook Spaces, designed to let users of its Oculus Rift VR headset hang out with avatar versions of their friends in a virtual world.

It's the first time the company has connected the Rift to its social network in a meaningful way, though it's a development Zuckerberg hinted at when the company bought Oculus back in 2014 for $2 billion.

Coming your way

While the new tools and features are impressive, analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research cautioned that "most of them won't be in users' hands anytime soon".

That's especially true for the Spaces app, since relatively few of Facebook's 1.9 billion members are using Oculus' VR headset, which sells for about $500 and requires an expensive computer to make it work.

But Facebook could still have the edge on rivals such as Snapchat, which also launched some augmented reality features on Tuesday, likely to coincide with Facebook's news. "Facebook has the resources to move fast in this area and the audience to spread those features much more widely than Snapchat," Dawson wrote in a brief research note.

Snap representatives did not immediately respond to an email for comment on Tuesday afternoon.

Facebook's focus on smartphones over high-tech glasses or headsets makes sense given how familiar they are, said Gartner analyst Brian Blau. "People already have cameras and are used to having fun and being creative with them," he said.

"This will give people a chance to experience augmented reality in a way that isn't so scary or off-putting."

Until the past year or so, it seemed like it would be at least another decade before augmented reality would have a chance to become a widely used technology, said Ficus Kirkpatrick, Facebook's director of engineering.

But advances in image and object recognition, along with the ubiquity of smartphone cameras, "has put us on the course to bring augmented reality," Kirkpatrick said in an interview.

Chatting with firms

Facebook also announced a bevy of updates to Messenger, its increasingly independent messaging app.

Messenger head David Marcus claims the app has become the de facto "white pages" of messaging, since people can find and chat with friends without knowing their phone number. Now, Messenger wants to do the same for businesses, creating a "yellow pages" of sorts that let companies communicate with their customers.

Messenger will also let people chat with outside businesses as a group. That would, for instance, allow groups of friends to share Spotify playlists or to make a restaurant reservation through OpenTable that keeps everyone on the same page. The idea is simplify what might otherwise require a flurry of texts and sharing of links.

Zuckerberg also briefly addressed a tragedy that took place on Monday, when a man posted video of a murder on Facebook. That raised questions about Facebook's ability to monitor gruesome material on its site.

The Facebook founder said his company has "a lot of work" to do on this front.

Associated Press
Awards night - Philadelphia, PA The Penn Wharton China Summit 2017 was held at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from April 14 to 16. The organizer gave awards to guests including Zhang Qiyue (fi fth from left), Chinese consul general in New York; Geoff rey Garrett (seventh from left), dean of the Wharton School; and Tad Smith (third from left), president and CEO of Sotheby's on April 15. Provided To China Daily
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In June we plan to drive to Kansas City, Mo., to attend a convention, so we looked for sites to visit and found one that attracts, the National World War I Museum and Memorial. Since this is the 100th anniversary of the United States involvement in that conflict, it promises to be a worthwhile visit. Having toured Washington, D.C., and several of its memorials a few times, I never saw one specific to World War I. Simple answer, there isnt one. Why then is there one in Kansas City?

After the war ended, patriotism did not end for this super-charged city. They formed the Liberty Memorial Association with the intent of building a memorial to honor those who had served. Support was high, and when they passed the hat, citizens opened their wallets to donate $2.5 million in just 10 days. Planning commenced and in 1921 a large gathering of people witnessed the dedication of the site where the five Allied commanders who had never been together in one place at the same time came to dedicate it. Those commanders were Gen. John J. Pershing, United States; Gen. Armando Diaz, Italy; Gen. Jacques de Dixmunde, Belgium; Admiral David Beatty, Great Britain; and Marshal Ferdinand Foch, France.

Support for the site continued even after its condition deteriorated over the years to the point of closing in 1994 for safety reasons. Community leaders undertook another financial drive and raised $102 million for repairs and expansion. Recognizing the importance of the site, Congress in 2014 gave it proper recognition as the National World War I Museum and Memorial. With that, this memorial continues to stand proudly on well-kept grounds in Kansas City. But all that occurred after the war.

The buildup to entering this war fought on European battlefields was complicated, almost beyond understanding. Bullets had started flying already in the summer of 1914 after the assassination of the rather insignificant leader of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Previously, European countries had been harping at one another and were divided into confusing factions of alliances and treaties. As a consequence, war began and resulted in a staggering 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded.

Here in North Dakota, the mood of the people tended toward maintaining neutrality and that the war in Europe resulted from trade rivalries. As for entering the war, Elwyn Robinsons book "History of North Dakota" states Most North Dakotans believed that munitions makers were behind the preparedness movement.

President Woodrow Wilson promoted neutrality despite harassment from German submarines that continually sank shipping, including the Lusitania, and a faction who pressured him to enter the war. He maintained that stance until escalating events forced him to ask Congress for a declaration of war. One good reason for not entering the war was our woefully unprepared military. Here we heard from Teddy Roosevelt, who did not like Wilson and wanted him to step up. He said of his refusal to prepare, My God, why doesnt he do something? TR wanted to lead a military unit to battle again, but Wilson would have none of it, thinking hed propagandize it into another Charge up San Juan Hill, and potentially winning the presidency again.

The military could not fight in their condition, neither did Wilson have much in the way of generals to command a large army. He could have called on Gen. Leonard Wood, but he was thought too closely associated with Roosevelt. Besides, at the time, it seemed Wilson was more interested in chasing the elusive Pancho Villa around Mexico to retaliate for his raid across the border into New Mexico. Gen. John J. Pershing led the U.S. forces on that mission and even though he did not capture Villa, he gained some relevant combat command experience and was therefore chosen to lead the army.

The interception of a secret document called the Zimmermann Telegram had a lot to do with convincing Wilson the U.S. must go to war. Germany recognized the anti-American sentiment in Mexico and tried to take advantage of it by sending a coded message to Mexico from Germany in January 1917. It urged them to consider joining a potential military alliance among Germany, Mexico and Japan in the event that the United States might enter the war. It promised military and financial support if the Mexicans would attack the United States and in exchange Mexico would be free to claim its old territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

This past January the British Broadcasting System published an article about the importance of the Zimmermann Telegram. Good Lord," President Wilson said when he was told of the details. The telegram was then leaked to the American press, which published it and an astonished public read on March 1, 1917. A month later, America was in the war.
On April 9 the Good Times Ranch 4-H club from Mandan made gift bags for area hospitals to give to sick children. The bags are filled with toys and activities to entertain the children during their time in the hospital.

The club started planning the service event in January. They raised over $300 from donation jars at MVP gas stations and from members of the club themselves and were able to give over 100 bags to CHI St. Alexius and Sanford Health.

This is part of the National 4-H True Leaders in Service initiative in honor of National Volunteer Appreciation month. True Leaders in Service, a monthlong community service activation that will culminate with the National 4-H Day of Service on April 29.






At Ti Toay Atelier, children can improve their mindset of arts without being restricted to particular standards.



A child uses basic straight lines to draw a car.



Forming figurines from polymer clay helps increase the sensitivity of children's hands.



Each class has a theme to help children explore their surroundings, from nature to animals.





Children are exposed to different modern and traditional arts from different countries all over the world.



Ti Toay Atelier's program has been regularly updated and renewed so that children can enjoy the most pleasant arts space.

Children are introduced to the art of painting on do paper.



Children are instructed how to hold their brush



Children learn how to use a brush to paint.



Children are into the creation of their own artistic works.



It is special that instructors at Ti Toay Atelier do not intervene in a childs creativity,

they are free to create according to their own ideas. A class on introduction to images and patterns for children at Ti Toay Atelier.At Ti Toay Atelier, children can improve their mindset of arts without being restricted to particular standards.A child uses basic straight lines to draw a car.Forming figurines from polymer clay helps increase the sensitivity of children's hands.Each class has a theme to help children explore their surroundings, from nature to animals.Children are exposed to different modern and traditional arts from different countries all over the world.Ti Toay Atelier's program has been regularly updated and renewed so that children can enjoy the most pleasant arts space.Children are introduced to the art of painting on do paper.Children are instructed how to hold their brushChildren learn how to use a brush to paint.Children are into the creation of their own artistic works.It is special that instructors at Ti Toay Atelier do not intervene in a childs creativity,they are free to create according to their own ideas.
HA NOI  The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) on Friday announced that it is selling its retail operations in Viet Nam to South Koreas Shinhan Bank Viet Nam.

In a press release, the ANZ said that its retail business serves 125,000 customers in Viet Nam and includes A$320 million (US$240m) in lending assets and A$800 million in deposits. However, the lender did not disclose the value of the deal.

The deal, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be completed by the end of this year. It will include the transfer of all eight branches located in Ha Noi and HCM City as well as the transfer of the entire retail staff.

The sale of our retail business is in line with our strategy to simplify the bank and improve capital efficiency. It allows us to focus resources on our largest business in Asia  institutional banking  where we are among the top four corporate banks that support regional trade and capital flows, said Farhan Faruqui, ANZ group executive, international. We have a long history in Viet Nam, and we will maintain our presence through our Institutional Bank, which we will continue to support our corporate clients in the Greater Mekong Region.

ANZs Institutional Bank is present in 15 Asian markets, and was ranked among the top four corporate banks in the region for the fifth consecutive year in 2016 by Greenwich Associates.

The sale of ANZs retail business in Viet Nam follows the announcement in last October of the sale of its retail and wealth business to DBS in five Asian countries.

Shinhan Bank Viet Nam is an affiliate of the Shinhan Financial Group, a Seoul-based company that is listed on the Korean and New York stock exchanges. The bank has been active in Viet Nam for 24 years and is headquartered in HCM Citys District 1.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nams exports of wood and wooden products in the first quarter of this year hit US$1.78 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17.1 per cent, the General Department of Viet Nam Customs reported.

This was especially evident in exports to the US and Japan, Viet Nams largest wood importers. In the first three months of 2017, Viet Nams wood export to the US reached $596 million, 17.6 per cent higher than the same period last year. The export to Japan grew at 6.6 per cent, earning $256 million.

These impressive results made wood and wooden products exports the biggest earners of Viet Nams farm export sector in Q1. Its considered a positive signal for the expected target of $10 billion in timber export value by 2020.

In 2017, the sector set a target of $7.5 billion in wood export, however, given the first quarter results, this number could rise as high as $8 billion this year, said Huynh Van Hanh, deputy chairman of the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of HCM City (HAWA).

According to preliminary figures compiled by the Centre for Industrial Studies (CSIL), global furniture consumption is worth more than $460 billion a year. Viet Nam accounts for just 1.65 per cent of this figure, which means there is considerable room for Vietnamese firms to increase their market share.

China is the worlds largest supplier of wooden products, accounting for 37 per cent of the worlds total consumption. However, the Chinese government cut its overall timber harvesting quotas by 9 per cent, equal to 40 million cubic metres of timber, opening up more opportunities for Vietnamese firms to boost their exports, Hanh said.

In addition, a series of free trade agreements that the country has signed will offer greater export opportunities for domestic firms, he added.

The Republic of Korea (RoK) is also one of the countries which have signed a free trade agreement with Viet Nam, leading to a 16.6 per cent increase in revenue of wood and wooden exports to this country to $143.84 million.

According to the Viet Nam Trade Promotion Office in RoK, trade relations between the two countries will grow rapidly due to the close connections in aspects such as politics, diplomacy, investment.

The office also says that if the use of raw materials of unidentified origin in export products is eliminated, the wood industry in Viet Nam will have more opportunities to expand and develop its market in RoK.

The demand of global markets for high-value wood products is also an important factor for raising the value of wood exports. Demand for furniture items, for example, are estimated to increase sharply this year. Therefore, many Vietnamese wood enterprises have been boosting investment in modern automatic technology, while expanding production scale to fulfill orders.

In order to promote wood export in 2017, it is necessary to prioritise the development of artificial boards and many Viet Nams firms are qualified to produce this product. Another solution is focusing on potential markets, such as India and the Middle East, as suggested by the Viet Nam Timber and Forest Products Association.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam and Iran have maintained close diplomatic relations, however, trade relations are not commensurate with the potential of the two countries, said the chairman of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vu Tien Loc, at the Iran-Viet Nam Business Forum held in Ha Noi on Thursday.

The first meeting of this newly created forum hosted a delegation of 19 Iranian business representatives, along with Vietnamese company representatives.

In 2016, bilateral trade turnover between these two nations reached US$116.9 million, of which Viet Nam exported $86.8 million to Iran and imported $30.1 million.

The trade records have yet to reflect the two countries economic capacity as Iran is one of the biggest markets in the Middle East while Viet Nam is the doorway to the Southeast Asia region, Loc added.

Viet Nam is strong in exporting products such as footwear, textile and garment, fruits, rubber, coffee, rice, pepper, while Iran could provide Viet Nam with energy sources, petrochemical and mining products. The leaders of the two countries agreed last year to boost bilateral trade to $2 billion by 2021.

In addition to trade co-operation, tourism development is also a potential growth field, which could serve as a basis for expanding ties between the two countries.

Dr. Glolam Hossein Shafei, head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), said that being one of the largest oil reserve countries in the world, Iran could supply Viet Nam with products such as petrochemicals, bitumen, polymers, base oils, building materials and minerals. Already, Iran exports a large quantity of bitumen and polymer beads to Viet Nam.

Viet Nam can be a bridge connecting Iranian products to Southeast Asian countries, and vice versa, Iran will be a gateway for Viet Nams goods to reach the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe, said Gloham.

Sharing experience in doing business in Iran, chairman of An Viet International Operation Investment Joint Stock Company, Tran Van Tri, told Viet Nam News that Iran was a prospective market for Vietnamese investments. At the beginning, Tri planned to export seafood products to Iran. However, after visiting Iran twice to conduct market research, he opted for the opposite idea - establishing a company in Iran to export fish to Viet Nam.

Irans Government adopted a number of preferential policies allowing me to open a company there, such as corporate and personal tax exemption for 20 years. However, one of the biggest challenges for foreign enterprises in Iran is the payment methods. Iran is under financial sanctions by the US, and enterprises have to process payment via intermediary banks in third economies such as Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, Tri said.

Every year, Viet Nam imports around 500,000 tonnes of bitumen from countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. Iran is very famous for bitumen with the best quality and competitive price, however, not many Vietnamese firms approach our market due to the long shipment duration. We are seeking a Vietnamese partner to open a bitumen agency in Viet Nam to bring Iranian bitumen closer to Viet Nams customers, Irans ACE Oil Companys commercial manager Mohammad Ghaffari told Viet Nam News.

The forum was held in keeping with a promise made last October by the ICCIMA chairman to bring a delegation of enterprises to Viet Nam.

The seminar was designed to promote trade co-operation and friendship between Viet Nam and Iran, while creating investment opportunities for participating enterprises.

US$2 billion trade target

Vietnamese and Iranian leaders have pledged support for their businesses to achieve trade valued at US$2 billion, President Tran ai Quang told the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines and Agriculture of Iran, Gholam Hossein Shafei, during a reception in Ha Noi on Thursday.

The State leader said both sides agreed to boost trade and investment in oil and gas, telecommunications, agriculture and fisheries, adding that Viet Nam could export quality products to Iran at competitive prices, such as rice, tea, coffee, cashew nut, pepper, rubber, motorbike and bicycle spare parts.

The Vietnamese State encourages domestic firms to invest in Iran, and also encourages Vietnamese banks to sign co-operation agreements with Iranian counterparts to enable smooth payment, he said.

According to Shafei, two-way trade has grown 22 per cent following high-level mutual visits in 2016. Both sides plan to establish Chambers of Commerce and Industry, with offices to be inaugurated in the two nations next March.  VNS
HA NOI  To-be-bankrupt financial and credit institutions may have to refund their individual customers using support loans from the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) and other financial firms.

The idea was proposed by SBV in the draft law on the restructuring of credit institutions and bad debt settlement to protect the benefits and rights of customers at credit institutions that are going bankrupt due to its inability of improvimg their performance or recovering from bad conditions.

Part of the refund will be provided by SBV and other financial institutions, such as the State-owned financial institution Deposit Insurance of Viet Nam (DIV).

The current maximum level of deposit insurance that DIV can provide for a bankrupt creditor is VN50 million (US$2,200) for each individual customer. The Government and other authorities are discussing the possibility of raising the maximum level of insurance for each account to VN75 million.

With the current level of deposit insurance, individual customers that have deposited less than VN50 million in bankrupt banks and financial creditors do not have to worry about their assets.

For deposit accounts worth more than VN50 million, bankrupt creditors must take loans at preferential rates from SBV and other financial institutions to refund their customers.

The lending rate will be determined by the Government on the request of the central bank. Individual customers that may not be refunded are managers, directors, major shareholders, founding shareholders and investors of the credit institutions and those that are related to these subjects.

Bankruptcy of banks and creditors has attracted a lot of attention from analysts in Viet Nams financial market.

Bankruptcy should be the last solution when dealing with weak-performing financial institutions and it would be a long and complicated process but in line with international practices, according to the economist Nguyen Tri Hieu.

Lawyer Truong Thanh uc said Viet Nam is a market economy, therefore, weak-performing banks and financial firms should go bankrupt to make the countrys banking sector secure and effective.

During the past four years of the banking systems restructuring, SBV acquired three weak-performing banks -- Vietnam Construction Bank, Ocean Bank and GP Bank -- compulsorily at zero ong.  VNS
VINH PHUC  Rescued bears in Viet Nam will have more living space with the inauguration of two houses with two semi-natural enclosures at Tam ao National Park bear reserve in the northern province of Vinh Phuc.

The two semi-natural enclosures cover a total area of more than 5,600 square metres and are connected through bear houses, which have a total area of 465 square metres with 13 large dens inside.

The construction of the project started last September with a total investment of approximately VN10 billion (US$440,000), financed by the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF).

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony on Wednesday, Dr Tuan Bendixsen, Chief Representative of AAF Viet Nam, said the new houses, which have been significantly improved in comparison with older ones at the reserve, are able to accommodate 40 bears.

AFF made efforts to ensure there were enough fully-intact green trees to provide shade in the semi-natural enclosures, and maintained the natural terrain and small hills in order to create space for bears activities, he said.

He also expressed his thanks to the management board of the Tam ao National Park and the Forest Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for their support in implementation of the project.

Tran Minh Long, an official with the Forest Protection Department, praised the AAFs efforts in recent years, adding that the two new enclosures would contribute to shutting down illegal bear farms and bringing bears back to their natural habitat.

The Vietnam Bear Sanctuary is the largest international-standard bear rescue centre in Viet Nam. Five double bear houses and 10 semi-natural enclosures have been built there so far, providing homes for 161 bears.

The countrys wild bear population has declined sharply over the past 20 years, according to recent surveys carried out in 22 protected areas.

Interviews with over 1,400 residents living next to the protected areas indicate that the bear population declined between 1990 and 2005, mainly due to hunting. Although 77 per cent of respondents believed bears were still present in their local forest area, the majority agreed their numbers had declined.

This period coincided with the expansion of bear bile farming, with the number of bears kept on bile farms increasing tenfold, from 400 to over 4,000 between 1999 and 2005. Bears in bile farms, mostly Asiatic black bears, also known as moon bears, are subjected to bile extraction from their gall-bladders, allegedly for medical use.  VNS
NGHE AN  Garbage and wastewater pollution from factories is threatening the Lam River and its arms in the central province of Nghe An.

Dozens of factories discharge untreated wastewater into the river daily.

Nguyen inh Tung, chairman of the Peoples Committee in Quy Hop District said the area is home to many enterprises that mine and process stone and tin ore.

Local authorities are aware of the problem of waste discharge but lack the funds to do anything about it, Tung said.

Its hard to control illegal mining due to the large number of plants here, he said.

Environmental management should be tightened, especially companies mining stone and tin ore, he added.

Last month, hundreds of kilograms of fish died in Nam Huong Stream after a waste treatment system at a tin ore plant broke.

Roughly 12m of the storage system ruptured on March 8, leaking nearly 100cu.m of mud and wastewater into the stream.

Local authorities have taken samples of the waste from the stream to determine the extent of the contamination.

The leak also affected more than 300ha of rice along the stream, while Nam Huong residents may face lead or arsenic poisoning.

Vi Thanh Tuong, vice chairman of Peoples Committee in Quy Hop District said that local authorities have asked the companies to treat their waste themselves due to a lack of funds to build a waste treatment system.

Many violations of waste laws have been punished, he said.

In Anh Son District, wastewater from Song Lam Sugarcance Joint Stock Companys plant was also reported to have polluted a river.

Local residents said they saw a large sewage pipe which was carefully hidden in bushes.

The river has seen a rise in wastewater, with white foam like soap and a yellow-brown substance discovered, Dan Tri online newspaper reported.

The wastewater was discharged daily in the sugarcane harvest season. At night and on holidays, the water became dark and smelly, a local resident told the newspaper.

Le Viet Quy, the companys production director, complained that local residents did not understand the companys wastewater treatment system.

Our company checks wastewater standard twice a year and has permission from authorised agencies to discharge, Quy said.

He also confirmed that the dark water reported by residents was wastewater caused by workers cleaning machines.

Nguyen Huu Sang, chairman of Anh Son Districts Peoples Committee, told reporters that he had heard no reports about the company, but promised to inspect the incident and deal with it if the company violated environmental regulations.

A wood processing factory is in the same situation.

People in Yen Khe Communes Na Pha Town said that the wood factory of Con Cuong Forestry Limited Company discharged untreated wastewater directly into Diem Stream, a Lam River branch, on a daily basis.

Locals reported that the factorys wastewater pipe was in the middle of the stream, making it difficult to see.

Many fish had died at one point due to contamination of wastewater from the plant, they added.

Additionally, factories in Nghia an and Quy Hop districts intentionally discharged untreated wastewater into the Hieu, Nam Ton rivers and Nam Huong Stream - the Lam Rivers arms, they said.

The environmental pollution in the rivers, especially the Lam River, is a big problem and needs attention not only of authorities but also the community, said Vo Duy Viet, director of the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

The province is trying to find a best solution to minimise the negative impact of these activities on the river environment, he said.

According to Viet, violations should be punished strictly and raising public awareness of environmental protection needs to improve.  VNS
HA NOI  Nearly 100 Vietnamese movies and documentaries will be screened to celebrate Liberation and National Reunification Day (April 30), Labour Day (May 1), ien Bien Phu Victory Day (May 7), and late president Ho Chi Minhs birthday (May 19), as part of celebrations for National Tourism Year  Lao Cai, Tay Bac, from April 25 to May 23.

The opening of the screenings will be held in Lao Cai on April 25 by the Cinema Department with screening of movie Bien Cuong (Border) and documentary Tren inh A Mu Sung (In A Mu Sung Peak).

Border reflects the silent struggle of border guards to ensure security in border areas, while In A Mu Sung Peak tells the story of people in a northern village of Lao Cai province. Border guards and teachers who volunteer to work in this remote and difficult area are also featured.

The Cinema Department, the events organiser, also scheduled a talk between directors, actors and the writer of the two films with A Mu Sung border guards and audiences on the opening night.

Other films to be shown include Toi Thay Hoa Vang Tren Co Xanh (I See Yellow Flowers In Green Grass), Quay Phim Chien Truong (Filming In Battlefield), Nha Tien Tri (Fortune Teller), Tren inh Binh Yen (In Peace Peak), Nga Ba ong Loc (ong Loc Crossroad), and ung ot (Dont Fire). VNS
BUDAPEST  The 24th Budapest International Book Festival was inaugurated on Thursday with the attribution of the Budapest Grand Prize to Turkish winner of Nobel Prize in Literature Orhan Pamuk.

"I write novels so that I can sympathise and understand the souls of people who think in completely different ways from mine," Pamuk said, when receiving the award. Pamuk is the honourary guest of the festival this year.

"Everywhere in the world, people want to be modern and state-of-the-art, but they also want to keep their identity and heritage, which gives birth to many contradiction, and I am a man who loves these paradoxes," the author added.

The prize was given to him by deputy mayor of Budapest, Alexandra Szalay-Bobrovniczky, and Andras Sandor Kocsis, president of the Association of Hungarian Publishers and Booksellers Association.

"The more than 20 years of history of the Budapest International Festival, which became one of the most important book festival of the region, proves that it is good to read, and that printed words have no alternatives," Hungarian State Minister for Culture and Science Diplomacy Istvan Ijgyarto told the opening ceremony.

Besides Pamuk, the four countries of Visegrad, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary were also at the center of the book festival.

"The spirit, the way of life, the community of values and destiny of Central Europe binds the Visegrad countries, despite all of the existing conflicts of interests and the harms inflected upon each other over the course of history," Ijgyarto added.

"Our literatures are unique, but they do influence and draw from one another," he also said.

Besides authors, the Visegrad countries were also represented by many translators and publishers.

The book festival will close on Sunday.  XINHUA
National Assembly Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu (R) receives President of ICA-Asia Pacific (ICA-AP) Li Chunseng on Thursday in Ha Noi.  Photo daibieunhandan.vn

HA NOI  National Assembly (NA) Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu suggested the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) continue supporting Viet Nam in improving its co-operatives capacity, helping Vietnamese producers penetrate regional and international markets.

He made the suggestion at a meeting on Thursday in Ha Noi with President of ICA-Asia Pacific (ICA-AP) Li Chunseng, who is visiting Viet Nam to attend the 10th Asia Pacific Co-operative Ministers Conference.

The host also called for more technical assistance from the alliance to Viet Nam to help the country to innovate and apply high technologies in agriculture.

He stressed that the conference provided a chance for Viet Nam to learn from other countries in promoting the role of co-operatives in developing the economy.

To facilitate co-operatives development, the Vietnamese NA issued and amended the Law on Co-operatives three times and adopted a resolution on the development of new-style co-operatives to 2020, he said.

He revealed that Viet Nams co-operatives are in the process of shifting organisational structure, operational model and scale in combination with the programme on building new-style rural areas.

For his part, Li Chunseng hailed Vietnamese co-operatives work and recognised the countrys contributions to the organisation of the conference.

He said the activities of the ICA and ICA-AP have helped create jobs, boost agricultural production and reduce poverty.

He hoped Viet Nam would continue supporting the ICAs activities, including by setting forth measures to foster peace, security, prosperity and sustainable development.  VNS
HA NOI  Disadvantaged groups are not benefiting from the new Law on Forest and Development, experts said at a conference Wednesday in Ha Noi on amendments to the fifth draft of the Law on Forest and Development.

Although altered five times, the draft has not regulated the rights of disadvantaged groups to own and use forests, especially of the ethnic minorities who will be most affected by the law, said Luong Thi Truong, director of the Centre for Sustainable Development of Mountainous Areas (CSDM).

Her opinion was supported by Nguyen The Dung, a project coordinator from the Mekong River basin. None of the draft laws articles have clarified how they would protect disadvantaged groups access to forest resources, he said.

The draft law only regulates forest ownership of households and communities that have been given forest areas by the Government, meaning only two million of 18 million people who live in or near forests and make their living out of them.

How to ensure the rights to own and use forests for the remaining 16 million people should be considered when making amendments to the law, he said.

His opinions touch on Article 257 of the 2015 Civil Code that came into effect on January 1, regulating the right to exploit and enjoy benefits of assets owned by others for three years, he said.

Community forestry

Statistics from the Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC) show that some 1.5 million households and individuals in the country have received forest areas from the Government, as well as some 600 organisations and 10,000 communities.

The forest area managed by households and residential communities accounts for some 46 per cent of the countrys total.

However, as of March 2017, only 0.35 per cent of this forest area was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), meaning that the majority of households and communities have not received proper support and incentives from the Government and enterprises for better forestry production, said Luong Quang Hung, a RECOFTC representative.

The notion of community forestry has only appeared in pilot projects and has not been legalised in any legal document, said Nguyen Quang Tan, another RECOFTC representative.

The significance of community forestry has not been realised since knowledge on the subject is limited, he added.

On the other hand, traditional forest management methods should be legalised to encourage residents participation in forest management and community forestry, he added.  VNS
HA NOI  Disqualified projects will be removed from the list of mid-term public investment projects in the 2016-20 period, National Assembly (NA) Vice Chairman Phung Quoc Hien said on Thursday.

The 14th session of the NA Standing Committee continued its ninth meeting on Thursday with a discussion of projects and specific sums of capital allocated for projects under the middle-term public investment plan for the 2016-20 period.

National Assembly Vice Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong urged the review of 249 projects for which the capital source has either not been fully disbursed or is unknown, or some that lack capital altogether.

National Assembly Deputy Chairman Phung Quoc Hien asked the Government, Minister of Planning and Investment, and chairs of peoples committees to take charge of these projects to ensure their completion between 2017 and 2020, and proposed removing those that are not finished.

According to Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung, the NA has approved total capital for 2016-20 mid-term public investment of VN2 quadrillion (US$88.1 billion). Investment disbursed for projects of ministries, sectors and localities is VN1.74 quadrillion ($76.6 billion).

The Government has allocated over VN1.13 quadrillion ($50 billion) for the first phase, accounting for 56.7 per cent of approved mid-term investment.

About VN163.34 billion ($7.2 million) has been used by the Government to support 458 communes of 12 Mekong Delta provinces in the national target programme to build new style rural areas. Localities received VN7.3 trillion ($325 billion) to assist people who made contributions to the nation. About VN1.03 trillion ($46 million) of Government bonds have been spent on relocation and resettlement of those affected by the Son La Hydropower plant project.

In the detailed investment disbursement of the second phase, the Government has directed ministries and localities to address climate change adaptation programmes and green development, investment in coastal roads and dealing with disadvantaged localities.

According to Dung, the Government allocated the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies a mid-term public investment sum of VN20.865 trillion ($900 million).

The Government proposed allocating VN12.67 trillion ($546.64 million) that the State budget owed to the Viet Nam Development Bank and another VN15.01 trillion (647.6 million USD) for the bank.

National Assembly Deputy Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong ordered the allocation of VN2 trillion ($88 million) for the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies to support developing social houses with a priority for families who made contributions to the nation.

The committee also asked the Government to review urgent trans-provincial projects, projects related to forests, Ninh Thuan Provinces nuclear power project and projects with specific mechanisms for ethnic minority groups, while ensuring these projects equality.  VNS
North Dakota teachers have developed new math and English standards to replace the much loathed Common Core. The new standards were crafted by North Dakota educators and didn't totally abandon Common Core.

However, one of the leading critics of Common Core, Rep. Ben Koppelman, R-West Fargo, seems satisfied. He expects the new standards will be the first step in moving away from Common Core. Opponents of Common Core thought establishing nationwide standards took away local control and considered it federal overreach. State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler will have to select a new standardized test to replace the exam from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

It's important that parents and the public care about education and want a say in how it's implemented. Hopefully, the new standards will ease the concerns of the Common Core critics. Debate can be healthy, but eventually agreement needs to be reached. Schools need an established curriculum so students can move through the grades and their progress can be tracked.

One of the drawbacks to the new standards is their uniqueness to North Dakota. It will be difficult to compare the progress of North Dakota students to kids in other states. The fact the standards are geared toward North Dakota students also is a strength. Educators know the needs of our students and tailored the standards for them. It will be interesting to see the standards tweaked over the next few years.

Education constantly undergoes change. Technology plays a key role as the days of traditional textbooks and libraries fade away. Teachers are finding new ways to challenge their students.

Recently Simle Middle School students were honored for designing a solar-powered charging station for homeless people to use to charge their cellphones. It was a hands-on learning process and they will be able to see the outcome of their work in operation.

It's also not all science and math as the Department of Public Instruction has plans to integrate Native American culture and history into classroom instruction.

We have to remember the importance and challenges involved in a broad-based education. Our students need the skills to compete in the digital world along with learning our history and appreciating the arts. We're trying to cram a lot of knowledge into their brains. How we convey that information to the students and how we track their progress is the key to our success.

First, we need good teachers and administrators, then we need a good plan and resources and we have to have parental and public support. Of course, the most important part is the kids eager to learn.

The new math and English standards are an important step in the constant effort to improve education in North Dakota. Everyone needs to work to make them successful.
The Monsanto Tribunal has found Monsanto  an US multinational chemical firm  guilty of ecocide, with long-term consequences on the ecosystem of various nations, including Viet Nam.  AFP Photo

HA NOI  US companies, Monsanto in particular, holds responsibility for assisting efforts to address Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin consequences in Viet Nam, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said on Thursday.

She was responding to queries about Viet Nams response to the International Monsanto Tribunals conclusion that Monsanto had destroyed the ecosystem and inflicted losses on the Vietnamese people during the war.

Viet Nam welcomes the International Monsanto Tribunals ruling on April 18, she said, adding that Monsantos environmental destruction had severe war consequences in Viet Nam, especially due to the impact of Agent Orange sprayed by US troops.

She said Monsanto should respect the tribunals recommendations and take practical actions soon to help deal with AO/dioxin consequences.

Hang lauded recent active moves by the US government, parliament and people towards settling the aftermath of war in Viet Nam, including AO consequences.

The Monsanto Tribunal has found Monsanto  an US multinational chemical firm  guilty of ecocide, with long-term consequences on the ecosystem of various nations, including Viet Nam.

The conclusion was delivered by five international judges in The Hague, the Netherlands, on April 18 after six months of investigation and two days of testimony.

Once a producer of AO/dioxin for the US army during the war against Viet Nam, the biotech giant now produces pesticides and genetically modified crops.

The judges said Monsanto was engaging in practices that negatively impacted the human right to a healthy environment, food and health.

Convened by civil society groups, the tribunals findings are not legally binding.

However, Judge Francoise Tulkens, chair of the Monsanto Tribunal, said the conclusion was drawn based on acknowledged reports and evidence.

Victims of toxic chemicals and corporate power can use the conclusions in their liability cases against Monsanto and similar companies, the judge said.

The findings will be submitted to the United Nations, UN Human Rights Committee, International Criminal Court, and Monsanto.

East Sea issue

Also on Thursday, Hang stated that countries in and outside the East Sea should act responsibly and in conformity with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, to ensure peace and stability.

She was responding to reporters asking for Viet Nams reaction to reports that China had just conducted a live firing drill focusing on the occupation of islands in the East Sea.

Maintaining peace and stability, as well as maritime and overflight security and safety in the East Sea is the mutual interest and responsibility of countries within and outside the region, Hang emphasised.

Schoolgirl murder

Hang also said on Thursday that the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan was in contact with relevant Japanese agencies and is keeping a close watch on efforts to bring the culprit to trial for the murder of Vietnamese girl Le Thi Nhat Linh in Chiba prefecture.

Competent Japanese agencies are investigating the case to define actions relating to the suspect in the murder, she said.

On March 24 this year, Le Thi Nhat Linh, a third-year grader in the elementary school in Matsudo, went missing after she left home to go to school as usual.

Two days later, she was found naked and dead at a site near a drainage ditch about 10-12km from the school. Police believed Linh was kidnapped right after leaving home at 8am on March 24.

Besides an injury on her head and garrote marks on her necks, Linh also had an injury on her wrist and scratches on her body.

Japanese police arrested Shibuya Yasumasa, 46, a suspect in the murder on April 14. Chiba Police made the arrest after his DNA matched that of DNA samples found on Linhs belongings.

Legal aid for VN suspect

Vietnamese and Malaysian lawyers are collecting evidence to defend oan Thi Huong, a Vietnamese suspect in the death of a citizen of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), at her next court hearing, according to Hang.

Hang spoke at the meeting in response to reports that at the hearing on April 13, the Malaysian police did not co-operate in providing evidence for the defence.

Hang reiterated Viet Nams stance that Huong needs to be tried in a fair and objective manner in line with Malaysias law and international practices, with her legitimate rights ensured.

oan Thi Huong, 28, is one of the two women suspects in the murder of a DPRK man named Kim Chol at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13.

On March 1, the two were charged with murder. They have denied the accusation, saying they were deceived into taking part in an innocuous prank.  VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc pledged to assist Laos in developing transport infrastructure and create all possible conditions for Laos to exploit Vung Ang seaport in the central province of Ha Tinh to spur its socio-economic development.

PM Phuc spoke at a reception in Ha Noi on Thursday for Lao Minister of Public Works and Transport, Bounchanh Singthavong.

The PM told the visiting minister that the two countries will soon break ground for the Lao National Assembly House in Vientiane with Vietnamese funding, which he expects will be efficiently used.

The Lao minister said that under instructions from Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport discussed with the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport plans for the upcoming visit to Laos by Prime Minister Phuc.

He took the occasion to thank the Vietnamese Government and the Ministry of Transport for their assistance.

Nagasaki delegation

The same day, PM Phuc received Nakamura Norimichi, Governor of Nagasaki prefecture, who is visiting Viet Nam with a business delegation.

The PM welcomed the visit and plans to expand opportunities for co-operation and investment with Vietnamese businesses and localities.

He suggested Nagasaki enhance co-operation with Vietnamese localities, especially in the areas of Japans strength like automobile manufacturing and shipbuilding.

For his part, Governor Nakamura said that since 2015, the Japanese prefecture has sent nearly 100 business delegations to Viet Nam. A large number of them travelled for cultural festivals, especially in Hoi An with a view to seeking co-operative opportunities.

Last year, the Japanese prefecture invited 300 Vietnamese students from HCM City to join home-stay programme.

Nagasaki has already formed close relations with Quang Nam and intends to invite local authorities to the Japanese prefecture in 2017.

The Governor took the occasion to thank the Vietnamese side for its selection of Nagasaki as a training centre for Vietnamese athletes in preparation for the Olympic Games 2020.

Hyundai motors

PM Phuc also hosted a reception on Thursday for Managing Director of the RoKs Hyundai Motor in charge of commercial vehicles, S.K. Han. The PM praised the automakers co-operation with Viet Nams Truong Hai Automobile Corporation (Thaco) in producing trucks and buses in Quang Nam, as well as Hyundais goal of increasing the localisation rate in vehicle production in Viet Nam.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam and the US should sustain and strengthen their economic and trade links, as they are key to bilateral relations as a whole, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said on Thursday.

Minh, who is on an official two-day (April 20-21) visit to the US, was speaking during a meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Advisor of the US National Security Council Herbert Raymond McMaster in Washington DC.

In his talks, the Deputy PM reaffirmed Viet Nams consistent foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification and multilateralisation of relations, and international integration.

Viet Nam and the US have great potential to strengthen co-operation, he said, suggesting the two sides expand links in education, training, science-technology, security-defence, and humanity, and in dealing with the consequences of war.

Minh said Viet Nam was willing to work with the new US administration to reinforce and deepen the Comprehensive Partnership between two countries, based on respect for independence, sovereignty and political institutions of both nations.

This would contribute to peace, stability, co-operation and development in the Asia Pacific region and the world, he said.

US State Secretary Tillerson and Advisor McMaster highlighted the flourishing growth of Viet Nam-US ties in recent times, and expressed their belief that the relationship will become even stronger.

The new US administration attaches importance to the Comprehensive Partnership with Viet Nam, they stressed, agreeing on the need to enhance exchange visits at all levels to foster bilateral co-operation.

Tillerson affirmed that the US would work with Viet Nam to ensure that the APEC 2017 brings about practical results.

While comparing notes on regional and international issues, Tillerson and McMaster underlined the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation in the East Sea.

The US supports the settlement of disputes in the sea by peaceful measures based on diplomatic and legal processes, in line with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), they stressed.

At the meeting, Minh conveyed President Tran ai Quangs invitation to US President Donald Trump to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum in 2017 and pay an official visit to Viet Nam.

Tillerson and McMaster affirmed that President Trump will attend the event in Viet Nam.

Advisor McMaster also conveyed President Donald Trumps invitation to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to visit the US.

Minh also met with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday.

Mnuchin said the US supports Viet Nam continuing to receive international development assistance from the World Bank in accordance with the nations needs in the near future as well as under the auspices of co-operative activities within APEC.  VNS
NEW YORK  Viet Nam calls on Israel and the Palestinians to resume negotiations on a peaceful solution to their conflict on the basis of United Nations resolutions, Ambassador Nguyen Phuong Nga, head of the Viet Nam delegation to the UN, said Thursday at the UN Security Councils open debate on the Middle East.

She affirmed that Viet Nam supports the Palestinians just struggle for basic rights, including the right to self-determination.

The ambassador also expressed deep concern over recent developments in Syria, stressing that Viet Nam strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons and actions against innocent civilians.

She urged all parties to immediately stop actions that could escalate tensions and co-operate on a political solution to the Syrian conflict through dialogue and negotiation.

Only a peaceful solution, on the basis of basic principles of international law, can achieve sustainable peace for Syria and end the misery for Syrians, she added.

During the debate, representatives of 51 countries and three organisations delivered speeches. Many of them expressed concerns over prolonged conflicts, violence and escalating tensions in the Middle East.

They called upon Israel to end its occupation of Palestine, which has lasted for 50 years, while condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria on April 4, and supporting the pursuit of political solutions.  VNS
HA NOI  From now until 2020, elderly people with no pension or State allowance, living in poor circumstances or in mountainous, island or ethnic minority areas will be entitled to social benefits.

This is one of the objectives of the project "Renovating and developing social benefits in 2017-2025 period, with a vision towards 2030, which was recently approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. The ultimate goal during the entire implementation period of the project is to provide timely support for 100 per cent of disadvantaged people.

Also, according to this project, from this year until 2020, 50 per cent of the seriously disadvantaged population will be able to receive social welfare that suits their needs, with at least 10 per cent receiving comprehensive social services.

Moving on to the 2021-2025 period, the project aims to raise monthly social welfare allowance and provide support for children below 36 months old, pregnant women of poor or near-poor households, and households in mountainous, island or ethnic minority areas.

The coverage will be extended gradually, so that, by 2030, all elderly people without pension or State allowance, children below 36 months old and pregnant women from disadvantaged households will be entitled to social welfare. The level of support will be adjusted in line with the budget capacity and international trends.  VNS
Stringent regulations regarding foreign loans are influencing the disbursement of loans committed by lending organisations to carry out projects in Viet Nam, said Chief Representative of Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) Viet Nam Office Fujita Yasuo on Thursday.  VNA/VNS Photo

HA NOI  Stringent regulations regarding foreign loans are influencing the disbursement of loans committed by lending organisations to carry out projects in Viet Nam, said Chief Representative of Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) Viet Nam Office Fujita Yasuo on Thursday.

Fujita Yasuo pointed out obstacles to JICAs support provision, elaborating that the introduction of an annual quota on official development assistance (ODA) funding last year as part of the Vietnamese Governments efforts to keep public debt under control resulted in a stall in money disbursement to pay several contractors on JICA projects.

Contractors were owed up 10 billion yen (US$91.6 million), of which a major part was from the ongoing Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway project, said Yasuo during a press conference on JICAs activities in the fiscal year of 2016 and 2017.

Failures in paying the contractors and hence the workers stopped the money flow in the society which was a real pity, Fujita said.

It is also not beneficial for Viet Nam when it wants to call for capital or issuing bonds as its credibility is already tainted.

Fears over increasingly high public debt, which stood at 64.7 per cent of GDP in 2016, nearing the red line of 65 per cent, prompted the Government to tighten controls on foreign loans.

A governmental decree went into effect in May last year  Decree 16 on the management and use of ODA funding  making the approval of an ODA project more complicated, which has prolonged time spent on the projects, said Yasuo.

We know that this is a common problem of other lenders like the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, he said.

We will work with loan providers to ask the Government to fix the issue.

In the fiscal year 2016 starting from April 2016 to March 2017, Japan pledged to provide Viet Nam 187 billion yen ($1.7 billion) and managed to disburse 175.6 billion yen ($1.6 billion). The disbursement amount was the second highest that Viet Nam received from Japan over the last seven years.

Japan planned to provide Viet Nam 130 billion yen ($1.19 billion) this year for five big projects, one of which is to strengthen the countrys maritime security.

However, the funding depends on many factors, like Viet Nams actual demand considering the public debt context, Fujita said.

Ha Noi urban railways

JICA is stepping up its efforts to resume the two urban railway projects in Ha Noi that have been up in the air for four years.

Out of the nine railway lines planned in the capital, railway Route 1 and Route 2 will be funded by Japans ODA.

Route 1 will run from Thanh Tri Districts Ngoc Hoi to Yen Vien in Gia Lam District while Route 2 will connect Noi Bai international airport and the Thuong inh area in Thanh Xuan District

Fujita said that it took up to four years for authorities to finalise the total investment amount.

We are working with the authorities in order to start the bidding round as soon as this year, he said.  VNS
HA NOI  The capital citys prosecuting agency, Ha Noi Peoples Procuracy, today anulled a decision taken by the local police on April 15 relating to the arrest of a senior resident over a land-reclaimation protest.

The anullment came in response a police department request that preventive measures relating to 82-year-old Le inh Kinh, a resident of ong Tam Commune in My uc District, Ha Noi, be rescinded.

The police requested the anullment saying Kinh had admitted his wrongful acts and have never been convicted previously.

Kinh was arrested in the communes Hoanh Village on April 15 as part of investigations launched in the case of residents causing social unrest on March 30.

Kinh suffered some injuries during the arrest and was hospitalised. Three other people who were arrested along with Kinh were released on April 18.

Earlier today, residents of Hoanh Village also released ang Van Canh, deputy head of the Publicity and Education Committee of My uc District.

Canh told the local media later he was released because of his health condition.

They let me go owing to my health. I was treated well during the last few days; the villagers treated decently all the other people that they held hostage, Canh said.

I wish the locals would keep calm, he added.

The case relates to locals unhappiness with a decision to reclaim 50.03ha of land in My Luong, Tran Phu and ong Lac communes of Chuong My District and ong Tam Commune in My uc District. They had lodged complaints with district and city agencies.

Authorities maintained that the locals had trespassed upon military land, but residents denied the charge.

Last Saturday, when Ha Noi police arrested four alleged violators to investigate the case on causing public disorder, 38 city policemen and officials of My uc were illegally detained by the villagers.

Fifteen of the hostages were freed on Monday.

Ha Nois Peoples Committee Chairman Nguyen uc Chung visited My uc District yesterday to talk to residents, but the issue was not resolved.

Chung said he would hold another meeting today with the residents of ong Tam Commune.VNS
HCM CITY  Farmers should increase the application of bio-organic-based integrated pest management to sustain the health of the soil, preserve bio-diversity and improve agricultural product quality and safeguard peoples health, a seminar heard in HCM City yesterday (Friday).

Nguyen Tho, deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Plant Protection Association, said Viet Nams agriculture has over the last few decades relied mainly on intensive farming using chemical fertilisers, pesticides and other products to increase yields.

The method has succeeded in increasing the countrys production of food crops, and fruit and industrial trees, but caused severe ecological imbalances, making the land less fertile and increasing soil-borne pathogens, he said.

Land and water have been badly polluted in rural areas due to abuse of crop protection chemicals, and pesticide residues in farm produce are high, he said.

Furthermore, with climate change, crop pests are becoming harder to combat, he said.

To effectively combat soil-borne pests, farmers need to adopt bio-organic farming methods, he, as well as many other attendees, said.

Using bio-organic products would help sustain agriculture since it would help protect the environment, preserve bio-diversity, reduce costs, produce safer farm produce, and reduce the threats to peoples health, they said.

Duong Hoa Xo, deputy chairman of the city Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said it is imperative that agriculture protects the environment, ensuring hygiene and food safety and protecting the health of both producers and consumers, to meet the increasing global demand for safe food.

Prof Dr Pham Van Bien said many countries have begun to adopt organic agricultural practices, with the area under organic farming increasing.

In Viet Nam too the area has increased significantly in recent years, though it is still very modest compared to the total farming area.

According to the Viet Nam Organic Agriculture Association, the country exports small quantities of some organic products like tea, shrimp, rice, cinnamon, anise, and attar.

There are some successful organic models in involving tea and vegetables by Ecolink and Ecomart, vegetables by Organik a Lat, a unique thick-skinned orange in Ham Yen, Tuyen Quang Province, rice by Ca Mau-based Vien Phu Green Farm and others.

But Viet Nam still lacks national standards and a comprehensive legal framework for production, certification and quality control of organic agricultural products, Bien said, adding that the Government should soon have in place policies, mechanisms and a national standard system to make it easy for businesses and farmers.

More than 250 scientists, provincial officials, agricultural scientists and farmers from many southern provinces and cities attended the seminar, which was organised by the Viet Nam Plant Protection Association and Tropical Agricultural Research and Consultancy Centre.  VNS
ONG NAI  Two people were killed on Friday when a truck collided with a motorbike on a stretch of National Highway No. 1 running through Xuan Tam Commune in ong Nai Province.

The victims were a couple riding the motorbike. Following the collision with the bike, the truck then hit a container truck parked at a gas station nearby. The truck driver ran away from the scene following the accident.

The motorbike was destroyed and the top of the truck was damaged. The local police are investigating the incident.

Also on Friday, at least two people were injured after a Camry car slammed into six motorbikes on northern Thanh Hoa Provinces Nguyen Trai Street. The injured were taken to Thanh Hoa General Hospital for treatment.

Two cars and six motorbikes were damaged in the accident. The case is under investigation. VNS
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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.
BINH THUAN  Binh Thuan Province has held a conference to solicit investment in high-end tourism, high-tech agriculture and clean energy projects.

At the event, provincial authorities issued investment licences to 14 projects, including nine in tourism development.

The tourism sector industry to develop a 310ha hot spring resort worth US$50 million, a lake site and an express boat service between Phan Thiet City and Phu Quy Island.

Located some 200km from HCM City on the south-central coast and having a 192km coastline, Binh Thuan is known for its beautiful beaches and sand dunes.  VNS
PARIS  A known terror suspect gunned down a police officer and wounded two others Thursday on Pariss Champs Elysees in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group days before Frances presidential election.

The shooter opened fire with an automatic weapon on a police car on the world-famous boulevard at around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT), prompting tourists and visitors to run for their lives.

After killing the officer and injuring his colleagues, the gunman was shot dead in return fire while trying to flee on foot, police sources told AFP.

"The perpetrator of the attack in Champs Elysees in central Paris is Abu Yussef the Belgian and he is one of the Islamic States fighters," said an IS statement published by its propaganda agency Amaq.

The attacker was known to French anti-terror police, sources told AFP, and raids took place at his address in a suburb to the east of Paris.

Observers had long feared an attack ahead of Sundays election in France, following a string of atrocities by extremists since 2015 that have claimed over 230 lives.

The impact on the outcome of one of the most unpredictable contests in decades is unclear, but far-right leader Marine Le Pen and scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon immediately cancelled their campaign events on Friday.

Up until now, polls showed voters more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this would change in the event of further bloodshed.

The shooting comes two days after the arrest of two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the campaign which concludes on Sunday.

French President Francois Hollande, again forced to address the nation after an attack, promised "absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process" and paid tribute to the police.

- Security in campaign -

Le Pen earlier welcomed security moving to the heart of the campaign Thursday as she took part in a prime-time interview show alongside 10 other presidential candidates.

"We are suffering the consequences of a laxity that has continued for years," she said shortly before the shooting, promising to take a hard line against extremists and anyone suspected of being an Islamist.

For weeks, centrist former banker Emmanuel Macron and Le Pen have been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a chance that any of four leading candidates could reach the second-round runoff on May 7.

Though Le Pen and Macron are the frontrunners, conservative candidate Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.

"The first responsibility of the president is to protect," Macron said on the interview show. "This threat will be part of our daily lives in the next years."

As the first details filtered through, US President Donald Trump sent his condolences and said that "it looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It just never ends."

- State of emergency -

The bustling shopping street in the heart of the city was immediately blocked by armed officers after the attack and nearby metro stations were closed.

"We had to hide our customers in the basement," Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting, told AFP, saying there was "lots of gunfire."

A spokesman for the interior ministry Pierre-Henry Brandet paid tribute to the fast reflexes of police at the scene who managed to kill the gunman and prevent further bloodshed on a busy spring-time evening.

A tourist was slightly wounded in her knee by shrapnel during the shooting, said a police source, who did not provide the womans nationality.

"We face a particularly high risk of terrorism," Brandet told reporters.

France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of alert since the attacks that began in 2015.

The Charlie Hebdo magazine was hit in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall were targeted in November the same year and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July last year.

In between, there have been a series of smaller attacks, often aimed at security forces.

Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets including government buildings and religious sites.

In February, a man armed with a machete in each hand attacked soldiers on patrol at Pariss Louvre Museum. The attacker, a 29-year-old Egyptian, was seriously injured.

And in March, a 39-year-old man was killed at Pariss Orly airport after attacking a soldier.AFP
WASHINGTON  The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US priority, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the fugitive anti-hero.

We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks, Sessions, Americas top cop, said at a news conference in response to a reporters question about a US priority to arrest Assange. The Justice Department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented.

This is a matter thats gone beyond anything Im aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious, he said.

Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.

Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter.

Several other media outlets also cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange. The Justice Department declined to comment on the reports.

Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies.

He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010.

Assanges case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clintons campaign and the Democratic party.

US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election. Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump.

Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agencys top-secret hacking operations.

The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence. Supporters of WikiLeaks say its practicing the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.  AFP
HA NOI  US President Donald Trump will attend the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Viet Nam in November together with the US-ASEAN and East Asia meetings in the Philippines as well.

The information was announced by US Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the headquarters of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on April 20.

Trumps administration will work with ASEAN on security issues, trade, and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea (East Sea), Pence said.  VNS
Albert Einstein is so widely admired we may believe we know his full story.

Hes a rebel, a risk-taker and a neer-do-well who made good. Whats more, hes our archetypical smart guy; were as likely to call someone Einstein when we mean genius.

A new television series will provide a fuller picture of his story. Genius premieres at 8 p.m. Tuesday on National Geographic Network. An additional nine installments will follow each week, concluding June 20.

Genius is NatGeos first scripted series, based on Walter Isaacsons book Einstein: His Life and Universe.

The first episode marks Ron Howards scripted TV directorial debut. He is an executive producer for the series, with Gigi Pritzker and his frequent collaborator Brian Grazer. They present a period piece spanning several years and countries. The result is a series that feels more like a group of short films with an all-star cast, stellar writing and gorgeous cinematography.

The series opens with the graphic and personal murder of a Jewish scientist in 1930s Berlin. In many ways, the scene frames Einsteins complicated, lifelong struggle to find acceptance, love and space to do and share meaningful work.

The series slips back and forth in time, perhaps in an attempt to illustrate this search to be understood. Einstein is depicted as a teen and young man, then in his later years as a beloved physicist targeted by jealous colleagues.

These time shifts are clarified by seamless portrayals of the younger and older Einstein by Johnny Flynn and Geoffrey Rush, respectively. Both embody Einsteins eccentricities, playful brilliance and earnest idealism.

They also bring dignity and grace to Einsteins distress over Germanys growing nationalism, his humiliation and fear over the rise of Nazism and his own personal failings. It becomes clear that while Einstein was widely praised in his lifetime, he didnt necessarily attain the personal, professional or spiritual success he sought.

From a scientific perspective  Ive been considering  natura naturans  everything is connected, Einstein explains at a school dinner when hes a teenager. Nature isnt a product of God; nature is God. And if we suppose thats true, well then we must conclude the universe isnt some mystical netherworld outside the grasp of our understanding. From the smallest molecule to the largest galaxy, every question must have a definable answer, and, well, I intend to find those answers.

Rounding out the cast are Emily Watson as Einsteins second wife  and double first-cousin  Elsa; Shannon Tarbet as Marie, his first love; Seth Gabel as his dear friend, Michele Besso; and Michael McElhatton as Einsteins rival, Philipp Lenard. Samantha Colley shines as Einsteins first wife, physicist Mileva Maric.
WATERLOO  A Waterloo woman who was arrested for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend in the chest during an argument Thursday morning has now been arrested child endangerment.

Police allege that when Shaumara Dominiece Taylor, 24, stabbed Tristin Couch with a steak knife in their apartment, her 3-year-old daughter witnessed the violence.

Court records allege the daughter pointed out droplets of blood following the stabbing.

Another new charge against Taylor includes interference for allegedly trying to alter or delete messages on her phone before police seized it as part of the stabbing investigation.

Court records state the officers told Taylor the phone would be seized as evidence and allowed her to copy down phone numbers stored inside before surrendering the phone. But she allegedly began altering information and then refused to hand over the phone, which led to a struggle with police.

Taylor was originally arrested for willful injury causing bodily injury in the attack. She remains at the Black Hawk County Jail with bond set at $167,325.
WATERLOO  A Waterloo man whose apartment was raided by FBI agents earlier this month has been brought up on federal weapons charges.

On Friday, an FBI agent filed a criminal complaint seeking to charge Wayne Johnathon Jones II, 36, also known as Wayne Jones Jr., with being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.

Court records allege Jones is a marijuana user and has a prior felony drug conviction, and agents found a handgun in his Western Avenue apartment during an early morning search April 12.

The search came as FBI agents in Illinois were detaining his brother, Joseph D. Yusuf Abdulahad Jones, and his brothers friend, Edward Abdul Wali Schimenti, both 35 and both of Zion, Ill. Joseph Jones and Schimenti are charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Court records allege the Illinois men developed a friendship with a person they thought was planning to travel to Syria to fight with Islamic State, also known as ISIS. They provided the man with numerous cell phones they believed were to be used as detonators for improvised explosive devices. The alleged ISIS follower turned out to be an undercover operative working for the FBI.

Wayne Jones isnt charged in connection with the Illinois allegations, and his name doesnt appear in court records that charge his brother and Schimenti.

According to court records, agents found a 9 mm Kel-Tec P-11 pistol in an unlocked case on the table next to Wayne Joness bed during the April 12 search in Waterloo. The weapon had a round in the chamber and nine rounds in the magazine. A second magazine was found elsewhere in the apartment.

During the investigation, Wayne Jones denied the handgun was his but said he had gone target shooting as recently as the prior Saturday, court records state. He also admitted to using marijuana on a daily basis and said he had been smoking it for about 20 years, records state. He told officers he had smoked the night before and said he had smoked all the marijuana in his possession at that time, records state.

Investigators did find what appeared to be the remains of smoked marijuana cigarette, and a urine test came back positive for marijuana, according to court records. His prior drug conviction was for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver in 2000 in Lake County, Ill., records state.

Following the April 12 raids, Wayne Jones was held at the Black Hawk County Jail on a probation violation out of Wisconsin stemming from a 2001 misdemeanor battery conviction.

Court records show Wayne Jones had a prior run-in with Waterloo police in September 2015. Officers were called to the Western Avenue apartment building at 3:10 a.m. for a disturbance, and he allegedly refused to tell police his name and attempted to walk into his apartment. Police detained him after they drew a Taser, and he was arrested for misdemeanor interference. He was convicted following an August 2016 bench trial and ordered to pay a fine and court costs.
CEDAR FALLS  Iowa Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter led his last meeting Thursday, already anticipating some actions by the next board.

Rastetter has asked the board office to work with universities on a tuition increase for FY2018  on top of the 2 percent hike previously adopted  as a result of cuts coming from the Legislature.

The Legislature has sent a bill to the governor that includes a 6 percent reduction in spending at both the University of Iowa and Iowa State University and a 3 percent cut at the University of Northern Iowa. That comes on the heels of a mid-year cut for the current fiscal year that totaled more than $20 million.

The board will have a special telephonic meeting May 1 to elect new leadership.

Rastetters term expires April 30, along with the term of Regents President Pro Tem Katie Mulholland. Regent Larry McKibben threw his hat in the ring to lead the board before the end of Thursdays meeting.

That May 1 meeting will be solely for electing leadership. A 30-day notice is required for any formal tuition discussion, so the first reading of any proposed tuition increase would have to be at a special meeting later in May.

The measure then would be fully adopted after a second reading, likely in June.

The boards proposed budget for the next two years would have increased tuition 2 percent in each of the next two years contingent on similar increases in state appropriations.

Rastetter also proposed a task force to discuss future appropriations and tuition rates. He said the state must have a discussion about what education systems it can afford.

Rastetter praised the current board for advocating for the public universities and distinguishing each of the universities. He said the new board must do the same.

The Legislature also drew note later in the day when nonunion employees presented on salary issues.

Iowa State employees stressed the need for state support, while UNIs Matthew Gordon, of the Professional and Scientific Council, worried about the repercussions changing the states collective bargaining law will have on nonunion employees.
DES MOINES  Iowa lawmakers Thursday were closing out a historic session that produced stark changes in the rights of workers, women, gun owners and drivers as a new Republican majority put its conservative stamp on Iowa law.

The GOP-run General Assembly spent its 102nd calendar day finalizing major pieces of a $7.25 billion state budget for fiscal 2018. A handful of policy issues stood in the way of adjourning a session that was politically contentious from start to finish. Leaders were hopeful work will wrap up Friday.

This was a historic session that we are going to see benefits and paybacks from for a generation, said Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, who played an instrumental role in a major rewrite of Iowas collective bargaining law governing public employees.

Republicans made the most of their control of the House, Senate and governors mansion by passing sweeping changes to gun laws, workplace rules, abortion restrictions and rules of the road, toughening anti-texting laws and cracking down on repeat drunken drivers.

Gov. Terry Branstad gave his fellow Republicans high marks in what likely is his last session as Americas longest-serving governor.

I think it will go down as one of the most significant and productive sessions that Ive had the honor of presiding over as governor, he said.

Minority Democrats called it one of the most anti-worker, anti-woman, anti-family, anti-senior agenda in memory, contending the secretive session was guided by special interests, not public interest.

In my opinion, this session has been the most miserable session of causing misery in every walk of life in the state of Iowa, said Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines. People who are employed have been hurt, people who are injured have been hurt, womens health care has been hurt.

House Democratic Leader Mark Smith of Marshalltown said he expected Republicans would promote an agenda they didnt run on when they campaigned in 2016 and indeed, what we thought was going to happen has happened.

Senate Republicans said they arrived at the Statehouse with a mandate from voters to kick in the door of state government and make big, bold reforms to empower taxpayers, job creators and Iowans.

Weve done several pieces of legislation that in any other year would be considered a landmark piece, and weve probably done 10 or 15 of those, said Senate President Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny. So I think people are going to look back at this year and think this is one of the most productive and historic sessions weve ever had. ... It probably has exceeded even my expectations.

Big changes

Among the major changes enacted this year:

Lawmakers legalized the sale and use of consumer-grade fireworks to adults. The law, awaiting the governors signature, allows the sale of fireworks between June 1 and July 8, and between Dec. 10 and Jan. 3. Counties or cities can opt out of their use but not their sale.

A collective bargaining law scales back the rights of public-sector workers in negotiating wages, benefits and working conditions. Public employee unions are challenging the law in court.

A worker compensation law limits benefits for workers injured on the job.

A gun law includes a controversial stand your ground provision allowing the use deadly force anywhere if a person believes force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to ones life or safety. It allows a person to use deadly force even if an alternative course of action is available, and an individual can be wrong in his or her estimation of danger. The bill also allows children under 14 to use handguns under the supervision of an adult, pre-empts local restrictions on guns, legalizes short-barreled rifles and shotguns and allows those with permits to carry handguns in the Capitol and other public buildings.

A law banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and establishing a three-day waiting period for women seeking abortions. Republicans also stripped funding from at Planned Parenthood, setting aside $3 million to fund womens health care clinics that do not offer abortions to replace federal dollars lost by that move.

Strengthened a ban on texting while driving and establish tougher steps for curtailing drunken and drugged driving in Iowa. Police can now pull over and ticket drivers for texting. Drivers arrested for or convicted of impaired driving can participate in twice-daily sobriety monitoring  requiring them to install ignition interlocks  to avoid jail.

Passed a new voter ID law. It shortens the early voting period from 40 days to 29. In addition, precinct workers will be required to check a voters signature on a drivers license or voter ID card to confirm the person is eligible.
DES MOINES  What will Iowa Republicans do for an encore?

Given complete control by voters in the 2016 elections, Republicans used the 2017 session of the Legislature to enact significant, conservative laws.

Over the course of roughly four months, Republicans dramatically reshaped gun and abortion regulations, distracted driving enforcement, the amount of compensation workers can receive from lawsuits and the way public employees bargain for wages and benefits.

But Republicans arent done yet.

They will return to the Legislature in 2018 with more on their conservative agenda and at least one more year of unfettered control, albeit likely with a new governor.

Statehouse Republicans seem to agree the top priority will be to lower taxes, most likely on working Iowans incomes.

I think probably, realistically, the next step to continue to make Iowa competitive is comprehensive tax reform, said Kim Reynolds, who for now is Iowas lieutenant governor but soon will step into the chief executives role when Gov. Terry Branstad resigns to become the U.S. ambassador to China.

I think that really needs to be the next thing that we need to look at to keep Iowa competitive, she said.

Republicans wanted to tackle tax reform immediately, but the state budget did not cooperate. Lawmakers were forced to cut the current fiscal years spending and wound up with less money than previously expected for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Any tax cut would have removed revenue from an already-shrinking budget pie.

To me, the biggest disappointment is we werent able to do major tax reform, said Senate President Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny. ... Im hopeful that we can put forward a really good plan and come back next session and really make a big difference on taxes in this state.

Sen. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, chairman of the Senates tax policy committee, has unveiled a plan to cut taxes $500 million over the next five years, reduce the number of income brackets and phase out federal deductibility.

Feenstra acknowledged money is too tight to implement his proposal now, but he hopes it gets a chance next year.

We believe that how you grow the economy is to lower rates, Feenstra said. So, that is the whole goal. I fully believe that next year is the best opportunity to go down that path of comprehensive tax reform.

But ...

Everything is going to depend on the revenue picture, and that is totally unpredictable at this point, said Rep. Guy Vander Linden, R-Oskaloosa, chairman of the Houses tax policy committee.

There also may be debate about tax credits and incentives. Democrats say tax relief programs are causing most of the states budget problems. Although Republicans do not agree, they may examine those programs.

Republicans say they also will try in 2018 to tackle another conservative priority: school choice.

Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, chairman of the House education committee, plans to study allowing parents to use taxpayer funds to enroll children at nonpublic schools.

Over the interim, thats one of the things I want to do, is dig gown deeper into educational savings accounts: Is it really a beneficial thing for states to try? Rogers said. That will guide me on how much I come back next year with a will to do something.

Democrats generally oppose school choice programs from, fearing they take away money from public schools.

Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City, nonetheless said he thinks it is time Iowa expands school choice.

If we dont set up the funding next year, at the least, we need to set up the infrastructure that puts Iowa on course for education spending accounts. Its time, Bertrand said.

Any new school choice program also will require new funding. A healthier state budget will be a necessity.

The same is true for proposed changes to Iowas complicated formula for funding K-12 public schools. For years, school districts have complained the formula is antiquated and needs an update.

The Senate this year passed a proposed solution, but it was not considered by the House in large part because of the funding it required.

Rogers said school funding is another issue legislators will attempt to address next year.

All of those things are going to be on the table, Rogers said, if theres any revenue to play with.

Republicans landed a big conservative victory by passing legislation that bans abortions after 20 weeks and requires an ultrasound and three-day waiting period before an abortion is performed. But some hope to pass even stronger anti-abortion regulations in 2018.

Bertrand supports proposals to either define life as beginning at fertilization  a so-called personhood measure  or banning abortions just one week after fertilization.

He said the latter would make exceptions for artificial fertilization techniques, life-threatening issues for the mother and pregnancies that are the result of incest or rape.

Bertrand acknowledged opponents likely would challenge such a law in the courts but said he is ready to see that legal debate play out.

We are in a position that we can challenge the courts, Bertrand said. No doubt about it, this one-week (proposal) is about saving babies, but its also about sending this back to the (U.S.) Supreme Court where this horrific thing started. ... Because I think when you have the trifecta (of lawmaking power at the state Capitol), if not now, when?

Other issues that may return to majority Republicans legislative plate in 2018:

Traffic enforcement cameras: The Senate passed a package of new restrictions, but the House did not take up the bill in part because some Republicans will be satisfied only with a total ban.

Fantasy sports: This is another issue that has dragged out over many years. Vander Linden said he thought a proposal to legalize fantasy sports wagering, sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel, had support to pass this year. Ultimately, it did not, and Vander Linden last week expressed frustration.

Constitutional carry: Gun rights advocates scored a huge victory with passage of sweeping legislation that loosened gun restrictions and implemented a so-called stand your ground measure in Iowa. Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, said he will explore the possibility of eliminating the requirement that gun owners possess a permit.
DES MOINES -- Gov. Terry Branstad signed 10 bills into law Thursday, including House File 263 that expands protections in domestic abuse and stalking cases.

This is probably the biggest bill-signing day, Branstad said, pointing to more than 100 pens set out on his desk as he prepared to sign the legislation. I mean, more pens than Ive probably used in any previous session. He has signed nearly 90 bills so far this year.

The governor also signed Pippas Bill, Senate File 51 that calls for testing newborns for congenital cytomegalovirus or CMV.

To see all of the bills, go to https://governor.iowa.gov/bills-signed-into-law.

Assessment protests

Public outcry over high property assessments and valuations around Iowa prompted legislators to changes to the current process for protesting local assessor orders.

Members of the Iowa Senate voted 50-0 Thursday to approve House File 478 after amending it to make it easier for taxpayers to contest large assessment spikes; making it easier to remove aggressive, poorly performing rogue assessors; and shifting the burden from taxpayers to assessors to justify property values.

Theres been so much angst and discussion among taxpayers. They all got their assessments this past few weeks, and theyre very bitter. Theyre saying, Hey, Legislature, you have to do something, this is ridiculous,  said Sen. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, who pushed for the changes to the bill.

Transition funds

A catchall budget bill working its way through the legislative process calls for setting aside $150,000 to cover expenses associated with Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds transition to governor when Gov. Terry Branstad resigns to become U.S. ambassador to China.

Sen. Charles Schneider, R-West Des Moines, said the governors office requested $150,000 to cover the costs associated with the changeover and paying exit packages for departing Branstad staff.

Democrats tried unsuccessfully to strip the expenditure in a standing appropriations bill for the fiscal year that begins July 1, calling the line item excessive, wasteful and unnecessary, but Republicans noted the state has provided transition money for previous occasions when Iowa had a leadership change in the top executive office.

Although the budget for the Governors Office is $2.2 million, Reynolds said Thursday the funds would be needed to cover staff turnover, technology changes and for travel and supplies associated with the transition.

Its up to $150,000,  she added, so the costs could be less.

The $150,000 is six times what the Legislature budget for Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack in 1998, but less than the $170,000 for Democratic Gov. Chet Culver in 2007.

Veterans jobs

Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Thursday that Jodi Tymeson, commandant of the Ioiwa Veterans Home in Marshalltown, will take over as the new executive director of the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs on May 1.

Previously, Tymeson was named chief operating officer of the Iowa Veterans Home in May 2013 and then promoted to commandant five months later.

Tymeson served in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1974 to 2007. She was a sixth grade teacher at Cedar Heights Elementary in Cedar Falls from 1988-92 and a substitute teacher from 1993-98. From 2001-10, she was a state representative for Madison, Warren and Dallas counties.

The governors office has begun a search for a new commandant for the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown.

Feenstra said the changes are designed to better balance the current property assessment process.
DES MOINES  House Speaker Linda Upmeyer is not convinced of the benefits of medical cannabis for treating severe illness, but is convinced of the public sentiment to continue to make it available if only on a limited basis.

Im hearing from a lot of people, the Clear Lake Republican said Thursday. Not necessarily my constituents, but Iowans, so all of our constituents, that this is something that people would like to try.

Upmeyer, a nurse, said she is a little reluctant to believe in the benefits of medical cannabis as much as others do, but I think we are to the point that at least there are dosage levels, there are things that people should be able to try and see if they work.

She believes the Legislature will continue to allow Iowans access to cannabidiol oil to treat epilepsy. Upmeyer also wants Iowans to have access to Epidiolex, a cannabidiol product for treating epileptic conditions, when it is available on the market.

Iowas 2014 law, which will expire unless the Legislature acts, allows licensed neurologists to certify patients with intractable epilepsy to use cannabidiol products with up to 3 percent THC. It does not allow other physicians to write qualifying recommendations or let patients with other conditions obtain cannabidiol products.

I think its a foregone conclusion, Rep. Jarad Klein, R-Keota, who has been leading efforts in the House to expand use of medical cannabis, said about ending the sunset on the use of cannabidiol oil. I am not interested in taking medicine away from sick people who are currently receiving it.

The question is whether the House will go further. He believes Senate File 506 is flawed.

The bill would license up to four manufacturers to possess, cultivate, transport or supply medical cannabis by July 2, 2018, so up to 12 licensed dispensaries could begin distribution to qualified adults by July 16, 2018.

Patients or primary caregivers 18 or older who are permanent Iowa residents and who have been certified by a health care practitioner would be eligible to receive registration cards to procure medical cannabis to cope with medical conditions including cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, AIDS or HIV, glaucoma, hepatitis C, Crohns disease or ulcerative colitis, amyotrophic lateral Sclerosis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder or Tourettes syndrome.

A medical advisory board also would be in place by Aug. 15 to oversee the program and consider adding illnesses.

Klain said the problem is not in the concept but the details. House members have questions about the THC levels, resins and provisions related to doctor licensing and immunity.

Upmeyer has heard some senators, who approved SF 506 on a 45-5 vote, express reservations about the bill.

So in any case, it will be changed in some fashion, she said. But I believe we will end up with a bill.

Republicans will continue to discuss the issue in private strategy sessions, Klein said, and he has a meeting with Gov. Terry Branstads staff.

The governor has said little about his thoughts on medical cannabis other than his is willing consider expanding access, but would reserve judgment until seeing the final legislation.

Last fall, he said he opposes recreational use of marijuana, but wanted to learn more about grow-and-dispense operations in neighboring states.
Anti-pesticide event set in C.F.

CEDAR FALLS -- A team of University of Northern Iowa students, faculty and partnering organizations will meet 10 a.m. Saturday at Seerley Park to launch Good Neighbor Iowa, a statewide public education campaign to significantly reduce children's exposure to common lawn pesticides.

Family physician Dr. Kyle Christiason, Cedar Falls Park Director of Municipal Operations and Programs Mark Ripplinger, Cori Burbach of the city of Dubuque are among the speakers at the event.

Questions may be directed to goodneighbor@uni.edu or 273-7575.

Interim C.F. city engineer named

CEDAR FALLS -- The city of Cedar Falls has named an acting city engineer until that post can be permanently filled.

Matt Hosford, a civil engineer with the city since 2011, was recently appointed acting city engineer following longtime city engineer Randy Lorenzen's retirement.

Lorenzen retired after 27 years with the city.

Hosford's annual base pay in the interim post would be about $82,400.

The city has posted and is reviewing applications for the position, which is required to be filled.
There was an unseemly glee on the part of some Trump supporters in the use of the MOAB  Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb  against a target in Afghanistan. A powerful nation may possess 21,600 pounds of precision-guided death. A great nation uses it only in a spirit of grim necessity.

Yet  considered along with 59 cruise missiles thrown at the Bashar Assad regime in Syria  a useful, kinetic statement has been made. America will no longer be constrained by President Obamas infinitely varied excuses for inaction (which a rational and determined mind can always find). Nor, apparently, will the nation follow Trumps incoherent campaign pledge to disengage itself into pre-eminence, to somehow retreat into greatness.

But a Trump Doctrine is still at the lumpy, unwhisked batter stage of intellectual baking. America acts when horrible images of murdered children catch the presidents eye, or when the ordnance employed sends a signal of toughness. This is hardly a turn toward neo-conservatism. But what is it? And how can we know if Trump, in all probability, does not yet know himself?

Uncertainty is not always a bad thing. There should be questions in the minds of foreign powers when they calculate the length of our chief executives fuse. A president should be reliable in providing a proportionate response to aggression and atrocities. He also should be capable of a disproportionate and decisive response, planting a seed of deathly fear in the minds of Americas enemies. (Deterring aggression against Europe during the Cold War, for example, depended on the credible belief American presidents might be mad enough to use nuclear weapons first if the Soviet tanks began rolling in  effectively defending a continent by promising to irradiate it.)

The existence of real red lines  that North Korea will not have the capability to lob a nuclear missile into the Napa Valley, that the Taliban cant control Kabul, that the Islamic State cant be allowed a permanent, territorial home  are the essential guides to foreign policy. But a post-Iraq-invasion America better understands how expensive (in a variety of horrible ways) an invasion and occupation can be. So every American president  no matter how they campaign  will be faced with the necessity and challenge of degrading threats from a distance.

This is really the post-Cold War American doctrine, on the order of the Monroe or Truman doctrines: When possible, America will pre-empt and prevent emerging threats by strengthening proxies and projecting power from medium to long range. This is the essence of a high-tech, offshore war against terrorism and other sources of grave harm  a policy that not only takes the lessons of Iraq seriously, but also recalls the lessons of 9/11.

The problem with the Trump administrations foreign policy  as represented in its proposed budget  is it does not fully understand our threats or the meaning of power.

The existence of the Islamic State is, indeed, a threat. But terrorism is often parasitic, attaching its agenda to local grievances and attempting to ride its proxies to greater power. So al-Qaeda first tries to take root in Sudan, and then more successfully in alliance with the Taliban in Afghanistan. So the Islamic State gathered strength fighting the Assad regime in the ungoverned badlands of eastern Syria before rolling into Iraq.

This makes the fate of failed, fragile and lawless states directly and unavoidably relevant to the conduct of the war against terrorism and the defense against other threats. American interests must be defined broadly enough to include things like the effective delivery of social services in Afghanistan, the surveillance for pandemic disease in rural Tanzania, the construction of classrooms in refugee-stressed Jordan, the settlement of conflict in Libya and the promotion of economic progress in northern Nigeria. Encouraging these outcomes represents another very real type of American power, exercised from afar (apart from the irenic army of health, development and diplomatic professionals).

It is an absurd misnomer to call the exercise of power in these areas soft. The matter is simple: Will America merely respond to security threats? Or will it also try to shape the security environments in which threats emerge?

This is the context in which the Trump administration is proposing a 29 percent cut in funding for development and diplomacy, for peacebuilding and conflict prevention. It is not a soft-power budget, explains budget director Mick Mulvaney. This is a hard-power budget.

It is really a softheaded, hard-hearted budget. If passed in anything close to current form, no amount of explosive power could undo the stupidity or remedy the harm.
Global warming

DAVID VOIGTS

JESUP  An incomplete answer was given to a Call the Courier question about the cause of global warming after the last ice age (April 16).

A more complete explanation for this warming was given in an article in Nature (Shakun et al, 05 April 2012). In summary, the authors found at the end of the last ice age natural and understood changes in the Earths orbit around the sun caused the climate to warm and ocean temperatures to rise slightly. Since warmer water can hold less carbon dioxide (CO2) in solution, the warmer water caused more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere. Increased concentrations of atmospheric CO2 then caused more temperature increases, which caused more CO2 to be released, etc., until a new equilibrium was established.

Although Earths orbital cycle caused the warming to begin, the researchers found more than 90 percent of the warming occurred after increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. While both this ancient warming and the current warming resulted from increased levels of atmospheric CO2, the current warming rate is much faster and is happening during a time when the variations in Earths orbit do not favor a warming climate.

Todays politics

MERLE WILSON

JESUP  When the Supreme Court ruled billionaires could pour unlimited funds to preferred Republicans running for state and federal offices, the election process that had some integrity and honesty was reduced to lies and deceit.

In the 2016 election, approximately $889 million was spent to put Republicans in the majority. A Des Moines Register editorial March 12, 2017, was headlined Lawmakers rush to enact destructive legislation. It goes on to say in just 62 days, the Republicans in Des Moines have inflicted more damage on this state than anyone could have thought possible. They are hatching bills in secret and running them through committees with little or no public debate.

A prime example of corporate interest was when Craig Johnson admitted he voted no to end collective bargaining for some employees without ever reading the bill. He did what his anti-labor benefactors told him to do. They would like to do away with all unions and remove workers rights. No raise in the minimum wage, destroy the bottle bill that 88 percent of Iowans approve of, and workers compensation laws.

These six words sum up my opinion of todays politicians: lie, cheat, steal, greed, graft and corruption.

Medicaid

DEB RASMUSSEN

INDEPENDENCE  On March 26, The Steele Report (on KWWL) aired an interview with Gov. Terry Branstad. Ron Steele stated the privatization of Medicaid didnt go as good as planned. The governor replied the state saved as much as $110 million.

The realities are, since the privatization of Medicaid, $131 million has been earmarked from the states reserve fund to pay the states three Medicaid providers. A March 24 Des Moines Register article reports the 2019 budget is already being tapped to cover additional losses.

The other part of the governors abysmal failure of Medicaid privatization is layoffs in the private sector which have and are occurring due to agencies not being paid for the services they have provided.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 18, 2017 | 06:30 AM | DRAFFENVILLE, KY

A Graves County woman faces multiple charges after her weekend arrest in Marshall County.

According to the Marshall County Sheriff's Department, deputies were dispatched on Saturday to McDonald's in Draffenville in reference to a possibly intoxicated driver. Deputies found the vehicle and conducted an investigation.

Police say the driver, 33-year-old Crystal Gail Gregory of Mayfield, was arrested and charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs, disorderly conduct, receiving stolen property and carrying a concealed deadly weapon.

Deputies reportedly found a weapon in Gregory's purse that had been reported stolen in Paducah.



Gregory was lodged in the Marshall County Detention Center.
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A set of bills meant to reform the state corrections system has passed the Legislature.

The four bills target different aspects of the criminal justice system, including sentencing, supervision and behavioral health services. And supporters of reform are optimistic the changes will slow growth in the prison system and provide solutions for people with drug problems.

"It's going to reduce our over-reliance on incarceration to deal with addiction and behavioral health issues," said Leann Bertsch, director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Some of the bills are intended to reduce the "front-end" pressure on the criminal justice system, reducing the number of people going to prison and how long they spend there.

House Bill 1041 aims to reduce the prison population by reducing penalties for drug possession and making probation the presumptive sentence for low-level felonies. It also allows jails to give out good time, potentially shortening a person's prison sentence and creates a pretrial services pilot project to get low-risk people out of jail.

House Bill 1269 reduces the mandatory minimum penalties for drug dealing, while House Bill 1341 narrows the enhancements for selling or possessing drugs near schools.

Another bill attacks the problem from the other side, offering behavioral health services to people on supervision, so that there are alternatives for judges to sentence people besides jail.

Senate Bill 2015, the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget bill, appropriates $7.5 million to provide behavioral health services to people on probation and parole. The goal is to build a tiered system, such that people even in small towns will have access to some peer support and addiction treatment. To pay for these services, the bill gives the corrections department authority to prioritize who goes to prison, in order to keep from contracting more space.

Reflecting on the two types of bills, Bertsch said, "I don't think you can do one without the other."

A fiscal note from the DOCR anticipates HB1041 will reduce the average daily inmate population by about 28 people for the 2017-2019 biennium, saving the state about $1.5 million. HB1269 is expected to save the state an additional $189,000 in the next two years.

Gov. Doug Burgum has signed SB2015 and HB1341. The other two bills still await his signature. Burgum has planned a press conference Friday to discuss criminal justice and behavioral health reform.

Passage of HB1041 and SB2015 will allow the state to apply for $500,000 in additional assistance from the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the group that helped policymakers develop those bills over the legislative interim. CSG would help North Dakota implement the policies in those bills and track how well they're working.

This CSG assistance would be overseen by a committee made up of representatives from the DOCR, North Dakota Department of Human Services, North Dakota Supreme Court, North Dakota Attorney General and the state House and Senate.

Marc Pelka, deputy director for the Council of State Governments Justice Reinvestment Initiative, who has advised the state on reform, called the bills "massive, landmark achievements for North Dakota."

"It's a tremendous lift to the state," Pelka said. "It reflects the desire to address challenges to the community behavioral health system and the criminal justice system."

Looking towards the next two years and the next legislative session, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson, said the question will be how well this all worked. Also, legislators will want to tackle how to provide human services and addiction treatment before people get into the criminal justice system.

"It's been very, very fun to watch how smart public servants are realizing the root of this problem is addiction, not crime," Armstrong said.
Despite the opposition alleging fraud in the presidential elections, they didn't bother to send any delegates to observe the recount process.

Ecuador's National Electoral Council President Juan Pablo Pozo reported that Tuesday's recount of the ballots that had inconsistencies during the April 2 presidential run-off election was completed, with Alianza Pais candidate Lenin Moreno again winning the vote.

The result of the recount culminated with more votes for leftist Moreno, while the right-wing candidate Guillermo Lasso, of the CREO-SUMA coalition, obtained fewer votes. Moreno obtained 51.15 percent of the votes on April 2, but in today's recounted got 51.16 percent. Lasso went from 48.85 percent to 48.84 percent.

Denouncing opposition claims of fraud, Pozo said the recount was historic and fully transparent. The head of the CNE also said that the recount was "100 percent of ballot objections. There is no random and proportional count here. This is the count of the ballots that the political organizations presented."

The recount, which took place at the Ruminahui General Coliseum in the capital of Quito, had more than three thousand people and 24 delegates from international observation missions.

A total of 3,865 ballots were reviewed, which represent 1,275,450 votes, or 11.2 percent of the total votes across the country and abroad. These are the ballots that both Alianza Pais and CREO-SUMA presented documentation and legal complaints against.

CNE officials completed the scanning process of the recounted ballots and added the reports to the final tally. The process was open to the public and included the presence of political parties, military and police and international observers.

The CNE counted vote by vote if the ballots had inconsistencies, meaning the sum did not add up to the official transcripts, or that a member of the voting table didn't sign the final report.

Paul Salazar, CNE member, said the presence of local and international observers from the Association of World Election Bodies, the Organization of American States and the Union of South American Nations, as well as political parties ensure the process was transparent.

"We have moved forward on all the appeals presented by both parties, in a transparent way," Salazar told teleSUR. "We want political parties to be certain and confident that above all the will of the Ecuadoreans expressed in their vote is respected," said Salazar.

Despite the opposition requesting the recount after losing the elections, they failed to send any delegates to observe the process. A group of around 20 supporters of candidate Guillermo Lasso were outside the coliseum shouting and blocking traffic.

"I know they're outside, unfortunately, they should be here, seeing that the process has been going on without any problems," said Salazar.

Banker-turned-candidate Lasso also alleged there was electronic fraud during the elections and that he wouldn't accept the results, despite the rest of Latin America, as well as the OAS, already having done so. Lasso says he wants all the votes from the election, even those without inconsistencies, to be counted again.

Ricardo Valverde, an observer from the Inter-American Union of Electoral Bodies, said the observers had the opportunity to be in contact with all political parties and ensure their technical work.

"We have been in all the phases, since the first round and we reiterate the certainty that the actions of the National Electoral Council have been adequate," Valverde told teleSUR.

Pozo added during the opening ceremony of the recount process, "No one can be misinformed, we have nothing to hide here. This false myth of fraud is an attack against the dignity of a whole country."

Pozo said last week that CREO had presented an appeal to nullify the elections and even wanted the recount process to be suspended.
Apr 21, 2017 | By David

The 3D printing industry in South Korea has just received a significant boost, with the announcement of a new state initiative. The government has released details of an evaluation and compensation system soon to be established in the medical device industry, which will provide particular incentives for the use of newer, innovative technologies. Medical devices that make use of 3D printing, as well as artificial intelligence and robotics, will be evaluated more effectively and partially funded by the new government scheme.

In 2016 South Koreas 3D printing industry was worth around $75 million, under 2 percent of the global 3D printing market, and increasing its 3D printing footprint has been a priority of the South Korean government for a number of years now. We reported before on efforts to improve use and development of 3D printing in the country, with initial discussions around the easing of regulations and various tax breaks starting last year. The possibility was mooted last May of fast-tracking certain 3D printed devices for approval, intending to make innovative procedures in life-or-death situations easier to adopt.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on April 16 that the first meeting of the Healthcare Industry System Improvement Committee was held, and improvements were announced for 8 different sectors of the healthcare system. The discussions were based on counseling cases and suggestions collected from the Medical Device Industry Comprehensive Support Center, a consulting body that provides support for companies hoping to enter the medical device market. Apparatuses, machinery and materials all received special attention.

It was decided that a new evaluation system would be established for newer technologies like 3D printing. Existing knowledge and regulations concerning the approval of medical devices was limited, being based on older, more traditional methods of treatment. This tended to slow down the adoption of these technologies in the healthcare system, with up to 280 days often required for approval. The lack of technical expertise also left open the possibility of unsafe, inadequately tested devices being approved. The newly established New Medical Technology Evaluation Committee, consisting mostly of medical doctors, will collaborate with biomedical engineers and other technology experts as part of the new, specialized evaluation system, which will hopefully go some way to rectifying these problems.

Another way in which the implementation of 3D printing technology in healthcare will be given a helping hand is improved pricing. The greater cost effectiveness of 3D printed devices, as well as their improved clinical effects, means that they will receive financial incentives from the government as part of the setting of their price for health insurance premiums. Compensation will be provided to the companies developing new medical devices by the end of 2017, if improvements in care and cost are observed. A new categorization system will also allow for products approved after 2012 to be calculated separately, by classifying them as medical devices instead of therapeutic materials.

An easier-to-understand health insurance and benefit system were also recommended as part of the Ministry for Health and Welfares new direction. According to Kim Gang-pil, director of the Health and Medical Policy Division of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, 'The role of newly developed medical devices and technologies is very important. We plan to steadily improve the system and support the industry so that the health industry can develop as a future growth engine centering on the development of these new technologies." Its promising to see 3D printing technology and the healthcare industry recognized as mutually beneficial by the government in this way, and we are likely to see a more robust 3D printing sector in South Korea as a result of these new measures, as well as improved and cheaper care for patients.

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Apr 21, 2017 | By Benedict

A 27-year-old woman from Shanghai is set to undergo a one-year facial reconstruction process after losing much of her face to infection as a child, according to sources in China. 3D printing will be used to create guides for the new facial features.

Going a couple of decades without a face sounds like something that would happen in a Kafka or Gogol story, not real life. For 27-year-old Jin Qi, however the situation couldnt be more real. After contracting a rare form of sepsis at a young age, the Chinese woman has lived most of her life without a mouth or nose, both of which were lost to infection after her autoimmune system went haywire.

Sources in China are reporting that Jin, who was born in the central Chinese province of Hubei and now lives in Shenzhen, is set to undergo a radical one-year, four-stage facial reconstruction procedure, thanks in part to new 3D printing technology that will allow doctors to build special models of the new parts of her face. Expert surgeon Li Qingfeng will oversee the procedure.

Although the sources say that cutting-edge 3D printing technology will be used to fabricate guiding models of Jins new face, the materials used to build the face itself will come from somewhere more familiar: the patients own chest. Tissue on the chest, similar in color and texture to that of the face, can supposedly be easily reshaped and transplanted.

At present, we dont know much about the 3D printing process being used to create these facial models, or how exactly they will be used to sculpt the human tissue. Images provided by Chinese news sources suggest that the models are plastic.

What we do know is that Jin, who is now a graphic designer with a passion for design and photography, decided to undergo the lengthy procedure after posting her story online and receiving lots of advice from medical professionals and sympathetic readers. The patient even raised money for her complex procedure via a crowdfunding campaign.

Sources say that 42 facial reconstruction procedures of a similar nature have already been carried out in China. Although the long-term effects of such new techniques are not yet know, the patient should be comforted by the fact that many have been in her position before.

Before going into the operating theater for the first of four surgical procedures, Jin was in an upbeat mood: If this surgery is successful, she said, I will be more confident in front of other people.

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I.AM.Magic wrote at 4/21/2017 4:21:59 PM:That is crazy, but for her !




Apr 21, 2017 | By Tess

SHINING3D, a 3D printing and 3D scanning solutions company based in Hangzhou, China, has announced the opening of its European Headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The new HQ, known as SHINING3D EMEA, has already kicked off its operations with the launch of a new generation of EinScan 3D scanners, which includes the EinScan-SE (Elite) and the EinScan-SP (Platinum).

SHINING3D EMEA will provide a sales, support, and innovation center for the European, Middle Eastern, and African markets, helping to expand SHINING3Ds global reach and explore new markets for its 3D scanning and 3D printing products. Up until now, SHINING3Ds sales within the EMEA region have been managed exclusively by the companys official network of distributors.

The opening marks a strategic move on the part of SHINING3D to tap into the European 3D printing market. The company is also hoping that its new Germany-based headquarters will help to accelerate the introduction of its 3D scanning and printing products to the global market.

Our innovative, world class 3D scanning and 3D printing solutions, including the new EinScan-SE and EinScan-SP models that we are also launching today, have been globally recognized for their quality and reliability, commented Oscar Meza, VP of global sales at SHINING3D. With the opening of the new EMEA office in Germany, our goal is to build a solid sales infrastructure and provide our clients with qualified local customer support and advanced training capabilities.

As mentioned, SHINING3D EMEA has already launched its first products: the Einscan-SE and Einscan-SP 3D scanners. The two 3D scanners are the latest in SHINING3Ds Einscan-S desktop 3D scanner series, which is known for its high scanning speeds and accuracy.

According to the company, the new Einscan-SP is capable of capturing single scans in under four seconds and 360 scans in less than a minute. In terms of its scanning accuracy, the Einscan-SP boasts a maximum single shot accuracy below 50 microns, while the Einscan-SE has one below 100 microns.

Both new 3D scanning systems also integrate a one-click feature which allows users to easily upload scans to third party data sharing platforms. This feature, which includes automatic alignment and automatic mesh generation, enables users to 3D print their scanned models directly.

Here are the full specifications for the two new SHINING3D 3D scanners:

Einscan-SE Einscan-SP Single Shot Accuracy  0.1 mm 0.05 mm Minimum Scan Volume 30 x 30 x 30 mm 30 x 30 x 30 mm Maximum Scan Volume Alignment 700 x 700 x 700 mm Feature; Manual; Turntable 1200 x 1200 x 1200 mm Feature;Turntable, Manual,Markers, Turntable coded Targets) Auto Scan 2 minutes 1 minute Single Scan Speed  8 s  4 s Supported File Format OBJ, STL, ASC, PLY OBJ, STL, ASC, PLY Camera Resolution 1.3 megapixels 1.3 megapixels Light Source White Light White Light Stand Alone Weight 2.5 kg 4.2 kg Stand Alone Volume 570 x 210 x 210 mm 570 x 210 x 210 mm Turntable Standard With Markers

At present, the Einscan-SE and Einscan-SP desktop 3D scanners are not available in China.

Founded in 2004, SHINING3D has made huge strides in recent years, opening a new 25,000-square-meter HQ in Hangzhou and continually updating its wide range of 3D scanning and 3D printing products. Currently, the company holds submissions for 64 utility patents for inventions, 54 utility model patents, 27 appearance patents, and 55 software copyright submissions.

Posted in 3D Printer Company

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Deirdre Coyle in Electric Literature:

For a while, I was seeing a guy who really liked David Foster Wallace. He once forced me to do cocaine by shoving it inside me during sex. He wasnt the first man to recommend Wallace, but hes the last whose suggestion I pretended to consider. So while Ive never read a book by Wallace, Im preemptively uninterested in your opinion about it.

These recommendations from men have never inspired me to read Wallaces magnum opus, Infinite Jest, or his essays, or stories, or even to take the path of least resistance and see the Jason Segel movie about him. Said recommendations have, however, festered over such a long period that theyve mutated into deeply felt opinions about Wallace himself: namely, that he was an overly self-aware genius who needed a better editor and that Id hate his writing.

Wallace-recommending men are ubiquitous enough to be their own in-joke. New York Magazine notes that Wallace, too, has become lit-bro shorthandsome women [treat] loves DFW as synonymous with is one of those motherfuckers (hi, its me). When conservative Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch cited Wallace in a hearing, The New Republic asserted that Wallace is the lingua franca of a certain subset of overeducated, usually wealthy, extremely self-serious (mostly) men. Onion-esque news outlet Reductress clickbaited me perfectly with Why Im Waiting for The Right Man to Tell Me I Should Read Infinite Jest. Wallace is on a list of books that literally all white men own.

More here.
Life Interrupted centers on a dysfunctional blended family living in Manhattans East Village and stars Mason Reese (former 1970s child TV star best remembered for his commercials for Dunkin Donuts, Post Raisin Bran and Underwood Deviled Ham) as patriarch Mason Bell, whos soon turning 50 and headed for a bizarre midlife crisis. Arngrim plays his ex-wife, Ally Hughes, who still cares for him. But Allys now happily married to Nina Woodworth, an Upper East Side gallery owner played by Murphy.

One of the things that make these convoluted relationships all the more sticky is that Reeses character is living in the studio apartment above a bar he co-owns with his ex-wife. Oh  and his ex-mother-in-law, Annie Hughes (portrayed by Wells), is his landlady.

Writer-producer Steven Wishnoff, best known for his work on Nick at Nite and TV Land, is the mastermind behind Life Interrupted. It began as a half-hour pilot show in late 2015. Through the Kickstarter fundraising platform, it gained some financial support and momentum. Life Interrupted debuted on YouTube on Feb. 14.
Of course, youll need certain virtual reality gear before you can even visit Spaces. For now, its available only to people who own the Oculus Rift headgear, and Facebooks teaser videos show people also wearing Oculus Touch handsets, which allow participants to manipulate objects in VR.

Virtual reality currently occupies a fairly small niche among consumers, but analysts expect it to go mainstream soon, and with Spaces, Facebook aims to be ready. The company is also positioning itself at the forefront of augmented reality, which, instead of building a virtual world, allows users to manipulate the physical world around them using the Facebook camera app and their smartphone. AR has proved a tough nut to crack (remember the now-discontinued Google Glass?), but last summers Pokemon Go phenomenon revealed its huge potential, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions many uses.

Think about how many of the things around us dont actually need to be physical, Zuckerberg told the New York Times this week. Instead of a $500 TV sitting in front of us, whats to keep us from one day having it be a $1 app?

The virtual and augmented-reality ventures point toward Facebooks future, but the company announced updates to its Messenger chat application, too, that will go into effect immediately.
Voter turnout 'steady' in Sioux Falls for start of Election Day, officials say

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Follow us live through the feed below, or check back for regular updates throughout the day.
A North Dakota firm said Wednesday that the state Department of Commerces decision to revoke its angel fund certification was arbitrary and capricious and requested a meeting with state officials.

A letter to Commerce Commissioner Jay Schuler from Minot-based Legendary Investments attorney Tim Purdon, dated Wednesday, came in response to the Commerce Departments April 4 notice that it was revoking the firms angel fund certification because it violated the prohibition on investing in real estate or real estate holding companies. The department cited state statute governing angel fund income tax credits.

Purdon argued Legendary has not invested in any real estate or real estate holding company that was not a primary-sector business and any association by Legendary with entities that might own real estate involves loans of money, not the purchase of equity.

Purdon said the Commerce Department cant retroactively apply the standards included in a bill adjusting angel fund requirements that Gov. Doug Burgum signed last week.

These changes by the North Dakota Legislature are, of course, applicable only to future conduct that takes place after this new law goes on the books on June 30, 2017, Purdon wrote. They cannot be applied by the North Dakota executive branch retrospectively on actions that angel funds have taken that were in in compliance with the prior version of the angel fund law.

The Legendary Investments decision represented the first time the Commerce Department revoked an angel funds certification. As of late 2015, Legendary investors had earned more than $2.1 million in tax credits. It had 89 investors with almost $4.8 million invested.

The revocation is effective Jan. 1, 2015. The Commerce Departments letter advised investors to contact the Office of the State Tax Commissioner regarding filing amended income tax returns.

Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger said tax credits earned for investments made into the fund in 2015 and 2016 would be ineligible.

Purdon asks Schuler for a response by April 28, but said Legendary will continue to explore all legal options until then.

Commerce Department spokesman Jesse Bradley said they hadnt received the letter as of late Wednesday morning. He said theyll review and determine next steps once they do.


Drilling underway at the Mexi Nickel Prospect

Adelaide, April 21, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Mithril Resources Ltd ( ASX:MTH ) is pleased to advise that a drilling program is underway at the 100% owned Mexi nickel sulphide prospect (located 50 kilometres north-northeast of Kalgoorlie Western Australia - Figure 1 in link below).



- RC drill program to test for nickel sulphides beneath a broad zone of anomalous nickel - copper - PGE's within weathered ultramafic rocks



- Presence of elevated copper and PGE's along with nickel potentially indicative of nickel sulphide mineralisation at depth within fresh rock



- Mexi lies within same structural corridor as high-grade Silver Swan Nickel Deposit 9 kilometres to the south



- Results expected by early June



Reverse Circulation drill holes are targeted both down dip of and along strike from a broad zone of nickel - copper - platinum + palladium (PGE's) anomalism previously intersected by Mithril aircore drilling within weathered ultramafic rocks.



The new drilling, comprising two, 200-250 metre holes will test for nickel sulphides and provide a platform for future downhole EM geophysical surveying.



Mexi lies within a broader structural corridor which is interpreted from aeromagnetic and gravity data to extend from known high-grade nickel sulphide mineralisation at the Silver Swan nickel deposit located 9km to the south.



The presence of elevated copper and PGE's along with nickel at Mexi is highly significant as they are potentially indicative of nickel sulphide mineralisation at depth.



Results are expected by early June.



To view figures, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/79URY7N3





About Mithril Resources Limited





Mithril Resources Limited (ASX:MTH) is an Australian resources company whose objective is the creation of shareholder wealth through the discovery of mineral deposits.

The Company and its exploration partners are actively exploring throughout the Kalgoorlie, West Kimberley and Murchison Districts of Western Australia for economic nickel, copper, zinc, and vanadium deposits.

In the Kalgoorlie District, Mithril is exploring for nickel on the Kurnalpi, Lignum Dam and North Scotia Projects which lie along strike from, or adjacent to previously mined high-grade nickel at the Silver Swan and Scotia Nickel Deposits.

In the West Kimberley, Mithril is exploring for zinc on the Billy Hills Project which lies adjacent to the previously mined Pillara Zinc Deposit.

In the Murchison, Mithril is exploring for copper, nickel and zinc mineralisation on the Nanadie Well Project and for copper, silver, zinc and lead on the Bangemall Base Metal Project. Mithril's exploration partner  Monax Mining Ltd is also exploring for vanadium on the Limestone Well tenements.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris living in different parts of the country.

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiris, the Home Minister said they are like any other Indian and an advisory is being sent by the Home Ministry to all states to ensure the safety and security of people from the Valley.

I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris, he said.

Singhs statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were being threatened after the latest incidents of stone pelting and assault on security personnel by Kashmiri youths in the Valley.

Hoardings calling for Kashmiris to leave Uttar Pradesh have turned up in Meerut. They have been installed by an outfit called UP Navnirman Sena, whose chief Amit Jani said they had put up the banners outside institutions where Kashmiri students study.
Preeti Sharma Menon has forwarded letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to release funds for 322 ashramshalas across the state.

In our Thursday April 20th edition of Afternoon Voice we had published a story mentioning about the state governments reluctance to release funds for the functioning of ashramshalas belonging to Scheduled castes. Aam Aadmi Party leader Preeti Sharma Menon has already raised this issue and questioned the governments failure to grant funds for backward castes. She also had pointed out that the government which has funds for constructing statues, sanctioning funds for large scale infrastructure projects is washing its hands off this issue citing shortage of funds.

The conditions of Prasad Arvind Kulkarni who had gone on an indefinite hunger strike at Azad Maidan is in critical condition. He has been protesting along with 300 members of the Kendriya Anusuchit Jaati Nivaasi Ashramshala Shikshak v Shikshak-itar Karamchari Sangh since 14th April but their pleas are falling on deaf ears.

According to Preeti, 322 ashramshalas meant for students of Scheduled Castes have been denied funds since 15 years. She said, These funds are lying unutilised year after year but are not spent on the needy beneficiaries. Minister of Social Justice Rajkumar Badole can sanction the measly 60 crore from his thousands of crores of unutilised budget but refuses to do so.

Shailesh Kamble member of Kendriya Anusuchit Jaati Nivaasi Ashramshala Shikshak and Shikshak-itar Karamchari Sangh said, We are trying to seek an appointment with Chief Minister and any other ministers of the government. We are ready for a discussion with the government. We will continue with the protest even though Prasads Kulkarnis condition is critical. The government should give an appointment for us to discuss this issue and should give it in writing.

The government must provide 100 per cent funding to central ashramshalas. Those employees who are employed with the ashramshalas for a period of 16 years should absorbed by the firm and provided benefits, he added.

Preeti also has forwarded a letter to Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis and urged him to release funds for 322 ashramshalas meant for Scheduled Caste students.

In the letter Preeti mentioned, I request you to please meet a delegation of teachers and non-teaching staff of 322 Ashramshalas meant for Scheduled Caste students, which were initiated nearly 15 years ago by the Maharashtra statement government.

In 2003 ashramshalas were started across Maharashtra for children belonging to scheduled castes. These were to be funded by the Central Government. In 2010 it was decided that these will be funded by the Maharashtra State Government. In 2012 there was an order by the then Chief Minister (Attached) authorizing the funds but it was not actioned. Today there are 322 such Ashramshalas in Mumbai with around 4000 staff and 50000 students, running with aid from local NGOs. They have been subjected to numerous inspections and their veracity has been proved repeatedly.

A delegation met Minister for Social Justice Rajkumar Badole, and though it is well within his purview, he claimed helplesslness saying he has written to the Chief Secretary (Attached) to include this matter in the Cabinet but has received no response.

In FY14-15 the outlay for Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP), of which Social and Community Services is a part was 6044.26 Cr of which only 3583.29 Cr was spent. In FY 15-16 only 2017.32 Cr of the 6490 Cr budget was spent. The total spend on these Ashramshalas will not be more than 60 crores annually, said Preeti.

It is such a shame that the Maharashtra State Government has to be reminded to fulfill its obligations to the poorest of poor  the children of Scheduled Castes. We request you to please put an end to this injustice and sanction the funds immediately, she added.

The Chief Minister has not responded to any calls for an appointment yet.
Nawaz Sharif today narrowly managed to save his premiership after a Pakistan Supreme Court bench declared there was insufficient evidence to remove him from office but ordered setting up of a Joint Investigation Team to probe the graft allegations against his family.

The court ordered Sharif, 67, and his two sons  Hasan and Hussain  to appear before the JIT, which would include officials from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Military Intelligence (MI).

The JIT has been given two months to complete the probe. It will present its report before the bench after every two weeks and will complete its work in 60 days.

The five-judge bench comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan issued the landmark 547 pages judgement 57 days after concluding the hearing.

Justice Ijaz Afzal, Justice Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan wrote the majority judgment, whereas Justice Gulzar and Justice Khosa in their dissenting note wanted to remove the Prime Minister as sought by the petitioners.

The case was launched on November 3 and the court held 35 hearings before concluding the proceedings on February 23.

The case is about alleged money laundering by Sharif in 1990s when he twice served as Prime Minister to purchase assets in London.

The assets surfaced when Panama papers last year showed that they were managed through offshore companies owned by Sharifs children.

The case filed by various petitioners  Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami emir SirajulHaq and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed  sought disqualification of Prime Minister Sharif over his alleged misstatement in his address to the nation on April 5 and his speech before the National Assembly on May 16, 2016.

The petitioners had claimed that the prime minister lied about the investments made by his children in offshore companies, which led to the acquisition of four apartments in Londons upscale Park Lane neighbourhood.

The court also ordered that it was important to probe how money was transferred to Qatar.

In the 547-page verdict, the bench said that the NAB Chairman has failed to cooperate with the investigation, and the DG FIA has failed to curb white collar crimes, necessitating the formulation of the JIT.

Sharifs supporters hailed the decisions as a victory of justice.

We have been vindicated as Prime Minister had last year asked to set up a probe commission to investigate Panamaleaks scandal, said Khawaja Asif, defence minister and close ally of Prime Minister Sharif.

TV footage showed Sharif embracing his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif who is chief minister of Punjab province.

Opposition leader and lawyers termed the courts verdict as an indictment of Sharif and demanded his resignation.

Fawad Chaudhry of PTI said that Sharif should resign as all judges have accepted that money was illegally sent out of the country.

It is our victory and Sharif has been given a respite only for 60 days when JIT would give its report, he said.

The court has given him just 60 days and then he will be removed as the JIT would find him guilty, said Imran Ismael of PTI after the verdict.

Earlier, the area around the Supreme Court, located in Islamabads Red Zone, was put on red alert, with around 1,500 police, Rangers and Frontier Constabulary personnel deployed for security and maintaining peace.
In a major setback to top BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and others, the Supreme Court revived conspiracy charge against them, which was quashed by trial court. On December 6, 1992, hundreds of kar sevaks descended on Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and demolished the 16th century mosque. They claimed that the mosque was built on land considered holy by Hindus who believed it to be the birthplace of Hindu deity Lord Rama. It triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim violence. A number of senior BJP leaders, including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, are accused in the case.

The apex court directed the trial court to proceed expeditiously in the case and said that court should not grant unnecessary adjournments in the trial proceeding. The apex court, however, said that conspiracy charge should not be slapped against Kalyan Singh as he has got immunity for being governor but directed that charge be framed against him immediately after he demits office of Governor.

The CBI had told the Supreme Court that top BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti had conspired with other accused for demolishing Babri Masjid in 1992 and sought revival of conspiracy charges against them.

Additional solicitor general Niraj Kishan Kaul contended that eight leaders who were being tried in Rae Bareli court for offences under various section of IPC including Section 153A (promoting enmity between classes), Section 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), should also face prosecution for criminal conspiracy.

The ASG had said that 13 other accused were not facing any proceedings in any court after conspiracy charges were dropped against them and pleaded the apex court to revive proceedings against them.

The CBI had approached the apex court way back in 2011 challenging dropping of conspiracy charges against Advani, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar and Murli Manohar Joshi. Others against whom the charge was dropped included Satish Pradhan, C R Bansal, Ashok Singhal(now dead), Giriraj Kishore(now dead), Bal Thackeray (dead), Sadhvi Ritambhara, V H Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, R V Vedanti, Param Hans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, B. L. Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save.

The trial court had passed the order on May 4, 2001 dropping the charge against them. The CBI challenged the order in HC which took ten years to decide the case. The HC had on May 20, 2010 refused to interfere with lower court order and the agency then had moved the apex court.

The agency had investigated in 49 cases and a consolidated chargesheet was filed in Lucknow court on September 5, 1993 against 49 accused persons for their role in conspiracy to demolish the disputed structure under Section 120B along with other offences under various Section of the Indian Penal Code.

The trial court had taken cognisance of the chargesheet and said that that case of conspiracy was made out against the accused. The trial court order was challenged before Allahabad HC which held that conspiracy charges could not be slapped against Advani and other leaders in Lucknow court as they were being tried in Rae Bareli court and the state government decision to transfer the case to Lucknow was wrong as HC was not consulted before issuing notification.

The Supreme Court rules that senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti will face charges of criminal conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case. The apex court merges two separate cases being heard in Lucknow and Rae Bareli relating to the mosques demolition. Hearings are to be held on a daily basis in Lucknow. The apex court says the judge hearing the case will not be transferred and the matter will have to be decided in two years. To ensure no delay is caused in proceedings, court orders CBI to produce witnesses in court daily. No fresh trial to take place. Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singhs trial to begin once he ceases to be governor, till then, he enjoys constitutional immunity.

Now the question is, can this be the insistence of CBI in the court to restore and pursue the Babri demolition criminal case, is a ploy by Modi and Rajnath to settle some old scores with the sidelined BJP leaders? CBI is considered to act as per the wishes and orders of the Centre!

In 1959 Nirmohi Akhara enters the fray and files the third suit, seeking possession of the site, doing away with the court-appointed receiver. It claims itself to be the custodian of the spot at which Ram was supposedly born.

In 1528 a mosque was built on the site by Mughal emperor Babar which Hindus allege to be the birth place of Lord Ram and where a temple earlier existed. Mahant Raghubir Das files a suit seeking permission to build a canopy on Ram chabootra but his plea was rejected a year after by the Faizabad district court in 1885. In 1859 British officials erect a fence to separate the places of worships, allowing the inner court to be used by Muslims and the outer court by Hindus. First recorded incidents of communal violence at the disputed site took place in 1853.

In 1949, idol of Lord Ram surfaces inside mosque. Muslims claim that the Hindus kept it there. Muslims protested and both parties filed civil suits. The government proclaims the premises as a disputed area and locks the gates. On 18 January 1950, the first title suit was filed by Gopal Singh Visharad asking for the right to worship the idols installed at Asthan Janmabhoomi. The court restrained the removal of idols and allowed the worship to continue. Then Ramchandra Paramhans files another suit, but withdraws later.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
By Anne Dachel



Tucker Carlson interviewed Robert Kennedy Jr on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Fox News Video Clip Here. You can thank him at comments@foxnewsinsider.com.



He introduced the taboo topic saying that experts insist that vaccines are generally safe; that there is no link between vaccines and autism. He added that there are skeptics.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Robert Kennedy, Jr. began by stating, Ive read the science, and the science is very clearwhat you have to understand is that the vaccine regime changed dramatically around 1989. The reason it changed is that Congress, drowning in pharmaceutical industry money, did something theyve never done for any other industry, they gave blanket legal immunity to all the vaccine companies so that no matter how sloppy the line protocol, or how absent the quality control, no matter how toxic the ingredient, or egregious the injury to your child, you cannot sue them.

So there no depositions, theres no discovery, theres no class action suit. All of a sudden vaccines became enormously profitable.

In 87 it was implemented and then there were a gold rush by the pharmaceutical industry to add new vaccines to the schedule.

I got three vaccines; I was fully compliant. Im 63 years old.

My children got 69 doses of 16 vaccines to be compliant. And a lot of these vaccines arent even for casually communicable diseases, like hepatitis B which comes unprotected sex or sharing needles.

Why do we give that to a child the first day of their life?

And it was loaded with mercury.

Carlson restated Kennedys statement. And we do give that to children.
HALEY: I would like to see the data he has to support this as I dont think he is correct. There were major drops in these illnesses before introduction of the appropriate vaccine and the introduction of the appropriate vaccine did not appear to cause, as he says a dramatic decline.

HUMPHRIES : He is correct here with measles, chicken pox, mumps but he totally ignores the price paid and that the only reason we are not seeing big surges in adults yet is because the adults that had true immunity have not yet all died off. Once that happens and we only have vaccine immunity we will see problems which is why we are already seeing new recommendations for adults to get pertussis and MMR vaccines. And chicken pox will be the same.

OFFIT: Its certainly true, actually, that I you look at diseases like Whooping Cough or even to a lesser extent Diphtheria, you started to see some decline as we got, you know, more sanbetter sanitation, better hygiene in our country. But you didnt start to see a dramatic decline and virtual elimination of those diseases until we introduced vaccines.

As a result of the widespread use of the HiB vaccine to control H.influenzae type b infections, Nisseria meningitidis has become the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children and young adults.

Hence? We developed Prevnar, the vaccine for strep. We are now creating vacuums in the Strep family and more resistant, more virulent strep bugs are coming forth. In addition, with wiping out H Flu (gram negative) and Strep species (gram positive), now BIG BAD DEADLY BUGS are coming around including N. meningitides and MRSA staph infections. The CDC admits,

The exception to this is the HiB vaccine; that is a cell wall antigen vaccine and has a very different mechanism of action as the other vaccines. That vaccine DID decrease the incidence of H. flu meningitis, H flu otitis and overall H flu disease. However, the trade off was not benign. We had an escalation of strep disease after the introduction of that vaccine.

TENPENNY: Dr. Offit really should read the medical literature of all who contract the illness after the injection. Cases of measles, chickenpox, smallpox and probably others have been documented after vaccination. In addition, the antibodies induced by vaccination are not the same as antibodies that appear as the result of a natural infection. For example, it has been documented that the measles antibodies in breast milk do not have the same protective effect as antibodies from moms who (actually) had the measles infection.

NOTE: We're bringing you this series, re-crafted for 2017, by Richard P. Milner of Public Affairs Media during Autism Action Month. Dr. Paul Offit has led the charge against any and all in our community, doctors, scientists, parents, educators, film makers, who question vaccine safety. By Richard P. Milner

OFFIT: So what happens historically is when you increase immunization rates, the disease decreases.

HUMPHRIES: The thing Offit continuously denies is that the curves, in many cases, like scarlet fever and diphtheria, were declining before the vaccines and had we not begun vaccinating for diphtheria, which is a toxin-mediated disease we would have still seen a drop. Vaccine had little to do with the decline in these toxin-mediated diseases and nutrition and vitamin C had more to do with it.

I have written about this in my book. And in fact, that is OUR graph. Look where the whooping cough vaccine came in and measles. But a word of caution is that this graph is only discussing mortality. Not incidence. That is another story.

Yes, with some diseases immunization has decreased the disease rates, but again, he overlooks the lack of research on long-term effects. And he totally over looks any other way to deal with these diseases. Think of how our ancestors dealt with measles. Now imagine how we can handle it in this day and age of better nutrition and access to medical care. And that the payoff of having measles 75-years plus of solid immunity is far better than the immunity from a vaccine, which is known to be associated with encephalitis and bowel disease. Well-documented studies [support this], not all by Wakefield.

Is this considered a success? http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/7/12-1830-f1.htm. Is an increase in total numbers considered success? Or are you on a roundabout of killing off the black rabbits, and having an invasion of red and grey ones because nature abhors a vacuum, and people have not yet understood that its the soil upon which a plant grows? And even though there is a decrease, is this decrease simply achieved by throwing every antibiotic in the book [at it], so that then these patients join the clostridium difficile group who land up needing fecal transplants?









TENPENNY: When smallpox vaccination was introduced globally in the 1890s, the incidence rate of smallpox skyrocketedincluding vaccine side effects such as the spread of syphilis. Polio mostly went away in Europe without mass vaccination.

The exception to this is the HiB vaccine; that is a cell wall antigen vaccine and has a very different mechanism of action than the other vaccines. That vaccine did decrease the incidence of H. flu meningitis, H flu otitis and overall H flu disease. However, the trade off was not benign. We had an escalation of strep disease after the introduction of that vaccine.

Hence? We developed Prevnar, the vaccine for strep. We are now creating vacuums in the Strep family and more resistant, more virulent strep bugs are coming forth. In addition, with wiping out H Flu (gram negative) and Strep species (gram positive), now BIG BAD DEADLY BUGS are coming around including N. meningitides and MRSA staph infections. The CDC admits,

As a result of the widespread use of the HiB vaccine to control H.influenzae type b infections, Nisseria meningitidis has become the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children and young adults.

MMWR. Control of Meningococcal Disease

May 27, 2005 / 54(RR07);1-21

OFFIT: When you decrease immunization rates, the disease increases. And thats happened again and again and again. And its happening in our country now. I mean, if you look, for example, in the first half of this year, weve had the biggest Measles outbreak weve had in the last twelve years. Why? Because there are parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children. And so their measles has taken hold.

HUMPHRIES: It is not necessarily just from parents refusing vaccines. I have already explained the dynamics changing because of the truly immune dying off, which changes herd immunity. Also there is always a discrepancy in the initial media projected case rate and the verified case rate.

I have looked a little deeper into the recent and recent past measles outbreaks in USA.

117 of 159 were unvaccinated. What does this say of herd immunity in the vaccinated?? When about 25% of those infected were vaccinated??

And notice how they word it:

"According to the CDC, one to three out of every 1,000 children in the United States who get measles will die from the disease, even with the best of care. Even if complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis aren't deadly, they can make children very sick; in 2011, nearly 40% of children under the age of 5 who got measles had to be treated in the hospital."

This implies that 1 to 3 of every 1000 who got it in 2011 died. The hospitalizations are by and large a result of parents not knowing how to deal with it, doctors not understanding it, and fear through and through.

Let's have a look at a recent outbreak: "During January 1August 24, 2013, a total of 159 cases were reported to CDC from 16 states and New York City (Figure 2). Patients ranged in age from 0 days to 61 years; 18 (11%) were aged <12 months, 40 (25%) were aged 14 years, 58 (36%) were aged 519 years, and 43 (27%) were aged 20 years. Among the 159 cases, 17 (11%) persons required hospitalization, including four patients diagnosed with pneumonia. No deaths were reported."

No deaths. Pneumonia IMO could be prevented with proper management. And a key question is how many of the 17 persons hospitalized for pneumonia were vaccinated? It is a fact that in the past those who were vaccinated and got natural measles fared worse. Now THAT would be good to know but CDC leaves that off.

Snort. "The index patient was an adult with unknown measles vaccination history who traveled to Indonesia." How convenient to have unknown status. How difficult would it be to ask?

OFFIT: There have been over 130 cases. Ten percent of those children have been hospitalized, primarily with measles pneumonia.

HOOKER: The reason that this case achieved notoriety was not due to the lack of vaccination, but due to the lack of any medical care given to these children whatsoever. One article stated that only one child was admitted to a hospital. Both churches involved in the outbreak rejected care outright, which is why the mortality rate was so high.

OFFIT: So decrease immunization rates, these diseases come back. Its happened over and over and over again. Hopefully its not a lesson we have to keep learning.

BLAYLOCK: The death rate from these small, contained outbreaks (130 children is not a massive outbreak) was quite small and involved mostly chronically ill children and small babies. Also, half of the children in this latest outbreak had been vaccinated. Previous studies have shown that in such outbreaks as many as 99% of the affected children had been vaccinated. This was true, for example, in the 1985 outbreak in Corpus Christi, TX and the 1986 outbreak in Dane County, WI.

###



PART ONE



Paul Offit has for many years been the go-to-guy whenever the mainstream media looks for a sound bite on vaccination. By presenting him with no counter, they give the impression that he has no critics beyond a few hysterical parents. However, in our research and investigation we found that he has many.

We interviewed Paul at his Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia office. Then transcribed the interview, and sent it out to a few of his critics, whose credentials and comments on his statements follow below.

We also made a video, Haley vs Offit: A Virtual Debate About Vaccines, The Greatest Medical Controversy Of Our Time, viewable at publicaffairsmediainc.blogspot.com.

At the site, we have studies supporting Haley, and a list of over 180 more studies showing the extreme dangers of Mercury, especially when combined with Aluminum, as in shots, and other heavy metals, such as Lead or Cadmium from the general environment.

We could find no credible studies in support of Offit.

We also have available Haley vs Offit subtitled in Spanish at YouTube.

Public Affairs Media Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) news organization. Please support our work by making a donation at publicaffairsmediainc.blogspot.com.

Dr. Paul Offit, MD, is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, a chair funded by Merck & Co. He is also the Chief of the Division of Infectious Disease and Director of the Vaccine Information Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit is a successful vaccine technician and an accomplished vaccine promoter. His vaccine for diarrhea, RotaTeq is manufactured and distributed by Merck & Co., and its affiliates worldwide.

He is co-author of the fifth edition of the medical textbook, Vaccines , together with over 130 scientific and general audience articles on vaccine issues. He appears frequently as a guest commentator on national radio, cable and broadcast television, while his writings are found in major US newspapers and magazines.

He is author or co-author of several books, including Breaking the Antibiotic Habit , Vaccines: What You Should Know , The Cutter Incident: How Americas First Polio Vaccine Led to Todays Growing Vaccine Crisis , Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases , and Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine , The Search for a Cure , and most recently, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-vaccination Movement threatens Us All.

Dr. Offit is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and a former member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the CDC, which evaluates vaccines for CDC recommendation. These recommendations routinely become mandates approved by all US states and territories. Offit advocates for the complete elimination of all vaccine exemptions throughout the world.

He claims to have no conflict of interest regarding his patronage by Merck, his profits from one of their best-selling vaccines, and his services in clearing the way for its CDC recommendation during his membership on the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.







Dr. Boyd Haley, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry/Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center.

In the past 23 years Dr. Haley has emphasized studies on the biochemistry of Alzheimers disease. His research in the biochemical aberrancies in Alzheimers disease also led to his identifying mercury toxicity as a major exacerbating factor, perhaps even a causal factor for this disease. He was one of the first to propose that the organic-mercury preservative, Thimerosal, in vaccines was the most likely toxic agent involved in Gulf War Syndrome and autism-related disorders.







Dr. Sherri J. Tenpenny, DO, is an osteopathic medical doctor from Cleveland, Ohio. Her board certification is in Emergency Medicine and Osteopathic Manual Medicine. At her integrative medical clinic she focuses on Allergy elimination, including treatment of children with asthma and allergies, as well as womens health, using bio-identical hormones and breast thermography. Her clinic has restored the health of patients who have come from 38 states and 8 countries.

Dr. Tenpenny has been a guest on National TV talk shows and syndicated radio programs. She is a regular speaker at national and international seminars on topics ranging from iodine and breast health to vaccines and vaccination injury. She has also written two books, FOWL: Bird flu  its not what you think (what you need to know about flu shots) and Saying No to Vaccines: A Resource Guide for All Ages .

David M. Ayoub, M.D, received his medical degree from University of Illinois College of Medicine, Peoria, Illinois. He did his residency in Diagnostic Radiology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Affiliated Hospitals, Springfield, Illinois. He is board certified in Diagnostic Radiology by the American Board of Radiology.

He is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Illinois. He is also director of Prairie Collaborative, Ltd, an Illinois not-for-profit organization in Springfield, Illinois, compiling and assessing peer-reviewed medical literature relating to autism.

Dr. Suzanne Humphries, MD, is a conventionally educated medical doctor board certified in internal medicine and nephrology, who was a participant in the conventional hospital system from 1989 until 2011. After leaving the hospital in good standing of her own volition in 2011, she has been furthering her research, lecturing in various parts of the world, writing books, and conducting her own private practice in Maine and Virginia.

She is the author of two books on vaccination: Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, And The Forgotten History, co-authored with Roman Bystrianyk, and Rising From The Dead .







Brian S. Hooker, PhD, PE, is an Associate Professor of Biology at Simpson University in Redding, California, where he specializes in chemistry and biology coursework. Additionally, Hooker is the Senior Process Consultant at ARES Corporation, working closely on process design for the environment restoration industry. His design efforts focus on industrial biotechnology and chemical engineering principles.

Brian dedicated over 15 years as a bioengineer and the team leader for the High Throughput Biology Team and Operations Manager of the DOE Genomics: Genomes to Life (GTL) Center for Molecular and Cellular Systems at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Dr. Hooker managed applied plant and fungal molecular biology research projects at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where systems biology researchers are focused on understanding gene and protein networks involved in individual cell signaling, communication between cells in communities, and cellular metabolic pathways.

In 1985, Dr. Hooker earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering, from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California. He earned his Masters of Science degree in 1988 and his doctorate in 1990, both in biochemical engineering, from Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington.

Dr. Hooker has many accomplishments to his credit including: co-inventor for five patents, recipient of the Battelle Entrepreneurial Award in 2001, and a Federal Laboratory Consortium Recognition Award in 1999, for his work on Reactive Transport in 3-Dimensions. The breadth of Hookers 60 science and engineering papers have been published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals. He has a teenage son with autism.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD, is a board certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer. He attended the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans and completed his general surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. For the past 25 years he has practiced neurosurgery in addition to having a nutritional practice. He recently retired from both practices to devote full time to nutritional studies and research.

Dr. Blaylock has written four books: Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills (how they are related to diseases of the nervous system), Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life , Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients , and Cellular and Molecular Biology of Autism Spectrum Disorders. He has written major sections of three medical textbooks and has published over 30 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.



PART ONE

MILNER: For example, if you saw a child with a concussion or you saw a child with some kind of brain injury, you wouldnt treat that, would you?

OFFIT: No, itsin other words, what I am director of treatment of infectious diseases here at Childrens Hospital Philadelphia and so what we do atin the Infectious Disease division is we see children who are inpatients, who have severe or chronic or persistent or unknown infectious diseases, or we see children as outpatients who generally are referred by pediatricians in the community with an infectious disease that theyre having difficulty handling.

HALEY: Dr. Offit has no training in toxicology or neurology, yet he feels it is okay for him to dismiss the potential toxicity of injecting thimerosal into infants on the day of birth, within the first 6 months of life. This is quite arrogant.

OFFIT: Vaccines are the best of two worlds. What they do is they induce roughly the same immune response that are induced by natural infection without having to pay the price of natural infection.

HUMPHRIES: I dont believe the literature or the immunology supports this idea of roughly the same immune response. How could it? Any immunologist will tell you that the immune system is not a rough one. It involves finely orchestrated highly specific responses, so that the right target is hit at the right time, especially after being immunized naturally so that the future response is accurate, rapid and does not cause autoimmunity.

Now as for as his comment about vaccines doing the same thing as natural disease--that is easily refuted. For instance with the whooping cough bacteria you get a very different stimulation, intramuscular vs. inhaled which is exactly why an inhaled vaccine has been invented.

With the currently used injection, you get a very limited array of specific responses to the toxins in the bacteria compared to the natural infection. Adenylate Cyclase Toxin is not in the vaccine, so you are totally inept to respond to that after injection because the fact of original antigenic sin or otherwise known as linked epitope suppression. The immunity is faulty as a result of original antigenic sin:

from Cherry 2010:





HUMPHRIES: And the same applies to influenza vaccines and possibly others as well. But whooping cough is a great example of how what he says here is simply rubbish.

Yes, you pay a price for natural infection, but you get a great reward for it. And if you dont get the natural infection you get vaccines cradle to grave. Many parents are opting for the infection because they know it is easily manageable with high doses of vitamin C and because they know antibiotics do not treat it and that the vaccine is not protective guarantee and carries risk.
Hes been studying it in Guinea Bissau in parts of Africa. He worked for the WHO for decades. Hes been studying this for decades. Hes at a University in Europe, but basically in Guinea Bissau. He and several other researchers studies this for years, tracked it over thousands and thousands of kids, and said that for every one child from D, P, or T, five die from other infections because their immunity is so altered from that shot.

 We were using the old DPT, which as we know now How many of you read about Peter Aabys recent publication?that for every one child we save from D, P, or T we kill five with the DPT.

We didnt vaccinate preemies; we adjusted their age. We didnt give a day one of life vaccine. If a kid was sick, had a fever or was fussy, we wouldnt vaccinate them. We only gave 14 shots up to the age of like 16. It was much different than todays milieu, still kids were injured.

 In the eighties, we did not vaccinate women who were about to be pregnant. We would ask them. Today theyre recommending vaccines for pregnant women, without any safety studies.

Dr. Bark began her talk by explaining to her audience what led her to be involved in the vaccine controversy.

By Anne Dachel This is not medicine. This is barbarism.

And here, we gave the DPT in this country, which is what fueled the Vaccine Court, all the injury from the DPT, right? And we had doctors telling us, and who still say its safe and effective. Yeah, if you dont mind killing five kids for every one you save.

Jacob Puliyel, who Ive been honored to befriend, whove chief of pediatrics in New Delhi, at St. Elizabeths, whos also on the Indian Government Committee for Vaccine Design., writes a blog and in his blog, he writes for the pentavalent vaccine, which were starting to use here. You know, youve got all these things in it. Chicken pox is added on to it. It could be five different antigens in thereThats what pentavalent means.

That for every 325 lives saved, weve killed 3,250.

So how can we justify this?

I can tell you that doctors dont know whats going on. They dont know the reality.

The staffersI just ran back from meeting with [U.S. Representative] Jan Schakowskys staffer. And she sat there with a blank face as I was explaining that there was no real studies, no safety studies. Theyre not using placebos. If you look at the Prevnar study, they used an experimental meningitis C vaccine for the safety placebo, which had never been studied for study. And for the Prevnar 13, they used the original Prevanar, which of course had never been studied for safety.

And Im going on and on, and she says to me, Yeah, but, you know, its really a public health risk.

I said, Really? Because if you dont know the risk, how can you make a risk-benefit analysis?

And she looked at me with a blank face, and I said, You cant.

You cant make a risk-benefit analysis if you dont know the risk. You cant just blindly say, we need it for public health. We need it for public unhealth. 

I think she has this blank wall, and, you know, like many people, they have made up their mind before they hear you, because its orthodoxy, and its an accepted factoid.

Its not a fact, its a factoid. Its just this thing that we pass on and on and on. Until you step away from the system and look at it for what it isWhich now, I look at the medical system and I think, Oh my God, the scariest, most dangerous place you could ever be is in a hospital. Really.

And I say this, and some doctors are so insulted, and I think they get so reactive because they know its true. How could they not know its true?

It took me a long time to come completely to the other side. I knew vaccines were a risk for some kids, but I didnt know they were all B.S. I didnt know the whole system was based on a crumbled foundation with stories, with fairy tales. I didnt know that. I know that now. 

It should be able to seep in that if we dont have safety studies, we dont really know a risk-benefit ratio. That should make sense to anyone whos had high school level math. 

Ive evolved over on this side, and Ive done my research, and I know how corrupt the whole system is. I understand that pharma is there to make a lot of money and to keep people sick. Big Food is involved, and theyre helping out as best they can.

What can you do about all of this? And I said this in Atlanta: you got to take back your own health.

So dont come here complaining with a soft drink in your hand. 

We all know how horrible it is. I could go on and on with these stories. 

What were being told by our doctors is all wrong. If we dont take our health into our own hands, this will continue to happen. Its only worse in the vaccine area because theyre mandated, but its going on in all aspects of our health.

We have to be educated. We have to decide were not going to give money to the companies that are in cahoots with Big Food, Big Pharma, and our regulatory agencies.

So thats where were going to go from here, because these can get better for the most part, For many kids, they can get better, and for many adults with MS, with dementia, with diabetes, with autoimmune diseases, they can get a lot better.

All I can tell you is anything that reduces inflammatory markers to zero, reduces inflammation in the brain.

If you have to live in ketosis, you do it. Ive been doing it for three yearsfor fun. For the health of it. 

Its not all just complaining and spinning our wheels. And I do think were making strides and inroads, but you got to take your health in your own hands, because ultimately, youre the one who have to live with your health and your injury.

More about Dr. Bark:

Dec, 2015 Andrew McCabe Interviews Dr. Bark

June 2015: CA 277

Nov 2014: Pediatric Health and Vaccination Status

Aug 2013: On Autism

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.








Web Toolbar by Wibiya

Crimea was an integral part of Russia for centuries and is historically, culturally and linguistically Russian. Just like some European continue to see European Turkey as being a part of Asia mainly because of its Islamic religion; they now view Crimea as being a part to Ukraine just because it became a part of the Soviet nation as a part of Ukrainian Republic but now it is a East European nation. Soviet President Khrushchev, who belonged to Ukraine, had gifted Crimea from Russian Republic to Ukrainian Republic as a part of territorial rearrangement.



Angry over Ukrainian support for USA and it move away from Moscow, Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and made it an integral part of Russia once again. Even if Ukraine changes its anti-Russia stand, Crimea would remains with Russia henceforth. Clearly, if Purims statements are of any indication, Russia is not going to give Crimea to Ukraine any time in future.



As such, all calls for Russia to leave Crimea are useless and as pointless. Continued occupation of many Arab nations as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan by the USA and anti-Islamic allies, does not offer any chance for forcing Russia as well.



Meanwhile, French Presidential candidate Francois Fillon warned that Russia was unstable and should be handled with care. Can we lift sanctions against Russia without progress in Crimea? he said. We have to respect two important yet contradictory principles: respect for sovereign borders and the right to self-determination.



No one doubts that Crimea has been historically, culturally and linguistically Russia, and pointless to keep demanding that Russia leaves Crimea: it's never going to happen. Fillion had been seen as a forerunner in the French elections until February this year, when French police began to investigate claims that he had deliberately squandered public money by hiring his wife in a nonexistent role as a parliamentary assistant.



He's recently made a comeback in the polls, reaching third place. The first round of the French presidential elections takes place this Sunday. Russia remains strong notwithstanding all economic sanctions by USA and EU, and its other allies. Putin said he would stress Superpower status in Presidential Campaign next year. Restoring Moscow's global influence will be a dominant theme of the 2018 election.



There are obviously no signs of Putin asking the military to leave Crimea for Ukraine and EU to take it away. 2018 Presidency poll In 2016, Donald Trump rode a wave of popular discontent to the White House on the promise that he would make America great again. As Russias presidential election, scheduled for March 2018 draws nearer, President Vladimir Putin may try a similar tactic  by contending that he has already restored Russias greatness. Since annexing Ukraines Crimean peninsula in 2014, Russia has increasingly asserted its role on the global stage.



Following annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin has also ignited a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine and supported the unrecognized peoples republics that emerged there. In 2015, Russia entered the longstanding Syrian civil war in support of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad. Trumps electoral victory and the demise of the Western consensus against Russias violation of international law has also been a major coup for the Kremlin.



These events have all catapulted Putin to the position of a powerful broker in the international arena and fulfilled the countrys longstanding desire for international influence. They signify that, Russia is once again a global player on par with the USAmuch like the USSR was thirty years ago. Russias military prowess Earlier this month, it emerged that Russia had deployed a 22-member special forces unit to a base in western Egypt, near the Libyan border.



Russias goal is likely to support Khalifa Haftar, a renegade Libyan National Army general who currently controls most of the countrys east and poses a serious challenge to the UN-backed government in Tripoli. The general made two high-profile visits to Moscow in 2016, and signed a series of undisclosed agreements with the Russian military in January. But it is significant because it undermines UN efforts to stabilize the north African country.



The deployment shows that Russia is thinking not just about its continued presence in Syria, but in the Greater Middle East, says Alexei Malashenko, a regional analyst at the Dialogue of Civilizations foundation. Recently, Russia has also increased its role in Afghanistan.



In February, the Kremlin organized an Afghanistan peace conference in Moscow that brought together representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, and Iran. Notably absent were the United States and other NATO coalition members. Russia has also advocated for including the Taliban in any solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, presenting the Islamist militants as a bulwark against the Islamic State (IS). In February, Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. military operations in the country, alleged that Russia had increased covert and overt support for the Taliban to undermine the USA and NATO in Afghanistan.



Russia has sincere concerns about conflict spillover from Afghanistan into Central Asia, says Malashenko. But it is also using the IS and Taliban presence in Afghanistan to assert the role of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led military alliance of post-Soviet states in the region.



On March 20, David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, accused Russia of deliberately destabilizing Serbia in order to prevent the Balkan country from joining the EU. He has also alleged that Russia supports nationalist leaders throughout the Balkans. In Montenegro, two Russian intelligence officers stand accused of masterminding a failed coup on election day in October 2016 to prevent the Balkan nation from joining NATO. Last month, a Montenegrin special prosecutor stated that Russian state bodies were involved on a certain level.



Any move that destabilizes the Balkans would send a strong message to the West: Russia is a critical regional powerbroker. Europe could serve as another staging ground for restored Russian influence. As political uncertainty grows in the EU, Russia is reasserting its influence in the Balkans. Earlier this month, when EU foreign affairs representative Federica Mogherini spoke in the Serbian parliament, a group of pro-Russia parliamentarians met her with chants of Serbia! Russia! We dont need the EU! Observation The sanctions, imposed by USA and EU on Russia against the annexation Crimea, have not yielded any fruits.



It is mainly because of economic position of Moscow. The major sources of economy include arms and oil. Unless weak countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan, Russia cannot be bullied by sanctions or threat of terror attacks the powerful Kremlin.



Threats of USA are not going to weaken Russia in any manner. And there is no reason for the Kremlin to leave Crimea. So far, there is no consensus in the Kremlin on whether to boost tension in Serbia. Cooler heads understand it may be riskier than involvement in Syria. Meanwhile, decision makers must take into account the public mood. Last year, polls repeatedly showed that Russians are tired of war. Armed conflicts are increasingly seen as an irrational waste of resources, and human lossesfirst in Ukraine, then in Syriaas something Russia doesnt need.



The Russian public sees the countrys newly achieved superpower status as a source of international respect, but Russians are more eager for this status to be used for dialogue, than for confrontation. The challenge for the Russian leadership will be to avoid backsliding into real conflicts that might undermine stability, something Russians hold dear. Putin seems to understand this. He is too cautious to attempt a full-scale restoration of Soviet grandeur.



Besides Syria and Ukraine, its either isolated local episodes, or just talk So far, there is no clear indication that the Kremlin has decided on a central idea for Putins electoral platform. One of the challenges for the Kremlin will be addressing economic stagnation and declining living standards that will likely persist in Russia for a few more years. The other will be getting voters to the polls. But nostalgia for Soviet greatness could still drive electoral mobilization. Recent debates over holding the election on the fourth anniversary of the Crimean annexation reflect an appeal to that nostalgia. Restoring Russias superpower status was the purpose of Putins third term. Russias global influence will be a key part of the campaign, but the nostalgia card has already been played.



EU cannot expect Putin to explain why Russians need global influence and what they get from it. Russias quest for global influence wont end in the near future. The upcoming presidential election will be utterly predictable, lacking real competition. As a result, Putin will likely spend 2017 demonstrating Russias global greatness to spur enthusiasm and drive Russians to the polls. This does not mean that Russia will rush to war, however. . But it does mean the Kremlin must project an image of strength abroad. The idea is to show influence. Putin will need to make headlines, assert Russias global presence and demonstrate that it is returning its spheres of influence.
The identity authentication app.[Photo/Chinanew.com]

Guangdong citizens no longer need to worry about proving their identities, even if they don't happen to have their ID cards on them.

On April 19, Guangzhou police unveiled an identity authentication app that enables citizens to prove their identities via their mobile phones. To date, the city has authorized 20 offices to help citizens register for the service. Once they register, they can use facial recognition technology, available via the app, to prove their identities whenever and wherever necessary.

Developed by police in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, the app provides highly accurate results while at the same time protecting against personal information leaks.
GRAND FORKS  The Flood of 1997 left the University of North Dakota campus in a condition both challenging and advantageous. Though some of the buildings there had taken the full brunt of overland flooding and the rise of English Coulee, much of the campus was left high and dry -- or, at least what passed for that at the time -- and served as a forward base for many city and emergency functions. Still, several key buildings and other campus assets were full of water, inundated in some places usually inaccessible, overlooked or unseen by the general public.

In that setting of water damage behind locked doors, LeRoy Sondrol was the man with the keys.

At the time of the flood, Sondrol was UNDs plant services director, an area later known as facilities management. When the floodwaters began to rise, he was part of the effort to fight the Red River in high-risk areas of the city, a fight soon lost after the best efforts of determined residents. Sondrol returned to campus thereafter and became part of an initial core of roughly a dozen people devoted to protecting the university through the worst of the waters onslaught.

Resident expert

His expertise in the operations of the steam plant -- the main source of heating for campus buildings -- plus his familiarity with the landscape of UND made Sondrol a key figure in the process of making decisions to save the universitys priorities.

He describes the effort in simple terms.

I did my job, is what I tried to do, Sondrol said.

Then-UND President Kendall Baker said it would basically be impossible to single out any one hero of the campus flood story, a point Sondrol himself underlined. Even still, Baker jumped to specifically identify Sondrol as a guiding force of the flood battle.

LeRoy was enormously knowledgeable about the campus, Baker said. As a consequence, he was able to advise us on what we wanted to do.

There was no shortage of campus facilities in need of being pulled back onto their feet. Sondrol said the order of operations was guided by meetings with academic deans and department heads to determine what each needed the most to carry out their duties.

Research was No. 1, so we could get the money flowing back in for that, he said. Then you get the classes ready, and then you get your housing and food services.

Beneath all of that were issues surrounding the steam plant, a host of challenges Sondrol described as the paramount problem.

We had to be able to put steam in the buildings to heat water and bring the buildings back online, he said. By the time the floodwaters receded, more than 69 miles of steam and electrical lines had been impacted, though Sondrol said recovery money from FEMA actually yielded a silver lining of sorts -- some of the ruined pipes were more than 80 years old and needed to be replaced.

The flood caused more than $75 million in damage on campus. Monte Koshel, UND broadcasting director, joined Sondrol on a tour of the destruction, recording the damage with his video camera for historical -- and insurance -- documentation. Koshel remembers the journey taking them into the flooded basements and storerooms of buildings hed never before set foot in, normally innocent environments rendered eerie by the post-disaster atmosphere.

Everythings dark, kind of like in a movie, just beams of flashlights and the water sloshing is the only sound you hear, Koshel said. You never knew what you were walking into.

One day, the documentarians cut off an electrical fire in the mechanical room of a campus research center. On another, they might have been salvaging food and supplies in a campus dining center. Koshel laughed as he recalled being startled by a floating bucket that drifted into the back of his leg in the pitch black of a lower level area in Leonard Hall. By the end of the campus tour, Koshel said the footage he gathered was eventually used to recover substantial amounts of money for the university through UNDs insurance policies.

The flood provided no shortage of unusual situations for those who made it their business to witness everything. The UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences played host to at least one of them.

A good ending

The adventures of the flood would prove to be an endpoint for Sondrols time at UND. In 1998, 42 years after taking a university job at the age of 19, he officially retired. He told the Herald at the time that his most satisfying achievement wasnt his work during the flood. Rather, he said, it was his role in making campus accessible for people with disabilities, a process UND began in 1972.

It wasnt a coincidence that his retirement landed about a year after the flood.

To be honest with you, I was burnt out, Sondrol said, laughing. As tiresome as it might have been, he said the flood era was one of the most rewarding times in his career at UND as he got to see the community band together in the midst of adversity.

I wouldnt want to go through it again, he said, but it was a tremendous experience at that.
Assyrian, Armenian, Greek Genocide Commemoration Held in Glendale, California

Mr. Sabri Atman, the director of the Assyrian Genocide Research Center. ( AINA) (AINA) -- The city of Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, California, hosted commemoration events on the Turkish genocide of Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks in World War One. Glendale is home to a large Armenian population as well as a population of Assyrians.

The events included lectures, poetry readings, performances and a candle light vigil and were attended by a large audience of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and other interested persons. Speakers included Rebert Avetisyan, the Permanent Representative of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic to the United States, Mr. Sabri Atman, the director of the Assyrian Genocide Research Center, Paula Devine, Mayor of the City of Glendale, Ara Najarian, Glendale City Council member and Ara Aharonian, Glendale City Council Genocide Commemoration Committee member.

The Turkish genocide of Christians occurred during World War One, from 1915 to 1918, and claimed the lives of 750,000 Assyrians (75%), 1.5 million Armenians, and 1 million Pontic Greeks. Turkey denies the genocide and claims the victims were casualties of war.

Mr. Atman gave a historical view of the Assyrian genocide, and explained what happened to Assyrians, in Van, Tur Abdin, Diyarbekir, Urmia and many other places in Turkey and Iran. He started his presentation by saying "I know many of you sitting here now, have children. I would like to ask you a simple question: Imagine your son or your daughter was killed and the murderers were still rooming free. How many of you could rest and forget what happened? This is what happened in 1915 to Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks. The Turks did not just kill one person, but they killed over two million people, and they are still free and denying what they did."

( AINA)

A second event is scheduled for Sunday, April 23 in Montebello, California. Mr. Atman will be one of the speakers together with US Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, California State Senator Anthony Portantino, and Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorrian, as well as Fethiye Cetin, Lawyer for Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who was assassinated in Istanbul, Turkey. It will be community wide commemoration of the Armenian and Assyrian Genocide.

( AINA)

( AINA)
Air France KLM Martinair Cargo and logistics firm Fermac Cargo Espana have launched joint 777-300 freighter flights from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Madrid to serve the mango trade.

The first of a minimum of eight flights operated on 19 April, each carrying around 90 tonnes of the fruit, which is in growing demand in Europe, and is one of the main exports from the African country.

Fermac Cargo is coordinating customs clearance and health inspection at Madrid Barajas Airport.

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April 21, 2017

KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip  Inside the cars of the train that have been decorated with Palestinian flags, colored balloons, flowers and cartoons, dozens of children sit on wooden benches reading storybooks. This is the first "knowledge train" that visits villages in the southern Gaza Strip to encourage children to read and to develop their linguistic and creative skills.

Khalil Fares, the director of Shorouq wa Amal Center, which is affiliated with the Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA) in Khan Yunis, told Al-Monitor, The knowledge train is the first initiative launched by the center in cooperation with education associations affiliated with the CFTA and others like Asdaa Recreation Center. The latter lent the train to the center as a contribution to encourage children to learn and read.

Fares said, The knowledge train took off on March 15 and will maintain its activities for a month and a half. The initiative is set to end on April 30. This annual activity is organized by Shorouq wa Amal Center. We sought a rare and unfamiliar way to attract children to read, and this is how the idea of the train emerged. Children really warmed up to it. The train targets around 200 children per day whose ages range between 6 and 12 and who are eager to learn new things. The train provides them with [the opportunity to access new] knowledge and improves their behavior, encouraging a special and cultivated generation.

He added, The train stops at all public and UNRWA-affiliated schools in Khan Yunis and also heads to remote areas in the east of the governorate. The organization coordinates with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and civil associations to determine the times and places of the train visits so that the children are notified in advance.

The train offers many activities; it includes more than 150 storybooks as well as plays that talk about the childhood of Palestinian authors such as Mahmoud Shukair, Ghassan Kanafani and poet Jabra Ibrahim Jabra. So the children are introduced to the most influential authors and poets in the Palestinian territories, he noted.

Fares continued, The knowledge train organized a Skype interview with Shukair to discuss his own childhood and his experience [as an author] with the children; he answered the childrens questions and boosted their self-confidence.

He said, The knowledge train also includes educational puppet shows for children to focus on their virtues because children can connect with theater in different ways. The storyteller wearing a cloak and a red hat and holding a big storybook is also an entertaining part of the initiative. Children gather around him while he tells exciting stories. And this has helped them disconnect temporarily from their worries.

Children are given the freedom to closely explore the inside of the train and are told to pick their favorite stories. The aim is to create a safe environment that encourages awareness and intellectual growth. Diverse stories and books are chosen carefully in order to engage the children and encourage them to read in their free time, despite the limited number of libraries in the Gaza Strip, Fares said.

He noted that the train visits each school only once for two hours in the day due to the large number of schools in Gaza, in order to offer its services to different schools in different areas.

Shorouq wa Amal Center collaborates with El-Amal Rehabilitation Society for the physically disabled, which is affiliated with the Palestinian Red Crescent in Khan Yunis, to give children with special needs the opportunity to board the train and share the experience of reading and watching humorous performances with their peers [from regular schools]. We want to take care of them and encourage them to read, Fares said.

According to UNRWA, the Khan Yunis refugee camp where around 68,000 refugees live is suffering from unemployment, lack of houses and infrastructure and power cuts.

In one of the train cars, Hadil Najjar, 12, sits in a wheelchair and holds a comic book. She seems happy from the expression on her face, telling Al-Monitor, I spend a lot of time in this wheelchair without doing much. The train has given me the chance to read various stories and listen to the storyteller who draws a smile on my face. I could not read or listen to these stories before because they were not available in our village.

Najjar was injured during the 2014 Gaza war, after her house was targeted by Israeli artillery fire that wounded most of her family members.

She said, I dream of more attention for children with special needs through special and equipped libraries that we can access despite our disability. I want to be able to regularly visit the library, listen to stories and read to improve my intellectual abilities.

Nour Abu Jazar, 10, who carefully listens to the storyteller, said, The train contains many photos and stories that are missing in the citys schools and libraries.

He added, We hope the train would stay for the whole year so that we could read many books and benefit from the services of the knowledge train. The train now only stays for a couple of days a year.

When asked about the challenges facing this initiative, Fares said, The center needs support from local and international associations that care for children in order to expand the scope of our activities and increase the number of books available. We want to fulfill the needs of the large number of children interested in the initiative. We can't, for instance, lend books to the children because of the limited number of books available. We want to allow children in other regions to read these books and benefit also.

He added, The current books we have were provided by Shorouq wa Amal Centers library. We are currently seeking to form a committee for Palestinian children in cooperation with associations that is tasked with boosting childrens knowledge.
April 20, 2017

On April 6, the US State Department added Ahmed Ghandour, the commander of Hamas' Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades northern branch, to its list of terrorists for his involvement in various armed operations, including taking Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captive in the Gaza Strip in June 2006. Palestinians know Ghandour as one of the most hard-line commanders in the al-Qassam Brigades and as overseeing the battle against an Israeli incursion into northern Gaza in October 2004 that lasted three weeks and led to 130 Palestinian deaths.

Ghandour, aka Abu Anas, is a member of al-Qassam Brigades Supreme Military Council. He is considered the right hand of Hamas' military commander Mohammed al-Deif. He survived Israeli assassination attempts in 2002 and 2012. Israeli aircraft have targeted his home several times, most recently on July 9, 2014, during the war on Gaza. He was detained by Israel between 1988 and 1994 and then held by the Palestinian Authority (PA) from 1995 to 2000. The PA released him after the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. Why the United States chose to designate Ghandour a specially designated global terrorist at this particular time is unknown, but it comes at a time when Hamas is preparing to issue a new policy document in which the movement is expected to adopt more pragmatic positions.

Hamas issued a statement April 6 calling the US decision unethical, a violation of international law and inciting Israeli terrorism against Palestinians. Amid Hamas spokespersons commenting on the decision, the movement organized a sit-in in solidarity with Ghandour in front of his house in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip. Supporters raised banners proclaiming that resistance is not terrorism.

Hazem Qassem, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, The US decision against Ghandour will not affect the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation. [The resistance] is legitimate in virtue of international and humanitarian laws and norms. The Israeli enemy and its leadership are the ones that should be placed on the terror blacklist for committing massacres against our people. Such US decisions will not intimidate Hamas and its leaders, nor will they break the will of the Palestinian people. Hamas will continue to resist until Palestine is liberated and the rights of our people are restored.

Osama Abu Irshaid, a researcher with the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies who resides in the United States, told Al-Monitor, The US decision against Ghandour is an extension of the old/new US policy against Hamas, adopted [by President Bill Clinton, then] by former President George W. Bush, followed by Barack Obama and Donald Trump today.  But the fact that the Trump administration is adding specific names from Hamas is a clear display of good intentions toward Israel. This shows a contradiction between US policy and European [policy] toward Hamas, especially since some European parties, such as the European Court of Justice [ECJ], have [recommended] taking Hamas off [the European Union's] terror blacklist since 2003.

An ECJ advocate general has held that the addition of Hamas to the list was not made according to established EU legal procedures.

So far, a total of five senior Hamas members have been designated terrorists by the United States. In September 2015, the State Department added Deif to its terror list along with Yahya Sinwar, now the head of Hamas political bureau in Gaza. Rawhi Mushtaha and Fathi Hamad, members of Hamas' political bureau, joined them in 2016.

The State Department cited Sinwar, Mushtaha and Deif as being founders of the al-Qassam Brigades and for being behind several armed attacks that killed Israelis. Hamad, who served as interior minister in the Hamas government from 2009 to 2014, was accused of using his position to coordinate the work of armed Palestinian cells. Hamad also founded Al-Aqsa television, which is affiliated with Hamas and airs programs to recruit children as fighters and for suicide missions after reaching adulthood.

In another action targeting Hamas, on March 14, the FBI added Ahlam al-Tamimi to its Most Wanted Terrorist list for her role in a suicide bombing by the al-Qassam Brigades in Jerusalem in 2001. Some two decades ago, in 1995, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the first head of Hamas political bureau, had a run-in with US officials, who arrested him in New York and held him for 22 months on the suspicion of ordering and transferring funds to Hamas fighters in the Palestinian territories. They ultimately released him in 1997, deporting him to Jordan.

Ahmed Yousef, the political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the former deputy head of Hamas political bureau and head of the House of Wisdom, spent many years in the United States in the 1980s and the 1990s. He told Al-Monitor, The US decision against Ghandour is consistent with Israeli demands to label the Gaza Strip as a place of refuge for terrorists wanted by the US judiciary in an attempt by Israel to eliminate any chance of future dialogue between Hamas and Washington. This particularly impedes the Hamas leadership from promoting itself before the international community, especially as it plans to issue its new policy document by the end of April and present a more pragmatic and flexible discourse. In addition, this decision raises a US-European debate on dealing with Hamas in the future.

Raed Enairat, the head of the Contemporary Center for Studies and Policy Analysis in the West Bank, told Al-Monitor, The US decision [on Ghandour] has political and security objectives when it comes to people whom Washington believes it will never meet with in the future because of their extremist positions, such as military commanders. This may indeed impede any dialogue between Hamas and Washington, but the difference with Europe is that it [Europe] only classifies Hamas military wing as a terrorist organization, not the movements political wing. However, the United States does not differentiate between the two and sees both of them as terrorists.

Hamas is likely disappointed by US decisions to designate its leaders as terrorists because of its potential to negatively impact the movement's foreign relations. It obviously prohibits relations being established between the movement and Washington and also could affect Hamas dealing with countries close to the United States, such as Canada and Japan as well as the US Arab allies Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
April 20, 2017

Iran's Reformist Council for Policymaking announced March 12 that it would be supporting incumbent moderate President Hassan Rouhani  approximately two months before the country's presidential election. Mohammad Reza Aref, a parliamentarian and the head of the council, said that in a meeting in which all of the members were present, they took a vote and agreed to support Rouhani for his second term.

At the time, the story was not widely covered  supporting an incumbent candidate is not necessarily breaking news. And Reformists have essentially acquiesced to the power of the hard-line Guardian Council and no longer run their most popular and well-known names. So, throwing their support behind Rouhani once again was not a difficult choice, especially given the alternatives. Journalist and Reformist activist Mohammad Javad Hassar said to BBC Persian that despite their criticisms of the Rouhani administration, they will support him "to prevent a tragedy in the name of Ahmadinejad." He clarified that he meant the mentality that former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought to office.

An open letter published April 19 by Reformists addressed to the Reformist Council for Policymaking, however, citing the simultaneous city council elections that will take place during the presidential election, asked for greater transparency in the selection of candidates. The letter, which so far has been signed online by 1,200 different people of various backgrounds, criticized the logic of choosing between "bad and worse" and said that this logic would ultimately cost the voters who are inclined to vote for Reformist policies.

The letter above followed another letter April 17 by nine well-known Reformists, who addressed directly the head of the Reformist Council for Policymaking. The letter asked the council to prevent the candidacies of individuals running as Reformists but who have a history of turning their back on Reformist policies. The letter referenced the case in 2013 in which Tehran city council member Elahe Rastghoo ran as a Reformist but cast the deciding vote in favor of the conservative candidate for mayor. The vote was a shock for Reformists and moderates who had a chance for the mayor's office for the first time in eight years. The more notable names who signed the letter were Mostafa Tajzadeh, Saeed Hajjarian and Mohammad Reza Khatami.

What the two letters had in common was their concern that voters who support Reformist policies would eventually become discouraged with the lack of transparency or the selection of untrustworthy candidates. Given the wave of anti-elitism sweeping even Western countries, it makes sense for Reformists to grow concerned that their decision-makers are becoming complacent or are playing favorites in their selection of candidates.

Taking the Reformist vote for granted can open the door for insurgent conservatives who have formed under the Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces. In their second round of voting in April, the group listed five candidates to support for the election, with Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf being the most well-known name. In his first interview since registering for the presidential election, Ghalibaf said that even Rouhani's supporters are throwing their support behind a candidate they know will not be able to address the country's problems.
April 20, 2017

As talk of an independence referendum for Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) grows, Iran's role is becoming more visible, especially that of Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. But it appears that this role is retreating in the face of Kurdish ambitions for more independence.

Kurdish media outlets reported April 10 that Soleimani had met senior leaders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Sulaimaniyah. Rudaw, a media organization aligned with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), reported April 11 that the goal of the visit was to prevent the KRG from holding an independence referendum.

But it appears that PUK officials were not the only parties to the meeting. Soleimani had discussed the poll with KRG President Massoud Barzani in Erbil. Soleimani is Iran's top official in Iraq, according to KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. As such, he has had many relationships with Kurdish figures, especially in the PUK and the Kurdish Movement for Change (Gorran), since the 1990s.

Iraqi Kurdish political forces recently have increased their calls for a referendum on Kurdish independence. The leadership of the KDP has said such a poll will be held this year. The KDP and the PUK agreed to set up a joint panel April 2 to decide how the poll would be run and set a date for it.

Iran is against such a step and sees an independent KRG as a red line, something KDP Secretary-General Fadel Mirani dismissed on April 11, saying, "We don't need permission from anyone to hold a referendum." But it is impossible to ignore the clout of neighboring states opposed to Kurdish independence. Iran especially enjoys serious influence over the PUK and Gorran in Sulaimaniyah, which is close to the Iranian border.

Iran also has various means of affecting developments in Kurdistan. Economically, the Iranian border is a lifeline to the PUK and Gorran heartlands. The border is even more important in light of continuing intra-Kurdish disputes. Iran could economically strangle certain areas of the KRG. "Iran's strategy in Iraq is a policy of divide and rule," Joost Hiltermann, the program director for the Middle East and North Africa for the International Crisis Group, told Al-Monitor. "Kurdish society is very divided at the moment and Iran has a chance to exploit those divisions."

Iran would lose much of this leverage were Kurdish parties to put aside their differences, because there is major trading activity across the KRG's border with Turkey, which could serve the entire region from east to west. All this depends on the level of coordination between Iran and Turkey, which also opposes steps toward Kurdish independence in Iraq.

As the commander of an influential military force in the area, Soleimani plays a prominent role in Iran's security apparatus in the KRG. Iran has a major security presence throughout the region. There are also Iranian Kurdish opposition factions operating from Iraqi Kurdish territory that occasionally use it as a launchpad for attacks on Iranian soil. This has prompted Iran to beef up its presence in the KRG. David Pollock of the Washington Institute cited a Gorran movement official as saying that Iranian agents have 700 safe houses in Sulaimaniyah alone.

Hemn Seyedi, a former leading official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran, which is a splinter of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), told Al-Monitor, "In the last two decades, Iran has carried out dozens of security operations on Iraqi Kurdish soil. It has assassinated dozens of Kurdish opposition activists and bombed KDPI bases during incursions on KRG territory."

In December, six members of the KDPI died in an explosion in a base in the KRG town of Koya. The party leadership accused Iran of carrying out the attack. Nechirvan Barzani did not rule out the possibility that Iran was behind it.

Soleimani may also use Iran's considerable diplomatic, economic and security apparatuses to prevent the region becoming independent. Kurdish studies specialist Kamran Matin of the University of Sussex told Al-Monitor that if there really was a referendum and Kurdish leaders took steps toward independence, it is possible that Soleimani would provoke the central government in Baghdad and Shiite militias against the KRG. "Iran could also take the presence of opposition Kurdish-Iranian forces in the region as a pretext for military intervention there," he said. "On the other hand, Iran could enter into an alliance with Turkey to put pressure on the region. Finally, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard could use extremist Sunni Kurdish groups against the regional government, as it did early 2000s, when it it supported the Ansar al-Islam group in order to win political concessions from the region."

But Hiltermann said it is unlikely Iran would take such measures in the near future. "I don't think Iran is very worried, given that it is only a referendum and it will not receive much international support at this stage," he said.

Despite Iran's leverage in the region and Soleimani's moves to prevent the region from gaining more independence, the region has won major privileges in recent years thanks to support from the United States.
April 21, 2017

"The term 'leftist' has become a curse word in Israel, and we're going to stop that. Yes, I am a leftist, and I am not embarrassed about it. Only after we stop lowering our heads and feeling ashamed of who we are, will we win." The text appears in a video clip, "The leftists are on their way back," released April 18 by Knesset member Erel Margalit as part of his campaign for leadership of the Labor Party, the large partner within the Zionist Camp. And it is yet another expression of what is turning out to be the end of an era of political ambiguity in the Labor Party.

On July 4, Israeli Labor will elect a new leader to take them to the next election. The most interesting and important phenomenon in this race is that each candidate is highlighting a diplomatic agenda based on that of former party chair and assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. For the first time in years, they are not trying to run away from attempts to brand them as "left." In fact, quite the opposite is true.

Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz is a diplomatic dove and always has been. He is presenting a well-formulated doctrine based on the principle of diplomatic negotiations that led to separation from the Palestinians. Knesset member Omer Bar-Lev, a former chief of the Matkal commando unit, is a zealous advocate of a two-state solution. So is former Minister of Environmental Protection Avi Gabbay. Then, of course, there is Maj. Gen. Amiram Levin, who led a campaign in support of the left-wing group Breaking the Silence and could easily align himself with the left-wing Meretz Party, too. Even the current chair of the Zionist Camp, Isaac Herzog, has made the transition. Just last year, he announced that there was no one to talk to on the Palestinian side. He has since realigned himself firmly with left-wing supporters of the diplomatic process.

The party, which has reached an unprecedented low in the polls (10 seats), is undergoing a process that could prove to be much more than a pre-election gimmick. It distinguishes the Labor Party and the Zionist Camp from Yair Lapid's centrist Yesh Atid, which is doing everything it can to avoid being associated with the left. Such a strategy should win the Labor Party some of the seats that it already lost to Yesh Atid. It should also reformat the Israeli political system for many years to come.

"I  and plenty of other Israelis  we're leftists, plain and simple," says Margalit in the video clip. "And no, it's not a curse word. Leftists built this country. Leftists established the nuclear reactor. Leftists made peace with Jordan. Leftists won all of Israel's wars until now. Leftists have served as the chiefs of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, as heads of the Shin Bet and as heads of the Mossad, who fought against terror and won." It is a carefully crafted text, and it is safe to assume that its impact on Labor Party members was tested beforehand on a slew of focus groups. Labor voters constitute a very clear ideological group, which sees itself following in the footsteps of Rabin. Over the past few years, many of them have grown frustrated with the party's attempts to make gestures to the right in the hope that this could win them a few seats from the rival camp.

One person who was blunt in advocating this tactic of pandering to the right is Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich. As a former chair of the Labor Party, she chose to downplay its diplomatic messages in the 2013 election. Even before, the diplomatic positions that she presented in October 2012 at a meeting with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy were very similar to those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among the positions that Yachimovich supported as preconditions for negotiations were no freeze on settlement construction and the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. All of that was intended to win votes from the right for the Labor Party.

The tactic failed in the election. Under Yachimovich's leadership, Labor reached the finish line with just 15 seats and remained in the opposition. Herzog, who succeeded her, also tried to flirt with the right, in his case, after the failure of the Zionist Camp in the last 2015 election. The party began to crash in the polls. After watching sadly as votes shifted to Yesh Atid, Herzog adopted the same strategy of distancing himself from those markers identified with the left, while making gestures to the right.

Herzog launched his new political program in January 2016, presenting it as a kind of "rude awakening" from the illusions he had, supposedly in response to the intifada of individuals that started in October 2015. Peace can wait, Herzog determined. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is no partner for diplomatic negotiations. Statements such as these may have been pleasing to the Israeli right, but even then the flood of voters fleeing the Zionist Camp was unstoppable. Polls showed that Lapid's party continued to grow in popularity at the polls at the Zionist Camp's expense.

In general, Lapid's entry into the political arena and his efforts ever since the last election to win the support of moderate voters from the Likud posed a complicated challenge to the Labor Party. On the one hand, Lapid has fled from any association with the left, as if it was some infectious disease. On the other hand, he has managed to win over many voters from that camp. This explains why the Labor Party has been so tempted to imitate him.

Now, three months before the primaries, each of the six candidates are presenting themselves as clearly aligned with the diplomatic left and as following in the legacy of Rabin. "Lapid will disappear with the wind, because he is trying to imitate Netanyahu. The options are either the path taken by Yitzhak Rabin or the path taken by Netanyahu. We choose the path taken by Rabin. If we try to look like Lapid, we will lose like Lapid," Margalit predicts in his video clip.

In an appearance before the members of the Institute for National Security Studies this March, Peretz said, "Mahmoud Abbas is a partner for a peace agreement in the future and for routine security cooperation now. He was a partner as soon as he entered the office of Palestinian president over 10 years ago, and he and his successor will be partners in the future, too, apparently." According to him, "The truth is well-known. Every child can recite it. The solution to the conflict will be two states for two people, with borders based on the 1967 lines, but with minor adjustments and the reciprocal exchange of equal territory, which will leave the settlement blocs and most of the settlers within the territory of the State of Israel."

Levin has also spoken extensively about the urgent need for a diplomatic arrangement. "Continuing to keep the occupied territories will turn Israel into an apartheid state with a Jewish minority right in the heart of a Muslim region," he said at the beginning of the year.

This new branding of the Labor Party as the main party of the diplomatic left, regardless of the person chosen in July to lead it, should have implications for Lapid as well. It is highly likely that given the new circumstances, the Labor Party will win back some of the seats that switched to Yesh Atid over the last few years. The question is whether this approach will continue after the primaries for the Labor leadership or whether the party's new leader will be tempted to chase after votes from the right yet again. That would be more than just a mistake. It would be the deathblow for the Labor Party, which has failed to find its path in Israeli society ever since Rabin's assassination in 1995.
April 20, 2017

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Palestine ranked 106th globally on the ICT Development Index, which measures the development of information and communication technology, in November 2016, compared to its 103rd ranking in 2015.

A February 2016 World Bank report revealed that the total revenue loss for Palestinian mobile operators during the last three years exceeded $1 billion because of Israeli restrictions on the telecommunications sector.

In light of this situation, the Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology (MTIT) signed a final agreement with Israel on April 5 to allow Palestinian telecommunications companies to provide 3G services in the West Bank governorates and to allow Wataniya Mobile to operate a 2G mobile system in the Gaza Strip. (The latter of which comes after more than 10 years of negotiations on the issue.)

Wataniya Mobile was granted a license to operate in Palestine in 2006 after winning a $355 million tender as a second mobile operator alongside Jawwal. It started operations in the West Bank in 2009 but did not cover the Gaza Strip, as Israel prevented it from importing its equipment into the enclave.

The agreement between MTIT and Israel allowed Palestinian mobile service providers to use 3G only in the West Bank. It also allowed Wataniya Mobile to operate in Gaza alongside Jawwal. But the agreement did not explain why the 3G license was not granted in the Gaza Strip.

This agreement comes after the Palestinian and Israeli governments signed memoranda of understandings in September 2016 that regulated the telecommunications sector so as to activate the 3G service in Palestine and allow Wataniya Mobile to operate in Gaza.

Palestinian Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology Suleiman Zuhairi said the agreement with Israel is in line with the memoranda reached in mid-2016 to activate the 3G service in the West Bank.

He told Al-Monitor that, under the agreement, the Palestinian Authority (PA) would receive two 10 megahertz (MHz) of 3G services. He said, The first 10 MHz would be allocated for the exclusive use by the two Palestinian mobile service providers, Jawwal and Wataniya Mobile, while the second 10 MHz would be assigned for shared use between these two Palestinian companies and two Israeli companies, Cellcom and Pelephone. Ericsson, an international mobile broadband company, would manage the technical process of how the Israeli and Palestinian companies would share the second 10 MHz, in particular in Area C, to prevent any disturbances or overlapping of functions.

Zuhairi added that Jawwal and Wataniya Mobile will invest a total amount of $100 million, equally divided between them, to purchase the requirements necessary and activate the 3G service within a period of three to six months.

The public treasury revenues are expected to reach  $200 million a year. This amount represents the direct losses and lost investment opportunities that Israeli telecommunications companies illegally obtained by exclusively and illegally providing the 3G and 4G services to the West Bank, he said.

Haitham Abu Shaaban, the CEO of Wataniya Mobile in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, The company started on April 6 purchasing 3G service equipment for its activation in the West Bank within a period of up to six months, in parallel with the launch of the first transmission tower on April 10 built in Gaza City following the finalization of the agreement with Israel.

He added, Wataniya Mobile will start working in Gaza within a maximum of three months from now, with an investment expected to reach $60 million to operate the 2G service in the Gaza Strip after a wait of more than 10 years.

It should be noted that after Israel allows Wataniya Mobile to operate in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian telecommunications market will witness competition between this company and Jawwal, which has served the residents of Gaza and monopolized the telecommunications market since 1999. Wataniya Mobile has operated in the West Bank since 2009, along with a number of Israeli telecommunications companies, most notably Cellcom and Pelephone.

Nasser Abdel-Karim, a professor of economics at An-Najah University in the West Bank, told Al-Monitor this agreement will have tangible positive effects on the Palestinian economy and the PA's public treasury revenue by encouraging foreign companies to invest in the Palestinian telecommunications sector, which Jawwal has monopolized for 20 years.

He added, This will improve competition, reduce the cost of calls and data transmission and allow dispensing with the old 1G and 2G equipment. This will also be clearly reflected on the PA tax collection revenue, which is expected to exceed $150 million annually.

In November 2016, speaking at the announcement of Palestine Technology Week, Expotech 2017, Ammar Aker, the CEO of Palestine Telecommunications Company (Paltel), said the number of Israeli SIM cards has exceeded 370,000 in the West Bank, attributing this to the 3G and 4G services offered by those SIM cards. He estimated the ensuing losses sustained by the Palestinian telecommunications sector at $100 million annually.

An official source at Jawwal told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Wataniya Mobile will not be a real competitor to Jawwal as many imagine. The company has been operating in the West Bank for eight years now with a market share of 17%. Jawwal has the largest market share with 2.5 million SIM cards. Wataniya Mobile's expected market share in the Gaza Strip will not exceed 20% at the latest.

Samir Abu-Maddalah, a professor of economics at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, MTITs signing of a 3G services agreement in the West Bank will not have as great an economic impact as the PA envisions. Israeli SIM cards have flooded the Palestinian market, with more than 400,000 Israeli SIM cards accounting for a 25% share in the Palestinian digital market, without the Palestinian treasury reaping any benefit.

He added, Israeli SIM cards offer 4G and 5G technology that is less expensive and of a higher quality than the 2G and 3G technology. Under this agreement, Palestinian and Israeli companies will be jointly operating in Area C  i.e., 60% of the West Bank's geographical surface  and Israel will monopolize the 4G and 5G services there.

This agreement may be an achievement for MTIT, as it will allow Palestinian companies to offer their West Bank subscribers 3G technology services and will also allow Wataniya Mobile to operate in the Gaza Strip after 10 years of waiting for Israels approval to import its equipment. However, the coming days will reveal the technological and economic benefits of this agreement.
April 21, 2017

BAGHDAD  On April 4, the Sunni Endowment Diwan revealed that the minaret of the historic Khulafa Mosque, built in A.D. 900, could collapse due to water leaking into its foundation. It also warned that this historical monument in Baghdad could fall apart. The 35-meter-high (115-foot) minaret, which is surrounded by markets and urban buildings, has started to lean over. Given its location in Shorja, one of the busiest markets in Baghdad, in particular at al-Jamhouriya Street, the mosque has been damaged by pollution. In addition, Sunni historical monuments are often neglected due to sectarian issues.

On April 14, a field report blamed the governing Shiite parties who have adopted ideologies against such landmarks since 2003, after the fall of Saddam Husseins (Sunni) regime. This was manifested by the destruction of statues and monuments, such as the statue of the founder of Baghdad, Abu Jafar al-Mansur, in 2012, whom Shiites see as an unjust ruler.

It seems that sectarian neglect has become a phenomenon that has reached other areas, as well. For instance, on March 12, 2007, a newspaper report referred to the neglect of the Sharabiya school in Wasit, which was built in A.D. 1234, because its founder was Iraqi Gov. Hajjaj al-Thaqafi, who is considered by Iraqi Shiites to have been a tyrant. This is why officials neither gave the school much attention nor did they allocate funds for this historical edifice.

On Feb. 5, head of the Sunni Endowment Diwan Abdul Latif al-Hamim made a press statement expressing his regret for the great negligence that has afflicted the archaeological mosques in Baghdad."

In this context, Mazen Younis, the chairman of the Committee on Antiquities in Baghdads Provincial Council, told Al-Monitor, The negligence at the Khulafa Mosque is the natural result of the deliberate neglect of Abbasid monuments in Baghdad, which lack proper maintenance and restoration. There are even attempts to eliminate such monuments altogether, such as the Ancient Abbasid Wall of Baghdad, which has now turned into a landfill. In addition, the Sahrourdi minaret, dating back to A.D. 1235, is also threatened by collapse.

Younis said, Baghdads Provincial Council does not have solutions to this problem in light of the financial crisis, and therefore has contacted the Ministry of Culture and its media [office] to warn them about the risk of losing such monuments, particularly the Khulafa Mosques minaret, which has been exposed to significant damage over the years.

Meanwhile, Hakim Abdul Zahra, the spokesman for Morality of Baghdad, told the media on April 9, The Khulafa Mosque and its minaret have a historical and touristic dimension. Several bodies are responsible for the mosque, including the Sunni Endowment Diwan and government archaeological authorities, as well as Morality of Baghdad.

A simple walk around Baghdad is enough to see the major difference between the luxurious Shiite mosques, whose minarets are painted gold, and the Sunni mosques and their minarets, which seem outdated due to lack of maintenance and the impact of erosion.

Although Younis considers this proof of sectarian politics by the competent authorities, cleric Hatem Hussein of Babylon refuted these allegations and told Al-Monitor, The Shiite Endowment Diwan and the Shiite religious thresholds administration are handling maintenance and restoration with the help of volunteers and donations from citizens. The government has nothing to do with this. He added, The Shiites of Iraq are spending a lot of money to renovate the holy sites, while the Sunnis are only doing it to a limited extent.

Al-Monitor visited Khulafa Mosque on April 14, which happened to be a Friday, a day in which the surrounding market is crowded with people, especially since the spinning market, where animals and birds are sold, opens on Fridays. The mosques perimeter has become part of the market activity. In the absence of security, it is an easy target for bombing attempts. On Jan. 25, there was a bombing in Shorja followed by a rigged car incident near the mosque on Jan. 31, which affected the structure of the mosque and minaret, resulting in a broken sewer and a water leak.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, member of parliament for the Sunni Iraqi National Forces Alliance Raad al-Dahlaki criticized the sectarian discrimination against historical monuments, with a clear intent to erase the traces of a certain sect from the history of the country.

He added, This will result in major losses for everyone, as Sunni citizens feel marginalized. This also affects tourism, impedes national reconciliation and reduces prospects of tolerance.

The solution, according to Sabah Ahmad al-Mudi, the director general of the Engineering Department, begins with the steps taken by the Sunni Endowment Diwan, in sending engineers in coordination with the advisory offices, Morality of Baghdad and the Ministries of Interior and Culture to discuss the mechanism of keeping the minaret from falling and conducting damage assessment to carry out urgent treatments. He told Al-Monitor, The minaret should also be added to the list of human heritage [UNESCO World Heritage list] as soon as possible.

The preservation of the Khulafa Mosques minaret in the center of Baghdad, an area inhabited by both Sunnis and Shiites, makes it an exceptional task because it reminds the Iraqis of their history and paints the capital with mixed religious symbols, turning it into an environment of civilized interaction between different sects, which Iraqis are in dire need of today.
April 20, 2017

Since US Secretary of State Rex Tillersons visit April 12 to Moscow, Russian diplomats and officials have been busy meeting with all the key regional stakeholders in Syria. In just three days, on April 13-15, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosted in the Russian capital the foreign ministers of Syria, Iran and Qatar.

On April 16, the speaker of the upper chamber of Russias parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, traveled to Saudi Arabia.

In the midst of all this activity, an April 14 conference on settling the situation in Afghanistan brought to Moscow senior diplomatic and security officials from 11 countries. Moscow sees Afghan security as key to Middle Eastern stability.

Lavrovs meeting with Syrian and Iranian counterparts was critical for them to reiterate their common stance on the Syrian conflict. For Tehran and Damascus, it was also important to hear that Moscow stands firm in its position and hadnt struck any deals behind their backs with Washington during the Tillerson visit  at least not any that could essentially tip the balance to their detriment.

In a joint press conference April 14, Foreign Ministers Lavrov, Walid Moallem of Syria and Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran condemned the US strike on a Syrian air base April 7. They called for a careful, objective and unbiased investigation of the April 4 gas attacks  allegedly made by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against his own people  that led to the strikes. The ministers emphasized the need to maintain the political peace process for Syria even though, as Lavrov put it, "somebody" didnt feel the need to observe the cease-fire agreement reached in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Somebody has become a Russian euphemism for the United States  yet since Astana was mentioned, Lavrovs remarks might have been equally applied to Turkey.

A senior retired Russian diplomat speaking to Al-Monitor not for attribution said, It looks like Turkey backed the wrong horse yet again. It sided with Russia and Iran when it looked liked the balance had shifted to their favor, and switched back to support the [United] States after the strikes. But now that it looks like the strikes dont mean a radical change in the American strategy, Ankara finds itself in an awkward situation in respect to its position in the Astana peace process.

While the remarks echo opinions of many experts and decision-makers in Moscow, Russia still needs Turkish cooperation to settle Syrias issues. However, the Kremlin wont forget President Recep Tayyip Erdogans recent political hop-scotching as Moscow and Ankara move forward.

Syria also was on the agenda of Lavrovs meeting with Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jaber Al Thani, with both parties speaking in favor of a united, sovereign and integral state. The two ministers also discussed closer Russian-Qatari coordination in Yemen, Libya and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. On Palestine, both spoke in favor of restoring Palestinian national unity. In other words, Russia is seen as having a long-term presence in the Middle East, with its role in regional conflicts having the potential to be destructive or constructive.

Matviyenkos visit to Saudi Arabia stands out in this stream of diplomatic activity in that she was delivering Russias message to the Gulf. By and large it was the message that Lavrov had tried to convey to Tillerson: Russia wont stand by Assad at any cost but is against toppling the regime from the outside, which Moscow sees as a reckless adventure that would be disastrous in the long run.

Yugoslavia, Libya and Iraq have proved this [toppling of dictators] to be counterproductive and ending in tragic consequences, Matviyenko said at her meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. OK, Assad leaves. But whats next? What will Syria be like and who will come to power?

Matviyenko  a former Soviet ambassador to Malta and later Russias ambassador to Greece  appeared before the Saudi leadership in the same full-cover dress she wore when meeting Zarif during her November trip to Iran. The move, which sparked some controversy in the Russian blogosphere, was meant to show respect for Islamic tradition and thus implicitly emphasize the difference in approach between Russians and Westerners in dealing with Muslim nations. Besides, Matviyenko, who has long been Putins confidante, conveyed the presidents personal invitation for Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud to visit Russia year.

Vice Speaker Ilyas Umakhanov  a high-ranking senator from Dagestan with a long record of Russian dealings with the Arab world  accompanied Matviyenko on the visit. He made a critical observation following the meeting with Jubeir: Riyadh doesnt demand an immediate departure of Assad. But they admit this may be the subject during the transition period. That is a concise summary of one of the things Russia wants from Riyadh.

Many regional powers, including the Saudi kingdom, supported the US strikes on Syria, which put Russias own military and diplomatic efforts in jeopardy. After Moscow realized that ousting Assad isnt necessarily a first step in US President Donald Trumps Syria policy, it was important to ensure that critical regional players also share this sentiment  or at least can be persuaded of it. Yet, its also clear the Saudis will not depart from their policy, and there should be a plan to address Assads fate further down the road. Umakhanov mentioned that the issue is being discussed. Upon Lavrovs invitation, Jubeir will come to Moscow April 26 to continue the consultations.

The recent surge of violence in Syria signals a new stage of the conflict. This stage is just taking shape and regardless of what its going to look like, Moscow must ensure its own efforts arent derailed by developments similar to the gas attack or the US airstrikes.

At home, there is concern among Russian security forces over the rising activity of returnees  Russian nationals coming back from Syria. On April 19, Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) carried out raids in the central city of Vladimir and the southern city of Krasnodar, killing two terrorist suspects. A retired FSB general, commenting on the operation, said on Sputnik Radio that Islamic State militants understand theyve lost the battle for Syria and they are now sending their people to their homelands  including to Russia  to recruit new followers and launch terrorist attacks. If these are the challenges to come  on both the domestic and international fronts  Moscow will need to better connect with pivotal Middle East players. Thats where it probably will direct most of its foreign policy initiatives.
April 21, 2017

When the news of the chemical attack in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun came in on April 4, Ali texted his close friend Taghi to come over after work. They had served together during the long and brutal 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, in which Iraq began dropping chemical bombs as early as 1981. Ali and Taghi, who asked that their last names not be published, were members of a battalion in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) when they were exposed to mustard gas and nerve agents. Today, Ali can walk for barely 10 minutes without having an asthma attack, has to sleep with an oxygen mask at night and has had over 40 surgeries on his eyes. Alis vital organs have been burning from the inside for the past 26 years. Despite working in the IRGC for another 10 years after the end of the war, he had to retire in his 40s, and he relies on his close friend to keep him abreast of the outside world. Taghi is now a captain in the IRGC.

The two men sat watching television all evening, flipping between the news of the chemical attack on Iranian state television, which blamed jihadi groups for the incident, and satellite TV stations based in London and New York, which squarely assigned fault to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. War is not just whats fought on the battlefields, Ali told Al-Monitor. Its as much about the public relations side of it all.

The two debated all night about which side was actually behind the attack, exchanging text messages in secret chats with their close senior friends in the IRGC via messaging apps that erase the chat logs after a designated time. Taghi knew that the IRGC and the Iranian government officially blamed the anti-Assad forces, but having had personal experience with chemical bombs, he and his friends knew that they couldnt stand behind Assad if it turned out that his regime had carried out the attack.

But as time went on and the reactions to the chemical strike became increasingly political, especially from the United States, Taghi and Ali sensed that something was amiss.

Taghi told Al-Monitor, I was near Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan when the civilians got gassed by chemical bombs in 1988. We rushed in to help transport the survivors to hospitals. Over 5,000 civilians died in that horrific attack, and I remember distinctly that for two months after the attack, the US government and Western press were loudly blaming Iran for the attack. Of course, it later became apparent that Saddam Husseins military gassed its own people, with chemicals supplied by the West.

He added, This is why I get suspicious when the United States and its Arab allies rush to scream that Assads forces were behind an attack like this in Syria before any independent investigation has been conducted.

On April 9, two days after the United States fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in response to the chemical attack, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted a call for an impartial international inquiry into the April 4 incident. He noted, Having been the only recent victim of large-scale, systematic and frequent use of chemical weapons  perpetrated with impunity by Saddam Hussein through much of his eight-year war of aggression against Iran  the Islamic Republic of Iran is unshakable in its unequivocal condemnation of all uses of such heinous and illegal armaments, regardless of the perpetrator or the victim.

Vahid, a high-ranking official in the IRGC who asked that his last name not be published, told Al-Monitor, We remember when Iraq used chemical bombs all throughout the war on Iran, and the international community didnt even come to do an investigation for the first three years, as much as Irans leadership asked them to. Western powers and their media outlets were even accusing Iran of using chemical weapons during that time.

He added, When the United Nations finally did its first investigation in 1984, they concluded that Iraq had in fact used chemical weapons multiple times on Iranian soldiers and civilians. But the Security Council ignored those findings, as well as similar findings in 1986 and 1987. Our side kept being demonized, and we were the ones who had the chemical bombs being dropped on us, with the full knowledge of the international community. The chemical attacks continued until the very last days of the war.

Another senior official in the IRGC who works in Irans Syria policy and agreed to talk to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said, Look, we know what its like to be on the receiving end of these bombs. It has completely ruined the lives of many of our close friends we fought with during the war in the 1980s, as well as countless civilians in both Iran and Iraq. If it becomes apparent that Assad did use these bombs, trust me that there will be extreme pressure from within the [IRGC] to take a different course.

He added, But we also understand how the United States functions in these circumstances. The only way we can know for sure who was the perpetrator behind these attacks is to invite an impartial international investigation. Nothing in war is ever 100% clear in the immediate aftermath, especially when there are so many hands involved in a conflict. The fact that the United States and its allies dont even want an international investigation should raise many eyebrows.

Vahid said, We will unconditionally condemn Assad if the independent investigation proves that he was behind the attack, but we ask for the investigation first. After the long history we have had with Western powers lying about events in the Middle East in order to shift power back in their favor, we understandably dont trust their intelligence services until they are corroborated by an independent international investigation.

Back in Alis living room, the news is followed religiously, with constant flipping back and forth between domestic and international channels. Having fought a war, Ali knows how dirty the politics surrounding armed conflict can be. Its hard for him to trust any side.

Only time will tell, he said, staring at the television. But all I know is that the only ones who will suffer for the rest of their lives are the survivors. The politicians and policymakers will forget about the survivors in the weeks to come, as they go on with their business, playing with all of our lives. They profit from this. Its those poor survivors who have hell to look forward to. I dont wish what Ive been going through the past 26 years on anyone  He trailed off, shaking his head, muting the television and turning his attention to his tea.
April 21, 2017

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey  Right now in Turkey all political parties are busy discussing all aspects of the April 16 referendum. But the Kurdish-dominated Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) is focused on one subject alone: Did Kurds vote for Recep Tayyip Erdogans "yes" front?

HDP constituents are deeply disturbed by accusations of some no front officials that the yes received more votes than anticipated. An HDP official told Al-Monitor, In Diyarbakir, the no front got 75% of the vote. If they had worked hard, they could have received 70% in Istanbul. Were yes votes high only in places where Kurds live? What about central Anatolia? Are there Kurds there also?

In Diyarbakir, a city where Kurds are in the majority, the HDP had received 72% of the votes in the Nov. 1 general elections. In the referendum, the no front got 67%, that is, a decline of 5 percentage points. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) had received 21% of votes in the general election, but in the referendum, the AKPs yes went up by 11 percentage points to 32%. Likewise, in Hakkari, an HDP stronghold, the no front was strong. But Kurds are blamed solely for the voting results without taking into account the inequalities in the campaigns.

The debate was enflamed by an analysis by journalist Can Dundar, who tweeted, The increases in yes votes in the east and southeast affected the outcome, while in 17 out of 30 major cities, no won the day.

Did the yes front win because of Kurdish votes?

According to associate professor Vahap Coskun of Dicle University Faculty of Law, who closely follows the southeast and Turkeys politics, Kurdish votes did play an important role in an unexpected number of yes votes. He told Al-Monitor, We were guessing that the AKP would get a bit more than it did in general elections. Three reasons: First, Kurds who support the AKP believe that its the AKP and Erdogan who will ensure democratization of Turkey and solve the Kurdish problem. Although they have some objections to proposed constitutional amendments, they still believe it was the best choice they had.

"The second reason is the reaction to the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] because of the trench-barricade and urban warfare and distancing themselves from the HDP. The HDP would not come up with ways to overcome this distance. And the HDP doesnt have the means to solve this issue, as they are overwhelmed with their own problems. Their co-chairs and parliamentary deputies are in prison. The municipalities they controlled were taken over by state-appointed trustees. They are incapable of motivating the voters and mobilizing masses.

"The third reason is that Kurdish segments that did not usually identify with the AKP and HDP were generally inclined to vote yes. Some, like [Islamist] Huda-Par, openly declared they will vote yes. They felt the Kurdish issue was not going to be solved with the parliamentary system. Hoping, perhaps, that the presidential system will bring about a solution, they voted yes. Both the president and the government have acknowledged that the relative increase in Kurdish votes played an important role in the winning of the yes camp.

Also sharing these views is Sedat Yurtdas, a former Democracy Party (DEP) deputy and a member of the Executive Council of Dicle Social Research Center. He said the HDP could not prepare for the referendum under equal conditions. Taking the Nov. 1 general elections as a yardstick, there was a decline in HDP votes and some increase in the AKPs share, but you have to analyze this properly and keep in mind the conditions under which the HDP had to prepare for the referendum. Their co-chairs and members of parliament are in prison, he told Al-Monitor. They have surrendered 80 municipalities to government trustees. Arrest, detentions, court cases, pressures of all kinds. They could not run a proper campaign. Also dont forget the destruction at Sur-Diyarbakir, Nusaybin, Yuksekova and Cizre, and the displacement of people who used to provide 90% of the HDP votes in those cities. Also, in any society, there will be some votes that will shift to the party that looks ahead, in this case the AKP, which was promising a better economic, social and political future.

The AKP made up for its losses in its traditionally strong locations with the votes it got from the Kurds. Yurtdas noted how Erdogan referred to the Kurdish votes. He knew these votes played a role in his becoming the executive president.

Kurds provided 1% of the yes votes and about 10% of the no votes. Those in the no camp who blame the Kurds and say that the Kurds sold us out are forgetting that the Kurds were detained for doing their folk dances during the campaign.
2015-ranger-crew-900-6-eps-sunset-red.jpg

2015 RANGER CREW 900 SOLAR RED. (CPSC)

It continues to be a tough year for Polaris Industries.

The Minnesota powersports leader announced two more recalls last week due to fire, burn and crash hazards. Polaris Chairman and CEO Scott Wine addressed the issue in a statement on Polaris.com.

"The safety of our riders is Polaris' top priority and we strive to ensure that our design assurance processes, manufacturing and supplier controls, post-sales surveillance and overall product quality programs are best in class," he said. "While our goal is zero defects in our products, there will probably always be situations in which recalls are required for consumer safety; however, we expect the quantity and complexity of our recalls to moderate as our capabilities improve."

The first recall involves all 2015 Polaris Ranger XP 900, XP 900 EPS, and CREW 900 recreational off-highway vehicles. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said a heat shield can fall off the vehicle, posing fire and burn hazards to riders.

Polaris has received 13 incident reports involving the ROVs, including five reports of fires. No injuries have been reported.

The other recall includes 2017 Polaris Sportsman 450, 570, 850, 1000 and Scrambler 1000 model ATVs. Polaris is aware of 15 reports of the electronic power steering unit malfunctioning. No injuries have been reported.

The company is contacting all known purchasers about the recalls and allowing customers to schedule a free repair to correct the problems. The vehicles were made in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Polaris, which has issued more than a dozen recalls since 2015, will release its first quarter 2017 financial results on Tuesday.

The company hosted a grand opening in early November for its plant in Huntsville-annexed Limestone County. The 910,000-square-foot Alabama factory handles assembly, metal fabrication, welding, chassis and body painting and injection molding for the Polaris Ranger off-road vehicles and Slingshot Moto-Roadster.
Here are some of the top business headlines today on AL.com:

Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE:RF) is investing $23 million into its Mississippi operations with a new operations facility in Hattiesburg to house up to 420 workers when complete. The Birmingham-headquartered bank currently employs 320 people in the Hattiesburg area, but it plans to add about 90 employees to support operations.

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Tuscalooosa-based Pace Learning Systems is celebrating 40 years in business. Susan and John McKee founded the company to develop learning systems for "unteachable" students, with many of its clients being prison systems, adult education centers and students in the achievement gap.

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Honda is getting ready for the next generation of its popular Odyssey minivan. Production on the 2018 model - which was redesigned and unveiled earlier this year - will begin Tuesday. The company is planning a start-up celebration for employees that day.

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A 140,000-square-foot tire distribution warehouse is coming to Dothan Industrial Park. The warehouse will be built on 17.8 acres along Technology Drive and have room for expansion. There has been no announcement yet on how many will be employed there.

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A report named Trim Tab Brewing's Paradise Now Raspberry Berliner Weisse as the second highest selling of any new craft seasonal brand in 2016. The sour, 5.5 percent alcohol by volume beer is a German style wheat beer fermented with raspberries and tart cherries.

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Cancer detection may be as simple as chewing a piece of gum thanks to an Alabama company that is making strides in metabolomics industry. Volatile Analysis is developing a gum that absorbs "volatiles" in a person's saliva that may contain chemical biomarkers that indicate cancer.

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For more news, visit AL.com/business.
Connie Peek, an avid music fan, attended many Shower of Stars concerts in Birmingham during the late 1960s and early '70s. Peek reminisced about her experiences in a feature story published on July 18, 2003, in The Birmingham News.

To this day, Connie Peek cherishes a small, zippered autograph book that opens to four blank pages.

The other pages, all yellow and blue and pink, bear autographs and personal messages from musicians in groups such as Three Dog Night, the Guess Who, Canned Heat, the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and Paul Revere and the Raiders.

The Carpenters signed Peek's book, too, during an encounter with excited young fans in the parking lot of Birmingham's municipal auditorium.

Connie Peek in 2003. (The Birmingham News file photo)

As the East Lake resident recalls, Richard indulged in boisterous banter with the girls assembled to greet him, while Karen smiled sweetly and chided her brother in a soft voice.

"Richard," she said, "I'm going to tell Mother on you."

Moments like these are sharply etched on Peek's memory, as they might be for any music lover who attended the WVOK Shower of Stars concerts in the 1960s and '70s.

Peek, then Connie Porter, was one of a handful of teenagers who regularly staked out spots near the backstage door, hoping to catch performers as they made their way into the venue now called Boutwell Auditorium.

"Times have changed so," Peek, 51, says wistfully. "In those days, you could go to a concert and there was only one back door. The bands would come in cars -- just plain old cars -- and they'd get their guitars out and walk past you. It's not like now, where they have secret tunnels and drive right into the auditorium."

When the Beach Boys were fresh-faced lads in matching striped shirts, events like today's rigidly scheduled meet-and-greets were still a twinkle in some press agent's eye.

Steeply priced VIP tickets that include celebrity encounters were unheard of. And national fan clubs had not yet thought of organizing special receptions for members.

Brushes with greatness could happen in Birmingham, Peek knew, but rubbing shoulders with stars required boldness, devotion and planning.

"Me and my girlfriends would get up at -- holy moly, 6 a.m. -- and get there long before the show ever started," Peek recalls. "We'd camp out at the door, on the steps and wait. We'd get hamburgers and bring them back, with someone always holding our place. We'd be there from the crack of dawn until midnight."

Five like-minded souls would pile into a green Chevy Vega: Linda, the pretty one; Sheila, the quiet one; Rachel, the shy one; and Connie and Denise, the brave ones.

Having two big mouths in the group, Peek says, allowed the thrilled teens to meet several of their idols, as well as performers who might not get their pulses racing but were simply on the bill.

The auditorium's elderly stage manager never bent the rules enough to allow Peek and her pals inside the venue, as that privilege was granted only to miniskirted girls in halter tops and hard-core groupies. But he never tried to shoo fans away from the parking lot, either.

"Honey, we would get the prime spots and hit every one of those shows, from, oh, 1968 to 1972," Peek says. "It was top names, national groups. We'd be there in spring, summer and fall. There were two shows, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. The highest ticket price was maybe $5. It was a part of me for so long. I was in hog heaven."

Peek, a lifelong saver, held onto her ticket stubs and the ballpoints she handed to musicians. She also wrote long essays about her concert experiences and pasted them into scrapbooks.

Photos taken with her "itty bitty Kodak" show a skinny, smiling girl with teased hair, her arms wrapped around cute, mustached guys with long mullets -- Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night, say, or Rob Grill of the Grass Roots.

While most of the performers turned out to be polite gentlemen who gladly scribbled their names and posed for snapshots, a few bad apples soured their reputations with Peek forever.

The members of Iron Butterfly, for instance, looked so stoned to Peek that she was afraid to approach them. "I thought, they can take their 'In-A-Gadda-DaVida,' baby," she says.

But the worst was an angry Tommy James, of Tommy James & the Shondells, who cursed at Peek and acted downright rude.

"Every time I see him on MTV or VH1 Classics, I remember how he told us to get out of the way, that he wasn't going to sign any autographs," Peek says. "I don't like him to this day."

She has a soft spot in her heart, however, for John Kay of Steppenwolf, who crushed her big toe when he backed onto it accidentally with a heavy boot.

"He was very sweet about it," she says, "and he said, 'What can I do for you, man? Can I get you a Coke?' But when I took that shoe off, my toe was all swollen up. I limped the rest of that night."

Another fond memory: Burton Cummings of the Guess Who sang a slice of "Happy Birthday" to Peek when he discovered she had recently celebrated her 18th birthday, and told her the rendition of "American Woman" that evening would be in her honor.

"Our old Boutwell was cool," Peek says. "When WVOK got sold and became a country station, around 1972, it broke our hearts. I want those days back. It was the end of an era."

Peek, the mother of two grown children, remains an avid music fan with a house full of memorabilia, although her current taste runs to Def Leppard and Aerosmith.

Not surprisingly, she has passed on her affection for live music to her son, Nathan Peek, a local performer and songwriter, and daughter Cindy Peek, who writes the Band on the Run column for The Birmingham News.

"She instilled her concert values in both of us," Cindy Peek says. "When I wanted to follow New Kids on the Block from a show in Auburn to Huntsville, my mom's car would be the one behind the tour bus. My mother taught me how to head-bang. When I was 6, she taught me how to sneak a camera into a show."

Peek isn't about to discuss her concert smuggling strategies in print, but she does reveal the reason behind the four blank pages at the start of her precious autograph book.

"I was saving those for the Beatles," she admits. "One each for John, George, Paul and Ringo. They were my first band, my favorite, the one I really flipped over. I never did get to see them, but at that time, I was so sure I would.

"I'd tell the other musicians not to write on there, and they'd say, 'Oh, OK, man,' as if they understood."
Join us for another stop on our journey through Whitman, Alabama. The goal of the documentary series? Bridge the gap between people. Filmmaker Jennifer Crandall traveled hundreds of miles to capture the essence of America as people across Alabama bring "Song of Myself" by poet Walt Whitman to life. Crandall below tells us more about meeting Demetrius Leslie, Frederick George, Patricia Marshall and Tammy Cooper in Montgomery .

Whitman, Alabama site | On Facebook

I have to thank AL.com columnist John Archibald for inviting me to the prison for a story he was working on. After visiting the prison, I reached out to Bob Horton, a public information manager at the Alabama Department of Corrections. He introduced me to a number of people who were incarcerated. Ultimately, I chose to film Demetrius Leslie and Frederick George at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, and Patricia Marshall and Tammy Cooper, at the Montgomery Women's Facility.

The wardens gave us quite a bit of time and space to do our work, but being in a space where we had more restrictions gave me an appreciation for very simple things we take for granted. Freedom of movement, freedom of speech.

Ultimately, everything turned out well. In general, I wish we had had more time there. I wanted to get to know Demetrius, Fred, Patricia and Tammy better.

But I guess I always say that about everyone . . .

DEMETRIUS LESLIE

Many prisoners have jobs in prison and Demetrius' job is being the barber. After he finished reading for us, he immediately shared some thoughts on Walt Whitman.

"My first instinct that it was some famous slave that had written a poem," Demetrius said. "It was talking about slaves and prisoners. The way he had written it, it was just as if someone black had written it. I was dumbfounded to know that it was a white guy that had written this poem, what, in the 1800s? I'm not a big poem analyst, so I don't read a lot of poems, but I'll look further into reading more poems of guys that are uh . . . of Caucasian persuasion, so to speak. Because man, it was amazing, it was amazing."

To Demetrius: Your read was amazing, too. Thanks for saying "yes" to this.

PATRICIA MARSHALL

There was something light about Patricia that I found intriguing. When I'm filming, I'm seeing you for what appears to be obvious about you, and I'm trying to not look at you for those things, too. With Patricia, I was really struck by a lightness she gave off, juxtaposed with being where she is.

Right when we said we were finished filming, Patricia joked, "I'm famous?! Are we going to see it? Are we going to be on TV?"

And she also offered her thoughts about Whitman.

"He's deep. He's really deep," Patricia said. "He must have went through something to write this. Treated some kind of way or something because it just strictly lets you know that he feel like everyone is equal. Everyone is on the same base. We all serve the same God, Jesus, whoever, he's all in one."

Patricia had never read Whitman before. Not that she could remember at least. When I asked if she planned on reading more, she immediately said yes.

"I would read the whole thing! And there would probably be just certain parts that I would like and would catch my attention. I want to read more. Tammy and I had to look in the dictionary to look up some words, to pretty much give us a clue of what was going on, and once we found some of the words, and it was like 'age,' uh, 'the universe,' and all this, then we realized what was going on with the poem."

Before we left, Patricia told us, "We appreciate y'all picking us. We thought y'all had forgot, it's been so long ago."

To Patricia: We didn't forget you. And we appreciate you, too.

FREDERICK GEORGE

I like to observe people and I liked watching Fred watch things. He seemed really perceptive. I could see him observing, taking a lot in, and I realized, he's seeing different things than I am. I get the sense he can read people. He read me. Called me out during a moment of discomfort that I hadn't thought I had shown.

We didn't have as much time with Fred as the other three. I just walked away feeling like I wanted to give Fred more--more space and more time to give of himself what we were asking of him. The others had more time to find themselves in the moment.

A couple things made Fred's shoot more challenging. He was reading with a lot of his peers and the warden milling around. And we were somewhat rushed.

"I'm alright with it," he assured me. "If they weren't back there, it'd be a lot easier."

Doing this in front of your peers makes it more difficult. I'd be shy trying to step in to the moment, read and "perform" somewhat for the camera while others look on. Or maybe Fred just meant it'd be easier to read if they weren't all there because they were noisy. I'm not actually sure, come to think of it.

Because Fred's job requires him to fix things, we had him on his knees for the entire reading with one of his tools by his side. That couldn't have been too comfortable either. He had watched Demetrius during his reading and joked, "This still ain't as good as the barber gig."

The warden told us that we had to wrap up not long after we started filming Fred. It was coming on dinner time, if I remember right, and we couldn't get in the way of that. We couldn't spend any more time with Fred but we thanked him for what he was able to give us.

"No problem!" he said. "Any day of the week!"

To Fred: Thanks for the good attitude. We're sorry we didn't have more time with you.

TAMMY COOPER

I found myself wanting to defend Tammy from Tammy. She was very hard on herself. I was drawn to her because she was giving us so much with her read, but she kept apologizing for mistakes she thought she was making and saying she could do better.

Tammy had read some Walt Whitman before. Leaves of Grass and a couple other shorter poems.

She gave me her interpretation of Verse 24.

"It was basically about: everything works together," she said. "It starts out with the word "cosmos" and that kinda brings everything into harmony. To me he showed that everything is the same. That nothing's better or greater or smaller than the next thing."

She said she enjoyed the reading, but she noticed Walt Whitman isn't exactly the easiest poet to read aloud.

"I actually enjoyed it," she said. "But it did show me I can get tongue-tied in the middle of stuff, because I'm an excellent reader. And that just made no sense. I wasn't nervous until I sat down either!"

For Tammy: We respectfully disagree. You did perfect and we wouldn't change a thing.

By filmmaker Jenn Crandall, as told to writer Liz Hildreth
Van Wert, Ohio

Long-time adversaries U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten spent more than four hours touring this rural Ohio district together Thursday. Both were still alive and well by the end of the day.

And so were the deep divisions in this corner of the country over K-12 education and President Donald Trump.

Even as DeVos and Weingarten counted model dinosaurs with preschool students, watched high school students demonstrate their robotics know-how, and chatted with teachers about social-emotional supports, small groups of protestors from both sides of the political divide gathered outside. One demonstration featured American flags and pro-Trump signs, another assailed DeVos and her pro-school choice views.

Inside the schools, staffers who work together every day had very different takes on how DeVos and Trump are handling public educationand on the direction of the country in general.

And in the press conference that capped off the day, Weingarten said she cant support the $9 billion in education budget cuts that Trump and DeVos are proposing to after-school programs, teacher training, and more.

Youre seeing what the [financial] investment is doing in Van Wert, Weingarten said of the district, which receives Title I and other federal money. Its not a secret that we are fighting the budget cuts.

DeVos, who has spent decades advocating for private school vouchers and charter schools, thinks that school choice can work, even in rural communities like Van Wert. She noted that about 20 percent of the districts students take advantage of Ohios high school choice program to enroll in neighboring districts.

The goal is for every child to be in the education environment thats best for them, she said.

And DeVos said she heard from teachers that paperwork and regulations, from both the state and federal level, sometimes stand in the way of doing whats best for students.

This community has a very different personality than New York City has, than Chicago [has] she said. The notion that we have to try to continue to force-fit and have a top-down approach on almost anything, it really bares a lot of examination.

For their part, Weingarten and DeVos seemed to agree on at least one thing: Van Werts students and teachers are great.

Van Wert proves that support for public schools transcends politics, said Weingarten

Its been a very inspiring and wonderful day. It is clear that this community has invested heart and soul into the students here, DeVos said.

Weingarten said in advance of the visit that she picked Van Wert because its a good model for what the rest of the country should be doing when it comes to K-12. The 2,200-student district focuses on community schools, early-childhood education, and project-based learning. And teachers are brought to the table whenever district leadership makes any significant changes to the curriculum.

The joint appearance had been months in the making. Weingarten, along with an army of Democratic activists, put up a tooth-and-nail fight against DeVos confirmation. But later, she invited the secretary to join her on a visit to a traditional public school. DeVos accepted on the condition that Weingarten tour a school of choice with her. That hasnt been scheduled yet.

DeVos and Weingarten didnt just drop by a school, do a quick tour, and hold a press conference. The day included a tour of an early-childhood center and a visit to a high school science class thats using project-based learning to master engineering and robotics. They also stopped by a 5th grade class as students sat in groups and talked about the Great Depression.

There were multiple round-table discussions, including one on early-childhood education. Parents told DeVos the program helped their kids get socially and academically ready for elementary school. The teachers talked about the importance of small class sizes, and wraparound services like having a social worker or psychologist on staffboth big priorities for AFT.

I think she was moved by a lot of what she saw today, Weingarten said of DeVos.

The purpose of the visit wasnt necessarily to heal all divisions in K-12, an Education Department official said. Weingarten and the secretary demonstrated that they can work on finding common ground. DeVos has never been anti-public school, as some of her critics claim, the official said. The secretary thinks parents should have choices in what type of school their child attends. DeVos herself made a similar point in an op-ed published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in advance of the visit .

Just before coming to Van Wert, Weingarten penned her own op-ed in the local paper, the Van Wert Times-Bulletin , criticizing DeVos record of pushing privatization"vouchers and charter schoolsin Michigan, as well as the Trump budget.

Even in a county where about five times as many people voted for Trump than Clinton, there were protestors. One held up a sign questioning whether DeVos policy perscriptions will work for the district: Zero private high schools in Van Wert. School Choice? Others were more generic: Dump Trump and Our Public Schools are the [Heart Symbol] of Our Community.

One protestor, Susan Rigali, whose nephew works at Van Wert High School, said she expected that Weingarten and DeVos chose this corner of Ohio because it isnt exactly a stronghold of the resistance"the nickname activists have given to their grassroots campaign against the Trump admininstration.

And Lucy Rice, a school bus driver from a neighboring town, said she doesnt expect much to change after DeVos visit to Van Wert.

I kind of feel like, OK, I understand them wanting her to see a good public school, Rice said. But I dont think its going to change Betsy DeVos policies.

The districts teachers dont wear their politics on their sleeve, but there was plenty of disagreement among Van Wert Elementary staffers, including some who lined up to take a photo with DeVos as she headed out the door.

Monica Donley, a 2nd grade teacher who voted for Trump, doesnt think enough time has passed to really asses the president on K-12 policy or any other issue. But she isnt opposed to private-school vouchers. In fact, she might take advantage of them herself, if they were available in nearby Lima, the community she lives in.

But Julie Hammond, the school secretary and another Trump voter, said so far shes not impressed with the president on education or other issues. Her own kidsincluding a daughter who is pursuing engineeringdid well in regular public schools. Vouchers are dumb, Hammond said.

Rhonda Mohr, another 2nd grade teacher, describes herself as one of the few people in Van Wert who supported Trumps rival, Hillary Clinton, in the presidential race. Shes glad Weingarten brought DeVos to her school. The district, she said, does great work, but isnt particularly different from thousands like it around the country.

The more conversations between us, the better, Mohr said. Were all in this together.

DeVos has visited a handful of public, private, and charter schools since taking office in February. You can keep track of her visits here:

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
The government estimates as many as 600,000 children with disabilities are not getting an education.

Lesley Mashimbyes father wanted to abandon him at the hospital. Family members were so embarrassed when he visited, they wanted him kept him inside a bedroom. The 13-year-old suffers from cerebral palsy and spina bifida.

They make me feel sad, he says about the intolerance hes faced from extended family members, neighbours and people in the community. I want people out there to see me as a dignified person and I want them to love me.

In South Africa, children with disabilities are often viewed as a curse by their families.





They hide away those children. They dont want their communities to know, because they believe their communities are going to judge them, says Onyi Nwaneri, communications director with the non-profit group, Afrika Tikkun.

If you start by eliminating the fear in their head and give them an understanding that every child has a right and that childs rights needs to be facilitated, thats a starting point.

The government estimates as many as 600,000 children with disabilities arent getting an education. The pervasive stigma is just one factor. Lack of resources and access are daunting obstacles.

There arent enough free public schools. The government-run special schools, catering to those with disabilities, require fees that many families cant afford, Nwaneri says.

The barriers to access is multiple and overwhelming and what you find in most families, who already have prejudices around their children, is that they give up.

Rejected by 10 schools

Lesleys mother Maria refused to give up, however. She says her son was rejected from 10 schools and neglected at others, causing the wheelchair-bound boy to get open wounds on his feet. She filed a lawsuit and things improved. Now, hes thriving at school.

Our journey was really painful, says Lesley. But now its better. I am happy. I have nice friends. They are very good to me.

But Lesleys school is an hour away from their home in Orange Farm, near Johannesburg. His mother, the sole breadwinner, must pay a driver to transport him back and forth. Its an economic hardship. This is my son and I will fight for him, says Maria Mashimbye.

The Department of Basic Education says its devoted more money to schools for children with special needs. Its also raising awareness among parents and reaching out to other governmental agencies, civil society groups, and universities to help get children with disabilities out of their homes and into classrooms.

You cant fault parents or whoever thinks maybe the department is not doing enough, says Moses Simelane, director of Inclusive Education. The general public needs to understand as Basic Education alone, we cant manage. We cant achieve much. We need all hands on deck. Thats the only way we believe were going to make a difference.

To combat the intolerance in their community, Lesleys mother launched a campaign. She painted her house purple to promote pride for children with disabilities. House by house, other families have done the same and created a network of support, Maria says.

It is not only Lesley. Now, my vision is to fight for each and every child to go to school.
Akkar, Lebanon  Oh, Qusayr! Oh, you proud city. Oh, you spring of freedom. I miss you so much. Weve had enough of humiliation and poverty. I miss hanging around in your streets and sleeping in your hands.





These are the poetic words of Qosay, a 15-year-old Syrian refugee and member of teenage rap group The Homsies. When hes rapping he is eloquent and fluid, but face-to-face he stumbles over his words and blushes, as awkward and insecure as any young adolescent forced to operate in an adult world.

Qosay grew up in Qusayr, near Homs, with his parents and his younger sister Hiyam, but when his father was killed the family was forced to flee Syria. That was three years ago. Today, Qosay and his family live in an informal tented settlement near Akkar, in the north of Lebanon.

Qosay and two friends, 14-year-olds Mustafa and Qotiba, who also hail from Qusayr, started rapping together two years ago. Mimicking the three or four Syrian rap songs that theyd seen on YouTube, they would perform for fun in the camp or at the Akkar Academic Centre, a charity school for refugee children sponsored by NGO Malak and located close to their camp near Minyara.

Until they met Scottish aid worker Tony Collins, rapping was simply a fun way to pass the time. But with the help of Collins, and two new female band members, they now hope to transform it into a way of earning money in a country where Syrian refugees face increasingly dire living and working conditions.

READ MORE: I am a Syrian Child

Collins first visited the Akkar Academic Centre in September 2015. He was playing his bagpipes to entertain the children when the boys started rapping. Impressed with their skill, he returned to Scotland where he founded a charity called Mishwar Amal, which aims to help Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon develop their talents.

Mishwar Amal organises day trips for children in the Syrian and Palestinian camps, as well as running two film clubs, setting up a shared bicycle hub and organising recording sessions for The Homsies and young musicians from the nearby Palestinian camp of Nahr al-Bared.

We dont want to be an NGO that comes in, spends money on things and goes, Collins says. We want to be able to work with people who live in the camps and help them do it for themselves. Ideally, with every project, Id like to be able to invest a bit, help get it running and then be able to leave projects that are successful so that they take on a life of their own.

Today, The Homsies are a group of five. The three boys now rap with two girls, Qosays 14-year-old sister Hiyam and 15-year-old Arwa, who dreams of becoming an electrical engineer. Crowded into the schools makeshift music room, a dimly lit port-a-cabin full of battered instruments and rickety music stands, the five teenagers giggle together as they tease Collins and make a din on the drum kit.

My friend Arwa and I saw rappers singing on YouTube and liked it a lot and we decided we wanted to try, says Hiyam, who hopes to study art and music therapy. We love the idea of using our songs to send a message to the world. We want to tell the world that its true that were Syrian and we have been forced to leave our country but we wont give up and we will never stop doing what we love.

Before Collins arrival, the boys used to rap without any accompaniment, but with his help they have written their own lyrics and put them to music, using original backing tracks which Collins mixed for them in a makeshift recording studio in one of the schools port-a-cabins.

The three finished tracks are now available for download from Mishwar Amals website at a cost of $1 each. Fifty percent of the profits go to the charity to support its projects and the other half goes to The Homsies. So far, they have earned $300, a significant sum for teenagers who work in the fields at weekends for a few dollars a day.

Asked what they want to spend their share of the earnings on, the rappers throw out ideas, quickly collapsing into giggles. Ice cream! shouts Hiyam. No, chocolate! Arwa wants a day at an amusement park and the boys want matching outfits for The Homsies, but eventually they decide theyd like to buy another microphone so that they can record more songs.

Why can't I write my own song and let the world listen to me? by Qosay, 15, Syrian refugee

Qosay says he wants to use rap to share his views with the world. When we started training with Tony, I started listening to lots of rap music and I thought, Why cant I write my own song and let the world listen to me?' he says.

Id like the world to know that Qusayr is a beautiful city. It had everything. But now it has nothing. Everything has been destroyed by shelling and bombardments, but one day it will be rebuilt. We want to send a message of peace and of love.

His lyrics express hope for a better future. I miss you Qusayr. I have become like a grown up now because of all those worries, he raps. I swear by your love and your name, we will repaint you with love and peace, with goodness and security.

The song the two girls have written together is more political, a rebuke to the world for ignoring the plight of the Syrian people. But, at the same time, it expresses the simple wishes of two girls whose childhoods were abruptly cut short.

We want nothing in this life but to live in safety, they rap together, without shelling or killing, without destruction or war. We want to study again, in schools that we will build.
Its time for Africas leaders to address the problems that hinder the development of the continents natural resources.

This years Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa, which will take place on April 22 and 23, will focus on natural resources governance in Africa. Africas rich natural resource endowment has long been at the heart of both the continents many violent conflicts and its hopes for prosperity, so the stakes are high.

The resources ranging from farmland and forests to the oil reserves, mineral deposits and its waters have been the subject of endless research, fierce debates, brutal conflicts, novels, and movies.

The Tana Forum is an annual high-level meeting at the Tana lakeside in Ethiopia that brings together current and former heads of states, senior government and inter-governmental officials, diplomats, academics, the private sector, and independent groups for an open dialogue to explore African-led solutions to the complex security challenges on the continent.

Devoting this years session to natural resources governance was a good choice. After all, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights notes that All peoples shall freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources. While the issues are complex, if participants focus their attention on reaching concrete recommendations on key pressing priorities, we could see Africas resources being developed in a way that would lead to progress on human rights instead of serious violations.

Fighting corruption





Stemming corruption should also be one of the forums top priorities. In many resource-rich African countries, lack of transparency surrounding resource development and revenue facilitates corruption that cripples the governments capacity to deliver basic services such as health and education as the funds that could have been spent on such desperately needed services are instead squandered or embezzled.

For example, Equatorial Guinea, a small but oil-rich country boasting the highest per capita income on the continent. But life expectancy and infant mortality are below the sub-Saharan African average. Roughly half the population lacks access to potable water, and immunisation rates for children are among the worlds lowest.

Other oil rich nations have also struggled with corruption for a long time. Earlier research by Human Rights Watch in Nigeria and Angola provides examples of the devastating effect of corruption in the oil sector can have on the lives of ordinary citizens.

OPINION: Artisanal gold minings curse on West African farming

At the turn of the century, Angolas development indicators remained among the worst in the world, while $4.2bn in oil revenues illegally bypassed Angolas central bank and disappeared without explanation from 1997 to 2002. That is roughly equal to all foreign and domestic social and humanitarian spending in Angola over that period.

In 2010, Human Rights Watch research concluded that while the Angolan government had introduced some important reforms in oil sector transparency, far more needs to be done to curb corruption and give Angolans the tools necessary to hold their government accountable for its actions. Indeed, both Nigeria and Angola have undertaken reforms and made progress in tackling this scourge in the years since Human Rights Watchs initial research but there is still some way to go.

Protecting vulnerable communities





Protecting vulnerable communities is another pressing problem. In the absence of strong laws and clear policies governing resettlement, rural communities have been forcibly displaced from their farmland and livelihood to make way for mining operations with inadequate compensation.

For example, rural families in Tete province in Mozambique or in Tonkolili verdant slopes in Sierra Leone who were once largely self-sufficient, but were moved aside to places unsuitable for farming and no access to water. Mozambique has since taken steps to improve its legal framework, but it still falls short on implementation.

The mining sector investment could provide more jobs, better infrastructure, health and education services. But the lack of adequate legal standards and safeguards coupled with weak government oversight and poor implementation of existing laws, have left vulnerable rural communities unprotected and uninformed.

READ MORE: Illicit miners scrape for diamonds on abandoned mines

In both Malawi and Uganda, for example, residents in Karonga and Karamoja respectively didnt know the government had given mining companies permission to move onto their land until the companies turned up and started moving into the fields of the scared and powerless residents. Mining companies operating in Africa and the relevant governments have in many cases failed to secure free, prior, and informed consent from indigenous communities before they started operations on communal lands as provided for by international standards.

The by 

should take strong steps to stem corruption and recommend actions to ensure that both small and large-scale mining operations are regulated and monitored for their human rights compliance.]

Hazardous child labour in artisanal and small-scale gold mines across several countries is another urgent concern. Millions of Africans including women and children, work in hazardous conditions in these mines due to a weak legal and policy framework.

In Ghana, one of the worlds top 10 gold producers, and Tanzania, Africas fourth-largest gold producer, many small-scale mines are unregulated. The thousands of children who drop out of school to work in these operations risk death and ill-health. Children have been injured and killed in mining accidents and are exposed to high levels of toxic mercury, which attacks the central nervous system and can cause lifelong disability, brain damage and even death.

Both Ghana and Tanzania have taken positive steps by signing, and in the case of Ghana, ratifying the Minamata Convention on Mercury  an international treaty designed to reduce mercury exposure globally  but they have yet to put domestic protections in place.

Time to take action

Admittedly, natural resource governance has complex dimensions, but participants in the upcoming Tana Forum would do well to anchor their deliberations and recommendations in these key pressing priorities.

READ MORE: Tanzanias gold rush and housing crush

The participants should take strong steps to stem corruption and recommend actions to ensure that both small and large-scale mining operations are regulated and monitored for their human rights compliance. They also need to propose actions to ensure that companies doing mining business in Africa conduct due diligence to human rights in their mineral supply chains.

If Africas leadership doesnt take these steps, the development of Africas bountiful, natural resources will continue to do harm rather than good.

Daniel Bekele is the senior director for Africa advocacy at Human Rights Watch.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Saying the Assad regime is behind the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack does not mean calling for World War III.

News flash: Bashar al-Assad is bad. He has been murdering his own people for more than six years now. Before that, his father did the same. And not once in the decades the Assad family has held power in Syria did it need justification for its crimes against humanity.

Thus, a confirmed nerve agent attack on Khan Sheikhoun, one of many chemical weapons attacks committed by the regime, is not out of the ordinary! Pro-Syrian revolution individuals or organisations who say that Assad committed chemical attacks on Khan Sheikhoun are not calling for World War III  they are simply naming the aggressor, as they have been doing for more than six years.





Assad knows, six years in, that the entire international community isnt willing to take concrete steps resulting in his removal. And that is why it is completely ridiculous to even entertain questions like: Why would the regime do this?; Why would the regime use chemical weapons?; Why would the regime use chemical weapons on Khan Sheikhoun?

Dictators kill because they can. They use chemical weapons because they are simply another tool at their disposal. It is not surprising that a regime which has dropped countless barrel bombs on its own people and invited occupiers into its country would use chemical weapons, and it is quite absurd that Syrians who have had to physically and ideologically fight Assad, Russia, Iran, ISIL and al-Qaeda all at once are constantly called upon to combat the narratives of these woke naysayers when their bigger concern is surviving whatever the regime and its allies throw at them next.

Khan Sheikhoun

Located about 90km from the Turkish border, the town of Khan Sheikhoun falls on the Damascus-Aleppo International Highway. Its civilian local council is led by Osama al-Sayadi. No armed factions maintain a presence in the town after Jund al-Aqsa tried but failed to capture it earlier this year.

Since its liberation from regime forces in June 2014, the town has been and continues to be subjected to air strikes by the regime and its allies, including a strike hours after Trump ordered the attacks on Shayrat airbase. The city is also home to thousands of internally displaced families from surrounding areas such as rural Hama.

OPINION: Syrians should not be thanking Trump for the strikes

Initially, the regime and Russia claimed they had carried out an air strike on terrorist chemical weapons stores. But journalists from the area, as well as a journalist from the Guardian, provided video and photographic evidence that in fact, what regime and Russian media sources were calling a chemical weapons storage facility were actually abandoned silos the regime had destroyed in air strikes months earlier.

Russia enables the regime, and the US knows this

Late 2013, the UN Security Council charged the US and Russia with removing the Assad regimes chemical weapons stockpile. After several delays and missed deadlines, the country was declared to be rid of its chemical weapons by mid-2014. Mere months later, the UN raised concerns the Assad regime had not fully disclosed all its chemical weapons facilities.

Furthermore, the regime and Russia have continued to use chlorine to bomb Syrian civilians and Internally displaced people, as well as napalm, white phosphorus (or incendiary) bombs, cluster bombs, anti-aircraft missiles and vacuum bombs, among others. Russia has even bragged about the weapons it has tested on Syrian civilians.





Given this, the US declaration that its attack on Shayrat airbase was a direct response to the use of chemical weapons was quite puzzling. It became even more puzzling when the US admitted it had notified Russia, an ally of the regime, that the air strikes were coming.

But perhaps most puzzling of all is that even given these facts about Russias role as an enabler of the regime, self-proclaimed analysts still insisted on circulating the regimes official line: Syrians had orchestrated the Khan Sheikhoun attack, with the help of al-Qaeda, in order to incite a response from the US.

Selective solidarity

When the Israeli army bombs Gaza, it is rightfully taken to account by both Arab and western pro-Palestine activists. After Israels major assault on Gaza in 2014 (Operation Protective Edge), the very same people now questioning whether Assads regime was responsible for the Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack were organising protests at that time and pushing for Israel to be punished.

Assad, with the assistance of Russia and Iran, has been doing the same and worse to his own people. So why is it that these activists arent expressing any outrage against the Assad regime, instead choosing to defend it? They do not question the fact Israel is using internationally prohibited weapons on civilians when it clearly has the upper hand.

Russia and Iran have been in Syria for years now, both as occupiers, and both committing crimes against humanity. Yet, it is only when the US or Israel strikes an Arab nation that anti-war groups wake up to protest, publishing statements on the sovereignty of Syria and protesting while holding photos of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. And when Syrians against Assad, living in the West as refugees, counter their narratives, they are silenced or accused of supporting terrorism.

This type of selective solidarity wastes the time and energy of Syrian journalists and civil society activists who are continually being put on the defensive. This dehumanisation of the Syrian people by the very activists who say they stand for human rights is incomprehensible. They send a clear message: they will never be convinced of the regimes brutality, even if they witness it themselves.

Malak Chabkoun is an independent Middle East researcher and writer based in the US.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Appeals court considers request for DNA testing after US Supreme Court denies petitions to halt killing of prisoner.

The US Supreme Court has denied petitions to halt the execution of an Arkansas inmate, allowing the state to proceed with its first execution in 12 years after its top court approved the use of a drug in its lethal injection mix.

The state is preparing to execute Ledell Lee at its Cummins Unit in Grady, which houses the states death chamber, but it is still possible that the killing will be blocked.

The US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in St Louis, which is considering a last-minute request from Lee for DNA testing, has issued a stay until 9:15pm on Thursday (01:15 GMT Friday).

The death warrant for Lee expires at midnight.

Lawyers for Lee, 51, who has maintained his innocence for years, launched last-minute appeals to halt the execution with federal courts and the US Supreme Court

Lee was convicted and sentenced to death for beating Debra Reese to death with a tyre iron in 1993.

Reeses relatives were at the Cummins Unit prison and told local media Lee deserves to die for a crime that ripped their lives apart.

The Supreme Court ruling was the latest in a flurry of legal wrangling as the state seeks to carry out a series of executions before one of the drugs used in its lethal injection mix, the sedative midazolam, expires by the end of the month.

Lawyers for the inmates argued the states rush to the death chamber amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, violated the inmates right to counsel and their right to access the courts and counsel during the execution process.

The US Supreme Court denied the petitions. One of them was a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with the four other conservative justices in denying the motion while the courts liberals dissented.

Earlier on Thursday, the top Arkansas court overturned a previous ruling that had blocked the use of one of the other three drugs the southeastern state planned to use.

READ MORE: After death row  An unlikely love story

Arkansas had planned to execute eight inmates in 11 days, the most of any state in as short a period since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Courts have halted four of those executions. The states plan and the legal battles have raised questions about US death chamber protocols and lethal injection drug mixes. Back-to-back executions set for Monday were indefinitely halted.

Previous legal challenges prevented the state from executing any prisoner since 2005.

In the ruling on the states lethal injection drug, the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed with the state that it did nothing illegal in acquiring the muscle relaxant vecuronium bromide and lifted an order by a state circuit judge on Wednesday that blocked its use.

US pharmaceutical wholesaler McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc had argued that it sold Arkansas the drug for medical use, not executions, and that it would suffer harm financially and to its reputation if the executions were carried out.

Arkansas had also planned to execute convicted murderer Stacey Johnson on Thursday. But the Arkansas Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a halt to Johnsons execution after he requested DNA testing he said could prove his innocence.

The attorney generals office said on Thursday it would not appeal the decision, meaning his planned execution was off. Johnson was convicted of the 1993 murder and sexual assault of Carol Heath.

The states protocol calls for use of midazolam to render the inmate unconscious, vecuronium bromide to stop breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart..

Anti-death penalty activists have protested in Arkansas against what has been labelled assembly line killings.

Midazolam has been linked to botched executions, and critics say it has been proven ineffective in rendering unconsciousness prior to administration of the two lethal agents.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a petition that Arkansas wants to use an execution drug combination  with midazolam  thats never been used before in the state and that risks making prisoners feel as if they are burning alive from the inside while paralysed.
Pentagon chief warns against use of banned munitions as transfer of Syrian evacuees resumes after suicide car bombing.

Syria still possesses chemical weapons, the Pentagon chief has said, in a fresh US warning against the banned munitions being used again.

Speaking in Tel Aviv on Friday during a visit to Israel, James Mattis said that in recent days the Syrian air force has dispersed its combat aircraft.

The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional US air strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

There can be no doubt in the international communitys mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all, Mattis said.

INTERACTIVE: From chlorine to sarin  Chemical weapons in war

The US defense secretary said he did not want to elaborate on the amounts Syria possesses in order to avoid revealing intelligence sources.

I can say authoritatively they have retained some, its a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and its going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill-advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike, said Mattis.

Israeli defence officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tonnes of chemical weapons in its possession.





It was the first specific intelligence assessment of Syrian President Bashar Assads weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Assad has rejected the accusation that he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syrias northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government.

Russia, Assads principal ally, has asserted that a Syrian government air strike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the US fired 59 missiles at a Syrian airbase it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal to avert US strikes following a chemical weapons attack in opposition-held suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 that killed hundreds of people and sparked worldwide outrage.

Before that disarmament, Assads government disclosed that it had about 1,300 tonnes of chemical weapons, including sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard gas.

Disarmament doubts

The entire stockpile was said to have been dismantled and shipped out under international supervision in 2014 and destroyed.

But doubts began to emerge soon afterwards that not all such armaments or production facilities were declared and destroyed.

There also is evidence that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and other armed anti-government groups have acquired chemical weapons.

OPINION: The chemical brothers  Putin and Assad

The Syrian government has been locked in a six-year civil war against an array of opposition forces. The fighting has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syrias population.

The UN says 4.72 million Syrians are in hard-to-reach areas, including 600,000 people under siege, mostly by the Syrian army, but also by rebels or ISIL.

There has been a series of evacuations in recent months, mostly around the capital Damascus but also from the last rebel-held district of Syrias third city Homs.

Evacuations resume

The transfer of hundreds of Syrian evacuees resumed on Friday after being blocked for 48 hours at Rashidin transit point where a suicide car bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, on Saturday.

A total of 3,000 evacuees had left their homes in Foua and Kefraya, two besieged government-held towns, at dawn on Wednesday as part of a deal under which residents and fighters are also being evacuated from the rebel-held areas surrounded by government forces.





But the evacuees were forced to spend two nights in their buses at the marshalling area after last-minute disagreement over the release of prisoners held by Assads government.

As the transfer resumed on Friday it was unclear if the prisoners had been freed.

Ten of the 45 buses carrying civilians and fighters from Foua and Kefraya left the marshalling area in rebel-held Rashidin, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The buses from Foua and Kefraya entered Syrias second city Aleppo, under full government control since December, Rami Abdel Rahman, the Syrian Observatory chief, told AFP news agency.

Dozens of armed fighters were guarding the buses at Rashidin for fear of another attack.

Meanshile, all of the 11 buses evacuating civilians and fighters from Zabadani and two other beseiged rebel-held areas around Damascus were also on the move, according to the Syrian Observatory.

The buses from Zabadani and surrounding areas headed for rebel-held Idlib province in the northwest.
Deaths occurred overnight throughout the capital Caracas during running street battles with security forces and looting.

Twelve people were killed in Caracas overnight following two days of mass street protests against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduros beleaguered government.

Six people were also injured in the escalating violence, the public ministry said in a statement on Friday. The latest figures raised the total number of deaths during growing protests to 20 over the past three weeks.

Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami said on Friday the country is facing what he calls an unconventional war led by opposition groups working in concert with criminal gangs.

Riot police firing tear gas fought running street battles in the east, west, and south of Caracas with demonstrators demanding the removal of Maduro, witnesses quoted by AFP news agency said.

FEATURE: Why some Venezuelans have turned to bitcoin mining

The public ministry said 11 people died in El Valle  a working class neighbourhood near Caracas biggest military base  all men between the ages of 17 and 45. Another death was reported east of Caracas in El Sucre.

A probe was ordered to investigate the deaths of 11 people and the injuries caused to six others, the ministry said.





Opposition leaders said some people were hit with an electrical current in El Valle while trying to loot a bakery protected by an electric fence.

Resident Carlos Yanez said the scene was like a war.

The police were firing tear gas, armed civilians were shooting guns at buildings. My family and I threw ourselves to the floor. It was horrible, said the 33-year-old construction worker.

The opposition accuses the left-wing government of sending gangs of armed thugs to attack them, and says security forces have been repressing protesters.

Video taken by locals showed residents throwing bottles and other objects out their windows at the gunmen in the streets below, shouting murderers.

At one point, demonstrators throwing Molotov cocktails managed to set fire to one of the armoured police trucks firing tear gas at them, lighting up the night sky.

READ MORE: Venezuelas crisis explained from the beginning

There was a heavy security presence Friday on the streets of Caracas, as residents and workers cleaned up the destruction left by the clashes and bouts of looting.

The two sides looked set to spend the day regrouping after massive protests Wednesday and Thursday erupted into unrest in the flashpoint western city of San Cristobal and several other cities.

Call for more protests

Opposition leaders have called new protests for Saturday and Monday.

On Saturday, they plan to march in silence to the Catholic Churchs episcopal seats nationwide. They also intend to erect roadblocks on Monday to grind the countrys traffic to a halt.

Protesters blame Maduro  heir of the leftist Bolivarian Revolution launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999  for an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine, and basic goods.

Maduro says the protests seeking to remove him are part of a United States-backed coup plot.

On Thursday, the president said the opposition had agreed to new talks, but his opponents denied the claim, saying the only way forward was new elections.

Senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles slammed Maduro as a dictator and mythomaniac.
Worshippers at Paris Grand Mosque lament increasing frequency of ISIL attacks and the consequences for their community.

Paris, France  One of the largest Muslim places of worship in France, the Paris Grand Mosque, has the capacity to host about 5,000 people at any one time.

Still, by the time the imam had concluded his sermon on Friday, worshippers were taking up position to pray in any niche they could find.

The service contained a grim and increasingly frequent addendum: the condemnation of yet another attack carried out by a supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) group.

Some prejudiced people want to associate Islam with these actions, the imam said in Arabic: But Islam is innocent of what happened.

He gave way to another member of the mosque administration, who read out a scathing statement condemning the perpetrator and paying tribute to the police officer slain in Thursdays attack on the capitals iconic Champs Elysees.

The act profoundly shocks the Muslims of France, who pay tribute to the forces that give their lives to protect us, he said.

Located in the fifth arrondissement of Paris, the mosque was built in 1926 by the French state as a gift to the tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers from its colonies, who gave their lives fighting for the country in the first world war.

During the second world war and the Nazi occupation of France, members of its administration helped some French Jews escape the Holocaust by producing falsified birth certificates for them, which said they were born as Muslims.

Slimane Nadour, the mosques spokesperson, rued the new regularity of ISIL attacks in the country and the damage they caused to community relations.

Its just horrifying, these attacks keep occurring, Nadour said, recalling the murder of a priest in the western Normandy region last July and the attack in Nice the same month that killed dozens.

This is something thats becoming frequent now and its terrible.

For Nadour, the attacks are not only morally abhorrent but deliberate attempts to create division between French Muslims and the wider community.

The aim of these terrorists is to divide society and put Muslims against non-Muslims, he said, adding: Theyve failed and they will fail again.

The French people are aware that these people dont represent Islam and its a small minority of Muslims who do things like this.

These people are crazy

Outside the mosque, after the prayers had concluded, the feeling among the congregants was little different.

Untangling his bike from the rail against which it was rested, Kamal responded bluntly and with a palpable sense of despondency when asked how he felt about Thursday evenings attack.

One more, he said, lamenting how easy it had become for ISIL sympathisers to carry out attacks:

These people are crazy  they just step outside of their houses and if they dont have a weapon, theyll use anything they can find to attack others.

As he spoke, men argued passionately about Middle Eastern politics, as street sellers tried to hawk prayer mats and worry beads.

There's already so much sentiment against Muslims, so this is going to exacerbate it further by Asma, law student

Saleha, walking away from prayers with her children and elderly relatives, spoke briefly of her shock: Its a disaster, this kind of killing is against our beliefs  our values are against what happened.

With the presidential election just days away, there were also fears that this could empower candidates who want harsher laws targeting the Muslim community.

Asma, a 23-year-old law student, said previous attacks had already created the perception that Muslims were a threat.

The latest, she said, would add to that feeling.

Theres already so much sentiment against Muslims, so this is going to exacerbate it further, she said.

As he pulled his bike away from the rail, Kamal echoed that viewpoint.

Sunday is the first round of the election  the far right will be happy.

Follow Shafik Mandhai on Twitter: @ShafikFM
CORRECTED

A leaf that can fly. Bird droppings that walk. A bright flower that becomes a spider. These were just a few of the onscreen marvels at the Washington premiere of the IMAX movie Amazon Adventure this week. And for many of the middle and high school science teachers in the audience, the film provoked planning for a school field trip to the theater.

Amazon Adventure, which made its official debut at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History, will bring the Amazonian explorations of naturalist Henry Walter Bates to life in theaters across the country.

The film traces Bates 11-year journey through the Amazon rainforest as he searches for clues about how and why speciesbutterflies in particularwere changing and adapting over time to thwart predators. He was working in the same era as scientist Charles Darwin, and his challenges and setbacks as he looked for proof of what later became known as natural selection are illustrative of scientific methods in action .

But the science lessons are masked by a compelling storyline, which is key for keeping students engaged in learning that will stick with them, said co-executive producer Sean Carroll, who is also vice president of science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (The institutes HHMI Tangled Bank Studios produced the movie with SK Films.)

The 45-minute film has detailed footage of the Amazon that seems to thrust viewers into the rainforest--lush green vines crawling off the screen, a sloth dangling a tree branch, vivid butterflies that hover 3D in midair, miniscule insects captured up close.

There are no cellphones, no distractions. I dont think you can overestimate the value of being immersed, said Carroll. Often, were too worried in the classroom about understanding particular content. Lets get them inspired first. All good teachers know that.

Tama Hobbs, a science content specialist at Shady Grove Middle School in Gaithersburg, Md., was in the audience on Tuesday, but had seen a sneak preview two weeks earlier at the National Science Teachers Associations annual conference in Los Angeles. After the second viewing, she had no doubts about bringing her students to see the film. While Hobbs classes study scientist Charles Darwin and survival of the fittest theories, she said theyd never talked about Bates.

Our students dont really think of scientists as real people, Hobbs said. You watch how Bates turns his childhood love into a lifelong passion. Its an opportunity for them to see a scientist stick with a problem from beginning to end. Theyll see science doesnt have to be in a laboratory. They can start with something theyre in love with and use that as their guide.

Bates made lesser-known, but vital, contributions to the theories of evolution and natural selection in the 1800s. His work included a theory called Batesian mimicry (where animals develop traits of other animals in order to survive), which provided proof to his friend Darwins own evolution theories.

Though teaching of evolution in public school has often been cause for controversy , its coverage has become more thorough in recent years, according to a 2009 study. For three years, including a 45-day shoot near Manaus, Brazil, only reachable by airplane or boat, a film crew and more than 100 scientists and historical advisors worked on the film to make sure Amazon Adventure stayed true to its scientific history. The Natural History Museum of London also provided Bates scientific field notebooks and drawings, as well as an opportunity to film the butterflies he collected more than 160 years ago.

Because Amazon Adventure is meant to be useful for science learning, especially for grades 3 to 12, the films website has supplemental classroom resources such as fact sheets and downloadable posters on mimicry and camouflage; video lectures; curriculum outlines; and an in-depth film guide for educators with articles and quiz questions on key concepts, created by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Amazon Adventure is now showing at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington and will be coming to IMAX theaters this year in Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Salt Lake City, Seattle, St. Louis, Tallahassee, Fl., and other locations. Educators can also request that their local IMAX theater screen the film.

ABOVE: Henry Bates (played by the actor Calum Finlay) and his guide Tando (played by the actor Bege Muniz) walk across a waterfall in the Amazon

Photo credit: SK Films

Related stories:

Evolution, Creation Debate Continues in Texas

Teaching Evolution Isnt About Changing Beliefs (Opinion)

Evolution Coverage Improves, Review Finds

Corrected 4/20: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified naturalist Henry Walter Bates middle name.


Attorney General Jeff Sessions remarks come amid reports that his office is preparing charges against Julian Assange.

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US priority, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the leaker.

We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks, Sessions said at a news conference on Thursday in response to a reporters question about a US priority to arrest Assange.

The justice department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented.

This is a matter thats gone beyond anything Im aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious, he said.

Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.

Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter.

Several other media outlets cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange.

Prosecutors had struggled to determine whether the First Amendment protected Assange from prosecution but had now found a way to move forward, officials told CNN.

The justice department declined to comment on the reports.

US election leaks

Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies.

He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010.

Assanges case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clintons campaign and the Democratic Party.

US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election.

Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump.

OPINION: WikiLeaks CIA document dump will cause a ripple effect

Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agencys top-secret hacking operations.

The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence.

Supporters of WikiLeaks say it is practising the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week branded WikiLeaks a hostile intelligence service, saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators.

Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States.

WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence  And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organisations, said Pompeo.

It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is  a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.

In response to Thursdays report WikiLeaks reposted on Twitter an opinion piece written by Assange and published in the Washington Post earlier this month.

WikiLeaks sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths, which I remain convinced is the cornerstone of the United States remarkable liberty, success and greatness, Assange wrote.
Ahmed Abba, in jail since July 2015 over his reporting on Boko Haram, could face death penalty, according to his lawyer.

A military court in Cameroon has convicted Ahmed Abba, a journalist for Radio France Internationales Hausa service, on charges of non-denunciation of terrorism and laundering of the proceeds of terrorist acts, according to his lawyer and employer.

Abbas lawyer, Clement Nakong, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that Abba, who has been jailed since July 2015 in relation to his reporting on the regional armed group Boko Haram, could face the death penalty on the first charge and a maximum of five years in prison on the second charge at a sentencing hearing scheduled for April 24.

Nakong said Abba would appeal to have the conviction overturned.

Radio France Internationale reported that the military tribunal acquitted the journalist of the charge of apologising for acts of terrorism.

The CPJ called on Cameroonian authorities to release Abba without delay and not to contest the journalists appeal.

The military courts conviction of Cameroonian radio journalist Ahmed Abba on terrorism charges that could carry the death penalty is an outrage, Robert Mahoney, CPJ deputy executive director, said in a press release.

Covering terrorism as a reporter must not be equated with committing acts of terror. Each day Abba spends behind bars is a travesty of justice.

Abba told the CPJ through a proxy in January: This is an unfair trial. I have never been told who I know that I did not denounce, or who are my accomplices,.

I could get justice in a civil court, maybe, but not in a military court. Right now I dont know my fate.

Battle with Boko Haram

A controversial anti-terrorism law in 2014 reintroduced the death penalty. Cameroon has not carried out an execution since 1997, according to Amnesty International.

Cameroon has remained in a protracted battle with the Boko Haram since 2014 when the fighters began attacking the government.

The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, reports that there have been no fewer than 460 attacks and scores of suicide bombings leading to at least 15,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons.

INTERACTIVE: Boko Haram Attacks

Rights groups have criticised what they describe as an increasingly repressive climate for press freedom in Cameroon.

In recent months, authorities have arrested journalists covering protests, suspended dozens of newspapers and broadcasters permission to operate, permanently banned three newspapers from publishing and their publishers from practicing journalism and sanctioned dozens more journalists.

The speaker of the National Assembly in November called the use of social media a new form of terrorism.

The government cut the internet to the Anglophone region in January after protests against the predominantly French-speaking government of President Paul Biya.

Internet access

Cameroons government said on Thursday that it had restored the internet access to the affected regions.

It seems that the conditions that preceded the suspension of the internet to that part of the national territory have much changed, Issa Tchiroma, Cameroons communications minister, said in a statement.

The head of state therefore instructs the [communications] minister  to re-establish internet connections in the northwest and southwest regions.





Cameroonian forces have cracked down on protests in the English-speaking region that erupted last October, beating and arresting protesters, some of whom face the death penalty in military courts  under the same anti-terrorism law used to prosecute the journalist Ahmed Abba.

The anti-terror law is being used to curtail dissent and that infringes on the basic rights and freedoms in the constitution, Ilaria Allegrozzi, of the Amnesty International, told Reuters in February.

The unrest has exposed national divisions between the regions of Cameroon that were historically colonised by the French and the British.

At least six protesters have been shot dead and hundreds others arrested during the rare challenge to state authority, prompting criticism from human rights groups.

Activists had condemned the internet shutdown as a form of collective punishment.

At the end of World War I, the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.

After independence in 1960, voters from the smaller English-speaking zone opted to join Cameroon rather than neighbouring Nigeria, but they have often felt marginalised by the Francophone government in Yaounde.
Removal of civilians and fighters from besieged towns ends after 48-hour halt, with prisoners set to be released.

The first phase of a troubled population transfer has concluded, with thousands of displaced Syrians evacuated out of besieged areas and an agreement reached to release hundreds of government detainees, according to government news media and rebels.

One of the largest evacuations in Syrias civil war had been tied to the fate of 26 hostages, including members of Qatars ruling family, who had been held by a Shia militia in Iraq and were released on Friday.

Qatar, the patron of some Syrian armed opposition groups, was a main negotiator of the deal. Iran, which backs Iraqi and Lebanese fighters in Syria, served as the other negotiator.





With the transfer completed on Friday, the first phase of the population swap deal in Syria comes to an end.

A total of 8,000 residents from the pro-government villages of Foua and Kefraya  besieged for two years amid Syrias bloody civil war by anti-government rebels  and nearly 3,000 evacuees from the rebel-held Zabadani, Madaya and surrounding areas have left their homes.

Under the deal, an estimated 30,000 people will be transferred from their hometowns over 60 days, most of them from the pro-government villages in northern Idlib.

It is one Syrias largest population transfers, which the opposition has described as demographic engineering, and the first to involve a reciprocal population swap.

The Syrian military media arm said 46 buses carrying residents of Foua and Kefraya arrived in Jibreen, an Aleppo suburb, on Friday. Some 15 buses were carrying residents and rebels from the Zabadani area, which was besieged by the government, departed for Idlib.

Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abo Zayed, from the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group negotiating the deal, said the phase ended with the agreement to release 500 detainees from government prisons who are expected to arrive at a rebel-held area near Aleppo city later Friday.

Another 250 detainees will be released in the next 10 days, he said.

OPINION: Absurdity is questioning a dictators motives

Syrian media declared that armed groups no longer have any presence in the Zabadani and Madaya areas, which government troops entered after the evacuation. The Syrian military said it had destroyed a tunnel linking the two areas.

Madaya and Zabadani, once summer resorts to Damascus, have been shattered under a crippling government siege. The two towns rebelled against Damascus authority in 2011 when demonstrations swept through the country demanding the end of President Bashar al-Assads rule.

The blockades forced residents to resort to hunting rodents and eating leaves off trees. Photos of children gaunt with hunger shocked the world, but the siege remained.

In northern Syria, civilians in Foua and Kefraya, besieged by the rebels, lived under a steady hail of rockets and mortars. They were supplied with food and medicine through military airdrops.

The population transfer faced a number of snags, including a deadly explosion a week ago.

The massive bombing targeted a packed convoy carrying evacuees from Foua and Kefraya, killing at least 126 people, including more than 60 children.

Rights groups have decried the agreement as a forced displacement that is altering the countrys demographics along political and sectarian lines.

In the last year alone, thousands of rebels, along with their families and supporters, were forced to surrender in capitulation deals under intense government bombings and tight sieges across a number of towns and areas around the capital Damascus, as well as in Aleppo and Homs. Most of those have been transferred to rebel-held Idlib.

Syrian state TV al-Ikhbariya broadcast the arrival of several buses carrying hundreds of residents to Jibreen, where the government set up temporary shelters.

Relatives rushed to the buses to receive their loved ones, who had been stranded at an exchange point since Wednesday. Others frantically searched for missing relatives.

Lebanese Al-Manar TV, affiliated with Syrian government ally Hezbollah, said at least 12 bodies of those killed in the Saturday explosion were among those arriving in Aleppo.





Whoever knows anything about my kids, please let me know, a mother wept on al-Ikhbariya as she pleaded for information for her three children missing since the explosion last week.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bloody blast.

In pictures from rebel-held areas, one armed man could be seen hugging another after the buses arrived in rural Idlib.

UN Syria humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said there had been more evacuation deals this year than before, but they appeared driven more by military priorities than humanitarian concerns.

They seem to follow a military logic, they do not seem to put the civilians at the heart of the agreement, he told reporters in Geneva on Thursday.

The United Nations was not involved in the evacuation of the four towns, Egeland said, adding it was misleading to consider them voluntary evacuations when the towns had been besieged for years.

Besiegement should end by being lifted, he said, not by places being emptied from people.
French decision follows deadly Champs Elysees attack on police, just three days before first round of presidential vote.

French prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation into an attack in the Champs Elysees shopping district in Paris where an armed man killed one policeman and seriously injured two people.

President Francois Hollande said he was convinced a terrorism investigation was the correct approach to the incident before the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for Thursdays attack via its Amaq website.

Hollande promised absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process as France braces itself for the first round of a presidential election on Sunday.

OPINION: Far-right feasts on Frances unchecked Islamophobia

French television networks reported that the attacker was a 39-year-old French national and was known to anti-terrorism police.

Police said the attacker had been convicted in 2005 of three counts of attempted murder  two of them against police officers.

Raids took place at his address in a suburb to the east of Paris.

The identity of the attacker is known and has been checked. I will not give it because investigations with raids are ongoing, Francois Molins, Paris prosecutor, said.





The investigators want to be sure whether he had or did not have accomplices.

Joseph Downing, a researcher at the London Schools of Economics, said that if the attacker was, as reported, known to police, it raised questions of how he could still stage an attack.

This is something weve seen repeatedly in France, that everyone who has popped up to carry out an attack, has been on the police database, he told Al Jazeera.

Even the person that murdered the priest [in Normandy] last year was actually on bail for terror offences at the time.

Potential beneficiaries

In another development, Frances interior ministry said a man sought by the authorities turned himself in to police in Belgium on Friday, adding that it was too early to say if he was linked to the shooting.

Citing a source, the AFP news agency reported that the 35-year-old was described as very dangerous and had been sought by Belgian police as part of a separate investigation.

Al Jazeeras Natasha Butler, reporting from Paris, said the attack could benefit Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader, and Francois Fillon, the conservative presidential hopeful.

The attack has thrown the spotlight back on to security and people will have that firmly on their minds when they head to the polls on Sunday, she said.

Le Pen and Fillon have both taken a very hard line on security during their campaigns. They both link immigration to terrorism, with Le Pen going as far as saying she will ban it altogether. So both will certainly be playing up that narrative when they speak later on Friday.

Several candidates announced after the attack that they had ended their campaigns early as a mark of respect.

While Thursdays attack shocked France and reverberated across the world, Al Jazeeras Shafik Mandhai, reporting from Paris, said life in the city had returned to normal on Friday morning.

OPINION: Elections in France: Its all about security

The only notable difference to a normal day on the Champs Elysees are the satellite trucks of various media outlets parked in the area, he said.

The police presence is also notably low key.

France has been under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a series of attacks that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

The Charlie Hebdo magazine was hit in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall were targeted in November the same year, and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July 2016.

We were trapped

Paul Gray, a US citizen working in Paris, told Al Jazeera that it was the second time he found himself caught up in an attack.

It was crazy, I work nearby and we were having a few beers with a colleague who was leaving and we just saw people running, he said.

We were trapped, it was traumatic because the same thing happened to me the last time there was an attack.

Al Jazeeras Ahmed El Amraoui, also reporting from Paris on Friday, said: The most alarming fact is the significant presence of home-born radicalised people in France.

Marginalisation and lack of opportunity can be considered as the main factors and fertile platforms for terrorism to grow, as most of the attackers came from marginalised and poor areas.

The rule of law and freedom alone do not change much in the lives of people if they are not supported by inclusive growth.
Iraqi interior ministry says gunmen have released a Qatari hunting party that includes members of the royal family.

A Qatari party of 26 hunters kidnapped in southern Iraq in 2015 has been freed and was being handed over to a delegation from Doha in Baghdad on Friday, officials said.

Sources close to the negotiations said their release was part of a far-reaching regional deal involving the freeing of prisoners and the evacuation of civilians in neighbouring Syria .

The interior ministry has received the Qatari hunters, all 26 of them, the ministers adviser, Wahab al-Taee, told AFP news agency.

The men were handed over to a Qatari delegation and left for Doha, a ministry spokesman said in a statement. An airport official told The Associated Press the group departed on Friday afternoon on a private Qatari jet from Baghdad airport.

The group of hunters, believed to include one or several prominent members of the Qatari royal family, were kidnapped in mid-December 2015 during a hunting trip in the Muthanna governorate of southern Iraq.

They were taken from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq in Muthanna province, some 370km southeast of the Iraqi capital.

Little information had surfaced since their abduction as to their whereabouts or condition. In April 2016, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said one of the hunters and an Asian worker on the trip had been freed.

READ MORE: Qatari royal freed by kidnappers in Iraq

Taee would not provide details of the terms of their release but a source close to the negotiations told AFP on condition of anonymity that it was part of a broad regional deal.

The Qataris are now in [Prime Minister] Haider al-Abadis office following a deal between Jabhat al-Nusra and the kidnappers, the source said, referring to the former al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

There was never any claim of responsibility for the kidnapping of the hunters, who were seized in a Shia area of Iraq and widely believed to have been nabbed by militias with close ties to Iran .

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqs former finance minister, wrote on Twitter shortly after the hostages were released that the deal  brokered by Qatar and Iran  violated Iraqs sovereignty.

Release of Qatari hunters in Iraq after 16 months in captivity by a pro Iranian & Hizbulah Shia armed group is a travesty of sovereign Iraq.  Hoshyar Zebari (@HoshyarZebari) April 21, 2017

The deal was linked the evacuation of thousands of people from four besieged towns in Syria: the northern Syrian villages of Fouaa and Kefraya, which are government-controlled but have been besieged by rebels, and the central villages of Madaya and Zabadani, which were besieged by pro-government forces.

Syria deal

The evacuations were under way on Friday, with hundreds of people from two rebel-besieged villages in Idlib being taken to Aleppo, which has been under full government control since late last year.

The evacuees were forced to spend two nights in their buses at a marshalling area after a last-minute disagreement over the release of prisoners held by President Bashar al-Assad s government.

The evacuations began last week, but were delayed after a car bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, at the transit point in Rashidin on April 15.

Assad on Friday blamed Nusra for the bombing in an interview with Russias RIA Novosti news agency.

The evacuations mark the end of the first stage of a deal brokered by government-allied Iran and Qatar, a longtime supporter of Syrian rebel groups.

The release of the Qatari hunters follows a similar pattern to that in 2015 of 18 Turkish workers, who were freed as part of a deal that also saw the lifting of sieges on Shia villages in northern Syria.

Qatar and Turkey have long had ties with Syria rebel groups.
South Korea said on Friday it was on heightened alert in advance of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang.

North Korea marks the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean Peoples Army on Tuesday  an important anniversary that comes at the end of major military drills, South Koreas Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said.

The South and the United States have also been conducting annual joint military exercises, which the North routinely criticises as a prelude to invasion.

It is a situation where a lot of exercise equipment is amassed in North Korea and also a lot of strategic assets are situated on the Korean peninsula because of the South Korea-US military drills, Lee said.

We are closely watching the situation and will not be letting our guards down.

READ MORE: North Korea on maximum alert after US threats

US officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signalling a possible heightened state of readiness by Beijing, reclusive North Koreas sole major ally. Chinas foreign ministry, however, denied reports that bomber aircraft were on a heightened state of alert.





In Russia, meanwhile, a Kremlin spokesman declined to comment on media reports that Russia was moving military hardware and troops towards the border with North Korea.

US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions, something both the US and China have warned against.

Top envoys from the United States, South Korea, and Japan on North Korea are to meet on Tuesday, South Koreas foreign ministry said, to discuss plans to rein in North Koreas additional high-strength provocations, to maximise pressure on the North, and to ensure Chinas constructive role in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue.

US President Donald Trump386 said if China wants to solve the North Korean problem, they will. Trump has been pressing Beijing to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions.

In a tweet on Friday morning, Trump said China is the economic lifeline to North Korea. He conceded that nothing is easy regarding the tense situation.

US defence chief Jim Mattis said on Friday that North Koreas rhetoric was provocative, but he had learned not to trust it.

Unusual moves

An official Chinese newspaper said there was optimism about persuading the North to end its pursuit of its nuclear programme without the use of force, now that even the once tough-talking Donald Trump is on board for a peaceful solution.

Beijing has demonstrated due enthusiasm for Washingtons newfound interest in a diplomatic solution and willingness to work more closely with it, the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

In Russia, some media have quoted residents as saying they have seen military hardware being moved towards North Korea, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said deployment of Russian troops inside Russia was not a public matter.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the US with a nuclear missile.

OPINION: Will China intervene in North Korea?

North Korea has said it would test missiles when it sees fit and a South Korean analyst said he believed they would do so.

Without crossing the red line such as a nuclear test or a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, until the April 25 anniversary of the Korean Peoples Army, North Korea is expected to continue to launch mid-range missiles, said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at Sejong Institute outside Seoul.

The joint US-South Korea military exercises are due to finish at the end of April.

A US aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, is heading towards the Korean peninsula, Trumps administration has said.
Afghan government officials say the death toll has jumped to 140 following Fridays assault on an army base in the northern Balkh province.

Another 160 people were wounded in the attack, Mohammad Ibrahim Khair Andesh, the head of the provincial council, announced on Saturday.

The attack, responsibility for which has been claimed by the Taliban, happened at an army command centre a few miles from Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh.

Two of the attackers blew themselves up and seven were killed in the assault, which lasted several hours and targeted soldiers at a mosque and a dining facility, the Afghan defence ministry said.

One of the assailants was detained.

There were about 10 fighters. One of them detonated his explosives and another went head. Thats when the firefight erupted, Ghulam Hazrat, a witness, told Al Jazeera.

IN PICTURES: The Afghans on the front lines fighting the Taliban

There were two checkpoints but the fighters managed to go through that, as well. It was chaotic and I saw more than 60 people dead on the spot.

The toll is still rising because it was a large-scale attack. People are in fear and have a lot of questions.

Fighters in three military vehicles with forged documents launched the attack by shooting a rocket at the entrance of the base, a military official told DPA news agency.

The source said 10 fighters first targeted the mosque, where army staff were performing Friday prayers, before moving on to the dining facility, the source said.

Several military helicopters hovered over the facility during the attack and ambulances later took away the bodies of the victims, an AFP news agency correspondent said.

Talibans claim

The Taliban claimed that more than 500 soldiers were killed and wounded.

The group also claimed that four of the attackers were soldiers who had served at the base and had knowledge of the facility.

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the assault.

Our fighters have inflicted heavy casualties on the Afghan army stationed there, he said.

The Taliban released a picture of the purported attackers, dressed in military gear, with their faces blurred.

During Friday prayers, the mosque here would be very busy. Several hundred people would come in from other places, as well, an Afghan national who serves in the army told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

So, this was a well-planned attack. There is a possibility, as well, of insiders helping the fighters. Otherwise, how can someone attack a large military base with such heavy security?

He said two attackers detonated their suicide vests, and after that eight others went further and launched a gun battle. They killed most of my friends.

Our government is lying and not being clear about the death toll. It was a massacre.

The base in Balkh is home to the Afghan armys 209th Corps, as well as to a contingent from the German army. No German soldiers were affected by the attack.

Few thousand troops

General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, praised Afghan commandos for bringing what he called Fridays atrocity to an end.

In February, he told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, DC that he needed a few thousand more troops to help train and assist the Afghan forces.

The US has about 8,400 troops in the country, with about another 5,000 from NATO allies assisting a much larger Afghan force in the war against the Taliban and other armed groups.

The last major attack against a military site in Afghanistan was in early March when fighters disguised as doctors stormed the Sardar Daud Khan hospital  Kabuls largest military hospital  in Kabul, killing dozens.

Afghan security forces, beset by killings, desertions and non-existent ghost soldiers on the payroll, have been struggling to beat back the Taliban since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014.

According to US watchdog SIGAR, casualties among Afghan security forces rose by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed.
Accident occurred when driver lost control of speeding vehicle and struck an electricity pole.

A truck ran into a crowd of farmers staging a protest in southern India, killing at least 14 people and injuring many others.

Fridays crash occurred when the driver lost control of the speeding vehicle, struck an electricity pole and slammed into the group demonstrating outside a police station in Andhra Pradesh state. Some of the farmers were electrocuted.

Seventeen people were hurt in the incident in Chittoor district, said Superintendent of Police R Jayalakshmi.

The driver of the lorry [truck] was drunk. He drove in a rash manner and hit an electrical pole just next to the police station, Jayalakshmi told Reuters news agency by phone.

Driver escaped

The Press Trust of India reported the driver fled the scene after running over the protesters and crashing into some shops.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the families of the victims. State Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu announced compensation of 500,000 rupees ($7,700) each for the families of the dead.

India has some of the worlds deadliest roads with more than 150,000 fatalities annually because of poor roads, badly maintained vehicles, and reckless driving.

On Wednesday, a bus swerved off a mountain road in northern India, killing 44 people.
Early this legislative season, the National Conference of State Legislators predicted that, with accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act due by this fall, there would be an uptick in bills around teacher evaluations, school accountability systems, and assessments.

Any changes made under state waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act would have to be written into law, said Michelle Exstrom, NCSLs education program director. Thats so that education board policy books align with state law books. Legislatures also hold states purse strings, and any new ESSA-driven initiatives would have to be placed in the states budget by the legislature.

All 50 states held legislative sessions this year, and 11 of those states already have adjourned. The vast majority of states will adjourn between the end of April to mid-May, so its a good time to check in on how education has fared so far.

NCSLs prediction has come to fruition. According to its tracker , theres been an uptick in proposed and enacted legislation regarding accountability and assessments. As of this week, 113 ESSA-related bills had been proposed in legislatures nationwide and 20 had been passed. Exstrom said she predicts the amount of legislation to match or potentially exceed last years amount.

Accountability and assessments is a huge issue this year, and thats more than likely being driven by new approaches allowed under ESSA, Exstrom said.

The bills that have been passed vary from one in Delaware that requires the state board to present any ESSA plan to the entire legislative body before its turned in to the U.S. Department of Education to a bill in North Carolina that prohibited the department from turning in an ESSA plan until the latest date possible. Some states, such as Wyoming placed their entire ESSA plan in a bill and asked for an up or down vote.

Other legislatures, such as Marylands, wrote a bill that limited testing and dictated elements of the states accountability system. Marylands Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed the bill but the Democrat-controlled legislature ovverode the veto.

Several other states have updated assessment systems so that high school students take ACT or SAT tests instead of the states standardized test.

Only 12 states and the District of Columbia had turned in their ESSA accountability plan as of earlier this week, as my colleagues Andrew and Alyson over at the Politics K-12 blog have reported. Theres another deadline in September to turn in their plans and many states have said they will wait until then to do so.

Exstrom said that may be because state leaders are waiting for clarity from Congress and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on potential regulations and want to make sure they have full support from political leaders and parents.

Some states didnt feel like they needed to rush, Exstrom said. States are figuring out that this is hard work, and theyre getting a lot of input and feedback from stakeholders, and they want to synthesize all that feedback into their plan.

Dont miss another State EdWatch post. Sign up here to get news alerts in your email inbox. And make sure to follow @StateEdWatch on Twitter for the latest news from state K-12 policy and politics.
Vladimir Putin is an eminently sane power player. So is China's Xi Jinping. Donald Trump, contrary to his liberal enemies, built his hotel and reality show empires using careful chess moves against tough competition.

There is an open question whether Kim III, Kim Jong-un, is a rational actor. He certainly goes out of his way to look like a nuke-happy madman, but that can also be strategic. We simply do not know, but with three carrier groups within range of Pyongyang, plus Japan and South Korea, formidably armed, plus China, which reportedly moved 150,000 troops to its border with North Korea, we are likely to find out the answer sometime soon.

The mullahs have been threatening war and genocide ever since Jimmy Carter and the Gray Eminence Zbigniew Brzezinski allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to take over the most progressive country in the Middle East. The Shah's Iran and the ayatollahs are two very different countries, and I still cannot understand why Carter (and later on Obama) colluded in the nuclearization of a self-confessed Armageddon regime. It made no sense then, and it still makes no sense.

But both North Korea and mullah-ruled Iran have great power allies: China and Russia, respectively. Russia has had nuclear weapons since Stalin had U.S. communists steal the plans from the Manhattan Project, and China developed nukes with Soviet aid during the Mao era. But after the ideological fanaticism of Stalin and Mao, both of those enormous Asian land powers adopted rational great power policies. They did not turn into paper tigers, and Moscow and Beijing took advantage of every weakness shown by Carter, Clinton, and Obama. This is why the world is in the fix it is in today, with two rogue client regimes moving closer every day to nuclear bombs and ICBMs.

Democrats have been whistling past that graveyard for three decades, and liberals and their fakestream media collude in that massive blind spot. Serious international problems are for Republicans to solve after the Democrats have royally screwed things up.

Well, somebody's gotta do it, and if you could look into the heart of Putin and Xi, you might see they are secretly relieved that the United States is becoming a serious power again.

(So are the Europeans, who are the shrillest hostile-dependent teenagers of them all.)

If you are Putin, you can't afford a crazy-sounding nuclear power next door, less than an hour's flight from your borders. If you are President Xi, you have the same problem. Ideologically, you can't abandon your "allies." But they pose a very real danger of Armageddon, most of all to great nations like Russia and China.

So Putin is acting like a Soviet-era thug like Brezhnev, sending old-fashioned Bear bombers to "test" Alaska and the British Isles, Norway, and Finland. China has built a completely artificial island in the South China Sea and is claiming it as Chinese territory, while positioning military bases on them.

These are all aggressive moves that arouse fear and anger in South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia. So far, they have produced nothing in the way of a coherent response, even though they are theoretically part of the SEATO alliance.

But Uncle Don has made it clear that we are not going to pay for another sixty years of defense for our ne'er-do-well allies. In terms of our cheapskate allies it might be best to turn our naval task forces around and tell Japan to take care of the North Koreans. The Donald has put them on public notice, but so far we can't see any public signs of responsibility on the part of our weak-willed "allies." In fact, John Nolte at Daily Wire has concluded on the evidence now known that every single European "ally" spied on the Trump camp, sending reports back to the Deep Guvmint types in D.C. to undermine the candidacy of Mr. Trump.

I do hope he returns the favor sometime soon.

Regardless of all that, if Mexico developed nukes and a truly mad regime that threatened to use them on us, we would not stand it for a day. John F. Kennedy came perilously close to war when Castro and Khrushchev colluded in an attempt to base Soviet ICBMs in Cuba. No rational great power in the world can tolerate an unpredictable nuclear power next door.

It follows that Putin and Xi understand the stakes of Trump's effort to address the worldwide nuclear proliferation that Democrats, like Bill Clinton and Obama, carelessly allowed.

Maybe that's why Obama fled to French Polynesia. Maybe that's why Hillary is suddenly sounding like a hawk, and Bill has faded into the woodwork. As for Jimmy Carter, he is worse than ever, but then, would you want to be known as the president who brought mullahs with nukes into the Middle East? That reputation will follow him forever, as it should, just as Obama's surrender "treaty" giving the mullahs a clear path to nukes will go down in history as the biggest mistake since Harper's Ferry set off the U.S. Civil War.

Lately Mr. Putin has been acting a little mad himself, along Soviet lines, running aging Bear bombers by Alaska and possibly nuclear subs near San Diego. The trouble is that those probes happened every month during Soviet times, and they never led to war  because nuclear war is only a more spectacular form of national suicide. So Putin's gestures have no credibility, although simulated attacks are no fun for our naval and air personnel.

All of Putin's melodrama makes no difference to the fundamental facts, which are that great nations cannot afford crazy neighbors armed with weapons of mass destruction. Donald Trump has been pointing that out to North Korea's neighbors, and North Korea supplies advanced weaponry to Iran, so that knocking down the North would also make the Middle East safer.

This is the toughest poker game you've ever seen, and nobody knows the outcome. China does not want an unpredictable maniac next door. Russia doesn't want one, either. But this game of playing crazy had been subtly enabled by the weakness and gutlessness of the West, following Churchill's rule that every regime is ducking down, "hoping that the crocodile will eat it last."

Abject appeasement works  until it stops working. Nobody knows when this untenable policy of retreat will explode, but we are eight years closer today than the day Obama took office.

None of the Democrats, or the European socialists, has the spine to stand up against aggression. They deserve to be abandoned to the closest hungry crocodile, but ultimately that would hurt us also.

A unified cyber-attack on North Korea could work theoretically, but even in cyberspace, you have to know exactly what you are doing. Other science fiction methods are possible and could help. Most of all, we need a strategic alliance by responsible powers against the crazies. That may seem unlikely today, but the prospect of hanging in a fortnight concentrates a man's mind wonderfully.

Russia and the Western Allies worked together to beat the Nazis in World War II. America and China had a warm diplomatic relationship before Mao took over.

Nations have no permanent friends, but they do have permanent interests. Having crazy aunts with nukes in the basement is not a rational interest.

Trump has made a shrewd move by reaching out to China. Right now, Vladimir Putin seems confused and directionless, but there really is only one way to go forward, and that is to unite in the common interest against rogues with nukes. Even Stalin recognized the need for an alliance with the West after the Nazi invasion of the USSR.

Vladimir Putin can do no less.
Ninety-one percent is a fascist tax rate, period. And it happened to be the top marginal rate for the federal personal income tax right here in America until the mid-1960s. True, no one actually paid 91 percent. But to avoid paying statutory rates, like 91 percent, we must do as our overlords want us to do. We must buy a house on credit and buy an electric car and dance like a Russian circus bear if we want to knock our effective tax rates down to something a little less fascistic.

Tax rates are high because Congress wants to control us and to get us to do what they deem is best. Congress does this by offering the taxpayer a vast array of exceptions: the adjustments, deductions, exemptions, write-offs, loopholes, and such in the Internal Revenue Code that allow us to pay less to the IRS. But the exceptions had become so numerous and so large that it had allowed some high-income Americans to pay income taxes at scandalously low rates.

That situation might have even embarrassed Congress, because in 1982 they enacted the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. According to Table 1 (line 208) at the IRS, in 2013 there were 3,940,304 returns that had AMTs totaling $27.4B. The AMT was created for rich folks who took advantage of so many tax dodges, like tax-exempt municipal bonds, that in some cases they managed to entirely avoid paying income taxes. In other words, Congress created the AMT to counteract what Congress had created; i.e. the tons of exceptions in the tax code.

If you google alternative minimum tax in quote marks, youre liable to get about 476,000 hits. However, if you google alternative maximum tax, youll only get about 922 hits. Why the disparity? Its because the AMT is in the tax code, its in the law, whereas the alternative maximum tax isnt. But the logic for the two is similar: just as taxpayers can be undertaxed, they can also be overtaxed.

Cato Institute has rerun a version of The Alternative Maximum Tax by Stephen Moore; it originally appeared on Jan. 14, 1997 in the Wall Street Journal. Moores article outlines what he calls the MAXTAX, which would be 25 percent for personal income taxes on the federal level. Even if you have your own ideas about how to reform income taxes, Moores article is well worth reading.

Like the AMT, the MAXTAX doesnt replace the Tax Code. And if one looks at Line 45 of Form 1040, one sees that the AMT isnt really an alternative to the regular income tax. Rather, its an additional tax that one adds to the tax reported on Line 44. But the MAXTAX would be a true alternative; one would pay the MAXTAX instead of the regular income tax.

On April 14, 2013, Alternative Maximum Tax ran at the blog of economist John Cochrane; it ran the next day at the Journal. In 2013, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond interviewed Cochrane on many issues, including ours:

The alternative maximum tax is not my favorite nor a perfect tax code. Its a Band-Aid. Our current tax code is a chaotic mess and an invitation to cronyism, lobbying, and special breaks. The right thing is to scrap it. Taxes should raise money for the government in the least distortionary way possible. Dont try to mix the tax code with income transfers or support for alternative energy, farmers, mortgages, and the housing industry, and so on. [] But its a way to check that all of the creeping, extra things dont add up to a horribly distortionary tax code [] We have an alternative minimum tax to make sure clever taxpayers dont exploit the insane complexity of the tax code and escape. Given that same insane complexity, why not have an alternative maximum too?

The MAXTAX, just like the AMT, leaves the Internal Revenue Code intact; it doesnt replace the Code; its an alternative. But the only reason anyone would take such an alternative is to pay the IRS less. Which means the MAXTAX wouldnt be revenue-neutral.

During the 2016 campaign, at least two Republican presidential candidates were urging the adoption of a single tax rate for personal income taxes. In Jan. 2016, I pointed out that if it were engineered to be revenue-neutral, a single rate would impose a tax hike on 90 percent of Americans. The idea now is for three rates, which would soften the blow. But Congress cannot reduce the number of rates at all without causing some folks to pay more -- unless they impose new rates that are so low that they are not revenue-neutral and blow a hole in the budget.

Reducing the number of statutory tax rates, whether to one or to three, is the exact wrong tack to take in tax reform. Yet, some in the forefront of the current tax reform effort tout three rates as though its some kind of magic elixir. A reduction in the number of tax rates by itself would do nothing to simplify taxes, nor would it make taxes fairer.

There is, however, a way to enact revenue-neutral tax reform whereby everyone would get a tax rate cut, and thats to set everyones new statutory rate to whatever their current effective rate is. Since effective rates are the product of statutory rates and the exceptions taxpayers take, the substitution of their effective rates would mean that taxpayers could no longer take exceptions, but their tax bills would be the same. To be absolutely revenue-neutral, this substitution would also mean that the number of tax rates would be equal to the number of income tax returns, which is closing in on 150,000,000. Well, a new tax regime with nearly 150M statutory rates is impractical, to say the least. Congress cant very well give every individual income taxpayer her own individualized rate; thats crazy talk.

The MAXTAX is a swell idea for as far as it goes, but it doesnt go very far. The MAXTAX, you see, is only for the swells, the evil One Percent. But there are taxpayers with modest incomes who are paying much more than others in their same bracket; what about those guys? Why not a MAXTAX for all taxpayers? Why cant all taxpayers choose to pay what everyone else is paying?

What everyone else is paying is, of course, the average. But if you allowed those who pay more than the average to start paying the average, that, too, just like the MAXTAX, would not be revenue-neutral; it would add to the deficit. The only way it could be revenue-neutral is if those who pay less than the average also started paying the average. But which average?

Congress could engineer a new tax rate regime that would be revenue-neutral and would keep folks paying close to what theyre currently paying. The way to do that is to set new statutory rates to the average effective rates of income brackets that are much narrower than the current ones. That means more rates, not fewer. And it means ridding the tax code of all exceptions. Only by ending all exceptions can we have the lowest statutory tax rates for all taxpayers and still be revenue-neutral.

The very existence of an alternative tax, like the AMT, is evidence that there is something rotten about the Internal Revenue Code. The fetid stench is further evidenced by the glaring disparities one sees in what earners with the same incomes are paying in income taxes, which are more pronounced in the middle rungs of the income ladder than at the top. Alternative taxes arent terrible ideas, but they would be utterly unnecessary in a decent tax system.

Jon N. Hall of Ultracon Opinion is a programmer/analyst from Kansas City.
Now that President Trump concluded that the Syrian gas attack "crossed many, many lines" and reacted accordingly, he must formulate a battle-plan to convert dynamic "talk" into ongoing "walk."

In the process, he should recognize that it is in America's best interest to recognize Kurdistan as a sovereign state and to deduce how to proceed thereafter based upon the historic, military, economic, religious and political implications of this overdue stance.

Its immediate impact would be felt in the Pentagon, as it plans how to defeat the Islamic State, but its long-term import can provide a template as to how to remodel the Middle East to maximize the interests of the United States, American allies, and long-suffering Middle Eastern peoples.

And it would serve as the culmination of regional battle plans we have proposed for almost a decade: in 2008, we focused upon how to confront the major source of global terrorism, and in 2015, we demonstrated why the United States cannot evade this trouble-spot. In 2013, we simply concluded that the Kurds can lead a reborn Syria, at peace with all of her neighbors, and in 2014, we suggested that NATO must help the Kurds now.

Historically, the 1920 Treaty of Sevres was one of 35 treaties addressing the disposition of the former Ottoman Empire following World War I. It was signed by the Ottomans, French, British, Italians, and Armenians.

Unfortunately, the Turks reneged after initially having accepted it, leading to its being supplanted by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that officially settled the conflict. It was signed by Turkey, Greece, Italy, Japan, and Great Britain.

The former advocated for a Kurdish referendum to decide its fate, which was to include the Mosul Province, per Section III, Articles 62-64. The latter defined the borders of the modern Turkish Republic.

Thus, the unfinished business created by the former should yield re-establishment of an independent Kurdistan in the Syrian-Iraqi region. To accommodate the latter, acknowledged, would be a regional diaspora in Eastern Turkey and northwestern Iran, thereby resolving presumed vague territorial claims.

Yet, following defeat of the Islamic State, the only superpower that could subsequently protect the Kurds (and Kurdish Yazidis) from Turkish, Iranian, Russian, and Syrian attack is America.

And the only way to prompt Moscow to act to oust Iran from Syria is for America to ante up and  functioning as a player who no longer is following from behind  to encourage implementation of a Grand Plan to end this half-decade civil war by creating key spheres of influence:

Russia would legitimize its military presence along the Mediterranean, while America would both provide a buffer between Damascus and the Golan Heights (in southern Syria) and protect the Kurdistan region of Syria (currently and historically heavily populated by Kurds) south of Turkey from the Mediterranean Sea to the Tigris River (in northern Syria).

Indeed, it may be the pendency of this Grand Plan that explains both why President Trump had avoided criticizing President Putin and why relocation of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has been delayed.

In any case, militarily, by introducing troops into Syria in conjunction with Operation Inherent Resolve, America would help create safe zones to which Syrian refugees could be relocated (from Europe, Turkey, and Jordan), within which they could be able to work with non-Islamists to found a country led by freedom-loving Kurds and to defend it against barbaric terrorists.

Two constituencies would have to become convinced of the wisdom of assuming this limited leadership role: myriad Kurdish factions and American public opinion.

The former would have to adopt a unified structure that maximizes its independence from foreign influences, and the latter would have to be educated as to how the United States would benefit from achieving stability in this volatile region.

Pivotal would be creation of a coalition government composed solely of Kurds who share Western values, thereby precluding inter-Kurdish conflict as occurred in the 1990s in Iraq.

Under American leadership  respecting "facts on the ground"  the pro-Assad YPG ("People's Protection Units") in the northeast would join with the pro-American KurdNAS ("Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria") in the northwest to create a solitary administrative unit.

Positive public opinion could be mustered from Europeans (and their governments) to gain support from the NATO alliance, for they are increasingly recognizing that many restless refugees may be "overstaying their welcome."

It would then be easier to muster domestic support for this limited incursion  already presaged by the presence of about 5,000 special forces in the arena  behaviorally answering Iran's "slap America in the face" threat.

This region would be contiguous with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq  that some feel should have become an independent entity after the Gulf War  and, thus, could subsequently become the Kurdish homeland envisioned a century ago.

Re-establishing Kurdistan would resolve the agitation of the PKK ("Kurdistan Workers' Party") in eastern Turkey, for the Turkish Kurds would constitute a diaspora that would no longer rebel against Ankara.

Sensitivity to this concern were reflected by delay in American provision of heavy armaments to the Kurds, who are leading the assault on Rakka, until after the upcoming Turkish referendum, a posture that perhaps was enhanced by recapitulation of the demand that Ankara release an American pastor.

American's military and diplomatic moves during the past fortnight  as also detailed at the DebkaFile  are consistent with these strategic goals, including U.S. helicopters having dropped Kurdish and Arab fighters west of Raqqa, and Secretary of State Tillerson having met with embattled Russians and Islamist Turks.

Thereafter, absent Iranian involvement, Turkey suddenly ended its "Euphrates Shield" invasion of Syria, and the Syrian army and rebel groups signed an agreement that will allow an estimated 60,000 people to depart from four besieged areas of the country.

Any residual Turkish resistance to this negotiated outcome would be resolved by providing President Erdogan the corner of Syria that encompasses the Tomb of Suleyman Shah  who was the grandfather of Osman I (d. 1323/4), the founder of the Ottoman Empire  that arguably triggered his military to invade. He would no longer feel compelled to purchase missiles from the Russians.

The exit strategy could, unfortunately, allow secular President Assad to remain in power if elected in a referendum conducted within a shrunken country, for myriad governmental and non-governmental militias would be left to determine the character of the resulting entity, including Christian forces.

Unfortunately, the Alawite-Russian bond has strengthened following ex-President Obama's initial failure to honor his "red line" pledge and his ongoing blind neo-isolationism.

Kurdistan's oil reserves and ingenuity  born of its sustained ancient culture  would allow her to continue to flourish economically, American support for this entity would undermine claims of anti-Muslim religious posturing, and the outcome could help resolve longstanding political conflicts such as friction between Baghdad and Erbil and conflict among myriad Kurdish factions.

Thus, at long last, America must recognize Kurdistan and, by serving as midwife for a new country, would defeat the Islamic State and obtain both immediate and long-term dividends.

Kurds would become the buffer for Europe and America's allies in the region by interdicting Iran's dream of creating a Shia Crescent to the Sea and Turkey's aspiration to recreate an Ottoman Empire. American inactivity would constitute a lost opportunity that might become irretrievable.

Sherkoh Abbas is president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria. Robert Sklaroff is a physician-activist.
The socialist government of Venezuela has just provided American gun owners with an excellent lesson in why it is of paramount importance never to let the government take our guns. Back in 1998, after four decades of the Latin American variety of democracy, military leader Hugo Chavez, a moderate leftist, was elected president. From that time until his death in 2013, he continued to take Venezuela further left, founding the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in 2007, which has remained the ruling party to the present, inexorably moving the country into a quagmire of socialist poverty. Chavez died in 2013, but one of his last acts is now coming into full play in a way that provides our lesson.

In 2012, Chavez and PSUV began consolidating their hold on the Venezuelan people by banning guns in public places using the usual leftist excuse of reducing crime. Since that first gun control measure, those in charge have incrementally, to the point of recent total confiscation, taken away gun ownership rights until the only legally owned firearms are those of the military, the police, and favored security organizations, and they can obtain those only through government sources. The civilian populace of Socialist Venezuela has been effectively disarmed.

...unless your political views align with the socialist leadership, that is. Chavez's handpicked strongman successor, Nicolas Maduro, has decided to hand out military-grade weaponry to those civilians who agree with him politically  that is, his hard-left socialist supporters.

From an excellent accounting at Washington Free Beacon:

"A gun for every militiaman!" Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro said to uniformed militia members outside the presidential palace, Fox News reported on Tuesday. The Bolivarian militias, created by Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, already number in the hundreds of thousands and are being used to supplement the regime's armed forces. Maduro is boosting the number of armed supporters in hopes of keeping control over the country from what he labels "imperialist aggression."

Therein lies your lesson, American gun owners: the American left constantly pushes for more gun control, never satisfied, slowly chiseling away at our 2nd Amendment rights, even to the point that a President Hillary admittedly would have considered the Australian buyback form of voluntary gun confiscation. With the American left moving ever more radically in that direction, who is to say that a future dedicated socialist president like Elizabeth Warren might not stack the Court and get the reading of the 2nd Amendment that the Democrats have long wanted: that the only legal guns in America, like Venezuela, are those in the hands of government?

And who's to say that an even more rabidly socialist successor to a President Warren might not decide that she feels her position threatened, like President Maduro, and decide to issue arms to her loyalists? Thanks to our recent election victory, we are now enjoying a respite from liberal gun grabs and fears of a liberal-dominated Supreme Court. However, as the Democrats have recently learned regarding national power, nothing is forever.
After years of kowtowing and collaborating with Venezuela's socialist regime, the General Motors plant finally got expropriated by the Chavista government for its trouble. GM claimed it was done 'unexpectedly.' But it's hard to shed a tear, given that ExxonMobil, Chevron, Harvest International Resources, Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Kleenex, Crystallex, Schlumberger, and at least 1,000 Venezuelans farms, apartment buildings, businesses (including some very big ones such as the Polar grain and beer company) and homes had already been similarly expropriated. Unexpectedly? Had GM not noticed? Or did GM think it was too big to fail, or more accurately, be subject to socialist failure?

Now it's making statements like this, according to CNN:

GM described the takeover as an "illegal judicial seizure of its assets." The automaker said the seizure showed a "total disregard" of its legal rights. It said that authorities had removed assets including cars from company facilities. "[GM] strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights," it said in a statement.

It may well have been that it's no easy matter to move a car plant, and the company tried to do the best it could under such a horrendous regime.

But GM never spoke out against the broken contracts, the blatant disregard for property rights, the need to go to decent places for investment such as Colombia, Peru or Panama. In fact, up until the Chavistas struck, its public statements had been fairly consistent with all the other corporate statements still coming out about the Venezuelan regime - those of confidence in the socialist regime, of continuing operations as usual, of zero changes in any investment status, of perfect willingness to work with the regime.

In sum, they knew what was going on and hoped the Chavista crocodile would eat them last.

The still-unexpropriated remaining companies, ever dwindling in number, are continuing to make these sorts of statements. Fox Business found some choice ones:

From Coca-Cola:

"There is no indication that any of our facilities in Venezuela are currently at risk of being altered and were working closely with Venezuelan authorities to assure a continuous operation in the country, the company said.

'Altered,' eh? How about 'ripped off'?

From Toyota:

"Our operations in Venezuela have not been affected so far. Our team members, dealers and customers remain our top priorities, and we are monitoring the situation closely."

Monitoring, eh? How about looking for the nearest exit?

From Fiat Chrysler:

FCA is maintaining its production plans in Venezuela in support of efforts to rebuild the countrys automotive sector.

Now this one's especially disgusting, but very typical of Europe. 'Support of efforts'? Talk about propping up the regime!

It goes to show that business cannot be conducted with a totalitarian socialist regime, no matter how many times you try it. When the fundamental premise of a regime is a blatant disregard for property rights, it's only a matter of time before every living entity in the country is consumed. Companies, like people, have a duty to confront evil.

GM isn't unique, but we just haven't seen it.
Remember Howard Dean? He was once the head of the Democratic Party as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Governor of the State of Vermont. He was considered a viable contender for the Democrats nomination for president in 2004 until he uttered the scream that will live on forever:

His sanity does not seem have returned, as Areilla Phillips of the Washington Examiner reports:

Former Vermont governor and Democratic National Comittee chairman Howard Dean called out conservative pundit Ann Coulter on Twitter. Dean said, "Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment." Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment. https://t.co/DOct3xcLoY  Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) April 21, 2017

J.J. Sefton of Ace of Spades HQ has posted the perfect response to this idiocy:

Let me say for his benefit and any other Leftist reading this, there is no such thing as hate speech. There's only speech. And in this country, it's still a G-d given right. So long as it does not openly incite violence, it's guaranteed. In any case it is you and your party and political movement that incite the violence, fought for slavery and segregation, locked citizens up in concentration camps, destroyed lives via a crushing socialist welfare state, that seeks the eradication of our Constitution, the dissolution of our society and the consolidation of power via unchecked mass migration and chaos. Barack Obama encouraged your minions not to sit down and have a civilized discourse over a cup of coffee but to get in our faces. You sir and your rotten ilk are the fascists and totalitarians. Much as it might personally satisfy me to see you muzzled, you have a right to spew your idiotic, inchoate drivel as much as I or Ann Coulter have the right to call you out on it. You, sir, are a tiresome fool, but you are dangerous nonetheless. If you are given time to obliquely if not openly call for the abolition of the 1st Amendment and a citizen's right to speak, I cannot allow that to go unanswered because if you have your way, I won't ever be able to.

I can only add that Deans explicit denial of First Amendment protections to people that he disagrees with is preferable to the weasel-dodges being employed by University of California officials.

The Democratic Partys Left is unmasking itself as fascists.
Senator Elizabeth Warren denounced President Trump's election as the product of an "ugly stew of racism" that propelled him to the top.

So given that she considers herself a Native American minority and has sought affirmative action privileges with that so-claimed designation, what she's saying is that a vote against her or her party could have been due only to racism, never a popular rejection of her socialist ideas.

Logic of that sort is why Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds can often say: "Want More Trump? That's how you get More Trump."

Warren;s contempt for America's votes couldn't be more obvious. If it was an ugly stew of racism that got Trump elected, is it not a little patronizing that Warrren also could say, in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow:

People are right to be angry, but Donald Trump said it's their fault  those other people. Those people who don't worship like you, those people who don't look like you, those people who aren't the same color as you.

So all those Trump-voting racists are right to be angry  is that it? Since when does one justify a racist's right to be angry? Only when one is a Democrat who still hasn't gotten over Hillary Clinton's loss and needs a few insults to hurl at the people who kept her party out of power.
I am no psychiatrist, but I suspect Maxine Waters has lost her mind, or suffers from some organic memory impairment. She is repeatedly denying her own words, captured on video.

On Tuesday this week, she went on MSNBC and denied ever calling for the impeachment of President Trump, something she has repeatedly done, most recently the previous weekend, just days before her initial denial. Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller spotted what has to be called the first danger sign of serious impairment:

California Rep. Maxine Waters is denying ever having called for Donald Trumps impeachment, a bizarre claim since she was recorded on video just this weekend leading a crowd of activists in an Impeach 45! chant. In an interview on Tuesday with MSNBCs Craig Melvin, Waters was asked about a tweet she sent out earlier in the day saying that she was going to fight everyday until [Trumps] impeached. Waters said that allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government need to be investigated. Should we wait to call for impeachment until we have the answers tosome of the questions? Melvin asked Waters. I have not called for impeachment, Waters insisted, despite evidence to the contrary. Heres what Ive said. Ive said that we need the information, we need to connect the dots, we need the facts in order to do the impeachment. And Im going to work every day to try and help get those facts and to reveal themto our public until, of course, impeachment has taken place.

Here is Waters making the false claim on MSNBC:

And here she is leading chants of Impeach 45!

Confronted with this proof of her reality-denial, she doubled down with a rant before a crowd that lapsed into utter incoherence, claiming that folks on the internet are trying to confuse you.

Best (or worst) of all, there seems to be a groundswell among Dems of support for Mad Max running for president. I kid you not:



Mass insanity descends upon the American left. Amusing though this may be, it is also a danger sign.
The announcement by teachers at Noble Charter Schools the largest charter network in Chicagothat they intend on unionizing was greeted with much fanfare, garnering praise from figures as high up as American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. While unionization drives like the one at Noble are mostly waged at the school level, they fit into a loosely organized national drive to expand union representation into charter schools. Looking across the country, the success of recent efforts has been mixed at best.

As of February of this year, the AFT was representing teachers at 229 charter schools scattered across 15 states . Todd Ziebarth, the senior vice president for state advocacy and support at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said that the unions efforts to recruit new charter teachers has only intensified with the election of President Donald Trump and the appointment of his education secretary Betsy DeVos, who is pushing for more school choice and charter schools, reports Politico.

AFT for a long time has tried to organize charters. But recently has quadrupled down on that effort, Todd Ziebarth told Politico . It was a priority, and then it became a huge priority.

But a spate of recent defeats offers a window into the challenges ahead. In th District of Columbia, teachers at Paul Public Charter School recently called off a vote to unionize. Initially, the drive seemed likely to succeed with 58 of the schools 82 teachers, instructional aides, and counselors signing a petition informing administrators of their intent to organize, reports WAMU, a public radio station in that city . But in a statement following the decision to call off a unionization vote, the AFT charged that the charter had created a toxic environment so full of fear, harassment, and intimidation that we felt a fair election would be impossible at this time.

Its really hard to listen to people constantly demonizing the union, demonizing teachers who support the union, and not let it get to you, Patricia Sanabria, a third-year English teacher who supports unionizing, told WAMU.

While Jami Dunham, Pauls CEO, is against unionizing, arguing that the school was founded in part to get out from under the shadow of the teachers union, she denies that administrators have been pressuring teachers to vote no.

Teachers and administrators that had a different perspective on unionizing were candidly sharing with one another what they thought this could mean for the school. We had very candid conversations with one another throughout this process, she told WAMU.

Teachers at Noble Schools in Chicago also say that theyve been encountering fierce pushback from management. Leading them to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in April, reports WBEZ, a public radio station in Chicago .

We are only asking for the ability to discuss the prospect of unionization, said teacher Ann Baltzer in a press release. Management will not even allow us to meet after students have been dismissed, on our own time.

Like the charter CEO in Washington, leaders of the Noble network, which operates 17 campuses that collectively educate 12,000 students, deny that they are exerting any undue influence on the process, saying in a statement, Nobles leadership has and will continue to respect every Noble teachers right to organize or not to organize.

Recently, charter school teachers in New Orleans have found some success by turning to the NLRB. So far, teachers at four schools in the district, which is nearly all-charter, have unionized. But two of those unionization drives were particularly contentious, with the boards at International High and Lusher Charter rejecting teachers requests to unionize. That led teachers at those two schools to appeal to the NLRB, which sided with them. The schools have, however, vowed to take their fights to court, reports The Advocate .
There is no doubt that the Russians, among about 500 other nations, would dearly love to hack elections in the United States. Israel might be one of them  whoops, it was the Obama administration that actively attempted to unseat Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015.

Before that, in Honduras, the Obama administration had actively supported the return to power of a former president, Manuel Zelaya, who had previously attempted to seize all power for himself. Zelaya had been forcibly removed from office for that, because "[t]he [Honduran] military, Congress and the Supreme Court in the Central American nation had all opposed" his power grab.

Obama's interest in manipulating foreign leaders, by means fair or foul, did not end there. Even our allies were not immune. Obama's administration spied on German chancellor Angela Merkel, endangering relations with the most powerful NATO member-state in Europe.

It is therefore ironic that it is the Democrats who have suddenly discovered the impropriety of attempts by foreign nations to interfere in our internal affairs. Their outrage over rumors that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of our presidential election, however, is based not on principle, but only on the fact that leaked emails from John Podesta exposed dishonesty in the Clinton campaign. Had Republicans been spied on, would the Democrats be upset about that?

Apparently not, because the leaked audio of a Trump gaffe concerning misogyny was gleefully celebrated by Democrats, who thought the tape would unhorse his campaign. Also, Obama spied on the Trump transition team, no doubt to undermine the incoming administration.

But the worst is yet to come. For many years now, the Democratic Party has resisted all attempts to ensure the integrity of the American electoral system. While one could not enter the Democratic National Convention without photo ID, the Democrats have stonewalled every attempt to employ the same measure at the polling place, even though such a measure would significantly reduce voter fraud. Oh, wait  not "even though," but rather precisely because it would reduce it.

The results of Democratic obstruction include 110-percent voter turnouts in Philadelphia and similar fraud in Colorado.

Worse yet, the huge population of illegal immigrants in the west coast states, their sanctuary cities, and the fact that their state governments are controlled by Democrats  all of this provides ample and reasonable suspicion of massive voter fraud, virtually none of which is meaningfully investigated by those in power. If ever it comes to light, we will discover that Donald Trump won the popular vote in the 2016 election, and Clinton's claim to have garnered that much support will be exposed as the fraud it is.

Our presidential election was hacked  by Democrats. This should be aggressively investigated, litigated, and punished, or else the next time we will lose our country.
A terrorist attack in Paris yesterday - the sixth in the last 3 years - may have an impact on the first round of voting for president on Sunday, analysts say. Political campaigning was suspended following news of the attack.

A policeman was shot in the head and killed by a Muslim attacker who was known to authorities as an Islamic radical. Two other cops were wounded, as was a tourist. The attack took place along the historic Champs-Elysees. An attack last January occurred near the Louvre.

It was the sixth terror attack in Paris in the last 3 years.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, but at this point, it is unclear if the attacker, 39-year-old Frenchman Karim Cheurfi, acted alone or not.

It so happened that the major candidates for the presidency were engaged in a TV debate at the time of the attack, giving the French voter the unique opportunity to weigh the immediate responses to the attack by the candidates.

Fox News:

Thursdays attack unfolded as the candidates appeared on a television news program. Although campaigning was stopped due to the incident, their appearance offered a unique opportunity for voters to see their immediate reactions. Le Pen repeated calls for a crackdown on radical Islam, which Macron pronounced nonsense. Fillon called for greater cooperation with Russia and Iran and Melenchon warned that France must not give in to violence. Although the attack left only one police officer and the killer dead, terror has been on the minds of the French for years. A January 2015 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine targeted after mocking Islam, left a dozen dead. That was followed later in the year by coordinated attacks that killed 130 in Paris. Several other attacks have unfolded in France since then, including the shocking murder of a priest in his church in Normandy and a truck attack in Nice that killed 84. Fillons position is closest to Le Pens, offering voters the possibility of a tough-on-terror choice without the far-right association Le Pen carries, in part due to the fact her extremist father founded the party. We are in a war that will last: The enemy is powerful, its networks are deep, its accomplices live among us, Fillon said. Some dont seem to have understood the depth of the evil thats attacking us and that I intend to combat with an iron fist.

Logic and conventional wisdom say that the most fervent anti-terrorism candidate, Marine Le Pen, should benefit from the attack. Indeed, the latest polls show Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron in a virtual tie for the top position at 24% and 23% respectively. Both candidates have put a little distance between themselves and the other two major players, conservative Francois Fillon and Communist Jean-Luc Melenchon, both of whom stand at 19%.

Since no candidate is expected to get 50% of the vote, the top two finishers will square off on May 7. Polls also show Macron winning easily in a match up with Le Pen.

But Macron doesn't have anything in the bag yet. First, nearly 1/3 of the French electorate is undecided - even just days before the election. That's an historic number and shows just how volatile the electorate is.

Secondly, while Le Pen's support is solid among her base, Macron seems to be getting a lot of votes from the "anyone but Le Pen" faction of the electorate. His base of support is wobbly and in a second round of voting, anything could happen.

That's where the terrorist attack yesterday might play a role in the election. French security is on high alert, expecting something to happen during the vote on Sunday. They have already uncovered at least one plot to disrupt the vote, and there are likely more. An attack on the heels of the murder of a policeman by an Islamic radical would make Le Pen's anti-terrorist rhetoric resonate a lot more. It might even convince enough voters to look beyond the anti-Semitic history of the National Front and Le Pen's father to embrace the daughter.
How to Fire Family Members (Legally)

When you open a family business, you love the people you work with. But let's face it, none of us like our coworkers all 40 hours out of the week. And when you're working with family, those office tiffs can spill over into the home.

So when it comes time to sever ties with an employee who also happens to be related, things can get a little dicey, both personally and legally. Here's how to handle it.

Any Reason or No Reason, but Not a Bad Reason

The premise from which all employment termination questions arise is that employment is "at-will," meaning employers don't need to find an excuse for firing an employee. And while employment contracts might dictate pay, benefits, and other employment parameters, they generally don't specify how long the employment will last. Therefore, the general rule is that you can terminate an employee, even a family member, for any reason or no reason at all.

That said, there are some reasons for firing an employee that are prohibited. Federal employment laws make it illegal to fire an employee for a discriminatory reason. Also, you also can't fire an employee for exercising their employment rights under state or federal law. For instance, if an employee files a harassment or discrimination claim, a complaint with OSHA, or otherwise reports illegal or unethical business practices, (i.e., if your family is snitching on you, employment-wise), he or she may be entitled to whistleblower protections. And you also can't terminate an employee for filing a workers' compensation insurance claim.

Parting With a Partner

The most difficult part about firing a family member might be deciding what to do with their stake in the business. Many relatives, whether a husband, wife, sister, brother, father, or son, have an ownership share of the family business -- do they lose that when they're fired?

You may need to negotiate with the family member and come to mutually agreeable terms concerning their role in the business. Perhaps they're happy to step away from the day-to-day operations if it means they can retain their piece of the pie, so to speak. If a relative isn't happy with leaving or giving up their stake in the business, you may need to turn to a mediator to find a resolution before turning to a lawsuit.

Related Resources:
Lawsuit Claims Woman Fired for Not Being Christian Enough

A lawsuit out of Harris County, Texas, is making headlines due to the rare allegation of Christian on Christian religious discrimination. While normally discrimination is considered to be a result of one group/class of individuals being favored over a different group/class, sometimes discrimination can occur from within a single group.

Like in this Texas case, individuals can face discrimination for religious, ethnic, or other reasons, because the perpetrators have unrealistic expectations about their own group/class. The Harris County case is alleging that the woman was discriminated against because she was not Christian enough. Specifically, the employee was demoted after complaining about and refusing to distribute religious literature, and she eventually felt forced to resign after her opposition was ignored. Most surprisingly, the employee was told that she "needed to examine her walk with Jesus," whatever that was intended to mean.

What Makes Discrimination Discrimination?

In the same way that a person of the same race can have biases against individuals of their same race, particularly if others do not conform to their ideals, the same can be true for religion and gender. While it is frequently assumed that discriminators only target those who are different from themselves, this is far from the truth. Under the law, a discriminator's personal traits or characteristics are irrelevant. What is relevant is whether there is a discriminatory motive, or a discriminatory impact.

While some discrimination may be obvious, sometimes it won't be. However, if an employment decision is even partially motivated due to race, sex, ethnicity, origin, or religion, then that decision can be challenged as discriminatory.

Enough Is Enough!

The "not ___ enough" statement is an unfortunately all too common discriminatory statement that gets made. Not being compelled to fit into stereotypical expectations of gender, race, religion, or ethnicity is one of the hallmarks of a diverse and accepting culture. However, penalizing an employee for not fitting into the stereotypical mold, which is what one of those "not ___ enough" comments implies, is the epitome of a discriminatory comment, even if/when it is directed to a person of the same race, gender, religion, or ethnicity as the speaker.

The law surrounding discrimination is rather nuanced. If you have questions about your business's policies, or employees' actions, seeking out an experienced business attorney could prevent matters from getting worse.

Related Resources:
Theranos Threatens Bankruptcy; Judge Stops Proposed Deal

Theranos played the bankruptcy card in a class-action against the company, but it was a bad play that derailed a proposed deal.

In documents unsealed in Delaware Chancery Court, investors said the company threatened to file for bankruptcy protection if they didn't accept a deal to dismiss their claims. A Theranos lawyer tried to pressure Partner Investments LP and two other funds, which invested more than $96 million in the company, to accept more equity instead.

According to reports, the plaintiffs said Theranos' attorney "sent the unmistakable message" that the company would declare bankruptcy if the investors turned down the deal. The plaintiffs then discovered that Theranos engineered the deal to make it impossible for the funds to obtain "any recovery."

Judge Travis Laster has stopped the proposed deal for now and set a hearing on the matter for June 26.

Bad Timing

The disclosure comes at a bad time for Theranos, which agreed this week to pay $4.65 million to settle with consumers in Arizona and to stop selling its products there. The company is also facing increased scrutiny by federal regulators while fighting class actions in California, too.

In San Jose, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanel Cousins denied the company's motion to dismiss one class action by investor funds. Theranos' lawyers had argued the plaintiffs could not pursue their case because the funds didn't actually buy the shares.

But the judge allowed the plaintiffs to proceed under laws designed to prevent fraudulent manipulation of the market. "It focuses on the actions of the seller of the securities, not the relationship between seller and buyer," the judge said.

The First State

In the Delaware case, Theranos said the Partner investors had mischaracterized the "exchange offer." The company said the deal would give them "an enhanced preference in the event of liquidation."

Partner's representatives sued Theranos last year, accusing the company of duping them about its performance and technology. The company claimed it had developed a revolutionary blood test that could produce dozens of blood tests from a single drop of blood.

But those claims turned out to be false, as the Wall Street Journal disclosed the company had invalidated thousands of tests. The start-up, built largely on investors' money, plummeted from a a valuation of $9 billion to about $700 million virtually overnight.

Related Resources:
"It's so beautiful," U.S. astronaut Jack Fischer described today's trip to the ISS to his wife. The experience, he said, was "a burrito of awesomeness smothered in awesome sauce."

A two-man U.S./Russian crew floated into the International Space Station today, hours after they blasted from earth to space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. A NASA TV broadcast showed the Russian Soyuz capsule carrying U.S. astronaut Jack Fischer, 43, and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, 58, lifting off at 1:13 p.m. local time/3:13 a.m. EDT (0713 GMT), "with a rare empty third seat."

Snip from Reuters:

Russia is scaling back space station staffing until its long-delayed science laboratory is flown to the orbiting outpost next year. Fischer and Yurchikhin reached the $100 billion space station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth on schedule at 9:18 a.m. EDT (1318 GMT). About two hours later, hatches between the Soyuz capsule and station opened. Fischer, on his first space voyage, and Yurchikhin floated into the waiting arms of station commander Peggy Whitson and her crew. Their first order of business was a congratulatory phone call from family and friends at the Russian mission control center outside of Moscow. "It's so beautiful," Fischer told his wife, describing the experience as "a burrito of awesomeness smothered in awesome sauce." Fischer also had some comforting words for his mother. "Mom, it's like me being in Texas, depending on where we are going around the Earth, I'll be just as close," he said. "I can still call you. So no need to miss me."

Here's footage of the moment the two new crew members arrived:
In Canada's hyper-concentrated and vertically integrated telcoms sector, data caps are a normal part of life; and where there are data-caps, there is cable company fuckery in the form of ""zero rating"  when your telcom sells you to online service providers, taking bribes not to count their service against your cap.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which regulates the country's ISPs, has now banned the practice, in response to a 2015 complaint against the Quebecois ISP Videotron.

Some groups such as Open Media had hoped the CRTC would address the use of data caps head-on. If there were no restrictions on usage, they argued, then there would be no need to debate practices such as zero-rating in the first place. "While the CRTC could have gone further," the group said in a statement, "today's ruling is still a very positive step in the right direction."

Your internet provider can't pick which apps and services count against your data cap, says CRTC

[Matthew Braga/CBC]
Gordon Sondland owns Provenance Hotels, with four PDX properties  the Lucia, deLuxe, Sentinel and Westin. After he was outed as being the host for a Trump event last summer, he pulled out, saying that he'd broken with Trump over his racist anti-Muslim rhetoric.



But it appears that the only thing he really didn't like about Trump's racism was being overtly associated with it. That's why he incorporated four secret companies and funneled $1M to Trump's inauguration.

The donations were made through BV-2 LLC, Dunson Cornerstone LLC, Buena Vista Investments LLC, and Dunson Investments LLC  all companies registered to Sondland, according to public records. The address of the LLCs matches the address of a home owned by Sondland, which he has used in the past to host a Republican fundraiser. A man who answered Sondland's cell phone hung up when asked to explain the donation and apparent reversal. Buska, Sondland's spokesperson, said, "I have no comment." The contributions were first flagged by the Center for Responsive Politics and a Twitter-crowdsourced investigation of Trump's inauguration donors maintained by Huffington Post reporter Christina Wilkie.

PORTLAND EXECUTIVE COVERTLY DONATES $1 MILLION TO INAUGURATION AFTER BEING SHAMED OVER TRUMP SUPPORT [Lee Fang/The Intercept]


With less than a week to go until the debut of Walkaway, my next novel for adults, Portland's Powell's Bookstore has run a long Q&A with me about the book, my writing habits, my favorite reads, and many other subjects.



I'll be at Powell's on May 14 with Andy "Waxy" Baio as interlocutor  it's one of 20+ cities I'm visiting on the US/Canada tour (the UK tour schedule is coming shortly!).

Besides your personal library, do you have any beloved collections? A shocking number of them. I collect all my conference badges in a huge, sagging garland that threatens to pull my bookcase out of the wall; I collect neolithic stone axe-heads; I collect human knucklebones from dismembered Victorian articulated anatomical skeletons; I collect 1970s/'80s merchandise from Disney's Haunted Mansions; I collect (and wear) vintage striped pajamas; I collect tiny service lapel-pins from engineering institutions, fraternal orders, etc; I collect stickers and cover everything I value in multiple layers of them; I collect vintage mechanical watches, skull rings, and fidget toys; I collect swizzle sticks, bourbon and fine bar glassware; I collect interesting tiki vases; and many, many other things. What's the strangest or most interesting job you've ever had?



I was the night watchman at a pizza parlor/petting zoo in Baja Sur, Mexico; I slept on a mattress on the floor of the pizzeria while the zoo animals wandered in and out. The building had previously been a brothel and sometimes drunks would show up in the middle of the night and I'd have to explain the change of use to them. What scares you the most as a writer? Being forgotten by history. If someone were to write your biography, what would be the title and subtitle? Privilege: Another White Guy Who Wrote Some Books.

Powell's Q&A: Cory Doctorow, Author of 'Walkaway'

[Powell's]
Nigerian spy chief had $43m dollars in his Lagos flat

Can it be that the bloke whose been emailing you all these years has been caught? Police in Nigeria have noticed Aoy Oke, the countrys National Intelligence Agency boss, after finding $43 Million in cash at his four-bedroom Lagos flat.

Police also found $36,000 worth of British pounds and $75,000 worth of Nigerian naira.

Nigerias anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said it suspected the funds were linked to unlawful activities.

Okes been suspended from his job.

Oke hast yet made a public statement, but unnamed intelligence sources told local media theres nothing to see here, and the cash was just being held for covert operations. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari isnt buying it, and has suspended Oke pending an investigation. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will head the investigation and report back to Buhari with findings in two weeks.

Meanwhile, that email about a pressing need to deposit tens of millions of dollars into your Post Office savings account might not be all that far-fetched after all.

Spotter: Foreign Policy

Anorak

Posted: 21st, April 2017 | In: Money, Strange But True Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
(ANSA) - Rome, April 21 - Premier Paolo Gentiloni said at an Ottawa press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday that Italy and Canada shared "a common vision on free trade". He said that rights, the open society, international dialogue and free trade were interconnected.

Gentiloni said that terrorists like the man who killed a French policeman Thursday wanted to "have an impact on Sunday's presidential election there". He said terrorists aimed to "change our ways of living and voting".

But one should never "confuse" immigration and terrorism, Gentiloni warned.

As for claims that NGOs were somehow helping migrant traffickers, Gentiloni said this was up the judiciary to establish, and in the meantime no "shadows should be thrown" on them.

Gentiloni said he had spoken to French President Francois Hollande and had "reiterated to him our solidarity" over Thursday night's Paris terror attack that killed a policeman.

Gentiloni said that he hoped the results of Sunday's French presidential election "strengthen EU prospects". He said this was up to the French people "and not the Italian government".


(ANSA) - Naples, April 20 - A new History Channel Italy documentary called "Baia, The Underwater Pompeii", that showcases the enormous underwater archaeological site of ancient Baiae, premiered at the Aragonese Castle in Baia on Wednesday.

The documentary, directed by Stuart Eliott, was made with the support of the Region of Campania, and uses computer graphics and 3D imaging to reconstruct the ancient city on the Gulf of Naples as it would have looked 2,000 years ago.

The surface area of the archaeological site is three times larger than that of Pompeii, and it was from here that Roman emperors governed and where many had their residences built.

Days-long feasts took place at the villas of Baiae, such as at the Villa dei Pisoni, owned by Roman senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso who in 65 AD directed the Pisonian conspiracy against the Emperor Nero.

Piso's villa, which is today underwater, was rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian to be even more decadent than its predecessor.

The entire underwater park offers the wonder of wandering through submerged roads decorated with columns and mosaics crystallised by the water.

Tourists can explore the underwater park through tours with some local diving centres, including the Centro Sub Flegreo, which worked with the BBC on a previous documentary.

The new documentary will contribute to tourism in Naples and the Campania region, according to regional Governor Vincenzo De Luca.

He said there has been an "explosion of events, cultural offerings, and extraordinary promotion" in the region over recent months.

"It's truly difficult for me to imagine another region with the same cultural vivacity and range of interests as in Naples and Campania nowadays," De Luca said.

photo credit: An image of the Baiae site (Pasquale Vassallo - Centro sub Campi Flegrei)
Israel reopens Taba border crossing But warns threats for Israelis in Sinai remain serious

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, APRIL 21- Israel has reopened to its citizens the Taba border crossing with Egypt in the south. The crossing was closed on April 10, on the eve of Passover, after attacks claimed by ISIS on Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria. The Israeli office against terrorism has however warned Israelis that threats in Sinai remain ''serious, concrete and immediate''. (ANSAmed).




ROME - The Italian consul to Ankara on Friday finally managed to see Gabriele Del Grande, an Italian reporter held in a Turkish detention centre after his arrest on the Syrian border 11 days ago, who has been on hunger strike since earlier this week.



"Contacts are ongoing to try to secure (Del Grande's) release," consular sources said.



The lawyer of the 34-year-old blogger, rights activist and documentary maker also succeeded in seeing him and said his detention was illegal, adding that he had been held in isolation since his move to the detention centre nine days ago.



Del Grande's detention is illegal because no charges have been pressed and it is therefore a purely punitive measure, his Turkish lawyer Taner Kilic told ANSA Friday. "We have had no news about possible charges against Gabriele. His detention is completely illegal, There is no legal impediment to repatriation, it is a punitive measure," Kilic said after meeting his client with an Italian consular delegation in the detention centre at Mugla. "We asked to see his dossier, but that was denied us. At the moment, the director of the centre does not have any information regarding his possible expulsion".



Del Grande has been held in isolation for nine days since his arrest on the Syrian border 11 days ago, Kilic told ANSA. It is "premature" to speak of Del Grande's release and return to Italy, his father told reporters Friday. "It's too early to talk about a repatriation in the short term, but we are continuing to hope," said Massimo Del Grande.



Del Grande is well despite being on hunger strike, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said.



"Gabriele is well, he is doing a hunger strike by just taking in liquids. He has the assistance of a doctor whom I requested and obtained from the Turkish authorities," Alfano said.


- Rome - Gabriele Del Grande, the Italian reporter held in Turkey for 11 days, is well but on hunger strike, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said Friday. "Gabriele is well, he is doing a hunger strike by just taking in liquids.



He has the assistance of a doctor whom I requested and obtained form the Turkish authorities," Alfano said. "The meeting with the consul and his lawyer has already happened. Gabriele has also had an opportunity to meet his lawyer alone," said Alfano.



After 11 days of detention without charges in Turkey, Italian reporter Gabriele Del Grande was seen Friday by the Italian consul in Turkey and his lawyer at the administrative detention centre at Mugla. Del Grande is well but on hunger strike, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said. "Gabriele is well, he is doing a hunger strike by just taking in liquids. He has the assistance of a doctor whom I requested and obtained form the Turkish authorities," Alfano said. "The meeting with the consul and his lawyer has already happened. Gabriele has also had an opportunity to meet his lawyer alone," said Alfano. "There must be collaboration between our countries and we trust in his liberation," Premier Paolo Gentiloni said ahead of the meeting.



European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said "Ankara should respect freedom of the press if it wants to be part of the EU".


(by Silvia Lambertucci) - Rome - Daedalus, a monumental sculpture by late Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj, will remain in Pompeii permanently after a year-long exhibit at the archaeological site, Italy's Culture Minister Dario Franceschini and Pompeii Superintendent Massimo Osanna have announced.



The sculpture, which was gifted by the Mitoraj Foundation and the Contini Art Gallery, will remain on display at the entrance of the ancient city near the Temple of Venus, where it has been welcoming visitors since May last year as part of a travelling exhibition of 30 sculptures by Mitoraj.



Osanna said the statue is ''a symbol of our philosophy - Pompeii as a contemporary location''. Pompeii is gearing up to welcome an increasing number of visitors as part of ongoing restoration work.



The European Commission earlier this month announced it was allocating nearly 50 million euros from the European Regional Development Fund for the continuation of renovation and preservation work on the ancient Roman city, a UNESCO world heritage site.



The site is expected to be visited by nearly 200,000 additional tourists a year, after the completion of the restoration.



The exhibit featuring 30 of Mitoraj's large-scale sculptures wraps up in May.



The exhibit, organized under the artistic direction of Luca Pizzi from the Atelier Mitoraj, features sculptures depicting imposing mythological characters showcased in key locations of Pompeii including the Forum, the Gladiators' Barracks and Via dell'Abbondanza.



Pizzi, who worked as Mitoraj's assistant for two decades, said the exhibit and donation were one of the artist's dreams.



''Even when he was at the end, in a hospital in Paris, the maestro pined for the project of an exhibit in Pompeii and asked me to return immediately to Pietrasanta'', where he had his atelier, to work on it, said Pizzi.



Mitoraj died on November 6, 2014, before the project was completed.



The statue of Daedalus was selected by the Foundation, art gallery and Pompeii's superintendency among the 30 on display because of its position near the entrance and because the myth of Daedalus is ''very much present in the frescoes of the Domus'', said Osanna.



A museum dedicated to Mitoraj is scheduled to open in the Tuscan coastal town of Pietrasanta, where the artist lived and worked, Franceschini announced.



The museum will showcase a significant part of the artist's artworks donated to the State and will be initially managed by central and local authorities.



Work to develop the museum in a former market in the city's Via Oberdan will kick off in a few months.



The project is funded by the Italian government with two million euros. (ANSAmed)
GENEVA - Some 42.974 migrants and refugees have arrived by sea in Europe since the start of the year and 962 have died on the way, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said Friday. The data, released in Geneva, was updated till April 19.



Some 85% of the arrivals were registered in Italy (36,703) and the highest number of deaths, 898, was seen on the central Mediterranean route. Italy bears the brunt of migrants arriving by sea from Libya.



The spokesman for IOM in Italy was quoted in a statement as saying that the 36,703 arrivals since the start of 2017 exceed by over 10,000 the number of arrivals registered over the same period in 2015 and 2016.



Most of those who reached Italy in 2017 hailed from Guinea, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Ivory Coast, IOM said.


- TEL AVIV- Israel has reopened to its citizens the Taba border crossing with Egypt in the south. The crossing was closed on April 10, on the eve of Passover, after attacks claimed by ISIS on Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria. The Israeli office against terrorism has however warned Israelis that threats in Sinai remain ''serious, concrete and immediate''.
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, APRIL 21 - The following are some of the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area.



GAETA - Italy hands over four motor boats to Libyan leader Sarraj's coast guard.



WASHINGTON - Visit of Italian Prime Minister, Paolo Gentiloni.



NAPLES - Cultural festival continues at the Archaeological Museum, with events running through April 25.



ROME - Delegation of European Parliament MPs to visit hotspots in Italy. (ANSAmed).




Del Grande sees consul amid hunger strike in Turkish prison Illegal detention says lawyer, in isolation for 9 days

(ANSAmed) - ROME, APRIL 21 - The Italian consul to Ankara on Friday finally managed to see Gabriele Del Grande, an Italian reporter held in a Turkish detention centre after his arrest on the Syrian border 11 days ago, who has been on hunger strike since earlier this week.



"Contacts are ongoing to try to secure (Del Grande's) release," consular sources said.



The lawyer of the 34-year-old blogger, rights activist and documentary maker also succeeded in seeing him and said his detention was illegal, adding that he had been held in isolation since his move to the detention centre nine days ago.



Del Grande's detention is illegal because no charges have been pressed and it is therefore a purely punitive measure, his Turkish lawyer Taner Kilic told ANSA Friday. "We have had no news about possible charges against Gabriele. His detention is completely illegal, There is no legal impediment to repatriation, it is a punitive measure," Kilic said after meeting his client with an Italian consular delegation in the detention centre at Mugla. "We asked to see his dossier, but that was denied us. At the moment, the director of the centre does not have any information regarding his possible expulsion".



Del Grande has been held in isolation for nine days since his arrest on the Syrian border 11 days ago, Kilic told ANSA. It is "premature" to speak of Del Grande's release and return to Italy, his father told reporters Friday. "It's too early to talk about a repatriation in the short term, but we are continuing to hope," said Massimo Del Grande.



Del Grande is well despite being on hunger strike, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said.



"Gabriele is well, he is doing a hunger strike by just taking in liquids. He has the assistance of a doctor whom I requested and obtained from the Turkish authorities," Alfano said.



(ANSAmed).




ROME - Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni said at a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday that he hoped the results of Sunday's French presidential election "strengthen Eu prospects". The vote is scheduled on Sunday. Gentiloni added that terrorists like the man who killed a French policeman Thursday wanted to "have an impact on Sunday's presidential election there.

He said terrorists aimed to "change our wys of living and voting".



The Italian premier added that he had spoken to French President Francois Hollande and had "reiterated to him our solidarity" over Thursday night's Paris terror attack.




If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both
The initiative is one of dozens being rolled out in the air and on the ground by Etihad Aviation Group (EAG), including offering free Etihad Cargo space for humanitarian causes, as part of efforts to touch the lives of those in need around the world.

Each month, the airline will donate all proceeds to Emirates Red Crescents local and international projects, including the recently launched campaign For Your Sake, Somalia targeting famine in the African nation. Etihad Airways guests will also shortly be able to donate to Emirates Red Crescent during flights using a credit card.

Etihad Airways chief executive officer, Peter Baumgartner, and the airlines executive vice president commercial, Mohammad Al Bulooki, launched the initiative with a special Etihad Airways dirham podium, inscribed with the message A dirham can go a long way

We are proud to embrace the Year of Giving, a remarkable initiative which truly reflects the Emirati spirit of philanthropy, said Baumgartner. This donation is one of many philanthropic initiatives we are announcing throughout 2017, in a mission to embed giving within our corporate culture and in the way we do business.

Secretary-General of Emirates Red Crescent, Mohamed Ateeq Al-Falahi, said: We are proud to have worked for many years with Etihad Airways. Their unrelenting commitment, whether through donations or volunteering, has been heart-warming. We will continue to work together throughout the Year of Giving to support the UAEs humanitarian mission.
Walk up the airstairs to the entrance of Gulfstreams flagship G650ER and you enter a world of calm, comfort and amazing space.

There are four living areas, galley, bathroom, baggage area and, of course, the high-tech cockpit up front. And, remember, this $70 million aircraft is also the fastest, longest-range, biggest-cabin business jet available.

The G650 has been extremely well received, said Scott Neal, Gulfstreams senior vice-president of worldwide sales. There are more than 200 G650s and ERs in service, and 25 of those are based here in the Middle East. It is a very popular aircraft in the region.

The G650 has helped grow Gulfstream. Its one of the most successful programmes weve ever had. The next available aircraft we can deliver to a customer is in the middle of 2018, so we have a strong backlog and a strong customer commitment.

The Middle East is an extremely important market for Gulfstream and has been for 40 years. We have 120 aircraft based in the region.

Gulfstream and parent company, General Dynamics, have invested in Jet Aviations (also a GD company) maintenance facility at Dubai International Airport and also $22 million in a parts centre at Dubai South.

We want to make sure that we position support where our customers are based, said Neal. We want to be available and capable of supporting aircraft at their home base.

Two all-new aircraft are on the way from Gulfstream, the G500 and G600.

The G500 is well into certification flight-testing, with five aircraft taking part, and the G600 made its first flight in December. Both are as fast as the G650, with a Mach 0.925 top speed, so how will they fit into the range?

The 500 and 600 will sit below the 650 and 650ER. The G500 will have a range of 5,000nm at Mach 0.85, and the G600 6,200nm  so different price points, different range. We wont be surprised if we have owners of the G500, G600 and G650 because they fill different missions, said Neal.

Gulfstream also showed off its the super mid-size G280 at the recent Middle East Business Aviation Association show in Dubai. Were growing the fleet rapidly and we have more than 100 G280s in service. Importantly for operators in this part of the world and Europe, we have just achieved certification to fly into London City Airport with the G280, said Neal.

Having the fastest business jets clearly isnt enough for Gulfstream. Its investing in research for supersonic flight, with technologies such as quiet spike to reduce the effect of sonic booms.

Neal added: Gulfstream has been very candid about continuing to invest in supersonic technology research. We dont have a supersonic aircraft programme but we continue to look at whats possible. If someone were to bring a supersonic aircraft to market, what would it look like, what would it have to do, what would be the regulatory considerations?

I would like to think that a supersonic business jet will become a reality in the future... but it will be some time in the future.

Middle Eastern airlines have been stepping up their game by upgrading first-class cabins and services and argue that they are competing with business aviation with first-class plus, but Neal doesnt think its a worry.

The owners of business aircraft understand they will never achieve the utility and flexibility on an airline that they can by owning a corporate Gulfstream, he said. They can fly when they want to, on their schedule, and not be subject to the whims of an airline, which may be carrying 200-400 people.

They maintain the aircraft, they hire the pilots, and aircraft like the G650, G550 or G280 can get into the smaller airports that airliners cant.

Whats clear is that Gulfstream will continue to push the aviation boundaries. We continue to stay ahead of regulatory requirements around the world, whether it be fuel efficiency or emissions. We try to stay at the forefront, try to keep leading-edge technology and design aircraft that will be useful for many, many years, concluded Neal.


The new programme recognises and celebrates on-time performance excellence for airports and airlines, regardless of size of geography using an industry led benchmark devised by OAG, the flight information experts. The 5-star ranking goes to those who have achieved an on-time performance of 90% and above.

OAG says the ranking, awarded twice a year in April and October and based on 12 months of rolling data, is the ultimate, inclusive, globally recognised accreditation for any airline or airport.

OAG says the programme will give passengers confidence in brands, recognise team efforts and give the industry consistent on-time performance KPIs.
The new programme recognises and celebrates on-time performance excellence for airports and airlines, regardless of size of geography using an industry led benchmark devised by OAG, the flight information experts. The 5-star ranking goes to those who have achieved an on-time performance of 90% and above.

OAG says the ranking, awarded twice a year in April and October and based on 12 months of rolling data, is the ultimate, inclusive, globally recognised accreditation for any airline or airport.

OAG says the programme will give passengers confidence in brands, recognise team efforts and give the industry consistent on-time performance KPIs.


The company says that with millennials accounting for a quarter of the GCC population, the regions travel industry is already feeling the clout of their spending power and it estimates that millennials in the UAE will generate $40,000 average annual gross income by 2019 with almost half of them booking travel through mobile devices.

Travelport says travel apps have become the millennials preferred method of interacting with brands, almost 1/3 more than past generations with mobile applications becoming platforms for personalised offers.

Rabih Saab, Travelports president and managing director for Europe, Middle East, Africa and South Asia, says: Travel tech is an exciting place to be right now. We are increasingly living in an experiential world. Mobile penetration in the Middle East is astronomical, across the GCC almost 80% of the population are mobile subscribers. Smart travel brands will continue to look at how mobile can help bridge the gap between generic experiences and ones where the end-traveller feels truly engaged and supported. Brands will thrive or decline depending on the experiences delivered to travellers and how relevant and personalized these experiences are.

Travelport says that for airlines, the key can be the travel behaviour already known to the carrier through past purchases tied to the users booking account. In the Middle East, the company points to airlines, such as Etihad, which have launched successful travel apps to deliver innovative digital solutions to improve the travel experience. It also points to low cost carriers which are expanding into the Gulf and which are also delivering strong mobile retailing options.

Research indicates low cost carriers have high growth opportunities in the Middle East, says Travelport. With rising business and tourism stemming from the Gulf, carriers such as IndiGo have recently launched new routes in the UAE and have been key adaptors of innovative technology to reach new travellers in the region.
Looking at the world through the eyes of the Web
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on April 21 held a meeting with former President of Austria Heinz Fischer, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress.

During the meeting the sides attached importance to the fact that the agreements reached at the high level are being successfully implemented.

Serzh Sargsyan and Heinz Fischer considered their meeting as symbolic since it is taking place in the year which marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and noted with satisfaction that through the years the Armenian-Austrian bilateral relations have been dynamically developed in various spheres.

At the meeting they also discussed the priorities of the Austrian Chairmanship at the OSCE.
Intended as a discussion group, the blog has evolved to be more of a reading list of current issues affecting our county, its government and people. All reasonable comments and submissions welcomed. Email us at: bill.pysson@gmail.com REMEMBER: To view our sister blog for education issues: www.district100watchdog.blogspot.com
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Tuesdays trial quarterly meeting of the Eddy County Commission in Artesia was standing room only in Council Chambers at City Hall as citizens packed in to both voice concerns to the board and prove that future meetings in North Eddy County are warranted.

A large number of residents took advantage of the public comment period at the start of the meeting, addressing a wide variety of topics with the commission.

A Castleberry Road resident complained about the massive tumbleweeds collecting along fence lines in the area and expressed concern they could be a fire hazard. Another resident living west of Artesia seconded that concern, stating that weed ordinance violations in the area were not being enforced by the county.

A resident of La Huerta expressed citizens of that communitys belief they are not being heard by the board. Another citizen chided the commission on the condition of the countys roads, saying productivity in the oilfield has slowed down immensely because of the roads.

Ronnie Baron, a regular attendee of county commission meetings from Artesia, spoke to the board regarding taxes and county employee salaries.

Baron said he was disappointed to see nearly two pages in the minutes from the commissions last meeting containing reasons for raising taxes with no reasons against to balance the discussion, and also questioned the 2017 single-pay-period total of $713,000 for county wages compared to $563,000 in 2013.

There were 287 employees in 2013, we have 326 employees now, but in 26 pay periods, the wages and the benefits for employees have gone up $3.9 million, and thats one heck of a lot of money, and that bothers me, said Barron. Im not saying that the employees dont deserve that, but can we afford them? Because the last meeting, yall were talking about how to go up on taxes.

I just hope that you listen to the people, because they are the ones that elected you and they are the ones that can vote you out or keep you in.

Carlsbad attorney Tom Martin expressed frustration regarding the man camp RV parks developing in the Carlsbad area.

The parks generally house temporary workers involved in area construction and/or oil and gas turnaround projects.

Martin said criteria seem to be lacking regarding the development of such camps and that residents of the surrounding neighborhoods are concerned about the effects on their property values and lifestyles.

I think the time has come for the county commission to take a step back and say, Look, we dont really have an ordinance that actually addresses these particular man camps, we need to have some sort of orderly, reasoned approach to the development of these, said Martin. I urge the county commission to take that step back, and before you allow or permit any further ones of these, I suggest to you to put a moratorium on the granting of any permits or going forward on any of these man camps or RV parks till you, as a commission, have had the opportunity to sit down, look at the situation, and arrive at a good, reasoned approach  instead of what is turning into kind of a harum-scarum approach to the situation in the Carlsbad area.

Robbie Burgess, owner of Artesia Ford, questioned the commission on why Artesias Department of Motor Vehicles office refuses to accept checks as a method of payment.

Burgess said the Ford House and at least one other local auto dealership of which he is aware are forced to use the Alamogordo DMV to register vehicles in order to conduct their business through the mail by check. Burgess said the dealers would obviously prefer to use the local DMV and expressed hope the office will change its policy.

Greg Williamson, president of the Eddy County Fair Board, expressed appreciation to the commission for its support over the past seven decades and hope that support would continue as the board begins preparations for the 72nd Annual Eddy County Fair.

The fair is very good for the people of Eddy County, said Williamson. They learn valuable work ethics and how to tend for their animals. We have a fourth generation showing; this is his second year. The youths great-granddaddy helped build the fence thats inside the barn right now.

Its just something I believe truly in. I believe its a great program, and I hope to see all of yall there.

In regular business Tuesday, Roberta Smith, finance director, presented the March revenue and expenses, the DFA Third Quarterly report, and the Third Quarter Lodgers Tax report, which were all approved by the commission.

Laurie Pruitt presented the treasurers report for March 2017, and the resolution and agreement consent agenda was approved.

Commissioner James Walterscheid asked the reason for the resurfacing of 1.7 miles of McDonald Road. Assistant County Manager Kenney Rayroux stated oil company Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) has gone from a daily average of 100 vehicles to pushing more than 400 vehicle per day over the road, which is falling apart and a public safety issue.

Rayroux said Oxy gave the county $384,000 to resurface the road.

We sure appreciate what Oxy has done for us and hope that in the future, we have a lot more oil companies step up, as obviously the county does not have the wherewithal, said Walterscheid.

Commissioner Jon Henry pulled an item from the travel consent agenda requesting that personnel in all departments attend N.M. EDGE classes June 18-22 in Taos.

Henry questioned why employees do not attend online training and video conferences instead of spending money to travel to out-of-town training. County Manager Rick Rudometkin stated these particular classes are not offered online and are needed to obtain or maintain certain certifications. After lengthy discussion and reassurances that any trainings offered online are utilized, the item was approved.

In closing the commissioners recognized the attendance by the citizens of Artesia at the meeting, thanked Mayor Phillip Burch for the accommodations, and reiterated the need for quarterly meetings in Artesia in the future.
By Dezan Shira & Associates

Singapores parliament on March 10, 2017 passed significant amendments to its Companies Act and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP) Act. Among the key changes are measures aimed at making ownership and control of business entities more transparent in the city-state and reduce opportunities for the misuse of corporate entities for illicit purposes. The measures are also aimed at bringing Singapore in line with international good practices, and uphold the city-states sound reputation as a globally trusted financial hub. Among other significant changes introduced by the amended acts are (a) increased record keeping requirements and (b) introduction of an inward re-domiciliation regime allowing foreign corporate entities to transfer their corporate registration to Singapore.

In its bid to improve transparency of corporate entities, Singapore now requires companies to maintain three registers  register of registrable controllers; register of nominee directors; and a register of members:

Register of Registrable Controllers

According to Singapores Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), as of March 31, 2017, all companies incorporated in Singapore, foreign companies and all LLPs registered in Singapore (unless exempted) are now required to maintain beneficial ownership information in the form of a register of registrable controllers, and to make the information available to regulators upon request. The registers of registrable controllers is to be maintained either in paper or electronic form at prescribed places, e.g. the companys/LLPs registered office or the registered office of the registered filing agent. The registers should be kept only by the corporate entities and must not be made available to the public.

Regulators can use the information contained in the registers only for the purpose of administering or enforcing the laws under their purview (e.g. investigation of money laundering offences). Companies and LLPs should declare with ACRA the location of the companys register of registrable controllers when filing the companys annual returns or annual declaration. Existing companies and LLPs have until May 30, 2017 to set up the register of controllers, after which they must have and continue to maintain the required registers. Companies incorporated on or after 31 Mar 2017 and LLPs registered on or after 31 Mar 2017 will have a transitional period of 30 days to set up the register.

Register of Nominee Directors

According to ACRA, companies in Singapore will now be also required to each maintain a register of its nominee directors containing the particulars of the nominators of the companys nominee directors. Companies will have to make the register of nominee directors and any related documents available to regulators upon request. Companies should enter into their registers the information received from nominee directors within the prescribed timeline after receiving the information. The prescribed timeline is expected to be within 2 business days of receiving the information as per latest information released by ACRA. Companies may maintain the register in electronic or hardcopy formats, and should not disclose or make available for public inspection the register or any particulars contained in the register, according to ACRA.

According to ACRA, directors of companies should consider whether they are nominees, and if they are nominees, they should, within the applicable timelines, (a) inform their respective companies of that fact and (b) provide the particulars of their nominators. In addition, nominee directors must inform their companies when they cease to be a nominee and of any change to the nominators particulars provided to the company.

Besides the aforementioned two registers, foreign companies in Singapore will also be now required to maintain a register of members bringing them in line with the requirement for Singapore-incorporated companies.

Introduction of Inward Re-domiciliation Regime

A foreign corporate entity will now be allowed the option of transferring its registration to Singapore instead of setting up a subsidiary. A foreign corporate entity who transfers its registration to Singapore in effect becomes a Singapore-domiciled company, and will be subjected to and must comply with all laws applicable to Singapore-incorporated companies including the Singapore Companies Act. In order to complete its re-domiciliation process in Singapore, a foreign company must register with the Singapore Companys Registrar all pre-existing charges. It will also be required to deregister in the jurisdiction where it was incorporated.

Increased Record Keeping Requirements

The period for which records must be maintained has now been extended from two to at least five years for all companies and LLPs that are struck off and dissolved by their members, partners and creditors as well as for liquidators of dissolved companies and LLPs.

About Us Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of China, India, Indonesia, Russia, the Silk Road & Vietnam. For editorial matters please contact us here and for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click ASEAN Briefing is published by, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates . We produce material for foreign investors throughout Asia, includingthe. For editorial matters please contact usand for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click here Dezan Shira & Associates provide business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax and advisory services throughout the ASEAN and Asia. We maintain offices in Singapore, as well as Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, and maintain Alliance offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila as well as throughout China, South-East Asia, India and Russia. For assistance with ASEAN investments into any of the featured countries, please contact us at provide business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax and advisory services throughout the ASEAN and Asia. We maintain offices in Singapore, as well as Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, and maintain Alliance offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila as well as throughout China, South-East Asia, India and Russia. For assistance with ASEAN investments into any of the featured countries, please contact us at asean@dezshira.com or visit us at www.dezshira.com

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 ASEAN 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in ASEAN 2017 introduces the fundamentals of investing in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, concentrating on economics, trade, corporate establishment, and taxation. We also include the latest development news for each country, with the intent to provide an executive assessment of the varying component parts of ASEAN, assessing each member state and providing the most up-to-date economic and demographic data on each.

Human Resources in ASEAN

In this issue of ASEAN Briefing, we discuss the prevailing structure of ASEANs labor markets and outline key considerations regarding wages and compliance at all levels of the value chain. We highlight comparative sentiment on labor markets within the region, showcase differences in cost and compliance between markets, and provide insight on the state of statutory social insurance obligations throughout the bloc.
News / Local

by Stephen Jakes

The little known ZimFirst party leader Maxwell Shumba has mocked at the MDC-T leader Mporgan Tsvangirai for signing a political deal with the former Vice President Joice Mujuru led National People's Party ahead of the 2018 elections.Shumba said now that Tsvangirai has signed a deal with Mujuru he hopes that he will now benefit from the $2,5 billion that was allegedly looted by the former Vice President. "What is happening......We congratulate Mr. Tsvangirai and Mrs. Mujuru for signing a coalition pact. I hope the MDC T will now benefit immensely from the US$2.5 billion of our national wealth allegedly looted by Mrs Mujuru," Shumba said.This was after reports were made that the two opposition party leaders signed the deal this week..
Nasscom worried about use of visa-dependent Indian firms in US.

On their quarterly assessment prediction, the Nasscom president said that the body is likely to release it in late May or early June.

Hyderabad: A top Nasscom official on Wednesday said that almost 50 per cent of the H-1B visas that are awarded to Indians arent used by the Indian IT firms but rather its used by non-Indian firms for US projects.

Speaking at the Nasscom Global In-house Centre event, Nasscom president R. Chandrashekhar said, If one looks at the US data, one can notice that around 70 per cent of H-1B visa are awarded to Indians. Out of it, only 20 per cent is used by Indian IT firms, rest is used by others. There is a lot of myth that the entire H-1B visas allocated to Indians are being used by the Indian IT firms. And currently, this confusion is being used to frame policies

Mr Chandrashekhar, though, sounded worried about the term visa-dependent firms that has been used by the US. He said, Indian-IT firms dont have the legacy like the traditional US-based firms. Itll be difficult for Indian IT firms with the 15 per cent limit.

On stricter visa issue in other countries also, Mr Chandrashekhar said, There is a rise in protectionist measures and anti-globalisation sentiments but skilled talents will always be in demand. The only issue is the definition of skilled talent.

He added, Indian IT firms might be forced to relook at their ASEAN plans after Singapore stopped issuing a work visa. Just like foreign firms are relooking at their EU operation following Brexit, Indian IT firms will need to rework their strategy.

On their quarterly assessment prediction, the Nasscom president said that the body is likely to release it in late May or early June.

Meanwhile, former Infosys chief financial officer V. Balakrishnan said that the tightening work visa rules in overseas markets will force India's IT industry to reconfigure the business model by increasing offshoring work and hiring locally.

Mr Balakrishnan also said that the hiring in the I-T sector would dip further due to growth in automation. But I think in the long-term, they (Indian IT firms) have to change the business model to do more offshoring because if you take any project today, around 30 per cent work is done outside India, 70 per cent in India. That ratio can be easily brought to 90:10 where you do less work onsite, more offshore, Balakrishnan told PTI.
The Rajasthan Government made an appeal before the session's court after the actor was acquitted by a CJM court in Jodhpur.

The police had filed a case against the actor in October 1998.

Mumbai: The Jodhpur District and Sessions Court on Thursday ordered Bollywood actor Salman Khan to furnish a bail bond of Rs. 20,000 and asked him to personally appear before it on July 6 in connection with the arms act case.

During the hearing, Salman was not present in the court.

The Rajasthan Government made an appeal before the session's court after the actor was acquitted by a CJM court in Jodhpur.

"The court acquitted Salman Khan in the arms act case where the state government filed an appeal against this order. We received a notice of that appeal. The court has asked Salman Khan to personally appear before court on July 6. We have been asked to furnish a bail bond worth Rs. 20, 000," Salman Khan's lawyer Hastmal Saraswat said.

The police had filed a case against the actor in October 1998 for keeping .22 rifle and .32 revolver and using them for poaching two black bucks in Jodhpur's Kankani village.
In keeping with the outrage of those around her, Hema has decided to take legal action against Bacchu.

Just when we thought that the unsavoury remarks of a legislator who accused Hema Malini of drinking daily was forgotten, the actor-parliamentarian tells us otherwise. After brushing off the remark initially, Hema has now decided to drag Bacchu Kadu to court. She said, Initially I decided to keep quiet about this mans antics because I didnt want to give him publicity. But then everyone close to me thought it was wrong to let him get away with it. In fact, Dharamji was so angry that he wanted to hit the man. Shatrughan Sinha also expressed annoyance. My daughters and my sons-in-law also didnt want this man to get away with it.

In keeping with the outrage of those around her, Hema has decided to take legal action against Bacchu. Ive consulted my legal team and were set to take him to court. He will have to issue a public apology. Failing that, well file a criminal defamation case, says Hema, adding that its a constant tussle for a public figure to deal with attention seekers.

If you react to every person who uses your name, thats all you will do. If you ignore them, theyre encouraged to try their tricks on others too. So what do you do? asks Hema.
The incident apparently brought the mood of the entire crew down, especially Salman, so much so, that he halted the shoot for a day.

With Salman Khans fans eagerly awaiting two of his releases, Tubelight and Tiger Zinda Hai, the actor has been keeping himself really busy.

After coming back from a 22-days schedule for TZH from Austria, the actor got busy rehearsing for his recently concluded Da-Bangg Tour in Hong Kong.

But Austria has some tales to tell, or so, says our sources. The schedule in Austria for the entire crew was for almost 22 days. However, Salman and Katrina Kaif joined us for about 18 days, reveals the source on condition of anonymity.

To dispel any speculation, the source informs that Salman and Katrina stayed in separate hotels, which were almost 12 kilometres away from each other. Katrina stayed in a hotel called the Imperial Palace while Salman was in Haafana Grand. And through the entire schedule, Salman and Katrina were quite respectful to each other, says the source.

However, while shooting a road sequence, Salmans body double Iavan Strutt fractured his ribs. Subsequently, Iavan had to be admitted to a hospital. It was a six-days major road sequence. Although the final shoot was okayed, the shoot left his body double badly injured.

The incident apparently brought the mood of the entire crew down, especially Salman, so much so, that he halted the shoot for a day.
The film stars Sonakshi Sinha, Purab Kohli, Shibani Dandekar and Kanan Gill in the lead roles.

Rating:

Director: Sunhil Sippy

Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Purab Kohli, Shibani Dandekar, Kanan Gill, Manish Choudhary

It took sixteen long years for director Sunhil Sippy to come back with his next directorial Noor and he arrived with a not so hard bang. Noor is essentially a social drama that tracks the journey of a journalist covering the basic issues of Mumbai city like safety, sanitation and scams. The film also is based on the novel Karachi, Youre Killing Me written by Saba Imtiaz who has also written the screenplay of the film.

Noor (Sonakshi Sinha), a passionate journalist who works in a news agency owned by Shekhar Das (Manish Choudhary) is waiting for her big break. She is single at the age of 30, overloaded with boredom and not much happy about her yellow journalism. Her childhood friends Zaara (Shibani Dandekar) and Saad (Kanan Gill) try hard enough to make Noors life happening but to no avail until she meets a famous ex-journalist turned photographer Ayan (Purab Kohli). The two click and start liking each other.

Noors life changes upside down when she incidentally cracks a big scam of organ harvesting without knowing the consequences. Will she able to expose the corrupt mastermind behind the scam or fail to save lives of several poor people? This is what Noor is all about.

Director Sunhil Sippy touches upon a regular subject of a girl emerging out a winner but with a quirk. The reviewer liked the fact that the director has executed the plot nicely, although adapted from a novel. The way he made the female protagonist a narrator of the story in the first half is enjoyable but he takes a little longer to establish the characters. However, they are noticeable.

Sunhil smartly showcases an interesting bit with actress Sunny Leone in the film in reference to her controversy that happened in 2016 on a popular television channel. The film is a good attempt by the director but has its own set of loopholes which makes it an average watch.

The biggest glitch in the film is its anti climax which dips down abruptly. Sunhil remains unsuccessful in culminating a gripping plot in the second half despite having a hook point at the interval which surely sends chills down your spine. The film clearly depicts the journey of Noor (Sonakshi Sinha) and not the unsolved miseries of the Mumbai city which is the basic plot of the film ironically. Also the film will remind you of No One Killed Jessica (2011).

Over to the actors now! Sonakshi Sinha, who is the knight in shining armour of the film, has truly arrived! It is so good to see her performing effortlessly. Her power packed performance in the film is an answer to those who dont consider her a good actor. She debuted with Dabangg and went on to do entertainers like Rowdy Rathore, R Rajkumar and many more such films where she was used as filler. Her previous outings Akira and now Noor, she is growing with each film. Purab Kohli is so charming that it is easy to fall in love with him. Manish Choudhary, Shibani Dandekar and debutante Kanan Gill are convincing in their respective roles.

Although the music is composed by Naren Chandravarkar and Benedict Taylor, no songs are featured in the movie except for a romantic track and the Gulabi Aankhein remix which takes the story ahead. For the reviewer, a film with no songs is always a preference. Noor actually doesnt have scope for any music because of its plot which keeps the viewer completely hooked. Keiko Nakahara has beautifully captured Mumbai throughout the film.

The story of a self-reliant young girl who innocently gets involved in a crime while exposing a scam could have been a winner but the floozy plot plays spoilsport. Watch Noor strictly for Sonakshi Sinhas unmissable performance.
The NIA raised the issue of Headley and Rana's extradition when FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe visited India this month.

David Coleman Headley, now serving 35 years in a US prison for the deaths of 6 Americans in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: India has made a fresh request to the United States for extradition of terrorists David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana, for their role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks which killed 166 people.

According to reports, Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), visited India earlier in April and met officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

NIA, charged with the probe into the 2008 Mumbai attacks, raised with FBI the matter of extradition of Headley and Rana. It also said that multiple such requests in the case of Rana had gone unheeded.

NIA told FBI that though Rana had been tried in a US court and convicted of providing material to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which carried out the attacks, he had not been tried for offences registered in India  of forgery and criminal breach of trust.

Ranas extradition is stuck because the double jeopardy clause in US law prevents punishment for the same offence twice. India has demanded Ranas extradition on the grounds of planning an attack on the National Defence College (NDC) and Chabad House in several cities.

Reports said that FBI assured NIA it would look into the matter.

Headley has been sentenced to 35 years in prison by a US court, but Indian officials think they have a case because his conviction was made only on the basis of 6 Americans killed in the 26//11 attack, said reports. Many Indians were also killed and for this, Headley is still to face the law.

Rana, a school friend of Headley, is serving a 14-year term in the US for providing material support to the LeT.
Locals allegedly beat up a group of Kashmiri students as they were upset over soldiers being targeted by stone pelters in Kashmir.

New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Fridayasked all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris living in different parts of the country.

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiris, the Home Minister said they are like any other Indian and an advisory is being sent by the Home Ministry to all states to ensure the safety and security of people from the Valley.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were being threatened after the latest incidents of stonepelting and assualt on security personnel by Kashmiri youths in the Valley.
Bengal CM meets Naveen Patnaik, says formation of anti-BJP federal front is on her agenda.

Bhubaneswar: West Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress (TCM) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said her efforts to build a federal front to counter the growth of the BJP was on and she would continue to pursue it.

Thats (formation of federal front) always there in my agenda and I will continue to pursue it. But today, we didnt discuss any politics. I came to meet Odisha chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik and wish him good health. His father Biju Patnaik was very fond of me. Once, he sent the state plane to bring me here. I share a good relationship with Mr Patnaiks family, Ms Banerjee told reporters here after meeting her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik at the latters residence.

The WB chief minister, who spent two days in the pilgrim city Puri  met Naveen at his resident at 4.30 pm amid speculation that both the leaders  who are now seen by the BJP as its strong political opponents  would have long discussion on countering the saffron surge in their respective states. However, both leaders had a brief meeting of about seven minutes.

Although Naveen tried to downplay their meeting as a courtesy call, sources said both the leaders discussed strategies on how to check the growth of the BJP in eastern India, especially in West Bengal and Odisha. Besides, they also discussed about the CBIs action against the top leaders of the TMC and BJD in chit fund scam.

As many as two TMC MPs and one BJD MP are currently behind bars in chit fund scam after being arrested by the CBI in the multi-crore scam. Mamata Banerjee paid me a courtesy call. No politics was discussed today, said Naveen.

Asked if the regional parties perceived threats from the BJP, the WB chief minister clarified that there was danger whatsoever from the saffron party but the regional parties needed to work together.

I dont think the regional parties have any threat from the BJP. They (regional parties) are strong enough. However, regional parties must get together to defend themselves, said Ms Banerjee.
Arun Jaitley is in the US to attend the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley raised the issue of tightening of the H-1B visa regime with US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and emphasised contributions of skilled Indian professionals to the US economy.

Finance minister raised the issue of recent executive orders which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime, said a statement issued by the finance ministry here on Friday. It said that finance minister outlined the significant contributions skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.

Mr Jaitley was accompanied by Indias ambassador to the US, Navtej Sarna, and economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das. Mr Jaitley is in the US to attend the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The statement said that both leaders emphasised the strength of Indo-US economic relations and the bipartisan support it has acquired over the years. The finance minister briefed the US commerce secretary on the strength of the Indian economy and the significant structural reforms government of India has undertaken over the last three years, it said.

Mr Ross congratulated Mr Jaitley on making GST a reality, it added.

According to agency reports, Mr Ross is believed to have said that the US has started the process of reviewing H-1B visa issues, and no decision has been taken on them yet. Mr Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administrations objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly-skilled professionals, said the report.

A high-powered Ficci business delegation led by its president Pankaj R. Patel is also accompanying Mr Jaitley to the United States from April 20 to 24. The Ficci delegation is expected to give the visiting delegation a chance to share with officials from the new US administration perspective on the robust business ties between India and US.
Former BJP MP says senior party leaders were with me on December 6, 1992.

Lucknow: Former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti added fuel to the Ayodhya fire on Friday when he owned up responsibility for the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992.

He offered no regrets.and said he was ready to be hanged for the act that has remained one of the most thorny issues dividing the Hindus and Muslims for the past 25 years.

Dr Vedantis controversial remarks, in which he also implicated BJP stalwarts L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi for came on the day About 50 Muslim kar sevaks (volunteers), belonging to the Sri Ram Nirman Muslim Kar Sevak Sangh, also created a flutter when they reached Ayodhya with a truck full of bricks meant for the construction of the temple. The truck has been stopped at Naya Ghat chowki, circle officer Arvind Pandey said.

Majority of the kar sevaks came from Gorakhpur, Basti and Maharajganj districts.

Dr Vedanti told a news channel that it was on his instruction that the kar sevaks had demolished the mosque on December 6, 1992. Mahant Avaidynath and Ashok Singhal (both deceased) were with me when we got the structure demolished. L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were trying to bring the volunteers under control, he said.

Mahant Avaidyanath was also a former BJP MP and the spiritual guru of UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Mr Ashok Singhal was one of the pioneers of the temple movement and the president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Dr Vedanti is among the accused in the Babri demolition case and his admission to the crime is expected to add heat to the controversy.

The Muslim kar sevaks were keen on visiting temples, including the the disputed territory identified by Hindus as birthplace of Rama, but the district administration prevented them from entering the area.
News / National

by Staff reporter

MDC-T will boycott a by-election expected in Bulawayo soon following the Government's firing of Ward 23 councillor Thobani Ncube who was convicted of defrauding a home seeker of $12 000.Last week, Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere fired Ncube after he was sentenced to 36 months in prison which was conditionally commuted to 630 hours of community service.In an interview yesterday, MDC-T Bulawayo provincial chairman Mr Gift Banda said the party will maintain its stance of boycotting by-elections."Our stand is that unless there are electoral reforms we will not participate in any elections but we will cross that bridge when we reach it. But I understand that he has filed an appeal," said Mr Banda.Ncube was reluctant to comment on the matter when contacted yesterday.Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial chairperson Dennis Ndlovu said his party will adopt a wait and see attitude on the pending by-election noting that the revolutionary party will participate in all elections.According to the Local Government Laws Amendment Bill, 2016, the minister can suspend a councillor from exercising all or any of his or her functions in the event that they are convicted."In accordance with section 278 of the Constitution, the chairperson or councillor of a council shall only be removed from office on the grounds of inability to perform the functions of their office due to mental or physical incapacity; or gross incompetence or gross misconduct.""The same shall be removed from office after a conviction of an offence involving dishonesty, corruption or abuse of office; or a wilful violation of the law, including a local authority by-law," reads the document.Last year in September, Kasukuwere suspended five out of Bulawayo's 29 councillors for alleged corruption including the city's former deputy mayor Mr Gift Banda.Three councillors were later exonerated but Mr Banda together with ward 21's councillor Reuben Matengu were fired from council following an investigation by an independent tribunal.Mr Banda has since approached the High Court seeking to be reinstated on grounds that he was innocent.
The BrahMos missile system is a joint collaborative effort between Indian and Russia.

Land-attack version of Brahmos supersonic cruise missile being successfully test-fired by the Navy in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: The India Navys combat capability got a huge boost on Friday when a BrahMos long-range missile took off from the stealth-capable INS Teg at supersonic speed from somewhere in the Bay of Bengal and successfully hit a target erected on an island.

It was a successful test that achieved the desired results. Now we are in an elite club alongside advanced nations with the capability to hit deep land-based targets from the ships in deep sea, said Navy spokesperson Capt. D.K. Sharma.

This BrahMos version is a cruise missile that flies near the ground using terrain-following navigation systems fortified with an already-stored map of obstacles and ground elevation data.

The US used such missiles to devastating effect in Afghanistan and West Asia from its warships in the Persian Gulf. Among other things, this BrahMos variant will give additional teeth in the fight against terror with the ability to target land-based terror camps.

The Indian Navy is upgrading its weapons systems and platforms as part of a major modernisation programme.

In March, the Navy had successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile for the first time from a Kalvari class submarine, enhancing its sub-surface warfare prowess. These missiles will provide the vessels the ability to take out surface threats at extended ranges.

The BrahMos missile system is a joint collaborative effort between Indian and Russia.

The Indian Navy has already deployed the anti-ship variant of the BrahMos. The majority of the Indian Navys frontline ships are capable of firing the land attack supersonic missile.

Indias plans to raise three squadrons of Sukhoi-30 fighters equipped with BrahMos missiles are also in the final stages. The Su30-BrahMos combination has already generated a lot of commercial interest, raising expectations that its export could turn out to be a veritable profit-making business for India and Russia.

Three BrahMos regiments have been operational in the Indian Army since 2007.
The Napal President observed that the country has had an age-old relationship with the Jagannath temple.

Puri(Odisha): Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Friday assured the Jagannath Temple Administration (JTA) in Puri that she would take up the issue of shortage of kasturi, an essential commodity used in temple rituals with the Nepal government. Kasturi is the musk collected from the male deers navel.

Addressing media persons during her visit to the Puri temple, Ms Bhandari said that she would take measures for resolving the problem of kasturi shortage faced by temple authorities.

I am happy after taking darshan of Lord Jagannath. President Pranab Mukherjee had invited me to India and I am grateful for the arrangements made by the Union and state governments and the respect I have received from general public. I would take up the kasturi shortage issue with the Nepal government at the earliest, she said.

The Napal President observed that the country has had an age-old relationship with the Jagannath temple.

Both India and Nepal have been sharing a cultural relations since long. I hope both the countries continue to maintain this friendly relation in days to come, she added.

The 12th century Jagannath Temple earlier used to receive kasturi, the rare and precious item from Nepal, during the reign of kings. The temple authorities prefer kasturi, used for the Mukh Shringar of Lord Jagannath the sibling deities during Rath Yatra, from Nepal for its purity.

The Nepal President, who is on a two-day visit to Odisha, offered her prayers to Lord Jagannath this morning. She was greeted by servitors at the Singhadwara, the main entrance to the temple, and later escorted into the temple amid tight security.
There were reports that Kashmiris studying in UP and Rajasthan were receiving threats.

New Delhi: Taking serious note of Kashmiri youth being targeted outside Jammu and Kashmir, Union home minister Rajnath Singh directed home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to issue an advisory to all states and Union Territories to ensure their safety. The advisory, home ministry sources said, was issued on Friday evening.

Reaching out to Kashmiri youth, the home minister also expressed his concern on Twitter over incidents of them being harassed at institutions in other parts of the country. Kashmiri youth also contribute in progress of India. Action should be taken by the states against those who target them. I appeal to everyone to ensure safety of Kashmiri students living in other parts of the country. Kashmiris are a part of our family, Mr Singh tweeted.

Earlier, talking to the media on the sidelines of an event, the Union home minister said that some incidents of misbehaviour against Kashmiri youth in some parts of the country had come to his notice and that he would appeal to all chief ministers to ensure safety of students living in their respective states. I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well as contribution of people of Kashmir in nation building is immense, he added. There were reports that Kashmiris studying in UP and Rajasthan were receiving threats.

There was tension in Rajasthans Chittorgarh on Wednesday when some locals clashed with a group of Kashmiri students of Mewar University on allegedly being called stone-pelters and criticised on a recent video of CRPF personnel being heckled in the Kashmir Valley. Similarly, some hoardings have also surfaced in Meerut asking Kashmiri students to leave Uttar Pradesh.

While condemning the incidents the Union home ministry said a thorough investigation should be carried out on such incidents and the strongest possible action should be initiated against those responsible for it.
The presidential polls are due to be held in July when President Pranab Mukherjee completes his term.

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi has decided to call a meeting of all like-minded parties next month to explore the possibility of putting up a joint non-BJP presidential candidate. The momentum to prop up a secular candidate gained momentum when CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Mrs Gandhi soon after the Congress president had a similar meeting with Bihar CM and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar.

Both leaders are learnt to have discussed with Mrs Gandhi the need for all Opposition parties to join hands to take on the BJP juggernaut and begin by putting up a consensual Opposition presidential candidate. Before the CPI(M) general secretary met Mrs Gandhi, the Left parties, including the CPI(M) and CPI, had met among themselves and decided to go along with a joint Opposition presidential candidate.

The Congress president decided to take a lead in the matter after requests from both Mr Kumar and Mr Yechury, sources said, adding the meeting was likely to be held next month. The presidential polls are due to be held in July when President Pranab Mukherjee completes his term.

Sources said while the Left was keen to field Mr Mukherjee again, other options were also being looked at such as senior JD(U) leader and Rajya Sabha member Sharad Yadav and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

Interestingly, the Congress president had a telephonic chat with Mr Pawar on Friday morning. The NCP chief is regarded as a potential candidate as apart from stature, the Maratha strongman might also be instrumental in roping in the Shiv Sena, which is miffed with the BJP.

Sources in the Opposition parties, however, say that no names have been zeroed in as of now as it is not yet clear how many parties will come on board. The names are being floated by the BJP to create a rift in any potential alliance, a senior JD(U) leader claimed.

While both the Samajwadi Party and the BSP are said to be on board, no formal talks have yet begun with them.

Sources in the Congress told this newspaper that efforts were also being made to rope in the Biju Janata Dal through parties like the Trinamul Congress and JD(U). While Mr Nitish Kumar had met BJD supremo and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik last month, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee met Mr Patnaik on Thursday.

The presidential election is held under the system of proportional representation through the single transferable vote, which means that the strong show by the BJP in the Assembly polls, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, where MLAs votes have a total value of 83,824, gives it the political leeway needed to pick its own nominee.
Xi Jinping activated the Phase 2 of Chinas military reforms and modernisation effort by setting up or adjusting 84 corps-level units.

New Delhi: In a giant move to streamline Chinas military into the changing global security environment that is being seen to be having significant bearing on the military dynamics of India, President Xi Jinping on Tuesday activated the Phase 2 of Chinas military reforms and modernisation effort by setting up or adjusting 84 corps-level units.

On the major military reorganisation, Jayadeva Ranade, former additional secretary of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) who now heads the Delhi-based think-tank Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, said: President Xis target date for completing restructuring and reorganisation is 2020-2021. Implications for India are obvious.

Fleshing it out, the former member of the National Security Advisory Board, said: President Xi is streamlining the PLA to meet current exigencies. China has discarded the old policy of lie low, bide your time, etc. and has articulated the China Dream which includes recovering Chinas territories by 2021  the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Angry rhetoric on Taiwan has risen. For India, the steady decline in the relationship and the recent elevated rhetoric on Arunachal Pradesh, including Wednesdays allocation of Chinese names to places in the Indian state, suggests a toughened posture.

State-run media reported that while receiving the chief military officers from 84 newly-established Army institutions in Beijing on Tuesday, President Xi said that the 84 units are a vital part of a new Army system, which will shoulder a heavy responsibility in safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development.

The move is a continuum of larger military modernisations efforts of China. Details available are too sketchy at this stage. There is a need to monitor this continuously in order to assess its strategic implications for India, said Commodore Abhay Kumar Singh (Retd), a China expert from the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

All these 84 operational level combat ready units will be led by officials of the ranks of major-general, rear-admiral and air vice-marshal.

Given that the Tibet Military Command has been strengthened point out that in addition to the overall military reforms, the Western Theatre Command is emerging as an important area of focus for the PLA and the strategic interests it is protecting very significant. This is partly to protect its interests in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and to manage the long border with India, said M.S. Prathibha, a IDSA fellow specialising on China military affairs.
The social media should be used for the welfare of the people and not for self-praise, Modi told bureaucrats.

New Delhi: Stressing the need to reform, perform and transform, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said political will was needed for reform, of which there was no dearth in his government. However, he added, the perform part of this must come from civil servants, while transformation is enabled by peoples participation.

I do not lack it (political will), rather have an extra bit, the PM said while addressing bureaucrats on Civil Service Day. Mr Modi said civil servants must ensure that every decision was taken while keeping the national interest in mind, and this should be their touchstone for taking a decision.

He noted that anonymity was one of the greatest strengths of the civil services. He cautioned officers that the use of social media should not lead to a decline in this strength, as social media and mobile governance are leveraged to connect people to benefits and government schemes.

Mr Modi said he banned mobile phones at his meetings as he often found officers checking social media sites in the middle of official discussions.

I see these days that district-level officers are so busy, busy, that most of their time goes into it (social media). I have stopped the entry (of mobile phones) in my meetings as they (officers) would take them out and start (checking out social media sites), he said.

The social media should be used for the welfare of the people and not for self-praise, he told bureaucrats. He said conditions today were quite different from two decades ago, and would evolve much further over the next few years.

Elaborating on this, the PM said earlier, the government was almost wholly the sole provider of goods and services, which left a lot of scope for ignoring ones shortcomings. However, now, very often, the people feel the private sector offers better services than the government. Mr Modi said with alternatives available in several areas, the responsibilities of government officers had increased. He added this increase was not in terms of the scope of work, but in terms of the challenge.

The Prime Minister emphasised the importance of competition, which brings qualitative change. He said the sooner the attitude of the government can change from being a regulator to an enabler, the faster this challenge of competition will become an opportunity.

Describing this day as one of rededication, the PM said civil servants were well aware of their strengths and capabilities, challenges and responsibilities. Mr Modi emphasised that while the absence of government in a sphere of activity should be perceptible, its presence in a sphere of activity should not become a burden. He asked civil servants to strive towards such arrangements.

Noting the quantum jump in the applications for Civil Service Day awards, from less than 100 last year to over 500 this year, the PM said the focus should now be on improving quality, and making excellence a habit.

He urged senior officers to ensure that experience does not become a burden that stifles innovation of younger officers.
Venu Gopalakrishnan is a CEO who likes to visit and photograph exotic locations.

It has been an exciting journey for Venu Gopalakrishnan as the CEO of Litmus7, a company with its office in Kakkanads Geo Infopark. In six years, from its humble beginning as a three-member team, the tech firms staff strength has risen to 170 and the turnover has crossed Rs 100 crore.

But it is another journey that has the happy-go-lucky chief talking animatedly, a trip to Antarctica. Venu was part of an 18-member team led by ace photographer Balan Madhavan, mostly comprising Malayalis.

I travel so that I can take photographs, says Venu, in his typical casual tone. This interview had earlier been postponed because he was in Kenya but he dismisses that as a short business trip. But then he has been making sure to do long leisure trips at least once a year to various destinations including Kenya, Ghana, Nepal and Spain, where he drove nearly 2,500 miles. Most of these have been solo trips, the camera giving him company. It is a passion that took shape ever since he got a Click 3 camera in fourth standard. There was no dearth of opportunities to put it to good use, thanks to his dads job in the forest department.

I shoot for myself, not for Facebook likes and appreciation, declares Venu, who grabbed the opportunity to travel to Antarctica as he had heard that they were planning to close the expedition that is currently open to around 6,000 people a year.

From Doha, they flew to Sao Paulo and then to Punta Arenas in Chile before an unforgettable, day-and-a-half cruise on a nine-storeyed ship. He remembers that the wind nearly dragged him out when he opened a door while having a drink all alone in the sixth deck. Waves and foam were lashing the ship all over, up to the top. The next morning, the captain announced that it was a powerful hurricane that they passed through.

Besides enjoying and photographing the icy expanse and wildlife, Venu and a friend also embarked on a kayaking adventure spread over eight days and earned a certificate. The instructors there told them that they were perhaps the only ones from India to get a level two certificate. It is done with the help of a fully covered suit while Polar Plunge, another sport, involved jumping into the minus two degree waters sans any clothes! Yet another fun moment was when a friend, Manoj, got himself photographed wearing a mundu.
The accused, a 30-year-old casual labourer from Bihar, was arrested on Thursday after the incident was reported to the police.

New Delhi: In a shocking incident, a 2-and-a-half-year-old girl was allegedly raped by one of her neighbours for five-six days in south-east Delhi's Okhla Industrial Area, police said on Friday, adding that the accused has been arrested.

The accused, a 30-year-old casual labourer from Bihar, was arrested on Thursday after the incident was reported to the police.

The incident came to light last evening when the victim's seven-year-old brother saw the accused taking the girl to his house, said a senior police officer.

The boy got suspicious and followed the accused, he added.

When he saw the accused forcing himself on his sister, he raised an alarm and subsequently, the police were informed, said the officer.

It has been learnt that the accused had been taking the girl to his house on the pretext of playing with her and sexually assaulting her for the last five-six days, he added.

The girl had earlier complained to her parents of stomach pain, but could not convey her ordeal to them, said the officer.

Charges of kidnapping, rape and provisions of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have been slapped on the accused, he added.

The victim's father works as a security guard while the accused was currently unemployed.

The accused is married with three children. However, his family members are currently not in town.
The TMC chief said Hinduism means tolerance but the saffron party is dividing the people based on religious identities.

Kolkata: Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of dividing the people based on religious identities , West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday urged all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation while stating it is the 'need of the hour'.

Addressing her party workers in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief said Hinduism means tolerance but the saffron party is dividing the people based on religious identities.

"It is the need of the hour for all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation. The BJP is dividing the people on religious backgrounds. We respect all religions but Hinduism is our biggest identity. I am proud of my religion. I am proud of all religions. Hinduism means tolerance. The BJP is defaming Hinduism. Riots cannot be religion," she added.

Meanwhile, the leaders of various political parties also echoed Mamata's assertion that the BJP was not a threat and said there would be no scope for the saffron party to form the next government if all regional parties unite.

"This is hundred percent true. The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot do anything, if the regional parties unite together. If the regional parties of West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh come together then there will be no scope for the BJP to form the next government," Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Ashok Sinha said.

Janata Dal (United) leader Rajeev Ranjan said the BJP has its existence in politics courtesy of the regional parties.

"Regional parties are very important and to underestimate them or to ignore them is disrespect to federal structure," Ranjan said.

National Congress Party leader Nawab Malik also backed Mamata's statement, saying the regional parties need to unite and form a grand alliance to defeat the BJP.

"What Mamata Banerjee has said is true. There is strong hold of regional parties in many states. If they believe to defeat the BJP, they should join a grand alliance to defeat the NDA's 33 party alliance," Malik said.

The West Bengal Chief Minister on Thursday asserted that the BJP was not a threat as the regional parties were enough to tackle it.

Mamata's assertion came post her meeting with Odisha Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo Naveen Patnaik.

Accusing the BJP of playing politics of division, Mamata said the saffron party also resorted to buying the ministers and MLAs of other parties.

"They divide caste, parties. They divide Hindu-Muslims. They also purchase ministers, MLAs. We don't do that. We believe in unity," she told the media in Kolkata.

Mamata also stated that the secular parties were always together.

Responding to a poser on having discussions on forming an alliance to stand against the BJP, Patnaik said they did not have any talks regarding the same.

"We had no such discussions today," Patnaik said.
The man denied all allegations during the hearings before the adjudicator, claiming the complaint was false and motivated.

Kolkata: The West Bengal cyber-adjudicator has directed a man to pay a compensation of Rs 50,000 for snooping into his estranged wife's mobile calls and messages, delivering the first such order in the state.

The state IT secretary, in his ex-officio position as the cyber adjudicator in West Bengal, has ordered the man to pay a compensation for illegally spying on his estranged wife's mobile phone.

The man was found guilty under Sections 43(a), (b), 66(C) and 72 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (as amended till date) for breaching online privacy.

Under provisions of the Act, an adjudicator can order a maximum compensation of Rs 5 crore, the woman's counsel Bivas Chatterjee said on Friday.

In the order, which was handed over yesterday, the man was directed to pay the compensation to the woman within 30 days and the Commissioner of Howrah Police Commissionerate would furnish compliance of the order within 15 days from payment.

The woman, in her complaint had claimed that her estranged husband had filed a matrimonial suit before the Howrah civil court seeking divorce in June 2014.

They had got married in May 2013, but the relationship turned sour within a few months over the man's alleged suspicions on his wife.

She stated in her complaint that she had shared her Facebook account and email account passwords with her husband when their relation was good and claimed that on one occasion the husband had taken her mobile phone and installed a malware, without her knowledge, through which he could access all calls and messages from and to her phone.

The woman's counsel stated in the matrimonial suit, the man had himself admitted to have installed a software to backup all calls and SMS to a website and opened the website to see or download the incoming or outgoing calls and messages from the mobile phone.

The man denied all allegations during the hearings before the adjudicator, claiming the complaint was false and motivated.

The adjudicator, in his order, noted that the man had himself admitted to have installed a software on the phone belonging to the complainant and accessed details of incoming and outgoing calls and messages from her mobile phone without her knowledge.

"The argument and the documentary evidence presented by the respondent in support of his ownership of SIM Card number.... does not take away the fact that the complainant was the owner of the mobile phone and its content, which was accessed and extracted by the respondent without her knowledge or consent," the adjudicating officer observed in his order.

The officer also noted "the complainant was negligent and careless in sharing such resources with the respondent for his use and access without thinking of her data protection and privacy concerns at that time."
News / National

by Staff reporter

THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR) has admitted that some of its members are hoarding cash and abusing the cashback facility.The association said the collaboration between the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), retailers and wholesalers on measures to enhance regulatory compliance is a commendable measure towards restoring market discipline in the economy.In an interview, CZR president Mr Denford Mutashu said some retailers have been abusing the cash back facility taking advantage of market shortages."We realised that the cash-back facility was heavily abused by some retailers. For example, data collected by the RBZ suggests that one retailer banked $10 million and the other $30 million was used for cash-back facility. But investigations revealed that the retailer did not even offer a cash-back facility," he said.Mr Mutashu said measures to enhance regulatory compliance and use of plastic money in business transactions would ensure smooth circulation of currency in the economy and ease of transacting.He urged all retailers and wholesalers to adhere to the relevant guidelines and regulations governing their operations as stipulated by the RBZ including restrictions on cash-back to $20.Mr Mutashu said the collaboration with RBZ came after meetings with the central bank over concerns that some retailers were hoarding cash."We held a series of meetings with the RBZ when we realised that some retailers were hoarding cash and not complying with provisions of the Bank Use Promotion Act. Some retailers were even hoarding cash and this is not healthy for the economy," said Mr Mutashu."Coming up with this regulatory framework will help restore market discipline in the economy and we hope they (retailers) will comply."He told Business Chronicle that dialogue was the best way forward adding that some retailers have been arrested and appeared before the courts for contravening the Bank Use Promotion Act.Mr Mutashu said his organisation was working tirelessly with the banking sector for the installation of Point of Sale (POS) machines to promote the use of plastic money."We are working tirelessly with the banking sector for the installation of POS machines for retailers. This also helps to promote the use of plastic money and it will be convenient to consumers when paying for goods and services," he said.Mr Mutashu said the restriction on cash-back to $20 was meant to eliminate that loophole. He said his organisation was not happy with foreign-owned retailers who were externalising cash and warned that perpetrators risk being prosecuted."I'm actually not happy with foreign nationals who are running businesses here and are in the habit of externalising cash. We are working closely with the RBZ and those found wanting will definitely face the music," said Mr Mutashu.He bemoaned unfair pricing and demands for cash especially in the fuel industry saying collective efforts were needed to restore market confidence.Meanwhile, Mr Mutashu said businesses that are in the habit of practicing a three-tier pricing system must stop forthwith and conform to Government policies so as to promote sanity in the economy.
The flying restriction on the Lok Sabha member had been lifted after he gave an undertaking that such incidents would not reoccur.

Mumbai: Barely a month after being grounded for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad on Friday took to the skies again.

His airline of choice was Air India, as he took a flight from Hyderabad to Delhi shortly after 4 pm, an aide of Gaikwad said.

"Ravi Sir (as Gaikwad, a former teacher, is known in his Osmanabad constituency) travelled business class from Hyderabad to Delhi today, days after the flying ban was lifted," the aide said.

On April 8, private airlines had lifted the nearly two week-long flying ban on Gaikwad.

The decision of the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) had come a day after the national carrier, following direction from the Civil Aviation Ministry, revoked the ban on Gaikwad.

The flying restriction on the Lok Sabha member had been lifted after he gave an undertaking that such incidents would not reoccur.

Meanwhile, Gaikwad had a heated argument with cops over 'non-functioning' of ATMs at Latur in Marathwada region on Tuesday, police said.
Shah was in Thane for the 29th Savarkar Sahitya Sammelan organised by three different organisations working on freedom fighters philosophy.

Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah, while delivering his keynote address at Savarkar Sahitya Sammelan in Thane on Friday, said that Veer Savarkar was the first philosopher-freedom fighter who demonstrated connect between patriotism and cultural nationalism.

He tried to endorse the importance of cultural nationalism in the country's life. In all sense, Savarkar was the person who could think and predict about things much before. All those who keep attacking Savarkar must read him first. Savarkar was a social reformer who was ahead of his time. We need to take his thoughts all over India so that the next generation can learn Indian values through them.

Shah was in Thane for the 29th Savarkar Sahitya Sammelan (Literature fest) organised by three different organisations working on freedom fighters philosophy.

"Everything that crosses limits (ati in Marathi) becomes dangerous. Savarkar understood that very well. When ahimsa crossed that limit, Savarkar wrote a drama named Sanyast Khadga which rejects the unnecessary importance of ahimsa, said Shah.

"Untouchability was one of the serious problems in Hindu society. Savarkar stood against it. He organised programmes where people from all castes would share the pangat (dining table). Not just that, Savarkar vehemently opposed 'Sapta Bandi' (seven bans) rituals in his life time," he said.

The BJP chief also mentioned that had the country listened to Savarkar on issues like China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and North East, many of the problems today would have been resolved. When we read him, we feel what a great visionary he was when he predicted future problems. This is why we need the next generation to read Savarkar. Savarkar is the only poet in the history of the world who wrote poems in his own blood, said Shah.
From zero civic council seats in 2012, the saffron partys tally rises to 41 in Latur.

Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday scored a major victory by bagging 41 seats in the 70-seat Latur municipal council, a former Congress stronghold where it had literally no presence in 2012.

Latur had been a Congress bastion for the last 60 years, but the party managed to win only 28 seats on Friday. In fact, the grand old party had reigned supreme in the municipality, zilla parishad, all four civic councils and panchayat samitis when its leader Vilasrao Deshmukh, a former chief minister, was alive. The district had also given Congress another chief minister earlier, Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil, who had the top job from June 1985 to March 1986.

This time, however, the BJP has turned the tables on the late Deshmukhs son, Amit Deshmukh, a former minister of state.

Amit Deshmukh was leading Congress in the council poll whereas Mr Nilangekars grandson Sambhaji Nilangekar Patil, a Cabinet minister, shouldered the responsibility for the BJP. Sambhaji Nilangekar Patil had switched to the saffron party a long time ago after falling out with his grandfather.

While the BJP could not win a single seat in Latur in 2012, the Congress had a one-sided mandate with 49 while the Shiv Sena had won six and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 13. This time, the NCP managed to bag a single seat while the Sena got none.

The BJP has been on the rise in the district since the last general elections when it won a Lok Sabha seat there for the first time. Since then, the party had concentrated its efforts on the district.

Its efforts seem to have paid off as it won all four council seats in the elections in 2016. Continuing its victory march, the BJP also won most of the zilla parishad seats and seven panchayat samiti seats in March 2017.

Conceding defeat, Amit Deshmukh said, We accept the peoples verdict. We will introspect and start working hard again. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has expressed his satisfaction with the results.

Marathwadas new face

The BJPs Latur triumph has given a new face to Marathwada politics. Sambhaji Nilangekar Patil has proved his mettle by winning all elections that were held in the last six months. Though his grandfather Shivaji Nilangekar Patil, a former CM of state, is a Congressman, Mr Patil had joined the BJP some time ago. After becoming a Cabinet minister, he has been working to make Latur a new fort of the saffron party.

Stunning win

The BJP also won the 66-member Chandrapur municipal body single-handedly. The party won 37 seats whereas the Congress was able to win only 13. Chandrapur is the hometown of two high-profile BJP leaders: finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and Union minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir. The Congress and NCP, however, managed to retain the Parbhani.
Under the initiative, the 2.5 lakh 'ayalkoottams', the 'neighbourhood groups', across the state would be digitised.

Thiruvananthapuram: Kudumbashree, Kerala's women Self Help Group which has empowered over 42 lakh households through various entrepreneurial initiatives, is all set to go digital.

The state government has launched an ambitious scheme titled 'Shresta' to integrate the group's various initiatives with the Digital India programme for its effective functioning and better performance.

Under the initiative, the 2.5 lakh 'ayalkoottams', the 'neighbourhood groups', across the state would be digitised, Kudumbashree sources said.

A Neighbourhood Group (NHG) is the lowest tier of Kudumbashree.

A special 'work management and rating software', titled 'Shrestra' was developed by a group of management students under the guidance of Professor Mummad Shaheed Abdullah of IIM Kozhikode, Kudumbashree Executive Director S Harikishore IAS said.

He said it was developed as part of their social development initiative and was offered free of cost for one year to Kudumbashree.

"The functioning of the neighbourhood groups can be made more effective and transparent through the digitisation programme," the official said.

"Besides improving the performance, the software will also help make the credit disbursal system of the group more smooth," he said.

With the digitisation of the 'ayalkoottams', the complete performance data of the NHGs in the state can be accessed at the click of a button.

Bank account details of each NHG, its earnings, loans, personal information of members and infrastructure details would also be available with the installation of the software, Harikishore added.

State Local Self Government Minister, KT Jaleel inaugurated the digitisation initiative Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday evening.

Launched in 1998 as a poverty eradication mission by the state government to wipe out poverty through community action, Kudumbashree has tried its hand in various fields ranging from pickle-making to IT business to empower women households in the state.
In his words: "I am just a professional writer, which means I don't do blogs and try and get money for whatever I write."

Theresa May points to them in her argument for a general election, saying that they are disrupters.

Why do we say forever

When we know theres no such thing?

No effort, no endeavour

Prolongs our youthful spring

Passing years can teach us 

Those who resist are fools

This sun whose rays now reach us

Ultimately cools!

From Cleopatra-Ni-Machchi

by Bachchoo

Last Tuesday was crucial for Britain because, after very emphatically and repeatedly denying that the UK needed a general election to legitimise her prime ministership, Theresa May called a general election on June 8, giving political parties 51 days to communicate their appeal to voters. The election had been called, she said, because the country was united behind her stance on Britains negotiations to leave the European Union, but the Parliament of Westminster was not.

Her contention is disingenuous and transparently silly. The official Opposition of the Labour Party is in complete chaos about this Brexit deal and, almost every day, Labour make contradictory statements about it, even though their leader Jeremy Corbyn asserts at every turn that he will support Britains Brexit.

The other UK Opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, are clear that they want a second referendum. They believe that when British voters find out how disastrous Brexit will be, they will change their minds. Ms May points to them in her argument for a general election, saying that they are disrupters. The Lib-Dems have eight members of Parliament. Its like saying a fellow without a thumb can win an archery contest.

So that was the big news on Tuesday when I received a call from an Indian TV station. The researcher wanted to know what I thought about the Mallya question. I said I was unacquainted with such a question as my attention was fully absorbed on the prospect of the general election and the wipeout of the Labour Party. No, no, said the diligent researcher, Mr Vijay Mallya had that very day been arrested and taken to a London court in Westminster, had been subjected to arguments about his extradition to India and then been let out on bail of a million dollars. Now as far as I know, Britain deals in pounds and pence and not in dollars, so a Westminster court setting bail terms in dollars was a bit confusing.

I thought perhaps Indian TV converts sterling sums to dollars because Indian money-launderers deal in US currency. That was not important. The researcher asked me if I would comment on the arrest of Mr Mallya, the bail that was granted him and his prospects of being extradited to India to face charges of mishandling `9,000 crores of rupees.

Every time I am presented with these sums, I remind myself that a crore is 10 million and then my calculating head starts fiddling with the number of zeroes  accepting that a lakh, which is a hundredth of a crore was a thousand pounds a little whole ago  which made the conversion simpler  but after the Brexit vote with the pound down, its more like 80-something rupees to I lose track and me! With a degree in natural sciences (including maths) from Cambridge!

Okay, significant sums! The very competent researcher asks if I can be present in a studio to present my point of view on the Mallya case by 3.30 Greenwich Mean Time. Indian TV stations never offer me a fee for appearing and voicing an opinion. The only payoff is vanity and friends from India saying I saw you on TV  you made the most sense! (They dont always say the last thing). The studio was not far from where I was so I said Id do it. In the studio I heard the anchor say that there were distinguished politicians from the BJP and the Congress and some very respected and knowledgeable commentators in the studio. Nevertheless, she came to me first and asked what I thought of the arrest and the bail.

By the time I settled in, facing that camera alone with an earpiece, I had thought it out and will put it plainly: If I were Mr Mallya, or indeed Lalit Modi, I would be extremely anxious about the days events. Ms May has called an election to strengthen her hand on Brexit, and if she succeeds on June 9 then she will begin trade talks with India and others. Trade talks are never only about trade. They could very probably involve deals on extradition of people the Indian government want to try in Indian courts for alleged offences. British governments do most deals if it suits their material interests  they dont care about Saudi beheadings or using British weapons to kill civilians in Yemen as long as they can sell them armaments.

On the TV programme the Congress spokesperson said that the release of Mr Mallya on bail was a defeat for the BJP governments extradition orders, warrants and demands. British courts tend to give bail terms to defendants who are not a threat to the public and in the courts view are unlikely to abscond.

Hah! They dont understand Indians. If I were Mr Mallya, I would assess the danger of deportation to India, the loss of the million dollars and use my bail release to get to a country with no extradition treaty with India. I am aware that Mr Mallya has no passport as the Indian government withdrew his, but the British underworld can, for a price Mallya can easily afford, supply him with a false passport which can take him, for example, to Northern Ireland and through the still-porous border to the Irish Republic and from there to Hey! This is rubbish! The last few times I left the UK on a flight my passport was checked by some trolley-dolly as I entered the plane and not by any scrutinising authority. So Mexit (Mallyas exit from Britain) is not going to be difficult.

(Dhondy, how dare you use this newspaper to suggest criminal activity!)  ED

(Sirji, please publish, it's columnist's licence. Sorry yaar  fd)
India can have no interest in Chinas premier policy of OBOR to strengthen its neighbourhood influence.

Earlier this week, China upped the ante in dealing with the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as South Tibet. It renamed six towns in that northeastern state of this country to give some life to its claim, which is fundamentally false and flawed as it has no historical underpinning whatever.

The people of Arunachal Pradesh follow the same style of Buddhism  an Indian export to Tibet and China and many other regions in the first place  that is practised in Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim and Ladakh in India. The religious basis can therefore be no consideration for Beijings bid to covet Indian territory. In this context, Chinas strenuous objection to the Dalai Lamas recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh appears to have a fairly clear political and tactical aim  to make a pincer with Pakistan in harassing New Delhi. To rebuff this move, it is not enough for the external affairs ministry to say  quite correctly  that giving cooked-up Chinese/Tibetan names to towns in a neighbours territory cant make it your own. New Delhi needs to remain cognisant, however, that the recent Chinese moves on Arunachal and Pakistans actions in Kashmir through fifth columnists at about the same time are no passing coincidence.

India can have no interest in Chinas premier policy of OBOR to strengthen its neighbourhood influence, specially as projects are being executed in parts of Jammu and Kashmir under illegal Pakistani control. An Indian representative attending a China-hosted conference on OBOR will thus invite ridicule. India should instead bolster its border defences.
Man shot dead in Caracas as calls for Maduros resignation grow.

People try to revive a woman who fell unconscious due to inhaling tear gas during an anti-government protest in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo: AP)

Caracas: A man was fatally shot on Thursday night during a protest in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, an official said, as deadly unrest continued to roil the oil-rich nation.

With much pain, I report the death by gunshot of Melvin Guaitan, humble neighborhood worker of Sucre municipality #Petare, wrote Carlos Ocariz, mayor of Sucre municipality, a division of Caracas where the Petare neighbourhood is located.

We demand that the culprits be investigated and punished! added Mr Ocariz, who opposes the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Mr Ocariz did not elaborate on the details of the shooting: whether Guaitan was taking part in an opposition march or was perhaps just passing by, and whether the shooter was a civilian or a law enforcement officer.

Amid the chaos, 54 children were evacuated from a hospital in Petare. No details were available.

Eight other people have died in the last three weeks during anti-Maduro protests, which have virtually always ended in clashes between demonstrators and the authorities.

Unrest was reported on Thursday in several parts of Caracas, most seriously in the working-class neighbourhood of El Valle.

Businesses were attacked, streets blocked and barricades set afire as officers fired tear gas and water cannon.

Mr Maduro said the protests seeking to oust him are backed by the US.

I dont care if I inhale gas, I dont care if I die. We have to put a stop to this murdering, repressing government, said Natasha Borges, 17.

One protester, completely naked except for sneakers, walked up to police and shouted: Please, stop gas-bombing us.
Trumps pet peeves like Nafta, Iran nuclear pact and Paris climate accord still tied with the US.

Washington: The America First President who vowed to extricate the US from onerous overseas commitments appears to be warming up to the view that when it comes to global agreements, a deals a deal.

From Nafta to the Iran nuclear agreement to the Paris climate accord, President Donald Trumps campaign rhetoric is colliding with the reality of governing. Despite repeated pledges to rip up, renegotiate or otherwise alter them, the US has yet to withdraw from any of these economic, environmental or national security deals, as Mr Trumps past criticism turns to tacit embrace of several key elements of US foreign policy.

The administration says it is reviewing these accords and could still pull out of them. Yet with one exception an Asia-Pacific trade deal that already had stalled in Congress, Trumps administration quietly has laid the groundwork to honour the international architecture of deals it has inherited.

Its a sharp shift from the days when Mr Trump was declaring the end of a global-minded America that negotiates away its interests and subsidises foreigners security and prosperity. Even as Mr Trump railed on Thursday against the North American Free Trade Agreement, there was little indication that he was actively pushing for wholesale changes.

As a candidate, Mr Trump threatened to jettison the pact with Mexico and Canada unless he could substantially renegotiate it in Americas favour. The fact is, Nafta, whether its Mexico or Canada, is a disaster for our country, Mr Trump said on Thursday during an event on steel imports. Of a dispute with Canada over dairy exports, he added: Were not going to let it happen.

Yet Trumps administration has been focused on marginal changes that would preserve much of the existing agreement, according to draft guidelines that Mr Trumps trade envoy sent to Congress. To the dismay of Nafta critics, the proposal preserves a controversial provision that lets companies challenge national trade laws through private tribunals.

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said Mr Trump may be allowing himself to argue in the future that existing deals can be improved without being totally discarded.

That allows him to tell his base that hes getting a better deal than Bush or Obama got, and yet reassure these institutions that its really all being done with a nod and a wink, that Trump doesnt mean what he says, Mr Brinkley said.

So far, theres been no major revolt from Mr Trump supporters, despite their expectation he would be an agent of disruption.

This weeks reaffirmations of the status quo came via secretary of state Rex Tillersons certification of Iran upholding its nuclear deal obligations and the administration delaying a decision on whether to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

Mr Trump had called the Iran deal the worst ever, and claimed climate change was a hoax. But the Trump administration is only reviewing these agreements.
A source close to the French investigation said the 35-year-old man being questioned in Antwerp, described as 'very dangerous.'

During a search of his home, Belgian police found weapons, balaclavas and a train ticket for France departing Thursday morning, hours before the Paris assault. (Photo: AP)

Paris: A suspect sought by France in the wake of the Champs Elysees attack has turned himself in to Belgian police, France's interior ministry said on Friday.

"The man in the wanted notice issued by Belgian authorities presented himself to a police station in Antwerp," said ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

Brandet told Europe 1 radio it was "too early to say" if the man was linked to Thursday night's shooting on the famous Paris boulevard, where a 39-year-old known radical shot dead a policeman and wounded two others before being killed in a shootout.

A foreign tourist was also injured in the attack. The Islamic State group claimed the shooting, which came three days before the first round of France's presidential election on Sunday in which security is a major concern after a string of bloody jihadist assaults since 2015.

A source close to the French investigation said the 35-year-old man being questioned in Antwerp, described as "very dangerous", had been sought by Belgian police as part of a separate probe.

During a search of his home, Belgian police found weapons, balaclavas and a train ticket for France departing Thursday morning, hours before the Paris assault.

In France meanwhile, three people known to the attacker were being questioned by anti-terror police, judicial sources said. The three were arrested during overnight raids in the eastern suburbs of Paris.
The shooting follows a series of strikes around Europe in the last month, targeting Stockholm, London and Saint Petersburg.

Police blocks the access to the Champs Elysees near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris after a shooting. (Photo: AFP)

Paris: The killing of a policeman on Pariss Champs Elysees, claimed by ISIS, rocked Frances presidential race Friday with just two days to go before voting in the closest election for decades.

Bloodshed had long been feared ahead of Sundays first round of the election after a string of attacks since 2015, and the shooting propelled the jihadist threat to the fore.

A note praising ISIS was found near the body of the 39-year-old French attacker, who shot dead one officer and wounded two others before being killed by police. The note bolstered ISIS claim that the perpetrator, named as Karim Cheurfi, was one of its fighters.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen  who is locked in a tight four-way contest with centrist Emmanuel Macron, conservative Francois Fillon and Communist-backed firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon  moved quickly to present herself as the toughest of the four on terrorism. This war against us is ceaseless and merciless, she said.

It was unclear how the election would be impacted by the shooting, which came days after two men were arrested in Marseille on suspicion of plotting an imminent attack.

The shooting follows a series of strikes around Europe in the last month, targeting Stockholm, London and Saint Petersburg.

Until now, surveys showed voters more concerned about unemployment and the economy than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this could change in the event of violence.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zanu-PF politicians in Mashonaland Central reportedly nearly came to blows at Independence Day celebrations in Bindura on Tuesday over sitting positions on the podium, with some supporting under-fire provincial chairperson Dickson, Mafios and others his deputy, Kazembe Kazembe.The two claim to be substantive chairpersons of the province Mafios is accused of working with his brother and political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, to form parallel structures meant to undermine President Robert Mugabe.Those fighting Mafios, including war veterans, reportedly wanted to embarrass him in front of multitudes of people if he insisted on sitting on the podium.
The girl, Thompson was charged with murder but pleaded guilty since she feared her familys safety.

Gippsland: A court in Australia has sentenced a teenager to 10 years in prison for murdering a young father, Jack Nankervis, by stabbing him 70 times with a knife and an axe in June 2014. The killing took place at a Morwell apartment in Gippsland, Victoria which belonged to the accused, Bonnie Sawyer-Thompson.

According to a report in Daily Mail, she was forced to commit the murder by her boyfriend, Phillip Mifsud, who threatened to kill her family and forcibly injected her with drugs. Thompson was charged with murder but pleaded guilty since she feared for her familys safety. She will be eligible for parole in four years.

The victim was with the girl and her boyfriend before he was murdered. All three had taken cannabis, GHB (Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) and ice. When Thompson attacked the victim, he was unable to defend himself due to intoxication.

Mifsud had walked out of the house before the incident. There were no charges against him over his alleged involvement in Nankervis's death.

Throughout their relationship, Thompson had been frequently abused by Mifsud, who made her swallow bullet cases and put a firecracker inside her clothes. He had also burnt her with cigarettes, injected her with drugs and broken a bottle on her head.
Since the 1990s, balanced diplomacy has become the basic principle of Nepal's foreign strategy.

Beijing: Nepal has scaled down the size of its first-ever military exercise with China after facing strong opposition from India, state-run Chinese media claimed

on Friday.

The 10-day joint military exercise, code-named 'Sagarmatha Friendship 2017', commenced in Nepal from April 16.

"It was said the two countries initially planned to hold a battalion-scale military exercises. However, facing a strong opposition from India, Nepal had to compress the size of the military exercise and change the venue to a military school,"an article in the state-run Global Times said.

"For Nepal, the joint military exercise has a deeper significance. For starters, it shows that Nepal moves forward in its pursuit of a balanced diplomacy among major powers.

Since the 1990s, balanced diplomacy has become the basic principle of Nepal's foreign strategy, which is established based on Nepal's nationalism and anti-Indian sentiment," the article said.

Chinese official media has been expressing its frustration over the fall of pro-China Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli who was replaced by Prachanda.

For China, the fall of the Oli regime was a big disappointment and a setback to its planned big push into Nepal through Tibet with rail and highway linkages to expand its influence in the landlocked country which was dependent on

India for all its supplies, according to analysts.

Prachanda sought to improve ties with India much to the chagrin of Beijing. "Nepal's dependence on India in political, economic, cultural and other aspects as well as India's ambition to make Nepal its sphere of influence has made most people in Nepal fear losing their national independence as Sikkim did," the

article claimed.

"Holding joint military exercises with China can contribute to deterring ethnic separatism in Nepal," it said without elaborating. China has expressed its backing for Nepal's new constitution which was strongly resisted by Madhesis over fears that it marginalised their political and constitutional rights.

"It is a normal development for China to hold a military exercise with Nepal as Nepal is China's friendly neighbour. There are many countries which have held joint military exercises, including India, with China. South Asia is a terrorism-prone region. Now that China and Nepal have developed closer economic relations, Nepal hopes to join China's Belt and Road initiative, for which regional security and stability is a necessity," it said.

The joint military exercise shows that the "bilateral diplomatic relations have expanded from political, economic and cultural to the field of military defence. But for China, this is just one aspect of the overall national security outlook proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping".

"Nepal has taken a cautious attitude to avoid provoking India. The drill does not violate the Treaty of Peace and Friendship inked by Nepal and India in 1950," it said.

"Due to geographic, political, economic, historic, religious and cultural factors, India has wielded much bigger influence over Nepal than China. Nepal cannot cut its economic ties with India," it said.

India views small South Asian countries such as Nepal and Bhutan as its "sphere of influence and a strategic buffer zone against China". "It sees their relations with China from a geopolitical standpoint and a Cold-War mentality," it said.

"Given the rise of nationalism in India, especially the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments among India's diplomatic circles, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a tough China policy since assuming office. India is concerned about China's economic cooperation with South Asia and the region around the Indian Ocean and wants to push back China's influence," it claimed.

Over the past two years, "India has raised a couple of unreasonable requests toward and imposed pressure on China, dragging the Sino-Indian relations into a vicious cycle".

If New Delhi does not change its mentality, it will be "paranoid" about every cooperation between China and South Asian countries, it said. "China has a clear-cut approach toward China-Nepal-India trilateral relations. It hopes Nepal can become a bridge between China and India. By pushing forward the China-Nepal-India economic corridor, it can boost development in all three countries. No matter how India views cooperation between China and Nepal, such cooperation will continue to expand, as it fits the interests of both peoples," it said.

Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is in India on her first overseas tour. She arrived on a five-day trip to India on April 17.
China said Arunachal Pradesh was historically part of their country and termed the renaming of 6 places as a legitimate action.

Beijing: India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warned on Friday, dismissing as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Referring to allegations that it was "silly for China" not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said "these comments are absurd.

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China' said.

The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi. "If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily said.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'. China on April 19 announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the north-eastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action". The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

India yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Chinese Foreign Ministrys spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."

He also said more standardised names will be announced later. "In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names," he said.

Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, "China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."

"Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," it said. "India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China.

But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table," it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
The women reportedly had raised slogans in jubilation after killing Abbas saying, We have eliminated a blasphemer.

The police said that the women had hidden pistols under their burqa. (Photo: Representational)

Lahore: Three burqa-clad sisters in Pakistan's Punjab province allegedly shot dead a 50-year-old man who was a suspect in a 13-year-old blasphemy case.

The incident took place yesterday in Nangal Mirza village, Pasrur tehsil, some 180km from Lahore. According to police, three veiled women, who are sisters - Afshan, Anma and Razia - came to the house of faith healer Mazhar Hussain Syed to take his blessings for resolution of their problems.

"The women, after taking his blessings, asked him to call his son Fazal Abbas, who recently returned from Belgium, as one of them remained his student and wanted to see him.

As soon as Abbas entered the room they opened fire on him, killing him on the spot," Station House Officer (Pesrur) Saeed Hinjra said, adding the women had hid pistols under their burqa.

"We have arrested all three women who told police that they had killed a blasphemer. They had no regret over it. One of the women remained student of the victim some 13 years ago when he allegedly committed blasphemy," Hinjra said.

The SHO said police were interrogating the women whether there was some other motive behind Abbas' killing. It seems surprising that how come three sisters had taken this extreme step on the issue which was 13 years old. We are also investigating the role of some local clerics, Hinjra said.

The women reportedly had raised slogans in jubilation after killing Abbas saying "We have eliminated a blasphemer". "We couldn't kill Abbas 13 years ago because we were too young then," the SHO quoted one of the suspects.

He said Abbas was booked in 2004 under blasphemy section 295-C of Pakistan Penal Code, better known as the Blasphemy Law. Abbas had left for Belgium to avoid the wrath of the local clerics.

The suspect had recently returned from abroad and obtained pre-arrest bail from a local court in the blasphemy case.
Land in My uc, a suburban district in the capital, is at the centre of the dispute. For days, residents have held 20 cops and local officials as hostages. The authorities sent Ha Noi mayor to mediate, but protesters refused to meet him. Instead, they said they are ready to set the hostages on fire in case of armed intervention.

Ha Noi (AsiaNews/Agencies)  A group of farmers in a standoff with Communist authorities over land rejected talks with Ha Noi mayor and still hold 20 hostages, including police agents and local officials.

Protesters decided to resist the threat of force and sealed off the village. They also poured fuel around the building where the prisoners are being held, threatening to set them on fire in case of an attack.

The dispute began last Saturday in My uc, a suburban district of Ha Noi, when local officials clashed with residents over land seized for sale to a military-run telecommunications company.

In a country where private property is not recognised and land and assets can be easily seized, local residents put up fierce opposition, setting up barricades with logs, sandbags, and bricks to stop outsiders from entering the village.

In addition, protesters made not so subtle threats against the hostages. In case of a police action, they said they were ready to set fire to the building holding police and local officials.

A woman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that villagers took a series of "preventive" measures against the police after spotting signs that the latter were planning to intervene.

She added that farmers had poured fuel around the building where the 20 detainees are kept. We will make our move if the police attack us, she said, suggesting the farmers might set fire to the structure.

So far, the hostages have been treated well and receive three meals a day. Initially, there were 38 of them, police officers and local officials, but whilst three managed to escape, another 15 were released on Monday. Twenty people are still held, including "two top local officials".

Under government instruction, Ha Noi Mayor Nguyen uc Chung tried to mediate, in vain. The farmers asked for a face to face meeting at the ong Tam municipal building. The authorities instead proposed a meeting at a building at a distance from the disputed area.

Some 47 hectares of farmland are at the centre of the dispute. The military-run Viettel Group, the countrys largest phone operator, wants them for its own use.

Local media have given the affair limited coverage, perhaps under government orders. Some articles published in recent days on some newspaper websites disappeared after a few hours.

Le Luan, a lawyer and activist who came to the area to act as a mediator, said that residents "just want to engage in dialogue with the authorities. However, "It is difficult to foresee how the authorities will act to settle the issue."

Land is a major issue in Vietnam as a result of repeated abuses and grabs against individuals and community. What is more, it is not only a legal and constitutional problem, but also a brake on the countrys economic development.

Social tensions sparked by land disputes risk keeping foreign investors away, thus undermining growth prospects. For its part, the Vietnamese Bishops 'Conference has stood on the side of ordinary people.

In recent years, the Vietnamese Church and the Catholic community have repeatedly clashed with authorities over land. On several occasions, the bishops have intervened on behalf of church members as well as the poor, who are often abused by the authorities.
The author was known by the security forces as dangerous. The attack a few days ahead of the presidential election. The long series of violence in Paris, Nice, Rouen, and Marseilles. Causes to be found among poverty and abandonment in the suburbs, but also of the fundamentalist teaching of many imams in the French mosques.

Paris (AsiaNews) - A suspected terrorist, already known by security forces, killed a policeman and injured two more last night at 9am on the Champs Elisees. The attack, claimed immediately after by the Islamic State, takes place three days ahead of the presidential elections in the country.

The attacker's driver was driving an Audi 80 along the avenue when he stopped in front of a police car and fired with a machine gun. After killing one of the policemen and injuring two other colleagues, he was killed by other security soldiers.

A statement published on the IS news agency Amaq states that "the author of the attack on the Champs Elisees in central Paris is Abu Yussef, a Belgian, and he is one of the Islamic State fighters." According to some sources, the man was known by anti-terrorist forces and considered dangerous.

The attack seems to coincide with the conclusion of the presidential election campaign, somehow influencing the outcome, though according to sociological research, French voters are more concerned with issues such as unemployment and buying power than terrorism.

The attack takes place two days after the arrest in Marseilles of two men preparing an attack with weapons and explosives.

France has been tackling Islamic terrorism for a long time. There have been several attacks since 2015 that have killed more than 230 people. Among the most cruel, the January attack on Charlie Hebdo should be remembered; In November of the same year an attack on several sites, including the Bataclan Theater; In July 2016 an attack on the Nice seafront, the same month the killing of Fr. Jacques Hamel in a church of St Etienne du Rouvray, near Rouen.

Analysts point out the social origin of the attackers (abandoned suburbs, unemployment, etc.), but many instead blame the education that young people and adults receive in mosques from fundamentalist imams. Nimes Imam Hocine Drouiche commented on yesterday's attack on social media: "I call upon all the imams to condemn this attack with great firmness in all the French mosques and to launch an open and courageous campaign that fights the terrorist ideas of this Islamic current. The policy of hiding our heads in the sands is no longer valid and it will be considered by many French as a complicity. Muslim leaders, imams, and preachers must do their duty or resign immediately."
Fazal Abbas was 45 years old. In 2004 he attended a demonstration and had been denounced for offending the prophet. He had fled abroad and had recently returned to Pakistan to face trial. Between 1987 and 2015, at least 62 people were assassinated for alleged blasphemy.

Sialkot (AsiaNews) - Three Pakistani sisters have confessed to shooting and killing a man accused of blasphemy 13 years ago. The victim, Fazal Abbas, 45, of a Shiite confession, was shot dead by one of the three women who had been introduced to his house with an excuse.

While investigations are still underway, the assassins were transferred to the district prison in Sialkot, Punjab province. According to information gathered by local police, the three sisters were instigated by Maulavi Muhamamd Shafiq Dogar, the imam of the mosque of Pasrur, the town where the latest attack perpetrated on religious grounds took place on mere suspicion of having offended the prophet.

The assassination occurred yesterday evening. Syed Azhar Husain Shamsi, uncle of the victim, said that women - Amna, Afshan and Razia Bibi - covered by the traditional Islamic veil, came to Abbas's house pretending to be relatives. At the sight of the man, one of them pulled out a gun from beneath her veil and shot him dead.

The women confessed that they wanted to kill the alleged blasphemer for years, since he was indicted in 2004 for insulting Islam, but at the time of the case were "too young". "We finally killed the blasphemer. Allah is great, "they told the police gathering their confession.

In March 2004, Abbas participated in a procession in the city of Pasrur. After that incident, Imam Dogar filed a complaint against the man who, in order to escape arrest, fled to Denmark and gained Danish nationality. But the accusation of blasphemy persecuted him throughout his exile. For this reason, he had recently decided to return to Pakistan and face the trial after the local court had granted him bail.

Abbas's murder is just the latest in a long and bloody series carried out in Pakistan in the name of alleged blasphemy. The last case that caused great shock was the lynching of Mashal Khan, the student of Mardan University who was tortured to death by his fellow students, all under the watchful eye of the phones filming the scene. Prior to him, at least another 62 people were killed between 1987 and 2015, including former Punjab ruler Salman Taseer, punished for criticizing the "black law" on blasphemy and defending Asia Bibi, the Christian mother who has spent seven years on death row awaiting trial. Just yesterday, on the wave of disdain over the students assassination, the lawyer announced that Asias trial could resume shortly, perhaps in June.
The Guardians Council approved six names out of a total of 1600 aspiring presidents. The nomination of 130 women rescinded, the 2017 vote men only. Economy and nuclear agreement remain the hot topics. Third-term for the former ultra-conservative president blocked, considered a figure "divisive" by Khamenei.

Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The upcoming presidential elections in Iran, scheduled for May 19, are likely to be between outgoing Head of State Hassan Rouhani, and chief conservative Ebrahim Raisi. The Guardians Council, however, have excluded former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the list, who had submitted for a third term despite the contrary opinion of the great ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In view of the vote, more than 1600 candidates were registered on the electoral rolls to serve as President. However, the Council has only allowed six in total. Other challengers are: the hard line exponent Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, conservative Mostafa Mirsalim, former Minister Mostafa Hashemitaba and Rouhani's ally and former vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri.

Former President Ahmadinejad and his ally and faithful Hamid Baghaie have been excluded. The candidacy of over 130 women was also rejected. The 2017 presidential elections in Iran will be reserved - as always - to men.

Thus the candidacy of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is definitely over. He returned to the political scene mid-April, announcing to general amazement, his registration on the lists.

Contrary to Khamenei's statement that he had "blocked" his attempts to gain a third term, believing his figure is too "divisive", the ultraconservative leader dismissed the words of supreme leadership as a "advise." However, a few days later the negative opinion of the Guardians Council put an end to his ambitions.

Analysts and experts agree that the upcoming elections will be between moderate Rouhani and conservative Raisi, candidate of the radical wing, and the economic theme, in addition to the nuclear agreement, will be crucial to convincing the electorate.

Rouhani's main challenger is a loyal friend of ayatollah Ali Khamenei's. Defined as the "champion" of the Shiite spiritual leadership and Shi'ite institution of Iran, he is a hard-line exponent who opposes the current leadership. Raisi is the leader of the powerful charity foundation Astan Quds Razavi, the guardian of the Imam Reza mausoleum, one of the most important places for Shiite pilgrims in Mashaad, a northeastern city and the birthplace of the presidential candidate.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, all the leaders of the Republic have been re-elected for a second term, but the re-election of the outgoing president is not at all desirable, although the conservative and radical faction appears internally fragmented.
by Melani Manel Perera

Dilani Dharshani, 25, has a Buddhist father and a Catholic mother. She grew up going to Mass with her mother, and praying in her own unique way. Her path to conversion lasted more than a year under a nuns guidance. She is looking forward to becoming "the daughter of God".

Colombo (AsiaNews)  Dilani Dharshani, 25, came close to Christianity through her mother, who wanted a Catholic groom for her. Now, "With great joy I will be a Catholic bride in Gods presence," she told AsiaNews.

A Buddhist, she thought long and hard about leaving her faith since "for so many years I went to the temple and I was used to seeing the symbols of Buddhism."

Eventually, she heeded the advice of Sister Freeda, a nun from the convent of the Holy Family of Naalawalana, who has been her spiritual guide on the path of faith.

The sister invited her to be inspired "from the life and teachings of Jesus and put them into practice" in her own life, then reminded her that "God does not just choose anyone. He chooses one in a thousand."

Dilani was born into a family with a Buddhist father and a Catholic mother. She said that since she was little she went to church with her mother, "not always, but certainly on feast days. I also recited the prayers in my own unique way."

She grew up with the example of her mother who also went to the temple out of respect for her father. But when it was time to choose a groom for her daughter, she told Dilani that she would like her to be the wife of a Catholic man. For her part, Dilani did not object since she had been immersed in the Christian faith at home since she was little.

When she was introduced to Rodny Sheron Fernando, she was very happy. When her future family-in-law asked her to convert before marriage, she had some doubts. Until then she had followed her mothers example who, while living in a mixed marriage, also attended Buddhist ceremonies.

Likewise, she had always lived in an area full of Buddhist religious symbols, and the idea of moving to a Catholic village at first frightened her.

In the end, faith in God was stronger than any other remorse she might have had, and now she is ready to marry before the Lord. For more than a year, she has followed a reflection course, led by Sister Freeda. She received her baptism on 5 April, and her communion on 11 April.

The marriage with Rodny will be celebrated on 6 May in the Church of Our Lady of Suffering in Nainamadama, in the diocese of Chilaw (on the west coast of Sri Lanka).

Dilani is waiting for that moment with trepidation, because "my boyfriend has a kind heart and loves me a lot."

"I am happy that God has chosen me among a thousand. Thanks to this marriage, I will become his daughter."
A webcast with the magnate was interrupted under pressure from the Chinese government. Guo wanted to speak about corruption among Chinas Communist leaders. Beijing got Interpol to issue an arrest warrant against him. Guo accuses Wang Qishan and his family. Wang is the public face of Chinas anti-corruption drive, and Xis close friend.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, who is wanted by Interpol, is at the centre of a story of corruption, spying, and charges against the Chinese government.

Guo, who heads a real estate empire, owns assets estimated at around 120 billion yuan (US$ 17.4 billion).

For the past two years he has been living in the United States, probably because of allegations of corruption that have accumulated against him over recent years.

Two days ago, he had a long interview with the Voice of America radio (VoA), deemed a pillar of freedom of expression, never subject to Chinese power.

In the highly anticipated webcast, Guo was supposed to talk about corruption among high ranking Chinese officials. Instead of lasting three hours, it was interrupted after an hour.

Journalists at VoA said that days before the interview the Chinese government had put pressure on the broadcaster to cancel it.

In a statement, VoAs public relations director Bridget Serchak said: In a miscommunication, the stream was allowed to continue beyond the first hour. When this was noticed the feed was terminated. We will release content from these interviews and will continue to report on corruption issues.

On the same day of the interview, Interpol issued a red notice for Guos arrest on corruption charges, following a request from the Chinese government. China's Deputy Security Minister, Meng Hongwei, is Interpol's current head.

In addition, on the day of the interview, 19 April, state media broadcast the "confession" of former Deputy Minister of State Security, Ma Jian.

In the video, Ma claims that he received gifts worth 60 million yuan (US$ 8.7 million) from Guo in exchange of favours like wiretaps from competitors, stopping police investigations into Guos affairs and those of his company, and threats against journalists who wrote damaging articles about him.

During the VoA interview, Guo said that claims that he bribed Ma Jian were incorrect. However, they do highlight the links of corruption between politicians and business people.

In the past few years, President Xi Jinping has been involved in a fight against corruption, which could bring down the Chinese Communist Party. For some however, the fight is politically motivated and aimed at eliminating his opponents.

For some time, Guo has been threatening to tell all about corruption in the Politburo. Reacting to the VoAs censorship and Interpol's arrest warrant, he said he wanted to disclose all the "overseas transactions" of Wang Qishan's family. Wang is the public face of Chinas anti-corruption drive, and Xis close friend.
News / National

by Itai Mushekwe/Mary-Kate Kahari

President Robert Mugabe's days in office are reportedly numbered, as an alleged secret confederacy inside and outside government wants him gone as soon as possible, before year end, while giving their preferred successor ample time to bring back the faction-torn ruling party together, with the goal of winning the much awaited 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections at all costs, Spotlight Zimbabwe reported.High ranking government insiders including two prominent ministers who requested not to be named, this week said the anti-Mugabe cartel, is not leaving anything to chance as they see the nonagenarian as a big political liability, likely to impede Zanu-PF's power retention next year. They said the country is not going to be the same within the coming six months, going on to predict a blood-bath, and possible assassinations and counter assassinations among feuding political camps inside the former liberation party.The disclosures come hard on the heels of the opposition sealing two crucial alliances in the past 48 hours, to challenge Mugabe in the watershed 2018 poll. MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was roaring with a new political spring in his step late Wednesday and yesterday, when he put pen to paper on two coalition agreement deals with fellow opposition leaders. Tsvangirai first met former vice president and National People's Party (NPP) boss, Joice Mujuru, at his Highlands residence for the brief signing presser, followed by MDC leader, Welshman Ncube, the following day.Although details of the agreements remain a close guarded secret, Spotlight Zimbabwe, can reveal that Tsvangirai is in delicate negotiations to offer and if they agree, both Mujuru and Ncube the vice presidency slots in the new grand government should they win power. Ncube's roping in is expected to see Tsvangirai winning a landslide of the Matabeleland vote, while Mujuru will bring with her Zanu-PF protest votes our information shows."The opposition is going to be very strong going into the 2018 elections," said one of the ministers. "This has presented a dilemma for the party, although many publicly stand with him (Mugabe), a good number want him to call it a day for the sake of winning those elections. Unfortunately matters have reached a climax behind the curtains, and I hear of a mafia-like confederacy hell bent on causing chaos, and creating order out of that choas, by forcing our leader out before year end to meet their hidden agenda."The others said there was risk of civil strife escalating, and the possibility of rule by decree, should this scenario of pushing Mugabe play out."Off course we are likely to witness bloodshed and possible assassinations and counter assassinations, like has never been seen before since the Independence of this country. A lot is at stake, however we hope it does not degenerate to those levels, but the power struggle to succeed the founding president has now reached its final and most dangerous phase."Adding political kerosene to the already raging fires of Mugabe's succession, and as if to confirm the danger at Mugabe's doorstep, the ruling party's under fire national political commissar and local government minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, told a private daily publication this week that his foes from another faction want him kicked out, because he was distressing their alleged agenda to remove Mugabe from power. Kasukuwere said his own investigations, and reports made available to his office revealed that the unnamed faction wants Mugabe out of power this year."My position in public and private has been clear, that president Mugabe was elected in 2013 and is our candidate for 2018. It must stand as a public record that president Mugabe should be allowed to do his job without being distracted by hopeless people who want his position," Kasukuwere was quoted as saying.Kasukuwere also fired salvos at Minister of State for Mashonaland Central province, Martin Dinha, claiming that he was being used as a pawn by "successionists" to make sure they toppled Mugabe before the next elections."Dinha is an instrument to aid the regime change agenda. His activities in Mashonaland Central are clearly aimed at advancing a factional position. He has made himself the point man to advance a so called alternative narrative and at the same time lying that he is close to the first family and abusing this theory. I will soon expose his hidden agenda at fast tracking regime change and I will dispose of all his allegations one by one. Besides the hidden agenda he is pushing at the behest of the real people who no longer want the president, he has a personal agenda where he asked me to help him lobby to be the minister of Justice. If he wants that job, he has to approach the appointing authority who is president Mugabe. I have served the president well and will not be moved from that by chancers like Dinha, who praise the first family during the day and plot his (Mugabe)'s downfall in the middle of the night together with his fellow successionists," Kasukuwere told the daily.Early this month, Spotlight Zimbabwe, reported that Mugabe was plotting to hand over power to his truculent wife, Grace, should he contest and win the 2018 plebiscite, thus possibly explaining why he is eager to go on to contest as Zanu-PF candidate one last time.Intelligence sources say the master plan of Mugabe stepping down for Grace, was in line with his family's broader goal of eventually making former reserve bank governor, Gideon Gono, the ultimate Zimbabwe president. Under a Grace presidency, as opposed to a looming vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa one, it will be easy to fast-track Gono into the top echelons of Zanu-PF and government it is thought.As first revealed by Spotlight Zimbabwe on 4 July 2016 Gono, is also allegedly being prepared by the national security apparatus, to revive Zanu-PF and topple Mujuru and Tsvangirai from power, should the duo win the 2018 elections instead of Zanu-PF.Mugabe's press secretary and spokesman, George Charamba, could not be reached for comment yesterday. His mobile phone was unreachable, while his office line went unanswered.
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Lawyers to be researched by Australian uni professor

The way in which being a lawyer has evolved  and continues to do so  will be studied by an academic from a Victoria-based university.



Dr Jeremy Kingsley has been awarded the Social Science Research Council Transregional Research Junior Scholar Fellowship at Swinburne University of technology and will research what it means to be a contemporary lawyer.



He will travel to Dubai, Jakarta and Singapore as part of his study and will intern at global law firms.



The nature of law is no longer bound by national jurisdictions but interfaces actively with international law and privatised legal spaces, Dr Kingsley said. Lawyers in Melbourne or Sydney can no longer consider themselves separate from their colleagues in Jakarta, Dubai and Singapore.



Asia Pacific gains seven new A&O partners

Almost a third of the new partners in the latest promotion round at Allen & Overy are in Asia Pacific.



The global firm has promoted 24 lawyers to its partnership across the world with seven in Asia Pacific including three in Sydney, three in Hong Kong and one in Jakarta.



A third of the promotions across 11 offices in 10 countries are in the corporate practice with six in banking and four each in international capital markets and litigation.



The new Australia-based partners are Connell ONeill (corporate), Jason Gray (litigation) and Ka Sen Wong (tax), all based in Sydney.



Michael Jacobs (corporate) Agnes Tsang (ICM) and Patrick Wong (banking) all make partner in Hong Kong (Jacobs promotion subject to work permit and completion of certain local regulatory formalities); while Michael Tardiff becomes a banking partner in Jakarta.



The promotions are effective 1 May 2017.



International firm weighs AI usage

Simmons & Simmons has teamed up with Neota Logic to explore ways to use artificial intelligence to deliver its legal services.



The international firm launched an innovation group last year to consider ways to accelerate new ways of delivering services and value to clients and the AI software offered by Neota Logic is being considered as part of that aim.



Jonathan Hammond, international financial markets group head and chairman of the firms innovation group, explained: "We know we want to focus on ideas that could change the way we work and the service we deliver to our client base. Neota Logic technology offers us new opportunities to explore how these ideas can be put into practice for our clients."
DibbsBarker has expanded its Melbourne office, hiring four lawyers from rival firms and the Supreme Court of Victoria three months after it opened its doors on Collins Street.Silvana Larobina, Joseph Ip, Richard Fong, and John Heard have joined the national firm since the start of the year.Larobina, who joins the firm as special counsel, has more than 12 years of experience in commercial litigation and insolvency. She specialises in contractual, commercial, and property disputes, as well as insolvency, restructuring, and banking litigation.She comes from Corrs Chambers Westgarth and she has also held an in-house role at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, specialising in banking litigation. Larobina joins the firms banking, insolvency, and disputes (BID) team in Melbourne, which is led by partner John Stragalinos.Ip, who joins the firm as senior associate, comes from King & Wood Mallesons. He focuses on complex leasing matters and property acquisitions and disposals. He advises developers, owners, and investors on development and redevelopment of commercial, industrial, retail and residential projects. He joins the firms property and projects team, which is led by Bill Burrough, senior partner and DibbsBarker board member.The firm also welcomed Fong as senior associate from Hall & Willcox. Fong, who has more than 10 years of experience, specialises on banking and finance matters, advising banks, lenders, financiers and corporate borrowers on a range of transactions that include acquisitions, project, and property development financings as well as agri-business and self-managed superannuation fund finance.Heard joins the firm as associate in the BID team. He specialises in insolvency, banking, and finance and has acted in commercial disputes and banking litigation. He joins the firm after being a senior associate to a judge in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
News / Press Release

by Ekem Moyo

As MDC-T Mat South, we are very concerned and worried by the detention of our members who were doing door to door campaign on Friday.We feel it is draconian and unfair, Zanu-PF activists are seen in many parts of the country doing their campaign without any harassment.It is our view as MDC-T Mat South that application of the law is subjective and one sided.It is our political right to campaign for our party as it is stated in the constitution.This subjective and one sided application of the law is meant to reverse the gains of our independence which came as a result of sacrifices of all Zimbabweans against the oppressors.The wind of change can never be stopped by willy nilly arrest of people exercising their democratic rights .The arrest should be blamed and condemned in strongest terms.To those incarcerated remain strong as this is a process towards liberating our country under the hands oppressors.Ekem MoyoMDC-T Mat South spokesperson
All-new car expected to debut in Brazil in the coming months; based on a stretched iteration of Fiat 326 modular architecture

Fiat has been extensively testing the replacement for the Punto internationally, ahead of the models expected debut sometime later this year. Codenamed X6H, the next-gen hatchback will be underpinned by a stretched iteration of the Fiat 326 modular architecture and will be badged as the Fiat Argo.

The current third-generation Fiat Punto has been around since 2005 and in its over-decade-long stint has received many updates. Some revisions have been like the India-specific updated Punto Evo on sale currently.

Images of test mules of the Argo have been doing the rounds on online portals with not much visible except for the basic outline of the body shell. Interior images of the test mule hint at a new interiors design with a steering wheel looking similar to the one on the Tipo hatchback. Other interior images have revealed the possibility of the new car receiving a City drive mode that could possibly up the cars mileage during city driving. Another addition to the cars interior could be the companys UConnect infotainment system.

Mechanically, the Argo is expected to use a mix of new and existing engines with the new units likely to include the companys 100hp, 1.4-litre four-pot petrol and a substantially larger 1.8-litre E-Torq petrol motor from the Toro pick-up. Fiat could also use the 0.9-litre TwinAir turbo-petrol motor in the hatchback though that option is likely to only be available in the Euro-spec car. The car is expected to be offered with manual and automatic gearbox options with interior images detailing a car with an automatic unit with steering-mounted paddles.

The next-gen Punto is expected to make its international debut in Brazil sometime later this year with Fiat Brazil having released a microsite for the new car.

It is not known if Fiat has any plans to bring the new car to India to replace the ageing Punto Evo. The automaker recently introduced a new entry-level Punto Evo Pure to replace the Punto Pure, an entry-level hatchback based on the old Punto on sale in the country.

Image source
The Vision E previews Skodas first all-electric model; expected to enter production in 2020.

The striking Skoda Vision E electric car concept has been revealed ahead of its Shanghai motor show debut. The 304hp production version of Skodas electric-powered crossover is predicted to hit 100kph from rest in just six seconds, about 0.5sec faster than an Octavia vRS hot hatch.

Significant for being the first Skoda concept powered by a battery-electric drivetrain, the Vision E is also a very good guide to a 2020 production electric crossover and sets out the Czech companys electrification strategy, which promises five fully-electric cars by 2025. The first electrified Skoda will be a plug-in hybrid version of the Superb launched in 2019. "By 2025, one in every four cars sold by Skoda worldwide should be a plug-in hybrid or have a purely electric drive," says the company.

Designed in the Czech Republic, the Vision E possesses purposeful proportions with tight front and rear overhangs, a pleasing sweeping roofline and strongly expressed feature lines. It sits on 2,851mm wheelbase, 60mm longer than Skodas new Kodiaq SUV and 10mm longer than the Superb saloon. It takes advantage of the floor-mounted battery and compact motors and drive components of the MEB electric car platform, which allows Skodas designers to push the front bulkhead farther forward than in an internal-combustion engine car.

Skoda says, there is seven per cent more internal space  a reference to the longer interior  and a seating position 25 per cent higher  a reference to the mildly-raised crossover roofline. Luggage space is described as roomier than usual. At 1,591mm high, the Vision E is also about two-thirds the height between the Kodiaq and the Superb, giving it tall car, crossover proportions.

The body features a generous hatchback opening, which further emphasises the Vision Es practicality. Skoda refers to the roofline as coupe-like and it does curve gracefully front to rear as it subsides towards the rear lamps.

To emphasise interior space, Skoda has designed clamshell-style doors in which the back pair hinges rearwards to give access to the cabin unhindered by a central pillar. A favourite of concept designs, it is most likely that the production car will feature a central pillar to ensure adequate side-impact safety.

Like all electric cars, there is no need for a conventional grille capable of flowing cooling air to a radiator. Instead, designers now have the freedom to create a new front face using shaped sheet metal and lighting, which Skodas designers have dubbed a phantom grille that appears as if it is present, but in reality isnt.

Trapezoidal front LED lamps are pushed to the extremities of the front face and are linked by an illuminated bar fashioned from crystal glass, one of the Czech Republics most famous exports.

Inside, Skodas designers have also penned a new look taking advantage of the flat-floor body architecture, which emphasises spaciousness.

A major change compared to an internal combustion engine car is the absence of a gearshift, a freedom that interior designer Peter Olah describes as paradise in design.

Olahs interiors feature a sweeping dashboard centred on a 12-inch touchscreen, centrally mounted and arranged in conventional landscape format, rather than Tesla and Volvos more contemporary portrait orientation.

New to Skoda is a dashboard architecture designed with a prominent step to allow the driver to steady his/her hand as functions are selected on the move. Full width across the dashboard is soft mood lighting, configurable in different hues.

In front of the driver is a two-spoke, multi-function wheel and a second flat screen for basic driving functions.

Two lithium-ion battery packs are being engineered for the Vision E and its VW Group platform twins  either an 80kW or a 50kW  are expected to be offered as individual models just as different engine capacities make up a car range today. These battery packs can then be combined with a choice of two motor outputs  175kW (237hp) on the rear axle and 50kW (68hp) on the front axle.

The motor power is rated in total at 305hp, but is split between two motors. It is assumed that one will power the front axle and the other the rear axle, but again, these details havent yet been released.

Skoda claims acceleration up to the car's top speed of 180kph is particularly smooth and dynamic. Skoda sources say that the maximum performance combination will still offer a 500km range, although a 237hp two-wheel drive Vision E equipped with a 80kW battery is tipped to offer an even longer range.

The production version of the Vision E goes on sale in 2020, although it is likely that the model range will be phased-in over 18 months.
We take a look at some of the interesting facts about the Tata Racemo sportscar.

At the Geneva motor show 2017, Tata took the wraps off of its first home-grown mid-engined sportscar, the Racemo. Developed under the carmakers new Tamo sub-brand, the Racemo is designed by the companys design studio in Turin, Italy, and features race-car-inspired styling derived from Tatas new Impact design language.

We take a look at some of the interesting facts about the Racemo.

1. Not Tatas first sportscar

The Racemo is far from Tatas first sportscar. The automaker had previously showcased an Aria roadster concept at the Geneva motor show 2000 with a coupe version debuting in the following year. The Racemo, however, unlike the Aria, which later went on sale in India as a premium MPV is expected to make its way to showrooms as early as the end of this financial year.

2. Built on a patented multi-material sandwich structure coined MOFlex

The Racemo is built on a patented multi-material sandwich structure which Tata has coined as MOFlex. The MOFlex sandwich structure consists of two composite skins with foam filling injected in-between to form an incredibly stiff and light panel. This production method also allows faster readiness for new vehicles. But the big advantage is that it gives great freedom in design and is extremely cost-effective for low volumes. This allows Tata to produce exciting-looking cars at an affordable price. The automaker also claims that its the first company to use this technology in the passenger car market.

3. Originally it wasnt meant for production

An interesting fact about the Racemo is that it was originally never meant to see the light of day as a physical creation. Tata had commissioned its design team in Turin to develop a car for digital racing platforms, though the team went ahead and develop a physical model which was then shown to the companys top management.

4. Head-turning design

Tata design team has gone to town with the Racemos styling. Its not a clean design like most of Tatas passenger cars, and instead is a fussy interplay of multiple surfaces and extreme shapes aimed at making heads turn and jaws drop. The wide front grille has a hint of the Tata family look, while the complex-looking rear, with its split and sculpted flying buttresses, seems to have been inspired by the BMW i8. The butterfly doors also add greatly to the wow factor.

5. Cabin straight out of a video game

The Racemos cabin, with three high-res screens, looks straight out of a video game. The button-festooned steering wheel has large, bright red paddle shifters behind them and the red accents are carried over to the switchgear, the pull straps for the door and the massive air con vents which look like the exhaust of a fighter jet.

6. Powered by a turbocharged 1.2-litre engine

Its under the hood that Tatas really packed a real shocker. While Tata is over the moon with the Racemos looks, the automaker has brought the car back down to earth in terms of engines. Whilst it has supercar-like independent double-wishbone suspension all around and a mid-engined layout, the engine compartment only houses a rather diminutive 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol motor. Tata claims that this twin-turbocharged iteration of its Revotron engine is good for 190hp at 6,500rpm; early simulations and tests dont see it revving beyond 5,500rpm. We are also a touch sceptical about the claimed power output which works out to a potent 159hp/litre. Its hard to achieve such a high specific output without sophisticated valve timing and direct injection.

7. Uses a six-speed AMT gearbox

If the engine wasnt enough of a shocker, Tata has opted to use a six-speed AMT gearbox in conjunction with the engine. AMT gearboxes have generally been deemed as slow and clunky with the best use being for budget cars. However, the Lamborghini Aventador also comes with its own derivative of an AMT gearbox, so well have to see how Tata has addressed the limitation of this gearbox technology.

8. Will feature connected car technologies

The Racemo will also feature connected car technologies from Tatas new partnership with Microsoft. The company hasnt divulged specific details yet, but says the car will have advanced navigation, predictive maintenance, remote monitoring and over-the-air updates using Microsoft cloud-based technologies. Drivers will be able to interact with these tech bits via three displays mounted ahead of the steering.

9. Will be Indias first kit car

Interestingly, the Racemo is set to become Tatas first kit car. The cars MOFlex structure will allow the car to be built from just a handful of larger, basic modules instead of the hundreds of small components that typically make a regular car.

Guenter Butschek, CEO of Tata Motors, told us that the Racemo will indeed be built at workshop setups around the country and not necessarily from a large, central factory; a hint of this being the Made in Mumbai decal that the show car sported. Elaborating further, Butschek said that dealers, except those willing to scale up to this operation model, won't be retailing this car.

10. Estimated price of Rs 25 lakh

When the Racemo does go on sale in India, we could expect a sticker price in the region of Rs 25 lakh.

Also read

Tata Racemo: A closer look

Tata unveils stunning Racemo sports coupe

Tata Racemo image gallery

Tamo Racemo to be India's first kit car
Photo of 2017 Ioniq Electric courtesy of Hyundai.

Hyundai will offer its 2017 Ioniq Electric compact sedan as part of a subscription program in California that allows users to drive the car for at least $275 per month plus tax for 36 months without mileage penalties.

Hyundai will also reimburse users for the cost of electricity based on the number of miles driven up to 50,000 miles.

Hyundai will offer three subscription packages under the Ioniq Unlimited+ program, including the Electric for $275, Limited for $305, and Limited with Ultimate Package for $365 per month.

Customers must put down a $2,500 down payment that's reimbursed through California's electric vehicle rebate.

Hyundai will initially offer the program in Southern California in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties.
Photo of the Opel Grandland X courtesy of Opel.

Opel has revealed the Opel Grandland X compact SUV, the third member of the automakers Opel X family line of SUVs which look to capitalize on the increasing popularity of SUVs.

The Opel Grandland X will have space for up to five passengers and will feature a host of safety technologies, including Adaptive Cruise Control with pedestrian detection, automatic emergency braking, driver drowsiness alert, and advanced park assist, according to Opel. It also features Adaptive Forward Lighting LED headlamps which offers functions that includes cornering light, high beam assist, and auto levelling.

The Grandland X, which will join the Opel Crossland X and Opel Mokka X on the automakers Opel X line of SUVs, features a luggage compartment load volume of up to 58 cu. ft. (1,652 liters), according to the automaker. The vehicle also features five driving modes with a system that adapts the torque distribution to the front wheels, allow wheel-spin if necessary, and an automatic transmission that adjusts shift points as well as throttle response. This helps adjust traction and keeps stable handling depending on weather conditions.

The connectivity features on the Grandland X includes IntelliLink systems and the connectivity assistant Opel OnStar, which offers services that includes the ability to book hotel rooms. It will also feature the ability to charge smartphones wirelessly via inductive charging.

Interior features of the vehicle include ergonomic seats, heated steering wheels, seat heating front and rear, and a tailgate that opens with a simple foot movement. The center stack features three horizontal rows of controls for access to infotainment, climate control, and chassis functions.

The Opel Grandland X will make its debut at this years International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany, Sep. 14 to 24. The SUV will go on sale in early 2018.
Photo courtesy of Mex Rent A Car

Mex Rent A Car has launched in Iceland by opening an affiliate location at Keflavik International Airport.

This new location in Icelands capital city of Reykjavik helps Mex Rent A Car continue its expansion in Europe.

We are so excited to have found a great affiliate for this amazing country, said Jordi Rivero, Mexs chief product officer.

Guoni Gunnarsson, the manager of the affiliate location, said, "We are really excited to start working with the Mex guys."

Iceland is a country that has been a disruptive leader, socially, economically and politically, said Javier Garcia, Mexs chief business development officer. For Mex Rent A Car, its important to have presence in such a beautiful and exotic country and be able to exchange progressive ideas.
Continental Motors is working with the FAA to dispel what they see as confusion and unnecessary concern about a mandatory service bulletin (MSB) issued by Continental Motors in early 2017 for a camshaft gear found mostly in older IO-520 and IO-550 engines. Several GA groups, including AOPA, the American Bonanza Society, COPA, Twin Cessna Flyer and Savvy Aviation were sufficiently exercised about MSB05-08B that they requested an audience with the FAA without inviting anyone from Continental. A Continental representative called that decision disappointing and said it was bizarre that a meeting was organized with the FAA [on this topic] without including Continental. Continental was particularly bothered by an assertion made by Savvy Aviation, among others, that Continental had requested an Airworthiness Directive be issued for the part, possibly in an attempt to gouge consumers on replacement parts. In an email Continental shared with AVweb, the FAA confirmed that Continental had not requested an airworthiness directive and that MSB05-08B was prompted by a request from the FAA to conform the Service Bulletin to a format suitable for adoption as an AD.

Continental tells AVweb they are seeking FAA approval to make three changes to MSB05-08B in order to minimize compliance costs for operators. First, the camshaft gear can be inspected without significant disassembly by removing the starter. Continental is proposing that the part be inspected periodically and continue on condition if no damage is found. Second, Continental is proposing that the engine not be subject to a mandatory overhaul time periodthough they continue to recommend overhaul after 12 years. Third, Continental will publish instructions for replacement of the camshaft gear that do not require engine disassembly. The MSB, and the AD likely to be released by the FAA, apply only to Continental engines using a camshaft gear last made by Continental in summer of 2005, so any engines built after August 2005 or overhauled since August 2005 in accordance with Continentals Service Bulletins are unaffected.
Subsidized by local funds from Fresno County, a fleet of four Pipistrel Alpha Electro trainers will be made available for primary training in Californias Central Valley late this year, program organizers hope. Fresno County will be installing chargers for the aircraft at four local airports: Mendota, Reedley, Fresno Chandler and a fourth airport to be determined. The Alpha Electro has a maximum endurance of approximately 90 minutes and an 85-knot cruising speed, making round-trip, cross-country flights a stretch. Joseph Oldham, Sustainability Manager for the City of Fresno, told AVweb that the fourth airport will ideally be just over 50 NM, permitting the Alphas to make one-way flights meeting private pilot cross-country training requirements, recharge in about 45 minutes and return home. The fallback plan is for students to do cross-country training in the piston-powered version of the Alpha.

Oldham told attendees at the Sustainable Aviation Symposium that Fresno hopes to have the new aircraft on hand and high-voltage chargers installed at the four chosen airports by the fall of this year. The FAA has not yet released a paradigm for approving electric propulsion airplanes, either in certified aircraft or in light sports, as Pipistrel plans for the Alpha Electro. Oldham is travelling to Washington next week to meet with the FAA about approval of electric LSAs, the last major hurdle in Fresnos race to get the Alpha Electros into service. The aircraft will likely be available for rent by area pilots, but the priority users of the aircraft will be veterans and low-income youth seeking primary flight training.
21 April 2017 18:07 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

As soon as the Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sarkisian took office last October, he began to generate ideas of military nature, but none of them was positively accepted by the Armenian society.

His main idea was the creation of the 'nation-army' concept. It assumed that not only those who serve in the Armenian army but the entire population of the country must be engaged in numerous programs related to army  scientific, research, industrial and others.

It seems that the Armenian President liked this strange idea, as the Armenian government launched the realization of this concept. Sargsyan has also participated in the Nation-Army-2017 conference on April 20.

At the event, the minister Sarkisian unveiled his new ideas that are clearly aimed at the militarization of the Armenian population. He proposed two programs on the military service  I have the honor and Its me.

The first program targets for the university graduates of Armenia  they are proposed to serve in the army for three years with the rank of Lieutenant. Upon completion of the service, they will receive financial assistance for their Masters studies. It is noteworthy that their service period will be extended for a year in this case  currently Armenians serve for two years in the army.

The second program is designed for those recruits who wish to serve on the border  that means mainly in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. In this case, they will serve same three years and will get five million drams ($10,300) at the end.

It is obvious that military service in Armenia is very unpopular and the authorities go all out to change the situation. However, the solution to the problem is quite simple. To make the service attractive, the Armenian authorities just need to provide law and order in their armed forces, so that the soldiers could finally serve in normal conditions.

The situation in the Armenian army units leave much to be desired. Soldiers of some Armenian units do not receive even the minimum of the necessary provision. The soldiers are fed with poor-quality food, while unsanitary conditions prevail in military units; contagious diseases, especially the infectious ones are wide-spread there.

In addition to these terrible conditions, the Armenian army officers often abuse their soldiers, as well as steal and sell their clothes and food. There are also many deaths of Armenian soldiers in mysterious circumstances.

It is noteworthy that the second program that Sarkisian proposed is quite absurd. While Armenian mothers regularly gather in front of government agencies demanding to punish the killers of their sons, who died in non-combat conditions in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Sarkisian wants to attract more recruits to Nagorno-Karabakh by proposing them much money.

Thus, instead of coming to the negotiation table with Azerbaijan over the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Armenian government is clearly trying to militarize its nation. While the Armenians and Azerbaijanis can live in peace after resolving this conflict, the Armenian authorities try to increase the hatred of its citizens to their neighbors.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
21 April 2017 10:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Mechanisms created to expand and encourage exports of non-oil products in Azerbaijan are gradually bearing fruit.

This was stated by Vice President of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Yusif Abdullayev.

Abdullayev, talking to reporters on April 19, said that is important that these mechanisms not only exists, but brings concrete results.

"As you know, one of the main mechanisms was the promotion of Made in Azerbaijan brand abroad. Almost all the tools within the framework of this mechanism are already involved, but not all demonstrate results, because some of them require significantly more time. For example, access to the Duty Free network. We met with airport representatives last year, but there is a certain time during the year when airports are considering applications. But most instruments [for encouraging non-oil exports] - organizing exhibitions, exporting missions, and so on - work and bring results. This pleases us and entrepreneurs," Abdullayev said.

The results of this work can be seen and tracked through statistical data, he noted.

"If we compare the indicators of the first quarter of the current year with the indicator of the same period of the previous year, the non-oil export of Azerbaijan increased by 8.6 percent. If you look at separate indicators, then the export of vegetables grew by 45 percent, fruit exports - by 20 percent, cotton exports - by 3.6 times. A similar growth was observed in the supply of milk and dairy products abroad. The export of wine grew by 29 percent, the export of juices - by 41 percent. These are real figures, real results, which show that the mechanisms are working," AZPROMO Vice-President said.

Currently, the work is underway to further promote Made in Azerbaijan brand, according to Abdullayev.

"Furthermore, we are actively working on the products of Made in Azerbaijan brand on the shelves at SOCAR's gas stations abroad - in Georgia, Ukraine, and Switzerland. In addition, we are developing joint plans with AZAL to provide Azerbaijani goods on board during flights. We are working on expanding the list of exported products, for which part of the costs are being returned, and will soon submit an expanded list to the government," he noted.

Touching upon the details of the return of part of the costs for the export of non-oil products (compensation is stipulated in the amount of 3-6 percent of the customs value of the goods), Abdullayev said that entrepreneurs actively use this mechanism.

"It is worth noting that only in the first quarter of 2017 we received 84 appeals, for which 520,000 manats was returned to exporters. And in total, since the introduction of this program in October last year, we received 140-145 appeals, and the amount of returned funds amounted to more than 1 million manats. It is good that since the beginning of this mechanism, only producers of wine and alcohol products received about 50 percent of the returned funds. Also, 130 investment promotion certificates have been granted to Azerbaijani investors since last year and the total amount of funds to be invested in the projects will amount to 1.25 billion manats, he said.

This will lead to the opening of more than 8,000 new jobs, according to Abdullayev.

As of today, 92 trademarks of Azerbaijan are protected under the Made in Azerbaijan brand, while the countrys total outputs nears 250 kinds of products in food, light, heavy and construction industries. The brand is highly successful in regional and world markets, and Azerbaijans local output meets all the necessary standards.

Azerbaijan has trade operations with 137 countries in the first two months of 2017, while it exported goods to 77 countries and imported goods from 132.

The foreign trade turnover during the reported period hit $3,288 billion, with exports worth $2,316 billion. Some 42.9 percent of trade turnover fell to share of the EU countries, 11.2 percent - the CIS member states and other countries of the world accounted for 45.9 percent.

In January-February 2017, the volume of the non-oil exports hit $ 176.2 million, which is 0.3 percent more compared to 2016 compared in real terms, according to the State Statistics Committee.

Meanwhile, Vusal Gasimli, the executive director of the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications stated that since the beginning of activity, Azexport portal has accepted orders for the supply of non-oil products worth $100 million.

"Most often through the portal orders of agricultural products - onions, potatoes, poultry meat, milk powder, and fruit  are accepted. I am glad that not only agricultural raw materials are in demand, but also ready-made local food products, including wine and brandy. Also, the orders for the supply of furniture and industrial goods, such as aluminum products are being made through the portal," the executive director said.

The website supports Azerbaijani exporters as due to the website, entrepreneurs get rid of the process of negotiations with potential customers, or from the need to analyze new markets, according to Gasimli.

"We also started preparing the Export Review, which will be updated on a monthly basis. The review will reflect information on the structure of non-oil exports of Azerbaijan, the countries where we deliver our products, as well as information on orders that are received by the Azexport portal," he added.

Integrating with the most popular electronic trading networks azexport.az, provides information about local Azerbaijani products, being a beneficial platform for sales in foreign and domestic markets. The representation of local production in international platforms, including Alibab.com, has increased almost 50 times after the launch of the portal.

Being available in the Azerbaijani, Russian and English languages, the portal acts as a single digital destination for trade, bringing together and connecting local entrepreneurs, international buyers and international investors. The portal offers fast and secure payment to VISA, Master Card and American Express cards owners.

The export promotion portal received export offers worth some $4.63 million in January 2017, while the bulk of the orders came from Russia, Turkey, Iraq, Bulgaria, Libya, Moldova and other countries.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
21 April 2017 12:33 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The energy-rich countries of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf  Azerbaijan and the UAE, which enjoy very fruitful bilateral relations in various fields, discussed strengthening of their economic ties.

A delegation of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs led by Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev had a meeting with the management of DP World Company in Dubai, said the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry.

The Azerbaijani delegation was informed about the work carried out by the DP World Group in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the Alat township of Bakus Garadagh district. The sides discussed the general plan on construction of industrial and logistics infrastructure, development concept of the free trade zone and other issues.

Measures on creation of a free trade zone type special economic area covering the territory of the Baku International Sea Trade Port in the Alat township of Bakus Garadagh district was inked by a presidential decree on March 17, 2016.

In September 2016, the Azerbaijani government and Dubai Port World (DP World), one of the worlds major port operators, signed an agreement on provision of consulting services for the creation of the FTZ.

During the visit, the Azerbaijani delegation also met with the management of VPS Healthcare Company.

Mustafayev recalled that currently, two medicine plants are being built in Azerbaijans Pirallahi Industrial Park, which specializes in pharmaceutics.

The minister noted that negotiations are also underway with other medicine producers.

Recalling that the Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) and VPS Healthcare signed a memorandum of understanding in February, Mustafayev said that the groundbreaking ceremony of a joint pharmaceutical plant will be held in the near future.

Moreover, a business forum, which was attended by entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan and the UAE operating in the spheres of industry, agriculture, construction, finance, tourism and others, was also held in Dubai.

The Azerbaijani delegation invited the UAE businessmen to invest in priority spheres of the Azerbaijani economy, such as industry, agriculture, IT and tourism.

Then the Azerbaijani delegation visited the Lulu supermarket chain and met with the companys management. Participants of the meeting discussed the issues of cooperation and sale of Azerbaijani products in the companys trade facilities located in the UAE and Gulf countries. It was noted that Azerbaijani products are in great demand in the UAE and some Azerbaijani goods, are already sold in Lulu supermarkets.

Azerbaijani entrepreneurs also visited the Union Coop chain of supermarkets and met with its management. During the meeting, the possibility of selling Azerbaijani products, especially fruits and vegetables, in Union Coop supermarkets was discussed. Representatives of the company noted that certain Azerbaijani products, which are in great demand in the UAE, are already sold in these supermarkets.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
21 April 2017 17:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

A strong and more stable bank is expected to appear in the banking market of Azerbaijan following the merger of AtaBank and Caspian Development Bank.

The Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FIMSA) will take an active part in the process of merging these two banks and its main priority will be to protect the interests of customers.

"The merger of the banks will be successful," said Imran Mammadov, member of the board at FIMSA, at a press conference dedicated to the decision of reorganization and liquidation of the Caspian Development Bank and transferring of its assets to AtaBank, held in Baku on April 21.

Mammadov believes that the merger of AtaBank and Caspian Development Bank will allow creating a stronger and more stable bank. We have been studying the possible impact of the consolidation on the two banks financial stability, as well as its effect on the entire banking sector, for the last 2-3 months, he underlined.

In accordance with the decision made at the general shareholders meeting of these banks, Dayanat Guliyev will serve as acting chairman of AtaBanks board and Farah Mammadova will be acting chairperson of the banks supervisory board.

PwC multinational accounting firm was attracted to evaluate the assets of the two banks due to their reorganization.

Executive Director of Synergy Group Ismayil Suleymanov said that depositors of Caspian Development Bank will not have any problems after merging with Atabank.

"After the merger, Atabank will become the legal successor of Caspian Development Bank, and all its obligations will be transferred to Atabank. I want to note that in this regard, the depositors of Caspian Development Bank will not have any problems," Suleymanov said.

Synergy Group is the main shareholder of Caspian Development Bank, and, according to Suleymanov, since April he is also the owner of Atabank, which previously belonged to AtaHolding (76 percent of shares) and private individuals (26 percent).

After the merger of Atabank and Caspian Development Bank, the management of the new bank does not plan to reduce its staff, said Farah Mammadova, chairman of the Caspian Development Bank Supervisory Board.

"The policy of the bank's shareholders is that we will not allow staff reduction," she said.

Mammadova noted, currently Caspian Development Banks staff consists of 100 people, and Atabank employs 415 people.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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21 April 2017 18:02 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

The year 2016 was stressful for Azerbaijans banking sector, as the sector witnessed closure of several banks with total volume of assets exceeding several billion manats, and liabilities - 2.9 billion manats (over $1.7 billion).

The licenses of the Caucasus Development Bank, United Credit Bank, Bank Standard, Zaminbank, Dekabank, Kredobank, Atrabank, Bank of Azerbaijan, Gandjabank, Texnikabank and Parabank were revoked, due to failures in the management and lack of enough aggregate capital.

Director of the Center for Economic and Social Development (CESD) Vugar Bayramov said that the number of local banks may further fall from the current 32.

Our monitoring shows that currently, several banks do not fully fulfill their functions. As we predicted in the previous years, in the near future the number of banks in Azerbaijan will be reduced to 20, Milli.Az quoted the expert as saying.

Bayramov said that to prevent loss from these processes, it is necessary to improve the mechanism for payment of the uninsured deposits.

Difficulties with the payment of deposits in 10 recently collapsed banks still remain. In fact, there are no problems with payment of compensations for the insured deposits. There is a need to strengthen the responsibility and obligations of bank leaders for paying uninsured deposits, the expert added.

The expert argues that to make the process [reduction of number of the banks] painless, it is necessary to consolidate banks, rather than declaring them bankrupt.

Head of the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan (ABA) Zakir Nuriyev recently stated that consolidation process in Azerbaijans banking sector will continue.

We know that two banks have been merged in recent days. I think this step must be an example for other banks. Other banks will also merge in the coming period, he said, adding that banks services are more important than their numbers.

Some 32 banks are currently implementing their activities in the country.

--

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21 April 2017 15:03 (UTC+04:00)

An Azerbaijan-German-Turkish Medical Congress for surgery, oncology, gastroenterology, radiology and gynecology has kicked off in Baku.

The congress brings together nearly 15 professors and experts from Germany, Switzerland and Turkey, as well as experts and delegates from a number of countries, Azertac reported.

Opening the congress, scientific secretary of the Scientific Surgery Center Gurbankhan Muslumov said cooperation between Azerbaijani and German doctors dates back to 2004.

He said this cooperation has been rapidly developing, adding that more than 200 Azerbaijani doctors currently work at German medical centers.

The congress will focus on topical problems and challenges facing general and visceral medicine.

The congress also features Baku International Medical Workshop Days. The days provide basic, intermediate and advanced skill courses in endoscopy, laparoscopic surgery, general and vascular surgery, radiology, gynecology and cardiopulmonary resuscitation for doctors and medical students.

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21 April 2017 15:07 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The change of the political system in Armenia has only one purpose  to delay the negotiation process on settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, former Ambassador, PhD Namig Aliyev said during recent discussions of the Baku Network expert council.

He, together with the head of Baku Network, PhD Elkhan Alasgarov, political analyst Azer Hasrat and political scientist Sahil Isgandarov discussed the situation in the region against the background of the parliamentary elections in Armenia, as well as ways of resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Armenian side thinks that delaying the negotiation process is the only solution to the current impasse, and the change of the political system in the country naturally leads to prolongation of the talks, Aliyev said.

He noted that the foreign policy measures implemented by Azerbaijan and its leadership are aimed at resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and this is bearing fruit.

The country's position on this conflict gains more and more support, Aliyev said.

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.

The expert added that Armenians, having occupied Azerbaijani territories, do not want to leave them, and there is no hope that they will abandon those lands by themselves.

There are two ways out of this situation: either Azerbaijan should liberate these territories by force of arms, or the international community should force Armenia to liberate the occupied territories, Aliyev noted.

He stressed that all appeals to Azerbaijan to make concessions are immoral: What other concessions should Azerbaijan make, which is ready to provide the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh the highest level of autonomy? This is the biggest concession that Baku makes.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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21 April 2017 16:38 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict threatens stability in the South Caucasus region, said Christopher Gunn, an assistant professor at the Department of History in the U.S. Coastal Carolina University.

Gunn made the remark while talking to Trend on the sidelines of the 1st International Forum of Caucasus Studies Scholars held in Baku.

He said that his research involves the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is one of the ongoing conflicts since the end of the Cold War.

It is tragic that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has not been resolved yet. Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territory and it is something that should be resolved soon, the expert said.

It is shocking that there has been no enforcement of the UN Security Council resolutions on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Gunn said that the lack of activity regarding the UN resolutions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in many ways speaks to some of the hypocrisy or double standards in the West and the UN.

Azerbaijan is the most powerful country in the South Caucasus region and the country is a key to prosperity and stability in this region, the expert added.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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21 April 2017 18:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The European Union does not exclude the possibility of cooperation with the Azerbaijan-Armenia Platform for Peace, initiated by Azerbaijan, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Herbert Salber, who has completed his visit to Azerbaijan, told Trend on April 21.

He said that the Azerbaijan-Armenia Peace Platform is at the very beginning of its activities.

I met yesterday one of the promoters of the platform. I am open for contacts. I will try to understand what this platform is about, Salber noted.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace was founded in December 2016 in Baku by a group of Azerbaijani and Armenian public figures and peacekeepers. It was created to bring together representatives of civil society of the two countries for creating dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

During his Baku visit, Salber met with the Azerbaijani president, deputy foreign minister, and other representatives of the countrys government and tried to see where the process of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is now.

I believe that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be solved in a peaceful way, without military means what is very important, he said.

Salber reminded that the EU is not directly involved as the mediator to the Nagorno-Karabakh resolution process: We recognize that this is the prerogative of the OSCE Minsk Group.

When I hear criticism against the OSCE Minsk Groups activity, I have to say one thing, the peace deal has to be made between the sides of the conflict, said Salber, noting that the international community can only assist and make proposals, but it cannot somehow push two sides into an agreement.

He added that a political settlement is possible if the ceasefire is respected.

The conflict between 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 regions. 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 Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

As for the EU-Azerbaijan relations, Salber stressed that the relations are undoubtedly at a high level, especially after EUs High Representative Federica Mogherinis visit to Azerbaijan in early 2017 and the agreements on concluding new agreements that are being prepared in Brussels.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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21 April 2017 11:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Angelino Alfano has described his country`s relations with Azerbaijan as strategic, as he met his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov on April 21.

Alfano characterized Azerbaijan as a critical and reliable partner and called relations with Azerbaijan strategic, the foreign ministry reported.

He hailed high level political dialogue between the two countries, further elaborating the importance of relations in the field of energy and significance of TAP project.

The Italian minister added that there is a wide range of opportunities in deepening economic relations along other sectors.

Mammadyarov, in turn, said that Azerbaijan and Italy enjoy strategic partnership relations, as it was enshrined in the Joint Statement adopted during the visit of the Azerbaijani President to Italy in 2014.

He underlined that Italy is the biggest trade partner of Azerbaijan in the European Union. He also stressed the significance of relations in humanitarian area, and highlighted the activities of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

Mammadyarov put special stress on the Southern Gas Corridor and TANAP and TAP projects as its crucial components.

The SGC project  that has already began to take shape as a series of pipelines which will carry Azerbaijani supplies to Europe  is a unique project opening up route for Caspian energy sources.

Mammadyarov also gave information on North-South and East-West transport corridors and praised the promising cooperation in this direction as mutually beneficial.

The FM also spoke of Azerbaijan-European Union cooperation and negotiation process on strategic partnership agreement.

Touching upon the negotiations on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the minister stated the importance of EU's expressing commitment to the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence and inviolability of borders of states in a common and unambiguous manner in respect of all conflicts.

Previously, Mammadyaromet with Italys Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda, who said that Italy intends to take serious steps for development of cooperation with Azerbaijan in non-oil sector.

Azerbaijan is an important economic partner of Italy, Italian companies operate successfully in Azerbaijan, particularly, in the energy sector, and it is necessary to take serious steps in order to continue this cooperation, said Calenda.

The two ministers expressed satisfaction with the level of bilateral relations both in political and economic spheres, and noted the importance of continuing the efforts to further strengthen the ties.

In 2016, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Italy amounted to $1.89 billion decreasing by 33.5 percent as compared to 2015. Italy, which has been ranking first among major trade partners of Azerbaijan during eight years, was the third in late 2016.

However, in early 2017, Italy again became the leader among Azerbaijans trade partners. According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, the two countries trade turnover amounted to $461.5 million in January-March 2017, increasing by 41.4 percent as compared to the 1Q2016.

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21 April 2017 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

German ambassador to Azerbaijan Michael Kindsgrab has hailed cleanliness of Nakhchivan and hospitality of its people.

I am very pleased with my visit to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The visit ended successfully. I express my gratitude for the hospitality shown to me. I was impressed with cleanliness of Nakhchivan and hospitality of its people, he told Azertac.

Kindsgrab`s visit to Nakhchivan aimed to expand economic, educational and cultural ties between Azerbaijan and Germany.

He particularly noted prospects for developing economic relations.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Germany were established in February 1992.

Over the past two decades, the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Germany are developed into new heights and objectives. The exchange of official visits and extensive contact of the business community have played an important role towards transforming the bilateral relations between Baku and Berlin from formal and official diplomatic contacts into a strategic partnership that continues to flourish every day.

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Opinion / Columnist

On the 1st of May every year, Zimbabwe joins the rest of the world in celebrating International Workers' Day. International Workers Day originated in the late 19th century when several United States of America labour movements went on strike, demanding a standard workday of eight hours. The Workers' Day celebrations date back to 1 May 1886.May Day, as the day is sometimes called, is normally celebrated to promote the requirement of eight-hour work day and better working conditions for employees especially in the formal sector. Previously, the working conditions of both public and private employees were very dismal, as they would work for 10 to 16 hours a day sometimes in appalling and unsafe conditions. Deaths, injuries and other dreadful conditions were very common at the workplace during the 19th century. Such sub human conditions were barriers to national development in most countries until the eight hour workday was declared and working conditions improved.As we celebrate Workers' Day this year, the country needs to spare a thought for informal sector workers as they currently constitute the bulk of workers in our economy.The International Labor Office defines the informal economy as, all economic activities by workers or economic units that are in practice and not covered or sufficiently covered by formal arrangements.'Hence, the informal economy has become an integral part of our economy and its future development.The country can ignore this sector at its own peril as both formal and informal sector players contribute immensely to the growth of the nation. Players in the informal sector include cross border traders, vendors, carpenters and various workmen among others. The majority of the work done by these informal employees is usually carried out by a single person. For instance, some sell their products from covered stalls such as Gulf complex while others sell their wares at open spaces. However, most of these informal traders live and work under precarious conditions. Some players in the informal sector operate at places where there are no toilets, exposing themselves to a sure health hazard.The informal workers may be invisible to some, but they play an important role in boosting the country's economy with reports alleging that they contribute about 40% of the GDP. Hence, May Day should be a day where responsible authorities should endeavour to address the challenges that are faced by informal employees across the nation. On the other hand, informal employees should be encouraged to act in an organised manner so that local authorities recognize their labour rights and improve their working conditions.For so long, informal workers were not recognized as workers who are eligible to be covered by labour standards and social protection. However, like any other employees, informal traders need access to social security. Employees in the informal sector should be encouraged to form their workers union that represent them on issues to do with the improvement of their working conditions.As May Day nears, employees in the civil service should also join the rest of the world in the commemorations. It is laudable that Government, which is the biggest employer is doing its best to improve the living standards of its workers despite the harsh economic environment that the country is currently encountering.Some scholars believe that without labour nothing prospers. Therefore, all workers across the nation should be encouraged to work extra hard so as to turn around Zimbabwe's economic fortunes.
21 April 2017 10:48 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan and Algeria have inked the first Memorandum of Understanding on the legal and judicial co-operation.

The document was signed by Azerbaijani Justice Minister Fikrat Mammadov and his Algerian counterpart Tayeb Louh in Algiers, Azertac reported.

The Algerian minister, speaking after the signing ceremony, said that the signing of the MoU, the first on the legal and judicial co-operation, will allow the two countries to exchange experience and consolidate the bilateral cooperation.

He stressed the importance attached by President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika to implementing reforms aimed at guaranteeing the public rights and freedoms of citizens and ensuring security and stability.

Louh hailed President Ilham Aliyev`s role in ensuring development, stability and tranquility in Azerbaijan.

Minister Mammadov, in turn, expressed Azerbaijan`s readiness to establish new avenues of bilateral cooperation with Algeria, notably in justice.

During his visit, the Azerbaijani minister also held meetings with Algeria`s Prime Minister, chairman of the Supreme Court and Prosecutor General.

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21 April 2017 10:22 (UTC+04:00)

A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on April 21.

The new edition includes articles about: Baku Shopping Festival to turn city into a top destination for travelling, Land of Fire enters Top 3 of most popular gastronomic tourism destinations, Taxation reforms in focus of business forum, Credit bureau to expand coverage of information on borrowers, Supervisory Body etc.



AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).



The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
21 April 2017 14:35 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, who is on official visit to Italy, has visited one of the oldest and most prestigious think tank centres in Rome - Society for International Organization (SIOI).

Firstly, Mammadyarov and SIOI president Franco Frattini attended the opening of a photo exhibition on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Italy, the foreign ministry reported.

The exhibition widely covered the history of diplomatic relations between the two countries, as well as high-level visits, the events organized in Italy to promote Azerbaijan's realities and culture.

Following the photo exhibition, SIOI hosted a conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Italy.

Frattini, addressing the event, shared his impressions of his visit to Azerbaijan and informed about the role of the country in regional and international policy.

Highlighting the development of relations between the two countries, Benedetto Della Vedova, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said that Italy-Azerbaijan cooperation is based on a solid foundation. Deputy Minister also mentioned that relations between the two countries have reached strategic partnership level.

In turn, Mammadyarov spoke off the priorities of Azerbaijan's foreign policy, stressing development prospects of Azerbaijan-Italy relations.

The minister also informed about history of the country's independence, Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan and its serious consequences, settlement process on resolution of the conflict, energy and transport strategy, as well as TANAP and TAP projects, contributions to international peace and security, the promotion of multiculturalism and inter-religious dialogue, Azerbaijans relations with Italy and the European Union.

Later, Mammadyarov answered the questions of the audience.

The event brought together members of the Italian Parliament, scientists in the field of international relations and international law, researchers, members of the diplomatic corps accredited in Italy and media representatives.

Previously, Mammadyaromet with Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Angelino Alfano and Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda.

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21 April 2017 14:44 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Azerbaijani Army has successfully completed the large-scale military exercises that started on April 16.

The Board of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry held a meeting on April 21, devoted to combat and moral-psychological training of the soldiers and results of the large-scale exercises.

The leadership of the ministry, commanders of the formations, their deputies, heads of military institutes and other officers in charge participated in the meeting held in the frontline zone.

Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov, after hearing the reports by the military officers, emphasized that all the goals and tasks set in the exercises were successfully achieved and fulfilled.

The exercises were held to inspect combat readiness of troops in line with the plan approved by Azerbaijans President, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev.

About 30,000 servicemen were participating in the drills that started on April 16. Also, more than 250 tanks and armored vehicles, up to 200 missiles and artillery systems, multiple launch rocket systems and mortars, and 25 combat aircraft were involved in the exercises.

Hasanov highly appreciated the combativeness and moral-psychological training of the military personnel, stressed the importance of the exercises and brought to the command personnel the relevant tasks assigned by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

Speaking about the current situation in the frontline zone, the minister gave specific instructions to the commanders of the formations, located on the foremost defense line.

The minister ordered to be constantly ready for repulsing the enemy attacks and most active battles, to keep under constant control the enemy's activities, as well as to preempt and decisively suppress any enemy actions.

The Azerbaijani Army, which today is considered the most modern army in the Caucasus, consists of Air Force and Air Defense Forces, the Navy, and the Land Forces.

The skills and combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army are growing year by year, as the countrys Armed Forces regularly conduct military exercises. The Azerbaijani army is supplied with modern weapons and technical equipment for maintaining a high level of combat capability.

The army building process is of particular importance for Azerbaijan, as twenty percent of the country's territory is under Armenian occupation and the country is in a state of war with Armenia.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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21 April 2017 17:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan is interested in expanding the dialogue with the European Union on supporting the spheres of tourism, education, culture, small and medium enterprises and others, said Aysel Yagubova.

The head of the Department of Human Rights and Democracy of Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry made the remarks while addressing the seminar, titled Creation and Management of Information Bases in the Civil Service, in Baku on April 21.

She noted that the dialogue with the EU is one of priority spheres for Azerbaijan, and it is important for the development of relations.

The Eastern Partnership program is one of the effective platforms for forming cooperation with the EU and the program participants, according to Yagubova.

Yagubova also recalled that during the recent visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels, negotiations on a new document between Azerbaijan and the EU were officially started.

The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today.

The first meeting on a new agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan was held in Brussels on February 7, 2017. The next round of negotiations on the agreement will be held in Baku on April 25.

The new agreement envisages the compliance of Azerbaijans legislation and procedures with the EUs most important international trade norms and standards, which should lead to the improvement of Azerbaijani goods access to the EU markets.

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21 April 2017 17:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The long-anticipated Iranian nuclear deal, the greatest achievement of the Obama administration which seemed to resolve one of the most complex and lasting international crises of recent times, is under threat, as the positions of the Islamic Republic and the United States are becoming rigid, uncompromising and even aggressive.

Lately, the U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, sharply criticized the agreement on the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, while the Trump administration launched a review of its policy towards Tehran, thereby escalating the relations between the two countries.

Irans nuclear ambitions and provocative actions are a grave risk to international peace and security, the U.S. Secretary of State said adding that JCPOA only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state.

He also responded evasively to the question on whether the U.S. should break out of the deal, but again confirmed that we have to look at Iran in a very comprehensive way in terms of the threat it poses in all areas, of the region and the world, and the JCPOA is just one element of that.

Making remarks on the recent statements by U.S., Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recommended his American counterpart to learn about the failures of past U.S. statesmen who supported antagonistic policy towards Iran.

The JCPOA is the result of a revision by its predecessors of a wrong policy against Iran and the region as a whole, according to the Minister.

Actually, the idea set forth by Tillerson is not new. Even during his election campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Obama for the deal with Iran, which he even described as "one of the worst negotiated ever."

Also, the review of the deal might be viewed by many as a pressure to Tehran, which actively supports militant groups such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as well as Houthi fighters in Yemen and President Bashar Assads military in Syria, which the U.S. opposes.

Tehran, meanwhile, is preparing in its own way for a possible deterioration of the already difficult relations with Washington. Like Russia, Iran is not ready to concede to the Americans on the Syrian issue and intends to support Bashar al-Assad to the last, despite any accusations of using chemical weapons.

In connection with the nuclear accord, Iran says it "honors its obligations", and as the deal was concluded with the participation of the United Nations and is international, the U.S. alone does not have the right to abolish it.

Yet, a real review of the Vienna agreement with Iran looks extremely unlikely, as there are practically no legal opportunities for the United States. The deal was approved at the level of the UN Security Council, therefore, Trump has to convince, at least, China and Russia to review the deal. In addition, it is not clear what arguments can be used, as there is no information that Iran has taken any actions that contradict the JCPOA.

The current position of the United States could have really influenced the alignment of forces during the election campaign in Iran.

Their main intrigue of the forthcoming election in Iran became the appearance of unexpected candidacy - ex-President Mahmoud Ahmanidjad, who expressed the desire to take part in the election race. The whole crisis of Iran's intransigence on its nuclear program is strongly associated with his name.

He described the 2015 nuclear deal as not clear in his recent interview.

In my opinion, the way information was given was incorrect. And then we saw what was said did not materialize. Sanctions continued, new sanctions were imposed, some of them were extended. In the agreement, the capacity for legal follow-up had not been envisaged, he said.

However, on April 21, the Council of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard denied Ahmadinejad of his participation in the presidential elections scheduled for May, 19.

The U.S. agencies will develop recommendations to President Donald Trump on the nuclear deal with Iran within 90 days.

Earlier, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei warned that Tehran would retaliate if the United States breached the nuclear agreement.

Iran, five permanent UN Security Council members, Germany and the European Union signed the JCPOA in July 2015 to ensure the peaceful nature of Irans nuclear program. Then, the Islamic republic pledged to refrain from developing or acquiring nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed against Iran.

The agreement provides that in return for verifiable abiding by its commitments, Iran receives relief from U.S., European Union, and UN Security Council nuclear-related economic sanctions.

At the same time, the U.S. retains sanctions against Iran on the missile program, human rights and on suspicion that Tehran sponsors terrorism.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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21 April 2017 11:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Uzbekistan signed the Paris agreement regulating measures of reducing carbon dioxide emission to atmosphere.

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry reported that the document was signed by Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the U.S. Bakhtiyor Gulyamov.

The signing ceremony, held in the UN headquarters, was also attended by Santiago Villalpando, chief of the Treaty Section in the UN Office of Legal Affairs.

During the ceremony, the UN official noted that climate change always remains the focus of the organization and international community, and realization of the Paris agreement is essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

The sides also expressed hope that the Paris agreement will be a roadmap for the UN members, helping reduce emissions and strengthen resilience to climate change.

To address climate change, countries adopted the Paris Agreement at the COP21 in Paris on 12 December 2015. The Agreement entered into force less than a year later. In the agreement, all countries agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and given the grave risks, to strive for 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Implementation of the Paris Agreement is essential for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and provides a roadmap for climate actions that will reduce emissions and build climate resilience.

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21 April 2017 11:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

S&P Global Ratings said that it had raised its short-term counterparty credit rating on Uzbekistan-based Turkiston Bank to 'B' from 'C' and removed the "under criteria observation" (UCO) designation from this rating, which was applied on April 7, 2017, at the start of the criteria review.

At the same time, S&P affirmed the 'B-' long-term counterparty credit rating on Turkiston Bank. The outlook is stable.

S&P raised the short-term rating solely based on the application of revised methodology for linking long-term and short-term ratings.

The affirmation of the long-term rating reflects S&Ps view that Turkiston Bank's business is gradually recovering since the regulator authorized a foreign currency license in May 2016.

While this growth is expected from a very low base, S&P still considers it potentially risky.

As a positive factor, S&P expects Turkiston Bank's profitability to become less volatile thanks to stronger commission income. Commission income more than doubled in 2016 compared with 2015.

Thus, S&P expects that Turkiston Bank's capitalization will be supported through improving earnings capacity and also a planned capital injection from a foreign investor, despite the relatively rapid loan growth S&P expects in 2017-2018.

Turkiston Bank's adequate liquidity buffer and a planned Uzbekistani sum 5 billion equity injection in 2017 supports the bank's credit stance.

S&P sees Turkiston Bank's current risk profile and asset quality as stable.

Reported nonperforming loans (NPLs; loans overdue by 90 days or more) comprise about zero percent of total loans as of Feb. 28, 2017.

S&P believes that the historically low NPLs are mostly driven by the close personal or business relations between the bank and its borrowers.

Therefore S&P thinks NPLs will not exceed the market average expectation of 1.5% over the next 12-18 months. However, this assumption is subject to the bank's ability to manage its expected about 65% increase in lending in 2017 and 30% in 2018.

The stable outlook reflects S&Ps view that the bank will be able to cope with the challenging operating environment and retain adequate capital and liquidity comparable with that of peers over the next 12-18 months.

S&P could consider a negative rating action if:

S&P observed weaker liquidity and asset and liability management; or

the bank's capitalization deteriorates

S&P believes that a positive rating action is remote at this stage.

Turkiston Bank was established in 1997 in Tashkent. It is one of the small banks of Uzbekistan. The main activity of the bank is to lend to small business.

Currently, 26 commercial banks operate in the banking system of Uzbekistan, including three state-owned banks, five banks with foreign capital, seven private banks and 11 joint-stock banks.

(3678,89 sums = 1 USD on Apr. 20)

---

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21 April 2017 13:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have discussed the possibility of meeting in the near future, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"The possibility of contacts in the near future was discussed during a recent telephone conversation," Peskov said, answering the question about the possibility of Erdogan's visit to the Russian Federation, RIA Novosti reported on April 21.

The meeting will take place on May 3, according to press service of Turkish president.

The press secretary of the Russian president, asked whether the meeting in Sochi would take place and whether the leaders will focus on the subject of the Syrian crisis settlement, answered in the affirmative.

Russia and Turkey along with Iran act as guarantors of a peace deal to end Syrian conflict that has killed more than 400,000 people and sent millions fleeing to neighboring countries and to Europe.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
21 April 2017 15:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on May 16-17, Anadolu reported.

Erdogan, in an interview with A News channel on April 20, said that he plans to pay a visit to China on May 15-16, and from Beijing he will leave for the United States.

"The meeting with Trump is scheduled for May 16-17," Erdogan said, noting that it is necessary to increase the trade turnover with the U.S. to the level of $50 billion.

The Turkish leader is sure that his visit to the U.S. would be "productive and timely."

Erdogan further added that Trump would do what former President Barack Obama failed to do regarding Fetullah Gulen, U.S.-based mastermind of last July's failed coup. "I believe Trump will do what President Obama failed to do in this regard," Erdogan said.

The president said he expected the U.S. to take the necessary administrative decision to prevent Gulen from operating a terrorist organization in Pennsylvania.

"This terrorist leader is residing in a country, which is our strategic ally, and it is upsetting not only me but also the Turkish nation, he added. "I think they will at least call him to account.

Gulen's extradition will be high on agenda, as well as Syria and Iraq topics during the high-level talks.

Led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, FETO is accused of orchestrating the July 2016 coup plot in Turkey as well as being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

The Turkish government has repeatedly requested Gulens extradition, while the Obama administration has said extradition is a lengthy, demanding legal procedure.

The extradition treaty includes an article that a suspect should be provisionally arrested until the extradition process starts.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Opinion / Columnist

In the spring of 401 BC some 10 000 Greek soldiers joined Cyrus punitive expedition as mercenaries to fight the Persian King Ataxerxes his brother. Early in the fight Cyrus was killed and the Greeks found themselves in a particularly perilous situation, for one their paymaster was dead and secondly they had no real cause left and their supplies were fast running out. With dwindling supplies the soldiers started arguing amongst themselves, forming little groups and sending unsanctioned emissaries' to the Persians.In the meantime the delighted Persians were taking out the Greeks cornered in a valley close to Babylon one at a time at the same time pretending to be sympathetic to their plight. The Persians kept picking out the Greeks and beheading them while the Greeks continued to argue amongst themselves, getting drunk on occasion and fighting amongst themselves.One night one of the Generals Xenophone had a dream in which he saw the imminent massacre of the Greek Soldiers. In that dream death was staring them in the face. He suddenly realised that death was right in front of them and yet they lay on their bellies moaning, despairing and arguing. The problem thought Xenophone was in their heads, fighting for money rather than a purpose, unable to distinguish between friend and foe, they had gotten lost.The story of the cornered Greek soldiers and the lessons it gives has never been so relevant in the present day politics of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a country that has in over 37 years become worse than in racist predecessor Rhodesia. The Zimbabwean people and opposition politicians find themselves besieged by a belligerent, violent regime that has lost its relevance and yet the opposition is in disarray, arguing and quarrelling amongst themselves just like the Greek Mercenaries.Thus said, the 18th of April 2017 was Zimbabwe's 37th independence anniversary, a day that is supposed to be a time for celebrating our freedom from white minority rule, monopolisation of national resources by a tiny minority, racism, bondage and bigotry has ultimately become a damning mirror of the same ills that steered so many freedom fighters to take up arms and fight. What is disappointing though is what the Zimbabweans have allowed to happen over the years, a complete devastation of a rather promising country, capture of a whole people by a rogue regime bent on nothing but self-preservation in the name of a wobbly cause.What is also disappointing is the self-inflicted chaos within the opposition, a poorly defined cause that has nurtured mercenary activities within its ranks and resulted in numerous splits. The target of this article is the latter group who for a time gave the majority of our people a home to express themselves, their aspirations and organisation to retake the country to its former course. This lack of direction and a cause of great majesty that is compelling enough for people to even sacrifice arm and limb confronting the evil right in front of them is muffled in all sorts of noises .As the story of the Greek soldiers above illustrates this not the first time a people have themselves scattered while death stares them in the face. Challenges might come but what is important is the resolve of the victims to stand up for true freedom. The time has come for all actors ; political, business and the ordinary people to see that their decimation is at the horizon and if they do not go back to the cause, the same cause that drove thousands to take up arms, the same cause that drove millions to demand opposition to the ruling agenda they indeed will perish. They need to realise that the regime continues to pick out one at a time, killing their spirits and sowing division and yet the opposition forces continue in their limbo, divided and submerged in self-interests. They now need to re articulate that same cause before it's too late, before the ruling regime recreates a narrative that will bury the opposition for ever; they need to reignite the passion, the spirit that once engulfed the majority of the people and created a movement that was determined to see a better country. The dire situation is still there Zimbabwe has never been at its worst with a dying economy that is threatening to take everyone back to before the industrial revolution.Be it as it may we must leave room for hope that our long running struggle for a better Zimbabwe could be coming to an end. Recent moves by the opposition towards building a formidable coalition to challenge the Mugabe regime in 2018 could be a sign that better times could be in the horizon. Let us embrace this historic opportunity with vigour, for the death ground is before us and the time to act is now.--------Nkululeko Masuku is a Zimbabwean public policy expert based in Johannesburg South Africa and he can be contacted at sizema77@gmail.com
21 April 2017 16:47 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Interdepartmental consultations between Russia and Turkey on trade issues will be held within a week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters on the sidelines of the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, TASS reported.

"Within a week there will be interdepartmental consultations, then we will summarize the results with my colleagues. I hope, we will find the point of equilibrium," he said, answering the question about the timing of further consultations with the Turkish side on trade cooperation.

He added that the issue of lifting grain restrictions by Turkey is unconditional, stressing that without this no Russian bans will be lifted.

Turkey from March 15 suspended the issuance of licenses for duty-free supplies of wheat, corn and sunflower meal from Russia. Earlier, Turkish importers and processors could carry out duty-free import of Russian products to Turkey on the basis of issued licenses for import of agricultural products in the "internal processing" mode.

Currently, a 130-percent duty is in effect on such Russian exports as wheat and corn, rice  45 percent, sunflower oil  36 percent, sunflower meal - 13.5 percent, and more than 9.5 percent - for legumes.

Representatives of the Turkish business said that such measures were taken in connection with the fact that Russia has not completely removed the ban on the supply of Turkish products, in particular, tomatoes.

Earlier, Russian Agricultural Minister Alexander Tkachev stated that Russian authorities are not going to allow the supply of tomatoes from Turkey, as the country wants to support domestic suppliers.

In early 2016, Russia imposed a number of restrictive measures, including a ban on food and flowers imports, on Turkey in response to the downing of a Russian military aircraft by a

Russia's food embargo on Turkey's food and agricultural products remains partly in place.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
21 April 2017 17:05 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

China and Iran plan to sign an agreement envisaging redesigning of the Arak Nuclear Power Plant in Iran.

Chinese and Iranian companies initialed their first commercial contract on the renovation of the Arak heavy-water reactor in Beijing the other day, thanks to the efforts made by the two sides, which will be signed formally in Vienna on April 23, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at briefing on April 20.

Lu Kang recalled that China and the U.S. were joint heads of the working group on the Arak project, adding that smooth progress had been made on the plan.

"The signing of the agreement will create favorable conditions for the start-up of renovation work in real sense. China will continue working with relevant parties for follow-up matters in accordance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the consensus reached by all," he added.

The Arak reactor was one of the toughest sticking points in Iran's long-standing nuclear negotiations. The Arak heavy water reactor if operating optimally would have produced about nine kilograms of plutonium annually or enough for about two nuclear weapons each year.

The U.S. and the EU were concerned that the heavy water reactor could have been used to produce plutonium, which in turn might fuel a nuclear weapon as an alternative to highly enriched uranium.

Teran, however, said that weapons-grade plutonium was not produced by the Arak reactor.

He further stressed that China always firmly supports the JCPOA. With the 7th meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA to be held in Vienna on April 25 by the P5+1 and Iran, the successful signing of the agreement between China and Iran will create positive impetus for the meeting, he said.

Under the JCPOA achieved between Iran and P5+1 (the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) and implemented in January 2016, Iran removed the Arak reactors core, while a new reactor with minimum plutonium production capacity is expected to be installed at the site.

The removal of the core was one of the final steps required by the deal. Moreover, Iran sold the heavy water produced in Arak during the past years to foreign countries, including the US.

The redesigned and rebuilt Arak reactor will not produce weapons-grade plutonium. Research reactors can be used for a number of legitimate civilian goals, including the production of medical isotopes.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
21 April 2017 17:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Georgia plans to realize a deal on gas imports from the Islamic Republic of Iran within a month, said Gholamreza Bagheri Moghaddam, the head of General Department of CIS and Caucasus Countries of the Foreign Ministry of Iran.

Bagheri told IRNA that Georgia has purchased Iranian gas, but it has not yet been imported from Iran. "Georgia stated that it will start implementing gas imports deal within a month," the head of the department said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Tbilisi on April 18, heading a delegation of 20 companies and businessmen representing Iran's public and private sector.

This visit was held at the invitation of the Georgian high-ranking diplomats on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the independence of the former Soviet republics.

Bagheri also added that next week Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili will pay a visit to Tehran.

In July 2016, Ali Reza Kameli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) confirmed that Tehran has signed a MoU with the GIEC to export gas to the country within a 4-month period.

Almost 40 million cubic meters of gas will be sold to the company under the test agreement.

Georgian Deputy Energy Minister Mariam Valishvili said last August that the Energy Ministry does not have information on contracts for the import of Iranian gas into the country.

Valishvili added that the government of Georgia has not concluded contracts for the supply of such gas. "We have no idea about the volumes, the companies that signed the contract, and the region where the gas will be supplied," the deputy minister said.

Currently, Azerbaijan is the main supplier of gas to Georgia. Small volumes are also supplied from Russia.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The number 420, as code for cannabis consumption, has been around since 1971, when  as one version of the creation story has it  five Northern California high school stoners coined it in reference to their daily, after-school toke-up time. That version of the story holds that in 1991, exactly 20 years later, members of the rock band the Grateful Dead gave 420 Day its first breath when they invoked it in a concert promotional flier. That makes Thursday the 27th commemoration of the dope-smokers unofficial national holiday known as 420 Day.

However, this is the first 420 Day since California voted decisively last fall to legalize marijuana for recreational use. (Medicinal use has been legal  and poorly regulated since 1996.) And were still not any more convinced of the wisdom of legalization than we were last fall, when we urged a no vote on Proposition 64.

Kern County agreed with us wholeheartedly but most of the rest of the California  alas, as happens often  did not.

Two of our biggest concerns about decriminalization remain: Dealing with motorists who drive under the influence of marijuana, and coherently managing the often-sketchy cottage industry of marijuana dispensaries.

Colorado has seen an uptick in drugged driving since it legalized recreational pot five years ago, so California can expect to see the same, authorities say. Judging whos too stoned to drive and whos not can be a challenge, though, and law enforcement agencies throughout the state are racing to catch up.

The answer could be the Drager 5000, a testing device now used by police in Los Angeles, New York, Arizona and Nevada, as well as in Australia, Belgium and Germany.

The permitting and monitoring of marijuana dispensaries is another issue that local authorities are scrambling to stay ahead of. Thus far, citing zoning restrictions, theyve shut down a handful only to have others pop up elsewhere, Whack-a-Mole style.

Its all evidence that, just as we declared back in October, jurisdictions throughout the state werent prepared for wholesale legalization.

And that doesnt even factor in a host of other issues, such marijuana use as it relates to the workplace (just because its legal doesnt mean employers cant forbid it), health concerns associated with smoking and second-hand smoke (its as bad as tobacco), and the unsettled science of marijuana-steeped brain function (it can have lasting negative effects).

Sponsors needed 62 pages to set forth the details of Prop. 64 and they still managed to leave out a lot. Now its up to cities and counties to work those things out.

That doesnt mean law-abiding pot smokers (and, no, thats no longer an oxymoron in California) shouldnt enjoy themselves. Its legal. Businesses and assorted celebrants throughout the state have planned parties, events and special promotions.

Take Oakland, where marijuana-infused candy manufacturer Kiva made 60,000 special-edition samples of the companys low-dose Petra mints and was planning to hold 55 sampling events around the state this week. Or Tulare County, where workers at the areas only dispensary, Canna Can Help, have ordered 1,000 tacos for a customer appreciation day.

Have fun  just use caution and show some regard for your nonsmoking fellow citizens. Merry 420 Day.
Best Natural And Organic Shampoo For Men

Go Natural With The 9 Best Organic Shampoos For Men

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.

Your hair is your crowning glory. But while there are those lucky few men out there who have perfect hair (were looking at you David Beckham), most guys have at least one problem spot  be it dry locks, oily strands or a sensitive scalp.

Many guys make the mistake of throwing wave after wave of hair product at their hair to try and combat problem areas. But unfortunately, junking up your hair with a mass of chemically-fueled hair products can actually overwhelm your hair, making it weak, brittle, and even worse off than before. Think about it: shampoos are meant to clean your hair, but if youre just cleaning out the dirt, sweat, and other bacteria and replacing them with chemicals, does that really leave your hair feeling the best?

RELATED: Rock The Healthiest Hair Of Your Life Thanks To These 10 Shampoos

The idea of natural shampoo may come with the notion of patchouli, of strange at-home remedies. But, what may be surprising to some, organic or all-natural shampoos can actually really pack a punch when it comes to sprucing up your hair. Switching to a shampoo formulated with all-natural ingredients and essential oils can leave your hair feeling naturally healthier.

Ingredients to Avoid

Triclosan: Although you'll find this in most mainstream shampoos and haircare products, triclosan can clog the skin and irritate the liver.

Although you'll find this in most mainstream shampoos and haircare products, triclosan can clog the skin and irritate the liver. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate: Youll find sodium lauryl sulfate in many of your household cleaning products because its good for a couple things, killing insects and bleaching counters are two of them. But leaving your hair shiny and healthy? Not really. Plus, the sulfates are known causes of cancer in certain doses.

Youll find sodium lauryl sulfate in many of your household cleaning products because its good for a couple things, killing insects and bleaching counters are two of them. But leaving your hair shiny and healthy? Not really. Plus, the sulfates are known causes of cancer in certain doses. Fragrance: While yes, fragrances are a necessary part of grooming products (seriously - dont skimp on the fragrances!), many brands craft their fragrances in a laboratory, meaning it can smell fake when applied to the body. Since no one likes the smell of sickly sweet fake coconut or tart lab-made cherries, look for a brand that creates scents from essential oils or plant extracts.

To help you get started on the path to a healthy, luscious mane, weve gathered together the best shampoos in the business, all of which are completely organic. Best of all, each of these shampoos are targeted at problem spots, whether youre fighting thinning hair or a dry scalp.

Malin & Goetz Peppermint Shampoo

Chelsea-based apothecaries Malin + Goetzs natural products have shot their way onto every grooming editors must-have list; we blame the fresh scent and fix-everything formula. This shampoo is no different  crafted from natural peppermint extracts to add a fresh scent and clean tingle to your scalp, this shampoo includes protein-building amino acids to prevent breakage and keeps locks long and strong.

$20.00 at BespokePost.com

Blind Barber Lemongrass Shampoo

If youve never stopped by one of Blind Barbers locations, youre missing out. The New York-founded grooming company was founded to bring the fun back in the world of grooming. Their old-timey barber shops are all business in the front  think old-school razor shaves and some of the best damn haircuts in your life  and party in the back  each location is outfitted with a speakeasy-style bar. Their products dont lack any of the oomph of their retail locations  this all-in-one shampoo and body wash is designed to cleanse and refresh your scalp and body while leaving you feeling fresh.

$18.00 at BespokePost.com

Every Man Jack Daily Shampoo

Far too often, all natural shampoos can mean hippie-dippy scents. But Every Man Jack is fighting to break that stereotype. The daily shampoo smells of mint and eucalyptus, enough to leave your hair smelling fresh and clean, but not strong enough to overpower or clash with your favorite cologne. One unique facet of the shampoo  the mint component of the shampoo gives the scalp a tingly feeling that jump starts your day.

$7.69 at Amazon.com

Avalon Organics Thickening Shampoo

For the guy whose hair just isnt as plentiful as it once one, Avalon has created a shampoo that boosts the thickness and volume of hair. Using an all-natural list of ingredients, the shampoo seeks to energize the scalp to make your hair thick, voluptuous, and strong.

$5.52 at Amazon.com

Olivina All-In-One Body Wash

For the guy whos looking for an easy, breezy, grooming routine, Olivinas all-in-one body washes are right up your alley. Created to give both your body and your hair a good cleanse, without leaving your skin dried out, or worse, oily. Olivinas scent formulations are one of the brands crowning glories  notes of bourbon cedar and vanilla feel manly, but not overpowering.

$16.00 at OlivinaMen.com

Byrd Purifying Shampoo

Theres something about the salt and the sun that give surfers that perfectly rugged hairdo. While hitting the surf as part of your pre-work grooming routine may not be the best option (though oh, do we wish), Byrd has created a product to give you that voluminous, beach hair right from your downtown condo bathroom. Designed with red algae, kelp, and vitamin B5 to keep hair strong and to top it off, the product has a light, coconut scent to transport you the office, even if youre stuck in your cubicle.

$19.98 at Huckberry.com

John Masters Scalp Stimulating Shampoo

No matter what your hair is like, John Masters has you covered  their shampoo is crafted with six organic ingredients to help remove any dirt or build up from your scalp while still keeping the hair hydrated and oil under control. While this product is to create crafted to keep any hair healthy, this shampoo is ideal for targeting any dry scalp or dandruff problems.

$16.47 at Amazon.com

EO Products Everyday Shampoo

If youve been a notorious over-styler, or youve spent your life in a pool, chlorine damage and product damage can leave your hair stripped of natural oils and feeling dry and brittle. To help bring your hair back to its former glory, EO has crafted a daily shampoo rich with essential oils and natural ingredients that will help cleanse your hair while restoring and repairing.

$7.56 at Amazon.com

Prospector Co. Hydrating Shampoo

The long winter that is now, thankfully, behind us can do a number on hair, leaving it worn out and dried out. To help us out, Prospector Co has crafted a gentle shampoo that uses rosemary and geranium oils to restore hair health through conditioning and oil balancing while fighting dryness.

$18.00 at ProspectorCo.com

Related Reading

These Flake-Fighting Shampoos Will Relieve Your Itchy Scalp ASAP

These Dry Shampoos Are The Answer For Luscious, Strong Hair

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The UKIP candidate for West of England Mayor has promised to champion a new era of democracy.

Aaron Foot has outlined his policies as Metro Mayor candidate. He aims to give what the people want and to discard with endless layers of democracy.

He said: Direct Democracy can and will deliver outstanding levels of service and ensure all voices are heard.

This is why Im going to champion a new era of democracy. An era where your government actually listens to you, not just those in their party. An era where your money is spent how you want it, and only how you want it. And most importantly, an era where we once again have a government of the people.

As part of his direct democracy pledge, Mr Foot will build and open an online direct democracy platform.

This would allow residents in the South West to suggest new policies, put forward plans for spending and vote on any proposals by others.

For the first time ever, we will use an online platform for direct democracy which is an entirely transparent and open source, he said.

For the first time, a politician will be the servant of the people, not the other way around.

Mr Foots policies will be based around a system of equality between the voter and the politician - a system that he says will require total honesty and transparency.

Ive come to understand that if a large group of people believe in something and are willing enough to do something about it, theyre often right, he said.

Sadly, politicians refuse to listen to them and just go on with their own ways, eventually realising how wrong they were in more cases than not.

Two of Mr Foots pledges are to protect the green belt and to end the war on motorists.

He proposes to build new houses on the many disused brownfield sites across the region without harming our beautiful natural spaces in the process.

As for motorists, he said: The government are targeting motorists with taxes, with excessive regulations and are not giving any viable alternatives because of the stupidly high costs for public transport.

I would solve these two problems simultaneously. Firstly, I will lobby the government to reduce taxation and regulation on motorists who simply choose to use diesel engines.
Miami-area Republican Sen. Frank Artiles, who apologized this week to colleagues after he reportedly used a variation of the "n-word," resigned on Friday.

Sen. Frank Artiles announces resignation

He used variation of "n-word" this week in Tallahassee

PREVIOUS STORY: Artiles apologizes for actions



In a prepared statement, Artiles said:

"It is clear to me my recent actions and words that I spoke fell far short of what I expect for myself, and for this I am very sorry. I apologize to my family and friends and I apologize to all of my fellow Senators and lawmakers. To the people of my district and all of Miami-Dade, I am sorry I have let you down and ask for your forgiveness.

"My actions and my presence in government is now a distraction to my colleagues, the legislative process, and the citizens of our great State."

His apology came after Artiles was accused of using a variation of the "n-word" in private conversation at Tallahassee's Governor's Club with Democratic Sens. Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville and Perry Thurston of Fort Lauderdale earlier in the week. They said Artiles also used obscene and belittling language directed at them in the Monday night conversation.

Gibson said it was the most disrespect she has ever encountered.

Artiles apologized Tuesday afternoon, after Senate President Joe Negron was told about the incident.

Negron, a Republican removed Artiles as chairman of the Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee on Wednesday.

The full text of the Artiles statement is below.

Dear President Negron,

Seven years ago, I began my public service with one goal in mind, and that was to serve a cause greater than my own.

Serving my constituents and improving their lives is why I serve. On many important issues, caring for the elderly, education and job creation, I have made it my personal mission to put others first. Its the way I was raised, and the way I still choose to live my life today.

As a Marine, this attitude was embodied in our motto: Semper Fidelis, or Always Faithful. Be faithful to God, to country and to our fellow soldiers.

As a father and husband, despite the daily demands of elected office, I always keep the promises that I make to my two beautiful daughters, Bella and Giavanna, and my loving wife Aimee. Im a fulfilled man, because of their unconditional love and support.

It is clear to me my recent actions and words that I spoke fell far short of what I expect for myself, and for this I am very sorry. I apologize to my family and friends and I apologize to all of my fellow Senators and lawmakers. To the people of my district and all of Miami-Dade, I am sorry I have let you down and ask for your forgiveness.

My actions and my presence in government is now a distraction to my colleagues, the legislative process, and the citizens of our great State.

I am responsible and I am accountable and effective immediately, I am resigning from the Florida State Senate.

Its clear there are consequences to every action, and in this area, I will need time for personal reflection and growth.

I leave this office knowing that despite my shortcomings, I have fought hard to change the status quo while remaining true to myself. Im grateful for those that have stood by my side, including my family, friends, and supporters.

Serving my community in the Florida Legislature has been the honor of a lifetime and I do not leave this process lightly. I will discover ways to continue to serve my community in the future.

God bless the great state of Florida and our great country.

Sincerely,

Senator Frank Artiles


B.S. Ranch and Farm defended its business against Polk County residents and the county on Thursday, as it faces shutdown and potentially thousands of dollars in fines.

Nearly a dozen residents spoke at hearing

Residents complained about foul odor from business

Lawyer representing business: no evidence proving odor comes from them

The soil manufacturing farm's code violation hearing turned out to be more like a day-long trial, with nearly a dozen people testifying about the noxious smell they believed originated from B.S. Ranch and Farm.



"I couldn't open my windows because of the stink," said resident Linda Bowman. "Sometimes, I couldn't ride my bicycle because of the stink."



Polk County issued B.S. Ranch and Farm a cease and desist letter in March, citing code violations. The county asked them to to stop their operations until off-site odors were mitigated.



The county accuses the business, which accepts waste, outdated foods and bio solids and converts them to soil, of violating the cease and desist order, and also misrepresenting the tangible effect their operation would have on the surrounding area.



From the countys position, it's a case about [an] applicant who materially misrepresented to the board of county commissioners during their application process that it would not be off-site objectionable odors," said Polk County Assistant County Attorney Randy Mink.



B.S. Ranch and Farm's lawyer, Julie Ball, denied that claim, and said her client had followed the process in the code. Further, she put forth to Special Magistrate Nicolas J. Troiano that there was no evidence to prove the noxious odor was coming from the ranch.



"The county wants you to shut this company down," said Ball. "It wants you to un-employ 22 people, have them lose their jobs because of unsubstantiated odor coming from an industrial area where everybody else is making it smell."



Almost a dozen people testified at Thursday's public hearing on B.S. Ranch and Farm's code violations. (Stephanie Claytor, staff)

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has said the ranch is out of compliance with its permit, and said its inspectors detected off-site odors coming from the business on five occasions. The agency did confirm, however, that they are working with the company to mitigate the odors.



After nearly eight hours, the hearing ended with Troiano saying he was not prepared to make a decision that day. He asked that both sides submit two pages of closing arguments no later than April 26, and that he would make a decision soon after.



Should the magistrate decide against B.S. Ranch and Farm and force them to shut down, the company would face defaulting on $3 million in loans in addition to the thousands they would owe in fines, according to company accountant Richard Peasley. The machinery and materials used by the company are reportedly worth $2 million.



Some residents told us they aren't just mad about the smell. They also want to know about what the waste is doing to their land and their water supply. They said they were hopeful more testing would be done.


MacDill Air Force Base celebrated the opening of its on-base university facility on Thursday, culminating three years of construction on the $43 million building.

Joint Special Operations University previously housed off-base

J-SOU educates 12,000 Special Operations forces each year

University is only accredited higher learning institution in Dept. of Defense

The Joint Special Operations University, or J-SOU, educates 12,000 Special Operations forces students each year. Commander of Special Operations General Raymond Thomas said that ongoing education is critical to adapt to constantly evolving threats around the globe.



"I can tell you on a daily basis that I can't imagine things getting more frantic," said Thomas. "Every day somebody ramps it up a little bit more. It is critical this institution breed leaders who have the agility to deal with these challenges."



With a curriculum spanning over 67 courses, J-SOU serves around 7,000 students on site, while the other 5,000 access courses online. The campus's classrooms are secured for classified networks and utilize touch screens for war games.



Currently, J-SOU is the only accredited institution of higher learning within the U.S. Department of Defense.



U.S. Representative Kathy Castor spoke during the grand opening ceremony.



"These are the types of skills our Special Ops need," said Castor. "It's not just firing weapons and using drones -- it's that cultural understanding, the language. We want our Special Forces to be educated and understand the threats. They're not static. It's evolving all the time."


A new St. Petersburg police headquarters is about to rise.

New St. Petersburg police headquarters under construction

New facility, on First Street North, to open in spring 2019

St. Petersburg Police Department

Groundbreaking took place Thursday on the First Avenue North site where the new facility is set to be built. The new building will be across the street from the current headquarters.



The building will have a little more than 167,000 suqare feet of space.

Set to open in the spring of 2019, the new facility is being built at a cost of $72 million. The funding is coming from Penny for Pinellas, the city and the county.

The new headquarters will feature multiple energy reduction strategies, a community room and will be able to withstand a Category 4 hurricane. Also, a key component of the new facility is enhanced evidence storage.

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman said the facility is much needed and has been a long time coming.

"We stand ready," Kriseman said. "More than ready, to break ground on our new station.

"A station some said would never get built. A station some gave up trying to build or to build right. But here we are, because when it comes to the safety of our men and women in uniform, and the safety of the community they protect, you never ever give up."

Take a sneak peek at the new headquarters
A three-month undercover investigation in Polk County has resulted in multiple heroin ring arrests.

Polk Sheriff's Office investigation into heroin ring nets 17 arrests

Of the 17 suspects arrested, there are 51 felony and 27 misdemeanor charges filed

5 suspected heroin deaths related to this investigation

According to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, 17 people have been arrested after a three-month-long investigation into heroin trafficking, some of whom detectives are seeking a federal indictment against in heroin overdose-related deaths.

The sheriff's office worked with the Lakeland Police Department and the Office of the State Attorney.

"These are not so-called 'low-level non-violent drug offenders' " Sheriff Judd said. "We know that where there's drugs, there's also guns, and violence. This is real. People are dying."

Of the 17 suspects arrested, there are 51 felony and 27 misdemeanor charges filed.

Over 600 grams of heroin was seized (street value $72,000); over five pounds of marijuana was seized; six firearms were seized; $23,000 cash was seized and five suspected heroin deaths are related to this investigation.

"There has been a disturbing rise nationwide in deaths associated with heroin and fentanyl," Judd said. "Our deputies are working hard to put these heroin dealers behind bars through proactive investigations. It is also our mission to hold those accountable for each and every heroin overdose death that we can link back to the sale of heroin."
CAMEROUN :: Cameroon,The Boomerang Effect: The Samba -Tchiroma Case

This week the Yaounde regime with its carefully manicured image so carefully controlled and mastered over the years managed to deliver a great spectacle of cognitive dissonance never equal where notorious lack of morality and decency competed with political fraud. The former director of the budget presented us with a mini-basilica financed by millions of euros that his income cannot justify. The Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma, has hurried to commit a symbolic murder while trying to stab the minister of state Marafa in the back with the opposite result. The facts are stubborn and the government finds itself buried by the facts they blame on senior officials such as the state minister Marafa without producing credible evidence.

This toxic culture set up by a thirty-year-old dictatorship is turning against it.

As usual, the government in trying to defend the indefensible ended up tribalising the debate because it has no credible argument to explain why Mr. Samba is not the object of the Operation Sparrowhawk. By sending Tchiroma to attack a Minister of state recognized internationally and quoted by WikiLeaks by Ambassador Garvey as a man with skill and impeccable integrity and recognized as such, a griot like Tchiroma who owes his post to the praises he recites in length of day in favor of the man-lion, he at once made appear to be a total political fraud and a "shabby" compared to the Minister of State Marafa. This so-called ideological gladiator of the Biya regime has a hard time explaining why two weights two measure? With their toxic actions, it is very difficult to discern any truth, decency and civility in the spectacle offered by Mr. Tchiroma and Samba.

A policy of wild aggression against truth and decency is doomed to failure.

In the long term, a toxic policy will always be detrimental to tribalism because tribalism is the expression by excellence of a short - term political practice that always ends in a bloodbath. Ambition and greed are not what politics are all about. At the beginning of his regime, the president had asked the Cameroonians "what Cameroon do we want for our children?" Why does not Tchiroma answer this question?
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. SEBASTIAN GIL-RAMIREZ, Defendant - Appellant. No. 16-13742 Decided: April 20, 2017

Before JORDAN, JULIE CARNES, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

Sebastian Gil-Ramirez appeals his 48-month sentence after pleading guilty to one count of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1). He argues that he was improperly denied safety-valve relief and a minor role reduction, and that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. Upon review of the record and consideration of the parties' briefs, we affirm.

I

Mr. Gil-Ramirez was arrested in February of 2016 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when Customs and Border Patrol officers discovered 2,414 grams of cocaine in the false bottom of his suitcase. Mr. Gil-Ramirez, who is a Colombian citizen and permanent legal resident of the United States, claimed that he received a call from someone named Andres in Colombia who asked him if he was interested in traveling to that country to make some money. Mr. Gil-Ramirez knew he was likely to be involved in illegal activity, and brought along his girlfriend to minimize suspicion. Andres paid for all of Mr. Gil-Ramirez's transportation and hotel costs, and told him that he would be carrying a suitcase containing cocaine back to the United States. After examining the suitcase, Mr. Gil-Ramirez agreed to transport the drugs in exchange for $5,000. He was arrested when the drugs were discovered upon his arrival at the airport.

A grand jury indicted Mr. Gil-Ramirez on charges of importing cocaine into the United States in violation of 21 U.S.C. 952(a) and 960(b)(3) (Count One), and possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C) (Count Two). Pursuant to a plea agreement, he pled guilty to Count Two, and Count One was dismissed. Mr. Gil-Ramirez agreed to provide the government with a written statement truthfully setting forth all information and evidence he had concerning the offense.

The PSI recommended a base-offense level of 26 under U.S.S.G.  2D1.1, as well as a three-level decrease under  3E1.1(a) and (b) for acceptance of responsibility. The PSI recommended a total offense level of 23 and a criminal history category of I, resulting in an advisory guideline range of 46 to 57 months' imprisonment.

In his objections to the PSI, Mr. Gil-Ramirez requested a two-level reduction under the safety-valve provision of U.S.S.G.  5C1.2, and a minor-role reduction. At the sentencing hearing, Mr. Gil-Ramirez also requested that the district court grant a downward variance from the advisory guideline range. The district court ultimately denied his request for the reductions and sentenced him to 48 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

II

When reviewing the denial of safety-valve relief, we review for clear error a district court's factual determinations. United States v. Johnson, 375 F.3d 1300, 1301 (11th Cir. 2004). The safety-valve provision implements 18 U.S.C.  3553(f) and requires a district court to sentence a defendant without regard to any statutory minimum sentence if the defendant meets five criteria. See U.S.S.G.  5C1.2. A defendant's base offense level may also be reduced by two levels if all five of the criteria are met. See U.S.S.G.  2D1.1(b)(17). The burden is on the defendant to show that he has met each of the safety-valve factors. See Johnson, 375 F.3d at 1302. The fifth factorthe only one at issue hererequires that:

(5) not later than the time of the sentencing hearing, the defendant has truthfully provided to the Government all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan, but the fact that the defendant has no relevant or useful other information to provide or that the Government is already aware of the information shall not preclude a determination by the court that the defendant has complied with this requirement.

U.S.S.G.  5C1.2(a)(5).

This final factor is a tell-all provision: to meet its requirements, the defendant has an affirmative responsibility to truthfully disclose to the government all information and evidence that he has about the offense and all relevant conduct. Johnson, 375 F.3d at 1302 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis in original). The defendant has a burden to come forward and supply the government with all the information that he possesses about his involvement in the crime, including information relating to the involvement of others and the chain of the narcotics distribution. See id.

Mr. Gil-Ramirez argues that the district court did not fulfill its duty as factfinder and instead merely relied on the government's assessment of his factual proffer. The record shows, however, that the district court considered at length both the government's and Mr. Gil-Ramirez's arguments at the sentencing hearing. See D.E. 33 at 512. After independent review of Mr. Gil-Ramirez's written statement and the record, the court foundby a preponderance of the evidencethat Mr. Gil-Ramirez had not truthfully provided to the government all the information that he possessed concerning the offense. See id. at 12. Nothing in the record suggests that the district court clearly erred in making this determination and, as a result, we affirm its denial of safety-valve relief.

III

We review for clear error the district court's denial of a minor role reduction. See United States v. Moran, 778 F.3d 942, 980 (11th Cir. 2015). A defendant may receive a two-level decrease under the Sentencing Guidelines if he was a minor participant in any criminal activity. U.S.S.G.  3B1.2(b). A minor participant is less culpable than most other participants, but [his] role could not be described as minimal. U.S.S.G . 3B1.2, comment. (n.5). A defendant bears the burden of proving his minor role by a preponderance of the evidence. See Moran, 778 F.3d at 980.

To determine whether a minor role adjustment applies, the court should consider (1) the defendant's role in the relevant conduct for which he has been held accountable at sentencing, and (2) his role as compared to that of other participants in his relevant conduct. Id. [A] defendant's status as a drug courier does not alter the principle that the district court must assess the defendant's role in light of the relevant conduct attributed to [him] and is not itself dispositive of whether a defendant is entitled to receive a minor role adjustment. United States v. Rodriguez De Varon, 175 F.3d 930, 942 (11th Cir. 1999) (en banc). [W]hen a drug courier's relevant conduct is limited to [his] own act of importation, a district court may legitimately conclude that the courier played an important or essential role in the importation of those drugs. Id. at 94243. Only if the defendant can establish that [he] played a relatively minor role in the conduct for which [he] has already been held accountablenot a minor role in any larger criminal conspiracyshould the district court grant a downward adjustment for minor role in the offense. Id. at 944.

Mr. Gil-Ramirez argues that he was merely a courier in a broader importation scheme of which he had little knowledge, and is therefore entitled to a downward sentencing adjustment. The relevant criminal conduct here, however, is possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Mr. Gil-Ramirez admitted that he knew he would be involved in illegal activity from the start, that he brought his girlfriend along on the trip as a cover-up, and that he inspected the suitcase and agreed to carry it into the United States. The district court did not clearly err in finding that Mr. Gil-Ramirez played a significant role in the commission of the crime for which he is held accountable, and we therefore affirm its denial of his request for a two-level minor role reduction.

IV

We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). Mr. Gil-Ramirez, as the party challenging the sentence, has the burden of demonstrating that it is unreasonable in light of the record and the facts enumerated in 18 U.S.C.  355(a). See United States v. Tome, 611 F.3d 1371, 1378 (11th Cir. 2010). A district court abuses its discretion when it (1) fails to afford consideration to relevant factors that were due significant weight, (2) gives significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or (3) commits a clear error of judgment in considering the proper factors. United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc). Under our deferential standard of review, we are to vacate the sentence if, but only if, we are left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing the  3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case. Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

We examine whether a sentence is substantively reasonable in light of the totality of the circumstances. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. The district court must impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes listed in  3553(a)(2), including the need to reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, provide just punishment for the offense, and deter criminal conduct. See 18 U.S.C.  3553(a). The fact that a sentence is within the advisory guideline range and well below the statutory maximum are both factors indicative of reasonableness. See United States v. Cubero, 754 F.3d 888, 898 (11th Cir. 2014).

Mr. Gil-Ramirez argues that his 48-month sentence is substantively unreasonable and that the court did not properly consider his family circumstances, gambling addiction, and impending deportation when deciding the duration of his term of imprisonment. He argues that, had the district court adequately considered these factors, it would have granted his request for a 24-month sentence.

The record shows that the district court did in fact consider these particular aspects of Mr. Gil-Ramirez's life at sentencing. See D.E. 33 at 1926. After a review of the record, the PSI, and the  3553(a) factors, the district court determined that a 48-month sentence was appropriate. The district court did not abuse its discretion because there is no indication that it failed to consider the relevant factors, gave weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or committed a clear error of judgment. Moreover, the sentence falls at the low end of the advisory guideline range, which indicates reasonableness. See Cubero, 754 F.3d at 898. Accordingly, Mr. Gil-Ramirez has not demonstrated that his 48-month sentence was unreasonable in light of the record and the  3553(a) factors.

V

The district court did not err in denying the request for safety valve relief because Mr. Gil-Ramirez failed to prove that he truthfully provided the government all the information he had concerning the offense. The district court also did not err when it denied Mr. Gil-Ramirez's request for a minor role reduction. Finally, the district court's imposition of a 48-month sentence was not substantively unreasonable and did not constitute an abuse of discretion. Mr. Gil-Ramirez's sentence is therefore affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

PER CURIAM:
The man with SETX ties wanted for a two-day gruesome crime spree was arrested early Friday morning in a northeast Harris County park, sheriff's deputies say.



Local television stations report 53-year-old Russell Cormier was sleeping in the park on Gaston Street off of the Eastex Freeway at the time of his arrest.



The Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force and the Harris County Sheriff's Office tracked down Cormier on Monday night.

Southeast Texas Crime Stoppers said Wednesday that "a majority" of Cormier's family live in or near Beaumont.



He had been on the run since Monday morning, when deputies believe he shot and killed his ex-wife, 61-year-old Fannie McWhite, near her northeast Harris County home. Deputies believe Cormier also killed a 60-year-old man and shot and injured his neighbor.



Murder charges for McWhite's death were filed on Tuesday. Charges have not been filed for the other two shootings, as of Friday morning.
Innovation is a constant force in healthcare. Each day there are new ideas to keep patients safer, operations smoother, bottom lines stronger and data more secure. For executive teams leading hospitals and health systems, it all comes down to making the best decisions on what initiative of hundreds to pursue on any given day.

To learn more about the innovation environment in which hospitals and health systems currently operate, Becker's caught up with Tom Foley, director of Global Health Solution Strategy for Lenovo Health. Lenovo Health is supporting a three-day innovation summit in partnership with Becker's Healthcare, from June 6-8. To learn more about this virtual opportunity, click here.

We asked Mr. Foley to weigh in on the largest trends he sees in healthcare's innovation space, including the most common problems innovation set out to solve today, misconceptions he encounters around innovation, and cost-effective yet needle-moving decisions executive teams make when it comes to the next big idea.

1. Tom, can you describe the intensity with which hospitals or health systems are approaching innovation today?

Tom Foley: There's been an opportunity in the market around the need for specific innovation. You see pockets of it out there, more so among the larger institutions that have the financial resources to really go after innovation. I think elsewhere it's difficult for many to see and deploy the [resources] as far as adopting innovation. Sometimes it's tough to see how they can tie innovation in with other major investments they make in health IT and on the EHR side. They'll say, "I want to adopt innovation to facilitate better delivery of care, but how do I integrate that with the EHR I already have?"

There is a great opportunity for innovation, and some folks are moving the needle on that, but for others it can be very difficult. I believe as we move toward a value-based care model, innovation will have to be at the forefront of what healthcare systems do.

2. Of the innovation efforts you've observed in organizations, what are some of the most common problems they set out to solve?

TF: It comes down to, 'How do I enhance my ability to deliver value to a patient?' And when you talk about that in a value-based care model, 'How do I improve outcomes and at same time lower costs?' That is a significant challenge in and of itself. You have to look at the entire care continuum to understand where innovation is most appropriate.

In care management, I talk about two numbers. I talk about 8,760  that's the number of hours in a given year  and the number 15, which is the average number of hours a Medicare patient with several chronic condition spends in front of his or her physician in any given year. The gap between those two numbers is the care gap. It's not what happens in front of the physician that's most important, it's what happens away from the physician that's most important in care management.

Care delivery providers wants to figure out how to help patients take better care of themselves when they're not in front of them. Sometimes innovation isn't about adopting technology, but it's a matter of finding ways to engage patients differently. In that context, one pivot establishes the home as a care setting in itself  the more I can keep the patient in the home, the more the care delivery system can save.

This is not to discount when a patient is in front of the doctor or in the health system. One of the greatest challenges in those 15 hours is that the average EHR has 10 percent duplicate records  this coupled with Medical identity theft and payment fraud , are compromising the integrity of health data.

As well, given the concern with cybersecurity  as much as we are protecting the back-end of the health IT, the front-end of the health system also has to be protected. To prevent what cyberattackers take from the back-end of the system and bring it with them through the front-end creates significant data integrity challenges. We need to think differently about how we approach data integrity in the front-end  eliminating duplicate records, medical identity theft and payment fraud (which can be done today) will transform the quality of data and have a domino effect on decision support, achieving quality outcomes and/or maintaining wellness.

3. To hospital executives with 2 percent or lower operating margins, the assumption that innovation requires significant capital investments may cause them to tread lightly in terms of innovation. What are some cost-effective yet needle-moving decisions you've seen executive teams make when it comes to innovation?

TF: At the end of the day, some people look at [innovation] as a cost to the business and others look at it as an investment where they can get an actual return. We like to talk about innovation in terms of return on investment. If there is no return, then there shouldn't be an investment. Don't spend money if you don't know what it'll do for you.

That said, to maximize the ability to spread limited financial resources one needs to be able to innovative on how we fund adoption of technology. As an example, certain subscription service models  where you don't pay upfront fees  are a good example of investing in innovation to drive value. Subscription-based services can range from telehealth or secure messaging to unique health safety identifiers. Unlike buying a product upfront, purchasing these innovations on a subscription basis allows you to spread your dollars further and spend more strategically, and even adopt additional innovations to drive value.

4. In your work, either with Lenovo Health or with clients, have you encountered any misconceptions about innovation? If so, what are they? How do you dispel them?

TF: Some people either 1) want to do innovation but won't do it because the payer won't pay for it, or 2) they just don't understand what a particular innovation is going to do for their organization.

In the first case, telehealth comes to mind as an example of people saying they want pursue innovation, but when the payer won't pay for it or their EHR vendor won't offer it, they drop the idea.

In the second case, maybe the vendor has a problem with its communication and messaging. When Lenovo first brought the unique health safety identifier to the market, we described it as a patient identity platform. Organizations would say, "I don't have a patient identity problem." But they did have a data integrity problem, medical identity theft problem, medical fraud problem and duplicate medical record problem. We as vendors do a better job communicating the value of our solutions in context of which business problems we solve. .

Sometimes you go to speak to [a hospital] CIO about a solution and realize you don't understand their business problem yet. At the end of the day, you can't be a trusted advisor if you're forcing something square in to a round hole. The best thing an trusted partner can do is to be honest about whether he can help solve the problem or not.

5. Given the integrated and collaborative nature of care today, hospitals and health systems cannot approach innovative investments or decisions in a vacuum. They must think about how their technology or new offerings will interact with the broader care continuum. Can you share some examples of systems that have successfully innovated to improve outcomes for patients not only in their facility, but throughout the broader care network or community?

TF: The best use case I like to talk about relative to clinical integration and technology adoption has to be what Hudson Valley, now called HudsonDoctors in Hawthorne, N.Y., did long before the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act came into play in 2009.

Here, you had an independent physician association that really drove a clinical integration strategy. They adopted EHRs before HITECH established meaningful use. HudsonDoctors IPA used clinical integration to share data and used technology for the improvement of care. They are one of the first national IPAs to really take a unique approach to clinical integration by using technology as a tool vs. a must-have. They were also the largest population to adopt the National Committee for Quality Assurance Patient Centered Medical Home framework. .

Another example that comes to mind is Oneview Healthcare, which is innovating the in-room patient experience. An inpatient stay lasts 3.5 days on average. When you get discharged, somebody talks to you about what you should be doing when you get home and you probably aren't really listening. Oneview uses technology to take advantage of the 3.5 days during which that patient is a captive audience. Patients can look at their health records while sitting in bed, watch educational videos about their condition and learn what they should be do after they're discharged. It's an educational experience. The adoption of technology like that can be viewed as innovative.

As I see it, there are two continuums. The first is volume to value. The other is bringing patients from awareness to wellness. Those two continuums have to move in parallel. Making people more aware of their health makes them want to learn more about what they can do. The goal is to incrementally change behaviors and work toward a wellness state.

6. Who are some innovators, past or present, you most admire? Why?

TF: I'dhave to call out John Blair, MD, who was chairman of Hudson Valley IPA (now HudsonDoctors IPA). To have the vision he did should be considered innovation. I'd have to look at the chief innovation officer for UPMC, Rasu Shrestha, MD. Talking to him is always exciting. He brings a different perspective to the table on how we solve care delivery challenges while applying technology as a tool.

At the end of the day, it's not about technology or innovation. It has to do with the overall experience  the experience of your employees, physicians and patients. The experience is what draws loyalty to a care delivery system or provider.

7. What should have hospitals innovated yesterday? What problems do you see as low-hanging fruit for innovation? What improvements are most noticed by the trifecta of patients, clinicians and administrative teams?

TF: Hindsight being 20-20, the one fundamental construct we should have integrated in the health IT ecosystem is a deterministic patient matching construct coupled with universal patient identity platform  as the EMPI (probabilistic matching technology) is significant contributor to data quality challenges.

As well, let's look at the classic model. You go to an ambulatory clinic, you get a clipboard, you fill out the clipboard, then you go to another clinic in that same health system  and you get another clipboard. It's a frustrating experience.

Organizations can change the experience model by applying tools that can share a patient's information across multiple settings, so he only has to supply the information once. One would say that's not innovation, that's just applying technology where it makes sense to enhance the experience of the patient.

To learn more about the Virtual Innovation Summit in partnership between Lenovo Health and Becker's Healthcare, click here. You can also sign up for the summit here!
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. ENNIS LEE BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WISCONSIN STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE, et al., Defendants-Appellees. No. 16-3182 Decided: April 20, 2017

Before POSNER, SYKES, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Ennis Brown, a Wisconsin state prisoner, appeals the dismissal of a suit in which he charged the Wisconsin State Public Defender's Office, and others, with violating what he claims to be his constitutional right to represent himself on appeal. 42 U.S.C.  1983.

Brown has had a contentious relationship with lawyers since being charged in 2012 with sexually abusing his chil-dren. See Brown v. Hicks, 2017 WL 701197 (7th Cir. 2017); Wisconsin v. Brown, 2015 WL 5919165 (Wis. Ct. App. 2015). Three times before the trial in the state court on those charg-es the presiding judge had allowed Brown's appointed counsel to withdraw because Brown would not cooperate with him. So Brown appeared pro se at the trial but after multiple outbursts and attempts by him to intimidate the victim-witnesses, the court held that he'd forfeited his right to represent himself. Wisconsin v. Brown, supra, at *8.

Brown was convicted and the Public Defender's Office then appointed lawyer Mark Rosen to represent Brown on appealwho objected that in representing him Rosen was acting without his consent or participation. Brown then brought the present suit, against Rosen, the Public Defender's Office, and others, charging that they'd combined to use unconstitutional procedures by appointing counsel without determining whether Brown was indigent, requesting his permission to appoint counsel, or asking whether he wanted to appeal. Brown further alleged that one of the lawyers had deprived him of legal documents and prevent-ed him from requesting legal help from a nonprofit organi-zation.

The district court screened Brown's complaint under 28 U.S.C.  1915A and concluded that his claim that Rosen had been ineffective in representing him was barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 48687 (1994), because it im-plied that his conviction may have been invalid; for Brown's argument that Rosen was ineffective in representing him on appeal implies that the appeal was winnable, in which event Brown's conviction at trial may have been mistaken. As for Brown's further claim that he'd been deprived of the right to represent himself on appeal, the district judge correctly ruled that the claim failed because there is no constitutional right to self-representation on appeal. The Supreme Court had held in Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, 528 U.S. 152, 16063 (2000), that in an appeal the state's interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice outweighs the defendant's interest in his autonomy because there is no longer the presumption of innocence and because the Sixth Amendment does not refer to appellate proceedings.

Brown sought reconsideration, arguing that he had a due process right to decide whether to proceed pro se in his appeal, hire counsel, or be represented by appointed counsel. But he didn't explain why the Public Defender's practice of assigning appellate counsel immediately after trial violates the due process clause. See Riggins v. McGinnis, 50 F.3d 492, 494 (7th Cir. 1995). The judge further noted that because there is no right to self-representation on appeal, the Consti-tution isn't violated by requiring an indigent defendant to accept, against his will, an appointed appellate attorney. Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, supra, 528 U.S. at 16061, 16364; Speights v. Frank, 361 F.3d 962, 965 (7th Cir. 2004).

We affirm the district court's rejection of Brown's argu-ments concerning representation (self- or by counsel) on appeal. And because Brown's appeal is frivolous, we impose two strikes on him pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1915(g); see Hains v. Washington, 131 F.3d 1248, 1250 (7th Cir. 1997) (per curi-am).

POSNER, Circuit Judge.
Thomas Tulisiak, MD, president of Cleveland Clinic Medina (Ohio) Hospital, will leave his post to return to practicing medicine full-time within the Cleveland Clinic Medicine Institute.

Here are four things to know about Dr. Tulisiak.



1. Dr. Tulisiak is a board-certified family medicine physician.

2.He joined Medina Hospital's medical staff in 1983, and has served as medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Brunswick (Ohio) Family Health Center and vice president of medical operations at Medina Hospital.

3. He became president of Medina Hospital in 2011.



4. His resignation is effective May 1, at which point Medina Hospital's COO Vicky Snyder will serve as interim president. Ms. Snyder has been COO at Medina Hospital for the past eight years. Before joining Medina Hospital, she worked in healthcare financial management and was vice president of operations and director of finance at Cleveland-based Fairview Hospital, also a part of Cleveland Clinic.
Hospital leaders must remain vigilant in their goal to provide high-quality, affordable care, regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C. Despite President Donald Trump's and Republicans' failed attempt to pass an ACA repeal and replacement bill March 24, it is likely Republican leaders will continue to seek changes to the ACA as it was passed and interpreted under the previous administration.

The Republican-majority Congress underscored its goal to rein in federal healthcare costs with proposed per capita caps and block grants for Medicaid funding in the recently withdrawn American Health Care Act. The pursuit of this goal, whether through broad healthcare reform or incremental amendments, will intensify the economic pressure healthcare organizations already face.

To combat these pressures, hospital and health system executives must adopt a cost-reduction mentality, said Mukesh Gangwal, president and CEO of Prism Healthcare Partners, and George Whetsell, managing partner at the firm, in a webinar hosted by Prism on March 27. Prism is a national healthcare consulting firm based in Chicago.



"The future lies in an operating environment where a relentless attention to reducing costs is actualized  not by diluting quality, but by enhancing quality and being prudent," said Mr. Gangwal. "This is the mantra of the future."

Here are three strategic mindsets hospitals must adopt to reduce costs, strengthen operating performance and increase resiliency in the face of possible changes to healthcare reform.

1. Renew emphasis on rationalizing services, programs and locations

While a broad healthcare overhaul stalled at the federal level, there are several incremental yet influential changes HHS can make to the ACA without an act of Congress, such as ceasing to enforce the individual mandate and allowing states to impose Medicaid waivers and work requirements for beneficiaries. These changes would challenge affected hospitals and health systems with lower reimbursement and higher rates of uncompensated care.

Moving forward, standalone community hospitals must refocus on improving efficiency and reducing costs by scaling back low-volume service lines, or looking for other consolidation opportunities, said Mr. Whetsell.



"Standalone community hospitals have to take a step back and assess their programs and services and ask, 'Can we maintain everything we have?'" He said divesting and closing unprofitable service lines will be necessary to offset decreased government funding and retain sustainable operating margins.



Multihospital systems face the need to rationalize services as well. Mr. Whetsell said strengthening a health system's operating margin may require eliminating competition among hospitals within the same system and combining redundant services. Many hospitals offer duplicate or triplicate services simply to have a presence, rather than thrive, in the market.

Rationalizing services comes down to examining patient capacity, overall demand, size and strength of clinical service lines, and the service line's reputation and brand in the local marketplace, the webinar presenters advised.

"Too many smaller hospitals offer too many services," said Mr. Gangwal. "There seems to be a redundancy and overcapacity no matter which way you look. Institutions have to focus on which space they want to play in and where they want to excel, opposed to being a mediocre provider of services in a vast array of clinical areas, which does not lend itself to profitable growth."

2. Rethink system and scale coordination

The healthcare industry is in the midst of rapid provider consolidation. Healthcare is now a marketplace in which profitable mergers are more critical than ever, and leaders must ensure acquisitions add value.

Mr. Whetsell says hospitals and health systems often have ample room for improvement in achieving economies of scale. He warns against mergers or acquisitions that result in a "confederacy of individual hospitals that have the ability to veto decisions made at the corporate office." Leaders must make difficult or politically sensitive decisions when it comes to scale, otherwise acquisitions are bound to result in weakly integrated systems with duplicative services.

Mr. Gangwal agreed that hospitals and health systems must relentlessly pursue economies of scale once a deal is done, but they must also exercise caution when selecting their partner. He advises hospitals base these choices on an entity's performance history and track record, rather than optimistic expectations or the anticipated trajectory of the combined organization post-consolidation.

"When a merger is contemplated, the incentive is to project the rosiest future  but everyone is leaning toward a future of growth and profitability that is rarely realized," Mr. Gangwal said. "We see far too many cases where two weak institutions have come together and coming out of that is a weaker enterprise, not a stronger enterprise."

3. Redirect management strategies toward return on investment



Management agility  or the ability to respond to market changes  will prove integral to healthcare organizations as they prepare for reduced federal dollars and fewer insured patients.

While addressing regulations and federal policies remains an important duty for management, Mr. Gangwal says hospitals and health systems must begin to align themselves with the commercial model of other industries. "It means management agility to quickly respond to regulatory changes, investments based on return on capital, investments based on pure market share or growth, and a cost model that is sustainable," he says.

To strengthen their operating margins, hospitals and health systems must obtain a clear understanding of their cost structure, including labor costs, non-labor costs, expenses in the clinical delivery of services, length of stay and investments made in the physician network.

Specifically, Mr. Whetsell says providers must reevaluate the ROI from hefty investments, such as information technology platforms and physician networks.

"A lot of providers are going to have to take a look at how they get value from the information technology investments they've made over the last 5 to 10 years. There have been huge amounts of money put into EHRs and automated scheduling systems. It's now time to figure out how to get productivity gains out of those IT investments," Mr. Whetsell said.

The vast majority of hospitals and health systems today employ physicians, which presents a complicated economic challenge for leadership teams. "If you're employing 100, 200, 300 physicians  you've got a multi-million dollar business, and you can't afford that business to have a -1, -2 or -4 percent operating margin," said Mr. Whetsell.

To make the most of physician network investments, Mr. Whetsell underscored the need for accessibility. There is no shortage of alternative care settings or clinics that can siphon a health system's patients today by competing on access.

"Make access to the physician network easier," Mr. Whetsell said. "It needs to be easier to get an appointment and get in to see a physician. I can go online and instantly make an appointment at Walgreens a mile from my house. There are very few physician networks where I can do that. Being able to prevent that business from going somewhere else is essential."

Whatever cost-reduction model hospitals and health organizations use, they must build profitability, maximize net revenue, increase efficiency and incorporate ROI into their strategy and processes  irrespective of the ACA's future.



Click here to access the webinar slides.

Click here to view the recording.
Stay in the know with Becker's Hospital Review's weekly roundup of the nation's biggest healthcare news. Here's what you need to know this week.

1. CMS releases 2018 IPPS proposed rule

CMS released its 2018 Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule on April 14, which increases payments to acute care hospitals next year. The rule also includes proposed rates for long-term care hospitals. Overall, the proposed rule would apply to about 3,330 acute care hospitals and 420 long-term care hospitals. The rule will be published in the Federal Register April 28, and comments will be accepted through June 13.

2. Kaufman Hall: Hospital transaction activity jumps 8% in Q1  7 takeaways

The number of hospital transactions increased 8 percent from 25 transactions in the first quarter of 2016 to 27 transactions in Q1 2017, according to an analysis by advisory firm Kaufman, Hall & Associates.

3. Overall healthcare M&A deal value drops 35% in 2016

Global management consulting firm Bain & Co. released its latest report examining trends in healthcare private equity and corporate mergers and acquisitions. According to the report, the overall deal value of healthcare M&A, which includes global and corporate deals, fell 35 percent in 2016.

4. Trump extends Veterans Choice Program: 4 things to know

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act. The law extends the program "so that more veterans can see the doctor of their choice," President Trump said at a signing ceremony. He added: "Some people have to travel five hours, eight hours, and they'll have to do it on a weekly basis, and even worse than that. It's not going to happen anymore."

5. Tom Price rolls out $485M in grants to combat opioid epidemic

The federal government will provide $485 million in grants to fund evidence-based prevention and treatment initiatives to address the nation's opioid abuse crisis, HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, said this week.

6. CMS wants to make accrediting organization surveys public

CMS may require national accrediting organizations to make provider and supplier survey reports and plans of corrections available online. Right now, accrediting bodies like the Joint Commission do not make their survey findings publicly available, but CMS does.

7. CHS and Tenet stock tumbles after HCA warns of Q1 earnings, revenue miss

Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Holdings released preliminary financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2017 on Monday, which fell short of analyst expectations.

8. Theranos reaches settlements with CMS, Arizona AG

Theranos, a troubled Palo Alto, Calif.-based blood testing startup, is starting to settle its differences regarding issues with its original finger-prick blood testing device. The company resolved its legal and regulatory issues with CMS, according to a Monday announcement. The company was sanctioned after a CMS inspection found five categories of major infractions at the Newark, Calif.-based lab, and Theranos failed to adequately correct deficiencies. Theranos originally appealed the sanctions, but agreed to withdraw its appeal as part of the settlement.

9. KentuckyOne Health to lay off about 150 employees

Louisville-based KentuckyOne Health is laying off about 150 employees, or roughly 1 percent of its total workforce, according to an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review.

10. Without new owner, Kansas hospital to close this summer

Denver-based SCL Health will cease operating St. Francis Health in Topeka, Kan., this summer. If a new owner isn't found, the hospital will close.

11. Huntsman Cancer Institute CEO fired via email with no explanation

Several members of the Huntsman family, whose charitable donations helped found the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, have condemned and threatened to sue the University of Utah Health Care system in the wake of the abrupt firing of the institute's CEO, reports The Salt Lake Tribune.

12. UnitedHealthcare names CEO; Optum appoints CEOs across 3 divisions

Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth Group made changes to the executive teams of its UnitedHealthcare and Optum operations, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.
Kathryn Allen, MD, a family medicine physician from Utah, was catapulted into the national spotlight after declaring to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives  one that will be abandoned by Republican Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the oversight committee.

Dr. Allen's candidacy  which has been covered by Vogue and USA Today, among other media outlets  gained momentum after Rep. Chaffetz held a heated town hall. "I came away from that meeting feeling like [Rep. Chaffetz] was a poor public servant who was out of touch with his constituents," Dr. Allen told USA Today.

When Rep. Chaffetz said Americans may simply have to choose between getting an iPhone or health insurance in an interview with CNN, the move helped solidify Dr. Allen's candidacy, according to USA Today. Rep. Chaffetz announced this week he plans to return to the private sector, putting what Politico called a "fast-rising political career," on hold. While his district is considered a Republican stronghold, according to Politico, healthcare and issues surrounding ACA repeal may help Dr. Allen, who is a Democrat, flip the seat.

"More medically trained people are needed in government. Congress is ailing and we have a prescription," Dr. Allen is quoted saying in Vogue. "The democratic protections we have taken for granted are under threat  truth is flat-lining and needs CPR. There is an objective reality out there, and, as a woman of science, I intend to protect that reality."

Dr. Allen previously owned a private practice, before selling it and working in a clinic for Utah Transit Authority staff, according to Vogue.

More articles on integration and physician issues:

UPenn medical school creates LGBTQ mentorship program for students

Report: 86% of future physicians find pre-med culture 'too competitive'

Some medical schools are introducing new courses to fight obesity epidemic
The following were among the most-viewed transactions and valuations stories published by Becker's Hospital Review the week of April 17.

1. 7 recent hospital transactions and partnerships

A list of healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships that took place or were announced the week of April 10.

2. Partners HealthCare to acquire Care New England in Rhode Island

Providence, R.I.-based Care New England Health System signed a letter of intent to explore an exclusive affiliation with Boston-based Partners HealthCare.

3. Prime Healthcare Foundation to acquire Care New England-owned Rhode Island hospital

Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Foundation signed a letter of intent to acquire Pawtucket, R.I.-based Memorial Hospital from Providence, R.I.-based Care New England Health System.
The Minnesota Department of Health on Wednesday increased the number of measles cases associated with a recent outbreak to 11, marking a three-case increase from the health department's April 14 update.

All 11 cases occurred in unvaccinated children 5 years and younger. Additionally, officials confirmed nine of the cases occurred in Somali Minnesotans. This population carries low immunization rates due to the spread of misinformation regarding vaccine safety. MDH is reportedly working with Somali community leaders to address the misinformation preventing higher vaccine adherence. The outbreak marks the worst in the state since 2011, when 26 infections were reported.

Sign up for our FREE E-Weekly for more coverage like this sent to your inbox!

Health officials asked more than 200 people who might have been exposed to the highly contagious virus to voluntarily quarantine themselves, according to a Star Tribune report.

"People are asking about the measles vaccine, both from the Minnesota Somali community [and] from other families ... that are concerned about the outbreak," said Kristina Whitesell, MD, a pediatrician at Fairview University Children's Clinic in Minneapolis, according to the report. "People forget that measles is a deadly disease. We were lucky in 2011 that there were no reported deaths."

To learn more about the measles, click here.

More articles on infection control:

Mother of MRSA-infected infant at UC Irvine not told about outbreak

Researchers use frog mucus to combat flu

Feds conduct 'unprecedented' drill to assess preparedness for new Ebola-like outbreak
Brian Gantwerker, MD, founder of The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles, discusses key opportunities for private practice spine surgeons in the future.

Dr. Gantwerker is speaking on a panel titled "State of Spine Surgery and Independent Practice" at the Beckers 15th Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference + The Future of Spine on June 22 to 24, 2017 in Chicago. Click here to learn more and register.

Question: How do you see independent practice evolving among spine surgeons?

Dr. Brian Gantwerker: I really see synergies between private practices and concierge medical groups. I think it's a natural fit and there will be an independent network of high quality, low volume physicians available for patients. The quality private practice can give patients attention to detail and follow through in a way that other physicians can't. Also, because they don't want to lose patients to the systems that have high volumes but low patient satisfaction, patients will have a better experience.

Going forward, I think there will be fewer private practice physicians out there as a whole; there are a lot of physicians joining large groups or selling to a hospital. For those of us who are brave enough, there is a nice opportunity out there for concierge physicians to provide good quality services.

If you have your own set of patients, it can be hard to be on call and provide direct-to-patient marketing. Insurance pressures may drive some patients out of your practice because patients will get plans from large companies that don't do direct-to-physician contracting. The physicians will then stop taking insurance and do direct fee-for-service models the old-fashioned way. There is the added benefit of having their stream of patients who have access to the physician any time instead of having to go through the system. You can distinguish yourself in the market because most surgical specialists will be forced to join larger practices or relocate.

Q: What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for independent practice spine surgeons?

BG: There is a pressure for surgeons to do things outside of practice medicine. Some physicians are working on internet startups or medical device startups, designing devices, consulting or providing medicolegal work. There is a pressure to do things outside of medicine. If things become as big as they are expected, it could be a nice adjunct to their practice and become a second career if the physician decides to cut back on their practice and do more paramedical activities. I'm involved in a surgery simulation company, VR projects, that's another opportunity on the back end.

Q: Where do you see the spine field headed over the next decade?

BG: I think you'll see about 50 percent or more of spine surgeries in the ASC setting. You will see the pressure from insurance companies and patients to do more outpatient procedures. That being said, the complexity of the inpatient side will also increase. More patients will have deformity corrections or big multilevel procedures and academic medical centers will drive up costs further. There will be a crunch on bigger hospitals and academic hospitals.

It is an uncertain future with the acuity being lumped into academic centers along with high-risk patients. They will have artificially increased complication rates than others with fewer higher acuity cases. Surgeons will be performing endoscopic spine surgery, minimally invasive decompressions, artificial disc replacements and more. I foresee specialty physicians will be performing these procedures and releasing patients to 72-hour stay facilities to drive the cost down.
To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below
Here is the weekly road construction report for Hamilton County:

U.S. 27 (I-124) widening from I-24/U.S. 27 interchange to north of the Olgiati Bridge over the Tennessee River, including widening the Olgiati Bridge: Work on this project continues. The speed limit on U.S. 27 in the construction zone is 45 MPH. The contractor may have temporary lane or shoulder closures on U.S. 27 between 7 p.m.-6 a.m. On weekdays during this report period between the hours of 9 a.m.-3 p.m., the contractor will have a temporary right lane closure on eastbound MLK Blvd. between the U.S. 27 North exit ramp and Carter St. and on westbound MLK Blvd. between Chestnut St. and the U.S. 27 North entrance ramp to work on new signals. Ramp traffic will not be affected. This work is weather permitting. As the project progresses, there may be short term temporary lane closures for the safety of the traveling public on city streets within the project area. Flaggers will assist with these closures and they will be properly signed in accordance with the Federal Highway Administrations Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. During Phase 1 of the U.S. 27 project, the contractor will be working on the northbound side of U.S. 27 on the bridges. Work will consist of demolishing and reconstructing the outside sections of the bridges along U.S. 27 North. Also on U.S. 27 South, they will be constructing a large retaining wall between the Olgiati Bridge and 6th Street. At least one lane will remain open in each direction on U.S. 27. THP will assist with traffic control on the project as necessary. Estimated project completion date is July 2019. For more info, visit the project website http://www.tn.gov/tdot/topic/US27-reconstruction-chattanooga. [Dement Construction Co., LLC/JM/CNP230]

SR 317 (Apison Pike) the grading, drainage and paving on from Old Lee Highway (LM 5.58) to SR-321 (Ooltewah-Ringgold Road) (LM 7.84): Work on this project continues. The contractor will implement a new traffic pattern at the intersection of Apison Pike and Ooltewah-Ringgold Road on Thursday beginning at 8 p.m., weather permitting. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. During this report period the contractor may have intermittent lane closures throughout the project from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion date is May. [Wright Brothers Const. Co. /Pruett/CNN279]

SR-320 (East Brainerd Road) grading, drainage, installation of signals, construction of seven retaining walls and paving from east of Graysville Road to east of Bel-Air Road: Work on this project continues. During this report period, the contractor will have intermittent lane closures between 9 a.m.-2 p.m. This work may affect either direction of East Brainerd Road or side streets from Graysville Road to Hamlett Drive as the contractor installs road crossings and borings. Traffic has been switched onto the newly-constructed section from the west end of the project to the Hurricane Creek Rd./East Brainerd Rd. intersection, allowing the contractor to work on the other side of the roadway. The contractor may have short-term lane closures to perform various operations on an as-needed basis. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Original completion date is June. Estimated project completion date is December. [Jones Brothers Contractors, LLC /Pruett/CNN383]

SR-153/SR-319 (Hixson Pike) bridge repair on Hixson Pike over SR-153: Work on this project continues. The outside lanes in both directions on the bridge on Hixson Pike over SR-153 are now closed. This lane closure will be in place until late November. During this report period the contractor may have intermittent lane closures on SR-153 from 9 p.m.-6 a.m. to do work under the bridge. If there are any temporary closures needed on SR-153 as part of this project, they will take place at nighttime on Sundays through Thursdays between 9 p.m.-6 a.m. and on weekdays on SR-153 South between 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and on SR-153 North between 7:30 a.m.-3 pm. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as necessary during these temporary closures. Estimated project completion date is May 2018. [Mid-State Construction Co. /Micka/CNQ941]

The tunnel cleaning of the McCallie Tunnel on U.S. 11 (US 64, SR-2), the Stringers Ridge Tunnel on U.S. 127 (SR-8), and the Bachman Tubes on U.S. 41 (U.S. 76, SR-8): The nighttime cleaning operation of McCallie Tunnels, Stringers Ridge Tunnel, and Bachman Tubes occurs normally on Wednesday and Thursday nights during the week with the 3rd Tuesday of the month. Work hours are between 8 p.m.-6 a.m. Tunnels will be closed during cleaning, and detours will be marked accordingly as each tunnel is cleaned. Contract completion date is June. [Diamond Specialized, Inc./Micka/CNQ174]






The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday reportedly ordered an investigation into the family members of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The inquiry was ordered over the last year's Panama Papers. Notably, the Panama Papers alleged that three of Mr. Sharifs children owned expensive residential properties in London via shell companies.
Ministers rejected calls to make it illegal for companies to require women to wear high heels at work

A woman who was sent home after she refused to wear high heels at work has branded the Government's response to calls for reform a "cop-out".

Nicola Thorp launched a petition pressing for changes in the law after she turned up at PwC in flat shoes, but was told she had to have a 2in-4in (5cm-10cm) heel.

The Government has announced that new guidelines on dress codes are expected to be issued in the summer.

But it stressed that it was already illegal for company bosses to force women to wear high heels at work and insisted laws already in place were "adequate" to deal with discrimination.

Ms Thorp said that while it was against the rules to discriminate, the law still allows employers to set different rules for the way men and women dress.

She told the Press Association: "It's a shame they won't change legislation.

"It shouldn't be down to people like myself.

"The Government should take responsibility and put it in legislation.

"I do think it is a little bit of a cop-out."

Ms Thorp's petition attracted more than 152,400 signatures asking for it to be made illegal for companies to require women to wear specific footwear for their jobs.

The Government insisted that companies cannot discriminate between men and women.

A spokesman said: "No employer should discriminate against workers on grounds of gender - it is unacceptable and is against the law. Dress codes must include equivalent requirements for both men and women.

"To make the law clearer to employers and raise awareness among employees, the Government will be producing new guidance on workplace dress codes."

But Ms Thorp, an actor, said firms should not be able to distinguish between men and women.

She said: "As it stands, the Equalities Act states an employer has the right to distinguish between a male and female dress code as long as they are not deemed to be treating one sex more or less favourably.

"Unfortunately, because of intrinsic sexism and the way in which business works in the UK, when employers are allowed the freedom to decide what is fair and unfair it tends to be women that lose out."

The Government has called on all employers with dress codes to review them and "consider whether they remain relevant and lawful".

It accepted that awareness among workers and their bosses is patchy and some employers "knowingly flout the law".

An investigation by Commons committees found that women workers have been told by their bosses to dye their hair, have manicures and wear revealing clothes.

Maria Miller, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, said: "Equality legislation is not sufficient to achieve equality in practice.

"This petition, and the committees' inquiry, have reinforced the need for effective enforcement of legislation and for employers and employees to be aware of their obligations and rights.

"We welcome the commitments made by the Government to increasing awareness of those rights, and hope that the next Government will monitor how this changes women's experiences of the workplace."

MPs investigating the issue heard that women in heels were expected to climb ladders, move furniture and walk for great distances, while others were told to unbutton their blouses to entice male customers.

The Government rejected calls by the committees for changes to tribunal rules and more in-depth monitoring of failed discrimination claims.

Helen Jones, who chairs the Petitions Committee, said: "This petition, and our inquiry, have already done a great deal to improve public awareness of the law.

"It is nevertheless very welcome that the Government has accepted our recommendation that it should be doing much more to improve understanding among employers and employees alike, to prevent discriminatory practices in the workplace.

"I very much hope that the next Government will honour the commitments made in the response to our report."
Lloyds saw bottom-line profits more than double to 4.24 billion in 2015

The contrasting fortunes of taxpayer-backed lenders Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will return to the fore next week when the pair post quarterly figures, while Barclays also reports following recent scandals.

Lloyds will post its figures on Thursday as it edges ever-closer to being fully returned to private hands, with the Government stake being cut to below 2% earlier this month and the City expecting the holding to be sold off in its entirety by June.

The lender enjoyed a robust 2016, posting its highest annual profits for a decade , with bottom-line profits more than doubling to 4.24 billion from 1.64 billion in 2015.

Analysts at UBS expect Lloyds to have enjoyed a solid start to the new year, forecasting pre-tax profits to have nearly doubled once again in the first quarter, to 1.21 billion from 654 million a year earlier.

But the vast improvement is largely due to the absence of last year's hefty 790 million charge from its controversial move to buy back expensive bonds from investors.

On an underlying basis, UBS is pencilling in a 6% fall in quarterly profits to 1.94 billion.

Lloyds has also recently announced an extra 350 million to cover mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) claims, which will come off its first-quarter bottom line, while earlier this month it put aside 100 million to cover compensation for victims of fraud at the hands of former HBOS staff.

UBS said the wider economy's prospects will be of key interest for Lloyds, given its role as a major mortgage lender, adding that another focus will be succession planning for boss Antonio Horta-Osorio.

Speculation is mounting in the City that the Portuguese banker will look to leave Lloyds once the Government sells out, with the chief executive role at HSBC tipped as a possible next move.

Part-nationalised rival RBS follows with its results on Friday, in the wake of Chancellor Philip Hammond's stark admission that the Government is prepared to sell its stake at a loss to the public purse.

The Government bought its 72% stake in the bank for 45 billion in 2008, at 5.02 a share, as part of a bailout at the height of the financial crisis.

But shares in the troubled lender are now trading at less than half that price.

Cost-cutting is therefore expected to remain a key theme at RBS and progress on the seemingly never-ending restructuring to slim down its balance sheet.

Its first-quarter figures may provide some respite to embattled boss Ross McEwan, with most analysts expecting underlying profits to more than double to 942 million, up from 440 million a year earlier.

Results will likely be flattered by a strong quarter for its private banking arm and personal and business banking division.

The group is also hoping for a reprieve from the European Commission, which is mulling over a plan to spare RBS being forced to sell off 300 Williams & Glyn branches in return for state aid.

There are fears, though, the alternative 750 million plan to boost competition in the banking market may end up costing RBS more, while it is still yet to agree a potentially mammoth settlement with US authorities over mortgage-backed security mis-selling.

Rival Barclays also updates on first quarter trading on Friday, with its figures coming after the group has once again fallen foul of UK banking regulations.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority announced earlier this month that c hief executive Jes Staley will be probed and have his pay docked over governance failings that saw him attempt to identify a whistleblower.

It comes as a separate criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into the bank's 2008 emergency fundraising nears a conclusion.

It is understood the FCA has also reopened its probe into the deal and is reviewing new evidence that could prompt it to reconsider a 50 million fine against the banking giant four years ago.

First-quarter figures will offer some light relief to Mr Staley, with analysts forecasting pre-tax profits for the core business to nudge up to 1.9 billion against 1.7 billion a year earlier.

Like its Wall Street counterparts, Barclays is set to have had a decent start to the year for investment banking returns, with UBS pencilling in a 20% hike in profits from the division.
A trade summit in the summer will examine what's next for Northern Ireland businesses after Brexit.

The Landscape Post Brexit World Trade Summit on June 13 will include speakers such as Lord Empey; Manufacturing NI chief executive Stephen Kelly; Elizabeth McCrory of UK Export Finance, and Brian Telford, head of markets at Danske Bank.

Aimed at local companies looking to expand overseas, it's being hosted by Belfast Metropolitan College.

It will "examine issues and opportunities in accessing new territories following the Brexit vote".

Lesley Batchelor, Institute of Export and International Trade director general, said: "The summit is part of our continuous work with Belfast Business School at Belfast Metropolitan College to raise the skills of those involved in international trade in Northern Ireland by engaging with the business community and government there."
The Goodfellow's tree kangaroo is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List.

It's not just the Easter bunny that Belfast Zoo staff have spotted this Easter as Kau Kau the Goodfellow's tree kangaroo has hopped out of mum's pouch.

Kau Kau is the Papua New Guinea word for sweet potato - the tree kangaroo's favourite food.

Kau Kau the Goodfellows tree kangaroo has finally hopped out' of mums pouch to greet the crowds at Belfast Zoo.

Kau Kau was born to mother Jaya and father Hasu Hasu last summer, but the joey has only recently ventured from her pouch to explore her surroundings.

As their name suggests, the Goodfellows tree kangaroo is a tree-dwelling mammal which is native to the mountainous rainforests of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

Zoo curator, Andrew Hope, says: When the joey is first born it is the size of a jelly bean and remains in the pouch for eight to ten months so Belfast Zoo staff were unable to determine the sex of the joey immediately.

"When we started to see the joey peak out of her pouch, we began to affectionately refer to her as wee spud. We then named her Kau Kau, a Papua New Guinea word for sweet potato which happens to be our tree kangaroos favourite food.

"Kau Kau is already proving to be quite a character and we hope that visitors to Belfast Zoo will enjoy seeing her first ventures outside of her pouch.

Goodfellows tree kangaroos are well adapted to a life in the trees by climbing up to 20 feet high and leaping more than 30 feet through the air from branch to branch.

However, this species is facing increasing threats due to habitat destruction and hunting.

Zoo manager, Alyn Cairns, adds: Belfast Zoo is committed to the conservation of species in danger and we take part in a number of global and collaborative breeding programmes.

"While we are always delighted to welcome new arrivals, we are particularly pleased with the arrival of Kau Kau.

Expand Close Until this year Belfast Zoo was the only zoo in the UK and Ireland to care for Goodfellow's tree kangaroo and were the first in the UK to breed the species. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Until this year Belfast Zoo was the only zoo in the UK and Ireland to care for Goodfellow's tree kangaroo and were the first in the UK to breed the species.

"Until this year Belfast Zoo was the only zoo in the United Kingdom and Ireland to care for Goodfellows tree kangaroo and we were the first in the UK to breed the species back in 2014. "
A documentary produced by a Belfast-based production company will debut at the world-famous Tribeca Film Festival in New York this evening.

Elian is the story of Elian Gonzalez, a five-year-old Cuban boy plucked from the Florida Straits, and how the fight for his future changed the course of US-Cuban relations.

Featuring personal testimony, interviews and a news archive, the documentary recounts Elian's remarkable rescue on Thanksgiving Day 1999, after his mother and 10 others fleeing Cuba perished at sea, and the custody battle between the boy's Cuban father and his Miami-based relatives.

Set against the backdrop of a tense and acrimonious relationship between the US and Cuba, it is the story about family and the challenges of reconciliation.

The documentary uses one boy's remarkable journey to plot the path to rapprochement between Cuba and the US, and is underscored by a deeply moving personal and political commentary.

The documentary was produced by Fine Point Films, the company responsible for the likes of the recent George Best: All By Himself, and the most successful locally made film of all time, Bobby Sands: 66 Days.

Producers of Elian, Trevor Birney and Brendan Byrne from Fine Point Films, said: "This is a powerful historical account of a story which made headlines around the world and captured the hearts and minds of millions of Americans.

"This is a special film as it uses a wealth of contemporary news archive and gives unprecedented access to key players in the saga, including an exclusive interview with Elian Gonzalez, now a 23-year-old man.

"We are thrilled to bring Elian to New York and the high-profile Tribeca Film Festival.

"This will be the first time that a feature documentary from Northern Ireland will be premiered there, which is a real honour.

"During the making of this documentary we lived through the visit of President Obama to Havana, the monumental death of Fidel Castro, and Donald Trump's ascendancy to the White House, so this work is relevant for the current debate around immigration and the US-Cuba relationship."
The Big Telly Theatre company will bring The Faerie Thorn to the stage.

A stage adaptation of 'dark' fairy tales from author Jane Talbot will open at The MAC in Belfast next week.

The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories has been adapted by The Big Telly Theatre company and will be touring both Northern Ireland and the Republic in the coming weeks.

The selection of short stories promises to propel the audience into a "vivid and dangerous world controlled by a complex fairy mafia".

"They are definitely not the Disney-type fairy tales at all!" joked the author.

The stories may have a basis in the iconic Grimm's fairy tales, but this collection is very much deeply rooted in Northern Ireland's myth and legends.

Jane (51) was born in Wiltshire, England but after many years of moving from one place to the next, she finally settled in Ballymoney, Co Antrim in 2011 when she married her husband Ian who is a local farmer.

"The whole process of writing this book has helped me to put down roots here and I think that's really important when you have been a travelling spirit your whole life," she said. "Finding a way to connect and to feel that you belong can be quite challenging, but writing has been the way I have done that."

The process of writing the Faerie Thorn began when Jane set about trying to find the mythical creatures on her husband's land.

"Obviously I didn't see any fairies but the experience of getting to know the farm and the trees really helped me connect with the area - it really was serendipitous getting to know my husband's land and writing the first story which is based on the huge tree on our farm."

She then asked her husband to take her to other places around Northern Ireland where there was 'magic', in hopes of finding inspiration for further tales.

Jane explained: "He took me to places like Murlough Bay and Ballintoy - and in all these places I found a story.

"There's always s tiny bit of local myth and legend in all my tales."

Having been a storyteller for many years, Jane is not surprised that people would automatically assume that fairy tales are the happy affairs usually found in children's books or big screen adaptations.

However, her tales are very much immersed in dark folklore and this will also be transferred to the stage.

Jane said: "The Grimm's fairy tales were written down and refined over the years to try and make them more palatable to society - the original stories did not have happy endings and they are actually quite brutal.

"So I've kept with the original traditions and the stories are quite dark."

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And when it came to Jane's stories being brought to the stage by The Big Telly Theatre company, the writer believes there was a little bit of help from the fairies in getting everyone together.

After initially being approached by the company's Artistic Director, Zoe Seaton, a collaboration was then born to transfer the tales from the page to the stage - and Jane said the experience has been both enlightening and enjoyable.

"I think it's really important to know how they work as a group," she added.

"I went to see one of their plays and within the first five minutes I thought it was exactly the kind of energy that I would love to see breathed into my work."

Bringing Jane's book to the theatre has been a long process, and one the author has very much been a part of.

"It has been totally magically because I obviously just write the words and I hear those words in my head, but I don't see anything at all.

"But from a theatrical point of view, you've got the words, you've got the action and then what I completely underestimated was the power of sound and music and light.

"It's astonishing how much of the story these elements can actually tell.

"I've got a huge respect now for the way the theatrical development process works and it's really a powerful, collaborative, generous process.

"The final product is so alive in a way that a book can't be."
The Crusade of Connor Stephens, a new play written and directed by Dewey Moss, will begin an open-ended run at Off-Broadways Jerry Orbach Theater at The Theater Center on June 17. Opening night is scheduled for June 26. Ben Curtis, who was born in Chattanooga, is the lead actor in the play.

Aside from being an actor, Mr. Curtis is well known for being the "Dude, You're Getting A Dell" spokesperson from 2000-2003.

Review for the Crusade of Connor Stephens:

In The Crusade of Connor Stephens, extreme loss shakes a Texas family as it comes to terms with a tragic act of violence. In the midst of widespread media attention, their story becomes an allegory for the national debate over religion, tolerance and the seedlings of hate. With humor and resilience, they will confront the ghosts of the past and discover the brutal universal truths that define the American family in the 21st century.

The cast of The Crusade of Connor Stephens will feature James Kiberd (All My Children, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Taming of the Shrew), Ben Curtis (Take Me Out, Buried Child), Kathryn Leask (The Exonerated, The Right Kind of People) and Julie Campbell (Beautiful Thing, King Lear). Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

James Noone (Broadways Sunset Boulevard, Lady Day at Emersons Bar and Grill, Jekyll and Hyde) is the scenic designer. Teresa Snider-Stein (Broadways Im Not Rappaport, Everett Beekin) is the costume designer. Zach Blane (Roundabouts Too Much, Too Much, Too Many, Suicide Incorporated) is the lighting designer. David Lawson (The Yorks Youre A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Urban Stages Angry Young Man) is the sound designer.

The Crusade of Connor Stephens made its world premiere at the 2017 Midtown International Theater Festival to sold out audiences and critical acclaim. It won seven MITF awards, including: Best Overall Production (DMoss Productions), Best Play (Dewey Moss), Best Director (Dewey Moss), Best Actor (James Kiberd), Best Actress (Kathryn Leask), Best Supporting Actor (Ben Curtis), and Best Supporting Actress (Kathleen Huber). It was nominated for 11 total awards, including an additional nomination for Best Supporting Actor (James Padric), Best Lighting Design, and Best Sound Design.

General management services are provided by Lisa Dozier King. Marketing services are provided by Red Rising Marketing. Public relations services are provided by John Capo Public Relations. Stephanie Klapper Casting is the casting director.

The Jerry Orbach Theater at The Theater Center is at 210 West 50th St. in New York City.


Former Health Minister Jim Wells has claimed he and other MLAs will split from the DUP if it agrees to Sinn Fein's demand for gay marriage.

While the DUP appears to be willing to negotiate on the Irish language, same-sex marriage is a 'red line' issue that will not be accepted by many members, Mr Wells said.

"Peter will not marry Paul in Northern Ireland," he vowed.

Mr Wells also said that the DUP will kill off Sinn Fein's proposal for a civil forum because a similar forum in the Republic led to a successful referendum on same-sex marriage.

"We will strangle that idea at birth if that's what it's going to bring. Nobody wants it except Gerry Adams anyway," he said.

Sinn Fein MLA Megan Fearon has said the DUP are out of touch with the people on the issue of marriage equality.

Megan Fearon said: "Comments from Jim Wells that the DUP could split if there is equal marriage in the north highlights the attitude of that party to equality. His remarks show just how out of touch he and his party are with the views of the general public.

"And it shows once again that the DUP is placing its party self interest above the need for equality for all.

"Marriage equality is an issue where the people are ahead of many politicians."

During his Easter Sunday 1916 commemoration speech, Mr Adams said that progressive parties that favour a civil forum should not fear another election if Sinn Fein-DUP talks do not succeed in setting up a new Executive.

The civil forum would allow ordinary people to put forward ideas for legislation, similar to the constitutional convention in the Republic that meets to recommend constitutional change.

In 2013, 79% of the Republic's convention delegates recommended the constitution be changed to allow same-sex marriage.

A referendum in the Republic approved same-sex marriage two years later.

Mr Wells said the DUP would vigorously oppose such a forum in Northern Ireland if same-sex marriage was discussed and would not allow Sinn Fein to bypass the Assembly.

Secretary of State James Brokenshire met the five main Assembly parties yesterday in an effort to get the Executive running again.

Asked if, as a compromise, the DUP would maintain its opposition to same-sex marriage but lift its veto against it in the Assembly, Mr Wells said that was tantamount to accepting gay marriage in Northern Ireland.

"Don't even think that. That's an absolute no," he added.

"Some of us would walk before that would happen. We feel very, very strongly about that."

The DUP has repeatedly used the petition of concern to block same-sex marriage legislation in the Assembly, even though it is favoured by a majority of MLAs at Stormont.

A petition of concern, which can veto any legislation, requires the signature of 30 Assembly members.

Until the March 2 election this year, the DUP's 38 MLAs were easily able to defeat same-sex marriage.

Now with 28 MLAs, the DUP lacks the numbers to single-handedly use the block if the Assembly is restarted.

However, ex-DUP stalwart and current TUV leader Jim Allister has indicated his willingness to support a veto, bringing the number up to 29.

Mr Wells and other DUP colleagues believe that a conservative member of the Ulster Unionists will bring the numbers up to 30.

While same-sex marriage remains an impassable power-sharing barrier between the DUP and Sinn Fein, former First Minister Arlene Foster has been offering an olive branch on Irish language issues, without committing to an Irish Language Act.

Mrs Foster said that she will meet non-politicised Irish language groups very soon.

The DUP has written to Pobal - the Irish language advocacy group - accepting a meeting before the general election on June 8.
Champion jockey AP McCoy is set to make a guest appearance at an exclusive charity dinner to raise funds for a new Childrens Heart Centre building in Belfast.

The Moneyglass man will reveal the inside stories about his life and career as one of the worlds most successful and dedicated sportsmen of our time as part of a fundraising campaign for the new dedicated centre for the care of children and young people with congenital heart disease.

Over two hundred babies are born with a congenital heart defect each year in Northern Ireland and many will have to face open heart surgery and ongoing treatment for their complex condition.

Leading Belfast restaurant, OX is also auctioning a unique opportunity to shadow head chef for a day to raise funds for the Childrens Heartbeat Trust.

Internationally renowned and multi award winning Head Chef of OX restaurant, Stevie Toman, has donated an exclusive experience to the fundraising dinner.

The highest bidder at the auction will spend the morning learning the ropes in a world class kitchen, before mucking in with the team as they prepare lunch.

Speaking ahead of the event, Lynn Cowan, Childrens Heartbeat Trust: We are thrilled that OX and Stevie Toman have donated this one off, incredible experience as an auction prize for An Evening with Sir AP McCoy. Tony was the best of the best in his career, and OX has proven to the best of best when it comes to dining. We have no doubt that there will be a budding masterchef who will snap up this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the best.

Billed as an evening with Sir AP McCoy, it takes place in Belfast City Hall tonight (Friday).
Some of the people who took part in the event

Police made one arrest and searched a number of people under the Misuse of Drugs Act yesterday during a mass pro-cannabis protest in Londonderry.

Up to 200 gathered in the shadow of the city's Guildhall yesterday afternoon to smoke cannabis in unison, joining thousands of '4/20' protesters across the UK lighting up to hit out at the Government's drug laws and celebrate April 20 - Global Weed Day.

A cloud of pungent smoke hung over Guildhall Square as cannabis-lovers, called to the protest by Legenderry Cannabis Club, lit up as their part of the 4/20 protest.

A Legenderry Cannabis Club spokesman said it was a demonstration to show that people who took cannabis were "done being criminalised".

"They say sharing a spliff is drug dealing, but I say it's caring," he said.

"This is a peaceful protest to show we want change and we want it now. We need to show the PSNI and anyone else watching that we as a community are done being criminalised and forced into the dark by their discrimination on us for making healthier lifestyle choices."

Barry Brown of pro-cannabis party CISTA said he had smoked a joint during the protest.

"I had prepared one to light up at 4.20pm. It was lovely. I knew that the police would be walking among the crowd," he revealed.

"The crowd were well behaved, everyone knew why they were here. We were here in peaceful solidarity. The law needs to change." Former People Before Profit MLA Eamonn McCann also joined the protest, although he refused to be drawn on whether he partook of a spliff.

"It is illegality that makes cannabis dangerous," he said. "Remove the legal ban on cannabis and all things will be transformed.

"If I had smoked a joint in Guildhall Square, I wouldn't believe that I had done anything terribly wrong. That's not to say I did smoke a joint."

Dozens of police officers in high-visibility jackets patrolled around the protest initially before moving in and searching people.

The PSNI said a number of people were searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of possession of a class B-controlled drug and remained in custody last night.

A 17-year-old boy was also spoken to by police and taken home.

Protesters moved to outside Strand Road PSNI station after the arrest, where they stood chanting the name of the young man.

Meanwhile in London, scores of marijuana lovers descended on Hyde Park in an attempt to stage the "world's biggest celebration of cannabis".

Similar events took place across the world.
Former world champion boxer Carl Frampton has said he believes a death threat sent to his family was "probably just a young lad being stupid" - but stated that people shouldn't have the right to send such messages.

It came in a Facebook private message to his wife Christine which read: "You and your kids and Carl are getting murdered by the UVF, so f***ing watch".

Christine posted a screengrab of the threat on her Twitter feed and asked for advice on how to find the person who sent it online. The same person asked her two days previously whether she owned a leather jacket and leather gloves.

Speaking about the incident the Belfast boxer said while he didn't believe it was a "serious death threat" he condemned it.

He told BBC Talkback: "You have to take these things seriously. But I think it was some clown, probably someone pretty young siting in his mum's front box room, thinking he's a hard man.

"People think they can say what they want on social media. But it's not a serious death threat I don't think. It's just some idiot, probably a young lad just being stupid."

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Frampton said he didn't report it to the police because he thinks it was "just some idiot".

"People shouldn't say these thngs. Just because it's social media you can't talk about people's kids and talk about murdering them and their family - it's just not on.

"We did take it serious, it was annoying, but we didn't go to the cops because we know it was just just some idiot."

Frampton retweeted the message because he hoped someone would know the person who sent it and have word with him.

He added: "Again I want to clarify I don't think it's a serious death threat but people don't have the right to make these statements because they are on social media.

"All it was is just some probably young guy who is a bit silly and said something that he shouldn't have said.

"The support from the public has been great, people don't want to see that sort of stuff anymore."

The threat sparked outrage among their fans, with many labelling the person behind it as a "scumbag" and a "keyboard warrior", urging Christine to report it to the PSNI.
James Brokenshire said the UK and Irish governments were committed to working together to deliver a shared ceremony of commemoration

The centenary of the Battle of Messines Ridge, where unionist and nationalist soldiers from Ireland fought side by side in the trenches, is to be marked by a joint UK-Irish ceremony.

The event will take place at the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Messines in Flanders, Belgium, on June 7 - the first day of the week-long battle, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire announced.

Messines was the first occasion in World War One when soldiers from the 36th Ulster Division and 16th Irish Division saw action together.

Both had fought at the Somme in 1916, but at different stages of the battle.

The capture of the Messines salient in the summer of 1917, in part due to the detonation of a series of devastating underground mines below the German lines on the first day of the battle, marked a significant victory for the Allies.

Noting the "historic and symbolic" significance of the event, Mr Brokenshire said the UK and Irish governments were committed to working together to deliver a shared ceremony of commemoration.

"I am pleased to announce this shared UK-Ireland ceremony to mark the centenary of the Battle of Messines," he said.

"We have seen all too well how history can divide, but our ambitious goal throughout this decade of centenaries is to seek to use history to bring us together, and to build on the political progress that has been made throughout these islands.

"This shared ceremony is an opportunity to remember the service and sacrifice of those who fought at Messines Ridge, as well as to further strengthen the important relationship that exists between the United Kingdom and Ireland."

The ceremony will be a ticketed event. Members of the public wishing to express an interest in attending should go to: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/shared-uk-ireland-commemoration-announced-for-the-battle-of-messines-ridge

Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said: "Almost a century ago, on the 7th June 1917, men and women from across the island of Ireland took part in the Battle of Messines in Flanders, Belgium.

"For the first time during World War One, soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division and the 16th (Irish) Division fought side by side.

"Those from the island of Ireland were brought together by diverse motivations but they shared a common purpose as soldiers and, caught up in the grim realities of war, no doubt a common desire: to survive and return home."

Mr Flanagan said a public ballot would be held in Ireland to allocate tickets.

More details are on: http://www.dfa.ie/commemorations/messines
Nurses in Northern Ireland are working two jobs and relying on food banks just to pay their bills, it has been claimed.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has said some nurses are unable to afford basics like childcare because the long hours worked are not reflected in their pay packets.

The union also said many staff nurses working in hospitals here are earning two to three times less than agency nurses working beside them.

It comes as the RCN polls its 270,000 members on their opinion of strike action over low pay and a recommendation by the UK-wide pay review body that nurses should get a 1% pay rise.

Nurses in Northern Ireland face an even more uncertain future than colleagues elsewhere in the UK.

It is not known whether they will even receive the 1% given the political impasse and absence of an agreed budget.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said a decision will be made on the recommended 1% pay rise once a health minister has been appointed.

If the rise gets the green light here, thousands of nurses will see their yearly pay go up by just over 200.

At the same time, MLAs have just been handed a 500 pay rise and continue to receive their 49,500 salary despite the Assembly not sitting.

According to the RCN, nurses in Northern Ireland have seen their pay drop by at least 14% since 2010 due to a combination of pay freezes and caps on pay rises.

It has also claimed that nurses in Northern Ireland are financially worse off than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK because of our pay structure.

Figures show just under half of all registered nurses here, or 8,457 WTE (whole time equivalent) nurses, are in the lowest pay band, with a starting salary of 21,692, rising to a maximum of 28,180 after eight years working for the NHS.

Northern Ireland has the highest percentage of band five nurses in the UK.

The head of the RCN in Northern Ireland, Janice Smyth (left), said nurses here are fed up with their working conditions and low pay.

"More and more of our members are suffering financial hardship," she said.

"They are working long, difficult shifts and then working second jobs because their salaries simply don't cover their bills; they are using food banks.

"The consultation we are running closes on May 7 so we won't know the outcome until we assess responses, however, we did survey members in the run up to the last Assembly election.

"We went out to the workplace and asked members their top ten priorities so we could put them to the political parties.

"We had 490 responses and the top concern was safe staffing levels, followed by pay and the third most important issue was their pension.

"There is a shortage of nurses in Northern Ireland so we have nurses working in wards where the numbers are being made up by agency nurses.

"They frequently work unpaid overtime because they won't just walk away when a patient needs them, they never know when they are going to get home, and because wards are understaffed they don't know what shifts they are working the following week.

"Then they are working alongside agency nurses who are being paid two to three times more than them," she added.
Chief Constable George Hamilton has revealed how his Christianity lies at the heart of how he polices Northern Ireland.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Irish Catholic, the 49-year-old top cop said he felt that having faith and policing were "not in any way inconsistent".

"I think that they are mutually supportive so people can have a faith and with that faith they very often bring these values, or personal anchor points, that tend to coalesce around with what makes good police work," he told interviewer Martin O'Brien.

The Chief Constable added that he was deeply influenced by Old Testament prophet Micah, whose words had inspired him in his own policing and human journey

"There is a passage of Scripture from Micah (6.8) which talks about what God requires of us, and it says to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly and if you can do that, justice, mercy, have some compassion, and a bit of humility those are three things that make a pretty good cop in my experience," he said.

"You don't even need to be Christian to have those things, what I am saying is I can see a lot of coalescing between some of those Christian anchor points and good policing."

The interview touches on a litany of issues facing him.

The Chief Constable admitted he was in a "dilemma" over attending Martin McGuinness's funeral, but decided that it was "appropriate" to do so.

Mr Hamilton said: "I suppose like many people my emotions regarding him and the attendance at his funeral was a little bit of a dilemma. My values and emotions were being pulled in opposite directions and I just had a fundamental decision to make about whether or not I believed it was the right thing to do to go."

Northern Ireland's top police officer also said there was work to be done by both the PSNI and politicians to change the attitude among the Catholic community towards pursuing career in the force.

He added: "There also hasn't been the strength of advocacy for a career in policing that I would have hoped for, this far into the new police organisation. I have said before publicly I do not question the bona fides of Sinn Fein as the largest nationalist/republican party in terms of their commitment to the peace process, and part of that being support for policing.

"It is almost support for policing, rather than the very specific support for a career in policing, for Catholic and nationalist young people. They need to get themselves to that point". He said it could take a "generational change", and while he strongly supported 50/50 recruitment in the past, he did not support its reintroduction.

The 50/50 recruitment policy operated from 2001 to 2011 and helped to increase the number of Catholic officers from 8% to 31%.

Recent recruitment drives have struggled to attract Catholics, despite advertising campaigns targeted specifically at the nationalist/republican community.

"We want to be inclusive, not just because that is the right thing to do," Mr Hamilton said.
Thoracic surgeon Dr. Rob Headrick '82 gave Baylor School students the opportunity to sit at the controls of the da Vinci Surgical System and perform a simulated robot-assisted surgery in the Weeks science building on Thursday.

Its the same system Dr. Headrick uses at CHI Memorial as a board certified cardiothoracic surgeon at Buz Standefer Lung Center.

Dr. Headrick and members of the thoracic team at CHI Memorial interacted with the students, going through an actual case with them, and working with them as they sat at the surgeons controls for a simulated procedure. The students experienced the da Vinci systems magnified 3D high-definition vision system and tiny wrist-like instruments that bend and rotate far greater than the human hand.

These students are future scientists and engineers, said Dr. Headrick. We hope to encourage them to look into the future and develop new technology that will be used in new, creative ways to change the future of healthcare.

"Access to the da Vinci robot, the simulator, and the surgeons who use the technology will give our students a glimpse into one of the most innovative biomedical advancements available today,"s aid Dr. Dawn Richards, Baylor School Science Department chair. "Students will see firsthand how such fields of science as biology and robotics can integrate. Interaction with Dr. Headrick and the da Vinci system may even inspire students to consider pursuing medical and engineering fields."

The team at CHI Memorial was awarded a 3-star rating by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the highest quality patient outcome rating only awarded to a small percentage of cardiothoracic programs in the United States.
In his Victim Impact Statement the student said his dentist cried when she saw the extent of the injuries caused by the punch.

A personal fitness trainer who with a single punch knocked out three teeth from his victim's mouth, was given a six month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and fined 350 at the Magistrate's Court in Derry on Friday.

Benjamin Gerard O'Connor, 24, from Knockwellan Park in the Waterside area of the city punched his victim in the mouth outside a fast food takeaway in Strand Road in the early hours of last June 13.

The victim, a student at Edinburgh University, was in court with his father but they left the courtroom as CCTV footage of the single punch attack was played to Deputy District Judge Noel Dunlop.

The footage showed the defendant and his victim being involved in an earlier pushing and shoving incident prior to the punch being thrown.

The force of the blow knocked out the victim's two front teeth and he later lost a third tooth.

In his Victim Impact Statement the student said his dentist cried when she saw the extent of the injuries caused by the punch.

When arrested immediately after the incident O'Connor admitted punching his victim on the mouth and described the blow as "a lucky shot".

Defence barrister Eoghan Devlin said O'Connor, who had a previously clear record, was remorseful for his actions and apologised to his victim.

The Deputy District Judge said while there was no justification for O'Connor's actions, in passing sentence he took into consideration the CCTV footage from the scene before O'Connor punched his victim.

Mr. Dunlop said based on the CCTV footage he would not be making a compensation order in the case.
A five-year-old girl in Northern Ireland was left so traumatised that she stopped breathing after shots were fired at a house.

The incident took place in west Belfast just after 10pm on Wednesday night. The child was upstairs in the house on Aitnamona Crescent along with her 27-year-old cousin at the time of the incident.

Her cousin described the terrifying moments that left her young relative in shock.

"I heard a bang and it just sounded like someone was putting their fist to the windows. I didn't actually think there were shots being fired at the house, and then two minutes later I heard another one, and then another one, and then another one," she told the BBC.

"After that I just stood in the room, my cousin was squealing at that point and physically shaking as well as myself."

The woman, who is a nurse, helped revive her little cousin along with other family members, saying that she stopped breathing.

"My aunts were beating on her chest as she had stopped breathing, she was shaking, she went all limp and eventually she did breathe," she said.

The woman said that the child is so shaken that she won't leave her mother's side.

"She was supposed to come down today and she said 'no, I don't want to come down' because she is that scared," she added. "And she is asking me if I'm okay. A five-year-old shouldn't have to think of stuff like that and shouldn't have to see things like that."

A neighbour who has lived on the street for 12 years told the Belfast Telegraph that the community was in shock following the attack.

"The poor girl's nerves were wrecked. I'm sure she is traumatised, and the wee one," they added.

"She was too scared to come out of the house afterwards. Everyone was trying to coax her to come out but she was terrified.

"I said to her brother last night, thank God she wasn't in the living room. If they'd have been down the stairs it could have been worse."

The attack left four bullet holes in the living room window which was beside the sofa.

Sinn Fein's Paul Maskey said he is thankful that no one was injured and slammed the attack.

"There is no place in our society for attacks like this," he said.

The West Belfast MP has called on anyone with information to contact the PSNI.

Detective Inspector Mark McHaffie said officers are carrying out a number of follow-up enquiries and are particularly keen to speak to anyone who was in the area at the time.
A tourist is appealing for the safe return of a family heirloom which she lost during a trip to Belfast - one month before the birth of her first grandchild who she planned to pass it on to.

Babs Fisher visited Northern Ireland over the Easter weekend for the first time since the 1980s but realised on return to her home in Bristol, England, that she had lost a bracelet which carries a lot of sentimental value.

The bangle was specially made from old gold jewellery when the civil servant was pregnant with her second son, Jack, 28 years ago.

She planned to give it to Jack's first child - her first grandchild - who is due next month. But she has now been left devastated after losing the bracelet during her short break to Belfast.

Mrs Fisher said: "This gold bangle has such sentimental value as it was made for the birth of my second child who I believed would be a girl and my intention was to pass it on to her when she came of age. I collected gold from old jewellery and saved hard to have it made prior to the birth in order to wear it when the baby came. However, my second child turned out to be a little boy and 28 years later his wife is soon giving birth to my first grandchild, a little girl, next month. Since her pregnancy I have stated that I will pass it to her and couldn't wait to see her wearing it.

"I have worn this bangle every day since my son was born in January 1990. I am devastated that less than one month before my little granddaughter is born I have lost this precious heirloom during a short trip to Belfast.

"We had a wonderful time throughout our Easter break in Belfast visiting so many beautiful locations and exciting restaurants and pubs. The last time I was here, you had to go through turnstiles to enter the city centre so it was great to see how much the place has changed since then. We felt very welcomed by the friendliness of the locals.

"During our stay we visited the Giant's Causeway, Dark Hedges, Dunluce Castle and Ballintoy Harbour, Home restaurant, the Duke of York, Cutters Wharf, Titanic Museum, SS Nomadic, Belfast Castle, and stayed at the Wellington Park Hotel.

"I feel so lost without this bangle and I haven't stopped crying. I feel as though I have failed my son by losing it and not passing the heirloom to little Delilah Pearl, who is due on May 18. The bangle has been my own comfort blanket during times of pain and sorrow, particularly when my son has been away from me. If anyone has found this bangle, please can you get in touch so that it can be passed on to my little granddaughter."

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101.
The Garda Ombudsman confirmed it launched an inquiry six months ago into the incident amid concerns that Adrian Crevan Mackin was a Garda informer

The Government is facing calls to set up a public inquiry into the shooting dead of a Garda officer and the injuring of a young mother by her abusive partner.

Adrian Crevan Mackin, who was charged with being a dissident republican, was on bail when he shot dead Garda Tony Golden in October 2015 in Omeath, Co Louth.

He shot his former girlfriend and mother-of-two Siobhan Phillips several times in the same incident as the officer brought her to collect belongings from the house she shared with Mackin.

The gunman killed himself after the shooting.

The Garda Ombudsman confirmed it launched an inquiry six months ago into the incident amid concerns that Mackin was a Garda informer.

The investigation is examining how Mackin was handled by detectives after being arrested on suspicion of firearms offences but charged with the more minor offence of IRA membership.

An RTE Investigates programme reported that Mackin was arrested after the FBI notified gardai of his alleged involvement in attempts to buy component pieces for firearms.

The programme said he admitted firearms offences in interview with detectives but was only charged with IRA membership, even though he denied being a member of a terror group.

It was also reported that Mackin was kicked off the republican wing in Portlaoise.

Lawyers for Ms Phillips and her parents Sean and Norma, Belfast-based Madden & Finucane solicitors, said: "This is a significant development in relation to the family's pursuit for information and accountability ... and the serious threat to the family beforehand.

"These revelations raise issues of significant public importance and require an investigation at the highest level."

Solicitor Katie McAllister said the Phillips family instructed lawyers to take High Court action against the Irish state in Dublin.

Gardai cannot run informers "off the books" and all official informers must be registered on the list of Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Chis).

Mackin had an illegally held Glock handgun when Garda Golden, a father of three, went to the house on the Mullach Alainn estate in Omeath with Ms Phillips and her father Sean.

Mr Phillips heard the gunshots and called emergency services.

The Garda Ombudsman said its investigation was in the "public interest" and was launched after it got information and complaints from several sources.

"Inquiries are at an early stage, following communications with the Garda Siochana, with the affected families and their representatives and with other interested parties," the watchdog said.

"Gsoc is very aware of the tragic context of this investigation and sensitivity to this will be a priority."

The Garda Ombudsman will examine if gardai "acted appropriately" knowing that Mackin had access to guns and whether they mitigated the " serious risk" this potentially posed to Ms Phillips, the public and gardai.

It also said it would look into the extent and nature of interaction between gardai and Mackin, if Ms Phillips and her family were treated properly by gardai and their complaints acted upon appropriately or if there was a delay in the Garda review of the incident.

"Full and timely cooperation of the Garda Siochana and other organisations will be critical to the effectiveness and progress of this important investigation. The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission will use all its legal powers to try to ensure this cooperation," the watchdog said.

Fianna Fail's justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan said: "If Mackin was a Garda informant, as was suggested by the programme, and was prosecuted with an offence that would facilitate his informing, rather than the serious offences to which he admitted, then this needs to be explained by the relevant authorities.

"Garda operational matters are not the concern of politicians but if decisions are made by state authorities that expose the community to danger, then those decisions must be explained and subject to scrutiny."

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said: "The evidence would indicate that Mackin was working as a Garda agent at the time of his arrest in January 2015 or subsequent to it.

"As a result the Gardai did not charge him with firearms and explosives offences which he admitted to during his questioning in Dundalk Garda station.

"Subsequently his bail was significantly reduced and he was released from Portlaoise Prison.

"The Garda also failed to thoroughly investigate the information in their possession about other weapons which Mackin had access to."

Mr Adams said he has written to Taoiseach Enda Kenny four times and the Tanaiste eight times about the case and said their responses have been unsatisfactory.

"All of the families affected by this need to have truth about the circumstances of Mackin's arrest, questioning, charging and relationship with An Garda Siochana," he said.

The Policing Authority welcomed the Ombudsman's inquiry, adding: "The authority places ongoing considerable emphasis on public confidence in the rule of law.

"Investigations in the public interest such as this are an important element in ensuring continued public confidence in our policing service."
Kilkenny is set for its first Royal visit in more than 100 years as Prince Charles plans a one-day trip to the Marble County early next month.

It is understood that the Prince of Wales (below) will arrive in Kilkenny city on Thursday, May 11, for what is expected to be a short trip.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson would not confirm next month's visit, insisting that any trip such as this would not be announced until a short time before it is due to take place.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are expected to arrive in Kilkenny early on Thursday morning, where they will stop at Butler House.

A civic reception is also being arranged for the Royal couple, which will include a dinner at Kilkenny Castle.

It is also anticipated that the trip will include a trip along the city's high street.

All shop owners along the street have been visited by gardai and asked to fill in garda vetting forms.

This will be the first Royal visit since 1904, when King Edward and Queen Alexandra stayed at Kilkenny Castle. However, an overnight stay is not anticipated this time around.

The invitation is believed to have been made by a descendant of the Smithwick brewing family, Paul Smithwick - who received an OBE earlier this year.

Reacting to the news, Kilkenny Lord Mayor Patrick O'Neill said the rumour mill has been flying around the city over the past few weeks.

"When you see pictures of the 1904 visit of King Edward in Kilkenny, the place was so excited and the streets were thronged with people," Mr O'Neill said.

"The minute this was announced, so many people were excited and wanting to find out more about it. Kilkenny is a tourism town and it's a great boost for us to have a visit such as this."

Councillor Andrew McGuinness said the visit could increase footfall in the town, adding: "Any kind of celebrity or political visit of this scale has to be welcomed".
One of the Republic's most respected consultant obstetricians has said nuns will not be able to stop lawful abortions or contraceptive treatment in the new National Maternity Hospital in Dublin.

A deal with the Sisters of Charity proposes that the new 300m facility will be built on the St Vincent's Hospital campus in south Dublin, which the religious order owns.

Amid furore over nuns potentially determining clinical care at the hospital, Dr Rhona Mahony, Master of the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street, said medical care at the new hospital will be entirely independent.

"Can we get real about this," the leading consultant said.

Dr Mahony said contraceptive treatment or abortions when a woman's life is at risk will be carried out at the new campus when it opens in about four or five years' time.

"At the moment in Holles Street, we provide services to women. This includes contraception. We have about five terminations a year, otherwise women would die.

"This will continue in the new hospital.

"The clinical independence is absolutely copper-fastened."

It has been reported that the Sisters of Charity will be the sole owner of a new company, the National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park DAC, while the identity and ethos of the current National Maternity Hospital will be retained.

The proposal to give the Sisters of Charity ultimate ownership of a 300m public hospital also provoked anger as the congregation has yet to pay 3m of redress for victi ms of institutional child abuse.

Irish Health Minister Simon Harris insisted during the week that the new National Maternity Hospital will have "full clinical, operational, financial and budgetary independence, free of any religious or ethnic influence".

He said "reserved powers" have been set out in the agreement to guarantee independence.

Dr Peter Boylan, a board member of the National Maternity Hospital and former Master at Holles Street, had questioned whether clinical care at the new National Maternity Hospital, including terminations or IVF treatment, would be influenced by the nuns' religious beliefs.

"The state is investing 300m of your money and my money in a new maternity hospital.

"It's inappropriate that that hospital should have a strong religious influence, particularly from the Catholic Church, with all its bad history in relation to women's healthcare," he said.
IS and other extremist groups gained a foothold in Libya in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi

Libya has been in turmoil since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, pictured, in 2011

An arms company that sold missiles to the Gaddafi regime in Libya is a role model for the sort of business Britain will be engaged in after Brexit, the Defence Secretary has said.

Michael Fallon said MBDA was strengthening the reputation of this country with its work and that it was a role model for the kind of partnerships well be seeking once the UK had left the EU.

In 2007 MBDA signed a contract to provide 200 million worth of missiles and military communications equipment to Colonel Gaddafis regime in Libya. He was deposed in 2011 during a brutal civil war.

The firm also makes the Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles and sells them to the Saudi Arabian air force, which is bombing civilians in Yemen. The UN estimates that that Saudi-led forces have caused the vast majority of civilian deaths in the countrys bloody conflict, with reports of Saudi forces bombing schools, hospitals and food factories. It is estimated that one third of Yemens 24 million people are at risk of starvation.

Anti-arms trade activists slammed the Defence Secretary for courting the arms company, accusing him of glorying a firm that profits from war and arms tyrants.

Sir Michael said MBDA had built a great reputation manufacturing missiles that keep us safe as he unveiled a 539 million MoD contract for the firm to supply Britain with three new missile systems. He said the contract was worth 130 jobs in Britain.

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As you know we are leaving the European Union but in leaving the European Union we are going to become an even more global country, reaching out to our friends and allies across the world, he told assembled staff members at the firms headquarters in Stevenage.

If you want to know what that means in practice look at yourselves, look at your company here. A partnership that already combines British, French, German, Italian skills in one company, forming the only European group that is capable of creating these kinds of missiles systems that meet the multiple demand of all the different domains: land, sea, and air.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Tony Blair with Muammar Gaddafi Tony Blair meets Colonel Gaddafi in 1997 / Facebook

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You are a role model here for the kind of partnerships well be seeking in future: for our defence, for our manufacturing, and for our country.

When asked by The Independent whether he considered the sale of arms to the Gaddafi regime to be role model behaviour, Sir Michael said: You know our arms export criteria are some of the strictest we have in the world and we take very good care to look at every single licence application to make sure that they conform to the criteria.

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Asked whether the British government was making the same mistake it had made in 2007 by signing off arms sales to Saudi Arabia, he replied: Saudi Arabia has the right to defend itself. Its being attacked by Houthi missiles over its southern border and is also attempting to restore the legitimate government of Yemen.

Every export application that we have for Saudi Arabia gets scrutinised against our normal criteria. Theres a court case pending at the moment and well wait for the result of that.

Sir Michael also backed BAE, which part owns MDBA, to sell more arms to the Saudi Arabian government. The firm is seeking a significant new contract with the autocratic petro-state.

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Are we supporting them? Absolutely. Its something ministers have been pressing with the Saudi government for a number of years now, he said.

Britain is the second biggest arms exporter in the world, according to UK Trade and Investment. The Independent revealed last year that Britain has sold weapons to 22 of the 30 countries on its own human rights watchlist since 2010.

The Government is currently defending a High Court challenge by campaigners who say that it is breaking its own arms exporting licence criteria by continuing to sign off the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.

Documents shown to the court show the head of the Governments own Export Control Organisation recommend that arms sales be stopped, but that this advice was not adopted by ministers. The court is currently considering its verdict. Saudi Arabia is intervening in Yemen on the side of the internationally recognised Yemeni government and fighting against Houthi rebels.

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Andrew Smith of Campaign Against the Arms Trade said: If Fallon believes MBDA as a role-model then it says very worrying things about how he sees the UK's post-Brexit future

MBDA is a company that profits from war and arms tyrants, it is among the last companies Fallon should be encouraging others to replicate.

If the UK is to play a positive role on the world stage then arms companies like MBDA need to be condemned, not celebrated and glorified by government ministers.

Dave Armstrong, managing director of MBDA UK, said: MBDA is delighted by the continued trust placed in us by the Ministry of Defence and the British military.

The contracts announced today for Meteor, CAMM, and Sea Viper will help protect all three UK armed services, providing them with new cutting-edge capabilities and ensuring their current system remain relevant for the future.

They will also help to secure hundreds of highly-skilled people at MBDA UK and in the UK supply chain, maintaining the UKs manufacturing base and providing us with a platform for exports.
In this image made from video, police attend the scene after an incident on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, Thursday April 20, 2017. (AP Photo)

Police officers block the access to the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting on April 20, 2017. AFP/Getty Images

A police officer stands guard after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, Thursday, April 20, 2017. French media are reporting that two police officers were shot Thursday on the famed shopping boulevard. Many police vehicles can be seen on the avenue that passes many of the city's most iconic landmarks. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

PARIS, FRANCE - APRIL 20: Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees on April 20, 2017 in Paris, France. One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees. Security is heightened in Paris with the first round of France's presidential election on Sunday. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)

Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees on April 20, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)

Police officers patrol near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris on April 20, 2017. French anti-terror prosecutors said they opened a probe today into the shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees that killed one police officer and wounded two others. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard. / AFP PHOTO / FRANCK FIFEFRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers block the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting on April 20, 2017. AFP/Getty Images

Police officers block the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting on April 20, 2017. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists. / AFP PHOTO / THOMAS SAMSONTHOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images

Firefighters and rescuers stand by the site of a shooting on the Champs Elysees in Paris on April 20, 2017. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists. / AFP PHOTO / THOMAS SAMSONTHOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images

People leave a road near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris on April 20, 2017. French anti-terror prosecutors said they opened a probe today into the shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees that killed one police officer and wounded two others. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard. / AFP PHOTO / Benjamin CremelBENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP/Getty Images

A police officer stands guard after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, Thursday, April 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

A police officer holds an assault rifle near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris on April 20, 2017. French anti-terror prosecutors said they opened a probe today into the shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees that killed one police officer and wounded two others. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard. / AFP PHOTO / FRANCK FIFEFRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers block the access to the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting on April 20, 2017. AFP/Getty Images

Tourists take pictures on the Champs Elysees avenue near the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris on April 21 ,2017, a day after a gunman opened fire on police on the avenue, killing a policeman and wounding two others in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group just days before the first round of the presidential election. / AFP PHOTO / Philippe LOPEZPHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

A police officer blocks the access to a road near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris on April 20, 2017. French anti-terror prosecutors said they opened a probe today into the shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees that killed one police officer and wounded two others. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard. / AFP PHOTO / Benjamin CremelBENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP/Getty Images

A bullet hole is pictured on a shopwindow of the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris, Friday, April 21, 2017.

French President Francois Hollande (C), French President's Chief of Staff, Jean-Pierre Jouyet (L), French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl (Rear C), French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (C-R), head of Hollande's communication service Gaspard Gantzer (R) and French Justice Minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas (Rear L) attend a meeting of the Defense Council on April 21, 2017 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, after a gunman opened fire on police on the Champs Elysees a day before.

Armed police patrol the Champs Elysees in Paris following yesterday's shooting of a police officer on April 21 2017.

The gunman who shot and killed a police officer on the Champs-Elysees in Paris was detained in February for threatening police and then freed.

Two French officials said the gunman was detained towards the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police, but he was then released due to a lack of evidence.

An address searched in the town of Chelles has been identifued as belonging to the family home of 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi, who has a criminal record. Police tape surrounded the quiet, middle-class area and neighbours expressed surprise at the searches.

Archive reports by French newspaper Le Parisien say Cheurfi was convicted of attacking a police officer in 2001.

Authorities are trying to determine whether "one or more people" might have helped the attacker, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said at the scene of the shooting.

Police shot and killed the gunman after he opened fire on a police van on Paris' most famous boulevard on Thursday night.

The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Paris prosecutor's office leading the investigation has said a pump-action shotgun and knives were found in the gunman's car. Police have detained for questioning three of his family members, as investigators seek to determine whether he was acting alone and where he got his weapons. A Belgian man who had been linked by some as an accomplice to the gunman has turned himself in, and authorities said there was no link to the incident.

The Islamic State extremist group quickly claimed responsibility for Thursday night's attack, just three days before a tense presidential election. Security has already has been a dominant theme in the campaign and the violence on the city's iconic avenue threatened to have a bearing on voters' decisions.

Candidates cancelled or rescheduled final campaign events ahead of Sunday's first-round vote. Investigators searched a home early on Friday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed to be linked to the shooting.

Expand Close In this image made from video, police attend the scene after an incident on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, Thursday April 20, 2017. (AP Photo) AP / Facebook

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Whatsapp In this image made from video, police attend the scene after an incident on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, Thursday April 20, 2017. (AP Photo)

US vice president Mike Pence said the shooting was the "latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere, any time" and his country "will not relent in our effort to end terrorism".

One police officer was killed and two colleagues seriously wounded when the attacker emerged from a car and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer store at the centre of the Champs-Elysees, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said.

The gunman was shot dead by other officers. A female foreign tourist also was wounded, Mr Molins said.

Australia's prime minister offered his country's prayers for the shot police officers and urged Australians in Europe to be on their guard.

Malcolm Turnbull urged travellers to check for security warnings on the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.

"Everywhere - but especially in Europe at the moment - pay close attention to your surroundings," he told Australia's Seven Network.

Expand Close French President Francois Hollande (C), French President's Chief of Staff, Jean-Pierre Jouyet (L), French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl (Rear C), French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (C-R), head of Hollande's communication service Gaspard Gantzer (R) and French Justice Minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas (Rear L) attend a meeting of the Defense Council on April 21, 2017 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, after a gunman opened fire on police on the Champs Elysees a day before. AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp French President Francois Hollande (C), French President's Chief of Staff, Jean-Pierre Jouyet (L), French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl (Rear C), French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (C-R), head of Hollande's communication service Gaspard Gantzer (R) and French Justice Minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas (Rear L) attend a meeting of the Defense Council on April 21, 2017 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, after a gunman opened fire on police on the Champs Elysees a day before.

Mr Turnbull says regional security would be among the topics he would be discussing with US vice president Mike Pence in Sydney on Friday.

The IS group's claim of responsibility just a few hours after the attack came unusually swiftly for the extremist group, which has been losing territory in Iraq and Syria.

In a statement from its Amaq news agency, the group gave a pseudonym for the gunman, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium.

Expand Close Tourists take pictures on the Champs Elysees avenue near the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris on April 21 ,2017, a day after a gunman opened fire on police on the avenue, killing a policeman and wounding two others in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group just days before the first round of the presidential election. / AFP PHOTO / Philippe LOPEZPHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Tourists take pictures on the Champs Elysees avenue near the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris on April 21 ,2017, a day after a gunman opened fire on police on the avenue, killing a policeman and wounding two others in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group just days before the first round of the presidential election. / AFP PHOTO / Philippe LOPEZPHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the circumstances of the attack in a country pointed to a terrorist act.

Mr Hollande held an emergency meeting with the prime minister on Thursday night and will convene a meeting of the defence council on Friday morning.

The incident recalled two recent attacks on soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris: one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport last month.

Speaking in Washington during a news conference with Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni, US president Donald Trump said the shooting "looks like another terrorist attack" and sent condolences to France.

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A witness identified only as Ines told French television station BFM that she heard a shooting, saw a man's body on the ground

Were you near the Champs Elysees at the time of the shooting?

Email us at digital.editorial@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Rising Baylor School seniors Davis Latimer, Dane Hamilton, Niko Simpkins, Clay Thames, Matthew Davis, Virginia McEvoy, Chris Chen, Rose Dallimore, Hayley Harwood, Abby Freeman, Isabelle Drayer, Grace McKenny, and Hannah Berke have been selected for the Joe Key Award, a trip that recognizes selfless character and involves seven days of sea-kayaking, hiking, and camping on the islands in Acadia National Park this July.

The trip honors the late Joe Key, who worked at Baylor from 1961 to 1988 as a military instructor and study hall supervisor and was affectionately known as "Sarge."

The trip honors students of admirable character whose selfless efforts might otherwise go unrecognized by the school or their peers. He was the father of science instructor Perry Key '81.
A Somali mother gives water to her malnourished son at a camp in the Sahal area on the outskirts of Mogadishu (Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP)

Life-threatening child malnutrition rates are rising to alarming levels in drought-hit Somalia, international aid group Save the Children has warned.

It said a new survey found "very critical" levels of severe malnutrition in two of six districts assessed in some of the worst affected parts of Somalia.

"We are on the brink of a massive catastrophe in Somalia with the death of three quarters of the country's livestock, a rapid increase of children suffering severe malnutrition and the depletion of water stores in dozens of communities," Hassan Saadi Noor, Save the Children's Somalia director, said.

He added that he fears seeing "children dying in significant numbers".

Less than 10% of children in Somalia are currently registered in a nutrition programme, according to the study, which warns children could start dying "in the near future" unless immediate action is taken such as a major and rapid scaling up of feeding schemes.

Mr Noor added: "Donors have stepped up in recent months, however such is the scale of this crisis that even more funding is needed to address malnutrition directly, including improving access to food and water.

"Children must be treated for malnutrition now... Famine is a distinct possibility for Somalia. It is an absolute travesty that this is even conceivable when just six years ago this same region was hit by a famine that killed over 250,000 people."

The drought has left 6.2 million people - more than half of the population of Somalia - in need of immediate lifesaving assistance and a further 8.3 million in Kenya and Ethiopia are also need of urgent help, he said.

AP
Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire will be reluctant to do anything that further complicates the return of self-government

With a deal over the Assembly on the long finger, Secretary of State James Brokenshire has a tough decision to make, says Rick Wilford.

Theresa May's decision to call a snap General Election has, in all probability, placed the prospect of a deal here on the long finger. The Prime Minister hasn't so much as thrown a dead feline onto our negotiating table, but rather a very lively herd of mostly unmanageable cats.

In Northern Ireland, the next seven weeks will doubtless yield a highly polarised Westminster campaign, as communal trenches are dug even deeper by the contending parties. While the intra-unionist contest will be ameliorated by an electoral pact, the battle between unionism and nationalism will be redoubled, further souring an already dire atmosphere.

One is tempted to say that Mrs May's decision has, for us, turned a difficult situation into a seemingly impossible one. But perhaps this is too gloomy a prognosis.

Gerry Adams' remark last week that "the optimism of the heart has to overcome the pessimism of the mind" may have struck a chord with those who otherwise had concluded that the talks had reached an impasse.

(By the by, this was not an original thought on the Sinn Fein leader's part, but rather a paraphrase of an earlier sentiment voiced by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, namely, "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will".)

Even so, if Mr Adams' statement struck a hopeful note, so, too, did Arlene Foster's belated decision to engage with Irish speakers - or, at least, those of them who are, in her judgment, free of political baggage and who cannot be accused of "weaponising" the Irish language.

Such straws in the wind may have suggested that devolution could be born again as the talks resumed. That it would be a troubled birth was already evident. Conversely, far from a happy ending, the talks could easily miscarry, or, even more distressingly, be stillborn.

Now in the face of a General Election, it seems clear that the gestation period of any prospective deal will be longer and its outcome way overdue.

Time, perhaps, to consider the alternatives. As far as Sinn Fein is concerned, a failed talks process leads only to another Assembly election, with the voters trooping to the polls in June when the marching season is well under way. This is a possibility: we may have both an Assembly and a General Election on June 8.

For unionists, chastened by the outcomes of the March election, a possible second Assembly contest - and a certain General Election - in the very short run will serve to deepen their anxiety already stirred by the uncertainties of Brexit and the prospect of a second Scottish independence referendum.

The UK's tectonic plates have moved and will continue to shift as its uncertain future unfolds: in this context, better to cling to nurse for fear of something worse is likely to be the response of the unionist electorate - and that means opting for direct rule, the second available alternative.

There are clearly risks posed by both another Assembly election and direct rule: the calculation by the parties, the UK and Irish governments and electors is which of those risks is the more manageable.

For Sinn Fein, confident of its momentum north and south, an Assembly election carries the possibility that both its vote and seat strength would be enhanced, thereby strengthening its call for a border poll.

Should its vote and number of seats remain largely unaltered, its bargaining position would not be diminished: it could still determine whether or not devolution will be restored by refusing to endorse Arlene Foster's presence (if she remains at the DUP's helm) in the Executive until the RHI inquiry concludes.

Even if its overall electoral performance was to decline, Sinn Fein would retain the power to block the restoration of self-government, although to do so in such circumstances would be a much riskier proposition: it would be susceptible to the justifiable charge that it was exercising its diminished power without any sense of responsibility to the people of Northern Ireland.

Unionism, in general, was already exercised by the prospect of another Assembly election. Stung by the advance of nationalism in March, it hoped/hopes that, in the event of such a contest, unionist turnout would increase significantly, most likely to the particular advantage of the DUP - preferably enabling it to regain the 30-member threshold required to unilaterally trigger the petition of concern. That hope still obtains.

It would be signalled by a DUP campaign seeking to capitalise on unionist unease by resurrecting the spectre of a Sinn Fein First Minister, buttressed by an Assembly within which nationalists constitute the majority.

Now, however, the most immediate concern for the unionist "family" is to defend its Westminster seats, making a DUP-UUP electoral pact a certainty. The only question this raises is its extent: will it expand beyond the four seats agreed by Messrs Nesbitt and Robinson in 2015? That seems a distinct possibility and will be an early test of Robin Swann's mettle.

Given the certainty of a General Election, the Secretary of State has much to ponder in weighing up the two alternatives - an early Assembly election, or the reintroduction of direct rule. In our now-altered context, how does he calculate their respective risks?

As we all know, elections spring surprises - as Mr Brokenshire, a Remainer, will not need reminding. In the light of Mrs May's decision, I think the possibility of another early Assembly election has receded.

Apart from anything else, the ill-temper that will be generated by the General Election can only aggravate relations between, particularly, the DUP and Sinn Fein: to further inflame that relationship via a simultaneous Assembly poll would border on irresponsibility.

Moreover, the uncertainties generated by elections dwarf those associated with direct rule which, when it was last reintroduced in 2002, remained in place for four-and-a-half years - and the sky didn't fall in.

This is not to imply that direct rule is an inherently better form of governance than devolution, far from it - although I have been struck by the number of people I have met recently who seem to think it preferable, as one put it, to "the shower on the hill".

As unwelcome a prospect as it would be to the denizens of Westminster and Whitehall - and their Dublin counterparts - direct rule offers some certainty and the opportunity to steer the terms of the wider political debate in Northern Ireland. It is not, however, risk-free.

More austerity, further marginalisation in relation to Brexit and the much fainter possibility of renewed violence by dissident republicans are all thinkable risks, but they may be deemed to be manageable in the shorter run.

In addition, I doubt that Mr Brokenshire - assuming, in the event of a Tory victory, he survives a summer reshuffle by Mrs May - would embark on a highly pro-active phase of direct rule: in the short-run, he will be reluctant to do anything that further complicates the return of self-government.

That goal, however, rests on the willingness of the parties to strike a deal which, in turn, rests on the ability of our political class to summon up, in Gramsci's terms, optimism of the will - something that currently is notably absent, as the General Election campaign will underline.

Dr Rick Wilford is Professor of Politics at the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen's University, Belfast
Claims the data allegedly gathered and sold by Bose can provide an incredible amount of insight into customers' behaviour and political and religious views

Bose is being sued for allegedly spying on customers and selling their personal data to advertisers.

A lawsuit filed in federal court by Chicago resident Kyle Zak this week claims the company demonstrated a wholesale disregard for the privacy of consumers.

Mr Zak says he downloaded the Bose Connect app after purchasing the companys QuietComfort 35 headphones, signing up by entering his name, email address and headphone serial number.

The app allows users to control a range of features, such as noise cancellation and software updates, on their smartphone.

However, according to Mr Zak, it also secretly keeps a record of every song and podcast a user listens to, and sells it to third parties, such as analytics firm Segment.io.

Connect also works with Boses SoundSport wireless, SoundSport Pulse wireless, QuietControl 30 and SoundLink wireless II headphones, as well as its SoundLink Color II, SoundLink Revolve and SoundLink Revolve+ speakers.

People should be uncomfortable with it, Christopher Dore, a lawyer representing Mr Zak, told Reuters.

People put headphones on their head because they think it's private, but they can be giving out information they don't want to share.

Mr Zak claims the data allegedly gathered and sold by Bose can provide an incredible amount of insight into customers' behaviour and political and religious views.

He is seeking $5 million in damages and an injunction preventing the company from collecting user data.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (left) meets with leaders of the conservative Hefazat-e-Islami group at her official residence in Dhaka, April 11, 2017.

Updated at 4:23 p.m. ET on 2017-04-21

Bangladeshs secular ruling party is trying to garner votes for upcoming elections through recent concessions to the hardline Hefazat-e-Islami group, according to the opposition and rights groups, but Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina insists shes not mixing religion with politics.

Hasina, who heads the Awami League, met with Hefazat chief Allama Shah Ahmed Shafi and hundreds of other representatives of the influential group at her residence last week, and virtually endorsed their call for removing a statue of a Greek goddess of justice that stands outside the nations Supreme Court.

Hefazat and other conservative Muslim groups said the statue is unbefitting for predominantly Muslim Bangladesh and they have staged mass demonstrations against it, including one that drew thousands of people to the streets of Dhaka on Friday (see video below).

During the meeting with Hefazat on April 11, Hasina also assured them her government would recognize degrees from the thousands of Qwami madrassas  Islamic boarding schools  which the group runs, surprising secular groups who regard the move as another attempt at Islamization in Bangladesh, whose constitution guarantees secular rule. In addition, the prime minister agreed to make some changes to public school textbooks as demanded by Hefazat.

The decisions to side with Hefazat, which has called for gender-segregated workplaces and tough blasphemy laws, arose amid tensions between hardliners and secularists in Bangladesh.

The Awami League is forging a compromise with the fundamentalists, conservative, anti-women and anti-liberation groups or with groups linked with them to retain power, said Sultana Kamal a former adviser to a previous caretaker government, describing the recent moves by Hasina as very unfortunate.

This is a very inferior type of politics. This will put the Awami League in danger and they will create a debacle for the country, she told BenarNews.

Awami, the party that led pro-independence forces in the 1971 war against Pakistan, known here as the Liberation War, has taken a position against the people by making such concessions, Kamal suggested.

Khaleda Zia, Hasinas bitter political foe who leads the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has accused the prime minister of courting votes from hardline Muslim groups ahead of general election in 2019.

Hasina has been mixing politics with religion, Zia said.

The PM shot back.

I follow religious guidelines, but I do not mix politics with religion, Hasina said.

The prime minister denied that her decision to recognize the Qwami certificates was tied to upcoming elections.

PM defends action on madrassas

As many as 1.4 million, mostly poor, students attend some 70,000 Qwami madrassas in Bangladesh. Until now, the certificates issued by these non-formal schools have not much currency on the job market because they are not considered up to the standards of modern curriculum in public schools.

Recognition of the Qwami madrassa certificate will bring jobs to lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of students. There is no politics in it, Hasina said.

Some leaders of her party commended this concession as a smart and practical one.

Recognition of the Qwami Madrasa certificates is a good move. This is not meant for votes. Whats wrong with it if this increases Awami League votes? Col. Farid Khan, a member of the partys presidium, told BenarNews.

The leader of the Workers Party, an ally in the ruling bloc spearheaded by Awami, said such concessions toward conservative Muslim groups could backfire on Awami League by causing progressive members and voters to quit the party.

An alliance with Hefazat would shrink the progressive forces and harm peoples secular and democratic spirit, Rashed Khan Menon, the head of the Workers Party and civil aviation minister, told BenarNews, adding, there should be a combined resistance against it.

Another Awami ally, Dilip Barua, chief of the Samyabadi Dal party, warned that Hasinas concessions to Hefazat could stoke militancy.

Hefazat-e-Islams philosophy is the basis of militant political ideology. Rooting out militancy is not possible through compromising with Hefazat, he told BenarNews.

Awami-Hefazat pact?

Meanwhile, Obaidul Quader, Awamis general secretary, denied that the party had formed a pact with Hefazat.

Awami League has not aligned with Hefazat. Politics is being pursued considering the reality, he told local journalists.

The spokesman for Hefazat agreed.

We dont have any political pact or understanding with them. We are not a political party, and we also dont have any political ambitions, Hefazat Press Secretary Mawlana Munir Ahmed told BenarNews.
Eight people were killed and four other injured in a bomb blast in a village in Labpur, West Bengal, April 21, 2017.

At least eight people were killed Friday when homemade crude bombs went off accidentally in the Indian state of West Bengal, police said.

The blast, which critically injured four others, occurred at the village of Darbarpur in Labpur, a sub-district of Birbhum district, about 130 km (80 miles) from state capital Kolkata.

A gang of miscreants were making bombs on the outskirts of the village. Somehow the bombs exploded, killing four on the spot, while four others died on the way to the hospital, Birbhum Superintendent of Police N. Sudheer Kumar told BenarNews.

The casualties were likely to increase, he said.

Police sources told BenarNews that an ongoing turf war over the control of the districts dry riverbeds, where illegal sand mining is carried out, was the reason the rival gang members were making crude bombs.

Kumar, however, evaded questions on the sand mafia link, according to The Hindu newspaper.

There are some rivalries in the area and clashes had been going on since Friday morning. However, police quickly reached the spot and brought the situation under control, Kumar said.

There are about 80 illegal sand mines in Birbhum district that generate about 700 million rupees (U.S. $10.8 million) each month, according to reports.

Opposition parties in West Bengal allege that most of these sand mines are controlled by leaders of the states ruling All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), and the turf war is a major reason for a growing factional feud in the party.

The TMC refuted the allegations and instead blamed the leftwing Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), its political rival, for Fridays blast.

The blast is the handiwork of CPI-M miscreants, TMC district president Anubrata Mondal told BenarNews, while brushing aside theories of any rift in the party.

But Poltu Konra, the districts CPI-M leader, squarely blamed the TMC infighting for the incident.

It is a result of a clash between sand mafias of TMC party that has led to the loss of lives of innocent villagers, he told BenarNews.
The Georgia Department of Labors LaFayette Career Center will host a recruitment for Quality Staffing to hire 100 entry-level quality control employees to work in Rock Spring.



The recruitment will be held on Tuesday, May 2, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at the career center, 200 West Villanow St. in LaFayette.



Due to U.S. Occupational Safety and Health regulations, all applicants must be at least 18 years old. A high school diploma, or a General Education Diploma (GED), is required.



While experience is not required, applicants must be available to work seven days a week and flexible with the scheduling hours.



Salaries will begin at $11 an hour.



For more information about the jobs, visit employgeorgia.com to create an account and upload, or prepare, a resume. Having an Employ Georgia account expedites the interview process.



For more information about the recruitment, contact the GDOLs LaFayette Career Center at 706-638-5525. The career center is open to serve the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.



Applicants are encouraged to dress appropriately to improve their opportunities for employment.



Visit dol.georgia.gov to learn more about career opportunities, Employ Georgia and other GDOL services for job seekers and employers, and to connect with GDOL on social media.
In the first convictions in India of suspects linked to Islamic State (IS), a local court on Friday sentenced two men to seven years each in prison for raising funds and recruiting for the Middle East-based terror group.

The verdict by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Delhi triggered a debate among analysts over the punishment doled out in the case. The NIA is Indias top counter-terrorist agency.

The convicts  Azhar-ul-Islam, 24, a native of Jammu and Kashmir, and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh, 25, from Maharashtra  pleaded guilty to being active members of IS.

Islam and Shaikh were arrested along with a third suspect, Adnan Hassan, after they were deported from the United Arab Emirates in January 2016. Hassans trial is continuing separately.

As a result of their arrests, the NIA claimed at the time that it broke up a major Indian IS cell called Junood-al-Khalifa-e-Hind, which planned to carry out attacks across India in 2016.

They (Islam and Shaikh) are remorseful of the acts alleged against them. There is no prior criminal record against them and they want to join the mainstream and want to be productive for society and want to rehabilitate themselves. The applicants are pleading guilty without any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence, they said through a plea filed by their lawyer.

Islam, Shaikh and Hassan hatched a conspiracy to raise funds for IS and were recruiting people for the terror outfit while in the UAE, according to the prosecution. Shaikh and Islam were working in the UAE since 2012 and 2015, respectively, while Hassan had been working there since 2008.

The trio used to fund potential recruits who were keen to head to Syria to fight alongside IS, according to the NIA charge sheet. Funds were sent using channels such as Western Union, and the trio transferred the money from the UAE to recipients from Tunisia, the Philippines and India.

They also were in regular contact with Syria-based Indian national Shafi Armar (alias Yousuf al-Hindi), believed to be ISs chief recruiter in India, the charge sheet said.

Mixed reactions to sentences

Some analysts favored the leniency shown toward the pair, considering their crime could have brought a sentence of life in prison.

Every sinner needs an opportunity to reform. Islam is only 24 and Shaikh only 25. Young men this age can be moved by sentiment and emotion to act in ways that defy reason, logic and even the law. They must be given a second chance if they are to genuinely repentant, retired Brig. S.K. Chatterjee, a strategic affairs commentator, told BenarNews.

That said, the crime they were accused of is grave and does warrant punishment. Under the circumstances, the seven-year sentence is fair and does in fact act as a deterrent for others who may be on the same path, he added.

Although Indian government officials have denied the presence of IS in the country, about 75 people have been arrested and are facing trial for alleged links with the outfit.

More than 50 Indian Muslims have left for the Middle East and Afghanistan to fight alongside IS. Among them, at least eight are believed to have died in battle, according to intelligence agencies.

Neeraj Kumar, former chief of Delhi Police, also supported the courts decision to give the minimum seven-year sentence to the convicts.

Given the tender age of the convicts, it is a very good judgment. I am sure the judge considered the overall circumstances of the convicts  their background, their upbringing, etc. Justice is truly served when the criminal is not only punished but also given an opportunity to reform, he told BenarNews.

The judgment also sends a strong message to any other youth caught in similar situations  that you may have been radicalized, but now if you are having second thoughts, you can come back to the fold, he said.

But advocate Vikas Pahwa disagreed.

Young age and a guilty plea are not mitigating circumstances for lenient sentencing. The sentence needs to be pronounced based on the gravity of the offense. Here, the two men charged have accepted that they were actively inciting others to join IS and raising funds to support the terror group. The punishment should have been exemplary, Pahwa told Benar.
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Cleveland's new Senior Citizens Advisory Committee held its first meeting on Thursday.

The Cleveland City Council created the committee on March 27, to hear suggestions from senior citizens. Each council member makes one appointment to the seven-member committee.

The committee includes one member from each of the five city council districts plus two serving at-large. The city mayor serves as chairman of the committee.

Committee members include Jimmy Armstrong, District 1; Shirley Knight, District 2; Ron Williams, District 3; Jo Benjamin, District 4; Hugh Hogeman , District 5; Roger Jenne, at-large and Charlie McDowell, at-large.

Initially, members representing districts 1, 2, 3 and 4 will serve a two-year term. The District 5 and two at-large members will serve a three-year term. Subsequent appoints are all two year terms.

The committee meets monthly for four months and afterwards as the committee deems necessary. The committee agreed to meet the third Monday each month at 2 p.m. at the Municipal Building.

Four members - Mr. Williams, Mr. Jenne, Mr. Hogeman and Ms. Benjamin - attended the initial meeting with Mayor Tom Rowland. Councilman Tom Cassada and City Manager Joe Fivas also attended along with Cele Curtis representing the Tennessee Commission on Aging And Disability.

Mr. Rowland told the group to bring any needs they see in the community to the attention of the city. He gave the group an overview of city government.

"When something comes to our attention, we will address that," he said.

Members suggested the City partner with local institutions, including Lee University and Cleveland State Community College, that offer educational opportunities for seniors. Among the topics discussed by the group for educational programs were personal money management, computer use and scam alerts. Other suggested topics included veterans benefits and financial assistance programs available locally.

Mayor Rowland said other organizations, including the public library, might be included as education program partners.

The group encouraged the city's continuing sidewalk construction program. They discussed a need for covered city bus stops and asked for more publicity of the Cleveland Urban Area Transit System's route information.

Mayor Rowland said the city is securing a grant for two covered bus stops.

The group discussed increased traffic congestion across the city.

Members asked about the recent city survey's results. City Manager Fivas said 1,076 people responded. The city is preparing a public report with the results, he said.

Committee members also expressed concern for city funding needs. Members noted more funds will be needed for city services as the city grows, including an increase in tax revenue.
The south leg of Valentine Circle will be closed from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday - Friday from Thursday, through April 18, for sewer line installation and repaving.

All traffic should use the north leg of Valentine Circle during the closure.
Over the past 14 years, Literacy in the Park has featured many well-known childrens authors. This year we are excited to have award-winning author Grace Lin.

Literacy in the Park celebrates the importance of literacy in our lives--using language to make meaning of the world around us. Children and families have the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning activities around reading, writing, art, music, computer coding, language and culture, financial literacy, health & nutrition, physical education, pet therapy, science and nature, and many other forms of literacy that can be found in our lives and communities.

FREE FAMILY EVENT

Engage an arena full of literacy-based activities for the entire family

Fill a goody bag with a Grace Lin book and many other take-aways

New exciting booths, activities, and entertainment

Prizes, crafts, and free healthy snacks

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
For Immediate Release, April 21, 2017 Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org Public Records Sought on Dow's Efforts to Pressure Trump Administration Over Pesticides, Endangered Species WASHINGTON The Center for Biological Diversity submitted Freedom of Information Act requests this week seeking public records from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Commerce to illuminate reports about how Dow Chemical is pressuring the Trump administration to abandon efforts to protect endangered species from pesticides. Last week Dow asked the Trump administration to scrap a nearly completed four-year effort to protect endangered species from Dow's insecticide chlorpyrifos. In January the EPA announced that its scientists had determined the highly toxic pesticide is likely to harm 97 percent of the approximately 1,800 listed threatened and endangered animals and plants found in the United States. American taxpayers have a right to know exactly how Dow Chemical is profiting from the ever-deepening corporate swamp in our nation's capital, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center. It's detestable that Dow and the Trump administration have so little respect for the health of our children and environment. Over the past six years, Dow has donated $11 million to congressional campaigns and political action committees, and has spent an additional $75 million lobbying Congress. In January 2017 Dow was one of three companies that donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration. President Trump named Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris as the head of the American Manufacturing Council in his administration. Liveris praised Trump by stating that Trump is making the United States not a red-tape country, but a red-carpet country for America's businesses. Trump, who referred to Liveris as my friend Andrew, gave Liveris his pen after signing the executive order mandating that agencies create so-called regulatory reform task forces. Several weeks ago, the EPA shocked public health advocates by abruptly scrapping a proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, which is known to cause brain damage in children. Dow spent millions on congressional campaigns, the president's coronation and lobbying Congress and now it's looking for its payback, said Hartl. The disgusting backroom efforts to sidestep the Endangered Species Act are the latest proof of just how hostile Trump's closest industry buddies are toward common-sense protections for our environment. In December 2016 Liveris criticized the EPA's ground-level ozone pollution and renewable standards for utilities, while agreeing with a climate-change-denier that carbon dioxide is an inert compound and should not be regulated by the EPA. During his tenure as the CEO of Dow, his company was assessed $6.5 million in fines by the EPA since 2010, including serious violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Over the same time period, Dow AgroSciences  the division that manufactures pesticides  has been assessed four separate penalties for violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
Office of Turkey's online portal of unions raided by police; its editor in custody

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Office of the online news portal of trade unions in Turkey was raided early this morning by the police. While certain office materials were searched and seized, the portals (Sendika.org) editor Ali Ergin Demirhan was also taken into custody over accusations of trying to portray the referendum results as illegitimate, organizing demonstrations in that regard through social media accounts, and triggering hatred among members of the public.

Journalist Demirhan, whose computers hard disc and personal mobile phone were also seized by the police, was taken to police station in Esenler district of Istanbul.

The website Sendika.org had been shut down several times before as a result of the efforts of Turkeys government to run a major crackdown in the country following the failed coup attempt of 2016.

Source: http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/sendika-org-a-polis-baskini-156199.html
LAGOS, Nigeria -There are 960 million mobile subscriptions across Africa - an 80% penetration rate among the continent's population. Internet penetration is at 18% with 216 million internet users, according to the latest Jumia mobile trend report for Africa.

 Karel Joseph Noppe Brooks via 123RF

The 2017 edition of the African Mobile Trends Paper is the third white paper presentation from Jumia delving into mobile trends across Africa and specifically Nigeria. The study takes a look at the how the market has democratised mobile internet use, the consumer behaviours driving increased smartphone adoption and the role of mobile brands, mobile operators and m-commerce in creating a synergy of an enhanced customer experience.

This years Mobile Africa Study was carried out in 15 African countries which generate more than 80% of Africas GDP: Algeria, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Mozambique, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Senegal.

Africa mobile, internet penetration

There are 960 million mobile subscriptions across Africa - an 80% penetration rate among the continents population. Internet penetration is at 18% with 216 million internet users. While Nigerias internet penetration is much higher at 53%, its mobile subscription is similar to Africas at 81% penetration (150 million mobile subscriptions).

Like last year, it is presumed that the unique subscription rate is lower as each subscriber owns an average of two sim cards.

Nigeria: a mobile first nation

As predicted in 2016, Nigeria continues its trajectory down the increasingly widening highway that is the mobile internet. With a current internet penetration rate of 53% (97.2 million users) Nigeria has a much higher penetration rate than across Africa (18%).

About 71% of website visitors on Jumia use their mobile phones. This is in comparison to 53% of Jumia African customers. One of the main vehicles of this mobile trajectory is the increasing adoption of the smartphone device by consumers.

As predicted in the Jumia 2016 report, smartphone adoption continues to rise in Nigeria. The mobile phone category continues to be the most popular among Nigerian shoppers on Jumia, both in terms of the number of items sold, and in terms of revenue generated. The sales of smartphones jumped up by 394% between 2014 and 2016, mostly driven by an increasing range of smartphones price points.

eCommerce and the diversification of smartphones

The average price for a smartphone on Jumia is $117, down from $216 in 2014. Correlating with this is a drop in the share of sales of basic feature phones from 6% in 2015 to 4% in 2016, even as the share of smartphones on the website increased.

In 2016 Chinese mobile brands held dominance and played a major role in introducing smartphones with lower price points. Infinix, Innjoo, Tecno, Samsung and Yezz are the top five smartphone brands in terms of sales on Jumia.

Infinix continues to be Africas top smartphone brand across Jumias 15 markets. One of their entry level smartphones, the Infinix Hot4Lite was one of the best-selling phones across several African markets including Nigeria.

High data costs and lower performance smartphones

Currently, one out of two mobile visitors in Nigeria are coming from the Jumia mobile app

The increased access and affordability of low specification smartphones has also revealed a need for the mobile ecosystem to respond with data-efficient browsers and mobile apps that are optimised for performance and an easy user experience.

Looking at the mobile internet browsers that customers use to access Jumia, 50% of customers in Africa come onto Jumias mobile site with Google Chrome. In Nigeria that number is just 28%. Instead, the Opera mini browser is much more popular, with 41% of the mobile traffic to Jumia Nigeria coming from Opera mini.

One reason for this could be that countries with higher levels of income have been found to have more users accessing the internet with heavier browsers like chrome  which typically have higher system requirements.

In 2016 Chinese mobile brands held dominance and played a major role in introducing smartphones with lower price points.

Opera mini is a lighter browser in terms of data usage and is popular among new mobile internet users who have lower incomes and cant afford costly internet data packs. A recent report from Opera determined the savings on mobile data costs for Opera mini users in Nigeria has amounted to about $198 million (N39.5 billion) over a 10-month period, due to its data compression technology. This is a clear example of the ripple effect that customer enjoy when a slight change is introduced by one of the digital ecosystem players.

For Jumia, an immediate key priority is to enhance the desktop user experience (which accounts for almost 30% of Jumias traffic and almost 40% of orders placed), by delivering a progressive web application that bridges the gap between conventional web pages and native mobile applications. This is to give customers a faster web and desktop experience that includes functionalities like push notifications and the ability to browse while offline.

mCommerce - beyond browsing on mobile

The trend since 2013 was for people to use their mobile phones to browse and look up products and then purchase them on their desktop. Now customers are checking out and paying for orders from the mobile app or the mobile friendly version of the website. This is a trend we foresee growing in the future based on the current figures.

Mobile customers (both those who use the Jumia app and those who browse from mobile browsers) account for 63% of all orders on Jumia Nigeria. Across the 15 markets where the study was carried out, that figure is at 47%.

With a whopping 2,236,000 Jumia app downloads from 2015 to 2016 (a 128% increase), Jumia app users form a significant portion of the mobile traffic on Jumia Nigeria. Currently, one out of two mobile visitors in Nigeria are coming from the Jumia mobile app.

The highest conversion rate recorded in the last year has been on the app. That is the number of completed orders in relation to the number of visitors is higher on the mobile app than on the mobile or desktop versions of the website. This could be driven by the fact that the app is exclusively designed for mobile and therefore has a faster and better shopping experience for users.

Hence, the priority for mcommerce for the next few years is to continually democratise the usage of the app and incentivise an increase in usage by maintaining a better browsing experience and lower data consumption.

Strategic collaborations

Strategic collaborations with phone operators and data providers are also a key factor for enhancing customer experience. For example, the zero data usage (free browsing) offered to MTN sim card owners when they browse on both the Jumia mobile site and the app will remain a key feature and value-added service for Jumia customers.

Nigerias mobile trends for 2017 are positive with a steady growth of smartphones adoption and diversity. These increased offerings deliver more value for customers and cheaper access to internet connectivity.

As smartphone brands and mobile operators continue to invest in research and development and innovative data packages, and ecommerce providers invest in customer service, logistics and marketing over the next few years, Jumias outlook is for an even more synergised digital ecosystem over the next few years.
South Africa and Mozambique are collaborating on spectrum management for telecommunications and broadcasting services.

 Chalermpon Poungpeth via 123RF

Last week, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) signed and entered into a technical agreement with the Autoridade Reguladora Das Communicacoes, the communications regulatory authority of Mozambique.

This is an agreement of co-operation and co-ordination in respect of spectrum management for telecommunications and broadcasting services, and will see the establishment of a technical committee which would address matters of common interest between the two regulators on radio frequency co-ordination.

In terms of this agreement, the two regulators shall work together to ensure, among others, co-operation on the co-ordination, control and management of radio transmission spill-overs, exchange of information and expertise in the field of radio communications.

It is our commitment as regulators to make expertise, infrastructure and equipment available to assist each other on regulatory matters, including radio frequency spectrum investigations, possible cross-border spill-overs and of course, co-ordination of our services, said ICASA acting chairperson, Rubben Mohlaloga, after signing the agreement.

The technical agreement is a culmination of the memorandum of agreement entered into by the two governments in June 2015, aimed at finding new approaches and strategies for consolidating, expanding and deepening areas of economic development, industrial, and trade co-operation between Mozambique and South Africa.

This is a critical step for us as regulators because we have a common goal of ensuring that the needs of our people are taken into account and that their service consumption is exactly what they pay for and interference-free, concludes Mohlaloga.
King James Group drinks in their global win

King James Group's chief creative officer Alistair King says the time when independent local agencies couldn't really expect to work in international brands because of how multinationals tied up the brands at a global level are over.

King James Groups chief creative officer Alistair King Earlier today, news broke that King James Group has been appointed to manage AB InBevs global brands in South Africa. Alistair King, chief creative officer of the King James Group described the three-way pitch process to me as a good old-fashioned shootout: A simple brief on a single brand  best agency on the day to win. He says thats not always the way they like it, but obviously they are thrilled that this time they did well enough to be picked. They felt the pitch had gone well at the time, so were quietly feeling optimistic. But of course, that optimism slowly wanes with each day that goes by without a phone call. Luckily that call finally came through on Wednesday morning. King says, We immediately went and bought 200 of the beers wed be working on and broke the news to our team. For various reasons, our team in Johannesburg only got to celebrate the news this morning so Im guessing the pub opened early there today. That celebration is much-deserved, especially as theyll give these global iconic brands local relevance once theyve immersed themselves in them. But King says, Local relevance is sometimes as simple as the brand just looking and behaving like a long-standing citizen of this country. King also responded to a handful of Qs below Theres a little irony in this win as the King James Group was founded on a liquor brand.... Theres a little irony in this win as the King James Group was founded on a liquor brand....

Yes our first brand was Cape Velvet Cream, awarded to us by what was then Gilbeys SA, and it literally funded our first two members of staff. Our first ad ever was a full-page newspaper ad that proudly carried the key line King James 0000001'. We were thinking big at the time. Later in our first year we won Bells Scotch Whisky and later Johnnie Walker, which we are presently parting company with, 19 years later. This obviously heralds a new chapter for us and we now get to throw our experience and energy into a brand-new relationship and some pretty remarkable brands. Were highly, highly motivated, thats for sure.

What are you then most looking forward to, from working with the global AB InBev team? What are you then most looking forward to, from working with the global AB InBev team?

Everything about it is exciting. Its a new relationship, a new energy. Its a new era for our agency group. A lot of beer will no doubt be involved. The brands are simply magnificent and the client is looking for powerful integrated solutions, which is where our sweet spot is. We fully intend and expect to do great work with this team.

What does this global win mean for an independent local agency like yourselves? What does this global win mean for an independent local agency like yourselves?

There was a time when independent agencies couldnt really expect to work in international brands because of how multinationals tied up the brands at a global level. Many marketers felt they were being forced into arranged marriages, so in time more and more of them were given the freedom to choose the agencies they wished to work with.

Thats when we first got our hands onto some global brands  Levis, Mini, Johnnie Walker, Parmalat, to name a few. As an independent we are not particularly threatening to any of the global networks when we work with them and so its proven to be very easy for us. Wins like this are very satisfying because they simply affirm that we are doing world-class stuff.

Keep an eye out for more on that world-class work and be sure to follow the King James Group on Twitter.
Senator Lamar Alexander on Thursday said at the groundbreaking ceremony for the final project to complete the "missing link" of the Foothills Parkway, "if you want to see the Smokies, youll drive the Foothills Parkway because its the only road that gives you such a spectacular view of the highest mountains in the eastern United States. The missing link is so picturesque it is worth the 75-year wait."

The "missing link" is a 1.65 mile section comprised of nine bridges that will complete 16 miles of parkway between Walland and Wears Valley adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The senator said, The story of the Foothills Parkway began nearly 75 years ago only a few years after the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created in 1934 -- when Tennesseans petitioned the National Park Service and Congress to build a new parkway outside the Smokies to help with traffic and offer visitors scenic views of the mountains.

The National Park Service, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration have worked diligently to secure funding to complete and open this additional 16 miles of the Foothills Parkway. Sen. Alexander said, The Foothills Parkway has been a priority for me ever since I was elected to the Senate in 2002, and Im glad were making progress.

In April of last year, the Tennessee Department of Transportation submitted a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant application to fund the completion of this 16-mile section of the Foothills Parkway. Alexander sent a letter to then U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx in April 2016 urging the Department to approve the $10 million TIGER grant request. The U.S. Department of Transportation approved the grant on July 26, 2016. The state of Tennessee committed an additional $15 million in funding to complete the project. The National Park Service Federal Lands Transportation Program will provide the remaining funding necessary to finish the 16 miles.

Alexander made his remarks today at the groundbreaking ceremony for the final phase of construction to complete the missing link in the Foothills Parkway  marking the completion of the 16 miles of Parkway extending from Walland to Wears Valley, which is expected in 2018. The senator joined Congressman Phil Roe (R-Tn.), Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner John Schroer, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash, and members of the Tennessee Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration to celebrate this milestone.

Sen. Alexander said, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the United States, has a tremendous economic impact in East Tennessee. The completion of this 16-mile section -- extending from Walland to Wears Valley -- of the Foothills Parkway will bring tourists and jobs to East Tennessee. Congratulations to Governor Haslam, the National Park Service, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and other state and local officials for their hard work and vision in creating this great new addition.

Sen. Alexander gave special praise to the late Dean Stone, former editor of the Maryville-Alcoa Daily Times. No one was a stronger advocate for completing the parkway than Dean Stone, and no one would be more pleased to see the missing link finished than Dean."

The Foothills Parkway was originally planned to run 72 miles from Chilhowee Lake to I-40. The project was divided into eight sections, and currently, only three of the eight sections are completed, totaling 22.5 miles. Even after the new 16 miles covering two additional sections of the parkway are completed, there will still be another three sections covering 33.5 miles of the parkway from Wears Valley to Cosby that will remain unfinished. Of the seven congressionally-mandated parkways, the Foothills Parkway is the only one not yet completed.
The International Association of Business Communicators has announced the excellence and merit winners of the 2017 IABC Gold Quill Awards programme.

In total, 227 entries have been awarded, with 74 Excellence and 138 Merit, including 13 South African winners.

The Gold Quill Awards programme recognises business communication excellence globally, and is acknowledged as one of the most prestigious global awards programmes. Entries are evaluated against IABCs standard of excellence, and the feedback from this years evaluators indicated that the standard of work in this years awards was very strong.

This year, awards have been won by organisations from around the world, with 16 countries represented in the winners list. The awards will be presented at the Excellence Awards Gala, to be held on Tuesday 13 June, as part of the IABC World Conference in Washington, D.C.

International calibre

Carol Allers, IABC Africa Regional Chairperson, says the number of winners is a testament to the quality of communication excellence in South Africa. We have a lot to be proud of! The record number of entries and winners from South Africa demonstrates the calibre of communication and the amazing work being rolled out by local communicators. Each South African winner was judged by two international judges, demonstrating our international calibre of work.

Gold Quills chair, Ghrethna Kruger, congratulated the winners on their achievement. All your hard work has paid off and winning a Gold Quill Award puts you in the top ranks of the business communicators of the world. On behalf of myself and the entire IABC Africa Regional Board, thank you for entering the programme, says Kruger.

Daniel Munslow, a director on the International Executive Board of the IABC, says The Africa region can also be proud of the achievement of having the largest judging panel in the world. Under the guidance of our Gold Quills chair, Ghrethna Kruger, we hosted 34 South African judges who evaluated international entries. Award programmes like this are important to benchmark global best practice in strategic business communication, and hope to continue the trend of showcasing excellent work from South Africa.

The winners of the best of the best awards and IABC agency and communication department of the year awards will be announced at the Excellence Awards Gala at the World Conference.

Our South African winners include:

Excellence Award winners

Africa Technology Back on Track, Sophia Dower, Barclays Africa

TUHF Internal brand refresh, Terri Brown, The Logical Truth

Makarapa City  Anglo American created community radio drama, Mooketsi Mocumi, Ann Farndell, Rochelle de Paiva, Pranill Ramchander, Sibusiso Tshabalala (Anglo American South Africa)

"Pencil me In" Stakeholder Research, SABC Pension Fund

Innovative research methods for Sappis vast rural workforce, Sappi Communications and DevCom Teams, Sappi Limited South Africa

Merit Award winners
The tenth annual Trialogue Business in Society Conference will take place at the Wanderers Club in Johannesburg, 16-17 May. The keynote speaker is Graca Machel, international advocate for women's and children's rights and founder of the Graca Machel Trust.

Graca Machel

The forum aims to enable companies, government, civil society organisations, parastatals and individuals to better help citizens reach their full potential.

Topics to be covered include; national and global trends in corporate philanthropy, funding social justice, managing and meeting community expectations, information and communications technology for development and in education, social media for social impact, and fundraising tips from corporate donors.

A lineup of more than 50 speakers includes:

Dr Adebayo Fayoyin, regional advocacy, media and communications adviser at the United Nations,

Allon Raiz, founder and CEO of Raizcorp business incubator,

Antoinia Norman, CEO of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship,

Mbongiseni Buthelezi, research manager, Public Affairs Research Institute,

Thabang Chiloane, executive head, Nedbank Group Public Affairs,

Steph Prinsloo, programme manager, Eskom Development Foundation, and

Andy Hadfield, CEO of forgood  a social impact start-up that connects people to causes.

L-R: Dr Adebayo Fayoyin, Nelly Mofokeng, and Allon Raiz

South African corporate social investment (CSI) spend was R8.6bn in 2015/16, says Nick Rockey, MD of Trialogue. Nearly half (48%) of this CSI spend was directed to the education sector, followed by social and community development (15%), and health (9%). The majority of leading corporations have three or more flagship projects, which they have supported for more than three years.

While our challenges in South Africa are undeniable, companies have been consistent in their effort to alleviate social problems and make a difference, says Rockey.

Driving social change

Leading participants in this field are showing that by leveraging company resources and capability, innovating and driving social change, the impact achieved can be far greater than the magnitude of the contribution. It is these practices that this conference aims to expose, he says.

We call on companies, non-profit organisations (NPOs), government, academia and media to get together and share insights, case studies and lessons. The conference will be a timely opportunity to engage with social entrepreneurs, resource mobilisers, government, academics and leaders of some of South Africas most prominent foundations.

For more info, and to register, go to www.trialogue.co.za.
According to a UCT study , increasingly prolonged periods of severe hot and dry weather during the first summer after wild fires is inhibiting vegetation recovery and causing loss of plant diversity in fynbos. The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 Grobler du Preez  123RF.com

The importance of fire in sustaining and enhancing biodiversity in fynbos and many other ecosystems has long been known, but the cycle of regeneration is being negatively impacted by climate change.

The 44-year study of permanently marked vegetation plots in the Cape of Good Hope Section of Table Mountain National Park  one of the most botanically diverse regions of the world  was led by the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) in collaboration with researchers from three South African universities and four US institutions.

They found that species diversity has declined due to increasingly prolonged spells of hot, dry weather in the first year after fire, impacting particularly those species that sprout after fire. Furthermore, the species unique to each survey have shown a 0.5C increase in maximum temperature tolerance - species that have low tolerance of high maximum temperatures have been disappearing, while those that have been colonising plots have a higher maximum temperature tolerance - suggesting that species are tracking shifting climate. The observed increase in temperatures and extreme weather patterns over the past half-century suggests that opportunities for successful regeneration of vegetation will become increasingly rare.

High confidence in findings

While attributing biotic responses to climate change is typically very difficult, there is high confidence in this studys findings, because it explored multiple potential drivers of change. Over and above the impact of climate, the study found a legacy impact of a history of invasion by alien plants, which were common in the reserve until the mid-1980s.

The increasing bottleneck that extreme weather places on the post-fire regeneration phase may compromise the stability of plant populations, noted Jasper Slingsby, biodiversity scientist at SAEON and research associate at the University of Cape Towns Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation group and Department of Biological Sciences. Climatic variability may continue to provide years sufficiently benign to allow successful recruitment, but many species in ecosystems that regenerate in the first year after a fire event  most species in our study  are subject to a form of climactic Russian roulette. Unfortunately, as climate change intensifies, there are fewer empty chambers in the gun.

Major shifts in fire-prone ecosystems

The exacerbation of post-fire mortality by increasingly severe weather extremes is likely to drive major shifts in the composition, and hence, structure and function of fire-prone ecosystems, according to the researchers. This is a concern for summer-dry, fire-prone ecosystems around the world, including much of the Mediterranean Basin, the Fynbos and Renosterveld of South Africa, South Western Australia, California, and forests along the Western United States; most of which are Global Biodiversity Hotspots, and all have experienced large numbers of fires and extreme drought and heat in the past few years.

The study, titled Intensifying postfire weather and biological invasion drive species loss in a Mediterranean-type biodiversity hotspot, represents one of the few examples of climate-drive diversity loss in natural communities and demonstrates an important interaction between climate change and disturbance by fire that suggests flammable ecosystems may be particularly sensitive to climate change.

The only other empirical evidence of a climate change impact on fynbos species is a paper published by UCT authors last year.

The research was supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, the National Science Foundation (USA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, USA) and enabled by South African National Parks.

In addition to Slingsby, researchers include John Silander and Hayley Kilroy Mollmann of the University of Connecticut, Nicky Allsopp of the South African Environmental Observation Network, Cory Merow of Yale University, Matthew Aiello-Lammens of Pace University, NY, Stuart Hall of Stellenbosch University, Ross Turner of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and Adam Wilson of University at Buffalo, NY.
On Saturday, 22 April, Earth Day, 317-year-old Vergelegen will celebrate over a decade of hosting field researchers undertaking ground-breaking work on the estate.

Local and international scientists visiting the estate have already investigated subjects as diverse as Argentinian ants, Nguni cattle, frogs, grasshoppers, bontebok, alien plant management and water quality. Following recent fires, researchers have also found Vergelegen to be an ideal site to investigate the post-fire recruitment of natural and alien plants, how Proteaceae compete after fire, and when and how insects return to these burnt areas.

Numerous scientific papers have been published in local and international journals and research findings are implemented into Vergelegens environmental management plan where applicable.

Centre of Learning Excellence

Vergelegen MD Don Tooth explains that Anglo American acquired the estate in 1987 as a showcase of the best of South African heritage, culture and environment, to be shared with the nation. As part of this initiative, a Centre of Learning Excellence was established.

Representatives of six Western Cape tertiary institutions, plus overseas universities such as Bristol and Marburg, have undertaken field research on the farm. Four doctorates and seven masters degrees had been completed by 2016.

Interest from the scientific community has been supported by the burgeoning animal and plant populations at Vergelegen. These have grown rapidly in number and species diversity, thanks to an extensive programme of clearing invasive alien vegetation and facilitating land rehabilitation.

To help monitor the post-clearing ecosystem recovery, Vergelegen conducts monthly bird counts, identifies wild flowers and (using infra-red camera systems) monitors wildlife movement. Species such as the Cape leopard, caracal, grey rhebok and spotted genet are regularly viewed on the footage, reports Jacques van Rensburg, Vergelegens environmental project manager.

Alien vegetation control programme

The farms alien vegetation control programme is believed to be the largest private conservation undertaking in the country. Since the programme was launched in 2004, 2000ha of a planned total of 2200ha have been cleared, says Tooth.

This project has not only created at least 230 jobs and many opportunities for worker training, it has supported a habitat for numerous species of mammals, birds, amphibians and insects to thrive.

The size and variety of Vergelegens plant, fauna and bird populations are proof that land degradation and threatened extinction can be reversed, says Tooth.
On 20 April during World Travel Market Africa 2017 at the CTICC, Cape Town, the winners of the African Responsible Tourism Awards 2017 were announced before a packed audience including tourism professionals, media, and government officials.

Heidi van der Watt, managing director of Better Tourism Africa pinpointed what makes the award winners the leaders in responsible tourism in Africa:

Our winners have a vision that extends beyond the commercial  linking business success with the wellbeing of local communities and the longevity of their environments. They want to make profits with principles, communicate balance sheets alongside beliefs, and wont undermine passion in the pursuit of professionalism. They are resilient, determined, humanising advocates for their destinations. They are the future of tourism in Africa.

Blood Lions - joint overall winner

Realising the ambition of responsible tourism

Harold Goodwin, chair of the judging panel, said: All of those longlisted should be recognised as having made a significant contribution and be proud of what they have achieved. As in the World Responsible Tourism Awards, the judges looked for winners who might educate and inspire others, challenging the industry to achieve more by demonstrating what can be done by businesses and organisations to realise the ambition of responsible tourism. That ambition is simply put: to use tourism to make better places for people to live in. This also benefits the industry: great places to live are great places to visit.

In this International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, the industry needs to recognise that we need to be a lot more transparent about credibly reporting the positive impacts that businesses in the tourism sector have on peoples livelihoods and well-being  we need to up our game and prove the claims we make. This years global Responsible Tourism Awards will be announced next month  in this International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development there is a particular emphasis on the SDGs.

Coffee Shack Backpackers - joint overall winner

The judges were mindful of the Awards made in previous years in Africa and in the World Responsible Tourism Awards, of which these African Awards are a part. The gold and silver award winners should be particularly proud of what they have achieved; they have been recognised as being leaders in the responsible tourism movement where more is expected each year.

If when reflecting on the winners of these and the World Responsible Tourism Awards you know of others you feel should be recognised then please encourage them to enter, the judges can only choose from amongst those who enter and complete the extensive application process. We encourage them, and other businesses, to continue to take responsibility for increasing the positive and reducing the negative impacts of tourism; to communicate what they are doing to use tourism to make better places and to consider entering the Responsible Tourism Awards when there is an appropriate category for their business or organisation.

The awards were sponsored by Wesgro. Tim Harris, chief executive officer of Wesgro, said: We are pleased to recognise the vision of the Award winners for providing leadership in their respective sectors throughout Africa, and effectively contributing to growing tourism in a sustainable manner. Today, we celebrate their commitment and achievements.

The winners are:

Overall Winners - supported by Wesgro

This year there were joint overall winners Blood Lions and Coffee Shack.

The ambition of the Responsible Tourism Awards is to educate, inspire and challenge. The Blood Lions campaign demonstrates how awareness raising and engagement can achieve change, successfully engaging the industry though its Born To Live Wild campaign. Coffee Shack demonstrates the major positive impact which a small business in a remote rural area can have.

Best Accommodation for Social Inclusion - supported by Better Tourism Africa

Gold winner: Coffee Shack Backpackers (South Africa)



Silver: The Backpack (South Africa)

Silver: Wilderness Safaris Damaraland Camp (Namibia)

Best for Engaging People and Culture - supported by Transfrontier Parks Destinations

Gold: Ilha Blue Island Safaris (Mozambique)

Silver: Maboneng Arts (South Africa)

Best for Habitat and Species Conservation - supported by Cape Nature

Gold: All Out Africa (Swaziland)

Silver: Wildlife ACT (South Africa)

Best Partnership for Poverty Reduction - supported by Africa Ignite



Gold winner: Isibindi African Lodges

Silver winner: Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge

Best Responsible Event - supported by BulkSMS

Gold winner: MTN Bushfire (Swaziland)

Silver: Tour de Tuli (Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe)

Best Responsible Tourism Campaign - supported by Cape Town Pass

Gold: Blood Lions (South Africa)

Best Tour Operator for Impact in Urban Areas - supported by Marine Dynamics

Gold winner: Uthando (South Africa)
Last night, Thursday, 20 April 2017, saw the announcement of the top 10 companies selected for the Barclays Accelerator 2017 Africa programme.

The event, held at Rise Cape Town in Woodstock, brought together investors, tech and startup gurus, and mentors who will give input and help take the 10 selected companies to the next level.

Yossi Hasson, MD of Techstars welcomed new mentors taking part in the programme, and welcomed back some of last year's mentors for the second programme while reiterating how valuable mentorship is in the startup scene.

Rise Cape Town

Rise is a fintech innovation hub that brings together a global community of startups and experts to solve some of Barclays biggest business challenges, under the motto connect, co-create, scale. The hubs deliver multiple programmes for open innovation, including the Barclays Accelerator programme, powered by Techstars.

Barclays created Rise (also present in London, Manchester, New York, Tel Aviv, Mumbai and Vilnius) to help identify entrepreneurs that can develop agile technology and to scale solutions using Barclays expertise, resources and footprint.

Excited to be back at @ThinkRiseAfrica! Tonight we're finding out who the top 10 participants for the Barclays Accelerator 2017 is! pic.twitter.com/gLoF3Vyodl  Bizcommunity IT (@Biz_IT) April 20, 2017

The successful participants, all focussed on providing fintech solutions in Africa, will partake in a 13-week growth acceleration programme at the Rise hub, kicking off on 9 May 2017. The aim is to achive two years' progress over a period of three months.

The companies will follow the proven Techstars model and they will have direct access to top mentors, investors and venture capitalists in Africa as well life-long access to the Techstars global network. The Accelerator programme aims to uncover the next Paypal by working with exceptional fintech entrepreneurs innovating Africas financial services industry.

Applications were received from fintech startups in 52 countries.

Each of the ten successful companies represented something unique that we believe has the potential to become a significant and relevant player on a global scale, says Hasson. Access to Barclays Africas base is a significant opportunity for these fintech companies to greatly accelerate their growth through partnership or distribution deals with Barclays and access to their senior executives as mentors, providing key expertise to the startups that ordinarily would be almost impossible to get access to.

2017 programme participants

The 2017 programme participants are:

Flexpay (Kenya): Provides an automated and secured layaway system that manages the purchase of goods. Customers can choose to pay for goods over varying periods of time.



Provides an automated and secured layaway system that manages the purchase of goods. Customers can choose to pay for goods over varying periods of time. Howler (South Africa): Provides an event commerce platform. Howler is the consolidation of three powerful events and entertainment platforms, designed at the highest benchmark of service and technology, helping consumers and event organisers to make moments that matter.



Provides an event commerce platform. Howler is the consolidation of three powerful events and entertainment platforms, designed at the highest benchmark of service and technology, helping consumers and event organisers to make moments that matter. Spatialedge (South Africa): Focused on consumer analytics and targeting. Using a proprietary consumer database, Spatialedge enriches and verifies clients' customers by spatially locating them, mapping them, and use advanced analytics to help clients locate and target new customers.



Focused on consumer analytics and targeting. Using a proprietary consumer database, Spatialedge enriches and verifies clients' customers by spatially locating them, mapping them, and use advanced analytics to help clients locate and target new customers. Abe.ai (USA): Designs artificial intelligence solutions for the banking industry, helping banks better engage and support their customers at scale; significantly reducing the costs of servicing and acquiring customers through the use of chatbots.



Designs artificial intelligence solutions for the banking industry, helping banks better engage and support their customers at scale; significantly reducing the costs of servicing and acquiring customers through the use of chatbots. The Sun Exchange (South Africa): The Sun Exchange enables anyone anywhere to own and earn from solar panels powering Africa, India and other developing economies. The exchange allows for collaborative solar finance using blockchain.



The Sun Exchange enables anyone anywhere to own and earn from solar panels powering Africa, India and other developing economies. The exchange allows for collaborative solar finance using blockchain. Byte Money (South Africa): Provides solutions that help avoid mismanagement of payments in the 'informal finance sector'. Byte Money taps into and revolutionises existing third-world payment channels and integrates them with first-world technologies.



Provides solutions that help avoid mismanagement of payments in the 'informal finance sector'. Byte Money taps into and revolutionises existing third-world payment channels and integrates them with first-world technologies. Avenews-GT (Israel): Designed a digital trading platform based on blockchain technology, modernising agricultural trade by connecting food wholesalers to food producers directly, reducing distribution costs, creating financial security, and providing chain transparency.



Designed a digital trading platform based on blockchain technology, modernising agricultural trade by connecting food wholesalers to food producers directly, reducing distribution costs, creating financial security, and providing chain transparency. FOMO Group (South Africa): Africas first B2B, B2C company that facilities the travel industry by providing an alternative payment solution for keen travellers who wish to travel without the use of credit or immediate payment.



Africas first B2B, B2C company that facilities the travel industry by providing an alternative payment solution for keen travellers who wish to travel without the use of credit or immediate payment. Kapitalwise (USA): Simplifies the investment process for millennials by automating their investment decisions using machine learning and predictive analytics.



Simplifies the investment process for millennials by automating their investment decisions using machine learning and predictive analytics. eCOIDA (SouthAfrica): eCOIDA is an online insurance technology platform; a central database that connects all role players in real-time, creating an accurate workflow, fraud-free, paperless claims processing platform.

Techstars is the best global ecosystem for entrepreneurs to bring new technologies to market, says Hasson. It is significant as it has been working with technology businesses since 2006 and has invested in more than 920 companies which have gone on to raise over $3 billion dollars in funding. 90% of companies that have been through a Techstars Accelerator are still active today or have been acquired.

Yasaman Hadjibashi, chief creation officer at Barclays Africa Group says: Our diverse, ambitious, and growth-hungry African continent with its young population is finding a growing self-actualisation momentum now more than ever, with the largest segment being the millennials. Through our deep and lean collaborations with fintechs, and in fact all kinds of startups, we aim to further drive this momentum that can result in the creation and accelerated distribution of new products, experiences, and services that will make a difference for our African communities.

Keep an eye out for some one-on-one interviews with the participants! Check out Rise Cape Town here.
Radical economic transformation. The nebulous term being liberally bandied about by politicians with little clarity on what it actually means.

The concept has dominated public discourse in recent months, and is an outcome of government policy failures which have left the majority black population on the margins of the mainstream economy, said speakers at a panel discussion, organised by the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (GSB).

Panellists: Associate Professor Mills Soko, director: GSB; Mncane Mthunzi, president: Black Management Forum, Dr Sean Gossel, senior lecturer in finance at the GSB; and Nqabayomzi Kwankwa, United Democratic Movement (UDM) chief whip.

Associate Professor Mills Soko, the director of the GSB, chaired the well-attended discussion, which was at times highly charged and emotive. The panel comprised Mncane Mthunzi, the president of the Black Management Forum, an organisation which has been advocating and lobbying for transformation in corporate South Africa; Sean Gossel, a senior lecturer in finance at the GSB; and United Democratic Movement (UDM) member of parliament and chief whip, Nqabayomzi Kwankwa. Soko said attempts to invite a representative of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) had failed.

Pretty much like a chameleon

Opening the discussion, Mthunzi said South Africans had been fed reformation disguised as transformation over the past 23 years.

In my view reformation is pretty much like a chameleon it changes colours depending on the environment its not transformation. Transformation in my view is like a metamorphosisby its very nature the outcome of transformation ought to be different prior to the implementation of that transformation, said Mthunzi.

He emphasised that transformation cannot happen without pain, and businesses and institutions have to be more willing to change and give more black people access to the mainstream economy.

Its a very painful process that needs to take place businesses and institutions have been coming with a minimalist approach as far as transformation is concerned. Self-regulation has not helped. No wonder you hear the noise and militancy in the ruling party with regards to radical economic transformation, said Mthunzi.

It will explode in our faces

He argued that during the drafting of the Constitution, which was adopted in 1996, parties skated around the need for social change. There had been no social contract on how to achieve the equality and social justice promised by the Constitution.

We missed an opportunity during negotiations for democracy to deal with issues of economic transformation and how we deal with the injustices, said Mthunzi.

As a result, land ownership remains skewed in favour of the white minority, black representation in JSE-listed companies remains low, and the household income gap between black and white families continues to widen, he said.

No one has defined this radical economic transformation. Its political talk. Its just rhetoric, you cannot touch itwe do not know when it will explode, but it will explode in our faces.

Mere rhetoric for political mileage

This week, the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said that radical economic transformation was unavoidable. He said the idea behind the concept was fundamentally about building an inclusive and more collective economy in the country. Government hoped to create more sustainable growth, higher investment, increased employment, reduced inequality and to de-racialise the economy.

The ANC has argued that black people constitute almost 80% of the population, yet the lion's share of the economy in terms of ownership of land and companies remains in the hands of white people, who make up about 8% of the population.

However, Kwankwa argued during the panel discussion that the radical economic narrative at the moment was being used, perhaps abused, by ANC factions jostling for power ahead of the partys elective conference in December. He said leadership failures had contributed to policy failures, and while economic transformation was long overdue, the current discussion in government around the issue was mere rhetoric used for political mileage. Land reform was a ticking time bomb and it needed to be addressed urgently, said Kwankwa.

You cant redistribute what isnt there

The debate on radical economic transformation has been simmering for some time amid general public unhappiness with governments performance since 1994, agreed Gossel. The concept, he said, should not be seen as surprising and definitely not a sudden explosion.

Much of the frustration we see [today] largely has to do with failure to deliver on [past] promises, said Gossel.

However, Gossel argued that the country was in essence putting the cart before the horse by emphasising radical economic transformation, and not radical economic growth.

You cannot have radical economic transformation unless you have radical economic growth. The one is an outcome of the other. You cannot redistribute what isnt there, he said.

Going back to the drawing board

South Africa continues to record slow economic growth. Growth has averaged about 3% since 1994, which is considerably lower than the 5.4% envisioned in the National Development Plan, a long-term plan articulating the countrys vision to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030.

The countrys economy is likely to shrink further following the decision by ratings agencies S&P and Fitch to downgrade the sovereign debt to junk status, or sub-investment grade. The two agencies cited likely changes in economic policy after respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan was sacked during a midnight cabinet reshuffle, a move that sent the rand and markets into a tailspin and sparked widespread protests against the president.

Gossel said that the country needs to go back to the drawing board and address fundamental structural limitations in the economy that are hampering economic growth and seek ways to ensure that growth can be spread across classes, races and the disadvantaged.

You cannot have transformation in a shrinking economy thats just received junk statusas bad as these [economic growth] statistics are I actually suspect it will get worse and therefore the political rhetoric will get ramped up its all about electioneering, it isnt about the economyno one is talking about economic growth.
Rwanda's government announced on Wednesday, 19 April, it had discovered Fall armyworm on its crops, making it the third east African country afflicted by the plant-eating pest also recently spotted in Kenya.

Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility via Wikimedia Commons

Uganda confirmed last month that Fall armyworm had entered its borders after devastating crops in several southern African nations in what the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said was a "huge threat to food security".

Telesphore Ndabamenye, head of crop production at the Rwanda Agriculture Board, told AFP the harmless-looking brown caterpillar had afflicted most of Rwanda's 30 districts but said the outbreak was "not bad".

"It is under control, there is big effort devoted to control it," Ndabamenye said.

Meanwhile, Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reported Monday the disease had struck maize crops in 11 of the country's 47 counties, in a blow to farmers whose profits have already been hit by a devastating drought.

Though native to the Americas, the brown caterpillar first appeared in Nigeria and Togo last year, with some experts blaming commercial air travel for its spread.

Agriculture is the backbone of many east African countries including Rwanda, where about 80% of the population depends on farming.

Armyworm eats food sources like maize, wheat, millet and rice along with crops like cotton, potato, soybeans and tobacco.

It has already taken a toll on Uganda where the government said this week the pest had spread to nearly half of the country's districts and that losses from crop destruction could top $193m.

While pesticides are effective, Fall armyworm in the Americas has developed resistance to the chemicals.

In a statement, Rwanda Defence Force called the bug "a real threat to national food security," and announced it had airlifted about 4,500l of pesticides used to counter it around the country.

Source: AFP
The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Senzeni Zokwana is set to visit agriculture colleges as part of Government Imbizo Focus Week.

Grootfontein Agricultural Development Institute. Image source: www.middelburgec.co.za

Zokwana has visited Grootfontein Agricultural Development Institute and will visit Fort Cox College of Agriculture and Forestry on Friday, 21 April.

Education and training in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors is facing a number of challenges, including the legislation governing colleges of agriculture, employability of agriculture college graduates and the participation of women and youth in the three sectors.

Following these challenges, the Imbizo will emphasise the implementation of norms and standards for agricultural training institutes, which are expected to be officially endorsed as a guideline to the mandate of these colleges, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said on Wednesday.

The imbizo will be used as a platform to engage with stakeholders in the education and training of the three sectors in efforts to support and drive the development agenda of food security and rural wealth creation.

Stakeholders are also expected to share with the departments authorities the implications of transferring colleges of agriculture from the department to the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Promoting skills development in agriculture

Grootfontein Agricultural Development Institute is a specialised centre of excellence in small stock production, with a proven record of training in wool and mohair production.

The college is situated in the dry Karoo town of Middleburg, surrounded by Cradock, Graffreinet and Colesburg, which are dominantly small stock farming areas. It has developed a partnership with the wool and mohair industry and is well known for its research in the field.

Fort Cox College of Agriculture and Forestry is a centre of excellence in forestry. It is located near the Kat Valley Citrus growing area. The college is also near the University of Fort Hare, making it easier to tap into the expertise from the university in support of its training programmes.

It is also the only college that is semi-independent and governed by a board appointed by the MEC for Agriculture in the Eastern Cape to provide leadership and oversight.

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been awarding bursaries since 2004, after introducing an external bursary scheme in response to governments call to bridge the skills gap, promote rural development and eliminate skewed participation in South Africas economy.

The scheme is used by the department as a skills pipeline to contribute towards the promotion of inclusive economic growth, job creation and food security by ensuring a constant supply of required skilled personnel in the highly competitive fields of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

A variety of programmes, which include the bursary scheme, have since been introduced to attract young people to the abovementioned sectors and needless to say, the effort is paying off very well, the department said.

Over the years, the department has funded deserving young people to follow careers that have been identified as scarce and critical. These include agricultural economics, bio-resource engineering, food science and technology, veterinary science, viticulture and oenology, agronomy, entomology, plant pathology, soil science and grassland/pasture science, genetics and microbiology in the agricultural sector.

Other careers include forestry and wood science in the forestry sector, as well as oceanography, marine biology, ichthyology and aquaculture in the fisheries sector.
Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu on Friday, 21 April 2017, launched the Centre for Entrepreneurship in Welkom, Free State, saying such a centre will promote entrepreneurship as a career of choice.

The centres is the ninth such hub in the country. The launch of the centre forms part of the sixth National Imbizo Focus Week themed Together we move South Africa forward: Our future  make it work.

The Minister said given South Africas past, the majority of black people were left out of the mainstream economy. Government now firmly aims to support those who want to start their own businesses.

This is a platform where they are being empowered in the understanding of what it is to be an entrepreneur, Minister Zulu said of the centre located at Goldfields Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College.

The Minister acknowledged that not everyone can go to university and government felt it important to support TVET colleges to introduce entrepreneurship studies.

[This is] because weve seen already the importance of small and medium enterprises that are growing tremendously in South Africa. In order for us to support those entrepreneurs or those who want to become entrepreneurs in future, they need to go through specific training... [to understand] the economy, the business areas that want to [be involved in] and how to start and grow their business, said Minister Zulu.

The Centre of Entrepreneurship will provide the appropriate support to young people at the early stages of the entrepreneurial journey, including training on entrepreneurship, mentorship and networking. The centre will lend a hand to those who have completed their matric and have met all the criteria required by a TVET college.

Entrepreneurship at school level

At the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Johannesburg in November 2016, the possible introduction of entrepreneurship as a subject in school was raised.

Referring to this on Friday, Minister Zulu said when looking to developed countries, the issue of choosing to be an entrepreneur was something that took place at school level, even at primary school level.

By introducing entrepreneurship at school level, South Africa would benefit in that more people will see starting their own businesses as a viable option.

You will have more people not looking for jobs all the time, [rather] creating jobs by starting their own businesses. You will also be looking at people who are able to take advantage of existing opportunities that are presented by government.

Minister Zulu said small businesses should position themselves to get maximum benefit from governments 30% procurement set-aside for SMEs, when the policy comes into effect.

The issue now is once that is in place, where are the small and medium enterprises? Where are the entrepreneurs? Will they be ready for that opportunity or not? If we allow people to study entrepreneurship at school, by the time they finish school, they will be ready for it.

Call to entrepreneurs

The Minister called on entrepreneurs to realise that entrepreneurship is not about government knocking on their doors.

Its not about that. Entrepreneurship is very hard because you are building something that you believe in, something that you know belongs to you and therefore the extra time and suffering, the extra mile you put in depends on you.

Our responsibility as government is to create the conducive environment for small and medium business to operate. We have to make sure that the legislation and the regulatory environment is right. We have to make it easy for them to do their business. If anyone thinks entrepreneurship is easy, its not.

The Minister also urged communities not to burn down infrastructure when they are protesting.

The launch of the centre forms part of the Imbizo Focus Week, which started on Monday and ends on Sunday. It seeks to promote public participation and ensures that voices and perspectives of communities are heard.
Chattanooga based nonprofit World Smart, will be hosting their First Annual Fundraiser Cocktail and Chef Tasting event at The Walden Club on May 5, 2017 from 6-8 p.m.



"World Smart provides opportunities for underrepresented high school students to expand their horizons through studying abroad. Not only does World Smart aim to enrich students lives, but also works to provide the foundation for healthier communities and a stronger economy by producing globally minded leaders," officials said.



In addition to the fundraiser, World Smart is celebrating the nomination of its founder, Byron Francis, for Causeways 2017 Changemaker of the Year Award.



Wanting to bring together his passion for education and the way traveling to new places cultivates opportunities for learning, Mr. Francis participated in Causeways CO.STARTERS for Causes in 2014, giving life to World Smart. With extensive travel completed through study abroad programs in Sustainability Development and International Business in Tours, France and in Beijing and Shanghai, China, he said he seeks to share his experience of seeing the world and love for learning with young people through the organization.



The fundraiser will celebrate the new World Smart Leaders 2017 cohort, the study abroad program, and raise funds for the upcoming trip to Uganda. Tickets are $50 per person and include a signature event cocktail and heavy hor d'oeuvres. Various sponsorship levels are also available for businesses and organizations that would like to be involved further.



During the event, World Smart Leader swag gifts will be given away to the first 20 guests to arrive and attendees will receive exclusive event-only gifts and promotions. "Guests will also enjoy the beautiful views that The Walden Club provides, as it is located in the heart of downtown Chattanooga, high atop one of the tallest buildings in the city," officials said.



To buy tickets for this event, visit https://worldsmartleaders.eventbrite.com.
The controversial Durban-based Pastor, Timothy Omotoso, who was arrested in connection with alleged sexual assault, will appear before court this morning.

Omotoso, a Nigerian national, is the leader of the Jesus Dominion International in Durban. The evangelist came under scrutiny after his church featured on current affairs programme, Special Assignment, on Sunday.

The programme featured over 30 young women, from all over the country, who claimed that they were lured into performing sexual favours for the pastor at his Durban home.

The Hawks pounced on the pastor at the Port Elizabeth International Airport upon his arrival from KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday, 20 April 2017. The officials were given false information about his flight details. Members of the Hawks arrested him in a toilet cubicle at the airport, where it is believed he was seeking refuge.

The Portfolio Committee on Police has commended Omotosos swift arrest.

The speed with which the police and Hawks moved in apprehending the alleged perpetrator of these serious crimes is commendable. We hope this will send out a strong message that the country does not take kindly to any form of crime, said Committee Chairperson, Francois Beukman.
The Barclays Africa Group's 2017 CEO Scholarship Fund has increased to R210 million, allowing 3,000 university students, across its 10 African markets, to receive scholarships for the current academic year. The 2017 allocation is in partnership with 21 universities in South Africa and several others in the rest of the continent.

In 2016, the Fund disbursed R80 million in scholarships to 2000 students in universities across South Africa. Two thousand, two hundred and fifty scholarships will be allocated to South African students, while 750 will go to students in the Barclays Africa operating regions outside South Africa. Five hundred of the local scholarships will be granted to Absa staff member dependents.

The Barclays Africa operations outside of South Africa will begin rolling out their 2017 scholarship programmes when their academic year commences in September.

The CEO Scholarship Fund forms part of the education and skills development pillar of Barclays Africas shared growth strategy through which it has undertaken to invest R1.4 billion in education and skills training between 2016 and 2018. Education and skills development, enterprise development and financial inclusion are the three pillars of shared growth, which aims to create shared value for communities and stakeholders.

Barclays Africa Groups chief executive, Maria Ramos, said, University education unlocks opportunities that can change the lives of young people and the future of our continent. This is an expression of our shared growth commitment to help realize Africa's potential and contribute to long-term economic growth. This investment has been made possible by the hard work and dedication of colleagues in our business and I am proud of their commitment to making a visible difference in the lives of thousands of young Africans.

Using a combination of academic performance and financial need, universities identify qualifying students and disburse the funds after consultation with Absa. Many of the qualifying students either have very limited financial resources or fall within the missing middle category of students whose parents or guardians can only afford to pay a portion of the required university fees. Successful applicants will also benefit from the leadership and psychosocial support offered by the programme.

Universities express gratitude

In response to the contribution from Absa, Prof Irene Moutlana of the Vaal University of Technology said the universitys allocation would be used to assist needy and deserving students who are studying diplomas and Bachelors degrees in science, engineering and technology, adding, This scholarship will make an invaluable contribution to the academic image of the university.

Professor Anesh Maniraj Singh, executive director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Foundation, said, On behalf of the Vice Chancellor, the Chair of Council and the students of UKZN, I express our heartfelt gratitude to ABSA for this kind and generous donation. The current recipients have been excited with their funding, as I am sure will the next group of students.

Additional commitment

The education and skills development commitment from Absa also includes:

The support of 34 TVET colleges as part of the Department of Higher Educations Adopt a TVET programme;



Strategic university support, focused on research and capacity development initiatives



School governing body training, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education



Ready to Work - a free skills development programme to give young people range of work, money, people and entrepreneurial skills to enhance their employment and self-employment prospects.

Together with a set of retail banking products that include a competitively structured student loan scheme and a free youth banking product, the bank has a comprehensive education and youth proposition that responds to broader development needs, which include financial inclusion.
MONTREAL, Canada: Canada's second-biggest airline Westjet announced plans Thursday to launch a new ultra-low cost, no-frills service for domestic travellers.

The startup fleet of 10 Boeing 737-800s, close-packed with extra seats, is scheduled to take off later this year. The move is subject to regulatory approvals and an agreement with its pilots, the company said in a statement.

Westjet chief executive Gregg Saretsky said this marks a "complete unbundling of services and products" that used to be included in ticket prices, but did not elaborate.

Most Canadian airlines already charge extra for checked bags, meals and other services.

Westjet started in 1996 as a discount carrier but has recently faced increased competition on prices from Air Canada's discount brand Rouge and new carrier NewLeaf, which began offering ultra-low fares last year.

Source: AFP
A 51-metre glass elevator will provide a whole new perspective on God's Window, one of South Africa's most well-known natural beauty spots.

The ride will be the main attraction at the R40m Graskop Gorge adventure centre development, situated one kilometre out of Mpumalanga town on the R533 towards Hazyview, and forms part of the Lowvelds Panaroma Route.

As the glass cubicle descends down the cliff wall, it will offer 360 degree views of the gorge, waterfall, trees, birds and sky.

The centre, which is expected to open towards the end of the year, will incorporate a restaurant, bar and shops at the top of the gorge, with a childrens play area and look-out points.

Hands-on environmental tourism

The development will also have an educational element. An elevated forest walkway will be built at the bottom of the gorge. It will have two suspension bridges that cross the river and will include interpretation boards.

The company responsible for helping bring the Barberton Makhonjwa Geotrail to life, Hamilton-Fynch, has been contracted to provide environment interpretation boards.

The project is an opportunity to explain the origin of the Blyde River Canyon; the biodiversity significance of our forests, and the smaller, generally unappreciated organisms that live there; and the importance of the escarpment catchment to water supplies for communities and wildlife downstream, all the way to the Indian Ocean, says Karl Lane from Hamilton-Fynch.

The development is being done by the Graskop Gorge Lift Company, owned by Lowveld businessmen Oupa Pilane, James Sheard and Campbell Scott. Nelspruit-born Pilane is the current president of the Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism, while Sheard and Scott developed the Long Tom Toboggan and Skyway Trails, respectively.

The adventure centre is a public-private partnership with the Thaba Chweu municipality through its local economic development agency Thaleda, and the National Empowerment Fund is a shareholder.

The Graskop Gorge adventure centre will serve as a major tourism node on the Panorama Tourist Route, said Mpumalanga premier, David Mabuza in his State of the Province address in February.

The second phase of the project will include a 40-bed boutique hotel.
Emirates has announced that it will reduce flights to the United States after tightened visa and security measures under president Donald Trump hit demand.

The Dubai-based airline said that it would cut services to five US cities -- Los Angeles, Boston, Orlando, Seattle and Fort Lauderdale -- starting from next month.

"This is a commercial decision in response to weakened travel demand to the US," a spokesperson for the carrier said in a statement.

"The recent actions taken by the US government relating to the issuance of entry visas, heightened security vetting, and restrictions on electronic devices in aircraft cabins, have had a direct impact on consumer interest and demand for air travel into the US," it added.

Frustration at electronic device carry-on ban

Travellers have expressed frustration at a carry-on ban on large electronic devices that took effect last month on US-bound flights mostly from the Middle East and North Africa.

It followed an attempt by Trump to impose a travel ban on refugees and on travellers from six Muslim-majority nations.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways in a statement published on Wednesday by the official WAM news agency said demand for its 45 flights a week to the US "remains strong".
In these data oversaturated days, getting your message heard can sometimes feel as futile as sending it via carrier pigeon, however, Craig Rodney, managing director of Cerebra Communication and founder of the @SouthAfrica Instagram account, says being heard is all about making sure you are telling a story worth listening to.

Rodney spoke about social media storytelling to a packed out Travel Tech Theater at the CTICC on the second day of the Word Travel Market Africa 2017 conference.

Your story is your most powerful asset

In a world where creating and sharing has never been easier and everyone and their grandmother has a blog and an Instagram account, standing out is reserved for those who are doing something special and unique.

Through his experience of aggregating the content for the @SouthAfrica Instagram account, he has found that pretty sunset pictures just dont cut it and it is the images that tell a story through their subject matter that get the most engagement. Content creators and social media users need to be the hero of their own story by creating authentic content with a unique voice.

There's something strange in thee water in Bainskloof. Photo by @ducky_staples #ThisIsSouthAfrica A post shared by SouthAfrica (@southafrica) on Apr 9, 2017 at 1:30am PDT

Experience over pillows

For example, most hotels use the same imagery in their communications; pictures of smiling receptionists and buffet breakfasts. However, Rodney encouraged hospitality marketers to rather think of their customer and what they are looking for, which is not necessarily info on the linen thread count, but rather useful information they can use during their trip - for example, where to grab the best coffee or cocktails in that area.

Selfie-nation

We live in a time where the reason most people travel or experience certain things is so that we can share (and show off) what we did with our social media networks. This is often becoming the more important deciding factor in where to travel or what to do. I mean if you didnt share your holiday sunset snaps of Mauritius, did it even happen?

Image sourced from petapixel.com

Companies or brands that embrace this and engage with their customers will have the most success with social media. He also stressed that we are never going back from here, content creation and the sharing of it is forever evolving and it is just going to get faster and more saturated - he urged companies accept this and join the online dialogue.

Five different types of content

Forget about what medium you want to create your content with or what platform to share it on, Rodney said its not about choosing video over press release or Instagram over twitter its about the type of content or message you want to portray. Below are his five different ways companies can communicate their message.

Customer-generated content

Inspirational content

Sales content

Differential content

Transactional content



In conclusion, successful storytelling on social media is about creating a unique voice that engages with your customers or followers in an authentic way.

craigrodney.com

africa.wtm.com
South African Airways (SAA) has announced the selection of locally produced wines that will be served on its flights and in its Business Class lounges over the next 12 months.

Winemakers from across the country submit wines for consideration every year, so the selection represents the very best vintages that South Africa has to offer.

Each entry is scored after a blind tasting, and the results are compiled by both internal and external auditors. The airline selects 24 white and 24 red wines from more than 500 submissions. Different wines from the annual selection are allocated for service on board on a month-to-month basis.

Our South African wine selection is fundamental to our passengers flying experience and is a unique added value, says Kim Thipe, SAAs head of marketing. It is an important aspect of marketing our product offering to passengers worldwide.

12 top judges

Nine local judges and three international judges were responsible for this years selection.

The local judges included Nomonde Kubheka, who was born in Soweto, but who now works at the Pinotage Youth Development Academy in Stellenbosch; Luvo Ntezo, a sommelier from One & Only Cape Town; Yegas Naidoo, a Voyager Platinum lifetime member and the founding director of Miles for Style; Derek Ramsden, a Cape Wine Master and a lecturer at the Cape Wine Academy; Meryl Vivienne Weaver, a Cape Wine Master who has been a judge for many leading wine competitions; Nina-Mari Bruwer, a Cape Wine Master and a winemaker at Mont Blois in Robertson; Carmen Stevens, Winemaker of the Year in 2015; Colin Frith, who was instrumental in establishing the Cape Wine Masters programme; and Catherine Dillion, the founder and operator of a specialist company offering wine tours.

The international judges included Paula Bosch, a world-renowned sommelier, wine author and judge (Germany); Lynne Sherriff (UK), a London-based wine consultant; and Corey Ladouceur, an eminent member of the Court of Master Sommeliers and the Guild of Sommeliers.

Increase in black-owned producers

A number of the wines submitted this year were produced or distributed by suppliers that have a black ownership component of more than 50%, an indication that transformation in the wine industry is taking place. These suppliers included KWV South Africa, MWT Investments, Bayede Marketing, Hyde Park Wine and Spirit Merchants and Tropical Paradise.

SAA has been showcasing locally produced wines on its flights for over 30 years now, says Thipe. "The airline is regarded as a trend setter in this regard. Our selections are always notable, and were delighted that more black-owned producers are submitting wines for consideration.
With buyers from 45 countries, over 8,000 pre-scheduled appointments confirmed and an increase in exhibitors from 2016, WTM Africa 2017 closed its doors on a high-note. We confidently believe that WTM Africa 2017 has built on the previous years' generated business at WTM Africa, with feedback from buyers and exhibitors alike that WTM Africa 2017 has been the best yet, says Chardonnay Marchesi, general manager of Africa Travel Week.

Key and emerging source markets were represented in buyers and travel professionals from 58 countries, including the Americas, Asia Pacific and Middle Eastern regions including countries such as United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Australia, China, India, Brazil, Canada, and Argentina.

Jeanne Schmulian, marketing manager of Quiver Tree Apartments, says: Disney World doesn't have anything on this. We had an amazing show, loved the vibe and enjoyed the positive energy from each of the buyers we met with. We see WTM Africa as a great platform to help us in growing the Quiver Tree Stellenbosch brand in the future.

Jeanne Schmulian, marketing manager of Quiver Tree Apartments, was a first-time exhibitor at WTM Africa 2017

E-tourism

In addition, the exciting inclusion of the 9th E-Tourism Africa Summit at WTM Africa 2017 featured world-renowned experts on travel technology. In an overflowing venue, the E-Tourism Africa Summit demonstrated to travel trade how best to face the challenges of working in a travel market that is more dynamic and self-controlled than ever, with technology enabling clients to research, plan, and book travel in more ways and marketing increasingly relying on the way travellers create and share content.

Pink travel

The growing potential of pink travel, focused specifically on gay and lesbian travellers, was detailed in a session hosted by the KwaZulu-Natal Gay and Lesbian Tourism Association. This session showcased a strategy that contributes to socio-economic change, whilst opening up an extraordinary African tourism destination to a powerful global LGBT market hungry for new travel experiences. This emerging market for Africa will see even more focus at WTM Africa 2018.

Once again, WTM Africa 2017 was delighted to partner with the City of Cape Town. The continued support of the city is a key factor in the success of the show, and the involvement of the City of Cape Town is a testament to the importance of WTM Africa 2017 within the tourism landscape.

Lastly, revealed on the second day of WTM Africa 2017, were the winners for the auspicious African Responsible Tourism Awards. Congratulations go out to all of the deserving winners that are driving various responsible tourism initiatives in Africa.

More extraordinary innovations for an even bigger and better WTM Africa 2018, as well as audited statistics and numbers around WTM Africa 2017, will be announced in coming weeks.

WTM Africa 2018 will take place in Cape Town from 18 - 20 April 2018. Visit WTM Africa 2017 on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Join in the conversation online using the hashtag #WTMA17.
It is expected that there will be 3.9 IoT (internet of things) based devices per person by 2020.

 My Make OU via 123RF

By putting together the operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), unstructured digital information that is generated by the connected objects (gadgets, tools, devices) can be examined for improvements without immediate human interaction. However, along with all the potential improvements, the potential rise of smart nodes and transferring of data is causing new concerns about online privacy, anonymity, and security.

Reasons why security protection is an issue

Being put into the internet environment means that any devices system unavoidably comes up against multiple online threats. Any connectable device is supplied with an embedded operation system, which is not primarily designed with stringent protective built-in technologies. In view of this, having decided to use IoT, any customer should think about the security issues:

1. DDoS attacks

After being attacked, IoT-based devices can be controlled from one server, which allows an adversary to use them to overwhelm a website with traffic coming from multiple zombified gadgets. Any confidential business content or database can be leaked from the compromised website and misused in the wrong hands. The DDoS attack that targeted Brian Krebs website in 2016 is one of the most vivid examples of how the IoT can work against you.

2. Deadly vulnerabilities

We already know that the IoT system has achieved wide acceptance in the industrial sector, notably related to energy and nuclear facilities. It needs little imagination to think of the consequences if an adversary finds breaches in the devices OSes and starts changing internal settings in these facilities.

In the medical sector, devices such as insulin pumps, x-ray systems, CT-scanners, and implantable defibrillators were found to contain deadly vulnerabilities in 2016 by the Symantec Global Intelligence Network.

3. A flood of data

Having armed a business with the IoT, the enterprise could well encounter problems with the heavy load of traffic, which needs to be collected, processed, stored, and analysed. As a result of the increased data flow, the needs for increased or limitless bandwidth will grow.

Besides additional expenses for network maintenance, a company needs to monitor the traffic. Moreover, the enterprise needs to be aware that there are malicious and legitimate data patterns passed to IoT devices. The companies should secure their network by identifying malicious activity and eliminating the problem.

4. Lack of hardware and software protection

Protection should be present for each component of the IoT system, as in most cases hardware is not initially stuffed with military-grade defensive technologies and often the built-in tools are out of date. To gain better control over any internet-connected device an attacker will look to compromise a chain of IoT-based gadgets by trying to implant a malicious code or infect one of the OSes for further distribution.

5. Smart home devices vulnerabilities

Millions of homes now suffer from cyberattacks. More than 50 commercial devices (smart light bulbs, locks, energy management devices, etc.) have been found to include dozens of vulnerabilities. Thus, a smart door lock can be opened remotely without a password  an ideal opportunity for some robbing.

How to secure your IoT

The main issue is that IoT should be created with security in mind and any customer should follow a holistic approach for IT security. Regardless of the fields of the IoT usage, the protective measures are the same:

Any connected device needs to be supplied with effective security layers that include code signing, authentication, and on-device security measures. For identification and traffic protection you should opt for SSL/TLS encryption technologies.

Advanced companies offering customised IoT development should protect their software with a built-in VPN. The private network establishes a secure tunnelling run with the help of up-to-date protocols, such as OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, etc, and long-term bit-keys, which make all the traffic routed from a connected device to a VPN server encrypted and therefore sheltered from interception, misusage, and surveillance.

When used for a corporate network, a VPN gives much broader possibilities for web threats prevention including protection of all sensitive data, bypassing geo-restrictions and shifting authentic addresses.

Security-concerned customers can isolate the IoT-based devices to their own vLAN, which practically excludes a chance of virtual unauthorised accessing.

As strange as it might sound, many companies fail to undertake regular and well-timed updating of their anti-virus software, which inevitably leads to system infections.

You can also subscribe for additional services that provide security for IoT. Such services as Bitdefender BOX, for instance, offer a piece of hardware that protects every connected device in your network. Due to a regular scanning for weaknesses and backdoors, as well as having bad websites and network access control undertaken by the hardware, you wont need to install any other protective software.

All communication of IoT-based devices on a network should use SSL certificates, which protect the master of the chain devices from attacks.

The numerous spheres of successful implication for IoT, such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure, energy and medical systems management, offer strong grounds for assessing that the technology has already brought plentiful positive results and has become a part of our daily life. However, this rapidly evolving area requires some protective efforts to be taken. So, dont wait until you are caught off guard, take steps to ensure that your IoT devices are secured.
MONACO: Two flying car prototypes were launched on Thursday on the French Riviera, at an event showcasing "supercars" in Monaco.

 AFP

Dutch and Slovak companies unveiled their designs as world premieres in the tiny well-heeled principality, where luxury automakers have gathered until Sunday for the Top Marques showcase event.

Bratislava-based Aeromobil, whose first prototype presented two years ago suffered an accident, is back with a "new generation" of flying vehicle

.

"We are taking reservations from today for deliveries expected in 2020, after the process of (regulatory) approvals is completed," the Slovak firm's spokesman Stefan Vadocz said.

The Aeromobil vehicle, six metres long and with a fully-deployed span of nine metres, is a normal four-wheeled car which can unfold its wings to transform itself into a plane able to fly two passengers at a cruising speed of 260km/h for up to 750 kilometres.

Price

The price? Between 1.2m and 1.5m, depending on options chosen.

Its Dutch rival for the futuristic vehicle type, the Pal-V Liberty, is the brainchild of Robert Dingemanse, whose company is based near Breda in the south of the Netherlands.

His crossover car-plane is more compact, at four metres long, and should be deliverable as early as next year, once official approvals are secured. He is already taking orders for a vehicle which will cost between 299,000 and 499,000.

Gyrocopter with three wheels, retractable rotor

The Dutch flying car is, in fact, a gyrocopter with three wheels and a retractable rotor. It can carry two people at a cruising speed of 160km/h for between 400-500 kilometres.

It is "one of the safest flying machines on the planet," able to fly "whatever the weather conditions," say its designers.

Users of the Aeromobil and the Pal-V Liberty will require both a driving licence and a pilot's qualification.
"The Pool" interactive art installation that has traveled around the world will make its Chattanooga debut on Friday night.

The Pool is an interactive light project created by sculpture artist Jen Lewin. Made up of 40,000 LEDs on 106 computer-powered three-foot discs arranged in concentric circles, the piece activates when someone steps on the pads, setting in motion colored light effects.

Dance on a pad, and it will create hula-hoop swirls around you. Sprint from pad to pad and ribbons of light will trail you. Step on certain discs and the entire piece will change color. Its meant for people of all ages to play and allows multiple users to collaboratively create patterns of shifting colors and light.

It will be set up at the Tubman site on Roanoke Avenue in East Chattanooga Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7:30-10 p.m.

It will be at the Highland Park Commons next Tuesday and Wednesday nights, then at East Lake Park Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
SAN FRANCISCO, US: Google on Tuesday launched a re-imagined version of its free Earth mapping service, weaving in storytelling and artificial intelligence and freeing it from apps.

"This is our gift to the world," Google Earth director Rebecca Moore said while giving AFP an early look at the new version of the programme that lets people range the planet from the comfort of their computers, smartphones or tablets.

"It's a product that speaks to our deepest values around education and making information available to people."

New 'Voyager' feature

A new 'Voyager' feature enables people digitally exploring the planet to be guided on interactive stories told by experts, boasting partners including BBC Earth, NASA, Sesame Street, and the Jane Goodall Institute.

Google artificial intelligence will be put to work for Earth users in the form of "knowledge cards" that let them dive deeper into online information about mountains, countries, landmarks or other places being virtually visited.

It will also make suggestions on other locations armchair explorers might be interested in exploring based on what they have searched in the past.

"This is the first time we have done this deep integration with the Google Knowledge Graph," Earth engineering manager Sean Askay said.

"Everything Google knows about the world, you can know about the world."

"Feeling Lucky?"

There is also a newly installed "Feeling Lucky?" feature for people who want to let the software suggest hidden gems such as Pemba Island off the Swahili coast or the Oodaira Hot Spring in Yamagata, Japan.

People can choose to fly around the world in Earth, using a 3-D button to see the Grand Canyon, Chateau Loire Valley and other stunning spots from any angles they wish.

"With the new Earth, we want to open up different lenses for you to see the world and learn a bit about how it all fits together; to open your mind with new stories while giving you a new perspective on the locations and experiences you cherish," Earth product manager Gopal Shah said in a blog post.

Online explorers cruising the mobile version of Earth can also capture pictures on their travels, sending friends digital postcards.

More powerful computing power

New Earth was launched on Google's Chrome and Android software, with versions tailored for Apple devices and other internet browsing software promised soon.

It's the first time that Earth can be reached on a web browser instead of through applications installed on devices.

The move allows Google to tap into more powerful computing power at data centers in the internet "cloud" instead of relying on the capabilities of smartphones and other devices.

Source: AFP
Is South Africa still an investors' dream or are we living in La La Land?

Mining in this country is the most devastated industry - without a world war. A major reason is South Africas uncertain regulatory environment, and despite the quality resources in the ground, no investment will take place until a stable regulatory environment is established.

The previous political regime meant that the country could not get international finance and commodity prices were terrible. Everything was against it. Yet, today, everything is in our favour, yet we still cant crack the mark.

This was the consensus of delegates attending The Joburg Indaba Commodities Breakfast.

While there is some optimism globally, with exploration increasing in Africa, this is not the case in South Africa. We are consistently on the back foot and it is a high probability that we will be there again. Policy certainty would be one way to avoid going down this road again, Abrie Olivier, strategy & innovation leader, Deloitte points out.

He adds that it needs to be noted that countries with a much higher risk profile than South Africa are seeing investment. Why are investors going to the DRC for example and not South Africa? We need to examine this and be innovative in addressing it.

Policy change

The DRC wrecked their industry, then reverted that decline through policy change. The fall and rise of Zambias copper belt tells the same story. Chile is another example. In 1980, they had a policy change in face of facing copper prices and it saved their industry, says Peter Major, director, mining, Cadiz Corporate Solutions.

South Africa was once an investors dream. Maybe it can be again, if we have policy change, he adds.

Henk de Hoop, business development director, Rand Merchant Bank says the industry has for too long over promised, so investors are skittish. The best projects are behind us and the ones left are hard work. A large number of smaller projects will also not hold up the mining industry, so it is unlikely we will see reinvestment into the country.

A perfect storm

We are building on marginal projects and projects that were previously not possible, now are, says Deshnee Naidoo, CEO, Zinc International and CMT, Vedanta Resources. Mining companies need to carry on with their efficiency drives.

She adds that the countrys mining industry has not used the commodities crisis wisely. There is a lot more that the industry could have done to set itself up for the price reprieve, despite prices still not being great. However, there has been some progress in terms of technology.

Naidoo says the industry is experiencing a perfect storm, citing cut production, Brexit, the United States elections, weather patterns and strikes globally on the supply side, while on the demand side there are still huge inventories on the ground. The opportunity the perfect storm offers is that the debt markets are bit more open so we will see M&A activity starting now.

Costs, safety and production

Paul van Zijl, executive director, Sub-Sahara Africa Natural Resources, JP Morgan, says we should focus on what we can control. In theory, we should be able to control costs, safety and production and they need to be a key focus of the industry.

The optimistic voice in the room belonged to Jacques Erasmus, global head of mining, KPMG. Chaos always creates opportunities, so it is about figuring out how and where these are.
Resilience is a word that's thrown around a lot these days. It means different things to different people, but generally alludes to the ability of people or systems to bounce back from shocks , and, increasingly find ways to emerge stronger than before. Shocks might be acute - like floods or cholera outbreaks - or chronic - like stress because of poverty or insecurity. The term, that emerged from ecological literature, is concerned with how systems work. It has grown to be used in many fields including engineering, psychology, development studies and geography

The popular concept of building resilience is touted as a positive one. Its seen as a way to find new opportunities and innovations to help people deal with stresses that affect their lives. But the popular push for resilience can bring its own set of problems.

Resilience is gaining increasing popularity at an international policy level. Its in the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement, in the 2015 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and most notably, in the new Sustainable Development Goals.

In the development goals the language of resilience is used in multiple ways, alongside wellbeing and poverty alleviation. Resilience is invoked in five goals.

But pushing a resilience agenda can have unintended consequences. Do efforts to build resilience automatically address injustices and inequality? We argue here, and in a recently published article, that they dont. A focus on justice is lacking in resilience responses, particularly in the African context, where theres high inequality, high poverty and significant injustices.

Resilience on the ground

There are concrete attempts to translate the global frameworks into actions on the ground. For instance, the Rockefeller Foundation has been supporting cities internationally since 2013 to put the concept of resilience into practice. Seven of Rockefellers 100 Resilient Cities are located in Africa. They are Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Accra, Dakar, Lagos, Cape Town and Durban. And many other cities and towns across Africa are involved in finding ways to increase their resilience.

This seems perfectly logical. African cities have high levels of vulnerability. This is because of rapid in-migration, old infrastructure, limited capacity to manage the city, and high levels of poverty and informality, among other things. African cities are also places where innovation and growth is taking place.

Potentially, the development pathways of urban areas in Africa could be leapfrogged to more sustainable pathways. Pushing for resilience in urban Africa is central to helping build liveable and thriving cities.

But balancing resilience and justice is a much trickier proposition.

<>Lukasz Lukomski/Wikimedia Commons

Unintended consequences

The City of Cape Town offers one of many examples of the challenges in balancing resilience and justice. City officials were aware of the need to manage their water leakage problem and realised that many households with high bills and leakages were relatively poor.

The city developed a programme to fit water management devices in the homes of poor people who have high water bills. These devices limit household water supply to 350 litres a day (based on households free water of 6kl per month plus an extra 4.5kl of free water monthly). When installed, the household debt is written off and the water leaks are fixed.

From the citys point of view, this programme is increasing resilience through securing water supply and debt management for indigent households.

But residents find these devices punitive and unjust. Many have found that 350 litres are often not enough and leaks often resurface, as outlined in a recent paper. Because the meter starts recording water use around 4.30am, the allocated water can be gone by 6am if there are leaks. This is just when the household needs the water. Households often end up asking neighbours for water, and find it hard to meet their economic and household water needs.

Another example of the problems inherent in balancing issues of justice and resilience comes from the city of Mzuzu, in northern Malawi. Here, flooding poses a major risk to the city. To reduce the impact of flooding, the city introduced building codes that would make houses more resistant.

But what the city didnt foresee was that the higher expense of building houses that could meet these codes would push people away from formally planned areas to build in informal, unplanned settlements. Unsurprisingly, the areas where they have settled are the only ones available, precisely because they are most vulnerable to flooding, for example along the steep riverbanks. And so people find themselves pushed by circumstances to build their non-code-compliant housing in the most flood prone areas of the city.

The people driving resilience interventions are often those in powerful positions. And theres limited room for more marginalised groups to have their voice heard. The City of Cape Town, for example, didnt consult local communities before putting in the water management devices. They just did it.

Collaboration is crucial

Resilience approaches tend not to be pro-poor, and issues of justice are often not considered. So, if resilience efforts dont explicitly consider justice issues, they will end up making those who are the most in need of building resilience the least resilient.

But without justice and poverty, inequality cant be reduced, nor can wellbeing be improved. And, if people are poor, suffer high inequality, and have low levels of wellbeing, they cant withstand or respond to shocks and stresses well: the very thing that resilience-building is supposed to address.

There are no easy answers to ensure that resilience approaches dont undermine justice. Both procedural justice  which looks at who gets a say in decision making  and distributive justice  which looks at who gets what slice of the pie  will need to be a part of the push for resilience. Decision makers and communities will need to work together to discuss these two questions, whenever resilience-building efforts are involved: resilience of what and for whom?.
African startups perform poorly in comparison to their global counterparts when it comes to revenues, fundraising, and job creation, according to data released by startups pitching competition Seedstars World.

Seedstars

Disrupt Africa reported last week 12 startups from around the world were selected as finalists in the Seedstars World competition, and pitched for up to US$1 million equity investment at the Seedstars Summit held in Switzerland.

The 12 finalists were selected from over 8,000 applications received from around the world during the course of the year-long touring competition.

Three African startups were among the finalists  Tanzanian micro-health insurance startup Jamii; Rwandan female health focused e-commerce platform Kasha; and Egypts social ride-sharing platform Raye7.

However, the African representatives were pipped to first prize by fintech startup Acudeen Technologies from the Phillipines.

Releasing data collected during the course of the annual competition, Seedstars World finds that Africa as a region under-performs as compared to other regions.

The average monthly revenue globally among startups participating in startups came to US$5,994. For African startups, the average figure came to little over US$4,000. Meanwhile in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), monthly average revenues almost hit US$10,000. The top average monthly revenues were measured in Prague, Czech Republic, at US$75,222.

The same held true in terms of fundraising. While the global average amount of funds raised by the startups to date came to US$6,000, African startups reported average raises of just over US$4,000  the lowest figure of any region. Again, the CEE region showed the highest average raise amount  at almost US$10,000; however, the highest local average was found in Seoul, South Korea, where the average fundraising figure was US$406,345.

Similarly, startups in Africa performed worst in terms of job creation  joined by startups from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. While on average, participating startups globally employ 4.9 people; in Africa and MENA the figure came to 4.2. The highest regional average was reported in Asia, at six people; with Shanghai in China the strongest local market, where startups hire an average of 14 people.

All regions performed badly in terms of the presence of women co-founders, with the global average at 16.3%. The best performing region was Latin America at an 18.4% average; while Africas average came to 15%.
Transportation network company Uber had to tweak its developed-country business practices to align with the local realities in African countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

Alon Lits

At the recent Africa CEO Forum  held in Geneva, Switzerland  Alon Lits, Ubers general manager for sub-Saharan Africa, highlighted some of the challenges the company is facing in the region, and how it is overcoming them.

Payments

When Uber launched in Kenyas capital Nairobi, it discovered that a large number of people were hesitant to pay using their bank cards. When we engaged with these individuals who were signing up and had a clear intention to ride with Uber, the biggest barrier was lack of credit card access or discomfort using a credit or cheque card online, explained Lits.

To circumvent this reluctance, Uber introduced a cash payment option, which according to Lits really transformed the business. He added the company is slowly seeing cash customers transition to card payments.

Vehicle financing

Many Uber drivers on the continent dont own their cars, but work for the vehicle owners. The inability to access financing is preventing many drivers from buying their own vehicles, and thereby boosting their earnings.

Uber is now using the data its app collects on drivers  such as their earnings and rating  to allow them to qualify for vehicle financing. The company has formed partnerships with lenders such as WesBank (South Africa), Sidian Bank (Kenya) and FirstBank (Nigeria).

A bank can now look at an individual who previously did not qualify for credit, and give them access to capital on the back of their track record on the platform, said Lits.

Internet connectivity

Internet use in sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise, supported by growing smartphone ownership and connections to multiple undersea communications cable systems. McKinsey estimates broadband uptake grew 34% per year between 2008 and 2015, and penetration is anticipated to reach 80% by 2020, up from 20% in 2015.

But despite this, internet connectivity can still be sketchy at times. This is not a challenge Uber can directly solve, but it has encouraged its drivers to adopt a simple solution: carry SIM cards from more than one network operator, and simply switch networks if one goes down.

It is not a fancy solution, but it is a practical one which overcomes the challenge.

Mapping

Another hurdle has been inadequate city maps and underdeveloped address systems. Although Uber drivers dont necessarily need the exact street address of a user, as they can just drive towards a pin, the company is working on improving its maps of African cities. For example, in Kenya, Uber has worked with local mapping start-up OkHi which incorporates images of landmarks rather than only relying on formal addresses, and in South Africa there are currently cars mapping the roads.

There is nothing for us at this stage that is a deal breaker to doing business on the continent, said Lits.
The Africa in Motion Film Festival has announced the launch of its new African Film Database. The African Film Database is a new platform, developed by the Africa in Motion Film Festival, providing anyone with an interest in African cinema with the ability to search through a catalogue of over 1,500 films.

 Jakub Gojda via 123RF

Since the inception of the festival in 2006, Africa in Motion has collated submissions and information on films, now presented in this database, which is one of the most extensive online collections of African films.

The database provides user-friendly search functions - searches can be undertaken by title, country, language, director, year, genre of theme, for example, Nollywood, Bongo films, animations, comedy, youth films, and so on. Where available, film entries include contact information, thus enabling researchers, cinema programmers, festival curators and others to contact filmmakers or distributors to request access to a specific title.

Festival producer, Justine Atkinson commented: Due to the difficulty in finding African films, we regularly receive requests from academics, industry professionals and curators for details of films and information on films from a specific director, genre or time period. We therefore decided to collate the information we had and develop our own custom built website to ensure that finding African films is as accessible as possible.

This public archive of African cinema is providing an invaluable resource as a centralised place to search for and locate African films. The web address for the African Film Database is: https://www.africanfilmdatabase.com.
The combined Kenyan and Tanzanian decorative paints and coatings market is expected to achieve a CAGR of 6.7% up by 2020, according to Frost & Sullivan's Decorative Paints and Coatings Market for Kenya and Tanzania, Forecast to 2020. This will be driven by urban migration, supportive government policies, and a movement towards cleaner technology.

 Gino Santa Maria  123RF.com

Water-based paints are expected to account for 64.7% of the market, and solvent-based paints for the remaining 35.3%. Manufacturing standards in both countries are already changing, driven by government legislation to reduce the levels of VOCs and lead emissions. The markets will also benefit from the high urban migration projected in the two countries, which will increase the demand for residential and commercial buildings and, subsequently, for decorative paints and coatings.

The Kenyan market outpaced the Tanzanian market in 2015, primarily due to its more suitably established manufacturing industry and development of ports to facilitate raw material imports, said Frost & Sullivan Visionary Science research analyst Ashley Arumero. On the other hand, the lower maturity of the paint manufacturing industry in Tanzania has eased the entry barriers for potential participants.

Growing market size

The recent analysis from Frost & Sullivans Future of Chemicals & Materials in Infrastructure & Mobility Growth Partnership Subscription, finds that the total market size was 66.2-million litres in 2015, and this is expected to reach 91.5-million litres by 2020. Crown Paints, Basco Paints, and Insignia dominate the market, while Sadolin Paints and Goldstar Paints are trying to expand their shares.

Access to raw materials is a vital competitive advantage, as both countries import more than 90% of the feedstock. This also makes the markets vulnerable to price volatility in international markets. The weakening of the Kenyan and Tanzanian shillings, and limited technological innovations, have significantly reduced investments in local research and development (R&D). However, these restraints offer growth opportunities for international participants with substantial R&D resources.

Despite the challenges of low raw material availability and price fluctuations, the markets are expected to grow positively due to rising urbanisation in both Kenya and Tanzania, noted Arumero. Additionally, the rising purchasing power of the citizens is expanding the middle class demographic, which, in turn, is creating a need for more residential and commercial buildings - the main end users of decorative paints and coatings.
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Award-winning actress, Masasa Mbangeni will host the 2017 South African Cultural Observatory's May national conference as its master of ceremonies. In its second year, this conference was established by the Department of Arts and Culture as a measure and valuation of country's creative and cultural economy.

Saco is hosted by Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, in partnership with Rhodes University and the University of Fort Hare, it operates throughout the country. The event will be held from 24-25 May 2017 at the Turbine Hall in Johannesburg.
Pauline Long definitely still has her appetite as she turns 107.

The longtime Chattanooga resident requested a fried chicken dinner for her birthday on Thursday.

Granddaughter Pat White said she still loves her sausage and biscuits with hot coffee in the mornings.

She was born April 20, 1910, in Newnan, Ga.

Ms. Long has outlived her son, Arthur Domineck Sr., by 35 years. Her daughter-in-law is Delores Domineck.

The seven grandchildren are Ms. White, Arthur Domineck, Jr, Rhonda Jones, Ray Maddox, Dot Graves and Eric Domineck Sr. Arthur L. Domineck passed away a month ago.

There are 19 great-grandchildren, 21 great-great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.

Her sister-in-law is Opal Collier, and there's a host of nieces, nephews and friends.

Ms. Long is the oldest member of the New Emmanuel Baptist Church where Terrance Hannah is the pastor. She taught Sunday school for the primary boys and girls and was the Sunday School song leader until age 100.

She has resided at NHC HealthCare since 2015. Until that time she lived alone at the Mary Walker Towers for over 35 years and was an outstanding resident.

She loves God, her family and friends and attributes her long life to her faith in God.
Cleveland State Community College hosted a retirement reception on Monday honoring all of the colleges recent retirees, including the following: Wanda Huffman, Testing Technician, 24 years of service; Louishes Barnett, Evening Custodian, seven years of service; Linda Everett, Administrative Assistant, Presidents Office, 30 years of service. (Back Row) Dr. Bill Seymour, CSCC President; and Barbara Nipper, Executive Secretary, Student Services, 25 years of service.

During the retirement reception, Victoria Hight, Associate Professor of Nursing, was honored with emeritus status awarded only to outstanding individuals who have rendered distinguished service to the college.
Cleveland State Community College is introducing a new concept the fall of 2018a Mechatronics Institute. CSCC will be holding three informative meeting days for local businesses and industries to come and find out more information on how they will be able to participate in this new concept. The first of the meetings will be held at the CSCC Monroe County Center on Tuesday, April 25 at 11:30 a.m. The one on the main campus will be held on Monday, May 1 at 8:30 a.m. in the George R. Johnson Cultural Heritage Center, and the one in Athens will be held at the CSCC Athens Center on Wednesday, May 3 at 8:30 a.m.



Basically, this is a new approach to attaining an Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) in Mechatronics Technology, stated Marci Reiter, Cooperative Education Instructor. This is going to be a very selective process. We will be recruiting high school seniors that are on a CTE or possibly engineering path. They will have to go through an application and interview process, write an essay and will have to have certain scores on the ACT / SATit is, for lack of better wording, an honors program in mechatronics. It will allow the best of the best to have an edge above others coming out of high school.



According to Reiter, these select students will not only be working in a classroom setting, but supplementing that learning with real-world training in a manufacturing setting. This program is also intended to assist local manufacturers in their search for a skilled labor force now and in the future.



The message from manufacturing leaders could not be more clearwe need employees with the right technical and personal skills to fill our growing number of open positions, stated Dr. Bill Seymour, CSCC President. The Mechatronics Institute at Cleveland State is uniquely designed to strengthen the pipeline of skilled workers. By matching the best graduates coming out of high school CTE and engineering programs with the needs of manufacturers, Cleveland State will provide the training leading to an associate degree while selected students get on-the-job training with a local company.

Mechatronics is a blend of mechanical, electrical and computerized technologies that together form a complex system used by many manufacturing, packaging and other modern operations. Students will develop skills to work as a technician in an integrated, multidisciplinary industrial environment and will acquire the knowledge and hands-on training in electronics, mechanics and computers to work in a variety of industrial and manufacturing related businesses. Students successfully completing this program can manage, investigate, repair and troubleshoot mechatronic systems, with the aim of operational efficiency and cost and process control. The A.A.S. in Mechatronics Technology prepares students for careers in manufacturing and engineering. The students is prepared to work in many various fields such as automotive, food processing, power production, aviation manufacturing, electronics manufacturing, robotics, etc.

Dr. Seymour stated, Imagine the opportunity to gain a college degree using Tennessee Promise while gaining excellent hands-on training in the field while earning a good wage. This is a winning combination for local schools, students, Cleveland State and hopefully, dozens of regional manufacturers.



For more information on the Mechatronics Institute at Cleveland State, contact Reiter at (423) 614-8718.
The World Class Lab program, which helps fund programs at institutions within the Technical Colllege System of Georgia (TCSG), helped make an important shipment to Georgia Northwestern Technical Colleges (GNTC) Commercial Truck Driving program.

Five 2014 Freightliner tractors have joined the arsenal of tractor-trailers on the Walker County Commercial Truck Driving (CTD) range in Rock Spring, Ga. Currently, the CTD program offers day and evening courses throughout the year. The one-term program provides students with basic training in the principles and skills of commercial truck operation. The programs run approximately three months in which students complete their work towards a Commercial Truck Driving Certificate.

In 2015-16, the World Class Lab program helped make equipment purchases for GNTCs Radiologic Technology program on the Floyd County Campus. As of now, there is no word on which program will receive assistance from the program during the 2017-18 academic year.

For more information on Georgia Northwestern Technical Colleges Commercial Truck Driving program, you can speak with anyone at one of GNTCs Student Help Centers at 866-983-4682.
Alerted by neighbours, Wai Yan Heinns parents found his body under a piece of cloth in the office of his weekly, The Iron Rose, in the Rangoon district of Pazundaung. The police said he was stabbed 15 times and that the murder took place several days before the body was discovered. They are currently trying to determine exactly when.

The Iron Rose criticized the military and politicians. Recent cover stories were critical of retired generals who had been in the former military government and their businessmen allies. Aged 27, Wai Yan Heinn also reported for The Sun Rays newspaper.

We offer our condolences to Wai Yan Heinns family and colleagues, and we urge the authorities to allocate enough resources to the investigation so that it can be carried out quickly and thoroughly, and does not ignore the possible links to the victims work as a journalist, said Benjamin Ismail, the head of RSFs Asia-Pacific desk. The family of Soe Moe Tun, a journalist murdered more than four months ago, is still awaiting significant progress in that investigation, so any attempt to stint on the resources assigned to this latest investigation would send a very negative message to journalists and would foster an unacceptable climate of impunity.

RSF has repeatedly expressed concern in recent months about violence against journalists in Burma and the failure to punish the violence, especially as Burma is a country where democracy and freedom of expression are still fragile concepts. Last December, RSF reported that human rights defenders and civil society groups were voicing concern about the fate of journalists in Burma following the murder of Soe Moe Tun, a newspaper reporter who had covered a controversial mining project and illegal logging in the northwest of the country. He was the second journalist to be killed in connection with their work since the end of military rule in 2011. The first was Aung Kyaw Naing, a freelancer also known as Par Gyi, who was shot dead while in military custody in October 2014.

Concern about the growing threats to journalists was also fuelled by the bombing of the home of Root Investigative Agency journalist Min Min in March 2016.

Burma is still in the bottom quarter of RSFs 2016 World Press Freedom Index (ranked 143rd out of 180 countries), the statement said.
He added that the meeting between Northern Alliance and PC was certain and it would take place within ten days. Northern Alliance consisting of Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) all of which are waging war with the Tatmadaw (governments armed forces)

We are trying to meet with them. I think we can meet them before the end of this month, he said.

But the Northern Alliance insisted that they would meet with the PC only if United Wa State Army (UWSA) and a Chinese delegation were included in the meeting.

PC Adviser Aung Soe said, We are still negotiating with them. We will meet them in a way acceptable to both of us.

He added that the PC was ready to go and meet at a venue designated by Northern Alliance.

The forces from Northern Alliance attended the summit meeting of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) held in Pangshang, Wa State, starting from April 15 and the EAOs formed a Representative Committee which would represent seven EAOs namely United Wa State Army (UWSA), Kokang (Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army  MNDAA), Mongla (National Democratic Alliance Army  NDAA), Shan State Army/Shan State Progressive Party (SSA/SSPP), Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA) and Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

At the meeting held in Kunming, China on December 1, PC proposed to meet with each organization from Northern Alliance separately but the latter insisted meeting with the whole Northern Alliance in a group and then the meeting was called off.

Northern Alliance issued a statement on December 22 calling for a meeting with the government in the presence of Chinese Government representatives.

The PC contacted Northern Alliance in early April and proposed a meeting between them before Thingyan festival but some matters could not be negotiated.
They are: the April 1, by-elections; April 6 to 11 President Htin Kyaws China visit; March 14 to April 7, Karen National Union (KNU) Congress; April 8 to 9 United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) and Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA)-signatory 7 Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) meeting; April 11, Peace Talks discussion between the State Counselor and the rural youth at Myanmar International Convention Center in Naypyitaw; and April 15 ongoing in Pangkham conference among NCA-non-signatory 7 EAOs.

Now let us look at briefly on each of the happening a bit to later determine on how they could impact on the peace process situation as a whole.

By-election

The by-election for 19 seats in Burmas parliament were held on April 1, 2017, which was contested by 94 candidates [18 each from the Nationalities League for Democracy (NLD) and Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), 51 from different ethnic political parties and seven individual candidates] from 24 political parties.

Accordingly, the NLD secured nine (47 percent) out of 19 vacant constituencies, followed by the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), with six seats (32 per cent), the Union Solidarity and Development Party with two seats (11 per cent) and the Arakan National Party (ANP) and the All Nationalities Democracy Party (ANDP) with one seat (5 percent) each. (Source: Asia Foundation  April 12, 2017)

President Htin Kyaws China visit

President Htin Kyaws China visit from April 6 to 11 was generally taken as a successful trip, as he held bilateral talks with President Xi Jinping and met with Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council, and Chairman Zhang Dejiang of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress separately on April 10, 2017, followed by the two leaders (Presidents) attending the signing ceremony of cooperation agreements between Myanmar and the Peoples Republic of China.

A total of (9) MoUs, Agreements and Exchange of Letters were successfully inked, namely Agreement on Chinas grant for economic and technical cooperation of RMB Yuan (1) billion to Myanmar to implement projects in economic developments and living standard improvement of Myanmar people including education, rural development and other fields; Cooperation in the Field of Forestry; Cooperation in Seafarers Training, Education and Development; Cooperation in Medical Technic Training Centre and Disease Control; Technical Cooperation Project Regarding the 29th South East Asian Games; Crude Oil Transportation Agreement and implementation of Development of Deep Sea Port Project and Industrial Park in Kyauk Phyu Special Economic Zone, according to the press release issued by the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs of April 13, 2017.

Furthermore, they discussed on the matters of maintaining peace and stability and development of the border areas, continuation of Chinas constructive support for the peace process of Myanmar and further pursuance of 2+2 high level consultations led by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense. China also expressed its support toward Myanmar Governments efforts for the national reconciliation and peace, promoting democratic transition, improving socio-economic lives of the Myanmar people, according to the press release.

The outstanding point to be noticed is that the mentioning of the leaders also cordially discussed about the ongoing infrastructure projects including oil and gas pipelines and Kyauk-Phyu Special Economic Zone and Deep Sea Port.

Apart from that the usual diplomatic niceties such as the importance of advancing Comprehensive Cooperative Strategic Partnership Relations based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence and existing Pauk-Phaw friendship; promoting diverse cooperation between the two countries particularly for the benefit of the two peoples, were stressed.

16th KNU Congress

The KNU 16th Congress that began March 14 and ended on April 7, in Law Khee Lah, again re-elected KNU chairman Saw Mutu Say Poe, former general secretary Saw Kwe Htoo Win elected as vice chairman, former central executive committee member Saw Ta Doh Moo to become the general secretary, Padoh Hser Pwe (also known as Saw Steve) elected as joint secretary 1 and Padoh Saw Hla Tun elected as joint secretary 2.

Experienced leaders such as former vice chairperson Naw Zipporah Sein, former joint secretaries Saw Thaw Thee Bwe and Padoh Mahn Mahn, and Gen Saw Baw Kyaw Heh, vice chief-of-staff of the KNUs armed wing the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), were not re-elected to the KNUs central standing committee.

In short, the so-called hard-liner or idealist faction headed by Naw Zipporah Sein lose out to the government-friendly or pragmatic and business-oriented faction of Saw Mutu Say Poe, effectively denying any position in its 60 representative Central Standing Committee (CSC).

Karen sources said that the old KNU leadership was split on two major different positions held towards how the peace talks should proceed. While the chairperson General Mutu Say Po group has voiced support for having closer engagement with government groups and the military, Padoh Naw Zipporah Seins faction had taken a more cautious approach and pushed for political settlement before mega development projects were given the green light, according to the Karen News report of April 8.

However, KIC reported on April 11 that Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and Karen Natioal Defense Organization (KNDO) vowed to fall in line with the KNU leadership during the meeting between commanders. Regarding this, KNLA first rate commander G1, Saw Tamala Thaw Ka said: We have the the responsibility to to follow the political leadership of the KNU. Regarding this, it is our opinion that all the KNU political and policy directives will be implemented accordingly.

Not surprisingly, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) congratulated newly-elected leaders of the KNU following the victory of the Mutu Say Poe in the election. Mutu has forged a close relationship with the former President Thein Sein and as well, the commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing.

With the signature of USDP chairman U Than Htay, the party released the congratulation notice on April 9, stating that the party was pleased and proud of the leaders who were elected during the KNUs 16th Congress.

UNFC and NCA-signatory 7 EAOs Meeting

The UNFC meeting from April 3 to 5 in Chiang Mai basically resolved the crucial question of whether the KIO and SSPP would opt for Pangkham initiated approach of not making use of the government preferred NCA-based peace process or follows the UNFCs line of amending the NCA according to its 9-point proposal with the government and continue the peace process.

The understanding seems to be that the KIO and SSPP would cooperate militarily with Pangkham and politically with the UNFC.

Following this, the NCA signatory and non-signatory 14 EAOs of some 60 participants met in Chiang Mai from April 8 to 9 to iron out policy matters regarding the ongoing peace process.

All members of UNFC that have yet to sign the NCA, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO); the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP); the New Mon State Party (NMSP); the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP); the Arakan National Council (ANC); the Lahu Democratic Union (LDU); and the Wa National Organization (WNO) were present.

Seven signatories of the NCA that also attended the meeting were the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS); the Chin National Front (CNF); the PNLO; the Democratic Karen Benevolence Army (DKBA); the Karen National Liberation Army  Peace Council (KNLA-PC); the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP); and the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF).

However, the Karen National Union did not attend because its own congress was in progress.

The attending EAOs agreed to cooperate on drafting the basic principles for building a federal union, the Panglong Manual or Panglong Handbook as a political principle guidelines, that were tabled earlier during the Mai Ja Yang EAOs conference last year. Apart from that, the meeting resolutions also mention agreement on drafting the issues of security affairs or formation of a federal union army and Joint Committee for Budget of Peace Process (JCB), Policies and Programmes on Transitional Matters.

Peace Talk with the rural youth

On April 11, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi held peace talk with the rural youth in Naypyitaw for the third time, the first was in January 1, in Naypyitaw and the second, in Panglong on February 12 (Union Day) this year. She said in the future this would be undertaken to meet the youth every three month.

During the discussion Suu Kyi emphasized the fact that the rural areas are the backbone of the country as they are made up of 70 percent of the countrys territory, which was attended by 12 youths  5 Bamar and 7 non-Bamar ethnic nationalities which included Kachin, Shan, Kokang, Karen, Pao-O, Mon and Palaung  from the different parts of the country.

She took the opportunity to send her often reiterated message to the EAOs that have yet to sign the NCA by saying that the peace talks were always open to the all the groups, but that it was not possible to wait for all to sign in order to hold the second Panglong peace conference, roughly scheduled to take place within the first or second week of May.

The groups who have already signed can be involved fully, and the groups who have not signed yet can become involved to some extent. We will give a chance for all to be involved, said Suu Kyi, according to the report of April 11 from the Myanmar Ministry of Information.

She further stressed: The most important thing is to exchange views and negotiate on different views. They have the right to see things differently, but have a responsibility to adjust. So that we can get peace based on different views and can make the same goals for peace. The country will be stable when there is rule of law. Rule of law is important for reconciliation so that it is a value for peace.

Most of the youths participating the peace talk expressed their desire to achieve peace so that their daily lives could be improved. However, only one significant message was aired, when Ma Phyu Sin Pwint from Namhsan Township, northern Shan State in the Palaung Self-administered Zone, said there was much fighting in her region that hurt many people. She wanted to ask the armed groups on how to achieve peace quickly. She also wanted to ask the Tatmadaw when the armed groups will be allowed to sign, according to the same report from the Myanmar Ministry of Information.

Pangkham Conference

Panghsang now officially known as Pangkham held the 7 non-signatory EAOs meeting for the second time within this year from April 15 to 19.

Earlier, the 7 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, stating that a committee would be formed to lead the peace negotiation process with the government, which would not be within the mold of NCA-based peace process.

The 7 EAOs, numbering 27 representatives met in Wa State, Pangkham from April 15 to 19, hosted by the UWSP/UWSA and supported by the PSC/NDAA.

Following the end of the meeting, an eight-point statement, signed by the ethnic armed revolutionary leaders  fourth Pangkham meeting, was issued as follows:

The ethnic armed revolutionary leaders fourth meeting officially confirmed the Political Negotiation Committee to Union Political Negotiation Committee (UPNC) to negotiate with the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. UPNC and the lists of secretariat and negotiation representatives under it are confirmed. Rules and regulations of the UNPD are confirmed. The ethnic armed revolutionary organizations general principles and position on political negotiation is confirmed as a common position negotiation document and would be used in negotiation with the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. UPNC fund is contributed by all as agreed upon. The 7 meeting participant organizations are founders of the UPNC and the door is always open for any ethnic armed revolutionary organization, political party and influential individual, that accepts the rules and regulations of the ethnic armed revolutionary organizations general principles and position on political negotiation, announced during the third Pangkham meeting. The organizations that participated in the Wa State meeting have tabled constructive position papers, with genuine good will, on how to overcome the present difficulties that is evident in the peace process, were successfully discussed and negotiated. Following the end of the meeting, UPNC will deliver the document to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar Government. In the future, members of the UPNC when negotiating with the Republic of the Union of Myanmar Government will not negotiate individually but only under the name of the committee together. (Source: Northern Alliance  Burma)

Earlier, according to the BBC report of April 18, Ta Phone Kyaw of TNLA said that the NCA-based process is hard to achieve result and primarily it should aim at stopping the war.

Regarding the question of KIO and SSPP, he said that as far as he is concerned, both would go along with the Pangkham initiative, adding that the EAOs that move according to the NCA-based trend and Pangkhams non-NCA-based line would somehow meet along the way, as both groups have the same kind of political goals and aspirations.

Concerning the earlier government initiative meeting with the MNDAA, TNLA and AA, he said it would be useless just to meet with the three of them and that they would opt for the meeting as a committee, which has been recently formed in Pangkham.

Summing up and perspective

To sum up, the by-election shows that the tactical voting which the ethnic electorate gave to the NLD in 2015 November election, so that it could usher in a political change from quasi-civilian-military to pure civilian regime and achieve peace and reconciliation, seems to be withdrawn as the Shan and Arakan people overwhelmingly voted for the homegrown ethnic parties of SNLD and ANP. Additionally, the ANDP victory in Karenni (Kayah) State also support this trend of ethnic awareness to back the ethnic parties rather than the NLD.

President Htin Kyaws China visit also looks like a compromise to Myitsone debacle has been found, with likely compensation by agreeing to ongoing infrastructure projects including oil and gas pipelines and Kyauk-Phyu Special Economic Zone and Deep Sea Port. But on the problematic issue of Burma-China border security and resolving the conflict between the Burma Army and the EAOs, no concrete solution seems to have been agreed and would likely go on with China continuing its dual-track policy of government-to-government and party-to-party level approach. This would mean, the Burmese government desire of China abandoning its proxy-like EAOs and siding with its efforts in defeating them wouldnt be entertained.

The 16th KNU Congress has elected the government friendly faction of Mutu Say Poe and the so-called hard-liner faction headed by Naw Zipporah Sein was ousted, so this should serve the government good. The only problem is that the latent conflict within the KNU remains and it is not quite sure that whether the fragile unity could be maintained for long, as the KNU front-line commanders were said to be wary of Mutus all-out peace initiative.

According to Saw Greh Moo, who is a Karen community activist and an observer at the 16th KNU Congress, I spoke with seven senior and mid-level military officers in the Karen National Liberation Army to try to understand their opinions and positions on the current peace process. Out the seven, only one expressed optimism for the future, while the rest are displeased and distrustful of the way their leaders have handled the peace process and negotiations with the Burma government. With this in mind, you certainly get an understanding that the foundation of the peace process remains very fragile inside the KNU.

The 14 NCA-signatory and non-signatory EAOs meeting could agree upon the federal union formation principles and also the Panglong Manual which would be the political guidelines of the ethnic nationalities, but the question of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) and security sector reform (SSR) or security issue still needs to be ironed out between them, as each side  signatory and non-signatory  has blue print of its own.

The UNFC meeting on the other hand was able to compromise on the crucial question of whether the SSPP and KIO  two strongest EAOs among the UNFC  would follow the Pangkham-initiated non-NCA-based peace process trend or abandoned the NCA line of approach altogether, which the UNFC is in the process of negotiating with the government with its nine-point proposal to amend the NCA, so that it could sign. The compromise, accordingly is to employ double-track approach, which is to work militarily with Pangkham pact  Northern Alliance  Burma (NA-B) plus UWSA  and politically with the UNFC.

The NA-B is made up of KIA, MNDAA, TNLA and AA, which has been delivering ongoing running battles in the northern part of Shan State.

Suu Kyis peace talk with the rural youth is seen as an ad hoc stunt by many Burma watchers and observers without much substance in it, as she took the opportunity only to reiterate its message of signing the NCA and enter the Union Peace Conference  21st Century Panglong (UPC-21CP), without addressing the need to create a level playing field.

On April 17, Pyidaungsu Institutes (PI) Director Khuensai Jaiyane was interviewed by the BBC Burmese section in relation with the President Htin Kyaws explanation, during his Burmese new year message to the people, regarding the problematic in amending the military-drawn constitution, where he said it was a delicate issue which the government is trying to handle with special care.

Khuensai pointed out the necessity of close cooperation between the government, Miliatry and EAOs like during the tenure of former President Thein Sein, where unnecessary red tape were eliminated and one stop service mechanism establishment, to handle arising problems effectively in the NCA-based peace process. In other words, he seems to be saying that the present NLD regime handling of the peace process is ineffective.

He explicitly stressed that the government and Military should cooperate and nurture close relationship, with common interpretation on the NCA together with the EAOs and not differently as it is now the case. Apart from that, he said the non-signatory EAOs should give the NCA a try first, before concluding that the NCA is not working.

Given such a backdrop, the birds eye view of Burma conflict spectrum and its peace process undertakings could be viewed as extremely disturbing and convoluted. A senior SSPP functionary told this writer that the UNFC couldnt consider on what to do next if its nine-point proposal to amend the NCA is ignored. Likewise, the 8 EAOs that signed the NCA wouldnt know what to do, except to ask the non-signatories to join the signing of NCA. The government, on the other hand, cannot move forward with its UPC-21CP with just 8 EAOs, when the remaining 13 EAOs are still left out, particularly the with strongest EAOs, in Shan and Kachin States, making up with two-third of the from the whole estimate 100,000 ethnic resistance troops. And finally, the Military doesnt know how to resolve the problems politically, apart from just military operations and offensives.

For now, even though the State Counselor and Commander-in-Chief have sent messages to the people on the eve of the Burmese new year on April 17 that this year should be the year of peace, all available data and indications are pointing toward heading to a more uncertain, politically troubled waters and would be forced to muddle through without clear and precise goal.

Given such circumstances, only with determined political will, coupled with altruism as the cornerstone think-pattern embraced by all major stakeholders  government, Military and EAOs  would be able to pull us out of this vicious circle of violence and hatred, as there is hardly any other way out.
A 1-Year Baby Who Has Fully Developed Genitals & Pubic Hair!! Life oi-Syeda Farah

Generally, kids achieve puberty at the age of 11-12 years; but the case of one-year-old baby hitting puberty in this early age has startled the world!

An unknown kid from India is said to be just a year old and has developed fully grown pubic hair and developed genitals.

Also Read: This Dad Twisted The Baby's Genitals!

Check out this unique story that has baffled people around the world with this strange condition. The true identity of the boy has been hidden and he is being referred to as Aman.

This early puberty condition has left everyone speechless and stunned. Read on to know more about this little kid who has hit puberty at such a shocking unbelievable tender age.

It's A Rare Disorder The baby is suffering from a rare disorder, in which the child attains puberty during an early phase of life. His Genitals Are Adult-sized This baby is sexually active, as he is experiencing abnormal changes with every passing day. He also has adult-sized genitals and pubic hair on his body. His Body Started Changing When He Was Just 6 Months Old His body started changing when he was just 6 months old, and it is also said that he is 10-15 cm taller than the kids of his age. He Has Facial Hair As Well He has developed facial and body hair as well in this tender age due to which he started experiencing sexual appeal. The Parents Were Shocked The parents of this toddler were in for a big-time shock when they saw their baby grow so fast. The mother claimed, "We thought maybe he was just a big baby, so we did not take him to the doctor. But by the time he was one, it was apparent there was something wrong." Also Read:Shocking Video: Why Kids Should Not Be Left Alone With Babies! He Was Examined Doctors examined him to only learn that the testosterone level in his body was found to be 500-600 ng/dl which is equivalent to that of a 25-year-old man, wherein a 1-year-old kid should have only 20 ng/dl of testosterone level in the body. His Condition Was Diagnosed He was diagnosed with a rare condition known as 'precocious puberty'. Reports claim that one among 5000 kids in 10 years of age usually suffer from this disorder. But his case is said to be of one in 1,00,000 toddlers who are diagnosed with puberty in the age group of 1 year. He Is Currently Undergoing Treatment This health condition is hampering the proper physical and mental development of the child. The parents claim that the condition has made him so aggressive that his parents are unable to control him. Do share this heart-wrenching story with everyone.

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 11:58 [IST]
Interesting Things About The Jain Akshaya Tritiya Faith Mysticism oi-Staff

Akshaya Tritiya is an important day for the Hindu community all over the world. But did you know that Akshaya Tritiya is just as significant for the Jain community as well?

The auspicious day of Akshaya Tritiya is considered to be very holy to perform many things. People buy Gold on this day, as doing so invites prosperity and wealth into the household. Believers choose the day of Akshaya Tritiya to start a new venture to be sure that their venture finds financial success.

The Hindus conduct marriage ceremonies and house-warming functions on the Akshaya Tritiya day. In short, the Hindus believe that anything that starts on the Akshaya Tritiya will thrive, flourish and find success.

But the members of the Jain community also celebrate the day for a different and unique reason. The Hindus strongly condemn the ending of any kind of a fast on the Akshaya Tritiya day.

No matter which deity the Fast is dedicated to, Udyapan is not supposed to be done on Akshaya Tritiya. People go as far as calculating the days of the fast and starting it accordingly to make sure that it does not end on the Akshaya Tritiya day.

On the contrary, the Jains commemorate Akshaya Tritiya as the day on which their first Tirthankara broke his yearlong fast. Tirthankara are the teachers or the prophets of the Jain religion. They are the people who performed penance or followed the life of asceticism until they received enlightenment.

Story Associated With The Jain Akshaya Tritiya

Rishabhadeva was an ancient king who ruled the land with Ayodhya as its capital. When he realized his calling, he gave up all his wealth and worldly pleasures to guide the mankind into the righteous path. King Rishabhadeva became the first Tirthankara of the Jain community.

Read on to learn more about the association of the Jain community to the holy Akshaya Tritiya day.

The Story Of King Rishabhadeva

As a monk, Rishabhadeva realized that it was his duty to pave the way for the future digambaras and other Jains. As he was the first Jain, the people did not understand how to serve alms to the digambaras. They were not permitted to own anything, not even a morsel of grain. They had to live upon the alms provided by the general public.

To demonstrate this to his people, he started asking for alms. The people offered him gold, precious gems, expensive clothes and even daughters. But he refused them all. All he needed was some food but Rishabhadeva was too humble to ask for it specifically. This went on and Rishabhadeva went without food for a year.

It was only after King Shreyansa Kumar realized the need of Rishabha Kumar (due to purva bhava smarana) that Rishabhadeva could break his fast. He was offered some sugarcane juice by Shreyansa Kumar to quench his thirst. It was on the day of Akshaya Tritiya that the yearlong fast was broken. Therefore, this day is considered to be very holy by all the followers of the Jain Community.

Ikshvaku

Sugar cane is known as Ikshu in ancient language of Sanskrit and sugarcane is called Ikshu aahar. As Rishabhadeva ended his fast with 'Ikshu aahar', he became popular as Ikshvaku and his lineage and dynasty came to be known as Ikshvaku dynasty.

Establishment Of 'Ahara Charya'

It was on the Akshaya Tritiya day that Rishabhadeva established 'Ahara Charya'. Ahara Charya is the method that is prescribed to prepare and serve the food offered to the Jain monks.

Varshi Tap

Many people of the Jain community observe the 'Varshi Tap' which is a yearlong alternative day fasting. This fasting is concluded on the Akshaya Tritiya day. The fast is broken by drinking sugarcane juice like the first Tirthankara Rishabhadeva had done ages ago.

Fair At Hastinapur

Every year, a huge fair is conducted at Hastinapur where thousands of devotees arrive to break their fast. The ritual at which the Jains end their fast is called 'Parana'

Sugarcane Offering

Sugarcane is the most important offering that is given to the Tirthankara on the Akshaya Tritiya day. The rituals that are offered to the Tirthankara always contain sugarcane juice.
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Directed by Darrin Hassevoort, the Choral Arts of Chattanooga will perform their final concert of the 2016-17 season on Thursday, May 18, 7:30 p.m. at Second Presbyterian Church, 700 Pine St.

Organizers said, celebrating joy, life, and love, the music selections will showcase the choir's breadth of genres including classical, musical theatre, and contemporary.



Admission is $20 for adults and $10 for students.



For more information, contact Kim Thompson at 423-605-6068.
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Company supplied govt with Tsabana,Malutu

We remain govt supplier-Osman

Sefalana, the diversified group has suffered a setback as government public procurement and awarding body, PPADB has not approved request by the local government to pay the listed its dues after a successful delivery, BG Business understands.



The companys subsidiary which has a milling plant in Serowe, Foods Botswana, was chosen to supply 4020 metric tons of Malutu and 4920 metric tons of Tsabana to the Local Government ministry, which is ministered by Slumber Tsogwane.







At its sitting on the 31st of March 2017, Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) did not approve the retroactive payment to the company, which its financial year ends next week. PPADB which is headed by Bridget John has not stated reasons for the rejection. The non-payment is likely to affect the BSE listed companys financial results. Foods Botswana manufactures Malutu and Tsabana which government issues out to local clinics and health facilities across the country.



Meanwhile, Sefalana Group Finance Director, Mohammed Osman told BG Business that they have completed their 2015/16 government tender in April 2016 which was extended by six months to October 2016. We are proud to have delivered all allocated volumes on time to the government. We now await the award of the 2016/17 tender, which is currently under consideration, he said.



Although he could not disclose how much is the payment BG Business understands that the government had allocated P15.6 million for the supply of 1640 metric tons of Tsabana. At this moment we can not share with you how much we are supposed to get from government.



We have, since the PPADB decision was made public in the newspaper, made enquiries with the respective department and are still engaging with them to find out what needs to be done to move forward, said Osman. The Sefalana finance chief said he believes that the matter will be amicably sorted out in due course. Foods Botswana. We remain a supplier to government and continue to supply the respective department, he said. Announcing the 2015 results last year Sefalana Managing Director, Chandra Chauhan said they experience a net loss of P2, 5 to P3 million if they dont produce for government. The groups revenue is largely hinged on its contract/tender business than it is on its core segment of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG).



According to the groups financials, the group recorded a turnover of P2.005 billion for the six months ended October 31, 2016 up from P1.8 billion in the prior period. The groups overall profit before tax for the six month period increased marginally to P81.1 million from P80.4 million recorded in the previous year.



Sefalana Cash and Carry Limited Botswana operations contributed 60 percent and 48 percent of the groups revenue and profit before tax for the reporting period.
Local fashion designer, Thabiso Dibeela of Thabied creations will become the first local designer to grace the esteemed Accra Fashion Week 2017 slated for October 3-8 2017. The fashion show is tipped to be a special one, and will be different from any other event staged by the organisers. Dibeela is amongst several celebrated designers who will be part of Ghanas 60th independence celebration.



The special celebration is slated to take place at the International Fair Centre, LA, Accra. and will see designers from countries that include Kenya, Belgium, France, and Botswana and more are expected to come on board as the big day nears. According to styleafrique.com, new brands at the event include Magushi Doll (Zambia), Zizi Africa (Kenya), The Jireh Couture (Belgium), Alia Bare (Niger), Nacho Designs by Chuks (Nigeria) as well as ThabieD. The new comers are joining previous designers that include Mark Johnson (UK), Jants Collection, Bri Wireduah, Afre Anko and many more.



Speaking in an interview with Style on Tuesday, she explains that it was high time that local designers took their craft outside the country and showcased the talent that the country has. She also says that she took a leap of faith and decided to approach the organisers of the event. She says that being part of the event did not come easy, as she had to convince and really show what her brand was all about to the organizers.







It took a lot of convincing before they agreed. I had to explain myself to them about what I do, she says adding that the organisers were picky about who they accepted into the event, and wanted established brands.

She also says that now it was up to her to convince them that they made the right decision, and will go all out to meet their strict requirements.



Dibeela also explains that one of the products that she wanted to showcase at the event was Leteisi, which they dont know, as well as what Botswana can offer them. They are expecting me to showcase what Thabied is all about, she says. She also highlights that what makes this fashion show special is the fact that buyers from all over the world will be in attendance.



She says that this will give her the perfect opportunity to market and sell her brand. This event has opened doors for many designers across Africa, she notes.
Woman Shot While Fending Off Robbers, Men Shot On Dan Ryan Exit Ramp Among Overnight Shootings

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Apr 20, 2017 6:31PM



A woman was shot in the stomach by two robbers just after midnight Thursday while trying to keep them from getting her purse on her walk home.

The woman 55, encountered the robbers while walking in the 5400 block of North Chester Avenue in the O'Hare neighborhood at 12:20 a.m., according to police. The robbers demanded she give them her purse and in the ensuing struggle, one shot her with a handgun. The woman was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in serious condition. The robbers escaped via a getaway car with a driver.

The woman was among at least six shootings overnight Wednesday to Thursday, including two men who were shot on a Dan Ryan Expressway ramp near Chinatown Wednesday evening. The man was killed and another man was wounded in the 5:10 p.m. shooting, according to police, at the Dan Ryan's Cermak Road exit ramp.

The man, whom the Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified to the Tribune as Jeremy Scullark, 28, was pronounced dead at the scene. Apparently two police officers en route to the scene of the shooting Wednesday evening were injured in a crash involving two other people near 31st Street and Shields Avenue. One officer was listed as in serious condition, the other in good condition. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi Tweeted that other officers responding to the shooting were able to question persons of interest.



Officers & civilians involved in accident hv non life-threatening injuries & other units apprehended possible ppl of interest from shooting  Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) April 19, 2017



Other shooting victims included a 39-year-old man shot in the leg in Hermosa, a 17-year-old shot in the abdomen and arm in East Garfield Park in a drive-by shooting, and a 20-year-old man who received a graze wound in West Pullman, according to the Tribune.




Barry's Back: Former President Obama Is Speaking In Chicago On Monday

By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 21, 2017 3:53PM

Barack Obama is once again ready to greet his public. Aside from a between-the-lines rebuke of Donald Trump's immigration order issued from his office in January, not getting a holiday, and some very jealous-making evidence of kitesurfing adventures, we haven't heard much from the erstwhile POTUS since his second term expired. But on Friday, Obama's office announced that he'll be making his first speech since leaving office on Monday, right here in his adopted hometown of Chicago. Don't call it a comeback.

Obama returns with a town hall conversation at University of Chicago on Monday, where he'll talk about civic engagement and community organizing. It happens 11 a.m. at UChicago's Logan Center for the Arts and, no, tickets are no longer available. (The allotment was previously distributed, with many slots set aside for university students from around the Chicago area.) Obama will be joined onstage by roughly a half-dozen young activists, an Obama spokesman told the Sun Times. The event will be televised, according to the Tribune.

Obama's early political career of course stemmed from community organizing on the South Side of Chicago. And he was once a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

According to the program, the event "is part of President Obamas post-presidency goal to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world."

Obama and former First Lady Michelle (who is not expected to appear on Monday) continue to accept public ideas for the Obama Foundation, which will be constructed on the same South Side of Chicago complex that will house his presidential library and museum. Monday's event is not connected with the Foundation.

It's Obama's first public event in Chicago since he delivered his stirring farewell address on January 10 at McCormick Place.

According to the New York Times, Obama's schedule will remain busy (and largely publicly visible) beyond Monday's talk. The conversation "will be followed by an awards ceremony in Boston; a series of public remarks as well as private paid speeches in the United States and Europe; and an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel."
Rod Blagojevich Isn't Leaving Prison Any Time Soon; Court Upholds Sentence

By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 21, 2017 5:04PM

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich won't be going home any time in the near future.

It took only three days for a federal court to deny the disgraced governor's appeal for a reduced sentencean uncharacteristically short amount of time for a ruling to be administered. Apparently the three judges on the panel thought making the call was rather uncomplicated.

The ruling handed down on Friday effectively ends any reasonable hope of a reduction in his 14-year prison sentence. The legal team for Blagojevich, 60, had argued in favor of less time on the basis of good behavior and due to the fact that five of his 18 convictions had been been tossed out by an appeals court in 2015.

Those dismissals led to a re-sentencing, but Judge James Zagel then imposed the same 14-year term. Friday's ruling was the result of an appeal to that decision. Blagojevich was convicted of corruption charges in 2011. The most high-profile conviction related to his attempt to sell the Senate seat of Barack Obama after he was elected president, in 2008.

Ultimately however, the court was not moved by the Blagojevich's arguments, even as his team put forth 100 letters from other prisoners, which testified to the ex-governor's good deeds inside the lockup, including teaching classes to other inmates. (He was also, rather amazingly, in a band called the Jailhouse Rockers.) "As with many discretionary subjects the fact that a judge could have ruled otherwise does not imply that the judge was compelled to rule otherwise," the opinion reads, via the Tribune.

Back in December, Blagojevich sought a commutation in his sentence from Obama, but to no avail.


The Astute class attack submarine. A BAE Systems photo

LONDON (BNS): UK's Defence Ministry has awarded a 1.4 billion (US$ 1.8 billion) contract to BAE Systems to deliver the next Astute class attack submarine to the Royal Navy.



The new underwater platform "Agamemnon" will be the sixth of seven nuclear-powered attack submarines designed and manufactured at BAE's facility at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, the company announced on April 19.



Will Blamey, Managing Director of BAE Systems Submarines, said, "Securing the contract for the sixth Astute class submarine is a significant milestone for BAE Systems and the result of many years of hard work by our highly skilled workforce.



"The Astute class submarines are amongst the most highly capable and technologically advanced in the world and we're immensely proud to build them for the Royal Navy."



UK's Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said, "This latest investment means we are well on our way to completing our fleet of Astute submarines. These are the most advanced submarines ever operated by the Royal Navy and are already providing unprecedented levels of stealth and attack capability across the world."



The first three Astute class submarines  HMS Astute, HMS Ambush and HMS Artful  are currently in service with the Royal Navy with a further four in various stages of construction at the Barrow site.



The Astute class submarines incorporate advanced stealth technology along with world class sonar system, greater firepower and latest communication systems.



The underwater vessels are designed to carry out a range of key strategic and tactical roles, including anti-ship and anti-submarine operations, surveillance and intelligence gathering and support for land forces.



Each sub can carry a mix of up to 38 Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes and Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and can target enemy submarines, surface ships and land targets with pinpoint accuracy. The submarine can cruise at speeds in excess of 20 knots while submerged.




A file photo.

NEW DELHI (PTI): Engineering conglomerate Larsen and Toubro inked a deal with South Korean defence major Hanwha Techwin (HTW) on Friday to jointly manufacture over 100 self- propelled howitzers for Indian Army at a cost of nearly Rs 4,500 crore.



The first batch of the 155mm/52 Cal Tracked Self Propelled (SP) gun -- K9 VAJRA-T -- will be delivered later this year and the entire supply will be made within a span of 42 months.



While 10 guns will be directly brought from South Korea, 90 will be manufactured in L&T's Strategic Systems Complex in Talegaon near Pune.



The K9 VAJRA-T gun is an enhanced version of HTW's K9 Thunder which is known as one of the best performing self- propelled howitzers in the world.



At a function to sign the deal, South Korea's Minister for Defence Acquisition Chang Myoung Jin said his country would like to significantly expand defence ties with India as envisaged during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Seoul in 2015.



"Today, we have taken our defence partnership to a new high," he said.



Jayant Patil, Head of Defence and Aerospace at L&T, said the programme has set a new benchmark in co-development and co-production of defence systems by Indian private sector defence players and foreign majors.



"This contract marks an important milestone in L&T's defence business journey and in our relationship with Hanwha Techwin. It will create synergies not only for this programme but also for upcoming Indian and global programmes," said Patil.



He did not rule out exporting K9 VAJRA-T to other countries.



L&T also has initiated the process for setting up a greenfield manufacturing line at Gujrat's Hazira to produce K9 VAJRA-T guns.



Patil said L&T will not only manufacture K9 VAJRA-T in India, with over 50 per cent indigenous content, but also provide life support to the army with the weapon.



L&T said the contract is a result of nearly a decade long close relationship and joint efforts of the two companies on the programme, through extensive user evaluation and field trials followed by contract negotiations with the Ministry of Defence.



Addressing the gathering, South Korean envoy Cho Hyun said a new government will assume charge in South Korea by early May and hoped defence ties between India and his country will deepen further.



He also referred to the latest nuclear test by North Korea, saying his country has a troubled neighbour due to which South Korea has to focus majorly on defence preparedness.


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British fashion instructor Natalie Gibson and five of her Chinese students studying in the United Kingdom recently showcased 36 of their designs themed on Miao culture in Guiyang, Guizhou province.

Natalie Gibson (right) [Photo provided to China Daily]

All were inspired by the Miao ethnic elements that are abundant in the area, according to their creators.

Since 1980, Gibson has been the course leader and head of fashion print at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, a leading educational institute for art and design under the University of Arts London.

She and her husband, painter Jon Wealleans, had a chance to travel with a group of Chinese fashion students deep into Southwest China's remote mountains to Miao enclaves in Guizhou last year.

Gibson was particularly impressed by a private museum dedicated to Miao culture in Guiyang. It exhibits intricate garments, including some dating back more than a century.

During the trip, they collected dresses, decorations and other items in the region as inspirations for future designs.

After she went back, Gibson worked with her students to complete pieces that combine traditional Miao ethnic elements with modern fashion ideas.

In Guiyang, Gibson and her students introduced their creation process and their inspiration.

Gibson told Chinese media that more people should be engaged in the efforts of international promotion of Guizhou's Miao culture, instead of letting it sleep in the remote mountains.

She said China is rich in traditional culture and young designers can get lots of inspiration from it.
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Kenyan workers take selfie during the unloading of the first batch of locomotives for the Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Mombasa, Kenya, on Jan. 9, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

China has signed more than 130 bilateral and regional transport agreements with countries involved in the Belt and Road, the Ministry of Transport said Thursday.

Spokesman Wu Chungeng said at a press conference the agreements signed over the past three years covered rail, road, sea and air transportation, as well as postal services.

"Transportation connectivity is the founding priority of the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative," Wu said.

The country has opened 356 international road routes for both passengers and goods, while maritime transportation services now cover all countries along the Belt and Road, he added.

Every week, some 4,200 direct flights connect China with 43 Belt and Road countries.

Railway border procedures have been streamlined, with 39 China-Europe freight train routes currently in operation, Wu said.

China plans cooperation in transport planning and standards, construction of land and sea routes, and improved international transport conditions, the spokesman said.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road is a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa, promoting common development among all countries involved. Next month, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held in Beijing.
Homelink employees check information at an outlet of the company in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]

Vanke, China's largest residential property developer by market value, plans to spend 3 billion yuan ($441 million) on purchasing shares of Homelink, as the developer is bullish about the Beijing-headquartered real estate agency's development prospects.

Analysts said the two parties are likely to jointly explore a new model to meet demand amid fast growing pre-owned home transactions and tap more segmented markets along the value chain of real estate development and maintenance, such as decoration, property dealing, property management and residential community services.

Vanke will buy shares in Homelink at a cost of 3 billion yuan as stated in the agreement reached between the two parties, according to Vanke.

The deal, if completed, follows Hong Kong-listed developer Sunac's purchase of a 6.25 percent stake in Homelink for 2.6 billion yuan.

Vanke and Homelink did not disclose how many shares Vanke will own in the real estate agency after the deal.

The two parties have already cooperated in the home decoration sector, as they are both bullish about post-purchase market demand.

In 2015, Vanke and Homelink jointly established the business-to-consumer home decor joint venture, Vanke Lianjia, with Vanke Vice-President Liu Xiao appointed president of the company.

Vanke holds 60 percent of the company, while Homelink holds 40 percent.

Homelink owns shares in more than 50 subsidiaries with a wide range of businesses serving the real estate market. Besides its core real estate agency business, the group has tapped into markets along the real estate value chain, including financing, consultancy, advertising and marketing.

The agency has a more than 50 percent share of Beijing's pre-owned home transactions, and is also expanding fast in other key cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen.

"Vanke's acquisition of Homelink shares is actually the acquisition of market share in the pre-owned home market, which is expanding fast and even exceeding the new home market in many cities with limited land supply growth for residential property development," said Wang Ji, a Shanghai-based private equity investment analyst with Huafang Business Consultancy.

In Beijing, around 268,000 pre-owned homes were sold in 2016, about 90 percent of all homes transacted in the year.

According to Gong Yan, a professor of Management Practice at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, developers in China are exploring business models beyond develop-and-sell, eyeing opportunities emerging among those who have already purchased properties.

"Selling an apartment is low-frequency deal. A homebuyer is likely to buy one or more times from a developer and then the interaction is over. But a developer also offers services for decoration, maintenance, leasing, day care centers for babies and the elderly, refurbishment and even reselling. As a result, the business scope and frequency will be significantly increased," said Gong.

Vanke's Shenzhen-listed shares rose 0.49 percent on Thursday to 20.63 yuan each, with a total market value of 227.7 billion yuan.
A teenager's computer hacking business caused global chaos, cost millions of pounds, and even affected the life of Cambridge University, a British court has heard.

Adam Mudd was just 16 years old when he created his Titanium Stresser programme, which was used to carry out more than 1.7 million attacks on various websites.

He raked in more than 386,000 worth of US dollars and Bitcoins from selling the programme to cyber criminals across the world.

The Old Bailey heard that the student, who lived at home with his parents, was more interested in "status" than the money.

But prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said the effect of his hacking programme was truly global, saying: "Where there are computers there are attacks, almost every major city in the world, with hot spots in France, Paris, around the UK."

Mudd has previously admitted his money-making scheme and appeared at the Old Bailey ahead of his sentencing.

The court heard how the defendant, now aged 20, carried out 594 of the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks himself, against 181 IP addresses, between December 2013 and March 2015.

He has admitted security breaches against his college while he was studying computer science.

The attacks on West Herts College brought down the network and cost about 2,000 to investigate but caused "incalculable" damage to work and productivity, the Old Bailey heard.

Mr Polnay said: "This was not a white hat, friendly test to see what was going on."

On one occasion in 2014, the college hacking affected 70 more schools and colleges, including Cambridge University and the universities of Essex and East Anglia as well as local councils.

Mr Polnay said there were more than 112,000 registered users of Mudd's programme who hacked over 666,000 IP addresses. Of those, nearly 53,000 were in the UK.

Among the targets was the fantasy game RuneScape, which had 25,000 attacks.

It cost its owner company 6 million to try to defend itself against DDoS attacks with a revenue loss of 184,000.

Other hacking targets included Minecraft, Xbox Live, and the computer gamers' communications tool TeamSpeak.

The court heard Mudd created Titanium Stresser in September 2013 using a fake name and address in Manchester.

Until September 2015, 16 different computer servers were used to host the TitaniumStresser.net site, the court was told.

The source code for the programme was found in Mudd's computer and listed "the muddfamily" as its founder or owner in the administrator records.

Mudd offered a variety of payment plans to his customers, who had to log in with a username and password.

He offered discounts for bulk purchases of up to $309.99 USD for 30,000 seconds over five years as well as a refer a friend scheme.

But Mr Polnay said: "This is a young man who lived at home. This is not a lavish lifestyle case.

"The motivation around this we tend to agree is about status. The money-making is by the by."

When he was arrested in March 2015, Mudd was in his bedroom on his computer which he refused to unlock before his father intervened.

In police interview, he admitted Titanium Stresser was for DDoS and explained how he avoided PayPal scrutiny as he money laundered his ill-gotten gains.

Mudd has pleaded guilty to one count of doing unauthorised acts with intent to impair the operation of computers, one count of making, supplying or offering to supply an article for use in an offence contrary to the Computer Misuse Act, and one count of concealing criminal property.

Mudd, from Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, is due to be sentenced on a later date.

Judge Michael Topolski QC said the case was of "importance and seriousness" and not to be rushed to judgment.

Mr Polnay said some user payments into PayPal accounts flowed to Mudd, according to an analysis.

There were 48 payments totalling $18,770 into the bank account of the defendant's father, Anthony Mudd, before being transferred on, he said.

The prosecutor asked for a confiscation hearing to be put off until September 22 to deal with proceeds of crime.

Mr Polnay also highlighted psychiatric and psychological reports on Mudd which revealed he had Asperger's Syndrome.

He said it was a mitigating feature in terms of the impact of prison and his culpability for the crime.

But he asserted that the evidence from Skype chat suggested Mudd was "well aware what he was doing was illegal and wrong".

Mudd was supported by his mother and father, who sat in the well of the court.

The court heard the defendant lacked social interaction outside his family and suffered from anxiety.

Judge Topolski asked defence barrister Ben Cooper for more information about what the money transfer to Mudd's father's bank account was about.

But he added: "Overall, I am prepared to sentence your client on the basis this was not the purpose of his criminality.

"It is not acquisitive in a financial sense. What he was seeking to acquire was his position in his world - status."

The judge said he would adjourn sentencing until Tuesday, April 25.

Mitigating, Mr Cooper said Mudd had been "sucked into" the cyber world of online gaming and become "lost in an alternate reality" after withdrawing from school due to bullying.

He said Mudd, who was expelled from college, had been offline for two years, which was a form of punishment for any computer-obsessed teenager.

Mudd, who was described as "bright and high functioning", now understood what he did was wrong but at the time he lacked empathy due to his autistic condition, the court heard.

Mr Cooper said: "This was an unhappy period for Mr Mudd during which he suffered greatly.

"This is someone seeking friendship and status within the gaming community."

Among his online peers there was an "element of bravado and showmanship", he added.

Since being expelled from college and while on bail, Mudd had worked long hours for low pay as a kitchen porter, the court heard.

Mr Cooper highlighted a probation report as he argued for a suspended sentence.

He pointed out the defendant was a low risk of committing more crime and at the heart of his actions was the "emotional void of his private life".

But Judge Topolski raised his role to protect the public from cyber crime and deter others.

He said: "I have a duty to the public who are worried about this, threatened by this, damaged by this all the time... It's terrifying."
Update 9.24pm: Labours Health Spokesperson Alan Kelly TD has said that Minister Simon Harris should consider bringing in legislation, if necessary, to initiate a compulsory purchase order for the St Vincents Hospital site, if the deal to build the new National Maternity Hospital does not go ahead.

His comments come after the Board of the St Vincents Group, which is run by the Sisters of Charity religious order, said in a statement this evening that the status of the project would be reviewed in the wake of recent controversy.

Speaking from the Labour Party National Conference in Wexford, Deputy Kelly said: I have said from the outset that a hospital built and paid for by the State must remain in public ownership.

We have yet to see the details of this deal, which should be published.

However, it is not clear from the statement of the Board of the St. Vincents Hospital Group this evening, whether that agreement is now in jeopardy.

If the Group does intend to pull out of the project, the Minister for Health needs to step up to the plate and consider bringing in legislation, if necessary, to initiate a compulsory purchase order for the site, to ensure this vital hospital is built- and remains in state ownership.

Update 9.24pm: Health Minister Simon Harris remains fully committed to the National Maternity Hospital project, his department has stated.

The comments come after the Board of St Vincent's Healthcare Group tonight said it is to review the status of the controversial project "in light of the current situation".

A statement from the Department of Health said that Minister Harris "is confident that the criteria which he has identified will be met as the project proceeds, subject to planning approval, through the various development stages.

"Further stages of the process involve the Minister discharging his duties with various parties by putting in place appropriate legal mechanisms.

"This will include arrangements to secure the State's interest, which apply in all capital projects on voluntary hospital sites to protect the State's investment.

"The clinical, operational and financial independence of the new hospital as provided for in the agreement will also be copperfastened in new legal arrangements."

However, Social Democrat TD Rosin Shortall has again called on the Minister to publish the original deal reached between the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent's.

Its important that when were talking about public money, and were talking about a major public facility, that everybody is in possession of the facts, she said.

Id repeat the call that I made yesterday for the Minister for Health to actually publish the report in full so that we know the detail.

Earlier:

The Board of St Vincent's Healthcare Group is to review the status of the National Maternity Hospital project in light of the recent controversy, it was announced tonight.

Under the proposed plan, there was to be nine people on the board of the new National Maternity Hospital - four nominated by the St Vincent's Hospital Group, which is owned by the Sisters of Charity, and four by the current National Maternity Hospital, including the Master. It was to be chaired by an international expert in obstetrics and gynaecology.

Questions over whether the Sisters of Charity would have ultimate ownership of the public hospital and could profit from has provoked anger as the congregation has yet to pay 3m of redress for victims of institutional child abuse.

Almost 80,000 people have signed an online petition opposing any role or ownership for the nuns of the new facility.

This evening, a statement by Jimmy Menton, chairperson of St Vincent's Healthcare Group, read: On November 21, 2016, following six months of intensive discussions chaired by Mr. Kieran Mulvey (former CEO of the Workplace Relations Commission), St Vincent's Healthcare Group and the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) signed a comprehensive agreement providing for the corporate and clinical governance arrangements for the future operation of a new maternity hospital, called The National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park DAC.

That agreement was publicly endorsed and welcomed by both the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, and the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, at a press briefing that evening in Government Buildings.

In view of the controversy and misinformation that has arisen in recent times regarding the project, and the views expressed by the Minister for Health and other members of the Oireachtas, the board of St Vincent's Healthcare Group will review the status of the project in light of the current situation.

Pending this review, the Board does not intend to make any further comment.

Yesterday, Health Minister Simon Harris said: "I want to make sure that no religious order makes one cent from this move."

He also called on the religious order to agree contracts allowing lawful abortion or contraceptive treatment in the proposed new hospital.

The decision to review the project is being welcomed by opposition politicians who heavily criticised the deal between the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent's.

Roisin Shortall of the Social Democrats says clarity is needed on how that agreement was reached last November.

The negotiations and the brokering of the deal were done behind closed doors, she said.

And its only through the work of various journalists now that the details of that deal are starting to slip out.

Its in everybodys interest that we know exactly whats involved in this, and that there is full transparency on it.
Gardai have asked for the public's help to find Jason White, who has been missing from Coolock since March 21.

Jason, 27, is described as being 5 7 tall with short fair hair and of medium build.
The Taoiseach will travel to the Hague today as part of Ireland's efforts to be prioritised in Brexit negotiations.

Enda Kenny's visit comes after the UK Prime Minister shocked European leaders this week and launched an election campaign.
Cork mother Vera Twomey was reportedly detained at Dublin Airport this afternoon after declaring that she was bringing cannabis-based medicine into the country from Spain.

She was accompanied on her journey by People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny and MidlandsNorth-West MER Luke Ming Flanagan.
Li Keqiang visited Weihai, a port city in Shandong Province on April 19, 2017.[Photo/china.com.cn]

Premier Li Keqiang called on Wednesday for greater balance in foreign trade not only through promoting exports but also importing more high-quality goods.

Li spoke at the start of his two-day visit to Weihai, a port city in Shandong Province. "As a major trading country in goods, China wants a balanced foreign trade instead of intentionally pursuing a trade surplus," he said at the Port of Weihai.

Li said the country must expand exports as well as imports of high-tech products and other high-quality goods that give consumers more choices and stimulate domestic companies to produce better products and services.

The call is in line with the premier's vow to push improved quality and efficiency by deepening reform and expanding opening-up, which he made during a panel discussion with National People's Congress deputies from Shandong on March 6.

Last year, international demand shrank amid the sluggish world economic recovery. But things are improving, as shown by the Chinese economy stabilizing and having achieved 6.9 percent in GDP growth in the first quarter. The year's first three months saw trade in goods increase by 21.8 percent to 6.2 trillion yuan ($899 billion) year-on-year, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs last week.

Local officials reported to Li that Weihai's exports in the first quarter far exceeded imports.

According to the province's customs officials, Shandong's imports and exports exceeded 419 billion yuan last year, an increase of 28.9 percent year-on-year, which was also the highest among the nation's coastal provinces.

Weihai, in northeast Shandong, has been significant in trade with South Korea, Japan, the United States and other foreign markets. In the first quarter, the city's exports of food and agricultural goods grew quickly. Exports of vegetables and related products increased by 37.8 percent during the first three months, compared with the same period in 2016.

Additional opening-up has quickened the pace of development in eastern China and kept ports busy, Li said.

The Port of Weihai, which handles exports of goods made in coastal areas, should use its geographic advantages to unleash its potential to serve not only eastern areas but to extend its services to central and western parts of the country, he added.

Li also visited Sunjiatong Hospital; the Dishang Group, a clothing manufacturer; and the local market regulatory office.
A youth is facing trial accused of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at the Dublin Children's Court charged with the offence which is alleged to have occurred in Co. Kildare in 2014, when he was aged 14.

The court heard that the complainant in the case is now aged seven.

It was the teens second hearing since he was charged in February.

Judge Alan Mitchell said that a hearing would have to be held to determine the trial venue. He said the Childrens Court could not impose a sentence of more than one year while the circuit court could impose a term of about five years.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was urging the court to refuse jurisdiction, State solicitor Tom Conlon said. A book of evidence has been completed and served on the defence.

Judge Mitchell said the defence was entitled to make submissions under Section 75 of the Children Act.

This part of the legislation allows the juvenile court to accept jurisdiction to hear a trial for certain serious offences which would normally get forward sent to a higher court. The defence can cite the age and maturity of the defendant as well as any other relevant factors in setting out grounds for a serious case to remain in the Childrens Court.

Judge Mitchell noted from the boys barrister that the defence wanted to make the submissions and needed to fully consider the matter.

The case resumes next week.

The boy, who was accompanied to court by his mother, has not yet indicated how he will plead to the charge.

Earlier, the court was told he replied no comment when the charge was put to him. As a condition of bail he cannot contact the alleged victim and he has had to provide the investigating garda with contact details.

He has been warned he risked being remanded in custody if he broke the conditions.
Julian Assange's arrest is a "priority" for United States authorities, America's attorney general has said.

Prosecutors are believed to be preparing or considering charges against WikiLeaks and its founder, according to US media reports.

WikiLeaks has a reputation for publicly posting leaked information on US government activities.

Last month WikiLeaks released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyber-espionage tools for breaking into computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.

Mr Assange has not left Ecuador's embassy, tucked behind Harrods in London's Knightsbridge, since he walked through the door seeking political asylum in June 2012.

He is wanted in Sweden over a sex allegation dating back to 2010, but he fears he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he complies with Swedish authorities.

US attorney general Jeff Sessions was asked in a press conference whether it was a priority for him to arrest Mr Assange.

He said: "We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks.

"This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.

"So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail."

According to CNN, authorities are preparing to seek his arrest.

But Mr Assange's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he had not been made aware of any developments.

He added: "The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher.

"Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing."

When approached by the Press Association, the US Department of Justice declined to comment on the reports.
Update 2.40pm: A legal source claims investigators have found a note defending Islamic State next to the body of the gunman who shot dead a policeman in Paris.

The attacker was killed by security services on the Champs-Elysees last night.

The French president has visited one of the two other police officers who were injured.

Earlier: The gunman who shot and killed a police officer on the Champs-Elysees in Paris was detained in February for threatening police and then freed.

Two French officials said the gunman was detained towards the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police, but he was then released due to a lack of evidence.

He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted murder in the shooting of two police officers.

Police shot and killed the gunman after he opened fire on a police van on Paris' most famous boulevard on Thursday night.

The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Paris prosecutor's office leading the investigation has said a pump-action shotgun and knives were found in the gunman's car.

Police have detained for questioning three of his family members, as investigators seek to determine whether he was acting alone and where he got his weapons.

A Belgian man who had been linked by some as an accomplice to the gunman has turned himself in, and authorities said there was no link to the incident.

A prosecutor in Antwerp said: "That man came to police after he saw himself appear on social media as terror suspect No. 1 relating to yesterday's facts."

The prosecutor added that the man had nothing to do with the attack. "He was not part of a terrorism investigation."
Syria still possesses chemical weapons, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said as he warned against the banned munitions being used again.

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Israel, Mr Mattis said: "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all."

Although he did not give details on the amount of weapons held, he added: "I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike."

He also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft - perhaps a result of concerns in Syria about additional US strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Israeli defence officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of president Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Speaking alongside Mr Mattis, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said: "We have 100% information that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels".

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government.

Russia, a top Assad ally, has asserted a Syrian government air strike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mr Mattis in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

"We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," he said.

He referred to the US cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's "forthright deeds" against the use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has been locked in a six-year civil war against an array of opposition forces. The fighting has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syria's population.

- AP
A court has ruled a Canberra school cleaning business that underpaid migrant workers and signed them to agreements they didn't understand breached the Fair Work Act.

The United Voice union launched a case against Phillips Cleaning Service and its director Angelo Di Dio in the Federal Court on behalf of 22 workers in 2015, alleging in court documents some were owed almost $25,000.

ACT school cleaner Htoo Ywai was happy with Friday's result and thanked the union for its support during a two-year legal battle. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

Most of those workers were S'gaw Karen refugees from Thailand and Burma, who spoke little English and spent two decades in refugee camps in Thailand before they were resettled in Australia.

The company, which was contracted to clean 10 public schools in the ACT, has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Two men allegedly hurled abuse at patrons of a city centre McDonald's before one of them indecently exposed himself, police say.

ACT Policing are seeking witnesses to the incident, which occurred between midnight and 1.30am on Wednesday at the McDonald's on Cooyong Street.

Police are seeking witnesses to an incident at a McDonald's in the Canberra city centre on Wednesday night. Credit:Rohan Thompson

Constable Rosemary Catton described the alleged actions of the two men as "offensive".

"We know that a number of people were affected by the offensive behaviour of the two men and we'd like them to come forward and contact ACT Policing," she said.
It is nearly 400 years since Galileo Galilei was put on trial for daring to put science and reason at the centre of public life.

In the centuries since, the economic and social dividends from the flourishing of science have been beyond the imaginings of Renaissance-era rationalists.

Chief scientist Alan Finkel says science once again seems under threat. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

On Saturday, world Earth Day, sections of the scientific community and its supporters will join the global March for Science. Hundreds of marches in 53 countries, focused on Washington DC, will allow supporters of science to speak out against proposed cuts to US scientific budgets and a perception that "alternative facts" are as valid as evidence-based scientific consensus.

No longer, it seems, do the facts speak for themselves.
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China launched a week of campaigns to raise awareness of protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) Thursday.

Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong speaks at the inauguration ceremony of National IP Publicity Week 2017 in Beijing, capital of China, April 20, 2017. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

The campaign, jointly organized by 23 agencies, will feature events across the country, including press conferences, forums, lectures and the release of a whitepaper on judicial protection of IPR, running up to April 26, World Intellectual Property Day.

Addressing the opening ceremony, State Councilor Wang Yong said that China needs sound IPR protection to foster innovation. Wang also called for better international IPR cooperation in creating an inclusive and open environment for innovation.

China has become the largest source of patent applications, trademarks and industrial designs, said Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The number of Chinese international patent applications filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty exceeded 43,000 last year, up 44.7 percent, according to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

IPR authorities had handled over 80,000 cases involving patents, trademarks and copyrights, said Shen Changyu, head of the SIPO.

In the first quarter this year, more than 2 million pirated publications were seized, said a joint statement issued Thursday by China's National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications and the National Copyright Administration.

China also launched a national copyright monitoring website Thursday, which would provide 24/7 monitoring of the Internet and identify suspected rights infringements.
Federal Labor MP Shayne Neumann has rejected the idea the ALP enter the local government fray in Ipswich, as he described to a Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission hearing how he assisted party-aligned candidates.

The CCC is investigating allegations of misconduct levelled against candidates in the 2016 Ipswich, Gold Coast and Moreton Bay local government elections, including the possibility some candidates illegally ran on undeclared group tickets.

Labor frontbencher Shayne Neumann said he supported the local government candidates as friends. Credit:Bradley Kanaris

Under Queensland electoral law, groupings of candidates must be registered with the Electoral Commission of Queensland, but there were no such registered groupings in Ipswich.

The CCC has this week heard details of mutual assistance between Labor Party members in last year's Ipswich City Council election as it considered whether the candidates acted as a formal aligned group.
Nina and Perrin Wilkins say the changes have left their plans in limbo. Credit:Chris Hopkins

"Now that my father has been diagnosed with cancer, it's more important than ever for us to have the opportunity to return Sweden for a period of time," Nina says.

"This is emotionally distressing for us, especially as we look forward to the birth of our child. With my father's ill health, it's not possible for us to stay in Australia for another three years. We don't know how much longer he's got and I want to be with my family throughout this time."

If they move to Sweden within the next four years, thousands of dollars in visa applications and hundreds of hours of paperwork will have been mostly wasted.

Fairfax Media has confirmed that couples on permanent partner (801) visas will now have to be permanent residents for four years, up from one, as will people on other types of visas, such as the new medium-term temporary work visa, under tough new citizenship rules unveiled this week.
Are you part of the five friends club? Admitting you don't have a huge social circle, as Victoria Beckham has done, is one of the last modern taboos, says Antonia Hoyle

It was the kind of evening that only crops up once every couple of years. My husband was away for work and my two children were with their grandparents. I had known for weeks that this rare window of freedom beckoned, bringing with it a fleeting opportunity to see female friends. And yet there were precious few I wanted to meet. Plus, I wanted to spend time alone. So I poured myself a glass of wine and luxuriated in my own company instead.

How do I find my daring fashion sense once more. Credit:Stocksy

To admit you lack a large friendship group is to break one of our society's biggest taboos. But that is exactly what Victoria Beckham has just done. On the day that the former Spice Girl received an OBE in recognition of her career in fashion, she also gave an interview to Elle magazine in which she admitted that she doesn't "have a lot of friends", explaining that the sum total of her tally is a meagre five or six. "I'm very close to my sister and a friend I went to school with, and then three or four others," she said.

While Beckham, 43, insisted she is "never, ever lonely" - choosing to lie in the bath when she does have a night to herself - she is undoubtedly brave to speak about her small friendship group. In an age dominated by social media platforms founded on the premise of popularity, it has never seemed more important to create the illusion of a coterie of loyal pals. We chase affection in the form of "likes", while our admirers serve as a narcissistic reflection of our own exalted status and the now ubiquitous Fomo (Fear of Missing Out) phenomenon compels us to interact with ever-more people online.
Police have charged Croom brothers Marko and Vaso Bubanja with affray following a horrific assault at the Towradgi Beach Hotel on Sunday night in which a patron had his ear sliced clean off.

Wollongong police Detective Inspector Brad Ainsworth confirmed investigating officers laid charges against two men on Thursday.

Vaso Bubanja has been charged. Credit:Facebook

The brothers were at Wollongong courthouse on Thursday morning for mention of an apprehended violence order stemming from the Sunday night incident when police arrested them.

The pair was escorted to nearby Wollongong Police Station and each charged with a single count of affray.
A man who infamously snapped a selfie of himself with a kidnapped echidna has been jailed for a one-punch attack on the Gold Coast.

Jarrod Ronald Simmons, 26, was sentenced to two years' jail with parole eligibility after seven months for punching a man and breaking his jaw outside a Coolangatta hotel in November 2014.

Piggie the echidna was taken from the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in October, 2015.

Simmons made headlines in October 2015 when he was sentenced to 80 hours community service after pleading guilty to handling Piggie the echidna after she was stolen from the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and taking a photo with the animal.

On Friday, the Southport District Court heard that almost a year before the echidna incident Simmons punched a man from behind.
Human bones have been found in a car dragged from a south-east Queensland dam and police are working to confirm whether they are those of a man missing for 13 years.

Homicide detectives were called in to help as police worked to determine whether the death was suspicious and if the remains were those of missing Tasmanian man Stuart Gatehouse.

A member of the public using a depth sounder noticed the car in Borumba Dam, about 50 kilometres west of Noosa and alerted police.

Divers combed the site on Thursday, finding the submerged red 1986 Holden Commodore he was last seen in.
Monaco: A Slovakia-based company unveiled the commercial design for a flying car priced at more than $1 million on Thursday, saying it was ready for pre-orders with first deliveries expected by 2020.

AeroMobil said its teardrop-like shaped AeroMobil Flying Car, displayed at the Top Marques Monaco, could switch to flight mode in less than three minutes. The wings fold away for driving on roads and swing out for flying.

The light frame plane is boosted by a rear propeller. Credit:AP

The company, one of several developing such flying vehicles, aims to make up to 500 units of its first commercially available edition, priced at $1.71 million to $2.14 million.

To fly, the car would need an airfield or another approved place to take off, while owners would require driving and pilot licences, AeroMobil chief communications officer Stefan Vadocz said.
A wanted man has been Tasered and arrested by police after a dramatic early-morning high-speed car chase on Punt Road.

The incident occurred about 2.50am on Friday morning when police spotted a man and a woman in a Jaguar with stolen registration plates in Abbotsford.

The male driver smashed into several police cars after they tried to block him at a petrol station. Credit:Channel Nine

It is believed police had been tracking the man for several days.

Officers tried to block the vehicle at a service station before the man rammed two police vehicles and drove off at high speed.
Hitman Stephen Asling has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering underworld figure Graham "The Munster" Kinniburgh.

Carl Williams offered Asling, 56, and another man, Terrence Blewitt - who has since died - $150,000 to kill Mr Kinniburgh for his association with the Moran family, enemies of the Williams family during the gangland war. The pair waited for Mr Kinniburgh outside his Kew home on December 13, 2003 and ambushed him as he arrived, with one or both gunning him down soon after he got out of his car.

Mr Kinniburgh ran up the street and fired a shot from his own gun, but the bullet went astray. The 62-year-old was shot a number of times and died almost instantly from a wound to the back of his head about 15 metres from his car.

Justice Stephen Kaye sentenced Asling on Friday to life imprisonment - the maximum penalty for murder - ordering him to serve 27 years in prison before he could apply for parole. He described the murder, which was planned over about four months as "brutal, callous and utterly cowardly".
Just three days before the most unpredictable election in recent French history, yet another surprise has been sprung.

The most serious and awful surprise: a terror attack in the heart of Paris.

This is what many political observers have been dreading.

Less than two weeks ago a well-connected political observer in Paris told me a terror attack just before the election "would give Le Pen the presidency".
Washington: Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring criminal charges against members of the WikiLeaks organisation, taking a second look at a 2010 leak of diplomatic cables and military documents and investigating whether the group bears criminal responsibility for the more recent revelation of sensitive CIA cyber-tools, according to people familiar with the case.

The Justice Department under President Barack Obama had decided not to charge WikiLeaks for revealing some of the government's most sensitive secrets - concluding that doing so would be akin to prosecuting a news organisation for publishing classified information.

Justice Department leadership under President Donald Trump, though, has indicated to prosecutors that it is open to taking another look at the case, which the Obama administration did not formally close.

It is not clear whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks' role last year in publishing emails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, which US officials have said were hacked by the Russian government.
Latest News Refinancing volumes soar in changing market Brokers need to take advantage of $16.9 billion boost

Former flight attendant now helps people buy homes Mortgage broker says both roles focus on customer service

National aggregators and mortgage franchises have responded to recommendations by the Sedgwick Review into retail banking remuneration expressing some misgivings around the proposed changes.Suggested changes to broker remuneration such as the lender flat fee structure mentioned in the report run contrary to ASICs proposal to merely tweak commissions, Mark Haron, director of Connective , told Australian Broker.A flat fee would have unintended consequences on customers who need the support and advice of a broker not necessarily getting it.As yet, Connective had not received any proposals from the lenders to move to a flat fee structure. Sedgwick had yet to approach the aggregators for consultation as well.Since the core of the Sedgwick Review was focused on internal remuneration at the banks, broker commissions were just a side component which would be looked at in conjunction with the ASIC review, he said.Sedgwick nor the banks are the lawmakers. Theyre part of the broader community and everyone needs to be consulted specifically in conjunction with the regulators to ensure that the right model and outcomes for consumers are implemented.The review is merely part of a debate about what changes need to be made with broker remuneration to minimise conflict of interest and drive good customer outcomes, he said. David Bailey , interim CEO of Australian Finance Group AFG ), said suggestions relating to the third party channel were the view of a single stakeholder, providing additional commentary that feeds into a broader industry discussion.Ultimately the broker remuneration reforms being discussed should be the remit of the broader industry when addressing the proposals contained in the recently released ASIC Broker Remuneration Report, he told Australian Broker.It was pleasing to see Sedgwick reinforcing the value that mortgage brokers delivered to competition in the lending market, he added.The mortgage broking industry plays a critical role in maintaining a broad choice of lenders by acting as a distribution channel for lenders without a branch network. Disincentives to competition increase the risk that the lending market wont provide for all Australians; for many rural and regional Australians, mortgage brokers are the only ones in their local communities.John Flavell, CEO of Mortgage Choice , told Australian Broker that the Sedgwick Review was long on anecdote and short on facts.It is not the brokers or the Australian Bankers Associations role to tell regulators what to do, or what changes need to be made, he said. Aussie Home Loans declined to comment on the review when contacted by Australian Broker.
Latest News Refinancing volumes soar in changing market Brokers need to take advantage of $16.9 billion boost

Former flight attendant now helps people buy homes Mortgage broker says both roles focus on customer service

Documents obtained in a freedom of information (FOI) request have shown that the Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC) has previously worked together with banks in the drafting of press releases.The FOI request was made by The Australian which received a number of emails sent between Adrian Borchok, senior manager at ASIC, and other staff around an investigation of Macquarie Banks wealth arm Macquarie Equities in 2013.The emails showed how ASIC would permit the big banks to provide input when drafting press releases relating to financial services misconduct. However, there was no sign that Macquarie had any input into the specific press release sent out around Borchoks investigation, The Australian reported.In an interview with ABCs The Business on Wednesday (19 April), Anna Bligh , head of the Australian Bankers' Association (ABA), said the public and the system needed to have confidence that regulators were independent from the banks.I think the reports today would alarm many people. Im not aware of any particular instances of this but if there is evidence of it then I do think it will erode public confidence that regulators are sufficiently arms length from the institutions they regulate.Bligh noted though that there was a role for ASIC to ensure press releases were factually accurate at all times. However, there is no role for banks to play in affecting the tone, the message, the content of any statement from the regulator, she said.
Latest News Refinancing volumes soar in changing market Brokers need to take advantage of $16.9 billion boost

Former flight attendant now helps people buy homes Mortgage broker says both roles focus on customer service

Australias two national mortgage broking associations have expressed their concerns around some of the Sedgwick Reviews recommendations to alter broker remuneration.The final report of the review, released yesterday (19 April), was financed by the Australian Bankers' Association (ABA) and conducted by Stephen Sedgwick AO, it made 21 recommendations to the banks around remuneration  three of which involved the third party channel.While the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia ( MFAA ) was pleased that the Sedgwick review found no evidence of systemic harm, the observations and recommendations made around the broker channel did not present realistic solutions, CEO Mike Felton said.This is a review commissioned by the banks that aims to deal with the banks reputational problems, but as far as the broker channel is concerned does not create better consumer outcomes.Peter White, director of the Finance Brokers Association of Australia ( FBAA ), said the extraordinary thing was that despite the review admitting there was nothing systemically wrong, it still made three recommendations to change broker remuneration structures.Why are they trying to pull things apart? You only pull things apart and restructure them if theres something systemically wrong, he told Australian Broker.In the end, the review was one persons view of the world paid for by the banks without actually being a regulatory paper, he said.Felton expressed frustration that the review claimed to be focused on a customer-centric viewpoint while ignoring that this was a key aspect of how brokers and aggregators functioned.The reviews recommendations on the third-party channel appear to be based mostly on anecdotal evidence from its members. It is unfortunate that the review process did not include meaningful consultation with the broader industry in developing this report, Felton said.White echoed similar sentiments, saying that the FBAA had not been approached by the Sedgwick review either.Youve got to wonder behind the scenes, what are the real drivers? And I question what those drivers are. Part of our regulatory experience is all about truth through transparency. I think well never see the true transparency that sits behind this report.The MFAA was also concerned that recommendations in the ABA review also went beyond those in the Australian Securities & Investment Commissions (ASICs) report into mortgage broker remuneration, Felton said.He highlighted the proposal to adjust or remove current broker incentives and potentially introduce a lender fee-for-service approach.The ASIC Report does not recommend removing the link between loan size and commission, nor a fee-for-service model nor removal of trail commission  with good reason. A single, lender-funded, fee for service is likely to lead to a degree of standardisation of all fees, which ASIC is not calling for. It may also be considered anti-competitive by the ACCC, and therefore would not be able to be implemented.As for the suggestion to align broker payment structures with those of bank staff, this was not going to happen unless the banks started paying the brokers a very strong, competitive salary and remove clawbacks, White said.These reviews recommendations were very misguided since broker commission structures on a global scale create excellent outcomes if structured in the right manner, such as in Australia, he continued.Furthermore, claims that linked the difficulty in writing a loan to the characteristics of the borrower instead of the loan size were simply incorrect, he said.Anyone whos actually written credit in their lives knows that this is actually not the case. This shows that this person hasnt done any lending or if they have they really dont understand what theyve been doing.
Latest News Refinancing volumes soar in changing market Brokers need to take advantage of $16.9 billion boost

Former flight attendant now helps people buy homes Mortgage broker says both roles focus on customer service

Finance Brokers Association of Australia ( FBAA ) executive director Peter White has brought up a number of industry issues with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.Turnbull met White as well as a group of business leaders at a meeting in Launceston yesterday (20 April) where topics such as recent movements by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) on interest-only and investment lending caps were raised.One of the unintended consequences of the changes in interest-only and investment lending is that could potentially have quite negative consequences for small businesses. White told Australian Broker.A lot of small businesses leverage their personal homes and residential properties for investment in their business or for debts if they need it in their business. If they cannot access the appropriate style of debt that suits their needs because of these caps, its going to have a negative impact on businesses.As well as stifling growth, this could have worse flow-on effects such as restricting employment opportunities, borrowing capabilities, and stretching government purse strings by putting more people on the dole, White said.Theyre stretches of the impacts that potentially can come off consequences of what APRAs doing at the moment. My concern is that these sorts of things havent been properly thought through.White also talked briefly about ASIC's stance on the broker remuneration review.I made a fairly short comment that were working with ASIC and Treasury on that, White said. I also noted the Sedgwick report to which I said very firmly Im not a fan. There are various components of the commentary that have not been thought through in the proper fashion relative to the broking sector.Finally, White also touched upon the excessive red tape hoisted by the regulators on the broking and lending sector.While the Prime Minister didnt give his official response on these issues, there was acknowledgement of the issues and concerns raised, White said.When asked about Turnbulls personal manner, White had nothing but praise.He can hold his own very, very well. He obviously runs a very intense diary and schedule. He was looking a little bit tired there at times but he was very engaging, very personable, happy to chat, and not scared of a conversation.I always enjoy things like this. You actually see a more realistic side of the person because theyre having to talk on their feet with no camera. The questions come out of left field and theyre not prepped on what theyre going to be.
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...
South Jersey Election Day results roundup: Who won, who lost?

Follow along for news throughout Election Day and race results as they come in.
Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge students recently celebrated World Book Day with a week of events.

Highbridges King Alfred School celebrated the national event across an entire week, putting on various activities, all in the hope of raising awareness of World Book Day and therefore students involvement in books and reading.

Students took part in various activities within tutor time across the week (a week which the school entitled World Book Week).

These events included book quizzes, book recommendations and other competitions.

Students were then able to take part in lunch time activities held in the schools library. Such events included: reading musical chairs, library scavenger hunts, book tasting and a design your own book mark competition.

The school also tried to raise awareness by organising popup book sales in various locations at the school during break and lunch times across the entire week. The school also put Charlie and the Chocolate Factory type golden tickets up around the school for students to hunt throughout the week.

It also dropped reading mystery bags in obscure locations around the school. If students found these bags they could keep the objects concealed within them (books / stationery etc.).

The finale occurred on Friday were students and staff dressed up as their favourite book characters. Staff and students could then attend a fair which was held in the schools hall at lunch time. Various stalls were organised for the fair.

These stalls included a cake sale, a book sale, lucky dip, soak the teacher (Miss Booth, Mr Hoskins, Mr Shepherd and Mrs Markoutsas getting soaked to the bone for a worthy cause), a raffle, sporting activities and more.

Throughout the week, the school managed to raise 80 which will be donated to the National Literacy Trust. This is a charity which helps raise childrens reading and writing ability across the UK. This is a significant figure considering most activities cost 10 or 20p to take part.

Miss Booth, the Literacy Coordinator at The King Alfred School, said: There was a real buzz around the school because of the activities organised by the school. I have never seen so many students get so excited about books. It was truly wonderful to see.

We have a fantastically enthusiastic cohort of students and staff at our school who are more than willing to get involved in some kind of way, whether that is through partaking in activities or even organising them in the first place.

With this in mind, I must thank the following students who kindly volunteered to be part of the World Book Day Committee who helped run and organise the various activities put on across the week. These students include Jonathon Bickerton, Naomi Brown, Nicola Fabicka, Rebecca Fear, Shauna Cross, Tia Edwards, Shera Akma, Katie Bartlett, Luke Mallaby, Faith Hooper and Michael Oliver. Without their help, the week would not have been as successful as it was.

I must particularly thank Jonathon Bickerton and his mother, Mrs Bickerton, who baked the most amount of cakes I have ever seen for the World Book Weeks fair and for also helping in a variety of other ways. You are both very kind.
 Flash

The NATO forces in Estonia on Thursday held a flag-raising ceremony and a military parade to mark the beginning of its services in the Baltic country.

At the Tapa Army Base in northern Estonia, about 1,200 troops from Britain, France, Denmark, and Estonia participated in the event, which was attended by British Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon, Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen and Estonian Defense Minister Margus Tsahkna, said the Estonian Ministry of Defense in a statement.

Tsahkna termed the ceremony as a symbol of "NATO's resolve and unity", which was followed by the signing of a declaration about the establishment of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence in Estonia by the three defense ministers and the French Ambassador to Estonia Claudia Delmas-Scherer.

Also present were Estonia President Kersti Kaljulaid, who met Fallon at the Office of the President in Tallinn on bilateral defense cooperation and regional security situation, and Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas, who said in a statement that the presence of allied forces shows NATO's unity and enhances Estonia's confidence on security.

At the Warsaw Summit in July 2016, 28 leaders of NATO Member Nations decided to establish an enhanced Forward Presence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

For the 1200-strong NATO battalion battle group in Estonia, Britain is contributing more than 800 troops, while France, 300 troops.

The French unit will serve in Tapa for eight months, after that, it will be rotated by the Danish unit, said the Estonian Ministry of Defense.
In The Knowledge Illusion, the cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach hammer another nail into the coffin of the rational individual. From the 17th century to the 20th century, Western thought depicted individual human beings as independent rational agents, and consequently made these mythical creatures the basis of modern society. Democracy is founded on the idea that the voter knows best, free market capitalism believes the customer is always right, and modern education tries to teach students to think for themselves.

Over the last few decades, the ideal of the rational individual has been attacked from all sides. Postcolonial and feminist thinkers challenged it as a chauvinistic Western fantasy, glorifying the autonomy and power of white men. Behavioural economists and evolutionary psychologists have demonstrated that most human decisions are based on emotional reactions and heuristic shortcuts rather than rational analysis, and that while our emotions and heuristics were perhaps suitable for dealing with the African savanna in the Stone Age, they are woefully inadequate for dealing with the urban jungle of the silicon age.

Sloman and Fernbach take this argument further, positing that not just rationality but the very idea of individual thinking is a myth. Humans rarely think for themselves. Rather, we think in groups. Just as it takes a tribe to raise a child, it also takes a tribe to invent a tool, solve a conflict or cure a disease. No individual knows everything it takes to build a cathedral, an atom bomb or an aircraft. What gave Homo Sapiens an edge over all other animals and turned us into the masters of the planet was not our individual rationality, but our ability to think together in large groups.

As Sloman and Fernbach demonstrate in some of the most interesting and unsettling parts of the book, individual humans know embarrassingly little about the world, and as history progressed, they came to know less and less. A hunter-gatherer in the Stone Age knew how to produce her own clothes, how to start a fire from scratch, how to hunt rabbits and how to escape lions. We today think we know far more, but as individuals we actually know far less. We rely on the expertise of others for almost all our needs. In one humbling experiment, people were asked to evaluate how well they understood how a zipper works. Most people confidently replied that they understood it very well  after all, they use zippers all the time. They were then asked to explain how a zipper works, describing in as much detail as possible all the steps involved in the zippers operation. Most had no idea. This is the knowledge illusion. We think we know a lot, even though individually we know very little, because we treat knowledge in the minds of others as if it were our own.

This is not necessarily bad, though. Our reliance on groupthink has made us masters of the world, and the knowledge illusion enables us to go through life without being caught in an impossible effort to understand everything ourselves. From an evolutionary perspective, trusting in the knowledge of others has worked extremely well for humans.

THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION: Why We Never Think Alone

Authors: Steven Sloman & Philip Fernbach

Publisher: Riverhead

Pages: 286

Price: $28

Yet like many other human traits that made sense in past ages but cause trouble in the modern age, the knowledge illusion has its downside. The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realise just how ignorant they are of whats going on. Consequently some who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless conduct fierce debates about climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate them on a map. People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming newsfeeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged.

According to Sloman (a professor at Brown and editor of the journal Cognition) and Fernbach (a professor at the University of Colorados Leeds School of Business), providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. Scientists hope to dispel antiscience prejudices by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues like Obamacare by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports. Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans actually think. Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we cling to these views because of group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people dont like too many facts, and they certainly dont like to feel stupid. If you think that you can convince Donald Trump of the truth of global warming by presenting him with the relevant facts  think again.

True to their own advice, Sloman and Fernbach are well aware of the limits of their own understanding, and they know they dont know the answer. In all likelihood, nobody knows.



 2017 The New York Times
In its recent IPO, photo-share app sold its shares at just $17 apiece. Put another way, the firm burnt money (gave it away) by selling shares for too little. In doing so, it wooed investors and showed them its bright prospects. Seeing so much cash on the table, investors pounced on 200 million shares that was selling.
The $1.5-billion Sanmar group, which is backed by Canadian billionaire Prem Watsas Fairfax, is well on its way to becoming one of the top ten global players in poly vinyl chloride (PVC), a light-weight plastic commonly used in construction.
Wipro's move to sack around 500 of its employees as part of its appraisal process is indicative of the churn in India's information technology (IT) sector  which is moving towards increasing automation, use of artificial intelligence and is beset by tightening visa regulations. (Read more)
Cognizant Technology Solutions chief executive Francisco DSouza saw his performance bonus dip 20 per cent in 2016 as the software exporter slipped on targets and faced investors ire over its business model.
Arav Joshi, 26, completed his flying course from a New Zealand-based training academy in 2012. After that did not translate into a job, he topped it with a type-rating course from a Pune-based facility in 2014. The total expenditure came to around Rs 50 lakh. He is still without a job.
told exchanges its board had approved raising up to Rs 50,000 crore through various debt instruments in the next one year through private placement.
The 2017 Global Startup Ecosystem Report has listed four Asian countries in the top 20 startup ecosystems in the world. In 2015, the continent was represented by Singapore and Bengaluruonly. But this year, Beijing and Shanghai was added to the list.
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 Flash

Denuclearization peacefully through talks and maintaining peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula is the only effective way to solve the region's nuclear issue, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in Beijing on Thursday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang speaks at the press conference in Beijing on April 20,2014. [Photo/www.fmprc.gov.cn]

Lu made the remark after U.S. President Donald Trump was quoted by the Associated Press as urging the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to seek a peaceful solution.

Trump said that the deciding factor in easing tensions between the two countries will be how much the DPRK's leader desires peace.

The United States wants peace, Trump said, and he hopes DPRK leader Kim Jong-un also wants peace. That will be "the end determination", he said.

Lu said he had seen the report and reiterated that China's consistent position has been that the peninsula should be denuclearized peacefully through talks and that peace and stability should be maintained.

"As I said here yesterday, none of the major parties in the peninsula's nuclear issue want to see conflict and war, and an overwhelming majority of the members of the international community want peace," the spokesman said.

"We hope all parties can reach consensus over this general direction and general principle, and make concrete efforts toward it," Lu said.

China has urged the parties involved in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that could increase tensions. It has proposed a "dual-suspension" for solving the issue and said it is open to helpful proposals from relevant parties.

In a news conference on Wednesday, Lu said the consequences of an eventual war would be "out of anyone's hands".
Infrastructure, one of the leading private port developers, is looking to raise Rs 1,000-1,500 crore from private equity to clear debts and fund its expansion plans. Having lined up a capital expenditure of Rs 7,000 crore, it is looking to reach a port capacity of 200 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) by 2020. It plans to foray into container-handling and is eyeing opportunities at the mega crude oil refinery proposed by public sector undertakings. BVJK Sharma, chief executive officer of Infrastructure, talks to Jayajit Dash on the companys plans. Edited excerpts:
Nestle India has beaten the blues of demonetisation and recovered, led mostly by its popular instant noodles Maggi, the company said in an earnings conference call (con-call).
It is good that Vijay Mallya, who is currently in London in spite of having non-bailable warrants issued against him in India, is now subject to extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom. The Narendra Modi-led government deserves credit for having moved forward with the legal process under an extradition treaty that was signed between the UK and India over 25 years ago. After a warrant was sent to London earlier this year, the UK home secretary certified it in late March and sent it to the Westminster magistrates court for action. This week, the court declared that Mr Mallya had a case to answer, and he was arrested and then released on bail, as is usual in these matters. Going forward, the case for extradition will have to be proved in court, survive appeals, and then finally be assented to by the home secretary.
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Javeed Ahmed was on Friday shunted to a less important post by the Adityanath government, which transferred 12 IPS officers in the first big reshuffle in the top police hierarchy.

1980-batch IPS officer Sulkan Singh, who was DG (Training), will replace Ahmed, a 1984-batch IPS officer, who has been shifted as the DG of Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), a senior Home department official said in Lucknow.

Singh is likely to have a brief stint as the state police head as his superannuation is due in September.

ADG (Law and Order) Daljit Singh Chowdhury and ADG Economic Offence Wing (EOW) and Logistics Aditya Mishra have swapped places in the transfer which came a month after Yogi Adtiyanath assumed office.

The chief minister has not minced words in sending out a strong message that law and order was his government's top priority and any laxity in this regard would not be tolerated.

During the recent assembly polls, the BJP had petitioned the Election Commission to remove Ahmed, alleging that he was working at the behest of the then Samajwadi Party government.

DG (Intelligence) Jawahar Lal Tripathi has been made DG (Prosecution) and DG (Homeguards) Alok Prasad has been given additional charge of Training.

Surya Kumar has been relieved from post of DG (Prosecution) and will continue as DG police recruitment and promotion board.

ADG (Security) Bhavesh Kumar Singh has been made ADG (Intelligence), ADG Police Training School Sitapur Vijay Kumar has been made ADG (Security) while Alok Singh, who was on wait list has been made IG PAC (Eastern zone). IG Sanjay Singhal has been made IG PAC (Central zone).

IG Women Powerline Navneet Sikera has been relieved from the charge of PAC (Central zone) but will continue on other posts.

Earlier in the day, the state government transferred seven IAS officers including some divisional commissioners.

Principal Secretary, Science and Technology, Himanshu Kumar, who was transferred as Divisional Commissioner Devipatan division will remain on his post, while CEO, UP Rural Road Development Authority, SVS Rangarao will be new Divisional Commissioner of Devipatan division.

Among others transferred included DM Jhansi Ajay Kumar Shukla, who will be Divisional Commissioner Chitrakoot division, and Secretary Khadi Anurag Yadav, who has been sent to Institutional Finance Department in the same capacity.

Noida Metro Rail Corporation MD Santosh Kumar Yadav has been put on the waitlist while Investment Commissioner Amit Mohan Prasad has been given Yadav's charge.

The state government had on Tuesday shunted out tainted Vice Chairman of Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) Satyendra Singh while effecting a major bureaucratic reshuffle involving 44 IAS officers in the second such drill in less than a week.

Singh, who is mired in controversy over alleged corruption in LDA, was put on waitlist on the day the Adityanath government completed one month in office.

In its first major bureaucratic reshuffle on April 12, the state government had transferred 20 senior IAS officers shunting out Principal Secretary (Information) Navneet Sehgal and others who wielded considerable influence under the Akhilesh Yadav dispensation.

Sehgal was stripped of all key charge and replaced by UP cadre IAS officer Avanish Kumar Awasthi, who was relieved by the Centre on Aditaynath's request after he took over the reins of the state on March 19.
Picture this. While planning the construction of a check dam under the NREGA scheme, members of a village panchayat pull out a tablet and map their location offline. An app on the tablet shows them the geological features of the land, clearly pointing out the optimum site for construction. Our app, CLART (Composite Land Restoration and Assessment Tool) uses existing open-source geological data to take the guesswork out of site planning, says Jagdeesh Rao, chief executive of Foundation for Ecological Security, or . Once implemented, CLART is likely to save the government time, energy and money in its soil and water conservation activities. However, the app does much more than simply improve the efficiency of government schemes  it democratises knowledge, making it easy for even semi-literate villagers to make better, more informed decisions that will impact the quality of their lives and livelihoods.
Upset with India for allowing exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh earlier this month, China on Thursday issued standardised spellings of the names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.
Pakistan has asserted that a decision on India's request for consular access to its Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a military court, would be taken on "the basis of merit".

Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan and India have a bilateral agreement on consular access but all cases have to be decided on merit.

"In all such cases...The request of this nature would be decided on the basis of merit," he said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Zakaria said India had summoned Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner over consular access to Jadhav but this was not something new.

It was a reaction to the death sentence awarded to Jadhav, he said.

Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale after meeting Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua earlier this week had said that he had asked for consular access to Jadhav for the 14th time.

In response, Pakistan had said in a statement that India, in several cases, had denied consular access to Pakistani prisoners for years.

Separately, army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor had ruled out consular access to Jadhav.

"Under the law, we cannot give consular access to Khubhushan who was involved in spying," Ghafoor had told reporters.
 Flash

Two Chinese companies Friday signalled their support for the New Zealand tourism sector with agreements made through Christchurch Airport.

A Boeing 787 passenger plane of China Southern Airlines lands at the Oakland Airport, New Zealand, on December 10, 2015. [File photo/Xinhua]



China Southern Airlines has joined the Christchurch-based University of Canterbury (UC) in a new partnership which will benefit one of the South Island's most popular scenic attractions.

The airline signed an agreement to become an official partner of the iconic University of Canterbury Mount John Observatory, New Zealand's pre-eminent optical research observatory, which sits at the heart of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.

The partnership also supported tourism in Tekapo, an alpine lakeside resort, with 10 percent of the agreement's funding provided to the Mackenzie District Council for tourism infrastructure in Tekapo.

"China Southern Airlines is showing a real commitment in this partnership to enhance the visitor experience at Tekapo," Mackenzie District Council Mayor Graham Smith said in a statement.

UC vice-chancellor Rod Carr said he hoped the partnership with China Southern Airlines is a sign of strong ties between the two countries.

"China is the largest and fastest growing international market for student recruitment at UC, so strengthening relationships with key organizations there will support that growth and provide students with employment opportunities," Carr said in the statement.

"This sponsorship is a direct show of support for an area Chinese visitors love to visit." Christchurch Airport chief executive Malcolm Johns said in a statement.

China Southern Airlines Australasian managing director Louis Lu said it was a meaningful partnership that benefited both tourism and science.

"We all share an interest in discovering more about the amazing space that is the sky. China Southern explores it from an aviation perspective, the team at UC and the observatory research its secrets and showcase the amazing stargazing opportunities it offers," Lu said in the statement.

The observatory enables UC staff and students to carry out cutting-edge astronomical research in a number of different areas, including the search for extra-solar planets, the tracking of near-earth objects and the study of pulsating, variable and exploding stars.

Christchurch Airport also announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Alibaba, the world's largest retail commerce company, to connect small and regional New Zealand businesses with Chinese visitors.

Chinese travellers would be able to use the Alibaba Group apps to plan their visit, while they toured New Zealand, including shopping and financial transactions, and after they returned to China.

Johns said the strategic partnership was pivotal to unlocking for New Zealand's regions the power of Alibaba's international ambition to have 2 billion consumers in micro trading relationships with tens of millions of businesses around the world by 2026.

"This agreement has the potential to super-charge regional development across New Zealand, by unlocking micro exporting using tourism as the basis for the first meeting between the parties," he said.
With an impressive 28 seasons under its belt, and a 29th and 30th run recently commissioned, The Simpsons is an incredible example of primetime television show longevity. It will leave Gunsmoke holstering its weapon as it takes the record for the most episodes of a scripted television series.
Adapted from Saba Imtiaz's novel, "Karachi, you are killing me", Sunhil Sippy's "Noor" is about Noor Roy Chowdhury, a 28-year-old Mumbai-based journalist who lives with her father and a snooty cat, Dimpy.

A junior correspondent with a broadcast news agency, Buzz, Noor is idealistic and unhappy with her humdrum and uneventful life. She is keen to do meaningful stories that concern the common man rather than interview the likes of film stars Sunny Leone. Her two childhood friends Saad and Zara, who dote on her are her support system.

The urge to change her mundane life, make a name for herself and "break" a story as a journalist, lead the well-intentioned Noor to investigate a story further, that she inadvertently stumbles upon courtesy her domestic help, Malti. The repercussions of this story prove to be dramatic and life-changing for Noor, as she rediscovers herself and realises her responsibilities as a journalist.

Noor is a feel-good, contemporary film for urban India, which is well-made and addresses several issues that plague big cities like Mumbai with the protagonist Noor as a catalyst. The writing is praiseworthy and the narrative never loses focus although certain situations appear a bit unreal where the director takes a few liberties - Noor turning into an influencer and citizen activist overnight.

The first half of the film is racy and keeps you engrossed, while the second half drags in parts. Thankfully, the film is devoid of unnecessary violence or melodrama.

Director Sunhil Sippy has dexterously woven the life and aspirations of a journalist as well as the issues plaguing big metros. The dialogues by Ishita Moitra Udhwani, laced with wry humour and at times hard-hitting with messages, are definitely a highlight. The characters are well-etched and abound in conviction.

Sonakshi Sinha shines as the good-at-heart and earnest journalist with a conscience, seeking love in her personal life and accolades in her profession. She is a treat to watch as she essays her character with complete sincerity and ease. She exudes the right attitude and brings in the precise amount of sensitivity to her portrayal. Whether she stumbles clumsily over things or is guilt-ridden over a story gone wrong, she is convincing all the way.

Purab Kohli in a cameo as Ayan, the suave photo-journalist, performs competently. Stand-up comedian Kanan Gill in a new avatar, as Saad, Noor's London-based restaurateur, childhood buddy, transforms himself into the caring and dependable friend effortlessly and leaves an impact.

Shibani Dandekar as her DJ friend Zara, is equally natural. In his limited screen time, veteran actor MK Raina portrays the caring but distracted father with flair. Smita Tambe, as Malti, the domestic worker, deserves a mention for her realistic portrayal.

The cinematography by Keiko Nakahara is brilliant and captures Mumbai city and Noor's turmoil with equal candour. The film boasts of excellent production quality and aesthetically, there is a method in Noor's madness, both at home and at work.

The songs by Amaal Mallik, especially "Uff ye Noor", are pleasant and mesh seamlessly in the narrative without appearing forced.

Overall, the minor lapses in the portrayal of journalism as a profession, notwithstanding, 'Noor' is an enjoyable, breezy film which pivots around strong issues but is light-hearted too.



Film: "Noor"; Director: Sunhil Sippy; Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Purab Kohli, MK Raina, Kanan Gill, Shibani Dandekar, Smita Tambe, Rating: ***1/2
Setting a benchmark for the maintenance to be paid to an estranged wife, the Supreme Court has ruled that 25% of a husband's net salary is the "just and proper" amount of alimony, reported The Times of India.
With the government expecting better delivery of its schemes and programmes on the ground as the 2019 Lok Sabha elections draw nearer, Prime Minister (PM) on Friday asked senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers of the country, including district magistrates of 599 of the 706 districts, to change their work ethic and mindsets.
The oil ministry has denounced the decision of a section of petrol pump operators, mostly in South India, to keep outlets shut on Sundays, saying such a move will inconvenience the general public.
The H1-B visas reforms in the US or the snap poll in Britain over Brexit issue will pose no near-term risks to the Indian IT industry, global research analyst Jefferies said on Thursday.

"The US President's order on immigration was sparse in detail and in contrast to fears of major clampdown, poses few incremental risks. Near-term risks of work visa reforms for the IT sector have waned," claimed the global investment bank in a statement from New York.

Similarly, snap elections in Britain on June 8 indicate a softer Brexit, reducing probability of shocks to India IT sector though volatility in pound and euro on dollar revenues needs to be kept under watch, it said.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled 'Buy American, Hire American' to tighten the grant of . The order also makes specific suggestions for to be granted to the most skilled and the highest paid applicants.

"Prima facie, the order does not lay out either limits for the visa quotas, definition of wages or skills other than what is already prescribed, or a timeline under which this needs to be implemented," asserted Jefferies Equity Analyst Vaibhav Dhasmana in the statement.

Equating the order to the April 4 guidance memo of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the analyst said it (order) would not change what is already in practice.

"In reality, the order means little, given that the scrutiny of Indian visas has been high in recent years even though it does indicate a higher focus on skilled labour immigration," noted Dhasmana.

In view of the low unemployment rates in the US (-2.5 per cent for graduates 25 years and older), the research firm said immigration reforms would have to balance protectionism and business needs.

"For Indian IT (industry), the risk is from legislative reforms (bills proposing increase of minimum wage), which does not seem to be priority for the Congress and hence near-term risks have waned though noise levels might remain high," Dhasmana pointed out.

Noting that the June 8 British snap poll was to seek a higher majority to iron out issues in negotiating Brexit, Jefferies said the fears of the Indian IT firms were over their volume growth getting impacted or delayed decision-making, as reflected in the scrapping of an IT project by the Royal Bank of Scotland to Indian software major Infosys in August 2016.

"The weakness of the pound and euro had also led to cross-currency headwinds on reported dollar revenue in the September-December quarter of calendar year 2016," recalled Dhasmana.

A higher majority for the ruling Conservative Party would mean a firmer hand for its Prime Minister Theresa May in negotiating a softer Brexit with the European Union and reduced risks of potential shocks for Indian IT firms.
Enthused by the competitive bids attracted by ultra mega solar parks at Rewa (Madhya Pradesh) and Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh), Odisha is ready to take on the two states in terms of .
Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Prakash Javadekar has exhorted upon young Doctors to go for ethical practice in their profession and perform that duty with passion. He said only passionate work can bring satisfaction in life. Shri Javadekar was addressing the 7th Convocation Day of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi today. .

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Shri Javadekar said like a teacher only that Doctor is remembered and honoured who behaves humanly and who has more human traits. So he gets respect from everyone. He reminded the Doctor of the contributions of society in their entire education in the form of tax paid by them He said a Doctor can earn quiet sufficiently in a practice being ethical as it will definitely return him with lot of satisfaction and good amount of living. So be happy, be satisfied, prosperity will follow, he added. .

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Shri Javadekar referred to the steps taken by Central Government in reducing the prices of stents used for curing heart blockages from Rs. Two Lakhs to 26000 and from Rs.70-80,000 to Rs.7500. He said similarly efforts are being made for generic medicines so that their extensive use could be done. We have also started Janaushadhi stores to provide generic medicines at cost effective and reasonable prices so that the poor could afford for medicines easily. Promotion of YOGA and observation of YOGA Day is meant for prevention of diseases and attainment of good health, Shri Javadekar added. Similarly are the drives for vaccination, immunisation, physical activities, barring of junk food, and sports, the Minister said. .

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Shri Javadekar called upon the young Doctors to come up for the service for the nation as a soldier keeping in mind even the smallest contribution made by a layman. .

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On this occasion 135 Students were conferred the Post Graduate Degree of the Institute in different disciplines. .

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The event was also addressed by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Shri Faggan Singh Kulaste. Health Secretary Shri C.K. Mishra and other senior officers were also present on the occasion. .

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Finance Minister raises the issue of tightening of H-1B Visa regime by US and emphasizes contributions of the skilled Indian professionals to US economy .

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held a bilateral meeting with the US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington DC on 20 April, 2017. Finance Minister was accompanied by the Indias Ambassador Navtej Sarna and Secretary Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das.

Both leaders emphasized the strength of Indo-US economic relations and the bipartisan support it has acquired over the years. Finance Minister briefed the US Commerce Secretary on the strength of the Indian economy and the significant structural reforms Government of India has undertaken over the last three years. The US Commerce Secretary Ross congratulated the Indian Finance Minister on making the GST a reality.

Finance Minister raised the issue of recent executive orders which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime. He outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.
When you stop and think about it, most of us have at least one financial goal. For some, it may be saving for a house or college. Others may be focused on paying down debt and boosting their credit score. And some people may want to learn more about sticking to a budget.

Theres no better time to think about personal financial goals than during Money Smart Week Wisconsin from April 22-29. Many University of Wisconsin-Extension offices and partner organizations offer a range of financial education seminars, workshops, displays and more at various locations statewide. Interested individuals can find Money Smart Week events in their area online at moneysmartweek.org.

Money Smart Week was first started in 2001 to focus our attention on our financial goals and habits. Of course, were all dealing with money every day, but setting aside a little time once a year to revisit and tweak our financial habits can have a lasting impact year round.

UW-Extension has online resources to assist with managing money, dealing with debt, and making progress toward goals. The website fyi.uwex.edu/money links to reliable resources for budgeting, boosting credit scores, dealing with unexpected expenses, saving for college, and renting that first apartment.

Research tells us that people with less financial stress and greater well-being have a few things in common. These individuals have a handle on their daily spending habits, have a plan for emergencies, are making progress towards goals, and plan their spending to include some of lifes wants and little extras.

With a bit of time and know-how, individuals can set up a plan for their financial well-being that works for their own budget and lifestyle.

What about our little ones? Its never too early to get money smart! Get tips and resources for talking to young children about developing good money habits at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/educational-resources/money-as-you-grow/

Thanks for reading!
Pundits often cite the North Korean regimes crimes against its citizens as proof of Kim Jong-uns irrationality as a leader. These crimes, as exhaustively documented by former High Court justice Michael Kirby for the UN Human Rights Council, are monstrous and inexcusable.
Pakistan's former army chief Gen left for Riyadh on Friday to head a 41-nation Islamic military alliance after getting the government's approval, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said amidst concerns in Islamabad about the Saudi-led grouping.

Asif told Geo News that Sharif had been "given permission to head the military alliance after completion of all legal formalities and requirements" by the federal government.

Media reports suggested that the 60-year-old former chief of army staff was granted approval to serve as head of the alliance for three years.

A military source, while speaking to Dawn.Com, said approval for Sharif's departure had also been granted by General Headquarters Rawalpindi according to established procedures.

Sharif, who has army chief for three years till his retirement on November 29, 2016, left for Riyadh on Friday on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother.

It was not immediately clear if the government had discussed its decision with opposition parties, which recently expressed serious misgivings regarding the issue in light of the possibility that the alliance may be used against Iran, Dawn reported.

The news also seemed to go against what the defence minister himself had assured Parliament of on April 13, the report said.

Asif had informed the house that the Saudi government would hold a grand meeting in May, where it would unveil the alliance's Terms of Reference (ToR).

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former COAS Gen will attend the event," he had said.

He had further said the former COAS would formally apply for a No Objection Certificate after the ToR was made public.

He also said that the ToR and the aims and objectives of the alliance would be presented to Parliament before a formal decision would be made on whether Pakistan should become a part of it or not.

The 41-nation armed coalition was initially proposed as a platform for security cooperation among Muslim countries and included provisions for training, equipment and troops, and the involvement of religious scholars for devising a counter- terrorism narrative.

Since news of the alliance first surfaced, there have been concerns in Pakistan about its nature and how it may affect a pre-existing parliamentary resolution on Yemen passed unanimously by lawmakers calling for "neutrality in the conflict" in 2015.

On April 13, Asif had told the National Assembly: "We will stick to our prerogative when it comes to Yemen, and the agreement we have will remain binding.
far exceeded its lenders' budget demands last year, official data showed on Friday, posting its first overall budget surplus in 21 years even when debt repayments are included.

The primary surplus  the leftover before debt repayments that is the focus of Monetary Fund-European Union creditors -- was more than eight times what they had targetted.

Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT -- to be confirmed on Monday by the EU -- showed the primary budget surplus at 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015.

This was calculated under European System of Accounts guidelines, which differ from the methodology used by Greece's in bailout deliberations.

Under EU-IMF standards, the surplus was even larger.

Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the primary budget surplus under bailout terms reached 4.19 percent of gross domestic product last year versus the 0.5 percent of GDP target.

"It is more than eight times above target," Tzanakopoulos said in a statement. "Therefore, the targets set under the bailout programme for 2017 and 2018 will certainly be attained."

Debt-strapped and its creditors have been at odds for months over the country's fiscal performance, delaying the conclusion of a key bailout review which could unlock needed bailout funds.

The IMF, which has reservations on whether can meet high primary surplus targets, has yet to decide if it will fund Greece's current bailout, which expires in 2018.

The 2016 outperformance could lead the fund to revise some of its projections. The IMF's participation is seen as a condition for Germany to unlock new funds to Greece.

Athens hopes to discuss the fund's participation and its projections at the sidelines of the IMF's spring meetings in Washington. EU and IMF mission chiefs are expected to return to Athens on Tuesday to discuss the bailout review.

After meeting Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Washington, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said: "We had constructive discussions in preparation for the return of the mission to discuss the two legs of the Greece program: policies and debt relief."

ELSTAT said the overall surplus including debt repayments reached 0.7 percent of GDP compared with a 5.9 percent deficit in 2015.

Analysts attributed the outperformance to the implementation of bailout measures and increased efforts to improve the state's revenue collection capacity.

"It's an impressive outperformance versus the bailout programme target for the primary surplus," said Athens-based Eurobank's chief economist Platon Monokroussos.

"The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout programme is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario," he said.

Athens faces a primary surplus target of 1.75 percent of GDP this year.
As the global recovery gathers pace, the is turning up the volume on its call for wealthy countries to address popular anger over the impact of globalisation and head off the threat of protectionism.
Saudi Arabia's labor minister issued an order on Thursday to restrict employment in shopping malls to Saudi nationals, who currently make up only one in five staff in the retail sector.
Southeast Asia, a focus of past US presidents, has been overlooked thus far for the Trump administration, but Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Indonesia today marked a sign of change and he announced the president would follow him to the region later this year.

Anxious Southeast Asian governments are looking for America's commitment to counter China's rising economic and military clout. Vietnam's foreign minister is in Washington his week, and the top diplomats of the region's 10-nation bloc are expected to arrive en masse in early May, amid concerns their interests were being crowded out as President prioritizes Mideast counterterrorism, traditional alliances in Europe and North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

Pence's stop in Jakarta on a 10-day swing through the Asia-Pacific, meeting with Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, sends a message that Trump's interests in Asia extend beyond North Korea and the massive U.S. Trade imbalance with China. It is the first to Southeast Asia by a top administration official, and Pence announced Trump will attend the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in November.

Washington is "taking steps to strengthen our partnership with ASEAN and deepen our friendship," Pence said, resolving to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation in combating terrorism and in the disputed South China Sea.

This year marks ASEAN's 50th anniversary. November's gathering is being held in the Philippines, setting the stage for an encounter between two unconventional leaders: Trump and the host, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president who is sometimes likened to the American leader because of his outspokenness and unashamed populism.

U.S.-Philippine relations are strained over Duterte's war on drugs, and his brash efforts to forge closer ties with China. President Barack Obama scrapped a planned meeting last fall after Duterte cursed him. Before that, Obama engaged Southeast Asia more than any U.S. President since the aftermath of the Vietnam War and made ASEAN summits a virtual fixture in his diplomatic calendar.

Among Obama's foreign policy successes: Promoting democratic reform in Myanmar, on communist China's doorstep.

He stood up, albeit unsuccessfully, against Beijing's construction of artificial islands that can give it a strong military foothold in the South China Sea. He paved the way for a bigger US military presence in the Philippines, where American bases were shuttered 25 years ago.

Obama also understood the importance of showing up. He made nine trips to Southeast Asia, became the first sitting US president to visit former adversaries Myanmar and Laos, and was first to travel to Malaysia in more than four decades. Trump got off on the wrong foot.

His "America First" rhetoric and abrupt withdrawal from Obama's pan-Pacific trade pact raised fears of U.S. protectionism hurting the region's 600 million people. They do $225 billion in trade with the U.S. Each year. Trump's relationship with Beijing remains unclear and his unorthodox foreign policy has begged the question as to whether he could ease U.S. Demands on the South China Sea to win Chinese cooperation on North Korea.

"The region very much wants to know where the United States is going to stand on the South China Sea, and more broadly what its approach to China is going to be," said Amy Searight, a former top U.S. Defense official for the region. China is the main trading partner for most of Southeast Asia, although the U.S. Remains a key source of foreign investment.

The TPP's demise leaves an alternative pact as the main avenue for boosting trade among the fast-growing economies. China is a part of that negotiation, while the U.S. Isn't. Trump's decision to leave TPP "creates a vacuum that China is happy to try to fill," Searight said.

Trump also is expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam in November. ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are among 16 nations the Trump administration is investigating over their U.S. Trade surpluses. Pence said U.S. Exporters to Indonesia should enjoy a level playing field and the relationship should be "win-win."



Vietnam, which has courted its former U.S. Enemy, wants even better ties. Its ambassador visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point this month. Today, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh met Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department.

And in an unusual move, ASEAN foreign ministers have arranged an 11-way meeting in Washington with Tillerson. The State Department said the meeting will take place May 4. It will reprise, at a lower level, a leaders' summit Obama hosted in California last year.
These are awesome days for headline writers. So many global settings, such an abundance of weapons, such a wealth of choices!
US President Donald Trump has described North Korea as a "menace", while lauding China's efforts to rein in the reclusive country.

"As far as North Korea is concerned, we are in very good shape. We're building our military rapidly," Trump said at a press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. "A lot of things have happened over the last short period of time. I have been here for approximately 91 days. We're doing a lot of work. We're in a very good position."



He was optimistic that China would be able to use its influence on North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un, who he hoped is "mentally stable".

Trump was asked by a reporter whether he thought the North Korean leader is mentally unstable and, therefore, unable to be reasoned with.

"I can't answer your question on stability. I hope the answer is a positive one, not a negative one. But hopefully that will be something that gets taken care of," he said.

Trump, who met with President Xi Jinping earlier this month at his Mar-a-Lago retreat, said he told his Chinese counterpart that he would get a "much better" trade deal with the US if he did something about the "menace" of North Korea. "Because that is what it is, it is a menace right now."



Trump also said he was confident that Xi would be trying "very, very hard" in the matter.

"I really have confidence that the President (Xi Jinping) will try very hard. We don't know whether or not they're able to do that, but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very, very hard," he said.

"Some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours," Trump said without elaborating.
There are several explanations for why relations between Russia and the United States having been in decline since 2010, from Russias increasingly aggressive postures (especially regarding Ukraine) to US support of regime-changing revolutions (especially during the Arab Spring).
is locked in upper circuit of 5% at Rs 1,380 on first day of its listing on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday.
The Patiala House Court on Friday is likely to issue the order on the application filed by the two accused pleading guilty in the Abu Dhabi ISIS case.

Earlier on March 29, two out of the three accused involved in the Abu Dhabi ISIS case moved an application of guilty in a special Investigation Agency (NIA) court.

The court issued a notice to the NIA seeking a reply by April 10.

The two accused, Sheikh Azhar ul-Islam and Mohd. Farhan Sheikh said they were remorseful for the acts committed by them, adding that they wanted to do something productive for the society and rehabilitate themselves.

According to reports, they said they were pleading guilty without being under any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence.

They were arrested on January 29 after their arrival from Abu Dhabi on January 28.

Charges have been framed against Sheikh Azhar ul-Islam, Adnan Hassan and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh for offences punishable under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 18, 20, 38, 39 and 40 of the UA (P) Act 1967.

Investigations had established that the accused, in connivance with other known and unknown associates had hatched a criminal conspiracy to propagate ideology, recruit persons, raise funds and facilitate the travel of such recruited persons to Syria to join the ISIS and further its activities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Current McLaren driver Fernando Alonso, who is acknowledged as one of the grid's very best drivers, is all set to have his first taste of IndyCars when he takes to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for his first test on May 3 ahead of his debut appearance at the Indy 500.

Earlier this month, McLaren had announced that they would return to the Indianapolis 500, using Honda engines after an absence of nearly 38 years.

McLaren had further said that Alonso, who has won 32 of the 275 Grand Prix he started, would run in the 101st Indianapolis 500, featuring a joint entry with Honda and Andretti Autosport.

Alonso has also decided to skip F1's Monaco Grand Prix to compete in the May 28 Indy 500, Sport24 reported.

The Spaniard driver is scheduled to visit the Andretti team this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham before he will head to Sochi for the Russian Grand Prix.

Following the F1 race, he will return to the United States to take part in a one-day IndyCar test.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case accused Swamy Aseemanand on Friday got permission from a court to visit his ailing mother and also to appear in a Haryana court in connection with the Samjhauta blast case.

While granting him permission, the Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge directed that Aseemanand should again report before the court.

Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, on had on April 13 filed an application in the court seeking permission to visit his ailing mother in West Bengal and to appear before a Panchkula court in Haryana to attend the Samjhauta blast case in which he is an accused.

A Hyderabad court had in March this year released Aseemanand from the Chanchalguda Central Jail and also granted conditional bail to him in the Mecca Masjid blast case.

Aseemanand was asked to surrender his passport and not to leave Hyderabad without permission from the court.

As many as nine people were killed and several others injured when an IED exploded inside the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007.

In August 2014, the Punjab and Haryana Court had granted bail to Aseemanand in the 2007 Samjhauta train blast in which sixty-eight people were killed and dozens more were injured. Aseemanand has already been acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case in which three people were killed and 17 others were injured.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
World number one Andy Murray, who slumped to a shocking third-round exit in the ongoing Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, has admitted some bad decisions during the match led to his loss against World No.24 Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain.

Ramos-Vinolas recovered from a 0-4 defeat in the deciding set to register a 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 win over Murray in a disjointed pre-quarterfinals match, which featured 13 service breaks and lasted over two hours and 33 minutes.

Following the defeat, Murray blamed the defeat on his tactical choices in the clutch moments.

"A few times today, I made some bad decisions. That's something that, with my team, I'll look at, watch some parts of the match over, see the shots that I chose and what I would do differently. At 4-0, one of the service games where I got broken, I didn't play such a good game," Sport24 quoted him as saying.

Murray admitted that although both of them performed well throughout the match, his Spanish opponent did outplay him towards the end of the set.

"Then he obviously started playing better towards the end of the set. I still had a bunch of chances. I guess both of us did really. I think at 4-All, he had 0/40, too. I certainly struggled a bit at the end of the match," Murray said.

The 29-year-old, who has been protecting his recovering elbow during training by not going at full intensity, also admitted that he failed to adjust quickly enough to playing on the slower clay surface.

"I had to go a little bit easy when I first came back from the elbow. Whereas now, I'm ready to really to put in some hard work. When you play on a new surface, you haven't played many matches for a while, you sometimes lose the right way to play," he said.

With the win, Ramos-Vinolas denied Murray, a three-time semi-finalist at the tournament, his 100th clay-court match victory of his career (99-44).

The top-seeded, who was playing for the first time since March 12 due to a right elbow injury, was bidding to capture his 15th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Asserting that Centre's move to ban the use of red beacon in vehicles belonging to dignitaries would not end VVIP culture, the Congress on Friday said the decision was not taken after careful consideration, adding that the important functionaries of the government should have some privileges in an emergency situation.

"I don't think the decision was taken after careful consideration because in an emergency situation, important functionaries of the government should have some privileges. Prohibiting it completely is not the correct thing according to me personally and this not my party's opinion. VVIP culture is not going to over with the ban," Congress leader P.C. Chacko told ANI.

He further said the Cabinet has the right to take any decision, but it would soon realise that it was not a wise one.

"The Prime Minister does not care for the convention, practices and supremacy. He thinks by removing laal batti, they will remove VIP culture," he added.

Another Congress leader Hidayatullah said that instead of banning red beacon, the ministers should leave their ministry image.

"It is a routine announcement. Instead of banning lat batti, they should stay away from official and ministry image. Sometimes they will obey, sometimes not. There will not be any exemption for anybody, even for the Prime Minister," he told ANI.

The Central Government on Wednesday banned the use of red beacon atop vehicles of dignitaries, including the central and state ministers and other VVIPs.

The decision taken by the Union Cabinet will be implemented from May 1.

It is reported that five categories would be exempted from the ban - the President, the Vice President, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Lok Sabha Speaker.

The ban applies to union ministers, chief ministers, state cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and judges of the High Court and Supreme Court.

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A mass militia commander JRD Jenny Sambhau surrendered with one country made gun before the CRPF's 80th Battalion in Jagdalpur, while five naxalites surrendered in Bijapur on Friday.

Sambhu, a naxalite who was a comrade of Ramesh Poyum Gupiyapal Jumililia, was involved several naxalite incidents including the Jharkhati ambush attack.

Sambhu is carried a bounty of Rs. one lakh over his head.

In March this year, thirty-three naxals surrendered before the Jagdalpur police, whereas two naxalites were nabbed by the Bijapur police.

Out of the thirty-three Naxalites who surrendered before the Inspector-General (IG) and Superintendent of Police (SP), twenty-nine are males and 4 females.

However, with a motive to enlighten children in naxal-affected areas of Jharkhand's Palamau district, Jharkhand Police has initiated Tare Zameen Par program to encourage children to lead happy lives.

In January this year, Jharkhand police used light aircraft to drop pamphlets over naxal affected areas to increase the awareness among them.

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Beijing on Friday dismissed New Delhi's protest over its decision to rename six places in Arunachal Pradesh, which China considers to be a disputed territory, saying "it is a legitimate measure".

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media, "China's position on the eastern section of the India-China boundary is clear and consistent. Relevant names have been used by ethnic Momba and Tibetan Chinese who have lived here for generations. So it is a fact that cannot be changed."

He added that to standardise these names and publicise them is a legitimate measure based on its lawful right.

Meanwhile Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said yesterday, "Renaming or inventing names of states of your neighbour does not make illegal occupation legal".

China based Global Times reported on Wednesday that the country's Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on April 14 that it had standardised in Chinese characters, Tibetan, and Roman alphabet, the names of six places in 'South Tibet', which is the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, in accordance with the regulations of the central government.

The Chinese move is being seen as a retaliation to India allowing exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to visit Arunachal Pradesh despite Beijing's repeated protests.

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Asserting that the integrity of the armed forces was beyond reproach, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistan Major General Asif Ghafoor has clarified that comments by a few people regarding the head of premier intelligence agency were baseless and unwarranted.

The DG ISPR took to Twitter to clarify what may be called an allegation by Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) senior Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, who had earlier said that Sharif brothers had family relations with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

"Comments by few regarding head of premier intelligence agency are baseless, misleading and unwarranted. Integrity of armed forces is beyond reproach," Ghafoor tweeted.

Earlier, in a 3-2 judgement on the case, Pakistan's apex court ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to continue probing the allegations of financial irregularities and money laundering, while noting that at present, there is "insufficient evidence to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif."

The JIT has been given two months to complete the probe into the matter and his sons Hussain and Hasan, all of whom have also been directed to appear before the JIT. The investigators will also have to present bi-weekly reports to a special bench of the Supreme Court.

Following this, the PPP rallied behind their leaders and staged a protest in the Parliament, while asking Sharif to resign to "save the democracy."

Talking to the media, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan said that on corruption allegations, the PPP government was dissolved, but with same charges Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was still ruling.

The PPP leader further said that Maryam Nawaz was the key character of Panama Case but she had been given a Clean Chit. He also alleged that Sharif brothers had family relations with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

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36-year-old Egyptian Eman Ahmed, who was the heaviest woman in the world at 500-plus kg until a few months ago, has lost 250kg in two months after undergoing surgery here at Saifee Hospital.

"Eman has done miraculously well. We actually didn't expect her to do this well because we had estimated that in six odd months she would lose around 200 kg," Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala, obesity surgeon told ANI.

"The weight loss has also dramatically improved her . Eman's heart, kidneys and lungs are functioning better and her water retention levels are also under control," said the doctor.

Shedding light on the challenges he and his team faced, Dr. Lakdawala said, "More than a challenge, we took it as a humanitarian cause. We just couldn't see her lying like that, so helpless, simply waiting for death to come. The risks of this case were 99%. I think now, we have given her a chance to live. If she gets physiotherapy done properly and wants to be able to walk, Eman will have to put in the efforts."

"We'll now weigh her after three-four weeks and are hoping she'll come under the 200 kg mark. She is a fighter and she has a will to fight this," he added.

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European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, on Friday agreed to strengthen cooperation for counter-terrorism with India.

In a meeting, the two sides discussed regional and global developments of mutual interest and agreed on the need to strengthen the security cooperation between India and EU, particularly on the issue of counter-terrorism, according to a statement.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Modi recalled his successful visit to Brussels in March 2016 for the last India-EU Summit, and said that he is looking forward to the next India-EU Summit to be held in India in October 2017.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who today addressed the civil services officers on the occasion of 11th Civil Services Day, asserted that the government has to become from regulator to an enabling entity with changing times.

He conferred the Prime Minister's awards for excellence in public administration to districts and other central and state organisations for effective implementation of the programmes and innovation.

Below are the highlights from Prime Minister Modi's address:

- Earlier, role of the government, from healthcare to wanting to set up an industry, was very strong. Things are changing since 15 years: PM Modi

- People are now seeing alternatives. For example- it can be about a private airline or a private healthcare service: PM Modi

- Changing trends in the last 15-20 years have altered the dynamics. Competition can play a big role in bringing a qualitative change: PM Modi

- With changing times, a need may arise that we may have to change our working style. From regulator, we need to be an enabling entity: PM Modi

- With quantum jump in work must also come a qualitative change: PM Modi

- Hierarchy remains an issue- this is something we inherited from colonial rulers & we did not leave that behind in Mussoorie: PM to officers

- E-governance, M-governanc, social media- these are good means to reach out to the people and for their benefits: PM Modi

- A spirit of ownership is essential. Let us believe that through this set up we can bring a positive change in people's lives: PM Modi

- The push for reform comes from political leadership but the perform angle is determined by officers & Jan Bhagidari transforms: PM Modi

- Every policy of ours and its implementation has to be outcome centric: PM Modi

- India is seen as a ray of hope world over and our democratic values are globally admired: PM Modi

The awards have been instituted with a view to acknowledge, recognize and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by Districts and Organizations of the Central and State governments for the welfare of common citizen.

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Political leaders and social activists from Jammu and Kashmir on Friday welcomed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's call to all states to protect the Kashmiri students, but emphasized that every Indian should be protected anywhere in India.

Welcoming Rajnath's statement, Jammu and Kashmir Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh said that not only the Kashmiris living in other states should be protected but also those outsiders studying in Kashmir should also be protected.

He called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convene a meeting of all political parties to send a signal in the country that "we all are Indians and no Indian should be subjected to any sort of violence anywhere in the country".

Social activist from Jammu and Kashmir, Sushil Pandit, said no law abiding citizen of India should be targeted unlawfully.

"But the citizens should also bear in mind that they must behave in law abiding peaceful manner whether in Kashmir or outside," he added.

Earlier in the day, the Home Minister appealed to all states to protect the Kashmiri students as "they are also equal citizens of India".

Rajnath's appeal came after six Kashmiri students were injured on Thursday during a clash with locals in Chhitorgarh, Rajasthan.

Earlier on Friday, the posters by a little known outfit 'Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena' warned the Kashmiris to leave Uttar Pradesh by April 30.

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After pro-Kannada organisations threatened to stall Baahubali 2 in Karnataka, veteran Tamil actor Sathyaraj has apologised over his remarks on the Cauvery water dispute while categorically stating that he would continue to support these issues as he is a Tamilian first and then an actor.

While expressing his views via a WhatsApp video, the actor, who expressed his anguish over the Cauvery water issue nine years back, said that he does not want anyone from his upcoming movie to bear the losses.

He noted,"Nevertheless, in the coming days be it Tamil people, Cauvery issue, farmers issue or any other issue, I would continue to voice my support against these issues."

"And if anyone thinks that my statement caused any harm to the producers and directors, then I would request them not to cast this small, meagre actor in their films. I don't want anyone to suffer any kind of loss because I would prefer to live and die as a Tamilian rather an actor," the 62-year-old stated.

Requesting the people of Karnataka to ensure the release of Baahubali 2, the actor added, "I am not against Kannada people, one of the prime example is that in these nine years, many of my films including Baahuballi was also released in Karnataka without any problems."

A protest by Pro-Kannada group Karnataka Rakshana Vedike was held on Thursday in the city against Sathyaraj for his comments made years ago on Kannadigas and Cauvery River.

The protesters marched to the Karnataka Film Chamber Of Commerce and gave a written request to the Film Chamber President asking him to call a meeting of all stakeholders and instructing them not to release Baahubali: The Conclusion on April 28.

Baahubali 2: The Conclusion is directed by SS Rajamouli and is the continuation of Baahubali: The Beginning.

The movie, which also stars Prabhas, Anushka Shetty, Rana Daggubati and Tamannaah, is scheduled to hit the theatres on April 28.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Friday issued yet another summons to Goa's former chief minister and Congress leader Digambar Kamat in the mining scam case of 2013.

Superintendent of police Crime Branch Priyanka Kashyap says that he (Kamat) has been asked to report before the investigation officer on Monday.

In July 2013, a complaint was filed by the Mines and Geology Department in seeking to fix criminal liability on those involved in the illegal mining case.

Earlier, a report of retired Justice M.B. Shah Commission had stated that illegal mining of approximately Rs 35,000 crore took place in Goa from 2005 to 2012, when the apex court banned iron ore extraction in the state.

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India has made fresh requests to the United States for extradition of terrorists David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana for their role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

This came as Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Deputy Director Andrew McCabe visited India earlier this month and met senior officials of the Investigation Agency (NIA).

Speaking on the matter, a spokesperson for the NIA told ANI that the Deputy Director of FBI visited the NIA headquarter on April 3 during which both sides held discussions on Headley.

"We discussed regarding David Headley. This is a routine affair. Whenever any senior official visits the NIA (headquarter), we discuss issues related to that county," he added.

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Backing the construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, Muslim Karsevak Sangh (MKS) president Mohammad Azam Khan on Friday said that Lord Ram was from the community of warriors, adding the Muslims want to support the decision to eradicate the feeling of hatred and spread love and unity among the people.

"I am Pathan. Our ancestors would be Kshatriyas and I can claim that Lord Rama would also have been Kshatriya. Indian Muslims want to now support the construction of Ram temple to spread love, unity and end hatred among people," Khan told ANI.

Earlier on April 19, the Supreme Court allowed the CBI's appeal in the Babri Masjid demolition case and restored criminal conspiracy charges against the BJP veterans Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti besides Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh.

However, Kalyan Singh, who was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1992, enjoys constitutional immunity as the Rajasthan Governor and can be tried only after he leaves office.

The apex court ordered that two separate cases in Lucknow and Raebareli against Advani, Joshi and Bharti and unknown 'kar sevaks' shall be brought together in one trial.

The Supreme Court also directed the trial court in Lucknow to commence the proceedings in four weeks and hear the matter on a day-to-day basis so as to complete the hearing in two years. The apex court also said there will be no 'de novo' (fresh) trial.

The CBI has been ordered to ensure that at least one prosecution witness appears in the trial court for recording of testimony.

To ensure speedy trial, the top court has given two important directions - first, no party shall be granted adjournments without the sessions judge being satisfied of the reasons for it; second, the trial judge hearing the case shall not be transferred till the judgement is delivered.

The Supreme Court also said that its order should be followed in letter and spirit. If the parties involved feel that the top court's order is not being followed in letter and spirit then they will be having the liberty to approach the apex court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Eight people were killed and 10 wounded as insurgents penetrated the Afghan National Army's 209 Shaheen Corps Headquarters in Balkh province on Friday afternoon.

According to Tolo News, a number of fighters made their way to the onsite mosque where Friday prayers were underway.

Officials said the attack started at about 1.30pm and a gunfight ensued lasting for at least five hours.

Security forces managed to kill all attackers, officials confirmed.

This is the second massive attack on a military installation in recent months.

Two months ago, insurgents attacked the Sardar Mohammad Daoud military hospital in Kabul killing at least 50 people.

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Good News Club Victory in Aloha State Contact: Rachel Hamel,



KAPOLEI, Hawaii, April 21, 2017 /



The Hawaii Chapter of CEF was originally denied use of the school facilities, despite other comparable programs in Hawaii schools, such as A+ Program, Kama'aina Kids, Kumon, and Girls on the Run, all of which are permitted to use facilities after school. Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the school superintendent, which prompted a decision to allow the Good News Club to meet at the school.



Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said, "The Campbell-Kapolei Complex School District made the appropriate decision to recognize that the Good News Club has equal access to provide character instruction to students. Public schools cannot discriminate against Christian viewpoints while allowing other organizations to meet in school facilities. This is a victory for the children and schools. Child Evangelism Fellowship gives children a biblically-based spiritual education that includes moral and character development. More than 87 percent of school administrators say the Good News Clubs are a positive experience for their school," said Staver.



Liberty Counsel represents Child Evangelism Fellowship nationally and has never lost a case at any court of final resort regarding the Good News Clubs.



Child Evangelism Fellowship is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been teaching the Bible to children since 1937. CEF has 400 offices in the USA and is organized in most nations of the world, with over 3,200 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of volunteers. In its last ministry year, CEF ministered to nearly 20 million children in its face-to-face teaching ministries.

Share Tweet Contact: Rachel Hamel, Child Evangelism Fellowship , 636-456-4321 ext 1177KAPOLEI, Hawaii, April 21, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- In a victory for Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in the Aloha State, its after-school Good News Club can now be held in Ewa Elementary, the largest elementary school in the Campbell-Kapolei Complex.The Hawaii Chapter of CEF was originally denied use of the school facilities, despite other comparable programs in Hawaii schools, such as A+ Program, Kama'aina Kids, Kumon, and Girls on the Run, all of which are permitted to use facilities after school. Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the school superintendent, which prompted a decision to allow the Good News Club to meet at the school.Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said, "The Campbell-Kapolei Complex School District made the appropriate decision to recognize that the Good News Club has equal access to provide character instruction to students. Public schools cannot discriminate against Christian viewpoints while allowing other organizations to meet in school facilities. This is a victory for the children and schools. Child Evangelism Fellowship gives children a biblically-based spiritual education that includes moral and character development. More than 87 percent of school administrators say the Good News Clubs are a positive experience for their school," said Staver.Liberty Counsel represents Child Evangelism Fellowship nationally and has never lost a case at any court of final resort regarding the Good News Clubs.Child Evangelism Fellowship is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been teaching the Bible to children since 1937. CEF has 400 offices in the USA and is organized in most nations of the world, with over 3,200 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of volunteers. In its last ministry year, CEF ministered to nearly 20 million children in its face-to-face teaching ministries.
Actor Kamal Haasan has been summoned by a court here over his alleged controversial statement on Mahabharat.

The court has asked the actor to appear before it on May 5, 2017. The court issued the summons while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL).

The PIL alleged that the actor insulted Hindu sentiments by making objectionable remarks about Hindu epic Mahabharata.

In March 2017, Haasan reportedly told a Tamil News Channel that India was a country which respected and honoured a book (Mahabharat) in which a woman Panchali was depicted as an object and was used as a collateral in gambling by Pandvas.

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The Supreme Court on Friday granted leave and admitted the appeal filed by one of the convicts and co-conspirators, Abdul Latif Adam Momin, in connection with the 1999 IC 814 Kandahar hijacking case.

An apex court bench headed by Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and also comprising Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman granted the leave and admitted Momin's appeal while stating that it would hear the matter very soon.

Momin has challenged the life imprisonment awarded to him by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the top court.

Momin, the co-conspirator in the case, is alleged to have the knowledge of the plane hijacking, as per the prosecution.

Three persons involved in the hijack of the Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan in December 1999 were convicted and sentenced to life on charges including murder and conspiracy on February 2008.

Momin alias Abdul Rehman alias Patel, Yusuf Nepali and Dalip Bhujail were awarded life sentence by a special court. They were charged under provisions of anti-hijacking law of the Indian Penal Code.

IC-814 was hijacked on December 24, 1999, when it was on its way to Delhi from Kathmandu. The three were accused of helping the hijackers.

During a week of suspense, five hijackers Ibrahim Athar (brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar), Sunny Ahmed Qazi, S A Sayed alias Doctor, Z I Mistri alias Bhola and R G Verma alias Shakir - who commandeered the aircraft to Kandahar, negotiated with Indian officials and successfully got Azhar and two other dreaded terrorists released from jails in India in exchange for releasing the passengers.

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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday evaded a question about Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan's alleged Khalistan link, saying he met him as a representative of Canada and not as an individual.

"When representatives of two countries meet, it is a meeting between countries and not individuals," said Khattar.

Khattar revealed Sajjan had conveyed Canada's desire to invest in Haryana, particularly in the field of civil aviation. He said the latter also expressed an interest in education sector and construction sector, particularly in developing smart cities.

He said follow up meetings will be held soon to facilitate the entry of Canadian companies to Haryana for investment.

"The Canadian investment will also generate employment in Haryana," Khattar said.

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Coming down heavily upon West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the involvement of her party ministers in the Saradha Chit-fund scam and Narada tapes, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo is trying to defend the indefensible, adding that her party has been exposed as a party of corruption.

BJP spokesperson GVL Narsimha Rao said that Mamata Banerjee is jittery as she is unable to find answers to the questions asked by the investigative agencies and therefore, she is running for cover.

"Be it Saradha or Narada scam, TMC leaders are deeply involved in these cases and they won't be able to go scot-free. Her entire party is deeply complicit in a series of scandals and she will not be able to explain this to the people of West Bengal," Rao told ANI.

BJP leader Rahul Sinha also resonated similar sentiments, saying that Mamata is trying to defend her ministers because if she does not, then more grave issues will emerge which will put her into serious trouble.

"On what basis is Mamata Banerjee defending her ministers? FIR has been lodged because prima facie evidence has been found against the accused. She is defending them because if she does not, then many more serious things will come out which will put her into serious trouble," Sinha told ANI.

BJP leader Sambit Patra also spoke on the same lines, saying that the TMC has been exposed as a party of corruption.

"Mamata Banerjee is trying to find excuse for corruption. She is trying to defend the indefensible. As far as the Narada case is concerned, it was the High Court first which ordered for a probe by the CBI and thereafter, when the Bengal Government went to the Supreme Court, it also rejected the claims of the Mamata Government. They have nothing to hide. They have been clearly exposed that they are a party of corruption," he told ANI.

Accusing the BJP of dividing the people based on religious identities , Mamata Banerjee earlier today urged all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation while stating it is the 'need of the hour'.

Addressing her party workers here, the TMc chief said Hinduism means tolerance but the saffron party is dividing the people based on religious identities.

"It is the need of the hour for all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation. The BJP is dividing the people on religious backgrounds. We respect all religions but Hinduism is our biggest identity. I am proud of my religion. I am proud of all religions. Hinduism means tolerance. The BJP is defaming Hinduism. Riots cannot be religion," she added.

Meanwhile, the leaders of various political parties also echoed Mamata's assertion that the BJP was not a threat and said there would be no scope for the saffron party to form the next government if all regional parties unite.

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Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of straying from his poll promises by needlessly persisting after a slew of other issues, the Congress has accused him of hiding his unsuccessful stint by harping on matters like triple talaq.

"Just to hide his failure as a Prime Minister, he is bringing issues like triple talaq, beef, cow slaughter, ghar wapsi and love jihad. These are the issues which are shown up to hide his failure," Congress leader Digvijaya Singh told the media here.

Further asserting that instead of focusing on issues like economic backwardness, poor human development index, ratio of malnourished children, he added that the Prime Minister has focused on triple talaq.

"What is the need for the Government of India to discuss triple talaq in the media for the last one week? Why shouldn't it be left to Muslims and let them take care of it. In India there are certain sections who do not even believe in triple talaq," he told media.

Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Modi dubbed triple talaq a "bad social practice", saying such practices can be ended by social awakening but stressed that the BJP didn't want a conflict in the society for this.

Meanwhile, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has issued appeals to all maulanas and imams of mosques to read out the code of conduct during Friday 'namaz' and emphasise on its implementation.

The Board has made it clear that it will not tolerate any interference in the Shariat laws, and claimed that majority of the Muslims in the country do not want any change in their personal law.

Earlier this week, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath called for an end to the practice of triple talaq and invoked the disrobing of Draupadi in the Mahabharata to emphasise his point.

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The Delhi Police has busted a gang of cheats who misappropriated household items by projecting themselves as a packing and moving company based at Gurugram (Haryana).

On April 16, an FIR was lodged at the Malviya Nagar police station against Lalit on a complaint of Manoj Srivastva, a resident of that area.

The complainant stated that he worked in NBCC (India) Ltd. and was under transfer from Delhi to Lucknow. Hence, he had made online queries from some packing and moving companies.

One Vikas Sharma claiming to be an executive of 'Gati Movers and Packers' contacted him over the phone and on April 7 and visited the residence of the complainant and took all the household articles in a TATA Ace with Rs. 6000 rupees in advance.

However, the delivery of the goods was not made and his phone was found to be switched off.

A team headed by Inspector Ram Singh (SHO /Malviya Nagar) consisting of Sub-inspector Manoj Kumar, Sub-inspector Deepak Kumar, ASI Ved Prakash, HC Mukesh Kumar, 204/SD, Ct. Sanjeev Kumar, 3933/SD and Ct. Surender 1088/SD of police station Malviya Nagar was constituted.

The team worked relentlessly to crack the case and 18-year-old Lalit Sharma was arrested yesterday and taken into police remand for one day.

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Pakistan Interior Ministry has conveyed to the Lahore High Court that no laws were violated in issuance of the detention orders against Jamaat-ud- Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his aides.

In a written reply submitted to the court on Thursday, the ministry defended the detention of the JuD leaders saying the orders were issued under section 11EE of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, which deals with the proscription of person, reports the News International.

The reply said the ministry issued the impugned notification in exercise of the powers conferred by sub section (1) of section 11D of the ATA, 1997 and placed JuD and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) in second schedule of the Act.

It also said the JuD and FIF had been kept under observation on the basis of a report sent by the foreign affairs ministry. In light of that report, the federal government had reasons to believe that JuD and FIF were engaged in certain activities which could be prejudicial to peace and security and in violation of Pakistan's obligation to the United Nations Security Council resolution.

A division bench headed by Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan examined the report and adjourned hearing of the petition for April 27. Hafiz Saeed, Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid had challenged their detention through Advocate A.K Dogar.

The lawyer argued that the government detained the JuD leaders without any justification. He said the UN resolution followed by the government did not seek detention of any citizen.

He also alleged that the government detained the petitioners to please India and US.

The Punjab government had placed Saeed, the alleged Mumbai attack mastermind, and other party leaders under house arrest earlier on January 31.

The JuD has already been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States in June 2014.

The JuD chief also carries a reward of USD 10 million announced by the US for his role in terror activities.

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Use of cash does not need education or customization. Currency enjoys the advantage of being universally recognized and accepted from time immemorial. It is an advantage that will always remain.

The challenge, therefore, for electronic payments providers is to design products in a manner that creates the same sense of familiarity, trust and longevity. This will require a constantly innovative mindset and yet simplicity and ease at the end of the consumer and merchant so that friction is minimized.

To take into account the diversity of this country on the parameters of language, culture and habits, customization may have to be accompanied with some degree of localization, such as availability of customer service options in local languages and customer-friendly options like the innovative 'missed call' service that many NBFCs offer.

Payworld , the largest assisted wallet for Rural India has first began by playing at the periphery of railway ticketing, bill payments, recharges and small remittances have made inroads to claim larger parts of the customer wallet by providing convenient and secure options for small payments and transfers and setting up assisted touch points for cash loading and cash out, acting as banking correspondents, and creating a layer of service providers that has attempted to accommodate this low volume .

Payworld, which had over 100 million users and one lakh retail touch points across 630 cities and 80,000 villages till the first week of November, has seen an exponential growth in new users mostly from rural and semi-urban areas.

Payworld is also simultaneously educating the merchants and consumers and changing their preference is something that has posed the biggest challenge which as a company there are trying to overcome.

The company has witnessed that offline, person-to-merchant transactions had grown to contribute over 30-35 percent of transactions. Payworld knows the challenges of digital payments for non-tech savvy or unbanked population like ; the inconvenience of remembering log-in credentials, insufficient acceptance, possibility of a technical or human mistake during a transaction and frequently running out of balance are the top reasons for lapsing which makes merchant acceptance critical to drive mass adoption by consumers.

Payworld's prime focus is to increase merchant base and educating them at the most elementary level so they can adopt cashless way.

Payworld being an assisted wallet ensures that each and every of its merchant unfailing help their customers go the digital way and thereby play a significant role in the of upkeep of the Skill India Program initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Payworld is putting in a lot of efforts and demonetization has indirectly made them take a huge leap into this direction and the trust levels on the digital platforms have gone up.

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Vice President Mike Pence praised Indonesia for its tradition of "modern Islam" on Thursday, sending a conciliatory message to the Islamic as the Trump administration continues to cause unease among Muslims.

Pence was speaking in the world's most populous Muslim nation midway through a 10-day swing in Asia meant to reinforce key U.S. alliances at the start of the Trump administration. He met with President Joko Widodo and toured the largest mosque in the region.

Pence said the U.S. would continue working with Indonesia to combat terrorism and said the country's form of Islam should serve as an example to other nations.

"As the largest majority Muslim country, Indonesia's tradition of modern Islam, frankly, is the inspiration to the world," he said. "We commend you and your people. In your nation as in mine, religion unifies -- it doesn't divide. It gives us hope for a brighter future. And we're all grateful for the great inspiration that Indonesia provides for the ."

The Trump administration has caused concern among the world's Muslims for some of its proposals, including barring entry to citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations. That travel ban, however, remains stalled in courts and hasn't gone into effect.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sri Lanka next month to take part in the celebrations marking the UN 'Vesak Day', the most important in the Buddhist calendar.

During his visit, he will take part in the UN 'Vesak Day' celebrations to be held from May 12 to 14.

This is Prime Minister Modi's second visit to Sri Lanka. He had visited the country earlier in May, 2015.

The 'International Day of Vesak' will be hosted by the Buddhist-majority country and the commemorations in Colombo will include an International Buddhist Conference in which over 400 delegates from more than 100 countries will participate.

Vesak is the most important day in the Buddhist calendar. It commemorates Lord Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing away.

During the Prime Minister's visit, it is expected that India will take up the fishermen issue and China's growing influence in the island with Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister Modi's visit will come after his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe's arrival to India on April 25.

Wickremesinghe will be on a five-day visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Modi to further expand ties in a range of areas and find a solution to the vexed fishermen issue.

"The Prime Minister will have a luncheon meeting with Ranil Wickremesinghe on April 26," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

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MN AG Swanson Refuses to Disclose Nepotism and More

Contact: American Target Advertising, 703-392-7676, mfitzgibbons@americantarget.com



MANASSAS, Va., April 20, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Mark Fitzgibbons, President of Corporate Affairs at American Target Advertising, America's largest and oldest conservative direct response agency, issued the following statement today following the refusal by the Office of Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson to answer Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") requests about nepotism within her office, and the quantity of judgeless warrants called civil investigative demands (also known as administrative subpoenas) issued by her:



"The type of information that Ms. Swanson has refused to provide in response to my FOIA request should already be available to the general public, yet Ms. Swanson's office has now taken the position that it will require litigation to force transparency," said Fitzgibbons, who added, "Ms. Swanson's obstruction combines darkness, potential conflicts of interest, and danger to constitutional rights, making her unworthy of the unchecked, unilateral search and enforcement powers she wields. Giving Ms. Swanson these powers is like letting police write their own warrants to search people's private papers and emails protected by the Fourth Amendment, while currying political favors or satisfying ideological grudges in the process."



Among the various FOIA requests that Swanson's Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Velzen refused to answer in an April 14 denial of the FOIA requests submitted February 27 and supplemented on March 2 was:

How many attorneys or other staff in the Office of the Attorney General are related by blood or marriage to the Attorney General, any former Attorney General, any statewide public official in Minnesota, or any member of the Minnesota state legislature? Please provide their names, the names of the officials, and the nature of the relationship to the official.

Swanson employs Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Kremenak, the daughter of Swanson's mentor, former Minnesota Attorney General and failed gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch. It is not known to the public if she employs others who create conflicts of interest with her broad powers and obligation to be impartial.



Swanson's office also refused to respond to FOIA requests about how many civil investigative demands ("CIDs") it has issued since 2013 to businesses and nonprofit organizations, how many CIDs demanded the names of donors to nonprofit organizations (in violation of the 1958 landmark Supreme Court decision in NAACP v. Alabama), and what training its lawyers receive about protecting constitutional rights. Among its excuses, Swanson's office claims the information is subject to an "attorney-client privilege" and is "classified as not public data."



CIDs are searches for documents issued without probable cause presented under oath and affirmation before neutral judges or magistrates, and are increasingly being questioned as violations of the Fourth Amendment and the constitutional separation of powers. See David Kravets, "We Don't Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena," Wired.com, August 28, 2012, www.wired.com/2012/08/administrative-subpoenas.



Swanson is part of the combination of liberal state attorneys general called the "Green 20" that collaborated to target and investigate entities with dissenting opinions about climate change causes and policies. She has been subpoenaed by a congressional committee for her involvement in this possibly illegal combination looking to stifle First Amendment rights. Last November a New York judge ordered disclosure of the "common interest" secrecy pact and emails between these attorneys general after a similar denial of a FOIA request was litigated.
Backing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's assertion that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was not a threat, the political leaders on Friday said that there would be no scope for the saffron party to form the next government, if the regional parties united together.

"This is hundred percent true. The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot do anything, if the regional parties unite together. If the regional parties of West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh come together, then there will be no scope for the BJP to form the next government," Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Ashok Sinha told ANI.

Janata Dal (United) leader Rajeev Ranjan echoed a similar sentiment and said the BJP has its existence in the politics because of the regional parties.

"Regional parties are very important and to underestimate them or to ignore them is disrespect to federal structure," Ranjan told ANI.

Congress Party leader Nawab Malik also backed Mamata's statement while saying that the regional parties needed to unite together and form a broader alliance to defeat BJP.

"What Mamata Banerjee has said is true. There is strong hold of regional parties in many states. If they believe to defeat the BJP, they should join a broader alliance taking shape in the country to defeat NDA's 33 party alliance," Malik told ANI.

The West Bengal Chief Minister yesterday asserted that the BJP was not a threat as the regional parties were enough to tackle it.

Mamata's assertion came post her meeting with Odisha Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo Naveen Patnaik.

Accusing the BJP of playing politics of division, Mamata said the saffron party also resorted to buying the ministers and MLAs of other parties.

"They divide caste, parties. They divide Hindu-Muslims. They also purchase ministers, MLAs. We don't do that. We believe in unity," she told the media here.

Mamata also stated that the secular parties were always together.

Responding to a poser on having discussions on forming an alliance to stand against the BJP, Patnaik said they did not have any talks regarding the same.

"We had no such discussions today," Patnaik said.

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The FBI gathered intelligence last summer that suggests Russian operatives tried to use Trump advisors, including Carter Page, to infiltrate the Trump campaign, according to the U.S. officials.

The officials made clear they don't know whether Page was aware the Russians may have been using him. Because of the way Russian spy services operate, Page could have unknowingly talked with Russian agents, the CNN reports.

Page disputes the idea he has ever collected intelligence for the Russians, saying he helped the US intelligence community.

But the intelligence suggests Russia tried to infiltrate the inner-workings of the Trump campaign by using backdoor channels to communicate with people in the Trump orbit, the U.S. officials say.

Page is one of several Trump advisors U.S. and European intelligence found to be in contact with Russian officials and other Russians known to Western intelligence during the campaign, according to multiple U.S. officials.

The scope and frequency of those contacts raised the interest of US intelligence agencies.

The FBI and CIA declined to comment on Page's statement.

As CNN first reported, Carter Page's critical speech of US policy against Russia in July 2016 at a prominent Moscow university drew the attention of the FBI and raised concerns he had been compromised by Russian intelligence. They also feared that Russian operatives maintained contact with him both in the United States and Russia, the U.S. officials say.

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The Supreme Court on Friday expressed its displeasure over the Centre's move to make Aadhar mandatory.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the apex court they have found that a number of Pan cards are being used to divert funds to shell companies, adding making the Aadhar card mandatory is the only option to prevent it.

Rohtagi made this submission when the Supreme Court asked the Centre as to why the Aadhar card should be made mandatory when an order has already been passed to make it optional.

He also told the Supreme Court there is now an Act in place to make Aadhar mandatory to file the Income Tax returns.

Section 139AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as introduced by the Finance Act, 2017, provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar / Enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form, for filing of return of income and for making an application for allotment of Permanent Account Number with effect from 1st July, 2017.

In August 2015, the apex court in an order made it clear that Aadhaar cards will not be mandatory for availing benefits of the government's welfare schemes.

The Narendra Modi government, which eyes to end the black money menace, had last month made Aadhar card mandatory for filing the Income Tax returns, for applying for a Pan card, to seek free gas connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.

The apex court had last month given green signal to the government for making Aadhar mandatory for opening bank accounts, getting mobile connections and getting passports.

The Supreme Court will next hear the plea challenging the government's move to make Aadhar mandatory on April 25.

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The Syrian Government has retained an unspecified amount of chemical weapons and dispersed its aircraft after a U.S. cruise-missile attack this month, United States Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday.

Mattis spoke alongside his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, as part of a tour of the Middle East, and addressed reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still had a significant amount of chemical weapons, the Washington Post reports.

"There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt," Mattis told reporters.

Mattis did not provide evidence to back up his claim.

On April 7, the U.S. launched dozens of cruise missiles at Shayrat air base in Syria in response to a chemical weapon attack in Idlib province three days earlier that killed nearly 100 people, including 30 children.

U.S. officials said the Syrian aircraft that conducted the attack took off from Shayrat.

"The bottom line is, I can say authoritatively, they have retained some [chemical weapons]. It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically," Mattis said.

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Ericsson on Friday announced implementation of a new end-to-end primary distribution system for Televisa, Mexico's leading broadcaster and content provider.

The system selected by Televisa features Ericsson's AVP Encoder with the latest HEVC compression module, the MX8400 Multiplexer and many RX8200 HEVC receivers with integrated DVB-S2X de-modulator.

By deploying both DVB-S2X and HEVC, Televisa can increase the number

of high definition services it distributes while maintaining the best picture quality and without requiring additional bandwidth.

It has also selected Ericsson's system management platform nCompass Director, which features conditional access and software download capabilities to offer a more flexible approach to managing and protecting content delivered to its affiliates.

This new primary distribution system enables Televisa to efficiently deliver content to ATSC stations distributed throughout Mexico.

"This new agreement is the next milestone in our long-standing relationship with Televisa. Ericsson's latest portfolio incorporating HEVC HD compression and DVB-S2X transmission will play a fundamental role in enabling more expansive HD content delivery without increasing demand on valuable satellite bandwidth," said Vice President and Head of Media Solutions at Ericsson, Elisabetta Romano.

"Televisa has a reputation for being a pioneer in the Mexican TV and media industry, deploying new standards based technologies including MPEG-4 AVC, DVB-S2 and now both HEVC and DVB-S2X. We look forward to growing our relationship with them even further over the coming years," added Romano.

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France goes to the polls on Sunday with terrorist violence casting a shadow over its Presidential election, after the shooting of a policeman on the Champs Elysees.

The attack, claimed by the Islamic State, threw open radically opposing visions and discussions among the Presidential candidates.

Frontrunner Emmanuel Macron accused his two closest rivals of using the killing of Xavier Jugele, the policeman who died, and the serious wounding of two other police officers to score political points ahead of Sunday's first-round vote, The Guardian reports.

Macron said far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen with who he is neck-and-neck in polling for the first-round vote and rightwing candidate Francois Fillon were engaging in one-upmanship in their response to the attack.

Independent Centrist Macron said it was vital for people to summon a "spirit of responsibility in what is an extreme period" and come up with a measured response to "a tragic event that has left our country in grief".

"We must not give way to panic, nor in any way allow any attempt to manipulate these events," he said at a press conference. "The terrorists want to destabilise the country . at a time when the French are deciding on their future."

He promised that if elected he would create a Presidential unit to "work around the clock" to tackle the ISIS. "A vigorous offensive will be taken to fight Islamic radicalisation, especially on the internet," he said. "This is a moral challenge, a challenge for civilisation."

He accused Le Pen of lying when she claimed she could have prevented previous attacks, had she been in office. "She won't be able to protect our citizens," Macron said.

Le Pen too had earlier taken a characteristically tough stance against Islamic extremism, branding it a "barbaric and monstrous totalitarian ideology" and insisting France immediately take back control of its borders from the European Union.

She said France must engage in a "war against terrorism" and accused successive French governments of being too lax towards fundamentalists. She demanded the immediate expulsion of foreigners linked to Islamism and flagged as suspects considered a potential risk to national security.

"The Islamist, Salafist ideology has no right to be in France and should be banned. Preachers of hate should be expelled and their mosques closed," she had said.

Like Le Pen and Macron, Fillon, the rightwing candidate whose campaign has been hit by allegations he paid his wife, Penelope, public money for parliamentary assistance she did not provide, cancelled planned end-of-campaign meetings on Friday.

He said France must show it was united, and not afraid. For years "I have been warning that we are confronting an Islamic totalitarianism, in other words, an ideology that is radical, organised and expansionist," he said.

Cazeneuve criticised Le Pen and Fillon's reactions, claiming they were excessive and divisive.

Polls have suggested Le Pen and Macron are the most likely candidates to go through to the second-round runoff, but Fillon and the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon are only two or three points behind.

Campaigning for the first round ends at midnight on Friday and polls suggest any two of four leading candidates could go through to the runoff on May 7.

French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the government had reviewed its extensive election security measures and was fully mobilised in the wake of the attack.

Cazeneuve said more than 50,000 police and gendarmes and 7,000 soldiers would be on duty for Sunday's first-round vote in the two-stage election, and nothing could be allowed to "hamper this democratic moment".

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United States President Donald Trump and Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni held a joint press conference at the White House and talked about varied topics, ranging from terrorism, and reciprocity to the recent Paris shooting.

"Italy is key partner in the fight against terrorism," Trump said, while answering to a poser, adding, he seeks a "reciprocal trade deal with Italy."

While addressing the possibility of a government shut down, Trump said, "I think we want to keep the government open."

Trump also said the health care bill was "evolving."

"Remember, it took Obamacare 17 months, I've really been negotiating this for two months, maybe less than that," Trump said.

"The plan gets better, and better and better. And it's gotten really, really good."

Answering a question on U.S.' intention regarding North Korea and its nuclear practice, Trump said North Korea was "a menace right now."

Trump also asserted he had been talking trade with China.

"I actually told him, I said, 'You'll make a much better deal on trade if you get rid of this menace or do something about the menace of North Korea. Because that's what it is, it's a menace right now," he said.

Trump also condemned the Paris shooting incident in which one policeman was killed and two others wounded.

"Our condolences from our country to the people of France. Again, it's happening it seems," Trump said, adding that he saw reports of it when he was first walking in.

"It's a terrible thing ... It looks like another terrorist attack. And what can you say? It just never ends. And we have to be strong and we have to be vigilant, and I've been saying it for a long time.

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European Parliament President Antonio Tajani has said that Brexit, a term that describes United Kingdom's withdrawal from European Union, could be reversed after the snap elections.

"If the UK, after the election, wants to withdraw [Article 50], then the procedure is very clear.. If the UK wanted to stay, everybody would be in favour. I would be very happy." The Guardian quoted Tajani, as saying.

Tajani threatened to veto any Brexit deal if it did not guarantee the existing rights of EU citizens in Britain and added that this protection would forever be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court Of Justice (ECJ).

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May made an unexpected announcement on Tuesday that she would seek a "snap" election less than halfway through her government's five-year term, with the aim of gaining a stronger mandate for the country's historic withdrawal from the European Union.

The announcement marked a U-turn for May, who had repeatedly said she would not seek an early vote.

The snap vote is the latest twist in a turbulent year in British politics, which was plunged into turmoil when the country unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union last year. The hotly contested "Brexit" referendum ended with the resignation of then-Prime Minister David Cameron.

An early vote is also expected to delay Brexit talks. Both May and the European Commission have said that negotiations will only start in earnest after the poll.

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Uttarakhand Education Minister Arvind Pandey has recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) probe of academic certificates of all 60,000 government school teachers in the state.

This comes after Pandey last month asked the officials of the education department to ensure that they work with 'complete honesty' and do 'hard-work', so that the common-masses can see visible changes in the education department in the coming days.

Showing concern about the decreasing student-strength in the state-owned schools, education minister, Pandey also gave instructions to improve the quality of teaching in government schools.

Besides which, at the block level, Pandey has instructed that the residential schools should be developed as 'model schools'.

The education minister has asked all officials in the department to work without any pressure but ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities, besides directing that to ensure quality education is imparted, the workers and staff in offices and schools should be regular for duty.

In a bid to overhaul the education department and improve the quality of education in the state, the education minister, Pandey has also asked officials to present 'proposals' from their own side.

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The Indian-American community in the United States has launched a petition seeking the Washington's intervention to bring justice to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was recently sentenced to death by a Pakistan court.

"This petition seeks justice for Mr Kulbhushan Jadhav an Indian citizen and ex-naval officer aged about 46 years who was abducted from Iran and taken to Pakistan," reads the petition that was created on April 14.

It adds that the charges against Jadhav of terrorism and spying for India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is totally false and baseless.

"The fact that India isn't given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav are false and fabricated," the petition argues.

"In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Mr Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which which he never committed. I also united nation to look in to this matter thank you," it added.

The petition needs 97,271 signatures by May 14, 2017 to get a response from the White House. So far, 2,729 people have signed it.

Jadhav was awarded death penalty on April 10 in an unprecedented decision that triggered diplomatic spat between India and Pakistan.

The Pakistan Army has ruled out any consular access to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, saying he is not eligible for it as per the laws.

"Kulbhushan is not eligible for consular access nor will be granted consular access," said Pakistan Armed Forces spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier warned Islamabad that it risked damaging bilateral ties with New Delhi if it went ahead with the execution of Jadhav.

Jadhav was arrested in March last year in the restive Balochistan province and accused of being a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agent.

India has, however, so far categorically denied such charges.

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Correction to Previous News Release Regarding Anastasia Adams



FAIR OAKS, Va., April 20, 2017 /



In the release, it was stated that Anastasia's court-appointed guardians "refused to authorize any treatment." We have since learned that this is inaccurate.



Life Legal has obtained documents showing that Anastasia's guardians never denied Anastasia food or water and that they did not instruct the nursing facility to withhold nutrition and hydration.



We have also learned that the guardians for Ms. Adams did not refuse a visit from a priest. It is still unclear why the priest was not permitted to see Anastasia.



"I apologize for stating that the court-appointed guardians in this case authorized the withholding of food and water to Ms. Adams," said Life Legal Executive Director Alexandra Snyder. "I have been in contact with the guardians who have assured me that they expressly instructed Anastasia's caregivers to provide her with nutrition and hydration."



Ms. Adams was transferred back to the hospital yesterday.



About Life Legal Defense Foundation

Life Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information about the Life Legal Defense Foundation, visit

Share Tweet Contact: Alexandra Snyder, Life Legal Defense Foundation , 202-717-7371FAIR OAKS, Va., April 20, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- Life Legal sent out a press release on April 18, 2017 titled "Woman Starved and Tortured in VA Nursing Home" regarding Anastasia Adams, a disabled woman who was in a nursing facility in Northern Virginia.In the release, it was stated that Anastasia's court-appointed guardians "refused to authorize any treatment." We have since learned that this is inaccurate.Life Legal has obtained documents showing that Anastasia's guardians never denied Anastasia food or water and that they did not instruct the nursing facility to withhold nutrition and hydration.We have also learned that the guardians for Ms. Adams did not refuse a visit from a priest. It is still unclear why the priest was not permitted to see Anastasia."I apologize for stating that the court-appointed guardians in this case authorized the withholding of food and water to Ms. Adams," said Life Legal Executive Director Alexandra Snyder. "I have been in contact with the guardians who have assured me that they expressly instructed Anastasia's caregivers to provide her with nutrition and hydration."Ms. Adams was transferred back to the hospital yesterday.About Life Legal Defense FoundationLife Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information about the Life Legal Defense Foundation, visit www.lldf.org
Union Minister for information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday asserted that Muslims do not vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but still the government has given them 'proper sanctity'.

While addressing at the Mindmine Summit, Prasad asked, "We have got thirteen Chief Ministers of our own. Have we witnesses any Muslim gentleman working in the industry or service? We don't get Muslim votes. I acknowledged very clearly, but have we given them proper sanctity or not?"

Taking on the Left and elements in the media attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prasad extended them his best wishes.

"We have a problem with some of our friends. Mostly, the Leftist friends and journalists who entertain a pathological hatred against Narendra Modi. Good luck to them," Prasad quipped.

The Union Minister went ahead to state that Left is "left out" all over the world and has also faced defeat in India.

"They are left out in Bengal, are surviving in Kerala and Tripura, but the Left has got a very good campus in Delhi, which is the JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and I always say the Left also needs some consolation prize. So, JNU is their consolation prize, we don't mind that," Prasad said.

Earlier in March, Prasad had said that Muslim women voted for the BJP during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections because the party raised the issue of triple talaq.

Earlier in March, Prasad said Muslim women voted for the BJP during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections because the party raised the issue of triple talaq.

Asserting that Triple Talaq was a menace crippling the lives of Muslim women in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to attack the issue on a grass-root level.

"Our Muslim sisters deserve justice. We should try to solve this issue at the district level. We should also proceed on the formula of a new India. We can't simply move forward on a slow pace, but charge ahead with full speed," the Prime Minister said during the BJP Executive Meeting here.

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ACC will announce its Q1 results today, 21 April 2017. HDFC Bank unveils its Q4 results today, 21 April 2017.

Reliance Industries (RIL) announced the successful and flawless commissioning of the second and final phase of Para-Xylene (PX) comprising of PX Crystallizers trains, Trans-alkylation and Aromatic Extraction units at Jamnagar. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

State Bank of India (SBI) said it has decided to serve notice of redemption to holders of $400 million Hybrid Tier 1 Notes issued pursuant to SBI, acting through its Nassau branch's $2000 million Medium Term Note programme for the redemption of the Notes on 15 May 2017. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Tata Steel's board at a meeting held yesterday, 20 April 2017, reviewed the performance, capital structure and financing plan of the company. Based on the review and pursuant to the existing shareholders approval, the board approved issue of debt securities of up to Rs 9000 crore in the form either of non-convertible debentures on private placement basis or foreign currency or rupee denominated bonds or a combination thereof in one or more tranches.

The funds will primarily be deployed towards re-financing the existing debt, capex/working capital requirements and general corporate purposes. The board of directors also authorized the finance committee of the board to determine and approve the timing and terms of such issue of securities. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Indian Hotels Company announced that in terms of the authority granted by the board of directors at a meeting held on 18 May 2016, the company has allotted 2,000, rated, listed, unsecured, redeemable, non-cumulative & non- convertible debentures aggregating to Rs 200 crore on private placement basis. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Fortune Financial Services (India) announced that a meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled to be held on 25 April 2017 to consider the approval for acquisition of equity shares of IRC Credit Management Services and INTL Risk Consultants Insurance Brokers by the company. The board will also consider the merger of Fortune Integrated Assets Finance with Fortune Financial Services(India) and any other business on that day. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

PVR announced that the employment of Vijay Kapoor who was employed as Chief Business Development Officer of the company has been terminated with effect from 20 April 2017 on disciplinary grounds. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Housing Development & Infrastructure (HDIL) announced that it has launched a new project 'The Nest' at Mulund, Mumbai, under the affordable housing brand 'Budget Homes', having 263 units open for sale in phase 1 of the project. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

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India and the Republic of Korea (RoK) signed an Inter-governmental Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Defence Industry Co-operation in Shipbuilding here today. The MoU was signed by Secretary (Defence Production), Shri Ashok Kumar Gupta from the Indian side and Minister of Defence Acquisition and Programme Administration (DAPA), Mr. Chang Myoung-Jin from the RoK side. The MoU will help the 'Make in India' initiative of the Government of India.

The salient points of the MoU are as follows:-

Develop and strengthen defence industry co-operation between Republic of India and the Republic of Korea.

The two sides will recommend the organisations for collaborating in the implementation of specific projects.

The organisations recommended for co-operative projects may conclude separate agreements (contracts) between them to implement the specific projects.

The MoU will come into effect from the date of signature by both sides and will be initially valid for a period of five years and would be automatically extendable for further successive five year at a time.

The Inter-Governmental MoU, was conceived under the overall umbrella of the 'Special Strategic Partnership' between both sides as declared in the Joint Statement of the Prime Minister of India and the President of RoK in May 2015.

To substantiate the 'Special Strategic Partnership', the two sides had inter-alia agreed to encourage greater co-operation between their shipyards in the defence sector.

Accordingly, it was decided to sign an inter-governmental MoU on 'Defence Industry Co-operation in Shipbuilding'. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has accorded its approval for signing the above MoU with RoK and also for nominating Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), Visakhapatnam from the Indian side for the collaboration. RoK will indicate the name of its recommended organisation for the collaboration in due course of time.

The co-operation with the recommended Korean Shipyard would enable HSL to upgrade and modernise its facilities and execute naval shipbuilding projects in a timely and cost effective manner. HSL would be able to imbibe best practices in shipbuilding leading to effective project management.

As a result of the proposed partnership, the production of HSL is expected to grow substantially, leading to creation of more employment avenues. Further, in consultation with the recommended Korean partner, it is planned to identify and develop indigenous sources/vendors for the supply of majority of the material and equipment that would be needed in co-operative naval projects, thus paving the way for the development of ancillary industry /maritime cluster in the region.

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L&T rose 0.82% to Rs 1,694.90 at 11:56 IST on BSE after the company said it signed a contract with South Korea's Hanwha Techwin for executing tracked self propelled gun program for the Indian army.

The announcement was made during trading hours today, 21 April 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 67.58 points, or 0.23% to 29,489.97.

On the BSE, 35,000 shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 1.50 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 1,698 and a low of Rs 1,679.95 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 1,719.45 on 7 April 2017. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 1,224 on 24 May 2016.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 20 April 2017, rising 9.88% compared with 0.87% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 18.84% as against Sensex's 8.83% rise.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 186.65 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

L&T and Hanwha Techwin (HTW) of South Korea, signed a contract for execution of the 155mm/ 52 Cal Tracked Self Propelled (SP) Gun program for the Indian Army.

L&T was declared as the sole qualified bidder, post User Evaluation Trials, based on the performance of the K9 VAJRA-T, a world class self-propelled howitzer appropriately customised and fielded by L&T with HTW as the technology partner. The K9 VAJRA-T gun is an enhanced version of HTW's K9 Thunder, to suit specific requirements of the Indian Army including desert operations. HTW's K9 Thunder is one of the best performing self-propelled howitzers in the world with over 1,000 numbers already in service in Korea and few other countries. This program has set new benchmarks in co-development and co-production of Defence Systems by Indian Private Sector Defence Players and Foreign Majors.

The contract is a result of nearly a decade long close relationship and joint efforts of the two companies on this program, through extensive user evaluation and field trials followed by contract negotiations with the Indian Ministry of Defence, L&T said in a statement.

L&T shall not only manufacture K9 VAJRA-T in India, with over 50% indigenous content, but also provide through life support from India, the company said.

L&T's consolidated net profit rose 38.9% to Rs 972.47 crore on 1.7% growth in net sales to Rs 26018.15 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015.

L&T is an Indian multinational engaged in technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services. L&T is India's largest private sector defence and aerospace company with experience of over three decades in the segment. Hanwha Group, Hanwha Techwin's parent company, is the largest private sector defence conglomerate in South Korea.

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Trading for the week ended on a dull note as the key benchmark indices failed to hold onto small gains to settle with small declines. The barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, fell 57.09 points or 0.19% at 29,365.30, as per the provisional closing data. The Nifty 50 index fell 17 points or 0.19% at 9,119.40, as per the provisional closing data. Weakness in European stocks dampened sentiment.

The Sensex gained 161.95 points or 0.55% at the day's high of 29,584.34 at the onset of the session, its highest level since 18 April 2017. The index fell 162.97 points or 0.55% at the day's low of 29,259.42 in mid-afternoon trade, its lowest level since 19 April 2017. The Nifty gained 47.25 points or 0.51% at the day's high of 9,183.65 at the onset of the session, its highest level since 18 April 2017. The index fell 47.65 points or 0.52% at the day's low of 9,088.75 in mid-afternoon trade, its lowest level since 19 April 2017.

Key benchmark indices opened higher on positive Asian stocks. After hovering in a narrow range in positive terrain till early afternoon trade, indices slipped into the red to hit intrday low in afternoon trade. After sliding to intraday low in afternoon trade, the key benchmark indices trimmed losses in mid-afternoon trade. Stocks traded in negative zone in late trade.

The BSE Mid-Cap index provisionally rose 0.02%. The BSE Small-Cap index provisionally rose 0.25%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, once again turned positive from negative in late trade. On the BSE, 1,448 shares rose and 1,423 shares fell. A total of 143 shares were unchanged.

The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 3751.19 crore, lower than the turnover of Rs 4028.59 crore registered during the previous trading session.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) advanced 2.22% after the compnay announced the successful and flawless commissioning of the second and final phase of Para-Xylene (PX) comprising of PX Crystallizers trains, Trans-alkylation and Aromatic Extraction units at Jamnagar. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

With the commissioning of this plant, RIL's PX capacity will be more than double. RIL will emerge as the world's second-largest producer of PX with about 11% of global production, it said.

HDFC Bank gained 2.38% after net profit rose 18.25% to Rs 3990.09 crore on 14.3% growth in total income to Rs 21560.66 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q4 March 2016. The result was announced during market hours today, 21 April 2017.

The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) rose to Rs 5885.66 crore as on 31 March 2017 as against Rs 5232.27 crore as on 31 December 2016 and Rs 4392.83 crore as on 31 March 2016.

The ratio of gross NPAs to gross advances stood at 1.05% as on 31 March 2017 as against 1.05% as on 31 December 2016 and 0.94% as on 31 March 2016. The ratio of net NPAs to net advances stood at 0.33% as on 31 March 2017 as against 0.32% as on 31 December 2016 and 0.28% as on 31 March 2016.

The bank's provisions and contingencies surged 90.47% to Rs 1261.80 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q4 March 2016.

HDFC Bank's board recommended a dividend of Rs 11 per share for the year ended March 2017 (FY 2017).

Realty stocks gained. DLF (up 6.1%), Indiabulls Real Estate (up 1.38%), D B Realty (up 0.9%), Unitech (up 0.52%), Sobha (up 1.73%), Godrej Properties (up 0.87%) and Prestige Estates Projects (up 3.76%) rose. Parsvnath Developers (down 0.81%) and Oberoi Realty (down 0.58%) fell.

Housing Development & Infrastructure rose 2.01% after the company said it has launched a new residential project 'The Nest' at Mulund, Mumbai, under the affordable housing brand 'Budget Homes', having 263 units open for sale in phase 1 of the project. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Overseas, European bourses were trading on a mixed note after a suspected terrorist attack in France, ahead the highly anticipated first round in the French presidential election on Sunday. A French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group, as per reports. Research group Markit said Germany's flash manufacturing purchasing managers' index slipped to 58.2 in April from 58.3 the previous month.

Asian stocks rose after Bank of Japan's (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda maintained an accommodative monetary policy and on optimism for a US tax overhaul. Japanese manufacturing activity expanded at a stronger pace in April as export orders surged, a preliminary survey showed, in a further sign of robust global demand. The Flash Markit/Nikkei Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 52.8 in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, from a final 52.4 in the previous month.

US stocks closed higher yesterday, 20 April 2017 on rising expectations for first-quarter corporate profits.

Elsewhere, finance ministers and central bank governors of the G-20 are gathered in the US, where the International Monetary Fund and World Bank carry on with their spring meetings.

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The IPO price band fixed at Rs 660 to Rs 670 per share

S Chand and Company is coming up with an Initial public offering (IPO) consisting of a fresh issue aggregating up to Rs 325 crore and an offer for sale of up to 60.23 lakh equity shares by the selling shareholders. The price band of the issue is set at Rs 660 to Rs 670 per equity share of face value of Rs 5 each. The issue opens for bidding on 26 April 2017 and closes on 28 April 2017.

The offer for sale of issue of up to 60.23 lakh equity shares is comprised of promoter selling shareholders, the other selling shareholders and the investor selling shareholders collectively termed as selling shareholders. Investor shareholder, Everstone Capital Partners II LLC offers to sell upto 48.14 lakh shares.

The net proceeds from the fresh issue will be utilized towards the repayment of loans availed by the company and one of its subsidiaries, EPHL, which were utilized towards funding the acquisition of Chhaya. Repayment/prepayment, in full or in part, of certain loans availed of by the company and certain of Its subsidiaries, VPHPL and NSHPL; and general corporate purposes.

The company reported consolidated net loss of Rs 88.48 crore on total revenue of Rs 150.80 crore in the nine months ended 31 December 2016.

S Chand and Company is a leading Indian education content company. The company delivers content, solutions and services across the education lifecycle through its K-12, higher education and early learning segments.

The company is the leading K-12 education content company, with a strong presence in the CBSE/ICSE affiliated schools and increasing presence in the state board affiliated schools across India. The company sells knowledge products and services to schools and to students across their lifecycle through its extensive pan-India network of sales offices, distributors and dealers.

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Spice Mobility rose 8.43% to Rs 16.85 at 15:00 IST on BSE after the company said it incorporated a subsidiary in Dubai Airport Free Zone for undertaking the business relating to software consultancy and IT related activities.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 61.78 points, or 0.21% to 29,360.61.

On the BSE, 81,000 shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 15,355 shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 18 and a low of Rs 16.32 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 21 on 13 December 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 12 on 9 May 2016.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 20 April 2017, rising 12.61% compared with 0.87% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 2.88% as against Sensex's 8.83% rise.

The small-cap company has equity capital of Rs 68.36 crore. Face value per share is Rs 3.

Spice Mobility announced that S Global Services, a foreign subsidiary of Spice Digital, a subsidiary of the company, has incorporated 'Spice Digital FZCO', a 100% foreign subsidiary, in Dubai Airport Free Zone, for undertaking the business relating to software consultancy and IT related activities. Consequently, Spice Digital FZCO has become a step-down foreign subsidiary of the company.

Spice Mobility reported net loss of Rs 6.36 crore in Q3 December 2016 as against net loss of Rs 20.46 crore in Q3 December 2015. Net sales declined 36.50% to Rs 256.79 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015.

Spice Mobility is engaged in the trading of mobile handsets, information technology (IT) products and their accessories.

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Tata Steel was up 0.88% to Rs 458 at 9:26 IST on BSE after the company said its board approved issue of debt securities of upto Rs 9000 crore.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 April 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 64.08 points or 0.22% at 29,486.47.

On the BSE, 39,000 shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 6.85 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 460 and a low of Rs 456.50 so far during the day.

The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 508.45 on 17 March 2017 and a 52-week low of Rs 297.40 on 24 June 2016. It had underperformed the market over the past one month till 20 April 2017, sliding 8.61% compared with the Sensex's 0.33% fall. The scrip had also underperformed the market over the past one quarter, declining 0.13% as against the Sensex's 8.83% rise.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 971.22 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Tata Steel's board at a meeting held yesterday, 20 April 2017, reviewed the performance, capital structure and financing plan of the company. Based on the review and pursuant to the existing shareholders approval, the board approved issue of debt securities of upto Rs 9000 crore in the form either of non-convertible debentures on private placement basis or foreign currency or rupee denominated bonds or a combination thereof in one or more tranches.

The funds will primarily be deployed towards re-financing the existing debt, capex/working capital requirements and general corporate purposes. The board of directors also authorized the finance committee of the board to determine and approve the timing and terms of such issue of securities.

On consolidated basis, Tata Steel reported net profit of Rs 231.90 crore in Q3 December 2016 compared with net loss of Rs 2747.72 crore in Q3 December 2015. Net sales rose 13.4% to Rs 27843.92 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015.

Tata Steel is the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and commercial presence in over 50 countries.

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In a major boost towards realising country's ambitious inland waterways project, the World Bank has approved a $375 million loan for capacity augmentation of National Waterway-1(River Ganga) under Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP).

The government is developing NW-1 (River Ganga) under JMVP from Haldia to Varanasi (1390 Km) with the technical and financial assistance of the World Bank at an estimated cost of Rs 5369 crore. The project would enable commercial navigation of vessels with capacity of 1500-2,000 DWT.

Under the project, there are going to be three multi-modal terminals--one each at Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Sahibganj (Jharkhand), and Haldia (West Bengal), two inter-modal terminals- at Kalughat and Ghazipur, a new Navigation Lock at Farakka, five Roll on-Roll off (Ro-Ro) terminals, development of Ferry services at Varanasi, Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger, Kolkata and Haldia and Vessel repair and maintenance facilities.

While the contracts for construction of multi-modal terminals at Varanasi, Sahibganj, and a new Navigation Lock at Farakka have been awarded, and the work at respective sites has commenced, the construction of multi-modal terminal at Haldia will begin soon. The foundation stone for the multi-modal terminal at Sahibganj was laid by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 6th April, 2017. In August 2016, the Minister for Road Transport, Highways & Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari laid the foundation stone for multi-modal terminal at Varanasi.

Jal Marg Vikas Project also includes proposal for Performance Based Maintenance Dredging Contract for Provision of Least Assured Depth (LAD) of 3 metres between Farakka to Kahalgaon, and Sultanganj to Barh; LAD of 2.5 metres between Barh to Doriganj, and Doriganj to Ghazipur; and LAD of 2.2 metres between Ghazipur to Varanasi.

In addition, the project will enable IWAI setting up of River Information Service System on NW -1 for the first time in India.

River Information System (RIS) are equipment, hardware and software information technology (IT) related services designed to optimize traffic and transport processes in inland navigation.

JMVP will also support the design and development of low draft vessels capable of carrying up to 2000 tonnes of cargo in shallower depths.

NW-1 is a waterway of national significance passing through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, serving the major cities of Allahabad, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Bhagalpur, Patna, Howrah, Haldia and Kolkata, and their industrial hinterland including several industries located in the Ganga basin. The Rail and Road corridors in this region are heavily saturated. Hence, the development of NW-1 would provide an alternative, viable, economical, efficient and eco-friendly mode of transport. The waterway will act as a catalyst in the socio-economic development of the regions by creating new business and employment opportunities.

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At least 14 persons were killed and 24 injured when a truck rammed into a group of villagers standing outside some shops in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district on Friday, police said.

The speeding truck hit an electric pole, before ramming into roadside shops on the Puthalapattu-Naidupeta Road in Yerpadu, about 30 km from the temple town of Tirupati.

Police said the accident occurred near Yerpadu police station. A group of villagers, including farmers, who had come to the police station were standing near the shops at the time of accident.

People from some villages had come to the police station to complain about illegal sand mining from Swarnamukhi river.

Tirupati Urban Superintendent of Police R. Jayalakshmi, who was present in the police station at the time of accident, said most of the casualties were due to electrocution. The injured were shifted to Ruia Hospital and Sri Venkateshwara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) in Tirupati and CHC Hospital in Srikalahasti.

The condition of six of the injured is critical and they were being shifted to CMC Vellore and Chennai.

Jayalakshmi said a circle inspector, a sub-inspector of police and constable were among those injured. She said the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle. The exact cause of the accident was under investigation.

The truck crushed 10 two-wheelers, two auto rickshaws and a police vehicle before hitting an electric pole and shops. Both the driver and cleaner escaped after the crash.

The Andhra Pradesh government announced Rs 5 lakh ex-gratia each for the families of those killed. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu directed officials to ensure best possible treatment to the injured.

--IANS

ms/rn

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My Father Cigars has announced it is bringing back the Vegas Cubanas line into regular production. Vegas Cubanas is a brand by My Father Cigars patriarch Don Pepin Garcia that was originally launched in 2003.

Vegas Cubanas was originally created by Garcia prior to the launch of My Father Cigars. At the time, the cigar was produced at Garcias El Rey de los Habanos factory in Little Havana. Some time fter My Father Cigars was formed, Vegas Cubanas was pulled out of regular production and made available on a limited basis for select accounts.

The blend for Vegas Cubanas consists of a Corojo wrapper and Nicaraguan tobaccos grown and harvested at the Garcia family farms in Nicaragua. The cigar is being launched in six sizes packaged in 25 count boxes. It is also be produced in Nicaragua at the companys My Father Cigars factory.

There have also been some slight packaging changes  most notably the name My Father Cigars now appears on the band

Cigar Aficionado, who first reported on the return of Vegas Cubanas says is targeted for late May.

At a glance, here is a look at the Vegas Cubanas line:

Blend Profile

Wrapper: Corojo

Binder: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan

Country of Origin: Nicaragua (My Father Cigars SA)

Vitolas Available

Coronas: 5 1/2 x 44

Invictos: 5 x 50

Generosos: 6 x 50

Delicias: 7 x 50

Imperiales 6 1/8 x 52

Magnates: 7 5/8 x 49
The relatives of 44 Nepali workers, who have been languishing in a prison in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, have requested the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to take the initiative for their release, a media report said on Friday.

"Our relatives are innocent. The country should take the initiative for their immediate release," Dhana Bhandari of Shuklaphanta Municipality-4 told NHRC Chairman Anup Raj Sharma on Wednesday, the Kathmandu Post reported.

Bhandari's husband, Bahadur, was arrested along with 44 other Nepalis for staging a protest demanding raise. They were all employed by a hydropower company. Bhandari claimed the Indian authorities have already released the Indian workers who were also arrested in the same incident.

"The Indian authorities have barred us from making any kind of contact with our relatives. We have informed the local administration and the Prime Minister's Office about the situation, but there has been no response so far," she added.

The NHRC Chairman has assured to look into the case and take necessary action.

--IANS

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At least eight military personnel and one attacker were killed when Taliban militants attacked an Afghan Army Corps in the northern province of Balkh on Friday, the Defence Ministry said.

The attack targeted the 209 Shaheen Corps on the outskirts of provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif city at 2 p.m. (local time) before the Army launched a counter attack.

"One attacker was killed, one was arrested together with a suicide jacket and efforts are underway to kill or capture the third terrorist," the ministry said in a statement.

The attackers, disguised in Army uniform, arrived in two military jeeps and made their way after passing through the front gate.

"They fired one rocket and attacked a mosque where Army personnel were offering Friday prayer in the base," according to the statement.

The Taliban claimed the attack.

--IANS

soni/bg

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The powerful All Students' Union (AAPSU) on Friday described Beijing's move to rename six places in the state as an "uncalled for" and unwarranted act.

It also termed Beijing's move to rename six places in Arunachal in the backdrop of Dalai Lama's recent visit to the state as intriguing and unnecessarily interfering into the internal affair of a sovereign nation.

"History is the living witness that Arunachal was never a part of China at any given point of time," AAPSU President, Hawa Bagang said.

"Such parochial approach and idea won't have any takers in the state of who are one of the most patriotic people in the country," he said.

The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on April 14 on its website that it had standardised in Chinese characters, Tibetan and Roman alphabet names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls "South Tibet".

The six names are Wo'gyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidengarbo Ri, Mainquka, Bumo La and Namkapub Ri. The state-run Global Times, which reported the ministry's move on Tuesday, did not say which six places in were being referred to.

China had strongly protested the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to Arunachal Pradesh, especially Tawang earlier this month.

Describing the development "uncalled for" and "unwarranted" act on part of the China government, Bagang said: "It is a deliberate plan to create confusion and commotion for their long term sinister design in the international community."

On Thursday, India had dismissed China's act of giving its own names to six places in Arunachal Pradesh, saying "it doesn't make illegally held territory legal".
At least 50 Afghan troops were killed on Friday and around 70 others were injured when a group of Taliban insurgents launched an attack on an army base in northern Afghanistan, a military official said.

Ten Taliban militants were also killed, an Afghan Army Commander told EFE on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

--IANS

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The leaders of Jammu and Kashmir's ruling PDP-BJP coalition on Friday discussed the prevailing situation in the valley which has been on the boil since the Srinagar Lok Sabha by-poll earlier this month.

The meeting was held at the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) headquarters in Jammu.

BJP's National General Secretary Ram Madhav and senior leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), including Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, attended the meeting.

BJP leader Avinash Rai Khanna and state BJP chief Sat Sharma were also present in the meeting where a discussion was held on the way forward to bring peace to the troubled Valley.

Divergent voices have emerged from the two ruling coalition partners about handling of the situation in Kashmir ever since the April 9 Srinagar by-poll violence and the killing of eight persons in security forces firing. A re-poll on April 13 for 38 seats also saw violence and the killing of another youth in Srinagar. Protests have also rocked colleges in the valley, leading their closure.

The BJP also sought feedback about the law and order situation from top officials and on dealing with the tense situation on the ground, sources said.

--IANS

sq/ruwa/rn

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Chechnyas leader Ramzan Kadyrov has denied reports of torture against homosexuals, the media reported on Friday.

Earlier this month, local daily Novaya Gazeta alleged that more than 100 Chechen men suspected of being gay have been rounded up and at least three killed.

During a televised meeting on Wednesday evening in the Kremlin, Kadyrov raised the "provocative articles about the Chechen Republic, the supposed events, the supposed detentions", the Guardian quoted the daily as saying

Putin did not ask him to clarify his comments or ask follow-up questions.

According to one victim, he was first set up by Chechen officials last October.

He exchanged photographs with a man on social media and they agreed to meet for a date.

When they met, instead of taking him to his country house as promised, the man drove him to a forest clearing, where three men in military uniform stripped him naked and beat him up, while another filmed, the victim told the Guardian.

"They shouted insults at me, they broke my jaw... They told me I had to pay them a huge bribe or they'd tell my family I was gay," the victim said.

The victim said he paid the bribe, but when rumours began swirling around Chechnya of the gay persecutions, he fled.

Many Chechen gay men who have fled and are in Russia said they fear reprisals. Some European countries have agreed to expedite visas for a small number of the men.

Novaya Gazeta, the Russian daily which first broke the story, has been the subject of threats from Chechen Islamic and societal leaders.

Kadyrov said during his meeting with Putin that it was "unthinkable" that anyone in Chechnya would threaten journalists.

--IANS

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Actor-filmmaker Clint Eastwood has been roped in to direct a drama film based on the book "The 15:17 To Paris: The True Story Of A Terrorist, A Train, And Three American Heroes", co-written by Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Jeffrey E. Stern and Spencer Stone.

The book is based on the real story of Sadler, Skarlatos and Stone -- three Americans who found themselves on a train from Brussels to Paris, where they thwarted an attempted terrorist attack by overpowering the man armed with an AK-47, reports deadline.com.

The incident took place in August 2015.

The story was covered in news, where the three friends, one of which was in the Oregon National Guard and the other in the US Air Force, were lauded for their bravery.

Further details about the film are yet to be revealed.

--IANS

sas/nv/bg

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Condemning the attack on Kashmiri students in Rajasthan's Mewar University , Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday appealed to all state governments to ensure safety of Kashmiris.

"I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure safety of Kashmiri youths. No Kashmiri should be harassed. If such incidents happen, action should be taken," Rajnath Singh told the media here.

The minister also said he has asked the home ministry officials to circulate an advisory in this regard.

Rajnath Singh's remarks came a day after six Kashmiri students studying in Mewar University were were beaten up by some locals in Chittorgarh district.

Dubbing the incident as "unfortunate" the minister said: "Kashmiris are citizens of India and part of our family. They should not be harassed. I condemn the attack."

--IANS

bns/ruwa/sar/vm

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The evacuation of three villages in Syria resumed on Friday after two days of blockade, a British war monitor said.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 10 buses carrying people from Foah and Kefraya arrived in Aleppo city, as a preliminary step to the transfer to Jibrin camp, Efe news reported.

These vehicles are part of a convoy in which 3,000 people are travelling, including 700 militiamen loyal to the Damascus government.

In addition, the SOHR said that 11 buses coming from Zabadani, with 300 people on board, mostly opposition fighters, reached the point of exchange between the two factions in the al-Rashidin area in the outskirts of Aleppo.

The SOHR added that the convoy hoped to continue its journey in the direction of the province of Idlib, controlled mainly by insurgent and Islamic groups.

These evacuations are part of an agreement - sponsored by Qatar - reached in March between Iran and Hezbollah, and the Islamist Jaish al-Fatah, and it also includes an exchange of prisoners.

According to the SOHR, the evacuation was stopped due to the fact that the authorities had not released 750 detainees, including women, from Idlib.

The NGO said it was still unknown whether these prisoners have been released or not.

--IANS

ksk/dg

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An Egyptian-American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years has returned home to the US after President Donald Trump's administration "quietly" negotiated her release, the media reported on Friday.

Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a US citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers, The Washington Post reported.

Trump dispatched a US government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington. They arrived late on Thursday

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a rehabilitation centre for street children in Cairo.

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and US officials as false.

Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates cancelled, reports The Washington Post.

Human rights groups alleged that they were abused in detention.

Finally on Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others.

Meanwhile, a senior administration official said that no quid pro quo had been offered for Hijazi's release but that there had been "assurance from the highest levels (of Sisi's government) that whatever the verdict was, Egypt would use presidential authority to send her home".

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell met Sisi this week in Cairo to arrange the prisoners' release.

As Mattis travelled on to Israel, Powell and military aide Air Force Major Wes Spurlock accompanied Hijazi, Hassanein and their family.

Hijazi and her brother, Basel, were set to visit the White House to meet Trump, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner on Friday, the daily added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has made public a private telephone call from former US President Barack Obama, by uploading the call on Twitter, a media report said.

Obama privately called Macron on Thursday  a conversation that the French leader promptly made public days ahead of the first round of voting on Sunday  a closely watched race, CNN reported.

The former US President called Macron to wish him luck but not to issue an endorsement, according to Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis.

But that did not stop Macron from publicising the call, writing on Twitter: "Let's keep defending our progressive values."

"The main message that I have is to wish you all the best in the coming days," Obama was heard saying on the speakerphone.

"Make sure... you work hard all the way through. Because you never know  it might be that last day of campaigning that makes all the difference."

The 60-second video appears edited and with some reduction. But the contents of such calls tend to be kept private. Obama is not endorsing before the Sunday round of voting, CNN said in its report.

"President Obama appreciated the opportunity to hear from Macron about his campaign," Lewis said in the statement.

The upcoming presidential election in France is "important", Lewis said.

The spokesman also said the former President remains deeply committed to France as a close ally of the US.
Fresh evidence confirms that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is most likely located to the north of of the actual search zone, Australian scientists said on Friday.

The evidence was featured in a report prepared for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) scientists

The new area is twice the size of greater Sydney, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation news reported.

This latest research confirms their earlier drift analysis made in a report released in November 2016.

In their new report, the CSIRO team confirmed their new findings correspond to their previous predictions for the plane's location.

"The only thing that our recent work changes is our confidence in the accuracy of the estimated location, which is within the new search area identified ... near 35 degrees south," the scientists said.

It is a region known as the Seventh Arc, which was searched incompletely during 2014-15 before efforts were redirected further south.

A total of 239 people were on board the flight travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, when it disappeared from aviation radars.

The search for the Boeing 777 was suspended in January, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation news.

Ministers from Malaysia, Australia and China agreed that there needed to be "credible new evidence" if the operation was to continue.

About 120,000 sq.km of the ocean bed have been searched to no avail, despite the more than $180 million cost of the operation.

Since the CSIRO's November report, the scientists conducted further detailed analysis based on the first tangible evidence of the crash - a part of the wing known as a flaperon - which washed up at La Reunion Island in 2015.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A two-day meeting of BJP's Gujarat state executive began here on Friday with a political resolution to target victory on 150-plus seats out of 182 in the state assembly elections elections due this year.

"The way people of Uttar Pradesh gave 73 of 80 Parliamentary seats to BJP in 2014 and repeated the historic win by giving 325 Assembly seats in 2017, the executive committee hopes that people in Gujarat, who gave all the 26 Lok Sabha seats to BJP in 2014, will give a mandate of over 150 seats in the forthcoming Assembly elections," the resolution read.

BJP President Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who is the outgoing party in-charge of the state Dinesh Sharma as well as his successor Bhupender Yadav are expected to attend the meet on Saturday.

With Somnath being the spot that party veteran L.K. Advani had led his famous Ayodhya Yatra of 1990, with present Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his charioteer, the executive committee members hoped that the work on construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya would begin soon.

"It is of historical memory for us that the light for Ram temple at Ayodhya was lit on this pious land and it was from here that Somnath-Ayodhya Rathyatra had begun. The minds and hearts of crores of people in our country are seeking construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya.... when this executive meet is being held at Somnath, we pray to lord Somnath that the work on construction of temple begins at the earliest amidst religious harmony."

The committee also resolved to strictly implement prohibition in the state.

"Some intellectuals keep giving an argument of revenue value loss to the exchequer due to prohibition but moral values are more important for a society than revenue value to the state," said the resolution.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea to direct the government to ensure that triple talaq must not be applicable to Hindus married to Muslim men.

"Irrespective of religion, women are entitled to equal treatment," the court said.

Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said the matter relating to triple talaq was pending before a Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court. So the High Court could not entertain it.

The petitioner told the bench that the matter pending before the Supreme Court related to Muslim women and not Hindu women married to Muslim men.

The bench then said that women irrespective of religion deserve equal treatment.

As the bench refused to hear the plea, advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla withdrew the PIL and said he would approach the apex court.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) also sought directions to make registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter-caste marriage was not registered.

The petitioner said that since the 'nikahnaama' (marriage contract) was written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions related to triple talaq or polygamy.

The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the 'nikahnaama' pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, said the plea.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed President Donald Trump's administration for what she said were moves against LGBT rights, the media reported.

"Each time this administration elevates an outspoken opponent of LGBT equality, sometimes in particularly cruel ways like replacing the first openly gay Secretary of the Army with someone who called being transgender a 'disease', I picture all of the joyful, beaming couples that I've met across our country who are so excited to get married, start a family, and begin their lives together," Clinton said on Thursday night during a fundraiser for an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community centre in New York.

The former presidential hopeful was referring to Trump's pick of Mark Green for the post, NBC News reported.

Author and columnist Arianna Huffington introduced Clinton, presenting her with the centre's "Trailblazer" award at the event.

Clinton called the administration's action insufficient following reports of the arrests and torture of suspected gay men in Chechnya.

"It's not just here in our country that we're seeing clouds gathering on the horizon," Clinton said.

"The US government, yes, this government, must demand an end to the persecution of gay men in Russia," NBC News quoted Clinton as saying.

Three others were honoured on Thursday night for their contributions to LGBT equality: fashion designer Marc Jacobs, ADP Chief Financial Officer Jan Siegmund, and New York City Commission on Human Rights Chair Carmelyn P. Malalis.

Clinton also addressed transgender youth, blasting the Trump administration for withdrawing a school guidance aimed at protecting trans kids.

"My heart broke for all the parents who are advocating so fiercely for their child's right to live, learn and go to school just like anybody else," she added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One reason why Muslims in the US are seen very negatively is that they dont assimilate in host societies, a French scholar said in comments published on Friday.

Journalist and scholar Slimane Zeghidour was addressing students and faculty of the Area Study Centre for Europe (ASCE), University of Karachi, on Thursday, The News International reported.

"Today, we see a picture of the Muslims in the US media which is not at all flattering. They tar Muslims and Arabs with the same brush," he said.

"We must not forget that in the Muslim world, the Arabs are a minority. Besides, many Arabs are not Muslims."

He said that during the Cold War, the US needed allies against Communism and so had cordial relations with the Muslim population globally.

Things, he said, began to change with the 1979 Iranian Revolution that was visibly anti-West. After the Soviet Union's collapse, Muslims began to be seen as enemies of the West.

"Muslim clerics are very provincial. When they attack, they use religious arguments, not political ones. For instance, they attack Americans as kafirs (infidels), not as exploiters," Zeghidour said.

Later, when the condition of Muslims in the UK was pointed out to him, he asked: "Why are only the Pakistani Muslims in the UK 'discriminated' against?"

He said there were Muslims in the UK from Bangladesh, India and many African countries too but they weren't so much affected, the daily said.

He said self-introspection was called for to answer the charges of bias against Pakistani Muslims.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Well-known producer Prem Menon, who successfully distributed Vikram-starrer "I" and "Baahubali: The Beginning" among other films in Kerala, believes the phenomenal success of these movies has widened the market for non-Malayalam films in the state.

Both "I" and "Baahubali" were high earners in Kerala, with a combined gross of over Rs. 20 crore.

"The success of 'Baahubali' and 'I' opened the eyes of distributors and theatre owners. It even widened the market for non-Malayalam films in Kerala. While 'Baahubali' grossed over Rs. 11 crore in its entire run, 'I' grossed around Rs. 10 crore," Menon, Managing Director, Global United Media (GUM), told IANS.

It's with Shankar-directed Tamil revenge drama "I", the company began its distribution journey. Since then, there's been no looking back for GUM which is gearing up for the release of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" on April 28.

Asked about the secret formula behind the successful distribution model, he said "carpet bombing of screens"

"When we bought 'I' and were planning to release in 225 screens, a lot of people thought we were doing a mistake. One needs to understand that a shelf life of a film today is the first three days. Then, the content and word-of-mouth decides the fate of a film," he said.

"But if you could draw maximum audiences in the first three days, you're at least guaranteed very good opening. We give prime importance to marketing," Menon, whose company is credited for creating the world's largest poster of "Baahubali" first part during its release, said.

Does the success of a film solely rely on wide release?

"There's no thumb rule. Sometimes you go by your gut feeling. I saw bits and pieces of 'Baahubali 1' and I knew deep down it will work. It has mostly worked but for some rare cases. Tamil film 'Devi', for instance, when we released, opened well but lost steam as it had to compete with 'Pulimurugan'," he explained.

"Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" is releasing in Tamil and Malayalam in around 300 screens in Kerala next week.

"Baahubali 2' will have an even bigger release. This is the kind of film which doesn't get made every day. Since the release of 'Baahubali 1', the total number of theatres in Kerala has increased which has automatically paved way for a wider release for the second part," he said.

Menon is proud to have bankrolled award-winning Malayalam film "Kammatipaadam", which was helmed by cinematographer-filmmaker Rajeev Ravi.

"This was one film I wanted to bet on irrespective of the returns. When I heard the story, it immediately struck a chord within. It reminded me of my childhood in Kerala. I have family roots in agriculture and when Rajeev was narrating some scenes, I could visualize it," he said.

The film, set in a slum in Ernakulum, shined the spotlight on how dalit communities were forced to give up their lands for real estate mafias.

"Kammatipaadam" bagged four Kerala state awards, including best actor for Dulquer Salmaan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and the European Union on Friday agreed to strengthen security cooperation during a meeting here between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

"Prime Minister Modi and Mogherini discussed regional and global developments of mutual interest," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

"The Prime Minister and Mogherini agreed on the need to strengthen the security cooperation between India and EU, particularly on the issue of counter-terrorism," it said

Modi recalled his visit to Brussels in March 2016 for the 13th India-EU Summit, and said that he was looking forward to the next India-EU Summit to be held in India in October 2017.

Earlier in the day, Mogherini, who is on an official visit to India, also met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar.

According to a statement by the External Affairs Ministry, they reaffirmed their commitment to deepening their Strategic Partnership and reviewed progress on the commitments made during the Brussels summit, including in the areas of counter-terrorism, migration and mobility, water partnership, clean energy and climate change action.

Sushma Swaraj also condemned Thursday night's terror attack in Paris that claimed the life of a police officer. Emphasising that terrorism was the gravest threat to humanity today, she called for both to strengthen their cooperation to fight it.

The statement also said that EU is one of India's largest trading partners with bilateral trade in goods reaching $85 billion in 2016, as well as the largest destination for Indian exports and a key source of investment and cutting edge technologies.

"India seeks enhanced level of investments from EU companies in its flagship programmes like Clean India, Namami Gange, Skill India, Start-Up India, Smart Cities, renewable energy and next-generation infrastructure."

According to the statement, both sides also discussed ways to take forward the India-EU broad-based trade and investment agreement.

According to statement by the Delegation of the European Union here, during the course of Friday's meetings, the two sides discussed in depth a broad range of issues of common interest.

It said that the EU and India "are natural partners, they share fundamental values of democracy and diversity, economic interests and robust trade relations, common security challenges, a direct interest in the stabilisation of many fragile areas, from the Korean Peninsula to Afghanistan".

"The EU and India expressed their common interest and commitment to strengthen their cooperation on the world stage, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, on common priorities such as multilateralism, climate change, sustainable development, free and fair trade, security and defence - notably on maritime security - and counter-terrorism," it said.

The two sides also agreed to take stock of progress made on decisions taken at last year's summit in Brussels, to deepen cooperation in foreign policy, security and defence, trade, investments, climate change, water, new and renewable energy, environment, ICT, space, research and technology, urbanisation, and to strengthen people-to-people contacts, including student exchanges.

During her visit, Mogherini opened the EU@60 Treaty of Rome Exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture. This year, the EU celebrates the 60th anniversary of the treaty, which paved the way for the bloc's formation.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday reiterated his country's commitment to a nuclear agreement it signed with six major powers in 2015, and asked the US to do the same.

Zarif was responding to statements from Washington that called for a revised nuclear deal as Iran continued to pose a threat to the world, Efe news reported.

"The worn-out allegations by the US cannot cover the country's admission of Iran's implementation of its nuclear deal undertakings," Zarif said.

He said that the implementation of the pact by Tehran required the US "to change its path and act upon its undertakings."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said this week in a letter that Iran was fulfilling its commitments but warned that the White House was reviewing the agreement.

Tillerson insisted that the nuclear deal was a failure as it only delayed and does not avert Iran's goal of becoming a nuclear state.

In addition, US President Donald Trump affirmed on Thursday that Iran "is not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear agreement, which he described as terrible and badly negotiated.

Meanwhile, at the UN, US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley tried unsuccessfully to place Iran at the centre of the Security Council's Middle East agenda, accusing Iran of being the main culprit in regional conflicts.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The vexed issue of restrictions on American H-1B visas has been taken up with the US administration by Finance Minister during his ongoing visit to the US, an Indian official said on Friday.

The issue was raised by Jaitley at his meeting here on Thursday with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, an Indian Finance Ministry statement said.

"Finance Minister raised the issue of recent executive orders which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime," it said.

"He outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision," it added.

Jaitley is on a five-day visit to the US to attend the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Speaking to the media in New Delhi on the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on H-1B visas, Indian Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that the US had committed certain number of these visas to India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and "we would definitely want" America to honour that commitment.

"It is not just the US, but several countries now adopting such (restrictive) measures," she said.

The restrictive visa regime would also impact the US companies operating in India, the Minister said.

"So it is not a unilateral (issue) where Indian companies would have to face this... there are several US companies in India which are doing business for years here," she said.

While the US is reviewing its visa programme for foreign workers, Australia has recently abolished a temporary work visa programme  the 457 visa.

Citing the examples of these countries tightening their visa regime for movement of skilled professionals, Sitharaman said: "Countries are now very clearly raising protectionist walls as regards service trade."

"I protest comparison of asylum-seeking migrants with skilled professionals."

To a question whether India would take the US and Australia to the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism, she replied: "At this stage, we will engage constructively. At the same time, India will ensure that it will not accept unfair treatment."
Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd (JISL) would build an integrated micro-irrigation project in Karnataka's Mandya district, a top official of the farm equipment maker said on Friday.

"The Cauvery Neeravari Nigama Ltd has issued the work order to build the Rs 569 crore project for irrigating 25,317 acres of farmlands in 51 villages of Malavalli local body," said JISL Managing Director Anil Jain in a statement here.

"The project will lift and ferry water from the Cauvery river to farmlands in a network of pipes, which prevent evaporation and percolation," he said.

The project will use 1.97 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of the 2.29 tmcft water available to cultivate Kharif and Rabi crops in a year and double farmers' income by enabling them to grow more semi-arid crops such as ragi (millet), pulses, oilseeds, vegetables and flowers in their irrigated lands.

The project will also fill up 12 tanks in the command area for supplying drinking water to farmers and their cattle and help in recharging the ground water.

"The project is expected to benefit 15,000 farmers and meet the drinking water needs of 51 villages in the region," added the statement.

The city-based 35-year-old company and its subsidiaries manufacture micro irrigation systems, PVC and HDPE pipes, plastic sheets and other agriculture inputs in 30 plants across the country and overseas.

The company employs about 10,500 people to provide solutions in agriculture, piping and farm infrastructure. It posted $1 billion (Rs.6,468 crore) revenue in the last fiscal.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Friday assured that she would take up the shortage of 'kasturi' (musk collected from a stag's navel) with her country's government.

Kasturi, an aromatic substance, is an essential commodity used in rituals at the Puri Jagannath temple. It is used for the 'Mukh Shringar' of the presiding sibling deities during the Rath Yatra.

Bhandari, who offered prayers at the temple, said she would take measures for resolving the crisis faced by the temple administration.

"I am so happy after the Darshan of Lord Jagannath. President Pranab Mukherjee invited me and I am so humbled by the arrangements made by the union and state governments."

"I would take up the kasturi shortage issue with the Nepal government," she told the media after paying obeisance to the deities.

The 12th century shrine used to meet its requirement with donations from Nepal's kings. Nepal has been contributing the precious commodity for the services of Lord Jagannath for a long time.

The Nepal Royal family used to donate 'kasturi' free of cost. However, this source dried up after the fall of the monarchy.

Temple authorities prefer 'kasturi' from Nepal for its purity. Earlier, the Odisha government had urged the Centre to ensure procurement of Kasturi from Nepal.

Notably, the Nepal King, other than Puri Shankaracharya and Gajapati King of Odisha, is allowed to ascend the Ratna Vedi (the altar on which Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are placed).

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Film: 'Maatr'; Director: Ashtar Sayed; Starring: Raveena Tandon, Madhur Mittal, Anurag Arora; Rating: ****

A raucous raga on the aftermath of rape, much of "Maatr" unfolds in a stern humourless no-nonsense manner of a fact-finding newshound who won't go into digressions -- because the film's heroine knows what one wrong turn can do -- just to keep the audience's perception lightened. Which is for the best, really. In India we can't afford to laugh about rape the way the French could in the film Elle.

"Maatr" is not an easy film to watch. It is relentlessly grim, and often graphic in its gruesomeness. The gang rape and the near-murder of the mother and daughter on a lonely stretch of a Delhi-Haryana highway reminded me of Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals. It is not a sight for squeamish eyes. It makes us uncomfortable.

Good! That's what "Maatr" aims to do. It strips the act of rape of all its filmy glamour and titillating trappings to portray the agony of a woman who watches her minor daughter gang raped, after she is raped herself. The two are then dumped on the side of the highway by the seven wayward sons of influential dads, nocturnal animals who belong in hell, provided the over-crowded address of Satan's existence has space for these scummy creatures.

Director Ashtar Sayed doesn't spare us the sordid details .We wince and shudder when the hospital staff must tell the grievously injured mother that her daughter was gang raped before being killed. You shudder for the mother when the cop tells her to forget about the heinous crime. Such scenes, shot in stark unglamourous colours by cinematographer Hari Vedantam, spare us none of the mother's pain.

Make no mistake. This film is a showcase for Raveena's skills. Her character goes from grieving aggrieved suffering mother to an avenging diva with a quiet confidence that comes from her years of training in commercial cinema where anything can happen, and it does. To this sur of commercial escapism ,a la vigilantism, Raveena adds a pained strain of realism. She mines in her own maternal subconscious to express a mother's pain.

Some of her sparring matches with the cop in-charge (Anurag Arora, efficiently powerful) find the actress expressing a wry disdain at the processes of the law which have let the mother down.

Tragically Raveena's central performance is unaided by her co-actors. Talented actors like Divya Jagdale (playing Raveena's best friend and confidante) and Rushad Rana(playing her husband) are annoying in their shadowy snapchat avatars. The climax with the worst computer-generated explosion seen in any film, also leaves us embarrassed and exhausted.

But "Maatr" means well. It tackles the issue of rape headlong and is not afraid to delve into the murkier aspects of the crime. Raveena and the film's makers jump into the filth and are not afraid of getting their feet muddy.

A feeling of stifling foreboding and inescapable self-loathing runs through the brisk-paced film. Some sequences of violence, like the one where the least violent among the rapists is confronted and cornered by Vidya (why must a schoolteacher be named Vidya?) stay with us after the film. The director averts the danger of sprucing up the proceedings with sexy item songs and other digressions.

He knows what the wrong turn can do.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 22-year-old man was fatally injured early on Friday when an auto-rickshaw driver and his accomplice threw him from the moving vehicle during a robbery, police said.

Victim Hafiz and his brother Nafiz, 20, hired the auto-rickshaw from near Akshardham temple in east Delhi for Badarpur border in south Delhi around 4 a.m.

After driving for around 500 metres, the driver took on board his accomplice, said Deputy Commissioner of Police Omvir Singh.

Nafiz said in his police complaint that the auto-rickshaw driver and his accomplice tried to rob them of their money and belongings at knife-point, which was resisted by Hafiz.

The accused threw Hafiz out. He was run over by the moving vehicle and died on the spot.

Nafiz said the two accused then threw him out of the three-wheeler and escaped with their belongings.

"We are trying to identify the accused with the help of closed-circuit television footage from the area. Prima facie, a gang is involved in the crime," the officer said.

The brothers hail from Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh and worked as labourers in Faridabad area of Haryana.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United will hold a rally in Mumbai on Saturday to mark its foray into Maharashtra politics, where Chief Minister and party chief Nitish Kumar will be a key speaker.

Prominent JD-U leaders from Bihar and other states will be present at rally venue Goregaon in north-west Mumbai to mark the formal launch of the party in Maharashtra, JD-U Maharashtra unit Convenor and MLA Kapil Patil said on Friday.

Last month, Patil's Lok Bharti Party merged with the JD-U, paving the way for the latter to set up base in Maharashtra after Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala.

Post-merger, Patil and other key JD-U leaders undertook a tour of Maharashtra from April 10, conducted meetings with social workers, independent or party-affiliated political leaders, and labour and union leaders.

"Several prominent persons and organisations have decided to back Nitish Kumar's leadership, including some prominent banking unions, affiliates and the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation Mazdoor Union, the BEST Kamgar Union, the Mumbai Autorickshaw and Taximen's Union," Patil told IANS.

He said the JD-U's expansion is against the backdrop to project the 66-year old Bihar Chief Minister as prime ministerial candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Besides Bihar, JD-U claims strong grass-roots and organisational presence in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala.

Other prominent parties that have since set up base in Maharashtra include the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party of Uttar Pradesh and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Joining people in over 500 cities across the world, Coimbatore in India will "stand up for science" in the world's first ever March for Science on Saturday.

On Earth Day (Saturday), scientists are set to ditch their labs and hit the streets, in what is being dubbed as the largest ever protest by science advocates against US President Donald Trump.

The march is seen by international organisers as "a global effort to push back against a political climate that has become increasingly hostile toward sound, evidence-based science and its value to society."

The flagship event will kick off in Washington DC at 9 a.m. while as many as 605 satellite marches will roll out across the world with people -- scientists, science advocates, educators and concerned citizens -- marching together in support of science's role in society and policy.

Two such marches in India are officially listed with the March for Science website, one at Coimbatore and the other at Hyderabad. Bhutan and Nepal have also signed up for the event.

The march has spread to African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, Europe, UK, Australia, South Korea and Japan among others.

In Coimbatore, the organisation for science education, School of Science, is organising the satellite march around the city's race course.

"Being the only event (we have no updates on the march in Hyderabad as of now) in India, we technically stand with March for Science," Arjhun Swaminathan of the organisation told IANS.

"We are expecting over 200 people to march with us on the 22nd. We here at Coimbatore are marching to bring a new era in science education in the city," said Swaminathan.

He believes the event will motivate more people to stand up for what they believe in and act as a wake up call to those who have lost hope of changing the world.

"During the march however, we will try to spread the message that Science has never been a cause of destruction," he said.

According to some of the international organisers, Earth Day Network, American Geophysical Union, National Science Teachers Association and Carnegie Science, "defending science, innovation and discovery is an absolute must in every community throughout the world."

The global event follows the Women's March on January 21 where more than one million people marched across the world to show support for women's rights and express their discontent over the election of Trump who has called climate change a "hoax."

Trump recently signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing global warming by moving away from fossil fuels.

"There is enough evidence for global warming yet the government is going against what is supposed to be done. It is time for masses to go out and tell the whole world that we believe in science," added Swaminathan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel has been summoned by Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance to appear before it on May 25 on the demonetisation issue.

According to one of the panel members, he will be asked how money has so far come back into the system after demonetisation.

The Governor would also be asked when the banks' operations would become normal and also how digital economy is being implemented in the country.

The committee is headed by former Union Minister and Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily, who had in January called Finance Ministry officials besides top RBI officials to discuss demonetisation.

--IANS

sid/vd

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Majuli, the world's largest inhabited river island, is famous for the many features unique to it -- the Neo-Vaishnavite "Satras" (institutional centres) dating back to the 15th century, the colourful yet simple lifestyle and culture of the Mising tribe, the art of mask-making, and the even more ancient art of pottery practised by villagers.

It was a dilemma for a wandering tourist to decide what to see and what not to until Root Bridge, an advocacy group for ethical and responsible travels, recently launched a novel initiative called "Majuli on Cycle" to present to the visitors the soul of the river Island as it exists.

Designed as a cultural immersion initiative by Root Bridge, in association with the Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) and ESAF, the microfinance institution, Majuli on Cycle not only presented the soul of Majuli to a group of visitors this Rongali Bihu but also became the first such curated carbon-free story-telling tour ever conducted in the river island.

At least 25 people, including domestic and foreign tourists, took part in Majuli on Cycle -- a day-long cycle ride to visit a Mising village to experience the life and culture of the tribe, an agriculture farm to see agricultural practices in one of the largest deltas in the world, to try their hands at the ancient art of mask-making at Chamaguri Satra and also to witness potters at Salmora village.

"This is a novel idea. The cycle ride was exotic. We enjoyed every minute. It's a great initiative and we were able to know the life of people of Majuli, its culture, art, history and about the heritage of the island in a single day," said Dominik, a tourist from Germany, who participated in the initiative conducted on the first day of Rongali Bihu (April 14).

This Root Bridge-introduced carbon-free storytelling tour in the island aims to set a benchmark for "Thoughtful Travel" in the world's largest river island.

"Unlike a regular tour, the organisers took us through offbeat roads and the bicycle was the mode of travel. Accompanied by the 'storytellers' of Root Bridge, we rode on the bicycle through paddy fields, crossed a rivulet and a river bed, witnessed and enjoyed the farming practices of the people in the island," said Stephinie, another tourist from Germany.

"We also witnessed the art of mask-making at Chamaguri Satra, which is one of the main attractions for tourists in the island, and saw locals in Salmora village making pottery without using a potter's wheel... It's interesting," Stephinie added. Some say Salmora pottery is much like Harappan pottery.

Majuli Superintendent of Police (SP) Vaibhav Nimbalkar flagged off the maiden Majuli on Cycle ride.

"Cycle is the best way to explore this beautiful river island. Root Bridge's initiative will help tourists experience Majuli in a better way. I wish more people explore the island using the carbon-free ride," said the SP while appreciating the Root Bridge initiative.

Root Bridge storytellers also took the tourists to a Mising village, so that they could participate in the ancient ritual of bathing the cattle on the first day of Rongali Bihu, which is called "Goru Bihu". "It's a wonderful feeling to experience the local culture in the company of locals," Stephinie added.

The tourists were then taken to an agriculture farm where they saw the agricultural practices followed by the locals. The tourists were welcomed in the village with a Mising Bihu dance and Dhol (a traditional drum-like musical instrument) performance by the villagers to give them a slice of Mising culture.

All the programmes were specially curated for the visitors to showcase the life and culture of the Mising community.

In the evening, the tourists were taken to the river bank to have the magnificent view of sunset over the mighty Brahmaputra river. As they? enjoyed the breathtaking sunset view, a musical "jugalbandi" (fusion) of Pepa, Gagana (traditional musical instruments played during Bihu songs), and Bihu song and dance was also performed by rural artistes.

"Root Bridge wants to create a benchmark for thoughtful travel in Majuli. Majuli has a character and a soul. This should be preserved. We are against mass tourism. We will introduce a curated storytelling cycle tour in Majuli on daily basis, which will help both travellers and host community," said Root Bridge founder Javed.

"We are so happy and overwhelmed by the government's positive gesture for our humble project," he added.

The organisation also awarded Root Bridge Annual Award 2017 to the veteran exponent of Dhol, Bogai Bora Ojah, for his contribution towards highlighting the culture of Majuli in particular and northeast India in general.

"The Root Bridge award is instituted to honour some of the unsung heroes of northeast India. This is the first year. In fact we felt honoured to honour Bogai Bora Ojah, who had been contributing immensely towards the culture of the island and northeast India as a whole, which has indirectly helped travel and tourism industry," Javed said.

The Annual award would be conferred upon one such unsung heroe of the region every year, Javen added.

(Aditya Baruah can be contacted at aditya.assam@rediffmail.com)

--IANS

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US Vice President Mike Pence was due to arrive in Australia on Friday evening for the last leg of his Asia-Pacific tour, with regional security, the fight against terror, and trade set to dominate talks.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the Syrian conflict will also figure in talks during Pence's two-day visit, Efe news reported.

Pence is the most senior US official to visit Australia since US President Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

Speaking to Channel 7 shortly before Pence's arrival, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said they would discuss a range of issues, but top of the agenda will be regional security.

"North Korea is going to be right at the top of the agenda. Also, of course, the global battle against terrorism," he said.

The Australian leader also thanked the new US administration's promptness in sending Pence to Australia, interpreting it as a sign of close Washington-Canberra ties.

"We're really appreciative that so early in this new Trump administration, the Vice President has come out to the region and visited Australia", Turnbull said.

The visit could help make a fresh start after a much-publicised strained telephone conversation between the two leaders shortly after Trump assumed office.

The US media had reported that US President Donald Trump abruptly cut short the call due to differences over a refugee resettlement agreement that Australia had signed with the Barack Obama-led US administration, dubbed a "dumb deal" by the new US President.

Besides meeting Turnbull and Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Pence will also meet Governor-General Peter Cosgrove, opposition leader Bill Shorten, and members of the armed forces.

On Monday, he will fly to Hawaii to conclude his ten-day official tour of the Asia-Pacific.

--IANS

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In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
A top Philippine official on Friday made a one-day trip to the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana travelled to the island Filipinos call Pag-asa, part of the Spratly Islands, emphasising the country's military commitment over the contested waters.

Armed Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla told Efe news that the visit was "to conduct a routine inspection and support the approximately 200 Filipino civilians living on the island".

China, which claims the entire Spratly chain, issued several radio alerts to the C-130, warning it was "flying over their supposed air control area", Padilla said.

"We did not answer because we were flying over our own territory," he remarked, referring to the nine islands currently controlled by Manila.

The trip was aimed at strengthening the Philippines' claim to Pag-asa, as Padilla mentioned the possibility of developing and extending the concrete airstrip on the islet.

Friday's trip was made following President Rodrigo Duterte's order to deploy the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to occupy all islands of the Philippines in the South China Sea to bolster the country's claims.

On April 6, Duterte vowed he would personally travel to the Spratly and raise the Philippine flag there -- but less than a week later, he retracted his statement.

Other countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim total or partial sovereignty over the Spratly Islands.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four members of the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), a militant outfit, were arrested on Friday on charges of extortion, kidnapping and opening fire at several places, police said.

"These four KRA cadres had ambushed two oil tankers in Kangpokpi district (of Manipur) on Tuesday. No weapons were recovered. However four handsets and nine SIM cards were recovered from them," Director General of Police L.M. Khaute said.

"We believe that the different SIM cards were used to make extortion calls and for other illegal activities. The matter is under investigation," he added.

Khaute said the KRA has a nexus with the Kuki National Front (H) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (Lalheiba). The police is expecting some more breakthroughs, he added.

Police said the KRA is a signatory to the suspension of operations with the government. The main ground rules say that they cannot move around with arms and indulge in violence. They should be confined to the designated camps.

--IANS

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A police officer was killed and two others were severely injured when a gunman opened fire on police on Paris's iconic Elysees boulevard in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, three days before the first round of French presidential election.

The attacker, identified as French national Karim Cheurfi, was later killed by police during the Thursday night shootout, the Guardian reported.

Known to French security services, Cheurfi had served nearly 15 years in prison after being convicted of three attempted murders, two against police officers, and was released on parole in 2015.

On Thursday night, the attacker stepped out from a car with an automatic rifle and opened fire on a police van outside a Marks & Spencer store on the Champs Elysees in central Paris.

Police later found a pump-action shotgun, knives and a Quran in his vehicle, while a handwritten note praising IS was recovered from near the dead assailant, police sources told local media.

The gunman was shot dead by police in the van while he was trying to flee the scene on foot. A statement from the IS propaganda agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an "Islamic State fighter".

Police officers raided his home in an eastern suburb of Paris and detained three members of his family for questioning.

The shooting came just three days before the first round of the country's presidential election.

Security was heightened across the country in the run-up to Sunday's election.

President Francois Hollande scheduled an emergency meeting following the attack and said the attack was "terrorist in nature".

US President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday that the attack would have a "big effect" on the election, adding: "The people of France will not take much more of this."

But Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the government had reviewed its extensive election security measures and was "fully mobilised" in the wake of the attack.

He appealed for national unity and for people "not to succumb to fear".

Cazeneuve said after a meeting of France's security council on Friday: "Barbarity and cowardice struck Paris last night, as they also recently struck elsewhere in Europe in Berlin, Stockholm, in London. The whole of Europe is targeted, because it represents the values and ideals of peace".

He said more than 50,000 police and gendarmes and 7,000 soldiers would be on duty for Sunday's first-round vote in the two-stage election, and nothing could be allowed to "hamper this democratic moment".

The Islamic State said the attack was carried out by "Abu Yousuf al-Baljiki" (the Belgian).

However, Belgian Interior Ministry spokesman Olivier Van Raemdonck said the attacker was not Belgian and that there did not appear to be a Belgian connection to the incident.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon had earlier told local public broadcaster VRT that the assailant was a French national.

The attack dramatically changed the course of the French presidential campaign's final hours. The three main candidates -- far-right candidate Marine le Pen, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and former conservative Prime Minister Francois Fillon -- cancelled planned campaign events following the shooting.

--IANS

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The Delhi High Court on Friday asked Delhi Police to record the statement of witnesses present at the time of an altercation between JNU student Najeeb Ahmed and nine students of ABVP six months ago, about the "nature of threat" given to him.

A division bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Deepa Sharma asked why the statements of witnesses were not recorded by Delhi Police after Ahmed went missing in October last year after the altercation.

"What is the nature of threat? What words were used for threatening?," asked the bench, directing the police to record statements of persons present during the altercation.

Ahmed had slapped one of the nine students during an altercation in the hostel and in return they allegedly threatened him.

Police also submitted two sealed cover analysis reports of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad, regarding the contents of Ahmed's laptop and mobile phone and of the nine students' mobile phones.

The movement of the mobile phones of the nine students reveals nothing, said the police, adding that their mobile phones were shown to be in the hostels during the time of Ahmed's disappearance, said the report.

Ahmed, 27, a first year M.Sc. student, went missing from his JNU hostel on the night of October 14-15, allegedly after an altercation with the members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's students wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

The court was hearing a habeas corpus plea filed by Ahmed's mother Fatima Nafees that her son be produced by police and the Delhi government before the court.

The bench also sought response from the government on an application filed by the mother to disband Delhi Police's Special Investigation Team (SIT), set up in October on the Centre's direction and constitute a fresh team of SIT.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who appeared for the student's mother, said the history of the case shows their "collusion" with the nine accused students.

He also asked the court that police be directed for custodial interrogation of the nine students as they assaulted and threatened Ahmed before he went missing.

Advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for the police, said the nine students have neither given their consent nor refusal for a lie detector test in the case. He said the students should come forward and take the polygraph test.

To this, the bench said that the students can not be forced to undergo polygraph test. "They should agree but if they want to live with the needle of suspicion what can be done," said the bench.

The bench posted the matter for May 12.

--IANS

gt/rn

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Actor Sathyaraj on Friday expressed the deepest regret over comments he made against Kannadigas nine years ago during the Cauvery row and appealed for the smooth release of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" in Karnataka.

Over the last week, Pro-Kannada organisations have been protesting the release of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" in Karnataka over Sathyaraj's allegedly inflammatory comments.

"Nine years ago, I voiced my opinion during the Cauvery row. People in Karnataka burnt my effigies for my strong comments. I have been told that my comments back then had hurt the sentiments of Kannadigas. I deeply regret to have made such comments," Sathyaraj, reacting to the current state of affairs in Karnataka, said in a video statement.

He went on to add that he is not against Kannadigas.

"Even though I made those comments, I should clarify that I am not against the Kannada people. My assistant Sekhar, who has been with me for 30 years, is a Kannadiga. In the last nine years, nearly 30 of my films including 'Baahubali 1' had released in Karnataka. I was even offered roles in Kannada films, which I couldn't take up due to lack of dates," he said.

Calling it unfair to ban the release of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" over his comments, he said, "I'm a very small part of a big film like 'Baahubali'. The hard work of hundreds of people on this project shouldn't go waste. Also, Karnataka distributors who have bet big on this film should not lose money because of the actions of my consequences."

Sathyaraj, who plays Kattappa in the "Baahubali" franchise, however said he will in future continue to fight for Tamils.

"I will continue to fight for Tamils for any worthy cause. If producers think they will face problems or losses because of my actions, I request them not to cast me. Nobody should bear loss because of me. Beyond an actor, I'm a proud Tamilian," he added.

The pro Kannada groups are hell bent on an apology from the actor to facilitate the smooth release of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" in Karnataka.

--IANS

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South Africa is committed to the Brics bloc of leading emerging economies and hopes being a member helps address the country's various challenges, a senior official said on Thursday.

Addressing a seminar here on Thursday, Dave Malcomson, chief director at South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said the country was satisfied with the progress achieved by the bloc and wanted to continue using it to address the country's triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

According to Xinhua news agency, Malcomson said Brics will assist the industrialisation process in South Africa and the whole African continent by supporting infrastructure, investment facilitation and an upgrade of the manufacturing sector.

"We want to use Brics to promote South South cooperation, change global architecture, respond to global challenges and bring about peace in the world," he said.

Noting that Brics members -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- have coordinated and cooperated in multilateral global bodies over major global issues such as climate change, Malcomson said the bloc will always remain relevant to global affairs.

South African experts also said on Thursday that Brics was relevant to tackling various local and global challenges.

Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD) Executive Director Philani Mthembu said that for the Brics to be sustainable, it has to expand beyond the economic sphere to include exchanges between think tanks, businesses and people-to-people communication.

"Brics will remain relevant and will not fizzle out. The onus is on us to sustain the relationship. The government has laid the foundation and it's an opportunity for us to capitalize on this strategic relationship... Let us not be distracted by many interpretations from the North," said Mthembu.

China will host the 2017 Brics Summit in September as the current chair. The bloc will discuss global economic growth, promote cooperation and development.

Ashraf Patel, a researcher with South African Brics Think Tank, said there were potential beneficiaries in the New development Bank, a multilateral development bank established by the Brics members, since Breton Wood Institutions like the World Bank and the IMF "were operating like merchant banks and did not serve the purpose they were established for".

--IANS

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Canada has evinced keen interest in investing in Haryana in civil aviation, skill development, education, defence, and smart city projects, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Friday.

Khattar was speaking to the media after visiting Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan called on him here and evinced keen interest in investing in the northern state.

He said that follow-up meetings would be held to facilitate investment by Canadian companies in Haryana, which would help in creating job opportunities for the state's youths.

The Chief Minister said discussion was also held on the two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed during his visit to Canada in 2015.

It was decided to set up a Working Group to ensure the implementation of the MoUs on horticulture to be executed jointly by Haryana and Canada.

The Chief Minister apprised Sajjan of the progress made by Haryana in various fields.

Sajjan, earlier in the day, inaugurated the new office of the Consulate General of Canada here.

A day earlier, Sajjan paid obeisance at the Harmandar Sahib in Amritsar and visited other places in Punjab.

--IANS

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The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hold a detailed hearing of a plea seeking probe by the Special Investigating Team into the alleged torture, rape and extra-judicial killings by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel on the India-Bangladesh border.

The bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice D.Y.Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul decided to hold a detailed hearing of the matter as lawyer Bijan Ghose urged the court to examine the vires of the Border Security Force Act's Section 46 and Section 47.

Ghose appeared for Kolkata-based NGO Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Manch, which has claimed that more than 200 Indian nationals were victim of torture and extra-judicial killings by the BSF between 2005 and 2011.

Section 46 provides for civil offences triable by a BSF court and Section 47 for civil offences not triable by it.

"If the action by the BSF personnel is in consequent to the discharge of their duties, then it is genuine and otherwise it is not," observed Chief Justice Khehar as Ghose said that none of 200 court of inquiries conducted by the BSF against their men resulted in any conviction, while the National Human Rights Commission granted compensation of Rs. 5 lakh each in four to five cases.

Ghose also said that ever since Supreme Court issued notice in 2012 on the NGO's plea seeking SIT probe into the alleged atrocities, the number of their cases have come down.

The BSF, the NGO had said, "operate above the law, their mechanical explanations as to how death came about is accepted as true in all cases, the statements of the eye witnesses are not recorded since no investigation is done and the case is closed".

Urging the top court to lay down the procedure to be followed by the state police and the courts in dealing with such cases, the NGO had alleged that "these routine killings by the BSF and their brutal manner of operating has caused grave resentment in the public who have come to believe that the law will never be implemented".

"Even assuming the BSF courts are validly constituted, is it not arbitrary, irrational and harsh that not even a single one of the 200 cases of torture, murder and rape did the BSF authorities begin criminal prosecution and departmental action against the BSF personnel concerned," the petition had asked.

--IANS

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Actress Sofia Vergara is accused of "harassing" her former fiance Nick Loeb.

According to Loeb, Vergara is making his life "a living hell" nearly three years after they called off their engagement in 2014, reports radaronline.com.

As per reports, Vergara is still in a legal battle of "he said, she said" with Loeb over who owns the embryos they froze to make future children, and what should happen to them. He accuses her of "annoying" and "harassing" him with her legal maneuvers.

Loeb is suing Vergara over two embryos they froze back in 2013. He wants to retrieve the embryos, use a surrogate to deliver them. He has even named them Emma and Isabella, radaronline.com reported.

Vergara hit back at Loeb with a contract they signed which states one parent needs the other's approval to use any embryo. But Loeb's attorney insists the contract never existed and accuses Vergara of trying to bully his client.

"The complaint is defective and wholly untenable on so many grounds, it can only be described as a transparent and ill-conceived attempt to annoy and harass Mr. Loeb," the attorney states in documents.

--IANS

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Low-cost carrier SpiceJet on Friday said it would launch its second daily direct flight on the Kolkata-Dhaka route from May 16.

The airline, which now operates to seven international destinations, is the only low-cost carrier to operate flights on the Kolkata-Dhaka sector.

Bookings for the new flight starting from May 16 are currently open.

"The overwhelming response of our customers to our first flight on the Kolkata-Dhaka route is what encouraged us to launch our second flight on the sector in such a short period. We will eye new markets and boost connectivity while discreetly gauging customer demand," said airline's Senior Vice President Commercial, Shilpa Bhatia.

Dhaka is the second international destination after Bangkok that the airline will be serving with a daily direct flight from Kolkata.

--IANS

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday asked all Chief Ministers to act against those who harass Kashmiris living in their states, amid at least two recent incidents of harassment of youth from the troubled valley in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Rajnath Singh condemned the attack on Kashmiris in Rajasthan's Mewar University where a group of Kashmiris were on Wednesday allegedly called "terrorists", "stone-pelters" and beaten up by locals who were angry over repeated incidents of stone-throwing at security forcs in the valley.

The Rajasthan violence was followed by giant hoardings installed in Meerut that asked "stone-pelting Kashmiris" to leave Uttar Pradesh or face consequences. The warning signs were attributed to the Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena -- a little known outfit that has also threatened to lauch a massive drive from April 30 against Kashmiris living in Uttar Pradesh.

The group has admitted to have put up the banners that read: "Bhartiya sena par pathar maarne wale Kashmiryon ka bahishkar." (Boycott Kashmiris who pelt stones at the Indian Army). "Kashmiriyo, Uttar Pradesh chhodo warna..." (Kashmiris, leave Uttar Pradesh or else...).

The hoardings also carried the name of the outfit's chief Amit Jani, who shared a picture of the banner on his Facebook account.

Jani told CNN News18 on Thursday that the drive was aimed only at "radical elements" in Kashmir. Police in Uttar Pradesh have slapped a case against Jani.

Dubbing the incidents as "unfortunate" the Home Minister said he had come to know that Kashmiris were subjected to "misbehaviour" in some places.

"I appeal to all the Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states. They are equal citizens of India and part of our family. No Kashmiri should be harassed. If such incidents happen, action should be taken.

"The contributions of the people of Kashmir in the nation building are immense," the Home Minister told reporters here.

He said he had asked the home ministry officials to circulate an advisory in this regard.

--IANS

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday met European Union High Representative and Vice President Federica Moghereni who is on an official visit to India.

"Carrying forward a valuable partnership. EAM @SushmaSwaraj meets EU High Representative/Vice President @FedericaMog," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted along with pictures of the two leaders.

Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar is scheduled to hold delegation-level talks with Moghereni on Friday.

The EU leader will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi later in the day.

--IANS

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The Indian telecom industry added 5.68 million mobile subscribers in the telephony market in March 2017, the industry body Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) said in its monthly mobile subscribers report on Friday.

The number of mobile phone subscribers by the end of March 2017 has reached 895.25 million. This includes subscribers of Reliance Jio Infocomm as of December 2016, the report said.

"Total subscribers by the end of March 2017 (excluding Jio) have reached 823.10 million. The net increase in subscriber base is 5.68 million in the month of March 2017."

Amongst the telecom companies, Bharti Airtel held the top position, adding another 3 million subscribers during March to take its total subscriber base to 273.65 million subscribers.

Airtel is closely followed by Vodafone with 209.06 million subscribers, Idea Cellular with 195.37 million subscribers and Jio with 72.15 million subscribers. With 33.25 per cent Bharti Airtel continues to own the maximum market share in the industry.

"The telecommunication industry has again posted good growth for the month of March 2017. The growth in the subscriptions indicates that consumer base is expanding and reaching new horizons in the country," said Rajan S. Mathews, Director General, COAI.

--IANS

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Minister of Tribal Affairs Jual Oram on Friday said funds released so far for the development of tribal areas in Manipur will be probed.

Talking to reporters here, the minister said: "In my next visit, it will be examined whether the field position justifies the fund allocation."

The Centre had already sanctioned Rs 22 crore for the development of tribal areas. Another Rs 150 crore had been sanctioned for the construction of tribal women's markets in the hill districts.

"The Centre has been giving sufficient fund for the development of the tribal areas in Manipur. We are also thankful that soon after the formation of the new government in Manipur, the economic blockade was lifted," he said.

On Thursday, Oram visited Tengoupal, a border district. Speaking to the tribal villagers, he said, "The BJP got just 2 per cent of the votes in the past. However, it was increased to 36.3 per cent in the March elections and we are thankful to the people for the trust reposed in us."

In the March elections, the BJP -- which had opened its account in 2015 after a gap of 15 years by winning two seats in the by-elections -- got 21 seats in the 60-member House. It formed a coalition government on March 15 by joining hands with like-minded parties.

However, the Congress, which had bagged 28 seats, is still nursing its wounds saying that it should have been given a chance to form the government.

Oram said that in the three years of the BJP government at the Centre, nearly 12,000 villages have been provided with electricity, adding that there is a slew of developmental projects for the poor and underprivileged sections of people.

--IANS

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Two youths were killed on Friday while taking selfies when a train was going over a bridge in Bihar's Katihar district, police said.

A third youth saved himself by jumping into the river.

Police said Samir Choudhary, Roshan Kumar and Bittu Paswan decided to take selfies on the Kosi Lal bridge when they saw a train approaching. The train hit Samir and Roshan, killing them instantly.

--IANS

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US Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Friday said the Syrian regime had chemical weapons and recommended that it should not be used anymore.

During an official visit to Israel, Mattis said there was no doubt President Bashar al-Assad's regime had kept chemical weapons, after a high-ranking Israeli officer informed that Damascus still had tonnes stowed away, Efe news reported.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," he said, speaking alongside Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

On April 4, an alleged chemical attack hit an opposition-held village in Syria, killing over 80 people, including children.

The US, which suspected the Syrian regime was behind the attack, retaliated by bombing an airbase held by Assad's forces.

"(The use of chemical weapons) is a violation of the UN Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they'd be ill-advised to try to use any again. We've made that very clear with our strike," Mattis added.

In September 2013, the UNSC unanimously adopted a resolution that the Syrian regime had until 2014 to destroy its chemical weapons arsenal.

--IANS

ksk/dg

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US President Donald Trump's daughter and special counsellor Ivanka Trump said she will donate the unpaid portion of her advance for writing a book called "Women Who Work" to charitable groups that help children in urban areas, a media report said.

She will also forgo a book publicity tour to avoid using her government perch to promote her private product, the New York Times reported.

In announcing her plans to donate $100,000 each to the National Urban League and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Ivanka Trump released a statement calling the book part of a continuing effort to empower women that "has been central to my mission throughout my career".

Trump said her book aims to supply advice and tips on leadership, entrepreneurship, juggling work and family and building cultures where multidimensional women can thrive now and in the future.

"Like many other professional women, I have juggled the demands that come with growing my family and building my businesses, and I realize that I am more fortunate than most," she said in the statement.

She said she chose to donate to the Urban League and the Boys & Girls Clubs because both have "made it a priority to promote entrepreneurship and educational opportunities for women and girls in underserved communities", the New York Times reported.

Trump has come under intense scrutiny over potential overlap between the policies she plans to promote in office and any potential benefit to her businesses. She recently became an official government employee, which requires her to adhere to strict ethics rules.

--IANS

sm/vm

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The World Bank has pledged to give $6 billion in credit to Bangladesh over the next three years.

The announcement came after Finance Minister AMA Muhith held a meeting with the global bank's Vice President for South Asia Region, Annette Dixon, at its Washington D.C. headquarters on Thursday on the sidelines of the Spring Meeting of the World Bank Group.

Dixon said the World Bank would provide the money to the country in three instalments of $2 billion each in every fiscal year from 2017-18 to 2019-20, Muhith told bdnews24.com.

Muhith said the previous three-year loan package of the World Bank is ending in June. The World Bank had pledged to give $4 billion from 2014-15 to 2016-17 financial year, he said.

The minister said the World Bank also pledged funds, as part of a global programme, to help Bangladesh rehabilitate the refugees from Myanmar.

"(But) they did not say how much they will provide," he added.

Muhith said Dixon was happy with Bangladesh's economic progress.

--IANS

soni/dg

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win the elections to Delhi's three municipal corporations with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) finishing a distant second and the Congress third, a poll survey has said.

The ABP News C-Voter MCD Tracker Poll released on Thursday predicted that BJP would win 179 of 272 seats in the three corporations with the AAP expected to get 45 and the Congress only 26 seats.

The survey said the BJP is expected to get a clear majority in all three corporations -- East Delhi Municipal Corporation, South Delhi Municipal Corporation and Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The survey said the BJP is expected to register its best performance in Delhi corporation winning 76 of 104 seats. It predicted that the AAP will get 13 and the Congress 8 seats.

In East Delhi corporation that has 64 seats, the survey showed the BJP getting 43, AAP 11 and the Congress 8 seats. It said in South Delhi corporation with 104 seats, the BJP was poised to get 60, AAP 21 and the Congress 10 seats.

The survey said in terms of vote percentage, the BJP was expected to get 41.9 per cent, AAP 27.5 per cent and the Congress 20 per cent of the total votes cast.

The BJP has been ruling the MCD for last 10 years and had bagged 138 seats in the 2012 municipal elections. The Congress had finished second in the last polls with 77 seats.

The AAP was not in the fray during the last election as it was formed after the polls in November 2012.

The poll survey predicted that the Bahujan Samaj Party's tally would go down from 15 seats in 2012 to 7 and "others" would win 15 seats compared to 38 they won in the last polls.

According to a release, the survey was conducted in the third week of April among 6,374 voters selected randomly across all the wards.

The survey said the respondents identified electricity as the most important issue while also picking up drinking water, roads, government schools, government hospitals and cleanliness as other significant issues.

It said majority of people in east and municipal corporations expressed dissatisfaction with the work of their sitting corporators.
The has alleged a scam in state-owned portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and said the instance of corruption has been flagged by a Union minister and eight BJP lawmakers in a ommunication to Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Former Delhi Chief Minister on Thursday hit out at Delhi Congress Chief Ajay Maken, saying she was disappointed with his style of functioning, as he "does not consult and reach out to party workers".

"I am disappointed with Ajay Maken that he does not consult (with anyone), he does not reach out to anybody. In democratic politics, most important thing is reaching out," Dikshit told IANS on being asked why she thought senior leaders in the party were not happy with Delhi Congress chief.

In a setback to the Congress ahead of the April 23 civic polls, former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and former Youth Congress leader Amit Malik quit the party and joined the BJP on Tuesday.

Barkha Singh on Thursday quit as the party's women's wing chief in Delhi. She also hit out at Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken.

On being told that if she had campaigned in Delhi for the MCD elections, it would have been better for the Congress, she said: "That's for the party to decide."

Asked if the party had invited her, she replied "No. They could have, that's up to them, if they decide not to, then I don't have anything to say at all. I have never campaigned for MCD elections."

Asked if she was miffed with Delhi Congress' functioning, she said: "I am not angry with the party, I just want the party to be a little more active and a little more inclusive."

Earlier, on April 3, former Delhi legislator Amrish Gautam quit the Congress and joined the BJP, while former Congress Minister A.K. Walia threatened to quit over the distribution of party tickets for the April 23 civic polls in Delhi.

"Walia also raised concerns, but he went back on it. Asked if he was quitting, she said: "Not to my knowledge".

Asked about Congress' prospects in MCD elections, she said: "MCD has been ruled by the BJP for the past 10 years. It has been a very abysmal performance. The city is looking dirty and all the things that are the responsibility of the municipality have not been fulfilled."

"The AAP also is in trouble because it hasn't impressed the people of Delhi with the work that it has done and the Shunglu Committee report has damaged its reputation very severely. So, under these circumstances, the Congress should do well. Congress has a good record of administration," she added.
One person was killed and two others were injured today in a roadside blast in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region, bordering Afghanistan.

The bomb went off when people were returning home after Friday prayers in Shinkoot area in the remote Bajaur Agency.

The explosive device was detonated by remote control.

The injured were shifted to nearby hospitals. An investigation has been launched.

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Eleven people were killed in violent incidents in Caracas overnight, Venezuela's justice ministry said today, following two days of massive street protests against President Nicolas Maduro.

The deaths occurred in the capital's southwestern El Valle district, the ministry said in a statement, adding six people were also wounded.

The toll brings to 20 the number of people killed in three weeks of violent anti-Maduro demonstrations.

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Over 56,000 police and paramilitary personnel will be deployed to ensure that the upcoming city civic polls are conducted without any glitches.

Dependra Pathak, chief spokesperson, Delhi Police and special commissioner of police (Operations) said a total of 774 premises and 4,748 booths in the city are sensitive and hypersensitive.

There are adequate and full security arrangements in all facets, including anti-terror measures by Delhi Police, he said.

There are 13,022 booths in total and various Delhi Police units, paramilitary, CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) personnel will be deployed to ensure that no untoward incidents take place, said the officer.

"As many as 56,256 personnel will be deployed for the elections. There will be 40 companies of paramilitary and CAPF personnel and 20,000 Home Guards will be deployed. Apart from this, various Delhi Police units will be looking after their areas," said the officer.

The officer said the sensitive and hypersensitive booths have been identified on parameters including number of cases registered in the area, demographic composition, experience during previous elections.

Following consultation with government and election authorities and the above parameters, these areas have been earmarked.

"There are 573 sensitive and 197 hypersensitive premises respectively that have been identified. Out of the 13,022 booths, 3,284 have been declared sensitive and 1,464 hypersensitive. There will be deployment of more forces at these places," added Pathak.

According to the officials, south district tops the list with maximum (585) sensitive booths. Shahdara district has 114 sensitive booths, the lowest among all districts.

The southeast district has 382 hypersensitive booths, the highest among all districts while the northwest district has the lowest (15) hypersensitive booths.

Some of the prominent hypersensitive areas of the city are Tughalakabad, Jamia Nagar, Sangam Vihar in southeast Delhi; Seemapuri in Shahdara, Seelampur in northeast Delhi; Adarsh Nagar, Bharat Nagar in northwest Delhi; Karol Bagh, Patel, Chandni Mahal in central Delhi; and Najafgarh, Mundka, Sultanpuri, Nangloi in outer Delhi, the officials added.

The civic polls are slated for April 23.

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Healthcare major has decided to withdraw two types of stents from the Indian market in the wake of drug price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority's (NPPA's) move to cap the prices.

The company has applied to the NPPA seeking to withdraw two kinds of stents.

These are Alpine drug-eluting stent and Absorb dissolving stent.

An spokesperson said that following the NPPA's price ceiling decision, it "examined and re-examined" whether there is a sustainable way to make available two of the latest stent technologies in India.

The company took into consideration Alpine drug-eluting and the Absorb dissolving stents' higher manufacturing costs and other associated costs.

"We have determined it is not sustainable, and we have applied to the NPPA to withdraw these two stents," the spokesperson told PTI in an e-mailed statement.

The company said that presently, only a very small percentage of patients in India receive Alpine and Absorb stents.

"While we are aligned with the government's intent for broad access to care, we're disappointed that the NPPA concluded there is no differentiation in coronary stent technology," the company noted.

According to Abbott, it would continue to make available all other XIENCE coronary stent products within the ceiling price set by the NPPA.

"Alpine and Absorb will continue to remain available while the government reviews our application. There is no shortage of stents," it added.
A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad today said he too would soon meet the AICC chief for a stronger opposition unity against the BJP.

"Definitely we will talk about the present political conditions and also the ways to forge a stronger unity between the secular and the socialist parties against the BJP," said Prasad.

The RJD chief said a Bihar-like grand alliance was required at the national level to check the BJP's political surge.

"It has been seen that wherever the secular and socialist parties have fought together, they have won elections against the BJP. But where they fought separately, they have lost," said the RJD president.

Referring to the grand alliance of the RJD, the JD(U) and the Congress inflicting a massive defeat to the BJP-led NDA in 2015 assembly poll in Bihar, he said the parties lost to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh due to lack of wider unity.

Prasad praised the Congress saying it played a crucial role in independence struggle for the country and for its post-independence growth.

Nitish Kumar, also the JD(U) president, had yesterday met Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and was learnt to have discussed the need for forging unity among the opposition parties to take on the BJP-led NDA.

The JD(U) also used the meeting to call for a joint opposition candidate for the election to the President's post and urged Gandhi to take the lead in the matter.

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A senior (AI) pilot has been accused of flouting the airline's norms for conducting final release check of a junior pilot.

According to AI's training manual, approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the final release check of a first officer (co-pilot) can be conducted only by a Type Rated Instructor (TRI).

"However, in contravention to this, the Chennai-based senior pilot, a DGCA-approved Designated Examiner, misused his official position and conducted the final release check of a co-pilot belonging to the airline," a source alleged.

As part of their training, a co-pilot or first officer undergoes different checks during his flight, which are conducted by Line Training Captain (LTC), TRI and Designated Examiner (DE), depending upon the level of training.

"In this case, the final release check of the co-pilot was to be conducted by a Type Rated Instructor. But it was conducted by a DE despite he not being mandated to do so. So far no action has been taken against this commander," the source said.

A response from spokesperson on this issue was awaited.

The source also claimed this senior commander was earlier a flight operations inspector with the DGCA and was removed from the post when he tested positive for alcohol in a pre-flight medical test.

"He was removed from all training assignments for a period of three years by the DGCA. However, as soon he completed the three-year period, the management recommended his name to the DGCA for DE post and asked it to restore his training privileges," the source said.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal today joined the chorus for an alliance against the BJP, saying all the "good" people should join hands to take on the saffron party.

He also admitted to have made "mistakes" in Punjab, where the AAP was tipped to do well but lost badly to the Congress. He insisted that its defeat was due to the electronic voting machines (EVMs), which he alleged were tampered with.

"If there is a need for such an alliance in the country, all the good people should come forward (to join hands)," the Delhi Chief Minister told PTI.

He said he "liked" all of them.

His remarks came in the back drop of his recent meeting with Kerala counterpart, Pinarayi Vijayan.

Kejriwal had called on Vijayan at the Kerala House here and discussed "a range of issues".

The AAP chief had in the past shared dais with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

He said that the results in the recent polls in Goa were "not surprising" but in Punjab it was not as per the party's expectation.

"The results of Goa Assembly polls were not surprising for me, but in Punjab the results were not what we had expected. The energy in Punjab was a very high. I had seen that.

"We have done mistakes. We might have committed 100 mistakes and we will rectify them as well at the party level. But we were not defeated because of our mistakes but the EVMs," he said.

Kejriwal had been raking up the issue of alleged tampering of the EVMs, despite the Election Commission's assertion that the machines are robust and tamper-proof.

He had raised the issue of faulty EVMs used during the bypoll in Rajasthan's Dholpur.

The Delhi High Court today dismissed the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) plea for use of the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) voting machines in the April 23 municipal polls.

Justice A K Pathak said an order for use of VVPAT-enabled Generation 2 or Generation 3 electronic voting machines cannot be issued at the 11th hour as it would amount to stalling the election process.

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Armed gangs attacked a Venezuelan hospital where 54 children were housed today, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said, blaming opponents of President Nicolas Maduro after another day of violent unrest.

"I denounce before the international community that armed gangs hired by the opposition attacked a maternity hospital with 54 children," Rodriguez tweeted, noting that Maduro had ordered the hospital's evacuation without specifying its location.

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An Army personnel was killed while setting up a detonator at a firing range in the Cantonment area here today, police said.

The incident occurred at Mahar Regiment Centre's Long Range in Kapuria Sagar area at around 8.30 am.

Havildar Vakul Kumar Patelia (40) was setting up a detonator which suddenly exploded, killing him on the spot, Cantonment police station's in-charge B M Trivedi told PTI.

Further investigation is on, he added.

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Arjun Atwal shot his second successive two-under 69 to be tied 11th at the Panasonic Open here today.

Atwal, the only Indian to have won a title on the PGA Tour, moved five places from his overnight tied-16th to tied- 11th. At four-under 138, he is five shots behind leader American Jason Knutzon (64-69).

Apart from Atwal, the only other Indians to make the cut were Gaganjeet Bhullar (72-69) and SSP Chawrasia (71-71).

Bhullar was tied-32nd and Chawrasia was tied-46th.

Eight other Indians missed the cut -- S Chikkrangappa (70-73), Shiv Kapur (72-71), Rashid Khan (71-74), Chiragh Kumar (74-71), Shubhankar Sharma (76-70), Rahil Gangjee (75- 71), Jeev Milkha Singh (74-73) and Jyoti Randhawa (76-76).

Atwal, playing his first event since Hero Indian Open said, "The last two days have been great considering I haven't played since the Indian Open. I was a little rusty but I managed to score well. I like the fact that you get to hit a variety of shots off the tee over here. It's a little bit of an old school layout and I like that. The greens are tricky and I like the whole combination.

"I worked a little bit on my game during the last four weeks but not that much. We will see after tomorrow. If I can shoot a really low score that can get me into the hunt tomorrow, then it will be interesting to see what happens next on Sunday."



Despite not being able to match his opening 64, Knutzon's two-day total of nine-under-par 133 was still enough for him to enjoy a two-shot cushion over Thailand's Panuphol Pittayarat, Philippines' Juvic Pagunsan, Korea's Inhoi Hur and Japan's Yujiro Ohori.

Panuphol also moved into contention for his maiden Asian Tour breakthrough by compiling a 135 at the Chiba Country Club, Umesato course in Noda City, Chiba prefecture.

Although he is still grieving over the tragic loss of his girlfriend, the 24-year-old displayed no signs of it and instead showed the consistency that has led him to two top-10s this season.

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The Australian government is keen to rejoin the Malabar naval exercise this year, but the request could be rejected by India due to concerns over China's reaction on the move, a media report today said.

ABC today said that Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne in Tokyo has acknowledged the country's desire to join the defence event where military assets from the US, India, and more recently Japan, hold joint annual naval drills, north of Australia.

"Australia is very interested in a quadrilateral engagement with India, Japan and the United States," Payne said, adding, "What form that may take is a matter of discussion between our various countries."



The report, however, added that there was growing speculation that India will reject Australia's request to take part in this year's exercises over concerns that it could inflame diplomatic tensions with China.

The Australian Defence Department said, "India has not indicated whether the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will be invited to the Exercise Malabar in 2017."



In a statement to ABC, the Defence Department said Australia has regularly discussed the matter of the ADF's involvement in Exercise Malabar with India since 2015.

The report said that in the past few weeks, the country's defence attache to New Delhi has requested that India allow the ADF to attend this year's exercises as an official "observer".

In 2007, Australia took part in the Malabar exercise, but withdrew from the drills and accompanying security talks following concerns expressed by Beijing.

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Light rainfall occurred at one or two places in Bihar, while the weather remained generally dry in most parts of the state.

In the past 24 hours, Purnea received a rainfall of 0.7 mm and Bhagalpur received 1.6 mm of rainfall, the Met office said in a bulletin.

The Met department has forecast partly cloudy sky for Patna and Gaya tomorrow.

The Met office also said that there is a possibility of rain or thunderstorm in Bhagalpur and Purnea tomorrow.

The maximum temperature at Patna stood at 32 deg C today, while Gaya recorded a maximum temperature of 37.7 deg C the Met office said.

Bhagalpur's maximum temperature stood at 28.7 deg C and the maximum temperature at Purnea was registered at 27.6 deg C, the Met office said.

Dehri in Rohtas district recorded the highest maximum temperature at 38 deg C.

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Lawyers across Bihar abstained from work after lunch hour today and burnt copies of Law Commission recommendation and a proposed bill that bars advocates from holding agitation and makes them liable to compensate litigants if they go on strike.

Lawyers of Patna High Court, district and other courts and tribunals burnt copies of the law panel's recommendations and the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

The lawyers also abstained from their work after lunch hours.

"We burnt copies of the recommendations in front of the High Court after lunch hour. We will continue our agitation till the proposed amendments are withdrawn by the Central government," senior High Court advocate Yogesh Chandra Verma told PTI.

"If the government does not withdraw the draconian and undemocratic recommendations, we may think of going on an indefinite strike," said Verma, a member of the extended body of state bar council.

Verma said that a delegation of lawyers would meet Governor Ram Nath Kovind and hand over him a memorandum demanding withdrawal of the Law Commission's recommendations.

As per the Bill, lawyers would be required to pay compensation to clients in case they go on strikes, abstinence or fail to appear in cases (even for genuine reasons).

Lawyers across the state had also abstained from work on March 31 to protest against the recommendations on the call given by the Bar Council of India.

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The BJP campaigning for the MCD polls focusing on the image and achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded today with the party hoping to return back to rule the civic bodies third time in a row.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, who indulged in extensive campaigning in different parts of the city, said he witnessed "anger" against AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal but "enthusiasm" among people for Prime Minister Modi's scheme and was assured of victory in the elections.

Tiwari concluded campaigning by offering a special prayer at Kalkaji temple in south Delhi.

"During campaigning for the MCD polls, I interacted with lakhs of people and saw anger in their eyes against Kejriwal for obstructing development in Delhi. People showed great enthusiasm, however, for the programmes and schemes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he said.

The BJP campaign for the elections was divided into four phases. The first phase was devoted to reaching out to the youth.

It was followed by the second phase which focused on attacking the AAP and the Congress while the third phase comprised of highlighting achievements of the Modi government and the three municipal corporations ruled by the party, said party's Campaign and Publicity Committee chairman Kuljeet Singh Chahal.

The fourth and the last phase was devoted solely to tell how the party wanted to go about changing Delhi into the prime minister's dream city, he said.

The BJP based its election campaign for the MCD on the issues of development but the opposition parties tried to "divert" the campaign towards "negative" issues, said Shyam Jaju, party's national vice president and incharge of Delhi.

"Due to questions raised by the opposition parties on the impartiality of EVMs and sometime against the Election Commission this election became a contest between the BJP symbolising development and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-Congress representing negative thinking," Jaju said.

While several Union ministers including Rajnath Singh, J P Nadda, Harsh Vardhan held public meetings during the campaigning, the party held around 3,300 street meetings to reach out to the voters.

"Nearly 2,000 street plays, special spots on FM channels, advertisements on television channels, besides door-to-door contacts wer part of the campaigning by the party," said campaign committee member Ashok Goel.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today accused the BJP of trying to cover up its corruption in the three municipal corporations by projecting the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the civic polls, and asserted the strategy would not work.

Citing poor sanitation in the national capital which is leading to a rise in vector-borne diseases such as dengue, he said there is no hope from the BJP and that the only hope for the people of Delhi is his Aam Aadmi Party.

"The hope of the BJP is only Narendra Modi through which the party wants to cover up its corruption and the poor sanitation condition.

"How will Modi-ji improve the situation in MCD. Work in the MCD will not be undertaken by Narendra Modi, but local BJP leaders Vijendra Gupta and others," Kejriwal told PTI in an interview.

He also accused the BJP of "completely destroying" the MCD during its 10-year rule.

The elections to all the 272 wards of the three civic bodies where the BJP, Congress and the AAP are locked in a triangular battle will be held on Sunday.

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Two days ahead of Delhi's civic polls, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today accused the BJP of trying to cover up its "corruption and failure" in the local bodies by seeking votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cast doubt on the EC's insistence on the use of EVMs.

He said the BJP's strategy would not work as people know that the three municipal corporations will not be run by Modi, but local leaders of the BJP who have failed in their job in the past 10 years.

Noting that people have started doubting the credibility of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in a "big way", Kejriwal also blamed the Election Commission (EC) for not conducting a "fair probe" into the controversy surrounding it.

The Delhi chief minister said if someone casts his vote in favour of the BJP, the person should know that his vote is going for a Delhi with "filth, dengue and chikungunya" for the next five years.

Citing poor sanitation in the national capital which is leading to a rise in vector-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya, he said there is "no hope" from the BJP and that the only hope for the people of Delhi is his Aam Aadmi Party.

"The only hope for the BJP is Narendra Modi and by using his name, the party wants to cover up its corruption and the poor sanitation condition.

"How will Modi-ji improve the situation in MCD? Work in the MCD will not be undertaken by Modi, but local BJP leaders -- Vijendra Gupta, Vijay Goel and others. People know that Kejriwal, and not Modi, will run the MCD," Kejriwal told PTI in an interview.

He said that if the BJP really wanted to do the something, its leaders in the MCD could have done the same in the last 10 years.

Attacking the BJP for "destroying" all three municipal corporations, Kejriwal said the party has ruled the bodies for 10 years, but it has not done even a single good work in the national capital.

"Civic bodies have failed to clean the city. People are fed up with filth due to which there have been rise in cases of dengue, chikungunya, malaria which have painted a bad image of Delhi in the country as well as the entire world," he said.

Kejriwal said if someone casts his vote in favour of the BJP, he should know that his vote is going for a Delhi with filth, dengue and chikungunya.

"A person voting for the BJP should be held responsible when any member of his family is diagnosed with dengue as he has voted for 'the party of dengue and garbage'," the AAP chief said.

He said that if the AAP is voted to power in the MCD, it will get Delhi rid of "mafias" operating in the supply of electricity and water.

"The AAP government has eradicated tanker, electricity, parking, counterfeit mafias. The AAP is the only party which also can eliminate several mafias - parking mafia, road mafia - in the MCDs," the Delhi chief minister said.

The elections to all the 272 wards of the three civic bodies where the BJP, Congress and the AAP are locked in a triangular battle will be held on Sunday.

Before 2012, there was one unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). During the Sheila Dikshit regime, it was trifurcated into three bodies - North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations. The BJP has been ruling the civic bodies since 2007.

Seeking votes on his government's work, Kejriwal said people know what the AAP dispensation has done for them in the last two years.

The Delhi government looks after four main issues -- electricity, water, health and education where we took "revolutionary steps" that have been discussed across the world, he said.

He said the concept of 'Mohalla Clinic' is being replicated across the country.

"We have ensured medicines and pathological tests free of cost in government hospitals. People are coming to Delhi to study our education model. Electricity is cheaper in Delhi in comparison to other states. We are providing free water and potable water to every household," he said.

Asked about his doubt over EVMs, Kejriwal said people have started doubting the credibility of the machines in a "big way".

"It is the duty of the Election Commission to investigate these doubts. The EC is not conducting a fair probe on EVMs due to which our doubts has become strong," he said.

Asked whether the EC is under pressure, Kejriwal said that it seems so.

Asked about the significance of the MCD polls, the AAP leader said these elections are very significant for the people of Delhi, adding that "if we clean Delhi, a good image of the city will emerge in the entire world as people across the globe come to Delhi".

"If a person from another country comes out of our airport, he or she gets to see dumps of garbage everywhere in Delhi which projects a bad image of the country in the eyes of foreigners.

"If there is spurt in cases of dengue, chikungunya in Delhi, other countries issue advisory asking their citizens not to go to India which paints a bad image of the country. The BJP has painted a bad image of Delhi by poor sanitation, rise in dengue cases," he said.

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The 2010 BP caused damages worth $17.2 billion to the natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new study released on the seventh anniversary of the largest in US history.

This is the first comprehensive appraisal of the financial value of the natural resources damaged by the 134- million-gallon Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20, 2010 that killed 11 people.

"This is proof that our natural resources have an immense monetary value to citizens of the US who visit the Gulf and to those who simply care that this valuable resource is not damaged," said Kevin Boyle, professor in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Science in the US.

The scientists developed a survey to put a dollar value on the natural resources damaged by the BP Deepwater spill by determining household willingness to pay for measures that would prevent similar damages should a spill of the same magnitude happen in the future.

Survey information included descriptions of damaged beaches, marshes, animals, fish, and coral.

On top of estimating the impact of the spill, the $17.2 billion represents the benefits to the public to protect against damages that could result from a future oil spill in the Gulf of a similar magnitude.

In May 2010, one month after the spill, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration commissioned a group of 18 researchers to put a dollar value on the natural resources damaged by the BP Deepwater spill.

To estimate Gulf Coast resource values, researchers created a scenario in which people were told that they could have a role in mitigating future damages by effectively paying for a prevention programme.

Final analysis showed that the average household was willing to pay $153 for a prevention programme. This rate was then multiplied by the number of households sampled to get the final valuation of $17.2 billion.

Last year, the oil and gas firm BP agreed to pay over $20 billion to the American government as damages over the oil spill.

"The results were eye-opening in that we could tell how much people really value marine resources and ecosystems," said Boyle.

"And even more meaningful because we did additional analysis that proved the legitimacy of oft-criticised values for environmental resources," he said.

The project team administered surveys to a large random sample of American adults nation-wide after three years of survey development.

The first round of surveys was administered face-to-face with trained interviewers while the remaining surveys were completed via mail.

Survey participants were informed of pre- and post-spill conditions in the Gulf of Mexico and what caused the oil spill.

They were then told about a prevention programme, which can be viewed as 100 per cent effective insurance against future spill damages, and that another spill would occur in the next 15 years.

With this information, participants were asked to vote for or against the programme, which would impose a one-time tax on their household.

"Our estimate can guide policy makers and the oil industry in determining not only how much should be spent on restoration efforts for the Deepwater spill, but also how much should be invested to protect against damages that could result from future oil spills," said Boyle.

The study was published in the journal Science.
Once a supporter of Britain's decision to leave the EU, President Donald Trump has now said a "strong" Europe is "very, very important" for the US.

"Yes, a strong Europe is very, very important to me as President of the United States. And it is also, in my very strong opinion, important for the US," he told reporters yesterday at a White House press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

"We want to see it. We will help it be strong, and it is very much to everybody's advantage," said the US President, who had once said Britain would be "better off" without the European bloc.

To a question on his visit to Italy this summer to attend the G-7 Summit, he said he looks forward to meeting Pope Francis.

Gentiloni said he is confident in the future of the European Union.

"I told President Trump that we have confidence, even though this is a difficult moment, in the future of the European Union and certainly in the importance of the relationship between the US and Italy," he said.

"We are going through a difficult time, but I have confidence that the European Union will continue to be a positive response to this," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government has allowed businesses to seek advance ruling on tax liability of any deal or valuation of goods once the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is rolled out from July 1.

Seeking to lessen litigation by providing certainty in tax liability in advance, the GST Advance Ruling Rules says the members of the Authority of Advance Ruling (AAR) would be appointed by both the Centre and states. The member would be a Joint Commissioner having the experience of not less than three years in the rank.

The Central GST (C-GST) Act says that 'advance ruling' can be obtained in relation to the supply of goods or services or both being undertaken or proposed to be undertaken by a taxpayer.

Under the current regime, domestic companies can approach the AAR for ascertaining excise or service tax or customs liability if they are entering into any new line of business. However, the GST rules have kept it open for any company to seek an advance ruling on taxability.

Experts said that setting up of the AAR under the GST is a positive development as in the initial days of the GST, there would be lots of queries over valuation, classification of goods as well as ways on availing input tax credit (ITC).

"The plan to set up the AAR shows government's resolve to prevent litigation. They have come out with an AAR mechanism so that people do not have to wait for audit to ascertain the tax liability," Deloitte Haskins Sells LLP Senior Director M S Mani said.

Currently, there is only one AAR in the country and it is in the national capital.

Mani said since in the GST regime there would be doubts in the minds of taxpayers and hence the Centre and states should decide to set up more AAR offices under the new regime.

"The AAR could be set up modelling the Cestat. As many as 8-10 AAR offices need to be set up under the GST regime for faster pronouncement of orders. Each office can be given the jurisdiction over a specific region," he said.

Currently, the AAR has to give its rulings within 6 months from the date of receipt of the application.

Besides, Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (Cestat) offices are present in 10 states including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Cestat acts as an independent forum to hear appeals against orders and decisions passed under Customs Act, Excise Act and Service Tax Act.

The rules on Advance Ruling under the GST would be taken up by the GST Council, comprising Union and state finance ministers, in its meeting on May 18-19.

The GST is being hailed as the biggest tax reform since Independence and is supposed to make it easier to do business by reducing compliance requirements.

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The District Magistrate of Patna, Sanjay Kumar Aggarwal has launched a campaign to help thirsty birds this summer.

He placed an earthen pot filled with water in an open space at his official residence and at the collectorate so that thirsty birds could have access to water.

The DM started the campaign yesterday to inspire Patna citizens. He had also urged the citizens to do the same.

The DM told PTI today that he had started the campaign since he was worried over depleting number of birds in the city, particularly during the summer months.

He also said that he had done this to make an effort to maintain the ecosystem.

Earlier, large number of birds used to be seen, particularly on the roofs of tall government buildings. But the sightings have gone down nowadays, Aggarwal said.

Aggarwal also said that he would ask all government offices to place some water in open places of the buildings to help thirsty birds.

Students in schools would be sensitised about the campaign and pamphlets would be distributed as well, the DM said.

Hoardings would be put at different spots across the city to inspire people to be part of the campaign, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Champs-Elysees gunman who shot and killed a Paris police officer just days before France's presidential election had a note with him defending the Islamic State group, France's anti-terrorism prosecutor said today.

Police investigating yesterday's attack found a note praising IS that apparently fell from the pocket of French assailant Karim Cheurfi, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said. Cheurfi also had addresses of police stations written on bits of paper in his car, he said.

The extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack in an unusually quick statement. Cheurfi, 39, was shot and killed by officers at the scene.

Molins said Cheurfi had a criminal record that included threatening police and that he was arrested in February. But the prosecutor said there was "a lack of known elements of radicalization" in the suspect's past and he was released for lack of evidence of a threat.

Two officials told The Associated Press that Cheurfi was convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in the shootings of two police officers.

The attack on the Champs-Elysees, a grand boulevard synonymous with French glamour that traverses shops and landmarks, came less than 72 hours before the polls open in the first round vote of the presidential election.

The French government pulled out all the stops to protect Sunday's vote as the attack deepened France's political divide.

"Nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country," Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said after a high-level meeting Friday that reviewed the government's already heightened security plans for the two-round presidential vote that begins Sunday.

"Barbarity and cowardice struck Paris last night," the prime minister declared, appealing for national unity and for people "not to succumb to fear."



Investigators believe at this stage that the gunman was alone in killing the police officer and wounding two others and a female German tourist last night, a French official who discussed details of the investigation with the AP said on condition of anonymity.

The policeman killed yesterday was identified as Xavier Jugele by Flag!, a French association of LGBT police officers.

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China has ordered officials to disclose their personal information including marital status and families' overseas assets to the ruling Communist Party, in a move to further strengthen its anti-graft drive.

The central cabinet and the Communist Party of China (CPC) have amended regulations on officials' personal information declarations and provided penalties for violations, an official announcement said.

The revised regulations state that officials from deputy county level up are required to report information, including their marital status, overseas travel, criminal records, wages and other earnings, real estate holdings, stocks, funds, insurance and other investments, state-run Global Times reported today.

Hundreds of officials were reported to have been punished in the anti-graft campaign initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping since he took over power in 2014.

The new version states that Chinese officials must now inform the Party if their spouse or children have been continuously working outside the Chinese mainland for more than a year.

Officials are now required to declare their own overseas bank accounts or investments as well as those of their spouse and children.

They also have to declare the occupation of their daughters or sons-in-law, especially if they are running their own businesses, it said.

The new regulations expand coverage to leading members in government-funded groups and public institutions, as well as middle and senior managers of State-owned enterprises.

The order also outlined the penalties for violators. Officials who failed to truthfully report their assets will be demoted and their promotion will be held back for two years.

It also said that it would be a serious violation if officials declare that the value of their investment is 300,000 yuan (USD 44,000) less than the actual value, or property 50 square meters less than the actual size.

Zhuang Deshui, a professor from Peking University, said that the penalties strengthen the regulations.

"It provides a legal basis for the regulations, which will deter officials and assure its strict implementation," Zhuang told the daily.

"Many officials still violate the regulations due to a weak penalty system. They do not think their careers will be damaged over violations," Zhuang said.

Comprehensive supervision, besides personal property and wealth, China has also enhanced the reporting system to anonymously report officials up to members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, the highest level of officials in China's cadre system, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Since 2010, officials at deputy county level or higher have been required to report their personal information across 14 categories, including marital status, trips, income, property, investments and employment status of their spouse and children.

"Including officials' families in the reporting system is meant to have comprehensive supervision over their wealth," Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, told the Global Times.

More than 9,100 officials have been bypassed for promotion after they were found to have concealed personal information, while 124,800 were punished for making false declarations, the Xinhua Agency reported earlier.

"The new regulations are more detailed after drawing on anti-corruption experience since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012," Zhu pointed out, adding that refinements to the regulations will help guarantee their proper implementation.

Zhu cited a pilot project in Shanghai which started in May 2015 that bans spouses and children of municipality-level officials from engaging in business.

Beijing, Chongqing, South China's Guangdong Province and Northwest China's Uyghur Autonomous Region were included in the project in April 2016.

"With help from big data and the Internet, it is possible to realise comprehensive and real-time supervision over officials' wealth," Zhu said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A constable got injured in a scuffle between policemen and two local goons when they caught hold of their friend in north Delhi's Subzi Mandi area of North Delhi, police said today.

Around 38 home guards from Uttar Pradesh have been sent to North Delhi for the MCD polls. They arrived yesterday and were being escorted to a night shelter by two Delhi police personnel - Amit and Suresh, they said.

While they were on the way to the night shelter, Amit, saw one Anil, allegedly drinking alcohol and creating ruckus, police said.

Amit then apprehended Anil but his friends came there and attacked them.

In the scuffle, they hit Amit with a brick on his head and even tore his uniform, police said.

Anil managed to escape but his friends were nabbed, they added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government today approved new guidelines giving consumers the right to decide service charge they wish to voluntarily pay on a hotel or restaurant bill.

The guidelines, which have made service charge "totally voluntary and not mandatory", will be sent to states for necessary action, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.

The norms, if implemented, will provide relief to customers who have to pay service charge up to 20 per cent on food bills in lieu of tips.

"The government has approved guidelines on service charge. As per the guidelines, service charge is totally voluntary and not mandatory now," the minister tweeted.

"Hotels and restaurants should not decide how much service charge is to be paid by the customer and it should be left to the discretion of the customer," he added.

"Guidelines are being sent to states for necessary action at their end," the minister said in another tweet.

As per the guidelines, the column of service charge in a bill will be left blank for customers to fill up before making the final payment.

"If there is mandatory levy of service charge, customers can file a complaint in the consumer court," a senior consumer affairs ministry official told PTI.

The current consumer protection law does not empower the ministry to go for hefty fines and stringent action against violations. However, the new Consumer Protection Bill under which an authority will be set up will have powers to take action, the official explained.

Last week, Paswan had said the ministry had prepared an advisory on the service charge issue and the same was sent to the PMO for approval.

"Service charge does not exist. It is being wrongly charged. We have prepared an advisory on this issue. We have sent it to the PMO for approval," Paswan had said.

A number of complaints from consumers have been received that hotels and restaurants were putting 'service charge' in the range of 5-20 per cent, in lieu of tips, the ministry had said earlier.

Reacting on the guidelines, the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI) said the service charge levying is a global practice and a legitimate tax.

"Service charge is a global practice and one that has been in force in India for more than half a century. The charge is neither hidden nor disguised. It is categorically and boldly mentioned in the menu," said Dilip Datwani, President, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI).

"A customer patronises a food outlet with the full knowledge that he or she will be levied a service charge. It is not just hospitality, but many businesses levy such charges. We cannot understand why we are being singled out," he added. "It is sad to see constant demands being made from the hospitality industry on one issue or the other. One day, it is reducing food portions and on another day, it is about terminating a legitimate charge.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A court here today granted permission till May 17 to Swami Aseemanand, an accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast case, to travel out of Hyderabad.

On April 13, Aseemanand filed a petition in the court of the additional metropolitan sessions judge seeking the permission to appear in a court in Panchakula on April 28 in connection with a case pending against him there.

He also said he wanted to visit his ailing mother and avail medical treatment for himself.

While accepting his plea, the court asked Aseemanand to return to Hyderabad by May 17 for the Mecca Masjid blast trial.

On March 23, the court granted bail to Aseemanand and another co-accused in the case, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 each with two sureties of the equal amount.

They were also directed not to leave Hyderabad without the permission of the court.

The court had also asked them to remain present in the city for the trial as and when required.

Aseemanand was released from Chanchalguda jail here on March 31.

Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, had been on the run since 2008 till his arrest on November 19, 2010 from Haridwar for his alleged role in the blast on May 18, 2007, in which nine people were killed.

On March, Aseemanand and six others were acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer bomb blast case by a Jaipur court. He was then brought from Jaipur and lodged in the Chanchalguda Central Prison.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The next of kin of the victims or those injured in the 2005 Diwali-eve serial blasts are not turning up before the Delhi District Legal Services Authority to seek compensation, putting the body in a peculiar situation.

Over a decade after the blasts, the authority, which has prepared a list of over 280 victims, is facing difficulty even to trace many of them, even as there is no dearth of funds.

"Warrants were served through Delhi Police last month but only around 50 have turned up to claim the relief so far. Several addresses are not complete, some victims changed their residences, while some others are unknown," Delhi District Legal Services Authority (DDLSA) Secretary Shivani Chauhan told PTI here.

The blasts had occured at Sarojini Nagar, Paharganj and Kalkaji, almost simultaneously on October 29, 2005, taking a toll of 67 lives and leaving over 225 persons injured. Investigators believed the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the attacks.

When asked about the proposed budget, Chauhan said "there is no paucity of funds for the purpose".

She said the authority wants to compensate all those who were injured, or are legal heirs of the persons who had died in the incident, after a Delhi court order in February this year recommended grant of compensation.

"Under the victim compensation scheme, we are trying to compensate even those who received the simplest of injuries," she said.

While some of the victims were Delhi based, many belonged to other states as well.

Some of the victims had earlier approached the Delhi High Court seeking compensation after which it had directed the Delhi government to pay the amount.

"However, the directions are yet to be followed by the government. In those cases, DDLSA is also willing to provide legal aid to the victims and, if possible, even help them initiate contempt proceedings against the government for evading the HC orders," she said.

The DDLSA has also started a toll free number -- 1516 -- for those who want information on the initiative or visit its website -- www.Dslsa.Org/ndd, she said.

Last month, Chief Justice of India J S Khehar had also expressed the need to work for the victims of crime and ensure that they get the due compensation.

A Delhi court had in February acquitted two persons, accused in the case, saying the prosecution has failed to prove their guilt.

However, the court held the third accused guilty of being a member of a terror outfit and giving support to it, but let him off too, saying he has already undergone more than ten years in jail, which is the maximum punishment prescribed under the law for such offences.
Belgian police have detained five people for questioning in a terrorism case unrelated to the latest one in Paris, the Brussels bombings or the 2015 massacre in the French capital, prosecutors said today.

The arrests were made as police raided homes overnight yesterday in the Brussels region, seizing two firearms, ammunition, a bullet-proof vest and a quantity of cannabis, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"In all, five persons were arrested and taken for questioning," it said, adding an investigating judge will decide later today or tomorrow on whether to keep them in custody.

"All persons concerned are suspected of participation (in) the activities of a terrorist group," the statement said.

The prosecutor's office said the case was not linked to the one on the Champs Elysees in Paris late on Thursday when a gunman shot dead a police officer and wounded two others and a foreign tourist.

Nor is it linked to the March 22 bombings in Brussels last year when 32 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. And it is not connected to the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015, which killed 130 people and hurt hundreds more.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif left for Riyadh today to head a 41-nation Islamic military alliance after getting the government's approval, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said amidst concerns here about the Saudi-led grouping.

Asif said that Gen. Sharif had been "given permission to head the military alliance after completion of all legal formalities and requirements" by the Pakistan government three days ago.

Media reports suggested that the 60-year-old former chief of army staff was granted approval to serve as head of the alliance, dubbed as Islamic Nato, for three years.

"We have issued the NOC after he completed all formalities including a permission by army headquarters," he said.

He said Saudi Arabia has approached Pakistan about three months ago to acquire services of General Raheel and Pakistan agreed to allow him to lead the alliance.

Sharif, who has army chief for three years till his retirement on November 29, 2016, left for Riyadh today on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother.

The issue of General Raheel was a difficult decision due to rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran but Pakistan decided to let him join the alliance as its first chief due to close ties with Riyadh.

It was not immediately clear if the government had discussed its decision with opposition parties, which recently expressed serious misgivings regarding the issue in light of the possibility that the alliance may be used against Iran, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The also seemed to go against what the defence minister himself had assured Parliament of on April 13, the report said.

Asif had said that the Saudi government would hold a grand meeting in May, where it would unveil the alliance's Terms of Reference (ToR).

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former COAS Gen Raheel Sharif will attend the event," he had said.

He had further said that the former COAS would formally apply for a No Objection Certificate after the ToR was made public.

He also said that the ToR and the aims and objectives of the alliance would be presented to Parliament before a formal decision would be made on whether Pakistan should become a part of it or not.

The 41-nation armed coalition was initially proposed as a platform for security cooperation among Muslim countries and included provisions for training, equipment and troops, and the involvement of religious scholars for devising a counter- terrorism narrative.

Since of the alliance first surfaced, there have been concerns in Pakistan about its nature and how it may affect a pre-existing parliamentary resolution on Yemen passed unanimously by lawmakers calling for "neutrality in the conflict" in 2015.

On April 13, Asif had told the National Assembly: "We will stick to our prerogative when it comes to Yemen, and the agreement we have will remain binding."



Earlier this week, Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had assured Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Honardoost that Pak-Iran ties would "remain unaffected by recent developments".

"Pakistan greatly values historic Pak-Iran relationship and the same shall continue based on mutual trust and respect for each other's interests," Gen Bajwa had told Honardoost.

Extraordinary importance was attached to the meeting by diplomatic circles because it was the second between the two in around six weeks, a rare happening in Pakistan-Iran relations given the mutual mistrust, the Dawn said.

Earlier this month, Honardoost had said that Iran had reservations on the appointment of Gen Sharif as the head of the Saudi-led Islamic military alliance, warning that it may "impact" the unity among Muslim countries.

"We are concerned about this issue... That it may impact the unity of Islamic countries," Honardoost said, adding that Tehran had conveyed its concerns to Islamabad.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government plans to cancel the registration of more than two lakh companies that have not been carrying out business for a considerable period of time, amid stepped up efforts to tackle the black money menace.

More than two lakh companies, spread across various states, have been served with show cause notices as they have not been carrying out any operation or business activity for a prolonged time.

The Corporate Affairs Ministry's move also comes against the backdrop of overall efforts by the authorities to crack the whip on shell companies, suspected to be used for money laundering activities.

The Registrars of Companies (RoCs) in various states and union territories have issued notices to more than two lakh firms under the Companies Act, 2013, according to information available with the Ministry.

These notices have been issued under Section 248 of the Act, which is implemented by the Ministry. This section pertains to striking off names of companies on certain grounds.

With the issuance of notices, the companies concerned have to explain their position and if the responses are not satisfactory, then their names would be struck off by the Ministry.

Data showed that RoC Mumbai has issued notices to more than 71,000 companies while RoC Delhi has served notices to over 53,000 firms, among others.

As per the regulations, an RoC can seek explanation from a company if the latter has not commenced business within one year of getting incorporated under the Act.

Notice is also issued if a particular company has not been carrying out business for at least two continuous financial years and has not applied for dormant status.

Such entities are given a time of 30 days to submit objections if any.

The Ministry has power to remove or strike off the names of such entities from the "register of companies" if the response is not satisfactory.

Earlier this month, the Ministry had amended the Companies (Removal of Names of Companies from the Register of Companies) Rules.

There are more than 15 lakh registered companies in the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madras High Court today quashed an elderly couple's petition in a lower court in which they claimed actor Dhanush to be their runaway son, holding that it was devoid of merit.

Justice P N Prakash in his order allowed a petition by Dhanush seeking quashing of the case pending in the Judicial Magistrate Court in nearby Melur.

"The couple has not made out a prima facie case for trial and their case in judicial magistrate court is devoid of merit," the Judge, who had on April 11 reserved orders on the petition, said in the verdict.

Earlier on March 2, the high court had stayed the Melur's magisterial court proceedings.

The Judge today rejected the couple's plea for a DNA test on Dhanush, saying they have failed to make a prima facie case for the court to exercise its power in ordering such tests.

R Kathiresan (65) and Meenakshi (53) had moved the Melur court claiming that Dhanush was their third son Kalaichelvan who had ran away to Chennai as a school boy to get into the film world.

They had also sought a monthly maintenance of Rs 65,000, saying they were in a very poor financial position.

However, the actor denied their submissions, saying their statements were false and prayed the high court to quash the suit.

A medical report was filed last month in response to the court's directive for medical verification of Dhanush's identification marks in the wake of the couple's claim.

The report had said identification marks given by the aged couple were not found on Dhanush. But there was a possibility that moles could have been removed.

Reacting to the high court verdict, the couple said they would file an appeal against it.

The judge also rejected the plea of the couple's advocate Titus that the doctors who examined Dhanush should be cross-examined.

Objecting to the legal notice served on Dhanush earlier stating that he was liable to pay maintenance, the judge said the law had not empowered advocates to pass decrees of maintenance, adding it was the job of magistrates.

Justice Prakash slammed the couple for making 'uncharitable remarks' against the actor by saying he had acted in films as villain and drunkard.

When an actor dons the role of a villain in reel life, one cannot conclude that in real life also he is like that, he said.

During the hearing, it was noticed that the school transfer certificate produced by the couple had the date of birth of Kalaichelvan as April 14, 1987 while in hospital record it was mentioned as November 7, 1985.

Besides, no FIR had been filed when Kalaichelvan went missing.

The Judge said the censor certificate issued by the Central Board of Film Certification showed that Dhanush had worked in a film in 2002 itself, whereas Kalaichelvan, going by the District Employment Office records, was unemployed at that time.

Kalaichelvan, in his note before leaving the parents, did not state he was deserting them because of his abiding interest in film as claimed by the parents, he noted.

The judge said there was no materials to show that the aged couple took steps to trace Dhanush.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today dismissed the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) plea for the use of paper trail voting machines in the municipal polls scheduled on April 23, saying it cannot pass such an order at the last minute.

Justice A K Pathak said an order for use of VVPAT (Voter-verified paper audit trail)-enabled Generation 2 or Generation 3 electronic voting machines (EVBMs) cannot be issued at the eleventh hour as it would amount to stalling the election process.

The plea, filed by the AAP as also by Mohd Tahir Hussain who is a candidate in the MCD elections, has contended that the EVMs to be used in the polls were obsolete and open to tampering.

During the arguments before dismissing the plea, the court asked the state election commission of Delhi why it did not opt for VVPAT EVMs in view of the Supreme Court's observation in Subramanium Swamy's case that such machines should be brought into use in a phased manner.

In its arguments, the Delhi poll panel said the question raised by the AAP on the use of EVMs in the was sending a wrong message to the voters.
Concerned over disturbing reports about "harassment" of Kashmiri students, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today asked chief ministers of all states to ensure their safety.

The Home Ministry also issued an advisory to states to take "strict action" against those responsible for such incidents.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states.

"I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well," Home Minister Rajnath Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

Later in the evening, the Home Ministry issued an advisory asking the states to ensure safety and security of Kashmiri students.

"Recently there have been reports of harassment of students of Jammu and Kashmir studying in educational institutions in some states. The state governments and police authorities are hereby requested to take strict action to ensure the safety and security of students from Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

"The state governments and union territories are requested to sensitise the nodal officers already appointed earlier for addressing such complaints from students of Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

The development comes against the backdrop of reports about clashes involving Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and banners asking people from Kashmir to quit Uttar Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh's Meerut, banners calling for boycott of Kashmiris and asking people from the valley to leave the state came up but were removed by the police.

Police have registered an FIR against Amir Jani, the leader of the Hindu right group Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena for putting up the posters in several places in the city.

The poster has a picture of masked protesters hurling stones in Kashmir and a warning "Kashmiris, quit Uttar Pradesh or else...". It also calls for a boycott of Kashmiris pelting the Indian army personnel with stones.

Jani said the banners and hoardings were put along the Partapur bypass outside the colleges where Kashmiri students study.

The outfit warned it was only the first step and that it will launch a "halla bol" campaign from April 30 to "banish" Kashmiris who do not leave the state on their own.

The SHO of Partapur police station Dinesh Sharma said the banners have been pulled down.

Sub-Inspector Vipin Kumar said an FIR has been registered under IPC sections related to promoting or attempting to promote disharmony on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community.

Reports from Rajasthan said tension prevailed in Chittorgarh on Wednesday when a group of locals clashed with Kashmiri students of Mewar university. The clash occurred after the locals allegedly called Kashmiri students "stone pelters" and taunted them over a video showing CRPF personnel being heckled and assaulted in the Kashmir valley.

A video clip of some youths assaulting the personnel on poll duty in Kralpora area in central Kashmir's Budgam district had gone viral on social media recently, triggering a nationwide outrage.

The Home Ministry advisory said action as per law needs to be taken against miscreants and safety of students from other states, including Jammu and Kashmir, needs to be fully ensured.

Sanjay Roy, a Director in the Home Ministry, has been designated as nodal officer and the nodal officers of the states and union territories are asked to send reports of such incidents, if any, along with action taken thereon to him at , it said.

The advisory said a 24x7 helpline for Kashmiris has also been operational and anyone in distress can be contacted at 011-23092923 and 011-23092885.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nearly five lakh hotels and food joints will participate in the April 25 dawn to dusk bandh in Tamil Nadu to express solidarity with the agitating farmers in New Delhi.

Since various trade and commercial bodies have decided to join the bandh called by a some political parties, hotels in the state also decided to down their shutters on the day, Tamil Nadu Hotel Owners Association president, Venkatasubbu told reporters here today.

The farmers are on agitation in New Delhi demanding waiver of loans and drought relief to the tune of Rs 40,000 crore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today agreed to hear two appeals challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict convicting co-conspirator Abdul Latif Adam Momin and acquitting another accused in the sensational 1999 Kandahar hijacking case.

While Momin has appealed against his conviction and award of life imprisonment in the case, Punjab government through the CBI has challenged the acquittal of Bhupal Man Damai alias Yusuf Nepali by the High Court.

A bench of Justices P C Ghose and R F Nariman granted the leave and admitted the appeal for regular hearing, saying "we would hear the matter".

Momin in his appeal has contened that the prosecution has failed to produce evidences which could suggest that he has abated the hi-jacking.

In his plea, he has said that he has been in custody for 17 years and has never been on parole since his arrest on December 30, 1999. He has also contended that his confessional statements were not considered by the court.

The Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Kathmandu to New Delhi, with 179 passengers and 11 crew members on board, was hijacked on December 24, 1999, and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan by five hijackers, who are still absconding.

The hijackers had executed one passenger, Rupin Katyal, and finally negotiated the release of terrorists Masood Azhar Alvi, Syed Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar from Indian jails on December 31, 1999, in exchange for the hostages.

In 2014, the apex court had issued notice on the pleas of Momin and Punjab government against the High Court verdict. On February 25 that year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had dismissed CBI's petition seeking death penalty for Momin.

The High Court while upholding life sentence for Momin, had acquitted two other convicts, Yusuf Nepali and Dilip Kumar Bhujel, of murder charges and conspiracy of hijacking the aircraft, after finding them guilty only under the Arms Act.

Momin, a Mumbai resident, was allegedly found to have links with Pakistan-based militant outfit Harkat-ul- Mujahideen. Bhujel is also an Indian while Nepali hails from Nepal.

In its verdict, the court had observed that though the offences are serious, impinging upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, but keeping in view the fact that the appellant (Momin) was in custody since December 30, 1999, it did not find that any case is made out for enhancement of sentence to death as demanded by CBI.

Momin, along with co-accused Nepali and Bhujel, were awarded life sentence by a Special Anti-Hijacking Court, Patiala, on February 5, 2008.

The High Court had partially allowed the appeals filed by Nepali and Bhujel against the judgment of special court.

It had set aside their conviction for the offences punishable under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 363 (kidnapping), 342 (wrongful confinement), 467 (forgery), 506 (criminal intimidation) with Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as under Section 4 of the Anti Hijacking Act, 1982.

However, the court had upheld the duo's conviction and sentence for charges under Section 25 of the Arms Act.

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Chartered accountants' apex body ICAI has urged members to submit their PAN details to it as failure to do so will result in the income tax department blocking their e-filing accounts.

This comes against the backdrop of many ICAI members who use electronic filing account with the income tax department not submitting the Permanent Account Number (PAN) details to the institute.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), set up by an Act of Parliament, is an apex body for chartered accountants.

"Filing account of the members, who have not provided their PAN details to the institute but are using e-filing account with the income tax department, will be blocked by the income tax authorities after April 30, 2017 in case the same is not updated," ICAI said.

In a recent communication, the institute has also asked its members to ensure that there is no mismatch in details about them in the ICAI and PAN databases.

Citing the income tax department, the institute said due to mismatch in the name in the central database of ICAI and the PAN database, the e-filing account in such cases would also be blocked.

"... There are still many members who have not yet provided their PAN details in the central database of ICAI," the communication, dated April 19, said.

ICAI has asked the members in practice to update their PAN details latest by April 27.

In case of failure to do so, the institute said it has been informed that the income tax department would block the e-filing account of members whose PAN details are not available with ICAI as well as of those where there is mismatch in names in the two databases.

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More than two months after President Donald Trump got into a spat with the leader of Australia, Vice President Mike Pence will be working to smooth over any lingering hard feelings.

Pence will meet with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday as part of his 10-day, four-country trip to Asia. His agenda includes reassuring Turnbull about the state of the unusually strained US-Australia alliance and laying out the new administration's priorities for the Pacific Rim.

"Partly, you could call it a diplomatic clean-up mission," said Michael Auslin of the American Enterprise Institute, an analyst on Asian security issues. Auslin said Pence will be more focused on offering Turnbull a roadmap for how the two countries can work together during Trump's presidency. "It's about re-establishing relations."



The affection the longtime allies usually share for each other is rooted in decades of cooperation on defense, intelligence and trade. Australia has fought alongside the US in every major conflict since World War I, and is one of the largest contributors to the US-led military campaign in Iraq and Syria.

The country is also part of the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing programme with the US, along with Canada, Britain and New Zealand.

But Australia was unhappy with Trump's decision to pull the US out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. Then, Trump and Turnbull had a contentious phone call in January over a refugee resettlement deal struck by the previous Obama administration.

Under the agreement, the US would take up to 1,250 refugees that Australia houses in detention camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Trump, who campaigned on tough-on-immigration policies, was enraged by the agreement, prompting a tense phone call with Turnbull and an angry tweet in which the president dubbed the deal "dumb."



White House spokesman Sean Spicer's subsequent mispronunciation in press briefings of Turnbull's name as "Trumbull" did not help matters.

The fallout has left relations between the US and Australia at their lowest point since the Vietnam War, when Australia's then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam criticized a series of bombings authorised by then-President Richard Nixon.

Dougal Robinson, a research fellow with the United States Studies Centre in Sydney, said the timing of Pence's visit to Australia a mere three months into Trump's presidency is significant.

Robinson noted that it took Obama three years to visit Australia after he was elected, while former Vice President Joe Biden waited seven years before traveling Down Under.

"In the aftermath of the Trump-Turnbull phone call, and no record of any conversation between the president and the prime minister since that phone call, the vice president is clearly coming to try to reassure Australia's political leaders about US commitment to the alliance with Australia," Robinson said.

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Water experts from India and Nepal have held discussions to improve ongoing works in the rivers of Nepal and release of funds for different projects in the country.

The 11th Meeting of India-Nepal Joint Committee on Inundation and Flood Management concluded in Janakpur and Kathmandu today.

The meeting began in Janakpur on April 16 followed by site visits to the Kamala, Baghmati and Lal Bakaya rivers on April 17-18, according to a press release issued by Indian Embassy here.

Sites requiring urgent and critical works were inspected, and works were recommended for the five locations Basbitta on left embankment of Kamala river, Bandipur on left embankment of Kamala river, Kirathpur on right embankment of Kamala river, Badharwa on left bank of Bagmati river and Laxminiya on the Lal Bakaya river, the statement said.

The Indian team was led by AK Sinha, Member (Planning) of the Ganga Flood Control Commission and the Nepalese side was led by Madhukar Prasad Rajbhandari, Director General of Department of Water Induced Disaster Management.

They discussed issues relating to flood forecasting, release of fund for different projects, flood inundation in various rivers and setting up mechanism for proper coordination and flood management projects.

The next meeting of the Joint Committee on Inundation and Flood Management (JCIFM) may be tentatively held in November 2017.

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India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warned today, dismissing as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Referring to allegations that it was "silly for China" not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said "these comments are absurd".

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China' said.

The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi.

"If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily said.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'.

China on April 19 announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action".

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

India yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."



He also said morestandardisednames will be announced later.

"In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetanethnic languages and in the next step we will announce morestandardisationof these names," he said.

Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said,"China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."



"Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," it said.

"India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table," it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.

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The Indian-American community in the US has launched a White House petition, seeking the Trump Administration's intervention to save Indian who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for alleged espionage and subversive activities.

Created by one S.S, the 'We the People Petition' on the White House website said the allegations against Jadhav that he was spying for India is totally false and fabricated.

The petition requires at least 100,000 signatures before May 14 to qualify for a response from the Trump Administration.

"The fact that India is not given consular access to clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated," it said.

"In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that doesn't get punished for the act which he never committed," the petition said.

Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and subversive activities



Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy."



The Pakistan Army had also released a "confessional video" of Jadhav after his arrest.

However, India denied Pakistan's contention and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by the Pakistan authorities.

India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.
She may be one of the most popular Internet stars today but Canadian-Indian YouTube star Lilly Singh believes people have the wrong notion that digital space is an easy route to being "rich and famous".

With 11 million subscribers to her credit, Lilly is one of the highest-earning stars on the video streaming website.

Her videos, often a witty take on topical issues, have featured celebrities like Dwayne Johnson and Priyanka Chopra.

Lilly, currently in India to promote her book "How to be a Bowse: A Guide to Conquering", believes nothing can replace the old-fashioned hard work when it comes to achieving one's dreams.

"Digital space is great to have your voice but you need to have an opinion. It has definitely given voice to those who could not be heard before. But I don't encourage people to make YouTube videos just to be rich and famous.

"Some people perceive that the digital space is an easy route. It is not. You have to be dedicated, perceptive and have a good work ethic. It is a great medium if you are passionate about what you are talking about. Do it for the right reasons," she told PTI in an interview.

She has taken this thought forward in her book, which she says, is a kind of self-help guide that can be referenced in real-life situations.

"The message that I want my readers to take away from the book is the art of hard work, especially the younger generation. They feel they are entitled to success. We are in this age where lot of quotes are thrown at as about how special and wonderful we are.

"This is great but what about working for your dreams. That's what the book is about, the old fashioned hard work."



Comedy seems to be the tool for youngsters to communicate these days and it has given birth to the new-age celebrity of digital stars and stand-up comedians. Lilly feels humour is a great way to deal with thorny issues.

"Comedy is a great way to discuss tings that are hard to talk about. If I want to talk about an issue, comedy is a great vehicle for that. It is light-hearted, easy to digest and people get just a little bit offended. They are more likely to remember what you are trying to say," she says.

Though Internet has also given rise to people who love to be easily offended about things, Lilly says that does not stop her from challenging stereotypes.

Her most popular videos are the ones where she talks about Indian parents, including hers, who she says, enjoy her shows and videos.

"When I first started, I did not really tell them. They just found out from relatives. They did not really get the whole Internet thing but they were supportive. Now, they have seen my videos and they love what I do. They know that the characters are not really them," she says.

Lilly, who also visited Hyderabad and Mumbai, says she has a special connection with her fans in India, who love and support her.

Her tour is being curated by Event Speciale. The US, Canada, Dubai, Australia and the UK are some of the countries on her book promotional tour list. The book is published by Penguin Random House.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Iran sent its condolences today over the latest jihadist attack in Paris, but said France was feeling the blowback from its "concessions" towards "brutal terrorists" in Syria, state media reported.

Foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi condemned last night's shooting that killed a policeman on the world-famous Champs Elysees avenue and expressed sympathy with the French people, the ISNA agency reported.

But he added: "Unfortunately, concessions and at times supportive actions for brutal terrorists indicate a double standard by the Western world in dealing with terrorism, and have made terrorists bolder."



Iran has repeatedly accused Western governments of directly or indirectly supporting jihadists through their backing for rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Shiite-majority Iran strongly supports Assad against Sunni jihadists such as the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for yesterday's attack.

It labels all rebels fighting against Assad's forces as "terrorists".

"Once again we reiterate that terrorism is the first and most urgent danger for peace, stability and global security," Ghasemi said.

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Israel's army said today it had targeted positions inside Syria in retaliation for mortar fire that hit the northern part of the Golan Heights.

"The Israeli army targeted the source of the fire," an army statement said without giving further details.

An army spokeswoman told AFP she was unable to elaborate on how Israel retaliated or to identify any targets that were hit.

Syria's official agency SANA said Israel had struck a Syrian army position in the province of Quneitra on the Golan plateau, "causing damage".

SANA said the Israeli fire came "after a bid by terrorist groups to infiltrate Syrian military positions was foiled".

The Syrian government labels rebel groups and jihadists fighting the regime as "terrorists" and accuses Israel of backing them.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

Around 510 square kilometres of the Golan are under Syrian control.

The two countries are still technically at war, although the border remained largely quiet for decades until 2011, when the Syrian conflict broke out.

The Israeli side is hit sporadically by what are usually deemed to be stray rounds, and Israel has recently taken to opening fire in retaliation.

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has strongly raised the Trump Administration's move to tighten the H-1B visa programmes with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, highlighting the key role played by highly-skilled Indian professionals in boosting American economy.

President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its "abuse" and ensure that the visas are given to the "most-skilled or highest paid" petitioners.

The Indian IT industry has expressed serious concerns over the US' move to tighten the rules for grant of H-1B visa, mainly used by domestic IT professionals for short-term work.

Taking up the case of Indian IT companies and professionals, Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly-skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries, officials said.

During the meeting -- the first cabinet-level interaction between the two countries under the Trump Administration -- Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on it yet, they said.

Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administration's objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly-skilled professionals.

The executive order signed by Trump early this week calls for a review of H-1B visas by the departments of State, Labour, Homeland Security and Justice.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. Indian technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year for their US operations.

The US market accounts for about 60 per cent of the revenue of the Indian IT industry.

Jaitley, leading an Indian delegation, arrived here yesterday to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Over the next two days, the Finance Minister is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, Australia, France, Indonesia and Sweden. He is also likely to meet finance ministers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Stressing that India-US relationship has bipartisan support in both the countries, the Finance Minister in his meeting with the US commerce secretary said the two largest democratic countries of the world over the years have developed strong strategic, economic and defence ties.

The three phone conversations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump had, along with the officials meeting, has shown that the two governments are going to build on this momentum in the years to come, the officials said.

Briefing Ross on India's growth story, Jaitley is believed to have given him an insight into a series of "far reaching reforms" being undertaken by the Modi government post-demonetisation including the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Jaitley said the two countries should be able to move towards achieving the goal of USD 500 billion per annum in bilateral trade in the next few years.

In addition to his meetings and presentations at the annual Spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, Jaitley is also scheduled to attend meetings of other multilateral forums including that of the G-20 finance ministers.

Before leaving Washington DC for New York on Sunday, he is expected to interact with think-tanks and eminent Indian- Americans.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Finance Minister has "strongly raised" the H-1B visa issue with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, highlighting the important role played by highly skilled Indian professionals in America, officials said.

During the meeting here  the first cabinet-level interaction between the two countries under the Trump administration  Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on it yet, sources said.

Taking up the case of Indian IT companies and professionals, Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries, an Indian official said.

Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administration's objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly skilled professionals.

The executive order signed by Trump early this week calls for a review of H-1B visas by the departments of State, Labour, Homeland Security and Justice.

Jaitley, leading an Indian delegation, arrived in Washington DC yesterday morning to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Over the next two days, the Finance Minister is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, Australia, France, Indonesia and Sweden. He is also likely to meet finance ministers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Stressing that India-US relationship has bipartisan support in both the countries, the Finance Minister in his meeting with the commerce secretary said the two largest democratic countries of the world over the years have developed z strong strategic, economic and defence relationship.

The three phone conversations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump have had, along with the officials meeting, has shown that the two governments are going to build on this momentum in the years to come, the official said.

Briefing Ross on India's growth story, Jaitley is believed to have given an him insight into a series of "far reaching reforms" being undertaken by the Modi government post-demonetisation including the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Jaitley said the two countries should be able to move towards achieving the goal of USD 500 billion per annum in bilateral trade in the next few years.

In addition to his meetings and presentations at the annual Spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, the Union minister is also scheduled to attend meetings of other multilateral forums including that of the G-20 finance ministers.

Before leaving Washington DC for New York on Sunday, he is expected to interact with think-tanks and eminent Indian- Americans.
A Jet Airways flight from Amsterdam to Toronto with 352 people on board today suffered tail strike, forcing the pilot to return to the Dutch capital.

The airline said the passengers and the crew landed safely.

It was operating a Boeing 777-300ER plane.

Sources said the flight suffered a tail strike while taking off from Amsterdam to Toronto and later faced pressurisation problems.

Following the issues, the pilot decided to return to Amsterdam, they added.

A Jet Airways spokesperson said the flight 9W 234 returned to Amsterdam due to a "suspected tail scrape during take-off".

"The aircraft, with 337 guests and 15 crew, landed safely and is currently being inspected by Jet Airways' engineering team," he said in a statement.

The airline also regretted the inconvenience caused to its passengers.

In January this year, a Jet Airways plane's tail had touched the runway during landing at the Dhaka airport. The flight was from Mumbai.

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A Jet Airways flight from Amsterdam to Toronto today suffered tail strike, forcing the pilot to return to the Dutch capital.

The airline was operating a Boeing 777-300ER plane, which has capacity to seat more than 300 passengers.

Sources said the flight suffered a tail strike while taking off from Amsterdam to Toronto and later faced pressurisation problems.

Following the issues, the pilot decided to return to Amsterdam, they added.

The exact number of passengers on board the aircraft was not immediately known.

Comments from Jet Airways is awaited.

In January this year, a Jet Airways plane's tail had touched the runway during landing at the Dhaka airport. The flight was from Mumbai.

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Khadi products like bed sheets, abdomen sheets, dressing towels, surgeon gown and herbal shampoo will soon make their way into government hospitals across the country.

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), which has already bagged orders from Lady Hardinge Medical College, Sucheta Kriplani Hospital and Safdarjung Hospital, is eyeing sales worth Rs 150 crore in the current fiscal from supplies to government hospitals.

"We are expecting orders worth around Rs 150 crore from government hospitals under the Union Health Ministry spread across the country in the current financial year," KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena told PTI.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has time and again urged Indians to embrace the indigenous fabric Khadi on various platforms including his radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat'.

The sales of Khadi products rose 35 per cent in 2016-17, and the KVIC has been bagging orders worth crores from various government agencies like the Indian Railways and Air India.

Saxena informed that following his meeting with the Union Minister of Health of Family Welfare J P Nadda - the ministry, in February had ordered 23 central government hospitals and medical research institutions such as AIIMS, PGIMER, NIMHANS and others to buy Khadi products only.

Thereafter, Lady Hardinge Medical College and Sucheta Kriplani Hospital had requested the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) to supply Khadi products approximately worth Rs 33 lakh.

"It is the first bulk order for us from any government hospital, after a small one from Safdarjung Hospital. It will now pave way for others to follow," Saxena said.

The chairman said that adopting Khadi for hospitals and their staff symbolises it as the most natural and organic skin-friendly fabric.

Moreover, such orders will provide livelihood support to Khadi artisans, Saxena said.

The 45 Khadi products approved by the health ministry include bed sheets, abdomen sheets, dressing towels, surgeon gown, surgical patient gown, kurta pajama, doctor's coat, soaps, hand sanitizer, Khadi phenyl, herbal shampoo, among others.

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The relatives of 44 Nepalese migrant workers, who were arrested in India for staging a protest against their employer, have asked the government to take steps to secure their release.

Submitting an application to National Human Rights Commission Chairman Anup Raj Sharma in Mahendranagar on Wednesday, they said that the Nepalese labourers who were all in Himachal Pradesh were innocent.

"Nepal Government should take the initiative for their immediate release," said Dhana Bhandari whose husband was arrested along with 44 other Nepalis, employed by a hydropower company, for staging a protest demanding salary hike.

Bhandari claimed the Indian authorities have already released the Indian workers who were also arrested along with the Nepalese in the same case.

"The Indian authorities have barred us from making any kind of contact with our relatives," she informed.

NHRC Chairman Sharma has assured them that he will look into the matter and take necessary steps.

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Global private equity giant on Friday sold 5.6 per cent stake in Dalmia Bharat for an estimated Rs 575 crore through an open market transaction.

The shares were purchased by a host of entities, including Kuwait Investment Authority, Birla Mutual Fund and Franklin Templeton Investment Funds.

According to block deal data available with stock exchanges, Mauritius Cement Investments offloaded a total of 49,65,270 shares, amounting to 5.58 per cent stake, of Dalmia Bharat.

The shares were sold on an average price of Rs 2,047.5, valuing the transaction at Rs 574.86 crore, it added.

In January 2016, Dalmia Bharat had announced that it signed a pact with to acquire the global private equity giant's 15 per cent stake in its subsidiary Dalmia Cement Bharat Ltd for over Rs 1,218 crore in a cash-and-stock deal.

The deal had earned the private equity player a return of 2.4 times on its investment of Rs 500 crore it made in September 2010.

The stock of Dalmia Bharat on Friday closed at Rs 2,048.95 on BSE, down 1.74 per cent from the previous close.
Barely four months after it was thrown open to public, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's ambitious project has come under the scanner of the Yogi Adityanath government.

The expressway is being scrutinised for an alleged scam, involving farm land being passed as land for residential purposes to get higher compensation.

According to official sources, the state government has directed 10 district magistrates to probe all land deals done in around 230 villages over the last 18 months.

It has hired public sector company RITES to conduct a technical survey of the expressway within a month.

The move comes after a special field officer of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), Y N Lal, filed an FIR in Firozabad against five 'chakbandi' (land consolidation) officers and 22 land owners accusing them of showing agriculture land in Bachhela Bachheli village as land for residential purposes.

Around 3,500 hectare of land was purchased from 20,456 farmers in 10 districts of 232 villages for this project.

UPEIDA chief executive officer Awanish Awasthi told PTI that he has sent letters to the district magistrates concerned on April 19.

The idea is to ensure that genuine farmers are not affected, he said.

The previous Samajwadi Party government had claimed that the 302-km long expressway was constructed in record time and then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav often peppered his election speeches with the mention of his "dream project".

The present government claims that around Rs 670 crore alloted for the project is lying unused in its accounts. Around Rs 200 crore of this amount is with the district magistrates and the rest were with the UPEIDA, despite around 99.5 per cent of land for the project have already been purchased.

The District Magistrates have been asked to return funds lying with them, while the amount with UPEIDA has been reversed, officials said.

The expressway, which cost Rs 15,000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unnao, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi. It has an air strip near Unnao, where fighter planes can land, making it unique.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been reviewing the schemes of the Akhilesh Yadav government, including the Samajwadi Pension Yojana, Gomti river front project, Smartphone Yojana and cycle track project.

He has also ordered a thorough review of the prestigious Yash Bharti Awards, started by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1994, saying that giving them away to undeserving persons lowers the prestige of such an honour.

The government has also instructed magistrates of districts along the proposed Poorvanchal Expressway, connecting Lucknow and Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh, to stop land consolidation in 19 villages of Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur districts till land acquisition is completed.

So far, the government has purchased about 35 per cent of the land required for this project.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today called upon regional parties to unite to take on the BJP which, she alleged, has unleashed "vendetta politics" against those opposed to it and wanted to take the country to a "dangerous path."



"What is going on in the country in the name of politics is not politics. The situation demands all regional parties to unite," Banerjee told party workers at a meeting here shortly after being re-elected as chairperson of Trinamool Congress for six years.

"I do not want anything. I want you all (regional parties) to progress, I am there in your support. I am giving this message to all parties. Be together, be united, my party will stand by all of you," she said.

"BJP has resorted to vendetta politics. They are out to break the federal structure of the country. BJP is against our party because we talk about the people.

"They want to finish us by unleashing an agency (CBI) against our leaders but they themselves will be finished. TMC will strike back," she said asking partymen not to get scared.

With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha election, she said, "Whatever the conspiracy is, you have to go to the grassroot level and meet our workers. Take the challenge for two years. We will fight taking along everyone."



In an obvious reference to the CBI filing cases against 12 TMC leaders and ministers, Banerjee said, "We respect CBI as an institution but it is not that CBI we know. These days CBI is like a mouse which has been domesticated".

The TMC leaders against whom CBI had filed FIRs in the Narada sting operation case were present at the meeting.

Banerjee said that there was no proof against them.

She said that TMC parliamentary party leader Sudip Bandopadhyay was arrested by CBI because he had spoken against demonetisation.

"He is kept in jail for four months. There is no law in the country," she said.

"One party has spoilt the politics in the country. They are spending crores of rupees. Where is this money coming from," she said.

BJP, however, dismissed her allegations and claimed that it was actually TMC which is practising the politics of vendetta.

"Banerjee realised that she has lost (the people's support). That is why she is talking like this. It is not BJP but TMC which is playing vindictive politics," party national secretary Rahul Sinha said.

He said that recent Ram Navami processions were taken out by people and not by any political party and alleged that they were stopped by the state administration. "This shows the vindictive attitude of TMC," he said.

Banerjee asked her partymen to remain alert as cadres of the RSS, BJP and Bajrang Dal were trying to enter the state from outside.

Denying the charge, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said, "She is allowing terrorist elements from Bangladesh to come to the state".

Banerjee also alleged that people were paid to open fake Facebook accounts using her name and photographs as well as spread rumours to instigate violence.

She also attacked the BJP on the issue of Hindutva saying, "They are out to unleash communal riot. We will not tolerate this. There is a limit to everything".

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Andhra Pradesh police today arrested a computer professional from Hyderabad for allegedly posting a picture on social media which projected the state legislature in a derogatory manner.

Ravi Kumar, who works in Hyderabad, allegedly posted a picture of the legislature building on a social media platform. Photographs of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh were also inset within it.

TDP MLC, T D Janardhan, had asked the legislature secretary to lodge a police complaint.

Tulluru police in Guntur district arrested Ravi Kumar this morning under section 292 of IPC (circulation of obscene material) and relevant sections of Information Technology Act, said the Superintendent of Police Narayan Naik.

The arrest comes against the backdrop of Telugu Desam government's recent decision to crack down on derogatory posts about the government and the party on the social media.

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Former chief minister Sheila Dikshit today said the MCD polls are a litmus test for the Congress's Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken and hit out at Arvinder Singh Lovely, who quit the party to join the BJP, terming him an "opportunist".

She said that if Congress manages to win a "good number" of seats in the municipal corporation elections, then Maken will prove his detractors in Delhi Congress wrong.

"Let us wait for the election results when we will be really able to judge whether our impression is correct or incorrect. If Congress wins a good number of seats then what we are thinking would be proved wrong," she said when asked about questions on Maken's style of functioning.

Dikshit's name was not included in the list of party's top campaigners although Maken had claimed that he had a written to her for participating in the campaigning for party candidates.

Maken has faced criticism from some senior leaders of Delhi Congress over ticket distribution for the elections. A former member of the Dikshit regime AK Walia had threatened to quit the party in protest against Maken.

Dikshit hit out at Lovely saying he lacked commitment to the Congress ideology and joined the BJP for "personal gains".

"Lovely had been minister in the Congress government and a DPCC president. As an opportunist he has gone away from here. Congress gave him everything he deserved. He did not seem to have neither patience nor commitment to the ideology of the Congress and he went away for personal gains," Dikshit told NDTV.

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"More than 50 Afghan soldiers have been killed" in a Taliban attack today on their base near the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a US military spokesman told AFP.

The attack lasted several hours but was over by early evening, according to the spokesman, who wished to remain anonymous.

US General John Nicholson, commander of NATO's Resolute Support operation, said in a separate statement that the attack targeted "soldiers at prayer in a mosque and others in a dining facility" of the 209th Corps of the Afghan army.

The general, who did not give a toll, praised "the Afghan commandos who brought today's atrocity to an end".

Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Dawlat Waziri said gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms had launched the attack on the army compound on the outskirts of Mazar-i- Sharif, capital of Balkh province.

"In total, there were 10 attackers involved in the attack on the Afghan army corps. Seven of them were killed, two blew themselves up, and one was detained by Afghan forces," Waziri told AFP.

The Afghan general earlier gave a toll of eight soldiers killed and 11 wounded but said this would change.

Several military helicopters were hovering over the site and ambulances were evacuating the bodies of the victims, an AFP correspondent said.

In a statement the Taliban claimed responsibility for the operation.

The last major attack against a military site dates back to early March, a coordinated hours-long assault on the country's main military hospital in Kabul.

Officials said around 50 people were killed in that attack, though credible sources said it was more than double that.

That operation was claimed by the Islamic State group.

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Most of the six places in that China renamed recently have some significance related to the Dalai Lama or Tibet, a China expert said on Friday.

"This is only an attempt to show its severe displeasure to India" for allowing the Dalai Lama to visit the Tawang monastery in and address religious congregations there, Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, told PTI.

China had earlier this week given a new name, Wo'gyainling, to Guling Gompa, located on the outskirts of Tawang. This is the place where the sixth Dalai Lama was born.

Daporijo town in Upper Subansiri district was named Mila Ri. It is located besides the river Subansiri,which is one of the principal rivers of and a major tributary of the Brahmaputra.

Kondapalli said this place has been used by people from Tibet to enter into India and has been a corridor that has not seen military presence from either side for many years.

Renaming of Mechuka as Mainquka was to challenge India's claim on the area as it is strategically located, with heavy military presence, he said. The Indian Air Force maintains an Advanced Landing Ground there, which is located in West Siang district.

Bumla, the place where the Dalai Lama made his first stopover during his April 4-13 visit to Arunachal Pradesh, has also been renamed by the Chinese as Bumola.

Kondapalli said that this area was invaded in 1962 by the Chinese troops who were subsequently pushed back by the Indian Army.

Namaka Chu area has been renamed as Namkapub Ri, he said, adding the area has a huge potential for hydro-electricity. China renamed a sixth place as Qoidengarbo Ri area but it is not clear which place in Arunachal Pradesh it refers to.

According to Kondapalli, these areas also have a huge potential for agriculture and fisheries besides hydro- electricity.

All these places came into prominence in the 1980s when several Chinese strategic scholars started writing about them, saying these could solve problems of electricity and vegetation in Tibet, he said.

These green areas, capable of producing vast quantities of food, were seen by Chinese scholars as the "apple of the eye" of the Tibet region, which is generally dry, Kondapalli said.

He said this is part of a trend started by China of giving names to their claims -- specifically the islands in South China Sea where it has conflicting claims with Southeast Asian countries.

Kondapalli suggested that India can hit back at China by renaming Aksai Chin and Mansarovar areas, which are under Chinese occupation but claimed by India.
Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda today said the Madhes-centric parties will pay a "terrible price" if they rejected the government's appeal to participate in the local-level elections on May 14.

The government has maintained utmost flexibility to address the concerns of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha, an alliance of seven Madhes-centric parties, to bring it on board the election process, Prachanda, also the chairman of the Maoist party, said while addressing an election rally organised by CPN (Maoist Centre) in Birtamod in Jhapa.

The alliance will pay a terrible price if it turns down the government's request to participate in the local-level elections, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post.

The Prime Minister said that he would try to convince the agitating Madhesis to participate in the polls.

In case the Morcha leaders refused to participate in the local elections, the decision will only hurt them and their reputation, Prachanda said.

The people will reject Morcha if it decided to boycott the elections, he said, adding that the elections will be conducted in a single phase on May 14.

Yesterday, six prominent Madhesi parties merged to form Rastirya Janata Party.

The six parties that have merged include Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party, Sadbhawana Party, Rastriya Madhes Samajbadi Party, Tarai Madhes Sadbhawana Party, Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Ganatantrik and Nepal Sadbhawana Party.

The six parties have 24 lawmakers in the Parliament.

The Madhesi parties, who claim to represent the interests of inhabitants of the southern Terai region who are mostly of Indian-origin, demand that the Constitution promulgated in 2015 be amended to revise the provisions of citizenship and re-demarcation of the provincial boundary before going to the polls.

Although they have announced to boycott the polls, Prachanda-led coalition government is making efforts to bring them to the electoral process so as to implement the Constitution.

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Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari today promised to take necessary steps to arrange 'Kasturi' for Shri Jagannath Temple here to tide over the acute shortage of musk essential for special rituals of the Lord.

Bhandari, who paid obeisance to the presiding deities in the 12th century shrine, told reporters that she would take up the issue of shortage of Kasturi, which is obtained from a stag's navel, with the Nepal government.

The visiting dignitary said she would take appropriate measures to resolve the problem so as to enable the temple authorities to continue with the rituals and traditions for the deities without disruption.

The rare and precious Kasturi was earlier received by the Shri Jagannath Temple from Nepal during monarchy. As the purity and quality of Kasturi from Nepal is considered high, it was used for special rituals of the deities.

Expressing happiness after darshan of Lord Jagannath, Bhandari thanked President Pranab Mukherjee as well as the Centre and Odisha government for the arrangements made for her visit. She also thanked the residents of Puri and Sevayats.

Noting that India and Nepal enjoyed age-old friendly ties with strong cultural bonds, she expressed the hope that the bilateral relationship would continue in future. Bhandari also wished further development of India.

The Nepal President, who is on the concluding leg of her two-day tour of Odisha, visited the shrine and offered prayers to Lord Jagannath amid tight security.

The visiting dignitary, who spent around 40 minutes in the temple premises, was welcomed near the Lion's Gate by senior officials of the district, temple administration and servitors.

Elaborate security arrangements were made both outside and inside the temple for her visit, while the entry of other devotees into the shrine was restricted.

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) today filed charge sheet in a special court here against five persons for allegedly killing an RSS member here last year with an intention to strike terror among people and prevent them from joining the outfit.

Those named in the charge sheet were members of Popular Front of India (PFI) and its affiliated political organisation Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), an NIA release said.

"A charge sheet was filed today before a special court here against five persons for killing RSS member Rudresh with an intention to strike terror among a section of the people," it said.

The killing of Rudresh had raised a political storm with saffron parties staging protests over it in the state. BJP leader and former minister Shobha Karandlaje had alleged involvement of a state minister in the incident.

The NIA said its investigation established that the accused and others had conspiracy meetings prior to the terrorist act near Aksa Masjid, and Chota Charminar in Bengaluru in September 2016.

They decided to kill at least two RSS workers in uniform soon after their procession, the NIA said.

The killing of RSS workers would immediately strike terror in a section of people and prevent many of them from joining the organisation, the release added.

Investigation has disclosed that the indoctrination of the members was done in order to make them believe that they were doing their act as part of fulfilling the objective of "establishing Islam and jihad by killing a kafir (a non- Muslim)", NIA said.

The intention to strike terror among a section of the people was achieved by the broad-daylight murder of Rudresh who was in uniform, using a lethal weapon on October 16, 2016, it said.

None of the accused, arrested last year, had personal enmity with the deceased Rudresh and was killed solely because of his leadership and membership to a particular organisation, it added.

The accused are Irfan Pasha, Waseem Ahmed, Mohammad Sadiq, Mohammed Mujeeb Ulla and Asim Sheriff.

They have been listed in the charge sheet under sections Indian Penal Code sections and under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the agency said.

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Alzheimers group meeting

COLUMBUS -- The Columbus Alzheimer/Dementia Support Group will meet at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Columbus Community Center, 3111 19th St.

The program will be on sundowning/tips.

For more information, call 402-564-5729 or 402-564-1980.

Healthy snacks event at church

COLUMBUS -- Big Pals-Little Pals will have a healthy snacks event 6:30 p.m. May 16 at Federated Church.

The event is being made possible by a Thrivent Action Team and the Platte County Extension Office. Participants will take part in interactive games and learn about healthy snacks.

For more information, call 402-563-1081.

CCH holding health class

COLUMBUS -- Columbus Community Hospital will sponsor a Healthy Lifestyle Class from 6-8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Columbus Wellness Center, 3912 38th St.

Session topics will include carbohydrate counting, fat and calories, strategies for weight loss, physical activity, healthy snacks and setting goals for success. This class will benefit those who are overweight or get little exercise, are over 45 years of age, have gestational diabetes or a family history of diabetes or heart disease, or have high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

The class is free. To register, call 402-562-4462 or visit www.columbushosp.org.

Realife holding open house

COLUMBUS  Realife of Columbus will hold an open house 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.

The senior living community is located at 3600 30th St.

For more information, call 402-563-1122.

Lakeview holding 7th-grade orientation

COLUMBUS -- Lakeview will host orientation for all incoming seventh-grade students from 8:30-11:30 a.m. Thursday.

Bring report cards from the last three quarters and $2.90 for lunch.

For more information, call Cindy Wendt at the Lakeview office, 402-564-8518.

Shopping bus trip planned

COLUMBUS -- Life is a Journey" will be offered in the form of a bus trip sponsored by Central Community College-Columbus that will take participants to Iowa and Illinois for shopping, salvaging and sharing.

The bus will depart from the NPPD parking lot in Columbus at 7 a.m. June 4 and return to the same location on the evening of June 6. The cost is $399, which includes transportation and hotel (double occupancy). Registration and payment are required by Thursday.

Highlights will include the opportunity to shop at more than 150 boutique stores on the banks of the Mississippi River, visit Antique Archaeology, which is home to The History Channels hit show "American Pickers," and wander through 13 greenhouses on 26 acres.

For more information or to register, contact Karen Mroczek at 402-562-1249; toll-free at 1-877-222-0780, ext. 1249; or email kmroczek@cccneb.edu.
President Donald Trump has said he does not see a role for the United States in Libya apart from defeating the Islamic State terror group.

At a White House press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni yesterday, Trump said the US will play no part in helping stabilise the war-ravaged nation.

"I do not see a role in Libya," he said, moments after Gentiloni stressed on the "critical" importance of American engagement in ensuring a stable and unified Libya. "I think the United States has right now enough roles. We're in a role everywhere."



"I do see a role in getting rid of ISIS. We are being very effective in that regard," he asserted.

Trump said he saw defeating the Islamic State, be it in Iraq or Libya, as the primary task for the US, beyond which he would want to focus on issues back home.

"It is a horrible thing to say, but we have no choice. We are effectively ridding the world of ISIS. I see that as a primary role, and that's what we are going to do, whether it is in Iraq or in Libya or anywhere else. That role will come to an end at a certain point, and we'll be able to go back home and rebuild our country, which is what I want to do," he said.

Gentiloni earlier said that a divided and conflict-torn Libya would make stability worse, stressing that the US's part in the situation was "critical".

"I believe that one clear goal should be this: We need the region, and we need countries like Egypt and Tunisia that are close to Libya. We need a stable and unified Libya. A divided country and in conflict would make stability worse. The US role in this is very critical," the prime minister said.

He said America has played a key role in preventing the consolidation of terrorism with the IS facing defeat in Iraq and Syria.

"There were operations that were sustained by the US against Daesh in the city of Sirte which were successful. Now the commitment must be political," he said.

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Expelled RJD MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav was today released from Beur jail here after 25 days following his arrest on March 27.

The Madhepura MP secured bail from Patna High Court on April 19 and was released today, Beur jail officials said.

Yadav's supporters who gathered outside the jail celebrated his release by distributing sweets.

From the jail, the Janadhikar Party chief proceeded straight to Motihari to meet family members of two union leaders of a private sugar mill who died after self-immolation attempt on April 10 to protest against non-payment of arrears.

Yadav told PTI that he would provide Rs 50,000 to each of the two family on behalf of Janadhikar Party.

"Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad have no time to meet the two bereaved families. But, I thought I should go straightway to them in their hour of grief," he said.

Yadav was arrested from his residence in Patna on March 27 night after his party activists clashed with policemen during a programme to gherao the state Assembly.

However, he was arrested not in connection with the clash but in an earlier case in which he was charged with creating law and order problem on January 24.

His wife and Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan had raised in Lok Sabha the issue of Yadav's arrest and also his hand-cuffing during production in a Patna court. Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had lend support to her on the matter.

Subsequently, 11 policemen were suspended on April 6.

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Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is scheduled to leave on a five-day visit to the national capital tomorrow, his second visit to Delhi in a month, amid speculation of non-BJP parties planning to field a united candidate for the ensuing presidential elections.

Sources said Patnaik is scheduled to attend a meeting of the NITI Ayog and meet some Union Ministers during his five days stay in the national capital. He is scheduled to return to the state on April 26.

Patnaik had been on a visit to Delhi earlier this month from April 7 to 11 and had attended the Inter-State Council meeting.

The Chief Minister's programme of visiting Delhi came a day after his meeting with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee.

Banerjee had, however, claimed they had not discussed the presidential elections during the meeting.

Earlier in March, Patnaik had a discussion with JDU president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Bhubaneswar.

JD(U) spokesman K C Tyagi had then told a local channel that Nitish had a talk with Naveen on the ensuing presidential elections and that efforts are on to field a candidate by non-BJP parties.

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Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana flew to a disputed South China Sea island today, brushing off a challenge by the Chinese military while asserting Manila's territorial claim to the strategic region.

"This is just a normal visit within our territory, which we believe and we know is (our) territory," the minister told reporters who accompanied him on the brief trip.

China claims most of the South China Sea, including Thitu island which Lorenzana visited and the Philippines calls Pag- asa island.

In recent years Beijing has been building up disputed reefs into artificial islands, including on Subi Reef about 26 kilometres from Thitu, which can house military facilities.

Lorenzana said construction would start "within the next few weeks" for a quay on Thitu where construction materials will be landed for repairs on an existing airstrip on the largest of nine Philippine-garrisoned outcrops in the Spratly archipelago.

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the Spratlys, either wholly or in part.

As the military transport plane bearing Lorenzana and local officials of Palawan island, the largest land mass close to the Spratlys, prepared to land, the minister said the pilots received a warning from Chinese forces on Subi.

He said the pilots were warned the aircraft was illegally entering Chinese territory, a routine for all Philippine aircraft landing on the Thitu airstrip since China reclaimed Subi. He said his pilots disregarded the warning.

"That's their protocol. That's procedural. We also reply that we are flying over Philippine territory," he said.

Lorenzana visited Thitu more than a week after President Rodrigo Duterte pulled back from an announcement to visit the island on June 12 and raise the Philippine flag there.

Duterte said later he had called off the trip "because we value our friendship" with Beijing.

Reversing the course set by predecessor Benigno Aquino, Duterte has sought to improve his nation's relations with Beijing by adopting a non-confrontational approach over their competing claims in the strategically vital waters believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves.

Lorenzana however said Duterte was not backing down from his orders for the military to reinforce its installations in the Spratlys, and has alloted 1.6 billion pesos ($32.16 million) for these.

He said both China and Vietnam have long been fortifying their own garrisons on nearby outcrops.

"We all know that China is the most powerful country in our neighbourhood, they are economically powerful, also militarily," Lorenzana said.

"We are trying manage the issue and talk to them... settle this dispute in the South China Sea."



As Lorenzana flew to Thitu, the Philippine coast guard announced a group of Filipino fishermen have accused China's coast guard of shooting at their vessel in another section of the Spratlys.

Philippine officials said they were investigating the reported attack on the Princess Johann boat, which the crew said occurred near the Chinese side of the Union Banks atoll on March 27.

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A poll activist has moved the Madras High Court accusing the Election Commission of committing "dereliction of duty" in not lodging complaint against bribe- taking voters and has sought remedial action over the matter.

Acting on the plea by activist Arun Natarajan, a bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar issued notice to the poll panel seeking its stand over the matter and adjourned it for further hearing on July 11.

Appearing for the petitioner, senior counsel Nalini Chidambaram said section 171(b) of the Indian Penal Code clearly states that bribe takers are as much guilty of the offence of bribery as the bribe givers.

The counsel said the EC report on recent cancellation of the R K Nagar bypoll here, mentioned only about bribe givers and not a word was said about the bribe takers, who too were equally guilty of the offence.

Referring to the Election Commission reports and the complaints lodged in this regard, the counsel argued that two lakh voters out of 2.4 lakh eligible voters were given Rs 4,000 each.

But no voter was mentioned in the complaints.

"The election commission missed a golden opportunity and is guilty of dereliction of duty," the counsel said.

The Election Commission counsel Niranjan Rajagopal said the constitutional body was mandated to hold elections, and watched only contestants' conduct during the polls.

While not denying the fact that the collusion of voters in bribery too could have been attended to, the EC counsel said there were practical difficulties too as the commission could not either identify or slap cases on two lakh voters.

"What will be the voters' response then, and will they come for voting at all?" he asked.

Chidambaram, however, said it would have sent a strong message to errant voters who were under the impression that taking money to cast votes was not an offence at all.

After hearing the preliminary arguments, the bench issued notice to the EC and adjourned the matter for further hearing.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today expressed shock at the loss of lives in the blaze in Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh.

"My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones in the fire at Chhindwara. The incident is shocking beyond words," he tweeted.

At least 14 people were charred to death in the major fire that broke out during sale of kerosene oil and various food grains at a fair price shop, officials said.

About three dozen people were inside the building and many others standing in a queue outside at the time of the incident, the officials said.

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Concerned over disturbing reports about clashes involving Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and banners asking people from Kashmir to quit Uttar Pradesh, the Union government today asked chief ministers of all states to ensure their security.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states.

"I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well," Home Minister Rajnath Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

The home minister said an advisory is being sent by his ministry to all the states for the safety and security of Kashmiris living there.

In Uttar Pradesh's Meerut, banners calling for boycott of Kashmiris and asking people from the valley to leave the state came up but were removed by the police.

Police have registered an FIR against Amir Jani, the leader of the Hindu right group Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena for putting up the posters in several places in the city.

The poster has a picture of masked protesters hurling stones in Kashmir and a warning "Kashmiris, quit Uttar Pradesh or else...". It also calls for a boycott of Kashmiris pelting the Indian army personnel with stones.

Jani said the banners and hoardings were put along the Partapur bypass outside the colleges where Kashmiri students study.

The outfit warned it was only the first step and that it will launch a "halla bol" campaign from April 30 to "banish" Kashmiris who do not leave the state on their own.

The SHO of Partapur police station Dinesh Sharma said the banners have been pulled down.

Sub-Inspector Vipin Kumar said an FIR has been registered under IPC sections related to promoting or attempting to promote disharmony on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community.

Reports from Rajasthan said tension prevailed in Chittorgarh on Wednesday when a group of locals clashed with Kashmiri students of Mewar university. The clash occurred after the locals allegedly called Kashmiri students "stone pelters" and taunted them over a video showing CRPF personnel being heckled and assaulted in the Kashmir valley.

A video clip of some youths assaulting the personnel on poll duty in Kralpora area in central Kashmir's Budgam district had gone viral on social media recently, triggering a nationwide outrage.

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The Vadnagar railway station in Gujarat where Prime Minister used to sell tea during his childhood, is to get a facelift worth Rs 8 crore, Union minister Manoj Sinha said here today.

"(A sum of) Rs 8 crore has been sanctioned for the development of Vadnagar railway station in Mehsana district," the minister of state for railways told reporters.

Sinha was in Sachana village today to inaugurate the Inland Container Depot (ICD), built by the Continental Warehousing Corporation (Nhava Seva) Ltd.

Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had often mentioned that he used to sell tea during his childhood at the Vadnagar railway station along with his father.

Vadnagar town is also the birthplace of Modi.

Giving further details about the project, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Ahmedabad division, Dinesh Kumar said the entire project of developing Vadnagar and adjoining places in Mehsana district would cost over Rs 100 crore.

"The development of Vadnagar railway station is one of the components of the Rs 100 crore project to develop Vadnagar, Modhera and Patan as tourist destinations. As of now, the Ministry of Tourism has given Rs 8 crore to the state Tourism Department to develop the railway station," Kumar said.

He said railways has already undertaken a project for converting the meter gauge line on the Vadnagar-Mehasana route into the broad gauge line.

Meanwhile, Sinha said his ministry is considering to implement a time table for all the goods trains in line with the passenger trains.

"At present, goods trains do not run as per any time table. Thus, we have initiated a pilot project wherein three to four such trains are plying as per their time table. After analysing the outcome of the project, we are considering to implement this system for all the goods trains," the minister said.
Royal Enfield today inaugurated its first direct distribution subsidiary in the Brazilian capital of Sao Paulo apart from opening its first stand-alone flagship store there.

Brazil is the fourth biggest two-wheeler market in the world and this subsidiary there makes the second one for the



Eicher Motors-owned twowheeler maker outside the country.

Royal Enfield opened its first direct distribution subsidiary outside the country in the US in 2015 as Royal Enfield North America.

The newly-formed subsidiary, Royal Enfield Brazil, will be selling to dealers, as well as conduct all front-end activities such as marketing and after-sales in the Latin American country. It's also present in neighbouring Colombia.

Royal Enfield president Rudratej Singh said the move will help it realise the competitive potential in the fourth biggest motorcycle market in the world. We see a huge opportunity in Brazil that has a hugely under-served mid-sized motorcycle market with a massive commuter base, he added.

Royal Enfield has entered Brazil with a line-up of three of its widely popular models featuring single-cylinder engines under 535-cc category such as the iconic standard street model -- Bullet 500, the retro street model - Classic 500, and the Continental GT (535cc) cafe racer, Singh said.

With a CAGR of over 50 per cent in the past six years, Royal Enfield has grown phenomenally, becoming one of the most profitable automobile brands in the world and the world's fastest growing twowheeler brand.

Royal Enfield sold over 6,60,000 units globally in fiscal 2017, and intends to ramp up its production capacity to up to 9,00,000 units by the end of 2018, as it the demand for its models are rising fast in the global markets.

As the oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production, Royal Enfield has made its first motorcycle in 1901 and is now a division of Eicher Motors.

It manufactures the Bullet, the Classic and Thunderbird models in 350 and 500cc displacement along with Continental GT 535cc cafe racer and the purpose built Himalayan powered by the LS410 engine from its Chennai plant.

Royal Enfield ships its models to over 50 countries including the US, Britain, Europe, Latin America and West Asia and Southeast Asia also operates 17 company-operated stores and 675 dealers in the country.

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: Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao today appointed S Felix as Vice Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Fisheries University, Nagapattinam for a three year period.

Rao, also the University Chancellor, presented the appointment order to Felix as Vice-Chancellor for a period of three years from the date of assumption of office at Raj Bhavan here, a press release said.

Felix replaces Baskaran Manimaran, who was appointed in 2013 as the University's first Vice-Chancellor.

According to University website,Manimaran demitted office in March 2016 and since then Registrar K Rathnakumar has been Vice-Chancellor-in-Charge.

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COLUMBUS  You may not have known her name, but most everyone in Columbus recognized Pat Steiner.

She was everywhere. If there was a community celebration, school activity or public get-together, theres a good chance Steiner was in attendance.

She loved her community and she loved being a part of it, said Steiners niece Laura Engquist, who considers the people of Columbus part of her aunts extended family.

The way Steiner got to every one of those events made her stand out.

She was the bike lady.

Steiner went everywhere on her bicycle.

She loved just traveling around the town, said Steiners sister Mary Bierman.

Her bike was parked in front of Daylight Donuts nearly every morning while Steiner stopped in for the regular  two maple Long Johns and a maple cake doughnut covered with peanuts.

And she always had a Mountain Dew, said Daylight Donuts owner Kirby Johnson, who didnt know Steiner personally but always appreciated her visits.

She enjoyed coming in here and we enjoyed having her, he said.

That was part of the daily routine for Steiner.

She stopped in The Telegram office every weekday morning to read the local news from her chair near the front windows. There were always questions for the newspaper employees about their families and children.

She had an amazing memory  amazing, Engquist said.

Steiner came from a family of 13 siblings with countless nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews. Yet she never forgot a birthday or anniversary, whether it was a family member, neighbor or someone she met briefly at a local event. They all got a card with a few bucks in it.

She would just remember everything, said Bierman. You tell her a birthday, she wouldnt forget it.

Steiner also never missed a chance to watch her nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews at school functions  and she was quick to tell people who she was there to see.

She was very proud of them, Bierman said.

Although Steiner was never married and had no children of her own, she loved kids.

She always made us and our kids feel important and feel special, said Engquist, whose aunt spent Easter Sunday with the family, watching the kids fill eggs with candy and talking to the Biermans dog Riley.

Steiner also loved animals.

Thats how Platte County Agricultural Park general manager Brian Palmer met her.

She was a regular at Ag Park during the racing season and couldnt walk past one of the barns without picking some grass to feed to the horses.

Her love for animals was amazing, said Palmer.

Many of the people involved with the races knew Steiner  whether it was by name or not  and she was always around for the county fair to check out the livestock and youth exhibits.

She was very loved by all the horsemen, Palmer said. They always enjoyed visiting with her and letting her pet their horses.

Thats the type of story Steiners family has been hearing over and over since she was struck by a car and killed Monday night while riding her bicycle along Eighth Street.

The eccentric, colorful and kind 77-year-old touched a lot of lives during her time in Columbus, where she moved during high school after growing up in Humphrey.

Steiner stopped by the Caseys General Store along Eighth Street pretty much every day, according to employee Kim Kaminski, who would watch her tend to graves at the nearby cemetery before snacking on popcorn chicken at the convenience store.

Kaminski talked to Steiner early Monday evening about the family Easter and watching the children search for eggs. Everyone there looked forward to visiting with her, Kaminski said.

She was a woman who was really well-loved, Kaminski said. We all enjoyed her and were going to miss her terribly.

The same thing can be said about those at St. Bonaventure Catholic Church, where Steiner will be remembered Friday morning during her funeral service.

Steiner never missed a Mass and was always there to greet people at the back of the church.

She made every funeral dinner in town, no matter what parish, said Belinda Keiter, who works at St. Bonaventure.

Father Michael Swanton described Steiner as a very religious, faith-filled person.

She was definitely a fixture around here and, of course, throughout the whole community, he said.

An example of that commitment to her faith came about two years ago when Steiner was recovering at Golden LivingCenter after breaking her leg when she was struck by a vehicle while riding her bike along 12th Avenue.

It was cold, windy and snowing outside and Steiner needed a walker to get around, but she still made her way to the church without assistance.

She just pushed the walker through the snow, said her brother-in-law Gene Bierman.

That first accident also displayed Steiners stubbornness.

She refused to sell her home and move into the assisted living facility full time. Instead, she recovered from the leg injury and got a new three-wheeled bike to cruise around town on.

She kind of ruled the town I think  in a good sort of way, said Keiter, who expects a big turnout for Fridays funeral.

After all, nearly everyone in Columbus knew the bike lady.
Canada's Indian origin Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan today inaugurated the new office of Consulate General of Canada here.

The visiting dignitary reached Elante office complex here shortly after 9 AM and inaugurated the new office by cutting the ribbon, amid tight security arrangements.

The new office offers wide range of services like assistance to Canadians, helping companies to do business with Canada, visa services etc.

Sajjan, who is on a seven-day visit to India, later held meeting with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at Chandigarh airport, officials said here.

Yesterday, Sajjan paid obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. He had also visited the All India Pingalwara Charitable Society on the outskirts of the city, where he met the under privileged children.

Later in the afternoon, Sajjan visited a girls' orphanage in Jalandhar. Sajjan also went to his native village Bambeli in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab where he was accorded warm welcome by the villagers.

Ahead of the Canadian Defence minister's visit, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said he would not meet Sajjan and described him as a "Khalistani sympathiser".

Sajjan, however, rubbished Amarinder's allegation that he is "pro-Khalistani" and said he would not get into any petty politics with the Chief Minister.

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Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu today suspended a sub-divisional officer of water supply and sewerage board here on charges of dereliction of duty.

He took the decision during his visit to the border town of Dera Baba Nanak in the district.

He was here to review the various development projects undertaken by the previous government led by Parkash Singh Badal.

Sidhu said SDO Jugal Kishore was negligent in the construction of a treatment plant in Dera Baba Nanak and that its polluted water was entering the agriculture field of farmers, destroying the crops.

He reiterated that the present government led by Captain Amarinder Singh was committed to review the various development protects undertaken by the previous dispensation.

Giving an example of the Jaica project in Amritsar, related to sewerage in the holy city, Sidhu said the previous government had declared it a Rs 400 crore-worth project whereas omly Rs 100 crore was spent on it.

Sidhu said he has called for a vigilance probe into the misuse of funds to the tune of Rs 300 crore.

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Ramanathan Ramanan was on Friday appointed as the Mission Director of the Atal Innovation Mission under the .

Ramanan is at present working with the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved his appointment in the rank of Additional Secretary to Government of India, on secondment basis from the TCS, initially for a period of two years, an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

He has been appointed to the post "without pay and allowances" but with the provision of entitlement for government accommodation at New Delhi and all other official expenses including travel etc. As admissible to an Additional Secretary rank officer in Government of India, it said.

The Atal Innovation Mission is the Centre's endeavour to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Its objective is to serve as a platform for promotion of world-class innovation hubs, start-up businesses and other self-employment activities, particularly in technology driven areas.
Telangana Health Minister C Laxma Reddy today ordered an inquiry into the incident wherein two women died after they underwent caesarean operation at a government maternity hospital here.

The women died of low blood pressure after the operation, said an official release here.

The Minister while expressing condolences over the incident said the government will look into the issue of negligence on the part of the hospital staff if any.

As per the initial reports from doctors working in the Sultan Bazar maternity hospital, as many as 19 caesareans were performed yesterday out of which two women died and another woman developed complications.

She was sent to Osmania Hospital for better medical care, the release added.

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In signs of thaw on AIADMK merger move, the Chief Minister K Palaniswami-led faction today announced formation of a committee and rival O Panneerselvam side reciprocated saying its panel would be named soon.

Rajya Sabha MP R Vaithilingam will head the panel set up by Palaniswami and it is likely to include some ministers.

"Considering the welfare of party supporters and people, we are also going to form a committee," Panneerselvam aide K P Munusamy told reporters.

The developments comes a day after the talks appeared to have hit a roadblock with the Panneerselvam camp seeking formal expulsion of V K Sasikala and T T V Dhinakaran from the party.

It had also sought a CBI probe into the circumstances leading to former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's death on December 5 last year.

Hardening its stance for talks, the OPS camp had also demanded that 30 members of the Sasiskala family be formally expelled from the party.

Meanwhile, former School Education Minister K Pandiarajan of OPS faction confirmed that the Palaniswami group had contacted them for talks.

Earlier the AIADMK (Amma) leader and Local Administration Minister S P Velumani had quoted Palaniswami as saying that Vaithilingam, heading the panel, would be at the party office here and "we will join him as and when required."



"As far as we are concerned, we want to redeem the 'Two Leaves' symbol and remain united," he told reporters.

Velumani said the common feeling in the faction was that there should be unity in the party "founded by MGR (M G Ramachandran) and taken forward by Amma (Jayalalithaa)".

Earlier, the ministers and senior leaders met at the party headquarters here under Palaniswami.

Following the cabinet's revolt against him early this week, Dhinakaran had said he was "stepping aside" in the interest of the party.

Munusamy had yesterday said the first demand was getting the resignation of Sasikala and Dhinakaran and later their formal expulsion along with 30 other members of their family.

The Panneerselvam camp had also demanded withdrawal of affidavits submitted to the Election Commission by the Palaniswami faction, declaring Sasikala and Dhinakaran as party General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary, respectively.

Munusamy had said he suspected "foul play" over the Palaniswamy camp's decision of April 18 to remove Sasikala and Dhinakaran.

He had said that in keeping with AIADMK party practice, a party notification should be issued on Dhinakaran and Sasikala family's expulsion.

He had said that the OPS camp would regard it as a full victory only if cadres were asked not to have any truck with the duo.

Vaithilingam had retorted that there was 'no drama' over the decision to ask Sasikala and Dhinakaran to keep away from the party and government.

"There is no drama. We compelled him (Dhinakaran) to step aside and he did it happily," Vaithilingam said.

Munusamy had yesterday in reply to a query from reporters said the OPS faction had not demanded the posts of either Chief Minister or party general secretary.

Meanwhile, Dhinakaran remained incommunicado for the second consecutive day after being served summons by a two- member Delhi police team here on April 19 for allegedly trying to bribe an Election Commission official to secure the party's coveted two leaves symbol.

Dhinakaran has maintained that he had already announced he would stay away from party affairs and that he could be removed only by Sasikala.

Sasikala is presently serving a four year term in a Bengalaru jail in a disproportionate assets case.

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The Gadchiroli and Chhattisgarh police in a joint operation arrested three women naxals from the jungle near Sandra village on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, police said.

"A joint anti-naxal operation was conducted at Sandra village on Thursday (April 20) based on an intelligence input. On spotting the police team the three women started running. They were later arrested," said a release issued by the Gadchiroli police.

During interrogation, it came to the fore that the women were naxalites and involved in blasts and murder cases, said the release.

They have been identified as Maini alias Jimo unga Lati(32), Sarita alias Mule Katta Madkam (23) and Pakli alias Kari Budhu Gade (28).

All the women are residents of Chhattisgarh, the release added.

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European Union High



Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini today met Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during which the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter- terror cooperation.

"Prime Minister Modi and Ms. Mogherini discussed regional and global developments of mutual interest," the PMO said in a statement after the meeting here.

"The Prime Minister and Ms. Mogherini agreed on the need to strengthen the security cooperation between India and EU, particularly on the issue of counter-terrorism," it added.

During the meeting, Modi recalled his successful visit to Brussels in March last year for the India-EU Summit and said that he was looking forward to the next Summit to be held in India in October 2017.

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US President Donald Trump on Thursday condemned the Paris terrorist attack, saying there is a need to stay strong and vigilant.

"First of all, our condolences from our country to the people of France. Again, it is happening, it seems...It is a very, very terrible thing that's going on in the world today," Trump told reporters in a joint press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Palo Gentiloni.

"But it looks like another terrorist attack. And what can you say -- it just never ends. We have to be strong and we have to be vigilant. And I have been saying it for a long time," Trump said in response to a question as he was joined by Gentiloni in condemning the attack.

"Allow me to join President Trump's words for what happened in Paris. These words of condolences and closeness to the French people. And this is a very delicate period for them, just three days before the election," the Italian prime minister said.

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Two French journalists who had been held in Venezuela since April 11 on drug charges have been freed, and returned to Paris today, the Capa agency said.

"Capa's employees are delighted that Sebastian Perez and Didier Barral have been released and are back in France," the agency said.

The two reporters were arrested at the Caracas airport on April 11 as they were returning from preparing a documentary on the economic and social crisis gripping the country.

They were being held on what Capa denounced as "the unjustified pretext that they were transporting drugs."



The Venezuelan authorities had not disclosed why they were being held.

The South American country is engulfed in violent protests over a deep economic crisis that has seen President Nicolas Maduro moving to tighten his grip on power, which have left several people dead.

Capa said it wanted to thank "all those who have been working for their release, in particular the French Embassy in Caracas and the Foreign Ministry."



France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault thanked his Venezuelan counterpart, Delcy Rodriguez "for her contribution" to getting them released.

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Two youths were arrested today in connection with the thrashing of Kashmiri students at the Mewar University in Chhittorgarh district of Rajasthan on Wednesday.

Following the arrest, state Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje tweeted, "Kashmiri students are our children. The Police have taken prompt action and apprehended the culprits."



Both the arrested persons, Lalit Purabia and Manish Pandey, are local residents of Gangrar area where the incident had happened, police said, adding they are not students of Mewar University.

They have been arrested under IPC section 151 (unlawful assembly) and investigation is underway under IPC section 341 (wrongful restraint) and section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), investigation officer Sub-Inspector Chena Ram told PTI.

On Wednesday evening, six Kashmiri students of the Mewar University were thrashed by the locals. The students had sustained minor injuries.

The accused had a scuffle with the Kashmiri students, alleging that they stare at local girls in the local market.

Following the incident, Gangrar police station had registered a case against the unidentified accused for voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful confinement.

The victims were taken to a hospital from where they were discharged after initial treatment.

Last year some Kashmiri students of Mewar University were attacked over rumours that they cooked beef in their hostel.

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TECUMSEH  A Tecumseh inmate spending life in prison was charged Friday with first-degree murder for allegedly strangling his 22-year-old cellmate last week.

Patrick W. Schroeder, 39, is also charged with use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, according to the Nebraska Attorney General's Office.

Terry L. Berry was found unresponsive in his cell April 15 just after 7:30 p.m. He was taken to Bryan Medical Center and pronounced dead five days later.

Berry was serving three to four years for felony forgery and a jail assault conviction from Platte County. He had a parole hearing scheduled for next month, and his release date was in December.

Schroeder and Berry were the only occupants in the cell at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution before Berry was found unresponsive.

Video surveillance showed a corrections corporal conducted a check of the inmates around 7:12 p.m. About 25 minutes later, the same corporal returned to remove a phone cart from another cell when Schroeder told him Berry was lying on the floor, unconscious with a white towel around his neck, according to a court document.

Investigators said the towel had creases near the ends as though it had been pulled and held tightly. Berry also had injuries on his neck that were consistent with being strangled, along with several small bruises on his hands and arms, the document says.

An autopsy conducted in Omaha on Friday confirmed the cause of death to be strangulation, and the manner of death to be homicide.

Nebraska State Ombudsman Marshall Lux said his staff told him the incident occurred in the special-management unit, which holds inmates in segregation or solitary confinement.

Earlier, Lux said he had questions for prison officials.

"Why were there two people in that one cell?" Lux said.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes was questioned Thursday about double bunking in the segregation unit at Tecumseh.

He said it was very limited, but "using the correct tools and in the right setting and with the right population, it's safe and it's OK to house people in a restrictive housing setting with two people in a cell. Just like it is in general population."

The Tecumseh prison housed an average of 1,032 inmates each day in the last quarter of 2016, operating at 107 percent of its design capacity, according to the department's latest population numbers.

Schroeder was in prison for first-degree murder, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and six counts of second-degree forgery out of Pawnee County, according to records.

He killed 75-year-old Pawnee City farmer Kenneth Albers on April 14, 2006. During Schroeder's sentencing hearing the next year, Pawnee County District Court Judge Daniel Bryan said Schroeder killed the farmer because he was "tired of pinching pennies."

Prosecutors said Schroeder went to Albers' home with a plan to rob him. He demanded money from Albers then hit him once with a nightstick. Albers led Schroeder to his bedroom and handed over several thousand dollars in cash. After that, Schroeder took Albers to a machine shed and hit him with the nightstick four or five more times before taking his body to an abandoned well south of the farm.
Two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in clashes with Russian-backed insurgents in the separatist east, the military said today, after a lull in bloodshed due to an Easter truce.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters that the first deaths in over a week occurred in Avdiivka, a flashpoint northern suburb of the rebels' de facto capital city of Donetsk, "where the situation has escalated".

The pro-Western leadership in Kiev and the rebels agreed to a new truce that went into effect on April 1 and has largely held through the Easter holidays.

Ukraine reported the loss of one soldier in fighting on April 13 and two on April 3.

The month has been one of the most peaceful in more than three years of fighting that has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

The separatists have reported 10 combat losses since the latest temporary ceasefire was agreed with the help of negotiators from the Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe (OSCE).

Neither sides' toll claims could be independently confirmed.

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A pilotless target aircraft (PTA) called 'Lakshya' crashed in a paddy field in Baliapal block of Balasore district today.

There was no casualty or damage to property, Superintendent of Police Niti Sekhar said.

"It was a routine trial and part of training exercises. It was inert. No issue of concern," a senior DRDO official at Chandipur near here said.

A team from the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal would come to the accident site to collect debris and investigate the incident, the DRDO official said.

Policemen cordoned off the site in Chandmani village as per instructions from senior officers, Baliapal inspector-in- charge Surendra Beuria said.

PTA 'Lakshya' is a reusable aerial target system. It is operated with the help of a remote from the ground to provide aerial target for training of pilots of all three services, DRDO officials said.

The PTAs entered service in November 2000 at the Interim Test Range (ITR), Chandipur. 'Lakshya' was operational with the IAF and the Indian Navy by April 2002.

It is powered by a single PTAE-7 turbojet engine designed and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore.

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Congress led UDF Opposition in Kerala today decided to launch an agitation 'An Year sans development'against the LDF government that would complete its first yearin office next month.

UDF would organise protest programmes on the first anniversay of the CPI-M led government which has "failed" to perform in all sectors, Front Convener P P Thankachan said.

Answering a question on the re-induction of erstwhile Front partner Kerala Congress (M), Thankachan said UDF had not expelled KC-M from the Front and they severed the ties.

KC-M led by former Finance Minister K M Mani left Front last year following differences with Congress leadership in the state.

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Ukraine's stuttering fight against high-level corruption gathered pace today as a top state energy executive was detained a day after the arrest of a close ally of former premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) nabbed Naftogaz state deputy board chairman Sergiy Pereloma on embezzlement allegations as part of a probe that also saw parliament's former energy committee chairman Mykola Martynenko detained.

Martynenko was picked up yesterday and could face up to 12 years in prison for allegedly embezzling USD 17.28 million (16.12 million euros) from Europe's largest -- and Ukraine's only -- uranium extraction and processing plant.

The powerful ex-member of Yatsenyuk's political party is accused of syphoning off the money and parking it in an offshore account while overseeing the purchase of uranium concentrate from Kazakhstan by Ukraine's Eastern Mining and Enrichment Combine.

The deputy gave up his parliament seat under pressure in November 2015.

Yatsenyuk himself quit in April 2016 after a tumultuous spell that saw several respected technocrats who rose to power after Ukraine's 2014 pro-EU revolution resign over rampant graft.

Martynenko and Pereloma are being held in temporary detention while their cases come up for initial review.

Strengthening Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau was one of the top demands of the International Monetary Fund connected to a USD 17.5 billion rescue package for Ukraine in 2015.

The IMF and Western governments have been expressing increasing concern that Ukraine was refusing to combat graft that helped lead to the downfall of Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

NABU was established in 2014 but its first detectives did not get to work until December of the following year.

Its headquarter were raided by prosecutors in 2016 in what NABU believes was an attempt by remnants of the old guard to halt its investigations into the upper echelons of power.

The former Soviet republic is 131st of 176 countries and territories on a 2016 Transparency International index where they are ranked from least to most corrupt.

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US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis visited Israel today for talks expected to focus on Iran, Syria and the two countries' close strategic relations despite recent tensions with Barack Obama's adminstration.

Mattis held talks with Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday morning, to be followed by meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

Israel and the United States have long had close strategic ties, with Washington providing Israel more than $3 billion per year in defence aid and President Donald Trump pledging unstinting support for the country.

Despite tensions over Israeli settlement building, Obama's administration signed a new agreement with Israel before he left office increasing the amount to $3.8 billion for a 10-year period beginning in 2018.

Mattis hopes to hear directly from Israeli leaders on their concerns and what they expect from the Trump administration, a US defence official said.

Iran's influence is at the top of the list for Israel, a worry shared by the United States. Trump has denounced Iran's "harmful influence" in the Middle East.

Israel is closely watching Iran's presence in neighbouring Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al- Assad.

Israeli enemy Hezbollah is also fighting with Assad in Syria. Israel fought a devastating war against the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement in 2006.

"By establishing itself permanently in Syria with the support of Hezbollah, Iran wants to create a territorial axis linking its territory to Lebanon through Iraq and Syria, which could only endanger the security of Israel," Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said recently.

Israel has sought to avoid being dragged into the six- year civil war in Syria, but acknowledges carrying out air strikes there to stop what it says are deliveries of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Last month, in the most serious incident between the two countries since the Syria conflict began, Israeli warplanes struck several targets there, drawing retaliatory missile fire.

Israel used its Arrow interceptor to destroy what was believed to have been a Russian-made SA-5 missile, and Lieberman threatened to destroy Syria's air defence systems "without the slightest hesitation" if it happened again.

Israel was also among the first countries to salute Trump for a recent US strike on a Syrian airbase over an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

Testy relations between Obama and Netanyahu reached a low point over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, led by Washington.

Obama pushed hard for the agreement, but Netanyahu fiercely opposed it, arguing it will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and that the lifting of sanctions would allow it to support proxy groups in the region.

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Syria still possesses chemical weapons, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday, warning against the banned munitions being used again.

At a conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional US strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Mattis spoke alongside Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman. "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," said Mattis. He said he didn't want to elaborate on the amounts Syria has in order to avoid revealing sources of intelligence.

"I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike," he said.

Israeli defence officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of President Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said "We have 100 per cent information that (the) Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels."



Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government. Top Assad ally, Russia, has asserted a Syrian government airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mattis in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

"We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," Netanyahu said. He referred to the US cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's "forthright deeds" against the use of chemical weapons.

A few hours later sirens wailed on the Israeli held side of the Golan Heights warning of incoming rockets from Syria, the Israeli military said. It said three "projectiles" were fired and no injuries have been reported.

Israel has been largely unaffected by the Syrian civil war raging next door, suffering mostly sporadic, mostly spillover, incidents of fire. Israel has occasionally responded to fire with limited reprisals on Syrian positions.

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A pilot preparing to land on the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, heading for waters off Korea, was forced to eject on his final approach, the Pentagon said today.

The unidentified pilot of the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet was picked up by helicopter from waters of the Celebes Sea, between Indonesia and the Philippines, according to a statement from the US Seventh Fleet. It said there were "no apparent injuries."



The supercarrier Vinson is the heart of a naval strike group that US officials said on April 8 was being sent toward Korea, amid soaring tensions there. The navy admitted Tuesday that the ships initially sailed in the opposite direction on an earlier mission before eventually turning north.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
has agreed to sell 9.5 per cent additional stake to Aditya Birla Group for Rs 130 per share after they merge their telecom operations to create the country's largest operator worth more than $23 billion.

Aditya Birla Group has filed with the BSE the composite scheme of amalgamation between and Idea Cellular, which stated that the merged entity shall be under the joint control of the two firms and will be governed by the shareholders' agreement.

In the merged entity, will hold 50 per cent stake, while Aditya Birla Group will hold 21 per cent.

Upon completion of merger, Vodafone will transfer 4.9 per cent shares of merged entity to Aditya Birla Group for Rs 3,874 crore.

Post such transfer, Aditya Birla Group shareholding will increase to 26 per cent and Vodafone shareholding will reduce to 45.1 per cent, according to the scheme.

The remaining 28.9 per cent will be held by other shareholders.

Also, Aditya Birla Group will have the right to acquire more shares from Vodafone at a price of Rs 130 per share, in order to equalise the shareholdings over 4 years.

If equal shareholding is not achieved within four years, Vodafone will sell down its shareholding to equalise its shareholding with Aditya Birla Group over the following 5 years, the scheme said.

Until equalisation, the voting rights on additional shares of Vodafone shall be exercised jointly by Vodafone and Aditya Birla Group.

The two firms had last month announced the merger of their telecom operations in India to create the country's largest mobile phone operator with a 35 per cent market share.

The combined entity of Vodafone and Idea Cellular, which are India's number 2 and 3 mobile players, respectively, will overtake Bharti Airtel and would be in a better position to take on a raging price war unleashed by newcomer Reliance Jio in the world's second-largest market.

The new company, which will come into being over the next two years, will be headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, while Vodafone will have the right to appoint chief financial officer.

The CEO and the chief operating officer will be appointed with the approval of both companies. The two firms will have three nominees each on the board of the new entity, the scheme said.

The merger excludes Vodafone's 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers and will be effected through issuing new shares in Idea to Vodafone, which will result in Vodafone deconsolidating Vodafone India.

This mechanism will facilitate reducing Vodafone Group net debt by Rs 55,200 crore and lowering Vodafone Group leverage by around 0.3x net debt/EBITDA, the scheme added.

Vodafone-Idea is the second merger in the sector to be announced this year. In February, Bharti Airtel unveiled plans to buy the Indian business of the Norway-based Telenor.

The merged venture will create India's largest mobile operator with almost 400 million users and a 35 per cent market share by customers. The deal gives Vodafone India an implied enterprise value of Rs 82,800 crore and Idea an enterprise value of Rs 72,200 crore.
A court here today issued bailable warrants against the Jaipur police commissioner and two other senior officials for negligence in discharging duties.

Metropolitan Magistrate Rajeshwar Vishnoi summoned Jaipur Police Commissioner Sanjay Agrawal, Additional Police Commissioner Prafulla Kumar and Deputy Commissioner of Police Manish Agrawal on May 20 for not registering an FIR on a complaint by Sidhharth Maharia, who allegedly hit an autorickshaw and a police van killing three persons and inuring five while driving his BMW car last July.

Maharia, son of independent MLA Nandkishore Maharia, had alleged in the complaint to the court that he was beaten up by the police during detention.

When he lodged a complaint in this regard, the police did not register an FIR.

In his complaint, he had also claimed that the investigating officer had prepared a false report of seizure of the airbag of his car in order to conduct probe of the incident in an unfair manner.

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President Xi Jinping has been unanimously elected as a delegate to the National Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Guizhou provincial party unit.

63-year-old Xi, regarded as the most powerful leader heading the party, military and the government, will complete his first five-year term during the 19th party Congress to be held later this year and start his second five-year term.

In CPC system, leaders have a 10-year tenure.

A total of 2,300 delegates to the National Congress, slated for the second half of 2017, are being elected by 40 electoral units across the country. The election will be completed by June.

Xi was nominated by the CPC Central Committee as a candidate for delegate to the 19th CPC National Congress and put to vote in the Guizhou electoral unit.

The announcement of Xi's unanimous election yesterday won a burst of long and warm applause at the provincial congress, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

The unanimous vote of Xi by more than 730 provincial congress delegates represents the shared aspiration of more than 1.7 million CPC members in Guizhou and the wholehearted support of over 40 million residents, the delegates said.

The CPC national congress, which typically convenes once every five years, is of great importance. It hears and deliberates reports of the Central Committee and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

At the National Congress, delegates also elect a new central committee and a new anti-graft body.

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Fr James Martin says the Virgin Mary opposed Jesus Christ because Jesus was crazy Father James Martin strikes again, taking another shot at the Holy Mother of God on his Facebook page . Martin says... get this....
(Reuters) - Gold held steady on Friday, after rising 0.2 percent in the prior session, with tensions surrounding upcoming French elections on Sunday underpinning the safe-haven demand.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in BENGALURU; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

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Net profit rose 18.3 percent from a year earlier to 39.9 billion rupees ($617.60 million) for its fiscal fourth-quarter to March 31, HDFC Bank said, slightly ahead of analysts' estimate of 39.56 billion rupees.

The Mumbai-based lender stands out in a sector that has been marked by a surge in soured assets and slower loan growth. A shock government ban on high-value banknotes in November also hit their usual business as they scrambled to exchange scrapped notes, and further weakened credit demand.

The sector also faces higher regulatory scrutiny with total stressed loans in the sector hitting almost $150 billion.

HDFC Bank, with its stronger retail business and relatively smaller exposure to project finance, has far lower bad loans among India's leading banks, and has been an investor favourite.

"Our focus will remain on growing both our wholesale and retail businesses, and that's something we remain committed to," Deputy Managing Director Paresh Sukthankar told a conference after the results.

Shares in HDFC Bank, which is the most valuable in the sector and overall has India's third-highest market capitalisation of about $58 billion, closed 2.4 percent higher at 1496.60 rupees, having hit a lifetime high of 1499 rupees earlier in the session.

BAD LOANS STABLE

The bank's gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans, at 1.05 percent, were little changed from end-December, although higher than 0.94 percent a year earlier.

Provisions, including for loan losses, jumped, however.

While faster loan growth led to an increase in standard asset provisioning, loan-loss provisions also nearly doubled from a year earlier to 9.78 billion rupees in the March quarter.

The bank said it accounted for loan defaults that were not recognised as such in the December quarter after the central bank temporarily relaxed rules to help businesses weather the shock banknote ban.

HDFC Bank's "asset quality remains one of the best in the system", said Alpesh Mehta, a sector analyst at Mumbai brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities, adding the results "positively surprised".

HDFC Bank's loans grew 19.4 percent in the year to end-March, far outpacing the sector's loan growth of about 5 percent.

That helped a 21.5 percent rise in fourth-quarter net interest income from a year ago, while net interest margin for the quarter was 4.3 percent. Non-interest income including fees and commissions grew 20.3 percent in the March quarter.

($1 = 64.6050 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman/Keith Weir)

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Think twice before becoming administrator of a group on or Facebook as one is liable for prosecution if any rumour or fake news is circulated on it.

Social media platforms allow a person to create a group on which members can share views, photographs or videos.

Concerns have been raised about social media misuse as fake news, morphed photographs and disturbing videos with fabricated local narratives can easily be circulated that can trigger tension and an even communal rift in an area.

In a joint order issued by District Magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra and Senior Superintendent of Police Nitin Tiwari, it has been made clear that any factually incorrect, rumour or misleading information on a social media group could result in a FIR against the group administrator.

"There are several groups on social media which are named on news groups and also groups with other names which are propagating news and information which is not authentic. These are being forwarded without cross checking," it said.

Considering this issue, directives are being issued to social media groups, and Facebook group administrators and members, the order said.

There are over 200 million users in India.

It directed that social media group administrators should be ready to bear the responsibility and ownership of the groups.

The administrator must include only those members who are personally known to him or her.

If any statement is made by a group member which is fake, can cause religious disharmony or rumour, the group admin must deny it on the group and remove the member from the group, the order said.

"In the event of inaction from the group admin, he or she will be considered guilty and action will be taken against the group admin," it said.

Such a post must also be reported to the nearest police station so that action can be taken against the member under the law, it said.

The order, issued on Wednesday, says while freedom of expression on social media is important, it also comes with a responsibility.

Varanasi is the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The administration has directed that no statement or post which can hurt religious sentiments should be forwarded to any other group or person else legal action will be taken.

It also directs that case under cyber crime law, Information Act and IPC will be filed in case of violation of these guidelines.

The order also makes it clear that orders of the Supreme Court and various high courts will be considered while initiating action.

It needs to be seen how Varanasi police which is facing severe staff crunch implements such an order as WhatsApp and social media are not limited to the boundaries of the district.
Are you limiting your data usage due to high-cost connection? Your local street vendors can come to your aid soon. According to a report in Economic Times, data consumer can soon purchase W-Fi powered data packs from kirana shops at denominations as low as Rs 10.
Commercial Feature is a Business Standard Digital Marketing Initiative.

The Editorial/Content team at Business Standard has not contributed to writing or editing these articles.

For further information, please write to assist@bsmail.in
The Supreme Court on Friday said it could not pass an order for reclaiming the Kohinoor from the United Kingdom or to stop it from being auctioned.

Disposing of a plea seeking directions to bring the treasured diamond back to India, a bench headed by chief justice J.S. Khehar said it could not ask a foreign government not to auction a property.

The court made it clear it could not pass an order with regard to a property which was in another country.

"We are quite surprised that such petitions are filed for properties which are in the USA and the UK. What kind of a writ petition is this," the bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul, said.

The apex court referred to an affidavit filed by the Centre and said, "The government of India continues to explore ways and means with the UK government on the issue."

The petitions, filed by an NGO, the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front, and Heritage Bengal, a registered organisation, were tagged together by the court last year.
Concerned over Indian companies getting hit by tightening of US visa rules, Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said the "whole debate" has to be expanded to include several American firms that are earning their profits in India.

The comments assume significance in the wake of Indian companies, specially IT services providers, getting concerned over protectionism by the US and several other countries.

Sitharaman said, "Let us also understand that not just Indian companies in the US, several big US companies are in India too. They are also here, they are earning their margins, they are earning their profits which goes to the US economy.

"So, it is a situation where it's not just unilateral just Indian companies having too face the US executive order, there are several US companies in India who are doing business for some years now and therefore I want this whole debate to be ... if it has to be expanded, it has to be expanded to include all these aspects and we shall ensure that all these factors are kept in mind."

The minister said that developed nations are now clearly raising protectionist walls with regard to flow of labour and a WTO-backed global framework is needed to facilitate the services trade.

Citing examples of the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, which are making their visa norms stricter for movement of skilled professionals, she said: "Countries are now very clearly raising protectionist walls as regards service trade."

"And it is time that we have a global framework within which trade in services can happen. We will be actively pursuing our proposal in the WTO," she told reporters here.

The proposal is aimed at liberalising rules for movement of professionals and other steps to reduce transaction costs to boost services growth.

India is pitching for this pact at the WTO as the services sector contributes over 60 per cent to GDP and 28 per cent to total employment. The move is aimed at developing a broader framework governing global services trade similar to a pact implemented by the WTO on goods trade.

India wants all the member countries to study the proposal before the forthcoming ministerial meeting in Argentina in December.

About the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on H1B visas, she said America has committed a certain number of these visas to India and "we would definitely want America to honour that commitment".

The minister is in touch with the Indian industry on these issues amid fears that the new American visa regime would make visas more expensive and restrictive. She further said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is in the US, would take up the matter with the US administration.

"It is not just the US, but several countries now adopting such measures," she said, suggesting that the government and the industry need to work together on the issue.

According to Sitharaman, India will engage with these countries to sort out the visa related matters. The restrictive visa regime would also impact the US companies that are operating in India.

"So, it is not a unilateral (issue) where Indian companies would have to face this, there are several US companies in India which are doing business for years here," she said.

Asked whether India would drag the US and Australia to the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism, she said: "At this stage, we will engage constructively. At the same time, India will ensure it will not accept unfair treatment."

Indian IT companies use temporary work visas to send employees to work on client sites. With visa programmes in these countries becoming more rigorous, domestic technology firms will face challenges in movement of skilled professionals and spike in their operational costs.

These companies get over 60 per cent of their revenues from the North American market, about 20 per cent from Europe and the remaining from the other economies.

With the rising protectionism across markets like the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia, domestic companies are beginning to adjust their business models to reduce their dependence on visas by hiring more locals.

The US, under a new executive order, proposes to replace the current lottery system for issuing H-1B work visas with a merit-based approach. The country is reviewing its visa programme for foreign workers to curb purported abuse and frauds related to visas.

Similarly, Australia has abolished a work visa programme -- 457 visa -- used by over 95,000 temporary foreign workers, a majority of them Indians, to tackle the growing unemployment in the country.

New Zealand, too, is introducing tougher norms for immigrant workers. One of the changes will need immigrants to get a job in which they earn at least the median income to qualify as skilled.

Speaking at the Hero Mindmine Summit here, Sitharaman said India has asked the WTO for a special session to discuss "why trade facilitation in services cannot be formalised".

She was "surprised" that trade in services does not have any global framework despite the fact that "trade in services has a very big chunk" in global trade. The minister said she always protests when movement of skilled professionals is being equated with asylum-seeking migrants.

"... So, this false equivalence which is being brought to manage numbers is just a smokescreen behind which many countries do realise that they are going to have to depend on these services trade," the commerce minister said. She rejected the view of developed countries that Indian professionals are taking away their jobs.

Citing an example, she said the UK charges extra visa fee and uses that money to train their own people.

"Increasingly, we are approaching bodies like the WTO to question such practices in the services sector," Sitharaman said, adding that many of the rich countries are framing policies on their "whims and fancies".

This kind of discretionary use of measures to control movement of professional is "hurting them and us also".

Asked about demographic dividend, Mohandas Pai, former director of Infosys, said there are "no" demographic dividend in India as crores of youth are unemployed here. "... we are in the midst of a disaster. But whatever we produce, that is adequate to serve the world because of digitisation," he said.

"India produces a million engineers, of which two lakh are good quality, 2,00,000 can be trained and the balance 60 per cent can drive Ola and Uber. I mean they are good for that."

The minister, however, asserted that the remaining lot will not be driving Ola only, they will do better things. Sitharaman added that the government is taking a lot of steps to impart skills to the youth.
A surprise inspection by the electricity department on Thursday at Samajwadi supremo Mulayam Singh's residence revealed that the SP head has not yet cleared his electricity bill of Rs 4 lakh.

The inspection also revealed that the 77-year old leader is using more electricity than allowed at his bungalow in Etawah, his constituency in the state, reports news agency ANI.

According to thenews report, the permissible limit of 5 kW is being busted by at least eight times at his residence.

At the time when electricity officials visited Yadav's bunglow, located in Civil Lines, he was in Lucknow.

The bunglow reportedly has more than six rooms, its own air-conditioning plant with a temperature-controlled swimming pool and many elevators.

The report further stated that he has been given the time till April 30 to pay the outstanding bills. Officials also changed the configurations to allow him 40 kW in lieu of payment for the larger allotment.

The move comes after CM yogi Adityanath launched the mission to eliminate the VIP culture in the state.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government and the Centre have entered into an agreement which promises to provide 24x7 power supply to all the households in the state.

On 11 April, during the second meeting of the UP Cabinet, chief minister Adityanath had ordered 18-hour power supply in villages and 20-hour at tehsil level and in Bundelkhand. Energy minister Sharma had said that the ambitious 'Power for All' pact will also help in meeting the Centre's target of making the state energy efficient by 2018 and help ensure power in all UP villages before 2019.




Page Content

Encouraging entrepreneurship and identifying policy responses to tackle the challenges faced by entrepreneurs on islands was the objective of a seminar organised by the commission for economic policy (ECON) of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) on 21 April in Malta. Politicians from different levels of government, entrepreneurs as well as representatives of business organisations and EU institutions discussed recommendations on regional, national and EU level.

Insular areas have to tackle a number of specific economic challenges connected to their geographical characteristics. Low population density, high transport costs, small size and fragmentation of markets depending on a few economic sectors and niches as well as the dominance of smalls firms make these economies even more dependent on entrepreneurial initiatives than other regions.

"Cities and regions are the catalysers and enablers for entrepreneurship and start-ups  to co-create the European mentality for new jobs and sustainable growth. As policy-makers we must create favourable conditions for entrepreneurs and start-ups with place-based and tailored strategies that focus on exploiting their comparative advantages in promoting a more efficient use of their existing natural, cultural and geostrategic assets", said CoR president Markku Markkula.

"Islands tend to develop different approaches in order to be in a position to keep up with the social and economic development of other regions in mainland Europe. Whilst a one size fits all approach may be counterproductive, islands potential could be better exploited through measures aimed at alleviating the constraints of insularity such as improved trade and digital connections as well as aid to foster entrepreneurship and economic development", said Christian Cardona, Maltese Minister for Economy, Investment and Small Business.

Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, member of Corsica's regional authority and rapporteur of the About 17.7 million Europeans live on the EU's 362 lowly populated islands with a GDP that is less than 80% of the EU's average. However, most challenges for SME and entrepreneurship development can be tackled by adequate public support policies. Cohesion policy is essential argued, member of Corsica's regional authority and rapporteur of the draft opinion on entrepreneurship on islands

"Entrepreneurs in island regions and island citizens in general have to cope with structural constraints, which lead to additional costs that severely impact on the islands growth and development prospects as well as on their fair integration in the single market. We demand that in cohesion policy post 2020 special attention is given to islands in order to compensate for the economic effects of natural constraints and that the complete territorial integration of island populations in single market is ensured so that they are given the same opportunities in production, innovation and trade as those living in the main land", said Ms Maupertuis.

She further called on EU institutions and Member States to extend business incentives, to ease public procurement and state-aid rules (particularly for transport and energy), and to give more concerted financial, technical and policy support to help entrepreneurs diversify the "economic monocultures" that dominate many islands as well as to promote features of the 'sharing', 'circular' and 'knowledge' economies.

The draft opinion, which will also take the conclusions of the seminar into account, is scheduled for adoption during the CoR plenary session on 11 May. The CoR study on "Entrepreneurship on islands and other peripheral regions" which was presented during the event will be available on the CoR webpage end of May.
The Andhra Pradesh State Investment Promotion Board, at its meeting on Friday under the chairmanship of the state Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, has granted approval for setting up of two mega projects in the State. Tremag Alloys Private Limited and Tata Chemicals Limited have been granted approval for setting up of units to manufacture Magnesium Ingots and prebiotics respectively.

In a note by the Andhra government says, Tremag Alloys had come forward to set up a Magnesium Ingots manufacturing plant spread across 100 acres in the Kadapa Mega Industrial Park. "While the total investment proposed by the company is Rs.660 crore, it will provide direct employment to over 1200 people and indirect employment to 6000 people. The phase one of the project will commence in November 2018 and second phase will start from May 2019. The expected turnover is Rs. 800 crore.' Also, it says, "this is first such project in India to use Pidgeon process to produce magnesium ingots; used primarily for steel, auto, aviation industries."

On the Tata Chemicals project, it says, the company was "keen on setting up a Prebiotics Manufacturing Plant to manufacture FOS (Fructo-oligosaccharides) and GOS (Galacto-oligosccharides) powders." The plant will come up in APIIC Industrial Park, Mambattu Village, Tada Mandal, Nellore district in an area of 39.81 acres with a total investment of Rs 400 crore. The expected turnover is Rs 183.crore by 2021 and will provide direct employment to 150 people and indirect employment to 80 people. The plant will be completed in two phases and the production will start in December 2018."


On Thursday evening, reports spread that group administrators on Whats App can be booked for spreading misleading information, rumours and factually incorrect information. Quite obviously, it generated interest in India where the Facebook-owned messaging app boasts about 200 million users.

But, is there a need for Whats App users to really panic? A close look at the details of the case suggests that the answer is no, there is no real need to worry. Here's why:

Local administrative issue: The order that makes it possible to file an FIR against Whats App group administrators has come from the District Magistrate of Varanasi and the Senior Superintendent of Police in the city.

"There are several groups on social media which are named on news groups and also groups with other names which are propagating news and information which is not authentic. These are being forwarded without cross checking," a joint order issued by District Magistrate of Varanasi, Yogeshwar Ram Mishra and Senior Superintendent of Police Nitin Tiwari said.

They have taken the decision to stop people from spreading religious disharmony in the city through rumors. It has primarily to do with local law and order problem.

Not central govt/court decision: The decision has not come from the central government or a court. The decision pertains to the jurisdiction of District Magistrate of Varanasi and the local police. It cannot have a nationwide impact. So, there's no real need for users across the country to worry.

Type of message: The police will take action on messages or rumours that spread religious disharmony or create law and order problem. Hence, friends, families, work colleagues who use Whats App for communication should not be too worried and continue to use the app without any apprehension.



Police action: Regardless of the platform, the police anywhere in the country can investigate cases related to religious disharmony in any way it chooses, including inquiring about the messages spread on WhatsApp. In fact, the government has in the past blocked WhatsApp in tense situations to stop the spread of rumours. The point here is that people who are spreading religious harmony should anyway be worried, as the police can take action under cyber crime law.
In November this year, India will observe the ninth anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks that saw 10 gunmen enter the country by boat and launch a series of attacks across South Mumbai that killed over 160 people. It has been nearly a decade, but the carnage still haunts every Indian. 26/11 is a grim reminder of the security threat that the country has been facing and the lack of proper anti-terror training that had cost us dearly at the time.

The increasing number of terror groups and their sophisticated operations call for effective measures outside the specialised domain of security agencies. The corporate world - realising that self-security is the best security as the first line of defence - is taking a lead in this.

When e-commerce giant Flipkart was approached, the company's Senior Director (Security and Investigation) Gaurav Datta readily agreed to enrol a few employees for the certified anti-terrorism specialists (CATS) training programme.

According to Major Rahul Sooden, former Associate Director at Flipkart and currently the security head at one of the largest conglomerates, "It is a proactive approach. The training undertaken is for being more cautious. It adds value to the way we look at and analyse things/issues related to security."

Other big corporate houses to join the programme include the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Reliance Industries (RIL), VSF Global, Thomas Cook India, Mahanagar Gas and BP.

Captain Mukesh Saini, who has been head of security at Godrej Industries over the past four years, went one step ahead and himself paid the fee to undergo the training as he wanted to comprehend what could be happening in the world of terror. "You can't really stop someone who is determined to carry out an attack, but one can certainly take steps to make things difficult for him. We must take measures to safeguard our assets. It's more a mental exercise than physical," he explains.

"After 9/11 and 26/11 attacks, it has become necessary for every corporate and every organisation to know the basics of combating terror," says Sanjay Kaushik, Managing Director at Netrika, an NCR-based consulting and investigations firm that has been conducting the CATS programme in India. "The 9/11 attack was successful due to lack of imagination and failure on the part of security personnel. The industry has now realised that security people need to think ahead of terrorists who are evolving all the time and using newer techniques to strike," he adds.

Corporate houses not only fall prey to direct attacks but also face cyberterrorism where hackers break into their systems and access sensitive information. There are also threats of terror modules or sleeper cells infiltrating the corporate world. Hence, it is essential to train security managers, private security personnel and executive protection agencies.

"The definition of security has changed after 9/11 and 26/11. Training has become critical and it is sharpening our skills. That's why we are imparting knowledge to our people," says Datta of Flipkart.

"Of course, corporate houses cannot combat terrorists, but we have to be well prepared for contingencies. Risk management has to be in place. In case of a terror strike, the security people are usually the first responders. Therefore, their jobs become more crucial as they need to save assets and human lives. In such cases, they should have the ability to think out of the box to minimise the impact."

Kaushik of Netrika agrees. "Terror organisations have been upgrading themselves. Lone attacks or drone attacks are some of the examples. One needs to be aware as no one knows what can hit you."

Enter CATS

Over the past 30-36 months, more than 100 people from India Inc. have undergone CATS training that covers a number of key areas - how to respond to a critical situation, how to delay terrorists from reaching assets and save human life, how to gain time, how to call for help and provide first aid, and most important, how to evacuate people.

The three-day certification programme is accredited to the Chartered International Institute of Security and Crisis Management (CIISCM), Singapore, and enables professionals to learn the latest trends, technologies and best practices that will help deliver robust security solutions and provide insights into international terrorism and counterterrorism measures.

Gerard Lee, a former officer of the Singapore armed forces and an explosive specialist, says, "We teach them how to react when terror strikes, how to investigate a suspicious person or any activity that can lead to a major terror mishap, how to check credentials of a suspect and how to tackle cyberterrorism."

"Profiling is a big aspect. One can't check everyone; so, we teach them to identify people and suspicious activity. It's similar to the CISF's job at airports," says Kaushik.

"The programme has helped strengthen our process and we have tightened certain areas of security in our company," points out Saini of Godrej Industries.

Similarly, Sooden, when he was working with Flipkart, shifted the men's changing room from inside the main building to a place near the security guard's cabin as he realised that the changing room could be a potential threat to the main office and all the 600 people working there.

What's Hindering CATS?

"Cost," says everyone who has undergone the training. The programme costs anywhere between `80,000 and `100,000 per person, compelling businesses to hold back the training for most of their employees. One may have to shell out even more to attend a refresher course to stay updated. Saini, who paid the fee from his own pocket, says, "It is a huge expense. Not every company can afford it, and we are going slow."

"We are not making money through the CATS programme," says Kaushik of Netrika. "For us it is a brand-building exercise. We cannot bring down the fee as we have to recover the cost of the trainers who are experts of global repute and charge at least $3,000 a day."

Undaunted by the budget constraint, Datta of Flipkart sent eight of the 63 security staff for CATS training. These certified specialists are now training others in the company so that all are aware of the new concepts emerging in the world of terror.

"It's an irony that everyone wants safety and security, but most companies don't have the budget for training or upgrading the skills of security professionals. Even U.S. companies don't have specific allocations for security training. There are some companies who have their training and learning cells or departments; they do have a training budget, but again, nothing specific for security," says Kaushik.



@MaheshNayak
Tata Steel board has given its approval for issuing debt securities worth up to Rs 9,000 crore to meet working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

"The Board of Directors...based on the review and pursuant to the existing shareholders approval, approved issue of debt securities of up to Rs 9,000 crore in the form either of Non-Convertible Debentures on private placement basis or Foreign Currency or Rupee Denominated Bonds or a combination thereof in one or more tranches," the company said in a filing today.

The funds will primarily be deployed towards re-financing the existing debt, capex and working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

The development assumes significance as there are media reports saying Tata Steel is planning a one-time settlement of USD 663 million to its UK pensioners under a new scheme called the Regulated Appointment Arrangement.

"The Board of Directors also authorised the Finance Committee of the Board to determine and approve the timing and terms of such issue of securities," the filing said.

"This disclosure is made in compliance with Regulation 30 of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015," it added.
STOCKS TO LOOKOUT FOR

Wipro sacked 600 employees post performance appraisal

Tata Steel board has given its approval for issuing debt securities worth up to Rs 9,000 crore to meet working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

US FDA finds incomplete lab records at Sun Pharma's Dadra plant.



GLOBAL MARKET

Asian markets rose on the back of strong US earnings and US tax reform.

The euro retreated from a three-week high as jitters returned over French presidential elections on Sunday after a shooting in Paris.

Wall Street indexes closed between 0.75 percent and 0.9 percent higher on rising expectations for first-quarter corporate profits.

LIVE UPDATES

3.35 PM:

Sensex ends the day at 29,365.30, down 57.09 points while the Nifty50 settles the day at 9,119.40, down 17.00 points.

GAINERS

HDFC, Reliance, NTPC were the top gainers on the BSE Sensex adding as much as 2.59 per cent, 2.38 per cent and 2.83 per cent respectively.

On the NSE Nifty Index, Bharti Infratel was the top gainer.

LOSERS

Sun Pharma (down 2.65 per cent), Adani Ports (down 1.85 per cent) and CIPLA (down 1.84 per cent) on the BSE Sensex

Sun Pharma (down 2.45 per cent), Bank of Baroda (down 2.09 per cent) and Adani Ports (down 1.87 per cent)



3.08 PM:

HDFC Bank reported an 18.2 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 3,990 crore for the March quarter.

3.00 PM:

Twenty-two stocks trade in the red as Sensex slips 60 points.



Sun Pharma, ITC and CIPLA are top losers.



1.12 PM:

Indian markets reverse morning gains to plunge in the red.



Sensex falls 75 points to trade at 29,346 while the Nifty50 was trading at 9,113.60, down 22.80 points.



12.36 PM:

Tata Power today said it has signed an agreement with Ajmer Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (AVVNL) for electricity distribution in Ajmer for 20 years.

Tata Power signed the Distribution Franchise Agreement (DFA) with AVVNL to cater to power requirements of customers in Ajmer for a period of 20 years, Tata Power said in a regulatory filing.

Subsequent to winning the bid for distribution franchise of Ajmer circle, Tata Power has formed a special purpose company (SPC), TP Ajmer Distribution Ltd.

Tata Power CEO and MD Anil Sardana said: "We welcome all our customers in Ajmer to a world class reliable power experience that is backed by best-in-class customer service."

The SPC will be operating and maintaining the distribution network in the Ajmer city, which includes city division 1 and 2 areas, and would also be responsible for managing the billing and collections, it said.

Shares of Tata Power were trading at Rs 84.50, up 0.42 per cent on BSE.



12.30 PM:

Shares of Mawana Sugar Ltd rose 2.76 per cent on the Sensex.

Another UP based company called Triveni Engineering & Industries Ltd that operates a sugar refinery in bahadurgarh district saw a rise in stock price.

Shares of Triveni were trading 2.90 per cent on the Sensex.

Shares of Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Ltd rose 2.99 per cent on the 30-share index.



11.55 AM:

Jain Irrigation Systems has bagged a Rs 569-crore contract from Karnataka government for Poorigali Integrated Micro Irrigation Project.

The company has been awarded the Poorigali IntegratedMicro Irrigation Project by Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Ltd,Government of Karnataka through National competitive bidding,Jain Irrigation Systems said in a BSE filing today.

The project is based on the concept of 'resource to root'aimed at providing more healthy crops to farmers.

It will cover 25,317 acres of farm area spread over 51villages in Karnataka.

Shares of Jain Irrigation Systems were trading 0.88 percent higher at Rs 68.55 apiece on BSE today.

11.11 AM:

Larsen & Toubro has signed a contract with South Korea's Hanwha Techwin (HTW) for the supply of self propelled guns for the Indian army.

Larsen was the sole qualified bidder based on the trials and performance of the K9 VAJRA-T gun, customised by L&T with HTW as the technology partner.

Shares of L&T were trading 0.53 per cent higher at Rs 1,690 apiece on BSE



11.03 AM:

Reliance Industries Ltd gained the most on the BSE Sensex, rising 2.71 per cent.

NTPC and ONGC gain over 1 per cent to trade among the top gainers on the 30-share Index.

CIPLA and Sun Pharma were the top laggards on the Index falling 1.56 per cent and 1.82 per cent respectively.

Market gains are in-line with global markets with Midcap stocks.

Jain Irrigation bags a Rs 570 cr order from Karnataka government, reports CNBC TV 18.

The stock is up 1.05 per cent



10.20 AM:

Jay Bharat Maruti stocks gains for the fifth day, rising 11.66 per cent.



9.32 AM:

BSE Midcap gainers were led by Sun TV, gaining 2.81 per cent and Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd, gaining 2.17 per cent.



9.27 AM:

Gains on the BSE were led by Reliance, up 1.65 per cent, GAIL, up 1.28 per cent and Axis Bank, up 0.88 per cent.



On the NSE Index, Gains were led by Bharti Infratel while Grasim was the top loser, shedding 1.38 per cent.



9.17 AM:

The S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 29,528.22, soaring 105.83 points while the Nifty50 was trading at 9,173.65, 37.25 points higher.

9.15 AM:

Indian benchmark indices open in the green with Bharti Infratel leading the pack on the NSE.

Tech Mahindra among other tech stocks were trading higher.

Sun Pharma was trading 1.5 per cent lower after US FDA inspection at its Dadra plant.

The Midcap Index is up 6 per cent with a positive bias.

Sugar stocks are trading higher after UP CM Yogi Adityanath promised reforms for the industry.
Intellectual property is a critical driver of technological innovation and economic competitiveness. There is a variety of intellectual property or IP rights, including patents, trademarks, GIs, copyright and trade secrets, to name a few.

Also, IP is an important factor in the facilitation process while taking innovative technology to the market place. In the 21st century, success of an economy is decided based on the extent of innovation and the IP capabilities that we build. In the Global Intellectual Property Centre (GIPC) of the U.S. Chamber's 2017 Index, it benchmarks IP standards in 45 global economies. In this edition, India's score is 8.75 out of 35, which means our ranking is 43rd out of those 45 global economies.

In the business context, innovation of a product or a service is something that meets customer expectations towards a new business or a new market territory without competition as long as it retains its innovative advantage. The ability to continuously innovate and improve products, services and work processes is vital for the success of an organisation in this dynamic era.

We are in a time of unparalleled change all around our ecosystem. As a result, what may have aided an organisation to be successful at one time can potentially be the cause of their failure too, in the future. Simply put, "innovation is about staying relevant", as said by Stephen Shapiro, an American business author and expert on business innovation with five books to his credit. Intellectual property is a term often referred to such uniqueness of staying relevant while bringing in creative value addition.

This ability calls for not only creativity, but also human ingenuity and the originality at the root of it. A robust value proposition influences, persuades and delivers an experience that is meaningful and measurable. True innovation or the competency of being able to create value addition in what we do, requires personal behavioural change. I have coined an acronym 'TOTAL' to describe these changes that a successful innovator brings about, leading to necessary individual behavioural development.

Think like an investor: When you hear a new idea, ask if it can make a significant difference. Ideas don't matter unless they are opportunities. Seeing from an IP perspective, investors would like their money to be safe and backed up by protected innovation. Hence, they are very inquisitive. They focus on big ideas that make the risk worth taking. Investors encourage challenges that are needed to achieve any breakthrough. An investor's mindset is one where one spends resources on things that will return more value than they cost and slay habits that are either inefficient or ineffective. When investors evaluate an opportunity, they ask a lot of hard questions about the business model, value proposition, go-to-market strategy, competition and risk.

Open to learn from various sources: Being innovative is championing new ideas with enthusiasm, which is generated through the keenness with which you seek to learn. This permeates the human desire, cheerfully consenting to know new things and to improve yourself. The eagerness and desire to push ahead enable one to discover new avenues. The importance of 'willingness to learn' is the ability to create. The more things you learn, the more new ideas come to your mind. The ability to innovate requires a desire to learn a lot. Therefore, innovators are flexible, quick to pick up new skills and eager to learn from anyone without any ego. They develop the ability to sieve through large amount of data and pull out relevant information that will reinforce their conviction.

Treat failure as a means and not as end: Typically, many of us are afraid of failing, at some point in time or other. This fear to stop us from doing things that can prevent us from moving towards achieving our goals is responsible for the failure. In this world of VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), fear of failure is but a natural reaction to these conditions. A Harvard University study on the impact of fear on decision-making has found that fear creates pessimism, which leads to risk-averse behaviour. Risk aversion and, therefore, fear of failure choke creativity and progress. The advantage of overcoming such fear is the dare to differentiate. Innovation is not just about thinking outside of the box. It involves much more than that. It is being able to cope with the change, with uncertainty and failure. To promote such individual behaviours, organisations, too, have come up with creative measures. For instance, the large Indian conglomerate Tata Group gives out an annual award for the 'best failed idea'. The objective is to distinguish and reward failures as without them, successes will be impossible. The prize is simply intended to communicate how important trying and failing can be.

Actions are self-driven: In an article on creating a culture of innovation from the Google Enterprise, Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, says, "The story of innovation has not changed. It has always been a small team of people who have a new idea, typically not understood by people around them and their executives."

Being resourceful and the ability to push themselves and others to give their best, lead them to the positive stride of 'drive'. They are motivated by their work and thirst for success. They are persistent, determined and expect to win, but can cope with failure as they see it as a learning curve. They are the judge of their work and are ready to question and evaluate themselves. They believe in getting up, getting out there and doing something, which is just like training one's muscles. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

Leverage an interdependent ecosystem: We are living in a connected world. Successful innovators never shrug to identify and connect those components that will complete the universe. They believe in the fact that innovation is a team sport; it is never a single event and, therefore, to find the best solutions, one needs to leverage the full range of expertise across their ecosystem. Many successful innovations such as Airbnb and Zipcar turned consumers into collaborators. We are increasingly experiencing that in the innovation ecosystem, intellectual property is the core to achieving overall success. While system-wide changes do not come easy, innovators develop and deploy their influence to question the status quo. In a Forbes article by Greg Satell on innovation, he mentions that Dr Angel Diaz, IBM's VP of cloud technology and architecture, once said, "We need computer scientists working with cancer scientists, with climate scientists and with experts in many other fields to tackle grand challenges and make large impacts on the world."

Increasingly, collaboration is becoming a crucial competitive advantage because of the need to combine ideas from widely disparate fields. Being innovative calls for the ability to recognise people's innate capacity to adapt and create - to innovate.

Often, people stick to old and ineffective models not only out of habit and convenience, but also because they need to work with others who employ similar models. Therefore, the need to change the habits is necessary. However, being innovative calls for change in behaviour, which is more inside out. Extrapolating this at an organisation level, managing innovation better than its competitors is one of the key objectives of a business that wishes to survive and thrive in today's economy. As Steve Jobs puts it, "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

V. Mohan Srinivasan is a Principal Consultant with Centre for Behavioural Excellence - Talent Transformation, Wipro Ltd. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of his employer.
Calendar art depicts Ganga Maiya as a beautiful full bodied lady venerated by millions, yet her devotees violate her guiltlessly. Electoral promises to clean up the Ganga wins votes but nothing then prevents the same voters from misappropriating funds allocated for the job. In this environment of grotesque irony, what are we to make of the Uttarakhand High Court's judgment declaring the Ganga and Yamuna as living beings? Coming as it does at the crest of a saffron political wave, are we to understand that India is capable of cleaning up its rivers only by reaching back to a 5000 year old concept of riverine goddesses? Does modernism mean retro chic Hinduism? Do we need to call our aerospace initiative the UdanKhatolaProgram? Are our solar energy farms an aspect of Surya Pooja? Is Hindutva the framework within which Indian business will now seek to achieve its commercial ambitions?

To make sense of this unusual judgment [Mohd. Salim v/s State of Uttarakhand, W.P. 126 of 2014 Decided 20.03.2017], we need to examine what it means in law for a 'thing' to become a 'real' legal person. Consider a Hindu temple. People routinely offer money to the deity within. The money accumulates. Priests then create trusts, open bank accounts, invest the money and so forth. Sometimes, they also open schools, colleges, charities and hospitals. Who owns all these things? Clearly, it's not the priests. In YogendraNathNaskar v. Commission of Income-Tax, Calcutta [1969 (1) SCC 555], the Supreme Court reiterated yet again that a Hindu idol is a juristic entity capable of holding property and of being taxed through its managers who are entrusted with such duties.

So far so good, but we now face a fundamental difficulty: how do we take a 2500 km long river and make a 'person' out of it? The Supreme Court has given us the necessary ideological construct to justify this piece of legal jugglery. In Ram Jankijee Deities & others v. State of Bihar [1999 (5) SCC 50], the Supreme Court more or less endorsed the hardcore Hindu mind set:

"Images according to Hindu authorities, are of two kinds: the first is known as Sayambhu or self-existent or self-revealed, while the other is Pratisthita or established. A Sayambhu or self-revealed image is a product of nature and is  without any beginning and the worshippers simply discover its existence".

In effect, this means that a river for instance is holy before the beginning of time and humans have merely stumbled on something self-evident. In this view of the matter, the Uttarakhand High Court didn't give us anything, it merely stated the obvious.

At one level, river or idol, all artificial persons are made equal because they are after all only ideological constructs. Indeed, the idea of a 'real person' is itself an ideological construct. In history, we have had legal systems where real 'touch and feel' human beings were not legal persons. For example, in Roman and French colonial law, a slave was never a person. This was also true in America till slavery was abolished. Conversely, even societies that pay little if any heed to religion have recognized a multitude of imaginary secular 'things' as real persons. What is a company but words on paper that exists an entry in a register in some government office somewhere? What is a Hindu joint family but an emotional construct in the minds of blood relatives? What are charitable trusts but the benevolent fantasies of the dead? Yet all these are legally real entities even though they are not real people. This brings us to the heart of the real issue. If you stop to think about it, human beings are all committed irrevocably to 'imagined realities'. The Gods, Hindu Karma, Chrisitian Charity, Original sin, Bhakti,Nirvana  you name it. If the Indian Evidence Act is the standard of proof required to make something real, none of these ideas can be proved to a standard that a court could accept. Indeed, if the Indian Evidence Act is the standard of proof, the concept of human rights, justice and fairplay are all imagined realities. Yet, from this reality comes the judicial system, however, imperfectly it administers its own mandate. That being the state of the art, there is no special reason why a river should be less a pretty lady and more a bulk of water seeking the lowest point in the landscape to flow through.

This brings us back to the judgement of the High Court. The saga began when some persons encroached along the right bank of the Shakti canal in the Kulhal District of Dehradoon and started raising a building. Neighbours complained. The administration acted but it was unclear if this land fell within Uttarakhand or was a part of Uttar Pradesh. The dispute ultimately negotiated the labyrinth of India's judicial system and came to rest in the High Court. The court took the view that Indians have deep veneration for the Ganga and the Yamuna, which rivers have provided both physical and spiritual sustenance to all of us from time immemorial. For this reason, they must be recognized as living persons, especially in view of Articles 48A and 51A(g) of our constitution. In conclusion, the court declared the Director NAMAMI Gange, the Chief Secretary of the State of Uttarakhand and the Advocate General of the State of Uttarakhand as persons in loco parentis (meaning "in place of the parents") as the human face to protect, conserve and preserve Rivers Ganga and Yamuna and their tributaries.

The real question though is the impact of this judgment. What happens if an imagined reality becomes a real person? For a start, it invokes the power of the state to intervene against an abusive or negligent parent, legal guardian or informal caretaker, and to act as the parent of any child or individual who is in need of protection.Thus, the court has now obliged the state to protect the rivers. Does this advance the cause of environmental protection in India?

I don't see how. It's not as if India's degraded environment had no parent till this judgment came along. The Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board (UEPPCB) is a statutory Organization constituted under the section 4 of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 to implement environmental laws and rules within the jurisdiction of Uttarakhand. It's their job to keep the rivers clean. When it comes to encroachment, the Uttarakhand Urban and Country Planning And Development Act, 1973 sends anyone encroaching on public land to jail for a year with a fine of twenty thousand. It also authorizes the authority under the Act to remove the encroachment. To put it quite bluntly, I do not see how making a new bunch of officers responsible for fixing an old problem changes anything of the nature of the problem.

This brings me to the two thoughts I have on this issue. First, I am gravely concerned with issues around materiality. I have argued in the past that Indian courts assume jurisdiction orders of magnitude beyond the powers that were conferred on them when their existence was conceived. Thus I have argued in Invisible Elephant in the Court Room that it is not for courts to expend their energy rendering judgement on the legality of bull taming, anthem standing and santa-banta joke telling. Departments already exist to protect rivers, keep waters clean, prevent encroachments, and so forth. If citizens flout the law and the government watches immobile, laws also exist to move the courts to make governments do their job. These prerogative writs are well known and frequently employed to excellent effect by the courts. In the circumstances, there is little benefit in creating new judicially imagined realities that do nothing to advance the cause of the issue at hand. In India, this above all is true: when we confront a problem, we deny that we are poorly administered. Instead, we pretend the law is inadequate and set out to create another law which inevitably is just as ineffective no matter how effectively it is drafted. We need to recognize that it's rarely the law: it's the attitude of its enforcers. If we want to change behaviour, we have to change incentives, not switch enforcers.

My second thought is a national reality we need to confront. We are a nation of grandstanders who engage in endless pulpit oratory and 'tokenism'. If we want to clean up our country, it doesn't strike us that organization, process and best practice is quite the way to go. Instead we think the best way to do it is to hand a broom to every celebrity we can find and have them mill about on a pleasant Sunday winter afternoon amidst leering bystanders fighting to get into the TV frame. It's not entirely different with the courts. Importing Hindutva into what is above all a management challenge of managing municipal and industrial waste is erudite spin unlikely to address the issue. The Pollution Board must by law clean water bodies whether they provide us spiritual sustenance or not. The Ganga is beautiful even if she isn't a full bodied goddess. Engaging in literary flourishes may excite the press, but it does not do enough to advance the debate or resolve the issue at hand.



The author is Managing Partner of the Gurgaon-based corporate law firm N South. His bestselling expose' of the real world of Indian courts "Legal Confidential", released in November 2015.
For more than a month now, over 100 farmers from Tamil Nadu have been waging a protest in Delhi against the failure of the central and state governments to provide compensation for their crop loss due to drought last year. The agricultural loans of the farmers of Uttar Pradesh have just been waived off. The farmers in Maharashtra too are agitating, demanding a similar waiver.

Despite having a normal monsoon season last year, and a record production of cereals and pulses crops, the agony of farmers across the country seem to be far from over. Is it an indication of how difficult it will be to fulfill Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream of doubling farmers' income by 2022? As agriculture expert and Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand points out in a recent study, the real income of farmers has been declining during the 2011/12 to 2015/16 period. He attributes that to the below normal monsoons for two consecutive years (2014/15 and 2015/16), poor output and low prices. According to him, for farmers' income to double, it should register an annual growth of 10.41 percent till 2022/23.



Chand lists out a six point agenda to make this happen.

Improvement in productivity comes first. Resource use efficiency to minimise cost of production comes next. Increase in crop intensity, diversification towards high value crops, shifting cultivators from farm to non-farming occupations and better realisation of prices for farm produce are the other suggestions.



According to Chand, aggregate productivity of India's crop sector increased at the rate of 3.1 percent during 2000/01 to 2013/14. If this rate of increase is maintained, it will result in 18.7 percent increase in total farm income in seven years. Income from crops constitutes 70 percent of income from agriculture. Added with the income from live stock, the percentage increase could be 27.5 in the next seven years, he says. While judicial use of resources can result in another 26.3 percent increase in farmers' income the rest will come from other interventions. Chand says that the combined effect of the seven potential sources of growth comes to 75.1 percent in 7 years and 107.5 percent in 10 years or by 2025/26.

Incidentally, even at the best of times - when the growth rate in output was impressive, number of farmers to share the income declined, and prices realized by farmers grew - farmers' income grew at 7.46 percent a year. That calls for a sharp acceleration of the ongoing and previously achieved rate of growth in farm income. Also, the National Sample Survey Office, in its 70 Round of survey report released in April 2016 had estimated the average monthly income per agricultural households during the agricultural year July 2012- June 2013 to be Rs 6,426. The average monthly consumption expenditure per agricultural household during the same time was Rs 6,223.

In other words, it's a hand to mouth existence for Indian farmer and any decline in income can result in a Tamil Nadu like situation. Income doubling, however difficult it might be, is critical.
India's third largest software services firm Wipro has fired hundreds of employees as part of its annual "performance appraisal".

According to media reports, Wipro laid off around 600 employees, while many predict the number to go as high as 2,000.

The layoffs at Wipro come at a time when industry body Assocham has warned that the Indian IT firms may be forced to displace work force amid US tightening H-1B visa norms and rising rupee leading to lower realizations for software exports.

Nearly 86% of the H-1B visas issued for workers in the IT sector go to Indians and this figure is now sure to be scaled down to about 60% or even less, Assocham had said.

The Bengaluru-based company had over 1.79 lakh employees by the end of December 2016. The company, however, did not comment on the number of employees that have been asked to leave.

When contacted, Wipro said it undertakes a "rigorous performance appraisal process" on a regular basis to align its workforce with business objectives, strategic priorities of the company, and client requirements.

"The performance appraisal may also lead to the separation of some employees from the company and these numbers vary from year to year," it added.

Visa troubles for the Indian IT sector are not confined to the United States. After the US move to tighten visa norms, Australia announced scrapping of 457 visa used largely by Indian IT professionals.

In a statement earlier this week, Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu had said, "India provides the highest number of temporary skilled workers to Australia of any country; eight out of the top 10 occupations for Indian 457 visa holders (as at December 2016) were IT professionals."

In the neighbouring Southeast Asia, Singapore has also begun curbing visas for Indian IT professionals. Commenting on the visa hurdles in Singapore, Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar had told TOI, "This has been lingering for a while but since early-2016, visas are down to a trickle. All Indian companies have received communication on fair consideration, which basically means hiring local people."

The $100 billion software export industry that employs over four million people gets over 60 per cent of their revenues from the North American market, about 20 per cent from Europe and the remaining from other economies.

With the UK already hiking the minimum wage requirement to 35,000 pounds for tier-2 visa immigrants, this latest move by the US will act as a definitive dampener to the Indian outsourcing industry.

With visa programmes in these countries becoming more rigorous, Indian IT companies are likely to face challenges in movement of labour as well as a spike in operational costs.
Since the August 30, 2016 car bombing in front of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, concerns have increased about Central Asians carrying out attacks in their homelands after they leave the war in Syria. A growing number of Central Asians in Syria, especially in the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), are becoming dissatisfied with al-Qaeda because it is limiting external operations, while the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is actively promoting attacks abroad. Moreover, a number of TIP fighters disagree with the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate's re-branding to appear "less al-Qaeda-like" and "more Syrian." ISIS is eager to see defected TIP members in its ranks, which could enable these fighters to target Central Asian or Chinese interests abroad in the name of ISIS.

BACKGROUND: The TIP  often referred to in Western media as East Turkistan Islamic Movement  was formed in Afghanistan in the 1990s and later moved to Pakistan's tribal regions after the post-9/11 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The TIP had a minimal operational presence in Afghanistan and carried out few attacks in China until the start of the Syrian war in 2011, although some of its leaders achieved high ranks among the al-Qaeda leadership based in Pakistan. Starting in 2012, the TIP began signaling interest in supporting the Syrian rebels. Between 2013 and 2015, Uighur militants in Afghanistan traveled to Syria via Turkey and formed the TIP's "Syrian Branch", which quickly superseded its "Afghanistan Branch".

The TIP "Syrian Branch" participated in major battles in northwestern Syria along with al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra and the two entities it became after re-branding as Jabhat Fath al-Sham (JFS) in 2016 and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January 2017. At least several hundred, if not over a thousand, Uighurs, have been with the TIP in Syria, while smaller numbers joined ISIS. One sign of growing numbers of Uighurs in Syria and that ISIS takes an interest in them came in June 2015, when a campaign began to urge Uighurs to join its ranks, including featuring videos of an elderly Uighur grandfather engaging in military training with young fighters in Syria.

One year later, in 2016, signs of TIP discontent with al-Qaeda in Syria began to surface. First, a prominent Syrian pro-al-Qaeda cleric, Abdul Rezzaq Mahdi, "defended" the TIP amid accusations it was fighting weakly, perhaps because it recruited too many inexperienced fighters. Mahdi then issued a statement urging Uighurs to stay in Afghanistan and not come to Syria, perhaps because it was better to keep the TIP strong in Afghanistan than see internal squabbles weaken the group and its ties to al-Qaeda in Syria. In the next months, dozens of TIP fighters were killed in Russian air strikes in and around Aleppo, which ultimately fell to the Syrian army and saw the TIP's former battle victories reversed.

Most recently, in February 2017, pro-ISIS fighters of Jund al-Aqsa, which had been loosely part of the al-Qaeda coalition but always had an ideology similar to ISIS, killed more than 100 rebels in intra-rebel fighting following the re-branding of HTS and loss of Aleppo. The TIP helped Jund al-Aqsa fighters receive medical treatment and travel to Raqqa, Syria to defect to ISIS in a mediation facilitated by al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Muhammed al-Maqdisi. In the aftermath, a TIP activist sought to dispel "rumors" about the TIP abandoning al-Qaeda by explaining on Twitter that the TIP was truly anti-ISIS, as evidenced by a 2016 video of TIP leader Abdul Haq al-Turkistani condemning the organization. But denying these "rumors" was seemingly a tacit acknowledgement that they had some basis in fact.

On February 28, ISIS came out with a high-quality 30-minute video, even though it was otherwise decreasing media production due to its own struggles in Syria and Iraq. The video featured Uighur ISIS militants who, for the first time, directly accused the TIP by name of being "secularists" for fighting with HTS with its "many banners" instead of the "one Islamic banner" of ISIS. The video also featured a eulogy of a defector from the TIP to ISIS, who became a commander and died as a "martyr" in an air strike. This was an indication that ISIS seeks more defections from the TIP  perhaps with momentum coming from TIP fighters who accompanied Jund al-Aqsa to defect to and support ISIS in Raqqa.

IMPLICATIONS: Al-Qaedas re-branding in Syria may have gone too far for the hard-liners in the TIP, who desire an Islamic state in Syria to serve as a model for Central Asia and Xinjiang and oppose any hints of secularism or nationalism. Even al-Maqdisi has criticized the secularism of HTS in Syria. On top of this, one of the goals of HTS has been to integrate with formerly moderate U.S.-vetted groups in Syria to escape the wrath of U.S. air strikes after the negotiations held in Astana concluded with little result. But even after the Astana negotiations, HTS and other groups in its coalition, including TIP, have been targeted by air strikes.

Beyond the concerns among TIP fighters about al-Qaeda in Syria  both its re-branding as HTS and its inability to defend Aleppo  they likely also have reservations regarding the prospects of returning to Afghanistan, as Uzbek fighters from Syria have already done. The Taliban is increasingly gaining footholds throughout the country, but at the same time the Taliban still has nationalist tendencies, which ISIS frequently highlights in its videos. The Taliban even engages in diplomatic activities, such as seeking forms of recognition from Central Asian countries, Russia and China. Historically, the Taliban has been reticent to allow the TIP to attack China out of respect for its backers in Pakistan and to prevent China from adding to the pre-existing anti-Taliban stances of the West in international forums. Thus, even though the Taliban and al-Qaeda are allies, it is unclear how much this relationship will specifically benefit battle-hardened TIP fighters returning from Syria who want to wage Jihad against China.

ISIS, in contrast to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, offers fighters a more action-oriented approach regarding external operations with little concern for backlash. Indeed, the attack by an Uzbek former IMU member on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul for ISIS on December 31, 2016 may have served as an example of how ISIS can deliver results. In contrast, al-Qaeda is more reticent about attacks that kill Muslim civilians, or apostates, as ISIS called the guests at Reina who were celebrating a Christian event like New Year.

Moreover, the Reina attacker, who was assisted by TIP facilitation networks in Turkey, highlights how these networks are increasingly willing to work with both ISIS and al-Qaeda. Thus, the TIPs former unswerving al-Qaeda allegiance may have diminished over time as its operatives in Turkey have become exposed to both ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters.

CONCLUSIONS: The fracturing of militant groups is common among Jihadists. Just as the IMU split over its allegiance to ISIS in 2015, the TIP is likely beginning to see a similar fracturing. The old guard leadership around Abdul Haq al-Turkistani will stay loyal to al-Qaeda and is currently fighting with HTS in Hama, Syria, but the TIP may not be able to prevent a number of its fighters from joining ISIS either in Syria or via its increasingly active Khorasan Province in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has allied with some Pakistan Taliban factions that are also dissatisfied with the Talibans diplomacy with infidel foreign governments. If more TIP members defect to ISIS, one could expect these Uighur militants to carry out attacks against Chinese interests in China or abroad, in what could be a repetition of the Chinese embassy bombing in Bishkek in August 2016. The TIP, in turn, could find itself in a bind: the ISIS Uighur fighters could generate attention and carry out TIPs intended mission - attacking China  while the TIP itself may be hamstrung by the al-Qaeda/Taliban limitations on targeting China. The TIP would thus have to consider abandoning its cause against China like the IMU largely did with its native Uzbekistan in the 2000s or break with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

AUTHORS BIO: Jacob Zenn is a Fellow of Eurasian and African Affairs at The Jamestown Foundation.

Image source: wikimedia.org, accessed on April 19, 2017
One year has passed since the Four-Day War  an unprecedented escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on April 1-5, 2016 that claimed the lives of over a hundred soldiers on both sides. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has never been truly frozen, yet the increased intensity of clashes since April 2016 demonstrates that violence can flare up at any time, destabilizing the already fragile region. As no peaceful solution is visible on the horizon, the Line of Contact (LoC) between Azerbaijans and Armenias armed forces has become the most militarized area of the former Soviet Union. Azerbaijani and Armenian societies have also grown increasingly nationalistic as fighting intensifies and casualty rates grow on the frontline.

BACKGROUND: The latest deadly round of escalation on the LoC catching international attention occurred on February 25, 2017. While it is as usual highly difficult to obtain confirmed information regarding the casualties, Azerbaijans Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that 6 Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in the course of a few days combat, while also claiming casualties among Armenian servicemen and the downing of an enemy drone in the Fuzuli region. The corpses of the five Azerbaijani servicemen killed in the initial fighting on February 25 could only be recovered from the battlefield two days later with the participation of the OSCE monitoring mission. The cease-fire has since seen frequent violations involving 122 mm guns, mortars, and heavy machine guns. Azerbaijans MoD claims to have destroyed two Armenian military compounds and vehicles carrying soldiers.

This is taking place against the background of a deadlock in peace negotiations. The day before the February clashes, Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated that I dont have an optimistic view of meetings over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, neither does my Armenian counterpart in his speeches give us a chance so that we can discuss something positive. Mammadyarovs statement came in response to Armenias Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandyans interview with the Russian RIA Novosti agency, in which he described expectations for a breakthrough in the peace process as futile. On February 20, the non-recognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which Azerbaijan considers to be an Armenian puppet regime established in the occupied territories, also held a constitutional referendum on changing its official name to Artsakh. International organizations and the Minsk Group member states did not recognize this unilateral development, which further reduced the likelihood of progress in the peace negotiations. Azerbaijans Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the regions referendum as nothing but an attempt to deceive itself and the international community as well undermine the negotiation process.

IMPLICATIONS: As tensions remain high and the deadlock continues in peace negotiations, the war rhetoric is prevailing in the official discourses of both countries. Yet, the change of focus from peace efforts to the prospect of military confrontation is not a new trend in the region. Since 2014, the intensity of skirmishes along the LoC, along with near silence on the diplomatic front, has signaled the possibility of sudden and more devastating violence. The military equipment used in the regularly occurring skirmishes has become more advanced, and local commanders on the LoC have been given increased authority to deploy this hardware. Nevertheless, the real shift came with an announcement in early February 2016 by Armenias Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoian that Yerevan was moving from a static defense strategy to a more active deterrence mode. Such a move was also in line with Armenias 2015 military strategy, which permits preemptive action in the name of deterrence.

As both sides have hardened their military posture, the Four-Day War was a logical consequence. Whereas Azerbaijan and Armenia exchange accusations about who initiated the escalation, from Bakus point of view the April war ended in Azerbaijans favor as it prompted international efforts to bring the two countries to the negotiating table and considerably improved Bakus hand. It demonstrated Azerbaijans willingness to move beyond rhetorical threats and use its military power in Nagorno-Karabakh, challenged the conception of the Armenian military being the superior force along the LoC, and showed that Armenias membership in the Russia-led CSTO does not guarantee the countrys security in the case of a resumed war.

Azerbaijan calculated that it was the right time to push forward the long-stalled peace process based on the so-called Lavrov plan (which includes elements of the updated Madrid principles and the 2011 Kazan document), signaling a readiness to reopen communication lines to Armenia and provide security guarantees to the Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for the de-occupation of at least a few of the adjacent regions. As a gesture of goodwill for launching comprehensive peace talks, Azerbaijan tentatively agreed on the establishment of a mechanism for investigating cease-fire violations, a retreat from Bakus long time rejection of any move that can serve to cement the status quo on the LoC.

However, to Bakus frustration, after meetings between Azerbaijans and Armenias presidents in Vienna on May 16 and St. Petersburg on June 20, 2016, peace negotiations have entered an impasse. According to Matthew Bryza, the former American OSCE Co-Chair, Armenias President Serzh Sargsyan initially agreed to advance the peace process based on Moscows plan. Yet the government reversed its approach after subsequent events in Armenia, most importantly the Sasna Tsrer revolt during which war veterans attacked a police station in Yerevan resulting in a two-week hostage crisis and mobilizing public support for the veterans. Baku accused Yerevan of using these developments to manipulate the public in order to justify its rejection of negotiations.

The negotiations have failed to produce meaningful results and the situation has returned to the pre-April 2016 deadlock  a familiar and depressing mix of mutual accusations of bad faith, Azerbaijani frustration, Armenian inertia, and diplomatic wrestling over tiny details. As the peace process fails, violence surges periodically turning into a war of attrition. Along with stagnation in the peace process and engagement in low-intensity fighting, both countries have speeded up their efforts to improve the combat readiness of their armies for a possible new grave escalation.

Immediately after the April 2016 fighting, Armenia launched efforts to accelerate the delivery of new weaponry from Russia, based on a July 2015 US$ 200 million military loan agreement. Since then, Armenia has received a range of advanced weapons, including Iskander missiles. Armenia also strengthened its military alliance with Russia by establishing a joint military force. In a bid to balance Armenias new acquisitions and despite a serious drop in oil revenues, Baku amended its military budget for 2017, increasing defense spending to AZN 2.642 billion (US$ 1.5 billion)  a 63 percent rise from the initially proposed AZN 1,026 billion (US$ 586 million). In fall 2016, both countries conducted some of the largest military drills in their history, which also coincided with severe cease-fire violations.

CONCLUSIONS: After the eruption of violence in April 2016, British analyst Thomas de Waal warned that it was hard to conceive how the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could return to its semi-quiet state of the last few years. He noted that either a new political process would deliver results, or there would be more violence. Now, when the peace process has lost momentum and clearly failed to deliver results, calculated or unintended escalations are unavoidable. An increased level of violence is becoming a new normal for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as both sides continue to test each others will to fight. However, there is no sign that either side is willing to soften its position as a result of an increased number casualties. On the contrary, both societies are becoming more nationalistic, revenge seeking and committed to their cause in the conflict.

Russia initially took the leadership in brokering peace but now seems to have relinquished its plans, whereas the West has turned a blind eye to the region after Donald Trumps election as U.S. president. As the sporadic fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh continues, the international community will also likely get used to the new level of violence and casualties, as has been the case in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere. Thus new escalations may not be met with the same reactions and diplomatic efforts that were among the few positive developments emerging after the Four-Day War.

AUTHORS BIO: Azad Garibov is the Editor-in-Chief of the Istanbul-based academic journal Caucasus International. He is the editor of the book The Caspian Sea Chess-Board: Geo-political, Geo-economic and Geo-strategic Analysis (Milan, 2014).

Image source: wikimedia.org, accessed on April 19, 2017
4 possible outcomes in the French presidential elections

Published on April 21, 2017

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For years we've been hearing all sorts of predictions about what the future holds for both Europe and the Western world, which seem to be balanced on a razor's edge. The internet is filled with analyses, and now political punditry is somewhere between an act of faith and an extreme sport.

"Donald Trump wont win," Michael Cohen wrote in the Guardian in 2016. He was arguing that, in the face of Trump's strategy of attacking and stigmatising foreigners and even some American citizens, Republicans would find it harder and harder to follow their candidate. Which, let's face it, would be a blow for American conservatism. A few months later, we all know how that turned out.

A few weeks before the Brexit referendum, Daily Mail columnist Dan Hodges was very clear on his country's future in the European Union: "The defining issue of British politics is no longer whether the Brexit camp can win, but how they choose to lose. More specifically, its whether they lose in an honourable and gallant way  or in a way that destroys them individually as politicians, tears the Conservative Party apart, and brings the governance of the United Kingdom to the brink of total collapse."

The evolution of modern politics has demonstrated time and again that the truth can be stranger than fiction... or our predictions. With that in mind, here's a series of alternative possible outcomes for the French presidential elections. Don't say we didn't warn you.

1) Le Pen wins (with some help from the left...)

Writing in Politico, Jacques Lafitte, the CEO and founder of Avisa Partners, put forward a series of logical arguments explaining why it would be difficult for the leader of the Front National to become the future president of France. But if there's one thing modern politics loves, it's being irrational - why vote with your head when you can vote with your gut? Which is why, in our first possible scenario, Marine Le Pen could take advantage of growing discontentment among the people.

Particularly that of Manuel Valls, who, at the eleventh hour, decides to throw his weight behind the ultraconsercative candidate. Shocked by his defeat against Benoit Hamon and offended by the success of Emmanuel Macron, 'Manu' could decide to go for broke in destroying the Socialist Party, and the quickest way to do that is through Le Pen. Once she takes office, one of Le Pen's first policies will be to expel everyone from the country except those whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are 'pure' French. Unfortunately this will also include Valls, who has a Spanish father and a Swiss mother.

2) Francois Fillon could win. No, really.

Etienne Dujardin has written in Le Figaro that hope is not lost for the Republicans. He argues that, unlike the extremism of Le Pen, Fillon's lukewarm discourse could still hit all the right notes with the moderate right: with security, innovation and support for small businesses being the main pillars of his agenda. However, the black clouds of corruption still hang over his chances.

Fillon's wife, Penelope, is being investigated for taking money for doing no work. But the key to politics is turning your weaknesses into strengths, and Fillon can still do just that - by offering the same kind of contract to everyone who votes for him. It's hard to argue against corruption when you're the one benefiting from it.

3) Martin Schulz and Emmanuel Macron save Europe (or make it worse).

Wolfgang Munchau, editor of the Financial Times, suggests that one candidate could have a huge impact not only in the French elections, but the upcoming elections in Germany as well. He writes about a policy of teamwork and integration. Certainly he doesn't expect a miracle: in fact, he admits there is every chance it could fail. But it's hard not to get carried away and imagine a future Europe looking like an episode of The Teletubbies: a joyous world of happiness and friendship. Big Hug!

We could all enjoy endless days of playing in the sunshine and eating mysterious pink goop. But the show could have an unhappy ending. Ultra-conservatives really don't care for the Teletubbies - in Poland, Ewa Sowinska of the League of Polish Families even called for an investigation into Tinky-Winky's sexuality. Could such a Europe give rise to further populism. That's certainly the view of writer Virgine Despentes, who argues that a Macron victory could make the right even stronger...

4) "I will be one of the surprises of the first round of elections."

These weren't the words of a political analyst, but one of the candidates. Jean-Luc Melenchon, who's seen a meteoric rise in the polls lately? No, it's none other than Francois Asselineu. A Eurosceptic and veteran of right-wing politics, he told La Voix du Nord that he believes he will surprise everyone with his performance in the first round of elections. The polls disagree.

But if Asselineu's "surprise" has nothing to do with the ballot, what will it be? Maybe he wants to go out with a bang and make sure everyone remembers him. Our guess? On 23 April, he'll show up to a polling station draped in a Russian flag. We'll leave you to decide how much he plans on wearing underneath, but he's already given us an idea of how big the flag will be.

Story by Alvaro Garcia Ruiz

Translated from Locura e incertidumbre: cuatro escenarios tras las elecciones en Francia
Ahmed Abba, le correspondant de RFI au Cameroun via Facebook profile

A military court in Cameroon Thursday convicted Ahmed Abba, a journalist for Radio France Internationals Hausa service, on charges of "non-denunciation of terrorism" and "laundering of the proceeds of terrorist acts," according to his lawyer and RFI.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, has called on Cameroonian authorities not to contest the journalist's appeal and to release him without delay.

Abba's lawyer, Clement Nakong, told CPJ that Abba who has been jailed since July 2015 in relation to his reporting on the extremist group Boko Haram, could face the death penalty on the first charge and a maximum of five years in prison on the second charge at a sentencing hearing scheduled for April 24.

Nakong said Abba would appeal the conviction after the sentencing hearing. RFI reported that the military tribunal acquitted the journalist of the charge of "apologizing for acts of terrorism."

A statement published on its website reads, The military court's conviction of Cameroonian radio journalist Ahmed Abba on terrorism charges that could carry the death penalty is an outrage," CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney said. "Covering terrorism as a reporter must not be equated with committing acts of terror. Each day Abba spends behind bars is a travesty of justice."

By Wilson MUSA
Network connections Archives

The Government of Cameroon has threatened to disconnect internet in the two English speaking regions if individuals use it to create public disorder or preach hatred.

The threat is contained in the last paragraph of the release signed by Communication Minister Issa TCHIROMA BAKARY in which he reiterated that the Government reserves the right and duty to take appropriate measures and when necessary to block any form of internet misuse.

The Head of State Paul Biya Thursday had ordered the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to inform the various Telecommunication companies to reinstate internet in the two English Speaking regions of the Country.

This information was read on National Media, CRTV, in its 5pm French broadcast radio news.

The Presidential decision further stated that the people of North West and South West regions should use the internet for appropriate reasons and avoids being lured by secessionist messages, propagation of false information and other practices which could put the State in danger.

The order comes three months, three days since internet was disconnected in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon on January 17, 2016.

It comes over a week when the UN representative Francoise Fall recommended that Internet reconnection could be a booster in solving the stalemate.

The disconnection of Internet according to Right groups has caused both the government and businessmen to lose over 2 billion francs.

Most start-up businesses have had to shut down and some migrated to neighboring regions to have access to internet. In Buea like in Bamenda several Cyber Cafe businesses remained permanently closed, while banks worked at a slow pace.

By Wilson MUSA
| BY Ricki Green |

Interbrand Australia has lured expert strategist, thought leader and change agent Nathan Birch (left) to be its new CEO.

Birch joins the agency armed with more than 18 years experience across digital, innovation and customer strategies with a focus on customer centric, human-led principles for a wide range of brands.

He was previously head of innovation and transformation at Channel 9, and led digital strategy at Deloitte in Sydney.

Birch joins Interbrand at a time when competition for all brands and companies is intensifying.

Says Birch: Every business is at an exciting crossroads; disruption, if not already happening, is inevitable.

Now complex businesses challenges are not just being addressed by deeper data insight and analytical thinking, but more and more by creative thinkers and innovators  who are arguably more skilled at exploring whats possible, finding inspiration from a broader range of stimuli for points of differentiation.

The most successful companies in recent times have recognised that their brand experience, both for external customers and internal employees, is critical to the success of their business strategy and growth.

It is a perfect time for smart businesses in Australia to leverage their brand experience to fuel innovation, differentiate themselves and to drive growth.

Brand experience should be the central foundation of any business strategy or growth, Birch believes: Dont get that right then, despite best efforts, other pieces such as digital experience, customer experience and content strategy are at risk of being siloed, and providing a sub-optimal or fractured customer experience.

Birch has always hugely admired the work Interbrand Australia has become famous for.

Adds Birch: The way theyve created sustained growth for many of Australias most admired and valuable companies through the implementation of bold, clear strategies and an unparalleled body of creative work  it is this alchemy of truly breakthrough thinking and breathtaking creativity that I am so drawn to.

Interbrand Aust/NZ chairman Marty OHalloran said Birch is the right person to lead Interbrand into its next period of growth.

Says OHalloran: Birch is an outstanding strategist and leader, and we were thrilled to appoint him after an extensive search.

Hes passionate about both the exciting and confronting challenges that innovative technologies and rapidly changing customer expectations and behaviours are having on strategies for brands and businesses today.
Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 6:33PM

Its finally come, even if Google Home isnt officially available here just yet. Googles smart speaker/home assistant can support up to six accounts and it can tailor its answers to each person based on their voice. Google makes use of neural networks to identify whos speaking to it. It picks up certain characteristics in your voice and compares it to previous analysis to see if youre the one speaking to it. Google boasts this does only on your device, in a matter of milliseconds.

But Google has a disclaimerwhich it puts in its YouTube adthat someone who has a similar voice to you might be able to get answers from Home based on your profile. The feature has started to roll out to users in the US and is expected to come to the UK in the coming weeks. Now, heres to hoping Google Home officially launches here, especially since its gotten a whole lot more useful.

Source: The Verge
"What will happen to all those DVD sales is they'll go back to where they were prior to 1992, and that is they'll become under the counter at certain service stations, they'll become in head shops, and there's no condition for them to be worried about the classification of these films," Mr Swan said.
"There's big advantages to go through Canberra, particularly given the flight times. If you get to Sydney at the end of the day with your goods, you'll have to wait until the following day because of the curfew to get them out. If you get to Canberra at 5pm we can still get them out," Ms Hendry said.
The next day, party leader Barnaby Joyce had already exempted some workplaces (the Tax Office, the Treasury, the Finance Department and his own Agriculture Department) from leaving Canberra  before Nash had created the "template" that ministers would use to assess "which departments are suitable for decentralisation".
With the recent passing of trainer Lyn Whiting and this year marking the 25th anniversary of Lil E. Tees victory in the Kentucky Derby, it brought back a flood of memories. Lil E. Tees stunning score at 16-1 over that years Cinderella horse Casual Lies was extremely popular in Kentucky because of the always amiable Whiting, a longtime fixture in the Bluegrass, and the legendary Pat Day finally winning his first Derby. But the 1992 Run for the Roses will always be remembered for the phenomenon known as Arazimania.

Never before had the Sport of Kings seen anything like the French wonder horse Arazi, a pocket-sized chestnut colt with a crooked blaze who shocked the racing world the year before by turning in one of the most electrifying moves ever seen on an American racetrack, decimating our best 2-year-olds in the Breeders Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs. His spectacular last to first charge overshadowed all the other Breeders Cup races and made Tom Durkins frantic call an everlasting piece of racing lore, as he bellowed, as if shocked by what he was witnessing, And Arazi runs right by him! Bertrando stunned on the inside with the move of Arazihere indeed is a superstar.

No one had ever seen a move like that before and were left stunned by the spectacular acceleration of Arazi.

French trainer John Hammond, who won the Prix de lArc de Triomphe with Suave Dancer, thought he had seen it all. Ive never seen anything like this, he said. I have to admit I was a doubter before the race, but this horse must have some incredible engine.

Geoffrey Gibbs, senior handicapper for the British Jockey Club, added, That was the best 2-year-old performance I have seen and am ever likely to see. I have never witnessed such acceleration.

Alex Scott, trainer of Sheikh Albadou, who won the Breeders Cup Sprint earlier in the day, said, That sort of thing just doesnt happen. But it did happen. It was like something out of National Velvet.

Immediately after the Breeders Cup, owner Allen Paulson sold half-interest in Arazi to Sheikh Mohammed for a reported $9 million prior to the colt undergoing arthroscopic surgery to clear up an arthritic condition. There was some controversy regarding the necessity of the surgery, as trainer Francois Boutin said the following spring that Arazis knees were more problematic after the surgery than before, adding, One minute they are hot and the next minute they are cold.

But in any event, Arazi returned to the races on March 28 to easily win the 1,600-meter (about one-mile) Prix Omnium at Saint-Cloud. Boutin wanted to get two preps into the colt, but the late flat racing schedule in France prevented it, so Arazi had to go into the Derby off one easy victory and having undergone surgery. The last horse to win the Run for the Roses with less than two starts as a 3-year-old was Morvich in 1922, and Arazi won with such ridiculous ease, he could not have gotten much out of the race. He also was going into the Derby never having raced farther than 1 1/16 miles.

Despite all the warning signs that he might not be ready for a mile and a quarter race and having to perform his magic this time in an 18-horse field, Arazis reputation took on legendary proportions, as America awaited the return of this freak of a racehorse.

Writing for the Daily Racing Form, I tracked Arazis every move and provided as many reports as possible to quench the insatiable thirst of the American pubic for any information coming from Boutins yard in Chantilly. Allen Paulson would provide updates on occasion. I even had our cartoonist, Pierre Bellocq (Peb) make inquiries through his connections in France and even call Boutin himself. Meanwhile, Boutin was feeling overwhelmed by all the questions regarding Arazi that were being hurled at him daily and he became more and more standoffish.

As the Derby grew closer, the Arazi phenomenon began to grow. Never before did racing fans and the media have to wait for the Kentucky Derby favorite to arrive from France.

And so it was that my colleague Ed Fountaine and I were assigned to write a daily Work Patrol from Churchill Downs, along with handling news stories and writing features, and I also did a daily diary with Casual Lies trainer Shelley Riley and wrote Tracking the Derby profiles on every Derby starter, listing their strengths, weaknesses, strategy, and bettability.

Not only was Ed one of the many on the Arazi bandwagon, he was his main cheerleader. One night after dinner on the way back to our hotel, Ed went out of his way to drive to the old J.J. Carter Moving and Storage building across the street from Churchill Downs main entrance on Central Avenue that had been turned into a makeshift quarantine facility that would house Arazi upon his arrival.

Just think, this is where Arazi is going to be in a couple of days, he said, sounding as if he were awaiting the arrival of Elvis.

You have to stop being so starstruck, I told him.

Personally, I was rooting for Arazi, as I would any horse who seemingly had taken on mythical qualities and would boost racing on a national scale. But I just couldnt see a horse with Arazis small physical stature who had undergone surgery and was coming off only one workout of a race since the Breeders Cup winning the Derby. I hoped I was wrong.

Prior to Arazis arrival, most of the focus was on Santa Anita Derby winner A.P. Indy and third-place finisher Casual Lies, who shared the same barn. Few were paying much attention to Lil E. Tee, even though Lyn Whitings barn was a stones throw from the backstretch media center.

Arazi was scheduled to arrive in Louisville on the Sunday afternoon before the Derby. Everyone was well aware that once he had arrived and cleared quarantine, bedlam would rule at his barn and on the racetrack whenever he appeared.

I arranged with Bob Bailey, head of Churchill Downs security, to shadow him all day and record all the events leading up to and including Arazis arrival.

On a cold, blustery afternoon, with biting winds that sent a chill through the bone, Arazi was scheduled to arrive at Butler Field in Louisville at 2 oclock. All of Louisville was abuzz waiting for the much-anticipated arrival of the French wonder horse.

At 1:30, Bailey looked out his office window across the street at the J.J. Carter building and called stall superintendent Mike Hargrove to check on Arazis whereabouts and was informed that the plane was on time. Bailey would be responsible for Arazi once the colt arrived at Churchill Downs, and the waiting made him all the more anxious, and he nervously began to clip his fingernails.

About 15 minutes later, Bailey was still antsy, so he tried contacting Louisville police officer Boone Pike, who was in charge of coordinating traffic and blocking off nearby Rodman Avenue. There was still no word on Arazi.

Trying to keep occupied, Bailey called Lieutenant Don Burbrink and Officer Tom Coin of the Louisville Police Department, who were on special assignment for Churchill Downs. Bailey went over last-minute instructions with them on how the barricades would be set up outside the quarantine facility.

With that taken care of, Bailey called out to his associate Ron Gnagie in the next room. What are we forgetting, Ron? he asked. Im sure were forgetting to do something. Ive been going over and over everything in my mind.

At 2:40 Bailey learned that the plane had landed, but the van had not yet left the airport. Lets get that horse here already, he said to no one in particular. At 3 oclock the phone rang. Bailey quickly picked it up and said nothing, just listened. After hanging up, he called out to the main communications room: Call dispatch. Tell Boone theyre on their way. He then grabbed his coat and headed across the street.

A crowd had begun to form outside the J.J. Carter building. Some 75 chilled-to-the-bone reporters and photographers, many dressed in heavy coats and sweaters, paced back and forth, trying to keep warm. Among them was Ed, equipped with his disposable camera to record the historic moment.

Two uniformed Murray guards from the private security firm hired by Churchill Downs guarded the buildings entrance. Soon the crowd swelled to well over a hundred. People driving down Central Avenue looked quizzically at this unusual gathering. Bailey stood by the curb, peering up the street. He then received word that the van had just exited the Watterson Expressway. At 3:35 Bailey announced what everyone had been waiting hours to hear: Theyre here.

Finally, the van was in sight. It stopped in front of the quarantine facility and as the doors slid open, there, staring down at the large crowd, was the one and only Arazi, with that familiar crooked blazed face, appearing puzzled by the huge throng gathered, many taking his picture. Arazi was quickly led off the van, as security officers and Churchill Downs employees kept everyone at bay.

Just like that it was over. Arazi was in Kentucky, safe and sound in his new temporary home. Joining him was the English colt Dr. Devious, owned by Jenny and Sid Craig and trained by Ron McAnally. Ironically, the Craigs bought the colt in Europe to run in the Kentucky Derby, and although he would only finish seventh, he would return to England and win the Epsom Derby.

Arazi was tucked away for the next 24 to 36 hours. The crowd dispersed, as reporters returned to the press box to write their stories. One of the wildest and wackiest Kentucky Derbys had officially begun.

As hectic as Arazis arrival had been, it couldnt compare to his first visit to the racetrack. No horse in memory had ever made such an entrance. Hordes of people followed him from the barn to the track, looking like the Hebrews following Moses out of Egypt. By the time he arrived on the track, the crowds were five and six deep along the rail. Wherever Arazi went, the crowds followed, whether he was heading to track or being bathed.

As I made my way back from the track following Arazis grand entrance, I went to Barn 41 and walked past A.P. Indys trainer Neil Drysdales office and told him he missed all the excitement.

Oh, I missed it? he said with a straight face. I was too busy doing the crossword puzzle.

Over the next several mornings, Arazi began to lose his composure, wheeling toward the crowds, sweating, and throwing his head sharply in the air. He even dumped jockey Pat Valenzuela.

As everyone knows, A.P. Indy was scratched from the Derby the morning of the race after suffering a bruise on the inside of his left front hoof. As Drysdale made the announcement in the rec room in front of a smattering of media, his wife Inger tried to hide her tears behind her sunglasses, but the pain became too much to bear. She removed her glasses and wept openly.

This business is soits cruel, she said. For Neil to come this close. But I guess its part of life.

Later that day, I watched the Derby from the Daily Racing Form porch high atop the grandstand, and when Arazi made his move, as spectacular, if not more so, than the Breeders Cup, the grandstand beneath me started shaking so much I couldnt hold my binoculars still enough to focus in on the race. Arazi once again had launched a missile of move from the back of the pack, this time racing some 10-wide outside the entire field. In a flash, he had gone from 17th to third at the five-sixteenths pole, and I remember blurting out a Holy (expletive deleted) in disbelief. He was doing it again. He was indeed a freak of a racehorse. He was going to win by 10 lengths. But just then, his breathtaking move came to an abrupt halt. It had all caught up to him  the surgery, the lack of seasoning, the lack of training up to the race, the trip from France, the mile and a quarter  and he collided head on with reality.

Suddenly, Arazi hit the proverbial brick wall and no longer was gaining on the leaders. Pat Day, following behind him on Lil E. Tee, charged past him and collared Casual Lies inside the eighth pole to win by a length, as a weary-legged Arazi dropped back, finishing eighth.

It took weeks for Boutin to talk about the race. It eventually came out that Arazi had swallowed his tongue. Sheikh Mohammeds racing manager Anthony Stroud said the day after the race that Boutin told him that Arazi came back after the race with his tongue down his throat. He also said in hindsight it was an error not to have used a tongue-tie. Valenzuela had initially thought the horse had bled, but he scoped clean after the race. Boutin added that he simply did not have enough time to prepare Arazi properly, but it was a team effort to take the chance.

And so the amazing saga of Arazi and the Kentucky Derby was over. He would return to America later that year to run in the Breeders Cup Mile, but no longer was the horse that had electrified the racing world on two continents and made no impact on the race.

His son Congaree did run a sensational race in the 2001 Kentucky Derby, just getting nosed for second after tracking a brutal pace in the second fastest Derby ever run.

Now 28, Arazi, after standing at stud in England, the United States, Japan, and Switzerland, is, at last report, living the life of a pensioner in Victoria, Australia. There have been many tales of the Turf that have appeared in this space, but nothing quite like the story of that surreal afternoon in 1992 when the racing world was waiting for Arazi.
A representative of U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta (R-11) stressed support for infrastructure efforts under President Trump  including a border wall  while also giving a decisively mixed review on health care reform and the administrations budget during a lunch session on Thursday.

Conrad Falvello, Barlettas long-time adviser and former solicitor during Barlettas tenure as mayor of Hazelton, spoke to a joint meeting of the Carlisle Rotary Club and Carlisle Chamber of Commerce.

Barletta was scheduled to attend, but was unable.

Most notably, Falvello said that the American Health Care Act was not a perfect bill  even though Barletta had stated his intent to vote for it  and doubted that the GOP would fast-track another attempt at health care reform.

The process should be more transparent with more public hearings and expert testimony, Falvello said.

Although several national outlets are reporting that a new compromise is in the works between moderate Republicans and the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Falvello said Barletta had not been approached.

As of now, House leadership has not introduced any new legislation to us, Falvello said.

Barletta had initially said he would not vote for the AHCA, but changed his stance after saying that he had been guaranteed stronger protections in the legislation to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving federal health care benefits.

Immigration enforcement has been Barlettas primary issue since joining Congress. As mayor of Hazleton, Barletta had pushed a controversial city ordinance that imposed fines on landlords who could not verify the immigration status of their tenants.

Falvello said Barletta was not fully enamored of the AHCA, even with the immigration amendment, and was prepared to do more to pad the expected blow against older insurance buyers had the bill moved further in the House. House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill from a floor vote due to a lack of support within the GOP.

Congressman Barletta was very disappointed that Congress missed the opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare, Falvello said. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the perfect and go with the good.

The AHCA wouldve rolled back the expansion of Medicaid and eliminated coverage mandates, causing an additional 24 million Americans to be uninsured, according to Congressional Budget Office projections.

The bill wouldve also scaled back Obamacares age-group rating limits and income-based subsidies, raising out-of-pocket premiums for low-income people in the upper age bracket. In Cumberland County, this spike was estimated at a 16-fold increase, the Sentinel calculated using Kaiser Foundation data.

These cuts wouldve permitted the elimination of certain high-income taxes and the reduction of federal deficits, Republicans argued.

The debate within the GOP also centered on Obamacares requirement that insurance plans provide a number of essential health benefits, which Freedom Caucus members felt was an undue burden on the free market. Barletta, however, seemed to feel that the issue was with too few health benefits being covered.

You may have someone who is now insured, but for them to actually get health care is still very difficult because their copays and deductibles have gone way up, Falvello said.

Rotary member Webb Hersperger asked Falvello to encourage Barletta to support a single-payer option, despite being a traditionally left-wing position.

I know the congressman may not agree, but I think health care is a right, said Hersperger, a retired physician.

Falvello also faced questions about federal support for public schools, a matter where Barletta has also not been entirely in lockstep with the Trump administration.

Trumps preliminary budget would completely eliminate the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, Falvello said. This program provides roughly half of the funding used for the Schools and Homes in Education initiative, with which Barletta has been involved.

SHINE provides after-school programs for children in poor, rural areas of northeastern Pennsylvania, particularly Carbon, Luzerne, and Schuylkill counties. Of the 1,600 students enrolled between 2007 and 2012, a study showed that 79 percent improved their academic performance.

Barletta has sent letters to Trumps budget director, Mick Mulvaney, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos objecting to the cuts, Falvello said.

Falvello also agreed with concerns about DeVos funneling resources to charter schools, when questioned by South Middleton School District Superintendent Alan Moyer.

We know there are questions with charter schools as to if they are providing an equal or better education than public schools, Falvello said.

As chair of the House Transportation Committee, Barletta is also working with the Trump administration on an infrastructure package, Falvello said.

While it was a key part of his campaign, Trump has yet to say how highway infrastructure will be paid for, with the GOP typically resistant to debt financing. Falvello said user-fee-supported plans are likely to be a key feature of the infrastructure package.

The trucking industry would have no problem with a user fee provided that 100 cents of every dollar toes toward infrastructure and isnt cut out for other purposes, Falvello said.

Barletta is also co-sponsoring a bill that would place a 2 percent tax on all wire transfers destined south of the US border with Mexico. Proceeds  estimated at $1 billion to $2.5 billion  would fund the Trump administrations proposed border wall.

Between $54 and $133 billion flows out of the US each year to countries south of the border with Mexico, Falvello said.

While this is true, observers have pointed out that transfers will simply be done via banks to avoid the tax. The fee could also drive up labor costs for US businesses, since workers who need to send a portion of their pay back to family in Central or South America would ask for more money to offset the tax.

This is a particularly likely outcome given falling unemployment. Cumberland County is particularly vulnerable, given that local unemployment rates routinely dip below 3 percent.

Several attendees at Thursdays lunch noted that fruit farmers on the south end of the county are experiencing difficulty finding migrant workers, who are unsure of being able to retain their pay. Even with the proper visas, Hispanic workers are also wary that they may be detained regardless, as happened during the rollout of Trumps now-blocked travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries.
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.
The chemical attack left burns on his face and body, but Tom Stewart was spared the worst case scenario.

I was gassed, but only slightly, the Doughboy wrote his granny, a Mrs. J.M. Leidigh. It is what is called mustard gas and affects you wherever it gets on you and goes through clothes and all.

Stewart was luckythe mask he wore protected his eyes and lungs, otherwise the injuries he suffered could have been far more crippling. His June 21, 1918 letter was published in The Evening Sentinel.

Days later, the newspaper published an earlier letter Stewart wrote to his mother detailing the fighting of Marines at Chateau Thierry  better known through history as the Battle for Belleau Wood.

The battle was memorable because it was the first time the American Expeditionary Force experienced the heavy casualties commonly associated with the Great War on the Western Front, according to the website www.worldwar1.com. Belleau Wood also embodied the grit and determination of the Marine Corps and provided a signal to friend and foe that the US was in Europe to fight.

We were in four hours in the heaviest bombardment I ever saw, Stewart told his mother in a letter dated June 16, 1918. They gave us two gas (shells) to one high explosive and some sure came close. We had another bombardment that night. A three-inch shell exploded within 10 feet of the hole where I was lying, and loads of them came so close you almost thought you were hit.

Ten days prior, Stewart went over the top, meaning his group of Marines climbed out of their trenches to charge across a no mans land and into the enemy defenses in a daylight assault.

We advanced three kilometers  the last 500 yards in a perfect hailstorm of machine gun bullets, Stewart wrote. Had anyone told me a person could live in it, Id sure have laughed at him, but 24 of us with one lieutenant in my platoon made the town of Bouresches and cleaned it up. We captured machine guns, ammunition and all sorts of stuff.

Stewart had little respect for the enemy. He wrote how the Germans would rather retreat than hold ground and fight in close. They left the town but covered the roads with machine guns, which we couldnt take with our 24 men. They retired that night though, when our reinforcements arrived. The town was heavily bombarded all the time we were in it, and we repelled a raid on it one night.

Over and atem

Weeks later on July 10, 1918, Sgt. J. Austin Lindner wrote a letter to Howard Keefer, manager of the Lindner Shoe Factory in Carlisle. Austin was the son of shoe manufacturer John Lindner who had German ancestry. In the letter, Austin Lindner encouraged Keefer to stay on with the company as you are the last of the young men that knows the inside of the business.

Important details on the location and designation of army units were left out of letters home or removed by censors should the mail be intercepted. Back then U.S. soldiers used derogatory ethnic slurs to refer to Germans. Those terms have been replaced with enemy in brackets. Below are excerpts from the July 10 letter:

Over here things are going fine. Our division is claimed the fastest moving division in Europe. We have not had a real good crack at the [enemy] yet, only small detachments, but every man gave a splendid account of himself. In our company we lost one, but he keeled over after finishing his third German.

A platoon of specialists were up the other day to support an attack with a barrage from their mortars and were not supposed to go over the top. Their spirits, however, got the best of them and after their barrage ended they were over and at em and at em hard. They only numbered forty-five but they captured thirteen machine guns (and) one corporal ...

Every man brought ... field glasses, trench daggers, watches, pistols, helmets, everything in fact but prisoners. They didnt want to fool with them.

All along the line the Americans were raising Hell. We now (our division) face the best in German. We are in a warm sector too. The line companies have been making it warm for the Kaisers children and have certainly been knocking them cold, but I fear he has gotten a few of us too  some Carlisle boys among them, but our losses are trifling considering theirs.

Such a noise!

Close calls were common in the warzone like this near miss described in an Aug. 12 letter by Herbert P. Beam of Co. A, 7th U.S. Engineers, published in The Sentinel:

The other day while we were doing some work some airplanes flew over us and the anti-aircraft batteries opened up on them. Suddenly I heard a big piece of shrapnel coming through the air. It sounded just like a big wagon going down a hill with the brake on ... It seemed to be coming directly toward us. I must confess I felt a little nervous until I heard it hit a tree about a hundred yards away from us.

Beam went on to write about the spectacle of an artillery barrage.

I dont see how human beings can live through such a hail of destruction. Dugouts are a Godsend to be sure. It seemed as though there wasnt a foot of ground that wasnt covered by those shells. Dirt was thrown into the air an immense distance and smoke hung about the whole scene. Such a noise! It seemed just like a huge thunderstorm, only quadrupled in its fury. It is terrible to think of and more terrible to experience.

Beam had a theory the ordinary German soldier was afraid of the Yanks. He made references to propaganda leaflets dropped over the Allied lines by a small balloon.

They are trying to bamboozle the Americans into believing that England and France are only using us as tools and that England and France want all the glory, Beam wrote. Another message ... stated that we should not believe what the officers tell us. Well thank God. They are not dealing with thick-headed Dutchmen. They are dealing with unconquerable thinking, freedom loving Americans. The officers dont need to lie and hoodwink us. We came over here of our own free will, and were not forced or driven by a surly autocrat.

Company pride

Sgt. S.P. Dinley and Pvt. Miles McBride collaborated on an Aug. 24 letter that mentioned how an Army sniper from Carlisle had 13 dead Germans to his credit. He is still on the job looking for more ... but we are not permitted to mention any names.

Like Stewart, Dinley and McBride viewed the enemy as cowards. They will not come out in the open and fight man for men but they hide in the treetops and under bushes and buildings and fire on our soldiers.

They shared the story of a soldier from Carlisle who was marching in a column through territory believed cleared of the enemy when he heard a machine gun and saw a German soldier firing from above.

Regardless of his orders he jumped out of line, took quick aim and brought the [enemy] down with a crash, and not being satisfied he ran to the [enemy] and sank his trench knife through him for to make a good job of it ... He shouted Boys, I got mine and by doing this he saved a great many of his comrades, and now he is the pride of the company.
Dear Editor:

As a resident and business owner of Cumberland County, I would like to recommend Nicole C. Miller for one of the Hampden Township seats as a Cumberland Valley School Director.

Nicole has worked for me for over a decade. She has proven to be a person with integrity and genuine concern for todays youth. She is committed, and I have noticed her volunteer work for several youth and family organizations. She has handled many responsibilities through her years of employment for me.

I believe she would be a great asset to the Cumberland Valley School District and families in the district. She has overcome adversities with strength and met all standards I set for employees within my businesses. If the voters want a hard-working person who really cares on the CV School Board in Hampden Township, I believe Nicole Miller would do a great job.

Thank you for considering Nicole Miller.

Donny Brown

Hampden Township
Chinese automaker GAC Motor has hinted that it could change the name of its Trumpchi flagship brand when it launches in the United States.



Speaking to Reuters, executives from GAC Motor said that the Trumpchi brand received some ridicule at Januarys Detroit Auto Show for having Trump in its brand name.

The company originally created the Trumpchi name in the hope it would sound similar to the firms Chinese name Chuanqi with trump representing the best and chi for China.

At the Shanghai Auto Show, GAC Group President Fend Xingya said This is a complete coincidence, we didnt even have the slightest idea he would be president.

At first Id never thought of it, why change the name? Its the president Americans selected, its similar to the presidents name, this has to be good right? But in the United States the level of opposition (to Trump) is high, Xingya said, indicating that potential customers could be turned away because of the name.

GAC Motor hopes to bring the Trumpchi brand, or whatever it will be called, to the United States in 2019.

PHOTO GALLERY
After Renault-Nissan, Volkswagen and other automakers that plan to launch battery-powered cars in China, its now time for Honda to follow a similar route.



The announcement was made by the brands local chief, Yasuhide Mizuno, who spoke to journalists during the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show, Reuters reports. Mizuno said that he expects the EV to hit showrooms before the end of 2018.

Its still too early to point to an exact model, but it will be part of Hondas plan to meet up with the tougher requirements that are expected to be implemented as early as next year in China, which forces automakers to sell 8 percent of their fleet with fully-electric or plug-in hybrid technologies.

Whatever the new EV may be, it will likely be put together by Hondas local partners from Dongfeng, which recently announced expanding their operations in the country by opening their third car assembly plant. It will become operational in 2019, and will bring the joint ventures annual production capacity to around 600,000 units.

In the meantime, Honda are focusing their attention on promoting the new Clarity EV, in Western markets. The zero-emission model, which debuted in New York earlier this month, joins the hydrogen-powered version, along with a new plug-in hybrid.

Note: Honda Clarity EV pictured

PHOTO GALLERY
April 21: Civil Services Day

Published: April 21, 2017

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has inaugurated 11th Civil Services Day programme. The Civil Services Day function is organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

In this edition, awards will be given to five priority schemes, namely, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Start Up India/Stand Up India and e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM). Totally, 10 districts would be awarded this year under the five priority schemes.

The awards will be given in three groups. The first group comprises of eight North-Eastern States and the three Hill States of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The second group consists of the seven Union Territories and the third constitutes rest of the 18 states.

Besides, two awards would be given to Central/State organisations under Innovation category. Under this category, innovative work carried out by the Central/State Government organisations in defined themes such as environment conservation, disaster management, water conservation, energy, education, health, women and child-centric initiatives etc. would be taken into cognizance.

Civil Services Day

The National Civil Services Day is celebrated every year on April 21, when civil servants rededicate themselves to the cause of the citizens and renew their commitment to public service. On this day, the Prime Minister Award for Excellence in Public Administration is presented in three categories. These awards were instituted in 2006. The awards have been instituted with a view to acknowledge, recognise and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by officers of the Central and State Governments towards the welfare of common citizen. This day coincides with the date on which Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel had addressed the first batch of probationers at the All India Administrative Service Training School at Metcalfe House, New Delhi in 1947.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2017

Topics: civil services  Civil Services Day  Ministry of Personnel  National  Public Grievances and Pensions  Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Latest E-Books
The tension between North Korea and the United States shows no sign of slowing down, so it comes as little surprise that Pyongyang residents are on edge.



Drivers in the North Korean capital felt this first hand as gas stations began closing down and rationing fuel today. The North Korean regime is notoriously secretive, but the country has apparently been hit by a fuel shortage.

According to The Washington Post, one Pyongyang gas station was limiting sales to diplomats and international organizations while others simply shut down. Stations that did have gas meet drivers with long lines and high prices.

North Korea is heavily dependent on fuel from China so its possible that Chinese President Xi Jinping could have cut off or limited fuel supplies to their ally. Nothing is official but President Trump has been pushing for Xi Jinping to exert pressure on North Koreas Kim Jong-un in an effort to get him to abandon his countrys nuclear weapons program.

Regardless of the behind-the-scenes politics, gas prices have rose dramatically in Pyongyang as petrol hit $1.25 per kilogram which is 70-80 cents higher than yesterday. Another report from UPI indicates the price of four gallons of gas has nearly doubled from $13 to $22.

Videos and opening schreenshot via Jaka Parker

Video
The Dieselgate debacle continues as Judge Sean Cox has approved a settlement negotiated by Volkswagen and the U.S. Justice Department.



Saying the scandal was a deliberate, massive fraud perpetrated by VW management, Judge Cox sentenced Volkswagen to pay a massive $2.8 billion criminal penalty. The fine is part of a larger $4.3 billion plea agreement.

While the fine is substantial, Volkswagen could have been on the hook for much more. As the Detroit Free Press reports, the automaker could have faced a penalty of between $17 and $34 billion.

The agreement also calls on former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson to act as an independent monitor for the company. Volkswagens Board Member of Integrity and Legal Affairs, Hiltrud Werner, welcomed the news and said We taken significant steps to strengthen accountability enhance transparency and build a better company and we look forward to working closely with Mr. Thompson as we press forward with the biggest change process in Volkswagens history.

According to NBC News, the latest fine pushes the cost of the Dieselgate scandal to approximately $30 billion dollars. This includes previous settlements as well as buybacks and the recall of diesel models affected by the scandal.

Photo Gallery
Photo: Google Street View

More than 500 parking stalls are now available during the weekend in the new Memorial Parkade.

Construction work is still going on in the facility, with finishing work including the building facade, landscaping and interior construction of office spaces on Ellis Street, said Dave Duncan, Parking Services Manager.

So we ask for peoples patience as multiple construction projects on the corners of Doyle and Ellis Street near completion.

Intermittent lane closures will be in effect to allow for installation of the exterior cladding.

The new Memorial Parkade parking stalls are in addition to the 197 additional stalls created in the recent expansion of the Library Parkade.

In the course of expanding the Library Parkade, we were also able to enhance the existing structure with fresh paint, renewed the traffic deck coating and added a vehicle counting system said Duncan.

This new technology will benefit downtown visitors and staff by letting them see, in real-time, how many stalls are available before they even drive inside.

Visit kelowna.ca/parking for a map of available public and private parking lots downtown.
Photo: Contributed

The South Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Program, a partnership of 50 groups working towards biodiversity conservation, is reminding the public of recent changes in the Oliver Mountain area for off-road vehicle riders.

A motorized vehicle closure has been established on top of the existing wildlife management areas to protect sensitive ecosystems and species-at-risk in the area and boundary markers are in place.

Users of the recreation site are reminded to stay on the existing trails.

Construction of new trails and other environmental damage on Crown lands is against the law

The public is asked to report violations to 1-877-952-RAPP (7277) or #7277 from a cell phone.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

A small crowd of marijuana enthusiasts gathered in Penticton's Gyro Park on Thursday to celebrate the high holiday known as 4/20.

Although it was a much smaller gathering than those in other cities around the world, residents in attendance were passionate about their right to smoke cannabis.

"I've been smoking pot my whole life and it hasn't hurt me," said a woman named Rose from Penticton. "And I am looking forward to legalization. I knew a lot of people back in the 1970s that actually did jail time for a quarter ounce. It's finally time for it to be legal, plus Trudeau has been promising it."

Every year, cannabis users, worldwide, celebrate 4/20 by smoking marijuana in unison at 4:20 p.m. The origins of the 420 number remains inconclusive, with myths linking it to a California state penal or police code for marijuana infractions, while others believe it originated with a group of students in 1970s California.

In Penticton, Gyro Park serves as the location for the cannabis community to come together. Among those gathered were old hippies, medical marijuana patients, and a sprinkling of young people.

Jared, a city resident, said he was there to partake in the day for a simple reason, it's an opportunity to be with friends and share a joint.

A Penticton resident, who described himself as an old guy, said he was participating because he believes in freedom of expression.

"I know darn well it is better for me than whisky," he said. "That's an absolute no brainer."

Many in the group smoking by the bandshell said they were medical marijuana patients.

Bill, also from Penticton, said he was there because he has been smoking since he was 20 and it has become a part of his life, every day.

"It controls a lot of pain for me and it makes life easier when you've got pain every day 24/7," he said. "I use it not only for pleasure but for a purpose."

While Deb of Penticton said it was honestly the only relief from pain she could get every day.

"Every time I see a doctor they say take Tylenol Extra Strength, but I'm in pain 24 hours a day, seven days a week and marijuana is the only thing that works for me, adding that anything that brings people together is a good thing.
Photo: Doreen Zyderveld-Hagel

A West Kelowna resident is disgusted over the garbage that has been left along Glenrosa Road.

Doreen Zyderveld-Hagel was travelling on what used to be a scenic drive but the mess she saw was worse than anything shes seen.

I saw a car seat thrown into the ditch to my left, and a roof rack to my right, along with trees deliberately cut down, she said.

The vandals left an empty Tim Horton's cup nearby. Further up the road, near the Water Shed, NW of the abandoned Crystal Mountain Resort, I found some wooden fencing torn apart, along with a vandalized hunting shack.

The garbage was just past the Telemark Cross Country Ski Resort according to Zyderveld-Hagel.

Just a few months ago she found beer cans and an extinguished camp fire with a gas can in it.

Zyderveld-Hagel said she's been eager to explore the backwoods near her home on Upper Glenrosa but the deplorable state the once lovely forest is in is ruining it for her.

She suggested placing a video surveillance camera to try to find who is creating the mess.

But in the meantime, said she will clean up the mess.

I am willing to clean up the mess with some help of other volunteers, she said. If anyone would be willing to help that would be great.
UPDATE: 12:20 p.m.

An argument that escalated to threats of violence with a firearm was behind Thursday night's shutdown of Highway 97 at McCurdy Road.

A 38-year-old Kelowna man is in custody and faces potential charges after he surrendered peacefully to the RCMP's Emergency Response Team in the early hours of this morning.

He is expected to appear in Kelowna court today, Cpl. Jesse ODonaghey said in a press release.

Police responded to a dispute at the McCurdy Road home about 9:45 p.m.

The argument between two people who share the home involved threats of violence and a firearm.

One person fled when the police were called.

Officers with Kelowna RCMP general duty and Police Dog Services contained the residence and cordoned off the vicinity of the home for public safety, said ODonaghey.

The Emergency Response Team and a crisis negotiator were also brought in.

Phone contact was made with the suspect shortly after 3 a.m., and, after several hours of negotiation, the incident ended peacefully as the suspect exited the home and was arrested.

UPDATE: 9 a.m.

Witnesses detoured past Thursday night's police response on McCurdy Road say they saw police with assault rifles drawn.

Officers were also stationed on Hollywood Road, Highway 97 and in the Blue Heights strip mall complex while the highway was shut down to traffic.

The area was swarmed with police between about 10:45 p.m. and at least midnight.

Residents were not allowed into the area.

One man who lives on McCurdy tells Castanet that police said "somebody went nuts."

He believed guns were involved.

The man said police wouldn't let him within a block of his home, and the area was blocked between Sexsmith Road and Highway 33.

Police tape is marking off a home this morning at 1085 McCurdy Road that appears to be in shambles.

Neighbouring businesses believe it is a drug house.

ORIGINAL: 10:55 p.m.

A heavy police presence is being reported in the McCurdy area of Highway 97 in Kelowna.

RCMP have the highway closed with a roadblock and are directing traffic off the highway via McCurdy Road.

There is a heavy traffic backup in the area.

Police at the scene are not providing any details yet on the reason for the closure, however at least 20 officers were seen in the area and as many as 10 police cruisers.

Castanet will update once more information is available.

Send your news, photos and video to [email protected]
Photo: CNN

So U.S. President Donald Trump does not like our unfair competition in the gas, oil, lumber and dairy markets, but he wants to work with Canada?

Sounds like Trump, but I have a plan.



This is a grand plan. I am the best at creating grand plans. Better than anybody else, and when I create a grand plan, I mean GRAND. Nobody does it better than me. Truly!



So here it is. If Trump wants a trade war, let's give it to him.



My grand plan:

Send Tim Hortons packing. It is unfair competition. It's an American company that poses as a Canadian historical icon. Shut the doors on all of them. Send them home.

Close Starbucks too

And Walmart.

All these American giants that unfairly compete on Canadian soil.

Let's stop United Airlines, Delta Airlines and American Airlines from landing here.

Let's make sure that we remove all American programming from Canadian satellite and cable providers.

Ban Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn from the Internet and let's support our homegrown businesses.

From now on Canada First. In every way.



Let's go in heavy, guns loaded; best negotiators to the fore and we will be hard. Because we will fight for Canada.



Or we could just let it play out because so far he has barely done a single thing he has said he would.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Dustin Godfrey

The victim in a motorcycle crash in Summerland last weekend passed away in hospital Wednesday night.

A 47-year-old Summerland man was rushed to hospital following the single vehicle incident near the intersection of Highway 97 and Bentley Road, around 3:40 p.m. on April 16.

The RCMP mistakenly reported his death on Tuesday, but at that point he was still in the intensive care unit at Kelowna General Hospital.

"RCMP Victim Assistance workers are also continuing to provide support for the family impacted by the mans death," said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk in a news release on Friday.

Preliminary investigation findings indicate speed was a factor in the crash.
Photo: Twitter

British Columbia Liberal Leader Christy Clark says the United States lumber industry is "driven by greed," and she is the candidate who can lead the province to a softwood agreement with American producers.

Campaigning in Williams Lake at a log home manufacturing business, Clark told a gathering she has been leading the fight for a softwood agreement for the last two years and does not intend to stop.

She says 140 forestry-dependent communities in the province are relying on her to use the courts and persuasion, to overcome what she calls the "selfish and greedy argument" from U.S. lumber barons to increase the price of softwood.

Leaders in several communities who have seen recent mill closures have said Clark hasn't done enough to force lumber firms to mill the wood in the towns where it is cut.

Clark told her supporters she wants to see every tree used completely, but policies that required timber to be processed where it was cut harmed competitiveness and left B.C. companies vulnerable to criticism from U.S. producers.

A Liberal news release says the province has worked for more than a decade to reduce reliance on the U.S. lumber market by increasing exports to China and building trade links with India, Korea and Japan.
Madhesi Parties in Nepal unite to form a new united Political Party

Published: April 21, 2017

Five prominent Madhesi parties in Nepal have united to form a new united party named the Rastriya Janata Party, which will be the fifth largest party in Nepals Parliament. Interestingly the word Madhes has not been included in the new partys name. This announcement of unification has come ahead of elections to local government bodies scheduled on May 14.

The five parties that have united are Mahantha Thakurs Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party, Rajendra Mahatos Sadbhawana Party, Sharat Singh Bhandaris Rastriya Madhes Samajbadi Party, Mahendra Yadavs Tarai Madhes Sadbhawana Party and Rajkishor Yadavs Madhesi Janadhikar Forum- Ganatantrik.

It has been announced that leaders of the five parties will lead the Rastriya Janata Party by rotation. The new party will continue to push for addressing the demands and grievances of Madhesis including amendment of the Constitution. The new party has warned the Nepal government that they would disrupt the upcoming elections to local bodies if their demands, including proportional representation in Parliament are not met.

Background

Madhesis account for 50% of Population of Nepal. The Madhesi parties are claiming to represent the interests of the people of the southern Terai region who are mostly of Indian origin. Madhesi parties demand that the Constitution promulgated in 2015 should be revised and the provisions with respect to citizenship should be amended and demarcation of the provincial boundary should be carried out. As per the provisions, most of the key constitutional posts have been reserved for only citizens by descent. Madhesi parties object to this criterion as huge numbers of Madhesis have acquired citizenship by birth or naturalization. This criteria makes them ineligible to hold the office of President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament, Chairperson of National Assembly etc.

Madhesis want representation in terms of proportion. The Nepali constitution has given equal representation on the basis of geographical area, while the Madhesis demanded that the constitution should ensure their representation as per their population size. The government of Nepal has rejected this demand by stating that if population were to be sole criteria for inclusion, some minority groups such as Dolpa would never get represented.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2017

Topics: Madhesis  Nepal

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Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

A motorcycle driver was taken to hospital after leaving the roadway and crashing in Penticton on Friday afternoon.

The single-vehicle accident took place between the Warren and Green Ave. intersections on the Channel Parkway around 3:00 p.m. A single male driver was transported to hospital by ambulance with undisclosed injuries.

Traffic was slowed while the accident scene was cleared, but is flowing now.

Castanet News will post more information as it becomes available.

with files from Deborah Pfeiffer
Photo: RCMP

The Oliver RCMP has issued a Canada-wide warrant for the arrest of a man they believe responsible for a shooting in Oliver on Wednesday.

Afshin Maleki Ighani, 45, is facing attempted murder and firearms charges in connection to a shooting that took place during the early evening of April 19, in the area of Station Street. The suspect and the victim knew each other, according to investigators. The adult male suffered a non life-threatening gunshot wound as a result of the encounter.

Ighani is described as;

Non-white male 45 yrs old

175cm 59

75kg 166lbs

Bald

Brown eyes

The Oliver RCMP ask that anyone seeing Afshin Maleki Ighani to immediately call 911. He is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is urged to contact the RCMP or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
National Safety Councils NSCI Safety Awards 2016 presented to 70 Organisations

Published: April 21, 2017

Minister of State (IC) for Labour & Employment Bandaru Dattatreya awarded NSCI Safety Awards 2016 to 70 Organisations at a function held in New Delhi. In addition, 12 client organizations from Construction Sector were also awarded. The Award was granted to the organisations under four categories:

SarvaShreshtha Suraksha Puraskar,

Shreshtha Suraksha Puraskar,

Suraksha Puraskar

PrashansaPatra.

In Manufacturing Sector, Indian Oils Digboi refinery, National Fertilizers, Panipat, and NPCIL, Kaiga Generating Station 3 and 4, Karnataka, are the winners.

In Construction Sector, Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. And L&T Ltd., Rawatbhata, Chittorgarh has been selected for its works on NPCIL Atomic Power Project, Rajasthan.

In MSME Sector, Electricals & Electronics, Thane, has won SarvaShreshtha Suraksha Puraskar for the year 2016.

Interestingly, none of the winners witnessed any fatal accident during the 3-year assessment period. More specifically, National Fertilizers Ltd. Panipat has achieved a massive 49.67 million accident-free man-hours spread over 11 years and 5 months.

The Government framed the National Policy on Occupational Safety, Health and Environment in 2009. As many changes have taken place in national as well as international arena, the government has constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee to review the national policy.

National Safety Council

It is a self-supporting non- profit autonomous society coming under the purview of Ministry of Labour and Employment. It has been conducting award schemes for three sectors- Manufacturing Sector since 1998; Construction Sector from 2005 and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises from 2009.

The main objective of the NSCI award scheme is to recognise organisations that have made meritorious performance in achieving occupational safety and health (OSH) and implemented effective OSH management systems, practices and procedures.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2017

Category: Awards, Persons & Places in News

Topics: Awards  Ministry of Labour and Employment  National

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NDMA conducts unique state level mock exercise on forest fire in Uttarakhand

Published: April 21, 2017

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has recently carried out first-of-its-kind State-level mock exercise on forest fire. The main objective of the mock exercise is to assess the efficacy of preparedness and response mechanisms available with the forest department and the district administration.

The exercise was conducted by NDMA in collaboration with the State Government. The exercise was conducted across all 13 districts covering different types of forests. Various agencies, such as fire, forest, Army, health, police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and civil defence took part in the drill.

Mock exercise on forest fire in Uttarakhand is significant as nearly 70% of the States geographical area comes under forests and incidents of forest fires are frequent.

NDMA so far has carried out more than 550 mock exercises across the country to improve preparedness and response mechanisms for various disaster situations.

Forest fires in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand is known for human-induced forest fires since a long time. In 2016, the pine forests of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh caught fire. Most of the fires in Uttarakhand happen in the Chir pine (Pinus Rroxburghii) forests because leaves of this conifer tree catch fire easily. The forest fires in Uttarakhand have been predominantly intentional for the purpose of collection of forest resources such as resin, sal seeds, honey, timber etc. To collect resin easily, the surface fires are lit so that pine needles can be removed.

NDMA

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), headed by the Prime Minister of India, is the apex Body for Disaster Management in India. It is responsible for laying down the policies, plans and guidelines for Disaster Management to ensure timely and effective response to disasters.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2017

Topics: Disaster Managament  NDMA  NDRF  Uttarakhand

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(TNS) -- Centaurus High students and community members cheered as the hatches opened at 9:25 a.m. Thursday and Jack Fischer pushed himself into the International Space Station, orbiting about 250 miles above the Earth.The school hosted an assembly so students and Fischer's family and friends could watch his arrival via a live feed from NASA TV.Narrating at Centaurus was Kjell Lindgren, a veteran of one ISS mission, a friend of Fischer's and member of the same astronaut class."It's a dream come true, a lifetime dream fulfilled for him," Lindgren said.Fischer, 43, is a Louisville native and 1992 graduate of Lafayette's Centaurus . For his six-month stint on the ISS  his first voyage in space  he's serving as the flight engineer.His travel partner, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, made his fourth voyage.The two launched about 1:15 a.m. Thursday aboard a Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, traveling on a fast-track, six-hour course to the space station. The launch and docking at the space-facing Poisk module went off smoothly.Fischer and Yurchikhin joined Commander Peggy Whitson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, all already on board the ISS."It's just really cool to see it happening on screen," said Centaurus junior Luc Surwillo, who's in the school's aerospace engineering class. "Space is cool."Students and teachers said watching a former Centaurus student realize his dream of launching into space is inspirational.Lucy Davis, a junior in the Centaurus engineering program, said going to space had seemed like a "little kid's dream.""Then you experience this, and it seems possible," she said.Adding to the excitement of the launch, Fischer is getting to the ISS just two days before a delivery by the automated, unmanned Orbital ATK Cygnus of more than 7,600 pounds of crew supplies and science gear  including an experiment designed by Centaurus students under direction of engineering teacher Brian Thomas Fischer has said he will run the Centaurus experiment while in space if possible. The experiment is designed to study the effects of simulated gravity on bacterial lag phase in a micro-gravitational environment.The first version was destroyed after the SpaceX CRS-7 unmanned supply mission failed with the rocket's explosion about 2  minutes after its June 28, 2015, launch.So students rebuilt it, watching with relief during class earlier this week as it was successfully launched."It was really stressful to watch because last time it blew up," said senior Mary Hanson.Despite the initial setback, she said she's still "super excited" about space and space travel."It's somewhere beyond where we've had the capability of going," she said.Also at Centaurus, physics and chemistry teacher Emily Haynes and a team of about 25 students are developing the MaRTIAn program  Mars Rover Team Imaging and Analysis  in cooperation with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.The plan is to design an experiment to answer a question about the geologic history of Mars through the imaging cameras and for students to work, via teleconferencing, with the JPL science team."We get to learn about all the amazing things that go on with the rover that other people don't see," sophomore Katharine MacDonald.As the Centaurus crowd waited for the hatch to open, Lindgren went over the details of space flight and shared tidbits about what it's like in space, including strapping yourself to a treadmill for exercise to keep your heart healthy.He also shared how space gives astronauts "bird legs" as blood gets concentrated in the head and chest without gravity to pull it down.Learning how to keep astronauts healthy is one of the main missions of the research on the ISS as NASA works toward sending astronauts to Mars, he said. Another goal is finding the best system to recycle water, turning urine into safe drinking water."It takes a little time to get used to the idea of drinking your own urine," he said. "It takes a lot longer to get used to the idea of drinking other people's urine."With the presentation wrapping up, Lindgren urged the audience to continue checking in on the mission."I know that you are going to have a blast following along," he said. "It's going to be an amazing experience."
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Rain. Low 48F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Localized flooding in recent burn areas.
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Greg Wasson, the former CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, has chosen startups as his next act.

"I'm going to call this my relaunch," Wasson said, borrowing a phrase he heard from another CEO he wouldn't name.

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After investing in a series of startups through a family investment office, he joined forces earlier this year with a group of serial entrepreneurs to form Innventure, which works with Fortune 50 companies to identify and spin out innovative technologies. They're currently partnering with packaged-goods giant Procter & Gamble.

Wasson, who spoke about the venture this week, calls Innventure's model a "circle of life": Partners like P&G give Innventure access to their proven technologies, then Innventure identifies promising ideas and creates new businesses out of them, from which the partner can also benefit.

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Neil Jordan, vice president of corporate R & D and P&G Ventures, said in a statement that Innventure will complement P&G's research and innovation efforts.

The name Innventure was originally used separately by Wasson's now-colleagues, Michael Otworth and John Scott. Then they partnered with Wasson's family office investment company, Wasson Enterprise, in January 2017 and formed a new company under the Innventure name.

Scott previously ran a company called XL TechGroup that used a similar business model; Otworth ran some of XL TechGroup's companies. That company also had a partnership with P&G.

XL TechGroup created 11 companies over 20 years, including six that went public, according to an Innventure spokeswoman.

According to public filings, XL TechGroup was founded in 2002 and based in Melbourne, Fla. It went public as XLT in 2004 on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. The IPO raised about $40.3 million, before expenses, and the company was valued at about $129.4 million, according to a company press release.

A Securities and Exchange Commission filing from one of XL TechGroup's companies described XL TechGroup as being "an inactive holding company" after 2008.

Otworth and Scott founded the first iteration of Innventure in October 2015. That company also worked with P&G, spinning out a company called PureCycle Technologies in 2015. PureCycle uses technology that P&G developed to recycle a type of used plastic.

At the new Innventure partnership with Wasson Enterprise, Wasson is chairman and Otworth is CEO. Scott is chairman of investor relations and chief science officer; Rick Brenner rounds out the team as chief operating officer.

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"They bring serial startup experience, and I bring what I hope is experience leading large-scale corporations and commercialization of new businesses," Wasson said.

Wasson retired from Walgreens in 2015 after a 35-year career that saw him rise to CEO in 2009; he left the company one month after Walgreens merged with Alliance Boots. Later, he drew criticism for his early enthusiasm for startup Theranos, maker of a blood-testing technology Walgreens adopted but that was later debunked.

In January 2016, Wasson co-founded Wasson Enterprise to fund early-stage companies across three sectors: clean and efficient energy innovation, innovative customer and shopping solutions, and health tech.

He said Wasson Enterprise has made 12 investments, primarily in Chicago and the Midwest. Those include Bolstr, a marketplace lending platform; Opternative, an online eye exam; Explorer, an interactive surgical playbook; Pangea, a mobile money transfer company; SwervePay, which lets patients pay medical bills by text; and Brideside, an online wedding concierge.

Wasson also serves on the boards of Verizon Communications and PNC Financial Services Group.

Kate MacArthur is a freelance writer.

Twitter @katemacarthur
In this Feb. 16, 2017, photo, a discarded syringe sits in the dirt with other debris under a highway overpass where drug users are known to congregate in Everett, Wash. The city is among those suing pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma, trying to hold the maker of OxyContin accountable for damages to the community. (Elaine Thompson / AP)

A southern Illinois county has sued north suburban-based Abbott Laboratories, accusing it of helping to feed a nationwide opioid epidemic.

In filing its lawsuit, St. Clair County, near East St. Louis, joins a growing number of communities across the country, including Chicago, suing drugmakers for their alleged role in the opioid crisis.

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The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in state court, accuses Abbott and Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma of overstating the benefits of opioids and misrepresenting the risks.

"It was Defendants' marketing  and not any medical breakthrough  that rationalized prescribing opioids for chronic pain and opened the floodgates for opioid use and abuse," according to the lawsuit. "The result has been catastrophic."

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In 2015, nearly 1,400 Illinois residents died of overdoses from all types of opioids, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Abbott worked with Purdue to promote, market and distribute Purdue's opioid medications, according to the lawsuit. Abbott no longer sells drugs in the U.S., having split its proprietary drug business into a new company called AbbVie in 2013.

Abbott spokeswoman Darcy Ross said in a statement Friday that Abbott is "fully indemnified by Purdue for this matter," and noted that Abbott ended its co-promotion with Purdue nearly 14 years ago.

Purdue in a separate statement Friday, said, "We share public officials' concerns about the opioid crisis and we are committed to working collaboratively to find solutions."

Purdue noted its drug OxyContin accounts for less than 2 percent of opioid prescriptions for pain in the U.S., "but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology and advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs."

St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly said Friday it's important to hold drugmakers accountable for their role in the spread of opioid abuse.

"They continue to make a lot of money being part of the problem and they have not, in my estimation, stepped up to accept responsibility for their role in this crisis," Kelly said.

In 2007, Purdue paid more than $600 million in criminal and civil fines and penalties after admitting it illegally marketed and promoted OxyContin by claiming it was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications.

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Though St. Clair County filed the new lawsuit, Kelly said his county is not much different than many others across the country when it comes to the opioid addiction and its consequences.

According to the lawsuit, more than 9 million pills of oxycodone and hydrocodone were sold in St. Clair County in 2014. That's about 34 pills per St. Clair resident and significantly higher than the average 1.22 pills sold per Illinois resident, according to the lawsuit.

In 2015, 26 St. Clair residents died of opioid overdoses, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Cook County had the most deaths of all the counties in the state, with 546 in 2015.

The city of Chicago filed its own lawsuit against five opioid drugmakers in 2014, including Purdue. That lawsuit is ongoing.

Also, last summer, Chicago reached an agreement with Pfizer, which agreed to a written code of conduct for marketing opioids.

A number of other municipalities also have sued drugmakers in recent years, including counties in West Virginia and California, a city in Washington, and the state of Kentucky, among others.

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More lawsuits from municipalities are likely, said Michael Canty, a partner at law firm Labaton Sucharow in New York City and a former federal prosecutor. As the costs of the epidemic rise, municipalities will want to hold those they see as responsible for the epidemic accountable for those costs, he said.

"We're going to continue to see it, coast to coast, as the epidemic has been impacting people nationwide," said Serena Hallowell, also a partner at Labaton.

Drugmakers aren't the only ones being targeted. Pharmacies and others also are being caught up in litigation.

On Thursday, the Cherokee Nation filed a lawsuit against a number of distributors and pharmacy chains, including Deerfield-based Walgreens Boots Alliance, accusing them of failing to stem the flow of illegally prescribed opioids to the tribe's members.

A Walgreens spokesman declined to comment on the Cherokee Nation lawsuit Friday.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @lschencker
The Chicago-based American Dental Association agreed to pay $1.95 million to resolve a federal investigation that found two employees were discharged for complaining about potential discrimination.

The discharged employees were the American Dental Association's former chief legal counsel, Tamra Kempf, and the director of human resources, according to a news release from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which conducted the investigation. The two had complained to the board of directors about potential civil rights and age discrimination, as well as potential violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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In-house lawyers and human resources staff play a critical role in advising their employers to abide by anti-discrimination laws, said Julianne Bowman, director of the EEOC's Chicago district office.

"Any retaliation against them for doing so is illegal," she said in the news release.

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The commission enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

The money will provide relief to the two former employees and help fund staff training and other measures to make sure discrimination and retaliation don't occur going forward.

The dental association said in a separate statement that the former employees' claims "are without merit" but that the association believed it was in its best interest to settle rather than going to trial.

"As sometimes happens in business, differences arose between them and other members of the management team as to how various issues should be approached and handled," the association said in the EEOC news release. "This does not diminish the value of the many contributions that each made to the American Dental Association during their tenure."

amarotti@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @AllyMarotti
There's a reality check lurking within Caterpillar's decision to relocate its global headquarters in Peoria to north suburban Deerfield.

Since January, when Cat said it was moving its HQ to the Chicago area, there had been an underlying expectation among some businesspeople that the big equipment manufacturer was bound for Chicago's Loop. The rationale: Cat would eagerly follow a trend recently pioneered by Google, McDonald's, Motorola Solutions and other brand names to relocate there and tap into the energy of a younger, more tech-savvy workforce that lives, works and plays in the nearby neighborhoods.

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Yet Cat's decision Wednesday shows that corporate powerhouses looking to bust a local relocation move  and refresh their image  don't always want to be headquartered in Chicago's downtown, even if the company is eager to connect with millennial workers.

Cat's call is also a reminder that while established suburbs have lost some marquee companies to Chicago, they still compete for corporate tenants, provided they offer viable transportation options, ample office space and other amenities.

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"How odd to be talking about a corporation relocating to the suburbs as being out of the mainstream," says Jerry Szatan, founder of Chicago-based Szatan & Associates, who works on company site selections. "That wouldn't have happened 10 years ago."

Cat never said it was heading downtown or coming to the city. Instead, the company's plan was to scope out the entire area, especially haunts near O'Hare International Airport.

Deerfield's proximity to the airport was instrumental in Cat's decision to ink a multiyear lease in a corporate office park. It's renting the former headquarters space of spirits-maker Beam Suntory, which is packing up its 450 employees and heading for the Merchandise Mart.

In its announcement, Cat noted its new HQ will be a "20-minute drive" from O'Hare.

Well, technically that's true.

But, Cat executives, clients and vendors who are eager to make a plane would be wise to build in some extra time as they navigate the northern suburbs' congested highways and byways during rush hours.

Nonetheless, it's better than a three-hour-plus jaunt between Peoria and the airport.

It may also be less taxing than a commute from downtown Chicago, where travel times to and from O'Hare can really pile up. This is especially true when there's crummy weather, construction or a road emergency, and somehow there always seems to be crummy weather, construction or a road emergency.

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Cat's Deerfield office initially will have 100 employees and eventually 300 people.

While better O'Hare access is important to keeping the worldwide company humming, Cat's main reason for leaving Peoria for the Chicago region is to shake up its corporate culture.

The company, which industry analysts argue has too many older, expensive factories, is suffering from lackluster sales and earnings.

To boost growth, CEO Jim Umpleby is focusing on making Cat leaner, which means staff cuts, plant closings and pulling out the stops to improve corporate earnings. It recently decided to shutter part of its Aurora-area factory, ending 800 hourly jobs.

My guess is it will be easier to execute such calamitous plans from the confines of the Deerfield-based HQ instead of the company town of Peoria, where Cat still employs more than 10,000 workers.

While trimming staff in some areas, Cat is looking to bring more digital engineering and marketing talent to its fold.

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A Cat HQ in downtown Chicago could have given the manufacturer increased access to that type of labor pool. The company appears confident its Digital & Analytics Hub in the Merchandise Mart, which opened in late 2016, will make those personnel connections.

Moreover, Cat notes that Deerfield's access to Chicago's Metra train line can transport people from the Loop who want to work or visit its new HQ.

Undoubtedly, Cat's decision to tap Deerfield is some rare good corporate relocation news for the suburbs.

Some former corporate havens are being rocked by outright defections, like McDonald's leaving Oak Brook for Chicago, while others are reeling from major tenants cutting back, which is pumping suburban office vacancy rates up to 20 percent.

Cat's decision also can be viewed as a message to Chicago, which is in the midst of a downtown office construction revival.

At a conference I attended this week, sponsored by the Civic Federation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, it was estimated that there are about 50 construction cranes dotting the city's skyline, each representing the emergence of a new skyscraper.

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That's called a boom, folks.

In picking Deerfield, Caterpillar was following its own agenda. It had no intention of sending a broader message, such as the city should think twice about all the high-flying construction that's underway or developments in the pipeline.

Still, when a major player decides not to join in the fun, shouldn't you be concerned the party's going on too long?

roreed@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Reedtribbiz
Therapist Simon Jencius, seated second from left, speaks to other therapists as they do a run through anxiety assessment review at Foglia Family Foundation Residential Treatment Center in Elk Grove Village on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

At this treatment facility, pictures on the walls will be crooked, on purpose.

Books on a bookshelf will be jumbled without regard to title, color or size.

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It's all part of local hospital system Amita Health's plan to treat patients with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder at the system's new residential treatment center. The 48-bed Elk Grove Village facility  in the renovated home formerly used by the Alexian Brothers  will open to patients Monday.

Though a number of residential treatment facilities already accept OCD patients, Amita leaders say their center will be somewhat unique because it will focus specifically on adult patients with OCD, using a type of therapy known as exposure and response prevention. The center also will treat patients with other anxiety and addiction issues. Amita leaders say the facility will fill a gap in care offerings in their current system as well as the state as a whole.

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Those who suffer from OCD can have a variety of behaviors. Patients often repeat actions, insist events happen in a certain order and/or fixate on unwanted thoughts. About 1 out of every 100 U.S. adults suffers from OCD, though not all those cases are severe, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Books are seen intentionally jumbled on a bookshelf April 19, 2017, at the Foglia Family Foundation Residential Treatment Center in Elk Grove Village, which will treat patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Patients with OCD likely will stay at the center for four to six weeks, where they'll be exposed to situations that can trigger their obsessive-compulsive behavior, such as touching an object that might normally make them want to wash their hands, said Patrick McGrath, a clinical psychologist and assistant vice president of residential services for Amita Health Behavioral Medicine.

"The point is to sit with things that are uncomfortable and learn how to handle them," McGrath said. "We do it slowly and gradually."

The center's patients also will get training in mindfulness and nutrition consultations. The facility's former chapel has been transformed into a low-lit reflection room with a window looking out onto a pond. A light-filled room on the building's second floor will be used for expressive therapies, such as art and weekly improv sessions.

Therapists also will use virtual reality treatments, which include a headset, a machine that can produce specific smells and a "rumble pad" to simulate movement, to help patients. A veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, might be put into a battle situation, or an addict might be placed into a simulated party filled with drugs and alcohol.

Amita leaders hope the new Foglia Family Foundation Residential Treatment Center will complement the health system's existing offerings for OCD patients. Now people with severe OCD are sometimes admitted to hospitals for major episodes, or in less severe cases they might spend a few hours at a hospital each day for treatment, said Clay Ciha, CEO of Amita's Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital.

The center will be an option for patients who need something in between  more than a few hours of treatment a day but not an inpatient hospital stay.

"We are one of the largest behavioral health providers in Illinois, and we always are referring these patients out to other facilities, and oftentimes, facilities that are far away," said Chris Novak, chief operating officer for Amita Health Behavioral Medicine Service Line. "This really is something that is going to benefit our local community."

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Amita Health is opening a residential treatment center focusing on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and addiction issues. (Lisa Schencker / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Across the country, residential facilities that specialize in treating OCD aren't widespread. They often have wait lists that stretch for months, said Karen Cassiday, president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, an organization of mental health professionals.

"There is a shortage of residential care for anxiety disorders and OCD," Cassiday said. That may be partly because such centers can be tough to staff given a nationwide shortage of psychiatrists, and because residential treatment for OCD doesn't tend to pull in as much money for hospitals as actual medical procedures, she said.

Still, it can be cheaper for hospital systems to treat OCD patients in residential centers than in hospitals, because residential centers don't require as much overhead, she said.

Amita expects many of the first residential patients to come from within the system, and also is talking to patients in other parts of the country seeking treatment, Novak said. Most insurers cover such residential treatment, he said, which, without coverage would run about $775 a day.

Cassiday said it often can be difficult for patients to get authorization from their insurers to enter such programs.

McGrath said the treatment can be life-altering for many people and their families. He remembered one woman who didn't touch her baby for six months out of fear she'd harm him. After therapy, she finally started holding him.

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Patients like her could benefit from the new residential facility, where they might make progress more quickly than if they went to just a few hours of therapy a day at the hospital.

"There's nothing more amazing than watching people get their lives back," McGrath said.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
Sears Holdings plans to close scores of Sears Auto Center locations and underperforming Kmart pharmacies as part of its effort to cut costs by $1.25 billion this year.

The Hoffman Estates-based retailer already has closed 150 stores nationally  including two in downstate Illinois  in cost-cutting efforts, but more needs to be done in this "very challenging retail environment," Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert said Friday in a news release.

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"We need to take further action," he said.

The closures and other steps the company already has taken add up to $700 million in annual savings. Closing 50 Sears Auto Center locations and 92 pharmacy operations in certain Kmart stores will help the company reach its $1.25 billion cost-cutting goal, which it increased from a previous target of $1 billion.

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The embattled retailer did not give a timeline for the store closures. Company spokesman Chris Brathwaite said he did not have a list of which locations are scheduled to close.

The company also plans to eliminate senior management roles at Sears and Kmart, though it has not said how many.

Some employees were notified Friday that they would be losing their jobs, Brathwaite said. The rest will be told in the coming weeks.

"We obviously don't take these decisions lightly," he said. "But in order to be a more competitive retailer and return the company to profitability, we need to look for ways to streamline the operations."

In February, the company hinted that the auto centers business could find itself on the chopping block. Sears previously signed a $900 million deal to sell its Craftsman brand to Stanley Black & Decker. The company at the time said it would continue to look for options for two other popular brands, Kenmore and DieHard, and its Sears Home Services and Sears Auto Center businesses.

amarotti@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @AllyMarotti
United Airlines jets wait at gates in 2014 at O'Hare International Airport. The airline drew negative attention after video of a passenger being dragged off a flight went viral. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

United CEO Oscar Munoz will not become chairman of the company's board next year as planned, the latest move taken by the airline to contain fallout over a passenger-dragging incident at O'Hare International Airport earlier this month.

In Friday regulatory filings, the Chicago-based airline said Munoz, whose employment agreement had specified he would become chairman in 2018, will leave that decision to the discretion of the board. Munoz initiated the amendment to the agreement, according to the filing.

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Robert Milton has been United Continental Holdings' nonexecutive board chairman since April 2016.

"The board believes that separating the roles of Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board is the most appropriate structure at this time," the company said in its annual proxy statement. "Having an independent Chairman of the Board is a means to ensure that Mr. Munoz is able to more exclusively focus on his role as Chief Executive Officer."

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Also in the proxy, United outlined changes to its 2017 executive compensation program, tying it more closely to customer satisfaction.

"United's management and the board take recent events extremely seriously, and are in the process of developing targeted compensation program design adjustments to ensure that employees' incentive opportunities for 2017 are directly and meaningfully tied to progress in improving the customer experience and in the necessary cultural and process change in support of this goal," the company said in its filing.

Munoz received more than $18.7 million in total compensation in 2016, according to the filing, of which $1.2 million was salary. He received $3.4 million in incentive compensation and $13.8 million in stock awards, including a $6.8 million bonus tied to his 2015 hiring.

On Thursday, United Airlines and the Chicago Department of Aviation asked for more time after missing their deadline to respond to a Senate inquiry into the forcible removal by aviation security officers of Dr. David Dao from a Louisville-bound flight.

Leaders of the Senate transportation committee requested answers to a number of pointed questions over the handling of the incident by Thursday. Both United and the Aviation Department missed the deadline, asking for an extra week in separate letters to the committee.

Mayor Emanuel left the door open for firings in the wake of a viral video showing an Aviation Department police officer dragging a United Airlines passenger from a plane. (City Of Chicago/Chicago Tribune)

"We're disappointed that neither United Airlines nor the Chicago Department of Aviation has yet provided substantive answers to the straightforward questions we asked about the forcible removal of a passenger on April 9, 2017," the committee said Friday in a news release. "Getting answers for the public about what happened and what can be done to prevent such an incident from happening again is a priority for the members of our committee. We find any further delay in getting necessary answers unacceptable."

Four senators, including committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., the committee's ranking Democrat, sent letters to the airline and Aviation Department on April 11 seeking detailed explanations of the incident.

Dao was one of four passengers bumped from the United Express flight to make room for four airline employees after the airline failed to find volunteers to take a later flight.

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United CEO Munoz's letter to the committee Thursday reiterated his apologies to Dao and all of the passengers aboard the flight who endured the "appalling" incident, which he called a "humbling learning experience." He also asked that the response deadline be pushed back until April 27 to "ensure accuracy and thoroughness" while the airline conducts an internal review.

"We understand the committee's strong interest in this incident and its oversight role," United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy wrote in an email Friday. "In our preliminary response to the committee, we outlined efforts underway to better serve our customers and requested a brief extension in responding to the committee's detailed questions in order to ensure accuracy and thoroughness."

The Chicago Department of Aviation's response letter from Commissioner Ginger Evans, sent Thursday but inadvertently dated April 27, asked for an extension until Wednesday.

"We are currently conducting a thorough review of the incident," Evans wrote. "As our reviews and interviews are ongoing, we respectfully request an extension ... to ensure the completeness of our response."

Dao's forceful removal by three aviation officers, who yanked him from his seat and dragged him bloodied through the aisle, was captured on now-viral video by fellow passengers. The three aviation officers remain on paid leave during the investigation.

"I'm proud that Ginger suspended three individuals involved in the situation," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday at an unrelated news conference. "I told her there's nothing sacrosanct and nobody is sacrosanct. Give it to us fresh, and we'll take every corrective action we need to take."

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United already has said it would never again ask a law enforcement officer to remove passengers from flights, "unless it is a matter of safety and security," and will require United crews traveling as passengers to book at least 60 minutes before departure.

Munoz, a former railroad executive, was hired as CEO in 2015 to replace Jeff Smisek, who resigned amid a federal corruption probe. Henry Meyer was named nonexecutive chairman at the time.

Milton replaced Meyer as nonexecutive chairman last April to resolve a shareholder dispute and proxy fight.

rchannick@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick
I'm the father of two daughters  one still in high school. I'm also a middle school teacher.

Netflix recently released its latest original series, "13 Reasons Why," and virtually overnight the show became its most popular release ever. A huge number of my students tell me they have watched it  and if they haven't watched it, they've heard about it. Currently, "13 Reasons Why" is the buzziest piece of media among the middle school set.

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Last Thursday, I sat down at 7 p.m. to watch a few of the episodes. I finally turned off my television at 5:30 a.m. having watched all 13 episodes straight through. It's compelling television. It's well written, creatively structured and brilliantly acted.

It's also highly problematic.

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The fictional "13 Reasons Why," based on the 2007 novel "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher, unfolds in the wake of Hannah Baker's suicide. She left behind 13 audiotapes with instructions for 13 friends to take turns listening to them. Much of the story takes place in flashback while Hannah is still alive. The series is structured like a murder mystery  not to reveal who but to reveal why.

That's where the problems come in.

Over the course of the 13 episodes, we viewers learn what some of the other characters had done to Hannah. Some of it is relatively mild and some of it is horrific. But through the tapes and through fellow high schooler Clay Jensen's tenacity, secrets are revealed and people are exposed. The message of the series  intended or not  is that while justice may be elusive in life, it might be achieved in death. Most unsettling is the notion that one's suicide can serve as the catalyst to get the wheels of justice turning.

The series also conveys the idea that if your voice goes unheard in life, your death can serve as an amplifier  an exclamation point if you will  ensuring that your message is heard loud and clear after you're gone.

Hannah makes and distributes the tapes to convince the 13 people of their culpability in her suicide. She and, eventually, the 13 people believe they in some way are each responsible for her death. But in truth, only one person controlled whether Hannah lived or died. No matter how horrible some of the things the others did, only one person had control over Hannah's future. The series advances the idea that blame for Hannah's self-inflicted death could be disseminated among many people when in fact only one person was responsible for her death: Hannah.

Hannah believes 11 of the 13 people in her story to be culpable in her suicide because of what they did to her. But, two of the people she considers responsible because of what they did not do. Clay Jensen, the protagonist of the series, is a kind but socially awkward teen. It becomes quite evident to the viewers  and to Clay  that Hannah has romantic interests in Clay and would like for their friendship to evolve into more. But Clay, mired in his social awkwardness and inexperience, doesn't know how to act on this. By the final episode, the message is quite clear that Clay's inability to deliver on Hannah's hope of romantic love is a contributing factor in her decision to end her life.

The show also depicts not one but two rape scenes, and the final episode unblinkingly shows Hannah taking her own life by slitting her wrists. If this were a movie released in the theaters, it would be tagged with an R rating.

Most significantly, though, the series clearly communicates that if people in your life hurt you and made you feel bad then taking your life is a tragic, but highly effective, way of returning the favor and making them feel horrible.

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As a professional advocate for adolescents, it saddens me to know that this narrative has staked out a large piece of real estate in the collective minds of our youth.

Netflix, I love you. I really do. But on this one you not only got it wrong, you got it dangerously wrong.

Jack VanNoord lives in Carpentersville and teaches in Lake Zurich. He is the author of "Hope They Like Rice: One Family's Adventures and Misadventures Living in Hong Kong."

Related:

The problem with '13 Reasons Why': Suicide isn't a tool for revenge
Want to try gorditas in Chicago's Mexican restaurants? Here are three to get you started. (Learn more about what a gordita is and how to make one at home here.)

Carniceria Aguascalientes

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Step into this Little Village grocery store and make a hard left past the check-out lines for some of Chicago's most beloved versions of gorditas. Bustling with families and locals clamoring for tasty, well-stuffed disks, the restaurant may seem crowded but a battalion of servers and bussers make quick work of every table efficiently, but without making you feel rushed along. The classic chicharron  stewed pig skin  comes drenched in salsa roja or verde. Regardless of sauce choice, this gordita is deeply savory, the skin meltingly soft and pliable.

3132 W 26th St., 773-254-3466

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Gordillas

A newer, spiffier storefront in Little Village, Gordillas takes its cues from the cuisine of Durango, a northern Mexican state. Fillings here are numerous, from scrambled eggs and cactus, to spicy chorizo and potatos. Like all the products here  tortillas for the quesadillas and excellent burritos  the gorditas are handmade, with soft and tender interiors stuffed to bursting. At just $2.25 a pop, it's all one can do to not order one of everything.

3759 W 26th St., 773-823-1499

Gorditas La Tia Susy

This small McKinley Park spot is home to excellent Durango-style burritos, but don't miss on its namesake specialty. There are no shortcuts here, as masa is handmade and transformed into soft, tender tortillas and flaky, pillowy gorditas. The latter are quickly blistered before being stuffed, adding a needed crispiness to contrast such fillings as the deshebrada, a slowly stewed combo of shredded beef, chiles and tomatoes, or the comforting guisado de puerco con salsa roja, tender pork in red chile sauce.

3452 S. Western Ave., 872-281-5099
If you've followed along this month as we've covered Mexican food in Chicago, you've hopefully recognized the wealth of wonderful Mexican dishes currently available in our city. While host to our fair share of excellent tacos and tortas, our scene goes deeper than that, as the food of Mexico becomes intertwined with local cuisine.

Best of all, Chicago's best Mexican restaurants are scattered all across the city, at all price points and styles. Sure, some places serve truly traditional offerings, using time-honored techniques and ages-old family recipes, but Chicago is also home to hungry upstarts ready to explore uncharted territory in search of the exciting and new.

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Considering how many options are now available, landing a spot on our essential Mexican restaurants required a serious level of obsession on the part of the chefs and restaurant owners. Sometimes, that focus is put to one dish, like the birria at Birrieria Zaragoza or the carnitas at Carnitas Uruapan. Other times, it's a creative desire to try something new, like Dos Urban Cantina. Sometimes you're Rick Bayless, who keeps developing distinct concepts to explore the many facets of Mexican cuisine.

The most exciting prospect is that it's just starting. Fascinating new Mexican restaurants continue to open at a rapid pace. We felt like two newcomers, Quiote and Mi Tocaya, needed a little more time before declarations could be made, but they are definitely ones to follow.

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Here are the restaurants that we consider to be the essential Mexican restaurants in the Chicago area right now, listed in alphabetical order.

Antique Taco

I was convinced I'd hate Antique Taco when it first opened. Here was an excessively cute storefront outfitted with antiques in a trendy neighborhood (Wicker Park) serving willfully inauthentic tacos. Then a gorgeous, old-timey plate was set in front of me, and I was stunned by the beauty. Here were tacos unlike any in Chicago, made with incredible care and attention. Sure, there's something primal about steak with just onions and cilantro, but who says you can't also enjoy fresh mushrooms mixed with a red adobo and pert pickled onions or a crackly tempura fried fish topped with a spicy tartar sauce and smoked cabbage? It helps that the tacos are built on fantastic freshly made tortillas. Various locations, www.antiquetaco.com.

 Nick Kindelsperger

Customers Liz Carlson, left, and Karen Hyde dine at Bien Trucha in Geneva, Ill. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Bien Trucha

Inexpensive neighborhood taquerias can be found up and down the Fox River Valley (a 2013 Tribune story found two dozen from Crystal Lake to Aurora), but the 2007 arrival of Bien Trucha (the name, appropriately, is slang for "on top of one's game") raised the bar for Mexican dining in the far west suburbs. Upscale but not ostentatious, Bien Trucha seats customers in cheerful and sunny surroundings (particularly the outdoor deck), and people line up well ahead of opening time to secure one of the no-reservations tables. Superb tacos are the main draw, but there are fine tortas (lunch only), brochetas (dinner only), any ceviche your waiter recommends, and fresh-fruit margaritas and cocktails. Proof that fine Mexican food can thrive 40 miles outside of Chicago, right in downtown Geneva. 410 W. State St., Geneva, 630-232-2665, www.bientrucha.com.

 Phil Vettel

Birrieria Zaragoza

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Ordering a plate of birria at this small storefront in Archer Heights sets the whole kitchen in motion. Four small bowls appear containing dried chiles, cilantro, onions and limes, along with a glass bottle of dark red hot sauce. A woman picks up fresh masa, rolls it into balls, flattens the balls on a tortilla press and then griddles the paper-thin discs until they puff up into steamy corn tortillas. Finally, roasted goat is removed from a roasting pan, picked over to remove excess fat and then drenched in an orange-tinted consomme. To take this all in, it helps to grab a seat at the counter, though no matter where you sit, you'll recognize instantly that it's all the small details taken together that make this an astonishing dish. How you dig in is your choice, but I like to dress the plate with onions, cilantro and lime juice before slicing into the tender chile-stained goat. Then I like to wrap up those bites in the warm corn tortillas. 4854 S. Pulaski Road, 773-523-3700, www.birrieriazaragoza.com.

 N.K.

Carnitas Uruapan

Despite what Chipotle tries to sell you, carnitas are not a synonym for pulled pork. Pulled pork is mushy and wet; carnitas at their best are richly seasoned, golden-colored and crispy around the edges. To experience the real thing, visit Carnitas Uruapan in Pilsen, which makes its namesake dish fresh daily in enormous pots. While you can get individual tacos, what you want is a platter of carnitas served by the pound with a wealth of salsas, toppings and tortillas to construct your own. 1725 W. 18th St., 312-226-2654, www.carnitasuruapanchi.com.

 N.K.

La Casa de Samuel

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La Casa de Samuel is one of the warmest and most welcoming restaurants in the city. Each time I stop by, it's bustling with families and friends, all mingling in the tastefully decorated brick-lined room. Perhaps that's because there's no way to be shy when you're served a hunk of roasted goat leg. You just grab one of the restaurant's supple, freshly made tortillas, pile on some of the luscious goat and top it with the unique warmed tomato-based salsa. 2834 W. Cermak Road, 773-376-7474, www.lacasadesamuel.com.

 N.K.

At Cemitas Puebla, the Atomica cemita is piled with meat, Oaxacan cheese and chipotle sauce on a house-baked sesame roll. (Kristan Lieb / Chicago Tribune)

Cemitas Puebla

When most people think of Mexican sandwiches, the torta is what they have in mind, but Cemitas Puebla got us to care about a distinct regional sandwich from Puebla called a cemita. The crusty bread is dotted with sesame seeds, and it's stuffed with tangy cheese, a smear of smoky chipotle, a fresh Mexican herb called papalo and meat of your choice. Since first opening, the restaurant has expanded to three locations, crafted a shiny new logo and yet somehow gotten even better. While the bread used (also called a cemita) has always been good, the recipe used now is a marvel  delicately crispy, while soft and flavorful inside. Various locations, www.cemitaspuebla.com.

 N.K.

La Chaparrita #1

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Hidden away on a residential stretch of West 25th Street in Little Village, La Chaparrita doesn't look like much. Inside, you'll find only a handful of tables, along with a tiny grocery store. But peek into the kitchen, and you'll see something rather unusual for Chicago taquerias: a charola, a circular pan of bubbling fat with dome peeking up in the middle, where you'll find all kinds of cuts of meats bobbing about. Don't call it a deep fryer. The meat slowly bathes in oil here, luxuriously tenderizing, while the juices of the different cuts of meats mingle. You can't go wrong with the chile-spiked longaniza, a house-made sausage similar to chorizo, but the tripas steal the show. Pulled straight from the oil, these small intestines of a cow are soft and almost squishy, but ask for them crispy and they'll be griddled until they become gorgeously browned nuggets of beef essence. 2500 S. Whipple St., 773-247-1402.

 N.K.

Don Juan Restaurante

A fixture in Edison Park for 33 years and counting, Don Juan's identity as a serviceable, predictable Mexican outpost changed dramatically in 1991 when Patrick Concannon, son of owner Maria Josefa Concannon, assumed control of the kitchen. Concannon, a Charlie Trotter's alum, enhanced the menu with contemporary dishes, such as lamb shank with chipotle sauce and tacos featuring barbecued veal, shrimp and bacon. Patrick's sister, Josefa, upgraded the wine and tequila offerings. Today, the kitchen is in the hands of Patrick's brother, Jacob Concannon (Patrick owns Osteria Ottimo and Mama Maria's Taco and Tequila Bar, both in Orland Park), whose menu is largely traditional but includes a single sheet of seasonal treats. There, you'll find trout with mojo de ajo and a Rockefeller-like oyster dish with spinach and chipotle bearnaise. Maria still runs the art-filled dining room. 6730 N. Northwest Highway, 773-775-6438, www.donjuanschicago.com.

 P.V.

Dos Urban Cantina

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Brian Enyart and Jennifer Jones Enyart are not the first Rick Bayless alums to demonstrate that there is Life Beyond Frontera, but they certainly have made the most compelling case. Enyart, who was chef de cuisine at Frontera Grill and Topolobampo for 19 years (most of them as executive chef), and Jones Enyart, Topolo and Frontera's award-winning pastry chef, opened a Logan Square restaurant that takes the Frontera/Topolo conversation in new directions. The two have created a very personal slate of Mexican-inspired dishes; early menus combined sea urchin with tomatillo and chicharron-infused cream, and reimagined carnitas as part of a Mexican-Polish mashup with buttered potatoes and caraway-laced sauerkraut. On the sweet side, there is banana-leaf ice cream, perhaps carrot flan and a chocolate cake the whole city raves about. This is Mexican as inspirational springboard, and the Enyarts stick the landing. 2829 W. Armitage Ave., 773-661-6452, www.dosurbancantina.com.

 P.V.

Frontera Grill

It is impossible to overstate the significance of 30-year-old Frontera Grill, or its impact on Mexican dining in Chicago and, really, Chicago dining overall. Eschewing the chips-and-salsa formula in which virtually all other Mexican restaurants were mired, Frontera introduced Chicagoans to the wonders and joys of regional Mexican cooking, at the same time leading by example in its support for sustainable, local ingredients. Chicago's warm embrace of Bayless' approach did much to cement the city's reputation as a knowledgeable and curious food city, and the restaurant's success established that a market for fine-dining Mexican cooking did, in fact, exist  to the benefit of numerous restaurants that followed. Today, Chicago has a wealth of serious Mexican restaurants, many or most of whom owe some measure of gratitude for Frontera Grill's groundbreaking work. 445 N. Clark St., 312-661-1434, www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/frontera-grill

 P.V.

The garlic-agave Oaxacan chorizo taco plate isone of the build-your-own taco options at Cruz Blanca. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Lena Brava and Cruz Blanca

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The Baja Norte is Mexico's most multicultural food region, and also one of the least represented in U.S. restaurants. In Lena Brava, Bayless paid homage to the region's abundance of seafood and to open-fire cooking, which is all Lena Brava does  no gas ovens here. Cruz Blanca saw Bayless delving into tacos for the first time (how is that even possible, after 30 years?), and, predictably, the offerings were anything but predictable, while the attached cerveceria brewed up a number of food-friendly beers. Cerveceria, taqueria, Baja Norte  the side-by-side Lena Brava and Cruz Blanca can be considered three checks on Bayless' Mexican-cuisine bucket list. 900 W. Randolph St., 312-733-1975, www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/lena-brava.

 P.V.

Mexique

Mexican-born Carlos Gaytan came to Chicago and worked (among other places) for three years at the late Bistrot Margot. That was the inspiration for his 2008-born restaurant in West Town, where Mexican flavor combines with French technique and Midwestern seasonality. "I wanted to be creative, basically," is how Gaytan put it. "I love traditional Mexican cuisine, but there's always room for improvement." So Gaytan pairs a traditional herb-crusted rack of lamb with lamb-shoulder barbacoa tucked into a sope, and enhances roasted duck breast and leg confit with a tamarind-chipotle glaze. The food was spectacular enough to earn Mexique a Michelin star in 2013  only the third Mexican restaurant in America so honored. 1529 W. Chicago Ave., 312-850-0288, www.mexiquechicago.com.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

 P.V.

Topolobampo

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Rick Bayless' follow-up to Frontera Grill was viewed originally as Frontera's fancy sibling, a smaller, more refined dining room that actually accepted reservations, which at the time, Frontera did not. (Fun fact: Topolobampo was actually the restaurant Bayless wanted to open first, but business sense prevailed.) In the years since (nearly 27 of them), Topolobampo has evolved into so much more, its loose tasting-menu format (choose five or eight courses) and daring menu headings (dishes are labeled "vibrant," "soulful" and "unexpected," among other categories) giving the kitchen, including chef de cuisine Andres Padilla, free rein to create stunningly original dishes. Bimonthly themed menus explore Mexico's art and history. Topolobampo is easily one of the best restaurants in the country, and a Chicago civic treasure. 445 N. Clark St., 312-661-1434, www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/topolobampo.

 P.V.

Xoco

The "little sister" (literally; that's what the word "xoco" translates to from Spanish) to Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, Xoco was Rick Bayless' first new restaurant in 20 years when it debuted in 2009. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and offering a counter-service menu of mostly sopas and tortas (though it would be a grave mistake to overlook the agua frescas and ground-from-beans hot chocolate), Xoco mirrors the clean cooking and sustainable and organic ethos of its elder siblings, but does so at a fast-casual price point, making the food accessible to a much wider audience. 449 N. Clark St., 312-334-3688, www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/xoco.

 P.V.






A field of agave plants on a hillside in Oaxaca, which has seen a boom in production. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

On Earth Day each year, children and their parents from the small community of Santa Catarina Minas in Oaxaca, Mexico, gather in a sun-parched field to plant agave, the spiny cactuslike plant that's the source for mezcal, a spirit gaining favor in bars and restaurants across the U.S.

This annual celebration of agave, which this year takes place Saturday, is supported by Chicagoans who believe its cultivation is good for those who appreciate agave products as well as those who support the continued economic development of rural Mexican communities and the survival of planet Earth.

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Tequila is a distilled spirit from blue agave; mezcal is a distilled spirit from all kinds of agave, some wild, some cultivated. Tequila is a well-known beverage currently produced by several large manufacturers in Mexico; mezcal is rapidly gaining adherents and is still produced mostly by small manufacturers, sometimes just mom-and-pop operations turning out a relatively limited number of bottles every year.

Mezcal, a centuries-old beverage, is becoming the sip du jour in the U.S., an overnight sensation hundreds of years in the making.

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In her book "Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production" (University of California, 2015), Sarah Bowen writes "between 2005 and 2014, production of certified mezcal increased from about 400,000 liters to 1.5 million." And that's just certified mezcal. Many mezcal makers have an output so small  under 50 liter batches  they don't produce enough to qualify for certification, though they make spirits in traditional ways sometimes lost in larger, certified facilities.

For confirmation of mezcal's soaring popularity, witness mezcal-focused bars opening in Chicago in just the past year or so: Mezcaleria Las Flores, Quiote, Mercadito's La Mez Agave Lounge and Rick Bayless' Lena Brava, which features a 100-item mezcal list.

The spike in mezcal's popularity means much-needed revenue is being generated by some relatively small producers in Mexico, specifically in the state of Oaxaca. Revenue is good, of course; what's not so good  economically and ecologically  is over-harvesting. Given mezcal's raging popularity, some industry watchers are concerned that certain varieties of agave might be loved to extinction.

To make whiskey, you need grains (like corn, wheat and barley) to mash up, ferment, distill and, usually, barrel age. To make mezcal, you need an agave plant, specifically the heart of the plant, also mashed up, fermented and distilled. The best mezcal, however, the one preferred by mezcal enthusiasts, never sees the inside of a barrel and is unaged, the better to reveal the character of the terroir, the terrain where the specific agave plant grows.

Here's a big and critical difference between whiskey and mezcal. Grain matures in a single season, after which it can be used to make whiskey and other grain-based distilled spirits. An agave, however, can take 10, 20, even 50 years to mature to the point where it can be harvested and made into mezcal.

Agave must grow in the earth for many years, so it's a beautiful expression of that earth in a way grain can rarely, if ever, be. Different agave plants growing in different areas share many common features but also distinctly express their location's growing environment.

Because agave takes much longer to mature than whiskey grains like wheat and barley, mezcal makers have to think ahead, perhaps a decade or more into the future, and replant aggressively so stocks of agave don't give out. If that happens, there could simply be no more mezcal. People in Oaxaca and Chicago are working to replant agave for the love of mezcal  but also for love of the planet.

For Chicagoan Lou Bank, Earth Day and related celebrations are about more than just ensuring the continued supply of mezcal to the United States. It's a global issue.

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"Whether or not you believe climate change is man-made," says Bank, "there's no disputing that carbon is contributing to changes in weather patterns, and that plants remove carbon from the atmosphere. Agave is one of the rare plants that both removes a lot of carbon from the atmosphere and can also thrive in arid climates. As we see changes in weather patterns, we see a lot more arid climates. You can't plant trees there and expect them to live, but you can plant agave. So by replanting agave, we are ensuring that agave spirits will exist in the future."

One of the leaders of this effort to replant the vanishing agave is Jason Cox, a young man from Fort Wayne, Ind., now at Oaxaca's El Destilado, which specializes in small batch mezcal from places like Santa Catarina Minas.

Working with locals to replant agave, Cox explains, "Our hope is that by directly interacting with kids who live in agave-growing and mezcal-producing communities, we'll reinforce the importance of agave reforestation, as well as care for the environment in general. I'm a big believer in being conscientious about the origins of what we consume."

For Cox, mezcal-focused events "shed light on the importance this marvelous plant represents for the history and future of these communities. One of the biggest takeaways for both consumers and producers is that this is a celebration of what we ought to be doing daily."

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Bank runs a Chicago-based organization called S.A.C.R.E.D., which stands for Saving Agave for Culture, Recreation, Education and Development (www.sacredagave.org). This not-for-profit group of agave enthusiasts raises money to send to Mexican communities, specifically in Oaxaca, to help replant agave, construct greenhouses for agave, rebuild and maintain traditional water systems, and, not incidentally, build libraries and buy books for children who live in areas that rely upon agave as a cash crop.

Aaron Campos of Chicago-based Dark Matter Coffee and a team of roasters recently journeyed to Oaxaca with Bank to visit mezcal makers and said that for them, "having the ability to collaborate on coffee mezcals was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip." On Saturday, Dark Matter Coffee will offer cask-conditioned agave-infused coffee drinks, with a portion of proceeds going to replant agave in Oaxaca. (Sample this nitrogenized coffee at two Dark Matter locations: 601 W. Jackson Blvd., and 738 N. Western Ave.)

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Masa Azul (2901 W. Diversey Ave.) will replant an agave every time a customer orders a sip of Real Minero, a mezcal produced in Santa Catarina Minas.

Uncommon Ground restaurant owners Mike and Helen Cameron are working with Bank on a series of mezcal-focused dinners. A portion of the cost for a three-course dinner (about $30) goes back to Oaxaca to help replant agave and fund the greenhouses, water systems, libraries and book purchases.

"We practice Earth Day every day," says Mike Cameron, "and these dinners are a good way to educate people about what they're eating and drinking. Reception for the mezcal dinners has been incredible. Half the people who came to our first dinner and heard Bank's presentation signed up, on the spot, for the next dinner," scheduled for May 17th.

Any day of the year, Chicagoans can donate to agave planting efforts, and enjoy some rare mezcals, by participating in the Agave Triangle (www.agavetriangle.com) self-guided tours of agave-centric Logan Square restaurants and bars.

David Hammond is a freelance writer.
Chef Diana Davila ran the first part of our meal to the table. It was two tacos, one robustly meaty and salty, the other a nuanced, layered vegetarian delight. She set the plates down with a smile and began to walk off. It was a lively Saturday night in her shoebox of a restaurant, but I stopped her.

"What's your favorite beer on the menu?" I asked.

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She began to answer, then stopped herself. Clearly she expected me to ask her favorite dish at Mi Tocaya Antojeria, the Logan Square restaurant that Davila opened in March as a love letter to her time living and traveling in Mexico.

The beer list was built of six Mexican imports  Corona, Modelo Especial, Modelo Negra, Pacifico, Sol and Victoria  and one local craft beer on draft. In the spirit of a menu that seemed to be pushing me toward an imported Mexican beer, I chose Victoria, mostly because I couldn't remember how it tasted.

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In a happy coincidence, Davila replied, "Victoria is my favorite Mexican drinking beer."

The label on my beer bottle faced away from her so she spun it around and brightened.

"Perfect!" she said.

That cold 12-ounce bottle of Victoria had arrived at our small table with a thud  a handsome bottle with a white-and-yellow painted label featuring "Victoria" written in elegant cursive with long sloping lines curling off the "V" and the "A." A sliver of lime poked out from the rim. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been served a beer in a bottle. Or the last time I'd resisted the urge to ask for a glass.

To see exactly what I was dealing with, I cast aside the lime and took a swig.

Delicious.

Victoria was bright, dry and refreshing with just the faintest malt body to make it interesting. It was simple and clean, with no cloying grain notes weighing it down. It worked especially well in the context of Davila's menu, providing a tidy counterpoint to the weight and complexity of the meaty taco, the tender ahi tuna atop rich mole verde and lightly gamy lamb meatballs coated in a fiery red ranchero sauce.

Halfway through the meal, I tried my luck with a second beer: Modelo Especial, which has overtaken Corona as the biggest-selling imported beer in some markets (including Chicago).

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Meh.

Not the worst but a bit too much of that cloying grain flavor not present in Victoria. Unlike Victoria, it was better with lime.

I spent the next couple of weeks drinking 15 imported Mexican beers, weighing what works, what doesn't and why the style has been a rocket in the American beer market for the past 20 years, since Corona overtook Heineken as the nation's biggest-selling import.

According to Chicago-based market research firm IRI, Mexican beer has accounted for nearly 70 percent of imported beer sales during the past year  and growing. Nine of the nation's top 54 brands are Mexican imports, including two of the top seven (Corona Extra and Modelo Especial).

The old faithful top four brands  Bud Light, Coors Light, Budweiser and Miller Lite  are all down or flat from a year ago while their Mexican competitors are up: Corona nearly 9 percent, Modelo Especial 24 percent and Modelo Negra (recently rechristened from Negra Modelo), Pacifico and Modelo Especial Chelada all in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 percent.

So what's going on with Mexican beer? Though the best Mexican imports are legitimately tasty, it's not just quality at work; if it were, three of the biggest sellers  Corona Extra, Modelo Especial and Sol  wouldn't be packaged in clear glass, which allows light to degrade beer in literal seconds. (The result is a taste most often referred to as "skunky.")

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The answer is a complex mix of demographics, marketing, history and nostalgia. Mexico is the sun-dappled place where we are from. Or it is where our family is from. Or it is where we vacation. We adore its food. And its impact on our culture is growing.

Mexico's brewing history dates to the arrival of German and Austrian immigrants in the mid-1800s, who made the Vienna lager  a clean lager with faint malt-forward heft (Samuel Adams Boston Lager is a modern example)  a common staple. However, like its American neighbor, body- and taste-lightening adjuncts slowly worked their way into recipes, and consolidation pushed the industry toward a lowest common denominator. Most major Mexican brands are currently in the hands of two dominant players: Grupo Modelo (owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, though its brands in the United States have been divested  more on that to come) and Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma (a subsidiary of Heineken International.)

For Davila, the appeal of Mexican beer lies in both personal history and the quality among the top tier. She is a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from San Luis Potosi, 250 miles north of Mexico City. She spent summers there from the ages of 6 to 18. Davila grew up in the Chicago suburbs, but Mexican beer reminds her of home.

"Victoria reminds me of the times we'd take an hour trip to the beach," she said.

It's also what she wants to drink alongside her food. Davila thought hard about assembling a lengthy list of craft beers for her restaurant  it's just what new restaurants do in 2017  but she decided she'd rather do what's best for her food.

"When you think about Mexican food, and how complex and big and bold the flavors are, Mexican beer goes perfect," she said. "I feel like food and beer pairings have gone off the wall. They can be fun, but when you're eating something, I like contrast. Mexican lagers are the perfect contrast. Why would I want to eat something with all these things going on in it and then a beer with all these things going on? They cross each other out and confuse the palate."

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As a nod to craft beer, she opened with one tap reserved for Huitzi, a fairly complex strong golden ale brewed with hibiscus flowers, ginger, Thai palm sugar and honey made by local Latin brewery 5 Rabbit Cerveceria. She's planning to add two more taps: one for 5 Rabbit golden ale and a low-alcohol, fruit-forward beer called Paletas.

But her biggest seller has been Modelo Especial, followed by Victoria ("the majority of staff is Mexican and they love it") and Sol. In a neighborhood rooted somewhat in counterculture  at least as compared to, say, Lincoln Park  her customers tend to shun Corona as a mainstream option. She wondered if those same customers would be aghast at a beer list lacking, as she called it, "bougie beer." Especially IPA.

"No one has said anything," she said.

But here's the funny little secret about Mexican imports: Many are barely imports.

All Corona, Modelo, Pacifico and Victoria beer in the U.S. is brewed just outside the city of Piedras Negras, a mere 12 miles from the border with Texas. Anheuser-Busch InBev and Grupo Modelo were forced to divest the brewery and the U.S. rights to those brands by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of those companies merging in 2013.

The brands and the Piedras Negras brewery went to Constellation Brands, which had been importing and marketing the beers for 30 years. Suddenly it was also in the business of production, which it plans to augment with a new brewery in Mexicali, along the California border, in late 2019.

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The loss of the Modelo portfolio was a blow for Anheuser-Busch InBev, whose bedrock domestic brands are mostly losing share. The company tried to compensate by importing Montejo (popular in the Yucatan) in 2014 and Estrella Jalisco (from the state of Jalisco) last year. Distributed in 12 states, including Illinois, Estrella Jalisco has performed reasonably well but lags far behind the Modelo brands. Montejo, which is available in Texas and California, has failed to make much of a dent.

Though Heineken International has several strong brands via Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma  Dos Equis, Sol and Tecate among them  Constellation is the clear leader in the U.S.

"Mexican beer is popular, but it's not just about developing a Mexican imported brand and throwing it out there because that doesn't necessarily work," Constellation spokesman Mike McGrew said. "Brands still matter. We are in a very, very fortunate position because we have been building our brands for more than 30 years."

Corona, for instance, has thrived when sold to Americans as beach, fun, sun and relaxation in a bottle. There may be no beer industry campaign in recent memory more effective than "Find Your Beach," accompanied by spare, alluring images of beach and ocean.

But growth for Modelo Especial has been in double digits for 30 years, McGrew said. Hispanic consumers drove the growth until about three years ago, when a more multicultural audience kicked in. Next, the company has similar plans for Pacifico (framed as "embodying the spirit of Baja ... the adventure-seeker consumer," McGrew said) and ultimately, Victoria, which so far only gets Spanish-language advertising and retail support in the U.S.

Riding the coattails of Modelo Especial is Modelo Negra, a darker, malt-forward, food-friendly beer. Constellation is also using its portfolio to take a stab at innovation: low-calorie Corona Premier is being test-marketed in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Texas as a potential challenger to one of Anheuser-Busch InBev's strongest brands: Michelob Ultra.

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Even American craft beer is taking notice.

Flying Dog, Oskar Blues, Ska and 21st Amendment breweries have all released Mexican-style lagers, joined in recent months by Sun King in Indianapolis (called Pachanga), Cleveland's Great Lakes (Grandes Lagos, a lager brewed with hibiscus) and Uinta in Salt Lake City, which introduced Lime Pilsner in early spring.

Isaac Winter, Uinta's head brewer of research and development, drank endless amounts of Tecate, Dos Equis and Pacifico while figuring out what Lime Pilsner should taste like.

"I'm not bashful about saying this  I really like Modelo and Tecate," Winter said, adding that his favorite is Pacifico. "I tend to think of a lot of Mexican imports as drinkable and refreshing and not too heavy."

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Winter points out that the best ones also boast slightly fruity esters from the yeast used, whereas "a lot of domestic beers use boring yeasts."

Winter's gripe against some Mexican imports is the same one I developed from drinking through those 15 beers over the course of a couple of weeks: Several are too sweet.

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"Sometimes breweries add too many crystal malts  sweet malts  that make the beer too cloying," Winter said. "That does not lend itself to drinkability. There were a few beers that I felt on my teeth afterward."

He declined to name the beers too cloying for his taste, but I have no such issues: I'll always take a Tecate with a squeeze or two of fresh lime over a Corona for precisely this reason. Or even a Corona Light over a Corona. Corona Light might taste like carbonated carpet, but at least it dries out. And with an ample infusion of fresh lime, it's passable.

Uinta's Lime Pilsner is what a lot of these beers should be; it's lean, dry and effervescent up front, followed by a long citrus finish. It was initially intended as a summer-only release, but interest from distributors was so fierce that it quickly became a year-round offering. In a sense, American craft's embrace of Mexican imports is the biggest compliment imaginable. Who knows  a couple might even make it onto Davila's beer list.

jbnoel@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @joshbnoel






Walk into a Taco Bell to order a gordita, and what you get will bear little resemblance to the traditional Mexican dish of the same name. At Taco Bell, a gordita is more akin to a pliable pita flatbread, stuffed with the fast food chain's usual suspects of ingredients  watery tomatoes, shredded lettuce, a sprinkling of cheese, a dollop of sour cream and whatever meat the fast food giant is promoting that day.

Head south of the border, though, and you'll encounter something completely different. Resembling a corn cake and similar to the arepa, its Venezuelan cousin, a gordita is a classic street and lunch food throughout central and northern Mexico, easily enjoyed thanks to its portable size. The gordita  which translates to "chubby one" or "little fat one"  is a pastry made with masa, the same traditional cornmeal dough used to make tortillas, and stuffed with cheese, meat or other filling.

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It doesn't take much for a tortilla to become a gordita  just pack the masa a little thicker, and you have the basic technique. We're talking a mix of simple masa harina (a widely available corn flour), water, salt and, if desired, lard. (Why not? Live a little.)

Typically shaped narrower in diameter than a traditional tortilla, it's not folded over like a taco. Instead the gordita features a slit on one side that cools down the dough disk after cooking while simultaneously creating a pocket for stuffing.

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The sky's the limit on stuffings, with gorditas often sharing the same fillings as tacos  barbacoa, al pastor, carnitas, you name it. What the thicker gordita excels in is encasing typically thicker, saucier stews and preparations than you'd find in a taco, like chicharron con chile, a spicy pork rind stew. The little pocket and thicker disk of masa can withstand and absorb a filling's juices and liquids, the effect being at once a crisp outer shell and toothsome, savory interior.

One can deep-fry a gordita, creating a crispier outer crust, or it can be pan-fried or heated on an iron skillet, which offers a nice, smoky sear to the whole shebang. Taco Bell may have introduced the word gordita to many people, but there's nothing like the real thing to get a greater taste of Mexican cuisine beyond tacos and burritos.

jbhernandez@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @joeybear85

Gorditas de papas con chorizo

Prep: 1 hour

Cook: 30 minutes

Makes: 8 servings

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From Gonzalo Guzman's new cookbook, "Nopalito" (Ten Speed Press, $30), written with Stacy Adimando, which is named after his two San Francisco restaurants. The chef suggests making masa dough from scratch with dried corn, but for most home cooks, using store-bought masa harina is an easier route. Guzman suggests serving the gorditas with a tangy salsa, such as salsa de arbol, "to cut through the meaty sausage and starchy potatoes."

Filling:

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup peeled, diced russet potatoes (from about 1 medium-to-large potato)

Canola oil, for griddling

1 cup crumbled store-bought Mexican chorizo, casings removed

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Masa:

3 cups masa prepared from store-bought masa harina (follow package directions, or see notes below)

1 tablespoon lard or softened unsalted butter

Garnish:

Salsa

Queso fresco

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Thinly sliced cabbage

Chopped fresh cilantro

Diced white onion

1 Bring a small pot of water to boil. Add the salt and potatoes, and cook until al dente, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2 In a medium bowl, mix the masa with the lard until well combined. Form the masa into 8 equal balls, a little less than 1/4 cup each. In a tortilla press lined on both sides with a round of plastic, flatten each masa ball into a round slightly thicker than a tortilla (between 1/8- and 1/4-inch thick, and 4 inches wide).

3 In a large skillet or griddle over medium heat, drizzle in about 1 teaspoon oil for each tortilla, and add as many tortillas as you can without overlapping them. Cook, turning once, until puffed up and filled with air, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Remove and let cool slightly. Using a paring knife or butter knife, pierce the edge of each gordita horizontally, then carefully wiggle the knife between the layers, separating them and creating an opening in the top third of the gordita (it should look like a coin purse).

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4 When ready to serve, in a large skillet or griddle over medium-high heat, drizzle in 1 to 2 teaspoons oil, and add a gordita; cook, turning once or twice, until lightly crisp on both sides, about 4 minutes total. Repeat with the remaining gorditas, adding more oil to the pan as needed.

5 In a separate medium skillet, cook the chorizo, stirring occasionally, until cooked through and hot, about 6 minutes. Stir in the potatoes, and cook until hot and tender. Divide the mixture among the gorditas, stuffing 1/4 cup into each pocket. Garnish with salsa, queso fresco, cabbage, cilantro and onion.

Nutrition information per serving: 199 calories, 9 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 13 mg cholesterol, 24 g carbohydrates, 0 g sugar, 6 g protein, 577 mg sodium, 2 g fiber

Masa preparation

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From Diane Kennedy's "Mexican Regional Cooking."

2 cups masa harina

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1 1/3 cup warm water, approximately

Put masa harina in a mixing bowl, add the water all at once (this will keep lumps from forming) and mix together quickly, just until the ingredients are combined. Set the dough aside for 5 minutes. Proceed with making the gordita.

Tips

Guzman's tips on working with store-bought masa harina:

Season masa harina with a little salt to help bring out the flavor in the corn. Start with less than the recommended amount of water, as too-wet masa can be very soft and difficult to work with, and it won't have as fluffy and springy a consistency. Reserve a few tablespoons of liquid when initially combining the ingredients, and add them only if needed. Let the masa rest for at least 10 minutes (as much as an hour) to absorb the water before adding more. The finished product should be the consistency off moist, smooth mashed potatoes or a soft fluffy sugar cookie dough. If masa is dry or crumbly while working with it, mix in a bit more water.






Siena Tavern co-owner Fabio Viviani lived in the area for less than six years before he scored one of Chicago's greatest honors -- having a day named for him. He joked that it also didn't take long for that recognition to go to his head.

"I was like, 'Hello, what are we waiting for?,'" Viviani told the Tribune in a recent chat at Siena Tavern in River North. "No, no. It was a big honor for me, although I thought, you know, school closed, bank closed, we shoot fireworks. Then I thought, you know what? It's not Fourth of July. It's just Fabio's day, so everybody go to school, banks are still open. There is no fireworks, but it's still a big, big, happy day for me."

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The 38-year-old Italian chef probably wouldn't have time for a colossal celebration anyway. He's involved in the operation of multiple restaurants, including Prime and Provisions in the Loop and Bar Siena in the West Loop, with the DineAmic Group; his cookbook, "Fabio's 30-Minute Italian," is due out May 2; and he stars in the online series "Dinner is Served," which debuted earlier this month.

In the latter project, Viviani is shown cooking for Johnsonville Sausage members after a fire shuttered the company's plant in Watertown, Wis., in May 2015. The company continued to pay its workers as long as they volunteered or went to school while a new facility was built.

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"I work with a lot of big companies, and it's hard to see somebody that really kind of cares from the social aspect of things," Viviani said. "I loved it and I jumped all over it."

Because Viviani appears in this series and his own personal weekly web series, "Fabio's Kitchen," he said he doesn't see a need to return to reality television.

Viviani rose to fame as a fan favorite on the fifth season of "Top Chef" in 2008. He appeared on "Top Chef: All-Stars" in 2010 and a subsequent "Life after Top Chef" special in 2012.

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"If you break down why people do reality TV anyway, they do it because they want to get exposure or they've got nothing to do, and they're picked up for a show and that's all they do," Viviani said. "We're really busy."

For now, he's content living in South Barrington with his wife and 19-month-old son, and of course, celebrating Chef Fabio Viviani Day in Chicago on March 8. Mayor Emanuel announced the honor earlier this year to coincide with Viviani's induction into the local Chefs Hall of Fame.

"I always heard that people from outside of Chicago, it's very hard to integrate in Chicago. As a matter of fact, a lot of restaurateurs coming from out of town they kind of got not-so-great results. A lot of big names too, they tried to come to Chicago and they didn't do so well," Viviani said. "But I got, like, hugged with open arms and I'm still getting kissed."

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Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Show of hands: Who's planning to see this weekend's big movie?

That was a trick question. Because with screens getting smaller, choices getting wider and audiences getting narrower, the entire notion of "big movie" has become exponentially more difficult to define.

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No doubt, such worldwide behemoths as "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Fate of the Furious" count as big movies, if only in deference to their budgets, spectacle and wide-ranging appeal. But a glance at some of this weekend's new releases reveals how, with Hollywood depending ever more heavily on remakes and sequels, and streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon becoming players in the art-house space, the proportions of modern films - the ambition with which they're made and their ultimate size and scale on the screen - have become increasingly fluid.

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There was a time when "Unforgettable," the psychological thriller starring Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson, would easily count as this weekend's big movie. But, from concept to execution, the tale of a jealous ex-wife and the new bride she terrorizes is puny indeed - a grim, hopelessly retrograde portrait of toxic femininity and neurotic sexual jealousy. Although a few curious onlookers might want to see how Heigl is faring in her attempt to reinvent herself as a post-romcom heroine (hint: not well), early tracking suggests that filmgoers will most likely reject "Unforgettable," despite the name recognition of its actors.

Meanwhile, a "smaller" movie with far greater artistic aspirations is opening, not in theaters, but on Netflix, which has aggressively been scooping up independent films to produce and distribute. Along with "Rodney King," Spike Lee's film of Roger Guenveur Smith's one-man show, and the Iraq War drama "Sand Castle," Friday the service will start streaming "Tramps," a playful love-on-the-lam romance by Adam Leon.

With its nods to the likes of the French New Wave, its bravura camerawork and fleet, assured editing, "Tramps" is a lively, high-spirited crowd-pleaser. It played well at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it made its debut and where Netflix purchased it for a reported $2 million. But despite Leon's cinematic sensibility and high-minded aspirations, he's fine with his film not being seen in theaters. What was once the holy grail for young filmmakers - having their work shown on the big screen - has now given way to platform-neutral realism.

Leon, who grew up in New York, admits that he harbored the theatrical dreams for his first film, the 2012 caper comedy "Gimme the Loot." And those dreams came true: The film wound up playing in more than 50 theaters throughout the country. But for "Tramps," he said in a recent telephone conversation, "it was going to be a major challenge to get crowds into the theater. And the reality is that most people would end up seeing it on a streaming service anyway."

When Netflix bought "Tramps" in September, Leon cried with relief that he could make his investors whole, and that the pressure of filling theaters was lifted. Despite his confidence in the film, Leon observed, "It's far from a slam dunk. There are no known quantities, it's not a horror movie, it doesn't feature The Rock. There are no TV actresses taking off their clothes. But on VOD, someone will buy it."

Leon's sentiments were echoed by Macon Blair, whose movie "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore" opened the Sundance Film Festival in January before going directly to Netflix. Blair had tried to get financing for the seriocomic thriller for about a year, but was unable to coax famous-enough actors to satisfy studios and investors. When he made the deal with Netflix, he said, the company supported his choice of Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood for the lead roles, and completely left him alone while filming.

"Yeah, it would be rad to get your movie into theaters, but either the movie happens or it doesn't happen," Blair said philosophically. "And, if it does happen, not only does it happen, it gets to happen with this huge amount of creative control with the actors you want, and they totally stay out of your hair."

Thanks to recommendation algorithms and subscriber data, Netflix is able to make sure that films such as "Tramps" and "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore" get in front of viewers who are likely to enjoy them - and, more crucially, to tell their friends that they enjoyed them. (The company doesn't make its viewing statistics public.) It's the same model used by Amazon's Video Direct service, on which such direct-to-streaming movies as "The Break-In" and "Black Field" have found impressive audiences, purely on the basis of the site's if-you-liked-this-you'll-like-that user interface.

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These are all films that, had they embarked on traditional theatrical runs, most likely would have ultimately lost money. For them, a streaming-only run isn't a matter of foreclosed expectations, but rightsizing. As Joe Swanberg, whose movie "Win It All" is on Netflix, put it, "No filmmaker dreams of a half-empty theater on a Wednesday night."

There are still films that demand to be seen in theaters - films like "The Lost City of Z," which opens throughout the country on Friday. A sprawling, visually lush epic about the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his attempts to uncover a lost civilization in the Bolivian jungle, "The Lost City of Z" is the kind of sensitive, sweeping adventure tale that evokes such names as David Lean, Terrence Malick and Werner Herzog. It was even made on old-fashioned 35mm film.

Thankfully, "Lost City of Z's" parent studio, Amazon, is giving it a strong theatrical run before streaming it later this year. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) As Gray observed at the New York Film Festival premiere, this is precisely the kind of film that studios used to make and should still be making. Now addicted to sequels and dubious star vehicles like "Unforgettable," they've handed the baton to smaller outlets and streaming services adept at knowing which movies are meant to be seen on the big screen, and which are just as well-served by bypassing theaters entirely, and meeting audiences where they are. It's an ethic that a new generation of filmmakers is embracing without complaining.

"I had a profound moment about a year ago," Swanberg recalled. "Suddenly the idea that we booked a room with seats fixed to the floor and set screenings at Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. and expected people to come to this room and pay money and sit down seemed so archaic to me. I had this shocking moment of, 'Oh my God, this doesn't make sense.' "

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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 music led by Neeme Jarvi with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this weekend is concerned with matters of the spirit, matters of the heart and matters of nature.

The distinguished, Estonian-born musician is hardly the most exciting conductor around, but he gets the job done in a manner that befits a veteran international orchestra builder who, at nearly 80, knows he no longer has anything to prove to anybody.

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Self-effacing efficiency, in fact, has long been a Jarvi hallmark. At the subscription series concert Thursday night at Symphony Center, that was sufficient to produce generally satisfying results but did not always produce the most compelling or distinctive music-making.

Jarvi, who directed the CSO as recently as last December, is the second guest conductor deputized within recent weeks to replace an indisposed senior conductor. He is taking over intact the program Christoph von Dohnanyi was scheduled to have conducted before Dohnanyi suffered a hairline fracture of the pelvic bone, requiring extended rest.

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Jarvi's sparing beat and gestures proved most apt for the music at the very beginning of the program, in Arvo Part's "Fratres" ("Brothers"). The conductor has long championed the works of his great Estonian countryman, who has made his home in Berlin for many years; Jarvi even has attended the birth of many a work of Part's.

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"Fratres" is signature Arvo Part, a 12-minute neo-medieval meditation that exists in as many as 17 different published versions. The one played Thursday night was the version Part prepared in 1992 for violin solo, string orchestra and percussion (claves and bass drum).

Resting on a drone of open fifths in the strings, a series of variations play out in mostly quiet, sustained phrases of different lengths, punctuated by minute thumps of percussion. The effect, with concertmaster Robert Chen spinning ethereal arpeggios over the massed strings, was luminous, inward, otherworldly. "Fratres" is music not so much to be played as music to be felt. Thursday's performance got the feeling right.

Chen had a busy night of it, moving from his obbligato duties in the Part piece to his role as full-fledged soloist for Bela Bartok's Violin Concerto No. 1 (1908). This is the young Bartok's musical billet-doux to the violinist Stefi Geyer, the great if unrequited love of his early years. If the two-movement concerto is not as inspired as his more popular Second Violin Concerto (premiered 30 years later), it's well worth hearing and made a refreshing change from the standard fiddle concertos heard at these concerts.

Chen deployed his silken tone and throbbing vibrato to tenderly expressive effect in the opening movement, where the love-struck Bartok opens his heart in floods of passionate lyricism. He then dug into the capricious second movement with more than enough vivacity to keep the music perking right up to the double bar. Under Jarvi's watchful eye, Chen's colleagues furnished attentive support.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral") is one of the most difficult of the nine symphonies to bring off well. Here conductors face the problem of reconciling the two worlds in which this music lives, that of the symphony and that of the naturalistic tone poem. Beethoven, of course, wanted to have it both ways, but managing the duality successfully can be a delicate balancing act.

Jarvi downplayed those chirping birds, babbling brooks, happy peasants and other pictorial devices in favor of a more strictly symphonic, abstract view. Fair enough, but the result felt anonymous and grew duller as it went on.

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Things started out promisingly enough with an Allegro ma non troppo (fast, but not too fast) that, in its unforced urgency, really did suggest the awakening of cheerful feelings upon arriving in the country, per Beethoven's marking. The "Scene by the Brook" flowed nicely, the avian interplay of solo woodwinds well set off against the rest of the ensemble. But the storm sequence did not rage and the aftermath was curiously devoid of joy.

Minor slips of execution, most noticeably in the horns, left the suspicion that the orchestra's heart wasn't quite in this Beethoven. Perhaps later performances, at Wheaton College's Edman Chapel and at Orchestra Hall, will bring an improvement.

The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; $35-$261; 312-294-3000, www.cso.org.

John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.

jvonrhein@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jvonrhein

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South Loop student Evan Robinson (right) and New Yorker Cydney Sherman were paired together for a sushi challenge. (Fox)

Warning: Spoilers ahead

South Loop student Evan Robinson barely survived elimination from "MasterChef Junior" for the second week in a row.

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The eight junior chefs were visited by their families, who watched them make 45-minute meals from ingredients in Blue Apron delivery boxes on Thursday's episode. Evan served pan-seared chicken breast, brown rice and Swiss chard.

Evan Robinson, 11, has made it through several rounds on the Fox reality show "MasterChef Junior." His Boy Scout troop and a local Girl Scout troop will hold a viewing party when the next episode airs April 6, 2017. (Terrence James / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Georgia student Justise Mayberry won the challenge with her pan-seared salmon and got to choose the teams for the second round.

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Justise said she paired Evan with New Yorker Cydney Sherman because "they're the youngest, so I think that they get more stressed and neither of them will really step up as a team leader."

The four pairs had to make sushi platters in a tag-team challenge. Evan and Cydney struggled with being precise.

"I'm worried because our team, it just fell apart. I'm not the loudest and Cydney was cracking under this pressure," Evan said.

Judge Gordon Ramsay said their work was sloppy and called it a "nightmare on a slate."

"Uneven slicing, really badly done," Ramsay said as he pointed to pieces of sushi. "A mess, a mess, a mess, a mess, a mess, a mess."

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In the end, New Jersey student Peyton Copeland and Georgian Afnan Ahmad were sent home for their sloppy platter.

Six contestants remain on Season 5 of "MasterChef Junior," which airs 7 p.m. Thursdays on Fox. The winner is slated to receive $100,000.

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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)
Chicago-area stay-at-home mom Megan Novotney with her children in February. Novotney found happiness in her yoga teacher training program. She says being able to put herself first made her a better mom, teacher and wife. (Kristen Norman / Chicago Tribune)

Megan Novotney was shocked to be pregnant six months after giving birth to triplets.

The Chicago-area stay-at-home mother had a choice: She could wallow in the fact that her life had become an endless cycle of diapers and bottles, or she could do something to try to make herself a little happier.

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Novotney chose happiness, and this fall, when her children were 3 and 2, she enrolled in a yoga teacher training program.

"You lose yourself as a person once they arrive," Novotney said. "Now, I'm able to put myself first, and it makes me a better mom, and better teacher, a better wife. When the plane is going down, you put your own mask on first."

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You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be unhappy  and that choice is up to you, said Gretchen Rubin, author of "Better Than Before" and "Happier at Home," and host of the podcast "Happier with Gretchen Rubin."

About 50 percent of happiness is genetically determined, so some people will naturally be happier than others, Rubin said. The next 10 to 20 percent of happiness results from life circumstances: age, marital status, income and education, Rubin said, estimating her percentages based on multiple studies by University of California researchers. That remaining 30 to 40 percent? It's all you.

She said we each have a range set, from one to 10, with 10 being the happiest.

"You might be four to seven, and someone else might be seven to 10," Rubin said. "Even when they're blue, they might not be so blue, but you can always be lifted to the top of your range."

Megan Novotney does yoga with her children at her Chicago home in February. Novotney says being able to put herself first made her a better mom, yoga teacher and wife. (Kristen Norman / Chicago Tribune)

The trick is to know how to get there. If you don't know how to be happy and you're not a naturally happy person, you may be stuck at four, and that's just depressing.

For example, many people incorrectly believe that shopping is the key to their happiness, said Karl Moore, author of five books including "The 18 Rules of Happiness."

"It provides the temporary high," Moore said, "and once we're used to the new level of happiness that comes with the acquisition, it becomes the norm."

Others assume that having children will make them happier, and this also isn't true, said Ruut Veenhoven, professor of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

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"Marriage becomes less romantic and life choices more constrained, and these negatives tend to outweigh the evident positives of having children," Veenhoven said. "The reason that most parents had expected otherwise is colored information, both in the media and from their mothers, who are eager to become grandmothers and have forgotten their perils of the past."

Even winning the lottery or increasing your income doesn't necessarily equate to happiness, Veenhoven said. Once income rises above $75,000, life satisfaction doesn't increase, according to a study by Princeton University researchers. It goes back to the retail theory: that you become accustomed to whatever you purchase but also because you have to log many hours at work making that money, which makes people unhappy.

But there are other easy ways to become happy quickly, and these don't cost anything, Rubin said.

Going outside is an easy fix, she said.

"There's light even on the cloudiest day, and it lifts your mood," Rubin said.

A University of Michigan study showed that strolling through nature can lower stress, and can even be a nonpharmacological approach to depression. If you're stuck at your desk, you can simulate the outdoor effect by simply looking at a picture of a nature landscape, according to a study published in the Korean Journal of Radiology. Researchers found that those who looked at green landscapes had heightened activities connected with positive memories, compared with those who viewed urban photos.

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Hanging out with cheerful people can also do the trick.

Happiness is a feeling, and it's contagious  so if you're around people who are happy, you'll probably be in a good mood. Unfortunately, the flip side is also true, Rubin said.

A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society found that each happy friend increases your chances of happiness by 11 percent, although each unhappy friend doubles your chances of being unhappy.

"We're constantly passing emotions back and forth to each other," Rubin said. "If they're happier, they will help lift you up  it won't take you all the way, but it will tend to pull you that way."

But you can surround yourself with miserable people and still remain positive because you're the only person in charge of your own emotions, said Moore, who believes that these contagious feelings can be quashed.

"Only you can determine your state of mind," he said.

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One way to adjust your state of mind is to stop feeling sorry for yourself, Moore said.

"That's a massive block to people's happiness," he said. "Self-pity eats up everything around you, and it leaves you feeling bitter and twisted."

If you want to truly experience happiness, Moore said, you simply need to let go of your self-pity, and start feeling grateful for what you do have, whether it's a warm home, a cup of tea or a free country.

"You will naturally propel your happiness," he said.

In Novotney's case, she stopped feeling sorry about being stuck at home with four babies living off of one income. Instead, she focused on reasons to be grateful, such as being able to home-school the children.

And once she began taking care of herself through practicing yoga, she found an instant morale boost.

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Megan Novotney does yoga with her children at her Chicago home in February. Novotney says being able to put herself first made her a better mom, yoga teacher and wife. (Kristen Norman / Chicago Tribune)

Saying "yes" to classes or other experiences is an easy way to increase your spirits.

A study from San Francisco State University found that experiences  rather than material items  make people happy because the memories from those experiences and adventures can last for a very long time.

The experiences don't need to be lavish, and they don't even need to take you out of your home.

Anything that deepens an existing relationship or broadens one has been shown to make you happier, Rubin said.

So reconnecting with old friends, starting a book club, going to a reunion, throwing a party or meeting someone for coffee will make you happy.

"Even fleeting connections with people boost the mood," Rubin said. "Go talk to someone face to face instead of sending an email."

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And remember that life is fleeting, so you should take advantage of every moment.

"Learn to understand that life is only ever for now," Moore said. "Even this shall pass."

Danielle Braff is a freelancer.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 10 Vicksburg, Mississippi at dusk. (Louis Quail / Corbis via Getty Images)






The following story was published in the Chicago Tribune on April 30, 1967. April 21 began as a quiet spring day. It was a Friday, with somewhat overcast skies but balmy air that promised a pleasant week-end and carried no hint of the tornadoes that were to lay incredible waste to sections of northeastern Illinois before nightfall. As the day grew into afternoon and on toward evening, the ominous blips on the weather bureau's radar screens prompted it ot issue a "tornado watch"  a preliminary warning. Few people took notice. About 3:30 p.m. the horizon darkened to the southwest. Twenty minutes later, accompanied by an ear-shattering roar, a heavy black cloud sped up, trailing a towering greenish-black cone of whirling winds that dipped into Belvidere, 65 miles northwest of Chicago. Larry Decker, a student at Belvidere Community High School was on a school bus waiting to go home when he glanced out the window. He had time only to scream, "A tornado is coming!" He and others raced off the bus and were caught full force as the twister danced down from the sky. They were scattered like toy soldiers on a carpet as the ferocious wind sucked everything in its path  desks, fixtures, steel beams, window glass, and all the other unnatural flotsam of a natural disaster  and slammed it down again in a deadly hail. The tornado slashed across the town, ripping a swath of death and destruction two miles long. It tore substantial homes apart. It tossed buses and cars hundreds of feet. And it left 21 crumped bodies  including Larry Decker's  in its wake as heavy rains soaked a scene that had suddenly become hell on earth. Then the funnel-shaped cloud withdrew into its parent cloud and moved northeast again, sweeping along a 75-mile front and coldly, almost majestically, carrying the inexorable seeds of ruin within itself. From time to time, with seeming carelessness, the major cloud mass sent down a series of twisters like giant dentist's drills. Seven tornadoes actually touched down. They ranged from a few hundred feet to several blocks in width along the 75-mile front where cold air accomapnying thunderstorms was colliding with a mass of warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. Two blasted Belvidere. One, the longest of the entire series, stayed on the ground nine full minutes. One lashed Geneva, another sheared the northeast core of Elgin, and one touched down near Peotone. Other funnels were sighted high in the sky. Fallout from the rampaging storm  rain, hail, and heavy, damaging winds  wrought destruction at three points near Woodstock, far to the northwest in McHenry County, and flattened several homes in Diamond Lake. At 5:03 p.m., a twister crashed into Lake Zurich and Barrington Hills, northwest of Chicago. But nature's full fury was reserved for Oak Lawn, a big, bustling suburb of 65,000 residents south of the city. The tornado touched down at 5:24 p.m. in La Grange Road west of the community. Skipping northeast at 60 miles an hour, it carved out an unbelievable corridor of ruin. Its actual passage thru Oak Lawn took only a minute or two, but there is no single phrase to describe what it did. Where there had been neat rows of homes, a twisted pile of rubble remained. Streets were all but invisible under the debris blown helter-skelter across the landscape. Dusk settled in and increased the terror of those caught in the suddenly created chaos, for electric lines were down and the only illumination came from candles, flashlights, or gas lamps that sent forth a flickering glow here and there. Everyone  the injured, the homeless, those who were not in the tornado's path  had a story to tell. The scene seared itself into thousands of minds, for it was a time of thousands of tragedies. Twenty-seven persons were dead, and more were to die later of injuries ranging from the brutal to the bizarre. But the tornado did not die in Oak Lawn. It continued northeast toward Lake Michigan, blasting a path thru neighboring Evergreen Park and Hometown and then gouging out Chicago's south side. Homes, garages, and businesses were blown to smithereens in many spots between 85th and 88th streets from Western avenue to Jeffery boulevard. On April 21, 1967, a violent EF4 tornado, one of 10 tornadoes to whip across northern Illinois that afternoon, barreled into the rural town of Belvidere, just east of Rockford, leaving a path of death and destruction. The death toll began just before 4 p.m. as school was letting out in Belvidere and buses filled with young students were tossed about the tornadic winds, killing 24 and injuring hundreds. Oak Lawn, groggy with shock and horror, was a shambles. Ruin was everywhere, but the first task was to extricate bodies from the wreckage and find those who were still living so they could be treated. Mayor Fred M. Dumke, a stocky, balding man who has used crutches since childhood because of polio, immediately began assessing his resources and arranging for help. He would be a tower of strength thru the week-end, foregoing sleep to criscross the village again and again, promising help to some and commiserating with others who had to bury their dead. The Johnson-Phelps V.F.W. post at 5210 W. 96th street, where a party had been planned that evening, was set up as a temporary morgue. Candles cast an eerie glow over the long rows of lifeless bodies covered with white sheets. Survivors numbly identified the bodies, sobbing softly. Sheriff Joseph I. Woods immediately closed off the Oak Lawn-Evergreen Park area and sent in all his available men. At 10 o'clock, when several reports of looting had trickled in, he gave orders to shoot looters on sight. Maj. Gen. Francis P. Kane, commander of the Illinois national guard, sent in 100 men  the first contingent of an eventual total of 800  and set them to work looking for bodies. Sightseers, the merely curious and the ghoulish, were turned back. But volunteers started streaming into Oak Lawn as the moans of the injured, the wail of sirens, and the shouts of the searchers mingled in a cruel cacophony. Hospitals expanded their emergency staffs and became scenes of feverish activity. Christ Community hospital handled 178 people, of whom 57 were admitted with serious injuries. Nine were dead on arrival, and others were transferred to Holy Cross hospital in Chicago. At Little Company of Mary hospital, where the emergency generator was used for 3 1/2 hours after the storm damaged power lines, 200 patients were treated during the long night. Some hospital workers were on duty 24 hours straight, changing their blood-spattered linens from time to time. At Christ Community, relatives and friends sat in the small chapel and waited as the names of those admitted were called out. At the back of the chapel, a volunteer worker entertained five small children. One hundred thousand people were without electric power, and Commonwealth Edison company dispatched crews totaling 2,500 men into the areas where trees, rocketing debris, and the wind itself had toppled power lines. Illinois Bell Telephone company was faced with a similar situation. It counted 17,500 lines down in and around Oak Lawn in the Lake Zurich-Barrington areas, on Chicago's south side, and in other isolated spots. Its crews went on 24-hour duty to correct the damage.

The following story was published in the Chicago Tribune on April 30, 1967. April 21 began as a quiet spring day. It was a Friday, with somewhat overcast skies but balmy air that promised a pleasant week-end and carried no hint of the tornadoes that were to lay incredible waste to sections of northeastern... Before the night was out the Salvation Army and the Red Cross were operating fully-manned aid stations and serving as processing points for the outpouring of volunteer workers. Hundreds of families took in the homeless. Dawn came up chilly and gray, revealing the full devastation. In and around Oak Lawn, and where the twister had hit on Chicago's southside, the scene resembled the bombed-out European villages of World War II. The twister had touched down first at 95th street just west of Ridgeland avenue, flattening the 100-foot screen of an outdoor theater. Moving northeast, it blew thru with the noise of a freight train, leveling a shopping center and shearing a corner off the Oak Lawn Community High school. Churning thru the town, it indiscriminately ripped off roofs and smashed into more than 600 homes and businesses. At 95th street and Menard avenue, it demolished the Suburban Transit Lines building and stacked up its big buses like cordwood. Damage was less extensive in Evergreen Park and Hometown, but only the utter desolation in Oak Lawn made it appear limited. In Chicago, there were areas where every tree had been uprooted or splintered and every garage had been blown apart. In Lake Zurich, hundreds were homeless. Scores of homes had exploded in the fearsome wind that rushed down a long corridor to the lake. Hundreds were injured  and yet, the tornado had such sharply defined edges that persons and homes only a few yards beyond its periphery went unharmed. There was such confusion that no single scene was representative of the destruction. There was many strange sights. One was in St. Mary's and Evergreen cemeteries along 87th street, where shafts of wood and steel had been blown upright into the ground, for some inexplicable reason, and appeared to be the result of a rainfall of spears. Gov. Kerner flew to the scene from Springfield with Francis S. Lorenz, state public works director, and William H. Morris, chief of the state police. After meeting with Dumke and other officials to discuss what needed to be done, Kerner and his aids set out on a walking tour to inspect the damage themselves. One couple they encountered was Mr. and Mrs. Ray Pecor. Only the foundation of the Pecor home at 9315 S. Parkside av. remained, but Mrs. Pecor turned to Lorenz and quipped, "Don't send me flowers, send me money." Kerner arranged to do just that. He called the White House, and shortly thereafter President Johnson declared Oak Lawn, Belvidere, and other tornado-ravaged areas in the state as federal disaster areas. Meanwhile, Mayor Daley toured damaged areas in Chicago and also sent his top aids into Oak Lawn to arrange for the loan of equipment to clear away debris. The grisly task of identifying bodies of victims continued thru the day, but the initial grief and shock had given way  for most  to a new attitude. As the hastily organized but smoothly functioning volunteer aid effort continued, many residents looked over the wreckage and determined to rebuild. The Small Business administration, acting on President Johnson's order, set up offices in temporary quarters to begin processing applications for low-cost, long-term home and business repair loans. Heavy equipment rumbled thru the wreckage, clearing it away even as residents tried to salvage the few items that remained  a sofa here, a photo album there, and their valuable papers. For many, the papers that recorded their accomplishments and endeavors were lost or were a waterlogged mess. A rain-soaked marriage license for a Belvidere couple married in 1907 was found on a lawn in South Milwaukee, 70 miles away. The burgeoning cleanup effort continued thru Saturday, while national guardsmen and police patroled Oak Lawn strets to guard against looting and to turn sightseers away. "All those who don't come to work can get the hell out of Oak Lawn," said Dumke, still going strong after a quick shower, a change of clothes, and no sleep. Lake Zurich, meanwhile, was recovering well. Because residents had been hit by tornadoes before, they knew what to do and there were no deaths and only 10 injuries reported altho about 200 homes were damaged. In Barrington Hills, several homes were damaged but none had to be evacuted. In Elgin, McHenry county, Arlington Heights, at the Glenview Naval Air station, and at many other spots in the path of the twisters, heavy damage was reported and scores of injured were treated. As tornado-stricken residents regained a measure of composure, they began to think about insurance. Claims began flooding into agents' offices and many firms set up bureaus in the heart of the damaged areas. Losses had run into the millions of dollars, and estimates would run to 50 millions and higher, but there was no cleaer way for anyone to make an exact prediction. Saturday turned into Sunday, altho there was no difference between night and day for the army of volunteers, now grown to 1,000. Sen. Percy flew from Washington with his wife to inspect the damage and offer encouragement. The telephone and electric companies were making steady progress in repairing their facilities. Surveys of damage had been made, and rebuilding plans were mapped out. The initial phase of rebuilding was perhaps a curious one  manmade demolition had to follow the natural disaster. Heavily damaged buildings had to be razed or burned down so that a fresh start could be made. Karl Fultz, Oak Lawn building and zoning commissioner, made a block by block check of all standing structures with the aid of his staff and its other inspectors from as far away as Evanston who had offered their assistance. Right behind them were demolition crews. A home or garage or building to be torn down was marked with three with red Xs, and by Monday the crews were well on their way to demolishing the 100 that had to be taken donw. More than 500 other buildings were heavily damaged but repairable. Where damage was minor, volunteer carpenters boarded up windows, patched roofs, and made other repairs so people could move in. In Chicago, city officials surveyed the destruction on the south side and said it was worse than after a similar tornado in 1961. They counted 25 buildings that had to be demolished and another 500 that required extensive repairs. Eighty-five garages had to be torn down. Yet another somber duty had to be performed. Funerals had to be arranged. Since Friday night, more had died, and hospitals were still filled with more than 100 persons badly injured in the storm. There was no housing emergency. People had roofs over their heads, but they were beginning to wonder about places to stay for lengthy periods of time until they could rebuild.
Mervyn "Skip" Williamson brought radical sensibilities, an eye for satire and a boisterous spirit to his work as an underground comics artist during the genre's heyday in the politically charged late 1960s and early 1970s.

He found his greatest fame during the quarter century that he lived in the Chicago area  when he drew for alternative publications like the Chicago Seed underground newspaper and for more mainstream periodicals like Playboy and the Chicago Daily News. Williamson was close to other key underground comics figures, including his collaborator Jay Lynch, pioneers R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman, and Yippie leaders Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, whose legal defenses and creative output Williamson used his pen to support.

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"Skip had three great attributes," said retired Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism professor Abe Peck, who worked with Williamson at the Chicago Seed and later edited his comics in the Chicago Daily News. "First, he was a great cartoon artist and second, he kind of rode along the revolutionary train, so as we got more militant, he got more militant. But equally important, he had a sense of self-satire that was healthy for us."

Williamson, 72, died of renal failure March 16 at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y., said his daughter Molly Hiland Parmer. Williamson, who had diabetes and heart disease, had lived in Chicago and Oak Park from 1967 until 1992. He had been a resident of Wilmington, Vt., since 2010.

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Born Mervyn Wilton Williamson Jr. in San Antonio, he was attracted to comics while growing up in Canton, Mo. They formed an integral part of Williamson's identity, even extending to the moniker he used in place of his first name.

"I was named after Skippy, the Percy Crosby comic strip character," Williamson said in "Pigheaded," a 2016 documentary about his life, referring to the vintage comic strip about a mischievous fifth-grader.

By his preteens, Williamson became enamored with more subversive cartoons. Via the back pages of Mad magazine, he connected with several like-minded youngsters with whom he would later collaborate, including Lynch and Crumb.

Even before graduating from high school in Canton, Williamson sold his first cartoon, to Harvey Kurtzman's Help! magazine. He then created a fanzine called "Squire." Williamson left Culver-Stockton College in Canton after several years to move to Chicago. Amid the turbulent social change of the late 1960s, he began working alongside other underground comics artists and also became involved in other countercultural groups, such as the Youth International Party, or the Yippies.

Williamson worked especially closely with Lynch, who died March 5. In 1967, they created a comic book series titled the Chicago Mirror. They soon recast it as a different series dubbed Bijou Funnies, which was published from 1968 until 1973. Williamson also drew for the Chicago Seed and illustrated and edited books for the Yippies to help pay their legal fees after they were charged with conspiracy, inciting riots and other charges related to anti-war protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

"Skip was one of the very enthusiastic proponents of 'we can make a change,' and  there was almost an innocence to his belief that there could be a revolution of some sort, a cultural revolution, a political revolution," said Jane Shay Wald, Lynch's former wife. "His excitement that we were living in a time of change defined him and his work, so I don't really think he considered himself a revolutionary, but he was a cheerleader for a revolution that did not take place. And there was a sweetness to him."

Williamson drew characters bearing exaggerated facial features, such as Snappy Sammy Smoot, and took pains to skewer both sides of the political spectrum with his characters and story lines.

Williamson was the art director for the first issue of Hustler magazine, and he also worked for a time for Gallery magazine. In 1977, he began producing a strip called "Halsted Street" for the Daily News' weekly "sidetracks" features section, which Peck edited. Set in the fictitious "Blue Moon Bar & Grill" on North Halsted Street, Williamson's strip offered social commentary while depicting the foibles of Bosco and Sheila Spoonbread, a couple frequenting the bar. In one May 1977 strip, the couple remarked on a movie review written by a local newspaper columnist, Roger Eggplant, satirizing Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert.

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"Skip was a revolutionary through his whole life," said comics historian Patrick Rosenkranz, who has written a dozen books about underground comics. "And that was at the expense of his career, at the expense of his personal relationships. He just really believed in fighting the Man."

Williamson stopped drawing for the Daily News before its 1978 demise. He later compiled his comics from the "sidetracks" section and other drawings and writings in a 1990 book called "Halsted Street: Torment & Drama From the Hog Butcher." His 1992 book, "Skip Williamson's Naked Hostility," contained items and observations from his sketchbooks.

In the late 1970s, Williamson took a job as Playboy's art director. He also created the "Playboy Funnies" feature and drew several strips as well.

Williamson left Playboy in the 1980s. He moved in 1984 from Chicago to Oak Park, where he largely spent time at home producing comics. He moved to Atlanta in 1992.

In his later years, Williamson shifted to a different medium, preferring to paint large acrylic canvases.

"When he decided to become a painter and move to Atlanta and do it full time, that was really a bold move on his part," Rosenkranz said. "He never achieved the same level of glory that he did in the '70s, but it never stopped him from following his own vision."

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Williamson's daughter called her father "a literal anarchist" who was a radical free spirit.

"His art was very precise and technical, but he was an anarchist who didn't care about societal norms or expectations. He didn't care if people liked (his work) or if people understood it or if it made money," she said. "And every day of his life, he was constantly producing paintings or comics. He had just finished a drawing a week before he passed away."

Three previous marriages ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter, Williamson is survived by his wife, Adrienne Morales; three other daughters, Megan Williamson, Rita Williamson and Nikki Williamson-Weiner; a sister, Rhonda Baker; two brothers, Joseph and Alan; and two grandchildren.

There were no services.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
Steven Randy Rueckert, left, and Daniel Herbert, attorneys for Jason Van Dyke, confer with Van Dyke during court Aug. 11, 2017. Van Dyke was at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building in Chicago for a hearing on the shooting of Laquan McDonald. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

A Cook County judge issued a warning Thursday after a complaint that Officer Jason Van Dyke, facing murder charges in the high-profile shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, had been harassed at his last appearance at the courthouse.

Van Dyke had apparently been confronted outside the Leighton Criminal Court Building last month by a protester holding a poster reading "16 shots"  a reference to the number of times the white officer shot the black teen.

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Judge Vincent Gaughan, who is presiding over the controversial case, vowed to hold in contempt of court anyone who shows up at the courthouse with a sign "and starts waving it around."

"Anybody compelled to come to a courtroom should not run a gamut where they are insulted, intimidated or even threatened," the judge said. "That's not going to be allowed in this courtroom or outside of my courtroom."

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"No matter what anybody's charged with, no matter what anybody's done, they should not be compelled to go through some type of harassment," he said.

The court-ordered release in November 2015 of video of McDonald's shooting sparked waves of protest across the city and a crisis for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Police Department.

Gaughan's admonishment was tested soon after the hearing. As Van Dyke stepped into an elevator, accompanied by several sheriff's deputies, a woman stood 15 feet away holding up a small piece of paper. She then took a step toward the elevator.

A sheriff's deputy caught the incident on his body camera, and the woman, identified as Carolyn Ruff, was taken to Gaughan's courtroom.

"This isn't the streets," said Gaughan, calling any form of protest inappropriate inside a courthouse.

Ruff told the judge she was out in the hall when Gaughan issued his warning moments earlier about approaching Van Dyke with signs.

Gaughan accepted that explanation and noted that no one would have been able to read her note at that distance anyway.

"I'm going to let this matter go this time," Gaughan said. "But be careful, OK?"

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Ruff later told reporters outside the courthouse that she was not the person who held up the poster at Van Dyke's last hearing. She said she had no intention Thursday of showing her handwritten note to the officer.

Her note, on a piece of paper just a few inches across, said, "Sixteen shots and a cover-up," Ruff said. Court officials confiscated it.

That refrain has become a rallying cry among protesters following the release of the video capturing the shooting.

"I didn't hold it up because of Jason Van Dyke," Ruff said. "He couldn't even see the paper.  I'm standing in solidarity with Laquan McDonald."

Ruff said she knew McDonald but declined to say how they had met.

This is not the first time Van Dyke has been hassled leaving the courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue. Last May, Gaughan announced that he had met privately with attorneys and sheriff's officials to work out a plan ensuring Van Dyke's safety as he enters and leaves the building.

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Van Dyke's attorneys had raised concerns about the suspended officer's safety in the face of protests outside the courthouse.

Van Dyke had to maneuver through crowds of protesters to reach the courthouse for some of his early hearings following his initial indictment in November 2015 on the same day that the shooting video was made public.

While no crowds were present Thursday, several activists were in attendance at the hearing.

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Van Dyke was indicted last month on 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each time McDonald was shot, in addition to the first-degree murder and official misconduct charges he previously faced.

At Thursday's hearing, Gaughan met privately with attorneys for about 40 minutes before emerging and presiding over a 10-minute public session. The judge has routinely held lengthy off-the-record conversations with attorneys in his chambers at each status hearing.

Gaughan, the subject of a Tribune story in February that detailed the secrecy surrounding his handling of the case, cautioned Van Dyke's lawyers in court he didn't want any grand jury transcripts made public as part of motions filed by the defense Thursday.

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"Certainly the motion itself  everyone can take a look at it," the judge said. "I don't want materials that might not be evidence distributed before trial because they could be prejudicial."

The filings were not made public Thursday, officials said, because Gaughan must first review the material.

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @crepeau
A man wounded and paralyzed in a shooting in front of his toddler children in Back of the Yards in 2001 died from his wounds this year, authorities determined this week.

Tromaine Bell, 42, was pronounced dead Feb. 11 at Kindred Chicago Lakeshore, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Bell, who most recently lived in Burbank, was shot Oct. 27, 2001, near Racine Avenue and 51st Street, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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An autopsy immediately after his death was inconclusive, but the examiner's office eventually determined he died from complications of a remote gunshot wound to the torso, in a homicide, a spokeswoman for the office said Thursday.

Chicago police did not immediately have information on the original incident, other than to confirm that the shooting took place Oct. 27, 2001.

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A Daily Southtown article from June 2004 that included information about Bell's work to try to keep children from joining gangs gave some details about the attack.

In 2001, Bell had left a store near 51st Street and Ashland Avenue when someone started shooting at friends of his who were in his gang, and he at first started rushing to help his friends, according to the article. Bell paused and instead rushed to get his children, who were toddlers at the time, into his car, and was shot in the back, suffering a spinal cord injury.

Bell told the audience at an anti-violence event at St. Rita of Cascia Catholic Church in June 2004 that gangs use young people--and have no use for them when they're injured.

"These gangs don't want anything but to use your arms and legs," Bell said, sitting in his wheelchair at St. Rita, according to the article. "Once your arms and legs are gone, they have no need for you after that. You're just another statistic."

It was not immediately known if anyone has ever been arrested in the shooting.
A 9-year-old boy from the South Side has been located, Chicago police said Friday morning.

Jeremiah Ellzey was reported missing Thursday after not returning home from school in the 5200 block of South State Street about 3:30 p.m. Thursday, police said.

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Further details were not immediately available.
Chicago State University's new interim president started work this week, the third leadership shift for the Far South Side school in 18 months.

Rachel W. Lindsey, a longtime former dean of Chicago State's College of Arts and Sciences, took over the presidency Monday, about a week after the board approved her hiring. Her contract, obtained by the Tribune through a public records request, promises a $240,000 salary and stipulates she will serve as interim president at least until April 16, 2018.

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Lindsey's contract requires that she provide trustees with a list of goals within three weeks, detailing her plans and recommendations for academic programs, university finances, strategic planning and community relations. She will receive a performance review every six months, evaluating her progress in improving Chicago State's financial status, graduation rate, enrollment, educational programs, relationships with faculty, fundraising, media relations and public image  with the concession that she may not have time to make gains in all those areas as a temporary leader.

"Your appointment comes at a critical time in the university's history, and the board is confident that you will make an important contribution to the future development and success of the university," the contract states.

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Lindsey and her assistant did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Lindsey's salary would seem to indicate the cash-strapped school will shoulder considerably more in administrative costs to pay her and ex-Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas as the university attempts a comprehensive leadership shift.

Vallas, who was appointed to the Chicago State board in January, was tapped for a newly created position as the university's chief administrative officer. When he will begin work remains unclear. A spokesman said Vallas is eager to start, but contract negotiations were ongoing.

"The board has issued what appears to be a final draft of the contract so we're all hopeful he can start soon," spokesman Sam Hamer said Thursday.

The former interim president, Cecil B. Lucy, will return to his previous position as interim vice president of finance and administration. It is not known what his salary will be, but documents show he was making $140,000 as finance chief before moving to the $260,000 interim president post.

Lindsey's move into the top administrative seat came after months of tumult and politicized wrangling over the direction of the 150-year-old school.

Thomas J. Calhoun was hired as president in late 2015 amid much fanfare to replace Wayne Watson, whose six-year tenure was riddled with controversy. Calhoun took over in January 2016, with a five-year contract paying him $300,000 a year.

But he unexpectedly resigned in September after nine months, taking a $600,000 severance. His departure proved controversial, as he was well-liked among students and faculty who accused other school leaders of undermining Calhoun's authority. Many of his supporters routinely have appealed to the board to reinstate Calhoun.

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Lucy immediately was appointed interim president.

The leadership shuffle began anew early this year.

Gov. Bruce Rauner brought in four new board members  Vallas, Nicholas Gowen, Tiffany Harper and Kam Buckner  and created an eight-member advisory group in January. Rauner said he expected the group to spark a dramatic reversal for a university struggling with strained finances, falling enrollment, failing infrastructure and sluggish academic performance. At the time, Rauner signaled he wanted the board to install Vallas as the chairman.

But the board already had impaneled its newest officers, putting the Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr. in charge and Horace Smith as vice chair. In the first meeting with the new board in March, the group chose Vallas as its secretary.

Rauner's office grew impatient with the board after a few weeks, saying they weren't moving fast enough to initiate the kinds of ambitious changes he expected. Rauner's education secretary, Beth Purvis, then helped orchestrate a plan that would put Vallas at the head of the administration in some sort of crisis management role.

The move struck a nerve and divided opinions. Chicago State's faculty union and even former Senate President Emil Jones publicly backed Vallas, while several Chicago and Cook County politicians supported Lucy and blasted Rauner for attempting to put a white man in charge of a predominantly black institution. Vallas is white; Lucy is black.

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Board members, pushing back against the appearance that Rauner was pulling the strings, opted for a different course. After nearly six hours of closed-session discussions March 27, trustees announced they would pick a new interim president and hire someone for a new position of chief administrative officer in April. Lucy would step down and return to his old job as finance chief.

Vallas was not promised either position at the time, and trustees demanded he resign from the board to be considered for either job. Vallas did quit the board in advance of the April 7 meeting, where trustees tapped him and Lindsey for the open posts.

Lindsey began teaching educational psychology and child development at Chicago State in 1976, according to her university bio. She served as the arts and sciences dean for almost 20 years before retiring in 2011. She also taught at Northeastern Illinois University and Loyola University.

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She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from University of Michigan and her masters and doctorate in educational psychology from University of Chicago, according to her bio.

Despite the topsy turvy path, several vocal critics of university leaders said they were pleased to have Lindsey in charge.

"I think she's really level-headed and she'll do very well," faculty union president Robert Bionaz said. "I think she knows the university really well. She understands academics. She's gotten tenure. You've actually done the job, you've gone up through the ranks. I think the qualifications are there."

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Board members have said they plan to hire a search firm to do a nationwide recruitment for a permanent president, something likely to take several months. Gowen and Harper will lead that committee.

Trustees will inform Lindsey by March 16, 2018, if they want to extend her contract.

drhodes@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @rhodes_dawn
An 82-year-old man with dementia who suffered a stoke was reported missing from the Far South Side on Thursday, Chicago police said.

Heasley Matthews was last seen Thursday in the Rosemoor neighborhood, police said.

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Police described Matthews as black, 5-foot-6 and 145 pounds. He may be wearing a gray hat, red shirt, black jacket and white New Balance gym shoes.

Matthews has dementia and, due to a stroke, exhibits uneven facial features and drags his feet when walking, police said.

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He was reported missing from the 10500 block of South Calumet Avenue. Police said he may try returning to the following blocks: 300 West 118th Street, 4600 South Drexel Boulevard and 10300 South Vincennes Avenue.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call 911 or 312-747-8274.
It's been five weeks since her son was found shot to death in a parked car in an alley, but Toni Watson has barely slept, her daughter said Thursday.

Handing out reward flyers Thursday on the Gresham street where her 18-year-old brother Devontae Watson's body was found along with those of his friends Ryan Hamilton, 20, and Vogels Anderson Jr., 19, Melody Gultney said the victims' families are looking for justice.

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She hopes the $5,000 reward will encourage someone to come forward.

"It's heartbreaking what they've done to them," Gultney said of the three young men. "This is the second time my mama went through this, so it's like how many more does she gotta keep going through? I hate seeing her like that."

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The reward, from St. Sabina Church and the Rev. Michael Pfleger, is offered to anyone with information leading to the arrests of those involved in the murders of the young men. Their bodies were discovered March 13 after someone complained about an illegally parked car in an alley in the 8600 block of South Throop Street in Gresham.

Pfleger, friends and family members and other supporters held a press conference near the crime scene Thursday and canvassed the neighborhood, handing out the flyers.

"If this happened to three white children it would be called a mass shooting. It happens to three black children, and it's a killing in the neighborhood," said Pfleger. "Look at these three mothers, look at their tears, look at their pain and tell me you can be silent."

The three mothers of the young men each wore different tops commemorating their sons"Justice for my son Tae-Tae" in big blue block letters, "Long Live Ryan" in script font and "Stormy," Anderson's nickname, in red metallic letters printed beneath a picture of him in his high school senior t-shirt. They gathered after passing out flyers to talk about what happened.

"He don't miss school for nobody," said Toni Watson of her son, who was a junior at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy. "That's what made me panic (when he didn't come home) because this is not Tae-Tae."

Devontae is the second son Toni Watson has lost. His brother Eric Morse died in 1994 when he was only 5 after two older boys dropped him from the 14th floor of a Chicago Housing Authority high-rise. Another brother was sentenced to more than 70 years in prison for a murder he committed years after witnessing Eric's death.

Anderson's mother Sarah Wicks said the family dog has been whining since her son's death.

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"They played with their cars like they were toys. That's all they ever did. That's why I'm like, how does this happen?" she said. "We're not gonna rest 'til this is done."

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Tami Campbell, Hamilton's mother, went to pick up her son's watch from the detectives last week.

Hours before her son's body was found, Campbell filed a missing persons report with the Blue Island Police Department, and officials told her the car had been recently spotted by Chicago police and the plates had been checked.

Since the killings, she has been frustrated that no one went to check inside the illegally parked car, which she gave to her son but was still registered in her name, when the parking violation was first reported.

"I could have been in the car," she said. "You ran the plates, you saw a female, I could have been in the car. But my baby was."

In the alley where the car was found, Pfleger and the crowd made a circle to pray for the mothers. Afterward, Toni Watson stood to the side.

"My child was a lovely person. Everybody loved him, teachers, neighbors," she said, getting choked up. "Them three boys, they didn't deserve to die like that. They was threw in that car like they was dogs. Nobody deserves that."
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife, Patti, address the hoard of media at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Dec. 6, 2011, after the former governor was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Blagojevich began his remarks by quoting a line from a Rudyard Kipling poem: "If you can meet with triumph and disaster." (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune)

With unusual speed, a federal appeals court in Chicago on Friday once again upheld former Gov. Rod Blagojevich 's corruption conviction and 14-year prison sentence just three days after holding oral argument on the case.

The terse, six-page opinion by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals effectively slammed the door on Blagojevich's last real chance of either winning a new trial or reducing his time behind bars.

The court's initial ruling on Blagojevich's appeal in 2015 came more than 19 months after oral arguments,

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The latest rejection leaves the former governor with only a few options: either request an "en banc" hearing before the entire 7th Circuit or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up his case. Both are at best considered legal long shots  the 7th Circuit already rejected one request for an en banc hearing, and a petition to the Supreme Court last year went nowhere.

With limited legal options, Blagojevich's best hope for a reprieve at this point could be a commutation of his sentence from President Donald Trump , who had a friendly relationship with the ex-governor when he appeared on Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice" reality show in 2010.

Blagojevich, who has spent more than five years in prison, is scheduled to remain in custody until mid-2024, prison records show.

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Reached by phone, Blagojevich's attorney, Leonard Goodman, called the ruling "incredibly sad and disappointing," but he would not say what step might be taken next beyond saying the legal options would be reviewed.

The opinion released Friday morning came from the same panel of judges who ruled in 2015 that the ex-governor's sentence was reasonable: Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Ilana Rovner.

The ruling, written by Easterbrook, roundly rejected Blagojevich's arguments that U.S. District Judge James Zagel failed to consider key factors in Blagojevich's rehabilitation in prison when he resentenced the former governor last summer to the same 14-year term he'd handed down in 2011.

The opinion said Zagel had considered the glowing letters written from fellow inmates as well as other evidence of Blagojevich's good works in prison but found them unpersuasive.

"As with many discretionary subjects the fact that a judge could have ruled otherwise does not imply that the judge was compelled to rule otherwise," the opinion stated.

Blagojevich, 60, was convicted in 2011 of misusing his powers as governor in an array of wrongdoing, including most notably his attempts to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama after his 2008 election to the White House.

The conviction came less than a year after an initial trial ended with a jury deadlocked on all but one count of lying to the FBI, forcing the retrial.

In its first ruling in 2015, the 7th Circuit threw out five counts involving the Senate seat on technical grounds. But the court tempered the small victory for Blagojevich by calling the evidence against him "overwhelming" and making it clear that the original sentence was not out of bounds.

Zagel's decision in August to resentence Blagojevich to the original 14 years means he's still slated to remain in prison until May 2024.

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In oral arguments Tuesday, Blagojevich's lawyers also argued that his convictions should be overturned, saying the jury in his second criminal trial was improperly instructed by Zagel on what constitutes bribery when it came to political wheeling and dealing.

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Blagojevich's standing request for clemency was first filed in the waning days of Obama's administration.

After Obama left office without acting on the request, Blagojevich's eldest daughter, Amy, lashed out on Facebook.

"I thought you would finally right this wrong," Amy Blagojevich told Obama in the statement. "You didn't have to pardon him, only commute the sentence. You just had to let him come home. You didn't. You released others, like Chelsea Manning or FALN terrorists, who actually committed reprehensible crimes, but you failed to release an innocent man."

After oral arguments Tuesday, Blagojevich's wife, Patti, told reporters that while the family would like to get her husband home "any way we can," she would prefer winning in the appellate court over a pardon "a thousand times over."

"We want justice to be done and our girls want to be able to hold their heads high knowing that their father is not a crook," she said.

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jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jmetr22b
WASHNGTON  Former President Barack Obama will speak to young people at the University of Chicago on Monday, returning to the city for what will be his first public event since leaving the White House.

Obama and young leaders will hold a conversation on civic engagement and discuss community organizing at the university's Logan Center for the Arts, his office announced Friday.

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Hundreds of people are expected to attend, chosen from area universities that were given tickets for distribution, said Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for the former president. About six young people will appear on stage with him for the 11 a.m. discussion, he said.

The event will be a homecoming for Obama on multiple levels. He formerly taught constitutional law at U. of C., and his family has a home nearby in the Kenwood neighborhood. He gave his farewell address in January in the city that launched his political career. And the discussion with students lets the former president, who came to Chicago to work as a young community organizer, fulfill one of the commitments he set out for his post-presidential years: to engage and work with the country's next generation of leaders, Lewis said.

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"This event is part of President Obama's post-presidency goal to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world," an advisory said.

Obama is expected to arrive Sunday, then depart Monday not long after the U. of C. event, the only public appearance planned.

Less than a month after his term ended, Obama made a largely under-the-radar visit to Chicago on Feb. 15 to meet with several civic leaders to discuss his future presidential center in Jackson Park. That visit was announced to the press with few details late that day, and he made no appearances before the general public or television cameras.

This time, by contrast, the Obama team's announcement of Monday's event ensures it will get a higher profile, particularly because it comes a few days before President Donald Trump is poised to mark his 100th day in office on April 29. This event is not being sponsored by the Obama Foundation, which leads planning for his eventual center on the South Side.

"He's really excited to go back to Chicago and have a conversation about community organizing and civic engagement," Lewis said.

No tickets remain for distribution to the general public, but the event will be televised. Former first lady Michelle Obama is not expected to accompany her husband on the trip, Lewis said.

The participants on stage with Obama are expected to range from high school to college to recent university graduates. According to Lewis, they have all been chosen and are from the Chicago area, but their names were not released Friday.

Besides the host university, the schools given tickets include Harold Washington College, Malcolm X College, Kennedy-King College, Columbia College, Chicago State University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Roosevelt University, Kenwood Academy High School, Northwestern University, DePaul University and Loyola University. City organizations that work with minority residents also were given tickets, Lewis said.

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At an unrelated event Friday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he welcomed the attention from the former president. He served as Obama's first chief of staff.

"I would say to you my general attitude as the mayor is I'm immensely proud that his last speech as president was here in the city of Chicago, and his first major address in his post-presidency is here in the city of Chicago," Emanuel said. "And I think it reflects his emotional as well as his intellectual commitment to this city, and seeing this city as his home in that effort."

Obama has been writing his memoirs amid a succession of celebrity-filled vacations intended to allow him and the former first lady to decompress. Reports have had him as far away as Tetiaroa, a French Polynesian island once owned by Marlon Brando.

Now, the timing of the Chicago event suggests an increasing public profile for the former leader. On May 7, he will be in Boston to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. It's being called the centennial award because Kennedy was born 100 years ago.

Chicago Tribune's Hal Dardick contributed.

kskiba@chicagotribune.com

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Gov. Bruce Rauner on Friday declined to explain why he backtracked from a campaign pledge to expand the availability of taxpayer-subsidized abortions in Illinois, instead saying lawmakers should stay away from such a "divisive" issue and "focus" on his prerequisites for ending the state's historic budget impasse.

In 2014, then-Republican nominee Rauner signed a questionnaire from abortion-rights advocacy group Personal PAC in which he vowed to work for legislation that would lift restrictions on Medicaid- and state employee insurance-covered abortions.

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"I dislike the Illinois law that restricts abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan and state employees' health insurance because I believe it unfairly restricts access based on income. I would support a legislative effort to reverse that law," Rauner wrote in answer to the April 2014 questionnaire.

Rauner also checked "yes" boxes on questions about whether he would sign bills to maintain the legality of abortion in the event of a U.S. Supreme court reversal of its landmark 1973 decision as well as legislation about lifting Medicaid and state-employee insurance restrictions.

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But Rauner recently vowed to use his veto on pending legislation that would provide for Medicaid and state-employee insurance coverage of elective abortions and seek to ensure that abortions would remain legal in Illinois in the event of a reversal by the high court.

After speaking at a minority business enterprise event at a downtown Chicago hotel Friday, Rauner would not directly say why he had changed his mind, except to say existing state law was satisfactory.

"I always have and I always will support existing Illinois law. We need to protect women's reproductive health in the state of Illinois and we need to protect existing Illinois law," he told reporters.

"Expanding taxpayer funding is a very divisive issue. It's a very controversial issue. What we need to do is focus in Illinois. We need to protect existing Illinois law but we need to focus on jobs. We need to focus on reducing property taxes. We need to focus on education funding. We need to focus on getting term limits on elected officials. These are difficult issues. We need to focus," he said.

Asked what those issues had to do with reproductive rights for women, Rauner said: "It has everything to do with focus. What we should not do is take on controversial divisive issues right now when we don't have a balanced budget, when we do not have proper school funding, when we do not have economic growth and job creation. We should not take on divisive, controversial issues, and expanding taxpayer funding is a controversial divisive issue."

Rauner was then asked if the issue wasn't controversial when he first ran for governor. He did not directly answer but repeated his call for lawmakers to "focus" on his agenda and the budget.

Taxpayer-subsidized abortions have always been a controversial issue in the country. A national CNN poll released in March 2014, just prior to Rauner's questionnaire reply to Personal PAC, found 56 percent opposed and only 39 percent favored taxpayer-funded abortions.

The key Republican constituencies of social conservative groups and abortion-rights opponents praised Rauner's recent veto vow. Rauner, who is seeking re-election, defeated Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in 2014 while running as a supporter of women's reproductive rights. Wife Diana Rauner vouched for his views on abortion in advertisements and proclaimed he had "no social agenda."

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Democrats who already have lined up to take on Rauner next year have sharply criticized his shift in position. Personal PAC officials held a news conference last week to say they were dismayed by the governor's veto vow and said they felt they had been misled.

Rauner's call for lawmakers to "focus" on the lengthy budget stalemate appeared to be an attempt to shift public focus away from his change of position and return it back to his agenda items, which have been stalled by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

But his shift in position is something that politically active abortion-rights advocacy groups are likely to try to exploit among a key election voting demographic: suburban women who lean Republican but have socially moderate views. Another concern to Rauner's team is that all but one of the traditionally Republican suburban collar counties voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in November.

Rauner's comments came after he addressed the opening of the 50th annual Chicago Business Opportunity Fair aimed at assisting minority business and job growth, following a panel discussion that included Democratic contender Chris Kennedy.

During brief remarks, Rauner criticized the state for failing to meet goals aimed at encouraging the use of minority businesses in state government, as well as high minority unemployment.

"I'm a business guy. I'm not a politician. I don't like to pay lip service. I don't frankly like to talk about stuff. I like to do things that get results. Results are all that matters," he told the audience.

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Twitter @rap30
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's campaign has spent $89,000 on legal fees since a pair of open records lawsuits were filed against him in the fall of 2015, including $20,000 he spent in the first two months of this year, campaign records show.

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The mayor's most recent quarterly campaign finance report showed him paying $20,000 to Forde Law Offices, where his personal attorney Michael K. Forde is a partner. Emanuel has spent a total of $80,000 with Forde since the lawsuits were filed and another $9,000 with Mayer Brown.

The Chicago Tribune sued Emanuel and his office in September 2015, alleging the mayor had violated the state's open records law by refusing to release communications about city business he conducted through personal email accounts and text messages. The lawsuit sought to have him declared in violation of the Illinois Local Records Act for failing to preserve emails and text messages he sent or received while doing city business. A month later, the Better Government Association sued Emanuel, also alleging he had conducted government business on personal email accounts.

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The BGA settled its lawsuit with Emanuel in December, and the Tribune lawsuit remains ongoing. As part of a settlement with the BGA, Emanuel directed Forde to go through his emails and forward messages in which he conducted or was contacted about public business to his City Hall office. The BGA, however, asked to reopen its lawsuit last month, alleging the mayor and his attorneys did not turn over all the information called for in the settlement.

The $89,000 does not include additional expenditures the city's Law Department likely has spent on outside counsel and staff hours in the cases.

Since November 2016, when Emanuel was preparing to settle the BGA lawsuit, his official calendar shows him visiting Forde's law offices on West Washington Street eight times  each either an hourlong lunch or late afternoon meeting.

The open records lawsuits don't mark the first time the mayor has spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on legal fees. Emanuel also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on attorneys as part of his legal fight to get on the 2011 ballot amid questions about his Chicago residency.

All told, Emanuel's campaign fund has spent over $1 million with law firms. (Bill Ruthhart)

What's on tap

*Mayor Emanuel's schedule wasn't available.

*Gov. Bruce Rauner will address the 50 th Annual Chicago Business Opportunity Fair at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the morning and visit Earth Friendly Products in Addison in the afternoon.

From the notebook

Emanuel wants aid for families forced to "double up": The same day the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless highlighted the plight of financially struggling families temporarily finding shelter in the homes of relatives and friends, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday announced a new $2 million effort to find supportive housing units for 100 of those families.

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City officials say half the money will come from a new 4 percent tax on home rentals arranged through companies like Airbnb. The rest would come from the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, which is funded in part through fees paid by developers in lieu of creating affordable housing.

The city is set to target families with school-age children from neighborhoods with high rates of violence, including Austin, Humboldt Park, West Englewood and Englewood.

A Chicago Coalition for the Homeless analysis released Thursday finds 8,634 families with children were "doubled up" with family and friends at one point during 2015. Many of those families cycle from other people's homes to homeless shelters, the analysis concluded. (Hal Dardick)

*Gotta go? Ever been in need of a bathroom and dodged into a nearby restaurant or store to use the facilities only to be told they are for customers only?

Well, 28 of the city's 50 aldermen say they want to put an end to that.

They signed up to sponsor an ordinance proposed by Ald. David Moore, 17th, that would require any city-licensed establishment with bathrooms for its customers to "allow individuals who have an emergency and need to use the toilet facilities to do so without having to make a purchase. It also would bar those places from charging a fee for the favor.

The Illinois Retail Merchants Association expressed "concern" about the proposal. "While we appreciate that this ordinance is well-intentioned, we would maintain our right to keep our facilities available for guests," spokeswoman Tanya Triche Dawood said. (Hal Dardick)

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*Obama talks to candidate for president of France: Former President Barack Obama spoke by phone Thursday with Emmanuel Macron, 39, a left-center candidate running to become the youngest French president in history.

Obama is not making a formal endorsement before the first round of voting Sunday, but a statement from his spokesman Kevin Lewis made the two men's chitchat sound upbeat.

Obama "appreciated the opportunity to hear from Mr. Macron about his campaign," it said. And the former president remains "deeply committed" to France as a close U.S. ally and a leader on behalf of "liberal values in Europe and around the world."

Macron, a former investment banker, is considered the best bet to sink the chances of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

An online petition drive in France to try to lure Obama into giving the French presidency a run attracted lots of signatures even though an organizer admitted the idea was a joke. (Katherine Skiba)

*City elections board reaches accessibility agreement: The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Justice Department and Chicago-based Equip for Equality over the physical accessibility of polling places and early voting sites for people with disabilities.

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As a result of the agreement, the board said it expects that hundreds of voting sites will either need modifications or have to be relocated.

The Justice Department began examining polling places and early voting sites during the March 2016 primary, using newer standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Chicago elections board said similar examinations were launched in other major cities across the nation as well as in some locations in Downstate Illinois.

City election board officials said they also worked with Equip for Equality to plan a more comprehensive look at the city's 2,069 precincts in the November 2016 election using pro-bono attorneys from law firms and corporations across Chicago.

Under the terms of the agreement, the board will work with public and private property owners to bring as many polling places as possible into compliance starting with the March 2018 primary election, with a goal of total ADA compliance by the November 2018 general election. (Rick Pearson)

*On the Sunday Spin: Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson's guests are Rich Monocchio, executive director of the Housing Authority of Cook County; Lake County Board Chairman Aaron Lawlor; and Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg. The Sunday Spin airs from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. on WGN 720-AM.

What we're writing

*Chicago aldermen revolt at watchdog's idea to take away street paving money.

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*Embattled Illinois auditor general's campaign spending under scrutiny at hearing.

*Judge in Laquan McDonald case warns against harassing Officer Van Dyke at court.

*Toxic soil at Pullman monument delays use of Chicago's national landmark.

What we're reading

*The Bears schedule is out.

*Chicago-area man's lawsuit claims Bose headphones spied on him.

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*UIC study: Naked mole rats' survival skill may help stroke victims, astronauts.

Follow the money

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.



Beyond Chicago

*White House plans Obamacare showdown next week.

*Sanders working to promote new Democrats.

*IRS sends collection firms after tardy tax filers.

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*French police come under fire in Paris.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visited an Ohio school district Thursday at the invitation of one of her chief critics, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who used the occasion to make a case for investment in public schools.

The two combatants in the nation's education battles met for several hours, touring classrooms and hearing from teachers and students in Van Wert, a rural community of about 11,000 in northwestern Ohio.

Weingarten said her goal was to show DeVos the good things happening in public schools. She also wanted the secretary to see how the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts would undermine successful programs in a place where voters overwhelmingly supported President Trump, and where there are few choices beyond public schools.

Trump has proposed slashing the Education Department's spending by $9 billion, including funds for after-school programs, teacher training and smaller class sizes.

"Van Wert proves that support for public schools transcends politics," Weingarten said at a news conference where she thanked DeVos for making the trip. "We wanted to cram as much into today as possible so that she and I saw what is possible . . . in terms of public education."

DeVos, a longtime advocate for vouchers and charter schools, has emphasized that she favors providing more choices to families, and has disputed claims that she wants to dismantle public schools. Before Thursday, she had visited eight schools while in office, including two charter schools, two private schools, three traditional public schools and one school run by the Department of Defense.

She called her visit to Van Wert "inspiring" and praised the district for its efforts to meet the needs of all students. She also reiterated her support for extending choice to more families, noting that nearly 1 in 5 children living in Van Wert choose to attend a public school outside the district. "The goal is to have every child be in an educational environment that's best for them," she said.

DeVos said she wants to help lift burdensome mandates and paperwork requirements that get in the way of teaching. Asked by a reporter for specific examples, she didn't offer any, and said she was speaking broadly.

"We know there is paperwork everywhere, in anything to do with government, and some of it is good and necessary - but there's a lot of it that might not be so necessary," DeVos said.

If Thursday's visit marked a willingness to engage despite deep disagreement, there is unlikely to be much in the way of a lasting kumbaya.

Weingarten has not minced words about the new education secretary, describing her as "an ultra-wealthy heiress who uses her money to game the system" and saying that the Senate's narrow vote to confirm her in February was "a sad day for children."

On Wednesday, Weingarten published an op-ed in the Van Wert Times Bulletin that criticized DeVos for pushing "failed privatization strategies" and for proposing a budget that would take a "meat cleaver" to public education.

During DeVos' three-decade career as an advocate for school vouchers and charter schools, she has been openly critical of teachers unions, describing them as standing in the way of change, particularly for children most in need of better schools.

But shortly after taking office, DeVos spoke to Weingarten by phone, and the two agreed to meet at least twice - once to tour a traditional public school of the union's choosing, and once to visit a "choice school" - a charter school, perhaps, or a private school accepting tuition vouchers - identified by DeVos.

The union chose Van Wert at the urging of Jeff Hood, the president of the school district's AFT local. He told the Toledo Blade he was proud of the Van Wert's success in the face of challenges that accompany rural poverty. Half of the district's 2,000 students come from low-income families, but 96 percent graduate from high school on time.

Hood wants to show DeVos that children in places like Van Wert need more than advocacy for alternatives to public schools. "Charter schools and private schools and vouchers are not going to mean much to people in Van Wert," he said, according to the Blade.

Van Wert has invested in early-childhood education and in a community-school model that connects children with social services they need to confront the challenges they are facing outside the classroom.

The state education department gave Van Wert an A for its graduation rate and for progress that students show in math and reading from one year to the next. But the district got a D for the proportion of students reaching proficiency and above on state tests and two Fs, for closing achievement gaps and for the literacy rate among children in kindergarten through grade 3.

Weingarten said school rating systems in Ohio and other states are flawed, relying heavily on math and reading test scores that fail to offer insight into a school's real successes and failures. The new Every Student Succeeds Act opens the way for states to develop better ways to measure what's working in schools and what is not, she said.
An Egyptian American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years and became the global face of Egypt's brutal crackdown on civil society returned home to the United States late Thursday after the Trump administration quietly negotiated her release.

President Donald Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers. Trump dispatched a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a haven and rehabilitation center for street children in Cairo.

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and U.S. officials as false. Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates canceled. Human rights groups alleged that they were abused in detention.

The Obama administration unsuccessfully pressed Sissi's government for their release. It was not until Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt by embracing Sissi at the White House on April 3 - he publicly hailed the autocrat's leadership as "fantastic" and offered the U.S. government's "strong backing" - that Egypt's posture changed. Last Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others.

What the White House plans to celebrate as vindication of its early diplomacy comes at the end of a week in which the administration has combated charges of foreign policy confusion. Although the president received wide praise for his decision to punish Syria for its presumed chemical weapons attack with a barrage of cruise missiles, the administration has been criticized for contradictions over policy toward Syria and Turkey, and misstatements on the U.S. response to North Korea's weapons activity.

A senior administration official said that no quid pro quo had been offered for Hijazi's release but that there had been "assurance from the highest levels [of Sissi's government] that whatever the verdict was, Egypt would use presidential authority to send her home." The official said the U.S. side interpreted that to mean that a guilty verdict and sentencing would be followed by a pardon from Sissi, but they were pleasantly surprised.

The dropping of charges set in motion the release of Hijazi and Hassanein from custody and their journey to the United States, which was personally overseen by Trump and detailed Thursday by the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the national security sensitivities of the case.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, who were already planning to visit Egypt this week and met with Sissi on a range of topics. Meanwhile, Trump also sent his military aide, Air Force Maj. Wes Spurlock, to escort Hijazi and her family on the plane home to Washington.

Hijazi and Hassanein reunited with the Hijazi family in Cairo this week, and as Mattis traveled on to Israel, Powell, who was born in Egypt and has helped smooth relations between the two countries, stayed behind to accompany the group, the senior administration official said.

The travelers touched down at Joint Base Andrews about 10 p.m. Thursday. Hijazi and her brother, Basel, are scheduled to visit the White House on Friday to meet with Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had followed Hijazi's plight, the senior administration official said.

"It's been a roller coaster of emotions the past couple of days," Basel Hijazi said in a telephone interview Thursday from aboard the plane. "We're crying with relief to have them out."

He added: "We're very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. We're so grateful."

Since Sissi came to power in a 2013 coup, his authoritarian government has presided over a lurching economy, with massive debt, high unemployment and allegations of corruption. A $12 billion loan last year from the International Monetary Fund and strict austerity measures have led to slow improvements, but Egypt still needs major outside investment and favorable financing.

During his U.S. visit, Sissi met with the heads of the IMF and the World Bank, along with the chief executives of Lockheed Martin and General Electric. Sissi has sought billions of dollars in financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank for massive infrastructure investments.

During his campaign, Trump suggested that the United States could "do well without" the Ex-Im Bank. But last week, he reversed himself by nominating former Republican lawmakers Scott Garrett and Spencer Bachus to vacant positions on the bank's board.

The senior Trump administration official said the agreement for Hijazi's release was the product of Trump's "discreet diplomacy" - meaning the president's efforts to cultivate warm relations with strongmen such as Sissi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, in part by avoiding public pronouncements on human rights that might alienate the foreign governments.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who said he recently advocated for Hijazi's release in his own talks with Sissi and was briefed on the latest negotiations, said Trump "handled it the way things like this should be handled."

"The United States can sometimes lead with things, and do it publicly, [in ways] that are offensive to people and likely not get the kind of result that we'd like, whereas working it quietly and making it a priority, but doing so in a way that is not a public embarrassment to the other party, that's the way they worked this," Corker said in an interview Thursday.

Former Obama administration officials, who were at times criticized for not making a more public case out of Hijazi's imprisonment, expressed skepticism that Sissi got nothing from Trump in exchange for Hijazi's freedom.

"The robust praise and support the president has given to Sissi, which stands in some contrast to what we did, had to have some price, and maybe this is it," said Antony Blinken, who worked on the Hijazi case as deputy secretary of state. "At least it's a positive development in which everyone can take some satisfaction."

At the same time, Blinken warned, such support could "have the opposite effect of simply reinforcing [Sissi's] crackdown at home, in a way I think someday is going to rebound against him, and probably rebound against us. . . . You can try to repress your problems away, but at some point, they will explode."

During Sissi's visit to Washington, Trump made no public mention of Hijazi's imprisonment. Nor did he appear to pressure the Egyptian leader on his record of human rights abuses.

But the senior administration official said Trump had been following Hijazi's case and raised it privately with Sissi.

"I want her to come home," Trump told his top aides and deputized them to work directly with the Egyptian government to secure her release, according to the senior administration official. Officials at the State Department and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo helped facilitate Hijazi's departure from Egypt, while attorney Wade McMullen and other leaders from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit advocacy organization, also worked to free her.

Kerry Kennedy, the group's president, said in a statement that her team had worked with the administration, and "we are deeply grateful to President Trump for his personal engagement in resolving Aya's case."

Sissi, a former army chief who led the coup that overthrew Egypt's elected president, had been barred from the White House by the Obama administration for human rights abuses. Sissi's post-coup crackdown has been particularly severe against civil society groups, especially those receiving money from abroad. They are frequently denounced by the government and pro-government media as trying to destabilize the country. Thousands of people remain imprisoned.

While President Barack Obama was uneasy with the elected government of Mohamed Morsi, whose political organization was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, his administration rejected Sissi's charges of terrorism ties. After the coup, Obama withheld aid from Egypt - for decades, the second- largest recipient of U.S. military assistance, after Israel, at more than $1 billion a year.

During his presidential campaign, Trump expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders he felt were tough on terrorism and derided what he called Obama's "weak" leadership.

This month, as Sissi smiled beside him in the Oval Office, Trump said warmly: "We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi."
Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey, right, speaks during a press conference in Yreka, Calif., Thursday, April 20, 2017. A 15-year-old Tennessee girl was rescued near a cabin in a remote part of northern California on Thursday, April 20, 2017, more than a month after her 50-year-old teacher kidnapped her and set off a nationwide manhunt, authorities said. (Danielle Jester / AP)

COLUMBIA, Tenn.  A 15-year-old Tennessee student who was allegedly kidnapped by her teacher and taken to California is back home, a lawyer for the girl's family said Friday.

The girl is being evaluated and treated by mental health experts specializing in trauma, lawyer Jason Whatley said in a press release.

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"There is no doubt that she has suffered severe emotional trauma and that her process of recovery is only just beginning," Whatley said.

He said the girl is in a safe location with friends and family and is now resting.

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Authorities credit the caretaker of a remote northern California property for helping police find her and arrest her alleged abductor, fired teacher Tad Cummins. After Griffin Barry became suspicious of two people he initially thought were in distress, his tip led police to the teacher accused of kidnapping his student and taking her on a 2,500-mile cross-country journey.

Barry said the pair told him their names were John and Joanna and they needed money for food, gas and a place to stay, ABC News Good Morning America reported Friday. But Barry, 29, said he became suspicious when the older man tried to keep the teen away.

"The girl wasn't really looking at me or anything and he was always dominating the conversation. That kind of clues people in," Barry said.

After seeing a photo of Cummins in an Amber Alert, Barry said he made the connection and called authorities.

(Siskiyou County Sheriff)

The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office sent a tactical unit to the cabin Thursday morning. Cummins was arrested after he came out the cabin with the girl walking behind him, the sheriff's office said.

Cummins was cooperative with law enforcement, Siskiyou Sheriff Jon E. Lopey told the Associated Press. He said the girl was at times "laughing, crying and acting stoic" after police found her at the remote cabin.

"These two had a relationship to the extent where she didn't exhibit any anger toward him. I didn't observe any emotional distress," he said. "She didn't act like a rescued person would act," showing no signs of elation, he said. She appeared fine physically, Lopey said, and there were no signs of trauma.

In the cabin, he said, was a single sleeping pad and clothing along with the two loaded guns  a 9mm and a .380 compact pistol.

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Lopey said the two had previously been at a commune called Black Bear Ranch, but "didn't get along" with commune residents and ended up leaving. The sheriff said the two had stopped in Berkeley first and that's how they found out about the commune.

The Associated Press is not naming the girl or her family members because she is an alleged victim of a sex crime.

Cummins faces federal and state charges.

Before leaving with the girl, Cummins had been suspended from teaching and police were zeroing in on him, questioning his relationship with the girl.

Cummins was fired about a month after being suspended  a day after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued an Amber Alert about the teen.

After taking out a loan for $4,500, the records say, the teacher took the money and two handguns and wrote a note to his wife saying he needed to go to Virginia Beach or the D.C. area to clear his head.

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But instead of going to the beach, police say he picked up the student in Columbia, Tennessee, in his wife's silver Nissan Rogue on the morning of March 13, triggering a six-week police manhunt.

"It is believed based on the investigation to date, as set forth herein, that Cummins, age 50, and victim, age 15, are involved in a sexual relationship and traveled in interstate commerce to continue their relationship and to engage in unlawful sexual activity," the criminal complaint against Cummins says.

Cummins, the federal complaint says, is charged with taking a minor across states lines to have sex.

The girl's father has told news media he believes his daughter was brainwashed.

Cummins also faces state charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor. If convicted of the federal charge, he faces at least 10 years in prison, acting U.S. Attorney Jack Smith said.

Before disappearing, Cummins was investigated by the school system when another student reported seeing the then-married teacher kiss the girl at the Culleoka Unit School. Culleoka is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Nashville near the Alabama state line.

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Associated Press writer Kristin J. Bender in San Francisco contributed to this report.
NEW YORK  The mystery of how a prominent African American judge came to be found floating dead in the Hudson River has deepened as her family and widowed husband disputed suggestions by the New York Police Department that she had committed suicide.

What is known is that Sheila Abdus-Salaam, 65, a judge on the state's highest court, went for a walk alone on the evening of April 11, locking the door to her Harlem brownstone, leaving her phone and wallet at home. Surveillance cameras showed her walking alone near the river shortly after midnight, according to the New York Police Department. The next afternoon, her body, fully clothed in sweat pants and sneakers, was found at the edge of the river in an area popular with joggers and bicycle riders.

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In the initial days, police said that the death appeared to be a suicide because there were no obvious signs of trauma to her body. Reports circulated that her family had a history of suicide  that her 92-year-old mother had took her life during the Easter holiday in 2012 and her brother two years later. But her family now disputes those stories, saying in a statement that Abdus-Salaam's mother died naturally of old age and her brother of terminal lung cancer.

Gregory Jacobs, an Episcopal priest who become Abdus-Salaam's third husband when they married last year, also challenged the portrayal of his wife as suicidal.

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"Reports have frequently included unsubstantiated comments concerning my wife's possible mental and emotional state of mind at the time of her death. Those of us who loved Sheila and knew her well do not believe that these unfounded conclusions have any basis in reality," read a statement Jacobs released Wednesday.

What looked like an open-and-shut case has been assigned a special team of investigators by the Police Department, which is now treating Abdus-Salaam's death as suspicious. The police on Tuesday put out a poster asking for information, accompanied by a picture of the judge, photographed, as always, impeccably dressed, this time in a cream-colored jacket and pearls with wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

FILE- In this May 6, 2013 file photo, Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam, center, receives applause after her confirmation to serve on the New York State Court of Appeals from Craig Alfred of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's appointments office, left, and Albany City Court Judge Rachel Kretser, in the Senate gallery at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. New York City Police confirmed that Abdus-Salaam's lifeless body was found on the shore of the Hudson River off Manhattan on Wednesday, April 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File) (Mike Groll / Associated Press)

Abdus-Salaam grew up in a family of seven children in suburban Washington, D.C., and graduated from Barnard College and Columbia University Law School. After a long career as a public defender and lower-court judge, she became in 2013 the first African American woman on the Court of Appeals, as New York's highest court is known. Last summer, she wrote what was considered a landmark decision in the state, awarding visitation rights to a nonbiological parent in a gay couple.

Since the 1980s, Abdus-Salaam had lived in Harlem. She married a man from the neighborhood who had converted to Islam, continuing to use his name professionally after their divorce.

The brownstone she bought in the 1980s, when New York's economy was in the doldrums and the streets were racked with crime, is now worth about $3 million. It is on one of Harlem's prettiest streets, lined with historic homes and flowering trees, in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood with restaurants serving sushi and soul food. On Thursday, a tour guide was showing European tourists the street, stopping to point out the flowers left out front in tribute to the popular judge.

"It is very weird," said John Audate, 60, a neighbor whose wife helped Abdus-Salaam buy the brownstone in the 1980s. "She had a good job and a nice house. It's devastating to us and very hard to believe she killed herself."

Abdus-Salaam had remarried the year before. Although her husband continued to live at the diocese in Newark, N.J., he often spent weekends at the brownstone, and neighbors would see them strolling. The weekend before her death, Abdus-Salaam had spent the weekend with him in Newark.

Although Abdus-Salaam didn't often open up about her private life, one thing people knew about her was that she loved to swim.

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"She was like a fish in water," Audate said. "She told my wife how much she loved the beach and pools when she was a girl."

"This whole story seems so unlikely. I don't think it is so easy to kill yourself by drowning," said Todd Millner, 47, a film editor who lives a few doors away.

The #NYPD is seeking info on the death of Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam. Anyone with info is asked to call our detectives at the numbers listed. pic.twitter.com/pSXDtuaVTo  NYPD 26th Precinct (@NYPD26Pct) April 18, 2017

The suspicions about Abdus-Salaam's death have been fueled in part by the death of another African American judge the day before in Illinois. Cook County criminal court Judge Raymond Myles was shot April 10 outside his home in Chicago in what police are calling a robbery.

Abdus-Salaam's death has attracted much speculation on social media and in the New York tabloids.

"She was a black woman in an age of anti-blackness and white supremacy. She was a woman in an age where violence against women is too often dismissed," wrote political commentator Shaun King in a column Tuesday in the New York Daily News. "Sheila Abdus-Salaam may have very well chosen to check out of this world. That was her decision to make, but the troubling reality is that we live in a time where many ugly forces of evil could've also seen her as a threat and killed her.''

barbara.demick@latimes.com

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Twitter: @BarbaraDemick
President Donald J. Trump responds to a question on April 20, 2017. Trump said there was a "good chance" of Congress passing a health care plan next week. (Shawn Thew / EPA)

President Donald Trump is pushing Congress toward another dramatic showdown over the Affordable Care Act, despite big outstanding obstacles to a beleaguered revision plan and a high-stakes deadline next week to keep the government running.

The fresh pressure from the White House to pass a revision was met with skepticism by some Capitol Hill Republicans and their aides, who were recently humiliated when their bill failed to reach the House floor for a vote, and who worry now that little has changed to suggest a new revision would fare any better.

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The effort reflects Trump's sense of urgency to score a victory on Obamacare replacement and move onto other legislative objectives, notably tax reform. Passing an ACA revision would also allow the president to show progress toward a major campaign promise just as he completes his first 100 days in office.

"The plan gets better and better and better, and it's gotten really good and a lot of people are liking it a lot," Trump said at a news conference on Thursday. "We have a good chance of getting it soon. I'd like to say next week, but we will get it."

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Congressional Republicans also worry that they must attract Democratic support to fund the government past the month's end - a step they must take by midnight April 28 to avoid a shutdown. That could become difficult if Democrats grow alienated by the effort to alter former president Barack Obama's key domestic policy achievement. which some White House officials said they hope will come up for a vote as early as next Wednesday.

Several congressional GOP aides who were granted anonymity to speak openly about the ongoing negotiations said they worry that the rushed process threatens to create another embarrassing public failure over health care. The schedule would also make it nearly impossible for lawmakers to finish their work in time for official scorekeepers to provide a clear estimate of how much the legislation would cost or how it would affect coverage numbers.

House GOP aides in Washington worked furiously to scale back expectations for a quick vote on the legislation, citing the fact that lawmakers themselves have not been fully briefed on the discussions. There was no deadline for finishing the legislation as of Thursday evening, and GOP leaders have not committed to plans for a Wednesday vote, according to one House GOP leadership aide.

The fresh hopes for resuscitating the American Health Care Act are pegged to an amendment being offered by Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., that aims to attract enough conservatives and moderates so the measure can pass in the House. White House officials said language would be circulated among members in the next few days, and the modifications will be discussed Saturday in a conference-wide call as Republicans prepare to return to Washington next week.

The MacArthur amendment would allow states to obtain permission from the federal government to write their own list essential health benefits and allow insurers to charge people with preexisting conditions higher premiums, as long as they also make a high-risk pool available to those patients - a change conservatives have demanded.

As a concession to moderates, the amendment would also add back federal requirements for essential health benefits, which the measure's current version instead leaves up to states.

House leadership and committees are taking a secondary role in the negotiations, which are being largely carried out by MacArthur, head of the moderate Tuesday Group, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Members from both groups had balked at voting for the bill last month, forcing leaders to pull it from the floor at the last minute.

Meadows was silent Thursday on whether he supports the proposed changes.

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Apart from the publicly embarrassing struggle to reach consensus on an Obamacare revision, some Republicans are also uncomfortable with refocusing on health care just as they're trying to build goodwill with Democrats to pass a stopgap budget plan to keep the government open past April 28.

Republican leaders have already admitted that they are unable to craft a spending bill that can appease the far-right flank of the GOP, and they have turned to Democrats to deliver votes instead. Democrats have so far been willing to work with Republicans to avoid a government shutdown, but any effort to schedule a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act could destroy those talks and threaten a government shutdown that Republicans have vowed to avoid.

"There isn't going to be a warm fuzzy feeling," House Democratic Conference Chairman Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., said of the impact a health care repeal effort would have on spending talks.

Congress has just five days next week to pass a spending bill, a tight timeline under the most generous of circumstance that would be nearly impossible to meet if House leaders also try to force a vote on the repeal legislation. Several Republican and Democratic aides said that there is a chance that both parties could agree to pass a very short-lived spending bill - one that kept the government open only one week, for instance - to give negotiators time to carefully complete a broader spending agreement. But Democrats are already warning that they could walk away if GOP leaders push for repeal.

"It doesn't really bode well in terms of negotiating with us that they're going to try to push off the vote on the [spending bill] to accommodate them on a bill we think is disastrous," Crowley said.

Asked whether a health-care bill or funding the government should be Congress' top priority next week, Trump said Thursday he believes both could get done.

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"I think we want to keep the government open, don't you agree?" Trump said. "So I think we'll get both."

Trump's position on a health-care overhaul appears to have shifted in the weeks since the House GOP's proposal, called the American Health Care Act, failed last month. Then, the president indicated that he was ready to move on to his next priorities, notably tax reform.

Now, Trump is bringing a new urgency to the task of delivering one of his central campaign promises. Additionally, with the 100-day mark of his presidency approaching, he and his senior aides are eager to show a concrete legislative achievement.

Trump would like to show progress on health care by Day 100 of his administration but is not overly concerned about the exact day a bill might pass the House, said a senior administration official, who was not authorize to speak publicly and requested anonymity. The official acknowled that House passage of a bill next week is ambitious and prospects will be clearer once more members have had an opportunity to review the legislative language.

The confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court - after Republican senators used a rule change to muscle the nomination through - remains Trump's sole major accomplishment on Capitol Hill as the 100-day mark nears.

His ambitious legislative agenda has been stalled by divisions within the White House and among Republicans in Congress, despite their control of both chambers.

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As a candidate for president, Trump promised that he would work with Congress to pass legislation that would dramatically cut taxes, spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investments, significantly expand school choice and make it easier to afford child care. And he promised he would get started on all that - and six other pieces of legislation - in his first 100 days, according to a "Contract with the American Voter" released shortly before Election Day.

The only one of those 10 legislative items introduced to this point is the House health-care bill, which Trump embraced.

While the Gorsuch confirmation buoyed conservatives both on and off Capitol Hill - providing a taste of victory - the manner in which it was rammed through further poisoned Trump's relationships with Democrats, whose support he'll need on many of his other initiatives.

Meanwhile, White House Office of Management and budget director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that the White House would be open to funding some of the Democrats priorities - potentially including paying insurance subsidies as part of the Affordable Care Act - if Democrats would agree separately to fund parts of the White House's agenda in upcoming budget talks.

His comments suggested that the White House could try to use the Obamacare subsidy payments as leverage to extract some funding to create a new wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"This is the first real test of whether the Democrats specifically in the Senate are interested in negotiating, interested in compromising," Mulvaney said.

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Meadows and MacArthur are gauging their members' support for the proposed changes, according to aides and lobbyists. Moderate Republicans worry about depriving consumers of certain health-care benefits, and some conservatives say they think the GOP plan leaves too much of the Democrats' health-care law in place.

Yet some moderates said Thursday that they view the MacArthur amendment as more of a concession to conservatives, as it would allow states to opt out of some of the Affordable Care Act's insurance regulations they view as crucial.

"I don't think the Tuesday Group has discussed, approved or has prior buy-in," said one senior aide to a moderate Republican House member. "I don't see how this gets either the Freedom Caucus or the Tuesday Group."

The Washington Post's Robert Costa and Damian Paletta contributed to this report.
There are few prospects in life more appealing than the silence of Ann Coulter. She brings to mind what novelist Mary McCarthy said about playwright and Stalinist Lillian Hellman: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'" If the world never suffered another emission from Coulter's toxic brain, it would be a better place.

But she said she would speak at the University of California at Berkeley on April 27 even though the school administration had canceled the speech hosted by two student groups. Faced with that challenge, the university changed its mind, sort of, proposing to let her appear May 2. All I can say is something I never thought I would: It will be a great thing for Ann Coulter to speak.

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Berkeley is an exceptional institution whose history includes the 1964-1965 protests that gained fame as the Free Speech Movement. Long known as a hotbed of left-wing activism, it has lately gained attention as a place where right-wingers venture at their peril.

In February, the administration abruptly called off a talk by then-Breitbart News troll Milo Yiannopoulos after protesters threw stones and firebombs and smashed windows. In all, they caused $100,000 in property damage and several injuries.

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The destruction came not from students intolerant of unwanted opinions, according to the university, but from masked self-styled anarchists bent on wreaking havoc. After Yiannopoulos was invited, the administration had issued a ringing statement condemning his views while defending his right to speak. It affirmed the university's commitment to "the principle of tolerance, even when it means we tolerate that which may appear to us as intolerant."

The event was canceled only after it became clear that the unexpected violence might prove "lethal," as campus police said. Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof offered a plausible excuse: "We have never seen this on the Berkeley campus. This was an unprecedented invasion."

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 12 Protesters watch a fire on Sproul Plaza during a rally against the scheduled appearance by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley. (Ben Margot / Associated Press)

Whatever turmoil might attend Coulter's appearance, though, would not be unprecedented, and it would not be impossible to contain. With so much advance notice, the university should be able to mobilize an abundance of police resources to prevent and, if need be, suppress another riot.

By deciding to deny her a venue until a time it deems suitable  September was its preference  the administration gave the strong impression that its devotion to intellectual liberty is negotiable.

Its partial reversal Thursday may have been a way of avoiding the embarrassment of having Coulter show up in defiant glory. Or it may have stemmed from the greater embarrassment of letting feral troublemakers shut down any event they choose. But Coulter, noting that classes will not be in session May 2, has vowed to come April 27.

At other public institutions, the record of tolerance is mixed. When white nationalist Richard Spencer was invited to Texas A&M, the school defended his right to free speech and deployed riot police to handle any violence  while sponsoring a well-attended counter-event.

Conservative writer Heather MacDonald's talk at UCLA went off as planned but provoked angry yelling from some in the audience, ending with her being escorted out by cops. When Spencer was invited to Auburn, the university said no  only to be overruled by a federal court.

Auburn's excuse was the same one offered by Berkeley: It couldn't permit an event that might jeopardize safety. That policy defers to what lawyers call the "heckler's veto" which gives those inclined to violence the privilege of silencing any speech that might upset them.

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State universities, being organs of government, are bound by the First Amendment. That may be why some of the worst episodes, including the one at Middlebury College when conservative writer Charles Murray was shouted down and physically assaulted, have occurred at private institutions, which may ban speech they don't like. But the spirit of free inquiry ought to be upheld at any college or university worthy of the name.

For any school to impede speakers because critics might protest violently is to give the critics control of who may speak. That's why Berkeley's handling of Coulter is so dangerous. At the moment, it's rewarding thugs for being thuggish and thus encouraging more thuggery. It threatens to make the school a hostage to bullies instead of a place where ideas may be heard and answered without fear.

Berkeley faces a dilemma that implicates the most vital part of its mission. And right now, it's making the wrong choice.

Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com/chapman.

Download "Recalculating: Steve Chapman on a New Century" in the free Printers Row app at www.printersrowapp.com.

schapman@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @SteveChapman13
"Racism motivated Trump voters more than authoritarianism." That was the you-don't-say headline on an April 17 Monkey Cage analysis by Thomas Wood of the 2016 American National Election Study. It was just more statistical confirmation of what we already know. You may recall a column last September about other studies of the electorate by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank with the headline "Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist."

We all kinda know what's going on here. (And by "we all," I'm speaking generally about people of color, African Americans in particular, and woke whites  "the new American majority," as author Steve Phillips puts it.) It's fear, anger and economic insecurity mixed with anxiety over the browning of America and the subsequent loss of preferred status that this will naturally entail. A new book by Justin Gest, assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, takes that gut feeling reinforced by an overflow of anecdotal evidence and grounds it in research.

"The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality" is the result of three months in East London and three months in Youngstown, Ohio. Gest strives to put the folks who voted for President Donald Trump and those who voted to leave the European Union with their Brexit vote into dispassionate perspective. It's a perspective we'd all do well to try to appreciate because we're going to have to deal with it. Starting now would be perfect.

Gest told me via email that the research he conducted for his book didn't start off this way. "I started my fieldwork when Trump was still a reality TV star! But the people I studied evolved into Trump and Brexit voters before my eyes," he said. "Their political capital was harvested." And it was harvested by appealing to their sense of losing power and their mindfulness that minority status won't treat them kindly.

Gest writes that working-class whites feel they "have been demoted from the center of their country's consciousness to its fringe." They "are consumed by their loss of social and political status" and are motivated "by a nostalgia that reveres and seeks to reinstate a bygone era." And Gest boils down the predicament facing Trump's supporters that the nation neither recognizes nor has plans to deal with  yet.

Poorer white people are subject to the same elite classism that subordinates poorer ethnocultural minorities, but due to their status as an in-group, poorer whites exist without widespread recognition of the structural circumstances that entrench their deprivation.

Given what he has written, Gest is not at all surprised by the recent stories of Trump supporters sticking by the president despite his policy choices, including Trumpcare and the draconian "Skinny Budget." He told me that folks who have been waiting for those die-hards to "see through" Trump "misunderstand the nature" of their support for him.

"In many cases, this is a constituency that has felt marginalized from American politics and society. Donald Trump was the first presidential candidate to make a direct appeal for their votes in a generation and, in the process, he elevated the plight and power of white working-class people," Gest told me. "His attraction is therefore not merely substantive, but rather symbolic. So it will take more than canceling a social program to shake their allegiance."

This is in line with what Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, told me on my podcast "Cape Up" in January. Trump won because he "taught people their own dignity or spoke to people about their dignity," Brooks said. Or as Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, succinctly explained the die-hard support of Trump on the podcast last month, "the man fights."

And what about the survey showing racism was a motivator for Trump voters? "The only real way to know how powerful race is would be for Donald Trump to run again without the Islamophobia, without the xenophobia, without the half-hearted disavowals of supremacist support," Gest said. "But since that won't happen, we can rely on survey after survey exhibiting the power of feelings of social and cultural threat."

"There is a real feeling in the United States and Europe that people are losing control over their countries," he continued. "And a prolonged sense of economic immobility and inequality leaves everyone searching for scapegoats and quick fixes. In this way, the economic is entangled and inextricable from the social."

Don't get me wrong. The racism undergirding the upset of white working-class Americans is significant and hard to read in Gest's book. Some of the comments from Youngstown in particular will engender no sympathy from more than a few people. Their distress over being marginalized and their impending minority status very well might spark a bit of schadenfreude from the targets of white working-class prejudice. I totally get it. But I also recognize that we all have to start understanding what they are saying and the roots of their rage.

According to Census Bureau estimates, the United States will become "majority-minority in 2044." It also notes that "more than half of the nation's children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group" by the time of the 2020 Census. Whites won't be the majority, but they will be a big part of the minority. Dealing with that change in status should force a nation that either ignores race or addresses it through code words, dog whistles and stereotypes to seriously engage in an uncomfortable conversation. We must figure out how to deal with real problems facing all Americans, problems that have become inextricably linked with intolerance and hate.
A local march propelled by fears about President Donald Trump's plans to slash funds for the EPA and other scientific research is scheduled to coincide with Earth Day on April 22, 2017. WEB SITE

Regular readers of this column know my general response to science is: I'm not buyin' it.

A bunch of "intelligent" people can tell me trees don't make wind, but I can create a website called TreesMakeWind.com and form a religion based solely on the mystical truth of tree-generated breezes.

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Who's to say who's correct? They have their science, I have my website. Sounds like, at best, a draw.

I bring all this up because the knowledge nerds in the science community are mad that we finally have a president who doesn't read books and believes rising ocean levels mean greater opportunities to sell oceanfront property in Nebraska.

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The scientists and their groupies will be taking to the streets Saturday for protests marches in Washington, D.C., Chicago and cities across the country and around the world. These "March for Science" events are similar to the Women's March earlier this year, except all vagina hats will be anatomically correct and properly labeled.

The movement has been organized by the Earth Day Network, which I assume is a loose affiliation of out-of-work vegans. Network President Kathleen Rogers told The Washington Post: "Hell hath no fury like a scientist scorned, and that's essentially where we are. People will be marching because their integrity and honesty has been called into question. This is a new and energized constituency  they just happen to be wearing lab coats."

I want to know who's paying for those fancy lab coats. USE A BATHROBE, YOU ELITIST FACT MONGERS!

President Donald Trump has done an excellent job keeping scientists out of important, science-related positions in his administration. For example, rather than have someone with a science background run the Environmental Protection Agency, the president installed someone who has repeatedly sued the EPA and thinks climate change is a unicorn-level myth.

Trump hasn't named a top White House science adviser  why would a former reality television star need any actual reality around him? And the science-averse Republicans in Congress are eager to cut back on money going to scientific research.

So, rather than sitting back and allowing America to be made great again, the scientists are taking a stand  an unpatriotic stand that ignores America's inalienable right to deforest the Earth and drill for oil in penguin butts and ignore the university zealots who insist that 2 + 2 = 4, even though it's not in the Bible.

Anyone who paid attention to last year's presidential campaign, or to literally any word that has ever come out of Trump's mouth, knows we now live in a post-fact society. Up is down, dumb is smart, clean water is overrated and the polar ice caps need to SUCK IT UP AND TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES! Nothing worse than needy sheets of ice.

Scientists could conclude tomorrow that if we don't temporarily halt fracking, the Rocky Mountains will collapse into the Earth and fill with molten lava, and the people running the country would say, "Hold up. Let's not jump to any conclusions. Let's get Ivanka to weigh in on this."

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Come to think of it, the best way to handle this March for Science business is to wait until the protests are over Saturday and then deny they ever happened.

A bunch of scientists on the National Mall? That's baloney. Next thing you're gonna tell me you saw Bigfoot at the Lincoln Memorial.

That's how we patriotic, unbound-by-science, straight-talking, believe-what-we-want-to-believe-because-it-makes-life-more-convenient Americans can fend off the scientific uprising.

By closing our eyes and pretending it isn't there.

Which is pretty much what the Trump administration is doing with science anyway.

Listen to Rex Huppke and WGN radio host Amy Guth discuss politics each week on the "Guth and Huppke on Politics" podcast at chicagotribune.com/guthhuppkepodcast.

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rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
Now that President Donald Trump has again refused to release his tax returns, it is time to try something new.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is saying it is investigating the Russian influence on our election. Unlike the House committee's investigation, formerly headed by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, the Senate investigation promises to be a real bipartisan inquiry into when and how Russia attempted to influence our election.

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An essential part of that investigation would be to see what ties, connections or loyalties Trump has toward Russia and why Russia wanted him to be president. A vital part of that investigation would be Trump's tax returns, which the Senate could request or subpoena.

Until Trump releases his tax returns, we will not know for sure why Russia wanted so much for him to be president. It is important that the Senate investigators have those returns, and they should be prepared, if necessary, to subpoena them.

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 Frank L. Schneider, Chicago
With news coverage growing ever louder, the continuing effort by Ald. Brendan Reilly to silence street performers in Chicago's Loop is sounding an increasingly off-key, embarrassing note about our city.

Now is an especially discordant time for Chicago to even consider his proposed restrictions, which would drastically limit when performers can play.

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After all, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has designated 2017 as the "Year of Public Art." How incongruous that 2017 should also be the year when Chicago would limit the public art of street performance.

As art is suffering an assault by our plebeian president, whose proposed budget eliminates federal funding for the arts, we should be ashamed that a Chicago alderman is likewise waging a battle against art.

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Also embarrassing has been the need for the American Civil Liberties Union to repeatedly warn Mr. Reilly about the constitutional violations of his proposed ordinance. Isn't the ACLU busy enough countering Donald Trump's flouting of the First Amendment? How shameful that the civil rights organization must similarly rebuke a Chicago Democrat for attempting to limit free speech.

Not only would this ordinance abolish Chicagoans' freedoms, it would destroy the vibrant culture and diversity that street performers bring to the heart of our city.

The Loop belongs to every Chicagoan, and to visitors and tourists, who contribute to its economy. We would be remiss to squelch the unique culture of the city's center based on the self-serving, tone-deaf whining of a small group of disgruntled residents.

Their narrow-minded views (and the cranky February editorial by the Tribune's Editorial Board) do not represent residents like me, who expect and embrace the sounds of the city  the sirens and drums and vocals and saxophones. Residents (and our property values) benefit from the communal, safe, joyous atmosphere that street performances cultivate.

I chose to purchase a condo in the Loop expressly because of the bustling excitement of Chicago's downtown streets. If I had preferred the drone of lawn mowers over the peals of horns, I wouldn't have fled the silence of the suburbs. I wouldn't have risked my life's savings to own a little piece of this loud, bold city.

We're lucky to have such a rich culture of public art in Chicago.

As the poet Carl Sandburg so eloquently urged, "Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning."

Let's come together to celebrate the diversity and art that make Chicago wonderful.

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 Andrea Bianchi, Chicago
Jeffrey Redding, the Chicago Department of Aviation's deputy commissioner of security, appears before the City Council's Committee on Aviation on April 13, 2017, in response to the April 9 dragging of a passenger from a United Airlines plane by security. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The city official overseeing Chicago's airport security was hired last year even though the Illinois Tollway had fired him after a female employee alleged he sought sex and money in exchange for work-related favors, Tollway documents show.

Jeffrey Redding, who is a point person in the investigation of the United Airlines passenger-dragging fiasco at O'Hare International Airport, told the Tribune he had a relationship with the woman, a toll collector, but it was consensual and not the reason he was terminated. He emphatically denied the employee's allegations about coercion.

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"That's not true, that's not true, that's not true. That's absolutely not true," Redding, who is now the city's deputy aviation commissioner of security, told the Tribune.

Last week, Redding testified before the Chicago City Council in a hearing devoted to the United passenger incident and was questioned about the role his security force plays at city airports. Three aviation officers have been placed on paid leave pending an investigation into how the passenger was dragged off the flight on April 9.

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Redding started in the aviation post in February 2016, according to the department, a little over six months after being fired from the Tollway, where he was chief of toll operations.

A "confidential" Tollway memorandum written by an assistant attorney general for the state and obtained by the Tribune concluded that Redding's behavior "raised serious sexual harassment issues" and "warranted immediate termination."

The woman was interviewed on Aug. 10, 2015, and Redding was fired a day later, according to records and a statement from the Tollway.

The memo, dated three days after the firing, was written by Jennifer Bugaj, an assistant attorney general assigned to the Tollway who interviewed the woman along with an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer for the Tollway. Bugaj wrote that she found the employee "credible" and that text messages provided by the employee "corroborate their relationship and much of what they discussed and what occurred between them."

"As a supervisor, his behavior was especially troubling and created meaningful exposure for the agency if not dealt with promptly and firmly," wrote Bugaj, who no longer works for the state.

The subject line for memo reads "Employee investigation  Jeffrey Redding."

There is no indication in the memo that Bugaj interviewed Redding for her report. However, in statements given to the Tribune this week, the Tollway said two other state employees talked to Redding about accusations against him.

The Tollway said Redding was fired "after multiple violations of Illinois Tollway personnel policy and procedures were identified and disclosed to him including improper communications and a complete disregard for his position."

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"The investigation," Tollway spokeswoman Cindy Klima wrote, "included interviewing the parties involved and the review of the electronic communications that ultimately corroborated the accusations and led to his termination."

Asked whether the parties included Redding, Klima answered via email: "Jeff Redding was interviewed and the multiple violations of Tollway policy and procedure were presented to him by the Tollway's attorney and Chief of Staff."

The Tribune read the Tollway statements to Redding and he responded: "Good enough. That's a lie."

"They did a terrible job, and now they're trying to justify it," he said.

Redding said the first time he heard of the allegations in the memo was when the Tribune told him. He said he met with the two Tollway officials briefly the day he was fired. He said they fired him immediately and "may have" mentioned the woman's name. He said he asked whether he was under any criminal or administrative investigation and was told no.

"That's not an interview in any sense," Redding said.

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He also said: "Nobody talked to me about sexual relations on the job."

Redding said he believed that he was terminated from the $151,200-a-year Tollway position as part of a housecleaning in the first year of Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration so that the Republican chief executive could install his own people.

The 54-year-old Redding, a former Chicago police officer, told the Tribune he previously had a consensual relationship with the toll collector.

"If there was a mistake that I made," Redding said, it was having a relationship with a subordinate. But he said the encounters outlined in the Tollway memo are "fictional."

Tollway officials should have given him a chance to respond to the woman's allegations, he said.

"My having not had an opportunity to even counter those charges in the appropriate venue, that's not cool at all," Redding said, saying the Tollway didn't give him due process. "It's inappropriate."

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Jim Wagner, the Tollway's former inspector general, said he left shortly before Redding was fired. When he left, Wagner said, there had not been an investigation into Redding regarding any matter. Yet Wagner said the Tollway would have been allowed to fire Redding without saying why because he was a top manager who could be fired at the will of the agency leaders.

"They may not have wanted to get into it," Wagner said. "At-will people could simply be terminated."

Redding told the Tribune the contents of the memo were not discussed when he interviewed for the aviation post because he hadn't known about it and that he explained his Tollway departure as part of a Rauner effort to eliminate workers from prior administrations. Tollway records show Redding was hired into the Tollway post during Gov. Rod Blagojevich's first term and he stayed on through fellow Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's tenure.

Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans told the Tribune she was unaware of the Tollway memo when she interviewed Redding for the job, saying she also recalled his explanation for leaving the Tollway was that he was swept out by an incoming administration.

"He definitely interviewed well," Evans said. "When you meet with him or speak with him, he's a very together guy."

Evans said Redding was backgrounded by City Hall before he was hired. She said she reviewed his Tollway personnel file and saw consistently high marks.

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She also said his experience in dealing well with two unions at the Tollway was "highly desirable," given they also are based at the airports.

Since the memo came to her attention, she said, she has read it and talked to Redding about it. She said she also has conferred with the city's corporation counsel and said she was advised that it would have been irregular if Redding and corroborating witnesses were not interviewed.

In her view, Evans said, the Tollway "kind of dropped the ball" by not taking the investigation further. "It protects everybody," she said. "It protects the victim, and it protects everybody against false complaints."

Asked whether she believed it to be a false complaint, Evans said: "I don't have an opinion on it."

Told of the Tollway's statement this week, which attributed Evans' firing to "multiple violations" of state policies, Evans called it "significant new information."

She suggested that what Redding told the city at his initial job interview and in the more recent interview about the Tollway memo is important. "If we confirm that he did not give us complete information or did not give us correct information in either one of those situations, that is a very serious matter," she said.

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Evans said Redding is "absolutely" involved in the United investigation. "Those officers report up through him," she said. Overall, she said, she's been pleased with Redding's work and work ethic, saying he's picked up accolades from airlines and unions.

"He continues to be very committed," Evans said, calling Redding "very effective on the job."

The Tollway memo was based on a five-hour interview with the toll collector, who recounted her experiences working for Redding and instances when she felt compelled to have sexual relations with him.

"She states that he always told her she had a choice, but she knew if she didn't do what he wanted, he would be upset," according to the memo.

In one instance, Assistant Attorney General Bugaj wrote in the memo, the woman said Redding asked for sex in exchange for changing a poor performance review.

According to the memo, the sexual relationship included encounters on Tollway property, "which would constitute an inappropriate use of tollway property and violation of tollway policies."

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Through the state, the Tribune received additional agency records, including correspondence between state officials who said texts had provided the "foundation for Mr. Redding's termination" and "they spurred into motion an investigation into Mr. Redding's wrongdoing."

The Tollway, responding to a freedom-of-information request, also provided some texts between Redding and the employee but not all, citing privacy concerns.

Those texts include an exchange in which the employee comments about potentially engaging in a sexual act with Redding.

"Omg ... You were serious about it in your office too weren't you?!" she wrote.

He texted back: "Of course!!! Duh!!!!"

In the state memo, Bugaj wrote that the toll collector indicated Redding would "pressure her to resume a sexual relationship with him from time to time after she had tried to cut it off."

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"She also stated that he expected sexual favors or money in exchange for work-related advancements or favors, and that threats were made by Mr. Redding indicating her job could be in jeopardy," according to the memo.

The memo gives the employee's description of a 2013 meeting in a Woodfield Mall parking lot, where she said Redding demanded she leave her cellphone in her car and join him in his car. She alleged that Redding then asked for at least $500 to make a work-related Tollway investigation into her "disappear," according to the memo.

She refused to pay, but he kept asking to make the "situation" go away, saying she faced the prospect of being fired, according to the memo.

Bugaj wrote that the employee said Redding was taking advantage of her being under surveillance over an on-the-job injury or family and medical leave dispute. But, she said, Redding later told her he only needed the money because he took a vacation with another woman who did not pay for it.

Redding, when interviewed by the Tribune, denied trading any work favors for sexual favors, adding he "fought against bullies and abuse all of my life." And he denied asking the employee for money.

He also said he never had sex with the employee during work hours, at his office or other Tollway property.

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Redding worked for nearly 20 years with the Chicago Police Department, including in internal affairs and at the city inspector general's office; he took a job with the Tollway inspector general's office in 2006 and moved up quickly to become chief of toll operations. Redding said his experience "qualified me for this position" at the Aviation Department.

In his city aviation position, Redding said, he has received "nothing but praise" for his work. His annual city salary is $118,020about $33,000 less than he made at the Tollway, the city said.

rlong@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RayLong
April 22 marks the 10th anniversary of Record Store Day, the international holiday celebrating independent record stores and the music lovers who run them. Every year, hundreds of vinyls are released exclusively for the day, and this year's expansive list include The Doors' "Live at the Matrix '67," Madonna's "Dance Mix," The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in The UK" and The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Born Again." We've got the deets on the coolest spots in the city to celebrate your love of music this weekend.

Pizza at The Boiler Room. (Kristan Lieb / Chicago Tribune)

The Boiler Room

2210 N. California Ave. 773-276-5625

The Boiler Room in Logan Square will be throwing a pizza-party brunch hosted by Pabst Blue Ribbon in honor of Record Store Day. This free entry, 21+ event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Come enjoy the signature "Boiler Room" pizza with PBR meatballs and homemade sauce ($24) while you shop at the on-site pop-up record store by Chicago label FeelTrip Records. Matthew Alfano & Michael Vinopal, The Shades and A Friend Called Fire will be playing acoustic sets throughout the event.

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Dusty Groove (Dusty Groove / Handout)

Dusty Groove

1120 N. Ashland Ave. 773-342-5800

Head to Noble Square to celebrate Record Store Day at the Dusty Groove, named No. 3 Record Store in America by Rolling Stone. The party will take place from 8 a.m.-9 p.m. with refreshments and giveaways all day. The store will be selling Record Store Day exclusive vinyls, and with every purchase you can test your luck on the "Wheel of Fortune." Bonus: In the early afternoon, the shop will host a live magic show.

Bric-A-Brac Records

3156 W. Diversey Ave. 773-654-3915

Logan Square's cutest pop culture memorabilia shop, Bric-A-Brac Records, will be hosting a free Record Store Day party from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Come enjoy a day full of live music from Roman Polanski's Baby, Evil Triplet and Chicago's own Staring Problem while you eat vegan treats and browse the store's inventory of Record Store Day exclusives.

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Shuga Records

1272 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-278-4085

Wicker Park's Shuga Records will be throwing a free Record Store Day party from 8 a.m.-10 p.m. The first 300 people to purchase something will receive a 20-ounce tall boy glass. Shop for Record Store Day exclusives while you nibble on free coffee and donuts and enjoy live music from Lucille Furs, The Evening Attraction, Joe Bordenaro and more starting at noon and rockin' on until close.

Dave's Records

2604 N. Clark St. 773-929-6325

Consider yourself warned by the sign on the door: There are no CDs in this Lincoln Park record store. First come, first served tote bags will be given with purchase. A free Stonebelly live acoustic performance will begin at 3 p.m. Dave's has been around for 25 years, so you can be sure that you're getting the best record buying experience from a true veteran of vinyl.

Pinwheel Records

1722 W. 18th St. 312-888-9629

Pinwheel Records of Pilsen will open at 9 a.m. to kick off the Record Store Day fun early. Free coffee and baked goods will keep you sustained while you shop and listen to live bands starting at 1 p.m. Included in the musical lineup are Dirt Cheap Date, Dream Version, Junkee Girl and Gia Margaret. Opened in 2015 as a mid-life dream come true for owner Scott Schaaf, see how Pinwheel Records is contributing to Pilsen's rich music culture with its wide selection of vinyl and cassettes.

Val's Halla Records

239 Harrison St. Oak Park, 708-524-1004

Open since 1972, Val's Halla Records of Oak Park is still kickin' and ready to celebrate Record Store Day by opening early at 9 a.m. Browse a selection of new and used records, including Record Store Day exclusives, and take advantage of the sales throughout the store in honor of the special day. Coffee and doughnuts will be available for those braving the line early in the morning. The in-store stage will also have live music curated by Phil Angotti.

Bucket O' Blood Books & Records

3182 N. Elston Ave. 312-890-3860

Bucket O' Blood Books & Records in Avondale will be throwing a Record Store Day luau, keeping with the store's tradition of themed parties for the music-lovers' holiday. Come dressed in your best Hawaiian shirt or coconut bra, compete in a limbo and hula hoop contest, and throw back tropical drinks while you shop for exclusive vinyl. Anyone that buys a RSD exclusive record will get a special themed shot. If all of that isn't enough fun, Bucket O' Blood will be serving the Great Lakes Brewing's special Turntable pilsner.

Record Breakers

2105 S. State St. 312-949-0125

Reggies Chicago's old-school shop, Record Breakers, will be rockin' louder than its downstairs club with a Record Store Day party. Doors open at 8 a.m. for all ages, with free doughnuts and coffee in the morning and free hot dogs and soda in the afternoon. Browse a selection of Record Store Day exclusives while listening to live music from Kevin and Hell, Chauncey and the Beast, Cascader and more.

Borderline Music (Borderline Music / Handout)

Borderline Music

5351 N. Clark St. 773-728-6582

Madonna fans, "Express Yourself" under the disco ball at this Andersonville record store decorated with '80s memorabilia. All used items will be 25 percent off, and exclusive Record Store Day releases will be available.
A Lynwood man has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for accepting bribes in exchange for allowing students in his food safety training classes to bypass sanitation certification testing, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago.

Ernest Griffin, 71, was sentenced Wednesday and also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, according to the office.

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Griffin had pleaded guilty in March 2016 to one count of federal program bribery, according to court records.

His business, Food Safety Awareness, contracted with the Illinois Department of Public Health to offer food handling courses. Students needed to complete a 15-hour course and take an exam in order to receive sanitation certificates from the health department.

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In exchange for bribes, Griffin submitted false certifications and false test results to the department, although prosecutors and Griffin's lawyer disagreed on the total amount of bribes the man received, court documents show.

Prosecutors said that starting in at least 2008 and continuing through January 2015 Griffin received bribes from students, taking in a total of almost $152,000. His lawyer, in a filing, said that Griffin admitted to receiving more than $5,000 a year in bribes from 2010 through 2014.

The government said that Griffin's bribery scheme ended only after he was confronted by FBI agents in January 2015.

The government contended that during that four-year period, about 675 students who hadn't taken the required class or exam were given sanitation certificates.

Prosecutors had sought a prison term of at least two years for Griffin, while his lawyer suggested a sentence of probation combined with community service and/or home monitoring, according to court documents. Griffin's attorney noted in his filing seeking the more lenient sentence that his client "did not grow rich off his illegal gains or live a glamorous lifestyle."

mnolan@tribpub.com

Twitter @mnolan_j
Homewood-Flossmoor High School Board President Richard Lites after his final monthly board meeting after serving on the board for 20 years. The incumbent was voted out in the April 4 municipal elections. (Matt McCall)

Nearly every seat was filled for the Homewood-Flossmoor High School board meeting Tuesday night as long-time officials Gerald Pauling, Andrew Lindstrom and Richard Lites said goodbye to the district.

The three school board members were apparently voted out in the April 4 election after months of contention and upheaval in District 233 following the firing of popular Principal Ryan Pitcock last summer.

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Lindstrom, who said he was in Florida for a family emergency, called into the meeting, his grainy voice from a telephone propped on a book criticizing the negative campaign and alleged untruths spread on social media. He told the Daily Southtown earlier this month that he was "heartbroken" that he lost the election and will "without a doubt" seek re-election in the future.

"I truly, truly have a heart hurt over this crazy election. I know my love and devotion for my community, my school, my town. Whatever thing I do, I do the very best for everybody out there," Lindstrom said. "When I see all the things that came across social media the last couple of weeks, it just hurts so much. To see that people would make negative remarks about the two finest board members I have had the pleasure to work with. ... They're really the very best for H-F in everything they do."

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After the election, Lites, president of the board, expressed to the Southtown his respect for the democratic process but his distaste for the tactics used in the election. Pauling told the Southtown that low poll numbers, negative campaigning and "false rumors" contributed to their defeat.

According to the Cook County clerk's office, there was a 22 percent voter turnout in the District 233, compared to 17 percent in some other nearby high school districts with hotly contested races.

At the meeting, Pauling thanked the crowd for coming and wished luck to new board members Steve Anderson, the candidate who received the most votes in the election and a 10-year member of District 153; Annette Bannon; and Beth Larocca. During his time at the microphone, Pauling highlighted the accomplishments of an H-F student who had been accepted to every school she applied to, including Columbia University, New York University and Brown University.

"I continue to believe that what I do, and what we do, is about them," he said.

Lites, who was last to speak, reflected on the past two decades, the school's successes and its students. He also thanked his wife for standing by him all these years.

"We take in wide-eyed, scared 13- and 14-year-old students and graduate them as adults who move forward to do great things," he said.

Other board members thanked their colleagues for their service.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"I have sat on boards nationally, internationally for the last 30 years, and the three of you are some of the finest fellow board members that I have ever had the pleasure of serving with, and I'm really hopeful I'll be able to say the same of the three incoming board members," Debbie Berman said. "We'll hit the ground running, we have a lot of things going and we all have to work together so we can do what's best for the kids."

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During an open session at the beginning of the meeting, some members of the community thanked the exiting board members and expressed hope for the future of the school, while others excoriated the trajectory of the campaign and called for peace moving forward.

"It is my sincere hope that as a final act of your dedication and commitment and devotion to the Homewood-Flossmoor High School that you do all that you can to mend the wounds that have divided this community for the last nine months," resident Bob Bramlette said. "If you put your tremendous talents toward that endeavor and all work together to bring the community back together, we can all at last let the healing process begin."

Flossmoor resident Don Goens, whose two children attended the school, first thanked Lites, Lindstrom and Pauling for their service and then expressed his concerns about the school community.

"I'm frankly appalled by the conversation that has gone on in this community," he said. "It's very distressing to me that this would occur in my community. My wife served on the District 161 school board for eight years. We invested in this community and in education and have been for years. I hope and wish the new board members all the success that the past board members have had and brought to this community, to all students, for many years. I hope that would continue and this community would, in fact, heal. Because I am no longer excited about Homewood-Flossmoor unless you turn this community and this school back to reflecting the needs of all students in the future."

mmccall@tribpub.com

Twitter @MatthewMcCall_
Sabcat said: So you are saying that because our government goes into a war w/o the consent of the people and then starts bringing the very people that they have been bombing for the past fifteen plus years back w/ them again against the consent of the people. Pays for their airfare, room and board w/ taxpayer dollars we should be fine when they blow **** up, kill and rape people.



What kind of crazy logic is that.



Your uncle robbed my grandma so I get to **** your children.



Is that about it.



Canadians. Click to expand...

No, that's not about it...and how many refugees has your country taken in anyway? The US should be taking most of the refugees, since these wars are American opportunism.I'm saying you can't expect everyone coming in from a warzone to be normal and able to become a model citizen. So, I see a downside to refugee policies also/I just don't agree with blaming refugees for doing what they have no choice about. It's either flee or die, if some armed bandits are on the loose killing everyone who's a member of a targeted group.When it comes to taking in and assimilating refugees, Canada has done a much better job of it than likely any of these European countries have. And that's because we don't create immigrant ghettos where they're all supposed to live and stay away from the natives! The notion of European liberalism is mostly a lie they keep telling themselves to believe in!
Diane Ahrens, president of the Dundee VFW 2298 Ladies Auxiliary, right, and auxiliary member Barbara Izbicki hand.a cart to a veteran. (Diane Ahrens / Handout)

With $5,000 raised by the Dundee VFW 2298 Ladies Auxiliary, more than 70 veterans last week were presented folding carts for hauling groceries and laundry.

The veterans being served by Hines VA Hospital's HUD-VASH program were beneficiaries of the money raised at last month's Italian Night fundraiser that featured a bake sale and raffle of community-donated items. The local Kohl's Cares Team assisted in baking and serving meals.

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"So many (vets) use public transportation, and the carts help them to get groceries and laundry home," said Diane Ahrens, auxiliary president. "We also collect dishes, pots and pans, sheets, towels and cleaning supplies as housewarming items. When homeless veterans get into housing, they need items to get started."

HUD-VASH, a collaboration between the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing, assists veterans in finding stable housing, obtaining a regular source of income, and establishing medical and mental health services.

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"Being that these veterans don't own cars, the carts give them independence," Ahrens said. "That's really a big deal."

Mitra Gobin, chief of voluntary services at Hines, said the hospital is "fortunate to have such wonderful volunteers and community organizations continue to partner with us to serve our veterans."

"Diane Ahrens and her group at the VFW Auxiliary Post 2298 frequently support initiatives at Hines VA Hospital," he said. "While the hospital provides everything required for exceptional medical care and services, we rely on the generosity of our community partners to provide the extra niceties to enhance the quality of life of our veterans."

The homeless program is an example.

"An apartment is not a home until a person has the needed items to sustain themselves and feel comfortable," he said. "This donation of shopping carts allows veterans with limited means, resources and mobility the ability to shop independently in their communities."

A list of items Hines routinely collects for veterans can be found at www.hines.va.gov/giving.

Erin Sauder is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.
Richard Schmelzer's murder conviction earned him 45 years in prison but not the thing prosecutors said he sought in plotting to kill his grandmother nearly three years ago: his portion of her estate.

Court records show that on March 28  five days after Schmelzer received his sentence for murder  Judge David Akemann legally removed the 44-year-old Texas man as co-trustee and beneficiary to Mildred "Dodie" Darrington's estate.

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Akemann named Schmelzer's four children as replacements for their father as beneficiaries, according to records. The judge's decision, which had been expected since Schmelzer's December conviction, closes out the case initially filed by Schmelzer's mother, Angela, in 2015 to revoke Richard's connection to Darrington's estate, which was estimated to be approximately $800,000, records show.

Prosecutors cited greed and increasing financial problems as Schmelzer's motive for driving 14 hours in a rental car from Texas to East Dundee in July 2014 to kill Darrington inside her home. During a lengthy trial, the state outlined Schmelzer's spending habits involving female escorts, much of which took place as his family home's mortgage went unpaid, court records show. Schmelzer's use of a disposable cellphone and prepaid debit card during his travels, and numerous lies before and after the trip, were the centerpiece of the prosecution's case.

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Court records in the estate case show Schmelzer early on sought a delay of any decision until after the criminal case concluded but made no formal opposition to being severed from the estate entirely. At his sentencing, Schmelzer continued to deny he killed his "best friend" Darrington.

Judge Linda Abrahamson last week rejected Schmelzer's request to reduce his prison term.

Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.
Campaign signs for the District U46 race promote school board candidates Veronica Noland, Donna Smith and Melissa Owens outside Gail Borden Public Library in late March. (Rafael Guerrero / The Courier-News)

The recent District U46 school board race had thousands of dollars flowing in from both candidate and special-interest committees, according to recently submitted campaign disclosure updates.

Campaign and special-interest groups had until April 17 to submit first-quarter reports that documented how much money was raised and spent during the first three months of the year on local races, including school board, Elgin City Council, Elgin Township and Elgin Community College elections.

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The U46 school board race had five candidates vying for three seats. Ideological lines separated three  incumbents Donna Smith and Veronica Noland and first-time challenger Melissa Owens  from the other two, incumbent Cody Holt and newcomer Enoch Essendrop.

The Elgin Teachers Association supported Smith, Noland and Owens, who were the three top vote getters. Jen Bury, a grass-roots political activist for the association, said in an email that the three received endorsements after interviews earlier in the year.

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The teachers union's political action committee, ETA-IPACE  which stands for Elgin Teachers Association-Illinois Political Action Committee for Education  received $34,215 from the Illinois Education Association in January, according to campaign disclosure documents. According to the association, local teachers groups can request IPACE rebates from it for local campaign expenses, election activities and contributions to candidates.

According to the documents, the Elgin Teachers Association made a level II request, which if approved allows for an association's Political Action Committee to receive $15 per contributing member.

ETA-IPACE spent $5,950 during the first quarter of the year, campaign disclosure forms report. Bury said the Elgin Teachers Association purchased signs, fliers, and postcards to support the endorsed candidates, which the disclosure forms confirm. About $783 was also spent on meals, according to the quarterly report.

Another special-interest group, U-46 Forward, also spent thousands in campaign-related expenses and contributions. The committee, based out of Streamwood, supported the three eventual winners.

According to its first-quarter report, U-46 Forward spent $7,753 on signs, fundraisers, walk cards and mailers; it had raised $8,946. The group also transferred out a combined $800 to the campaign committees of Smith and Noland.

Holt's own campaign group, Citizens Elect Cody Holt, raised $5,662 during the first quarter. Citizens Elect spent $5,138, most of it going toward signs, mailers, and printing.

One of Holt's contributors was the Elgin Township Republican Central Committee, which gave $250 to his campaign. According to its first-quarter report, the committee spent $3,153 on local races. Along with $250 for Holt, the committee transferred $2,000 to another Republican special interest group, the Elgin Township Republican Team 2017, which supported township Republican candidates.

Douglas Scheflow, the committee chairman, recently said they helped candidates outside of the township election, such as in the school board or Elgin Community College trustee races, where candidates did not list party affiliation but identified as Republicans.

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Local Republicans were largely unsuccessful in April 4 races, including in Elgin Township, where Democrat Franklin Ramirez unseated Republican Annette Miller as supervisor. Ramirez's committee, the Franklin Ramirez Campaign Committee, raised $790 and spent $680, according to its quarterly report.

For the Elgin Township trustee seats, challengers Jose Villalobos, Vern Tepe, Ed Guerra and Susan Van Weelden  running as a slate with Ramirez  ousted incumbents Robert Johnson, Pat Hudgens, Randy Endean and Vicki Pelock.

The special-interest group Elgin Township Democrats documented $10,991 in contributions and transfers in to township race candidates and $14,038 in expenditures. Some of the itemized expenses included printing, fundraising, brochures and storage.

Carl Strathmann, the committee chairperson, said the money was primarily for raising awareness of its five township candidates.

Not all large campaign committees resulted in victorious election nights.

Elgin Community College trustee candidate Roger Ramey's fund, Friends of Roger Ramey, raised $11,635 in the first three months of the year, according to disclosure documents. The largest donors to his campaign were the college's faculty association political action committee, contributing $9,000, after its members endorsed Ramey. Friends of Roger Ramey reported spending $10,334, the quarterly report documented. As with other special-interest groups, most of the money went toward printing, mailers, and signs.

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Ramey did not finish among the top three in the Elgin Community College trustee election, falling short of incumbent John Duffy and newcomers Jennifer Rakow and Candace McCreary.

raguerrero@tribpub.com
Elgin Chief of Police Jeff Swoboda talks to seniors Thursday about the drop in crime in downtown Elgin. April 20, 2017. (Janelle Walker / Courier-News) (Chicago Tribune)

There could be many reasons Elgin senior citizens don't come to the downtown area regularly, said Elgin Chief of Police Jeff Swoboda to a room full of seniors Thursday.

"Don't let safety be one of them," Swoboda told nearly 300 residents at the Elgin Township TRIAD's Spring Safety Academy.

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Cherie Aschenbrenner, the police department's senior liaison, said she asked Swoboda to speak at the event about downtown crime  or the perception of downtown crime  because of concerns she had heard from seniors.

"There is a stigma of downtown," Aschenbrenner said. Her own mother-in-law, age 76, has the same perception  that it is an unsafe place, Aschenbrenner said.

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She also asked a spokesman from the Downtown Neighborhood Association to speak, to let seniors know what is available in retail and restaurants in the area.

"They don't know what there is down here to walk to," Aschenbrenner said.

"Some seniors just do not feel safe coming into the downtown area," Swoboda said. But that perception comes from crime experienced in Elgin in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he said.

Swoboda started with giving residents an update on Elgin's crime statistics. The 2016 uniform crime report, as sent to the FBI, shows that Elgin's crime stats are at a 40-plus year low, even as the city's population has doubled.

He also pulled data for downtown Elgin from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.  when seniors are more likely to have breakfast, coffee, lunch, shop or dine downtown, he said.

That data shows five or less occurrences of most types violent crime in 2015 and 2016.

There is a jump in thefts  40 in 2016 and 56 in 2015. Those, however, are in large part accounted for in thefts between members of Elgin's homeless population and reported in the downtown area, he said.

Overall, Elgin's statistics have dropped, Swoboda said, because of the community policing done by officers with the help of Elgin residents.

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"The police are the public and the public are police," Swoboda said, referring to one of the tenets of community policing. While police officers do the heavy lifting of investigating and arresting those who commit crimes, it takes the community calling in problems and talking with officers to solve those problems, he said.

One crime that has seen an increase is burglaries to vehicles. Those can be prevented in large part by locking cars, keeping valuables out of sight when they are in the car, and keeping garage doors closed, he said.

Burglaries to vehicles could be reduced by half or more if people locked their car doors, he said.

"From time to time they are breaking windows to get into a car but that rarely happens  only if they see something that they want  the purse, the phone, the packages in the back seat at Christmas," Swoboda said.

"It is a two-step process  take things out of plain view, put things in the trunk, and lock your car door," Swoboda said.

Don Pielin, one of the directors of the Downtown Neighborhood Association and a downtown property owner, talked about the restaurants and coffee shops downtown  many of which are very walkable, he said.

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"You can walk it  slowly, but you can walk it. You can't walk Randall Road," Pielin said.

DNA employees passed out flyers that included many of the shops and restaurants open in downtown.

Not all seniors think Elgin's downtown is unsafe, said Jean Goodwin, 85, of Elgin.

"We go to the eighth floor" of the Professional Building on Division Street for Elgin Art Showcase events, and to the Hemmens Cultural Arts Center for the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Goodwin said. She's also eaten at Elgin Public House on East Chicago Street and Dog's Paw Brewing on South Grove, "but not a lot," she said.

"It is not our type of place but we tried it out. Their clientele is younger," Goodwin said.

She does have other friends that are concerned about downtown, but she's not one of them, Goodwin said.

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Denise Higham, 62, said she's lived in Elgin for 19 years but is still discovering downtown. She would go to city hall but saw the downtown as a municipal center  not as a place to recreate, she said.

Higham said she's ready to try some of the restaurants downtown.

Janelle Walker is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
A Gail Borden Public Library roundtable on education on Thursday revolved around one really broad question: What is the purpose of public education?

Unsurprisingly, answers varied by panelist, including School District U46 and Elgin Community College administrators, parents, local organizations and faith leaders.

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"We want the schools to give them every single item they need, whether to go to college or go out and get a job," Bartlett High School parent Karen Merchant said. "We also expect them to learn about real-life situations, not (be) blinded by it (when they graduate)."

Other answers ran the gamut from expanding high school academy programs to fixing stereotypes about the area to keeping community programs afloat and relevant.

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Panelists included U46 CEO Tony Sanders; Bartlett High School Principal Mike Demovsky; Elgin YWCA CEO Julia McClendon; librarian Tish Calhamer; Parent Leadership Institute alumna Madeline Villalobos; the Rev. Nathaniel Edmond, of Second Baptist Church; Tracy Occomy, senior organizer for Community Organizing and Family Issues; and Elgin Community College President David Sam.

One of the more surprising answers came from Sanders, who suggested expanding the district's academies beyond the five current programs. Each of the five main high schools house an academy: Elgin supports the gifted academy; Larkin specializes in performing arts; Streamwood holds a world languages program; Bartlett focuses on STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math; and South Elgin has media and communications.

Sanders took it one step further, suggesting the "dream" is for every high school student to be in some type of academylike concentration that caters to a student's needs and interests, providing school choice within U46 schools.

"We want to get down to a smaller learning community for students so you have the more robust social emotional needs," Sanders said. "In addition to that, you have them traveling and learning with peers who have a similar interest. ... There's a huge benefit to moving to this type of format."

How attainable such a goal is remains to be seen, given the state's inaction on crafting a budget. The state already has fallen behind by more than $25 million owed to U46 for special education and transportation.

Sanders also spoke about a return to less standardized testing, which received a round of applause. He said that while he is a supporter of more advanced courses, he believes the district should begin moving away from focusing on GPA and rankings, just as many colleges and universities are doing.

A number of panelists pointed out how times have changed and what once worked decades ago, no longer does today. Demovsky said that while some parents may not agree, social emotional learning  interaction, respect, protesting and reforming in a civil manner, among other things  is necessary for students and teachers alike.

"Our students are coming to our buildings with trauma, and there's no denying that," he said. "When you look at Bartlett High being the lowest free and reduced lunch (percentage) school in the district, it is 37 percent. That means one out of every three is struggling. Those students are coming in already anxious, they may be defensive and we've got to get to the root of that."

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While some of the responses were more focused on in-school progress, leaders from outside groups gave their own suggestions. Elgin YWCA CEO Julia McClendon said its services provide generations of local families some reassurance about living in Elgin.

Close to 60 percent of U46 students qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, and McClendon gave one example of the YWCA's impact: when some U46 schools and facilities shut down for three days in 2015 after the presence of the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease.

"We had these tall kids come into our building, our babies at one time," she said. "They were hungry, and they came back to us because they knew we would find food for them. They didn't have food at home, it was the end of the month. They counted on the lunch at school."

Edmond suggested that in order for public education to work, local organizations must be "U46's greatest cheerleaders"  not only to help students and families, but also to shake off lingering stigmas.

Villalobos, co-chair of the U46 Citizens' Advisory Council's family and community engagement committee, has conducted workshops to better inform Realtors about the district and its services, which can dwarf those of smaller districts in the surrounding area.

"We want to correct that," she said. "A lot of times, when we do these Realtor breakfasts, we hear, 'I did not know U46 had all those offerings.' After Tony (Sanders) is done speaking with them, it's amazing ... 'Wow, we got something good to say about U46.' "

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The 90-minute roundtable was hosted by the library and education-based nonprofit Illinois Humanities.

raguerrero@tribpub.com
Three local hospitals received A grades as facilities across the nation recently received their spring Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades.

Getting an A were Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin, Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva and Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora . B grades went to Edward Hospital in Naperville and Presence Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, while Presence Saint Joseph Hospital in Elgin received a C.

According to information provided by Leapfrog online, 2,639 facilities were reviewed for the recent term, and 823 received an A, 706 were graded B, 933 got C grades, 167 received D grades and 10 were graded F.

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Rush-Copley Public Relations Manager Courtney Satlak noted that while no ranking system is perfect, the medical center in Aurora is pleased to have achieved an A grade in every score released to date from The Leapfrog Group.

"These scores are based on 30 different measures of publicly available hospital safety data. Rush-Copley continually provides both mandatory and voluntary data about the quality and ongoing improvement of the hospital's care and promotes transparency by publicly reporting its performance compared to other hospitals," Satlak said.

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Critical Care department nurse Kelly Frein, RN, stops in to check on patient Nick Gallo from Batavia Thursday at Delnor Community Hospital in Geneva. (Jon Langham / The Courier-News)

Advocate's Director of Public Affairs for its North Region, Christine Vicik, noted that there are several independent organizations such as Leapfrog which measure hospital safety.

"Patient safety is our top priority, and we are very proud of our safety record. While we firmly believe measurement is necessary for improvement, we recognize that government and industry safety organizations use varying methodologies and reporting protocols," Vicik said. "Our focus remains on eliminating all preventable harm and achieving the best possible outcomes for our patients, who deserve nothing less."

Of Delnor's A, Northwestern Medicine Senior Media Relations Specialist Kim Waterman said, "Northwestern Medicine is committed to providing patient-centered care in an environment where safety is always the priority. We believe that quality and safety data should be meaningful, informative and transparent to the public, and we appreciate Leapfrog's ongoing focus on these important areas."

According to Satlak, Rush-Copley also holds more accreditations and disease-specific certifications than any other hospital in the region.

"Accomplishments like these are important for patients as they ensure Rush-Copley meets the stringent safety and performance criteria set by independent surveying agencies," Satlak said.

Edward-Elmhurst Health Public Information Officer Keith Hartenberger said the hospital had no comment to make about its B grade.

Of the grades for its facilities in Elgin and Aurora, Presence Regional Patient Safety Officer Julie Lyons said patient safety is the top priority at all its holdings.

Butch Olanosa from Batavia rests in the ER with his wife Lynette and daughter Lili, 1, after checking in Thursday at Delnor Community Hospital in Geneva. (Jon Langham / The Courier-News)

"With this in mind, we take survey results from credible certification organizations to heart and with great seriousness," Lyons said. "Additionally, it is the standard practice of all Presence Health hospitals to constantly monitor care outcomes and when necessary implement improvement programs designed to ensure our patients receive safe, compassionate care."

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"When we launched the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade in 2012, our goal was to alert consumers to the hazards involved in a hospital stay and help them choose the safest option," Leapfrog president and CEO Leah Binder said in a news release. "We also hoped to galvanize hospitals to make safety the first priority day in and day out. So far, we've been pleased with the increase in public awareness and hospitals' commitment to solving this terrible problem. But we need to accelerate the pace of change, because too many people are still getting harmed or killed."

The website for the Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog Group states it is "a nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety and transparency in the U.S. health system." It releases its safety grades in spring and fall. A description of the data and methodology used in determining the Leapfrog grades is available online at www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.

mdanahey@tribpub.com
A Crystal Lake man will go to prison for sexually abusing a child he met though his job as a horse groomer in West Dundee, according to a news release from the Kane County state's attorney's office.

Vincente Vasquez, 28, of the 100 block of South Heather Drive in Crystal Lake, on Friday agreed to a sentence of 3 1/2 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections in exchange for a guilty plea to a charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a Class 2 felony.

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Circuit Judge Donald M. Tegeler Jr. accepted the plea.

According to the release, Kane County prosecutors presented evidence that between September 2012 and September 2014, Vasquez sexually abused the child, whom he knew. The abuse took place at the horse stable where Vasquez worked in on Lathrop Lane in West Dundee. The child, who was younger than 17 years old at the time, was a client of the stable.

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Vasquez must register for life as a sexual offender in accordance with the Illinois Sexual Offender Registration Act, the release said.

Vasquez is eligible for day-for-day sentencing, the release said. He receives credit for 688 days served in the Kane County Jail.
Swedish authorities said Wednesday that the case against the unidentified men was "growing stronger" amid an increasing backlash against immigrants in a country that took in more asylum seekers per capita than any other nation in Europe last year.

"There have been cases in Sweden before where crimes have been filmed and publicized on social media but not like this," said Pontus Melander, chief prosecutor in the case in Uppsala, the city where the alleged incident took place in an apartment Jan. 22.

"I have seen different cases around the world  but not sexual cases," he added.

The alleged crime in the Scandinavian country, which has one Europe's highest recorded rates of sexual assaults, was live-streamed on a private Facebook page accessible to about 60,000 people.
From left, Brad Frederick of Evanston, a member of the Friends of the Green Bay Trail, and Franck Greaux, a New Trier Township High School French instructor and sophomore boys adviser, work with New Trier Township High School sophomores during the schools April 19, 2017, Sophomore Institute Day. They're at a Friends of the Green Bay Trail work day, off Lake Cook Road south of the Braeside train station in Highland Park along the Green Bay Trail. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

An estimated 1,000 New Trier Township High School sophomores participated in Sophomore Institute Day on April 19.

Twenty of those sophomores, all boys, were assigned as part of the school's sophomore advisory program to assist the Friends of the Green Bay Trail. They spent the school day maintaining a portion of the Green Bay Trail off of Lake Cook Road, south of the Braeside train station in Highland Park.

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"Part of the school motto is to commit lives to the service of humanity, and so this is our way for our sophomore students to bring the motto to life," said Ted Koulentes, chair of the sophomore advisory program.

"Here, we're bringing the boys to becoming a little bit aware of the resource we have here (on the Green Bay Trail)," said Franck Greaux, a New Trier Township High School French instructor and sophomore boys adviser.

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Students helped remove invasive species such as mustard seed and buckthorn.

Right, Diane Greening of Glencoe, a Friends of the Green Bay Trail board member, talks to New Trier Township High School sophomores during the schools Sophomore Institute Day on April 19, 2017. They're at a Friends of the Green Bay Trail work day, off Lake Cook Road south of the Braeside train station in Highland Park. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

"We are thrilled to have the New Trier boys helping us out today, restoring the trail," said Betsy Leibson of Glencoe and FGBT founder.

"This is a community, public trail, and we need all of the help we can get making it better," she said.

Students used shovels to move dirt and gloved hands to pull out invasive shoots.

Marco Tinto, 15, of Glencoe, helped fill wheelbarrows with soil.

Marco said he uses the Green Bay Trail "all of the time when I bike."

"You got to take care of where you live," said Henry Pelinski, 16, a sophomore from Winnetka.

"It's better to take initiative and go out there and be the change you wish to see," he said.

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Quinn Ragusi, 15, of Wilmette said it takes many hands to maintain the Earth.

Right, Quinn Ragusi, 15, a New Trier Township High School sophomore from Wilmette, pulls emerging invasive plants on April 19, 2017, during a Friends of the Green Bay Trail work day, off Lake Cook Road, south of the Braeside train station in Highland Park. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

"One person can't clean up the entire world. They're going to need people to help," Quinn said.

For Gage Olson, 16, of Wilmette, the purpose of the workday was clear: "I think it's just making the Green Bay Trail a better place, one person, one bush at a time."

"If you keep on going and plugging away, you will eventually clean up the entire Green Bay Trail and make it a better place for everybody," he said.

Ben Weiler, 17, of Winnetka wore safety goggles while he participated.

"The Earth does a lot for us," Ben said. "We should give back."

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Center, holding a wheelbarrow, is Andrew Kost, 16, a New Trier Township High School sophomore from Wilmette. From second from left are Dan Rakestraw, 16, in gray shirt, and Marco Tinto, 15, in blue shirt, both NTHS sophomores from Glencoe. The students are shown on April 19, 2017, during a Friends of the Green Bay Trail work day, off Lake Cook Road south of the Braeside train station in Highland Park. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

Karie Angell Luc is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.
A residential facility to house the homeless is on track for construction in La Grange more than a year after a public hearing process for the project sparked high emotion and demonstrations from both supporters and opponents, and a lawsuit that sought to block its construction.

Officials from BEDS Plus, a nonprofit agency that is building the facility, representatives of local churches and village officials gathered Friday to take part in a groundbreaking for the three-story building at 9601 W. Ogden Ave.

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"It's exciting," said Joann Boblick, coordinator of homeless prevention services for BEDS Plus. "When I first started (working) here, it felt more like a dream or a fantasy. It's nice to take the big step and finally get it started."

The three-story brick building will house 20 individuals in single apartments on the second and third floors and have administrative offices and the day program that will provide counseling, job training and referrals for services on the first floor.

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Tina Rounds, BEDS executive director, said a lawsuit that sought to block construction of the residential building, was resolved.

In 2015, La Grange residents sought to block the sale of property, then owned by Private Bank in Chicago, to BEDS Plus. The suit contended that a corporation, McGee Family Holdings, with a La Grange resident listed as manager, owned portions of the parcel on which the facility will be built.

"It was dropped," Rounds said. "They ended up conveying the title to us because there wasn't any merit to the case."

At the same time as the lawsuit was being handled, Patrick Johnson, an assistant in the U.S. Attorney's Office, conducted an investigation into whether the efforts to block the project were a violation of the Fair Housing Act that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities.

"No lawsuit was filed. We were determining next steps," Johnson said.

James Gilbert, an addictions counselor for BEDS, said he brought the matter to the U.S. Attorney's attention.

"I contacted them and I asked them if this was a violation of the fair housing act because people with disabilities are a protected class," he said.

Many people involved in working to see the center built acknowledged that getting to the point of constructing the project was a hard road with many challenges.

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"I get teary because it's taken such a long time to get here and there were a lot of obstacles," said Meredith Onion, associate minister of the First Congregational Church in Western Springs.

Tina Rounds, executive director of BEDS Plus, Inc., talks about the construction of permanent housing for the homeless in La Grange. (Annemarie Mannion / Pioneer Press)

With construction now in sight, many also said they are happy to see how the community came together.

"Having something permanent like this is bringing everyone together to take care of needs that some people ignore or care not to see," said Paul Saladino, president of the Society of St. Vincent De Paul at St. Francis Xavier Church in La Grange.

Gilbert said the individuals who live in the facility will be chosen based on a vulnerability assessment that considers such factors as mental health, disability, number of times homeless and length of homelessness.

La Grange Village President Tom Livingston said he believes the facility is a great thing for the community. At the same time, he said the village will keep an eye out to be sure it doesn't present any of the problems, such as safety concerns, that opponents had voiced.

Boblick said she believes the facility will benefit the community because homeless individuals will not only have a home, but access to services such as regular healthcare.

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"Their health improves so much (with permanent housing)," she said. "Their use of the hospitals and emergency room goes down. That alone is going to save the taxpayers money."

She said the housing will also provide stability.

"It's better to have a place to go that yours that's safe and warm," she said.

amannion@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @triblocalam
A Chicago civil rights attorney, whose firm is litigating three lawsuits regarding separate police shootings in Zion, says a federal investigation should be initiated into the Police Department's policies involving use of force, especially against black people.

"Zion should be investigated by the Department of Justice. There's a clear pattern and practice by the police (of) using unjustified, excessive and lethal force," Chicago attorney Andrew M. Stroth said this week.

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Within the past two years, Zion police have been involved in the shooting deaths of Justus Howell and Charles Hollstein and the shooting of Devon Davidson.

Zion police officials declined to comment on the cases this week, citing the litigation. Zion Mayor Al Hill said Wednesday he is also unable to discuss the lawsuits.

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Both Howell and Hollstein died after being shot in April 2015 and January 2016, respectively. Davidson, who was shot the night of July 26, 2016, has since resolved the criminal case against him through a plea deal in Lake County Circuit Court. Police officials have previously described Davidson's wound from a 2016 shooting as "superficial" and said that he was treated and released from the hospital.

Video shows Devon Davidson, 25, being shot by Zion police on July 26, 2016. The city of Zion has agreed to pay him $75,000. (Zion Police Department) (Zion Police Department/Chicago Tribune)

The civil rights lawsuits, filed in federal district court in Chicago, name the city of Zion and several individual officers as defendants and claim the city has tacitly allowed police policies that encourage deadly force.

Stroth, managing partner with the Action Injury Law Group, said a police video of the Davidson shooting does not show officers responding to a threat.

"The video completely contradicts the narrative given by the police officer in the police report," Stroth said. "It clearly shows the use of excessive force. Devon Davidson is lucky to be alive. Thank God no major organ was hit, or Devon Davidson could have been another victim. "

Michael Masters, an executive with the New York-based Soufan Group, a consulting firm whose specialties include best practices in law enforcement policy, procedure and training, said his viewing of the Davidson shooting video led him to believe the training of the officers might not have been optimal.

"In terms of best practices with regard to pursuits and engagement, what I've seen in the video is not what best practice would dictate," Masters said.

Masters, who has served as the chief of staff of the Chicago Police Department and the executive director of the Department of Homeland Security for Cook County, said he came away with the conclusion that there is "an opportunity for improved training, policy and procedures" in Zion.

Surveillance video provided by the Lake County states attorneys office shows a Zion police officer fatally shooting Justus Howell on April 4, 2015. ((Chicago Tribune)/Chicago Tribune)

Stroth said Wednesday that attorneys working on the three cases for his firm have made settlement "demands" to the city, with a time limit, that would include both monetary components and certain reforms within the Police Department.

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He did not disclose further details about the proposed settlement.

"Our lawsuits are not just seeking money for the families," Stroth said, adding that "fundamental reform" of Zion police procedures is also being sought.

"There's a code of silence in Zion, just like there's a code of silence in Chicago," he said.

Stroth also said that police shootings in the city are disproportionate in terms of numbers and race. Davidson is black, as was Howell, while Hollstein was white.

According to police, Howell, a 17-year-old Waukegan resident, was shot by Zion police April 4, 2015, while he was running through a Zion neighborhood with a gun in his hand and ignoring police orders to stop.

The gun had already been fired once without striking anyone during an altercation over its possession between Howell and a Lindenhurst man before Howell was shot, according to investigators and witnesses.

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Stroth said his firm contends Howell was not holding the gun when he was shot.

On Jan. 6, 2016, Zion police fatally shot Hollstein, 38, who authorities said was wearing a homemade tactical-style vest and carrying a BB gun when he struggled with officers after a brief foot chase near a school. Officers initially confronted Hollstein because he was allegedly taking pictures of a school.

Police and prosecutors said Davidson was shot by a Zion officer during the course of a pursuit while he was driving drunk on a license already suspended for a previous DUI charge.

According to police reports, Zion officers attempted to stop Davidson for speeding after 11 p.m. July 26, but Davidson led police on a chase involving multiple squad cars at speeds of up to 65 mph in a 35 mph zone on 27th Street.

During the chase, Davidson's vehicle was eventually boxed in by police cars in the driveway of his mother's home in Zion when he allegedly backed his vehicle into a squad car and then turned it in the direction of, "but not directly at," an officer standing outside his squad car with his gun drawn, according to reports.

The officer then fired, striking Davidson, after which Davidson fled the scene in his car, drove several blocks, made a U-turn and returned to his mother's 27th Street home, where he was apprehended inside the house, according to prosecutors.

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Blood tests at the hospital measured Davidson's blood alcohol level at 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit for driving, officials said.

Davidson pleaded guilty in December to aggravated DUI related to the incident in which he was shot and was sentenced to 13 months in prison to be served at 50 percent.

He was given credit toward that sentence for the 141 days he spent in the Lake County Jail.

In exchange, prosecutors dismissed charges of aggravated fleeing and eluding and possession of cannabis with intent to deliver.

His defense attorney, James Schwarzbach, had been studying ballistics evidence related to the shooting in preparation for trial before the plea deal.

After having gone over the case with Davidson and viewing the video recording of the shooting, Schwarzbach said Davidson was "lucky" he was not more seriously wounded.

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"He was fortunate it did not invade his chest cavity and strike vital organs," Schwarzbach said.

Following separate investigations of each of the three cases by the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, State's Attorney Michael Nerheim, after reviewing the task force reports and viewing available video footage, determined in each case that no charges would be brought against the officers involved.

Nerheim said his review of the evidence led him to the conclusion that the officers involved in the shootings had not committed a crime, which is the measure used in determining whether charges would be filed.

Masters said that, in general, not specifically in Zion, if police do not have a command of accepted best practices and tragedies do occur, the results affect and are unfair to the officers themselves, the individuals involved and their families, and the community as a whole.

"The officers have to deal with it every day for the rest of their lives, and so do the individuals (involved)," he said.

jrnewton@tribpub.com

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Some Americans who care about the environment have been in "a daze" watching as the federal government makes decisions that could set back their hard work, according to the Rev. Booker Stephen Vance, policy director for Chicago-based Faith in Place.

His advice to them as he presented the keynote address at the annual Lake County Green Conference April 20 was to keep on going.

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"We've come too far to turn back now," Vance said. "Don't stop what you're doing. You have to learn to be creative in a time of crisis."

The message resounded with those who attended the conference at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, as several shook his hand when he concluded his address.

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Participants learned throughout the afternoon about successful sustainability projects in elementary schools, high schools and community colleges. Many of those projects, combined with the recent passing of the Illinois Future Energy Jobs Act, signal a bright future for solar energy in Lake County and the state.

Indeed, solar is the No. 1 source of new jobs in the U.S., according to Jennifer Martin, who works at CLC as a senior program manager on sustainability projects.

Chris Grable of Mundelein, who's involved with a Lake County faith-based conservation group, said she came to the conference to learn how communities, including schools and churches, are working locally to protect the environment.

She was inspired by Vance's message, saying "he was addressing fears we have that might be holding us back  that we should keep going."

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 4 Peggy Henry of Wildwood examines a workout bag made with organic cotton in India where workers are paid good wages, according to Causegear, which sells the products. (Sheryl DeVore / Lake County News-Sun)

Before attending the conference, Grable added, she knew nothing about a massive solar energy project at Grayslake Community High School District 127.

Through a grant, the district has set up a 2.5-acre solar farm at Lake Street and Shorewood Road in Grayslake. The farm, featuring more than 4,000 solar panels, should be running within the next few weeks. Following that, a total of roughly 4,000 more solar panels will be installed on the roofs of both Grayslake Central and Grayslake North high schools.

Finding a project that could contribute to sustainability and also be affordable was a long struggle, retiring District 127superintendent Catherine Finger told the participants.

"We looked at wind turbines, and discovered it would be 20 years before we'd get a rate of return  the same with geothermal," Finger said.

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Then in a 10-day window during March 2016, officials discovered a project that enabled the district to produce and sell solar renewable energy credits.

The district did the math and found out that they'll receive an annual return on their investment of $100,000, according to Michael Zelek, associate superintendent of business services.

"I think it's a great idea," Grable said, adding other schools in the county should do the same thing  and they are.

For example, nearly 2,200 solar panels have recently been installed on the roofs of seven Waukegan schools, which can generate enough energy to power 540 homes, according to David Gaier, a spokesman for NRG Energy, which donated design, engineering work, equipment, installation and 20 years of maintenance to the Waukegan Community Unit School District 60.

After Finger retires, she will continue to be involved in the community by serving on the College of Lake County board.

She will help carry the torch that CLC president Jerry Weber carried for eight years. Weber leaves for a new opportunity after making sustainability a priority at CLC.

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The campus has green roofs, photovoltaic systems, rainwater harvesting systems and a geothermal field with nearly 50 deep wells to supply energy to the campus. According to Weber, the school has won multiple awards for its sustainability projects, and the new science building, which is nearly completed, will likely receive one of the top ratings for sustainably created buildings.

CLC also just learned it's receiving funding to create community solar projects, places where individuals and businesses can own a piece of the solar panel pie  and get utility credits to save money on energy.

That's what the Illinois Future Energy Jobs Act passed in December is all about, said the Rev. Eileen Shanely-Roberts of Christ Episcopal Church in Waukegan. She serves as co-chairwoman of the steering committee for Clean Power Lake County.

"Last year, we managed to get a bill that the House and the Senate passed and was signed by the governor," she said, referring to the energy jobs act. "This is really a big deal. This is showing what grassroots organizations can do," she said.

Julio Guzman, a Waukegan resident and Sierra Club member working with Shanely-Roberts, said the law opens the possibility of converting brownfields in Waukegan to community solar projects, and saving money for low-income people who couldn't afford to put solar panels on their homes.

"It's exciting stuff. This is a historic moment for Illinois," he said.

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Shanely-Roberts urged the participants to continue letting their local, state and federal governmental officials know they want clean, sustainable energy.

"Start harassing them now," she said as several in the audience chuckled.

Finger said she espouses a quote she recently heard: "There is no greater strength than that of a community that comes together to support what they care about."

Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
Waukegan High School seniors Jasmin Cervantes (left) and Hector Cortes release some rainbow trout that they raised from eggs in their Biology Honors class on Friday, April 21 at Washington Park in Waukegan. (Mark Kodiak Ukena / Lake County News-Sun)

"It's kind of sad," said Indira Moody, 17, of Waukegan, as she stood next to a cooler full of rainbow trout fingerlings in Washington Park that she and her Waukegan High School classmates raised in a big aquarium in their science class.

"I feel like they're a pet now," she said as she tried to get a close up picture of one. "I named my fish Jimmy. They are so cool, and their spots are amazing."

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Two by two, students walked up to the cooler full of fish. One would fill a cup with water with a fish inside it, and then another would have a cup of water to help wash the fingerling down a gutter set up to gently deposit the fish into the north branch of the Waukegan River.

"Hold your hand over it so the fish doesn't get out," cautioned Bob DeGraff, who is part of the Trout Unlimited Gary Borger chapter and teamed up with a Washington Campus environmental science class for the program.

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"This is the first year in Waukegan, but we've been doing it with the Highland Park High School for eight or nine years now. We do it in three different ravines there," DeGraff said.

On Friday morning, the project participants were at the bottom of the ravine at Washington Park, just south of Water Street, where in a small clearing the north branch and the south branch of the Waukegan River join up for a short run to the shores of Lake Michigan.

DeGraff explained that the rainbow trout were not native fish, but they have been stocked in the lake ever since there used to be a problem with alewives, a small fish that would wash onto the beaches en mass and die, making for smelly beaches.

"They will imprint on this water and will come back and try and spawn in three or four years when they mature," he told the students.

"Another fish that is native also uses these waters  the white sucker. They come in and move around at night at the right season," he said, adding that they are kind of endangered and the Field Museum in Chicago is studying them to try and help their populations.

"In theory, in four years, you'll see rainbow trout, and they could be yours," he said. Then they will return for about four years, he added, before dying off.

He explained that salmon are different in that they spawn in the fall, swimming upriver to lay their eggs before they die.

"In nature, the fish produce millions of eggs, but there are a lot of predators, and only two to three percent make it back to the stream they were born in," he said. "That means out of 100 fish, maybe three, four or five fish will make it back."

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Karen Frank, chairman of Waukegan High School's science department, said she and environmental science teacher Kate Krischke talked about getting the students more involved in the community.

"Waukegan is a great place for environmental issues. We have two Superfund sites," she said. "We're always looking to get the students out in the community, and we are pleased with our first year  the students were very proud of their trout."

Frank added that some students did in fact hesitate at first when it was time to release their fish into the water.

Krischke said they raised 200 eggs that Trout Unlimited got from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which stocks Lake Michigan, in a 75-gallon aquarium inside the classroom. The students had to keep the tank clean and feed the fish.

"It really makes things more tangible for the students. They get to see how environmentalism looks like in the community itself," she said, adding that students also tested the water for nitrates and other pollutants.

The river in the park has had several improvements, including half a dozen riffles, an area where rocks are placed to create water that roils because of the rocks and the process helps oxygenate the water. Some of the river also has had rocks placed along the shoreline to cut erosion, according to Tim Girmscheid, manager of planning services for the Waukegan Park District.

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"We also built lunkers around some of the rocks  it's a cavern where predator fish and other fish hide out," he said.

Girmscheid added that the park district will be participating in National River Day on May 13 at Roosevelt Park and Washington Park, where they will clean up garbage and debris.

"We get everything from car tires to shopping carts," he said. "We're hoping to get a lot of (volunteers)."

DeGraff, who used to be a teacher at Round Lake High School, was clearly enjoying himself Friday morning.

"The students get so involved with the trout that it gets them more engaged," he said. After the release, he relaxed and enjoyed Washington Park. He had one more class set to release their fish after lunch.

"This is a natural byway for migrating birds. I can hear a lot of them," he said. "This is just a beautiful place down here. People don't realize what's down here because it's hidden."

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fabderholden@tribpub.com

Twitter @abderholden
After less than 10 months on the job, Waukegan School District 60's new superintendent is getting a $25,000 pay bump immediately, set raises moving forward and other perks that at least one school board member thought were too much in exchange for her staying an extra two years.

The board approved, in a 6-1 vote, the amended contract for Superintendent Theresa Plascencia, who officially took over District 60's top job in July after spending about three months in the district conducting a listening-and-learning tour and meeting with retiring Superintendent Donaldo Batiste and staff.

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Under the contract amendments approved Tuesday, Plascencia's base pay will jump to $235,000 from $210,000, a 12 percent increase. The new contract provisions also guarantee her 4 percent raises as long as she receives good evaluations from the school board, instead of the previous language that ensured her raises at least on par with what other administrators receive.

The higher base salary and set raises mean that Plascencia will earn just over $264,000 in the final year of the contract, about $18,000 more than Batiste made after 10 years with the district. That does not include the potential bonus pay that was also added to the contract.

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The idea was to bring Plascencia's salary in line with other area districts, she said, adding that the salary increase was the result of a renegotiation, something different than a typical annual raise.

Incoming Waukegan School District 60 Superintendent Theresa Plascenia talks about her plans for the school district in an interview at the Lincoln Center at 1201 Sheridan Road, Waukegan, IL on Thursday afternoon 4-21-16.| (Judy Fidkowski / Lake County News-Sun)

Full-time superintendent salaries in Lake County ranged from $122,000 for 185-student Grass Lake District 36 to about $315,000 for the 215-student Northern Suburban Special Education District, according to 2015-16 data collected by the Illinois State Board of Education. Among the state's 10 largest school districts (Waukegan is No. 10), base salaries for full-time superintendents ranged from $213,000 at Rockford District 205 to $269,000 at Aurora-based Indian Prairie District 204.

Under the approved amendments, the district will also increase its contributions to a retirement annuity to $15,000 each year from $5,000; pay Plascencia $8,000 in moving expenses without her having to show receipts; waive for the final two years of the contract the $25,000 penalty Plascencia would have to pay if she left the district mid-contract; and eliminate the cap on the number of unused vacation and personal days that she can cash in for pay.

The eliminated vacation day cap means that Plascencia could potentially earn an extra $10,800 in pay next year, for a total of about $24,400, assuming she took none of her 25 days of vacation time or her two personal days.

Board President Michael Rodriguez said Plascencia approached the board about a contract extension seeking assurances that she would be in the district for longer than just the next two years, especially in light of the uncertainty of the then-upcoming school board election. Plascencia is in the process of closing on a house in the district.

Plascencia contested the characterization that she approached the board, saying it was more about the board and her coming to a consensus about how to extend the contract. She added that it was not unusual for superintendents to renew their contracts heading into their second year since the hiring process for superintendents can last more than a year.

The board didn't want Plascencia to even think about moving on, Rodriguez said, adding that Plascencia is well-known in the national education community and that knowledge about what she's been doing in Waukegan is spreading widely.

Over the course of this year, Plascencia has shown she can make the "drastic changes" necessary to make Waukegan a "premier district," Rodriguez said, pointing to the elimination of certain management positions, the installation of air conditioning into more buildings, the building improvements that have been done, the return of elementary-level summer school and the proposed expansion of full-day kindergarten across the district.

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"She hasn't given us excuses. She's given us results," he said, adding that the board felt the contract was a "good investment" for the district and its students.

Plascencia, who said she foresees being in Waukegan for a long time, said teachers often voice concerns about how long changes are going to last before new ones come. She's been trying to send them a message of consistency through things like longer teachers union contracts.

"I think the board was excited by what they're seeing and the trust we're building back with our teachers," she said. "I believe (the contract extension) should boost morale because they know the current administration will be here for the next five years."

Board member June Maguire, who is set to retire from the board at the end of the month, was the sole "no" vote. She said that in her 36 years on the Waukegan school board, she's worked with six other superintendents, none of whom ever "had requests of this magnitude."

"I just couldn't do that to the citizens of Waukegan," Maguire said, pointing to seniors on fixed incomes and the district's poverty levels. "Some don't make even what she's requested in additional compensation."

Maguire said previous raises were in line with other staff, and one superintendent even opted to go without a raise one year because of the district's finances.

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Plascencia was picked to succeed Batiste in December 2015, and the board approved her contract in April  plenty of time, Maguire said, for Plascencia to negotiate the terms if she thought she was being undercompensated.

While Maguire said she doesn't regret hiring Plascencia, she expressed disappointment in the timing of the contract changes, and added that she still has questions about some policy changes, including to student discipline and the restructuring of some administrative departments and Waukegan High School.

The board won't know the effects of the changes made by Plascencia for two to three years, she said.

While Rodriguez said that's true and that he hopes the amended contract doesn't hurt employee morale, he said the board based the decision on the impacts already made.

"I just went through a whole list of things that she's already done," he said. "The proof is there. We're just in awe of the things she's already done. We're not basing this on just vague expectations of the future."

emcoleman@tribpub.com

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During this month's Waukegan mayoral race, Democrat Sam Cunningham, left, raised more than $86,700 to Lisa May's $49,260. Through March 31, both campaigns reported spending more than $51,000. (Luke Hammill / Lake County News-Sun)

More than $12 million was funneled to candidates this past week vying for the Georgia congressional campaign advertised as a referendum on President Trump. J.B. Pritzker, the Democrat who wants to be the next governor of Illinois, donated $7 million this month to his fledgling campaign fund.

Gov. Bruce Rauner has nearly $51 million stashed away for his re-election campaign. The Republican billionaire governor has indicated he's willing to kick in more. Already, he's running television commercials in the expensive Chicago television market. More than $6.5 billion was spent in the 2016 presidential and congressional campaigns.

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During this month's Waukegan mayoral race, Democrat Sam Cunningham raised more than $86,700 to Lisa May's $49,260. Through March 31, both campaigns reported spending more than $51,000, and that's not counting outside money spent on the race.

See a pattern here? We do. These are mind-boggling amounts of money and the generosity of campaign funds is only going to get worse. Truly, campaign spending at all levels of government in this country and state is out of control. And we've become inured to it.

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Our hand-wringing undoubtedly will fall on deaf ears because the people who can fix this are too narcissistic and worried about self-preservation and getting re-elected to care. But it needs to be said anyway.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

A career in politics seems no longer attainable to the average middle-class resident. Maybe it never really was without selling out along the way. We have a billionaire president, a billionaire governor and two other billionaires, including the aforementioned candidate Pritzker, fighting for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. So, mere millionaires are relegated to what? Congress? A village board seat?

Raising $136,000 in a mayor's race in a city of fewer than 90,000 people to reach only 9,115 voters is just obscene. The watch-dog group Illinois Campaign for Political Reform labeled the Waukegan contest one of the "big-money" municipal races held across the region on April 4. No kidding.

Much of the campaign largesse heading Cunningham's way came from gambling interests. While there's nothing overtly wrong about the casino and video gambling lobbyists lining up behind Cunningham, it's like former Illinois Senate President Phil Rock said: "Nobody calls just to say hello." That sort of spending from gambling interests is alarming and worth monitoring closely in the future.

So, what can we do to drive big money out of politics? To start with, there is a grass roots effort seeking to override the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that, critics maintain, allows unlimited political campaign spending to influence local, state and federal elections. The High Court split decision declared that limiting campaign spending is a violation of free speech.

The constitutional amendment would spell out that free speech is limited to individual Americans, not corporations or unions; that regulating political contributions and spending doesn't equal limiting free speech.

Nationwide, 18 state legislatures have voted in favor of the amendment, as well as nearly 800 municipalities and counties. The constitutional amendment faces long odds, but individuals can have the amendment placed on future ballots in their cities and villages. We suggest civic-minded residents start collecting signatures now for the 2018 primary or general elections.

We cannot continue to allow our body politic to be hijacked by those doling out campaign contributions to candidates who oftentimes wield them for wide-ranging uses -- all allowed by state and federal campaign spending laws -- that are far afield from hitting the stump. Democracy is not about writing a big check.
An aerial photo shows the vast damage from a tornado that struck Lake Zurich and vicinity on April 21, 1967. (Luigi Mendicino / Chicago Tribune)

It has been duly and properly noted this week that Friday was the 50th anniversary of the Belvidere and Oak Lawn tornadoes, either one of which would have been among the deadliest disasters in Illinois history but had the dark coincidence of striking on the same volatile April day.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle is that Lake County was also hit on April 21, 1967, by one of the 45 tornadoes that hit from Missouri to Michigan, including 19 in Illinois alone. The evening-rush twister that swept from the southwest through Lake Zurich is one of only three F4 tornadoes in the county's recorded history.

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Let's dip into the News-Sun archives for a column I wrote back in 2012 that included contemporary accounts from survivors:

The outbreak is most infamous for the havoc it wreaked in Belvidere, where an F4 tornado hit just as high school students were loaded on buses, and in Oak Lawn, where another F4 caught rush-hour motorists in their cars. Fifty-seven people were killed by those two tornadoes alone.

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Lake County was spared the worst that Friday afternoon when an F4 tornado  with winds in the range of 200-250 mph  carved an eight-mile path of devastation that slapped Lake Zurich especially hard, leveling Seth Paine School, destroying more than 110 homes, damaging another 100 and leaving 800 people homeless.

The tornadoes that swept across northern Illinois April 21, 1967, killed nearly 60 people and injured more than 1,000. Oak Lawn, Belvidere and Lake Zurich were hardest hit. (Phil Geib/Chicago Tribune)

"Riding the heels of rain and hail, the twister first touched down at Cuba Road and Route 14 and then cut a northeasterly path through North Barrington and Lake Zurich," News-Sun staff writer Floyd Thoms reported, adding that the path of devastation was around 300 to 500 feet wide and caused $2 million in damage.

Like the Belvidere and Oak Lawn storms, the Lake County tornado jumped residents quickly. The hardest-hit area was the Manor Subdivision near Route 12 and Miller Road, where 96 homes were reported completely destroyed.

"I don't think it lasted 10 seconds," one Manor resident, Oscar Larson, told the old Waukegan News-Sun. "Everything was coming through the door. And then it was over, just like that."

As fate dictated, my original boss in The News-Sun family of newspapers, the late Jan Gehrig, was among those Manor residents  in fact, her car was nearly caught in the tornado as she drove home around 5 p.m. from the old Independent-Register offices on Milwaukee Avenue near Church Street in downtown Libertyville.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"As I neared Gilmer Road, I spotted something off in the distance," she wrote on April 27, 1967. "It didn't look threatening. As I drove closer, it appeared to be a column of black, dense smoke carrying debris or ashes straight up in the air. ... Suddenly, I realized the smoke column was moving toward me.

Paine School at Miller Road and Vista Drive is in ruins after a tornado tore through Lake Zurich on April 21, 1967. (Chuck Mount / Chicago Tribune)

"'Oh, my God  it's a twister. God help me,' I cried, scared stiff. It veered away, heading toward the north, and I sped into a nearby farmhouse just north of Old McHenry Road. The elderly couple may have thought me a mad woman, but they held their door open (and) we went down into their basement."

After riding out the storm with the good Samaritans, Gehrig wrote, she drove to the Manor Subdivision and found "complete devastation and utter silence. (There) was little left of my neighborhood. ... Seth Paine School looked as though it had been bombed. My home was half torn apart. The roof was gone."

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But Gehrig noted that the Manor was relatively fortunate  no fatalities were reported. In fact, while the Lake County tornado plowed through portions of not only Lake Zurich but Gilmer, North Barrington and Mundelein, The News-Sun reported the only two fatalities were motorists whose cars were "thrown into a grove of trees" off Cuba Road west of Route 59 (then known as Route 59/63).

Sixteen initial injuries were reported, ranging from a 2-year-old girl to a 72-year-old man. Even though the Lake County tornado of 1967 was described at the time as less devastating than the 1965 Palm Sunday twister that killed six people and injured 140 in the Island Lake area, Gehrig probably wasn't alone when she said "it was a day none will ever forget. And one which, hopefully, will never come again."

danmoran@tribpub.com

Twitter@NewsSunDanMoran
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CAThe popular search engine Google announced plans Friday to launch a new site, TheGoogle.com, to appeal to older adults not able to navigate the original website's single text field and two clearly marked buttons. "The Google will have all the same information currently found on regular Google, but with the added features of not stealing your credit-card numbers or giving your computer all kinds of viruses," said Rick Tillich, The Google project director. "All you have to do to turn the website on is put the little blinking line thing in the cyberspace window at the top of the screen, type 'thegoogle.com,' and press 'return'although it will also recognize http.wwwthegoogle.com, google.aol, and 'THEGOOGLE' typed into a Word document." Tillich added that he hopes the site will soon replace Yahoo Internet Website.com as the most popular search engine for users over 55.
A federal civil rights lawsuit alleges Naperville police allowed a woman to inappropriately touch and kiss a 13-year-old boy while he was in the back seat of a squad car.

The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, stems from an incident on Oct. 31, 2014, during which the boy was ordered into the police car by a Naperville police officer while he was with other children in the 200 block of Westbrook Circle in Naperville, the lawsuit said.

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At some point, a woman was also placed in the car, giving her the opportunity to act in a "wholly inappropriate and harmful way," the suit said.

The woman "undertook sexually suggestive and aggressive actions" toward the minor, including kissing him on the face and neck, "hugging him inappropriately, touching and rubbing him upon his inner thigh and genital area, and taking 'selfie' photographs of herself" and the minor with her cellphone, the suit said.

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Naperville police officers were allegedly in or near the police vehicle but failed to protect the minor, the suit said.

"It's not quite clear who (the woman) was," said Ed Fox, the Chicago lawyer who filed the case on behalf of the minor, identified in the suit as "John Doe" because of his age. "She was placed in the car by the police."

The lawsuit also charges the teen, a foster child at the time, was the only African-American in the group on Westbrook Circle and the only one to be taken into custody by police.

Naperville officers did not have "'reasonable suspicion' and/or legal cause to detain" the minor, according to the lawsuit, which seeks financial damages from the city, the woman and the individual police officers involved in the incident.

Fox said video was taken during the incident and he wants a judge to force the city to release it.

City and police department representatives were not immediately available for comment.

ehegarty@tribpub.com
The Park Ridge City Council adopted a 2017-18 spending plan that, according to city officials, will fund more infrastructure projects and add additional emergency responders to the police and fire departments. (Tribune newspapers file photo / Tribune newspapers file photo)

The Park Ridge City Council recently adopted a 2017-18 spending plan that, according to city officials, will fund more infrastructure projects and add additional emergency responders to the police and fire departments.

The $70.8 million budget, which was approved April 17 and takes effect May 1, includes a 25 percent increase in funds used for water main replacement, a 50 percent increase in the sewer lining budget, and a 22 percent increase in the road repair budget, said 1st Ward Alderman and Finance Committee Chairman John Moran.

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Park Ridge City Engineer Sarah Mitchell said the increase in funds allotted for the work will allow the city to install an additional block of water main, increase sewer lining by about 4,000 feet, and resurface nearly one more mile of city roads.

The City Council on April 17 approved a $987,981 contract for approximately 4.5 miles of streets to be resurfaced over the coming weeks. Also approved was the $295,000 water main replacement program contract, allowing for construction of 640 feet of new water mains.

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Moran also spoke of the budget addressing "multiple maintenance issues" on city-owned properties that have previously been deferred.

The budget shows that some of these projects include heating and air conditioning work at City Hall, budgeted at $290,000; resurfacing of the City Hall parking lot at $350,000; police station repairs, budgeted at $50,000; $25,000 to paint the exterior of City Hall; and roof repairs at the city's two fire stations, estimated at $25,000.

Also budgeted is an $800,000 city contribution toward streetscape improvements on Northwest Highway east of Prospect, which will also be funded through a $1.3 million grant from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program.

In addition, the capital budget includes $2 million set aside for the Park Ridge library's interior improvement plan. This project still requires approval from the library board.

The city plans to hire three additional firefighter/paramedics, two police officers, a full-time employee in the police records department, and a full-time assistant in human resources.

Technology upgrades are budgeted over the next fiscal year that will allow residents to pay utility bills online and will "streamline the inspection and permitting process," said acting City Manager Joe Gilmore. The police department is also upgrading its social media capabilities to boost communications with residents, he added.

In his State of the City address on April 17, acting Mayor Marty Maloney said infrastructure and personnel were "areas in which we were forced to cut back" in recent years due to the financial burdens of the Uptown Tax Increment Financing District, which was failing to generate the required revenue to pay off debt the city issued related to Uptown development.

"While we are not out of the woods as far as the TIF is concerned, we have turned a corner of sorts and are gaining ground," Maloney said in his speech. "The budget reflects that progress."

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The 2017-18 city spending plan also reflects the 8.14 percent reduction in the property-tax levy that the City Council approved last December. Whether taxpayers can expect another decrease in the city's tax levy next year is "too soon to say," Gilmore said, adding that city staff and the City Council are "working hard to keep the December 2017 levy flat."

The city is also using fund balance to cover deficits in multiple funds, Gilmore said. The general fund, which is the city's main operating fund, totals $33.5 million in revenue, with a deficit of $407,821, according to budget documents. The City Council has been building up its fund balance in recent years and is using some of the excess reserves to cover the additional infrastructure, technology and personnel costs planned for 2017-18, Gilmore said.

As far as fees, the budget includes a proposed 2.5 percent increase in the cost of water, but the exact amount that will be passed on to property owners is contingent on the findings of a ongoing water and sewer rate study, Gilmore said.

"Any potential rate changes are being deferred until the rate study is completed," he said, adding that this includes any sewer fees.

Also in the budget is the establishment of a stormwater utility fee for all property owners, though the amount of the fee has not yet been determined by the City Council.

A citywide stormwater master plan is set to be completed this year and is expected to contain recommendations for flood mitigation projects, as well as cost estimates. Aldermen have discussed using the stormwater utility fee as a revenue-generating mechanism for future stormwater projects that may be pursued.

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jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
Leon Logothetis of "The Kindness Diaries" is set to speak about his international travels and philanthropic activities at the Pickwick Theatre on April 24 in Park Ridge.

He traveled across the world with only $5 a day, relying on the kindness of others to take him from location to next location. For information, check out his YouTube series #GoBeKind.

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Q: What made you decide to visit Park Ridge? Have you been to the Pickwick before?

A: When my team and I were in the beginning stages of planning my "Kindness Diaries" speaking tour, we got word out on social media for anyone interested in hosting me for an event. One of the people to respond was Chicago native Zoe Borys, who has been crucial in bringing me here to Park Ridge.

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I can't say that I have been to the Pickwick Theatre before, but I'm extremely excited to see what is in store!

Q: What are your plans this summer with your book tour, what places are you going to next?

A: After the Pickwick I'll be heading to Ohio, Indiana, North and South Carolina and then finally DC. Stay tuned to my Facebook page for more info regarding events in these states. Also, in early May I'll be flying out to Athens to give a TEDx talk about the healing power of human connection.

Q: You have had great success with your best-selling book, "The Kindness Diaries" any future plans for another book in the future?

A: I recently released my new book "Live, Love, Explore." It's more of a guide to help embrace what I describe as "the way of the traveler," which is the inner fire that drives you to create and explore the world outside and the world within.

Q: How does it feel in giving back to others who are in need? What can we learn from your experiences?

A: It feels absolutely wonderful to give. When you help someone who is in need, and you're genuine and sincere, it's as though a flower blooms right in the center of your heart. I hope my work allows others to see the kindness of others all around them. I know that I traveled the world to find kindness, but I did it to bring that kindness back to people's homes, to their everyday lives. Kindness is everywhere if you look for it, and if we look out for each other maybe this great big world can become a little smaller.

Q: What is one act of kindness that a person from Park Ridge could do today?

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Be gentle and kind to yourself.  Sometimes we tend to forget about our inner life when are trying so hard to be kind to "others." But being kind to yourself is the catalyst that enables us to treat others the same way. Many small kindnesses are what we need, and they all start from within.

Karen Medina is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Police are looking for three men and a Hyundai car with Illinois plates in connection with the Wednesday afternoon robbery of about $48,000 worth of new cellphones from the AT&T store in Cedar Lake, according to police.

Just after 4 p.m. Wednesday two black men wearing gloves, masks and hoods entered the store at 12937 Wicker Ave., armed with handguns, and demanded everyone move to the back room of the store, Cedar Lake police Deputy Chief Carl Brittingham said in a news release.

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"Once in the back, the two forced an employee to access a storage safe where approximately $48,000 in new cellular phones were stolen," Brittingham said. The phones are iPhones and Samsung phones.

The suspects placed the phones in a large black bag before leaving the store and entering a silver Hyundai Sonata four-door sedan, Brittingham said. Police believe the model-year range to be between 2015 and 2017.

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Brittingham said the driver of the car may have been captured on surveillance video prior to the robbery. Police would like to question the man captured on the video.

"It is believed the same suspects had previously robbed at least two other AT&T stores in the suburbs of Illinois on different dates, prior to this robbery," Brittingham said.

AT&T has blacklisted all of the stolen phones, and they no longer will work on any network, officials said.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Brittingham at the Cedar Lake Police Department at 219-374-5416, ext. 118.

Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
The former Porter County Sheriff's officer charged with three felonies for allegedly injuring his infant son had his first appearance in court Thursday.

Porter Superior Judge Roger Bradford didn't set a trial date at the initial hearing for Curtis R. Jones, 47, of Crown Point, but did set bail bond at $30,000. Jones is set to appear in court June 26 for an omnibus and status hearing and on again Aug. 7 for a pretrial hearing.

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Bradford also issued no contact orders barring Jones from contacting the child, another child or the child's mother, who said after the hearing that she's filing for divorce from Jones.

Jones had his hearing by video conference from Porter County Jail, after he was extradited to Porter County this week from Will County Jail in Joliet, Ill., according to a press release from the sheriff's department.

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The Porter County Prosecutor's Office has charged Jones with three Level 3 felonies that each carry a sentence of up to 16 years in prison: battery resulting in serious bodily injury to a person less than 14 years of age, aggravated battery and neglect of a dependent.

Jones said he's hired a defense attorney and said he would pursue a bail reduction, but Bradford noted that the attorney had not entered his appearance, filing the paperwork to appear as an attorney for Jones.

Until that happens, the attorney cannot represent Jones, he said.

The battery allegedly happened July 21 at his rural Porter Township residence where Jones was the only person watching the 7-month-old from midnight until Jones called 911 about 4:30 a.m., charging information states.

Jones told police he'd been studying for his nursing clinicals and noticed the child cold and rigid, so he texted his wife, then called 911 at her urging, the probable cause affidavit states.

The child was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, then was transported to Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago because of signs of neurological damage and brain swelling, documents said.

Doctors there found significant brain damage and bleeding on the child's brain and ruled out accidental injury or pre-existing conditions through investigations, according to the press release.

After Thursday's initial hearing, the infant's mother said the child is taken to Chicago four to five times a week for care, and she has had to quit her job as a nurse to care for him.

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She also said wants the case moved out of Porter County, because of the friends he has in the Porter County Sheriff's Department and in the Prosecutor's Office.

James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
The St. Helen's Philoptochos Society is sponsoring its 10th Annual Benefit Spaghetti Dinner for the Ross Township Food Pantry on May 4 at Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 8000 Madison Street, in Merrillville.Lunch (Carry outs only) will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and dinner will be held from 4-7 p.m. The cost for is $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 & under. Diners receive spaghetti with a choice of sauce (meat, marinara or Greek style), salad, roll and dessert. For more information call (219)613-8380. (Photo Provided by Sts. Constantine & / Post-Tribune)

Crown Point

St. Matthias Church: 101 W. Burrell Drive  St. Matthias Church will have a service for those mourning the loss of a child at 1 p.m. April 30. Children of all ages will be remembered in this special opportunity to honor their life through spiritual readings, songs and a unique prayer experience. Guest speaker is noted author and grief support advocate R. Glenn Kelly. RSVP by Monday at 219-663-2201.

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Gary

Christ Baptist Church: 4700 E. 7th Ave.  The Christ Baptist Church Spring Revival will be at 7 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Bishop Tavis Grant II, senior pastor of Greater First Baptist Church, will be the featured speaker. Information: 219-938-5504.

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First Baptist Church: 626 W. 21st Ave.  The church's Sanctuary Choir will perform the "Annual Songs of Praise" at 4 p.m. April 30. Holy Bethel Missionary Baptist Church choir will be the special guest. The theme is "as it is in heaven." The public is invited. 219-883-3216.

First Tabernacle Baptist Church: 643 W. 41st Ave.  Church ushers will host a Fashion Show at 3 p.m. April 29. A Mission Service will be at 3 p.m. April 30. Save the date for information: 219-884-6170

Israel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church: 2301 Washington St.  Men's Day Celebration Weekend will be Friday and April 30. A program featuring Rev. Dr. John Jackson of Trinity United Church of Christ and performances by the Israel C.M.E.'s Male Chorus and Carter Memorial Church Male Chorus will be at 7 p.m. April 28. A Men's Day worship service featuring assistant reverends Rev. Harold Edmondson, Jr., Rev. Monte Williams, Sr. and. Rev. Elliott Joyner Joiner will be at 11 a.m. April 30. The celebrations are free and open to the public. Information: 219-883-3859.

Marquette Park United Methodist Church: 215 N. Grand Blvd.  A White Elephant/Garage/Bake Sale will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 6. Senior yoga will be at noon Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Cost is $3 Tuesday and Friday and $4 Thursday, which includes lunch. First Saturday Outreach Lunch is at noon the first Saturday of each month. Sunday School is at 9:15 a.m. and services at 10:15 a.m. Information: 219-938-4106.

Mizpah SDA Church: 2350 Jefferson St.  "Your Neighborhood Soup Kitchen" will serve lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. the first Sunday of the month.

New Mount Moriah Baptist Church: 1917 Carolina St.  Revival services with evangelist Kenneth Davis will be at 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Unity Nondenominational Church: 637 E. Ridge Road  A musical program will be at 3:30 p.m. April 30. The Rev. Frank Alexander will be the featured speaker. Evangelist Frances Taylor, Evangelist Segrest, Sister Rose Dumas and Joe Bryant will be additional speakers.

YWCA: 150 W. 15th Ave.  The Matriarchs of the Messiah, a woman-to-woman conference and brunch hosted by pastor Marcus T. Hurt Sr. of the Praise House and Prophetess KaTina Hurt will be at 11 a.m. April 29. Guest speakers will be Jeanette Gillam, co-pastor of new Second Baptist Church; LaWanda Thomas, of New Zion Temple, and Elder Shawntee Hunter, of the Praise House. Donations are $10 per person or $75 per table. Information: 219-302-2257.

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Hobart

Hobart First United Methodist Church: 654 E. 4th St.  The church health and wellness ministry will sponsor a workshop on elder care issues from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. May 7. The workshop will offer942-1601 resources and information for caregivers of dementia and Alzheimer's patients. An Alzheimer's support group will meet from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. the second Thursday of the month beginning May 11. Information: 219-942-1601.

Hebron

Hebron United Methodist Church: 202 W. Church St.  The Hebron United Methodist Women will hold the Spring Rummage Sale from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 5 and from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. May 6. Fill a bag for 50 cents May 6. Clothing, household items, books, movies and other items will be sold. Information: 219-996-7161.

 Staff report
Chesterton police have charged Christopher Mark Dillard with felony murder in the death of Nicole Gland. The 24-year-old Portage woman was found fatally stabbed inside her Ford SUV on April 19, 2017. (Porter County Sheriff's Department;, Amy Lavalley / Post-Tribune)

A Hobart man charged with murder in the death of a Chesterton bartender told police he'd been "partying rough" in the days leading up to the death of Nicole Gland, 23, of Portage, and said he left cocaine and marijuana for her in her vehicle in the hours before she was killed, according to court records.

Christopher Mark Dillard, 50, of the 200 block of Delaware Street, was charged in the case Friday. Gland's body was found shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday in her SUV in the 100 block of Lois Lane, behind the Upper Deck in downtown Chesterton, where she worked. She was stabbed to death, authorities said.

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While meeting with his longtime girlfriend in a recorded interview room at the Chesterton Police Department on Thursday, Dillard reportedly told her, "I killed that girl, I didn't mean to," and added that the drugs he had been using had a hold on him, according to charging documents.

Several of Gland's friends attended a Friday news conference held at Chesterton Middle School and disputed the notion that Gland was getting drugs from Dillard.

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"She was definitely not a person who would hang out with people who sold drugs, and definitely not a 50-year-old man," said Nicole Vuko, of Portage, who has known Gland for several years.

Gland had worked at the Upper Deck for several months after leaving a job at another Chesterton bar, Vuko said.

"(Dillard) was a guy who she thanked for helping her clean the bar at night," said Dylan Cairns, who grew up with Gland and now lives in Michigan City. "Any bartender, any young girl should be watched as she's leaving."

At the news conference, Chesterton police Chief David Cincoski said the investigation into the crime is ongoing.

"Please understand, just because someone has been charged with this murder, this investigation and this case is far from over," said Cincoski, who was flanked by representatives from the Porter County prosecutor's office, the Northwest Indiana Major Crimes Task Force and the Chesterton and Porter police departments.

During questioning, Cincoski said police are searching for Gland's cellphone and purse, and are investigating the location of the knife allegedly used in the killing, as well as looking at other people of interest in the case. He asked anyone with details about the crime to call his department at 219-926-1136.

Police do not yet have a motive, he said, and are reviewing surveillance video from nearby businesses. They also are investigating whether Dillard was dealing drugs at the Upper Deck, police said.

"He had no prior violent convictions. He had some minor, possibly misdemeanor, convictions," Cincoski said of Dillard's past.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Charge: Armed robbery; Read more (Chicago Police Department: Arrest does not imply guilt, and criminal charges are merely accusations. A defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty and convicted.)

Cincoski praised those who had worked with police.

"All parties that we have spoken to have been cooperative," he said.

Gland left the Upper Deck at 2:51 a.m. Wednesday, Cincoski said, and a passer-by spotter her SUV around 3:45 a.m. against a couch and a large trash bin, where a Chesterton Tribune employee found her body in the vehicle later that morning.

Dillard, who was taken into custody Thursday afternoon, is being held in Porter County Jail without bond. An initial hearing is expected at 9 a.m. Monday before Porter Superior Court Judge William Alexa.

According to charging documents, Dillard's girlfriend, who had already alerted Hobart police about Dillard's unauthorized use of her truck, contacted police again the day Gland's body was discovered to tell them Dillard also worked at the Upper Deck and she had recently noticed a knife missing from her butcher block.

Hobart police located Dillard at a business and brought him into the Chesterton Police Department for questioning.

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Dillard was a bouncer at Upper Deck, 139 S. Calumet Ave., but was not working the night Gland was killed, Cincoski said. Around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dillard allegedly went to the Upper Deck to leave marijuana and cocaine with Gland, documents said.

Though Gland didn't lock her car because one of the locks was broken, Dillard got her car key from her at the bar and went to leave the drugs under the driver's front seat, the probable cause affidavit said.

He allegedly snorted some cocaine while in Gland's SUV before returning the car key to her at the bar, and didn't lock the car when he got out, according to records. Dillard then went to another bar in Chesterton and other places he didn't disclose, including a stop in Portage for drugs, documents said. He told police his cellphone and a small amount of cash were stolen from his girlfriend's truck while he was making the drug stop, records said.

Chesterton police Chief Dave Cincoski speaks at a news conference April 21, 2017, about charges in the fatal stabbingof Portage resident Nicole Gland in Chesterton. (Kyle Telechan / Post-Tribune)

"Either he didn't know, or he didn't remember, or the events were hazy from a self-reported drug state which he described as 'rough partying,'" Cincoski said.

Around 6:53 a.m. Wednesday, Dillard called his girlfriend from a Gary casino, saying, "I really (expletive) up. I don't think you'll take me back," court documents said. He told police everything from there was "hazy" and the last place he remembered was sleeping at a lakefront park in Hobart, according to the charging documents.

When police pointed out inconsistencies in his story, Dillard told them "I don't know," asked what he told them previously or said things were hazy from partying, according to the documents.

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Dillard changed clothes sometime during the day on Wednesday after he left the casino but he couldn't say why, records said. He said he left his old clothes in the garage of the home he shared with his girlfriend but police were not able to locate them, charging documents said.

Vuko, Gland's friend, said she was in shock and disbelief when she heard Gland had been killed.

"There were so many scenarios going through my head, just thinking, 'Who would want to hurt her? Who would want to take her away?'" she said, adding she and Gland's other friends came to the news conference to learn more about their friend's death.

"We're her best friends since seventh grade and we're all here because we want to know why," she said. "And if it was one of us, she would be here for us."

A memorial service for Gland will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Edmonds and Evans Funeral Home, 6941 Central Ave., Portage. Visitation will take place from 4 p.m. until the time of the service at the funeral home.

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Tom Woronecki displays a sign in his Hobart home that he expects to use Saturday, April 29, at a climate change event at Main Square Park in Highland. (Karen Caffarini / Post-Tribune)

Tom and Patti Woronecki gathered around their kitchen table, along with their daughter, Jennifer Woronecki-Ellis, putting finishing touches on the signs they'll carry April 29 at the local leg of the People's Climate March.

"We want to make people aware of the crises of climate change and for them to support clean energy," Tom Woronecki said of why the Hobart family is joining other environmental activists in Highland's Main Square Park for a rally as thousands of others descend on Washington, D.C., that same day.

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The purpose of the march is to raise awareness about the effects of the climate crisis on families across America and around the globe.

"It's too late when a disaster hits," Tom Woronecki said Thursday evening. "People need to take control of their lives."

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Tom Woronecki's sign reads, "Clean Energy Creates Jobs," Patti's Woronecki's depicts no coal and Jennifer Woronecki-Ellis was using black tape to write the word "Resist" on an orange background. Resist is one of the words used by Peoples Climate March organizers.

"My only hope is that it does open peoples' eyes," said Heather Leddy, of Dyer, co-organizer of the Highland march, which she said will be more of a rally with a festival-like atmosphere.

The rally will include speakers, children's activities, musicians and booths where attendees can meet local advocates and talk about local issues.

Julie Storbeck, of Hoosier Women on the March, Women's March on Washington-Indiana, will man one of the booths to talk about how climate change particularly affects women whose families are left homeless from disasters caused by climate change, such as the multiple floods in states like Texas, Tennessee and Florida.

"It's a part of the story that oftentimes is overlooked. When people think of refugees, they think of war. When they think of climate change, they think of polar bears. They don't think of the women who have been the caregivers, the shoppers looking for food and drinkable water," Storbeck said.

"Women in the U.S. are facing those decisions because of floods, blizzards, tornadoes and other disasters," she said.

Leddy, a mother of four and nursing student, said she became involved in the Northwest Indiana event because she couldn't sit idly by while state and federal legislators vote against clean energy and for deregulation of industries, which she said creates bigger problems like in Flint. Mich., and East Chicago.

"I definitely worry about my four children's future," she said.

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She said she's invited state and local political leaders to the event.

Alex Bazan, who is co-organizing the Highland event with Leddy, said climate change is an issue he is passionate about.

"This is one of the most polluted areas in the country," the Hammond native said. "I've felt there's not enough leadership on environmental issues."

Bazan, who currently lives in the Detroit area, cited the recent chemical spill into Lake Michigan in Porter County as a reason why this march is important.

"We need stronger local organizations and regulations" he said.

According to the Peoples Climate March website, peoplesclimate.org, the march will take place in Washington and many sister cities across the country on the 100th day of the Trump Administration and "will show the world and U.S. leaders that the marchers will resist attacks on the country's people, its communities and the planet.

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"We will bring our solutions to the climate crisis, the problems that affect our communities and the threats to peace to our leaders in Congress to demand action," the website states.

The website states that people are marching to advance solutions to the climate crisis and protect the right to clean air, water, land, healthy communities and a world at peace, among other issues.

Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

March Saturday in Highland

What: People's Climate March

When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 29

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Where: Main Square Park, 3000 Highway Ave., Highland

Admission: Free, but donations of potable water, NSF-53 water filters and monetary donations for the East Chicago lead crisis will be accepted.

About: Speakers on climate change and its effects, children's activities and informational booths featuring local organizations.
Jessie Renslow, with Gary's Miller Spotlight, offers grant priority suggestions for the Lake Michigan Coastal Program during a public meeting Wednesday at the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk. (Amy Lavalley / Post-Tribune)

An array of community organizations and others interested in environmental preservation got to have a say in shaping project priorities for the Lake Michigan Coastal Program.

The ideas, written on large white pads of paper during an input session held Wednesday at the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk, will help determine 2018 grant funding priorities, said Mike Molnar, the coastal program's project manager.

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The coastal program, part of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, serves as a pass-through for the grant money, which comes through the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"This year it's approximately $600,000" in grant funding, Molnar said. "For 2018, we're not sure. We're waiting on Congressional action on the budget."

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Funding for the projects goes to county and municipal governments in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties, as well as non-profits and other organizations, said Maggie Byrne, grant specialist for the program, who ran the input session for the Coastal Advisory Board and community members. The funds are provided on a 50-50 match with the recipient.

Projects are considered in six categories, including education/outreach and low-cost construction.

"We are here to improve the quality of water that goes into Lake Michigan," she said, adding projects can include creating access points to natural resources and preserving those of historic value.

Projects that have received funding include the Marquette Park Plan in Gary, work in downtown Hobart, and the coastal portion of a drainage study for Porter County.

After the presentation portion of the meeting, Jessie Renslow of Gary's Miller Spotlight took a blue marker in hand to list matters involving handicap accessibility under "emerging issues" for potential projects.

"We're advocates for universally designed amenities for the lakefront and actually getting to the water," she said, adding her organization also has an emphasis on aging in place and older populations often have mobility issues that prevent them from making their way across the sand to the water.

"Our goal is to get people to Lake Street Beach."

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Leticia Munguia, left, drills Karina Navarro as she prepares to take the U.S. citizenship test next month. (Carole Calson / Post-Tribune)

Angela Fonseca came to the United States six years ago from Jalisco, Mexico. Since then, she married and is now the mother of two.

She's here legally on a green card, but she's been unhinged about her future since President Donald Trump took office in January and began signing travel ban orders that barred even some legal residents from entering the country. Two federal judges have blocked the bans, for now.

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For the past year, Fonseca been studying English and learning American history at the Neighbors Educational Opportunities adult education program in Portage.

"It's very scary for me even though I have a green card," said Fonseca. "I don't want to be deported. I'm stressed  I want to live here. My kids were born here."

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Since Trump won election last year, however, attendance in the citizenship and English language classes that aided Fonseca has declined, officials say.

They speculate they're losing students because of fears raised by Trump who's called Mexicans "rapists" and vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border.

Northwest Indiana's declining numbers appear to mirror a national trend. Rebecca Reiner, NEO executive director, said her teachers have observed the dramatic enrollment decline of dozens of students.

"Many of our students are documented, but there's still an irrational fear," she said. "Sometimes it's justified  We're very proactive in providing a safe haven for those students."

Rosella Garcia, coordinator of English language classes at the Lake County Public Library in Merrillville, said enrollment is at a record low. "I don't know where they vanished to and I don't know what's going on, but it's concerning."

The library offers four English classes, based on proficiency, Monday through Wednesday.

When a new advanced class began earlier this month, Garcia said there were just five students. "We usually have as many as 12."

No one showed up for the U.S. citizenship course that began April 4. Over the years, Garcia said the library has served students from 72 different countries in the past.

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"There's something going on and that's obvious  it's upsetting to me," said Garcia who's overseen the program for 10 years. "Libraries have always been a safe place for people in the community and everyone is welcome to materials."

She said students aren't asked for documentation to take any of the classes.

"If you're just coming to attend programs, it's not necessary. We have no federal funding. Volunteers teach the classes," Garcia said.

MeLisa Crisler, NEO adult education coordinator, said its English language and citizenship class enrollment has dropped from about 170 to 72. She said students typically come from Portage, Lake Station, Hobart, and New Chicago.

English teacher Amelia Boggess said she doesn't ask her students if they're citizens or not. "Sometimes, there's a fear of being more exposed. The fear is very real the way things are now."

Geoffrey Herren, an attorney and Valparaiso University School of Law faculty member who supervises the school's Immigration Clinic, said he's not surprised at the decline.

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"There's reason to be concerned. In January, the president implemented a travel ban, which on its face even implicated green card holders," he said. "It's not irrational for people to be afraid."

Some students, already in the education pipeline, are stepping up their efforts. Leticia Munguia who teaches NEO's citizenship course, said the exam involves 10 questions covering government, economics, civil rights and more. Students study more than 100 questions to be ready.

Nelly Pantoja and Karina Navarro, both of Portage, are in the citizenship class now, preparing to take the test in May. They're drilled by Munguia with flashcards asking them, for example, to name two cabinet-level positions or the U.S. president during World War I.

Pantoja, who works in a packaging factory, said she's been the object of taunts and slurs since Trump's victory.

"I am still proud of this country. We are home," she said.

Navarro came here seven years ago to visit family members. She met her husband in Chicago and they have two children, ages 5 and 3. "My babies, my husband, this is my country," she said solemnly.

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Meanwhile, Fonseca passed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services examination on April 11. She will soon take the oath, joining her husband as a U.S. citizen.

"I do this for my kids," she said.

Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

Forum with Mexican consulate April 29

Neighbors Educational Opportunities is offering a forum in conjunction with the consulate general of Mexico, based in Chicago, from 10 a.m. to noon on April 29. The school is located at 5201 U.S. 6 in Portage.

The program will offer information about services available and answer questions about documentation and protection.
Assorted Gary municipal officials will spend the next couple of months studying a proposal by a suburban Chicago-based trucking company that says it would like to relocate its operations to Gary.

The Gary Redevelopment Commission on Wednesday approved a letter of intent with HMD Trucking, which has been based in southwest suburban Chicago Ridge since 1998.

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Company officials earlier this month made a presentation about their desires to the Redevelopment Commission, expressing interest in locating to 1350 Texas St. That location falls within a tax increment finance district the city has and would qualify the company for some tax breaks.

But Wednesday's 4-0 vote, which was taken without any questions by the Redevelopment Commission, in favor of the letter of intent is far from the final vote that city officials will take.

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The Redevelopment Commission will still have to review the company's proposal, as will the city's Economic Development commission, the Zoning Board of Appeals and the full Common Council.

"This is just a letter of intent, it is not legally binding," said Redevelopment Commission Director Joseph Van Dyk.

Attorney Jimmy Shanahan said the review process likely would take two to three months to complete. "We'll fully vet this proposal," he said, adding that based on the initial review, "This (company) could be a good prospect for the city."

In other business, the Redevelopment Commission approved two contracts related to asbestos removal from Gary structures.

One contract was awarded to The Harbor Group Inc. to conduct asbestos-related inspections and testing at various locations throughout the city. The company will be paid $272 per site.

Meanwhile, Industrial Insulation Solution Inc., will be paid $55,000 for the asbestos abatement work they will do at the former Calumet Township building, 21-39 E. 5th Ave. Both firms beat out two other companies for the low bid.

The Redevelopment Commission also awarded three contracts for the disposal of materials related to demolition projects across the city  although each of those contracts were awarded to lone bidders with no competition.

Gary Material Supply LLC was given contracts for concrete disposal and supply and hauling of backfill material, while Republic Services of Crown Point was given a contract for construction and demolition debris disposal services.

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Republic Services will be paid $33 per ton, while Gary Material Supply will be paid $55 per load for concrete, $125 per load for sand and $225 per load for top soil.

Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Gary officials are working with attorneys who specialize in immigration law to create a "welcoming city" ordinance to protect non-U.S. citizens from harassment.

"We're doing this for humanitarian reasons. It's not right to harass people because of their (immigration) status," said Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, D-1st.

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She is working with the city's law department as well as the law firm of Burke, Costanza & Carberry, based in Merrillville, to ensure any ordinance complies with federal law and would be similar to measures in several Chicago-area municipalities, including Oak Park and Evanston.

The ordinance could be introduced when the Gary Common Council meets again on May 3.

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Attorney Alfredo Estrada said the intent is to create a measure identifying Gary as sympathetic to noncitizens without getting into the politically partisan hassle of a "sanctuary city" declaration, as the Trump administration has threatened to cut federal funding to cities making one.

In sanctuary cities, local law enforcement officials are prohibited from providing information to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. In welcoming cities, a locally appointed person reviews each request by federal officials for information to determine if providing it would harm someone whose immigration status is uncertain.

Dave Ray, a communications director for the Washington-based Federation of American Immigration Reform, said he considers the idea of a welcoming city ordinance "in spirit, and probably in practice, a violation of federal law."

He said sanctuary cities are considered a "doctrine of noncooperation" by immigration officials and believes welcoming cities could be construed similarly.

Ray said local law enforcement officers often are not qualified to make judgment calls on what constitutes an immigration law violation, which is why all information should be turned over to federal officials.

"They are the ones who can decide what truly is a violation of the law," he said.

Estrada said a welcoming city ordinance would keep municipalities in compliance with federal law, thereby protecting the funds they get from the federal government. And, he said, it would encourage people to cooperate with police who might otherwise fear deportation.

"Right now, we have people who are afraid to report if they are crime victims," he said, adding that cooperation could result in steps toward legal status for some individuals.

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Indianapolis already has welcoming city status, and officials in Valparaiso earlier this year held a march to declare themselves a "welcoming community" for immigrants.

Estrada said he and his colleagues are working with several Northwest Indiana municipalities on similar ordinances. He said Gary was the first Lake County community approached.

Wyatt said she is discussing the issue with her Common Council colleagues to gauge support and is not aware of opposition.

Such an ordinance fits in with the historic character of Gary, she said, adding, "This city was created by newcomers to this country who were in search of a better life."

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said she agrees with the idea that local law enforcement should not be getting too involved in the enforcement of federal immigration law.

"Our local police shouldn't be used as a surrogate for immigration officials," the mayor said. "We want to follow the law."

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Freeman-Wilson thinks the "best solution" is for a comprehensive review of immigration law, which was the direction that former President Barack Obama sought but was thwarted in by Congress.

Corey Elliot, a spokesman for the Indiana attorney general's office, said the state has not considered the welcoming city concept specifically.

"There have not been any recent discussions on this issue," he said.

Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Pieces of crumbling concrete were reported by a Highland resident near the bike path Wednesday, April 19, 2017, on Kennedy Avenue at Ridge Road in Highland. (Joe Puchek / Post-Tribune)

Concrete falling from the Ridge Road bridge over the town's bike path at Kennedy Avenue in Highland probably doesn't mean it's going to collapse, but the town isn't taking chances.

Highland Public Works workers, along with workers from the Lake County Highway Department, fenced off the area at Ridge Road and Kennedy and swept concrete chunks over to the side Wednesday, Highland Public Works Director John Bach said. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be any imminent catastrophe looming, Bach said, though falling concrete is clearly dangerous.

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"It's a serious situation," Bach said. "What appears to have happened is water has thinned out the concrete and rusted the rebar in the columns, causing the concrete to crack and fall. But these are just small pieces.

"No one's concerned that the bridge is going to collapse."

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Nevertheless, Bach called Lake County Highway engineer Duane Alverson, who's expected to have engineers from the Indiana Department of Transportation visit to assess the damage and make a recommendation, Bach said.

"We want to make sure there's no structural damage," Bach said.

If there is, any cost and repairs would fall to Lake County because Ridge Road is under its purview, Bach said.

Highland resident Sheri Graegin noticed the concrete had fallen Tuesday on her way back from a doctor's appointment.

"I live two blocks from there, so I use that bridge or go under it at least 50 times a week," Graegin said. "My husband dropped me off at my appointment, and I thought I'd walk back because it was so nice out. When I saw the concrete, I took pictures and called the town."

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. Whether that section of Ridge Road is among them wasn't immediately available.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Hobart school officials will share their improvements plan called "Vision 2020" at a series of forums, beginning Monday, at Ridge View Elementary.

The school board is weighing the adoption of a capital projects referendum that is estimated at $40 to $45 million.

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Residents will learn the impact the proposals could have on their tax bills at the forums.

The proposed improvements include the construction of a new elementary school at the site of the former Mundell school at 52 N. Wisconsin St. If the new school is built, the district would close and sell Ridge View, at 3333 W. Ridge Road.

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Or the board could make upgrades at Ridge View. It's estimated the school, built in 1959, needs nearly $6 million worth of improvements, including a new roof, four new classrooms that are accessible to disabled students and a variety of mechanical upgrades.

Another key part of the proposal is the addition of a swimming pool at Hobart High School.

The state deleted the pool from the district's original high school plan in 2006.

Superintendent Peggy Buffington has said no decisions will be made until input is gathered from the public.

The board is also studying a separate general fund referendum officials say is needed because of revenue-limiting property tax caps made permanent by the state in 2010. Taxes from referendums are collected over a seven-year period.

In 2020, previously exempted school debt will become subject to the tax caps. Many districts across Lake County are bracing for the loss of funding. The biggest impact is expected in the transportation and capital projects funds.

The school board could opt to hold special referendums in November or wait until the primary in May, 2018. If it decides on November, the board needs to hold a public hearing and obtain 500 signatures in June to get the measure on the ballot.

Some board members have voiced support for a new school, citing energy efficiency and technological advances.

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Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

.

Forum schedule

Monday  Ridge View: 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Tuesday  Liberty Elementary: 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Wednesday  Hobart High School: 6 p.m.

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Thursday  Joan Martin Elementary: 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

May 1 - Early Learning Center: 9:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Earl Ross, left, and Kathryn McCabe, employees of Applied Ecological Services, move some branches of invasive shrubs and trees as part of the Hobart Marsh wetland mitigation project. (Karen Caffarini / Post-Tribune)

The Hobart Marsh wetland mitigation project is returning about 350 acres on the city's northwest side to its native habitat where eventually there will be trails and space for hunting.

A groundbreaking ceremony is set for 11:30 a.m. Monday, April 24, at 53rd Avenue and Liverpool Road in Hobart, but work actually began on the five-year project in mid-January, according to Brad Gaskin, quality control manager for Applied Ecological Services, which was hired to do the work.

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"This has been a long time coming," said Sandy O'Brien, resident and Friends of Robinson Lake member, at a recent park board meeting.

Robinson Lake Park is in the center of the marsh.

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"It will be a real great thing for Hobart to have trails and there will be hunting grounds for hunters, too," O'Brien said, referring to some of the amenities included in a comprehensive master plan for the Hobart Marsh area.

These amenities are not part of the work being done now, Gaskin said.

The mitigation is required to offset wetland impacts associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Little Calumet River flood control project. Funded by the federal government and administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the mitigation will restore native plants and surface hydrology.

Gaskin said the major restoration work will be done in the first two years, with the following three years mostly maintenance.

Earl Ross, an employee of Applied Ecological Services, applies an herbicide to kill off some invasive shrubs along Mississippi Street in Hobart as part of the Hobart Marsh wetland mitigation project. (Karen Caffarini / Post-Tribune)

Last week, a three-person crew worked in a former farm field on Mississippi Street, near 53rd. One person was cutting down invasive species of brush and trees, one dragging them away to be burned and another applying an herbicide to kill what remained of the unwanted plant life.

"This will be a mesic/wet savanna on what was a soybean field," Gaskin said of the property that lies parallel to Interstate 65 and that the DNR had been leasing to a local farmer. It will have 40 percent grasses, 40 percent forbs (leafy, fleshy plants) and 20 percent different species of milkweed.

"It will be pretty close to what would have been here," he said..

The site is one of 10 on the northwest side where mitigation work will be done. All are owned by the DNR, according to Gaskin.

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Another employee was working across I-65, removing invasive brush with a rotary mower instead of by hand. Gaskin was headed to another parcel to build larger piles of brush to be burned.

All hawthorn trees were being removed from the area, while oak, hickory and savanna trees will remain, he said.

Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
CORVALLIS  A 27-year-old Corvallis man has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found Monday evening on private timberland near Alsea.

William Chase Hargrove was arrested Wednesday night and booked into the Benton County Jail on Thursday morning, according to the Benton County Sheriff's Office. Hargrove pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder during his arraignment hearing Thursday afternoon before Benton County Circuit Court Judge Eveleen Henry.

At Thursday's arraignment assistant district attorney Amie Matusko called the case "a problematic love triangle." Hargrove, she said, was living with two women two different households and one of them gave him an ultimatum "her or me, and the defendant decided."

Hargrove then lured the victim into the woods and "she was found shot dead in the back of her head, execution-style."

Hargrove, who was denied bail, is being represented by court-appointed attorney Mike Flinn. A preliminary hearing in the case has been set for 1 p.m. April 27 before Judge David B. Connell.

Here is how the case has unfolded:

Dispatchers received a call from the security representative of a lumber company at around 5 p.m. Monday that a woman's body had been found in a wooded area about five miles outside of Alsea, a small Coast Range community. Deputies and detectives responding to the scene found a white woman, believed to be in her early to mid-20s, dead from an apparent gunshot wound.

Undersheriff Greg Ridler of the Benton County Sheriffs Office said Thursday morning that the victim had been tentatively identified, but a positive identification had not been made and next of kin had not yet been notified.

"These efforts may take several days, and until the proper notifications have been made, no further information will be released on the victim," Ridler said in a press release. "The investigation of the murder has been difficult. The investigation will continue and additional evidence is being examined."

Ridler declined to comment on whether additional arrests would be made in the case and would not comment on the specifics of the circumstances that led investigators to make the arrest. He also declined to comment on the weapon used in the killing. He previously said that the incident was being investigated as a gunshot wound and that no weapon was found near the site that would be consistent with the victims injuries.

The investigation is ongoing," Ridler said. "Additional charges are being considered. We have lots of things to follow up on and were going to continue doing that.

Ridler said it might be a week or two before the investigation is complete.

Benton County Sheriff's Office personnel set up a temporary command post Tuesday at a timber landing several miles up a rugged logging road west of Alsea, before leaving the site Tuesday afternoon. Ridler said Thursday that investigators had not returned to the scene since Tuesday.

Authorities have not released the exact location where the woman's body was found but have confirmed that the body was found on Weyerhaeuser property. Weyerhaeuser owns a large amount of timberland in the Alsea area, much of it interspersed in a checkerboard pattern with tracts owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

Located about 25 miles southwest of Corvallis on Highway 34, Alsea is an unincorporated community of about 165 people. The surrounding hills are a patchwork of public and private timber tracts connected by a maze of gravel logging roads.

The investigation involved a coordinated effort including the Benton County District Attorney's Office, the Corvallis Police Department, the Philomath Police Department, Oregon State Police, the Albany Police Department, FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice.
Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey continues to push for a drug death analyst to collect information on the demographics and circumstances around overdoses to help get a handle on the factors behind the opioid issues in Northwest Indiana. (Craig Lyons / Post-Tribune)

The Lake County coroner plans to continue pushing for a drug death analyst to collect a wide swath of data on overdoses.

Coroner Merrilee Frey said she is not deterred by a lack of support from the Lake County Council regarding her need for an analyst, who would be responsible for collecting information on the demographics and circumstances around overdoses to help get a handle on the factors behind the opioid issues in Northwest Indiana.

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"I would say we are on pace to have 150 to 200 deaths this year. Next year it will be even higher," Frey said, adding that the national opioid epidemic is expected to get worse in the coming years and the steps toward prevention must be taken. In the first three and a half months of the year, 48 people have died from opioid overdoses in Lake County.

The data analyst is only a part of the Prescription for Action Plan the county approved in March. Frey said she plans to bring the position back to the council in May for reconsideration.

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Sheriff John Buncich said the drug epidemic in Lake County is destroying the lives of people and their families and it's important to put programs in place that can help deter those deaths.

"We've got to do everything we possibly can," Buncich said.

County Council member Eldon Strong, R-Crown Point, who led the effort to defeat Frey's request in a 4-3 vote to deny, said he is willing to listen to the coroner's proposal again with an open mind.

"At the same time, I will vote against anything I think is a waste of taxpayer dollars and anything that I feel is redundant," Strong said.

Strong called the position a duplication of services already provided by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force.

HIDTA provides historical data on drug overdose deaths, according to the coroner's office. The report that will be released in 2017 will provide information from the 2016 fiscal year ending in June 2016.

HIDTA primarily deals with coroners to get information about the death rate, said Indiana HIDTA Executive Director Chuck Porucznik, and assess what types of substances are contributing to deaths in Indiana.

"We use that for our threat assessment," Porucznik said, which is then compiled into an annual report.

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The threat assessment is used to see what substances, whether heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, are causing the most issues in Indiana, Porucznik said.

Buncich said a threat assessment only goes so far.

"We need an action plan right now," Buncich said.

Buncich said he's working with the coroner to work on prevention, education and enforcement efforts to tackle the drug addiction problems, as the numbers of overdose deaths continue to increase each year.

"It's becoming epidemic proportions," Buncich said. "When it hits home like this, something's got to be done."

The data Frey seeks extends beyond the number of opioid overdose deaths recorded in the county.

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The information collected will include whether the victim had been incarcerated or was on probation or parole, and if they were, whether they ultimately were released into a treatment program. Data will include ages and locations of individuals who overdose. In the case of individuals using prescription opioids, it will include the physician or physicians who were prescribing the medications.

"For every overdose death case, we can do more," Frey said. Currently, overdose death cases, once complete, are filed away, and the data is not used in an effective way to work toward prevention.

Porucznik said prevention and education are important parts of dealing with the opioid issue.

"We're not going to arrest our way out of this problem," Porucznik said.

In the Northeast, one HIDTA developed a heroin response symposium that brought together law enforcement and members of the medical community to share information on overdoses, drug supply and prevention, Porucznik said.

"That's kind of new," Porucznik said. "It hasn't spread to us yet."

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Porucznik said a key question about Frey's program is how the information will get shared with other agencies and service providers. That's what is happening in the Northeast, he said, and information gathered is being used for prevention efforts.

Frey said the issue of substance abuse is very personal to her.

"I personally had a family member who went through this. What I can say to people is there is hope," Frey said, adding that her family member has successfully been in treatment and been drug-free for two years.

While the council temporarily halted Frey's plan to hire an analyst, she continues to build the foundation for collecting that information.

Frey said she has been in contact with the Indiana State Department of Health, which plans to partner with the coroner's office to create the database she needs to track opioid overdoses and fatalities in real time in the county.

Due to the Department of Health participation, Frey said she is revising the job description for the analyst to an input position since the database already will be created. She said when the program gets off the ground, her office will be able to report data in real time to the sheriff's department on a weekly basis.

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The partnership will be a pilot program for the state.

The database also will include information gathered from local hospitals about nonfatal opioid overdoses. Frey said she has been trying to get the local hospitals on board but has had difficulty due to patient privacy concerns. The Department of Health has access to the needed data once it is entered into the hospital system, without compromising the patient's privacy.

Collecting information on overdoses is an important piece of understanding the situation, the sheriff said.

"It can only help," Buncich said.

Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

clyons@post-trib.com

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Twitter @craigalyons
Jeff Coggins, president of American Greyhound in Valparaiso, with Pang Pang, a 5-month-old greyhound recently rescued from China, which has an infamous dog meat industry. (Jeff Coggins / Provided by Jeff Coggins)

The dog's name is Pang Pang.

The 5-month-old male greyhound was born in Beijing, China, where it could have become a victim of that country's infamous dog meat industry and been destined for human consumption.

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One day after its mother was rescued from such a fate, it gave birth to Pang Pang (pronounced Ping Ping) and three other puppies.

Although our country views dogs as pets and considers canines as trusted companions, millions of Chinese people view them as their next meal. It's as much a cultural thing to them as it is a cruel thing to us.

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More than 10 million of the estimated 30 million dogs slaughtered for human consumption worldwide each year are from China, according to the Humane Society International. The majority of these dogs are stolen pets or strays from the street; some are first poisoned for an easier capture.

According to the Humane Society's website: "Hundreds of animals at a time are crammed together in cages and driven  sometimes for days  to their deaths. They are often sick or injured, and many die from shock, suffocation, dehydration or heatstroke long before they reach their destination. Those who survive the journey face a brutal and terrifying ordeal: being beaten to death or, sometimes, even boiled alive at a slaughterhouse or market."

I'm not a dog lover or a pets person, but this ghastly description caught even my attention. I rarely write about animals as pets, even cute and cuddly puppies, though I know such topics would be popular with readers.

Nothing sells newspapers, or attracts social media attention, more than a heartwarming story about a puppy.

Then I heard about Pang Pang and his possible fate if not for kind-hearted people in Northwest Indiana and determined rescue organizations around the world.

One of these organizations is American Greyhound/Great Lakes Inc. The 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization rescues racing greyhounds from tracks and farms, and then provides necessary veterinary work, foster home care and finally an adoptive home for them to spend their life as a family pet.

The group's president, Jeff Coggins, was contacted last month by Steve Anderson from the Duo Duo Project, providing assistance and support to activists in China fighting the dog meat trade. Anderson told Coggins there was a greyhound in China who needed a home and asked whether Coggins' group was interested.

"Of course, the answer was 'yes,' " Coggins said.

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Pang Pang was being fostered by a German family in Beijing, but because of strict laws about ownership of large dogs in that city, the pup needed a place to go. And it needed to go somewhere very soon due to complaints from neighbors.

Coggins' and Anderson's groups began putting together a rescue flight for Pang Pang.

"Leaving Tracks Inc., a not-for-profit whose mission is to support greyhound rescue and adoption agencies, like American Greyhound, generously offered to raise funds to cover his transportation to America," Coggins wrote on the group's website.

On March 31, Pang Pang arrived at O'Hare International Airport. The pup was greeted by Coggins and other group members, as well as Joyce and Michael Altman from Leaving Tracks.

"This resilient little guy popped right out of his shipping crate like the trip had been no sweat at all for him," Coggins recalled.

Pang Pang displayed "Houdini-like" escape traits in China, but not since he arrived in this area.

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Pang Pang was introduced the next evening at American Greyhound's seventh annual Winning Hearts, Not Races benefit auction. To this day, this organization hosts some of the best fundraisers in this area, something I experienced firsthand a few years ago despite my apathy for dogs.

"Everyone, obviously, wanted to get a look at him, pet him and get a photo," Coggins said.

Such hands-on experiences have a way of personalizing abstract or distant notions such as a "dog meat industry." The phrase revolts even me, though I understand the cultural aspect and sustenance necessity behind it.

Otherwise, this industry remains something that doesn't seem to affect our pampered lives, protected pets or our conscience.

Several organizations are working in countries like China to curb and end the "grisly dog meat trade," as the Humane Society describes it. "We participate in raids on trucks crammed with dogs headed for slaughter," its website states.

In China, these organizations are battling to end the country's annual Dog Meat Festival in Yulin. Yes, a dog meat festival. Don't be too judgmental. A rising number of vegans and vegetarians in this country have similar judgments against a bacon festival. It's all about relativity and cultural sensibilities.

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"By drawing the attention of governments and the public to the cruelty involved in this dog meat industry, we hope to put a stop to the misery these dogs endure," the Humane Society states.

Pang Pang is in foster care, safe and sound, in Valparaiso.

"From there, he'll find his forever home and live a long, healthy life, completely clueless as to what his fate may have been," Coggins said.

This is what attracted me to this issue and to this realization. Pang Pang gets a pass on being clueless. People don't. (I'm still trying to learn this in my own home, which came with a pug dog I barely tolerate.)

People shouldn't be as clueless about such global issues, especially when they get educated by localized stories such as Pang Pang's rescue.

"We have learned a great deal about the dog meat trade by our association with Pang Pang," Coggins said.

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American Greyhound, he admits, won't make even a dent against the dog meat trade. "But what we can do is raise awareness to what's going on and to provide support, like taking in Pang Pang, to those groups in China that are making a difference," he said.

If you now want to make a difference, you can thank Pang Pang for educating you.

Making a doggone difference

For more info, call Coggins at 219-771-0892, email him at president@americangreyhound.org or go to www.americangreyhound.org, www.leavingtracks.org/index.html, or www.duoduoproject.org.

Before you support any group claiming to be working to end the dog meat trade in Asia, Coggins suggests first contacting Steve Anderson at sjalar@sbcglobal.net to avoid scam organizations.

jdavich@post-trib.com

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This video posted on social media shows Dr. David Dao being dragged from a United Airlines flight from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to Louisville, Ky., on April 9, 2017. (Jayse D. Anspach) (Jayse D. Anspach)

Will the recent incident regarding United Airlines prompt passengers to become more emboldened aboard commercial flights?

Nick Popovich believes it's possible.

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"Once again I fear we have lost sight of the real issue," Popovich told me.

Unlike many of us, Popovich is not merely a casual observer or even a frequent flier. Earlier this year, the Valparaiso businessman was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation, joining people such as Buzz Aldrin and Frank Borman, at a ceremony featuring several high-flying celebrities including John Travolta and Harrison Ford.

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He watched with special interest the high-profile April 9 incident involving Dr. David Dao, 69, of Kentucky, who was violently dragged off a United flight by Chicago Aviation Department security officers. As you have likely watched by now, cellphone videos captured the disturbing incident, prompting public outrage and corporate backpedaling by United officials.

Popovich (Post-Tribune / Provided by Nick Popovich)

Since then, we've received a crash-course education on airline flight "overbooking," and also how major corporations should avoid similar public relations nose dives. But there's a bigger picture to see here from a bird's-eye view. Not from a passenger's point of view but from a wider lens of introspection.

"All this incident is going to do is provide others the basis to refuse following uniformed crew members' instructions, put us all in danger and cause repeated delays," he said.

"I know my position is not popular, but aviation safety is paramount to who I am and what I do. An aircraft has but one master. He sits in the front of the aircraft in the left seat, he has several deputies on board to assist him, and they have to maintain control at all times," Popovich said.

Yes, this is an outspoken contrarian's point of view, but it's one we should consider before this issue fades.

Popovich is president of Sage-Popovich Inc., which began performing repossessions of commercial aircraft in 1979. The company, based in Valparaiso, was featured a few years ago with the Discovery Channel reality show "Airplane Repo."

"Air service is not what it once was, we all agree on that," Popovich said. "There are many reasons for that. Sad to say, the glory days of aviation are behind us."

Pilots are no longer considered to be heroes, passengers no longer dress up as if they're attending a gala, in-flight meals are a delicious rumor, and flight attendants must routinely deal with consistent complaints about "flying these days."

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"The glamour is all gone," Popovich said.

Yes, glamour is the last word passengers would use to describe air travel today. Still, it wouldn't be fair to describe it with the possibility of being dragged off for refusing to leave a flight after doing nothing wrong.

Or, as Popovich believes, Dao did do something wrong by not agreeing to leave the flight when asked, then ordered, then physically removed.

"When you are on a commercial airliner, federal law requires that you follow the instructions of the crew members," he said. "This is for the safety of everyone."

"The doctor had several opportunities to peacefully walk off the aircraft and reserve the right to challenge the airline and crew's actions at a later date," Popovich said.

We know why this scenario hasn't happened. United instead has been doing whatever it can to restore its badly damaged public image and its "friendly skies" corporate branding. Plus, Dao is filing a lawsuit against the airline and likely will receive an unannounced settlement long after we forget about this incident.

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I contacted the Federal Aviation Administration to address Popovich's undeniably plausible perspective. The federal agency deferred to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and its Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings began its initial review of United Airlines Express Flight 3411 on April 10, I was told.

"The Department remains committed to ensuring that airlines comply with consumer protection regulations and will not speculate during the review process on this matter," states a release shared with me by spokeswoman Caitlin Harvey.

The release, though, included several interesting points regarding such incidents.

"When a flight is oversold, the Department of Transportation requires the carrier to ask passengers to give up their seats voluntarily (voluntary bumping), in exchange for compensation, before bumping anyone involuntarily," it states.

"If there are not enough passengers who are willing to give up their seats voluntarily, an airline may involuntarily deny boarding to passengers based on criteria. However, the criteria cannot subject a passenger to any unjust or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage. For example, an airline could not lawfully use a passenger's race or ethnicity as a criterion."

Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

The incident with Dao, who is Vietnamese, also has sparked claims of ethnic discrimination.

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Dao could have simply (and peacefully) agreed to deplane, accept his tidy compensation and reschedule his life, as three other passengers did. And as I would have done, as well as probably you too. He chose not to.

Did the security guards overreact in a violent and unnecessary way? You bet. But there are two sides to every story, and to every passenger.

From a broader perspective, this issue reflects the steady descent of our society, from the senseless escalation of this incident to the shameless spin-control afterward.

Sadly, we're all passengers on this turbulent flight with no option of voluntary bumping.

jdavich@post-trib.com

Twitter@jdavich
An old joke that circulated in the early days of computing told of theologians and computer programmers who teamed up to ask a computer, "Is there a God?" The computer sorted through its kilobytes and finally answered, "Insufficient data." Undaunted, the computer experts connected several computers, and later all the computers in the country, but still got the same answer. Finally, they linked all the computers in the world, fed in the question, and this time received the news, "There is now."

These days  with kilobytes having morphed into gigabytes and terabytes, and with half the souls on the planet walking about with more computer capability in their phones than that which guided America's lunar lander, and all those computers networked through social media  that old joke seems almost like a prophecy. If a deity is an omnipresent, all-knowing, and all-seeing entity, then a cyber-god hovers about us now, and only fools refuse to honor its presence and power.

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It can't answer prayers for healing, but it can tell you where to find your lost keys, guide you through an unfamiliar city, even let you reset the thermostat you forgot to adjust before leaving on vacation. It sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake, and if you think you can drag a ticketed passenger off an airplane without anyone knowing, think again, for goodness sake.

The latest shooting caught on a bystander's cellphone video camera, or some official's inappropriate remarks recorded similarly, along with a summary of the Tweeter in Chief's daily output of 140-character rants, lately seem to make up the bulk of our daily "news." Even the old-fashioned news agencies rely on social media to provide readers or viewers, and they all invite us social media consumers to "like" them. Purveyors and consumers alike, we're all devotees, or more truthfully, addicts.

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Like most things that grow into gods, social media began innocently enough, with My Space and Facebook providing college students a way to share photos and distribute kegger invitations. When geezers crashed the party and used these media for posting recipes and pictures of sunsets, cats, and grandkids, younger people moved on to newer, quicker media, but by now, all have been used for purposes far beyond the imaginations of those who launched them.

For every heartwarming story of people using social media to coordinate disaster relief, we hear a disheartening report about harassment or cyber-bullying that ends in a targeted child's suicide. Collectively, we have apparently hunkered down into social-media-driven news ghettos and exacerbated our nation's polarization crisis. Russians  and only the cyber-gods know who else  have toyed with our electoral process and spooked us almost as effectively as they once did with missiles and shoe-pounding. Something like a pair of last straws have landed within the past month, as young perpetrators broadcast a gang rape live on Facebook and another man posted video of a random, fatal shooting he carried out in order to let the world know the extent of his anger at an ex-girlfriend.

God gives wine to gladden human hearts and bread to strengthen them, says the Bible. Alcohol can also addict and wreak havoc. When we live to eat rather than eat to live, we kill ourselves. Humankind can ruin anything. At this point, however, we can no more outlaw social media over of its potential misuse than we can ban alcohol or creme brulee.

We'll find no easy answers, but we have learned helpful things about recovery from addictions that turn gifts into tyrannical gods. It begins with face time  eye to eye, not eye to screen.

Fred Niedner is senior research professor in theology at Valparaiso University.
What's Quickly? It's where readers sound off on the issues of the day. Have a quote, question or quip? Call Quickly at 312-222-2426 or email quickly@post-trib.com.

Once again, Andrean Theatre Company puts on a show that is better than the last. How you do it, I don't know, but every single show is better than the previous one. Awesome is an understatement for the performance of "Shrek The Musical." Andrean High School is where you need to be on Saturday at 7 p.m. and/or Sunday at 2 p.m. Seriously, it should be a crime to miss it.

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You know, it's never too late to be a better person.

What are the laws on firing a gun in a residential area. The last two days I have listened to someone very close to my home fire a gun of some sort  and I mean several times. It scares me because there are several homes very close. I hate to call the sheriff, but I do not intend to listen and be afraid to be outside this summer. If you want to shoot that badly, join the armed services because I am sure they will put a gun in your hand and sand on you shoes.

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No, Mr. Trump, our ships were far from the China Sea, headed the opposite direction, and certainly not an "armada." Your macho rhetoric, inflated claims and factual inaccuracies backfired. Nations expect better from a U.S. President. Did you miss your daily intelligence briefing?

Bill O'Reilly will meet with the president in the next week or two for a position in the White House. How nice to be rewarded for sexually harassing your co-workers.

Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

So this is another liberal ploy to get rid of conservatives. The Murdoch family needs to realize they will lose many viewers because of their move to oust Bill O'Reilly. But then like other liberals do we really tell the whole truth? The accused has a right to face his accusers. Isn't this the same tactic they pulled on Trump?

Now Donald Trump is "great friends" with Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007. Each day, Trump surpasses the idiocy of the day before.

How sad when the grown men in this administration have to blame the judges for getting in their way of governing.

Our classy and sophisticated president just hosted a dinner guest who once called his predecessor, Obama, a "subhuman mongrel." As if that's not enough, Trump and his band of brothers, and sister Sarah Palin, posed laughing and joking in front of a portrait of Hillary Clinton when she was first lady. These people are beyond contemptible.

I cannot believe there is not more of a revolt against this Indiana GOP movement to increase gas taxes and license fees to spend on state road construction. Indiana road construction is a mess with one work/three watch work rules. Fix this and we could get twice the bang for the buck. Then we would not need additional funding . If you want more funding, get it from liquor sales for a cold beer from a convenience store. These union and liquor store lobbyists are stealing money from us working Hoosiers.

To the person looking for one single Trump voter who can say their life is better since Trump has been elected, count me as one of many. My stress level to not waking up to see a Democrat President has disappeared and it was totally worth it! Do not regret even an iota voting for Trump. Signed, a proud veteran.

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Read more at www.post-trib.com/quickly.
George Sternisha talks about his uncle, Fireman First Class Michael Galajdik, who was killed aboard the USS Oklahoma in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Department of Defense began an effort to locate and identify his remains. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

More than 75 years after Michael Galajdik was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the sailor from Joliet will reach his final resting place in the southwest suburbs.

Galajdik, a Navy Fireman 1st Class, will be interred Saturday at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood. He was 25 when he was killed while aboard the USS Oklahoma during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by the Japanese military that thrust the United States into World War II.

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Crest Hill resident George Sternisha is escorting his uncle's body from Hawaii and is expected to arrive Friday in preparation for the Saturday funeral services in Joliet.

It is a ceremony that has been years in the making.

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"This was my mother's wish," Sternisha said Thursday from Hawaii. "I'm glad that I'm able to fulfill it."

His mother, Anna, had longed to bury her brother, but Navy officials could not positively identify his remains before she died in 1993. The first glimmer of hope that Sternisha's mother's wish would be fulfilled came in 2011, when Navy officials alerted Sternisha of their efforts to use DNA to identify the remains of 388 military personnel  including 18 from Illinois  killed at Pearl Harbor. Using DNA and dental records, the Navy in February finally was able to identify Galajdik's remains.

"I'm feeling closure," said Sternisha, a Marine with a Purple Heart from service in Vietnam. "It's been a long journey for me and my family."

A family picture of Fireman First Class Michael Galajdik provided by George Sternisha of Crest Hill on Dec. 5, 2016. Fireman First Class Michael Galajdik is among the servicemen whose remains the department is trying to locate and identify. The Department of Defense began an effort to identify the remains of sailors and Marines who were killed aboard the USS Oklahoma in the attack on Pearl Harbor. (family photo)

Joliet resident Ginger Schauer Dudek took to social media Wednesday asking people to honor Galajdik by lining the processional route from the funeral home to the church. By Thursday, her request had been shared more than 100 times and prompted calls from people who want to participate, she said.

"If it was my family, I would want a decent burial and nice closure," Dudek said. "You'd hate for the funeral procession going by with no one knowing who actually is there and what part he played in history."

She asked those who want to honor Galajdik to bring signs or flags and line the route along Plainfield Road in Joliet between Tezak Funeral Home and the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus from 10:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday.

"It's amazing that they would come out and show respect, support and honor," Sternisha said Thursday upon learning of the efforts to line the procession route and support his uncle.

Visitation at Tezak Funeral Home, 1211 Plainfield Road in Joliet, is scheduled from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The procession from the funeral home will conclude at Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus, 604 N. Raynor Ave. in Joliet, where a mass of Christian burial is scheduled for 11 a.m. Interment will follow at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, 20953 W. Hoff Road in Elwood, and will include full military honors.

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Dec. 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor newsreel footage: Seventy-five years ago this week, Japan surprised the world with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. (Department of Defense) (Handout)

Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter.
Why these young voters in Pueblo want to get more youth involved in voting
A 26-year-old Albany-area man died Monday morning in a two-vehicle crash near milepost 67 on Highway 58, about five miles west of Crescent Lake in Klamath County.

According to a news release, the Oregon State Police determined after a preliminary investigation that Alex Sergio Serrano's 2004 Subaru was traveling westbound on the icy highway when it slid into the eastbound lane and struck a 2016 Nissan SUV, impacting the Subaru's passenger side. Serrano was pronounced dead at the scene.

The SUV's driver, 51-year-old Duane Cary Sieg, along with passengers Kaelynn Keyes Sieg, 51, and Dylan Cole Sieg, 19, were transported with non-life-threatening injuries to the St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. One was taken by Air Link and the other two were transported by ambulance by the Crescent Lake Fire Department. All are from the La Pine area.

The Oregon State Police was assisted by Crescent Lake Fire Department, Air Link and the Oregon Department of Transportation. One lane of the highway was closed for about three hours. Restraints were used in both vehicles.

No further information is available at this time.
Our weekly round up of other news affecting foreign investors throughout Asia:

Business Process Outsourcing in the Philippines

The Philippines BPO Sector contributes nine percent of the countrys GDP. Learn more about the opportunities and challenges facing the Philippines BPO industry as it continues to register positive growth in 2017.

The Waste Management Industry in India: Investment Opportunities

India generates roughly 62 million tons of garbage a year, and Indias waste management sector is expected to be worth US$13.62 billion by 2025. In part one of a three part series, this article uncovers the regulations governing waste management in India and opportunities for private sector participation.

Russia Wants 50% of Economy Based on Entrepreneurial SMEs

Russias Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has stated in a report to the State Duma that he wishes the Russian economy to be driven by SMEs, stating that Small enterprises currently account for a little under 20% of the countrys economy. This figure should be at least 50%, as in other developed economies.

Iran Looks to Create Persian Gulf  Black Sea Trade Corridor

Iran has again expressed keen interest in developing a trade corridor between the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea. In this article, we talk about some of the leading geopolitical actors involved, including China, Pakistan, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

Vietnams GDP Forecast to Grow at 6.5% in 2017

Vietnams GDP is forecast to grow by 6.5 percent in 2017 and at 6.7 percent in 2018, according to the 2017 Asian Development Banks Outlook report. Read more to learn which industries are primed for investment and to understand the macroeconomic conditions driving them.



About Us Our Briefing updates are written by and provided by the various regional offices of Dezan Shira & Associates throughout Asia. To obtain a complimentary subscription to Asia Briefing please click here. To contact Dezan Shira & Associates concerning foreign investment and assistance in Asia, please email us at asia@dezshira.com

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 ASEAN 2017

Doing Business in ASEAN introduces the fundamentals of investing in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, concentrating on economics, trade, corporate establishment and taxation. We also include the latest development news in our Important Updates section for each country, with the intent to provide an executive assessment of the varying component parts of ASEAN, assessing each member state and providing the most up-to-date economic and demographic data on each.

An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017

Doing Business in China 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in January 2017, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Hong Kong 2017

Doing Business in China 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in January 2017, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in India. As such, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Indian market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to stay up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Singapore 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in Singapore 2017 provides readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Singapore and outlines the citys role as a trading hub within ASEAN. The guide explains the basics of company establishment, annual compliance, taxation, human resources, and social insurance in the city-state.

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.
Morocco's leading TV channel 2M started on Thursday airing a Chinese series dubbed into Arabic.

The launching ceremony of the series "A Happy Life" was chaired by Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Mohammed Ghazali, the secretary general of Morocco's Ministry of Communication and Culture.

On this occasion, the Director General of China Radio International (CRI) Wang Gengnian and the Director General of 2M Salim el-Sheikh inked an agreement on broadcasting Chinese series and movies on the Moroccan channel.

Wang said the agreement comes to reinforce the cooperation between Chinese and Moroccan media, noting that this cooperation has been ongoing at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and through the exchange of visits between media officials in the two countries.

He stressed that CRI has established a strong and long-standing cooperation with various African media, adding that these media have aired throughout the years numerous Chinese series and movies in their local languages and were warmly welcomed.

He vowed to set with Moroccan media another successful example in the historical cultural exchange between the two countries.

On his part, el-Sheikh said the agreement builds another bridge between the cultures of the two countries, adding that through these series and movies the Moroccan public will get to know more about Chinese drama.

He said that he hopes to boost relations between the Moroccan and Chinese media.
Arend F. van Peer (Top) practices with his master Lin Zaipei the Dog Kung Fu in Fuzhou, capital of southeast China's Fujian Province, April 18, 2017. Arend, 39, was from the Netherlands. He and his wife Khingeeva Tatyana came to China in October 2013. Besides doing research and teaching as a professor at a laboratory in School of Life Sciences in Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Arend was a fan of Chinese martial arts. As students of Kung Fu master Lin Zaipei, Arend and his wife learned the Dishuquan, which is also known as the Dog Kung Fu, one of the most popular martial arts styles in Fujian Province and a national intangible cultural heritage. They went to the martial art club every week to practice with Dog Kung Fu lovers from all over the world. Arend said that learning Chinese Kung Fu has been his dream since childhood. He invited Chinese Kung Fu masters, including his master Lin, to the Netherlands for culture exchange. "Arend has mastered a series of skills of Dog Kung Fu and he is capable of teaching these skills" said Lin. On May 3, 2017, Arend and his wife will finish their work in China and leave for the Netherlands. They plan to introduce the Dog Kung Fu to the people in their country. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan)
The 2017 BRICS Film Festival will be held in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in June and Chinese director Jia Zhangke's new short film will have its debut screening there, it was announced at the 7th Beijing International Film Festival.

A poster of "Where Has the Time Gone," a BRICS "Magnificent 5" film project. [Photo / China.org.cn]

Thirty films from BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will be screened, including an anthology of short films by five directors from the countries involved under the title of "Where Has the Time Gone."

The feature film, consisting of five 18-minute shorts on the same theme, is the joint work of Walter Salles from Brazil, Aleksey Fedorchenko from Russia, Madhur Bhandarkar from India, Jahmil X.T. Qubeka from South Africa, and Jia Zhangke from China. The collaboration project known as the "Magnificent 5" was a creative idea formed when leaders of the five countries met in India in 2016.

Jia told a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday: "The emotions from all five stories can be shared by everyone. The five BRICS countries share similarities in their fast growth, but have also faced big challenges at the same time. It will be very interesting to see how the cultures clash and how we show different approaches of wisdom on the same theme."

The title of his short is literally translated as "Meeting the Spring," which was shot in Pingyao, Shanxi Province, and stars actress Zhao Tao. Its a story inspired by China's second child policy. The film will be widely released in China in September after its premiere at the BRICS film festival.

Jia added that the film would be a good demonstration of the deep communications and cooperation among the film industries of the BRICS countries.

Chinese director Xie Fei will preside over the festival's jury to decide best picture, best director and best actors.

The first BRICS Film Festival was held in New Delhi, India, last September. This year's edition will be held in Chengdu June 23-27.

China will host the ninth BRICS annual summit in the coastal city of Xiamen this September, as the country takes the rotating chair of the influential bloc. The BRICS Film Festival is one of a series of activities preceding the summit.
Film executives agree that Chinese film distribution is very different today from what it was in the past due to the emergence of the internet.

Film executives attend the China Film Distribution Summit in Beijing, April 18, 2017. [Photo / Xinhua]

They were attending a China Film Distribution Summit, part of the 7th Beijing International Film Festival on Tuesday in Beijing to share their views and insights on the changing landscape.

"When Zhang Yimou's 'Hero' was distributed over a dozen years ago, the situation was totally different from today. With the passage of time, I get more and more confused. Because of the involvement of the internet, changes in film distribution in China are coming faster than ever," said Bill Kong, the president of Hong Kong-based Edko Films Ltd.

He made a comparison as follows: "When we are about to distribute a film in the United States, we still use some traditional methods, such as advertising heavily on TV. However, in China, a lot of distributors don't buy commercial time on TV anymore, because the choices of Chinese viewers are completely controlled by the internet. As a practitioner in the film industry, I think if we want to know how to distribute films in China, we have to be aware of how the potential audience spends its money. "

Kong said moviegoers currently rely heavily on the internet, and the relationship between internet companies and film distributors will surely become even closer, "because they are the media platform with the biggest audience. If an internet company knows how to control the consumption of film viewers, it will be well-placed in the film distribution industry."

Jiang Ping, the general manager of China Film Co., Ltd., echoed this sentiment, saying: "The growth and coverage of the new economy represented by the mobile internet are beyond imagination. What would life be like without mobile phones or internet? The internet is indispensable to all Chinese and all filmmakers. 'Internet Plus' is posing a new challenge to industrial transformation and upgrading at whirlwind pace. Let's take the speed of 'Internet Plus' for in-depth transformation, cross-border integration, integration into the era and constant development."

Huang Qunfei, the deputy general manager of Huaxia Film Distribution Co., Ltd., believed the emergence and intervention of the internet had made the Chinese market more and more complicated, and distribution increasingly diversified.

"Firstly, the distribution channels are diversified," he said, "Secondly, distributors are diversified. Besides traditional distribution companies, there are also numerous new media and internet distributors. Thirdly, the distribution modes are increasingly complex. Now there are a large variety of distribution modes, including pre-sale, guaranteed distribution and more. Fourthly, the distribution capital is becoming more and more financially-based and complicated. As I see it, the internet is changing the film industry and the distribution sector, in particular, in the most profound way. "

Not only distribution, but also filmmaking is coming under the influence of the internet, said Zhou Baolin, the deputy general manager of China Film Co., Ltd.

"There are more and more capital operations, especially in the internet and finance industries, and more and more investors, including State-owned, private and mixed-economy institutions as well as film distributors. Under this diversified environment, film distribution should be developed in depth with broadened thinking based on internet, such as the intervention and follow-up at the initial stage of filmmaking. "

Zeng Maojun, the president of Wanda Cinema Line Corp, added the major internet platforms had started film distribution and production from an e-commerce base. "All the companies are striving to open up both the upstream and downstream aspects of the industry chain. The diversified and orderly competition is facilitating the rapid development of the Chinese film industry."
The 13th Conference on the Latest Trends of Sustainable Development is held in Beijing, April 20, 2017. [Photo by Zhang Liying/China.org.cn]

China Business Council for Sustainable Development (CBCSD), a coalition of leading Chinese and foreign enterprises, held the 13th Conference on the Latest Trends of Sustainable Development in Beijing on April 20.

Under the theme of "Global Economic Governance and Sustainable Development," the conference attracted more than 140 participants from politics, business, academia and social communities.

The event was moderated by Zhu Hongren, the executive vice chairman and director-general of China Enterprise Confederation (CEC). Wang Zhongyu, the chairman of CEC, and Su Wei, the director of Department of International Cooperation, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) made the opening remarks.

Peter Bakker, the president and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSCD) sent a video message to express his congratulations on the conference.

The annual conference, which has been held successively for twelve years, is comprised of three sessions: "More Vibrant, Inclusive, and Sustainable Economic Globalization," "Actions in Achieving 2030 Agenda" and "Better Business, Better World."

It provided a good chance for officials, experts and business leaders to discuss the ways of facilitating China's sustainable development.

For now, China is faced with an arduous task of striking a balance between economic development and ecological conservation. Yet as Wang Jiming, the president of CBCSD, said in his closing remarks, with synergy established between government departments, business communities and social organizations, China has the confidence to lead the world in achieving sustainable development and transforming global governance.
You are here: Home

A freight train linking Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hubei Province, and Hamburg, Germany's second biggest city, pulls out of the Wujiashan Center Station on April 16.

The 50-carriage train is loaded with electronic parts and components, beverages, food and electromechanical products made by enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

This is the 36th train heading to Europe from Wuhan this year.

China sent the first freight train to Europe in March 2011. So far, nearly 3,700 trains have departed from the country to Europe, opening a fast international transport channel by land.

Currently, 27 Chinese cities operate 51 regular freight train service routes to 28 destinations in 11 countries in Europe, providing an effective guarantee for trade cooperation among countries along the Belt and Road routes.
The identity authentication app.[Photo/Chinanew.com]

Guangdong citizens no longer need to worry about proving their identities, even if they don't happen to have their ID cards on them.

On April 19, Guangzhou police unveiled an identity authentication app that enables citizens to prove their identities via their mobile phones. To date, the city has authorized 20 offices to help citizens register for the service.

Once they register, they can use facial recognition technology, available via the app, to prove their identities whenever and wherever necessary.

Developed by police in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, the app provides highly accurate results while at the same time protecting against personal information leaks.
You are here: Home

Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to capitalize on its unique advantages to play a bigger role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Guangxi should make full use of its geographical location to promote opening up and development, Xi made the remarks during an inspection tour to the south China region between Wednesday and Friday.
South American leaders are increasingly taking to social media platforms to openly vent their displeasure about continuing historical efforts to use one of the world's oldest regional organizations to punish states that refuse to play by Washington's rules.

The Organization of American States (OAS) is under serious pressure from within, as leaders and diplomats tweet to condemn powerful member-states trying to use the body's outdated statutes to pursue regime change in Venezuela, a founding member-state.

It is another chilling moment of sobriety for an entity that unites the U.S., Canada and all South American and Caribbean states in a political alliance driven by Washington's decades-old policy of treating the entire region as "America's Backyard."

Established in Colombia on April 30, 1948, by the U.S. and 20 Latin American nations, the OAS was admittedly conceived "to serve as a bulwark against communist penetration of the Western Hemisphere."

Following its 1959 Revolution, Cuba became a regular victim of American gunboat diplomacy, especially through the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Missile Crisis with the Soviet Union.

For three years following the revolution, Washington used the OAS to voice and channel its distaste of Cuban developments, leading to Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Raul Roa Garcia describing the organization as "The Ministry of Yankee Colonies."

After Washington broke ties with Havana, but failing to get reluctant South American leaders to support efforts to mount military incursions against Cuba, the island was expelled from the OAS at a meeting in Uruguay in January 1962. However, Cuban president at the time, Osvaldo Dorticos, assured the continent that "We (Cuba) might not be in the OAS, but Socialist Cuba will be in America."

Cuba has remained outside the OAS for the past 45 years. However, the ideological underpinnings that led to the Washington-based entity's creation and its permanent political pursuit of regime change in Havana have never been hidden or overcome. Instead, hostilities against nations like Cuba are quite often resurrected, as in the latest of ongoing moves against the Bolivarian Socialist Republic of Venezuela.

On April 3, 2017, the OAS Permanent Council was again mobilized for another failed attempt to try to force through a resolution that would have activated the organization's outmoded Democratic Charter to expel Venezuela, attracting support from only 14 of the 34 member-states.

Immediately after, Bolivia's President Evo Morales, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the OAS Sir Ronald Saunders, all took to their Twitter accounts and other social media outlets to accuse members of breaking the own rules in pursuit of regime change in Caracas.

The Ecuadorean stance was brought into focus by the country's April 2 election to replace the outgoing Correa. The losing candidate, right wing ex-banker and Finance Minister Guillermo Lasso, demanded a recount -- after which the National Electoral Council (CNE) confirmed that Lasso had indeed lost another 100 votes, while the winner, Correa's ally Lenin Moreno, won 143 more. But, still refusing to accept the opposition's generated street protests have been continued.

Correa on April 14 said the opposition's move to continue the street protests was "a copy of the strategy of the Venezuelan right wing: to question the results, de-legitimize the origin of the mandate, keep the streets 'hot' and claim there is a 'divided' country, to make it ungovernable."

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro is also using social media in his ongoing personal and public campaign against Venezuela, recently posting a video message painting the violent opposition protesters in Caracas as peaceful demonstrators - and supporting opposition demands for an early presidential and general election.

Yet, despite those backing the Venezuelan opposition claiming to do so in the interest of the Venezuelan people, successive independent polls show the latter don't favor regime change, especially imposed from outside.

In early April, the Venezuelan firm Hinterlaces conducted a poll that showed only 6 percent approved foreign intervention to remove President Nikolas Maduro (in power since 2013) from power, while 87 percent disapproved of any external military intervention; 90 percent rejected violent right-wing protests, while 83 percent favored of dialogue -- and 67 percent said the priority of any dialogue should be to resolve the country's economic problems.

However, the peoples' views hardly ever matter when powerful countries get upset about their government's progressive policies.

The OAS was established in the immediate post-1945 Cold War period to pave the way for Western political, economic and military advances in the region and to subordinate the continent's governments to the dictates of American foreign policy.

From time to time the balance of forces in OAS membership will delay or defeat instances of intended political and/or military action against socialist and progressive governments.

However, there will always be times, like now, when member-states plotting and pursuing regime change against fellow member-states will take actions that justify the claim of the OAS forming the "U.S. Ministry of Colonies."

This is a very far cry from China's relationship with its South American and Caribbean allies within the same OAS bloc. In the last two decades alone, China has increased its investments in Latin America 10-fold and its bilateral ties are growing only stronger, both politically and economically. Beijing has always respected the expressed will of the South American peoples and has never been accused of seeking to influence the political direction of independent nations across the region.

Earl Bousquet is a contributor to china.org.cn, editor-at-large of The Diplomatic Courier and author of an online regional newspaper column entitled Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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French President Francois Hollande announced that a defense meeting will be held at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, following a shooting in central Paris on Thursday evening, which killed one police officer and injured two others.

The President made a statement in front of the Elysee Palace after a meeting with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl.

He said he's convinced that the attack is "terrorist-related", and pledged "absolutely vigilant" security measures for the upcoming presidential election, which will start on Sunday.

"Everyone will understand that my thoughts go to the family of the policeman who was killed, and to the wounded policemen," Hollande said.

"We must realize that our police force is exposed, and I repeat all the commitments I have made. Every effort must be made to ensure that these policemen and gendarmes are able to carry out their mission," he added.

The extremist group Islamic States (IS) had claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The shooting occurred at around 8 p.m. local time Thursday on the Champs Elysees shopping street in central Paris. The assailant was shot dead.
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United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis arrived on Thursday evening in Israel for a two-day visit as President Donald Trump's administration is forming a new policy on Iran.

United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis. [File photo by Zhang Weiran/Chinanews.com]

Israeli officials said that Mattis is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, and President Reuven Rivlin on Friday.

His visit is part of a trip to the region. Earlier on Thursday, he met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo and told him that the U.S. is keen to take the bilateral defense cooperation, which he describes as strong, to a higher level.

On Tuesday, he met with senior officials in Saudi Arabia, a leading ally in the coalition against the Houthi militants in Yemen, which according to the U.S. are supported by Iran.

In a statement released by the Pentagon last week, his visit was said to focus on discussing ways to "defeat extremist terror organizations."
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The first full day of campaigning got off to a flying start Thursday following British Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to call a snap general election.

British Prime Minister Theresa May (L) meets with President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain on April 20, 2017. (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

With British voters going to the polls on June 8, the big parties did not want to waste any time ahead of the official launches of their election manifestos.

May is predicted to lead the Conservatives to victory with a bigger majority in June. In the first major opinion poll since the election was called, YouGov asked people who they would vote for if there was an election now.

Conservatives topped the list with 48 percent, up 4 percentage points on the last poll. Labour trailed in second place on 24, an increase of one point. Twelve percent opted for the Liberal Democrats and 7 percent chose UKIP.

YouGov said the results represent the highest vote share for the Conservatives since May 2008.

May continues to be the favored choice for prime minister, with 54 percent of people preferring her to Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, who is backed by 15 percent of voters.

Corbyn was in London to deliver what was the first major speech by a party leader in the election race. He told cheering supporters: "It is the establishment versus the people and it is our historic duty to make sure that the people prevail. A duty for all of us here today, the duty of every Labour MP, a duty for our half a million members -- including the 2,500 who have joined in the last 24 hours."

Convinced Labour can win, he said: "We will build a new economy... and we will build a country for the many not the few."

In Edinburgh, the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP is the only party standing in the way of a Conservative majority "because it is 'pie in the sky' to think Labour can win alone."

Speaking at First Minister's Questions on Thursday, Sturgeon said: "The idea in this election that Labour is going to replace the Conservatives is frankly pie in the sky."

"We face an unfettered out-of-control Conservative government. If people want to make sure a Conservative government can be held to account, if they want to make sure there is a strong voice for Scotland and they want to make sure Scotland is protected, they have to make sure they send SNP MPs back to Westminster," she added.

In 2015, the SNP scored its biggest ever electoral success, sending more than 50 MPs to Westminster.

Nigel Farage, founder and former leader of UKIP, the party that campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, said in a media interview he may stand in the general election. Currently the party has no MPs at Westminster.

Meanwhile, May was busy on government duties at 10 Downing Street. She held a meeting with European Parliament President Antonio Tajani.
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The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launch conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea attempted on April 16, 2017 to test-fire an unidentified missile on its east coast, according to the South Korean military. In the picture, a man watches the news of the missile test at the railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on the same day. [Photo/Xinhua]

In a press statement, the 15-nation council demanded the DPRK to immediately cease further actions in violation of relevant Security Council resolutions, saying that the council would closely monitor the situation and "take further significant measures including sanctions."

The DPRK attempted on Sunday to test-fire an unidentified missile on its east coast, according to the South Korean military. The United States confirmed later that the missile launch had failed.

The Security Council expressed their "utmost concern" over DPRK's "highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council" by conducting the ballistic missile launch, said the statement.

It stressed that DPRK's illegal ballistic missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond.

In order to reduce the tension in the Korean Peninsula, the most powerful UN body demanded the DPRK conduct no further nuclear tests.

According to previous Security Council resolutions, the DPRK is banned from conducting any launches that use ballistic missile technology, nuclear tests or any other provocation. To that end, the council has imposed tough sanctions on the DPRK, which includes banning the sale and transfer of coal, iron and iron ore from the country's territory.
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The Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe on April 20, 2017 handed over 60,000 U.S. dollars worth of basic food to assist hundreds of local families affected by floods that hit the southern parts of the country in February.

The Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe on April 20, 2017 handed over 60,000 U.S. dollars worth of basic food to assist hundreds of local families affected by floods that hit the southern parts of the country in February. In the picture, Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping (second from left) speaks at the handover ceremony. [Photo by Zhang Yuliang/Xinhua]

Of the donation, the Chinese Red Cross Society contributed 50,000 dollars while the Chinese Embassy and the Chinese community in Zimbabwe chipped in with 10,000 dollars.

The donation of maize meal, cooking oil, sugar, biscuits and salt, among other basic food stuffs, came a month after the Chinese government donated 1 million dollars in cash transfer to Zimbabwe to help the flood victims.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe declared a state of flood disaster on March 2, leading to the launch of a domestic and international appeal for 200 million dollars to help victims and repair infrastructure such as homes, roads, bridges, dams, schools, water and sanitation.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping said China's help to the flood victims was testimony to the all-weather friendship between the two countries.

China, he said, had over the past 10 years supported Zimbabwe to cope with emergency need of food due to drought, and had also provided support in the form of machinery and fertilizer to boost Zimbabwe's agricultural production.

"Going forward, China will continue to be Zimbabwe's most reliable partner in speeding up industrialization and agricultural modernization and boosting its capacity for home- grown development," the ambassador said.

In accepting the donation, Zimbabwean Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere thanked the Chinese for the donation and invited Chinese businesses in Zimbabwe to partner local companies and help the country repair infrastructure damaged by the floods.

The heavy rain that was worsened by Cyclone Dineo has left 271 people dead, another 128 injured and nearly 2,000 homeless in Zimbabwe.

The worst-affected district was Tsholotsho, Matabeleland North Province, where a total of 859 people were left homeless and are currently in a transit camp.

According to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, over 100,000 people are without safe drinking water following the damage to water supply infrastructure.
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An Australian scientific body said it has pinpointed "the most likely location" of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has been missing for more than three years.

In a new report released on Friday, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said tests recently completed on an actual Boeing 777 flaperon revealed that MH370 was probably lying north of the actual search zone, in an area twice the size of greater Sydney (25,000 square-km).

This latest research confirms their earlier drift analysis made in a report released in November 2016.

A total of 239 passengers and crew members were on board of the flight travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 when it disappeared from aviation radars.

Dr. David Griffin, from the CSIRO, said on Friday that he was "confident" that the data obtained from ocean testing of a remodelled Boeing 777 flaperon had pinpointed a new search area for the missing flight.

Instead of using a replica flaperon as they did for their earlier drift analysis report, the scientists obtained and modified a genuine used Boeing 777 part so that it appeared identically damaged to the debris that washed up on the island.

"Testing an actual flaperon has added an extra level of assurance to the findings from our earlier drift modelling work," Griffin said on Friday.

"Earlier drift modelling was conducted using replicas of the flaperon found on La Reunion Island. Those replicas had been made of wood and steel, and were designed to float and behave like the original."

The original MH370 flaperon found on La Reunion is still being examined by the French judiciary. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States was able to assist in sourcing a genuine flaperon of the same model. This flaperon was cut down to match photographs of MH370's flaperon, and then testing was done in the waters near Hobart.

"We wanted to see if the genuine flaperon drifted straight downwind like the replicas, or off at an angle, and at what speed through the water," said Griffin.

"We've found that an actual flaperon goes about 20 degrees to the left, and faster than the replicas, as we thought it might. The arrival of MH370's flaperon at La Reunion in July 2015 now makes perfect sense.

"Knowing how the flaperon, and the other parts of MH370 that have been found, respond to wind and waves is just as important as knowing the currents of the Indian Ocean.

"We add both together in our model to simulate the drift across the ocean, then compare the results with observations of where debris was and wasn't found, in order to deduce the location of the aircraft."

The new report's findings support the conclusions of the first report, which indicates that the most likely location of MH370 is in the new search area identified and recommended by the First Principles Review report, and most likely at the southern end of that, near 35 degrees South.

This search area comprises thin strips either side of the previously-searched strip close to the 7th arc. "If the aircraft is not found there, then the rest of the search area is still likely to contain the plane. The available evidence suggests that all other regions are unlikely," Griffin said.

"We cannot be absolutely certain, but that is where all the evidence we have points us, and this new work leaves us more confident in our findings."

The search for the Boeing 777 was suspended in January 2017. About 120,000 square-km of the ocean bed had been searched to no avail, despite the operation costing more than more than 140 million U.S. dollars.
Yang Hua

(Photo: China Aid)

China Aid

(Guiyang, GuizhouMarch 28, 2017) A church pastor incarcerated in Chinas southern Guizhou province was admitted to the hospital in serious condition Friday.

Wang Hongwu unexpectedly witnessed three detainees carrying her husband, imprisoned house church pastor Yang Hua, out of a vehicle on March 20, when she was accompanying his lawyer to meet with him. He had just returned from the hospital, and she said that he was doubled over and shrieking in pain. His lawyer later reported he appeared nearly paralyzed.

Three days before the meeting, inflamed ulcers appeared on Yangs legs and spread rapidly, robbing him of the ability to sleep. The doctors at the detention center initially told him that they were pus sores and only gave him painkillers, the lack of treatment allowing the disease to spread.

On the afternoon of March 23, a prosecutor from the Nanming District Court informed Yangs lawyers of his condition and advised them to apply for measures that would allow Yang to receive treatment at another hospital to avoid further complications.

Yang was sent to the hospital on March 24, where he was diagnosed with anaphylactoid purpura, a condition that targets blood vessels in the kidneys, intestines, joints, and skin. The doctor Wang consulted also said she should be aware of the possibility of several side effects, including septicemia, digestive tract hemorrhaging, and kidney damage. She was informed that Yang is in grave condition, and she penned a letter calling out for urgent prayer on his behalf, which can be read below.

As result, his lawyers wrote to the local procuratorate, questioning whether it was necessary to keep Yang in detention and requesting that he be released on medical bail. According to an article written by China Change, the judge in charge of the case must be consulted for that decision.

Yang, also known under his legal name Li Guozhi, was initially incarcerated on Dec. 9, 2015, when police took him into custody after resisting officials attempts to destroy a church hard drive. He was initially charged with the crime of obstructing justice and gathering a crowd to disturb public order and handed two consecutive, five-day administrative detention sentences; however, when Wang came to collect him on Dec. 20, 2015, she saw him wearing a hood and being forced into an unlicensed vehicle. Upon inquiry, she learned that he was transferred to criminal detention on the charge of illegally possessing state secrets.

On Jan. 22, 2016, the procuratorate formalized Yangs arrest, and his charge was changed to divulging state secrets.

For more than a year, authorities held Yang without trial, subjecting him to torture and threatening his family members, both of which were carried out by the prosecutors assigned to his case. His requests that the prosecutors be excluded from his trial were ignored. He was tried on Dec. 26, and, in an act described by China Aid president Bob Fu as nothing but purely barbaric religious persecution, sentenced to two years and six months in prison on Jan. 5.

China Aid reports abuses, such as those experienced by Yang Hua, in order to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and promote religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law.





Letter for Prayers of Intercession









Thanks to our gracious Lord, I could meet with Yang Hua on March 24. I was accompanying the lawyer who would soon visit him at the detention center, but I ran into him right in front of the gate of the institution. He had just returned from the provincial hospital. It was the first time we had met in the span of one year, three months, and 15 days. Yang Hua descended slowly from the patrol vehicle with the help of another prisoner. His already hunched back arched even more because of leg pain. We only had time to exchange a few words before he was brought back into the detention center. After conversing with Yang Hua (I had to wait outside during their meeting), the lawyer informed me that Yang Hua would be transferred to the Guiyang 368 Armed Police Hospital and receive treatment, and that I could go see him one more time. Running toward him, I heard the officer yelling Who is Li Guozhis family member? I answered him, got in the patrol vehicle, and arrived at the Guiyang 368 Armed Police Hospital.

The chief physician told me about Yang Huas condition, that the provincial hospital diagnosed him with anaphylactoid purpura. I noticed that Yang Huas lower limbs were covered with measles and necrotic dots. His shinbones were full of huge patches of necrosis and effusion, and his feet and ankles were swollen. The doctor also told me that Yang Hua would receive a large amount of hormonal therapy and anti-inflammatory treatments, because the disease was ferocious and deteriorated in only eight days. The hospital delivered a notice of critical condition and told me to be aware of a series of possible side effects: septicemia, alimentary tract hemorrhaging, and kidney damage.

My heart stirred after hearing all of these things. I developed more worries and concerns.

During our brief reunion, Yang Hua told me, Dont worry. God is pulling the strings. I am at peace. We havent seen each other in a year and three months, but you havent changed at all.

I smiled and answered him, You havent changed either, except that your back is more hunched.

Thank the Lord for alleviating my sorrows and putting peace in my heart. Although I had not seen Yang Hua for more than a year (we were never parted for more than two months before he was arrested), it all felt like yesterday when he was standing in front of me. No tears. No hysteria. We looked deeply at each other in divine serenity. Although worried, I could still face Yang Hua with joy and tranquility with Gods support.

When we were about to separate, Yang Hua said, Dont forget to tell the brothers and sisters to pray for me.

I answered, Of course.

He was again taken away before my eyes.

Lord, I will entrust him to you. From now on, you will be the only one accompanying him, I prayed in my heart.

Gods servant: Wang Hongwu

March 25

ChinaAid Media Team

Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985

Email: [email protected]

For more information, click here
Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee chairs the launching ceremony of the series "A Happy Life" in Morocco on April 21. (Photo/CRI)

CASABLANCA, Morocco -- Morocco's leading TV channel 2M started on Thursday airing a Chinese series dubbed into Arabic.



The launching ceremony of the series "A Happy Life" was chaired by Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Mohammed Ghazali, the secretary general of Morocco's Ministry of Communication and Culture.



On this occasion, the Director General of China Radio International (CRI) Wang Gengnian and the Director General of 2M Salim el-Sheikh inked an agreement on broadcasting Chinese series and movies on the Moroccan channel.



Wang said the agreement comes to reinforce the cooperation between Chinese and Moroccan media, noting that this cooperation has been ongoing at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and through the exchange of visits between media officials in the two countries.



He stressed that CRI has established a strong and long-standing cooperation with various African media, adding that these media have aired throughout the years numerous Chinese series and movies in their local languages and were warmly welcomed.



He vowed to set with Moroccan media another successful example in the historical cultural exchange between the two countries.



On his part, el-Sheikh said the agreement builds another bridge between the cultures of the two countries, adding that through these series and movies the Moroccan public will get to know more about Chinese drama.



He said that he hopes to boost relations between the Moroccan and Chinese media.
BEIJING - China's central government-administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have pledged to continue to cut production overcapacity in some industrial sectors, aiming to reduce steel capacity by 5.95 million tons and coal by 24.73 million tons.

"Detailed plans have been made by central SOEs," said an insider who prefers to remain anonymous.

For example, China Huaneng Group, a power company, is considering cutting 9.14 million tons of coal production capacity by the end of 2018 while dealing with 16 of the group's "zombie companies."

China Poly Group Corporation, a State-run conglomerate, has vowed to close inefficient coal mines and reorganize 39 of its subordinate companies to improve profits.

The latest efforts by the central SOEs will reinforce their achievements made in 2016 in reducing overcapacity.

Last year, the central SOEs eliminated steel production capacity by more than 10.19 million tons and coal capacity by over 34.97 million tons, both beating annual targets.

The capacity cut drive by central SOEs is only a part of China's bigger picture in slashing overcapacity.

The country aims to curtail steel production capacity by around 50 million tons and coal by at least 150 million tons this year, a key part of the country's supply-side reform.

To improve its growth quality and efficiency, China began its supply-side structural reform in 2015 to cut overcapacity, reduce inventory, deleverage, lower costs and strengthen weak links.

"China's SOE reform is an important link in pushing forward supply-side structural reform," said Li Jin, chief researcher with the China Enterprise Research Institute.

Realizing the significance of SOEs to the country's sustainable growth, China launched a series of reforms including cutting capacity, managing "zombie companies," cutting excessive layers of hierarchy and calling for innovation among these firms.

Overcapacity, poor corporate governance, and low labor productivity had dragged down profits of China's SOEs, which deteriorated in 2015.

In 2016, China's central SOEs cut 2,730 subsidiary legal entities and saved 4.91 billion yuan in management costs, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the SOE watchdog.

Thanks in part to the efforts, China's central SOEs saw profits rise slightly. Growth last year picked up from a 5.6-percent decrease in 2015.

In 2016, central SOEs made total profits of 1.23 trillion yuan ($178 billion), up 0.5 percent year on year, according to the SOE watchdog.

This year, China pledged in its annual government work report to deepen SOE reform, promising measures such as introducing a mixed-ownership system and more efforts to make SOEs leaner, healthier, and perform better.

China has 102 centrally administered SOEs, which manage the bulk of the country's State assets.

The improving figures of the SOEs contributed to the country's broader economy, which has shown more signs of stabilizing since the second half of 2016, with indicators including factory prices and industrial profits seeing significant improvements.
French luxury fashion house Longchamp plans to open more stores in China in order to expand its presence, considering the huge growth potential, Longchamp CEO Jean Cassegrain said.

"Currently, we have 18 stores in China. There is a potential for us to open stores at new locations and there are still cities where we are not present," said Cassegrain.

He said the Chinese economy is still growing, and more and more people consider buying luxury products due to higher incomes, adding he is confident with the company's prospects in the Chinese market.

"In October, we will open a new store in Beijing, at a landmark shopping mall on Wangfujing Street," he said, adding they are considering opening stores in second-tier cities such as Changsha.

The Paris-based Longchamp opened its China flagship store at the Kerry Center in the heart of Shanghai on Thursday.

The store will present the widest range of the house's collections in China, including women's ready-to-wear, shoes, handbags, leather accessories, men's collections and luggage bags.

The new store in Shanghai is a major investment and significant step for the brand, according to Cassegrain.

Apart from brick-and-mortar stores, Chinese customers can buy products via online platforms such as the official WeChat account of Longchamp. "It is our plan to continue developing online channels in China," Cassegrain said.

Founded in Paris in 1948, Longchamp is still currently owned and run by the Cassegrain family, with its products ranging from handbags, luggage, accessories, and shoes to ready-to-wear collections. It is available in 80 countries through a network of 1,500 points of sale.
WASHINGTON - Fiscal policy has a bigger role to play in promoting more sustainable and inclusive growth in China, a senior official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday.

Following decades of fast growth, the Chinese economy is "undergoing a very profound broad transformation," said Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, noting the country is rebalancing the growth model from manufacturing to services, from investment to consumption, and from exports to domestic demand.

Going forward, "what is key is to guarantee that China continues on a sound and sustainable growth path," Gaspar told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, adding that fiscal policy could help facilitate China's economic transition.

"It can help for example by being inclusive, by trying to protect the segments of the Chinese population that are not benefiting as much as others from the benefits from the very fast growth that China is enjoying," he said.

"That can be done on the expenditure side of the budget through social spending and on the revenue side of the budget through increases in the progressivity of taxation," he explained.

China has realized very early in the process of economic transformation that tax capacity is a fundamental pillar to build on state capacity and it has always regarded tax policy and revenue administration as part of the overall strategy, said the IMF official.

Citing China's nationwide value added tax (VAT) reform, Gaspar said the progress China has achieved so far in tax reforms is "really impressive" and "should not be underestimated," as the VAT is a crucial element of a modern tax system that China has already in place.

However, there's room for tax policy to support inclusive growth in China by being "more progressive" and "more redistributed" going forward, he said.

In terms of government debt risks, Gaspar said China's public debt levels are relatively low by international standards. If some investment activities which are off-budget were taken into account, the augmented government debt level would be higher, reaching about 60 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP).

But in contrast with what is prevailing in most emerging market economies, he noted, the net worth of the general government in China is positive, which means the financial assets are in excess of the financial liabilities.

Therefore, "I don't think that China has any issue concerning debt sustainability. On the contrary, the fiscal position is sufficiently comfortable," Gaspar said, adding that China has "fiscal firepower" to do whatever it decides to do in terms of management of the debt and credit growth risks.

"What we emphasize is the earlier that is done, the better the prospect for sustainable growth in the medium to long run and the lower the risks around that path, even if in the short run that adjustment may have short-run costs," he said.

The IMF has been collaborating with the Chinese Ministry of Finance on a number of areas over past several years, including public financial management, cash management, the management of debt in sub-national governments and how to implement the budget law, according to Gaspar.

In its flagship Fiscal Monitor report released Wednesday, the IMF also highlighted a bigger role of fiscal policy to foster global growth, as policymakers and researchers are realizing that the fiscal tool kit is broader and its tools more powerful than they previously thought.

The report put forward five key guiding principles for member countries to smartly use fiscal policy to achieve more policy objectives, noting that fiscal policy should be countercyclical, growth-friendly, inclusive, solidly grounded in tax capacity, and be conducted with prudence.
By Wu Yiyao in Shanghai and Chai Hua in Shenzhen | China Daily | Updated: 2017-04-21 08:01

Homelink employees check information at an outlet of the company in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Vanke, China's largest residential property developer by market value, plans to spend 3 billion yuan ($441 million) on purchasing shares of Homelink, as the developer is bullish about the Beijing-headquartered real estate agency's development prospects.

Analysts said the two parties are likely to jointly explore a new model to meet demand amid fast growing pre-owned home transactions and tap more segmented markets along the value chain of real estate development and maintenance, such as decoration, property dealing, property management and residential community services.

Vanke will buy shares in Homelink at a cost of 3 billion yuan as stated in the agreement reached between the two parties, according to Vanke.

The deal, if completed, follows Hong Kong-listed developer Sunac's purchase of a 6.25 percent stake in Homelink for 2.6 billion yuan.

Vanke and Homelink did not disclose how many shares Vanke will own in the real estate agency after the deal.

The two parties have already cooperated in the home decoration sector, as they are both bullish about post-purchase market demand.

In 2015, Vanke and Homelink jointly established the business-to-consumer home decor joint venture, Vanke Lianjia, with Vanke Vice-President Liu Xiao appointed president of the company.

Vanke holds 60 percent of the company, while Homelink holds 40 percent.

Homelink owns shares in more than 50 subsidiaries with a wide range of businesses serving the real estate market. Besides its core real estate agency business, the group has tapped into markets along the real estate value chain, including financing, consultancy, advertising and marketing.

The agency has a more than 50 percent share of Beijing's pre-owned home transactions, and is also expanding fast in other key cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen.

"Vanke's acquisition of Homelink shares is actually the acquisition of market share in the pre-owned home market, which is expanding fast and even exceeding the new home market in many cities with limited land supply growth for residential property development," said Wang Ji, a Shanghai-based private equity investment analyst with Huafang Business Consultancy.

In Beijing, around 268,000 pre-owned homes were sold in 2016, about 90 percent of all homes transacted in the year.

According to Gong Yan, a professor of Management Practice at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, developers in China are exploring business models beyond develop-and-sell, eyeing opportunities emerging among those who have already purchased properties.

"Selling an apartment is low-frequency deal. A homebuyer is likely to buy one or more times from a developer and then the interaction is over. But a developer also offers services for decoration, maintenance, leasing, day care centers for babies and the elderly, refurbishment and even reselling. As a result, the business scope and frequency will be significantly increased," said Gong.

Vanke's Shenzhen-listed shares rose 0.49 percent on Thursday to 20.63 yuan each, with a total market value of 227.7 billion yuan.

Contact the writers at wuyiyao@chinadaily.com.cn
A customer buys fresh pork imported from the United States at a supermarket in Zhengzhou, Henan province. [Photo by Zhang Tao/For China Daily]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will continue to increase its investment in Guangdong province, as it plans to add more than 40 new stores and one fresh food distribution center in the province in the next five years.

The US retail giant signed an agreement for strategic cooperation on its business expansion plan with Guangdong provincial government on Thursday.

"As a major dynamic economic base in southern China, Guangdong is an important market for us. We will continue to grow in China and accelerate our development here," said Scott Price, executive vice-president of Wal-Mart Global and chief administrative officer of Wal-Mart International.

Wal-Mart will also step up its cooperation with the local government on local sourcing, retail innovation and development.

"We will continue to increase sourcing of Guangdong products and help more of them enter our global supply chain system," said Price.

Wal-Mart entered the Chinese mainland in 1996 and opened its first store in Shenzhen. It now has to more than 400 stores across the country, including 92 in Guangdong.

The company will also upgrade its logistics system and build a cold chain distribution center in Guangdong.

Wal-Mart's expansion plan in the province was one of the 14 contracts signed on Thursday at the 2017 China (Guangdong)-US Investment Cooperation Conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

The contracts involved a total investment of $2.289 billion, covering a wide range of areas such as finance, information technology, transportation, automobiles, intelligent manufacturing and environmental science.

China has become the second-largest destination for investment from the US. Chinese companies made direct investment of more than $15 billion in the US in 2015, surpassing US investment in China for the first time.

"Investment from China in the United States is just starting to gain momentum, and the prospects for US investment in China are still huge," said Yu Jianping, vice-minister of commerce.

The conference was held to act on the important consensus reached on promoting bilateral trade and investment by President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump during their meeting earlier this month.

Guangdong, a major manufacturing base and foreign trade hub, accounted for more than one-fifth of the trade volume between China and the US in 2016.

It attracted actual investment of $8.51 billion from the US by the end of last year, and Guangdong businesses have invested $4.17 billion in the US.

Guangdong offers "very broad market prospects" for US companies, said Guangdong Governor Ma Xingrui.

"The volume of Guangdong's imports of goods will surpass $360 billion in 2020. The province will have mass demand for high-tech products, modern services and high-quality consumer goods and foods," said Ma.

At the same time, to boost exports of made-in-Guangdong products to the US, the provincial government will "give great support" to local companies to build overseas warehouses, exhibition centers and branches, Ma said.

Contact the writers at xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn and qiuquanlin@chinadaily.com.cn
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim speaks at the opening press conference of the 2017 World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings in Washington DC, April 20, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

The World Bank Group is and will continue working closely with the Chinese government on the Belt and Road Initiative, according to the chief of the international financial institution.

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, praised the initiative on Thursday during a press conference of the 2017 IMF/World Bank annual spring meeting in Washington.

"The One Belt, One Road project is an extremely important one for the Chinese government and also for us," said Kim, who is scheduled to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing on May 14-15. Twenty-eight heads of state and government leaders have confirmed they will attend the meeting.

"The leadership that China is now taking in the overall world of development I think is unprecedented," he said.

Kim, who has visited China many times, said China has been stepping up and illustrating that it is concerned about development, not just in neighboring countries or even along the Old Silk Road, but globally.

He said the World Bank Group has a very close working relationship with the Chinese government and also with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). "We'll be signing another memorandum of understanding," he said.
Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos (right) meets with President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in Athens, Greece, April 20, 2017. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said that the upcoming high-level forum on the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative is of global significance. [Photo/Xinhua]

ATHENS - Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said on Thursday that the upcoming high-level forum on the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative is of global significance.

The forum, to be held in Beijing in May, is important not only to China but also to the whole world, as it will greatly advance the process of globalization, Pavlopoulos said in a meeting with Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency.

The forum, the Greek leader said, will prove that in the new historical era, China will play an important role in promoting the harmonious coexistence of countries in the world.

Noting that China has conducted constructive cooperation with many countries along the B&R, he added that the forum is a very good occasion for strengthening communication.

The Greek leader said he is pleased with the sound China-Greece cooperation as well as cooperation between China and the European Union (EU).

He stressed that it bears importance for a strong EU and a strong China to enhance bilateral cooperation and pledged Greece's consistent commitment to the partnership.

The president also thanked China for continuing its investment in Greece during the worst period of the country's economic crisis.

In addition, Pavlopoulos congratulated Xinhua and state-run Athens News Agency on their signing of a new cooperation agreement, saying he is happy to see the two agencies continually promoting cooperation, which he said plays a significant role in enhancing friendship between the two nations.

Cai, for his part, said that he is happy to see the improvement of economic conditions in Greece, and that he hopes the Greek people will soon overcome the difficulties and realize healthy economic development.

As China's state news agency, Xinhua will provide positive and healthy news products to the people of China and Greece, build a bridge for bilateral information exchanges, and contribute to furthering the two countries' friendship, he added.

At least 28 heads of state and government are expected to attend the upcoming Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, making it the highest-profile international meeting on the B&R Initiative since China first proposed it in 2013.
XI'AN - Three months away from graduation, Nontipa Kla-ngam sees a golden opportunity as she wraps up her master's thesis on the free trade agreement (FTA) between Thailand and China.

"We are very proud of our rice and I wish more Chinese could try it," Nontipa said.

Agricultural products have been exempted duty by the FTA, but most Thai rice sold in China's supermarkets is imported through regular channels, without taking advantage of the FTA, she said.

This means at least a 20-percent price margin, which leaves great market potential, she added.

Nontipa Kla-ngam was born on Phuket Island and began learning Chinese at high school in Bangkok. In 2014, she decided to further her studies at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University in Yangling, Shaanxi province.

"As the major initiator of the Belt and Road Initiative and ASEAN cooperation, China, in my eyes, should be a land of opportunity. That's why I came to study here," she said.

Thousands of years ago Yangling was the cradle of Chinese agriculture and has been home to a hi-tech agricultural industrial demonstration zone since 1997. Much of China's agricultural technology, crop varieties and agricultural management modes have been born there.

On April 1, the China Shaanxi FTZ was announced. Nontipa immediately checked out the policies on agricultural imports.

"I am about to publish a paper on Thai rice, so I believe I will be good at procurement. I'm familiar with Chinese culture and policies, and I speak fluent Chinese, which gives me many advantages," she said.

"I want to start here because I already know Yangling," she said. "Even if I fail, I still have friends and teachers here who take me in and listen to my tales of woe."

In November, the university launched a Silk Road agriculture education and innovation alliance with 59 other universities and research institutions from 12 Belt and Road countries. Nearly 200 students from Belt and Road countries attend the university, accounting for nearly 90 percent overseas students.

Many overseas students, like Nontipa Kla-ngam, choose to stay in China upon graduation, hoping to accumulate more field experience and make a bigger contribution when they go back, Zheng said.

"I want a career in China. Ultimately I will go back to Thailand, but I hope I will be 50 then," Nontipa said.
XIAMEN - A new freight train service started on Friday linking the east China port city of Xiamen with Moscow, making it the newest China-Europe freight train route.

At 9:30 am, the train with 40 containers left the station from Xiamen Free Trade Zone carrying goods worth $363,000 including granite, lighting supplies, artificial flowers and shoes for Moscow.

A single trip on the 10,920-km route takes 13 to 14 days. Without the direct train service, it used to take at least 25 days to transport goods.

The train route connects the eastern and northeastern Chinese cities of Nanchang, Nanjing, Jinan and Jinzhou, and crosses the border via Manzhouli Port in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Jiang Jingdong, assistant general manager of Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone Investment and Construction Management Co Ltd, said the service is still in trial operations with three trips from Xiamen to Moscow per month. The freight train service will be normalized in the second half of this year.

Huang Changhong, manager of Trans-China Logistics Co Ltd, said that trade between Xiamen and Russia is complementary. Xiamen and its surrounding cities are export-oriented with machinery equipment and shoemaking industries, while it imports wood, paper pulp and vegetable oil from Russia.

Lin Jiangfan, an official with Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone, said that as the host city of the 2017 BRICS Summit slated for September, Xiamen welcomes a closer partnership with Russia, one of the BRICS countries. The Xiamen-Moscow freight train service could also strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative, driving trade in Xiamen.

In 2016, exports from Xiamen to Russia reached more than 5 billion yuan ($727 million), and imports from Russia totaled 1.9 billion yuan.
Gregory Hayes, chairman and chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp. [Photo/China Daily]

Gregory Hayes, chairman and chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp, believes that globalization will not only increase trade among countriesbut will also create global supply chain networks across developed and developing countries.

"As global supply chains expand, it has become more accessible to developing markets, allowing businesses in these countries to participate in the global economy more efficiently and cost effectively," said Hayes.

There was no free lunch when he was appointed CEO in 2014, as he immediately had to lead his group to reach more growth targets in its businessesincluding elevators and escalators, aircraft engines, aerospace systems and climate control and security systemsas well as to further digitalize them to compete with other rivals in the fast-developing digital era.

While China is undergoing an industrial and consumption upgrading boom, along with the Made in China 2025 initiative, the Connecticut-headquartered conglomerate expects the use of digital and connected solutions will play an increasingly important role there.

Hayes spoke to China Daily on UTC's strategy for business growth and various other aspects. The following are the edited excerpts from the interview:

Do you have any new investment plan or strategies to expand your market presence in China this year?

United Technologies will continue to invest in China. Otis is making a significant investment in Shanghai, where it will build a 220-meter test tower to test the next generation of high-speed elevators. We have brought all our high-rise R&D facilities to China as well.

We will also continue to invest on the commercial side. Carrierour air conditioning, heating and refrigeration subsidiary will continue to make investmentshas an R&D center that is moving into a much larger facility outside Shanghai this year.

On the aerospace side, we are making investments in products that are currently manufactured in the United States but we are moving some of that production here for the local Chinese market.

What is your assessment of the Chinese economy and how will the country's economic transformation affect your investment strategy?

It is always interesting when people talk about 6.5 percent GDP growth. From the perspective of the USwhere we see 2 percent growthwe would love to see 6.5 percent growth. And again, 6.5 percent growth in a $12 trillion economy, means $780 billion of GDP growth. So we say China's slowing down, but it's inevitable just because the economy is getting so big.

I think importantly, when you look at where the GDP growth in China is coming from, the services side and consumer spending now represent 50 percent of GDP, and that is probably growing at 10 percent plus.

UTC is not here just for the next five years. We view China as a place where we'll be doing business for the next 50 to 100 years and beyond and for us the service sectors are going to be equally important as manufacturing growth.

Do you have specific plans to develop the markets along the Belt and Road Initiative?

We have already started to adjust our strategies in China by bringing our technology center for high-rise construction here to Shanghai. China also currently serves as a manufacturing base to export across Asiaand even back to the United States in some cases. However there remains an opportunity for us to continue to expand manufacturing for exports.

What decisive measures have affected or helped the company's development, specifically under your management?

We recognize that the products we have today are not going to be sufficient for the markets of tomorrow, so we're focused on how we can change and evolve our products. How do you take advantage of, for instance, the digital age, internet of things, taking information gained from the jet engine of today?

We have 4 million bits of data generated by a jet engine after every flight. How do you take that data and use it to make the engines more efficient, but also lower costs for the airlines? How can you predict when an engine is going to fail? We've done similar things on elevators, with remote electronic monitoring.

How do you remain competitive in China and how do you see the country's market conditions evolving?

The key to being successful is innovation. For Otis that means coming up with machines that run faster and quieter, plus have aesthetics in the cabins that are more pleasing for the passengers. They also have to have a cost position that is better than the competition to price your product at a point where you can be successful.

I would say China is no longer low cost. We're looking for ways to automate; at the Otis factory in Tianjin, we have a number of robots replacing work that used to be done by workers. We still have over 1,000 people working in the factories there, but because of the higher labor costs we are also automating.

What's your biggest achievement in China as group CEO?

I think it is the continued growth of the business and the fact that each one of our businesses is led by a local leader today. We don't have expats running the business. We have local leaders top to bottom in each one of our businesses.

How can digital technologies improve your company's business?

Digital technologies will help us create newer and better ways to use the data coming off our products to drive greater efficiency into our operations.

These technologies will also help transform our products and services to create real value for our customersfrom predictive maintenance for jet engines, to remote electronic monitoring for elevators to intelligent building controls that can adjust the climate in one of our buildings to suit the preferences of a particular customer.

How do you motivate your international team?

I've often said that companies don't innovate, people do. I believe one of the best ways to motivate people is to make sure they are engaged and excited about the work they are doing.

We encourage continuous, lifelong learning for our employees and strive to create an environment where employees are empowered to take control of their careers.

What's the secret of your business success in China?

We believe our success in China lies in our ability to serve our local customers with our local businesses. We depend on the strong relationships we have developed with suppliers, customers and government officials throughout our long presence in China.

Our ability to localize our manufacturing, product management, engineering and supply chain has also been very critical.

We are very familiar with the needs of our customers in China, and are committed to providing solutions that deliver value and support the trends we see in sustainability, urbanization and commercial aerospace.

How do you promote your business in China?

The best way to promote our business is to deliver innovative products and services that our Chinese customers want. We continue to invest in technology to develop innovative and sustainable solutions for the aerospace and building industries that keep people safe, comfortable, productive and on the move.

Our long history in China is invaluablewe have many successful partnerships and understand the needs of the local market.

What are your hobbies? How do you spend your time off duty while in China?

I enjoy readingmy favorite topics are economics and business, but I like fiction as well.

When I visit China, my favorite part of the trip is always getting to know people and learning about what is on their mindswhether it's employees, customers, suppliers or government officials. These interactions offer a unique opportunity for me to learn something new about either China itself or our businesses.

What do you think about the Chinese Dream? What are your dreams or ambitions in China?

I think the concept of the Chinese Dream is a powerful way to inspire people. Its guiding principles will be important as China continues to grow and prosper.

I think the Chinese Dream is also about a sustainable future and I'm proud of UTC's role in providing solutions that meet these needs.

We are confident in the future of China's aviation market. Our solutions support that growth as wellfrom the world's most fuel-efficient jet engines to advanced aerospace components.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO.

Facebook wants you to sit in your bedroom wearing a headset and take a virtual vacation with faraway friends and family. Or use your smartphone's camera to spruce up your dinky apartment, at least virtually.

The promise of augmented and virtual reality was a big focus of Facebook's annual conference for developers on Tuesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the gathering of programmers and other tech folks by talking about augmented reality tools he envisions on Facebook.

Augmented reality involves the overlay of computer-generated images into real-world surroundings. Zuckerberg said new phone-based applications might let you create a three-dimensional scene from a single two-dimensional photo or splatter the walls of your house with colorful digital art. You'd see the digital additions by looking "through" your phone at the augmented physical world.

Chores more interesting

Facebook executives stressed that the technology is still in its early stages, and that the "journey to the future of augmented reality is just 1 percent finished", as Deb Liu, vice-president of platform and marketplaces, put it.

Zuckerberg envisions the marriage of augmented reality and Facebook's camera feature enabling people to make even mundane chores, like doing the dishes, look entertaining with digital effects.

Of course, it could also result in people staring into their smartphones even more intently as they marvel at an alternate reality instead of their actual surroundings.

"Over time, I think this is going to be a really important technology that changes how we use our phones," Zuckerberg predicted.

Facebook also launched a virtual world, called Facebook Spaces, designed to let users of its Oculus Rift VR headset hang out with avatar versions of their friends in a virtual world.

It's the first time the company has connected the Rift to its social network in a meaningful way, though it's a development Zuckerberg hinted at when the company bought Oculus back in 2014 for $2 billion.

Coming your way

While the new tools and features are impressive, analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research cautioned that "most of them won't be in users' hands anytime soon".

That's especially true for the Spaces app, since relatively few of Facebook's 1.9 billion members are using Oculus' VR headset, which sells for about $500 and requires an expensive computer to make it work.

But Facebook could still have the edge on rivals such as Snapchat, which also launched some augmented reality features on Tuesday, likely to coincide with Facebook's news. "Facebook has the resources to move fast in this area and the audience to spread those features much more widely than Snapchat," Dawson wrote in a brief research note.

Snap representatives did not immediately respond to an email for comment on Tuesday afternoon.

Facebook's focus on smartphones over high-tech glasses or headsets makes sense given how familiar they are, said Gartner analyst Brian Blau. "People already have cameras and are used to having fun and being creative with them," he said.

"This will give people a chance to experience augmented reality in a way that isn't so scary or off-putting."

Until the past year or so, it seemed like it would be at least another decade before augmented reality would have a chance to become a widely used technology, said Ficus Kirkpatrick, Facebook's director of engineering.

But advances in image and object recognition, along with the ubiquity of smartphone cameras, "has put us on the course to bring augmented reality," Kirkpatrick said in an interview.

Chatting with firms

Facebook also announced a bevy of updates to Messenger, its increasingly independent messaging app.

Messenger head David Marcus claims the app has become the de facto "white pages" of messaging, since people can find and chat with friends without knowing their phone number. Now, Messenger wants to do the same for businesses, creating a "yellow pages" of sorts that let companies communicate with their customers.

Messenger will also let people chat with outside businesses as a group. That would, for instance, allow groups of friends to share Spotify playlists or to make a restaurant reservation through OpenTable that keeps everyone on the same page. The idea is simplify what might otherwise require a flurry of texts and sharing of links.

Zuckerberg also briefly addressed a tragedy that took place on Monday, when a man posted video of a murder on Facebook. That raised questions about Facebook's ability to monitor gruesome material on its site.

The Facebook founder said his company has "a lot of work" to do on this front.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
MaixunBytes Information Technology has published the first white paper about internet communication management, giving advice about brand building, crisis warnings and content marketing.

According to the report, the number of active users on China's major social media platform, WeChat, surpassed 800 million last year, followed by 700 million on QQ and 300 million on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

Tencent, iQiyi and Youku are three top video websites in China, followed by LeTV and Sohu.

The report noted that live-streaming and short video applications increased last year, reflecting that the age of pictures and words has turned into that of videos.

Kuaishou, China's main short video app, ranked top 20 among social media sites. Inke and YY Live were the two most popular live-streaming apps.

Two major "bullet-screen" video-streaming sites, or sites where individuals can share comments instantly with the audience, Bilibili.com and Acfun.com, whose technology was learnt by other video sites, were still active.

Users of news apps reached 530 million. Competition among different news apps remained fierce, the report said.

Online communities and websites about popularizing knowledge, including Zhihu and Guokr produced many new products to meet the demand of emerging middle classes, the white paper said.

"Community searches, brands and activity rankings attract the most attention," MaixunBytes chief executive officer Zhang Zhigang said.

Zhang said enterprises need to know the demand of targeted customers and establish links with them as soon as possible, while various social platforms provide new channels for companies to get to know and understand their potential clients.

MaixunBytes analyzes data from social media, including page views and sharing frequency to determine hot topics and favored brands.

"Our platform can quickly extract content that customers are interested in and find potential marketing opportunities there," he added.

Chen Zhijie, former general manager of Digital Powerhouse of Shunya Communication Group, said user experience, feedback, as well as discussion of a hot topic on social media, are all useful resources for brands.

Sail Chen, senior analytics manager for Newsroom of Adidas, said the company gained valuable information about its customers when cooperating with stars to do promotion through an analysis of the interactive data of fans on social media.
An attendee at the Microsoft Ignite technology conference walks past the Hewlett-Packard (HP) logo in Chicago, US. [Photo/Agencies]

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc signed strategic partnership with HP Inc on Thursday, a move aimed at boosting its strength to compete in the growing enterprise market in the country.

Under the deal, the two sides will enhance cooperation in product development, sales, marketing and customer services, connecting the sales platform and brand to offer clients better services.

Hu Shengli, president of JD.com Inc's 3C business department, said the two companies aimed to offer high-quality products and services to meet clients' changing needs.

"Instead of simply copying the offline experiences, we will focus on industry exploration and networking. Supported by JD's technology capability and platform, it will be a win-win game."

"We two will especially work together to provide customer services, which will help reduce the cost and offer better user experiences."

With the help of JD.com's big data technology, HP Inc will be able to better target the enterprise market, introducing more customized products and industry solutions accordingly, the company said.

According to a report released by market research company IDC in April, HP Inc took back the top spot in the global PC market by shipment for the first quarter this year, followed by its rival Lenovo.

Zhuang Zhengsong, president of HP Greater China Region, said HP will take JD.com as its priority sales platform and will work with JD.com to bring more products for corporate clients.
XININGAfter three months of nominations, examinations and elections, Wang Fucun is on the final candidate list for the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Wang is a village Party head of Gaomiao township in Haidong, Qinghai province.

At the end of this month, the CPC Qinghai Provincial Committee will vote for candidates on a list consisting of Wang and 32 others to determine its delegates to the congress, which is set for later this year.

"I'm glad that my work and conduct have been recognized by Party members and people recommending me. Whether or not I'm elected, I have felt a huge responsibility," he said.

Nationwide, a total of 2,300 delegates will be elected before June to represent China's 88 million CPC members at the national congress.

The congress, slated for the second half of the year in Beijing, will discuss and set the future direction for the Party and country, as well as elect new central leadership.

Li Changlong, secretary of the CPC Gaomiao Township Committee, remembered how Wang was nominated.

"Our committee organized a meeting involving 23 Party branches across the township as required on Jan 18. Six candidates, including Wang, were nominated," he said.

Three days after the committee submitted the candidate list to the higher administrative level, Ledu district, the CPC Ledu District Committee sent a team to examine their files and solicit public opinion.

"The key was to check whether they had corruption issues or public complaints against them," Li said.

Similar procedures were performed by CPC committees at district, city and provincial levels in the following months, shortening the list of 87 candidates to 33.

After retiring from the Army in the 1980s, Wang organized villagers in his hometown to be construction workers in the cities, helping the village shake off poverty. He was elected head of the village in 2005 and its Party head in 2014.

The nationwide drive to enhance rural areas since 2009 brought both challenges and opportunities.

Facing numerous village issues, such as road construction, garbage collection and residential renovation, Wang established a standard procedure to deal with village affairs to ensure transparency and public participation.

The procedure requires each project be discussed by the village committee and Party branch for a solution, followed by a CPC member deliberation, a full village vote and full disclosure of the project and its solution.

"With the standard procedure, we are able to supervise village affairs in a transparent way and have our questions responded to in a timely manner," said Wang Kerong, one of the villagers nominating the veteran.

According to the election work plan of the province issued by the Organization Department of CPC Qinghai Provincial Committee, the entire nomination, examination and election process should show "zero tolerance" to CPC members with flaws.

Candidates found with fake files or problems with corruption, or those who engage in drug use, gambling, prostitution or drunken driving, are prohibited under the plan.

Disciplinary departments are requested to investigate any public complaints.

To welcome wide participation, authorities in the provincial capital, Xining, wrote a public letter to all CPC members that was published across a range of media. It was also translated into Tibetan, a language spoken by many in the city.

Fan Peiyou, a poverty relief worker in Zhujiazhuang village, Huangzhong county, said 35 CPC members in the village discussed the nominees on three occasions.

"The task force visited CPC members with walking difficulties at home to listen to their opinions, and those who work in cities were solicited for comments via WeChat," he said.
Shenzhen traffic police have taken the lead in their use of high technology to catch jaywalkers and drivers who break traffic rules.

Since April 15, jaywalkers at the intersection of Xinzhou and Lianhua roads have been photographed and had their faces instantly displayed on a big screen.

"It's expected to play an increasingly important role in reducing jaywalking," according to Li Qiang, director of science and technology for the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau.

The system, which operates 24 hours a day, is expected to be rolled out over the entire city if it is proved to be effective.

"Exposing jaywalkers is one way to manage traffic, and our aim is to further reduce the number of traffic accidents caused by jaywalkers," Li said.

The new system also includes sonar technology that can capture motorists who use their horns, which is banned in downtown Shenzhen and can result in a fine of 500 yuan ($72).

Traffic police have investigated more than 200,000 cases involving jaywalkers and violations of traffic rules by non-motorized vehicles since the beginning of last year, consuming substantial public resources.

Many residents have welcomed the system, which aims to improve the city's traffic order.

Luo Guangqing, a white-collar worker, said showing the photos of jaywalkers is a heavier punishment than a 100-yuan fine.

"Jaywalking not only increases the hazards to jaywalkers themselves but also damages social order," he said.

Chen Yanqing, a tourist in Shenzhen, said most people will feel ashamed when their faces are put on display for many people to see.

"So I think it is an effective and concrete measure to remedy jaywalking," she said.

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page5)
Authorities say fake trademarks threaten public health, city's image

Food and liquor brands are favored targets of criminals looking to profit by forging well-known trademarks, a report by Beijing's top prosecuting authorities said on Thursday.

In 2016, prosecutors in the capital accused 51 people of forging trademarks. Of those, nearly 85 percent involved counterfeiting popular Chinese food and liquor trademarks - including Beijing duck and baijiu, the national drink of China - according to the report released by the Beijing People's Procuratorate.

"We found some defendants had no food hygiene licenses, let alone a clean and regulated process to produce food and liquor," said Wang Wei, deputy chief prosecutor of the authority. "They bought raw materials at a very low price, processed them roughly and then sold them in the name of registered trademarks in market."

For example, a resident surnamed Bai was found putting partially cooked duck meat purchased from wholesale markets into packages with the well-known Quanjude trademark in a small workshop in Changxindian township of Beijing's Fengtai district from April to September last year. Quanjude is a Beijing-based restaurant chain known for its roast duck.

Bai brought in 680,000 yuan ($98,800) by selling the fake meat. When he was arrested on Sept 23, police officers found 696 packages of fake Quanjude duck in his workshop, along with delivery invoices and many packages displaying the trademark.

All the goods were verified as counterfeit.

On March 28, Bai was sentenced by the district court to two years and six months in prison for infringing on a registered trademark, and was fined 150,000 yuan.

"Such crimes not only damage the interests of trademark owners but also harm residents' health. That's why we fight them without hesitation," Wang said.

Jiang Shuzhen, director of the prosecuting authority's economic crime supervision department, said forging Beijing's traditional and well-known trademarks also damages the city's image and hurts tourism.

While increasing supervision has been directed toward the safety of food and medicine as required in recent years by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, she said cooperation needs to improve with other government departments.

"A platform on which the city's administrations, including commercial and industrial departments, can share information is being considered. I believe it will help us a lot to seek clues and effectively fight counterfeit-related crimes," she said.

In 2016, the city's prosecutors approved the detention of 80 people and prosecuted 137 people suspected of harming intellectual property rights across the city. Of those, most related to trademark infringement - including foreign brands, mainly from the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, the report said.
Zhang Yue, the former top official in charge of political and legal affairs in Hebei province, was tried on charges of taking bribes of more than 157 million yuan ($22.8 million).

The bribery case was tried in open court at Changzhou Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu province on Thursday, the court said in a statement on its website.

Zhang was accused of accepting bribes between 2008 and 2016 during which time he held several senior positions in Hebei, including as the provincial police chief.

The Changzhou People's Procuratorate said in the trial that Zhang helped companies benefit from land development and project contracting, and he used his power to influence court decisions to benefit others. It also prosecuted Zhang for accepting bribes in return for promotions.

Zhang confessed to the crimes in court, and most of the bribes he took have been seized, according to the statement.

The court said it will later issue its verdict.

On the same day, former deputy head of the mainland's Taiwan affairs authority was sentenced to 15 years in prison on bribery charges.

Gong Qinggai, former deputy head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, was convicted of taking 53.5 million yuan in bribes.

He was found to have used his positions as senior officials in Fujian province, including the top official in Jinjiang and the mayor of Nanping, to benefit others in land expropriation, construction projects and city planning.

Anyang Intermediate People's Court in Henan province, where Gong was convicted, said on Thursday that it showed him leniency because he confessed to his crimes and he offered information about crimes committed by others, who were unknown to prosecutors.

Yang Weidong, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the two cases have shown the unswerving determination of anti-graft authorities to carry out the nationwide campaign.

"The efforts to build a clean government started in late 2012. It takes a few years to find out, investigate, prosecute and convict the accused in bribery cases. Years will be needed to root out corruption across the country, so it is highly important to continue the anti-graft campaign in all areas and to maintain a zero-tolerance stance in the efforts," he said.
Denuclearization peacefully through talks and maintaining peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula is the only effective way to solve the region's nuclear issue, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in Beijing on Thursday.

Lu made the remark after US President Donald Trump was quoted by the Associated Press as urging the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to seek a peaceful solution.

Trump said that the deciding factor in easing tensions between the two countries will be how much the DPRK's leader desires peace.

The United States wants peace, Trump said, and he hopes DPRK leader Kim Jong-un also wants peace. That will be "the end determination", he said.

Lu said he had seen the report and reiterated that China's consistent position has been that the peninsula should be denuclearized peacefully through talks and that peace and stability should be maintained.

"As I said here yesterday, none of the major parties in the peninsula's nuclear issue want to see conflict and war, and an overwhelming majority of the members of the international community want peace," the spokesman said.

"We hope all parties can reach consensus over this general direction and general principle, and make concrete efforts toward it," Lu said.

China has urged the parties involved in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that could increase tensions. It has proposed a "dual-suspension" for solving the issue and said it is open to helpful proposals from relevant parties.

In a news conference on Wednesday, Lu said the consequences of an eventual war would be "out of anyone's hands".
A nurse takes the health details of a senior patient at Donghuashi Community Health Center in Beijing.Luo Xiaoguang / Xinhua

Markups on drug prices have been abolished in the capital's hospitals as part of a series of measures to provide better, targeted treatment at lower prices. Wang Xiaodong reports.

Wu Weihong hasn't been affected by the medical reforms implemented in Beijing this month, but the new measures have had a big impact on his 61-year-old mother, who has regular treatment for chronic kidney disease.

Wu subscribes to Beijing's basic medical insurance program, which means most of his medical fees are reimbursed. However, his mother, a farmer in neighboring Hebei province, subscribes to a different program so she has to bear the entire cost herself.

"We paid 100 yuan ($14.50) to see a senior doctor," said Wu, who works for a property management company in Beijing, after accompanying his mother to the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, a major treatment center in the capital.

"In the past, the cost of seeing a similar-ranked doctor was only 7 yuan."

A patient surnamed Li, who recently had surgery at the same hospital, said he has heard about the reform in recent days and is curious to see what will happen next.

"I heard hospital drug prices have been reduced. Many patients with my illness have discussed the issue online. Some said doctors are now prescribing fewer drugs than before, so they have to go to the hospital more frequently to get new supplies," he said.

"I have not been affected by the change, but I think people who have been prescribed drugs that cost more than 1,000 yuan will feel the difference."

Prices and fees

The measures, introduced on April 8, are designed to end the markup levied on drugs prescribed at hospitals and also modify the fees for registration, consultation and treatment.

Following the implementation, the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner, announced that public hospitals nationwide must end markups by the end of September.

Figures released by the Beijing Municipal Commission for Health and Family Planning show that between April 8 and 15, the amount spent on drugs per visit fell at outpatient departments in large hospitals and smaller community clinics.

Moreover, average expenditure on drugs per visit to outpatient departments at Grade A hospitals - the top-level in the country's three-tier system - was 230 yuan, 3 percent lower than the same period last year.

At a media briefing last week, Wang Hesheng, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the top health authority, said: "Beijing's medical reform is heading in the right direction, and has won support from a majority of patients. We will watch the reform and promote the experience in other parts of the country."

Markups abolished

The long-held practice of price markups on drugs sold at public hospitals has traditionally been a key source of income.

The system, which usually adds about 15 percent to the price, was promoted in public hospitals in the 1950s. Some experts said it encouraged hospitals to prescribe too much, and more expensive, medication, which contributed to soaring healthcare expenditure.

Despite being designed to help hospitals overcome shortfalls in government funding, the markup system became a way to make profits and resulted in ever-worsening problems, such as overprescription of drugs, excessive use of antibiotics and rising costs, said Wang, from the NHFPC.

Eradication of the system is also a key part of the nation's ongoing medical reform, which aims to provide universal coverage of basic healthcare services, according to the NHFPC.

In 2012, pilot programs were introduced in five large hospitals in the capital, including Beijing Chaoyang Hospital and Beijing Friendship Hospital.

Last year, the income generated by drug sales accounted for about 33 percent of the two hospitals' total incomes, compared with 43 percent in 2012, the municipal commission said.

On April 8, the reform was expanded to more than 3,600 institutions across the city, including public hospitals.

In addition, all institutions are now obliged to purchase drugs from pharmaceutical manufacturers through an open and competitive public bidding process to further reduce prices, according to Fang Laiying, head of the municipal commission.

The measures should result in drug prices falling by about 20 percent. To compensate for lost revenues, hospitals involved in the reform have raised fees for a number of services, such as surgery and acupuncture, it added. For example, the cost of acupuncture has risen to 26 yuan per session from 4 yuan.

Fees will be reduced for checkups that require the use of expensive equipment. Moreover, diagnosis and registration fees have been abolished, and replaced by a much higher "medical service", or consultation, fee, which varies according to the grade of hospital and the seniority of the doctor involved.

The move is intended to reflect the true value of services provided by medical staff.

For outpatient services, the cost of consulting a senior physician at a Grade A hospital is now 80 to 100 yuan per visit, while the fee to see a junior doctor at a Grade C hospital, the lowest ranked, at community-level clinics is 20 yuan.

Before the reform, the combined consultation and treatment fee for a senior physician in the outpatient department at a Grade A hospital was 7 or 14 yuan per visit, while it cost 5 yuan to see a junior doctor. Medical professionals said the fees underestimate the value of their work and have called for increases.

"My consultancy fee is now just 80 yuan, which, in my opinion, undervalues the services provided by doctors. Despite that, the reform has made a good start," Wu Changyan, a cardiologist at Beijing Anzhen Hospital, wrote on WeChat.

Li Sufang, deputy director of the Beijing Commission of Development and Reform, said the measures are expected to result in the cost of outpatient treatment falling by about 5 percent, while the cost for inpatient treatment, including surgery, will rise by about 2.5 percent.

A statement issued by the municipal commission said: "The reform will promote the establishment of a dual-layer healthcare system in Beijing and public hospitals will become 'more public' in nature."

Dual-layer system

In the week following the reform's implementation, about 2.1 million people were treated in outpatient departments at Grade A hospitals, a decline of more than 15 percent from the same period a year ago. At the same time, 185,000 people were treated in outpatient departments at grassroots hospitals and community health centers, a rise of 4.9 percent.

In Beijing, and many parts of China, large hospitals are crowded with patients waiting in long lines, even though many smaller and community hospitals have empty beds. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that registration tickets to see a doctor are so difficult to obtain in some hospitals that the market is plagued by scalpers, who charge hundreds of times the face value, according to media reports.

Health authorities in Beijing and across the country have taken a number of steps to promote a dual-layer healthcare system, in which resources will be more-evenly distributed among different types of hospitals. The aim is to encourage more patients to seek treatment at community hospitals. Ma Jun, director of the Dongxiaokou Community Health Service Center in Beijing's Changping district, said following the reform, the minimum consultation fee is 20 yuan, and residents who have subscribed to the city's medical insurance program only pay 1 yuan.

"We haven't seen a big rise in the number of patients because the reform only took effect a few days ago," he said. "But I think in the long run, the measures will encourage more patients to turn to grassroots medical institutions for treatment of commonplace illnesses and minor problems."

Wu, the Beijing resident, said there is no health center in his community in Daxing district and a shortage of doctors at small hospitals near his home means he often waits three or four hours to consult a pediatrician about his son's health.

"I would rather drive for two hours to visit to a big hospital where there are plenty of doctors. Besides, many drugs are unavailable at small hospitals. I hope more measures will be established to make life more convenient for patients," he said.

"For example, many people with chronic illnesses go to the hospital just to get medication, but like the other patients they have to wait a long time to see a doctor and get their prescription."

Zhu Hengpeng, a researcher of healthcare reform at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the reform is the right way to reverse the rising cost of providing services, but he urged further changes to relieve the financial burden on patients.

"More measures should be taken to introduce competition in the medical sector and improve the payment of medical insurance fees to public hospitals to encourage them to control costs," he said.
More than 500 Chinese cities have started or are expected to start their "smart-city" transformations during 2017, according to the Economic Information Daily.

Currently, a total of 290 cities have initiated smart-city pilot projects, and more than 300 cities have signed smart-city construction agreements with IT companies, including the three major Chinese telecommunications companies, Ant Financial and Tencent.

By the end of March, more than 500 cities, including 95 percent of provincial capitals and 83 percent of prefecture-level cities, had proposed transitioning into smart cities. As construction of smart cities accelerates, the scale of related markets is expected to hit 100 billion RMB. This figure shoots up to 1 trillion when upstream and downstream industries are included.

The Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo Highway has become China's first "internet highway," based on its cooperation with mobile payment service provider Alipay and China Guangfa Bank. With more than 40,000 vehicles streaming across the highway every day, it takes a long time for drivers to pay tolls. Through smart-city applications like mobile payments, the time consumed paying toll fees has been greatly reduced.

Another benefit of smart cities can be found in hospitals. According to Cai Xiujun, president of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital of the School of Medicine at Zhejiang University, patients will soon be able to take care of preliminary processes using their mobile phones, reducing the average time patients spend waiting in the hospital.

With the construction of smart cities, smart-city applications will be increasingly embraced, said Wu Hequan, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Wu believes that more and more enterprises will get involved, which will substantially promote the IT industrial chain.
President Xi Jinping called on Thursday for the building of strong real economies and maintaining the strategic choice of developing manufacturing.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks while inspecting an aluminium company in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

A country must make strategic choices, and China's is boosting manufacturing, Xi told workers at Alnan Aluminium Inc.

Xi previously visited the company in May 2010, when he was vice-president of China. Noting that the company's products have been upgraded to aerospace, rail and shipping, Xi congratulated the workers.

As a big power, China must build strong economies, Xi said, adding that manufacturing is an important part of such economies.

The president highlighted innovation-driven development to achieve the transfer from the old engine of growth to the new engine of creativity. He also stressed combining knowledge and expertise.

Xi said that State-owned enterprises are an important force for China's development, and the role of SOEs can only be strengthened.

He also urged SOEs to be strong, improve self-reform, keep up with the times, and address their weakness through reform. The SOEs should also pay attention to the work of the Party's build-up, he added.
President Xi Jinping inspects Nakao River in Nanning, capital city of South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on April 20, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping highlighted the importance of ecological protection and warned of "meaningless development at the cost of the environment".

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks while meeting with riverbank residents in Nanning, capital city of South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on Thursday afternoon.

Xi asked residents on the banks of the Nakao River about the changes to the riverside environment as well as how they felt about living there. The residents responded that they were delighted to live in such a scenic area and Xi said that the river's ecological improvement should be decided by the people.

The president pointed out that ecological civilization is among the five priorities put forward by the Communist Party of China during its 18th national congress in 2012.

Building ecological civilization is not only in line with Chinese traditional culture, but also the need for the country's modernization, Xi said.

Development at the cost of the environment is meaningless, he said, adding that protecting the ecology and harmonious development should be the principle upheld in every area of the country's development.
Oceanic administration, Navy sign cooperation agreement

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-04-21 14:25

BEIJING - China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on Friday signed a framework agreement on cooperation between civil and military sectors in the oceanic field.



The two sides agreed to promote strategic cooperation in civil-military integrated innovation and development.



The agreement covered collaborations in strategy planning, policy making, comprehensive safeguarding and management measures, rights protection and law enforcement as well as human resources and exchanges in the maritime field.



The two sides pledged to promote integrated development between the civil and military sectors to support the building of a world-class navy for China.



According to the agreement, the two sides will enhance organization and communication for integrated development to improve efficiency in using marine resources as well as construction and investment.



The agreement also vowed to share resources between the civil and military sectors to lay a solid foundation for building China into a maritime power.
BEIJING - As astronauts continue to break records for time spent in space and manned Mars exploration is under discussion, scientists in China have begun a groundbreaking study to determine if humans can reproduce in space.



Scientists will for the first time conduct an experiment to induce the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into germ cells on China's first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1.



The experiment aims to study the effects of the space environment on human reproduction, beginning with the study of microgravity on human stem cells and germ cells, says Kehkooi Kee, lead researcher on the project.



Kee, a Malaysia Chinese professor at China's prestigious Tsinghua University, says the unprecedented experiment will study the basic development and maturation of germ cells in the micro-gravity environment, and the developmental potential of human embryonic stem cells.



The research is expected to provide a theoretical basis and technical support to solve the possible problems of human reproduction caused by the space environment, Kee said.



"It's an important experiment because it is the first step towards directly understanding human reproduction during space exploration," he says.



What kind of difficulties could people face by having children in space?



Experts say that in the known space environment, micro-gravity, radiation and magnetic fields could have a great impact on human reproduction. Among these factors, micro-gravity could be the largest challenge.



At the cellular level, micro-gravity might affect cell division or polarity. The cells of living organisms contain many organic molecules. These molecules and cells are evolved to function under the earth gravitational force. But scientists are still not clear how micro-gravity could affect the physical force governing the molecular interactions and developments of the cells, says Kee.



The United States, Russia and Europe have conducted many space experiments to examine if micro-gravity is harmful to astronauts, especially the effects on the muscle and bones. However, microgravity effect on human reproductive capacity has been rarely studied.



Previous research in this area mainly focused on monitoring the reproductive hormone levels of astronauts. Due to the ethical and physical constraints, it has been very difficult to directly obtain and study their germ cells.



"If we aim to directly study human reproductive biology in space, we need to build an in-vitro platform to study the germ cells. So we chose to use human embryonic stem cells to differentiate into germ cells," says Kee.



In 2009, he and his colleagues used human embryonic stem cells to create human primordial germ cells and sperm-like cells for the first time. They published their research in the academic journal Nature.



Currently, the team has successfully obtained egg-like cells from human embryonic stem cells and will be publishing this novel finding soon.



Human embryonic stem cells can be induced into primordial germ cells and further differentiate into sperm-like or egg-like cells. But differentiating embryonic stem cells into sperm-like or egg-like cells is very difficult because they require more developmental steps and more cellular factors, says Kee.



Although other scientists have conducted similar experiments, none has made human germ cells differentiate into such a mature state as Kee's team has.



"We have compared the in-vitro cultured cells with in-vivo cells, and found they have many similar characteristics. But we can only call the in-vitro ones sperm-like cells or egg-like cells, because we still can't prove they are exactly the same until we conduct functional experiments," Kee says.



So far, all such experiments have been conducted on the ground, so scientists do not know whether micro-gravity will affect the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells and the formation of germ cells.



"In the experiments on the ground, it usually takes six days to culture and obtain primordial germ cells, and about two weeks to form sperm-like or egg-like cells," says Kee.



"The experiment on Tianzhou-1 will last 30 days. To what extent the human embryonic stem cell can differentiate in space is still unknown. Will the process be delayed? If so, by how much?" asks Kee, adding they expect to see at least the first stage of the primordial germ cells appear.



Scientists on the ground will remotely control the research equipment to change the cell-culture medium to induce the human embryonic stem cells to differentiate into germ cells. Images of the cells under the microscope will be transmitted to earth.
Top Chinese scientists are making more efforts to apply exascale supercomputing technology into marine-related scientific exploration.

"Exascale supercomputing" refers to computing system capable of running at least one-exaflop, or quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros) floating-point calculations per second.

More than 300 experts and researchers from home and abroad joined a forum focusing on the development of supercomputing in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, on April 15.

The forum was hosted by Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, or QNLM, the first national laboratory of the kind approved in China for pilot run.

Gao Wen, an academician at Chinese Academy of Engineering, said phenomena in marine science such as tide and wind are actually physical process and they are affected by many factors, and the forecast of these factors need powerful performance of exascale supercomputing.

"Matters including oil exploration and weather forecast, which are related to people's livelihood, also in bad need of exascale supercomputing," said Gao, who is also a professor from Peking University.

Zhang Dongxiao, dean of the college of engineering at Peking University, said the development of exascale supercomputing should be supported by both hardware and software, and it's necessary to build a public exascale supercomputing platform in marine research.

Last December, QNLM unveiled its high performance computing center. Its computing capacity reached 2.6 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point calculations per second), the fastest in current international marine research area.

Wu Lixin, director of executive committee of QNLM, said the Qingdao laboratory will invite experts from both marine and computer research fields together and discuss the application of exascale supercomputing with its focus on ultra-precision simulation of ocean system.

With the help of intellectual supercomputing and big data, the QNLM is also carrying out major scientific projects, including "transparent ocean", "deep sea and polar regions", "blue life", in support of the accurate prediction of the marine environment and climate change, said Wu, who is also an academician of at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Editor's note: China launched its first cargo spacecraft on Thursday night on a mission to test resupply technology for a planned manned space station. If the mission is successful, it will make China the third nation to use its own technology to conduct in-orbit refueling, joining Russia and the United States. The mission drew worldwide attention and many foreign media organizations called China's move a contribution to human spaceflight.

'America has not done this'

Morris Jones, a space expert based in Australia, said the cargo ship was a great achievement for China.

"Only Europe, Russia and China have developed freighters that can refuel a space station. America has not done this," he said.

-- South China Morning Post

Tianzhou ticks the final boxes on the list

Steadily, China has been ticking the boxes for its preparations to gain a major foothold in human spaceflight. The operations of the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft will tick the final boxes on this list of tasks.

--by Morris Jones for SpaceDaily
As awareness of the importance of sex education grows, schools are inviting professionals to give lectures to the students.

In September, Xincheng Primary School in Shanghai opened its first sex education course for 9-year-old students in grade four, with the support of Shan Jie Tong Zhen  which started as a private sex education research group, but is now a registered company  offering sex education lectures to parents and students at all levels, from kindergarten to college.

Parents are actively encouraged to attend, and feedback is welcomed, according to Gong Yan, the school president. The course has also been available to grade two students since March, the start of the summer semester.

Headed by Hu Ping, a well-known expert in sex education, Shan Jie Tong Zhen employs more than 50 lecturers who have provided course in 77 cities nationwide.

Having spent the last year as a lecturer in the organization's Beijing, Yin Yixiu said more parents are becoming more aware of the need to provide children with sex education, and they are willing to pay for the extra courses.

In the past year, Yin has delivered 28 lectures in Beijing and neighboring cities, about 70 percent of the classes were at the invitation parents groups. Many schools are now offering courses, mainly funded by parents at a cost of about 1,000 yuan ($115) for a 45-minute lecture, but the lack of qualified lecturers has resulted in a number of public schools inviting Yin to address their students.

Last year, Yin approached the education authorities in Beijing and offered to teach the course at a wider range of schools as a regular additional lecture, but her offer was declined.

"The benefits of sex education are not like test scores or other skills that can be visualized or quantified. On the contrary, the education department is wary of being blamed if the course prompts criticism from parents," she said.

Yin received her training in Taiwan, where the courses do not just focus on providing knowledge, but also pay attention to the expression of emotions and greater communication about children's feelings and their attitudes toward sex. She believes the Taiwan model offers a template from which other authorities can learn.
A giant panda feeds her cub in Qinling Mountains, Shaanxi province. [Photo/CCTV]

Researchers from the China Conservation and Research Centre have recently made a breakthrough, discovering one of their captive female giant pandas has naturally mated with a wild male giant panda.

Researchers believed the female panda, named Cao Cao, mated with the male on March 23, 2017, after retrieving a recorder placed on her, on March 27.

It is believed the natural mate occurred at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, in Sichuan province, for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Currently, there are 471 captive pandas in China, which are mainly bred using artificial insemination. Researchers confirmed a big problem was the lack of new blood  with limited genetic diversity in mating in the sexually mature pandas held captive.

Zhang Hemin, deputy director of the center, said the only way to increase the amount of genetic diversity at the facility was to release captive pandas into the wild to naturally mate with wild companions.
More than 3000 people from across 40 different countries have taken part in the 12th International Gastric Cancer Congress (IGCC), which opened in Beijing on Thursday.

The event, which featured 340 leading experts in the prevention and treatment of gastric (stomach) cancer, was designed to promote international togetherness and cooperation in spreading awareness about the disease.

Ji Jiafu, president of the 12th IGCC and Peking University Cancer Hospital, said the congress built an academic platform for attendees, experts and survivors to discuss and share their experiences with gastric cancer, in a candid, open and positive way.

Ji added the conference would end on Sunday, April 23, 2017.

"The aim of the congress was to build an academic bridge to communicate research and findings, clinical experience, and promote standardized treatment," he said.

"It is designed to bridge gaps and improve the management of gastric cancer across the globe."

Wu Aiwen, secretary-general of the 12th IGCC, from the Peking University Cancer Hospital, said the congress would cover a range of issues and topics "across prevention, diagnosis and treatment for all stages of gastric cancer".

"[This will include] screening, endoscopic diagnosis and treatment for the early stage of gastric cancer," he said.

"Provision of psycho-social support and traditional Chinese medicine therapy in palliative, and end-of-life care, will also be spoken about."

According to the hospital, 680,000 new gastric cancer cases occurred in China each year, which accounted for half of the worlds cases, with the majority being diagnosed as advanced gastric cancer.
HARBIN -- Wang Yang, a former senior legislator in Northeast China's Liaoning province, went on trial for accepting bribes and electoral fraud on Friday.

Wang, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of Liaoning Provincial People's Congress, was accused of taking advantage of his position to seek benefits for others and of accepting money and valuables worth more than 62.9 million yuan ($9 million) between the end of 2006 and January 2013.

Prosecutors also accused Wang of sabotaging an election when he was running for deputy head of the standing committee of the provincial people's congress from December 2012 to January 2013, saying he had engaged in fraud by offering bribes and lobbying.

The case was tried at the Intermediate People's Court of Daqing City in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province.

Wang confessed to his crimes during the trial, according to the court. Sentence will be announced at a later date.
President Xi Jinping inspects Alnan Aluminium Co in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on Thursday. The president called for building a strong real economy and boosting the manufacturing industry.XIE HUANCHI / XINHUA

President Xi Jinping highlighted the importance of building a strong real economy and boosting the manufacturing industry on Thursday amid the government's efforts to stabilize economic growth and deepen reform.

Noting that it's an arduous task to build a comprehensive well-off society, Xi called for solid efforts to push forward sustainable and healthy development of the economy and society, thus paving the way for the success of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China later this year.

"For a big country like China, it's a must to develop the real economy," Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, told workers at Alnan Aluminium Co in Nanning during an inspection tour of South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

It's a strategic choice for China to boost manufacturing, he added.

Xi previously visited the company in May 2010, when he was vice-president of China. Noting that the company's products have been upgraded to aerospace, rail and shipping, Xi congratulated the workers.

The president highlighted innovation-driven development to achieve the transfer from the old engine of growth to the new engine of creativity. He also stressed combining knowledge and expertise.

Xi said that State-owned enterprises are an important force for China's development, and the role of SOEs can only be strengthened.

He also urged SOEs to be strong, improve self-reform, keep up with the times and address their weaknesses through reform. The SOEs should also pay attention to the work of building up the Party, he added.

The president also emphasized the importance of ecological protection and warned of "meaningless development at the cost of the environment" while meeting with residents on the banks of the Nakao River in Nanning, capital of Guangxi.

Ecological civilization is among the five priorities put forward by the CPC during its 18th National Congress in 2012, Xi said, adding that building ecological civilization is in line not only with Chinese traditional culture, but also with the country's need for modernization.

He said the principles of protecting the ecology and harmonious development should be upheld in every area of the country's development.

During the inspection, Xi also talked with 14 representatives from grassroots organizations to gather their opinions for the 19th National Congress of the CPC, which will be held in the second half of the year.

The president attached great importance to the advice and opinions of people from grassroots organizations, and he urged officials to collect public opinions for the decision-making process of the CPC's 19th National Congress.
Staff members of the Dacheng county environmental protection bureau's monitoring station collect a water sample on Thursday from a polluted pit in Langfang, Hebei province.[Deng Jia/For China Daily]

China has launched a thorough investigation into the pollution of soil throughout the country and will release the final results to the public later, top environmental protection officials said on Friday.

"I can declare today that the Ministry of Environmental Protection will treat all soil polluting cases with no tolerance once we have found them," Tian Weiyong, head of the Environmental Inspection Bureau under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said on Friday, after an NGO discovered two untreated sewage pits filled with hazardous industrial waste.

Photos of the polluted pools, provided by the Chongqing Liangjiang Voluntary Service Center, went viral on Tuesday. The pits were found in Dacheng county of Langfang, Hebei province, and in Tianjin's Jinghai district.

The ministry launched an investigation with the Hebei government immediately after the photos were shown online. According to the Langfang government, several officials of Dacheng county in charge of environmental protection have been suspended from their posts, and the local government has invited experts to work on a plan for restoration of the area.

Restoration will be completed by the end of September, the local government vowed.

A preliminary local investigation found that the sewage had strong acidic qualities, which was caused by waste from acid-washing at steel and iron plants and electroplating factories, said Yan Jingjun, deputy head of the ministry's Environmental Inspection Bureau. Yan is in charge of the joint investigation teams with Hebei and Tianjin.

"But all the pits are located at deserted land that is far away from residential areas, and no villagers nearby drink underground water," Yan said.

As for the pits in Tianjin, the ministry said the municipality solved the pollution in 14 out of 18 similar pits in Jinghai district since 2014, and plans to deal with the remaining four pits.

"Actions of pouring hazardous waste into the pools has broken the law and will be dealt with seriously," said Tian, the inspection bureau head.

"We are extremely open to all kinds of NGOs, the public and the media helping to provide oversight, so we can improve our environment," he added.

According to China's Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law adopted in 2008, discharging noxious sewage water and other waste into wells, pits, cracks and caves is forbidden.

Discharging pollutants into pits and wells has been defined as a crime of contaminating the environment based on a judicial interpretation released in 2013 by the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate.
A project has brought together top opera companies and movie studios to convert classic Peking Opera titles into feature-length movies, including The Mirror of Fortune and The Chinese Orphan. [Photo provided to China Daily]

For two days in a row recently, Peking Opera master Du Jinfang used a hearing aid to listen to speeches about the struggling art form at the ongoing 7th Beijing International Film Festival. After the speeches, the 85-year-old artist was a bit tired, but she was excited about the progress made by the Peking Opera Film Project, which brings together top opera companies and movie studios to convert classic shows into feature-length movies.

"I began to learn the opera as a 6-year-old, and took leads at 16. But most of the performers nowadays are in their 30s. We are short of replacements," she says.

"But thanks to the project, young performers will be encouraged and the opera will be revived," she adds.

Since 2011, the project has led to the production of 10 movies, such as Mu Guiying Assuming Command, The Chinese Orphan, The Mirror of Fortune and Xie Yaohuan. And six of them have been screened at international film festivals, bagging 13 awards.
The Great Wall, starring American and Chinese actors and actresses, makes a positive contribution to Sino-US film cooperation. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The fourth annual US-China Film & TV Industry Expo will be held in Los Angeles in October, it was announced on Wednesday at the ongoing Beijing International Film Festival.

Activities like a film students' exhibition of their works, technical workshops, film funding seminars, and television industry panel discussions will be held over Oct 19-20, and a forum on US-China film industry cooperation will be organized on Oct 30.

Coproduced films will be screened on Oct 30 and 31.

According to Bianca Chen, initiator of the expo, the event will not only explore possible story ideas for cinematic coproduction but financing as well.

The Gold Screen Awardsfor coproduced films as well as individuals and companies making special contributions to coproductionwill also be given out during the expo.

Chen says more than 100 scripts for Sino-US film coproductions were incubated since last year's expo, and eight of them will be made into films that will be released globally.

A sci-fi work and an animated movie are scheduled to be released in late 2019 or early 2020.

Miao Xiaotian, president of China Film Coproduction Corp, says: "As a blockbuster with a big budget, The Great Wall made a positive contribution to film coproduction between China and the US.

"But I don't think blockbusters will be the dominant genre of coproductions in the future. The cooperation will also offer opportunities for diverse genres, especially middle- and low-budget productions."

Miao says that 71 coproduction projects were approved by China's film authorities in 2016, and he feels that the number for this year will match the figure.

"I feel that China has fewer restrictions on film coproduction, compared with some European countries," he says.

"As long as a film has major Chinese elements, rather than being a purely foreign story, it is likely to be approved."

And given the annual quota of foreign films screened in the Chinese mainland, he feels coproduction is a way to bring overseas cinema to China.

Related:

Peking Opera on big screen

Montreal festival makes more space for Chinese cinema
Yellow Valley trained a local housewife who had never had a job before, Qing Qing, to be its resident cheesemaker. [Photo provided to China Daily]

When I first encountered the cumin-flavored variety of Marc de Ruiter's Gouda, I suspected he was making cheese "with Chinese characteristics".

"Not at all," he laughs when we met recently for lunch in Beijing. "That's a very popular flavor in Europe. We eat it at home."

But if cumin's popularity in China helps people to embrace his cheese, he's happy for the chance to appeal to both Eastern and Western palates.

"While the spices are the first thing you notice," he writes on the company's website, "they still do nothing to detract from the smooth, creamy flavor of the cheese within."

An East-West mission also fueled his cheese-making in China when it first began in 2004.

"We Dutch like our cheese," he said in a 2010 interview with China Daily. "But it's not easy in China to get the cheese we are used to."

De Ruiter's craving coincided with a dark moment in China's agriculture: the melamine scandal that squashed demand for made-in-China milk products. The Dutch agronomist, who had been living in China since 1997, watched in horror as small-scale farmers in Shanxi province dumped their unsellable but perfectly good fresh milk down the drains.

He was angry about it thenand now.
Beijing

Seafood, Venice style

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Chef Diego Bugno is celebrating his native Venice with an ongoing food-festival menu reflecting two of the coastal city's most famous offerings. For a main course, don't miss the signature turbot, a fish Bugno calls the "Kobe beef of seafood". Arlecchino pizza (258 yuan), inspired by the colorful characters of an Italian comedy, boasts a pile of seafood that requires some deconstruction to eat, including in-shell clams and crab claws. The crust's crispy bottom nicely supports the load, and is tasty too. The festival ends on April 30, but the dishes will stay on the menu at dinner until the end of June.

Prego at the Westin Financial Center Beijing, 9B Financial Street, Xicheng district. 010-6606-8866.

Exploring 5 senses

Acclaimed chef Alan Hei has created five signature dishes for Mercedes Me with a theme of "The Five Senses" for the Sanlitun eatery's first anniversary. His creations draw upon southern Chinese flavors whilst employing modern techniques. Hei will be at the restaurant on Friday presenting the dishes personally, but they will stay on the menu through May. Celebrity cocktail guru Thibault Mequignon from Danico in Paris is also at Mercedes Me for the anniversary party, taking the "Five Senses" theme to his cocktail shaker. He's there on Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday; his creations will also stay on the menu at the restaurant's Lighthaus bar until the end of May.
By Liu Xiangrui in Beijing and Yang Jun in Guiyang | China Daily | Updated: 2017-04-21 08:09

Zhou Xiangyang instructs a student in the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, the United States. [Photo by Bian Ang/For China Daily]

For Zhou Xiangyang, AIDS research is full of challenges.

After graduating from Chongqing Medical University in 1982, he worked as a doctor in South China in the late 1980s and then went to study in France and the United States.

He joined the Wistar Institute, a Philadelphia-based biomedical research center, in 2007 and has served as its director of viral medicine since.

The 61-year-old has spent years researching HIV/AIDS and oncolytic vaccines, which have brought him international recognition.

According to the World Health Organization, there were about 36.7 million people living with HIV at the end of 2015, and about 46 percent of them were receiving antiretroviral treatment.

Zhou estimates that the number of people with HIV/AIDS in China has quadrupled in the past decade, mainly due to unsafe sex and drug abuse.

He remembers how a young Chinese couple he once treated shocked him and prompted him to strive harder to find a solution to the AIDS problem.

The couple had made their own wealth through hard work but were infected by HIV from taking drugs after they got rich, according to Zhou.

"As a doctor I felt the responsibility to reduce such patients' pain," he says.

He then gradually became involved in research on relevant vaccines.

His team embedded the enveloping protein of HIV into the carrier of chimpanzee adenovirus.

The method enhanced the immunogenicity of the protein.

Zhou says the AIDS prevention vaccine's development has had encouraging results during testing on animals and it has moved to the first phase of clinical trials in the US.

Lo Xiaoping from the QL Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, a company in Guizhou, invited Zhou to bring the vaccine research project to Southwest China's Guizhou province.

Earlier this year, the Chinese company signed a joint development plan with the Wistar Institute in the US.

Lo says Zhou has brought the "seeds" of the vaccine to his company, and the two sides will work together to carry it further.

Much work needs to be done in the near future, says Zhou.

For example, the virus strains from HIV carriers in Asia are different from those in the West, and lots of tests are needed to understand this.

While dealing with HIV/AIDS has been a challenge for doctors in any country, Zhou tells his students to maintain their patience.

As the doctor recalls, his experience of spending a few tough years in rural China when he was very young helped his persistence grow. The quality benefitted him in his research years later.

When he was studying for his PhD in France in the 1990s, he focused on molecular biological research. Back then, few people knew anything about the subject, Zhou says.

He needed to clone genes with methods that required using the enzyme endonuclease to cut the DNA sequence precisely.

But relevant research conditions in France were very poor then. It was hard to find and afford the expensive endonuclease.

He had to be very economical in using the enzyme. There were no other alternatives, either.

To reduce the use of incision enzyme, he had to improve the purity of DNA plasmid he collected from a bacteria and repeat the selection process several times.

As Zhou observes, the gap between China and Western countries in medical research has been narrowing. He believes Guizhou's strategies, including boosting the general health industry have been very positive factors for introducing talent.

"Guizhou has many beneficial factors for our project. It has a nice environment and huge government investment in terms of both capital and talent, which is attractive. We can enhance our competitiveness with more talent," Zhou says of the reason behind choosing Guizhou.

Lo says his company plans to soon recruit PhD-holders who will be sent for training at the Wistar Institute before they return to focus on AIDS-prevention research under Zhou's guidance.

Li Jiaxu contributed to this story.

Related:

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Family doctors help 'better manage' health
Gregg Stone, professor of medicine at Columbia university College of Physicians and Surgeons. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Gregg Stone, a cardiologist from the United States, has been working along with his Chinese peers to help people with heart diseases in China.

Stone, 60, is a professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and serves as the director of cardiovascular research and education at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

As a specialist in interventional cardiology that deals with catheters, he has worked on many clinical trials.

His association with China began nearly 20 years ago, when he met Gao Runlin, an expert on interventional cardiology from the government-run Fuwai Hospital in Beijing.

At the time, this field was new in the country-with few procedures conducted here. Stone and Gao worked together to bring new medical techniques to China and train physicians.

"We talked about the need for regional training centers, large educational programs and government-invested laboratories to spread the techniques," says Stone.

After Gao launched an annual event called China Interventional Therapeutics in 2002, Stone worked with him to expand its influence, including establishing a partnership with Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics, a global conference sponsored by New York-based Cardiovascular Research Foundation, of which Stone is the vice-chairman.

The Chinese event, which includes lectures and live broadcasts of surgeries related to heart diseases, has become a gathering that is attended by 8,000 medical professionals every year.

"It appeals to both young doctors and the very experienced ones," Stone says.
In less than a month's time, President Xi Jinping will host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperationhis landmark program to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa and Europe. The vision of the Belt and Road Initiative (the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road) projects is essentially about connectivityfacilitated by infrastructure.

If by working together, different countries' respective comparative advantages can be exploitedbe it capital, technological know-how, logistical or construction capabilities, raw materials, or even China's industrial goodsinfrastructure can be built efficiently and cheaply. This cooperative approach can spearhead development in low-income countries, and lift emerging economies out of the middle-income trap.

But investing in infrastructure is difficult. It requires large amounts of funding, and carries non-trivial political, sovereign and financial risk. Many governments are trying to solve this problem by improving their state governance, maintain policy continuity and provide an enabling environment for investment in infrastructure. They make a big push to promote public-private partnership, but successes are far and few between.

At a time when a large funding gap in world infrastructure impedes economic progress, when expansionary fiscal policy is particularly potent in creating jobs and stimulating the economysomeone has to take the lead. The objective is clear: the world needs to de-politicize infrastructure decisions, and create a dedicated international pool of long-term capital that are not dependent on taxes, or yearly appropriations of funds.

China is acutely aware of the urgency of infrastructure development in many low-income emerging market economies. The idea of connectivity initially emerged from cooperating with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It then quickly became apparent that connectivity among Asian countries was not enough to achieve better economic results. If it is to play its maximum role, infrastructure needs to stride vast territorial boundaries.

Ahead of the Belt and Road Forum, some clarifications are in order. China is, first of all, not shy of proposing ideas, and then opening it for debate and discussion. But there needs to be someone to initiate, to organize and to take a leading role. Second, China needs to stress the participatory approach in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative. It has no geographical restrictions. It is inclusive, and global integration is what it is all about. Third, it is not about replacing the role of a dominant superpower.

The sequence of events reveals that China first proposed the initiative when Barack Obama was the US president, long before Donald Trump was elected. It is unlikely that its intention was to fill in the gap of a superpower as it rescinds from the world stage. It is just that somebody has to do the job.

And the United States is not doing the job even in the case of its own infrastructure upgrade. Americans are "stuck", with congestions, crumbling bridges and dilapidated roads. Bipartisan debates on how to spend taxes, and a lack of leadership, are reasons that the richest country's infrastructure is lagging behind. They have let politics get in the way.

Thus, China emerges as an obvious candidatewith capital, experience and a vision for global integration. As economist Jeff Sachs writes: "China has proved itself highly effective at building large and complex infrastructure (such as ports, railways, fiber-optic cables, and highways) that complements industrial capital, and this infrastructure has in turn attracted foreign private-sector capital and technology."

There are things that China could have done better. It could have run a better campaign to help advance the economic case. Economic strategy and skillful diplomacy would have to a great extent alleviated the concerns. Sometimes, China's lack of understanding and appreciation of local customs and cultures created barriers and raised tension with the local people. Some Chinese companies' behavior has been a cause of concern. Less than adequate attention to environmental protection and sustainability, and to the interests of the local community has been a convenient excuse for some people to disparage China's Belt and Road Initiative.

It is comforting to see that the Chinese government is fixing the problems, and the Chinese companies investing overseas, whether State-owned enterprises or private companies, have demonstrated their commitment to do a better job.

In the end, we cannot let politics get in the way of a truly global, economically sensible, 21st century initiative. The Belt and Road Initiative is like an orchestra. It needs a conductor and it casts its players around the world. Who becomes the conductor and who is picked as the first violinist is of course important. But more crucial is that it playsand performs.

The author is a professor of economics at the London School of Economics, a world economic forum young leader.
A doctor working at a community healthcare center in Xian, Shaanxi province, measures a womans blood pressure. Provided to China Daily

The Beijing municipal government launched a landmark medical reform early this month by separating drug sales from medical treatment in public hospitals with the aim of lowering overall medical costs and improving services for patients.

The reform, implemented in more than 3,600 medical institutions across the city, replaces the traditional registration fee, which was deemed too low for doctors, with higher medical service charge, while reducing the fees for the use of equipment such as computed tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance but increasing the charges for certain medical services that require high level of experience, expertise and/or staff time, including acupuncture. The reform also eliminates the practice of drug price markup by hospitals, which was as high as 15 percent. The public response, however, has been one of concern.

After the reform, the cost of consulting a doctor has increased, but the overall charge paid by patients for medication has declined, according to media reports. The change in the behavior of doctors brought about by the reform is that they have become more cautious in prescribing medicines leading to lower medication costs.

The Beijing move is seen as a pilot for a nationwide medical reform given that the country faces the challenge of rising medical charges that have increased the financial burden of patients. More provinces and regions are expected to launch similar reforms, learning from the experiences gained from the Beijing program.

Like any other reform, Beijing's move has triggered some complaints from the people, who argue that while they have to spend much more to consult a doctor, their overall medical cost has not dropped as significantly.

Still, the Beijing reform is moving in the right direction as it boosts the morale of doctors by increasing their incomes. Previously, a patient needed to pay only 2 yuan (29 US cents) to consult a doctor in a public hospital, which didn't match the expertise and labor of the doctors and, regrettably, became a reason for them to accept kickbacks from drug dealers in exchange for prescribing excessive medicines. Now the medical service charge (replacing the previous registration fees) has been raised to 10 yuan for young doctors, and up to 40 yuan for experienced doctors.

The elimination in drug price markups in hospitals is also an encouraging move, as people had been complaining about high medication costs.

However, the reform is far from complete. It only tackles problems that occur in hospitals and fails to solve those plaguing the long chain of medicine supply. Although drug price markup by hospitals was a key reason for the exorbitant medication costs, it was not the main factor of the overall problem of exorbitant medical costs. The main problem lies in the circulation process, where, in some cases, the bidding price of a drug accepted by a hospital could be 10 times more than the general market price. The enormous profits made from the price gaps are shared by pharmaceutical companies, intermediary medicine dealers, and hospital staff, including kickbacks for doctors. Worse, the inflated medication costs are paid from public funds (through medical cost reimbursement) and by patients.

Many media reports in recent years have revealed the dirty tricks in the drug supply chain that have greatly pushed up the final sales price of medicines in hospitals. Although the authorities have taken several measures to deal with the problem, the situation has not improved much and public complaints keep mounting.

If the authorities are indeed serious about solving the high medical cost problem, they should take real measures to better regulate the industry and prevent the prices of medicines sold through hospital dispensaries from increasing wildly.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily.

xinzhiming@chinadaily.com.cn
Soldiers attend a military parade in central Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Even as US Vice-President Mike Pence reiterated the era of "strategic patience" is over. Even as Pyongyang pledges to conduct another nuclear test "at any time", and carry out missile tests on "a weekly, monthly and yearly basis". The most impressive progress so far regarding the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear/missile threats is the United States' latest indication that it, too, prefers a peaceful solution.

China, Russia and the US finally seem to have reached a consensus on the proper approach to a common headache.

Their shared concern brought the three together to endorse the condemnations and sanctions of the United Nations. Divergences in their approaches, however, left loopholes that have undermined the effectiveness of the sanctions.

Whether because of restraint or inability, that the usually provocative Pyongyang did not conduct an anticipated nuclear test last weekend has been followed by considerable easing in the tense standoff once broadly seen as nearing breaking point.

The relative calm that now exists offers a precious window of opportunity for stakeholders serious about perpetuating it. It will not last long.

It is hard to imagine that Pyongyang will forsake its nuclear pursuit, because that is the only leverage, or bargaining chip, it has.

Pyongyang may soon fire another missile, even detonate another nuclear device, if it sees no immediate threat. It can't afford extreme tensions, but neither can it live without them.

The constant growth of the DPRK nuclear threat testifies to the need for solidarity among key stakeholders, China, Russia, the US and Republic of Korea in particular. Their failure to get Pyongyang to toe the line originates in large part from their inability to speak in one voice.

The continuous difficulty in maneuvering major-power unanimity on the wording of a new UN condemnation at the Security Council is indicative of the diverse concerns setting them apart.

Now that even the once tough-talking Donald Trump is onboard for a peaceful solution, and all parties except Pyongyang want a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the prospect has never been so bright for dissuading Pyongyang without the use of force.

Beijing has demonstrated due enthusiasm for Washington's newfound interest in a diplomatic solution and willingness to work more closely with it. But as the evolution of the state of affairs on the peninsula has shown, no party can fulfill the mission single-handedly.

Washington must be aware of the limitations to Beijing's abilities, and refrain from assuming that the matter can be consigned entirely to Beijing alone.
Sorbus cibagouensis sp. nov. (A) wild plant, (B) flower, (C) type specimen. Photographed by Zhao Mingxu.[Photo/onlinelibrary.wiley.com]

A FARMER IN LUSHI COUNTY, Henan province, was reportedly given a three-year suspended prison sentence and fined 3,000 yuan ($436) for illegally collecting endangered plants. Southern Metropolis Daily commented on Thursday:

The man picked three boat orchids, an endangered species, and was detained by the local forest police for a week. If, as he said, he thought they were weeds, it must have come as a shock to the farmer that the plants he dug up on his way home could land him in prison, as he received a three-year prison sentence, suspended for three years, and a 3,000 yuan fine, besides his weeklong detention.

He claims he did not know what he had taken from the ground is endangered, and that he did not mean to cause any trouble, which if true means he has good reason to question his penalties.

If he was genuinely unaware that the plant was endangered, the farmer paid too high a price for being unfamiliar with a law that is probably not known to many.

Cases like this might be able to teach the public about some little-known offenses that can put people behind bars.

The plant is not on the list of wild plants or precious trees under State-level protection. It can only be found in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, to which China is a signatory.

There is no doubt that the local forest police did their job by detaining the farmer for collecting the rare orchids. But the local forest authorities should inform residents and visitors which plants are endangered and not to be touched, along with their possible whereabouts to the public.
CCTSS members and other delegates take a photo together in Beijing Language and Culture University on April 21. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The closing ceremony of 2017 Sino-Foreign Audiovisual Translation and Dubbing Beijing Cooperation Workshop and outcome dialogue was held in Beijing on April 21, 2017.

Themed "Translating Movies, Sharing Cultures", the Beijing workshop was held from April 17 to April 21. The workshop included cultural forums, Sino-foreign storytelling salon and roadshow theatrical release, featuring in-depth discussions and communications on the promotion of audiovisual translation and mutual study on film and TV production between China and other countries.

The workshop attracted more than 20 foreign delegates including artistic directors, head of the television agencies and senior translators from 22 countries. Also, more than 30 Chinese professionals and film & TV arts talents joined the discussions.

Associate professor Xu Baofeng, CCTSS executive director, said:"The workshop is an innovative program to promote more magnificent Chinese culture across the world. Since 2015, we have launched two programs, which were both a big success. Through discussion and information sharing on firm and TV translation and dubbing between China and other countries, China's dubbing techniques and can be better promoted and reach international standards, maybe more global viewers will prefer watching Chinese dubbed works."

"Despite the cultural shock and language differences, our inner needs and cultural aspirations are similar. Nice cultural works will resonate with viewers all around the world, it's more like a deep heart-to-heart exchange, so they shouldn't be abided in certain countries. Continuous communications and in-depth dialogues can break the barriers of culture and language differences," said Jiang Haoshu, director of the Translation Branch, Bureau of External Relations, Ministry of Culture.

Jiang also noted that audiovisual translation and dubbing have played an important role when Chinese culture "goes out".

"Our university will help to engage more people who are interested in Chinese culture in film and TV translation and dubbing. And during this event, BLCU will launch the 'Global Platform of Sino-Foreign Audiovisual Translation and Dubbing'," Qi added.

Huang Zhuoyue, director of research center for CCTSS, Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), also expressed his support for the workshop. "Our university will help to engage more expats who are interested in Chinese culture in film and TV translation and dubbing."

During the five-day workshop, many foreign translators and professionals had a more thorough understanding of Chinese firm industry. Some of them expressed their gratitude for the workshop at the ceremony.

Masako Inoue, founder of Panda, a Chinese-language translation company, said "Through the five-day workshop, I discovered that translation has a huge potential in Chinese film industry. I have decided to translate some of the movies into Japanese by myself and take them to my country."

Delegations from other countries also introduced themselves and highlighted the Chinese films and TV series that they like. And they also noted that Chinese films and TV are very popular in their countries.

During the dialogue, some Chinese director and president of Culture media companies also mentioned that there was more room for improvement when it comes to getting Chinese works overseas.

"Which works are suitable for export is also something that needs to be seriously considered. Also China needs to consider the conditions of the receiving country when exporting its works, including its culture, religion, and traditions," Zhang Shufang, president of China Broadcasting Media, said.
The profile photo of Hong Ying, an acclaimed Chinese International writer. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In the early 1980s, a young woman finally escapes the slums of Chongqing, a city along the upper of Yangtze River where she has struggled to live with her mother for 18 years. She drifts aimlessly from city to city, immersing herself in books and vigorously writing to earn a living.

No matter how far she travels from the Chongqing, nicknamed"mountain city of Southwestern China", she occasionally thinks back to being a little girl beside the Yangtze River, running as fast as she can through pouring rain to find her mother. As the rain falls more heavily, the riverbank turns into a muddy swamp. She trips and falls into the mud, clambers back to her feet and starts running again.

Reading about the tough upbringing of the internationally acclaimed Chinese writer Hong Ying in her first memoir, Daughter of the River, I'm a little nervous to meet her.

I arrive at Hong Ying's Beijing apartment 20 minutes early and receive a warm welcome.

Dressed casually in a yellow polka-dot skirt, the 55-year-old's slight, thin frame gives her a girlish appearance. Big chestnut brown eyes look out from a baby face, framed by curly dark black hair that falls below her shoulders. Flawless skin is broken by that familiar, almost fanatically optimistically wide smile that has overcome tragedy.

Her apartment is full of surprises. White walls are decorated with her photography, documenting her life with her husband and daughter. Each piece of furniture has been custom-made by world renowned local designers. Natural light streams into cathedral-like spaces, with smaller, quiet rooms attached. There is no sign of the mess of daily life. At the mention of clutter, she shudders involuntarily, declaring she hates it.

Four days before we met, a symphony adapted from Hong Ying's first of three fairytales, The Girl from the French Fort, was performed at Beijing Concert Hall. In a poetic, dreamlike style, the book tells the tale of a young boy, Sangsang, who accidentally stumbles into an age-old mythical world. But the story is not all fantasy and joy. After spending just one night in this magical fort, Sangsang returns home to discover he has been away for almost six months and his mother has died.

Asked why she departed from her usual style to write fairytale stories, Hong answers matter-of-factly. "My daughter once asked, 'why don't you tell me things about you as a little girl?' That's why I wrote it down. That's my first book about children."
Washington will work with regional allies and Beijing on nuclear issue

Visiting US Vice-President Mike Pence said in Tokyo on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is determined to work closely with Japan, the Republic of Korea, other allies in the region and China to achieve a peaceable solution and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Pence told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Washington understands the severe security situation facing Japan and is behind its ally "100 percent".

Abe said Pence's visit to Japan is "extremely timely given the severe state of the situation" surrounding the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Abe said Tokyo hopes for peaceful dialogue with Pyongyang, adding that pressure on the DPRK is crucial. "Dialogue for the sake of dialogue is meaningless," Abe said.

The Japanese leader told Pence of Japan's appreciation for Trump's stance that all options, including military action, are "on the table" to pressure the DPRK to cease its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development efforts.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi called again for calm on Tuesday amid mounting tension on the peninsula, saying he believes that diplomatic solution is still the first choice of Washington. "The US has, in fact, emphasized and reiterated that it would prefer to solve the issue through diplomatic means, although it has said all options are on the table," he told reporters in Beijing.

Doctrine 'is over'

The US is deploying an aircraft carrier and accompanying vessels to waters near the peninsula amid indications the DPRK is planning its sixth nuclear test.

During his visit to Seoul, Pence warned that the "era of strategic patience is over", referring to the doctrine former US president Barack Obama adopted to deal with the DPRK.

Abe and Pence agreed to hold another "two-plus-two" ministerial-level security dialogue in the near future, according to the Kyodo News agency.

An opinion poll by Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun on April 14-16 showed that 64 percent of the respondents supported US moves to increase military pressure on the DPRK. This far exceeded the 27 percent who said they did not approve of Washington' actions.

Japan and the US kicked off the first round of their economic dialogue chaired by Japan's Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday, outlining a path forward for economic talks between the two countries.

They agreed that the dialogue would focus on three areas: trade and investment rules and issues, cooperation in macroeconomic policy and specific industry sectors.

Pence said Trump sees the talks as a way to improve business ties with Japan and is hoping for quick results. The dialogue was set up by Trump and Abe in February.

"We want to take the lead in bolstering economies in the Asia-Pacific region and the world by developing Japan-US economic ties," Aso said at a joint news conference with Pence after their talks.

Pence flew in on Tuesday from Seoul on the second stop of his 10-day Asia trip, which will also take him to Indonesia and Australia.

caihong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/19/2017 page13)
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that could tighten the H-1B immigrant visa program that is popular with skilled workers from India and China.

He signed the order during a visit to the headquarters of Snap-On Inc, a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, saying that H-1B visas should "never be used to replace Americans", adding that "we are about to take bold new steps to follow through on my pledge to buy American and hire American".

"Right now, widespread abuse in our immigration system is allowing American workers of all backgrounds to be replaced by workers brought in from other countries," he said.

The order prods the Justice Department and other federal agencies to propose reforms to ensure H-1B visas are awarded to the most-skilled or highest-paid foreign applicant.

It also directs a separate review of government purchasing requirements, which, along with tightening the requirements for foreign workers, is a move by Trump to carry out his "America First" election campaign pledge.

Created in 1990, H-1B enables US companies to sponsor nonimmigrant visas to temporarily employ foreign workers with bachelor's degrees in areas like computer programming, engineering, and science. The visas are in high demand and given out using a lottery system. It can take six months or longer for an application to be reviewed.

Annual pool

The US sets an annual cap of 85,000 H-1B visas, which includes 20,000 for foreign workers with advanced degrees. Less than a week after the application period opened for 2017 H-1B visas, the annual cap was reached from a pool of 199,000 applications, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said earlier this month.

"Chinese petitions comprise about 5-10 percent of the H-1B pool, which is a distant second to India, which comprises approximately three quarters of all petitions mostly for tech jobs," New York-based immigration attorney Jae Lee said in an email.

Lee said Trump's order calls for a review of the current lottery system in favor of a merit-based one, which would make getting an H1-B visa more competitive, giving priority to the highest-paid or most-skilled workers. Such a system may also level the playing field for applicants from countries other than India, whose technology outsourcing firms dominate the applicant pool each year, Lee said.

Going to a merit-based system "would ensure that only the most-skilled or highest-paid foreign workers would be chosen, incentivizing companies to look to hire American workers first," Lee added.

However, Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University's law school, said the order is an overly simple solution to a complex problem.

"We should vigorously enforce our immigration laws to make sure companies pay the correct wage, but not harm innovation in the process. Studies show that for every H-1B position requested, US technology companies increase their employment by five workers. Research also finds that 51 percent of the country's $1 billion startup companies had at least one immigrant founder," he said.

June Chang and Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.

US President Donald Trump smiles after signing an executive order directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

(China Daily 04/20/2017 page10)
TOKYO - Workaholic Japan has unveiled its first-ever plan to limit overtime, but critics want to give it the boot, saying an "outrageous" 100-hour-a-month cap will do nothing to tackle karoshi, or death from overwork.

Tokyo's bid to ease a national health crisis comes after the top executive at advertising giant Dentsu quit late last year in response to the suicide of a young employee who regularly logged more than 100 hours of overtime a month.

The death of Matsuri Takahashi generated nationwide headlines, prompting the government to come up with a solution to punishing work hours blamed for hundreds of deaths due to strokes, heart attacks and suicides every year.

A panel headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has since come up with a plan calling for a maximum of 100 overtime hours a month.

The conservative leader called it a "historic step for changing the way people work in Japan" but critics think the plan should be given its marching orders.

The Labour Lawyers' Association of Japan has slammed the proposed cap as "extremely inappropriate" and "impossible to support".

"It's tantamount to endorsing a limit that could cause overwork deaths," said association head Ichiro Natsume.

Others who have lost loved ones to karoshi agree.

"We cannot accept this - it's outrageous," said Emiko Teranishi, who heads a group for relatives of karoshi victims.

"I thought the government was finally going to tackle the issue ... But this has turned out to be (a) step backward rather than a step forward."

The new rules would limit monthly overtime and levy penalties on employers who don't comply - both firsts in a country notorious for its grueling work schedule.

But the proposed changes, expected to be submitted this year, would let employers make workers put in as many as 100 hours of overtime if the office is busy - a determination made by managers.

Rengo's president Rikio Kozu praised the scheme as "the first step taken toward eliminating karoshi".

But it does not do enough to tackle the problem, said Hifumi Okunuki, a unionist and teacher at Sagami Women's University.

"How many more workers must die before our country wakes up?" she wrote in a Japan Times opinion column.

(China Daily 04/20/2017 page10)
Beijing expressed "serious concerns" on Wednesday over Pyongyang's recent comments regarding further nuclear and missile tests, saying it is resolutely opposed to any words or actions that could increase tensions.

"The current situation on the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive. ... All related parties should make practical efforts to ease the tensions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily news conference in Beijing.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea recently threatened to conduct more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis, and it said the next nuclear test could take place "at a time and at a place where our headquarters deems necessary".

"I've noticed related reports," Lu said. "China has serious concerns about the DPRK's recent nuclear and missile development move."

Lu said China would pursue a peaceful resolution. "China will steadfastly stick to realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining its peace and stability, as well as solving the issue through dialogue and negotiations."

The spokesman also urged the parties concerned not to intentionally flare up tension for their own political purposes.

He spoke after news media reported that the Japanese government has been working on plans concerning a potential crisis on the Korean Peninsula, including dispatching Self-Defense Forces there.

Republic of Korea Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck called on Japan to refrain from fanning concerns on the Korean Peninsula, saying it could have a negative impact on the peninsula's peace and security.

"We are aware of the Japanese government's related movements. ... And I agree with Cho's remarks," Lu said.

"We hope all countries that are really dedicated to regional peace do not intentionally play up tensions. We should also prevent any party from realizing its own hidden political purposes through creating tensions and intensifying conflicts," he added.

Lu also said major related parties involved in the Korean Peninsula issue have told China during their communications that they do not want to see any conflict or war occur.

"The only conflict worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended," he said, citing a sentence that former US vice-president Joe Biden often said.

mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn
Police secure the Champs Elysees Avenue after one policeman was killed and another wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France, April 20, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

PARIS - A French policeman was shot dead and two others severely injured in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack carried out days before presidential elections and quickly claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the "cowardly killing" on the Champs Elysees boulevard, in which the assailant was himself shot dead by police, was an act of terrorism.

Spokesperson of the French interior ministry Pierre-Henry Brandet told local broadcaster BFMTV that the police officers were "deliberately targeted".

The gunman, armed with a machine gun, got out of a car and opened fire at the police in front of the store on the street, reports quoted a witness as saying.

He then began running away and injured two other officers before got shot in an exchange of fire with the police.

"We are asking all residents to avoid the Champs Elysees area in order to allow police operations to be carried out in serenity," said Brandet, adding that police investigation into the motive of the attack is underway.

The police are currently collecting statements from the various witnesses who were at the scene when the incident occurred, to verify the presence of a second assailant.

Meanwhile, the French prosecutors' office said the counter-terrorism office had opened an inquiry.

French President Francois Hollande will deliver a speech soon after an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl.

Cazeneuve paid homage to the killed policeman and expressed solidarity with the injured on his Twitter account.

The Champs Elysees street was closed off shortly after the shooting, while a helicopter started patrolling the area.

Police vehicles with flashing lights were seen lining up along the street, and passengers were told to move away from the area.

Concerns over security have been raised since Tuesday when two men were arrested for plotting an attack before the French presidential election, which is set to begin on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump holds a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni at the White House in Washington, US, April 20, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - Despite his administration's certification of Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, US President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Iran of "not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear deal.

"They (Iranians) are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed. It was a terrible agreement. It shouldn't have been signed," said Trump here at a joint press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

When asked by a reporter whether the White House had any reasons to suspect that Iran was cheating on the nuclear deal, Trump appeared to ignore the question, answering only that his administration was analyzing the 2015 nuclear deal.

"We'll have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future," said Trump. He did not elaborate.

In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson certified that Iran was compliant through Tuesday with its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

It was the first certification of Iran's compliance issued by the Trump administration. Like his predecessor former US Secretary of State John Kerry, Tillerson is required to send the certification every 90 days.

However, calling Iran "a leading state sponsor of terror," Tillerson informed the Congress that the Trump administration had directed a full review of the 2015 nuclear deal to evaluate whether continued sanctions relief was in the US national security interests.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized the Iran nuclear deal, calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated." He also suggested that he would force Iran to return to the negotiation table or risk the accord being dismantled.

Iran and six world major countries -- the United States, Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany -- reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July, 2015 that puts Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear program.

The deal sets limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it will take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and allows regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran.

In return, the United States and the European Union will suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran, with the lifting of all past UN Security Council sanction resolutions.
British Prime Minister Theresa May (L) meets with President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain on April 20, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

LONDON - The first full day of campaigning got off to a flying start Thursday following British Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to call a snap general election.

With British voters going to the polls on June 8, the big parties did not want to waste any time ahead of the official launches of their election manifestos.

May is predicted to lead the Conservatives to victory with a bigger majority in June. In the first major opinion poll since the election was called, YouGov asked people who they would vote for if there was an election now.

Conservatives topped the list with 48 percent, up 4 percentage points on the last poll. Labour trailed in second place on 24, an increase of one point. Twelve percent opted for the Liberal Democrats and 7 percent chose UKIP.

YouGov said the results represent the highest vote share for the Conservatives since May 2008.

May continues to be the favored choice for prime minister, with 54 percent of people preferring her to Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, who is backed by 15 percent of voters.

Corbyn was in London to deliver what was the first major speech by a party leader in the election race. He told cheering supporters: "It is the establishment versus the people and it is our historic duty to make sure that the people prevail. A duty for all of us here today, the duty of every Labour MP, a duty for our half a million members -- including the 2,500 who have joined in the last 24 hours."

Convinced Labour can win, he said: "We will build a new economy... and we will build a country for the many not the few."

In Edinburgh, the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP is the only party standing in the way of a Conservative majority "because it is 'pie in the sky' to think Labour can win alone."

Speaking at First Minister's Questions on Thursday, Sturgeon said: "The idea in this election that Labour is going to replace the Conservatives is frankly pie in the sky."

"We face an unfettered out-of-control Conservative government. If people want to make sure a Conservative government can be held to account, if they want to make sure there is a strong voice for Scotland and they want to make sure Scotland is protected, they have to make sure they send SNP MPs back to Westminster," she added.

In 2015, the SNP scored its biggest ever electoral success, sending more than 50 MPs to Westminster.

Nigel Farage, founder and former leader of UKIP, the party that campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, said in a media interview he may stand in the general election. Currently the party has no MPs at Westminster.

Meanwhile, May was busy on government duties at 10 Downing Street. She held a meeting with European Parliament President Antonio Tajani.
Front-runner in polls defends stance on engagement policy with Pyongyang

SEOUL - The second TV debate of five major presidential candidates of the Republic of Korea focused on issues related to security and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

During Wednesday night's debate, four candidates showered questions at Moon Jae-in of the biggest Minjoo Party, a front-runner in polls who has maintained an engagement policy toward the DPRK.

Moon is the former chief of staff to late president Roh Moo-hyun who met in 2007 with late DPRK leader Kim Jong-il, the father of current top DPRK leader Kim Jong-un.

Hong Joon-pyo of the former ruling Liberty Korea Party, which had kept a hardline stance on the DPRK, criticized Moon for his argument for an expanded economic cooperation between the two countries. Hong denounced Moon as a pro-DPRK follower and a leftist.

Moon said the expanded cooperation would economically benefit not only Pyongyang but also Seoul, of which companies can do business with the northern neighbor. The companies will hire subcontractors, which in turn, employ more ROK workers.

Sim Sang-jung of the minor progressive Justice Party demanded Moon express a clearer stance on the installation of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system on ROK territory.

Regarding this, Moon said the final decision on THAAD should be made by the next government after going through appropriate procedures such as the parliamentary approval and public discussions.

Seoul and Washington agreed in July to deploy one THAAD battery in the ROK. A THAAD battery is composed of six mobile launchers, 48 interceptors, an AN/TPY-2 radar and a fire and control unit.

On March 6, two mobile launchers and part of THAAD elements were delivered to a US military base in the ROK, raising concerns about a hurried push for the deployment before a presidential election.

The presidential election is scheduled for May 9 following the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye on March 10 over corruption allegations.

The hasty push for THAAD has caused strong oppositions from regional countries, including China and Russia, as it breaks regional strategic balance and damages security interests of the two countries.

Meanwhile, a Danish court on Wednesday upheld a decision by the public prosecutor in Copenhagen to allow the extradition of the daughter of the confidante of Park to face prosecution in her home country.

The 20-year-old Chung Yoo-ra, who is wanted as part of the corruption investigation, is the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, who is jailed on suspicion of bribery and receiving favors from companies in return for manipulating government affairs.

The District Court of Aalborg ruled that there was no impediment to extraditing her, prosecution spokesman Simon Gosvig said. Chung was arrested in Aalborg in northern Denmark on Jan 1 on an international warrant.

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page11)
Chinese and Iranian enterprises have agreed to renovate the Arak heavy water reactor, a key part of an international deal over Iran's nuclear program, and the first commercial contracts will be signed this weekend, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in Beijing on Thursday.

In the redesign, the reactor will be reconfigured so it cannot yield fissile plutonium usable in a nuclear bomb.

The fate of the 40-megawatt Arak reactor was a key sticking point in nearly two years of negotiations that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iranian nuclear issue, signed by Iran with China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States and Germany in 2015.

According to Lu, the six powers have set up a working group, jointly headed by China and the US, on the Arak project, a core content of the JCPOA.

"The renovation project has achieved smooth progress with the efforts of all parties," he said, adding that the contract signing will create good conditions for starting the project in a substantive way.

Lu said that China, as a firm supporter of the JCPOA, is willing to work with all parties in follow-up works according to the deal and general consensus.

'Positive energy'

The spokesman said the six countries and Iran will also hold the seventh meeting of the JCPOA joint committee on Tuesday in Vienna.

"The successful signing of the contracts between China and Iran will help to inject positive energy to the meeting given the current situation," Lu said.

"We hope all parties could appropriately handle disagreements, ensure the implementation of the nuclear deal, and make positive contributions to nuclear nonproliferation and peace and stability in the Middle East," he added.

Iran has said that the Arak plant is aimed at producing isotopes for cancer and other medical treatments, and has denied that any of its nuclear activity is geared to developing weapons.

mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page12)
SYDNEY - Australia plans to raise the bar for handing out citizenships by lengthening the waiting period, adding a new "Australian values" test and raising the standard for English language as part of a shake up of its immigration program.

The move comes in a week when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced axing a temporary work visa popular with foreigners and replacing it with a tougher program in a bid to put "Australia First".

The country has seen the rise of nationalist, anti-immigration politics with far-right wing parties such as One Nation garnering strong public support, while the popularity of Turnbull's ruling center-right government has been languishing.

The new requirements are expected to be passed by Parliament with the backing of right-wing Senators.

On Thursday, Turnbull said basic English would no longer be sufficient to become an Australian citizen under the new test.

Applicants need a minimum level 6.0 equivalent of the International English Language Testing System, and a person will only become eligible for citizenship after four years as a permanent resident, up from one year.

"What we are doing is strengthening our multicultural society and strengthening our values," Turnbull told reporters in Canberra.

Turnbull said the current immigration process was mainly "administrative" while the citizenship test largely a "civics test".

The current citizenship multiple-choice questionnaire tests a person's knowledge of Australian laws, national symbols and colors of the Aboriginal flag. But Turnbull said it was not adequate to judge whether a person would accept "Australian values".

"If we believe that respect for women and children and saying no to violence ... is an Australian value, then why should that not be made a key part, a fundamental part, a very prominent part, of our process to be an Australian citizen? Why should the test simply be a checklist of civic questions?"

The new citizenship test will include questions about whether applicants have sent their kids to school, whether they go to work - if they are of working age - and whether becoming part of unruly gangs in cities were Australian values.

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page12)
George Osborne, who as chancellor of the exchequer was part of the drive by David Cameron's government to boost economic ties with China, said on Wednesday he will not seek re-election as an MP.

He made the announcement just ahead of Parliament deciding by 522 votes to 13 to allow a general election to be held on June 8.

Theresa May fired Osborne as chancellor when she took over as prime minister in June in the wake of the referendum in which Britons voted in favor of leaving the European Union. Osborne remained an MP.

He was recently appointed editor of London's Evening Standard newspaper. He wrote in the paper on Wednesday: "I am stepping down from Westminster - for now," which was seen by many as a hint that he may return to political life. He is 45.

Osborne made a number of high-profile trips to China as chancellor. He was seen as having played a key role in advancing the Sino-UK relationship, which materialized in important projects, including China's investment in the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.

An MP for 16 years, he had been tipped as a possible future prime minister, until the unexpected vote in favor of leaving the EU apparently derailed his career.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats supported the government's motion to hold an election this summer, instead of on the 2020 date when the fixed-term Parliament was scheduled to have ended. Scotland's SNP, which has 53 seats in the House of Commons, abstained from the vote on Wednesday.

Now that May's proposal to hold a June 8 election has cleared Parliament, campaigning will begin in earnest.

Recent opinion polls have put May's Conservatives in front of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party by as much as 21 points.

Labour is believed to be suffering from internal dissent. Most commentators expect the Conservatives to win comfortably and significantly increase May's majority.

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page12)
Up to 30,000 to leave under deal brokered by Qatar and Iran

RASHIDIN, Syria - Thousands of Syrians were evacuated from besieged towns on Wednesday with tight security in place after a weekend bombing against those leaving government-held areas killed dozens, including 70 children.

The evacuations are part of a deal between government and opposition representatives to relieve thousands from suffocating sieges imposed by the government and rebels.

A large convoy of buses set out from the government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya in Idlib province on Wednesday morning, carrying 3,000 people to the rebel-held transit point of Rashidin near Aleppo.

At the same time, 11 buses carrying around 300 people left rebel-held Zabadani, Serghaya and Jabal Sharqi in Damascus province, observers said.

Evacuees finally reached the government-controlled district of Ramussa south of Aleppo on Wednesday evening.

Security was tight throughout the day, after a devastating bomb attack on evacuees in Rashidin on Saturday that killed 126 people.

The so-called Jaish al-Islam group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Most of the dead were from the two Shiite-majority towns, with a handful of aid workers.

Dozens of wounded were taken to hospitals in nearby rebel-held territory, while others were taken to Aleppo, which government forces regained full control of last year.

Um Joud from Fuaa, said it was difficult to describe how she felt.

"Of course I would have preferred to stay in my home, but I left for the sake of my children and their lives and futures," the 55-year-old said.

The deal was brokered last month by Qatar and Iran, but its implementation had been repeatedly delayed.

Wednesday's evacuations mark the end of the first stage of the deal, with a second phase due to begin in June.

Fuaa and Kafraya will be emptied entirely, with residents and fighters heading to Aleppo and then on to government-held Latakia or Damascus.

All rebels are expected to leave Madaya, Zabadani, and other nearby oppositions-held areas, but civilians who want to remain may do so.

In all, up to 30,000 people are expected to leave under the deal. President Bashar al-Assad said evacuation deals are the best way to end the six-year civil war, but the opposition said they amount to forced relocation after years of bombardment and siege.

The United Nations said 600,000 Syrians live under siege, mostly by the Syrian army, but also by rebels or the Islamic State group.

The war has killed more than 320,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011. More than half of the population have been forced from their homes.

Syrians who were injured in a car bomb blast on Saturday arrive at a hospital in government-controlled Aleppo on Wednesday.George Ourfalian / Agence Francepresse

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page12)
US retail giant to open 40 new stores after signing contract with province

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will continue to increase its investment in Guangdong province, as it plans to add more than 40 new stores and one fresh food distribution center in the province in the next five years.

The US retail giant signed an agreement for strategic cooperation on its business expansion plan with Guangdong provincial government on Thursday.

"As a major dynamic economic base in southern China, Guangdong is an important market for us. We will continue to grow in China and accelerate our development here," said Scott Price, executive vice-president of Wal-Mart Global and chief administrative officer of Wal-Mart International.

Wal-Mart will also step up its cooperation with the local government on local sourcing, retail innovation and development.

"We will continue to increase sourcing of Guangdong products and help more of them enter our global supply chain system," said Price.

Wal-Mart entered the Chinese mainland in 1996 and opened its first store in Shenzhen. It now has to more than 400 stores across the country, including 92 in Guangdong.

The company will also upgrade its logistics system and build a cold chain distribution center in Guangdong.

Wal-Mart's expansion plan in the province was one of the 14 contracts signed on Thursday at the 2017 China (Guangdong)-US Investment Cooperation Conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

The contracts involved a total investment of $2.289 billion, covering a wide range of areas such as finance, information technology, transportation, automobiles, intelligent manufacturing and environmental science.

China has become the second-largest destination for investment from the US. Chinese companies made direct investment of more than $15 billion in the US in 2015, surpassing US investment in China for the first time.

"Investment from China in the United States is just starting to gain momentum, and the prospects for US investment in China are still huge," said Yu Jianping, vice-minister of commerce.

The conference was held to act on the important consensus reached on promoting bilateral trade and investment by President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump during their meeting earlier this month.

Guangdong, a major manufacturing base and foreign trade hub, accounted for more than one-fifth of the trade volume between China and the US in 2016.

It attracted actual investment of $8.51 billion from the US by the end of last year, and Guangdong businesses have invested $4.17 billion in the US.

Guangdong offers "very broad market prospects" for US companies, said Guangdong Governor Ma Xingrui.

"The volume of Guangdong's imports of goods will surpass $360 billion in 2020. The province will have mass demand for high-tech products, modern services and high-quality consumer goods and foods," said Ma.

At the same time, to boost exports of made-in-Guangdong products to the US, the provincial government will "give great support" to local companies to build overseas warehouses, exhibition centers and branches, Ma said.

Contact the writers at xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn and qiuquanlin@chinadaily.com.cn

A customer buys fresh pork imported from the United States at a supermarket in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Zhang Tao / For China Daily

(China Daily 04/21/2017 page13)
The Bahamas expects to open direct flights to China and establish more cooperation in tourism and financial services with Chinese investors, officials said in April.

As a North American country with a population of just 400,000, the Bahamas features the many uninhabited islands in the Caribbean Sea, the worlds only pink beach and a low-tax banking system for both corporations and individuals.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Bahamas. Celebrations including a fashion show, art exhibition and gala will be held starting May 26, said Pau Andrew Gomez, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

The country will have a 130-square-meter booth to display its tourism and investment resources in the upcoming 2017 Beijing International Fair for Trade in Services held from May 28 to June 1, he said.

Since the Bahamas has a service-based economy, the event is very suitable as it focuses on tourism, ministration, hotel and other financial services, he said.

"We expect to bring China and the Bahamas' businessmen together to see if it can be converted into real economic activities," he said.

As the only Caribbean country in which businessmen are allowed to do trading in RMB, many Chinese people have made investments in the Bahamas, mainly concerning ports, luxury hotels and resorts.

The Export-Import Bank of China provided loan of $410 million to build a new port in Abaco, an island in the northern part of the country in 2012. It cooperated with China Construction America, a subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Corp, to construct Baha Mar resort, to be completed by the end of 2019, according to Setter Yang, Consular Assistant of the Embassy of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

They expect to build more budget hotels with no more than 45 rooms to attract tourists from Europe, America and the large market of China, she said.

Paul said they also welcomed Chinese banks to the area to engage in retail banking.

There are 600 global banks in the Bahamas, and visitors can use almost any bank card from anywhere in the world, he said.

"Financial services are the second-largest industry of the Bahamas. We have financial facilities, international business companies and many reputable lawyers, financial planners and analysts."

More potential investment opportunities lie in other industries of culture, education, healthcare and manufacturing, he added.

He said Chinese investors have provided job opportunities in the Bahamas. The port project of the Export-Import Bank of China, for example, created about 7,000 jobs.

Last year saw 3,000 Chinese tourists visit the Bahamas, according to Paul.

"Though the two countries share visa-free travel for 30 days, challenges exist in the distance," he said. "We are working on opening direct flights between Beijing and Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, or Shanghai to Nassau."
A British government agency invited UK businesses to compete for 5 million pounds in grants for projects that involve collaboration with partners in Shanghai.

The competition will be administered by Innovation UK and the Science and Technology Commission Department of Shanghai Municipality, which signed a memorandum of understanding last year.

Innovation UK said in a press release that projects entering the competition should be in either of two categories:

1) Future cities; taking on the challenges of urbanisation, scarcity and climate change.

2) Innovation that leads to new products, processes or services, with a particular interest in healthcare, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and energy and green technology.

The projects must be business-led and must involve one organisation from the UK and one from Shanghai. Academic and research groups can join bids as partners. The projects should last up to three years and have up to 500,000 pounds of funding. The competition winners could recoup up to 70% of their business costs. The deadline for entries is 21st June, 2017.

Innovate UK said that international collaboration is vital for UK business and described Shanghai as a historic commercial and financial capital of China and a major player in life sciences, car manufacturing and other heavy industry.

To contact the reporter: conal@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Some of the British Library's greatest and most iconic books are on display at a major exhibition in Beijing, for the first time.

The Shakespeare to Sherlock: Treasures of the British Library exhibition opened to the public in the National Library of China. It features a range of classics, treasured handwritten manuscripts and early editions from some of Britain's greatest writers.

Items on display include Charles Dickens' manuscript for Nicholas Nickleby, Charlotte Bronte's manuscript for Jane Eyre, and an early quarto edition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which was once owned by King George III.

Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to the UK described the exhibition as "a showcase of the history and achievements of China-UK people-to-people exchanges" during a British Library in China reception.

Liu said, "This is also the longest-lasting exhibition in China by the British Library that will visit more cities than before. It will stay in China for three years and tour Beijing, Shanghai, Wuzhen and Hong Kong,"

He added that it was "a splendid cultural feast that transcends time and space and connects different countries and peoples".

Liu praised the cooperation between the libraries of the two countries saying it is an important part of China-UK cultural relations.

"It is also a vivid example of the exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and western civilizations," He said.

The British Library manuscripts will also be displayed alongside National Library of China items including translations, adaptations and critical responses that showcase the long and productive dialogue between English and Chinese literature and culture.

Han Yong Jin, director of the National Library of China said, "We look forward to revealing the charm of British literature to Chinese readers by displaying manuscripts and early editions of works by these authors. I sincerely hope that this exhibition will help strengthen the bonds of friendship between the people of our two countries."

Baroness Tessa Blackstone, chairman of the British Library, added that the exhibition gives people in China a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see for themselves the precious originals of the classics of British and world culture. The exhibition in Beijing runs from April 21 to June 21,

To contact reporter: boleung@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Chernigov gets boost in job chances as it has experienced labor force outflow for decades

KIEV, Ukraine - Newly sown fields, well-kept houses and modern farms - the rural area surrounding Koryukovka settlement shines like a pearl among the string of abandoned villages in a remote corner of Ukraine's northern Chernigov region.

After experiencing labor force outflow for decades, Koryukovka gained new life in 2013, when it attracted the interest of investors from Central China's Henan province.

The Chinese State-owned Huangfanqu Farm entered into a joint venture called Fanda with a Ukrainian partner and has already invested more than $10 million in the development of farming in Koryukovka district, changing the lives of locals.

"Since the Chinese company started to finance us, we have significantly increased the number of livestock and boosted the productivity of our cattle," said Olga Ruchko, a technician at the Koryukovka livestock farm.

Standing proudly in front of the modern farm, Ruchko was not trying to hide her pleasure with the Chinese investors.

In 2013, the farm faced closure because the previous owners failed to provide enough funds even for buying protein-rich feeds for cows to help the animals produce enough milk and gain weight.

"Previously, we could not afford good feeds and our livestock has not got enough nutrition. But now, with Chinese financing, we buy everything we need - oil cakes and concentrated feeding stuff for cows and mixed cattle feed for calves," Ruchko said.

Renovation

Due to better feeding and improved animal welfare after the renovation of the farm, the daily milk output per cow has risen from 10 to 22 liters.

Chinese investment has helped double the livestock at the farm to 2,000 cows and calves and provided jobs to about 100 residents of Koryukovka.

The farmers sell about 9 tons of fresh milk to local cheese producers daily. They also provide free milk to a local kindergarten.

The farm at Koryukovka, nearly 300 kilometers north of the Kiev, is one of the two agricultural enterprises managed by Fanda. The other is located in Naumovka, a suburb of Koryukovka, just 15 minutes' drive away.

Once a flourishing village during the Soviet times, Naumovka lost most of its younger generation, who left in search of better life in the city.

Now, young people stopped moving out from Naumovka as the village offers them new employment opportunities. Chinese investment revived about 3,000 hectares of arable farmland in Naumovka, providing jobs to more than 130 villagers.

In 2013, Volodymyr Metla, a 40-year-old resident of Naumovka, was considering moving to Kiev to take a job as a construction worker so that he could support his family.

Metla's life has changed since Chinese investors came to his village and gave him a job as a tractor driver, while employing his wife as a junior accountant.

"I have been working for the Chinese company for four years and I like my job. Chinese managers pay the wages timely, they have good agriculture equipment and they are good people. We made friends with some of them," Metla said.

Win-win cooperation

Apart from managing the livestock farm in Koryukovka and fields of corn, oats and lupine in Naumovka, Fanda rents a forest of 2,700 hectares, where it plans to raise wild animals, such as deer and hunting birds.

Zhang Zhenhua, director of Fanda, said that the agricultural cooperation between Chinese and Ukrainian enterprises is a win-win for both sides due to the complementary advantages of the two economies.

China has experience and knowledge of modern farming technologies, its investors have financial resources, while Ukraine has fertile land and good farming infrastructure.

"Before coming to Ukraine, we have visited many countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. Then we found out that agriculture is very well developed in Ukraine and decided to invest in this country," Zhang said.
The implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative is expected to get another boost as senior officials of Switzerland, a leading world financial center, and the World Bank vowed to strengthen cooperation with China on the massive project.

Switzerland is looking to sharpen its edge as a financial center with a proactive role in the initiative, said Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer.

"The initiative stands as one of the most important infrastructure projects across the world, not for me but for my grandchildren," said Maurer.

He said he believed Switzerland has what it takes to support the huge ribbon of newly developed infrastructure that is well underway with the Belt and Road Initiative.

Such a massive trade and infrastructure project, which will take a generation to come true and yield its full benefits, "really drives us to aim high and plan big, with a long-term vision at least 20 or 30 years ahead', he said.

Maurer made the remarks on Wednesday while leading a high-level Swiss delegation with major figures from the country's flagship financial institutions on a visit to Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Singapore and Hong Kong.

"Switzerland is always well-positioned to partner with China.  With so many countries coming to China seeking collaborations, how can we afford to be left behind?" Maurer said.

In a sign of the country's determination to get on board, President of the Swiss Federation Doris Leuthard has confirmed that she will attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on May 14 and 15.

At least 28 heads of state and government will attend the forum, the highest-profile international meeting on the Belt and Road Initiative since President Xi Jinping proposed it in 2013.

Meanwhile, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, also praised the initiative on Thursday during a news conference of the 2017 IMF/World Bank annual spring meeting in Washington, DC.

Kim said the World Bank is working closely with the Chinese government on the initiative and will continue to do so.

"The initiative is an extremely important one for the Chinese government and also for us," said Kim, who also plans to attend the Belt and Road forum in May.

"Not only are we engaged, for example, in a major study with China right now on the drivers of China's future economic growth, but we're partnering with the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) already," he said.

"Our engagement both with the Chinese government and with Chinese efforts at development, both through their own bilateral cooperation, but also through AIIB, will only grow going into the future," said Kim.

Contact the writers at sophia@chinadailyhk.com and chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
(Photo : Getty Images) Pakistan has handed over Gwadar port's operations to China for 40 years.

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State-run firm China Overseas Port Holding Company (COPHC) will take over the operations of Pakistan's Gwadar port for 40 years, Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo, minister for ports and shipping, said on Thursday.



The Chinese firm will perform all the development work connected to the Gwadar port. According to the Economic Times, the COPHC will collect 91 percent share from the gross revenue of terminal and marine operations, and 85 percent from gross revenue of free trade operations. And based on the constitution, the provinces will have no share in revenue collection.



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Gwadar is featured in the $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plan and is also considered a link between the Chinese One Belt, One Road initiative and the Maritime Silk Road program, the Hindustan Times reported. Gwadar comprise the southern Pakistan hub of the CEPC infrastructure and energy project that Beijing introduced in 2014.



Pakistan received in 2016 its first large shipment of Chinese goods at Gwadar, where the COPHC took over operations in 2013. The port is poised to handle between 300 million and 400 million tons of cargo annually. It also plans to develop seafood processing plants in a neighboring free trade zone.



Meanwhile, earlier this year, Pakistan has also approved Russia's request to utilize the Gwadar port. Speculations further surface that Russia also wants to join the CPEC and merge with the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union.



Such rumors were quickly brushed off; however, state-media The Global Times pointed that permitting Moscow to join the CPEC is not a terrible idea as it will open more doors for cooperation between China, Russia, and Pakistan.



Aside from Russia, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff said that several other countries have also expressed interest in joining the CPEC.



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North Korea's border with Russia in Asia with the Tumen River in between. North Korea is at the top of the photo.

Russian armored fighting vehicles on a train bound for Russia's border with North Korea.

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Russia is deploying more troops, armored vehicles and aircraft of the Russian Ground Forces to the little known 17 kilometer-long border it shares with North Korea in the Russian Far East.



Russian state-controlled media is reporting this significant deployment of troops, armored vehicles and combat helicopters was made on orders of president Vladimir Putin. The build-up of troops and equipment has apparently been going on for about a week.



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An unnamed military officer was quoted by media as saying the "movement of military equipment by different means of transport to southern areas is being observed across Primorsky region over the past week."



Video broadcast on Russian television shows a military train loaded with armored fighting vehicles heading towards the Russian province of Primorsky (or Primorsky Krai), which is where Russia's short border with North Korea is located.



Primorsky, which a population of less than two million, is administered from the nearby city of Vladivostok, headquarters of the Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet.



"Railway trains loaded with military equipment moving towards Primorsky region via Khabarovsk have been noticed by locals," said an announcer in a video posted on YouTube.



The Kremlin has offered no explanation for the apparently unwarranted military build-up at Russia's remote border with North Korea. It's worth noting, however, this reinforcement comes at a time when North Korea, the United States and China appear on the brink of war over North Korea's nuclear weapons development program.



China has deployed 150,000 more men of its People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) and their equipment to its 1,400 kilometer-long border with North Korea along the Yalu River. China's reason for this unexpected military build-up is to prevent North Korean refugees from flooding across the border into China should a conflict arise between North Korea and the U.S.



It's not well known China, Russia and North Korea share a common border near the Russian town of Khasan in Primorsky. The Russian-North Korean border is the shortest border in the entire Russian frontier.



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TagsRussia, Russian Ground Forces, North Korea, Russian Far East, Vladimir Putin, Primorsky, Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok, china, People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Khasan
(Photo : ASELSAN) Turkey's ASYA exoskeleton system.

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Turkey has developed a powered and light weight mechanical external skeleton or exoskeleton that allows soldiers and policemen to travel longer distances with less fatigue, among other advantages.



Its first exoskeleton system is called ASYA, an acronym for the Turkish phrase, "Askeri Yuruyus Asistan," which means Military Walking Assistant.



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ASYA was designed to increase the performance of soldiers and policemen by facilitating walking, running, climbing and jumping. It transfers the load bearing effort from the leg and arm muscles to the battery powered mechanical appendages strapped to the sides of the body.



ASYA was developed by ASELSAN, a defense contractor based in Ankara that designs, develops and manufactures modern electronic systems for military and industrial customers. ASELSAN is the largest in its industry.



The Turkish Armed Forces expects ASYA to enhance the mobility of its combat infantry and the Special Forces Command. ASYA will also benefit the men of the Gendarmerie of the Turkish Republic, an armed general law enforcement organization that maintains security, safety and public order.



ASYA is a wearable device designed for ease of us and with the flexibility to allow fast movements. It suitable for extreme situations and will allow users to cover much longer distances without tiring too fast.



ASYA will be compatible with other ASELSAN battlefield devices such as wearable computers; smart battlefield goggles and command computers. It will be integrated with the CENKER control system developed for the command and control of individual soldiers and tactical units.



A prototype of ASYA will be presented at the International Defense Industry Fair '17 (IDEF), which will take place in Istanbul this May.



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TagsTurkey, Exoskeleton, ASYA, Askeri Yuruyus Asistan, Military Walking Assistant, ASELSAN, Turkish Armed Forces
(Photo : PLAN) CNS Liaoning escorted by her J-15 fighters.

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China has plans of building a fleet of six aircraft carriers -- some of them nuclear powered -- so it can consistently pierce the "First Island Chain," China's geopolitical term for a chain of islands that includes the Kuril Islands; the Japanese Archipelago; Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, northern Philippines and Borneo.



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These aircraft carriers will enable the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to break through the First Island Chain to achieve command of the sea.



"In the long run, China needs to develop its own aircraft carrier battle teams, with at least six aircraft carriers, maritime forces led by guided missile destroyers, as well as attack submarines," said Xu Guangyu, senior advisor to the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association.



China will also build about 10 naval bases for the six aircraft carriers. Xu said these bases can be built in friendly Pakistan, which is China's major ally in Asia. China has no other friends in Asia apart from North Korea.



"Hopefully, China could have bases in every continent, but that depends on countries which would like to cooperate with China," said Xu.



The second of these six carriers, the CNS Shandong, is close to completion while a third is building. The fourth to sixth carriers still have to be planned.



The official newspaper of the People's Liberation Army said the combat capabilities of the CNS Shandong have been enhanced. It also noted that more than 10 carrier pilots recently received their flying certificates, making China one of the few countries capable of training its own aircraft carrier pilots.



"It was a big step for China to enhance the fighting capability after its aircraft carrier completed a live-fire drill, conducting exercises in various regions and training in the western Pacific Ocean for the first time in 2016," said the PLA paper.



PLAN celebrates its 68th anniversary on April 23 and the CNS Shandong is expected to be launched during this anniversary.



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The Alabama Senate approved a bill this week that would add the right to life for unborn babies into the Alabama Constitution.

The state Senate approved the bill in a 25-7 vote. The measure had already passed in the state House in March. The proposed amendment will now go to voters on a ballot.

State Rep. Matt Fridy, who sponsored the bill, said if the amendment passes, abortions wouldnt be illegal. The amendment protects unborn babies in the event that Roe v. Wade is overturned and the states are given the right to regulate abortion.

But local Planned Parenthood leaders said the proposed law would completely outlaw abortion.

President Donald Trump had promised during his campaign to nominate pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was just nominated and confirmed to the court.

Its unclear how many states would have laws that would ban abortions if Roe v. Wade were overturned. Some estimates, like the one from pro-abortion group NARAL, say 13 states already have laws or constitutional amendments to ban abortions if the case is overturned. Those states are:Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: April 21, 2017
An American woman and her Egyptian husband who were aid workers in Egypt and were imprisoned over allegations of child abuse and trafficking have been released and have arrived back in the U.S.

The Washington Examiner reports that Aya Hijazi and Mohamed Hassanein had been imprisoned in Egypt for three years.

President Trump has reportedly been influential in securing the couples release. Hijazi and Hassanein waited in prison while the Obama administration carried out unsuccessful negotiations for their release.

A family member of the couple even credited Trump with personally stepping in to secure the couples safe return to the U.S. They arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday.

"It's been a roller coaster of emotions the past couple of days," Hijazi's brother, Basel, told the Washington Post. "We're very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. We're so grateful."

Trump hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Sissi at the White House on Sunday, and the release of the American couple was reportedly part of that talk.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: April 21, 2017
It is believed by many research organizations believe that sex trafficking has in fact become one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and it is happening almost everywhere in the world, even in Korea Town in Los Angeles. A college club at the University of Southern California known as Korean Culture Knight hosted a theatrical performance to address the seriousness of this issue.

Korean Culture Night (KCN) is actually known among Christians to have a rather misleading name. The student organization with many branches across several major universities including UCLA, is a theater club featuring problems and issues that could occur among Korean Americans and Korean immigrant families. However, their performances are not necessarily about Korean or Korean American culture besides a single traditional Korean music performances or demonstrations of K-pop here and there, but instead the members use the productions to deliver a carefully inserted Gospel messages to the Christian and non-Christian audiences.

This year, KCN decided to address the more macroscopic issue if sex trafficking through the story of a young orphaned Korean American boy, Bryant (Wayne Park) who grew up working for a mob boss Han (Joshua Moon) who tricks women into becoming prostitutes. While Bryant is working for Han, his father Jisuk (Jonathan Yang) was searching for his son for 15 years, trying to track down Han, who was his old friend.

One day, Bryant runs into Robin (Sophiea Kim) while they were trying to rob the same house. The difference was that Robin was stealing to help those in need. Later, the two main characters get closer and share their lives with each other. However, Bryant hides the fact that he is an active participant in sex trafficking. Eventually, Bryant recommends that Robin participate in a K-pop audition, but little does he know that the audition was a trap by Han to lure girls to kidnap.

Bryant soon discovers that Han had taken Robin, and with the help of his best friend Luke (Kevin S. Lee), break into Hans office to rescue Robin. In their most dire moment, Jisuk arrives and pleads with Han to take him instead of his son, immediately bringing into mind the ransom of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the end, Han is killed in a fight and the father and son survive, where they finally reconcile with each other.

Most of the staff and actors of KCN are also active members in a number of Christian ministries at USC including Korea Campus Crusade for Christ (KCCC), Korea Campus Mission (KCM) and Inter-Varsity (IV), and they had all sacrificed a great deal of time they could have been using for leisure and study for a chance to let the community know about the seriousness of sex trafficking and to share the Gospel message.

Search For South Korean Ferry Survivors Cont
Numerous Korean churches in various regions of Southern California gathered to worship and pray together during the early hours of Easter Sunday.

About 10 joint early morning worship services took place on Sunday, including in Los Angeles, Buena Park, Torrance, Walnut, Pomona, Granada Hills, Camarillo, Phelan, Lancaster, and San Diego, among other regions.

Most, if not all, of these joint services included a message on Easter, special singing or worship dance performances, and a time of prayer for the respective communities, for the nation, for the Korean peninsula, and for the next generation.

This year in particular, many of the services included a time of prayer for the upcoming presidential elections in South Korea, and for a stablization in the nations political sphere.

Christians should pursue change in their lives as they hold on to the hope of the resurrection  from a life that was centered on self, to one that is centered on God, Rev. Seung Hee Ko, the senior pastor of Beautiful Church in Rowland Heights, said during his sermon at the joint worship service which took place at Walnut.

At the Los Angeles joint service in particular, a council of churches released a statement in which the churches urged Christians to refrain from individualism, selfishness, materialism, inconsistency, polarization, legalism, and unethical decisions, among others, and called for repentance.

Those gathered at the Los Angeles service also prayed in particular for the immigrant community, and reconciliation among different ethnic groups.

Korean churches throughout Southern California have observed a tradition in gathering for joint worship services each year on the dawn of Easter, many of which are organized by church councils or associations.
James Grays The Lost City of Z opens with a rousing sequence of sport: British army officers on horseback, galloping through the picturesque Irish country on a stag hunt. Complete with a bagpipe score, sweeping vistas, and shots of adoring wives and children cheering on their men, the scene embodies masculine attraction to danger, adventure, exploration and competition. When Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) wins the hunt and shoots the stag, he raises a toast with his fellow hunters, with words that should resonate with those of us who just celebrated Easter: To death, the best source of life.

The scene is important for character development, positioning Fawcett as an ambitious, genteel, but insecure man seeking to prove his manly mettle and bolster his soldierly reputation. But the scene also introduces some of the films questions about the nature of man: What are we really after when we seek to hunt a stagespecially when its an animal we dont need to eat? When we arent fighting for survival (as in war or wilderness exploration), why must men seek to fight in sport, game, politics, and more? Need there be a concrete mission or prize, or is the point simply in the struggle itself, the test of strength? In what sense is death the best source of life?

Based on David Granns 2009 book, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazonand, before that, Granns 2005 New Yorker storythe film follows the adventures of Fawcett, who pioneered multiple explorations into the Bolivian jungle between 1906 and 1925. At first commissioned by the Royal Geographic Society to survey the land for mapmaking purposes (and to act as a third party between ...

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Hundreds of thousands of researchers, educators, and doctors will take to the streets tomorrow, holding nerdy signs and sporting pins with slogans like I Believe in Science.

For many of them, thats not all they believe in. Evangelicals involvement in the upcoming March for Science reflects their unique place in the sector. Despite all the motivations and concerns they share with their secular counterparts, theres still some tension over how their faith fits in a field built on empirical factsespecially as the movement employs those facts toward political ends.

The event was initially inspired by fear over anticipated gag orders on government scientists following President Donald Trumps inauguration. The march ballooned from Washington, DC, to more than 500 locations worldwide. Over the past three months, organizers pushed for the scientific community to find common ground to celebrate the role of scientific discovery in society and policy.

I would hope that the presence of Christians in the march can show that theists and non-theists can look through the microscope together and come to the exact same conclusions, said Mike Beidler, the president of the Washington, DC, chapter of the American Scientific Affiliation, a network for Christians in science. The only difference is that the theist then moves beyond the awe of discovery to an attitude of worship of the Creator.

More than 2 million of the 12 million scientists in the United States identify as evangelical, according to research by Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund. March organizers nodded to faiths place at the march when their diversity committee stated a ...

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Portland (one of the foci of our recent This Is Our City project) continues to provide a glimpse into the future of American ministry. More than a third of its residents are religiously unaffiliated, with minority faiths growing quickly.

Journalist Melissa Binder recently convened a panel on evangelism to the nones and Muslim refugees at the Christ & Cascadia conference, an annual gathering of Christian scholars, ministers, and culture leaders around the Pacific Northwest.

Binder spoke with James Gleason, pastor of Sonrise Church; John Baskaron, pastor of Arabic Christian Church; D. L. Mayfield, author of Assimilate or Go Home. Josh Chen, who directs Crus city ministry in Portland, later contributed to this conversation.

We live in a city with a lot of nones, and many view the church with skepticism or apathy. How does that cultural reality shape your approach to evangelism?

Gleason: Weve constructed a culture around Christianity that isnt the gospel. Its not the gospel thats the problem. The gospel is amazing. Its what weve done to the gospel. We have to deconstruct the wrapper of culture that weve put on.

We want people worshiping God for eternitythats no questionbut we also want people fed, people healed, and people to find homes. Words and works bind together in a way. When we do both, I think we have an open door for people who are more skeptical of the institutionalized church.

Chen: Im careful about the language I use when I talk to the nones, or really any millennials. There are a lot of words we throw out there that mean something different to the person were talking to than what were ...

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Though Michael Licona became a Christian at a young age, he experienced strong doubts while working on a masters degree in religious studies at Liberty University. That led him to explore the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus in his PhD work, and to engage in public debates with leading skeptics and atheists. Driven by a desire to follow the evidence wherever it led, Licona understood that journey might lead him away from Christianity.

In 2010, Licona released his book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, which showed that the evidence for the historical resurrection of Jesus is much stronger than any competing explanations, such as the idea that Jesus body was stolen by his followers or by his enemies, or that the disciples simply experienced hallucinations of the resurrected Jesus.

Licona, formerly apologetics coordinator at the North American Missions Board, is now teaching at Houston Baptist University and has founded RisenJesus.com. He recently released a new book, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (Oxford University Press).

What was your upbringing like? Did you grow up as a Christian?

My parents were Catholic and split up when I was five. My mom remarried and we started attending a Presbyterian church. When I was very young, I was obsessed with getting to heaven. I was always asking, How do I get to heaven, Mom? And she said, You just have to do more good than bad. So, I was constantly thinking, Where am I on that scale?

When I was ten years old, the Presbyterian church had a combined youth group event and they brought this Christian magician in. He did magic to illustrate the message of the gospel. ...

1

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The blasphemy charges that cost Indonesias top Christian politician his re-election race wont send him to jail.

Just a day after Basuki Purnamapopularly known as Ahokconceded the runoff for governor of Jakarta, prosecutors recommended a light sentence of two years probation instead of the maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Ahok, a double minority in the archipelago as a Christian and as an Indonesian citizen who is ethnically Chinese, secured approval ratings as high as 70 percent in the capital region during his campaign. But when the anti-corruption crusader was accused of distorting a Quran teaching to convince the nations overwhelming Muslim majority to vote for a Christian, public opinion shifted dramatically.

Ahok repeatedly denied the claims as a translation error, and accused Indonesias hardline Muslim groups of coordinating an attack against him. He ultimately conceded Wednesdays election, trailing in the polls by less ...

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Why do you always have to analyze everything?



Ive heard this question many times, but I remember the first time someone posed it to me directly. I was 11 years old, in the fifth grade, and standing in the hallway surrounded by my classmates. I dont remember who asked it, but I do remember that the question was quickly followed by an unsettling chorus of assent. To that point, Id enjoyed the process of learning and felt free to excel academically. But something shifted in that moment.

Although I didnt realize it then, our collective understanding of intelligenceand my perception of my own intelligencehad been taking shape for several years. A recent study by Lin Bian, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, reveals that children as young as six are already forming views about the nature of intelligence, including associating it with masculinity. Standing in that hallway was the first time I remember questioning whether being a smart girl was a benefit or a social liability.Reporting on Bians research, Ed Yong of The Atlantic notes that societys tendency to associate intelligence with masculinity can create hurdles for women. The stereotype that brilliance and genius are male traits is common among adults, Yong writes, but Bians study shows that the seeds of this pernicious bias are planted at a very early age ... [and] can have lasting consequences.Citing a parallel study, Yong also notes that in many academic fields, like physics, math, and philosophy, people believe that success depends on raw, innate talent rather than hard work. These biases together predict that well ...

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5 minutes with A Rolex gifted by the Sultan of Oman

Specialist Sabine Kegel reveals the fascinating story behind a rare and extraordinary Rolex Daytona  offered by a grateful monarch in recognition of services rendered, and one of fewer than 10 of its kind known to exist

The original owner of this splendid watch was an English pilot who flew the Sultan of Oman and his entourage on one of his first state visits, from Muscat to Rome, on 28 March 1974, explains specialist Sabine Kegel, telling the story of this rare Rolex Green Khanjar Daytona, offered in Geneva on May 15. The pilot has retired now, but when I met him at his home last year he recalled how, shortly before landing his aircraft at Ciampino airport, one of the Sultans ministers entered the cockpit. Holding out a small, cream and green box before him, he explained that he had been charged with proffering a little present from the Sultan. Inside the box was a watch from an exceedingly small series of so-called Green Khanjar Daytonas, bearing the symbol of the Sultanate of Oman  a traditional dagger, or khanjar, with a short, curved sword that was once a part of everyday attire in Oman, tucked beneath the waist belt. Made for the Sultan of Oman to be presented as a token of appreciation, fewer than 10 of these models in stainless-steel are known to exist. This pilots watch, bearing serial number 3048923, is believed to be the earliest Green Khanjar Daytona produced.





Qaboos bin Said al Said, Sultan of Oman and the longest-serving Arab leader, was educated in England and attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He came to power in 1970, overthrowing his father with British support. Aligning his country with moderate Arab powers, he embarked upon a range of modernisation programmes ranging from road-building to new schools. The Sultans collaboration with Rolex began in the early 1970s, as he sought a means to express his gratitude towards members of the British Special Forces who had helped him to suppress rebel factions between 1970 and 1976. He regularly ordered Rolex models that were adorned with the khanjar symbol, predominantly in red or white, but also in gold or green.



Open a larger version of this image The original owner of the Rolex Green Khanjar Daytona, pictured above left wearing the watch on his final flight before retirement in 1989
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It was a year ago today that we lost Prince. And his legacy continues to reverberate throughout Houston and the world.

A number of tributes are scheduled Friday throughout the city. And several Houston performers have remembered Prince with stories and songs. (Watch the video.)

A new Prince song, "Deliverance," materialized this week. It was supposed to preview a six-song EP to be released on the anniversary of his death. But Prince's estate claimed the producer, Ian Boxill, was not authorized to sell the works and violated a confidentiality agreement.

The release of the EP was halted Thursday by a judge. That's after it shot to No. 1 on iTunes and Amazon.com.

I got a listen to the entire "Deliverance" EP. The title track, which is still for sale, echoes Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help From My Friends" and references Hurricane Katrina.

"Man Opera" includes a four-movement medley: "I Am," "Touch Me," "Sunrise Sunset," "No One Else." There are driving guitars and a symphonic '70s sound.

"I love you/I really do." he coos during "Sunrise Sunset." He sounds light, happy, stress-free and eventually snaps into a gorgeous falsetto.

A PRINCE AMONG KINGS: 'I would not date a girl if she did not like Prince'

Members of The Revolution, Prince's legendary band, perform June 15 at House of Blues in honor of their legendary leader. The lineup includes Wendy & Lisa, Dr. Fink, Bobby Z and Brownmark.

A year ago, I wrote "Prince was not of this Earth. He seemed like some sort of fashion-forward, above-it-all alien. A supernatural being who could shred on guitar and make doves cry."

That sentiment still stands. And Prince continues to tower above us all in his purple reign.

Prince tributes in Houston

Prince Music Experience: Featuring live music, chefs, DJs and more. 1 p.m. at Cafe 4212, 4212 Almeda.

All Things Prince Party: Prince songs by Melvin Johnson and The ElectroAkoustic, featuring Antonio Eye. Plus a buffet. 7 p.m. Friday at Lucille's Restaurant, 5512 LaBranch. $35.

Prince; Nothing Compares: Memorial service where fans are encouraged to get on the mic and share their memories of Prince. High Volume Music Live, 8405 Almeda Genoa, Ste. K.

Prince - I Reminisce - A Tribute: Jazz and R&B. 8 p.m. Friday at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge, 3718 Main. Free.

Paisley Funk: Acoustic tribute show by Skinny Kravitz. 8:30 p.m. Friday at The Hidden Cellar Wine Bar, 16518 House Hahl Rd., Cypress.

Prince - The Official Tribute Party: DJ Big Ra. 9 p.m. Friday at Scrappy Brown's, 4830 Almeda. Free.
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Former President George H.W. Bush was not present during the annual "A Celebration of Reading" author's luncheon on Thursday. And neither was his favorite dessert: caterer Jackson Hicks's strawberry shortcake. Attendees noted both absences - a first in four years - upon entering the private gathering.

Neither George H.W. Bush nor Jim Gaffigan, one of this year's headlining authors, attended the luncheon or sold-out evening program at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Gaffigan, a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer, cancelled at the last minute due to a family emergency.

Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation organizers wrangled an equally presidential and comedic stand-in to fill the void: George W. Bush. David Brooks, who initially declined to appear, was persuaded by his fiancee, a one-time Bayou City resident, to step up to the plate as well.

It was during the midday lunch gathering at Terri and John Haven's home in River Oaks that chair Neil Bush revealed the new lineup and gave a tearful update on his father's health - George H.W. Bush was re-admitted to the hospital recently after a mild bout of pneumonia - to approximately 20 guests.

"You can take my parents off of your worry list," he said, though his voice cracked. "My dad's always been a cup half-full kind of guy. Your true nature comes out as you get older. No matter what's going on with him health-wise, he's always thinking of the other guy."

Afterward, over avocado and grapefruit salad, sea bass, and lemon meringue pie, he posed a single question to Brooks, Sue Grafton, and Bill Browder about their respective literary careers. Then John invited the group to bring their lavender lemonades to the backyard for a tour of the Havens' 16th century French chapel, stationed just above the bayou.

En route to valet, lunch-goers collected bottles of cabernet sauvignon from the couple's Cal-A-Vie winery tucked into FEED bags donated by Lauren Bush Lauren, who flew for the evening's main event.

Four hours later, Lauren was joined downtown by her brother Pierce Bush, former first lady Barbara Bush, and more than 2,000 additional ticket-holders. When Neil's wife, Maria Bush, introduced surprise guest George W. Bush, the crowd inside Sarofim Hall went wild.

"Neil goes by and reads to dad every day," the former president said from the stage. "I'd do it, but I'd just mangle the English language."

He transitioned to his love of painting and military veterans.

This is in honor of them, he explained before reading the introduction from his third book, "Portraits of Courage."

"I said (to my first art instructor), 'There's a Rembrandt (van Rijn) stuck inside this body. Your job is to liberate him,'" he narrated.

Brooks, a "New York Times" political and cultural commentator, spoke second. "I have to follow a Bush in Houston? Great."

He professed his love of H-E-B and Chick-fil-A before adding, "Houston is such a wonderful city. I can't wait for you to finish it."

Brooks also dove into the inspiration behind "The Road to Character," which explores humility, transcendence, and people who are "powerfully motivated toward righteousness."

Next, Grafton, murder mystery novelist, shared that the idea for her popular Kinsey Millhone alphabet series struck after she dreamt of ways to kill her ex-husband.

Browder, a well-known Vladimir Putin critic, closed the show with commentary on "Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice." The book chronicles Browder's own crusade against the Russian government following the wrongful death of his attorney, Sergei Magnitsky.

Shortly after, the Westfield High School theatre department lightened the mood with a performance of "Brand New Day" from "The Wiz." Neil and Maria's announcement that more than $2.3 million had been raised and confirmation of Gaffigan for the 2018 "A Celebration of Reading" (slated for April 19) lifted spirits further.

Select friends, family members, and sponsors lingered for dinner onstage or in the mezzanine where a frenzied book swap for titles from Gaffigan, Browder, Grafton, and Brooks ensued.

Around 10 p.m., only the Bush clan and Dr. Julie Baker Finck, the foundation's president, remained. The group paused for an emotional embrace and iPhone photos before departing for family time.
Two painters were injured in a home explosion in the Cypress area on Thursday afternoon.

Rosehill Fire Department Assistant Chief Lee Sulecki said the call came in for a burn victim at about 1:30 p.m. on Thursday April 20, in the 19500 block of Stone Lake.
In Dianne K. Salerni's popular "Eighth Day" books, there's an extra day wedged between Wednesday and Thursday  and most people don't know anything about it.

The series begins with 13-year-old Jax Aubrey, who discovers he has access to the eighth day. He then learns there are people trapped in that universe, existing only one day a week.

Salerni's books for middle-graders are full of action and mystery, with likable characters and some intriguing connections to the Arthurian legend. She'll be in Houston Sunday to talk to young readers as part of Inprint's Cool Brains! reading series, which gives kids the chance to meet their favorite authors.

Getting inside the heads of her young characters is second nature to Salerni, because she taught fourth- and fifth-graders for 25 years. Those years in the classroom, she said, "gave me a lot of perspective on how kids behave."

More Information Author appearance

Dianne K. Salerni will discuss the Eighth Day series and her other books.

When: 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School, 10410 Manhattan

Information: Free; 713-521-2026, inprinthouston.org See More Collapse

Salerni got the idea for the Eighth Day series from a family joke. When her daughters would ask their dad if they could go somewhere or do something, he'd put them off by saying, "We'll do it on Grunsday." Grunsday was just a made-up name for a day that didn't exist, but Salerni started thinking: What if Grunsday were real?

She launched her career as an author in a backward sort of way, self-publishing her first novel in 2007. Two years later, an independent Hollywood producer contacted her about the movie rights, and about the same time, an editor at Sourcebooks offered to re-release the book. So Salerni sold the film rights, found a publisher, "and then I went looking for an agent."

Her first two books, "We Hear the Dead" and "The Caged Graves," were aimed squarely at teens, but Salerni has found that middle-grade novels are her sweet spot.

In YA stories, she said, "the characters all seem to be filled with such angst. They think everything is the most important decision they've ever made."

Middle-grade characters, meanwhile, "are just kids. They make mistakes all the time, and they know they make mistakes all the time. It's like, 'I messed that up. I guess I need to do it again.' "

courtesy

Salerni left teaching a few years ago to be a full-time writer, but she still likes to spend time with young people: She does Skype chats with school classes, and replies to every kid who sends her an email.

She often receives astute, complicated questions from young readers deeply involved in the series.

"They really get invested in the characters, and they don't want it to be over because it's like they're losing their friends," she said.

"The Morrigan's Curse," published in 2016, is the third  and, at least for now, final  book in the Eighth Day series.

But Salerni is still writing; she just finished a ghost story and is now at work on what she calls "a supernatural mystery."

She'll read some of her work Sunday and answer questions, and she'll talk about the research she does for each book.

"That's not as boring as it seems," she said. "Part of my research was to go to Mexico and climb the Pyramid of the Sun. It's like slideshows of my vacation."
This summer, be prepared to say farewell to Channel 2's Jennifer Bauer. She's headed to the sunny shores of Florida.

Earlier in April, Miami's WTVJ-TV announced Mike Guerrieri would be their new vice president of creative services. Guerrieri occupies the same position at KPRC-TV and also happens to be Bauer's husband.
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One of Houstons most popular barbecue joints made a special delivery this week to Houston Methodist Hospital for a very important patient.

Russell Roegels of Roegels Barbecue Co. has served up food to President George H.W. Bush and his security detail at least three times, but on Thursday finally got a chance to meet the former commander in chief.

PREVIOUS: George W. Bush provides bedsite update on his father

The pitmaster said that meeting him was a great honor and one of the biggest thrills of his life.

"When I joined the Air Force in 1990 he was my first commander in chief," Roegels said.

HIGH MARKS: Roegels sails high on Houston's rising barbecue tide

Roegels said he and Bush had a cheerful conversation and they shook hands. The former president had just finished up a physical therapy session and was ready to eat. A plate was being fixed for him when Roegels was leaving.

Roegels has been serving up brisket, beef ribs, sausage, and pastrami to Bush and his security team, along with an assortment of sides while Bush has been hospitalized at Methodist. He first served food to the detail in December 2015.

OVERHEARD: What George W. Bush reportedly thought of Donald Trump's inauguration

The barbecue connection was made through Roegels friend Dr. Patrick Reardon who is a surgeon at Methodist and a fan of his barbecue. According to Roegels, the doctor makes his own barbecue in his backyard when he is not saving lives in scrubs.

Just after Roegels met the elder Bush on Thursday afternoon former President George W. Bush was photographed at his fathers bedside.

I think I just missed him, Roegels said. It would have been fun to have met him too.

MEAT MEN (AND WOMEN): Meet the faces of Houston barbecue

Roegels Barbecue Co. has been a mainstay on Houston Chronicle food critic Alison Cook's annual lists of the best eats in Houston.

"There is much to love about this personable mom-and-pop barbecue spot in suburban Briargrove," she wrote in September 2016. "Pitmaster Russell Roegels uses oak and pecan to smoke destination-quality brisket and (on weekends) hulking, sumptuous beef ribs."

Bush has been at Methodist for a few days recuperating from a mild case of pneumonia. The 92-year-old, who served as president from 1989 to 1993, also spent 16 days in the hospital for treatment of pneumonia in January.
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When Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo came from Austin Police Department in November 2016, a reporter called him "controversial."

"You know what I said to her? If you're a police chief in a major American city for nine-and-a-half, 10 years and you're not controversial, you're not doing your job," Acevedo said.

Acevedo made one thing clear during the April Kingwood Positive Interaction Program meeting: He's here to do his job - objectively, no matter what.

"When I leave through that door tonight, and I get home, I want to look in the mirror and say to myself that I did the right things for the right reasons," Acevedo said.

Houston's police chief attended the Kingwood PIP meeting for the first time Tuesday night, April 18. Although Acevedo is new to HPD, he is no stranger to Houston, and the Kingwood area in particular, as several of his family members have lived in Kingwood since the mid-70s.

"I've been tied to Kingwood," Acevedo said. "It's near and dear to my heart."

According to Acevedo, these are challenging times for the Houston Police Department.

"We're a cash-starved city," Acevedo said. "Then, you add to that this pension reform. I'm here to tell you: The sky will fall if we don't get that pension reform."

Acevedo is a serious proponent of the city's proposed pension reform plan. Without it, he said, cops will be laid off.

"I know that some people want to move to a defined contribution instead of defined benefit, but here's the deal: It's getting harder and harder to get people to be cops nowadays," Acevedo said.

"One of the biggest recruiting tools we have is that we can tell these men and women, a lot of them working 35 to 40 years here in Houston, that if you serve honorably, here's what your life will look like at the back end when you retire."

Acevedo compared the police presence in Chicago to that of Houston.

"The city of Chicago's not that much bigger than us in terms of population," Acevedo said. "They're at about 2.6 million. We're fast-approaching 2.3 million. Guess how many cops they have in Chicago - 11,000 to 13,000. It depends on what's going on with their budget. But, that's a lot of cops. How many cops do you think we're down to in the city of Houston? At our height, we were at 5,600. We're now down to 5,100 and counting."

For Acevedo, this low saturation of police means, first and foremost, priorities need to be established.

"We have to prioritize our resources," Acevedo said. "You can replace a piece of furniture. You can replace a piece of jewelry. You can't replace a life lost or a limb destroyed. My charge with my people is the No. 1 priority is going to be combating violent crime."

He said property crime tends to be the main crime effecting neighborhoods like Kingwood.

"The number one deterrent to the residential burglaries and BMVs and property crimes is high police presence," Acevedo said. "When you're down to 5,100 cops, you're not going to have high police presence."

To establish a more efficient method of addressing property crime, Acevedo asked the crime lab to prioritize forensic evidence by type of property crime.

"No. 1: Every case where we've had a residential burglary because I believe that's very risky behavior," Acevedo said. "I want them to prioritize testing that forensic evidence because a habitual residential burglar will turn out eventually to be a sex assault suspect, an aggravated assault suspect, or a murder suspect  I also want them to prioritize burglaries at night. The second priority for property crimes will be business burglaries and the third priority will be BMVs."

Acevedo plans to implement data-driven, intelligence-led distribution of resources. He refers to the collection, analysis and subsequent implementation of crime data as "leveling" and said the Houston Police Department has not been leveled in over a decade.

"When we look at data, you're going to see a redistribution of resources, especially patrol assets throughout the city, because the city is continually changing," Acevedo said.

He plans to start leveling the department annually.

"We're going to constantly be looking at data so we can continue to do more with less," Acevedo said. "In order to do more with less, you've got to be fluid, you've got to be able to keep the organization moving and you've got to keep moving pieces around."

Acevedo also plans to adjust shifts to match up with times of increased criminal activity.

"We looked at when some of our crime fighters were working and, quite frankly, a lot of people in the city of Houston Police Department are working Monday through Friday 10-6, 9-5," Acevedo said. "That's great if you're in a bank. But criminals don't stop at 5 p.m. They don't take weekends and holidays off.

"Gangbangers, when do they shoot each other? Primarily at night and on weekends. During the day, what they're doing is they're involved in criminal enterprises. So when should a lot of our gang teams be working? At night. During the day, we should have some more of our tact units dealing with what? The street crime they're committing during the day."

Acevedo also stressed the importance of community involvement. In the country's roughest cities, Acevedo said there can still be found very safe pockets even in the most dangerous neighborhoods.

"What makes the difference? Good neighbors," Acevedo said.

"You are our greatest force multiplier. An engaged, involved community is one that works with each other, works with the police and one that's going to maximize its opportunity for safety."
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From vouchers and funding, to accountability and preparing students for a next-generation workforce, the state of education today is brimming with hot button issues at the local, state and national levels.

Three community leaders representing Lone Star College, Humble ISD and the Observer Newspapers spoke about the state of education within the Lake Houston area during the Education Outlook Luncheon presented by The Rhodes School at the Clubs of Kingwood Tuesday, April 18.

Lone Star College Systems

Amos McDonald, vice chancellor of Lone Star College Systems External Affairs, was in Washington, D.C., about three weeks ago discussing the correlation between livable wages and education with the staff of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The financial viability of a student's degree is a driving factor in LSC's operations.

LSC recently added new degree plans in two high-demand fields: cybersecurity and mobile app development.

According to McDonald, LSC is currently the largest producer of nurses in the Houston area and the third-largest producer of nurses in the state of Texas. McDonald planned to head to Austin where LSC would support bills that would allow them to offer bachelor degrees at LSC.

One of the fields in which LSC sees a demand for this option is in nursing, and offering a degree program that would allow nurses to advance from an RN to a BSN. McDonald said LSC could offer that degree for less than $10,000.

LSC is also working with the county to provide a park ranger program.

"We were meeting with Commissioner (Jack) Cagle the other day," McDonald said. "We were having a conversation about a park ranger program. We just signed with (Stephen F. Austin University). We brought them on campus. We're working with them because they're struggling to find park rangers, people who will make a career of being a park ranger for the county."

Through the park ranger program, a student would experience working as a park ranger while simultaneously pursuing a degree, roughly doubling their employment experience as a park ranger by the time they graduate with their bachelor's degree.

"So, you're talking about a 23-year-old graduating with their degree, with 10 years' worth of service, going off working in an area where we know there's a demand and a need," McDonald said.

Humble ISD

Humble ISD is a fast-growth school district with approximately 41,000 students and growing.

"This year, I really spent time listening, learning, building relationships," Humble ISD Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen said. "We've also started down the path of some pretty significant work."

The district assembled a "Dream Team" comprised of 83 people representing different aspects of the community, including students, parents, staff and business.

With the help of the community's input, the team produced the Portrait of a Graduate. The program's concept is that through reading and language arts, math, science, social studies and electives, students can develop skills including critical thinking, communications, personal responsibility, creative innovations, leadership and collaboration and being a global citizen.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure on quality educators to get good test scores, and of course we want our students to do well on a variety of different assessments, but what we heard from parents and community members is that they want more," Fagen said.

Fagen discussed the recent developments in regards to the A-F accountability system. The grades released in the initial rollout, she said, were not representatives of schools' quality.

"There is new thinking about A-F and this is good news," Fagen said.

She pointed to improvements including moving from five domains to three: student achievement, growth and school climate. A couple of things she finds concerning are the inclusion of teacher quality indicators, as well as full-day pre-K participation rates, for which Humble ISD is not funded.

"That's a challenge that we constantly battle in K-12 with legislative pieces like this because we love these ideas, but we just want to have the funding available to do them well," Fagen said.

Fagan also said that community input played an integral factor in determining the district's budget allocations.

First, she said that as the district moves forward in the budget process, they will bring forward a school safety package that includes measures to reinforce safety for students and staff.

"Another piece that came through loud and clear from our teachers, leaders and students is technology," Fagan said. "They want a really strong and reliable technology infrastructure and appropriate deployment of devices for students and staff."

According to Fagan, the district has one-time money available to use for technology and also has the opportunity for partial reimbursement through a federal E-rate program.

The Observer Newspapers

The Observer Newspapers editor Julie Silva discussed three legislative issues relating to education: school choice, school finance and accountability ratings.

She noted State Rep. Dan Huberty's forecast that school choice legislation would likely not happen during this legislative session. Meanwhile local Sen. Brandon Creighton has been lauded as an advocate of school choice.

"So already, moving forward into the legislative session, we had this conflict. On the Senate side, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick named the issue of school choice one of his top priorities. And the measure swiftly moved through the Senate and was approved."

A week later, the House voted in favor of a spending bill amendment that forbade state money from being used to pay for or support a program that allows the use of state money for non-public education.

"But school choice actually is only one part of the discussion surrounding public education this session," Silva said. "Huberty introduced a bill at the beginning of March that would add $1.6 billion to public school funding. The bill increases the basic allotment  simplifies transportation funding to allow charter and schools under recapture to receive funds, and provides funding to help districts educate students with dyslexia."

The bill also would decrease the amount districts under recapture, or the Robin Hood system, pay, while providing funding for some districts that have been receiving money through the ASATR program, which is set to expire this year.

Without ASATR funding, some districts run the risk of shutting down.

"Now, House Bill 21 does not extend ASATR, but it does provide hardship grants for districts that will lose money when ASATR expires," Silva said. "The first year, $125 million will be available, and the following year $75 million will be available for schools that lose funding under the bill. The overall goal is to allow those districts time to plan for the loss of that state revenue."

The bill was altered over the course of several hearings, with changes involving how hardship grants are appropriated. It also increased the weight for CTE, extending that to eighth-graders, and it increases weight for bilingual from .1 to .11, Silva said.

The bill was approved by the House on April 19, but the Senate has its own bill that would simplify funding formulas.

Silva also touched on one of the biggest topics among school districts, the controversial A-F school accountability system.

"To put it mildly, the districts were not happy with their report cards," Silva said, pointing out that Humble ISD's North Belt Elementary School, which the International Center for Leadership in Education named as a model school, received 'D' and 'F' ratings under the new rating system.

"But this might be the one issue the House and the Senate seem to agree on, as leaders of both the House and Senate education committees filed legislation last month to lessen the blow of the new accountability system."
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In October 1983, Trevicia Williams was married at the age of 14 to a 26-year-old ex-convict and a current registered sex offender, whom she only met a few months before their wedding.

She didn't become a child bride in a far-off land, but instead here in Houston.

"You're only a child once in your life - only 14 years old, 15, 16 - once. To rob a child of those years - you know - from developing themselves and their character," Williams told Chron.com. "They're missing all of those important experiences."

MOVING ESSAY: My mom, 14, was forced to marry a man she'd just met

Williams is working with the Tahirih Justice Center, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, and Sen. Van Taylor, R-Collin, to bring awareness and legislation changes to the modern realities of child marriages in Texas. According to statistics from the Texas Department of Health Services provided by the Tahirih Justice Center, nearly 40,000 children between the age of 12 and 17 were married from 2000 to 2014 in Texas.

As the law stands, a child as young as 16 can be legally married by the state with the consent of a single parent. Children younger than 16 can also be married with a judge's consent, according to Jeanne Smoot of the Tahirih Justice Center.

"There is no age floor as long as a judge signs off on it," Smoot told Chron.com.

Williams, the Tahirih Justice Center, Rep. Thompson and Sen. Taylor aim to change that law with House Bill 3932 and Senate Bill 1705.

"Through a signature of a single parent, a child is emancipated and married in a single process," the senator said during a Texas Senate committee hearing on Wednesday. "So I believe a child should be emancipated first, in order to choose whether they want to be married."

The bill, which is currently under review in the Texas Senate and House, would require parties to be at least 18 years old or court emancipated before they could get married.

STATS BROKEN DOWN: The Texas counties with the most married children

Williams' story was among the striking testimonies given during a hearing Wednesday. Through written testimony, Williams described how her mother picked her up from Aldine Senior High School on October 19, 1983, to take her to the courthouse to wed a man 12 years her senior.

Trevicia Williams

The couple was married from 1983 to 1987 and Williams describes the marriage as "tumultuous" and "violent." Nearly two years after her wedding day, Williams gave birth to her daughter, Agnes, two months before her 16th birthday in 1985. In August of 1987, at the age of 17, Williams divorced her husband.

"A lot of people ask me why and I don't have a concrete answer as to why my mother married me to him," Williams said. Currently, Williams and her mother do not speak to each other. "I can say I forgive her, but even with forgiveness, it doesn't mean to subject yourself to continuous hurt."

Despite her rough teenage years, Williams has turned toward her faith and education to propel her future. Williams earned a Bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, a Master's degree in Behavioral Sciences and Psychology and a doctorate in Psychology.

"Most people become victims, but I was never satisfied being where I was because I knew where I was supposed to be," Williams told Chron.com. "I always reached for something higher."

RECOVERY STORIES: How life can look after human trafficking

Along with her work pushing the senate and house bills through this legislation session, Williams founded Real Beauty Inside Out, which helps mothers and their daughters grow healthy relationships with each other. A part of her goal is to build the relationship level of families in order to prevent child marriages.

"It shouldn't hurt to be a child and child marriages, hurt children," Williams told Chron.com. "They aren't aware of it at the time, but they will be." For more information about Williams' work, visit her website here.
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AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate moved Wednesday to ban state officials from ever again imposing a cap on the percentage of students allowed to receive special education services.

The chamber voted unanimously in favor of Senate Bill 160, putting the legislation just one step away from the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, who already has indicated his support of the measure.

That last step, a vote on the floor of the Texas House, is expected to take place soon.

DENIED: How Texas keeps tens of thousands of kids out of special education

The legislation was filed in response to "Denied," a 2016 Houston Chronicle investigation that exposed the state's decade-old cap and revealed that it had denied services like tutoring and therapy to tens of thousands of children with disabilities.

As a result of the arbitrary 2004 policy, which the Texas Education Agency enacted while facing a $1.1 billion state budget cut and without notifying lawmakers, federal officials or the public, Texas now provides special education services to the lowest percentage of any state in the country -- by far.

Now, with the Senate passage of Senate Bill 160, the state might be able to erase that ugly distinction, according to the proposal's sponsor, Senate Minority Leader Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso.

"Parents have a right to have their child evaluated for special education services, and to have a place at the table when schools design appropriate accommodations," Rodriguez said in a statement after the Senate vote. "Children deserve our best efforts to provide a quality education."

RESIGNED: HISD administrator resigns after special education troubles uncovered

In all, 16 bills were filed in response to the Chronicle investigation. Senate Bill 160 is the first to receive approval by a full chamber. The other proposals are at various stages in the process; several have not yet gotten a hearing.

Disability Rights Texas, the advocacy group that was the first to discover the cap, a decade after it was implemented, said in a statement Tuesday that the Legislature's efforts would help many kids to reach their potential.

"Countless children with disabilities in our state will have a fairer chance at completing their education, finding gainful employment, and living independently," the group said.
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Fans of last year's musical "Damn Yankees" at Pasadena Memorial High School might not recognize the voice of Tyler Fayad when he appears on a radio show April 26.

That's because Fayad, who starred as Joe Boyd in "Damn Yankees," tempers his timbre to portray loyal Prince Thun of the Lion-men in an episode of the 1935 radio adventure series "Flash Gordon."

"I roll my r's - 'I'm Prrrince Thun. How arrre you doing?' " Fayad said.

MyBayArea Radio will broadcast the show at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 26, from College of the Mainland in Texas City, where Fayad and other theater majors will perform before a live audience in Room 117.

More Information tune in What: Radio Adventure Theatre When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 26 Where: College of the Mainland, 1200 N. Amburn Rd., Room 117, Texas City When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 26 Cost: "Pay What You Can" Details: 409-933-8345; com.edu/community-theatre/ See More Collapse

The production is open to the public, with admission granted on a "pay what you can" basis.

The show can be heard online at www.mybayarearadio.com.

"We're doing two 'Flash Gordon' episodes and an episode each of 'The Shadow,' 'Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,' and 'Frontier Gentleman,' which is about a British reporter's adventures in the Old West," director H. Russ Brown said.

"It's a wide variety of everything," said Fayad, 19, whose parents are John and LaRay Fayad of Pasadena.

"It's full of adventure and cliffhangers, and it's hilarious."

Clad in 1940s suits and dresses, the actors will step up to microphones.

A "foley" table that holds tools for making the sound effects, Brown said.

"For example, we have a tiny door, little chimes, squeaky things and shoes to move across a piece of plywood," Brown said. "Everybody does a little of everything."

COM Radio Theatre debuted last fall with a show of spooky Halloween hits.

That was followed by a free, holiday production of "It's a Wonderful Life," in which Fayad was the main character's guardian angel, Clarence Odbody.

"I played him as a little, soft-spoken old man," Fayad said, while demonstrating the voice.

Among this week's cast are Marcus Huskey of Texas City as Flash Gordon, Hunter Morris of Texas City as The Shadow, Max Bailey of League City as Sergeant Preston and Zachary Dockal of Dickinson as J.B. Kendall, the journalist in "Frontier Gentleman."

The announcer is Reagan Maniscalco.

Other participants include: Isabella Delgado, Adrianna Garduza, Mackenzie Land, Cailey Miller and Shea Goodwin.

Brown said that radio theater challenges the students to become better actors.

"It forces them to adopt different character styles and play multiple characters with different dialects," he said.

"It requires them to be vocally specific and really clear storytellers."

For further information about COM's theater program, email hrussbrown@com.edu or call 409-933-8544.

MyBayArea Radio is located at 2951 Marina Bay Drive, Suite 130-418 in League City.

For information, call 832-205-1906 or email info@mybayareardaio.com.

Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net
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While a letter making the rounds on social media warns that "liberal gay rights Democrats" are seeking positions on Pearland's City Council and school board, some of the targeted candidates are enjoying the support of the state Democratic Party even though the positions they seek are nonpartisan.

The implications of the letter, written and distributed by a Pearland real estate agent, are explored in my latest "Greater Houston" column.

The letter doesn't name the Democrats that its author says want to "take over City Council and the school board." It urges votes for seven city and school board candidates, mostly incumbents, including longtime Mayor Tom Reid. Republicans have long dominated politics in Pearland and surrounding Brazoria County.

One of Reid's opponents, Quentin Wiltz, is among three Pearland candidates recently endorsed by the Texas Democratic Party. The state organization is offering training and other resources to Democrat-aligned candidates in local, nonpartisan elections around the state through an initiative known as Project LIFT, which began in 2015.

"It's about building out our bench, building out this party," said Manny Garcia, a spokesman for the state party. Participating candidates get not only an endorsement, but access to the party's voter files and "a whole suite of services," added Cliff Walker, the state party official leading the initiative.

The Texas Republican Party also provides support to candidates in some local races, spokesman Mike Joyce said. But unlike the Democrats, it doesn't recruit or publicly endorse candidates for nonpartisan positions.

Wiltz said his party affiliation is no secret to local voters, since he is a past leader of the Pearland Democrats. He knows voters in a predominantly Republican town might be suspicious of Democrats; in a previous City Council campaign, he said, he was called a "socialist" and a "job killer."

Nevertheless, Wiltz said he was "extremely delighted and honored" to have the state party's support.

The other Pearland candidates backed by the state party are City Council hopeful J. Darnell Jones and school board candidate Mike Floyd. ("This kid is one to watch," Walker said of Floyd, an 18-year-old high school senior.)

Others drawing support from the state party in the Houston area include Pasadena City Council candidates Oscar del Toro, Steve Halvorson, Sammy Casados and Felipe Villarreal; Humble school board candidates Abby Whitmire and Chris Herron; Texas City school board candidate Nakisha Paul; and Arnetta Henderson, a candidate for trustee of College of the Mainland in Texas City.

A complete list can be found here.
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An elusive parrot that was spotted several times by residents of Sugar Land has finally been caught with the help of firefighters.

On Wednesday, the parrot decided to sit on a window at Sugar Land's public works building.

Unfortunately, the bird could not have picked a worse place to perch as it was right next door to the city's animal services building.

SQUAWK SAFETY: Pearland police vehicle taken off streets so a mother bird can nest on it

Kathryn Ketchum, Sugar Land's animal services manager, said she and other employees first tried giving the bird simple commands it might have known and offering food to get it down.

"He wasn't having any of it," Ketchum said. "He flew across to the street and into a 60-foot oak tree."

Animal services then reached out to the Sugar Land Fire Department who safely sprayed the bird with a fire hose to wet it and prevent it from flying very well.

Ketchum said the parrot then scrambled down towards the bottom of the tree and leaped, leading to its capture.

AWK!-ward: Parrot constantly re-enacts divorce

In honor of Ladder Truck 2 and the crew who helped retrieve it, the parrot was named "Deuce."

After a blanket and a nice blow dry, the parrot was back in a cage. Deuce is set to be taken into the care of the National Parrot Rescue and Preservation Foundation.

Click through above to see a list of Texas' most endangered birds.
HOUSTON  One of three homeless men whose skeletal remains were found in an abandoned Houston warehouse was the father of another homeless man charged in the other two deaths, a prosecutor said Friday.

Jamie Walter, 27, is accused of bludgeoning two of the victims with a hammer then burning their bodies before dumping them in the warehouse. He has been charged with capital murder in those two deaths.

Its pretty gruesome, very brutal and seemingly senseless and bizarre to some extent, said Justin Wood, a Harris County District Attorneys Office prosecutor. Authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the killings.

Walter has not been charged in relation to the third victim who authorities believe was Steven Walter, the suspects father, Wood said.

Jamie Walter did not speak in court Friday. He remains jailed without bond.

One of Walters attorneys, James Stafford, said his client has a long history of mental illness and that he was very remorseful as well as frightened and concerned.

Walter has not described his relationship with his father, Stafford said, calling it a sad case.

Police responding to a disturbance at the warehouse late Tuesday encountered Walter, who led them to two sets of remains, since identified as Monty Kaiser and Donald Fleming. Walter initially blamed his wife in the killings, but later said they both hit the victims in the head with a hammer.

Authorities said the killings took place April 6, but that Walter moved the bodies a few weeks later, put them in 55 gallon drums, burned them and then dumped them in the warehouse.

Walters wife, Rachel Johnson, who was also homeless, has been cooperating with police, and investigators are trying to determine if she was involved in the killings, Wood said.

Steven Walter was killed in June, Wood said. Authorities have not released details of how the elder Walter died.

Jamie Walter has ties to the Aryan Brotherhood but it is unknown if that played a role in any of the deaths, Wood said. No information was immediately available on the races of any of the victims.

In July, Walter was charged with aggravated assault of a family member in an attack on Johnson, who was then described as his girlfriend. According to court documents, Walter fractured her skull with a hammer and slashed her leg with a machete at an abandoned warehouse near the one where the bodies were found.In 2012, Walter was sentenced to two years in state prison after pleading guilty to a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Authorities said he assaulted a man with a pipe.Walter has also been arrested on drug and forgery charges.Stafford said Walter has spent time in mental wards in juvenile detention and prison, and received medication for mental illness when he was 15 years old.It is a problem that we need to address, our mental illness, and this will probably be a very ripe issue in this case, Stafford said.
For those worried about the condition of the 41st president, his son, George W. Bush, is using Instagram to put their minds at ease.

Thursday evening, the younger Bush posted a photo of himself with former President George H.W. Bush, who is recuperating from a mild case of pneumonia at Houston Methodist Hospital.
A homeless man has been sentenced to two life sentences after admitting to killing his father and another man and burning their bodies in an abandoned warehouse in northwest Houston.

Jamie Walter, 29, of Spring, confessed to the killings in 2015 but insisted he did not kill a third man whose body was also burned in the same barrel, his lawyer, James Stafford, said Thursday.

"It's morbid, and it's crazy," Stafford said. "A Hollywood screenwriter couldn't make this stuff up."

Walter, who has a history of mental health problems, was arrested in September 2015. But prosecutors said the web of crimes was hard to investigate because almost everyone involved was part of the homeless community. They knew each other from the streets, usually not with full names.

In a statement to police, Walter said that he, his girlfriend and two other men were sitting around a campfire at a homeless encampment near Antoine in April 2015 when the woman stabbed a man she believed had killed her ex-boyfriend weeks earlier.

Walter said he killed the other man with a hammer because he was a witness.

The charred remains of Monty Kaiser and Donald Fleming were found in the burn barrel, and court records show that both were killed with a hammer.

The two bodies were originally dumped in a field, but days later, Walter and his uncle put the remains in plastic bags and took them to the warehouse on a makeshift trailer behind the uncle's bicycle, Stafford said.

"They're on surveillance video with the bike and the trailer, walking past a Shell station," Stafford said. "My client was walking a pit bull."

Months later, Walter killed his father, Steven Walter, during an argument, his lawyer said.

Walter then burned his father's body in the same burn barrel in the warehouse at Todd Road near Antoine. He gave different accounts of how he committed the murder.

In September 2015, his girlfriend contacted police. She accused Walter of hitting her in the head with a hammer and slashing her leg with a machete.

To bolster her claims of domestic violence, she told police about the slayings and led them to the burn barrel and the ashes of the three men, investigators said.

Prosecutors said she was not charged because there was no evidence, other than Walter's statement, that she was involved.

"She's denied involvement in the murder; she just admits to being present," Assistant Harris County District Attorney Samantha Knecht said.

Walter pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder and aggravated assault of a family member, both first-degree felonies with a maximum punishment of life in prison.

Knecht said she was pleased with the deal.

"I'm happy that he's taking responsibility," she said.

Walter, who has "God's Soldier" tattooed on his throat, is unlikely to see parole, his lawyer said.

"My client's I.Q. is way down the chart, and he's been in and out of mental institutions since the age of 12," Stafford said. "With two life sentences, he'll never make parole."
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A man was pronounced dead Tuesday, three days after he was Tasered by Houston police officers during a confrontation at a pharmacy.

Roderick Ronall Taylor, 42, was pronounced dead at a hospital on Tuesday, according to the Harris County medical examiner's office.

Taylor was shocked with a Taser on Saturday after reportedly fighting with two police officers and grabbing for one officer's duty belt, according to a news release from the Houston Police Department.

His wife, Charneeda Dabney Taylor, said Thursday that her husband was a devoted father of two who was "not aggressive, not the person they're making him out to be." She questioned whether officers had told the whole truth and said she would await the medical examiner's full autopsy report.

Stun guns such as Tasers provide police officers with a less-lethal alternative to their handguns, supporters say, but they sometimes leave people injured or may contribute to their deaths.

Saturday's incident began about 6:40 p.m. when police responded to a welfare check at a CVS pharmacy in the 4400 block of West Fuqua, in southwest Houston. When officers arrived, Taylor was being treated by Houston paramedics who then released him, according to a police account.

"Taylor then became incoherent, uncooperative and walked into the drugstore and stated he needed to call police," according to the account by homicide detective L. Bailey. "An officer followed the suspect into the store, at which point Taylor jumped across the counter of the pharmacy department. As the officer approached, Taylor jumped back across the counter and attempted to flee past the officer. When the officer attempted to stop him, the suspect began to fight with the officer and at some point attempted to grab the officer's duty belt."

Taylor also fought with a second officer who arrived, according to the detective's account, prompting the first officer to use a Taser, which delivers a powerful but generally nonlethal shock. Officers then were able to handcuff Taylor and call paramedics back to the scene. One of the officers was treated at the scene for a cut to the eye and scrape on the arm.

Taylor then became unresponsive and was taken to the Southwest Memorial Hermann Hospital.

His wifesaid she did not know what had happened to him until the hospital called her on Sunday. She said Saturday was their daughter's birthday.

Several days passed before police learned that Taylor was on life support and on critical condition, according to the release. He was pronounced dead on Tuesday.

Dabney Taylor said Houston police detectives came to speak with her at the hospital. She said they only told her about the Taser use when she asked what happened to him.

"I was by his bedside and I was thinking it was because his kidneys and liver weren't functioning," she said. "I never knew he got tased."

She remembered her spouse of 14 years as a good person, husband and father to his 12-year-old daughter and 22-year-old son.

"He had a good heart," she said. "He would give you whatever he had. ... He was a wonderful father to his two children." He would spend time with them at a park and, if he wasn't home one night, he would call to ask his young daughter about her day at school.

Dabney Taylor said the family has not finalized funeral arrangements.

If the stun gun caused or contributed to Taylor's death, it would not be the first such incident in the Houston area.

Herman Rochan Barnes, 31, died after he was stunned 32 times by three Harris County deputies who entered his home in October 2006.

Jamaal Ray Valentine, 27, died in 2009 when his heart stopped in an ambulance after he was shocked during a confrontation with a La Marque police officer.

The police news release said Houston Police Department homicide detectives and Internal Affairs officials would investigate the incident, because "when an individual dies in the presence of an HPD officer, the incident is considered an in-custody death."

andrew.kragie@chron.com
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He may have been 7,000 miles away during his wife's pregnancy but that didn't keep Navy corpsman Wesley Bedwell out of the maternity photos.

Bedwell and wife Nicole have become a viral sensation thanks to some quick thinking on the part of Mabank photographer Traci Lynn Fugitt. She was able to cut the distance between the corpsman and his wife by Photohopping him fully dressed in uniform reaching out to his pregnant wife.

FAMILY TRIALS: Keri Young gave birth to her daughter so the baby's organs could be harvested

"Nicole had expressed how upsetting it was that he was deployed, and asked that we do something to have in in the portraits," Fugitt said via email. "Wesley posed like he was reaching for her, a popular pose that I usually do with the Dad present."

What really makes the photo pop, though, is the contrast of backgrounds between husband and wife.

"While I could have used Photoshop to add him into the bluebonnets, we decided that putting the pictures side by side really presented the difference between the two locations," Fugitt said. "It really told the story we wanted together. Wesley is stationed in Japan and Nicole is in East Texas, but they waited for (their daughter) Pyper together."

BABY NEWS: Two KHOU reporters announce their pregnancies on Twitter

Fugitt said Pyper was born at 6 a.m. on April 13, more than a week before her expected April 22 due date.

Luckily, Bedwell was able to make it home in time for Pyper's birth. Fugitt said he'll stay in America until April 28, giving him more time to be with his wife and newborn daughter.

"When we took the photos, we didn't realize how big of an impact it would have on the world around us," Fugitt said. "It's still overwhelming thinking of where this photos hoot has gone and touched so many lives."

Click through the slideshow above to see images from the photo shoot.
AUSTIN  A federal three-judge panel ruled Thursday that the Republican-dominated Legislature intentionally diluted minority voting strength in creating state House districts in 2011.

Citing factors including the existence of racially polarized voting throughout Texas, the court panel said in a 2-1 decision that it found invidious discriminatory purpose underlying the redistricting map.

It found problems in districts in a slate of counties including Bexar and Harris. The impact of the plan was certainly to reduce minority voting opportunity statewide, resulting in even less proportional representation for minority voters, said the three-judge panel based in San Antonio in its 2-1 decision, which found problems in a slate of House districts in counties including Bexar and Harris.

The same three-judge panel last month ruled that three Texas congressional districts were drawn in order to weaken minority power.

More for you Panel voids 3 Texas congressional districts

Earlier this month, a federal judge based in Corpus Christi found for a second time that lawmakers intentionally discriminated against minority voters with a law requiring an approved photo ID at the polls.

This is yet another example of political discrimination by the State of Texas against minority voters. In nearly every instance since the 1970s Supreme Court decision in White v. Regester, the Texas Legislature has drawn electoral maps in violation of the Constitutional protections against discrimination and the Voting Rights Act, said Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the Texas House.

Thousands of minority voters are being denied their right to an equal opportunity to choose their elected representatives, just to preserve the party in power, Anchia said in a statement. It took nearly six years of legislative and court battles to confirm that the party in power discriminated against communities of color when drawing Texas Congressional and House of Representative maps.

The office of Attorney General Ken Paxton, defending the state in the case, pushed back against the ruling as it did the previous decision on congressional districts.

We respectfully disagree with the redistricting panels 2-1 decision, said Marc Rylander, Paxtons director of communications. As Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith observed in his dissent, the challenge to the old 2011 maps are not only moot but a finding that racial considerations were dominant and controlling defies everything about this record. Accordingly, we are confident we will ultimately prevail in this case.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN/New York Times

AUSTIN -- Following a criminal complaint by a GOP former lawmaker, an Austin representative has asked the Travis County District Attorney's Office to look a letter-writing campaign that has deeply troubled rural Republicans in the Texas House who are opposed to school vouchers.

In a letter obtained by Quorum Report, Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, told prosecutors that she's heard from many of her Republican colleagues who cannot believe the way in which many of their constituents' names were used.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
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All-Conference WEC teams The All-Conference teams for the War Eagle Conference have been announced with multiple MMCRU and South OBrien volleyball players making...

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Pennsylvanias attorney generals office on Wednesday charged a dozen people as part of an organized crime ring that it said had made millions of dollars renting out fraudulently obtained license plates, primarily in New York City.

The people who rented the Pennsylvania plates  which were packaged with fraudulent insurance paperwork  allegedly used the anonymity to evade traffic tickets, parking fines and highway tolls.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro estimated the price tag in losses to Pennsylvania, New York and Florida at $2 million, and possibly higher. He suggested there could be similar operations in other states.

The ring, allegedly led by Raphael Levi, of New York City, used a web of fake car dealerships and transporter businesses it set up across rural Pennsylvania to get license plates, starting around 2008. All told, it obtained more than 1,000 license plates, and about 400 were still active. It then rented the plates for about $400 per month, or more, to hundreds of people, prosecutors said.

All of this was a big facade, it was phony, it wasnt real, Shapiro said. There werent these big storefronts where legitimate operations were going on, and then in the back maybe some illegitimate business practices. This was all constructed as one big fraud.

Each plate was registered to a business associated with Levi, authorities said. When law enforcement, parking authorities or toll operators mailed fines, notices or other violations, it went to post office boxes or addresses associated with the businesses within the Levi organization, they said. The Levi organization ignored the violations, they said.

They also used fake auto insurance cards, so that when an accident happened and other motorists filed claims, no payment resulted, Shapiro said.

Shapiro would not say whether users of the rented plates will be charged, but said the investigation is ongoing and that the state will seek restitution. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is taking steps to address shortcomings that were exploited by the ring, including limiting the number of license plates that are issued to one business before an internal review is triggered, Shapiro said.

A lawyer for Levi did not return requests for comment Wednesday evening. Levi and 11 other defendants were booked in suburban Harrisburg on Wednesday, the attorney generals office said.

Levi was ordered held on $600,000 bail, an attorney generals office spokesman said.

A stolen notary seal and falsified insurance policy paperwork helped extend schemes that also included washing car titles to evade loans and selling cars with rolled-back odometers to pump up resale values, the attorney generals office said. The ring evaded paying state sales tax by reporting false vehicle trade-in values, it said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Michigan senators approved legislation that could allow the Automobile Theft Prevention Authority to assess small fees on commercial vehicles, not just private passenger vehicles.

Under current law, auto insurers pay $1 a year per insured car. State Attorney General Bill Schuette issued a 2015 opinion saying the authority can assess fees on every insurance policy in Michigan, not just policies for private passenger vehicles.

The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency says the bill (SBill 168) could generate more revenue for the authority, but its uncertain whether it would result in a significant boost in $1 assessments. The revenue would be used to provide funding to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors for the investigation of cargo theft and other issues affecting commercial motor vehicles.

The legislation was sent to the House for consideration.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A jury has awarded $1.25 million to a Mississippi Highway Patrol trooper whose left leg was partially amputated because of an off-duty motorcycle accident.

A Jackson County jury handed down the verdict last week against two construction companies that left a low ramp across a Pascagoula road in 2010. The Sun Herald reported.

Marvin Hendersons lawsuit said he hit the obstruction at night while returning from the gym. He was thrown from his motorcycle, and his foot and lower leg were crushed. The damaged portion was amputated 11 months later, and he uses a prosthetic leg.

The ramp covered a conduit the companies were using to move water and sewage across the road. Attorneys said the drainage system was blocked by barricades during the day but not at night.

Henderson is now a Highway Patrol investigator.

Attorneys tried the case in Circuit Judge Robert Krebs courtroom. Jurors on Thursday originally calculated the award at more than $3 million, but then assigned responsibility to each party. They found Henderson was 60 percent responsible for the accident, so they reduced the award.

The $1.25 million stands out in politically conservative Jackson County, and an appeal is possible. Judges recalled a $15 million award in a drilling case and $2 million in a 1996 construction case, both involving death, but those were overturned.

Were not accustomed to those (large) awards, said longtime Court Administrator Pat Smith.

Henderson is now 37. His attorneys and witnesses told jurors what his expenses and medical costs are expected to be the rest of his life.

Hes a great guy, very resilient, his attorney, Morgan Holder, said.

In 2012, two years after the accident, there was a report of Henderson stopping an armed robbery in Jackson. He was doing a drivers license road test at Metrocenter Mall, when he heard a woman cry for help. He exchanged gunfire with a man who was fleeing. Even with a prosthetic leg, Henderson chased down a woman who was responsible for the getaway car.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The quibbling continues over how much a South Carolina stripper should be compensated after being shot while on the job, with the states highest court on Wednesday ordering a new hearing in the womans case.

The decision comes two years after Supreme Court justices ruled that LeAndra Lewis was an employee of the club, not an independent contractor, a determination that meant she was entitled to workers compensation benefits.

Lewis was working as an exotic dancer at the Boom Boom Room Studio 54 in Columbia in 2008 when a stray bullet struck her in the abdomen during a fight. According to court records, Lewis suffered internal injuries, resulting in the loss of a kidney.

The club had argued Lewis was simply a contractor and wasnt on its books as an employee. But, the court found in its initial ruling, the club chose Lewis dance music, required her to perform dances for certain customers, and barred Lewis from leaving work early without risk of a fine.

In that 2015 ruling, the high court left it to the Workers Compensation Commission to determine how much of a benefit Lewis should receive, an award ultimately set at $75 a week. The panel, according to justices, provided no documentation for how it arrived at that amount.

The court pointed out it wasnt saying the amount had been too low or too high but rather that the commissions order was devoid of any specific and detailed findings of fact to substantiate the award.

A phone listing for the clubs owners could not be found, and an attorney for the workers compensation panel didnt immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the case.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Tech Week in Northeast Ohio kicks off today with events that celebrate and support tech companies.

But this is the first year that organizers are reaching out to nontraditional industries to participate. These days it seems like every company is considered a tech company.



As much as companies rely on technology, you have to wonder if Progressive is an insurance company or a tech company. Is Eaton a manufacturer or a tech company? Is Ford a auto company or a tech company. Or is Bridgestone a tire company or a tech company.

On Tuesday, Bridgestone just celebrated $17.3 million in improvements made to a new Data Center, a significant investment in the Akron IT workforce, that's helping to retain local technical jobs.



It's the reason organizers of OHTec's annual tech week are going beyond their typical base of focusing on just small businesses and tech companies. Tech Week is April 21 to April 30, and aside from the more than 4,000 usual attendees, OHTec is now courting nontraditional businesses to join the organization. OHTec is a program of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, one of the nation's largest metropolitan chambers of commerce.



"We want to bring more companies that are not traditionally thought of as tech companies into OHTec because they rely so heavily on technology," said Dean E. Brainard, executive director of OHTec.



Participants in this year's tech week can expect to see an inclusion of larger companies in various industries with topics like big data and cybersecurity. Aside from events like the Best Of Tech awards - which is like the Grammy's for tech companies in this market - workshops and networking, topics are expected to be as diverse as software programming to drones and aerial photography.



Geo Money, an OHTec board member and manager of branding & culture at OEC, said when people think about technology in this market, companies like Hewlett Packard, OEC, and IBM Watson come to mind, but non-tech companies - small and large - are all after the same software worker.



"You can't run a business without tech, he said. "Non-tech companies like American Greetings, Eaton, and Progressive, hire a ton of tech workers in the Cleveland marketplace," he said.



"For every eight tech jobs available there is only one qualified worker and even less when you talk about women and minorities. Only one fifth of tech workers are female or minority," said Money, whose company, OEC, is the presenting sponsor for the week's events.



"Tech probably accounts for $9 to 12 billion in revenues, including medical and manufacturing. That's my estimate," said Money. "What's in those numbers that you can't get to are major corporations like Timken that are not tech companies. But if they didn't have tech, their revenues would be substantially reduced."



Gabriel Torok, chairman of OHTec, and CEO of PreEmptive Solutions, said that Progressive has always been a tech company that sells insurance. The company used technology as a diferentiator to better price insurance, better compete with other companies and even develop devices for cars that helped track the way customers drive in order to offer competitive rates.

"I read about a landscaping company that used Google maps to come up with custom quotes," he said. "In the past, you had to survey the land in order to give quotes."



"My view is that in the future every company will be a technology company that happens to sell X," Torok said.
AKRON, Ohio - Ohio Rep. Emilia Strong Sykes (D-Akron) figured the perfect way to get a message across to colleagues was to invite them out for a few frosty ales.

Thursday, Sykes persuaded colleagues - politicians, industry officials and the media - to visit a trio of Akron breweries. They toured Hoppin' Frog Brewery near Akron-Fulton International Airport, Thirsty Dog Brewing Co., close to downtown and R. Shea Brewing Co. in the Merriman Valley.

The tour was more than a chance to get together over beers. It aimed to give lawmakers up-close examples of economic development and growth resulting from the region's craft breweries. Sykes also hoped the tour will lead to informing her colleagues about the effect on small businesses that could result from Gov. John Kasich's proposed tax increases on beer and wine in the budget.

Consider the economic impact just from the three breweries visited Thursday: Collectively, they employ more than 80 people. That doesn't include the dozens of staffers working at the other five breweries in the city plus additional ones in surrounding burgs that have sprung up in recent years.

That communal consortium of breweries also is part of the Summit Brew Path, a six-week-old initiative from the Akron-Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Using craft beer as bait for tourists, the breweries on the tour offer a passport for folks to collect stamps. Finish the tour, get a t-shirt and be entered into a drawing for a getaway package.

The brew path is a passport program where craft-beer lovers visit breweries in Summit Stark, Medina and Portage counties, sipping ales and comparing operations. The passport itself is a guide to the breweries, offering hours, contact info and tour details.

Other similar beer-trail-type programs exist on various levels. Louisiana started one a few years ago, Pennsylvania has one, and the third volume of the Columbus Ale Trail book is due in May. Ohio does not have a trail; so far, it is left to regional entities, like the Akron-Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"We're very pleased with it," said Gregg Mervis, the bureau's CEO. "The original momentum has kept up."

The residual economic fallout, he said, is that folks on the tour often find a place for dinner in the area after hitting a few breweries.

Summit Brew Path is a passport program for craft-brewery visitors.

"The passport was good for us," said Hoppin' Frog's Fred Karm. "We cleaned out in a day. But it was a real coup for the smaller ones. We always get a crowd."

R. Shea was one of those smaller breweries that saw an immediate benefit from the program.

"The first week it launches - we're usually fully staffed - there was a line out the door," owner Ron Shea said. "It's been non-stop. It's turned slow days into busy days. It's been a huge help for the industry."

About 20,000 passports have been churned out through multiple printings. In fact, Thursday night the Summit Brew Path's website stated: "Due to the overwhelming popularity and demand for passports, we are temporarily out of stock."

While the passport program appears to be a boon for the breweries, potential tax increases have Sykes and others concerned about the effect on the industry. Ohio has more than 200 breweries, which seem to pop up as steadily as bottles can roll off an assembly line and be lined onto pallets.

Sykes said the tax increases "will burden regular people. ... sales taxes are always regressive, hurting lower-income people. It's a growth industry with jobs and expansion. We don't want to see breweries leave."

Shea, who greeted the touring politicians with a detailed five-page outline opposing a tax increase, added: "If we're taxed more on the manufacturing side, it doesn't help us win the battle."

A glimpse at the breweries visited Thursday:

Hoppin' Frog Brewery

Address: 1680 E. Waterloo Road.

Owner: Fred Karm.

Founded: 2006.

Employees: 34.

Annual production: 1,780 barrels.

About the brewery: Karm said operating costs keep going up each year and that he doesn't sell a lot of his beers in any one place, which is why he has 40 distributors in 22 states. Karm also was influential in lobbying for the removal of the 12 percent alcohol-percentage cap on beer, which was successful last year.

Thirsty Dog Brewing Co.

Address: 529 Grant St.

Owner: John Najeway.

Founded: 1997.

Employees: 35.

Annual production: 20,000 barrels.

About the brewery: Thirsty Dog beers are distributed in 15 states "from Maine to Florida," Najeway said. "We're traveling the country preaching what we do here in Akron." Brewers, he added, constantly are adding back into the community and to their own workplace; Thirsty Dog has invested $200,000 within the last two weeks on manpower and brewhouse equipment.

Address: 1662 Merriman Road.

Owner: Ron Shea.

Founded: 2015.

Employees: 12-15.

Annual production: 500 barrels.

About the brewery: "Breweries are very capital-intensive," Shea said about the need for expansion and adding tanks.

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FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio - In an effort to not only promote the Fairview Advantage, which is an innovative approach to transform students into successful 21st century learners in school and beyond, Fairview Park City Schools has announced May 2 as the date of its 2017 Innovation Challenge.

"This is a two-part exhibition of student innovation, creativity and really applying the design-thinking process that is part of our DNA as an organization," Fairview Park Schools Superintendent Bill Wagner said.

"You've seen the Fairview Advantage, you've seen the student skills rubric that we are trying to help our students develop to make them successful 21st century learners in school and beyond. This gives them an opportunity to really put their best work in play."

The exhibition date intentionally coincides with the Global Day of Design, a national one-day event that is intended to inspire a transformation in schools around the world to incorporate design into an everyday practice with students.

Working as individuals, teams or classes, Fairview students will be divided into four divisions (grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12) as they identify a compelling challenge, develop a tangible solution or product and reflect on this learning experience.

"For example, high school kids may see that there are handicap accessibility issues with a certain style of picnic table," Wagner said. "So, they'll think about how would they adapt that to be more open for students in wheelchairs. Or, another idea would be to build a better ergonomic chair.

"The sky is really the limit. We're not putting a whole lot of limitations on it, other than challenging them to choose something of interest of theirs they'd like to design and share."

The sharing of their creations takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Fairview High School Innovation Center where prizes will be awarded in each division.

In addition, teachers at each grade level will select a one student whose electronic portfolio of learning best exemplifies the nine elements of the Fairview Student Learning Profile (create, innovate, investigate, collaborate, communicate, solve problems, lead, reflect and serve).

The portfolio is part of the district's new personalized learning platform, which allows students to set short and long-term goals while tracking progress along the way.

Also, it helps students prioritize their work, learn content at their own pace, complete deeper learning projects that apply real-world situations and reflect on their personalized learning program.

In regards to the Fairview Park City Schools' innovative educational approach, Wagner said the district's efforts are garnering regional, state and national attention.

"I think we're up to six or seven different school districts that have come in to do visits wanting to see our Innovation Center and talk about our Innovation Challenge," Wagner said. "That's a really good sign for us that we are on a leading path in innovation around the country.

"We're doing some very progressive things with an outstanding teacher staff, and our administrators have been doing a great job leading the way."

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Baldwin Wallace University has offered six hours of summer school tuition to low-income students.

(Baldwin Wallace University )

BEREA, Ohio - Baldwin Wallace University has offered six hours of free summer school tuition to qualified low-income students enrolled at the private college.

The university said the goal of the pilot program is to make it easier for students who receive federal Pell grants to graduate on time.

"For many reasons, students with higher financial need are at higher risk of falling behind in their coursework and it can be a slippery slope," BW Provost Stephen Stahl said in a statement. "As we continue to address the issues that can affect student success, we are testing this needs-based, summer tuition awards program as another strategy that might increase our retention and timely graduation rates."

BW said it recently sent notices of the summer school awards to 771 eligible, full-time students, based on 2016-17 financial aid filings. More than 60 have already expressed interest in the program.

Participating students will fill existing openings in summer session course offerings, a BW official said. The university is not adding classes or increasing the budget for summer courses. Summer tuition is $525 per credit hour.

Studies have shown that economically disadvantaged students are more likely to attempt and complete fewer credit hours per semester, resulting in decreased degree completion rates.

"The research also notes, however, that taking courses in summer school is an effective strategy to compensate for lighter fall and spring course loads," said Stahl. "We are eager to look at our data moving forward to measure the impact of this free, summer school pilot for our students and to explore the possibility of similar programs in the future to encourage persistence."

The summer tuition waiver does not cover books or course fees and may not be applied to independent study, internship, or other individualized instruction. The offer of tuition-free courses is only available for this summer.

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Former pastor Torace Weaver, 38, had said the death of his foster son, Stanley, in November 2015 was an accident.

(cleveland.com file photo)

DAYTON, Ohio -- A jury on Thursday convicted a former pastor of eight charges in connection with the death of his 2-year-old foster son, including murder, reports say.

Torace Weaver, 38, had said the death of his foster son, Stanley, in November 2015 was an accident, first saying he had fallen off a table, then saying that Stanley had been hurt while playing a "Superman" game.

But the Dayton Daily News reports that prosecutors said the boy had a fractured skull, bruises, scars and burns. A doctor testified during the trial that Stanley had internal injuries that were consistent with abuse.

"This was a very emotional case ... for a lot of people," Montgomery County Assistant Prosecutor John Amos tells the Daily News. "Without any witnesses to this case, it really was a medical case."

While prosecutors were pleased with the verdict, Carl Norton, a superintendent of the Dayton District of Churches with which Weaver's former church was affiliated, tells WDTN Channel 2 he is disappointed.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the family and we just hope they can recover from this," Norton said.

Weaver's wife, Shureka Weaver, 40, was found guilty of one count of child endangering, the Daily News reports.

Both Weavers will be sentenced on May 5.

To comment on this story, please visit cleveland.com's crime and courts comments section.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 25-year-old Cleveland man already charged in two deadly shootings that left three men dead earlier this year faces charges in two more killings dating back to 2015.

Da'Montais Banks pleaded not guilty in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Friday morning to a new indictment charging him in the killings of Gregory Norman in August 2015 and Dion Pratt in May 2016.

Banks is now charged with aggravated murder and scores of other charges, including felony murder, attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated robbery and weapons charges tied to four separate, gang-related shootings that have left five people dead across neighborhood's in Cleveland's East Side.

Investigators used new information from informants and eyewitnesses, and corroborated that information with cellphone records, to tie Banks to the shootings, assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor Andrew Santoli, the lead prosecutor on the case, told cleveland.com Friday.

Banks is not charged with being in a criminal gang, but police detectives and prosecutors are still probing the case, Santoli said.

The shootings underscore how a relatively small number of people can wreak havoc across Cleveland's neighborhoods through retaliatory gun violence that only spurs more shootings, Santoli said.

"It's shocking that one individual can be responsible for such mayhem over a two-year period of time," Santoli said.

Banks was ordered held on $1 million bond at his Friday arraignment.

Banks is accused of being the triggerman in three of the shootings, and helping to carry out a fourth. Santoli said each of the shootings came in retaliation for an earlier incident, and the victims of the gunfire were targeted.

Banks is accused of driving the car from which 22-year-old Brendon Watts opened fire on Norman on Aug. 24, 2015.

Norman, 19, was walking with a woman along Saywell Avenue when the gunfire erupted. A bullet struck Norman in the chest, and the car sped off, police said. Norman died at the hospital later that night.

Banks was one of three men who fatally shot 28-year-old Pratt in the chest May 25 as Pratt sat on the front porch of a home on Somerset Avenue near East 105th Street. The gunmen came from behind a vacant house and opened fire, police said.

Pratt ran into his home and collapsed on the floor. A 25-year-old man who was sitting with Pratt was shot in both his legs. He ran to the next street over, where police found him lying in the street.

The new charges are in addition to those stemming from the Jan. 25 crime spree in which investigators say Banks, Darien Hayes and Julius Claxton shot and killed a man during a failed carjacking, carjacked a woman, drove to Harvard Wine and Grill and opened fire on a suspected member of the Loyal Always gang.

Police say Banks, Hayes and Claxton approached 45-year-old Carlos Hurt about 7:30 p.m. as Hurt sat in a car outside a house at East 145th Street and Glendale Avenue. Banks tried to carjack Hurt, but Hurt wouldn't give up his car, prosecutors say.

Banks opened fire, and all three men ran from the scene, Santoli said. A bullet pierced Hurt's right thigh and burst his femoral artery. Paramedics rushed him to University Hospitals where he was later pronounced dead.

The men stole a woman's Nissan SUV and drove to the restaurant and opened fire on Jesus Bey, Santoli said.

Bey returned fire, and the men exchanged more than 50 shots, police said. Bey killed Claxton during the shootout, and Banks shot and killed Hayes, Santoli said.

Claxton was found dead with gunshot wounds to his head and body. Hayes was found dead on the sidewalk near the Nissan wearing a black ski mask.

Bey has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in the shooting, and is also being held on $1 million bond.

Bey's name surfaced in the trial of Douglas Shine Jr., who was convicted of killing three men inside a Warrensville Heights barbershop as part of a feud withLoyal Always members. Bey was imprisoned at the time of those shootings and recorded phone calls between Bey and Shine were played at Shine's trial. Shine was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Banks was arrested when police say he broke into the home of one of Hayes' family members the next day as the family mourned the 22-year-old's death, according to court records.

The incident sparked a short standoff and Banks was arrested.

The case highlights a mentality shared among Cleveland's street gangs to exact revenge for crimes against their members, rather than go through the criminal justice system, Santoli said.

"They go back and forth shooting each other until people get killed," Santoli said.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page.

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Paolo Demaria gloseup with gesture April 2017.JPG

State Superintendent Paolo Demaria told the U.S. Department of Education that Ohio will not use its entire $71 million charter school expansion grant.

(Patrick O'Donnell/The Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio will not use $22 million of the $71 million federal charter school expansion grants it won in 2015, state Superintendent Paolo Demaria has told the U.S. Department of Education, because charter school oversight organizations here are not strong enough.

In a letter sent last week, Demaria said the state will use $49 of the $71 million over five years, not the full amount.

He said the lower amount "more accurately reflects our eligible pool of prospective community school grantees based on our shared priorities" of only giving money to strong schools.

"As you know, our rigorous school sponsor evaluation system has limited the number of eligible grantees in our community school pipeline," Demaria wrote, referring to the new ratings of the organizations that help create and oversee charter schools that came out in the fall.

The grants are only available to schools whose "sponsors," known as "authorizers" in other states, have one of the top two ratings of "exemplary" or "effective."

Only five of the more than 60 sponsors in Ohio earned "effective" ratings and none were rated "exemplary" in the fall. The vast majority were rated as "ineffective" or worse.

"While these numbers are lower than originally projected, we think the increased level of accountability will bolster the grant's purpose of creating high-quality community schools," Demaria wrote.

Charter school officials say turning down the money is a mistake.

Though the highly-rated Breakthrough charter school network here in Cleveland would not immediately be eligible for these grants, Breakthrough leader John Zitzner said he regrets the decision and how it will affect other strong charters.

"Breakthrough is very disappointed that the state of Ohio, which has such a great need for high quality public schools like ours and others in our state, has decided to give back to the U.S. government precious state funding earmarked for the growth of high quality community schools," he said.

"That $22 million would go a long way to helping networks like Breakthrough become more sustainable and serve additional thousands of children now receiving sub-optimal education our city," Zitzner added.

Chad Aldis of the pro-charter Fordham Institute, one of the "effective" charter oversight agencies eligible for the grants, said he isn't bothered by the reduction. He noted the maximum grant for any school is $700,000, so the number of schools is only falling from a maximum of 100 schools to 70, minus some administrative costs.

"I think we're going to be fine," Aldis said. "That still starts a heck of a lot of schools."

He also said the number of new charters starting in Ohio has been falling, so demand for grants is less.

"I wish we had enough schools in the queue to use these dollars," he said.

Melissa Cropper, head of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, one of the state's two large teacher unions, also liked the decision, just for different reasons.

"While we still question whether this amount of money should be used to expand Ohio's mostly failed charter school program, we appreciate that the state superintendent is looking at this through the lens of accountability rather than blindly taking every dollar," Cropper said.

Becky Higgins, president of the Ohio Education Association, the other teachers union, said that the charter sponsor evaluations that led to Demaria's decision need to be maintained, along with other charter school quality efforts.

"The state superintendent's wise decision reflects that while Ohio's charter school accountability reforms are generally working, there's more work to be done to protect students and taxpayers from habitually poor-performing charter schools," Higgins said.

Charter schools in Ohio have used federal grants to add more schools for years. In some cases, they apply directly to the federal government for grants. In others, like with these grants, money goes to the Ohio Department of Education to disburse.

Ohio won this round of grants as the state was in the middle of a controversy over ODE officials rigging the oversight evaluations Demaria mentioned by excluding the poor grades of online schools, in violation of state law.

Former state schools chief David Hansen was called away from writing this very grant proposal by the state school board to be interrogated over his manipulation of the ratings.

Charter school supporters cheered having resources to add new school choices in the state, while critics howled that the department would oversee the grants when it was already failing to follow state law.

Ohio's entire Democratic Congressional delegation questioned the grants and the U.S. Department of Education slapped restrictions on Ohio can use them.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat who had raised the earlier concerns, said he is still concerned about for-profit charter school operators, but is glad Demaria is using less of the grants.

"There's no question that limiting this grant is the responsible thing to do to protect taxpayers from having even more of their hard-earned money squandered away," said Brown. "But it's shameful that Ohio students have to miss out on the full investment because of fraudulent data and shady charter operators that cannot be trusted."
PAINESVILLE, Ohio--Painesville leaders have a new site and new hopes for a bid to cultivate medical marijuana.

An ordinance due for a second reading on Monday, April 24, by City Council would sell three acres at the Painesville Water Pollution Control Plant for $136,500 to Growth Orchard, contingent on the Willoughby business's prevailing among an expected crowd of bidders for state licenses.

Growth Orchard officials did not return calls for comment in time for this article. But Cathy Bieterman, Painesville's economic development director, said the company has agreed to buy the land at 1170 State St. if it wins one of 12 state licenses for large cultivation facilities. The state also plans to license 12 small facilities.

Growth Orchard's partners are John Sikora, Craig Rowe and Bruno Frate, all from Lake County. Earlier this year, the partners said they hoped to raise a building of about 50,000 square feet, hire 30 workers to start with and pay them about $1.5 million per year. They said they'd considered several sites in Greater Cleveland, including Chardon's Parker Industrial Court and Painesville's city-owned Renaissance Business Park.

But, according to Bieterman, the business lost interest in 5.84 acres at Renaissance after getting a report of too little reliably dry ground there.

The land by the control plant would need to be rezoned. Bieterman said the city could do so in time. The state will start accepting applications for licenses in June.

Among the expected competition, Buckeye Relief of Chagrin Falls has agreed to buy the former Eastlake JFK Senior Center on Curtis Boulevard contingent on a state license for large cultivation.

The last municipal wetland study of Renaissance was done before 2006, when a big flood raised the area's historic water averages, which are used to predict future risks. Bieterman hopes to conduct a new study this summer and find other tenants for vacant land at Renaissance. Current businesses there include PCC Airfoils and Cintas.

The Ohio legislature has authorized cultivation and prescriptions of marijuana for 21 medical conditions. Supporters say marijuana controls pain effectively, with less risk of addiction than opiates.

For more information, see http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/04/wetlands_concerns_delay_paines.html.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The widow of a Parma gas station owner who was killed during a botched 2015 robbery attempt at his store told a judge on Thursday that the man convicted of killing her husband was "evil."

Kimberly Sposit sobbed as she stood behind a lectern before Judge Brian J. Corrigan, surrounded by her three sons, and recounted how Logan Sinclair ripped the future away from her.

"I hate that he's still breathing," she said of Sinclair. "I want him to feel pain everyday that he's in prison like my family feels. I want the rest of his life to be just pure hell. He owns this."

Corrigan sentenced Sinclair to life in prison with the possibilty of parole after 50 years for killing Robert Sposit on Nov. 28, 2015 at the Pearl Road Sunoco, firing at another customer inside the store and robbing a convenience store minutes earlier in Cleveland.

A masked Sinclair went into Pearl Road Sunoco about 7:30 p.m. in the evening, pulled a pistol and demanded money, prosecutors said.

Sposit pulled his own gun and shot Sinclair during the robbery, then stood over Sinclair, held him at gunpoint and ordered two regulars at the store, who happened to be deaf, to call 911, prosecutors said.

When the deaf men gave no response, the store owner turned his head and Sinclair pulled out his gun, shot Sposit and ran from the store, prosecutors said. He turned and fired off one last round that missed the two customers, Cleary said.

Sinclair drove to a home on West 46th Street, where they found the getaway car and saw blood in the front seat, prosecutors said. A SWAT team surrounded the house and Sinclair surrendered. Sinclair tried to remove the bullet from himself instead of going to the hospital, prosecutors said.

A jury convicted Sinclair last month. He and his lawyers, Jeff Richardson and James McDonnell, argued at trial that, while Sinclair did rob the stores, he only fired after Sposit shot him.

Logan faced a minimum of life in prison with parole eligibility after 20 years. But Corrigan handed down life with parole after 30 years on an aggravated murder charge, and imposed consecutive sentences for the robbery of the convenience store. He also tacked on several firearm specifications bringing the base-minimum prison sentence to 50 years.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley issued a statement after the sentence was handed down calling business owners "the backbone of our community."

"We are reminded all too often these hard-working people are targeted by cowards," O'Malley said. "Today justice was served, but the sentence will not fill the void of this family's tragic loss."

Sinclair will be nearly 70 years old when he is released, barring any successful appeals.

Logan Sinclair sits with defense attorney James McDonnell at his sentencing on Thursday, April 20, 2017. Sinclair was sentenced to life in prison with parole after 50 years after a jury convicted him of aggravated murder and other charges in a botched robbery at a Parma gas station in 2015.

Richardson had asked Corrigan for leniency on Sinclair, citing what he called a "stereotypical background" for young men who run afoul of the law.

Sinclair spent a portion of his childhood in foster care because one of his parents was incarcerated, Richardson said. And, aside from a few misdemeanors, the then-20-year-old Sinclair had no criminal history when he robbed the two stores that day.

Parma police said that Sinclair said during questioning that he had been fueled by a drug addiction.

"You have before you a young man who, in the span of about 30 minutes, managed to ruin his entire life," Richardson told Corrigan.

Assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor Dan Cleary implored Corrigan to sentence him to the maximum, because Sinclair had continuously refused to take responsibility for Sposit's death.

Cleary said that the first thing Sinclair said to investigators after his arrest was that Sposit had shot him before he opened fire, and that he only started crying after he learned that Sposit had died and he realized he was going to prison.

"There are no tears of sympathy for the Sposit family in that video," Cleary said. "Not once, at all, has he said 'I shouldn't have been robbing that store. It's my fault.'"

But Sinclair did just that when it was his turn to speak Thursday. Sinclair, in an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind his back, turned to Kimberly Sposit and her sons in the back of the courtroom and apologized for what he did.

"I can't take it back. It was nobody's fault but mine," Sinclair said, his voice shaking as McDonnell held a letter in front of him. "It's just not fair to have to come back to court on top of all of it just to hear me say I'm sorry. It's just not fair."

Kimberly Sposit refused to look at Sinclair as he spoke. One of her sons briefly held up his middle finger before one of his brothers pushed it away.

Sinclair also apologized to his own family.

Corrigan noted that, if Sinclair had no intention of causing any harm, he could have unloaded the gun before the robberies or taken an airsoft pistol into the stores.

"We wouldn't be having this discussion here today if that were the case," Corrigan said.

To comment on this story, please visit cleveland.com's crime and courts comments section.

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Washington Daily Life

The White House, the National Mall and the the city of Washington, are seen from overhead from Air Force One, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press)

WASHINGTON, D. C. - Could federal employment transplanted from the nation's capital replace some of the jobs lost in other parts of the country?

That's what Rep. Tim Ryan wants to find out.

The Niles Democrat introduced legislation Thursday that would establish a commission to study relocating federal agencies to economically distressed parts of the country, or "areas with expertise in the mission and goal of the agency."

While the congressman said the nation should be proud of Washington, D.C. and its historic role, he said "the Founding Fathers could not have imagined our current federal government system, with more than 300,000 federal workers in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area in 190 federally-owned buildings and 500 leased buildings."

He said modern technology allows workers to collaborate easily in different geographic locations, and noted agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have been able to operate effectively outside the capital area.

"Our government belongs to all Americans, and communities across the United States should be able to benefit from the economic boost these employment centers could bring, especially to economically distressed places," said a press release from Ryan. "This is a common sense way to help cities like Cleveland or Detroit share in the economic development that comes from playing host to part of the federal government."

Ryan spokesman Michael Zetts hypothesized that agricultural areas like Nebraska or Iowa might have sufficient expertise to become the new headquarters for agencies or divisions within the Department of Agriculture, or an area like Toledo or Detroit could host some Department of Labor functions.

Several Republicans have introduced their own measures that call for moving the federal government, though they wouldn't require the study Ryan suggests.

Thank you to @FreedomWorks for supporting the #DraintheSwamp Act of 2017 which will require federal agencies to relocate outside of DC. pic.twitter.com/18Qi4j1bPU  Warren Davidson (@WarrenDavidson) February 2, 2017

The GOP chairman of the House Oversight Committee - Utah's Jason Chaffetz - recently introduced a resolution that used similar reasoning in asking the heads of each executive agency and military department to "recommend appropriate alternate locations throughout the United States to which their respective agency or military department can be relocated."

Chaffetz' committee passed that resolution last month in a 21-19 vote without support from any Democrats. It has not been scheduled for action on the House of Representatives floor.

The Democrat who serves as the District of Columbia's non-voting delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, called Chaffetz' measure "gratuitous, punitive, and prohibitively costly." She said it disregards that most federal offices and employees are already outside the capital region.

Holmes Norton said the federal government would be "throwing away" significant infrastructure investments it has already made in Washington, and would have to provide new construction and leasing funds to relocate offices.

"Even Republicans might not see 'Divest DC' as a serious proposal, particularly considering the tremendous costs to the federal government that deficit-conscious Republicans would have to justify," Holmes Norton said.

Dayton-area Republican Rep. Warren Davidson introduced a different bill in February that would require the federal government to depart Washington by 2023, allowing no more than 10 percent of government workers to remain there.

"Five out of ten of the richest counties in the country are located in Washington," said a statement from Davidson. "Something is wrong here. In addition to cost benefits, my hope is that government agencies will reorient themselves to what is most important- the people they serve."

Ryan's proposal is too new to have a bill number or a committee assignment, but its legislative language is below:

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ursuline.jpeg

Ursuline College has named a new vice president of academic affairs.

(Ursuline College )

Kathryn LaFontana

PEPPER PIKE, Ohio - Ursuline College has named Kathryn LaFontana as vice president for academic affairs.

"Dr. LaFontana brings a breadth of experience in academia, including more than 16 years as a faculty member and well-published researcher in psychology, and more than 15 years as an administrator in roles of increasing responsibility," said Sister Christine De Vinne, Ursuline's president, in a statement. "Her background makes her an ideal fit for our needs at Ursuline."

De Vinne said college officials were impressed with LaFontana's expertise in new program development, data management, innovative instructional technology solutions and strategic planning.

"I am delighted to join the Ursuline College community and I look forward to working with everyone as we plan a bright and successful future for the College," LaFontana said in a statement. "Ursuline is such a special place and I am so excited to work with faculty, students, staff, and others to strengthen what is best about the identity and traditions of the institution while simultaneously adapting to the rapidly changing environment of higher education."

LaFontana replaces Elizabeth Kavran, who has served as interim vice president for academic affairs since 2015.

LaFonatana has served as associate vice president for academic affairs for mission, new programs and assessment at the College of New Rochelle in New York since 2016. She joined the faculty in 2011 as associate dean of the school of arts and sciences and associate professor of psychology.

LaFontana has a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut and was at Sacred Heart University for 17 years before going to New Rochelle.

In 2016 LaFontana was one of 30 administrators in higher education nationwide selected by the Council of Independent Colleges to participate in the Senior Leadership Academy.

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The Ohio Department of Commerce on Friday released applications and instructions for medical marijuana cultivator licenses. This file photo was taken at Medicine Man in Denver, Colorado in September 2016.

(Jackie Borchardt, cleveland.com)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Entrepreneurs seeking to grow medical marijuana in Ohio can now start completing the lengthy, in-depth application to obtain one of 24 licenses available statewide.

The Ohio Department of Commerce on Friday released the application and instructions for cultivators and will begin accepting applications in June. The department plans to issue up to 12 level I licenses for up to 25,000 square feet of growing space and 12 level II licenses for up to 3,000 square feet of space.

Applicants are asked to drop off a paper and electronic copy of their applications with the application fee in person at the department's Columbus office. The nonrefundable application fee -- $20,000 for level I applications and $2,000 for level II applications -- must be paid with a money order or certified check.

If awarded a license, level I cultivators would have to pay a $200,000 annual fee -- one of the highest of the 29 states with medical marijuana programs. Level II cultivators would pay $20,000 a year.

Department officials plan to go over the application in a webinar posted online May 1. Applicants will have two week-long periods to ask questions and get clarification about the application process before the submission window opens.

Applications for level II licenses will be accepted June 5-16, and applications for level I licenses will be accepted June 19-30. The application doesn't indicate when licenses will be awarded. But the department faces a December deadline to do so because growers have nine months to meet the requirements of the license and state law requires the program be operational by September 2018.

Applications will be reviewed in two rounds. First, applicants will be screened to see whether they meet requirements for available capital and have secured local zoning approval for the proposed grow site.

Applicants who meet the qualifications will then be judged based on "unidentifiable information" about how they plan to grow and package marijuana, secure the grow facility and pay for operating expenses.

All application materials are available on the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program website.

Ohio's medical marijuana law, passed in June 2016, allows people with one of 21 medical conditions to buy and use marijuana if recommended by a physician. Most of the details about the program, such as who will grow and sell marijuana and how much patients can buy, were left to the commerce department, Ohio State Board of Pharmacy and Ohio State Medical Board.

Rules and regulations for retail dispensaries, product processors and testing labs are still being revised, but must be in place by Sept. 8.

Mobile readers, click here to see part one of the application.

Mobile readers, click here to see part two of the application.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
Quicken Loans supported Trump, but that doesn't mean Dan Gilbert always has. Kasich schedules a Cleveland stop on his upcoming book tour. And the Cleveland mayoral race gets an injection of personality. Read more in today's Ohio Politics Roundup, coming today from Andrew J. Tobias.

Ohioans pony up for Trump's inaugural: Ohioans chipped in about $2 million of the whopping $106.7 million raised for President Donald Trump's inaugural, the Columbus Dispatch's Darrel Rowland reports. The total was double the previous record amount raised for President Barack Obama's festivities in 2009.

Half of the Ohio money "came from two financial institutions: $500,000 each from JP Morgan Chase and longtime GOP backer American Financial Group. ..About $400,000 more came from mining interests in eastern Ohio, while Middletown Tube Works President and CEO Angela Phillips added $160,000."

And from that state up north: "Quicken Loans, run by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, contributed $750,000, but it's based in Detroit," Rowland notes.

Reminder: Gilbert had backed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the 2016 primary, and later gave $150,000 benefiting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign. But Gilbert has expressed some optimism for the Trump presidency, saying in January that he's happy Trump will take on 'crazy regulation.'

DeVos chooses Ohio: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a school choice champion and wealthy GOP donor, joined one of her fiercest critics, national teachers union chief Randi Weingarten, on a visit to a public school Thursday in Van Wert in Northwest Ohio. Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, invited DeVos "to see what strategies are helping students be successful," according to the Associated Press.

"Lori Bittner, principal of the Van Wert Early Childhood Center, which serves 325 preschool and kindergarten students --including those with special needs -- welcomed Ms. DeVos and shook her hand," reports Vanessa McCray of the Toledo Blade.

Parents and teachers held a roundtable discussion with DeVos and Weingarten, who sat next to each other, McCray reports.

Before her visit, in an op-ed on cleveland.com, DeVos said she wanted to make two things clear:

"I believe every student should have an equal opportunity to get a great education. And I believe many of those great educations are, and will continue to be, provided by traditional public schools."

Kasich's road show: Besides a previously announced return to New Hampshire, and a CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper on Monday, Gov. John Kasich is hitting some high-profile spots during a tour promoting his new book "Two Paths: America Divided or United," which comes out Tuesday.

As Rowland reports, Kasich has an appearance booked at the Nixon Library in California. He's also going to Harvard University, where he'll be interviewed by political analyst and former presidential adviser David Gergen. Other stops include Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Oh, and there are some Ohio stops on the tour, including an April 30 gig at 1 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble in Crocker Park in Westlake.

Leaning red: Ohio is likely to elect a Republican governor next year to succeed Kasich, according to Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, a publication of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, reports Laura A. Bischoff of the Dayton Daily News.

"Ohio turned sharply toward the GOP in 2016, and Republicans have a stronger field of candidates at the moment. At this early point, Leans Republican seems appropriate, though the environment will obviously matter," Bischoff quoted from Sabato's report.

The report cited the GOP's strong bench of contenders - Attorney General Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, Secretary of State Jon Husted and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci of Wadsworth.

But it didn't overlook possible Democratic contenders. Former U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley "are probably the two most credible candidates in that group. Looming in the background is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general and treasurer who may only run if Trump fires him from his current job, as well as former Rep. Dennis Kucinich," the report says, according to Bischoff.

Dennis! speculation continues: Speaking of Kucinich, he's scheduled to appear in Dayton Monday to hold a press conference and town hall meeting, the same day Kasich is holding his national TV town hall. As Will Garbe of the Dayton Daily News reports, Kucinich's appearance further fuels speculation about his gubernatorial ambitions. His topic is "the impact of privatization on Ohio's public schools," Garbe writes.

Ryan's money: One prominent Democrat who passed up the governor's race, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of the Youngstown area, raised a near-record amount of cash during the first quarter of the year for his congressional re-election next year, reports David Skolnick of the Youngstown Vindicator.

Ryan raised $162,825, his second-strongest fundraising quarter. But, Skolnick writes, "Ryan spent $150,552 - the most he's ever spent for a first quarter."

Mom sent back to Mexico: Despite pleas from religious leaders and prominent Ohio politicians, Maribel Trujillo Diaz, a mother of four from Fairfield in Southwest Ohio, was deported back to Mexico Wednesday, WCPO reported. "Trujillo, who came to the country illegally in 2002, said she'd fled Mexico because drug cartels targeted her family," the report said. A federal appeals court last week denied her petition for a stay.

Republican U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson was asked about the deportation Wednesday during an event in Oxford, reports Michael D. Pitman of the Dayton Daily News. Davidson said Trujillo had not requested help from his office, and "Frankly it was questionable whether if we could do casework for her. She was not a U.S. citizen," Pitman writes. "That response brought the mostly left-leaning crowd of about 75 people to shout the things they believed Trujillo did do: pay taxes, be a productive community member, possess a valid work permit, and take care of her four children between the ages of 3 and 14."

More on the immigration front: The future of a federal immigration program that lets rich foreign families come to the United States and stay, as long as they invest $500,000 in job-creating economic development and pass background checks, could be in jeopardy, cleveland.com's Stephen Koff reports.

"The visa-for-cash program is supposed to help down-on-their-heels areas where banks and U.S. citizens might be reluctant to invest, and its promoters say it paid off wildly in cities like Cleveland -- and helped about 1,500 foreigners who invested in the area, mostly living in China at the time, get two-year visas or permanent residency in the United States. But it's also helped fund upscale developments like shopping centers with Apple stores, Hyatt hotels and offices in relatively affluent places like Westlake and midtown Manhattan," Koff explains.

Livening up the Cleveland's mayor's race: "The Cleveland mayoral race now has personality," cleveland.com columnist Mark Naymik observed after Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed threw his hat in the ring. "Regardless of his many faults, Reed will inject a large voice into the race. And it's one that Jackson and the other candidates - who have largely been quiet - won't be able to ignore for long," Naymik says.

Steeling for a fight: "President Donald Trump today ordered the Commerce Department to investigate whether steel imports harm the defense of the United States, moving the ongoing complaints from the steel industry and steelmakers to a new plane -- one that could lead to new sanctions and trade actions between this country and its steelmaking competitors, Koff reported Thursday.

On hand in the Oval Office were representatives of the steel industry and United Steelworkers union, including top executives from Timken Steel, based in Canton; West Chester-based AK Steel, and ArcelorMittal, a global steelmaker with a large Cleveland operation.

"This executive order will give us the tools we need to lure our companies back and our people back to work," said Leo Gerard, president the Steelworkers union.

Koff notes that "Congress members from Ohio applauded Trump's willingness to investigate the issue. But some said they are not yet convinced he will follow up as they say is needed. The last time such an inquiry was launched, when George W. Bush was president, no action followed."

Rising to the challenge: Cleveland City Council candidate and community activist Basheer Jones fended off a challenge to his Ward 7 residency, cleveland.com's Robert Higgs reports. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on Wednesday dismissed a challenge filed by four residents. Jones is one of several potential candidates seeking to unseat Councilman TJ Dow.

Happening today: The Ohio Republican Party central committee is meeting in Columbus. The meeting agenda is light -- a party GOP spokesman said it will focus on filling a vacancy on the committee and making internal committee assignments.

Get Battleground Briefing, our FREE politics newsletter, delivered to your inbox: Sign up here. Tips or links? Send here. Follow along on Twitter: @andrewjtobias

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great lakes.JPG

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative money supported the clean up of Mentor Marsh, shown in this picture.

(Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer)

Troubling rumors continue to swirl that the Trump administration will shutter the Environmental Protection Agency's large regional office serving the Great Lakes region, despite a denial from the EPA. It's up to the Ohio congressional delegation to stay together and head off all the draconian cuts to Great Lakes protections already announced -- or that may be in the works.

The good news is that Robert Kaplan, the acting regional director in Region 5's Chicago headquarters, sent an email to employees saying the closure rumors published in the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers were "not true" and "pure speculation." The Region 5 office covers Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

What isn't a rumor, however, is that President Donald Trump wants to slash EPA funding by nearly a third -- and those cuts will come from somewhere.

The president already has proposed zeroing out the $300 million annual Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding, slicing $50 million from this year's restoration budget, and closing the venerable Sea Grant research program that helps guard against threats to Great Lakes drinking water and fisheries. He's also imposed an indefinite delay on defensive measures to keep voracious Asian carp out of the the Great Lakes water system, upending a multimillion-dollar fishery industry.

It also would punish a region of Trump voters. The five Great Lakes states -- including Ohio -- that delivered their electoral votes to Trump effectively won him the presidency. Is this their reward?

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Candidate Trump promised to slash the EPA to "tidbits." He didn't mention the consequences. For the Great Lakes region, they could be severe.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio -- someone known to have the ear of the White House, and a longtime supporter of Great Lakes protections -- must use every ounce of influence to stave off these cuts. So must GOP U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, of Russell Township in Geauga County, who serves on the energy and water development subcommittee of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

But they can't do it alone. The entire Ohio delegation and all Great Lakes lawmakers from every Great Lakes state must stand together against these shortsighted and ill-considered cuts.

Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Notification Settings (in blue) just below.

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PARMA, Ohio -- A masked man robbed a Parma shoe store employee at gunpoint Wednesday evening, police say.

The employee was not hurt in the robbery that happened just before 6 p.m. at Payless ShoeSource on Brook Park Road, police say.

Two store employees told police the man walked into the store and approached the cash register.

When one of the employees asked what he needed, he walked around the register with his left hand in his jacket pocket. He shoved an object, believed to be a gun, into the employee's torso area, Parma police Capt. Kevin Riley said.

The robber opened the cash register, took an undisclosed amount of money and ran out of the store, police say.

Police believe the same man is responsible for the April 3 robbery at Discount Cigarette Mart.

The cigarette robbery happened about 3:30 p.m. at the Broadview Road business just south of Brook Park Road.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at 440-887-7337.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
Cleveland Indians, spring training, in Goodyear, Arizona

Cleveland Indians catcher Francisco Mejia, at spring training in Goodyear, Arizona on Feb. 18, 2017. (Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's been a rough start (4-9) for the Akron RubberDucks, but the Cleveland Indians Class AA team still has a lot of time to climb out of the Eastern League basement. There's too much talent not to, led by one of the least talked about prospects in the system, infielder Tyler Kreiger, and the ultimate hit machine, Francisco Mejia.

A 12-1 victory over Reading this week was indicative of what this team can do. Mejia and Kreiger are off the strong starts. Pitching and defense are the early culprits as the RubberDucks have allowed five or more runs seven times, including a season-high 13 on opening night.

This weekend the Ducks begin a six-game homestand at Canal Park to try and start flipping the script. They will have several promotions as well.

RubberDucks schedule

RubberDucks stats

Eastern League standings

The hit machine: Mejia, 21, is hitting .368, showing the step up from Class A is not a huge obstacle for him. He already has a team-leading 14 hits with half of those being doubles. He hit .342 last season splitting time between Lake County and Lynchburg, so the start this season is no surprise for the undrafted free agent (2012) from the Dominican Republic.

Mejia's .342 average in 2016 included the 50-game hitting streak that began in Lake County and ended in Lynchburg. Picking up where he left off, Mejia has started this season with an 11-game hitting streak.

The hit machine II: Compared to Mejia, there is not a lot of conversation about Kreiger, 23, but the 6-2, 175-pound infielder has put together solid numbers since being drafted (4/2015) out of Clemson. After missing the 2015 season with a shoulder injury, Kreiger hit a combined .299 last year at Lake County and Lynchburg, even after fading a bit down the stretch.

He is currently hitting .419 with 13 hits in 31 at-bats with the Ducks. He has four doubles, a homer and five RBI. Kreiger has already picked up one Eastern League Player of the Week honor. He is on a four-game hitting streak.

Hit and run: Outfielder Greg Allen, 24, has stolen five bases in 13 games while hitting a productive .289 from the leadoff spot. He has scored 10 runs with three doubles and has not been caught stealing yet.

Allen (6/2014), from San Diego and San Diego State, has had at least one hit in eight of his last 10 games and has all five of his stolen bases in the last 10 games. He starts the homestead on a four-game hitting streak.
WESTLAKE, Ohio -- A 42-year-old man is accused of taking upskirt photos of a woman at a Crocker Park store.

Jeffrey Brennan is charged with voyeurism in the incident that happened on April 10 at Ann Taylor on Main Street, Westlake police Capt. Guy Turner said.

Brennan, who is a registered sex offender, also was in other nearby stores that day, Turner said.

Photos recovered from his cellphone after his arrest show numerous other woman whose buttocks were photographed at or around Main Street, police say. All of the photos are dated April 10.

Brennan is currently under supervision of Berea Municipal Court for a 2016 telecommunications harassment conviction. He also was convicted of voyeurism and possession of criminal tools in 2006 in separate cases in Akron Municipal Court and Elyria Municipal Court. He was also convicted of voyeurism in 2006 in Medina Municipal Court.

He also was arrested in Arlington Heights, Illinois and was accused of public indecency, Turner said. The status of that case is unknown.

Brennan is out on bond on the condition that he not set foot on Crocker Park property, police say.

Any woman who believes they saw Brennan acting suspiciously is asked to call Westlake police at 440-871-3311.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
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American agri-business Cargill has its sights set on moving up the food chain and focusing on the aquaculture and meat segments, with Asia expected to be a key market. Since the company spent $1.5 billion acquiring Norwegian salmon-feed manufacturer EWOS in 2015, it has realigned its portfolio to focus on its core food production business, Cargill Chairman and CEO David MacLennan told CNBC's "Managing Asia." "(T)he rate of growth of fish consumption in the world greatly exceeds pork consumption in the world. We see that trend and we're getting on it," MacLennan said.

A Cargill logo is pictured on a truck transporting Provimi Kliba and Protector animal nutrition products near the factory in Lucens, Switzerland, September 22, 2016. Denis Balibouse | Reuters

MacLennan expressed interest in the prospects Asia offers, adding that Cargill has made recent investments in the region. Among them are a chocolate facility in Indonesia, feed mills in Vietnam and South Korea, and joint ventures in the chicken business in the Philippines and Indonesia, he said. "We're always interested in Asia. I mean, what a great region it is in terms of  this is where the mouths are, the stomachs are. People are going to eat more and better food, so we've a lot of investments in Asia in the last couple of years," MacLennan said. As for controversy surrounding genetically-modified food, Cargill is attempting to satisfy both ends of the spectrum by acknowledging the growing group of people against genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

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Google has slowly been pulling back the curtain on homegrown silicon that could define the future of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Some key creators of that project  the Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU  recently left to team up with Chamath Palihapitiya, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent and outspoken young venture investors, on a stealth start-up. Groq Inc. is the name of the company, at least for the time being. There are no promotional materials or website. All that exists online are a couple SEC filings from October and December showing that the company raised $10.3 million, and an incorporation filing in the state of Delaware on Sept. 12. "We're really excited about Groq," Palihapitiya wrote in an e-mail. "It's too early to talk specifics, but we think what they're building could become a fundamental building block for the next generation of computing." Groq names three principals in the SEC documents: Jonathan Ross, who helped invent the TPU, Douglas Wightman, an entrepreneur and former engineer at the Google X "moonshot factory" and Palihapitiya, founder of investment firm Social Capital. The listed address is Social Capital's headquarters. Palihapitiya told CNBC last month that he invested in a team of ex-Googlers who helped build the chip, which he first heard about on an earnings call 2  years ago. "They randomly mentioned that they built their own chip for AI and I thought, 'what is going on here, why is Google competing with Intel?'" Palihapitiya said in an interview on "Squawk Box."

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The company (which we now know is Groq) now has eight of the first 10 people from the TPU team "building a next-generation chip," he said. All start-ups are hard, but a new chip company is something most venture capitalists won't touch. The research and development costs required to get a working prototype can be exorbitant. Then there's manufacturing and the Herculean challenge of finding device makers to take a chance on unproven technology. Also, the incumbents  Intel , Qualcomm and Nvidia  are massive, and Google, Apple and Amazon are developing their own silicon. As crazy as it may be, Palihapitiya is taking the plunge. This next wave of chip innovation "can empower companies like Facebook and Amazon, Tesla, the government to do things with machine learning and computers that nobody could do before," he said in last month's interview. Ross' LinkedIn page says he left Google in September and is currently "gainfully unemployed." According to Wightman's profile, he left the same month but doesn't say where he went. Wightman confirmed the funding in an e-mail and said, "We're still heads down right now."

Launching the TPU

Google made its first public pronouncement about the TPU in May with a blog post just ahead of the company's annual developers conference. Norm Jouppi, one of the project heads, said Google had been using the technology internally for over a year for things like improving the relevance of search results and the accuracy of its maps. It's also part of Google's Cloud Platform in a product called TensorFlow that lets other companies run machine learning workloads in Google's data centers. The essence of TPUs is the ability to squeeze heavy and highly sophisticated computation into less silicon. Machine learning, or the training of computers to get smarter as data sets increase and without the need for human interference, is weaving its way into all types of consumer and business apps. At Google's scale, that work is too taxing for today's processors. Palihapitiya said at a conference in January that the main reason he's bullish on Google as an investment is because "they're an order of magnitude ahead" of everyone else. He's not the only investor paying attention. Denny Fish, a portfolio manager who focuses on technology at Janus, said Google is doing everything it can to ensure maximum performance and efficiency to handle the heft of machine learning workloads.

Googles tensor processing unit or TPU. Source: Google
ImagesBazaar | Getty Images

1. Saying something dumb As much as I'm concerned about bringing up something that will make me sound 12, most people fear the things they say (both in and out of the office) will make them look stupid, or unprofessional or just plain weird. No one's perfect. We don't always have the inclination to censor or rethink the things that come out of our mouth. Rather than worry about saying the wrong thing all the time, be proactive and learn how to reach when you do  whether that means apologizing, elaborating or just brushing it off and making a joke out of it. 2. Having zero good ideas There's nothing more terrifying than entering a meeting and having nothing to contribute (OK, there are bigger fears, but roll with me here). I mean, you don't want to be that employee who "doesn't add value." But great ideas come organically, not when they're forced out of the need to feel included. Not having a good idea in the moment isn't the end of the world. I promise your next big break is right around the corner.

3. Not understanding something Maybe you've sat through a company meeting before, and as the speaker starts rambling off in buzzwords and abstract concepts, you nod your head in understanding, but secretly you're thinking "What the hell is he talking about?" Well, just because everyone else is nodding their heads doesn't mean they necessarily understand, either. Which leads me to the best advice you'll get all day  just ask. "Mythbusters" doesn't need to tell you that there's no such thing as a stupid question. The speaker's probably thrilled to clear up confusion, meaning you'll be able to institute the changes quicker, while also looking smarter, while also ensuring the entire team's on the same page. Win-win-win-win. 4. Accidentally offending someone Sometimes, we say dumb things that can affect our reputation, and other times we say dumb things that actually offend people. If you're afraid of hurting someone, that means you're a good person  and shouldn't be insecure about it. But, for good measure, there are always fixes. Before you crack a joke in your next presentation in front of a group, you can ask one person to give you their honest opinion on it. If you sent out a memo that ended up upsetting your co-worker, you can apologize. And in general, you can avoid the situation altogether by staying away from sharing any comments that you're unsure about. 5. Not getting everything done on time When you're stressed or overwhelmed, it's easy to assume that you're the only person who can't seem to get a grip on your workload. The reality is that you're just having an off-day, and tomorrow or next week will get better. And if it doesn't seem to be improving, the smart thing to do is be honest with your team on what you can accomplish, and what you need help on (Psst: templates here for having that tough conversation).
BALI, Indonesia  While Vice President Mike Pence visited Jakarta, Indonesia this week to discuss bilateral trade issues as part of his 10-day trip to Asia, investors, venture capitalists and regional start-ups gathered on the Indonesian island of Bali to discuss the future of tech in the world's fourth most populous and the broader region.

Jan Greune | LOOK-foto | Getty Images

"What's happening politically with the H-1B visas being reviewed and the crazy stories you're hearing, people have to hedge their situation and see where the high growth is happening," Ahmed Shabana, managing partner of Parkpine Capital, a Silicon Valley firm, told CNBC. "It might be risky to get talent in the U.S. if things escalate." The first of its kind, the Global Ventures Summit in Bali aims to find scalable technologies in high growth markets while connecting investors with ideas. The event included presentations from VCs and the likes of tech giants from Google to IBM . Shabana estimated $5 billion worth of investor funds taking part in the summit. "We're viewing Southeast Asia and Indonesia as the new China and it's very obvious that something great is going to happen," said Shabana, adding that he thinks acquiring a customer in Indonesia will be costlier and more difficult in two to three years from now, which is why now is the time to get in.

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Political uncertainty in both the U.S. and Indonesia is causing a ripple of anxiety here. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he will seek trade arrangements that greater benefit his country, worrying many trade partners throughout the region. "Donald Trump presents the danger of U.S. protectionism being misinterpreted to an economy here," said Wayne Forrest, president of the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce. "A lot of questions I've had with government officials here are about Indonesia being on the list of countries being watched." Forrest described Indonesia's potential for investment and scalable growth as positive  but not necessarily exciting. While the population and rising middle class is appealing for U.S. companies, Forrest said he fears infrastructure in the region still lags behind. But for many U.S.-based VCs at the summit, the region as a whole is intriguing. Southeast Asia is the fastest growing internet region in the world, adding close to 4 million new internet users every month, according to a report by Temasek and Google released last year. The internet economy is expected to be a $200 billion opportunity by 2025, according to the report.

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As Facebook has been tinkering with brain-computer interfaces and an augmented reality camera platform, it's also been cultivating some good old fashioned Washington influence. According to federal lobbying disclosures filed Thursday, the social network set it's own all-time record high for spending in a single quarter.

Facebook spent $3.2 million lobbying the federal government in the first months of the Trump era. During the same period last year, Facebook spent $2.8 million (about 15% less). The company lobbied both chambers of Congress, the White House, and six federal agencies on issues including high-tech worker visas, network neutrality, internet privacy, encryption, and international taxation. Facebook was the twelfth highest spender out of any company and second highest in tech.

"Our work in Washington demonstrates our commitment to protecting the people who use our service and promoting the value of innovation to the US economy," a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "As with the first quarter last year, our expenditure shows an increase that is mainly related to the timing of stock-based compensation for a number of employees."

While Facebook's first quarter figures for 2016 were the largest for that year, that was not the case in 2015. And outside firms that lobbied on behalf of Facebook spent more money in the first quarter of 2017 than in any other period in the past two years.

Apple spent $1.4 million, just $50,000 more than during the final months of the Obama presidency, when it set its previous record, but the most it has ever spent in a single quarter. Apple lobbied on issues including government requests for data, the regulation of mobile health apps, and self-driving cars.

Google, once again, outspent every other technology company. It was tenth overall, tallying $3.5 million.

"We think it is important to have a strong voice in the debate and help policymakers understand our business and the work we do to keep the Internet open and fuel economic growth," a Google spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

While the search giant decreased its lobbying spending compared to this time last year, Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber all boosted their beltway budgets for the first three months of 2017.

Amazon spent nearly $3 million on lobbying, behind only Facebook and Google, and was 17th out of all companies in or out of tech. Amazon met with government officials to discuss net neutrality, drone air cargo, drone privacy, and the flow of data across borders, among other issues. Microsoft claimed $2.3 million as the fourth biggest spender in tech and 27th overall.

Uber continues to dwarf its ride-hail competitor Lyft in lobbying heft. Lyft spent $110,000 in the first quarter of this year, a massive increase over its amount last year, at $20,000. But Uber towered over its rival, spending $370,000, continuing an upward trend.

SpaceX has also amplified its spending compared to the first quarter of last year. Founded by Elon Musk, who was tapped by President Trump as an economic adviser, the company spent $480,000. SpaceX lobbied NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and Congress on issues including commercial space launches, NASA funding, and defense space transportation.

The second biggest spender out of any company was AT&T, which shelled out $4.6 million. The company's proposed $85 billion merger with Time Warner, now under review by the Justice Department, is being closely watched by industry analysts and political observers. The outcome of the deal may serve as a test for President Trump, who vowed to squash the proposal if he were elected. But since winning the White House, Trump has softened his remarks.

Next week, during a confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, Senators will scrutinize Trump's pick to lead the Justice Department's antitrust division, Makan Delrahim. As the country's top competition enforcer, Delrahim would play a key role in AT&T's merger review and in the bubbling debate over market concentration in tech, media, and the broader American economy. Before serving as deputy counsel in Trump's White House, Delrahim worked as a lawyer and lobbyist at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schrecka. Qualcomm and Comcast were among his lobbying clients.
U.S. government debt prices were mostly higher on Friday as investors eyed developments in France, where the first round of the French presidential will take place on Sunday.



The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was lower at around 2.234 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond jumped to 2.893 percent. Yields move inversely to prices.

Sunday will see French voters cast their ballots in the first round of their presidential election. The race is seen as too close to call, and could have a wide-ranging impact depending on the result.



Those in the running include the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen; the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron; and the conservative candidate Francois Fillon. The top two candidates in the first round will face a runoff on May 7.



In oil markets, Brent crude traded at around $51.94 a barrel on Friday, down 1.98 percent, while U.S. crude was around $49.58 a barrel, down 2.23 percent.

On the data front, existing home sales rose 4.4 percent in March.
Three months into the Trump administration, executives at public companies are wondering if the change in leadership will make much of a difference at all.

In first-quarter earnings calls, S&P 500 executives expressed both enthusiasm for the pro-business attitude of the Trump administration and concern about the sweeping changes he might make to public policy. But in the second quarter so far, the mood has grown more muted, according to a CNBC analysis.

The number of mentions of the president has decreased, and sentiment toward the new administration has shifted from optimism to doubt that promised changes will happen.

"There's still uncertainty," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told analysts and investors on Wednesday." There are significant issues related to tax reform, infrastructure spending, and so we need to see how this all evolves."

Less than half the S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far in April mentioned the new president in their earnings calls with investors, according to a CNBC analysis. That's down from nearly 80 percent during the same period in January.
A California lawmaker has proposed a statewide measure to ban retailers from accepting coupons that lower the price of tobacco products.

It follows California this month more than doubling the tax on cigarettes.

The legislation, proposed by California Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), would prohibit the redemption of all coupons and promotional discounts for tobacco products.

"California has led the nation in its fight against tobacco by enacting some of the strongest anti-tobacco laws on the books," said McCarty in a release. "Sadly, the tobacco industry continues to trick customers into becoming long-term addicts by artificially lowering the price of tobacco products."
The China growth story is making global titans of some of the nation's hottest companies, which are challenging the likes of Facebook and JP Morgan Chase & Co. as leaders of their class.



Recent runups in their stocks powered internet leader Tencent and liquor giant Moutai past two major milestones last week, as the former became the world's 10th-most-valuable company and the latter took the global crown for most valuable liquor maker.



Observers point out the frothy performance isn't completely an illusion, since most Chinese companies now do nearly all their business at home and thus could reap huge new growth from going global. But at the same time, some also point out that stocks could be getting a little ahead of themselves at current levels since most companies are still relatively small in revenue terms compared with their global peers.



"China is the second-largest economy in the world and one of the world's largest trading countries, so it is not a surprise to me," well-known investor Jim Rogers told Caixin, commenting on the milestones for Tencent and Moutai. "Chinese companies will take many such 'crowns' in the next few years. Just wait until they do more business around the world as well as after China opens its markets."



More from Caixin:

China's super-rich target environment, research in growing embrace of philanthropy

Struggling LeEco pledges to back online video unit

Tycoon Guo Wengui's power play in netting securities firm



Both Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Kweichow Moutai Co. Ltd. reflect the broader rise of China companies over the last decade, banking on big growth stories that have led to even bigger valuations.



Tencent officially became one of the world's 10 most-valuable companies last week when it displaced U.S. banking giant Wells Fargo & Co. for the spot.



Just days later, Wells Fargo was overtaken again, this time when it was passed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd ., according to a list compiled by Caixin on April 20 using Bloomberg data.



At its current levels, Tencent is now worth $281 billion, even though its annual revenue of $22 billion was just a quarter of the figure for Wells Fargo. But Tencent's revenue grew a hefty 48% last year in China's fast-evolving internet market, compared to only 3% growth for Wells Fargo in the mature U.S. banking space.



That momentum has allowed Tencent to command a rich price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of 48, ahead of the 44 multiple for high-flying global peer Facebook Inc., which was the world's fifth-most-valuable company on the list.

The picture was similar for Moutai, a brand whose name is synonymous with high-end liquor in China but means little or nothing to most people outside the country. A recent rally in the company's stock sent it shooting past Diageo, owner of the Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff brands, to become the world's most valuable liquor maker. With a value of $74 billion, Moutai is now the world's 137th-biggest company, compared with Diageo's $71 billion value, not far behind.



Moutai's latest annual sales of $5.8 billion are just about half the level of Diageo's. But while Diageo's revenue actually contracted last year by 3% in the mature global spirits market, Moutai's figure was up a strong 19%. Its big growth and future potential has brought Moutai a current PE ratio of 31, well ahead of Diageo's 23.



China now, the world next?



A local media report noted that Moutai's latest market value amounts to half the gross domestic product (GDP) for its home in Guizhou, a mountainous and relatively poor province in southwest China, reflecting the huge influence it already wields at home.



"If these companies are that gargantuan in earnings and valuation just on the domestic market, what's going to happen if a Chinese company comes to dominate the world, like a Google or Facebook does?" said Gary Dvorchak, Asia director at BlueShirt Group, an investor relations adviser. "In the end, it is about growth potential, and both Tencent and Moutai still have a lot, even if it's domestic only. You could argue the global leaders are already closer to saturating their markets. They have nowhere else to go."



Tencent and Moutai posted their milestones as Chinese companies are claiming a growing place on the list of the world's 100 most valuable companies. That list now includes 11 Chinese names, led by Tencent and Alibaba at Nos. 10 and 11. Nearly all other residents are big state-run companies, including the nation's top four banks, energy giants PetroChina and Sinopec , leading insurer China Life , and China Mobile , the world's largest wireless carrier.



The Chinese companies' rich valuations have led some to say that their prices may be overinflated at the moment.



On a recent visit to Beijing, Jim Rogers was quick to point out that many China-listed stocks are richly valued right now, since companies whose shares trade in both Hong Kong and China usually trade at higher multiples in the latter versus the former.



Leading bank ICBC trades at a 5.6 multiple in Hong Kong, where prices are determined by international investors. But it trades at a significantly higher 6.2 in China, which is largely closed to foreigners, even though investors in both markets are technically buying identical shares.



Similarly, PetroChina's Hong Kong shares now trade at a multiple of 116, compared with a much higher 183 across the border in Shanghai.



"The valuations are big, but right now some of these companies like Tencent or Alibaba are hardly dominant in the sense that Google or Facebook is," Dvorchak said. "They're still domestic companies. There's no Chinese company yet taking over the world, but the size of these companies, just on their own market, shows the potential and the direction the industry is going over the next 20 to 30 years."
With the first round of the French election occurring on Sunday  and the biggest week of earnings approaching  Jim Cramer smells panic in the air.

However, the "Mad Money" host urged investors to look past the frantic selling that happens out of fear that the election may end unfavorably. He recommended focusing on individual company reports that can help shed light on the true state of the global economy.

With that in mind, here are the stocks and events on Cramer's radar next week:

Monday: Kimberly-Clark, Hasbro

Kimberly-Clark : Cramer is thinking the same way about this consumer goods company's earnings announcement as he has about big earnings announcements since his days at Goldman Sachs: "You buy Kimberly-Clark when it gets hit."

Hasbro : Rival toymaker Mattel's weak Thursday earnings report could pass some negativity on to Hasbro when it reports, but Cramer doubts it because the companies have very different prospects.

"Hasbro's developed a very different model from Mattel's. It's more experiential, and it does a huge amount of business selling Disney toys, and given that we've got a new 'Star Wars' movie later this year [and] maybe a couple of 'Star Wars' movies down the line, I bet it's a winner, not a loser like Mattel," Cramer said.

Tuesday: McDonald's, Eli Lilly, Chipotle, and a whole lot more

"Memo to the companies that report in the following three days: will you stop it, please? Move your quarters. We can't focus on all of you," Cramer said before diving in to some of Tuesday's 30-plus earnings reports.

McDonald's : Some Wall Street hawks worry that the stock may sell off when McDonald's reports earnings, having run as much as it has.

"I say CEO Steve Easterbrook continues to deliver, but if you want to wait and see before you pull the trigger, I'm fine with that," Cramer said.

Eli Lilly : Its stock was hit after a medicine it partnered on with Incyte was rejected by the FDA, but Cramer has faith in the pipeline. He dubbed Eli Lilly a buy on its earnings release.

Chipotle : The fast-casual Mexican chain is approaching the 18-month mark at which health-risk concerns begin to taper out, which is good news for the company moving forward, Cramer said.

"However, the stock's already had a big run. I don't want you to chase. There are so many people who expect it to be a great quarter that we need to be sensitive to the idea that the improving news may actually cause a short term sell-off before the stock advances again," the "Mad Money" host advised.

Wednesday: United Technologies, PepsiCo, Twitter

United Technologies : The aircraft manufacturer is seeing an abundance of orders, so Cramer expects strong earnings numbers, but wonders if the company can report as good a quarter as competitor Honeywell did on Friday.

"Don't forget, this is the year that United Technologies gets its breakthrough aircraft engine out of the teething phase and into the market in size. I think United Technologies is worth buying for that alone," Cramer said.

PepsiCo : The market has come to expect strong earnings reports from PepsiCo under CEO Indra Nooyi's leadership, and Cramer expects no less this quarter.

Still, he said, "there's always someone itching to sell this thing. Maybe then we wait to see, and buy."

Twitter : Cramer knows there is a hidden market out there for Twitter, particularly among those with accounts, so he is curious to see what kind of reaction a weak quarter might get.

"I say it's too risky, at least until we see those [earnings] numbers. Then we make a decision," the "Mad Money" host said.

Thursday: Southwest Airlines, Domino's, Alphabet, Starbucks

Southwest Airlines : This domestic airline play will report earnings before the bell, and Cramer says that having no overseas routes will be a boon to the stock.

"Call me a buyer both before and after what I think is going to be a terrific report," Cramer said, adding that he owns the name for his charitable trust, ActionAlertsPlus.com.

Domino's : Wall Street is buzzing with rumors that the pizza chain will miss estimates, but Cramer still wants a piece of the pie.

"You just pretty much have to own it because of its vastly superior technology," he said. "The short position is humongous into the quarter, so I expect a quick drop as the shorts try to make themselves look right when the number prints, and then it'll return to higher prices."

Alphabet : "Alphabet needs to show that it's gotten its arms around the YouTube ad problem, where companies don't want to be next to content that's porn or hate speech," Cramer said. "I think they'll show you that they've gotten a handle around this problem and therefore the stock can rally, and that's what we've been telling ActionAlertsPlus.com club members."

Starbucks : As this is new CEO Kevin Johnson's first quarter at the helm, Cramer says analysts' expectations for Starbucks' earnings, particularly those calling for 5 to 6 percent domestic comparable sales growth, are overblown, and the stock could get hit as a result.

"If Starbucks can do it, the stock goes from $60 to $70. Otherwise, it should fall back a couple bucks and we've got to wait for another quarter for it to fix its through-put issues," Cramer said.

Friday: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, General Motors

Exxon Mobil and Chevron : With oil prices expected to head back to $47 from Friday's $49.50, Cramer says both of these energy giants will be buys if they announce any good news on their earnings calls.

General Motors : The automaker seems to be a victim of its struggling sector, unable to hit the profit targets it should. Cramer sees the name briefly going higher before heading back down.

All in all, Cramer's bottom line is fairly straightforward, though in the throes of the election aftermath it may not seem so obvious.

"Hope for panic next week and take action when you get it with some of these great opportunities," Cramer said. "You should be able to get the best stocks at a discount because of France, even though you shouldn't, and I think you will."

Watch the full segment here:
Alnylam staff member Chris Theile works on signs for this weekends March for Science. Source: Alnylam

The March for Science, happening Saturday in more than 600 cities across the world, is an explicitly political movement. But it's trying hard to be seen as nonpartisan. "The goal of the march itself is to highlight the valuable public service role science plays in society and policy and demonstrate the deep public support for science," the organizers say on the March's website. "We take strong stands on policy issues based on the best available scientific evidence, but we will not let our movement be defined by any one politician or party." Still, the idea for a science march originated after the election of President Donald Trump, whose views on climate change (calling it a hoax perpetuated by China), vaccines (repeating discredited claims about their safety) and aid workers helping fight Ebola in Africa ("People that go to far away places to help out are great  but must suffer the consequences!") have rattled the scientific community.

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And that presents a bit of a conundrum for the drug industry  dependent on support for science, but heavily regulated by the government.



"A march on Washington under the idea of a march around science could be considered a partisan protest of the Trump administration," said Brian Skorney, an analyst with Robert W. Baird. "I think the industry's careful that they don't want to be seen as an opposition force." Drug companies have a lot at stake when it comes to the U.S. government, Skorney pointed out. They depend on the Food and Drug Administration to evaluate their products, and are already enduring onslaughts of pressure around their pricing. So they're proceeding with caution. But they are proceeding. The March for Science in Boston counts biopharma companies Intellia Therapeutics , Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals and Warp Drive Bio among its sponsors. In San Francisco, Alphabet's life sciences company Verily is on the list. And it's not just younger, smaller life science companies supporting the march. Drug giant Pfizer is in, too, producing a video proclaiming: "Let's not imagine a world without science. Our scientists are the cornerstone of what we do. We're proud to stand behind the #ScienceMarch." Tweet Some biotech execs say the issues are too important not to stick their necks out. "Our team at Verily feels strongly that science has been undermined of late," Tom Insel, Verily's director of clinical neuroscience, said. "We feel it's important to highlight two things: science offers us as a society tools to search for truth and avoid 'group think,' and that the U.S. federal investment in science is unique and important, and we feel we should actively encourage continued investment."

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As part of his budget proposal, Trump moved to slash funding for the National Institutes of Health by 20 percent, or almost $6 billion. That's one of four issues highlighted by Alnylam CEO John Maraganore as reasons to support the march. Between 70 and 100 employees of Alnylam will be there, according to spokeswoman Christine Lindenboom. "I think it stands for a gathering of a group of people to express their views under a set of circumstances where diversity is under attack, where the facts of climate change are being challenged, the NIH budget is being proposed to be shrunk, and where FDA standards on efficacy and safety are being questioned," Maraganore said in a telephone interview Friday. "These are science-based philosophies and views that are truly being questioned right now." Alnylam, along with industry group MassBio and the Kendall Square Association, is also organizing a photo shoot in the Kendall Square biotech hub of Cambridge, aiming to highlight the diversity in the life sciences industry  an issue that also has political underpinnings given Trump's immigration policies. "The travel ban and immigration ban proposed by the administration are something we are strongly against," Maraganore said. "The fact that it discriminates against religions and the quality of people we like to bring into our companies from all parts of the world  that's a feature on diversity that we are all in solidarity and agreement with." Many life sciences companies declined to officially back the march, leaving participation up to individual employees. Steve Holtzman, CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup Decibel Therapeutics, said he asked an internal group at his company to come up with a position on the march. "They reached a conclusion that the company should not endorse or sponsor out of respect that, unfortunately, the march will be viewed in the current environment as partisan and that out of respect for those that may not share partisan views in the company that the company ought not to do it," Holtzman said. But, he said, "a lot of people from the company will be there."

A poster made by an Alnylam employee for this weekends March for Science. Source: Alnylam

Holtzman is speaking at the March for Science in Boston. And he's not shy about his views. "If you take certain positions  denying climate change would be an example; questioning the validity of a wealth of evidence that vaccinations don't cause autism; speaking in terms of alternative facts as if facts are things which are merely opinions," Holtzman said, they "run in the face of well-established science." Other execs, while supporting the march, aim to sidestep the politics as much as possible. "The idea of a nonpartisan group that gets together and thinks about  on an international scale  how to promote science and science policy resonates well with certainly myself and a number of employees," said Gene Kinney, CEO of Prothena , a Dublin-based biotech with about 100 employees. Kinney said about 45 employees at Prothena plan to participate in marches in Dublin and San Francisco. "How we look at this march is it's more of an opportunity to focus on policy around science rather than what any individual administration's policy is," Kinney said in a telephone interview. " I would be equally enthusiastic regardless of who was in the White House." But some observers question the upside. "There's an essence of the March for Science that's preaching to the choir and unlikely to convert anyone," Baird analyst Skorney said. And the downside? "There's so many factors that are to some extent in government control, you don't want to antagonize the powers that be." And even if there is risk of retaliation from a president quick to take offense and turn to social media, Alnylam's Maraganore said standing up for science is the right thing to do. "At the end of the day, most companies will agree that you just can't sit back and be quiet and live in fear of a tweet," Maraganore said. "That's simply not a way that we should roll in this country." Watch: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on value of science
The euro could take a "swan dive" if the two extremist candidates advance to the second round of the French election, currency expert Boris Schlossberg told CNBC on Friday.

And right now, the race is a "complete wild card," with about 40 percent of voters undecided, he pointed out. The first round of the election is set for Sunday.

Four candidates are making a bid for the presidency. Former Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and mainstream conservative Francois Fillon are the two centrist candidates. Far-right Marine Le Pen and far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon have both indicated they are willing to take France out of the European Union.

"Any kind of serious contention that Le Pen wins or, the worst-case scenario, if we have Melenchon and Le Pen  the far right, far left  the only choice for France, could take the euro down to parity very quickly," Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, said in an interview with "Closing Bell."
European markets closed mixed on Friday after a suspected terrorist attack in France two days before a key presidential vote.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended marginally higher with sectors and major bourses pointing in opposite directions. The European stocks benchmark was little changed on the week.

The FTSE 100 ended the week 2.8 percent lower after U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May called a surprise general election. The DAX slipped 0.5 percent and the CAC 40 dipped 0.17 percent for the week.



Basic resources stocks moved higher on Friday after positive earnings reports in the sector. An advance for Chinese steel companies appeared to offset the impact of a trade investigation into China from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Banking stocks also moved higher on Friday as investors prepared for Europe's heavyweights to report earnings next week. Elsewhere, Trump ordered the Treasury to find and reduce tax burdens and review post-financial crisis reforms into banks and insurance companies.

Looking at individual stocks, Software AG ended at the top of the European benchmark, up by around 8 percent. This followed the company's latest earnings report which showed an acceleration in its digital business.

Atkins WS also jumped over 6 percent on Friday after the Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin agreed to buy the engineering firm for $2.67 billion, Reuters reported.

Danone was at the opposite end of the index after reporting weak sales figures in the first three months of the year. Its shares were down 2.4 percent on Friday.



Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average and broader S&P 500 index continued under pressure as investors eyed a closely contested four-way race in the French presidential election.
Republicans will move on to tax reform in the event of another health bill failure, health-care analyst Kim Monk said Friday.

"I would say even if repeal and replace crashes and burns, they will be able to pivot to tax reform at some point," Monk, an analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, said on "Squawk Box."

Monk's comment came after CNBC obtained a document on Thursday detailing Republican lawmakers' new plan to repeal and replace Obamacare in a bid to bridge the gap between the House Freedom Caucus and moderates.

In March, House Republicans pulled their first attempt at a Obamacare replacement, dubbed the American Health Care Act, due in large part to opposition from both conservative and moderate Republicans.

Monk told CNBC the GOP's attempt at reforming health care is "possible," but not "probable."

"Coming up next week they're going to have to deal with government funding  either have to extend the continuing resolution or kick the can for a couple of weeks," she said. "More immediately on health care, they'll have to deal with the Obamacare subsidies, CSRs. I would say they will in the background continue to spend some time on repeal and replace because the stakes are very high."

On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Trump administration is close to bringing forward "major tax reform."

The promise of a tax overhaul and looser regulations by President Donald Trump partly fueled stock market gains in the months after Trump's election.
ELKO  One prisoner who allegedly assaulted another was apparently angry over a drug transaction rumor that started before they were jailed.

Andrew J. Hockenberry, 22, of Elko was arrested April 18 in Elko County Jail on a felony warrant for battery by a prisoner on a protected person.

According to the criminal complaint, a fight broke out in Mary Block and officers were called to the scene. One inmate had blood all over his face, uniform and arms.

The injured man claimed he did nothing to provoke the fight and that he did not fight back because he was up for probation and did not want any trouble. He told the attending officer that Hockenberry attacked him over a rumor and that the two knew each other outside prison in the drug world.

During an interview with the alleged aggressor, an officer asked Hockenberry what was going on.

Hockenberry reportedly said, I am not a cho-mo (child molester).

Hockenberry claimed the other man had called him that. He also refused to answer the officer when asked who threw the first punch.

Video surveillance of the event revealed that Hockenberry was the aggressor and that the other man merely held his hands up to defend himself.

Bail was listed at $20,000.
Federal Reserve's Stanley Fischer discussed his views on the market and deregulation in an exclusive wide-ranging interview Friday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."

When asked about the White House's financial deregulation plans: "I want to say something about Dodd-Frank and about the financial crisis. This is serious business," Fischer said. "We seem to have forgotten that we've had a financial crisis, which was caused by behavior in the banking and other parts of the financial system. And it did enormous damage to this economy. Millions of people lost their jobs  We should not forget that  Taking actions which remove the changes that were made to strengthen the structure of the financial system is very dangerous."



On the Dodd-Frank: "There are aspects of Dodd-Frank which if they were taken away would have very serious potential consequences for the economy. Not immediately, but when times get tough," he said.



Fischer is the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Previously, Fischer was governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013.



He also discussed:
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The world is currently focused on France where voters are heading to the polls Sunday to choose their next president. Ahead of vote , which is being described as the most uncertain election ever in French politics, here's a look at the key details.

Why is this election important?

France is the second-largest economy in the euro zone and one of the seven biggest across the world. Its president holds enough powers to influence the country's economic and political path. Furthermore, this election takes place at a time when the French people are increasingly concerned on security matters, after several terrorist attacks across the country, and disenchanted with high levels of unemployment and poor economic performance since the 2008 crisis. The candidates' proposals show that whatever the outcome this election will not only shape the future of France, but also of the European Union. "As two candidates to the French presidential election expressed their desire to work on a 'Frexit' once elected, these elections have of course implications beyond French borders," Vincent Juvyns, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told CNBC via email.

Anne-Christine Poujoulat | AFP | Getty Images

"Though the legislative hurdles to get to a 'Frexit' are high, one can at this stage not say that it is impossible. In such a situation, the European project would definitely be at risk, the volatility would increase on financial markets and we could get in a situation at least similar to the European debt crisis of 2012," he added. For the first time in 15 years, the far right has realistic chances of getting into power. This is also the first time in modern France when the incumbent president hasn't run for a second term.

How many candidates are running?

There are 11 candidates running, of which four make up the list of frontrunners. A poll released by Elabe on Friday morning showed the centrist and independent candidate Emmanuel Macron winning the first round with 24 percent of the votes, closely followed by the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen with 21.5 percent of the support. The conservative candidate Francois Fillon placed third with 20 percent and the member of the far left Jean-Luc Melenchon came fourth with 19.5 percent. All polls have shown that this election is too close to call.

Why are there two rounds of voting?

France use the two-round voting system. A leader can be elected this Sunday if they win an outright majority but the polls suggest that this is unlikely. As a result, a run-off between the two leading candidates is expected and is scheduled for May 7.

When will we know the results?

Polling stations are due to close between 7 p.m. Paris time (8 p.m. for the big cities) on Sunday. Preliminary results are expected around 9 p.m. Paris time, slightly later than usual as the close race is expected to complicate and delay the results. In recent history, France has never had a race that was too close to call, with the two leading candidates usually being pretty clear. "This is a four way race with the potential for the numbers to be quite close to one another. In the previous elections exit polls have over/under estimated the candidates by up to +-2 percent either way. They correct themselves as the night progresses and typically by 9:30 pm (London time) they are more confident as to the results," Nomura noted in a research note on Thursday.

What happens after the runoff?

With the run-off schedule for May 7, it is expected that a new president will be formally confirmed by May 11. "The official investiture of the new president will take place on the Sunday 14 May at the latest," Juvyns from JPMorgan said. He added that the formation of the next government will depend on who's elected. "In the case of Francois Fillon or Emmanuel Macron, they should in theory be able to form a rather stable government as they have a wide - direct or indirect - support in both houses. For Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Melenchon, it could be more challenging given there is low support in the lower and upper house and also because the legislative elections in June could oblige them to work with other political parties in their governments which would be less likely for Fillon or Macron."



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How will markets react on Sunday?
French presidential candidate Francois Fillon takes part in a political television show entitled '15mn to convince' in Paris, France, on April 20, 2017. Martin Bureau | AFP | Getty Images

With roughly thirty percent of the French electorate unsure as to who they will vote for in Sunday's first round of the presidential election, ambivalence and indecision could bring about an unexpected result. Two candidates are known for having the most "sticky" voter base, Philippe Dauba -Pantanacce, global geopolitical analyst at Standard Chartered, explained on CNBC's Squawk Box Friday. "Le Pen's voter , whatever happens, even if there's a blizzard, they're going to come out and vote," Dauba -Pantanacce said. "But Fillon voters too," he added. "So if you have a lower turnout  it might be Fillon and Le Pen that actually come out (on top.)"

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Philippe Dauba - Pantanacce's latter point may seem counter-intuitive considering that political conservative Fillon's campaign has been dogged by scandal, causing his initially favorable polling to plummet. Allegations surfaced in March that Fillon paid his wife public money for work she did not do. Both Francois and Penelope Fillon have been placed under formal investigation. The right wing candidate is currently polling at 19 percent  in joint third place with leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon  according to the FT's aggregated poll tracker. "If there's maybe one surprise that could upset the polls today, my gut feeling is that it could be coming from Fillon," Dauba -Pantanacce said. He also argued that as far as the second round run-off goes, "It's very clear that the polls show that Fillon would have more difficulties to beat Le Pen than Macron, typically. But Fillon I'm very confident would still beat Le Pen, for sure." Dauba -Pantanacce described the most expected outcome of Sunday's vote, centrist En Marche! candidate Emmanuel Macron against Le Pen, as "the most reassuring for all market participants."

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Undecided high school seniors have just a few days left to figure out which college they will be attending in the fall. That's still plenty of time to give aid packages careful assessment. Many colleges set their enrollment deadline as May 1, which has come to be known as National College Decision Day. High school seniors have had plenty of time to mull over their choices, with most colleges sending out acceptance letters and financial aid offers early this year. Six in 10 colleges sent financial aid offers to students before the winter holidays, according to an analysis of 145 colleges from Royall & Company. (Last year it took until early March to hit that benchmark.)

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"Those students who were accepted and got a reasonable need-based award from an institution were content with that," said Pamela Kiecker Royall, head of research at Royall & Company. The surge in early-bird offers is largely due to a recent change in the start date for filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (aka the FAFSA), a form that determines eligibility for financial aid. Families are now able to file as early as October for the upcoming academic year, using income data from an earlier tax return. Under the old system, families had to wait until Jan. 1  three months later  and use data from the just-concluded tax year. Many families took advantage of the new start date to apply for financial aid early, giving them more time to assess the affordability before picking a college, said Mark Kantrowitz, vice president of strategy for college and scholarship search site Cappex.com. "I would encourage families to use the luxury of the extra time," he said. "You have the time to make a more informed decision."

Deciphering college aid letters

Due diligence ahead of "decision day" might include practical measures, like making another visit to campus. It should also include a thorough assessment of the aid offer, said Kevin Fudge, director of consumer advocacy for American Student Assistance, a nonprofit focused on higher education financing. "It can be overwhelming and daunting to look at that letter," he said.

You may think you have a free ride from this college, when in reality you have a ridiculous amount of loans. Mark Kantrowitz vice president of strategy for Cappex.com

1) Analyze the components. Terms aren't always clear, so start your review by going through the offer line-by-line to determine what's what. Separate out scholarships and grants, which don't have to be repaid, from loans that do, Kantrowitz said. That gives you a truer picture of your out-of-pocket costs. "You may think you have a free ride from this college, when in reality you have a ridiculous amount of loans," he said. If you expect your student will receive outside scholarships, ask about the displacement policy, he said. Some colleges use those to offset loans, while others will first use them to offset grant aid from the college. That calculation could make a big difference in comparing offers.

Oregon State University Beavers campus in Corvallis, Oregon Oregon State University | Collegiate Images | Getty Images

2) Crunch costs. Check what's included in the college's cost estimate, said Kantrowitz. It should include indirect expenses like travel to and from campus and textbooks, as well as tuition, room and board. Fill in the blanks for any missing expenses so you can better compare different colleges' offers. Look to see if the college estimates are reasonable, too, based on personal details like your student's major. "A single physics or calculus textbook can cost you as much as $250," he said. More from Your Money Your Future:

'How I knocked $120,000 off our college tab'

If you lost only $30,000 to these money mistakes, count yourself lucky

Move here if you want to pay off your student loans faster

3) Think long term. "Look at [college cost] from a four-year perspective rather than a one-year perspective," Fudge said. The aid package's addendum typically contains details like whether a scholarship can be renewed in future years, and under what circumstances, he said. That's also where you'll find any conditions your student has to meet to keep the aid, like meeting a minimum GPA. A generous aid package as a freshman doesn't mean your student will be awarded the same deal as an upperclassman. Depending on the terms, a college offering a smaller amount of annual aid, but as a four-year award, might be the more valuable offer, he said. (CollegeNavigator.gov offers breakdowns of average aid for freshmen and for all undergraduate students.) That multiyear assessment is a better gauge of affordability, Fudge said, and can help you figure out the best plan to pay for college.

Students enter the Admissions Building on the campus of Harvard University. Getty Images
Germany's finance minister has played down concerns over the impact of the upcoming French election on the euro .

The common currency has been on an uncertain path due to the unpredictability of the presidential vote this Sunday, but according to Wolfgang Schaeuble, the euro "can survive."

"I'm quite optimistic and I think the French people will take a reasonable decision. That means a decision that allows, so the euro can survive," Wolfgang Schaeuble, finance minister of Germany told CNBC on the sidelines of IMF-World Bank spring meeting in Washington.

The euro was trading at $1.0726 on Friday morning, up by 0.1 percent.

With two of the main frontrunners campaigning against the common currency and pledging extra spending, investors are worried about France's economic future, but mostly about the stability of the euro zone and the European Union.

Schaeuble told CNBC that rising euro skepticism across Europe is not the euro's fault.
A review of Donald Trump's business career would lead one to say that he has always over-promised and under-delivered. Whether his long list of bankruptcies in the ever-profitable casino business, the failures of his "university,' steak, vodka or clothing lines, there has been a history of putting himself first, while ignoring the needs of his constituents.

We may be seeing that play out in his approach to government, as well. As in business, Trump has a constituency of one  himself  just ask his stock and bond investors, his suppliers, contractors, laborers, or even his customers. Unlike Trump, they rarely, if ever, participated in the "upside" of Trump-branded products.

So, too, is this happening in the early days of the Trump presidency. His executive orders notwithstanding, the folks who voted for President Trump, thus far, have nothing to show for it. Indeed, it is quite early to make a claim that Trump has failed his constituents entirely, but the handwriting may be on the wall.

His signature initiatives, populist in nature, be it "The Wall," the travel ban, the enactment of the American Health Care Act, or possibly even tax reform, are either delayed or dead on arrival.
The White House hopes language on a possible health-care deal can come as early as Friday or Saturday, leaving the potential for an agreement next week, a White House official told CNBC.

It would be legislative text added as an amendment to the American Health Care Act, the bill that could not clear the House last month, NBC News reported. The Senate Budget Committee is giving technical assistance with the language.

Republicans have struggled to reach a compromise agreement to replace the Affordable Care Act that balances the concerns of both the conservative and moderate wings of the party. An attempt to replace President Barack Obama's landmark health-care law failed last month as House Republicans could not gather enough support.

President Donald Trump has pushed for a vote next week, which may prove daunting as Congress returns from a recess with only days before the current resolution funding the government runs out on April 28.

It is unclear if the revised version of the health-care plan reported by multiple outlets Thursday could gather the votes needed to pass the House.

The Senate Budget Committee is involved to make sure the plan complies with the Byrd Rule, which governs whether Congress can use the budget reconciliation process to lower the vote threshold.

A Senate GOP aide said Friday that budget committee staffers are lending their expertise to make sure the bill language complies with the reconciliation process in the Senate.

They are checking to see if the bill has too many extraneous provisions to be considered a reconciliation bill, which governs whether the Senate can lower the vote threshold to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate, not 60 votes.

The aide offered no timeline for that work to be completed.

Watch: Senate Budget Committee working on health care language
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-CA) speaks to the media about the committee's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, at the Capitol on March 30, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee's ranking member who had criticized Nunes for his actions in the investigation, tweeted Friday that the probe is "back on track." Republican Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas has taken over the investigation from Nunes.

The news comes after embattled GOP House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., recused himself from the investigation earlier this month . Nunes previously canceled the public hearing at which Brennan, Clapper and Yates were set to testify.

The committee asked FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers to appear at a closed hearing on May 2. The House panel also invited former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and ex-acting Attorney General Sally Yates to appear at a public hearing that will be scheduled later.

The House Intelligence Committee has invited officials to testify at both private and public hearings in its probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, after partisan tumult within the panel in recent weeks.

At the committee's first public hearing in March, Comey confirmed that the FBI was conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russian influence on the election, including any possible ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow.

Trump has denied any collusion with the Russian government, and previously questioned whether the Russians intervened in the election at all.

Nunes' decision to step back from the Russia probe came as the House Ethics Committee confirmed it was looking into allegations that Nunes "may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information."

Critics also questioned the independence of Nunes, who served on Trump's transition team, after he admitted that he visited the White House a day before he announced that Trump associates may have had their communications "incidentally" swept up in routine foreign surveillance.

Nunes has defended his conduct, calling the charges that he may have shared classified information "entirely false and politically motivated."

The panel's chairman had focused largely on looking into whether Trump transition members caught up in U.S. surveillance of other targets were "unmasked," or had their identities revealed.

Yates, the former acting attorney general, warned the White House in January that former National Security Advisor Michael 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.

Last month, the White House forcefully denied reports that it tried to bar Yates from testifying before the House panel. At the time, press secretary Sean Spicer said, "I hope she testifies."
Food waste being processed into fertilizer. Photo courtesy KDC Ag

KDC Ag's efforts to address these three problems have drawn attention and the support of wealthy investors around the world. Turning garbage into an agriculture revolution KDC Ag, one arm of the family investment office Kamine Development Corporation, is commercializing a process that turns food waste into a nutrient-rich fertilizer that helps lead to more, and higher quality, produce.

The company picks up leftover meat, bones, fruits, vegetables and baked goods from grocery stores, donates what can be used to shelters and food banks and then transports the rest to a processing facility to be ground up and mixed with enzymes in a process developed by partner organization California Safe Soil. In three hours, the food waste becomes a chemical-free fertilizer. A day after collection, the scraps that could have become garbage are instead spread on fields to help crops grow. Currently, KDG Ag haS one facility for processing food waste in Sacramento, Calif., that digests 15 tons of food waste every three hours. And KDC Ag is building a second site in southern New Jersey that will digest anywhere from 60 to 100 tons of food waste every three hours.

An A-list board The start-up has won the endorsements of some high-profile individuals, including former USDA Secretary Ann Veneman. A new member of the KDG Ag board, she is impressed with the sustainability of the business model. "It is estimated that around one-third of the food produced in the world is wasted," Veneman tells CNBC. "KDC Ag and California Safe Soil has a revolutionary new technology to convert food waste into a nutrient rich sustainable fertilizer and animal feed for farmers. "This technology is significantly benefiting the food chain, the environment and production agriculture."

Howard W. Buffett, Warren Buffett's grandson, who joined the KDC Ag board nine months ago, is encouraged by the innovation. With his father, Howard wrote a book, "40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World," about how to improve farming to alleviate global hunger. "Food waste is a pervasive and troubling challenge  globally, but especially here in the U.S. I joined the KDC Ag advisory board because of the group's commitment to advancing new technology toward solving this challenge," Buffett says. "KDC Ag's solutions have the potential to transform how our food, waste, and soil systems work together, which is both exciting and critical for a more sustainable and productive future."

The technology also caught the attention of the His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco. KDC Ag beat out 29 other start-ups at the country's tenth annual clean tech conference to win the category of environmental technology development. A start-up that's focused on saving the world and on making money Even as KDC Ag works to solve an environmental crisis, it's generating revenue, though the family business won't divulge details. "In order to have the greatest impact in the world, we also need to have the greatest profitability," says Justin Kamine, co-founder and partner of KDC Ag. The growth goals are ambitious. KDC Ag aims to eliminate food waste in the U.S. in the next five years. To do so, it will have to build 50 processing facilities. Long term, KDC Ag hopes to expand internationally.
Europe's number one business news network to broadcast live special this Sunday as first round results in France's presidential election are reported

Hosted by Carolin Roth, "France Votes" will air across CNBC's international network

London, 21st April 2017  CNBC, the world's leading business and financial news network, today unveiled plans to break with its scheduled programming this weekend to broadcast a live "France Votes" special to cover the early results of the first and second rounds of the French presidential election.

With the top four candidates all polling within a margin of error, the shows will capture the mood in France as the first signs of a result emerge. With an array of expert commentators, investors and politicians, CNBC will offer insight on the outcomes of both rounds, and the likely implications for the markets on Monday morning.

The show will be anchored from London by Street Signs host Carolin Roth, with on the ground reporting from Nancy Hungerford and Claire Fournier in Paris.

Carolin Roth, "France Votes" host and anchor said: "Sunday's special is set to be a fascinating show. With the race between Le Pen, Fillon, Macron, Hamon and Melenchon still so close, we're committed to delivering the results and analysis to our audience ahead of the market open on Monday."

In addition to the two hour show, CNBC's live blog, World Markets Live, will be bringing CNBC.com readers real time coverage of the results and related stories throughout the weekend.

-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

Show air times:
When it comes to solving the world's greatest societal ills, many millennials are committed to making a difference. A few have leap-frogged the status quo to garner millions from VCs to launch ventures to do just that. The catalyst: a global foundation known as the Kairos Society a peer-to-peer community of some 1,000 student entrepreneurs.

Over the last four years the success of these young mavericks' top companies has been dazzling: They have raised more than $600 million in capital from such venture funds as Andreessen Horowitz, NEA and Greylock; and their start-ups collectively have a $2.5 billion combined valuation. Among the companies Kairos fellows have launched are Casper, Periscope, Digital Genius and FiscalNote.

The secret sauce has been connecting top-flight investors and influencers with these upstarts who often germinate their breakthrough ideas in their dorm rooms.

The model works, according to Neil Parkh, co-founder and COO of Casper, who has been a fellow of the Kairos Society for years. As Parkh explains, "the foundation was life changing. From the age of 19, it gave me access to leaders and F500 companies willing to listen to my big ideas and give me their insights." Casper, which reinvented the sleep business with a direct-to-consumer ergonomic mattress-in-a-box, has so far raised $55 million in venture capital and is now valued at $550 million. Last year it partnered with West Elm to be their exclusive mattress provider in their 80 retail stores.

More from iCONIC:

This company is looking to turn your local restaurant into a freelance work space

Jack Bogle's 6 best money and career tips for young people

How three Michigan students turned a class project into $3 million



"The idea is to get young thinkers with fresh ideas to rethink broken industries and find solutions for world problems that affect millions of people," says Ankur Jain, founder and chairman of the Kairos Society during the foundation's fifth annual Kairos Society Global Summit in New York City on Friday. It is being held at the World Trade Center, where 100 government and business leaders  including George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic; Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon; and Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico  are gathering with Kairos members to brainstorm on how to approach global problems.

Capitalizing on that success, the foundation recently launched a seed fund, Kairos Society Ventures, to be managed by the general partners: Ankur Jain; Alex Fiance and Ryan Bloomer. While the foundation is not disclosing the size of the fund, Ankur Jain told TechCrunch it was in the eight figures. Jain says it will be investing in "moonshot ventures coming out of the extended Kairos community." The average deal size: $250,000, says Bloomer.

Investors in the fund include successful entrepreneurs and families from three

continents, with industries ranging from hospitality, health care, finance, enterprise

software and transportation.
French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has urged the government to immediately restore state borders and expel foreigners monitored by surveillance after a suspected terror attack in Paris.



In reaction to Thursday's assault claimed by Islamic State, in which one police officer was killed and two others were wounded, Le Pen demanded the Socialist government enact the measures proposed in her manifesto as a matter of urgency, according to Reuters.

"We cannot afford to lose this war. But for the past ten years, left-wing and right-wing governments have done everything they can for us to lose it. We need the presidency which acts and protects us," Le Pen told reporters at the National Front headquarters on Friday.

Le Pen has consistently spoken about immigration and security issues throughout the campaign though has struggled to win backing over her position to pull out of the euro zone and single currency.



'Battle plan against Islamist terrorism'



The French electorate will vote for a new premier in a two-round vote on April 23 and May 7.



The National Front leader admonished outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande as "notoriously feeble", before adding: "Elected President of the Republic, I would immediately, and with no hesitation, carry out the battle plan against Islamist terrorism and against judicial laxity."



Le Pen has long argued French authorities have not done enough to secure the safety of its citizens from attacks like Thursday's shooting on the Champs Elysees. Such attacks in France have claimed the lives of more than 230 people since the beginning of 2015.



Le Pen, according to the latest opinion polls, runs neck and neck with centrist frontrunner and political rival, Emmanuel Macron, with both expected to make it to the second run-off vote two weeks later.



Macron, the former economy minister, said Le Pen's solutions to attacks were not as simple as she had suggested.



"I've heard Madame Le Pen saying again recently that with her in charge, certain attacks would have been avoided. There's no such thing as zero risk. Anyone who pretends (otherwise) is both irresponsible and deceitful," he told RTL Radio on Friday.



'Islamist totalitarianism'
As Macy's looks to turn around its business and end a two-year streak of same-store sales declines, Executive Chairman Terry Lundgren said a merger or acquisition could eventually be on the table.

"We look all the time," Lundgren, who ended his stint as CEO last month, told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "I think there's some great valuations in stock prices of companies that are well funded and that look like they have a runway for success in the future."

The question is whether those companies would be the right fit for Macy's, Lundgren said. He added that the retailer has no acquisitions on its plate at this time, noting it has historically been conservative in snatching up new retail brands.
A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day. STOCKS/ECONOMY -Stock futures are a bit higher after Thursday's broad rally. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's comment that the Republicans are close to presenting their tax reform plan is buoying investors. FRANCE LATEST -A terrorist attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris Thursday left one police officer dead and two others wounded. This is all happening ahead of France's presidential election Sunday. THE TRUMP TRADE -President Donald Trump will sign two executive orders today. One is expected to call for a review of the Dodd Frank rules. OIL/ENERGY -U.S. crude oil prices are flat and at the $50 a barrel level. And gasoline prices keep creeping up, as they are now at $2.42 a gallon national average. THE TRUMP TRADE (continued) -President Trump is hoping for a vote on the new GOP Obamacare replacement bill and to avoid a government shutdown next week. -The Trump administration has successfully intervened to get an Egyptian-American released from a Cairo prison where he's been held since 2014. REGULATION NATION -The FCC has voted to relax longstanding regulations that had blocked many broadcast TV mergers. TECH WARS -Several Google engineers have left the company's secretive A.I. project to form their own startup. RETAIL PAIN -Bebe is closing all of its 175 stores nationwide. SPORTS BUSINESS -The Raiders will not have to pay rent at their new taxpayer funded Las Vegas stadium.

Masked police stand on top of their vehicle on the Champs Elysees after a policemen was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France, April 20, 2017. Christian Hartmann | Reuters
The Supreme Court of Pakistan delivered a long-awaited ruling on Thursday over Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's exposure to the Panama Papers revelations. The court said there was insufficient evidence to remove Sharif from office amid allegations of corruption after a 2016 leak of 11.5 million documents known as the Panama Papers raised questions about his family's wealth.

Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif. Christopher Furlong | Getty Images

The Panama Papers claimed three of Sharif's four offspring  Maryam Safdar, Hasan Nawaz Sharif and Hussain Nawaz Sharif  controlled shell companies through which they purchased costly real-estate in London. The prime minister was not named directly. It is not illegal to set up trusts or secret corporate entities known as shell firms, but many critics believe these vehicles facilitate money laundering and tax evasion. In Sharif's case, the issue is that his children didn't disclose the offshore accounts to Pakistani authorities and it's not clear how they funded the property purchases. Sharif, who has been in power since 2013 following two earlier stints as PM in the 1990s, and his family have denied wrongdoing. But it's not the first time the prime minister's wealth has been in the spotlight. In 1998, the deputy head of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency alleged the Sharif family had purchased upmarket London property through corrupt practices  a claim that was echoed in 2000 by a chief corruption prosecutor at the time. Following the release of the Panama Papers, thousands of protesters in Islamabad demanded the prime minister's resignation in September while opposition parties have also attacked Sharif for failing to declare his family's offshore connections.

watch now
Samsung's newest smartphone, the Galaxy S8, hit shelves Friday, and analysts told CNBC they're impressed by the tech, which initial market reaction appeared to confirm.

The S8's edge-to-edge OLED "infinity" screen has piqued the interest of many, and that includes Bob O'Donnell, founder and chief analyst at Technalysis research.

"What's great about it is, it's got a great hand feel  it really does make a difference," O'Donnell told CNBC's "Rundown" on Friday.

Samsung Electronics jumped by 2.38 percent on Friday as the Galaxy S8 smartphone was unveiled in Seoul and ahead of its slated debut in the U.S. The company said last week that pre-orders for the Galaxy S8 had surpassed those for the S7.

In addition to the tactile element noted by O'Donnell, other key features include a new Bixby voice assistant, an iris scanner and facial recognition.

"I think that the phone is perceived as the next generation phone, the quality seems to be excellent ... a lot of things have been resolved," said Daniel Yoo, head of global strategy at Kiwoom Securities, echoing O'Donnell's sentiment.

The only prominent complaint so far about the phones has centered on its screen, which some have deemed pinkish  or the "cherry blossom edition." Samsung reportedly addressed the issue, saying it could be fixed by adjusting the display options.

Addressing that, O'Donnell said, "They've had a few glitches on the software early on, but it's early days and I think we will see some improvements  coming as well."

However, acknowledging the distrust that may have been engendered by the Note 7 problems, O'Donnell added, "We're not going to really know for a couple of months, to be honest with you, how safe and how reliable it is."

Pre-orders reportedly exceeded 1 million units in South Korea, Samsung's domestic market, surpassing the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7's comparatively meager 400,000. Reportedly, the phone pre-sold 550,000 units in the first two days it was available.

Samsung hopes sales of the phone will make up for the company's disastrous recall Note 7 last year. The company has said it is targeting 60 million unit shipments this year, compared to about 48 million S7 units sold in 2016, according to multiple reports.
A shipping container is moved with a crane before being loaded onto a ship docked at the Port of Oakland

Rising protectionism in the West has become a threat to Asia's prosperity, Tommy Koh, ambassador-at-large for Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Thursday.

"I worry about the rise of protectionism and economic nationalism in the U.S. and in Europe. I see this as a direct threat to the prosperity and prospects of Asia," Koh said at the Credit Suisse conference on megatrends, held in Singapore.

"Asia has been able to make enormous progress because of the liberal economic order that the U.S., U.K. and other countries created at the end of the Second World War. And this liberal world order seems to be in jeopardy."

Protectionist rhetoric ramped up during the U.S. presidential election last year.

Then-candidate Donald Trump ran on a platform promoting "fair trade" practices that would prove better for the U.S., with much of the rhetoric aimed at China and Mexico.

Although Trump has since walked back some of the rhetoric  earlier this month he said he wouldn't label China a currency manipulator  he has continued to target U.S. trade partners, calling Canada's actions on dairy a "disgrace" on Thursday and launching a probe of cheap steel exporters, including China.

David Mulford, a former U.S. ambassador to India during the George W. Bush administration and a Treasury Department official during the Ronald Reagan administration, shared the conference stage with Singapore's Koh and defended the shift on trade.

"The U.S. position over all these years we've been talking about has been to promote and assist the rise of other nations. It is an extraordinary historic performance by a strong country," Mulford said. "In doing so, we have created all kinds of rivals and this has caused hitches and glitches and problems in the system, which now have to be addressed and it's appropriate that we address them."

Mulford, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, which bills itself as non-partisan but is often viewed as conservative, did not specify what systemic problems he believed needed to be addressed.

Mulford also went on the attack against claims the U.S. had grown overly protectionist: "There is no shortage of protectionism in Asia. Let's be frank about that. It is a major part of the Asian economic approach."

But Singapore's Koh was unconvinced.

"It is not fair for you to say there is protectionism everywhere, including Asia, so what's the big deal about the U.S. turning protectionist. The trend in Asia is in the other direction. We are opening up the economies, liberalizing, integrating with one another," he said. "The trend in America and Europe is a worry, because you are going in the other way. There is a significant difference between the dominant trend in Asia  which is towards opening up the economy, liberalizing, integrating  and the trend in the West."

Singapore and the U.S. signed a free trade agreement in 2003. But more recently, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a broad 12-nation trade deal, which the U.S. president claimed was a "disaster" that would hurt U.S. manufacturing.

Mulford defended the Trump administration's stated preference for bilateral trade deals.

"Are there benefits to be derived by bilateral trade agreements versus ambitious global trade agreements," he asked. "I think smaller countries that are competitive, aggressive confident could do very well in bilateral trade negotiations and don't always have to be involved in a large package that makes it harder to negotiate a variety of different things rather than a one-on-one situation."

To be sure, some analysts believe the multi-lateral approach is more efficient, as trade deals generally take many years to complete and small nations often can't field large teams to negotiate many bilateral deals simultaneously.

But Mulford claimed "world elite" and "negative" media have been preventing discussion of ways to "address the legitimate concerns of the groups that have been disadvantaged in leading countries like the U.S. by the rise of other nations and the growth of globalization."

Singapore's Koh, however, remained steadfast in criticism of the U.S.'s new trade tact, noting that America had gone down that road before, with ill effects.

Koh pointed to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which increased U.S. tariffs on a range of imports, setting off a trade war and deepening the Great Depression as by some estimates it halved American imports and exports.

"You've been there before and I'm surprised that memories are so short in America and Americans are flirting with protectionism a second time," Koh said.

By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.
South Africa's recently installed finance minister vehemently pushed back against assertions that he is a puppet of scandal-wracked President Jacob Zuma.

Malusi Gigaba told CNBC on Friday that his loyalty lies with South African constitution, "regardless of who is president."

"I think that these attempts to castigate me, to frame me, paint me in a particular way are quite malicious," Gigaba said. "They've got absolutely nothing to do with the work that I do."

South Africa's currency sold off and its cost of borrowing spiked about three weeks ago after the country's president shocked markets by firing previous Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a well-respected, stable official within an administration engulfed by allegations of corruption. Zuma has been embroiled in repeated scandals almost from the time he took office in 2009.

Zuma put loyalist Gigaba in Gordhan's place. When asked if he thinks something underhanded is going on in the government that led to his appointment, Gigaba said he doesn't know.

"I don't know. I'm not a fortune teller. I cannot go into conspiracy theories, that's not my responsibility. I've got a job to do and my job is not to look for bogeymen, for conspiracies," Gigaba said, adding that engaging in hearsay would be a "waste of time."
She would wind up asking co-workers or Googling to find answers instead of talking to her manager. "When there's no access to constant communication, you go into each day with no idea what might come next, and your behavior changes accordingly," Taylor said. "You act by the seat of your pants instead of fully knowing what you're doing and how you will do it."

"When you're new, you have a lot of questions, and it's important to be encouraged to ask them as much as possible. This is very tough to do when your boss isn't there or isn't an approachable person," said Heather Taylor, 29, a social media associate at MyCorporation.com , a firm based in Calabasas, California, that helps businesses file legal documents for incorporating. "When it's the latter quality, you often feel as though you are bothering them, especially if the questions persist after a few weeks or so."

Experts say Gen Y may be the most complex generation in the country's labor force, but the Qualtrics-Accel survey of almost 1,500 millennials showed several prominent workplace factors to be less make-or-break for millennials than might be expected, including a company's financial stability, culture, the opportunity to make friends on the job and seeing other employees happy.

Being sufficiently trained rather than being given autonomy is the primary way millennials workers evaluate whether they made the right choice to join a company. Knowing exactly what is expected from them also ranks highly in new job expectations, according to a survey conducted by Qualtrics, a Provo, Utah-based survey software firm; and venture capital firm Accel Partners (a Qualtrics investor). The results of the survey were provided exclusively to CNBC.

For all the self-entitlement stereotypes and job-hopping reputations, it turns out millennials are pretty commonsense  you might even say needy  when it comes to what they want the first few weeks in a new job. And what will lead employers to quickly lose them as motivated employees.

When there's no access to constant communication, you go into each day with no idea what might come next, and your behavior changes accordingly.

That millennials want frequent communication from their bosses coincides with other recent workplace research, which shows that 20-somethings and early 30-somethings want feedback from supervisors more frequently than any other generation in the workforce.

But companies that want to get the relationship right  right off the bat  need to strike the right balance.



"The more you set specific goals and outcomes and let them figure out the way to reach it  not force the way of the company or manager on them  it gives them a stronger sense of accomplishment if they're not told how to do it," said David Glickman, founder and CEO of Ultra Mobile, where millennials make up more than 75 percent of his 360-employee and full-time contractor workforce.

In fact, even as millennial workers highlighted the need for guidance and information  and 23 percent said it is important that "leaders seem invested in my success"  only 15 percent chose "my boss spends time to help me" as a key to the first three months of employment.

The need for autonomy grows beyond the first 90 days on the job.

"It has a lot to do with hubris," Glickman said. "When you get qualified millennials, they feel that they can do anything. Feedback is much more important in the first 90 days.  Once they get it, they want to be left alone a bit more."

Because workplace autonomy is a big job requirement for millennial workers, their relationship to their supervisors  what they want from their boss and how often  can be a little complex.

"In the past, people were willing to work for a boss; today they want to work for a mentor," said Mike Maughan, head of brand growth at global insights at Qualtrics. "It goes back to the idea that they're looking for career trajectory."

More from iCONIC:

Jack Bogle's advice for millennials

The CEO whose letter Warren Bufffett likes to read

Lessons from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on building a $60 billion hit

According to the Qualtrics survey, 67 percent of the workers surveyed said they would be willing to take a pay cut to work at a company that offers good mentorship opportunities. Roughly 80 percent said that emphasis on personal growth is the most important quality of a company's culture.

"That means that a mentor is someone who will invest in them personally, help them grow and develop and have a vested interest in their career," said Maughan, a millennial himself. "A boss just often wants a job to be done, not a person to mold."

But the need for mentorship should not be overstated. At the top of the millennial wish list when it comes to what they value most in their manager is a boss who is "trustworthy."

"When they first start a new job ... they want someone to help clearly define the goal they are aiming toward and help them make sure they are running in the right direction," Maughan said. "Once that's established and they have gotten their feet wet, millennials want to be off to the races. That's where our data shows that managers should give them a playing field and get out of their way to let them play. It's about empowerment. They want enough runway to properly launch, but not so much ambiguity that they don't know in which direction to take off."

Even though millennials ranked "provides autonomy" and "mentorship" among the "least important qualities" in a manager, Maughan cautioned that this is not the same as saying they are unimportant  it just means that other things are higher on the priority list. "The best managers find the delicate balance between offering autonomy, being available for questions and mentoring along the way."

The most important qualities of a manager



Trustworthy  81 percent Respects work/life balance  80 percent Clearly communicates expectations  74 percent Available and responsive  64 percent

The least important qualities of a manager

Provides autonomy  79 percent Sets high expectations  78 percent Doesn't take credit for others' work  70 percent Mentorship  65 percent

Taylor came back to MyCorporation.com after two years and four jobs elsewhere, partly because of the firm's collaborative culture, which is led by the CEO. "The first thing I quickly learned after leaving MyCorporation is that not all bosses and workplaces are created equal," said Taylor, whose career began there in 2011. "We have an open floor plan at our office, and our CEO is a one-minute walk away from my desk.

"The value of having a CEO nearby is that I am never left in the dark whenever I need help with something  even something as small as a brainstorming session," she said. "Every morning, [the CEO] visits our desks and greets the team, asking how they're doing. If your boss is out on the floor with you but doesn't say hello or, worse, circles the room to micromanage the team constantly, then I don't feel they're trusting the team to be productive at all."

This underscores another important point: While the ideal boss-millennial relationship needs clear lines drawn between personal and work life, many workers want to feel like their boss is on their side in more ways than one.

Alex Hanse has experience as both a millennial business owner  he is founder of T-shirt brand Foolies  and as a millennial employee. In the past eight years, he has worked in a variety of full-time jobs: in an AT&T store, at a call center, as a freelance audio engineer and currently as an outreach employee at Full Sail University near Orlando.

"If we're spending 9 to 12 hours of our day together and we're walking around like, 'I'm just fine, I'm OK, I'm good,' what does that actually stress? What if you just lost a family member or went through a divorce?" said Hanse, 29.

Hanse said past relationships with bosses has helped shape the way he leads his own firm and helps him know what's ideal in a potential workplace. "If we could be there for each other in a way that's more than just corporate employees, that would make me stay at this company for another 10 years. That would make me work harder for you."

 By Maggie Overfelt, special to CNBC.com
Measuring the mood of the stock market by looking at the overall postelection trend in the may be giving investors a distorted view of the level of bullishness on Wall Street, BlackRock 's Russ Koesterich told CNBC on Friday.

"The tone of the market is indicating a little bit more risk aversion than is evident if you look at that headline number," he said on

While the so-called Trump rally has certainly come off the boil in the past six weeks on policy uncertainty out of Washington and rising tensions with North Korea and Syria, the S&P 500 is still up 10 percent since early November.

"On the one hand the S&P 500 is not that far from its all-time high," said Koesterich, portfolio manager of BlackRock's $47 billion Global Allocation Fund.

"But if you look at market action over the last month, you've seen definitely a defensive bid: Rates are down, gold is up, more defensive parts of the market have been doing better, [and] value has been struggling a bit," he said.

The delivery of individual and corporate tax cuts promised by President and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill could be the catalyst to the upside that investors have been waiting for, Koesterich argued.

But a near-term question hanging over the market is this weekend's first-round voting in , he said.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, conservative Francois Fillon, and centrist Emmanuel Macron were all in the margin of error in the latest polls. If no candidate wins a majority on Sunday, which is highly likely, the top two finishers face a runoff on May 7.

"If we were to see a Le Pen administration, that would raise the risk ... of a French discussion about the EU," Koesterich said. Le Pen advocates leaving the European Union, like Britain is in the process of doing. "I don't think that's something the market would shake off," he added.
An Australian social media platform is looking to lure new parents away from Facebook and Instagram.

Sydney-based Tinybeans markets itself as a secure way for protective parents to digitally document their children's lives amid a growing clamor for greater internet privacy.

Unlike most social media channels, users on Tinybeans own the images and videos they upload, CEO Eddie Geller told CNBC's "Street Signs" on Friday.

"Those moments you're adding to Facebook, Instagram, and those generic platforms are really shared to anyone, and they are owned by those platforms," he warned. "Too many people are sharing generically and oversharing."

Tinybeans, on the other hand, claims to be completely private. Users must invite family and friends to become part of their network if they want their data to be seen. "It's not like other platforms, where you sign up and search for other people that you know," said Geller.
President Donald Trump said Friday he is in "no particular rush" to see legislative action started on replacing the Affordable Care Act and overhauling the American tax system, but suggested that the latter could happen as early as next week.

"We'll see what happens," he told reporters after signing an executive order at the Treasury Department. "No particular rush, but we'll see what happens." Yet on Saturday, the president posted on Twitter that "big" tax changes would be announced on Wednesday:

Trump tweet

Trump had appeared to seek a flurry of legislative activity when Congress returns from its recess next week. The president said Thursday he thinks Congress can both keep the government open before the April 28 deadline and start the process of repealing Obamacare next week.

Then on Friday, he promised a "big announcement on Wednesday having to do with tax reform," without giving more details on what he would reveal.

Congress moving on any more than one of those processes in a week could prove daunting, amid divisions within the GOP caucus. On Friday, Bloomberg cited an unnamed senior administration official as saying the new tax plan was unlikely to include a border-adjusted tax backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, which has divided Republicans.

Yet Trump did not insist on a health-care vote next week when reporters asked him about it Friday afternoon.

"It doesn't matter if it's next week. Next week doesn't matter," Trump said.

The White House hopes language on a possible health-care deal can come as early as Friday or Saturday, leaving the potential for an agreement next week, a White House official told CNBC earlier Friday.
(LtoR) French presidential election candidates, right-wing Les Republicains (LR) party Francois Fillon, En Marche ! movement Emmanuel Macron, far-left coalition La France insoumise Jean-Luc Melenchon, far-right Front National (FN) party Marine Le Pen, and Patrick Kovarik | AFP | Getty Images

As voters in France prepare for their presidential election Sunday, U.S. officials are warning of Russian interference in the hotly contested race, saying that the tactics being used are similar to those deployed in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The warnings come as congressional investigators and intelligence agencies continue to look at Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and any role Donald Trump's campaign played in Russian interference. Specific concerns are being raised about the dissemination of false news stories, allegations of computer hacking against a leading candidate opposed by the Kremlin and slanted coverage of the French elections by Russian news agencies. More from NBC News:

Putin meets Marine Le Pen in Moscow, denies election interference

Facebook shuts down 30,000 fake accounts in France ahead of presidential election

Bill O'Reilly severance: Fox News host to get $25 million: Source "I think it's safe to say by everybody's judgment that the Russians are actively involved in the French elections," said Sen. Richard Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Burr's committee is currently investigating Russian interference into the U.S. elections and potential collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Putin allies in Russia. Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on that committee, who receives the same classified intelligence briefings, said at recent Senate hearing: "French presidential candidates right now have been the subject of Russia propaganda and disinformation." Voters this weekend will vote on eleven candidates in the first round of the election, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the second round on May 7. Russian president Vladimir Putin has expressed support for right-wing nationalist Marine Le Penn and Americans familiar with the intelligence around the election say that the Kremlin is both overtly and covertly working to ensure their preferred candidate wins. U.S. Congressional investigators have warned of Russian involvement in France. While they have not provided specific evidence, they've pointed to tactics U.S. intelligence officials have said were used in the U.S. elections  including the dissemination of fake news, social media bots that spread misinformation and the hacking and release of information of political entities, including the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Le Pen's proposed policies align closely with Russia's values and geopolitical goals. Her party, the National Front, received a loan from a Russian bank, First Czech Russian Bank, which is owned by a Putin confidant, to fund Le Pen's campaign. She said she was unable to obtain a loan of 9 million Euros from western banks.

watch now

Le Pen also traveled to Russia last month to meet with Putin and a photograph of the meeting was released to the press from the Kremlin. She has gone to Russia several times to meet with members of the legislature. "We don't want to influence in any way the events going on [in France], but reserve our right to communicate with all representatives of the country's political powers, as our partners do in Europe and in the U.S.," Russia's spokesperson told journalists at a press conference following the meeting between the two leaders. Le Pen touts pro-Russian policies, including her opposition to NATO, a retreat from the European Union and support of Russian intervention in Syria. But Le Pen is not the only candidate to express similar, pro-Russian views. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon and center-right candidate Francois Fillon are skeptical of EU sanctions against Moscow and have supported the Russian intervention in Syria. The only outlier among the leading contenders is centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, who says the European Union should stand firm against Russia and its interference in the election process. In February, Macron's campaign manager said they were targets of concerted Russian attacks and accused Russia of trying to influence the outcome of the May election. "There are hundreds if not thousands of attacks on our computer system, our database and our sites, and by chance this happens to come from the Russian border," Ferrand, a Socialist MP, told France 2 TV. "We want a strong Europe. That's why we are suffering from attacks from several information sites belonging to the Russian state." "We will not accept any interference whatsoever in our electoral process, whether by Russia or any other state," said Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. "After what happened in the United States, it is our responsibility to take all steps necessary to ensure that the integrity of our democratic process is fully respected," he told parliament. The Kremlin denied claims that Russian hackers have been targeting Macron. And at least one influential French intelligence expert, however, doesn't think that Russian is interfering in the elections. Eric Denece, director and founder of the French Center of Intelligence Research, said that "there is no serious proof" that Russia is behind the hack into Macron's campaign and pointed to potential U.S. involvement in any effort to destabilize the election. Hacking threats during the French election is not new. In 2012, the U.S. hacked into the computers of several senior French officials at president Nicolas Sarkozy's office days before the second round of the elections. "CIA or people in intelligence are absolutely capable of carrying out a cyber-hack as if it is Russian," Denece told NBC News. But American intelligence experts say that Putin has a long history of working to influence electoral outcomes dating back decades, including Soviet efforts to destabilize European politics in the 1980s.

watch now
Steel is no stranger to global trade spats, especially when it comes to China. The country produces about half the world's steel  more than the U.S., Japan and Russia combined, according to the World Steel Association. And the country has long been accused of selling unwanted steel on world markets for less than what it costs to produce and export, hurting firms.

President Donald Trump is chipping away at a campaign promise to tackle unfair trade with China. His latest  a U.S. probe into whether exporters of cheap steel, including China , are a threat to national security.

Last year, tensions rose considerably  Europe slapped anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese steel imports, and the U.S. International Trade Commission launched an investigation, announcing last month that U.S. producers were harmed by the dumping and subsidization of imports of certain steel products from China.

In the past, China would often issue choice words in retaliation. But this time around, given tough talk coming from the U.S., it's likely Beijing will take a softer stance. After all, Chinese President Xi Jinping met recently with Trump, and the U.S. indicated that China appeared willing to tackle trade gaps. And on Friday, state media remained largely mum on the issue.

"The Chinese are not going to be happy about it, but I do think there are more concerns about Trump's trade policy than there were previously under Obama," said Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist at Capital Economics. "They're less willing to push as hard against these kinds of probes, because they don't want to escalate tensions."

But even if the U.S. were to slap high tariffs on Chinese steel, and other countries followed suit, experts said it's unlikely to impact China's economy by much. That's because most of the steel China produces is used domestically, and not actually exported.

In general, China has a complicated relationship with steel. For years, China pumped its economy by rapidly building new infrastructure and factories, fueling massive demand for coal and steel.

But as growth has waned in the world's second-largest economy, the slowdown triggered a global rout in commodities and forced those industries to cut back on spending and jobs around the globe. It eventually hit China as well, forcing massive layoffs in coal and steel.

China's commodities sectors are also suffering from overcapacity, partly due to government support of the giant state-owned enterprises in industry, which have long been notorious for inefficiency and wasteful spending.

It's one of the issues the central government has pledged to tackle  these "zombie" state firms  but doing so likely means more layoffs and the big question of resettling workers.

"The issue for the Chinese leadership is how to deal with those layoffs in a way that maintains political stability and in a way that the workers are relocated and continue to contribute to the economy," Evans-Pritchard said.
Raising money for hedge funds can be hard. In an industry experiencing dismal (if any) returns and 10,000 competitors, connecting with new investors can be even more challenging.

So a new type of conference has popped up in recent years to fill that void. It's called the Context Summit. The most recent one took place in downtown Manhattan on Thursday.

Unlike other events, there are no panels and no marquee keynotes. This is all about having a booth and about 20 one-on-one meetings that last a half-hour each. Hedge funds pay $10,000 per booth.

"At the event, you get to crank through this speed-dating schedule, if you will, and walk away with 20, 25 new leads on both sides," said Ron Biscardi, chief executive officer of Context Capital Partners, which seeds emerging hedge funds and sponsors the conference. "It's just hard to accomplish that at a conference that is more content focused."

About 150 investors and 150 managers attended, with total assets under management of $267 billion represented on Thursday. The average fund size was $1.8 billion.

Coordinating these meetings is a byproduct of networking and proprietary technology.



Context created an app that looks like a Wall Street version of Match.com. Attendees can look at profiles of the hedge fund managers or investors in attendance, with details including biographies, strategies and past performance. From there, they can request a meeting, which will appear on their calendar once it's confirmed.

In the current industry environment, hedge funds need to make capital raising more efficient. Context Capital surveyed hundreds of past participants and found that investors are seeking annualized returns of 11 percent. That's double the average return that hedge funds had last year.
Sufficient orders were placed within the first two minutes of sales of the 2017 Congratulations set to render the numismatic product option "currently unavailable."

If the United States Mint were to decide to offer unsold 2017 Congratulations sets in a second round of sales, only a small number would be available.

United States Mint officials have finally released sales figures for the 2017 Congratulations set. According to the Numismatic Sales Report for the week ending April 16, Mint customers purchased 74,497 of the 75,000 sets made available.

That total may not be the actual number of sets purchased during the two minutes they were available at the Mint website April 4. The recently announced total may actually be somewhat smaller than the original total because of orders rejected due to problems with a customers credit card or because of some returns of sets.

Figures for the Mints numismatic sales, generally updated weekly at the Mint website, had not been revised after the Congratulations set was offered for sale, and Mint officials did not reveal the number of sets that had been sold until website sales updates were resumed.

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The Mint offered the set beginning at noon Eastern Time April 4 and within two minutes accepted enough orders to exhaust the maximum mintage of 75,000 sets. The super-fast sellout time was the result of a decision by Mint officials to place no household limit on purchases, a decision that some collector customers saw as benefiting commercial buyers to the detriment of individual collectors.

While Mint officials have not answered Coin Worlds questions about large purchases of the sets, some firms are offering multiples of the sets, both in original packaging and with the sets key draw, a Proof 2017-S American Eagle silver dollar, encapsulated and graded by third-party grading services, all priced well above the issue price of $54.95. The same coin will be offered in the 2017 Limited Edition Silver Proof set later in the year, at a price expected to be several times the price of the Congratulations set.

The possibility remains that the unsold Congratulations sets could be offered again at a future date, a Mint spokesman said earlier.

Comments from readers

Readers commenting at the Coin World Facebook page have been vocal about the sellout, the difficulty collectors had in purchasing the set from the Mint, and the news about the number of sets sold. Here is a sampling of their remarks, lightly edited:

Shawn Savage: And 90 percent of them were sold to big time dealers and not collectors. Scam.

Cecil Guillote: Yea, sold out in two minutes. Not fair to the collectors that wanted to buy one.

Thomas Gates: Meanwhile 70,000 of these sets are most likely on eBay with insane prices. Just incredible how the Mint doesnt learn from past mistakes. In this case no household limit. Either that or they just dont care about their customers.

Mike Welch: The Mint does not care who they sell to just as long as they sell their product. If nobody buys from the dealers/stealers ... then maybe things will change. But we all know that wont happen. Its all about the hype and making a quick buck.

Kenneth Bond: If thats the case, why are orders still in back-order status?
The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up the case involving ownership of 10 1933 Saint-Gaudens $20 double eagles, meaning the coins will remain the property of the federal government.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case involving ownership of 10 1933 Saint-Gaudens gold double eagles, thus apparently bringing to an end a decade-long legal battle over who gets to keep the coins.

The Supreme Courts decision means that the coins will remain the property of the federal government and will not be returned to the Langbord family, which reportedly discovered the 10 coins in a family safe deposit box in 2003. The family  Joan Langbord and her sons, Roy and David  turned them over to the United States Mint in 2004 for authentication. Mint officials informed the family in 2005 that it was keeping the coins. A legal battle over ownership ensued, with both parties to the suit at different points being awarded the coins. The last court decision, made Aug. 1, 2016, by an appeals court, found that the government repossessed its own property and in doing so, asserted its ownership rights to the coins.

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As Steve Roach reported in the April 17 issue of Coin World, the case had moved beyond the 10 coins that were allegedly found by Joan Langbord in her familys safe deposit box in 2003 and had grown to revolve around two key questions with broad implications. The first question is whether, when the government seizes property from private citizens and intends to retain it indefinitely, it can avoid the procedures, deadlines and penalties set forth in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 by merely asserting that the property was stolen from the government and declaring that it has no intention of seeking forfeiture. The second question is whether the government can avoid CAFRAs protections by strategically waiting for years and then filing a declaratory judgment claim that seeks essentially the same relief as is barred by CAFRA, Roach reported.

The government has held since at least 1944 that 1933 double eagles are illegal to own, citing executive orders by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 that halted the release of gold coins from government inventories, among other provisions. The government contends that Roosevelts orders meant no 1933 double eagles could have been released legally (other than two presented at the Smithsonian Institution) and that any surviving examples in private hands could only have been obtained illegally.

However, at least 10 of the 1933 double eagles entered the marketplace in the 1930s and 1940s, all or most originating in the hands of Israel Switt, a Philadelphia jeweler and coin dealer, and father of Joan Langbord. Examples of the 1933 double eagle were sold openly in the marketplace for years, even being advertised in hobby publications, with no government interference.

In 1944, however, officials made two contradictory decisions in short order that forever changed how the coins were perceived. The first decision was to grant Egypt an export license for one of the coins for the collection of King Farouk; officials determined that the coin fit the standards that permitted some rare gold coins to be privately owned. Shortly thereafter, another example of the coin was scheduled to appear in an auction by Stacks. A journalist covering the auction queried the Mint on why the 1933 double eagle was considered rare, as stated by Stacks; Mint officials who looked more deeply into the records determined that none of the coins had been released to the public through normal channels.

An ensuing investigation by the Secret Service led to Switt, who acknowledged having sold 10 of the coins, including the piece that King Farouk eventually acquired. Agents tracked down the nine remaining coins over a period of years, and all were confiscated and eventually melted. Egypt refused to return the Farouk coin and when the Farouk Collection was sold at auction in 1954, the 1933 double eagle was removed from the sale at the request of the U.S. government; the coin then disappeared from public view.

A coin alleged to be the Farouk example resurfaced in 1996 and was seized by U.S. authorities. A long legal battle ended when the government and the dealer claiming ownership of the coin reached an agreement that permitted the coin to be sold at auction with the two parties splitting the proceeds. The coin sold for $7.59 million in a July 2002 auction. Officials have never disclosed why they agreed to allow the coin to be sold, and they continue to hold that no other examples can be owned.

Nonetheless, in addition to the two coins held by the Smithsonian, the 10 Langbord coins held by the Mint, and the coin owned by an unnamed party since its purchase in the 2002 auction, at least one other 1933 double eagle is known to be held in an unnamed collection. It is also uncertain whether the coin sold in 2002 truly is the Farouk coin or whether it is another piece with an unpublished pedigree.

What will now happen to the 10 double eagles currently being held at the Mints Fort Knox Gold Bullion Depository? Mint officials have said the coins will not be melted (as were the pieces that were confiscated from collectors and dealers more than 60 years ago). Beyond that, though, little has been revealed publicly about the future of the coins.
The oldest coin in the hoard is this 1847 gold sovereign of Queen Victoria.

The largest hoard of gold sovereigns found in the United Kingdom has been declared treasure. A pouch contains just a sampling of the 913 coins composing the hoard.

A trove of classic British gold coins hidden for decades will soon have a new home.

The 913 coins, however, will not be returned to the family that most recently owned the piano in which the hoard was discovered, because the hoard was hidden decades before they bought the musical instrument.

Local coroner John Ellery at Shrewsbury Coroners Court resumed an inquest (investigation) on April 20 relating to the Piano Hoard that was found in South West Shropshire, a county in the West Midlands region of Great Britain. The inquest, originally opened Jan. 12, was adjourned March 16 pending the final decision. The hoard has now been declared treasure and, as such, belongs to the government.

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The coroner said the coin hoard qualifies as treasure because:

(1)?It is substantially made of gold or silver;

(2)?It was deliberately concealed by the owner with a view to later recovery;

(3)?The owner, or his or her present heirs or successors, remain unknown.

The coroner received nearly 50 leads or claims regarding the hoard, but none were found to have sufficient evidence.

Largest sovereign find

The hoard is the largest gold sovereign hoard ever found, consisting of 913 gold sovereigns and half sovereigns dating from 1847 to 1915.

The coins date from the reigns of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. The hoard totals in excess of 6 kilograms of gold bullion.

The coins were found under the keyboard of the piano, in seven carefully stitched, cloth-bound packets and a single leather drawstring purse.

The packets were deliberately hidden within the upright piano made by Broadwood & Sons of London and sold to a music establishment in Essex in 1906. The enterprise that purchased the piano has been traced to two gentleman music teachers / piano tuners Messrs. Beavan & Mothersole of 27, West Road, Saffron Walden Essex. The history of the piano after that time is uncertain.

The Hemmings, a family then located in the Saffron Walden area, purchased the piano in 1983, for their children to learn to play, and it remained with them until very recently. The Hemmings moved to Shropshire in the late 1990s and recently donated the piano to Bishops Castle Community College.

The hoard was discovered beneath the keyboard of the piano while it was being overhauled and tuned by piano technician and tuner Martin Backhouse. He found the packages of coins and, after opening some and realizing the scope of the find, made college officials aware.

The college contacted the coroners service and was instructed to call Peter Reavill, the British Museums Finds Liaison Officer for the region. The hoard was brought to Reavill in its original packaging for analysis.

Reavill and staff from the Portable Antiquities Scheme have identified and cataloged the extensive hoard.

One of the packages used recycled cardboard from a Shredded Wheat brand package that dates the packing and hiding of those coins to likely between 1926 and 1946, long before the Hemmings family purchased the piano.

Now that the find is declared treasure, an independent Treasure Valuation Committee will be convened at the British Museum to assign a market value to the hoard.;

Museums then have an opportunity to acquire some or all of the find. Saffron Walden Museum has expressed an interest in acquiring some of the hoard given the local context.

Backhouse and the college will share a reward if any of the coins are acquired by museums.
What do todays youth know about Americas justice system and its role in government?

An essay contest sponsored by the Nevada Supreme Court will help answer that question, and will give one Elko County student an inside look at the court. The winning essay also will be published in the Elko Daily Free Press.

Its part of national Law Day activities, and the topic looks at how the 14th Amendment has transformed American democracy.

America has been called a nation of laws. Its also considered a constitutional republic in which citizens elect representatives to create, implement and interpret laws for each of us to follow.

The process includes legislators who pass laws, executives who enforce them, and judges who review them and ensure that individual cases are handled fairly within the constitutional framework.

Beyond this are the news media, which comprise the fourth estate responsible for informing the public about the operation of the three official branches of government. Here the process comes full circle; if the public is not satisfied they have the power to elect new legislators, executives and judges  with the exception of the U.S. Supreme Court and those states where justices are appointed by the executive branch.

Its not a perfect system, nor do we live in a perfect world. Our state and federal constitutions are the bedrock of justice but they are occasionally amended.

None of the above processes will work effectively if citizens are not educated on how the system works. Thats why we at the Elko Daily Free Press were pleased to join the Nevada Supreme Court in announcing the Law Day Essay Contest, which asks the question How has the 14th Amendment shaped American society?

Section 1 of the amendment states : All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The amendment was passed in 1868, and it dealt with the rights of former slaves after the Civil War. Its in the spotlight again as illegal immigration and deportation policies change under the Trump Administration.

Students have a chance to respond by writing an essay of 300 words or less, which must be emailed to lawdaylive@nvcourts.nv.gov by 5 p.m. April 28. Winners will be announced the week of May 8.

The winning student will receive $100, a tour of the Nevada Supreme Court, lunch with Justice Lidia S. Stiglich, a signed certificate from Chief Justice Michael A. Cherry, and the essay will be published in the Free Press. Second and third place winners will receive $50 and a signed certificate from Cherry.

We think Law Day events sponsored by the American Bar Association are a great way to educate students about the judicial branch of government. The voters of tomorrow need to know how government works, but they also need to know how to think and reason as the process of refining the Constitution continues into the future.

We hope many students  and even some adults  take time to ponder the essay question and how it relates to human rights as the annual May 1 Law Day observation approaches.
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Some PCs are assembled in the U.S., but not many. This includes those from Lenovo, the China-based firm that runs a factory in North Carolina. Apple operates a Mac Pro assembly plant in Austin, but makes many of its other products overseas.

Lenovo and Apple may have an edge in selling PCs to the U.S., under President Donald Trump's recently signed "Hire American, Buy American" executive order signed this week, say analysts.

All PCs are made with components sourced globally, but vendors that assemble products in the U.S. may gain preference. Trump's executive order doesn't spell out how "buying American" will work for IT suppliers -- if it happens at all.

The Trump order may have more pull concerning hiring under federal contracts and federally funded projects. Many IT projects are restricted from foreign labor by security clearances, but not all.

The hire American aspect of the order may force firms, and federal agencies themselves, that are using H-1B workers to hire U.S. workers instead.

"I think there will be more scrutiny with regard to who actually performs on the contract," said Katell Thielemann, an analyst at Gartner.

In terms of hardware, in 2004 the government recognized the problems with trying to source tech in the U.S., and it exempted commercial IT projects from the Buy American Act of 1933. But Trump could revisit this waiver, and if he does problems await.

"Think about the prevalence of open source software like Linux across all federal agencies," said Thielemann. "How do you really carve out the piece [of code] that is 'American' -- it's impossible to do."

"The government has information technology that it frankly cannot source from the United States alone," said Thielemann.

Thielemann believes what's at the core of Trump order is a crackdown on large-scale waivers granted as part of free trade deals. These largely affect "large asset classes," such as motor vehicles, steel and cement, and not IT.

Still, vendors may be prompted by the Trump administration's actions to manufacture certain IT systems in the U.S. That may be costly.

"Unless there are radical improvements in technology manufacturing methods, the economics of domestic manufacturing will result in higher end-item prices for technology manufactured in the U.S.," said Ray Bjorklund, who heads federal market research firm BirchGrove Consulting.

"Will the American people be comfortable if the federal government spends more for the same technology products than it did in previous years?" asked Bjorklund.

And will the Trump administration change its purchasing rules in way that favors PC vendors in federal procurement that assemble products in the U.S.?

"I think that what we're all anxiously waiting to see," said Trey Hodgkins. He is the senior vice president at the Information Technology Alliance for Public Sector, an industry group.

The U.S. may leave the IT exemption in place, but if it makes a change vendors are going to have to start assessing how their products enter the market, said Hodgkins.

It also means figuring out just what "Made in the USA" means under any new rules issued by the Trump administration. "Are they assembled here or are they built here entirely?" asked Hodgkins.
Iain Dale is Presenter of LBC Drive, Managing Director of Biteback Publishing, a columnist and broadcaster and a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

It was one of those moments when youll always remember where you were when you heard the news. I was sitting in my car outside Wembley Stadiumbut Im getting ahead of myself.

At just after 10am, I was driving down the M11 from Norfolk when a news alert from Sky flashed up on my phone: Prime Minister to make a statement live in Downing Street at 11.15am. Like everyone else, my brain started whirring as to what it could possibly be.

I switched from radio station to radio station and none of the clever pundits and commentators seemed to have a clue. I rang a couple of MPs, and nor did they. Could it be a death in the Royal family? No, that would be announced from Buckingham Palace. Could it be military action somewhere? No, it would need to be announced by the Americans at the same time, and they were still asleep.

In the end I narrowed it down to two possibilities, but of course I couldnt really be sure, since neither seemed very likely. I thought that Theresa May would either announce that she was standing down as Prime Minister, or that she was seeking an election. I couldnt read Twitter while I was driving, so didnt see Adam Boulton note that the Government logo wasnt on the lecturn  which was a giveaway that it wasnt a government matter.

Well, we all know what happened next. I picked my jaw up from resting on the steering wheel, cancelled my meeting at Wembley and headed straight to the LBC studios. It was going to be quite an afternoon

         

The best thing about this news was that it genuinely took everyone by surprise. Can you remember the last time a big announcement like this didnt leak in advance? There wasnt even any speculation. Several commentators tried to suggest that they had predicted this all along, but none of them have been very convincing. John Rentoul seems to have the biggest claim to have seen it all in his crystal ball.

Im sure there have been occasions when the Government has managed not to leak a big announcement, but I can only think of one in which I have had any involvement at all  when, back in 1989, the Thatcher government made the announcement that it was to repeal the National Dock Labour Scheme.

As I say, I was involved in it, and so, coincidentally, was David Davis. He, my boss at the British Ports Federation and myself were the only three people outside government who knew about it. It was the best kept secret  well, since the last one.

We had decided to hold a one day conference for the employers on the subject, and scheduled it for April 6. A few days before it was due, a civil servant phoned, and told us to prepare for an announcement that the scheme was about to be repealed. Whens the announcement? we asked tentatively. I havent told you this, but it will be on 6 April, he said.

Oh. My. God  the day of our Preparing for a Strike conference. We knew that no one would believe this to be complete coincidence, but that is exactly what it was. We debated whether to call it off, but decided that the downsides of that were worse than people thinking we were in collusion with the government.

Mobile phones had only just been invented, and I remember spending half that day with a massive vodafone handset glued to my ear. The employers themselves hadnt got a clue what was about to hit them. Nor, more importantly, had the Transport & General Workers Union.

Finally, at 3.30, Norman Fowler, the Employment Secretary stood up in the Commons and made the announcement. Thunderbirds are go, said my informant  David Davis himself. We then made the announcement to the employers, who received the news in stunned silence. They thought it was a joke, or prelude to some sort of role play exercise.

But it wasnt. It was for real. The Transport and General Workers Union was caught totally on the hop. The had never really thought this day would come. They thought that Thatcher wouldnt dare do it. Like many others, they underestimated her. Just as we have all seemingly underestimated Theresa May

         

There were signs of course, but we all missed them. I was told in March that Lynton Crosby had been seen coming in and out of Downing Street in recent weeks. I assumed it was all about devising a strategy to respond to the CPS decision on election expenses at the last election. How wrong can you be

         

The decision of the Prime Minister not to take part in leaders debates is disappointing, to say the least. I totally understand the logic of Lynton Crosbys advice, but sometimes politicians have to see the wider picture.

Of course, there is nothing for May to gain from doing debates, but I take the rather old-fashioned view that debating your opponents about the future of the country is what election campaigns should be all about. You do it as a candidate at a local level, and so should party leaders at a national level. We live in an age when voters expect nothing less than to see their potential prime ministers debating each other. To fall back on the ridiculous defence that this is what she does every week at PMQs is frankly to insult the intelligence of the electorate.

The last PMQs before the election will be next Wednesday, April 30. That leaves six whole weeks where the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition wont lock horns. Of course she will do one-to-one sit down interviews but, in my humble opinion, thats not quite going to cut it. I suppose no one will change their vote as a result of the decision not to take part in leaders debates, but I still think its the wrong call.

         

The latest YouGov poll shows the Tories on 48 per cent, a lead of 24 per cent over Labour. Landslide territory. However, Corbyn isnt having any of it and appears genuinely to think he will win. It would be a massive turnaround, it has to be said.

My instant prediction is a Tory majority of 74. Im going to repeat my seat by seat predictions, which I did at the last election. I did wonder whether to repeat the exercise, given that my predictions were only marginally better than the pollsters, but hey, its a bit of fun.

I think that the performance of the Liberal Democrats is going to be key to the result, and I firmly believe that this election offers Tim Farron a massive opportunity, given the state of the Labour Party.

I had thought it would be UKIP which would be the recipient of a lot of ex-Labour votes, especially in the North. That may still be the case, but it seems to me that Farron has very skilfully made the LibDems the party of the 48 per cent. Anecdotally, virtually everyone I know on the Left is going to vote LibDem. A straw in the wind maybe, and it may not ripple much outside London. But dont bet against a very strong LibDem revival

***

Im going to be on the radio six days a week during the election campaign. From this Saturday, Ill be hosting a weekly morning show on LBC from 10am-noon, in addition to my weekday Drivetime show.

If Im honest, this is the first time for many years where Ive thought Id like to be a candidate again. Who wouldnt want to be in Parliament over the next five years? But it was a fleeting thought, and I dismissed it almost as soon as I had had it. At the age of 54, my time in politics has been and gone, and why would I give up the best job I have ever had? Im going to aim to give the best coverage of the election you will hear on UK radio, so I do hope you will tune in from time to time.
The last general election was very good for the Conservatives in Wales. It returned the highest number of Welsh Conservative MPs since Margaret Thatchers 1983 landslide, and entrenched the Tories as the principalitys second party at Westminster.

As we explored afterwards, this was down to both a well-run Tory campaign and deep complacency on Labours part. The Conservatives also managed, in a neat inversion of the usual devolved dynamic, to run against Carwyn Jones record as First Minister.

Welsh election experts think theres every chance that the Party can build on its current 11 seats. Professor Roger Scully, of the Welsh Governance Centre at the University of Cardiff, has highlighted six Labour seats which may be vulnerable. These are: Alyn and Deeside; Bridgend, Clwyd South, Delyn, Newport West, and Wrexham.

Five of those were listed as targets in our battleground profile for 2015, although Wrexham was not. If the Tories did take all six  a big ask, certainly, but none have impregnable majorities  it would lift the Conservative total to 17 seats and slash Labours to just 19. If the Liberal Democrats rode the anti-Brexit wave to regain Cardiff Central and Plaid finally captured Anglesey (Ynys Mon), that would put the two main parties on level pegging at 17 apiece.

Thats a tantalising prospect, especially for a leader as keen as Theresa May to prove her unionist, one-nation credentials. But two years has proven a very long time in politics  are the conditions right for the Party to make such advances?

Pessimists can point to two things. First, its unlikely that Stephen Crabb will revise his role as face of the Conservative campaign in Wales, a role in which he was very effective. Unlike the small-n nationalist Jones, he managed to run a campaign which reconciled a distinctive Welsh character with the reality of a national, British election campaign.

Crabbs star has waned somewhat since then in the aftermath of his ill-fated shot at the leadership after the EU referendum, and its not yet clear who, if anybody, will step into the role he created in 2015.

Second, the Welsh Tories had a disappointing set of Welsh elections. Whilst Ruth Davidson was leading the Scottish Conservatives into second place, Andrew RT Davies troops slipped into third, losing a handful of seats and seeing Labour majorities extend in a string of 2011s near-misses.

Does this represent an overall change of fortune for the Welsh Conservatives in the intervening year? Or that the general and devolved elections have very different dynamics? After all turnout between the two varies to such an extent, and so consistently, that they are basically fought for different electorates  and the sort of voter who tunes out devolution is likely better-disposed than average to the Tories.

Tory strategists will need to work out which, if they havent already, in order to avoid another disappointment. Yet as Professor Scully has pointed out in the News Statesman, there are tailwinds as well as headwinds for the Conservative campaign, by far the strongest of which is Brexit.

As he puts it, almost the entire Welsh political establishment supported Remain, despite the countrys eventual leave vote. This gulf between the Cardiff Bay bubble and the true balance of feeling in the country mirrors that of Scotland, and creates a role for Westminster as a corrective to the democratic deficits in the devolved assemblies  another fillip for the party of the Union.

With UKIP on the wane and Welsh Labour, the Lib Dems, and Plaid Cymru all committed to remain, theres likely substantial scope for the Tories to make inroads into previously unreachable parts of the electorate as Brexit divides old coalitions.

Speaking of coalitions, another run against Jones administration in Cardiff Bay must surely be on the cards. Since losing his overall majority in last years election the First Minister has had to bring the Assemblys sole Lib Dem into his Cabinet as Education Secretary, and get by with the sufferance of the nationalists.

UKIPs Assembly group is as much a shambles as the national party, and this leaves the Tories in the position of being the only well-organised political force in Wales that isnt implicated in the Welsh governments poor record on vital public services such as health and education.

This far out, and without detailed polling on the ground, its impossible to guess at which, if any, of the seats listed above may turn blue  or whether any surprises might be lurking off the target seat radar. It may be worth keeping half and eye on Anglesey: it was Conservative from 1979 to 1987 (for the first time since 1722!), the Tories are only about 3,000 votes behind the incumbent, and the island voted Leave last June.

Much of it may come down to the campaign itself, as it did when Labour failed to realise that Gower was vulnerable and failed to reinforce it.

One thing is clear though: this is an election where the Conservatives must expect to advance. The best Conservative result in Wales since the universal franchise was the 14 returned in 1983. That total, and more, is within reach in June.

Update: Commentator nendwr below suggested Dwyfor Meirionnydd as another potential wildcard. In 2015 it was a Plaid hold with the Tories in second place. On paper it isnt promising: the Nationalists took 40.9 per cent of the vote to the Conservatives 22.7 and their majority is a healthy 5,261.

However if you add UKIPs vote to the Conservative vote then that majority is cut to a much more competitive 2000 or so, before you add in any of Labours 3,904. What might pull those votes in behind the Conservative? Well, according to seat-by-seat estimates by Chris Hanretty, 47 per cent of the voters in this seat backed Leave.

Furthermore, whilst in 2015 they only got 1,153 votes the Lib Dem share in 2010 was a much healthier 3,538. If they are on course for a limited recovery in Wales might they take a chunk out of the Plaid vote, as another pro-Remain, left-of-centre party?

Theres not enough there to put it on the likely list, but the ingredients seem to be present for one of those surprise results that liven up election night. Worth keeping an eye on.
The evidence is plentiful, theres a lot of it, and it has to lead us to solve this case. These words of hope were spoken by the central government delegate in Galicia, Santiago Villanueva, just two months before the investigation into the disappearance of teenager Diana Quer was shelved by a court . The judge in charge of the case has thrown in the towel  at least provisionally, after eight months of investigation involving more than 200 interviews, ground, sea and air searches, supposed witnesses that ended up losing credibility and the monitoring of suspects who ended up being nothing more than that: suspects.

Diana Quer's mother, a few days after her disappearance. GTRESONLINE

The disappearance of the 18-year-old madrilena while she was returning from local fiestas in A Pobra do Caraminal, in the northwestern Galician province of A Coruna, in the early hours of August 22, 2016 will continue, for now, to be completely shrouded in mystery.

What happened to Diana Quer? How is it possible that the massive media coverage of the case has not supplied even the smallest clue about her whereabouts? How can it be that not a single person has seen the woman since 2.40am on August 22 of last year? The judge admits that there is evidence of non-voluntary disappearance and has not ruled out that the youngster was the victim of serious criminal acts. But that dark trail has led nowhere. Not to a suspect, not to an accomplice, and not even to someone involved in a cover-up. The Civil Guard has taken statements from a number of persons of interest, but it has not managed to bring together any incriminatory evidence that would even lead to anyone being named an official suspect. There has been ongoing surveillance work in case anyone should slip up and incriminate themselves, but nothing of the sort has happened.

Diana Lopez showing a picture of her missing daughter. Oscar Corral

This is why the judge has decided to provisionally shelve the case, albeit while police probes continue. The huge amount of data collected from telephone records that needs to be examined could explain why the maximum terms established by law for the investigation have expired. If inquiries by the Civil Guard turn up new evidence, the judicial process would reopen, according to a writ from the judge from the court in Ribeira, A Coruna.

Quer was last seen at 2.40am in Paseo do Areal in A Pobra, when she was supposedly returning from the local fiestas to the vacation home where she and her family would spend the summer. The trail followed by the Civil Guard took them until nearly 5am, but it was not a physical one. The signal from her cellphone, which was found in October by a fisherman on a riverbank in Arousa, suggests that she got into a car at some point, either voluntarily or against her will. The fast movement of her phone signal has allowed investigators to deduce that she was traveling in a vehicle, but no other testimony backs this up.

Her cellphone ended up in the sea, underneath the bridge of the freeway that leads to Taragona, in Rianxo. There is nothing to suggest that it was she who threw it from the car, but nor is there evidence to suggest otherwise. Investigators have analyzed tapes from traffic cameras as well as the signal from the cellphones of 80 people who took the same route between 3 and 5am on August 22. And despite the intense searches there are no clues that allow for her steps to be traced beyond that viaduct. It is as if the earth had swallowed her up.

The Civil Guard is keeping all lines of inquiry open, including a possible kidnap, despite the fact that no one has asked for a ransom to be paid. Pictures of the young woman have been distributed all over Europe, just in case she has become the victim of sex traffickers. The pressure on the investigators and the authorities has been much greater than in the case of the four or five people who disappear every day in Spain without a trace, according to information from the association SOS Desaparecidos. But nothing has been enough to solve the mystery of Diana Quer.

English version by Simon Hunter.
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CORNWALL, Ontario  This weekend, teams will be pedaling through Cornwall in support of the Heart and Stoke Foundation.

The 20-minute circuit will begin at the Royal Canadian Air Force Association (RCAFA) wing, heading right on Water, down to Cumberland and back.

Teams will consist of a maximum of 29 riders, equipped with music, noise makers, and a healthy dose of enthusiasm. In order to ride the bike, all cyclists must commit to donate a minimum of $50.

With cardiovascular disease being the leading cause of death for Canadian men and women, riders are hoping to do their part in the fight against heart disease by raising funds.

All proceeds raised through Big Bike will help support the Heart and Stroke Foundation, helping to fund critical heart and stroke research.

Program Coordinator, Kasie Glenn says that these kinds of events help, not only by raising money, but also awareness.

Its really the perfect fundraiser, because it promotes a healthy lifestyle, said Glenn. It gets people out and moving, even if it is only for 20 minutes.

The event is set to take place both Saturday and Sunday Apr. 22-23, as well as a third ride on Friday Apr. 28 at La Citadelle, which will be the first time local high schools have been involved.

While the events main goal is to raise money for a worthy cause, Glenn says that its designed to be fun for participants.

Its a really great way for employees to come together, too, said Glenn. Physically, they have to work together, but I think it really goes beyond that.

For more information about the Heart and Stroke Foundation, check out their website.
CORNWALL, Ontario  St. Lawrence College (SLC) received a 100 percent score on the satisfaction of employers hiring recent graduates.

According to the annual Key Performance Indicator (KPI) survey, this score is well over the provincial average of 91.2 percent.

The survey stated that 86.5 percent of SLC graduates found employment within six months of graduation, as opposed to the provincial average of 83 percent.

While Ontarios satisfaction rate for quality of education was 78.8 percent, SLC received a score of 84.5 percent. When it came to current students satisfaction, only 76.5 percent of Ontario students reported satisfaction in the quality of their education, while St. Lawrence College students felt 80 percent satisfaction.

Our guarantee to students is that they will be career-ready when they graduate, said Glenn Vollebregt, President and CEO, St. Lawrence College. We work very closely with our industry partners to make sure we are meeting their future needs and were very proud that one hundred percent of employers are satisfied with the graduates they hire.

Provincial KPIs have been gathered annually since 1998 by two independent research firms for the colleges, and for the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development. The most recent data was collected March 2016 to February 2017.

For complete KPI results visit www.collegesontario.org.
UNITED COUNTIES OF SD&G, Ontario  In light of the Fentanyl issue taking place across Canada, a number of community agencies from Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry as well as Prescott-Russell have come together to hold several forums during the month of May for parents and students about Fentanyl and other substances that young people may take.

The forums, titled Fentanyl and Other Substances  Awareness and Prevention, will provide parents and students with information on Fentanyl and opioids in general, as well as other types of drugs. The presentations will also provide parents with tips about how to talk to their teens about drugs and strategies they can use to keep their kids safe.

Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, Medical Officer of Health at the EOHU, encourages parents to attend one of the forums because they can really make a difference when it comes to keeping their kids safe. Fentanyl has been found in a variety of both fake prescription pills as well as street drugs, so its very important for parents to have a discussion with their kids about the dangers of these substances.

The community agencies involved in the organization of the forums are the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, the Conseil des ecoles publiques de lEst de lOntario, the Conseil scolaire de district catholique de lEst ontarien, the Upper Canada District School Board, the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario, the Town of Hawkesbury, the Hawkesbury General Hospital Mental Health and Addictions department, the Cornwall Community Hospital Addiction and Mental Health Centre, the Ontario Provincial Police for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and Prescott-Russell, the City of Cornwall Police Services, Prescott-Russell Emergency Services, and Valoris.

Schedule of English Forums

Date Time Location Monday, May 1st 2017 6:00 P.M.  7:00 P.M. Glengarry District High School 212 Main St. N, Alexandria Thursday, May 4th 2017 7:30 P.M.  8:30 P.M. Robert Harley Complex 425 Cartier Blvd, Hawkesbury Monday, May 8th 2017 6:00 P.M.  7:00 P.M. St. Joseph High School 1500 Cumberland St., Cornwall Thursday, May 11th 2017 7:00 P.M.  8:00 P.M. St. Thomas Aquinas High School 1211 S Russell Rd, Russell Tuesday, May 16th 2017 7:00 P.M.  8:00 P.M. North Dundas District High School 12835 County Rd 43, Winchester Thursday, May 18th 2017 7:30 P.M.  8:30 P.M. Rockland District High School 1004 St. Joseph St., Rockland

Schedule of French Forums

Date Time Location Monday, May 1st 2017 7:30 P.M.  8:30 P.M. Glengarry District High School 212 Main St. N, Alexandria Thursday, May 4th 2017 6:00 P.M.  7:00 P.M. Robert Harley Complex 425 Cartier Blvd, Hawkesbury Monday, May 8th 2017 7:30 P.M.  8:30 P.M. St. Joseph High School 1500 Cumberland St., Cornwall Thursday, May 18th 2017 6:00 P.M.  7:00 P.M. Rockland District High School 1004 St. Joseph St., Rockland Wednesday, May 31st 2017 7:00 P.M.  8:00 P.M. Ecole secondaire de Casselman 778 Brebeuf St., Casselman

For more information, visit www.eohu.ca or call 613-933-1375 or 1 800 267-7120 and ask for Health Line.
A total of 5,695 people were released from slavery by Spains security forces between 2012 and 2016, according to the Interior Ministry. As victims of human trafficking, some were forced into unpaid labor , but the great majority were made to work as prostitutes.

A codebar and price tattooed on a Romanian victim in 2012. Policia Nacional

More information Human trafficking

Changes to the law have helped reveal the extent of the phenomenon, and allowed for a more effective approach in combating it. Sex slavery, for example, has become so lucrative in recent years that it now rivals the drug and arms trade in terms of prevalence and profit, according to Spains National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking  part of the EU network set up to monitor anti-trafficking policy in 2014. In 2016 alone, there were an estimated 23,846 people considered to be at risk, and in the case of sexual exploitation the majority were working in roadside brothels. Experts agree that serious debate on pimping is required if the situation in Spain is to fundamentally change.

Nudged into action by the EU and the Warsaw Convention of 2005, Spain made human trafficking a criminal offense for the first time in 2010. In 2015 this law was tightened further, and authorities adopted a collective approach whereby security forces, prosecutors, judges and NGOs would liaise to nail the trafficking rings together, a strategy reflected in a report by the Interior Ministry's Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime Intelligence Center (CITCO), which has been accessed by EL PAIS.

You think that one day, the ordeal will end, but the debt does not decrease, it just goes up

Katy, former prostitute

Now, a much clearer picture is emerging of the underworld that has been thriving under our noses for years. And the extent of it is nothing short of horrific  there were 4,430 victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation identified between 2012 and 2016. This figure rises to 5,675 if we include those who have been forced into unpaid labor. In 2016 alone, 1,046 victims were rescued.

The figures are shocking, but far worse are the victims stories. These people tell of working off debts that never diminish, isolation, a lack of Spanish language skills and a level of fear and violence that keep them from seeking help.

In the town of Figueras in Catalonia, a traffickers sister made off with the baby of a Romanian woman who was forced to sell her body at a roundabout in La Junquera, a border town that thrives on sex tourism. Another victim had her three-year-old taken from her and sent to Ibiza, and she was only able to see her child on Skype  but only if she paid to do so.

In 2012, a Romanian woman who escaped was recaptured, tied to a radiator, had her head shaved and a barcode and her debt tattooed on her wrist as an example to her fellow victims.

Three victims of forced labor rescued in the province of Seville. Civil Guard

Nigerian women are often raped on their journey across the desert, which can take as along as a year. Those who get pregnant and give birth frequently have their babies taken from them. The women are scared to step out of line for fear that threats to their families will be acted upon. There have been cases when a victims family home was burned down, and her family members beaten and even murdered.

The most horrific cases of sexual slavery involve minors working in roadside clubs and apartments. We are coming across more and more minors or women who were minors when they were first enslaved, says Marta Gonzalez, director of Proyecto Esperanza, one of the main NGOs involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of victims.

Unfortunately, these minors are often the hardest to help, as there are no specific centers to meet their needs; meanwhile, a lack of cohesive approach from the various regional governments of Spain has not facilitated an effective solution.

Passports as weapons In the slave trade, passports are promptly confiscated by traffickers. Consequently, the victims are not only alone in a strange land where they do not speak the language, they also have no document to prove who they are. "Those who fly in have it removed at the beginning of the trip and only get it back to go through police control at airports, says a spokesperson for the security forces. Once the victim is through, the passport is taken from them again. Often, when we enter a club, we find that one of the suspected traffickers has all the passports in a safe. Fraud is also part of this multi-million dollar business. A good false document costs these networks between 5,000 and 6,000, says a spokesperson for the Central Squad of the UCRIF for document forgery. Naturally, the traffickers try to claw back some of their investment by recycling the documents. According to police sources, Bangkok is the Mecca for forged passports. When it comes to Africa, however, Nigeria is King while Chinese victims often arrive in Spain with a Japanese passport.

Equally vulnerable, if not more so, are victims with disabilities. Several months ago, the police rescued a mentally disabled woman from a brothel after infiltrating an internet forum used by men who had taken advantage of her and were mocking her online.

The definition of human trafficking, as set out in the 2000 UN Convention, is an act involving deception, a transfer to another country or place and exploitation that infringes on a persons liberty. And while trafficking rings are overwhelmingly involved in sexual slavery, there are other forms of exploitation, including unpaid labor.

Spain is only just becoming aware of this other brand of slavery that often involves male victims made to work in agriculture, textile sweatshops, restaurants, kebab or wok establishments, domestic service or bars. Legally, this kind of slavery is harder to prosecute, but the authorities have begun to press charges in a number of cases.

In just two years, 534 people have been arrested. However, getting charges to stick has proven more difficult. The law requires an overhaul to clarify certain concepts, says Enrique Lopez Villanueva, from Spains National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking. It is very difficult to determine what is pure exploitation and what are simply subpar working conditions.

In 2015, other forms of trafficking began to be investigated by the Crime Commission. Smaller in scale, they are even more difficult to define, and include enforced theft, enforced drug dealing, enforced begging, enforced marriage and enforced organ donation.

Of those enslaved in the sex trade, 96% are women. Most of them come from Romania, China and Nigeria after being duped by traffickers. The Romanian women are often tricked by a lover boy  a young man who seduces them with the promise of a better life. When it comes to Nigerian women, voodoo is often part of the equation: the deal is sealed with a magic ritual performed in the victims village in which the trafficker keeps a small packet containing the victims pubic hair, bits of their nails or menstrual blood with their name on it. This gives him a hold over his victim that is hard to shake.

A sex worker seeking clients in Colonia Marconi, Madrid. Alvaro Garcia

But it is not just people from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe who are being tricked into slavery. At times, the Spaniards who have fallen victim to this practice have outnumbered the foreigners.

So why does nobody stop this? According to experts, business is business and there is a lack of political will to intervene. Spain has 1,700 brothels with a collective daily turnover of 5 million, not to mention the money generated from advertising.

Trafficking cannot be separated from the final job the victims find themselves forced into, so it depends on how that job is regulated, says Joaquin Sanchez Covisa, a prosecutor specializing in foreigner issues and an expert in the field. If pimping goes unprosecuted, we create a haven for traffickers. You cannot effectively prosecute trafficking without making pimping illegal.

The National Police and Civil Guard, along with the prosecutors, specialized judges and NGOs working with victims, agree on one thing: pimping should be banned and no one should be able to profit from anothers prostitution. But, currently in Spain, pimping is only an offense if it involves violence, coercion or abuse, scenarios which are almost impossible to prove if the victim does not report it. Investigations are complex, requiring international cooperation and sophisticated surveillance.

Changes to the law have helped reveal the extent of the phenomenon

When the penal code was reformed in 2015, there was a move to make pimping illegal, which would have entailed the closure of roadside clubs and banning of erotic advertising. The bill made it through Congress, but it was amended by the Popular Party in the Senate, which reworded it to leave it open to interpretation, thereby making it more challenging to prove the offense. And while the vulnerability of the victim is now one of the defining criteria, the term is too vague to make it effective.

Still, from 2012 to 2016, 3,000 people were arrested for trafficking and sexual exploitation and 277 criminal groups were dismantled.

The problem is largely one of demand, says Enrique Lopez Villanueva. And the problem will continue until it is tackled. I am not talking about prohibition or legalization. I am talking about regulating and legislating. Pimps take advantage of the legal vacuum.

If you close a club for trafficking, it reopens two days later and the customers are back, says Maria Gavilan, a reserve judge in the Madrid region who belongs to the Association of Spanish Women Judges (AMJE) and specializes in this line of criminal activity.

A EU directive released in 2011 expressly states that member countries should consider measures to criminalize the use of services provided by the victims of trafficking, a move that would tackle the problem of sex tourism.

Slavery routes into Spain.

With so many traffickers feeding off the sex trade, it is hardly surprising that Spain is now a sex tourism destination. For example, clubs in La Jonquera, on the border with France, collectively amount to the largest brothel in Europe. This, says Villanueva, is not something that is recognized, nor is it an easy topic to address.

According to the UN, Spain takes third place when it comes to demand for prostitutes, after Thailand and Puerto Rico. Demand is the key, says Rocio Mora, Director of the NGO Apramp. She believes there are very few women who prostitute themselves voluntarily. The vast majority are victims of trafficking or sexual exploitation, she says.

The approach has improved. Prosecutors have received specific training with a view to tackling traffickers, and the police is cooperating successfully with NGOs working in the field. Last year, over 2,500 inspections were carried out at locations known for prostitution, 73% of which were in clubs. The specialization of professionals and a collective awareness are key to making a difference, because the trick is to be able to identify cases of trafficking when confronted with them.

As there is no longer an association representing the proprietors of brothels, it is hard to get their collective point of view on the subject, but EL PAIS found an owner who was willing to speak.

If you close a club for trafficking, it reopens two days later and the customers are back

Maria Gavilan, specialized judge

It might surprise you to know that I am actually in favor of banning pimping and prostitution, said Alberto Martinez, who has been in the business for 20 years, own three clubs in Barcelona and has one opening in Madrid soon. However, being realistic, its not about to disappear and so I think it should be regulated to avoid a legal vacuum that the mafias can exploit.

In Catalonia, prostitution is partly regulated  clubs must have a license and be registered to encourage clean and transparent activity. "The sectors image is very negative, says Martinez. Thats a fact, so I understand why were all tarred with the same brush.

It is absurd to consider any woman to be free who works 24 hours a day for a year and at the end of it has no bank account, no money, no property, no rent for the apartment she lives in and no right to refuse a client, says Beatriz Sanchez, the prosecuting attorney who succeeded in sending Ioan Clamparu, the capo of the biggest prostitution trafficking ring in Europe, to prison for 30 years in 2012. Sanchez believes the traffickers budget and strategies far exceed those of the authorities and that there are not enough resources invested in victim and witness protection. She also points out that there is a linguistic problem when victims or suspects speak in dialect.

But most of the time, it doesnt take more than common sense to get to the truth. Whos going to believe that a Paraguayan woman who does not speak Spanish, only guarani, is going to come to Spain because she wants to live in an apartment in Bilbao where she is locked up 24/7? says another prosecutor.

We are coming across more and more minors or women who were minors when first enslaved Marta Gonzalez, director of Proyecto Esperanza

This is one of the telltale signs that a woman or girl is being exploited by a prostitution ring. Others include being locked in clubs where they have all their meals. In the case of streetwalkers, they might have their food taken to them by ring members, as well as wood to make fires to keep warm. There are women who are taken straight from the airport to Calle Montera in Madrid [famous for prostitution] and dont even know what city theyre in, says Rocio Mora from Apramp.

Apramp sends teams of women who have survived trafficking ordeals onto the streets to seek out victims to help. In 2016, they rescued 1,259 women who were then placed in rehabilitation programs.

Katy, the name used by a Brazilian survivor who now works for Apramp, says: You think that one day, the ordeal will end, but the debt does not go down, it just goes up. I have made enough money to have a good life, but they steal it from you. You are alone there is no such thing as friends in that world. Clients are rarely kind. They tell you, I dont want to hear your problems; if I wanted that, I would stay home with my wife. Hardly any women are in this through choice. The oldest profession in the world is not prostitution, it's looking the other way.

English version by Heather Galloway.
Close

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is required to pay $3 million to the widow of Stewart Dolin, who committed suicide in July 2010. The suicide has been caused by a generic anti-depressant that he was taking. Stewart jumped in front of a Blue Line train in the Loop.

GlaxoSmithKline Case Involving Stewart Dolin

The jury found GlaxoSmithKline responsible for Stewart's suicide. Wendy Dolin, Stewart's widow was awarded $2 million for damages and $1 million for her husband's suffering. The panel that included nine people agreed that paroxetine, which is GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, was the reason that Stewart killed himself, according to Chicago Sun Times.

A statement from attorneys Michael Baum, Brent Wisner, and Dave Rapoport indicated that GSK already knew that Paxil can cause people to commit suicide. This can happen to people at any age bracket. The statement further indicated that GSK hid the reality from most of its patients taking the medication.

The suit also claimed that GSK was not able to warn Stewart of the possible risk of paroxetine. The drug has been associated with suicidal tendencies to people that take it, especially in adults. GlaxoSmithKline made a claim that the company did not manufacture the pills that Stewart was taking and should not be held responsible.

Judge's Decision On The Case

However, the judge decided that the company is responsible for the drug's label. The company knew that the drug can lead people towards harm, even if the patients take the generic version of the drug. The suit wanted to get $39 million in damages but is contented with the verdict of $3 million.

Meanwhile, Stewart Dolin was 57 when he killed himself. He also was a corporate attorney and a partner at Reed Smith law firm.

Wendy Dolin shared her statement right after the verdict was announced, that this has been a great day for consumers, as reported by Chicago Tribune. She noted that it was always not about the money but rather, about people to be aware of health issues.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
Esperanza Aguirre, the former head of the regional government of Madrid and for three decades a leading figure in the Popular Party (PP), resigned on Monday from her role as the partys spokesperson in the capitals city council. Pressure had grown on the veteran politician to quit after her former right-hand man, Ignacio Gonzalez, was arrested on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the latest of a long line of corruption scandals to hit the conservative group.

Former Madrid premier Esperanza Aguirre leaves court on Thursday. EL PAIS

More information Spanish PM Rajoy on the ropes as corruption scandals hit ruling party

I have it as a rule of conduct not to avoid my responsibilities, she said at a press conference on Monday evening at 5pm. That is why I am resigning. I feel deceived and betrayed by Ignacio Gonzalez. I didnt keep an eye on what I should have done.

Gonzalez was among the 12 people arrested on Wednesday as part of Operation Lezo, an investigation into corruption at the Madrid regional water utility Canal de Isabel II. Gonzalez is the latest politician to be ensnared in one of a number of cases that has been dogging the conservative party for some time.

Javier Lopez Madrid of construction firm OHL has been arrested in relation to illegal financing of the PP

Aguirre stood down as president of the Madrid division of the PP in February 2016 amid the Punica corruption scandal involving senior colleagues, also on the basis that the wrongdoing took place on her watch.

Both the Punica and Lezo investigations focus on possible corruption at the Madrid division of the PP during Aguirre and Gonzalezs leaderships, which spanned the years from 2003 to 2015. But when Aguirre appeared in court last Thursday in Madrid to give evidence relating to another corruption scandal, Gurtel, protected by her position as the PPs spokeswoman at Madrid city council, Aguirre used her statement as an opportunity to outline her political successes.

Addressing journalists outside the court after her two-hour testimony, Aguirre broke down, and amid tears described what she called Gonzalezs Calvary if it turned out the accusations against him were false. She added that if her former protege turned out to be guilty, it would be disappointing and a blow for her.

Former Madrid premier Ignacio Gonzalez was arrested on Wednesday. Javier Lopez (EFE)

A senior figure in the PP last week told EL PAIS that Aguirre would have to stand down from the party. Shes going to do it, because she has no other way out, and because she knows now that there is no question of her standing as a candidate for the PP, but shell do it and without asking anybodys advice, not even Rajoys or the party leadership.

The Punica and Lezo investigations focus on corruption at the Madrid division of the PP between 2003 to 2015

The best thing that could happen to Aguirre now would be to leave politics, because sooner or later shes going to have to anyway; shes not going to be a candidate and she knows it, says the same source.

Operation Lezo is an investigation into whether funds were channeled from the water company to benefit members of Gonzalezs administration. Other sources say the investigation is also looking into possible illegal party financing through Canal de Isabel II, along with purchases by the water company in Latin America, where it allegedly overpaid for business acquisitions.

Businessman with links to PP arrested

Last Thursday, Spanish police arrested Javier Lopez Madrid, a member of the board of directors of leading construction firm OHL, in relation to alleged illegal financing of the PP. Lopez Madrid is allegedly linked to an illegal commission of 1.4 million in relation to a failed light-rail project in the Spanish capital.

Spanish businessman Javier Lopez Madrid. ATLAS

Lopez was arrested late on Thursday night in the latest phase of Operation Lezo. Lopez Madrids arrest came a few hours after a search of the office of OHL in Madrid, from which police took details of a proposed tram route from the center of the capital to the dormitory towns of Navalcarnero and Mostoles. The contract was approved by the Madrid regional government in 2007, but work has been paralyzed by a dispute between the administration and OHL.

Investigators were looking for evidence of an alleged commission paid through a Mexican OHL affiliate that transferred 1.4 million to Swiss bank accounts in the name of frontmen for Gonzalez.

Lopez Madrid is also an official suspect in the Punica case. The Audiencia Nacional, Spains central High Court, is looking into whether the Madrid division of the PP was the final recipient of more than 1 million that Lopez Madrid supposedly donated to Beltran Gutierrez Moliner, the then-administrator of the PP in Madrid. His initials and those of Lopez Madrid were found alongside sums of money in the diary of Francisco Granados, the former deputy head of the regional government in Madrid, who is being held in custody for his alleged involvement in Punica.

The headquarters of construction firm OHL were raided on Thursday. Reuters

Lopez Madrid has been handed down a six-month prison term in relation to another corruption case, misuse of the so-called black credit cards issued to board members of the Caja Madrid savings bank, now Bankia.

English version by Nick Lyne and Simon Hunter.
A Spanish national was on Friday given the death sentence after being found guilty by a Thai court of murdering fellow countryman David Bernat in Bangkok. The victim had traveled to the Asian country in January 2016 for a vacation. Hours after arriving, he met with Segarra to have drinks, and after midnight, the pair went to the condemned mans apartment. There he was held captive for six days, until he was killed and dismembered by Segarra, according to the police investigation into the case.

Convicted murderer Artur Segarra, pictured on Friday. NARONG SANGNAK (EFE)

Segarra will have two chances to appeal the sentence, at the Thai Appeal Court and the countrys Supreme Court. If the appeals process fails to overturn the death penalty, he can apply to the Royal Family for a pardon, which could see a lesser punishment applied.

Segarra extorted his victim in order to gain access to the bank account he held in Singapore

According to the investigators assigned to the case, Segarra extorted his victim in order to gain access to the bank account Bernat held in Singapore and which contained his savings. The forensic police believe that he was killed around January 26. According to the investigation, that same night Segarra headed out on a motorcycle to the river that runs through Bangkok, carrying with him a large package, which the police believe contained the victims body. He is thought to have returned in the early hours of the next morning without the object.

The authorities found the first remains of Bernat days later in the Chao Phraya river, and later recovered another six pieces of the body from the water. Segarra was identified as the main suspect on February 5, the night that he tried to flee to Cambodia after being recognized in a restaurant in Surin province.

Thailand carried out its last executions in 2009, on two convicts with drug-trafficking charges

The prosecutor in the trial called nearly 40 people to the stand, none of whom were direct witnesses to the crime, and also produced evidence including DNA samples and fingerprints collected in the apartment he had rented, as well as security camera recordings and bank records.

Thailand carried out its last executions in 2009: these involved two convicts who had been sentenced to death on drug-trafficking charges. Since then an indefinite stay has been placed on the application of the death penalty. The last execution in a murder case dates back to 2003, the year that the country switched from firing squad to lethal injection as its method for the death penalty.

According to data from Amnesty International, at the end of last year there were 427 prisoners on death row in Thailand, 24 of whom were foreigners. An Australian was sentenced to death on February 7 in a murder case, which bears similarity to that of Segarra given that the victim was dismembered and an attempt was made to dispose of the evidence.

English version by Simon Hunter.
Once a movie is finished, something needs to be done with all of its props -- and for every iconic lightsaber, there are dozens of John Travolta's Battlefield Earth dreadlocks. No studio knows what's going to be valuable in the future, and if they just tried to store everything, Hollywood would end in Nevada. That's why some of pop culture's most beloved treasures have been treated like that novelty singing trout you picked up at a garage sale for 50 cents.

If even the sled from Citizen Kane ended up being given away to some random 12-year-old, then what hope was there for...
Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

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

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

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
Officials at the University of California, Berkeley reversed course Thursday and announced they will allow conservative commentator Ann Coulter to speak at the school next month.



Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said the April 27 event was canceled because the school had received "very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event."



But after a search beyond "the usual venues" Dr. Dirks said in a statement that the school "identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available the afternoon May 2."



Douglas Belkin and Alejandro Lazo report for the WSJ:I'm not a fan and won't be going to Berkeley for the event. I called Ms. Coulter "cringe-inducing" on this blog some time back, and nothing since then has changed my view. Even so, it is central to freedom of speech that we protect the cringe-inducing right along with the erudite and the eloquent. I hope that U.C. Berkeley has sufficiently robust protection on hand to deal with the anti-free-speech "activists." It is unfortunate that resources must be diverted for this purpose, but protection of freedom of speech is a priority, and the blame belongs squarely on those who would deny that freedom to people they simply disagree with.
Storage News

Dell EMC's Sale Of Spanning Cloud Apps Improves Prospects For The Newly Independent SaaS Data Protection Vendor

Joseph F. Kovar

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The sale of Dell EMC's Spanning Cloud Apps to a private equity company gives will give Spanning a better opportunity to develop its SaaS data protection business, according to Spanning's CEO Jeff Erramouspe.

"The bottom line is, as we worked with Dell EMC over the last couple years, they saw us as a SaaS-based company with a high-velocity sales model," Erramouspe told CRN. "We really didn't fit directly with the Dell EMC enterprise model."

As Dell EMC evaluated how to work with Spanning after Dell acquired EMC, it saw some friction points that inhibited how Spanning did business, Erramouspe said. "That's not a bad thing," he said. "But Dell EMC figured it could do better on its own."

Related: [Spanning, Acquired By EMC, Unveils Office 365 Data Protection Solution]

Dell EMC on Thursday said it had sold the Spanning business to Insight Venture Partners for an undisclosed sum. The organization will revert to its old name, Spanning Cloud Apps, and will be based in Austin, Texas, as a Dell strategic partner.

Spanning Cloud Apps was originally acquired by EMC in October of 2014 as part of a push by EMC to develop its hybrid cloud capabilities. EMC that same month unveiled two other similar acquisitions: OpenStack IaaS solution developer Cloudscaling, and global namespace provider Maginatics.

When EMC acquired Spanning in 2014, it wanted to plug a hole in its broader data protection portfolio that stemmed from the growth of SaaS applications, Erramouspe said.

"EMC was selling Data Domain and Avamar into Exchange environments," he said. "But they also saw Exchange moving to Office 365, and realized they had a hole in their product offerings." He added: "It was a good decision by EMC in the first place. But with the market changes, we feel there are better opportunities for us on our own."

"EMC's timing when it bought Spanning was about one year too late," said Jamie Shepard, senior vice president for healthcare and strategy at Lumenate, a Dallas-based solution provider and long-time Dell EMC channel partner. "EMC never did much with Spanning. The majority of SaaS customers were doing Office 365, but for them, it wasn't always important to have a third-party data protection application. Microsoft's data protection is usually good enough."

Shepard said customers are more likely to look for a single data protection platform for all their data. "The cloud creates another siloed approach, and customers want to get away from silos," he said.

Customers looking beyond Microsoft's own data protection tools more often look to a vendor like Veeam, Shepard said.

"I'm a Veeam advocate in this respect," he said. "Veeam handles replication and failovers and handles on-site and cloud environments. It can back up Office 365 to cloud or on-premises, and handles unstructured data."

Spanning does have a better chance to develop its business as a stand-alone company than it did under Dell EMC, Shepard said. "It got lost inside Dell EMC, and became more of a small part of one slide in a data protection presentation."

Spanning Cloud Apps is currently focused on protecting data in Google's G Suite, but is seeing its Office 365 business growing much faster, Erramouspe said. He expects that, within a year, about 40 percent of revenue will come from G Suite data, 40 percent from Office 365 data, and 20 percent from Salesforce.com data.

While SaaS applications do a good job of protecting data, businesses really need a dedicated data protection application like Spanning, Erramouspe said.

"The SaaS do a really good job protecting your data from their errors," he said. "But they don't understand the users. If you tell them to delete data, it's deleted. If a hacker comes in and causes data to be deleted or corrupted, it's done. When the data's gone, you might as well go out of business. We provide the ultimate backstop in the event data goes away. It's all about recovery."

Spanning said it has experienced a 70-plus-percent year-over-year revenue growth serving over 7,000 customers who have over 1.5 billion items protected by Spanning's technology.
The Container Revolution Is Here

DockerCon, the Docker container industry conference, is a good indicator of just how popular containers have become in the enterprise and for partners helping companies deploy new applications and make their older applications run more efficiently.

This year, DockerCon had over 5,500 attendees. The first DockerCon, in 2014, had around 500.

The companies contributing meaningful developer announcements, integrations and tools have changed, too. The startups are still here, but so are IBM, Oracle, CA Technologies, Dell EMC and other major companies that are using container tech to make enterprise computing more efficient. Docker itself had three big announcements at the show  two new open source projects and a fast-track program for getting legacy enterprise applications running in containers.

As DockerCon wraps up today in Austin, Texas, here are seven (non-Docker) announcements that caught our eye during the show.
Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Google Ad

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

Google Ad

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

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
Serenova, a contact-center-as-a-service provider, has named Stuart Clark as its first chief information security officer (CISO). A key goal of Clark in his new role will be to standardize and scale security best practices to support the companys growth. He will oversee Serenova's IT and security organization and have responsibility for driving IT strategy and innovation to scale the company's information and security system capabilities.

"We are seeing a new wave of cloud adoption as on-premises solutions continue to fall away, and security is now top of mind particularly in areas like financial services and healthcare where contact centers are growing," said Vasili Triant, CEO of Serenova, in a press release. "Creating the role of CISO and bringing on someone of Stuart's caliber demonstrates our unwavering commitment to protecting our customer's information assets as they make this move to cloud as well as assets of our entire company. Stuart's expertise, track record and breadth of experience across the information technology landscape means he is the right leader to join our world-class executive team."

Clark brings more than 25 years of leadership in IT and information security, as well as a deep knowledge of information security in the cloud for a variety of vertical markets. His focus on the financial industry where a profound understanding of compliance and regulatory standards is seen as vital to Serenova.

Most recently, Clark was CISO at Neverfail, a cloud infrastructure and software provider named to the 2015 Inc. 500 list of America's Fastest Growing Companies. In that role, Clark was responsible for the creation and execution of the company's global security strategy.

"Ensuring customer data is protected and secure is more critical than ever before, which means that all our technology decisions made within the company need to be made with a security mindset," said Clark in a press release. "My background in fintech will help me set a strategy to take our security and compliance to the next level for our company, which will ultimately benefit our customers. I am thrilled to join such an innovative and growing company as Serenova, where I know I can have an impact by delivering the highest standards for our employees, customers and partners."

Prior to Neverfail, Clark held leadership roles at a number of Austin-based companies. He was director of security for Socialware, a fintech cloud startup providing SaaS software and services to more than 165 leading investment banks. There he led the strategy and vision for all information security-related initiatives. Before that, Clark held IT and security leadership and consulting roles at Solis Security, American Bank of Texas, and FundsXpress Financial Network, which was acquired by First Data.

Any advice for Stuart? Head to our Facebook page to leave your message.
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Anyone who has ever been to IKEA, can spot one of the company's signature blue shopping totes from a mile a way. The Swedish mega-home furnishings and decor chain with stores throughout the U.S. sells the roomy tote, which is made of recycled materials, for 99 cents.

Leave it to someone in the social-media world to point out that couture fashion house Balenciaga has a similar bag, which is made of glazed leather, for $2,145.
The population of the United States is growingbut some places are growing faster than others.

Financial site 24/7 Wall St. took a look at five-year population change in the nation's 382 metro areas to determine the fastest growing city in each state. In Connecticut, the lower Fairfield County area came out as the fastest-growing metro in the state.
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DANBURY  The legal community was saddened this week at the passing of Superior Court Judge Morton Riefberg, who died at his home in Florida on Wednesday surrounded by family members.

Riefberg, 90, who grew up in New York City, moved to Danbury in 1954 and, while working as a chemist, passed the Connecticut Bar in 1955. In 1956, he started a successful law firm in the city and was appointed to the Superior Court in 1985 by then-Gov. William A. ONeill.

Morton Riefberg was a compassionate and intelligent man, said Danbury Probate Judge Dianne Yamin. He was a well-respected attorney and judge who practiced law for more than 50 years. He will be missed.

Yamin said she first met Riefberg, ironically, in the 1970s when he was running for probate judge and came to speak to her government class at Danbury High School. Besides being well respected in the legal community, Yamin noted that Riefberg was also a philanthropic man who worked for decades with the local chapter of the Lions Club.

During his long career in the legal field, Riefberg also served as the corporation counsel for the city as well as counsel for the town of New Fairfield. He retired from the bench in 1997 but continued to serve as a trial referee for many years after being named a senior judge in the state.

Local attorney and former Speaker of the House in the state legislature, Francis Collins, said that while a lot of lawyers set their sights on the bench, its only a select few, like Riefberg, who have the temperament for the job.

He had the kind of wisdom that someone needs in order to sit in judgment of others, said Collins. You really want someone on the bench who listens and makes judgments that can often turn lives around. Riefbergs wisdom and compassion served him well throughout his career and during his time on the bench.

Collins, who served in the state legislature for eight years, said Riefberg was respected by politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Riefberg and the love of his life, Mae Riefberg, moved from the city to their winter home in Florida in 2009 but he continued to keep close ties with the community. He had served in the past as a Board of Trustees member for the United Jewish Center of Danbury. He also served on the board of Catholic Charities and received the Mary Dolce Award for Community Service in 1985.

Riefberg and his wife, who married in 1955 just weeks after he passed the states bar exam, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary two years ago.

Family member are asking that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to several organizations including the United Jewish Center and the Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut. Funeral services for Riefberg will be held at 1 p.m. on Sunday at the United Jewish Center on Deer Hill Avenue.

dperrefort@newstimes.com
From random meeting in Tatev Monastery to wedding: Love story of MEP Frank Engel and his Armenian ancee

Recently media were focused on MEP Frank Engel from Luxembourg and his Armenian fiancee Tatev Manukyan, who lives in Belgium. She studied in the State University of Economics of Armenia and later continued her studies in Swedens Dalarna University. She relocated to Belgium afterwards, and currently works in the AGBU Europes Brussels office. In an exclusive interview with ARMENPRESS, Frank Engel and Tatev Manukyan presented their love story  from a random meeting in the Tatev Monastery to wedding planning. Lets start from the beginning. Where and how did you first meet? F. Engel  Of course, I am already used to answering this question. Actually, this can be called a flight story. I was going to Mongolia to participate in the parliamentary assembly ahead of the EU-Asia summit. A rather short travel was scheduled, and I had to return to Armenia afterwards in order to be here on the Armenian Genocide anniversary day. There were some problems during the Istanbul-Ulan Bator flight, and we landed in Bishkek, where the passengers were requested to exit the plane. The bad thing was that no other flight was suggested, because we found out the weather conditions were really bad in Ulan Bator, and we didnt even know when we would be able to reach it. There was nothing else left then cancelling it. I stayed in Bishkek for one day, and the next day I organized a flight to Yerevan. And it so happened that in Armenia I and Tatev coincidentally appeared in the same car, which was going to the Tatev Monastery. The monastery and the surrounding view were simply wonderful, perhaps this is what inspired us. The mysterious beautify of the two Tatevs (my bride and the monastery) were very harmonious. T. Manukyan  Yes, this was in fact the time following the April War  the second half of April, when I arrived in Armenia for 10 days. I had asked a common friend of me and Frank to take me to Tatev Monastery, and after being in the same car with Frank, I found out that Frank had also requested the same person for the same favor prior to arriving in Armenia, who didnt hesitate to send both of us to Tatev on the same car. Speaking about intercultural dialogue, what new discoveries have you managed to do about each other as representatives of different nations? F. Engel  I dont know whether Im the most typical representative of Luxembourg, but anyhow, Tatev, what have you discovered? Actually Tatev had never been to Luxembourg. T. Manukyan  Really, I hadnt been to Luxembourg. It was an entirely new discovery for me  the people, the country, I have already started to learn Luxembourgish. I cant say the same about Frank, since he has more than discovered Armenia already. He told me once : I have to take you, and you have to see your Fatherland and know it from end to end. We drove 2500 kilometers in one day in Armenia and Artsakh, travelling in the north and south of Armenia and Artsakh  from Noyemberyan to Meghri, from Martakert to Hadrut. I am often asked  Did you show Frank Armenia?, to which I respond smilingly, yes, Frank showed me Armenia. F. Engel  By the way, on a white Niva, what any Armenian man must do [laughingly]. Yes, asking an Armenian woman on a date requires a bit more of a constructive approach than a representative of another nation, but I can say Tatev is the kind of person who completely matches me. What will you say about language issues? If, of course those exists. F. Engel  A bit time is necessary for me to finish my Armenian lessons and bring my language skill to a normal level. Armenian isnt one of the easiest languages, in which case one can at least find some similarities with the languages I know. We speak English to each other. We also speak Dutch in Belgium, it is more convenient for communicating with Tatevs family. T. Manukyan  Sometimes I simply say  If in the future you want to understand your children, then you must learn Armenian. Our common languages are English, Dutch and French, while Armenian and Luxembourgish are yet to come. F. Engel  Our children will of course speak also Armenian and Luxembourgish. Tatev in her turn is trying to learn Luxembourgish. T. Manukyan  Yes, one of the upcoming goals of my life is learning Luxembourgish, because I see how much Frank respects my language and culture, and I have to show the same respect for his language and culture. And how did your friends and family respond to your decision on being together? T. Manukyan  They were very excited. F. Engel  Really? T. Manukyan  Perhaps you missed that part [laughing] Why am I asking. Perhaps youve seen the photo of an Armenian woman wearing Armenian national clothes, with her black husband and their son, which was rather widely discussed among the public. Different things were said around the photo, which gave the reason to think about the somewhat environment of intolerance. I would like to know what you think about this issue? F. Engel  But we also saw that even Armenians display more tolerance, when its about a black woman, in this case Serena Williams, and this doesnt disturb anyone. In terms of the Luxembourg society, I havent noticed it to create any concern there, since there are many mixed marriages in Luxembourg. T. Manukyan  I had heard about it, I had seen those negative comments. I have also read all comments regarding an article which was written about us, which were mostly positive, but I was asking myself why? Is it maybe because Frank is a public figure? This really angers me, because it shows the discriminative attitude which we have towards foreigners. During our history we have been persecuted for many times for being religious and ethnic minorities, and now, in fact, we are the ones who discriminate others. That incident was a stereotype breaking in our society, in which the Marashlyan Photo Atelier had an important and right role. What are the most important qualities which you appreciate in one another? F. Engel  Tatev has a unique lightness for various issues, calmness and tranquility, which I dont usually have. This seems to be a complementary factor. She is very understanding towards everyone, something which I dont always display. She is like that towards me also. For me, she is the unique combination of femininity and intelligence, fair towards others and extremely responsible for her actions. T. Manukyan  There is a relevant word in Armenian   [cosmopolitan]. I think, this describes him the best. Frank is very open for different cultures, I can say also for different religions and ideas. In my opinion, I have lots to learn from him in this regard. He has a wide outlook, and as a political figure I can say he is very determined in terms of his convictions. He says what he thinks, what many can dislike. He is among those who struggle for the rule of justice in this world. As a partner, I always mention he is the source of my emotional and intellectual supply. Have you already decided the date and place of your wedding? F. Engel  Yes, it is decided. It will be in Armenia and Artsakh. We will leave other details undisclosed yet. Interview by Syuzi Muradyan Photos by Mkhitar Khachatryan
Its tricky and scary, this business of trying to get North Koreas tyrannical regime to give up its nuclear ambitions. Scarier still would be an inane go-ahead signal, the kind of thing, for instance, we got under the Clinton administration. Say about him what you will, but President Donald Trump is doing more than any predecessor to get China to do whats needed, and China is the key in all of this.

Reviewing the fumble in the Clinton years helps explain how we got where we are and what we ought to avoid. North Korea was then preparing for the production of nuclear weaponry, and President Bill Clinton, first telling the Pentagon to get ready for action if necessary, also asked the United Nations to figure out sanctions that might help avert disaster. Then came Jimmy Carter.

As Steven F. Hayward related in his 2004 book, The Real Jimmy Carter, this ex-president insisted he be allowed to visit with dictator Kim Il Sung, and Clinton said OK despite misgivings. Carters presentation was prepared for him. He was to threaten sanctions if North Korea did not allow U.N. inspections, hand over spent fuel rods and otherwise trash its nuke program.

Instead, he said forget the inspections and said the United States would not support U.N. sanctions. Negotiating beyond what Clinton wanted and his rights as a private citizen, Carter mainly just wanted further talks and asked North Korea to give its word about no further development of the weapons while promising U.S. help in developing nuclear energy.

North Korea was ready to trot, and, before calling the White House, Carter publicized the plan through CNN interviews. That put Clinton in a position of looking obstructionist if he did not go along with Carter, and he did after first weakly arguing for toughening things up some.

Hayward tells us Kim Il Sung died soon afterwards and that the joke in the State Department was that he died of laughter at Carters giveaways. North Korea went right ahead with its weapons development to the point it is now bragging about having nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Carters was a pathetically common mode of negotiation that substitutes starry eyed hopefulness for practical results.

We saw the same thing in the Syrian deal on chemical weapons and varied approximations of it in the Iranian nuclear deal. An occasional harrumph is about as much as weve seen in recent years concerning North Korea, which is now being led by the murderously evil, short, fat, egomaniacal Kim Jong Un, who is threatening nuclear war as nonchalantly as if just calling for still more dessert.

A big part of the answer is China, which could erase North Koreas economy virtually overnight by cutting off trade. It had long refrained from meaningful sanctions despite constant urging. Then Trump, in his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, clearly got through to him. Trump backed off his own trade threats at a time when China itself needs all the economic help it can get. China quit importing coal from Korea in February and appears to be contemplating more such moves. A collapsed North Korea could mean major problems for China, but the point is to keep North Korea from risking collapse.

Another huge concern is that North Korea could burst into a military frenzy that, among the horrors, would devastate South Korea. Might recent U.S. military actions in Syria and Afghanistan and an increased U.S. military presence near North Korea in a week or so help instigate such an outburst? Just the opposite, some say.

Of course, the greatest fear of all is that a fanatically governed, already dangerous North Korea becomes a full-scale nuclear power. While there is no certainty in all of this and even the experts disagree, we do seem to be on the right track.

The last thing we need is a return to negotiations people joke about.

Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Email: speaktojay@aol.com.
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MILFORD - As officers were attempting to take an accused Stratford drug dealer into custody Thursday, he threw away $20,000 worth of heroin outside a Milford hotel, police said.

The incident happened Thursday when Drug Enforcement Agency officers and Milford police attempted to apprehend Anthony Parowski in the hotels parking lot.
WESTPORT - A Stratford man has been arrested for using peoples credit card information to pay phony companies he set up to steal $27,000, police said.

Marc Alexander, 36, of Stratford, was arrested Monday on larceny and illegal credit charges following an investigation.
Cuban Minister Malmierca receives Governor of Mississippi

Submitted by: Juana

Politics and Government

04 / 21 / 2017



Rodrigo Malmierca, Cubas Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, reaffirmed that the economic, commercial and financial blockade, imposed by United States on Cuba, is one of the main obstacles for the normalization of relations between both countries.

When receiving Phil Bryant, governor of the US state of Mississippi, who is visiting Havana with a group of businessmen, Malmierca referred to the rapprochement between the two nations from December 2014; however, he stressed that such an unjust policy hinders ties.

Much has been done since then but the most important thing has not been achieved, which is to eliminate the blockade, which not only affects the relations of Cuba and the United States, but also those of the Caribbean island and other countries, he emphasized.

The minister also commented that US authorities, entrepreneurs and personalities have spoken out against the inhuman economic siege, applied for over half a century to Cuba.

At the meeting, Bryant expressed the interest of the state of Mississippi to expand with the Caribbean country the ties in the commerce sector, which he described as "very important."

After thanking the warm welcome on the Island, where he had a "lovely day," the governor said that he also met with Jeffrey De Laurentis, charge d'affaires of the US Embassy in Havana.

The delegation includes representatives of companies in the sectors of agriculture, energy, food, tourism and port; and will visit today the Mariel Special Development Zone and will hold exchanges with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In February, Cuba's port authorities and the state of Mississippi signed two Memorandums of Understanding, as part of a forum held in Havana to explore business opportunities despite restrictions of the US blockade on the Caribbean island.
Cuban province exports 21 thousand tons of charcoal a year to Europe

Some 210,000 tonnes of charcoal shipped Ciego de Avila to Europe in just over a decade with the aim of improving the Cuban economy and increasing financial capacity for industrial plans and agriculture.

The initiative is supported by coal producers from several provinces and is led by the Agroindustrial Ceballos Company, the national leader in this task, its director, the engineer Wilver Bringas Fernandez, told ACN.

The woodcutters are contracted by that entity and elaborate the coal basically with marabou, whose commercialization is carried out by Citricos Caribe S.A. To countries like Italy, Greece, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, United Kingdom and other nations of the Old Continent.

Bringas highlighted the effort of these men, who work at any time and always look for the best plantations of the thorny plant, which translates into an exportable product that meets all its quality indicators and provides foreign exchange.

Florentino Delgado Martinez, a specialist in agriculture, said that Italy was the first to acquire this type of Cuban fuel, which then spread to other nations because of its extensive demand.

He pointed out that this fuel began to be exported in search of an energy source that does not damage the environment and, on the contrary, it is so abundant that in Cuba there are approximately one million hectares infested with that weed.

The marabou, he added, does not need sowing, cultivation, irrigation or fertilization, as cattle are responsible for expanding the "devil's thorn" with their excreta.

On the other hand, innovators and rationalizers of the Agroindustrial Ceballos created at the end of last year a machine to benefit and to classify this type of fuel, which humanizes the work, increases the efficiency and discards the impurities.

This item accounts for approximately 80 percent of the company's total exports, which also invoiced fresh pineapple MD-2, hot peppers, peppers, essential oils, aseptic mango puree, fruit juice and other foods. (acn)
New sausage production plant opens in Havana

Submitted by: Juana

Havana

Business and Economy

04 / 21 / 2017



The Food Production Company (PRODAL), in this capital, has opened a modern sausage production plant, which makes possible to substitute imports and deliver a larger volume of food to the population.

European technologies make up the equipment assembled in this center of the municipality of Regla, and with the capacity to process up to 20 tons of the aforementioned assortment daily.

Yaneisy Romero, head of the Group of Imports, of this entity belonging to the Business Group of the Food Industry (GEIA), told Cuban News Agency that for this year they plan to install and remodel refrigeration systems, which make it possible to achieve maximum performance.

She reported that in the first three months of 2017 more than 720 tons of sausages were made, and the purpose is to continue increasing delivery volumes to the economy.

She explained that training activities for the workers are carried out with a view to optimizing the productive processes and the assimilation of state-of-the-art technology, installed with this state investment, which exceeded seven million CUC.

It meant that a plant will also be built with a view to the treatment of wastewater, (about 500 cubic meters daily), which will protect the environment and the bay of Havana.

PRODAL's productions have a quality system according to ISO international standards for the design, production and marketing of products made from poultry, fish and seafood.

Currently it has a sales level that exceeds 16 million CUC, with a sustainable variety of products (42) developed with the most rigorous quality and elaboration regime.
Who raised a cup with Serzh Sargsyan? (video)

Unlike the parliamentary elections, many things are clear ahead of the May 14 municipal elections in Yerevan, says political technologist Karen Kocharyan. It is clear that the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) will win again. It is clear that Zauri [Postanjyan] will receive fewer votes but we shall see her in the City Council. Only the ratio between the HHK and Yelk is not clear, Mr Kocharyan said at a news conference on Friday. He is not surprised that the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) alliance and the Armenian National Congress (HAK) refused to nominated candidates for the post of Yerevan Mayor but he cannot understand the decision of Gagik Tsarukyans Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). It seems that Mr Tsarukyan has gained leverages in the National Assembly which is already enough for him, he said. When asked why Zaruhi Postanjyan will have fewer votes in the upcoming elections, the political technologist said, When I look at the list of candidates fielded by her Yerkir Tsiraniparty, the names are new to me. It is important that candidates be prominent personalities. Karen Kocharyan does not take seriously the allegations that certain forces have concluded a secret deal with the authorities. There are such talks about Nikol Pashinyan [one of the leaders of the Yelk alliance]. I shall present a counter-argument and say that Pashinyan has never raised a cup or met with Serzh Sargsyan while the BHK leader has done it many times, he added.
Let the new principal be a shepherd living in our village - say angered residents (video)

The secondary school of Bagaran community in Armavir marz has stood empty for a week. Parents do not allow their children to attend classes as a sign of protest against the new principal who is the wife of the mayor of the neighbouring community - Yervandashat. The candidate nominated from the neighbouring community was appointed to the post by a decision of Deputy Prime Minister Vache Gabrielyan after comparing the documents of the two candidates. The information was relayed to the locals Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development. Residents of Bagaran community are sure that it was a political decision and are not satisfied with the official answer. They are more concerned that the mayor of their community does not want to interfere because, as he says, he does not want to offend the headman of Yervandashat. We tried to speak to the head of Bagaran community on the matter but he had gone on holiday.
Live: Let our opponents take off their dark glasses to see the good deeds, too (video)

The Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) started campaigning for the Yerevan City Councils with a rally in the citys Erebuni district. Incumbent Mayor Taron Margaryan and the members of the Council of Elders accompanying him were met with traditional bread and salt. In their speech, the candidates said their choice of the district was not occasion as Erebuni is perceived as a symbol of historical Erebuni. Hovik Musayelyan, Director of Synopsys Armenia CJSC, said that by casting their ballots for Taron Margaryan, citizens will vote for the future of Armenia and unfinished programs. Let our opponents take off their dark glasses to see the good deeds, too. Smbat Lputyan, who comes second on the HHK ticket, said he sincerely believes in Taron Margaryan. He has done a lot of good things during his tenure in office. I want to be useful to Taron Martgaryan, therefore I am here [with him], he said. Today we have a much better Yerevan, Mr Margaryan said addressing people. But the problems are not over here. We still have much work to do. After the speeches, Taron Margaryan came up to citizens, talked to them, and photographed with them. The groups next stop was in Nor Aresh district.
In a campaign speech riven with the politics of envy, Jeremy Corbyn risibly attempted to portray himself as an outsider challenging the establishment elite

Just three days after the general election was announced, and the leader of Her Majestys Opposition proves why he is unfit for high office.

In a campaign speech riven with the politics of envy, Jeremy Corbyn  34 years the MP for Islington North  risibly attempted to portray himself as an outsider challenging the establishment elite.

Like every Marxist before him, he claimed he would take on the cosy cartels hoarding this countrys wealth, but as ever with the Labour leader, his critique came without any explanation of his proposed solutions.

What we do know is his 10-an-hour minimum wage would destroy jobs. Paying for 500billion of spending promises would mean soaking not just the rich, but people on very modest incomes.

And on Brexit  the most important political issue of our time  we still dont know where he stands. Ten times yesterday his menacing sidekick John McDonnell refused to say if Labour would hold a second referendum, before finally ruling one out hours later.

On the other great issue of the day, immigration, he has suggested free movement of migrants should continue unhindered post-Brexit  the very concern which drove millions of voters in Labour heartlands to vote Leave.

Meanwhile, his shadow cabinet is clearly split over tax policy, with shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry playing down Mr McDonnells suggestion of new taxes on those earning 70,000 or more.

The party is in chaos, so it is no surprise the exodus of Labour MPs continues apace, with 12 saying they will not stand again.

In one respect alone, the Mail and Mr Corbyn are in total agreement: the result of the election is not a foregone conclusion.

The more the polls show the Conservatives miles ahead, the greater the risk voters fail to turn out or  fearing an over-mighty government  vote for another party.

The result of this nightmare scenario could be the country waking up on June 9 with a bewildered Mr Corbyn on the steps of No 10, propped up by the Scottish nationalists with their incessant demands to break up the UK, and the Lib Dems, who will stop at nothing to halt Brexit.

Truly, that would be  as Theresa May said  a coalition of chaos. It would also be an unmitigated disaster for this country.

Uber scandal deepens

The scandal over government lobbying for internet cab firm Uber grows ever murkier.

The Mail has revealed how the Downing Street chumocracy under David Cameron leaned on Boris Johnson to drop his plans for regulating the company  but failed to release under the Freedom of Information Act emails revealing this, a decision now under investigation by a watchdog.

Today it has engulfed Sajid Javid, the then Business Secretary. His department also failed to divulge emails about Uber following a similar FoI application  and a dossier of correspondence with Mr Javids aides was released only when the same questions were asked of the Competition and Markets Authority.

Today the Uber scandal has engulfed Sajid Javid, the then Business Secretary. His department also failed to divulge emails about Uber following a similar FOI application

This was the same CMA that, astonishingly, issued a statement supporting Uber saying it increased competition, despite growing proof that this American tax-dodging quasi-monopoly is destroying countless British jobs.

The Mail has said it before and says it again: a full inquiry by Parliament into this shady affair is long overdue.

Wherever you stand on the right to life, figures showing that one in three premature babies survive after 23 weeks in the womb, and nearly two-thirds at 24 weeks, are truly disturbing.

Yet the 1967 Abortion Act allows terminations until 24 weeks.

Modern medicine makes a mockery of that cut-off point. The case for reviewing the law grows stronger by the day.
Former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, now standing down in Clacton, confirms hell be supporting the Conservative candidate in the constituency. Is this welcome?

When he defected from the Tories to Ukip, in 2014  causing a by-election  a Conservative councillor told him: I want to see your traitorous testicles nailed to Clacton pier.

When he defected from the Tories to Ukip, in 2014  causing a by-election  a Conservative councillor told him: I want to see your traitorous testicles nailed to Clacton pier'

Why wasnt David Beckham, who was there, photographed with Prince William when the latter invested Victoria Beckham with an OBE this week?

He remains in the doghouse after his complaints about not being knighted were exposed in a leaked email in which he called the honours committee unappreciative c****, and added: Unless its a knighthood, f*** off.

The Queen celebrates her 91st birthday in low-key style today at Windsor Castle. Last year the Prince of Wales arranged a dinner, organised by his ex-valet, Michael Fawcett, 55, pictured, for an undisclosed fee.

Fawcett left the princes staff in 2003 amid claims about selling official gifts but he returned on a freelance basis.

Charles reportedly said: I can manage without just about anyone except Michael.

So might he become Master of the Household when Charles is King? Yes, but the 129,000 salary might have to be increased, suggests my source.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron is worked up about Theresa Mays refusal to take part in televised leadership debates. Why does deeply annoying Tiny Tim presume hed be invited onto one?

Last time, the final debate featured only the leaders of the three main parties  David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Lib Dem Nick Clegg.

But now Farron with his eight MPs is outranked by the 56-strong SNPs Westminster leader, the silken, PM-baiting Angus Robertson.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron is worked up about Theresa Mays refusal to take part in televised leadership debates

Edinburgh hosts an American presidential visit next month and Scotlands First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is reportedly very excited. Why so? Because its Barack Obama, not Donald Trump.

Is Obama excited, too? His visit to the UK a year ago included a lunch with the Queen and Prince Philip at Windsor followed the same day by a private dinner with William, Kate and Harry, plus a meeting with Prince George in his pyjamas.

David Bowies former apartment on Central Park, Manhattan, for sale at 4.9million, is located in the Essex House Hotel, famous for a huge neon sign, which for a time intrigued US sailors on shore leave in New York. A fault left the first two letters of the name unlit.

When former president George W Bush engaged artist Gail Norfleet to teach him oil painting, he informed her: Gail, theres a Rembrandt trapped in this body. Your job is to liberate him.

His subsequent paintings of wounded Iraq War veterans are highly praised.

Even the usually hostile New York Times concedes that hes a surprisingly adept artist who has dramatically improved his technique while also doing penance for one of the greatest disasters in American history. Mission accomplished, Ms Norfleet.
A woman who lost three stone while competing in an extreme survival challenge deliberately regained the weight - because she preferred being a size 16.

Karen Bretagne, 50, from Devon, was a contestant on Channel 4's The Island, a five-week challenge hosted by Bear Grylls and filmed in a remote location in the Pacific.

After weeks of surviving on just 300 calories a day, the shop owner returned home three stone lighter, but far from being delighted by her new size 10 figure, she said she 'looked like an old lady'.

'It was like looking at my mother, so I took great delight in putting the weight back on and Im now back at a size 16,' she told FEMAIL.

Scroll down for video

Immediately after leaving The Island Karen, pictured on the left, had lost three stone and was a size 10. (Right) But now she's much happier as a size 16

Karen says she blocked out thoughts of home and her family while marooned on the island, but admits she did long for her favourite sweet treats.

'I did weep once thinking about treacle sponge and custard,' she said.

Despite the hardships, the experience changed Karen's attitude to life.

'I have come home with a new lease of life and a "devil may care" attitude - which bodes well as we are just about to open up a new shop with 15 more staff.

'I really don't think I could have coped before The Island - now I feel like "Bring it on".'

It was actually Karen's husband who applied for the programme, but his wife ended up making the cut.

The fourth series of Channel 4's The Island looked at the generation gap - Karen was part over the over 35s group, while another group was made up of 18-30s

Karen, who jokes that her husband is 'scared of his own shadow', said she knew she would fare better on the show.

Karen works seven days a week running her retail business, and she initially thought that being away from her busy schedule on an island in the middle of the sea would be a 'break'.

But it quickly became clear how difficult the experience would be when survival expert Bear Grylls abandoned the castaways to fend completely for themselves, leaving them with only minimal equipment, enough water to last 24 hours, and the clothes they were standing in.

The fourth series of the of programme also looks at the generation gap - marooning two groups on two different islands, one aged 18-30 and the others all over 35s, with the oldest castaway aged 66.

Karen said of the twist, which Bear came up with himself: 'I thought the idea of having two different age groups was genius, as it opened up conversations, which we wouldnt have had, and also it caused more friction with the different opinions.'

A self-confessed 'people pleaser', Karen said she learned that it was okay to say 'no' and that things would still run smoothly.

'The Island changed me, I now say no to everything! It's a very empowering word, no - I love it.'

The age gap didn't bother Karen either. She said: 'I think I'm nifty at 50. The show gave me such a new lease of life. Im far more resilient now.'

'I realised I was greedy': Mother, 50, drops three stone in FIVE WEEKS while marooned on The Island Former police officer Jane applied to appear on the show to celebrate turning 50, she ended up losing three stone. (Left) After The Island Jane Gates, a retired police officer from Northumberland, turned 50 while taking part in the show, and found the extreme diet helped her to shed pounds quickly. She dropped three stones in just five weeks thanks to an enforced diet of 'yuk' yucca plants, tasteless fish, and coconut. Since the show finished Jane says she gained some weight back because she 'looked gaunt', but continues to keep a close eye on what she eats. 'I am trying to keep my weight in check with gym classes and sensible eating,' she said. 'I now realise that if I miss a meal or am too busy to eat it's not a problem, and I am trying to serve up smaller portions.' Jane decided to apply for the show after watching the previous series, figuring it would be 'a blast' to celebrate her 50th year. But she admits she found it difficult not being in control of her home life while so far away from her husband and children. Jane says she had an 'unhealthy' relationship with food prior to the show Jane has since realised she had an 'unhealthy' relationship with food: 'I possess all the knowledge to be slim and fit but I was greedy when it came to portion size. 'I soon realised that I could be satisfied and stay alive with smaller portions.' Now she cooks using healthy recipes and tries to serve a proper Sunday roast dinner every week, but skips the Yorkshire Puddings. 'I make sure I eat breakfast, then if I miss lunch because I am busy, that's not a big problem, I just have a good supper. 'I think the majority of ordinary people are confused as what to eat, there has been many conflicting reports about good fats and bad fats, too much protein, too many carbs. 'People are baffled but the truth is if you fancy something naughty, have it, get it out of the system. But dieting should be easy, put less in your mouth and make your body move more.' Jane now does regular exercise, like spinning and swimming, and makes sure to walk her dogs at least three times a day. She adds of her new outlook on life: 'I love being happy and being around happy people. I like making people laugh and have no problem with being laughed at. I do not take myself seriously.' Advertisement

The Island with Bear Grylls premieres on Sunday 23rd April at 9pm on Channel 4 followed by episode two on Monday 24th April at 9pm
This has to be the steamiest show of the year. The jealousy, deceit, simmering rage, adultery and, quite frankly, pretty raunchy sex among the yummy mummies of an affluent beach community on the rugged California coast are surprising enough.

But whats made racy new series Big Little Lies such a talking point is not just the subject matter but the fact that its two Hollywood A-listers starring on the small screen  and one of them, Nicole Kidman, takes her top off in just about every episode.

Based on the novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty, its the brainchild of Nicole and Reese Witherspoon, who pooled their individual production companies to bring it to the screen.

Scroll down for video

Monday sees the HBO drama Big Little Lies starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon come to a dramatic conclusion - here we reveal what you've missed

It follows the fortunes of five women in the super-rich town of Monterey and their families.

Episode one started with a murder at a school fundraising ball  but so far we dont even know who died, let alone who did it.

Nicoles portrayal of domestic violence victim Celeste is extraordinary, by turns sizzling with passion and seething with resentment at her abusive husband Perry. The abuse scenes had to be authentic, says Nicole.

We couldnt use a stunt double. Id be bruised all over afterwards and there were nights when Id go home and sit in the bath and cry. Alexander Skarsgard even joked hell never get another job after his portrayal of Perry.

Reese plays Celestes best friend, strong-willed Madeline, while the cast also includes Laura Dern as neurotic businesswoman Renata, Shailene Woodley as less glamorous single mother Jane, and Zoe Kravitz (Lennys daughter) as Bonnie, a yoga instructor now married to Madelines ex Nathan.

Nicole with Alexander Skarsgard as her husband Perry and their children

But at its heart its a really perplexing mystery. Anyone whos enjoyed Agatha Christie will love that, while anyone who enjoyed the glossy locations in The Night Manager will be waiting for each episode not only to appreciate the plot, but also to feast on the beauty of the double-fronted fridges!

Its not too late to catch up with all six previous episodes via Sky On Demand or Now TV before the identity of the victim  and the killer  is revealed in Mondays finale. Until then, heres all you need to know...

WHATS IT ALL ABOUT?

The series centres on a group of parents who all have children starting at the same exclusive primary school. It opened with a murder during the schools Hepburn & Elvis themed ball, before rewinding to introduce us to the chain of events that led up to the crime.

Enter Jane, a single mother new to the area who is taken under the wing of Madeline and Celeste. When Janes son Ziggy is accused of trying to choke Renatas daughter on the first day of school, the dark secret in her past catches up with her.

But Janes not the only one hiding something, and we soon learn more about these womens secrets as petty jealousies and family rifts reveal themselves. These characters are not bad, theyre not good, theyre just who they are, says Reese. Ive been every woman in this show  married, divorced, single mother. Ive had children with one husband and another with a second. So I related to each character.

THE HOT HUBBIES

Alexander Skarsgard brings the sex factor to the male cast as despicable Perry. But his co-stars are also sending hearts a-flutter.

Adam Scott, Madelines husband Ed, has charmed audiences with his sweet nature while her ex-husband Nathan (James Tupper) brings a bad boy element. Jeffrey Nordling, who plays Renatas husband Gordon, played scheming Nick Bolen in Desperate Housewives.

THE STEAMY SEX SCENES

Big Little Lies doesnt shy away when it comes to the sex and violence between Celeste and Perry.

MANSIONS TO DIE FOR... Celeste, Madeline and Renata all live in multi-million-dollar houses where they quaff wine on vast patios that overlook the ocean. Although the cast did film on the Monterey Peninsula, most of the properties used in Big Little Lies are actually in and around Los Angeles because beachfront homes are few and far between along Montereys rocky coastline. Renatas home (left) is actually a 10 million mansion in Malibu thats often used in movies and TV shows, while Madelines is in the same A-list area and worth 12 million. Bonnies bohemian home is located in the hills in Calabasas  where the Kardashians live  and worth 1.8 million. Only Celestes 4.8 million on-screen home is actually located in Monterey County. Advertisement

While some of Nicoles scenes are quite harrowing, she has many risque on-screen moments such as when she performs a striptease for Perry via webcam and when the couple get raunchy in the shower, the kitchen and even in their walk-in wardrobe.

Theres also a full-frontal from Alexander Skarsgard, and some racy love scenes for Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern too.

SO WHO MURDERED WHO?

Intriguingly, all the parents could be murderers  or victims. A popular theory is that Perry will die, the killer being any of the central players. But were not even sure if its a man who dies.

Madeline has the potential to snap and murder Renata, Nathan or Bonnie, or become the victim at the hands of either of the two women.

Nathan might lose it with Ed, but Eds also reaching boiling point and may go for Nathan. Or will Jane get revenge for her past?

WILL THERE BE MORE?

The inevitable question is will there be another series, set either before the first or after it? Reese has been talking to screenwriter David E Kelley, who adapted the book for series one. Nicoles in favour too. There probably needs to be a season two, shes said. There are so many deep stories ripe for mining.

Watch this space...

Big Little Lies is on Monday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic.
Gordon Cooper spotted anomalies, particularly in the Caribbean Sea and off the coast of Mexico during a mission

As adventures go, this has to be one of the strangest. A hunt for sunken treasure that began in space, took in spying, the Cold War and a bitter family feud, and ended up in the crystal-clear waters of the Caribbean.

Now a new documentary tells the full fascinating story of Coopers Treasure  and you really couldnt make it up.

Back in May 1963, American Air Force major Gordon Cooper was the solo astronaut on board a Mercury spacecraft.

Publicly, Coopers mission was simply to spend a day in orbit  something that had been achieved by the Soviets but not by the Americans, who were keen not to lag behind in the space race.

However, Coopers mission is suspected to have had a more clandestine element to it  espionage.

Although it was covered up at the time, it now emerges that the spacecraft was equipped with sophisticated equipment designed to detect Soviet missile sites near the United States.

Seven months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Americans clearly felt the Soviet threat was by no means over.

As Cooper scanned the Earth, he detected what he described as anomalies, particularly in the Caribbean Sea and off the coast of Mexico. These were in fact magnetic readings, suggesting the presence of metal, and because they were in the water he knew they could not be missile sites.

There were hundreds of these anomalies, and he soon realised what had caused them  shipwrecks. He jotted down their locations, and when he landed he kept his findings to himself.

Back on Earth he compiled all the locations onto a map, which he then used to hunt for sunken treasure. His hunch that they were shipwrecks proved to be spectacularly right. Working with the legendary treasure hunter Kip Wagner, Cooper would help to discover the famous 1715 Spanish treasure fleet that had sunk off the coast of Florida.

Tantalisingly, he suspected that among them were Christopher Columbuss flagship on his 1492 voyage to the Americas, The Santa Maria, which sank in 1492

However, hunting for treasure is an expensive and risky business often involving tortuous negotiations with governments, and Cooper, who died in 2004, only ever got to explore a few of the wrecks on his map.

Tantalisingly, he suspected that among them were Christopher Columbuss flagship on his 1492 voyage to the Americas, The Santa Maria, and the six boats that sunk on his 1494 voyage which may have contained vast amounts of treasure.

It seemed then, that after he died Coopers secrets would die with him, and that billions of pounds worth of gold, silver and gems would remain at the bottom of the sea. But now, over half-a-century after Coopers space-flight, it looks as though Coopers treasure may finally be brought to the surface.

The show follows the epic search now being conducted by American treasure hunter Darrell Miklos, who shared an office with Cooper back in the 1990s and counted him as a close friend. He recalls Cooper being a very modest man.

He was such a down-to-earth person, he says. He was very quiet and low-key. He wasnt out for fame or any of that stuff  he was truly an American hero. When the two men shared an office, Miklos remembers a topic they often discussed.

Because you simply dont know the outcome. Nobody knows what the successes might be, or the failures

I had a boat company, he says, and Gordon had various aviation projects. We would help each other out  but we would talk about treasure all the time.

The two men tried to set up two treasure-hunting expeditions, but because many of the areas on Coopers chart are isolated and raising the finances to mount expeditions is extremely difficult they never got off the ground. Those problems still exist today, of course, but Miklos has another problem too.

Treasure-hunting runs in his veins because his father is Roger Miklos, a man who spent decades scouring the seas for riches. Miklos senior worked closely with Cooper too, and it was to Roger that the astronaut entrusted his map which he now jealously guards.

One of the most powerful scenes in the first episode shows a meeting between Darrell and Roger, in which Darrell tries to convince his father to lend him the precious map. Its fair to say the two men do not get along, and had been estranged for many years before the meeting.

The roots lie in the fact that Roger sees Darrell as attempting to take his crown. For during the 1970s and 80s, Roger made headlines around the world for his numerous finds of Spanish treasure ships which ran into hundreds of millions of dollars. But as is so often the way with treasure hunters, little of that money ended up with Roger and instead went to governments and investors.

My father feels he was the one who led me to Gordon, says Darrell, and he feels I owe him. But Im doing this on my own, and thats the crux of his problems, because I dont want to let him get involved.

Darrell was adamant that the series should show the reality of treasure-hunting, which by nature is prone to failure. Thats the riskiest part of making a show like this, he says. Because you simply dont know the outcome. Nobody knows what the successes might be, or the failures.

So does Darrell find Columbuss long buried treasure? That would be telling. In a sense, it doesnt matter if I succeed or fail, he says, as the story in itself is just so incredible.

Coopers Treasure starts on Tuesday at 10pm on the Discovery Channel.
PR queen Roxy Jacenko has admitted her business empire 'took a hit' since the 'drama' surrounding her husband's jailing for insider trade.

Just three weeks after Oliver Curtis was sentenced to a year behind bars last June, the 36-year-old businesswoman was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Speaking at a fashion launch on the Gold Coast on Thursday, the high-profile publicist opened up about her whirlwind year.

'My business took a hit last year and that was off the back of all the drama surrounding me,' she said, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

PR queen Roxy Jacenko has opened up about her whirlwind life since her husband was jailed

The high-profile PR maven opened up about her work and raising her two children on her own

The mother said her priority was to look after five-year-old Pixie and Hunter, aged three

The mother-of-two said her priority was to look after their children - five-year-old Pixie and Hunter, aged three.

'My aim was to keep it normal for Pixie and Hunter. Their father went to work one day and never came home. My duty is to protect them. Their father isn't there so I need to be there 200 per cent of the time,' she said.

Hosting the Autumn/Winter fashion launch of Pacific Fair on Thursday, Roxy also admitted her life isn't as glamorous as it seems on Instagram.

Husband Oliver Curtis, who was sentenced for insider trading, is set to be released in June

Roxy also dismissed infidelity allegations amid claims she was seeing another man

The high-profile PR maven opened up about her whirlwind year, juggling her work and family

She also dismissed infidelity allegations amid recent media reports claiming she was seeing another man.

'There was a story the other week about how I'm getting sweaty with somebody's husband and I thought firstly, I've never met the husband  but it's today's news, tomorrow's fish and chips wrapper,' she said.

Her latest remarks comes as the father of their two children is expected to be released on good behaviour in June.
The Australian-born royal embraced her military uniform, donning head to toe camouflage and a beret

Crown Princess of Denmark visited the Home Guard Control Center in Denmark on Thursday

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It's not often that we see Crown Princess Mary, 45, in anything other than perfectly coiffed hair, stiletto heels and a form-fitting ball gown.

But the glamorous Princess, renowned for her style and poise, was more than happy to don a military uniform in camouflage green and combat boots on Thursday to visit the Danish Home Guard in Denmark.

The Australian-born royal, who participates in land and water exercises with more than 5,000 members of the Home Guard each year, was snapped surveying the control center near Vordingborg.

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Spotted! Crown Princess Mary, who has her title emblazoned on the front of this military uniform, visited the Danish Home Guard Control Center on Thursday

Crown Princess Mary was given the title of First Lieutenant in September, 2015, during a field exercise

The Danish Home Guard Control Center was created for radar surveillance during the Cold War period, monitoring traffic in the Baltic Sea and air space.

The Crown Princess joined the Home Guard, which supports the Armed Forces, police and emergency services, voluntarily in 2008.

On Thursday she donned her khaki full length uniform while speaking to other Home Guard members, spotted laughing and talking to other men dressed in similar attire.

The Crown Princess joined the Home Guard, which supports the Armed Forces, police and emergency services, voluntarily in 2008

The Danish Home Guard Control Center was created for radar surveillance during the cold war period, monitoring traffic in the Baltic Sea and air space

On Thursday she donned her khaki full length uniform while speaking to other Home Guard members, spotted laughing and talking to other men dressed in similar attire

Princess Mary was promoted to First Lieutenant in September 2015, after taking part in the Danish Home Guard's field exercise 'Svend Gonge'.

Major General Finn Winkler commented on the Princess' performance following the September drills:

'The Home Guard is happy and proud of the Crown Princess' participation in this exercise.

The mother-of-four visits the Home Guard annually, participating in drills and other tasks included guarding and surveillance in crisis and emergency situations, police assistance drills, sea rescue challenges and environmental tasks

'We greatly appreciate the recognition Crown Princess once again shows the Home Guard, the volunteers and the tasks that they contribute to the Armed Forces and society,' Major General Finn Winkler said

'We greatly appreciate the recognition Crown Princess once again shows the Home Guard, the volunteers and the tasks that they contribute to the Armed Forces and society,' he said.

'It was also a great honour to appoint Crown Princess lieutenant of the exercise.'

The mother-of-four visits the Home Guard annually, participating in drills and other tasks included guarding and surveillance in crisis and emergency situations, police assistance drills, sea rescue challenges and environmental tasks.

Later in the day it was business as usual for the Princess who changed from her military top and trousers into a stunning black jacket and maroon skirt with a matching belt.

The 45-year-old strutted in black stiletto heels once more as she visited the Svanevig Hospice in Bandholm baring a floral arrangement.

She was pictured chatting easily and shaking hands with some of the staff members before bending down to offer her flowers to a little girl.

The 45-year-old strutted in black stiletto heels once more as she visited the Svanevig Hospice in Bandholm baring a floral arrangement

Embrace the guests: The Crown Princess stopped to chat to some of the people gathered outside the hospice before entering the building

She was pictured chatting easily and shaking hands with some of the staff members before bending down to offer her flowers to a little girl

The 45-year-old offered her flowers to a little girl at the hospice who watched on shyly
Constance Hall has fired back after she recently opened up about her love for a new man in her life

Mummy blogger Constance Hall has fired back as fans turn on her for 'falling in love' just two weeks after she announced her marriage breakdown.

The Perth mother-of-four, who is currently in Ireland to promote her book 'Like a Queen', took to social media to say: 'I don't have to justify my actions to anyone'.

The high-profile writer revealed her love for Denim Cooke, a single father-of-two who is accompanying her on tour - just weeks after she confirmed her split from her husband of six years Bill Mahon, 47.

And on Thursday, the 33-year-old defended her new relationship, claiming the married couple had 'lived separately and officially separated for months.

'Yes, I announced our separation two weeks ago.... and yes I was trying to fix our marriage however it didn't work. At least I tried,' she wrote.

'Those who know me are thrilled to finally see me happy and my children don't remember the last time they saw their parents together so they are pretty stoked too.'

The 33-year-old writer announced her split from her husband Bill Mahon two weeks ago

Constance has opened up about her love for the beautiful country - and the man accompanying her on the trip - single father-of-two Denim Cooke (pictured together)

However, several fans were far from impressed with her newfound love, with many jumping to her estranged husband's defence.

One fan wrote: '#TeamBill he's better off without her! Let jeans have her! But I feel for the children involved must be very confusing!'

Another posted: 'Bloody hell. Bill's side of the bed isn't even cold yet!'

A third person said: 'I never really write my judgement or outlook on other relationships but I couldn't help myself with this... I have loved and enjoyed reading Constance Hall's blogs but this is just too soon!! And I kinda feel for her ex husband.

And another wrote: 'Anyone know how to remove queen sticker residue from a car?'

Fans were also quick to point out the last social media post Constance shared of the married couple was on Valentines Day - February 14.

Several fans have been far from impressed with Constance's newfound love

The mother (pictured with her four children and estranged husband) is currently in Ireland

The Perth mother has arrived in Ireland with her children ahead of her international book tour

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Mr Mahon said: 'At the moment my priority is to see the kids and I don't want to say anything that would jeopardise that.'

Earlier, Mr Mahon confirmed he is in Ireland at the same time his wife tours the country but insisted he has no intention of getting in touch with her.

He said he was aware of her being in the country because he 'did all the itinerary for her trip,' but he was already planning on going overseas for 'previous family commitments.'

Mr Mahon declined to comment further on his relationship breakdown.

On Wednesday, Constance shared an image of herself with Denim - who she met at a skate park earlier this year - as the pair lovingly smiled at the camera.

'Falling in love with Ireland and each other,' she wrote in the caption along with several heart emojis.

The 33-year-old mum announced her split from her husband of six years about two weeks ago

Constance is in Ireland with the couple's children (pictured) ahead of her global book tour

The post is just one of many on her social media accounts as Constance documents her movements as soon as she travelled this week.

'So we woke up at 4am and have been cruising Dublin on foot since. I am so in love I can't explain it,' she wrote in another post.

'Ireland is everything and more then any of us could have imagined.'

Her latest holiday snaps comes just two weeks after she revealed her split from her husband after the couple 'stopped enjoying each other and the kids stopped seeing happiness in our love, only contempt.

However, Mr Mahon accused his estranged wife of running away with another man following their marriage breakdown.

'Constance Hall is on her way to Ireland without me. While I was working at our other house she met a guy...' Mr Mahon said on Facebook, which has since been deleted.

'Now they are together. I'm over it but this is not a Queen!!!!!'

The 47-year-old father of four told Daily Mail Australia his priority was to see his children

The Perth writer (pictured) is one of the biggest names in the mummy blogging business, having written a bestselling book, gained millions followers and toured Australia

But Constance dismissed the claims, saying: 'I absolutely never left Bill for anyone. I didn't cheat on Bill with Denim.

'The other man that I have supposedly 'run off with' Denim, I can whole heartedly say that Bill and I were well and truly over well before I even developed any feelings for him.

'I warned my ex husband many months ago that if he wanted to try and reunite he should do it before I give up completely. He did not reply.

'I tried and tried and tried with Bill, so many tears and so much trying. My family and friends know the truth.'

Earlier this year, Constance revealed she was 'growing close' to Denim Cooke - the young father who she'd met at a skate park earlier this year

Earlier this year, Constance revealed she was 'growing close' to Denim Cooke - the young father who she'd met at a skate park earlier this year.

She spoke highly of her admiration for his parenting skills after listening to his inspiring story of how he was embarking on a trip around Australia with his two sons 'on a quest to skate every single skate park'.

'A couple of weeks ago after taking the kids out for dinner I grabbed a couple of beers and went to the skate park, tire them out so they crash without fighting,' she wrote in her blog on February 27.

'There were 2 kids there, long blonde haired kids who's skating skills defied the laws of gravity and who spoke kindly, respectfully to the younger less talented kids like mine.

'And I met Denim, their dad.'
Ashton and her mum spoke to FEMAIL about how their lives have changed

She penned an honest essay about her journey for an English class

The 16-year-old has finally finished chemotherapy treatment and is recovering

Ashton Powell, from Queensland, has been fighting leukaemia for over two years

On August 20, 2014, Ashton Powell got a birthday present no one ever wants - a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

The then 14-year-old was rushed to Townsville Hospital in Queensland for a diagnosis only a day after having blood tests taken at her local GP.

Sharing an essay she wrote for her English class with Daily Mail Australia, Ashton described the moment her family were told about her cancer.

'After the doctor told us, mum started crying, dad was in shock and I was numb and speechless,' she wrote.

16-year-old Ashton Powell today after surviving two-and-a-half years of chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Ashton and her mum, Julie, in the hospital while getting treatment

The intensity of the treatment caused Ashton to lose her hair and lose a lot of weight

Initially, Ashton was told she just had a bad flu after two weeks of seeing the doctor. But when she started to find bruises on her body, her mum took her to her own GP.

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) Each year in Australia more than 300 people are diagnosed with ALL. Overall, ALL is a rare disease, accounting for 0.3% of all cancers diagnosed. ALL can occur at any age but is more common in children (0-14 years) who represent close to 60% all cases. ALL is the most common type of childhood leukaemia, and the most common childhood cancer. It is more common in males than in females. Source: leukaemia.org.au Advertisement

'That day after seeing the doctor, we went to go get a blood test done. About two hours later Dr Aung rang mum and told her to grab me and take me to the Townsville Hospital straight away,' Ashton wrote in her essay.

That night, Ashton and her parents stayed in the hospital waiting to be airlifted to Brisbane the next day. The nurses told the family they would be in hospital for maybe six weeks.

'We were there for one year. The day that I was diagnosed, it was the August 20, eight days after my 14th birthday. I guess you could say it was the worst birthday present anyone could ever get,' Ashton wrote.

Ashton described how she was finally able to cry a month after she was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL).

'That was my first cry, since Ive been diagnosed. It took a while but I finally did. As tears were streaming down my face, I started going on about how I miss my long blonde hair, how I cant run anymore because Ive lost all the muscles in my legs and saying how I miss everyone back home,' she wrote.

'I cried so much in that bathroom, I thought I might literally drown in my own tears.'

Pictures of Ashton before she lost her hair due to chemotherapy treatment for leukaemia

A recovering Ashton smiles for the camera after 'kicking cancer's butt'

Ashton and her older brother Dylan Powell sit together in hospital while Ashton underwent blood tests

'Its been two and a half years and Im finally finished chemo treatment. Throughout the journey, Ive been through some scary stuff, things a typical teenager shouldnt have to see or experience. There has been three occasions when I nearly faced death.'

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Ashton's mother, Julie Anne Sharp, said her daughter wrote her essay to help others.

'She said if she could help on other person, that would be awesome. Just to show and offer support if there are any other kids around that needed help,' Ms Sharp said.

Throughout the journey, Ive been through some scary stuff, things a typical teenager shouldnt have to see or experience Ashton Powell

For Ashton's family, the journey has been long and tough.

'It changes your life. You go on autopilot for a while,' Ms Sharp said.

'There were weeks on end thinking that the doctors were going to come in and say they made a mistake.'

'Ashton had a high risk diagnosis and will require checkups for the rest of her life.'

Due to the intensity of the treatment and particular drugs that Ashton had to have, 16-year-old Ashton now suffers from neuropathy, a condition that affects the nervous system.

'She has to wear leg orthodics and she can't yet walk heel to toe,' Ms Sharp said.

16-year-old Ashton now suffers from neuropathy, a condition that affects the nervous system. She has to wear leg orthodics

Looking to the future now that her treatment is finished, Ashton applied for a job this week and is looking forward to being able to go to the movies and the pool.

Unfortunately, the treatment meant Ashton missed out on a lot of schooling and social activities while she was in hospital.

'I missed out on school, I couldnt go to my student ball either because I was in Townsville getting chemo. I missed two and a half years of my teenage life and I can never get that back. And going through that, makes me appreciate life more,' Ashton wrote.

'She's very brave and very strong,' Ms Sharp said.

'Even the nurses said she's such a strong girl and doesn't complain, she just wakes up hungry!'

Ashton with her two older brothers Dylan and Brodie, who she said helped her through her treatment

Ashton said she owes her strength and happiness to her family and friends.

'I kicked cancers butt and I wouldnt have been able to do that, if it wasnt for my mum, my brother and also my brothers friends, Mitch, Beau and Charlie. These three boys and my brother, helped me laugh again. They may not know this but they helped me enjoy being alive,' Ashton wrote.

Now recovering and having her portacath removed this week, Ashton is doing well.
Mel Griffiths thought she had returned to high school when a group of mothers bullied her because of her hair style as she walked her young son to class.

The 28-year-old mother-of-two, from Melbourne, recently dyed her brunette locks a colourful mix of purple and blue.

However, Ms Griffiths didn't expect to hear snarky comments from other parents at her five-year-old son's primary school earlier this week.

Mel Griffiths (left) thought she had returned to high school when a group of mothers bullied her because of her hair style as she walked her young son, Cohen (right), to class

The 28-year-old mother-of-two, from Melbourne, recently dyed her blonde locks a colourful mix of purple and blue

'There was a group of three mums looking over and it was pretty obvious they were talking about us,' Ms Griffiths told Daily Mail Australia.

'As we got closer we could hear their comments. One of them said I looked like I had a rainbow on my head - which I didn't take offence to.

'Then another comment was: "I wonder what she's rebelling against." I just thought that was a bit silly really.

'But the worst one for me was: "what kind of example is she setting for her child".'

Ms Griffiths didn't expect to hear the snarky comments from other parents at her five-year-old son's primary school on Thursday

'I like your pretty colours mum,' five-year-old Cohen, pictured, told Ms Griffiths after the incident

The young mum, though furious, didn't retaliate for the sake of her son, Cohen.

'I wanted to play it cool for my son. But also I was pretty stunned to be honest. I thought I had already left high school,' she said.

'He was pretty chilled about it - he just looked at me and asked me if I was OK. He said: "I like your pretty colours mum."

'I don't want him exposed to bullying - he's a kid. I want him to have fun and not be worried about people picking on him or picking on his family.'

'It doesn't matter what somebody looks like it's what's on the inside that matters,' Ms Griffiths said

The young mum, though furious, didn't retaliate for the sake of her son, Cohen (pictured)

Ms Griffiths had a stern message for the three women, who she said she doesn't know.

'It doesn't matter what somebody looks like, it's what's on the inside that matters,' she said.

'They might question what example I'm setting for my kids, but what example are they setting for theirs? They're telling them that being a bully is OK.'
The Queen marked her 91st birthday with a photograph of her as a newborn baby with her parents George VI and the Queen Mother.

The intimate portrait shows the royal trio at the Queen's christening in May 1926.

In the photograph released by Buckingham Palace, the Queen's doting parents stare down at their infant, who has her eyes screwed tight.

The Queen marked her 91st birthday with an intimate portrait of her as a newborn baby with her parents, George V and the Queen Mother. The photograph, released by Buckingham Palace, was taken at the Queen's christening in May 1926

When she was born, her parents were the Duke and Duchess of York and George VI was still second in line to the throne.

Her Majesty became heir to the throne in December 1936, when she was ten years old.

Earlier today, the Queen treated herself to a well-deserved day at the races.

Her Majesty was spotted taking in the action at the Dubai Duty Free Spring Trials and Beer Festival at Newbury Racecourse at the start of two days of flat racing.

The monarch was attending in a private capacity and was seen watching from a private box.

The Queen celebrated her 91st birthday privately today, with a trip to Newbury Racecourse

The monarch, seen clutching her programme, watched the action from a private box

The Queen attended the Dubai Duty Free Spring Trials and Beer Festival at Newbury Racecourse in Newbury to celebrate her 91st birthday

The lifelong horse racing fan was certainly enjoying her day out as she pointed animatedly at the track while taking in the action

What better way for Her Majesty to celebrate her birthday than with a trip to the races?

The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery fire a royal salute to mark the 91st birthday of Queen Elizabeth II in Hyde Park, London

After her 90th birthday last year, which saw national festivities held in her honour, the 2017 milestone will seem more subdued.

A troop of the Royal Horse Artillery rode horse-and-gun carriages past Buckingham Palace before staging a 41-gun salute in Hyde Park at noon.

Outside the palace, a band of guardsmen in scarlet tunics and bearskin hats played 'Happy Birthday' during the Changing of the Guard ceremony.

There was second salute with 62 guns at the centuries-old Tower of London, while members of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment fire a 21 gun salute in Gibraltar.

The monarch loves horse racing so it's no wonder she headed for Newbury Racecourse to celebrate her birthday privately, without any official engagements

The Queen looked radiant in a pink hat and jacket for her day at the races

The Queen appeared to be glowing with happiness as she enjoyed herself on her special day

Members of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment fire a 21 gun salute to mark the 91st birthday of Queen Elizabeth in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, historically claimed by Spain

The Queen chats to jockey Ryan Moore and her racing manager John Warren today

John Warren, seen right with the Queen, is widely regarded as one of the world's leading bloodstock advisors

Got any tips? The trio were deep in conversation at the Dubai Duty Free Spring Trials

The Honourable Artillery Company, the City of London's Reserve Army Regiment, fired a 62 gun salute from the Tower of London

No doubt the Queen will also receive presents from her family, although the head of state is said to like practical gifts, but not overly extravagant ones.

The Duchess of Cambridge has revealed she was previously left stumped over what to buy the Queen for Christmas

'I thought "I'll make her something". Which could have gone horribly wrong. But I decided to make my granny's recipe of chutney,' the Duchess said.

'I was slightly worried about it, but I noticed the next day that it was on the table.'

The Queen will celebrate her 91st birthday privately today after the pomp and ceremony which surrounded the big day last year

The Duchess of Cambridge was previously left stumped as to what to give the monarch for Christmas and ended up presenting her with homemade chutney

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born at 2.40am on April 21 1926, the first child of the then Duke and Duchess of York, at 17 Bruton Street, the Mayfair home of her mother's parents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore.

With the passing years have come milestones for the Queen.

She became Britain's longest-reigning monarch, passing her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria's record, in September 2015.

With the death of 88-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand last autumn, the Queen is now the world's longest reigning living monarch.

Members of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment hold onto their caps in the wind as they prepare to fire a 21 gun salute

Members of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery take part in a ceremonial 41 gun salute in Hyde Park

A member of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery disposes of a spent shell casing as they fire a 41 Gun Royal Salute

Earlier this year on February 6, the date she became Queen in 1952, she achieved another milestone, becoming the first British sovereign to reach their Sapphire Jubilee, a reign lasting 65 years.

The Queen is thought to be at Windsor Castle, where she traditionally spends a month-long residence, known as Easter Court.

Earlier this month she invited British astronaut Tim Peake and others to a dinner at the castle for an event known as a 'dine and sleep' evening, where guests also spend the night.

WHAT TO BUY THE WOMAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING? The monarch's sons and daughter have apparently delighted the royal matriarch over the years with household items such as a washing-up apron and a casserole dish, while the Duchess of Cambridge once presented her with some home-made chutney. The Duke of York bought the Queen her first mobile phone many years ago, while former US president Barack Obama once gave her an iPod. As Elizabeth II marks her birthday, here are some of her favourite presents over the decades: Peggy the Pony Princess Elizabeth's first horse - a Shetland pony called Peggy - was a gift from her grandfather, King George V, when she was four years old. She started riding lessons when she was three-and-a-half, and when she was five her mother led her on Peggy to a meet of the Pytchley Hounds at Boughton Cover. Peggy inspired the Queen's lifelong love of horses. The Queen still rides and is a horse racing and breeding expert. Queen Elizabeth II with the Duke of York on her Shetland pony, Peggy in 1930 Susan the Corgi Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth was thrilled to be given her first Pembroke Welsh corgi - which she named Susan - by her parents for her birthday. Synonymous with the breed, the Queen has owned more than 30 during her reign and many were descended from Susan. The Queen's first corgi was rather partial to going for servants' legs and once bit a royal clockwinder on the ankle - but Susan was so loved by the Princess that she even accompanied her on her honeymoon in 1947. The Queen now has only one corgi left, Willow, as well as Candy and Vulcan - two dorgis - a cross between a corgi and a dachshund. The Queen is known for her love of corgis and has had dozens of the dogs as pets over the years Big Mouth Billy Bass The Queen was so amused by Billy Bass the singing fish - a mounted fish which moves and mimes the words to Take Me To The River or Don't Worry, Be Happy - that she was apparently given six more for Balmoral. She was introduced to the gift, which became popular in the 2000s, by the Princess Royal - and one apparently stands on top of the grand piano in the Queen's Scottish home. She was also sent a Rocky Lobster, a lifesize singing crustacean which performs Do Wah Diddy Diddy and Rock The Boat, and the Queen is said to sing along to the tunes. A ventriloquist Prince Harry delighted his grandmother with a special birthday gift on her 90th birthday by arranging to perform a short cabaret with ventriloquist Nina Conti at the Queen's party. Harry had the Royal Family in fits of laughter as he acted as Conti's dummy during the Windsor Castle bash. Sentimental jewellery A suite of sapphire gemstones was given to Princess Elizabeth on her wedding day by her father. George VI's gift to his eldest daughter in 1947 - 70 years ago - was a glittering necklace, dating from 1850 and made of 16 large oblong sapphires surrounded with round diamonds, with a pair of matching sapphire and diamond drop earrings. The Queen has added a tiara and bracelet to the collection, and has worn the jewels many times. Advertisement

In Hyde Park at midday, 41 volleys in honour of her birthday will be fired by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

Then an hour later the Honourable Artillery Company will fire a 62-gun salute at the Tower of London - an extra 21 for the City of London.

The Queen traditionally has two birthdays, her actual birthday and an official birthday marked every summer by the Trooping the Colour ceremony.

At midday, 41 volleys in honour of the Queen's birthday will be fired by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery

The curious decision to give monarchs two birthdays dates back to Edward VII, who was born on November 9 but celebrated the birthday in May and June as the weather was better during these months for outdoor events.

Subsequent monarchs helpfully had birthdays at more convenient times of the year.

But the Queen's father, King George VI, reintroduced the tradition which she has continued.

Elsewhere, Prince William spoke of the problem of finding her a present. 'It's quite hard to know what to give the Queen for her 91st birthday that she hasn't already got,' he told Radio 1.

Handmade gifts by Prince George and Princess Charlotte were a favourite, he said. 'They make stuff and that goes down really well - doesn't matter what it looks like, it just goes down really well!'
Marrying into royalty generally means leaving whatever career you had behind for a life of unveiling plaques and smiling benignly on state visits.

So it's easy to forget that some royal women had very impressive careers before they gave it all up for charity work and raising their families.

From multilingual Queen Mathilde of Belgium, a former speech therapist who has a masters degree in psychology to Queen Maxima of The Netherlands who held high ranking positions at big banks, these women have very impressive academic credentials and career achievements.

But how do our own royal family, including former PR consultant Sophie Wessex and Kate, who worked part time for Jigsaw, measure up?

History of art graduate worked for her parents' firm and as a part time accessories buyer before her marriage to William

THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE

Kate achieved two As and a B in her A Levels, enabling her to go to St Andrews University where she studied history of art and graduated in 2005 with a 2:1.

Initially, Kate attempted to set up her own childrens clothing line as a subsidiary to her parents company Party Pieces, but she was forced to close it before it launched for financial reasons.

In 2006, it was announced that she'd taken up a position as a part-time accessories buyer for Jigsaw owned by her parents close friends John and Belle Robinson.

However, she quit after less than a year and announced that she wanted to pursue a career as a photographer.

There was speculation she would take up a job offer to train under Royal photographer Mario Testino in New York, but instead ended up photographing new stock for the Party Pieces website.

She was also said to be involved in catalogue design, production and marketing, but in 2008 it was reported that the Queen was concerned by Kate's lack of a discernible job.

Kate at her university graduation ceremony at St. Andrews University in 2005. She achieved a 2:1 in history of art

The monarch made it known to William that she felt his girlfriend should be settled into a career before he proposed, but when the couple became engaged two years later Kate was playing the role of housewife while her royal beau worked as a search and rescue pilot in Anglesey.

Since their marriage her public role has increased and she balances royal duties with looking after the couple's two children George and Charlotte.

She is royal patron of a number of charities including East Anglia's Children's Hospices, The Art Room and The National Portrait Gallery.

SOPHIE WESSEX

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, built up her own PR agency and impressed the Queen with her hard-working attitude

The Queen has always been especially fond of Prince Edward's wife and was said to be particularly impressed by the fact she was a hard-working career girl before they got married.

After training as a secretary, the then Sophie Rhys Jones embarked on a career in public relations, working for companies such as Capital Radio, The Quentin Bell Organisation and MacLaurin Communications & Media.

In 1996, she branched out on her own and set up her own agency RJH Public Relations, with her business partner, Murray Harkin where she continued to work following her marriage to Prince Edward.

UK ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS Duchess of Cambridge Countess of Wessex Princess Beatrice Princess Eugenie of York Art History degree Secretarial college History degree English/history of art degree Advertisement

EUROPEAN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS Queen Letizia Queen Maxima of The Netherlands Crown Princess Mary Queen Mathilde of Belgium MA in journalism Economics degree Commerce and law degree Masters in psychology Advertisement

However, it all started to unravel following an indiscreet business talk Sophie had with a Middle Eastern man whom she believed was a potential PR client but who was, in fact, an undercover News of the World reporter.

Chatting in a London hotel about the famous people she knew, in hope of securing a 240,000-a-year contract, she affectionately described the Queen as 'the old dear' and the Queen Mother as 'the old lady'.

In light of these indiscretions she scaled back her commercial work and took up the mantle of royal duties full time in 2002.

PRINCESS BEATRICE

Princess Beatrice has had five jobs in four years and is now embarking on her sixth venture, a startup business consultancy

Prince Andrew's older daughter graduated with a 2:1 degree degree in History and History of Ideas degree from Goldsmiths College, London in 2011.

According to her CV on business website LinkedIn, after leaving university Beatrice worked between September 2011 and January 2012 as a 'research associate' for her mother's charity Children In Crisis. She moved to investment firm Cabot Square Capital in February 2012 but quit 16 months later.

She took her next job, as an 'international production analyst' at Sony Pictures, in January 2014. But she quit the 19,500-a-year post after a year.

Palace aides said afterwards that she was 'exploring her career options'  but that didn't stop her enjoying a string of luxury holidays.

Between December 2014 and December 2015 the princess  who receives no government funding  racked up 18 foreign jaunts including a trip on Roman Abramovich's 1.5billion super-yacht in Ibiza.

Her next position was with Manhattan investment firm Sandbridge Capital, but she turned her back on her fourth job in five years to launch her own startup business consultancy.

PRINCESS EUGENIE

Princess Eugenie achieved the best A-level results of any member of the royal family and has recently been promoted to director at the Mayfair art gallery Hauser & Wirth

Prince Andrew's younger daughter broke royal family records by achieving two As and a B in her A-levels after studying art, English literature and history of art.

Eugenie graduated from Newcastle University with a 2:1 degree in English and history of art five years ago.

She went on to work in Manhattan for online auction company Paddle8.

The Queens granddaughter has been promoted to the role of director of the Hauser & Wirth contemporary art gallery in London.

It comes less than two years after she joined the Mayfair gallery as an associate director.

QUEEN MAXIMA

Queen Maxima of The Netherlands had a high-flying career in finance before her marriage and is now a UN Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development

Before meeting her husband King Willem Alexander of The Netherlands, Argentinian-born Maxima was pursuing a high-flying career in finance.

While studying for her degree in economics from the Pontifical Catholic Universit, she worked for for Mercado Abierto Electronico S.A, an electronic securities and foreign-currency trading market.

She also balanced her studies with working in the sales department of Boston Securities SA in Buenos Aires, conducting research on software for financial markets.

After graduating, she took up a job with HSBC in New York where she rose to vice president of institutional sales for Latin America.

Her next move was to Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in New York where she worked as vice president of the emerging markets division, before moving to Deutsche Bank in Brussels.

She is fluent in Spanish, her first language, English and Dutch and can speak conversational French.

Thanks to her past career, Maxima has been appointed as a UN Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development by Ban Ki Moon.

She's also an honorary patron of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) since June 2011.

CROWN PRINCESS MARY

Former advertising executive Mary Donaldson worked up until her engagement to Prince Frederik of Denmark in 2003

Mary Donaldson studied at the University of Tasmania and graduated with a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws degree.

After graduating she worked as an account executive for various firms before being appointed as account director for international agency Young and Rubicam in 1999.

After meeting Prince Frederik, Princess Mary worked for Belle Property as a sales director, before moving to Paris to teach English at a business school.

In 2002, she moved to Denmark permanently and was employed by Microsoft Business Solutions as a project consultant.

A career-driven woman, Princess Mary worked up until her engagement to Prince Frederik in 2003, when she officially left her prior life and career behind and became a royal.

She also studied Danish as a foreign language so she could embrace her husband's native tongue.

QUEEN MATHILDE

Former speech therapist Queen Mathilde has a masters degree in psychology and has a special interest in children's health and economics

Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz earned a diploma with high honours and set up her own practice in Belgium when she was just 22-years-old.

She then went on to take a masters in psychology and continued her studies after marrying Prince Philippe, the heir to the Belgian throne, graduating in 2002 with honours.

The Queen can speak four languages, French, Dutch, English and Italian.

She has a special interest in children, thanks to her speech therapy work, and is the World Health Organisations Special Representative for Immunization.

She also takes part in the annual World Economic Forum in Davos and has led economic missions to the US and Vietnam with King Philippe.

QUEEN LETIZIA

Queen Letizia of Spain enjoyed a long and successful career in journalism and reported on a wide range of breaking news events, among them the 2000 US presidential elections and the 9/11 attacks before meeting her husband

Before meeting the heir to the Spanish throne, Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano whose father Jesus Jose Ortiz Alvarez and stepmother Ana Togores are both journalists, enjoyed a lengthy career in TV and newspapers.

She completed a BA in journalism, followed by a masters in audiovisual journalism.

After a stint at Asturian daily paper, La Nueva Espana, she went on to work for ABC, a popular national newspaper that enjoys the third largest circulation in Spain.

Next came a stint at Spanish news agency EFE before a move to Guadalajara in Mexico saw her take on a role on local paper, Siglo 21.

Back in Spain a year later, she worked for the Spanish version of Bloomberg, a news channel and agency specialising in economics, before moving to CNN+.

By the time she met her husband-to-be, Letizia was working for popular TV channel 24 Horas, where along with anchoring the popular Telediario 2 evening news bulletin.

She reported on a wide range of breaking news events, among them the 2000 US presidential elections and the 9/11 attacks.
Ivanka Trump kept tight-lipped as she stepped out of her Washington, D.C. home on Friday morning after the White House revealed her full plans to travel to Germany next week to mourn Holocaust victims.

When the White House released the news on Thursday, Ivanka was referred to as the 'First Daughter and Assistant to the President,' and she looked deep in thought when she left her home the next day.

Although she kept her megawatt smile hidden, the 35-year-old looked elegant in a black peplum top featuring colorful polka dots, which she paired with a matching skirt that grazed her calves.

Big news: Ivanka Trump was photographed stepping out of her house on Friday after the White House released details about official trip to Germany as the 'First Daughter'

First Daughter: The 35-year-old looked elegant in a black peplum top featuring colorful polka dots, which she paired with a matching skirt that grazed her calves.

President Donald Trump's eldest daughter had her long blond hair half up, and she accessorized her look with two classics: aviator sunglasses and black pumps.

Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner was also pictured leaving their home, and President Trump's senior adviser seemed to be in a relatively good mood as he flashed a small smile for the cameras.

Although his wife was seen walking out the front door, Jared used the side gate, the same one that was used by members of Ivanka's glam squad earlier in the day.

It was a busy morning for the couple, and while they were on their way out the door, an unknown man was pictured attempting to leave a globe for them as a gift.

Ivanka will soon be on her way to Germany, and according to the White House, she will visit Berlin 'at the direct invitation' of Chancellor Angela Merkel to participate in the Women's 20 Summit.

On the heels of Press Secretary Sean Spicer's Holocaust gaffe, Ivanka will pay her respects at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe during her Tuesday trip.

Straight face: Ivanka kept her lips pursed as she walked down the stairs of her home

There she goes: Ivanka made her way to the black SUV waiting outside for her as a Secret Service agent held the car door open for her

Ivanka will start her day with a visit to the American embassy in Berlin.

From there she'll participate in a panel discussion with a number of prominent faces including Merkel, International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.

In March, Ivanka and Chancellor Merkel held a roundtable on 'Vocational Education and Workforce Development.'

Along the same lines, 'with education and skills training being central to Ivanka and Chancellor Merkels agenda,' the first daughter will visit Siemens Technik Akademie after the women's panel.

Ivanka headed to the White House where her father met with Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker whose freedom President Trump and his team helped secure

Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, was detained in Egypt for nearly three years on human trafficking charges and acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday

From there, Ivanka, who converted to Judaism when she married Jared in 2009, will head to the Holocaust memorial.

Last week, during Passover, White House Press Secretary Spicer favorably compared Adolf Hitler to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, causing international outcry.

Spicer apologized multiple times, but the gaffe didn't do the Trump administration any favors as acts of anti-Semitism have ticked up as President Trump has taken power.

Ivanka's visit is in honor of, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, but is also a savvy public relations move for the administration, in the aftermath of the Spicer incident.

Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner was seen leaving their home from the side entrance

Members of Ivanka's glam squad were seen leaving her house (left), while a man was pictured trying to leave a gift for the family (right)

Adding a little glitz and glamour to her first solo trip as both first daughter and an official White House aide, Ivanka Trump will conclude her day with a gala dinner.

Ivanka continues to play an outsized role in her father's administration, compared to her stepmother Melania Trump, who only sporadically dips into D.C.

The first lady was on hand, however, this week playing host at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday.

Ivanka and Jared were the only family members not to attend the event, as the couple was continuing to celebrate Passover.

Ivanka will make her first solo international trip as 'First Daughter and Assistant to the President,' to Germany next week

In Germany, Ivanka (left) will again meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (right), participating in a panel discussion and honoring Holocaust victims

Ivanka (left), photographed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (right), will visit Siemens Technik Akademie in Berlin on Tuesday

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) is photographed chatting with first daughter Ivanka (right) during a White House meeting on vocational training in March

However, Ivanka ended the week at the White House when her father met with Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker whose freedom President Trump and his team helped secure.

Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, was detained in Egypt for nearly three years on human trafficking charges.

She was flown back to the United States on Thursday on a US military plane, accompanied by a top White House official, a senior administration official said.

Hijazi was acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday along with seven others who had worked with street children.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and attended George Mason University, was released from jail on Tuesday, having been held for nearly three years.
When it comes to fashion, we are all inspired by what we see; whether it be a well dressed celebrity, a blow-your-mind catwalk presentation or even a super stylish every-day passerby.

As fashion editors, we're moved by all of the above, and then some. We're exposed to under the radar labels; we get a first-hand look at collections months before they hit stores; we're tapped into brands with chic-yet-cheap offerings and we shop - a lot.

To share our knowledge, FEMAIL brings you Style Swoon, a weekly series of the latest, greatest and on the verge. We hope this weekly Friday series will serve as a buying guide and point of inspiration for the clotheshorses and fashion fanatics alike.

SHAY MITCHELL'S TRENCH

Jinx Trench Coat by AQ/AQ, now $147.50; aqaq.com

Like a a true city slicker, Shay Mitchell stepped out wearing head-to-toe black in New York on Tuesday.

We couldn't help but swoon over the Pretty Little Liars star's Jinx Trench Coat by AQ/AQ. The softly tailored jacket is a classic that features belted sleeves and can be cinched at the waist

It falls just below the knees and is the perfect weight for this time of year. Bonus, it's currently on sale!

M MISSONI'S GLITTER GLAM COLLECTION

Striped Lurex Maxi Dress by M Missoni, $1,095; M Missoni Retail Stores Nationwide,m-missoni.com Shoulder Bag by M Missoni, $395; shopbop.com Crocheted Metallic Knit Top by M Missoni, $595; neimanmarcus.com Crocheted Metallic Knit Skirt by M Missoni, $695; neimanmarcus.com Zig Zag bikini by M Missoni $197, lyst.com

M Missoni's latest collection of clothing and accessories is feminine with a laid-back vibe that has the most stylish swooning.

Inspired by graphism, modern art and hippy-folk, Glitter Glam makes a sparkly statement thanks to the usage of lurex knits and the presence of color.

Body-conscious silhouettes take this gypsy chic line from day to night.

MUST-HAVE SLIDES BY SCHUTZ

Left: Vitamin/Sea, $125; schutz-shoes.com. Right: Take Me To Paradise, $125; schutz-shoes.com

Footwear brand Schutz launched a capsule collection of six fun metallic pool slides on Tuesday.

Each slide features a fun phrase like 'Take Me To Paradise' to coincide with the brand's 'Living for Pleasure' motto.

They're available exclusively online and at the Beverly Hills store for $125.

BOBBI BROWN'S LORD AND TAYLOR CONCEPT SHOP

Shopping with ease: Iconic Beauty Mogul, Bobbi Brown, launched justBOBBI concept shops - in-store and online spaces dedicated to wellness, beauty, apparel and accessories -at select Lord & Taylor locations this week

Iconic Beauty Mogul, Bobbi Brown, launched justBOBBI concept shops - in-store and online spaces dedicated to wellness, beauty, apparel and accessories -at select Lord & Taylor locations this week.

The venture coincides with the release of her new book, Beauty from the Inside Out, now available for purchase nationwide.

'Ive been a makeup artist since I graduated college,' Bobbi told Femail.

'But while I was a makeup artist, I also had a self discovery on taking care of myself. Its been a passion of mine to learn what works and what doesn't. When I wrote this book, it was really to help empower and teach people that putting the right things in your body makes all the difference.'

You got this: 'Its amazing how powerful positive reinforcement is. That's something I've always been a part of. Ive always helped empower and inspire people'

And according to Bobbi, that extends beyond just the food you take in. It's about controlling the clutter in your head, too.

'Its amazing how powerful positive reinforcement is. That's something I've always been a part of. Ive always helped empower and inspire people.

'Its all about positive energy. If you dont have positive energy around you, you dont attract positive energy. You got to bring to the table what you want. I've learned that first hand.'

Read about it: The venture coincides with the release of her new book, Beauty from the Inside Out, now available for purchase nationwide

Designed to give customers a 360-degree view of Bobbis life, the concept shops highlight her everyday wardrobe essentials such as Champion sweatshirts, Stan Smith sneakers, Hudson denim, philanthropic t-shirt brands Good hYOUman and n:Philanthropy, as well as select wellness items such as the Super Elixir and Dr. Frank Lipman supplements that are prominently featured in her new book.

Shop til you drop? Nope, not with an assortment of New York Times best-selling books and sweatshirts that feature slogans like 'Got This' for sale. At justBOBBI, it's more like shop 'til you soar!

A simple life: Designed to give customers a 360-degree view of Bobbis life, the concept shops highlight her everyday wardrobe essentials

KOURTNEY'S GOOD JEANS

Right: Bowie Skinny Jeans by Moussy, $305; revolve.com

Left: Vintage Hi-Rise Straight Crop by American Eagle, now $39.99; ae.com. Right: Relaxed Skinny Ankle Jeans by H&M, $39.99; hm.com



Kourtney Kardashian wore Moussy Bowie Skinny Jeans while out in Disneyland in Anaheim, California this week.

While the reality star's denim comes with a hefty designer price-tag, we can't help but like them.

A high-waisted silhouette with a cropped hem is very flattering on the body. So...we found less expensive options. You're welcome!

BOMB ALPHA INDUSTRY JACKETS

MA-1 Souvenir Year of The Rooster Flight Jacket by Alpha Industries, $250; alphaindustries.com

MA-1 Souvenir Tiger Flight Jacket by Alpha Industries, $275; alphaindustries.com

While bomber jackets aren't a new trend, these nylon shells by Alpha Industries really caught our attention.

They're reversible, water-resistant and they feature intricate embroidery on the chest and on the back panel.

For added cool points, each topper (ranging in price from $225-$275) has an Alpha Industries signature zippered utility/pencil pocket on one sleeve with the red "Remove Before Flight" tag.
Chelsea Clinton looked blissfully carefree as she smiled on the red carpet at Variety's Power of Women luncheon on Friday after she recently shut down rumors that she would be running for public office.

The 37-year-old is one of the cover stars of the the trade publication's Power of Women issue, and she donned a colorful dress for her appearance at the event held at Cipriani Midtown in New York City.

Chelsea's layered ringlets were blown out and curled at the ends, and she paired her bright spring dress with a royal blue cardigan, sheer tights, and nude patent pumps.

Strike a pose: Chelsea Clinton was all smiles at Variety's Power of Women luncheon on Friday afternoon

All dressed up: The 37-year-old donned a colorful dress and a royal blue cardigan for her appearance at the event, which was held at Cipriani Midtown in New York City

The mother-of-two later removed her cardigan and showed off her sleeveless frock while posing with motivational speaker Haile Thomas, who donned an equally colorful dress.

Chelsea spoke at the event, and her printed dress was a perfect match for the floral background on the stage behind her.

The former first daughter was among a host of the magazine's cover stars to attend, including Gayle King, 62, and Jessica Chastain, 40.

Colorful frocks: The mother-of-two later removed her cardigan and showed off her sleeveless frock while posing with motivational speaker Haile Thomas

Power of Women: Chelsea was honored alongside a group that includes Audra McDonald, Tina Knowles-Lawson, Jessica Chastain, Gayle King, Blake Lively and Shari Redstone (left to right)

In good company: Chelsea sat next to Haile while enjoying the lunch in her honor

Variety also chose to honor Blake Lively, 29, Audra McDonald, 46, and Shari Redstone, 63, at its annual luncheon.

While Chelsea was at the star-studded event, her longtime friend Ivanka Trump was at the White House with her father.

On Friday, President Donald Trump and his eldest daughter met with Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker whose freedom he and his team helped secure.

Although the two pals have yet to be seen together since the election, Chelsea sent Ivanka's three children well wishes during her appearance on CBS This Morning earlier this month.

Perfect fit: Chelsea spoke at the event, and her printed dress was a perfect match for the floral background on the stage behind her

'I hope her kids are doing well,' she said. 'I hope they're enjoying their new home in Washington.'

Chelsea's smile is front and center on the cover of Variety's newest issue, which sees her laughing and modeling a black wool motorcycle jacket over a plain white T-shirt and jeans.

Inside the issue, Chelsea reveals that she has no plans to run for office, laments the amount of fake news that has been spread about The Clinton Foundation and discusses how she is able to balance her career with having two young children.

Joker: A laughing Chelsea appears on the 'Variety' Power of Women issue (above)

Juggling it all: Chelsea and her husband Marc with their daughter Charlotte and son Aidan in September

Role model: 'I certainly saw her work hard, but I never doubted I was the most important person in her life,' said Chelsea of her mom (above)

'I think the best advice I ever received was from my mom,' explained Clinton.

'Maybe it isnt so much advice, as just the example that she set for me growing up, where I certainly saw her work hard, but I never doubted I was the most important person in her life.'

When asked why she was laughing on the cover by one Twitter user, Chelsea tweeted: 'Was laughing about the wonderfully hilarious & sweet things Charlotte sometimes says. Hope the people in your life bring you as much joy!'
Chicken in milk - it may sound like an odd combination, but many have lauded the recipe as the best way to cook the bird since celebrity chef Jamie Oliver pioneered the dish back in 2002.

Now, 15 years later, the 41-year-old healthy eating champion, of London, has revealed the secrets of his most famous recipe - including the reason why it works so well.

The dish was originally published in the chef's cookbook, Happy Days With The Naked Chef, when Oliver was just 25 but it has continued to be a household staple for many cooks, and held up as one of the best ways to cook chicken.

Jamie Oliver's famous Chicken in Milk involves browning off a chicken before adding milk which will create a delectable sauce when lemon is added to it

Oliver told the New York Times he was inspired to create the recipe after a visit to Tuscany after eating a pork dish where the meat had been braised in milk.

'I never, ever forgot it,' he said.

Milk has been used by Italian chefs to tenderise pork and beef for generations now, but it is not an ingredient commonly used when cooking meat in the UK or US.

It is a hidden secret of Italian cooking, though, that can transform a humble chicken dish into a spectacular feast, says Oliver.

When Oliver first tasted that pork-in-milk dish in Tuscany, where he was taken to by Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of London's the River Cafe while working for them in the 1990s, he says he knew he had to adapt it for the British palate.

The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver (pictured), says he still gets 'excited' about cooking his famous Chicken in Milk recipe

Ingredients for Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk recipe Ingredients: 1.5 kg higher-welfare chicken Sea salt Freshly ground black pepper Olive oil 565 ml milk  stick cinnamon 1 good handful fresh sage , leaves picked 2 lemons , zest of 10 cloves garlic , skin left on Advertisement

But instead of using pork for his version of the dish, he chose chicken - because it is generally cheaper, more commonly cooked with, and easier for families to prepare on a weeknight, he said.

The meal Oliver tasted in Tuscany was made with a shoulder of pork that was first browned off in butter before being slow-poached with sage, rosemary and a little nutmeg.

For his version, he switched nutmeg for cinnamon - though he admitted to the New York Times that he now can't remember why - and added lashings of lemon zest in large strips.

He still browns off the chicken first in a pan until it is golden brown before adding the milk, which splits when lemon is added to create a delectable sauce.

The secret to the success of the dish, he says, is 'uncooking' - a term he uses to describe adding lashings of every flavour in the style of a home cook, rather then a precise chef with precise tools.

Anyone who has cooked the dish will know that the milk splits to transform into a deliciously creamy sauce, which Oliver is still enthusiastic about.

'[It's a] whey gravy, a kind of homemade ricotta, double pleasure for sure, boom!'
While Instagrammers across the US and Canada are going crazy for Starbucks' limited-edition Unicorn Frappuccino, baristas at the coffee chain are not quite as excited about the drink.

Shortly after it debuted on Wednesday, a video by Braden Burson went viral, showing the 19-year-old Colorado barista ranting that he's 'never been so stressed out in my entire life' and begging customers not to order it.

And he's not the only one. Dozens of Starbucks employees have taken to Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit to share their not-so-generous thoughts about the fruity concoction.

Scroll down for video

Please make it stop! Starbucks baristas are not all thrilled about the Unicorn Frappuccino

Waiting for the end: Several have taken to social media to rant

Put them out of their misery: Most are happy this particular Frappuccino is only available for a limited time

Why, oh why! They seem to be unhappy about the incredible rush of customers and having to make the complicated concotion

Clearly joking, one barista on Twitter attempted to dissuade customers from buying the drink by writing: 'It's literally a poison-infused abomination.'

'Today has been one hell of a day for us baristas,' wrote another on Wednesday, when the drink came out.

The issues the employees have with the Frappuccino appear to be twofold. The craze over the drink has created an incredible rush of customers, leading to frantic, busy shifts. And the drink itself is complicated to make, involving several ingredients that need to be added to the cup just so.

Colorado barista Burson, who deleted his video from Twitter after it started gaining national attention, said: 'If you love us as baristas, don't order it. It is so difficult to make, and people were coming in left and right, drive thru and in the front.'

Oh, poor you: Even non-baristas feel bad for those manning the machines

Don't, just don't: Some are encouraging people not to order the drink

The humanity! A few have shared pictures of incredibly large Frappuccino orders

Other baristas, and even several customers, shared similar sentiments.

'IF YOU LOVE YOUR BARISTA OR YOUR HEALTH DONT ORDER THE UNICORN,' wrote one. Added another: 'For every unicorn frappuccino you buy a barista dies... pls be nice.'

'I feel a deep sadness for every @Starbucks barista forced to make a Unicorn Frappuccino today,' shared a sympathetic soul.

It seems that Burson's rant, in particular, resonated with the teens, men, and women making the drink across the country.

'I don't normally do this as much as I want to,' he said at the start of the clip, which was filmed in his car. 'But today I need to rant just a little bit.'

Furious: Barista Braden Burson took to social media on Wednesday to complain about the stress he suffered as a result of the Unicorn Frappuccino release

Outrage: The Colorado-based 19-year-old videoed himself ranting about the endless number of people who ordered the drink from him, leaving him covered in 'unicorn crap'

'As most of you know, I work at Starbucks, and the new Unicorn Frappuccino came out today... So, the Unicorn Frappuccino came out on the internet a few weeks ago, and it has been the number one Frappuccino ever.

'Because it has been so popular online, everyone is like, "Oh my gosh, I need to try it when it comes out." Well today it came out, and I have to tell you, please don't get it!'

The Unicorn Frappuccino is a sweet and sour pink and blue swirled drink topped with what Starbucks calls 'fairy powder'.

Burson said in the video that a day of making the treat left him with sticky hands and residue from the drink stuck to his clothes and in his hair.

Raising his voice to a somewhat histrionic scream, Burson continued: 'I have never made so many Frappuccinos in my entire life, my hands are completely sticky, I have unicorn crap all in my hair and on my nose.

'I have never been so stressed out in my entire life. It has been insane,' he said.

And a straw for a horn! The brightly-colored drink is a mix of mango syrup and sour blue drizzle, and is also topped with whipped cream

Drink up! After images of the Unicorn Frappuccino appeared on social media in the weeks leading up to its release, thousands of people rushed to buy it when it was officially released

He finishes his desperate plea by saying: 'For the love of god and everything that is good, don't get the Unicorn Frappucccino!'

Burson told The Associated Press that he didn't think his rant would get this much publicity and he didn't intend to 'downgrade' the drink.

'It's a great drink. But it is difficult to make when there are like 20 fraps all at once both front and drive thru,' he wrote in a Facebook message.

But while Burson did not expect his video to garner much attention, it quickly racked up thousands of views, prompting the Starbucks employee to remove the original clip just hours after posting it on social media.

Starbucks said in a statement Thursday that the popular reception of the drink has 'exceeded everyone's expectations.' It added that it is reaching out to Burson 'to talk about his experience and how to make it better.'

Burson said he hadn't heard from the company as of midday Thursday.

Drink up fast! The news broke to great excitement and anticipation

So pumped! Social media users are very excited about the new item

Not impressed: Despite the picture-perfect appearance of the drink, some people seem to have had bad reactions to the super-sweet taste

Lover: However there are some who couldn't get enough of the sugary beverage

The drink, which is only available through Sunday, April 23, started earning buzz online even before Starbucks officially announced it, thanks to giddy baristas who couldn't keep the secret.

Official pictures showed a blended pink drink with a squiggled blue line running through. It's topped with whipped cream, which is sprinkled with pink and blue powder.

Starbucks says the specialty item is a mix of mango syrup and 'pleasantly sour' blue drizzle. In a press release, the brand explained that swirling the drink changes its color to purple, and the flavor evolves from sweet and fruity to tangy and tart.

And while Starbucks has said that the drink will only remain on the menu for a limited period, there is a slim chance that it could make a more permanent return in the future.

Recently, the coffee chain officially added the viral 'Pink Drink'  a popular item from its 'secret menu'  to its official beverage line-up.

The blend of passion fruit, coconut milk, and strawberries was a hugely popular item last summer, thanks in large part to its picture-perfect appearance, which made it a hit with social media lovers the world over.
Cutting off oxygen for most creatures will result in near-instant death.

But scientists have discovered that one animal  the naked mole rat  is able to survive for up to five hours while starved of oxygen.

The strange-looking creature is able to create oxygen in its own body with a chemical reaction.

The strange-looking mole-rat uses fructose to produce oxygen with its own body

It can create oxygen without using its lungs  producing it from fructose, a type of sugar, within its own body.

It is hoped that understanding the extraordinary trick performed by the naked mole rat could lead to new treatments for heart attacks and strokes.

Being able to breathe without using their lungs is only the latest extraordinary ability found in the creatures.

Naked mole rats, which lack fur and live in complex underground burrows, were already known to live decades longer than other rodents, resist getting cancer, and be impervious to many types of pain.

They are also virtually cold-blooded and the only mammal with a social structure similar to that of ants and termites.

Naked mole rats live decades longer than other rodents, resist getting cancer and are impervious to certain types of pain

Each colony has a female queen that gives birth to young, a small number of breeding males, and numerous sterile workers.

Lead scientist Professor Thomas Park, from the University of Illinois in Chicago, US, said: The naked mole rat has simply rearranged some basic building-blocks of metabolism to make it super-tolerant to low oxygen conditions.

In laboratory tests, naked mole rats totally starved of oxygen went into a state of suspended animation but survived for up to 18 minutes with no lasting ill effects.

Mole rats can survive for hours with oxygen levels that would be fatal to humans in minutes

Mice subjected to the same conditions perished in 20 seconds.

At oxygen levels low enough to be fatal to humans within minutes, the creatures kept going for at least five hours.

As they switched from normal metabolism, the naked mole rats released large amounts of fructose in their bloodstreams and used it as an energy source.

The ability to do without oxygen is thought to be an adaptation to living in airless super-crowded burrows packed with hundreds of colony-mates.

Mole rats live in complex underground burrows with a social structure similar to ants

The findings, published in the journal Science, could help researchers devise new strategies to prevent tissue damage in victims of heart attacks and strokes.

German co-author Professor Gary Lewin, from the Max Delbruck Centre for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, said: Our work is the first evidence that a mammal switches to fructose as a fuel.

Patients who suffer an infarction (heart attack) or stroke experience irreparable damage after just a few minutes of oxygen deprivation.
Fifteen babies and three mothers have needlessly died at an NHS Trust in the past decade.

Staff errors including failure to measure babies' heart rates and spot vital signs of infection are thought to be to blame.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered an investigation into each of the deaths that occurred at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, but refused to launch a public inquiry.

This comes 14 months after a report found the Trust's two hospitals were among the 21 nationwide with an infant mortality rate more than 10 per cent higher than the average.

Simon Wright, chief executive, The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'The death of a baby is the most tragic event imaginable and we again apologise unreservedly to the families involved.'

The NHS Trust may be responsible for the death of 15 babies and three mothers in just 10 years

An investigation is also underway into the Trust's 10 near fatalities where patients suffered harm.

Rhiannon Stanton-Davies' daughter Kate passed away at the Trust in 2009 and she claims it has not learned from its past failures.

She said: 'It's shocking that babies have continued to die needlessly despite everything the trust said it learned since Kate's death. You can't put this massive tragedy down to one thing. It's not one individual.

'It is that mistakes continue to happen, nothing is ever learned, and so more babies die.

Rhiannon Stanton-Davies' daughter Kate (pictured) Kate died after midwives failed to notice Ms Stanton-Davies' risky pregnancy

'Even when the mistake are obvious, the trust has not learned from them. It's a toxic culture,' she told the Mirror.

Kate died after midwives failed to notice Ms Stanton-Davies' risky pregnancy.

At least four midwives are being investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Trust.

A spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We can confirm that we are investigating a number of midwives at the trust.

'We are keen for our investigation to progress so we can bring it to a conclusion as quickly as possible and avoid any further distress and upset for the family.

'Protecting the public is our first priority, and we can confirm that we will be meeting with Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust shortly to discuss the next steps of our respective investigations.'

Sadly Kate is not the only baby the Trust has failed in recent years.

Kelly Jones delivered stillborn twins Ella and Lola in September 2014 after repeatedly telling staff she was in pain.

'PIPPA WAS FAILED': MOTHER REVEALS HEARTBREAK OVER HER DAUGHTER'S AVOIDABLE DEATH A heartbroken mother whose newborn baby died at the NHS trust at the heart of the ongoing infant death scandal says medics 'failed' in their duty. Pippa Griffiths contracted a fatal infection just hours after she was born at home on April 26 last year, an inquest earlier this month heard. Midwives at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital failed to visit afterwards nor offer her mother, Kayleigh, 30, any advice. Staff from the trust that runs the hospital eventually visited the family, but they insisted that her death was unavoidable. Pippa Griffiths contracted a fatal infection just hours after she was born at home on April 26 last year, an inquest earlier this month heard But had midwives noticed Pippa had Group B Strep earlier - which can lead to blood poisoning and meningitis, she may still be alive today, a coroner ruled. We expected better from the NHS. But Pippa was failed Kayleigh Griffiths, 30 In an exclusive interview with The Mirror, Mrs Griffiths and Pippa's father Colin, 40, revealed their agony - and accused the trust of a cover-up. Mrs Griffiths, an NHS auditor, said: 'We expected better from the NHS. But Pippa was failed.' The newspaper reported how Mrs Griffiths initially sought medical advice from the trust when Pippa's breathing changed. After noticing her daughter's vomit was brown, at 2.55am she was told by a midwife over the phone that it was nothing to worry about. Mrs Griffiths (pictured) claims her daughter's medical records did not mention Pippa's symptoms, which she called the Trust concerned about, including her brown vomit Pippa's skin later turned purple and she stopped breathing completely. She was airlifted to hospital where she died later that afternoon at 4.09pm. Mrs Griffiths said her daughter's medical records had not mentioned the initial concerns they rang about. Simon Wright, chief executive of the NHS Trust, said: 'We are truly sorry that we did not provide the appropriate care that would have prevented Pippa's death. 'We have apologised to Pippa's parents and are continuing to improve services and our investigations to ensure we learn from these devastating events. 'The Trust accepts that, if a complete systematic inquiry about neonatal health had taken place during the very first telephone contact, when concerns were raised about Pippa's feeding, it is more than likely that signs of neonatal ill health would have been identified and Pippa's parents would have been signposted to appropriate health care professionals, providing the opportunity of earlier diagnosis and treatment. 'The Trust also accepted that if Pippa's parents had been given appropriate literature before or immediately following their daughter's birth, they would have had access to information on the signs of neonatal ill health when these developed to help them seek the appropriate advice and help.' Advertisement

Ms Jones, from Monkmoor, Shrewsbury, said she was ignored and became so worried she attempted to discharge herself from the Royal Shrewsbury.

Ms Jones told BBC News: 'The midwife came in crying, saying I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. My girls are gone because they couldn't be bothered doing their job.'

An investigation revealed both babies died from oxygen starvation to the brain 'contributed to by delay in recognising deterioration in the foetal heart traces and the missed opportunities for earlier delivery'.

In a letter to Ms Jones nine months after the twins' deaths, the Trust promised to improve the monitoring of baby's heart rates.

TRAGEDIES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED Jenson Christopher Barnett (pictured with his parents Kate and Andrew) died after suffering brain damage in a botched forceps delivery in 2013 Jenson Christopher Barnett  2013. Died after suffering brain damage in a botched forceps delivery. Coroner said he should have had a caesarean. Ella and Lola Greene  2014. Stillborn twins after the Trust failed to properly read and interpret their heart rates. Oliver Smale  2015. Coroner said he would have survived if delivered earlier by caesarean section. Kye Hall  2015. His death was 'caused or contributed' to by the Trust, said the coroner, which failed to classify his mother as a high-risk pregnancy or listen to his heart beat. Graham Scott Holmes-Smith  2015. Died after a failure to properly monitor heart rate. Ivy Morris  2016. Ivy was born ten days after Graham but died four months later. The coroner ruled her death could have been prevented if appropriate monitoring of her heart rate had taken place during labour. Pippa Griffiths  2016. An inquest concluded an infection should have been spotted earlier. Jack Stephen Burn  2015. Died within days of Oliver Smale from group B Streptococcus infection. Sophiya Hotchkiss  2014. The family said no investigation was carried out. Advertisement

Yet, just two months later, Kye Hall died at the Princess Royal Hospital aged just four days after staff failed to listen to his heart rate at two critical times.

A monitor used in hospitals, called a cardiotocograph, indicates how the foetal heart rate is responding to the stress caused by the mother's contractions.

The Trust says improvements have been made and mortality rates are now similar to the national average.

Dr Edwin Borman, medical director at the Trust, said: 'In the case of foetal heart rate monitoring, we have identified a number of cases where learning has not been fully implemented. We've put systems in place to make improvements.'

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'The Health Secretary asked NHS regulators to undertake an investigation in light of disclosures that in a number of tragic cases standards of care fell far below those that parents would expect.'
The NHS tried to dodge media attention over the vaginal mesh implants that left hundreds of women in agony.

The procedure cut into their vaginas and left many in discomfort so severe they have been left unable to work, walk or have sex.

It has now emerged the NHS actively sought to avoid courting headlines over the matter.

Minutes from an NHS meeting back in October show an agreement to 'take the press element out of' a campaign for women experiencing complications from the devices.

Over 800 women are suing the NHS and the implants' manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson.

The NHS sought to 'avoid media attention' over the agonising vaginal mesh implants

[We should] look into taking the press element out of the mesh yellow card campaign Minutes from a October 2016 MHRA meeting

The meeting's minutes, seen by the Press Association, outline the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency's (MHRA) yellow card campaign, which targets under-reporting of mesh complications.

Officials said they should 'look into taking the press element out of the mesh yellow card campaign' and 'investigate whether there can be a general yellow card campaign, of which mesh is one element, to avoid media attention on mesh'.

Between April 2007 and March 2015, over 92,000 women had vaginal mesh implants fitted in England. Of which, around one in 11 have experienced problems, according to NHS data from the Hospital Episodes Statistics.

An investigative report from a working party led by NHS England admits there is a huge lack of understanding over the devices' complications.

Since 2011, the MHRA has collected data showing over 1,000 reports of complications after the procedure.

A December 2015 interim report from the working group in England said the NHS is unable to collect accurate data on their use.

WHAT ARE VAGINAL MESH IMPLANTS? The devices repair damaged or weakened tissue in the vagina wall. Some women report severe and constant abdominal and vaginal pain following the surgery. Despite criticism, the procedure is still performed if a woman's incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse is severe. Women should be made aware of the potential risks of the implants and agree to proceed regardless. Around 100 types of vaginal mesh implants are available in the UK. No model has been withdrawn to date. If the women are successful in their legal case, the NHS compensation payout could be tens of millions of pounds. Thousands of women have successfully sued manufacturers in the US, receiving payouts that total several billion dollars. Advertisement

Yet, the report added there is an 'under-reporting' of complications to the MHRA

It said: 'Despite extensive efforts, the data and information group has found it difficult to gather information on mesh-related adverse incidents other than peer-reviewed publications in the medical literature, which the group feels does not tell the whole story with regard to adverse incidents.'

In a foreword to the report, Professor Keith Willett, medical director for acute care, NHS England, said: 'There is evidence that complications, when they do arise, can be very severe and life-altering.

'There is a lack of comprehensive data on complications, due to issues relating to data coding and incomplete data recording.

'This is coupled with a lack of data from safety reporting of adverse incidents and long-term population level surgical outcomes, meaning we do not currently know the true complication rates and cannot use data to gauge severity.'

Patients in England and Scotland have resigned from working groups set up to investigate the issue, describing them as a 'whitewash'.

The vaginal mesh implants have 'eroded through' and 'destroyed' women's urethras

Ann Bori, 61, from Lincolnshire, had a mesh implant in 2003 for incontinence but suffered debilitating pain when it 'eroded through' her urethra and 'destroyed it' eight years later.

She helps run the support group Sling The Mesh, which has 1,600 members.

Ms Bori said: 'I resigned because the group were not tackling the safety issue around mesh and were not willing to talk about it.

'They want to keep mesh on the market.'

Implant recipient Kate Langley has been admitted to hospital 53 times to try and relieve the pain.

Yet, the mesh is too close to her nerve to be completely removed, leaving her with nerve damage.

Ms Langley was forced to give up her childminder business because the pain left her unable to look after the children.

Kate Langley has been admitted to hospital 53 times for the pain and is unable to work

A spokeswoman for the MHRA said patient safety was its highest priority.

She said: 'MHRA strongly encourages the reporting of issues related to all medical devices.

'When promoting reporting, it is important to strike a balance between causing undue concern to patients who may benefit from a procedure and making sure they are aware of the potential complications.

'The evidence we have seen and continue to see is the greater proportion of the clinical community and patients support the use of these devices in the UK for treatment of the distressing conditions of incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.

'We encourage anyone who suspects they have had a complication after having a mesh device implanted, to discuss this with their clinician and report to us via the Yellow Card scheme regardless of how long ago the implant was inserted.'

NHS England was unable to provide a comment.
Britain's obesity crisis could be to blame for the rising rates of kidney cancer.

The condition is one of the fastest growing forms of the disease and can have devastating consequences.

Obesity has caused around 20,000 cases of the cancer over the past decade in the UK, according to new data.

It is unclear exactly why carrying excessive weight puts you at risk, but it may be related to insulin resistance.

According to Cancer Research, kidney cancer has increased by 40 per cent in just 10 years and could rise a further 26 per cent by 2035.

Obesity has caused around 20,000 kidney cancer cases in the past decade in the UK

WHAT IS KIDNEY CANCER? Kidney cancer usually affects people aged 60 to 70 and is rare in people younger than 50. Symptoms include blood in your urine and a persistent pain or lump in your back or side. Aside from obesity, causes include smoking, high blood pressure and a family history of the disease. Surgery may be required to remove part or all of the kidney. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

Obesity is linked to 13 types of cancer.

It is thought to cause kidney cancer as obese people are more likely to suffer from insulin resistance, causing excessively high levels of the hormone, which is processed in the kidneys.

This may result in kidney cells dividing more rapidly.

Father-of-four Adam Freeman, 46, from South London, was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2013. He had surgery to remove the cancerous organ and is now in remission.

He said: 'When it comes to my lifestyle, I would say that the little devil on my one shoulder won over the angel on my other, so I ducked exercise and ate badly a bit too often.

'Now, since my diagnosis, I try to listen to the angel rather than the devil on my shoulder.

'I have tried to make things more habitual and rarely skip exercise or make bad food or drink choices. I regularly cycle to work to try and keep fit, and I have also started doing yoga.

'Of course it's challenging to maintain a healthy lifestyle when you are juggling a career and family. I am only human!

'But that's why things have to be a habit so it becomes part of your daily life. We talk much more as a family about healthy choices, particularly trying to make the children aware of how much sugar is in drinks and breakfast cereals.'

Every year there are around 11,900 cases of kidney cancer in the UK - 7,400 cases in men and 4,500 cases in women. About 4,300 people die annually from the disease.

Father-of-four Adam Freeman, 46, (pictured) makes good food choices and maintains a healthy weight after beating his kidney cancer diagnosis. He cycles to work and does yoga

Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information, Cancer Research UK, said: 'It's concerning to see kidney cancer cases rising like this.

'Similar to smoking, where damage to cells builds up over time and increases the risk of cancer, damage from carrying excess weight accumulates over a person's lifetime.

'Making small changes in eating, drinking and being physically active that you can stick with in the long term, is a good way to get to a healthy weight  and stay there.'

This comes after a trial found that giving the drugs ipilimumab and nivolumab together cleared kidney tumours from up to a tenth of patients whose cancer had spread to other organs, after four months of treatment.

The tumours also shrunk in 40 per cent of patients.
Lupita and Carmen Andrade, 16, were only expected to survive for three days after they were born.

Most conjoined twins die shortly after birth - but the girls defied the odds and continued to thrive.

The twins, from New Milford, Connecticut, have learned to share every part of their lives.

When talk of separation surgery came up, Lupita and Carmen asked their mother, 'Why would you want to cut us in half?'

The girls are attached along their chest walls down to their pelvis where their spines meet.

They each have two arms, but only a single leg, with Carmen controlling the right leg and Lupita, the left.

But as they've grown older, health problems are emerging and the girls' future could be in jeopardy.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Carmen (left) and Lupita (right) Andrade, 16, of New Milford, Connecticut, were born joined from the chest wall down to the pelvis - known as omphalopagus twins

Each of the girls has a separate heart, a set of arms, a set of lungs and a stomach. However, they share some ribs, a liver, their circulatory system, and their digestive and reproductive systems (Pictured at unknown date, left and at their quinceanera in 2015, right)

Lupita and Carmen are omphalopagus twins, which make up 10 percent of all conjoined twins.

It means each of the girls has a heart, a set of arms, a set of lungs and a stomach.

However, they share some ribs, a liver, their circulatory system, and their digestive and reproductive systems.

One might wonder how the girls go to the bathroom or deal with the menstrual cycle.

With conjoined twins, the bladder and uterus still function regularly, but one girl has control of one or both of the organs - although it is unclear in this case which girl.

When Lupita and Carmen were young, they spent years in physical therapy learning how to sit up and work together to use their legs.

When they were four years old, they took their first steps together.

However, Lupita is suffering from scoliosis (a sideways curvature of the spine), which is cramping her lungs.

Doctors say she could need surgery to remove a segment of her spine, or alternatively start using an oxygen tank.

While scoliosis surgery can be a relatively straight-forward procedure, that's not the case in conjoined twins.

There is a high risk of death or brain damage for Lupita.

The girls were born in Veracruz, Mexico, and were only expected to live for three days. When they continued to thrive, their parents, Norma and Victor, considered separation but were told it was too risky because of how many organs they shared (Carmen, left, and Lupita, right, at age one)

The family moved to the US on a medical visa when the girls were two years old in hopes that doctors could separate them, but they were told the same news they'd heard in Mexico (pictured as guests on The Tyra Banks Show in 2007)

The girls have learned to live their lives in tandem but have very different personalities. Carmen (left) excels in school and had a quick wit. Lupita (right) is quieter and struggles with reading, taking modified tests in school

THE SIGNS OF OMPHLAOPAGUS TWINS Omphalopagus twins are conjoined twins that are connected from the breastbone to the waist. The heart is never involved in these cases. However, the twins often share a liver, digestive system, diaphragm and other organs. These types of conjoined twins make up 10 percent of all conjoined twins. Although success rates have improved over the years, surgical separation is still rare. It often depens on how many of the organs the twins share. Since 1950, at least one twin has survived separation about 75 percent of the time. Identical twins are formed when one single is egg is fertilized but splits into two embryos. Most conjoining occurs when the fertilized egg fails to separate completely. Advertisement

When Lupita and Carmen were young, doctors considered separating them, but concluded it couldn't be done safely because they shared too many vital organs and their lower spine.

Despite this, they're believed to have every chance of enjoying old age.

So the twins have had to learn to live their lives in tandem - learning how to coordinate and balance, supporting two upper bodies on just one pair of legs.

Carmen told The Hartford Courant: 'If somebody asks us, like, if we're twins, either I or mostly Lupita would just respond -'

'- no, we're really close cousins,' Lupita finished.

The girls have very different personalities. Carmen excels in school and has a quick wit.

Lupita is quieter and struggles with reading, taking modified tests in school.

Carmen also loves wearing make-up and applies eyeliner and mascara, while Lupita can't be bothered.

'A lot of people don't notice, like, because when they first meet us, we kind of have the same reactions,' said Carmen.

'But our friends, once they get to know us, our friends literally tell us, "You guys are so completely different", and I'm like, "Well, yeah. We're two different people".'

The girls say that a lot of people at first don't notice how different they are. Carmen said: 'Once they get to know us, our friends literally tell us, "You guys are so completely different", and I'm like, "Well, yeah. We're two different people"' (pictured left in 2016 with their mother, Norma, and right at their quinceanera in 2015)

The girls are in an agricultural program at school and love animals. They want to have careers as veterinarians or in some aspect of animal husbandry. Carmen said: 'It's more therapeutic than actually talking it out with a counselor or things like that. I guess because they don't speak or ask "How do you feel about that?"' (pictured at unknown date)

And the twins do act like any other teenagers, talking about midterms and the SATs, getting their learner's permit, and practicing piano.

It hasn't been easy playing the instrument but, essentially, Carmen learns the right-hand parts and the left-hand parts for Lupita and the consistently practice so they coordinate playing together.

In school, the girls are in an agricultural program, hoping to have a career as veterinarians or in some aspect of animal husbandry.

Both say they prefer animals to people in many ways.

'They don't talk,' Lupita said.

'They know what you're feeling because they get [it] off of your vibes.'

'It's more therapeutic than actually talking it out with a counselor or things like that,' Carmen added.

'I guess because they don't speak or ask "How do you feel about that?"'

The girls are suffering from medical problems. Lupita (middle) is suffering from scoliosis (a sideways curvature of the spine), and her curved spine is cramping her lungs (pictured with their older sister in 2016)

Lupita's (right) lungs are functioning at only 40 percent capacity and doctors say her condition 'very, very severe' and that she may need an oxygen tank (pictured at unknown date)

However, there are fears when it comes to the girls' health.

Lupita's lungs are functioning at only 40 percent capacity. When she has trouble breathing, Carmen has to breathe harder to compensate.

Dr Mark Lee, a surgeon at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, told the girls and their mother that Lupita's curve is 'very, very severe' and that, typically, a segment of the spine would be removed to correct the malformation.

But nothing about Lupita and Carmen's situation is typical.

There is not a great deal of experience operating on conjoined twins because there are so few of them.

About one in 200,000 live births are conjoined and most are stillborn or die shortly after birth.

In Veracruz, Mexico, where the girls were born before they immigrated to Connecticut at age two on a medical visa, Norma learned she was carrying twins when she was 13 weeks pregnant.

One month later, the doctor revealed they were conjoined and, when the girls were born in June 2000, they were expected to live for only three days.

For scoliosis surgery, Dr Mark Lee has told them that the worst case scenario is Lupita dying or, short of dying, losing her neurologic function. He has encouraged the girls to weigh their options going forward (pictured left in 2015 and right in 2016)

The girls have decided against the surgery that might make it easier for Lupita to breathe. Lupita said: 'We're just going to live out life and that's it' (pictured with Victoria Justice in 2016)

But they continued to thrive. Doctors both in Mexico and the US told Norma and Victor that the girls couldn't be separated because of how many organs they shared.

As for the scoliosis surgery, Dr Lee has told them that the worst case scenario is Lupita dying or, short of dying, losing her neurologic function.

Dr Lee said he expects Lupita's scoliosis to continue to worsen and affect her lungs.

'You know you are looking at essentially maybe needing oxygen going forward and sometimes it can also shorten your lifespan,' Dr Lee told them.

When asked if they ever want to be separated, both say no because - even if the surgery went well - they would have just one leg each and years of physical therapy ahead of them.

'And then there's the whole psychological situation because we've been so used to, like, being together,' Carmen said.

'I don't think there'd be, like, a point.'

And for the surgery that might make it easier for Lupita to breathe. 'There's a lot more risk to it then it actually being beneficial so we...' Carmen begins.

'... decided not to,' Lupita finished.

'We're just going to live out life and that's it.'
A man has been awarded monthly social security payments after a court found that his brain tumor was caused by a company-issued cellphone.

Roberto Romeo was given a phone by Telecom Italia, which he used for three hours a day for 15 years in the job.

Over time, he developed a non-cancerous tumor and the loss of hearing in one ear.

On Thursday, it emerged a court in the northern city of Ivrea has sided with Romeo, ordering the mobile network giant to pay him up to 7,000 euro a year (around $7,500).

It was the first trial court verdict in the world 'to recognize a link between cellphone use and the development of brain tumor'.

Roberto Romeo used his company cellphone for three hours a day for 15 years without taking any precautions, resulting in the non-cancerous tumor and the loss of hearing in one ear

Lawyers claim one of the driving factors was the court's refusal to accept studies that were funded by the telecom industry as evidence.

The legal reasoning behind the ruling, which was issued by a court in the northern city of Ivrea last month but only made public on Thursday, is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

The employee, Roberto Romeo, used the company cellphone for three hours a day for 15 years without taking any precautions, resulting in the non-cancerous tumor and the subsequent loss of hearing in one ear.

'The norms say intense use is one hour a day,' Romeo told Sky TG24. 'I went well beyond the limits.'

Romeo sued the state social security agency, not Telecom Italia, where he still works.

He said he is not against cellphone use, but that consumers should adopt safety measures.

His lawyer said those could include reducing cell phone use and using specialized anti-radiation ear buds.

The Codacons consumer protection agency says it is considering a class-action based on the Romeo decision to have cellphones carry health warnings in Italy, and also to have the health risks associated with cellphone use recognized generally by Italy's social security agency.

Bertone said that a 2012 decision by Italy's highest court awarding social security payments to a sales manager who was on a cellphone five or six hours a day helped paved the way for the ruling in his client's case.

In the earlier case, the trial court denied the claim, but Italy's highest court accepted a link between excessive cell phone use and the manager's tumor.
A California hospital is being sued after doctors accidentally removed a woman's ovaries.

Doctors at Sequoia Hospital, in Redwood City, were supposed to remove the patient's uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix during a procedure in February 2016.

However, the procedure was entered incorrectly into the hospital's surgical schedule - and her ovaries were taken out.

Now, the woman will need estrogen replacement therapy for life, and the hospital has been fined $47,450.

The staggering case is just one of 17 being brought against 14 California hospitals for causing irreparable injury or death in recent years.

Sequoia Hospital (pictured), located in Redwood City, California, has been fined $47,450 for mistakenly removing a woman's ovaries after she went in for surgery in February 2016 to remove her uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix.

A report from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) revealed that a woman, whose name and age have not been released, went in for surgery to remove her fallopian tubes, uterus and appendix.

However, her ovaries were removed, although it's unclear whether the ovaries were removed in addition to, or instead of, the other three.

State health officials have fined the hospital $47,450 for the mistake.

'The care and safety of our patients and staff are the highest priority at Dignity Health Sequoia Hospital and we take this matter very seriously,' said a spokeswoman for health system Dignity Health, which owns the hospital.

'After self-reporting this event to the CDPH, we fully cooperated during their investigation and immediately took steps to ensure this never happens again, including revising protocols and staff re-education.'

TWO DIE IN NHS EVERY DAY OF STARVATION Two British people are dying each day in care of the NHS as a result of starvation or dehydration, shocking statistics show. Hunger or thirst were responsible for 1,022 registered deaths in 2015, with patients in hospitals and care homes being 'forgotten to death'. Experts argue that the increasing demand on NHS staff is causing them to provide lower levels of care towards rising numbers of patients. This means they are unable to help elderly people eat and drink by holding their cups and cutlery for them - leading to them starving to death, some argue. Dehydration was recorded on 429 death certificates of patients who passed away during a period in hospital. While malnutrition was mentioned on 297, figures from the Office of National Statistics revealed. Figures were based on deaths where either cause was mentioned somewhere on a death certificate, either as an underlying cause or a main factor. Advertisement

The fine against Sequoia is one of 17 civil penalties lodged against 14 California hospitals for incidents that caused serious injury or death.

Totaling at $1.1million, the penalties against the hospitals were announced by the CDPH on Thursday.

Four of the 14 hospitals, including Sequoia, are in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The other three - all of which had fatalities - are Kaiser Foundation Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center: St Luke's Campus, both in San Francisco, and Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa.

Kaiser received a fine of $147,000 for two separate incidents that resulted in patient deaths in 2015 and 2016.

In one, a patient receiving dialysis had his line disconnected from his catheter, causing massive blood loss and cardiac arrest, according to the report.

The second involved the mishandling of a patient's tracheotomy, a procedure to unblock the airways.

St Luke's was fined $47,450 after a female patient fell in 2015 while under the care of hospital staff, hit her head, underwent brain surgery and died.

Queen of the Valley was fined $225,000 for three separate incidents in 2013 during which staff failed to properly monitor patients' symptoms or administered incorrect treatment. Two patients died and a third was left in a vegetative state.

'We sincerely regret that these incidents occurred and extend our sympathy to the families involved,' said a Kaiser spokeswoman.

'In response to these incidents, and to ensure such situations never occur again, we immediately investigated their root cause, evaluated our processes and implemented systemic improvements and training for our nurses, physicians, and staff.'
A group of leading psychiatrists told a conference that Donald Trump has clear hallmarks of mental illness that compromise his role as president.

Twenty-five researchers made a drastic break away from ethical standards by meeting at Yale University on Thursday to discuss evidence questioning the commander-in-chief's mental health.

They were unanimous in their conclusions that the president suffers a combination of personality disorders.

The psychiatrists defended the move by saying it was their 'ethical responsibility' to warn the American public about the 'dangers' Trump poses to the country.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online, they insisted the president displays anti-social, narcissistic and chauvinistic tendencies that, they believe, are grounds for impeachment.

However, other mental health experts have hit out at the conference, saying that such a 'diagnosis' is not possible without a one-on-one consultation.

And Connecticut Republican Party Chairman JR Romano accused the group of 'throwing ethical standards out the window because they cannot accept the election results'.

A group of psychiatrists at Yale University have found President Donald Trump to be a danger to the US due to his anti-social, narcissistic and chauvinistic behavior

Dr James Gilligan, a psychiatrist and professor at New York University, said many psychiatrists have been timid about approaching the topic because of the Goldwater rule.

The rule states it's unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures they have not examined in person.

However, Dr Gilligan insists his and his colleagues' duty comes from the Duty to Warn, a concept about when a medical professional fails to warn 'victims' when someone communicates an explicit threat of danger.

'Not any pun intended, but in this case the Duty to Warn trumps the Goldwater rule,' Dr Gilligan told Daily Mail Online.

'And in this case, there's a professional obligation to notify the public and if we remain silent, we're passively going along with it.'

The group, organized by psychiatrist Dr John Gartner, has considered the president - who's fast approaching his 100th day in office on April 29 - an unfit leader for the US.

They claim that President Trump suffers from a combination of anti-social personality disorders and extreme narcissism.

Dr Gilligan said he can point to multiple examples that predict Trump's dangerous tendencies.

They cite the incident with Billy Bush as an example of chauvinistic behavior - when Trump was recorded saying that he could grab women 'by the pussy' and get away with it because of his celebrity stature.

'He boasted about it, he didn't feel guilty about it,' Dr Gilligan said.

Another, they said, is the 'incitement of violence', hearkening back to when Trump encouraged his supporters to punch and attack protesters who didn't agree with him during his campaign.

Despite working with convicted criminals in the past, Dr Gilligan said that he felt Trump's erratic behavior has disturbed him.

'You don't have to be an expert on dangerousness or study it to recognize when it's abundant and we have abundant evidence that he is,' he said.

'You don't have to be an expert on dangerousness or study it to recognize when it's abundant and we have abundant evidence that he is Dr James Gilligan, New York University

Duty to Warn, a group run by Dr Gartner, has organized a petition, calling for President Trump's removal that has amassed more than 42,500 signatures thus far.

This is not the first time the group has called the president's mental health into question, penning an open letter in February that said his mental state 'makes him incapable of serving safely as president'.

Not everyone agrees, however. Some mental health experts argue that it's impossible to make such a diagnosis without a face-to-face consultation.

Dr Allen Frances, co-author of the manual used to categorize mental conditions, slammed these from-afar diagnoses of the president's mental health.

Writing in the New York Times, Dr Frances said: 'Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled [Mr Trump as having] narcissistic personality disorder.'

'He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn't make him mentally ill,' he added.

Dr Frances made clear that he - like the psychiatrists diagnosing Trump - is not a fan of the president, and finds his politics 'distressing'.

However, he insists that 'psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering' the president's approach to politics.

In fact, he said, he feels it is an 'insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr Trump (who is neither)'.

He writes: 'Bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely.'

Dr Gilligan slams claims the move is unethical.

'We're not trying to diagnose him at a distance but we're indicating his dangerousness,' he said.

'Yet when you're evaluating somebody, you don't just take their word for it because they may be good at hiding how dangerous they are and it may be the least reliable way to diagnose.'
Planned changes to India's coastal zone law to allow reclaiming land from the sea and the use of thousands of miles of coastal land for commercial purposes will damage the environment and affect the livelihoods of millions of fishermen, activists say.

The Marine Coastal Regulation Zone notification proposes to lift the ban on reclamation of seabed land for commercial purposes, allow tourism in ecologically sensitive coastal areas and the building of new coastal roads.

Fishermen are opposed to the plans, which will impact the coastal ecology and hurt livelihoods, said T. Peter, general secretary of the National Fisherworkers' Forum.

Around 4 million people make a living from fishing and related activities in India

"Any relaxation of the (law) will lead to more commercial development, which will affect the lives and livelihoods of the fishing community," he said.

"We appeal to the government not to encroach on our rights, and to take the informed consent of the fishing community for any changes," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The forum will spearhead demonstrations across the country from next month, he said.

'We appeal to the government not to encroach on our rights,' say the Fisherworkers' Forum

A spokesman for the environment ministry did not respond to a question on when the new law will come into effect.

India's coastline is more than 7,500 km (4,660 miles) long, and about 4 million people make a living from fishing and related activities. More than half of them live on less than $1.25 a day, according to official data.

The new legislation is based on the recommendations of a committee formed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government after it took office in 2014.

The committee recommended allowing reclamation of land for infrastructure such as ports and bridges "in the larger public interest".

It also suggested doing away with the requirement of environmental approvals for housing for fishermen and security-related infrastructure along the coast.

Activists say relaxing environment rules will have a serious impact on a country already suffering the effects of climate change

The review process for the notification was "opaque, obscure and one-sided and ignored key stakeholders", said Meenakshi Kapoor at the Namati Environmental Justice Program in New Delhi.

"The objectives of coastal conservation and livelihood protection have been swept aside to speed up project approvals."

Environment ministry officials have said that reclamation of land is being done successfully elsewhere in the world, and that there is "tremendous tourism potential" in some ecologically sensitive areas that are otherwise neglected and encroached.

The government recently eased environmental clearances for some industrial projects.

Activists say relaxing environment rules will have a serious impact on a country already suffering the effects of climate change.
The recent demand for an apology from Tamil actor Sathyaraj by Karnataka-based activists for his alleged remarks against the state and its people made nine years ago on the eve of the release of his film is the latest in a growing list of public apologies coerced from actors.

The activists had made it abundantly clear that Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, which is released next week, wouldn't be allowed to be shown in Karnataka if Sathyaraj - who portrays Kattappa in SS Rajamouli's epic - didn't apologise.

The fact that in the last nine years since Sathyaraj's statement in 2008 when the Tamil film industry opposed Karnataka's objection to the Hogenakkal drinking water project, over 20 films featuring the star have released in the same state didn't seem to matter.

Sathyaraj in the film Baahubali 2

For all intent and purposes, the manner in which Sathyaraj was forced to apologise might resemble the way Karan Johar responded to the demands of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on the eve of the release of his Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

But scratch a little and you'd see how the two are not only poles apart but also reveals how - unlike Bollywood - the greater a star's success in south Indian films and especially Tamil cinema, the closer they are to the ground realities of the people they claim to represent.

To the uninitiated Sathyaraj's video apology would look the same as the one that Johar released to appease the strongarm tactics of the MNS. Following the Uri attacks where Pakistan-based terrorists killed Indian soldiers in cold blood, there was a nation-wide outrage against carrying on with a 'business as usual' interaction with Pakistan.

Many felt that unlike Pakistani artists who refused to comment on the heinousness of the attack, Bollywood too should stand by its own countrymen and put an embargo on working with Pakistani actors till the situation changed. The way the MNS arm-twisted Johar is appalling but many found the manner in which Johar batted for the likes of Fawad Khan, who featured in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, revolting.

While Johar might have felt terrible to sit in front of a camera and speak about his nationalism and patriotism, the fact remains that he felt more terrible about the manner in which he was torn between ideology and circumstance than anything else.

By contrast, even though Sathyaraj apologised for the hurt that his statements would have caused, he made his ideology stand apart from the circumstance. Like Johar, Sathyaraj, too, expressed his regret that his actions were held against a movie that thousands of people put in a lot of hard and he was just 'a small worker', yet at the same time unlike Johar he warned future producers to stay away from casting him in their films if they did not want any trouble as he would continue to voice his opinion for the Tamil people.

Sathyaraj's statement that he is more proud to 'live and die as a Tamilian rather than an actor' is the kind of stuff that separates Bollywood stars from Tamil or other south Indian stars.

The Cauvery waterfall - also known as Kaveri

Tamil cinema and its stars both behind and in front of the camera have been intrinsically related to politics right from the time of the freedom struggle to the days where Dravidian movement captured the imagination of the masses.

It is hardly surprising that many of the political stalwarts in Tamil Nadu have emerged from the world of cinema. In such a scenario it is practically impossible for big stars to not take a stand and every time there has been a call to action for any Tamil cause almost every single star worth his or her salt has chosen pride over trade.

In fact, in 2002 when questions were raised about Rajinikanth's loyalty towards the state as he was born in Karnataka, the superstar famously sat on a hunger strike and contributed Rs 1 crore towards a river-linking project to resolve the Cauvery river water-sharing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Irrespective of the difference in the manner leading stars across Hindi cinema and south Indian films, especially Tamil cinema, present themselves in public, the release of a film is the perfect time for all kinds of fringe outfits to demand their pound of flesh.

It is the manner in which the Tamil industry responds as a unit is what makes it different from Bollywood. At a 2010 public gathering to felicitate the then chief minister, M Karunanidhi, actor Ajith openly said that actors shouldn't be coerced to take political stands.

The promo poster for Baahubali The Conclusion

Yet when the time comes where the cause of the state is in balance they know what to do. It is for this reason that to a great degree the industry's demands are met by the state government, which ensures that there is almost zero piracy of new releases to help the industry grow (as this writer had noticed during a visit to Chennai a few years ago).

Compare that with Bollywood and you see how the bigger the star the further they appear to be from reality. Unlike the Tamil film industry neither are they aligned with most issues concerning themselves nor are they on the same page with most of the common folks when it comes to bigger issues such as stance against Pakistan or national pride.

For Johar, the money riding on his film always seems to be the only focus; and for some like Anurag Kashyap the dynamics of the release of a film is brazenly comparable to the nation's foreign policy.

This is also an industry where one of its most respected talents, Anurag Kashyap says: 'I am thankful to piracy because it saved cinema and my career.'

He has even tweeted: 'If you haven't seen Masaan, better to download it on torrents or watch a pirated DVD than see it on hot star. It's mutilated on it.'

This author does not take responsibility for the veracity of what is reported in media, but if what is reported is true then it does appear that Bollywood, unlike Tamil cinema, appears to care about its own self more than anything.
Sangeeta Verma, a government school teacher from Ghaziabad, has died - eight days after she was doused with acid inflicting more than 90 per cent burns.

Mail Today broke the news on Wednesday that the schoolteacher from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district had been brought to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.

Sangeeta suffered extensive burns all over her body and had narrated her ordeal to Mail Today with great difficulty. Doctors had said her chances of survival were slim.

Her charred, wasted body gave up on Friday.

She was allegedly attacked with acid and diesel fire by her husband and in-laws over an unfulfilled dowry demand of Rs 25 lakh.

Her husband was arrested on Thursday after Mail Today reported on her alleged 15-year-old battle against dowry harassment.

A hunt is still on to catch her absconding in-laws.

While the Hindu wedding dowry custom has been illegal since 1961, brides' families often feel it is a matter of honour for the young woman to be given a proper send-off.

Though dowries are not negotiated as much now, a wide difference often exists between what the groom's relatives expect and the bride's parents give.

UP's minister for women welfare Rita Bahuguna Joshi told Mail Today: 'We are deeply saddened by Sangeeta's death. Strict action would be taken against her in-laws. The district magistrate and state women welfare ministry are keeping a close watch on the matter and officials from the ministry met the family members on Friday.'

Sangeeta Verma, a government school teacher from Ghaziabad, died eight days after she was doused with acid inflicting more than 90 per cent burns

A preliminary post-mortem report suggests Sangeeta was burnt alive with diesel and acid

Joshi also said the state government will give all permissible support to Sangeeta's family members and two children as it is a case of dowry and domestic violence.

Experts say burning is the preferred method of killing for desperate husbands and in-laws because it is hard to prove it is murder.

Women in India wearing loose flowing saris while cooking on gas or kerosene stoves often suffer accidental burns.

Union minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi took to Twitter to express her condolences.

'Deeply saddened upon hearing that Sangeeta passed away at Safdarjung Hospital, late last night. May her soul rest in peace. We will make every possible effort to ensure that justice is done,' she wrote, also citing Mail Today's report.

'This loss must be shared by all, as another daughter of our nation has lost her life to dowry.'

A senior official from her ministry said Gandhi is likely to meet the victim's family to ensure justice.

She has also sought an action-taken report from Ghaziabad police.

A senior doctor from Safdarjung Hospital told Mail Today: 'Preliminary post-mortem reports suggested that Sangeeta was burnt alive with diesel and acid. She passed away at 12.30am.

'Sangeeta's body had suffered 90 per cent thermal burn injuries due to which she succumbed. In this type of burns, there are minimal chances of survival.'

'I had been pleading with my father and family to help me get divorce from my cruel husband for 15 years,' Sangeeta had told Mail Today.

'None of my family members listened to me due to societal pressure. Now, see where I am'

India has the highest number of recorded acid attacks, which are often a form of revenge by angry spouses or rejected suitors.

Ghaziabad's senior superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said an investigation was ongoing. 'A report has been submitted to National Commission for Women (NCW) and main accused Sangeeta's husband has been arrested now,' he said.

According to her brother, Sangeeta's husband had bought liquor and indulged in other revelries with the Rs 1.5 lakh she had saved for their kids' school fees, books and uniform.

This had led to 'massive arguments', before the fight over dowry turned ugly on April 13, and her husband and in-laws allegedly attacked her with acid just before she was about to leave for school.

She was first taken to a neighbourhood hospital and later moved to Safdarjung.

'For the past 15 years, Sangeeta was physically and mentally tortured by her husband and in-laws. Today, she is not with us, but we will fight for justice,' said Pradeep Verma, Sangeeta's brother, who is now taking care of her sons  Avni, 13, and Akash, 12.

21 lives lost to dowry every day

By Chayyanika Nigam

Some 21 dowry deaths are reported across the country every day, but the conviction rate is only 34.7 per cent.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) states that in 2015, as many as 7,634 women died in the country due to dowry harassment.

Either they were burnt alive or forced to commit suicide over dowry demand.

Data further reveals that after registration of dowry deaths, police have chargesheeted around 93.7 per cent of the accused, of which only 34.7 per cent have been convicted.

The remaining cases are still pending in various courts.

According to Delhi Police, till March 15 this year, 31 women died due to dowry harassment.

In the last five years, as many as 715 cases of dowry deaths have been reported in the capital and the crime rate have been increasing with every passing year.

Moreover, in Delhi, around 3,877 cases of cruelty by in-laws and husbands were registered in 2016.

Until March 15 this year, as many as 506 such cases were reported in the city.

The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, prohibits the request, payment or acceptance of a dowry 'as consideration for marriage', and dowry here is defined as a gift demanded or given as a precondition for marriage.

Experts say that the existing law has certain loopholes and needs to be made stricter.

Despite amendments made to the Dowry Act in 1983, the desired results are yet desired to be achieved.

Improper investigations at the initial stage of a case slow down the process of judicial proceedings, experts rue.

Items such as jewellery, clothes, cars and money are traditionally given by the bride's family to the groom and his parents under the outlawed custom to ensure that she is taken care of in her new home.

But often the groom's family demands more dowry after marriage, resulting in mental and physical harassment that can lead to suicide or murder of the bride.

Dowry has not only turned out to be a bane for women, but even for their families, who often find it hard to arrange the money.
Tribal youth in a remote Madhya Pradesh region have offered their expertise in using slingshots to help the paramilitary forces in countering stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir.

The youths in tribal dominated district - Jhabua - in western MP have offered their traditional expertise in Gofan - similar to a slingshot by using a looped cord with a knitted bag attached to the one end.

'A Gofan battalion of local tribal youth should be constituted and be posted in Kashmir Valley to deal with the stone-pelters. This battalion will be a suitable answer to stone-pelters,' Prem Singh, a 26-year-old tribal youth of Lakhpur village of Jhabua district, said.

Jhabua youths are experts at Gofan - which is similar to a slingshot

The leaders from Congress and BJP also supported the formation of such a squad comprising local youth, who are masters of this art. 'Government should form a Gofan Stone Pelters Squad to deal with the situation in Kashmir.

This would not only be effective in the present situation but also can deal with similar situations in the future,' former Congress MLA from Jhabua, Xavier Medha said.

'Army can't fire gunshots at the protestors and this squad can give a befitting reply,' he added. BJP MLA Shantilal Bilwal also supported the offer.

Historian KK Trivedi said that Gofan is an accurate weapon to deal with stone pelting.

'Gofan is a traditional slingshot art in this tribal dominated region and is used to protect the agricultural crop from birds and other animals,' he said.
Two drug addicts have been arrested in the Capital on Friday for stealing taps from the YMCA building in Connaught Place on Friday.

Chandan Kumar (30) and Suraj Singh Rawat (24) used to board the first metro every morning from Uttam Nagar metro station to Rajiv Chowk and Barakhamba metro stations in search of premium taps installed in offices and institutional buildings.

Since April, the duo started stealing taps and selling them off after learning that most of the buildings in Delhis largest commercial hub were empty early in the morning.

Two drug addicts entered the YMCA building (above) on Friday in search of premium taps that they could steal and sell for drugs

During the investigation, police found that the two did not use any equipment to remove the premium taps from the washrooms of these buildings.

Following the same modus operandi On April 12, Chandan and Suraj entered the CCL building, YMCA at Jai Singh Road, which was empty at that moment. Both managed to take out three taps from the second floor washroom.

As soon as the taps were taken out, the entire floor was flooded with water which alerted a security guard, who had arrived on duty. The man rushed to the second floor and caught the two redhanded.

When he tried to nab them, Suraj managed to escape. The guard then informed the security supervisor of the building, who made a call to the police control room. The team reached the spot and apprehended Chandan and recovered the two Jaquar taps.

During interrogation, he revealed the name of his accomplice Suraj, who was later nabbed during a raid.

A third tap was recovered from him. Both of the accused are residents of Uttam Nagar and are unemployed. The duo became addicted to drugs since last year and started stealing iron and steel items, including taps.

Both also confessed about attempting to steal a manhole cover once. On further interrogation, the two revealed that they used to collect and sell premium bathroom taps to scrap dealers.

Suraj and Chandan also confessed that since they werent getting enough returns from selling local taps to buy drugs, they started stealing and selling premium taps.

The two have been booked under Sections 380 (theft), 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property), 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

Now, they are lodged in Tihar jail. It is also to be mentioned that in early April, seven bathroom taps were also stolen Ferozeshah Road residence of Nationalist Congress Party MP Majeed Memon.

The thief left the house, in the high-security Lutyens Zone, without stealing anything else. Memon, also a noted lawyer, had lodged a complaint regarding the theft with the New Delhi district police.

Lutyens Zone, where the bungalows of VIPs and VVIPs are situated, has been in the news for the past few months as thieves are regularly targeting the high-profile homes and stealing whatever they can get, be it nameplates or front gate lamps.
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim has made a point of being a frequent visitor to London and the Department for International Development in recognition of Britains foreign aid commitment.

The UK is the only Group of Seven leading industrial nation to meet the UNs 0.7 per cent target of national wealth.

This sum has increased rapidly in cash terms as the British economy has continued to expand.

Giving back: World Bank president Jim Yong Kim chose to use the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank to try to rally support behind foreign aid

So we shouldnt be in the least bit surprised that Asian-American Kim, who hails from a family of North Korean refugees, chose to use the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank to try to rally support behind foreign aid.

He sees all bets are off now David Cameron, who saw the aid budget as a way of eliminating the Tories reputation as the nasty party, is out of the picture.

Clearly, there have been notorious abuses of the way funds have been used. In political terms it is impossible to justify UK taxpayers money being squandered by the Palestinian Authority to fund the upkeep of the families of terrorists in Israeli jails.

More frivolously, the now suspended provision of 5 million to Ethiopian Spice Girls was beyond parody. Similarly, it is intolerable that so much money funnelled to poor countries ended up in Panama and at HSBCs branch in Geneva.

Such wholesale wastage, at a time of budget cuts in the UK, undermined the moral and ethical case.

We should also be aware that amid the 700 billion or so that the British government spends each year, trimming the 13 billion foreign aid budget only goes so far. Opponents of aid have spent it on all manner of causes from the NHS, to social care and defence.

Kim no doubt can expect huge opprobrium for weighing into such a sensitive UK domestic arena. Yet we know from generous British public responses to crises that not all citizens resent spending money on African poverty.

Growing trend: Macys may still sponsor holiday parades down Fifth Avenue in New York but it is firing 10,000 employees

The worse it gets in Africa and the Middle East the harder it will be to stem the migration tide.

Retail wilderness

Much was made during the American election campaign, and since, of the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Indeed, Donald Trump is thinking of using a long-forgotten trade measure, dating back to 1962 long before the World Trade Organisation was up and running, to keep steel imports out of the US.

Manufacturing fled America long ago and all the White House can do is twiddle the dials to look as if it is doing something. The big change, as in Britain, is the switch from the physical economy to the digital economy which is tearing down chunks of the services sector.

Shopping malls have become zombie malls replaced by giant warehouse sheds. Americas department store chains are shrinking rapidly. Macys may still sponsor holiday parades down Fifth Avenue in New York but it is firing 10,000 employees.

Sears stands on the verge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and here in Washington there are as many stores boarded up in the fashionable shopping area of Georgetown as there are operating. Fashion giant Ralph Lauren has left Fifth Avenue.

US stores employ a third fewer staff than they did at the start of the noughties  18 times the number of jobs lost in coal mining, which Trump promised to restore.

Newspapers across the US have been decimated with the loss of 270,000 jobs, or two-thirds of the workforce. What is required is not a return to old-time manufacturing but a bolstering of IT and robotic skills for shops of the future.

There also needs to be a recognition, as pointed out by Lord Simon Wolfson of Next, that we all have enough things.

Millennials prefer to spend their money on cafes, restaurants and holiday travel.

It doesnt make big retail an attractive investment prospect.

Frexit silence

At last years spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank it was hard to stop IMF chief Christine Lagarde waffling on about Brexit in contravention of the Funds usually neutral political role.

At her annual press conference yesterday not a word was heard about the populist shift in France and the dangers of Frexit. She was returning to a convention that IMF officials dont interfere in politics, especially their own countrys. Funny that.
Faux pas: IMF boss Christine Lagarde predicted doom for the British economy

Almost a year ago to the day, silver-fringed Christine Lagarde strode imperiously into the Treasury to deliver her apocalyptic warnings on Britain's economic future.

Tall, tanned and handsome (though the Guardian's fawning description of her as 'the world's sexiest woman' might be a little de trop, as they say back home), the silky International Monetary Fund boss oozed flare and haughty Gallic soph-ist-ic-ation.

With all the misplaced confidence of a loopy Roman soothsayer, she told the gathered throng that a vote to leave the European Union was a vote for financial Armageddon.

A UK recession, she said, would be a near certainty. 'It's going to be pretty bad to very, very bad,' she intoned gravely.

Fellow economists murmured approvingly, while Labrador-eyed George Osborne gazed back at his guest like a pubescent teenager pining for the school nurse.

Twelve months have since passed and, to misquote Harold Wilson, a year has proved to be an extremely long time in politics.

The British people, as we know, delivered an upturned digit to Lagarde and her fear-mongering friends across the Channel.

The sun still shines, the globe still spins. As for the British economy, rather than being 'very, very bad' the current outlook is really rather good.

At this week's IMF spring meeting, hosted by Lagarde in Washington, Britain was given a bigger growth forecast upgrade than any other major country.

The IMF said it expects the British economy to grow by 2 per cent in 2017, up from January's forecast of 1.5 per cent.

The political careers of Cameron and Osborne  Lagarde's rosbif allies  have been consigned to the dustbin, while she can count herself very fortunate not to have been swapping her expensive costumes for a less flattering all-in-one orange jumpsuit.

Last December she was found guilty of negligence by a French court for approving a massive pay-out of taxpayers' money to controversial French businessman Bernard Tapie during her previous job as French finance minister, though no penalty was imposed.

But while she somehow clung to her role as IMF chief, events of the past year have served to remove much of the lustrous French polish that had hitherto coated her impressive career.

Admirer: Lagarde gives her former rosbif ally George Osborne a traditional Gallic greeting kiss

Born Christine Lalouette, the eldest of four children, she received a devout Catholic upbringing near the Normandy town of Rouen.

Her parents were both linguistics teachers, which might go some way to explaining Lagarde's dextrous command for languages.

As well as boasting perfect English (peppered with easy-going slang) she's also said to possess passable Spanish and Greek.

And while attending the local Lycee, she famously represented France at synchronised swimming.

Following her father's death of motor neurone disease when she was 17, she took a scholarship to Holton-Arms school for girls in Maryland.

Although she returned to Paris to complete a law degree, her experience in the US changed her. She went back to work for the Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie, where in 1999 she rose to become its first female head.

In 2005, she came back to France to take up a junior government position, causing immediate uproar by daring to criticise France's notoriously archaic employment laws.

She survived that faux pas, and following a brief stint as agriculture minister, President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed her finance minister in 2007.

Government life proved tough. A teetotal vegan, she was always regarded as a bit of an outsider.

The French political world is largely dominated by males who've attended Paris's Ecole nationale d'administration, the elite school for civil servants, which Lagarde twice failed to get into. Sarkozy ungallantly let it be known he regarded her as 'lightweight'.

When the chance to get back to Washington arose in 2011, following the resignation of IMF sex pest Dominique Strauss-Kahn, she grabbed it with both hands.

On the personal front, she has been married twice, and has two grown-up sons with her first husband, financial analyst Wilfred Lagarde.

She is believed to be in a long-term relationship with glossy-haired Corsican entrepreneur Xavier Giocanti, 62, however details remain sketchy since it is distinctly unFrench to discuss matters of the boudoir.

Lagarde remains in post at the IMF until 2021. It is predicted one of those who'll be vying for her job is Bank of England governor Mark Carney, whose Brexit warnings ahead of the referendum were similarly dire.

Whatever the French is for humble pie, it's fair to say both these soi-disant economic titans were consuming vast dollops of the stuff in America's capital this week.
Tanks for the memories... Britain ends tank production after 93 years - and future models will have GERMAN guns

They have fought alongside British soldiers for generations, playing heroic roles on historic battlefields such as the Somme, Cambrai and El Alamein. They have carried famous names such as Centurion, Churchill, Cromwell and Crusader.

But now, nearly a century after inventing the first armoured warhorse - to storm through German lines in the First World War - Britain is to stop building its own tanks.

In the week British troops formally ended their military operations in Iraq, BAe Systems, which makes the Army's Challenger 2 tanks, revealed it was closing its tank-making operation at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Great Briton: A Challenger tank in the desert in Oman

It is also shutting its armour business at Telford in Shropshire and at other locations because it sees no prospect of new Government orders.

The closures could result in 500 job losses and means the Army is likely to go into battle in future with tanks using German guns and Swedish chassis.

The last squadron of British Challengers began returning to the UK from Iraq this weekend, with little chance of them being sent to Afghanistan because of the difficult terrain there.

Defence Secretary John Hutton has declared 'a rebalancing of investment in technology, equipment and people to meet the challenge of irregular warfare'.

He said he planned to strengthen and enlarge Special Forces but gave no hint of even a medium-weight tank in the Army's future.

Power: A Challenger 2 tank like the ones that wiped out a column of Russian-made T55s in Iraq

But General Patrick Cordingley, Commander of the Desert Rats in the first Gulf War, warned: 'I think we have got ourselves into a real tangle here. If you look at the economic troubles of the 1930s, it ended in a terrible war.

'Are we saying it could never happen again, that we will not be drawn into a war where we will need a full range of forces and equipment?'

The Army has 250 Challenger 2 tanks and they are among the best in the world. They withstood the best Soviet-made tanks used by the Iraqi army in both Gulf wars.

Experts insist that modern warfare require smaller, faster armoured vehicles. Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commander, said: 'The tank is not as relevant to today's form of battle.'

The British tanks 'Little Willie' and 'Big Willie' - built in 1915 - were the world's first. One of the most famous battles involving British tanks was in 1917, when the Tank Corps took 476 into action at Cambrai, breaching 12 miles of the German front.

An MoD spokesman said: 'BAe remains a highly valued partner in many equipment programmes and we very much hope that this is not the end for tank-building in the UK.'

Warhorses of the British Army

MARK 1

The first combat tank, introduced at the Somme in 1916. Rhomboid shape designed to cross German trenches.

Weight: 15 tons

Length: 26ft

Crew: 6

Speed: 4mph

CHURCHILL

Named after Britain's war leader. Built by Vauxhall Motors. Active 1941-52. Crucial role at El Alamein

Weight: 38 tons

Length: 24ft

Crew: 5

Speed: 15mph

CENTURION

Developed by end of Second World War, saw action in Korea and Suez. Still operational in the Nineties.

Weight: 51 tons

Length: 25ft

Crew: 4

Speed: 21mph

How Tilda Swinton's great uncle started it all

Genius: Sir Ernest Swinton

The tank was invented by Major General Sir Ernest Swinton, great uncle of the actress Tilda Swinton.

On June 13, 1900, while serving as a war reporter in the Boer War, Swinton is said to have visualised the need for an armoured fighting vehicle to defeat the destructive power of the machine gun.

Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, immediately saw the potential and authorised development of a prototype.

Tanks were first deployed in combat at Flers-Courcelette on the Somme in September 1916.

In the Second World War, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery used 1,350 tanks to defeat Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at the Battle of El Alamein in 1942.
In the 1980s, Wes Smoot and his friends would regularly gather outside the Redwood Drive-In in the center of their remote logging town in northern California for a beer and to put the world in its place.

As their talk of families and news turned to hooting and hollering, they rarely worried that theyd be overheard or chastised by passers-by for the occasional vulgar comment or joke.

For Wes and his friends were among the few people in America who speak Boontling.

Now spoken by just 12 people, the language is specific to Boonville, California and was first said to have been spoken in the 1870s  roughly 20 years after the town and Anderson County was first settled in 1851. It reflects not just the remoteness of the town at that point, but also the rural lifestyles on which the town was settled: logging and livestock herding.

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Rare find! Roughly 12 people still speak Boontling - a hybrid language from remote town Boonville, CA nestled in the Anderson Valley. Rod Tubbs Dewitt (left) and Wes 'Deacon' Smoot (right) are part of that small group and sit in the Mr Smoot's home

A group of the old heads got together and created the Boontling club and they would meet up and tell stories,' says Wes, who describes himself as an almost 85-year-old.

Well, I wanted to get into the group because I was afraid that they were talking about me - so I learned as a means of self-defense when I was in my 30s or 40s.

Boontling is a homegrown language believed to have first come into use in the 1870s and 1880s  roughly 20 years after the town and Anderson County were settled in 1851 by three brothers who wanted to establish a viable logging community. 'Boont' stands for the town Boonville, while 'ling' comes from the word lingo.

It is a fusion of more familiar languages with components of Irish, English, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish and even Pomoan  from the native Pomo people of northern California who lived in the valley prior to the settlers.

Bootlings origins are unclear, but Wes offers a few possible theories.

It was said that Boontling started because the old folks wanted to be able to talk without the children knowing, says Wes, whose nickname, Deacon, comes from when he was a child and would stand silently in the corner.

But kids pick up things quickly and so soon that they were speaking it too.

Perhaps his favorite folk legend, however, tells of a San Francisco woman who got pregnant out of wedlock and whose wealthy parents shipped her north so she could have her child.



Wes, 84, and his friends used to sit outside the Redwood Drive-In to hoot, holler and speak Boontling without worrying about other people understanding them. He sits outside his home with a copy of a Boontling dictionary

A map detailing 'Boontling Country' sits outside the Drive-In showing just how important the rural lifestyle was for the remote town

The population of Boonville is just over 1,000 and the word Boontling is derived from the town's name and the word 'lingo'

He says: She worked out in the hop fields and the women there didnt want to refer to her by name so they would make up words to talk to their husbands with.

The language was passed on orally, with roughly 1600 words coming from everyday situations, based on what a person hears, sees, smells or experiences.

Take the word for 'good,' for example, which is 'bahl' in Boontling. Wes explains that bahl was a popular shoe brand that was widely accepted as the best in the area. So naturally the word for good had to come from the association with those shoes.

Boontling is a fusion of more familiar languages with components of Irish, English, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish and even Pomoan  from the native Pomo people of northern California who lived in the valley prior to the settlers. A copy of Boontling An American Lingo which is an official dictionary created in 1971 by professor Charles C. Adams

For thunder and lightning  'herc' for Hercules, who threw lightning, and 'barlon,' which is the sound a gunshot makes, for thunder  help create 'Jeffer,' or fire.

'Burlapping' means having sex but it doesnt mean f****** and when people are visiting the town, they are called 'bright lighters'.'

Wes even calls himself a 'downstreamer'  a direct reference to when salmon go back down stream to die after theyve mated up north  to acknowledge his age.

Anyone can pitch a new word, but it has to go through a rigorous vetting process, says Wes, who has created four of his own words.

He says: We would talk and you would drop a word and not explain it and people were too proud to ask what the word meant.

So then they would go home and think about it and come back the next day and give their thoughts.

'Thats how a word gets accepted by the group. Now about a dozen of us meet up but I dont go that often.

Wes claimed that there is speculation as to where the language came from. It was said that Boontling started because the old folks wanted to be able to talk without the children knowing, says Wes whose nickname comes from when he was a child and would stand silently in the corner. But kids pick up things quickly and so soon that they were speaking it too

Perhaps his favorite folk legend, however, tells of a San Francisco woman who got pregnant out of wedlock and whose wealthy parents shipped up north so she could have her child. These two books A Slib of Lorey (A Bit Of Folklore) and Boontling an American Lingo tell of the supposed origins of Boontling

With a population just barely breaking 1,000 residents, a huge portion of the town already doesnt use Boontling in their everyday speak.

Very few women speak it, but we know that they know whats being said, says Wes.

Boontling is a taboo language and when the guys get together we talk dirty.

They may not speak it but we know when they start giggling or snickering that they understand whats being said and we will change the topic.

A map of Boonville sits outside the Drive-In and offers a view of the town's beginning. In 1851 brothers Henry Beeson, Isaac Beeson and step brother William Anderson settled in what would become Anderson Valley just two and a half hours north of San Francisco and roughly 30 minutes from the Pacific coastline

In more recent times, Anderson valley has become known as a crucial vineyard area with more than 30 tasting rooms and most notably the Boonville Beer Festival

The legend of the Map of Boont Land offers a brief glimpse at the eccentric nature of Boontling. Anyone can pitch a new word but it has to go through a rigorous vetting process according to Wes, who has created four of his own words

Today, Wes no longer sits outside the Drive-In and only a handful of people speak the language fluently.

Most of his friends have passed away and the younger generations arent too enthusiastic about learning the language, leaving Wes with hardly anyone to converse with in Boontling.

However, some companies do use the language to advertise to potential tourists. The Anderson Valley Brewing Company, for example, has a word of the week posted inside its building, as well as 'Bahl Hornin - or 'Good Drinkin  on its beer cans and merchandise.

The Anderson Valley Brewing Company uses Boontling in its advertisements to bring in tourists, who flock to the area for the county's wine. About creating new words, Wes says: We would talk and you would drop a word and not explain it and people were too proud to ask what the word meant. So then they would go home and think about it and come back the next day and give their thoughts.

A woman pours Hobneelch'n beer at the brewing company. Hobneelch'n is loosely translated to meaning Dance Party

Drink coasters even have Boontling slogans on them as businesses take advantage of the local language's novelty and tourism potential

A woman holds a shirt that's for sale in Anderson Valley - emblazoned with the Boontling slogan: 'The Best F*****g Beer Known To Man'

Wes was born and raised in Boontling and spent a majority of his years in the small town before he picked up the language in the late 1960s and early 70s.

He had served in the Korean War and spent some time working for the California Department of Transportation before returning to a home he hardly knew anymore.

Learning Boontling, he quickly became a pillar in the community, acting as something of a historian and teaching those willing to learn the daunting language.

One of the people he has helped mentor is Rod Tubbs Dewitt, a Director of Plant Engineering & Process Control at Anderson Valley Brewing Co.

Originally from a town 30 miles away, Rod was smitten with Boontling as a child before he moved to Anderson Valley in his 20s after buying property there.

Wes helped mentor Rod Tubbs Dewitt, a Director of Plant Engineering & Process Control at Anderson Valley Brewing Co, in the ways of Boontling. Rod with a souvenir from the Anderson Valley Brewing Company

Outside the brewing company. Originally from a town 30 miles away, Rod was smitten with Boontling as a child before he moved to Anderson Valley in his 20s after buying property there

We would be out at camp somewhere and there was a Boontling corner and I was familiar with it but I wanted to know what they were talking about, says Rod, who learned the language over the past 30 years

We would be out at camp somewhere and there was a Boontling corner and I was familiar with it, but I wanted to know what they were talking about, says Rod, whose nickname, Tubbs, comes from his drum hobby.

That way I could say something back.

For more than 30 years, Rod has been doing what he could to learn the ever-changing language. Hes managed to learn 1,000 of the words and has even created a few of his own - but he adds a note of caution for those who do try to come up with new lingo.

He says: They should vet it really well. You cant just take something out the dictionary and out of context.

It is hard to turn idioms into Boontling and there isnt a Boontling word for everything.

Rod waits outside Wes's home in Boonville. He has created a few words on his own but cautions against the practice. He says: They should vet it really well. You cant just take something out the dictionary and out of context. It is hard to turn idioms into Boontling and there isnt a Boontling word for everything'

He says: It was a very agrarian lifestyle with fishing, farming and cutting down trees. They did a few fun things in life like drink and have sex, go to church and go on picnics so it was a pretty simple time. Rod and Wes sit outside and talk in Boontling

It was a very agrarian lifestyle with fishing, farming and cutting down trees. They did a few fun things in life like drink and have sex, go to church and go on picnics, so it was a pretty simple time.

Rod referred to Wes as a Senior Statesman, stating that most of the ole timers are gone - and with them the oral history and context of the language - but he thinks creating a dictionary of Boontling will be important in preserving its legacy.

We are in the process of making it official,' he says.

A lot of things that I can vet, cross check and get anecdotes and history.

We hope once we publish that any proceeds from the book that we sell will go back to the schools and the Anderson Valley historical society because I dont think any one person should benefit.

The 59-year-old doesnt see many young people taking up the language but is happy his 16-year-old granddaughter is taking on Boontling for a school project.

Im glad I get to share with her the history of Boontling and Boonville, says Rod.

Rod referred to Wes as a Senior Statesman stating that most of the ole timers are gone and with them the oral history and context of the language but thinks creating a dictionary of Boontling will be important in preserving its legacy

We hope once we publish that any proceeds from the book that we sell will go back to the schools and the Anderson Valley historical society because I dont think any one person should benefit,' says Rod

A logo for Anderson Valley Brewing Company uses Boontling and says good drinking. Rod hopes to preserve the language any way that he can. He is working with his granddaughter on her school project about Boontling.

You dont want to remember the pain, you want to remember the good times. You dont want to see something that is that clever or fun fade away.

In 1851 brothers Henry Beeson, Isaac Beeson and step brother William Anderson settled in what would become Anderson Valley just two and a half hours north of San Francisco and roughly 30 minutes from the Pacific coastline.

These Scot and Irish American travelers mingled with the Pomo Indians who helped the settlers maintain their lives.

Isolated and nestled in mountains, the valley  which resides in Mendocino County - soon become a haven for peaceful farming and livestock ranching but truly excelled as a redwood logging community.

Boonville quickly became the epicenter of the area with other smaller towns Yorkville, Philo and Navarro surrounding and supporting the bustling community.

Rod says: This place is like England or Ireland with just wave after wave.

First were the Pomo, then the Scot and Irish Americans created Boonville. The Italians came in and mixed really well and so did the Scandinavians.

In more recent times, Anderson Valley has become known as a crucial vineyard area with more than 30 tasting rooms and most notably hosts the Boonville Beer Festival.

Rod notes that beginning as early as the 1970s, hippies began moving into the area and mingled with the families already there,

During the 1960s, a researcher named Charles C. Adams went to Boonville and studied the language before writing a dissertation on what he had discovered.

The former Chico State University English professor published Boontling: An American Lingo in 1971, producing an at-the-time current dictionary with explanations of each words origin.

Boontling gained a small bubble of fame following the release of the book with Wes, along with a few other residents of Boonville, tapped to appear on television, magazines and radio shows.

In the mid-1970s, fluent Boontling speaker Bobby (Chipmunk) was a series regular guest on the show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Boontling historian Jack (Wee Fuzz) June appeared on the show To Tell the Truth.

With the words of Boontling living on in popular culture, Wes isnt too concerned with the language sticking around but is more worried about Anderson Valley.

Rod and Wes (left and right) stand outside the latter's home. Tourist come from across the country to see the fine wine of Anderson Valley and hope to catch a quick conversation between the last group of people who speak Boontling

Wes says: It is fighting the elements now because not enough people want to learn it anymore.

Luckily there is enough literature out there that the language will never die but my main concern is that the history of the valley stay intact because that is whats important.'

Wes has seen a growing number of tourists visiting to experience firsthand the language for themselves. The geography has changed drastically since he was younger, with more travel accommodations created to meet their growing demand.

The tourists all want one thing  to hear someone speak a nearly-forgotten language.

Tourists mostly just grin and nod because they cant understand what I am saying, he says.

If they knew what we were saying things would go awfully.
The White House was drawn into a legal battle Friday between an illegal immigrant who was deported despite his Dreamer status a judge Donald Trump made racist comments about in 2016.

US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel has been assigned to a case involving Juan Manuel Montes, 23, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request,CNN reported Thursday.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday that Trump does not think Curiel should recuse himself the California case.

Trump subsequently told the Associated Press that does not believe Montes should be treated as a Dreamer.

President Donald Trump repeatedly denied the statements he made on the campaign trail in 2016 about Curiel to be racist; Trump is pictured here at the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday

Attorneys for Montes say he shouldn't have been sent back to Mexico because he is a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Inserting himself into the situation, Trump told the AP on Friday that Montes' court battle is 'a little different than the Dreamer case.'

He did not specify why in his interview with the Associated Press.

And yet, Trump said illegal immigrants who came to the country as children and are commonly known as Dreamers can 'rest easy' in his administration.

'[We're] not after the dreamers, we are after the criminals,' he stated.

The case brings together two touchstone issues from Trump's campaign for president - his promise to rid the country of illegal immigrants and his assault on an Hispanic-American judge he charged with having an inherent bias against him.

While on the campaign trail last year, Trump repeatedly claimed that Curiel could not be fair in a case against the now-defunct Trump University because he wanted to 'build a wall' between the United States and Mexico and Curiel was a 'Mexican' and a 'hater.'

Curiel is an American citizen, born in Indiana, of Hispanic descent.

'Hes a Mexican,' candidate Trump said during an interview with Jake Tapper in 2016. 'Were building a wall between here and Mexico. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings  rulings that people cant even believe.'

Juan Manuel Montes (pictured), 23, is currently in Mexico while his deportation case plays out

Trump continually denied that his comments were racist, even when directly called to question on the matter.

'If you're saying he can't do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?' Tapper asked Trump.

'No,' Trump said. 'I don't think so at all.'

Curiel eventually approved a $25 million settlement in that fraud case, which Trump accepted.

Spicer tried to stay out of the conflict between Trump and Curiel during an off-camera briefing on Friday. He gave a reporter asking if Trump backs recusal a one-word answer - 'no' - and moved on.

The issue at the heart of the case that Curiel will hear now deals directly with whether DHS properly complied, or must now comply, with a FOIA request for documents pertaining to why an undocumented man left the United States while he was a beneficiary of the DACA program.

Under DACA, which came into existence as the result of an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, undocumented individuals who entered the US as children may stay in the US into adulthood for work or education under certain circumstances.

As part of the program, they must renew their status at specified intervals, and are not allowed to leave the US without providing advance notice and receiving permission.

It is undisputed that Montes left the US, but the circumstances surrounding his departure are contested. Montes contended he did so not of his own volition. He contends he did so because he was deported, and improperly so as his DACA status was valid.

NOT GOING THERE: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (seen yesterday) tried to stay out of the battle between Trump and Curiel during an off-camera briefing on Friday. He gave a reporter asking if Trump backs recusal a one-word answer - 'no'

The case currently before Judge Curiel stems from his lawyers' attempt to prove that statement.

Montes' lawyers claimed they submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Homeland Security that was not complied with in a timely fashion, that would produce documents that show Montes was deported on February 17, and therefore did not lose his DACA status then, or when he re-entered the US on February 19.

The DHS on Wednesday reversed its previous statement that Montes' DACA status had expired in August 2015 and was not renewed.

It acknowledged that Montes was entitled to be in the US until January 25, 2018 under the DACA program, but then added that Montes acknowledged under oath that he entered the country illegally on February 19, forcing him to lose status because it was an admission that he left without required permission.

Montes' attorneys said their client is believed to be the first known DACA recipient to be deported by President Donald Trump. They said he qualified in 2014 and renewed his status for two years in 2016.

The lawsuit seeking records about Montes' deportation was randomly assigned to Judge Curiel in San Diego on Wednesday.

The case may define Trump's approach to DACA. Trump has kept it in place and made sympathetic remarks about its beneficiaries, upsetting some immigration hardliners.

Spicer said Wednesday that he didn't want to 'rush to judgment' about Montes and referred questions to Homeland Security. He said the administration's enforcement priorities are people who committed crimes in the United States and pose a threat.

'I would respectfully suggest that, in this case, the facts are not completely out, so I would rather not jump to conclusions about what happened,' he said.

Even after its latest statement, DHS's account sharply differed from what Montes' attorneys said happened.

The attorneys said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Southern District of California that their client left the country February 17 only because he was stopped by a law enforcement official and asked for identification while walking to a taxi stand in Calexico, California, about 120 miles (190 kilometers) east of San Diego. He was asked to sign documents without being given copies or an opportunity to see an immigration judge.

After getting assaulted in the Mexican border city of Mexicali, Montes returned to the United States two days later and turned himself over to authorities, according to the lawsuit. He was again asked to sign documents, not provided copies and returned to Mexico.

Homeland Security said Wednesday that the Border Patrol had no record of the initial encounter in Calexico and that Montes had left the United States 'on an unknown date.' The Border Patrol arrested after him after he climbed over a border fence in the California border town of about 40,000 people.

The National Immigration Law Center, which represents Montes, stood by its account. Its lawsuit seeks records on why their client was deported, alleging that immigration officials violated the Freedom of Information Act for failure to respond to its request beyond acknowledging receipt.

'Juan Manuel has been unequivocal in his assertion that he never voluntarily left the country while he had DACA,' said attorney Nora Preciado. 'We believe him. Rather than continue to provide half-truths and varying assertions, DHS should respond to our request for documentation. We will see them in court.'

Montes, who came to the United States when he was 9 years old, graduated high school in 2013 and pursued a welding degree at community college, according to the lawsuit. He then worked two years picking crops in California and Arizona. He is currently in Mexico.

Homeland Security said Montes was convicted of shoplifting in July 2016. His lawyers acknowledged in the lawsuit that he had a misdemeanor on his record and 'minor traffic offenses,' none of which would have disqualified him from DACA.

The government has issued nearly 800,000 DACA permits since President Barack Obama introduced the program in 2012 and nearly 700,000 renewals.
Uganda's military announced on Wednesday it would end its pursuit of internationally known warlord Joseph Kony, saying its mission 'has now been successfully achieved' even though the rebel leader remains at large.

Uganda has started pulling its forces from Central African Republic, which for years had been the base for troops chasing the rebels, Brig. Richard Karemire, spokesperson for the Uganda People's Defence Forces, said.

The news comes one day after the United States acted on its decision from last month to pull out of the manhunt for Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying the active membership of his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is now less than 100.

In a conference call with reporters, US Marine General Thomas Waldhauser said Kony's rebel group is fighting for relevancy after a number of its senior leaders have been killed or captured. according to NBC News.

Uganda's military announced on Wednesday it would end its pursuit of internationally known warlord Joseph Kony, saying its mission 'has now been successfully achieved' even though the rebel leader remains at large; Kony is seen in on November 12, 2006 in southern Sudan

At the peak of its powers, the rebel group was known worldwide for its cruelty against civilians in Uganda, Congo, Central African Republic and what is now South Sudan.

In 2012, the US-based advocacy group Invisible Children made a highly successful video highlighting the LRA's alleged crimes, including the abduction of children for use as sex slaves or fighters.

Kony, a former Catholic altar boy whose rebel movement aspired to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments, is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

One of his former commanders, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial at The Hague-based court.

Although the military mission's ultimate goal was to capture or kill Kony, there has been no word on his exact whereabouts for years even as many of his top commanders defected or were killed.

About 1,500 Ugandan troops had been deployed in Central African Republic under an African Union military mission to defeat the LRA. All of the Ugandan troops will return home by the end of May, military spokesman Karemire said.

Amid concerns about the military pullouts, the African Union last month suggested that United Nations peacekeeping missions in the region be used to continue anti-LRA efforts.

The US first deployed about 100 US special forces as military advisers to the manhunt in 2011, and in 2014 it sent 150 Air Force special operations members and airmen to assist African forces.

The US Africa Command late last month cited the weakening of the LRA for its decision to remove its military forces, though it was not clear when the withdrawal would take effect.

Waldhauser, the head of US armed forces in Africa, declared the hunt for Kony largely over, calling the rebel leader 'irrelevant' and in survival mode.

At the time, Uganda's military said its troops would not immediately pull out of the mission against the rebel group, as Karemire insisted that Kony will be a cause for concern as long as he is still alive.
The state of Arkansas carried out its first execution in 12 years on Thursday.

Just before midnight, after a series of rejected appeals that reached all the way up to the Supreme Court, 51-year-old Ledell Lee was put to death by lethal injection.

Lee lost consciousness around a minute after the execution started at 11.44pm. He was pronounced dead at 11.56pm showing no apparent signs of suffering.

He declined to offer any final words, though Lee previously told a BBC documentary crew: 'My dying words will always be as it always has been, I am an innocent man.'

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Ledell Lee appears in Pulaski County Circuit Court Tuesday, April 18, 2017, for a hearing in which lawyers argued to stop his execution which is scheduled for Thursday. The Supreme Court only gave a temporary stay

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said that a federal appellate court had 'denied all requests from inmate Ledell Lee for a stay of his execution,' in a Twitter post at shortly after 9pm, noting that a temporary stay issued earlier by the Supreme Court remained in place while more appeals were considered.

But after 11pm, the US Supreme Court issued orders denying the outstanding appeal requests, allowing the execution to proceed.

The judges voted 5-4 against Lee's appeal that carrying out his execution constituted 'cruel and unusual punishment'. Neil Gorsuch, Trump's recent nominee to the court, voted with the majority.

Lee was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of Debra Reese, who was beaten to death inside her home.

Reese was struck 36 times with a tire tool her husband had given her for protection.

At the time prosecutors painted Lee as a serial rapist and killer, and accused him of killing several women, ages 17 to 70, according to Arkansas Matters. He was not tried for any of these crimes.

The ACLU and the Innocence Project had asked for more DNA testing to be done.

This undated photo provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction shows death row inmate Ledell Lee

A prison spokesman said Lee on Thursday declined a last meal and opted instead to receive communion.

His trial was flagrant with a bad defense, say his supporters. Anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean wrote on Twitter: 'Just a reminder: The judge at Lee's trial was having an affair with the assistant prosecutor. They later married. Justice?'

His lawyers never brought up that conflict of interest in court, campaigners say.

'Ledell Lee has fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, significant brain damage, and significant intellectual disability,' said the ACLU in a statement.

One of Lee's post-conviction lawyers came drunk to court, says the ACLU. That lawyer was eventually replaced by another.

'It's more or less like I'm living in the twilight zone, like one of those nightmares you can't wake up from,' Lee told the BBC about his time on death row in a recent interview.

'Their main objective is to murder as many people as they can before a drug run out. And you are about to murder an innocent man,' he said. 'I will not say I have come to terms with the state trying to take my life because I have not, nor will I ever come to terms.'

Justices on Thursday also reversed an order by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray that halted the use of vecuronium bromide, one of three drugs used in the state's lethal injection process, in any execution.

McKesson Corp., which manufactured the drug, says the state obtained it under false pretenses, adding that it wants nothing to do with executions.

McKesson said it was disappointed in the court's ruling.

'We believe we have done all we can do at this time to recover our product,' the company said in a statement.

Anti-death penalty supporters Abraham Bonowitz, left, and Randy Gardner wait near their taped off 'protest corral' outside the Varner Unit late Monday, April 17, 2017 near Varner, Arkansas

Anti-death penalty supporter Randy Gardner, left, wipes away a tear moments after Abraham Bonowitz, left, read on his phone the 11:45pm Supreme Court decision to halt the executions of two prisoners, but Ledell Lee is set to be executed Thursday night

Justices also denied an attempt by makers of midazolam and potassium chloride - the two other drugs in Arkansas' execution plan - to intervene in McKesson's fight over the vecuronium bromide.

The pharmaceutical companies say there is a public health risk if their drugs are diverted for use in executions, and that the state's possession of the drugs violates rules within their distribution networks.

The legal maneuvers frustrated Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who had set the execution schedule less than two months ago. The state's elected prosecutors also criticized the roadblocks to the execution plans.

'Through the manipulation of the judicial system, these men continue to torment the victims' families in seeking, by any means, to avoid their just punishment,' the prosecutors said in a joint statement issued Thursday.

The Arkansas Supreme Court said in a 4-3 ruling that it would not reconsider its decision to stay Johnson's execution. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office said she would not appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lee's execution comes amid an ongoing row over the death penalty in America, as states struggle to acquire the drugs used in 'traditional' triple lethal injections.

Arkansas prosecutors have complained that inmates are filing court papers just to run out the clock on Arkansas' midazolam supply, which expires at the end of April.

Lawyers for those on death row say the executions are being rushed through on a 'conveyor belt'.

Having not carried out an execution since 2005, Arkansas had been due to carry out eight in the space of ten days.

Had all of the executions gone ahead as planned, it would be the first time since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 that so many executions have been carried out in such a short space of time, campaigners say.

So far, Lee is the only man to have been put to death.
President Donald Trump has nominated former Republican Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown to be the US Ambassador to New Zealand.

The 57-year-old former male model-turned politician replaced Ted Kennedy in 2010 after the legendary Democrat scion passed away.

Known as a vociferous supporter of Trump, Brown is also a former Fox News contributor who has been accused of sexual misconduct during his time at the network.

He also infamously posed nude for Cosmopolitan 35-years ago and was voted 'America's Sexiest Man'.

Scott Brown posed nude for a Cosmopolitan magazine centerfold in 1982 and won the magazine's title 'America's Sexiest Man'

Brown said that the money he earned from the win inspired him to take up modeling full time for two years

The former senator is married to NH1 News reporter Gail Huff, who he met through modeling. The couple have two daughters, Ayla - who was an American Idol semi-finalist in 2006 and Arianna, who is a pre-medical student at Syracuse University.

Brown, who will require a Senate confirmation, was accused by former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros in August of making several sexually inappropriate comments to her.

Among them Brown allegedly said she 'would be fun to go to a nightclub with'. She claimed he said these in a 'suggestive manner'.

Allegations: Andrea Tantaros has made allegations of sexual misconduct at Fox News and claimed there is a culture of misogyny

Brown has vehemently denied the allegations which are part of Tantaros' suit against Fox News and former chairman Roger Ailes - which she labeled a 'sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny.'

Brown is not a defendant in the lawsuit and said that he is a survivor of sexual abuse himself and 'would never perpetuate language or actions as described in (the) Fox complaint.'

Brown's nomination by the president follows the firing of Bill O'Reilly after numerous sexual harassment allegations against him and the removal of Ailes as chief.

Despite this, Brown received the endorsement of his successor Elizabeth Warren on Thursday who congratulated him on the nomination and said she is sure he will 'make the people MA proud'.

Brown won Cosmopolitan's 'America's Sexiest Man' contest as a 22-year-old law student at Boston College.

He said he crashed dieted on 'three cans of tuna a day' and went to the gym religiously before posing for the risque nude shot.

The $1,000 prize he received as winner inspired him to become a full-time model for two years before he returned to Boston College and completed his degree.

He then went into practicing law before he decided on entering politics in 1992 when he was elected property assessor of Wrentham in Massachusetts.

President Donald Trump has announced plans to nominate former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown to be the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand (they are pictured together on February 2)

Scott Brown, his daughter Ayla Brown (left) and his wife Gail Huff attend the 2011 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton on April 30, 2011 and right Brown and his wife attend the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with their daughter Arianna in 2011

As a senator, Mr Brown supported the use of waterboarding and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques'.

He represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate as a Republican from 2010 to 2013 after winning a special election to fill the seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, a Democrat.

Mr Brown lost the seat to Elizabeth Warren. In 2014, he was the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire but lost to incumbent Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

He is expected to replace Mark Gilbert, who was appointed ambassador by then-US president Barack Obama.

Mr Brown supported Mr Trump during the presidential campaign and had been considered for other administration jobs - including secretary of Veterans Affairs. Brown is a veteran.

The Senate must confirm the nomination. The White House announced Mr Trump's plans on Thursday.
Incidents during President Trump's chaotic presidential campaign are still costing the leader of the free world's campaign some cash.

Politico looked at the lawsuits swirling around the Trump campaign and found that the president's campaign committee has paid out nearly $4 million in 'legal consulting' and 'legal fees,' including more than half a million dollars since the presidential election.

Jones Day, the Trump campaign's law firm, has received $3.3 million from the committee through the end of March.

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President Trump's campaign is still dealing with lawsuits over incidents that happened last year when he was running for president

Other chunks of the $4 million have been spent on legal settlements, though the campaign listed them as 'legal consulting,' Politico learned.

For instance, when a British photographer sued Trump, his campaign, his son Donald Jr. and Vice President Mike Pence for allegedly misappropriating a photograph of a bowl of Skittles he had shot, with Donald Jr. using the picture in a tweet suggesting Syrian refugees were killers, the Trump campaign listed on its FEC report that $10,000 had been given to the law firm representing the photographer, a week after he had dropped the case.

It said the sum paid for 'legal consulting.'

When Politico asked the photographer's attorney Heather Blaise about it, she laughed.

'That's interesting,' she said. 'I have never been retained as counsel or a consultant to the campaign.'

The campaign just disclosed payments to a law firm handling work on another brewing case, in which a campaign staffer claimed that the North Carolina state director had pulled a loaded gun on him.

Politico also found that a number of law firms that are listed as doing work on cases against the Trump campaign filed by protesters aren't listed on the committee's campaign finance filing

On Friday, a campaign finance filing said the committee had paid $51,000 to the Charlotte, North Carolina-based law firm, Van Hoy, Reutlinger, Adams & Dunn, attorneys defending the Trump campaign and Earl Phillip, the North Carolina state director.

The staffer, Vincent Bordini, said while Phillip was driving he 'produced a pistol, put his right index fingers on the trigger, and drove the barrel into Vincent's knee cap.'

The lawsuit alleged that Bordini had heard from four additional staff members who said Phillip had brandished his gun at them as well. He said he took his complaint up the chain, even to Trump's then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, but nothing was done.

In the coming week, depositions are planned in Washington, D.C., over the case.

On top of that, the partner, Philip Van Hoy, who's been lead on the lawsuit said his firm billed the Trump campaign and was met with radio silence.

'After several months, I sent a reminder to the folks I was working with,' Van Hoy told Politico. The committee then overpaid the Charlotte-based law firm. 'They made an arithmetic error,' Van Hoy explained. But since the firm continues to work on this case on behalf of Trump the billable hours eventually caught up with the bigger payment.

Now things between the campaign and the law firm are square, Van Hoy told the online publication.

Politico also found that a number of law firms that are listed as doing work on cases against the Trump campaign filed by protesters aren't listed on the committee's campaign finance filings.
Conservative author Ann Coulter continues to insist that she is speaking at University of California, Berkeley on April 27, despite school officials saying they have a 'grave concern' of violence on campus if she does.

Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks instead proposed an alternate May 2 date for the conservative author, reversing a decision from a day earlier when officials canceled the event.

Coulter took to Twitter to reject the offer, saying she will appear next Thursday as originally planned.

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Ann Coulter waves to the audience after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington

'I'm speaking at Berkeley on April 27th, as I was invited to do and have a contract to do,' tweeted Coulter, who was invited to speak by campus Republicans. In a separate tweet she said she's not free May 2 and added that there are no classes the week of May 2.

She also said she'd 'already spent money' planning for the event, for space, airfare and hotels for her and her crew.

But she defiantly said she had no plans to cancel.

'GOOD NEWS FOR CA TAXPAYER! You won't be required to pay $$$$ to compensate me & my crew for rebooked airfare & hotels. I'm speaking on 4/27.'

To Tucker Carlson on Fox News, she asked 'What are they going to do? Arrest me?'

Coulter's rejection potentially sets the stage for another political brawl at Berkeley, where violent protesters forced the cancellation of a speech by former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos in February.

Dirks told a news conference that police have 'very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker,' her audience and protesters if the event goes ahead next Thursday.

He urged Coulter to speak at the later date instead, when the university can provide an 'appropriate, protectable venue.'

The Berkeley College Republicans invited Coulter to speak on the subject of illegal immigration.

A talk by right-wing commentator Ann Coulter (above) at the University of California at Berkeley has been rescheduled to May 2 as her safety could not be assured by the university

On Wednesday, UC Berkeley officials announced they were calling off the event because of security concerns.

'We have been unable to find a safe and suitable venue,' officials wrote in a letter to the campus Republicans on Wednesday. 'Given current active security threats, it is not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully.'

Coulter responded Wednesday, also on Twitter, by saying she planned to come anyway.

Campus spokesman Dan Moguluf said Coulter's promise 'to come to the campus come what may' prompted Dirks to launch an expanded search beyond the usual venues for high-profile speakers to find one where officials can ensure safety.

Berkeley has been the site of clashes between far-right and far-left protesters, most recently at a rally last weekend called in support of President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.

Mogulof said campus police learned that some of the groups that appeared to be responsible for the violence last weekend and at the Yiannopoulos event 'planned to target the appearance of Ann Coulter on campus.'
A convicted bank robber, dubbed the 'Straw Hat Bandit', has been arrested again on suspicion of being responsible for a recent string of Pennsylvania bank robberies.

Richard Boyle, who was convicted in 2008 of holding up eight banks, was arrested on similar charges by federal agents on Thursday.

The FBI accuse the 57-year-old of robbing 11 banks in the Philadelphia area from 2012 to 2016, pocketing almost $500,000 since his release from prison in 2011.

The man from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was bestowed the nickname the 'Straw Hat Bandit' for his disguise during the stickups, including a straw hat and mask, officials said.

Richard Boyle (left and right), who was convicted in 2008 for holding up eight banks, was arrested on similar charges by the FBI on Thursday. He is accused of robbing 11 Pennsylvania banks of $500,000

Officials gave the robber his nickname the 'Straw Hat Bandit' (pictured) for his disguise during the stickups, including a straw hat and mask

Boyle was already in custody for a parole violation when he appeared before a federal judge on Thursday to be formally charged with 11 counts of bank robbery, 10 counts of carrying a firearm during the holdups, and 10 counts of money laundering, The Intelligencer reported.

It was unclear whether he has a lawyer. A message left at his photography business wasn't returned.

Authorities slapped him with the counts of money laundering because Boyle allegedly laundered some of the stolen money through his aerial photography business Sky Eye View, according to ABC 6.

In a four year span, Boyle is accused of stealing $495,686, with the largest robbery totaling $90,618 in early January of 2015 at a Wells Fargo Bank in Plymouth Meeting.

This image from a surveillance video provided by the FBI shows a disguised suspect robbing a PNC Bank on July 2, 2016. Agents said Richard Boyle is the man behind the disguise

His alleged first robbery after his release from prison in 2011 was in June of 2012, where he demanded cash while wearing a mask and made off with $49,464.

Boyle's last alleged robbery was in July of 2016 where he grabbed $32,744 in cash.

If he is found guilty of the recent string of bank robberies, he faces 200 years behind bars.

On his first sentencing, Boyle's lawyer reported his client being a troubled man who became unstable after he stopped taking his medication, reported Philly.com.

Boyle had lost his high-paying job with an annual of salary $250,000 around the time of his first crime spree and he said he used the stolen money to pay off his bills.
Queensland Rail recruits are being tasked with solving difficult maths problems before getting a job as a train driver.

But before they land a role, even experienced train drivers must pass an online psychometric test that features the maths puzzles before they can proceed to the next stage and undergo a job interview, The Courier-Mail reported.

This includes qualified ones working for private freight operator Aurizon.

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Queensland Rail recruits are being tasked with solving difficult maths problems before getting a job as a train driver

The base salary of a train driver on the southeast Queensland network is reportedly $92,574

Some Aurizon drivers looking to work with Queensland Rail said it had taken nearly three weeks to learn whether they had passed  and revealed their dismay at how difficult the questions were.

The base salary of a QR train driver in south-east Queensland network is reportedly $92,574.

University of Queensland mathematics professor Peter Adams said the puzzles would stump some of his own students who are studying advanced math.

'My students would them hard,' he told the newspaper.

University of Queensland mathematics professor Peter Adams says the puzzles would stump some of his own students who are studying advanced math

Some Aurizon drivers looking to work with Queensland Rail revealed their dismay at how difficult the questions were

And strangely, it comes as Queensland Rail was forced to adopt a less frequent timetable due to a shortage of drivers and in a bid to avoid mass cancellations like last year.

The test allows applicants just a few minutes to solve each question  and only one chance to take it.

QR's chief executive Nick Easy defended the process, saying psychometric testing has been used since 2011 to filter applicants.

He said independent studies has found the testing reduced safety risks. It includes three sections: cognitive, psychomotor and personality.

Last month, it was revealed dozens of Aurizon drivers had their applications rejected without a reason given - even though some had qualified to apply previously for jobs at Queensland Rail.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted QR for comment.
Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne said he 'couldn't care less quite frankly' about escalating tensions between Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott.

Mr Abbott went on the attack on Thursday against 'self-serving' leakers following revelations his successor had to be drafted in to save his political hide.

Internal Liberal Party polling of 400 Warringah voters ahead of the 2016 federal election showed Mr Abbott could lose to Labor or an independent, according to media reports.

Mr Abbott went on the attack on Thursday against 'self-serving' leakers following revelations his successor had to be drafted in to save his political hide

Mr Abbott confirmed polling had been conducted, but only three people knew about it - including Mr Turnbull.

But the Prime Minister denied knowing who leaked the polling and dismissed claims there was open warfare between him and Tony Abbott.

'Totally unfair. Ridiculous thing to say,' he told ABC TV on Thursday night.

Mr Pyne said he didn't know who leaked the information.

'I couldn't care less, quite frankly. I am the minister for defence industry and that is going terrifically well,' he told the Nine Network on Friday.

'I couldn't care less, quite frankly. I am the minister for defence industry and that is going terrifically well,' Mr Pyne said about the reported infighting

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull denied knowing who leaked the polling and dismissed claims there was open warfare between him and Tony Abbott

Reports of fighting between the two political heavyweights come after Mr Abbott slammed senior liberal party members on Thursday, including Mr Turnbull.

Mr Abbott took a swipe at those responsible for leaking private polling information to the media on Thursday, saying it was done for purely 'self-serving reasons'.

'I do want to make this point: the sneaky, underhand business of leaking needs to stop, it really does need to stop. It is absolutely corrosive of trust,' he told Channel 9.

'The polling in question was very, very closely held. I had it, [Liberal Party federal director] Tony Nutt had it, the Prime Minister had it. I'm just very disappointed that someone has chosen to put it out there for self-serving reasons.

'Malcolm Turnbull was saving all of our seats, as he was a very popular figurehe would have been very popular in that particular part of Sydney.'

Mr Abbott took a swipe at those responsible for leaking private polling information to the media on Thursday, saying it was done for purely for 'self-serving reasons'

Mr Abbott told 2GB radio's Ray Hadley on Monday that Australia was 'going to go badly' unless it took immediate action.

'Everyone needs to live within their means, government is no different than business and households,' Mr Abbott said.

Questioned about reports Liberal powerbrokers are looking for a senior figure - possibly Mr Howard - to resolve the pair's differences, Mr Pyne replied: 'I don't know and I don't care'.

Labor's Anthony Albanese said the Government has stopped governing because of the infighting.

Mr Abbott told 2GB radio's Ray Hadley on Monday that Australia was 'going to go badly' unless it took immediate action

'They are just completely dominated by this cage fight between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull,' he said.

Mr Albanese said he's seen such internal conflict and knows how it ends.

Asked if it was annoying to have a former prime minister interrupting him from the backbench, Mr Turnbull said 'there are many potential distractions in my job.'

'I look forward to all the members of my party room, all the members on the backbench or the frontbench, working together and getting out there and talking about the success of the government's policies,' he told the Seven Network.
Three people have escaped unharmed after a historic RSL in Melbourne was gutted by fire in the lead up to Anzac Day.

Emergency services were called to the Ivanhoe RSL building on Upper Heidelberg Road in Ivanhoe about 7am, after a local resident spotted the building alight.

Victoria Police said they believe three people were in the building when they heard an explosion and saw flames.

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Three people have escaped unharmed after a historic RSL in Ivanhoe, Melbourne was gutted by fire on the eve of Anzac Day

Three women doing a yoga class when they became aware of the fire, quickly escaping the building and raising the alarm, 9News reported.

'Midway through the class we heard a sound and didn't think too much of it, about 10 minutes later we smelt smoke and saw it moving past the window so we stopped to check it,' the yoga instructor said.

A neighbouring house was evacuated and its elderly residents were taken to hospital for observations.

The Melbourne Fire Brigade said the first fire truck on scene immediately requested additional fire trucks, as the fire was extending through the roof of the two-storey brick structure.

There were 25 firefighters who attended and they managed to get the fire under control in 52 minutes.

Emergency services were called to the building on Upper Heidelberg Road in Ivanhoe about 7am, after a local resident spotted the building alight

Intense smoke surrounded the area, requiring traffic diversions on Studley Road, Banksia Road and Upper Heidelberg Road.

A spokesperson from the Melbourne Fire Brigade said the fire was caused by an electrical fault in the ceiling fan in the changerooms.

Anyone with information should contact Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.

Police said they believe three people were in the building when they heard an explosion and saw flames. They quickly escaped the burning building and raised the alarm
A freak accident during a routine operation resulted in the death of a 14-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY).

Wiliam Tolley, 42, was part of the crew that responded to a call to put out a small fire at a Queens home on Thursday, according to CBS 2 New York.

Witnesses said it appeared Tolley, of Bethpage, Long Island, misstepped while trying to move from the bucket attached to his fire truck's ladder to the roof, and fell five stories at around 2.40pm Eastern.

A freak accident during a routine operation resulted in a 5-story fall and the death of William Tolley, a 14-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) on Thursday in Queens, New York.

The fire the team was battling occurred on the second floor of a multi-family home located at 1615 Putnam Avenue in Ridgewood on Thursday afternoon, the FDNY said.

The fire had already been contained when Tolley fell, CBS reported.

One witness described what he saw to a CBS reporter.

'I seen the fireman go up the ladder, go in the white thing  the bucket  and then the ladder shakes. I dont know why it jerks or why it shakes. After it shakes, then he fell out,' Michael Lewis, a construction worker, said.

'He was already up there on top of the roof in the bucket. There was like two or three firemen already on the roof, and then it shakes, and he fell out.'

It's standard procedure for firefighters to ventilate a burning building by going to the roof and opening doors, as part of efforts to save individuals who may be trapped above a fire, said New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

'The fire was on the second floor. Firefighter Tolley was operating on the roof. That was his position as the outside ventilation firefighter, operating around the area where Ladder 135s bucket was located,' Nigro said.

'Firefighter Tolley fell five stories from the roof and he perished about 20 minutes into fighting that fire. The circumstances of the tragedy and the fall are right now under investigation.'

'I seen the fireman go up the ladder, go in the white thing  the bucket  and then the ladder shakes; After it shakes, then he fell out,' witness Michael Lewis, a construction worker, said

Many gathered at the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn where Tolley was taken, including his family, firefighters, the FDNY Chaplain and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

The actual fire had nothing to do with Tolley's fall and eventual death, Nigro said.

'It was really in the operation that he was performing on the roof  which is a routine operation for us, and somehow he fell from the roof,' he said.

Two other people were injured in events related to the fire, authorities said. A second firefighter, while alert, was placed in an ambulance. That firefighter may have been the operator of the ladder truck from which Tolley fell, according to statements made by witnesses to CBS.

Tolley was rushed to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn after the fall, but to no avail.

Many gathered at the hospital, including Tolley's family, firefighters, the FDNY Chaplain and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The actual fire had nothing to do with Tolley's fall and eventual death, Nigro said; a shot of the bucket from a chopper over the fire is seen here

Tolley was 'a man dedicated to protecting others,' de Blasio said during a press conference from the hospital, who 'like all members of the FDNY understood every day he was putting his life on the line, but he did it willingly in the service of others.'

'To his family, we say we will stand with you not only today but in the days ahead and for years and years to come,' de Blasio said during a press conference from the hospital on Thursday.

'This is what the FDNY does, stays by families through everything that comes ahead.'

He also expressed his condolences to all of members of the FDNY, and particularly Tolley's crew at Ladder 135, Engine 286 in Ridgewood.

With his passing, Tolley has become the 1,147 member of the FDNY to lay down his life for the safety of others.

He is survived by his wife, Marie, and their 8-year-old daughter, Bella.
Malcolm Turnbull has expressed his surprise Leigh Sales would question his changes to Australia's citizenship rules in a fiery interview.

The Prime Minister became defensive during the interview on ABC's 7.30 program when Sales began questioning him about whether Australia's Christian values meant respect for women and children.

'Christianity doesn't advocate quality for women, "wives submit to your husbands", and so forth,' Leigh Sales said.

'I'm surprised you're challenging this on the ABC, but there it is. I don't think your heart's in it actually, Leigh,' the Prime Minister responded.

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Malcolm Turnbull laughed and accused the journalist of agreeing with him despite her hard questions

ABC 7.30 host Leigh Sales asked the PM if Australia's Christian values meant equality for women

Mr Turnbull laughed as he interrupted Sales' next question to say: 'I think you agree with me.'

Sales had quizzed Turnbull on his view of gender equality in Australia before the Prime Minister quickly defended the nation's treatment of women.

'The values of modern Australia - and I hope you agree with this - certainly assert that men and women are equal, it's our values, it's the law of our land and it's in our DNA,' he told the ABC.

'And I say as Prime Minister of Australia that part of our extraordinary nation is respect for women and children and respect for the equal rights of women.'

Leigh Sales and Malcolm Turnbull had a tense exchange on 7.30 about Muslim women

Sales then launched into an interrogation of the Prime Minister's policies, ignoring Mr Turnbull's claim that her 'heart is not in it'.

During the interview Mr Turnbull also repeatedly refused to say if Muslim women who wear headscarves have integrated into Australian society.

'Leigh, what you're asking me to say is, "is a woman who wears a headscarf not integrated?",' he said.

Sales replied she was not asking him to say that.

'Wearing a headscarf is a feature of a woman's life, wearing a particular garment,' Mr Turnbull said.

The Prime Minister had earlier agreed with Sales that Jewish people who celebrated Hanukkah had integrated with Australian culture and values.

'Well, of course they are. Of course they are,' he said.

But Mr Turnbull minced his words when asked about Muslim women wearing headscarves.

Malcolm Turnbull said 'people are free to wear whatever item of clothing they like'

Sales rephrased the question by asking if he thought most Australians regarded a woman wearing a headscarf as someone who represented Australian values.

'People are free to wear whatever item of clothing they like,' Mr Turnbull said.

The Prime Minister's tortured words are a contrast to one of his Liberal predecessors, John Howard, who in 2006 described burqas, which cover the face, as 'confronting'.

Mr Turnbull has this week unveiled a new set of criteria for citizenship tests.

Applicants will need to face an English test and commit to embracing Australian values.

They will also need to provide evidence they have been working to show they can integrate into society.

Those who want to became Australians will also need to have been a permanent resident for four years, up from 12 months now, and face a stand-alone English test.

Malcolm Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton announce the new citizenship test

Greens citizenship spokesman Nick McKim said Malcolm Turnbull was trying to win Pauline Hanson's supporters

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has taken the credit for the new citizenship test

Some of the new citizenship test questions will canvass issues such as domestic violence, female genital mutilation, and child marriage.

Greens senator Nick McKim, who holds the citizenship portfolio for the left-wing party, declined to say if he felt the Turnbull government was targeting Muslims.

However, he accused Mr Turnbull of trying to win over Pauline Hanson supporters.

The One Nation leader has taken the credit for the government's new citizenship test.

'The crackdown on citizenship and the patronising citizenship test is about appeasing the far-right of the Liberal Party and One Nation,' Senator McKim told Daily Mail Australia.

'So poorly thought through is this idea that the Prime Minister has to go get an expensive focus group to tell him what Australian values even are.

'If the government is serious about protecting women and girls from family violence and female genital mutilation, then they wouldn't be gutting funding from community legal centres.'
Debenhams is transforming its stores into lifestyle destinations in a bid to battle falling sales on the high street.

The department store chain is facing an uphill battle with online retailers and plans to entice shoppers into stores with beauty treatments such as eyebrow waxes, express blow dries and facials.

It will also introduce more restaurants and prosecco bars, encourage customers to use personal shoppers and adding more choice in its accessories department.

Debenhams is adding prosecco bars and more restaurants to its branches to battle with online retailers. File image

The plans are part of an overhaul which will see Debenhams spend 150million a year on upgrading its stores and IT, put more staff on the shop floor and kick-out underperforming brands.

It has identified 10 out of its 176 stores in the UK and Ireland which it thinks might become loss-making in the future  and will decide whether to close them over the next five years.

Sergio Bucher, the chief executive brought in last year to lead the turnaround, said: Shopping these days tends to be an all-day experience, you go for lunch and coffee as well, rather than just going for the sake of shopping.

Customers tell us they find it hard work to shop with us.

New chief executive Sergio Bucher has said the changes represent shopping becoming an all-day experience

Stores are too cluttered, theres too much product and its not different enough.

Like its high street rivals such as John Lewis and House of Fraser, 202-year-old Debenhams has been hit with a shift in consumer spending.

Shoppers are choosing to spend their cash on meals out, beauty treatments and time with family instead of splashing out on clothes and shoes.

Department stores have reacted by introducing extra services  such as bikini waxes and spas - to encourage people to spend more time there.

They want to give reasons for families to spend the whole day in stores, rather than just dropping in for one purchase.

Debenhams is focusing on its beauty department, which it hopes to grow into a 1billion-a-year business. Sales are currently just over 700million and make up 25 per cent of sales.

Express manicures, facials and makeovers will be introduced alongside exclusive agreements with new brands  such as Kat Von D  which it launched last year.

And it has also brought in more cafes such as Patisserie Valerie, pizza restaurant Franca Manca and Costa Coffee.

Debenhams is investing millions of pounds in its website, and will make sure shoppers can use their mobile phones to make purchases too.

It also wants to introduce a service where shoppers can select clothes online, book an appointment with a personal shopper, and then walk into the store where their chosen outfit will be waiting in the fitting room  along with a glass of bubbly.

Mr Bucher, 53, wants his shoppers to have a facial, eat lunch and then buy an outfit  while sharing the experience with their friends on social media sites such as Instagram.

Some branches of the department store already have chains like Franco Manca, the sourdough pizza company, and Patisserie Valerie

He added: The growth in UK retail is being driven by mobile. Theres an opportunity for us to become the destination of social shopping.

But while Debenhams wants women to visit shops to get their eyebrows done, former Amazon fashion boss Mr Bucher said Debenhams could start offering beauty treatments at home as well.

He would not provide details of how this would work, but it could involve a dial a facial or mobile app where customers could order a beauty treatment.

Richard Hyman, an independent retail analyst, said if Debenhams did not introduce rapid changes it could fail.

The department store retail format peaked a generation ago, he said.

That doesnt mean its dead but it does mean we are seeing fewer department stores.

Every decade there are one or two fewer and they are having to fight harder and run faster to hold their own in what has become an increasingly cut-throat retail market.

You only have to look at the number of price promotions that everyone is running these days.

If Debenhams stands still it will wither and die. They need to update themselves and persuade shoppers they are more relevant.

Along with more beauty services, Debenhams also plans to overhaul its cluttered clothing department, cutting stock levels by 12 per cent, having fewer options on sale and reviewing its designers  although popular Jasper Conran will stay.

It is also moving 2,000 staff from backroom jobs onto the shop floor.

Along with changes to stores, Debenhams announced it would close 11 warehouses  in a move affecting at least 220 jobs.

One of its three distribution centres run by DHL and ten smaller warehouse will go.

Details of the plans came as Debenhams announced a 6.4 per cent fall in profits to 87.8million for the six months to March 4.
A teenager stabbed a young father 70 times with a knife and an axe while high on ice after her abusive boyfriend threatened to kill her family if she didn't, a court has heard.

Bonnie Sawyer-Thompson was 19 when she killed Jack Nankervis, 23, in June 2014 at her Morwell flat in Gippsland, Victoria.

Sawyer-Thompson barely knew Mr Nankervis, who was in a drug-induced stupor and was unable to defend himself, the court heard.

She told police her abusive boyfriend, Phillip Mifsud, pushed her to bludgeon Mr Nankervis to death, a Supreme Court plea hearing heard.

The trio had taken GHB, ice, and cannabis the day of Mr Nankervis's death, ABC reported.

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Bonnie Sawyer-Thompson was 19 and high on ice when she killed Jack Nankervis, 23, in June 2014 at her Morwell flat in Gippsland, Victoria

Sawyer-Thompson barely knew Mr Nankervis, who was in a drug-induced stupor and was unable to defend himself, the court heard

Mr Mifsud left the house before the killing took place.

Sawyer-Thompson was initially charged with murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of defensive homicide on claims she feared for her family's safety.

She previously told the court she suffered abuse at the hands of Mr Mifsud.

She said made her swallow bullet cases and put a firecracker down her top throughout their relationship, the court heard according to 9 News.

Mr Mifsud had injected her with drugs without her consent, smashed a bottle over her head and burnt her with cigarettes, ABC reported the court heard.

Sawyer-Thompson told police her abusive boyfriend Phillip Mifsud (pictured) pushed her to stab Mr Nankervis to death, a Supreme Court plea hearing heard

'We can rest and more importantly Jack can rest,' Ms Nankervis wrote on Facebook after sentencing (Mr Nankervis is pictured)

Sawyer-Thompson suffered abuse and humiliation at the hands of Mr Mifsud, the court heard

He also 'pooed' on her, Sawyer-Thompson's mother told the court.

Mr Mifsud has never been charged over his alleged involvement in Nankervis's death.

Sawyer-Thompson was sentenced to 10 years behind bars on Thursday. She will be eligible for parole in four years.

Mr Nankervis's mother, Anna Nankervis, said she did not think the sentence was tough enough.

She thanked those who supported her throughout the case.

'We can rest and more importantly Jack can rest,' Ms Nankervis wrote on Facebook.

'#JusticeForJack always and forever.'

The trio had taken GHB, ice, and cannabis the day of Mr Nankervis's death (Mr Nankervis is pictured)

The scene is pictured after Sawyer-Thompson killed Mr Nankervis at her Morwell flat in Gippsland, Victoria

Mr Mifsud has never been charged over his alleged involvement in Nankervis's death
A young Queensland couple have appeared in court over a crime spree across the state that saw them steal groceries, fuel, a TV/DVD player and flee hotel accommodation without paying.

Kiara Skie Mcghee, 18, and her boyfriend Joshua Aubrey David Macey, 24 appeared in Rockhampton Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, reported the Queensland Times.

She pleaded guilty to the thefts committed while travelling with her boyfriend around the south-east of the state and living out of their car.

A Queensland couple (pictured) have appeared in court over a crime spree that saw them steal groceries, fuel, a TV and a DVD player and flee accommodation without paying

Mcghee pleaded guilty to 11 charges including fuel drive offs at Ipswich, Stapleton and Burpengary, stealing a TV/DVD player from Aldi in Deception Bay, stealing $85 groceries from Coles and failing to pay for a night's accommodation and food at the Apple Gum Inn in Toowoomba.

She was also charged with failing to appear in court, obstructing police and trespass.

Mcghee's lawyer William Prizeman told the court the couple had become homeless and unemployed when they embarked on the crime spree.

In sentencing, magistrate Mark Morrow took into acount Macey's extensive criminal history and told Mcghee she had been 'taken along for a ride' and said she needed to get her life in order.

Kiara Skie Mcghee, 18, (right) and boyfriend Joshua Aubrey David Macey, 24, (left) appeared in Rockhampton Magistrate's Court on Tuesday on multiple charges

Mcghee indicated she wanted to get a job at Subway and complete a beauty therapy course.

She was fined $200 for breaching probation, sentenced to a further two years probation and ordered to pay her half of the restitution bill of $429.90.

Macey already had an outstanding warrant and was bailed to appear in Emerald Magistrates Court on April 27.
The US government is laying the groundwork for criminal charges to be filed against WikiLeaks founder Jullian Assange, CNN is reporting on Thursday.

Assange has been on the American government's radar since 2010, when his organization published thousands of classified documents stolen by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

In August 2013, a military tribunal sentenced Manning to 35 years in prison. That sentence was commuted earlier this year by then-President Barack Obama.

Manning is due for release next month.

WikiLeaks bills itself as an international organization that publishes secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources.

It has most recently generated headlines last month when it released thousands of classified documents describing how the CIA hacks into smart phones and television sets.

The Australian-born Assange is currently receiving asylum in Ecuador's embassy in London.

The US government is laying the groundwork for criminal charges to be filed against WikiLeaks founder Jullian Assange (above)

Assange has been on the American government's radar since 2010, when his organization published thousands of classified documents stolen by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning (above)

He is wanted for arrest in Sweden for an alleged rape. Assange has denied any rape allegations.

The Obama administration reportedly considered seeking Assange's arrest after WikiLeaks published the Manning files, but decided against it because of potential First Amendment conflicts.

But the current Justice Department under the leadership of Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reportedly comfortable with pursuing a prosecution of Assange.

Sessions told reporters on Thursday that Assange is a 'priority' for the Trump administration.

The Obama administration decided against seeking Assange's arrest because of potential First Amendment conflicts. Then-President Barack Obama is seen left with former Attorney General Eric Holder in this 2014 file photo

CIA Director Mike Pompeo (left) called WikiLeaks a 'hostile intelligence service,' using his first public speech as spy agency chief last week to denounce leakers who have plagued US intelligence. US Attorney General Jeff Session (right) is said to be keen on prosecuting Assange

'We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,' he said.

'This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.'

'So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.'

Federal prosecutors are said to have found a way to overcome potential First Amendment considerations, CNN is reporting.

The Trump administration's desire for Assange's arrest was hinted at last week by CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo called WikiLeaks a 'hostile intelligence service,' using his first public speech as spy agency chief to denounce leakers who have plagued US intelligence.

During a campaign rally last October, President Donald Trump (left) praised the group for releasing hacked emails from the DNC and from those linked to Hillary Clinton's (right) campaign by saying, 'I love WikiLeaks'

Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank last Thursday, called the WikiLeaks founder 'a fraud' and 'a coward.'

'It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,' Pompeo said.

He said Russia's GRU military intelligence service used Wikileaks to distribute material hacked from Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 US presidential election.

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia stole the emails and took other actions to tilt the election in favor of eventual winner Donald Trump, a Republican, against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Pompeo and Trump, who chose him to head the CIA, have not always been so critical of WikiLeaks.

During a campaign rally last October, Trump praised the group for releasing hacked emails from the DNC by saying, 'I love WikiLeaks.'

In July, Pompeo, than a Republican member of the House of Representatives, mentioned it in a Twitter post referring to claims that the DNC had slanted the candidate-selection process to favor Clinton.

'Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks.'

WikiLeaks has published secret documents from the U.S. government and others and says its mission is to fight government secrecy and promote transparency.

Pompeo said it has 'encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence.'
The day before Fox News ousted host Bill O'Reilly, the anchor's lawyers tried desperately to save his job with 'evidence' that he was being targeted by a smear campaign, a new report claims.

On Tuesday, O'Reilly's legal team debated sending Fox emails that showed how a liberal watchdog group was celebrating the success of its campaign to get advertisers to drop his show.

The April 13 email from Mary Pat Bonner, a Democratic fundraiser who served as 'donor adviser' to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign, announced that two conference calls would take place on Thursday and Friday with Angelo Carusone, the president of liberal watchdog group Media Matters, Politico reported.

Media Matters had reportedly spearheaded what Bonner called an 'advertiser education campaign' to have 80 companies drop from advertising on The O'Reilly Factor due to the mounting sexual harassment allegations against the prime-time host.

Bonner, whose consulting firm the Bonnor Group connects big money donors to liberal groups seeking donations, heralds the success of her firm and Media Matters advertiser education campaign against the longtime Fox host.

The purpose of the conference calls she discussed in the April 13 email were to discuss the success of the campaign so far, and our plans moving forward.'

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Goodbye: The day before Fox News ousted host Bill O'Reilly, the 20-year anchor tried desperately to save his job with 'evidence' he was being targeted by a smear campaign, a new report claims.

O'Reilly recently signed a new multi-year contract just weeks ago that guaranteed him over $20 million a year (host's Fox News sign near the entrance to their NYC office building above on Wednesday)

He will not however be walking out with the $100million he had been guaranteed in that contract (a cover is put over O'Reilly's sign on Thursday)

The Bonner group/A Super PAC and fundraiser for Hillary & DNC. The Campaign against Bill OReily is orchestrated by MM & BG. #Smearproof pic.twitter.com/fklnDFuv5w  Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) April 19, 2017

For the 67-year-old longtime anchor, the email regarding the conference calls served apparently as key evidence that a left-wing group was plotting to get him axed from the network.

Lawyers for O'Reilly, who maintain that the allegations against him are 'unfounded', ultimately decided against going to the top executives of 21st Century Fox with the email Bonner sent.

'If we show to Fox tomorrow, word will get out and the Thursday call may be cancelled,' O'Reilly wrote in an April 18 email exchange that was sent by a member of O'Reilly's legal team at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman to Politico Wednesday night.

'So no formal sending to Rupert until after the call. You all should know that I will not put up with much more from FNC.'

The exchange between O'Reilly and his team exposes the deliberations taking place internally in the moments before he was axed from Fox.

It was revealed earlier Thursday that O'Reilly will be walking away with a sizable sum of money following the termination of his Fox News contract after over 20 years at the network.

O'Reilly will be getting $25million from the network after being terminated in the wake of the latest Fox News sexual harassment scandal, according to Matthew Garrahan of the Financial Times.

That is a quarter of the $100million he had been guaranteed in the four-year contract he signed this past January.

The network previously paid disgraced CEO Roger Ailes $40million when he exited last July.

Coming forward: Perquita Burgess (above) detailed the alleged harassment she endured while working as a temp at Fox News

In addition, Perquita Burgess, one of the women who recently accused Bill O'Reilly of sexual harassment, came forward in a very public way on Thursday by appearing on 'The View.'

Burgess revealed that she was the woman who contacted attorney Lisa Bloom earlier this week and detailed how O'Reilly allegedly referred to her as 'hot chocolate' and leered at her when she worked near his office back in 2008 while a temp at Fox News.

When asked by the hosts to describe how she felt after learning that O'Reilly had been terminated by the network for his alleged history of harassment, Burgess said: 'I felt triumphant.'

She then added: 'It felt cathartic.'

A remarkably composed and assured Burgess went on to detail her experiences with O'Reilly during her time at Fox News in the interview.

'Within the first week and a half of working there ... he made like a grunting noise,' said Burgess.

'As time went on, I noticed every time he walked past my desk, if no one was around, he would make that noise.'

Erased: It appears as though the network has renamed the show as just The Factor, as fill-in anchor Dana Perino (above) referred to it as that throughout the broadcast on Wednesday night

The end: There was no sign that O'Reilly had hosted his show, The O'Reilly Factor, when it aired at 8pm on Wednesday

She went on to say: 'Fast forward to maybe three, four weeks in, we were on the elevator alone coming up to our floor, and he let me off first as gentlemen usually do.

'As I was getting off the elevator, he said: "Looking good, there, girl." The hairs rose on the black of my neck because I knew the grunts and groaning was going on as Im walking in front of him.'

That was not the only comment O'Reilly made however according to Burgess.

'One day he walks past my desk ... he walks past and says: "Hey, hot chocolate,"' said Burgess.

'He walks past and doesnt look at me. When he said it, I didnt respond. I was mortified because it not only was sexual, I took that as a very plantational remark.'

Burgess then added: 'Ive been around enough racism. Such a blatant person, with such a high profile, making me feel uncomfortable, but then not even acknowledging me as a human being.'

In addition O'Reilly's name was unceremoniously erased from his own Fox News show on Wednesday night hours after he was fired over mounting sexual harassment claims.

Emotionless fill-in host Dana Perino, a close friend of Megyn Kelly, spent just over a minute bidding farewell to the man who hosted the show for 20 years.

New name: In addition, the opening graphic at the start of the show also referred to it as The Factor (above) on Wednesday

Perino called O'Reilly the 'undisputed king of Cable News', as there was no sign that O'Reilly had once hosted, The Factor, when it aired at 8pm.

Furthermore, the network removed 'O'Reilly' out of the show's title, as the opening graphic at the start of the show also referred to it as just The Factor.

The adjustments come hours after Rupert Murdoch announced that he was terminating the network's most popular host in a letter on Wednesday afternoon that was signed by himself and his sons, Lachlan and James.

The move was so swift that O'Reilly only learned of it en route to the airport on Wednesday as he returned home to the United States following a week-long trip to Italy reports Vanity Fair.

Perino, who is a former White House Press Secretary, opened the show with a brief statement acknowledging that O'Reilly was leaving the network, but said she would discuss it later on in the show.

The 44-year-old political commentator addressed O'Reilly's departure at the very end of the show for a few minutes in a prepared statement.

Big day: O'Reilly was in Vatican City with his son on Wednesday where he met with Pope Francis (above) hours before it was announced that he was fired from Fox

'Finally tonight, it is the end of an era here at the Fox News Channel,' she began.

'As we mentioned earlier, Bill O'Reilly is leaving this chair and this network after more than 20 years.

'Bill has been the undisputed king of cable news and for good reason.

'He is an incredibly talented broadcaster who raised the bar for interviewers everywhere.

'He has also held his staff to exacting standards in his quest to put the best possible program on the air and they are great.

'And you his audience responded in record numbers making The Factor the number one cable news show for more than 16 years. You have also been loyal and we can't tell you how much that means to everyone on The Factor.'

Perino then read from the statement released earlier from the Murdochs about O'Reilly's departure.

According to a new report, insiders at the network say that 'troubles at Fox news are only just beginning.'
Gloomy skies and showers are forecast for to arrive across the country for Anzac Day with showers expected in both Sydney and Melbourne.

The skies are set to be gloomy on April 25 as thousands take to the streets for dawn services to remember Australia's fallen soldiers.

There is a chance of rain every day up to and including Anzac Day in both cities, Weatherzone meteorologist Tom Hough told Daily Mail Australia.

Anzac Day is expected to be a washout with both Sydney and Melbourne facing rain every day up until the commemoration. Above, cloudy skies in Melbourne on Friday

Melbourne is looking at up to 20mm of rain on the day, while Sydneysiders are predicted to see no more than 5mm.

'In Sydney, there is a chance of showers every day through to Anzac Day, with the highest chance on Anzac Day itself,' Mr Hough said.

'It's going to be wet and showery, with some sunny intervals.'

Temperatures will climb steadily over the weekend, reaching a high of 25C on Sunday and topping out at 27C on Anzac Day in Sydney.

There's a chance of rain every day up until Anzac Day in both Melbourne and Sydney

Melbourne is looking at up to 20mm of rain on the day, while Sydneysiders are predicted to see no more than 5mm

The skies are set to be gloomy on April 25 as thousands take to the streets for dawn services to remember Australia's fallen soldiers. Above, cloudy skies during dawn ANZAC Day services in Sydney last year

Melbourne's Indian summer came to an abrupt halt with heavy rain overnight and the unfortunate weather is set to continue with rain forecast for the next few days.

On Friday, a thunderstorm is expected to hit in the hills near the city this afternoon or tonight, the Bureau of Meteorology warned.

A severe weather warning for heavy rain has been issued for the Mallee, Northern Country and North Central districts, with flash flooding possible.

Sydneysiders are predicted to see no more than 5mm of rain on Anzac Day. Above, file photo

Temperatures won't go above 19C on Anzac Day and the city will see between 10mm and 20mm of rain.

'Those attending dawn services or the footy on Tuesday should rug up,' BOM senior forecaster Rod Dickson told the Herald Sun.

'It's not going to be too cold, but there will be some rain around.'
Today's parents frequently complain that they are worn out by constant battles with their children over bedtime.

But Prue Leith has revealed she brought her son and daughter up with strict Victorian values, sending them to bed early every night so she could relax.

The celebrity chef  the new Channel 4 Bake Off judge  said making her children turn in at 7pm allowed her and her first husband, Rayne Kruger, who was 18 years older than her, to unwind with a drink.

Prue Leith revealed she brought her son and daughter up with strict 'Victorian' values so she and first husband Rayne Kruger could relax with a drink

Speaking at charity event Symfunny at the Royal Albert Hall, Miss Leith, 77, said: The reason they went to bed was not because it was good for them, we just knew it was good for us. We needed them to be in bed so we could have a drink at seven oclock.

Miss Leith, who has three grandchildren, said todays mothers and fathers are worn out by children making the rules.

She said: Now the children are up at 10 oclock and nobody gets any sleep.

Discussing her son Dannys children, she added: My grandchildren are incredibly badly behaved.

'Theyre not badly behaved with meThey [the parents] both look exhausted all the timeThe children look fine because they sleep when they want.

The star, who last year married her second husband, 70-year-old John Playfair, added that she likes to take her grandchildren to museums and teach them about healthy eating.

The Bake Off judge said she likes to take her grandchildren to museums and teach them about healthy eating. She married her second husband John Playfair, 70, last year

She said: I cook with them, which is fun.

I teach them how to eat and what to eat. Miss Leith is taking over from Mary Berry as a Great British Bake Off judge after the programme was bought by Channel 4.

Speaking about the show, she said: Im absolutely delighted to have got it because I never thought I would and I liked the line-up before.
Right-wing radio host Alex Jones testified at his child custody trial that he smoked marijuana, breaking the law in Texas, but only did it to 'test out its strength.'

The InfoWars host admitted during cross-examination on Wednesday to smoking the drug during the last two-and-a-half years, but compared himself to a law enforcement officer testing out the strength of the drug, according to the Austin American Statesman.

'Thats what police do. They smoke it once a year too,' he said.

Conservative radio host Alex Jones admitted under cross examination that he smoked marijuana, breaking the law in Texas

Jones smoked pot on Joe Rogan's podcast, but since it was in California it was legal

He said he only tried out the drug when he toked up in Texas to test to see how strong it was and concluded it was too strong to be legal

Contested: Kelly Jones (pictured) is demanding custody saying that his on air persona is no different from how he behaves around their three children

He added that his smoking it led him to believe it was too strong to be legalized and he talked about the experiment on his show.

He's claimed that billionaire George Soros is funding a plot to have marijuana legalized, part of his ongoing conspiracy theory of a global elite ruled by Soros.

He also smoked marijuana on Joe Rogans podcast in California, where it is legal.

Jones is in the midst of a contentious child custody battle with his ex-wife, Kelly Jones, over their three children ages nine to 14. They have lived with their father in Austin, Texas since the couple's divorce in 2015.

Jones also said he didn't remember cheating on his now-wife, Erika, when they were engaged but said even if he did, she knew about the other woman

Like father, like son: Jones currently has custody of son Rex (left), 14, and two daughters. But his ex-wife says she thinks he's turned them against her, and wants them back

Kelly has contended that Jones, who is brusque and combative on air, has the same demeanor around his children. He claims it is just an on air persona and he leaves that personality in the studio.

He said 'none of the bombasity, none of the rage' was on display with his children.

During cross examination, he also claimed he couldn't remember whether he had cheated on his new wife, Erika, who is now eight months pregnant.

Attorney Bobby Newman grilled him about a sexual relationship he had with a woman even after his then-fiancee Erika moved into his house in 2015.

In an affadavit, Jones had acknowledged having sex with the other woman until March 2016.

However, on stand he said he would 'have to see a calendar' to know if he'd strayed. Besides, he said, Erika had known about the other woman.

On the first day of the trial, things took an awkward turn on the first day of the trial when her lawyer claimed Jones had forgotten 'basic facts' about his kids during a deposition because 'he had a big bowl of chili for lunch,' Austin 360 reported.

Jones has used the defense that his threatening and loud-mouthed personality isn't at all what he's like around his children, but his ex says that's not true

Jones was unable to recall what grade his children were in, according to a Buzzfeed reporter.

It was unclear whether Jones had made the remarks in jest, or seriously.

On Wednesday, lawyer Newman poked fun of him by asking if he'd had any chili that day.

'Is that a serious question?' Jones asked before offering up his breakfast, which was tacos not chili.

That wasn't the only eye-popping claim made by Kelly Jones' lawyer during the trial.

He also accused Jones of being diagnosed with narcissism and paranoia - and played a video clip of Jones disrobing down to his shorts while on camera as 'proof'.

In the clip, Jones said he wanted to show the effects of a 'vitality-increasing' formula sold on the Infowars website, as well as to reference FBI 'snooping' on private communications.

Hot memories: Alex Jones (pictured Monday heading into court) said he forgot 'basic details' about his three kids because he had a big chili lunch, his ex-wife's lawyer claimed Tuesday

Jones also complains that he didn't get a Pulitzer Prize or Nobel Prize for 'being right' about 'the Saudis' being involved in the 9/11 attacks during the clip.

Newman also claimed in court that Jones would disrobe during therapy sessions.

Jones' lawyers responded that the rant was 'satire' created as part of Jones' show, and not related to his parenting.

His shows frequently focus on conspiracy theories, including claims that the Sandy Hook shootings were completely fabricated.

Last month he apologized for spreading the fallacious 'Pizzagate' conspiracy, which culminated in a man firing a gun in a DC pizzeria because he thought a Democrat-backed child-trafficking ring was operating from inside.

'Character': The couple divorced in 2015 and Alex Jones got custody of their kids, aged 9-14. Their custody battle is currently in pretrial. Jones claimed his Schiff rant was 'tongue in cheek'

Judge Orlinda Naranjo told press the claims about Jones having 'narcissism and paranoia' were untrue.

Contested: Kelly Jones (pictured) is demanding custody. The judge told press that Alex Jones was diagnosed with narcissistic tendencies, but not full-blown narcissism, and no paranoia

Jones had no paranoid diagnosis, she said, and prior to the trial a discussion between lawyers centered around him being diagnosed with narcissistic tenancies, not full-blown narcissism.

'Unstable': Jones is 'unstable,' claims his wife, who believes he may have committed a felony when he 'threatened' Rep. Adam Schiff in March

Newman then played a number of clips of Jones apparently drunk, and boasting that he could 'drink a whole jug of Jack Daniels and not even show it.'

One clip - showing a party that Jones attended with his 14-year-old son, Rex, that featured a dart board with Hillary Clinton's face on it - was not allowed, in case it prejudiced pro-Clinton jury members.

Rex, who has appeared on Infowars multiple times, is a key part of the case being made by Kelly.

She claims that Jones has engaged in a 'campaign' to turn the children against her, and that Rex in particular 'parrots' the supposed remarks made by his father.

'Performance': Alex Jones' lawyer said his appearances on his Infowars show are 'performance art' and that he is 'playing a character' in his vitriolic, conspiracy-themed broadcasts

Jones' lawyers say those claims are nonsense, and that Kelly Jones has been slacking in her duties.

She had the potential to 'earn' 50-50 co-parenting rights upon the couple's divorce, but had failed to do so, they said.

On Monday, in a pre-trial hearing, one of Alex Jones' lawyers, Randall Wilhite, said that his client is a 'performance artist' who is just 'playing a character' on Infowars.

'He's playing a character,' he said, according to myStatesman . 'He is a performance artist.'

However, Jones walked back those claims in an Infowars broadcast Monday evening, in which he said he '110 per cent' believed the things he said in his show, according to The Daily Beast .

They've got articles out today that I say I'm a fake... total bull! ... I 110 per cent believe what I stand for

Alex Jones on Infowars, hours after his lawyer said he was a performer

'They've got articles out today that I say I'm a fake, all of this other c**p. Total bull!' he said.

'The media is deceiving everywhere. I 110 per cent believe what I stand for. Were changing the world with you.

'Male vitality': Her lawyers also played a video of Jones derobing on Infowars to show off a body-building supplement, saying it proved he was paranoid and narcissistic

'The globalists are panicking and trying to shut us down and calling us fake news, just like Communist China does, because were kicking their ass.'

The video, titled 'Alex Jones' Crucial Message to All Centipedes,' had apparently been deleted from the Infowars site as of Wednesday evening, but copies of the video had been uploaded to YouTube.

Jones has made a name for himself as the beetroot-faced, lava-spitting host of far-right show Infowars.

The show has featured 'reports' that the government was behind the 9/11 attacks and that the Sandy Hook murders were faked by the government.

It's also become an outlet for Jones to make eye-popping claims including one that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are possessed by demons and smell of sulfur.

His remarks are also known for taking a turn for the violent when he covers liberal celebrities - including a promise to 'break' Alec Baldwin's neck and telling J-Lo to go to Somalia, where she will be 'gang-raped so fast itll make your head spin.'

More recently, on March 30, he called Rep. Adam Schiff a 'c**ksucker' and a 'fairy' after Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called for an investigation into Trump's Russia ties.

He then threatened to 'beat' Schiff's 'goddamn a**,' before paraphrasing John Wayne in True Grit: 'You got that you goddamn son of a b***h? Fill your hand.'

All three of those instances were cited by Kelly Jones as reasons why her husband is 'not a stable person' who should be entrusted with their kids.

She is especially concerned as the threats against Schiff could constitute a crime, she told the court. Threatening a government official can carry a maximum of 5-10 years in prison.

'I'm concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress,' she said. 'He broadcasts from home. The children are there, watching him broadcast.'

That makes her concerned for their son, 14, and daughters, nine and 12, who have lived with Alex Jones since their divorce concluded in 2015, she said.

She also said that there is no difference between the Alex Jones that appears on the show and the one raising their children.

Judge Naranjo said she had never heard of Jones before he appeared in her court, and listened to clips of Infowars episodes to decide whether they could be heard in court.

She allowed two clips - one of him smoking marijuana in California, where it is legal, and one of him bringing his son onto the show.

In the latter clip, first broadcast in July 2015, when his son was 12, Jones invites his son to play a video - one of 15-20 he had made with the Infowars team who had 'taken him under their wing'.

'He is undoubtedly cut out for this, and I intend for him to eclipse what Ive done,' Jones said. 'He's a way greater person than I was at 12.

However, Naranjo said the jury would not be allowed to hear Jones's rant against Schiff, including its anti-gay slurs and threats of violence.

'This case is not about Infowars, and I dont want it to be about Infowars,' Naranjo said.

Days after his anti-Schiff rant - and after the media pointed out that threatening a Representative is illegal - Jones walked back his comments on-air, in a rare retraction.

He said the outlandish remarks were 'clearly tongue-in-cheek and basically art performance, as I do in my rants, which I admit I do, as a form of art.'

'When I say, "I'm going to kick your ass," it's the Infowar,' he added. 'I say every day we're going to destroy you with the truth.'
Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters Thursday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's arrest is a priority as the Justice Department steps up efforts to prosecute people who leak classified information to the media.

'We've already begun to step up our efforts, and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail,' Sessions said.

Two media reports say U.S. prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the anti-secrecy group, including Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets.

CNN reported Thursday that authorities are preparing to seek Assange's arrest. The Washington Post reported prosecutors are weighing charges against the organization's members after the Obama-era Justice Department declined to do so.

Possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act, the newspaper said, though any charges would need approval from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department.

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he 'will seek to put some people in jail' whenever a case can be made that government leakers put state secrets into the public domain

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could soon be charged with crimes related to his anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, for revealing sensitive government secrets

The move comes after WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers, cellphones and even smart TVs. It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week denounced the group as a "hostile intelligence service" and a threat to U.S. national security.

The condemnation of WikiLeaks from Pompeo and Sessions differed sharply from President Donald Trump's past praise of the organization.

Before last year's election, Trump said he was happy to see WikiLeaks publish private, politically damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. He was less thrilled about the release of CIA tactics, which the White House said was different because it involved information about secretive national security tools.

Assange has been on the American government's radar since 2010, when his organization published thousands of classified documents stolen by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning (above)

The Post reported that it wasn't clear whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks' role in the Podesta case.

Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack, told The Associated Press authorities have not apprised him of the status of their investigation.

Assange, an Australian, has resided the last four years in Ecuador's embassy in London. He received political asylum after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted over a rape allegation. Ecuador's recently elected presidential candidate has promised to continue to harbor Assange, allowing him to avoid arrest.

Assange has said WikiLeaks acts in the name of liberty and privacy. The Post reported that Justice officials in the Obama administration believed prosecuting WikiLeaks would be similar to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information, but they did not formally close the case.

"The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher," Pollack said. "Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing."

But Pompeo said WikiLeaks' activity went beyond the First Amendment, alleging the group was involved in obtaining secret material, rather than just reporting information leaked to it.

WikiLeaks "directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information," Pompeo said last week, according to CNN, referring to the case of the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking the hundreds of thousands of documents that made WikiLeaks a household name. "And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States."
Millionaire art gallery founder David Walsh has been forced to apologise over his 'offensive and sloppy' remark after calling Auschwitz visitors 'creepy f***s'.

The art tycoon was describing an upcoming performance that featured the blood of a slaughtered animal, which will be directed by Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch at the Dark MOFO festival at Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in June.

'I didn't build MONA to serve the sort of creepy f***s that go to Auschwitz - over a million of them a year,' Mr Walsh said.

David Walsh (pictured) described Auschwitz visitors as 'creepy f**ks' in his blog

The sinister German inscription at the gates of Auschwitz (pictured) reads 'work sets you free'

'But given MONA's much-vaunted sex and death theme, I wish I'd never said that, the level of morbid interest would be vast'.

The millionaire museum founder quickly took to his blog comment section to apologise for his 'flippant' remarks - however criticised the culture of 'disaster tourism'.

'My intent was irony, and it was unfortunate. Not only was it offensive, for which I apologise, but it was sloppy, since it was bore no relation to the subject that I was attempting to comment on,' he said.

'The diversity in people that visit Mona is vast, as I'm sure it is with those who visit Auschwitz. However, disaster tourism is real and there are unfortunate, but real, economic benefits to having a major calamity in your vicinity.'

Mr Walsh was blasted for his offensive description of Holocaust survivors and the grieving families who visit Auschwitz .

'I don't know of anyone who made the visit in order to garner any of the cheap or macabre thrills that I suspect some of the creepy f***s who visit MONA, may do,' one commenter pointed out.

'Your highly inappropriate and insensitive comment Mr Walsh detracted somewhat from your article. Shame on you.'

More than one million people lost their lives at Auschwitz (pictured) during World War II

The animal in Hermann Nitsch's (above) performance at MONA will be killed humanely before the show

Mr Walsh also implied Auschwitz visitors tour the camp out of a 'morbid fascination' and his remarks attracted the attention of the Anti-Defamation Commission - a Jewish organisation fighting anti-Semitism and racism.

'Holocaust abuse and trivialisation has reared its ugly head again, and the timing could not be worse,' Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, said.

'To shockingly and inexcusably describe the visitors to Auschwitz, including Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren, in such a way, is beyond contemptible.

This ugly and hurtful remark is a grievous slap in the face to the memory of the more than 1.5 million people who were tortured and murdered in Auschwitz, to those who endured the atrocities, and to those who liberated the camp.'

Dr Abramovich also pointed out Mr Walsh's thoughtless remarks reflects the hate-inspiring rhetoric that still permeates the tragic events of World War II.

'For Mr Walsh to use such outrageously degrading and demeaning rhetoric about those who bravely enter the gates of hell in order to confront the truth and to express their grief, is a reminder that we have much work to do in Holocaust education and remembrance,' he added.

Animal Liberation Tasmania's petition calling for the show to be cancelled quickly attracted thousands of signatures

Hermann Nitsch upcoming performance at the Dark Mofo festival has sparked controversy. Above, a file photo shows one of the artist's performances in Austria in 1998

On Wednesday, Mr Walsh wrote a blog post called 'Rising Tide' defending the exhibition.

In the post, which Hobart-born Mr Walsh said was written in the hypothetical style of Geoffrey Robertson, claimed murder and disaster is good for tourism and the economy.

'Imagine I, David Walsh, go down the gallery, kill someone at random, and call it art,' he wrote.

'What would happen to the Tasmanian economy? My guess is Mona would go from being well known globally to being a household word.

'Disaster tourism would drive Mona to the top of the charts and Tasmania's economy would go along for the ride.'
A 33-year-old man has been arrested after he was allegedly caught making sexually explicit comments about an 11-year-old girl to a police officer posing as her father.

The man was arrested by NSW Sex Crimes Squad detectives about 11.30am on Thursday near Parramatta.

Police will allege in court the man believed he was speaking to the father of an 11-year-old girl and made numerous sexually explicit comments about the child, and made arrangements to meet with the pair.

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A Sydney man, who 'thought he was meeting 11-year-old girl for sex after online chats with her father' has been arrested

The 33-year-old man has been charged with online child exploitation offences

In January, strike force officers began engaging online with the man from Sydneys Northern Beaches, police say.

Shortly after, detectives executed a search warrant at a home unit at Dee Why, where they seized computers, electronic storage devices, and mobile phones.

The man was taken to Parramatta Police Station and charged with incite to commit aggravated sexual intercourse person aged between 10 and 14, use carriage service to procure persons under 14, and use carriage service transmit/publish/promote child pornography.

He was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Local Court on Friday.

He believed he was talking a father of an 11-year-old girl and arranged to meet

Police will allege the man engaged in sexually explicit comments about the child

At 11.30am Thursday he was arrested by strike force detectives in Paramatta

Strike Force Trawler is an ongoing Child Exploitation Internet Unit (CEIU) investigation into the sexual abuse and exploitation of children facilitated through the internet and related telecommunications devices.

Regular covert online investigations are conducted by the Child Exploitation Internet Unit and police in NSW work closely with their law-enforcement colleagues interstate and overseas.

Anyone with information about internet predators should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
A dozen people in New Jersey have become ill after police say they apparently ingested the synthetic marijuana K2.

Police in Newark responded Thursday night to a report of a sick person foaming at the mouth in the city.

When they arrived at the scene, they say they found about 12 people experiencing similar symptoms.

About a dozen people in New Jersey have become ill after police say they apparently ingested the synthetic marijuana K2 (seen above)

Police in Newark responded Thursday night to a report of a sick person foaming at the mouth in the city. A stock image is seen above of Newark Penn Station in Newark, New Jersey

They were taken to area hospitals. No fatalities have been reported.

Police say they're investigating the source and working to identify the distributor of the synthetic marijuana.

No other information was immediately available.

Last summer, 33 people in Brooklyn were hospitalized for an overdose on Amb-fubinaca, a synthetic cannabinoid.

Witnesses reported seeing more than a dozen people passing out, vomiting, urinating and twitching in the middle of the street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

The drug, which is 85 times more potent than the main agent in plant-grown marijuana, TCH, caused dozens of people to stagger around a Bushwick-Bedford-Stuyvesant border street corner in a 'zombie-like' state.

Last summer, 33 people in Brooklyn were hospitalized for an overdose on Amb-fubinaca, a synthetic cannabinoid. Witnesses reported seeing more than a dozen people passing out, vomiting, urinating and twitching in the middle of the street in Bedford-Stuyvesant

A study concluded that a middleman who mixes up the drug in a lab somewhere must have gotten a dosage wrong, making an overly-powerful bad batch

More recently, 39 people in Austin, Texas, have been treated since Saturday for illness which resulted from ingesting K2, according to the Statesman.

Drugs known as K2 or Spice, often sold as 'safe' or 'legal' versions of marijuana, are none of those things, a research review from February concluded.

These synthetic cannabinoids (SCBs) are not detectable with standard drug screening for the active substance in marijuana because they are very different, and potentially dangerous, molecules, the study team writes in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences.

'Synthetic cannabinoids produce a number of adverse effects such as neurological, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and renal toxicities as well as tolerance, dependence, and even withdrawal,' lead author Benjamin Ford from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock said.

WHAT IS SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA? Synthetic marijuana contains man-made chemicals that act on the same cell receptors in the brain as THC does in natural marijuana. Researchers have found instances in which chemicals in synthetic marijuana can bind much more strongly to cell receptors than THC does in marijuana that is grown. This can produce stronger effects, such as an elevated mood or feeling of relaxation. But synthetic marijuana is also known to have psychotic effects on some users. These can include extreme anxiety, confusion, paranoia and even hallucinations. Source: National Institute of Drug Abuse Advertisement

Evidence of K2 and Spice use in the United States was first reported in 2009, Ford and his colleagues write, but it wasn't until late 2010 that the National Forensic Laboratory Information System reported tremendous spikes in K2 and Spice product usage.

'Alarmingly, there have been over 20 deaths reported between 2011 and 2014 due to some of these toxicities,' Ford told Reuters Health by email.

A major issue regarding acute toxicities of SCBs concerns the poor and inconsistent quality control of synthetic cannabinoids in these products, Ford said.

'It is common for a single K2 or Spice product to contain between three to five different synthetic cannabinoid compounds at arbitrary, and sometimes dangerous, doses,' he said.

Ford and his colleagues reviewed existing studies of the chemical structure of these compounds, how they work in the brain, how they affect animals in experiments, and the types of side effects seen among human users.

Ford concludes that terms like 'synthetic marijuana' or 'synthetic pot' are very misleading descriptions.

They suggest that K2 and Spice products contain marijuana-like compounds and produce effects similar to those of marijuana, he said.

But, the SCBs are much more potent than regular marijuana and sometimes cause more intense reactions.
President Donald Trump and his aides won the release of an Egyptian American aid worker who returned to the US late Thursday after being imprisoned in Cairo for three years, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Aya Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, was detained in Egypt for nearly three years on human trafficking charges.

She was flown back to the United States on Thursday on a US military plane, accompanied by a top White House official, a senior administration official said.

Hijazi was acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday along with seven others who had worked with street children.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and attended George Mason University, was released from jail on Tuesday, having been held for nearly three years.

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Aya Hijazi (left), a dual US-Egyptian citizen, and her husband Mohamed Hassanein (right), founders of Belady, an NGO that promotes a better life for street children, were acquitted last week on charges of child abuse by a Cairo court

The acquittal of Hijazi, her husband, and four other humanitarian workers reportedly came about as the result of President Donald Trump's (right) intervention. Trump and his aides worked for weeks in persuading President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (left) to release the detainees

She was flown to Joint Base Andrews, the US military airfield on the outskirts of Washington.

President Donald Trump had privately asked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to help out in the case when Sisi visited the White House on April 3, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump did not mention the case publicly when he met with Sisi.

US officials had raised Hijazi's case with the Egyptians soon after Trump took office on January 20, the official said.

Hijazi was accompanied on the flight by Dina Powell, the deputy White House national security adviser for strategy.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and attended George Mason University, was released from jail on Tuesday, having been held for nearly three years

Hijazi, 30, founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children. She is seen above flashing a victory sign following her acquittal on Sunday

Powell had been in the region traveling with US Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Hijazi, 30, founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children.

She had been in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months.

According to the Post, Trump and his aides worked 'for several weeks' with Egyptian authorities on securing the release of Hijazi, her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, and four other humanitarian workers.

Hassanein and the other four are all Egyptian nationals.

Human rights organizations denounced Egyptian authorities for leveling what they say were 'bogus' charges against Hijazi and the other five defendants.

The Obama administration had failed to gain Egypt's cooperation in freeing the defendants.

But Trump's warm and public embrace of the Egyptian president during his recent visit to the White House appeared to sway Cairo to free Hijazi.

The newly freed Egyptian-American will have a chance to personally thank the president on Friday, when she visits the White House along with her brother, Basel.

Hijazi is scheduled to meet Trump, his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is believed to have taken a personal interest in Hijazi's case.

'It's been a roller coaster of emotions the past couple of days,' Basel Hijazi told the Post in a telephone interview Thursday from aboard the plane.

'We're crying with relief to have them out.'

'We're very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. We're so grateful.'
Human bones have been dug out of car retrieved from a dam in a possible breakthrough of a 13-year-long missing person case.

Police have confirmed the red VL Holden Commodore pulled from Borumba Dam near Imbil in Queensland on Thursday belonged to Tasmanian man Stuart Gatehouse, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances in 2004.

Homicide detectives have not yet confirmed if the skeletal remains are those of Mr Gatehouse.

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Police divers and tow truck drivers pulled a red VL Holden Commodore from Borumba Dam near Imbil in Queensland on Thursday

Homicide detectives have been called in to determine if the remains are those of Tasmanian man Stuart Gatehouse (pictured)

Detective Inspector David Drinnen told the ABC the car was owned by Mr Gatehouse.

'However at this stage, it's far too early in the investigation to be making any speculation as to who the deceased person that was located in that,' he said.

A local fisherman had found a large object under the water about two weeks ago.

The skeletal remains found inside the car will undergo forensic examination.

Mr Gatehouse when missing on a trip to Gympie in 2004. He was 45 years old.

Police said he had been driving a red VL Holden Commodore at the time of his disappearance.

An extensive search was conducted but Mr Gatehouse's body was never found.
Convicted contract killer Stephen Asling has been jailed for at least 27 years for the murder of Melbourne underworld figure Graham 'The Munster' Kinniburgh.

Asling was found guilty in March of executing Kinniburgh by gunning him down outside his Kew home in 2003 on the late Carl Williams' orders.

Victorian Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye on Friday jailed him for life with a minimum 27 years to serve.

Convicted hitman Stephen Asling (pictured centre) has been sentenced to life in jail, with a minimum of 27 years, for the murder of Graham 'The Munster' Kinniburgh

Asling (pictured) was found guilty in March of executing Kinniburgh by gunning him down outside his Kew home in 2003 on orders from the late Carl Williams

'Your murder of him was brutal, callous and utterly cowardly,' Justice Kaye said on Friday.

The judge said the decision to kill Kinniburgh as a substitute for Williams' enemy Lewis Moran was made in an 'almost casual manner'.

'Graham Kinniburgh gave you no cause or reason to have any grievance against him, let alone kill him.'

He said contract killings are utterly abhorrent to the values of a civilised and decent society.

Asling's disturbing history of dangerous offending using firearms meant the protection of the community was a substantial, if not primary factor, in determining sentence, he said.

Asling, dressed in a grey suit, white shirt and tie, was expressionless throughout the sentence.

Victorian Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye said the murder of Kinniburgh (pictured) was 'brutal, callous and utterly cowardly'
Qantas is facing a fine of more than $180,000 after Queensland's environmental department issued the airline with an investigation notice over a toxic chemical spill at Brisbane Airport.

About 22,000 litres of firefighting foam containing the chemical PFOA was leaked from the airline's hangar on April 10, with about a quarter of the foam believed to have made it into local waterways.

The department's executive director, Andrew Connor, said the notice put the onus on Qantas to monitor and report the effects of the spill.

About 22,000 litres of firefighting foam containing the chemical PFOA was leaked. Above, the foam in the Brisbane river

'That will ultimately hold Qantas accountable, as the polluter, with undertaking ongoing investigation and monitoring,' Mr Connor said on Friday.

'Part of the notice will require Qantas to be doing monitoring of marine animals, like fish and crustaceans and even smaller animals within that food chain, so that over time of exactly how that chemical is behaving.'

And it could lead to a penalty of up to $182,850 for Qantas, the Brisbane Times reports.

The environment department on Friday revealed the preliminary test results for the waterways around the spill site, in particular Boggy Creek, which shows levels of the chemical have dropped to safe levels for recreational purposes.

About 22,000 litres of firefighting foam containing the chemical PFOA was leaked from the airline's hangar on April 10, Above, the Qantas Maintenance Hanger in Brisbane

About a quarter of the foam that was spilled is believed to have made it into local waterways

However, warnings remain in place to avoid eating marine animals caught in the area.

More testing is being done to give a clearer picture of chemical levels, with the department pushing to release the results as soon as this weekend.

Health authorities say the warning not to eat fish caught in the area is a precaution, as the danger of the chemicals is consuming them over a long period of time, rather than a one-off poisoning incident.

At least 300 prawns eaten over the Easter weekend were contaminated.

Health authorities say the warning not to eat fish caught in the area is a precaution

The leak has dealt another blow to the local prawn industry, which is already struggling with an outbreak of white spot disease.

The fisheries department has granted exemptions to beam trawlers to work further out in Moreton Bay, while other types of fishers such as crabbers and net fishers can simply move to other areas.

And Queensland prawn farmers are seeking compensation from Qantas over the spill.
An furious teacher has slammed radio host Tony Jones for sneering at educators after he suggested teachers were slacking off on student-free days.

Speaking on 3AW on Friday, Tony Jones questioned teachers student-free days especially those that 'conveniently' fell near a long weekend similar to the upcoming Monday before Anzac Day.

'Im questioning why you need to have a curriculum day on Monday, you have to have a day off for that do you?' he said.

Speaking on 3AW on Friday, Tony Jones (pictured) questioned teachers student-free days similar to the upcoming Monday before Anzac Day

A disgruntled teacher named Joy, who called the radio station from her classroom, accused Mr Jones of bullying teachers and sneering at the education profession.

It is really disappointing to hear you sneering at teachers for their curriculum days, Joy said.

Mr Jones slammed Joy for phoning in to the show while she was at work.

'You're teaching? And it's 9.40am and you're phoning me up?' he said.

When Joy said she was in fact at work and preparing a lesson, Mr Jones said: 'Hmm, a lot of preparation'.

Mr Jones (left and right) went on to question why teachers needed a day off to prepare for classes at all

Mr Jones went on to question why teachers needed a day off to prepare for classes at all.

Oh Joy look I dont in any way diminish the job you do when youre actually in the classroom standing before the class and doing what we actually expect you to do which is teach the kids, Mr Jones said.

I do question the time off you have.

Joy hit back and said teachers needed the time to lesson-plan.

What do you want me to teach your children, do you want me to go in unprepared? she said.

'Try and do our job for a day.'

What do you want me to teach your children, do you want me to go in unprepared? teacher Joy said (stock)

Joy told Mr Jones his opinions perpetuated negative attitudes towards teachers.

This bullying of teachers, and it is bullying, this is what gives parents the licence to call me and say are you the C who teaches my kid.

You contribute to this very poor attitude society has towards the education profession.

The back and forth between the two ended when Mr Jones asked Joy what subjects she taught her students.

When Joy told Mr Jones she taught English and humanities, Mr Jones said: 'Alright good on you, you clearly dont teach common sense.'

Listeners took to social media to weigh-in on the issue.

Every teacher I have known is just the same. Spend all day telling you how overworked they are. Defensive and precious, one said.

Another listener appeared to side with the radio host claiming he had the line of the day when he told Joy it was obvious she did not teach common sense.

Others were quick to defend Joy and the teaching profession in general.

Teachers cant help when the school holidays and three public holidays fall. Just how it is. Work ethic is not just learned at school, one woman said.

Why are curriculum days being whinged about, when I thought opportunities to critically reflect are necessary for good teaching? another said.

Others hit out at the radio host claiming his argument was ignorant.

Tony Jones getting schooled after ignorantly attacking teachers, one man said.

Tony Jones is the most condescending argumentative, up jumped presenter you have, another listener said.
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Reclusive entertainer Richard Simmons was photographed for the first time in three years after returning from hospital Thursday evening.

The former fitness guru, 68, has spent the last four days inside Cedars Sinai hospital in Beverly Hills where he was being treated for indigestion.

Simmons left the hospital at approximately 5pm Pacific Time, hidden under a blanket in the backseat of a Mercedes car driven by his long-term housekeeper, Teresa Reveles, on the way back to his LA home.

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Richard Simmons, 68, was seen being driven from hospital to his LA mansion on Thursday night. He emerged from the car shrouded in a blanket and guided by his long-time housekeeper, Teresa Reveles, 64

The one-time fitness guru seemed frail as he walked - possibly a sign of his recent bout of indigestion, for which he was hospitalized for four days. He had initially waited in his car until police arrived to escort him

Only Simmons' hand could be glimpsed from within the blanket as he was guided back to his home, where he has lived a near-hermit-like existence since he vanished from the public eye in 2014

Simmons was also wearing a pristine pair of New Balance sneakers as he returned to his mansion - perhaps a sign of how little he goes outside. He doesn't even walk his dog - he relies on Reveles to do that too

Reveles, 64, had previously refused to comment on Simmons' condition after being approached by DailyMail.com at 2.15pm.

The pair arrived at Simmons' gated mansion 15 minutes after leaving the hospital and drove into the garage attached to the house.

But Simmons, apparently still reluctant to be seen, hid inside for 40 minutes  during which time four LAPD cop cars, a police helicopter, and his manager Michael Catalano arrived.

Eventually, Simmons was helped out of the garage by Reveles, still hiding beneath a blanket and screened by Catalano's Range Rover, and into the main house.

Despite his recent release from hospital, the fitness guru, who was wearing a pair of blue sweatpants and a pristine pair of New Balance sneakers, appeared frail as he was ushered inside.

Catalano declined to comment on Simmons' health when contacted by DailyMail.com.

Once a familiar face on TV, Simmons has been holed up inside his Los Angeles mansion for the last 38 months and has reportedly cut off contact with friends, as well as fans.

His admission to hospital on Monday is thought to be the first time he has left home in three years, with Catalano breaking the news of his illness the same day.

Simmons had waited in his car for 40 minutes, with only his housekeeper for company, before he emerged, wrapped in a blanket and walking weakly

He wore a cream baseball cap on his head before covering up with the blanket

Simmons only departed when his manager, Michael Catalano (left), arrived, along with police (right). Police had also been seen at his home on Wednesday, while he was in hospital. It's not known why they were there

Once a familiar face on TV, Simmons has been holed up inside his Los Angeles mansion for the last 38 months. His disappearance from public life has become one of the great celebrity mysteries of recent years. Pictured, the fitness guru and comedian at the height of his fame in the 1990s

Speaking to ABC News, Catalano said: 'After a few days of battling severe indigestion and discomfort while eating, we agreed it was best for him to seek treatment.

'He's already feeling better and is expected to make a full recovery.'

The following day, Simmons released a statement on social media thanking fans for their concern, accompanied by a photograph of himself dating from 2014  the year he withdrew from view.

He wrote: 'Aren't you sick of hearing and reading about me?! LOL. Well by now you know that I'm not "missing", just a little under the weather.

'I'm sure I will be feeling good and back home in a couple of days. You will never know how much it means to me.

'This has reminded me that when you need help you can't be afraid to reach out and ask for it. We all think we should always be able to solve our problems all by ourselves and sometimes it's just bigger than we are.

Simmons posted to Facebook for the first time in years on Wednesday to say thank you to fans concerned for his health. He also posted this photograph - but it was from 2014, the same year he was last seen

'I reached out and I hope you will too. I'm sure there are people in your life who love and care for you and would do anything to help you with the challenges you face.

'Just knowing you care has already made me feel better. Hope to see you again soon!'

Simmons' disappearance from public life has become one of the great celebrity mysteries of recent years and has sparked a slew of articles, as well as a 2017 podcast called 'Missing, Richard Simmons'.

The podcast, which was inspired by a 2016 DailyMail.com story, sparked renewed interest in the fitness guru's disappearance.

Friends had previously claimed Simmons was being 'held hostage' by Reveles but Simmons' brother Lenny, 70, of New Orleans, Louisiana, last month told People that the entertainer is doing fine.

He said: 'He's doing exactly what he wants to do. It's not like he's sitting around doing absolutely nothing and staring into empty space, because that's not him.

'I know he reads, I know he watches TV, I know he rests. I presume he exercises because he looks good.'

Lenny added: 'When I look at him, he still looks like my brother. He has the beard, his hair is a little grayer but you expect that at 68. But he doesn't seem to be upset about anything.'

Simmons is also understood to be planning a comeback in the next few months and has signed a lucrative deal with Prominent Brand + Talent.

This new deal gives Prominent the rights to represent Richard Simmons for licensing, merchandising and endorsement opportunities around the globe.

An LAPD helicopter (pictured) joined the four police cars that arrived while Simmons was hiding in his garage
Gayle King's colleagues had a lot to say about her recent trip to Tahiti with Barack and Michelle Obama.

A source told Page Six that the CBS News Anchor's 'Capital J journalist' colleagues are 'pissed and raving' mad that she was on a yacht with the Obamas over the weekend'.

The source continued: 'The old-school people that were talking about it. She shouldn't be doing that.

Gayle King, pictured with Obama at a campaign stop in 2007, went on vacation with the former First Couple earlier this month to Tahiti, much to the chagrin of her coworkers

'She's an anchor of a news program that covers the White House. You're held to a different standard. It's one thing to be friendly. It's another thing to go vacationing on a yacht'.

King vacationed with the Obama's on David Geffen's yacht in Tahiti earlier in April, joined also by Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen and Oprah Winfrey - a close friend of King.

Her 'CBS This Morning' co-anchor Chalie Rose reportedly was among those not happy about the trip.

King, pictured with the First couple, vacationed with the Obama's on David Geffen's yacht in Tahiti earlier in April, joined also by Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen and Oprah Winfrey - a close friend of King

The former President and First Lady (pictured) have spent the past month quietly recuperating in French Polynesia, and were joined a few weekends ago by some of their celebrity-friends

'Charlie wasn't pleased. I thought he and Gayle got along, but when things like this happen it makes the show look bad,' the source told Page Six.

However, a spokesperson at CBS said that these claims were completely fabricated.

'There's no truth of any of that. We love Gayle King. Sounds like sour grapes,' the spokesperson said.

The former President and First Lady have spent the past month quietly recuperating in French Polynesia, and were joined a few weekends ago by some of their celebrity-friends.

The former First Couple joined celebrity guests on music mogul and billionaire David Geffen's superyacht Rising Sun on Friday, making quite the splash as they arrived at the vessel off the island of Mo'orea in a spruced up speedboat.

A source told Page Six that Gayle King's (pictured far left in 2014) 'Capital J journalist' colleagues are 'pissed and raving' mad that she was on a yacht with the Obamas over the weekend'

Once on board, the Obama's played tourists, posing romantically on the upper deck while they had their photograph taken.

The stunning 454ft-long yacht was built for Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and bought by Geffen in 2010.

Aside from a handful of visits to New York City, where their eldest daughter Malia, 18, is taking part in a film production internship at The Weinstein Company, the Obamas have largely been out of the country since January 21 when they officially handed over the White House to Donald and Melania Trump.
Calls to ban the tradition of men dropping their pants and dancing whenever classic 1970s rock song Eagle Rock plays have been slammed.

The tradition, a regular sight everywhere from weddings to parties, came under fire this week when a college at Australian National University in Canberra banned Daddy Cool's song from its formal events.

The move came after a complaint from student Emily Jones, who claimed she'd been dancing to the song with a friend at a Burton and Garran Hall event last year when a group of men approached and surrounded them - with their pants down.

But fans of the song have slammed the proposed ban as an overreaction that puts an Australian tradition under threat and that it was never intended to objectify or frighten women.

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Calls to ban the tradition of men dropping their pants and dancing (pictured) whenever classic 1970s rock song Eagle Rock plays have been slammed by social media users

The tradition is regularly seen everywhere from weddings to parties, while a number of videos of the dance being done across Australia are featured online

Calls to ban the song came after ANU student Emily Jones said she was dancing to the Daddy Cool (pictured) hit when male students pulled down their pants, linked arms and 'trapped' her inside the circle

'[I] was at B&G (Burton and Garran) for three years and happily danced to Eagle Rock many times,' one woman wrote on social media.

'It's a sad day in history for men... this earth has become a planet I no longer wish to live on,' one commenter said.

'They should know damn well it's a tradition to that song... whenever you hear it in a pub pants will come down,' another said.

Videos of men dancing with their pants around their ankles are widespread online.

But according to former students, the tradition was extended to women at ANU, with female participants in the dance often taking off their tops.

In the wake of Ms Jones' complaint in an article written for ANU's student newspaper Woroni, Burton and Garran stepped in.

Fans of the song have slammed the decision to ban it as an overreaction, hitting out on social media to say it puts an Australian tradition under threat

'Several male peers circled us and linked arms with one another  effectively trapping us, and other women, in their circle,' Ms Jones wrote in her article.

'These men then dropped their pants to their ankles, and many watched on hungrily as women in the circle stripped off their shirts and danced.'

'Though I tried to leave the circle, some of my male peers blocked me from doing so.'

Ms Jones argued the 'tradition' encouraged the first-year boys to participate in behaviour that objectified women.

ANU's Burton and Garran Hall in Canberra may ban the song 'Eagle Rock' from events after a student complained her male peers circled women and dropped their pants when the tune was played

After Ms Jones detailed the 'tradition' in the student newspaper, Woroni, the B&G Residents Committee drafted a policy banning the song from further events

Under the policy, a warning alert would also sound before the song was played to warn students (pictured is Daddy Cool)

A new policy for the song has been drafted as a result of the meeting, but has yet to be implemented, Ms Jones said.

The policy bans men from circling women during the 'Eagle Rock' and would ban it from being played at mixers, formal events and external venues, Ms Jones said.

New students would also be alerted to the 'tradition' and if the song was going to be played, a warning alarm would sound to warn those who wanted to leave the dance floor.
The New England Patriots will likely have to gear up for a big payout to Aaron Hernandez's family, it has emerged.

The team had withheld a $3.5 million payment - a portion of his signing bonus - after he was convicted in 2015 of the 2013 murder of semi-pro player and friend Odin Lloyd.

But as the player's death on Wednesday occurred before his scheduled appeal, the conviction is likely to be vacated.

That means that the Patriots - per their contract - would have to pay the money to Hernandez's family, legal experts claim.

But the family of Hernandez's alleged victims also have the cash in their sights.

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Dead: As Aaron Hernandez died before he could appeal his conviction for murder, it's likely that Massachusetts will vacate the conviction. That means he will be rendered innocent

Family: Hernandez's daughter Avielle (pictured with mom Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, right, and a family friend), 4, would likely receive a $3.5m bonus from the Patriots that was held back on the players's conviction. Hernandez's court fees have most probably eaten up his money

Under a long-standing Massachusetts legal principle, courts in the state customarily vacate the convictions of defendants who die before their appeals are heard.

The legal principle, called 'abatement ab initio' or 'from the beginning,' would effectively render Hernandez posthumously innocent of Lloyd's murder.

And if that is the case then the Patriots have a legal obligation to pay out the withheld bonus, said lawyer William Kennedy.

If Hernandez has no will, the money is most likely to go to four-year-old Avielle, who was born to Hernandez and his fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez.

Massachusetts does not recognize common-law spouses, so although Shayanna and Hernandez were together since high school it's unlikely she will get the money without a will making her his heir.

But even then, it's likely there isn't much left to take - barring the $3.5 million bonus.

Hernandez's $40million contract extension with the Patriots was voided years ago, his millions were spent on legal fees, and his $1.5million house in the Boston suburbs is on the market.

Suits: Salvatore Furtado (left) and Ernesto Abreu (right), the fathers of two men allegedly shot by Hernandez, are suing his estate - and hope to get some of the bonus money

Kennedy represents Salvatore Furtado, father of Safiro Furtado, who is one of two men shot dead in Boston in 2012.

Hernandez was found not guilty of Furtado's death - or that of his friend, Daniel de Abreu - last week.

But the families of both men are now chasing his estate in civil suits - and Kennedy says they expect a cut of the $3.5 million bonus.

'At the time of his original arrest in the Odin Lloyd case, my understanding was that there was a $3.5 million bonus that we've made a subject of an action in the Superior Court,' he told CBS Boston.

'We got a commitment from the Patriots that before any of that payment would be made they would notify the court to give us a chance to deal with that.'

Ursula Ward, Lloyd's mother, also said that she intended to sue Hernandez's estate, although if Hernandez's conviction is vacated, her suit may be tougher to win than if he were still alive.
A man who infamously snapped a selfie of himself with a kidnapped echidna has now been jailed for a one-punch attack on the Gold Coast.

Jarrod Ronald Simmons, 26, was sentenced to two years' jail, with parole eligibility after seven months, for punching a man from behind and breaking his jaw outside a Coolangatta hotel in November 2014.

Simmons made headlines in October 2015 when he was sentenced to 80 hours community service after pleading guilty to handling Piggie the echidna after she was stolen from the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, and taking a photo with the animal.

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The theft of 'Piggie' quickly went viral, with security footage of her masked kidnappers posted on social media websites

On Friday, the Southport District Court heard Simmons punched a man from behind, almost a year before the echidna incident.

The attack, which crown prosecutor Clayton Willis said the reasons for which were 'unclear', left the man with his jaw broken in two places.

The victim required surgery and had three plates and a 'number of' screws inserted into his mouth.

Judge Catherine Muir labelled Simmons' attack 'unacceptable street thuggery' as she handed down her sentence.

Police issued images of the while one had been wearing a terrifying skull mask (pictured)

Piggie the echidna (pictured) suffered stress and trauma during the ordeal, but was found safe and well within days

'This is the all too familiar offence of young people in alcohol-fuelled violence,' Judge Muir said.

'Make no mistake, the offending behaviour on this occasion was cowardly and violent.

'Lucky for you the injuries the victim suffered weren't more serious.'

Judge Muir urged Simmons to use his time in jail to contemplate his actions, saying the young father wasn't a lost cause.

'Whilst in prison I hope you take the time to consider the effect substances do have upon you,' she said.

Piggie the echidna (pictured) suffered stress and trauma during the ordeal, but was found safe and well within days



In 2015 Southport Magistrates Court heard two men broke into the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on the night of August 1 hoping to find crocodiles.

When they could not locate the reptiles in the dark, they broke into an echidna enclosure and pilfered one.

The theft of 'Piggie' quickly went viral, with security footage of her masked kidnappers posted on social media websites.

Simmons pleaded guilty to handling the animal after it was stolen.

In 2015 Simmons (centre) was sentenced to 80 hours of community service for his role in Piggie's theft

Piggie the four-year-old echidna suffered stress and trauma during the ordeal, but was found safe and well within days.

Three men were charged over the incident.

In 2015 Simmons was sentenced to 80 hours of community service for his role in Piggie's theft.

The men were reportedly under the influence of alcohol when they crept into the enclosure.
A young professional surfer has been rescued by fellow surfer Kelly Slater after he was dumped by a wave and held under the water for 45 seconds.

Russel Bierke, 19, who is a junior big wave pro surfer, was at Port Campbell in Victoria surfing with Slater and fellow pro surfers Ross Clarke-Jones, Tom Carroll and Ryan Hipwood on Wednesday, reported The Standard.

Bierke was knocked unconscious by his board and was underwater for about 45 seconds, swallowing a huge amount of seawater.

Young professional surfer Russel Bierke, 19,(pictured in hospital) was rescued by fellow surfer Kelly Slater after he was dumped by a wave on Wednesday in Victoria

Bierke was surfing with Kelly Slater (pictured) and fellow pro surfers Ross Clarke-Jones, Tom Carroll and Ryan Hipwood at Port Campbell when he was dumped and knocked unconscious

The waves were about 15 to 18 feet high at the two-mile break at the time.

'(I've been told) I caught a wave and Hippo (surfer Ryan Hipwood) was in the channel and apparently just started screaming. Hippo could just see my board floating then and I think Hippo said another wave passed,' Bierke said.

'It was a freak accident. I dont really remember but the wave did something big like dropped out and my board must have hit me,' he told The Standard.

Bierke was put on a jetski by his friend and Slater accompanied him to shore, where the surfing legend yelled for a passerby to call an ambulance, and relayed information on Bierke's vital signs.

Bierke was knocked unconscious by his board and was underwater for about 45 seconds, swallowing a huge amount of seawater. Pictured is Port Campbell

Bierke said he has no recollection of what happened, but has been told he turned blue and was bleeding from deep gash near his jawline where the board struck him.

A female paramedic who happened to be walking past was able to give Bierke oxygen from the Port Campbell Surf Lifesaving Club.

Police and paramedics attended the scene about 1.30pm and Bierke was taken to the Warrnambool Base Hospital intensive care, where he will stay until the weekend.

Bierke said he had surfed much bigger waves and broken his foot before, but said it was 'nothing like this'.

After he was put on a jetski by a friend, Slater accompanied him to shore and yelled at a passerby to call an ambulance. He then relayed Bierke's vital signs paramedics
South Korea is on heightened alert amid concerns about a new nuclear test by North Korea to mark the 85th anniversary of its army.

US officials also said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signalling a possible heightened state of readiness by Beijing - reclusive North Korea's sole major ally.

In Russia, a Kremlin spokesman denied reports that it was moving military hardware and troops towards the border with North Korea.

South Korean army tanks pictured during military exercises last week. The country has said it is on heightened alert amid concerns of a new nuclear test by North Korea

A stock image of a Chinese bomber. US officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by the planes

US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions, something both the United States and China have warned against.

North Korea marks the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People's Army on Tuesday, an important event that comes at the end of major winter military drills, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said.

Top envoys from the United States, South Korea and Japan are due to meet on Tuesday, South Korea's foreign ministry said, to 'discuss plans to rein in North Korea's additional high-strength provocations, to maximize pressure on the North, and to ensure China's constructive role in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue'.

South Korea and the United States have also been conducting annual joint military exercises, which the North routinely criticises as a prelude to invasion.

Missiles paraded through Pyongyang during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of North Korea's founding father, Kim Il Sung

'It is a situation where a lot of exercise equipment is amassed in North Korea and also a lot of strategic assets are situated on the Korean peninsula because of the South Korea-U.S. military drills,' Lee told a briefing.

'We are closely watching the situation and will not be letting our guards down,' Lee said.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday praised Chinese efforts to rein in 'the menace of North Korea', after North Korean state media warned America of a 'super-mighty preemptive strike'.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday North Korea's rhetoric was provocative but he had learned not to trust it.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The country has warned the US of a 'super-mighty preemptive strike'

Trump told a news conference 'some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours', and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would 'try very hard' to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Trump gave no indication of what the moves might be. None of the U.S. officials who spoke about the heightened level of activity by Chinese bombers suggested alarm or signalled that they knew the precise reason for such activity.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang referred questions about the air force to the Defence Ministry, which has yet to publicly comment.

Asked about Trump's comment about Xi trying hard, Lu said Xi and Trump had had a full and deep discussion about North Korea when they met this month.

US President Donald Trump has said he is confident Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, would 'try very hard' to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes

U.S. Army M1A2 tanks conduct a military exercise in Paju, near the border with North Korea

The joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises are due to finish at the end of April

US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions

'I can only say that via deep communications between China and the U.S. at various levels including at the highest levels, the U.S. now has an even fuller and more correct understanding of China's policy and position and has a more rounded understanding of China's efforts. We feel very gratified about this.'

An official Chinese newspaper said there was optimism about persuading the North to end its pursuit of a nuclear programme without the use of force, 'now that even the once tough-talking Donald Trump is onboard for a peaceful solution'.

'Beijing has demonstrated due enthusiasm for Washington's newfound interest in a diplomatic solution and willingness to work more closely with it,' the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

Reinforcements: Footage shows a train carrying Russian tanks in the Russia's far east. Russian authorities are denying reports that they are moving troops to the border with North Korea over growing tensions in the Korean peninsula

Russia said the movement of military hardware had nothing to do with North Korea's nuclear programme

In Russia's far east, some media have cited residents as saying they have seen military hardware being moved towards North Korea but Alexander Gordeyev, spokesman for the Far Eastern Military district, as said this was part 'absolutely scheduled maneuvers of combat readiness'.

He added the military hardware was on its way back from drills elsewhere and denied any connection to the tensions around North Korea's nuclear program.

In Moscow, first deputy chairman of the defense committee at the Federation Council Frants Klintsevich said the movement was pre-planned and dismissed reports suggesting Russia was preparing for a possible US attack on North Korea as speculation.

The claim comes days after it emerged that China is also sending 150,000 soldiers to its southern frontier to cope with the tidal wave of North Koreans Beijing fears would flee across the border if war breaks out.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile.

North Korea has said it would test missiles when it sees fit and a South Korean analyst said he believed they would do so.

Mr Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the US with nuclear missiles

'Without crossing the red line such as a nuclear test or a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, until the April 25 anniversary of the Korean People's Army, North Korea is expected to continue to launch mid-range missiles,' said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at Sejong Institute outside Seoul.

The joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises are due to finish at the end of April.

A U.S. aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, is heading towards the Korean Peninsula, Trump's administration has said.

North Korea test-fired what the United States believed was a mid-range missile on Sunday. It blew up almost immediately.

The failed launch came a day after the 105th anniversary of the birth of North Korea's founding father, Kim Il Sung, the current leader's grandfather.

There is concern the North will use the next big day on its calendar, April 25, to show off its strength.

'Although North Korea attempted a missile launch but failed on April 16, considering the April 25 anniversary of the Korean People's Army, there are concerns that it can make another provocation again at any time,' South Korea's acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn told top officials on Thursday.

He called on the military to maintain readiness.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree in this animal-friendly family.

The late Steve Irwin's 13-year-old son, Robert Irwin, visited Jimmy Fallon on the set of the The Tonight Show on Thursday and brought several friends along with him.

The teenager, who is the spitting image of his late father when he was his age, works with the Australia Zoo and was accompanied by a scorpion, baby black bears and legless lizards, plus a few more creatures.

The late Steve Irwin's 13-year-old son, Robert Irwin, visited Jimmy Fallon on the set of the The Tonight Show on Thursday and brought several friends along with him, including a scorpion, baby black bears and legless lizards.

Steve Irwin's 13-year-old son, Robert Irwin, is the spitting image of his late father when he was his age, as show in photo shares by Robert Irwin's mother, Terri Irwin

The two sat cross-legged in front of the desk as Irwin called for Denine (the spelling is uncertain) and Flo, two baby black bears, to come to the stage

Before the two got into meeting and greeting the mostly adorable, but also a little bit terrifying, animals, they exchanged a few niceties and Fallon learned a new phrase.

'I am bueat-bonza!' Irwin told the host when he asked how he was. Fallon, of course, had to ask what meant.

'Bueat-bonza just means amazing, just terrific,' Irwin said, full of energy. 'It's the best you can be.'

Before Fallon could get too comfortable with the new terminology, Irwin had his helpers bring out Jane, a dictator scorpion.

The deadly arachnid crawled all over Irwin's hands, but the funny guy opted out of touching that creepy crawly.

A deadly arachnid by name of Jane crawled all over Irwin's hands, but Fallon opted out of touching the dictator scorpion

Irwin informed the host and the audience that smaller pinchers mean more venom, and scorpions are nocturnal hunters, which is perfect for a late night talk show

Flo had a bit of a nibbling fixation, and chewed on Fallon's thumb for much of their time together while Irwin repeatedly told her to stop, with a laugh

'How could a scorpion be friendly?' Fallon asked, with fear in his eyes.

Interestingly enough, Irwin informed the host and the audience that smaller pinchers mean more venom, and scorpions are nocturnal hunters, which is perfect for a late night talk show.

The next guests, though, crawled all over Fallon and he didn't seem to mind too much.

The two sat cross-legged in front of the desk as Irwin called for Dee-nine (spelled phonetically) and Flo to come to the stage.

Flo had a bit of a nibbling fixation, and chewed on Fallon's thumb for much of their time together, while Irwin repeatedly told her to stop, with a laugh.

Black bears are omnivores that can reach up to 300 pounds, according to Irwin.

Next up the teen brought out two slippery fellows named Lulu and Fluffy, which looked a lot like snakes, but they weren't.

Next up the teen brought out two slippery fellows named Lulu and Fluffy, which looked a lot like snakes, but they weren't; they were legless lizards

Fallon held one of the scaly reptiles in hand, which seemed locked in a staff-life position, almost coming off as scared of him as he seemed of it

Crocodile hunter Steve Irwin is seen above with wife Terri and daughter Bindi

They were legless lizards from Europe that can grow to three feet in length, according to the young expert.

The main difference? Legless lizards have ears, and snakes don't, Irwin said.

Fallon held one of the scaly reptiles in hand, which seemed locked in a staff-life position, almost coming off as scared of him as he seemed of it.

'We're both stiff as a board,' Fallon said with a nervous smile. 'We're, like, freaked out right now.'

With that, it was time to meet the next furry friend. This one wasn't much more comforting to the comedian.

'This is like a stress test for me' Fallon said, joking between encounters.

Next up came a binturong, which is a bearcat native to Southeast Asia.

'This is Orrville,' Iwrin said. 'Come on your hands and knees and let him smell your head, because the way that they get introduced to other things, they smell your head.'

'For me this is like skydiving for me,' Fallon said. 'I don't like this.'

But he obliged and the two, meaning Fallon and the animal, literally went head to head.

Fallon and a binturong named Orrville, which is a Southeast Asian bearcat, literally went head to head, as Irwin explained the animal gets to know things by smelling their heads

Irwin had lots of interesting facts to share about this little guy; 'My favorite thing about them is that they smell like popcorn,' he said

There was time for one more guest, so Irwin brought out Beatrice, a green aracari, which is a species of toucan from South America

For more interesting animal facts, viewers can check out Irwin's latest partnership with the Australia Zoo , called the Crikey Club

Never one to miss a chance to make fun of himself, he added: 'This toupee might be one of Orrville's family.'

The audience liked that one, and erupted in laughter.

Irwin had lots of interesting facts to share about this little guy.

'My favorite thing about them is that they smell like popcorn,' he said.

'He does smell like burnt popcorn, or Friots,' Fallon said in agreement, as he crawled around the set on his hands and needs.

Orrville likes grapes, and comes equipped with a prehensile tail, which helps him climb.

There was time for one more guest, so Irwin brought out Beatrice. Beatrice is a green aracari, which is a species of toucan from South America.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Irwin held out his hand and Beatrice flew in to it, using it as her perch.

Green aracaris are one of the smallest species of toucans.

'Do you have Fruit Loops in Australia?' Fallon asked, as Irwin had the bird fly to his hand.

To end the segment, Irwin took Fallon into the audience and prompted Beatrice to fly to his hand with a bit of a snack.

For more interesting animal facts, viewers can check out Irwin's latest partnership with the Australia Zoo, called the Crikey Club.

The platform will showcase behind-the-scenes zoo fun, never-before-seen footage of Irwin's dad, the Crocodile Hunter himself, and more, according to Irwin.

Steve Irwin passed away in 2006 at the age of 44 after being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming an underwater documentary film titled Ocean's Deadlies.
Australian scientists claim the location of missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 is north of the original search area, in a previously rejected location.

New ocean debris drift analysis confirms that the most likely location of MH370 is a new 25,000 sq km area, north of the original 120,000 sq km search area, Australia's chief science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said in its new report.

The Boeing 777 aircraft vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board and its disappearance is one of the greatest aviation mysteries.

New ocean debris drift analysis using a modified Boeing 777 wing (pictured) confirms that the most likely location of Malaysia Airlines MH370 is north of the original search area

The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board and is one of the greatest aviation mysteries (stock image)

The new area was revealed in December, and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Greg Hood has described it as 'highly likely' that the area identified by experts contains the aircraft.

However Transport Ministers from Malaysia, China and Australia were unmoved and suspended the search until 'credible new evidence' was found.

The $AUD200 million ($USD150.54 million) search for the aircraft was suspended when Malaysia and Australia rejected a recommendation to search north of the 120,000 sq km area already canvassed, saying the new area was too imprecise.

The new debris drift analysis suggests the missing Boeing 777 may be located in a much smaller 25,000 sq km (9,652 sq mile) zone within that proposed northern search area.

A CSIRO research team led by Dr David Griffin said their latest testing had used a Boeing 777 flaperon - part of a plane's wing - that was identically damaged to the MH370 flaperon found at La Reunion Island near Africa in July 2015.

The tests involved seeing how the flaperon drifted through the water, whether it went straight downwind, or off at an angle, and at what speed through the water.

New ocean debris drift analysis confirms that the most likely location of MH370 is a new 25,000 sq km area, north of the original 120,000 sq km search area, Australia's chief science agency said

A Boeing 777 flaperon (L) cut down to match the one from flight MH370 found on Reunion island off the coast of Africa in 2015, floats after being lowered into water by CSIRO team

Previous tests had involved using inexact replicas, but Dr Griffin said testing an almost identical flaperon 'added an extra level of assurance to the findings from our earlier drift modelling work'.

The arrival of MH370's flaperon at La Reunion now made perfect sense, he said.

'It indicates that the most likely location of MH370 is in the new search area,' Dr Griffin said.

'We cannot be absolutely certain, but that is where all the evidence we have points us, and this new work leaves us more confident in our findings.'

'Knowing how the flaperon, and the other parts of MH370 that have been found, respond to wind and waves is just as important as knowing the currents of the Indian Ocean.'

Previous tests had involved using inexact replicas, but Dr Griffin said testing an almost identical flaperon 'added an extra level of assurance'

The new area was revealed in December, and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Greg Hood has described it as 'highly likely' that the area contains the aircraft

'We've found that an actual flaperon drifts about 20 degrees to the left, and faster than the replicas, as we thought it might,' said Griffin.

'The arrival of MH370s flaperon at La Reunion in July 2015 now makes perfect sense.'

Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester said he welcomed the new CSIRO report but said it was important to note it did not provide new evidence leading to a specific location of MH370.

He said a copy of the report had been provided to Malaysia for consideration in its ongoing investigation into the disappearance of the aircraft.

'Malaysia is the lead investigator and any future requests in relation to searching for MH370 would be considered by Australia, at that time,' Chester said.
Allison Baden-Clay's father has revealed the murdered mother's three young daughters are 'strong' and 'excelling at school' five years after her death.

Geoff Dickie gave an emotional tribute to his late daughter at a domestic violence fundraiser where he spoke about raising the three girls aged 15, 13 and ten.

He told attendees his granddaughters are 'strong' and 'excelling at school and in everything they do', the Courier Mail reports.

Gerard Baden-Clay (pictured left) was convicted of murdering wife Allison (left) in 2014

Allison (pictured) was murdered by her husband in 2012 and was survived by her three young daughters

'They are an example to us of the strength of young people. They are wonderful kids,' Mr Dickie said.

Allison's father spoke at a luncheon held for the Allison Baden-Clay Foundation - which is a charity group created in the murdered mother's name to fight domestic and family violence.

Mr Dickie and his wife, Priscilla, have been raising their late daughter's three children on on the Gold Coast after she was killed by her husband Gerard Baden-Clay.

Baden-Clay, 46, was found guilty of murder after Allison's body was discovered on a Brisbane river bank in April 2012.

He is serving a life sentence after being convicted of her murder in 2014.

It was recently revealed Baden-Clay had demanded open communication with his three daughters.

He wanted to send photos from prison as well as receive pictures and their report cards.

However his request was denied and a ban on any contact was upheld.

Allison's three young daughters (pictured above) at their mother's funeral in 2012

Baden-Clay pictured above with his three young daughters following Allison's death

Baden-Clay (pictured left in 2012 and right in 2014) was found to have scratch marks on his face following the death of his wife Allison

A friend of Allison's said Baden-Clay was in 'denial about what he's done' and shouldn't attempt to interfere in the lives of his children.

'He has no concept about what he has put those kids through and how he has impacted everybody,' the friend said.

'It's worrying that he thinks he has a right to be involved in these kids' lives. He just hasn't.'

His murder conviction was downgraded to manslaughter in 2015, before being reinstated by the High Court of Australia the following year.

Baden-Clay is serving a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years before being eligible for parole.

He has been working in metal assembly inside Wolston Correctional Centre, southwest Brisbane.

Reports earlier this year said Baden-Clay was so fearful for his safety in Wolston, that he had been paying other prisoners to act as his own bodyguards.

Geoff Dickie spoke at a fundraiser luncheon for the Allison Baden-Clay Foundation (pictured)

Allison was put to rest in May 2012 after she was killed by her husband Gerard, who was present at the funeral
Hillary Clinton told an audience of LGBT advocates Thursday night that the progress they've achieved in recent years may not be secure under the Donald Trump administration, and urged them to keep pressing for sweeping societal changes.

'I know that the election hit a lot of us hard,' Clinton said of her bitter loss to Trump in November. 'But I can tell you this: Even when it feels tempting to pull the covers over your head, please keep going.'

The audience at the fundraising dinner for The Center, an LGBT community group in New York, greeted Clinton with multiple standing ovations and cheers as she accepted the organization's Trailblazer Award.

One of the biggest cheers came when she reiterated remarks she made in Geneva in 2011 as secretary of state: 'Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.'

'But I think we have to face the fact that we may not ever be able to count on this administration to lead on LGBT issues,' Clinton said. 'Let's remember, 2018, the midterm elections ... We can never stop fighting.'

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out at the Trump administration after accepting the Trailblazer Award during the LGBT Community Center Dinner on Thursday

Publisher Arianna Huffington, right, introduced Clinton before the losing Democratic presidential candidate said that 'gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights'

Clinton blasted Trump's 'cruel' pick for Army Secretary, Mark Green, calling him 'an outspoken opponent of LGBT equality,' saying the president was 'replacing the first openly gay Secretary of the Army with someone who called being transgender a "disease".'

Clinton ended her speech by sharing what she called her new mantra  'the kind of thing that does pop into your head when you're out in the woods.'

'When a good friend or loved one says, "Quit yelling at the television set," she said, 'Just remember: we need to resist, insist, persist and enlist, and make sure our voices and our votes count,' she said.

'So were going to keep fighting together side by side for equal rights. And were going to make sure that nobody turns the clock back on what we've achieved as Americans.'

It wasn't just in the U.S., Clinton said, that 'we're seeing clouds gathering on the horizon.'

'The US government  yes, this government  must demand an end to the persecution of gay men in Russia.'

Clinton blasted the Trump White House for replacing openly gay Army Secretary Eric Fanning (left) with Tennessee state Sen. Mark Green (right)  who has said that pushing back against transgender rights would be a way to 'crush evil' because of fears about biologically male predators in women's restrooms

'We've heard terrifying accounts from Chechnya of gay and bisexual men being taken from their homes and families, tortured, even killed,' she said. 'The United States government - yes, this government - should demand an end to the persecution of innocent people.'

In America, she said, 'the progress that we fought for ... that we celebrated and maybe even (took) for granted may not be as secure as we once expected.'

She spoke of protections for transgender students being rescinded, and proposed cuts in funding for HIV and AIDS research.

'I thought of all our efforts to try to achieve an AIDS-free generation, and we were on the way,' she said. 'We can, if we stay on that path, finally realize that dream - but not if we are forced off.'

Clinton's appearance was one of several in recent months where she has been greeted with huge ovations - including several at Broadway shows. She joked at the dinner that she realized she was 'preaching to the choir,' but added: 'That's OK, I love standing ovations.'

She also quipped that the evening had posed a dilemma for her: She'd had the choice, she said, of attending the dinner or seeing Bette Midler in 'Hello, Dolly!'

'I really struggled to figure out which event would best reflect my commitment to the community,' she said, adding that she had struck a compromise - she put on her 'Sunday Clothes' - a song title in the show- and came to the dinner.

Also honored was designer Marc Jacobs, who received the group's Visionary Award and is a longtime Clinton supporter. When asked what he thought Clinton should do now - she has said her only plans for the moment are working on her book and finding new ways to help people - he said, 'I wish she were doing what we voted for her to do. But that didn't happen.'

Clinton herself gave no hints in her speech about her future, but did note that she had made a new discovery: 'Sleep is good.'

'I highly recommend it,' she said. 'When I wasn't walking in the woods, I was catching up on my sleep.'
The Tennessee ex-teacher who was arrested Wednesday morning for 'kidnapping' a 15-year-old student in March told police he was grateful that their month-and-a-half flight from justice was over.

Ted Cummins, 50, of Columbia, Tennessee, walked out on his wife and kids on March 13 and began a 2,500-mile trip with his 15-year-old former student Elizabeth Thomas.

They were finally tracked down to a remote cabin in California, where Cummins gave himself up after police swooped, telling them 'I'm glad this is over,' CNN reported.

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Relieved: Ted Cummins (left) said he was 'glad' that his month-and-a-half flight from justice was over when he was arrested for allegedly kidnapping Elizabeth Thomas (right) Thursday

Found: The pair were found in one of these cabins in a remote section of northern California after the shack's caretaker recognized Cummins' car. He called police on Wednesday

Cummins and Thomas had successfully evaded police for a month despite a nationwide manhunt after they were seen in an Oklahoma City Walmart with dyed hair on March 15.

They fled to a small cabin near Cecilville in a remote area of California near the Oregon border, far from the nation's eyes.

But they didn't count on the cabin's caretaker, who was quick to recognize the pair and telephoned local police and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) on Wednesday night.

Cummins and Thomas only spent one night in the cabin, police said, although they may have been in the area for a week before.

But their solitude was interrupted early Thursday morning by Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office deputies, who had found Cummins' silver Nissan Rogue parked outside a cabin.

After using the car's vehicle identification number to confirm it belonged to the ex-teacher, they formed a perimeter around the cabin and waited for Cummins to show up.

When he did, they arrested him without incident.

Fled: The pair fled 2,500 miles over the course of their journey, cops said. Police said they didn't know if Thomas was willing to go with Cummins, but that it didn't matter, legally

Thomas was 'healthy' and 'unharmed,' police said. She was to fly back to Tennessee on a TBI jet Thursday night.

Two loaded handguns were found in the cabin.

Jason Whately, the attorney representing the Thomases, believes that the pair had intended to keep driving northwest

Cummins faces a string of state and federal charges for his alleged cross-country kidnapping, ABC News reported

He has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor in Lawrence County, Tennessee.

In Siskiyou County, California, where the cabin is located, he may be charged with kidnapping and possession of stolen property, pending review by the county's district attorney.

And the US State Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee has also filed a federal charge of transportation of a minor across state lines with intent of having criminal sexual intercourse.

That charge alone has a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison.

It could take several weeks for Cummins to be extradited to Tennessee, said US attorney Jack Smith.

Last sighting: The pair's last sighting before the arrest was at an Oklahoma Walmart on March 15 (pictured). They had died their hair to help evade capture

Cummins, 50, who is married and has two daughters and grandchildren, allegedly abducted his former student on March 13 from her home near Columbia, Tennessee.

The two, who were thought to be in a sexual relationship, were last spotted two days later.

Their last confirmed sighting prior to the arrest was at a Walmart in Oklahoma, 700 miles away from home, after they had both dyed their hair.

Court papers filed recently in the girl's disappearance say she was afraid of the teacher and thought she would face repercussions at school if she resisted him.

THE PAIR'S FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE January 23: Tad Cummins is spotted kissing Elizabeth Thomas, his student at Culleoka High School, by another student. He denies the claim, saying that they are friends; she is taken out of his classes February 3: Cummins is reprimanded by the school principal after Elizabeth is found to have entered his classroom for around 30 minues February 6: Cummins is suspended c. March 9: He takes out a $4,500 loan on his car March 12: Cummins buys hair dye from Walmart in Columbia, TN March 13, 7:45am: Thomas is dropped off at Shoney's in Columbia by a friend March 13, 8am: Cummins is seen pumping gas in Columbia March 13, noon: Cummins and Elizabeth are seen together in Decatur, AL, around 70 miles from Columbia. He is fired from his job this same day March 15: Cummins and Thomas are seen buying food at a Walmart. They are sporting dyed hair. This is their last sighting for more than a month March 30: Tad Cummins' wife of 31 years, Jill, files for divorce April 19: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is contacted by a man who says he has seen the pair in Cecilville, California. Police converge on a remote cabin, arrest Cummins and confirm that Elizabeth is safe Advertisement

When asked at a press conference if she had gone willingly, Gwyn said the question 'didn't matter'.

'At the end of the day she's 15 years old, she's 15 years old, she's a young girl that's with a grown man that's 50 years old.

'He needs to be held accountable for kidnapping this girl,' he said.

The cabin in which the pair was found was initially reported to be in the Black Bear Ranch commune by police, but cops later said that the cabin was only nearby, not in the ranch.

Speaking to DailyMail.com Thursday, Elizabeths relieved mother said: 'All I want to do now is hug and kiss her.'

Kimberly Thomas, 48, feared she might never see the 15-year-old girl again after she vanished more than five weeks ago with her married teacher.

'It's only been a little over a month but to us it has felt like forever,' Thomas told DailyMail.com.

'I just lost my mother, she died of an aneurysm. She never had high blood pressure before but this was terribly stressful for her. She never got to hear her granddaughter was OK.

'As for Mr Cummins, I don't even want to think about him right now. All I can think about is my daughter and the fact she is safe.'

Elizabeth lived with her father, Anthony Thomas, because Mrs Thomas has been prevented from having contact with her because of an ongoing abuse case that is yet to go to court.

However, the mother-of-ten, who only learned her daughter had been found from a news bulletin, says she will ask her attorney to see if they can get special permission to speak.

'The justice system has been very unfair to me throughout this ordeal. Nobody has told me anything. This is my daughter we are talking about,' she added.

Speaking to reporters last month, Jill Cummins, wife of the disgraced teacher, said that she had been close to Thomas before the pair ran away.

'She would come to him with her problems,' Jill said, adding that she and her husband - whom she is now divorcing - would sometimes take her to church.

'In fact, I called her our third daughter sometimes,' Jill said.
Fentress County Sheriff Charles Cravens (above) pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of honest services fraud and one count of deprivation of rights under color of law

A Tennessee sheriff has pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges after being accused of using his position to have sex with jail inmates.

Fentress County Sheriff Charles Cravens pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of honest services fraud and one count of deprivation of rights under color of law.

The US attorney's office in Nashville said the 47-year-old sheriff is accused of summoning a female jail inmate to his office for sex.

The prosecutor's office said the sheriff is also accused of driving that inmate and another one to a trailer and having sex with them both.

Authorities say the sheriff is also accused of having sex with a third inmate in his car and participating in the beating of a male inmate.

Cravens' attorney, Alex Little, said he would comment later in the day.

Cravens is scheduled to be sentenced on July 20. He could face up to 20 years in prison.

He is said to have maintained a sexual relationship with the two inmates until their release.

Cravens was accused of granting the inmates special favors in exchange for their willingness to have sex with him, according to WKRN-TV.

The US attorney's office in Nashville said the 47-year-old sheriff is accused of summoning a female jail inmate to his office for sex. The Fentress County Jail is seen in the above stock image

Authorities say Cravens personally chauffeured the inmates on trips to visit relatives.

Cravens also allowed the inmates to smoke cigarettes outside, a privilege not granted to others in the jail.

He is also believed to have given money to relatives of inmates so that they could in turn deposit the cash into jail commissary accounts.

Investigators reportedly found that the inmates had telephoned Cravens by dialing his personal cell phone number hundreds of times.

Cravens was also alleged to have kicked another inmate and placed him in a headlock while he was handcuffed by another correctional officer.
They say art is in the eyes of the beholder, but this painters entry into a prestigious competition has raised some eyebrows.

Matt Butterworth, 40, is in the running to scoop up the Footscray Art prize with his unusual entry - a pink note pledging to donate the $10,000 prize money to charity.

The award-winning painter from Reservoir, in Melbourne's north, penned the three-sentence-long note in the hope of putting something back into the community.

His unusual entry is a pink note pledging to donate the $10,000 prizemoney to charity

Matt Butterworth, 40, is in the running to scoop up the Footscray Art prize

Im a firm believer in the idea that anything is art. Whether or not its good art is another thing, Mr Butterworth told Daily Mail Australia.

He said his daughters were central to his inspiration for the entry, which is among 140 works short-listed for the prize.

I have two young girls and I wanted to show them life doesnt have to be a predetermined thing.

Mr Butterworth said he was in the act of submitting one of his paintings when the idea of the note dawned on him.

I loved the idea and I just decided to run with it. Footscray is beautiful and rich in culture. The idea couldnt work anywhere else.

However, he is under no allusions about the controversy the entry will likely draw  especially if it takes out the prize.

Somebody has already called me a n** online. I loved it, and I love the conversation this could start.

Mr Butterworth is a National Works on Paper winner and a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.

The award-winning artist from said he was going to submit one of his paintings (pictured are examples of his work) when the idea of the note came to him
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For decades the demise of Tiller, Oregon, has seemed inevitable.

It was once a bustling timber town but has been left almost completely abandoned following the death of the industry.

Slowly, the buildings offering vital services to the community - including the general store and the elementary school - began to shut down. A sign on the decaying market reads: 'Last one out of Tiller turn out the light.'

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The Tiller Market stands abandoned in Tiller, Oregon. A small sign on the top left of the building reads: 'Last one out of Tiller turn out the light'

The asking price brings with it six houses, the shuttered general store and gas station, the land under the post office, undeveloped parcels, water rights and infrastructure that includes sidewalks, fire hydrants and a working power station

But now the town has been given new hope after being put on the market for $3.5million - attracting several potential buyers.

The price includes six houses, the shuttered general store and gas station and land under the post office. Tiller Elementary School, a six-classroom building that closed in 2014, is for sale separately for $350,000.

'Between the dying economy and the dying owners, Tiller became a new opportunity that had never been available before,' said Richard Caswell, executor of the estate. 'I started getting inquiries from all over the world, essentially, 'What was it? And what could you do with it?' It's the buyer and their imagination that's going to determine what Tiller can become.'

The town sprang up after the turn of the last century deep in what is now the Umpqua National Forest, about 230 miles south of Portland.

The post office opened in 1902, and miners, loggers, ranchers and farmers flocked to the community along a pristine river.

Tiller Elementary School has been closed since 2014 - it is up for sale separately for $350,000

Garrett Zoller, principal broker with LandandWildlife.com, stands under a basketball hoop in the abandoned gym of the school

A classroom at the school. Mr Zoller is working to sell almost all of downtown

Then, nearly three decades ago, logging on the federal forest lands that encircle Tiller came to a near standstill because of environmental regulations.

The timber mill closed, and families moved away. One longtime resident then began buying up properties. When he died three years ago, the family owned much of the town.

Then the Tiller Elementary School closed and was up for sale, as well as a small market, and the man's estate bought those too - and the potential became clear.

The listing includes more than 256 acres (1 square kilometer) in 29 distinct parcels, water and timber rights, and a variety of zonings, from residential to industrial.

This 1930s era photograph shows timber workers in the town. The industry was shut down in the area three decades ago

The town sprang up after the turn of the last century deep in what is now the Umpqua National Forest

A young woman stands outside the general merchandise store in the town in the 1930s

About 235 people still live in the unincorporated area around Tiller, and have long relied on the buildings now for sale along historic Highway 227 as a gathering spot and one of the only places to shop for groceries in miles.

The potential buyers have said through the seller's broker that they intend to turn the school into some type of campus and create a 'permaculture' development that respects the town's remaining residents and its picturesque setting in a bend in the emerald-tinted South Umpqua River. They want to make reopening the market a priority.

'The buyers understand that they only have one shot at a first impression,' said Garrett Zoller, principal broker for LandandWildlife.com, the seller's realtor. 'They understand that this is a community of people who live here and that it could be a sensitive subject. ... They want to address this project with the community in mind.'

Beyond that, Tiller's future remains shrouded in mystery.

The abandoned Tiller Elementary School playground is seen in the foreground with the school in the background

A gas pump stands abandoned, the price frozen in time, in downtown Tiller

The downtown is a ghost town, but plenty of people still live tucked into the mountains in a region where bears wander on to porches and where picking up a cellphone signal takes a 30-minute drive.

Residents gather at the church for coffee and cinnamon rolls on Fridays and collect their mail at the one-room post office - when it's open.

Sarah Crume and a few other mothers cling to a sense of community by meeting with their young children for playtime at the church, one of the few places not for sale.

She's raising five daughters here and had to send her younger children to school in the next closest town when Tiller Elementary shut down.

She said: 'It is a little scary, especially raising our kids in this place that we love.

Resident Sarah Crume holds her daughter, Hallie, as siblings Patricia and Thomas Doolittle color nearby at the local church - one of the few buildings not for sale

Longtime Tiller resident Paula Ellis plays with her dogs outside her home

'I'm just wondering what kind of impact it's going to have on the people.'

Paula Ellis grew up in Tiller on a ranch and spent her childhood hunting and riding horses here. Her daughters' beds are decorated with the skins of bears they killed when they were teenagers, and the antlers of the first deer Ellis bagged hangs on a wall near the front door.

She met her husband at the elementary school and recalls the annual end-of-the-year contests for the children that were dubbed the Tiller Olympics.

A giant cross rises over her home from an adjacent hilltop, and Ellis lately has found herself praying.

Ellis spent her childhood in Tiller hunting and riding horses and now worries about what will happen to the tiny, dying timber town

'If you do choose to live here and raise kids here, it's a community you fall in love with,' Ellis said, wiping away tears. 'And we don't want to lose that.'

Yet Gary Newman, a retiree who lives 5 miles (8 kilometers) outside town, has a different take.

He's watched Tiller wither over the years in a procession of goodbyes. He hopes the buyers will bring new jobs, and new life, to the community.

He said: 'I've been here 17 years, and I want to spend the rest of my life here.'
Pictured: Adnan Aslam, director of T&A Textiles in Manchester where 11 illegal migrants working for him were put at risk by lax fire safety

Illegal immigrants were found hiding in cardboard boxes at the death-trap premises of a bedding wholesaler.

The workers were discovered by sniffer dogs after officers from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and border officials teamed up for a surprise inspection of the sprawling, dimly-lit T&A Textiles complex at Newton Heath.

The Manchester warehouse - which includes a four-storey mill, warehouses and a showroom - the investigators found 20 workers, 11 of whom were illegal.

They also found a shocking catalogue of fire safety breaches that meant if a blaze had broken out at the premises, the chances of those workers getting out alive were slim.

Now T&A Textiles, which has a 9m turnover, has been hit with a 51,000 fine after admitting eight fire safety breaches.

A hearing was told that in the event of a fire, workers would have to travel distances of up to 200m in the dark, and then have to open roller shutters to get out.

The risk of a blaze spreading rapidly was compounded by the layout of the building, where boxes of combustible materials were stacked in a 'haphazard' fashion to the rafters, emergency exits were locked and blocked, and the fire alarm and smoke extractor were broken.

A hole between floors, exposed wiring and the presence of a gas-powered forklift truck added to the tinderbox potential of the building, which backed directly onto a canal without a towpath.

The fire service handed the business a prohibition notice, preventing the business from operating normally. It remained in place for two years while the issues were sorted out.

No exit: The fire escape route in the warehouse, pictured above, was obstructed by dozens of large, cardboard boxes

A right tip: Hazardous boxes, tyres and industrial waste were found haphazardly piled by the rubbish bins which safety officers said could have started a fire

Blocked: Investigators said the way boxes were stacked meant a fire would spread very quickly and there were no clear routes out

Prosecuting, Elizabeth Dudley-Jones said the men found hiding in boxes were unsuccessful asylum seekers and illegal overstayers.

They have since been deported, although an immigration prosecution against the company was discontinued due to lack of evidence.

She told the court: 'The working area was very dim and had no artificial lighting.

'Boxes were stacked in such a way there were no walkways leading to the exit - the only available exit if there was to be a fire was a roller shutter.

'People would have to negotiate long distances in the dark in smoke, [breathing] in potentially toxic gases.

She added: 'The manner in which boxes were stacked meant a fire would spread very quickly, filling the premises with toxic smoke, and there were no clear routes out of the premises.

She said vulnerable people were placed at risk because of their illegal immigration status.

Benjamin Nolan QC, defending T&A Textiles (pictured above), said the business had suffered a 'whacking great loss' this year

Prosecution told the court: 'The risk was serious, had a fire occurred the conditions were such that escape would have just been unlikely, it's death in this case'

A court heard the risk of a blaze spreading rapidly was compounded by the layout of the building, where boxes of combustible materials were stacked in a 'haphazard' fashion

She said: 'Vulnerable persons were placed at risk. Because of their illegal immigration status, we say those people may not have been reported or accounted for in the event of a fire.

'The risk was serious, had a fire occurred the conditions were such that escape would have just been unlikely, it's death in this case.'

Benjamin Nolan QC, defending T&A Textiles, said the business had suffered a 'whacking great loss' this year, adding: 'The most significant reason is the prohibition notice, because the stock was impounded.

'It may be self-inflicted, but it doesn't affect the final outcome, that is this dire financial position.

'The stock is now three years old - nobody wants three-year-old stock. It's a hard-working company and it may go out of business.'

The company, which claims to have suffered a 1m loss in the last financial year, was represented in court by director Adnan Aslam, who was overseas at the time the workers and fire safety breaches were discovered.

Sentencing, Judge Jinder Singh Boora said: 'Had there been a proper risk assessment that obvious and foreseeable risk would have been readily identified. Vulnerable people were placed at risk, (but) this is a company that has learnt its lessons.'
Vladimir Putin is preparing to stand down as Russian president and hand over power to a trusted successor, a leaked letter from a friend has claimed.

He is ready to anoint speaker of the Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodin as his chosen successor as president, it is suggested, but there are fears the text could be a dirty trick involving warring rivals close to the powerful leader.

Putin was evidently caught by surprise when confronted with the claim at a public Kremlin session.

Rumours in Moscow claim Vladimir Putin, right, is expected to appoint Vyacheslav Volodin as his successor ahead of next year's presidential elections

The claims were made at a public hearing of the Kremlin attended by the Russian president

Volodin, pictured, has previously urged Putin to seek a further six-year term in the Kremlin

He paused before giving an answer that neither confirmed nor denied whether he will fight next year's presidential election.

Most pundits predict the strongman to seek another six years in the Kremlin, and few doubt he would win by a landslide, but he has not so far announced he will stand again.

Volodin - a devout loyalist with a high public profile who served previously as his deputy chief of staff - has not yet commented on the swirling rumours, but in December publicly urged Putin to stand for another term.

The letter alleging Volodin 'would soon be president' was supposedly penned by another Putin political friend Frants Klintsevich, a senior senator, who is close to both men.

Putin had earlier said it was up to the Russian people to determine who should succeed him

Klintsevich later claimed the letter was a 'fake', and he is known to be embroiled in an ugly dispute the man who evidently shocked Putin by reading it out, Andrey Chepurnoy, leader of a group of Afghan War veterans.

'The most outrageous thing, Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin), is that here, in this very letter, Klintsevich calls Volodin the successor to the President of the Russian Federation,' Chepurnoy told him.

'Vladimir Putin paused to cope with the information he had just received,' reported newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

'It's not every day that someone confronts him with the name of his successor - and right before the presidential election.'

He replied testily with no clue as to any truth that Volodin is his chosen heir : 'The president's successor will be determined only by the Russian people during a democratic election - and nobody else can do it.'

Volodin, 53, a lawyer before entering politics, was seen with 'a completely stony faced expression' after Chepurnoy's outburst, said a witness.

An ally of the speaker, Sergey Neverov, gave an interview in which he repeatedly avoided answering whether he wanted Volodin as president.

Yet nor did he back Putin for another term.

Klintsevich claimed the letter was 'fake' and was made up to some 'ugly purpose'.

'Any graphology expert will prove my words' he said, although the text appeared to be typed.

One theory was that rivals for Putin's job may have wanted to embarrass Volodin by labelling him as the heir.

Chepurnoy raised the letter in a public session with Putin as part of a battle between him and Klintsevich who has claimed the Afghan War veterans organisation is not run transparently.

'He is calling the regions and scares our members, leaders and officials, saying that Volodin would soon be a president, and that he will grant Klintsevich enormous privileges,' he said.

Klintsevich would then 'bury alive' the leadership of the organisation which has rehabilitated 100,000 patients, he said.

Putin vowed to look into the allegations - 'we'll deal with it' - but did not address who would be ruling party United Russia's candidate in next year's election.

The Russian president has indicated he yearns to travel without the weight of high office, yet he has created a system which could lurch into bitter infighting without him as lynchpin.

In December, Volodin showed urged Putin - who has been president or prime minister since 1999 - to announce he would seek another term.

'We have a candidate,' said Volodin.

'And we will keep supporting him.

'You know him - and I think you will support him too.

'Because he is a man who has proved with his labour and his service that he can do a lot for Russia, that he loves it.

'He is doing everything for our country and he is acknowledged in the whole world.'

If he completes a final term, Putin would be 71 before retiring.
A mother has forgiven the Marine who strangled her teenage daughter and dumped her down a 125 foot mineshaft.

Lore Heavilin's married 19-year-old daughter, Erin Corwin was having an affair with her neighbor Christopher Lee, 27, when she went missing in June 2014.

Erin's frantic family and Marine husband Jon, 24, waited for news for two torturous months - until finally in August 2014 the teenager's lifeless body was found down a mineshaft near Joshua Tree National Park in California.

Mrs Heavilin, 61, said she refuses to cling onto bitterness over the ordeal - insisting Lee has 'taken so much' from her already, that she won't let him take her 'heart and soul' too.

Erin Corwin (left), 19, was having an affair with her neighbour Christopher Lee (right), 27, when she went missing in June 2014. He had strangled her and dumped her body down a 125 foot mineshaft

Her adoptive mother Lore Heavilin (pictured together) believes Lee 'manipulated' her 'sweet and gentle' daughter into having an affair with hm

During his trial, in November 2016, Lee sensationally admitted killing Erin. In the dock, he demonstrated how he'd throttled her with a homemade garrote  the rope from which was still dangling around her neck when she was found

Decomposition of Erin's body was too advanced for an autopsy to confirm it, but officials believe she was pregnant when she died.

Mrs Heavilin, a retired hospital worker, believes this provided her secret lover with the motive to kill her.

'I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Erin had an affair,' said Mrs Heavilin, of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

'But I honestly believe Christopher manipulated her and took advantage of her trusting nature. He's manipulative to the core and pulled her strings until she was all tangled up and couldn't escape.

'I'll never know why he decided she had to die, but I refuse to hold on to any bitterness or anger. He's taken so much from me already  he's not having my mind, my heart, my soul too.

'The whole world knows about Erin's death, but I want them to remember her life as well.'

US officials believe Erin was pregnant when she died - Mrs Heavilin believes this is why Lee killer her. Pictured, Erin with her Marine husband Jon, 24

A keen equestrian, Erin met her husband at Oak Ridge stables

Mrs Heavilin and her husband Bill, 62, fostered Erin when was she was just three weeks old, and adopted her at three-and-a-half years old, raising her as their own.

Growing up, Mrs Heavilin says her daughter was shy and reserved  apart from when she was around animals, with which she had a real affinity.

A keen equestrian, she kept her beloved pony, RyeLeigh, at a stables near her childhood home in Oak Ridge  meeting her husband there.

Befriending Erin when he was just 10, she and Jon weren't especially close at first.

Then, around five years later, they began chatting over Facebook and when Erin turned 16, they started dating.

'Jon had always planned to join the Marines after school, so a huge part of their relationship was long distance,' explained Mrs Heavilin.

'Erin never moped about them being apart, though, and in a way it made sure they got to know each other properly.

Mrs Heavilin and her husband Bill, 62, fostered Erin when was she was just three weeks old, and adopted her at three-and-a-half years old, raising her as their own

'Whenever he was back from training, he'd pop round for dinner, or to play board games. He became part of the family.'

In July 2012, Jon proposed to Erin and, keen to be married before he got deployed to Japan, the pair wed just four months later in a Las Vegas ceremony.

Then, in September 2013, Erin joined Jon in California, where he'd been posted to a military base.

Knowing how shy her beloved daughter was, Mrs Heavilin worried about her making friends.

So, she was thrilled to hear that the couple had quickly formed friendships with a group of neighbours  including Lee and his wife Nichole.

'We spoke all the time and she was telling me about how they'd hang out, watching TV or cooking together,' said Mrs Heavilin.

'I was really pleased for her. It sounded like she was making a new life for herself.'

But that new life came to a grinding halt in June 2014, when Jon phoned Mrs Heavilin to say Erin had gone out to Joshua Tree National Park for a hike and not returned.

Mrs Heavilin continued: 'At first I didn't panic. Erin was very directionally challenged, so I thought she'd got lost.

'I was due to fly out a couple of days later anyway to visit, but I moved my flight forwards. If she really had got lost, she'd be disorientated and distressed when they found her. She'd want her mum.'

But before Mrs Heavilin could board her plane, Jon phoned back and broke the news that Erin and Lee had been having an affair, although he did not tell her how he found out.

Growing up, Mrs Heavilin says her daughter was shy and reserved  apart from when she was around animals, with which she had a real affinity

While Mrs Heavilin was making the journey to California, Erin's car was found, abandoned and her mum feared the worst.

But after arriving in California, the days passed without further news.

'Police kept asking if she may have disappeared on purpose, but Erin would never just up and leave,' said Mrs Heavilin.

'Besides, her cupboards were stocked up with the food we'd been planning to cook together during my visit  a sure sign she'd wanted to stick around.'

For two agonising months, every lead went cold.

Then, in August 2014, police, who'd been combing the desert for clues, found a body down an abandoned mineshaft, officially identifying it as Erin's using her dental records.

'I couldn't understand how my sweet, gentle daughter had met such a cruel end,' said Mrs Heavilin.

'When I found out, I sobbed for her and everything she'd never do, and for me and the realisation I'd never see her again.'

Hearing about the affair, police arrested Lee, but he denied everything.

Then, during his trial, in November 2016, he sensationally admitted killing Erin.

Erin's mother revealed she sobbed for her and 'everything she'd never do' when police told her the devastating news

In the dock at San Bernadino County Court, he demonstrated how he'd throttled her with a homemade garrote  the rope from which was still dangling around her neck when she was found.

Heartbreaking texts that Erin had sent to a friend the day she died revealed how she'd gone to the desert with Lee thinking he was going to propose to her.

In November last year, Lee was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but lodged an appeal  which is yet to conclude  shortly after sentencing.

'If I could talk to him now, I'd ask him to be a man and tell the truth, tell me why he did this,' said Mrs Heavilin. 'I presume he was worried his wife would leave him, or that he'd face dishonorable discharge from the military if the affair was revealed.

'Now, my family and I are left to navigate life without Erin. People tell me they're sorry for my loss, but she wasn't lost  she was taken.

'Instead of the way she died, I want the world to remember her as a breath of fresh air, who had a way of making you feel like the most important person in the world.'




Jeremy Corbyn, pictured leaving home today, believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority

Labour's task on June 8 is to end the Tory majority so it can try to form a minority government with support from the SNP and Lib Dems, sources have claimed.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals at the election, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority.

The Tories would still be the largest party but in a hung parliament, Mr Corbyn could then try to enter Downing Street with informal backing from the SNP, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs.

The claim, made by campaign sources to the Daily Mirror, is in defiance of polls suggesting a landslide victory for the Conservatives.

And it will fuel Tory warnings that a vote for Labour is a vote for a 'coalition of chaos' driven by Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Corbyn scrambled to rule out the idea of a formal coalition with the SNP earlier this week after leader Nicola Sturgeon backed a 'progressive alliance'.

The prospect of the SNP in power in London is toxic to English voters and was a huge driver of the Conservative campaign in 2015.

Mr Corbyn rejected claims his campaign was already doomed today, telling reporters in Bristol he was getting 'huge support' on the campaign trail.

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Ms Sturgeon intervened again today to warn the local elections in Scotland were a choice between Tories who believe in nothing but Brexit and the SNP.

HOW COULD CORBYN WIN NO 10? Under the apparent Labour plan, Jeremy Corbyn would hope to take enough seats to the end Tory majority but accept he cannot win outright either. This would mean neither he or Theresa May could win votes in the Commons without other parties. Mr Corbyn would use Brexit as a reason for all other parties to come together against the Tories - but stop short of forming a full coalition. This is known as 'confidence and supply', where other parties would back his Budgets and Queen's Speech but everything else would be haggled over. Mrs May will argue such a deal would be a recipe for chaos - and it is far from clear other parties would even endorse Mr Corbyn in such a scenario. Advertisement

The campaign source told the Mirror: 'Our number one goal is to deny the Tories a majority. And that is not beyond the realms of imagination.

'If we can take say 40 seats off them - and we're only talking overturning small majorities - then we can be somewhere near parity.

'And if the Lib Dems do well too, the Tories will be out of government.

'Who is going to be able to cut a deal (with the other parties) over Brexit, us or them?'

Conservative MP Maria Caulfield said the claims revealed the 'truth' about Labour's campaign.

She said: 'We've now heard the truth from Jeremy Corbyn's own campaign team: they are getting ready to form a coalition of chaos and instability that would disrupt our Brexit negotiations and put our growing economy at risk.

'Only a vote for the Conservatives on 8 June can secure the strong and stable leadership that the United Kingdom needs to see us through Brexit and beyond; to lock in the economic progress we have made together.'

Former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown has praised the Green Party for suggesting 'sensible' seat arrangements to ensure Tory candidates do not win where centrist candidates squeeze each other out.

He said: 'Labour and Lib Dems should respond positively.'

Mr Corbyn's campaign has suggested the Labour leader could enter No 10 at the head of a minority government with informal support from other parties

Labour was scrambling to find enough candidates to run a full slate at the snap election and called for potential candidates on Twitter

Liberal Democrat sources said the idea of propping up a minority Labour government was 'laughable'.

Responding to the report, a Labour spokesman said: 'Labour is campaigning to win every seat.

LABOUR LOSES 13 MPS BEFORE CAMPAIGN REALLY STARTS An MP has blasted Jeremy Corbyn's Labour as out of touch with working class people as he becomes one of 13 to quit the party at the election. Michael Dugher, who was last year sacked by Mr Corbyn from the shadow cabinet, said he is standing down after seven years in Parliament. The MP for Barnsley East took a swipe at the Labour leader as he announced his departure. He said he wishes Labour 'nothing but the best' but stressed it must be a party 'in touch with working class people and one that can get into government so we can actually do something to really help people'. Four Conservative MPs are also quitting Parliament, including former defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth and Dame Angela Watkinson - both leaving plumb safe seats. Advertisement

'The only deal we'll do is with the electorate, to be a government for the many not the few.'

Mr Corbyn today insisted Labour is 'gaining a huge amount of ground' on the Conservatives in the battle to win the general election.

The Labour leader urged voters to 'watch this space' despite opinion polls putting his party as many as 24 points behind the Tories ahead of the June 8 vote.

He continued efforts to shift the focus of the campaign away from Theresa May's call for voters to give her a Brexit negotiating mandate and on to Labour's aim of tackling inequality.

Speaking during a visit to a children's centre in Bristol, Mr Corbyn told Sky News: 'We've just started the election campaign, we're 72 hours into it and I'm loving every moment of it.

'We're gaining support, we're gaining a huge amount of ground and we're getting a great deal of support.

'Watch this space.'

He added: 'We are putting a message out there - this country does not have to be so divided, (there) does not have to be such appalling levels of poverty and unachieved ambition because of people growing up in poverty.

'That's our message, that's the one we're putting out, and the Labour Party is totally united in putting that message out, okay?'

Nicola Sturgeon, pictured in Edinburgh today, intervened again to warn the local elections in Scotland were a choice between Tories who believe in nothing but Brexit and the SNP

Mr Corbyn has another packed day on the campaign trail today promoting new policy on school overcrowding.

Mr Corbyn highlighted Labour analysis of Department for Education figures which showed more than 40,000 primary school children were taught in classes of 36 or more pupils in 2016, up from around 38,500 the previous year.

Tim Farron's Liberal Democrats laughed off the idea of propping up a minority Corbyn government

A total of 16,655 primary pupils were being taught in class sizes of 40 or greater while nearly half a million were being taught in classes containing between 31 and 35 children, the figures showed.

Furthermore, there were 109 primary schools with more than 800 pupils in 2016, compared with just 16 in 2010 when the Tories came to power.

Mr Corbyn said Conservative cuts to education budgets would only make the problem worse.

'Seven years of Tory failure and broken promises have left our schools in a terrible state,' the Labour leader said.

'Hundreds of thousands of our children are paying the price, crammed into classrooms like sardines.

'The Prime Minister herself has said that super-sized classes are proof of a school system in a crisis. And that's what we've got on the Tories' watch.

'School leaders and teachers have said that Tory cuts to school budgets will mean class sizes will be forced to grow even larger.

'We cannot risk our children's education in this way.

'Labour will stand up for all children by building a schools system for everyone, keeping class sizes down and making sure schools and teachers have the resources they need to ensure that every child, whatever their background, has access to a world-class education.'

The Labour leader was greeted by activists on his latest stop in Swindon (pictured), as part of a campaign tour focused on class sizes today

Mr Corbyn used his latest appearance to promote policies on the minimum wage and banning zero hour contracts

A Conservative spokesman said: 'This is a massive own goal from Labour. In Wales, where they administer schools with the Lib Dems, the numbers of infants in large classes has risen by 18 per cent in just three years.

'Of course we are not complacent about the situation in England. There is more to do and that's why we are spending a record amount on schools - something we can afford to do because of our careful management of the nation's finances.

'The biggest risk for our schools and our children is throwing away the economic progress we have made. That's what would happen if we had Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister, propped up by a coalition of chaos with the Lib Dems and SNP.'

The claim will feed into the narrative of Theresa May, pictured in Enfield North yesterday, that a vote for Labour is a vote for a 'coalition of chaos'

Theresa May insists she will KEEP controversial target on foreign aid spending

Theresa May has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending of billions on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today.

The Prime Minister said it was important to ensure the money - equivalent to 0.7 per cent of national income and more than 13billion last year - is spent properly.

But as she returned home to Maidenhead for the first time since calling a snap general election, Mrs May ended speculation she would dump the controversial policy.

The dramatic development on the election trail came after Nicola Sturgeon launched a new broadside at Mrs May for trying to 'crush dissent' by chasing a landslide election win.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is banging the drum for his new commitment to cut class sizes in schools with a tour through the south

Nicola Sturgeon warns Scots must choose between Tories who want 'Brexit at all costs' and the SNP

Scottish voters must choose between the SNP and a Tory 'Brexit at all costs' machine, Nicola Sturgeon has warned.

The First Minister said there was a clear choice for voters at the May 4 local elections - the biggest date between now and the general election on June 8.

Ms Sturgeon has thrown herself into the national battle this week threatening to form a 'progressive alliance' to try and block Theresa May's return to No 10.

The intervention threw Labour's first week of campaigning into chaos as the threat of Scottish nationalist rule in Westminster horrifies English voters.

Scottish voters must choose between the SNP and a Tory 'Brexit at all costs' machine, Nicola Sturgeon has warned today (pictured)

Ms Sturgeon launched her local elections manifesto today alongside council candidates at the community-led arts charity and social enterprise the Whale Arts Centre in Wester Hailes.

She also joined SNP Edinburgh council candidates for a photocall, embracing six month old baby Ollie Lynch for the camera.

STURGEON LAUNCHES FIGHT ON SECOND FRONT IN LOCAL POLL SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has launched her electoral battle against the Tories on a second front today. All Scottish councils - and many in England - are up for grabs on May 4 in the most significant date of the run into the general election on June 8. Significantly, Ms Sturgeon has chosen to paint her local fight against the Tories - despite the party holding far fewer current seats than Labour. The SNP leader promised more free childcare, cash for classrooms and more affordable houses. She said the Tories offered nothing but Brexit. Advertisement

At the launch, Ms Sturgeon said: 'The council elections are a clear choice between the SNP who stand for strong and vibrant local communities - and a Tory party which has become a single-issue, Brexit-at-all-costs machine.

'SNP councillors will always put their local communities first - they are not there to simply make up the numbers and be used as a proxy war in national political games.

'From the abolition of ring-fenced funding and our transformational Community Empowerment Act, the SNP has a long track record of pushing power down to local communities.

'Every vote for the SNP on May 4th is a vote against Tory austerity and a vote to protect vital services and jobs.

'All of our candidates are working hard every day to earn the trust of the people they want to represent and after the election will continue to work every day to preserve it.'

Ms Sturgeon launched her elections with an attack on the Conservatives despite the party holding far fewer of the current seats than Labour, which remains the second party in Scottish local government.

PS Who's on a vote hunt? Chasing the youth vote: Jeremy Corbyn read kids' classic We're Going on a Bear Hunt at a children's centre in Bristol but left one audience member less than impressed Advertisement

Homeowners could be hit by new wealth taxes if Labour is voted into power in the election

Homeowners face being hit by new 'wealth taxes' if Labour is voted into Government, the party's former treasury minister has said.

Former Treasury minister Liam Byrne has said homeoweners could be hit by a new wealth tax if Labour is voted into power (file picture)

Britons with valuable homes or stocks could be stung with new levies, Liam Byrne said.

The Labour MP made the headlines in 2010 when he left the infamous note telling the Coalition government 'there's no money left'.

His comments suggest that the many Britons whose homes have shot up in value thanks to the housing boom could face being penalised.

Mr Byrne told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that Britain's tax system has become 'unfair and unbalanced' and is one of the 'biggest priorities' for reform.

He said: 'Where it has got unfair and unbalanced is there been a huge increase in wealth since 2010 for those lucky enough to own assets, we don't have wealth taxes to ensure there is a little bit paid back.'

Mr Byrne said tax should 'is not simply about the income that you draw each year, it is actually about the assets you own'.

He added: 'So despite the huge increases in asset prices like the stock market and like property prices wealth taxes are still an absolutely tiny fraction of the tax base, and that is probably one of the biggest priorities of reform.'




Police in South Africa claim Kamvelihle Ngala, 4, pictured, had been killed by his uncle Mandisi Gwanya in a cannibal attack

A trusting youngster was snatched by an uncle said to be involved in witchcraft who is accused of skinning him then drinking his blood and eating his heart.

The evil killing of the four-year-old boy has rocked the village where he disappeared after his grandmother tracked him down to a blood-soaked house of horror.

Kamvelihle Ngala, 4, had gone missing while out playing with friends and his grandmother Nontuthuezelo Gwanya, 70, began a search through the night.

The grandmother's sister then tipped her off her to check for the missing boy at her son's house saying she feared he was 'in the grip of Satan' and 'did not trust him'.

When she knocked at the door at 2am her nephew would not let her in so she forced it open and her screams at what she saw brought villagers running.

Nontuthuezelo told reporters: 'I thought a pig had been slaughtered there was so much blood and then I saw the hand of my small boy and pieces of meat.

'He confessed to me that he had eaten the child's flesh.

'My grandson did not deserve to die like that, especially at the hands of a family member who was supposed to protect and love him'.

Police returned and broke down the door and arrested the 30-year-old man inside the blood soaked home and recovered many body parts from the boy.

Neighbours said the boy's ribs were on a sideboard and his skull had been skinned and split in half and remains of his brain were by a salt shaker,

Police found body parts belonging to the youngster inside the bloodstained home

Neighbours conducted a search for the missing youngster before the grim discovery

Police spoksman Captain Nozuko Handile said the suspect had recently been released after seven years in prison for murder after serving his sentence.

He was arrested at the house and charged with the murder of the boy.

Family spokesperson Nosidima Xakana said the village all joined the search.

She said: 'Nontuthuzelo got a call from some family members that she must also look at the house where another relative lived to find her grandson.

'Nontuthuzelo went to her nephew's house and pushed opened the door. The room looked like a slaughter house. There was just blood everywhere.

'The body of Kamva was on the floor cut to pieces. It was a scene like when one slaughters a sheep for a ritual.

'The body was carefully skinned and so was the skull which was away from the child's body.

'He told the villagers and police he drunk Kamva's blood and ate his heart and brains. The skull was clean with eyes gouged out and skin taken away.

'This was like slaughtering sheep or goat for a ritual. A liver was in another dish with one hand' said traumatised Xakana.

Village elder Mte Saleni, 75, said: 'When people are on drugs they are uncontrollable. What people saw in that flat will haunt them forever'.

Mandisi Gwanya, 30, was remanded in custody by Port St Johns Magistrates charged with murder in KwaNtsila village, Eastern Province, South Africa.
Nicola Sturgeon, pictured in Holyrood, has been accused of covering up meetings with Wall Street financial giants during her trip to the US earlier this month

Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of covering up meetings with Wall Street financial giants during her trip to the US earlier this month.

The SNP leader held secret talks with representatives of BlackRock and Morgan Stanley while on her week-long taxpayer-funded tour.

However, she failed to disclose either of the meetings during the trip  despite admitting to similar 'private talks' with Apple chief executive Tim Cook and bosses at technology firm Tesla.

It follows controversy over a 10billion agreement with a Chinese consortium which was signed by the First Minister but not announced publicly. The deal subsequently collapsed.

The Scottish Government said that the meetings were held to 'further develop the relationships with key inward investors'.

But Scottish Tory economy spokesman Dean Lockhart said: 'Nicola Sturgeon raced to every camera available in America when it suited her. Yet now, just like the Chinese investment shambles, we only find out about important meetings between her and potential investors through leaks and media reports.

'Nicola Sturgeon's army of spin doctors could not have done more to publicise selfies with Hillary Clinton. Why were these meetings kept secret until now?

'If these meetings result in more inward investment to Scotland, then that is all well and good. We look forward to Nicola Sturgeon setting out the results she achieved as soon as possible.'

During the US trip, Scottish Government press officers issued daily updates on Miss Sturgeon's key engagements.

These included meetings with the Governor of California, bosses of Apple and Tesla and UN officials. She also met Mrs Clinton and posed for pictures.

A spokesman for the First Minister said the meetings with BlackRock  which pays ex-chancellor George Osborne around 600,000 a year  and Morgan Stanley were not disclosed because they were not 'media-facing' events.

The SNP leader, pictured in the Scottish Parliament, held secret talks with representatives of BlackRock and Morgan Stanley while on her week-long taxpayer-funded tour.

Ms Sturgeon went on a high profile visit to the United States earlier this month and made a series of public appearances in New York (pictured) and California

Details were published yesterday in response to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MSP Ash Denham.

Ms Sturgeon met Lena Wilson, CEO of Scottish Enterprise, at a a round table discussion at the Quadrus Conference Center, California (pictured)

The spokesman said: 'This is a bizarre attack by the Tories  we have published information about these meetings in an answer to parliament.

'The First Minister meets with businesses and potential investors all the time and makes no apology for doing so. If the Tories want to try to scare away investment and jobs, they are going the right way about it with ridiculous statements like this.'

Miss Sturgeon came under fire for signing a secret 'memorandum of understanding' with SinoFortone and the China Railway No 3 Engineering Group (CR3) in March last year. The deal became public knowledge only after being reported in China. Concerns were subsequently raised about CR3's human rights record and corruption allegations in China.

The agreement was cancelled last August.

Miss Sturgeon said yesterday: 'The [US] visit was an important opportunity to assure businesses and visitors from the US that Scotland is an outward-looking and welcoming country that remains very open for business.'
Donald Trump's has enraged south Koreans by saying in an apparently offhand comment after meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that 'Korea actually used to be a part of China'.

The historically inaccurate sentence from a Wall Street Journal interview bumps up against a raft of historical and political sensitivities in a country where many have long feared Chinese designs on the Korean Peninsula.

It also feeds neatly into longstanding worries about Seoul's shrinking role in dealing with its nuclear-armed rival, North Korea.

In Seoul, protesters gathered outside China's embassy to make their point, while the South Korean foreign ministry issued a public rebuke to the U.S. president.

Ahn Hong-seok, a 22-year-old college student, said that if Trump 'is a person capable of becoming a president, I think he should not distort the precious history of another country.'

Scroll down for video

That went well: Korean protesters took to the streets outside the Chinese embassy demanding an apology for what Trump said - which they believe was actually down to Beijing's leader, Xi Jinping

Contentious point: The protests in South Korea focused on China but the country's foreign ministry issued a rebuke directed at President Trump

Close relationship: Trump praised Xi Jinping, his Chinese opposite number, but now it is being claimed that the Communist leader misled Trump on the history of the Korean peninsula, raising long-held fears that China wants to make it part of its sphere of infleunce

Many in South Korea assume that Xi fed that ahistorical nugget to Trump, who also admitted that after 10 minutes listening to Xi, he realized that Beijing's influence over North Korea was much less than he had thought.

Here is why Trump's comments strike a nerve in South Korea:

WRONG - BUT WHOSE MISTAKE WAS IT?

It's unclear whether Trump was quoting Xi or had misunderstood what he was told when he said Korea had been part of China.

It never was, historians outside of China say, although some ancient and medieval kingdoms that occupied the Korean Peninsula offered tributes to Chinese kingdoms to secure protection. And for a period during the 13th century, both China and Korea were under the rule of the Mongolian empire.

'Throughout the thousands of years of relations, Korea has never been part of China, and this is a historical fact that is recognized internationally and something no one can deny,' Cho June-hyuck, a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Thursday.

Asked whether Trump was quoting Xi, Lu Kang, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, didn't provide a direct answer, but said, 'Korean people should not be worried about it.'

KOREANS SAY IT'S UNTRUE, CHINESE SAY IT IS

Trump stumbled into a long history dispute between the Asian neighbors; specifically, their views over the dominion of ancient kingdoms whose territories stretched from the Korean Peninsula to Manchuria.

South Koreans see these kingdoms as Korean, but China began to claim them as part of its national history in the early 1980s.

At the time, China's state historians were exploring ways to ideologically support Beijing's policies governing ethnic minorities, including the large communities of ethnic Koreans in the northeast, experts say.

In the early 2000s, a Chinese government-backed academic project produced a slew of studies arguing that the kingdom of Goguryeo (37 B.C.-A.D. 668) was a Chinese state. This infuriated South Korea, where nationalists glorify Goguryeo for its militarism and territorial expansion. Seoul launched its own government-backed research project on Goguryeo in 2007.

Some analysts say the argument is more political than historical as Goguryeo existed more than a thousand years before the foundation of modern states in Korea and China.

Built that wall: The Great Wall of China can be seen from North Korea's border town of Sinuiju. The history of the kingdom of Goguryeo, which existed from 37BC to 668AD has become a flashpoint between South Korea and Communist China

SOUTH KOREA FEARS CHINA SEES IT AS 'VASSAL STATE'

Several South Korean newspapers mentioned the Chinese claims over Goguryeo as they lashed out at Trump over the comments, and at Xi for allegedly feeding the U.S. president Chinese-centric views.

Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest newspaper, said China was looking to 'tame' South Korea and weaken the traditional alliance between Seoul and Washington in an attempt to expand its regional influence.

Seoul has long worried about losing its voice in international efforts to deal with North Korea's nuclear threat - something local media have termed 'Korea Passing.' Seoul and Beijing are also bickering over plans to deploy in South Korea an advanced U.S. missile defense system that China sees as a security threat.

In the meantime, Trump has reportedly settled on a 'maximum pressure and engagement' strategy on North Korea, which is mainly about enlisting the help of Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang.

'It's highly possible that China will try to solve the problems surrounding the Korean Peninsula based on a hegemonic stance that likens the Koreas to Chinese vassal states,' said the Munhwa Ilbo newspaper on Thursday. 'If Trump has agreed with this view, you will never know what kind of a deal the two global powers will make over the fate of the Korean Peninsula.'

Insecurities about both China's and Trump's intentions in the region will be among the big issues as South Koreans vote next month for their next president.
South Korea and America have taken part in joint military drills as cooperation between the two allies steps up amid tensions with Kim Jong-un.

The USS Carter Hall, a dock-landing vessel, and South Korean destroyer Choe Yeong were pictured on manoeuvres together in the Gulf of Aden on Friday.

They were joined by the British frigate HMS Monmouth and Japanese destroyer Teruzuki to take part in the anti-piracy drills.

South Korean UDT/SEAL special forces approach British frigate HMS Monmouth during anti-piracy drills carried out in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday

US Joint Chiefs of Staff released this photo of South Korean special forces on Friday after joint exercises by the two countries, designed as a show of strength

While the exercises do not relate directly to North Korea, cooperation between Western and East Asian allies will be sure to draw the attention of Kim's regime as he squares off with Donald Trump over the country's nuclear program.

The drills, which took place on Thursday, are aimed at deterring Somali pirates who operate in the region.

The Gulf of Aden is situated at the bottom of the Red Sea and between Yemen, in the Middle East, and Somalia, which is in east Africa.

Clockwise from top, the Japanese destroyer Teruzuki, the USS Carter Hall, South Korean destroyer Choe Yeong and British frigate HMS Monmouth participate in joint exercises

Japanese Rear Adm. Tatsuya Fukuda took command for the exercise, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Fukuda is the commanding officer of Combined Task Force-151, a multinational force aimed at reducing piracy in the area.

South Korean Navy Capt. Kim Kyung-ryul told reporters: 'The latest joint exercise helped build up trust among the navies of the four countries and beef up their joint operability.'
A World War II veteran was asleep in bed when intruders broke into his rural Victorian home, stabbed him in the back 13 times and left him to die slowly on the eve of his 90th birthday.

Jonathon Jeffrey Cooper has admitted fatally stabbing Kenneth Handford at his Springbank home on September 14, 2015.

The 29-year-old was on Friday sentenced to a minimum of 13 years, with a maximum of 16 years, after earlier pleading guilty to the murder of Mr Handford, and for theft and aggravated burglary.

Jonathon Jeffrey Cooper, 29, has been sentenced to a minimum of 13 years for fatally stabbing Kenneth Handford, 89 (above), 13 times and leaving him to die at his home in rural Victoria

Cooper admits he repeatedly stabbed Mr Handford in the back before leaving his victim tied up on the floor, the Victorian Supreme Court heard.

Justice Jane Dixon said she would have sentenced Cooper to a minimum of 25 years in jail had he not pleaded guilty and offered to testify against an accomplice.

Cooper was armed with a knife when he and a friend went to Mr Handford's home in the middle of the night.

'It's apparent the pursuit of money and drugs was the motivation for the aggravated burglary,' Justice Dixon said.

Mr Handford woke up as the pair were ransacking his home.

Cooper approached the bed and shone his torch into the 89-year-old's face before using the butt of his torch to hit him in the face.

Police search the Springbank home of Kenneth Handford who was fatally stabbed on September 14, 2015

Cooper was armed with a knife when he and a friend went to Mr Handford's home (above) in the middle of the night believing he was a paedophile

After Mr Handford's hands were tied, Cooper stabbed him 13 times in the back.

'He was left tied up on the floor, grievously injured,' the judge said.

Mr Handford's body was discovered the next day by a concerned neighbour who had been unable to reach him on his 90th birthday.

Based on data from his cardiac pacemaker, it's believed he died four hours and 38 minutes after he was attacked.

After leaving Mr Handford's home, Cooper and his accomplice showed friends the money and medals they had stolen from him, the court was told.

Cooper later told authorities he stabbed Mr Handford in the belief he was a paedophile, which is what his accomplice allegedly told him.

Justice Dixon said this was not true, and Cooper's 'misapprehension' did not provide an excuse for his actions.

'He was a decent, law abiding elderly man,' she said.

'He was a decorated World War II veteran.'

But the judge accepted Cooper had been repeatedly sexually abused as a child and was affected by this.

She also said Cooper was 'deeply remorseful' and had reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.

Cooper has already spent 542 days in custody.
James Wang, 49, is suing his lawyer Andrew Rozynski (pictured) for mistaking his sign language - and settling a discrimination suit for $200,000 instead of the $200million he asked for

A deaf former IBM worker is suing his attorney for mistaking his sign language - and settling a discrimination suit for $200,000 instead of the $200million he had asked for.

James Wang, 49, claims his lawyer Andrew Rozynski exaggerated his understanding of sign language and confused his sign for 'million' with 'thousand' while settling the deal.

The New York-based software engineer, who lost his hearing aged two, had hoped to get $200million from IBM in 2013 after accusing the firm of firing him for being deaf.

So he was shocked to see a payment of just $207,500 in the settlement papers in 2014, the New York Post reported.

Mr Wang claimed he used the American Sign Language gesture for 'million' - by tapping on an open palm twice - while stating his terms.

However Mr Rozynski mistook the gesture for the sign for thousands - which includes tapping the palm once, the lawsuit says.

'The firm eliminated written communication and American Sign Language interpreting services because [Rozynski] said he knew ASL,' Mr Wang told The Post.

'I did not realize he read my sign mistakenly until after mediation.'

Mr Wang refused to accept the offer - but IBM argued that his claim of a sign-language miscommunication was not credible and demanded a judge enforce the agreement.

Mr Wang has appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court but has lost every time.

'I wish I were not deaf so I can hear exactly what they talked [about],' he said tearfully in a written interview.

Mr Wang had hoped to get $200million from IBM in 2013 after accusing the firm of firing him for being deaf. He is now suing Mr Rozynksi's firm Eisenberg & Baum LLP for legal malpractice at Manhattan Supreme Court (pictured)

Mr Rozynski has three deaf relatives, is fluent in sign language and 'understands deaf culture', according to his professional bio.

He claims he is 'uniquely equipped to help the deaf community' and has 'broad experience' representing hundreds of deaf clients in discrimination cases.

Mr Wang is suing Mr Rozynksi's firm Eisenberg & Baum LLP for legal malpractice at Manhattan Supreme Court and is demanding unspecified damages.

He is representing himself in the suit.

The father-of-two, who earned $65,000 as a software engineer for IBM, sued tech giant IBM in 2011, alleging that he was fired because of his disability.

IBM denied the allegations, the New York Daily News reported.

He said he chose to ask for such a large payout after reading about a $137million settlement in an unrelated sexual harassment case.

Mr Rozynski says the case against him has no merit and pointed to US District Court Judge Vincent Briccetti's case writing in the previous lawsuit praising his work.

Briccetti also wrote that it was implausible for Mr Wang to think he should have received a $200 million settlement, over 3,000 times greater than his salary, and enforced Wang to accept the settlement.
Ms Williams (pictured) was attacked while working in her bar on her 30th birthday

A violent mother-of-three bottled an innocent bar manager on her 30th birthday, permanently damaging her eyesight.

Lyndsey and Kevin Davies launched 'disgraceful' and unprovoked attack on bar manager Jemma Williams as she celebrated her 30th birthday in Merseyside.

Ms Williams who was working on her milestone birthday  asked to get past the drunken couple just before they assaulted her.

Prosecutors said Ms Williams would remember the night 'for all of the wrong reasons.' She spent her birthday in hospital fearing she would lose her sight.

Though Ms Williams' sight has been partially saved she must now wear glasses for the rest of her life and her right tear duct is irreparably damaged. She has lost 39 per cent of the vision in her right eye.

Ms Williams, 30, from St Helens, Merseyside, says: 'I had decided to work on my birthday because the bar was busy and I knew there'd be a good atmosphere.

'But I spent most of my big day in hospital worrying that I was going blind. I won't ever be the same person again after this.

'I can't return to work; I'm terrified of crowds and every time I see a Budweiser bottle I get a flashback.'

Lyndsey (left) and Kevin Davies (right) launched 'disgraceful' and unprovoked attack on bar manager Jemma Williams

Ms Williams had worked her way up in the industry, from glass collector to bar manager, before she and her partner, Peter Edwards, launched 'The Kandy Klub', in St Helens, in August 2015. In June last year, she turned 30.

Ms Williams said: 'We had a really busy weekend in the bar and so I had to work on my birthday. I didn't mind; I knew I could celebrate later on.

'It was a great night, and a really good crowd. And as midnight came, everyone was wishing me happy birthday.

'I needed to get behind the bar and I said: "Excuse me" to a couple standing in my way. The man said: 'Who the f*** are you?' and shoved me really hard and I fell against a wall.'

Ms Williams (left and right after the attack) was working on her milestone birthday and asked to get past the drunken couple just before they attacked her. Since the attack she now struggles to read, is unable to drive, suffers nightmares, anxiety and low confidence

Alarmed, Ms Williams alerted the door staff who removed the man. But back inside the bar, the man's wife, Lyndsey Davies, smashed a glass Budweiser bottle into Ms Williams' face.

'I was in shock. It was so hard that I was knocked to the floor. There was blood everywhere and I was sick with pain,' she said. 'My whole body was covered in brown glass.'

Lyndsey dragged Ms Williams  who had broken glass in one of her eyeballs  by the hair until doormen and the police intervened.

She was taken hospital where doctors found eight separate wounds to her head, glass lodged in her eyeball, and swelling to her face and head.

She said: 'I had to have an MRI scan and at first doctors thought I might lose my sight. I spent my 30th birthday in hospital unable to see.

Ms Williams had worked her way up in the industry, from glass collector to bar manager, before she and her partner, Peter Edwards (pictured together), launched 'The Kandy Klub', in St Helens

Though Ms Williams' sight has been partially saved she must wear glasses for the rest of her life and her right tear duct is irreparably damaged. She has lost 39 per cent of the vision in her right eye.

Nine months on, she still has swelling between her eyes.

She struggles to read, is unable to drive, suffers nightmares, anxiety and low confidence.

Ms Williams said: 'For two months I hardly slept at all. I was in so much pain. I still feel as though I have something stuck in my eye.'

Lyndsey Davies appeared before Liverpool Crown Court in December last year.

She said she and Kevin Davies had been drinking all day and she saw her husband being 'thrown out' but did not recall hitting the victim.

Lyndsey Davies, smashed a glass Budweiser bottle into Ms Williams' face after the bar manager had Kevin Davies removed from the venue

Ms Williams (left and right) was taken hospital where doctors found eight separate wounds to her head, glass lodged in her eyeball and swelling to her face and head

She added that she was drinking while taking anti-psychotic drugs and apologised to her victim.

She admitted assault causing actual bodily harm, but Judge Andrew Menary, QC, questioned why she was not charged with wounding.

Davies has 17 previous convictions for 25 offences, a record Mr Taylor said was 'peppered with assaults and drunkenness'.

Judge Menary said Ms Williams was 'just doing her job' when she was subjected to 'disgraceful' behaviour.

However, the judge said he had to consider the impact on the Davies children if their mother was jailed and concluded that this would 'save' her from going to prison.

Judge Menary said Ms Williams (pictured) was 'just doing her job' when she was subjected to 'disgraceful' behaviour

Kevin Davies grinned in the public gallery as his wife was handed 12 months, suspended for two years, 150 hours of unpaid work and a two-month home curfew, from 8pm to 6pm.

Kevin Davies, who admitted common assault, was fined 290 by magistrates and told to pay Ms Williams 100 in compensation for injuring her back.

Ms Williams said: 'I am appalled that she was not jailed. I can no longer work; I am terrified of being amongst people and every time I see a Budweiser bottle I panic.

'I feel like I am the one with the punishment  not her. My 30th birthday was ruined. I never actually celebrated in the end. I don't think I'll celebrate the next birthday either. Instead of a happy time, it will always be a reminder of the attack.'
Jo Wood has revealed her fury at she was removed from an overbooked flight by EasyJet, saying the airline 'picked on the wrong woman.

The ex-wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, who had spent a romantic Easter weekend at her holiday home with her boyfriend, had booked flights from Murcia to Gatwick on Tuesday and checked in at the airport.

But when the couple went to board they were told there was room for only one of them  and were not offered another flight either that evening or the following day.

GMB's travel editor, Simon Calder and Ms Wood discussed the issue, alongside presenters Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway

She appeared on Good Morning Britain today and explained her story to presenters Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway.

Jo Wood appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss being thrown off an EasyJet flight

'I arrived at Murcia Airport, checked in, had no luggage, went through security and had my boarding pass.

'Just before we were about to go onto the plane, they pulled us aside. because I was with my fella, and said 'one of you can get on and one of you has to stay'.

'I said 'hold on a minute this is ridiculous, I bought my ticket three weeks ago, why should we stay?' We've bought our tickets. And they said they had overbooked.

'I reckon it's because we had no luggage, we were easy to take off. I was furious because I had to get back for work the next day.'

She added that she was only able to get out of the predicament because of a travel agent friend and the fact she was 'lucky enough' to be able to buy another ticket.

Mr Calder claimed that EasyJet offered customers 250 for volunteering to step off the plane, but Ms Wood says she and her partner 'were just taken aside'

When GMB's travel editor, Simon Calder, interjected that EasyJet offered customers 250 for volunteering to step off the plane, she added: 'They didn't stand there and ask who would come off the flight! Nobody said that - they just took us aside.'

Mr Calder replied: 'They said that they asked at bag check and that you - now I'm just going off what they told me - you arrived later at the gate and they'd already asked for volunteers.'

She then said that she was unable to check in with her EasyJet app, although it was pointed out to her she could have done so days before the flight.

The 62-year-old tweeted this picture following the incident, saying: 'Thrown off of easy jet because they over book... at least I wasn't dragged off'

As they had work the next morning, the 62-year-old and partner Paul Scarborough, 53, were forced to fork out 460 on flights with rival Ryanair.

They did not arrive home until 1am  eight hours later than they were supposed to.

The businesswoman, who founded an organic beauty brand, said: 'They picked on the wrong woman didn't they?

Jo Wood will get 747 compensation after she was left stranded in Spain when EasyJet kicked her off an overbooked flight. She had spent a romantic weekend with her boyfriend and had booked flights from Murcia to Gatwick on Tuesday

'Picked on the wrong woman, they did. They must have thought, 'She won't complain, she looks very sweet, she hasn't got any luggage so we don't have to drag her luggage off the flight, that's fine, we'll pick on that girl, Jo.' Little did they know.'

But after the Mail contacted EasyJet yesterday, the budget airline got in contact with Miss Wood to tell her she would be compensated.

The mother of three will be given a full refund for the Ryanair flights, 167 for her EasyJet flights and 120 for a taxi to her home in north London, making the total 747.

Miss Wood, who said she uses EasyJet 'like a bus', also lamented that airlines are not as professional as they used to be.

She said: 'I think it is terrible, unless you're paying top dollar for your first-class seat. But I go to Spain all the time to my house in Murcia and I'm not going to pay top money. I use them like a bus.

'Years ago you used to buy your ticket, and when you had your ticket in your hand you owned that seat on that plane  they're not like that any more.

The mother of three will be given a full refund for the Ryanair flights, 167 for her EasyJet flights and 120 for a taxi to her home in north London, making the total 747

'Now they feel they can just bump you off. If somebody isn't as fortunate as I am, how do they get home? They could lose their job. What if they have kids? You can't do that to people. You can't treat people like that.'

An EasyJet spokesman said: 'We were sorry to hear of Miss Wood's experience and would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.

'While there was one seat available, we understand that she wanted to fly with her travel companion. We have been in contact with Miss Wood directly to apologise.'
Polls showing Tory support is double that for Labour could be massively exaggerated, a top elections expert has said.

The latest YouGov survey put the Conservatives at a nine-year high of 48 per cent  against Labour in the doldrums on just 24 per cent.

But Nate Silver, a US statistician and former poker champion who shot to fame after correctly predicting 49 out of the 50 states results in Barack Obamas 2012 re-election, urged caution.

He said UK polls have a history of being very inaccurate and warned that Theresa Mays decision to hold the snap General Election isnt risk free.

Theresa May, pictured outside Downing Street yesterday, has a lengthy poll lead over her Labour rivals. But an elections expert warned that the polls could be inaccurate

In an article posted on the website FiveThirtyEight he pointed out the failure of the polls to predict the EU referendum result.

He wrote: Conservatives are way ahead of Labour in polls of the United Kingdom  which may have been behind Prime Minister Theresa Mays decision to declare a snap General Election for June 8 in the hopes of increasing her partys majority in Parliament.

But Mays move isnt risk free.

In fact, if the final polls come within a couple of percentage points of the actual vote on June 8, it will be something of an upset.

Polls in the UK have a history of inaccurate performance, with average errors that more than double the ones in American presidential elections.

He said the UK polls are often wildly inaccurate and could be out by as much as 15 percentage points.

Yet the Tories appear to have stretched out such a lengthy lead over their Labour rivals that even if the polls are out by this margin they still have a comfortable lead.

Mr Silver sounded a note of caution, however.

He wrote: So while Mays Tories are undoubtedly in a good position, this move isnt totally without risk.

Elections expert Nate Silver, pictured in 2015, has warned that British polls giving the Conservatives a massive lead over their Labour rivals could be wrong

The Prime Minister hit the campaign trail yesterday by visiting a radar factory in the key battleground seat of Enfield North, which the Tories are hoping to take from Labour

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pictured today at a campaign rally in Swindon, is lagging behind the Tories in the polls. But a top elections expert warned the predictions may be wrong

Public opinion in the UK can change in a hurry, and pollsters have long had trouble nailing it down.

Theresa May hopes to dramatically increase her majority in the election, which she called to strengthen her negotiating hand in Brussels.

Elections expert Professor John Curtice this week suggested the Prime Minister would need a lead of greater than 10 points to get the large government majority she wants.
Russia's FSB intelligence agency says three people were killed - including the attacker - and one wounded in an armed attack at its office in the Far East.

The FSB, the main successor to the KGB, said in a statement on Friday that an unidentified man passed by metal detectors, entered the reception area of the FSB's office in Khabarovsk and opened fire at the people who were there.

One FSB officer and one visitor were killed on spot and one was wounded. Security shot dead the attacker.

An attacker opened fire at the FSB's headquarters building in Khabarovsk, eastern Russia

The FSB would not immediately release any details about the shooter.

Social media users posted pictures of police cordons around the FSB building in Khabarovsk with special forces standing by.

According to the Tass news agency: 'At 17:02 local time (06:02 GMT), an unidentified man entered the FSB receiving office and opened fire before crossing the control zone.'

One FSB officer and a civilian were killed, while another visitor suffered gunshot wounds.

The gunman, who has been identified as A.V. Konev, is believed to be 18.

A spokesman said: 'Some information points to his being a member of a neo-Nazi group.'

Deadly attacks on Russian law enforcement officials are rare outside the country's volatile North Caucasus region.

The country has seen significant support for far-right groups that have sparked brutal confrontations with immigrants from the former Soviet region.

Despite stoking nationalist sentiment since the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, the authorities under President Vladimir Putin have also cracked down on neo-Nazi extremists.

The country has been on heightened alert since an alleged suicide bomb attack on the metro in the second city of Saint Petersburg on April 3 left 15 people dead.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad still possesses Chemical Weapons weeks after a sarin gas attack which killed 87 civilians, the US Defense Secretary has said.

General Jim Mattis said 'there can be no doubt' that Assad's regime still has stockpiles of the weapons and the matter will be taken up with the United Nations.

Mattis told reporters in Tel Aviv, Israel, that Syria would be 'ill advised' to use the weapons of mass destruction again, adding: 'We made that clear with our strike.'

Scroll down for video

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said 'there can be no doubt' that Assad still has chemical weapons during a meeting with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman (left) on Friday

Mattis said the issue of Assad's chemical stockpiles will be taken up with the UN, adding that the dictator would be 'ill-advised' to use the weapons again

He said: 'There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all.

'I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again.'

Mattis did not give any details on the quantities of weapons he believes Assad has at his disposal, or where they are being stored.

He also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft - perhaps as a result of America's strike on the Shayrat Airbase.

Sean Spicer claimed that 59 Tomahawk missiles launched at the base had taken out 20 per cent of Syria's operational aircraft.

Dispersing the remaining jets may be an attempt to make it difficult to wipe out such a significant number in the future.

Mattis also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, who welcomed Trump's strike on Syria as 'a great change in American policy'

Bashar al-Assad has strongly denied using chemical weapons against his own civilians, saying rebel groups are attempting to frame him

Israeli defence officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession.

It was the first specific intelligence assessment of president Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun which caused international outrage.

Speaking alongside Mr Mattis, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman refused to reiterate that detail.

He added: 'We have 100 per cent information that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels.'

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town in Idlib province, and has accused rebel groups of trying to frame his government.

Russia, a top Assad ally, has asserted a Syrian government air strike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

Before meeting with Mr Mattis in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

'We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," he said.

Donald Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at Shayrat Airbase, believed to be the staging point for Assad's chemical attack which killed 87 civilians in Khan Sheikhoun

He referred to the US cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's 'forthright deeds' against the use of chemical weapons.

Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal to avert U.S. strikes following a chemical weapons attack in opposition-held suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 that killed hundreds of people and sparked worldwide outrage.

Ahead of that disarmament, Assad's government disclosed it had some 1,300 tons of chemical weapons, including sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard gas.

The entire stockpile was said to have been dismantled and shipped out under international supervision in 2014 and destroyed.

But doubts began to emerge soon afterward that not all such armaments or production facilities were declared and destroyed.

There also is evidence that the Islamic State group and other insurgents have acquired chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has been locked in a six-year civil war against an array of opposition forces. The fighting has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syria's population.
Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of wanting to 'crush dissent' as she claimed Scots must choose between Brexit-obsessed Tories and the SNP at crucial elections.

The SNP leader admitted it was likely Mrs May would be returned to No 10 on June 8 but said voters must constrain her chance to 'steamroller' opposition.

The First Minister made her latest intervention on the national campaign as she launched her manifesto for the Scottish local elections on May 4.

The town hall polls are the biggest day of the campaign between now and June 8 and the results will shape the final month of the general election battle.

Ms Sturgeon's remarks come after it was claimed Jeremy Corbyn's Labour would try and get into No 10 with the backing of the SNP and Lib Dems if it manages to stop the Tories winning a majority.

Mrs May hit back at her latest campaign visit today as she told workers in Maidenhead her new Government would push back at the 'separatists who want to break up the UK'.

Nicola Sturgeon embraced six month old Ollie Lynch at a rally in Edinburgh today as she launched the SNP manifesto for the local elections

Theresa May, pictured in Maidenhead today, has said a vote for Labour is support for a 'coalition of chaos' that will wreck the Brexit talks

The claims, made by sources on the Labour campaign, have been officially denied by Labour but will still fuel Mrs May's warning that anything other than a vote for the Tories is support for a 'coalition of chaos'.

Speaking at her campaign launch in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon said: 'The general election is about making sure that the Tories don't get to crush dissent and silence opposition, and steamroller over Scotland, how Scotland has voted and how the Scottish Parliament has voted.

'It is about making sure Scotland's voice is heard and independence is certainly an aspect of that, but it's bigger than that as well.

HOW COULD CORBYN WIN NO 10? Under the apparent Labour plan, Jeremy Corbyn would hope to take enough seats to the end Tory majority but accept he cannot win outright either. This would mean neither he or Theresa May could win votes in the Commons without other parties. Mr Corbyn would use Brexit as a reason for all other parties to come together against the Tories - but stop short of forming a full coalition. This is known as 'confidence and supply', where other parties would back his Budgets and Queen's Speech but everything else would be haggled over. Mrs May will argue such a deal would be a recipe for chaos - and it is far from clear other parties would even endorse Mr Corbyn in such a scenario. Advertisement

'It is about making sure we don't allow the Tories to do the social and economic damage to Scotland that they have done in recent years.'

With Labour lagging far behind the Conservatives in UK-wide polling, Ms Sturgeon conceded it was likely Theresa May would return to Downing Street after the June 8 snap election.

'I don't want to see a Tory government but I can read the opinion polls as well as anybody else can,' she said.

'If Scotland doesn't want a Tory government that has a massive majority, that has the ability to do whatever it wants, to silence Scotland's voice, to impose cuts, further austerity, and to try to almost silence the Scottish Parliament, there needs to be really strong opposition from Scotland to that Tory government.

'That can only come from the SNP. That's the clear message that we'll be taking to every part of Scotland.'

Ms Sturgeon launched her local elections manifesto today alongside council candidates at the community-led arts charity and social enterprise the Whale Arts Centre in Wester Hailes.

She also joined SNP Edinburgh council candidates for a photocall, embracing six month old baby Ollie Lynch for the camera.

Ms Sturgeon's remarks come after it was claimed Jeremy Corbyn, pictured in Swindon this morning, would try and get into No 10 with the backing of the SNP and Lib Dems if it manages to stop the Tories winning a majority

At the launch, Ms Sturgeon said: 'The council elections are a clear choice between the SNP who stand for strong and vibrant local communities - and a Tory party which has become a single-issue, Brexit-at-all-costs machine.

'SNP councillors will always put their local communities first - they are not there to simply make up the numbers and be used as a proxy war in national political games.

'From the abolition of ring-fenced funding and our transformational Community Empowerment Act, the SNP has a long track record of pushing power down to local communities.

'Every vote for the SNP on May 4th is a vote against Tory austerity and a vote to protect vital services and jobs.

'All of our candidates are working hard every day to earn the trust of the people they want to represent and after the election will continue to work every day to preserve it.'

Ms Sturgeon launched her elections with an attack on the Conservatives despite the party holding far fewer of the current seats than Labour, which remains the second party in Scottish local government.

Scottish voters must choose between the SNP and a Tory 'Brexit at all costs' machine, Nicola Sturgeon has warned today (pictured)

Ms Sturgeon's decision to target the Tories at the local elections poll will be seen as positioning ahead of June's general election by Ms Sturgeon

Ms Sturgeon visited a community centre to launch her campaign manifesto for the local elections on May 4

The decision to target the Tories at the poll will be seen as position ahead of June's general election by Ms Sturgeon.

The parties' performance on May 4 will shape the final month of the national campaign.

All Scottish councils are up for grabs on May 4 and the Scottish Tories, led by Ruth Davidson, will hope for significant gains.

Ms Sturgeon has thrown herself into the national battle this week, forcing Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today leaving home) to deny plans for a coalition

Labour was thrown back into a row over the possibility of a coalition today after campaign sources briefed the Mirror Mr Corbyn was open to leading a minority government with informal SNP support.

Mr Corbyn's campaign believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority.

The Tories would still be the largest party but in a hung parliament, Mr Corbyn could enter Downing Street with informal backing from the SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs.

The idea will fuel Theresa May's narrative that a vote for Labour is support for a 'coalition of chaos' that will wreck the Brexit talks.

The campaign source told the Mirror: 'Our number one goal is to deny the Tories a majority. And that is not beyond the realms of imagination.

'If we can take say 40 seats off them - and we're only talking overturning small majorities - then we can be somewhere near parity.

'And if the Lib Dems do well too, the Tories will be out of government. Who is going to be able to cut a deal (with the other parties) over Brexit, us or them?'

Conservative MP Maria Caulfield said the claims revealed the 'truth' about Labour's campaign.

Elsewhere on the Scottish election trail today, Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie found himself grappling with a ram on Mill House Farm, Fife

The purpose of Mr Rennie's efforts was not immediately clear as he stumped for votes ahead of the May 4 council elections

STURGEON LAUNCHES FIGHT ON SECOND FRONT IN LOCAL POLL SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has launched her electoral battle against the Tories on a second front today. All Scottish councils - and many in England - are up for grabs on May 4 in the most significant date of the run into the general election on June 8. Significantly, Ms Sturgeon has chosen to paint her local fight against the Tories - despite the party holding far fewer current seats than Labour. The SNP leader promised more free childcare, cash for classrooms and more affordable houses. She said the Tories offered nothing but Brexit. Advertisement

Labour IS plotting a 'coalition of chaos' and wants an 'informal' deal with the SNP and Lib Dems that could put Corbyn in No 10



Jeremy Corbyn, pictured campaigning in Swindon today, believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority

Labour's first target is to stop a Tory majority so it can try to form a minority government with support from the SNP and Lib Dems, sources have claimed.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority.

The Tories would still be the largest party but in a hung parliament, Mr Corbyn could enter Downing Street with informal backing from the SNP, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs.

The claim, made by campaign sources to the Daily Mirror, is in defiance of polls suggesting a landslide victory for the Conservatives.

And it will fuel Tory warnings that a vote for Labour is a vote for a 'coalition of chaos' driven by Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Corbyn scrambled to rule out the idea of a formal coalition with the SNP earlier this week after leader Nicola Sturgeon backed a 'progressive alliance'.

The prospect of the SNP in power in London is toxic to English voters and was a huge driver of the Conservative campaign in 2015.

Ms Sturgeon intervened again today to warn the local elections in Scotland were a choice between Tories who believe in nothing but Brexit and the SNP.

Theresa May insists she will KEEP controversial target on foreign aid spending as she goes home to Maidenhead on latest campaign stop

Theresa May, pictured in Maidenhead, has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today

Theresa May has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today.

The Prime Minister said it was important to ensure the money - more than 13billion last year - is spent properly.

But as she returned home to Maidenhead for the first time since calling a snap general election, Mrs May ended speculation she would dump the controversial policy.

The dramatic development on the election trail came after Nicola Sturgeon launched a new broadside at Mrs May for trying to 'crush dissent' by chasing a landslide election win.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is banging the drum for his new commitment to cut class sizes in schools with a tour through the south.

David Cameron ran twice on the promise to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid and the target was first met in 2013. Britain is just one of six nations to meet the international goal.

But many Tory MPs hate the commitment, which is written into law unlike any other spending, particularly at a time of austerity elsewhere.
Pictured: Dr Kwame Somuah-Boateng, 43, who is accused of telling a patient having sex with him would be 'good' for her condition

A married doctor convinced a patient to have sex with him by saying it would help relieve her multiple sclerosis, a tribunal heard.

Dr Kwame Somuah-Boateng, 43, allegedly told the woman intercourse would stimulate the muscles in her legs, saying: Trust me, Im a doctor.

The doctor and his patient, who was in her 30s, would meet for sex in his hospital sleeping quarters, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal was told.

During their six-month affair, he vowed to marry her and have a son with her, even though he already had a wife and daughters in his native Ghana, it was claimed.

Describing how sex would benefit her, Somuah-Boateng is accused of claiming that intercourse would help her pelvic floor muscles because they were weak.

He said it would help her to feel normal, feel like a woman, the tribunal heard.

The fling ended when the woman, known as Patient A, discovered she might be pregnant.

The doctor allegedly told her his wife would kill the baby, it was said. When the woman thought she had miscarried, he allegedly tried to have sex with her again.

Patient A discovered the consultant urologists claims about sex and her condition were false when she went for a subsequent medical appointment for her MS, the tribunal heard.

Giving evidence, she said: If I had known that what was happening to me was something dreadful I would have had the police at my door.

He told me sex was good for my condition numerous times. Initially I thought it was going to help me get my feelings back  I just wanted to be normal again.

Somuah-Boateng, pictured, met Patient A when he escorted her to a colleague for an MRI scan and when she was devastated to discover she had MS he began comforting her

She added: I thought he was the only one I could talk to about the condition because he was telling me he understood it.

At the time I thought the relationship was normal. He made me feel safe and he made me think that I couldnt speak to family or friends about my condition and told me not to look things up on the internet.

I thought, Wow, isnt it great to have your own personal doctor looking after you? Now I feel like I was groomed into a relationship.

The affair began in July 2012 after Patient A was admitted to the A&E department at Croydon University Hospital in South London, complaining of being unable to feel her legs or feet properly.

Somuah-Boateng escorted her to a colleague for an MRI scan and when she found she had MS he began comforting and advising her about her condition.

Patient A told the hearing in Manchester: He explained what MS was. I was upset and confused and he comforted me and said its going to be all right.

The affair began in July 2012 after Patient A was admitted to the A&E when she complained of being unable to feel her legs or feet properly and she met Dr Kwame Somuah-Boateng (pictured)

A few days later he called me and explained who he was. I thought it was nice of him. He asked me how I was doing and how I was feeling, and he wanted to know if I had a boyfriend.

She claimed that soon the doctor was calling her every day, but I didnt recognise myself as being in any danger.

Patient A said: The first time that I had sex with Kwame he said to me, Trust me, Im a doctor  it will help you to get your sensitivity back. I wanted to have sex with him because I thought it helped. I felt dependent on him. He began to tell me, I love you, I want to marry you, I want to have children with you.

She added that at one point during their sexual relationship, I was uncomfortable and I told him to stop and he didnt at first  when I told him to again he did.

The relationship broke down and in February 2013, the woman told Sumoah-Boateng she wanted to end things, but even then he allegedly pestered her for sex.

Somuah-Boetang, of Mitcham, South London, denies he initiated contact with Patient A, insisting she got in touch with him and asked him for the sexual relationship. He also denies separate charges of supplying her with prescription medication.

Dr Somuah-Boateng's affair with Patient A ended after she discovered she might be pregnant

In 2015 he stood trial at Croydon Crown Court for attempted rape and sexual assault against the same woman, but was cleared.

The case continues. It is brought by the General Medical Council.
A 'wheeler-dealer' pawnbroker who has made a career trading high-end items for millionaires has told how he would rather make friends than money.

James Constantinou, star of Channel 4's Posh Pawn, has made a success of himself despite being expelled from school with no qualifications.

And ahead of the shows new series, he has revealed that among the most bizarre items he has had to turn down was 15 Nigerian fighter jets.

James Constantinou, star of Channel 4's Posh Pawn, has made a success of himself despite being expelled from school with no qualifications

On the show, Mr Constantinou regularly flogs supercars, with the most expensive being a 1million Bugatta Veyron

Mr Constantinou (pictured on a yacht on the show) set up Prestige Pawnbrokers following the 2008 recession

A chunk of moon rock, a piece of Charles and Diana's wedding cake and a pair of Queen Victoria's knickers are among other bizarre items he has touted.

And it seems that his business drives him on more than the idea of being popular.

He told The Express: 'At the end of the day I am here to make money, not friends.

'Im actually quite proud of what weve achieved, starting from nothing. People are fully aware of what they are getting into and I always suggest that they try not to borrow against items that have sentimental value, such as grannys wedding ring.'

Mr Constantinou went into pawnbroking following the recession set up Prestige Pawnbrokers after spotting that nobody was pawning luxury items.

Luxury watches and supercars may be his staple items, but there are items - such as Nazi memoribilia - that he has rejected on moral grounds.

Mr Constantinou with Posh Pawn's handbag expert Claudia Valentin, who is also his fiancee

Mr Constantinou claims to have touted a slice of Prince Charles and Diana's wedding cake (pictured with its makers, left) and a piece of the moon (right)

From helicopters to Lamborghinis, mini-submarines and Hermes handbags, Posh Pawn uncovers the hidden world of high-end pawnbroking.

Mr Constantinou believes that the show, which he presents with fiancee Claudia Valentin, and his methods of trading are helping to improve the public perception of his trade.

He added in his Express interview: 'The pawnbroking industry is very well regulated now and no one can operate without a licence. I guess a few people think were exploiting peoples misfortune but its no different to any other form of lending.'

Posh Pawn starts on tonight at 8pm on Channel 4.
This shocking video shows a young couple in India being stripped naked and physically assaulted by 18 villagers after they married in secret.

The humiliating incident happened in Shambhupura village in the Banswara District in south Rajasthan.

They were targeted after they married without their family's consent.

The young couple were stripped naked and physically assaulted by 18 villagers in India

In the humiliating clip, one man is seen grabbing the young girl aggressively sat naked on the ground

Kachru, 21, and Monica, 19, had been in a secret relationship for two years before they finally got married and fled to Gujarat.

But when Monica's parents found out they tracked down the young couple and forced them to return to the village.

There, they were reported to the village head.

Shambhupura is a predominantly tribal village with most people there belonging to the Bhil community.

The girl's family had allegedly already sold her for Rs 75,000 (905) and were paid Rs 5,000 (60) in advance for her to marry another man in a neighbouring village.

After being sent back, the village head ordered them to be stripped and paraded naked.

In the humiliating clip, one man is seen grabbing the young girl aggressively sat naked on the ground.

Officer Ravinder Kumar Singh, the station house officer at Kalinjra Police Station, confirmed the girl's parents were forcing her to marry someone else.

The Indian couple had married in secret after being in a relationship for two years

He said: 'When Monica told her parents about her relationship she was being forced by her parents to marry another boy. The couple tried to flee to Gujarat to escape the wrath of their families. But their relatives caught them and brought them back to the village after which this incident happened.'

He added: 'We're investigating the case and 18 people have been arrested so far. And they include family members of the couple, members of the panchayat and other villagers. We are also searching for the person who made the video and posted it online.'

The 18 people arrested have had cases registered against them under sections 307 (Attempt to murder), and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

Officer Singh said Kachru sustained severe injuries in the attack and was taken to hospital for treatment.

Police have provided Monica with police protection and she is currently being kept in a safe house.
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Residents in Poole slammed plans to bulldoze two Victorian seaside hotels to make way for a new 250million development dubbed 'Britains Palm Beach'.

An application has been submitted to Poole Borough Council to knock down the Sandbanks Hotel, in the Sandbanks Peninsula, Dorset, and replace it with a luxurious 175-room hotel, which will be Art Deco-themed, and an underground car park.

The application also states plans to replace the four-star Haven hotel with 196 residential apartments in four blocks with a 7,000 sq ft restaurant called the Jurassic Eye at the top, and to demolish the Harbour Heights Hotel to make way for a 40-suite 'aparthotel' - aka a hotel with flats inside.

The history of the Sandbanks Hotel and the Haven Hotel date back to the Victorian times.

Plans have been submitted to knock down the Sandbanks Hotel, above, in the Sandbanks Peninsula, Dorset, and replace it with a 175 bedroom Art Deco hotel

Above is the artist impression of what the new complex, replacing the Sandbanks Hotel, would look like. It has been likened to Miami Beach

The application also outlines a plan to demolish the Harbour Heights Hotel to make way for a 40-suite 'aparthotel'

This artist impression shows what the Harbour Heights Hotel could be replaced with. It would be an 'aparthotel', aka an apartment hotel, with 40 suites

Property developer Richard Carr has drawn up the schemes on behalf of the owner of all three properties, John Butterworth of FJB Hotels, and has taken inspiration from Florida's famous Palm Beach.

He said: 'If you went to Palm Beach you would not expect to find hotels that are 100 years old.

'The Sandbanks and Haven Hotels are old buildings that are coming to the end of their economic life cycle.

'No amount of money can put into The Sandbanks right now because the rooms are too small and the bathrooms are substandard.

'It's common sense that people's aspirations and needs have changed.

'The new hotels will be state of the art and provide the facilities that anyone from anywhere in the world would be happy to receive.

Property developer Richard Carr has drawn up the schemes on behalf of the owner of all three properties, John Butterworth of FJB Hotels. He said: 'If you went to Palm Beach you would not expect to find hotels that are 100 years old'

The Haven Hotel was built in 1887 after its predecessor, the North Haven Inn, was demolished. The Haven Hotel could be replaced with 196 residential apartments in four blocks with a 7,000 sq ft restaurant called the Jurassic Eye at the top

'Sandbanks has a high-class reputation and if people are going to stay there they expect facilities that they would get in top hotels in any major city in the world.

'People never like change but change has to happen, things have to move on.

'If it doesn't happen now it will have to happen in ten years time.'

John Butterworth, managing director of FJB Hotels, added: 'Engineers tell us that the structure of the buildings are coming to the end of their commercial life, so we are going to have to rebuild them.

'They're going to have to come down eventually and at the moment it's difficult to offer the public the facilities they rightly expect.'

However people living in the town rejected the idea, with one resident branding it 'hideous' and another saying it was a 'disgrace'.

Writing on Facebook, Andy Sheppard said: 'I think it's an absolute disgrace. Especially demolishing the Haven for flats! Terrible idea. That is a historic building, prime location, great rooms, restaurant and bars for locals and visitors. And they want to build more flats instead.'

Alison Oliver wrote: 'Hideous! Surely the Haven Hotel is a listed building! I think the sandbanks is in need of a facelift but the Haven is part of Pooles history!'

Dave Hatchard added: 'Poole and Bournemouth have already been ruined over the years, Is there nothing left sacred? I am all for something new but please leave our grandkids some kind of heritage to be proud of.'

The Sandbanks Hotel is one of the earliest buildings on the exclusive peninsula. The current hotel dates back to the 1920s but a previous hotel, the South Haven Inn, was built in the 19th century

The seaside view of the Sandbanks Hotel. John Butterworth, managing director of FJB Hotels, said: 'Engineers tell us that the structure of the buildings are coming to the end of their commercial life, so we are going to have to rebuild them'

Plans for the new luxurious hotels have been slammed by local residents. Dave Hatchard added: 'Poole and Bournemouth have already been ruined over the years, Is there nothing left sacred ?'

In response to the comments, Mr Butterworth said: 'The FJB Group has been in business since the 1930's and on the Sandbanks peninsula since the 1960's proudly owning and operating, through our family business, the Haven Hotel and the Sandbanks Hotel. As time passes expectations in hospitality change - when we bought the Sandbanks Hotel in 1966 it didn't even have en-suite bathrooms!

'Today, the Haven Hotel is very popular but as it was re-built in 1927 with a steel frame sadly it is coming to the end of its life structurally - the building just can't go on forever, as is evident from the engineers' reports.

'Our vision is to provide a hotel on the current site of the Sandbanks Hotel that delivers more than the sum of the parts of the two hotels today.

'It will have over 170 bedrooms and internationally attractive facilities so it wouldn't make any sense at all to have a second hotel on the peninsula, so we propose to build a residential development where the Haven Hotel is now that will make owning a property on Sandbanks accessible to many and we intend to incorporate restaurants and bars in that Haven development for locals and visitors to enjoy that will be of a far higher standard than currently available, so no one will be losing out at all.

'And, when developed, the Sandbanks Hotel of course will be something for Poole and indeed the whole South of England to be really proud of long into the future.'

The application for planning permission has been lodged and developers hope to be granted approval within nine months.
A South Korean man in his 50s has died after mistaking a poison toad for a bullfrog and eating it in a restaurant.

The man was with two friends when he captured the five amphibians from a reservoir in Daejon, about 100 miles south of Seoul.

Police said the meal was prepared at a restaurant owned by one of the men's wives.

Police in South Korea believe the victim mistook a poisonous toad for a bull frog, file picture

Species such as the cane toad, pictured, contain deadly toxins which can kill

The incident happened in the central South Korean city of Daejeon, pictured

Bullfrogs are a delicacy in South Korea, however, some closely resemble poisonous toads.

According to the Yonhap news agency, the 57-year-old victim ate his mean and soon started vomiting.

He was rushed to hospital and pronounced dead the following morning.

Police conducted a forensic analysis of the meal's left overs and found it contained the toxin bufotenine.

In high doses it can be fatal.
The Culture Secretray had referred the bid to watchdogs for consideration

Karen Bradley has announced the final decision will be delayed until June 20

It is highly controversial and is opposed by the Labour Party and campaigners

Mr Murdoch's firm 21st Century Fox has tabled a 12 billion bid to take over Sky

The final decision over Rupert Murdoch's proposed 12billion takeover of Sky will be postponed until after the General Election, it has been announced.

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said the communications watchdog Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority will be given more time to consider the takeover.

She had asked the two watchdogs to investigate the implication of 21st Century Fox's bid for the British satellite broadcaster.

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has announced the final decision on the takeover will be delayed until after the snap General Election, which will be held on June 8. File photo

The proposed merger has faced vocal opposition from campaigners and the Labour frontbench.

They have said the phone hacking scandal at the now defunct News of the World raises serious questions about Mr Murdoch's fitness to be at at the helm of the merged business.

Rupert Murdoch has tabled a 12bn bid to gain control of the broadcaster

Announcing the delay, Ms Bradley said: 'On Thursday 16 March I intervened in the proposed acquisition of Sky by 21 Century Fox on the media public interest grounds of media plurality and commitment to broadcasting standards by issuing a European Intervention Notice (EIN).

'The EIN triggered the requirement for Ofcom to assess and report to me on the public interest grounds specified and for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to report to me on jurisdiction.

'I required Ofcom and the CMA to provide their reports to me in response to the EIN by Tuesday 16 May. Once these reports are received, my decision-making role in this process would resume.

'Given the proximity of this decision to the forthcoming general election and following discussions with the parties, Ofcom, the CMA and the Cabinet Office Propriety and Ethics team I wrote to Ofcom and the CMA on Friday 21 April to extend the period by which these reports should be submitted to Tuesday 20 June.'
A Spanish man flashed a smile and held up a Bible verse inked on his hand as he was sentenced to death in Thailand after being found guilty of murdering a fellow Spaniard.

Artur Segarra Princep was charged with the premediated murder of 40-year old David Bernat.

Parts of his dismembered body were retrieved from Bangkok's Chao Phraya River in February last year, while traces of the victim's bloodstains and DNA were found in Segarra's Bangkok apartment.

Artur Segarra Princep was charged with the premediated murder of 40-year old David Bernat

When photographed in his holding cell on Friday, Artur Segarra Princep held up his palm, on which was handwritten 'Lucas 23:34,' a reference to the Biblical verse 'And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'

Segarra's lawyer said his client denied the charges against him and will appeal.

Worasit Piriyawiboon said: 'We still want to prove (his innocence). Artur himself insisted that he did not commit a murder. Whether he should be found guilty of the crime of theft or the crime of murder, these are two separate crimes.'

During the investigation, police said they found a freezer in Segarra's home that is believed to have been used to store the body, as well as a book with instructions on how to dismember body parts.

Police believed Segarra held Bernat against his will and tortured him to force him to transfer money to his bank account, then killed him and chopped up his body to try to conceal the crime.

Police believed Segarra held Bernat against his will and tortured him to force him to transfer money to his bank account, then killed him and chopped up his body to try to conceal the crime

The theft charge focused on 80,000 baht ($2,285), though police indicated they suspect much more was stolen.

Segarra was arrested in Cambodia and sent back to Thailand in February last year to stand trial.

Worasit noted that his client was also convicted on other charges including misusing the victim's ATM card, 'but with the death sentence, other sentences don't matter.'

When photographed in his holding cell on Friday, Segarra held up his palm, on which was handwritten 'Lucas 23:34,' a reference to the Biblical verse 'And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

Executions are rarely carried out in Thailand.
Marcel Zech was ordered to serve eight months behind bars

A sick tattoo of a concentration camp and a sinister motto - 'Everyone gets what they deserve' - has landed a German neo-Nazi in jail.

Marcel Zech, 28, a politician with the far-right NPD party, was ordered to serve eight months behind bars for displaying the grotesque tattoo across his back at a swimming pool.

The silhouette of the Auschwitz death camp, together with the motto which was above the gate at the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, constitute banned symbols in the country.

A court in Brandenburg ratified the sentence handed down to Zech in November last year. He had been free pending his appeal which was roundly rejected.

He had showed off the offending tattoo at the Turm swimming baths in Oranienburg near Berlin in 2015.

'Displaying this taoo for two hours at the swimming baths constituted a breach of the law,' said a court spokesman.

More than a million Jews were killed at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland during the war, tens of thousands of people murdered and worked to death at Buchenwald.

The tattoo of the Auschwitz death camp along with the sick motto, 'everyone gets what they deserve'. Zech displaying the grotesque tattoo across his back at a swimming pool

Zech already has a criminal record for race hate crimes

Zech has a criminal record for race hate crimes. In June 2015 he was ordered to pay 360 euros after posing as a police officer to try to learn the identities of anti-fascist demonstrators who tore down NPD posters in his town.

In a 2013 court appearance he was fined 1,200 euros for assault. In 2014 he was elected as a local councillor in Barnim.

He works as a window cleaner and, according to media reports, has been seen at least once before swimming in a lake with his tattoos on show. On his stomach he has the old Reich eagle tattooed - not a forbidden symbol.

The window cleaner has reportedly been seen at least once before swimming in a lake with his tattoos on show

Zech is a politician with the far-right NPD party

On his left arm he has a black sun, a typical Nazi-era symbol. Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency, lists him as a 'neo-Nazi.'

He belongs to one group which provocatively buried a wooden swastika in the ground opposite the gates of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.

In court he wore a Thor Steiner sweat shirt - an apparel line in Europe favoured by far-right sympathisers - and appeared shocked when he was told he would be going to jail.

His lawyer said the Auschwitz tattoo had since been modified to portray popular German cartoon characters Max and Moritz. But the Buchenwald script apparently remains unchanged.

The International Auschwitz Committee said that the ratification of the jail sentence sent an 'important signal.'
A northern California caretaker is speaking out to detail how he helped police arrest the Tennessee teacher who had been on the run for more than a month with his 15-year-old student.

Tad Cummins, 50, was taken into custody Thursday morning by a SWAT team who surrounded the unfinished cabin in Cecilville, California where he was staying with missing teen Elizabeth Thomas.

Police got a tip about Cummins' whereabouts the previous night from the caretaker of the cabin, 29-year-old Griffin Barry.

Barry, who is originally from Nashville, said he let the couple stay in the cabin in exchange for work and realized who the two were when a neighbor showed him a picture of Thomas' missing person poster.

That's when it all came together for Barry and he called to tip off police. Looking back, he said there was something suspicious about the couple.

Scroll down for video

Griffin Barry, 29 (pictured), helped police arrest Tad Cummins, the 50-year-old Tennessee teacher who had been on the run for more than a month with one of his 15-year-old students

Cummins continued to drive his Nissan Rogue the whole time, but removed the license plates

'She spoke very few words and he would try and like, talk for her a lot,' Barry told KRCR. 'He was likely clearly keeping her separate.'

Barry says the two first came through the area two weeks ago, looking for the Black Bear Ranch Commune, and were going by the names John and Joanna.

The couple, claiming to be 38 and 24 years old, had run out of gas and Cummins told a sad story about how they lost all of their possessions in a house fire in Colorado and didn't have any money left.

So Barry decided to be a Good Samaritan, and gave Cummins money, gas and directions to the commune.

'I put some gas in his car and gave him $40 dollars and said if it doesnt work come back Ill feed you you, know what I mean?' Barry, 29, told WKRN.

Cummins and Thomas did in fact make it to the commune, but the members there sensed something was off with the two and decided against letting them into the group.

Cummins (left) said he was 'glad' that his month-and-a-half flight from justice was over when he was arrested for allegedly kidnapping Elizabeth Thomas (right) Thursday

Found: The pair were found in one of these cabins in a remote section of northern California after the shack's caretaker recognized Cummins' car. He called police on Wednesday

Barry let the couple stay in one of the unfinished cabins after they were turned down from a commune in the area

Above, investigators at the scene of the cabin on Friday

'I feel a little funny because there were all kinds of indications that there was something a little funny going on never occurred to me that she was 15 year old, they said she was 22, I thoughtyeah,' member Peter LaughingWolf said.

LaughingWolf said that after telling Cummins that they wouldn't be a good fit, he stormed off with Thomas.

'What really should have been a clue that something was wrong was that he got so angry when that was shared with them,' added LaughingWolf.

After getting kicked out of the commune, Cummins and Thomas returned to Cecilville on Tuesday, and Barry offered to let them sleep in one of his unfinished cabins in exchange for work.

'In my head I'm thinking he had a house fire and lost everything,' Barry said. 'I came out here on a prayer and people helped me out and got me on my feet and hopefully I can pass it on.'

Fled: The pair fled 2,500 miles over the course of their journey, cops said. Police said they didn't know if Thomas was willing to go with Cummins, but that it didn't matter, legally

Barry, right, appeared on Good Morning America Friday morning to detail how he helped police nab Cummins

Thomas' family appeared on Good Morning America on Friday, saying they had not yet been able to talk to her. Pictured bottom left is Elizabeth's father Anthony

THE PAIR'S FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE January 23: Tad Cummins is spotted kissing Elizabeth Thomas, his student at Culleoka High School, by another student. He denies the claim, saying that they are friends; she is taken out of his classes February 3: Cummins is reprimanded by the school principal after Elizabeth is found to have entered his classroom for around 30 minues February 6: Cummins is suspended c. March 9: He takes out a $4,500 loan on his car March 12: Cummins buys hair dye from Walmart in Columbia, TN March 13, 7:45am: Thomas is dropped off at Shoney's in Columbia by a friend March 13, 8am: Cummins is seen pumping gas in Columbia March 13, noon: Cummins and Elizabeth are seen together in Decatur, AL, around 70 miles from Columbia. He is fired from his job this same day March 15: Cummins and Thomas are seen buying food at a Walmart. They are sporting dyed hair. This is their last sighting for more than a month March 30: Tad Cummins' wife of 31 years, Jill, files for divorce April 19: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is contacted by caretaker Griffin Barry, who says the paid is staying on his property in Cecilville, California April 20: Police converge on the remote cabin, arrest Cummins and confirm that Elizabeth is safe Advertisement

Barry said he rarely interacted with Thomas during the couple's 36-hour stay at the property.

'He would talk for her a lot and kept her separate, you know,' Barry told WBIR. 'And a couple of times he always kept her in the car and he would be like 'she's asleep,' you know, and I'm like okay. I was kind of telling some people , you know, she never really looks at me and she's always talking for her. I was like, whatever, they're on hard times or something."

It wasn't until Wednesday night that he finally recognized Cummins and the girl, when a neighbor showed him a missing persons picture.

'Someone was showing me a picture, I was telling them you know and said 'That's the guy,"' he said. 'So we called 911 last night and we were calling that Tennessee Bureau of Investigation line or whatever so I guess the first sheriff got out here at about 2am.'

The neighbor reportedly got suspicious about the couple's car, a silver Nissan Rogue. It was the same car the couple went missing in, and the plate's had been removed.

After using the car's vehicle identification number to confirm it belonged to the ex-teacher, SWAT teams formed a perimeter around the cabin and waited for Cummins to walk out around 4am.

After a while, they brought in Barry to help speed up the process.

'I was driving by trying to flush him out. [Sheriff's deputies] were like, "honk the horn!"' Barry said. 'I'm glad I got to help.'

As Cummins was taken into custody, he reportedly remarked 'I'm glad this is over'.

Thomas was 'healthy' and 'unharmed' according to police, and had a mixed emotional reaction.

'It was an intense situation,' Lt Behr Tharsing, of the Siskiyou County Police, told Good Morning America on Friday. 'She was laughing, she was crying, she was kind of an emotional rollercoaster as you can imagine.'

Two loaded handguns were found in the cabin.

Last sighting: The pair's last sighting before the arrest was at an Oklahoma Walmart on March 15 (pictured). They had died their hair to help evade capture

Jason Whately, the attorney representing the Thomas family, believes that the pair had intended to keep driving northwest. Maps were found in Cummins' car for both San Francisco and Baltimore.

Both remain in Siskiyou County as of Friday morning. After an interview with police, Thomas is expected to be sent home to her family in Tennessee Friday morning. Her father, Anthony, told Good Morning America on Friday that the family still hasn't been able to speak to Elizabeth yet and that he believes she may have been brainwashed.

Cummins was set to appear in Siskiyou County court on Friday, but that appearance was cancelled. Instead, he has been put in federal custody and is being moved to Sacramento where a new hearing is scheduled for Monday.

He has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor in Lawrence County, Tennessee. The aggravated kidnapping charge carries an eight to 12 year sentence.

In Siskiyou County, California, where the cabin is located, he may be charged with kidnapping and possession of stolen property, pending review by the county's district attorney.

And the US State Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee has also filed a federal charge of transportation of a minor across state lines with intent of having criminal sexual intercourse.

A criminal complaint released Friday has also revealed new details about Cummins.

It says that before leaving town, he refilled his Cialis prescription - a drug that treats erectile dysfunction. He also picked up KY Jelly, a personal lubricant, during a stop at Walmart in Oklahoma with Thomas.

That charge alone has a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison.

It could take several weeks for Cummins to be extradited to Tennessee, said US attorney Jack Smith.

Cummins, 50, who is married and has two daughters and grandchildren, allegedly abducted his former student on March 13 from her home near Columbia, Tennessee.

The two, who were thought to be in a sexual relationship, were last spotted two days later.

Their last confirmed sighting prior to the arrest was at a Walmart in Oklahoma, 700 miles away from home, after they had both dyed their hair.

Court papers filed recently in the girl's disappearance say she was afraid of the teacher and thought she would face repercussions at school if she resisted him.

When asked at a press conference if she had gone willingly, Gwyn said the question 'didn't matter'.

'At the end of the day she's 15 years old, she's 15 years old, she's a young girl that's with a grown man that's 50 years old.

'He needs to be held accountable for kidnapping this girl,' he said.

Speaking to DailyMail.com Thursday, Elizabeths relieved mother said: 'All I want to do now is hug and kiss her.'

Kimberly Thomas, 48, feared she might never see the 15-year-old girl again after she vanished more than five weeks ago with her married teacher.

'It's only been a little over a month but to us it has felt like forever,' Thomas told DailyMail.com.

'I just lost my mother, she died of an aneurysm. She never had high blood pressure before but this was terribly stressful for her. She never got to hear her granddaughter was OK.

'As for Mr Cummins, I don't even want to think about him right now. All I can think about is my daughter and the fact she is safe.'

Elizabeth lived with her father, Anthony Thomas, because Mrs Thomas has been prevented from having contact with her because of an ongoing abuse case that is yet to go to court.

However, the mother-of-ten, who only learned her daughter had been found from a news bulletin, says she will ask her attorney to see if they can get special permission to speak.

'The justice system has been very unfair to me throughout this ordeal. Nobody has told me anything. This is my daughter we are talking about,' she added.

Speaking to reporters last month, Jill Cummins, wife of the disgraced teacher, said that she had been close to Thomas before the pair ran away.

'She would come to him with her problems,' Jill said, adding that she and her husband - whom she is now divorcing - would sometimes take her to church.

'In fact, I called her our third daughter sometimes,' Jill said.
A police officer has become one of the most eligible bachelors in China after a picture of him caused a sensation among single women.

Zhou Weipeng, 23, was caught napping on the stairs of his dormitory after completing an exhausting rescue task.

After one of his colleagues posted the picture on social media, women have flocked to express their admiration and asked if they could be his girlfriend.

The picture that got him famous: An exhausted Zhou Weipeng was resting on the stairs

The 23-year-old, who works as a SWAT officer in China, has attracted a large number of female admirers after the picture of him napping topless went viral

This undated photo shows Zhou Weipeng, who lives in Guanghan in China's Sichuan Province

The viral picture of Mr Zhou was taken in the afternoon of April 16 in Guanghan, China's Sichuan Province.

Mr Zhou works for the SWAT squad of the Guanghan Public Security Bureau. That afternoon, he had saved an elderly woman from drowning and was on his way back to his dorm room to rest.

The elderly women had tried to commit suicide and as soon as Mr Zhou spotted her, he jumped into the river without taking off his uniform.

The police officer was exhausted after saving the pensioner, as he described to a reporter from Sichuan Online.

His uniform became heavy in the water, but he swam as fast as he could in order to reached the drowning women who was about 650 feet (200 metres) from the shore, according to the man.

Single women have flocked to the social media to express their admiration for Zhou (pictured). They called the SWAT officer 'brilliant', 'brave' and 'incredibly handsome'

Mr Zhou (in his uniform) works for the SWAT squad of the Guanghan Public Security Bureau

After dragging the woman to the shore, a soaked Mr Zhou took off his top to let it try.

He went back to his dormitory to take a rest, but the man was so tired that he fell asleep on the stairs. That was when his colleague Li Hao took the picture.

One day later, another colleague uploaded the picture to Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, under the account name 'Indigo Orange Juice with Bits'.

Part of the post said: 'People's Police are never short of the courage to sacrifice themselves and save the others in critical times.

The post then referred to the pensioner's suicidal attempt: 'However, we really hope that such unnecessary actions will not be seen again.'

The uploader said: 'My intention of sending the Weibo post was to remind every body that we should cherish our lives and not to behave radically.'

However, the uploader didn't expect the post to catapult Mr Zhou to fame.

Female fans have demanded Mr Zhou's contact details and said they wanted to date him

Hundreds of women have left comments, calling the SWAT officer 'brilliant', 'brave' and 'incredibly handsome'.

Many have asked if he has a girlfriend and if they could date him.

One of them is user 'Tuo Li', who wrote: 'Is this officer married? If not, does he have a girlfriend? If he has, would he mind having a second one?'

Another user 'Zzznew' said: 'He is so handsome. Is he short of a girlfriend? How about me?'

A third user 'Zhu Rui Jolie' said it 'made her heart ache' to see the officer being so tired.

A more daring user publicly requested the uploader to give her Mr Zhou's contact details before gushing 'how could an old single woman like me resist the lure of such a just, responsible and good-looking young man'.

Mr Zhou has not commented on the romantic advances he has received from his female fans.
Peta Credlin may be headed back to parliament - as a lawmaker.

Ousted prime minister Tony Abbott's former chief of staff is being wooed to stand for preselection in the blue ribbon Liberal electorate of Higgins in Melbourne, according to The Herald Sun.

Higgins, which covers Melbourne's wealthiest postcode, Toorak, is currently held by Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer.

But a group of wealthy current and former Liberal branch members are looking to recruit Peta Credlin to the role, newspaper reports.

Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin (pictured) is reportedly being sought after by a group of unhappy millionaires to take over an upscale electoral division

The group chasing Ms Credlin are reportedly unhappy at Ms O'Dwyer's support for the government's tax increase for superannuation contributions for people who earn more than $250,000 a year.

Ms Credlin told The Herald Sun she has 'not been formally approached to run for Higgins'.

However, it is reported the group have made an unofficial approach and are prepared to provide funds for the challenge.

Ms Credlin served as chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott from September 2013 to September 2015, when he was ousted in a partyroom coup by Malcolm Turnbull.

During her time as Mr Abbott's chief of staff she was accused of holding back Ms O'Dwyer's career.

Ms Credlin is currently a political commentator on Sky television.

Ms O'Dwyer, who is currently on maternity leave, was elected the Higgins seat in December 2009, following the retirement of former Federal Treasurer the Hon Peter Costello AC.

The group are looking to usurp Ms O'Dwyer (pictured) from the Higgins seat following her role in a superannuation tax increase
A nine-year-old schoolgirl was rushed to hospital after a five-inch-long glass rod was stuck in her bottom on April 18.

Video footage shows the x-rays of the young girl from central China depicting the sharp object.

Upon examination, doctors and surgeons were clueless as to how the glass rod became stuck in her body.

The girl was saved after being sent to a local hospital in Nanyan city of Henan Province, China

According to a social media post on First Hand video, the incident took place at a boarding school in Nanyang city of Henan Province on April 18.

The student named Ding Jiayin, was sent to a local hospital for surgery to remove the five-inch-long glass rod stuck in her bottom.

Video footage shows the full extent of the incident.

Ding and her parents were not willing to explain how the rod had become stuck in her bottom.

A 13-centimeter-long (5 inch) glass rod was taken out from the schoolgirl's buttocks

Doctors suggested the rod was being placed from the top but had no idea how it got there

'It is usual to see objects getting into the body from the bottom, or from the back to the front. But the x-ray indicates that the glass rod was being placed from the top,' said the doctor.

Doctors had performed a surgery on the girl and successfully removed the object. The nine-year-old is now recovering.
President Donald Trump said Friday that the latest ISIS terror attack in Paris will have a 'big effect' on France's upcoming presidential election.

Trump tweeted early Friday, 'Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!'

An attacker emerged from a car in Paris Thursday and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers in the center of the Champs-Elysees. One officer was killed as was the gunman.

Trump told The Associated Press Friday in an interview that he believes the attack will 'probably help' far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

While Trump did not endorse Le Pen, he said the attack will be to her benefit because she's the candidate who is 'strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France.'

President Donald Trump tied Thursday's Paris terror attack to the upcoming French elections, hinting that right-wing candidates including Marine Le Pen could benefit

'The people of France will not take much more of this,' Trump tweeted

Police officers secured the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees on Thursday, killing one officer

Asked what kind of 'effect' Trump foresees on the weekend election, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday: 'I dont know. I mean, I think major events have, clearly, effects on voters' attitudes.'

'But I'm not going to weigh in on  I'll let the voters of France decide this Sunday what direction they want their country to go in,' he said.

Candidates in France's presidential election treaded carefully in response to the attack with the first round of voting set for Sunday.

Le Pen and conservative candidate Francois Fillon declared 'war against Islamism' as they seek to gain ground in the wake of the attack.

Le Pen said in a high-profile speech that Frances 'so-called leaders' had failed to protect citizens.

'Islamism is a monstrous totalitarian ideology that has declared war on our nation, on reason, on civilisation,' the Front National leader said.

'The names of these new victims are added to the long list of martyrs of terrorism.'

The gunman was detained in February for threatening police and then freed.

French National Front party leader Marine Le Pen blamed France's 'so-called' leaders for allowing terorists to run rampant through Paris

Two French officials said the gunman was detained towards the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police, but he was then released due to a lack of evidence.

He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted murder in the shooting of two police officers.

Police shot and killed the gunman after he opened fire on a police van on Paris most famous boulevard on Thursday night.

ISIS quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Paris prosecutors office leading the investigation has said a pump-action shotgun and knives were found in the gunmans car.

Police have detained for questioning three of his family members, as investigators seek to determine whether he was acting alone and where he got his weapons.

A Belgian man who had been linked by some as an accomplice to the gunman has turned himself in, and authorities said there was no link to the incident.
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These are the faces of Montreal's seedy 20th century red-light district, when the Canadian city was known as the sex capital of North America.

The city became known as a den of iniquity shortly after the First World War, when the introduction of prohibition in the United States sent people over the border in search of drink and a good time.

Initially authorities welcomed the influx, but after America reintroduced alcohol in 1933 and following a spike in sexually transmitted infections, authorities began cracking down.

These are the women who made Montreal into a sex capital. None was more powerful than Anna Labelle. She was arrested for the last time in 1939 (pictured) but went regularly to court in a Cadillac and wrapped in mink to free her mangers

Liliane Brown, aka Ida Katz, was one of the three principal brothel-owners in Montreal during the Second World War. She kept several low-end houses on the notorious streets of Bullion and Desmarais

Lucie Delicato Bizante, pictured after being arrested in 1944. She was the third principal brothel owner alongside Brown and Labelle, and would be a crucial witness for police when it came to dismantling the city's sex industry

The properties at 1225, 1227 and 1229 Bullion street, which were three of the most notorious brothels in the city. Many of the women pictured here were arrested at one of these addresses, often multiple times

Fleurette Dubois, pictured during her arrest in 1942, ran a brothel at 1225 Bullion (pictured above). Montreal became a haven for sex workers after the First World War, when Prohibition sent Americans over the border in search of a good time

Marguerite Smith also helped run the brothel at 1225 Bullion. She was arrested multiple times in the early 1940s for being a madam and also for working as a prostitute

Blanche Martin was a maid by trade, but was arrested in 1940 for owning a brothel - showing how the underside of city life in Montreal often bled over into the 'legitimate' world

Another house of ill-repute was established here, at Clark Street. This was likely one of the properties owned by Anna Labelle, known then as the most powerful madam in the city

Jeanine Lebrun, pictured during her arrest in April 11, 1940, also ran a brothel. While authorities in Montreal initially welcome its sex tourists, after Prohibition ended in 1933 the industry turned seedy, and moves began to eradicate it

Lina Tony was another brothel owner, arrested in 1941 for running a brothel at 1244 Berger and at 1242 on the same street

Most of these mugshots were taken in the early 1940s, as the drive was getting underway, and while corruption among the police force and local authorities was still rife.

That perhaps goes some way to explaining the wry smiles on some of the women's faces, or the grimaces of disbelief as they are handcuffed - it is likely the arresting officers were clients, or were involved in the racket.

That all changed between 1949 and 1950, when Pacifique Plante, a former member of the police morality squad which had been charged with cleaning up the city, spilled the beans on the industry to a local magazine.

Alongside journalist Gerard Filion, they published 61 stories which were filled with scandalous details about the seedy underbelly of Montreal and how it functioned in cahoots with the police and courts.

Most of the women pictured here, including Ruby Taylor (pictured), were arrested in an early crackdown on the sex industry. Their smiles likely indicate that they knew the officers behind the camera, either from multiple arrests, or as clients

Gisele Roy, who had an alias of Marie-Jeanne Lambert, pulls a face in her arrest mugshot in 1941. Attempts to clean up the city accelerated in 1950 after a series of newspaper articles by a former police chief shocked citizens

Madeleine Gagnon was also stopped at 1223 Bullion, one of the city's most notorious streets for prostitution

Two brothels are located above provision stores along Guy Street in Montreal. Former morality police officer Pacifique Plante was instrumental in getting places like this shut down after he teamed up with journalist Gerard Filion to expose them

Prostitution was not the only racket in Montreal in the 1940s. Gaming houses were also very popular with those coming to the city. Pictured is Henry Druik, who was arrested eight times in four years for running such a house

Armand Pepin, pictured in 1940, who was involved with the gaming houses. Following the publication of articles exposing this underworld, a three-year inquiry was carried out to rid the city of crime

Jack Diamond, another man arrested over gaming houses in 1940. Over the course of three years between 1950 and 1953, police officer-turned lawyer Pacifique Plante leveled 15,000 allegations at men like Diamond

A police photo shows the inside of a gaming house in Montreal toward the end of its heydey as a den in iniquity and gambling

The inside of another gaming house advertises 'dancing every Sunday night' in central Montreal during the 1940s

The articles incensed the public, and a Public Morality Committee was established with Judge Caron overseeing and Plante as the chief prosecutor, despite the fact that many of the crimes he was investigating happened while he was an officer.

The Caron Commission of Inquiry into Public Morality began on September 11, 1950, and ended on April 2, 1953, after holding 335 meetings and hearing from 373 witnesses.

In total, Plant laid 15,000 allegations before the commission, which saw multiple police officers jailed.

The same day the inquiry's report was published, Plant's deputy prosecutor Jean Drapeau launched his campaign for Mayor, which he won, while Plante was appointed chief of police.

Drapeau remained mayor for the next three decades, during which he was so determined to clean up Montreal's image, that he cut back much of the city's undergrowth to stop people sneaking off for liasons there.

Irene Lavallee was one of many suspected prostitutes picked up by police in the early 1940s in Montreal, before the Caron Commission cleared the underworld out

Mary Shepperd was one of the many women who gave Montreal's its name as a sex city. In 1953 her industry was brought down after an inquiry brought forth 15,000 allegations against brothel owners and police

Annie Parker, pictured after her arrest in 1941. She would likely have moved to the city to join its booming sex trade after the First World War, before authorities turned against it in the late 30s

In the late 30s and early 40s, prostitutes such as Germaine Giraud would be arrested dozens of times. However, official corruption and police involvement in the sex rings meant many of them went straight back to work

A brothel located on rue St-Dominique, which was one of dozens regularly raided by police in the late 30s and early 40s

While women ran and staffed the brothels, men such as James Masters, aka Gaetano Mastracchio, took care of the gambling
Steve Bannon is revealing just how little he cares for Megyn Kelly by going on the record in a new interview to detail how he warned Roger Ailes about his then star anchor.

The White House Chief Strategist is the focus of a Politico story which examines how President Trump managed to fracture the conservative media during his campaign, and ultimately ended up pitting Bannon, then the executive editor of Breitbart, against Ailes, then the CEO of Fox News.

'The big rift between Breitbart and Fox was all over Megyn Kelly. She was all over Trump nonstop,' explains Bannon.

He goes on to say that he decided at one point to try and talk things out with Ailes, and warned him about Kelly by stating: 'Shes the devil, and she will turn on you.'

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Harsh words: Steve Bannon says in a new interview that he told Roger Ailes his star acnhor Megyn Kelly (above in January 2016) would betray him

Not a fan: 'Shes the devil, and she will turn on you,' Bannon (above in August) admits to telling Ailes

Bannon states in his interview that he began to have issues with Ailes and Fox News after the first Republican primary debate back in August 2015, feeling that Kelly was unfairly targeting Trump with her questions.

Kelly was one of the three Fox News moderators at that debate alongside Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace.

Bannon meanwhile was not part of the Trump campaign at the time, and would not join the team until a year later.

The Trump campaign took aim at Kelly after she grilled him during that first debate and honed in on his controversial comments about women.

'You've called women you don't like 'fat pigs,' 'dogs,' 'slobs' and 'disgusting animals,'' Kelly said.

'Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?'

Trump replied: 'Honestly, Megyn, if you don't like it, I'm sorry . . . I've been very nice to you, although I could probably not be, based on the way you have treated me.'

He then said of Kelly the following day: 'You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her ... wherever.'

The attacks by Trump against Kelly continued for months, and he took to Twitter countless times to lash out at the host or retweet criticisms of her and her show, 'The Kelly File.'

He even backed out of the subsequent Fox News-sponsored primary debate in Iowa that Kelly moderated in January of last year.

The two eventually made amends and last May Trump appeared on Kelly's primetime special which aired across all Fox platforms.

Unfortunately for both Trump and Kelly, the special pulled in underwhelming numbers for the network.

This is not the first time that Bannon has revealed that he warned Ailes about Kelly, telling a similar story in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter shortly after his boss won the election back in November.

He did not share in that interview however that he compared Kelly to the antichrist, though he did criticize the state of Fox News.

'They got it more wrong than anybody,' Bannon said of the network's election coverage and treatment of President Trump.

'Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump. To him, Trump is a radical. Now they'll go centrist and build the network around Megyn Kelly.'

That last comment did ultimately turn out to be true, with the Murdochs offering Kelly a four-year contract that would have paid her an annual salary of $25million around that time in hopes of keeping her on Fox News.

In the end however Kelly decided to leave the network and join the NBC News team.

The former faces of Fox news: President Trump's chief strategist reveals that he took issue with Ailes (above with O'Reilly in 2012) and Fox News after Kelly went after his boss in the first Republican primary debate

Cleaning house: Ailes was out at Fox News a year later after Kelly told Rupert Murdoch (above last July with son Lachlan) the CEO 'might actually be a predator' during the network's sex harassment investigation

It was revealed just this past week that Kelly's decision to leave Fox News was based in part on her relationship with the network's other star, Bill O'Reilly.

In the wake of Kelly's move, Fox News signed O'Reilly to a new contract that was almost identical to his departing co-worker.

Three months later he was fired by the Murdochs in the wake of a the network's latest sexual harassment scandal, which blew up after a New York Times report revealed that four women had accused O'Reilly of sexual harassment over the past 13 years and three of those women had been paid $13million in settlements.

That report also revealed a harassment claim from back in 2002, and was followed by a wave of new accusers who alleged that they too had been subject to inappropriate sexual remarks while working with O'Reilly.

Bannon's issues with Kelly seem puzzling in retrospect, especially in light of court documents which claimed that on-air talent at Fox News was told to not defend the female anchor from any attacks made by Trump or members of his campaign.

Former Fox news host Andrea Tantaros claimed in a court filing that was submitted in her sexual harassment case against the network back in August that the network's current co-president Bill Shine told staff to keep quiet when it came to Trump's one-sided feud with Kelly.

'After Donald Trump attacked Megyn Kelly for allegedly treating him unfairly in an August 2015 Republican Presidential Debate, Fox News publicly backed Kelly in the dispute,' read the court papers filed in New York State Supreme Court.

'However, Shine executed Ailes tactic of playing both sides of the fence by instructing all on-air talent that none of them should defend Kelly against Trump.'

Shine later denied this claim through a Fox news rep.

Furthermore, Kelly revealed in her memoir 'Settle For More' that Ailes spent his final days at Fox News out to get her after he was taken down by a sexual harassment scandal.

Kelly wrote in her book that after Gretchen Carlson filed her sexual harassment suit against Ailes last July, the then-CEO asked her to speak out publicly in support of him, just like every other Fox News personality was doing at the time.

'There was no way I was going to lie to protect him,' wrote Kelly, who went on to claim that as a result Ailes 'engineered hit pieces' about her online.

Backing the boss: 'The big rift between Breitbart and Fox was all over Megyn Kelly. She was all over Trump nonstop,' says Bannon (above in February with President Trump)

Making amends: Bannon took issue with Kelly calling out Trump for calling women 'fat pigs,' 'dogs,' 'slobs' and 'disgusting animals' at the debate (Trump and Kelly in the host's May special)

That is when Kelly decided to finally speak out about how Ailes had sexually harassed her when she was starting out at the network, incidents that she detailed in the book.

'Roger began pushing the limits. There was a pattern to his behavior,' she wrote in one passage.

'I would be called into Rogers office, he would shut the door, and over the next hour or two, he would engage in a kind of cat-and-mouse game with me - veering between obviously inappropriate sexually charged comments (e.g. about the "very sexy bras" I must have and how hed like to see me in them) and legitimate professional advice.'

And so, while the rest of her co-workers were praising Ailes, she went and spoke to his bosses, specifically News Corp executive co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch.

'I could ensure that the owners of Fox News Channel - Rupert Murdoch and his sons - understood they might actually have a predator running their company,' wrote Kelly.

That, in Bannon's opinion, was Kelly turning on Ailes.

He has never mentioned any of the sexual harassment allegations against Ailes in any of these interviews, or pointed to them as playing some role in the downfall of the CEO.

Both Ailes and O'Reilly have denied every allegation of sexual harassment made against them while at Fox News.

Ailes ultimately left the network with a $40million severance while O'Reilly walked away with $25million.

That $65million is double the $33million that has been paid out to the three O'Reilly accusers and Carlson, who reportedly received $20million last September.
Florida's first African-American state attorney has been sent a noose and racist messages in the mail after she refused to seek the death penalty in cases.

The first letter arrived on March 20 at the office of Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala, according to Orange County Sheriff's officials.

A clerk noticed a racist message scrawled on an envelope addressed to Ayala, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

A racist letter arrived for Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala arrived at her office on March 20 before she received a noose the following week

About a week later, the clerk found a second letter containing a noose made out of green twine and taped to a postcard.

Authorities say they are now investigating.

It comes after Governor Rick Scott reassigned 23 of Ayala's capital murder cases when she announced her refusal to seek the death penalty.

Ayala is now suing Scott, claiming he can't remove her from the cases.

Her complaint with the Florida Supreme Court says Scott overstepped his authority and asks the justices to declare her the prosecutor in the cases that were ordered taken away from her.

Governor Rick Scott reassigned 23 of Ayala's capital murder cases after she announced her refusal to seek the death penalty

Ayala's federal lawsuit claims Scott's actions violated the U.S. Constitution by disregarding the choice of Orlando-area voters who picked Ayala during last year's election.

She has come under fire since revealing she would not seek the death penalty against any defendant, including Markeith Loyd.

Loyd is charged with killing an Orlando police officer earlier this year and is also accused of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Ayala said she would consider changing her mind only if the death-penalty system changes so it doesn't drag out for years and delay a sense of closure for victims' families.
A 15-year-old schoolboy ran a revenge porn operation in which he circulated pornographic pictures of fellow pupils as young as twelve on the Internet.

He incited girls to take indecent photographs and videos of themselves telling one that he would hurt her mother is she refused.

The boy from Blackpool used sophisticated software to cover up his crimes - even hiding pictures on his smart phone in a secret app that appears on the screen as a calculator.

A 15-year-old schoolboy ran a revenge porn operation in which he circulated pornographic pictures of fellow pupils as young as twelve on the Internet (stock image)

He also used a computer app to save pictures and video sent via Snapchat which would ordinarily disappear after a few seconds.

The boy targeted younger pupils at his high school, Blackpool Youth Court heard.

His parents listened as the Crown Prosecutor revealed how their son persuaded the young girls to perform explicit sex acts for him.

He pleaded guilty to two offences inciting underage girls to send him indecent pictures of themselves performing sex acts so that he could distribute them.

He also admitted inciting a girl under 13 to perform a sex act and distributing indecent photographs.

He also pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children.

Malcolm Isherwood, prosecuting, said that the youth would bully and pester girls to take pictures of themselves.

When they succumbed to the demands of their school colleague he would then send the pictures to others.

The boy from Blackpool used sophisticated software to cover up his crimes. Pictured: Blackpool Magistrates Court

'One girls was aged just 12. He repeatedly asked her to take pictures of her breasts and other body areas.'

'After seven or eight requests by the defendant she agreed.He replied by sending her pictures of his private parts,' said the prosecutor.

'His victims thought that by sending the pictures via Snapchat or Instagram they would disappear because the pictures' life span could be timed out.'

'But he used sophisticated software to make sure they were retained and were then hidden in an app called Calculator Vault which was a cover for the indecent images and videos.'

'He would send the pictures to other people and threatened people who received them they could be arrested and in one case that he would hurt their mother.'

'There is a worrying history to this case as this defendant had already had a police caution for a similar matter.'

District Judge Jeff Brailsford heard that the prosecution would be asking for a Sexual Harm Prevention Order against the 15 year old (stock image)

District Judge Jeff Brailsford heard that the prosecution would be asking for a Sexual Harm Prevention Order against the 15 year old who was investigated by police after one pupil complained to a teacher at the Blackpool school.

Brett Chappell, defending, said: ' This is a traumatic case for everyone involved.My client accepts the Crown's case in these matters.'

The judge ordered the Youth Offending Team to prepare reports on the teenager before he passes sentence.
These are some of the insulting memes being shared by Spanish internet users in response to tensions over the future of Gibraltar.

Spanish naval vessels and military aircraft have passed into Gibraltar's territory during the ongoing row between London and Madrid.

One of the especially disturbing images shows the Queen sporting a black eye.

One of the offensive memes shows the Queen sporting a black eye as part of the twitter war, with this one claiming 'Don't play with the Spanish' and 'Gibraltar is Spanish'

The Spanish internet warriors have been posting their messages calling it the English war with this person advising his fellow countrymen to stop selling Britons socks to wear with sandals

One message shows a monkey sighting a rifle claiming he is an elite soldier protecting the rock

While others make fun of Gibraltar's rock apes and the tendency of some Britons abroad to wear socks with sandals.

The new upsurge in hostility was prompted by Prime Minister's Theresa May's decision to activate Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and announce the country's withdrawal from the European Union.

The incidents come amid rising tensions over Gibraltar in the run-up to Brexit. It follows years of disagreements between Britain and Spain over the peninsula, off the Spanish coast, which has been a British overseas territory since the 18th century.

Many of the messages featured large groups of holiday makers claiming they were the army

Here the twitter user claims British spies have managed to 'infiltrate Spanish territory'

In this highly offensive image, the union flag is superimposed on a toilet

Disputes between Gibraltar and Spain over the waters are frequent but the latest comes after the territory of some 33,000 people took centre stage in the wrangling over Britain's exit from the European Union, which was triggered on March 29.

The incidents come amid rising tensions over Gibraltar in the run-up to Brexit. It follows years of disagreements between Britain and Spain over the peninsula, off the Spanish coast, which has been a British overseas territory since the 18th century.

An EU draft position published earlier this month after Prime Minister Theresa May filed formal divorce papers said the application of any EU-UK trade deal to Gibraltar had to be agreed between Britain and Spain, which has long claimed sovereignty over the enclave.

In response, May issued a statement saying London was 'steadfast' in its commitment to the territory. Her spokesman however played down comments by a former leader of her Conservative Party that she would be prepared to go to war to defend it.

Gibraltar was captured by Britain in 1704 and ceded to Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht.

In a 2002 referendum, Gibraltarians rejected by 98 percent a proposal for joint British-Spanish sovereignty.

Others called for a boycott of British cars - not realising Rolls Royce is owned by BMW

Here Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy is dressed up like a character from Iron Maiden

Many of the memes concentrate on the habit of Britons abroad to get sun burnt and drunk

This one suggests blockading the supply of sun screen so their skin will start peeling

Many of the memes continue to feature David Cameron - even though he is no longer in power
In a tragic game of Russian roulette, a teenage boy is accused of shooting dead his friend at a park and is now facing manslaughter charges.

Juan Borja, 13, was showing off a revolver to his friends at Peppermint Park in Freeport, Texas, when he suggested they should play a dangerous game on Wednesday.

Borja reportedly loaded the firearm and one of his classmates took aim at the teenager and fired. Borja was shot in the chest and fell to the ground as his friends ran away, Freeport police said.

An unnamed 14-year-old was charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence and was arrested by Freeport Police on Thursday.

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Juan Borja, 13, was allegedly shot dead by a 14-year-old peer after Borja suggested to his friends they should play Russian roulette at Peppermint Park in Freeport, Texas, on Wednesday

The unnamed 14-year-old was charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence and was arrested by Freeport Police on Thursday. Pictured: Peppermint Park

Police said after shooting the eighth grader, the suspect, who also played in the band with Borja, attempted to hide the gun in a nearby field.

Officials arrived at the park around 5.45pm, responding to a call from neighbors who reported hearing possible fireworks or gunshots, reported CW 39.

They found Borja face down and he was transported to Brazosport Medical Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

It is not yet known how the 13-year-old got a hold of the gun.

Borja's mother Bella Gallardo (pictured) is heartbroken, as the well-rounded eigth grader was popular at Freeport Intermediate School and hoped to be the first of his family to attend college

Borja played football and was in the band at his school. The suspect was also in the band

Borja's loved ones are heartbroken, as the well-rounded student was popular at Freeport Intermediate School and hoped to be the first of his family to attend college.

The only son to Bella Gallardo, the mother-of-six said to the Houston Chronicle: 'Imagine the pain of a mother who loses a child who is only 13 years old with so many dream.'

Family and friends gathered at the park where the devastating shooting happened and paid their respects to the student athlete.

Friend Jahcorean Nelson, 13, told the Chron: 'He was just a nice person. He never did anything wrong.'

A police spokesperson said in a Thursday press conference: 'He [the suspect] is remorseful, they do know each other and attend school together.'

On Thursday, the school released a statement and said: 'BISD is mourning the loss of one of our Freeport Intermediate students at this time. Our hearts are broken by this loss, and we extend our deepest sympathy to family and friends.'




Florida firefighters surprised a pregnant woman Wednesday with a baby shower and the keys to a new home after a fire destroyed her apartment.

Members of the Lauderhill Fire Department collected thousands of dollars in money and gifts to throw Nicola Taylor, 30, a baby shower at the station.

'There's no words to describe it,' Taylor told ABC News. 'My dad, he cried. That explains it all. I never see my dad in tears. I would like to tell the fire department, "Thank you." I would like to say [to] everybody who donated, "Thank you, and thanks for the well wishes."'

Members of the Lauderhill Fire Department surprised Nicola Taylor (center), 30, Wednesday with a baby shower and the keys to a new home after a fire destroyed her apartment

All of Taylor's belongings were destroyed on April 10 when a fire broke out in her living room

Taylor was moved to tears when firefighters told her they had paid for a few months rent

The baby shower comes just three weeks before Taylor is expected to give birth to a girl

Firefighters were able to raise enough money to cover the deposit and a few months rent for Taylor's new apartment.

This comes just three weeks before Taylor is expected to give birth to a girl.

'That's a lot of stress, so we just wanted to lift the burden off the mother and the family as a whole,' Sheniqua Johnson, a Lauderhill Fire Inspector, told ABC 10.

When Johnson and the crew invited Taylor to the station to pick up donations on Wednesday they surprised her with a baby shower and keys to a new apartment.

The gifts that Taylor received at her original baby shower were destroyed with all of her other belongings on April 10 when a fire broke out in the living room of her fourth floor apartment in Lauderdale, Florida.

Taylor awoke from a nap to the smell of fire and fled the apartment with her 50-year-old father, Glenton Daley, cousin and her cousin's two-year-old son.

Firefighters saw burned baby items in the apartment and, some being parents themselves, felt compelled to help Taylor.

So, Captain Jerry Gonzalez created a GoFundMe page to raise funds for Taylor and her family.

A grateful Taylor said she will tell her daughter the baby shower story and of the firefighters' generosity.
This is the heartwarming moment a teenage girl offered to pay for a young father's groceries in New Zealand.

Te Riina Takamore, 13, approached Matt with his toddler at the cashier at Gate Pa New World supermarket in Tauranga on Wednesday and offered to pay for his shopping.

'I want to pay for your groceries today,' Te Riina told the man as his items were being scanned.

Te Riina Takamore, 13, approached Matt with his toddler at the cashier at Gate Pa New World supermarket in Tauranga on Wednesday and offered to pay for his shopping

The young father stood there in disbelief before saying: 'Thank you! Are you sure? Really?'

The Bay of Plenty teen handed money to the cashier and Matt gave her a hug

The young father stood there in disbelief before saying: 'Thank you! Are you sure? Really?'

The Bay of Plenty teen handed money to the cashier and Matt gave her a hug.

Te Riina's mother, Vicki Takamore, said her daughter wanted to give back to a stranger after she was given a free iPhone 6 earlier that day.

Mrs Takamore wanted to gift her daughter the phone so she went to the seller's house and paid for it.

But the seller returned her money because she and her husband wanted to gift it to Te Riina.

Te Riina's mother, Vicki Takamore (left), said her daughter wanted to give back to a stranger after she was given a free iPhone 6

Mrs Takamore wanted to gift her daughter the phone so she went to the seller's house and paid for it. But the seller returned her money because she and her husband wanted to gift it to Te Riina

The teen's kind gesture has gone viral after Mrs Takamore posted the video to Facebook, captioned 'Pay it Forward'. It has over 413,000 views, 16,000 likes and 3,100 shares.

Mrs Takamore told NZ Herald Te Riina received messages of appreciation from across the globe - as far away as France, Canada and the US.

Comments on the video praised the Good Samaritan's random act of kindness.

'This is gone all over the world wow now. That father would still be wondering what just happened and that look at the counter he gave was priceless.'

'What a beautiful person you are for doing that. .. love this! Thank you for sharing.. bless your darling heart.'

Matt and the Takamore family plan to stay in touch.

Matt and the Takamore family plan to stay in touch after forging a friendship
Theresa May has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending of billions on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today.

The Prime Minister said it was important to ensure the money - equivalent to 0.7 per cent of national income and more than 13billion last year - is spent properly.

Laying the ground for the Tory election manifesto, Mrs May and Chancellor Philip Hammond yesterday said they would not make promises on taxes or pensions that they could not keep.

On a visit to Washington DC, Mr Hammond strongly hinted that the Tories will not repeat pledges made by former chancellor George Osborne not to increase income tax, National Insurance and VAT.

He warned that blanket promises constrain the ability of the Government to manage the economy flexibly as he vowed to be different.

Theresa May, pictured today campaigning in Maidenhead, has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today

Meanwhile at a campaigning event in her Maidenhead constituency, Mrs May refused to commit to maintaining the pensions triple lock, which guarantees the state pension will rise in line with earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest.

As she returned home to Maidenhead for the first time since calling a snap general election, Mrs May ended speculation she would dump the controversial aid policy.

The dramatic development on the election trail came after Nicola Sturgeon launched a new broadside at Mrs May for trying to 'crush dissent' by chasing a landslide election win.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is banging the drum for his new commitment to cut class sizes in schools with a tour through the south.

David Cameron ran twice on the promise to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid and the target was first met in 2013. Britain is just one of six nations to meet the international goal.

But many Tory MPs hate the commitment, which is written into law unlike any other spending, particularly at a time of austerity elsewhere.

Mrs May confirmed the pledge in a rare question and answer session with reporters.

Speaking from a toothpaste factory in Maidenhead, Mrs May said: 'Let's be clear, the 0.7 per cent commitment remains and will remain.

Speaking from a toothpaste factory in Maidenhead, Mrs May said: 'Let's be clear, the 0.7 per cent commitment remains and will remain'

'What we need to do is look at how that money is spent and make sure that we are able to spend that money in the most effective way.

'I am very proud of the record we have, of the children around the world who are being educated as a result of what the British taxpayer is doing in terms of its international aid.

'I was in Jordan a couple of weeks ago, in a school, meeting children who were being given a good quality education. It's one of the things the UK is providing.

'We maintain that commitment but we have to look at how we spend it.'

Party sources last night revealed aid chiefs have already started looking at whether some money currently spent on defence could be counted as aid.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates yesterday urged Mrs May to stand behind the target, insisting it saves lives.

He was slammed by Tory MP Philip Davies and told to 'mind his own business'.

A group of charities including Save the Children, Unicef and Oxfam, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams weighed in behind Mr Gates today.

Mrs May today travelled on to Cox Green School in Maidenhead (pictured) after making her announcement on the foreign aid target

Mrs May spent time talking to students and first-time voters, encouraging them to take part in the general election on June 8

The Taxpayers' Alliance today condemned Mrs May's promise as the 'wrong' thing to do.

DIESEL SCRAPPAGE ANNOUNCEMENT DELAYED Ministers have delayed an announcement on a diesel scrappage scheme due to the election. The High Court had ordered the Government to produce a clean air plan to tackle illegal pollution levels in cities by Monday. But the plan will be put off because of purdah rules which restrict the civil service during elections. The Government said it will publish the plan by June 30. Tory MPs want a diesel scrappage scheme to ensure that drivers do not lose out if there is a crackdown on the fuel. Advertisement

Chief executive John O'Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, says: 'The 0.7% foreign aid target is totally arbitrary and meaningless and it is disappointing that the Prime Minister has refused to see sense and scrap the ring fencing of the budget.

'The worst possible way to deliver value when spending taxpayers' cash is to define the success of a policy by how much you spend rather than what the money actually achieves.'

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage slammed the new pledge and said: 'Britain will continue to pay too much foreign aid. The establishment is still in charge.'

Former Chancellor George Osborne welcomed Mrs May's commitment, tweeting: 'Re-commitment to 0.7 per cent aid target very welcome.

'Morally right, strengthens UK influence and was key to creating modern compassionate Conservatives.'

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates yesterday urged Mrs May to stand behind the target, insisting it saves lives

Mrs May used the visit to Maidenhead reiterate her message that the election is about ensuring Britain has 'strong and stable leadership' going into Brexit negotiations.

MAY HEADS HOME FROM BATTLEGROUND SEATS SWING Theresa May headed home to Maidenhead today on the third day of her election tour. After two days spent in the battleground seats of Bolton and Enfield North, she said she wanted to explain to her home seat why she was campaigning. The Conservative campaign is targeting scores of Labour constituencies that backed Brexit. Advertisement

She told workers at the GSK Factory she wanted to come early in her election campaign back to Maidenhead, the town she has represented in Parliament since 1997.

She added: 'The election campaign has only just begun, I'm not taking anything for granted, the result is not certain.

'I'm going to be out and about campaigning across the whole of the United Kingdom and I'm going to be out and about campaigning and meeting people in all different communities across the United Kingdom.

'But I wanted to be here, back in the constituency that has shaped me and guided me over the years, to explain why this election matters so much.'

In answer to other questions, Mrs May failed to give a firm commitment to continuing the so-called 'triple lock' on pensions.

Elsewhere today, Nicola Sturgeon (pictured campagning in Edinburgh) launched a new broadside at Mrs May for trying to 'crush dissent' by chasing a landslide election win

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured at a children's centre in Bristol today) is banging the drum for his new commitment to cut class sizes in schools

The promise, made under the coalition, guarantees pensions rise by 2.5 per cent, the increase in wages or inflation - whichever is higher.

MAY LOSES SECOND KEY AIDE IN A WEEK A second member of Theresa May's inner circle has quit following the Prime Minister's announcement of a snap general election. Lizzie Loudon is leaving her role as Mrs May's press secretary after what she described as a 'thrilling' and 'historic' nine months in Downing Street. It comes after Katie Perrior left the post of Number 10 director of communications on Tuesday, when the PM announced the snap June 8 election. Advertisement

The pledge, which is set to be backed by Labour at the election, is controversial as it means pensioner households are better off than working households.

Asked if she would promise to back the triple lock again, Mrs May said: 'What I would say to pensioners is just look what the Conservatives in government have done.

'Pensioners today are 1,250 better off as a result of action that has been taken.

'We were very clear about the need to support people in their old age, and that's exactly what we've done.'

Asked why she was refusing to take part in TV debates with other party leaders during the election campaign, Mrs May said: 'I've been doing head-to-head debates with Jeremy Corbyn week in and week out since I became Prime Minister.

'What I am going to be doing in the campaign is actually getting out and talking to voters and listening to voters and hearing from voters and answering their questions. I'm out there taking my message to people up and down this country, and that's what I believe is important.'

Chancellor Philip Hammond warns of a post-election TAX RAID as he hints the Conservatives will DROP their commitment to the tax lock

Philip Hammond has hinted that the Tories could raise taxes after the election - just a month after he was forced into a humiliating U-tun over proposed national insurance hikes.

Theresa May told her Chancellor to abandon the 2billion tax raid after a massive backlash over the policy, which breached the party's manifesto promise not to rise income tax, national insurance or VAT.

Philip Hammond, pictured earlier this week meeting senior Republican politician Paul Ryan, has warned the Tories could raise taxes after the snap General Election

But Mr Hammond has suggested the party could abandon its commitment to the triple tax lock for the June 8 election.

Speaking at the IMF's spring conference Washington, he said the pledge has limited his ability to raise cash to pay off the deficit.

But his comments are likely to anger voters as they raise the prospect of a post-election tax raid.

He said: 'Im a Conservative. I have no ideological desire to to raise taxes. But we need to manage the economy sensibly and sustainably.

'We need to get the fiscal accounts back into shape.

'It was self evidently clear that the commitments that were made in the 2015 manifesto did and do today constrain the ability to manage the economy flexibly.'

Nicola Sturgeon accuses Theresa May of wanting to 'crush dissent' as she warns Scots must choose between Brexit-obsessed Tories and the SNP

Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of wanting to 'crush dissent' as she claimed Scots must choose between Brexit-obsessed Tories and the SNP at crucial elections.

The SNP leader admitted it was likely Mrs May would be returned to No 10 on June 8 but said voters must constrain her chance to 'steamroller' opposition.

The First Minister made her latest intervention on the national campaign as she launched her manifesto for the Scottish local elections on May 4.

Scottish voters must choose between the SNP and a Tory 'Brexit at all costs' machine, Nicola Sturgeon has warned today (pictured)

The town hall polls are the biggest day of the campaign between now and June 8 and the results will shape the final month of the general election battle.

Ms Sturgeon's remarks come after it was claimed Jeremy Corbyn's Labour would try and get into No 10 with the backing of the SNP and Lib Dems if it manages to stop the Tories winning a majority.

Mrs May hit back at her latest campaign visit today as she told workers in Maidenhead her new Government would push back at the 'separatists who want to break up the UK'.

Labour IS plotting a 'coalition of chaos' and wants an 'informal' deal with the SNP and Lib Dems that could put Corbyn in No 10



Jeremy Corbyn, pictured campaigning in Swindon today, believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority

Labour's first target is to stop a Tory majority so it can try to form a minority government with support from the SNP and Lib Dems, sources have claimed.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority.

The Tories would still be the largest party but in a hung parliament, Mr Corbyn could enter Downing Street with informal backing from the SNP, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs.

The claim, made by campaign sources to the Daily Mirror, is in defiance of polls suggesting a landslide victory for the Conservatives.

And it will fuel Tory warnings that a vote for Labour is a vote for a 'coalition of chaos' driven by Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Corbyn scrambled to rule out the idea of a formal coalition with the SNP earlier this week after leader Nicola Sturgeon backed a 'progressive alliance'.

The prospect of the SNP in power in London is toxic to English voters and was a huge driver of the Conservative campaign in 2015.

Ms Sturgeon intervened again today to warn the local elections in Scotland were a choice between Tories who believe in nothing but Brexit and the SNP.
Filling up has never been as kind on your pockets.

Sydney motorists can save hundreds of dollars a year by using a state-run fuel checking site, which tracks the city's bargain petrol hot spots in real time.

Daily Mail Australia has rounded up the costliest and cheapest suburbs across Sydney in a list that stands to save motorists more than $500 a year at the pumps.

Sydney motorists can save $500 per year by using a state-run fuel checking site

The citys western suburbs fared best, with the cheapest five suburb all falling in the region

Sydney's south was the next cheapest region, with Bundeena boasting a bargain cheapest price of 118.9

The citys western suburbs fared best, with the cheapest five suburb all falling in the region.

Granville topped the list at 113.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol (E10). For the the average family car  a 60 litre tank - that's a total of $68.34 to top up.

Guilleford came next at 116.5, Granville at 116.9, and Merrylands at 117.5, and Granville at 117.5.

The city's south was the next cheapest, with Bundeena boasting a bargain cheapest price of 118.9

The citys Northern and Eastern suburbs were the most expensive. Brookevale was the dearest, at 131.9, or a top up cost of $79.14.

Randwick, Rose Bay, Woolahra and Bondi Junction all clocked up 130.9.

CHEAPEST IN SYDNEY Granville: 113.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Guildford: 116.5 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Granville: 116.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Merrylands: 117.5 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Advertisement

The citys Northern and Eastern suburbs were the most expensive, with Brookvale recording the most expensive at 131.9

The eastern suburbs were the most expensive, with Randwick, Rose Bay, Woolahra and Bondi Junction all clocking up 130.9

The CBD recorded a lowest price of 122.4 in Camperdown

MOST EXPENSIVE IN SYDNEY Brookevale: 131.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Randwick: 130.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Rose Bay: 130.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Woollahra: 130.9 cents per litre of Ethanol based petrol Advertisement

Filling up at a cheap petrol station could save you up to 18c a litre.

That might not sound like much, but it translates to $10.80 when filling up the 60 litre tank of a family car.

If your family tops up their car once a week, being a savvy shopper could save you a whopping $561 on fuel over a year.

For those who want to use the site for themselves, it's easy to pick up and go.

In a red box to the left is a large button with 'fuel near me' written on it and a picture of a petrol pump.

Clicking on that red button will bring up a Google map of the area near you - using location settings to pinpoint your location.

All petrol stations in your vicinity are shown on the map - as is the price of their fuel.
A reality TV star who claimed 25,000 in benefits while boasting that she raked in 120,000 a year was busted after bragging about her earnings online.

A judge at Liverpool Crown Court described Chelsey Harwood - who appeared on Channel 5's Botched Up Bodies and internet series This Is Liverpool - as living in a 'fantasy world with an unhealthy celebrity life style'.

And after being handed a suspended prison sentence the 29-year-old, from St Helens, Merseyside, claimed that she would not apologise to the taxpayer for her illegally obtained handouts.

Scroll down for video.

The 29-year-old, from St Helens, Merseyside, dishonestly obtained just over 25,000 in employment support allowance and housing benefit payments, and has been handed a suspended prison sentence

She dishonestly obtained just over 25,000 in employment support allowance and housing benefit payments.

Transgender Harwood had bragged that she earned 120,000 a year and received lots of valuable gifts but a judge took the view that her income would have been 'significantly less than that.'

Judge Andrew Menary, QC, said that the benefit claims were genuine at the outset but became false when she began earning from her self-employed work and moved from Liverpool to St Helens and made a fresh claim for housing benefit.

Investigators became aware of that she had an income. 'You had an online presence for webcam type work which produced for you an income not only direct payments but also gifts and you had some media work writing for an online magazine.

'In those posts you bragged about our level of earnings making what seems to me clearly extravagant claims about the amounts you were able to earn from payments and gifts.

Chelsey Harwood jumps for joy after leaving Liverpool Crown Court

He said that If there was any truth in what she had been saying, she was earning 120,000 a year 'with huge and valuable gifts being given to you buy foolish men talking to you on line.'

Judge Menary said that whatever she had would have been spent 'on her ordinary day to day living rather an entirely hedonistic lifestyle as you were pretending.

'I recognise your gender issues have complicated your life to this point and created challenges in the past and the unhealthy celebrity type life style you have sought to create or courted on line means you have been living in a somewhat fantasy world.

'You have known for some time what you were doing was dishonest, there was nothing healthy about the lifestyle you chose or the other choices you made to project yourself on line.

'It is likely what you have been doing only aggravated your problems to date particularly any problems over bullying, abuse on line or off line.

'You need to understand sooner rather than later that your future happiness and well being lies in your own hands and requires you to adopt a much more responsible and constructive approach to life in future.'

He sentenced her to four months imprisonment suspended for two years and placed her under supervision for two years. He ordered her to carry out 20 days rehabilitation activities and 100 hours unpaid work.

But speaking outside court, she told the Liverpool Echo: 'I pay road tax, I pay cigarette tax. I pay my tax. Im not saying sorry, Im not sorry one little bit.

'Its not that Im not sorry, Ive been given my punishment today. Thats my punishment. Do you know what I mean? I dont need to beg to forgiveness.'

Judge Menary, who imposed a two month curfew between 9 - 6 am with an electronic tag, said that she would benefit from help from the probation service and pointed out that she does not yet seem 'to have woken up to the level of responsibility you need to show in your life generally.'

Harwood, of St Helens, Merseyside, had pleaded guilty to three benefit fraud offences involving a total of 25,156 between April 2013 and January last year.

Ben Jones, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that said that the prosecution could not say how much she was earning but she had 'a measure of celebrity and was writing articles in Closer magazine.

'There may have been some element of bragging, talking about earning 2,500 without leaving the house, receiving valuable gifts including clothing, jewellery and handbags and claiming she was able to go out and shop and buy designer labels consistent with the life style being put forward in those articles.'

Transgender Harwood had bragged that she earned 120,000 a year and received lots of valuable gifts but a judge took the view that her income would have been 'significantly less than that

John Rowan, defending, said that she had received media payments of 14,389 over the period of the offences which was 'relatively modest.'

The court heard that she had talked about being able to finance the purchase of a Mercedes car and spend a 1,000 a month on beauty treatments.

The judge said 'she spoke to media outlets about her income, all might have complete rubbish. I suspect much of her life is fantasy, her personal life and what she sets out in the probation report.'

He said she had been living in a sensationalised world and 'formed relationships which did not do much in terms of the journey she has been on.'

Mr Rowan said, 'In recent months there has been an element of realisation as to where her life is going at this time and she accepts there needs to be an element of withdrawal in terms of her activities and presentation in the public eye.

Harwood had talked about being able to finance the purchase of a Mercedes car and spend a 1,000 a month on beauty treatments

'She is remorseful and shameful for her actions,' said Mr Rowan, who added she has celebrity status in the Liverpool area and will be further shamed by the publicity about the offences.

'She has lost her good character and the offences will affect her personal reputation in the future.'

He continued, 'Given the background of her early life and growing up she is quite terrified at the prospect of a custodial sentence, however given her lack of previous convictions, the background struggles she has had which perhaps impact on how she behaves on social media.'

Mr Rowan said that given her article in the national magazine Closer there was no way she would not have been found out and the fraud was 'very naive and foolish.'

'She had a difficult family background only complicated by her personal issues with regards to her sexual personality and gender.'

He described her as 'a brave woman' who had accepted at a young age who she was and taking steps involving lengthy and painful surgery and she still takes daily hormone treatment. 'It wasn't easy for her and it still isn't.'

Mr Rowan spoke of her anxiety and depression and while a lot of people support her an equal amount 'ridicule, taunt and bully her for simply trying to get to who she wants to be.

He added that the hopes to have a law abiding and successful career and repay the money to the DWP.
A young girl was forced to run on a treadmill, 'hog-tied' to a bed with tights and hit with a wooden spoon on the soles of her feet so the marks would not show, a court heard.

The victim and a boy were subjected to extreme physical and emotional abuse by a man and a woman, who showed 'particular dislike' to her and an older boy.

A jury heard that the 'violent and controlling' man told the children they were 'evil' and had 'ruined his life'.

The boy was forced to stash drugs for the man and look after other children while the two adults went off to take cocaine and have sex.

A couple are standing trial accused of cruelty and neglect towards a boy and a girl, Cambridge Crown Court heard

The couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are standing trial accused of cruelty and neglect towards the children.

The pair deny the charges, with the man saying he had no knowledge of any of the two children's injuries, apart from a mark on the girl's back from a bike accident.

The woman told police she was not responsible for any of the injuries and said she 'was a victim herself'.

But prosecutor Angela Rafferty said the woman knew 'exactly what was going on' and was 'frightened and controlled' by her partner and did nothing to stop the abuse.

Miss Rafferty told Cambridge Crown Court: 'The plight of the children came to light when police were called to the house over a drugs dispute.

'A separate man involved in the dispute told police he heard bangs and the little girl screaming.

'He said the man put his knee in the girls back and pulled her arms back to restrain her.

'He said the girl was hit on the soles of her feet with a wooden spoon and at one point, the woman put a hand over the girl's mouth.

'He said the boy was punched in the head and the girl was locked in her room.

'If this is what happened when someone is present, one can only wonder what those children's lives must have been like when there was no-one around.'

She said police noticed bruising to the young girl's head and neck.

The child also showed signs of being neglected and told doctors she had frequent abdominal pain, nausea and often went to bed hungry.

When police were called to the house, they noticed bruising on the girl's head and neck and that she showed signs of being neglected (stock image)

The children were taken into foster care where the boy broke down and produced a rubbish bag filled with a dirty nappy, cigarette butts and a broken wooden spoon.

He said the man had tried to dispose of the bag but when he failed, he asked the boy to hide it.

The boy told police that the man abused him and the young girl and said there had been a camera in the young girl's room.

If the girl was seen to move, she was hit by the man. He also said the girl was held under a tap with running water with a flannel on her face.

When interviewed the woman said she had seen the girl 'hog-tied to the bed' with tights the two children regularly abused by the man, who seemed 'obsessed' with discipline.

Miss Rafferty told jurors there was a multitude of things that could have been done by the woman, even secretly, to protect the children.

The prosecution said that the man was caught on a recording saying he hit the girl with a wooden spoon and had tied her up, saying he was 'coked off his head'.

Miss Rafferty added: 'The Crown says that during this trial he [the male defendant] will try to blame the boy for much of his own conduct.'

Further evidence proves the man had an 'explosive temper', she claimed.

The pair, from Cambridge, deny ill treatment and neglect.

The trial, which is due to last two weeks, continues.
Two sisters from North Carolina were both killed in the same car wreck as their loved ones revealed they 'had to die together' because they wouldn't have been able to live without each other.

Karli Richardson, 20, and her 18-year-old sister Kelsey were on their way from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon late on Thursday night so they could watch the sunrise.

Kelsey had flown from North Carolina to see her sister in Arizona over Easter because she was upset she would miss Karli's college graduation next week.

Karli Richardson, 20, (right) and her 18-year-old sister Kelsey (left) were on their way from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon to watch the sunrise when they were killed

They had called their mother Cathy Hocking to let her know the plans but that was the last she ever heard from her daughters.

Karli and Kelsey tragically never made it out of Phoenix.

They died just after 2am on Friday when Karli's white car collided with a vehicle driven by a 21-year-old male college student who police say was speeding down the interstate in the wrong direction.

The male driver also died in the crash.

'If Karli had lived, she would never have been able to live down that Kelsey was gone, and vice versa. The other could have never lived with it. So that's what everybody says: 'They had to die together',' Mrs Hocking told the Charlotte Observer.

The devastated mother described her girls as inseparable and the best of friends.

Mrs Hocking said they shared a bedroom until they were 10, but even when they were given separate rooms she still found the girls sleeping together each night.

They were killed in Phoenix on Friday when their white car collided with another vehicle driven by a 21-year-old male who police say was speeding down the interstate in the wrong direction

Kelsey (left) had flown from North Carolina to see her sister in Arizona over Easter because she was upset she would miss Karli's (right) college graduation next week

'They were a team that couldn't be beat. They just loved to be together. They did so much together. Practical jokes, dates, they went to Christian camp together, they played softball together, they went to school together, and they went to parties together,' she said.

'They had separate friends, but if Karli's friends came over to spend the night, Kelsey would be in the room; if Kelsey's friends came over to spend the night, Karli would be in the room... They were inseparable. Oh, God, they were so close.'

Karli was due to graduate from Grand Canyon University with a bachelor in communications next week.

Her sister Kelsey was a junior at Western Carolina University where she was working to attend medical school.

They were both prom queens of their high school.

A GoFundMe page set up to help cover the funeral expenses has already received $35,000 in just five days.

Their devastated mother Cathy Hocking described Kelsey (left) and Karli (right) as inseparable and the best of friends
Kathryn St Clare (pictured), 58, was arrested Monday night in Oregon for allegedly hoarding 41 cats in her vehicle

A Washington woman who was convicted last year of animal cruelty for hoarding more than 100 cats in a recreational trailer was arrested Monday night in Oregon for allegedly hoarding more cats in her vehicle.

Kathryn St Clare, 58, was arrested in Warrenton, Oregon, when Warrenton police Officer Tyler Johnston found 41 live cats and one dead cat in her car, according to a police statement.

Johnston noticed the vehicle matched the description of a car that law enforcement had been looking for earlier this year.

The officer checked with dispatchers, who confirmed the vehicle was associated with St Clare, who had two warrants out for her arrest on 10-counts of animal cruelty from Snohomish County in Washington State.

When Johnston was advised to check the welfare of the cats, he found one dead and noted the car reeked of cat urine and feces.

St Clare, who was convicted last year of animal cruelty for hoarding 111 cats in a trailer, was then booked into the Clatsop County Jail on 30 counts of animal cruelty I, according to the statement.

Clatsop County Animal Control was contacted and the 41 cats were safely removed from her vehicle and given food and water.

St Clare, 58, was arrested in Warrenton, Oregon, when Warrenton police Officer Tyler Johnston found 41 live cats and one dead cat in her car, according to a police statement. One cat is seen peering out of the window of the car

When the officer was advised to check the welfare of the cats, he found one dead and noted the car (pictured) reeked of cat urine and feces. St Clare, who was convicted last year of animal cruelty for hoarding 111 cats in a trailer, was booked on 30 counts of animal cruelty

The two Washington warrants stemmed from St Clare failing to appear for a hearing in Snohomish County in April 2016.

At the time, a court was supposed to determine how much she would be ordered to pay the county for costs associated with investigating her two years prior, according to the Daily Herald.

The county was billed more than $13,000 by an animal shelter for impounding the animals, euthanizing them and disposing of their remains, according to authorities.

A veterinarian had to examine the cats and a tow truck driver was paid to haul off the trailer in which the cats were stowed.

About $3,300 compensated officers for the time they spent on the case. In the end, St Clare, who is homeless, was ordered to pay $14,457.22 at 12 per cent interest, according to the newspaper.

St Clare was a software tester for 20 years before being laid off in 2009. She couldn't find another job in the industry and became homeless.

Last year, a psychologist concluded that her being laid off and homeless were events that likely led her to collect cats.

Because of her disorder, the judge was told, she lacked insight into the reality of her situation because she saw the cats as her family, according to the Herald.

Clatsop County Animal Control was contacted and the 41 cats (pictured) were safely removed from her vehicle and given food and water. St Clare will likely be extradited to Snohomish County once the Oregon case is resolved. Authorities said she could face more charges

'They are not some disposable item you dump at a shelter,' she told the psychologist.

Starting in 2014, Snohomish County animal control officers worked to persuade St Clare to give up dozens of sick cats that she was keeping in the trailer.

But St Clare declined to turn over her cats and moved the trailer multiple times.

'I hope you can see it through her eyes. She felt like she was being asked to march her family to the gallows,' her attorney, Robert O'Neal, said in 2016, according to the Herald. 'She didn't mean to do the wrong thing.'

Eventually animal control officers raided St Clare's trailer and removed the 111 cats.

The cats were in various stages of dehydration and malnutrition, and animal control had no choice but to euthanize them.

After a fury found her guilty, St Clare was granted a first-time offender waiver, which spared her jail time. However, she was ordered to obtain mental health treatment, and she was banned from owning cats.

St Clare will likely be extradited to Snohomish County once the Oregon case is resolved.

Authorities said St Clare could face more charges as the investigation continues.
A Wisconsin man charged with fatally stabbing his girlfriend more than two dozen times and slaughtering her 4-year-old daughter has urged homicide detectives to listen to Eminem's 2010 track Space Bound if they wished to understand his motive behind the slayings.

Patrick Fowler, 33, is currently on trial in Milwaukee for the savage March 2016 killings of Jessica Ellenberger, 28, and her cancer survivor daughter, Madyson Marshel.

According to a criminal complaint, Fowler told police after his arrest that he and his girlfriend of one month got into an argument and that he began stabbing her because 'he felt as if he were being disrespected.'

Shocking crime: Patrick Fowler, 33 (left), is on trial in Milwaukee for the savage March 2016 killings of Jessica Ellenberger, 28, and her 4-year-old daughter, Madyson Marshel (right)

Grisly crime scene: The mother and child were found stabbed to death and burned inside their Milwaukee home on March 19, 2016

After allegedly knifing the woman 26 times and slitting her throat, Fowler stabbed the four-year-old twice, then used the toddler's coloring books as kindling to set the mother and daughter's bodies on fire.

On his way out of the blood-spattered, burning house, Fowler allegedly said he grabbed a handful of Madyson's Easter candy from a basket.

On Day 2 of Fowler's murder trial on Wednesday, prosecutors played a recording from his interview with homicide detectives that took place shortly after his arrest in Arkansas.

At one point during the interrogation, the investigators asked Fowler why he set the victims' house ablaze, to which the man replied that they should listen to Eminem's song Space Bound in order to understand his mindset, reported Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

He then quoted verses from the song, which talks about a man who strangles his girlfriend and then shoots himself after realizing that she does not love him anymore.

Emotional day in court: A teary-eyed Fowler took the stand to testify in his own defense on Thursday, claiming that he was innocent and that 'someone else' killed the woman and child

Carnage: Fowler is accused of stabbing Madyson (left) twice and then burning her body beyond recognition

'Don't play games; it'll be dangerous if you f*** me over," Fowler recited to the cops. 'Cause if I get burnt I'ma show you what it's like to hurt. 'Cause I've been treated like dirt before you and love is evil, spell it backwards. I'll show ya.'

The track, which appeared on the Detroit rapper's seventh album, Recovery, also features the following lyrics: 'I'm trying to stop you from breathing/I put both hands on your throat/I sit on top of you squeezing/'Til I snap your neck like a Popsicle stick.'

On Thursday, an emotional Fowler took the witness stand to testify in his own defense and walked back much of his previous confession, instead pointing a finger of blame at some unspecified 'figure' for the murders.

With tears streaming down his face, Fowler claimed that he was guilty of cowardice, not murder, because he was hiding in the bathroom in terror as someone else butchered his girlfriend and her daughter inside their home on North 86th Street in Milwaukee on March 19, 2016.

'I chose to save myself. I got three daughters myself. What if it was them,' Fowler told the court through sobs, according to Fox 6 Now.

Fowler said the three of them were spending the day together preparing Easter baskets when he went to use the restroom.

Fowler initially told police he felt disrespected by Ellenberger, his girlfriend of just a month

Charred: Prosecutors said after the murders, Fowler used Madyson's coloring books as kindling to start a fire at the crime scene

Heartbreaking detail: Fowler grabbed Madyson's Easter candy (pictured) after allegedly slaughtering her and her mom

When he returned a minute later, he said he saw 'a figure' rushing at him with a knife. He then fled back into the bathroom after suffering a severe cut to his hand.

While he was hiding in the bathroom, Fowler testified, he heard screams. When he emerged later, Fowler said he discovered his girlfriend, a protection officer with a security firm, and her daughter dead inside the toddler's bedroom.

The 33-year-old defendant said he held the woman and child in his arms and prayed for them, which resulted in their blood getting on his clothes, and then left the house with Madysons Easter candy.

An autopsy found 26 wounds on Ellenberger's upper body, plus burns on 40 per cent of her body. Madyson was stabbed twice and was burned over 100 per cent of her body.

US Marshals later picked up Fowler during a Greyhound bus layover in Texarkana, Arkansas, and extradited him back to Wisconsin to face two charges of first-degree murder.

Fowler's mother was also arrested after it was discovered she had bought her son the bus ticket and knew he had allegedly killed Ellenberger and her daughter.

Ellenberger worked as a protection officer at a security firm (left). Her daughter was a cancer survivor

In his testimony on Thursday, Fowler claimed his mother had urged him to go to the police, but he decided to flee to Texas because he looked 'guilty as hell.'

Fowler told the court he decided to confess to the murders after learning from his brother that his mother, the mother of his daughters and her friend had all been arrested in Milwaukee for helping him skip town.

At the time of the 2016 double-murder, Fowler was on probation for threatening to kill his ex-fiancee and her son with knives after she broke off their engagement six months prior.

The 33-year-old was also convicted of child abuse in 2009 and is a registered sex offender.

Closing arguments are expected to be presented later in the day on Friday, after which the case will go to the jury for deliberations.

'SPACE BOUND' BY EMINEM: Eminem released the single Space Bound as part of his 2011 album, 'Recovery' [Verse 1:] We touch I feel a rush We clutch it isn't much But it's enough to make me wonder what's in store for us It's lust, it's torturous You must be a sorceress 'cause you just Did the impossible Gained my trust don't play games it'll be dangerous If you fuck me over 'Cause if I get burnt I'ma show you what it's like to hurt 'Cause I've been treated like dirt before you And love is "evol" Spell it backwards I'll show you Nobody knows me I'm cold Walk down this road all alone It's no one's fault but my own It's the path I've chosen to go Frozen as snow I show no emotion whatsoever so Don't ask me why I have no love for these motherfucking ho's Bloodsucking succubuses, what the fuck is up with this? I've tried in this department but I ain't had no luck with this It sucks but it's exactly what I thought it would be Like trying to start over I got a hole in my heart, but some kind of emotional roller coaster Something I won't go on 'til you toy with my emotions, so it's over It's like an explosion every time I hold you, I wasn't joking when I told you You take my breath away You're a supernova... and I'm a [Chorus:] I'm a space bound rocket ship and your heart's the moon And I'm aiming right at you Right at you Two hundred fifty thousand miles on a clear night in June And I'm aiming right at you Right at you Right at you [Verse 2:] I'll do whatever it takes When I'm with you I get the shakes My body aches when I ain't With you I have zero strength There's no limit on how far I would go No boundaries, no lengths Why do we say that until we get that person that we think's Gonna be that one and then once we get 'em it's never the same? You want them when they don't want you Soon as they do feelings change It's not a contest and I ain't on no conquest for no mate I wasn't looking when I stumbled onto you must've been fate But so much is at stake what the fuck does it take Let's cut to the chase 'Fore a door shuts in your face Promise me if I cave in and break and leave myself open That I won't be making a mistake Cause I'm a... [Chorus] [Verse 3:] So after a year and six months, it's no longer me that you want But I love you so much it hurts Never mistreated you once I poured my heart out to you Let down my guard swear to God I'll blow my brains in your lap Lay here and die in your arms Drop to my knees and I'm pleading I'm trying to stop you from leaving You won't even listen so fuck it I'm trying to stop you from breathing I put both hands on your throat I sit on top of you squeezing 'Til I snap your neck like a Popsicle stick Ain't no possible reason I could think of to let you walk up out this house And let you live Tears stream down both of my cheeks Then I let you go and just give And before I put that gun to my temple I told you this [Gunshot] And I would have did anything for you To show you how much I adored you But it's over now It's too late to save our love Just promise me you'll think of me every time you look up in the sky and see a star 'cause I'm a... [Chorus:] I'm a space bound rocket ship and your heart's the moon And I'm aiming right at you Right at you Two hundred fifty thousand miles on a clear night in June And I'm so lost without you Without you Without you Advertisement




Heartwarming footage captures the moment an adorable orphaned baby kangaroo reached out to his owner for a cuddle.

The clip shows Terri the baby roo hopping onto the leg of Chris Barns at The Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs, Australia.

After a few seconds, Chris lowers a small pouch and Terri dives in head first.

An orphaned baby kangaroo was filmed begging his keeper for attention in a desperate attempt to be cuddled. Chris lowers a small pouch and Terri dives in head first excitedly

He's then brought up to Chris' chest for a cuddle - and seems very content with the love from his surrogate parent.

The pouches are designed by workers at the sanctuary to be as close to the real thing as possible.

'They hop into their mums pouches just like they hop into their pillowcase pouches we make them.

'We try to make them as close in shape and size as their mums pouch would be. And they are very clever at moving themselves when they are in the pouch.' a staff member told the Mirror.

Facebook users commented on how adorable the little roo was, with one saying: 'I'd be carrying her around all day because who could resist that adorable face.'

He's then brought up to Chris' chest for a cuddle - and seems very content with the love from his surrogate parent. The pouches are designed by workers at the sanctuary to be as close to the real thing as possible

Facebook users commented on how adorable the little roo was, with one saying: 'I'd be carrying her around all day because who could resist that adorable face.'

Another said: 'Little outstretched arms remind me of my daughter when she was small who always wanted to be picked up.'

Terri previously racked up 26,000 views on another video she starred in.
New details are being released about Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas, the Tennessee teacher and student who were found hiding out in a remote California cabin on Thursday after more than a month on the run.

On Friday, a copy of the FBI's criminal complaint against Cummins was released, detailing the events leading up to the alleged couple's March 13 disappearance and what authorities know so far about their weeks on the lam.

The documents paint a creepy picture of the couple's relationship, from the fact that Cummins refilled his erectile dysfunction prescription just days before their departure, to their one-bed bookings at low-rent motels and trips to Walmart to buy personal lubricant.

Scroll down for full criminal complaint

More details are being released about Tad Cummins' (left) month on the run with his 15-year-old student Elizabeth Thomas, right

Cummins was arrested early Thursday morning, after police found the two hiding out in an unfinished cabin in northern California

Above, investigators at the scene of the cabin on Friday

Cummins was due to appear in court on Friday, but the appearance was cancelled

Cummins will instead appear in federal court next Monday in Sacramento

Maury County Police first learned about the couple's illicit relationship on January 30, from the school resource officer assigned to the Culleoka Unit School.

The officer relayed that a 12-year-old student told him he or she walked into a classroom and witnessed Cummins kissing Thomas on January 23.

'The student described the kiss as a romantic peck rather than a father-daughter type kiss,' Detective Jonthan R. Hardison wrote in the complaint.

The student said that he or she went to confront Cummins with another student after school.

'The student related that Cummins rambled on and on about how much he loved his wife, but indicated that [Thomas] sometimes went to church with him and his wife and that [she] had a troubled past,' the report says.

On January 31, detectives interviewed Thomas about the allegations, and she said the two never kissed.

According to the criminal complaint, Cummins refilled his Cialis prescription days before leaving with Thomas, and that they bought KY Jelly while on the road. (Stock images)

The two were spotted shopping at a Walmart in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 15

She told officers that she went into Cummins classroom after getting into an altercation with another teacher about using the bathroom and that he comforted her.

Thomas 'advised that Cummins possibly held both of her hands around the wrist area and may have been close to her face at the time, telling her she needed to calm down'.

That same day, Thomas' father let officers look at his daughter's cellphone, and they saw that she had been in 'brief contact' with Cummins that day.

Officers interviewed Cummins the next day, and he too denied that they had kissed, saying that instead he was like a 'father figure' to the girl.

Cummins was allowed to keep teaching at the school while the district investigated the claims, but just two days after his interview with police, he got in trouble again for being with Thomas in a classroom.

Thomas' family appeared on Good Morning America on Friday, saying they had not yet been able to talk to her. Pictured bottom left is Elizabeth's father Anthony

Above, a map showing what authorities know so far about the couple's whereabouts during their month on the run

The morning that he left in his wife's Nissa Rogue (pictured above), Cummins left a note behind saying he was going to Virginia Beach or the DC area to 'clear his head'

MEET THE HERO CARETAKER WHO HELPED POLICE NAB CUMMINS A northern California caretaker is speaking out to detail how he helped police arrest the Tennessee teacher who had been on the run for more than a month with his 15-year-old student. Griffin Barry, 29, says the Cummins and Thomas first came through the area two weeks ago, looking for the Black Bear Ranch Commune, and were going by the names John and Joanna. The couple, claiming to be 38 and 24 years old, had run out of gas and Cummins told a sad story about how they lost all of their possessions in a house fire in Colorado and didn't have any money left. Griffin Barry, 29 (pictured), helped police arrest Tad Cummins, the 50-year-old Tennessee teacher who had been on the run for more than a month with one of his 15-year-old students So Barry decided to be a Good Samaritan, and gave Cummins money, gas and directions to the commune. 'I put some gas in his car and gave him $40 dollars and said if it doesnt work come back Ill feed you you, know what I mean?' Barry, 29, told WKRN . Cummins and Thomas did in fact make it to the commune, but the members there sensed something was off with the two and decided against letting them into the group. After getting kicked out of the commune, Cummins and Thomas returned to Cecilville on Tuesday, and Barry offered to let them sleep in one of his unfinished cabins in exchange for work. Barry said he rarely interacted with Thomas during the couple's 36-hour stay at the property. 'He would talk for her a lot and kept her separate, you know,' Barry told WBIR . 'And a couple of times he always kept her in the car and he would be like 'she's asleep,' you know, and I'm like okay. I was kind of telling some people , you know, she never really looks at me and she's always talking for her. I was like, whatever, they're on hard times or something." It wasn't until Wednesday night that he finally recognized Cummins and the girl, when a neighbor showed him a missing persons picture. 'Someone was showing me a picture, I was telling them you know and said 'That's the guy,"' he said. 'So we called 911 last night and we were calling that Tennessee Bureau of Investigation line or whatever so I guess the first sheriff got out here at about 2am.' By 4am, police had surrounded Cummins' cabin and were waiting for him to come out. After a while, they brought in Barry to help speed up the process. 'I was driving by trying to flush him out. [Sheriff's deputies] were like, "honk the horn!"' Barry told KRCR. 'I'm glad I got to help.' As Cummins was taken into custody, he reportedly remarked 'I'm glad this is over'. Advertisement

A school official called police on February 3, saying that the two had been alone in a classroom for 30 minutes, despite Cummins' orders to stay away from the girl.

Detectives reviewed surveillance footage and found that the two had indeed been in a classroom together, and that other students were present.

The school suspended Cummins on February 6 for the matter.

It's still unclear when exactly Cummins started plotting his escape with Thomas, but he did refill his Cialis prescription - a drug that treats erectile dysfunction - three days before leaving, his wife Jill revealed.

He also took out a $4,500 loan a week before his disappearance, which was supposed to help him and his wife get by while he was out of the job. His wife said that she noticed the money missing after her husband left.

THE PAIR'S FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE January 23: Tad Cummins is spotted kissing Elizabeth Thomas, his student at Culleoka High School, by another student. He denies the claim, saying that they are friends; she is taken out of his classes February 3: Cummins is reprimanded by the school principal after Elizabeth is found to have entered his classroom for around 30 minues February 6: Cummins is suspended c. March 9: He takes out a $4,500 loan on his car March 12: Cummins buys hair dye from Walmart in Columbia, TN March 13, 7:45am: Thomas is dropped off at Shoney's in Columbia by a friend March 13, 8am: Cummins is seen pumping gas in Columbia March 13, noon: Cummins and Elizabeth are seen together in Decatur, AL, around 70 miles from Columbia. He is fired from his job this same day March 15: Cummins and Thomas are seen buying food at a Walmart. They are sporting dyed hair. This is their last sighting for more than a month March 30: Tad Cummins' wife of 31 years, Jill, files for divorce April 19: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is contacted by caretaker Griffin Barry, who says the paid is staying on his property in Cecilville, California April 20: Police converge on the remote cabin, arrest Cummins and confirm that Elizabeth is safe Advertisement

Police believe Cummins and Thomas met up at Shoney's Restaurant in Columbia, Tennessee the morning of March 13.

A friend reportedly picked up Thomas from her house and dropped her off at the restaurant around 8am.

Meanwhile, surveillance footage showed Cummins filling his wife's Nissan Rogue up with gas at a Shell station next to the restaurant around 8:30am. He was seen leaving the station five minutes later in the direction of Shoney's.

The morning that Cummins went missing, he lied to his wife about going to a job interview at the Williamson County Medical Center.

When she returned home, she found a note from her husband saying he was 'travelling to Virginia Beach or the D.C. area to clear his mind'.

'He said he would be back and urged his wife not to call the police,' the complaint says. 'Cummins denied doing anything wrong and asked his wife to forgive him.'

Mrs Cummins followed the letter and did not call police that night.

But Thomas' father immediately got police involved, calling to report his daughter missing around 10:30pm that night.

Mr Thomas told officers that he feared his daughter might be missing with Cummins.

The following morning, around 7:30am, Mrs Cummins finally called to report her husband missing.

She told police about the letter he left behind and the missing money. She also added that two handguns, clothes and some toiletry items were also missing from the home.

After an Amber Alert was issued for Thomas, tips started streaming into the FBI hotline.

One of the early reports came from a Motel 8 employee who found Tad Cummins' name in the national database.

Police learned that Cummins stayed at a location in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 15 and 16, renting a room with a single queen-sized bed.

Employees at the location said that Cummins asked for directions to a Walmart.

Police later obtained surveillance footage showing the two shopping at a Oklahoma City Walmart on March 15, in which they bought hair dye to alter their appearance.

After checking out of that Motel 8 on March 16, the couple moved west to Guymon, Oklahoma - about a five hour's drive away - where they checked into another Motel 8.

Again, they rented a room with only one bed, and stayed there for a night - checking out on March 17.

They also shopped at another Walmart, this time picking up women's razors, chocolate, cheese cubes and KY Jelly - a personal lubricant used for sex.

Police reportedly obtained surveillance footage of this March 16 trip but have not released it to the public.

Cummins was finally taken into custody on Thursday, after police received a tip from a caretaker in northern California, who said the two were staying in an unfinished cabin on his property.

The former teacher was set to appear in Siskiyou County court on Friday, but that appearance was cancelled. Instead, he has been put in federal custody and is being moved to Sacramento where a new hearing is scheduled for Monday.

Meanwhile, Thomas is reportedly being sent back to her family in Tennessee today. Her father Anthony Thomas said on Good Morning America on Friday that he had not yet spoken on the phone with his daughter, and that he believes she may have been brainwashed.
Philip Hammond has hinted the Tories could raise taxes after the election just a month after he was forced into a humiliating U-turn over planned national insurance hikes.

The Chancellor said previous manifesto promises not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT had 'constrained' his ability to balance the books.

Mr Hammond's warning will enrage right-wing Tory ministers and backbenchers, who are vehemently opposed to tax rises.

The Taxpayers' Alliance today told MailOnline the Chancellor should be focused on cutting taxes overall instead of focusing on 'gimmicks' - pointing out the tax burden was already at a 30-year high.

In March Theresa May ordered her Chancellor to abandon a 2billion tax raid on the self employed after a massive backlash over the policy, which breached the party's manifesto promise not to rise national insurance.

Philip Hammond, pictured on Wednesday meeting senior Republican politician Paul Ryan, has warned the Tories could raise taxes after the snap General Election

Meanwhile, Theresa May confirmed the Government will stick to its controversial commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid, quashing growing speculation it would be scraped.

The Prime Minister also fuelled speculation the triple lock on pensions could be scrapped - bringing to three the policies revealed today which will irritate the Tory grassroots.

Speaking at the IMF's spring conference Washington, Mr Hammond said the Tories' tax pledge has limited his ability to raise cash to pay off the deficit.

Revealing his intentions, Mr Hammond said: 'I'm a conservative, I didn't come into politics because I believe in higher taxes, I believe in lower taxes.

'I want to see Britain as a high skilled, high employment, high growth, low taxed, sensibly taxed economy. I'm not in the business of having some ideological desire to increase taxes.

Theresa May, pictured today on the campaign trail in Maidenhead, told the Chancellor to abandon his planned national insurance hikes

'But I also think we need to manage the economy sensibly and sustainably, and we need to address the remainder of our deficit, to get our fiscal accounts get back to balance.

'It was self evidently clear that the commitments that were made in the 2015 manifesto did and do today constrain the ability to manage the economy flexibly.'

Last month Mr Hammond announced plans to increase class 4 National Insurance paid by the self employed from 9 per cent to 11 per cent over the next two years.

But the move sparked anger as critics were quick to point out it breached the party's manifesto promise, and was quickly dropped.

Tory MPs made clear to the Chancellor he would never get the measure through the Commons.

John O'Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance: 'The government shouldnt pretend to be reducing the tax burden with gimmicky pledges on income tax and national insurance only to introduce new taxes and increase others.

'Given that the tax burden is set to increase to a 30 year high, a pledge to reduce the overall tax take would be both more honest and better policy.'

Lib Dem former Cabinet minister Alistair Carmichael slammed Mr Hammond over the possible move.

He said: 'Workers struggling with falling living standards and a Brexit squeeze will see that the Chancellor is already hinting that he will hike taxes.

'With the economy facing a 200bn Brexit black hole over the next 15 years, no wonder the Tories plan to raise taxes and slash spending.'

The PM, pictured in Maidenhead today, said the Tories will stick to their controversial commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid

The screeching U-turn was hugely embarrassing to the Chancellor, who previously held a reputation in Westminster as a safe pair of hands, and raised questions about his future.

Asked about tax plans for the self employed, he said voters will have to 'wait and see'.

He said: 'I drew attention to one of the many issues in our tax system that we have to address, it's something we need to look at.

'We have a review by Matthew Taylor on the way with how the self employed are treated in our employment rights system, which will be delivered in early summer, and that will be an opportunity again to look at some of these questions.'

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn kept a group of young children in Bristol entertained by reading them the family favorite We're All Going on a Bear Hunt as he continued his campaign tour

The Labour leader looked engrossed in his storytelling as he used the school-stop to drum up support for the party's education policies. They have vowed to cut classroom sizes

Nicola Sturgeon was also on the campaign trail, greeting a baby in Edinburgh. The First Minister and leader of the SNP urged voters to constrain the PM's chance to 'steamroller' opposition as she launched her manifesto for the Scottish local elections on May 4

The Prime Minister also offered voters an insight into her manifesto ahead of its official unveiling, expected next month.

Speaking in her home town of Maidenhead, Mrs May said the party will stick to its controversial foreign aid commitment which last year equated to more than 13billion of taxpayers' money.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn continued to try to drum up support by vowing to cut classroom sizes.

The Labour leader kept a classroom full of young children in Bristol happy a she read them the kiddies favourite 'We're Going On a Bear Hunt'.

While Nicola Sturgeon was also on the campaign trail accusing the PM of wanting to 'crush dissent'.

The First Minister urged voters to constrain Mrs May's chance to 'steamroller' opposition as she launched her manifesto for the Scottish local elections on May 4.

The party leaders are on a six-week election tour ahead of the crucial June 8 vote.

Theresa May insists she will KEEP controversial target on foreign aid spending

Theresa May has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending of billions on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today.

The Prime Minister said it was important to ensure the money - equivalent to 0.7 per cent of national income and more than 13billion last year - is spent properly.

But as she returned home to Maidenhead for the first time since calling a snap general election, Mrs May ended speculation she would dump the controversial policy.

The dramatic development on the election trail came after Nicola Sturgeon launched a new broadside at Mrs May for trying to 'crush dissent' by chasing a landslide election win.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is banging the drum for his new commitment to cut class sizes in schools with a tour through the south.

Theresa May, pictured today campaigning in Maidenhead, has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today

Nicola Sturgeon accuses Theresa May of wanting to 'crush dissent' as she warns Scots must choose between Brexit-obsessed Tories and the SNP

Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of wanting to 'crush dissent' as she claimed Scots must choose between Brexit-obsessed Tories and the SNP at crucial elections.

The SNP leader admitted it was likely Mrs May would be returned to No 10 on June 8 but said voters must constrain her chance to 'steamroller' opposition.

The First Minister made her latest intervention on the national campaign as she launched her manifesto for the Scottish local elections on May 4.

Scottish voters must choose between the SNP and a Tory 'Brexit at all costs' machine, Nicola Sturgeon has warned today (pictured)

The town hall polls are the biggest day of the campaign between now and June 8 and the results will shape the final month of the general election battle.

Ms Sturgeon's remarks come after it was claimed Jeremy Corbyn's Labour would try and get into No 10 with the backing of the SNP and Lib Dems if it manages to stop the Tories winning a majority.

Mrs May hit back at her latest campaign visit today as she told workers in Maidenhead her new Government would push back at the 'separatists who want to break up the UK'.

Labour IS plotting a 'coalition of chaos' and wants an 'informal' deal with the SNP and Lib Dems that could put Corbyn in No 10



Jeremy Corbyn, pictured campaigning in Swindon today, believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority

Labour's first target is to stop a Tory majority so it can try to form a minority government with support from the SNP and Lib Dems, sources have claimed.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign believes it is possible to take 40 Conservative marginals on June 8, destroying Theresa May's current slender majority.

The Tories would still be the largest party but in a hung parliament, Mr Corbyn could enter Downing Street with informal backing from the SNP, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs.

The claim, made by campaign sources to the Daily Mirror, is in defiance of polls suggesting a landslide victory for the Conservatives.

And it will fuel Tory warnings that a vote for Labour is a vote for a 'coalition of chaos' driven by Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Corbyn scrambled to rule out the idea of a formal coalition with the SNP earlier this week after leader Nicola Sturgeon backed a 'progressive alliance'.

The prospect of the SNP in power in London is toxic to English voters and was a huge driver of the Conservative campaign in 2015.

Ms Sturgeon intervened again today to warn the local elections in Scotland were a choice between Tories who believe in nothing but Brexit and the SNP.
A noisy neighbour launched into a foul race-hate rant when asked to turn her music down and battled with police when they arrived, continuing her insulting behaviour after she was arrested.

Single mother-of-two Zoe Barnard, 33, from North Kensington, London shoved her neighbour Janet Farmer and called her a: 'White c***, white f***ing bitch,' before assaulting a police officer.

The trainee carpet fitter admitted assaulting Ms Farmer on December 21, last year at Cuffley House, and also pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment.

Single mother-of-two Zoe Barnard, 33, from North Kensington, London shoved her neighbour Janet Farmer and called her a: 'White c***, white f***ing bitch'

Barnard also admitted assaulting PC Matthew Watson outside her home and at St. Thomas's Hospital and racially aggravated harassment while being transported in the police van.

Hammersmith Magistrates Court heard that neighbour Ms Farmer, who lives two floors below Barnard, couldn't even enjoy watching television with her partner because of the noise above.

She went up to ask the defendant to turn her music down and was told: 'F*** off. You don't care my mum just died you bitch. Leave my f***ing door, f*** off.'

Barnard shoved her in the chest and Ms Farmer's partner jumped in between them and the couple returned to their flat.

However, Barnard followed the pair and unleashed a string of racist abuse outside their flat.

The couple called the police and the court heard Barnard was 'aggressive to the officers' and aimed a kick at PC Watson when she was being handcuffed.

She called one police officer a 'n*****' during another racist outburst and collapsed to the floor at the police station.

Barnard claimed to have sickle cell syndrome and said: 'I'm an actress. I'll get booked into a mental hospital.'

The trainee carpet fitter admitted assaulting Ms Farmer on December 21, last year at Cuffley House (pictured), where she also pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment

At the hospital she aimed a punch PC Watson but he managed to deflect the blow.

The court heard Barnard, who has two daughters aged nine and eleven, has a drink problem and a previous conviction for assaulting a police officer.

The magistrate told her: 'This behaviour was absolutely unacceptable as you know.'

Barnard was placed on a 12-month community order with a 20-day rehabilitation requirement and must undergo a six-month alcohol treatment requirement.

She must also complete 60 hours community service work, pay 50 compensation each to Ms Farmer and PC Watson and pay an 85 victim surcharge.
A loyal dog spent its last few breaths running home to bid farewell to its owner after being shot by a poisonous needle.

The heart-breaking footage, from China, captured how two suspected dog thieves injected poison into the dog's body before escaping on a motorbike.

The animal reportedly died a minute after saying goodbye to its female owner.

Two suspected dog thieves shot the dog (top left corner) with a poisonous needle in China

After being shot, the dog ran back home to find its male owner, who failed to catch the thief

The video, shared by Pear Video, was filmed in Changzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, on April 20.

The black dog was playing with its companion, a smaller dog, in an alley when two men on a motorbike approached.

One of them, sitting on the rear seat, pointed at the canine with a gun-shaped tool. He seemed to have shot something into the dog's body.

Seconds later, the pair drove off as the smaller dog chased and barked after them.

The black dog ran back home to find its male owner who rushed out of the gates. However, he failed to catch the suspects.

The canine then ran to a court yard to find his female owner so that he could bid farewell to her

The dog had become weak when it saw the owner and started twitching on the ground

The canine then quickly ran into a courtyard to find a woman, who is thought to be the man's wife.

It appears that the woman was unaware that her pet had been poisoned as she walked towards the dog trying to check on it.

The canine, on the other hand, had become so weak. It tried to stand up to let its owner pet him, but its repeated effort failed. Soon after, it started twitching. One minute later, it died.

One minute later, the dog died after being poisoned by two suspected in an alley

This is thought to be the poisonous needle which had been shot into the dog's body

Pet theft is thought to be the driving force behind the dog meat trade in China, which in turn has prompted some controversial public events, such as the Yulin Dog Meat Festival in southern China every June.

Official statistics on dog theft are not collect by the Chinese authority. However, according to animal welfare organisations, around 10 million canines are killed and eaten each year in China, and most of them are stolen from the street or backyards.

Wendy Higgins, who works for Humane Society International, said that dog thieves would sometimes poison pet dogs and return to collect their bodies later. The pair featured in the video were likely to be doing so.

Humane Society International has in the past found piles of collars discarded in the corner when they visited slaughterhouses in China, and these collars 'indicated the stealing and killing of someone's loyal canine or feline companion'.

Mrs Higgins also said that the pet dogs are stolen, they are usually crammed into crates, loaded onto trucks and driven for days or even weeks to be transported to markets and restaurants across China.

Around 10 million canines are killed and eaten each year in China and many of them are stolen. Pictured, staff from Humane Society International were rescuing dogs from a truck

Many stolen pets are crammed into crates, loaded onto trucks and driven for days or even weeks to be sent to different parts of China

Humane Society International has found collars (such as the ones shown above) in slaughterhouses in China, and these collars indicated that the animals might have been pets

Some Chinese animal charities are determined to bring the the cruel behaviour of animal traffickers to the public attention.

China Companion Animal Symposium was recently held in the Chinese city of Chengdu.

During the three-day conference, 150 representatives from different animal protection groups, shelters and NGOs gathered to discuss means of ending the dog and cat meat trade in China for good.

TAIWAN BANS EATING DOGS AND CATS IN ASIA'S FIRST Taiwan has banned the eating of dogs and cats, lawmakers said on April 12, as pressure grows to improve animal welfare after a spate of cruelty cases that stirred public outrage. Parliament passed legislation to outlaw the consumption, purchase or possession of dog and cat meat, with offenders facing a fine of up to Tw$250,000 ($8,170). Authorities can also name and shame those who break the law. Legislator Wang Yu-min hailed the landmark bill, saying it is a first in Asia and 'shows that Taiwan is a society with advanced animal welfare.' The bill also hiked the penalty for killing or abusing animals to a maximum two-year jail term and a stiff fine of Tw$2 million. Source: AFP Advertisement




Cheers, heirs!

Tiffany Trump was out and about in New York City on Wednesday, with the First daughter spotted partying into the night with a few close friends and one Hollywood star at the Dream Downtown Hotel.

The group, which included Tiffany's privileged posse of Instagram influencers known as the 'Snap Pack,' were gathered together to celebrate the release of Bella Thorne's new television series 'Famous In Love.'

And after an evening of cake cutting, dancing and posing for social media posts, Thorne decided to ditch her premier party get-up of red leather and lace for some lingerie and lead the group in a late-night dip in the hotel hot tub.

Tiffany skipped out on the hot tub hijinks however and decided to head home while her friends let loose at their own private pool party.

Scroll down for video

Vander-Trump rules: Tiffany Trump attended a party to celebrate the premiere of Bella Thorne's new series 'Famous In Love' on Wednesday night in NYC (l to r: Alex Assouline, Alexa Yarnell, Tiffany Trump, Andrew Warren, Natalie Jackson, Gaia Matisse, Harry Brant, Bella Thorne)

Pool party: After a night of dancing, Thorne slipped into some lingerie and headed to the hot tub at the Dream Downtown, where the group was partying

Boys on the side: The party was hosted by Tiffany's best friend Andrew Warren, a designer and Instagram influencer whose group has earned the nickname the 'Snap Pack' (Tiffany, Harry Brant and Warren)

Two can keep a secret: Pretty Little Liars star Ashley Benson also joined the group (Warren and Benson above)

Tiffany's evening on the town was documented by her best friend Andrew Warren, who served as the group's unofficial party photographer.

Warren was also the host of the soiree, put together in honor of Thorne and her latest project.

It is the 19-year-old actress' first leading role in a series since she departed the Disney show 'Shake It Up' back in 2013 after three seasons.

'Congrats to my main B @bellathorne , Thanks for letting me throw you this party for your show #FamousInLove so proud of you,' wrote Warren on a photo that featured his entire crew.

Among those who came out to fete Thorne with Warren and Tiffany were Harry Brant, Gaia Matisse, Alex Assouline, Alexa Yarnell, Charlie Himmelstein, Julius Barnathan, Natalie Jackson and Preston Nicholas.

Harry is the son of billionaire businessman Peter Brant and supermodel Stephanie Seymour while Gaia is the great-great-granddaughter of painter Henri Matisse.

Alex is the heir to the Assouline Publishing empire, Julius is the grandson and namesake of broadcast television pioneer and onetime ABC president Julius Barnathan and Tiffany's father is the president.

Party: 'Congrats to my main B @bellathorne , Thanks for letting me throw you this party for your show #FamousInLove so proud of you,' wrote Warren (above with Charlie Himmelstein)

Shout out: And like all good Instagram stars, Warren was also sure to thank the hotel that hosted the group (@dreamhotels), the bakery that provided the gold and black three-tier cake at the event (@sweetcornernyc)

Lingerie party: Natlie Jackson and Warren pose by the hot tub ahead of the late-night dip

Actresses Ashley Benson also stopped by the party, with the 'Pretty Little Liars' star taking time to join Warren for a selfie he later posted in a slidehshow from the evening.

And like all good Instagram stars, Warren was also sure to thank the hotel that hosted the group (@dreamhotels), the bakery that provided the gold and black three-tier cake at the event (@sweetcornernyc) and the store where he got the oversized balloons he used to fill the room (@balloonsaloon).

Warren was also busy taking photos two days earlier when he trekked down to Washington DC and joined Tiffany at the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn.

Pretty in pink: Warren was in Washington DC earlier this week to join Tiffany at the Easter Egg Roll (above)

Main man: Tiffany was also joined by boyfriend Ross Mechanic (above on Sunday) at the Easter Egg Roll but not on Wednesday as he had school

The pretty-in-pink pair posed for a photo together inside the White House, with Warren thanking Tiffany for the invite in the caption.

Also down in the nation's capital for the event on Monday was Tiffany's longtime boyfriend Ross Mechanic.

He did not however make it out on Wednesday as he is currently in Philadelphia finishing out the last weeks of his senior year at Tiffany's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.
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A 350million superyacht owned by billionaire Arsenal investor Alisher Usmanov has been spotted sailing off the coast of Monaco.

The 512-foot-long Dilbar was seen approaching the French coast earlier today.

Usmanov, who is worth more than 10 billion, is one of the most wealthy people in Russia.

However, despite his wealth, he has been frozen out at board level at Arsenal by the club's majority shareholder 'Silent' Stan Kroenke.

The Dilbar, which is owned by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov was spotted arriving in Monaco from nearby Cannes

The mega yacht - which is believed to be worth 350million - has two helicopter landing pads and a luxury interior

The Dilbar is the biggest private yacht in the world and arrived on the French Riviera sailing between Monaco and Cannes

Earlier this week the vessel, pictured, was seen at Cap Ferrat between Nice and Monaco during its Riviera cruise

Arsenal are due to take on Manchester City in the FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley Stadium this Sunday, which is the club's last chance of silverware this season.

The Uzbek-born billionaire made his money in metal, media, telecommunications and sport.

The build cost for the new Dilbar has not been disclosed, but estimates have put it near 350million.

As is the case with many new superyacht builds for the super-wealthy, details of Dilbars interior and amenities remain a secret.

Her design  which offers very little outdoor space and is geared towards privacy offers very few hints.

Dilbar, built by Lurssen Yachts at its shipyard near Bremen, Germany, has two helipads  one on the sundeck and one on the bow  and a small sitting area and a swimming platform at the back.

Alisher Usmanov said during a recent interview that the Arsenal board are responsible for their lack of recent success

The amazing yacht, which has 41,000 square foot of living space is also equipped with two helicopter pads

The monster vessel, pictured here during construction, has the largest interior volume of any yacht ever built

The massive yacht, pictured under construction, is designed to protect the privacy of those on board

Inside, it has nearly 41,000 square feet of living space for her guests and owner, said Dimitri Semenikhin, of Yacht Harbour.

He said: Yacht projects of this scale never fail to impress, especially when Lurssen is involved.

Dilbar is constructed in such a way that even through helicopter photo shoots, none of its features can actually be seen other than her two helipads.

Although there are some outdoor spaces on the yacht, the majority of the living space is located indoors, which has led to Dilbar having the largest interior volume of any yacht ever built.

He said the gigantic yacht has a diesel-electric power plant and a cruising speed of 22.5 knots (just under 26mph).
Waleed Aly revealed last April that he and his wife Susan Carland rent a house because Melbourne's house prices were too high to buy one.

But a year later and with a Gold Logie in his cabinet, The Project host has splashed out $2 million on a house in trendy Richmond for his family of four.

The real estate agent was tight-lipped about the terms of the sale, because, as he told the Herald Sun: 'Waleed Aly had been a good client.'

Waleed Aly and wife Susan Carland bought a $2 million house in the trendy Melbourne suburb of Richmond, just a year after they revealed they rented as it was too expensive to buy there

The Project host (pictured with his wife) has splashed out $2 million on a house in trendy Richmond for his family of four

Aly's new digs will be just a stone's throw from Channel 10's South Yarra studio and keeps him in his favourite part of town where the family rented before it could buy.

'Wed like to buy around here, but everythings so expensive,' Ms Carland said a year ago.

It seems their fortunes improved enough that they could buy one for well above the $1.38 million average for three-bedroom houses in the area.

Aly is such a Richmond lifer that he in 2001 appeared as the local AFL team's mascot when his friend, who usually donned the Tiger outfit, was at a wedding.

Since then Aly won the Gold Logie and is heavy favourite to win it again on Sunday night

Aly's new digs will be just a stone's throw from Channel 10's South Yarra studio where he hosts The Project

He gave a shoutout to the owner of one of his favourite local restaurants, Demitris Feasts, on Swan Street in his Gold Logie acceptance speech

He also gave a shoutout to the owner of one of his favourite local restaurants, Demitris Feasts, on Swan Street in his Gold Logie acceptance speech.

Aly said 'this guy called Dimitri' came up to him and 'through gritted teeth commanded me to claim this award tonight' for those with 'unpronounceable names' across the country.

The 38-year-old is the heavy favourite to repeat the feat at Sunday night's 2017 Logies, priced at just $2.50 with TAB to win.

'Waleed was really popular with punters last year and he looks the one to beat again,' TAB spokesperson Nick Quinn said.

Aly may be getting a bump from his network handing out instruction pamphlets on how to vote to studio audiences on Studio 10 and The Living Room, urging them to support its nominees.
Jeremy Corbyn's ally Len McCluskey has been re-elected leader Unite after his rival was dramatically suspended from his job.

The hard-Left union boss told his Twitter followers that he will keep his job as general secretary of Britain's biggest trade union following what has been a bitter and bruising campaign.

The announcement is a blow for Labour moderates, who had seen the contest as a proxy battle for leadership over the Labour movement.

It comes just a day after Gerard Coyne - a moderate backed by many Labour MPs - was was suspended from his post as West Midlands regional Secretary.

Hard-Left trade union leader Len McCluskey, pictured with his close friend Jeremy Corbyn at a march in London last May,has been re-elected leader of Unite trade union

The official Twitter account for Mr McCluskey's campaign announced the news this afternoon with a message to his supporters.

It stated: 'Thank you for all your support. We can confirm Len has won.'

The race was close, and Mr Coyne had pinned his hopes of election on driving up turnout and encouraging union moderates to vote for him.

But turnout stayed low, with just 12 per cent of those eligible casting their ballots.

Mr McCluskey won 59,067 votes while Mr Coyne 53,544 ballots. A third contender, Ian Allinson , got 17,143 votes.

Mr Coyne claimed last night the union machine had consistently attempted to bully and intimidate him during the campaign.

Mr ClCluskey, dubbed Red Len, has been re-elected after his rival was suspended from his job at the eleventh hour

Baroness Prosser, the former deputy general secretary of one of Unites predecessor unions and a backer of Mr Coyne, likened the leadership contest to something that might go on in North Korea.

The result is a blow to Labour moderates, who had seen the race as vital in the wider battle of the Labour movement.

Mr McCluskey is Mr Corbyn's main ally and ensures that the union gives his party 1.5million a year.

It is understood Mr Coyne has been told the suspension relates to an investigation into whether he had brought the union into disrepute during his campaign to lead Unite.

But the move, which came on the eve of the ballot count, sparked questions over how the union was running the election.

Mr McCluskey faced claims that he had a hand in the decision to get rid of his rival.

Unite challenger Gerard Coyne, pictured last December, has been suspended from his post in the union. He lost the leadership race by around 6,000 votes with turnout just 12 per cent

One suggestion is that Mr Coyne was suspended for making defamatory claims in his campaign leaflets, while another is that he spoke at a meeting in the Commons organised by moderate Labour MP Chuka Umunna.

An email sent by union official Des Quinn to members in the West Midlands confirmed Mr Coyne's suspension. It said: 'This is to advise that Gerard Coyne has been suspended from his duties as regional secretary pending an investigation into certain issues which have arisen.

'The investigation is, of course, being conducted under procedure, and it should not be assumed that any offence has necessarily been committed. You will appreciate that it is not possible to comment further on this matter.'

The campaign, which has been running for several weeks, has been bitter, with personal and policy attacks from all sides.

Mr Coyne has criticised Mr McCluskey's strong support for Mr Corbyn, accusing Unite of becoming too political under his leadership.

Mr McCluskey has hit back, saying it made sense for Labour's biggest union affiliate to be close to the party.

Mr McCluskey is expected to support changes to party rules that will ensure that a left-wing candidate will be able to stand as leader of the party in future.

One pro-McCluskey source said: There will be a lot of Blairites crying into their Peronis and Chablis tonight.

Earlier in the day, Baroness Prosser criticised the running of the contest. She told BBC Radio 4s World at One programme: My understanding is that the election was going well for Gerard.

So then for the next thing to hear that he has been suspended and that the union as I understand it is not saying why, that just looks a bit like something that might go on in North Korea really.

There is a 90 per cent chance that Mr Coyne will go to court to challenge the result, Channel 4 reported last night.

Announcing the result, Unites acting general secretary Gail Cartmail said: I congratulate Len McCluskey on his victory and would urge the entire union to pull together ... not least to work for a Labour victory in the general election.

Tony Burke, Unites assistant general secretary, said he was pleased with the result, adding: I have fought in many union elections over 40 years  this was the vilest I have ever witnessed.
The father of a four-year-old boy killed while holding his hand in a horror crash told witnesses he blamed himself for the accident.

Three pedestrians, including the boy, were struck by an out-of-control Toyota LandCruiser outside a medical centre at Berwick, in Melbourne's east.

A couple who had been driving behind the 4WD said the father told them it was his fault as they tried in vain to save the boy's life.

Bystanders have alleged the 56-year-old driver had been receiving dialysis treatment at nearby Casey Hospital prior to the crash.

The boy was taken to hospital in a critical condition after the horror crash

Paramedics were called to the scene in Kangan Drive in Berwick just before midday

Authorities are investigation whether the driver from Pakenham fainted or became disoriented prior to the crash.

'I remember the dad saying 'it's my fault'. It's not his fault,' witness Sarah Smith said through tears.

Cameron and Sarah Smith were driving behind the LandCruiser when the crash happened and rushed to assist.

'He was in front of us and he started to veer off into oncoming traffic and he's gone airborne,' Mr Smith said.

Detective Sergeant Mark Amos said the vehicle was travelling along Kangan Drive towards Clyde Road around midday when it careered over a median strip into the car park of the Epworth Specialist Centre in Berwick,

'As he was negotiating a left-hand bend, the driver for some reason failed to take the bend,' he said, according to the ABC.

The father of a four-year-old boy killed while holding his hand in a horror crash told witnesses he blamed himself for the accident

Witnesses who helped the four-year-old boy were distraught to learn that he had died

A four-year-old has died after being hit by a 4WD in a Melbourne car park on Friday

'On entering that car park, he struck a small child pedestrian who was walking with his father, then that land cruiser has come to rest next to some parked cars.'

'Unfortunately as a result of that collision, the young child has died whilst trying to be saved and taken to hospital by air.

'The father's gone out with his son, holding his hand, doing what good dads do and this outcome's come up on them very, very suddenly.'

Meanwhile, a couple who had been driving behind the 4WD were 'absolutely hysterical' when they were told that the little boy they tried to save had died.

Cameron and Sarah Smith had stopped to help the boy and console his father after the child and two other adults were struck.

Aerial footage from the scene shows the aftermath of the incident in Berwick on Friday

'I remember the dad saying 'it's my fault'. It's not his fault,' Ms Smith said through tears.

Ten News reporter Katherine Firkin said the woman fell to the ground when she heard the news and her husband tried to console her.

'It was pretty dramatic and pretty horrendous,' Ms Firkin told news.com.au.

'The woman said she had children of her own, she was shaking and crying and couldn't believe something like this happened in broad daylight standing outside a medical centre,' Ms Firkin said.

Photos taken at the scene show the Toyota LandCruiser on its side with a smashed windscreen, next to a number of damaged parked cars.

A Victoria Ambulance spokesman said paramedics were called to the scene in Kangan Drive just before midday.

Anyone with information about the collision is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au
Some 20 million readers snapped up copies of her gripping autobiographical epic Wild Swans.

But fans of the 1991 publishing phenomenon may have to wait a little longer for the latest book by acclaimed author Jung Chang.

For the best-selling writer says she will struggle to concentrate if her neighbours get the go-ahead for purely selfish plans to build a 30,000 wine cellar with enough room for more than 1,000 bottles.

Jung Chang and husband Jon Halliday have objected to their neighbour's planning application to build a wine cellar under their house. Above shows them standing on their balcony at their Notting Hill home

She hit out at the couple next door, who both work in banking, saying their desire to store large amounts of alcohol could not justify the misery caused to others.

In a strongly-worded objection to the plans for the 9ft deep spiral chamber, the 65-year-old claimed it presented a new and further threat to the stability of her property in Londons affluent Notting Hill.

She told town hall planners that she and her husband, historian and author Jon Halliday, had already been hit by continuous building work as the neighbours have been granted extensive planning permission at their 6million, four-storey house.

This new intrusion not only threatens to endanger our house, but further to extend the already brutally long period during which we will be deprived of our right to peace and quiet, and to work undisturbed, she added.

Above shows an artist representation of the plans of the wine cellar staircase, submitted to Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council by Chadi Semaan and his wife Amelie

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China traced Miss Changs familys fortunes in 20th-century China, and became the biggest grossing non-fiction paperback.

But she warned that the building work would jeopardise her new book, which focuses on Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China.

She told the London Evening Standard: My husband and I are both writers working from home, where we have all our research and reference books. We cant work anywhere else.

The disruption from the noise and the vibration will be intolerable, and will really jeopardise our hopes of delivering our next books on time.

Documents show that Commerzbank employee Chadi Semaan and his wife Amelie, an executive director at JP Morgan, were given consent in 2014 to build a mega-basement and the work is understood to be ongoing.

Speaking to the Standard, she said: 'The disruption from the noise and the vibration will be intolerable, and will really jeopardise our hopes of delivering our next books on time'

Miss Chang wrote to planners at Kensington and Chelsea council, saying: The desire to store large amounts of alcohol is not an adequate excuse for prolonging the misery of others, and degrading the environment with more noise, more dust, more dirt, and more vibration. There must be some principle of proportionality.

Mr Halliday said the need for a cellar to hold enough wine to get the whole street drunk many times over was disproportionate to the disruption on his home. The spiral cellar would be accessed via a wooden trap door.

Made of concrete, the structure has a waterproof lining to keep bottles damp-proof and resistant to temperature changes and vibrations.

Several other residents have also objected to the plan, calling it frivolous or surreptitious. But Spiral Cellars  the firm installing the wine store  said the excavation work involved is not significant.

And town hall planners say the scheme is not a basement development and have recommended it for approval.
Shocking images show a collapsed donkey was worked to exhaustion by its owner in Spain.

Police were called to the scene after they received reports of the animal being treated cruelly.

The suffering animal has now been rescued by locals in the village of Segorbe, near Valencia.

This is the distressing scene involving a severely mistreated donkey near Valencia, Spain

The animal had collapsed after being overworked in the village of Segorbe, near Valencia

Luckily, the owner was forced to hand over the animal which is recovering after its ordeal

A dog was also rescued from the scene.

The animal charity El Refugio Del Burrito (RDB) arrived to help the animals.

A Veronica Sanchez told The Sun: 'Although both animals are protected under the same law, and it is very clear on how to act when the life of an animal is at risk, we still find that authorities hesitate.

'This is a negligence and omission of duty.'

Initially, the donkey's owner refused to hand over the animal, despite a vet claiming it was at risk of death.

The donkey, named Vida - meaning life - will be moved to a specialist sanctuary to recover

Luckily a campaign on Change.org prompted action allowing the local authority to seize the animal.

Rescuers named the donkey Vida - meaning life.

Rosa Chaparro of RBD added: 'The donkey is provisionally in a foster home in Castellon, as he is not fit to travel. As soon as he can travel he will come to our sanctuary in Fuente de Piedra, Malaga.'
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From tiny biplanes to jumbo jets, these fascinating photos show just how much planes have changed over the past 100 years.

Collected for a new book, they reveal the humble beginnings of the aviation industry and the ingenuity of engineers who have refined aircraft into the spectacular flying machines which take to the skies today.

Paul Jarvis, who is curator of the British Airways Heritage Collection, has put together more than 200 photos sourced from the British Airways archive.

Pictured: A Pax disembarcation after a sea trial. The early years of civil commercial flying was a time of intense competition between many small private airlines chasing a few passengers who could afford the luxury

Pictured left, the DH66 became the main stays of Imperialis fleet throughout the 1920s. It was a small aircraft, carrying just seven passengers. Right, the Handley Page W8 was introduced in the 1920s. Carrying 15 passengers, it had an open cockpit for two crew

Above, a 1930s Frobisher is undergoing pre-flight maintenance at Croydon, south London before its next scheduled service. The photo is one of more than 200 forming a new book that tells the take of British Aviation

Pictured, a British Airways engineer inspects the tail plane hinges. At the beginning of the aviation industry, planes were unreliable and not expected to last long

Pictured: A Scylla plane in the mid 1930s undergoing major maintenance. These small planes had four engines and 39 seats and were manufactured in Rochester, Kent

The collection includes fascinating images of so-called 'flying boats' which landed on water in far flung parts of the British empire where airfields had yet to be established in the inter-war period.

On August 25, 1919 Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T), a forerunner company of today's British Airways, launched the world's first daily international scheduled air service between London and Paris.

That first flight which took off from Hounslow Heath, close to Heathrow Airport, carried a single passenger and cargo that included newspapers, Devonshire cream, jam and grouse.

The early years of civil commercial flying was a time of intense competition between many small private airlines chasing not many passengers.

Costs, not least engineering costs, were high. Aircraft life spans were short given their construction was flimsy and the technology of the time was basic by today's standards.

Pictured, the Daimler Airway hanger. The company was started in the 1920s and was a predecessor airline of British Airways. It operated from Croydon airport

Pictured, an engineer tests the plugs in a plane before flight, as the pilot sits and looks on. At this point in aviation history, the man on the street was not likely to be able to afford flights

Pictured, engineers look at plane workings in a repair shop. In 1986 the airline's long haul services moved into the newly-built Terminal 4 at Heathrow

A 1940s BOAC converted Short Sunderland is undergoing a pre-service check that could be done while afloat. This craft was a patrol bomber developed for the RAF by the Short brothers

Pictured: Lockheed Constellation aircraft flight checks from the early 1950s. They were produced up until the late 1950s and were dubbed 'Connies'

Above, engineers taking apart British Airways' first Concorde, the G-BOAA. It took its maiden flight from Filton, near Bristol, in 1975, and its final in August 2000

Pictured: A British Airways Concorde in a hanger. Concorde became synonymous with speedy service, cutting the time across the Atlantic to three and a half hours

Pictured, an early advertising poster to promote British Airways as 'the best airline in the world'. Nowadays, the airline uses the slogan 'to fly, to serve'

Pictured, engineers take apart Concorde, which could travel more than twice the speed of sound. It took to the skies in 1969 and was retired in 2003

Military aircraft were not expected to last long, a few weeks at best. Aircraft engines were notoriously unreliable and needed constant maintenance.

The first ever flight In December 1903, the first piloted plane took flight in North Carolina. The machine was invented by Orville and Wilbur Wright, who started experimenting with gliders in 1896. The flight lasted for 59 seconds and Orville flew 852 feet. Advertisement

A good mechanic often flew as the second crew member to carry out any necessary repairs en-route, the original 'flying spanners'.

Civil aviation has developed enormously since then - key milestones include the De Havilland Comet (1952), the Comet 4 (1958), the Boeing 747 (1971) and the advent of supersonic flight with Concorde (1976).

Mr Jarvis, 71, of Lightwater, Surrey, said: 'It is a story I've always felt has never been told.

'I've always felt aviation engineers were the unsung heroes of aviation hidden away doing a fantastically complex job but you never hear about them - so this was an opportunity to write a book about their work.

'There is an interesting set of photos in the British Airways Heritage Collection dating from around 1922. They show that while aviation had advanced considerably during the First World War it was still a fledgling industry.

In the 1960s the Hawker Siddeley Trident, above, became the airline's main fleet aircraft. In total, 117 of these were built, and the model is now retired

Hard at work: Engineers taking apart British Airways' first Concorde, G-BOAA. The aircraft was the most tested aircraft in the world, undergoing 5,000 hours before it took its first flight

Pictured: First BA 737 under construction. They were introduced to the fleet in the 1980s. This collection has been put together byPaul Jarvis, who is curator of the British Airways Heritage Collection

'The engineers of that time used facilities not much different from the corrugated iron and wooden garages my father and his father before him had often serviced their cars in during the 1920s and 1930s, and often used the same tools.

'An engine was an engine that could be lifted out of a car using the same ropes or chains used in the hangar. The aircraft engine was just a lot bigger than my father's Ford Anglia. Obviously there have been huge technical advances since then.

'At the advent of civil aviation flying was an exclusive preserve for the rich and famous. The man on the street would not have been able to afford it.

British Airways employees show off their new livery. The airline has continued to grow over the past century and merged with Gatwick-based British Caleonian Airways in 1987

Pictured, an aerial view of a Boeing 757 being worked on. The craft could carry up to 295 passengers and was built up until 2004. British Airways own Heathrow Terminal Five, which opened in 2008

The iconic airline is still the biggest in the UK based on the number of planes in the fleet. The company is also the largest operator of the Boeing 747

'This situation continued into the 1950s when the airlines realised they needed to expand travel and the aircraft became much larger.'

In 1974 British Airways was created by the merger of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways (BEA). In 1986 the airline's long haul services moved into the newly-built Terminal 4 at Heathrow.

The privatisation of British Airways was completed in 1987 and the following year British Airways was merged with Gatwick-based British Caledonian Airways.

Concorde retired from service in 2003 and Heathrow's Terminal 5 was opened by the Queen in March 2008.
A man who beat his girlfriend over the head with a walking stick after she refused to have sex with him has been jailed for six months.

Les Wilson was drunk at the time he assaulted his partner in their Northern Territory home, a court heard.

Wilson fronted Darwin Local Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, according to NT News.

A Northern Territory man who beat his girlfriend over the head with a walking stick (file picture) after she refused to have sex with him has been jailed for six months

The court heard that Wilson's girlfriend was asleep in their home when he came home drunk and demanded sex.

When the victim denied his request, she was then hit over the head with a walking stick.

Judge Greg Cavanagh said that violence against women was too common and something that needed to be dealt with accordingly.

'(Men assaulting women) is prevalent offending and we must step back to ensure we don't become desensitised to the level of violence that comes through this court,' he said.

Wilson was convicted and jailed for six months, suspended after he has served three months.
Crissy Outlaw, 41, was a successful porn star and entrepreneur who performed in over 50 adult movies during her six-year porn career but she left the industry in 2006 to become a Christian activist because she felt 'broken' by her porn career and failed romantic relationships

At a fundraising event in California, Crissy Outlaw stands at a pulpit wearing a glamorous billowing black mini with a pink flower carefully lodged in her dark hair.

The all-American 41-year-old beauty begins her sermon simply with: Hi, my name is Crissy and I used to be a porn star.

She opens with this same line to the other congregations she visits, narrating the chilling times she was abused time and time again from the age of four, the failed relationships that left her 'wanting to be dead' and how she gave up her career as one of the biggest names in the porn industry to become a prolific Christian preacher.

I cant believe I ever went into the porn industry, Crissy told DailyMail.com.

And I never wanted to be a preacher but it happened because I felt called to let people know why I left the industry.

Crissy grew up in Jacksonville, Florida in a lower-class, conservative and chaotic home. Her parents were divorced and she primarily lived with her father, who was adamant about sexual purity and often launched into diatribes about her maintaining her virginity until she got married.

While Crissy - whose mother couldnt be as close as she wished during her childhood after a messy divorce with her father - believed in God, she says she was confused by this advice on staying away from sex because for most of her childhood she was sexually abused by a predatory neighbor who touched her inappropriately - a secret she kept from her father.

I couldn't understand why I was being molested so many times; it was confusing to me, she said. Why is it so easy for people to touch my body?

I couldn't make sense of it as a child. I thought it must be something about me that's making it happen.

I didnt tell my father because I couldn't have a relationship with him, since hes hard to get along with.

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The brunette beauty gave up her career - during which she earned more than $15,000 a month - because she believed she had received a sign from God to quit the industry. She told DailyMail.com: This mistake is out there forever but I've come to peace with myself and who God has made me to be. Crissy is pictured on the left at the LAX Radisson Hotel in Los Angeles, California during the height of her career and on the right sharing her story at the Mars Hill church in 2012 - six years after she had quit porn

The Florida native, pictured here at seven years old, cites her abuse as a child - a secret she kept hidden for years - as the reason she suffered from low self-esteem and subsequently entered porn

She moved in with her mother when she was 13 years old but rebelled against the rules her father had set. A defiant Crissy lost her virginity at 17 and that same year, she became pregnant. Steadfast in the belief she would marry the man she thought was the love of her life, she decided to keep the baby. Just weeks after her decision, though, her boyfriend dumped her and she felt forced to have an abortion in her first trimester.

I was fully awake and aware of everything going on during the abortion and my heart was shattered while the life was literally being sucked out of me, Crissy recalls.

'It was awful....my school knew about my abortion and I lost all my friends.

That was one of the most traumatic things that happened.

The abortion led Crissy into a deep depression and for most of her life she looked to relationships to help her out of her mental illness and to fill a void she says her father had left.

I felt like I needed to be in a relationship or to be a mother to be worthy of love, she said.

I look to men to make me feel like I was beautiful, to make me feel protected and to give a sense of stability in my life, things my dad never did.

Although she heralded romantic relationships as the ideal, Crissy suffered humiliating and degrading treatment at the hands of the men she dated because they often wanted to incorporate pornography in their sex lives.

Among the horror stories was a relationship she had with a pornography addict who raped her multiple times. She says she had to have many abortions because there were times when he would rape her while she was not on birth control.

These failed relationships as well as the memories of her abuse drove her down a path of low self-esteem and she decided to have breast augmentation surgery, believing she could finally measure up to the women her ex-boyfriends watched on screen.

Crissy, pictured here in 2006, says she never 'felt good enough' for her boyfriends because they often wanted to incorporate pornography in their sex lives. In her early twenties, she decided to have breast augmentation surgery so she could resemble the women her boyfriends lusted after. She said: I felt worthless to the point that I chose porn and I said, one day Im going to be one of the girls you watch on screen

I never felt good enough for the men I dated, she said. I didnt feel beautiful because they looked at porn during sex with me. I thought, am I not good enough for you that you cant only look at me?

I felt worthless to the point that I chose porn and I said, "One day Im going to be one of the girls you watch on screen."

She made the bold decision after she posted a picture of herself on a website that was calling for traditional models. Although she rejected countless offers to model in the nude, photographers flooded her email inbox, complimenting her looks and promising her a successful porn career.

Soon, wooed by the acceptance porn seemed to offer, 23-year-old Crissy gave in and decided to become a porn star.

But the nerves she felt on her first day on set proved she wasnt fully ready for what her new career choice entailed.

Speaking of the first shoot on a Florida beach, she said: I was so scared, I wasnt really in my element.

Even in the picture, you can tell I was so disconnected.

When the photographer told me to take my clothes off, my hands and legs were shaking and I was thinking, what am I doing?

I was nervous but I checked out, like I did when I was sexually abused.

The sense of danger was exciting to me because I wanted to end up dead, that was just how messed up I was.

Crissy - who performed in over 50 adult movies between 2001 and 2006 and eventually earned $1000 dollars a scene - became more comfortable and quickly became one of the most popular porn stars and entrepreneurs. Towards the end of her six-year career she founded her own website, modelled for notable magazines including Playboy and earned more than $15,000 a month.

The reality of this seductive world was far from its glossy exterior however. Crissy fell to the floor one fateful night in 2006 in her bedroom in California and cried out to God because she felt 'broken' by her relationships and didnt know who else to turn to.

I fell to the ground and I said God, if youre real, I need you to tell me. I need a sign because everything I know about love isnt right. And I need to feel you in my life because I havent felt you since I was 11 years old and I stayed on the floor, Crissy said.

Crissy became a porn star in 2000 because the 'sense of danger was exciting', but six years into her career, she fell to the ground in her bedroom in California and prayed because she felt 'messed up' by her relationships and wanted to feel God. The next day, someone she'd just met asked her if she wanted to dedicate her life to Jesus Christ. Seeing that encounter as the sign she needed from God, Crissy quit porn that day. She is pictured here in September 2013, sharing this part of her story at the First Baptist Church in Orange Park, Florida

After her divine encounter, Crissy began to share her story at various churches. She also traveled with members of the xxxchurch  which has the biggest anti-porn website in the world - to preach the gospel at porn conventions while wearing a t-shirt labelled Jesus loves Porn Stars

The next day, the then-31-year-old visited her boyfriend, an actor on a movie set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. During a break in filming, she was hanging out with him, a couple of his friends and film crew members. One of his friends began passing a photo of his topless wife around the circle the group had formed while making lewd comments. Crissy was embarrassed and angry, but a man who worked on the film set, Chris, decided not to look at the picture and rather told the group he would never show any pictures of his wife to anyone.

Crissy was surprised by his response because it wasnt typically what she heard from the men she dated.

While the rest of the team got back to filming, she continued speaking with Chris. During the conversation he asked her what she did for a living; she eventually admitted she was in porn. He then told her that her boyfriend had already told everyone about her career and had passed around nude pictures of her to other people on the set.

I put my head down because I was so ashamed, Crissy says.

But Chris asked her a question that reminded her of a prayer request she had made the night before: Do you know Jesus?

Crissy took that as the divine sign shed asked for and was relieved God had answered her prayer. The pair prayed together and her life changed in that moment.

I started crying when he asked me if I wanted to rededicate my life, she said.

I said yes. [After that], I didn't do any more shoots and stopped accepting any income from pornography.

The born-again Christian went through therapy to help her heal from her abuse and time in the porn industry. In May 2013, she married her husband Lawton Outlaw, a youth pastor at the time

When Crissy gives her speeches, she typically begins with: Hi, my name is Crissy and I used to be a porn star. The 41-year-old has also become somewhat of a guru-in-chief on her YouTube channel, where she warns her followers to avoid repeating her mistakes

She ditched her boyfriend and visited therapists to help her heal from her time in pornography. Using the conversation as a springboard for change, she began attending a local church and decided to avoid relationships for a year in order to heal. Soon after her break, she met her husband-to-be, Lawton Outlaw - a youth pastor at the time.

The pair married in May 2013 and Crissy now works part-time in retail in Houston, Texas. She travels around the country to tell others to avoid repeating her mistakes and has worked with members of the xxxchurch  which has the biggest anti-porn website in the world - who travel to porn conventions to preach the gospel while wearing t-shirts labelled, Jesus loves Porn Stars.

I made tons of mistakes but entering porn was one of the biggest ones, she said.

This mistake is out there forever but I've come to peace with myself and who God has made me to be.

THE PORN STAR REBORN: 'WORLD'S HOTTEST PORN STAR' HAS LIGHT BULB MOMENT TO TURN TO GOD AFTER BATTLING COCAINE, DEPRESSION AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

Brittni de la Mora considers entering pornography a mistake too. This 30-year-old was once named one of Maxims hottest porn stars and Howard Sterns smartest porn star  a title she earned after taking one of the radio icons trivia tests he gave to the porn stars he interviewed.

Yet underneath the glamour of her porn-stardom, she battled a cocaine addiction, depression and an eating disorder, which all became so serious that she searched elsewhere for acceptance: the church.

I was really depressed...the drugs are the only thing that helped me get through the day because they just made me feel like I wasn't in this little pit of depression, Brittni told DailyMail.com.

It gave me a little bit of energy and a false sense of happiness.

But after seven years, I started to cry and I apologized to God. I didn't understand that this is what I'd been doing all these years.

Once considered one of the 'world's hottest porn stars', Brittni de la Mora was an adult entertainer for seven years. She gave up her career to become a Christian Youth Minister after battling a cocaine addiction and suicidal thoughts. She is pictured on the left at the height of her porn career at an anniversary party in 2006. The 30-year-old posted the picture on the right on her Instagram page in 2016, four years after she became a Christian, with the caption: 'Don't let your thoughts get in your way & ruin your day. Instead pray throughout the day'

But the road to religion was a long and arduous one.

Brittni says her childhood - riddled with betrayal, neglect and instability  made her feel unwanted. A part of her early life still etched in her memory were the hurtful words she says her parents would often say to her.

My parents took a lot of their hurt and pain out on me, she said.

From a very young age, they would say things to me like I hate you and I wish you were never here and other very hurtful things.

I never felt accepted by my family and when you don't heal from something, you carry that in your soul.

Brittni was first introduced to the sex industry at 16 years old, when she worked as a stripper in her hometown, Santa Barbara, California. While partying at a strip club in Mexico, she took to the stage so she would be affirmed by her male audience.

That was when I realized, if I'm going to be naked and in the presence of men, then they are going to pay me and they are going to affirm me.

They want to be around me and that was something I had never felt as a child. I had never felt like I was wanted and so that was that seed that was planted that night.

She stripped for two years, until a porn director asked her to try romantic films. Brittni - who was a broadcast journalism student at the University of Santa Barbara and knew exactly what he was asking her to do  agreed because she wanted a more risque career path and yearned for financial freedom from her parents, with whom she had a distant relationship.

Brittni (pictured right at six years old) says she felt neglected during her childhood. A part of her early life still seared in her memory were the hurtful words she says her parents would often say to her. The California native recalled: I never felt accepted by my family...when you don't heal from something, you carry that in your soul'

Brittni, pictured on the right with her siblings in their Santa Barbara home, yearned for financial freedom from her parents at an early age so at 16 years old she decided to become a stripper because she enjoyed the attention strippers received from men

Her first porn scene was at a mansion in Los Angeles, California. Hair and makeup ready, the then-18-year-old was not camera shy but was nervous about one thing: sex positions.

She had never watched pornography so was confused as the director yelled out positions shed never heard of. Despite her nerves, the novice won them over.

They were telling me I was going to be such a big star and that everyone is going to love me.

For me hearing all of this, I thought, this is awesome. People are going to love me and I'm going to be a star.

Brittni quickly became a professional and was shooting at least three scenes a day but a month into her stardom, she was diagnosed with gonorrhea.

She was even more humiliated after her agent told her just a shot in the butt and antibiotics would relieve her.

The event that would trigger Brittnis addiction occurred just a few days after her diagnosis. Having suffered from an eating disorder in her teens, she was upset when a director she was working with called her fat on set.

I had gotten out of the hospital not long before that, Brittni said. When I was a senior in high school I had anorexia and so that was really hard for me to hear.

At 5ft 1inches and 105 lbs, Brittni sported a thin frame - and weighed significantly less than the average woman her height. Still, wounded by the directors comments, she indulged in cocaine after listening to a friends advice on weight loss.

I was telling myself if I am in the tripple digits...it means I am fat, Brittni said.

I started looking for ways to lose weight and there was a model I was living with who suggested cocaine and so that's when my addiction started.

Over the next seven years, it just got worse.

Two years after stripping, Brittni, pictured here at an Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, became a successful porn star, although she says during her first shoot she knew nothing about sex positions

The novice eventually rocked the porn world for seven years, starred in 275 films and garnered $3 million, but she says her earnings were wasted on cocaine and painkillers, which catapulted the star into a deep depression and brought her close to committing suicide

During those years, Brittni would also take painkillers such as oxycodone and Vicodin when she suffered from withdrawal symptoms. Under the alias Jenna Presley, she still put on a brave face at her job and was quickly growing in popularity. Often, fans would approach her to enquire if theyd seen her somewhere, as though oblivious to who she was.

At 21 years old, Brittni garnered $3 million after appearing in 275 films but amid the glamor and fame that porn seemed to offer, Brittni reached one of the lowest points in her life. Broke and deep in depression she witnessed her boyfriend, a gang member, stabbed to death by a rival gang.

This incident left Brittni afraid for her life and drove her to attempt to take her own. In 2010, the California native snorted large amounts of crystal meth while in her bedroom with the lights off. She even began slitting her wrists multiple times, but Brittni says in that moment she heard a voice say, Turn the lights on and put the scissors down.

A verse in the Bible, Revelation 2:20, triggered a life change for Brittni in 2012. When she read this part of the Holy Book, she says she had her 'light bulb moment' to turn to God and quit porn

She attributes the voice to God and says the words dissuaded her from taking her life.

Had God not spoken to me that evening, without a shadow of doubt, I would have taken my life that day.

Brittni called her Christian grandparents in Santa Barbara that night. Her grandfather - who lived a two-hour drive away - took her to church and she says it was at this time she decided to commit her life fully to Jesus Christ.

Upon her return to Los Angeles, Brittni went back into porn because she says she was without the support of a Christian community and had entered the wrong crowd.

I didn't go back to church when I went home, she said.

I went back into the industry because this guy, who turned out to be a pimp, came into my life and got me back into porn, where I stayed for three and a half years.

But her light bulb moment happened again while on a flight to shoot a porn scene. She read a Bible verse, Revelation 2:20, which preaches against promiscuity.

Speaking about that moment she said: That was my lightbulb moment, I started to cry and I apologized to God. I didn't understand that this is what I've been doing all these years.

Brittni only had a check of $1500 left but still decided to break up her relationship with the pimp and to quit the industry  for good this time.

She took a job at a cab company earning $10 per hour, and became a regular at her local church, the Cornerstone Church of San Diego, where she has become a youth minister. In 2016, she married the churchs lead pastor, Richard de la Mora.

Brittni, who once craved nothing more than the approval from men, says she now only strives to be accepted by God. Her past is now a distant memory and she says she wants to keep it that way, although she plans to tell her children in the future.

I don't worry about my past, I want to teach my children that we all have a past and we don't judge because of it. We love them through it. I need to be the type of person that I want my children to be.

Brittni (pictured left) worked for a cab company for $10/hr after she quit porn. Not long after her revelation, she became a member of the Cornerstone Church in San Diego, California, where she fell in love with the lead pastor, Richard de la Mora (pictured right, holding a microphone). The two married in 2016 and often preach about their Christian faith together
The Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into the European referendum spending of Arron Banks' campaign group Leave.EU.

The elections watchdog said it was launching the probe following 'an assessment which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offences under the law may have occurred'.

Mr Banks tonight insisted the campaign group would be 'vigorously defending' the allegations - and suggested they were 'politically motivated' by his interest in the Clacton election race.

Leave.EU was an insurgent campaign backed financially by Mr Banks and supported by former Ukip leader Nigel Farage. It operated separately to the main Vote Leave campaign.

The Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into the European referendum spending return of Arron Banks' campaign group Leave.EU (file picture)

An Electoral Commission spokesman said: 'The Electoral Commission has begun an investigation into Leave.EU's EU Referendum spending return.

'This followed an assessment which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offences under the law may have occurred.

'The investigation is focused on whether one or more donations  including of services  accepted by Leave.EU was impermissible; and whether Leave.EU's spending return was complete.

'The time taken to complete an investigation varies on a case-by-case basis. Once the investigation is complete, the Commission will decide whether any breaches have occurred and, if so, what further action may be appropriate, in line with its Enforcement Policy.

'The outcome of concluded cases can be seen on the Commission's website.'

Nigel Farage was a leading supporter of the Leave.EU campaign, which was an insurgent operation separate to the main Vote Leave campaign (pictured on ITV today)

Mr Banks tonight claimed the Electoral Commission's probe was 'politically motivated' and was linked to his interest in running to be MP for Clacton.

He tweeted: 'The electoral commission Allowed the government to spend 11m on a pack of remain lies. We will be vigorously defending their allegations.'

The 11million figure is a reference to the official Government leaflet which set out David Cameron's administration's recommendation that Britons vote to Remain.

Mr Banks tonight insisted the campaign group would be 'vigorously defending' the allegations - and suggested they were 'politically motivated' by his interest in the Clacton election race

Leave.EU tried failed to win the designation to be the official Leave campaign in last year's referendum, losing out to the Vote Leave group spearheaded by Boris Johnson and other prominent Conservatives.

The Electoral Commission has previously announced that it is investigating the spending returns of both Vote Leave and the official Remain campaign, Britain Stronger In Europe, as well as a number of other groups involved in the campaign.

Leave.EU declared spending of 693,022 - close to the legal limit of 700,000 for the non-official campaign groups.
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These fascinating photographs show warriors in southern Ethiopia downing pints of cow's blood before fighting each other with sticks in a bid to impress women.

The 'Donga', or stick fight, is practised by Suri tribesmen at the end of each harvest. It combines combat with ritual and sport and aims to get young men used to bloodshed - which leaders believe comes in handy if they clash with other tribes.

Before a Donga, some Suri drink the fresh blood of their cattle. A warrior will make a small incision in the cow's carotid artery with a special sharp arrow. The tribe believe it to be full of vitamins to give fighters strength.

The one-on-one battles take place between different Suri villages with around 20 to 30 fighters on each side. The fights can be furious and can result in death, but there are also rules in place enforced by a referee.

The 'Donga', or stick fight, is practised by Suri tribesmen in southern Ethiopia at the end of each harvest. If they win the fight - which are furious and can often result in death - they are allowed to choose their pick of a girl from the tribe

The women can refuse a warrior but being chosen by a champion is considered a great honour. Men who triumph in brutal and bloody donga fights are considered heroes by the rest of the village and wider tribe

A tribeswoman with a lip plate wearing a skinned animal carcass on her head. While the lip plate and scaring on her shoulders might look bizarre to outsiders it is actually considered a sign of beauty among Ethiopian tribal societies

The Suri tribe inhabit the Omo Valley near Kibbish in southern Ethiopia. Children are known to decorate themselves with flowers, blossoms and green plants found around the Suri villages - although this tradition is not thought to be that old

A victorious warrior celebrates after winning a fight before choosing a potential wife. Warriors always fight naked to prove that they're tough and don't need armour - although it is strictly prohibited to hit a contestant when he is on the ground

The battles can be vicious and some warriors can be killed. If a fighter dies during battle his family will be compensated. However in accordance with tribal custom the men refuse to show pain - even while bearing deep flesh wounds

Decoration: After completing the blood meal ritual, the warriors go and wash themselves in the river before decorating themselves with mud to enhance their beauty

The Suri exist on the margins of the Ethiopian state and the capital regards them as trouble-makers. In 1994 the Ethiopian government passed laws banning stick fighting but the tradition nevertheless lives on

A warrior drains a cow's blood which will be downed by a fighter before battle. Tribesmen use a special arrow to make a small incision into the cow's carotid artery in order to make it bleed. They have to drink quickly before the blood coagulates

The cow will be drained of nearly two litres of blood from its carotid artery. The Suri believe the blood is full of useful vitamins which will help them fight better. Such is the importance of the rituals that cows are only killed on special occasions

The warriors then have to drink the blood quickly before it coagulates. Unsuprisingly it is not easy to do and the drinker will often end up throwing it back up

A victorious fighter points his stick towards the woman of his choice. Throughout the day men are also drinking millet beer to give themselves some liquid courage. This means that fights have a tendency to get even more violent as the day goes on

Fighters will arrive on the field along with others from their village. They carry their strongest warrior on their shoulders. Many arrive in huge groups singing and shouting: 'I am the hero and who will fight me?'

A tribesman prepares for the fight ahead. Some Suri tribesmen also choose to wear colourful headresses and ceremonial straw arm cuffs (pictured on his leg) which offers them minimal protection during the fight

Other fighters also choose to wear highly decorative necklaces to show off during the battle. Real fights can involve hundreds of warriors the Surma, and other local tribes, have been known to stage donga in groups of 10 for paying tourists

The fighting can leave many participants with scars. Scarification is a sign of beauty in Sumi culture and see with both men and women - who often go through elaborate scarification processes

A young boy with flowers in his hair poses for the camera before watching the fights. There are concerns that as the southern Ethiopian area becomes more connected with the outside world tribes like the Suri will lose their cultural heritage

Besides being a courtship ritual the fights are designed to get young men used to bloodshed, which tribal elders believe could come in useful if there is a conflict

Throughout the day the men not fighting take the chance to drink millet beer and patch up their wounds. Here a fellow tribesmen shows off his rifle to another

Battles usually take place between Suri villages, which can consist of between 40 and 2,500 people

Suri women are allowed to have sex before marriage but must remain faithful to their husbands afterwards. They go through elaborate beauty processes including intricate scarification and hair dying

An Suri fighter with a homemade helmet. The fierce fighting is traditionally seen as a way of attracting women, and is a combination of martial art, ritual and sport. The south Omo valley has around 40 different tribes residing in it

A fighter can challenge anyone he wants and hit any part of his opponent's body. If a fighter gets hurt he wil not be granted any form of compensation - if he gets killed his family will get around 20 cows or one girl

Lip discs are considered to be a sign of beauty, and the size can dictate the value of a dowry a father can command

A man is knocked down during a fight while the referee looks on. It is strictly forbidden to hit a downed fighter

A tribesman cradles his AK-47 as her watches over the festivities. Shooting can break out in the donga if things get too rowdy

Spectators gather to watch the battle between Suri villages. The fights are considered a key cultural event and take place after the end of harvest

A woman places her necklace over a champion's stick. Donga fights attract the most beautiful girls in the area who hope to be chosen by the eventual champion. The point however is not to get married but to flirt

A tribesman helps a warrior armour up before a battle. The head and neck are the most vulnerable spots, and their minimum armour is designed to give them essential protection while not restricting movement

A young boy observes the battles from the crowd. The fights become increasingly violent thanks in large part to the tradition of stopping for regular libations to egg on the meeker men
Barack Obama is making his first major appearance since he left office on Monday.

Obama will host a town hall next week in his hometown at the University of Chicago centered on community organizing and civic engagement.

'This event is part of President Obamas post-presidency goal to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world,' the former president's office said in a statement today.

Barack Obama is making his first major appearance since he left office on Monday. He's seen above in New York last month

Obama's comeback speech falls just inside his successor's first 100 days in office.

The Democrat has been mostly quiet since leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on the heels of Donald Trump's shock win over his preferred replacement, Hillary Clinton.

He has spent much of the three months on vacation. The 55-year-old ex-president has only just returned from French Polynesia, where he was reportedly working on his memoir.

The Obamas technically live in Washington, D.C. still, having decided to remain in the capital city until their younger daughter finishes high school. They are expected to return to Chicago after that.

Obama's library is being built on Chicago's South Side and is scheduled to open in 2020.

Since he exited office, Obama has weighed in from time-to-time on subjects like healthcare in statements sent out by his office.

He yesterday called a leading French presidential candidate who's considered a moderate. His office has said the phone call to Emmanuel Macron - competing against a right-wing candidate, Marine Le Pen, in the mold of Trump - should not be considered an endorsement.

But Obama did wish Macron good luck in the weekend election that's likely to result in a May 7 run-off between the top two contenders.

Aside from those actions and a handful of tweets, Obama has stayed out of the way as Trump set fire to his signature achievements. His last tweet was nearly a month ago, on March 23, and it was to share condolences to the people of London after the city's terror attack.

Obama has done no television interviews, and Monday will be his first time delivering remarks since a goodbye to his staff on the afternoon of Jan. 20.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, and their elder daughter, Malia as pictured at Obama's goodbye speech in Chicago in January

His next known appearance after the town hall is next month in Boston, where he'll accept the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

He's headed to Germany in May, as well, for a get together with his friend Angela Merkel. Obama will be in Berlin visiting the German chancellor as Trump heads to Brussels for his first NATO summit.

The Belgium visit is the first stop on Trump's first overseas trip as president. He'll fly to Italy from there for a meeting of the G7, which includes Merkel's Germany.

Obama's announcement that he'll be speaking next week in Chicago follows his close friend and aide Valerie Jarrett's declaration on Morning Joe that the former community organizer will spend his time recruiting and training the 'Barack Obama 2.0s' to run for office.

'Who are the next generation of leaders that he can support and nurture and help grow,' she said of Obama's interests. 'How can we help get young people to think, why don't I run for office?'

Jarrett said the Obamas appreciate the 'extraordinary platform' they have in the post presidency, and they'll remain civically engaged.

'They're young, they're very popular, the president left office with very high approval ratings, as did she,' Jarrett said of Barack and Michelle 'and so how do you take that and galvanize the American people, citizens, to actually work to solve some of the big challenges that we lie ahead...I think both of them are committed to that.'
A veteran fire captain has been accused of paying a 15-year-old girl $300 to have sex with him at his fire station.

Richard Loughry allegedly approached the teenager after seeing her advertised as a 22-year-old called 'Grace' or 'Alexa' on Backpage.com.

The married 46-year-old invited the underage girl to his Las Vegas fire station and had sex with her for 45 minutes in his dorm room, arrest papers said.

Veteran fire captain Richard Loughry, 46, has been accused of paying a 15-year-old girl $300 to have sex with him at the Las Vegas fire station where he works

Arrest papers said Loughry contacted the alleged victim through the Backpage site, which is known for connecting men with prostitutes.

'Would you ship me a pic of you making the peace sign?' Loughry asked the girl in a text message on February 28, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

When she sent him a photo, he replied: 'Wow, beautiful. Are you good coming to see me at my station?

'Are you ok visiting me at my fire station? I have my own room, we will be totally alone.'

The alleged victim had been forced into prostitution about five days before her encounter with Loughry.

The fire captain told her to stay quiet as he led her to the captain's dorm room where they had sex, papers said.

The married 46-year-old invited the underage girl to his Las Vegas fire station (pictured) and had sex with her for 45 minutes in the captain's dormitory, arrest papers said

The girl said she heard voices coming from another room but could not work out whether they were from a television.

It is unclear from the arrest report whether other firefighters knew she was at the station.

Police tracked Loughry through a Samsung Galaxy phone, registered to a 'Tom Collins,' used in the text message exchange.

Loughry was with his wife when he was arrested as they walked to his pickup truck at a Wal-Mart parking lot on Monday.

Authorities say they veteran Las Vegas fire captain is facing lewdness with a child, statutory sexual seduction and child prostitution charges

Loughry admitted he had brought other women to the fire station 'to have sex on a few occasions' without his wife knowing, in an interview with detectives

His arrest was made as a result of a child prostitution investigation involving the girl.

She was forced into sex trafficking by an unidentified man over a nine-day stretch in February and March.

Loughry admitted he had brought other women to the fire station 'to have sex on a few occasions' without his wife knowing, in an interview with detectives.

He claimed he had 'no idea' that one of these girls 'could have been a juvenile' and would not have had sex with her if he did.

Loughry's attorney Craig Hendricks called the case 'an incredibly embarrassing situation'.

He argued that if the victim had actually been 22, Loughry would have been charged with a misdemeanor.

'I'm not downplaying what my client may have done or did not do, but he cooperated with authorities in every way, shape and form,' Hendricks said.

'Now he's facing 94 years in prison. That is one incredible disparity.'

A judge set Loughry's bail at $25,000 on Thursday. He has been put on house arrest and a ban on the use of the internet if he posts bail.

A preliminary hearing is set for May 4.
Dramatic video shows an alleged car thief dragging a New York City police officer down a Brooklyn street in a failed escape attempt that started a fight with the suspect's friends.

Emmanuel Devallon, 22, was racing a 2016 Nissan Maxima that police said was stolen from a Hertz rental garage at JFK Airport against his friend Akwasi Sakyi in a Honda CRV at 2am on April 5 in Brooklyn.

Police stopped Devallon near Church and Coney Island avenues because they suspected him of driving the stolen vehicle, the New York Daily News reports.

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Emmanuel Devallon, 22, was racing a 2016 Nissan Maxima against his friend Akwasi Sakyi in a Honda CRV at 2am April 5 in Brooklyn

As plainclothes officer Raymond Buono tried to turn the car off, Devallon drove away - dragging Buono about 300 feet down the street.

Buono managed to gain control of the car as other officers descended on Devallon.

That's when Sakyi, the 25 year old Devallon had been racing, pulled up in the Honda.

Video footage of the incident shows Sakyi and his passenger, 21-year-old Ashley Briggs, trying to push past the officers assisting in Devallon's arrest.

Briggs and Sakyi get in the officers faces, repeatedly asking them, 'What you all doing?', with the woman repeatedly screaming, as the cops yell at the duo to 'Stand the f*** back'.

NYPD Officer Raymond Buono asked 22-year-old Devallon to get out of his car. Instead, he drove off, dragging Buono down a Brooklyn street (similar to the one pictured)

After police rebuff Devallon's friends' requests to get closer to the arrest, several cops push Sakyi to the ground and fling Briggs away from the brawl, who continues to scream.

By this time, Buono has returned with scrapes and cuts on his leg from being dragged, police said.

Devallon was finally arrested and charged with felony assault and resisting arrest.

For their loyalty to Devallon, Briggs and Sakyi were both charged with disorderly conduct and marijuana possession after cops found a joint in the Honda.
A man who died after being hit by a lorry had been at his father's funeral just hours earlier and was still wearing the same suit, an inquest heard.

Daniel Wallace was killed after being hit by a HGV the same day he buried his father and celebrated his life at a pub with his family.

The inquest heard Mr Wallace, who was intoxicated, wandered off after being driven to his friend's house from his father's wake. He was walking down an unlit road when he was hit.

The Merrie Lion pub in Fenny Compton, where Mr Wallace was celebrating his father's wake

The UK Mail HGV driver Mr Little didn't see the 34-year-old Mr Wallace, who was wearing a dark suit, until just before he hit him on the A423 near Banbury, Oxfordshire, just before midnight on November 21 last year.

Mr Little told the Oxford Coroner's Court inquest he stopped and spent 10 minutes searching around the vehicle, before he eventually found Mr Wallace in some undergrowth by the side of the road.

He called an ambulance and started CPR, but Mr Wallace was officially declared dead sometime after midnight on the Sunday.

HGV driver told Oxford Coroner's Court (pictured) that he found Mr Wallace in the undergrowth by the side of the road

Mr Little said: 'I tried so hard to bring him back. I wasn't going to give up.'

Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter delivered a verdict of death by road traffic collision.
A woman whose two children died in a house fire in the Republic of Ireland is to be woken from a medically induced coma.

Biddy O'Brien, 31, was so badly injured in the fire in Clondalkin, Dublin, that doctors put her into a coma to prevent her dying of shock.

Her son Holly, three, and four-year-old son Jordan were both killed in the blaze, which engulfed the Cluainin Cronan apartments.

Biddy's pregnant cousin Annmarie O'Brien, 27, also died, as did her two-year-old daughter Hannah Paris.

Biddy O'Brien (pictured, left) is unaware her son Jordan (right) died in the fire. She is going to be brought out of a medically induced coma

The fire which killed Holly (pictured) is believed to have been started by a candle

Jim O'Brien, from the Bray Travellers Community Development Group, told the Irish Independent: 'I have been told the doctors are slowly removing the bandages from her wounds and they seem pleased with the way Biddy is healing physically, but she still has a long road ahead.'

He said: 'They are also slowly waking her, but she is sedated. She might know some small things about the fire now.

'Biddy was knocked unconscious by the smoke and suffered extensive burns. The family have to take things one day at a time.'

It is thought a candle in the living room started the devastating fire on March 8.

Jordan and Holly's father, Jason McGinn, attended their funeral recently.

Sean Patel, father to Hannah Paris and Annmarie's unborn child, AJ, shouldered his girlfriend's coffin.

Ann-Marie O'Brien, pictured above left, was living with her child Hannah Paris, pictured above right, at the building in Dublin when the blaze struck. Both of them died in the fire

The Sonas organisation, which supports domestic violence victims, has four apartments and six houses in the Cluainin Cronan complex, pictured above, where the fire broke out

Jamie McGinn, father of Jordan and Holly, sits in the hearse with the coffin after the funeral

Grief-stricken family and friends at the funeral for the 'five angels in heaven' who were killed in a fire

The coffins of Jordan and Holly O'Brien, who died in the fire, are carried from St Anne's Church

The coffin of Annemarie O'Brien, who died in a fire, is carried by her partner Sean Patel

Hundreds of mourners packed St Anne's in Shankill, Co Dublin, for the funeral Mass, with floral tributes, balloons, photos and teddies adorning the church as the coffins sat below the altar

Parish priest Father John O'Connor said no words of his could soften the blow of the tragedy.

'No words of mine can soften the terrible blow that you have received but I ask you all to put your trust in God and to accept his holy will,' he said.

'Biddy is a very strong and intelligent person and she now needs the love and support of all of us as never before,' Fr O'Connor added.

The coffin of Jordan O'Brien, who died in the fire, outside St Anne's Church
President Trump and Ivanka Trump greeted the American charity worker today they helped free after she was wrongfully locked away in an Egyptian prison for three years.

Aya Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, landed on American soil late Thursday night and just hours later she met with her new president and his trusted daughter on Friday morning.

Trump and his aides won the release of the 30-year-old after she was imprisoned in Cairo on what human rights group called bogus human trafficking charges.

The president shook her hand Friday and said, 'We are very happy to have Aya Hijazi back home, and it's a great honor to have her in the Oval Office with her brother and thank you very much.'

The release comes after President Trump met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the White House earlier in April and personally asked him to help out.

President Trump and Ivanka Trump sat down with Aya Hijazi, an American charity worker they helped free after she was wrongfully locked away in an Egyptian prison for three years, on Friday morning

Aya Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, landed on American soil late Thursday night. The 30-year-old was acquitted of a 'bogus' human trafficking charge by a Cairo court on Sunday

Ivanka later tweeted after the meeting: 'Welcome home, Aya!'

The White House would not say Friday what Trump may have promised el-Sisi in exchange for the aid worker's release from prison.

She was acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday along with seven others who had worked with street children.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, just outside of Washington and attended George Mason University, was released from jail on Tuesday.

She was flown to Joint Base Andrews, the US military airfield on the outskirts of D.C., on a military plane accompanied by a top White House official, a senior administration official said.

Trump and his daughter welcomed Aya and her brother Basel Hijazi to the White House on Friday. Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump and Ivanka's husband, was in the meeting, as well.

So was Dina Powell, a deputy national security advisor to Trump. Powell is Egyptian-American. She had been in the region traveling with US Defense Secretary James Mattis when Hijazi was set free and flew with her Washington.

Trump had privately asked President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to help out with her release when he paid a visit to Washington on April 3, said an official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

'The president directly engaged behind the scenes on her behalf and made it clear to the Egyptian government how important it was to him that this American be released and returned,' White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed Friday.

Spicer told reporters, 'The president discussed the issue privately when he visited the White House a short time ago.

Trump did not mention the case publicly when he met with el-Sisi and drew flak for it from human rights groups.

Instead, Trump said he agrees 'on so many things' with the Egyptian dictator and hailed his leadership.

'I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. Hes done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation,' Trump said. 'We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt. The United States has, believe me, backing, and we have strong backing.'

The White House says that negotiations for Hijazi's release had begun prior to the meeting with el-Sisi. The outcome of the case has the administration convinced Trump's strategy was effective.

'It was something that he believed from a behind-the-scenes sense was best addressed to achieve in a positive outcome for her,' Spicer said Friday.

Hijazi's lawyer, Wade McMullen, told NBC News: 'I think Trump and his team deserve credit for making this a priority at the most critical time in her case.'

The acquittal of Hijazi, her husband, and four other humanitarian workers reportedly came about as the result of President Donald Trump's (right) intervention. Trump and his aides worked for weeks in persuading President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (left) to release the detainees

Aya Hijazi (left) and her husband Mohamed Hassanein (right) are founders of Belady, an NGO that promotes a better life for street children, were acquitted on charges of child abuse by a Cairo court

US officials had raised Hijazi's case with the Egyptians soon after Trump took office on January 20, an official told Reuters.

Hijazi, 30, founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children.

She had been in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months.

According to the Washington Post, Trump and his aides worked 'for several weeks' with Egyptian authorities to secure her, husband Mohamed Hassanein and four other humanitarian workers.

Hassanein and the other worker are all Egyptian nationals.

Human rights organizations denounced Egyptian authorities for leveling what they say were 'bogus' charges against Hijazi and the other five defendants.

The Obama administration, which made it a policy not to host el-Sisi at the White House, had failed to gain Egypt's cooperation in freeing the defendants.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and attended George Mason University, was released from jail on Tuesday, having been held for nearly three years

Hijazi, 30, founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children. She is seen above flashing a victory sign following her acquittal on Sunday

But Trump's warm and public embrace of the Egyptian president during his recent visit to the White House appeared to sway Cairo to free Hijazi.

Spicer wouldn't say publicly on Friday if there was more to it than that.

'I'm just telling you that, as this point, all I'm comfortable in saying is that we're pleased that she has returned home,' he told a reporter asking about el-Sisi's change of heart.

The newly freed Egyptian-American had the chance to personally thank the president on Friday, when she visited the White House along with her brother.

'It's been a roller coaster of emotions the past couple of days,' Basel Hijazi told the Post in a telephone interview Thursday from aboard the plane. 'We're crying with relief to have them out.'

'We're very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. We're so grateful.'
A defense lawyer is being criticized for telling a Tennessee jury that women are 'especially good' at lying 'because they're the weaker sex'.

Attorney Steve Farese made the comments during closing arguments of the trial of Mark Giannini, a wealthy businessman accused of raping a woman who came to his house for a job interview, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Farese maintains that the sex was consensual and has questioned the woman's credibility.

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Controversial: Steve Farese (pictured in 2014), is being criticized for telling a Tennessee jury that women are 'especially good' at lying 'because they're the weaker sex' during a rape trial

Farese (pictured in 2007) told the jury of 11 women and three men that the victim is 'totally unbelievable'. Farese went on to tell the jury that the victim was crying 'on cue' and she was dressed up like an 'Amish person'

Farese made the comments during closing arguments of the trial of Mark Giannini (pictured), a wealthy businessman accused of raping a woman who came to his house for a job interview

Several people took to Twitter to express their outrage at Farese's remarks

'People can be very good at lying. Women can be especially good at it because they're the weaker sex and we ... and we want to protect them and not have anybody take advantage of them at least I do,' Farese said to a jury of 11 women and three men.

Several people took to Twitter to express their outrage over Farese's statements.

One user called for the Memphis Bar Association to investigate Farese to determine if his license should be revoked.

The closing arguments for Giannini's rape trial started shortly after 3.30pm on Thursday, when Farese began with a PowerPoint slide that showed: 'Saying it does not make it so.'

He told the jury that it's easier to be a victim than a suspect, referencing a lawsuit that the woman filed, which says she's seeking $6 million, according to the Commercial Appeal.

'She's totally unbelievable,' Farese, says urging the jury to 'follow the money.' He continued his argument saying Giannini is 'not guilty'.

Farese told the jury the woman was crying 'on cue' and that she was dressed up like an 'Amish person'.

He went on to ask and answer his own question: 'Am I calling (her) a bad name because she was engaged in the oldest profession in the book out of desperation? No,' according to the Commercial Appeal.

Memphis Area Women's Council executive director Deborah Clubb calls Farese's comments 'absolutely despicable'.

Farese told the newspaper that his job 'is not to care if anybody gets offended' and 'smart people will see it for what it is'. Giannini is charged with three counts of aggravated rape against one woman in this trial.

One Twitter user called for the Memphis Bar Association to investigate Farese for his statements
A boy-racer who hired a Lamborghini Aventador supercar was left looking for a lift home after police impounded the 300,000 motor.

The driver, who had leased supercars with two friends, was stopped by traffic officers after being accused of tearing around roads near Sheffield in South Yorkshire.

Photos posted on social media featured the bright-green sportscar on the back of a tow truck and the friends standing by the side of the road as they were quizzed by South Yorkshire Police.

Officers stopped the eye-catching motor alongside a McLaren and a Ferrari.

Pictured: The Lamborghini Aventador supercar is taken away on a tow truck after being seized by traffic police in south Yorkshire

Pictured: Police stopped the friends, who had hired the Lamborghini, McLaren 570s 3.8l and Ferrari, for their 'unsociable driving'

South Yorkshire Police has warned drivers that unsociable driving 'will not be tolerated'. Pictured, the Lamborghini is towed away

A South Yorkshire Police spokesman said: 'This seizure proved very expensive for a young male and his friends who had hired out these cars.

'Under the police reform act if you are seen driving in an unsociable manner we can seize your vehicle and impound it.

'Unsociable driving will not be tolerated and we will deal with you accordingly.'
Abortion prosecution: Michelle Roberts, 43, of Virginia, has been indicted on a rarely prosecuted felony count of producing an abortion or miscarriage with the intent to destroy an unborn baby

A 43-year-old Virginia woman has been indicted on a rarely prosecuted charge of producing an abortion or miscarriage, more than a year after police unearthed the skeletal remains of her unborn son.

A grand jury in Chesterfield, Virginia, indicted Michelle Roberts on the Class 4 felony charge last month, alleging that the woman had terminated her pregnancy during the third trimester with the intent to destroy her unborn baby.

Roberts was charged under a law passed in 1950 that prohibits giving a pregnant woman a drug or taking another action in order to end a pregnancy.

The Virginia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union decried the application of the law in the Roberts case, arguing that it was never intended to be applied to expectant mothers, but rather to 'third parties.'

Gail Deady, legal fellow with Virginia ACLUs Secular Society Womens Rights, said in a statement to NBC12 earlier this month: No woman should fear arrest or jail for ending her own pregnancy or for pregnancy loss this is another example of overreach and targeting of a pregnant woman in an attempt to shame and punish her for her circumstances.

Resting place: Roberts was arrested in March, more than a year after police discovered the fetal remains of the woman's unborn son in the backyard of this Chesterfield County home

Roberts reportedly told a relative that she had delivered her son at home but then passed out. While she was unconscious, she said the baby died and her adult daughter put the body in a box and buried it in the backyard (pictured)

The case against Ms Roberts, who has a grown daughter and who has been battling drug addiction for years, began unfolding in February 2016 when police in Chesterfield County got a tip that human skeletal remains were buried in the backyard of a brick home at 6219 Philbrook Road.

Police interviewed Roberts, who lived at that address with her daughter and her stepfather, and the woman confirmed the presence of remains on the property, reported the station WRIC.

Forensic investigators who were called to the scene dug up the yard and recovered the skeleton of a male fetus, which had been buried there five or six months prior, according to police.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later performed an autopsy and concluded that the fetus was destroyed due to penetrating injuries to the head and maternal use of methadone and amphetamine.

In late march, the case was presented to the grand jury, which returned the indictment for Roberts.

According to court documents, back in July 2015, Roberts told Linda Castillo, the mother of her incarcerated boyfriend, Danny Coppola, that she was five months pregnant with his son and that her due date was in October.

Roberts' grown daughter, Laura Coppola, told police her mother (pictured) delivered a stillborn baby and then buried it herlsef in the backayrd

But when Castillo saw Roberts in mid-October, she noted that the woman no longer appeared pregnant, reported the Washington Post.

Roberts reportedly told Castillo, This isn't anything we need to discuss here, according to court documents.

A month later, police were called to the family's home on Philbrook Road for a domestic dispute involving Roberts' daughter, Lauren Coppola, and her boyfriend, Dylan Kidwell.

At one point during the shouting match, Kidwell reportedly yelled at Roberts, who was present, You better watch yourself, because I know whats buried in the back yard, reported The Post.

Castillo, who was also there, confronted Roberts about Kidwells outburst. Roberts then admitted that she had delivered her baby at the house, but that the boy 'took one breath' before the mother passed out.

When Roberts came to, she allegedly told Castillo, her daughter Lauren told her the newborn had died and that she placed the body in a box and laid it to rest in the backyard.

When interviewed by police during the investigation in the winter of 2016, Lauren Coppola claimed that she helped her mother deliver her baby brother, who was stillborn, and that it was Roberts who buried the body in the backyard, not knowing that it was against the law to dispose of human remains in such a fashion.

Roberts is due back in court for a status conference next Monday. If convicted of the charge against her, she could face up to 10 years in prison.
For the fourth time in as many days, Russian military planes have flown too close to the U.S. for comfort.

Each night this week starting Monday, the Russian military has sent planes flying towards Alaska.

The planes have remained in international airspace for the length of their journeys, but have gotten as close as 36 nautical miles off the Alaskan mainland.

While military officials don't seem too concerned about the Russian fly bys, the mysterious missions raise questions because the Russians haven't flown this close to Alaska in two years.

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On Thursday night, the Russian military sent a pair of Tu-95 Bear bombers (like the one seen above) towards Alaska. It was the fourth night in a week that the Russians have sent aircraft close to Alaska

The first incident happened Monday night, when two nuclear-capabe Tu-95 Bear bombers were intercepted by American F-22 fighter jets about 100 miles off the coast of Kodiak Island.

The following night, a pair of the same kind of bombers flew towards Alaska, staying north of the Aleutian Islands.

The U.S. Air Force didn't sent any fighter jets to follow the planes this time, instead sending a surveillance plane to make sure the larger bombers weren't hiding any stealth planes flying underneath them.

The Air Force also decided against scrambling fighter jets on Wednesday, when the Russians sent a pair of Ilyushin IL-38s spy planes near the Aleutian Islands. It's unclear how far those spy planes got before turning back.

When the two bombers got close to Alaska Monday night, two F-22s (like the ones seen above) were sent out to intercept the planes. Both American and Canadian fighter jets were sent out Thursday night to watch the Russian bombers

On Tuesday, the American military sent out an E-3 surveillance aircraft to make sure the Russian bombers weren't concealing spy planes below

On Wednesday, the russians sent out a IL-38 maritime patrol aircraft (like the one seen above)

Last night, the Russians sent out two long-range bombers again, and this time the Canadians joined in, sending fighter jets out with the Americans to intercept the Russian bombers about 700 miles southeast of Anchorage.

There is 'no other way to interpret this other than as strategic messaging,' the official told CNN.

The mid-air incidents comes just days after secretary of state Rex Tillerson said US and Russian relations had reached a 'low point'.

Tillerson made the remark while seated with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The mid-air incidents come just days after secretary of state Rex Tillerson said US and Russian relations had reached a 'low point'. Tillerson is pictured with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on April 12 in Moscow

The two met in Moscow during the secretary's visit, during which Russian bombers also caused a similar incident near Japan.

The Japanese military scrambled 14 fighters after a trio of bombers was spotted off the coast.

Monday's incident marked the first time in almost two years since Russian bombers last came so close to the American coast.

The previous confrontation in the skies took place on July 4, 2015, as President Vladimir Putin seemingly wanted to deliver a message to the US.

The bombers were off the coast of Alaska and California.

'Good morning, American pilots. We are here to greet you on your Fourth of July Independence Day,' the bombers told US officials, CNN reported at the time.
Keiren Batten, 43, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, was found not guilty of sexual assualt. He said the torture he suffered during sex sessions with a woman, 27, was worse

A self-confessed sadomasochist accused of strapping a woman, 27, to a 'torture board' and shocking her vagina with 240 volts has been found not guilty of sexual assault.

Road worker Keiren Batten, 43, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, dramatically showed a judge and jury how he was strapped to a 'torture board' and claimed he suffered worse injuries than her.

He claimed he was 'branded' and left scarred when his genitals were blowtorched by the woman against his wishes as he was strapped to the board.

Batten also said she carved her name into his thigh with a Stanley knife.

The jury of seven women and five men at Cambridge Crown Court took more than eight hours to decide by a majority that Batten, of Radcliffe Road, Hitchin, was not guilty of sexually assaulting the 27-year-old woman in 2014.

Jurors also acquitted him, again by a majority, of one offence of common assault involving a push during an argument, but they failed to reach a verdict on a second assault relating to a head butt. The jury were discharged.

Judge David Farrell QC gave the Crown Prosecution Service a week to decide if it wanted to re-try Batten on that matter.

Earlier this week, defence barrister Neil Fitzgibbon asked Batten to lie down on the board in court and strap himself to it using the head, body, arm and leg collars, belts and chain. The defendant is 5ft 6in tall and the woman is 5ft 9in.

Judge Farrell came down from his bench to stand with barristers and jurors to examine Batten's demonstration on the floor of the court.

Jurors were also shown explicit photographs of Batten's genitals bearing the branding and burn marks.

Prosecutor Simon Wilshire had alleged that Batten 'tortured' the woman with his home-made electric shocker by attaching crocodile clips to her labia while she was strapped to the restraint board he had made from plywood and pet collars and belts.

Batten claimed the woman carved her name into his thigh with a Stanley knife, Cambridge Crown Court was told. In his defence, Batten said he enjoyed playing the submissive role and became sexually aroused by bondage and pain

He said Batten was 'obsessed with sadomasochistic sexual practices' and continued: 'He used her to satisfy his physical, dangerous sexual desires re bondage, sadism and restraint.'

The complainant told the court she went along with some of the kinky sex - which was more extreme than in the notorious book and film 'Fifty Shades of Grey' - because he said she was boring in bed. Twice she was electrocuted through her nipples.

But, she claimed Batten on another occasion connected the lead to her vagina although she had said he must not.

'He put the crocodile clips inside, attached to my labia, and shocked me,' she said.

'He turned it on and I just caught my breath because you think you are going to die. I have never experienced anything so hideous in my life.

Batten claimed he was 'branded' and left scarred when his genitals were blowtorched by the woman against his wishes as he was strapped to the board

'I never went on the board again. After that 'I was rubbish in bed' and 'everybody else was better', 'I was just a prude'.'

The witness said: 'He calls it a torture and it is torture really. As I got a bit braver I said no and that's when he got bored and went elsewhere.'

In cross-examination, she accepted she carved her name with a Stanley knife into his inner thigh, but denied she used a blowtorch or the shocker on him.

In his defence, Batten said he enjoyed playing the submissive role and became sexually aroused by bondage and pain.

He said the woman had tied him naked to the board, whipped, spanked and electrocuted his nipples and testicles. He said she had also blowtorched his penis, groin and leg and written her name with a Stanley knife, all during the same sex session.

He told the court he had not consented to that adding : 'It was going too far.'

He claimed he made the board to his measurements and the woman had never gone on the board or been electrocuted.

Batten had earlier pleaded guilty to criminally damaging a mobile phone and taking a hammer to a wall at the complainant's home and has been remanded in custody to be sentenced for those offences on 2 May.
The White House said Friday that it has a 'strong' level of confidence that the U.S. government won't shut down next week over a congressional spending impasse, but acknowledged that its budget office is preparing for the worst.

'We're working with members on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers, to find a way forward,' press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at the White House. 'But I think we feel confident that that will happen  that we will avoid a shutdown' after April 29.

President Donald Trump echoed that sentiment in brief Oval Office remarks, telling journalists: 'I think we're in good shape.'

But the administration's sunny public face hides the stark reality that Trump's insistence on funding for his southern border wall  along with a dramatic increase in military spending and the power to deny federal grants to so-called 'sanctuary cities'  is threatening to become Trump's first real Gordian knot.

President Donald Trump, pictured Friday with Aya Hijazi  an Egyptian-American aid worker who was released this week following three years of captivity in Egypt  said the White House is 'in good shape' to avert a government shutdown at midnight on April 29

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, pictured Thursday, told reporters Friday that 'I think we feel confident ... that we will avoid a shutdown'

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney confirmed to reporters on Friday that his office is doing what's required to make sure the administration isn't caught off guard if negotiations fail.

'While we do not expect a lapse' in funding for the government, Mulvaney said, 'prudence and common sense require routine assessments to be made.'

Spicer said the Office of Management and Budget is 'required to take certain steps, and so they are just going through those routine steps.'

In an OMB fact sheet provided by the White House, the agency said it does not believe a shutdown will be necessary.

But the current government purse, provided through what Congress calls a 'continuing resolution,' or a 'CR,' will dry up next Friday when the measure expires.

That will provide Democrats the leverage they need to extract concessions from Trump's negotiators as Republicans unveil a new catch-all spending plan next week  in the hope of finalizing it before the budget clock strikes midnight.

Congress could, if talks break down, enact another stopgap CR in order to stall for time.

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney (right) insists that there's no need to fear a shutdown is imminent, even as his agency prepares for the worst

'A shutdown is never a desired end and neither is it a strategy,' Mulvaney told the Associated Press on Friday.

But the final spending blueprint will likely require some Democrats to vote 'yes' if it is to succeed.

That means they could cast anything on Trump's wish-list as a poison bill, digging their heels in until someone wins Washington's annual tug-of-war.

'We want border wall funding. We want greater latitude to deny federal grants to sanctuary cities,' Spicer said Friday.

'We want hiring of immigration agents. And we want $30 billion to infuse in the military budget. Those are our priorities.'

'But no one wants a shutdown,' he added. 'We want to keep it going.'

Mulvaney told the Associated Press that the White House, one way or another, will have the upper hand.

'Elections have consequences,' he said.

But Democrats were in no mood to give Mulvaney a wide berth.

'Everything had been moving smoothly until the administration moved in with a heavy hand,' said Matt House, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Trump puffed his chest out during Thursday's press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, suggesting his team can shepherd 'both' a budget package and a health insurance reform bill through Congress.

'I want to get both. Are you shocked to hear that?' he asked a reporter.

'I think we want to keep the government open,' he added later. 'Don't you agree? So, yeah, I think we'll get both.'
Locals flocked to see a statue of the Virgin Mary after it began 'weeping tears' at a church in Paraguay.

The Virgin was seen with what appeared to be tears running down her cheeks in the church of Santa Librada in the city of Villarrica.

One young woman even fainted after witnessing the phenomenon, according to witnesses.

The Virgin was seen with what appeared to be tears running down her cheeks in the church of Santa Librada in the city of Villarrica

Zully de Meaurio, who claimed to have spotted the phenomenon, said: 'I went to the church with my makeup box and when I approached the Virgin I saw that it had water in one of the eyes.

'I called my husband and told him, look at this, she is crying, she has water! And then I grabbed my mobile phone and started to record it.'

The video shows the statue of the Virgin with a drop of liquid in her eyes.

A woman in the background can be heard saying: 'She wants us to pray, she wants us to pray.'

One young woman even fainted after witnessing the phenomenon, according to witnesses

Ms De Meaurio then started to cry and called her husband and all the neighbours in the area.

Another witness said: 'I was called by Zully and went to the church and started crying as she was also crying.'

Zully de Meaurio, who claimed to have spotted the phenomenon, said: 'I went to the church with my makeup box and when I approached the Virgin I saw that it had water in one of the eyes'

One of the neighbours near the church said: 'I hope this could help for peace, so that our authorities will not fight anymore.'

According to local media, the church is small temple but boasts a large congregation.

Only a very small number of similar occurrences have been accepted by the Catholic Church as valid miracles, with numerous others proven to be hoaxes.

But it has accepted some modern events as miracles, such as the recovery from Parkinson's Disease of Marie Simon-Pierre, attributed to the late Pope John Paul II.

Claims of miracles that are never confirmed by the Church are common.

Last year, a Mexican man claimed that a statue of the Virgin Mary he kept in his house had been weeping blood for four months.
The high-profile probe former Attorney General Eric Holder is conducting into workplace sexual harassment at Uber is being extended, according to a new report.

Holder has been granted an extension until the end of May 'ensure that no stone is left unturned', board member Arianna Huffington, who is overseeing the review, said in an Thursday memo obtained by ReCode.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick called for the 'urgent investigation' in February after explosive claims from former employees emerged.

The probe has included 'information received from hundreds of employees through interviews and anonymous online focus groups', according to the newly leaked memo.

'We anticipate the report by the end of May,' Huffington wrote in the leaked memo to Uber staff.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder has been granted an extension until the end of May to complete his sexual harassment probe at Uber, according to a leaked memo

HUFFINGTON MEMO Memo from board member Arianna Huffington to Uber staff on April 20, per ReCode: Subject line: An update on the Holder report Hi everybody, When Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran began their review, the Board subcommittee (consisting of David Bonderman, Bill Gurley, and myself) to which Eric and Tammy have been reporting on a weekly basis assured them that they would have all the support and time necessary to conduct an intensive, thorough review of Ubers workplace and culture. Eric and Tammy have now asked us for more time to complete their assessment, which includes information received from hundreds of employees through interviews and anonymous online focus groups and reflects the global scale of the companys operations. To ensure that no stone is left unturned, the Board subcommittee has granted that request and we anticipate the report by the end of May. Thank you, Arianna Advertisement

Holder and attorney Tammy Albarran are leading the investigation and reporting to a board subcommittee of Huffington and two other directors.

Holder served as Attorney General under President Obama, and has some Silicon Valley experience, after helping Airbnb craft an anti-discrimination policy.

The allegations emerged in a lengthy blog post by former Uber employee and best-selling author Susan Fowler Rigetti, who detailed a number of concerning incidents she experienced during her year with the company.

Kalanick called the accusations 'abhorrent and against everything we believe in,' and said he's instructed a new chief human resources officer to conduct an 'urgent' investigation into Fowler's claims.

He continued: 'There can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber.

'Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.'

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, left, said in February that the company would launch an investigation into the serious accusations of former employee Susan Fowler Rigetti, right, who detailed a number of concerning incidents she experienced during her year with the company

Huffington Post creator and Uber board member Ariana Huffington has promised to aide the human resources officer in the investigation.

In Fowler's post, titled 'Reflecting on One Very Strange Year at Uber,' the author recounts being propositioned sexually by a manager on her first day at the office.

Using the company chat system, she said that the unnamed manager told her that he and his girlfriend had an open relationship, but that his girlfriend was having an easier time finding sexual partners than he was.

He continued, saying that he wanted to stay out of trouble at work, but that it was difficult because he was trying to find women to have sex with, Fowler said.

'It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR,' she continued.

Kalanick called the accusations 'abhorrent and against everything we believe in,' and said he's instructed a new chief human resources officer to conduct an 'urgent' investigation into Fowler's claims

According to her account, she joined the company as a site reliability engineer in November 2015. At that time, she says, about 20 per cent of the employees in her field there were women - compared to just three per cent on her last day.

Despite her reporting the incident to management, the manager received no repercussions from his actions apart from a 'stern talking-to', she was told, because he was a 'high performer', meaning he had positive reviews from superiors.

In Fowler's post , titled 'Reflecting on One Very Strange Year at Uber,' the author recounts being propositioned sexually by a manager on her first day at the office

She said that both HR and upper management officials didn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was 'probably just an innocent mistake on his part', and was a 'first offense'.

It was not, however, this manager's first offense, Fowler discovered after discussing the matter further with fellow female employees. She said many women had experienced similar sexual harassment in the office, and some even from the same manager.

In response to Fowler's report of the incident, Uber HR reportedly told her that she could choose to either move to another team and not have to interact with the problematic manager, or remain on the same team - but to be aware that the manager would probably rate her poorly when it came time for performance reviews.

Fowler said that one HR representative explicitly told her that a negative performance review 'wouldn't be retaliation' because she'd been given a choice whether to remain on the team.

Uber HR reportedly told Fowler that she could choose to either move to another team and not have to interact with the problematic manager, or remain on the same team - but be aware that the manager would probably rate her poorly when it came time for performance reviews

Following another incident in which she claims Uber reportedly refused to purchase leather jackets for the six women on the engineer team despite buying them for the over 100 men in the company, Fowler again found herself in a terse meeting with human resources.

Although she had at this point expressed countless concerns via chat and email to the HR team, the representative allegedly told her there was 'absolutely no record' of the incidents she claimed to have reported.

A breaking point for Fowler came shortly after, during a one-on-one meeting with her new manager. She says he told her that she was on 'very thin ice' for her continued convergence with to human resources, and threatened to fire her if she did so again.

She alerted him that such action would be illegal - and again reported the threat to HR and upper management - though no action was taken, she later found out, because of her manager's status as a 'high performer'.

A breaking point for Fowler came shortly after, during a one-on-one meeting with her new manager. She says he told her that she was on 'very thin ice' for her continued convergence with to human resources, and threatened to fire her if she did so again (stock image)

The ramifications for Fowler were substantial during her year with the company, and affected her professionally by having two transfer attempts blocked and rendering her ineligible for the Stanford University computer science graduate program she was enrolled in.

In the post, she claims to have overheard her manager bragging that although the company was losing women, he still had some on his team. The only explanation she says she received for having her transfer attempts blocked were that she was not showing signs of an 'upward career trajectory'.

Fowler has moved on to write a best-selling book on computing theory and has been invited to speak at major technology conferences.
A hapless Italian teenager has been fined thousands for urinating in the street.

The 19-year-old had left a bar in the city of Genoa with some of his friends early on a February morning.

He claimed he couldn't find any public toilets, so he took the chance to relieve himself in a secluded alleyway.

The 19-year-old was at a bar in the city of Genoa (pictured). He was fined 10,000 - or the equivalent of 8,000

He told Italian media: 'There were no other places open in the area and ours had just closed'

Unfortunately for him the police caught him in the act and charged him with public indecency, the Local reported.

But it got worse the next week when the student discovered he'd been fined a staggering 10,000 - the equivalent of 8,000.

The boy's father told Italian media: 'I re-read the fine three or four times, thinking I'd misunderstood. But it was all true.

The teenager's father couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the fine and even sought legal advice - but he was told his chances of winning were 'basically zero'

'I sought legal advice but they told me it was better to pay; that we could appeal but the chance of winning was basically zero.'

Luckily the teenager only ended up having to pay a third of the fine because he could pay straight away.

Public indecency in Italy - which includes public sex as well as public urination - was decriminalised in early 2016 and now carries fines between 5,000 and 10,000.

Public indecency in Italy was decriminalised in 2016 but it still carries a hefty fine with it

The law has been at the centre of several bizarre cases. In 2013 a 55-year-old was let off for public urination after Italy's Supreme Court deemed the act to be 'urgent'.

In 2016 an Italian teacher was fired over a previous conviction for urinating in a bush.
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The ISIS terrorist who killed a police officer in Paris was caught two months ago with hunting knives and Scream masks - but was let go because he claimed they were 'for a carnival', it was revealed tonight.

Karim Cheurfi, 39, drove his silver Audi on to the Champs Elysee, the most famous street in the French capital, and 'targeted' officers using a Kalashnikov on Thursday night.

He killed 37-year-old policeman Xavier Jugele as he sat in a patrol van at a red light and hit another police officer in the chest, but he survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Cheurfi then tried to run away with his rifle and wounded a third officer before being gunned down near a Marks & Spencer store on the world-famous avenue.

Pictured (left and right) is the suspected ISIS gunman, who has been identified locally as 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi

The alleged ISIS gunman, identified as 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi - who was jailed for 20 years for trying to kill officers in 2001 - parked his Audi and opened fire after police stopped at a red light on the world famous avenue. Pictured is his arrest warrant from last month, when he was detained for trying to obtain weapons 'to kill police'

Traffic officer Xavier Jugele (pictured), 37, died instantly with a shot to the head, while the other two were hurt before Cheurfi himself was gunned down by nearby armed police

ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the incident and Cheurfi was known to the authorities because he had a long string of police-hating convictions.

He was jailed for 20 years after trying to kill officers in 2001 but prosecutors tonight denied Cheurfi was on a security watch list and added he showed no signs of radicalisation before the attack.

French officials revealed that Cheurfi was detained in Meaux, 24 miles east of Paris, on February 23 this year, after it emerged he was trying to buy weapons 'to kill police'. He was let go in March due to lack of evidence.

French security services are under immense pressure as they face troubling questions as to how they failed to prevent him from carrying out the attack.

Details of Cheurfi's terrifying career as a determined criminal was outlined by Paris prosecutor Francois Molins during a press conference in the capital city on Friday evening.

Mr Molins said: 'Karim Cheurfi was known to the police and the judiciary. In the course of 2017, he sought to obtain weapons and made statements suggesting that he wanted to kill policemen.'

Referring to a commuter town north east of Paris, Mr Molins said: 'The prosecutor's office in Meaux opened a preliminary investigation on 13 January 2017.

'He was taken into custody on 23 February 2017 and his home was searched. He had hunting knives, masks from the film Scream and a GoPro camera.

'But these elements were not sufficient to provide proof that he wanted to carry out a threat of assassination. For example, he said the masks were for a local carnival.'

Mr Molins added: 'At that stage, no link with the radical Islamist movement was apparent. Nothing justified further investigations by my office.'

Pictured is armed police crowded two other officers, believed to have been shot in the attack, on Champs Elysees on Thursday night

French police leave the home of ISIS gunman Karim Cheurfi in the suburb of Chelles, in Paris, following last night's attack

A woman places a flower near the spot on the Champs Elysees where the shooting occurred last night in the French capital

A body is removed from the scene after a traffic officer was killed by an ISIS gunman in cental Paris last night

French police officers and forensic teams searched a vehicle which was close to the scene on the Champs Elysees in Paris

A police lorry seized the Audi which the attacker was driving, before he got out and shot at traffic officers last night

A still image from video footage shows police forensic investigators inspect the car used by the attacker in Paris last nigh

Cheurfi, who was born in France, was a recluse who blamed police for ruining his life, a friend of the family revealed today.

He did not attend formal mosque prayer services and became fascinated by jihadist propaganda via the internet, a confident of his mother claimed. He also drank alcohol and smoked cannabis.

'Karim did not pray, he drank alcohol and watched jihadist propaganda,' neighbour Hakim, 50, told MailOnline.

'He was not a good Muslim, he was a lost soul. He had no friends, no girlfriend, he never went out. He stayed at home all day watching stuff on the internet.'

Another neighbour added: 'Karim didn't go to the mosque. He just stayed at home. You never saw him.'

Hakim continued: 'Karim blamed the police for ruining his life. He fired (a pistol) at police during a burglary and got sentenced to 15 years prison.

'He was only 20 at the time. He hated the police, he said they had ruined his life. He was 'anti-cop'. He would swear at officers in the street, call them bastards. He didn't care.'

In January, it is understood that he used Amazon to buy two knives, a GoPro video camera  which sick jihadists use to film their atrocities  and sinister masks from the 1996 US horror film Scream.

But Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the items were not sufficient to provide proof that he wanted to carry out a threat of assassination. For example, he said the masks were for a local carnival, he said.

At that stage, no link with the radical Islamist movement was apparent. Nothing justified further investigations by my office. He also showed no signs of radicalisation in jail, said Mr Molins.

In the latest developments after the attack:

French police have this morning arrested three family members of ISIS gunman Karim Cheurfi

Police are hunting a second suspect, who was brought to their attention by Belgian authorities

A man whose image appeared on social media as 'second suspect' handed himself to police in Antwerp claiming he was not linked to the plot. Detectives have said this man had nothing to do with the attack

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called for all French terror suspects to be expelled

France's government has reviewed its already extensive election security measures and says it is 'fully mobilised' and nothing will stop Sunday's presidential vote

US President Donald Trump believes the attack will have a 'big effect' on the outcome of the election

British Prime Minister Theresa May has sent condolences to the French president following the latest attack but the pair have not spoken directly since last night

Iran's foreign secretary Bahram Ghasemi said France was feeling a blowback for its support of rebels in Syria

Hakim, whose family is close to Cheurfi's mother, said the gunman had only recently returned to the quiet residential street after spending years behind bars.

Cheurfi lived separately from his mother in a purpose-built apartment in the front of the property.

Hakim added: 'He lived in the studio in the garden. The mother lived in the big house.'

Cheurfi's Algerian-born mother had divorced his father and had married a Frenchman with who she had second son. She later divorced her second son.

Another neighbour said: 'His parents split up but they stayed living at the same property.

'The father Salat lived in the apartment in the front of the garden and the mother lived in the house at the back of the property.

'The mother married again, to a Frenchman, and they had a son together but the father stayed living at the property.

'So it was a bit complicated but that's life. Karim got on well with his half brother who is called Stephane.

'But he went to live in the apartment with his father when he got of prison.'

Another neighbor added: 'The mother is not here. She is in Algeria. She goes there every few months to visit relatives. She's not been well.'

Officers have been searching the home of Karim in east Paris and arrested three of his family members.

A French government spokesman said the ISIS gunman began firing against police using 'a weapon of war'.

The fatal incident unfolded as presidential candidates, including National Front party leader Marine Le Pen, debated on a TV show nearby before Sunday's election.

The gunman has been identified by police but they will not officially reveal his name until investigators determine whether he had accomplices, according to the Paris prosecutor.

KILLER DECLARED ALLEGIANCE TO ISIS: TERRORIST LEFT NOTE AT THE SCENE - BUT DID BLUNDERING JIHADISTS CLAIM THE WRONG MAN DID IT? The Paris police killer declared his allegiance to ISIS in a note he left just yards from where he brutally gunned down an officer using a Kalashnikov, French prosecutors announced on Friday night. Detectives are desperately trying to determine whether terrorist Karim Cheurfi, 39, had accomplices who helped him carry out the attack on the Champs Elysees last night. ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the incident which left police officer Xavier Jugele, 37, suffering a fatal head wound, but in its haste it may have mixed up the attacker's identity, according to a radicalisation expert. Their initial claims of responsibility are usually released by their self-styled news agency Amaq on the social media application Telegram. But Thursday's claim, which came briefly after the attack, was unusual both in its alacrity and also in identifying the attacker by his epithet - Abu Yussef al-Belgiki, or the Father of Yussef the Belgian. In previous attacks in the West, claims on Amaq often came up to a day later. For example, IS claimed an October Hamburg stabbing almost two weeks later. Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College, London, said: ' The claim was much faster than it has ever been for this kind of attack. 'The sooner the claim comes after the attack, the more easy it is for the organisation to amplify it. 'It could be they thought one guy was carrying out the attack and it turned out to be another. It could just be they were plain wrong.' For other attacks, the Amaq bulletin - often a terse sentence saying the attacker belonged to IS - is often followed by a longer statement with details on the attack and assailant. This second statement, published on ISIS's 'Nasher' Telegram accounts, may be followed by a picture of the attacker or a video of him pledging allegiance to the group, again sometimes days later. But in the case of the latest Paris attack, no further statement was forthcoming. The identification of the attacker by Amaq, and naming him as a Belgian rather than the French assailant who was shot dead as he fled, also raised questions. Cheurfi may have identified himself as Belgian in communications with IS handlers, but that is unlikely. French IS members are usually identified as such, with the epithet al-Faransi, or 'the Frenchman'. Jade Parker, an expert on ISIS, said: 'The unusual willingness of IS to provide an alleged kunya (epithet) after the commission of yesterday's shooting in Paris suggests there may be more here than meets the eye. 'Whether IS had foresight of the event, mistook yesterday's attacker for someone else or simply made an imbecilic error remains to be seen.' Advertisement

An armed police officer hoists his weapon as they storm the streets of Paris after the latest terror attack to hit the city

Armed police outside a shop in central Paris after an ISIS gunman killed a traffic officer and injured three other people

Armed police officers on the streets of Paris after a gunman killed a traffic cop and seriously injured two others last night

Armed police officers stood guard after they rushed to the scene in the centre of the capital following the incident which left frightened witnesses sprinting for their lives

A team of forensic detectives examine the Audi, which the gunman was driving. ID of Karim Cheurfi was found in the vehicle

OFFICER SHOT DEAD GUARDED BATACLAN AT ITS REOPENING By Sam Tonkin for MailOnline The policeman killed by an ISIS gunman on the Champs-Elysees was today named as Xavier Jugele, a 37-year-old Paris officer who defiantly said 'no to terrorists' at the reopening of the Bataclan theatre last November. He was shot in the head when the terrorist - identified today as French national Karim Cheurfi, 39 - launched his attack on three police officers at around 9pm last night. Jugele, who was a proud defender of gay rights, was named as the victim who died by French newspaper Le Parisien. It has since emerged that Jugele (pictured left and right) was on duty at the reopening of the Bataclan theatre on November last year - a year on from the Paris attacks which left 130 dead It has since emerged that Jugele was on duty at the reopening of the Bataclan theatre on November last year - a year on from the Paris attacks which left 130 dead. As British singer Sting marked the occasion with a performance at the concert hall, Jugele defiantly told PEOPLE.com that he was there 'to say no to terrorists'. The policeman added: 'I'm happy to be here. Glad the Bataclan is reopening. It's symbolic. 'We're here tonight as witnesses. Here to defend our civic values. This concert's to celebrate life. To say no to terrorists. 'It doesn't feel strange, it feels important,' he added. 'Symbolic.' Advertisement

Cheurfi was first arrested in 2001 after a road rage incident in Roissy-en-Brie, near Paris, involving an off duty security manager and his brother.

After a chase, Cheurfi shot at them, wounding them seriously in the chest. In custody, Cheurfi took advantage of a moment of inattention of a custody officer, and tried to kill him with his own revolver.

Four years later, in 2005, Cheurfi was sentenced by judges sitting at the Val-de-Marne Assize Court to 15 years in prison.

At times he was given periods of supervised release from his sentence, which was reduced by five years on appeal.

Despite this, Cheurfi was a notoriously disruptive prisoner who in November 2009 was given another 18 month sentence for attacking a cell mate.

He was also convicted of a number of offences including burglary while out on bail, and also broke his monitoring conditions by travelling to Algeria.

Cheurfi was finally released completely on October 14 2015, but had to make regular appearances before a judge in Meaux. The last summons was in April.

A French police officer has been shot dead on the Champs Elysees in Paris (pictured) - just as presidential candidates took part in a TV debate nearby

People held their hands up as they walked towards officers close to the scene where a policeman was fatally shot in Paris

Police closed off the popular avenue (pictured) after a policeman was killed during a shooting incident in the French capital

Pictured is the scene of a restaurant in Paris when the gunman opened fire on the streets outside. Diners are seen cowering on the ground in fear

An armed policeman speaks to diners in a nearby Parisien restuarant, who cowered to the floor in fear of the ISIS gunman

Despite not showing any obvious signs of radicalisation, Mr Molins said Cheurfi had dropped notes in his Audi 80 car expressing his alleged devotion to Islamic State.

His car was packed with more weapons, including a pump action shotgun and knives. A copy of the Koran was also found in the vehicle.

Pierre-Henry Brandet, spokesman for the French Interior Ministry, confirmed that both injured officers in hospital were now 'out of danger' and 'stable', while the female tourist hit by a ricocheting bullet was far less badly hurt.

ISIS named the attacker by his 'war name' of 'Abu Yousuf al-Belgiki', which translates to 'the Belgian' in Arabic - a name that was listed in documents obtained from the terror group last year.

France goes to the polls in the first round of a presidential election on Sunday, and rival candidates used the Cheurfi attack to accuse each other of being soft on terrorism.

Marine Le Pen, of the far-Right National Front, said 'We cannot afford to lose this war' and called for borders to be reinstated and 'foreigners' to be expelled.

The attack which took place on the Champs Elysees (pictured) comes just three days before the first round of balloting in France's tense presidential election

French police officers search the home (pictured) of Karim Cheurfi after he was named as the man believed to be responsible for the attack

Police officers secured the area after a gunman got of an Audi vehicle and targeted officers by firing an automatic gun towards them

A man and a woman put their hands in the air as armed officers stood just yards away from them following the incident in the city

Officers searched the home of the suspected gunman on Thursday evening after they travelled to his home in the east part of the capital

People were seen running away from the area after Thursday night's attack, which has been described as being 'terrorist related'

Police officers searched the home of the suspected gunman in east Paris following the attack in the capital on Thursday

The Audi which is believed to belong to the attacker was taken away from the scene on the back of a lorry as police rushed to the popular avenue

Forensic experts and police officers were seen examining evidence from a van on the Champs Elysees in central Paris

Such hardline views were echoed by the conservative Republicans candidate Francois Fillon who said: 'We are at war, there is no alternative, it's us or them.'

But Emmanuel Macron, the independent favourite to win the election, said such discourse made matters worse, adding: 'I think we must one and all have a spirit of responsibility at this fraught time and not give in to panic and not allow it to be exploited.'

Bernard Cazeneuve, the Socialist prime minister, meanwhile accused Ms Le Pen of 'shamelessly seeking to exploit fear and emotion for exclusively political ends'.

Like many others, Mr Cazeneuve pointed out that Cheurfi was a born and bred Frenchman who had lived in the Paris suburbs all his life.

Mr Cazeneuve said: 'Nothing, no element of the inquiry, no intelligence, allows us to make any link whatsoever between immigration and asylum and what happened last night in Paris.

'For all of the French this attack is a tragedy. Ms Le Pen is seeking to turn it into an opportunity - a mediocre electoral opportunity that flouts the truth.'

French presidential election candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon (pictured) took part in the TV show just days before the election

The fatal shooting took place as French presidential candidates, including National Front party leader Marine Le Pen (pictured), took part in a debate nearby

Police officers quickly secured the area - which is popular with tourists and Parisians - after the attack and the road was on lockdown by 9pm

Police officers took positions near the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris after the gunman - who was known to the security services - launched the attack

An armed soldier spoke to a man a told him to leave the area following the fatal shooting close to the Arc de Triomphe (pictured)

French soldiers secure the Champs Elysees Avenue after a police officer was killed when a gunman opened fire in Paris

French police officers searched the area after some of their colleagues were shot in the heart of Paris on Thursday evening

French President Francois Hollande (pictured) said the attack was 'terrorist related' and scheduled an emergency meeting following the shootings

LE PEN ACCUSED OF 'EXPLOITING' ATTACK FOR VOTES By Thomas Burrows for MailOnline French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has accused far-right candidate Marine Le Pen of 'exploiting' the Champs-Elysees terror attack to win votes ahead of Sunday's presidential election. In the wake of the shooting Le Pen called for foreign terror suspects to be expelled immediately and claimed France needed a 'presidency which acts and protects us.' Responding to that, Cazeneuve, a Socialist, said Le Pen's National Front (FN) 'after each attack, seeks to exploit it and use it for purely political means.' Experts believe the shooting last night could boost Le Pen's chances of getting elected just days before France goes to the polls. Le Pen today called for foreign terror suspects to be kicked out the country despite the fact the ISIS gunman was French Voters could flock to far-right candidate Marine Le Pen following the latest terror attack In last night's attack a police officer was killed and two more were injured after a gunman opened fire close to the Champs-Elysees. Le Pen today called for foreign terror suspects to be kicked out the country despite the fact the ISIS gunman was French. The 39-year-old had used the war name 'Abu Yousuf the Belgian'. Officials confirmed the homegrown fanatic was a French national despite his nickname. A manhunt is underway for the second suspect who travelled by train to France from Belgium. The Champs-Elysees terror attack could boost far-right candidate Marine Le Pen's chances of getting elected, experts believe The shooting took place just four days before the French election and experts believe it could bolster Le Pen's chances of being elected. Le Pen has made immigration and security the core part of her campaign. She has pledged to tighten French borders controls and build more jails, and claimed authorities were not doing enough to protect citizens from terror attacks. More than half of police officers in France had already said they were voting for Le Pen because of her strong anti-terror stance, according to an IFOP poll. Experts believe it could increase her chances of winning Sunday's election. Fredrik Erixon, director at the European Centre for International Political Economy, told CNBC: '[It could lead to] a greater performance of Marine Le Pen than otherwise would have been the case. 'It's difficult to see how this attack will not play into the hands of political forces that want this campaign to be focused only on issues around migration and terrorism.' Vishnu Varathan, senior economist at Mizuho Bank, added: 'The Paris gunman attack may well swing support in her favor; and this may not be picked up by the polls in a timely manner.' Advertisement

An eyewitness, called Chelloug, said: 'It was a terrorist. He came out with a Kalashnikov and started shooting, but he could've shot us on the pavement and killed more people with a spray of shots.

'But he targeted the policemen and fortunately there were the policemen who killed him.'

At his mothers house in Chelles, police seized a computer, telephones, a rifle butt, prayer mats and an application for a hunting permit.

Prosecutors said three people close to Cheurfi remained in custody.

Another witness said: 'I saw someone shoot at the police officers. They returned fire, they killed him, he fell on the floor. And then the emergency services came.

'It took place by Zara and there was a CRS (Republican Security Companies) van parked up and the man shot the police officers. He took out a weapon and shot them.

'I think the police officer was killed on the spot and his colleagues fired back and killed the individual.'

A witness, identified only as Ines, told BFM that she heard a shooting, saw a man's body on the ground and the area was quickly evacuated by police.

It comes just two days after police arrested two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the first-round of the presidential election on Sunday.

France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of alert since a string of terror attacks that began in 2015, which have killed over 230 people.

Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets like government buildings and religious sites.

Armed police officers were quick on the scene and closed the world famous avenue following the incident which shocked the city

The world famous was shut at around 9pm and it is believed police are still searching for a second suspect in relation to the attack

Police officers blocked the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after the fatal shooting on Thursday, April 20

Officers were wearing vests and helmets as they patrolled the area close to where the fatal shooting took. A 39-year-old man is believed to be responsible for the shooting

The world famous street was put on lockdown by 9pm and officers guarded the area in central Paris (pictured, the Eiffel Tower in the background)

A policeman attended the scene and was armed with a gun following the incident. Police have reportedly issued a warrant for a second attacker

Up until now, polls showed voters more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this would change in the event of further bloodshed.

For weeks, centrist former banker Le Pen has been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a chance that any of the four leading candidates could reach the second-round runoff on May 7.

Scandal-plagued conservative Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.

The UK Foreign Office said: 'The British Embassy is in contact with local authorities and urgently seeking further information following reports of a shooting incident on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

'You should remain vigilant and follow the advice of the local security authorities and/or your tour operator.

'If you're in the area and it is safe to do so, contact your friends and family to tell them you are safe.'

The shooting came just hours after one of the busiest roads in Paris was closed off by police as officers dealt with a 'suspicious package'.

Reports suggested that items were discovered by officers as Rue de Rivoli remained shut. Stunned witnesses described seeing a large police presence on the two-mile-long road.

Rue de Rivoli is a busy commercial street just north of the River Seine which is home to some of the most fashionable shops in the world.

A COUNTRY UNDER SIEGE: TIMELINE OF FRANCE TERROR By Rory Tingle for MailOnline March, 18, 2017 - Convicted criminal with links to radical Islam shouted 'I am here to die for Allah, there will be deaths' seconds before he was shot dead during an attack at Orly airport. The 39-year-old, named locally as career criminal Ziyed Ben Belgacem, was killed after wrestling a soldier's gun from her and fleeing into a McDonald's. He sent a text message to his brother and father stating 'I shot the police', shortly before he was killed. February 3, 2017 - A man is shot five times outside the Louvre museum in the heart of Paris after attempting to storm the historic art gallery. July 14, 2016 - Amid Bastille Day celebrations in the Riviera city of Nice, a large truck is driven into a festive crowd. Some 86 people from a wide variety of countries are killed. The driver is shot dead. Islamic State extremists claim responsibility for the attack. The state of emergency in France is extended and extra protection, including robust barriers to prevent similar attacks, is put in place at major sites in France. June 13, 2016 - Two French police officers are murdered in their home in front of their 3-year-old son. Islamic State claims responsibility for the slaying, which was carried out by a jihadist with a prior terrorist conviction. He is killed by police on the scene. Nov. 13, 2015 - Islamic State militants kill 130 people in France's worst atrocity since World War II. A series of suicide bomb and shooting attacks are launched on crowded sites in central Paris, as well as the northern suburb of Saint-Denis. Most of those killed are in a crowded theater where hostages are taken. Islamic State extremists claim responsibility and say it was in retaliation for French participation in airstrikes on the militant group's positions in Syria and Iraq. It leads to the declaration of a state of emergency in France. Police powers are expanded. Jan. 7, 2015 - Two brothers kill 11 people inside the Paris building where the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is headquartered in what Islamic State extremists claim is retaliation for the publication of cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. More are killed subsequently in attacks on a kosher market in eastern Paris and on police. There are 17 victims in all, including two police officers. The attackers are killed. Advertisement

Masked police officers were photographed standing on top of a vehicle on the Champs Elysees following an incident which left one officer dead

French police officers reacted after the shooting which left one officer dead and two more seriously injured in Paris

French soldiers were armed with guns (pictured) and stood guard at the Arc de Triomphe near the Champs Elysees in Paris

Heavily armed officers had flooded the area following the gunshots which were heard in a busy part of the French capital

Reports have suggested that two police officers have been killed on the Champs Elysees in central Paris (pictured) this evening

It was originally believed the other officer was seriously wounded while the attacker was killed on the world famous avenue (pictured)
Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News anchor ousted over sexual harassment allegations, is seen for the first time since his dramatic firing this week.

Pictured exclusively by DailyMail.com at his Long Island home, a weary-looking O'Reilly was wearing a pullover, sweatpants and slippers as he left the house.

Later, he was pictured shoe shopping at 'Eric Comfort Shoes' with his son Spencer. This time O'Reilly had changed to be a little less casual, wearing white tennis shoes, jeans and a windbreaker with his alma mater, Marist College, proudly printed on it.

After purchasing a pair of shoes, the two headed back to O'Reilly's Cadillac CT6 and drove off.

O'Reilly had not been seen since Wednesday, when he was photographed looking upbeat and happy shaking the hand of Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Hours later he was officially out in an axing ordered by Rupert Murdoch as pressure from advertisers and Murdoch's own children, James and Lachlan, mounted.

Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News anchor ousted over sexual harassment allegations, is seen for the first time since his dramatic firing this week

Not exactly the Pope: He was pictured shoe shopping at 'Eric Comfort Shoes' with his son Spencer, who was also dressed down for the shopping trip

The former anchor wore a windbreaker with his alma mater, Marist College, proudly printed on it

After purchasing a pair of shoes, the two headed back to O'Reilly's Cadillac CT6 and drove off

Earlier in the afternoon, O'Reilly was spotted leaving his home on Long Island looking worse for wear

The former anchor, who was ousted this week after 20 years at the network, appeared downbeat as he was seen at his home

O'Reilly wore a blue top, sweatpants and slippers and looked deep in thought as he stared at the ground

Back at home: The ousted Fox News star is spending time at his Long Island home after issuing a statement which continued to protest his innocence

The day before Fox fired O'Reilly this week, the anchor's lawyers tried desperately to save his job with 'evidence' that he was being targeted by a smear campaign, a new report claimed.

On Tuesday, O'Reilly's legal team debated sending Fox emails that showed how a liberal watchdog group was celebrating the success of its campaign to get advertisers to drop his show.

The April 13 email from Mary Pat Bonner, a Democratic fundraiser who served as 'donor adviser' to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign, announced that two conference calls would take place on Thursday and Friday with Angelo Carusone, the president of liberal watchdog group Media Matters, Politico reported.

Media Matters had reportedly spearheaded what Bonner called an 'advertiser education campaign' to have 80 companies drop from advertising on The O'Reilly Factor due to the mounting sexual harassment allegations against the prime-time host.

Bonner, whose consulting firm the Bonnor Group connects big money donors to liberal groups seeking donations, heralds the success of her firm and Media Matters advertiser education campaign against the longtime Fox host.

The purpose of the conference calls she discussed in the April 13 email were to discuss the success of the campaign so far, and our plans moving forward.'

What a difference two days make: O'Reilly was photographed looking collected and happy at the Vatican on Wednesday, meeting Pope Francis in a VIP area with his son

Goodbye: The day before Fox News ousted host Bill O'Reilly, the 20-year anchor tried desperately to save his job with 'evidence' he was being targeted by a smear campaign, a new report claims.

He will not however be walking out with the $100million he had been guaranteed in that contract (a cover is put over O'Reilly's sign on Thursday)

For the 67-year-old longtime anchor, the email regarding the conference calls served apparently as key evidence that a left-wing group was plotting to get him axed from the network.

Lawyers for O'Reilly, who maintain that the allegations against him are 'unfounded', ultimately decided against going to the top executives of 21st Century Fox with the email Bonner sent.

'If we show to Fox tomorrow, word will get out and the Thursday call may be cancelled,' O'Reilly wrote in an April 18 email exchange that was sent by a member of O'Reilly's legal team at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman to Politico Wednesday night.

'So no formal sending to Rupert until after the call. You all should know that I will not put up with much more from FNC.'

The exchange between O'Reilly and his team exposes the deliberations taking place internally in the moments before he was axed from Fox.

It was revealed earlier Thursday that O'Reilly will be walking away with a sizable sum of money following the termination of his Fox News contract after over 20 years at the network.

O'Reilly will be getting $25million from the network after being terminated in the wake of the latest Fox News sexual harassment scandal, according to Matthew Garrahan of the Financial Times.

That is a quarter of the $100million he had been guaranteed in the four-year contract he signed this past January.

The network previously paid disgraced CEO Roger Ailes $40million when he exited last July.

Coming forward: Perquita Burgess (above) detailed the alleged harassment she endured while working as a temp at Fox News - where she claims O'Reilly called her 'hot chocolate'

In addition, Perquita Burgess, one of the women who recently accused Bill O'Reilly of sexual harassment, came forward in a very public way on Thursday by appearing on 'The View.'

Burgess revealed that she was the woman who contacted attorney Lisa Bloom earlier this week and detailed how O'Reilly allegedly referred to her as 'hot chocolate' and leered at her when she worked near his office back in 2008 while a temp at Fox News.

When asked by the hosts to describe how she felt after learning that O'Reilly had been terminated by the network for his alleged history of harassment, Burgess said: 'I felt triumphant.'

She then added: 'It felt cathartic.'

A remarkably composed and assured Burgess went on to detail her experiences with O'Reilly during her time at Fox News in the interview.

'Within the first week and a half of working there ... he made like a grunting noise,' said Burgess.

'As time went on, I noticed every time he walked past my desk, if no one was around, he would make that noise.'

She went on to say: 'Fast forward to maybe three, four weeks in, we were on the elevator alone coming up to our floor, and he let me off first as gentlemen usually do.

'As I was getting off the elevator, he said: "Looking good, there, girl." The hairs rose on the black of my neck because I knew the grunts and groaning was going on as Im walking in front of him.'

Erased: It appears as though the network has renamed the show as just The Factor, as fill-in anchor Dana Perino (above) referred to it as that throughout the broadcast on Wednesday night

That was not the only comment O'Reilly made however according to Burgess.

'One day he walks past my desk ... he walks past and says: "Hey, hot chocolate,"' said Burgess.

'He walks past and doesnt look at me. When he said it, I didnt respond. I was mortified because it not only was sexual, I took that as a very plantational remark.'

Burgess then added: 'Ive been around enough racism. Such a blatant person, with such a high profile, making me feel uncomfortable, but then not even acknowledging me as a human being.'

In addition O'Reilly's name was unceremoniously erased from his own Fox News show on Wednesday night hours after he was fired over mounting sexual harassment claims.

Emotionless fill-in host Dana Perino, a close friend of Megyn Kelly, spent just over a minute bidding farewell to the man who hosted the show for 20 years.

Perino called O'Reilly the 'undisputed king of Cable News', as there was no sign that O'Reilly had once hosted, The Factor, when it aired at 8pm.

Furthermore, the network removed 'O'Reilly' out of the show's title, as the opening graphic at the start of the show also referred to it as just The Factor.

The adjustments come hours after Rupert Murdoch announced that he was terminating the network's most popular host in a letter on Wednesday afternoon that was signed by himself and his sons, Lachlan and James.

The move was so swift that O'Reilly only learned of it en route to the airport on Wednesday as he returned home to the United States following a week-long trip to Italy reports Vanity Fair.

Perino, who is a former White House Press Secretary, opened the show with a brief statement acknowledging that O'Reilly was leaving the network, but said she would discuss it later on in the show.

The 44-year-old political commentator addressed O'Reilly's departure at the very end of the show for a few minutes in a prepared statement.

'Finally tonight, it is the end of an era here at the Fox News Channel,' she began.

'As we mentioned earlier, Bill O'Reilly is leaving this chair and this network after more than 20 years.

'Bill has been the undisputed king of cable news and for good reason.

'He is an incredibly talented broadcaster who raised the bar for interviewers everywhere.

'He has also held his staff to exacting standards in his quest to put the best possible program on the air and they are great.

'And you his audience responded in record numbers making The Factor the number one cable news show for more than 16 years. You have also been loyal and we can't tell you how much that means to everyone on The Factor.'

Perino then read from the statement released earlier from the Murdochs about O'Reilly's departure.

According to a new report, insiders at the network say that 'troubles at Fox news are only just beginning.'
Suspect Karim Cheurfi (pictured) declared his allegiance to ISIS in a note which was found near the scene in Paris

The Paris police killer declared his allegiance to ISIS in a note he left just yards from where he brutally gunned down an officer using a Kalashnikov, French prosecutors announced on Friday night.

Detectives are desperately trying to determine whether terrorist Karim Cheurfi, 39, had accomplices who helped him carry out the attack on the Champs Elysees last night.

ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the incident which left police officer Xavier Jugele, 37, suffering a fatal head wound, but in its haste it may have mixed up the attacker's identity, according to radicalisation experts.

Their initial claims of responsibility are usually released by their self-styled news agency, Amaq, on the social media application Telegram.

But Thursday's claim, which came briefly after the attack, was unusual both in its alacrity and also in identifying the attacker by his nickname - Abu Yussef al-Belgiki, or the Father of Yussef the Belgian.

However, Belgian prosecutors said on Friday that a man questioned in Belgium after the attack is wanted in a drugs case and has no link to the fatal shooting in France.

French sources said Belgian police who searched the suspect's home in the port city of Antwerp had found weapons, balaclavas and a train ticket for France hours before a gunman shot dead a police officer and wounded two others in Paris.

However, the Belgian federal prosecutor 'rules out any link' between the man questioned and the attack on the Champs Elysees, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said.

The spokesman added: 'The man was wanted in a drugs case. His home was searched but the man was not there.

'Investigators discovered that he had searched on his computer for a trip to Paris on the Thalys train.

A French police officer was shot dead on the Champs Elysees in Paris on Thursday night (pictured)

Police searched an address in the French town of Chelles, on the outskirts of Paris, where Karim Cheurfi lived before carrying out the attack

'We therefore informed our French colleagues that this man was of interest to us in connection with the drugs case.'

The suspect turned himself into a police station in Antwerp and was questioned and was judged to have an alibi for the attack.

The prosecutor's spokesman added that his colleagues are trying to determine if there is a jihadist named 'Abu Yussef'.

After ISIS identified the attacker, experts have started to question whether they made a mistake, with one suggesting they could have simply got it 'plain wrong'.

ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the incident which left police officer Xavier Jugele (pictured) suffering a fatal head wound

In previous attacks in the West, claims on Amaq often came up to a day later. For example, ISIS claimed an October Hamburg stabbing almost two weeks later.

Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College, London, said: ' The claim was much faster than it has ever been for this kind of attack.

'The sooner the claim comes after the attack, the more easy it is for the organisation to amplify it.

'It could be they thought one guy was carrying out the attack and it turned out to be another. It could just be they were plain wrong.'

After other attacks, the Amaq bulletin - often a terse sentence saying the attacker belonged to IS - is often followed by a longer statement with details on the attack and assailant.

This second statement, published on ISIS's 'Nasher' Telegram accounts, may be followed by a picture of the attacker or a video of him pledging allegiance to the group, again sometimes days later.

But in the case of the latest Paris attack, no further statement was forthcoming.

The identification of the attacker by Amaq, and naming him as a Belgian rather than the French assailant who was shot dead as he fled, also raised questions.

A woman places a flower at the spot where a shooting occurred on the Champs Elysees in Paris

Cheurfi may have identified himself as Belgian in communications with IS handlers, but that is unlikely. French IS members are usually identified as such, with the epithet al-Faransi, or 'the Frenchman'.

Jade Parker, an expert on ISIS, said: 'The unusual willingness of IS to provide an alleged kunya (epithet) after the commission of yesterday's shooting in Paris suggests there may be more here than meets the eye.

'Whether IS had foresight of the event, mistook yesterday's attacker for someone else or simply made an imbecilic error remains to be seen.'
A man being hunted by police over an acid attack that injured 20 people in a London nightclub is believed to have fled the country.

Arthur Collins, the 25-year-old boyfriend of ITV This Morning presenter Ferne McCann, is being sought by detectives after acid was sprayed at the Mangle club in east London in the early hours of Easter Monday.

They have arrested a second man and are seeking a third.

Celebration mood: Sophie Hall (pictured, left, as she set off for the club) was taken to a specialist burns hospital in Essex and is now recovering at her family home in Poole, Dorset

Police told victims they have received a tip off that Collins fled to either Spain or Ireland after the attack, which left a 22-year-old woman blind in one eye.

Yesterday a 21-year-old girl who suffered permanent scarring from the attack told of her indescribable pain and the sense of panic when the acidic liquid was sprayed following a dance floor fracas.

Sophie Hall, who went to the nightclub to celebrate her best friends 22nd birthday, suffered third degree burns to her face and shoulder.

Arthur Collins (pictured) is being sought by detectives in connection with the acid attack

She told the Daily Mail: It was about 1 oclock and we were about to leave the club. I heard a hissing noise and smoke started to fill the room.

After the smoke went off the liquid hit us. It wasnt just a small amount of acid - it kept coming for about 30 seconds. There was a sense of complete panic, people were screaming.

The pain is indescribable - it feels like your skin is eating itself. The police told us later it was drain fluid.

Collins is the boyfriend of ITV This Morning presenter Ferne McCann (pictured, left). He has not been seen since the incident, which left Sophie (right) in 'indescribable pain'

Following the attack, Miss Hall was taken to a specialist burns hospital in Essex along with a friend, who suffered burns to her foot, neck and stomach.

They shared a ward with other victims of the attack, including two men aged 24 and 29 who were severely burned and remain in hospital.

Miss Hall said: The two boys were in so much pain. One of them has told he will be blind in one eye.

Im angry that this is going to be the way I look. I didnt walk into the club looking like this Sophie Hall

They were black but their faces had turned white. Their pigment had completely gone.

The victims and were sent messages of support in hospital from Katie Piper  the television presenter who was blinded in one eye in an acid attack in 2008.

Miss Hall, who is now recovering at her family home in Poole, said: Ive been told the burn to my shoulder will be permanently scared forever but my face should be okay eventually.

Im angry that this is going to be the way I look. I didnt walk into the club looking like this.

You never expect to go to a club for the night out and leave disfigured. The people responsible should never be let out of prison.

We have spoken to the police investigating this and they told us they have received a tip off Arthur Collins fled to Spain or Ireland.

Her friend, who wants to remain anonymous, criticised the length of time it took emergency services and the nightclub to respond to the attack, which occurred at a house music event called LoveJuice.

She said: The attack happened at 1am but we were not admitted to hospital until half three.

Initially about twelve of us ran to a room upstairs where we were just left to pour water over ourselves.

People were in so much pain and we needed paramedics but it took an hour and a a half for them to arrive.

Acid was thrown across east London club Mangle when a row broke out. Pictured are revellers enjoying the night inside the club shortly before the incident unfolded

She added: We were left in our clothes that were covered in acid but we should have been stripped straight away. Clubs should have a protocol in place for how to deal with such attacks.

Miss Hall also criticised the clubs lax security, claiming her bags and ID were not checked when entering the club.

A group of six of us went in and they didnt ID us or check our bags. People could have walked in there with a knife, drugs or anything.

Someone was allowed to walk in there carrying acid and as a result peoples lives have been permanently changed.

Collins has made repeated trips to the sun in recent months with his TOWIE star girlfriend Ferne McCann. The pair were pictured last summer enjoying the beach in Ibiza

Last night, Scotland Yard said it is working around the clock to pursue a number of leads, which are believed to include information Collins fled abroad.

Detective Inspector Lee McCullough, of Hackney CID, said officers are also hunting the two men seen with him at the trendy Mangle club in East London.

He warned Collins is potentially dangerous and said anyone suspected of helping him evade the authorities also faces arrest.

My team is acting on a number of leads to bring in those wanted for questioning in relation to this awful incident, he said.

I am continuing to appeal to Arthur Collins and the two men who were seen with him to hand themselves in so that we can talk to them about the incident in the nightclub.

I would also urge anyone who knows of his whereabouts to contact police.

Equally, anyone found harbouring those wanted for questioning by police can expect a knock at the door and could well find themselves under arrest.

A 21-year-old was held in North London yesterday on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. Detectives are hunting Collins and a third man seen with him at Mangle.
Susan Jones, 57, set up secret accounts to pay off her farm's debts

A supermarket boss has been jailed after she fleeced her company out of 1million to save her failing family farm.

Susan Jones, 57, set up secret accounts to pay off her farm's debts and siphoned hundreds of thousands of pounds from CK Supermarkets where she worked as a trusted company secretary.

She used the money to pay agricultural suppliers and mortgage repayments on her farm near Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire.

Jones admitted stealing 955,000 from her employer, between May 2009 and June 2013, and was jailed for three years and nine months at Swansea Crown Court.

The court heard she was a well respected boss at CK Supermarkets where she had worked for 20 years.

The Welsh chain was founded by multi millionaire Christopher Kiley 29 years ago and have 23 stores in South West Wales.

Detectives discovered that Jones had set up a system within the company to keep track of her false payments.

They were able to follow the trail which Jones had left inside the company's accounts.

Prosecutor Franks Philips said: 'She was responsible for the company bank accounts.

'She made electronic transfers from the company bank account to her own account, to the account of her son and to business accounts supplying goods to the farm.

'She spent the money on farm machinery, food supplies and agricultural implements because the farm was struggling financially.'

Jones worked at Welsh chain CK Supermarkets for 20 years and was regarded as a trusted company secretary

The court heard that she made 40 electronic payments totalling 72,000 to a mortgage company. She also paid 92,000 into her own account.

Jones would have been kept on if she had repaid the money but eventually the police were brought in.

Defending Terence Woods said: 'The farm had been in her husband's family for seven generations and she was desperate not to lose it.'

Mr Woods said the family would now lose the farm.

Judge Peter Heywood said: 'The amount of money you stole is staggering.

Jones admitting stealing 955,000 from her employer, between May 2009 and June 2013, and was jailed for three years and nine months at Swansea Crown Court

'It is clear that the farm was under significant pressure.

'Your employer trusted you implicitly, to such an extent that you were allowed to operate the accounts for the company and to deal with the owner's personal finances.

'It was a significant breach of trust over a period of time.'

Crown Prosecution spokesman Iwan Jenkins said afterwards: 'She abused her position as company secretary in making a series of false payments.

'This was a complex case but following analysis it became clear that she was using her own system to keep track of payments.
Sir Benjamin Julian Alfred Slade is a rheumy-eyed Casanova who has a most disconcerting habit of pointing to his crotch and talking about business down there.

He describes his ideal woman as a big strong healthy warrior, the bigger the better  if I see a tall woman coming into a room, I just fall over backwards. My tongue hangs out. It gets exciting.

Last week he caused a furore when he denounced one of his recent (extremely attractive) companions, Bridget Convey, 50, as too old to have children and reminded all young, fertile ladies that he is once again interviewing hard for the position of Lady Slade.

Sir Benjamin Slade, 70, says he has received proposals from women 'past their sell-by date and have been over the guns a few times.' He is worth about 20 million and owns two Somerset stately homes

I have had a few proposals, he said. But sometimes the women are past their sell-by date and have been over the guns a few times.

Sir Ben, as he likes to be addressed, is 70 years old himself.

Subsequently, he announced that he wanted to road-test young women, adding: It would be nice if they were a breeder, of an age where they can have a couple of sons.

On paper  away from the leery, pink-cheeked flesh  Sir Bens pedigree is impeccable.

Sir Benjamin most recently split from Bridget Convey, 50, declaring she was 'too old to have children. He is desparate for two sons to inherit his vast wealth when he dies. But the baronet said: 'Daughters don't count'

His ancestors fought in the Crimean War; he had links to Horatio Nelson; General Sir John Slade, who bought the family seat, Maunsel House, in 1772, danced with Marie Antoinette; and his aunt Madeleine Slade, as he indelicately puts it, s*****d [Mahatma] Gandhi.

He is worth about 20 million and owns two Somerset stately homes, 13th-century Maunsel House and 19th-century Woodlands Castle, from which he runs a thriving wedding business.

He also has thousands of acres, a handful of farms, a grouse shoot in Scotland, a collection of moth-eaten stuffed animal heads, hundreds of guns and wardrobes of red trousers.

Which presumably is why he is so desperate for an heir (plus a spare) to inherit it all when he dies.

Daughters dont count, he says. Wonderful things to have around, of course, but they dont count.

Over the years he has been relentless in his quest, rattling through a wife, Pauline Myburgh; several long-term lovers including Fiona Aitken, now wife of the Earl of Carnarvon and chatelaine of Highclere Castle, where Downton was filmed (absolutely impossible woman; social astronaut, drove me mad!); actress Kirsten Hughes and, by his own account, more members of European jet-trash society than most gentry have had roast grouse dinners.

But he cant seem to get it right. Im the worst judge of women in England. Ive had five mad women on the trot; its been very difficult.

In 2007 he made a public appeal for an heir of sorts, offering his entire estate to whichever stranger most closely matched his DNA, so long as they werent Guardian readers, drug-users or communists.

Pictured, the Slade family home Mausell House in North Newton, Somerset. He has rattled through a wife, Pauline Myburgh; several long-term lovers including Fiona Aitken, now wife of the Earl of Carnarvon and chatelaine of Highclere Castle

That didnt work because the winner, Isaac Slade, who fronts U.S. rock group The Fray, was too busy with his band to deal with sweeping driveways and the worry of dry rot.

Then in 2012, after Kirsten, then 49, had, according to him, run off with the handyman, Sir Ben wasted no time in advertising to replace not only the handyman but Kirsten, too, offering a 50,000 salary plus car, house, food and holidays.

Crucially, the successful candidate would have a shotgun certificate, be able to run two castles and must be able to breed two sons (it didnt matter if she had bred before).

And when that didnt bear fruit, he had his sperm frozen (its very good stuff) and carried on chatting up any bit of crumpet that moves  so long as she didnt come from a country with green in its flag, beginning with an I, or anywhere they dont wear overcoats in the winter.

He used to date actress Kirsten Hughes, 49, who he said had 'run off with the handyman' in 2012. When they split, he advertised for a new beau, offering a 50,000 salary if they had a shotgun licence and were able to breed two sons

But still there was no heir apparent riding a trike through the great hall.

So is he really an appalling man, playing for laughs or publicity, or has desperation made him so ungallant?

Whatever the truth, his recent comments have not gone down well. Bridget, unsurprisingly, was hopping mad, not least because they havent been an item since 2014 and she is actually happily engaged to a chap called Alister. Online, thousands have denounced Sir Ben as a sexist dinosaur.

Im not sexist, he says. Men want to carve a joint and pour the drinks, women want to make sure the table looks nice. Its a partnership!

But a fair few, perhaps tempted by his surprisingly good skin as much as his fortune, got in touch this week.

Ive been inundated with offers! he chirps happily, oblivious to the feminist blood boiling around him. Im going to have a party and get them all down. The more the merrier!

Hugely encouraged, he has even added new criteria to his list of required attributes.

Driving and shooting licences are now non-negotiable. The former is to drive him to long boozy lunches, while the latter is more pressing since police found an unlicensed shotgun in his bedroom  he liked to shoot foxes in his pyjamas  and he nearly landed in prison.

Scorpios are also a no-no. And now he is slowing down a bit, so is anyone much under 30 or over 40.

Sir Benjamin is constantly tired as he has a sleep disorder and suffered a brief problem with his prostate. He rises at 6am every day and lives on vegetable juice, Ryvita and porridge

A terribly exotic Spanish creature he dated 18 months ago was duly informed of this necessity: She said: Darling, youre too old for me. And I said: No darling, youll be 40 next year  youre too old for me!

Sir Ben, who made his fortune in shipping but then put most of the money into his estate, is now asset-rich but cash-poor, so life with him will not be all butlers, polished silverware and devilled kidneys.

He re-uses teabags and lives on vegetable juice, Ryvita, watery porridge and the occasional gulls egg as a treat.

He says the heating bill on Maunsel House is 50,000 a year. But Sir Benjamin doesn't plan on slowing down. He said: Mao Tse Tung was bonking away when he was 80! So was Moses'

To save 15,000 tax a year, he has moved out of Maunsel House into a half-built farmhouse where he scrimps on the heating, shares a bedroom with his Jack Russell, Bully, and labrador, Gerald, named after the late Duke of Westminster, and has an inspirational message from Donald Trump by his bed (he and Trumps first wife, Ivana, were good pals).

He rises at six, works all hours on his wedding business and wears holey jumpers.

Most women dont understand, he says. Its a nightmare running this place. The heating bills 50,000 a year. They dont tend to stay.

He is also constantly tired thanks to a sleep disorder, and has suffered a brief problem with his prostate  or bicycle pump, as he calls it  which he keeps fired up with oysters. Other than that, he claims to be in excellent health and even hangs upside down in a harness every morning to reduce stress.

Stress is not good  and its not good for down there, either, he says, stabbing at his crotch yet again. Thats why I need a good woman to help with it all. A good woman could be worth 100k to me, minimum, and she could pop out some heirs while shes at it.

But, given his health problem, is he up to the job? Mao Tse Tung was bonking away when he was 80! So was Moses. Im slowing down a bit  I just dont get enough practice in, he says sadly.

Then he tells me he isnt a fan of Viagra, preferring a similar drug called Cialis: Its really good  lasts all weekend.

Sir Benjamin tells Jane Fryer he isnt a fan of Viagra, preferring a similar drug called Cialis: Its really good  lasts all weekend. Pictured with Kirsty Hughes at Maunsel House

There is also a concoction that his French nephew obtains from the Far East, which he puts in his tea and which makes him go like greased lightning.

I wonder if all this is bluster and fantasy. So we move back to his childhood, which went from happy to unutterably miserable when he was ten and his elder brother died (in a car crash), followed by his mother the next year, then his uncle, then his father the year after that.

Young Ben was shipped off to a distant relative for his troubled teens, then packed off to Australia on a one-way ticket, where he worked in the mines and on sheep stations and slept rough.

Despite having to overcome the odds, his grief and terrible dyslexia, he pulled through, made a fortune in shipping and bought back the family seat from his aunt.

When Sir Benjamin was ten, his elder brother died in a car crash, followed by his mother the next year, then his uncle and father the year after that. He was shipped off to a distant relative for his troubled teens

Given the parallels, I ask about Prince Harrys mental health charity. But he just harrumphs.

Theyre all nuts, really. And his mother was totally screwed up. Everyone knows there are three families you should never marry into and the Spencers is one!

It is easy to see why he wants children  If I drop dead today, this place will be on the market in a month  and he is convinced hed make a good father.

People tell me youre too old. Youll die. So what? I was bloody orphaned. Anyway, a nice young attractive widow with two castles and a title is going to get snapped up pretty quickly.

What is surprising is that he never did manage to father a child, despite all that frantic rutting.

He blames what he calls Fallopian complications and claims too many cats were responsible for his marriage failure.

But what about adoption?

He looks horrified. People dont give anything away thats any good, do they?

And a baby from overseas, he says, was completely out of the question.

If youre living in the countryside and into hunting and shooting, an Aboriginal or an African probably wouldnt go down too well round here. They might not let someone like me adopt anyway.

That is probably the wisest thing he has said so far.

Even though Sir Benjamin is desperate to have an heir, he won't consider adoption. He said: People dont give anything away thats any good, do they

On the flip side, though, having Sir Ben as your dad might be a relentlessly politically incorrect experience and youd never dare bring anyone home for tea, but it would never be dull.

He is the sort of man who throws wild parties, has 5,000 people in his address book and is someone to whom mad things inevitably happen.

Who else would have a peacock called Ron Davies (after the Labour MP whose career was destroyed by a moment of madness involving a homosexual encounter on Clapham Common) which caused 4,000 damage to a peacock-blue car in a bout of misplaced ardour?

Sir Ben also cited a tomcat as co-respondent in his divorce. Then there was the time he went to court to fight for custody of a rescue dog called Jasper that had been rehomed to a brewery heiress. He was bequeathed to Slade, along with a trust fund that rose in value to 100,000 when his owner died.

Sir Benjamin owns a peacock called Ron Davies, after a Labour MP, which caused 4,000 damage to a peacock-blue car in a bout of misplaced ardour

Extraordinarily, Sir Bens exes seem genuinely fond of him.

For some reason they all want to come back  even Kirsten, who behaved disgracefully. Because I might not be the best looker but theres always something happening and I make them laugh.

And then, just as he is finally starting to sound more like a naughty uncle than a sexist oaf, he blows it by describing the shape of his favourite breasts.

I do like them pointing upwards. I once had an American girlfriend who had them pointing upwards. Just wonderful. And big, ideally, but I certainly dont want some tired old flap they can throw over the shoulder!

Oh stop it, Sir Ben! You are clearly far brighter than you let on and work like a Trojan, but its as if you have a constant need to offend  especially when, against all odds, someone might actually be warming to you.
Another Michigan doctor has been arrested in connection with a genital mutilation case where a Detroit-area physician is accused of performing the procedure on two young girls.

Dr Fakhruddin Attar and his wife Farida Attar were arrested by federal agents on Friday for allegedly conspiring with Dr Jumana Nagarwala in performing illegal procedures at his clinic in Livonia, Michigan.

Officials accuse Dr Attar of knowing that Nagarwala was performing female genital mutilations at his business and said that his wife Farida Attar assisted the female doctor.

The case was brought about after authorities were alerted that two 7-year-old girls said they were brought to the clinic for a 'special girls trip' and told to keep the visit a secret.

The FBI charged Nagarwala, 44, with the crime on April 12. She is held without bond and if she is found guilty, the doctor could spend life behind bars.

The Attars and Nagarwala belong to a Muslim sect called Dawoodi Bohra, which has been linked to previous instances of female genital mutilation.

Dr Fakhruddin Attar (left) was arrested with his wife Farida Attar by the FBI on Friday for allegedly conspiring with Dr Jumana Nagarwala (right) in performing female genital mutilations on two girls at his Detroit-area clinic. Nagarwala was charged on April 12

A lawyer for Nagarwala told a judge Monday that the doctor agreed that genital mutilation is inappropriate.

Attorney Shannon Smith says her client merely scraped off mucous membranes from the genitals of two Minnesota girls in February and then handed the gauze containing the skin to the family for burial.

Smith says Nagarwala, an emergency room doctor at the Henry Ford Health System, is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra community, a Gujarati-speaking Muslim sect concentrated mostly in India. The group has a mosque in suburban Detroit.

Despite Nagarwala's protestations of innocence, Magistrate Judge Mona Majzoub ordered the doctor held in jail without bond at the conclusion of the 90-minute hearing, saying she's a danger to the public and a flight risk.

Nagrawala, who appeared in court in an orange jail jumpsuit and a hijab, remained impassive throughout the proceedings.

Officials say Nagarwala performed the illegal procedure on two seven-year-old girls at Dr Attar's clinic (pictured), with his knowledge in February. They accuse his wife of assisting Nagarwala during the procedure

Federal prosecutors say the Detroit case marks the first time someone has been charged with violating a US ban on female genital mutilation.

Nagarwala, of Northville, Michigan, was arrested last Thursday while attempting to board a flight to Nairobi, Kenya, to visit her daughter, days after the two girls identified her as the person who performed medical procedures on them at a private Livonia clinic after hours in February.

The FBI says the girls were accompanied to the clinic by their mothers.

Nagarwala is also charged with transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and making a false statement to a federal officer.

Authorities in Minnesota filed child protection petitions for the two 7-year-old girls, one of whom was removed from her family's suburban Minneapolis home and placed in a shelter on a 72-hour health and welfare hold. Her 11-year-old brother remains in the home.

Her father told a child protection investigator that 'if they knew what would come of it, this would never have happened,' the petition stated.

During Monday's court hearing, prosecutors said they have identified three more victims on whom Nagrawala was alleged to have performed FGM in Michigan dating back to at least 2005, though she has not been charged in connection to those procedures.

The Attars and Nagarwala belong to a Muslim sect called Dawoodi Bohra. Pictured: Dr Fakhruddin Attar's medical clinic

Assistant US Attorney Sarah Woodward told the court Nagrawala performed the procedures in secret after the Livonia clinic was closed for the day and did not bill for any of them.

According to the owner of the Livonia medical office, Nagrawala was not part of the practice and only used the site after hours on Fridays and Saturdays, up to six times a year.

The doctors attorney argued that her client never performed female genital mutilations, but rather removed a mucous membrane from the Minnesota girls' genitals using a 'scraper.'

What is FGM? Female genital mutilation is the practice in which some or all of the female genitals are removed, typically with a blade or a razor and sometimes without anesthesia. This includes removing the clitoral and the fold of skin above it, and removing labia  the inner 'lips' of the vagina. In the most severe form, the inner and outer labia are removed and the opening of the vagina is closed with a small hole so the woman can pass urine and menstrual blood. Sometimes the vagina is then cut open for sex or childbirth. Women sometimes bleed to death or can be left with horrifying health effects, such as infections, chronic pain, cysts, infertility and problems giving birth. Female genital mutilation is prevalent, particularly, in the Middle East and African subcontinent and within pockets of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths, according to the organization. Worldwide, an estimated 140 million women and girls have undergone the procedure, according to the World Health Organization. More than 3 million girls in Africa undergo the procedure each year. Advertisement

Judge Majzoub challenged the defense by pointing out that doctors who examined the victims found that parts of their genitals appeared to have been altered or removed.

Smith responded by saying her client, Dr Nagrawala, disagreed with those conclusions and insisted that she was not responsible for any abnormalities in the girls' genitals, suggesting that the children may have caused the injuries by scratching, reported the Detroit Free Press.

The judge also asked why the doctor handed the girls pads, presumably to absorb bleeding, as alleged by the prosecution, to which Smith replied that the feminine hygiene products were given to soak up iodine that was used during the procedure, not blood.

In the wake of her arrest, Dr Nagrawala has been suspended from her job at Henry Ford Health System.

Female genital mutilation of minors is illegal in the US unless there's a legitimate health reason.

Acting US Attorney Daniel Lemisch said in a statement: 'Female genital mutilation constitutes a particularly brutal form of violence against women and girls. It is also a serious federal felony in the United States. The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law'.

'According to the complaint, despite her oath to care for her patients, Dr. Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims,' acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department's Criminal Division added.

'The Department of Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to ensure that no girls suffer such physical and emotional abuse.'

According to Detroit News, Henry Ford Hospital has issued the following statement: 'The alleged criminal activity did not occur at any Henry Ford facility,' health system spokesman David Olejarz said. 'We would never support or condone anything related to this practice.'

In a court filing, the FBI says Nagarwala denied performing genital mutilation.

The FBI also says the doctor is a member of a 'cultural community' that believes in the practice.

A traditional razor blade used to perform female genital mutilation in parts of Africa

Nagarwala is a US citizen who was born in Washington DC and currently resides in Northville, Michigan, with her husband, Moiz Yusuf Nagarwala, 48, who works at Visteon Corporation, an 'automotive electronics supplier'.

A child forensic interviewer talked to one of the alleged victims of FGM from Minnesota, who said she was brought to Detroit with a second girl for a 'special girls' trip,'according to the FBI.

The girls said they were told to keep the trip a secret.

The FBI had launched an investigation after receiving a tip that Nagarwala performed female genital mutilation on two seven-year-old girls at a Livonia medical clinic, according to the criminal complaint.

But according to the complaint, Nagarwala does not work at the clinic and there are no billing records indicating that she has performed medical procedures there.

In February, FBI agents obtained a court order to review the doctor's phone. The records showed several calls between Nagarwala's phone and a Minnesota phone number, according to the FBI.

And hotel records showed that two families, each with a young girl, stayed at the hotel on February 3.

Seven days later, the FBI child forensic interviewer talked to the 7-year-old who told him about the 'special girls' trip.'

After arriving in Farmington Hills, the girls were taken to a doctor because 'their tummies hurt.'

'While at the doctor's office, a procedure 'to get the germs out,' was performed on the first girl, according to the criminal complaint.

The girl was shown a photo of Nagarwala and said she was the doctor who performed the procedure, according to the FBI.

She told the FBI that Nagarwala 'pinched' her on the "place [where] she goes pee."'

'(The girl) said that she was told not to talk about the procedure,' FBI Special Agent Kevin Swanson wrote in the complaint.

A subsequent medical examination showed that the young girls' genitals did not appear normal and a section had been altered or removed.

'Finally, the doctor observed some scar tissue and small healing lacerations,' the agent wrote.

The complaint details the second girl's experience with the doctor and she said she underwent a procedure and identified Nagarwala as the doctor.

'She said that she "got a shot," and that it hurt really badly and she screamed,' the FBI agent wrote. 'Her parents told her that the procedure is a secret and that she is not supposed to talk about it.

'[The girl] said that after the procedure, she could barely walk, and that she felt pain all the way down to her ankle,' the agent continued.

A subsequent medical exam showed the girl's genitalia had a small incision and a small tear.

On Monday, Minnesota Child Protective Services personnel and a federal agent interviewed the second girl's parents.

They confirmed the trip to Detroit, saying they took the girl to see Nagarwala for a 'cleansing' of extra skin, according to the court filing.

Agents have identified other children who may have been victimized by the doctor between 2005 and 2007, including children in Michigan, according to the FBI agent.

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2012 found that roughly 513,000 women and girls in the US were at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation, which was more than three times higher than an earlier estimate based on 1990 data.
Carrie Fisher's Catastrophe co-star has shared her final moments with the Hollywood star before her shocking death.

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, the co-creators of Amazon's Catastrophe, which stars Fisher in one of her final roles, said they were shocked by her unexpected death last year and had bigger plans for her character.

Two days before Christmas, Fisher was returning to Los Angeles from London after shooting her final scenes for season three of Catastrophe.

Fisher tragically suffered a medical emergency aboard the flight and died on December 27 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Two days before Christmas, Carrie Fisher was returning to Los Angeles from London after shooting her final scenes for season three of Catastrophe (Fisher in scene from show). Fisher tragically suffered a medical emergency aboard the flight and died on December 27

Co-creators and co-stars Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan (left) said they were shocked by her unexpected death last year and had bigger plans for her character

'We had no idea. I don't think she had any idea,' series star and co-creator Delaney said in an interview Thursday.

Fisher, 60, played Delaney's mother, Mia, in the series about a couple navigating the highs and lows of marriage and parenthood. The new season begins streaming April 28.

The show also stars Horgan, who spent time with Fisher the night before her fateful flight.

'We had dinner and she skipped off to her room,' said Horgan, who is also a 'Catastrophe' co-creator.

'And she had been at the antique market earlier that day and she was showing me all these lovely little bits and pieces that she bought for her mom to bring back.'

Fisher's mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, died the day after her daughter. Reynolds was 84.

Horgan said Fisher spoke of a renewed excitement about her acting career and 'had massive plans to do more of that'.

'She brought her incredible, crazy, hilarious, warm, kind personality, but she also brought us the character of Mia.

'You know, we wrote it down, but she made her the brilliant monster that she is,' Horgan said.

Horgan said Fisher (pictured on Catastrophe) 'had been at the antique market earlier that day' buying little bits and pieces for her mother Debbie Reynolds, who died just a day after Fisher

Horgan said Fisher spoke of a renewed excitement about her acting career and 'had massive plans to do more of that'. Fisher (pictured in Star will also be in the next Star Wars film The Last Jedi that's set to be released at the end of the year

Delaney and Horgan said they deeply regret not having more time with the actress and her 'Catastrophe' character. Fisher is pictured in a scene from the upcoming Star Wars film The Last Jedi

'I miss her, but I'll miss her in our show, you know, I'll miss that character and I'll miss being able to tell that character's story.'

Delaney and Horgan said they deeply regret not having more time with the actress and her 'Catastrophe' character.

'Only now am I realizing - because I've been sad as a human being and friend of hers - but yeah, I do feel now stolen from,' Delaney said.

'We wanted to do a lot more with Carrie. I was only just beginning to be invited to her house!' Horgan said.

'We wanted to tell more about that character. We wanted to flesh her out more and give her a story and a reason for her behavior.

'And the only reason why we did that is because Carrie made us want to do that.'
Labour ditched a campaign slogan that said 'Tories are the real extremists' over fears Jeremy Corbyn would be questioned over his links to Hamas and the IRA.

Senior advisers to the Labour leader came up with the phrase to ward off attacks from the Conservatives, during a National Executive Committee meeting, it has been reported.

However, it was rejected by party communications chief Seumas Milne as he was concerned it could offer critics the chance to focus on Mr Corbyn's record.

Labour ditched a campaign slogan that said 'Tories are the real extremists' over fears Jeremy Corbyn would be questioned over his links to Hamas and the IRA

The campaign revelation - which has been denied by a Jeremy Corbyn spokeswoman as 'untrue' - comes after Labour published a statement earlier this week to reassure the public that their leader was not a 'terrorist sympathiser', reports the Telegraph.

Mr Corbyn has previously been criticised for his controversial choice of political friends.

Just weeks after the IRA bombed the Tory conference in Brighton in 1984, he invited Sinn Fein boss Gerry Adams and other members of Sinn Fein to the Commons.

The Islington North MP was also accused of 'traitorous' behaviour for helping Mr Adams plug his autobiography inside the Houses of Parliament in 1996.

In July 2015, he posed for pictures over coffee with Mr Adams and former deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness at Portcullis House in Westminster.

Mr Adams later tweeted a picture of the meeting, describing Mr Corbyn and colleagues as 'comrades'.

Just weeks after the IRA bombed the Tory conference in Brighton in 1984, he invited Sinn Fein boss Gerry Adams and other members of Sinn Fein to the Commons. Pictured, Mr Corbyn and Mr Adams together in 1995

Pictured: Jeremy Corbyn posed for pictures over coffee with Mr Adams and former deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness at Portcullis House in Westminster

After the pictures emerged, Mr Corbyn was slammed by Lord Tebbit, whose wife was paralysed in the 1984 Brighton bomb.

He said: 'I feel contempt for his views  but I feel no more upset that I would feel upset by barking of a raving dog.'

This week Labour defended their leader's previous meetings with Sinn Fein in a statement.

It said: 'Jeremy has always believed that war needs to be last course of action and peace is always preferable.

'Like many politicians during the troubles with the IRA, Jeremy was attempting to bring together both sides to broker peace and his belief in transparency meant that unlike other politicians he did not keep this secret. '

Mr Corbyn was criticised after calling members of Hamas and Hezbollah 'friends'

Mr Corbyn has also long been been criticised for welcoming representatives from the banned Islamic militant groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, to Parliament in 2009, and introducing them as 'friends' at a public meeting.

After repeatedly refusing to apologise or withdraw the remarks, he told MPs last year that in hindsight he wish he hadn't used the words.

He said: 'The language I used at that meeting was actually here in Parliament and it was about encouraging the meeting to go ahead, encouraging there to be a discussion about the peace process.'

Asked whether he still regarded Hamas and Hezbollah as 'friends,' the Labour leader said: 'No. It was inclusive language I used which with hindsight I would rather not have used. I regret using those words, of course.'
Harvard academics have discovered a second parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence at a records office in southern England.

The only other parchment copy is on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC, researchers Emily Sneff and Danielle Allen have said in a statement to the Boston Globe.

The newly discovered document has been dated to the 1780s and was found in the town of Chichester's archives.

Harvard academics have discovered a second parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence at a records office in southern England

'I was just looking for copies of the Declaration of Independence in British archives,' Sneff told the Guardian.

She became excited when she saw that the listing mentioned parchment - which suggests a special document and not a simple copy.

'I reached out to them a bit skeptically,' Sneff said. 'The description was a little vague but once we saw an image and talked to a conservator we started to get excited.'

'I was on pins and needles,' Allen recalled to the New York Times.

'I thought we would turn it over and the back would say, 'Ha, ha, we fooled you!' '

It is believed to have originally belonged to the Duke of Richmond, or the 'Radical Duke,' (pictured) who left behind a legacy of advanced views on parliamentary reform

It is believed to have originally belonged to the Duke of Richmond, or the 'Radical Duke,' who left behind a legacy of advanced views on parliamentary reform.

'It would be nice to associate this document with the radical duke,' Sneff said.

During the Revolutionary War he gave significant support to the Americans, reported the Globe.

The document was most likely created in New York or Philadelphia, and researchers are trying to determine who wrote it and paid for it to be copied.

It is not an official government document, like the original, but a display copy likely created by a commercial clerk in the 1780's, reported the New York Times.

They believe that the document was probably commissioned by James Wilson of Pennsylvania.

HOW DID THE SECOND COPY END UP IN ENGLAND? The rare second parchment was found at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester. Copies of the declaration made their way to England after the original 1776 signing. But the Sussex Declaration was made sometime in the next decade. Experts are still working to understand how the manuscript ended up in Britain. They believe it came from a law firm connected with the dukes of Richmond. Theorists think it was passed down to Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond, by Thomas Paine - an American political activist who was one of the Founding Fathers. Lennox was a peer of George III and was called 'the radical duke' because he supported American colonists in their rebellion against the king and parliament. The document was moved to West Sussex in 1956. Advertisement

The signatories on the Sussex version of the document are not broken down by state, unlike the National Archives copy, researchers said.

Instead, the 56 signatures were done in a seemingly random order, which, researchers argue points to Wilson.

The copy is, otherwise, strikingly similar in appearance to the 1776 version.

Their team is working with British officials to test the document in the safest way possible so as to not damage the parchment.

Wilson worked with others on the original draft of the Constitution, and was one of the first justices appointed to the Supreme Court.

'The team hypothesizes that this detail supported efforts, made by Wilson and his allies during the Constitutional Convention and ratification process, to argue that the authority of the Declaration rested on a unitary national people, and not on a federation of states,' the researchers wrote in a statement to the Globe.

They believe that Wilson wanted to influence the debate over the Constitution, which is why he had the copy made, and could help to answer the question at the core of American politics regarding whether or not the country was founded by a united nation of people or a collection of states.

Wendy Walker, West Sussex County archivist, told MailOnline: 'We are looking forward to seeing the results of the hyperspectral imaging work and other analyses later in the summer.

'We are delighted to be working with Harvard, the Library of Congress and the British Library to find out more about this fascinating document and welcome this interest in the West Sussex archives.'
Tucker Carlson's meteoric rise at Fox News is complete, a mere five months after his show made its network debut.

The network's golden child is not resting on his laurels however now that he has found himself in the much coveted 8pm time slot formally occupied by Bill O'Reilly, announcing on Friday afternoon that he will be sitting down with one of the most famous women in the world - Caitlyn Jenner.

Reps for Fox News announced that among the topics Carlson will be discussing with the Olympic Gold medalist and noted Republican are her perspective on the Trump administration, the current political climate and divide in America, and Jenner's thoughts on how best to bring Americans together.

Jenner will also be promoting her new memoir 'The Secrets of My Life,' which will be released next week.

Monday will mark her first appearance on Fox News since she transitioned, and one of only a handful of on-air interviews she has granted to promote her book.

Scroll down for video

Game of thrones: 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' moves into the 8pm hour on Monday night replacing Bill O'Reilly's 'The O'Reilly Factor'

The Caitlyn Factor: Carlson has announced that his first guest on Monday will be Caitlyn Jenner (above)

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' premiered at 7pm on November 14 as a replacement for 'On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren,' and proved to be an instant success for the network despite replacing a program that had been on the air for 14 years.

In its debut week, the show manged to draw in more viewers than its competition on both CNN and MSNBC combined across all categories, according to Nielsen Media Research.

It was also the third highest rated week for the 7pm time slot that year, beaten only by election week earlier that month and the week of the Republican national Convention back in July.

Those initial numbers made Carlson an obvious choice to move into the 9pm hour less than two months later, when 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' moved into the spot formerly occupied by 'The Kelly File' after Megyn Kelly announced she would be leaving Fox News to join the team at NBC News.

Carlson again proved to be a massive draw, besting Kelly's already impressive numbers in the time slot.

He even manged to give the network its highest-rated quarter in total viewers in the 9pm hour with 3.3million people tuning in, according to Nielsen Media Research, including an impressive 689,000 in the key demo.

Carlson had been with Fox News for years prior to taking over for Van Susteren, but in a much smaller role on the channel as one of the three hosts on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends.

He started out as a contributor on the network back in 2009.

Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox and Executive Chairman of FOX News Rupert Murdoch said of Carlson back in January: 'In less than two months, Tucker has taken cable news by storm with his spirited interviews and consistently strong performance.

'Viewers have overwhelmingly responded to the show and we look forward to him being a part of Fox News powerful primetime line-up.'

The Grey Gatsby: O'Reilly was spotted out shoe shopping near his Long Island home on Friday (above), two days after he was let go by the network

In her shoes: Carlson has proven to be ratings gold for Fox News, first in the 7pm hour taking over for Greta Van Susteren (left) and then in the 9pm hour for Megyn Kelly (right)

Carlson started his television career at CNN when he was just 30, co-hosting The 'Spin Room,' a show whose basis was the presence of a liberal (Bill Press) and a conservative (Carlson) debating the news and politics of the day.

He was eventually promoted to co-host of the network's biggest show at the time, Cross fire, but moved on in 2005 after five years.

CNN said at the time they did not renew Carlson's contract while he said he had decided months prior that he was not going to stay.

Carlson quickly found a new home at MSNBC, where in June of that same year he began hosting his own show, 'The Situation With Tucker Carlson.'

The name of the show was later changed to Tucker, but ratings continued to drop over the course of three seasons and in 2008 his show was cancelled by the network.

Carlson, who worked for the national conservative journal Policy Review shortly after graduation from Trinity College, also launched the conservative news site The Daily Caller in 2010.

He is married to his high school sweetheart and the couple have four children - a son Buckley and daughters Hopie, Lillie and Dorothy.

Carlson managed to grab some headlines along with his ratings a little over a month into his new job at Fox News due to a heated exchange with a writer from Teen Vogue.

And when you get the chance...: Carlson was on the third season of 'Dancing With the Stars' in 2006 (above with Elena Grineko)

Carlson had Lauren Duca on the program to discuss the incident that happened just before Christmas when Ivanka Trump was accosted on a plane by a man who criticized her and her father while she was travelling with her young children.

Duca had tweeted prior to the segment: 'Ivanka Trump is poised to become the most powerful woman in the world. Don't let her off the hook because she looks like she smells good.'

That tweet threw Carlson and others off however, with some under the impression that Duca was saying she supported the actions of the man on the plane, which she did not.

When Duca agreed with Carlson that the man was in the wrong the two launched into a spirited debate during which Carlson frequently cut off his guest, who later said that she was at a disadvantage because she was not in the same studio as Carlson.

She eventually called Carlson a 'partisan hack' while he closed out the segment by saying Duca should 'stick to the thigh-high boots' stories.

Video from the segment went viral with may outlets covering the exchange between the two. Some believed Carlson had come out on top and others Duca.

Carlson's most famous on-air debate however came back in 2004, when he and Jon Stewart went at it during an episode of Crossfire.

After being challenged by Stewart, Carlson asked why he was not being funny, and told the then-host of The Daily Show: 'Youre more fun on your show.'

An unamused Stewart fired back at Carlson, saying: 'Youre as big a d*** on your show as you are on any show.'

Crossfire was cancelled three months later.

Carlson was also a contestant on the third season of 'Dancing With the Stars,' though it was a very brief appearance as he was the first contestant voted off the reality competition show.

Hopefully his upcoming primetime stint will go better than his dance floor debut.
British Airways has come under fire from the new president of Ghana for the way it treats customers.

In a major embarrassment for the airline, the African countrys leader criticised the quality of the planes and the service.

He even accused BA of taking us a little for granted. The comments follow a barrage of complaints from travellers over poor service on the airlines flights.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (pictured) said British Airways seemed to be taking Ghanaians for granted because it was the only airline that flies daily from London to Accra

BA has been criticised after it stopped providing free sandwiches, snacks and drinks on flights lasting less than five hours.

The policy could now be extended to long-haul flights for passengers in economy class.

The airline has also come under fire over plans to cut legroom from 30 inches to 29 on some of its planes  an inch less than Ryanair.

The criticism from President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana is particularly embarrassing, however, as it came during a meeting with a BA executive about the airlines plans to celebrate 80 years of flying to the country.

The president, who has been in office since January, urged Paolo De Renzis, the head of Middle East, Africa and Central Asia sales at BA, to upgrade the quality of the services between Accra, the Ghanaian capital, and London.

There are complaints about the quality of the planes on the route and the service, said Mr Akufo-Addo. In some quarters, there is a feeling that you are taking us a little for granted in the way in which we are receiving your services.

Mr Akufo-Addo also said that passengers complained that flights to and from Accra now operate out of Terminal Three at Heathrow  not Terminal Five, the flagship terminal opened in 2008. Terminal Three is not so convenient a place as Terminal Five, he said.

Addressing Mr Renzis, he added: When friends are speaking, I think we should speak frankly. I think I am the proper person to let you know what the pre-occupations of our people are. These are matters that will be easy for you to rectify.

British Airways said: 'Our customers in Ghana will benefit from the investments were making in customer experience as they roll out'

However, the president also praised BA for its long-standing relationship with Ghana.

The patronage you have tells you about the confidence the Ghanaian people have in the airline, he said. I want to congratulate you very warmly. Eighty years of service is worth commemorating.

Mr Renzis told Mr Akufo-Addo: We have a long-standing relationship with the country. We are strongly committed to the market, and we appreciate your feedback. We will work very hard to improve the products and services to Ghana.

BA flies once a day from London to Accra and once a day from Accra to London.

The flights  on a Boeing 747 that carries up to 345 passengers  take longer than six hours.

Return flights cost from 677. Other airlines to fly from the UK to Ghana include KLM, Air France, Alitalia, Emirates and Kenya Airways.

The meeting in Ghana follows criticism from customers closer to home. British Airways came under fire earlier this month after it offered only 40 of compensation to an 87-year-old woman who sat in soaking wet clothes on a 13-hour flight from Los Angeles to London after an air hostess refused to let her go to the lavatory.

In another incident, a group of 60 children from a school in Hampshire claimed they were denied free tap water while on a three-hour flight from Naples to Gatwick.

A BA spokesman said: Our customers in Ghana will benefit from the investments were making in customer experience as they roll out.

'These include investments in the latest technology in the air and on the ground, catering, our premium offerings and providing value in our economy cabins.
Looking sharper than usual in a jacket and trousers that actually match, Jeremy Corbyn cut a dapper figure as he left his home the morning after Theresa May surprised everyone by calling a general election.

As he left via the front gate of his wisteria-clad 600,000 terraced home in Islington, North London, onlookers could almost have been forgiven for thinking that he might have been taking style tips from the stylish younger man, one James Schneider, striding along so purposefully beside him.

The next morning, there was Mr Schneider again, clutching a sheaf of papers, as dapper Mr Corbyn (not a vest or bicycle clip in sight these days, it seems) headed out to deliver a speech to launch Labours general election campaign.

James Schneider grew up in Primrose Hill, one of London's most exclusive neighbourhoods, before going to Winchester College and Oxford University

As they left Church House in Westminster later, Mr Schneider was seen again, keeping a watchful eye on his new 67-year-old boss as he faced the camera crews.

So, you may well ask, just who is James Schneider? Well, since October 2016 the 29-year-old, who was privately educated and grew up in a house now worth 7million in Primrose Hill, one of Londons most exclusive neighbourhoods, is in fact head of strategic communications for Mr Corbyn. Just six months into the job, he finds himself a key member of the Labour leaders team as they prepare for June 8.

His father Brian Schneider was a financier who died aged 48 in 2004.

His mother Tessa Lang, 61, is a London-based property consultant who, according to her profile on the business networking website LinkedIn, has facilitated sales and bespoke property search and acquisition in many of Londons most exclusive urban villages including Kensington, Notting Hill, Primrose Hill, Bloomsbury, and Hampstead.

She is a member of The Sloane Club, a private members club in Chelsea, and an occasional contributor of poetry to The Spectator magazine and others.

Mr Schneider's mother Tessa Lang is a member of The Sloane Club, a private members club in Chelsea, and an occasional contributor of poetry to The Spectator magazine and others

James Schneider attended top public school Winchester College.

He then went up to Trinity College, Oxford, where he was president of the Liberal Democrats student branch, and was neither a Labour voter at the last election nor a party member.

He left the Liberal Democrats in 2010  and joined the Labour Party on May 11, 2015, four days after Labours last crushing general election defeat.

He describes himself as having been an African-focused journalist for five years, including posts as editor of an online news analysis website on Africa and a spell on a magazine. But he first hit the headlines himself as a founder of the pro-Corbyn grassroots movement Momentum. The organisation was set up in October 2015, four weeks after Mr Corbyn was elected leader.

The movement says it exists to build on the energy and enthusiasm from the Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Leader campaign, to increase participatory democracy, solidarity, and grassroots power and help Labour become the transformative governing party of the 21st century. Mr Schneider was a national organiser and press officer for Momentum.

Schneider first hit the headlines when he helped found the pro-Corbyn grassroots movement Momentum in October 2015

He left that role for his new job under Mr Corbyn. He was appointed the Labour leaders head of strategic communications in October 2016, a month after Mr Corbyn swept to his second leadership election victory.

He works under Seumas Milne, the former Guardian journalist who is overall chief of the leaders press team. His role was boosted last month after Mr Corbyns spokesman Matt Zarb-Cousin stepped down. Mr Schneider has stepped into his shoes, briefing the media on Labour policies.

He is also tasked with advising Mr Corbyn on media strategy and the best way to sell his Left-wing policies (but no one would comment on whether his duties also include advising Mr Corbyn on appearance and dress sense). Activists at Momentums Hackney branch recently suggested an idea to help win the General Election, saying: The odds are against Labour, but if enough of us bet a tenner on Labour to get the most seats or Corbyn to be the next PM, the odds will shorten and the narrative will begin to change.

Mr Schneider is still a member of Momentum but is no longer responsible for handling inquiries about the group so would not comment on the idea. But a Momentum spokesman explained: Activists from Hackney Momentum made a light-hearted suggestion that putting 10 on Labour would help shift the media narrative and encourage reporting on actual policies, to enable voters to make an informed decision on 8th June. But Mr Schneiders elevation to Mr Corbyns inner circle shows how Momentum has become increasingly influential.

Schneider's childhood home is now worth an estimated 7million

Its hard to know where the leaders office ends and Momentum begins, one insider said. Momentum is Jeremy Corbyns praetorian guard and there has been a fairly seamless exchange between Momentum and Corbyns office in Westminster. James Schneiders appointment is symptomatic of that. He was credited as the architect of Mr Corbyns re-election victory last year, and now he is in the leaders office.

Another insider said: He is a posh boy with a burning ambition to promote himself. He has an uncanny ability to make sure he is in every shot with the leader, with his hair perfectly tousled.

He is part of that legion of public school Oxonians who are at the very heart of that operation. Schneider fits into that mould of the type of person the man in charge likes. Corbyn likes people around him he thinks are clever because it makes him feel clever.

Mr Schneider declined to comment yesterday.

But a Momentum source claimed references to his wealthy background were a smear used to undermine someone campaigning to make sure that wealth and power rests with the majority, rather than hoarded by a few at the very top, adding: James is professional, highly competent and well-liked by journalists and activists alike.
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They were a charming antidote to the turbulence of the world beyond  a reminder of a simpler Britain.

This week, as we suddenly found ourselves thrust into a snap election campaign on top of all the uncertainties and upheavals in France, Turkey and the Korean peninsula, the Mail offered readers a wonderful distraction.

Our photographs showed Devon farmer Jonathan Waterer working his fields, as he has always done, with a Herculean team of Shire horses instead of tractors.

This week, as we suddenly found ourselves thrust into a snap election campaign on top of all the uncertainties and upheavals in France, Turkey and the Korean peninsula, the Mail offered readers a wonderful distraction. Pictured: Robert Hardman harrowing the fields on Jonathan Waterer's farm with his team of Shire horses (and a Dales pony)

The images of Jonathan Waterer out on his fields proved such a welcome tonic for readers everywhere that the phone has hardly stopped ringing since at Higher Biddacott Farm, near Barnstaple. Pictured: Robert Hardman takes up the reigns

The images proved such a welcome tonic for readers everywhere that the phone has hardly stopped ringing since at Higher Biddacott Farm, near Barnstaple.

Everyone from documentary makers to horse lovers all over the world wants a chat or a photo or further details about Jonathan and his horses.

With the unflappable stoicism of a man who was born on a farm and has spent most of the subsequent 57 years working on the land, he is rather surprised by all the fuss.

After all, as far as he is concerned, there is nothing unusual about harnessing several tons of obedient horseflesh to a harrow or plough or mower or seed machine.

It might not be quite as quick or comfortable as performing the same task by tractor but, in Jonathans view, it is not merely more satisfying, its also a heck of a lot better for the soil.

Yet to millions of us struggling to keep pace with the demands and impositions of our click-driven, digitally dependent worlds, Jonathans way of life is, somehow, deeply reassuring.

And there is nothing quite like a day here to lift the soul, particularly when  like me  you are holding the reins of a team of Shire horses as they rip open the soil beneath your feet with extraordinary grace and power. In the distance looms St Hierithas, Chittlehampton, the finest church tower in Devon. It is a magical setting.

For starters, I join Jonathan on foot and learn to steer a steady trio  Bobby, 14, William, six, and Samson, ten. I walk behind them as they heave a harrow, a sort of upturned comb the size of a picnic blanket, up and down Quarry Field. This uproots all the weeds before this six-acre field can be sown with spring wheat.

With the unflappable stoicism of a man who was born on a farm and has spent most of the subsequent 57 years working on the land, he is rather surprised by all the fuss. Pictured: Robert Hardman on the farm

After all, as far as he is concerned, there is nothing unusual about harnessing several tons of obedient horseflesh to a harrow or plough or mower or seed machine

Its like driving a very sensitive, very powerful vintage racing car. You know it could take off at any moment. You just hope it wont.

Even more exhilarating is the next part of the process, the disc harrows. This involves sitting on top of two rows of heavy rotating blades pulled by a team of half a dozen horses  with only two reins to control the lot of them.

The original three have been joined by their stablemates  Jack, five, President, four, and Billy, 20. Beautifully trained, they move as one as they churn up tons of rocks, weeds and compacted soil while also dragging me behind them.

Most impressive of the lot is Jack since, unlike the others, he is not a Shire horse. In fact, he is not a horse at all, but a Dales pony who merrily pulls above his weight.

Even more exhilarating is the next part of the process, the disc harrows. This involves sitting on top of two rows of heavy rotating blades pulled by a team of half a dozen horses  with only two reins to control the lot of them

Jonathan is not some dreamy eco-warrior clinging to a lost way of life. He is an intelligent, practical man with a delightful family running a mixed farming operation ranging from top quality beef production to specialist wheat to providing cattle and horse-drawn vehicles for productions such as Poldark and Pride And Prejudice.

But his passion  and his core business  is training horses.

Pop stars and the Prince of Wales  who asked Jonathan to mow his wildflower meadow at Highgrove  have sought his advice and help. But then so, too, have countless ordinary people, not least an Exmoor farmer with a precious cow facing a slow death in a bog.

There was no way he was going to get a tractor anywhere near that animal, but we got her out with a horse  and she gave birth a month later, he says proudly.

We are sitting in the kitchen of the family farmhouse where a couple have turned up with a frisky young horse for Jonathan to break in. As with thousands of horses and ponies before this one, he will soon have the animal ready and roadworthy for driving or riding.

And he will do so without a single crack of the whip  for the simple reason that he wont use one.

You dont need a stick or a loud voice to train a horse, says Jonathan, an old friend of Monty Roberts, the celebrated American horse whisperer.

He prefers not to use this title. I dont whisper to horses. But I can usually tell in a few minutes exactly how they are going to turn out. And the bigger they are, the easier they tend to be.

Its a busy kitchen. His wife, Fiona, is juggling plates of egg and bacon for her B&B guests while fielding a call from a lady in Hampshire seeking a DVD of heavy horses. No sooner does she hang up than there is a call from the local paper wanting to know how the new local celebrities at Higher Biddacott are planning to vote in this election from which they have become such a popular diversion.

I havent made up my mind, says Fiona. Jonathan, for his part, says he is not remotely political, but reckons Theresa May is the candidate best suited to sorting out Brexit.

The couples grown-up children, both former agricultural students, are at home today. Son Harry, 26, is on holiday from Holland, where he works in food products and commodities. Daughter Tiggy, 22, is completing a stunning range of pheasant-feathered artwork and mirrors, which she will unveil at the Badminton Horse Trials.

As Jonathan points out, when the pressure is on  be it harvest time or a busy filming schedule  the whole family mucks in. When I ask him about his greatest starring moments, hes a bit vague. I think I once drove Reese Witherspoon to the station, he laughs.

He is much more animated discussing the pitfalls facing his industry. People think farming will collapse after Brexit without subsidies, he says.

But farmers will just get on with it like they always have.

The original three have been joined by their stablemates  Jack, five, President, four, and Billy, 20. Beautifully trained, they move as one as they churn up tons of rocks, weeds and compacted soil while also dragging me behind them

The Waterers, for example, have just invested in a new hearse for horse-drawn funerals. Horse-drawn weddings are another of their sidelines. Jonathan thinks farmings biggest challenge is tackling the cumulative effect of years of automative farming combined with the use of more and more chemicals.

Airless soil that has been pressed and pressed again by machinery and chemically deprived of its natural ingredients will, in due course, become sterile.

If you read some studies, then this country has only about 50 harvests left at this rate. We need to think about growing things differently, he says.

Jonathan is the first to acknowledge that big farming operations could not possibly compete if, like him, they used horses instead of machinery.

Nor is he an evangelical advocate for organic food, saying it is an expensive, niche market.

But he is a firm believer that farming needs to be less intensive  using a single tractor journey to perform three tasks rather than three trips round the field.

Airless soil that has been pressed and pressed again by machinery and chemically deprived of its natural ingredients will, in due course, become sterile

He has a tractor  a scruffy 41-year-old model  but uses it only when he has to. There are some tasks when it makes sense, such as shifting bales around.

But when it comes to growing the crops on the 100-acre farm, with its 40 head of cattle, he insists on doing all the tasks in the traditional way.

He grows his own straw, hay and oats. But hes also dedicated 16 acres to growing wheat for specialist artisanal bakeries in London, which can fetch 2,000 a ton at a ton per acre.

Its a new direction inspired by pop star-turned-farmer Andy Cato. Having had hits such as I See You Baby with Groove Armada, Cato moved his family to a farm in south-west France where he grows his crops in the old-fashioned way.

He asked Jonathan over to help him with the horse side of things and the two are now in frequent contact.

His knowledge is just phenomenal and so are the results, says Jonathan. His wheat is four or five inches taller than the wheat next door.

He is also a great admirer of Prince Charles, whom he met when he was invited to drive his horse-drawn mower over the Highgrove meadow.

The official book on the royal Gloucestershire estate includes a photograph of Jonathan and the Prince hard at work in 1999. The Prince wanted to know all about how it worked and asked if he could have a go himself. Not a single wonky line, says Jonathan approvingly.

The Prince spent a couple of hours alongside him on the mower and, he says, they discussed everything under the sun.

Hes a real thinker. He even asked me what I thought about prison reform.

With the unflappable stoicism of a man who was born on a farm and has spent most of the subsequent 57 years working on the land, Mr Waterer (pictured in the original image published on Wednesday) is rather surprised by all the fuss

Jonathan went on to help the Highgrove farm staff find some heavy horses of their own.

We head to the stone stables where the Shire horses live. Some, like Bobby and Samson, were bred locally. Others, like Jack the Dales pony, ended up here because his owner could no longer cope.

They all have a story. A particular favourite was Abraham, who was discovered chained to a tree near Bristol without food and water. The RSPCA asked if Jonathan could help.

He was all over the place when he arrived, he says. But he was one of the best weve ever had. Abraham spent the rest of his life here, reaching the ripe old age of 32.

Jonathans love of these gentle giants began in his youth on the family farm in Berkshire where he found an old harness for a draft horse and was hooked on learning more.

After boarding school at Radley, he went to work on a ranch in Canada where they still used heavy horses for farming and forestry.

He returned home and started doing the same on a small farm on Exmoor. It was there that he met Fiona, a nurse running an old peoples home.

Pooling their resources and with a bank loan, they bought Higher Biddacott in 1996 and have never looked back.

It doesnt matter what sort of a day youre having, says Fiona as we watch Jonathan set off across Quarry Field on his disc harrows behind his six beautiful animals. When youre watching this, you soon feel better.
The Chinese government has been mocked after pictures were posted online of a suggestion box in Yunnan province, China situated some 6.5 feet high.

According to the local government bureau, the suggestion box was closer to the ground however locals kept knocking into it.

Photos of the box were posted to Chinese social media on April 20 prompting many people to criticise the box's location, reports Huanqiu, an affiliation with the People's Daily Online.

Bizarre: People online have criticised the suggestion box for being too high up to reach

According to reports, the suggestion box belonged to the local government and allowed locals to post ideas and suggestions for the local area.

It was originally lower however people kept bumping into it.

The box was then moved higher up the wall just before the images were taken.

It's thought that following the images being shared online, the government is looking to relocate the suggestion box.

According to reports, the box had been lower before but people kept bumping into it

Photos of the box were then posted to Chinese social media site Weibo.

One user wrote: 'It's unworthy of a dwarf's opinions!'

While another commented: 'So short people can't have opinions?'

And one user said: 'Young lazy government officials are more terrible than the corrupt officials.'
A group of elderly residents had a joint birthday party attended by robot 'friends' at a care home in east China's Zhejiang province last week.

The robots were first introduced to the care home in May 2016 and help entertain the elderly residents as well as remind them to take their medication, reports the People's Daily Online.

At least five robots can be seen attending the party, swinging its arms to dance with the elderly.

A care home in eastern China organised a collective birthday party for elderly with robots

The robots sang and danced along with music to entertain the seniors as they watched

The nursing home in Hangzhou city for the elderly has been using fully-automated robotic assistants for the past year in order to provide a variety of useful services for the residents.

Developed by a Woosiyuan Telecom Technology Co Ltd named as A-Tie, meaning 'Little Iron', the cute droids dish out medicine and converse with the residents.

Pictures emerged today showing the elderly residents attending the first Cherry Blossom festival and April collective birthday party alongside the robots.

A-Tie can respond to voice commands by nodding its head or dancing and singing.

A-Tie, a smart robot that can respond to voice command and work as medication reminder

The robots were introduced to the care home last May to help out the workload of the nurse

The droids help look after 1,300 residents in the care home, helping 200 nurses to hand out medicine which has to be taken by each resident.

Most of the seniors' family members work in other cities and have very little time to visit, the droids allow them to make phone calls or video calls by dialing the number on the screen of the body.

A-Tie, 0.8-meter (2.6 ft) tall, weighing 15 kg (33 lbs), is the first model developed by the company.

Each droid unit is less than three feet tall and is capable of working for up to 72 hours on full charge.

With their electric blue antennae and touch-screen chests, the robots are very easy to use.

A-Tie can be controlled by a mobile phone app with a touch screen.

Shen Jian Chun (left), who created A-Tie, said the company is aiming to develop a second generation of the robots

Shen wanted to put dialects of Mandarin in the new robots to become more user friendly

The new robot allies have proved extremely popular with the elderly residents, with many commenting on their attractive appearance and usefulness around the home.

Zhao Huming, deputy director of the care home, said: The pensioners found it difficult to talk to their children through video chat on computers.

However, A-Tie is the first model developed by Woosiyuan and the company is planning to roll out a second version of robots with more advanced functions.

Shen Jian Chun, the creator of the robots understood technology could be difficult for some elderly residents and it has been a slow learning process for them with A-Tie.

He hoped to improve the language problem in the second version by developing dialects of Mandarin in the droids.

Using robots as carers for old people is a popular idea in Asia and has been pursued with a great deal of financial might.

In Japan, which has the world's oldest population, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe allocated 2.39bn yen (14.3m) of the country's 2013 budget to develop robots to help with care for the elderly.
Tarantulas use their lateral side eyes to calculate distances, researchers have found.

Researchers analyzed the role of each pair of a tarantula's eyes in the process of distance measurement.

They found that their lateral eyes help them measure the distance to their nest to find their way home.

Pictured is the arrangement of the four pairs of eyes on the cephalothorax of the spider Lycosa tarantula. OLA shows the anterior lateral eyes, OMA the anterior median eyes, OLP the posterior lateral eyes and OMP the posterior lateral eyes

LYCOSA TARANTULA FACTS The tarantula studied in the research is a species called Lycosa tarantula, which is found in southern Europe. It lives in burrows around 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) deep, topped by a turret-like structure which it builds from twigs, leaves and small stones, fastened with its own silk. Spying from the turret, the tarantula surprises its prey, running to catch it and then returning to the burrow from distances between 30 and 40 centimeters (11.8 and 15.7 inches). It uses a method called 'path integration' to return to their burrows. With this mechanism, it doesn't follow the same path back to its burrow - instead, it moves as though it had followed the sides of a right-angle triangle and returning along the hypotenuse - the longest side of the triangle. Advertisement

The researchers, based at the Autonomous University of Madrid, studied a tarantula species called Lycosa tarantula, which is found in southern Europe.

It lives in burrows around 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) deep, topped by a turret-like structure which it builds from twigs, leaves and small stones, fastened with its own silk.

Spying from the turret, the tarantula surprises its prey, running to catch it and then returning to the burrow from distances between 30 and 40 centimeters (11.8 and 15.7 inches).

It uses a method called 'path integration' to return to their burrows.

With this mechanism, it doesn't follow the same path back to its burrow - instead, it moves as though it had followed the sides of a right-angle triangle and returning along the hypotenuse - the longest side of the triangle.

In 1999, researchers from the same university discovered that the tarantulas use polarised light from the sky to know their position with respect to their nest.

In the new research, the researchers wanted to learn more and analysed the role of each of the tarantula's four pairs of eyes in the the process of measuring distance, also called odometry.

'To calculate the distance it has travelled, the animal needs an odometer (an instrument for measuring distance travelled) that registers the route, its location with respect to the finish point, which would be the burrow, and a 'compass' to track the direction of travel,' SINC was told by Dr Joaquin Ortega Escobar, the lead author of the research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

In this analogy, their 'compass' would correspond to polarised light - which the median eyes use to measure the angle, while direction is detected mainly by the anterior lateral eyes and to a lesser extent the posteriol lateral eyes.

Spying from the turret, the tarantula surprises its prey, running to catch it and then returning to the burrow

Dr Escobar explained that the anterior lateral eyes point downwards, looking at the ground.

'In the experiment, we covered these eyes with a water-soluble paint and observed that instead of travelling 30 centimetres (11.8 inches) from the nest, which is the distance we initially set, they stopped 8.5 centimetres (3.3 inches) before they reached their objective,' said Dr Escobar.

With their anterior lateral eyes covered and the others able to see, they had problems determining distance.

'When we uncovered them, they could return to their nests perfectly,' Dr Escobar said.

In the experiment, the researchers covered the anterior lateral eyes of the tarantula with a water-soluble paint and observed that instead of travelling 30 centimetres (11.8 inches) from the nest, which is the distance that was initially set, they stopped 8.5 centimetres (3.3 inches) before they reached their objective

'They need the lateral anterior eyes to measure the distance.'

The researchers also observed that don't move their front two legs when their eyes are covered.

In previous studies of other animals such as desert ants (Cataglyphis fortis), the researchers observed that in a similar experiment to the tarantula one, where the ventral region of the ants' compound eyes (the part that perceives the grid) was covered, they did not present a significant difference in the return trip to the nest compared to when the eyes were uncovered.

'The situations of these two animals are analogous,' said Dr Escobar.

'In the case of the spider, it is the anterior lateral eye that perceives the ventral field of view, while in the ant it is the ventral region of the compound eye.

'Spiders have simple eyes like our own, rather than compound eyes,' he said.
Pollution in Europe has contributed to one of the worst droughts in India which has destroyed the lives of more than 130 million people, according to a new study.

Researchers believe manufactured aerosols are to blame for the weakening of monsoon winds and rain in India over the past few decades.

This research shows what a complex effect pollutants have on different parts of the world, both in terms of air quality and climate.

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In this photograph taken in 2016 an Indian farmer stands in his field in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The country has suffered a debilitating drought that affected more than 130 million people and new research suggests that pollution from Europe is partly to blame

HOW POLLUTION LEADS TO DROUGHT Aerosols, which can stay in the atmosphere for weeks, suspended in the atmosphere can both reflect and absorb solar radiation. They also affect cloud cover - and can make them brighter and suppress rainfall. Although they are produced naturally from sea salt spray and desert dust, man-made aerosols make up a major part of this pollution. South Asia produces its own share of pollution but aerosols from regions the other side of the world - such as Europe - also indirectly effect local conditions. Advertisement

Emissions from the northern hemisphere's main industrial areas caused a staggering 40 per cent drop in rainfall in north west India in 2000, according to researchers from Imperial College London.

Europe's emissions alone caused levels of rainfall to fall by ten per cent in the same year.

Although South Asia produces its own share of pollution, aerosols from regions the other side of the world also indirectly effect local conditions.

Aerosols, which release sulphur dioxide and stay in the atmosphere for weeks, can both reflect and absorb solar radiation.

They also affect cloud cover - and can make them brighter and suppress rainfall.

Although they are produced naturally from sea salt spray and desert dust, man-made aerosols make up a major part of this pollution.

'Each summer the South Asian monsoon drenches the Indian subcontinent, as strong moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean deliver over 70 per cent of the region's annual rainfall in just three months', said researcher Dilshad Shawki from ICL's Grantham Institute in a blog post.

'In recent decades however, rising pollution levels and increases in global surface temperatures have influenced atmospheric circulation patterns in the tropics, in turn affecting monsoon rainfall patterns', he said.

'Understanding and predicting monsoon rainfall is of huge importance to those societies that have developed following its rhythms.'

Water commuters wait in line to fill containers at a groundwater source in Maharashtra last year. Hundreds of millions of people in India are grappling with one of the nation's worst droughts since independence, following two years of poor rainfall

India's droughts have only got worse in recent years as the climate gets warmer.

One of the worst droughts in decades across south India is currently putting tens of thousands of farmers and labourers out of work.

Villages across southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have been declared drought-affected by the government, following the failure of the 2016 monsoon rains.

Bedarwadi village stands surrounded by dried-up fields in Maharashtra. Villages across southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have been declared drought-affected by the government, following the failure of the 2016 monsoon rains

With soaring temperatures, parched reservoirs and little agriculture-based employment, villagers are being forced to take loans to buy food, water and pay for school and medical fees, activists said, calling it the 'point of no return' for farmers.

Hit by consecutive years of drought, unseasonal rains and fluctuating global commodity prices, more than 12,600 farmers and agricultural labourers committed suicide in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

According to the National Human Rights Commission, over 100 farmers committed suicide in Tamil Nadu in January 2017.

Most suicides are related to bankruptcy and indebtedness or farming-related issues, said the NCRB.
Ancient symbols carved into stone at an archaeological site in Turkey tell the story of a devastating comet impact that triggered a mini ice age more than 13,000 years ago, scientists believe.

Evidence from the carvings, made on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone, suggests that a swarm of comet fragments hit the Earth in around 11000 BC.

One image of a headless man is thought to symbolise human disaster and extensive loss of life.

The devastating event, which wiped out creatures such as woolly mammoths, also helped spark the rise of civilisation.

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Ancient stone carvings confirm that a swarm of comets hit Earth 13,000 years ago sparking the rise of civilisations and wiping out the woolly mammoth. Pictured are the stone carvings used in the team's research, found on pillar 43 or 'the Vulture Stone' at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey

THE GOBLEKI TEPE CARVINGS Gobleki Tepe is thought to be the world's oldest temple site. Estimates suggest it dates back to around 9,000BC. It is 6,000 years older than Stonehenge. The carvings found by the team remained important to the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia. This suggests that the event and cold climate that followed the comet had a serious impact. The team suggest the images were intended as a record of the cataclysmic event. They claim that a carving showing a headless man may indicate human disaster and extensive loss of life. Advertisement

Scientists have speculated for decades that a comet could have caused the sharp drop in temperature during a period known as the Younger Dryas.

The Younger Dryas is seen as a crucial period in humanity's history as it coincides with the beginnings of agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations.

Scientists were analysing the mysterious symbols carved onto stone pillars at Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey to find out if they could be linked to constellations.

Engineers from the University of Edinburgh studied animal carvings made on a pillar  known as the vulture stone  at the site.

By interpreting the animals as astronomical symbols, and using computer software to match their positions to patterns of stars, researchers dated the event to 10,950BC.

It probably resulted from the break-up of a giant comet in the inner solar system.

This is around the time the Younger Dryas period began according to ice core data from Greenland, which pinpoints the event to 10,890BC.

Before the comet strike, large fields of barley and wheat had allowed roaming hunters in the Middle East to set up permanent base camps.

Evidence from the carvings, made on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone, suggests that a swarm of comet fragments hit the Earth in around 11000 BC. The different symbols, said to tell the story, are labeled in the graphic above

But the ice-cold conditions created by the impact forced these hunters to band together and find new ways to grow crops.

They developed watering and selective breeding to help their crops last against the harsh climate, forming modern farming practices.

The carvings appear to have remained important to the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, the Edinburgh researchers said.

This suggests that the event and cold climate that followed likely had a serious impact.

The comet's impact killed thousands of people and triggered a mini ice age that lasted more than 1,000 years. Pictured is a replica of the Vulture Stone at Sanliurfa Museum in Turkey

By interpreting the animals as astronomical symbols, and using computer software to match their positions to patterns of stars, researchers dated the event to 10,950BC. This image shows the position of the sun and stars on the summer solstice of 10,950BC

The team suggest the images were intended as a record of the cataclysmic event.

A further carving showing a headless man may indicate human disaster and extensive loss of life, they said.

Furthermore, symbolism on the pillars indicates that the long-term changes in Earth's rotational axis was recorded at this time using an early form of writing.

The symbolism suggests that Gobekli Tepe was an observatory for meteors and comets.

The find supports a theory that Earth is likely to experience periods when comet strikes are more likely, owing to Earth's orbit intersecting orbiting rings of comet fragments in space.

Stone pillars at Gobleki Tepe, thought to be the world's oldest temple site. Scientists have speculated for decades that a comet could have caused the sharp drop in temperature during a period known as the Younger Dryas around 11,000BC

More stone pillars found at the Gobleki Tepe temple site. The Younger Dryas is seen as a crucial period in humanity's history as it coincides with the beginnings of agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations

Dr Martin Sweatman, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering, who led the research, said: 'I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent, virtually seal the case in favour of (a Younger Dryas comet impact).

'Our work serves to reinforce that physical evidence. What is happening here is the process of paradigm change.

'It appears Gobekli Tepe was, among other things, an observatory for monitoring the night sky.

'One of its pillars seems to have served as a memorial to this devastating event  probably the worst day in history since the end of the ice age.'

Scientists were analysing the mysterious symbols carved onto stone pillars at Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey to find out if they could be linked to constellations
NASA researchers will soon present new findings on topics ranging from the origins and evolution of life on earth to the search for habitable environments and life in our solar system, the space agency has revealed.

The findings will be presented during the 2017 Astrobiology Science Conference between April 24 and April 28 in Mesa, Arizona.

The announcement comes on the heels of last week's reveal that Enceladus, one of Saturn's icy moons, was found to have hydrogen - a potential source of chemical energy that could support microbes on its seafloor.

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NASA researchers will soon present new findings on topics ranging from the origins and evolution of life on earth to the search for habitable environments and life in our solar system. The illustration shows Cassini spacecraft diving through a plume on Enceladus

WHO WILL SPEAK AT THE ANNOUNCEMENT? Dr Giada Arney of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will discuss organic haze on Earthlike planets as possible biosignatures. Dr Morgan Cable at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will speak about mechanisms for enrichment of organics in Enceladus plumes. Dr John Grunsfeld, former NASA astronaut associate administrator for science, will deliver a presentation on next-generation space telescopes for terrestrial exoplanet characterization and the search for biosignatures. Advertisement

NASA will hold a town hall meeting to obtain feedback from the astrobiology community on the Europa Lander Science Definition Team Report on Sunday, April 23 at the Phoenix Marriott Mesa Hotel from 12:30 to 6pm Pacific Daylight Time.

The report looks at the potential science value of a lander on the surface of Jupiter's sixth-closest, icy moon Europa, which is a key candidate for potential extraterrestrial life.

It lists three science goals for the mission, with the primary goal being the search for evidence of life on Europa.

The report also aims to assess the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from the surface, and to characterize the surface and subsurface to support future robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean.

Europa has long been a high priority for exploration because it has a salty liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust.

An artist's concept of a plume of water vapour thought to be ejected off the frigid, icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, about 500 million miles (800 million km) from the sun

Last year, the Hubble telescope spotted possible water plumes, similar to those of Enceladus, erupting from Europa.

Evidence of a plume was seen at the same location in 2014, and researchers say the new observations are further evidence that these plumes could be real, and experience intermittent flare-ups.

These vapor flumes coming off Europa make it a key candidate for potential extraterrestrial life.

NASAs Europa Clipper mission, named after the clipper ships which sailed across the oceans of our planet in the 19th century, will set off in the 2020s to search for the chemical ingredients of life on Jupiter's moon Europa.

JUPITER'S ICY MOON EUROPA Jupiter's icy moon Europa is slightly smaller than Earth's moon. Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days and is tidally locked - just like Earth's Moon - so that the same side of Europa faces Jupiter at all times. Jupiter's sixth-closest moon Europa is one of the most interesting bodies in our solar system when it comes to the hunt for extra terrestrial life It is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and a surface ocean of salty water, like Earth. Unlike on Earth, however, this ocean is deep enough to cover the whole surface of Europa, and being far from the sun, the ocean surface is globally frozen over. Many experts believe the hidden ocean surrounding Europa, warmed by powerful tidal forces caused by Jupiter's gravity, may have conditions favourable for life. Advertisement

The ultimate aim of Europa Clipper is to determine if Europa is habitable, possessing all three of the ingredients necessary for life: liquid water, chemical ingredients, and energy sources sufficient to enable biology.

NASA's Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds (ROW) team, chartered to identify science objectives and exploration roadmaps for ocean worlds, will hold a town hall from 12:15 to 1:15pm on Monday, April 24 to share its progress and obtain feedback.

Among some of the researchers who will speak at the conference are Dr Giada Arney of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who will discuss organic haze on Earthlike planets as possible biosignatures, and Dr Morgan Cable at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who will speak about mechanisms for enrichment of organics in Enceladus plumes.

The findings discussed may also involve Enceladus, Saturn's sixth largest moon.

After 13 years exploring Saturn, NASA's Cassini aircraft dove into high-powered jets of water spewing from the moons surface, where it found hydrogen gas.

The gas is the final piece of the puzzle following the discovery of water in an ocean under Enceladuss surface.

It means Saturns sixth moon may have the same single-celled organisms with which life began on Earth, or more complex creatures still.

These organisms, still found on our planet within the darkest depths of our oceans, use hydrogen and carbon dioxide as fuel in a process known as 'methanogenesis.'

What is intriguing about the data at Enceladus, with the hydrogen detection, is that we are now able to determine how much energy would be available from the methanogenesis reaction at Enceladus,' said Dr Chris Glein, Cassini INMS team associate at the Southwest Research Insitiute during a press conference about Enceladus.

'We have made the first calorie count in an alien ocean.'

Organisms, found on our planet in hot vents within the darkest depths of our oceans, use hydrogen and carbon dioxide as fuel in a process called 'methanogenesis.' Researchers have now discovered the building blocks for life exist on Enceladus as well

WHAT IS ENCELADUS? Enceladus is Saturn's sixth largest moon, at 313 miles wide (504 kilometers). Cassini observations have revealed hydrothermal activity, with vents spewing water vapour and ice particles out from a global ocean buried beneath the icy crust. Cassini observations have revealed hydrothermal activity on Enceladus, with vents spewing water vapor and ice particles out from a global ocean buried beneath the icy crust According to NASA, the plume includes organic compounds, volatile gases, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, salts, and silica. While it may look 'inhospitable' like Saturn's other moons, the observations suggest it may have the ingredients to support microbial life Advertisement

This, the researcher explained, is a major step in assessing the moon's habitability.

The host of the upcoming conference, Arizona State University (ASU), will also hold two free public events at the Phoenix Marriott Mesa Hotel.

ASU's Beyond Center will hold an event called 'Where a Second Example of Life Might be Discovered in the Next Century' on Tuesday, April 25 from 7 to 8:30pm,

ASU's Origins Project will host an event titled 'How Astrobiology and Planetary Science Inform a Perspective of Planetary Stewardship' on Thursday April 26 from 6:30 to 8:30pm.
As North Korea threatens to unleash fury on the US, conspiracy theorists claim to have found 'evidence' that suggests Americans' fears should instead be focused closer to home.

An alert has surfaced on the web describing an exercise called 'Operation Gotham Shield', which will conduct a simulation crisis by detonating a 10,000-ton nuclear bomb over the New York City/New Jersey area next week.

Agencies involved in the exercise, which is said to be a routine drill, have noted that it will simulate 'a large scale terrorist attack'  but some believe it may turn into an actual disaster.

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An alert has surfaced on the web describing an exercise called 'Operation Gotham Shield', which will conduct a simulation crisis by detonating a 10,000-ton nuclear bomb over the New York City/New Jersey area next week

OPERATION GOTHAM SHIELD DETAILS A post entitled 'Operation Gotham Shield' appeared as a thread in a forum on Thursday by an anonymous users. The user posted above an excerpt taken from a Facebook post revealing the details of the exercise. The post was said to have been shared to the Health Care Association of New Jersey's page earlier this month. It explained details of the exercise and that it would occur April 24-25. Another mention of Operation Gotham Shield had been posted to the Eastern Region Helicopter Council on March 27, which revealed more details about the time and place the drill will be conducted. 'This exercise will simulate a large scale terrorist attack on the NY/NJ metropolitan area with MetLife Stadium serving as a triage/collection point for victims and emergency response personnel.' 'This will be a large scale event with numerous federal, state, county and local agencies participating.' 'It should be very similar in size and scope to the Operation Red Zone drill of 2011.' Advertisement

A post entitled 'Operation Gotham Shield' appeared as a thread in a forum on Thursday by an anonymous users.

'The happening to end all happenings will take place in six days,' the user posted above an excerpt taken from a Facebook post revealing the details of the exercise.

The post was said to have been shared to the Health Care Association of New Jersey's page earlier this month.

However, either the post did not exist in the first place or has since been removed  users are shown 'This page isn't available' when they click on the link.

But the anonymous user did share some of the text they took from the post.

'EXERCISE - Operation Gotham Shield/Improvised Nuclear Detonation Incident - April 26, 2017 :: This is a reminder that on April 26, 2017 - HCANJ/LANJ will be participating in 'Operation Gotham Shield' in conjunction with our NJESF #8 Partners including NJDOH-PHILEP, New Jersey Medical Services Task Force, Office of the Medical Examiner, NJDHS-Disaster Terrorism Branch, Urban Area Strategic Initiative, as well as, State Office of Emergency Management, local, county and Federal Law Enforcement agencies,' reads the post.

Those following the story have noted that a blast this size could cause devices within a 12 mile radius of the detonation site to be disabled,' Superstation95 explained.

Another mention of Operation Gotham Shield had been posted to the Eastern Region Helicopter Council on March 27, which revealed more details about the time and place the drill would be conducted.

'On Tuesday April 25th 2017, at 0800 the Gotham Shield Exercise will take place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford NJ,' Tyson Mowry, ERHC Helicopter Emergency Response Program (HERP) Coordinator, shared in the announcement.

'This exercise will simulate a large scale terrorist attack on the NY/NJ metropolitan area with MetLife Stadium serving as a triage/collection point for victims and emergency response personnel.'

'This will be a large scale event with numerous federal, state, county and local agencies participating.'

'It should be very similar in size and scope to the Operation Red Zone drill of 2011.'

A Facebook post was said to have been shared to the Health Care Association of New Jersey's page earlier this month describing Operation Gotham Shield'. However, either the post did not exist in the first place or has since been removed

Another mention of Operation Gotham Shield had been posted to the Eastern Region Helicopter Council on March 27, which revealed more details about the time and place the drill would be conducted

However, because the agencies involved in the 'exercise' are sharing different dates and locations, many are seeing 'Red Flags' and worry that it could turn into a genuine disaster.

YouTuber, ODD Reality, who said he is 'aware of the massive depiction going on in the world', released a short video that accused the exercise of being a government conspiracy.

'It looks like they are coming out and saying 'you know this is going to be simulated and all', but regardless, they've done this thing [before],' he said in a video.

'They were running drills the same days as 9-11, September 11 2001.'

OPERATION RED ZONE In 2012, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led an exercise dubbed Operation Red Zone which set out to confiscate fake NFL merchandise. The operation, which began Sept. 1, 2012, netted 196,333 items including fake jerseys, ball caps, T-shirts, jackets and other souvenirs. The items had a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of more than $17.3 million. Special agents from ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and state and local police departments around the country worked in partnership with the NFL and other major sports leagues during the operation. Altogether $17.3 million of fake merchandise was retrieved. Furthering HSI's efforts to combat the international counterfeiting supply chain and piracy online, special agents seized a total of 313 websites identified to be selling counterfeit merchandise. Advertisement

'This exercise will simulate a large scale terrorist attack on the NY/NJ metropolitan area with MetLife Stadium (pictured) serving as a triage/collection point for victims and emergency response personnel,' reads the post

'When planes were supposedly hitting the buildings they were running drills at the same time in the same area.'

'This is just what they do.'

'They could very well run this drill, while they also put on another show down the street that they try to pass off as real.'

'We may see something like a Boston bombing, Sandy Hook style, even Melbourne or Stockholm.'

'You know all these truck attacks and all these fake news events that are scripted and made one hundred percent for the news.'

NASA'S SIMULATION FOR AN ASTEROID HITTING LOS ANGELES NASA has conducted its own simulation to prepare for a catastrophic asteroid hitting the Earth  specifically in Los Angeles, California. The simulation was carried out on Oct 25 in El Segundo, California, and allowed the planetary science community to demonstrate the ways in which it would collect, analyze, and share data about an asteroid predicted to collide with Earth. And, emergency managers explored the ways in which this data could be used to prepare and warn the public, and respond to a potential threat. In the hypothetical scenario, researchers detected the fictitious asteroid this fall with a 2 percent probability impact with Earth on Sept 20, 2020. The initial estimates stated that the impact could happen anywhere on a long stretch of Earth, including a band that crossed the entire US. By November of that year, the researchers say the fictitious asteroid would strike somewhere along a path between Southern California and the coast of the Pacific Ocean. This scenario describes a timeframe thats too short to feasibly conduct a deflection mission, meaning the emergency managers must evacuate the region. To do this for the hypothetical emergency, the researchers presented models of the predicted impact footprint, population displacement estimates, and data on the infrastructure damage that would result. The simulations allowed the researchers to devise ways to accurately inform the public in a timely manner, while fighting the rumors and false information that would emerge. Advertisement

'They're going to have their crisis actors.'

'They're going to pass them off like they're really injured, they really got hurt stuff like that.'

The drill has been in the works for a few months before conspiracy theorists caught wind of it.

A document that has also made its way around the web highlights the exercises objectives such as strategies in decision-making related to public protection and how well officials can operate centers and other response locations.

Snopes reported that Operation Gotham Shield is a legitimate and routine multi-agency and organization disaster drill'.

These types of scheduled drills are common tests to help agencies and disaster responders prepare for realistic events.
Hundreds of years ago, the Inca people in South America used elaborate twists of colorful animal hair much like a written language.

Its known that these cords were used to record numerical accounts  but now, researchers have discovered that they may also have acted as a form of phonetic writing, with specific combinations thought to convey particular syllables or words.

This is the first evidence that string writing was used to record narratives, the researchers say, and could help to unravel some of the mysteries of the ancient civilization.

Its known that these cords were used to record numerical accounts  but now, researchers have discovered that they may also have acted as a form of phonetic writing, with specific combinations thought to convey particular syllables or words

In a recent visit to the village of San Juan de Collata, University of St Andrews anthropologist Dr Sabine Hyland identified what are now the only known Andean phonetic khipus.

Khipus, the knotted cords used for string writing, are made from cotton or different colored animal fibers, including hair from alpacas, llamas, and deer.

In the village, Hyland was told by elders that carefully preserved twists dating back to the 18th century were narrative epistles about warfare created by local chides, according to National Geographic.

Small details within the khipus including the color, type of fibers and ply direction can have a distinct meaning. At the end of each cord, these pairings appear to represent lineage names, according to the researcher

According to the village authorities, the Collata khipus were used as letters between the local leaders during a revolt against the Spanish.

After partially deciphering the lost language, Hyland says the khipus were likely used in a logosyllabic system, like Classic Mayan.

Her findings are published in the journal Current Anthropology.

In this system, each pendant cord would represent a syllable, the researcher says.

What we found is a series of complex color combinations between the cords, Sabine Hyland, professor of anthropology at St. Andrews University and a National Geographic Explorer told National Geographic.

WHAT ARE KHIPUS? Khipus were used by the ancient Inca in South America as a way to keep numerical records of their provisions. These cords were made using cotton or different colored fiber from animals, including alpacas, llamas, and deer. While its long been known that they were used for accounting purposes, researchers now say they may also have been used in a logosyllabic system. This means the distinct combinations represent particular syllables or words, and would have been used to convey a narrative. Khipus were used by the ancient Inca in South America as a way to keep numerical records of their provisions. An example of an elaborate khipu is shown Advertisement

The cords have 14 different colors that allow for 95 unique cord patterns.

That number is within the range of symbols in logosyllabic writing systems.

The researcher found that the khipus contain 95 distinct symbols  more than those seen in the accounting systems.

And, small details within the khipus including the color, type of fibers and ply direction can have a distinct meaning.

After partially deciphering the lost language, Hyland says the khipus were likely used in a logosyllabic system, like Classic Mayan. In this system, each pendant cord would represent a syllable

What we found is a series of complex color combinations between the cords, Sabine Hyland, professor of anthropology at St. Andrews University and a National Geographic Explorer said. They were found in San Juan de Collata

At the end of each cord, these pairings appear to represent lineage names, according to the researcher.

The discovery aligns with Spanish historical accounts of the Incan khipus, which claimed that the people used the system to record history, biographies, and letters, according to National Geographic.

Not only would the patterns be important in deciphering a khipus meaning, but the reader must also feel them to interpret the three-dimensional elements.

Hyland is set to return to Peru in July to find out more about the lost language and the Inca people, in hopes to shed light on the incredible intellectual accomplishments of Native American people.
Mars is a dry, cold deserted wasteland with an atmosphere so thin, liquid water is unable to exist on the surface.

However, alien hunters claim to have found evidence that the Red planet may have once been lush with green vegetation  'the petrified remnants of a Martian tree'.

In an image snapped by the Curiosity rover on Sol 164, some have suggested there is an ancient tree stump that stands about three feet high, which they say means a variety of plants 'either existed or still exist' on Mars.

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alien hunters claim to have found evidence that the Red planet may have once been lush with green vegetation  'the petrified remnants of a Martian tree'.

WHY WE SEE ODD THINGS ON MARS Pareidolia is the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimulus. It is a form of apophenia, when people see patterns in random, unconnected data. There have been multiple occasions when people have claimed to see religious images and themes in unexpected places. On the red planet, one of the most famous is the 'face on Mars' spotted by one of the Viking orbiters in 1976. This was later proven to just be a chance alignment of shifting sand dunes. Advertisement

The sighting was first published to YouTube by Paranormal Crucible, which was spotted on Thursday  but NASA released the image in March.

'This object definitely looks out of place and in my opinion could be the petrified remnants of a Martian tree,' the alien hunter and YouTuber shared in the video description.

'Object is around 3 feet in height, and with numerous discoveries of plant and animal life on mars, it would be logical to assume, that a variety of tree either existed, or still exists on this enigmatic planet.'

NASA explained that the image was taken by the Mastcam onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 1647 in March.

Although it may be just one of the many rocks found on the Red Planet, conspiracy theorists believe it could prove that life was present at some point.

'It is a good assumption since NASA themselves said Mars was Earth-like when a solar explosion hit the planet, stripping the atmosphere and oceans from the surface, well-known Martian researcher Scott C Warning shared on UFO Sightings Daily regarding Paranormal Crucible's discovery.

If trees still existed on Mars, it would need a good source of water to survive  which another conspiracy theorist claimed to have seen in NASA images last year.

In a video posted on YouTube, he claimed to have found evidence of lakes of standing water surrounded by trees on the surface of Mars in images taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor.

In an image (pictured) snapped by the Curiosity rover on Sol 164, some have suggested there is an ancient tree stump that stands about three feet high, which means a variety of plants 'either existed or still exist' on Mars

The YouTube channel, WhatsUpInTheSky37, is dedicating to scouring NASA images for evidence of alien life.

Using images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor, Will Farrar, who runs the channel from his home in from Salisibury, Maryland, said he believed they showed an abundance of water that could support alien life.

In the description for the video, Will Farrar, who runs the channel, said: 'We now have more than five or six very good shots from the air that seem to show frozen or warm water lakes sitting on the Martian surface.

Although it may be just one of the many rocks found on the Red Planet, conspiracy theorists believe it could prove that life was present at some point

'This has never been addressed by NASA since we are still looking for these 'minuscule' traces of life and water. I ask you to use your judgement on this one. What does this look like to you?'

Mr Farrar does not seem to be alone in thinking the footage shows lakes and trees - many people have commented on the video agreeing with him.

If trees still existed on Mars, it would need a good source of water to survive  which another conspiracy theorist claimed to have seen in NASA images last year. He claimed eto have found evidence of lakes of standing water surrounded by trees on the surface of Mars

Ted Cox posted: 'How did they let this one get through? They look like tree lined lakes to me.'

Another user, M Bronte, speculated about what else it could be, posting: 'This totally looks like liquid...water, mud, mercury pools...I don't know but definitely a liquidy substance here.'

NASA originally posted this image online, which alien-hunters have claimed showed lakes surrounded by trees

Scientists believe liquid water once flowed on the surface of Mars billions of years ago, but it has long since evaporated. Small ice deposits may still exist in some of the craters close to the poles and under the surface. A stock picture of Mars is shown

The video was also promoted on the blog, Ufosightingsdaily.com.

Waring, the editor of the blog wrote: 'It's a bit mind-blowing, but there are lakes on Mars and we now have government evidence to back that up.'

'This is 100 per cent proof that lakes and rivers exist on Mars, which means that fish and water creatures do as well.'

'Water is a main source for animals to exist, so this may also be a big visiting spot from some smaller life forms.'

However, despite the claims, NASA said it has yet to find any evidence for significant levels of liquid water on Mars.

In September, NASA confirmed that 'dark fingers' spotted in Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images are likely made by liquid moving across, or beneath, the planet's surface

There is growing evidence that the planet was once rich in liquid water that shaped valleys, canyons and even dried out ocean beds before it evaporated billions of years ago.
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From sky high icebergs to gaping valleys iced with a glistening layer of snow, these stunning aerial images capture the breathtaking beauty of the Arctic.

Getty photographer Mario Tama flew above the frozen wilds this March in a bid to understand more about the impact of climate change on the frozen landscape.

He accompanied a team of scientists from Nasa's ongoing polar project, Operation IceBridge, gaining privileged access to some of the world's most remote spots, including Pituffik in Greenland and areas within the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

Tama flew out of Thule Air Base, the U.S. military's northernmost base located some 750 miles above the Arctic Circle, on eight-hour research flights over ice sheets and the Arctic Ocean.

According to Nasa scientists and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), winter sea ice in the Arctic reached its lowest level on March 7 since satellites began recordings in 1979.

Scientists have said the Arctic has been one of the regions hardest hit by climate change. Nasa's Operation IceBridge spring campaign flights started on March 9 and will continue until May 12.

Snap happy: Getty photographer Mario Tama accompanied Nasa scientists to the Arctic this March in a bid to learn more about the impact of climate change on the landscape (above, a section of glacier cutting through Ellesmere Island, Canada)

Sweeping landscape: Ellesmere Island is peppered with vast fjords, and the northern coast is extended by ice shelves - aprons of sea ice that are fused to the shore (above, a patchwork of ice fields)

Blue haze: During his Nasa assignment, Tama gained privileged access to some of the world's most remote spots (above, a section of glacier runs through a valley along the Upper Baffin Bay coast, which is located above Greenland)

Barren lands: The remnants of a caribou herd decimated by Arctic explorer Robert E Peary in 1909 during his attempt to reach the North Pole can be found on Ellesmere Island (above, a section of a glacier)

Thinning patches: The ice fields of Ellesmere Island in Canada (seen above) are retreating due to warming temperatures

Swimming off limits: After Antarctica, Greenland's ice cap contains the second largest mass of frozen freshwater in the world

Rugged: A section of a glacier is seen on Ellesmere Island, which is considered a true polar desert, with only 7mm of precipitation annually in some places

Haunting: The landscape in the Arctic is one of the most mesmerising on earth - taking on an almost other-worldly quality

Under threat: The ice sheet covers 660,000 square miles (1,710,000 square km), or roughly 80 per cent of the surface of Greenland, but it is said to be thinning due to climate change

Upward trend: Currently, melting from Greenland is thought to account for around 10 per cent of sea level rise, which could have major impacts on flooding around the world

Hidden from view: A University of California, Irvine and Nasa study shows southern Greenland's ragged, crumbling coastline is scored by more than 100 canyons beneath glaciers that empty into the ocean

Bird's eye view: For the past eight years, Operation IceBridge, a Nasa mission that conducts aerial surveys of polar ice, has produced unprecedented three-dimensional views of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets

Icy wonders: A view from the window of Nasa's Operation IceBridge research aircraft, this year a retrofitted 1966 Lockheed P-3 aircraft was used for missions

Twilight zone: Ellesmere Island, which is located within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is the world's tenth largest island and Canada's third largest island

In the pilot's seat: Nasa's Operation IceBridge spring campaign flights started on March 9 and will continue until May 12
It seems the valuables of the some of the most famous denizens of LA are under attack.

On Wednesday, CBS LA revealed that model and romance novel heartthrob Fabio Lanzoni had been the latest victim of a robbery in the city.

The 58-year-old Italian-born star's house was reportedly burgled a few months ago.

Bad news! On Wednesday, it was revealed that model and romance novel heartthrob Fabio Lanzoni had been the victim of a robbery

'You feel violated, angry, upset, its your home,' the Spy Hard actor lamented.

Apparently the thieves were quite bold, and managed to make off with an entire safe filled with precious valuables.

'My watches, I lost about 200K in value used to collect gold coins especially four beautiful watches I really loved and theyre gone,' said the muscleman 'you get really, really angry but you know what thats why Im here today.'

Fabio, who made his mark as cover model gracing dozens of romance novels in the 1980s and 90s, also used to interview to explain that he feels the string of thefts was due in part to California's early release policy, which allows certain prisoners to be freed before the end of their terms.

Iconic: Fabio made his mark as a cover model gracing dozens of romance novels in the 1980s and 90s

'They see a nice home they see nice cars, they burglarize everybody, just in my area the month of March more than 350 homes just in one month, and just a section of Los Angeles its an epidemic,' he claimed.

While it's unclear if the police will look into Fabio's early release theory, the romance novel cover boy did ask fellow celebrities to help law enforcement.

'Im telling you every single celebrity out there I know, a lot of celebrities, Nicki Minaj, Alannis Morissette, Derek Fischer, please come out, support the cops, this is a people issue, and we need your support.'

Theory: Fabio used to interview to explain that he feels the string of thefts was due in part to California's early release policy, which allows certain prisoners to be freed before the end of their terms

It is true that a burglary-wave has been sweeping Los Angeles, and the LAPD have set up a task force to combat the menace.

'It's usually a lone individual trying to service their addiction. This is different. This is organized crime,' Lt. Todd Hankel told The Hollywood Reporter in March.

In addition to Fabio, the likes of Nicki Minaj, Alanis Morissette, Nick Young and Yasiel Puig have also been victimized.
Newly single Mel B was pictured smiling as she walked hand-in-hand with her five-year-old daughter Madison in Beverly Hills, California on Thursday.

The outing comes as estranged husband Stephen Belafonte, 41, has reportedly filed new legal documents in a bid to get equal access to his children.

According to TMZ, Belafonte claimed his former flame has brought a divide between his biological daughter Madison and step daughter Angel, 10.

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'My kids miss me terribly': Smiling Mel B stepped out with daughter Madison, 5, as estranged husband Stephen Belafonte filed new legal documents requesting equal access to the children

The film producer - who claims he hasn't seen both his daughter Madison and step-daughter Angel for three weeks - said the 41-year-old's two children told him, 'Mommy is really mad at you and that's why she won't let us come and see you.' (sic)

While Angel's biological father is 56-year-old Eddie Murphy, Belafonte claims he is the 10-year-old's closest dad figure as she hasn't seen the Hollywood actor since she was born.

Belafonte is filing the new legal documents under California law which gives step-parents the same visiting rights.

He included a series of text messages he claims to have received from Angel, which say 'Where are you?', alongside a sad emoji.

Carefree: The former Spice Girl looked upbeat despite her ongoing bitter divorce battle

Latest: Belafonte, 41, claims Mel alienated him from his daughter Madison (pictured) and stepdaughter Angel, 10

Mel has obtained a restraining order which prevents her estranged husband from seeing her and her three children.

She claimed he was physically violent towards her in front of her three children and forced her to engage in threesomes.

MailOnline has approached Mel B and Eddie Murphy's representatives for comment.

Exposed: The film producer made further claims the 41-year-old's two children told him, 'Mommy is really mad at you and that's why she won't let us come and see you'

Revealed: She claimed her hubby was physically violent towards her in front of her three children and forced her to engage in threesomes

Happy times ahead: In the midst of her messy split from Belafonte, she appeared to have something to celebrate as it was revealed she'd rejoined the Spice Girls reunion

Mel put her eye-popping cleavage on display in a tiny sheer nude crop top as she was out and about with her youngest daughter on Thursday.

The mother-of-three - who also raises daughter Phoenix Chi, 18, with dancer ex-husband Jimmy Gulzar - teamed her attire with pointed sky-high heeled Puma boots.

She looked upbeat despite her bitter divorce battle with her husband of almost 10 years on March 20.

Just a day before Mel looked deep in thought as she was pictured for the first time since The Sunday Mirror reported she has 'sought help for emotional abuse', as she headed out in Beverly Hills.

The EX factor: Mother-of-three Mel filed for divorce from Belafonte (pictured in London in November 2014), her husband of almost 10 years, on March 20

Emotional: Stephen claims this his step-daughter Angel sent him these text messages

The paper claims Mel turned to a victim support group after the split, with a source saying: 'They are a great support. They will be helping Mel with a lot of inspiration and comfort.'

Mel's bitter divorce battle with her estranged husband is rumbling on, with latest reports claiming he is hoping to reach out to a stripper - who claims to have had a 'wild' threesome with him and Mel during a trip to Sydney - to be a character witness for him.

Siara Dianda, 32, previously referred to Stephen as a 'gentle giant' and claimed she felt Mel had been 'the boss' in their relationship.

Stepping out: Mel was spotted stepping out for a meeting in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley on Wednesday - although one of her shoes was missing

A source has told the Sunday People: 'Stephen is getting his lawyer to contact her in the hope that she will support him.' MailOnline have contacted a representative for Mel.

In the midst of her messy split from Belafonte, she appeared to have something to celebrate as it was revealed she'd re-joined the Spice Girls reunion.

On Wednesday, Mel B also showed that she was onto a sartorial winner, as she stepped out in style for a meeting in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.

She wowed as she emerged from her gleaming white luxury sport utility vehicle in a flowing blue striped sundress with matching strappy heels, although she took one off at one point for some unknown reason.

Meeting: The mother-of-three, whose dress was cinched at the waist with a metallic chain belt, was seen greeting a smartly-dressed female as she arrived for her meeting

With her braided hair cascading down her back, Mel teamed her sleeveless number with a pair of pink-framed sunglasses, large hoop earrings and a white leather bag.

Her dress was cinched at the waist with a metallic chain belt, was seen greeting a smartly-dressed female as she arrived for her meeting.

Her outing came hours after it was revealed that her Spice Girls reunion plans with Geri Horner and Emma Bunton were back on track.

The trio - who announced plans to reform as a three-piece known as GEM last year - are said to be in talks to get new music off the ground.

Wow! The 41-year-old wowed as she emerged from her gleaming white luxury sport utility vehicle in a flowing blue striped sundress with matching strappy heels

Shady lady: With her braided hair cascading down her back, Mel teamed her sleeveless number with a pair of pink-framed sunglasses and a white leather handbag

Speaking to The Sun, Geri, 44, confirmed the group will reform 'in the near future'.

She said: 'Were not re-forming immediately, but in the near future.'

The mother-of-two's confirmation was backed up by a source, who revealed that Stephen's 'oppressive behaviour' towards Mel was a deciding factor in the previously-held talks of a reunion being shelved.

The source commented: 'Stephen was always an unnerving presence. Now hes out of the way, fun will return.'

When 2 Become... 3! Her outing came hours after it was revealed that her Spice Girls reunion plans with (l-r) Geri Horner and Emma Bunton are back on track

Freedom: The trio are said to be in talks to get new music off the ground now Mel, 41, (pictured in Los Angeles on Tuesday) has split from her husband of 10 years Stephen Belafonte, 41

MailOnline has contacted representatives of Mel B for comment.

In March, Emma confirmed in an exclusive interview with MailOnline that the trio haven't ruled out making new music as a three-piece altogether.

She told MailOnline: 'I would love to celebrate the fact that it's been over 20 years now and for our fans to either hear some more music or see us perform again.

'I just think they deserve that and it would be so nice to celebrate really. At the moment, of course, we are all doing different things, in different directions. It's always been that way - with five girls doing different things.

Girl power! Mel, Geri and Emma (pictured with former bandmates Melanie Chisholm and Victoria Beckham in 2012) announced plans to re-form as a trio known as GEM last year

'For me personally its something that would be nice to do. Id like to think so. But who knows? We should try, shouldnt we?'

Geri, Emma and Mel B briefly formed a trio, GEM in July 2016, after Victoria Beckham and Mel Chisholm ruled themselves out of a full band reunion.

GEM conveyed their message through an Instagram video on the 20th anniversary of the Spice Girls' debut track Wannabe, much to the excitement of fans.

The new group revealed that they planned to perform a huge London show in July this year.

Last performance: The last time all five women reformed as the Spice Girls was at the 2012 Olympic Games in London

But The Sun reported in January 2017, that Victoria Beckham, 43, took legal steps to prevent the trio from performing classic Spice Girls hits under the new name.

Victoria's representative denied the claims, telling MailOnline: 'No legal letter was sent this is a fabrication by The Sun and this story is now being handled legally by Victoria's lawyer.'

Geri then was reported to back out the reunion altogether, after the birth of her second child Monty in January 2017.

The Spice Girls were the most successful girl band of their generation, ranking 20th on Forbes magazines list of the 40 richest entertainers of 1998, with an income of $49 million (29.6 million).

Their debut album, Spice, was number one in the Official Albums chart for 15 weeks in 1996. The group holds the world record for most number of weeks at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart by a girl band for now over 20 years.

Legendary: The Spice Girls were the most successful girl band of a generation, ranking 20th on Forbes magazines list of the 40 richest entertainers of 1998, with an income of 29.6 million
She plays the villain in the Baywatch reboot, which hits theaters on May 26.

But on Thursday, Priyanka Chopra looked positively angelic in a white dress at the jury welcome lunch for the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

The 34-year-old actress chose a layered frock that featured a ruffled skirt, adding black heels and mauve lipstick.

Stunning star: Priyanka Chopra looked positively angelic in a white dress at the jury welcome lunch for the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday

The Quantico star's look had a belted mid-section with silver embellishments.

She perfectly balanced the short-sleeved look with open-toe heels and diamond earrings.

Priyanka styled her silky brunette locks sleek, adding shimmery eye makeup and dark pink lips.

While at the lunch, which took place at Tribeca Grill Loft, the star posed with the c-founder of the annual film festival - Robert De Niro.

Fancy day out: The 34-year-old actress chose a layered frock that featured a ruffled skirt, adding black heels and mauve lipstick

She's a beauty: The Quantico star's look had belted mid-section with silver embellishments

Priyanka will play Victoria Leeds in the Baywatch movie; she stars alongside Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron Kelly Rohrbach and Alexandra Daddario.

Also at the welcome lunch was fellow actress Diana Agron.

The former Glee star, 30, looked ultra casual, opting for cropped jeans, a T-shirt and denim jacket, adding a patterned scarf.

Low key: Also at the welcome lunch was fellow actress Diana Agron

Beaming: The former Glee star, 30, looked ultra casual, opting for cropped jeans, a T-shirt and denim jacket, adding a patterned scarf; seen with Zoe Lister-Jones and Alice Eve

Diana styled her blonde tresses loose with minimal makeup.

Olivia Thirlby looked pretty in her denim button up with striped bottoms, adding a pink duster coat.

The 30-year-old rocked fishnet tights for an edgy touch to her otherwise preppy ensemble.

Ruth Wilson chose a bold animal printed look with a belt for the jury welcome lunch. Her natural make-up look was created by Fatima Thomas, senior artist for MAC Cosmetics, who used Pinch O Peach blush to give the actress a natural glow.

Meanwhile, Diane Lane chose a patterned navy and white blouse with skinny jeans for her look of the day.

Christina Ricci paired a nautical-inspired cardigan with a grey skirt and white heels; she chose to add red lips and large diamond earrings.

Focused: Diana styled her blonde tresses loose with minimal makeup; pictured with Christina Ricci during the lunch

Gorgeous: Olivia Thirlby looked pretty in her denim button up with striped bottoms, adding a pink duster coat

Edgy: Ruth Wilson chose a bold animal print look with a belt for the jury welcome lunch. Her make-up look was created by MAC Cosmetics senior artist Fatima Thomas

Strike a pose: Meanwhile, Diane Lane chose a patterned navy and white blouse with skinny jeans for her look of the day

Simple: Christina Ricci paired a nautical-inspired cardigan with a grey skirt and white heels

Nautical inspired: She chose to add red lips and large diamond earrings

In good company: Christina pulled her blonde tresses back into a sleek low ponytail; seen with designer Zac Posen

Happy: Actors Willem Dafoe and Brendan Fraser took part in the event as well

The 48-year-old actor chatted with Diane, who sported loose locks

In conversation: Whoopi Goldberg and Peter Fonda enjoyed a chat during the lunch
He went down in Logies history after his 'drunk' post-awards appearance on Today back in 2009.

And Karl Stefanovic, 42, still feels a little uncomfortable about the incident, awkwardly joking on Friday's show: 'It's not part of Logies folklore is it?'

It follows rumours Karl will debut his new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough, 33, at this year's ceremony on Sunday.

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'It's not part of Logies folklore is it?' On Friday, Karl Stefanovic joked about THAT 'drunk' morning-after-the-Logies incident on Today back in 2009

Karl and Lisa Wilkinson were discussing some of the Logies ceremony's most memorable moments ahead of the event, when Karl's 2011 Gold Logie win was mentioned by a guest.

'Well at least you didn't say the morning after,' Karl replied, before asking. 'It's not part of Logies folklore is it?'

Things got more awkward when Lisa revealed her favourite Logies moment 'didn't happen on screen, it happened off screen'.

'10 years ago in the bar when you and I met?' Things got even more awkward when co-host Lisa Wilkinson said her favourite Logies moment 'didn't happen on screen, it happened off screen'

'10 years ago in the bar when you and I met?' Lisa asked Karl.

But it was unclear if Karl did remember, with the Today host pulling an awkward face attempting to 'shush' Lisa.

'The rest is history,' Lisa added, referencing that she began co-hosting Today with Karl later in 2007.

Feeling OK? Karl's 'drunk' appearance on Today in 2009 went viral after the reporter appeared visibly worse for wear following his night at the Logie Awards

'I really was drunk, or at least I certainly looked and sounded drunk': The Today host later confessed he had gone out and gotten 'smashed' like any other year

Karl's morning-after-the-Logies appearance on Today in 2009 saw him looking visibly worse for wear and confessing he hadn't had any sleep.

In a 2014 interview, Karl admitted he had gone out and gotten 'smashed' like any other year - but due to video-sharing websites, the footage went viral.

'This was the first Logies when stuff really started working on the internet,' Karl said.

'I remember seeing it on Today Tonight and going "Oh God." I really was drunk, or at least I certainly looked and sounded drunk.'

Will he bring her? This year, all eyes will be on Karl (L) when he walks the red carpet following rumours he will debut girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough (R) at the Logies

This year, all eyes will be on Karl when he walks the Logies red carpet, following rumours he will debut his girlfriend Jasmine at the ceremony. (He split from wife-of-21-years Cassandra Thorburn last year.)

The couple appear to be getting serious, with Karl spending time with Jasmine and her family in Mexico last week.

However, a Channel Nine spokesperson told News Corp earlier this week that Karl will be 'going solo' on the awards night.
He stars as disgraced tycoon Alan Bond in Channel Nine's biopic House Of Bond.

And Ben Mingay, who has already come under fire from television viewers for not resembling the businessman, reportedly had to put on significant weight for the role.

The 37-year-old actor told The Herald Sun he gained 10 kgs to play the controversial character.

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Dedicated: Ben Mingay, who has already come under fire from television viewers for not resembling Alan Bond, reportedly had to put on significant weight for the role

The Newcastle-born said he 'stopped going to the gym and started enjoying long walks to the buffet' to prepare for the part.

'Luckily I have the ability to engage my double chin at any time so the only other thing I had to concentrate on was looking shorter than I actually am,' he added.

Despite his commitment to the portrayal, many fans who have viewed the movie's promotional videos online are saying he looks nothing like the late entrepreneur.

Focused: The Newcastle-born told said he 'stopped going to the gym and started enjoying long walks to the buffet' to prepare for the part

Twitter user @ackpack wrote: 'House Of Bond looks ridiculous because they cast someone who doesn't look like Alan Bond in any way.'

And @ryanfish_20 tweeted: 'Channel 9's Alan Bond looks nothing like Alan Bond.'

The accomplished actor, who has starred in series like Home and Away, Wonderland and Packed To The Rafters, almost decided to switch careers during a tough patch.

Controversy: Despite Ben's commitment to the portrayal, many fans who have viewed the movie's promotional videos online are saying he looks nothing like Alan Bond

Discussion: Twitter user @ackpack wrote: 'House Of Bond looks ridiculous because they cast someone who doesn't look like Alan Bond in any way'

Commentary: @ryanfish_20 tweeted: 'Channel 9's Alan Bond looks nothing like Alan Bond'

It was his Newcastle-based father who encouraged him to stay the course.

'He was the one who said, "You cant quit - youve got too much to offer the world so just get back into it,' he described in a 2014 interview.

'So I knocked on every door I could [and finally] got a meeting with an agent,' he continued.

House Of Bond airs 9pm on Monday, April 24 on Channel Nine.
It was the opening night of new theatre show The Philanthropist on Thursday night and if supermodel Lily Cole was nervous, she didn't show it.

The 29-year-old showed off a serious amount lot of leg in a patterned orange dress as she lounged on a sofa for the press night of the West End play.

Pulling out all the stops on her acting, the former model oozed confidence when she slipped into the shoes of flirty Araminta, she puffed away on a cigarette.

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Leggy Cole: Smoking supermodel Lily flaunted her long pins in patterned orange dress as she took to the stage at opening night of The Philanthropist on Thursday

Jacket in: Lily puffed away on a cigarette as she was put through her paces while throwing on a man's purple blazer over the top

She appeared to be in her element as she sashayed across the stage in sheer tights and flowy orange gown.

Having the time of her life, the young mum was in her element as she threw herself back into her acting career on stage.

It is her first appearance in the West End after she gave birth to daughter Wylde in September 2015.

Smoking hot! The former model oozed confidence when she slipped into the shoes of flirty Araminta, who puffed away on a cigarette

Having the time of her life: The young mum was loving throwing herself back into her acting career on stage

Show and tell: It tells the story of academics living in a university bubble while the world is in trouble

Confidence: If the supermodel was nervous when she performed on Thursday night she didn't look it when she slipped into the shoes of flirty Araminta

The face of British Vogue stood out on stage as she brazenly matched a orange patterned gown with a purple jacket.

The new show tells the story of academics living in a university bubble while the world is in trouble.

Lily swapped her loud patterned orange attire for a statement number as she stepped out for press night after party.

Brazen: The face of British Vogue daringly matched the orange patterned dress with a bright purple jacket

Dressed to match! Cast mate Matt Berry donned a purple waistcoat on stage which was a perfect match for the flame-haired beauty's jacket

In character: Although it was opening night, the pair looked relaxed as they puffed on cigarettes together

Cast list: Lily was joined on stage by Simon Bird, Matt Berry, Tom Rosenthal and Charlotte Ritchie

Great performance! The Philanthropist cast had a roaring success on press night on Thursday

She let her hair down as her fiery locks come tumbling down her shoulders in a sea of curls.

On trend, the supermodel slipped into army-style brown boots with ease as she made the hall into her catwalk.

The starlet completed the natural look with deftly touches of makeup and a dark pink lipstick.

Party time! Lily swapped her loud patterned orange attire for a statement number as she stepped out for press night after party

Trendy: The supermodel slipped into army-style brown boots with ease as she made the theatre hall her catwalk

Lily was joined at the glitzy after party by Inbetweeners' star Simon Bird, 32, who plays the main character Philip.

He looked smart in his dark blue dinner jacket teamed with a light blue shirt and tidy trousers.

The 32-year-old pulled off a tousled look as he wore his dark brown tresses in a natural wavy style.

Spotlight: Lily was joined at the glitzy after party by Inbetweeners' star Simon Bird, 32, who plays the main character Philip

Simon's Inbetweeners co-stars Joe Thomas, 33, and Jack Whitehall, 28, also made an appearance to show their support for him.

Jack looked very dapper in a blue shirt and skinny chinos while Joe wrapped up warm in a snug woolly brown jumper.

The duo enjoyed each other's charming company as they toasted to Simon's performance with a glass of prosecco.

Star-studded appearances: Inbetweeners stars Joe Thomas, 33, and Jack Whitehall, 28, showed their support for Simon Bird, 32, who is starring in the play

Closely behind the actors, Charlotte Ritchie, who also stars in the play, made a striking appearance.

The Fresh Meat actress turned heads as the night's lady in red when she stepped out dressed head-to-toe in scarlet attire.

She made an impression when she put her sensational figure on display in the eye-catching glamorous gown.

Lady in red! Charlotte Ritchie, 27, who starred in Fresh Meat, and Camilla Kerslake joined Lily at the press night event as she stepped out in a scarlet gown

Elegant! Anita Rani, 39, looked every inch of glamour as she swapped her Countryfile wellies for towering killer stiletto heels

Glamorous: Arlene Phillips, 73, and Paul McKenna looked great together as the former Strictly Come Dancing judge's scarf complemented Paul's blue suit

The 27-year-old slipped into kooky slipper-style shoes for the evening, which were embroidered with lobsters.

In contrast, Camilla Kerslake, 28, was a vision in white when she attended the event in pinstriped trousers and a casual Tee.

With a flash of red, she stood out from the crowd with bold lipstick and a small scarlet handbag.

The night finally arrived after Lily had a busy week with the dress rehearsal taking place on Tuesday.

Smoking hot! Leggy Lily sizzled in boyfriend shirt and barely-there shorts during rehearsals at Trafalgar Studios the night before

The actress put on yet another leggy display in an oversized boyfriend-style shirt and the tiniest of shorts as she was put through her paces at Trafalgar Studios.

Wearing the loose fitted blue shirt unbuttoned at the bottom, her slender pins appeared endless.

She pulled off a tousled look on stage as she let her flame-haired locks fall down her shoulders in loose natural curls.

Ease: The model-turn-actress stars slipped into her role with ease as the seductive Araminta alongside Inbetweeners' star Simon Bird who plays the central character Philip

Blast from the past: Simon shot to fame as the cheeky schoolboy Will (pictured above with actors posing as classmates) in Channel 4's The Inbetweeners

Turning on the charm: The 29-year-old cosied up to her 32-year-old co-star as she lounged in his lap on stage

Shock: But Simon's character evidently becomes increasingly more uncomfortable as he squirms away when Lily touches his face

Turning on the charm, the model-turn-actress cosied up to her co-star and Inbetweeners star Simon.

Lily effortlessly lounged in his lap and comfortingly touched his chest with the palm of her hand as she relaxed on stage during rehearsals.

But Simon's character evidently becomes increasingly more uncomfortable as he squirms away when Lily touches his face.

Stepping into character: The couple were having a great time as they stepped into the shoes of their roles

Plot thickens: The show tells the story of academics living in a university bubble while the world is in trouble

The couple were having a great time as they stepped into the shoes of their characters.

Speaking on Lorraine earlier this month, the flame-haired beauty described her experience on set with Simon as a 'very special experience'.

Describing her experience on set, she told Lorraine Kelly: 'It's a very special experience.

Theatrical: The flame-haired beauty described her experience on set with Simon as a 'very special experience'

Effortless: She wore a loose fitted blue shirt unbuttoned at the bottom to best showcase her endless slender pins

'I feel like I'm in Simon Callows' acting hall. It's so fun to do a comedy.'

Simon, however, revealed it had been a daunting experience for him.

The pair are joined on stage by Matt Berry, Tom Rosenthal and Charlotte Ritchie.

Let her hair down: She pulled off a tousled look on stage as she let her flame-haired locks fall down her shoulders in loose natural curls




Rosamund Pike was the epitome of style on Thursday in New York.

The British actress, 38, looked fabulous in a dusky pink dress that fell to mid-calf and was belted at the waist.

The Gone Girl star paired the chic number with platform-soled black heels.

English rose: Rosamund Pike, 38, looked fabulous in a dusky pink dress that fell to mid-calf and was belted at the waist as she stepped out in NYC on Thursday

Rosamund showed off her toned arms in the dress that had capped short sleeves and a collar.

The bodice was ruched to the neck and there were contrasting panels on either side spreading out from the waist.

Her chunky shoes were open-toed revealing her matching black pedicure.

The actress added a black watch and wore her shoulder-length blonde hair sleekly styled.

Natural beauty: Rosamund showed off her toned arms in the dress that had capped short sleeves, a bodice ruched to the neck and contrasting side panels

Stepping out: The actress and mother-of-two added chunky black open-toe shoes with ankle straps and platform soles that revealed her matching black pedicure

The in-demand star has five movies completed and in the can, with three set for release this year: Hostiles with Christian Bale, High Wire Act with Jon Hamm and The Man with the Iron Heart with Mia Wasikowska and Jack O'Connell.

It was announced this week that she has signed on to play war journalist Marie Colvin in a planned biopic.

The veteran correspondent died in 2012 during a rocket attack while covering the siege of Homs in Syria for the U.K.s Sunday Times.
She is a legendary British supermodel whose name is synonymous with fashion and glamour - and Naomi Campbell, who founded her own charity back in 2005, is also a philanthropist.

The generous diva looked incredible in dressed-down chic as she launched Diesel's Child At Heart collection - a collaboration with the 46-year-old's Fashion For Relief charity - with a cocktail party in Paris on Thursday.

Sporting long, luscious locks and a winning smile, Naomi looked elegant and happy as she signed clothes for excited fans.

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Beaming with pride: Legendary British supermodel Naomi Campbell, 46, beamed for fans as she stunned at the launch of her charitable collaboration with Diesel in Paris on Thursday

The Streatham-born star beamed as she posed in front of a giant billboard with the emblem of the charity fashion campaign.

Naomi was dressed all in black, and sporting a campaign shirt beneath her fitted leather jacket, for the launch event.

The monotone outfit highlighted the multicoloured heart emblem on the British icon's top and drew attention to her unusual geometric-shaped rings.

Important cause: Naomi said: 'It's a privilege to be able to work with Save The Children to raise the funds for children who most desperately need access to life-saving help'

The supermodel, who completed her outfit with an on-trend thick black choker, smiled kindly for a fan called Alison as she signed a T-shirt.

Showing off her perfectly manicured nails and a butterfly diamond ring, Naomi flaunted her age-defying skin for the cameras.

Naomi seemed to be having a great time at the drinks launch event, as she jokingly cajoled fellow model Maria Borges into opening her own leather jacket to better show off the charity T-shirt.

Fun: Naomi seemed to be having a great time at the drinks launch event, as she jokingly cajoled fellow model Maria Borges into opening her own leather jacket to better show off the charity T-shirt

Gorgeous: The Angolan model, who is the new face of L'Oreal Paris, jazzed up her outfit with giant hoop earrings as she posed with her pal, making a cute heart symbol with their hands

The Angolan model, who is the new face of L'Oreal Paris, jazzed up her outfit with giant hoop earrings as she posed with her pal, making a cute heart symbol with their hands.

Fashion tycoon Renzo Russo and Diesel's artistic director Nicola Formichetti, who worked with Naomi on the collection, also got involved in signing shirts and meeting guests.

This year all Naomi's Fashion For Relief proceeds will go to support Save The Children, with the money going to support young people from around the world affected by refugee crises, wars and natural disasters.

Naomi explained: 'A disaster can strike at any time anywhere in the world, and often when it does, children are the worst affected. Some of these events make the news but others they don't.

'It's a privilege to be able to work with Save The Children to raise the funds for children who most desperately need access to life-saving help.'

Previous funds raised from the supermodel's charity fashion shows have gone to help Ebola victims, Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina victims, among many others.

Big names: Fashion tycoon Renzo Russo and Diesel's artistic director Nicola Formichetti, who worked with Naomi on the collection, also got involved in signing shirts and meeting guests

Next month Naomi will host her fashion show and auction, which will include celebrities and fellow models, in Cannes to raise funds.

The likes of Kate Moss, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Claudia Schiffer, The Duchess of York and Idris Elba have all participated and supported Fashion For Relief over the years.

And Naomi's star-studded shows have taken place in New York, Moscow, London and Mumbai, as have many other British-based celebrities including James Corden and Daisy Lowe.

Impressive: Previous funds raised from the supermodel's charity fashion shows have gone to help Ebola victims, Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina victims, among many others

Just days before her charitable appearance in France, Naomi was in Bahrain showing her support for her pal, Formula 1 legend Lewis Hamilton.

The elegant supermodel dazzled in a white form-fitting mini dress, embellished with studs, as she headed to the Sakhir circuit in Manama last weekend.

Naomi wore a series of VIP lanyards around her neck as she hid her eyes behind designer shades.

Sadly for both Lewis and his supporters, the British driver came in second place due to a five second penalty in the race.

Cute: Naomi shared this picture of herself on Instagram from the Bahrain Grand Prix, just days before her Paris fashion show appearance, writing: '#sisterlylove #ferrari Bahrain @afefjnifen @ferrari #easterday'

Loving life: Naomi joked with a pal and wore a series of VIP lanyards around her neck as she hid her eyes behind designer shades
Actor Samuel Johnson's terminally ill sister Connie recently made the heartbreaking decision to end all cancer treatment.

After struggling with the disease since she was a child, Connie and her Gold Logie-nominated brother have raised $2.1 million for for their Love Your Sister charity.

Now, they are planning one last fundraising drive with a view to raising another million dollars for breast cancer research.

Speaking to the Herald Sun on Thursday, Samuel said that while his heart is breaking for his sister, Connie is 'staying strong'.

Tragic: Actor Samuel Johnson (L) said he is heartbroken after his terminally ill sister Connie (R) made the decision to end all cancer treatment

'She is staring down the barrel, but it's not last legs just yet,' he told the publication.

'She is staying strong, but every day, my heart bleeds a little bit more.'

Connie and Sam, who have now accumulated $2.1 million for Love Your Sister, have one 'last hurrah' planned with the hopes of raising another million dollars.

Hope: 'She is staring down the barrel, but it's not last legs just yet,' Samuel told the Herald Sun

Plans: After seven years of battling breast cancer, Connie is now focusing on one last fundraising project for charity Love Your Sister

They have been collecting five cent coins for Love Your Sister's Big Heart Project, scheduled for May 10, with a view to using them to make a giant love heart.

Schools around the country are already involved, hosting 'Five Cent Friday' as part of the initiative.

Connie's current cancer diagnosis is her third.

She suffered bone cancer at age 11, a tumour in her womb at 22 and was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago.

Connie suffered bone cancer at age 11, a tumour in her womb at 22 and was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago

'My organs are just saying, "No more. No more"': The mother-of-two recently spoke to the Canberra Times about her decision to stop cancer treatments

She said after a double mastectomy and gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, the side effects have become harsher and harder to ignore.

'So that's 10 to 11 years of cancer treatment in a 40-year lifespan and I guess my organs are just saying, "No more. No more",' the mother-of-two told the Canberra Times.

Connie said she immediately called a family meeting after making her decision to cease treatment.

Tough choices: Connie said she called a family meeting after making her decision

Fundraising: Connie and her brother Samuel founded the Love Your Sister charity to raise money and awareness around breast cancer

'Basically, it wasn't my choice. I can't have any more chemo medically. So that's a game changer,' she said.

'I asked what to expect and at some point the tumours will grow back and grow bigger and I'll go into liver failure and I'll sleep a lot. Apparently it's quite peaceful.'

Connie is sure to be in Samuel's thoughts on Sunday, as he is nominated for the Gold Logie at the TV Week Logie awards following his critically-acclaimed performance as Ian 'Molly' Meldrum in TV mini series Molly.

Other nominees in the category include The Project's Peter Helliar and Waleed Aly, The Wrong Girl star Jessica Marais, Doctor Doctor's Rodger Corser and Family Feud host Grant Denyer.
She shared a topless photo of herself on her Instagram Wednesday to promote her Good American jeans line.

And one day later, Khloe Kardashian slipped on a silky black blazer-inspired mini dress while leaving a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

The 32-year-old showed off her narrow waist in the belted frock, which featured buttons on the skirt.

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Fancy: Khloe Kardashian slipped on a silky black blazer-inspired mini dress while leaving a photo shoot in Los Angeles on Thursday

The blonde beauty wore the chic ensemble while at a photo shoot with her sisters Kendall Jenner and Kim and Kourtney Kardashian; their mom Kris Jenner was there as well.

Afterwards, they headed out to lunch at The Little Door.

For her Thursday outing, the Good American jeans co-founder flashed her cleavage in the low-cut long-sleeved number.

Khloe paired the curve hugging dress with black thigh-high lace up boots.

Now that's quite an outfit! The 32-year-old showed off her narrow waist in the belted frock, which featured buttons on the skirt

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star added a pop of color with her crimson Givenchy purse.

She finished off her ensemble with large aviator sunglasses and two large diamond rings.

Khloe styled her short blonde locks loose with waves, opting for a center part.

Stunner: The blonde beauty wore the chic ensemble while at a photo shoot with her sisters Kendall Jenner and Kim and Kourtney Kardashian; their mom Kris Jenner was there as well

Classy: Khloe styled her short blonde locks loose with waves, opting for a center part

Gorgeous: For her Thursday outing, the Good American jeans co-founder flashed her cleavage in the low-cut long-sleeved number

Here comes the Kardashians! Khloe was joined by her equally lovely sisters Kourtney and Kim

Khloe took to Snapchat to share a sneak peek of the photo shoot for her fans.

The statuesque beauty filmed her mom and sisters Kourtney and Kendall as they got ready for the secret shoot.

She even filmed Kim as she used her smart phone - but Kim did not appear impressed with Khloe's sneaky filming.

Khloe also snapped Kendall and added digital filters to her face.

That's quite an ensemble! Kourtney chose a white bodysuit with skirt, adding a denim jacket

Showstoppers: Khloe toted a red Givenchy purse; pictured with Kourtney (right)

Comfy: Kourtney snapped Khloe as she rocked furry slippers in between shots

Putting her best foot forward! Khloe paired the curve hugging dress with black thigh-high lace up boots

Meanwhile, Kourtney and Kim also used social media during their photo shoot; Kourtney caught Khloe as she focused all of her attention on her phone.

Earlier in the day, Khloe shared a photo to her Instagram while posing with models Rose Bertram and Leomie Anderson.

She revealed that the models joined the Good Squad for her Good American jeans line.

The three beauties posed together - topless - while sporting the Good American Slim Zip Jeans.

Busy: Meanwhile, Kourtney and Kim also used social media during their photo shoot; Kourtney caught Khloe as she focused all of her attention on her phone

In the moment: Kourtney caught Khloe in the midst of singing in the makeup chair

Focused: She even filmed Kim as she used her Smart phone - but Kim did not appear impressed with Khloe's sneaky filming

Wow: Kim looked pretty in her fitted ensemble, which featured Virgin Mary on the front

Having a bit of fun: Khloe played with Snapchat filters on the social media app as well

Hi mom! Khloe filmed mother Kris Jenner as she got ready at the shoot

Playful: Khloe used a fun digital filter while filming a video with sister Kendall

Not messing around: Another funny clip had large eyes digitally added to Kendall

Oh hello! Khloe couldn't stop Snapchatting her sisters in between the mystery shoot; Kendall pictured at the photo shoot

Views: Khloe shared a view of cleavage on her Snapchat as well - with two cross necklaces

All black: Khloe turned heads in her racy ensemble and added splash of colour with her red tote
Their finest (12A)

Verdict: Beguiling wartime drama

Rating:

The Zookeeper's Wife (12A)

Verdict: Schindler's List meets Doctor Dolittle

Rating:

For a Dane, director Lone Scherfig has a remarkably keen eye and ear for the intricate details of British class and period.

Her 2009 feature An Education wonderfully evoked suburban London in the Sixties, The Riot Club (2014) went to town on badly-behaved Oxbridge toffs, and now heres Their Finest, a beguiling romantic not-quite-comedy set in 1940.

Like An Education, which was based on the memoir by journalist Lynn Barber, Their Finest has also sprung from a book, in this case a novel by Lissa Evans about the making of a propaganda film thinly disguised as a drama, at the height of the Blitz.

And like An Education, except more so, the story is, above all, about a particular young woman asserting her place in a world ruled by men. This is the engaging Catrin Cole (charmingly played by Gemma Arterton), not a radiant English rose but a sunny Welsh daffodil, who has arrived in wartime London from Ebbw Vale with struggling artist husband Ellis (Jack Huston).

Keeping calm and carrying on: Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy in Their Finest

She is a talented copywriter, who goes for an interview with the Ministry of Information for what she thinks is a secretarial job. In fact they want her to craft womens dialogue for their propaganda features.

The contemptuous film-industry word for female chatter in such films is slop (in reality it was more commonly known as nausea), and we are left in no doubt by Gaby Chiappes script, which just occasionally errs on the heavy-handed side, that ministry women are third-class citizens.

The one female who has risen in the ranks is a rather butch lesbian (improbably yet nicely played by the decidedly non-butch Rachael Stirling). But Catrin finds herself firmly at the bottom of the heap.

Obviously we cant pay you as much as the chaps, she is told by her pompous new boss, played, or rather over-played, by Richard E. Grant.

On the whole, Chiappe  an experienced TV writer (Lark Rise To Candleford, Shetland, The Level) here making her feature-film debut  does a lovely job of weaving Catrins doughty career progress in with her burgeoning feelings for screenwriting colleague Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin).

Conveniently, Ellis turns out to be rather a rotter, whereas Buckley, beneath his sneery, superior air, is a decent sort of cove, with a matinee-idol smile.

Director Lone Scherfig has a remarkably keen eye and ear for the intricate details of British class and period

Their project, one designed not only to repair morale left in tatters by the Luftwaffe, but also to persuade the Americans to come to the aid of the plucky Brits, is a film based on a newspaper story about heroic twin sisters from Essex.

Catrin is despatched to Southend to get the sisters story; how they borrowed their fathers rickety fishing boat and braved the Channel to rescue troops trapped at Dunkirk. Never mind that it isnt entirely true; facts are pliable in wartime.

Besides, if all that were not rousing enough, one of the Dunkirk survivors brings home a terrier in his kitbag.

Authenticity, optimism, and a dog! cries the producer, Hungarian emigre Gabriel Baker (Henry Goodman), presumably based on the great filmmaker Emeric Pressburger. He knows just how to appeal to British sensibilities.

Their Finest is a serious tale, however. It is littered with casualties of war and lurches in some unexpected directions with several, tragic twists. Yet it is leavened with plenty of deft comic touches.

Chiappe does a lovely job of weaving Catrins doughty career progress in with her burgeoning feelings for screenwriting colleague Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin)

Mostly, these are supplied by Bill Nighy, as a vain, mannered old ham of an actor, called Ambrose Hilliard. Theres no point cracking any kind of gag about Nighy being perfectly cast in such a role, since hes already dropped them all himself in the publicity interviews.

Besides, he really is very funny, at one point investing semolina pudding with exactly the same predatory loucheness Leslie Phillips used to get out of Ding Dong!

Eddie Marsan and Helen McCrory, as Hilliards agent and his sister, provide sterling comic support.

And Jeremy Irons pops up, too, enjoying himself hugely in a cameo as a starchy Ministry of War mandarin.

The excellence of the cast is but one of many reasons to see this film.

Its witty and warm-hearted, and genuinely poignant at times, but, maybe most usefully of all, it offers a fresh, enlightening perspective on a period so frequently depicted by the movies that I didnt think there were any true, or true-ish, stories left to tell.

It turns out that there are.

In fact, heres another one. Who knew that a couple who ran a zoo in Nazi-occupied Poland used the cover of fetching vegetable peelings, ostensibly to feed to their pigs, to smuggle people out of the benighted Warsaw ghetto? I didnt. Yet hundreds of Jews were saved in this way.

In The Zookeepers Wife, Jessica Chastain (also the executive producer) plays the title role, Antonina Zabinska, who, at the start of the picture, is a kind of Polish Joy Adamson, communing with the animals, cooing good morning sweetheart to a snarling tiger, and saving the life of a baby elephant.

But a portentous caption tells us its the summer of 1939. Soon, the air rings less with the braying of zebra, more with the stamp of the jackboot. The saintly Antonina and her almost equally noble husband Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) must decide whether to stand by their Jewish friends, even as their beloved zoo is devastated by Germans so heartless that they manage to resist the charms even of a cuddly rhino.

Yet the brave couple do more than that. Much more.

In The Zookeepers Wife , Jessica Chastain (also the executive producer) plays the title role, Antonina Zabinska

Youll detect a cynical note in this assessment, and indeed Niki Caros film, adapted from a non-fiction bestseller by Diane Ackerman, positively invites cynicism.

A charismatic German zoologist, played by Daniel Bruhl, has only to slip into a Nazi officers uniform to turn into a monster.

One minute he cherishes animals as much as any zoologist, the next he is shooting a stray vulture, and yelling: Haf it stuffed und mounted!

And thats not all; he also orders a fiendish breeding programme, whereby extinct bison will be brought back to life practically wearing swastika armbands.

But its the factual basis of all this that saves the movie. It might be unsubtle, the Warsaw ghetto might be represented as a mildly unpleasant place to live instead of the hellhole that it really was, and there are legitimate question marks over the decision to render the dialogue in heavily-accented English.

Nonetheless, The Zookeepers Wife tells an amazing true story, there are some remarkable set-pieces (mainly involving fleeing animals) and who can honestly begrudge Chastain, a fine actress, a rare chance to emulate the great Meryl, and Streepishly deliver her lines in a sing-song Polish accent?

Not even Bruhls Nazi geneticist could dream up a hybrid of Sophies Choice, Schindlers List and Doctor Dolittle, but that, intriguingly, is sort of what this film is.
When you got to go, you got to go.

Amy Schumer has repaid a store clerk's generosity with a very impressive thank you gift.

The 35-year-old star reportedly bought a retail worker a $2000 mattress in Chicago last Thursday according to WGN.

Nothing to sneeze at: Amy Schumer (pictured last year) has repaid a store clerk's generosity by buying the salesperson a $2000 mattress

Mattress Firm clerk Sagine Lazarre says she did not think twice about letting a female jogger use the bathroom at her Portage Park store.

And her decision to help the stranger certainly paid off with Amy - who the retail assistant did not recognize her at the time - generously buying the clerk a $2000 mattress.

Sagine told her local station: 'She comes out of the bathroom and asks me which one of [the mattresses] is my favorite. I told her She told me she wanted to buy it for me. And I was so shocked!'

The store clerk thought it was a joke, but Amy insisted she wanted to thank her for letting her use the bathroom.

Pit stop: Mattress Firm clerk Sagine Lazarre says Amy was out for a jog last Thursday in Chicago when she came in and asked to use the bathroom

Though it was a joke: Sagine told her local station, 'She comes out of the bathroom and asks me which one of [the mattresses] is my favorite. I told her She told me she wanted to buy it for me. And I was so shocked!' Amy is seen here last month

Hometown visit? While the actress (pictured December) is based in New York, her boyfriend Ben Hanisch is from Chicago and Amy told the store assistant she often visits to see friends

The clerk said while she has seen Amy in films and doing stand up, she just did not click until she saw the name 'Amy Schumer' on the credit card.

Sagine said: 'After she left, I Googled her name. The lady that was right there talking to me is Amy Schumer. It was amazing. Unbelievable.'

The clerk had just moved to a new home with her daughter so Amy's generous gift was very much appreciated.

While Amy is based in New York, her boyfriend Ben Hanisch is from Chicago and Amy told the store assistant she often visits to see friends.
He gave a memorable speech when he accepted his Gold Logie in 2016.

And The Project's Waleed Aly is projected to take the award show's top honour once again this year.

The 38-year-old has been priced at $2.50 with TAB to take out the coveted statue this Sunday, ahead of the other five nominees.

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Second coming: The Project's Waleed Aly is projected to take the award show's top honour once again this year

'Waleed was really popular with punters last year and he looks the one to beat again,' TAB spokesperson Nick Quinn said in a statement.

'He remains the favourite but the market suggests Samuel Johnson is a real chance of causing an upset,' he continued.

Samuel, whose critically acclaimed portrayal of Molly Meldrum in a television biopic earned him the nod, is priced slightly behind Waleed at $3.00.

Odds: The 38-year-old has been priced at $2.50 with TAB to take out the coveted statue this Sunday, ahead of the other five nominees

The only woman nominee in the category, The Wrong Girl and Love Child star Jessica Marais, is priced at $4.50.

Television host Grant Denyer is at $8.00 while Waleed's Project co-host Peter Helliar is a way behind at $13.00, with actor Rodger Corser rounding out the pack at $21.00.

Nominees who appear on Channel 10 reportedly have their network working overtime on their behalf to secure viewers' votes for the ceremony.

Passionate: He gave a memorable speech when he accepted his Gold Logie in 2016

According to a Confidential insider, live audiences are being urged to vote for nominees and instruction pamphlets on how to vote have been distributed.

This kind of bold campaigning has reportedly taken place during live filming of several programs on the channel, such as Studio 10 and The Living Room.

'It is cheeky, but it is working,' the source said. 'I guess they have the potential voters captive.'
Rules don't apply (12A)

Verdict: Curious but compelling

Rating:

Warren Beatty's first film this century (he is the director, writer, producer and star) fortuitously arrives in cinemas at a time when he would doubtless like to be talked about for something other than his unwitting role in screwing up the Oscars.

Rules Dont Apply does the job nicely. It is set at the turn of the Sixties, with Beatty playing the legendary movie mogul, aviator, inventor, recluse and all-round weirdo Howard Hughes  possibly one of the few men to generate as many Hollywood anecdotes as Beatty himself.

A strong cast includes Beattys wife Annette Bening as the strict, ambitious mother of would-be starlet Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins). She arrives in Hollywood from small-town Virginia to do a screen test for the famous Mr Hughes.

A strong cast includes Beattys wife Annette Bening as the strict, ambitious mother of would-be starlet Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins)

Warren Beatty's film arrives in cinemas at a time when he would doubtless like to be talked about for something other than his unwitting role in screwing up the Oscars

His office has supplied her with a dishy driver, Frank (Alden Ehrenreich), but their obvious mutual attraction is complicated, partly by Hughess insistence that his employees should keep their hands off the talent.

So, to whom will Marla lose her small-town virginity? Suffice to say that there is a distinct whiff of dirty old man about Hughes, when eventually he appears, and one distinctly creepy scene makes it impossible to overlook the yawning age gap  more than half a century  between Beatty and Collins.

Nonetheless, Beatty succeeds in making Hughes appear more sad than seedy, both corrupted and persecuted by his own extreme wealth.

Really, this is Marla and Franks story, but neither of them can escape their benefactors strange, poisoned aura.

Really, this is Marla and Franks story, but neither of them can escape their benefactors strange, poisoned aura

Rules Dont Apply is set at the turn of the Sixties, with Beatty playing the legendary movie mogul, aviator, inventor, recluse and all-round weirdo Howard Hughes

Skeletons in the closet...and a she-devil on her trail

Unforgettable (15)

Verdict: Far from memorable

Rating:

A twisted revenge thriller with echoes of Fatal Attraction, Unforgettable promises more than it eventually delivers, and indeed ends up being the precise opposite of its title. By the time youve passed the pick n mix on your way out of the cinema, youll barely remember it.

Rosario Dawson stars as Julia, a woman with a hunky fiance, David (Geoff Stults), and a chance of a new beginning out west.

Her last relationship ended badly, with domestic violence and a restraining order. But David seems a proper catch. She doesnt tell him about her violent ex.

Tessa (Katherine Heigl): Most of this is well acted, much is well-scripted, but as Tessas vindictiveness builds, the film gets overwrought and plain silly

The only hitch, but what a hitch, is that David comes with a daughter and an uptight ex-wife, Tessa (Katherine Heigl), who finds the skeletons in Julias closet and plots her downfall.

Most of this is well acted, much is well-scripted, but as Tessas vindictiveness builds, the film gets overwrought and plain silly.

By the time Cheryl Ladd wafts into the proceedings as a dolled-up psycho-granny, I could hardly contain my mirth.
She announced her engagement to her partner-of-six-years Neil Varcoe in a romantic Instagram post on Thursday.

Now, Sunrise presenter Edwina Bartholomew has made her first public appearance since announcing the proposal.

The blonde beauty, who is known for her unique sense of style, was absolutely glowing in a sheer yet tasteful purple blouse at the charity event.

Polyester girl! Edwina Bartholomew made her first public appearance on Thursday since announcing her impending nuptials to the world

The fashionista tucked the purple piece into a pair of baggy, pleated dress pants with an extremely long hemline that pooled around the ground.

She styled her blonde locks in an old-school quiff and painted her nails a pearly white to match her perfect teeth.

Unfortunately, the stylish starlet opted to obscure her newly acquired wedding ring by slipping her left hand into her pocket.

Star power: A clearly beaming Edwina was joined at the event by Olympian Giaan Rooney (R) and TV personality Sally Obermeder (L)

The 33-year-old bride-to-be was the emcee at the cocktail party opening of the Nelune Comprehensive Cancer Centre at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Thursday.

She was joined at the event by Olympian Giaan Rooney and TV personality Sally Obermeder.

The Nelune Comprehensive Cancer Centre will bring together all of the hospital's cancer treatment services  previously spread across eight sites  under one roof.

Flair for fashion: Edwina is known for her unique and memorable sense of style

Waiting two weeks to tell the world, Edwina announced her engagement to Neil in a romantic Instagram post on Thursday.

The post read: 'On this day, two wonderful weeks ago, the love of my life @neilwrites asked me to be his wife.'

'And I said...umm...ahh...let me have a think....just kidding...YES. we are over the moon.

Loved-up Waiting two weeks to tell the world Edwina announced her engagement to Neil in a romantic Instagram post on Thursday

The accompanying photo, showed the couple, back to camera, walking down a wide country road with a dog walking by Neil's side.

News of the the engagement was met with a rapturous reception on Sunrise on Friday. with host Samantha Armytage playfully joking about the length of the engagement.

'Who would have thought? What s surprise - Kochie will be beside himself,' she joked.

News of the the engagement was met with a rapturous reception on Sunrise on Friday. with host Samantha Armytage playfully joking about the length of the engagement

'Kochie has only been bullying him [Neil] for six years.'

The Sunrise cast's playfulness was well founded, though after Edwina announced her engagement on air, last year, only to reveal that it was, in fact an April Fools prank.

Evidently still gushing over the big news, Edwina took to Instagram on Friday to post a photo flaunting her formidable sparkler.

'Fingers hidden in flowers because my nail polish is chipped at the one time everyone actually wants to see my hand,' the star captioned the post.
Adriana Lima shimmered her way down the carpet as she arrived for the IWC Schaffenhausen For The Love Of Cinema Gala on Thursday in New York City.

The Victoria's Secret Angel, 35, wrapped her model figure in a shiny gold wraparound ensemble that revealed plenty of bare skin.

The Brazilian beauty put her taut tummy and long legs on display in the sari-inspired number.

Shimmering: Victoria's Secret Angel Adriana Lima, 35, wrapped her model figure in a shiny gold wraparound ensemble that revealed plenty of bare skin at a NYC gala Thursday night

Adriana's outfit featured a one-shoulder top that criss-crossed her breasts and a skirt with a black waistband that split to the thigh on the left side.

She added a pair of black sandal heels and flashed dark red polish on her toenails and fingernails.

She carried a small black purse and wore her long dark hair straight and tucked behind her ears.

Flesh-baring: Adriana's outfit featured a one-shoulder top that criss-crossed her breasts and a skirt with a black waistband that split to the thigh on the left side

Angel: The Brazilian beauty sported smoky shadow and pink lip color along with a dark red manicure and tucked her long dark hair back behind her ears

Legs forever: Adriana showed her long legs while at the gala event

Former VS Angel Karolina Kurkova also opted for a sparkly number, arriving in a silver metallic jumpsuit.

The plunging neckline revealed the Czech beauty's famous cleavage.

The pants were widely flared giving the impression of a full skirt as she posed on the red carpet.

The 33-year-old wore her long blonde hair styled in gentle curls and added bright red sandal heels with laces at the ankle.

Shiny: Former VS Angel Karolina Kurkova also opted for a sparkly number, arriving in a silver metallic jumpsuit

Pretty: The plunging neckline revealed the Czech beauty's famous cleavage while the outfit's pants were widely flared giving the impression of a full skirt as she posed on the red carpet

Working it: The 33-year-old wore her long blonde hair styled in gentle curls and added bright red sandal heels with laces at the ankle

Christina Ricci, 37, opted for a black sleeveless mini dress with silver polka dots.

The actress added black sandal heels with decorative straps and carried a simple black purse.

She wore her dyed blonde hair tied back into a ponytail with her long fringe swept across her forehead to one side.

Stylish: Christina Ricci opted for a black sleeveless mini dress with silver polka dots and wore her hair tied back into a ponytail with her long fringe swept across her forehead to one side

Headturner: The actress, 37, added black sandal heels with decorative straps and carried a simple black purse

Stunner: English actress Rosamund Pike chose a tailored black jumpsuit with a jacket-style bodice slashed to the waist

On the stage: Rosamund spoke on the stage while Samantha Bee looked on

English actress Rosamund Pike chose a tailored black jumpsuit with a jacket-style bodice slashed to the waist.

The pleated pants reached to the ankle and she went barefoot on black sandals with stiletto heels.

The Gone Girl star, 35, completed her look with a statement belt and a splash of bright red lip color.

Uma Thurman showed up in black dress with flounce skirt and a matching jacket buttoned at the front.

The New York-based actress, 46, added black sandals with statement bows at the ankle and wore her hair tied back from her face.

Chic: Uma Thurman, 46, showed up in a black dress with flounce skirt and a matching jacket buttoned at the front. She added black sandals with statement bows

Fussy ensemble: Girls star Zosia Mamet paired a frilly off-the-shoulder blouse with high-waisted black pants with flared cuffs and salmon pink pumps

A big night: Also on the gala guest list was Robert de Niro and his wife Grace Hightower. The event benefited his Tribeca Film Festival

Lucky guy: The legendary actor got a kiss from Karolina

Popular guy: Robert also enjoyed a visit from Rosamund

Streaming star: Taylor Schilling of Orange Is The New Black also was at the exclusive event
English actress Rosamund Pike was all business as she donned a Smoking Twill Pantsuit by Bottega Veneta for a gala in New York City on Thursday night.

The Gone Girl star, 38, looked utterly chic in the outfit that had a jacket-style bodice that was slashed to the waist.

The pleated pants reached to the ankle and she went barefoot in Stuart Weitzman stiletto heels.

Stunner: English actress Rosamund Pike chose a Cotton and Silk Smoking Twill Pantsuit by Bottega Veneta for a gala in New York City on Thursday night

Rosamund completed her look with a statement belt and a splash of bright red lip color.

Her shoulder-length dark blonde hair was tousled, providing a laid back contrast to the formality of her fashionable suit.

The pretty mother-of-two never seems to put a foot wrong when it comes to her sartorial choices.

Sartorially elegant: The pleated pants reached to the ankle and she added a statement belt. The actress went barefoot in black Stuart Weitzman stiletto heels

Striking a pose: Rosamund's shoulder-length dark blonde hair was tousled, providing a laid back contrast to the formality of her fashionable suit

Before heading to the IWC Schaffenhausen For The Love Of Cinema Gala, the London-born actress had been spotted out and about in the Big Apple in another eye-catching number.

Rosamund looked fabulous in a dusky pink dress that fell to mid-calf and was belted at the waist.

She showed off her toned arms in the dress that had capped short sleeves and a collar.

The bodice was ruched to the neck and there were contrasting panels on either side spreading out from the waist.

Her chunky shoes were open-toed revealing her matching black pedicure.

English rose: Rosamund Pike, 38, looked fabulous in a dusky pink dress that fell to mid-calf and was belted at the waist as she stepped out in NYC on Thursday

Natural beauty: Rosamund showed off her toned arms in the dress that had capped short sleeves, a bodice ruched to the neck and contrasting side panels

The in-demand star has five movies completed and in the can, with three set for release this year: Hostiles with Christian Bale, High Wire Act with Jon Hamm and The Man with the Iron Heart with Mia Wasikowska and Jack O'Connell.

It was announced this week that she has signed on to play war journalist Marie Colvin in a planned biopic.

The veteran correspondent died in 2012 during a rocket attack while covering the siege of Homs in Syria for the U.K.s Sunday Times.
He's the beloved Australian actor who died aged 28 in 2008.

Now, the highly anticipated documentary about Heath Ledger has an official release date in the late star's hometown of Perth.

The world premiere of I Am Heath Ledger will take place at the Tribecca Film Festival in New York on April 23, and the Ledger family will attend the Australian premiere on May 9 at Luna Cinemas in Perth.

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Release: A documentary about Heath Ledger finally had a local release date confirmed

According to News.com.au, I Am Heath Ledger will open in select Australian cinemas for one week only from May 11.

The film will be screened in seven cinemas in Victoria and New South Wales, three in Tasmania and Western Australia, two in South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland and one in the Northern Territory.

'This is definitely more the truth than anything else that's out there,' explained Heath's friend and production partner, Matt Amato.

I Am Heath Ledger will screen for one week only in Australia from May 11, with the first screening in the late star's hometown of Perth

Filmmaker Matt was even able to get the approval of Michelle Williams, Heath's ex-partner and the mother of his daughter Matilda.

'She said, ''We should do something now. Matilda is curious'',' he said.

The documentary also uses video footage shot by Heath himself, who was an avid cameraman.

Personal: The documentary also uses video footage shot by Heath himself, who was an avid cameraman

It also features touching interviews with friends and work associates - including Ang Lee, Ben Harper, N'fa Jones, Ben Mendelsohn and more.

In January 2008, Heath was found unconscious in his New York City apartment.

His cause of death determined to be an accidental overdose of prescription medicine.
She's the tenacious beauty who rose to fame as part of Destiny's Child.

And Kelly Rowland, 36, has traversed a long path to develop her confidence, from her early days as a teenage star to the multi-talented entertainer she is today.

The new judge of The Voice Australia opened up to The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday about her journey and how Beyonce's mother Tina Knowles helped her bloom.

Growth: Kelly Rowland, 36, has traversed a long path to develop her confidence, from her early days as a teenage star to the multi-talented entertainer she is today

She described Tina as her 'bonus mother' and confidante, revealing it was her who forced Kelly to appreciate her looks.

'She would literally get me in front of the mirror and tell me how beautiful my chocolate skin was,' said Kelly.

During Destiny's Child's early stardom, Kelly explained how she was uncomfortable with what she calls her 'chocolatiness' until Tina encouraged her to embrace it.

Self-love: The new judge of The Voice Australia opened up on Friday about her journey and how Beyonce's mother Tina Knowles helped her bloom

Encouraging: Kelly described Tina as her 'bonus mother' and confidante, revealing it was her who forced Kelly to appreciate her looks

'She had all this artwork up and it was all these beautiful African-American or African artists. She said, "Look at your skin colour, your skin colour looks like that",' she said.

As Kelly began to accept and love herself, she decided it was her responsibility to share her experiences to empower other young women.

'I wasn't just a face for myself, I was a face for other girls who looked like me and I don't want them to see themselves and not see how incredible they are in their own skin,' she offered.

Inspiring: As Kelly began to accept and love herself, she decided it was her responsibility to share her experiences to empower other young women

Based in Sydney for The Voice filming, the Atlanta-born knockout described the vibe of the harbour city as 'super chilled'.

She is also in the middle of recording her first solo album since 2013's Talk A Good Game, a new set she said will remind women of how 'f***ing incredible' they are.

The mother of two-year-old son Titan said parenthood also changed her approach to music, saying 'there is only so much sexiness' she can artistically offer nowadays.
He was gripping his helmet and looked ready to ride.

But Bradley Cooper was left in the shade for once as he got set to shoot a motorbike action scene with an even more handsome body double in California on Thursday.

The former World's Sexiest Man Alive had his director's hat on as he drilled his crew on exactly what he wanted as he worked on his latest project A Star Is Born.

Cupid stunt: Bradley Cooper stood next to an even more handsome body double as they got ready to shoot an action scene on the set of A Star Is Born in California on Thursday

The 42-year-old was spotted locked in an intense conversation with his crew as he worked between takes in the desert near Palm Springs.

And he may even up debating with himself in future whether casting such a handsome double was a really such a good idea if he ends up stealing away some of his female fans.

A-Team favourite Bradley was looking as dashing as ever in a trendy ensemble of shirt and jeans, while he was also gripping his riding gloves and helmet.

While he ran the rule over what was to happen when the cameras started rolling, his beefy body double looked the height of coolness personified as he loitered near the Hanover star.

A man with vision: Bradley was spotted explaining what he wanted to happen during shooting

A Star Is Born: Bradley may find he loses some fans to his better looking stand-in

Ready to ride: But Bradley Cooper stalled as he waited around between takes

Bradley had been wearing the same outfit as when he was spotted tickling the tonsils of Poker Face favourite Lady Gaga while they sat on a motorbike as they shot a scene at a petrol station on Tuesday.

This will mark Gaga's big screen acting debut as she is set to play the starring role opposite The Hangover actor, who was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2011..

Bradley will play the alcoholic movie star who helps Gaga's character find fame and fortune.

A real head scratcher: The movie hunk seemed to be wondering where his leading lady was

The new Orson Welles? Bradley is making his directorial debut with the Streisand remake

The movie is a remake of the 1976 Barbra Streisand classic, of which it will more than likely be a inferior facsimile.

However it would be amiss to point out that itself wasa a remake of two earlier versions, with the 1937 film starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and the 1954 edition being a musical starring Judy Garland and James Mason.

Sam Elliot, from the sitcom The Ranch, has been cast as Bobby in the film whilst Andrew Dice Clay will play Lorenzo.

The new Dad, who welcomed his first child with girlfriend Irina Shayk last month, is also making his directorial debut.

Helmet: But it looked like Bradley would have to wait a while before getting on his bike

Action stations: His body double seemed to have headed off to shoot his scene

Bad case of wind: The environmentally friendly star was filming near windmills

Perhaps he was in an edgy mood as he was still feeling hot under the collar after his other half posted a saucy Instagram photo on Tuesday, just weeks after giving birth.

She was wearing a skimpy black bikini while lying on a pink lips-shaped inflatable in a swimming pool.

The 31-year-old captioned the snap: 'Pre-sunset #currentsituation,' in which she showed off her chiseled figure while closing her eyes and arcing one of her legs.

It's been less than a month since the Yemanzhelinsk-born model reportedly welcomed Lea De Seine, her firstborn daughter by fiance Bradley.

Mini Cooper: Bradley's fiance Irina Shayk has just given birth to their first child
It was only a couple of weeks ago he and his wife welcomed their first son Boston.

But on Friday, South Sydney Rabbitohs star George Burgess marked his 25th birthday with his twin brother Tom.

The flashback photo from almost a decade ago shows the brothers looking very posing for a snap together.

Much younger years: South Sydney Rabbitohs star George Burgess has taken to Instagram to mark his and twin brother Tom's 25th birthday with a photo from almost a decade ago

In the photo, both appear to have coordinated their ensemble satin shirt and tie ensemble based on a sleek black and silver colour palette.

George shows off a slight, side smile to the camera while Tom keeps his facial expression serious and stoic.

He captioned his post: 'Happy 25th to my best mate @thomasburgess . We have always had each other's backs and I love you to bits lad! Couldn't think of a better person to share my birthday with. Looking forward to doing battle with you tonight!'

Suited up: George wished his twin a Happy Birthday and said in his caption, 'Couldn't think of a better person to share my birthday with. Looking forward to doing battle with you tonight!'

Birthday brunch: The twin brothers spent their morning together with George's newborn son Boston (L-R Tom and George)

The Rabbitohs prop added: 'This picture is almost 10 years old by the way! Great hair!!'

Fans of the twins wished them a Happy Birthday, others couldn't help but comment on the throwback snap.

One wrote: 'These pics just keep getting better!'

Another said: 'That is so funny! Looks like lads from Harry Potter era.'

Burgess boys! The football playing brothers together for a photo (L-R Sam, George, Luke and Tom)

Family get together: The Burgess family appear to have also celebrated the twins birthday with a family dinner

Meanwhile their sister-in-law Phoebe Burgess, who is married to their older brother Sam who also plays for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, commented on their post: 'This is amazing. Love you boys xx'.

The twins appeared to have had an early celebration with a family dinner, according to a snap from Joanna Burgess's Instagram.

At the get together was Tom's girlfriend model and personal trainer Tahlia Giumelli, family friend Adam Geary and their mother Julie Burgess.

Missing from the gathering was their older brother Luke Burgess and his family who are based in France, where he currently plays for Catalans Dragons.
You do not need to reinvent the fashion wheel to stand out in a crowd.

Sofia Vergara threw on a classic little black dress to head to lunch on Thursday and looked spectacular doing so.

The 44-year-old stepped out in the tight dress in Beverly Hills, California.

Little Balck Wow:Sofia Vergara threw on a classic little black dress to head to lunch in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday and looked spectacular doing so

The Modern Family star headed out to lunch in the black midi dress which clung to her famous curves.

While simple, the actress turned heads in the dress as she strutted down the street.

Sofia wore the LBD with a pair of strappy platform tan heels which matched perfectly to her handbag.

The actress wore the bag unusually so it sat across her body and covered her mid-section.

Simply stylish:The Modern Family star headed out to lunch in the black midi dress which clung to her famous curves

Dangerous curves ahead: While simple, the actress turned heads in the dress as she strutted down the street

Added extras: Sofia wore the LBD with a pair of strappy platform tan heels which matched perfectly to her handbag

Aside from the gold chained bag, Sofia accessorized with a pair of square sunglasses and a necklace that had a number of pendants hanging from it.

Adding just a touch more bling, the Colombian beauty wore gold hoops.

Sofia's long sun-kissed brown locks were out and straight so her hair flew around as she trotted along.

That's different: The actress wore the bag unusually so it sat across her body and covered her mid-section

Completing the look: Aside from the gold chained bag, Sofia accessorized with a pair of square sunglasses and a necklace that had a number of pendants hanging from it

The star was escorted to low key eatery Urth Cafe by a hunky male friend.

After their lunch, Sofia quickly stopped in at Fedex before heading home.

The Modern family star kicked off her day by trying to master a flamingo pool float.

Going with the flow: Sofia's long sun-kissed brown locks were out and straight so her hair flew around as she trotted along

Quick bite: The 44-year-old and her friends ate at low key eatery Urth Cafe

The 44-year-old shared a self-deprecating montage of herself attempting to mount a pool inflatable, and not very smoothly either.

'Girls..this is how u graciously get on your pool bird #gettingreadyforsummer,' she wrote in the funny snap.

While she may have meant to say 'gracefully' rather than 'graciously', her form was neither.

'How u graciously get on your pool bird': Earlier Sofia struggled to mount her inflatable flamingo on Instagram

Dressed in a cute blue and pink summer dress, the actress futilely tries to stabilize the giant flamingo, before clumsily clambering aboard.

She did manage it in the end though, as she shared a second shot from the center of the pool, arm raised triumphantly and - crucially - dry.

'It feels like summer in LA!!!' she captioned the tidier of the two.

Finally! She did manage it in the end though, as she shared a second shot from the center of the pool, arm raised triumphantly and - crucially - dry

On Tuesday she confirmed to People that she had indeed been cast as a tiny picture from a cellphone text keyboard.

'And she is always doing the Flamenco. She does it in the morning when she gets up, she does it when shes eating, she probably does it when shes sleeping. It makes things like driving or putting on her makeup very difficult,' she revealed.

The Colombian beauty tells the magazine that she's often compared to the commonly-used emoticon.

Dancing queen: She announced on Tuesday she would play the role of Flamenco Dancer in Sony's The Emoji Movie, posting this photo with her character to Instagram

'I thought it was going to be a perfect role for me because people are always saying that I look like her.'

The animated film takes place in Textopolis where all of the characters can only experience the emotion or action they represent.

One character named Gene, voiced by T.J. Miller, was born without a filter and can experience all emotions.

Gene leads his fellow emojis on an adventure to find the code that will allow him to fit in with his one-note friends.
Kate Bosworth touched down at LAX in Los Angeles on Thursday after a whirlwind trip to New York.

The 34-year-old sported a blue cotton dress that was knotted at hip level at the front.

She wore the long sleeves pushed up to the elbows and had a long black narrow tie falling from under the collar.

Fashionista: Kate Bosworth, 34, sported a blue cotton dress that was knotted at hip level at the front as she arrived at LAX in Los Angeles on Thursday

Kate went bare-legged in black lace-up ankle boots.

She wore a tiny tan purse slung on a gold chain across her body.

The actress left her long blonde hair loose and added a large pair of tortoiseshell-framed sunglasses.

Perfect: The actress wore the long sleeves pushed up to the elbows and had a long black narrow tie falling from under the collar

Headturner: The Blue Crush star left her long blonde hair loose and added a large pair of tortoiseshell-framed sunglasses as she stepped out in black lace-up ankle boots

Relaxed: The laid back beauty splashed red color across her lips and wore tiny diamond earrings

The Superman Returns star had traveled to the Big Apple for an appearance at the National Geographic Further Front event on Wednesday night.

Kate is one of the star's of the cable channel's scripted military drama The Long Road Home.

The eight episode mini series is based on the true events of April 4, 2004, when a platoon from the 1st Cavalry Division in Fort Hood, Texas, was ambushed in Sadr City in Baghdad.

Kate plays the wife of an officer, played by Jason Ritter, who leads the rescue mission for the embattled platoon.
He met the brave men who thwarted the 2015 Paris train attack last year.

And now Clint Eastwood is set to direct a movie telling the story of three Americans who stopped a terrorist plot while on a train on its way to the French capital.

Friends Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone foiled a gunman who had boarded a train from Amsterdam to Paris in August 2015.

New project: Clint Eastwood is set to direct a movie telling the story of three Americans who stopped a terrorist plot while on a train on its way to Paris

The untitled project will be based on the book The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story Of A Terrorist, A Train, And Three American Heroes, written by the three friends with journalist Jeffrey E. Stern.

Eastwood, 86, hopes to get filming underway on the movie later this year, Variety reported.

The new movie follows in the same vein of the director's recent output, which have told true stories of acts of heroism.

Heroes: The 86-year-old met the brave men who thwarted the 2015 Paris train attack last year

Trio: Friends Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone foiled a gunman who had boarded a train from Amsterdam to Paris in August 2015

These include 2014 film American Sniper, about Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, and 2016 film Sully about Miracle on the Hudson airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger.

The Paris train heroes charged at Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, after he came out of a toilet armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

The gunman, who was found with enough ammunition to kill 500 people, shot and seriously wounded a passenger.

Brave: US airman Stone was stabbed in the neck, above his brow, and almost severed his thumb as he tried to tackle the Kalashnikov-wielding terrorist

In the works: The untitled project will be based on the book The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story Of A Terrorist, A Train, And Three American Heroes

US airman Stone was stabbed in the neck, above his brow, and almost severed his thumb as he tried to tackle the Kalashnikov-wielding terrorist.

Speaking about the incident at the time, his friend Sadler said: 'We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle.'

The friends then saw the gunman entering the train car with an automatic rifle. 'As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, "Spencer, go!" And Spencer runs down the aisle.

Heroic tale: The new movie follows in the same vein of the director's recent output, including 2016 film Sully about Miracle on the Hudson airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger

'Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.'

The three men have since been hailed as heroes both in the US and in France, where they were awarded the Legion of Honor, the country's highest decoration.

El Khazzani is currently in custody in France, awaiting trial on various terror-related charges, including attempted murder.
She is a busy working mother.

So it was no doubt a welcome respite for Kourtney Kardashian to have a breather by partying the night away in Hollywood on Thursday.

The reality television personality was spotted heading into the exclusive Chateau Marmont nightspot with a leather-clad lackey at her side.

Mum's night out: Kourtney Kardashian was spotted heading into Chateau Marmont nightspot in LA on Thursday

Kourtney, 37, was quite the sight as she arrived at the celebrity hotspot in a pair of white baggy trousers, waistcoat and stilettos.

And while the mother-of-three is on the cusp of middle age, it seems this is doing little to sate her love of partying.

No doubt she was looking forward to heading inside and letting her hair down after yet another hard day of work.

For earlier in the day she had been spotted heading to lunch with her younger sisters Kim and Khloe as they filmed scenes for their show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Mum's night out: Kourtney looked cool in all-white image, that contrasted her raven locks

All white on the night: The brunette wore a corset to highlight her trim figure

Dynamic duo: She was accompanied by a leather-clad lackey

A bit of all white: Justin Bieber's lover had opted for a virginal hue for her big night out

Time to check her prescription: A bespectacled beauty looked like she could not believe her eyes when she saw Kourtney coming up the stairs

The power trio spent another gruelling filming session stuffing their faces at the upmarket eatery The Little Next Door in the posh Beverly Grove neighbourhood.

Kourtney, who was recently rumoured to be once again enjoying sexual playdates with pop pixie Justin Bieber, was enjoying yet another night on the tiles without her former long-term lover Scott Disisck

She split from the self-proclaimed Lord in in July 2015 after photos emerged of him canoodling with stylist Chloe Bartoli in Monaco.

It brought to an end a nine-year relationship that has spawned three children - seven-year-old Mason, Penelope, four, and two-year-old Reign.

Grand arrival: She was dropped off by her chauffeur at the posh Chateau Marmont

An immaculate look: She had earlier been spotted with sister Kim Kardashian, who wore the Virgin Mary on her chest, as they went into a restaurant for lunch
She's a multiple Logie Award winner thanks to roles in Packed to the Rafters and Halifax f.p.

And ahead of the annual event on Sunday, Rebecca Gibney gave fans an inside look at her beauty regime.

Taking to Instagram on Friday, the 52-year-old playfully captioned a workout selfie: 'Clearly not used to gyms.'

'Clearly not used to gyms': Rebecca Gibney, 52, poked lighthearted fun of herself in an Instagram snap on Friday, as she fit in a workout ahead of Sunday night's Logie Awards

'Pre Logies workout,' Rebecca informed her 77,300 Instagram followers.

Making lighthearted fun of herself, the personality included the hash-tags #whatsthisthingfor? #clearlynotusedtogyms, #mayhaveleftmyrunalittlelate, #goshlookatthetime and #lunch!'

The snap saw Rebecca standing in front of a mirror in a gym, raising her iPhone to capture the shot, while her left hand held onto a dumbbell.

Sporting black leggings and a striped tank top scrunched around her waist, the New Zealand-born star swept her blonde locks into an effortless ponytail.

Spectacular: Last year saw the actress stun in a black pantsuit, with a bodice underneath

A veteran at the Logie Awards, Rebecca will once again make an appearance at Sunday night's event.

Last year saw the actress stun in a black pantsuit, with a bodice underneath.

Pointy-toed heels elongated her frame, while statement jewels added a glamorous touch.

Rebecca's shoulder-length locks were styled sleek and straight, complemented with an elegant makeup palette.

Va va voom: The 2014 Logie Awards saw the blonde beauty cut a glamorous figure in a fitted two-toned gown with lace detailing

Wow factor: In 2013 Rebecca highlighted her slimline figure in a plunging frock with jewelled detailing

While the 2014 Logie Awards saw the blonde beauty cut a glamorous figure in a fitted two-toned gown.

Rebecca's petite upper frame was highlighted in nude fabric with lace detailing, while black fabric from the waist down formed a dramatic train.

The mother-of-one swept her tresses back off her face in a voluminous do and drew the eye to a pair of glitzy drop earrings.

Elegant: The Packed to the Rafters star donned a chic black halterneck frock at the 2012 event
She is the daughter of of Waking The Dead star Trevor Eve and actress Sharon Maughan.

But Alice Eve proved her own star quality as she stepped out in New York on Thursday.

The English actress, 35, brought a splash of colour to the sunny day in a pretty bright shirt dress.

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Mellow in yellow: Alice Eve proved her own star quality as she stepped out in New York on Thursday

The high neck tailored piece was cinched in at the waist, making the most of her slender midriff.

Reaching her ankles, it showed a glimpse of her satin champagne-coloured pumps.

And keeping the rest of her look simple, she left her blonde hair loose and went for minimal make-up.

Standing out: The English actress, 35, brought a splash of colour to the sunny day in a pretty bright shirt dress

Alice was joined by American actor Zachary Quinto, 39, who also starred in the Star Trek franchise.

Looking dapper in a casual ensemble, he enjoyed a coffee with his pretty pal as they strolled through the trendy Tribeca area.

Alice relocated to Hollywood, LA, to pursue her acting career after her appearance in Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Pretty: The high neck tailored piece was cinched in at the waist, making the most of her slender midriff

She has been married to her financier husband Alex Cowper-Smith since December 2014, though they have not been seen together publicly since last February.

While she is known for a number of films, including She's Out Of My League and Men In Black 3, she also starred in Sex And The City.

The British star is expected to appear in the film Untogether alongside Jamie Dornan, which is set for release in theatres later this year.

Pals: Alice was joined by American actor Zachary Quinto, 39, who also starred in the Star Trek franchise
Julia Goulding grew up dreaming of starring in Coronation Street, and as a child was so obsessed with the soap that she even spent her fifth birthday on the set. So imagine her delight at having landed her first TV role treading the Weatherfield cobbles.

Ive watched it since I was a baby and had my party at Granada Studios because I wanted to be on that famous street, says Julia, 32. My favourite character was Bet Lynch; I loved her fluffy kitten-heeled slippers.

So, when Manchester-born Julia was told an opportunity had come up to play Shona Ramsey, a girl with a good heart from the wrong side of the tracks whod be implanted among the Platt family, she says, I put my heart and soul into the audition and got my dream job. Im so happy.

Julia Goulding (above) grew up dreaming of starring in Coronation Street, and as a child was so obsessed with the soap that she even spent her fifth birthday on the set

Having been taken in at Christmas by Billy the vicar who found her sleeping rough, Shona has grown close to Gail Rodwell while serving in Roys Rolls.

And last week, after overhearing Gail discussing how her son David had been planning to murder Clayton in revenge for killing his wife Kylie, Shona revealed herself as teenager Claytons mother.

Shona and Gail made a pact that neither would reveal each others secret to anyone, including David, which gives Shonas growing closeness to David a risky edge. Davids not one to take things lightly, so if he did find out itd be explosive, teases Julia. And if they got together, imagine how complicated that would be...

GET TO KNOW JULIA GOULDING Lazy or active? I like walking in The Lakes and swimming in the sea. Holidays  Europe or North America? I went to Canada when I was younger; I wish Id been a bit older to have appreciated its full beauty. Food  Asian or European? I love Thai, especially seafood. Beer or wine? It depends on the season. In the winter I drink Guinness and red wine, but in the summer its prosecco or gin and tonic. Horror movies or rom-coms? My favourite film is Billy Elliot because its about his fathers journey as well. TV  US or UK? Im currently watching the American comedy Grace And Frankie on Netflix. Its breaking boundaries by having two older women  Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin  in the lead roles. Advertisement

Julia is hopeful viewers can finally get to know what Shona  who had Clayton when she was 13 and brought him up alone on a rough estate before their relationship deteriorated and he became a killer  is all about.

Shes a good egg, a survivor, who makes decisions based on self-preservation. I hope they see her good heart.

Running alongside Shonas growing closeness to David will be her hinted-at past relationship with abusive ex-boyfriend Nathan, whos currently attempting to sexually exploit Gails teenage granddaughter Bethany.

Nathan abused Shona and tried to do with her what hes doing with Bethany, explains Julia. But Shona wouldnt let it happen, which is why he kicked her out and she ended up homeless at Christmas.

Nathan came to the street to get Shona back, but instead found Bethany, which is awful. Shona becoming Bethanys saviour would be a good way to get into the Platts good books, but equally they might blame her for bringing Nathan into their lives.

Currently contracted until autumn, Julia has her eyes on an extended spell. Id love one day to work in The Kabin, with Rita and Norris, she says. Or as a landlady of the Rovers like my idol Bet Lynch. Imagine that!
Her incredible physique has graced the covers of Vogue and Vanity Fair and has walked the runways for the likes of Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent.

So you couldn't blame Karolina Kurkova for hogging the limelight as she pounded the pavements while heading to Greenwich Hotel in New York on Thursday.

The former Victoria's Secret angel, 33, displayed her cleavage in a plunging beige jumpsuit which honed in on her sensational, statuesque frame.

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Va va voom! Karolina Kurkova, 33, displayed her cleavage in a plunging beige jumpsuit which honed in on her sensational as she headed to Greenwich Hotel in New York on Thursday

The Czech beauty ensured all focus on herself as she paraded her figure in the sexy one-piece which bared her flawless decolletage.

The striking garment fell at a stylish ankle-grazing level and Karolina boosted her 5 ft 11 in height in a pair of strappy leopard print heels.

The catwalk queen's striking brunette mane proved to be a star attraction as it was styled in glamorous bouncy curls, which framed her striking chiselled features.

Karolina added a retro touch with a pair of purple rimmed shades, which complemented her huge smile as she made her way to the swanky hotel.

Bombshell: The Czech beauty ensured all focus on herself as she paraded her figure in the sexy one-piece which bared her flawless decolletage

Model sighting: The striking garment fell at a stylish ankle-grazing level and Karolina boosted her 5 ft 11 in height in a pair of strappy leopard print heels

In good condition: The catwalk queen's striking brunette mane proved to be a star attraction as it was styled in glamorous bouncy curls, which framed her striking chiselled features

It was a busy day for the model as she went on to wow in a shiny silver jumpsuit at the 5th annual For The Love Of Cinema Gala in NYC.

The outfit's pants were widely flared giving the impression of a full skirt as she posed on the red carpet.

She provided a colour contrast by wearing red sandal heels with lace at the ankle.

Despite her success in the modelling world, the knockout revealed in an interview with Refinery29 that she was teased relentlessly when she was younger, yet all that bullying made her stronger.

Glam: It was a busy day for the model as she went on to wow in a shiny silver jumpsuit at the 5th annual For The Love Of Cinema Gala in NYC

'A lot of my insecurities were my big teeth and my legs,' she said. 'Everybody used to always look at me and point at me and laugh at me, so I never really showed my legs or my arms.

'But then it kind of turned out to be a great thing, you know, that I have big teeth and a big smile, so I kind of embrace it.'

'When I was young, I stood out,' she said. 'I was different. I was the tallest girl. I was a stick, super-skinny, and looked different.
She recently announced she would be playing the 'flamenco dancer' in the upcoming Emoji Movie.

And Sofia Vergara looked every inch the Spanish dancer as she exited Craig's restaurant in Hollywood on Friday.

The stunning actress, 44, oozed understated elegance in a skin-tight outfit.

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Sizzling! Sofia Vergara looked every inch the Spanish dancer as she exited Craig's restaurant in Hollywood on Friday

Making the most of her enviable curves, she sported a simple black vest.

And adding a splash of colour, Sofia teamed it with a pale pink flower embroidered ALEXIS skirt with sheer lace overlay.

Getting into the dancer spirit, she added height to her frame in peep-toe platform heels.

Flaunting her flawless complexion, she showed off her natural beauty beneath minimal make-up as she exited the popular celebrity haunt.

Curvy: The stunning actress, 44, oozed understated elegance in a skin-tight outfit

This week Sophia confirmed she will be playing the role of Flamenco Dancer in the upcoming Sony film 'The Emoji Movie'.

'She is always doing the Flamenco. She does it in the morning when she gets up, she does it when shes eating, she probably does it when shes sleeping.

'It makes things like driving or putting on her makeup very difficult,' she told People.

Understated: Making the most of her enviable curves, she sported a simple black vest

The Colombian beauty told the magazine that she's often compared to the commonly-used emoticon.

'I thought it was going to be a perfect role for me because people are always saying that I look like her.'

The character seen in Sofia's post differs slightly from the universally-known version of the emoji where the dancing woman is wearing a red dress.

Standing out: Adding a splash of colour, Sofia teamed it with a pale pink flower embroidered skirt with sheer lace overlay

The animated film takes place in Textopolis where all of the characters can only experience the emotion or action they represent.

One character named Gene, voiced by T.J. Miller, was born without a filter and can experience all emotions.

Gene leads his fellow emojis on an adventure to find the code that will allow him to fit in with his one-note friends.

The Emoji Movie isn't Vergara's first job voicing a dancing character.

LBD: Earlier in the day she was seen shopping in Hollywood in a simple black dress which she accessorised with a grey bag by Chloe

In 2011's Happy Feet 2, she voiced a penguin named Carmen who loves to dance in the Disney/Pixar film.

'I'm Latin, we all dance,' she told Digital Spy while promoting the film, adding that artists like Pitbull and Lady Gaga get her up out of her seat.

She later went on to dance with Pitbull at the 2016 Grammy Awards for his performance of Taxi.

Sofia's husband, Magic Mike star Joe Manganiello, recently voiced a role in The Smurfs: The Lost Village.

The couple, who married in 2015, just spent the Easter holiday together upon Sofia's return from Rome where she was shooting a new movie called Bent.
Her divorce with husband Steve Pollock, will be finalised on Saturday.

And during an appearance on Friday's The Daily Edition, Mel Greig revealed she's taking the marriage breakdown in her stride.

Announcing she's headed to Las Vegas for a girls' trip, the 34-year-old shared: 'This deserves a divorce party.'

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'This deserves a divorce party': Mel Greig, 34, revealed on Friday's The Daily Edition that she's headed to Las Vegas for a girls' trip, after the breakdown of her marriage to Steve Pollock

Quizzed on her mental state following her marriage breakdown, Mel provided a candid response: 'It's mixed emotions because there is sadness there but it's not for him (Steve).

'But when you get married, you want it to last forever. You think you're doing it once, so it's sad in that sense.

'You almost feel like you've failed but I'm not going to see it that way. I'm going to look at the positives, okay well this deserves a divorce party,' she continued.

Revealing her holiday plans on-air, Mel began: 'I'm going to combine a friend's wedding. Do a single girl's holiday at the start.

Revealing her holiday plans on-air, Mel began: 'I'm going to combine a friend's wedding. Do a single girl's holiday at the start. I'm going to go to New York by myself, then we're going to (Las) Vegas. We've booked in to see the Magic Mike strip show'

Ready to mingle: Admitting she's ready to find a new man, Mel stated: 'It's not too soon (to date). No, absolutely not'

'I'm going to go to New York by myself, then we're going to (Las) Vegas. We've booked in to see the Magic Mike strip show. I feel my future husband could be there,' the radio personality joked.

Admitting she's ready to find a new man, Mel stated: 'It's not too soon (to date). No, absolutely not.'

However, feeling slightly rusty at the dating world, the star candidly added: 'Do you just hang out at bars and go, hey? I'm so out of touch.'

The former Celebrity Apprentice star has been in the process of finalising her divorce with estranged husband Steve Pollock.

New chapter: The radio personality's divorce with husband Steve Pollock, will be finalised on Saturday

The pair were wed in November 2014, however, the couple had separated by April 2016.

Appearing on Channel Ten's Studio 10 program that same month, Mel revealed the break-up news when asked by show host Sarah Harris.

'I am separated from my husband now,' she candidly confessed before adding that Steve needs time 'to rediscover himself as an individual.'
Seven Year Switch star Kaitlyn Isham called 911 over a domestic violence incident which resulted in her stepfather Patrick Dabney being arrested in August 2011, with the charges later being dropped.

According to an offense report, the 28-year-old was 'crying and visibly upset' with a 'bloody nose' when Florida police arrived at Mr Dabney's home in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County.

And now Kaitlyn's mother Donna Isham has broken her silence, speaking highly of her daughter in an interview with News.com.au.

Donna Isham (centre), the mother of Seven Year Switch's Kaitlyn Isham (right), has praised her 'big-hearted' daughter after Daily Mail Australia revealed the reality TV star was allegedly 'punched in the face' by her stepfather Patrick Dabney in a 2011 domestic incident

Refusing to comment on the alleged altercation, Donna told the publication: 'She's always been a big-hearted girl.

'She always has been, always will be. She's sweet, sensitive and very honest.'

Donna went on to state that herself, Kaitlyn and husband Patrick are a 'very close family'.

Seven Year Switch star Kaitlyn Isham (pictured) called 9-1-1 over a domestic violence incident which resulted in her stepfather Patrick Dabney being arrested in August 2011. The charges were dropped

Donna's comments come after police records obtained by Daily Mail Australia earlier this week revealed details of the alleged altercation.

The police officer's report stated: 'Upon my arrival, I observed a white female, identified verbally as Kaitlyn Isham, crying and visibly upset. Kaitlyn appeared to have a slight bloody nose and had blood on her left foot and blood droplets on her nightgown.

'I asked Kaitlyn if she was the 9-1-1 caller and she advised yes. Kaitlyn advised on this date she was in the kitchen area of her mother and step-father's residence and using the microwave.

Kaitlyn was 'crying and visibly upset' with a 'bloody nose' when Florida police arrived at Mr Dabney's (pictured) home in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County. The charges were later dropped

'Kaitlyn advised she slammed the microwave door which upset her step-father, who was attempting to watch TV. Kaitlyn advised her step-father asked her several times not to slam the microwave door which made her slam it a few times more because she wanted to irritate him.

'Kaitlyn advised at this time her step-father came into the kitchen and punched her in the face causing her nose to bleed.'

The report continued, describing the officer's conversation with Patrick Dabney and Donna Isham. Donna explained Kaitlyn was 'temporarily staying with her since completing college until she finds a residence in Ashville, North Carolina.'

It stated: 'Donna advised her husband and Kaitlyn do not get along and on this date it came to a head. Donna advised she did not physically see the altercation but was aware that her husband punched Kaitlyn in the face.

'I asked Patrick Dabney if this were true and he advised "Yes". Donna further advised she believes Kaitlyn instigated a physical confrontation with her husband by intentionally making a lot of noise in the kitchen to upset him.'

It is claimed Kaitlyn refused to give any written statements to police and refused photos for evidentiary purposes, saying 'I just wanted to scare him'. Donna also refused any type of documented statement.

On Thursday, Kaitlyn confirmed to Daily Mail Australia the charges against Mr Dabney (pictured) were dropped. Kaitlyn said in a statement: 'This happened a long time ago during an incredibly tragic and emotional time for my entire family'

The report concluded: 'Based upon the verbal utterances of the victim and the witness, there is enough probable cause to arrest and charge Patrick Dabney with domestic violence. Dabney was placed under arrest and transported to County Jail where he was booked.

'A Level 2 Domestic Call was placed to the PBSO (Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office) on-duty Domestic Violence Victim Advisor. Voicemail was left on the answering machine. Legal rights and remedies package was given to the victim and I obtained a signed receipt.'

According to public Florida arrest records, Patrick Dabney, 57, was charged with battery on the afternoon of August 27th, 2011.

On Thursday, Kaitlyn told Daily Mail Australia the charges were dropped.

Kaitlyn (left) is currently appearing on 'social experiment' reality TV series Seven Year Switch with her boyfriend, IT professional Mark (right)

Kaitlyn said in a statement: 'This happened a long time ago during an incredibly tragic and emotional time for my entire family.

'I have a great relationship with my family, including my stepfather  and I am grateful for their love, trust and support. They are good people.'

Kaitlyn is currently appearing on 'social experiment' reality TV series Seven Year Switch with her boyfriend, IT professional Mark.
Last week it emerged that he'd moved on from his doomed romance with Chloe Sims on TOWIE and was instead dating stunning Swedish model Isabella Cirnski.

But unfortunately for Liam 'Gatsby' Blackwell, this has been slammed by the woman herself.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Isabella hit back at the original titters - which initially came from a source speaking to The Sun - and set the record straight.

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'No - we are NOT dating!' More heartache for TOWIE's Liam 'Gatsby' Blackwell as model Isabella Cirnski blasts rumours they are dating insisting she 'just met him once'

'No - we are not dating,' the striking Swede insisted. 'I just met him once at a video shoot where he asked to take a picture together!'

Gatsby's original Instagram post, featuring him sat next to Isabella at an unknown location in Mayfair, now known to be a shoot, put the wheels in motion for the gossip to begin.

Despite the fact that the pair looked rather dour and unfriendly in the image, an eager source ran straight to The Sun with some un-supported claims.

Not gonna happen: TOWIE'S Liam 'Gatsby' Blackwell was reportedly dating stunning Swedish model Isabella Cirnski - but she has since slammed these rumours

Love lorn? The reality personality's heartbreak doesn't seem to be on the up following Isabella's vehement denials

'It's very early days between Liam and Isabella but they get on really well and are seeing how it pans out,' the source said.

Indeed, as Isabella has asserted, it's such early days that they've not seen one another since; and from her remarks, the encounter appears to only have been a one-off chance meeting.

Nevertheless, the ill-informed source had gushed: 'It's about time Liam had some happiness and Isabella is the perfect woman. It's not hard to see why Liam's keen on her - she's gorgeous.'

Isabella also cleared up the apparent confusion over where she is based.

Never mind, eh? Isabella has shot with photographer Neave Bozorgi who is very much in demand

Onwards and upwards: This crushing news is simply the next chapter in Gatsby's unfortunate 2017 where romance is concerned

'I don't live in America , I live in the UK,' she said, although had just returned from a trip to LA when she spoke to MailOnline.

This crushing news is simply the next chapter in Gatsby's unfortunate 2017 where romance is concerned.

He's been on the receiving end of heartbreak recently, thanks to a short-lived relationship with TOWIE co-star Chloe.

Should have been the first clue: Both Gatsby and Isabella's Instagrams are littered with pictures of themselves with pals, but there's very few of them together

The ex: Chloe recently told her friends Bobby Norris and Gemma Collins that she thought their romance had now ruined their friendship because their split was somewhat awkward

Everyone's at it: In recent TOWIE episodes, however, this storyline seems to have fizzled entirely, and Chloe has instead been accused of coveting Megan McKenna's ex Pete Wicks

Before Isabella set the record straight, it was thought that the news would unlikely sit well with Chloe as just three weeks ago Liam was saying how 'no girl compares' to her and expressing how determined he was to get her back.

In recent TOWIE episodes, however, this storyline seems to have fizzled entirely, and Chloe has instead been accused of coveting Megan McKenna's ex Pete Wicks.

Again, both are adamant that they are friends and nothing more, leaving more downtrodden romantics trawling the streets of Essex.
Known as '420', it's the day when cannabis users come together to celebrate their love of the controversial drug.

And on April 20th, a number of outspoken celebrities also joined in the festivities, taking to social media to mark the occasion.

Blonde bombshell Imogen Anthony shared a short clip to Instagram that showed her puffing on a suspicious-looking cigarette, accompanied by the caption 'Happy 420'.

Living the high life! Currently in California, outspoken star Imogen Anthony took to Instagram on Thursday to celebrate 420, the date when cannabis users celebrate their love of the drug

The Sydney-based girlfriend of shock-jock Kyle Sandilands is currently in California, where recreational use of marijuana was legalised in 2016.

And it appeared Imogen was getting into the celebrations by sharing a short clip of herself on Instagram puffing thick plumes of smoke.

The model wore her dread-locked hair up in a loose bun, as she donned silver-rimmed sunglasses for the clip while taking a drag on the cigarette.

She smokin'! Imogen blew thick smoke into their air in the clip

The fluro-pink backdrop added to the somewhat psychedelic mood of the video.

Meanwhile, fellow Australian Caitlin Stasey also uploaded an Instagram wishing her 220,000 followers a 'Happy 4/20'.

The former Neighbours actress turned political activist posted an excerpt from what appeared to be a Wikipedia entry that read 'Stasey is a frequent user of marijuana, often alluding to 'weed 'via her social media profiles'.

420 contribution: Caitlin uploaded this entry that appeared to come from Wikipedia

She's known for being blunt! Neighbours star turned political activist Caitlin Stasey isn't shy about expressing her opinion

Indeed the star has previously shared images that appear to show her enthusiasm for the herb- just last week Caitlin uploaded a meme that read 'Where do I go to get weed'.

However, her 420 post garnered mixed opinions, with many leaving comments offering their up their different thoughts.

One follower bluntly stated, 'Your [sic] Australian f**kwit it's 20/4/17', referring to the fact that Australians place the day before the month when writing the date.

What do you meme? Caitlin Stasey seemed to hint at her recreational marijuana use with this Instagram upload

However, others were more supportive of the star's celebration, with a fan writing, 'Hahaha i swear I kinda love you'.

Also taking to Instagram on the day was stunning bikini designer Sahara Ray, who hinted that she may be celebrating the significant date.

Joining in the celebrations? It appeared unclear with stunning Sahara Ray was celebrating 420, after posting this picture accompanied by a cryptic caption

'Trip&dip' the star wrote, accompanied by a Polaroid picture that showed her smoking on a tobacco cigarette whilst wearing a racy fish net top.

In the snap Sahara was accompanied by models Josie Canseco and Charlotte Dalessio.

'Happy 4:20' one follower wrote, before another penned, 'Dope babes', perhaps a play on words in reference to the significant date.
He's the Australian icon who can count himself among the select few to be honoured with the 'triple crown' of acting as the recipient of Emmy, Tony and Oscar awards.

And on Thursday, Geoffrey Rush, 65, looked ready to add a Nobel Prize for physics to the mix at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Albert Einstein biographical TV series 'Genius.'

Still sporting the long, scruffy hair he donned for his portrayal of the celebrated scientist, he completed the look by mimicking one of the German's trademark wide-eyed facial expression.

It's EYEnstein! Australian actor Geoffrey Rush mimicked Albert Einstein's wide-eyed expression at the premiere of his biopic about the scientist at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday

The King's Speech star channelled his Genius character on the red carpet while maintaining his suave sense of fashion with a crisp Navy suit.

Just like E = MC revolutionary Albert, Geoffrey flaunted a youthful, wide-eyed gaze in snaps before later offering a rock-and-roll inspired 'devil horns' hand gesture to photographers.

Later, he held his arms outstretched toward the cameras, closing his eyes and tilting his head downwards.

Rock and Roll! Just like E = MC revolutionary Albert, the 65-year-old flaunted a youthful, wide-eyed gaze in snaps, later offering a rock-and-roll inspired 'devil horns' hand gesture

Role of a lifetime! Geoffrey plays Albert Einstein in the National Geographic biopic series that's already grabbed critic's praise for its excellent casting and binge-worthy composition

Playful! Albert Einstein was often pictured with wide-eyed, excitable facial expressions

In snaps that showed him cuddled up to redheaded co-star Johnny Flynn, Geoffrey held his hand close to the back of his messy hair in a gesture often used to describe someone being 'mind-blown.'

Pictured seated in a leather chair at the film's Tribeca panel, The Shakespeare In Love actor looked his usual suave, elegant self, appearing to be in deep thought as he stared into the crowd.

Geoffrey plays Albert Einstein in the National Geographic biopic series that's already grabbed critic's praise for its excellent casting and binge-worthy composition.

True method actor! The actor's portrayal of the scientist carried over to his posture, which was somewhat slouched, with his arms held awkwardly and stiff in one image

Exasperated! Later, he held his arms outstretched, closing his eyes and tilting his head downwards

Mind blown? In snaps that showed him cuddled up to redheaded co-star Johnny Flynn, Geoffrey held his hand close to the back of his messy hair in a 'mind blown' gesture

Suave! Pictured seated in a leather chair at the film's Tribeca panel, The Shakespeare In Love actor looked his usual suave, elegant self

Despite playing a respected physicist, the role will depict some of the lesser-known behaviours of the mathematical genius, including raunchy scenes featuring Albert's younger mistresses.

Praised by critics for his accurate and intriguing portrayal, Geoffrey will look to add to his long list of awards which includes an Oscar for Shine, an Emmy for The Life and Death Of Peter Sellers and a Tony award for Exit The King.

Genius premieres in Australia on 24 April on the National Geographic channel.
Their twenty year career span has included iconic songs such as Tragedy, Deeper Shade Of Blue and 5, 6, 7, 8 - amongst others.

And iconic nineties band Steps set audiences and This Morning's showbusiness correspondent Rylan Clark-Neal into meltdown - as they appeared on the daytime show on Friday, where they also performed their new song Scared Of The Dark - which has just topped iTunes.

The former X Factor star, 28, couldn't help but break out into song and dance as they teased the well-loved band's appearance, before completely melting down as they arrived to talk about their comeback and new album.

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Look who's back! Iconic band Steps appeared on This Morning on Friday, where they discussed their comeback and new album

Biggest fan: Their appearance sent the show's showbusiness correspondent Rylan Clark-Neal, 28, into meltdown

The group - which consists of Claire Richards, Faye Tozer-Smith,Lee Latchford-Evans, Lisa Scott-Lee, and Ian 'H' Watkins - were first teased with a montage of their biggest hits.

Rylan, who dressed as H for his 13th birthday bash, couldn't contain his excitement as Lisa spilled the beans about planning their comeback.

'Its all Whatsapp! Weve been in a Whatsapp group for two years. We planned our comeback in private. We recorded in the studio in secret. Its exciting the news is out now!,' the stunning brunette, who is now based in Dubai, revealed.

H also added: 'We were always going to celebrate our journey in some way. We thought maybe a one-off gig, but it turned it turned into a 22 arena tour and another album.'

Nostalgic: The group - which consists of Claire Richards, Faye Tozer-Smith,Lee Latchford-Evans, Lisa Scott-Lee, and Ian 'H' Watkins - were teased with a montage of their biggest hits

Dream come true: Rylan, who dressed as H for his 13th birthday bash, couldn't contain his excitement as Lisa spilled the beans about planning their comeback

'He's a true fan!' During the on-going lively discussion, Rylan's excitable demeanour was hard to miss - causing viewers to flock to social media

However, during the on-going lively discussion, Rylan's excitable demeanour was hard to miss - causing viewers to flock to social media to note:

'Obsessed with @Rylan and his Steps obsession!! He's just like us!!! He really needs to be on that tour somehow!! @thismorning.'

'Get you a friend who supports you like @Rylan does with Steps.'

'#Rylan dancing on 'thismorning was me aged 10 dancing to entire albums in my bedroom.....they've still got it.'

'Rylan getting excited over Steps on This Morning is literally me.'

True passion: The former X Factor star couldn't help but break out into song and dance as they teased the well-loved band's appearance before they arrived on stage

'It's exciting': Dubai based Lisa revealed about their comeback, 'Weve been in a Whatsapp group for two years. We planned our comeback in private. We recorded in the studio in secret'

H also added: 'We were always going to celebrate our journey in some way. We thought maybe a one-off gig, but it turned it turned into a 22 arena tour and another album'

Keep it coming! Steps looked thrilled as they were showered with praise from mega-fan Rylan

Obviously keen on continuing his passion for Steps, Rylan revealed he was expecting them to dress the same - in leather and boob tubes - during their tour.

'Ill do the boob tube!,' H humoured him, before revealing: 'We will definitely give everyone what they want. There will definitely be a homage to our old videos.'

Claire added: 'As a fan of music, I always come out disappointed from a concert if an act doesnt do all your favourite songs. Were embracing it - were choosing which songs we want for tour.'

Faye was also quick to quip in: 'Were lucky to have so many hit singles. Its actually us trying to choose which ones were not going to add in. We might do some medleys.'

Fan favourites: Steps soared to success in 1997 with their catchy tunes and funky dance moves

Talking wardrobe: Humouring Rylan about his desire to see them in boob tubes and pleather again, H revealed: 'I'll wear the boob tubes'

Selection process: Talking about which one of their iconic songs to perform during tour, Claire admitted: 'As a fan of music, I always come out disappointed from a concert if an act doesnt do all your favourite songs'

Faye was also quick to quip in: 'Were lucky to have so many hit singles. Its actually us trying to choose which ones were not going to add in. We might do some medleys'

And Rylan, who had been eagerly honing down his Steps moves all morning, quizzed them over the potential inclusion of their famous dance sequences.

Lee admitted: 'Dont ask me to remember the routines. I'm too old! We worked hard on our routines. We have to keep our fitness up.'

Talking about their shifting priories over the years, Lisa added insight: 'We have businesses and babies - but we came back because we love it. We feel lucky that fans want us to do it after twenty years!'

The British favourites then went on to take the stage, where they showed they hadn't let their dance skills deteriorate as they performed Scared of the Dark - much to the delight of Rylan.

All eyes on them: The British favourites then went on to take the stage where they performed new song Scared of the Dark

Still got it! They proved their dance skills hand't deteriorated - much to the delight of Rylan

'As if he knows all the moves!' Meanwhile, fans continued to flock to social media to note Rylan's dedication to Steps

His enthusiasm was once again noted by fans, who tweeted:

'#STEPS #Rylan Fab.... Rylan a true fan....... lol  watching This Morning.'

'Genuinely think @Rylan should be a member of @OfficialSteps  makes me laugh how excited you get  #steps #scaredofthedark #ThisMorning.'

'#steps were amazing!!! Rylan wasn't the only one having a nostalgic moment. me and mum bopping away on the sofa.'

'@Rylan is my favourite - as if he knows the whole Steps dance routine! #ThisMorning.'

'Rylan's obsession with Steps is really unhealthy and Cringy #ThisMorning.'
She suffered abrupt and unwanted heartbreak at the hands on TV presenter Nick Knowles last year.

Yet Gemma Oaten seems to have happily moved on, despite claiming that the messy scenario had put her off dating.

Having been hurt by the DIY SOS host, Gemma attended R U Coming Out's event at the Vauxhall Tavern in London on Thursday evening, with new boyfriend Scott Walker in tow as her plus one.

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Nick who? Emmerdale's Gemma Oaten looks VERY loved up with new film producer boyfriend Scott Walker as the pair lay on the PDA at an event in London...

Having been spotted out with Scott at last week's Jog On Cancer bash in London, Gemma seemed to confirm that she's not feeling so dejected after all.

And the pair could hardly keep their hands off one another.

Gemma wore a satin play-suit, sporting a floral design in cream and blue.

The outfit featured a decorative slit on the torso, allowing her brozned stomach to be glimpsed beneath.

The 32-year-old Emmerdale and Holby City actress enjoyed a cold glass of white wine as she snuggled in the corner with Scott, who was all in black, looking considerably more casual.

New man: She suffered abrupt and unwanted heartbreak at the hands on TV presenter Nick Knowles last year. Yet Gemma Oaten seems to have happily moved on, despite claiming that the messy scenario had put her off dating

Back on the horse: Having been hurt by the DIY SOS host, Gemma attended R U Coming Out's event at the Vauxhall Tavern in London on Thursday evening, with new boyfriend Scott Walker in tow as her plus one

But they didn't seem too fussed about such trivialities as what they were wearing as they kissed and hugged in the corner of the room, proving Gemma's dating ban is well and truly up.

A source supposedly close to Gemma to The Mirror last weel: 'Its early days but she is happy. Scott is a lovely guy and very supportive. They make a good team.'

The blonde beauty - who wore her wavy locks loose for the event and finished her look off with a dusting of blue eye shadow - first met Nick last September at the TV Choice Awards.

The ex: Gemma had not long spoke to the Daily Star about her relationship with Nick, who is 22 years her senior

Gemma had not long spoke to the Daily Star about her relationship with Nick, who is 22 years her senior.

She said: 'It was weird. It was very eggy and it did put me off dating. I've been a little bit burned and now is the time for me to be a little bit selfish and look after me.'

After they met, Nick immediately whisked Gemma off for a romantic dinner after the glitzy award ceremony and they began dating, eight months after Nick's separation from wife Jessica.

Summer style: The outfit featured a decorative slit on the torso, allowing her brozned stomach to be glimpsed beneath [pictured here with Ella Jade of The Apprentice]

But when pictures emerged of the pair enjoying a romantic getaway in Edinburgh, the 54-year-old star abruptly broke up with Gemma.

Nick returned to his wife Jessica Knowles, 28, and supported her as she battled cervical cancer.

By January they decided to separate but remained on good terms for the sake of their son, Eddie.
He played groomsman to brother Peter at the channel nine star's lavish wedding earlier in the month.

And now, new footage has emerged of Karl Stefanovic dodging paparazzi on the big day.

In a clip, aired as part of an interview with paparazzi for The Link, the Today Show host is caught speeding away in a white Mercedes Benz.

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Avoiding the attention: New footage has emerged of Karl Stefanovic dodging paparazzi on the big day

Karl was snapped by photographer Jonathan Marshall as he head down a country road, before the personality then drove off hastily as he was pursued.

The exchange appeared to take place in Kangaroo Valley, with the TV presenter by himself in the car.

In a voice-over, Jonathan is heard saying: 'I believe that Karl has actually developed a worrying sense of paranoia'.

Caught-out: Karl was snapped by photographer Jonathan Marshall as he head down a country road, before the personality then drove off hastily as he was pursued

Solo: The exchange appeared to take place in Kangaroo Valley, with the TV presenter by himself in the car

During the day, The Today Show host was also spotted in his tuxedo behind brother Peter, as the groomsmen were snapped making their way to the wedding venue.

At the reception, he then performed a musical wedding speech set to the tune of Oasis' hit song Champagne Supernova.

The bizarre song touched on bride Sylvia Jeffreys great behind,' as well as 60 Minutes' child abduction bungle - which saw Channel Nine journalist Tara Brown spend two weeks in a Lebanese jail.

Anxious? In a voice-over, Jonathan is heard saying: 'I believe that Karl has actually developed a worrying sense of paranoia'

Groomsman: During the day, The Today Show host was also spotted in his tuxedo behind brother Peter, as the bridal party were snapped making their way to the wedding venue

Peter and wife Sylvia married on April 1 at Ooralba Estate in the Kangaroo Valley, in front of 160 of their closest friends and family.

Notably absent was Karl's new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough, who was reportedly asked not to attend by the bride.

Sylvia shared the first image of the couple after they tied with a picture on Instagram, captioned: 'Best day of our lives'.
He's considered 'King of the Logie Awards', having hosted industry's night of nights 19 times.

And in an interview with News Corp, Bert Newton stated that the event's successors, should feel supported and not criticised by their peers.

'They have made it into a blood sport,' the 78-year-old stated.

'They have made it into a blood sport': Bert Newton (pictured), 78, told News Corp that hosts of the Logie Awards should be supported by their peers and not criticised

'I don't think it is the most comforting feeling (for any upcoming host) knowing they are out to get you,' Bert admitted.

'When I compered the Logies I would relish that in the audience were peers such as Graham Kennedy, Don Lane, Tommy Hanlon Jnr, Bob Dyer, Hector Crawford and Reg Grundy.

'They were all willing me on and wanting it to succeed. They were with me all the way,' he continued to explain.

Having his say: 'I don't think it is the most comforting feeling (for any upcoming host) knowing they are out to get you,' Bert admitted

Support: 'They were all willing me on and wanting it to succeed. They were with me all the way,' he continued to explain of his peers in the audience

Bert, a theatre performer, entertainer and television presenter, hosted the Logie Awards solo, 19 times in total from 1968 to 2010.

Past hosts criticised over their performance have included Gretel Killeen in 2009 and Wendy Harmer back in 2002.

For Gretel, peers did not hold back with The Age declaring 'host dies on stage' and TV Tonight stating that some 'gags fell flat'.

Savage: Host of the 2009 Logie Awards Gretel Killeen was criticised for her performance, with The Age declaring in a publication: 'host dies on stage'

Carnage: While 2002 host Wendy Harmer described the experience the following day as 'like cutting off your arm with a blunt chainsaw'

Comedian Wendy Harmer, who hosted the annual event in 2002, described the gig to former Green Guide editor Ross Warneke the following day, as 'like cutting off your arm with a blunt chainsaw.'

Meanwhile, last year's host Dave Hughes kicked off the opening speech in a rather controversial fashion.

Not letting anyone off the hook, the comedian teased Shane Warne over his love life and likened a 60 Minutes saga to an episode of reality series I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

Dave will reprise his role as host for Sunday night's awards ceremony.
He has a strong chance of securing a second Gold Logie at this Sunday's awards night.

But in Friday's The Herald Sun, it's been alleged that rival TV bigwigs, are not in favour of The Project's Waleed Aly taking out the gong.

Page 13 reported that the 38-year-old had been described as 'that Muslim'.

Racist jibes: The Project's Waleed Aly, 38, has reportedly been described as 'that Muslim' by rival TV bosses, as the television personality is nominated for a second Gold Logie Award. Pictured with wife Susan Carland

The Herald Sun claimed that bosses of rival TV networks were disgraced at Waleed's win of the Gold Logie at last year's event.

They reportedly went on to say that a host of a higher rating program should take home the prestigious trophy.

Meanwhile, viewers of last year's Logie Awards, would remember Waleed's candid acceptance speech.

Allegations: The Herald Sun claimed that bosses of rival TV networks were disgraced at Waleed's win of the Gold Logie at last year's event

Infamous: Meanwhile, viewers of last year's Logie Awards, would remember Waleed's candid acceptance speech. The Channel Ten personality used the opportunity to discuss a lack of diversity in media and television

The Channel Ten personality used the opportunity to discuss a lack of diversity in media and television.

Waleed said he knew someone in the industry who used a more common name, in the fear of not being able to secure work.

The comments surrounding an ethnic-sounding name prompted the audience to question who 'Mustafa' was.

Curiosity: Waleed said he knew someone in the industry who used a more common name, in the fear of not being able to secure work. The comments surrounding an ethnic-sounding name prompted the audience to question who 'Mustafa' was

Identity: It was later confirmed that Tyler De Nawi (pictured) of Here Come The Habibs, was in fact who Waleed was referring to

It was later confirmed that Tyler De Nawi of Here Come The Habibs, was in fact who Waleed was referring to.

Tyler, having been raised in Sydney's south-west, is a budding actor, already featured in SBS series The Principal, alongside Alex Dimitriades.

He currently stars in Channel Nine's Here Come The Habibs, taking on the role of middle child and university student Elias Habib.
Anne Hathaway has revealed that she struggled to trust the director of her 2011 film One Day because she was a woman.

The Hollywood actress admitting 'resisting' Lone Scherfig's direction and blamed her own 'internalised misogyny' for her reluctance to believe in a female director.

The actress told ABC's Peter Travers about her difficulty working with Scherfig on the film set and added that she regretted her behaviour.

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'Internalised misogyny': Anne Hathaway revealed that she didn't trust director Lone Scherfig when they worked on One Day together because she was a woman

The Les Miserables star said: 'I really regret not trusting her more easily.

'And I am to this day scared that the reason I didn't trust her the way I trust some of the other directors I work with is because she's a woman.

'It's so hard to admit and I hope people understand that.'

The director: Lone Scherfig is one of the few female directors working in film but Anne admitted that she 'didn't trust her the way I trust some of the other directors I work with'

'I'm so scared that I didn't give her everything that she needed.'

Anne continued: 'When I get a script, when I see a first film directed by a woman, I have in the past focused on what's wrong with it. And when I see a film... directed by a man, I focus on what's right with it.'

The actress, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Fantine in Les Miserables, said she wanted to change her attitude towards female directors.

Starring role: Anne starred as Emma in One Day, which charts the story two friends who fall in love with each other at a snail's pace over 20 years

British accent: While the film was modestly successful, Anne's Yorkshire accent was widely panned with critics saying she sounded like she was from New York at some points

'I can only acknowledge that I've done that and I don't want to do that anymore. I, before I realised this, had actively tried to work with female directors.

'And I still had this mindset buried in there somewhere.'

Anne did say she understands how difficult it is for women to make films in the notoriously male-dominated Hollywood.

'That journey is way harder than it should be,' the mother-of-one said.

'It's not equal,' she added. 'And I wonder if it's about that thought process like the one I just talked about. About undervaluing what it takes to make your first film.'

Oscar winner: Anne went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Fantine in Les Miserables in 2013

Just seven per cent of all directors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films in 2016 were women, according to San Diego State's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film.

The number of female directors working has actually declined as in 2015 nine per cent of directors working on big film projects were women.

Anne added that she had 'never apologised' to Lone, who directed the film which was based on the wildly popular novel by David Nicholls.

Anne starred as Emma in the film who enjoys a one-night stand with Dexter at graduation and maintains a flirtatious friendship with him for 20 years. Viewers are left wondering whether the friends will ever become a couple.

Anne said she would call Lone after the interview.

'I hold her in such a dear place in my heart and I think she does for me, too.'

A representative for Scherfig said : 'She asked me to express her love and admiration for Anne and her work.'
It's the hotly anticipated miniseries depicting the life of one of Australia's most controversial businessmen, Alan Bond.

And actor Ben Mingay has opened up about the disgraced tycoon he plays in Channel 9's forthcoming House of Bond.

'He is the absolute larger than life character, full of bravado and charisma. He is the guy that made stuff happen,' Ben told The Daily Telegraph about the businessman who was a poster boy of the 1980s, before his spectacular fall from grace.

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'It doesn't pull any punches': Ben Mingay spoke with The Daily Telegraph about his new miniseries, House of Bond, in which he plays controversial tycoon Alan Bond

Ben revealed to the publication that the two-part series will portray Bond in a nuanced light.

'It doesnt pull any punches. It is all there, the good, the bad and the ugly,' Ben explained.

'I think everyone comes away not saying Bondy is a bastard or Bondy is awesome but looking at the story and the journey and they can make their own call on his personality', the actor added.

Highly anticipated: Rachael Taylor returns to Australian TV screens, playing Bond's wife Diana Bliss

Perth-based Bond originally made his fortune in property development, before he famously helped bankroll Australia's 1983 winning of the America's Cup.

However, the businessman- who was once name Australian of the Year- declared bankruptcy in 1992 with debts reportedly totaling a staggering $1.8 billion.

The tycoon also served four years in prison after using a controlling interest in a company to siphon off over a billion dollars into how own Bond Company.

Nuanced portrayal: Ben believes the two-part series will provide a complex picture of one of Australia's most famous figures

Focused: The Newcastle-born told said he 'stopped going to the gym and started enjoying long walks to the buffet' to prepare for the part

Ben appears in the series opposite A-list Rachael Taylor, who plays Bond's second wife, Diana Bliss.

Last year, Rachel took to Instagram to share a snap of her and Ben on set, with the caption 'Can't wait to be back on Aussie TV!''

Meanwhile Newcastle-born Ben revealed that he put on 10kg to play Bond.

Controversy: Despite Ben's commitment to the portrayal, many fans who have viewed the movie's promotional videos online are saying he looks nothing like Alan Bond

Talking to the Herald Sun, he stated that he 'stopped going to the gym and started enjoying long walks to the buffet' to prepare for the part.

'Luckily I have the ability to engage my double chin at any time so the only other thing I had to concentrate on was looking shorter than I actually am,' he added.

Despite his commitment to the portrayal, many fans who have viewed the movie's promotional videos online are saying he looks nothing like the late entrepreneur.

Twitter user @ackpack wrote: 'House Of Bond looks ridiculous because they cast someone who doesn't look like Alan Bond in any way.'

And @ryanfish_20 tweeted: 'Channel 9's Alan Bond looks nothing like Alan Bond.'

Discussion: Twitter user @ackpack wrote: 'House Of Bond looks ridiculous because they cast someone who doesn't look like Alan Bond in any way'

Commentary: @ryanfish_20 tweeted: 'Channel 9's Alan Bond looks nothing like Alan Bond'

House Of Bond airs 9pm on Monday, April 24 on Channel Nine.
He's co-hosted reality series My Kitchen Rules for eight seasons since 2010.

And in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Manu Feildel hit back at the suggestion his celebrity status has taken over, having not worked in a restaurant for years.

'Why should I stop calling myself a chef?' the 44-year-old told the publication.

'Why should I stop calling myself a chef?' Manu Feildel, 44, slammed the notion his celebrity status had taken over after years of not working in a restaurant, in Saturday's The Daily Telegraph

'Can you call yourself a doctor if you don't practise? I think you can,' Manu explained.

'I've called myself chef for 29 years, I did the hard yards. I was a slave of the kitchen for many, many, many years.

'Why should I stop calling myself a chef if I don't work in a restaurant? Doctors maybe practise for 20 years and stop practising, but they are still a doctor,' he continued.

Hitting back: 'I've called myself chef for 29 years, I did the hard yards. I was a slave of the kitchen for many, many, many years,' he explained to the publication

Manu has been at the helm of the My Kitchen Rules franchise, alongside co-host Pete Evans since 2010.

The popular personality was a head chef at Bilsons in Sydney, in the mid-2000s.

He faced two flops however with his last two restaurants, Apertiff and La Grande Cirque.

Before those closed, Manu had successfully managed the restaurant LEtoile for six years, before he passed duties on to another in 2014.

Defence: 'Why should I stop calling myself a chef if I don't work in a restaurant? Doctors maybe practise for 20 years and stop practising, but they are still a doctor,' Manu continued

He has recently opened a new pop-up restaurant Duck In Duck Out in Sydney.

The eatery will run for nearly three months until June 30, serving duck-based products seven days a week.

Patrons will be able to enjoy their lunch or dinners in the covered courtyard, or get them as fast food takeaway.

Familiar face: Manu has been at the helm of the My Kitchen Rules franchise, alongside co-host Pete Evans since 2010

The menu is said to include upmarket twists on old classics, including a duck hot-dog, duck bao bun and even duck fat chips.

Manu has stepped out of the kitchen though, with business partner Phil Davenport serving as the head chef.

Capitalising on his experience and penchant for French cooking, Manu had published a series of cookbooks for everyday living.
She moonlighted as a designer two years ago, but Blake Lively is way above talking about fashion these days.

The Gossip Girl star, 29, scolded a reporter for daring to ask about her green jumpsuit at Variety's Power of Women lunch in Cipriani Midtown on Friday.

'Are we really doing this? Would you ask a man that?' Blake told the reporter, according to USA Today digital editor Maeve McDermott.

She could be heard telling the unidentified reporter to 'become more aware, and that we change, and that we build women up. So, you can ask me another question.'

Don't mention the outfit! Blake Lively wore a stylish jumpsuit to Variety's Power Of Women event in New York City at Cipriani Midtown on Friday, but was furious when a reporter asked her about fashion

Blake Lively popping off after someone asked her about fashion at #PowerOfWomen - "Are we really doing this? Would you ask a man that?" pic.twitter.com/iPftkPfoeF  Maeve McDermott (@maeve_mcdermott) April 21, 2017

Blake dabbled in the fashion world when she co-designed a collection with Sam & Lavi in 2015 which was available to purchase on her ill-fated ecommerce lifestyle website, Preserve. (She shut down the website that same year.)

On Friday, Blake appeared to be only interested in talking about her worthy efforts to combat child pornography.

The mother of-two, who is married to Ryan Reynolds, was honored by the magazine for working with the Child Rescue Coalition.

Getting serious: The Gossip Girl star dabbled as a fashion designer in 2015 during her ill-fated attempt to run a lifestyle ecommerce website Preserve

On a serious mission: Blake appeared to be only interested in talking about her worthy efforts to combat child pornography

She was among a host of the magazine's cover stars to attend the event, including Gayle King, 62, and Jessica Chastain, 40.

Variety also chose to honor Chelsea Clinton, 37, Audra McDonald, 46, and Shari Redstone, 63, at its annual luncheon.

As one of Varietys Power of Women honorees Blake opened up about the importance of women and women's rights.

'Would you ask a man that?' The actress accused the reporter of sexism for quizzing her about her fashion choice for the day

Woman of the hour: Blake was one of the honorees at the event

Happily posing for the cameras: She took several photos on the carpet ahead of the event

Big day: She took the podium to speak at the event

Touched: She seemed to get emotional while addressing the crowd

She said that women have it worse in other countries but that sexism still exists in Hollywood: 'equality is equality. I feel fortunate. Its still to far from what it should be for women in 2017.'

She did admit things are on the way to getting better in the film industry though: 'I dont look at movies by the budget. I look at movies by the character. What was neat about The Shallows, it was really low budget.

'It was a $17 million movie and we did over $120 million worldwide. Its cool to do that with a story about a woman. Its proof people want to see movies about women.

Cover: Variety honored the actress for working with the Child Rescue Coalition.

Hail the women: Their magazine covers were all lined up

Hall of fame: Gayle King, Chelsea Clinton and Jessica Chastain all featured on the new issue

Guest: Sports Illustrated model Ashley Graham stunned in a nude sparkly number, complete with a chic black high-waisted belt

'It doesnt all have to be Nicholas Sparks-type films. When you look at a Star Wars franchise now versus the Star Wars franchise then, there are women at the center.'

Sports Illustrated model Ashley Graham also attended the event and dazzled in a nude sparkly number, complete with a chic black high-waisted belt.

Her brunette tresses were styled in a middle parting and straightened.

Star power: Jessica Chastain, wearing a stunning Carolina Herrera number, was one of the honorees at the event for her work with Planned Parenthood

Pretty in patterns: Katie Lee Joel sported a yellow patterned mini dress

Bright: Vanessa Bayer (L) and cover star Gayle King (R) also attended

Chastain also made a demure and classy appearance on the red carpet.

The red-headed beauty wore a chic ivory dress and bold silver heels as she tied her famous fiery hair in a low bun.

She was one of the honorees at the prestigious event, with her chosen cause being Planned Parenthood.

Leading the way: Honorees Chelsea Clinton (L) and Audra McDonald (R)

Lovely in lace: Kate Walsh also made an appearance

Power duo: Jenni Konner (L) and Lena Dunham (R) walked the carpet together

The actress got candid when speaking about how she goes about taking roles nowadays.

She said she chooses them based on: 'Lately, if the character in some way defies the status quo or the expectation, the stereotype of what a woman is supposed to be.'

Chastain also admitted she believes there has been a shift in the way people are thinking with regards to women's power.

Women power: Lena and Chastain shared a hug once inside the venue

Strong line up: L-R Gretchen Carlson, Salma Hayek, Gayle King, Lena, Jenni

Beauty: Salma was one of the speakers at the luncheon

'I think the smart people that are making the tentpoles are realizing the power of the women's audience.

'Look at what's happening with Beauty and the Beast right now. Look at what's happening with Hidden Figures.'

Look of adoration! Blake and Salma shared a special moment inside the venue

Here come the boys: Jane The Virgin's Justin Baldoni made a dapper appearance on the carpet

Here come more powerful women: Tina Knowles Larson and Danielle Brooks

Pretty: Chelsea looked demure and conservative

Power to the women: The honoree also spoke at the event
Paulie Giganti, who competed on season 16 of Fox's Hell's Kitchen, died of an accidental drug overdose.

The Brooklyn-born chef's body tested positive for drugs, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office tells TMZ. There were no further details on which drug or drugs were used.

He was 36.

Neighbors reported a foul smell to authorities on Thursday and police discovered his body sprawled out on his bedroom floor, the site reports.

R.I.P.: Paulie Giganti, who competed on season 16 of Fox's Hell's Kitchen,was found dead at his home in Philadelphia. He was 36.

Giganti ran a restaurant called Birra in Philadelphia.

A self-taught cook, he originally wanted to be an engineer, he said in an interview with mytakeontv.com following his Hell's Kitchen appearance.

He got his start working in a restaurant during college.

'I got into a little bit of a troubleand I had a chef, who was working at the restaurant who said, look, kid, youve got a little talent for this. You can keep ripping and running and hit that jail cell, or you can do something that youll always find work,' Giganti explained.

Ran his own place: Giganti was executive chef at Birra, a restaurant in Philadelphia. He revealed in an interview that he learned on the job while working in restaurants during college

Almost made it: Gordon Ramsay eliminated Giganti from Hell's Kitchen in episode 14 that aired on January 19

'He kind of took me under his wing, showed me a things. I just worked diligently for him, and it was just a job that I had that I enjoyed. I figured out that I was actually good at it, and then, so the story goes.'

Season 16 of Hell's Kitchen hosted by Gordon Ramsay aired from September 2016 to February 2017.

Giganti made it into the top five but was eliminated in episode 14 that aired on January 19.
They fell out earlier this series, when the newbie accused the blonde of gossiping about her split with Jamie Reed.

But it seems things between Amber Turner and Chloe Meadows only go from bad to worse on the new episode of TOWIE, as they once again become involved in a spat.

On Sunday night's episode, new girl Amber, 23, lashes out at her co-star after she attempts to resolve a clash between her, her ex Jamie and his new girlfriend Jade.

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Fraught: Things between Amber Turner and Chloe Meadows go from bad to worse on the new episode of TOWIE, as Amber (above) makes a shocking dig at her co-star in their latest row

Not impressed: On Sunday night's episode, new girl Amber lashes out at her co-star (L) after she attempts to resolve a clash between her, her ex Jamie and his new girlfriend Jade (R)

Amber and Jamie endured an explosive breakup at the start of this series, after it emerged the blonde had enjoyed a tryst with Dan Edgar during a cast trip to Marbella - ending the pair's four year relationship.

However while Jamie has now moved on with new model girlfriend Jade, he clashes with Amber on Sunday's episode once again, after she accuses him of spreading rumours she is trying to contact him.

Confronting him at a 60s-themed birthday party, their spat is soon interrupted by Chloe Meadows - an old friend of Jamie's, but rival of Amber's.

Tense: Amber confronts Jamie about their recent tensions at a party - but Chloe interrupts, causing Amber to make a dig at her that leaves her shocked

Infuriated that she is getting involved and trying to resolve the hostility between her and her ex, Amber then makes a pointed dig at Chloe - leaving her dismayed.

Amber and Chloe have not seen eye to eye on TOWIE so far, after they became embroiled in a fierce row over Amber's relationship with Dan.

The pair came to blows in club toilets last month, when Amber caught wind of the fact Chloe had gone for coffee with Jamie, to comfort him during their breakup.

Upset: Elsewhere on the episode, Cara De La Hoyde makes an appearance on the show as she meets with Georgia Kousoulou to discuss her recent split with Nathan Massey

Feeling better: Meanwhile Amber Dowding returns home from hospital in good spirits - and has a surprising admission to Georgia about her ex Chris Clark

Embarking on a fierce row, Amber accused Chloe of gossiping about her, and rudely asked her to stop with a 'shh' gesture - leading Chloe to brand her an 'absolute stuck up b****'.

Elsewhere on the episode, Cara De La Hoyde makes an appearance on the show as she meets with Georgia Kousoulou to discuss her recent split with Nathan Massey.

Meanwhile Amber Dowding returns home from hospital and has a surprising admission to Georgia about her ex Chris Clark - who later pays her a visit.

Good terms: Chris later pays Amber a visit while she is recovering, seemingly implying they have rekindled their friendship

Back on? Could a surprise reunion may be on the cards for the former couple, following Chris' recent split from Little Mix star Jesy Nelson?

Support system: After enduring a fierce confrontation with Chloe Sims last week, Megan McKenna seeks advice from Gemma Collins on how to handle the tensions between them

Let's sort this: Wanting to resolve any issues between the trio, her recent ex Pete Wicks then approaches Megan to try and get them all back on the same page

With their friendship seemingly rekindled, could a surprise reunion may be on the cards for the former couple, following Chris' recent split from Little Mix star Jesy Nelson?

After enduring a fierce confrontation with Chloe Sims last week, Megan McKenna seeks advice from Gemma Collins on how to handle the tensions between them.

Wanting to resolve any issues between the trio, her recent ex Pete Wicks then approaches Megan to try and get them all back on the same page.

The drama continues in The Only Way Is Essex on Sunday 23rd April at 10pm on ITVBe.
They've finally filed for divorce, three years after they first publicly split.

And it seems that with that task behind them, both Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are ready to move on with life.

Both Ben and Jen were spotted out and about in Los Angeles on Friday, separately going about their days.

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Moving on: Beefy Ben Affleck looks muscular as he preps for Batman... while ex Jennifer Garner steps out in a summer dress

While Jennifer was running errands and picking up a coffee near the family home in Brentwood, California, her estranged husband was busy across town.

The 44-year-old actor is getting ready to film and produce his next big movie - The Batman - for which he also wrote the screenplay.

And it seems he has been busy in the gym, with Ben looking noticeably bulked up, as he squeezed his muscular upper body into a too small leather jacket.

Summer ready: Jennifer was running errands and picking up a coffee near the family home in Brentwood, California

Feeling flirty: The mother-of-three wore a pretty white patterned dress and sandals

The two were later seen in a car together, chatting as they sat parked by the road, Ben in the driving seat.

The actor is reportedly 'ready to move on' from his estranged wife after the two officially filed for divorce last week.

According to website TMZ, the Justice League actor is already dating someone new, although the source claims it's 'not serious'.

An insider told the publication: 'He's ready to move on.'

Checking in: Jen was pictured on the phone as she took a call

Lots to do: The 44-year-old actor is getting ready to film and produce his next big movie - The Batman - for which he also wrote the screenplay

Despite the development both Ben and Jennifer, 45, are still living together in houses on the same estate, in order to co-parent children, Violet, 11, Seraphina, eight and Samuel, five.

The pair are both requesting joint and legal custody of their children during their divorce proceedings and are 'die-hard committed' to raising their brood.

Moving on? The two were later seen looking somber as they chatted in a parked car
The director filed for divorce in October last year, after announcing their separation in late 2015.

And according to TMZ, Kate Beckinsale amicably responded to her ex Len Wiseman's divorce petition on Friday.

The site reports that the actress, 43, did not specify a date for the legal separation from the 44-year-old - but wants her jewellery and earnings to remain hers.

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Calling it quits: Kate Beckinsale has responsed to her ex Len Wiseman's divorce petition, according to TMZ

TMZ reports that the documents, filed by famous attorney Laura Wasser, see Kate requesting to keep her 'jewellery and personal effects' following the split, as well as 'all of her earnings' from her various acting projects.

The site also claims the brunette is reserving the right to spousal support from Len, who she met on the set of Underworld in 2003.

However it is reported that both hers and Len's documents do not give a date of separation, which will end their thirteen year marriage.

Fair share: Kate reportedly requests to keep her 'jewellery and personal effects' as well as 'all of her earnings' following her split from the director (above)

MailOnline have contacted representatives of Kate for comment.

The couple tied the knot in California in 2004 after falling in love on set of the action movie Underworld, and they share no children together.

With their marriage reportedly hitting the rocks in late 2015, the Total Recall director has since been romantically linked to CJ Franco - with the pair being spotted on numerous occasions together.

Official: The site also claims the brunette is reserving the right to spousal support from Len, who she met on the set of Underworld in 2003 (pictured in 2007)

While her ex appears to have moved on with the model, Kate admitted late last year that she is content being single for now - and will certainly not be using the Internet to search for a new love.

'I would never be able to go on a dating site ever,' she told The Guardian's G2. 'I would just be expecting a murderer and a psychotic rapist.'

And, despite being based in Los Angeles with a Hollywood movie career to boot, the actress still values her long term friends.

Happier times: The pair tied the knot in California in 2004 after falling in love on set of action movie Underworld, and share no children together (pictured in 2007)

'My oldest friends are from school and I don't know if I will have a relationship that will last as long as that,' she told the publication, while discussing her movie Love & Friendship.

Kate has remained single since the divorce from Wiseman - who she married after splitting with actor Michael Sheen.

Kate is already known for her amicable split from Michael - who she still remains close friends with, and often posts about on social media alongside their 18-year-old daughter Lily.

Michael and Kate split in 2003 when Lily was aged four after eight years together.

Independent woman: While her ex appears to have moved on with model CJ Franco, Kate admitted last year she is content being single - and dismissed any chance of online dating

The Welsh actor has been in a relationship with comedic actress Sarah Silverman, 46, since early 2014.

Kate and Michael are very vocal advocates of their modern family life, and have maintained a close bond ever since their split.

The actress said in an interview with InStyle magazine in 2004: 'We were very lucky in that we didn't have an acrimonious split.

The ex factor: Kate and Michael are very vocal advocates of their modern family life and have maintained a close bond ever since their split in 2003 (pictured in New York in April 2016)

'We are still very close and [our daughter] sees us around each other. He's absolutely one of my most favourite people ever. I love him dearly - I would miss him dreadfully if he wasn't in my life.'

In 2011, Michael said of his ex: 'Kate will always be one of the most important people in my life. I have real love for her.'

Kate and Sarah have also developed a close friendship over the past couple of years, and Michael admitted his relationship with his ex is 'better than ever'.

Speaking to Chelsea Handler on her Netflix talk show Chelsea, he explained: 'Our relationship now is probably better than it ever was. And it helps that she [Kate] actually likes Sarah more than she likes me.

Modern family: Kate has formed a close bond with Michael's girlfriend of two years, comedic actress Sarah Silverman, 46 (pictured in Los Angeles in May 2016)

Jokers: Michael and Kate split in 2003 when Lily was aged four after eight years together - and the trio regularly pose for funny social media snaps together

Speaking about the pair's friendship, Sarah said: 'He and Kate are like brother and sister. I love her, she's hilarious. She's really, really cool.'

Kate has also previously described her relationship with 'fantastic' Sarah and Michael as 'basically family'.

Speaking to E! on the red carpet earlier this year, Kate admitted she was thrilled at Michael's choice of girlfriend.

She said: 'I love her. I love her. I love her. I am so glad Michael found her so I don't have to spend the rest of my life looking for her.'
Jessica Cunningham showed off her wild side when she attended the UK Blog Awards 2017 in London on Friday.

All eyes were on The Apprentice runner up, 30, as she prowled around in a loud leopard print jacket.

The businesswoman star put on a leggy display as she teamed her daring coat with a tiny olive green mini-dress.

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Showing off her wild side! The Apprentice's Jessica Cunningham prowls around in leopard print jacket and olive green minidress at Blog awards event in London on Friday

Adding to her height, she sashayed through the event in pointed toe black ankle boots which added elegance to her evening attire.

To contrast to her racy ensemble, the mother-of-three opted for low key makeup as she wore a light pink colour lipstick.

Wind swept, the TV presenter let down her hair as she allowed her raven tresses to frame her face naturally.

Classy! All eyes were on the 30-year-old as she sashayed through the event in pointed toe black ankle boots which added elegance to her evening attire

The smiling fashion company owner was in good company as she was joined by TV presenter Hayley Sparkes, who wore a lacy dress and carried a beige clutch bag.

The outing comes as Jessica, who previously dated Apprentice co-star Courtney Wood, was spotted smooching a mystery man at a party in March.

Before she was seen packing on the PDA, she confided in MailOnline she was still on the hunt for her perfect squeeze.

Two's a party! The smiling fashion company owner was in good company as she was joined by TV presenter Hayley Sparkes

She explained: I'll be steering clear of the majority of people on TV. The thing is for me I go more for personality.

'If they're good looking great but for me, I like men who make me laugh and instantly grab me and I can have an intellectual conversation with.

Looking for love: The starlet, who was spotted smooching a mystery man, is still on the hunt for her perfect match

'If I can have that with someone from TOWIE or Geordie Shore then fantastic but if I can't then y'know...someone else.'

She added: The only thing I want from a man is someone I can be happy with and who makes me giggle. That's what love is about isn't it?

'Being in love is about being able to laugh, giggle and be yourself and I've not found that yet but I know I will find it when the time is right.
Rob Lowe plays Colonel Harland Sanders in a new astronaut-themed commercial for KFC's Zinger chicken sandwich, the company said on Friday.

The West Wing actor, 53, said that he met the famed chicken pioneer, who died in December of 1980, as a child.

'My grandfather was the head of the Ohio chapter of the National Restaurant Association in the 1960s and took me to meet Colonel Harland Sanders when I was a kid,' the actor said in a statement. 'It was a big deal.'

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Buy Lowe: Rob Lowe, 53, plays KFC's famed Colonel Harland Sanders in a new ad for the company's Zinger sandwich

Lowe said his participation in the ad acts as 'a nice homage to both Colonel Sanders and to my grandfather.'

The Parks and Recreation star, who's also appeared in DIRECTV ads, is the latest famous face to play the face of the fast food chain.

Others to portray the colonel's famed persona include Norm Macdonald, Billy Zane, George Hamilton, Darrell Hammond and Jim Gaffigan.

In the ad, Lowe is dressed as the colonel in a spacesuit at a news conference hyping the launch of the sandwich into space. The camera pans across the reactions of viewers at home in all surroundings taking in the historic happening.

Out and about: The veteran actor was snapped going casual in Los Angeles on Monday

Broadcasting everywhere: In the ad, Sanders announces that the new sandwich is going to be launched into space

Big news: The company said it's spent in excess of $80 million to promote the new menu item

"The time has come to explore beyond our known horizons. To push KFC's spicy crispy chicken to new heights.

He continued, 'There is one question that we will be able to answer with certainty, very soon. Can you actually launch KFC's world-famous Zinger chicken sandwich into space?

'The answer is, "We certainly hope so - our entire marketing campaign depends on it." But when we succeed, we will lick our fingers, we will lick our fingers good!"

At the end of the ad, Lower says in a voice-over, 'KFC Zinger, the best chicken sandwich on earth. And soon, in space.'

Chowing down: The sandwich, which is hand-breaded, comes with mayo and tomato

Homage: Lowe said that after meeting the entrepreneur as a child, the ad serves as a homage to the late Sanders

Hanging on every word: A family-of-four breathlessly listens to Sanders in the advertisement

The Zinger sandwich, which boasts white meat chicken culled from farms in the U.S., comes on a seeded bun with mayo and lettuce. It's slated to go on sale Monday.

KFC president Kevin Hochman told FOX Business about the massive investment the company's made in their upcoming new menu item.

'We have been actually working on this for two years,' Hochman said. 'We spent $80 million dollars upgrading our back house equipment and we spent the last six months re-training all of our staff on how to make a fried chicken sandwich fast because ultimately at lunch, we have to win on speed.'
A delighted Chris Pratt received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame on Friday.

The actor, 37, was cheered on by his wife of eight years, actress Anna Faris, and their gorgeous four-year-old son Jack.

Proud Anna, who looked sleek in navy, leaned in sweetly for a kiss during the ceremony while their son appeared in awe of all of the excitement.

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Proud moment: Chris Pratt was joined by his wife Anna Faris as he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Family affair: They all looked overjoyed to be together

His Guardians Of The Galaxy co-stars including Zoe Saldana.

Pratt was very excited about the honour, and even shared a sneak peek of his nameplate being assembled earlier this week.

'Psalm 126:3 "The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." Thank you to the many, many people who empowered me to follow my dreams. #surreal #gotgvol2 #WHATSMYSNACK', he captioned the image.

The actor has enjoyed considerable success, particularly these last few years after starring as Andy Dwyer in Parks And Recreation.

Proud wife: Faris looked beautiful as she spoke

Go Dad! The couple's son Jack also attended the ceremony

Daddy's boy! Pratt's son looked adorable in his glasses and suit jacket

Modest man: Pratt looked pleased and humble as he knelt next to his star

Her rock: Anna got visibly emotional as she made her speech to him

The crew: The Guardians Of The Galaxy cast all got in for a photo together

His star skyrocketed after landing the leading role in 2014 action film Guardians Of The Galaxy and 2015's Jurassic World.

Chris' earlier credits include a role in the television series Everwood and The O.C.

He's also appeared in Jennifer's Body, Wanted, and Moneyball.

The star has lent his voice to the 2014 film The Lego Movie opposite Will Arnett and Elizabeth Banks.

Stud: Pratt looked handsome in a grey suit and tie

Mama's boy: Jack looked cute in his glasses as he stayed close to his parents

Smile: Anna showed off her pearly whites as she gave a little speech

Stunning: Anna showed off her petite frame in the navy blue number

Anna gave an emotional speech whilst at the event, thanking him for all that he does for her.

'This is actually a thank-you speech,' she began. 'Im the beneficiary of all this because I get to spend every day with this wonderful man.

'I know that if our circumstances were different and we werent as fortunate to be standing here and living our Hollywood life, we would be happy in the woods together, I think.'

Bow down: Pratt was seen kneeling by his star

Thumbs up! Jack was his biggest supporter that day

Proud: Anna and Jack looked so happy to be there

She then spoke about their son Jack, who was born prematurely with health complications.

'He stood by me and held me and was my anchor,' she said of Pratt.

Anna also thanked Pratt for his sense of humor, saying: 'At the premiere of Guardians 2, on the red carpet he whispered something unbelievably inappropriate into my ear and it was awesome.

'Honey, I want to thank you for being the most incredible person. I love you so much.'

The man: Jack looked suave in his jacket and jeans

Proud man: Pratt looked happy at his Walk Of Fame celebration

Pratt was visibly emotional when he took to the podium.

'I want to thank my wife Anna, I love you. You've given me so much. You gave me the greatest star in the galaxy in my little boy, I love him and I love you,' he confessed, before continuing to praise his family.

'We have bonded to make this molecule that is more important to me than air or water, and without it none of this means anything to me. With every challenge, with every day, week, month, decade, we become more bonded.'

He then went on to express more gratitude for his wife and what she means to him 'You make me laugh like nobody else. You're very caring, and thank you for your trust and your sacrifice  and for your dedication and your heart. I will do my best to protect it, and in return I will give you all of those things as well. You have my heart, my dedication, my trust.'

'Im a man of faith and I believe that God works in mysterious ways and gives us signs and gifts in life  and those gifts oftentimes come in the form of people,' he began.

'So Ill just spend the rest of my time expressing gratitude for the people in my life who are gifts.'

Little stud! Pratt's son held up the Walk Of Fame frame

'Surreal': Chris Pratt took to Instagram to give fans a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the milestone achievement

He's a star: His star skyrocketed after landing the leading role in 2014 action film Guardians Of The Galaxy (pictured in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)

On their way! The family all posed for a selfie on the way to the premiere

Make-up time: Anna showed fans her beauty routine

Looking dapper! Pratt helped his son get ready
Palestinian protesters hurl stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes following a demonstration in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners, in front of Ofer prison in the West Bank, on April 20, 2017

Several dozen Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli forces Thursday outside a prison where detainees are on a hunger strike, while a group of Israeli hardliners nearby taunted prisoners by barbecuing.

Some 1,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have joined a hunger strike against conditions that began Monday, according to the Palestinian Authority's detainees' affairs department.

The hunger strike has been led by prominent prisoner and popular Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences over his role in the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Security forces fired tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets at the crowd of Palestinians who threw stones and protested in support of the detainees outside Israel's Ofer prison north of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was injured in the clashes.

Palestinian Prisoners Club head Qadura Fares told AFP at the protest that Israel would allow all the strikers, including Barghouti, access to lawyers, in a reversal of its previous position.

Israeli hardliners barbecue outside the Israeli-run Ofer military prison, in the occupied West Bank, on April 20, 2017, where Palestinian prisoners are on a hunger strike

Access to lawyers had been prevented following the start of the strike, Palestinian officials said, with Barghouti moved to solitary confinement.

The Israel Prisons Service said it was acting under its rules, without elaborating further.

A small number of Israeli hardliners held a barbecue nearby on the opposite side of a checkpoint, saying they hoped the smell would make prisoners' abstention harder.

Around a dozen Israelis grilled chicken and other kinds of meat, with a number of Israeli soldiers joining them to eat.

"At this moment (the hunger strikers) will smell the food's scent and maybe later in the evening they will see it on television," event organiser Ofer Sofer told AFP in front of two barbecue pits.

"It is a bunch of terrorists that are threatening us with hunger strike. We are happy that they are on strike. Let them have this strike as long as they want."

They called for tough punishments for the protesting Palestinians, including worsening their conditions.

Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes.

Around 500 are held under administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge.

Palestinian prisoners have mounted repeated hunger strikes, but rarely on such a scale.
Police arrest a woman after she handed out free marijuana joints to DC residents on Capitol Hill as part of the 1st Annual Joint Session to mark "4/20" day and promote legalizing marijuana on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 20, 2017

Police arrested seven pro-marijuana activists near the US Capitol on Thursday as they handed out free joints to mark "4/20 day" and highlight their effort to legalize pot.

US Capitol Police (USCP) said three adults were arrested near the Capitol and charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana, while four were charged with possession.

"Under federal law, it is unlawful to possess marijuana," police communications director Eva Malecki said in a statement.

"They were taken to USCP Headquarters for processing."

Among those arrested was Adam Eidinger, co-founder of activist group DCMJ aimed at cannabis law reform in the US capital Washington.

Eidinger was handing out the free joints to DC residents and congressional staff to mark April 20, the day on which pro-marijuana events, known as "4/20" rallies, are held worldwide.

The code 420 is most often used in North America, attributed to a group of young pot-lovers in the 1970s who met up at 4:20 pm.

Although marijuana possession is illegal according to federal law, local law in Washington as of 2015 allows possession of two ounces (56.6 grams) or less of marijuana for people 21 or older, as well as the transfer of up to one ounce.

DCMJ said they arranged the event on "non-federal land" near the corner of 1st St and Constitution Avenue NE, between the US Capitol and Senate office buildings.

"This is 420 legal activity where you give away cannabis in the District of Columbia," Eidinger said, referring to Washington by its formal name.

"On a DC sidewalk it's 100 percent legal," he said, arms handcuffed behind him, in a video of the arrest posted by the Washington Post.
The Philippines plans to construct a quay on Thitu island in the South China Sea

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana flew to a disputed South China Sea island on Friday, brushing off a challenge by the Chinese military while asserting Manila's territorial claim to the strategic region.

"This is just a normal visit within our territory, which we believe and we know is (our) territory," the minister told reporters who accompanied him on the brief trip.

China claims most of the South China Sea, including Thitu island which Lorenzana visited and the Philippines calls Pag-asa island.

In recent years Beijing has been building up disputed reefs into artificial islands, including on Subi Reef about 26 kilometres (14 nautical miles) from Thitu, which can house military facilities.

Lorenzana said construction would start "within the next few weeks" for a quay on Thitu where construction materials will be landed for repairs on an existing airstrip on the largest of nine Philippine-garrisoned outcrops in the Spratly archipelago.

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the Spratlys, either wholly or in part.

As the military transport plane bearing Lorenzana and local officials of Palawan island, the largest land mass close to the Spratlys, prepared to land, the minister said the pilots received a warning from Chinese forces on Subi.

He said the pilots were warned the aircraft was illegally entering Chinese territory, a routine for all Philippine aircraft landing on the Thitu airstrip since China reclaimed Subi. He said his pilots disregarded the warning.

South China Sea

"That's their protocol. That's procedural. We also reply that we are flying over Philippine territory," he said.

Lorenzana visited Thitu more than a week after President Rodrigo Duterte pulled back from an announcement to visit the island on June 12 and raise the Philippine flag there.

Duterte said later he had called off the trip "because we value our friendship" with Beijing.

Reversing the course set by predecessor Benigno Aquino, Duterte has sought to improve his nation's relations with Beijing by adopting a non-confrontational approach over their competing claims in the strategically vital waters believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves.

Lorenzana however said Duterte was not backing down from his orders for the military to reinforce its installations in the Spratlys, and has alloted 1.6 billion pesos ($32.16 million) for these.

He said both China and Vietnam have long been fortifying their own garrisons on nearby outcrops.

"We all know that China is the most powerful country in our neighbourhood, they are economically powerful, also militarily," Lorenzana said.

"We are trying manage the issue and talk to them... settle this dispute in the South China Sea."

As Lorenzana flew to Thitu, the Philippine coast guard announced a group of Filipino fishermen have accused China's coast guard of shooting at their vessel in another section of the Spratlys.

Philippine officials said they were investigating the reported attack on the Princess Johann boat, which the crew said occurred near the Chinese side of the Union Banks atoll on March 27.

There were no casualties during the incident, authorities added.

"(Princess Johann) was reportedly fired upon seven times by a Chinese speedboat with seven Chinese coast guards on board," a Philippine Coast Guard statement said.

Representatives at the Chinese embassy in Manila could not be reached for comment Friday.

If confirmed, the incident would be the first hostile episode in nearly a year involving the two countries, which have seen warming relations since Duterte came to power.
US Vice President Mike Pence announced $10bn in deals between American and Indonesian companies including Exxon Mobil, General Electric, and Lockheed Martin

US Vice President Mike Pence announced $10 billion in deals between American and Indonesian companies during a visit to Jakarta Friday, as he pushed for greater access to Southeast Asia's top economy.

Eleven deals were signed. Energy firm Exxon Mobil, General Electric, and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin were among the American companies involved in the agreements.

"These deals represent the tremendous excitement that American companies feel about opportunities in Indonesia," said Pence.

Exxon Mobil will sell liquefied natural gas to Indonesian state-owned energy company Pertamina, General Electric will provide technology for Indonesian power plants, while Lockheed Martin will provide new weapons systems for F-16 fighter jets.

During the visit to Indonesia, his latest stop on an Asia tour, Pence has been pushing to help US firms who want to do business in Indonesia -- one of several countries targeted by Donald Trump's administration for running a trade surplus with the US.

During a meeting at a Jakarta hotel Friday where the deals were announced, Pence told business leaders that he and President Joko Widodo had "very candidly and very respectfully" discussed how to improve market access for US firms in Indonesia when they held talks.

He said earlier on the visit that Washington wanted to "break down barriers" for exporters seeking to enter the Indonesian market.

Indonesia has long been targeted by foreign investors, as it has enjoyed robust growth in recent years, driven by exports of its key commodities even as many developed countries have struggled.

The country of 255 million people is home to a rapidly growing middle class and an army of consumers whose spending power is increasing.

But Indonesia can be a notoriously difficult place to do business due to nationalistic policies, complex bureaucracy and problems with corruption, and foreign firms have often run into trouble.

The latest example of a US company facing problems is a row between the government and mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, which runs a huge gold and copper mine in Indonesia, after authorities demanded they obtain a new licence to operate.

Pence departed Indonesia Friday for the next stop on his tour, Australia. He has already visited South Korea and Japan on a trip that is aimed at smoothing some of the rougher edges of Trump's rhetoric.
Land Rover's Range Rover Evoque SUV is on display at Shanghai's auto show, as is a model by similarly-named Chinese carmaker Landwind that has sparked a legal battle between the two

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then global carmakers are basking in the compliments at Shanghai's auto show, where some Chinese-made models bear striking resemblances to famous foreign brands.

The annual exhibition is the biggest automotive showcase in the planet's largest car market, but also an event that revives persistent accusations of Chinese businesses copying foreign designs.

The show opened this week with automotive media and internet wags highlighting a range of Chinese models with more than a passing likeness to their Porsche, Land Rover, Mercedes and other counterparts.

Intellectual-property theft is rampant in a range of industries in China, and foreign automakers have taken legal action over the years against Chinese competitors for suspiciously similar designs.

Land Rover has been involved in a patent dispute with Chinese carmaker Landwind since 2014 -- one of several such cases in a country notorious for intellectual property theft

But Mercedes' China boss Hubertus Troska laughed it off when asked by reporters about a Chinese-made car on display across from the Mercedes stand which looked just like the German manufacturer's G-Class SUV.

"We take it as a compliment," Troska quipped.

Other automotive doppelgangers include one by little-known Chinese brand Zotye which sells for 100,000 yuan ($14,500) and could be mistaken for Porsche's sporty Macan SUV, which has a sticker price of $87,000.

A Porsche spokeswoman brushed it off, stressing that foreign automakers compete for different market segments and income levels than their Chinese counterparts.

"We are absolutely sure that car enthusiasts will easily be able to tell the difference between the original Porsche Macan and the copycat due to design, perfection and overall quality," said Anja Wassertheurer, Porsche's director of product and technical communications.

- Land war -

Land Rovers Range Rover Evoque SUV also is on display in Shanghai, as is a model by similarly-named Chinese carmaker Landwind that has sparked a legal battle between the two.

The British manufacturer in 2014 launched a bid to void Landwind's patent on its X7 SUV, prompting a tit-for-tat move by the Chinese company in a fight that continues.

The chances of a foreign carmaker winning an auto patent case in China are "extremely low" due to the way the country's patent laws are written, said Li Yanwei, an analyst with the China Automobile Dealers Association.

"A conviction can only be made when the two vehicles' design and size match exactly," he said.

"Companies like Zotye only need to slightly adjust some parameters and the other brand won't be able to win."

Auto doppelgangers on show in Shanghai include one by little-known Chinese brand Zotye which could be mistaken for Porsche's sporty Macan SUV

Global automakers largely have to just accept such mimicry and focus on the fact that they compete for different buyers.

Chinese carmakers involved in such disputes did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Honda filed a lawsuit in 2004 against Chinese carmaker Shuanghuan Automobile, accusing it of copying the exterior of the Japanese manufacturer's popular CR-V SUV, but lost the case in 2015.

Honda had to cough up 16 million yuan for legal fees and "reputation damage" inflicted on Shuanghuan, which folded last year.

Industry watchers say the number of such disputes are expected to diminish as Chinese manufacturers' design capabilities grow.

"There was a time when design was not at the core of the (Chinese carmakers') concern. It was more about delivering a product. But now, original design creation in China is blossoming," said Christophe Cayrol, head of French car brand Citroen's design centre in Shanghai.
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis speaks with reporters after his arrival in Tel Aviv on April 20, 2017

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday that there can be "no doubt" Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis made his comments during a one-day visit for talks with Israeli leaders, who strongly backed a recent US strike against a Syrian airbase in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," Mattis said during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman.

"It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they'd be ill-advised to try to use any again. We've made that very clear with our strike."

Mattis added that Syria had "dispersed their aircraft in recent days".

An Israeli military assessment has found that Assad's regime was still in possession of "a few tonnes" of chemical weapons, an army official confirmed.

In this image released by the US Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter launches missiles at a Syrian airbase from the Mediterranean on April 7, 2017, in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town

Assad, backed by his ally Russia, has strongly denied the allegation that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, describing it as a "100 percent fabrication".

He has said repeatedly that his forces turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.

The agreement was later enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution.

- Talks with Netanyahu -

Mattis, the first member of President Donald Trump's cabinet to visit Israel, later held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, followed by a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin.

Israel and the United States have long had close strategic ties, with Washington providing Israel more than $3 billion a year in defence aid and Trump pledging unstinting support for the country.

Despite tensions over Israeli settlement building, Barack Obama's administration signed a new agreement with Israel before he left office increasing the amount to $3.8 billion for a 10-year period beginning in 2018.

Mattis sought to hear directly from Israeli leaders on their concerns and what they expect from the Trump administration, a US defence official said.

Iran's influence is at the top of the list for Israel, a worry shared by the United States.

Mattis accused Iran of "destabilising activities", including threatening Israel and other nations in the Middle East with ballistic missiles, cyber activities and proxy groups.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) shakes hands with US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis before their meeting in Jerusalem on April 21, 2017

Netanyahu welcomed Mattis's comments on Iran and Syria, calling the Trump administration's approach a "welcome change".

Israel is closely watching Iran's presence in Syria, where it is backing Assad.

Israeli enemy Hezbollah is also fighting with Assad in Syria. Israel fought a devastating war against the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement in 2006.

Israel has sought to avoid being dragged into the six-year civil war in Syria, but acknowledges carrying out air strikes there to stop what it says are deliveries of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Hours after Mattis left Israel, three mortar rounds fired from Syria hit the northern Golan heights, an army spokeswoman said.

The army said in a statement it responded by targeting the source of the fire inside Syria, but gave no further details.

- Iran nuclear deal -

Testy relations between Obama and Netanyahu reached a low point over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, led by Washington.

Obama pushed hard for the agreement, but Netanyahu fiercely opposed it, arguing that it will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and that the lifting of sanctions would allow it to support proxy groups.

Trump also harshly criticised the deal, and on Thursday said Iran was "not living up to the spirit" of the agreement, adding that the United States would set out its position on it soon.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered a review of the deal to be led by his National Security Council, although the State Department admits that Iran has so far stuck to its side of the bargain.

Mattis said on Friday that Iran appeared to be living up to the agreement, but that it "in no way mitigates against or excuses the other activities of Iran in the region".

Mattis's visit was part of a tour of the Middle East and Djibouti. He had previous stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and flew to Qatar later Friday.
Spanish national Artur Segarra has been convicted of kidnapping and killing 40-year-old compatriot David Bernat in an effort to steal tens of millions of baht from the businessman

A Spanish man was sentenced to death by a Thai court Friday for the grisly murder of a fellow Spaniard whose dismembered body parts were discovered in Bangkok's main river last year.

Artur Segarra, 38, was convicted of kidnapping and killing David Bernat in an effort to steal tens of millions of baht from the businessman, according to the verdict read out by a judge at the Bangkok criminal court.

"Forensic evidence such as blood stains and fingerprints on (Segarra's) electric grinder had DNA that matched the victim," the judge said, adding that CCTV footage and testimony from Segarra's maid and girlfriend also implicated him in the killing.

Police believe Segarra held Bernat in his Bangkok apartment for several days and tried to extort him for money before murdering the 40-year-old and dumping his chopped up body parts in the Chao Praya river.

Segarra, who had denied all the charges, appeared calm while the verdict was read and translated to him in Spanish.

When he arrived at court he held his hand up to show the the Bible citation "Luke 23:34" written in ink on his palm -- a reference to some of crucified Jesus's final words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

While death sentences are still on the statute books in Thailand, it is rare for prisoners to be executed. The last execution was in 2009.

Segarra's lawyer, Jessada Piyasuwanvanich, told reporters his client would likely file an appeal and "fight the case to the end".

The macabre murder came to light last January after Thai police began retrieving body parts from different locations along the city's Chao Praya River. It took them several days to identify the victim.

Segarra fled to Cambodia after the killing but was arrested and returned to Bangkok a few weeks later.

It is not uncommon for foreigners to get swept up in Thailand's sprawling criminal underworld.

Earlier this month an Australian man was sentenced to death for the murder of a former Hells Angels member found beaten and naked in a shallow grave in Pattaya, a popular Thai beach town known for its raunchy nightlife and links to organised crime.

In September, Thai police arrested three Americans in Bangkok after discovering the frozen body parts of another foreigner inside their freezer.

The men were charged with multiple offences and are being held in prison while they await trial.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis takes questions during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC on April 11, 2017

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said during a visit to Israel Friday that there can be "no doubt" that Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis, speaking during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, declined to comment on the number of weapons Washington believes Syria has retained.

US President Donald Trump's administration carried out a strike against a Syrian airbase earlier this month over an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," Mattis said.

"It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they'd be ill-advised to try to use any again. We've made that very clear with our strike."

An Israeli military assessment has found that Assad's regime was still in possession of "a few tonnes" of chemical weapons, an army official confirmed.

Some Israeli media reports put the number at between one and three tonnes. Lieberman declined to comment on the assessment at Friday's press conference.

Assad, backed by his ally Russia, has strongly denied the allegation that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, describing it as a "100 percent fabrication".

He has said repeatedly that his forces turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.

The agreement was later enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution.

Addressing North Korea, Mattis called comments from Pyongyang "provocative" but added that "their word has not proven honest."

"They've not lived up to any statements they've made in the past years, decades actually, about stopping their ballistic missile and their nuclear programmes," Mattis said.

"So I would just take their words at the same value we've always given them as we've learnt not to trust them."

North Korea is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

Vice President Mike Pence vowed on Wednesday that the United States would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.
Hong Joon-Pyo, presidential candidate of the Liberty Korea Party, is known for his outspoken rhetoric and sexist remarks, and compares himself with Donald Trump as an outsider in the race for the May 9 vote

South Korean presidential candidate Hong Joon-Pyo Friday denied his own autobiographical confession of complicity in an attempted date rape, as voter outrage mounted.

The firebrand prosecutor-turned-politician and candidate of ousted president Park Geun-Hye's conservative party has been compared to Donald Trump for his outspoken rhetoric and sexist remarks.

While a first-year student at the prestigious Korea University, Hong wrote in a 2005 memoir, a roommate at his boarding house "asked us to obtain a stimulant" and then mixed it into a beer for a girl he had a crush on.

The man returned to the dormitory after midnight, his face scratched and his shirt torn, according to the book.

"He said the drug did not work," Hong wrote. "When he attempted to remove her clothes, she woke up and put up strong resistance, biting and scratching him in the face.

"He asserted that if the drug been authentic, it should have worked. We said: 'Yes, it is real. It is used to get pigs to copulate in the countryside and we've been told it is also effective with humans'."

Hong later became a criminal prosecutor and acknowledged in the book "how seriously wrong such mischief was", calling the incident a prank.

"If I went back to that time, I would never join in such an escapade again," he wrote.

But his confession has become the centre of furious controversy ahead of the election on May 9.

"A sex crime as a prank? You are not up to being a presidential candidate," posted one netizen.

- Criminal psychology -

The former governor of South Gyeongsang province is backed by the Liberty Korea party, which changed its name to distance itself from the impeached president.

"How could a person like him become a presidential candidate?" rival conservative candidate Yoo Seung-Min told journalists.

"He joined in a sex crime and boasted of this experience in writing. He should be the subject of a case study in criminal psychology."

Hong tried to distance himself from the account Friday, saying he had "overheard" the story from other residents of his boarding house, who were studying at a different school, and did not take part in the plot himself.

He told reporters he "made a clarification" when the book was published -- at a time when he had a much lower profile and reaction was limited.

"This is because I've emerged as a strong candidate, isn't it?" he said.

Hong stands third in the presidential race with nine percent support in a Korea Gallup poll released Friday, far behind front-runner Moon Jae-In of the liberal Democratic Party on 41 percent and the People's Party's former IT tycoon Ahn Cheol-Soo with 30 percent.

Sexist attitudes towards women endure in parts of Korean society.

Hong, 62, is renowned for his incendiary rhetoric, and said Tuesday that "washing dishes is women's work".

But he insisted he was confident of an upset victory, comparing his run to Trump's ultimately successful campaign for the White House.

"Trump became president despite biased news media," he said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gestures to the camera after registering to run for re-election in Tehran on April 14, 2017

Campaigning began on Friday for Iran's presidential election with incumbent Hassan Rouhani facing a tough battle against hardliners, though not from former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was barred from standing.

Ahmadinejad's disqualification by the conservative-run Guardian Council was no surprise -- he had been advised not to run by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said it would "polarise" the nation.

His populist economics and defiant attitude to the establishment had alienated even Ahmadinejad's hardline backers during his 2005-2013 tenure.

"Once the supreme leader had told him not to stand, it became impossible for him to be cleared by the Guardian Council," said Clement Therme, research fellow for Iran at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Iran presidential election

"By his second term, (Ahmadinejad) was even challenging the clerics. He was not useful anymore for the system."

The mood in Tehran has been subdued -- many are disillusioned with Rouhani's failure to kick-start the economy despite broad support for his efforts to rebuild ties with the West, notably through a nuclear deal with world powers that eased sanctions.

There has been uproar over a decision by the election commission to ban live TV debates, seen by some as an attempt to prevent embarrassment to some of the candidates or the regime as a whole.

Campaigning, which the Guardian Council announced could begin immediately, had not been supposed to start for another week, so there was little activity on Friday.

But experts say the authorities are keen to excite interest in the vote.

"They need that for legitimacy -- the turnout is even more important than the result," said Therme.

Iran's elections are tightly controlled, with the Guardian Council allowing just six people -- and no women -- to stand for the May 19 vote out of 1,636 hopefuls that registered last week.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's populist economics and defiant attitude to Iran's establishment alienated even his hardline backers during his 2005-2013 presidency

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent, a run-off between the top two is held a week later.

Rouhani, a politically moderate cleric, squeaked to victory last time with 51 percent in the first round, helped by a divided conservative camp.

The Guardian Council has resisted efforts by Iran's parliament, the Majles, to clarify the criteria by which they choose candidates.

The constitution adopted after the 1979 revolution offers only vague guidelines that candidates should possess "administrative capacity and resourcefulness... trustworthiness and piety".

- Hardline competition -

The build-up to the vote has injected more interest than many predicted just a couple of months ago, when Rouhani was seen as a shoo-in for a second term if only because the conservative opposition seemed unable to offer a strong candidate.

Since then, the 56-year-old former judge and cleric Ebrahim Raisi has emerged as a front-runner for the conservatives.

More than 130 women registered for Iran's May 19 election but none has ever been allowed to stand

Little-known on the political scene, Raisi runs a powerful religious foundation and business empire in the holy city of Mashhad and is seen as a close ally of -- and possible successor to -- supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But despite emphasising his care for the poor, many say Raisi's hardline judicial background and entourage will turn off voters.

"He seems like a good and calm person himself, but the people around him are scary," said a tour operator in Yazd, echoing a widely heard sentiment.

Some think he may drop out at the last minute in favour of Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who came second to Rouhani in 2013.

Ghalibaf -- a war veteran, former Revolutionary Guards commander and police chief -- has support from powerful backroom hardliners and presents himself as a pragmatic problem-solver.

"Economic problems cannot be solved from behind a desk," he said Friday.

The other three candidates are seen as support for the main players in the upcoming debates.

Moderate reformists Mostafa Hashemitaba and vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri are expected to defend Rouhani's achievements, while veteran hardliner Mostafa Mirsalim will back up Raisi and Ghalibaf.

- 'Took risks' -

There were mixed reactions to Ahmadinejad's disqualification.

Despite controversial rhetoric against Israel that worsened ties with the West, and somewhat reckless financial management, he retained considerable popularity, particularly among the poor.

"I think Ahmadinejad should not have been disqualified," said Mohammad Barkhordar, 20, doing his military service.

"He was the kind of president that took risks, like distributing money among people and giving houses to the poor, and he had big ambitions for Iran's nuclear programme. Rouhani doesn't take any risks."

But many were glad to see the back of him.

"It was right for Ahmadinejad to be disqualified but it happened 12 years too late," said one Twitter user.
Bamiyan is famous for gaping hillside niches that once sheltered giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001

The president of war-torn Afghanistan is creating a tourism ministry in a bid to attract visitors to the country endowed with stunning landscapes and archaeological sites, but wracked by nearly four decades of conflict.

Ashraf Ghani issued a presidential decree this week ordering the ministry be established and naming Ghulam Nabi Farahi, a former parliamentary affairs minister, as the new "State Minister for Tourism Affairs".

The order, criticised by many because it had bypassed parliament, included no other details, such as the ministry's aims or budget.

Afghanistan boasts pristine mountains and medieval ruins, but many are located in areas plagued by insurgency, and insecurity and kidnappings have made life difficult for tourists in the country.

Last August Taliban insurgents attacked a group of American and European tourists in western Herat, a timeworn city near the Iranian border renowned for its citadel and blue-tiled mosque.

The attack, which left some of the tourists wounded, brought into sharp focus global thrill-seekers who imperil their lives to vacation in war zones.

Afghanistan has, however, welcomed travel to what it considers safe areas where Taliban militants -- seeking to topple the government and return to power -- are not deemed a threat.

Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan's first national park, is in the central province of Bamiyan, a top tourist destination for mainly Afghan visitors

A few such areas can be safely reached by air, such as the ancient city of Bamiyan, currently at the centre of efforts to boost tourism revenue.

Bamiyan is famous for gaping hillside niches that once sheltered giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.

The surrounding province, a landscape of russet-hued cliffs, was once a caravan stop along the fabled Silk Road and also boasts Afghanistan's first national park.

The northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, famous for its blue-tiled mosque, and the spectacular Panjshir Valley, known for its snowcapped peaks and precious stones, are some other relatively peaceful areas.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad minimised the death toll for the civil war that has raged in his country since 2011, which has killed more than 320,000 people

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad on Friday blamed the country's former Al-Qaeda affiliate for a deadly bombing against buses carrying evacuees outside Aleppo at the weekend.

"It was Jabhat al-Nusra, they haven't hidden it from the very start, and I think that everyone agrees that it was Nusra," Assad told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency in an interview, referring to the jihadist group now known as the Fateh al-Sham Front that has supposedly severed its ties with al-Qaeda.

The bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at the Rashidin transit point west of Aleppo as people were evacuating from the besieged government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest episodes since the start of Syria's six-year civil war.

In the interview translated into Russian, Assad denied there had been a chemical attack this month in the town of Khan Sheikhun, claiming there was "100 percent" certainty that rebels had obtained chemical weapons from Turkey.

"The only route for terrorists to receive money, weapons and any kind of materials, new recruits or such substances goes through Turkey," he said.

Assad added that Damascus had lost "more than 50 percent" of its air defence systems and that Syria was in talks with Moscow for weapons deliveries.

Assad also minimised the death toll for the civil war that has raged in his country since 2011, which has killed more than 320,000 people.

He said that merely "tens of thousands" had been killed in the conflict, accusing the West of overblowing the death toll.

"These (figures) are only given to inflate numbers in order to show how terrible the situation is and use this as a humanitarian excuse for the invasion of Syria," he said.
There have been some reports of Indians going to fight for the group in Iraq and Syria but the numbers are low relative to India's population of 1.2 billion

Two men accused of fundraising and recruiting for the Islamic State group in India were sentenced to seven years in jail Friday, an official said.

Azhar-ul-Islam and Mohammad Farhan Shaikh were arrested by India's counterterrorism body the National Investigation Agency (NIA) last year after being deported from the United Arab Emirates for illegal fundraising activities.

"Both of them were already in jail, and were today sentenced to seven years in prison by the court," Alok Mittal, an inspector general at the NIA, told AFP.

The duo, both in their mid-twenties, had pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy last month "without any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence" according to the Press Trust of India.

In a news release late Friday, NIA said the two of them had acted as a front group for the IS and incited people of different nationalities to travel to Syria to "join and support" the activities of the group.

The men were active on social networks and promoted the IS ideology on WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook to enlist new recruits and assist others to link up with the IS.

They also raised cash for IS -- which controls swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria -- receiving and transferring funds in the UAE where the pair frequently travelled for work.

"They had also raised, collected and received funds in the UAE and transferred it to their associates in India, Philippines and Tunisia to facilitate their travel to Syria to join IS," the NIA said in the statement.

A third accused, Adnan Hassan, will face trial starting in June.

Friday's verdict comes a day after Indian police arrested 10 suspected IS sympathisers in raids conducted across four states.

The government insists IS does not have a foothold in India, which has a large but traditionally moderate Muslim minority.

There have been some reports of Indians going to fight for the group in Iraq and Syria but the numbers are low relative to India's population of 1.2 billion.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte tours a visiting Russian warship for the second time in barely four months as he highlighted his growing closeness to Moscow

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte toured a visiting Russian warship on Friday for the second time in barely four months as he highlighted his growing closeness to Moscow.

"The Russians are with me, I shall not be afraid," Duterte was quoted as saying during a visit to the Russian guided missile cruiser 'Varyag' which is on a port visit to Manila.

Duterte toured the ship, posing for pictures with Russian sailors and in front of the vessel's huge missile-launchers, on what was the fourth ever port call by a Russian naval ship to the Philippines.

Since taking office in June, Duterte -- who describes himself as a socialist -- has been distancing himself from the Philippines' traditional ally, the United States and moving closer to its rivals, China and Russia.

In an indication of these closer ties, two Russian ships led by the submarine-hunter Admiral Tributs, made a "goodwill visit" to Manila in January, when Duterte also toured the Russian vessel.

Duterte has said he plans to purchase military equipment from Russia rather than the United States and is due to visit in May to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier, Philippine navy spokesman Captain Lued Lincuna said the visit of the Russians was "a manifestation of good relations with them, to enhance our maritime cooperation," he told reporters.

Captain Leo Miado, one of the Philippine naval officers overseeing the visit, said sailors from the two countries would engage in training, adding "we can view the advanced equipment of the Russian navy in line with our modernisation efforts."
An Iranian woman walks past a mural on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran

Iran's foreign minister mocked US President Donald Trump's claim Tehran was "not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear deal on Friday, saying Washington was flouting the accord.

"We'll see if US prepared to live up to letter of #JCPOA (nuclear deal) let alone spirit," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted.

"So far, it has defied both. Should I use my highlighter again?"

Zarif is almost as avid a user of Twitter as Trump despite it being officially banned in Iran.

A day earlier, he hit back at US claims that the 2015 deal with world powers was a failure by highlighting certain sections and sharing them on Twitter.

He pointed to sections that require US government officials to "make every effort to support the successful implementation of this JCPOA including in their public statements" and to refrain from any policy intended to "adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran".

Iran says the US continues to frustrate its efforts to rebuild trade ties with the rest of the world through remaining sanctions, and denies any desire to build a nuclear bomb.

Trump has regularly criticised his predecessor for signing the deal, which he described on Thursday as "a bad one, as bad as I've ever seen negotiated".

He has ordered a 90-day review of whether to abandon it -- a move that would be strongly opposed by the other signatories to the deal: Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.

The US admitted this week that Iran has stuck to its side of the bargain, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said it would not stop Iran becoming a nuclear-armed state, and Washington officials regularly accuse Iran of fomenting unrest in the Middle East and sponsoring terrorism.
A US military spokesman said "more than 50" Afghan soldiers were killed in a gun and suicide attack, while Afghan officials said eight were killed and 11 wounded

Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms killed at least 50 soldiers in a gun and suicide attack at a base in northern Afghanistan, the US military said, as the extremists ramp up their campaign against beleaguered government forces.

Two of the attackers blew themselves up and seven were killed in the assault near Mazar-i-Sharif city on Friday which lasted several hours and targeted soldiers at a mosque and dining facility, the Afghan defence ministry said.

One of the assailants was detained.

A US military spokesman said "more than 50" Afghan soldiers were killed in the attack claimed by the Taliban, while Afghan officials put the death toll at eight with 11 wounded.

General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, praised Afghan commandos for bringing the "atrocity to an end".

The latest deadly attack against an Afghan military site underscores rising insecurity in the war-torn country as it braces for an intense fighting season in the spring.

Afghan security forces, beset by killings, desertions and non-existent "ghost soldiers" on the payroll, have been struggling to beat back insurgents since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014.

According to US watchdog SIGAR, casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed.

Nicholson in February told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that he needed "a few thousand" more troops to help train and assist the Afghan forces.

The US has around 8,400 troops in the country with about another 5,000 from NATO allies assisting a much larger Afghan force in the war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

- Military sites targeted -

Afghan security personnel arrive at the site of an ongoing attack on an army compound in Dihdadi District of Balkh province on April 21, 2017

Several military helicopters hovered over the base during Friday's attack and ambulances later took away the bodies of the victims, an AFP correspondent said.

The facility in Balkh province is home to the Afghan army's 209th Corps.

The last major attack against a military site was in early March when gunmen disguised as doctors stormed the Sardar Daud Khan hospital -- the country's largest military hospital -- in Kabul, killing dozens.

Afghan officials put the death toll at 50, but security sources and survivors told AFP more than 100 were killed in the brazen and savage attack.

The Islamic State group claimed it was behind the operation -- hours after the more powerful Taliban denied responsibility for the raid.

That assault came a week after 16 people were killed in simultaneous Taliban suicide assaults on two security compounds in the capital.

More than a third of Afghanistan is outside government control and many regions are fiercely contested by various insurgent groups, as Kabul's repeated bids to launch peace negotiations with the Taliban have failed.

Earlier this month the US military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State group hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, killing nearly a hundred militants.

The attack triggered global shockwaves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered as big a threat as the resurgent Taliban.
A Pakistani paramilitary soldier patrols during a Shiite Muslims march in Quetta on December 3, 2011

Around 500 Baloch rebel militants on Friday surrendered to Pakistan's government as Islamabad pursues its development agenda linked to the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the southwest province.

Some 487 militants from four Baloch rebel organisations, including at least eight senior commanders, laid down their arms at an official ceremony in Quetta city.

The militants pledged their allegiance to the state of Pakistan at the ceremony, which was also attended by the provincial chief minister.

Pakistan has been battling insurgency in mineral-rich Balochistan since 2004, with hundreds of soldiers and militants killed in the fighting.

A greater push towards peace and development by Pakistani authorities, including starting work on roads and infrastructure under the Chinese-assisted CPEC project -- which connects Balochistan's deep sea port Gwadar to China -- has reduced the violence considerably.

"These militants had killed my own son and brother but I have forgiven them. The state of Pakistan also forgives them and I welcome them to be part of Balochistan's CPEC project," said Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri at the ceremony.

"We will arrange employment for you. Nobody will be allowed to destroy peace in the province," he said.

Those who surrendered were members of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Republican Army (BRA), United Baloch Army and Lashkar-e-Balochistan.

"We were misled by Brahumdagh Bugti. We have now come to know that he works for India. Why should we fight in our own country for another country," said Sarbaz Baloch, former spokesman of BRA, who has been fighting for 15 years.

Bugti is an exiled Baloch leader based in Europe who has applied for asylum in India, Pakistan's arch rival.

Baluchistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.
Volkswagen has agreed to pay more than $23 billion in fines and compensation in the United States in one of the costliest corporate scandals in history

A US judge on Friday sentenced Volkswagen to pay a $2.8 billion criminal penalty in the diesel emissions cheating scandal, in line with a deal struck between the automaker and the US government.

The district court judge in Detroit also placed the German auto maker on three years of probation, settling the US criminal case over the scandal that has roiled the firm since 2015.

The German automaker has agreed to pay a total of more than $23 billion in fines and compensation in the United States -- including penalties to federal and state authorities, as well as consumers and car dealers -- in one of the costliest corporate scandals in history.

With Germany conducting its own probe, the final bill could be even higher.

VW in January agreed to plead guilty to three felony charges of defrauding the United States and conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act by installing so-called defeat devices on diesel-powered cars to evade emissions standards.

In addition to the criminal penalty, which it agreed to under the plea agreement, VW will pay a separate $1.5 billion civil penalty. It also agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.

"The agreements that we have reached with the US government reflect our determination to address misconduct that went against all of the values Volkswagen holds so dear," the company said Friday in a statement.

"Volkswagen today is not the same company it was 19 months ago -- the change process under way is the biggest in our history."

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Larry Thompson was appointed to monitor the company's compliance with the terms of the deal.

"This is a case of deliberate massive fraud perpetrated by VW management," Judge Sean Cox said during the sentencing hearing in Detroit.

One aspect of the case that remains unresolved is the fate of VW executive Oliver Schmidt who US authorities arrested in Miami in January, one of seven company employees who have been charged.

Judge Cox refused to release Schmidt on bond, agreeing with prosecutors that he risked fleeing to Germany, which does not extradite its citizens.

Five other company officials charged in January are believed to be in Germany.

Regulators in 2015 discovered that Volkswagen diesel cars, marketed as clean, in fact spewed up to 40 times the permissible limits of nitrogen oxide during normal driving, but this was hidden during emissions testing.

As many as 11 million vehicles sold worldwide were configured to cheat emissions tests. The car maker has agreed to buy back approximately half a million cars in the US.

VW developed the illegal technology in 2009 and, according to court documents, prosecutors believe senior employees attempted a cover-up after learning of the illegal technology in 2015.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, whose country holds the rotating G20 presidency, said officials agreed growth must be made "more inclusive" to stem the rise of protectionism

The Group of 20 major economies have reached a "broad consensus" that a continued rise in protectionism would be damaging to the global economy, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Friday.

"The general mood of the discussion was a broad agreement in the direction that free trade is better for global growth," Schaeuble said following a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington.

"Protectionism would be damaging to the global economy and the concerned economies as well," Schaeuble, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the G20, told reporters, adding: "There was a broad consensus."

The ministers also agreed that growth must be made "more inclusive" in order to stem the rise of protectionism, he said.

"We need to tackle this, otherwise we will see more protectionism," Schaeuble said, adding that officials had agreed on the "need to do more" to share the proceeds of growth more equitably.

Schaeuble deflected repeated questions about the stance of the United States, saying Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had told his counterparts the incoming administration has not made any decisions on specific trade policies.

Rising protectionist sentiment in major economies, including President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on countries that have surpluses with the United States, created a tense atmosphere at the normally placid gathering of finance ministers.

The G20 officials were meeting ahead of the semi-annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, which has flagged protectionism and possible trade wars as a threat the global economic recovery, which is finally gaining momentum.

German central bank chief Jens Weidmann said the G20 is focusing more on inclusive growth because "rising inequality puts strain on potential growth" and as a result "people become more disenchanted with globalization."
US President Donald Trump has called for drastic cutbacks across multiple federal agencies that track and analyse climate

The gutting of US-funded climate science would cripple research agendas worldwide and hamper the global fight against climate change, say scientists outside the United States, some of whom will take to the streets Saturday to make that point.

US President Donald Trump has called for drastic cutbacks across multiple federal agencies that track and analyse climate by gathering data from satellites, the deepest ocean trenches, and everything in between.

Tens of thousands of scientists are set to converge on Washington DC in protest, with hundreds of smaller marches planned in cities around the world.

"An unprecedented attack on science, scientists and evidence-based policymaking is underway," said Kenneth Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based policy institute.

"And nowhere is the attack more ferocious than on the issue of global warming."

Indeed, proposed cuts to research budgets in the Departments of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- totalling billions of dollars and thousands of jobs -- are concentrated on climate science, which Trump has notoriously dismissed as a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese.

Scientists in Europe, Asia and Australia express alarm not just at the slowdown in US research, but the knock-on consequences for their own work.

"The impacts may range from troublesome to disastrous," Bjorn Samset, research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, told AFP.

"We use US climate-related data -- particularly from satellites -- on a daily basis."

The United States, driven by its big federal agencies, "has become THE global provider of high quality, long-term datasets," he added.

- Beyond raw data -

Some of the programmes targeted for axing, for example, are crucial for tracking how much carbon is vented into the atmosphere, or how the distribution of clouds -- one of the key uncertainties in projections of future climate change -- might evolve over time.

A glacier is seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft above Greenland, studying how polar ice has evolved over the past nine years

"This would impair our ability in the future to keep our observations, and understanding, up to speed," said Joeri Rogelj, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, one of the world's leading centres for climate modelling.

For Myles Allen, head of the University of Oxford's Climate Research Group, the damage from a US pullback would go well beyond raw data.

"If we lose that intellectual firepower, it is obviously going to make dealing with the problem that much harder," he said in an interview. "We need American technology and innovation to find solutions."

Allen noted that the European Union and China are "stepping up their game" in monitoring climate, but said Washington may not see that in a positive light.

"Does the US want to rely on observations made by overseas agencies in measuring the impact of Chinese emissions on the US weather?", he wondered.

Three of six major international platforms shared by climate modellers -- who calculate the risks of future climate change -- are maintained and operated in the United States, and could be in peril.

"If we lose one or two of these data distribution centres in the US, it could collapse the entire coordinated system for sharing these simulations of future climate," said Valerie Masson Delmotte, research director at France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and a lead scientist of the UN's climate science panel.

- 'Darker days ahead' -

New visa and travel restrictions in the United States likewise threaten future collaboration, said Samset, noting that almost all important climate research crosses national boundaries.

"This has already gotten harder to arrange within the US, or abroad with US participation," he said.

Shun Chi-ming, director of the Hong Kong Observatory, said he was "highly concerned" that impending US cuts in climate research could also affect "weather and disaster monitoring".

When it comes to taking their concerns into the street with a slogan on a placard, Allen, Rogelj, and other researchers are clearly torn.

Is Antarctica ice on the decline?

"Demonstrations and protests are usually far outside the comfort zone of scientists," said Samset.

But Trump's disregard for scientific consensus -- seen in the appointment of outright climate deniers to key administration posts -- has forced many to reconsider the boundary between their role as scientist and citizen.

"Scientists need to be very careful about coming out in favour of one position or another," said Allen, adding that he hoped the marches didn't get "sidetracked" into environmental campaigning.

But for Alena Kimbrough, an expert on the Australian-Indonesian monsoon system at Australia National University and co-organiser of Saturday's marches in Australia, scientists "can no longer afford to stand at the sidelines."

"I am deeply disturbed that this movement is required, but we have much darker days ahead of us if we don't start here," she told AFP.
Chris Pratt honored with star on Hollywood Walk Of Fame on April 21, 2017 in Hollywood, California

Action star Chris Pratt swapped his superhero gear for a formal suit Friday as he was awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame for his contribution to cinema.

Pratt, 37, found fame as loveable slacker Andy Dwyer on NBC comedy "Parks and Recreation" but has since become one of Hollywood's most sought-after leading men thanks to roles in "Jurassic World" and Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy."

"I'm a man of faith and I believe that God works in mysterious ways, and gives us signs and gifts in life. And those gifts oftentimes come in the form of people," he said, paying tribute to his mother.

"Oftentimes we weren't cash-rich but we were never love-poor," he told a crowd on Hollywood Boulevard that included "Guardians" co-stars Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista and Michael Rooker.

The actor thanked filmmaker James Gunn for casting him as Star-Lord in "Guardians" -- a role he said had changed "so many lives," from children in hospital to his real estate agent -- and acknowledged Marvel for "taking a chance on the chubby guy from 'Parks and Rec.'"

He also paid a lengthy tribute to his wife, the actress Anna Faris, telling her: "Without you, none of this would mean anything."

Pratt, once a moderately successful TV actor, went to great lengths to build an action hero's physique and was rewarded with his first major lead part in 2014's "Guardians," which went on to gross more than $770 million worldwide.

The sequel, due out on May 5, is expected to do even bigger business.

Pratt also starred in 2015 monster movie reboot "Jurassic World," the fourth-highest grossing film of all time, and is due to reprise the role of dinosaur trainer Owen Grady in the sequel, due out in 2018.

"Five years ago, I said to reporters Chris Pratt is the biggest movie star in the world -- it's just that people don't know it yet. Well now, here today, people know it," said Gunn, 46.

Faris, with whom Pratt has a four-year-old boy, showed the crowd a unicorn Pratt had drawn her before giving an unconventional speech thanking the many friends and family who had helped shape her husband.

"I know that if our circumstances were different, and we weren't as fortunate to be standing here and leading our Hollywood life, we would be happy in the woods together," she said.

Raised in Lake Stevens, Washington, Pratt studied acting at a local community college for half a semester before moving to Hawaii and living in a van.

He got a job at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant where he was discovered by Canadian-American actress Rae Dawn Chong, who gave him a role in her directorial debut, the short horror film "Cursed Part III," which was never released.

His other film credits include "The Magnificent Seven," "Passengers," "Moneyball" and "Zero Dark Thirty."
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, whose country holds the rotating G20 presidency, said officials agreed growth must be made "more inclusive" to stem the rise of protectionism

The Group of 20 major economies sent a message Friday on the threat that rising protectionism poses to the global economy, but the United States cast doubt over its adherence to that stance.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reiterated the Trump administration's emphasis on defending America against what it sees as unfair trade practices, and called on the IMF to do more in its watchdog role.

His comments came just hours after a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington which saw Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble say there was "broad agreement" that "free trade is better for global growth."

"There was a broad consensus" that "protectionism would be damaging to the global economy and the concerned economies as well," the German minister, whose country holds the rotating G20 presidency, told reporters.

That seemed to mark a striking change of tone since the last finance ministers meeting in Germany, one month ago, when the United States prevented the G20 from including a traditional pledge against protectionism in its final communique, calling the language "irrelevant."

It was unclear how far the renewed "consensus" extended. The group did not release a communique this time, and Mnuchin's statement appeared to weaken Schaeuble's declaration of unity.

Rising protectionist and anti-globalization sentiment in key economies has created a tense atmosphere at the normally placid and formulaic gathering of finance ministers, where the G20 officials met ahead of a semi-annual meeting Saturday of the International Monetary Fund.

Concerns have been fuelled by President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on countries that have trade surpluses with the United States, by the British decision to leave the European Union, and anti-internationalist rhetoric by some candidates in the French presidential election campaign.

In a short but tough statement, Mnuchin said the United States "will continue to promote an expansion of trade with those partners committed to market-based competition, while more rigorously defending ourselves against unfair trade practices."

Trump officials have directed some of their most aggressive language at Germany and China. Mnuchin said "excessively large trade surpluses... are not conducive to supporting a free and fair trading system."

"Countries with large external surpluses and sound public finances have a particular responsibility for contributing to a more robust global economy by deploying fiscal policy aggressively to boost growth and help facilitate global rebalancing," he said.

He said the IMF should to do more to monitor these countries and "identify specific policy adjustments" they should implement.

- Make growth more 'inclusive' -

The IMF has flagged rising protectionism and possible trade wars as a threat to the global economic recovery, just when it is finally gaining momentum.

And German central bank chief Jens Weidmann said the G20 finance ministers "underlined the negative growth effects of raising barriers to trade."

"Almost everybody underscored the importance of (an) open market and free market access," he said.

Schaeuble said the G20 ministers also agreed that economic growth must be made "more inclusive" in order to stem the rise of protectionism.

Rising protectionist and anti-globalization sentiment in key economies has created a tense atmosphere at the normally placid gathering of G20 finance ministers

"Many people feel that they do not benefit from the advantage of growth and globalization, and we need to tackle this, otherwise we will see more protectionism and countries retreating from globalization down the road," Schaeuble said.

Officials agreed on the "need to do more" to spread the benefits of growth and globalization, which includes investments in education and infrastructure.

That echoes the repeated urgings of IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde who this week has turned up the volume on the call to wealthy countries to help those left behind by global prosperity.

- US policy undecided -

On the issue of financial regulation, Weidmann said there was consensus about continuing reforms agreed previously and there were few fears about the risk of seeing erosion of the regulations implemented in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The "debate about the regulatory 'race to the bottom' has disappeared" from G20 discussions, Weidmann said.

But there, too, US actions contrasted with that statement as Trump on Friday signed an order directing Mnuchin to review the US financial regulations known as Dodd-Frank that were erected in the wake of the crisis.

"A significant amount of time has passed since the crisis. With the passage of time and with your leadership, we are now well-positioned to evaluate what works and what doesn't," Mnuchin said on Friday.

"Where we can do so, we will lift the burden of excessive regulation to make sure that banks can lend, small businesses can borrow, and American workers can thrive," he said.
This July, actress Julianna Margulies will play the role of a Syrian Jewish woman who changes her view on life while going through last stage breast cancer treatment

Julianna Margulies, star of "The Good Wife", plans to produce a television series based on the stories of female reporters during the Vietnam War, the actress told AFP on Friday.

The 50-year-old American has teamed up with three other women including a writer and a director for her first production credit.

The as yet unnamed series will be based on the book "War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam".

"We're working on a pilot now," and have sold the series, said the actress in an interview at the Series Mania festival in the French capital.

Margulies recently turned down a role in "The Good Fight", sequel to "The Good Wife", in which her character returns to work as a lawyer after her husband is jailed in a corruption and sex scandal.

"I had to say goodbye to (Good Wife lead character) Alicia Florrick," after seven seasons in the role, she said.

"Alicia doesn't wear her emotions on her sleeves the way I do. I am an actress and a Jewish woman... very opinionated and emotional," said Margulies, laughing.

"I grew up with her, I got the time to experience her and change with her. I loved the challenge of playing someone very guarded."

This July, Margulies will play the role of a Syrian Jewish woman who changes her view on life while going through last stage breast cancer treatment.

The story, set in Brooklyn, is of a woman who no longer wants to be a complacent housewife, said the actress.

As for another television series, Margulies said she now had some conditions for such work.

"I am open to anything, it just can't be anything medical or legal," said the actress alluding also to her breakout role in medical drama "ER", also setting a 10-episode series limit.

"I can't sign up for 22 episodes again, it takes too much out of your life," she added.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - One of the U.N.'S main bodies voted Wednesday to grant accreditation to a British-based group that promotes religious freedom, overriding a U.N. committee that had deferred action on the matter for years.

Britain had argued that the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, which decides what groups can participate in U.N. activities, is biased against human rights groups.

The 54-member Economic and Social Council voted 28-9 with 12 abstentions to approve consultative status for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, giving the group the right to attend open meetings and conferences at the Geneva-based Human Rights Council and other U.N. bodies.

The organization had applied for U.N. accreditation since 2009, but its application was repeatedly deferred by the 19-member accreditation committee. After the committee voted in February to again defer action, Britain launched a campaign to get the council to overturn the decision and accredit the group.

Britain's U.N. ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, told the council before Wednesday's vote that Christian Solidarity Worldwide had responded "fully and promptly" to more than 80 questions posed by committee members and met all the requirements for accreditation. But, he said, "there has been repeated discrimination against NGOs with a human rights focus in particular" by the committee.

Rycroft pointed to letters of support from U.N. investigators on freedom of religion, freedom of expression and others for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, whose recent work includes supporting the rights of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and civilians of all faiths caught in the conflict in Central African Republic.

In another slap at the accreditation committee, the council voted 37-0 with 16 abstentions to webcast all public meetings of the panel. The committee had resisted webcasting its public meetings even though that is a widespread practice at the United Nations.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations, which co-sponsored the resolution on webcasting, issued a statement praising the vote.

"This change will bring to light those countries that seek to block United Nations access for organizations that defend press freedom, that provide legal counsel for political prisoners, that document human rights abuses committed by their governments, and that call out discrimination of all kinds," it said.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the vote would "bring increased transparency and accountability to the United Nations" and "greatly assist organizations that stand up to oppressive governments around the world."

Christian Solidarity Worldwide works in more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Many of the nations that voted against granting accreditation, including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and Burkina Faso, said the lower committee's vote should stand, arguing that the group had not answered all questions from members.
TORONTO (AP) - Foreign nationals who don't live in Toronto and its surrounding communities will pay an additional 15 percent tax on homes under legislation proposed by the Ontario government.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne made the announcement Thursday in an effort to cool a hot housing market in Canada's largest city.

It matches the 15 percent tax the Pacific coast city of Vancouver has implemented. Wynne said the tax is not about targeting immigrants.

"We're targeting those are who aren't looking to raise a family. They are only looking for a quick profit or a safe place to park their money," Wynne said.

The average price of detached houses in the Greater Toronto Area rose to $1.21 million Canadian (US$900,000) last month. Wynne said when the market jumps 33 percent in a year they know there's a problem.

"There is a need for interventions right now in order to calm what's going on," Wynne said.

The tax will be imposed on buyers in what's known as the Greater Golden Horseshoe area who are not citizens, permanent residents or Canadian corporations. Once the legislation passes, the foreign tax would be effective retroactively to April 21.

Wynne introduced other measures as well. Ontario is also expending rent control, which currently only applies to units built before November 1991. Tenants in newer units have complained of dramatic spikes in rent.

The premier said they are taking aim at speculators and are tackling affordability.

The government doesn't keep statistics on the number of foreign buyers. Asian investment in Toronto reportedly picked after Vancouver introduced its foreign buyer tax last summer.

Benjamin Tal, Deputy Economist at CIBC World Markets, said the foreign tax is a step in the right direction but thinks it could have a minimal impact because the estimated share of foreign buyers in the greater Toronto area is notably lower than in Vancouver. "But if Vancouver is any guide, we might see a short period in which domestic buyers will sit on the sidelines while assessing the impact of the tax. During that period we might see some slowing in sales," Tal said.

Tim Hudak, CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association, said the measures could help make homes more affordable for residents.

"You can't go to a barbecue in the province without people talking about real estate and how everyone has a son or daughter who can't buy a home and wants to get into the market," Hudak said.

Real estate agent Sabrina Ataullah-Jan said Canadian properties are undervalued and that is why the Toronto area has an influx of foreign investment. She said that poses a challenge for locals bidding for houses that are going for hundreds of thousands over the asking price.

"Last weekend a house sold for 1 million over asking on a 2 million dollar home. Things have gotten crazy," she said. "The new tax will slow down the market a bit, as it did in Vancouver. But for those who have the money to invest and see the high growth potential in Toronto, which is repeatedly voted as the best city to live in, I don't think the 15 percent will be enough of a deterrent."

___

Associated Press writer Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed to this report.
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on fatal shootings in downtown Fresno, California (all times local):

8:05 a.m.

The father of a man accused of killing four people in Fresno this week says his son blamed white people for putting crack cocaine on the streets and getting him hooked on drugs.

A memorial of candles and flowers honors victims of Tuesday's shooting outside Catholic Charities Wednesday, April 19, 2017 in Fresno, Calif. Mark Gassett, 37, of Fresno, had just picked up groceries at a Catholic Charities building when he was gunned down. David Jackson, 58, of Fresno, was gunned down in the parking lot of the charity's building. (Carmen George/The Fresno Bee via AP)

KFSN reports (http://abc30.tv/2oTxJNS ) that Vincent Taylor, the father of murder suspect Kori Ali Muhammad, says his son developed a hatred for white people as a teenager. Muhammad is black.

Muhammad converted to the Nation of Islam and took the name Kori Muhammad as a teenager. His father says his birth name is Cory Taylor.

Muhammad is expected to be charged with murder on Thursday. He could face the death penalty.

___

12:05 a.m.

Five days before a rampage that left three men dead, Kori Ali Muhammad shot an unarmed security guard who he felt had insulted him at a Motel 6 when he visited a woman at the hotel, police said.

Muhammad shot the guard, 25-year-old Carl Williams, multiple times at close range shortly after 11 p.m., police said - an act that would set off a chain of events leading to Tuesday's mass shooting.

Police say Muhammad gave rare and unusual details about his movements and the killings over several hours of questioning following his arrest, even returning with officers to the crimes scenes and demonstrating his actions.

Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer holds a news conference to go over details of Tuesday's triple homicide shooting in Fresno at the Fresno Police Department on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Craig Kohlruss /The Fresno Bee via AP)

Mark Greer is shown at his home Wednesday, April 19, 2017, in Fresno, Calif. He lived there with his best friend and roommate, David Jackson, who was gunned down in a series of random shootings that left a few people dead. (AP Photo/Scott Smith)

Vickie Farr places a candle for Tuesday's shooting victims at a memorial of candles and flowers outside Catholic Charities on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 in Fresno, Calif. (Carmen George/The Fresno Bee via AP)

Phyllis Cervantes, right, says a prayer for Tuesday's shooting victims at a memorial of candles and flowers outside Catholic Charities on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 in Fresno, Calif. The three men killed Tuesday had no known connection to each other or to the shooter, Kori Ali Muhammad, who is expected to be arraigned Friday. (Carmen George/The Fresno Bee via AP)

This 2017 photo provided by Eddie Valencia shows Zackary Randalls with one of his children. A close friend of a man who was shot during a deadly rampage in Fresno, Calif., says the victim was Randalls, a father of two young children. Randalls was in a training program for Pacific Gas & Electric and doing a ride-along Tuesday, April 18, 2017, when he was gunned down. (Eddie Valencia via AP)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Palestinians asked the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday to intervene in a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners pressing for "legitimate rights" which they say are being denied by Israel.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told the Security Council that a peaceful effort is needed to compel Israel to comply with international law and respect human rights "to avert the dangerous consequences of deterioration of this situation."

"We believe that the ICRC can play a positive, facilitating role, and urge all necessary efforts in this regard," he said.

Mansour saluted the more than 1,000 prisoners on hunger strike and said they were protesting what he called their "inhumane treatment and torture by Israel" and calling attention to the over 6,500 Palestinians imprisoned or arbitrarily detained.

He singled out strike leader Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader jailed during the second Palestinian uprising who has been in prison for 15 years.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called Barghouti "a terrorist and a murderer" who had a fair and open trial. He held up a photo of one of his victims, mother-of-two Yoela Chen, and told the council: "Glorifying terrorists like Barghouti not only distances us from peace, but dishonors the memories of the innocent victims."

The strike has been gaining traction because Barghouti, who is serving multiple life terms in prison after Israel found him guilty of involvement in the deaths of four Israelis and a Greek monk, is widely expected to run for president once Mahmoud Abbas is out of the picture.

Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said Tuesday he believes the strike is politically motivated and that the prisoners have no legitimate complaints. He said the government will not negotiate with the prisoners.

Jesus Serrano, a spokesman for the ICRC in Jerusalem, said the organization is closely monitoring the situation, but as a neutral party, it cannot intervene.

"We cannot support or condemn the hunger strike or mediate between the parties," he said. "We urge for both sides to find a solution as soon as possible."

He said the ICRC would continue its mission of monitoring prisoner conditions and the health of striking prisoners and relay messages from prisoners to their families.

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
ATLANTA (AP) - Federal authorities say a person accused of making online threats against U.S.-based flights in January 2015 has been arrested in the United Kingdom.

FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett in Atlanta said in an email Thursday that a joint investigation by the FBI and authorities in the U.K. resulted in an arrest April 13.

Emmett said that as a result of the threats made via social media, military jets escorted the planes to Atlanta's airport. A police bomb squad and the FBI searched the planes but found nothing threatening.

Since the arrest happened overseas and charges were filed in the U.K., Emmett said the FBI would not release any other information.
Former President George HW Bush got a hospital visit from another former president - his son.

A photograph was posted on Bush's Twitter account Thursday, showing him with former President George W Bush.

'Big morale boost from a high level delegation,' the caption read.

'No father has ever been more blessed, or prouder.'

Both were smiling as the elder Bush spent another day at a Houston hospital where he's under observation after recovering from a mild case of pneumonia.

Family spokesman Jim McGrath reports no changes Thursday for the 92-year-old Bush.

On Wednesday, Bush was said to be gaining strength and in good spirits.

Former President George HW Bush (left) got a hospital visit from another former president - his son. A photograph was posted on Bush's Twitter account Thursday, showing him with former President George W Bush (right)

Bush (seen in the above February 5, 2017, file photo) has been hospitalized in Houston since last Friday with a recurrence of a case of pneumonia he had earlier in the year

He was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital last Friday for treatment of a persistent cough.

Doctors determined he had pneumonia, and they say the illness was treated and has been resolved.

Bush, the nation's oldest living ex-president, served a single term in the Oval Office as America's 41st commander-in-chief from 1989 through 1993.

He is the father of former President George W. Bush, who served two terms in the White House from 2001 through 2009, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican nomination for president.

Another former president, Bill Clinton, paid a visit to the elder Bush in Houston earlier this month

The elder Bush, a Republican like his sons, also served as vice president for eight years during Ronald Reagan's two terms as president.

He lost his 1992 re-election bid to Democrat Bill Clinton.
BOSTON (AP) - People looking for the perfect family pet tend to choose a dog based on appearance or breed - but that's barking up the wrong tree.

"If you think they're cute, you bring them home," said Jodi Andersen, a dog trainer and author.

That's why Andersen, along with MaryAnn Zeman and Sharon Mosse, founded the new online business How I Met My Dog. It works like Match or eHarmony, fitting humans with dogs based on what really matters: personality, lifestyle and behavior.

In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo Morgan Fredette, 13, left, holds the family dog Roscoe as her mother Kate, center right, and brother Lucas, 11, right, play with the dog at their home in Waltham, Mass. The family found the dog through the online platform How I Met My Dog, that is designed to help humans pick the most compatible mutt possible. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Several other online services match people with pets, but the founders of How I Met My Dog say they take things to a new level with a more detailed, science-based questionnaire that narrows the number of dogs that meet a human adopter's lifestyle and expectations.

The service is needed because about 4 million dogs per year are handed over to shelters and rescues, they said. Too many end up back in shelters, and too many are being euthanized because they can't find good homes.

"The system we're using now is broken and has to be fixed," Andersen said.

Placing a pet in the wrong home is one of the biggest concerns at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which finds homes for thousands of dogs and other animals every year, spokesman Rob Halpin said.

Persuading adopters not to fall in love with the first dog they see is a major issue.

"Sometimes our emotions take leave of our senses," said Halpin, who was not familiar with How I Met My Dog.

The MSPCA has "adoption counselors" who try to ensure people are matched with the right dogs, but Halpin embraced the idea of services that smooth that process.

"We welcome the notion of technology helping people do some of the hard work it takes to pick the right pet," he said.

How I Met My Dog, which also helps people who want to find a new home for a dog they just can't live with anymore, so far has partnered with 24 Boston-area shelters and rescues.

The plan is to role it out nationally by the end of the year.

A person looking to adopt fills out what the founders call a "PET profile" for personality, expectations and training style. Are you a couch potato or an active athlete? Do you want a dog that gets along with children? Are you a disciplinarian when training a dog or more laid back?

The dog profiles are completed either by the shelter staff or the current owner.

The algorithm matches the humans with dogs that complement their lifestyle.

"For example, if you have kids, you will never see a dog from us that doesn't get along with kids," Zeman said.

Once the website matches someone with a dog, it's up to the adopter to meet that dog in person. The shelter or owner ultimately determines whether there's a match.

Pawfect Life Rescue, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, was one of the first rescue organizations to sign on with How I Met My Dog.

"They have been pretty spot on so far with having the right people come and look at the right dog," Pawfect Life founder and president Julie Uthoff said.

The Fredette family, of Waltham, Massachusetts, adopted their dog, Roscoe, from Pawfect Life after being matched through How I Met My Dog. Kate Fredette, her husband and two children had been thinking of getting a new dog for about a year, but they just didn't know how to ensure they would get a good fit.

"It was confusing," Fredette said.

They obviously wanted a dog that gets along with children. They wanted a dog they could take on family trips. They wanted a social dog they could take to the park.

They couldn't be happier with Roscoe, a 4-month-old mixed breed.

"Mornings are so much better around here," Fredette said.

In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo Kate Fredette, of Waltham, Mass., greets the family dog, Roscoe, at their home in Waltham, Mass. The Fredette family found the dog through the online platform How I Met My Dog, that is designed to help humans pick the most compatible mutt possible. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo Kate Fredette, of Waltham, Mass., walks the family dog, Roscoe, near their home in Waltham. The Fredette family found the dog through the online platform How I Met My Dog, that is designed to match humans with dogs based on what really matters: personality, lifestyle and behavior. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - For Prince fans, the one-year anniversary of his shocking death from an accidental drug overdose is a time for sadness and celebration.

It was a year ago Friday that the music superstar was found dead at Paisley Park, the suburban Minneapolis recording complex where he lived.

Fans from around the globe have flocked to Paisley Park, now a museum, for a four-day celebration that includes performances by Prince's former bandmates and panel discussions. Fans who didn't want to pop for a $549 ticket to get into Paisley could head to a street party outside First Avenue, the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." And the Minnesota History Center is staging a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia, including his iconic "Purple Rain" costume.

FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2015, file photo, Prince presents the award for favorite album - soul/R&B at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles. Prince died at his home in Chanhassen, Minn. on April 21, 2016 at the age of 57. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)

Here's a look at how some of Prince's fans are remembering his legacy and mourning his loss.

A 6-HOUR DRIVE FOR PRINCE

Mary Adams and her 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, visited First Avenue on Friday to pose for a picture in front of Prince's star, repainted from silver to gold soon after his death.

The duo drove six hours from Kansas City, Missouri, listening to Prince the whole way.

"I needed to come here," said Adams, 50. "This is where it began."

Adams grew up listening to Prince. After he died, she got her first tattoo - Prince's glyph adorned with open lilies - on her arm.

"He'll always be with me now," she said.

Adams said Prince's tenacity and drive to do things his own way helped Adams, an actor, realize it was OK to be herself.

"He inspired me to be me, and I love him for it - and I always will," she said, choking up.

She planned pilgrimages to the Minneapolis house made famous in the movie "Purple Rain" and to Prince's old neighborhood. She and her daughter went to Paisley Park but weren't allowed to leave a memorial - a purple lei and a card - at the fence outside.

"This should be a time when we should all be able to go there and pay our respects and say our goodbyes - and it feels like you have to pay a small fortune to get in, and it breaks my heart," she said.

"I don't think he would dig that."

FEELING THE LOSS

Malinda Listenbee, 46, of Huntsville, Alabama, wore a Prince shirt as she and her husband Ulton waited to enter Paisley Park.

She recalled hearing about Prince's death a year ago by overhearing nurses talk about it while at a doctor's appointment. She said it felt like she lost a family member.

"He was a caring person, a giving person, and it just felt like I knew him," she said.

The couple had already been to Paisley Park once, in November, when they took a VIP tour and played on Prince's ping-pong table.

"I feel like this is a time to celebrate," she said. "This is a happy space."

PRINCE'S PURPLE ARMY

Rhonda Soso, of Compton, California, was among fans shooting pictures outside Paisley Park. She wore a pendant of Prince's symbol, which she had also spray-painted in black along the legs of her white pants.

Soso said she was there "just to be part of the purple family, the purple army."

She said it was difficult to no longer have Prince, but "his spirit, his energy is still with us."

LOCALS LOVE THEIR PRINCE

Liz Larson, 36, of Minneapolis, stopped by the star outside First Avenue on her way to work Friday to pay her respects.

She said her mother was a singer in the 1980s and would sometimes hang out with Prince at First Avenue. Larson remembers being at concerts there herself when Prince would suddenly show up to play.

Prince's music "was something you could always put on if you wanted to make people dance at a party," she said. "It would always shift the mood."

Larson felt isolated last year when Prince died - traveling on business with co-workers who didn't share her grief. This year, she planned to be at First Avenue's dance party Saturday with her husband and 6-month-old son - in a Prince onesie.

Ryan Matson, 39, of Ramsey, also stopped by Prince's star to get a photo. He said he had always liked his music, but "after he died, you started liking his songs all over again."

He planned to go home after work, have a few beers and watch "Purple Rain."

__

Baenen reported from Chanhassen, Minnesota. Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski contributed.

FILE In this Nov. 2, 2016 file photo, a replica of the Memorial Fence is shown at Prince's Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minn. Paisley Park, home and studio of the late musician Prince, is open for public tours. At his home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap for the one-year anniversary of his death on April 21, 2016, ranging from concert performances by the great one's former band mates to panel discussions on his legacy. Fans who can't afford those high-dollar tickets can head to a street party outside the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." (AP Photo/Jeff Baenen,File)

FILE - In this Feb. 4, 2007, file photo, Prince performs during the halftime show at the Super Bowl XLI NFL football game at Dolphin Stadium in Miami. Prince died at his home in Chanhassen, Minn. on April 21, 2016 at the age of 57. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

FILE - In this April 22, 2016 file photo, a woman places flowers at a memorial at First Avenue in Minneapolis where pop super star Prince often performed. At his home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap for the one-year anniversary of his death on April 21, 2016, ranging from concert performances by the great one's former band mates to panel discussions on his legacy. Fans who can't afford those high-dollar tickets can head to a street party outside the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

FILE - In this Aug 28, 2016, file photo, a mural honoring the late Prince adorns a building in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. In addition, at his home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap for the one-year anniversary of his death on April 21, 2016, ranging from concert performances by the great one's former band mates to panel discussions on his legacy. Fans who can't afford those high-dollar tickets can head to a street party outside the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

In this April 4, 2017 photo, graffiti memorials to the late Prince mark the Riley Creek underpass which has become the new graffiti bridge near his home and studio in Chanhassen, Minn. Fans have been marking it since the rock star's death from an accidental overdose on April 21, 2016. At his home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap for the one-year anniversary of his death, ranging from concert performances by the great one's former band mates to panel discussions on his legacy. Fans who can't afford those high-dollar tickets can head to a street party outside the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2016 file photo, a Prince costume and motorcycle are on display at Prince's Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minn. Paisley Park, home and studio of the late musician Prince, is open for public tours. At his home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap for the one-year anniversary of his death on April 21, 2016, ranging from concert performances by the great one's former band mates to panel discussions on his legacy. Fans who can't afford those high-dollar tickets can head to a street party outside the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." (AP Photo/Jeff Baenen, File)

FILE - In this April 22, 2016 file photo, Scott Ewing and his wife Gina Easley, view Prince's Purple Rain outfit on display at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, Minn. The one-year anniversary of Prince's death from an overdose will be marked April 21, 2017. At his home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap for the one-year anniversary of his death, ranging from concert performances by the great one's former band mates to panel discussions on his legacy. Fans who can't afford those high-dollar tickets can head to a street party outside the club he made famous in "Purple Rain." (Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via AP, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 22, 1985 file photo, Prince performs in concert at Riverfront Coliseum during his Purple Rain Tour in Cincinnati, Ohio. Prince died at his home in Chanhassen, Minn. on April 21, 2016 at the age of 57. (AP Photo/Rob Burns, File)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - From deep within an Israeli prison, Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti has once again thrust himself to the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By organizing a mass hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Barghouti has solidified his standing as a likely successor to President Mahmoud Abbas. He also has proven to Israel that, despite serving multiple life sentences, he cannot be ignored as the country marks 50 years of control over the Palestinian territories.

Barghouti is the most prominent of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, and even after 15 years behind bars, he continues to cast a long shadow over the region.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 file photo, senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti makes the victory sign in front of the media during his arrival to testify in a trial at a Jerusalem court. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

While viewed by Israel as an arch terrorist, he is seen by Palestinians as a national hero, often drawing comparisons to the late South African President Nelson Mandela. He has called the new hunger strike the "long walk to freedom," the title of Mandela's autobiography about life in prison during the apartheid era.

"Marwan is the best candidate to inspire and lead the new generation from behind bars, just as Mandela did," said Qadura Fares, a Barghouti supporter and leader of the Palestinian prisoners' association.

Palestinian officials say Israel is holding some 6,500 "security prisoners" - people jailed for charges ranging from stone-throwing and membership in groups outlawed by Israel, to attacks that wounded or killed Israelis. Several hundred are being detained without charges.

Barghouti was arrested in 2002 during the violent Palestinian uprising and convicted on multiple counts of murder. Israel charged him with directing suicide bombings against its citizens, and he was sentenced to five life terms. Barghouti did not offer a defense, refusing to recognize the court's authority.

As many as 1,500 prisoners are believed to have joined the strike. Their immediate demands included better conditions, more contact with relatives, and an end to Israel's practice of detentions without trial.

But the strike's significance runs far deeper, with long-ranging implications in the brewing struggle to succeed the 82-year-old Abbas and efforts to end a bitter 10-year rift between Abbas' Fatah movement and the rival Hamas militant group.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Barghouti wrote that Israeli prisons have become the "cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination."

Over the years, polls have indicated that Barghouti is the most popular choice among Palestinians to succeed Abbas, who has refused to groom a political heir.

He also is seen as the only figure in Abbas' Fatah movement who also enjoys support from Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas' forces a decade ago. The ongoing rift is a major impediment to Abbas' goal of establishing a Palestinian state in both territories.

Barghouti appears intent on becoming the next Palestinian president, and some believe that Israel will be forced to release him because he is such a unifying figure to the Palestinians. Over the years, Israel has released a number of top security inmates in prisoner swaps and other agreements with the Palestinians.

With peace efforts frozen, any potential release seems far off at best. But Barghouti is busy preparing for the future by using the hunger strike to shore up his standing.

In December, he was the top vote getter at a Fatah leadership contest, but was nonetheless denied a senior position in the movement, in what many saw as an effort by Abbas to sideline him.

"This strike is bringing him back again to the forefront of Palestinian politics," said Akram Atallah, a columnist for the pro-Fatah al-Ayyam newspaper.

"Barghouti is preparing himself for the post 82-year-old President Abbas era," he said.

Israel's prison service said Barghouti has no special status and is treated like any other prisoner. But the day after the strike began, Israel announced that Barghouti had been transferred to a new prison and placed in solitary confinement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the New York Times for describing "arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti as a 'parliamentarian and leader'" in his op-ed piece. Under Israeli pressure, the paper amended his article with a note describing the crimes for which he was convicted, while also noting his refusal to recognize the Israeli court's legitimacy.

For now, Israel is taking a tough line, vowing not to negotiate with the hunger strikers.

Michael Oren, Israel's deputy minister for public diplomacy, called Barghouti a "convicted mass murderer of Israelis."

Oren said Barghouti "should remain behind bars and serve out those sentences until the last day of his life."

He said the hunger strike "has nothing to do with the state of Israel," and instead was connected to Fatah infighting. "I think Israel should sit quietly. If these people want to go hungry, that is their decision," he said.

But as the strike drags on, it may become harder to ignore. The strike has generated widespread support among the Palestinian public, and if anything happens to Barghouti it could ignite unrest.

Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, said she fears for her husband's life and the health of all prisoners. "This is a matter of life or death. A hunger strike is not easy," she said.

Elias Sabagh, Barghouti's lawyer, said he has received permission to visit his client on Sunday for the first time since the strike began. He said Barghouti is mentally tough and has spent time in solitary confinement. He described Barghouti as a voracious reader who enjoys books in English, Arabic and Hebrew, and closely follows the political situation.

Alon Eviatar, a former high-ranking officer in COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said that as the hunger strike drags on, both sides will be pushed to compromise.

Barghouti "views himself not just as the Fatah leader but leader of all the Palestinians. He will succeed if he gets better conditions for all prisoners," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Karin Laub in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
SEATTLE (AP) - A federal judge on Friday handed down the longest sentence ever imposed in the U.S. for a cybercrime case to the son of a member of the Russian Parliament convicted of hacking into more than 500 U.S. businesses and stealing millions of credit card numbers, which he then sold on special websites.

Roman Seleznev was sentenced to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $170 million in restitution to the business and banks that were the victims of his multiyear scheme.

Prior to his sentencing, Seleznev asked U.S. District Judge Richard Jones for leniency. He apologized to his victims and said he was remorseful for his crimes, but he urged the judge to consider his medical problems, the result of being caught in a terrorist bombing in 2011, in deciding his prison term.

FILE - In this July 11, 2014 file photo, Valery Seleznev, a prominent Russian lawmaker and the father of Roman Seleznev who was arrested on bank fraud and other charges earlier this week in the United States, speaks to the media during a news conference in Moscow, Russia. Federal prosecutors want Roman Seleznev, who was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data, to be sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay $170 million in restitution. The sentencing hearing Friday, April 21, 2017, in U.S. District Court in Seattle is expected to last several hours. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

"I plead, pray and beg your honor for mercy," he said.

But Jones told Seleznev that the bombing in Morroco "was an invitation to right your wrongs and recognize you were given a second chance in life." But instead, Jones said Seleznev "amassed a fortune" at the expense of hundreds of small business.

"You were driven by one goal: greed," Jones said.

After sentencing, Seleznev lawyer Igor Litvak read a hand-written statement from his client that said the long sentence was a political prosecution at a time of strained U.S.-Russian relations.

"This decision made by the United States government clearly demonstrates to the entire world that I'm a political prisoner," Seleznev wrote. "I was kidnapped by the U.S. Now they want to send a message to the world using me as a pawn. This message that the U.S. is sending today is not the right way to show Vladimar Putin of Russia, or any government in this world how justice works in a democracy."

He said he's a citizen of the Russian Federation and he said he wanted to send a message to that government: "Please help me. I beg you."

U.S. Attorney Annette Hayes said Seleznev's statement was "troubling." He told the judge that he accepted responsibility and then sent his lawyer out claiming the case was political, she said.

"He was treated with due process all along the way just as any U.S. citizen would have been," she said.

Seleznev was first indicted in 2011 on 29 felony charges and captured in 2014. U.S. Secret Service agents, with the help of local police, arrested Seleznev in the Maldives as he and his girlfriend arrived at an airport on their way back to Russia. The agents flew him to Guam, where he made his first court appearance, and then to Seattle, where he was placed in federal custody.

The indictment grew to 40 counts in October 2014, and his trial was held last August. A jury found him guilty on 38 charges, including nine counts of hacking and 10 counts of wire fraud.

"This is truly an unprecedented prosecution," Deputy U.S. Attorney Norman Barbosa told the judge before sentencing.

For 15 years, Seleznev broke into the payment systems of hundreds of businesses. He had more than 2.9 million unique credit card numbers in his possession when he was arrested. His thefts resulted in about $170 million in business losses.

"That is a staggering amount," Barbosa said. "It exceeds any loss amount this court has ever seen."

Seleznev was "living like a mob boss" and spent money on fast cars, expensive boats and luxury trips around the world, he said.

Prosecutors asked for a 30-year sentence to send a message to hackers around the world.

"Never before has a criminal engaged in computer fraud of this magnitude been identified, captured and convicted by an American jury," prosecutors told the judge in a presentence memo.

Litvak urged the judge to consider Seleznev's life story in his decision.

Seleznev's parents divorced when he was 2; his alcoholic mother died when he was 17; he suffered a severe head injury in a terrorist bombing in Morocco in 2011, causing his doctors to say he may not recover; and his wife divorced him while he was in a coma, Litvak told the judge.

Seleznev continues to suffer after-effects from the bombing, including seizures, Litvak said.

To prove his commitment to helping fight cybercrime, Seleznev recently arranged to give the U.S. government four of his laptops and six flash drives, and he has met with officials to discuss hacker activities, Litvak said.

Prosecutors said his offer to help fight hackers came too late.

Igor Litvak, right, the attorney for Russian hacker Roman Seleznev, talks to reporters, Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, following the federal court sentencing of Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Igor Litvak, the attorney for Russian hacker Roman Seleznev, talks to reporters, Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, following the federal court sentencing of Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Trevor McFadden acting principal deputy assistant attorney general, smiles as he talks to, Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, about the federal court sentencing of Roman Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Trevor McFadden, center, acting principal deputy assistant attorney general, talks to reporters, Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, following the federal court sentencing of Roman Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

U.S. Attorney Annette Hayes talks to reporters, Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, about the federal court sentencing Friday of Russian hacker Roman Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

A photo of Russian hacker Roman Seleznev posing with a sports car near the Kremlin is displayed for reporters Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, next to screenshots of instructions he posted online on how to steal credit card data, following the federal court sentencing of Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Trevor McFadden, left, acting principal deputy assistant attorney general, and other officials walk past photos of Russian hacker Roman Seleznev as they arrive to talk to reporters, Friday, April 21, 2017, in Seattle, following the federal court sentencing of Seleznev to 27 years in prison after he was convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card data. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
MOSCOW (AP) - Ukrainian investigators are preparing to ask a court to arrest an influential former lawmaker suspected of embezzlement, a second senior political figure to have been detained in the former Soviet republic in less than two months.

Mykola Martynenko, a top ally of former prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, was detained late on Thursday in the capital Kiev after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau announced it was preparing to file charges against him. The former chairman of the parliament's energy and fuel committee is suspected of embezzling $17.3 million by using his company to arrange purchases of uranium ore concentrate for a state-owned company which provides uranium for the country's nuclear power stations.

Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, said in televised comments on Friday that prosecutors would ask the Solomyansky district court later in the day to put Martynenko under a two-month arrest or on bail of 300 million hryvnias ($11 million)

Martynenko's detention comes less than two months after Roman Nasirov, chief of the Ukrainian Fiscal Service, was arrested pending trial on embezzlement charges. Like Martynenko, Nasirov has been mentioned in various journalist investigations on official corruption in Ukraine.

Martynenko had served in the Ukrainian parliament since 1998 but stepped down in December following reports of his involvement in money laundering in Switzerland. He has often been described as the financier behind Yatsenyuk's People's Front party.

Embezzlement charges that the former lawmaker faces could send him to prison for 12 years.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - Syria still possesses chemical weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday, warning against the banned munitions being used again.

At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional U.S. strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Mattis spoke alongside Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," said Mattis. He said he didn't want to elaborate on the amounts Syria has in order to avoid revealing sources of intelligence.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis takes seats for a meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, April 21, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)

"I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike," he said.

Israeli defense officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of President Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said "We have 100 percent information that (the) Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels."

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government. Top Assad ally, Russia, has asserted a Syrian government airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mattis in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

"We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," Netanyahu said. He referred to the U.S. cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's "forthright deeds" against the use of chemical weapons.

A few hours later sirens wailed on the Israeli held side of the Golan Heights warning of incoming rockets from Syria, the Israeli military said. It said three "projectiles" were fired and no injuries have been reported.

Israel has been largely unaffected by the Syrian civil war raging next door, suffering mostly sporadic, mostly spillover, incidents of fire. Israel has occasionally responded to fire with limited reprisals on Syrian positions.

It has also carried out a number of airstrikes on suspected weapon convoys it believed were destined for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Israel has warned against "game-changing" weapons reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon from Syria, which supports the militant group. Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets on Israeli communities in the 2006 war, while Israel bombarded militant targets in southern Lebanon.

Last month Israel shot down an anti-aircraft missile fired at its planes as they struck a suspected Hezbollah weapons convoy.

Hezbollah and Iran, both bitter enemies of Israel, along with Russia have sent forces to support Assad.

Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal to avert U.S. strikes following a chemical weapons attack in opposition-held suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 that killed hundreds of people and sparked worldwide outrage.

Ahead of that disarmament, Assad's government disclosed it had some 1,300 tons of chemical weapons, including sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard gas.

The entire stockpile was said to have been dismantled and shipped out under international supervision in 2014 and destroyed. But doubts began to emerge soon afterward that not all such armaments or production facilities were declared and destroyed. There also is evidence that the Islamic State group and other insurgents have acquired chemical weapons.

___

Associated Press writer Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this story.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, shows U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis pictures of his predecessors before they take their seats for a meeting in his office at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, April 21, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, center, accompanied by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, second right, is greeted by an Israeli military officer at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, April 21, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)
Since Turkish voters narrowly approved the expansion of the powers of the president, protesters have been out on the streets of several cities, and some have been evoking the memory of the country's founder to rally opposition.

Arguably, however, the changes in Turkey's governing system merely extend tight state control and national polarization that can be traced back to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the former army officer who founded a nation from the crumbling Ottoman empire in 1923.

Although Ataturk introduced a parliamentary system, multi-party politics did not take hold until after he died in 1938. While Turkey, a Western ally with a mostly Muslim population, has a long record of elections despite periodic military coups over the decades, a culture in which the interests of the state dominate those of the individual has prevailed.

In this Monday, April 3, 2017 photo, banners showing modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, left, and Turkey's current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, decorate a building as people watch Erdogan's speech, during a rally for the upcoming referendum, in his hometown city of Rize, in the Black Sea region, Turkey. The personality cult that grew around Ataturk has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Strong currents of nationalism, as well as both hardline secularism and religious piety, have also shaped Turkey through the generations, bolstering leaders whose strongman postures belied a nearly constant struggle to hold together the country's factions in a region prone to violent conflict.

The culmination of this trend is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose populist drive to expand his powers as president exposed increasing rifts in a nation hosting several million Syrian war refugees, enduring militant attacks and navigating tense ties with the West.

The constitutional amendments that were approved in the referendum abolish the post of prime minister and give the right to issue decrees and other powers to the president. Erdogan says the changes, most of which would officially take effect after a presidential election set for 2019, remove the rivalry inherent in a system with both a president and a prime minister, and will help Turkey deal with its many challenges; opponents believe Turkey's democratic aspirations are in sharp decline and won't recover anytime soon.

For some analysts, the weakening of Turkey's parliamentary system follows naturally from a 1982 constitution that was crafted after a military coup two years earlier and emphasized the power of the state over its citizens. Parts of the constitution have since been amended as Turkey sought to join the European Union, but the referendum measures that just passed mark a turning away from Western-style governance.

"What we are seeing is actually an attempt to consolidate state power in Turkey," said Halil Karaveli, a Sweden-based senior fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program. He described the referendum partly as a reaction to a fracturing of the state during a murky, internal struggle that culminated with a failed coup attempt last year.

The contest pitted Erdogan and his backers against followers of a Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric who Turkish officials say infiltrated the police, judiciary and other state institutions in a bid to take control of the country. Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan, has denied involvement in the botched uprising by some military units on July 15, 2016.

About 100,000 people have been fired from their jobs in a crackdown following the attempted coup, and tens of thousands have been arrested or imprisoned, including lawmakers, judges, journalists and businessmen. At a protest in Istanbul, demonstrators said Turkey's new presidential system was part of a broader campaign to quell legitimate dissent.

"They want to silence the citizens of this country," said 30-year-old Sertac Babat, who believes, along with many "no" voters, that the referendum result should be voided because of voting irregularities.

To his supporters, Erdogan has brought freedom. A former Istanbul mayor who became prime minister in 2003, he represents a class of pious Muslims, many in rural areas, who chafed under a hardline secular order that was set in motion by Ataturk during his nation-building project.

During the referendum campaign, however, Erdogan cast himself as a kindred spirit with Ataturk, declaring that Turkey's first president would have supported a stronger presidential system to overcome political gridlock that he faced at the time. Erdogan made the remark after the Bild newspaper in Germany published an article containing speculation that Ataturk would have opposed the changes, quoting an academic who said the national founder was authoritarian but not totalitarian.

Modern Turkey is a flawed project that has achieved prosperity, regional influence and other goals since its foundation, but has also been "nondemocratic, repressive, and sometimes violent," Steven Cook, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in Foreign Policy, a U.S. publication

"Erdogan is simply replacing one form of authoritarianism with another," he wrote after the referendum.

In Turkey, symbols of power abound. Ataturk's grandiose mausoleum in Ankara draws foreign dignitaries, tourists with selfie sticks and schoolchildren who gaze at honor guards in steel helmets.

Elsewhere in Turkey's capital is the 1,000-room presidential palace, built under Erdogan - on land once owned by the national founder.

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Torchia was Associated Press bureau chief in Turkey from 2007 until early 2013, and continues to cover Turkey periodically.

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Follow Christopher Torchia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/torchiachris

In this photo taken on March 29, 2017, a wax figure of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, is exhibited at the museum adjacent to his mausoleum in Ankara, Turkey. The legacy of the man whose surname means "father of Turks" was one of a modern, secular, western-leaning Turkey. For generations, Turks have revered Ataturk, who carved out modern Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this photo taken on March 29, 2017, Turkish military honour guards perform the hourly changing of the guard at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey in Ankara, Turkey. The eroding personality cult of Ataturk suffered its biggest blow yet when Turkey voted April 16 to expand the powers of the presidency, undercutting the parliamentary system that Ataturk imposed nearly a century ago. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this Saturday, April 15, 2017 photo, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan applauds during the last rally prior to the July 16 referendum, in Istanbul. The personality cult that grew around Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this Monday, April 17, 2017 photo, supporters of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather for a rally outside the Presidential Palace, in Ankara, Turkey, a day after the referendum. The vast structure in Turkey's capital with the 1,000 rooms, is built under Erdogan on land once owned by the national founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, The eroding personality cult of Ataturk suffered its biggest blow yet when Turkey voted April 16 to expand the powers of the presidency, undercutting the parliamentary system that he imposed nearly a century ago. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Wednesday, April 19, 2017 photo, a supporter of the 'No' vote, waves a Turkish flag with a picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey during a protest against Turkey's electoral board regarding the outcome of July 16 referendum, in Istanbul. The eroding personality cult of Ataturk suffered its biggest blow yet when Turkey voted April 16 to expand the powers of the presidency, undercutting the parliamentary system that Ataturk imposed nearly a century ago. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, backdropped by a statue of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, left, a poster of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is displayed in Erdogan's hometown city of Rize, in Turkey's Black Sea region. The personality cult that grew around Ataturk has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this Tuesday, March 28 , 2017 photo, backdropped by a painting of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, people attend a reception at a hotel in Ankara, Turkey. The personality cult that grew around Ataturk has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this March 29, 2017 photo, visitors of the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, visit the museum shop, in Ankara, Turkey. The legacy of the man whose surname means "father of Turks" was one of a modern, secular, western-leaning Turkey. For generations, Turks have revered Ataturk, who carved out modern Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this March 29, 2017 photo, a Turkish military officer stands as an honour guard outside the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey in Ankara, Turkey. The personality cult that grew around him has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this March 29, 2017 photo, a painting of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey is exhibited at the museum adjacent to his mausoleum in Ankara, Turkey. The legacy of the man whose surname means "father of Turks" was one of a modern, secular, western-leaning Turkey. But the personality cult that grew around him has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this March 29, 2017 photo, schoolchildren visiting the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, watch the changing of the honour guard in Ankara, Turkey. The legacy of the man whose surname means "father of Turks" was one of a modern, secular, western-leaning Turkey. But the personality cult that grew around him has very gradually been fading as current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003 as alternately prime minister and president, has harked back to the glory days of the height of the Ottoman Empire to whip up patriotic sentiment. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this Tuesday, April 4, 2017 photo, a child from inside his schoolyard, peers out from behind a fence where t-shirts with the Turkish flag, and the picture of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, are offered for sale in the Black Sea city of Rize, Turkey. The eroding personality cult of Ataturk suffered its biggest blow yet when Turkey voted April 16 to expand the powers of the presidency, undercutting the parliamentary system that Ataturk imposed nearly a century ago. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

In this Tuesday, March 28 , 2017 photo, backdropped by a painting of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, people attend a reception at a hotel in Ankara, Turkey. The eroding personality cult of Ataturk suffered its biggest blow yet when Turkey voted April 16 to expand the powers of the presidency, undercutting the parliamentary system that Ataturk imposed nearly a century ago. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
BANGKOK (AP) - A Thai court on Friday sentenced to death a Spanish man after finding him guilty of murder in the gruesome death of a fellow Spaniard.

Artur Segarra Princep had been charged with premediated murder carried out in the course of theft in the death of David Bernat, 40. Parts of his dismembered body were retrieved from Bangkok's Chao Phraya River in February last year, while traces of the victim's bloodstains and DNA were found in Segarra's Bangkok apartment.

Segarra's lawyer said his client denied the charges against him and will appeal.

Artur Segarra Princep of Spain raises his hand displaying a popular Bible verse on the palm of his hand reading, "Lucas 23:34" as he arrives at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, April 21, 2017. A Thai court has sentenced to death a Spanish man after finding him guilty of murder in the gruesome death of a fellow Spaniard. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

"We still want to prove (his innocence)," said Worasit Piriyawiboon. "Artur himself insisted that he did not commit a murder. Whether he should be found guilty of the crime of theft or the crime of murder, these are two separate crimes."

During the investigation, police said they found a freezer in Segarra's home that is believed to have been used to store the body, as well as a book with instructions on how to dismember body parts.

Police believed that Segarra held Bernat against his will and tortured him to force him to transfer money to his bank account, then killed him and chopped up his body to try to conceal the crime. The theft charge focused on 80,000 baht ($2,285), though police indicated they suspect much more was stolen.

Segarra was arrested in Cambodia and sent back to Thailand in February last year to stand trial.

Worasit noted that his client was also convicted on other charges including misusing the victim's ATM card, "but with the death sentence, other sentences don't matter."

Segarra, when being photographed by reporters in his holding cell Friday, held up his palm, on which was handwritten "Lucas 23:34," a reference to the Biblical verse "And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"

Executions are rarely carried out in Thailand.

Artur Segarra Princep of Spain exits a prison bus after arriving at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, April 21, 2017. A Thai court has sentenced to death Princep after finding him guilty of murder in the gruesome death of a fellow Spaniard. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
President Tran Dai Quang and Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines and Agriculture of Iran

Gholam Hossein Shafei (Source:VNA)



The State leader said both sides have agreed to boost bilateral economic, trade, investment cooperation across oil and gas, telecommunications, agriculture and fisheries, adding that Vietnam could export quality products to Iran at competitive prices, such as rice, tea, coffee, cashew nut, pepper, rubber, motorbike and bicycle spare parts.

The Vietnamese State encourages domestic firms to invest in Iran, as well as makes it easier for Iranian citizens and businesspeople to survey market and boost trade, investment and tourism in Vietnam.

The State also encourages Vietnamese banks to sign cooperation agreements with Iranian counterparts to pave the way for smooth payment, he said.

The host emphasised that Iran will have a chance to access an over-90-million-people market when investing in Vietnam, adding that Vietnam stands ready to become a bridge linking Iran and ASEAN market with a 600 million-plus population and tens of other markets with which Vietnam did and will sign free trade agreements.

Shafei, who is in Vietnam to attend the Vietnam-Iran business forum held the same day, stressed that the Look East policy and development of ties with East Asian countries are Irans top priority, in which Vietnam plays an important role in reinforcing ties between Iran and regional countries.

According to him, two-way trade has grown 22 percent following high-level mutual visits in 2016.

As Vietnam is among the top 20 countries that Iran attaches importance to developing economic-trade ties, the bilateral trade value will further grow, he said.

The guest affirmed that Iran is willing to serve as a gateway for Vietnam to extend ties with Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Informing the host about the outcomes of the forum, Shafei said both sides vowed to establish the Vietnam-Iran Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with offices expected to be inaugurated in the two nations next March./.
TOKYO (AP) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering Friday to the controversial Yasukuni shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.

The leafy "masakaki" plant was sent for the shrine's spring festival the same day that more than 90 Japanese lawmakers and Internal Affairs Minister Sanae Takaichi visited Yasukuni.

Abe has made regular offerings for Yasukuni's seasonal festivals but has not visited the shrine since December 2013, when he drew rebukes not only from China and South Korea but also the United States.

As victims of Japan's aggression before and during World War II, China and South Korea see the shrine as a symbol of Japan's militarism.

South Korea, in a written statement, expressed "deep concern and regret over responsible political leaders of the government and the parliament of Japan having once again sent offerings to and paid tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine, which glorifies Japan's past colonial rule and war of aggression and enshrines war criminals."

In Beijing, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said "the ones who attended the Yasukuni shrine are honoring war criminals who have direct responsibility for crimes committed during World War II."

He urged Japan to "reflect and examine their history of colonization, and to sever ties with their militarism past."

Hidehisa Otsuji, the head of a lawmaker group campaigning for official visits to the shrine, said he believed the prime minister's decision on whether to make personal visits should be based on "the priorities of national interest."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Abe's offering was made in a "personal capacity," but declined to comment further.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):

3:50 p.m.

President Donald Trump says that if the Justice Department wants to charge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, "it's OK with me."

President Donald Trump waves as he heads back to the White House in Washington, Friday, April 21, 2017, after signing an executive order to review tax regulations set last year by his predecessor, as well as two memos to potentially reconsider major elements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms passed in the wake of the Great Recession at the Treasury Department. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Trump says he is not involved in that decision-making process, but would support Attorney General Jeff Sessions if he charged Assange with a crime.

The administration has stepped up its rhetoric against WikiLeaks in recent days, despite the fact that Trump welcomed the group's release of a top Hillary Clinton aide's emails during the election.

Sessions told reporters Thursday that Assange's arrest is a priority as the Justice Department steps up efforts to prosecute people who leak classified information to the media. CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week denounced WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service" and a threat to U.S. national security.

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2:04 p.m.

President Donald Trump says young immigrants shielded from deportation - often referred to as "dreamers" - should "rest easy" about his immigration policies.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump says he is "not after the dreamers, we are after the criminals." He says "that is our policy."

President Barack Obama changed enforcement priorities to protect many young people brought to the country illegally as children from deportation.

Attorneys say 23-year-old Juan Manuel Montes was recently deported to Mexico despite having qualified for deferred deportation. Montes sued Tuesday for access to records on his deportation.

Trump says Montes' case is "a little different than the Dreamer case," though he did not specify why.

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2:02 p.m.

President Donald Trump says businesses and individuals will receive a "massive tax cut" under a tax reform package he plans to unveil next week.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump says the plan will result in tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. He would not provide details of the plan, saying only that the tax cuts will be "bigger I believe than any tax cut ever."

The president says the package will be released on "Wednesday or shortly thereafter" - just before his 100 day mark in office.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin initially set a goal of getting tax reform passed by August, but that deadline has slipped. Mnuchin now says the administration still hoped to get a bill passed well before the end of the year.

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1:55 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he believes Thursday's attack in Paris will "probably help" far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in France's upcoming election.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump says he is not explicitly endorsing Le Pen. But he says he believes she will be helped by the attack that left a Paris police officer dead, because she's the candidate who is "strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France."

France's anti-terrorism prosecutor said Friday the gunman had a note with him defending the Islamic State group.

Trump says he believes the attack will impact how the French people vote in Sunday's first round of voting in the presidential election. He says he's not worried about emboldening terrorists by saying an attack can have an impact on a democratic election.

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9:45 a.m.

President Donald Trump says that if China wants to solve "the North Korean problem, they will."

Trump has been pressing China both publicly and privately to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions.

In a tweet Friday morning, Trump said that China is the "economic lifeline" to North Korea. He conceded that "nothing is easy" regarding the tense situation with Pyongyang.

Trump's recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping focused in part on North Korea's nuclear aims.

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7:20 a.m.

President Donald Trump says the 100-day benchmark often used to measure a new administration's achievements is a "ridiculous standard."

Trump tweeted Friday, "No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!"

Trump hits the 100-day mark in office on April 29.

Since taking office, Trump has managed to get a Supreme Court justice confirmed and is pursuing tougher regulations on immigration. But his health care bill didn't come up for a vote in the House, and his travel ban was blocked in the courts.

The 100-day assessment started with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Earlier this week, Trump declared that "no administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days."

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6:50 a.m.

President Donald Trump says that the latest attack in Paris will have a "big effect" on France's upcoming presidential election.

Trump tweeted early Friday, "Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!"

An attacker emerged from a car in Paris Thursday and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers in the center of the Champs-Elysees. One officer was killed, as was the gunman. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement.

Candidates in France's presidential election treaded carefully in response to the attack with the first round of voting set for Sunday.

Trump has not expressed an opinion on the upcoming French election, although he was a supporter of the British decision to exit the European Union and has instead stated his preference to one-on-one trade and defense agreements with U.S. allies.

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3:20 a.m.

Iran is failing to fulfill the "spirit" of its nuclear deal with world powers, President Donald Trump has declared, setting an ominous tone for his forthcoming decision about whether to pull the U.S. out of the landmark agreement.

As he often had during the president campaign, Trump ripped into the deal struck by Iran, the U.S. and other world powers in 2015 and said "it shouldn't have been signed." Yet he pointedly stopped sort of telegraphing whether or not the U.S. would stay in.

Speaking of the Iranians, Trump said: "They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that,: although he didn't mention any specific violations. Earlier this week, the administration certified to Congress than Iran was complying - at least technically - with the terms of the deal, clearing the way for Iran to continue enjoying sanctions relief in the near term.
BAGHDAD (AP) - After nearly a year and a half in captivity, Qatar on Friday secured the release of 26 hostages, including members of its ruling family, in what became possibly the region's most complex and sensitive hostage negotiation deal in recent years.

Several people with knowledge of the talks and a person involved in the negotiations said the hostage deal was linked to one of the largest population transfers in Syria's six-year-long civil war, and was delayed for several days due to an explosion one week ago that killed at least 130 people, most of them children and government supporters, waiting to be transferred.

The transfer of thousands of Syrian civilians was also tied to another deal involving 750 political prisoners to be released by the Syrian government.

The complexity of the talks highlights Qatar's role as an experienced and shrewd facilitator in hostage negotiations - this time involving members of the Gulf Arab state's ruling family.

It also raised allegations that the tiny energy-rich nation paid millions of dollars to an al-Qaida-linked group to facilitate the population transfer in Syria that led to the hostages' release in Iraq.

Qatar is home to Centcom's regional headquarters and is where the U.S. has its largest military base in the Middle East. It is also a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The incident was sparked when the group was kidnapped Dec. 16, 2015 from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq. They apparently had permits to hunt in that area inside Muthanna province, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Shiite militias are active in that area and work closely with the neighboring Shiite power Iran.

A person involved in the negotiations told the AP that 11 of the captives were members of Qatar's Al Thani ruling family. He also said Qatar paid tens of millions of dollars to Shiite groups, and to the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and Ahrar al-Sham, which are involved in the population transfers underway in Syria. Both groups were part of an armed opposition alliance that swept through Syria's Idlib province, seizing it from government control in 2015 and laying siege to two pro-government villages now being evacuated.

Speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, the negotiator said the Qatari group was being held by Iraqi Shiite militia Kata'eb Hezbollah. The group officially denies it was behind the kidnapping and no other group has publicly claimed responsibility for the abduction.

He said Qatari officials were given assurances about the well-being of the hostages during negotiations.

Two Iraqi officials- a government and a security official - also confirmed details of the release to the AP.

The abduction of the Qatari group drew Iran, Qatar and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah into negotiations, resulting in millions of dollars in payments to Sunni and Shiite factions, according to Iraqi officials and a person involved in the negotiations. They say the talks took place in Beirut.

The negotiator said the ongoing evacuation and transfer of thousands of Syrians from four besieged areas was central to the release of the Qataris. The two pro-government villages, Foua and Kfarya, had been besieged by rebel fighters and under a steady barrage of rockets and mortars for years. The two opposition-held towns, Zabadani and Madaya, were under government siege for joining the 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The opposition-run Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict through a network of on-the-ground activists, says the transfer included 800 armed men from both sides. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the group, told the AP that the population swap in Syria was directly tied to the issue of the kidnapped Qataris.

Abdurrahman, citing information from negotiators he'd spoken with, said the Qataris first proposed bringing the fate of the hunting group into the talks about the besieged four areas in Syria.

The population exchange has been criticized by rights groups, which say it rewards siege tactics and amounts to forcible displacement along sectarian lines.

Iraqi Interior Ministry official Wahhab al-Taie told The Associated Press the hostages were all Qatari nationals and had been released into the custody of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The group departed Friday afternoon on a private Qatari jet from Baghdad airport.

Qataris on social media shared their elation at the release. With a population of around 2.6 million people, the crisis reverberated across the small country.

Their release was a priority of Qatar's foreign policy for more than a year, said David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The AP reported last week that a Qatari ruling family member paid $2 million , in an effort involving hackers, to secure the release of the hostages.

Weinberg, who has testified before Congress about Qatar's role in hostage negotiations, said alleged enormous payments paid to a group with ties to al-Qaida creates incentive for future hostage taking. He said Qatar continues to "punch above its weight" in ways that concern some people in Washington.

"This is going to confront the new (Trump) administration in Washington with a serious question... Is the U.S. administration going to push Qatar to ensure that it does not pay ransom to terrorist organizations in the future," he said.

Defense Secretary James Mattis is due to arrive in Qatar on Saturday as part of his first region-wide official visit since President Donald Trump took office.

Qatar says it does not support extremist groups in Syria or elsewhere, despite aggressive efforts to back Sunni rebel groups fighting to oust the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, which is backed by Iran and Russia.

The country's ambitious foreign policy efforts haven't always succeeded. Gulf neighbors withdrew their ambassadors in 2014 over Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood group in Egypt, where the group was ousted.

Still, Qatar plays an important role by talking to groups that many governments want to distance themselves from, said Ayham Kamel of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

For example, Qatar's capital city of Doha has hosted talks between the Taliban and Afghan government. Qatar has also secured the release of hostages in Syria's civil war, including 13 Greek Orthodox nuns held by an al-Qaida affiliate there.

"They're able to, at different times, be very pragmatic what about needs to be done in narrow agreements," Kamel said.

Kamel says the deal struck to release the Qatari nationals shows that Doha's politics have become more nuanced.

Qatar's ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani called Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to thank his government's efforts to secure the release, according to a statement from al-Abadi's office.

Qatari officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
SHENZHEN, China (AP) - Bernd Wiesberger of Austria fired a bogey-free 7-under 65 to lead by four shots when the second round of the Shenzhen International was suspended due to storms on Friday.

Wiesberger completed his first round in the morning after lightning also halted play on Thursday, and birdied the par-5 17th to get within one of the lead. He added another seven birdies in round two to get to 12 under overall.

Dylan Frittelli of South Africa and Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark carded matching rounds of 68-68 and were tied for second at 8 under.

Richie Ramsay of Scotland also had a 68 and was a further shot back alongside Gregory Bourdy of France (2 under through four holes) and overnight leader Bubba Watson (1 under through five).

Wiesberger has not missed a cut over the last eight months while claiming seven top-five finishes as he seeks a fourth European Tour title.
PARIS (AP) - Conservative candidate Francois Fillon has fallen from front-runner to struggling survivor in France's presidential race as corruption allegations have damaged his image.

Fillon's campaign has been flailing since the investigation began in January. He was handed preliminary charges last month, including misuse of public funds, and receiving money from misuse of public funds and company assets.

The 63-year-old politician denies any wrongdoing, and opinion polls suggest he has a chance to be one of two candidates to advance to the May 7 runoff election.

FILE - In this April 9, 2017 file photo, Conservative French presidential candidate Francois Fillon and his wife Penelope attend a campaign meeting in Paris. Conservative candidate Francois Fillon is struggling to keep his chances in the presidential election despite a personal image damaged by corruption allegations. Once a front-runner in the race, Fillon's campaign has been flailing since the investigation began in January. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

Fillon hopes his experience as former prime minister and hard-line views on security issues will give his campaign a boost following the shooting of police officers Thursday in Paris.

He initially said he would withdraw from the race if he was charged, but later said he was determined to let voters judge him instead of investigators.

"France is greater than my errors", he said, calling the judicial investigation a "political assassination."

Fillon, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2012 during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, says his priority as president would be to fight "Islamic totalitarianism."

He has pledged to boost police and military forces, cut taxes on businesses, slash public spending to boost France's stagnant economy and to reduce immigration "to a strict minimum."

He also promises to drastically reduce the number of public servants, raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 and extend the workweek beyond 35 hours.

He has a strong focus on traditional family values. He pledged to ban full adoption by same-sex couples.

Since January, he was forced to limit his campaign events to political rallies and a few visits under high security, to avoid anti-corruption protests and demonstrators shouting "Fillon in prison!"

In 1981, Fillon was elected to parliament for the first time, representing his electoral fief of Sable-sur-Sarthe, a small town in rural western France.

At 27, he was the youngest lawmaker of the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly.

He served five times as a government member under Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac.

In the wake of the global economic crisis in 2008, Fillon as prime minister implemented a plan to cut public spending and raise taxes.

The corruption scandal has his Welsh wife, Penelope, under the spotlights. She was previously seen as a discreet housewife, the mother of five, and not involved in politics.

Fillon is suspected of paying Penelope and two of their children more than 1 million euros ($1.1 million) over many years for positions as parliamentary aides that involved no sustained work.

It is legal, and not uncommon, for French lawmakers to hire family members or close acquaintances as parliamentary aides - but they are expected to work.

Judges are also looking into allegations that Fillon was given suits by lawyer Robert Bourgi, an unofficial adviser for French and African presidents, worth more than 48,000 euros ($52,000) over the past five years - including two suits with a combined value of 13,000 euros ($14,000) last month.

Bourgi had close links to former French presidents Jacques Chirac and Sarkozy, as well as the former leaders of Senegal and Gabon.

Judges are also investigating whether Fillon and his wife committed fraud and forgery in a cover-up attempt.

FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2017 file photo, French Conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon makes a speech during a campaign meeting in Paris. Conservative candidate Francois Fillon is struggling to keep his chances in the presidential election despite a personal image damaged by corruption allegations. Once a front-runner in the race, Fillon's campaign has been flailing since the investigation began in January. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2017 file photo, French Conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon wipes his forehead during a campaign meeting in Paris. Conservative candidate Francois Fillon is struggling to keep his chances in the presidential election despite a personal image damaged by corruption allegations. Once a front-runner in the race, Fillon's campaign has been flailing since the investigation began in January. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's main opposition party on Friday called for the dismissal of Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, saying his actions and choice of aides raised security questions.

Macierewicz has been considered a controversial figure ever since he appeared in Polish politics in the early 1990s. The opposition says he is harming Poland's army, a NATO member.

Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of the pro-European Civic Platform party, said it was seeking a parliament no-confidence vote on Macierewicz.

The vote is expected to fail, given the ruling party's parliamentary majority. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said she was not considering Macierewicz's dismissal.

But Schetyna said the defense minister should go because of his choice of two aides who lacked the proper qualifications for their sensitive jobs.

Bartlomiej Misiewicz, 27, sometimes represented Macierewicz and was saluted to by officers. The second one, Waclaw Berczynski, an emigre professor based in the U.S., was head of the ministry's special commission tasked with proving that the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, that killed President Lech Kaczynski resulted from a bomb attack.

Aviation experts have found that the crash was an accident. But the ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president's twin brother, still rallies supporters around the conspiracy theory.

Schetyna also pointed to Poland's last-minute withdrawal from a helicopter deal worth billions of euros. "Such non-transparent deals raise questions of corruption," Schetyna said.

The ruling Law and Justice party won the 2015 election largely on promises its government will fight corruption.

Berczynski recently said he was behind the cancellation of the helicopter deal, provoking an outcry over why a private citizen was given access to ministry documents. On Thursday, the defense minister accepted his resignation.

Misiewicz, meanwhile, was dismissed due to pressure from Kaczynski.

Despite the resignations of his aides, political analyst Anna Materska-Sosnowska says Macierewicz still has a very strong position in the ruling party "based on the 'Smolensk myth'" that he supports.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Thursday night attack that killed a Paris police officer and injured two other officers and a tourist on the Champs-Elysees. Officials haven't said if they believe that claim is credible, but they believe he was operating alone. Here's a look at other extremist attacks in France over the past few years:

July 26, 2016: Two Islamic State militants attack a church during morning Mass in the small town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in western France, slitting the throat of the 85-year-old priest and wounding an 86-year-old parishioner. One nun escapes and gives the alert, and police shoot both attackers as they leave the church.

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A woman lays a flower at the place of Thursday's attack on the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris, Friday, April 21, 2017. France began picking itself up Friday from another deadly shooting claimed by the Islamic State group, with President Francois Hollande convening the government's security council and his would-be successors in the presidential election campaign treading carefully before voting this weekend. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

July 14, 2016: During Bastille Day celebrations in the Riviera city of Nice, a large truck is driven into a festive crowd, killing 86 people. The driver is shot dead. Islamic State extremists claim responsibility for the attack. The state of emergency in France is extended and extra protection, including robust barriers to prevent similar attacks, is put in place at major sites in France.

___

June 13, 2016: Two French police officers are murdered in their home in front of their 3-year-old son. The Islamic State group claims responsibility for the attack carried out by a jihadist with a prior terrorist conviction. He is killed by police at the scene.

___

Nov. 13, 2015: Islamic State militants kill 130 people in France's worst atrocity since World War II. A series of suicide-bomb and shooting attacks is launched on crowded sites in central Paris, as well as the northern suburb of Saint-Denis. Most of those killed are in a crowded theater where hostages are taken.

Islamic State extremists claim responsibility and say it was in retaliation for French participation in airstrikes on the militant group's positions in Syria and Iraq. It leads to the declaration of a state of emergency in France. Police powers are expanded.

___

Jan. 7, 2015: Two brothers kill 11 people inside the Paris building where the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is headquartered in what Islamic State extremists claim is retaliation for the publication of cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. More people are killed subsequently in attacks on a kosher market in eastern Paris and on police. There are 17 victims in all, including two police officers. The attackers are killed.

Police officers patrol on the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris, Friday, April 21, 2017. France began picking itself up Friday from another deadly shooting claimed by the Islamic State group, with President Francois Hollande convening the government's security council and his would-be successors in the presidential election campaign treading carefully before voting this weekend. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A defense lawyer is being criticized for telling a Tennessee jury that women are "especially good" at lying "because they're the weaker sex."

The Commercial Appeal in Memphis reports (http://memne.ws/2pmNhN3) a jury on Friday found wealthy businessman Mark Giannini not guilty of three counts of rape. The newspaper said the woman he was accused of raping left crying and screaming.

Attorney Steve Farese made the comments during closing arguments in the case. Giannini had been accused of raping the woman when she came to his house for a job interview. Farese maintains that the sex was consensual and has questioned the woman's credibility.

FILE - In this April 18, 2007, file photo, defense attorney Steve Farese Sr., speaks in Selmer, Tenn., in the trial of Mary Winkler, who was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the March 2006 shooting death of her preacher husband, Matthew Winkler. Farese is being criticized for telling a Tennessee jury that women are "especially good" at lying "because they're the weaker sex." The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports Farese made the comments during closing arguments of the trial of Mark Giannini, a wealthy businessman accused of raping a woman. Farese maintains that the sex was consensual. He told the Commercial Appeal that his job "is not to care if anybody gets offended." (AP Photo/Russell Ingle, File)

Memphis Area Women's Council executive director Deborah Clubb calls Farese's comments "absolutely despicable."

Farese told the newspaper that his job "is not to care if anybody gets offended" and "smart people will see it for what it is."

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said in a statement that prosecutors are "deeply disappointed" in the outcome but respect the jury's verdict.

"The victim in this case exhibited great strength and courage," Weirich said. "We are saddened for her and hope that this result does not discourage other victims from speaking up."

Farese and other defense lawyers addressed the media outside the courtroom after the verdict.

"We thought all along our client was not guilty," Farese said. "We knew we had a difficult hill to climb. We knew that he had been convicted by public opinion and we were very, very concerned and now we're very, very pleased."

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Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://www.commercialappeal.com
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The creators of Amazon's "Catastrophe," which stars Carrie Fisher in one of her final roles, said they were shocked by her unexpected death last year and had bigger plans for her character.

"We had no idea. I don't think she had any idea," series star and co-creator Rob Delaney said in an interview Thursday.

On Dec. 23, Fisher was returning to Los Angeles from London after shooting her final scenes for season three of "Catastrophe." She suffered a medical emergency aboard the flight and died on Dec. 27 at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, file photo, actress Carrie Fisher attends a special screening of, "Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds," at Alice Tully Hall in New York. The creators of Amazon's "Catastrophe," which stars Fisher in one of her final roles, said news of her death Dec. 27, 2016, was "utterly shocking." "We had no idea. I don't think she had any idea," said series star and co-creator Rob Delaney of possible warning signs or health concerns for the 60-year-old actress. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

Fisher, 60, played Delaney's mother, Mia, in the series about a couple navigating the highs and lows of marriage and parenthood. The new season begins streaming April 28.

The show also stars Sharon Horgan, who spent time with Fisher the night before her fateful flight.

"We had dinner and she skipped off to her room," said Horgan, who is also a "Catastrophe" co-creator. "And she had been at the antique market earlier that day and she was showing me all these lovely little bits and pieces that she bought for her mom to bring back."

Fisher's mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, died the day after her daughter. Reynolds was 84.

Horgan said Fisher spoke of a renewed excitement about her acting career and "had massive plans to do more of that."

"She brought her incredible, crazy, hilarious, warm, kind personality, but she also brought us the character of Mia. You know, we wrote it down, but she made her the brilliant monster that she is," Horgan said. "I miss her, but I'll miss her in our show, you know, I'll miss that character and I'll miss being able to tell that character's story."

Delaney and Horgan said they deeply regret not having more time with the actress and her "Catastrophe" character.

"Only now am I realizing - because I've been sad as a human being and friend of hers - but yeah, I do feel now stolen from," Delaney said.

"We wanted to do a lot more with Carrie. I was only just beginning to be invited to her house!" Horgan said. "We wanted to tell more about that character. We wanted to flesh her out more and give her a story and a reason for her behavior. And the only reason why we did that is because Carrie made us want to do that."

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Follow Nicole Evatt on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NicoleEvatt
TIRANA, Albania (AP) - An Albanian court has sentenced a former lawmaker and ex-leader of the rightist Christian Democratic Party to 7 years in prison for money laundering, illegal construction and hiding property.

However, the Tirana Court of Serious Crimes rejected a murder charge against Mark Frroku related to a killing in Belgium in 1999.The Tirana Court of Serious Crimes on Friday sentenced Frroku, 44, for money laundry, illegal construction and hiding property.

Frroku, who was not present at the court Friday to hear the verdict, was arrested in 2015 after his false testimony over claims that the parliament speaker was behind an alleged assassination plot to kill two deputies.

Frroku's lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.
Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam Peoples Army Pham Ngoc Minh and Captain Nguyen Quoc Khanh (Photo: VNA)



The decision was presented by Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam Peoples Army (VPA) Pham Ngoc Minh on April 20th.

On behalf of Defence Ministry leaders, Minh lauded Khanhs performance and preparations for his upcoming assignment.

He urged Vietnamese officers on peacekeeping missions to strictly follow Vietnams policies on external relations, and regulations set by the VPA, the UN mission and the host country.

Vietnam officially joined the UN peacekeeping activities in 2014, it has sent 12 officers to UN peacekeeping operations in South Sudan and Central African Republic.

The country is actively preparing for the deployment of a second-level field hospital and a company of sappers, and focusing on training female and male soldiers to serve the UN peacekeeping missions in the coming time./.
PRAGUE (AP) - Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek says his country cannot accept the acquittal in Britain of a man charged with murdering a Czech national there, and intends to seek a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights.

Zdenek Makar, 31, died in September after a fight in London involving four Britons. One of them, 29-year-old Raymond Sculley, was acquitted by a jury earlier in this month of charges of murder and manslaughter.

After a consultation with British prosecutors, Zaoralek said Friday he had "no doubt" that the verdict was wrong, and the right to a proper trial was denied.

FILE - In this Jan. 25, 2017 file pgoto Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic Lubomir Zaoralek speaks during press conference in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017. Zaoralek said Friday, April 21, 2017 his country cannot accept a court ruling that cleared a Briton charged with the murder of a Czech national living in Britain and is ready to challenge it at the European Court of Human Rights. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file)

He says: "Something happened that has to be punished."
REDLAND, Fla. (AP) - Antonia Catalan maneuvers her gray SUV around potholes in the dirt roads where rural South Florida meets the swampy Everglades. She's looking for a man who's in the country illegally.

She puts on her reading glasses and grabs a crumpled piece of paper with the address of a nursery that grows palm trees for Miami's affluent communities. A muddy driveway leads to a trailer home and a young man with an empty water jug.

"Where are we heading? You are the boss," says Catalan, 59, tossing her long braid over her shoulder. "I'm in no hurry."

In this April 1, 2017 photo, Antonia Catalan drives her SUV in the town of Redland, Fla., to pick up a migrant worker who is in the country illegally. As a U.S. citizen with a driver's license, Catalan offers free rides to immigrants in the country illegally and without driver's licenses, so they can avoid arrest as fear spreads over President Donald Trump's directives to expand immigration enforcement. (AP Photo/Adriana Gomez)

The 32-year-old Guatemalan passenger is one of a dozen workers Catalan drives for free. It's her one-woman response to the fear spreading in migrant communities over President Donald Trump's enforcement directives.

Around the country, many more ordinary people are volunteering to help people in the country illegally.

Hundreds of church members are signing up to create or support sanctuaries, hoping to protect immigrants from deportations inside houses of worship. Others are training to accompany immigrants to court or check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement where they could be detained and deported.

Immigration law experts say volunteering to help immigrants already in the country illegally is generally not against the law. They say that although federal law makes it a crime to transport people in the country illegally, the law was intended to apply for those that help them cross into the U.S. without permission.

Tammy Fox-Isicoff, board member of American Immigration Lawyers' Association, said "it would be a big stretch" to consider Catalan's service criminal behavior because she is not trying to hide the immigrants.

However, Trump has raised doubts by ordering up rules to penalize people who "facilitate their presence" in the U.S. Conservative critics say these kinds of volunteers should be punished along with the immigrants they are helping.

A bill was introduced in Florida last year to create penalties under state law for harboring people in the country illegally, but it didn't pass.

Catalan's ride-hailing service has grown as she tells neighbors and friends in her town of Redland that she'll drive immigrants to supermarkets, money-transfer booths, package couriers and even the hospital.

She was born in Mexico, but unlike many of her neighbors, she's a U.S. citizen with a driver's license. California, Illinois, Washington and Maryland are among the states that issue driver's licenses to people in the country illegally, but not Florida, where staying out of trouble by driving carefully is a strategy migrants can't count on.

Since leaving the nursery she opened more than a decade ago to her older daughter, Catalan doesn't have a job. Instead, she offers a ride almost every day. Her daughter helps pay for gas.

What started as a free ride turned into a counseling session this afternoon in the verdant fields of Redland, 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Miami.

"If you don't get into trouble, everything should be fine. But, for example, you want to drink? Do it at home," she told her passenger.

The man, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally three years ago, only recently stopped driving, citing fears of being stopped by police. He said he's too worried about getting detained and deported to have his identity made public.

Since Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez agreed in January to hold people in jail for even minor offenses if Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to pick them up, six people arrested on a single charge of driving without a valid license have been turned over to ICE. Four others also charged with another misdemeanor, such as drunken-driving or petty theft, have faced the same fate.

Eight of those ten jailed in Miami-Dade were first-time offenders.

Some authorities have been more lenient. Miami-Dade County Judge Louise Krieger-Martin let a handful of unlicensed drivers go free with citations and orders to take driver's education classes one recent morning.

One of them, Abraham, said he has been stopped twice in the past three months, and was let go with only a ticket after an acquaintance with a license walked by and offered to drive the car to get it off the street. Also from Guatemala and fearing deportation, he spoke on condition his surname not be used.

The Mexican-American Council in Homestead has been advising families that driving isn't worth the risk.

Catalan picks up some of the slack, but there's only so much she can do.

"I sometimes can't take everyone who calls me, so I wish more people with driver's licenses would help," she said.

Catalan, who became a citizen after President Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty legalized the status of about 3 million people, says driving others has become her therapy.

"This does me good. I feel like they trust me, and I tell them that they don't have to be scared," she said. "Maybe they feel better, too."
NEW YORK (AP) - Reid Scott says he can relate to Dan Egan, the character he plays on HBO's "Veep" - a cocky, selfish political insider who gets fired as much as he's hired.

"No one has been fired more than Dan, which is kind of funny because actually in my own personal life I've been fired quite a bit," he said in a recent interview. "I think my buddies, we calculated it one time, and I had been fired nine times, so (I'm) very proud of that."

The 39-year-old actor said he was fired from his job delivering newspapers when he was a child. "I grew up in upstate New York and it used to snow a lot ... and I think just one winter I was like, 'I'm not gonna do this. I'm just not gonna deliver the papers. I just don't want to get out of bed. It's too cold.'

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2017, file photo, Reid Scott appears at the AFI Awards in Los Angeles. Scott says that like his "Veep" character, Dan Egan, he's been fired many times, and it's not the end of the world. "Veep" is now airing its sixth season on Sundays on HBO. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

"... And, of course, everyone on my route started calling the paper like, 'Where's my paper?' And they called me and I was like, 'Yeah, I'll do it later.' It was like, 'This isn't gonna work. This is not how a paperboy works. You need to deliver the paper.' They fired me."

Scott said it stings to be fired but "then something else comes along."

"I mean it does not feel good to get fired and I've been fired from acting gigs, too. That was actually the only time where I really cared. I think the other jobs it was like, you know, getting fired from washing dishes or bartending or landscaping or cleaning gutters. I had some horrible jobs. I had some terrible jobs that I was happy to be fired from."

"Veep" airs Sundays on HBO (10:30 p.m. EDT). It also stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Anna Chlumsky, Tony Hale and Matt Walsh. Now in its sixth season, Louis-Dreyfus plays Selina Meyer, who has been ousted from the White House. Scott plays her former staffer, who is now an on-air TV personality.

___

Online:

http://www.hbo.com/veep
GAETA, Italy (AP) - Italy on Friday gave the Libyan coast guard the first two of 10 boats to rescue migrants from foundering smugglers' boats, as part of a strategy Rome hopes will reduce the huge numbers of rescued migrants from reaching Italian shores.

The motorboats boats were handed over at a ceremony in Gaeta, Italy, where an initial group of 20 Libyan coast guard members completed training, including in migrant rescue operations, at the naval school in that southern port town.

Human rights advocates, however, fear if the migrants are returned on Libyan boats to the largely lawless northern African country, they will again risk torture, sexual abuse and exploitation as laborers. Many migrants have reported months of suffering while waiting for smugglers to put them aboard boats.

Attending the ceremony was Libyan Ambassador Ahmed E.I. Safar, who acknowledged that such abuses occur.

"Yes, there were abuses," he said. "There will be abuses probably in the future as well. We will deal with them. We will see what we can do in terms of monitoring, supporting, raising awareness" with the help of other countries and international organizations.

Libya has slid into chaos and violence, as tribal and political factions fight for power after the 2011 demise of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country now has rival governments in Tripoli and in the east. Human traffickers have taken advantage of the power vacuum to send hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and other migrants in flimsy boats toward Italian shores.

Tens of thousands of migrants are being rescued at sea in operations coordinated by the Italian coast guard and taken to Italian shores. Many, however, are fleeing poverty and not eligible for political asylum.

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti, also at the ceremony, said Libya's "stabilization" would give traffickers "less space to maneuver."

The minister said Italy would deliver the rest of the boats by June. He called Libya's coast guard forces "the most important structure in northern Africa" in controlling human trafficking.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Data analysts say police in Connecticut's capital city have failed to report thousands of traffic stops as required by a state law intended to prevent racial profiling.

Central Connecticut State University analysts disclosed Friday that Hartford police submitted records for about 2,000 traffic stops between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016, but that dispatch logs show there were about 6,500 stops during that period.

The data is compiled each year for reports analyzing the race and ethnicity of drivers stopped by police and why they were stopped. Researcher Ken Barone says there is concern officers are not filling out forms for each traffic stop.

Hartford police said Friday that the institute's claims are not correct. They believe there was a computer data transfer problem.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) - The Latest on the prison suicide of ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez (all times local):

3:55 p.m.

A physician retained by Aaron Hernandez's family says an independent autopsy has been performed on the ex-NFL star's body.

Ursula Ward, the mother of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd, becomes emotional as she speaks about her son during a media availability at her attorney's office Friday, April 21, 2017, in Boston. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was convicted of Lloyd's 2013 murder and was serving a life sentence without parol when he hung himself in his jail cell early Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

Dr. Michael Baden tells The Associated Press he completed his autopsy Thursday after Hernandez's remains were returned to the family.

The state medical examiner had already completed its own autopsy and ruled Hernandez's hanging death in prison a suicide.

Baden won't discuss his findings until outside labs finish a toxicology report and a study of Hernandez's brain. Scientists at Boston University are studying the brain for signs of repeated trauma suffered by years of playing football.

Baden said Friday the full findings will likely be turned over to Hernandez's attorney in a few weeks.

Baden is a former medical examiner for New York City. He's performed autopsies in numerous high-profile cases.

___

3:20 p.m.

A judge's order to preserve evidence relating to the prison suicide of Aaron Hernandez includes video recordings of his cell for the eight hours before the ex-NFL star was found hanged.

Bristol Superior Court Judge Thomas McGuire's order also includes records of where Hernandez was during that time and all his property, including any of his writings.

It also covers recordings of his phone calls for 30 days before his death. But it doesn't include recordings of other inmates' phone calls. George Leontire, a lawyer for Hernandez's fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, had asked for those.

Leontire told the judge Friday that the family has been learning disturbing details about Hernandez's death from news reports and on Twitter.

The former New England Patriots tight end was found hanged in his cell in a maximum-security prison early Wednesday. He was serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder.

___

2:40 p.m.

A Massachusetts judge says he's issuing an order preserving evidence in Aaron Hernandez's prison suicide.

Bristol Superior Court Judge Thomas McGuire says it's only fair that the ex-NFL star's family, the government and the public know exactly how he died.

Hernandez's fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, filed court papers Wednesday on behalf of his estate.

She asks that prison officials be barred from altering or destroying any potential evidence, including Hernandez's writings, video and audio recordings and medical records.

The former New England Patriots tight end was found hanged in his cell in a maximum-security prison early Wednesday. He was serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder.

___

2:10 p.m.

Aaron Hernandez's fiancee has indicated in court papers that she may sue the state of Massachusetts over his prison suicide.

Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez on Friday filed papers in Bristol Superior Court saying she was contemplating a lawsuit over the supervision he received while in prison.

The filing says authorities had a legal duty to provide safety and protection from personal injury to inmates in state custody.

The ex-NFL star hanged himself early Wednesday at the maximum-security prison where he was serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder.

Questions have been raised over whether guards carried out the proper hourly cellblock checks.

Authorities say Hernandez had been locked into his cell at about 8 p.m. Wednesday, and no one entered the cell until a guard saw him just after 3 a.m.

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12:45 p.m.

A lawyer for the mother of the man Aaron Hernandez murdered is asking the New England Patriots to voluntarily release whatever money the ex-NFL star might still be owed.

Attorney Doug Sheff tells reporters he's issued "a friendly challenge" to the Patriots. Hernandez was a star tight end for the team before he was cut in 2013, the same year he killed Odin Lloyd.

Sheff says he's asked the Patriots for $6 million. The team didn't immediately comment on his request.

Sheff is representing Lloyd's mother, Ursula Ward, in a wrongful-death lawsuit. He said Friday he wants to be certain that any of Hernandez's assets go to help support Ward.

It's unclear what assets Hernandez had when he hanged himself in prison this week, and how they might be distributed.

Hernandez's fiancee and the couple's 4-year-old daughter also would have legal claims to his estate.

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12:20 p.m.

The mother of the man former NFL star Aaron Hernandez was convicted of killing says she's convinced justice was done even if the murder charge gets erased.

Courts in Massachusetts customarily vacate the convictions of defendants who die before their appeals are heard. Hernandez was serving a life sentence for killing Odin Lloyd when he hanged himself in his cell earlier this week.

Lloyd's mother, Ursula Ward, says a jury found Hernandez guilty of killing her son and that's good enough for her.

She says Hernandez's suicide in prison has reopened old wounds and she's reliving the pain of her son's 2013 murder.

She told reporters Friday: "I lost my best friend. I lost my son. I lost the love of my life."

___

10:40 a.m.

One of Aaron Hernandez's lawyers says he'll ask a court to have the ex-NFL star's murder conviction erased now that Hernandez killed himself in prison.

John Thompson said Friday he'll file the necessary paperwork in Bristol County. That's the Massachusetts jurisdiction where Hernandez was tried and convicted in the 2013 slaying of Odin Lloyd.

Thompson didn't say when he'll file the request. The district attorney will be able to challenge it.

Courts in Massachusetts and a number of other states customarily vacate the convictions of defendants who die before their appeals are heard.

All first-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts trigger an automatic appeal. Hernandez's appeal was still in its early stages and hadn't yet been heard when he hanged himself early Wednesday.

___

10:30 a.m.

Family members of Aaron Hernandez are asking a judge to order Massachusetts prison officials to preserve evidence so they can investigate the circumstances of his death.

A medical examiner says the former New England Patriots player hanged himself while serving a life sentence for murder.

Hernandez's fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, filed a complaint Wednesday on behalf of the daughter she had with Hernandez. It asks that prison officials be barred from altering or destroying any potential evidence, including Hernandez's writings, video and audio recordings and medical records.

A judge in New Bedford is due to hear the request at 2 p.m. Friday.

Hernandez was found dead in his cell Wednesday, days after being acquitted in a 2012 double homicide case. He was already serving a life term in a 2013 killing.

Ursula Ward, the mother of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd, becomes emotional as she speaks about her son during a media availability at her attorney, Doug Sheff's, left, office Friday, April 21, 2017, in Boston. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was convicted of Lloyd's 2013 murder and was serving a life sentence without parol when he hung himself in his jail cell early Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

FILE - In this Wednesday, March 15, 2017, file photo, Defendant Aaron Hernandez listens during his double murder trial in Suffolk Superior Court, in Boston. Massachusetts prison officials said Hernandez hanged himself in his cell and pronounced dead at a hospital early Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, Pool, File)

Attorneys Jose Baez, left, and Ronald Sullivan, who successfully defended former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez in a double-murder case, hold a briefing outside the state medical examiner's office, Thursday, April 20, 2017, in Boston. Baez accused Massachusetts' chief medical examiner of "illegally" holding the brain of the ex-NFL star, who was found Wednesday hanged in his prison cell. Baez said Hernandez's family had arranged for Boston University to study the former tight end's brain as part of its concussion research. (AP Photo/Collin Binkley)

FILE - In this Wednesday, April 12, 2017, file photo, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, fiancee of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, sits in the courtroom with the couple's daughter during jury deliberations in Hernandez's double-murder trial at Suffolk Superior Court in Boston. Hernandez was acquitted of those crimes on Friday, but hanged himself in his prison early Wednesday, April 19, 2017, where he was serving a life sentence in the 2013 killing of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd. (Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool, File)
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Dozens of prosecutors and judges from around the nation have filed a legal brief in support of a Florida prosecutor who refuses to seek the death penalty.

The brief filed Friday with the Florida Supreme Court backs State Attorney Aramis Ayala's right to decide not to seek capital punishment in cases in her district covering the Orlando area.

After Ayala recently announced her decision, Florida Gov. Rick Scott removed her from about two dozen death-penalty cases.

Ayala is challenging Scott's authority to do that before the Florida Supreme Court.

The brief filed Friday says Scott has no authority to interfere with Ayala's cases.

Separately, an investigation is underway after a noose was mailed to Ayala's office.

Ayala became Florida's first African-American state attorney when she was elected last year.

___

Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
LONDON (AP) - U.K. Treasury chief Philip Hammond says taxpayers have recovered all of the funds Britain injected into Lloyds Banking Group at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

Hammond said Friday in Washington that it had passed the milestone, recovering all 20.3 billion pounds (currently worth $26 billion) injected.

Hammond says that while stepping in to offer support was right, "the government should not be in the business of owning banks in the long term." A remaining 2 percent stake is set to be sold in coming months depending on market conditions.

By contrast, Royal Bank of Scotland - the other major institution bailed out in the crisis - remains firmly owned by the taxpayer. The government owns 72 percent of RBS, which was briefly the largest bank in the world.
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Three female friends in a rare incident confessed on Friday to killing a man for insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad days after he returned from living in hiding abroad for 13 years, police said.

A local police inspector investigating the case, Nadeem Ashraf, told The Associated Press that the women were arrested this week for killing Fazal Abbas, about 50, who fled Pakistan in 2004 following accusations of blasphemy.

The incident came days after a mob in the northwestern city of Mardan lynched a university student, Mohammad Mashal Khan, over alleged blasphemy, drawing nationwide condemnation. Police detained 22 suspects following the incident.

Ashraf said the three women went to the man's home in a village near the town of Pasrur in Punjab province on Wednesday and shot him dead. He said the women wanted to fire a shot each to kill Abbas, but only one fired a single shot.

Ashraf identified the women as Afshan Bibi, Razia Bibi and Amna Bibi, and reported them as saying that they would have killed Abbas earlier had he not fled the country.

Ashraf said Abbas was being sought by police in connection with a blasphemy case dating back to 2004.

Also Friday, a mob tried to kill a mentally disturbed man, Syed Abdul Rashid, inside a mosque after he declared that all Muslims should follow him as he has been appointed as their religious leader by God, according to local police official Asad Ullah.

Ullah said initially worshippers beat Rashid, but the Imam leading prayer intervened and handed the man over to the police. Ullah said hundreds of people attacked the police station as the man was being questioned inside, and some officers were wounded in the clashes.

"These people attacked the police station in Chitral and started beating our officers when they refused to hand over Syed Abdul Rashid to them," he said.

Blasphemy against Islam is punishable by death under Pakistani law, and the mere suspicion of blasphemy is enough to ignite mob violence in the Muslim-majority country.

___

Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
NEWTON, N.J. (AP) - A New Jersey father who sparked a nationwide search when he fled the state with his two young sons has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Under terms of the sentence Friday, Kristopher Dohm will be eligible for parole in a year.

Dohm pleaded guilty last month to two counts of interference of custody.

Defense Attorney Miles Feinstein listens as Defendant Kristopher Dohm, right, makes a statement for leniency during his sentencing in state Superior Court in Newton, NJ., Friday, April 21, 2017. Feinstein, who sparked a nationwide search when he fled the state with his two young sons, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. (Warren Westura/The New Jersey Herald via AP, Pool)

The 38-year-old had told his ex-wife that he was taking their sons, then ages 7 and 8, on a trip to Nevada in 2015. She reported them missing when they failed to return.

Dohm and his sons were found weeks later at a motel in New Port Richey, Florida, along with a fugitive wanted in Tennessee on sex charges.

Dohm has agreed to have no contact with the boys until they turn 18.
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana lawmakers slipped a provision into the state's proposed budget that authorizes the state to purchase new lethal injection drugs while preserving the anonymity of the supplier.

The measure was not debated in committee and was only revealed once the budget proposal was released on the last day of this year's legislative session.

Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma says the state's supply of lethal injection drugs, used in the execution of prisoners, is nearing its expiration date. He said the provision was added at the request of Gov. Eric Holcomb.

The measure bars the release of information that could reveal the identity of a manufacturer or supplier. That prohibition also applies to attorneys seeking the information in civil and criminal trials.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - The latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local):

6:20 p.m.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is criticizing the turmoil in Venezuela, where three weeks of anti-government protests have produced at least 20 deaths and dozens of arrests.

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro stand amidst tear gas during clashes with security forces in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, April 20, 2017. Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets again Thursday, one day after three people were killed and hundreds arrested in the biggest anti-government demonstrations in years. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

In a message broadcast on Peru's state television, he says: "There should be no political prisoners in a democracy. There should be no deaths in demonstrations."

Kuczynski is a former Wall Street banker who has always criticized the socialist administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The Peruvian leader says he is working with other governments "to promote respect for democracy in the brother country of Venezuela." He also says there is a need for humanitarian aid for Venezuelans, whose struggling economy is beset by widespread shortages of food and other basic goods.

___

3:40 p.m.

A woman whose butcher's shop was ransacked in violence overnight in Venezuela says the attack was like "a war."

Liliana Altuna says looters armed with guns and knives attacked about 30 businesses in the community of El Valle over the course of five hours.

An officer tried to help but Altuna says police were unable to stop looters from breaking the windows of her business and violently grabbing refrigerators, lamps, security cameras and anything else they could seize.

Looting and other violence following two days of big protests have left at least 12 people dead. Overall, 20 people have been killed this month in unrest that erupted after the Supreme Court stripped congress of its last powers, a decision it later reversed.

___

3 p.m.

Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami says the country is facing what he calls an "unconventional war" led by opposition groups working in concert with criminal gangs.

He said on Friday that claims by the opposition that government forces were responsible for launching tear gas at a maternity hospital during a protest are just another attempt to demoralize a people who have "decided to break ties with the bourgeoisie forever."

At least 20 people overall have been killed this month in the South American country in unrest that has erupted since the government-stacked Supreme Court briefly gutted congress of its last vestiges of power.

The move made three weeks ago was reversed amid a storm of international criticism.

Opposition members say they have no intention of slowing protests demanding new elections and criticizing a government they deem a dictatorship responsible for triple-digit inflation, rising crime and food shortages.

____

1:30 p.m.

Authorities in Venezuela say 12 people were killed overnight following looting and violence in the South American nation's capital amid a spiraling political crisis.

The Public Ministry confirmed the deaths Friday and said another six were hurt.

Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, where opposition leaders say 13 people were hit with an electrical current while trying to loot a bakery protected by an electric fence.

Tens of thousands of people opposed to Venezuela's socialist government took to the streets on Thursday in ongoing protests demanding elections and denouncing what they consider an increasingly authoritarian government. They were met by tear gas and rubber bullets as they tried to march to downtown Caracas.

Butcher shop owner Liliana Altuna, left, speaks with an employee inside her shop that was looted the night before, at El Valle neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, April 21, 2017. At least 12 people were killed overnight following looting and violence in Venezuela's capital amid a spiraling political crisis, authorities said Friday. Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working class neighborhood near Caracas' biggest military base where opposition leaders say a group of people were hit with an electrical current while trying to loot a bakery protected by an electric fence. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Destroyed merchandise is strewn on a supermarket floor around empty shelves, a day after a night of looting in El Valle neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, April 21, 2017. At least 12 people were killed overnight following looting and violence in Venezuela's capital amid a spiraling political crisis, authorities said Friday. Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working class neighborhood near Caracas' biggest military base where opposition leaders say a group of people were hit with an electrical current while trying to loot a bakery protected by an electric fence. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Leaders of a House investigations panel on Friday asked the Trump Organization for specifics on how it will donate its profits from foreign government payments to the U.S. Treasury.

Before taking office, President Donald Trump promised to donate profits from foreign governments paying for services at his hotels, including one near the White House. A lawyer representing Trump said the Trump Organization would turn the money over to the Treasury as part of a broad plan to address ethics concerns over Trump's global business ties.

However, Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said details about the donations remain unclear. The lawmakers cite news reports indicating that the Trump Organization has received payments from foreign government sources since the inauguration, including a reception in February hosted by Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S.

In this photo taken Dec. 21, 2106, the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Leaders of a House investigations panel are asking the Trump Organization for specifics on how it will donate its profits from foreign government payments to the U.S. Treasury. Before taking office, President Donald Trump promised to donate profits from foreign governments paying for services at his hotels. Trump said he would turn the money over to the Treasury. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Chaffetz chairs the House Oversight Committee, while Cummings is the senior Democrat. They said in a letter Friday that they want to know how payments from foreign governments are identified, how profits are calculated, how they will be donated and whether Trump or his trust plans to claim the donations for tax deduction purposes.

The letter was addressed to Sheri Dillon, an attorney representing the Trump Organization, the president's global real estate, property management and business empire. He stepped down from the family company before taking office but still maintains financial ties to it.

Dillon did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter.

Chaffetz said earlier this week he will not seek re-election. He has faced some criticism for his leadership of the committee and his reluctance to investigate potential conflicts involving Trump. Chaffetz was booed at a town hall in February and grilled by constituents who chanted "Do you job!" and investigate Trump.

Some lawyers have claimed that foreign leaders who pay for rooms and services at Trump's hotels across the globe would put the president in violation of the "emoluments clause" of the U.S. Constitution. It bars U.S. officeholders from receiving gifts or presents from a foreign government without the consent of Congress.

Dillon has argued that "fair-value exchange," such as paying for a hotel room, does not run afoul of the ban.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico has surpassed 2,000 homicides in a month for the first time since the summer of 2011 and had more killings in the first quarter of 2017 than in the start of any year in at least two decades, according to data released Friday.

Unlike 2011, when bloody cartel clashes in Ciudad Juarez drove the national toll to new heights, the killings pushing the 2017 total have been spread across a number of states. Authorities attribute them to vicious turf battles resulting from breakdowns in the leadership of some cartels and the splintering of others into smaller gangs.

The southern state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, continues to be the homicide leader, with 550 during the first three months of the year.

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2017 file photo, state police inspect the site where two men were shot at the Tamarindos beach in the port city of Acapulco, Mexico. Mexico has surpassed 2,000 murders in a month for the first time since the summer of 2011, and had more murders in the first quarter of 2017 than in the start of any year in at least two decades, according to data released Friday, April 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez, File)

But Baja California Sur with 133 slayings during the first quarter had the largest year-on-year percentage increase, skyrocketing 682 percent from the 17 homicides it had during the same period in 2016. A territorial dispute between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels is believed to be driving much of the violence in the southern part of the peninsula popular with foreign tourists.

Nationally, there were 2,020 homicides in March, up about 11 percent from February. For January through March, the national total was 5,775 killings, up 29 percent from the same three months last year.

Pioquinto Damian Huato, a business leader in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo, led an anti-crime crusade until an attempt was made on his life that resulted in the death of his daughter-in-law in 2014.

"Every now and then bagged bodies appear in Chilpancingo," he said. "Yesterday three appeared." The leader of the state's leftist Democratic Revolution Party, Demetrio Saldivar, also was killed Wednesday night in Chilpancingo.

"I live in my home with armored doors to be able to protect my family," Damian Huato said. "How could I go out when they could kill me in any moment?"

Mexico's surge in violence comes at a time when legislators are debating a national security law that would have implications for the military's continued role in domestic security. Rising violence could pose a problem for the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party of President Enrique Pena Nieto in next year's presidential election.

Other states seeing significantly more homicides this year include the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, which registered 372 through March, up 94 percent from the same period last year. A former Veracruz governor, Javier Duarte, was arrested last weekend in Guatemala after six months on the run from corruption charges.

Chihuahua state, home to Ciudad Juarez, is also seeing more violence this year. Its 384 homicides through March were 78 percent more than the same period last year.
ROME (AP) - Italy's top administrative body has rejected a challenge to mandatory vaccines for children attending preschool.

Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin hailed Friday's decision by the Council of State.

Two families from Trieste, in northeastern Italy, had challenged the town's requirement that children ages 6 and below receive mandatory vaccines before attending day care or preschool classes that are run by the town or receive public funding.

The percentage of vaccinated children in Trieste had slipped below levels officials consider safe for public health.

Populist politicians from the opposition 5-Star Movement have been voicing support for vaccine opponents, especially after a state TV program raised questions about safety of the HPV vaccine, which has been advised for older children in Italy. Italy's health officials quickly insisted the HPV vaccine is safe.
Eds: Major scheduled events for the week of April 23-29. Note that many events are subject to change at the last minute.

The following economic reports will be issued in Washington (all times EDT), unless otherwise noted:

SUNDAY: No events of note.

MONDAY: No events of note.

TUESDAY: Standard & Poor's releases S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices for February, 9 a.m.; Commerce Department releases new home sales for March, 10 a.m.; The Conference Board releases the Consumer Confidence Index for April, 10 a.m.

The Coca-Cola Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Caterpillar Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

McDonald's Corp. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.

WEDNESDAY: PepsiCo Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Twitter Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

The Boeing Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

THURSDAY: Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases durable goods for March, 8:30 a.m.; Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates, 10 a.m.; National Association of Realtors releases pending home sales index for March, 10 a.m.

Ford Motor Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

American Airlines Group Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

UPS Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Union Pacific Corp. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Comcast Corp. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Southwest Airlines Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

Amazon.com Inc. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.

Microsoft Corp. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.

Starbucks Corp. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.

Alphabet Inc. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.

FRIDAY: Commerce Department releases first-quarter gross domestic product, 8:30 a.m.; Labor Department releases the first-quarter employment cost index, 8:30 a.m.

Exxon Mobil Corp. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

General Motors Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

SATURDAY: No events of note.

___

SUNDAY, APRIL 23

No events of note.

___

MONDAY, APRIL 24

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump plans to speak to the commander of the orbiting International Space Station, Peggy Whitson, and astronaut Jack Fischer.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court hears arguments and issues orders.

WASHINGTON - Senate vote on the nomination for former Gov. Sonny Perdue, R-Ga., to be agriculture secretary.

BERLIN - Germany's Ifo institute releases its monthly business confidence index, a key indicator for Europe's biggest economy.

___

TUESDAY, APRIL 25

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court hears arguments.

WASHINGTON - Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Libya.

WASHINGTON - Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Asia-Pacific policy.

___

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court hears arguments.

WASHINGTON - House Armed Services Committee hearing on security challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, with Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command.

WASHINGTON - House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing on advances in the search for life.

WASHINGTON - House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on China's technological rise.

___

THURSDAY, APRIL 27

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump meets with Argentina's president, Mauricio Macri.

WASHINGTON - Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. forces in Korea, with Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command.

WASHINGTON - House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on U.S. policy options in Syria.

WASHINGTON - House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing on a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

WASHINGTON - House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Afghanistan and the threat from al-Qaida, the Islamic State group and other militants.

LONDON - Pharmaceutical giant GSK reports first quarters financial results.

LONDON - Anglo-Swedish drug firm AstraZeneca announces first quarter financial results.

___

FRIDAY, APRIL 28

No events of note.

___

SATURDAY, APRIL 29

WASHINGTON - White House Correspondents' Association's annual dinner.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military says a pilot has ejected from a fighter jet operating from the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier in seas south of the Philippines.

The U.S. Seventh Fleet says the pilot was conducting routine flight operations late Friday local time during a transit in the Celebes Sea.

The Vinson has been making its way from Singapore to the Sea of Japan since last week, making stops in Asia along the way as it heads toward North Korea in a show of force.

The pilot ejected from the F/A-18E fighter aircraft on final approach to the carrier, and was quickly recovered by a helicopter and suffered no apparent injuries. The jet was ditched in the sea.

The Seventh Fleet statement says the incident is under investigation.
A Navy SEAL who serves on SEAL Team One (whose logo is seen above) faces charges of producing and possessing child pornography

A Navy SEAL is facing charges of producing and possessing child pornography after video footage of him allegedly molesting a sleeping child was found on his cellular device, according to authorities.

Court documents filed March 31 allege that Petty Officer 1st Class Gregory Kyle Seerden made videos of himself molesting a sleeping girl.

The investigation began at a Navy base in Virginia Beach after an adult woman claimed the 31-year-old Seerden sexually assaulted her.

NCIS agents allegedly discovered the videos on Seerden's phone.

Seerden is from Missouri and part of the California-based SEAL Team One.

He was arrested and detained in San Diego, California.

A judge has ordered that he be sent to Norfolk, where charges were filed.

Navy spokesman Lt. Zachary Keating says the unit is cooperating with authorities.

An attorney listed in court documents for Seerden in California did not respond to requests for comment.

US Marshals are currently in the process of transporting Seerden back to Virginia, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

Seerden has been charged with four felonies.

If he is convicted of producing child pornography alone, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

In late January, a woman reported that she and Seerden went out drinking at a bar in Norfolk Virginia.

The woman told authorities that she remembers blacking out and once she woke up, she realized Seerden was on top of her in his hotel room.

She then reported Seerden to authorities.

Military investigators with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service received permission to probe Seerden's belongings, including his cell phone.

Investigators are reported to have found images that include a naked child and an aroused dog.

A more thorough investigation is said to have found dozens of videos and photographs, including one of a grown man masturbating next to a sleeping girl as he touches her in intimate areas.

While the man's face is not seen in the video, he is wearing a light blue shirt, according to court documents.

Photos with time stamps from the same day show Seerden in a light blue shirt reading a book to the victim and three other children.
BOSTON (AP) - A Massachusetts court has ordered thousands of criminal drug convictions dismissed because of misconduct by Annie Dookhan, a chemist who for years tested evidence in a state lab.

Lawyers who fought for the cases to be dismissed call the ruling a historic victory for justice and fairness, but they are also seeking to counter fears that dangerous criminals will soon walk free from prisons around the state.

Here are some questions and answers about the Massachusetts drug lab scandal:

___

WHO IS ANNIE DOOKHAN?

Dookhan was hired by the state in 2003 as a chemist at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory in Boston, which tested drug evidence for criminal cases in eastern Massachusetts.

She resigned amid questions about whether she manipulated drug tests and falsified results. She was arrested in 2012 and later sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice, perjury and tampering with evidence. She was paroled last year.

___

WHAT DID THE MASSACHUSETTS COURT DECIDE?

Dookhan's misconduct led to a five-year legal battle waged by the American Civil Liberties Union and others to dismiss some 24,000 drug convictions - involving about 20,000 individual defendants - that hinged at least in part on testing of drug evidence performed by Dookhan. On Thursday, the Supreme Judicial Court approved of throwing out 21,587 convictions, likely making it the largest single dismissal of criminal cases in U.S. history, according to the ACLU.

___

SO ARE PRISONERS BEING RELEASED?

In most cases, no.

The majority of defendants had already completed their sentences, and many had not been given prison time to begin with. The ACLU estimates 60 percent of the cases involved possession and not drug dealing, which normally brings stiffer sentences.

"The idea that prison doors are swinging open is just not one that meets with reality," said Carl Williams, a staff attorney for the ACLU.

Still, the dismissals could indirectly lead to release from prison in certain instances. If, for example, a person had previous convictions and a Dookhan-tainted case was the so-called "third strike" that by law requires a mandatory sentence, erasing that third strike could take away the underpinnings of the sentence and lead to someone being freed.

___

WHAT COMES NEXT?

The high court's order requires notices be sent within one month to all the affected Dookhan defendants, including hundreds of people whose cases were not dismissed at the request of prosecutors. Court documents show earlier attempts to reach many of these defendants by mail were unsuccessful.

The justices also ordered that electronic criminal history records be updated to reflect the dismissals. This is critical for people even if they already served the sentences, since a prior drug felony can stand in the way of employment and housing opportunities, or even bring deportation.

___

COULD THIS HAPPEN AGAIN?

The drug testing scandal led to a shake-up at the Hinton lab and jurisdiction of the facility was moved from the state public health agency to state police. Officials say new testing and reporting protocols are in place to make tampering less likely.

Yet Massachusetts is still grappling with thousands of cases potentially affected by the actions of another former drug lab chemist. Sonja Farak was convicted in 2014 of stealing cocaine from a crime lab in Amherst, where investigators said she was high almost every day she worked over eight years.
DALLAS (AP) - United Airlines said CEO Oscar Munoz, who came under withering criticism for the airline's handling of an April passenger-dragging incident, will not be automatically adding the title of chairman in 2018 as planned.

The company said Friday that Munoz proposed rewriting his employment contract to remove the expectation that he would become chairman at next year's annual meeting of parent United Continental Holdings Inc.

United also said Friday that Munoz received $18.7 million in compensation last year.

FILE - In this Thursday, June 2, 2016 file photo, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz delivers remarks in New York. United Airlines said Friday, April 21, 2017, that its CEO Munoz won't add the title of chairman in 2018 as planned, as fallout continues from the violent removal of a passenger from a plane this month. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Munoz was widely faulted for his early responses to the April 9 incident on board a United Express plane. He first blamed the 69-year-old passenger who was dragged off by airport security officers, but later apologized repeatedly for United's handling of the situation.

The incident is under investigation by Congress and the Transportation Department. Lawyers for the passenger, Kentucky physician David Dao, have hinted at a lawsuit. And there have been calls online to boycott United.

Airline executives said this week it was too early to know if the widely publicized incident has affected ticket sales.

United's board of directors has supported Munoz, according to a statement last week from Chairman Robert Milton. United said Friday in a securities filing that management and the board "take recent events extremely seriously," and will link executive bonuses partly to "improving the customer experience."

Last month the airline was also criticized on social media and trolled by other airlines after a United gate agent in Denver told young girls they would have to change or cover up their leggings before being allowed to board a plane.

Munoz was named CEO in September 2015, replacing Jeffrey Smisek, who stepped down in the midst of an influence-trading scandal. Munoz had been on the airline's board while serving as CEO of freight railroad CSX Corp.

He has focused on improving United's tattered relations with labor unions. The airline has made some strides in improving its on-time performance, canceling fewer flights and losing fewer bags. However, it still generally ranks poorly in surveys of airline travelers.

Most of Munoz's compensation last year was in stock. The company said Friday in a regulatory filing that about $6.8 million of the total was related to a signing bonus that Munoz was promised in 2016.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed the significance of pushing Republican health care legislation through the House next week, a retreat from more bullish White House pronouncements a day earlier, which had gotten a skeptical reception at the Capitol.

In brief comments to reporters Friday, Trump said the attempt to rekindle the GOP drive to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law is "coming along well." But he said there was "no particular rush" to do it next week, when Congress returns from its spring recess.

"It doesn't matter if it's next week. Next week doesn't matter," Trump said at the White House.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Those comments represent a ratcheting back from Thursday, when Trump said at a news conference that there was "a good chance" of passing health legislation soon, adding, "I'd like to say next week."

Amplifying those comments, a senior White House official was also expressing confidence Thursday that a breakthrough on the mired Republican health care bill could emerge in the House next week. That official was not authorized to discuss the internal process publicly and insisted on anonymity.

The White House is eager to pass the health bill quickly, partly because Trump will likely hit his 100th day in office - April 29 - without having signed a major piece of legislation.

But that goal is running straight into the time-consuming, push-and-pull reality of Congress, not to mention enduring divisions between the conservative and moderate wings of Trump's party.

Many GOP lawmakers and aides have expressed doubt that the House would vote next week on health legislation, just a month after an earlier version died for lack of support within the party. They cited the higher priority of passing a spending bill to avert a government shutdown. Also, there's uncertainty over a developing deal to revive the Republican health bill. In any case, it would take time to sell such an agreement to lawmakers.

Republicans are also expressing doubts that a health care compromise that's been discussed between party conservatives and moderates would win enough support to put the bill over the top. The party has long promised to repeal Obama's 2010 health care law, and the House bill would replace it with less generous subsidies and eased insurance requirements.

An outline of a deal has been crafted by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who heads the hard line House Freedom Caucus, and Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., a leader of the centrist Tuesday Group. Vice President Mike Pence also played a role in shaping that plan, Republicans say.

The plan would deliver a win to moderates by amending the GOP health care bill to restore Obama's requirement that insurers cover specified services like maternity care. But in a bid for conservative support, states would be allowed to obtain federal waivers to abandon that obligation.

In addition, states could obtain waivers to an Obama prohibition against insurers charging sick customers higher premiums - a change critics argue would make insurance unaffordable for many. To get those waivers, states would need to have high-risk pools - government-backed insurance for the most seriously ill people, a mechanism that has often failed for lack of sufficient financing.

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) - Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden has taken a jab at Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over the region's mass transit woes.

Biden told an urban planning conference in New York on Friday that Christie's "infinite wisdom" in killing a rail tunnel project in 2010 means commuters are still in "purgatory."

New York's Penn Station has been the site of two recent derailments and other delays due to disabled trains, hampering travel on the Northeast Corridor.

Christie reiterates comments he made Thursday that the tunnel wouldn't have been near completion and that it was a bad deal for New Jersey because New York wasn't contributing funding to it.

The existing 110-year-old tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York operates at capacity during peak hours and is a source of regular delays.
Theresa May is using bogus arguments about Brexit to justify an early election motivated by party-political calculation, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has claimed.

Far from being necessary for the success of Brexit negotiations, the June 8 poll has been called because Tories believe they can capitalise on Labours weakness under Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrat leader said.

Mr Farron was speaking as he visited the Manchester seats of Gorton and Withington, two of a string of Remain-voting Labour strongholds in the North West of England which the Lib Dems hope to snatch from Mr Corbyns party.

Today I'm in Manchester with the brilliant @JackieP4MP & @johnleechmcr. Together we can change the direction of our country. pic.twitter.com/Oh0FoANiEV  Tim Farron (@timfarron) April 21, 2017

The Lib Dem leader predicted that Labour will lose dozens and dozens of seats on June 8, and said that the only threat to Conservative MPs came from his party.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Theresa May called this election not for all the bogus reasons she claimed about needing a mandate for Brexit, said Mr Farron.

Sadly the Labour Party gave her a mandate for Brexit as they pushed us off a cliff-edge voting for Article 50 without a single condition attached.

Shes got all she needs if she wants to pursue Brexit, Im afraid.

She looked across the despatch box and thought I cannot resist the temptation of taking on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party  the most ineffective opposition in inter-planetary history.

Mr Farron said the Tories were assuming a coronation for Mrs May, despite an approach to Brexit which has made Nigel Farage look like a moderate.

But he insisted that Liberal Democrats gave voters the opportunity to change the direction of this country by electing MPs who will hold back the disastrous drive to take Britain out of the single market.

Nobody thinks the Labour Party will gain a single seat from the Conservatives. They will lose dozens and dozens, he said.

Jeremy Corbyn is never going to be Prime Minister because he can't even lead his own party https://t.co/VYiLS9lf0U pic.twitter.com/yRhR8zdRke  Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) April 20, 2017

The only route through which Theresa May has a single thing to be afraid of is from the Liberal Democrats, and she has every reason to be afraid of the Liberal Democrats because we will stand very clearly on a passionate platform of being in favour of an open, tolerant, united country, where everybody is equal and everybody has the ability to make their own choices and decide their own future.

The Liberal Democrats are targeting Remain-voting Labour seats in the North of England where voters feel betrayed by Jeremy Corbyns support for a divisive hard Brexit, Mr Farron said.

Ten of the 100 seats with the highest Remain vote last June are in the North of England, two of which are currently held by the Liberal Democrats and seven by Labour.

As well as Gorton and Withington, these include Liverpool Riverside, Sheffield Central, Leeds North West, Liverpool Wavertree, Sheffield Hallam, Manchester Central, Leeds North East and Altrincham & Sale West.

Mr Farron said: From Manchester to Newcastle, even lifelong Labour supporters are feeling let down by a party that has betrayed their values and taken their votes for granted. This election is a chance for them to change direction of the country.
World number two Novak Djokovic crashed out of the the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters as the shocks continued in Monaco.

The Serbian, playing his third match back following an elbow injury, went down to David Goffin, who prevailed 6-2 3-6 7-5 in the quarter-finals on Friday.

Defeat for Djokovic means all three of the worlds top-ranked players are out of the competition after surprise losses for Britains Andy Murray and Switzerlands Stan Wawrinka on Thursday.

Belgium's David Goffin reacts after defeating Serbia's Novak Djokovic, during their quarterfinal match of the Monte Carlo Tennis Masters (Claude Paris/AP)

Belgian Goffin, who will meet Rafael Nadal in the last four, had not previously beaten a top-three player.

That record looked likely to continue when Djokovic establish a 4-2 advantage in the deciding set.

But the 12-time Grand Slam champion, who was aiming for a third title on the clay in Monte Carlo, then dropped five of the next six games as world number 13 Goffin eventually sealed his place in the last four by taking his fifth match point.

Djokovic felt he should have made more of his opportunities during the match.

I started slowly probably because I played two long matches (in the previous rounds), he told atpworldtour.com.

But I thought as the match progressed I was feeling okay. You know, I was physically fine.

We had a lot of exchanges, a lot of rallies. David is playing very quick. Hes a fast player. I thought I played very, very well for a set and a half, from the start of the second set.

I had my chances, I definitely did. I just didnt use them.

Former world number one Nadal made fairly light work of his quarter-final, beating Diego Schwartzman in straight sets.

The Spaniard needed an hour and 40 minutes to complete a 6-4 6-4 victory against the Argentinian world number 41.

Nadals compatriot Albert Ramos Vinolas will meet Frenchman Lucas Pouille in the other semi-final after their respective victories over Marin Cilic and Pablo Cuevas.

Ramos Vinolas, who yesterday knocked out world number one Murray, upset another higher ranked player as he battled to a 6-2 6-7 (5/7) 6-2 success in just over two-and-a-half hours.

Pouille also needed three sets to progress, eventually overcoming Uruguayan Cuevas 6-0 3-6 7-5.
Widnes winger Pat Ah Van went over for a pair of tries to stun St Helens and give the Vikings their first home win of the Betfred Super League season after a 16-14 triumph.

Ah Vans two tries either side of half-time ensured Widnes took the points and eased the pressure on under-fire boss Denis Betts.

The defeat for Saints leaves them still searching for back-to-back wins in the Super League and puts them back to square one following the defeat of table-toppers Castleford last Monday.

Pat Ah Van crossed twice for Widnes (PA)

Joe Mellor grabbed the first try of the night when he got on the end of Rhys Hanburys inside ball that deflected fortuitously off Saints back-rower Zeb Taia.

Tom Gilmore struck the conversion but that converted score was soon cancelled out by Theo Fages burrowing under and over for a solo score.

The tit-for-tat scoring continued as Widnes marched up the other end and off the back of a penalty, Ah Van dived over in the corner to finish in style.

The Vikings were excellent value for the 12-6 lead and they should have registered more points minutes later, after being camped in Saints territory, but they couldnt find the decisive pass or coughed up the ball unnecessarily.

Too many times the home side pressed the self-destruct button with poor errors with ball in hand and it came back to haunt them as Saints hit back through Matty Smith.

St Helens forward pack laid the platform with some dominant runs and when Smith got hold of it from close range, the Vikings defenders expected a pass but the ex-Widnes scrum-half went alone.

Mark Percival knocked over the conversion from in front to level it at the break.

It was the visitors who struck first after the break through a Percival penalty goal as Matty Whitley interfered in the ruck.

79': Gilmore misses the conversion on the hooter. #SLWidStH (16-14)  Widnes Vikings (@WidnesRL) April 21, 2017

Saints spurned the opportunity of another routine two points as Jordon Johnstone was cited for extras at the play the ball but they could not find the try they needed.

Chris Dean went close for Widnes as he got on the end of Mellors pass but Frederick Bailey pulled off a try-saving tackle to stop the former Saint from crossing.

Saints had a score chalked off by the video official as Luke Thompson picked up a loose ball to ground, but Widnes got one that counted as Ah Van powered over in the corner.

Gilmore hit the post with the conversion but Widnes were in the ascendancy and two points ahead with seven minutes remaining. They just had enough in the tank to hold on.

"The home win is important and both sides were desperate (for the win) tonight. This year we have to get the home fortress mentality back here. The game against Warrington, Leeds away and now tonights win, these are all green shoots - we just need to kick on now.

"Im very disappointed as Widnes wanted it more than us. To put in two good performances over the weekend and then turn up with the attitude we did was disappointing. Full credit to Widnes they played with lots of energy. We got out enthused. We had enough sets in that second-half to post more points and we didnt execute.
QUITO, April 19 (Reuters) - A recount of more than 1.2 million votes in Ecuador late Tuesday confirmed leftist candidate Lenin Moreno the winner of presidential elections, the country's electoral council said.

In the recount, Moreno, 64, obtained 51.16 percent of valid votes with Lasso at 48.84 percent - 1,594 votes more for Moreno than in the original April 2 count.

The OPEC country's new president is to be inaugurated on May 24.

Both Moreno and Guillermo Lasso, a 61-year-old former banker, had called for a recount after the original results.

Lasso had declared himself the winner and denounced the official figures as a mockery of the Ecuadorean people.

Moreno's party said he had won by a larger margin than the original tally showed. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia in Quito.; Writing by Girish Gupta in Caracas; Editing by John Stonestreet and Andrew Heavens)
AMMAN, April 20 (Reuters) - The Syrian army advanced into the town of Taybet al Imam in Hama province on Thursday, expanding its territory along the strategic western highway between Damascus and Aleppo, the army and rebels said.

The government forces were backed by heavy Russian aerial strikes across a large swathe of territory to the west of the M5 highway held by rebels in their six-year civil war, they said.

The rebels said the army was also joined by Iranian-backed militias in the push into Taybet al Imam, which was seized by rebels last year from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Dozens of aerial strikes also hit the nearby towns of Halfaya and Latamneh, which rebels had seized only last month. Their alliance of jihadists alongside moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups have been trying to defend them in recent days.

Sources gave slightly different versions of the current state of the conflict in Taybet al Imam, which lies 18 km (11 miles) north of Hama city.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had now taken the town, after a ground assault this morning that caused losses on both sides after days of heavy bombing.

A rebel source confirmed the army had taken over the western outskirts of Taybet al Imam and said rebels were retreating from parts of the town to cut losses from the heavy aerial bombing.

State media, quoting army sources, said the army was making significant progress in its campaign to take over the town but gave no details.

The media unit of Lebanon's Hezbollah Shi'ite militia said the town had fallen to loyalist forces. It said pro-government militias had pounded rebel outposts with artillery gunfire and rockets.

A rebel commander said Russian jets had escalated their bombing campaign in the area in the past few days, deploying a "scorched earth" strategy using incendiary and phosphorous bombs on civilian areas that had left scores of injured and dead.

"Russian jets are bombing us every second and leaving whole towns in Hama countryside in ruins and totally destroyed. Only after this are regime troops able to make any advance," said Abu Saleh from the Jaish al Izza rebel group.

Thousands of families had fled the fighting in the last few days, he added. The army's capture earlier this week of Soran, a town just east of the highway, meant government forces had now regained most of the territory that rebels had seized in their major offensive last month in Hama province.

Soran is the army's northern gateway to the city of Hama, the provincial capital, and opposition control of it threatened the city.

The army has its eyes now set on the town of Morek, the next town after Soran going north on the highway crucial to control of western Syria. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it was troubled by the growing number of extrajudicial killings in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs and called on Manila to stick to its commitment to investigate them.

Close to 9,000 people, mostly drug users and small-time dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office almost 10 months ago and promised an unrelenting campaign to rid the Philippines of illicit narcotics.

Police say about a third of the victims were shot by officers in self-defense. Human rights groups believe many of the remaining two thirds were killed by paid assassins cooperating with the police or by police themselves, disguised as vigilantes. The government and police reject that.

Patrick Murphy, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Southeast Asia, said the United States shared Manila's objective of eliminating the scourge of illicit drugs and wanted to help.

"We however do have a very sustained and deep concern when elements of the drug war are operating outside the rule of law," Murphy told reporters. "The growing number of extrajudicial killings is troubling."

Rights advocates were concerned when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sidestepped questions about extrajudicial killings in the Philippines during his January confirmation hearing, raising the possibility that President Donald Trump might take a softer line on the issue than his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Murphy said there was a distinction between being a nominee and the secretary of state and Tillerson was now the leader of the policy of expressing concern about the way the drug war was being waged.

"We are urging the Philippines to follow up on its commitment to investigate extrajudicial killings whether they are committed by law enforcement, or of a vigilante nature," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, Duterte's office rejected allegations by two senior police officers in a Reuters report that police received cash rewards for executing drug suspects, while the most high-profile critic of the president backed the officers' claims.

Duterte was infuriated by U.S. expressions of concern about extrajudicial killings after he took office last year and threatened to sever the long-standing U.S. defense alliance.

Duterte spoke positively about Trump, a fellow populist, after the U.S. presidential election in November, although his anti-U.S. rhetoric continued.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Frances Kerry)
By Henning Gloystein and Libby George

SINGAPORE/LONDON, April 21 (Reuters) - The jury is still out over whether an OPEC-led production cut aimed at tightening oil markets is working, or if the producer club has simply enabled higher prices without making much of a dent in the global fuel supply overhang.

Analysts say there are early indications that at least some inventories, key in gauging the health of the market, are starting to draw down.

However, inventory levels are hard to judge outside of the United States, as many countries do not release specific figures. Oil shipments show an ongoing excess, while price activity in oil futures suggests sagging optimism the imbalance is being corrected.

Over two years into a 50 percent price slump, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and some other producers, including Russia, pledged to cut production by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) during the first half of the year.

But more oil than ever is currently traversing the world's oceans. Thomson Reuters Eikon data shows global crude shipments, which monitor tanker movements but exclude pipeline flows, hit a record 47.8 million bpd in April, up 5.8 percent since December, before cuts were implemented.

This is in part due to a jump in production and exports from producers who did not agree to cuts, especially the United States.

"OPEC seems more like a magician who is keeping the audience's attention fixed firmly on his hands (its production policy) while the actual trick takes place elsewhere (non-OPEC supply)," said Carsten Fritsch, oil analyst with Commerzbank.

U.S. production is soaring, jumping by almost 10 percent since mid-2016 to 9.25 million bpd <C-OUT-T-EIA>. This brings its output close to the world's top two producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Futures prices suggest skepticism the market is rebalancing. Early this year the forward curve for Brent crude futures moved from contango, in which future prices are more expensive than those for immediate delivery, to flat or even briefly into backwardation, suggesting a balancing in prompt markets. This has since reversed sharply.

"If they're (OPEC) so busy complying, how come we're taking so much extra inventory? Why is the whole curve in free-fall when supplies are supposedly tightening?" said Robert Yawger, energy futures strategist at Mizuho Americas.

COUNTING BARRELS

To fully determine the state of oversupply, looking at storage levels is key, but it is not easy. U.S. inventories remain bloated <C-STK-T-EIA>, but outside the United States, it is notoriously difficult to reliably count stored barrels.

There are some signs these harder-to-track inventories are easing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said crude in less-visible places, such as barrels outside the developed world and those in floating storage, decreased in the first quarter.

But IEA data on the 35 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries paints a more bearish picture. OECD stocks fell by 17.2 million barrels in March, but since the OPEC-led cut started at the beginning of the year, inventories are up by 38.5 million barrels.

"If stocks are still rising strongly, you've still got an oversupplied situation," said Jamie Webster, a fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

"It doesnt make sense for OPEC to pat itself on the back for strong compliance. Thats what they agreed to, not what the impact is."

Some of the oil sloshing around the world could also have been taken out of OPEC's own storage to meet customer demand despite cuts. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday in an interview with the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper that supplies remained elevated in part because traders were selling oil out of tanker storage.

Russia has also been boosting oil exports, despite cuts under the deal.

Millions of barrels of Nigerian oil stored in South Africa's Saldanha Bay have been sold in recent weeks, and more are scheduled to leave in May.

In Asia, the world's fastest growing consumption region, many countries, especially China, treat inventory data as strategically sensitive. But trade flows around Singapore, a key way station for virtually all tankers from Europe and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, are a bellwether.

There has been a noticeable drop in crude storage around Singapore this year, although some cautioned these barrels will be quickly replaced by incoming cargoes from the United States and Latin America.

(Reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore, Gary McWilliams and Ernest Scheyder in Houston, Libby George in London and Olga Yagova in Moscow; Writing by Henning Gloystein; Editing by David Gaffen and Chris Reese)
By Sue-Lin Wong and James Pearson

PYONGYANG/SEOUL, April 20 (Reuters) - Even after disembarking from North Korea's Air Koryo plane at Pyongyang airport, it's difficult to miss the airline's brand. The Air Koryo conglomerate makes cigarettes and fizzy drinks, besides owning a taxi fleet and petrol stations - and all have the same flying crane logo as the carrier.

The military-controlled airline expanded into consumer products in earnest in recent months, visitors to the isolated country say. It was not clear if the diversification into the domestic market was related to the loss of many international routes when the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Washington is now considering tougher measures, including a global ban on Air Koryo itself, to punish North Korea for continuing weapons tests, U.S. officials have said.

But any U.S. action on Air Koryo would not be binding on other nations and would have little effect unless joined by China and Russia - both of which have sought to introduce exceptions to United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the past.

"China may indeed agree to this kind of ban on Air Koryo since it seems like China and the U.S. have reached an agreement that North Korea needs to be dealt with in some way. But the question is whether Russia will agree to sanctions against Air Koryo," said Sun Xingjie, an associate professor at China's Jilin University.

North Korean officials are rarely accessible to reporters, and it was not possible to get comment from Air Koryo or from the Pyongyang government.

Air Koryo now flies only to Beijing and three other cities in China, and to Vladivostok in Russia. Flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait were dropped last year but just last month, Air Koryo added a route from Pyongyang to the Chinese city of Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries..

Air Koryo has 15 active planes on its fleet, either Russian or Ukrainian-made, and uses refuelling, maintenance and repair facilities in China and Russia, according to aviation databases and U.N. documents.

The airline has a number of domestic flights connecting the capital Pyongyang to Orang, Sondok and Samjiyon towns, according to a schedule available last year.

Businesses in secretive North Korea do not publicly share information about revenues or costs, so it was not possible to determine what effect any existing sanctions have had or may have in future.

But visitors to North Korea say the Air Koryo conglomerate, owned by the country's air force, is clearly expanding.

CABS, GAS STATIONS

In 2015, the conglomerate launched its own brand of sky-blue taxis which now parade the streets of Pyongyang alongside cabs from at least eight other state-owned companies.

Air Koryo colas and cigarettes are available in shops across Pyongyang.

Air Koryo started branching into soft drinks late last year, said Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which organises travel to North Korea.

It got into retail sales of petrol in January. "They have at least one petrol station in Pyongyang, perhaps two," Cockerell said.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see more Air Koryo products make it to market before too long".

A United Nations panel which investigates North Korean sanctions infringements said in a report in February there was an "absence of boundaries" between Air Koryo and the air force.

"The airline's assets are actively utilised for military purposes," the report said.

"Outwardly, this seems like a commercial airline, but in effect, this is run by the government," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.

The United Nations has not sanctioned Air Koryo, although it has accused it of being involved in the smuggling of banned goods. Civilian aircraft are exempt from the U.N. ban on jet fuel exports to North Korea when refuelling overseas. Member states are required to inspect any cargo originating from North Korea, including on Air Koryo flights.

In December, the United States designated Air Koryo, 16 of its aircraft and 10 of its offices as "sanctioned entities", meaning that U.S. citizens are generally prevented from engaging in transactions with them. It was not clear if the ban extended to Americans flying on the airline for tourism.

Officials at Pyongyang's airport said they were unconcerned about any attempts by the global community to strengthen sanctions that could target Air Koryo directly.

"We are not afraid, we have our own counter actions prepared," said a customs official, without elaborating, standing at the Air Koryo check-in counter.

Kim, the South Korean professor, said any sanctions on Air Koryo would have mostly a symbolic effect.

"It will not cause huge damage to the North Korean economy," he said in the Korean language. "Air Koryo is not a 'dollar box'(which makes a lot of foreign money)".

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
BUCHAREST, April 21 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

DEBT TENDER

Romania sold a planned 600 million lei ($142.10 million) worth of Feb. 2020 treasury bonds on Thursday, with the average accepted yield at 1.98 percent, central bank data showed.

PATRIOT

NATO member Romania plans to buy Patriot missiles from U.S. company Raytheon RTN.N to help protect its airspace, a senior Defence Ministry official said on Thursday.

CEE MARKETS

The Czech crown extended its losses against the euro on Thursday as investors sitting on a huge pile of long positions struggle to take profits, with risks from Sunday's first round of the French presidential election weighing on sentiment.

WHEAT

The Black Sea region and east European countries are in coming years likely to further expand their rapid growth of wheat exports, an analyst said on Thursday.

WAGES

A draft single wage bill for the public sector will be filed in parliament for debate and approval on Monday, the head of the ruling Social Democrats and lower house speaker Liviu Dragnea told reporters.

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on

For emerging markets economic events, click on

For an index of all diaries, click on

For other related news, double click on: --------------------------------------------------------------- Romanian equities RO-E E.Europe equities .CEE Romanian money RO-M Romanian debt RO-D Eastern Europe EEU All emerging markets EMRG Hot stocks HOT Stock markets STX Market debt news DBT Forex news FRX For real-time index quotes, double click on: Bucharest BETI Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX ----------------------------------------------------------
By My Pham

HANOI, April 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Vietnam's prime minister to visit the United States, the Southeast Asian nation's government said on its website on Friday.

Vietnam took ties with the United States to a new level under former U.S. President Barack Obama, keen for the United States to maintain its security presence in Asia in the face of territorial claims by giant neighbour China.

The two governments have expressed desire to further promote ties and strengthen their relationship since Trump's election win last November.

U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster has delivered a letter of invitation from Trump to Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh, now on a visit to the United States, the government added.

Last month, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also said he was ready to visit the United States to promote ties between the two countries.

Trump will attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam in November.

Vietnam had been one of the top potential beneficiaries of the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement canceled by Trump, but it has also been building links to the United States amid a maritime dispute with China.

China claims most of the South China Sea, while Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam claim parts of the sea, which commands strategic sea lanes and has rich fishing grounds, along with oil and gas deposits.

Washington lifted a U.S. lethal arms embargo on Vietnam last May, allowing closer defense links and some joint military exercises. (Reporting by My Pham; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday declined to comment on media reports that Russia was moving military hardware and troops towards the border with North Korea, the RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

Peskov said that deployments of Russian troops inside Russia's own borders were not a public matter.

Some media in Russia's Ear East have cited local residents as saying they have seen military hardware being moved towards North Korea as tensions with the United States over its nuclear programme escalate. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

VEDOMOSTI

www.vedomosti.ru

Russia's central bank intends to create an electronic instant payments system, the daily reports. But according to experts the bank risks undermining the development of another similar initiative, the Mir payments system.

Reforms to oil taxes have been approved by Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, the daily says. In 2018, tax will be calculated based on profits, it says.

Chinese company XinChen has announced plans to invest $4 billion in building a refinery in the Primorye region. The project must be agreed at government level, the daily reports.

VTB capital, Russia's state-owned investment bank, will acquire a 19.9 percent stake in TNS Energo, a big private retail company, for around 6 billion roubles ($106 million), the newspaper says.

KOMMERSANT

www.kommersant.ru

Yelizovo airport in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which serves the Russian Far East, may be sold to a private investor for 355 million roubles ($6 million) in 2017, the daily says. Potential buyers include two companies controlled by tycoon Oleg Deripaska and businessman Victor Vekselberg respectively.

Sergei Ivanov, ex-head of the presidential administration, has been appointed a member of state-owned Rostec Corporation's supervisory board. He has taken the place of Yuri Ushakov, a presidential aide for international Affairs, who will be busy overseeing U.S.-Russia relations, the newspaper says.

NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA

www.ng.ru

According to new research by the Russian Academy of National Economy the middle class in Russia consists mainly of financial professionals, security force officials and civil servants, the daily reports.

KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA

www.kp.ru

Russia's Supreme court has ruled that the Jehovah's Witnesses organisation is extremist and outlawed it, the daily says. The group's property is due to be handed over to the state, the newspaper says.

($1 = 56.4165 Rub) (Reporting by Margarita Popova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
By Nandita Bose

CHICAGO, April 21 (Reuters) - Target Corp, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other retailers are shelving considerations to move supply bases closer to the United States in the face of a possible border tax, banking instead on killing support for the tax idea in Congress. President Donald Trump's administration plans to impose a 20 percent tax on imports, a levy that, industry officials said, could raise U.S. consumer prices by as much as 25 percent. Last week, the President said he favored an 'import tax' that could be adjusted to reflect the country of origin's tax rate for U.S. products.

The decision by retailers to forestall supply chain investment in countries such as Bolivia and Romania to focus on lobbying Congress shows how Trump's ambitious agenda has instilled a new level of risk operating outside U.S. borders. But the vagueness around Trump's proposals and whether they may ever be implemented means retail industry executives are still not willing to change their operating infrastructure.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, which is leading the industry lobbying effort, has conducted 140 meetings with lawmakers since December, focusing on the costs of a new tax and encouraging lawmakers who oppose Trump's idea.

Prospects for a quick passage of a tax bill took a hit last month when the Republican attempt to overhaul the national healthcare law failed to get a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump and Republican leaders have said they still intend to pass a healthcare reform law first, casting further doubt on when Congress may consider tax reform.

The border tax proposal likely will be "as messy as the healthcare bill," according to Brian Dodge, senior executive vice-president of public affairs for the retail lobby group.

Target, for one, thinks the industry's lobbying efforts are succeeding.

"We are working on educating lawmakers and President Trump hasn't embraced it yet, so we definitely think we are making progress," a senior company official at Target said on condition of anonymity.

There is good reason for retailers to fight the tax idea. RBC Capital Markets forecast such a levy could reduce profits of six large U.S. retailers by as much as $13 billion in its first year, with Wal-Mart alone seeing its federal tax bill jump to $16.6 billion from $6.6 billion. For a graphic please click http://tmsnrt.rs/2oVlOPB

Best Buy Co Inc, which relies heavily on electronics imports, could see its earnings completely wiped out, RBC warned. Best Buy declined to comment.

Firms with less exposure to overseas suppliers - ranging from off-price chains like TJX Cos and Ross Stores to cosmetics seller Ulta Beauty - would feel less impact than heavy importers like Wal-Mart, Target and Costco Wholesale Corp, analysts and consultants said.

TJX Companies and Ulta Beauty declined comment. Ross Stores and Costco did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Steve Osburn, director of supply chain for retail consultancy Kurt Salmon, said it is more cost effective to spend on lobbying than on supply chain relocation at this point. Retailers also have other investment needs, especially around winning consumers who want to shop from home.

"They are putting a lot of money in e-commerce initiatives to compete online so there are not a lot of funds to spare," he said.

One outlier is luxury handbag maker Rebecca Minkoff, which sells its own products and supplies other retailers, like Nordstrom Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

The prospect of a Trump border tax factored into its recent decision to supply U.S. customers from Europe as it mitigates logistics costs to supply to the United States, according to Uri Minkoff, the firm's founder and CEO.

"The process has intensified in the past six months," said Minkoff.

WHERE THE SUPPLY CHAINS ARE

The decision to bank more on the lobby effort to kill support for the tax idea comes after retailers spent the last few months considering whether to move some of their production to supply bases like Bolivia, Brazil and other South American countries with low wage rates, as well as European countries like Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, industry sources told Reuters.

A return to the United States was also a consideration, the sources said.

Shifting production from existing supply bases like China is costly, may involve intellectual property issues and disrupts long-term supply contracts, making it hard to plan and execute such moves, two industry sources said.

Consultants have told retailers they could mitigate shipping costs enough to offset any border tax, while avoiding the cost of moving production into the U.S, the sources said.

But so far they are not proceeding with major supply chain changes, according to retailers and industry consultants.

"Wal-Mart is not ready to spend money to deal with this," said a supply chain consultant who works with the retailer but requested anonymity for fear of disrupting the firm's relationship with Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart has reviewed its options with supply chain consultants, but has not yet commissioned a concrete contingency plan, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Wal-Mart declined comment.

Executives at smaller retailers and brands like Samsonite, Crate and Barrel and Steve Madden said there is little competitive impetus for action because they believe a border tax would hurt them and competitors equally.

Samsonite was studying reviving its U.S. manufacturing base, but is not close to taking action.

"Setting plans (based) on policy proposals that are yet to be implemented is not right," Samsonite Chief Executive Officer Ramesh Tainwala told Reuters.

Minneapolis-based Target is limiting itself to conducting feasibility studies. "We just don't want to get ahead of ourselves and invest capital," the Target official said.

Target declined comment.

(Editing by David Greising and Edward Tobin)
ANKARA, April 21 (Reuters) - Turkey's main opposition CHP party said on Friday it was making a court appeal against the decision by the High Electoral Board (YSK) to accept unstamped ballots in the tightly contested referendum granting President Tayyip Erdogan wide new powers.

"We are filing an appeal to the council of state today demanding the cancellation of the YSK decision to accept unstamped ballots," CHP Deputy Chairman Bulent Tezcan said in a statement.

Turkey's council of state is the high judicial body handling all complaints and appeals against state and public institutions. The CHP and a pro-Kurdish opposition party had pledged to take legal action against what they said were irregularities in Sunday's referendum.

Tezcan also said the CHP would demand that the official results of the referendum be postponed until the case is resolved. The YSK had said on Sunday it would announce final results 11-12 days after the vote. (Reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans)
By Osamu Tsukimori

TOKYO, April 21 (Reuters) - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday a decision on extending a global pact to cut oil production had not yet been taken, but would be discussed with OPEC on May 24.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other leading oil producers have pledged to curb output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), with Russia's contribution of cuts amounting to 300,000 bpd to be gradually phased in.

The goal was to reduce bulging global inventories and lift oil prices. Despite a modest recovery in the market, oil stocks remain high and the focus is now on whether OPEC and non-OPEC producers will prolong the cuts into the second half of 2017.

OPEC's next policy-setting meeting is set for May 25, with a decision expected at that time on whether to extend the curbs.

Novak said information on the oil market's situation and forecasts were being digested in order to draw a conclusion.

"The OPEC Secretariat will send the information to all the countries that are taking part in the agreement and we will discuss the issue during a ministerial meeting on May 24," said Novak.

He was believed to be referring to a joint committee of ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC producers that monitors compliance with the accord.

"There are no firm decisions on that. Each country is looking into the matter by itself so it can make its proposals and evaluations," said Novak, who was on a visit to Tokyo.

He also said Russia's oil output cuts had reached 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) and would hit a targeted 300,000 bpd by the end of April.

MARKET IMPROVES

Earlier on Friday, Novak said the oil market was improving with production cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC members, including Russia, trimming a surplus that had squeezed prices for years.

"The situation has gradually been improving since the beginning of March," Novak said. "The oil surplus has been reduced. The situation is getting more and more stable and there's less volatility on the market."

Novak said current oil prices reflected the market situation, with benchmark Brent around $53 a barrel.

Leading Gulf oil exporters Saudi Arabia and Kuwait signalled on Thursday that OPEC is seriously considering an output-cut extension. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said a consensus was growing that the pact should be prolonged.

OPEC sources said an internal assessment was that without an extension, oil could slide to $30-40 a barrel. (Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Dale Hudson)
By Rina Chandran

MUMBAI, April 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 70 environmental groups have warned the construction of power plants near the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, a mangrove forest that is home to the Bengal tiger, would damage the environment and affect the livelihoods of millions.

The coal-fired 1,320-megawatt Rampal power plant will be built on the edge of the Sundarbans forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site. A smaller plant is planned a short distance away.

"There is no doubt that the proposed Rampal and Orion power plants will have serious and irreversible impact on the ecology of the Sundarbans," the groups from countries including Sweden, South Africa and Japan said in an open letter to the World Heritage Committee dated April 20.

"The planned coal power plants threaten the health and livelihoods of millions of people."

The salt-tolerant mangrove forests of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands is known for its wide variety of bird and animal species.

The Rampal plant will directly impact the livelihoods of about half a million people - including fishermen, farmers and forest dwellers - and make millions more vulnerable to natural disasters, according to lobby group the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports.

Dhaka plans to set up 25 coal-fired power plants by 2022 in order to meet rising electricity demand.

The government has indicated it is unlikely to abandon its push to build more coal-fired power plants, despite growing opposition from local people and environmentalists.

Some of these protests have turned violent.

Earlier this year, one person was killed and about a dozen injured in a protest against a $2.4-billion Chinese-backed coal-fired plant southeast of the capital Dhaka.

Last year, at least four people died when police opened fire at protesters against the plant.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, responding to criticism from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore at the World Economic Forum this year, said Bangladesh desperately needs more power, and that the planned coal plants are far from the Sundarbans.

Clashes between villagers and governments keen to build infrastructure to spur growth are likely to become more common in South Asia as demand for scarce land rises, analysts say.

Environmentalists say the risks that fossil fuel plants pose to nature and the livelihoods of people are not being assessed.

"Women are particularly at risk, as displacement is linked to increases in gender violence, including falling victim to trafficking and prostitution," the non-profit groups said in their letter.

Signatories to the letter include the Climate Action Network, Timberwatch (South Africa), Global Forest Coalition and Friends of the Earth International (Sweden). (Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran, Editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)
By Daniel Wesangula

NAIROBI, April 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenya is looking to amend its anti-trafficking law so that foreign victims of human trafficking found on Kenyan soil are not treated as criminals but given greater protection, the government's chief legal adviser said.

More than 20,000 people are trafficked through Kenya each year from neighbouring countries including Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan, the International Organization for Migration says. Many are trying to reach southern Africa when they are arrested by police and customs officials at Kenyan border towns.

In addition, Kenyan children are trafficked to work on farms, fishing boats and in private homes as houseboys and girls. Others are forced to beg and hawk goods on the streets - or else trapped in prostitution.

"Our traditional reaction to this has been to arrest the victims, charge them, jail them and then deport them," said Kenyan Attorney General Githu Muigai.

"Some of them are women and children. We need to rethink how we deal with the victims," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

He said Kenya was a popular trafficking corridor because of its relatively good infrastructure that connects to the rest of East Africa and the Horn.

Kenya passed an anti-trafficking law in 2010 but it has proved difficult to secure convictions.

Muigai said the law needs to be amended to ensure that victims are taken care of, freed from trafficking rings and returned safely back to their countries.

"Of course for this to happen, some existing laws will have to be amended," he said.

Last year, the U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons report named Kenya as a source, transit and destination country for victims of labour exploitation and sex trafficking.

"We now have a higher awareness among all law enforcement agencies over the magnitude of the problem and the part that Kenya has to play in this global war," Muigai said.

More protection was needed for Kenyan workers trafficked abroad, he said.

Kenya is negotiating a trade deal with Saudi Arabia that will see the Gulf state export cheap crude to Kenya in exchange for a 100,000 person workforce of skilled and semi-skilled Kenyan labourers.

Saudi Arabia has for years been a destination country for many Kenyan women lured by the promise of well-paid work and a chance to escape joblessness at home only to discover abuse in the hands of employers.

"This trade deal will help us get into bilateral agreements with countries that are labour importers because we are labour exporters," Muigai said.

"This will allow us to intervene and ensure that all favourable labour requirements between our citizens and their employers are respected." (Editing by Katie Nguyen and Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)
By Michael Kahn and Luiza Ilie

PRAGUE/BUCHAREST, April 21 (Reuters) - When Romania listed five investment funds in 1999 as part of a mass privatisation drive, millions of citizens received a little portion of what many hoped would one day grow to become a lucrative big pie.

Twenty years on, however, and the listed closed-end funds with combined net asset values of 7.65 billion lei ($1.8 billion) have failed to live up to market expectations due to inefficient management, the slow pace of further privatisations and the exclusion of big investors due to ownership limits that have left shares in the funds trading at steep discounts to their net asset values (NAV).

But now the government is mulling the creation of a 10 billion-euro sovereign wealth fund and Romania's share market is on the cusp of being upgraded by international market index compilers such as FTSE Russell and MSCI from 'frontier' to 'emerging market', increasing the attractions of the listed funds.

"It can provide further support to the status of the Romanian equity market and may have a positive effect not only for the (closed-end funds) but all liquid Romanian equities," said Alex Bebov, managing director of Balkan Advisory Company, a Sofia-based investment banker and bourse member.

But while foreign investors might be tempted by the steep discounts if the BSE market gets upgraded, investors and market participants warn that they would still face the same problems that have for years beset existing shareholders and which can only be solved if the fund companies are restructured.

The share prices of the five - SIF Banat Crisana, SIF Moldova, SIF Transilvania, SIF Muntenia , SIF Oltenia currently trade at NAV discounts of between 36 and 50 percent, reflecting problems with the way they are managed, rather than simply lack of demand. They offer a dividend yield range of 3.16-8 percent.

"It is a widespread problem and it needs to be solved," a Romanian broker said.

Few expect the steep discounts to shrink any time soon without legislation changing the structure of the funds and thereby attracting more outside investors - something which the government has shown little appetite for.

"Whether we want to or not, narrowing the discount is limited as long as the market we operate in does not expand," said former finance minister Bogdan Dragoi, manager of SIF Banat Crisana.

The big problem, investors and analysts say, is an ownership structure limiting stakes to 5 percent, making it hard for shareholders to push for more robust corporate governance and hold fund managers to account.

"This has been one of the main impediments for any significant outside interest in the SIFs," another local market participant said. "This ownership level gives you no control over corporate governance."

Officials have said the cap was enforced to protect the small shareholders which the SIFs were created for, but many have since sold their stakes since the funds were listed.

In contrast there is no ownership limit for Fondul Proprietatea, a separate closed-end fund created in 2005 to compensate Romanians for the seizure of their property under communism.

The $2.1 billion fund is managed by Franklin Templeton, which has aggressively sold portfolio assets to buy back its own shares and sharply lower their discount to NAV to around 26 percent, largely at the urging of activist investor Elliott Associates, which holds a 20 percent stake in the fund.

"We have an investment fund with no ownership ceiling and then we have the SIFs where the state, through an old law, is blocking shareholders decisionmaking," said Mircea Ursache, vice president of Romanias financial supervision authority ASF. (Writing by Michael Kahn; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
By Abdul Matin

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, April 21 (Reuters) - At least three Afghan army soldiers were killed and several wounded on Friday when Taliban gunmen attacked a military headquarters in northern Afghanistan, officials said.

The attack occurred near a mosque on the base in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, as soldiers were leaving Friday prayers, according to an army officer who asked not to be named as he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The Western-backed Afghan government is locked in a prolonged war with Taliban insurgents as well as other militant groups.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the fighters set off an explosion, allowing suicide bombers armed with small arms to breach the base.

"Our fighters have inflicted heavy casualties on the Afghan army stationed there," he said.

Another army officer reported that the attackers used military uniforms and vehicles to pass three checkpoints before launching their attack.

The base is the headquarters for the Afghan National Army's 209th Corps. It covers most of northern Afghanistan, including Kunduz province, which has been the scene of heavy fighting. (Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA, April 21 (Reuters) - Turkey's main opposition party said it filed a court appeal on Friday against a decision by electoral authorities to accept unstamped ballot papers in the tightly contested referendum granting President Tayyip Erdogan wide new powers.

Preliminary referendum results gave a narrow 51.4 percent approval for the biggest overhaul of Turkey's political system since the modern state was established nearly a century ago, but opposition parties said the poll was deeply flawed.

Held under a state of emergency in place since a failed coup last July, it was criticised by European election observers who said the decision to allow unstamped ballot papers to be counted had removed a main safeguard against voting fraud.

All ballot papers should have been stamped by the electoral authority before voting started to show that they were valid.

Erdogan and government ministers have rejected criticism of the vote as politically motivated, and the High Electoral Board (YSK) dismissed on Wednesday challenges by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and two other opposition parties.

"We are filing an appeal to the council of state today demanding the cancellation of the YSK decision to accept unstamped ballots," CHP Deputy Chairman Bulent Tezcan said. The council of state is the judicial body which handles complaints and appeals against state and public institutions.

Tezcan also said the CHP would demand that the official results of the referendum be postponed until the case is resolved. The YSK had said on Sunday it would announce final results 11-12 days after the vote.

The CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP party, which says millions of unstamped ballots were accepted, have said they could also appeal the referendum result at the European Court of Human Rights if their legal challenges fail in Turkish courts.

Erdogan has dismissed them as sore losers, saying the YSK was the final arbiter of electoral issues and neither Turkey's Constitutional Court nor the ECHR had any jurisdiction.

"This is over. The people have decided and the national will has made its voice heard," he told television news station A Haber late on Thursday.

COMPLAINTS "USELESS"

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, whose post will cease to exist once Erdogan's all-powerful presidency proposed under the referendum comes into effect, said everyone had a right to complain - but it would not change the outcome.

"These are useless attempts. The YSK makes a decision on these issues and it ends," he told reporters on Friday. "There is no higher legal authority in this regard."

Asked whether the European Court of Human Rights could issue a ruling on the case, an ECHR official said that anyone could submit an appeal to the court once they have exhausted their options for justice at home, but that it would be difficult to say in advance whether the court has jurisdiction.

Turkey's bar association said this week that the last-minute decision by the YSK electoral board to allow the unstamped ballots was clearly against the law, prevented proper records being kept, and may have impacted the results.

Few in Turkey expect legal challenges to the referendum to lead to a recount, let alone a re-run. But if unresolved, they will leave deep questions over the legitimacy of a vote which split the electorate down the middle, and whose polarising campaign drew criticism and concern from European allies.

The HDP party, whose two co-leaders were jailed last year, said it was determined to pursue legal appeals, but appeared to concede there was little prospect of success.

Going to Turkish courts or the ECHR "doesn't mean these applications will yield a result," spokesman Osman Baydemir said. "Applications to these mechanisms will be made to take note in history." (Editing by Dominic Evans and Alison Williams)
By Crispian Balmer

ROME, April 21 (Reuters) - Italian officials played down on Friday suggestions that U.S. President Donald Trump had snubbed efforts by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to get Washington more involved in bringing political stability to Libya.

Gentiloni met Trump at the White House on Thursday, telling reporters he was seeking support to help deal with the North African state that fragmented and descended into chaos after the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

"The U.S. role in this is very critical," Gentiloni told a news conference standing alongside Trump. The U.S. president immediately responded: "I do not see a role in Libya. I think the United States has right now enough roles."

Italian commentators said Trump appeared to have brushed aside Gentiloni's request for help. "Libya divides Trump and Gentiloni," the pro-government la Repubblica newspaper said in a headline. "The alliance in difficulty," it said.

However, reporters following the news conference said Trump had not been listening to the simultaneous translation when Gentiloni had made his remark and an official close to the Italian prime minister said the meeting had gone well.

"There was no snub at all," said an official close to Gentiloni, adding that two-thirds of the leaders' talks on Thursday had centred on Libya.

As proof of the U.S. involvement in Libya, Italian officials said Washington had invited Fayez Seraj, who heads a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, and Khalifa Haftar, a prominent commander in eastern Libya, for talks in the U.S. capital later this year.

There was no immediate confirmation from Washington.

Haftar, who is backed by Russia and Egypt, is a figurehead for east Libyan factions. Italy has thrown its support instead behind Seraj in the west and warns that the divisions could split Libya apart, with dire consequences for the whole region.

Rome is especially anxious to restore peace because Libya has become a hub for human traffickers, with more than half-a-million migrants reaching Italy over the past three years on a flotilla of rickety ships and inflatable boats.

"Now is the moment for the U.S. and Italy to work together to stabilise the situation and broaden the support for the Tripoli government to other actors," Gentiloni said in a speech in Washington on Thursday before he saw Trump.

"The division of Libya is not a good idea. It would be dangerous for Egypt, dangerous for Tunisia and for the interests of Europe," he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

He added that NATO countries including the United States had an especial responsibility to Libya, saying their 2011 military intervention had got rid of Gaddafi but had ushered in mayhem.

"It was evidently an intervention that lacked a vision or perspective for the future," Gentiloni said.

Italy is worried that the United States might eventually throw its weight behind Haftar at the request of Egypt, which promotes the general as a bulwark against Islamist militants. (Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
By Tom Finn and Ulf Laessing

DOHA/BAGHDAD, April 21 (Reuters) - Twenty-six Qataris, including members of the Gulf state's ruling royal family and two Saudis, were freed on Friday after being kidnapped and held in Iraq for nearly a year and a half, Qatari officials said.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani greeting the men with hugs as they arrived in Doha on Friday on a private jet from Baghdad.

Their release was a boost for tiny Qatar which has used its influence to free foreign hostages in war zones but was alarmed when 26 of its own citizens were seized by unidentified gunmen in 2015 while hunting in southern Iraq.

Their abduction in territory dominated by militias aligned with neighbouring Shi'ite power Iran led to long negotiations among Qatar, Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, according to an Arab diplomat in Doha.

A Qatari official said the hostages' release was linked to a major evacuation of Syrian civilians and fighters from four besieged towns completed on Friday.

The official said talks about the evacuations, involving Iranian officials and Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, were held in Qatar when Irans foreign minister visited on March 8.

The complexity of the talks and the many players involved highlights Qatar's continued role as a mediator and a potential broker of deals in Syria's six-year conflict.

In Riyadh, the Saudi foreign ministry said the two Saudi hostages landed there on a private jet late on Friday.

"They are all in good health and they all left the Iraqi capital this afternoon," the ministry said, according to the Saudi state news agency SPA.

The group was kidnapped Dec. 16, 2015 from a desert hunting camp in southern Iraq by dozens of armed men in pickup trucks.

A Qatari royal and a Pakistani man were freed last year.

No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the hunters, who were seized near a Saudi border area dominated by Shi'ite militias who have accused Doha of meddling in Iraq's affairs.

Some Iraqis, especially in the Shi'ite-majority south, are critical of Qatars stance in the Syrian civil war and accuse it of complicity in the rise of Sunni Islamist militants.

Qatar, a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, denies supporting extremist groups.

It had called on Iraq to take the lead in freeing the hostages, who had been granted permits by Baghdad to hunt in the area. Iraqs interior ministry said the hunters had failed to heed government instructions to stay within secured areas.

Hunters from rich Gulf states travel to Iraq's desert in the winter months to buy falcons and hunt the rare houbara bustard, a bird whose meat is highly prized. (Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad, Sami Aboudi in Dubai, Omar Fahmy and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
LONDON, April 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Progress has been made in tackling diseases that blind, disable and disfigure millions of poor in tropical countries each year, but drug companies need to step up donations of medicines, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week.

Governments and private donors pledged more than $800 million at a meeting in Geneva this week to accelerate the fight against these illnesses, categorised by the WHO as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

Below are some expert views on how to accelerate the fight against NTDs, which include diseases such as guinea worm, dengue, onchocerciasis (river blindness), trachoma and sleeping sickness.

ELLEN AGLER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, THE END FUND

"Over the past five years we have seen huge progress in the fight against NTDs, with over a billion doses of drugs given to people at risk in 2015 alone. This is incredible and is the result of a unique partnership between the private, public and third sector that mobilises our individual resources and talents, and builds capacity where its needed, to help treat the poorest of the poor across the world.

One of the key successes we've seen is that in-country Ministry Of Health professionals have proven that they can deliver high quality and consistent NTD treatment coverage if adequately resourced. As a Fund dedicated to seeing the end of NTDs, the challenge is to mobilise greater capital to support them to achieve our 2020 goals.

Additionally, conflict poses a very real challenge for many reasons. In addition to the obvious dangers, it risks interrupting treatment to people who desperately need it, and can set back a country years in NTD control and put millions at risk of reinfection."

CHARLES NELSON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, MALARIA CONSORTIUM

"We have seen impressive progress since the London Declaration on NTDs in 2012. Dracunculiasis (guinea worm) has been nearly eradicated, with just 25 cases in 2015, and progress against lymphatic filariasis has been staggering - over half a billion people were protected with preventive chemotherapy last year.

This has been achieved due to strong political will and generous financial commitments, and Malaria Consortium welcomes the recent increases to NTDs from the UK government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - amounting to over 700 million pounds over the next five years. However, if we are to achieve the ambitious targets for 2020, we need other international donors to match these generous commitments, and for endemic countries to do more too.

Throughout the Summit, it has been encouraging to see how much the agenda is moving forward across all NTDs, including intense case management NTDs, and among them, skin related diseases. It is of course crucial that mass drug administration continues, but as we approach elimination, disease surveillance becomes increasingly important. And even after diseases are eliminated, we need to integrate treatment for those that require intense case management or ongoing care due to the chronic effects of NTDs into national health systems."

PAUL EMERSON, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL TRACHOMA INITIATIVE

The scale up and progress in implementation for trachoma elimination in endemic countries has been nothing short of phenomenal. We know where the disease is, we know what to do about it and where do it. Country programmes and partners have mobilised multilateral and domestic financing to ramp up antibiotic distributions, surgeries for the advanced stage of trachoma, and water and sanitation improvements where possible.

The challenge in front of us now is in reaching the most neglected populations, communities in conflict, and in closing the funding gaps.

BERNARD PECOUL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DNDi (DRUGS FOR NEGLECTED DISEASES INITIATIVE)

"The London Declaration five years ago undoubtedly gave a new impulse to the fight against the most neglected diseases. The fight is far from over. We are yet to see the breakthroughs that will bring newer, safer, better drugs, diagnostics or vaccines to the most neglected.

Collectively, we need to sustain our scientific, political and financial commitments, particularly on research and development, to provide neglected people with the modern health technologies needed to sustain elimination of many of these diseases." (Reporting by Astrid Zweynert @azweynert; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
PARIS, April 21 (Reuters) - Ukrainian agriculture will become more attractive to investors due to land sales and other economic reforms planned by the government, top executives at grain producer AgroGeneration said on Friday as the firm announced results.

The Paris-listed firm, which farms about 100,000 hectares in Ukraine, reported a dip in full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to 19.4 million euros ($20.74 million) for 2016 from 19.9 million euros in 2015.

But its net loss narrowed to 0.9 million euros from 7.9 million euros in 2015.

Speaking in a joint interview with Reuters, AgroGeneration's chairman and its chief executive said Ukraine's business environment would improve as the economy expanded and said political tensions would not halt the reform programme.

This month's resignation of Ukraine's central bank governor, Valeria Gontareva, respected by investors as a tough reformer capable of taking on vested interests, raised concerns land reforms and other initiatives could be blown off course.

"I don't see Ukraine significantly slipping back in terms of reforms or the fight against corruption," Chairman Michael Bleyzer said. "From the president downwards, officials all understand they can only go one way."

While reforms aimed at lifting a freeze on land sales were expected to go ahead, it could take at least one or two years to implement because of the legal work needed, Bleyzer said.

However, Bleyzer said land ownership was not a crucial issue for AgroGeneration because there was a trend towards longer land lease periods. The company's average lease was 10 years.

AgroGeneration expects to keep the area it has under crop cultivation steady this year, splitting it between winter crops like wheat and rapeseed and spring crops such as sunflower, maize and soybeans, Bleyzer said.

But Bleyzer, who acquired a controlling stake in AgroGeneration in 2013 and has been working to cut losses and debts since then, said the firm was looking for possible additional areas for the future.

Chief Executive John Shmorhun said AgroGeneration aimed to increase the share of exports in its grain sales this year, after raising it to 45 percent in 2016 from 38 percent in 2015.

AgroGeneration expected grain commodity prices to show signs of recovery this year, reflecting growing demand that had been masked by high global supply in recent seasons, Shmorhun said in the interview.

($1 = 0.9354 euros) (Reporting by Gus Trompiz; Editing by Edmund Blair)
By Jonathan Saul and Faith Hung

LONDON/TAIPEI, April 21 (Reuters) - Taiwan's troubled Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp is halting its container service to Iran, becoming the first foreign shipping line to abandon the route a year after international sanctions on Tehran were lifted, according to a company source.

Yang Ming, the world's ninth largest container shipping line, is a comparatively small player in Iran, calling there just once a week. Several larger shipping lines have begun serving Iran since sanctions were lifted a year ago.

An executive with Keelung-headquartered Yang Ming said the firm had "ceased direct services to Iran on concerns of rising tensions there".

"We took into consideration the recent sanctions against Iran as well as the current geopolitical tensions in the region and what's been going on between Iran, the U.S. and Europe," the executive said, declining to elaborate further.

Reuters was unable to confirm independently whether the cancellation of the route was due to new concern over Iran, or to changes at the Taiwanese company which is trying to slash costs after it posted a loss of $62 million in the last quarter of 2016.

Yang Ming announced on Thursday in a regulatory filing it had suspended its share trading until May 4 in an effort to reduce losses from a global downturn in shipping.

The executive said Yang Ming had also adjusted some of its routes in Asia as a result of the downturn, but that ceasing direct service to Iran was mainly because of geopolitical issues rather than the cost cutting drive.

The cancellation of the Iran route is likely to be seen in the shipping industry as a further sign that business has not picked up as quickly as Tehran had hoped since sanctions were lifted.

Although international sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme have been removed, separate U.S. sanctions over its missile programme are still in place, which has made it difficult for international banks to engage with Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has launched a review of Iran policy and suggested it could seek tougher measures.

While foreign shipping companies have resumed business with Iran, the vital seaborne trade remains costly and complex.

A U.S.-based pressure group that lobbies companies to stop trading with Iran, United Against Nuclear Iran, said Yang Ming's decision to withdraw was motivated by the risk of doing business there. It released what it said was a letter from Yang Ming's chairman Bronson Hsieh who described the decision to halt the Iran route as part of a "strategic realignment process".

"Yang Ming is aware of political and legal trends in the relationship of the United States with Iran," Hsieh wrote in the letter released by the pressure group. The company source who spoke to Reuters was unable to comment on the letter.

Container shipping firms including the world's top three, Maersk Line of Denmark, MSC of Switzerland and CMA CGM of France, are among foreign lines that have resumed services to Iran after the nuclear deal.

Maersk said there were no changes to its Iran activities and it was business as usual. CMA CGM declined to comment while MSC could not be reached for comment. (Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris; editing by Peter Graff)
By Lawrence Hurley and Jon Herskovitz

April 21 (Reuters) - Newly appointed conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch helped clear the way for Arkansas to hold its first execution in 12 years, a sign of the challenges facing other inmates seeking to block their executions next week.

In his first recorded vote, President Donald Trump's pick for the court sided as expected with its renewed conservative majority. The justices voted 5-4 to reject an emergency application brought by several inmates before Arkansas executed convicted murderer Ledell Lee.

Lee's lethal injection for the 1993 beating death of Debra Reese was the only one carried out so far by the state this month, despite an original plan to execute eight inmates in April before its supply of one of the three drugs used expires.

The executions would be the most by any state in the shortest period since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in the United States in 1976. Four of those executions have been indefinitely delayed by stays for matters including DNA testing, clemency consideration or to allow for a decision in an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case.

Gorsuch's vote could again be crucial next week when Arkansas plans to execute three more inmates.

On Monday, the state will try to put two inmates to death on the same day, something that has not been done in the United States in 17 years. Arkansas also plans a single execution for Thursday.

As a conservative justice in the mold of the man he replaced, Antonin Scalia, Gorsuch is seen by most court-watchers as unlikely to undermine the death penalty.

Kent Scheidegger, a lawyer with the pro-prosecution Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said Gorsuch is "not one who will further delay justice when it has already been badly delayed merely because the lawyers for a death row inmate bring weak claims at the last minute."

The court has rejected stays for the eight men, including Lee. Their lawyers have argued that Arkansas' rush to the death chamber amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and violated the inmates' right to counsel and their right to access the courts and counsel during the execution process.

What a possible Gorsuch vote means for the upcoming Arkansas executions depends largely on the individual legal issues raised by the inmates and whether lower courts intervene. The Supreme Courts default approach to emergency applications is to deny them, whether from a state or a prison inmate.

There may be further indications on how Gorsuch will approach such cases on Monday, when the court hears oral arguments in a death penalty case from Alabama. It concerns inmate James McWilliams, sentenced to death for a 1984 rape, robbery and murder.

The question is whether McWilliams has a right to an independent medical expert to assess whether he is mentally disabled and therefore ineligible for execution.

Two of the Arkansas death row inmates the state had planned to execute this week, Don Davis and Bruce Ward, had their cases put on hold by the Arkansas Supreme Court pending the U.S. high courts decision in the McWilliams case, due by the end of June.

There are no signs that the U.S. Supreme Court is inclined to tackle the broader question of whether the death penalty is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

The court's conservatives, including Gorsuch, would be expected to uphold capital punishment. (For a graphic on the number and method of executions in the United States since 1976, see: http://tmsnrt.rs/20uUlkC)

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)
By Gavin Jones

ROME, April 21 (Reuters) - Ratings agency Fitch downgraded Italy's sovereign debt on Friday, citing the country's sluggish economic growth, fiscal slippage, weak government, banking problems and political risk ahead of elections due in 2018.

Fitch cut Italy's sovereign credit rating to 'BBB' from 'BBB+', a move that could put further pressure on its borrowing costs which have already been rising in recent months. The outlook for the rating is now stable, it said.

The agency had put the euro zone's third largest economy on watch in October with a negative outlook ahead of a referendum on constitutional reforms intended to streamline lawmaking which was lost by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Renzi then resigned to make way for what Fitch described as "a weakened interim government," led by his former foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni.

"Italy's persistent track record of fiscal slippage, backloading of consolidation, weak economic growth and resulting failure to bring down the very high level of general government debt has left it more exposed to potential adverse shocks," Fitch said.

"This is compounded by an increase in political risk and ongoing weakness in the banking sector, which has required planned public intervention in three banks since December," it added.

Italy's public debt hit a record last year at almost 133 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) - the highest ratio in the 19-nation euro zone after Greece.

Italy, which has the most sluggish growth in the euro zone and an unstable political outlook, has repeatedly backslid on promised deficit cuts. The result is that markets have become increasingly leery of its government bonds.

The spread between Italian benchmark bond yields and their safer German equivalent has widened to more than two percentage points from one percentage point a year ago, and that rise would have been far steeper without the support of the European Central Bank.

Fitch noted that Italy's debt last year totalled 11.2 percent of GDP higher than the target Rome had set in 2013.

BANK WOES

The ratings agency forecast Italy's economy will grow by 0.9 percent in 2017, the same pace as last year, and by 1.0 percent in 2018, which would still leave inflation-adjusted GDP more than 5 percent below the 2007 level.

In January, Canadian ratings agency DBRS cut Italy's sovereign rating, citing the same problems highlighted by Fitch. Moody's Investors Service also has the country on a negative outlook, meaning a downgrade could be in the pipeline.

Fitch said its outlook for Italy's banking sector was negative, reflecting the high level of non-performing loans and weak profitability.

Three banks - Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca - are seeking public intervention to keep them in business. The Italian banking sector as a whole is weighed down by some 203 billion euros ($217.68 billion) of bad loans.

The agency said that ahead of next year's election, the "risks of weak or unstable government have increased, as has the possibility of populist and eurosceptic parties influencing policy."

Recent opinion polls have given a clear and growing lead to the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which wants to hold a referendum on Italy's continued membership of the euro zone. ($1 = 0.9326 euro) (Editing by G Crosse)
From left: Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority Director General Malraj Kiriella, PATA Sri Lanka Chapter Chairman Hussain Jayah, Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Ministry Secretary Janaka Sugathadasa, Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Minister John Amaratunga and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau Managing Director Sutheash Balasubramaniam Pic by Kithsiri de Mel

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) will be holding the PATA Annual Summit 2017 in Sri Lanka next month, under the theme Disruption, Innovation, Transformation: The Future of Tourism.

I would like to congratulate and thank profusely on behalf of PATA, the dynamism of the minister and his team in securing and winning the bid to hold the summit in Sri Lanka, PATA Sri Lanka Chapter Chairman Hussain Jayah said at a media briefing yesterday. He noted that the biggest advantage of the summit is the publicity and promotional activity created for Sri Lanka just by holding the event in the island.

So many entities are involved. There are 95 government bodies, states and cities around the world who are members of PATA. In addition to that, there are 27 airlines and cruises involved as well. Further, there are hundreds of travel related bodies involved with PATA, he further added.

Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Minister John Amaratunga noted that some of the leading global and local tourism figures will deliberate on key issues relevant to the tourism industry at the summit.

There are problems that come across daily all over the world and these discussions will come up with solutions and ideas to meet these situations, he added.

The four-day event, held from May 18-21 at Jetwing Blue, Negombo, will mainly highlight issues related to sustainability, sharing economy, while disruptive innovation, marketing and research innovation, youth engaged in disruptive tourism, poverty and migration will also be discussed.

Thirty four countries will be participating at the PATA Annual Summit 2017, which includes some of Sri Lankas key tourism sourcing markets.
Haas F1 Team boss Guenther Steiner say that strategy is as much a differentiator for mid-field runners as it is for the big teams up front.

Both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen have clinched 8th place finishes this year for Haas in the first three races of the US outfit's second season in Formula 1.

While Steiner admits that strategy has played a crucial role so far in determining the outcome of races, so have the particular circumstances which have prevailed in some instances.

"For all the teams that are pretty close together, strategy is a differentiator," Steiner told Formula1.com.

" You see that with Ferrari and Mercedes, but also in the midfield sector.

"In China it was the conditions and the safety car. In Bahrain, again the safety car - one virtual and one real.

"So whoever gets it right in these unforeseeable situations is at the front in the end. And there strategy plays a huge part.

"In a normal race with only one pit stop, the race result is, of course, more predictable. But we havent had such a simple race so far. That is good news."

Many were hoping that the new-spec cars would reduce the gap between top of the grid and the mid-field.

But to date, a big spread remains and Steiner is afraid that may not change anytime soon.

"The four midfield teams are pretty close together," he says.

"But yes, there is a significant gap to the big three - take the qualifying times, multiply the gap by the number of race laps and there you are.

GALLERY: F1 drivers' wives and girlfriends

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
By D.B.S.Jeyaraj

Northern Province chief Minister Canagasabapathy Visuvalingam Wigneswaran, who possesses a remarkable flair for getting embroiled in controversial issues, is in the eye of a storm again. This time it is over some remarks made by him during the course of a media interview on April 14th 2017. Mr. Wigneswaran was interviewed by a Tamil website called Thinappuyal meaning Daily Storm. Well, the interview has certainly caused a storm centring around the Northern

Chief Minister.



While responding to a question by the interviewer, Mr. Wigneswaran had referred to Jesus Christ and Swami Premananda in a manner that appeared to draw an analogy between both. This reference has hurt the sentiments of Christians, who regard Jesus Christ as the Son of God and believe in him as their Lord and Saviour. Many are angry that the Chief Minister was comparing Jesus Christ to a Swami or God man who was convicted of rape and murder by the Indian courts.



The You tube posted on the web by Thinappuyal showed the interviewer asking Mr. Wigneswaran about his being a Premananda devotee and whether it was correct to be a devotee of a man convicted as a criminal by the courts. The ex-supreme court judge responded to the question by saying Jesus Christ was convicted 2,000 years ago but people were worshipping him now as God.

Mr. Wigneswaran re-iterated his point about Jesus Christ by saying again in Tamil Avar oru Kuttravaali. Avarukku Marana Thandanai Theerkkappattathu. Aen Innum Kireesthavargal Avarai Iraivanaahap Paarkkiraargal? (He was a criminal. He was convicted and given a death sentence. Why are Christians still seeing him as God? The point Mr. Wigneswaran was trying to make through his counter question seemed to be that like Premananda, Jesus Christ too had been convicted 2,000 years ago.



Mr. Wigneswarans remarks and question about Christians regarding Jesus Christ as God touched a raw nerve among Christians of all folds - Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals. It became a heated issue as the YouTube was shared widely via social media. Mr. Wigneswaran came in for heavy criticism for what was seen as a comparison between Jesus Christ

and Premananda.

Dinesh did not accompany Anura to meet LTTE in Vanni Colombo District MP and MEP Party leader Dinesh Gunawardena has in an electronic mail sent through his son Mr. Yadamini Gunawardena stated that he did not accompany former MP Anura Bandaranaike to the Vanni in 1988 for meeting with the LTTE as mentioned in my column Crown Prince of Sri Lankan Politics but Crowned King published in the Daily Mirror of 18 March 2017.

I had written In 1988 Anura, Kumar Ponnambalam and Dinesh Gunewardane went up to Vavuniya to meet with former LTTE political commissar Narendran alias Yogi.

While confirming that Mr. Bandaranaike did go to the Vanni with Kumar Ponnambalam and several others, Mr. Gunawardena says that he himself was not part of any mission to meet the LTTE.

I thank Mr. Gunawardena for the correction and apologize to him for my mistake. Mr. Gunawardenas letter is published below in full:

-DBSJ

Dear Jeyaraj,

In your article, Crown Prince of Sri Lankan Politics but Crowned King, in the Daily Mirror of 18 March 2017, you write:

In 1988 Anura, Kumar Ponnambalam and Dinesh Gunewardena went up to Vavuniya to meet with former LTTE political commissar Narendran alias Yogi.

While I respect you as a journalist, I regret to inform you that this is incorrect.

I was not part of any mission to meet the LTTE. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, Mr. Kumar Ponnambalam and several others took part.

I was quite surprised when I first heard about it, which was when Mrs. Bandaranaike informed me that there was no news about them. It was only then that I came to know of any such mission. I should be obliged if you would make a correction.

Best regards,

Dinesh Gunawardena, MP



Even several Tamil speaking Muslims took umbrage at this remark about Eesaa Nabhi as Prophet Jesus is referred to in Islamic tenets.

Tamil Catholics vehemently protested against Mr. Wigneswarans remarks. Many young members of the Catholic Laity wanted to stage widespread protest demonstrations against the Chief Minister.



They were restrained by the Catholic clergy, who did not want an ugly situation to develop. A significant section of the Catholic clergy in the North and East has been strongly supportive of Mr. Wigneswarans hawkish political approach in the recent past. These sections were agitated and upset over the new development.



A public statement condemning Mr. Wigneswarans comments was issued by Mr. Anton Punithanayagam, the president of the Mannar Diocese Catholic Federation. (Mannaar Maraimaavatta Katholikka Ondriyam)

The senior lawyer is also the adviser on legal affairs to the Dioceses of Mannar and Jaffna. Mr. Punithanayagam called upon Mr. Wigneswaran to withdraw his comments and issue an apology to the Catholic Church. If not the Chief Minister would have to face questions and protests from Tamil and Sinhala Catholics warned, Anton Punithanayagam.



Bishop Emeritus Kingsley Swampillai

There is currently no Bishop for the Mannar Diocese after Bishop Rayappu Joseph retired. The Bishop Emeritus of Trincomalee-Batticaloa Diocese, Most Rev. Kingsley Swampillai is functioning in Mannar as the Apostolic Administrator. Bishop Swampillai contacted senior Jaffna district MP Somasuntharam Senathirajah alias Maavai Senathirajah and informed him that Catholics were deeply hurt by Mr. Wigneswarans remarks.



He made an amicable suggestion that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) as a party could intervene in the matter and engage in damage control. Thereafter the TNA leader and Leader of the Opposition R. Sampanthan communicated with his hand-picked Northern Chief Minister and asked Mr. Wigneswaran to issue an

unqualified apology.



Meanwhile, the Central Committee of the Ilankai Thamil Arasuk Katchi (ITAK) is scheduled to meet in Batticaloa on April 29th. It is expected that the Wigneswaran issue would be raised and discussed at length on that occasion.



In order to understand the hurt feelings of Christians over this comparison more fully, it is necessary to know more about the personality of Swami Premananda, who was convicted on charges of rape and murder by the Pudukkottai Sessions Court in Indias Tamil Nadu State.



He was sentenced to life imprisonment in August 1997. Consequent appeals made against the verdict by Swami Premananda to the Madras High Court and to the Indian Supreme Court were dismissed in December 2002 and April 2005 respectively.



Premananda died of acute liver failure on February 21st 2011, while serving his jail term at the Cuddalore Central Prison.



Though Premananda was convicted in India and died there, he was actually born in Sri Lanka. Premananda whose real name was Somasundaran Premakumar was born in Matale on November 17th 1951. His father was from Thanjavoor in India while his mother was from Matale, Sri Lanka.

Premakumar transformed into Swami Premananda in 1971 and established an Ashram in Matale. Subsequently he set up an Ashram in Puliyankulam in the Northern Province in 1975.



Swami Premananda was also known as the Matale Swami and Ravi Swami. His Ashram cum Orphanage in Matale was burnt by mobs in July 1983. Premananda relocated to the North and then to India in 1984.He founded the 150 acre Premananda Ashram at Fathimanagar near Trichy town in the Tiruchirappalli District of Tamil Nadu.



Wikipedia Entry

A Wikipedia entry under the heading Swamy Premananda(guru) discloses pertinent details of Premananandas downfall in India. Here are

relevant excerpts -

Originally from Sri Lanka, He moved to India with his followers in 1984 to escape the Sri Lankan Civil War, bringing with him undocumented Sri Lankan orphans who had been in his care. He initially opened an ashram in a rented building in Tiruchirappalli, then moved to Fatimanagar in 1989.The ashram there covered 150 acres of land with plantations of flowers, fruit, and teak. The ashram served as a shelter for women and orphan children. About 200 people lived in the ashram, most of Sri Lankan origin. Branches of the ashram later opened in the UK, Switzerland, Belgium and other countries.



In 1994, one of the girls living in the ashram, Arul Jyothi, escaped and reported that she had been raped and was pregnant. The All India Democratic Womens Association provided moral support and legal aid to the victims.



On 15 November 1994, the Police started an investigation. Two ashram residents also reported that another, called Ravi, had been murdered for attempting to expose the happenings at the ashram.

Trial took place in the Sessions Court in Pudukkottai, presided over by a woman judge R. Banumathi. Noted Criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani was among those representing the Swami. The defence claimed that Premananda had divine powers and was capable of performing miracles, which included materializing vibhuti and regurgitating small Shiva lingams. To debunk this myth, an illusionist was invited into the courtroom; he performed both in court.



Ram Jethmalani argued that the women had consented to sex. The court noted that in some cases the consent was obtained by deceit, such as promising a cure for ailments such as asthma or by saying that sex with the swami was service to God.



The court also noted that some of the girls had been threatened with dire consequences and that some of the victims were below the age of consent (16 at the time of trial) when they were raped. Jethmalani also said that the trial was unfair because witnesses and the accused had been subjected to Police brutality.



The murder victims remains were found buried on the ashram premises and were presented as evidence. DNA samples from Arul Jyothi, her aborted foetus, and Premananda were also introduced as evidence. The prosecution argued that the results established his paternity. The defence hired an expert witness from the UK, Wilson Wall, who took DNA evidence back to the UK and analysed it; his results were that Premananda was not the father and that analysis by the Indian scientists was mishandled.



Life Imprisonment Sentence

On 20 August 1997, Premananda was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined INR 67.3 lakhs for 13 counts of rape, molestations of two girls and a murder.



Failure to pay the fine was to carry an additional term of 32 years and 9 months. He was also convicted of cheating the residents of his ashram, which carried another one-year sentence. Six others were also found guilty of conspiracy to commit rapes and destroying evidence. Five were given life sentences. In view of the severity of the crimes, the judge denied them any future remission of their sentences or amnesty by any state or central government. Premananda appeared unperturbed by the sentences and while talking to reporters, said: Truth will ultimately triumph.

In January 2000, the Madras High Court ordered that INR 36.4 lakhs from Premanandas frozen accounts be placed in a fixed deposit for three years and the resulting interest should be paid to the victims as compensation.



The original guilty verdict was appealed to the Madras High Court and was rejected in December 2002.In April 2005, the Supreme Court of India rejected an appeal.



On 5 February 2009, the Madras High Court rejected a habeas corpus petition, keeping in view the recommendations of the district sessions judge at the time of conviction and the previous Supreme Court order. On 26 June 2010, however, the same court accepted Premanandas petition requesting a three-month parole to undergo medical treatment. As of 2005 a European named Doris was running the ashram, who said that Premananda was innocent.



Premananda died on 21 February 2011 of acute liver failure, while being held in Cuddalore Central Prison. Until his death, he continued to say he was innocent.



The above excerpts from Wikipedia about Swami Premananda sums up the charges against him and the trial, conviction and imprisonment.



Against that backdrop it is easier to understand why Mr. Wigneswarans references to Premananda and Jesus Christ have saddened and angered those of the Christian faith.



Hurt and indignant feelings were further exacerbated by the fact that the mouth from which these words emanated belonged to a respected retired Supreme Court judge who was elected chief minister by a majority of Hindu and Christian voters.



Whatever the discerning public or outside world may opine about Premananda, he is yet the Swami to thousands of his followers. Some perceive and worship him as an incarnation of God. The most distinguished disciple of Premananda in Sri Lanka is arguably Mr. C.V.Wigneswaran, who became his devotee in 1981. Mr. Wigneswaran remains faithful to the Swami despite Premanandas trial, conviction, imprisonment and death. Many others lost their faith in the Swami after the judicial proceedings involving Premananda but not

Justice Wigneswaran.



In fact Mr. Wigneswarans conduct in support of Premananda came in for much criticism then.



Peoples Union of Civil Liberties

When allegations were made against Premananda, few expected constructive legal action would be done as the Swami had much money power and powerful political connections. However the All - India Democratic Womens Association affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Peoples Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) led by respected lawyer and human rights activist K.G. Kannabiran took up the case and extended support to the women and child victims. The PUCL gave shelter to the victimized children and women. It was the pressure mounted by these organisations with media support that led to the detention and trial of Premananda and other officials at the Ashram.



When the trial began at the Pudukkottai sessions court before the woman judge R. Bhanumathy, a formidable legal team was mobilised on behalf of Premananda. Chief among these was well-known lawyer Ram Jethmalani. Many eminent notables gave evidence in support of Premananda. Among these was C. V. Wigneswaran who was the defence witness No 16. Unfortunately much of the testimony was disbelieved by the Sessions Court judge despite Mr. Wigneswaran being a Judge

in Sri Lanka.



The Sessions Court judge R. Bhanumathy later became an Indian Supreme Court Judge.

According to sources from legal circles, Mr. Wigneswaran had persisted with his efforts on behalf of Premananda during the appeals before the Madras High Court and Indian Supreme court. It is alleged that Wigneswaran sought personal meetings with the Judges hearing the appeals and attempted to influence them in favour of Premananda.



PUCL lawyers had to intervene and seek a re-constitution of the bench as a result of this alleged lawyer sources.



Kannabiran Memorial Lecture

There was however an ironic twist in this matter in 2014. The PUCL President K.G. Kannabiran had passed away in 2010. C. V. Wigneswaran who retired as Supreme Court judge had contested polls and on the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK)symbol of house and been elected as Northern Province Chief Minister. The PUCL organised the first Kannabiran Memorial Lecture in Chennai in November 2014. The Northern Chief Minister was invited to deliver it. Apparently PUCL officials were unaware that Defence witness No. 16 in the Premananda case was now the Northern Chief Minister.

Mr. Wigneswaran made PUCL officials painfully aware of who he was, by first visiting the Premananda ashram in Trichy. Upon knowing this, the PUCL was horrified by the fact that they had unwittingly invited Mr. Wigneswaran to deliver the first Kannabiran Memorial Lecture. It was too late to cancel the lecture. As a result several Lawyers, Judicial officers and human rights activists kept away from the Kannabiran Memorial Lecture delivered by Mr. Wigneswaran.



Mr. Wigneswarans efforts on behalf of Premananda ashram continued even after he became Northern Chief Minister. Though Swami Premananda was no more three other Ashram officials convicted along with him were yet serving their term of life imprisonment in the Puzhal jail. In an unprecedented move the Chief Minister of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka wrote a letter directly to the Prime Minister of neighbouring India seeking the release of the three convicts. Many had expected Mr. Wigneswaran to make legitimate requests to the Indian Govt. and Prime Minister for assistance to help reconstruct and develop the war affected Northern Province after he became Chief Minister.



Mr. Wigneswaran had not done so. But now he was defying norms to seek clemency for three persons convicted for criminal offences under Indian law.



Times of India News Report

A Times of India news report dated April 24th 2015 stated as follows -

Chief Minister of Sri Lankas Tamil-majority Northern Province C V Wigneswaran has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release three life convicts in the sensational Swamy Premananda case. The three -Kamalananda, Balan alias Balendiran and Sathis alias Sathishkumar - were convicted and sentenced along with Premananda for raping 13 girls, including minors, and conspiring to murder an inmate in the godmans ashram near Trichy.



They were sentenced to double life imprisonment, and the punishment was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005. While Premananda died in Cuddalore prison in 2011, the other three are currently lodged in Puzhal jail in Chennai. All the four were Sri Lankan Tamils.



In his letter, Wigneswaran, a former judge of Sri Lankas Supreme Court, said Kamalananda and the others were falsely implicated in the case.



Premanandas ashram and its properties have to be maintained. No one is there to take care of them. Please immediately release them as they are innocent, he said.



Some senior officials expressed surprise and shock over Wigneswaran questioning the Indian judicial system and describing the convicts as innocent. Premananda died in 2011 at the age of 59 in due to multiple health problems, including an acute end-stage liver disease. Kamalananda, a close associate of Premananda, Balan and Satish were convicted for abetment in the rape of the girls and the murder of Ravi whose body was buried inside the sprawling ashram at Fathima Nagar near Trichy.



Kamalanandas wife Dr. Chandradevi, who was charged with terminating the pregnancies of some of the rape victims, was convicted and sentenced to a 39-month jail term. She completed her prison term and was released on payment of a fine of Rs 30,000. While Kamalananda and Balan are engineering graduates, Satish had completed higher secondary. All of them have completed 16 of the 40 years of their sentence.



Appeal To Narendra Modi

Declining to reply to queries emailed to him by TOI, including one on whether it was right to seek the release of the life convicts, Wigneswaran merely admitted to sending an appeal to Narendra Modi for their release. He added that the case history was known to senior advocate Ram Jetmalani, who had defended the convicts.



A Sri Lankan, Premananda had set up the ashram in the 1980s. In 1994, he was charged with raping the 13 inmates, all Sri Lankan Tamils. The case came to light after one of the victims escaped from the ashram. Another victim became pregnant and a DNA test established that Premananda was the culprit. On August 21, 1997, the then Pudukottai district and sessions court judge R Banumathi (now Supreme Court judge) sentenced Premananda to double life imprisonment and a cumulative fine of Rs 66.4 lakh.



Mr. C. V. Wigneswaran in his Chief Ministerial capacity has been the target of a lot of criticism for his poor performance amounting to virtual non - performance. Sadly the Northern Provincial Council elected to office amidst great expectations has been woefully inefficient in the discharge of its duties. It has set a record in passing irrelevant resolutions.



The Chief Minister is known for making speeches all year round. Funds allocated by the Colombo Govt are under-utilised. Corruption is rampant. The Northern Governor Reginald Cooray says openly that the people of the North are approaching him in large numbers to solve their problems despite an elected council and Chief Minister being there. Mr. Wigneswaran has made a name for himself as a Chief Minister who made provocative statements about matters outside his purview instead of concentrating on administering the Provincial Council constructively.

Sri Poobalakrishna Temple

Even as Mr. Wigneswaran is being heavily faulted for his performance as Chief Minister, the Premananda devotee can take credit for one accomplishment. He was instrumental in constructing a temple and erecting a statue of Swami Premananda in Puliyankulam.



The temple deity is a statue of Lord Krishna known as Poo Bala Krishna(Poo means flower and Bala is child). It is claimed that Swami Premananda materialised the statue out of flowers and consecrated it at Puliyankulam many years ago.



A new temple was constructed mainly due to the efforts of Mr. Wigneswaran. The Sri Poobalakrishna temple was ceremonially declared open on February 2th 2015 at Puliyankulam. A statue of Swami Premananda was carried in procession into the premises to the accompaniment of a band and dancers.



A visibly elated Wigneswaran made a speech on the occasion. An extract from his speech is as follows -

It is indeed a dream come true! Here we are today, gathered together at the opening of this Sri Poobalakrishna Temple in Puliyankulam. At the time of Swamijis Samadhi we had no idea that such a temple would ever be built or opened. Even when I became the Chief Minister of the Northern Province in 2013, I still had no idea that this temple could be built. When I laid the foundation, installing a small statue of Balakrishna into it (One that had been materialized by Swamiji and given to my family), I could not imagine how this temple would ever come to be constructed, nor how soon it would be completed. But slowly the dream started unfurling, a dream which Swamiji slowly instilled into our minds, into our hearts, into our psyches. Then the desire to build came; the finances to start the work came; help came from many quarters. Our synchronized activities have now melded to create this wonderful result.



Devotee Of Swami Premananda

It is therefore very clear that Mr. C. V. Wigneswaran is a true, genuine devotee of Swami Premananda. The fact that Premananda was convicted and sentenced on charges of rape, molestation and a murder conspiracy does not matter to a sincere believer.



In spite of being a Supreme Court judge Mr. Wigneswaran opines that Premanandas conviction was a travesty of justice. His belief is that Premananda and his cohorts were the victims of a conspiracy aided and abetted by the law enforcement agencies and judiciary of India. Each man is entitled to his beliefs and faith.



However, when a person of Mr. Wigneswarans stature and eminence asserts his faith in a Person like Premananda he is very much likely to be challenged by the public.



Since Mr. Wigneswaran has been elected to high office by the people, democratic practice decrees that Mr. Wigneswaran be questioned about his devotion to Premananda. Mr. Wigneswaran however strives to seek a parallel to justify his stance on Premananda. In a bid to portray Premananda as being unjustly persecuted, he draws an analogy between Premakumar of Matale and Jesus of Galilee. This naturally infuriates those of the Christian faith. This is what seems to have happened in this instance.



What is of importance is that the comparison of Jesus Christ with Premananda was made by Mr. Wigneswaran himself. The Thinappuyal interviewer did not refer to Jesus Christ in his questioning. He only asked the Mr. Wigneswaran about Swami Premananda. It was the Northern Province Chief Minister who referred to Jesus Christ in the conversation and tried to draw a parallel. He added insult to injury by posing the question as to why Christians regard Jesus Christ who was sentenced to death as a criminal 2000 years ago as God?



Mathiabaranam Abraham Sumanthiran

Furthermore it is a moot-point as to whether Mr. Wigneswarans analogy between Jesus and Premananda was appropriate or substantially correct! TNA Jaffna District Parliamentarian and official spokesperson Mathiabaranam Abraham Sumanthiran has in a Facebook entry pointed out the fallacies in Mr. Wigneswarans attempt to strike a parallel between Jesus Christ and Swami Premananda. Mr. Sumanthiran who is both a lawyer and a Christian has outlined three important differences to be considered between Jesus Christ and Swami Premananda.



They are as follows -

1. Jesus was never accused of rape or murder. The accusation was that he tried to liberate his people from the Roman Empire and declared himself King of the Jews (Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, Are You the King of the Jews? Jesus said to him, It is as you say. - (Matthew 27:11)



2. There was no judicial inquiry in Jesus case like we have today. No witnesses were cross-examined, no two appeals thereafter at which brilliant lawyers appeared and argued. More importantly, Jesus was never found guilty even once. (Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, Are You the King of the Jews? Jesus said to him, It is as you say. Pilate said to them, What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They all said to him, Let Him be crucified! Then the governor said, Why, what evil has He done? But they cried out all the more, saying, Let Him be crucified! When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it. (Matthew 27:11, 22-24)



3. Jesus rose from the dead (This is what those who regard him as God celebrate on Easter Day)

This 3rd point is a matter of personal faith. But the first two points are narratives that have been confirmed even by non-Christian historians. Therefore in my humble opinion it is not appropriate to compare these two persons.



Mr. Wigneswarans Apology

This then is the crux of the matter. Upon seeing some reports in the Tamil media that Mr. Wigneswaran had issued a statement clarifying his position, I e-mailed the Chief Minister requesting that he send me a copy of his statement in full. This was because the statement purportedly issued by Mr. Wigneswaran did not appear to be an unqualified apology. Apart from complaining against the website, which interviewed him and emphasizing that he won a prize at Royal College for the study of comparative religions by reading the Gospel according to St. Mathew and that he participated at the annual St. Anthonys feast, there was very little substance in the statement. Also Mr. Wigneswarans apology seemed half -hearted and confusing. He expressed regret if he had hurt the feelings of Christians but also said that he had not done so by his actions. When reading the statement in Tamil, I was quite doubtful whether the statement had been accurately published. This was because the statement was so confusing, meandering, contradictory and did not address the issue at hand properly. It did not appear to have been drafted by a retired Supreme Court Judge.



In a bid therefore to ascertain whether the statement had indeed been issued by the Chief Minister, I requested that he send me the statement in full in English. There has been no response so far. As such I was unable to incorporate Mr. Wigneswarans viewpoint in this article. It is to be hoped that I receive a positive response from Mr. Wigneswaran in due course.



D.B.S.Jeyaraj can be reached at dbsjeyaraj@yahoo.com
Former presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa have been invited to participate in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party May Day rally to be held at Getambe in Kandy, Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake said.

He said party members from across the country were expected to attend the rally in Kandy.

The joint opposition is also holding a May Day rally in Colombo. A May Day rally should not have a political agenda, but should be about the rights of the workers, he said.

When journalists asked about former president Rajapaksa's standing among party supporters, Mr. Ekanayake said as the leader who contributed to the ending of the war, Mr. Rajapaksa would always have a special place among party supporters. (J.A.L. Jayasinghe)
The Federation Award for the Most Outstanding University Student (FAMOUS) award has been offered by the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) convocation held recently, at the SLIIT auditorium.

The FITIS offers the FAMOUS award annually to the most outstanding student in information systems and networking at the SLIIT convocation. The winner of the FAMOUS award also received a cash award.

We understand that it is our responsibility to encourage universities and students to excel in their education as the country needs top-quality ICT professionals. We, being the Federation of IT Industry representing over 200 active commercial organisations in the IT industry, feel the importance of human resources where both quantity and quality are equally important. We are happy to be with SLIIT as the biggest producer of talented ICT professionals, said FITIS Software Chapter Immediate Past President Abbas Kamrudeen, attending the convocation.

The FITIS has owns many initiatives to recognize young ICT talents. Young Computer Scientist Competition, FITIS Youth Club, Innovation Pavilion at Infotel National ICT Exhibition and the FAMOUS award are among them.

Established in 1994, the FITIS acts as the nucleus of five industry associations of the ICT Industry namely the Sri Lanka Association for the Software Industry (now known as the FITIS Software Chapter), Sri Lanka Computer Vendors Association (now known as FITIS Hardware Chapter), Association of Computer Training Organisations (the Training Chapter of FITIS), Lanka Internet Service Providers Association (FITIS Telecom Chapter) and ISACA Sri Lanka Section.

With a cumulative membership of over 200 active business firms in the ICT industry, the FITIS is committed to foster a healthy growth of the industry focusing on resolving policy issues, lobbying with state authorities, co-operation and alignment with regional and global industry bodies and promoting harmony and innovations within the

ICT industry.
France, (Daily Mail, London), 20 April 2017 -

More than half of police officers in France have said they are voting for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in Sundays election because of her strong anti-terror stance.



According to the IFOP poll, 51 per cent of the Gendarmerie are planning to back Le Pen in the nail-biting election.



That is more than double the number of people who are backing her nearest rival, centrist Emmanuel Macron (16.5 per cent).Le Pen has pledged to beef up law and order in her manifesto, with 15,000 more police officers, deporting foreign criminals and closing extremist mosques.



According to the poll, Le Pens strongest base of support is among working-age people with lower education. Le Pen told supporters in Paris: I will protect you. My first measure as president will be to reinstate Frances borders.



The choice on Sunday is simple. It is a choice between a France that is rising again and a France that is sinking.
There are 29 states which have at one time or another set about becoming nuclear weapons powers or have explored the possibility. Most have failed or drawn back. Only the US, Russia, France, UK, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea have crossed the threshold. Only the first five have long range, nuclear-tipped, missiles. North Korea wants to walk in their footsteps.



The common belief that when a state has decided to do so it goes for it as fast as it can is wrong. Sweden, Japan, Algeria, Australia, Italy, Yugoslavia, West Germany, Egypt, Iraq, Switzerland, Syria, Brazil, Argentina, Taiwan, South Korea, Norway, South Africa, Pakistan and India all sought to acquire nuclear weapons but their pace and commitment were different. In the end all but Pakistan and India became convinced to kill their programs off. For many years Indian leaders, unconvinced of their value or of the morality of use, stalled the urge of nuclear scientists to step up the pace of research and engineering.



Nuclear weapon possession is usually counterproductive. Vipin Narang, in Harvards International Security has shown that on average, states pursuing nuclear weapons face more armed conflict. In the case of the US and the Soviet Union (now Russia) it led to an arms race that enabled each side to blow up each others civilization not just once but many times.



North Korea is todays hot potato. Clearly the regime is moving things forward just as fast as it can. But in past years- during the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama- North Korea was prepared to compromise. Indeed, at one time- before it had the bomb- it slowed developments right down in return for the US and South Korea building it a light-water nuclear reactor. On two occasions the Republicans in Congress sabotaged all attempts at compromise after the president had fashioned an agreement, and North Korea returned to full-speed ahead. However, it does not yet have (it may in four years time) a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the USA. Thus there is still a window of opportunity left for a grand compromise.



India, a military super power of the not-too-distant future, allows us, thanks to the research of Narang and many others, a look at what can happen behind the curtain of secrecy. The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, abhorred nuclear weapons but in 1948 in parliament he did say that if he felt India was truly threatened he would give the go-ahead. In the mid-1950s, although India was not threatened in any serious way by Pakistan and China, he initiated the building of a plutonium reactor bought from Canada and a reprocessing facility at Trombay that could produce weapons-grade plutonium.



Nehrus successor was Lal Shastri who was much more against nuclear weapons than Nehru. Nevertheless, under pressure from nuclear scientists and the opposition he allowed work to continue on peaceful explosions for development work. This meant that India would soon possess weapons-grade fissile material. It didnt mean engineering nuclear bombs. India maintained that it sought world nuclear disarmament not bombs of its own.



Shastris successor, Indira Gandhi, authorized the first peaceful nuclear test. She too, as she spelt out to me in a full page interview in the International Herald Tribune and Washington Post, hated the idea of India possessing nuclear weapons, but clearly, by allowing the peaceful test, was hedging her bets. Her successor, Morarji Desai, was anxious to make a deal with the US. If the US would sign the Test Ban Treaty and promised to continue to provide enriched uranium for Indias power plants India would renounce the right to build a bomb. The US, under President Jimmy Carter, refused the deal.



Mrs Gandhi came back to power and then was assassinated. She had felt misled by her scientists and had forbidden any future peaceful explosions. Her son, Rajiv, took over. He kept a tight rein on what his scientists were up to and made sure that all decisions on research had to be channelled across the prime ministers desk.



In March 1988, Rajiv did a somersault. He had received definitive evidence that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons. (Later on the US and Europe were to turn a blind eye to Pakistans bomb developments.) He also felt his fingers had been burnt by his failure at the UN to get the big powers to take nuclear disarmament seriously. Rajiv ordered weaponization.



All this shows that it is possible to persuade newcomers to renounce nuclear weapons. There is always a window of opportunity, as North Korea and India show. There are always successes, as Algeria, Libya, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa demonstrate. But the US in particular has to offer something substantial. This is what was wrong with Carters diplomacy and with President Donald Trumps policy right now. It will probably fail.
By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

Sri Lankas tourism authorities are hoping to attract 2.5 million tourists and generate US$ 4 billion in foreign exchange for the country this year, backed by a short-term Rs.500 million digital media campaign, which is currently being planned.

Last year, we ended up close to US$ 3.5 billion and this year we should reach about US$ 4 billion if all goes well and theres no world war and disruption. And that is an estimated figure. There may be more, Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Minister John Amaratunga said. He added that the government is aiming to attract 2.5 million tourists, compared to the 2.05 million tourists that visited the country last year. This is an expected annual growth of 22 percent, compared to the 14 percent growth in 2016.

So far in 2017, tourist arrivals have grown by just 3.4 percent compared to the same period last year, due to the partial airport closure resulted by the revamping of the runway of the countrys main international airport in Katunayake.

Of course in the first two months we had the issue of airport disruptions, and pulling out SriLankan (Airlines) from popular destinations, but nevertheless we see the trend is now increasing again, Amaratunga said.

The airport in Katunayake became fully operational after the runway refurbishment in the first week of this month.

Amaratunga had initially set a goal of 2.5 million tourists for 2016, although the target was revised down to 2.2 million later. Arrival targets for both 2015 and 2016 were not achieved.

The absence of a coordinated destination promotional campaign, coupled with global terror attacks may have contributed to Sri Lanka failing to meet its targets in the past 2 years. However, word of mouth and the usual efforts of the government and the private sector contributed towards the growth of tourist arrivals at a diminishing rate, a trend which has persisted since 2010.

Leading private sector hospitality industry figures have also been observed to endorse the overly ambitious targets of the government instead of advising for more realistic goals.

Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau Managing Director Sutheash Balasubramanium explained that Sri Lanka must utilize social media tools such as Instagram and Facebook, as well as leading bloggers in the social media sphere to promote the island as an attractive destination in order to boost arrivals. He said the proposed social media campaign will focus on Europe, China, India and the Middle East and they will be targeted in different phases.

Balasubramanium went on to say that the campaign will cost between Rs. 300-500 million, and a capable media agency will soon be selected through calling expressions of interest. This will be in the short-term. What we have after this is the global campaign (which) will be running for 3 years up to 2020, and that I think amounts to a Rs.3 billion campaign. Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Ministry Secretary Janaka Sugathadasa chipped in, saying that a Rs. 800 million media plan is also being formulated.

New promotional campaign only after settling past bills

The Sri Lankan government is preparing to pay US$ 500,000 in arrears to three global television channels for past tourism promotional campaigns, before embarking yet again on similar publicity endeavours.

The problem that we faced is the previous regime embarked on this type of publicity and not settled the bills, and as a result, we are now not able to get any publicity through these agencies, Minister John Amaratunga said.

He said that the arrears run into billions, before Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Ministry Secretary Janaka Sugathadasa said that Sri Lanka has to pay US$ 500,000.

We have to settle a little over US$ 500,000 to 3 media channels Al Jazeera, Sky News and Bloomberg. Right now we have finalized the details and the details are being presented to the Cabinet of ministers seeking approval to go ahead. We have the funds to settle it, Sugathadasa said.

He noted that the campaign was conducted from September 2014 to March 2015, and could be considered a success, given the increase in tourist arrivals seen since then.

Sugathadasa said that the entire campaign was worth US$ 700,000, and that the previous government had paid US$ 200,000.

They have claimed a little over that, but we have processed the claim and we have decided that we will be paying up to US$ 500, 000, he added.

Amaratunga said that the Cabinet may pass the proposal within a month, which would allow Sri Lanka to start similar television publicity in the future.

They are prepared to come back and do publicity for us, he said.

The current government had made plans to start a US$ 2 million publicity campaign through Bloomberg in February 2015. (CW)
Caracas (dpa) 21st APRIL, 2017 - The international community on Thursday demanded that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called on pro-government militias believed to be responsible for violence at protests across the country to stand down.



Democracy in Venezuela had been fatally wounded, said Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS).



Photos being circulated online showed militia members on motorbikes shooting at protesters and police beating others who in turn responded with violence.



We condemn above all that the regime has armed the Colectivos so that they can exercise repression without restraint, Almagro said, using the local name for the armed groups supporting Maduros Socialist government.



Anti-government protesters clashed with police on Thursday for a second straight day, as marchers demanding political change were met with tear gas and riot squads, in further scenes of violence that have left nine people dead in the last two weeks.
Police force is not an answer to the protests being held against the dumping of garbage in the suburbs of Colombo, the joint opposition said today while referring to the gazette notice issued by President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday.

The gazette notice made garbage disposal by local government (LG) authorities an essential service, warning that anyone found to be involved in disruptive activities related to garbage disposal, transport and segregation could be arrested even without an arrest warrant.

JO leader and MP Dinesh Gunawardena said it was incorrect to suppress peoples resistance to garbage disposal in their areas in the aftermath of the Meethotamulla disaster.

Peoples fear and resistance is reasonable, given the seriousness of the tragedy that struck Meethotamulla, in which many died. The authorities should realize its sensitive nature and work closely with the people's representatives in this situation. Deploying police is not what they should do, he said.

The MP said garbage disposal had become an issue as the government keeps delaying LG elections. There are no people's representatives at LG bodies to tackle this menace. Officers alone cant solve this crisis, he said.

When asked about politically motivated protests, the MP said there could be a few such incidents which cannot be generalized. Fears of the people are genuine and cannot be ignored, he said. (Lahiru Pothmulla)
President Maithripala Sirisena today ordered the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) to provide a payment of Rs.50,000 for three months to families displaced by the Meethotamulla tragedy.

DMC Spokesman Pradeep Kodippili said the decision was made at a meeting held this morning at the ministry.

Rs.50,000 will be paid to each family for rent payments until they are provided with a new house. Kodippili also said that 60 housing units will be provided to some of the victims today. (Chaturanga Pradeep)

Video by Danushka
Ganyliel (dpa) 21st APRIL, 2017- Every day, Maria Nyamuoka wades out up to her hips in the muddy water of the White Nile marshes, searching for water lilies to keep her family alive.



The children always complain that they are hungry, says the 28-year-old mother of three in South Sudans Unity State, one of the regions worst afflicted by famine. But I have nothing to give them.

Water lilies and other scavenged leaves and roots are often all that now separates life and death for people caught up in the countrys civil war, which has now raged for more than three years.



Called yiel in the local Nuer language, the lilies are usually dried and cooked, but parents give the children raw buds to stave off hunger pangs. Most families eat in the evenings, since children cant sleep when they have to go to bed hungry. The United Nations declared a famine in parts of Unity at the end of February - the first officially recognized famine worldwide since 2011.
AFP: Cheap Sri Lankan labour has built skyscrapers and condos across the Gulf for decades but now contractors at home are desperate for workers as the island nation experiences an unprecedented construction boom.

The labour shortage has seen builders offer lavish incentives ranging from cash to vehicles to keep workers from heading overseas, and in some cases, illegally employ foreign tradesmen to man projects.

Sri Lanka was left with a massive reconstruction task at the end of the civil war in 2009, with large parts of the north left in ruins by decades of fighting.

Annual investment in new homes, roads and ports -- which has hovered at around Rs.600 billion (US $ 4 billion) in recent years -- is expected to almost triple to US $ 11.6 billion

in 2017.

But Sri Lanka needs 400,000 new workers -- a two-thirds jump from the existing levels -- to keep up with this surge, said Nissanka Wijeratne, the head of the Chamber of Construction Industry.

We cant get that many overnight and we will have to import. We are now facing a serious labour crisis, he said.

Private contractors are going to extreme lengths to stop the flow of tradesmen heading to the Gulf for construction jobs, offering bonuses like motorcycles and cars to labourers who choose to work on projects

back home.



Social stigma

The government has taken a different approach and sought to put curbs on migration by raising the minimum wage requirements for workers heading overseas.

Under their proposal, Sri Lankans will be barred from going abroad for work unless they can show evidence of future earnings amounting to more than US $ 400 per month.

We want to discourage those who go abroad for low pay. Some of these workers can get more money if they stay back in Sri Lanka, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake told AFP.

But it is a risky strategy. Roughly one in 10 Sri Lankans work abroad and their remittances are the number-one foreign exchange earner for the island of 21 million.

The pool of money flowing home is growing, with Sri Lankans sending US $ 7.24 billion last year compared with US $ 6.98 billion in 2015.

The push to recruit local workers has also suffered due to a cultural stigma surrounding blue-collar labour, meaning that Sri Lankans living in the country often choose low-paying office jobs over better remunerated opportunities in masonry, carpentry and plumbing.

There is a social perception about construction industry labour and that is why young people prefer public sector jobs even if they pay much less, Wijeratne said.

It is about social acceptance.



Illegally employed

The dearth has spurred some desperate contractors to look offshore themselves -- not for work but workers. The government estimates roughly 200,000 foreigners are employed illegally in the construction sector.

Foreigners are illegally employed like this because we have a shortage of workers, Urban Development Minister Champika Ranawaka said recently.

I am proposing that the government come up with a policy on foreign workers to regularise this sector.

One company, which declined to be identified, said it was employing foreign workers illegally but noted that many others were doing the same.

Chinese firms, unable to source local labour, have moved armies of construction workers to Sri Lanka to man their mega building projects.

Along one of Colombos main promenades, hundreds of Chinese workers wait every day for transport home after finishing a shift building towers for a new Shangri-La Hotel. Across the street, their countrymen toil on a vast US $ 1.4 billion real estate development.

Despite unemployment hovering at 4.5 percent at the end of 2016, the crippling labour shortage shows no signs of easing, raising fears that it will put the brakes on economic growth.

A large-scale Sri Lankan contractor said he had stopped accepting commissions to build condos because he couldnt find tradesmen to finish the job.

The crisis is stretching beyond the construction sector. Sewage and water works projects are struggling to find labourers and are turning to neighbouring India for workers.

Sri Lankas lucrative garment industry is also facing a shortage of 50,000 machine operators and many companies have relocated to Bangladesh in search of cheap labour, according to

industry officials.
At least 20 people died and 10 others were injured after a truck ploughed through commercial roadside shops at Yerpedu village in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh today, the Times of India reported.

According to cops, the driver lost control of his vehicle and initially rammed into a car first and then hit an electricity pole before bulldozing through the shops. Both the bodies and the injured victims were shifted to the government and other hospitals in Tirupati and Srikalahasti in Chittoor district.

Hospital sources suggest that the toll is likely to go up since some of the injured are in critical condition.

Meanwhile, Rs five lakh ex-gratia was announced by the state cabinet and CM directed both ministers - P Narayana and N Amarnath Reddy - to leave the cabinet meeting and reach the spot to support the victims.

Minister for Health Kamineni Srinivas directed the district collectors to extend all support to the victims and provide top medical treatment for the injured. He also ordered the post-mortem of the victims to take place immediately and hand them over to their respective families. The CM also directed the state administration to deploy workers to fasten up the rescue operations.
AFP: The president of war-torn Afghanistan is creating a tourism ministry in a bid to attract visitors to the country endowed with stunning landscapes and archaeological sites, but wracked by nearly four decades of conflict.

Ashraf Ghani issued a presidential decree this week ordering the ministry be established and naming Ghulam Nabi Farahi, a former parliamentary affairs minister, as the new State Minister for Tourism Affairs.

The order, criticised by many because it had bypassed parliament, included no other details, such as the ministrys aims or budget.

Afghanistan boasts pristine mountains and medieval ruins, but many are located in areas plagued by insurgency, and insecurity and kidnappings have made life difficult for tourists in the country.

Last August Taliban insurgents attacked a group of American and European tourists in western Herat, a timeworn city near the Iranian border renowned for its citadel and blue-tiled mosque.

The attack, which left some of the tourists wounded, brought into sharp focus global thrill-seekers who imperil their lives to vacation in war zones.

Afghanistan has, however, welcomed travel to what it considers safe areas where Taliban militants -- seeking to topple the government and return to power -- are not deemed a threat.

A few such areas can be safely reached by air, such as the ancient city of Bamiyan, currently at the centre of efforts to boost tourism revenue.

Bamiyan is famous for gaping hillside niches that once sheltered giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.

The surrounding province, a landscape of russet-hued cliffs, was once a caravan stop along the fabled Silk Road and also boasts Afghanistans first national park.

The northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, famous for its blue-tiled mosque, and the spectacular Panjshir Valley, known for its snowcapped peaks and precious stones, are some other relatively peaceful areas.
In the early 1990s, when I left India to come to Europe, India was passing through a serious economic crisis. The country was forced to borrow heavily from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the face of a difficult balance of payments position.

It was usual then to be asked, even by senior European academics about a poor country like Indias rationale behind spending money on space research or nuclear weapons. Discussions on India in any social or academic gathering more often used to be on poverty and under-development.

With the arrival of the new millennium, India became one of the fastest growing economies of the world and consistently received good press coverage in the west. Journals like Time, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs The Economist all brought special issues on India, highlighting its economic achievements. Questions and discussions on Indias poverty and infrastructural backwardness started to disappear from the public mind in the west.

Though in the 1990s discussions on India were primarily on its acute poverty, there was a high appreciation by the rest of the world of its democratic character, secular values and scientific temper. India was being applauded for maturing as a democracy in spite of having a low-income economy and huge ethnic and religious diversity.

The countrys commitment to secularism had also absolutely fascinated the rest of the world. Invariably, there was respect for Indias scientific progress, its education standard and its scientists.

However, in the last couple of years, Indias international image on all these three accounts - being democratic, secular and scientific - has been seriously dented.

Narendra Modi is being seen as Indias Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo: Reuters

India has witnessed Prime Minister Narendra Modis utter disregard for human rights, crude use of state machinery for censoring critics, trying all tricks to undermine the independence and power of judiciary, and using both constitutional means and Hindutva foot soldiers to suppress religious freedom.

From the rise in cow-related violence to alcohol bans and anti-Romeo police squads - all have exposed the Modi regimes anti-democratic fangs within India. However, the international community came to see the true face of Modis authoritarian character when he imposed the draconian cash ban on November 8, 2016.

It was simply unfathomable to the outside world how, in a democratic country, a leader can take a whimsical decision and cause immense hardship and terrible pain to millions of its people.

Earlier, India used to be a surprise for theorists of democracy. But, the future of the countrys democracy is being seen by the outside the world in a high-risk category.

In the last decade, political commentators and analysts were primarily busy in analysing how a developing Asian country with a vibrant democracy can also achieve spectacular economic growth like authoritarian China. That comparison with China has disappeared now.

These days it has become almost a cottage industry for political commentators to compare the state of democracy and Hindu nationalism in India with the growing authoritarianism and Muslim nationalism in Turkey.

Narendra Modi is being seen as Indias Recep Tayyip Erdogan. India is not any more a democratic success story, but a country that is being seen by the outside world at serious risk of destroying its seven-decades-old democracy project.

Discussion is not anymore about how India has managed to remain a surprise, but how Indian democracy can be deceived to destroy itself.

Indias commitment to secularism had also given an elevated position to the country in the eyes of the world. In spite of a dominant majority Hindu population, the country had devised a way of informal power-sharing with its minority communities. But, that facade of political accommodation is crumbling fast and the world has started to see Indias ugly majoritarian politics.

The governments obsession with cow urine and dung has bamboozled the science community and brought global ridicule. Photo: India Today

Modi as Prime Minister has fared terribly when it comes to upholding the countrys secular ethos, where all religious groups are constitutionally equal. Fatal attacks against Muslims by Hindutva mobs on suspicion of their possession or consumption of beef have become a regular occurrence. Minority communities are living in a constant state of fear.

An analysis of 198 countries by the Pew Research Center finds India is the fourth-worst country in the world for religious intolerance and violence. Only three countries - Syria, Nigeria and Iraq - are before India in this name-and-shame list, and even Pakistan fares much better than India on this front, being in the tenth position.

International human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are regularly bringing out scathing reports on deteriorating human rights of minority communities in India. Atrocities against minorities have become a regular news feature for the international media and are becoming a growing concern for the rest of the world.

Not only India is losing fast its precious image of being a democratic and secular country, there has been a huge setback for Indias international standing as a modern country, which promotes the spirit of scientific inquiry.

Modi has himself given examples of Karna and Ganesh to support the claim that cosmetic surgery and genetic science existed in India thousands of years ago.

His governments open patronage to the so-called Vedic science has raised serious controversies among the scientists within the country. On this front, more than anything else, the governments obsession with cow urine and dung has bamboozled the science community and brought global ridicule.

Reports in the foreign press of many Indians drinking cow urine have reinforced the image that India is not yet free of the ancient regressive mindset. Last week, I was talking to a world-class cow researcher and he was visibly bemused by Modi governments recent decision to grant funding for research on cow urines cancer curing properties.

Pseudoscience in Vedic garb promotes Modis Hindu nationalist agenda at home, but creates serious question marks not only about Indias commitment to scientific progress but also the scientific temper of its scientists.

Whatever the government propaganda and the sub-servient national media try to project, there is no doubt that Modis primitive majoritarian politics has seriously damaged Indias global image.
The jurisprudential breather is going to be short-lived for Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who had a narrow escape from sureshot impeachment as the country's supreme court decided that a joint investigation team be set up to probe the corruption charges against him as revealed in the famous Panama Papers revelations last year.

Pakistan Supreme Court ordered Sharif and his two sons - Hasan and Hussain - to appear before the JIT, which would consist of officials from the Federal Investigation Agency, the National Accountability Bureau, the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and the Military Intelligence (MI).

BREAKING: Pakistani Supreme Court has ordered high-level investigations in corruption charges surrounding PM Nawaz Sharif  The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) April 20, 2017

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his children to face a new investigation team over links to Panama Papers https://t.co/p28Bo0BLNL pic.twitter.com/NdDVfpgQYY  CNN (@CNN) April 20, 2017

The five-judge bench comprising Justices Asif Saeed Khosa, Gulzar Ahmed, Ejaz Afzal Khan, Azmat Saeed and Ijazul Ahsan issued the landmark judgement 57 days after concluding the hearing.

The petitioners - including opposition leader and Pakistan Tehrek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan - knocked on the court's door accusing Sharif and his family members of possessing illegal assets and money laundering, as revealed by the data leak in Panama Papers.

A great SC judgement which has completely rejected Nawaz Sharif's entire story.PM shd resign immediately as he has lost all moral authority.  Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) April 20, 2017

Want to congratulate the nation on this SC judgement, esp PTI workers who stood steadfast with me throughout. Celebrate your success today.  Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) April 20, 2017

What was in the Panama Papers?

Panama papers are leaked documents of about 1.15 crore files containing details of about 2.15 lakh bank accounts. The documents were leaked from Mossack Fonseca, a legal and financial consultancy firm headquartered at Panama and regional offices in 35 different countries.

The primary allegations in the Panama Papers leak included one, using Mossack Fonseca to siphon off money to shell companies for tax evasion purposes.

German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung managed to get the entire volume of document - 2.6 terabyte - through its source "John Doe" and with the help of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) untangled the knotty mess contained in them. Incriminating details of names including 12 world leaders - serving and ex-head of states. Prominent names are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, China's President Xi Jinping, former and Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto among others.

The Nawaz Sharif connection

The Panama papers showed that Pakistan PM's sons - Hasan and Hussain - and daughter Maryam founded four companies in the tax haven of British Virgin Islands. These companies purchased six big properties in London.

The Sharif family mortgaged a part of these properties to take about Rs 70 crore loan from Deutsche Bank. They also bought two apartment in the UK for which they took loan from the Bank of Scotland.

Has Sharif got off easy?

Compared to what happened or befell previous prime ministers of Pakistan, it seems PM Sharif hasn't had it too bad as of yet.

Record of Pakistani Prime Ministers in office is unenviable to say the least. Nawaz Sharif has been luckier than mostWe shall find out soon pic.twitter.com/RTgBwV9EoQ  Raza Ahmad Rumi (@Razarumi) April 20, 2017

In fact, daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif tweeted her gratitude to the Almighty once she learned that they have two more months before any final verdict is reached by the JIT.

Whatever the verdict, am amazed & humbled to see the overwhelming support for Nawaz Sharif. For a leader, that's the most prized possession.  Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) April 20, 2017

Praise & glory be to Allah alone. Shukrana & mubariks ???? pic.twitter.com/yM92bIJJoc  Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) April 20, 2017

Earlier, the area around the Supreme Court, located in Islamabad's Red Zone, was put on 'red alert', with around 1,500 police, Rangers and Frontier Constabulary personnel deployed for security and maintaining peace.

The Sharifs' political careers at stake

Maryam Nawaz Sharif has a considerable presence in Pakistani politics and is seen as her father's trusted aide - like Ivanka Trump in America - as well as a prominent member of the PML-N. The Sharifs are giving the Bhuttos a run for political currency and sophistication and are easily the two biggest dynasties in the Pakistani political firmament.

Often dubbed the Great Survivor in Pakistan #NawazSharif has survived #PanamaPapers for now. But 60 days on investigative team has to decide  barkha dutt (@BDUTT) April 20, 2017

Yousaf Raza Gillani was disqualified on flimsy grounds.Mian Nawaz Sharif is deemed dishonest but is not disqualified.Oh well  Mehr Tarar (@MehrTarar) April 20, 2017

However, with the Pakistani Supreme Court now overseeing the probe against PM Nawaz Sharif, the corruption allegations have gained much legitimacy. Notwithstanding that the ICIJ won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for the Panama Papers story, the taint of his name surfacing in one of the biggest leaks in the history of journalism makes the case against PM Sharif that much stronger.

O Pakistan! #SupremeCourt tells PM #NawazSharif, we know u r corrupt, but we cannot find u guilty.' Read the 'judgement' ???? ROFLMAO! pic.twitter.com/QA1F2JANJU  Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah) April 20, 2017

PTI and PPP on one page.Imran Khan and Asif Zardari demanding resignation from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif  Hamid Mir (@HamidMirPAK) April 20, 2017

The reports suggest that during his tenure as the PM in the 1990s, benami properties worth billions were allegedly purchased by Sharif in London in his daughter Maryam's name, who was declared a dependent and without a source of income at the time. The PM's sons have been accused of owning a number of offshore hell companies to buy properties in the UK.

It has also been alleged that the Pakistani Army is keeping its options open and waiting to see of Sharif would be disqualified to continue as PM, in case the charges are proved in the court of law. The roughening of the equation between Sharif's civilian government and the military in Pakistan is also one of the side-notes of this developing story.

Response to Q on Panama in UK reported incomplete / out of context. Army, like every Pakistani awaits a decision based on justice and merit.  Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) April 8, 2017

It's obvious that the ghost of the Panama Papers revelations wouldn't leave Nawaz Sharif and his family any time soon.
No sooner had the Supreme Court on April 19 revived conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case that conspiracy theories started doing the rounds.

Leaders such as RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh insinuated that the development was scripted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep Advani and Joshi out of the presidential race.

The Presidential election is barely three months away.

Within an hour of the Supreme Courts order, Lalu Prasad Yadav alleged that the development smacked of a conspiracy within the BJP and pointed out that CBI, the prosecuting agency in the Babri case, came under the control of the prime minister. Digvijaya Singh expressed the same sentiments.

However, Yadav and Singh may not be entirely right. Even if the case against Advani and Joshi, among others, would resume, it does not stop PM Modi from nominating either of the two as BJP-led NDAs presidential candidate. Even if Advani and Joshi were not caught in Babri tangle, neither would have been PM Modis choice for the presidential candidate.

Not only Advani and Joshi, but also other probables such as incumbent president Pranab Mukherjee, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Manipur governor Najma Heptullah and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat are not Narendra Modis favourites for the top constitutional post. Here's why

1. Pranab Mukherjee

Despite having diverging political background and ideology from that of Modi, Mukherjee had the brightest chance to get reappointed till Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly election results had been declared. However, with BJPs historic performance, particularly in UP, where it won by three-fourths majority, the equations have changed.

The BJP-led NDA is evenly poised regarding the numbers of the electoral college, which is made up of elected members of Parliament and legislative assemblies. The NDA is about 25,000 votes short of the half-way mark of 549,442 votes.

However, with the support of parties such as Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal and K Chandrashekhar Rao-led Telangana Rashtriya Samithi, NDA would hope to cross the bridge.

In such a scenario, NDA would not be compelled to re-nominate Mukherjee to the post. Rather, PM Modi would like to install someone of his own choice.

2. LK Advani

On March 15, PM Modi and Advani attended a meeting of Somnath temple trust. BJP president Amit Shah and former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel also attended the meeting. Reports suggested that PM Modi proposed the name of Advani as the next president of India at the meet.

Modi is believed to have said the presidential post would be a befitting "gurudakshina" for Advani.

However, Modi would unlikely pay this "gurudakshina" to Advani. In fact, Advani would be one of the last persons to be picked by Modi for the presidential post.

Modi would like to install someone as president with whom he would have an extremely cordial relation, or who would not have opposed him at any point in time.But ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Advani was most vociferous in his opposition to Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. Advani did not attend BJPs June 2013 National Council meet where Modi was declared the chief of partys election management committee. The same year in September, Advani skipped the parliamentary board meeting which announced Modi as BJPs prime ministerial candidate.

In fact, Advani had released a letter expressing his anger against the then party president Rajnath Singh and the manner in which the BJP was functioning. He had also resigned from all his party posts. It was only after the intervention of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat that Advani withdrew his resignation.

Would PM Modi have forgotten this opposition from Advani at that delicate point in his political career? Unlikely.

This is the reason why after winning the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi did not assign any ministerial berth to either Advani or Joshi. Instead, he created a "Margdarshak Mandal" to sideline the two veterans.

Advani himself nursed prime ministerial ambitions. Modi is unlikely to work freely with Advani as president who still sulks and presents critique of the NDA government.

3. Murli Manohar Joshi

Although Advani and Joshi do not belong to the same faction, the latter too was against the projection of Modi as BJPs prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. At the Goa meet, Joshi was learnt to have opposed Modi saying his ascension would lead to personality cult.

However, Joshi suddenly started lobbying for the presidents post. Last year, he met Mohan Bhagwat and reportedly discussed the matter with him. Joshi is learnt to have met PM Modi too over dinner at the prime minister's residence in the national capital.

The RSS was not averse to Joshis candidature for the presidents post. However, his opposition to Modi when the latter needed the maximum support from his colleagues and seniors would not be forgotten so easily. Hence, it is again unlikely that Modi would support Joshis candidature.

4. Sushma Swaraj

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is identified with Advani camp. She was not amenable to Modi as BJPs PM face. In fact, after Advani, Swaraj was a claimant to the PMs post by virtue of being the then leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha. Between Advani and Modi, she was seen standing with the former.

Ever since she underwent kidney transplantation last year, Swaraj is learnt to have requested for an easier assignment. Presidents post would be most suitable for her. But in the backdrop of the previous experiences, Modi would most likely ignore Swaraj's nomination to the presidents post.

5. Najma Heptulla

Manipur governor Najma Heptulla is another BJP politician said to be in the race for Raisina Hill. According to reports, she had expressed her wish to run for the presidency to BJP president Amit Shah in December 2016.

PM Modi would apparently not pick Heptulla because of her Congress background. Till 2004, she was a Congress member in the Rajya Sabha. She joined the BJP just ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Modi does not have the same compulsion as the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to appoint a compromise candidate in APJ Abdul Kalam. Though the "Missile Man" turned out to be the one of the most popular presidents, he would not have been appointed if Vajpayee would have been in the same position as Modi finds himself now.

Without facing any such constraints, PM Modi is likely to favour a leader whose entire political career has been spent in the Sangh or the BJP. And Heptulla does not fit in that mould.

6. Amitabh Bachchan

BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha created a flutter last year by floating Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bhachchan's name for the presidents post. He had said, "It will be a matter of pride if Amitabh Bachchan, a cultural icon, is made president of the country." He added that Bachchan has achieved many a milestone in cultural and social fields and if he becomes the president, it will bring a good name to the country.

Modi may have favoured Bachchan as the successor to Pranab Mukherjee. The Bollywood actor has been the brand ambassador of Gujarat tourism ever since Modi was its chief minister. The two share an excellent rapport. Bachchan also promotes Modis flagship programme Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

However, Bachchan lost the race when his and his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchans names figured in the Panama Papers tax evasion case. The superstar's name figured as director in four companies. Three of those companies were registered in Bahamas and one in Virgin Islands. Aishwarya Rai was made the director in one company. Later, she was made a share holder of the company.

Amitabh Bachchan has denied having evaded tax. He has also denied having any knowledge of investments made in tax haven countries in his name.

However, despite the denial, Modi is unlikely to nominate someone as presidents whose name is linked to any corruption case or controversy. Hence, Bachchan, despite standing the brightest chance, seems to have lost out in the race.

7. Mohan Bhagwat

In March, BJPs ally Shiv Sena proposed the name of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for the top job. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said the party will support Bhagwat if BJP decides to project him as the presidential candidate. He was of the opinion that somebody with a clean image should occupy the post. He also said Bhagwat was a suitable choice if India has to be made a "Hindu Rashtra".

Raut, the editor of Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamana, said Bhagwat as president would be in line with hardliners like PM Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

But in order to keep the RSS away from any controversy, Modi would not like to have Bhagwat as president. Moreover, he would like someone who would be pliable to his demands. Bhagwat does not fit in that category. Besides, the RSS chief has already denied being interested in the chair.

Who then?
As we wait in anticipation for the aftermath of the Turkish referendum results, one needs to take a moment and see what factors contributed to these results. The referendum has been described as Turkeys first step towards a dictatorship.

The vote means President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can hold his position until 2029. Given modern Turkeys secular and democratic history, why have people chosen to abolish the post of Prime Minster?

Patterns emerging out of the Turkish referendum are similar to the ones that emerged after UKs Brexit vote and US presidential elections. Major urban centres including Istanbul and Ankara voted against the constitutional amendments.

This is similar to the Brexit vote, where the "leave" campaign dominated the rural areas while the "stay" campaign dominated the urban regions. In the US, Trump was performing much better in the semi-urban and rural regions, while Clinton was ahead in the urban centres.

A generational divide appears to be emerging out of the Turkish vote. The age profile of the voters suggests that older voters supported the constitutional change, while younger ones opposed it.

The pattern was also seen in UK, where the younger voters wanted to stay with the EU while the older voters opted to leave. In the US, Trump had greater support among the elderly.

The patterns are not a mere coincidence. Just like how economics played a role in Brexit and Trumps victory, Turkeys economic performance has had an impact in the referendum.

In a period of economic uncertainty, the Turkish economy has seen mixed fortunes over the past few years. Early 2016 witnessed a slowdown in economic growth. However, the economy bounced back towards the end of 2016.

A mix of Turkish nationalism and Islamic identity caused many in the electorate to support Erdogans proposed constitutional changes. Photo: Reuters

In 2017, the Turkish economy had a high unemployment rate. Erdogans critics have been claiming that the referendum and all the discourse around it has been engineered to deflect attention from the poor economic performance.

The voting patterns also suggest a strong nationalistic and us-versus-them narrative in the elections. The lead up to the referendum witnessed an ugly exchange of words between Turkey, Germany and The Netherlands.

Turkey had a run-in with the EU following the failed coup attempt. President Erdogan used these battles with various EU powers to construct an us-versus-them narrative.

This has become apparent going by the way Erdogan responded to the claims of unfair electoral practices levelled by several in Europe. Among the supporters of constitutional reforms, the overwhelming response was in support of the ultra-nationalistic discourse. Many of Erdogans supporters visualise the referendum as the first step in restoring Turkeys glory during the Ottoman days.

A mix of Turkish nationalism and Islamic identity has caused many in the electorate to support Erdogans proposed constitutional changes.

For the past few decades, Turkey has been aggressively pushing for EU membership. While the ongoing territorial dispute with Greece and the differences over Cyprus have been cited as the reasons for the delay in Turkeys membership, the real reason appears to be because of Turkeys religious difference with mainland Europe.

The long drawn and increasingly futile attempt to join the EU has pushed a section of the population to relook at Turkish identity. The growing trend to assert Turkeys Islamic roots is a sign of a search for a new identity.

In the backdrop of this us-versus-them battle, Erdogans nationalistic rhetoric won over a certain section of voters.

Turkey, which was viewed as a symbol of stability in the Middle East, has become a victim of terror strikes. The attack on Istanbuls airport led to a drop in the number of tourists visiting the country.

With turmoil cross the border in Syria, Turkey has become vulnerable to attacks carried out by the ISIS. At the same time it is also fighting the Kurdish extremists.

In the light of security concerns, popular support was for a strong central leadership that could effectively deal with the challenges posed by ISIS and Kurdish separatists.

Erdogans plan to shift towards a presidential system got support from people who wanted to see a strong central leadership to deal with security concerns.

While the long-term impact of the referendum results will be a matter of hot debate, one needs to understand how Turkey got to this situation in the first place. The patterns emerging out of the referendum vote-share have striking similarities with the US elections and UKs Brexit.

Turkeys referendum exposed a gap between the rural and urban and the young and old. Economic difficulties and increasing unemployment appear to have played a part in the result.

The frustratingly long time being taken to secure Turkeys EU membership pushed many in the country to search for a new identity. Here, Erdogans strong nationalist stance won over people.

Finally, Turkey has been increasingly vulnerable to attack from the ISIS. People felt the need for a strong central leadership to tackle the situation. Therefore, the presidential system became attractive.

While a combination of factors has lead to the vote in favour of constitutional reforms, one should not shy away from the fact that this is a highly fractured verdict.
The ultimate beneficiaries of Tedis Ukraine (formerly Megapolis-Ukraine), the largest distributor of tobacco products in Ukraine, are Ukrainian citizen Borys Kaufman with an indirect share of 47.22%, British citizens Richard Duxbury, owning 23.51%, and Richard Dorian Fenhalls with 23.51%.

According to a company report, Kaufman through New Investment Company Alliance LLC owns Lidertano Holdings Ltd. At the same time, Duxbury through Abival Limited owns Vestigium Holdings Limited, while Fenhalls through After Strand Limited owns After Strand International Limited.

The company refutes statements regarding the availability of Russian capital in its ownership structure.

As reported, Tedis Ukraine, established in 2011 as Megapolis-Ukraine LLC Trading Company, was renamed Tedis Ukraine LLC in May 2016. The regional network of the company consists of 35 regional structural divisions in Ukraine.

Tedis Ukraine is the largest distributor of cigarettes in Ukraine: its market share, according to the AMC, exceeds 99%.
ERU group of companies is interested in participating in a new tender for the privatization of PJSC Odesa Port-Side Chemical Plant, group co-owner Andriy Favorov said during his visit to the company.

"I know that this is one of the priorities of the government - to privatize the plant, maybe even this year. We sincerely support this and probably will also make every effort to participate in this process," he said.

Favorov added, in his opinion, Odesa Port-Side Chemical Plant is able to compete with other players in foreign markets, and is even "more than" able to compete in the Ukrainian market.

As reported, at present ERU uses the capacity of Odesa Port-Side Chemical Plant under give-and-take conditions.
Two Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in a shell attack on a Ukrainian army stronghold near Avdiyivka, the anti-terrorist operation headquarters said.

"According to preliminary information, two servicemen were killed in shelling of the stronghold of one of our mechanized infantry brigades situated not far from Avdiyivka," the headquarters' press center said on Facebook on Thursday evening.

On this direction, the enemy used tanks, 82 millimeter mortars, various grenade launchers and large-caliber machineguns, Kyiv says.
Martynenko notified of suspicion, to be chosen preventive measure on Friday  NABU

Investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine have handed a notice about suspicion to the former lawmaker from the People's Front faction, Mykola Martynenko, head of the public relations and media department of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) Oksana Mytnytska said at a briefing.

"In fact, [Mykola Martynenko] has been notified about the suspicion. The issue of choosing a preventive measure is being currently settled, the relevant motion will be submitted to the court this morning," Mytnytska said.

She noted that Martynenko, like all the suspects, will be held in the pre-trial detention center before the preventive measure is chosen for him.

She didn't specify in which particular detention center the former MP will be held, referring to the secret of the investigation.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau spokesperson noted that the preventive measure of for Martynenko will be chosen by Solomyansky District Court of Kyiv.

As reported, Martynenko was taken to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau on Thursday for procedural and investigative actions.

The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) of Ukraine suspects the former MP of the People's Front faction of embezzlement of $17.28 million in funds from the State Enterprise Eastern (Skhidny) Mining and Processing Combine, SAP chief Nazar Kholodnytsky reported.

The People's Front party said that Martynenko's detention is a sign of selective justice and politically motivated actions of anti-corruption agencies.

Martynenko himself said that the charges against him were concocted at the direction from NABU Director Artem Sytnyk.
The Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the OSCE in Ukraine considers the presence of military equipment on May 9 parades in the areas of Luhansk region beyond Kyiv control to be a violation of the Minsk accords.

"I should confirm that the so-called 'LPR' informed us that they plan to violate the Minsk agreements.As we have already shown in our reports, the presence of such weapons is a violation of the Minsk agreements and this armament should not be there in accordance with the agreements signed by the 'LPR/DPR'," SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said in Kyiv on Friday responding to a question about the presence of military equipment at the May 9 parades in the 'LPR'.
Over the past day, the militants have carried out 47 shelling attacks on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), as a result of which two Ukrainian servicemen have been killed and eight injured, the press center of the ATO headquarters has reported.

"The situation in the ATO area has taken a turn for the worse," ATO HQ said on Facebook.

The Donetsk sector was in the main focus of fire activity of terrorist groups. In particular, Avdiyivka was fired on from tanks, 120 mm and 82 mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, Butovka from 82 mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, Verkhniotoretske and Luhanske from mortars of 82 mm caliber, weapons of the infantry combat vehicles and machine guns. Kamyanka, Zaitseve and Pisky were shelled by anti-tank grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, Mayorske and Novhorodske from grenade launchers, while Troyitske was attacked with the usage of machine guns and small arms.

"In the coastal sector, the enemy fired on the defenders of Maryinka and Krasnohorivka from the mortars of the 82-mm caliber and the grenade launchers. Defenders of Shyrokyne and Vodiane were attacked by infantry fighting vehicles and grenade launchers of various systems. In the vicinity of Pavlopil and Talakivka the adversary used anti-tank grenade launchers and machine guns of large calibers at positions of marines. Strongholds in the area of Novohryhorivka were shelled by machine guns of large calibers. Snipers stepped up in the vicinity of Lybidynske and Vodiane," a report says.

In the Luhansk sector, militants fired on Katerynivka from 82 mm mortars and automatic grenade launchers, Novozvanivka was shelled by grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, and Donets suffered from automatic grenade launchers.
On Tuesday, April 25, at 16.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference "Ukrainian Real Estate Market Amid Economic Crisis: Results of Q1 2017 and Further Development Forecasts." The participants include President of the Realtors Association of Ukraine Yuriy Pita, Former President of the Realtors Association of Ukraine Serhiy Zlyden, and Chairman of the Realtors Association's committee on statistics and analytics Eduard Brazas (8/5a Reitarska Street). Accreditation is required by email: pr@asnu.net. More information by phone: (097) 576 3193, (044) 516 4661.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump met in the Oval Office on Friday with Aya Hijazi, the Egyptian American charity worker whom Trump worked to get released from a Cairo prison, where she spent three years on child abuse and trafficking charges widely seen as false.

"We are very happy to have Aya back home, and it's a great honor to have her in the Oval Office," Trump said, noting that her brother also attended.

Trump and his guest sat in chairs, flanked by a pair of couches. Among those on the couches were Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter; Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law; and Dina Powell, a deputy national security adviser who traveled to Egypt this week.

Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi to secure the freedom of Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers.

Trump dispatched a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington.

During a briefing for reporters Friday, Spicer emphasized that after Trump was briefed on Hijazi's detention earlier this year he directed his administration to work behind the scenes on the issue.

During a visit to Washington early this month by Sissi, Spicer said that the issue of Hijazi's imprisonment was raised by "the team."

"I don't want to get into it, but yes, it was brought up," Spicer said. "We had some obviously very productive and helpful discussions which resulted in her being able to come back to the United States."

Asked specifically what the Trump administration was able to do that the former administration was not, Spicer highlighted the behind-the-scenes activity of the new administration.

"I think that the president and the team worked behind the scenes in a much more productive way maybe," Spicer said. "One could look at the tactic that was done to achieve the result."

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Va., and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a haven and rehabilitation center for street children in Cairo.

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and U.S. officials as false.
China's first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1 blasts off from Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China's Hainan province, April 20, 2017. (Xinhua/Ju Zhenhua)

WENCHANG, Hainan, April 20 -- China has taken another step toward its goal of putting a space station into orbit around 2022, by sending its first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1 into space on Thursday evening.

Atop a Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket, Tianzhou-1 rose into the air from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China's Hainan Province at 7:41 p.m.

China declared the launch a success after it entered designated orbit minutes later.

The cargo ship will dock with the orbiting Tiangong-2 space lab where two Chinese astronauts spent 30 days in the country's longest-ever manned space mission, provide fuel and other supplies to the latter, as well as conduct space experiments before falling back to Earth.

If the Tianzhou-1 mission is successful, China will become the third country besides Russiaand the United Statesto master the technique of refueling in space.

China aims to build a permanent space station that is expected to orbit for at least 10 years, and the debut of the cargo ship is important as it acts as a courier to help maintain the space station.

Without a cargo transportation system, the station would run out of power and basic necessities, causing it to return to Earth before the designated time.

"The Tianzhou-1 mission includes the breakthrough of in-orbit refueling and other key technology needed to build a space station, laying a foundation for future space station operations," said Bai Mingsheng, chief designer of the cargo ship.

THREE DOCKINGS

Measuring 10.6 meters long and boasting a maximum diameter of 3.35 meters, the Tianzhou-1 cargo ship has a maximum takeoff weight of 13.5 tonnes, and could carry over 6 tonnes of supplies.

Tianzhou-1 is larger and heavier than Tiangong-2, which is 10.4 meters in length and has a maximum diameter of 3.35 meters, weighing 8.6 tonnes.

Bai said that supplies loaded on the cargo spacecraft are nearly as heavy as the ship's own weight, exceeding the loading capacity of Russian cargo ships in active service.

Tianzhou-1 will dock with Tiangong-2 three times, said Bai. After the first docking, aerospace engineers will test the controlling ability of the cargo spacecraft over the two spacecraft.

The second docking will be conducted from a different direction, which aims to test the ability of the cargo ship to dock with the space station from different directions.

In the last docking, Tianzhou-1 will use fast-docking technology. Previously, it took China about two days to dock, while fast docking will take about six hours, according to Bai.

Refueling is conducted during docking, a process that is much more complicated than refueling vehicles on land.

The refueling procedure will take 29 steps and last for several days each time.

This means the Tianzhou-1 will stay in space for about six months. It will fall into a designated sea area after fulfilling its tasks.

SUPPORTING SPACE STATION

Space cargo ships play a crucial role in the maintenance of a space station.

Cargo ships can send all kinds of supplies to the space station which can be an experiment field for developing technology in space.

Huang Weifen, a deputy chief designer of the Astronaut Center of China, said that supplies carried by Tianzhou-1 include goods that will meet the basic living and working needs of three astronauts for 30 days in space, including drinking water, oxygen bottles and nitrogen bottles.

Also onboard include facilities for microorganism tests, and sensors are installed to obtain data such as mechanics and temperature for the future design of the space suit outside a spacecraft.

"We hope to gather relevant data through this mission and accumulate experience for sending material for the future space station," she said.

VISION OF SPACE POWER

Although China has achieved many giant steps in space exploration, the country's space odyssey is far from over as it eyes building its own space station and far beyond that: landing on Mars.

In 1992, the central authority approved a three-step manned space program.

The first step, to send an astronaut into space and return safely, was fulfilled by Yang Liwei in Shenzhou-5 mission in 2013.

The second step was developing advanced space flight techniques and technologies including extra-vehicular activity and orbital docking.

The final step will be able to operate a permanent manned space station.

Chinese scientists said they plan to launch a core module of the country's first space station around 2018, followed by two experiment modules.

The station in the primary stage will be composed of three modules: core module, experiment module I and experiment module II. Each module will weigh more than 20 tonnes and together the three will be structured in the shape of T. The core module will be in the middle with an experiment module on each side.

During its operation, the space station could be linked to one additional cargo ship and two manned spacecraft at one time, and the maximum weight of the whole assembly could reach up to 90 tonnes.

Based on such design, scientists will keep updating capsules in accordance with scientific research and extend their abilities.

With the International Space Station set to retire in 2024, the Chinese space station will offer a promising alternative, and China will be the only country with a permanent space station.

So far, China has successfully launched 11 Shenzhou series spacecraft, including six manned spacecraft that lifted 11 astronauts into space.

The country strives to realize the third step of its lunar program in 2017: sending Chang'e-5 lunar probe onto the moon which will return with samples.
Police officers stand guard on Champs Elysees shopping street in Paris, Franceon April 20, 2017. One policeman was killed, and another severely injured in a shooting incident Thursday evening near the Champs Elysees shopping street in Paris. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

PARIS, April 20 -- One police officer was killed, and two others severely injured in a shooting incident Thursday evening on the Champs Elysees shopping street in Paris, authorities said.

Spokesperson of the French interior ministry Pierre-Henry Brandet told local broadcaster BFMTV that the police officers were "deliberately targeted", and the assailant was shot dead.

The gunman, armed with a machine gun, got out of a car and opened fire at the police in front of the store on the street, reports quoted a witness as saying.

He then began running away and injured two other officers before got shot in an exchange of fire with the police.

"We are asking all residents to avoid the Champs Elysees area in order to allow police operations to be carried out in serenity," said Brandet, adding that police investigation into the motive of the attack is underway.

The police are currently collecting statements from the various witnesses who were at the scene when the incident occurred, to verify the presence of a second assailant.

Meanwhile, the French prosecutors' office said the counter-terrorism office had opened an inquiry.

French President Francois Hollandewill deliver a speech soon after an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl.

Cazeneuve paid homage to the killed policeman and expressed solidarity with the injured on his Twitter account.

The Champs Elysees street was closed off shortly after the shooting, while a helicopter started patrolling the area.

Police vehicles with flashing lights were seen lining up along the street, and passengers were told to move away from the area.

Concerns over security have been raised since Tuesday when two men were arrested for plotting an attack before the French presidential election, which is set to begin on Sunday.
The Islamic Center of Culpeper has ratified a settlement agreement with the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors that will allow it to move forward with building the areas first mosque, eliciting mostly positive reaction.

The Islamic Center officially signed off on the agreement Wednesday, a day after the board of supervisors approved it with a vote of 4-3 thereby granting a pump-and-haul sewer permit to serve a bathroom in the planned prayer house on route 229 in an effort to avoid costly litigation.

This was the only sensible solution, said University of Virginia Law Professor Douglas Laycock, a religious freedom expert. It would have made no sense to take this case to trial.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice filed suit against the county in December alleging that it religiously discriminated against the Islamic Center when it voted 4-3 a year ago to deny the sewer permit following anti-Muslim sentiment in the community.

The Islamic Center of Culpeper thereafter filed a similar complaint seeking approval of the routine permit and compensatory damages. Officials on both sides hope that the now-ratified local settlement agreement, granting the permit and $10,000, will settle both complaints.

A confidential conference call was held Friday addressing the status of the cases with the two parties and U.S. District Court Judge Norman Moon who last month issued an opinion stating he felt the countys denial of the sewer permit was based on religious hostility.

The Board was caught between constituent pressure on one side and legal obligations and liability risk on the other, said Laycock, adding, A majority eventually did the right thing  better late than never.

Co-author of a 2011 academic paper addressing the need for federal protection for local houses of worship, the professor said anti-Muslim sentiment remains rampant around the U.S.

It is a response to terrorism, but that blames more than a billion people for the wrongdoing of a few hundred thousand or a few million at most, Laycock said.

He added that President Donald Trump has further stirred up and inflamed the Muslim bias.

There are more of these mosque cases pending around the country, including two in northern Virginia, Laycock said.

A year ago, Culpeper County Supervisor Gary Deal voted with the majority to deny the sewer permit to the Islamic Center of Culpeper. Tuesday night, he changed his vote, allowing the settlement agreement to pass. He declined comment on the matter saying they were instructed not to speak about the case until the federal suit was officially resolved.

A joint statement in the agreement stated, The County and (Islamic Center of Culpeper) are glad to resolve this matter expeditiously and without further litigation. The Board of Supervisors welcomes the (Islamic Center of Culpeper) to Culpeper County as it does all other religious organizations. This matter is resolved in the spirit of compromise and goodwill without being tried. The County makes no admission of wrongdoing and believes that if the case had been tried the county would have been absolved of any wrongdoing. The (Islamic Center of Culpeper) believes that if the case had been tried it would have prevailed. The County will issue a pump and haul permit to the (Islamic Center of Culpeper) until such time as water and sewer becomes available to the property.

Islamic Center of Culpeper spokesman Dr. Nabeel Babar commended the board for reversing its decision. He said approval of the settlement agreement reaffirmed the commitment of Culpeper County to protect the religious freedoms of all its citizens whether Christian, Muslim, Jew or any other faith group.

We thank our friends and neighbors in Culpeper and beyond for their kind words and support during this process, Babar said.

A source close to the matter said the dispute was like a dark cloud looming over Culpeper that can now be lifted.

Local faith leader Adrian Sledge, pastor at Antioch Baptist Church in Culpeper, said he hoped the board of supervisors made a well-thought out and fair decision in reversing course. He said America is a country where its citizens can worship freely without discrimination or persecution.

If we extend this freedom to other religions than we must respect and extend this ideal to our Islamic brothers and sisters, Sledge said.

California-based Muslim Advocates represented the Islamic Center of Culpeper in its lawsuit.

This is a victory for religious freedom, said Johnathan Smith, legal director of Muslim Advocates, in a statement. The countys vote represents a commitment to allowing the ICC to build its house of worship free from discrimination.

The Islamic Center has said it plans to start construction on the prayer house as soon as the judge approves the settlement and signs the order.

We can finally move ahead and start building our mosque so we can fully meet the needs of our religious community, said Mohammad Nawabe, co-director with Babar of the Islamic Center. Our members have lived in Culpeper County for decades, and all we have ever asked for is to be treated the same as everyone else.

Securing a sewer utility permit is a first step in starting a construction project in Culpeper County. As the project progresses, the Islamic Center will also need to go through site plan review and erosion and sediment control plan review before getting a building permit.

Local reaction on social media to news of the settlement agreement was mostly supportive with one man posting, This wouldnt have happened if the county had been a little more open minded and not succumb to the will of a few ignorant people shouting loudly. Glad they are able to have a place of worship finally. Other local posters continued to perpetuate the anti-Muslim bias.
Federal authorities are negotiating a plea agreement with the 53-year-old Culpeper man charged with child sex trafficking.

The U.S. Attorneys Office and legal counsel for defendant Fielding Daniel filed a joint motion Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria requesting a months extension, until May 28, for filing an indictment against the accused to allow time to continue those negotiations.

Stafford County authorities arrested Daniel in August for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old girl in a hotel room and then giving her money. Federal authorities on March 29 subsequently charged him with child sex trafficking and took over the case. According to court documents, Daniel met the Stafford girl  who claimed she was 18  on a Sugar Daddy web site.

Since his arrest on the federal charge, the parties in the case have been involved in discovery and plea negotiations in hopes of resolving the case prior to indictment, according to Thursdays court filing seeking an extension of time. The Speedy Trial Act requires that any indictment be filed within 30 days of arrest or a first appearance in court  in this case the deadline would have been April 29.

Extending this time period would be in the interests of justice in that it would give the defense time to review discovery materials and continue plea negotiations, according to court documents.

Daniel has been in held in custody since his August arrest. Stuart Sears is his attorney.
(Xinhua) 08:31, April 21, 2017

UNITED NATIONS, April 20 -- The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launch conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

In a press statement, the 15-nation council demanded the DPRK to immediately cease further actions in violation of relevant Security Council resolutions, saying that the council would closely monitor the situation and "take further significant measures including sanctions."

The DPRK attempted on Sunday to test-fire an unidentified missile on its east coast, according to the South Korean military. The United Statesconfirmed later that the missile launch had failed.

The Security Council expressed their "utmost concern" over DPRK's "highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council" by conducting the ballistic missile launch, said the statement.

It stressed that DPRK's illegal ballistic missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond.

In order to reduce the tension in the Korean Peninsula, the most powerful UN body demanded the DPRK conduct no further nuclear tests.

According to previous Security Council resolutions, the DPRK is banned from conducting any launches that use ballistic missile technology, nuclear tests or any other provocation. To that end, the council has imposed tough sanctions on the DPRK, which includes banning the sale and transfer of coal, iron and iron ore from the country's territory.
(Xinhua) 08:41, April 21, 2017

BEIJING, April 20 -- China's top court issued a set of new rules on handling appeals to state compensation decisions.

The rules cover the scope and procedures of the supervision on state compensation, and provide guarantees of the right of appeal, according to a press release from the Supreme People's Court (SPC).

The SPC statement said that it was quite common for applicants to appeal decisions on state compensation repeatedly, which was a waste of judicial resources.

The high appeal rate in such cases requires new rules to be put in place, it added.

Under Chinese law, wrongfully imprisoned or detained individuals should be compensated for each day they are deprived of their freedom, in addition to their physical and psychological damage.

The rules will enter into effect on May 1.
PARIS - France is effectively an open house from the border of Syria to Calais, with little or no border checks, Kalashnikovs, grenade launchers, semtex, drugs, terrorists and illegal migrants are funnelled through the Schengen corridor day and night.

There is only one person who can halt this Schengen nightmare that has befallen the once great and beautiful country of France, and that is Marine Le Pen.

Preservation

The land that housed the greatest artists of all time, painters, architects and cuisine is being besieged daily by a torrent of unwanted migrants and terrorists crossing into its borders.

The boulevards, once attended by cafes and lounging Parisians now filled to the brim with the smell of faeces, and urine from the makeshift tents laid out amongst bickering African migrants fighting for some space which they think is owed to them.

How far into the toilet must one country go before someone stands up and says Enough is enough! or trop cest trop!?

It is time for the socialists to step aside, and for real action to take place, for a party that can save France from this disastrous decline and fall into the mire.

Perhaps, a Joan DArc character like Marine Le Pen, can finally bring an end to the terrible malaise that has befallen this once great nation, smeared by the EU for too long.

How many terrorist atrocities will it take for the French to finally come to their senses, to have cartoonists murdered in cold blood, or pedestrians crushed under trucks, or music lovers executed mercilessly?

France. Wake up. There is a whole world outside the prison of the European Union, a failed project that not only has imprisoned France but inhibited it from its true potential.

The fight is not with Britain, mes amis, but with the unelected cochons in Brussels, who dictate to you every day.

Break free from the chains and release the Gallic spirit across the globe with trade, manufacturing, enterprise, art, and of course the wonderful French Joi de vivre.
(Xinhua) 08:46, April 21, 2017

BEIJING, April 20 -- China remains the top destination for venture capital (VC) investment in Asia, with 3.6 billion U.S. dollars invested in Q1, accounting firm KPMG said in a report.

The volume increased by 100 million dollars from the previous quarter, according to the report on VC investment trends.

KPMG pointed out that investors in Asia were cautious, with a noticeable decline in the total number of deals, down from 403 in Q4 to 258.

Among a number of unicorns, China's bike-sharing platform ofo raised 450 million dollars, the largest bike-sharing investment on record.

Other fundraisings in China in the global top 10 were 600 million dollars for electric vehicle startup NIO, 360 million dollars for courier Hive Box Technology and 350 million dollars going to video sharing and live broadcasting app developer Kuaishou Technology.

In terms of sectors, the first quarter saw a significant amount of interest in medtech globally, particularly in the United States, Israeland Canada. The Asian medtech market has yet to achieve a strong presence, the report noted, but the potential is significant given the large consumer base.

Tech areas such as artificial intelligence, big data, cognitive learning and robotics are expected to continue to receive strong attention. Healthcare technology, fintech, and e-commerce are also expected to be strong sectors in Asia in Q2 and beyond, according to the report.
China signs over 130 transport pacts with Belt and Road countries

China's first freight train to London ready to depart from Yiwu West Railway Station in eastern Zhejiang Province on Dec. 31, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

China has signed more than 130 bilateral and regional transport agreements with countries involved in the Belt and Road, the Ministry of Transport said Thursday.

Spokesman Wu Chungeng said at a press conference the agreements signed over the past three years covered rail, road, sea and air transportation, as well as postal services.

"Transportation connectivity is the founding priority of the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative," Wu said.

The country has opened 356 international road routes for both passengers and goods, while maritime transportation services now cover all countries along the Belt and Road, he added.

Every week, some 4,200 direct flights connect China with 43 Belt and Road countries. Railway border procedures have been streamlined, with 39 China-Europe freight train routes currently in operation, Wu said.

China plans cooperation in transport planning and standards, construction of land and sea routes, and improved international transport conditions, the spokesman said.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road is a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa, promoting common development among all countries involved.

Next month, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held in Beijing.
By Xu Ming (Global Times) 10:17, April 21, 2017

 China celebrated its second National Security Education Day on Saturday by promoting anti-espionage awareness in schools

 Military experts say China is now faced with a much more complicated State security situation than before

(Photo/Xinhua)

Counter-espionage, a phrase that may sound obscure to today's children, was used a lot recently as the government tried to ensure everyone takes China's security into their own hands on National Security Education Day.

Last Saturday, the first set of readers about national security aimed at middle and primary school students were officially published in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province.

The books use easy-to-read language and comics to spread knowledge about national security, the threat apparently posed by spies and how to spot potential terror threats. It also contains games like "find the spy," to drum the concept of national security into students, as Jiangsu People's Publishing LTD (JPP), publisher of the books, told the Global Times.

The book release is just one of a myriad of activities that went on this National Security Education Day, the country's second. The new occasion is part of a broader official drive to deal with national security issues through societal and legal means. In November 2014, China implemented its first Counter-espionage Law. In July 2015, China's new National Security Law was promulgated.

This year, besides eye-catching street banners, community publicity events, vivid videos and graphs shared online that try to convince the public at large of the importance of national security, students from primary schools to colleges were specifically targeted by this publicity drive to mobilize them as a huge counter-spy force.

"We can never be too careful even in peacetime. Spies and secret agents might be all around us," Wang Dawei, a professor with People's Public Security University of China, told with the Global Times.

Nationwide education

The books recently published in Nanjing, which draw their content from the National Security Law, Counter-espionage Law and the Anti-terrorism Law, have been seen by the publishers as touching on a subject that many young people are unfamiliar with.

Even though espionage cases make headlines from time to time, it is hard for students to relate these cloak-and-dagger stories to their own lives. These books seek to make these abstract concepts specific and touchable.

"The books went through tests and amendments in the past year, and will be used on a large scale from this year on," the publishing house revealed, "It is very trendy for middle and primary students to receive this kind of education given the increasingly complicated world situation."

Students at Central China Normal University, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, received a lecture about their role in ensuring national security from Shao Yongling, a senior colonel from the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force Command College who specializes in intelligence, three days before National Security Education Day. The event, which was broadcast live in all Hubei schools, was viewed by 1.53 million college students and 5.52 million primary and middle school students.

Shao focused on trying to persuade the students that threats lie all around them. She cited specific cases, and even talked about how scanning a QR code to unlock a shared bike can lead one into serious trouble. A lot of students, convinced by her lecture, posted to Sina Weibo afterwards to let the world know that they now realize that national security is an issue close to their daily lives.

Charts produced for National Security Education Day by State media also tried to have this effect.

In one chart produced by newscctv.net, readers were given definitions of a spy, what kinds of people are vulnerable to manipulation by foreign governments and how agents of overseas intelligence agencies may set traps or lure people to work for them.

"It is very necessary to carry out national security education. How to keep secrets should be part of the curriculum and every kid should be endowed with this quality, just like they have scientific education," said Wang.

Complicated situation

This education drive has started partly because China is now faced with a much more complicated State security situation than before, according to Li Jie, a Beijing-based military expert.

"The infiltration of hostile forces like terrorism, separatism and extremism, and the high-tech and covert means spies use to obtain intelligence have all made the security and counter-espionage situation difficult," explained Li.

Since April 10, the National Security Bureau of Beijing has offered a reward of 500,000 yuan ($72,600) to people who provide tip-offs that play a role in countering spies. A vivid cartoon that can be easily understood by kids was also made by the bureau and widely circulated.

As the bureau explained in a press release, since reform and opening-up began, exchanges with foreign countries and the number of people entering and exiting China have both been increasing. The bureau said that overseas intelligence agencies have taken this as a chance to intensify their activities in China.

The reward policy stresses that the government sees ordinary people as key to the fight against espionage.

In a recently exposed case, this January, a fisherman surnamed Zhang found a device covered in foreign writing while catching fish near the Yellow River in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province. Knowing his discovery might relate to national security, Zhang and his friend Wan called the authorities and the device was found to be a tool used by overseas agencies to collect data.

"Counter-espionage has not been mentioned for a long time, and the society is kind of dumb about it, so many big cases appeared in recent years. For a long time we have emphasized the economy, production and foreign relations, and kind of ignored education in this aspect," said Li. "But remember, our enemies are not sleeping."

"Peace does not prevail across the world. Our enemies are not dead. We just cannot relax our vigilance," added Li.

Picking up the young

For today's young people that have grown up in peacetime, worrying about national security may seem strange. But to people who grew up in 1950s and 60s, who were told to be on constant lookout for spies, this round of national security education is nothing new.

Classic Chinese movies often have ordinary people's vigilance toward espionage as a theme, portraying common people as being so cautious and incisive that spies were inevitably foiled. Some middle-aged netizens posted online around National Security Education Day that they used to play "spy-catching" games in their childhood.

"After the founding of the People's Republic and till the late 1960s, anti-spy consciousness was deeply rooted among the people," Li told the Global Times.

"We had education in this aspect at that time, about fighting against special agents and spies. But this education was slackened for people born in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. It is mainly because patriotic education has fallen behind," Wang, who was born in 1957, said based on his personal experience.

In the midst of this education drive, many netizens have expressed their support for education to keep the common people on their toes.

"Take it seriously please. When China and Japan came into conflict [in 2012 over Japan's "nationalization" of the Diaoyu Islands], there were overseas organizations attempting to stir up disturbances in a neighboring university," a netizen named Mengxiangjiaxiaosi wrote on Sina Weibo. She explained to the Global Times that after these events, she realized spies could be around her from then on. She declined to reveal which "overseas organizations" were stirring up trouble.

Still, there are people who do not take the government's warnings about spies seriously. "I'm gonna catch the spy but  give me a gun first," one netizen joked.

News portal huanqiu.com conducted a survey in 2009 about national security, in which 81.4 percent of the nearly 6,000 respondents agreed that the anti-spy situation is more challenging than before, and 95 percent said that Chinese people are bad at keeping secrets.

Lucy Ma, a university student in Beijing, told the Global Times that her peers have little awareness of national security issues. "We generally even don't know what kind of information is related to national security, to say nothing of being sensitive and cautious about it."

"Now many people take and post pictures wherever they like without thinking, and some may involve confidential stuff. It shows a lack of secret-keeping awareness. Overseas spies and hostile forces can easily collect such information," Wang stressed.

"The new generation lacks sufficient education in secret-keeping and patriotism. Every one of us should develop good habits when it comes to keeping secrets," Wang added.

But Ma added that students are likely to be more aware of these issues than other parts of society, since "there is education about national security at college."

"It is true that all of society needs to strengthen its awareness about national security. At least, we have started to work on it on campus," noted Yang, a teacher from a Beijing-based college.
(Xinhua) 13:11, April 21, 2017

WELLINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Two Chinese companies Friday signalled their support for the New Zealand tourism sector with agreements made through Christchurch Airport.

China Southern Airlines has joined the Christchurch-based University of Canterbury (UC) in a new partnership which will benefit one of the South Island's most popular scenic attractions.

The airline signed an agreement to become as an official partner of the iconic University of Canterbury Mount John Observatory, New Zealand's pre-eminent optical research observatory, which sits at the heart of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.

The partnership also supported tourism in Tekapo, an alpine lakeside resort, with 10 percent of the agreement's funding provided to the Mackenzie District Council for tourism infrastructure in Tekapo.

"China Southern Airlines is showing a real commitment in this partnership to enhance the visitor experience at Tekapo," Mackenzie District Council Mayor Graham Smith said in a statement.

UC vice-chancellor Rod Carr said he hoped the partnership with China Southern Airlines is a sign of strong ties between the two countries.

"China is the largest and fastest growing international market for student recruitment at UC, so strengthening relationships with key organizations there will support that growth and provide students with employment opportunities," Carr said in the statement.

"This sponsorship is a direct show of support for an area Chinese visitors love to visit." Christchurch Airport chief executive Malcolm Johns said in a statement.

China Southern Airlines Australasian managing director Louis Lu said it was a meaningful partnership that benefited both tourism and science.

"We all share an interest in discovering more about the amazing space that is the sky. China Southern explores it from an aviation perspective, the team at UC and the observatory research its secrets and showcase the amazing stargazing opportunities it offers," Lu said in the statement.

The observatory enables UC staff and students to carry out cutting-edge astronomical research in a number of different areas, including the search for extra-solar planets, the tracking of near-earth objects and the study of pulsating, variable and exploding stars.

Christchurch Airport also announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Alibaba, the world's largest retail commerce company, to connect small and regional New Zealand businesses with Chinese visitors.

Chinese travellers would be able to use the Alibaba Group apps to plan their visit, while they toured New Zealand, including shopping and financial transactions, and after they returned to China.

Johns said the strategic partnership was pivotal to unlocking for New Zealand's regions the power of Alibaba's international ambition to have 2 billion consumers in micro trading relationships with tens of millions of businesses around the world by 2026.

"This agreement has the potential to super-charge regional development across New Zealand, by unlocking micro exporting using tourism as the basis for the first meeting between the parties," he said.
Chennai: Hinduja Group flagship firm Ashok Leyland today said it has lined up around Rs 600 crore capex for this fiscal to enhance cabin and engine capacity besides setting up new assembly units in Kenya and Ivory Coast.

The company is bullish on the Indian commercial vehicle market and expects the industry to grow around 10-15 per cent this fiscal. "We will have capex (capital expenditure) to enhance capacity of cabin and engines.

We will not be building new plant for enhancing overall capacity," Ashok Leyland Managing Director Vinod Dasari told PTI here. He further said the second requirement of capex will be for developing future technologies like modular vehicles and BS-VI emission norm.

The company will also be investing in setting up small plants in Andhra Pradesh, Kenya and Ivory Coast. Asked how much has the company earmarked as capex for the fiscal, Dasari said: "We are looking at Rs 500-600 crore per year."

There will be no acquisition, he added. Elaborating on the company's plans for assembly plants in Africa, Ashok Leyland President, Global Sales and Distribution, Rajiv Saharia said these would be smaller units with an initial capacity of rolling out 200 units a month, scalable to 400 units.

"We are hopeful to set up the plants in Kenya and Ivory Coast within this fiscal but land acquisition has been a bit of an issue there," he added. The Kenyan plant will be used to cater to neighbouring countries in East Africa, while the Ivory Coast unit will do the same for West Africa, Saharia added.

He also said the capacity of the company's plant in Ras al-Khaimah will be enhanced beyond 400 units a month to cater to increased demand from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

On the domestic market, Dasari said the three main drivers of commercial vehicle sales -- GDP growth, infrastructure and mining -- are firing simultaneously at the moment. "We expect the industry to grow around 10-15 per cent this fiscal," he said.

The first quarter will be a bit slow as people are still evaluating the BS-IV transformation. "However, there is a lot of pent up demand which we think will transform into sales sooner rather than later," Dasari added.
Mumbai: If you have not served during the notice period and your employer has deducted salary for the same, then you don't need to worry about paying tax on the deducted salary.

In its recent ruling, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) that takes up disputes related to income tax issues has clarified that an employee was not required to pay tax on salary deducted by employer for not serving notice period, according to a report in The Times of India.

The report cited two companies that at the time of full and final settlement had deducted salary for the month during which employees did not serve the notice period.

"Under the income tax act, salary income is taxable on a due basis, regardless of whether it has been actually paid to an employee or not," the report said. After an employee puts in their papers and fails to serve contractual notice period, the employer cuts salary for the said month.

Likewise, tax authorities do not calculate such salaries for assessment of income tax. "The ITAT has recognized the concept of real income, which is well accepted under I-T laws," TOI quoted Gautam Nayak, tax partner, CNK & Associates, as saying.
New Delhi: Chartered accountants' apex body ICAI has urged members to submit their PAN details to it as failure to do so will result in the income tax department blocking their e-filing accounts.

This comes against the backdrop of many ICAI members who use electronic filing account with the income tax department not submitting the Permanent Account Number (PAN) details to the institute.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), set up by an Act of Parliament, is an apex body for chartered accountants. "Filing account of the members, who have not provided their PAN details to the institute but are using e-filing account with the income tax department, will be blocked by the income tax authorities after April 30, 2017 in case the same is not updated," ICAI said.

In a recent communication, the institute has also asked its members to ensure that there is no mismatch in details about them in the ICAI and PAN databases. Citing the income tax department, the institute said due to mismatch in the name in the central database of ICAI and the PAN database, the e-filing account in such cases would also be blocked.

"... there are still many members who have not yet provided their PAN details in the central database of ICAI," the communication, dated April 19, said. ICAI has asked the members in practice to update their PAN details latest by April 27.

In case of failure to do so, the institute said it has been informed that the income tax department would block the e-filing account of members whose PAN details are not available with ICAI as well as of those where there is mismatch in names in the two databases.
New Delhi: Ousted Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry has moved appellate tribunal NCLAT against the National Company Law Tribunal, which had rejected his plea for waiver in the eligibility criteria for filing case against the Tata Group.

The petition is likely to come for hearing next week before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal bench, headed by NCLAT Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya. On April 17, National Company Law Tribunal had dismissed a petition filed by two firms belonging to Cyrus Mistry's family, seeking waiver of an eligibility condition for moving the forum against Tata Sons.

The Companies Act mandates that a petitioner should hold at least one-tenth of the issued share capital of a company or represent 10 per cent of the total number of members to file cases alleging mismanagement and oppression of minority shareholders.

The two firms -- Cyrus Investment Pvt Ltd and Sterling Investments Pvt Ltd had sought to challenge Mistry's ouster from Tata Sons last year and alleged that there was mismanagement and oppression of minority shareholders.

They had urged the NCLT to use its discretion and waive an eligibility condition for filing such a petition. The tribunal had held last month that the plea was not maintainable, because the petitioner firms did not meet one of the eligibility criteria prescribed by the Companies Act.

The firms contended that under the Act the tribunal can waive a requirement that petitioner should hold at least one- tenth of `issued share capital' of the company, or represent at least one-tenth of the company's minority shareholders.

Tata Sons had argued that if preference capital was also considered, the petitioner firms held only 2.17 per cent of the total issued share capital of Tata Sons. Mistry was removed as Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding firm of Tata Group, one of the country's largest conglomerates, last October.
Mumbai: Petroleum Ministry while coming down heavily on petrol pump owners has slammed their decision to observe Sunday off under the pretext of answering Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for oil conservation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his monthly radio address Mann Ki Baat had appealed to the people not to use fuel for one day as part of government's save fuel, save oil campaign.

Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers has pressed for Sunday off for as many as 25,000 petrol pump dealers under its umbrella mostly in South India and some in parts of Maharashtra.

Earlier, Petroleum Ministry headed by Dharmendra Pradhan had said it did not approve the decision of Sunday off. "@PetroleumMin neither endorses nor approves of move by small section of dealers to keep their petrol pumps closed on Sundays @dpradhanbjp," the Ministry said in a tweet.

Reports said that petrol pump dealers were using pressure tactics to get their grievances heard and demands met. Petrol pump dealers had earlier warned that they would go on strike if commission on fuel sale was not increased.

These fuel dealers also wanted work hours at petrol pumps reduced and a 9 am to 6 pm work cycle for their employees. Recent decision of Sunday off is seen in some parts of country as a protest against their unfulfilled demands.

Observing Sunday off would attract punitive actions from government under Essential Commodities Act as petrol and petroleum products come under the purview of essential commodities. A man-made shortage of these commodities is illegal.

Apart from that, majority of petrol pump dealers have not said yes to the call for Sunday off and they have rejected the idea altogether.
New Delhi: Cab aggregator Ola's board has approved raising up to USD 100 million from existing shareholders, primarily to fund its expansion plans. The company, which is locked in an intense battle with American rival Uber, had recently raised funds to the tune of Rs 1,675 crore from its Japanese investor, SoftBank.

The approval was for issuance of convertible securities at a price of Rs 13,521 apiece through a rights issue. ANI Technologies -- which operates Ola -- today said its board has approved raising "up to USD 100 million (about Rs 670 crore) by issue of 495,526 Series 'l1' preference shares of face value INR 10 each at a price per subscription share equivalent to INR 13,521".

As per the filing made to the Corporate Affairs Ministry under the Companies Act, the rights issue was scheduled for March 23, 2017. However, it could not be immediately ascertained how much the company raised through the issue. A query sent to Ola did not elicit any response.

The filing said the objective of the issue was "to meet the growth and expansion of business and to strengthen financial position of the company". After selling its China business to rival Didi, Uber has made India one of its top priorities. It has made significant investments in its India operations, strengthening its platform and expanding its driver partner ecosystem.

Ola, which has a presence in 110 Indian cities compared to Uber's operations in 29 cities, has also been aggressively expanding its portfolio of services. It is also placing big bets on new technologies like electric vehicles to stay ahead of competition.
New Delhi: Tata Power today said it has signed an agreement with Ajmer Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (AVVNL) for electricity distribution in Ajmer for 20 years.

Tata Power signed the Distribution Franchise Agreement (DFA) with AVVNL to cater to power requirements of customers in Ajmer for a period of 20 years, Tata Power said in a regulatory filing.

Subsequent to winning the bid for distribution franchise of Ajmer circle, Tata Power has formed a special purpose company (SPC), TP Ajmer Distribution Ltd. Tata Power CEO and MD Anil Sardana said: "We welcome all our customers in Ajmer to a world class reliable power experience that is backed by best-in-class customer service."

The SPC will be operating and maintaining the distribution network in the Ajmer city, which includes city division 1 and 2 areas, and would also be responsible for managing the billing and collections, it said. Shares of Tata Power were trading at Rs 84.50, up 0.42 per cent on BSE.
New Delhi: India needs to focus on domestic policies to step up its share in global trade to 4-5 per cent from the current 1.7 per cent and not get perturbed by what is happening in the US, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya said today.

He offered a simple solution to bump up India's share in global merchandise exports, saying "what matters more is what we do in India". The global merchandise export is USD 16-17 trillion.

He suggested that the effort should be to raise India's pie, irrespective of increase or decrease in global trade. "What happens to the size of global merchandise exports, whether it remains at USD 16 trillion or goes up to USD 18-19 trillion, is of less consequence. What share we are able to get into this pie is more important," Panagariya said at a panel discussion here.

Referring to concerns expressed over the policies of being followed by the new American regime under President Donald Trump, Panagariya felt that India need not get pessimistic, but focus on improving its own policies to promote trade.

He further said that unlike other US Presidents, Trump is actually pursuing an agenda based on the promises made during the election campaign. Several US Presidents in the past had refrained from vigorously pursuing the electoral promises, especially with regard to protectionism after assuming power.

"One fundamental difference is what happened then and what is happening now. During the election campaign, protectionist sentiment came to the fore, that happens to be more popular than the theme of open market. But once the election was won, generally the President who came in advanced market economy agenda," he said.

About farmers, Panagariya said they have started getting price consumers pay for farm products. "Farmers are getting small fractions of price which consumers are paying," he noted. The NITI Aayog vice-chairman emphasised on the need for creating more and more mandis for farmers.
Dharmendra Pradhan chaired meeting of Consultative Committee Meeting of Members of Parliament for Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas in Sri Nagar.

Mumbai: Tired of waiting in long unending queues at fuel stations? The hardship will soon disappear as government has plans for you. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday indicated his ministry was considering to make home delivery of petrol and diesel a reality, soon.

Options being explored where petro products may be door delivered to consumers on pre booking, petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a tweet.

Pradhan was presiding over a meeting of Consultative Committee Meeting of Members of Parliament for Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas at Srinagar on Friday. The meet discussed how to promote concept of cashless transaction "using digital mode of payments" for buying or selling petroleum products.

According to Pradhan, home delivery of petrol and diesel would help consumers avoid spending excessive time and long queues at fuel stations. His comments come in the backdrop of some petrol pump dealers demanding Sunday off, less work hours.
On April 19, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) released the results of an inspection on air pollution control, which included enterprises in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and their surrounding areas. A total of 62.6 percent of the inspected enterprises, or 248 out of 396 companies, failed to meet stated environmental protection standards.

According to the MEP, among the unqualified enterprises, 27 failed to install pollution-reducing facilities, and 21 had devices that were not functioning properly. In addition, two companies failed the inspection because of issues related to volatile organic compounds (VOC).

During the inspection, some enterprises were found to have faked monitoring data. For instance, a cement factory in Zibo, Shandong province fudged its overall area, impairing the accuracy of emissions figures reported to its online monitoring system. Other companies manually interfered with monitoring devices to alter data.

The MEP said its inspection teams have transferred these cases to related local departments for further investigation.
New Delhi: Concerned over Indian companies getting hit by tightening of US visa rules, Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said the "whole debate" has to be expanded to include several American firms that are earning their profits in India.

The comments assume significance in the wake of Indian companies, specially IT services providers, getting concerned over protectionism by the US and several other countries.

Sitharaman said, "Let us also understand that not just Indian companies in the US, several big US companies are in India too. They are also here, they are earning their margins, they are earning their profits which goes to the US economy.

"So, it is a situation where it's not just unilateral just Indian companies having too face the US executive order, there are several US companies in India who are doing business for some years now and therefore I want this whole debate to be ... if it has to be expanded, it has to be expanded to include all these aspects and we shall ensure that all these factors are kept in mind."

The minister said that developed nations are now clearly raising protectionist walls with regard to flow of labour and a WTO-backed global framework is needed to facilitate the services trade.

Citing examples of the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, which are making their visa norms stricter for movement of skilled professionals, she said: "Countries are now very clearly raising protectionist walls as regards service trade."

"And it is time that we have a global framework within which trade in services can happen. We will be actively pursuing our proposal in the WTO," she told reporters here.

The proposal is aimed at liberalising rules for movement of professionals and other steps to reduce transaction costs to boost services growth. India is pitching for this pact at the WTO as the services sector contributes over 60 per cent to GDP and 28 per cent to total employment.

The move is aimed at developing a broader framework governing global services trade similar to a pact implemented by the WTO on goods trade. India wants all the member countries to study the proposal before the forthcoming ministerial meeting in Argentina in December.

About the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on H1B visas, she said America has committed a certain number of these visas to India and "we would definitely want America to honour that commitment".

The minister is in touch with the Indian industry on these issues amid fears that the new American visa regime would make visas more expensive and restrictive. She further said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is in the US, would take up the matter with the US administration.

"It is not just the US, but several countries now adopting such measures," she said, suggesting that the government and the industry need to work together on the issue.

According to Sitharaman, India will engage with these countries to sort out the visa related matters. The restrictive visa regime would also impact the US companies that are operating in India.

"So, it is not a unilateral (issue) where Indian companies would have to face this, there are several US companies in India which are doing business for years here," she said.

Asked whether India would drag the US and Australia to the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism, she said: "At this stage, we will engage constructively. At the same time, India will ensure it will not accept unfair treatment."

Indian IT companies use temporary work visas to send employees to work on client sites. With visa programmes in these countries becoming more rigorous, domestic technology firms will face challenges in movement of skilled professionals and spike in their operational costs.

These companies get over 60 per cent of their revenues from the North American market, about 20 per cent from Europe and the remaining from the other economies. With the rising protectionism across markets like the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia, domestic companies are beginning to adjust their business models to reduce their dependence on visas by hiring more locals.

The US, under a new executive order, proposes to replace the current lottery system for issuing H-1B work visas with a merit-based approach. The country is reviewing its visa programme for foreign workers to curb purported abuse and frauds related to visas.

Similarly, Australia has abolished a work visa programme -- 457 visa -- used by over 95,000 temporary foreign workers, a majority of them Indians, to tackle the growing unemployment in the country. New Zealand, too, is introducing tougher norms for immigrant workers.

One of the changes will need immigrants to get a job in which they earn at least the median income to qualify as skilled. Speaking at the Hero Mindmine Summit here, Sitharaman said India has asked the WTO for a special session to discuss "why trade facilitation in services cannot be formalised".

She was "surprised" that trade in services does not have any global framework despite the fact that "trade in services has a very big chunk" in global trade. The minister said she always protests when movement of skilled professionals is being equated with asylum-seeking migrants.

"... So, this false equivalence which is being brought to manage numbers is just a smokescreen behind which many countries do realise that they are going to have to depend on these services trade," the commerce minister said.

She rejected the view of developed countries that Indian professionals are taking away their jobs. Citing an example, she said the UK charges extra visa fee and uses that money to train their own people.

"Increasingly, we are approaching bodies like the WTO to question such practices in the services sector," Sitharaman said, adding that many of the rich countries are framing policies on their "whims and fancies". This kind of discretionary use of measures to control movement of professional is "hurting them and us also".

Asked about demographic dividend, Mohandas Pai, former director of Infosys, said there are "no" demographic dividend in India as crores of youth are unemployed here.

"... we are in the midst of a disaster. But whatever we produce, that is adequate to serve the world because of digitisation," he said.

"India produces a million engineers, of which two lakh are good quality, 2,00,000 can be trained and the balance 60 per cent can drive Ola and Uber. I mean they are good for that."

The minister, however, asserted that the remaining lot will not be driving Ola only, they will do better things. Sitharaman added that the government is taking a lot of steps to impart skills to the youth.
New Delhi: Petrol and diesel may soon be home delivered as the oil ministry mulls options of door-to- door delivery on pre-booking to cut long queues at petrol pumps.

As many as 3.5 crore people currently visit 59,595 petrol pumps in the country for buying auto fuel. Often, long queues are witnessed at petrol pumps during peak hours, leading to congestion on roads.

Annually, Rs 2,500 crore of fuel is bought at petrol pumps and now a part of it being talked of being home delivered. "Options being explored where petro products may be door delivered to consumers on pre-booking," the ministry said in a series of tweets.

Home delivery of fuel is being mulled as the world's third biggest oil consumer experiments with daily price revision of petrol and diesel at select towns beginning May 1.

In another tweet, the ministry said home delivery of fuel "would help consumers avoid spending excessive time and long queues at fuel stations." "About 3.5 cr people come to fuel stations every day; Rs 2500 cr worth of transactions every year," it said in another tweet.

India consumed 23.8 million tons of petrol and 76 million tons of diesel in 2016-17 fiscal. This was higher than 21.8 million tons of petrol and 74.6 million tons of diesel consumed in the previous 2015-16 financial year.

The ministry also stated that a parliamentary consultative committee met in Srinagar today to discuss 'digital modes of payment' at fuel outlets. State-owned oil marketing companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL give "0.75 per cent discount on fuel purchase via cashless mode," it said.

"About 40,000 ROs are with POS (machine), more than 86 per cent of ROs with digital infrastructure today." ROs are retail outlet or petrol pumps. "Daily cashless transactions increased from Rs 150 crore per day to Rs 400 crore per day," the ministry added.
Bengaluru: Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today stressed on the need for branding Indian Coffee and said the Coffee Board now has to be on its toes in this regard.

She said branding is now one way of ensuring that the market is going to be sustained. The Minister was speaking after distributing soil health card and launching of a web portal,an initiative of the Coffee Board, towards soil fertility appraisal and soil health monitoring in traditional Coffee growing regions, here.

"Today is an age of branding,we need to brand everything, we need to sell everything, we need to have high profile marketing for everything to even reach the lower end of the pyramid," Sitharaman said.

She said "promotion of Coffee, branding of different coffee should go with a lot more hype. There is a lot of creativity we need to (put) in taking coffee further." Noting that countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar have done and are doing a lot of things in packaging, value addition, presenting and marketing of the coffee, she said "the Coffee Board obviously is now going to have to be on its toes.

Sitharaman called on the Board for a "breaking the usual trodden path" kind of an approach in branding and marketing of Indian Coffee. Pointing out at Araku, a new coffee growing area in northern Andhra Pradesh, a hilly tribal area which produces a "good quality" Arabica coffee, she said they have a posh outlet in Paris for Araku coffee.

"I did ask the Coffee board where are we? If Araku on its own can go to Paris, Coffee Board should have pushed itself and said I will market Coorg Coffee. We should brand it."

Sitharaman said newer coffee growing areas have a great deal of enthusiasm and the kind of energy that they have is fantastic, adding that Uttarakhand is growing good coffee,? while Himachal Pradesh is attempting to get into coffee with Arabica variety.

Expressing confidence that there would be expansion in growing area under coffee in India and there is immense opportunity, she also conceded that "we have not been able to get solution to white stem borer problem that Coffee growers are facing."

"I am pursuing with the Agriculture Research Institutes across the country on this," she added. Sitharaman said the reach of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana will be applicable to even small coffee growers and pointed out that according to information provided to her, about 98 per cent are small growers.

The Minister also informed that on Sunday the Indian Postal Department is releasing a stamp with Coffee flavour. Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha will be releasing the stamp which will be a collector's version, and it will be priced at Rs 100.
Mumbai: Benchmark Sensex fell over 57 points to end at 29,365.30 today after investors moved in to book profits amid sustained foreign fund outflows.

The 30-share index had soared about 162 points to hit a high of 29,584.34 in early deals, but surrendered gains in mid-session selling.

The broader NSE Nifty closed lower by 17 points, or 0.19 per cent, at 9,119.40 after shuttling between 9,183.65 and 9,088.75. On a weekly basis, the BSE Sensex lost 96.15 points, or 0.32 per cent, and the Nifty 31.40 points, or 0.34 per cent, sliding for the second straight week.
Salman Khan with Bipasha Basu and Prabhudeva at a press conference in New Zealand. (Pics: Twitter)

Mumbai: Salman Khan, who is currently in Auckland with his Da-Bangg team Bipasha Basu, Prabhu Deva and Maniesh Paul, spoke to the New Zealand media and answered some exciting questions.

The Punjabi media questioned Salman if he would ever feature in a Punjabi film, to which the star said, I did a film called Heroes, in which I played a Sardar. I have portrayed many Punjabi characters but have never actually worked in a Punjabi film. When I get the opportunity, I will surely do it. It is a very huge and rapidly growing industry. I would love to be a part of that.

Since many of the A-listers of Bollywood are heading West, Salman too was asked if he has some plans of tasting the Hollywood arena.

No, Hollywood is too far. I don't even feel like leaving my home when working," asserted the 51-year-old actor.

Salman has two films readied for its release, Tubelight and Tiger Zinda Hai.

It was pretty obvious that the foreign media would ask him about his films, to which the actor said, It is too early to talk about them and I will surely discuss more about these movies, during the promotions.
The police had filed a case against the actor in October 1998.

Mumbai: The Jodhpur District and Sessions Court on Thursday ordered Bollywood actor Salman Khan to furnish a bail bond of Rs. 20,000 and asked him to personally appear before it on July 6 in connection with the arms act case.

During the hearing, Salman was not present in the court.

The Rajasthan Government made an appeal before the session's court after the actor was acquitted by a CJM court in Jodhpur.

"The court acquitted Salman Khan in the arms act case where the state government filed an appeal against this order. We received a notice of that appeal. The court has asked Salman Khan to personally appear before court on July 6. We have been asked to furnish a bail bond worth Rs. 20, 000," Salman Khan's lawyer Hastmal Saraswat said.

The police had filed a case against the actor in October 1998 for keeping .22 rifle and .32 revolver and using them for poaching two black bucks in Jodhpur's Kankani village.
Mumbai: Ever since Kangana Ranaut depicted Karan Johar as the flag-bearer of nepotism, the word nepotism has become everyones favourite and the most used expression.

She made this statement on Karans most popular chat show where she was invited with her co-actor Saif Ali Khan from Rangoon.

Karan remained tight-lipped on his show but gave a befitting response to every remark that Kangana made on Karan.

The comment ignited a whole new debate all over. And the debate still runs on.

While nepotism continues to be the topic of discussion, Karan has decided to call it peace with Kangana.

So, in an interview with Barkha Dutt, the filmmaker was asked if he would ever apologize to Kangana, to which Karan retorted, I felt attacked, why should I apologize? She had an opinion and I respect that, but I had my opinion to give as well. I am a fan of Kangana. I didnt call her to my last party, but Ill call her to my next party.

Now, that is a big deal!

We wonder if Kangana buries the hatchet and becomes friends with Karan or would be happy in maintaining a distanced relationship.

Also, lets wait for Karans next party.
Mumbai: Karishma Kapoor may have been in a happy space in her personal life but that did not stop rumour mills from discussing the possibility of her getting married to rumoured boyfriend Sandeep Toshniwal. However, her father Randhir Kapoor says the actress is in no mood to tie the knot.

Sandeeps wife has agreed to divorce him but that does not mean Karishma will take the leap for a second time. In an interview with DNA, father Randhir Kapoor said, I think Lolo (Karisma) is very well settled and happy. I have never discussed the issue of marriage with her but if she does plan to, she will always have my blessings. But I dont think she wants to get married. She is a happy mother and if she wants, she can get married any time but there is no step in that direction right now. She is happy the way she is. Lolo is an excellent mother who dotes on her children and probably doesnt feel the need to get married.

Karishma has been spotted with her rumoured beau Sandeep on multiple occasions but the duo has remained tight lipped about their alleged romance.

The Raja Hindustani actress married businessman Sanjay Kapur in 2003 but soon the marriage started to crumble. And, after a long legal battle, the couple separated in June last year.

Recently, Sanjay married his long time girlfriend model and socialite Priya Sachdev and has two kids Samiera and Kiaan with Karishma.

Speaking about younger daughter Kareena Kapoor Khan, who gave birth to her first child Taimur Ali Khan on December 21 last year, the father expressed his joy to see Bebo happy and settled. He said, Kareena too is very settled today and Saif has kept her very happy. He is a wonderful son-in-law and a fine man.

Grandfather of three, Randhir said that his grandkids are his lifeline. My grandchildren are my lifeline. I adore them and look forward to the time I get to meet and play with them. We Kapoors are very family-minded people. For us only family is important and we make it a point to attend each others birthday parties and special occasions.
Mumbai: Rajkummar Rao is such an actor that its difficult for the audience to see him on- screen, but his character.

His recent outing in Vikramaditya Motwanes Trapped got the critics and viewers praising him for the portrayal of a trapped man.

The actor has once again proved his mettle in Dinesh Vijans Raabta. Rajkummar will be seen essaying the role of a 324-year-old.

He has a blink and miss visibility in the films trailer but goes unrecognizable, due to his drastic transformation to get into the skin of his character.

The actor shared a picture of himself on Twitter and captioned it as, And here is my Guest appearance from #Raabta.





To get the right nuances, Rajkummar had to undergo five to six hours of prosthetic every day to get moulded into the character. His styling along with voice modulation and body posture had to be accurate.

The actor is seen wearing accessories in the trailer and has also got tattooed for his role.

Talking about the actors dedication to a portal, considering it was only for a guest appearance, director Dinesh Vijan said, Rajkummar was kind enough to do me a favour. It was tedious but he patiently sat through it every day. I think, the idea of the prosthetics making him completely unrecognizable excited him as an actor.

Rajkummar also shared his experience with the portal saying, It was so much fun as an actor. Dinoo (Dinesh) has a very clear vision as a director and he gave me a lot of freedom as an actor to explore. Adding to it, he said, The prosthetics used to take almost five to six hours every day and then I would start sweating inside all that make-up. It needed quite a bit of patience.

Before this, we have seen looks of Rishi Kapoor in Kapoor & Sons, Akshay Kumar in 2.0 and Amitabh Bachchan in Paa among others where prosthetics completely changed the actor.

Starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon in the leads, the film is slated to release on June 09.
One wedding was called off in a village in Uttar Pradesh simply because of an argument over rasgullas! (Photo: Pixabay)

One usually hears about prospective marital alliances breaking up because of issues like dowry, caste, or religion. But one wedding was called off in a village in Uttar Pradesh simply because of an argument over rasgullas! Seriously, we arent joking.

According to media reports, the ill-fated marriage function was about to take place on April 14 at Kurmapur village which is situated about 70km from Lucknow. Shiv Kumar was about to tie the knot with his bride-to-be from a nearby village. However as the grooms party arrived a bit later, the brides father let the other guests have dinner early. Things were going fine until a quarrel broke out between a relative of the bride and the grooms cousin Manoj.

He had reportedly asked for two rasgullas but was denied them by the brides relative who said that he had been instructed to give only one to each guest. However the heated argument soon escalated into violence with Manoj and his group allegedly beating up the brides father and other relatives. The police was later called and even village elders intervened to calm down the situation.

But by this time, the bride refused to marry the groom as she was upset by the ill treatment meted out to her father and wedding was eventually cancelled.
Photo taken on Nov. 23 shows houses for low-income residents of the Dulong ethnic group in Dulong and Nu Autonomous County (Gongshan County), Yunnan province. Since the start of 2016, about 110,000 people from 30, 000 households in Yunnan have emerged from poverty in regions inhabited mainly by ethnic minorities. Those ethnic groups are known for transitioning straight into socialism from more primitive philosophies after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Vijayawada: In a sign of the growing intolerance or criticism of the government, the Andhra Pradesh police on Friday arrested a man for posting derogatory content about the AP Legislative Council. Tulluru police took away the administrator of the Facebook page, Political Punch, Inturi Ravi Kiran, in the early hours of Friday from his residence at Shamshabad in Hyderabad.

The Facebook page has more than 90,000 followers and is known for its political satirisation of the ruling Telugu Desam and its leaders Nara Lokesh and his father, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The complaint was made by AP Assembly secretary K. Satyanarayana, and the Tulluru police registered a case against the administrator of the page under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act and Section 292 of the IPC.

Mr Kirans wife Sujana said she has no information about where her husband had been taken.

A group of people knocked on our door at around 3.30 am in the morning and asked Ravi Kiran to come with them. When we asked who they were, one of them said they were police from Tulluru but did not give any more details, she said.

She also said that her husband used to work in the YSR Congress social media cell at the party office.

Guntur rural SP K. Narayan Naik confirmed the arrest of Ravi Kiran and said he was in their custody. He said, We received a complaint from the Assembly secretary that the AP Legislative Council was depicted in an obscene manner. The morphed pictures were derogatory in a manner that a couple was kissing in front of the Council and a message that reads: Adults only. The same post had pictures of Nara Lokesh asking his father N. Chandrababu Naidu to send him to Peddala Sabha.

Accuseds wife seeks help from Cyberabad police

The wife of Mr Inturi Ravi Kiran, who was arrested by the AP Police early on Friday for allegedly derogatory posts on Facebook, submitted a petition to Cyberabad Police seeking action. She said the family had not been informed about the arrest nor the reasons for the same.

Ms Sujana in her petition to DCP Shamshabad P.V. Padmaja said she had asked the AP Police to inform her about her husbands whereabouts. Some people knocked on our door at around 3.30 am. When I opened the door, they started asking details of my husband. Later they identified themselves as AP Police and took him away for interrogation, she said.

She said that she asked the police for the reasons for the arrest but they refused to reply and took Mr Kiran away.

The DCP said the TS police could not initiate any action as the case was registered in Andhra Pradesh, and Mr Kirans arrest was confirmed by the local police at Tulluru.
Botad (Gujarat): Exhorting farmers to adopt modern technology, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said his government has decided to double their income by 2022 when India would celebrate 75 years of Independence

Modi made the announcement while dedicating the Rs 1,500-crore phase I of link-II pipeline canal of SAUNI (Saurashtra Narmada Avataran Irrigation) project to the people and laying the foundation stone for Rs 1,694-crore phase II of link II of the project.

The phase II of the project envisages the construction of a 74- kilometre pipeline network connecting Bhimdad dam to seven other dams in Botad and Bhavnagar districts.

The SAUNI scheme would take water from Narmada to 115 dams in the parched Saurashtra region.

The PM asked farmers to adopt modern farming methods like drip irrigation and said his government has decided to double the farmers' income by 2022.

"Centre has decided to double farmers' income by 2022 by improving technology, increasing milk production, use of solar light, honey production. Fifteen years ago people would not have thought that we can come out of drought-like situation (in this region)," he said.

"We will have to make it our nature to adopt modern technology. Entire government -- be it the Central government or the state governments -- and banks should come under your mobile phone," he said, while urging the people to download BHIM app and earn money by helping others to download it.

Being a former CM, he understood farmers' issues better, he said.

"I am the first person to become the PM after serving as a CM for a long time. And that is why I know how much farmers are troubled when they do not get urea or water in time. For me, it is easy to understand people's problems," he said.

"When as the Gujarat chief minister I would go to the Centre for meetings and say that we spend a large part of our budget on water, many would criticise me saying you cannot win elections that way. I don't work to win elections but to serve the people of Gujarat. It is only water and not money that can make rural Gujarat progress," the Prime Minister said.

"Today Goddess Narmada herself has descended to bless the people here. Water is like God, we have no right to waste it," he said.

Modi also praised Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for his `Narmada Yatra' campaign.

"Gujarat farmers should be grateful to Chouhan government. To ensure that the Gujarat farmers do not face any water scarcity, the MP government has organised Narmada Yatra and asked people to plant trees along its (Narmada's) banks," he said.

"Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of the BJP is raising forests so that Mother Narmada does not go dry even after hundred years," Modi said.

The project which Modi dedicated to the region today comprises a 51-kilometre network of underground pipeline to carry Narmada water from Limbdi-Bhogavo-II Dam in Surendranagar district to Bhimdad Dam in Botad district.

Last August, the Prime Minister had dedicated phase 1 of Link-I canal network of the project. SAUNI Yojana envisages channelling floodwater through Narmada Dam project by laying 1,126-kilometre network of pipelines to feed 115 reservoirs in Saurashtra and irrigate 10.22 lakh acres of land.
New Delhi: India has made a fresh request to the United States for extradition of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana, for their role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

According to reports, Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), visited India earlier in April and met officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

NIA, charged with the probe into the 2008 Mumbai attacks, raised with FBI the matter of extradition of Headley and Rana. It also said that multiple such requests in the case of Rana had gone unheeded.

According to reports, NIA told FBI that though Rana had been tried in a US court and convicted of providing material to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which carried out the attacks, he had not been tried for offences registered in India  of forgery and criminal breach of trust.

Ranas extradition is stuck because the double jeopardy clause in US law prevents punishment for the same offence twice. India has demanded Ranas extradition on the grounds of planning an attack on the National Defence College (NDC) and Chabad House in several cities.

Reports said that FBI assured NIA it would look into the matter.

Headley has been sentenced to 35 years in prison by a US court, but Indian officials think they have a case because his conviction was made only on the basis of 6 Americans killed in the 26//11 attack, said reports. Many Indians were also killed and for this, Headley is still to face the law.

Rana, a school friend of Headley, is serving a 14-year term in the US for providing material support to the LeT.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday asked all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris living in different parts of the country.

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiris, the Home Minister said they are like any other Indian and an advisory is being sent by the Home Ministry to all states to ensure the safety and security of people from the Valley.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were being threatened after the latest incidents of stone pelting and assault on security personnel by Kashmiri youths in the Valley.

Hoardings calling for Kashmiris to leave Uttar Pradesh have turned up in Meerut. They have been installed by an outfit called UP Navnirman Sena, whose chief Amit Jani said they had put up the banners outside institutions where Kashmiri students study.
Andhra Pradesh Cabinet expressed grief over the incident and announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 5 lakh to the kin of the deceased. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday conveyed his condolences for the loss of lives in the accident that took place in Chittoor earlier on Friday.

Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to express grief over the mishap.

"Pained by the loss of lives due to an accident in AP's Chittoor dist. Condolences to families of the deceased & prayers with the injured," he tweeted.

At least 14 people were killed and 15 injured after a heavily laden truck rammed into roadside shops near Yerpedu Police Station in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district.

The driver lost control of the bus and hit an electric pole before ploughing the vehicle into a group of people standing outside the police station.

Andhra Pradesh Cabinet expressed grief over the incident and announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 5 lakh to the kin of the deceased.
Aseemanand has already been acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case in which three people were killed and 17 others were injured. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: The 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case accused Swamy Aseemanand, on Friday got permission from a court to visit his ailing mother and also to appear in a Haryana court in connection with the Samjhauta blast case.

While granting him permission, the Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge directed that Aseemanand should again report before the court.

Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, had on April 13 filed an application in the court seeking permission to visit his ailing mother in West Bengal and to appear before a Panchkula court in Haryana to attend the Samjhauta blast case in which he is an accused.

A Hyderabad court had in March this year released Aseemanand from the Chanchalguda Central Jail and also granted conditional bail to him in the Mecca Masjid blast case.

Aseemanand was asked to surrender his passport and not to leave Hyderabad without permission from the court.

As many as nine people were killed and several others injured when an IED exploded inside the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007.

In August 2014, the Punjab and Haryana Court had granted bail to Aseemanand in the 2007 Samjhauta train blast in which sixty-eight people were killed and dozens more were injured. Aseemanand has already been acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case in which three people were killed and 17 others were injured.
MoS Home Hansraj Ahir said that a Project Cow like Project Tiger could be started, and this would also stop farmers from selling off old cows. (Photo: Representational Image)

New Delhi: Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir on Thursday said that the Centre is considering a proposal to set up cow sanctuaries in every state, on the lines of tiger sanctuaries created for protecting the endangered animal.

We need to stop cow slaughter, but the biggest stumbling block is who will take care of these cows. We need to make cow sanctuaries for this, and need to make arrangements for fodder also. Each state should have cow sanctuaries. Then we will be successful in stopping cow slaughter, Ahir said to the Indian Express on Thursday.

Ahir said that a Project Cow like Project Tiger could be started, and this would also stop farmers from selling off old cows.

Pitching for the creation of a food bank for cows, the minister said he had discussed the proposal with the environment ministry, and it would be expedited.

Talking about the unrest in the Kashmir Valley, Ahir said security forces in Kashmir have shown restraint while dealing with protesters. Referring to the video showing a man tied to an army jeep, Ahir called it a one-off incident, said the report.

He added that it was done as per the requirement of the situation. Asserting that Kashmir was an integral part of India, he argued that security forces cannot be asked to sit quietly.

Ahir handles Jammu and Kashmir division in the Home Ministry.
New Delhi: In a stinging rebuke to China dripping with sarcasm, India on Thursday said "renaming" or "inventing" names of areas in neighbouring countries does not make illegal occupation legal, adding that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India. The comment was made by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in response to a question on China "standardising" official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh. China covets Arunachal and refers to it as "south Tibet". China is also in illegal custody of large swathes of land in "Aksai Chin" to the north which is situated in the eastern-most part of J&K. The Ministry of External Affairs said, "Renaming or inventing names of towns of your neighbour do not make illegal territorial claims legal". It added, "If you rename, it doesn't change the situation." The Chinese move earlier on Wednesday had come after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

Meanwhile, China  despite its displeasure  has invited India for a global conference on the "One Belt One Road" that will be held in Beijing next month. The MEA said India had received an invitation which is "under consideration".
New Delhi: Special court on Friday awarded seven-year jail term to two men after they pleaded guilty of criminally conspiring to raise funds and recruiting people for the terror outfit ISIS.

District judge Amar Nath convicted accused Azhar-ul- Islam (24) from Jammu and Kashmir and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh (25) from Maharashtra, following their U-turn more than a month after the court framed charges against them.

The accused had moved an application through advocate M S Khan saying they "are remorseful of the acts alleged against them. There is no prior criminal record against them and they want to join the mainstream and want to be productive for the society and want to rehabilitate themselves".

"The applicants are pleading guilty without any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence," the plea had said.

The court had last month framed charges against both the accused and 36-year-old Adnan Hassan for allegedly hatching a criminal conspiracy to raise funds for the ISIS and recruiting people for the terror outfit. The trial against Hassan is continuing separately before the same court.

The court had framed the charges for alleged offences of criminal conspiracy under the IPC) and under provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had registered a case against the three accused on January 28 last year. They were arrested the next day on arrival here from Abu Dhabi.

According to the probe agency, Hassan and Shaikh had been frequently visiting the UAE in connection with jobs since 2008 and 2012 respectively, while Islam had gone to join them in the UAE in July, 2015.

Hassan was earlier allegedly affiliated to the Indian Mujahideen and later got inclined towards ISIS, it alleged. The charge sheet filed by NIA had claimed that the accused persons, in connivance with other known and unknown associates, had hatched a criminal conspiracy to propagate the ideology, recruit persons, raise funds and facilitate the travel of those recruited to Syria to join the ISIS and further its activities.

The final report said that in furtherance of the conspiracy, the accused had created multiple email IDs, used multiple mobile numbers obtained from their associates from different countries, formed various online forums and groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, Kik, VKontakte, Viber and Skype, using the internet and invited and associated like-minded persons, residents of different countries.

"The accused had formed a terrorist gang and acted as a frontal group of the ISIS and incited, motivated, invited an facilitated people of different nationalities to leave their respective countries and travel to Syria to join, support and further activities of the ISIS," it alleged.

The agency said the accused persons were actively involved in perpetuating, promoting and propagating ideologies and terrorist activities of the ISIS.

"They had voluntarily advocated and professed to be the supporters and members of the ISIS and actively supported, invited support from others, propagated and promoted unlawful activities and terrorist activities of the ISIS by exhorting, inciting, luring and influencing others to become members of this organisation by disseminating incriminating contents including sharing comments, pages, videos, images, literature and openly endorsing, justifying and glorifying the terrorist acts of the ISIS," the NIA had claimed.

"They had also raised, collected and received funds in the UAE and transferred it to their associates in India, the Philippines and Tunisia to facilitate their travel to Syria to join ISIS," the agency said.
New Delhi: Delhi Mahila Congress chief Barkha Singh, who stepped down today after attacking Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken, was removed from the party post within hours of her making the announcement.

"This is to inform that Barkha Shukla Singh has been removed from the post of president of Delhi Pradesh Mahila Congress with immediate effect," All India Mahila Congress President Shobha Oza said in a statement.

A defiant Singh said she will adopt legal options against her removal and said she would not quit the party, claiming herself to be a "loyal soldier" of the Congress.

However, on Friday she was expelled from the party, said reports.

"I will not quit the Congress and continue to wage my war within the party," she said, adding that "I will move the court against my illegal removal".

She earlier charged Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi with not meeting party leaders and said he was "reluctant" to address "issues" within the party organisation.

"Why is he (Rahul) scared of meeting his own party members? Several senior leaders have quit the party because of this very reason - his reluctance over addressing issues that exist within the organisation," she said.

Singh, who had complained against "neglect" of women workers in ticket distribution for the municipal elections, alleged that the voice of party workers was "snubbed" and their grievances were not addressed.

"Delhi Congress president (Maken) not only misbehaved with me but also with other office bearers of Mahila Congressat his residence. When the matter was brought to the notice of Rahul Gandhi, nothing happened," said Singh, a former chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).

Delhi Congress' chief spokesperson Sharmishtha Mukherjee later said that Singh was settling her "personal grudges" and "hurting" party interests at a crucial time when MCD polls are round the corner.

"She is not a 'loyal soldier' but a back-stabber who is deliberately trying to harm the party at a crucial juncture," Mukherjee said.
Xiaobao, a toddler whose father is an officer with the Zhuhai branch of the armed police in Guangdong province, "trains" with his father during a family visit to the military base. (Photo/PLA Daily)
Welcoming Rajnath's statement, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh said that not only Kashmiris living in other states should be protected but also those outsiders studying in Kashmir should be protected. (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi: Political leaders and social activists from Jammu and Kashmir on Friday welcomed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's call to all states to protect the Kashmiri students, but emphasized that every Indian should be protected anywhere in India.

Welcoming Rajnath's statement, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh said that not only the Kashmiris living in other states should be protected but also those outsiders studying in Kashmir should also be protected.

He called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convene a meeting of all political parties to send a signal in the country that "we all are Indians and no Indian should be subjected to any sort of violence anywhere in the country".

Social activist from Jammu and Kashmir, Sushil Pandit, said no law abiding citizen of India should be targeted unlawfully.

"But the citizens should also bear in mind that they must behave in a law-abiding, peaceful manner whether in Kashmir or outside," he added.

Earlier in the day, the Home Minister appealed to all states to protect the Kashmiri students as "they are also equal citizens of India".

Rajnath's appeal came after six Kashmiri students were injured on Thursday during a clash with locals in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan.

Earlier on Friday, the posters by a little known outfit 'Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena' warned the Kashmiris to leave Uttar Pradesh by April 30.
The apex court announced it would decide about the mandatory Aadhaar issue on April 26. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Modi government to justify the move to make Aadhaar compulsory for filing Income Tax returns, according to an ANI report.

Rapping the government, the apex court said, How can you make Aadhaar card mandatory when we have passed an order to make it optional?

Responding to this, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said the government had found that a number of PAN cards had been used to divert funds to shell companies. To avoid this, Aadhaar had to be made mandatory.

The apex court then announced it would decide about the mandatory Aadhaar issue on April 26, said the report.

The government in March made providing Aadhaar number a compulsory requirement for filing IT returns, as well as for obtaining and retaining the PAN.

However, in an order dated August 11, 2015, had said that Aadhaar cannot be made compulsory for government schemes.
A former director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), a scientific institution working to expand research into the meteorology of the tropics with special reference to the monsoon meteorology of India, had been roped in as a consultant, he added.

Bengaluru: With the state having suffered successive droughts over the last two years and the monsoon forecast being dismal this year too, the government has decided to go in for cloud seeding to come to the people's rescue.

Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Agriculture Minister, Krishna Byregowda said a Detailed Project Report (DPR) was being prepared and a committee comprising cloud seeding experts and other experts from the Indian Institute of Science and the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) had been formed to oversee the process.

A former director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), a scientific institution working to expand research into the meteorology of the tropics with special reference to the monsoon meteorology of India, had been roped in as a consultant, he added.

Explaining that scientific data was available to prove that cloud seeding helped accelerate rain, especially during an active monsoon, the minister said besides the cabinet, the programme would have to be approved by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as the aircraft used would be especially modified to carry it out.

"The cost of cloud seeding may shoot up if it is done for both North and South Karnataka as two different aircrafts and radars will have to be used," he said, disclosing that it would take least two months to do the actual cloud seeding as global tenders would have to be floated to award the contract for it.

Meanwhile, speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, Mr Srinivasa Reddy, director, KSNDMC, said the committee formed by the government would meet on April 24 to work out a strategy for the cloud seeding. Although there is much scepticism about the success rate of cloud seeding world-wide, it can improve rainfall by at least 20 per cent in his view.

Pointing out that except for Bidar, Gulbarga and parts of Uttara Kannada districts, the entire state was affected by drought last year, he insisted that cloud seeding was imperative to save the people from more distress.

Cloud seeding is a form of weather modification, to change either the amount or type of precipitation by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, and alter the microphysical processes within a cloud.

Cloud seeding secrets

1 Cloud seeding is a form of weather modification to induce rain.

2 A salt and water solution/silver iodide is used (150 kg salt to 10,000 litres). The solution is placed in containers.

3 An aircraft lifts the containers into the sky. The plane enters the clouds, usually 1,524 to 4,200 m above ground.

4 Crewmen spray the saltwater solution into the clouds.

5 The solution encourages the formation of ice particles. If sufficient the particles becomes heavy enough to fall as rain.

6 Typically, rain falls within 15-20 minutes of cloud seeding.

In the past

2002  03: Cloud seeding was done when S.M. Krishna was chief minister

2012-13: Cloud seeding was again done when Jagadish Shettar was chief minister. But it rained in areas bordering Andhra Pradesh.

In 2014 it was done in Madikeri and was successful. Farmers were agitated as they suffered severe crop loss.

June to October is the best time for cloud seeding

it has a 10 % to 15 % success rate the world over.

Whats seeding?

Cloud seeding is a form of weather modification, to change either the amount or type of precipitation by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, and alter the microphysical processes within a cloud. The usual intent is to increase precipitation , but hail and fog suppression are also widely practiced at airports.
Amaravati: A man who works for the social wing of YSR Congress party, was detained on Friday for posting allegedly objectionable content on multiple platforms against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh.

According to a Hindustan Times report, Ravi Kiran Inturi was taken from his residence at Shamshabad around 3:30 am by a police team.

They woke up my husband and asked him to accompany them. When I questioned who they were, one of them identified himself as a cop from Tulluru and said they were taking my husband to question him on the comments he had posted on the Facebook on the TDP leaders. They have not told me where they were taking my husband, Inturis wife was quoted as saying.

However, Tulluru police, while acknowledging that a case had been filed, did not confirm the arrest. They further said investigation is underway.

This comes in the wake of Lokesh asking fellow leaders to initiate criminal action against those "tarnishing our image".

"The (mainstream) media is favourable to us but we have no control over the social media and there is a lot of negative propaganda against us. We have to curb this," he is said to have told party leaders in a PowerPoint presentation during the coordination meeting recently.

"If we start taking criminal action against those making critical posts, it will be a deterrent to others," Lokesh, the son of chief minister Naidu, said.

What ostensibly angered Lokesh, who only days ago became an MLC and a minister, was the way he was increasingly targeted on social media platforms over his public utterances.

Video clips of his communication skills went viral on social media in recent days and apparently showed him in a "very poor light".

Two days ago, for example, he extended "greetings" to people at a public meeting on the occasion of 126th "vardhanti" (death anniversary) of Dr B R Ambedkar, whereas it was the birth anniversary.

The way he fumbled, unable to clearly recite certain words in Telugu, while taking oath as an MLC or his speech at an election meeting wherein he said voting on "cycle" (TDP's poll symbol) was akin to "hanging yourself" and another instance where he said the TDP was the only party that was "casteist, communal, corrupt and money-minded" all exposed Lokesh, as the videos were circulated widely on the social media.

His presentation to the party on "media feedback" came against this backdrop, party insiders said. And hence, Lokesh's call for criminal action against those who are circulating such posts, they said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged officials to be enablers and not just regulators, in an address to the countrys top bureaucrats in Delhi.

Speaking at a function commemorating Civil Services Day, Modi said, With changing times, a need may arise that we may have to change our working style. From regulator, we need to be an enabling entity.

Modi exhorted the officials to assume ownership and reach out to the people, asserting the need for qualitative change. E-governance, M-governance, social media- these are good means to reach out to the people and for their benefits.

A spirit of ownership is essential. Let us believe that through this set up we can bring a positive change in people's lives, he further added.

He also stressed upon the need to be outcome-centric in the wake of changing trends and times, focusing on the role of officers in bringing reform.

The push for reform comes from political leadership but the perform angle is determined by officers and Jan Bhagidari transforms, Modi said.
New Delhi: A special court on Thursday kept for consideration a plea filed by a Sukesh Chandrasekhar, arrested for allegedly striking a deal of Rs 50 crore to help an AIADMK faction keep the 'Two Leaves' poll symbol, seeking safeguarding of his fundamental rights.

The court said it would consider the application on April 25 when the police custody of the accused expired, as the investigating officer was not available on Thursday.

Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry, however, granted partial relief to accused Sukesh Chandrashekar, an alleged middleman, and allowed his family members to give him clothes in custody.

The application, filed through advocate Ashwini Kumar, claimed that Chandrashekar was deprived of adequate sleep in police custody which was violation of his fundamental and basic human right.

"The accused conveyed that he perceives a threat to his life and hence it is necessary that the officials carrying out the interrogation of the accused should bear accurate, visible and clear identification and name tags...," the plea said.

It also sought a direction to police to videograph the entire period of the accused' police custody as he apprehends custodial death and torture at the hands of cops.

The counsel claimed that Chandrashekar has no connection with AIADMK (Amma) leader TTV Dhinakaran and that the facts of the FIR were "concocted and implanted" to get political mileage while making him a scapegoat.

Chandrashekar, who was arrested from a five-star hotel here on April 16, was remanded to eight days police custody.

The case pertains to an alleged attempt to bribe an Election Commission (EC) official by AIADMK (Amma) leader TTV Dhinakaran for trying to get the party's poll symbol of 'Two Leaves' in a by-election to the R K Nagar Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu. The polling was later cancelled by the EC.

Chandrashekar was arrested on April 16 after which an FIR was lodged. According to the police, his links with EC officials was being probed.

Chandrashekar had struck a deal for Rs 50 crore to help the AIADMK faction to keep the 'two leaves' symbol, the police alleged, adding that Rs 1.3 crore and two luxury cars, a BMW and a Mercedes, were recovered from him.

The EC had frozen AIADMK's symbol after two factions led by Sasikala and former chief minister O Panneerselvam staked a claim to it.

The bypoll to the R K Nagar Assembly constituency was scheduled for April 12, but the EC cancelled it, saying the electoral process had been "seriously vitiated" by parties through use of money power. Dinakaran was the candidate of the Sasikala faction.

The bypoll was necessitated following the death of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on December 5 last year.
Abdul Latif Adam Momin, the co-conspirator in the case, is alleged to have knowledge of the plane hijacking. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted leave and admitted the appeal filed by one of the convicts and co-conspirators, Abdul Latif Adam Momin, in connection with the 1999 IC 814 Kandahar hijacking case.

An apex court bench headed by Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and comprising Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman granted leave and admitted Momin's appeal while stating that it would hear the matter very soon.

Momin has challenged life imprisonment awarded to him by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the top court.

Momin, the co-conspirator in the case, is alleged to have knowledge of the plane hijacking, as per the prosecution.

Three persons involved in the hijack of the Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan in December 1999 were convicted and sentenced to life on charges including murder and conspiracy on February 2008.

Momin alias Abdul Rehman alias Patel, Yusuf Nepali and Dalip Bhujail were awarded life sentence by a special court. They were charged under provisions of anti-hijacking law of the Indian Penal Code.

IC-814 was hijacked on December 24, 1999, when it was on its way to Delhi from Kathmandu. The three were accused of helping the hijackers.

During a week of suspense, five hijackers Ibrahim Athar (brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar), Sunny Ahmed Qazi, S A Sayed alias Doctor, Z I Mistri alias Bhola and R G Verma alias Shakir - who commandeered the aircraft to Kandahar, negotiated with Indian officials and successfully got Azhar and two other dreaded terrorists released from jails in India in exchange for releasing the passengers.
Hyderabad: Barely a month after being grounded for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad took to the skies again on Thursday.

His airline of choice was Air India, as he took a flight from Hyderabad to Delhi shortly after 4 pm, an aide of Gaikwad told PTI.

Ravi Sir (as Gaikwad, a former teacher, is known in his Osmanabad constituency) travelled business class from Hyderabad to Delhi today, days after the flying ban was lifted, the aide said.

On April 8, private airlines had lifted the nearly two week-long flying ban on Gaikwad.

The decision of the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) had come a day after the national carrier, following direction from the Civil Aviation Ministry, revoked the ban on Gaikwad.

The flying restriction on the Lok Sabha member had been lifted after he gave an undertaking that such incidents would not reoccur.

Meanwhile, Gaikwad had a heated argument with cops over non-functioning of ATMs at Latur in Marathwada region on Tuesday, police said.
Tamil farmers dressed up in tattered clothes to act like insane people during their agitation demanding loan waiver and compensation for crop failure, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: In a drastic step, farmers who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar for loan waiver vowed to drink their urine on Saturday if their demands were not heeded by the government.

According to a Hindustan Times report, the farmers have said that if the Centre still ignores their demands, they will eat faeces on Sunday.

We are not getting water to drink in Tamil Nadu, and PM Modi has been ignoring our thirst. So, we will have to quench our thirst with our own urine, P Ayyakkannu, the state president of the National South-Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association was quoted as saying.

This is not the fist time farmers are resorting to unconventional protest forms since it started over a month ago. They have protested with skulls, allegedly of farmers who committed suicide, stripped, bitten mice and snakes and even held mock funerals.

The farmers had agreed to be patient for two days, giving some time for government to get affairs in order. The move had come after they met the Minister of state for road transport and highways Pon Radhakrishnan, the only Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Tamil Nadu.

Radhakrishnan allegedly had assured the farmers that he would talk to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and try to get a solution by May 15. He had also reportedly alleged that he would get all loan collections and payments postponed for a year. Also assuring that attempts to seize property will be suspended during this time, Radhakrishnan had promised them help for procuring new loans.

I know it is humiliating to eat and drink our own waste. But, should the government not be ashamed of forcing us farmers to use such desperate measures? If only Modi would meet with us and hear us out, 65-year-old Palanichamy who has been protesting at the site since day one was quoted as saying.

The farmers from the state have been demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board by the Centre. The state government has already waived its loans from cooperative banks.
Sitaram Yechury met Congress chief Sonia on Thursday at her official residence in New Delhi; their meeting followed a discussion between Gandhi and Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar on the isuue on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and is learnt to have discussed the possibility of "like-minded" opposition parties fielding a common candidate for the presidential poll.

Yechury met Gandhi on Thursday at her official residence in New Delhi. The meeting followed a discussion between Gandhi and Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar on the issue on Thursday, sources said.

"Yechury and Gandhi discussed the possibility of fielding a candidate acceptable to all secular opposition parties. Gandhi responded positively to a suggestion in this connection by the CPI(M) leader," a source in the Left party said.

The CPI(M) has also held informal discussions on the issue with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad. "The opposition leaders are likely to meet shortly to discuss the issue formally," the source said.

Asked if President Pranab Mukherjee, a Congress veteran, could be fielded as the common candidate by the opposition parties, the source said "he maybe ... if all parties agreed (to the proposal).

But again, it is subject to whether Mukherjee wants to continue as President." Mukherjee's tenure as President is coming to an end on July 24. He had taken over the post in July 2012, defeating the NDA candidate, late PA Sangma.

Mukherjee had secured 7.13 lakh votes as against 3.15 lakh polled by Sangma.
In the U.S., Ivanka Trump has become a controversial because of concerns about possible conflicts of interest. But in China, Ivanka has become a celebrated figure for her beauty, her positive attitude and hard work, her devotion to her family, and her devotion to promoting China-U.S. friendship and cooperation. Ivanka is U.S. President Donald Trumps soft-power card, and playing that card is winning some hearts and minds in China.

Ivanka inspires many young Chinese. On Weibo, Chinas equivalent of Twitter, there is even an online fan club dedicated to Goddess Ivanka. The online fan club has close to 13 thousand followers. One post shows a photo of Ivanka sitting between her father and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Oval Office Desk. In the comments section a Weibo user wrote, Dont become president, youre a good princess.

Trumps soft-power card is charming China. A video of Ivankas daughter Arabella singing Chinese songs on the Internet went viral in China, attracting millions of views. Ivanka and her daughter came to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to attend a Spring Festival celebration. At the Mar-a-Lago summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump earlier this month, Ivankas daughter Arabella sang a traditional Chinese song, Mo Li Hua, and recited poetry for President Xi and his wife. It was another viral hit.

Just days ago, Chinas Foreign Ministry weighed in on Ivankas effective charm offensive in response to a question about how China views her role in promoting relations between the two countries. We think highly of all peoplewho devote themselves to promoting China-US friendship and cooperation, and we highly appreciate their efforts in this regard, the spokesperson said.

On Weibo, The Global Times posted a man-on-the-street interview about Ivankas fashion line coming to China. Heres what Beijingers have to say about Ivanka wanting to come to China to sell her clothes, the title reads. The video was filmed at the trendy Sanlitun Village, a major fashion hub in Beijing. One young woman said Ivanka has an excellent business mind, and some thought that the brand would be popular in Sanlitun. But one young man tied the success of the brand to her father. It all depends on Donald Trump, he said.

A screenshot of the Weibo account Goddess Ivanka
New Delhi: In a stinging remark, the Supreme Court on Friday said when it passes some directions, it is claimed that the courts are trying to run the government, which does not want to act.

You (government) do not want to do it and when we say anything, you say that court is trying to run the government, a bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said, while castigating the government for not caring about the destitute widows in the country.

The apex court also imposed a cost of Rs one lakh on the government for not coming out with the agreed directions to improve the condition of destitute widows, despite its direction and granted it four weeks to do so.

You do not care about the widows of India. You file an affidavit and say you are not concerned with the widows of India. You have done nothing This is complete helplessness. Government does not want to do anything, the bench said.

The apex court had earlier asked the Centre to convene a meeting to consider suggestions mooted by the National Commission for Women (NCW) and formulate directions to improve the condition of widows in the country. The counsel for Ministry of Women and Child Development had intimated the court that a meeting was scheduled on April 12 and 13 to consider the suggestions of the NCW and experts.

During the hearing on Friday, the bench asked the Centres counsel why this meeting was not convened despite an assurance given to the court. You had told us about April 12 and 13 but there was no meeting and now you are giving explanations. Inspite of what was recorded, nothing has been done. You have not done anything, the bench said, adding we cannot do anything, they are so stubborn. When the counsel sought time to come back with directions, the bench said, We will grant you time subject to cost of Rs one lakh.

At the last date of hearing, the court had said the government and other stakeholders should sit together and come out with a list of agreed directions which may be passed by it on Friday. The counsel for the ministry had told the court that it would be appropriate if agreed directions are formulated and issued, so that immediate steps are taken to improve the conditions of widows.

The apex court had taken note of situation of widows after a petition was filed in 2007 portraying their pathetic condition in the welfare homes at the holy city of Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh. The court had earlier referred to various reports filed by the National Legal Services Authority, the District Legal Services Authority and the NCW on the condition of shelter homes for widows in Vrindavan.

One of the reports had said that there was lack of proper toilets and bathrooms in the shelter homes, besides poor water and electricity facilities.

The court was hearing the pleas seeking directions to the Centre and the state government to provide shelter and other necessary facilities to the widows in Vrindavan who have been abandoned by their family members. The apex court had also appointed a seven-member panel to collect data on their socio-economic conditions. A majority of the 1,000-odd widows interviewed earlier in Vrindavan by the NCW have children who do not care for them.

In a report filed in the apex court, the statutory womens body had recommended fixing of liability on the children under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007. It had said an estimated 5,000-10,000 widows were living like beggars in ashrams dotting the two holy cities of Mathura and Vrindavan.
Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government has taken a controversial decision to take on individuals who make allegedly derogatory comments on social media.

Though the arrest of Mr Inturi Ravi Kiran from Hyderabad  said to be an admirer of the YSR Congress  was based on a complaint given by Assembly Secretary K. Saryanarayana, it was initiated by Telugu Desam MLC T.D. Janardhan.

Mr Janardhan forwarded the image that appeared in the Political Punch page on Facebook to Council Chairman A. Chakrapani. He forwarded the image to the officials.

By arresting Mr Ravi Kiran and booking cases against him under the IT Act, the government has made it clear that there will be action against those commenting adversely against it on social media.

As the TD and the YSRC lock horns on every issue, social media is flooded with posts by the persons affiliated to both parties. Often these messages turn ugly, with filthy language and morphed images.

With Mr Kirans arrest, the AP government has decided to draw that line by acting up on those who are seen to be attacking TD leaders personally.

The timing of the arrests was significant: TD leader and IT minister Nara Lokesh had reportedly told the party leaders that there was a need to control the social media propaganda. This was re-asserted by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday.

Interestingly, the arrest have came a day after the Supreme Court made certain observations while hearing a similar case, that the freedom of speech cannot insult dignity of an individual. Earlier, the SC ruled that the admin of social media groups would be held responsible for the content.

We will not tolerate nasty comments: Chandrababu Naidu

AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has warned that the government will not tolerate objectionable posts on social media.

While inaugurating the Parishkara Vedika call centre at Guntupalli here on Friday, he said that the government would take measures to control objectionable posts directed against the government on social media sites.

He then went on to laud technology, which he said was playing a key role in development, so that every penny spent on public welfare is reaching beneficiaries with the help of technology. The government has set up this call centre to solve public issues in real time and it will also use this to get feedback on various welfare schemes directly from beneficiaries. IVRS and SMS based messages relating to government schemes will be sent from this centre.

The Andhra Pradesh State Planning Board and the AP Centre for Financial Systems and Services have come together to launch the 750- seat call centre in collaboration with Karvy Data Man
Hyderabad: The fate of YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy hangs in the balance as the CBI special court put off its judgement to April 28 on a petition filed by CBI in March for the cancellation of bail.

Mr Reddy, however, requested the court to allow him to go to New Zealand for 15 days. But the CBI counsel opposed Mr Reddys request saying that he cannot leave the country when his bail cancellation plea is in the court.

Rajya Sabha MP Vijay-asai Reddy, former minister Sabitha Indra Reddy, IAS officer Srilakshmi and one Rajagopal, who are also accused in the case, appeared in the court on Friday along with Mr Reddy.

The CBI had filed a petition before the Principal Special Judge for CBI cases seeking to cancel the bail granted to Jagan three years ago in the disproportionate assets case.

The CBI said that Mr Reddy was influencing witnesses and violating the bail conditions set by the court.

The investigative agency in its petition said that they had telecast and published on that date an interview with former AP chief secretary P. Ramakanth Reddy in which the ex-bureaucrat spoke against prosecution.

The petition stated that he spoke about a key person in the Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy government and expressed doubts about the fate of Mr Reddys disproportionate assets case without the key person in the case. This is influencing witnesses and is a violation of bail conditions, the CBI pointed out.

The petition also said: In a bid to accommodate and shield the accused, Ramakanth made unwarranted statements regarding the investigation and also about the fate of the case at the trial.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday announced a financial aid for farmers of Rs 8,000 per acre, without any upper cap, on land every year. Of this, Rs 4,000 will be paid in the kharif season and another Rs 4,000 in rabi, per acre.

The money will be credited directly into the bank accounts of the farmers, once every season. All farmers, irrespective of how much land they own, are eligible for the benefit.

Disclosing the details of the scheme at the TRS plenary meeting here, Mr Rao said, There will be no restriction on farmers on how to spend the amount. They can buy fertilisers or pesticides or use it for any other agriculture activity to get better yield. Its the choice of farmers. Mr Rao said the scheme may impose a burden of up to Rs 8,000 crore per year on the exchequer but the government was willing to implement it keeping in view the larger interests of farmers and for revival of the rural economy.

97% farmers own less than 10 acres land

Mr Rao said 62 per cent of farmers in Telangana state hold less than 2.5 acres, 24 per cent own land between 2.5 and 5 acres, 11 per cent own between 5 and 10 acres, less than 3 per cent own between 10 and 25 acres and only 0.88 per cent own above 25 acres.

These statistics reveal that 97 per cent of farmers own land of less than 10 acres. Only 3 per cent have land holdings of above 10 acres. For this reason, we have decided to extend the scheme to all farmers irrespective of their land holdings like we did for crop loan waiver and free power schemes, he added. Mr Rao said farmers associations will be set up in each village to monitor the scheme.

Farmers associations will identify each farmer by verifying their land holdings as per revenue records with the assistance of village agriculture officer and village revenue officer. After approval by all the three, the list of beneficiaries will be uploaded on the website. Bank accounts will be opened for all beneficiaries and amount will be credited twice a year for two crop seasons, he said. Mr Rao also modified the recently announced Rs 4,000 free fertiliser scheme and renamed it crop investment subsidy scheme.
Bhopal: A major fire broke out in a government fair price shop in a Madhya Pradesh village leaving 16 people dead and 25 others injured. Officials feared the death toll may go up.

The tragedy occurred when the kerosene stock kept in the fair price shop in Bargi village under Harrai tehsil in Chhindwara district caught fire during distribution of ration to the beneficiaries.

The incident took place at around 5.30pm. Prima facie it seems a burnt cigarette stub sparked the fire which engulfed the one-room fair price shop in no moment, leading to death of 12-16 people, state agriculture minister Gouri Shankar Bisen, who rushed to the spot from Dhar, told reporters.

Death toll in the incident is likely to go up as bodies trapped inside the room which has only one entry point and no exit route, were still being removed by the rescue teams, he added. A local sub-divisional magistrate confirmed that as many as 16 bodies have been pulled out of the room so far.

The fair price shop was completed gutted following the incident. We have to pull down a wall on one side to pull out the bodies. The rescue operation was still on, another senior district officer told this newspaper. There was unusual rush of beneficiaries as the FPS was to distribute kerosene among other rations on Thursday. At least 40 people were inside the shop when the fire broke out, eyewitness accounts said.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday unveiled a major plan to revitalise agriculture in the state by organising farmers into federations at different levels, which will hand-hold farmers in terms of corp selection and marketing.

The federations will be set up at village, mandal, district and state-levels.

The federations will decide who should sow which crop in which village and to what extent. This would help farmers to select corps to be sowed as per the type of soil and could help them get optimal results.

For instance, water deficient areas could be encouraged to opt for less water intensive corps, so as to ensure that farmers dont get affected by the shortfall in rain.

The government will provide Rs 500 crore seed capital to state-level federation. However, the federations would become self-sustaining by creating a revolving fund by taking a nominal contribution (Rs 1 or Rs 2 per tonne) and the aim is to have Rs 3,000 crore seed capital from the contributions in the next two or three years.

The federations will directly deal with traders on price and reach a memorandum of understanding with them. Since the federation would be representing an entire district, it would have a better bargaining power in the negotiations with traders as compared to individual farmers, who are often found to be at mercy of traders.

In the new set up, no farmer will sell his produce individually. The federations will fix the price and tell traders that they will sell produce only if traders offered the stipulated price. This is to ens-ure remunerative price for farmers, Mr Rao said.

In case, prices fall at any stage, the federations will support farmers by giving interest-free loans from the seed capital till the market prices improve but they will not allow farmers to sell for their produce for lower price.

In fact, I talked about categorising crop colonies in Telangana in the Assembly in 2014 itself. Crops will be recommended as per climatic and soil conditions in a particular area. Now what happens is when a farmer sells turmeric for Rs 15,000 per tonne, all others are blindly following him by sowing turmeric, leading to oversupply and crash in prices. When tomatoes touch Rs 50 per kg, all are opting for tomato crop due to which the price falls to Rs 2 per kg, resulting in huge loss for farmers, Mr Rao said.
CHENNAI: Having grown up seeing trains pass by near his house at Avadi, Kannan (14) always dreamt of driving a train. So much that he would spend hours on the internet trying to understand the working of trains. Diagnosed with haemophilia after he was born, this boys dream to drive a train came true a month ago, thanks to the Union railway minister and the Make a Wish Foundation.

On March 20, he helmed an engine at Royapuram loco shed, driving it for a distance of 1km, with the support of the Southern Railway general manager and other officials. I was very happy. If I get a chance, I will be surely happy to ride a train again, said the eight-grader. The engineers present there told me how to ride the engine, and I followed their instructions. A loco pilot who was present also guided me.

For one hour, the officials showed me around the loco shed and I spoke to them about the functioning of trains. They cleared all my doubts, he added. His mother Padma Priya added that as a kid, he loved travelling on trains and kept looking at the trains passing by their house in Avadi. He would keep reading about trains and their working, the types of engines, how much electricity is needed, and always dreamt of growing up to be a loco pilot, she added.

Three days after he was born, Kannan was diagnosed with haemophilia, a disorder in which blood lacks a coagulating factor and thus, doesnt clot. Since then he has been on treatment. As he suffered from a similar bleeding a few days ago, the boy was admitted to Jipmer. Three years ago, with his family, Kannan moved to Senjikottai as his father, a doctor, was posted there. I am grateful to the general manager, railway officials, the Union minister, and the foundation, which helped my dream come true, Kannan added.
HYDERABAD: Farmers in Telangana state are having problems growing cash crops such as corn and maize because the harvest is being consumed and damaged by a population of wild boars. The animals recently destroyed the crops of a farmer from Hyderabad. The worst part of these marauders is that they destroy more than they consume and what is not eaten is trampled upon. Farmers are now laying traps and live wires to kill these destructive animals, creating the latest in a series of human-animal conflicts. Such traps are killing off or injuring non-target species like deer, and also sometimes even tigers and leopards.

Farmers suffer extensively as they cannot grow cash crops and they have to spend long hours, especially at night, repelling wild boars and other animals from their fields. If all those man hours are added up, the cost of grain would go up many times over. Wild boar do not eat paddy, but use it to wallow and thus large portions of the field are destroyed. Crops like corn and maize are eaten just a few days before harvest. Much of it is chewed and left behind by wild boar. They also attack people working in fields. Cash crops like groundnut, sunflower and sugarcane are destroyed, so in many areas farmers are unable to grow high-value crops that would otherwise bring them added income.

A boar feeds in another farm.

Mr Pervar Santhaji, 42, a farmer near Kollur in Sangareddy district, said, We have been actively farming for 15 years and the number of wild boar have increased in the past three or four years. We mainly face these problems with maize and corn crops as the wild boars destroy around 3 acres of maize in my field. Very often I would be standing the whole night in my farms, guarding my crops, but still the wild boars came from the other side to destroy the crops. He said. I have resgistered an FIR with the district forest officer in March and also filed a panchanama over my crop damage and claimed compensation but till now I have not received anything. This problem is not only faced by me, but by every farmer. Many of my farmer friends are suffering huge losses due to rampaging wild boars and they are also standing the whole night in their farms guarding their crops.

Mr Rajeev Mathew, member, Telangana state Biodiversity Board, said, We are losing large numbers of these charismatic species to snares; the very species that everyone is trying to save. Bears also fall victim to these traps that are essentially kept for wild boar. Farmers are subjected to great hardships, and when an animal is killed, especially leopards, they are greatly harassed by the local forest and police authorities who are doing their job. The farmers only crime is that they are trying to protect their crops from marauding wild boar. The farmers are not compensated for their loss, or when compensation is paid it is very minimal. Countrymade firearms are also being used clandestinely, which could become a law and order problem later. These activists are not sensitive to the problems that the farmers undergo. They consume the crops grown by them, but are inimical to them.

In 2016, the forest department of the state government passed an order to permit hunting of problematic wild boars, which were damaging agricultural crops. Orders were issued after constituting a panel of eight members who were expert shooters and who own valid licenses, permitting them to possess rifles to hunt wild boars which were damaging crops. The district forest officers were advised to use their services whenever required. They were also asked to select at least two villages most severely affected by the wild boar menace in each division and to take nessesary action. A senior forest officer from Telangana forest department said, Its been more than a year that the order was passed and the order is yet to be renewed. Till then the wild boars cant be killed. Meanwhile, the helpless farmers continue to guard their crops in unexpressed rage as the menace goes on.
The BJP workers blocked Siddaramaiah's official vehicle and waved black flags at him, demanding waiver for farmers' loans. (Photo: File)

Bengaluru: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday pulled up Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for taking Mandya Superintendent of Police C. H Sudhir Kumar Reddy to task in full public view during a programme yesterday and said that every political party has the right to protest against injustice in a democracy.

BJP leader S. Prakash said that the Chief Minister mistreated the police officer, who was doing his duty.

"I believe it is for the ruler to digest it and get along with that but here Siddaramaiah is showing tremendous intolerance towards the incident and towards the Superintendent of Police, who is supposed to uphold the law and order situation in the district," he added.

Reminding Siddharamaiah that he must have protested against the ruling party when he was in the opposition in the state, Prakash said the Chief Minister may be under the impression that any protest against him is unacceptable.

"It is for the first time I am seeing a leader is losing his cool over a police officer, who is doing his duty," he added.

Earlier on Thursday, the Chief Minister lost his cool at the 2010 batch IPS officer for his failure in intelligence gathering and preventing the protest by the BJP workers.

The BJP workers blocked Siddaramaiah's official vehicle and waved black flags at him, demanding waiver for farmers' loans.

A visibly upset Chief Minister even went on to call the top cop a "useless fellow" for failing to prevent the BJP members from protesting.
Mumbai: Continuing its winning streak in Maharashtra, the ruling BJP on Friday won Latur and Chandrapur municipal corporations, out of three civic bodies that went to polls on April 19.

Defeat in Latur came as a major embarrassment for the Congress as the district has traditionally been the bastion of the party stalwart and former chief minister (late) Vilasrao Deshmukh.

The results of the elections held for the three municipal corporations were declared on Friday.

The consolation for the Congress was the Parbhani municipal corporation, where the party improved its tally compared to the 2012 polls to retain power.

In 65-member Parbhani civic body, the Congress won 31 seats, NCP 18, BJP 8, Shiv Sena 6, and Independents 2.

In 2012 polls, the Congress won 23 seats, NCP 30, Shiv Sena 8, BJP 2 and others 2.

The BJP's victory in Latur stands out as the saffron party, which drew a blank in the 2012 elections, bagged 36 seats Friday in the 70-member civic body. The Congress won 33 seats while one seat went to the NCP.

The Latur debacle reflects poorly on the leadership potential of Amit Deshmukh, the MLA son of late Vilasrao, who was steering the Congress in elections.

According to NDTV reports, the loss severely dents the Congress party, already reeling from its losses in a state that it ruled for 10 years till 2014.

In 2012 polls to the Latur civic body, the Congress won 49 seats, NCP 13, and Shiv Sena 6. Remaining two seats were won by the smaller parties.

The BJP pulled off another victory in the 66-member Chandrapur civic body, which was ruled by a coalition comprising the Congress and the NCP.

Chandrapur is the home district of the senior BJP leader and Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.

The final tally is: BJP (36), Congress (12), NCP (2), Shiv Sena (2), BSP (8), MNS (2), and Independents (4).

In 2012, the Congress won 26 seats, BJP 18, NCP 4, Shiv Sena 5, BSP 2, MNS 1, and Independents (10).

Hailing the BJP's performance, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, "BJP is creating history yet again."

He thanked the people of Latur and Chandrapur for the mandate to his party and for showing faith in his government.

The CM also congratulated the party workers for the victory.

"We will work harder and continue to work for every citizen with our mantra of good governance to serve the last man," he tweeted.

In the elections held to the ten municipal corporations across the state in February this year, the BJP won eight civic bodies. The party also made inroads into the hinterland in the elections held in February for 25 Zilla Parishads.

In Latur Zilla Parishad (ZP) polls, the BJP had breached the long-standing Congress citadel.

For the April 19 elections to the three civic bodies, 1,284 candidates were in fray for total 201 seats.

In Chandrapur 460 candidates were in the ring, followed by Parbhani (418) and Latur (406). A total of 7,93,621 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in the three corporations, where 62 per cent voting was registered.

Meanwhile, Mungantiwar, the Guardian minister of Chandrapur district, thanked the voters and party workers for the party's victory.

He attributed the victory to the BJP's agenda of development and transparency.
(Xinhua) 17:01, April 21, 2017

XIAMEN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A new freight train service started on Friday linking the east China port city of Xiamen with Moscow, making it the newest China-Europe freight train route.

At 9:30 a.m., the train with 40 containers left the station from Xiamen Free Trade Zone carrying goods worth 363,000 U.S. dollars including granite, lighting supplies, artificial flowers and shoes for Moscow.

A single trip on the 10,920-km route takes 13 to 14 days. Without the direct train service, it used to take at least 25 days to transport goods.

The train route connects the east and northeast Chinese cities of Nanchang, Nanjing, Jinan and Jinzhou, and crosses the border via Manzhouli Port in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Jiang Jingdong, assistant general manager of Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone Investment and Construction Management Co. Ltd., said the service is still in trial operations with three trips from Xiamen to Moscow per month. The freight train service will be normalized in the second half of this year.

Huang Changhong, manager of Trans-China Logistics Co.,Ltd., said that trade between Xiamen and Russiais complementary. Xiamen and its surrounding cities are export-oriented with machinery equipment and shoemaking industries, while it imports wood, paper pulp and vegetable oil from Russia.

Lin Jiangfan, an official with Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone, said that as the host city of the 2017 BRICS Summit slated for September, Xiamen welcomes a closer partnership with Russia, one of the BRICS countries. The Xiamen-Moscow freight train service could also strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative, driving trade in Xiamen.

In 2016, exports from Xiamen to Russia reached more than 5 billion yuan (727 million U.S. dollars), and imports from Russia totaled 1.9 billion yuan.
IT and municipal administration minister K.T. Rama Rao with minister for irrigation, marketing & legislative affairs, T. Harish Rao, at Kompally on Friday. (Photo: P. Surendra)

Hyderabad: There were no political surprises at the TRS plenary meeting as was widely speculated in party circles.

Rumours were doing the rounds in party circles that party chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would announce the elevation of his son and IT minister K.T. Rama Rao as working president of the party while addressing the plenary session. However, no such announcement came from the TRS party president during the plenary session.

The rumours gained momentum especially after Mr Rama Rao started holding public meetings in districts for the last few days to highlight the achievements of the TRS government during the last three years.

TRS leaders opined that the Chief Minister might have felt that the elevation of Mr Rama Rao would invite unnecessary troubles for the TRS in the run-up to the Assembly elections in 2019, which are just two years away.

Opposition parties are already playing mind games over the Chief Ministers nephew and irrigation minister T. Harish Rao by talking about purported differences between Mr Rama Rao and Mr Harish over his elevation.

In this backdrop, the TRS leaders see no chances of the party party elevating Mr Rama Rao at least till the 2019 elections.
New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi has decided to call a meeting of all like-minded parties next month to explore the possibility of putting up a joint non-BJP presidential candidate.

The momentum to prop up a secular candidate gained momentum when CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Mrs Gandhi soon after the Congress president had a similar meeting with Bihar CM and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar.

Both leaders are learnt to have discussed with Mrs Gandhi the need for all Opposition parties to join hands to take on the BJP juggernaut and begin by putting up a consensual Opposition presidential candidate.

Before the CPM general secretary met Mrs Gandhi, the Left parties, including the CPM and CPI, had met among themselves and decided to go along with a joint Opposition presidential candidate.

The Congress president decided to take a lead in the matter after requests from both Mr Kumar and Mr Yechury, sources said, adding the meeting was likely to be held next month. The presidential polls are due to be held in July when President Pranab Mukherjee completes his term.
Why do we say forever

When we know theres no such thing?

No effort, no endeavour

Prolongs our youthful spring

Passing years can teach us 

Those who resist are fools

This sun whose rays now reach us

Ultimately cools!

From Cleopatra-Ni-Machchi

by Bachchoo

Last Tuesday was crucial for Britain because, after very emphatically and repeatedly denying that the UK needed a general election to legitimise her prime ministership, Theresa May called a general election on June 8, giving political parties 51 days to communicate their appeal to voters. The election had been called, she said, because the country was united behind her stance on Britains negotiations to leave the European Union, but the Parliament of Westminster was not. Her contention is disingenuous and transparently silly. The official Opposition of the Labour Party is in complete chaos about this Brexit deal and, almost every day, Labour make contradictory statements about it, even though their leader Jeremy Corbyn asserts at every turn that he will support Britains Brexit. The other UK Opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, are clear that they want a second referendum. They believe that when British voters find out how disastrous Brexit will be, they will change their minds. Ms May points to them in her argument for a general election, saying that they are disrupters. The Lib-Dems have eight members of Parliament. Its like saying a fellow without a thumb can win an archery contest.

So that was the big news on Tuesday when I received a call from an Indian TV station. The researcher wanted to know what I thought about the Mallya question. I said I was unacquainted with such a question as my attention was fully absorbed on the prospect of the general election and the wipeout of the Labour Party. No, no, said the diligent researcher, Mr Vijay Mallya had that very day been arrested and taken to a London court in Westminster, had been subjected to arguments about his extradition to India and then been let out on bail of a million dollars. Now as far as I know, Britain deals in pounds and pence and not in dollars, so a Westminster court setting bail terms in dollars was a bit confusing. Every time I am presented with these sums, I remind myself that a crore is 10 million and then my calculating head starts fiddling with the number of zeroes  accepting that a lakh, which is a hundredth of a crore was a thousand pounds a little whole ago  which made the conversion simpler  but after the Brexit vote with the pound down, its more like 80-something rupees to I lose track and me! With a degree in natural sciences (including maths) from Cambridge!

Okay, significant sums! The very competent researcher asks if I can be present in a studio to present my point of view on the Mallya case by 3.30 Greenwich Mean Time. Indian TV stations never offer me a fee for appearing and voicing an opinion. The studio was not far from where I was so I said Id do it. In the studio I heard the anchor say that there were distinguished politicians from the BJP and the Congress. Nevertheless, she came to me first and asked what I thought of the arrest and the bail. I had thought it out and will put it plainly: If I were Mr Mallya, or indeed Lalit Modi, I would be extremely anxious about the days events. Ms May has called an election to strengthen her hand on Brexit, and if she succeeds on June 9 then she will begin trade talks with India and others. Trade talks are never only about trade. They could very probably involve deals on extradition of people the Indian government want to try in Indian courts for alleged offences. British governments do most deals if it suits their interests  they dont care about Saudi beheadings or using British weapons to kill civilians in Yemen as long as they can sell them armaments.

On the TV programme the Congress spokesperson said that the release of Mr Mallya on bail was a defeat for the BJP governments extradition orders, warrants and demands. British courts tend to give bail terms to defendants who are not a threat to the public and in the courts view are unlikely to abscond. Hah! They dont understand Indians. If I were Mr Mallya, I would assess the danger of deportation to India, the loss of the million dollars and use my bail release to get to a country with no extradition treaty with India. I am aware that Mr Mallya has no passport as the Indian government withdrew his, but the British underworld can, for a price Mallya can easily afford, supply him with a false passport which can take him, for example, to Northern Ireland and through the still-porous border to the Irish Republic and from there to Hey! This is rubbish! The last few times I left the UK on a flight my passport was checked by some trolley-dolly as I entered the plane and not by any scrutinising authority. So Mexit (Mallyas exit from Britain) is not going to be difficult. --(Dhondy, how dare you use this newspaper to suggest criminal activity!  ED Sirji, please publish, it's columnist's licence. Sorry yaar  fd)
One of the meanings of Islam is peace, a permanently desired state of harmony with all that exists on the planet. Islam classifies jihad, which literally means, to strive  into jihad-e-asghar, smaller battle, against evil and jihad-e-akbar, larger battle, against the nafs, ones own ego. When people submit to evil, they become a source of danger to society. To ensure peace and security, these forces have to be defeated. The Quran verses sanctioning a military jihad were revealed to the Prophet after 13 years of passive resistance. During this long period, he and his followers were subjected to torture, injustice and severe oppression. Eventually, the Muslims were allowed an armed struggle. The Prophet stressed that jihad could not be pursued for economic gain, personal honour or the propagation of narrow nationalism.

Laying down battle rules, he said, Do not slay women or children or non-combatants and do not harm old people or religious people. The Prophet specifically mentioned priests, nuns and rabbis who serve God in houses of worship. He forbade the mutilation of bodies, cutting down of trees and poisoning of wells. He prohibited the burning of houses and cornfields, and the killing of livestock  except for food. The Prophet established an exemplary code of conduct for the prisoners of war. He said, Mercy is not taken out of anyone but the damned. The Quran urges not to let the hatred of people prevent you from being just.

Given the non-violent resistance during the founding years of Islam in Mecca, there is a rich resource of material on non-violence in the Quran and Hadith literature. The Quran speaks about the centrality of non-coercion and Gods infinite compassion. Just 26 of over 6,000 verses deal directly with combat contexts with specific conditions and restraints. Some battles book place during the last 10 years of the Prophets life. These resulted in uniting the Arab tribes who were constantly at war with each other. It is important to remember that during this period, the sword was used under the laws of the constitution of Medina and not to establish the law.

While returning from the battlefield of Badr, the first armed conflict, the Prophet defined the two faces of jihad, We are returning from the lesser battle to the greater battle against ourselves. On another occasion, he said, The most excellent jihad is to speak up for the truth in the face of a tyrannical authority. According to Islam, there can be no compulsion in matters of faith. The Quran clearly states, No coercion in religion. Distinct has now become the right way from the way of wrong; hence who rejects falsehood and has faith in God has held on to the tightest knot that could not be undone. God is all-hearing, all-knowing.
Logitech BRIO works with all business applications, including Skype for Business and Cisco-compatible certifications, as well as all Logitech Collaboration Program cloud video partners such as BlueJeans, BroadSoft, Vidyo and Zoom.

Logitech has announced its most sophisticated webcam yet, Logitech BRIO 4K Pro Webcam. BRIO is a webcam for business and home-office users, streamers, YouTubers and vloggers. BRIO comes packed with industry firsts including Logitech RightLight 3 with HDR, 4K Ultra HD video quality, and 5X zoom, plus support for Windows Hello and other secure infrared-based facial recognition applications.

Logitech BRIO allows users to take full control of their visual environment. In addition to featuring 4K and 5x zoom, support for Logitech RightLight 3 with HDR delivers great camera performance in all lighting conditions - from low light to bright sunlight, as well as challenging high-contrast or backlit conditions. BRIO users can select between 65, 78, and 90 field of view (FOV) to help ensure their camera is focused only on the area they want others to see. Logitechs advanced lens technology with autofocus offers remarkable video quality with great resolution, speed, fluidity, color balance and detail.

Logitech BRIO works with all business applications, including Skype for Business and Cisco-compatible certifications, as well as all Logitech Collaboration Program cloud video partners such as BlueJeans, BroadSoft, Vidyo and Zoom.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
During the early hours of Easter Sunday, Vodafone made many of the customers visiting its website very happy. The company reportedly listed a virtual reality headset  which ideally costs around 80 pounds  as free. Quite naturally, shoppers were quick to order it and the firm was then forced to give away the headset for free.

It was only later that the company clarified that the gadget was supposed to come free with S7 or S8 headsets.

Vodafone later started cancelling orders.

Due to a temporary glitch on our website on Easter Day, a Samsung VR headset was listed as free, rather than at its normal price, for a number of hours, a Vodafone spokesman said.

We are making sure that everyone who ordered a headset during that time will get one for free, he added.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
It may not be quite like the Jetsons, but for over a million dollars you too can soon fly around in a car. A Slovakian company called AeroMobil unveiled on Thursday its version of a flying car, a light-framed plane whose wings can fold back, like an insect, and is boosted by a hybrid engine and rear propeller.

It will be available to preorder as soon as this year but is not for everyone: besides the big price tag  between 1.2 million and 1.5 million euros ($1.3 million-$1.6 million)  you'd need a pilot's license to use it in the air.

"I think it's going to be a very niche product," said Philip Mawby, professor of electronic engineering and head of research at the University of Warwick.

Several companies are working on flying cars, either like Aeromobil's two-seater that needs a runway, or others that function more like helicopters, lifting off vertically. But not many companies are seriously looking at marketing these vehicles anytime soon, Mawby said.

"The technology is there... The question is bringing it to the market at an affordable cost, and making it a useful product."

Among the big questions is how to control the air traffic if there are hundreds of such vehicles zipping through the air. There is no control except for traditional aircraft, notes Mawby.

So while vehicles like the AeroMobil could be used for recreational purposes by people who have a large piece of land, flying cars are unlikely to become a mass market reality anytime soon, he says.

The AeroMobil has a driving range of about 100 kms (62 miles) and a top speed of 160 kph (99 mph). When flying, its maximum cruising range is 750 kms (466 miles), and it takes about three minutes for the car to transform into a plane.

"You can use it as a regular car," said Juraj Vaculik, co-founder and CEO of Aeromobil, at the unveiling in Monaco. Though it is not legal yet  to take off from a highway.

The previous AeroMobil 3.0 prototype made news in 2014 when it was presented in Vienna, but no test-flight took place then. It crashed during a test flight in Slovakia in 2015 with its inventor Stefan Klein on board. He escaped largely unharmed.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
A few days back, NokiaPowerUser revealed some sketches of the alleged Nokia 9 smartphone that is supposed to be the flagship for the HMD Global-owned company. Now, a YouTube channel by the name of Concept Creator has released a video based on the sketches released.

The video shows the alleged Nokia 9 enclosed in glass body with a metal frame holding them together. The screen upfront has curved edges, like the LG G6 and the Samsung Galaxy S8. The bezel-less screen looks beautiful in the render, seeming to challenge the attractiveness of Samsungs Infinity Display. The chamfered edges maintain the Nokia design language while eliminating any sharp edges.

Theres no home button in the front, which also points out that the fingerprint scanner could be sent to the rear. The physical earpiece is still there, along with sensor housings and the Nokia branding hogging up the rest of the space in the top panel. As for the rear, the design is similar to the Nokia 8s leaked sketch, albeit with the fingerprint scanner taking its place in the camera housing. The phone should be surely finished in ceramic or glass, being the companys flagship.

The Nokia 9 will be the cream of HMD Globals lineup and could feature the SD835 chipset with Adreno 540 GPU, 4-6GB RAM, a 22MP PDAF camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a QHD OLED screen. The phone will operate on a near-stock Android Nougat 7.1 with pre-installed Google Apps suite.

However, the information may not turn out to be true in the future. But it gives us a glimpse of the upcoming Nokia flagship. The video surely makes the sketch concept look very desirable though. Stay tuned for further updates regarding the Nokia 9.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
The authorities informed San Antonio Airport police to escort the lady out of the plane.(Photo: Screengrab)

San Antonio: An unidentified woman on Friday was asked to get down off the plane for creating disturbance to other passengers, who later hurled expletives and insulted aboard crew members for an alleged flight delay.

According to report in Daily Mail, a woman was seen verbally abusing to crew members in viral video, dares the plane authorities to throw her out of the plane.

The woman appeared to confront a flight attendant stood at the front of the plane, as horrified passengers watched on and recorded the incident.

After realising that the matter is out of their hands, the authorities informed San Antonio Airport police to escort the lady out of the plane.

The woman passenger was heard claiming that the pilot was late by five to six hours of the actual time to police who tried to calm her down.

The officers told her patiently that the captain said he doesn't want you on his plane and you need to get off. She replied, That dude, that's a doctor, I ain't no doctor, I'm gonna beat you're a**, referring to the Asian passenger who was recently dragged and thrown out by United Airlines, raking up a controversy.

She was seen saying, You might want to get your mother***ing pilot and all your f***ing crew ready because ain't nobody going nowhere.

Stating that she hasnt done anything wrong to get out of the plane, she said, This is Trump's fault. Blame it on Trump, as I am already pissed.

Minutes after her conversation with police officers, all passengers were asked to get off the aircraft through a message broadcast.

The video which had been viewed by more than 5000 people ended after people started getting their bags and belongings to get down off the plane.
Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and subversive activities. (Photo: AP)

Washington: The Indian-American community in the US has launched a White House petition, seeking the Trump administration's intervention to save Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for alleged espionage and subversive activities.

Created by one S.S, the 'We the People Petition' on the White House website said the allegations against Jadhav that he was spying for India is totally false and fabricated. The petition requires at least 100,000 signatures before May 14 to qualify for a response from the Trump Administration.

"The fact that India is not given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated," it said.

"In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which he never committed the petition said.

Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and subversive activities.

Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy."

The Pakistan army had also released a "confessional video" of Jadhav after his arrest. However, India denied Pakistan's contention and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by the Pakistan authorities.

India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the Navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.
China urges Japan to break with militarism following Abe's offering to notorious shrine

(Xinhua) 19:06, April 21, 2017

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Friday urged Japan to "make a clean break with militarism" after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine.

China has always firmly opposed these kinds of acts by Japanese politicians, spokesman Lu Kang said at a routine press briefing.

Honoring 14 Class-A convicted war criminals of World War II, the Yasukuni Shrine is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Japan should abide by the spirit of the four political documents between the two countries, earnestly implement their four-point principled agreement reached in late 2014, and reflect deeply on the history of aggression, said Lu.

He urged the Japanese side to obtain the trust of neighboring Asian countries and the international community through action.

On Friday, around 90 Japanese lawmakers visited the Yasukuni Shrine and Seiichi Eto, an aide to the prime minister and a ruling Liberal Democratic Party upper house lawmaker, also made a visit.
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Thursday condemned the Paris terrorist attack, saying there is a need to stay strong and vigilant.

"First of all, our condolences from our country to the people of France. Again, it is happening, it seems...It is a very, very terrible thing that's going on in the world today," Trump told reporters in a joint press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

"But it looks like another terrorist attack. And what can you say -- it just never ends. We have to be strong and we have to be vigilant. And I have been saying it for a long time," Trump said in response to a question as he was joined by Gentiloni in condemning the attack.

"Allow me to join President Trump's words for what happened in Paris. These words of condolences and closeness to the French people. And this is a very delicate period for them, just three days before the election," the Italian prime minister said.
The council has imposed six sets of sanctions on North Korea -- two of which were adopted last year to significantly ramp up the punitive measures and deny Kim Jong-Un's regime hard currency revenue. (Photo: AP)

United Nations (US): The UN Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its "highly destabilising behaviour."

In a unanimous statement, the council demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests" and said Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond."

The council threatened to "take further significant measures including sanctions" to address the crisis of North Korea's missile launches.

While previous statements have warned of further measures, the agreed text made specific mention of sanctions, signalling a tougher stance from the council.

The US-drafted statement was agreed upon after Russia insisted that language stressing the need to achieve a peaceful solution "through dialogue" was included in the final text.

Russia had blocked an earlier version of the statement -- which comes after North Korea carried out a failed test on Sunday -- even though China, Pyongyang's ally, had expressed its support for it.

Russian charge d'affaires Petr Iliichev however denied blocking the statement and said the United States had broken off talks on a consensus position in an "abrupt manner."

Council statements require a consensus among all 15 members. The United States, which holds the rotating council presidency this month, has scheduled a ministerial-level meeting next week on North Korea, to be chaired by US Secretary of States Rex Tillerson.

While no resolution will be adopted during the April 28 session, the United States and its allies are expected to turn up the pressure on China to use its leverage to rein in Pyongyang.

The council has imposed six sets of sanctions on North Korea -- two of which were adopted last year to significantly ramp up the punitive measures and deny Kim Jong-Un's regime hard currency revenue.

Pyongyang is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

On Wednesday, US Vice President Mike Pence vowed that the United States would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.
Gippsland: A court in Australia has sentenced a teenager to 10 years in prison for murdering a young father, Jack Nankervis, by stabbing him 70 times with a knife and an axe in June 2014. The killing took place at a Morwell apartment in Gippsland, Victoria which belonged to the accused, Bonnie Sawyer-Thompson.

According to a report in Daily Mail, she was forced to commit the murder by her boyfriend, Phillip Mifsud, who threatened to kill her family and forcibly injected her with drugs. Thompson was charged with murder but pleaded guilty since she feared for her familys safety. She will be eligible for parole in four years.

The victim was with the girl and her boyfriend before he was murdered. All three had taken cannabis, GHB (Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) and ice. When Thompson attacked the victim, he was unable to defend himself due to intoxication.

Mifsud had walked out of the house before the incident. There were no charges against him over his alleged involvement in Nankervis' death.

Throughout their relationship, Thompson had been frequently abused by Mifsud, who made her swallow bullet cases and put a firecracker inside her clothes. He had also burnt her with cigarettes, injected her with drugs and broken a bottle on her head.
During a search of his home, Belgian police found weapons, balaclavas and a train ticket for France departing Thursday morning, hours before the Paris assault. (Photo: AP)

Paris: A suspect sought by France in the wake of the Champs Elysees attack has turned himself in to Belgian police, France's interior ministry said on Friday.

"The man in the wanted notice issued by Belgian authorities presented himself to a police station in Antwerp," said ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

Brandet told Europe 1 radio it was "too early to say" if the man was linked to Thursday night's shooting on the famous Paris boulevard, where a known radical shot dead a policeman and wounded two others before being killed in a shootout.

A foreign tourist was also injured in the attack. The Islamic State group claimed the shooting, which came three days before the first round of France's presidential election on Sunday in which security is a major concern after a string of bloody jihadist assaults since 2015.

A source close to the French investigation said the 35-year-old man being questioned in Antwerp, described as "very dangerous", had been sought by Belgian police as part of a separate probe.

During a search of his home, Belgian police found weapons, balaclavas and a train ticket for France departing Thursday morning, hours before the Paris assault.

In France meanwhile, three people known to the attacker were being questioned by anti-terror police, judicial sources said. The three were arrested during overnight raids in the eastern suburbs of Paris.
The bus was then diverted to a where the doctors pronounced her dead. (File Photo)

London: A 25-year-old woman along with her live-in partner, who has fathered 25 children, had allegedly tortured their 16-week old daughter to death and tried to fake the babys death on a bus.

According to report in a Daily Mail, the matter which is heard in Central Criminal Court, both Baker and her partner Jeffrey Wiltshire, 52, was cleared of murder on Friday but found guilty of causing or allowing the death of 16-week-old Imani.

The 52-year-old man, Jeffrey Wiltshire, was seen giving thumbs up as good luck gesture to Rosalin Baker as she boarded a London bus with her baby.

Baker, for at least 20 minutes was seen captured talking on phone and messaging on the CCTV cameras on the bus without paying any attention to the baby, whose face was concealed. Subsequently, Baker beckoned co-passengers for the help, saying that her baby has been inactive.

One of the co-passenger who raced to help found Imani had already stopped breathing and her face was 'ice cold'.

Meanwhile, a crowd had already approached Baker with an another passenger trying to give dead baby CPR. But she found Imanis lips cold.

Realising that the babys health was critical, the bus was then diverted to a where the doctors pronounced her dead.

Upon inspecting the baby, doctors found that Imani had a fractured skull and serious head injuries, along with more than 40 other fractures.

During trial, Baker blamed her drug addict partner Jeffrey Wiltshire, 52, for tortured of her daughter, who is always been high on heroine and cocaine.

In his defence, Wiltshire, who fathered 25 children, denied the allegations and stated that 'I'm not a life taker, I'm a baby maker.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson during an argument said Imani was in 'very significant pain and distress', which would have been obvious to any parent.

Atkinson further added that Wiltshire and Baker, who lived on benefits, attempted to hide what happened at home by making it appear she had suddenly been taken ill on bus.
Beijing: India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warned on Friday, dismissing as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Referring to allegations that it was "silly for China" not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said "these comments are absurd.

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China' said.

The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi. "If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily said.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'. China on April 19 announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the north-eastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action". The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

India on Thursday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Chinese Foreign Ministrys spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."

He also said more standardised names will be announced later. "In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names," he said.

Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, "China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."

"Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," it said. "India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China.

But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table," it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
Beijing: Nepal has scaled down the size of its first-ever military exercise with China after facing strong opposition from India, state-run Chinese media claimed

on Friday.

The 10-day joint military exercise, code-named 'Sagarmatha Friendship 2017', commenced in Nepal from April 16.

"It was said the two countries initially planned to hold a battalion-scale military exercises. However, facing a strong opposition from India, Nepal had to compress the size of the military exercise and change the venue to a military school,"an article in the state-run Global Times said.

"For Nepal, the joint military exercise has a deeper significance. For starters, it shows that Nepal moves forward in its pursuit of a balanced diplomacy among major powers.

Since the 1990s, balanced diplomacy has become the basic principle of Nepal's foreign strategy, which is established based on Nepal's nationalism and anti-Indian sentiment," the article said.

Chinese official media has been expressing its frustration over the fall of pro-China Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli who was replaced by Prachanda.

For China, the fall of the Oli regime was a big disappointment and a setback to its planned big push into Nepal through Tibet with rail and highway linkages to expand its influence in the landlocked country which was dependent on

India for all its supplies, according to analysts.

Prachanda sought to improve ties with India much to the chagrin of Beijing. "Nepal's dependence on India in political, economic, cultural and other aspects as well as India's ambition to make Nepal its sphere of influence has made most people in Nepal fear losing their national independence as Sikkim did," the

article claimed.

"Holding joint military exercises with China can contribute to deterring ethnic separatism in Nepal," it said without elaborating. China has expressed its backing for Nepal's new constitution which was strongly resisted by Madhesis over fears that it marginalised their political and constitutional rights.

"It is a normal development for China to hold a military exercise with Nepal as Nepal is China's friendly neighbour. There are many countries which have held joint military exercises, including India, with China. South Asia is a terrorism-prone region. Now that China and Nepal have developed closer economic relations, Nepal hopes to join China's Belt and Road initiative, for which regional security and stability is a necessity," it said.

The joint military exercise shows that the "bilateral diplomatic relations have expanded from political, economic and cultural to the field of military defence. But for China, this is just one aspect of the overall national security outlook proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping".

"Nepal has taken a cautious attitude to avoid provoking India. The drill does not violate the Treaty of Peace and Friendship inked by Nepal and India in 1950," it said.

"Due to geographic, political, economic, historic, religious and cultural factors, India has wielded much bigger influence over Nepal than China. Nepal cannot cut its economic ties with India," it said.

India views small South Asian countries such as Nepal and Bhutan as its "sphere of influence and a strategic buffer zone against China". "It sees their relations with China from a geopolitical standpoint and a Cold-War mentality," it said.

"Given the rise of nationalism in India, especially the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments among India's diplomatic circles, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a tough China policy since assuming office. India is concerned about China's economic cooperation with South Asia and the region around the Indian Ocean and wants to push back China's influence," it claimed.

Over the past two years, "India has raised a couple of unreasonable requests toward and imposed pressure on China, dragging the Sino-Indian relations into a vicious cycle".

If New Delhi does not change its mentality, it will be "paranoid" about every cooperation between China and South Asian countries, it said. "China has a clear-cut approach toward China-Nepal-India trilateral relations. It hopes Nepal can become a bridge between China and India. By pushing forward the China-Nepal-India economic corridor, it can boost development in all three countries. No matter how India views cooperation between China and Nepal, such cooperation will continue to expand, as it fits the interests of both peoples," it said.

Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is in India on her first overseas tour. She arrived on a five-day trip to India on April 17.
The Indian-American community in the US has launched a White House petition, seeking the Trump Administration's intervention to save Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for alleged espionage and subversive activities.



Created by one S.S, the 'We the People Petition' on the White House website said the allegations against Jadhav that he was spying for India is totally false and fabricated. The petition requires at least 100,000 signatures before May 14 to qualify for a response from the Trump Administration.



"The fact that India is not given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated," it said. "In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which he never committed, the petition said.



Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and subversive activities Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy."



The Pakistan Army had also released a "confessional video" of Jadhav after his arrest. However, India denied Pakistan's contention and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by the Pakistan authorities. India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.
Posters asking the Kashmiris living in Uttar Pradesh to leave the state appeared in state's Meerut town, about 500 kilometres from here.



The posters, which were put up by a little known outfit 'Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena', said that those, who pelted stones at the security personnel in Kashmir, should not be allowed to stay in the state.



The posters carried the name of Amit Jani, a former Samajwadi Party (SP) leader.



''The posters have been removed and a case has been registered in this regard,'' said a senior police official in Meerut on Friday.



Jani, on the other hand, said that stone pelting on the 'jawans' would not be tolerated under any circumstances. ''We plan to launch a movement to drive the Kashmiris out of the state,'' he added.




The Centre on Friday asked states to take strict action against those targeting Kashmiri students, following incidents of harassment reported from different parts of the country.



An advisory was issued on directions from Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who strongly condemned the incidents. The ministry of home affairs set-up a round-the-clock helpline in Delhi to deal with such issues. Kashmiri students and others residing away from their home state can email their grievances to dirmjk-mha@mha.nic.in or call 011-23092923 and 011-23092885.



They are like family

I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all chief ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states. I appeal to everyone to consider Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well, Singh said.



The contributions of the people of Kashmir in nation-building is immense. They are like any other Indian. They are part of the family, he added.



The ministry communique urges states, Union Territories and the police to take strict action to ensure the safety and security of students from Jammu and Kashmir.



Action as per the law needs to be taken against miscreants and safety of students from other states, including Jammu and Kashmir, needs to be fully ensured, the advisory read.



The ministry said it has received reports of harassment of students from Jammu and Kashmir studying in institutions outside their home state, adding that similar advisories were issued in February, March and April last year. It has also asked the states to sensitise nodal officers appointed for addressing such complaints.



Sanjay Roy, a director in the ministry, has been designated as the nodal officer at the Centre.


Photo shows crayfish served at a restaurant in Xuyi County, Jiangsu province. As temperatures climb, the renowned seasonal delicacy has returned to dinner tables in Xuyi. The county has 210,000 mu, or 14,000 hectares, of crayfish cultivation areas, which yield around 300,000 tons of crayfish every year.
Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has welcomed the Centre's decision to do away with the red beacon lights on vehicles.



"It is a good decision and I welcome it. In fact when I was the Union Minister (from 2007-2014), I never used red beacon on my vehicle. I am against it," Scindia told PTI here yesterday. "I believe that as a people's servant, our place should remain in their (people's) hearts but this red beacon has created a distance between the people and the leaders. Therefore, it is better to do away with it (red beacons)," he said.



The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided that the beacon lights will be removed from all vehicles, except the emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire brigade, from May 1. The vehicles with beacon lights, which are seen as a symbol of VIP culture, "have no place in a democratic country," the government said.



On the Ater Assembly segment getting embroiled in an EVM row and Congress's demand for a return to the paper ballot for all elections, Scindia said, "We raised the issue to ensure that no scope of any question mark should remain in a democratic electoral process."



"I cannot comment on other states but as far as Ater is concerned, the Election Commission took all possible measures to ensure free and fair elections," he said.



The row began with the trial of an EVM at Ater, when some reports suggested that voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machine dispensed only BJP slips, no matter which button on it was pressed. However, MP's Chief Electoral Officer denied this.



VVPAT is a machine which dispenses a slip with the symbol of the party for which a person has voted for. The slip drops in a box but the voter cannot take it home. Following the controversy, the Congress and other opposition parties had demanded scrapping of the use of EVMs for elections.



"The system that EC followed in Ater bypoll should be replicated in all elections for conducting polls in a free and fair manner. The immediate steps taken by the EC were very effective and I thanked the poll body for it," Scindia said.



The Congress won the Ater Assembly seat bypoll held earlier this month.
Classes in colleges across Kashmir remained suspended for the fourth day today and authorities discontinued teaching work in higher secondary institutions for a day as a precautionary measure in the wake of students' protest against alleged highhandedness of security forces.



The teaching work in all colleges across the Kashmir Valley remained suspended for the fourth day on the trot following orders of Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Baseer Khan, officials said.



The administration had on Monday issued orders for the closure of Kashmir University, all colleges and higher secondary schools on Tuesday after students protested the alleged highhandedness of security forces against students of Degree College, Pulwama, last week.



The suspension of classes in the colleges was later extended by another day. On Wednesday, Khan issued directions to suspend teaching work in all colleges of Kashmir division for two more days till today, even as classes had resumed in Kashmir University and higher secondary schools that day.



He issued a fresh order yesterday, directing suspension of teaching work in all higher secondary institutions of the division in the wake of fresh protests.



Students of many of these institutions across the Valley had held protests on Monday. While scores of students were injured in security forces' action against students at Pulwama on the weekend, Monday's clashes also left several injured.




"...There is little political commitment for commensurate action and substantive support to peacebuilding efforts. The funding available for such efforts remains marginal, severely limiting the ability of the Peacebuilding Commission, India's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Tanmaya Lal said here.



Participating in a General Assembly debate on the Peacebuilding Commission and Peacebuilding fund yesterday, Lal said there is no agreement on increasing funding for the Commission to even a one per cent level of that for peacekeeping operations annually.



"In the absence of funds, despite an understanding of the task at hand, there is little hope of it being achieved," he said, adding that there are tendencies to re-allocate the already grossly inadequate international development cooperation funds to humanitarian and other emergency assistance.



This further reduces the overall development funding and is not helping the longer term development efforts required for peacebuilding. He noted that according to the Report of the Secretary-General on the issue, the Peacebuilding Fund's financial health remains in question.



The total amount of USD 71 million allocated during 2016 for 17 countries, including the six countries where the Peacebuilding Commission is active, is grossly inadequate for the scale of the tasks at hand.

Despite landmark resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council, the ministerial level pledging conference in September last year could only elicit USD 152 million, half of the USD 300 million goal, which was projected as the minimum amount needed to sustain operations for three years. India has contributed USD five million to the fund, according to the fund's website.



Stressing on the changing nature of conflicts, Lal said conflicts are increasingly intra-state and also involve non- state actors including international terror networks.



In an interdependent world, conflicts in any part of the world have much wider implications for terror networks or large movements of refugees. We, therefore, have a collective interest in building and sustaining peace, he said.



It is also essential for the peacebuilding efforts to align themselves with national priorities and participation, which would ensure sustainable gains and ownership.



The changing environment underscores the importance of long-term commitment and sustained investment, including a vastly expanded funding, that is required for the all round development and inclusive political dialogue for building and sustaining peace, he added.



"The complexity of peacebuilding activities points to the need for greater coherence not only between various UN organs but also related agencies and special and regional bodies, he said, adding that the Commission should also continue to discuss ways to build synergies with the fund.



India has voiced concern over the insufficient political commitment by nations for "substantive" support to UN peacebuilding efforts, saying marginal funding severely limits the ability of the world body's intergovernmental agency focussed on peace efforts in conflict-affected countries.
The ruling AIADMK (Amma) faction today announced setting up of a committee under party's senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP R Vaithilingam to oversee merger talks between the camps headed by Chief Minister K Palaniswami and his predecessor O Panneerselvam. The decision was arrived at a meeting chaired by the chief minister at the AIADMK headquarters here which was attended by senior ministers and other leaders.



Local Administration Minister SP Velumani said a committee has been formed under Vaithilingam for the merger talks but did not divulge details on who the other members of the panel were. "The Chief Minister has said Vaithilingam will be here at the party office. We will join him as and when required. As far as we are concerned, we want to redeem the 'Two Leaves' symbol and remain united," he told reporters.



Velumani said the common feeling in the faction was that there should be unity in the party "founded by MGR (MG Ramachandran) and taken forward by Amma (Jayalalithaa)". "We have now told clearly that there is a committee. The next course of action will be decided if they (Panneerselvam camp) contact us," he added. Law Minister C V Shanmugam, who also attended the meeting, said "we are transparent and open-minded".



Members of both factions "had worked together in the past and we are ready to sit and resolve differences", he said. Earlier, the ministers and senior leaders met at the party headquarters here under Palaniswami, a day after the rival Panneerselvam camp set formal removal of party chief V K Sasikala and her nephew and deputy T T V Dinakaran as conditions for the merger talks.



Hardening its stance for talks, it had demanded that the faction led by Palaniswami formally expel Sasikala and Dinakaran besides about 30 other members of their family from the AIADMK. Following the cabinet's revolt against him early this week, Dinakaran had said he was "stepping aside" in the interest of the party. A top leader in the Panneerselvam camp, K P Munusamy, had yesterday said the first demand was getting the resignation of Sasikala and Dinakaran and later their formal expulsion along with 30 other members of their family.



The Panneerselvam camp has also sought a CBI probe into the circumstances leading to former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's death on December 5 last year.




The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla had highlighted the plight of Hindu women affected by triple talaq. It had also sought directions to the Centre for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter- caste marriage is not registered.



A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will be hearing from May 11 a batch of petitions challenging the practice of triple talaq and polygamy as unconstitutional and discriminatory towards women. Muslim practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy are issues that are "very important" and involve "sentiments", the apex court had observed.



The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said it was not inclined to go into the issue as the Supreme Court is already seized of the triple talaq matter related to changes in the muslim personal law.It said there is no dispute that a Constitution bench has been formed to hear the issue. So, the law laid down by it will be applicable to all women and children of the society. The high court further noted that "all women are entitled to equal protection under the law." "In view of it (Supreme Court seized of the issue) we are not inclined to hear the issue. The petition is dismissed," the bench said.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking direction to the Union government for bringing back Kohinoor diamond from the United Kingdom.



A three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice J S Khehar noted that the government was already making diplomatic efforts for it.



"We cannot regulate or supervise it," said the bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, also rejecting the plea for stopping the probable auction of the diamond.



The government had earlier claimed its ownership over 'Kohinoor' diamond on the basis of historical evidence.



The government has also said it would make all efforts for satisfactory resolution of the issue with the United Kingdom.



Taking the government's plea into consideration, the court dismissed the PIL by All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front demanding efforts to bring back the 108-carat gem.



Holding that it understands the sentiment of Indian people attached with 'Kohinoor', the government had maintained that India's credentials regarding ownership of Kohinoor based on historical evidence cannot be doubted.



It had also said Kohinoor was gifted as compensation in the 19 th century by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to the British for the help rendered by them in Anglo-Sikh war.



The government also relied upon Article 15 of the UNESCO convention, 1970, to which the UK is also signatory, that allowed the states to seek restitution of removed cultural property by entering into special agreement.



Kohinoor, as also other Indian artifacts, manuscripts and items of artistic and historical value that are presently in the UK, are a significant expression of India's historical heritage. Kohinoor is an Indian artifact that was located for most of its history within the political and geographical boundaries of India...the government of India continues to explore ways and means for obtaining satisfactory resolution to the issue with the UK government, the Culture Ministry said.






CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and is learnt to have discussed the possibility of "like-minded" opposition parties fielding a common candidate for the presidential poll.



Yechury met Gandhi yesterday at her official residence here. The meeting followed a discussion between Gandhi and Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar on the issue yesterday, sources said.



"Yechury and Gandhi discussed the possibility of fielding a candidate acceptable to all secular opposition parties. Gandhi responded positively to a suggestion in this connection by the CPI(M) leader," a source in the Left party said. The CPI(M) has also held informal discussions on the issue with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad.



"The opposition leaders are likely to meet shortly to discuss the issue formally," the source said. Asked if President Pranab Mukherjee, a Congress veteran, could be fielded as the common candidate by the opposition parties, the source said "he maybe ... if all parties agreed (to the proposal). But again, it is subject to whether Mukherjee wants to continue as President."



Mukherjee's tenure as President is coming to an end on July 24. He had taken over the post in July 2012, defeating the NDA candidate, late PA Sangma. Mukherjee had secured 7.13 lakh votes as against 3.15 lakh polled by Sangma.


India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warned today, dismissing as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.



Referring to allegations that it was "silly for China" not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said "these comments are absurd.



"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China' said.



The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi. "If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily said.



"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'.



China on April 19 announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action". The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.



India yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.



Chinese Foreign Ministrys spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups." He also said more standardised names will be announced later.



"In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names," he said.



Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, "China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."



"Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," it said.



"India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table," it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.



The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
Congress on Friday expelled Barkha Shukla Singh from the party, a day after she attacked Rahul Gandhi and senior leader Ajay Maken.



In one of the swiftest actions witnessed in the Congress, Singh was sacked on Thursday evening within hours of her declaring Rahul unfit to lead the party. Singh, who was the president of the Delhi unit of the Mahila Congress, had released pictures of Rahul having dinner at a restaurant with some friends last month.



The Disciplinary Action Committee of the Delhi unit of the Congress met Friday morning to unanimously decided to expel Singh from the party for indulging in anti-party activities ahead of the elections to the municipal corporations in the capital.



Singh, who had complained against neglect of women workers in ticket distribution for the Sunday's civic polls, alleged that the party workers were snubbed and their grievances were not addressed.



On Thursday, Singh had insisted that she was not quitting the party but only her post -- President of the Delhi unit of Mahila Congress.






According to Nature magazine and Space.com, scientists recently discovered a "Super Earth," a rocky planet that might contain water in liquid form. It could be the best chance of finding life outside the solar system.

Thousands of planets have been considered during the past two decades, but most failed to meet the requirements for a Super Earth. Most planets' temperatures are either too high or too low to mimic the natural environment of Earth. Even the TRAPPIST-1 system, which has seven terrestrial planets, cannot support life due to frequent and strong radiation.

This time, an M dwarf named LHS 1140 has been identified by Jason A. Dittmann and his colleagues from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics using a MEarth-South telescope array. The planet is 39 light years away from the sun, and scientists have also noted that LHS 1140b transits LHS 1140, suggesting that its circular orbit might have existed at the time it was formed.

The mass of the planet is estimated to be 6.6 times that of Earth, consistent with a rocky bulk composition. Because of mild "sunlight" and low radiation, the planet sits in the habitable zone of its parent star, and water may exist on its surface.

Dittmann said this is the most exciting exoplanet he has seen in the past decade, and he will collect data about its atmosphere using the Hubble Space Telescope. According to the research team, LHS 1140b is detectable using existing telescopes since its parent star is small and not far from Earth. Astronomers hope to soon prove the existence of an atmosphere surrounding the planet.
Arguments on an appeal filed by the Rajasthan government in a sessions court here challenging the acquittal of actor Salman Khan by a trial court in a case against him under the Arms Act will begin on July 6.



In response to a notice issued by sessions judge Bhagwan Das Agarwal on March 7, counsels of Khan appeared in the court today and submitted 'vakalatnama' (authorisation letter). After accepting the documents, Agarwal listed the matter for arguments on July 6.



Khan had been acquitted by the trial court in a case against him for alleged possession and use of arms after the expiry of its licence.



The state government had filed the appeal in the sessions court challenging the acquittal on March 7, following which the sessions court had issued a notice to Khan.
China today asserted that it was its "lawful right" to standardise official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, while its state-run media warned that India will pay "dearly" if it continues to play the Dalai Lama card.



"China's position on the eastern section of the India- China boundary is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a media briefing here while reacting to India's assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is its integral part.

"Relevant names have been used by ethnic Momba and Tibetan Chinese who have lived here for generations. So it is a fact that cannot be changed. To standardise these names and publicise them is a legitimate measure based on our lawful right," he said.

Lu also countered India's charge that China was inventing names to make its territorial claims over the area legal.

India had yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six places in Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay in New Delhi had also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Earlier, the Global Times, in an op-ed article, said India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card and dismissed as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to China's renaming of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," said the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China'.

The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi.

"If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily warned.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'.

China on Wednesday had announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action".

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

Lu had earlier said that the Chinese government was conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."

He had also said that more standardised names will be announced later.

Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, "China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers the Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
Indian Navy today successfully test-fired the Brahmos land attack supersonic cruise missile in the Bay of Bengal, joining an elite club of navies to have capability to strike on land targets from sea.



The long-range missile was fired from guided missile frigate Teg on a target on land and it yielded desired results, a top navy official said. The BrahMos Missile has been jointly developed by India and Russia, and its anti-ship variant has already been inducted into Indian Navy.



"This successful maiden firing of BrahMos Land Attack Supersonic Cruise Missile has significantly enhances the prowess of Indian Navy and has placed India into the club of select few nations," Navy Spokesperson Capt D K Sharma said.



Navies of the US, Russia, Britain and China have similar strike capabilities. Majority of the frontline ships of Indian Navy, like the Kolkata, Ranvir and Teg classes of ships, are capable of firing the land attack supersonic missile.



Land attack variant of Brahmos missile provides Indian naval ships the capability to precisely neutralise selected targets deep inland and far away from coast, from stand-off ranges at sea.



Indian Navy is upgrading its weapons system and platforms as part of a major modernisation programme. Last month, it had successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile for the first time from an indigenously built Kalvari class submarine, enhancing its "sub-surface" warfare prowess.



The weapon was fired from the submarine, the first of India's six Scorpene-class submarines which are being built under the Project 75. All the six diesel-electric attack submarines will be equipped with the anti-ship missile, which has a proven record in combat.



These missiles will provide the vessels the ability to neutralise surface threats at extended ranges.
At least 14 people were killed and 24 injured when a truck run amok hitting a group of protesters in front of a police station in Yerpedu of Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh 25 kilometers from temple town Tirupati on Friday afternoon.



The heavily loaded truck registered in Nellore district first hit an electric pole, then ran into a group of protests who were agitating against illegal sand mining in their village Munagalapalem, before ploughing into parked vehicles, few road side shops on the busy Putalapattu-Naidupet road. The whole area resembled a battle field with blood and mangled body parts everywhere. The driver and cleaner of the truck have been arrested.

According to Renigunta deputy superintendent of police K S Nanjndappa, 10 people died on the spot and the remaining died in hospitals undergoing treatment. The injured including two police men and a journalist of a vernacular paper were shifted to Ruia hospital in Tirupati where the condition of 10 is said to be critical.

We first went to Mandal revenue office to submit a memorandum against illegal sand mining. As the MRO was is not present we went to Urban SP office , while some of us are waiting at a tea stall the truck from nowhere came at a very high speed and mowed down the people, a villager from Munagalapalem said suspecting that it could be the handiwork of the sand mafia active in Swarnamukhi river bed.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu expressing shock over the accident has directed his cabinet ministers Narayana and Amaranth Reddy to rush to the spot and coordinate relief operations. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Executive Officer Sambasiva Rao has been coordinating with the medical team at Ruia and SVIMS hospitals in Tirupati. The AP government has declared Rs 5 lakh each, for the kin of the deceased as ex gratia.
JD(U) President Sharad Yadav could emerge as the joint opposition candidate for the presidential election scheduled later this year.





There were some signs of coming together of opposition parties as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar flew in from Patna on Thursday to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The two had discussed the upcoming presidential election and opposition unity to counter an aggressive BJP.





Soon after Kumar had left, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, another votary of a joint opposition candidate in the presidential election, met Gandhi.





Political circles in the capital are abuzz with Sharad Yadav as the possible joint opposition candidate against the official nominee that would be fielded by the NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.





Asked about the impeding presidential elections, Congress chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said the party will decide on a presidential nominee after consulting its allies and other opposition parties.





A section of the opposition also believes that NCP supremo Sharad Pawar could be a better candidate, given his warm relations with leaders across the political spectrum. This section believes that with Pawar in the fray, the opposition can engineer a rift within the NDA as Shiv Sena could favour a Maharashtrian in Rashtrapati Bhawan, over the official nominee.





In the past two presidential elections, the Sena had voted in favour of Congress nominees  Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee.





Gandhi responded positively to Yechury's suggestion of a joint opposition candidate for the presidential elections. Kumar had requested Gandhi to take the lead and coordinate with opposition leaders to forge a strategy for the presidential elections.





Yechury asked Gandhi to convene a meeting of opposition leaders to discuss the issue.





West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too met BJD supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneshwar on Thursday. BJD has been supportive of the Modi government on a range of issues in Parliament.





Speaking in Kolkata on Friday, Banerjee made a strong pitch for unity among regional parties.





The opposition leaders have been in touch with Kumar already already deliberating on these matters with Yechury, CPI Secretary D Raja and Pawar.





Separately, Yechury has also held informal discussions with Pawar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad.





As the SP and BSP gave their worst ever performance in the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, BSP supremo Mayawati too had spoke in favour of a coalition of opposition parties.





SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had welcomed Mayawati's remarks, while his father Mulayam Singh Yadav did not find the idea interesting.
Barely four months after it was thrown open to public, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's ambitious Lucknow-Agra Expressway project has come under the scanner of the Yogi Adityanath government.



The expressway is being scrutinised for an alleged scam, involving farm land being passed as land for residential purposes to get higher compensation. According to official sources, the state government has directed 10 district magistrates to probe all land deals done in around 230 villages over the last 18 months.



It has hired public sector company RITES to conduct a technical survey of the expressway within a month.

The move comes after a special field officer of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), Y N Lal, filed an FIR in Firozabad against five 'chakbandi' (land consolidation) officers and 22 land owners accusing them of showing agriculture land in Bachhela Bachheli village as land for residential purposes.



Around 3,500 hectare of land was purchased from 20,456 farmers in 10 districts of 232 villages for this project.



UPEIDA chief executive officer Awanish Awasthi told PTI that he has sent letters to the district magistrates concerned on April 19. The idea is to ensure that genuine farmers are not affected, he said.



The previous Samajwadi Party government had claimed that the 302-km long expressway was constructed in record time and then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav often peppered his election speeches with the mention of his "dream project".



The present government claims that around Rs 670 crore alloted for the project is lying unused in its accounts. Around Rs 200 crore of this amount is with the district magistrates and the rest were with the UPEIDA, despite around 99.5 per cent of land for the project have already been purchased.



The District Magistrates have been asked to return funds lying with them, while the amount with UPEIDA has been reversed, officials said.



The expressway, which cost Rs 15,000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unnao, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi. It has an air strip near Unnao, where fighter planes can land, making it unique.



Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been reviewing the schemes of the Akhilesh Yadav government, including the Samajwadi Pension Yojana, Gomti river front project, Smartphone Yojana and cycle track project.



He has also ordered a thorough review of the prestigious Yash Bharti Awards, started by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1994, saying that giving them away to undeserving persons lowers the prestige of such an honour.



The government has also instructed magistrates of districts along the proposed Poorvanchal Expressway, connecting Lucknow and Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh, to stop land consolidation in 19 villages of Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur districts till land acquisition is completed.



So far, the government has purchased about 35 per cent of the land required for this project
Late Deshmukh has been the chief minister of Maharashtra twice and was also a union minister in the Dr Manmohan Singh government.





His eldest son Amit Deshmukh is a sitting MLA from Latur city constituency while youngest son Dhiraj Deshmukh is an member of the Latur zilla parishad. His another son, Ritesh Deshmkh is an actor and is involved in several social initiatives in the district.





In the 70-member Latur Municipal Corporation, BJP won 41 seats - getting majority while Congress was stranded to 28. In fact, BJP could not win a single seat in the 2012 polls while Congress was reduced to 28 from 29 seats.



The Latur city and district in Marathwada region was the focal point of the water crisis last year and water had to be provided by train wagons.





For BJP, the charge was led by Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar, the MLA from Nilanga, who is the Maharashtra Labour, Skill Development, Earthquake Rehabilitation & Ex-Servicemen Welfare. He is grandson of former chief minister Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar.

In a major setback to the Congress, the Sonia Gandhi-led party on Friday lost the elections to the civic body of Latur city, the traditional bastion of late charismatic leader Vilasrao Deshmukh.
Andhra Pradesh police during an early morning scoop here on Friday detailed a person from his residence in Shamshabad for allegedly posting objectionable material against the state IT minister and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh, son of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on social networks, particularly Facebook.





Ravi Kiran Inturi a self proclaimed fan of YS Jaganmohan Reddy, chief of YSR Congress party and was taken to Tullur police station in Amaravati around 3.30 am According Padma , wife of Ravi Kiran, police who said that they are from Tullur in AP woke us up and took away her husband. They did tell me why they are taking him but didnt disclose the place, she said. Tulluru police say that a case has been registered against Ravi Kiran under section 67 of the IT Act (punishment for publishing or obscene material in electronic form) based on a complained has been filed a TDP functionary.





Inturi who runs a satirical page Political Punch on Facebook on behalf of YSRC Yuva Sena has been morphing comic features with Lokesh face calling him pappu. In the particular post that led to Inturis arrest he pasted an adult kissing scene on to the legislative Council restricting entry to Adults only and Lokesh asking his father that he would love to go inside. Inturi has been tracking all the faux pas of the 34 year first time MLC who has been inducted into the AP cabinet as IT and Panchayat Raj minister and trolling them.





Only recently, Nara Lokesh has called for action against those using social media platforms to criticize the government or the ruling party. He has called for criminal action against those who tarnish the image of the party. We have no problems with the mainstream media; the problem is only with the social media which is under no ones control. There is lot of bad propaganda going on against us, Lokesh said to have told party leaders.


MOSCOW, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia agreed to boost their strategic partnership of comprehensive coordination during the three-day visit of top Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang to Moscow.

Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), has been in Russia since April 18. He met Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the two discussed ways to strengthen cooperation between the two countries, particularly between the two legislatures.

Zhang hailed the growing bilateral ties under the leadership of Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, noting the partnership has broader room and greater potential for development than ever before.

A complex international situation has underlined the significance of China-Russia friendship, Zhang said.

The priorities of the two countries' legislative bodies are to safeguard and promote bilateral ties, he added.

Putin said that sound Russia-China relations have seen an increase in economic and trade cooperation, more progress in major projects, vigorous cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and cooperation at the local level.

Putin expressed confidence in the prospect of Russia-China ties, saying the two legislative bodies shall maintain close ties.

In separate meetings with Valentina Matviyenko and Vyacheslav Volodin, the top leaders of the upper and lower houses of the Russian parliament, Zhang said China and Russia should support each other on issues mutual concern and that serve their core interests.

Zhang encouraged law makers from both countries to use the Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian Economic Union as opportunities to strengthen ties.

He also called on both sides to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges and further coordinate in multinational organizations, such as the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum, to safeguard international justice.

For their parts, Matviyenko and Volodin said Russia and China have enjoyed a closer friendship thanks to the high-level ties between the countries' legislative bodies.

Zhang co-chaired with Matviyenko and Volodin a session of the legislative bodies, where he called on both sides to share experiences, promote trade and seek an overall growth in relations.

During his stay in Moscow, Zhang also met with representatives of the Russia-China Friendly Association and congratulated the association on its 60th anniversary.

The Chinese official laid a wreath at the Tomb of Unknown Soldiers at Red Square in downtown Moscow, visited the Lenin Mausoleum and the offices of the widely known media group Russia Today.

Russia is the last leg of Zhang's four-nation trip that began on April 12 and took him to Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus.
Fire broke out at the Bank of India building off the Bombay High Court at the Fort-Kala Ghoda area of Mumbai on Friday.





There were no reports of casualties, however, office furniture and papers were destroyed in the fire. More than 400 persons working in the building was evacuated. The fourth floor of the nearly 130-year-old heritage building was affected in the fire.





The reason of fire is yet unknown.





Mumbai fire brigade chief P S Rahangdale himself supervised the fire fighting operations.





Around half a dozen fire tenders, water tankers and a snorkel was sent to the spot.




A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and urged her to help forge a non-BJP front at the national level, RJD chief Lalu Prasad received a call from Sonia on Friday.



Lalu, whose political outfit RJD is the single largest party in Bihar, said that the only way out to check-mate Narendra Modi is to unite all non-BJP parties and bring them under one umbrella.



I spoke to Sonia Ji and will meet her soon. Time has come for all the non-BJP leaders to put aside their ego and join hands. Past experiences show that whenever we have united, the BJP had to bite dust, just like in Bihar Assembly poll in 2015. And when we have disintegrated, the BJP have romped home, remarked Lalu.



The RJD chief, who has family ties with Samajwadi leader Mulayam Singh, said he was constantly in touch with Akhilesh Yadav and would like Mayawati to join hands with SP to help shape up a Bihar-type Grand Alliance at the national level.



Nitish on Thursday had met Sonia at her New Delhi residence before leaving for Kerala. It is learnt that Nitish advocated the need to forge maximum Opposition unity to fight the BJP, while discussing how like-minded parties can work together. The Bihar Chief Minister also suggested Sonia about fielding a joint candidate for the Presidents post.



Lalu, who got a call from Sonia on Friday, said that the Congress being the largest Opposition party should take the lead in forming the non-BJP front ahead of the presidential election. A few days back, NCP too had echoed similar sentiments when Congress won the bypolls in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.



Lalu, however, refused to be drawn into controversial issues like who would lead the non-BJP front. All like-minded people will sit and decide about the leadership issue when the appropriate time comes, said Lalu, who, of late, has been drawing flak by the BJP over certain land deals in Bihar.




At least 14 people were charred to death in a major fire that broke out during sale of kerosene oil and various food grains at a fair price shop in a village near here, senior officials said.



The blaze started in a cooperative society building, which housed the shop, in Bargi village under Harrai tehsil and engulfed the entire single-storey structure, Chhindwara Superintendent of Police Gaurav Tiwari told PTI.



At least three dozens people were inside the building and many others standing in a queue outside at the time of the incident, he said.



"So far, 14 bodies, three of them of women, have been recovered from the building," the SP said adding three persons were injured.



The tragedy took place when villagers were buying ration during the Friday weekly market. The fire reached the kerosene drums stored in the shop for distribution and quickly spread to all directions, eyewitnesses said.



Soon after getting information, the police and district administration officials rushed to the spot along with fire tenders and brought the blaze under control, the SP said.



He said the cause of the fire was not yet known.



Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan expressed grief over the loss of lives in the mishap and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh each to the kin of those killed and Rs 50,000 each to the injured.



Chhindwara Collector J K Jain also confirmed the death of 14 people in the tragedy and said a magisterial probe has been ordered.



Among the injured, two were referred to the neighbouring Narsinghpur district hospital, while the third one was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Harrai tehsil, he said.



The government also sanctioned Rs 10,000 each for conducting the last rites of the deceased, the collector said.


New Zealand has long wanted to be a tech hub, but distance was an issue. Now, at a moment of political upheaval around the globe, that isolation has become a selling point.



A municipal programme to fly in 100 developers next month  wine them, dine them and offer them jobs  was expected to draw 2,500 applications. But the recruitment effort, called LookSee Wellington, was besieged with more than 48,000 entries, including workers at Google, Amazon, Facebook, MIT and Nasa. At one point so many people checked out the programme that the website failed.



For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, Brexit and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world.



Its just one of those things where the stars are aligned, said David Jones, general manager at the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency.



New arrivals describe New Zealand as more idealistic and less frustrating than other places. In the US, I feel extremely disconnected, said Alanna Irving, 33, who came here from San Francisco to start two companies. Things happen all the time that I dont agree with or understand or think are really good for most people, and I just dont see any way that I can change that. This is the second time New Zealand has tried to use Silicon Valley to jump-start its fledgling tech economy. The current effort is in some ways an outgrowth of the first, featuring the same players.



Peter Thiel, the contrarian investor who made his fortune with PayPal and Facebook, made an irresistible financial proposal to New Zealand in early 2011. He would bring the local economy  whose biggest exports were concentrated milk and the meat from sheep and goats  into the high-tech era. Thiel would serve as the countrys roving technology ambassador, opening doors around the world that are closed to mere government officials.



Even before applying, he set up Valar Ventures, an investment fund named after the gods in The Lord of the Rings. Valar put about $3 million into Xero, an online accounting software firm, and was part of a $4 million infusion of cash into Pacific Fibre, which proposed a trans-Pacific undersea cable. And that, Thiel signaled, would be just the beginning.



I intend to devote a significant amount of my time and resources to the people and businesses of New Zealand, he wrote in his citizenship application. He donated about $7,50,000 to earthquake relief after the city of Christchurch was struck in February 2011.



New Zealand, with a population below five million, gets around 30,000 applications for citizenship annually. Fearful of the potential for corruption and exploitation, it expedites only a handful. Thiel was one of them. The process was so painless that when the news came out about the investors dual New Zealand-US citizenship two months ago, the official in charge said he remembered nothing about it.



We were so blown away that Peter Thiel was interested, said Rod Drury, the chief executive of Xero. Him getting a passport wasnt a big deal at the time. No one really thought about it. In fact, no one even mentioned it  including Thiel, despite his declaration in documents submitted for his application that it would give me great pride to let it be known that I am a New Zealand citizen.



When the secret was revealed, it created a small uproar. Someone being able to invest and get citizenship goes against that important New Zealand value of equality, Drury explained. Thats why it has played so much in the media here. Drury is the biggest name in New Zealands technology scene, a local version of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.



He recommended Thiel for citizenship, and Xero was held up as a model of what, with the investors help, all the new startups could become.



The New Zealand government was so enthusiastic about Thiels investing prowess that it became a partner with him in early 2012, putting about $7 million into a Valar fund. The fund did well, primarily because of its big position in Xero.



But the government did not share in the profits. The deal had a clause that said Valar could simply return the governments investment with a little interest, which it did. Thiel quadrupled his money, The New Zealand Herald reported in February. Steven Joyce, the minister of finance, did not respond to an email request for comment.



Valar is now based in New York, where it has been investing in European and Brazilian companies. Thiel declined to comment. Its sad for New Zealand that Thiel and Valar didnt follow on with more investments, Lance Biggs, a local investor, said. We are starved for cash.



Thiel has been focused elsewhere, including on a long-shot donation of $1.25 million to US President Donald Trumps campaign last year. When Trump unexpectedly won, that paid off for Thiel in a wide-ranging portfolio. Last month his top aide, Michael Kratsios, became the White Houses deputy chief technology officer. Xero, which has 1,400 employees and customers in 180 countries, took a different path. Its goal is to turn accountants into growth consultants, becoming a platform that soars above national borders.



Moral example



Gay marriage, cultural tolerance, refugees, active strategies to address diversity  more than ever our leadership here is important, Drury wrote in an email to his staff immediately after the election. He proposed setting a moral example by bringing some refugee groups into our Wellington office.



A postelection arrival at Xero from the US is Nick Piesco, 40, who was writing code for a startup in Austin, Texas. Id say the timing is coincidental but fortuitous, the programmer said of his move to New Zealand. Already he and his wife, Reneau Skinner, 39, are talking about becoming citizens. One of the things that attracted me to Xero was the culture  how they make people feel welcome, Piesco said.



That means those barred from the US under the new administrations policies, or who think they might be, are ripe for recruitment. Especially in the US technology industry, where something like 50% of the billion-dollar companies have been built by immigrants, its nuts that you make it difficult for engineers to come in, he said. Its crazy for us not to exploit that.



The LookSee Wellington initiative to bring in 100 software engineers was initially focused on Americans. Then word began to spread. By the time the contest was finally cut off on March 30, India had overtaken the US in applications.



Were in a global talent war, said Chris Whelan, chief executive of the Economic Development Agency in Wellington. Drury is already looking to make LookSee an annual affair. After all, it takes the expensive problem of recruitment off Xeros hands and lets the government do it. Its boom time for the next 10 years, Drury said. The more immigrants, the better. Well take a lot. Well take hundreds.




Deputy Commissioner D Randeep, on Friday, said, the 83rd All India Kannada Sahitya Sammelana would be organised by the end of June or in the first week of July in the city.



The deputy commissioner was speaking to reporters after attending the preparatory meeting, on the literary convention, at the DCs office here. Randeep said, the authorities have discussed about organising the sammelana and the final dates will be fixed soon.



Various committees will be constituted and a chairperson will be appointed to each committee to oversee arrangements for the Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in the subsequent meetings, he said



The district administration will hold several meetings along with peoples representatives, leaders of pro-Kannada organisations and activists, DC said. The main venue of the sammelana will be finalised after holding a discussion with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and District in-charge Minister Dr H C Mahadevappa. Another meeting in connection with the festival has been scheduled for April 27 at the Zilla Panchayat auditorium, here, he said.



Rs 5 cr for sammelana

The state government has allocated Rs 5 crore for the sammelana.



The DC said, the government had provided Rs 4 crore for the 82nd festival, Raichur. As the expenditure has been increased, the government has increased the budget for the event, he said.




An employee of Sambhram Institute of Technology, MS Palya, has been booked for threatening to rape the wife and daughter of the college administrator over a financial matter.



Based on a complaint filed by Ajitesh, the administrator of the college, the police registered a case against Anurag Srivatsav, an employee of the college.



According to the police, Ajitesh would collect extra money to allot seats in the engineering section. On learning about this, Srivatsav demanded a share of the money, threatening to expose him if he did not accede to it. However, Ajitesh refused to pay him. An irked Srivatsav started threatening him, but Ajitesh ignored the threats.



He sent a series of vulgar text messages on April 9 between 11 pm and 2 am to the mobile phones of Ajitesh and his. He had also threatened to rape his wife and daughter, said the police. Ajitesh lodged a complaint as he could no longer bear Srivatsavs torture, said the police.



Srivatsav obtained bail in the case.
The Byatarayanapura police have registered a case against a sepoy in the Indian army after his pregnant wife was found dead suspiciously at his elder brothers house on Thursday night.



Asha (24), a native of Kunigal in Tumakuru district was married to Mohan Kumar around two years ago. The couple have a 11-month-old baby. Kumar was posted in Gujarat.



According to the police, Kumar had sent Asha to her native place after she conceived for the second time. He went to Kunigal on Thursday and brought her back to Bengaluru as he wanted to take her to Gujarat along with him. The couple stayed in the Timber Yard house of Ramalingam, the elder brother of Kumar. The couple fought around 9 pm when Kumar thrashed Asha. She called up her brother Ajay Kumar and narrated her ordeal. Later, she slept with her child in a room, the police said.



Asha was found hanging from the ceiling fan when Ajay reached the house. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. Based on a complaint lodged by Ajay, the police registered a case against Kumar.



 He will be detained for questioning. The police are awaiting the post mortem report to ascertain the cause for the death, DCP (West) M N Anucheth told DH. The police have detained Ramalingam for questioning.






Seven students from the city who were among the 320 selected from 45 countries to be part of a two-week intensive leadership programme hosted by the US Space and Rocket Centre (USSRC) in Huntsville, Alabama, shared their experiences.



Interacting with reporters on Friday, Nizam Kurile Thomas, student of Whitefield Global School who was part of the programme said: I was part of the flight simulation session wherein I experienced four times the gravitational force of the earth. I also met my role model, Robert Lee Gibson, a former naval officer and a NASA astronaut who went on five space missions.



We were also given aviation challenges which we attempted on life-like simulators. We got to play the role of the flight crew in Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter jet which was an incredible experience, Thomas added.



Memorable

Naomi Verghese, a student of CMR National PU college and a participant said, Standing next to a rocket, the step-wise demonstration of rocket-building and moon-walking were my most memorable experiences.

Arjun Nair from Kumaran PU college said, I experienced zero-gravity for the first time in life. This for me was the best part of the programme.



Best part

The best part of the programme for all of us was to be able to share our culture and learning with students from countries like Scotland, Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia, US and Canada, said Anusha Jain from Jain College.



Seventeen students from India were selected for the programme. The students got an opportunity to train like an astronaut.



The students were supported by Honeywell to be a part for the programme.




(Xinhua) 20:48, April 21, 2017

BANGKOK, April 21 (Xinhua) -- E-payment method has been growing dramatically in China, changing Chinese people's life and coming out with tourists to other countries, such as Thailand.

Thailand has been the hot destination for Chinese tourists in recent years and China the largest source of group visitors to Thailand.

WeChat Pay, one of the most popular payment methods in China, thus followed the steps of Chinese tourists into Thailand.

During the Songkran festival this year, which is the high season for Chinese tourists to visit Thailand, many Chinese tourists were seen use WeChat Pay in convenience stores, duty-free shops, restaurants and even massage parlors, no matter in Chiang Mai, Phuket or capital Bangkok.

"I don't need to take my wallet out, I don't need to wait for change, there is some discount and no commission, the payment method has so many advantages," said Liu, a woman from Beijing, while shopping in King Power's Bangkok Downtown Complex.

"That we have WeChat Pay here means we can get access to the huge population using WeChat, the most popular social media in China, and it will drive our sales to go up," said Kuang Wei, King Power's manager overseeing the international market.

Kuang said e-payment was introduced to the store at the beginning of 2016. Although only 20 percent to 30 percent of payments are paid by e-payment methods, e-payment is growing quickly as the store has many Chinese customers who are already used to use these methods to pay.

A Thai restaurant called Thevaros, where WeChat Pay was introduced 14 months ago, in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, told Xinhua that their revenue increased some 50 percent after introducing WeChat Pay.

When compared with traditional payments by credit or debit cards, Yin Jie, who is in charge of WeChat Pay's overseas service, said e-payment can help sellers to communicate with their customers and improve their service according to feedback from customers, which is a big advantage.

According to WeChat Pay, the transaction volume in Thailand grew dramatically during the Chinese lunar new year and Thai new year Songkran in 2017.

Yin told Xinhua that WeChat Pay's overseas service focus only on Chinese tourists now, as the service is available in 12 countries and regions such as South Korea, Japan, Canada, China's Taiwan.

"We may extend our service to the Thai market in the long term," Yin said.
KAS officer K Mathai has written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stating that he is being harassed by his senior officers and that an independent accountability commission be constituted to enquire into the same.



In his letter, Mathai, who is serving as an administrative officer in Sakala Mission, has stated that during his tenure as assistant commissioner (advertisement), BBMP, he had brought to light revenue loss to the extent of Rs 2,000 crore to the civic agency in 2015. Similarly, he had exposed revenue loss to the extent of Rs 300 crore to Mandya Urban Development Authority in 2014.



However, instead of appreciating his hard work, Mathai stated that he had been continously subjected to harassment leading to agony.



The letter states that he had been issued 27 transfer orders in the past nine years. His waiting period salary had not been paid for the past two years.


The Supreme Court collegium has for a second time reiterated its recommendation for appointment of 37 candidates as judges of various high courts (HC).



It is learnt that on April 10, the collegium  a body of five senior-most judges of the apex court  reiterated its decision.



While 19 names are for the Allahabad High Court, 10 are for the Calcutta High Court, five for Madras and three for Karnataka.



The collegiums decision is now with the government, which is yet to take a final call.



As per the established practice, the government usually appoints a person as judge once the collegium reiterates its recommendation. But in the recent past, the government has shown its disapproval by returning the recommendations more than once.



Last year, former chief justice of India T S Thakur had recommended 77 people for appointment as judges of various high courts.



However, the government returned 43 names for reconsideration after it found that reports against the candidates were not positive.



The collegium then reiterated its recommendations for 43 names, but the government claimed the recommendations for 37 names were sent back. It said three proposals were deferred while three other names are still with the collegium.



Notably, the latest development comes days after the collegium rejected the governments proposal to insert a national security clause in the memorandum of procedure.


The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a bunch of petitions challenging the Karnataka rules pertaining to the reservation of the posts of president and vice president of zilla panchayats (ZPs) in the state.



A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer dismissed the plea made by Janata Dal (S) leader Latha and others. You have gone to the high court which had dismissed your petitions...we don't find any reason to interfere with the HC's order, the bench said.



Latha and others, who were elected members of Hassan ZP, had challenged the Karnataka High Court's order of January 6, 2017. The high court had dismissed their plea for quashing the April 15, 2016 notification by the state government.



The petitioners had sought direction to strike down the Karnataka Panchayat Raj (Zilla Panchayat Reservation for the post of President and Vice President) Rules for being illegal and arbitrary.



Senior advocate Basava Prabhu Patil, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that the reservations for the post of president and vice president in ZP has to be made on a rotation basis in order to give due representations to all.



Secondly, the reservations have to be done, taking into consideration the population of a particular caste or category, he said. Patil also pointed out that in Hassan district, the Scheduled Tribes people were about 0.08% but the post of ZP president was reserved for ST (woman) candidate, though it should have gone to the SC category. This was in violation of Article 243 D of the Constitution, he said.



The petitioners also claimed there were at least seven other ZPs, which according to the ST population ranked above Hassan.



These ZPs are Chikkaballapur, Dharwad, Gadag, Bengaluru (Rural), Chikkamagaluru, Bengaluru (Urban) and Vijayapura. But the state government arbitrarily fixed reservation for the ST (woman) category for Hassan ZP, just to make mala fide political gain and, in complete breach of rules.



Patil also submitted that the high court, among others, held that since a matter pertaining to the 2010 notification on the reservation was pending before the apex court, it decided not to intervene in the similar issue raised by the petitioners. The Supreme Court, however, was unmoved and declined to allow the plea by the petitioners.
Almost 1,000 officials and elected representatives from 200 cities across India are set to be trained by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, and the Administrative Staff College of India, in better implementation of the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).



A vulnerability mapping is being done to understand what individual urban areas need and where the funds are to be channelised, K Rajeswara Rao, joint secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said here on Friday.



The official said he had written to all the mayors in Karnataka to ensure the efficient use of the allocated funds, and called for improved focus and framing of guidelines.



Earlier, speaking at an NUHM workshop for urban local bodies, Rao said Karnataka was the top spender of funds sanctioned under the scheme in the past year. It has spent Rs 99 crore. Rathan Kelkar, mission director, National Health Mission, Karnataka, said the state had unutilised funds of Rs 38 crore as it didnt use up the money sanctioned earlier.



Rao said there were 50% vacancies for Asha (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers and 40% for district programme management staff in Karnataka.


The state government will soon launch a green policy to promote and conserve the environment, said Priyank Kharge, tourism and IT- BT minister on Friday.



We are involving all stakeholders in formulating the green policy to ensure that it is comprehensive and ensures that the environment is protected from future plunder. The proposed green policy is in the final stages of completion, he said at a conference on Sustainable Tourism: Road Map for Karnataka, organised by Bangalore Chambers of Industry and Commerce.



Kharge said the state government was also working towards creating a cultural hub on the lines of the one in Goa, where travellers would be able to experience the local flavours of the city like its food, lifestyle, culture and tradition. He said Freedom Park was being explored as a probable location for the cultural hub. He added that the government also proposes to showcase the states history through a concisely curated module of around 45 minutes.



He said there is a need to spread more awareness about sustainable tourism which is often confused with eco-tourism. The latter is only one part of sustainable tourism. The concept is not to hide the local culture, but to understand the local way of life, which leads to conservation, he said.



Reacting to the Supreme Court ban on liquor shops along national and state highways, he said he was personally against it. He said the idea does not serve any purpose. Instead, the government should frame stricter laws and slap hefty fines like revoking driving licences at the very first instance of drunken driving.




Kannada Development Authority (KDA) has decided to hold a Police Literary Convention to provide a platform for expressing the literary skills of cops.



The KDA will include the Police Literary Convention in its action plan for this year and will bear its expenses, said Prof S G Siddaramaiah, KDA chairman, while reviewing the implementation of Kannada in police administration at the City Police Commissioners office on Friday.



Siddaramaiah directed the police brass to take action against those opposing use of Kannada in IT sector and against those posting hate messages about Kannada on Facebook. He directed Police Commissioner Praveen Sood to use Kannada in all police notifications and social media platforms.



Senior officer Rajappa expressed displeasure over the attitude of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat. There are over 500 litterateurs in the Police department. The Parishat invites policemen only to provide security during its annual literary conventions. The Parishat has ignored the writers in the department. The Police Literary Forum has conducted four state-level poetic meets, he said while referring to writer Prof Chandrashekhar Patils suggestion on launching a Police Kannada Sangha.



About 80% of the administration takes place in Kannada. I have directed the subordinate staff to use Kannada in social media platforms, Sood told reporters after the meeting.






The High Court of Karnataka on Friday said that the PIL challenging the names that have been recommended by the collegium for appointment of high court judges is too prematurely filed.



Specially constituted division bench comprising Justices A S Bopanna and Ravi Malimath said that the petitioner has filed the PIL out of anxiety. The bench said that as advocates, it is their duty to protect the integrity of the institution. The bench said that it was too early to hear the PIL as the list of names have only been recommended and not finalised.



The PIL filed by N P Amruthesh, an advocate has challenged the names that have been recommended by the collegium for appointment of judges, contending that majority of the names are from one particular caste. The petitioner has said that of the 10 advocates who have been finalised for elevation, six belong to a particular caste. According to the details filed before the court, Krishna Dixit, K N Phanindra, Aravind Kamath, G S Kannur, S G Pandit and Chaithanya, are all Brahmins. The others whose names figure in the list are: R Devdas (SC), B M Sham Prasad (Vokkaliga), Nagaprasanna (Lingayat) and Sunil Yadav (Yadavas).



The petitioner has also contended that the collegium has no machinery to assess the integrity, honesty or other basic requirements to hold the post of high court judge. He has said that two judges from the collegium had no information about the legal competence of the persons whom they were recommending.



The petitioner has said that the collegium has failed to follow the law laid down by the NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission) and its ground for recommendation lacked transparency. He has sought directions to High Court of Karnataka to follow the law laid in the NJAC case in recommending the name to the post of high court judges.


Norway Details New Foreign and Security Policy



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Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

Trend:

Trend's interview with Niyaz Ismailov, the Chairman of the Board at PASHA Life Insurance

Which activities of PASHA Life in 2016 were marked by success?

As the previous years -2016, is remembered as a year of successful work in PASHA Life. Last year, in November, we were celebrating the 6th anniversary of the companys registration. During this period we have gained a number of achievements and even won several international awards.

In terms of financial indicators, I can note that the volume of insurance premiums was 77.679 million manat for the last year, compared to 2015, it has been increased by 42.5 % this year. During the reporting year the volume of assets was reached 160 million manat and share capital volume was 40.250 million manat.

Of course, in addition to charges the insurance payments were high as well. According to last years various insurance accident, "PASHA Life" paid 45.907 million manat insurance payments. In contrast with the previous year the amount of payments was increased by 3 times.

Up to now, all insurance payments in "PASHA Life" were fully implemented in a timely manner without any delays and based on all the requirements of the legislation. It is obvious that one of the major points of interest for potential customers in insurance companies is the amount of insurance payments. Experience shows that the payments which were realized in a timely manner and its high amount increase confidence and trust of the customer to the company. That is why, we always attempt to realize all insurance payments in time.

In addition, I would like to note that all our gained achievements both in finance and other fields belong to every member of "PASHA Life" family. I think that 2017 would be more memorable for PASHA Life. As a professional team we are absolutely confident in it.

Which priorities are expected in this year after last changes in a companys structure according to new Chairman of the Board?

-Any institutional changes is an ordinary process which can take place in the course of any business or organization. This process, of course, is always a good way to use. At present, the company re-designed its structure. It will create more opportunities in order to achieve the goals we have set. Creating the products on favorable terms to customers' requirements and for sale to other priority issues to be developed and introduced to the market will eventually lead to an increase in sales volume.

Is it expected to introduce new insurance products to the market by "PASHA Life" ?

-Yes, we plan to introduce new products to the market in relation to a life insurance product in the near future. All of these issues are a priority for us in this year. However, now, various life insurance products are offered to customers by the company. Moreover, newly designed insurance product will be introduced as a unique one. We hope that the new product will be accessible to everyone.

We also would like to know the predictions on the volume of insurance premiums by the end of this year.

-Generally, there are certain staretgies in any field, that focus on right directions. These strategies result in achievement of goals and they match with the companies predictions. As " PASHA Life" has always chosen appropriate strategies aligned with it is organizational targets, it has justified its predictions for certain periods

By the end of current year we are planning the increase in the volume of insurance premiums to 102 million. As in previous years, as a result of cost-effective and purposeful activity , we hope that our forecasts will be fully implemented by the end of the year.

World experience shows that the implementation of new technologies to the insurance sector lags behind comparing with banking and other sectors. I think that the situation is the same in Azerbaijan as well. We would like to know your opinion on this issue.

-Indeed, I absolutely agree with current situation and accept it. However, we are trying to implement new technology in frames of maximum context of legislation permission. The application of digitalisation is our major priority for the current year.

In addition, our webpage has been redesign as recently. The update is made by taking into account the modern-day mobile users. Besides, we are going to lunch a new mobileapplication for Android and iOS usedrs in the first quarter of the year.

Our webpage has been redesigned with the latest innovations and this one will be more convenient for the customers compared to the previous one. So, life insurance products are presented in a very comfortable way for the potential customers via an "apply online" form and a "personal cabinet" has been created for current customers. Our customers by using personal cabinet will be able to carry out all insurance operations. To sum up, our new customer-oriented webpage is designed for the convenience of the customers.

How does your company meet the requirements of the qualified and professiona staff? A lot of graduated students rejected by HR departments because of lack of experience. What will be your companys approach in this case.

-Surely, as life insurance is a new sphere in Azerbaijan economy, it requires more professioanl specialists. Because of that, our company creates the opportunities for the professional development of its staff, provides various trainings in this field, as well as measures internal qualification trainings. As a result, employees achieve career growth within the company. At the same time, capable and skilled employees are filled at certain positions through the job rotation.

When it comes to the issues of hiring students, I can say that " PASHA Life" carries it out on the basis of special program. The implementation of this program started in July 2013. Our main goal is to increase the interest of students to the insurance sphere, along with expanding their knowledge and skills on this field. We do it through organizing free Master Classes on different topics of insurance in educational institutions and in our company as well.

We invite distinguished students to the test examination in order to continue their activity in our company.

In particular, it should be noted that trained 2,200 students have benefited from the 93 Master Classes under this program, and 6 of the participants have been provided with relevant jobs in PASHA Life.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

The Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict threatens stability in the South Caucasus region, Christopher Gunn, assistant professor at the Department of History in the US Coastal Carolina University, told Trend.

Gunn was taking part in the 1st International Forum of Caucasus Studies Scholars held in Baku.

He said that his research involves the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is one of the ongoing conflicts since the end of the Cold War.

It is tragic that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has not been resolved, he said. Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territory and it is something that should be resolved soon.

It is shocking that there has been no enforcement of the UN Security Council resolutions on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, he noted.

There have been other instances on implementation of UN resolutions, he said, adding that the lack of activity regarding the UN resolutions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in many ways speaks to some of the hypocrisy or double standards in the west and the UN.

Azerbaijan is the most powerful country in the South Caucasus region and the country is a key to prosperity and stability in this region, he said.

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.
Siobhan Marroquins singing cuts off mid-verse, stopping her hands against the strings of her ukulele. With her son Joey, 3, propped up behind a keyboard in front of her, she frets that his older sister Grace, whos visiting with her father, isnt going to like such a slow tempo.

Lindsay Zehren, a music therapist with Sorrento Valley-based Resounding Joy, sits cross-legged with a guitar on the floor next to them both. With reassuring tones in her voice, she gently strums the chords theyve been piecing together over the past few months.

They cycle through the verses another time, settling somewhere closer to mid-tempo. Theres an unspoken urgency: Joey was put on hospice last month.

We know the challenges arent over, but weve got what we need, they sing together. We have our love, our faith, and well always be a family.

The session Saturday morning in Marroquins La Mesa apartment  cramped full with an array of musical and medical instruments  wouldnt have been possible if not for the continued growth of the Ariana Miller Heart of a Child Concert, which funds music therapy programs at Rady Childrens Hospital. Ariana had flourished under Resounding Joys care even as she succumbed to congenital heart disease. After she died in 2008, her parents Jeff and Anita Miller wanted other young cardiac patients at Rady to enjoy the same support Ariana had. Since 2011, the concert has funded music therapy for more than 1,000 families and has become a top showcase for San Diegos most accomplished young musical acts. This years concert will be held Saturday, April 22.

The $70,000 raised last year enabled Zehren to give home therapy to five families a week instead of only two. But still, more than 100 families languish on the wait list.

The Marroquins were one of the families lucky enough to make it off that list. Theyve made the most out of their sessions with Zehren, building a close rapport over their three months of work to craft their family song.

Zehren leads them through other songs, too  Light of Mine, Twinkle Twinkle, If Youre Happy and You Know It, and the like. If she lingers too long between songs, Joey vocalizes a sound  yearning and meek  that theyve come to recognize as his way of saying More.

Joey suffers from an extremely rare chromosomal disorder that affects his heart function, breathing, hearing and motor skills. His type of cerebral palsy all but robs him of control over his body. His communication barely rises above the most rudimentary levels. But from their very first session, his mother had no doubt that it was taking effect.

You could see it in his eyes. That first day, having the different instruments in his reach, he just lit up in this new way, she says. Lindsay noticed it, I noticed it, the nurse noticed it. The nurse and I were teary-eyed and starting to cry. Grace was like Wow, Joeys really playing, mommy! It was this amazing moment of realizing we had found something to reach him with.

Over the sessions that followed, Zehren honed a package of songs right for them  music that lets Joey reach out and gives his mother and sister a way in.

Hes just really blossomed in the last few months, she says. Despite going physically downhill, emotionally and mentally he has gone so tremendously forward. Its really helped him feel like he can have more trust in a world that isnt geared for kids like him.

This is the Joey that shes going to remember, the joyful boy with the indomitable spirit in the pediatric ward at Radys, unsoured by infections and one painful procedure after another, smiling and cooing at doctors flabbergasted by his resolve, the kid with the Pink Floyd t-shirt whom nurses at Radys nick-named crazy legs for his penchant to thrash gleefully anytime music would strike up in the ICU.

Hes just this sweet, unrealistically happy guy, despite all hes been through, she says, watching warmly as Zehren shows Joey a lollipop-colored hand drum, which he nuzzles, his face bending into an unmistakable smile.

Youre amazing, Zehren says, half-singing, her face tenderly approaching his. You really are.

Doctors dont know how much time Joey has left. His mom admits its probably less than she had hoped. But Zehren will be back next week, and the week after  for as long as Joey is physically able. If circumstances allow, shell record them performing their song together  a legacy project Resounding Joy does with many of its families.

When Joeys light does finally go out, his mother will play the song at his funeral.

It describes him and describes Grace and their special bond so well, she says. Its been such a gift to be able to share that with them, to have something that Grace and I can always 

Her voice trails off. She looks again at her son.

Music, she says, music is eternal.

This years Ariana Miller Heart of a Child concert starts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 22, at Irwin M. Jacobs Hall in Sorrento Valley. Food trucks open at 5:45 p.m., followed by a reception and silent auction at 6 p.m. Tickets are available at www.resoundingjoyinc.org/event/heart-of-a-child/
One of the most important duties for the parents of teenagers, according to Solana Beach family medicine physician Ellen Rodarte, is to nag their children.

We have to constantly nag them and warn them about the risks of things. Thats our job, said Rodarte, who practices at Sharp Rees-Stealys Del Mar medical center. They are supposed to be annoyed with us and say leave us alone and we are supposed to nag them.

In particular, said Rodarte, 43, teens need to be reminded of the risks of using drugs and alcohol and sexual activity, topics that may be uncomfortable for both sides. And the recent ballot measure that legalized marijuana for recreational use in California means that the potential dangers posed by the drug must be reinforced for young people.

Rodarte, who grew up in Solana Beach, went away for medical school and then came back to practice, sees everyone from newborns to adults in her practice. But she has a special message for the teenagers who come in to her clinic.

Every teen visit is an opportunity to talk to families about two important subjects - drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and the other is sexual activity, she said.

Its especially important to talk to teenagers about risky behaviors and their consequences, she said, because the part of the brain that can understand consequences doesnt fully develop until a person is in his or her early 20s.

Its just how their brains are built. Their brains are built to crave risk, said Rodarte. They are at high risk to do bad things in their teen years. We know in medicine that we have to talk to teens about some of these risky behaviors and what the consequences are.

Rodarte said she will start the conversation with both teens and parents present, and then ask the parents to leave so that she can speak to the teens privately. Confidentiality rules prevent her from sharing what the teens tell her, unless she learns they are being abused or want to harm themselves.

Some parents get angry when she speaks to their children about such sensitive topics, but Rodarte said she feels it is her duty to make sure that teens get the information they need about risky behaviors.

If the parents dont want her to talk to their kids, said Rodarte, then she tells them they must have such conversations at home.

The point, she said, is to hammer home the negative consequences over and over by telling teens stories from real life about people they have known, or even the parents own experiences.

As for marijuana use, she said, even though adults can legally use the drug, it is still illegal for those under 21 years old. While occasional use of marijuana may not be the end of the world, she said, abuse of the drug can have a host of ill effects on a developing teenage brain, from being a gateway to harder drugs, to amotivational syndrome, basically not wanting to do anything. Studies have also suggested that heavy marijuana use as a teenager can lead to higher risk of developing schizophrenia later in life, she said.

Marijuana is also addictive, she said. Although the withdrawal symptoms are not as severe as narcotics or certain other drugs, she said that withdrawing from pot can cause anxiety and irritability.

Since todays teens face a lot of pressure at school, parents can help by modeling positive stress relief activities, such as exercise, relaxing with friends and getting plenty of sleep, Rodarte said.

Rodarte and her husband, who is also a physician, have three children, ages 5, 7 and 9, so she has a bit of time before she will have to deal with teenage brains in her own family. But she is prepared to follow her own advice and talk often to her children about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and sexual activity.

Resources for parents, she said, include the website www.drugabuse.gov, and the book, The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientists Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults, by Frances E. Jensen and Amy Ellis Nutt.

Our teens need extra support, said Rodarte. They need parents who are involved and present, and (set) loving, firm limits.
CBREs John Read recently announced that his National Retail Partners  West (NRP-West) team, along with Reg Kobzi in CBREs San Diego office, completed the sale of BeachWalk, a 54,973-square-foot coastal retail center in the city of Solana Beach, according to a press release. Situated along Highway 101, the property is steps to the Pacific Ocean, walking distance to the Cedros Design District and Amtrak Train Station, and less than a mile from the Del Mar Fairgrounds, site of the Del Mar Racetrack. The sale price was $33.25 million.

CBREs retail investment experts Read, Philip Voorhees, Jimmy Slusher, Kirk Brummer, and Kobzi, represented the seller, a partnership managed by The Muller Company, an Orange County-based real estate investment company. The buyer, a fund manager based in Chicago, also represented by CBREs NRP-West team, acquired BeachWalk as an addition to its portfolio, the press release said. Built in 1993, BeachWalk shopping center sits on 3.06-acre site at 437 S. Highway 101 in Solana Beach. According to Read, the CBRE teams marketing system distributed more than 540 offering memoranda to investors and brokers, and through the teams managed bid offer process, generated eight offers to purchase the property.

True coastal retail projects like BeachWalk seldom come to market. The propertys internet-resistant daily needs and complementary tenancy with national, regional and local operators, including California Pizza Kitchen, Alfonsos of La Jolla, Rubios Coastal Grill, Banfield Pet Hospital, and other established tenants, make the property an integral part of this coastal community, said Read.

There are few alternatives in this immediate area and coastal areas in general for tenants seeking more traditional retail center space with adequate on-site parking, keeping occupancy levels high, Read noted. Based on the propertys configuration, strong historical occupancy, improving tenancy and upward trending rents in this highly affluent trade area where average household income exceeds $142,000, Beachwalk is a trophy asset in a coastal location that will maintain its dominant market position for years to come.

In 2015, the NRP-West team, formerly known as National Retail Investment Group - West (NRIG-West), was CBREs #1 retail investment team nationally with a total transaction volume exceeding $940 million in 63 transactions, encompassing 88 properties, totaling more than four million square feet in size. With this closing, CBREs NRP-West team has closed 212 transactions since the start of 2012 for a total consideration of $3.8 billion. In total, the NRP-West team has listed and sold more than $9.7 billion in retail transactions. More information is available at www.cbre.com/nrpwest
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 21

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

The EU does not exclude the possibility of cooperation with the Azerbaijan-Armenia Platform for Peace, initiated by Azerbaijan,EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Herbert Salber, who has completed his visit to Azerbaijan, told Trend April 21.

The Azerbaijan-Armenia Platform for Peace, established in December 2016, will take actions to reconcile the Azerbaijani and Armenian people.

Salber said that the Azerbaijan-Armenia Platform is at the very beginning of its activities.

I met yesterday one of the promoters of the platform, he said. I am open for contacts. I will try to understand what this platform is about.

During his recent visit, Salber met with the Azerbaijani president, deputy foreign minister, and other representatives of the countrys government and tried to see where the process of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is now.

I believe that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be solved in a peaceful way, without military means what is very important, he said.

The EU is not directly involved as the mediator to the Nagorno-Karabakh resolution process, he said. We recognize that this is the prerogative of the OSCE Minsk Group.

When I hear criticism against the OSCE Minsk Groups activity, I have to say one thing, the peace deal has to be made between the sides of the conflict, he said. International Community can only assist, can only make proposals, but the international community can not somehow push two sides into an agreement.

A political settlement is possible if the ceasefire is respected, he said.

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.

As for the EU-Azerbaijan relations, Salber stressed that the relations are undoubtedly at a high level, especially after EUs High Representative Federica Mogherinis visit to Azerbaijan in early 2017 and the agreements on concluding new agreements that are being prepared in Brussels.
Details added (first version posted at 10:55)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Ilyumzhinov hailed the excellent organization of Shamkir Chess 2017 super tournament commemorating the late international grandmaster Vugar Hashimov.

The FIDE president said that by hosting such a prestigious tournament Azerbaijan contributes to the expansion of international cooperation in the field of sport and development of regional tourism. He said many people around the world follow the tournament with great interest.

President Ilham Aliyev noted the significance of Shamkir Chess 2017 super tournament, adding that it has already become a traditional one.

The head of state said that participation of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as well as the worlds top chess players elevates the level of the tournament. President Aliyev emphasized the importance of the fact that apart from Baku, such prestigious international events are also held in districts of Azerbaijan. The head of state said great work has been done to develop districts and create the necessary infrastructure in the country.

Great state attention to sport in Azerbaijan was hailed at the meeting. President Ilham Aliyev and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov discussed cooperation prospects.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

A visa-free regime between Azerbaijan and the EU is possible, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Herbert Salber, who visited Azerbaijan, told Trend Apr. 21.

Before a visa-free regime is gained between the EU and Azerbaijan, a number of procedures and technical issues should be discussed, he said.

It is hard to say now when it will happen, but we are now at the very early stage of this consideration, he added.

Earlier, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys Spokesperson Hikmat Hajiyev said that abolition of visas for Azerbaijani citizens is one of the topics of discussions between Baku and Brussels.

New agreement between the two sides will be comprehensive, Salber further said of the new Azerbaijan-EU agreement. It will include not only political issues, but also trade, energy, some other specific issues.

We are glad that the negotiations have been launched and we hope they could be concluded within this year, he said, adding this will build a solid basis for future cooperation between two sides.

The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan in November 2016.

The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today.

The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.
A UK doctor has called for an overhaul of guidance related to the diagnosis and management of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in adults.

DKA is a complication of type 1 diabetes and, in some cases, latent autoimmune diabetes of adults (LADA), characterised by a lack of insulin aggravated by high blood sugar levels and the build-up of ketone bodies in the blood.

In a new editorial written in The Lancet, Dr Ketan Dhatariya, a diabetes and endocrinology consultant based at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Trust, argues that our national guidance is laconic.

He believes that the international recommendations we resort to are largely outdated, and that a number of modifications should be made, highlighting new evidence that has emerged since the American Diabetes Associations (ADA) last position statement on DKA in 2009.

Dhatariyas proposed changes include the use of more criteria to define DKA and different management options for short-term complications of DKA.

The problem with the diagnosis of DKA, as seen by Dhatariya, is twofold: the blood sugar cut-off point of 13.9 mmol/L to identify DKA is set too high, and DKA is too often diagnosed based on a single risk factor like the disruption of insulin treatment or elevated ketone levels.

Drawing from accumulated professional experience, Dhatariya knows that many patients vulnerable to DKA can present with smaller increases in blood sugar levels than this cut-off point after lowering their insulin dose, reducing their food intake, or when ill.

By referring to the standardised cut off score of 13.9 mmol/mol, euglycemic DKA (defined as DKA without marked hyperglycemia) seen in patients with gestational diabetes or those treated with SGLT2 inhibitors, can go amiss too. Euglycemic DKA is thought to occur when blood sugar levels are as low as 11.1 mmol/L.

Dhatariya would also like to see introduced an alternate ketone testing method in the guidelines. Urine methods for the early diagnosis of DKA test for the ketone body acetoacetate, but do not usually detect for a separate ketone body known as beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHA).

Recent studies have found BHA to be the predominant ketone body at the onset of DKA and suggest that the measurement of blood BHA is a more accurate predictor of ketosis than is the detection of acetoacetate through the urine.

In terms of in-hospital care, Dhatariya urged simplified DKA management, similar to the Emergency Valuable Approach and Diabetes Education (EVADE) protocol used in US emergency rooms, to treat patients with mild and moderate DKA.

Dhatariya concluded by calling for either new national guidelines or revised DKA international guidance that is evidence-based, practical, and easy to follow to be used by healthcare staff managing DKA in the UK.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Ilhama Isabalayeva  Trend:

Azerbaijan is interested in expanding the dialogue with the EU on supporting the spheres of tourism, education, culture, small and medium enterprises and others, said Aysel Yagubova, head of the Department of Human Rights and Democracy of Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry.

Yagubova made the remarks while addressing the seminar, titled Creation and Management of Information Bases in the Civil Service, in Baku Apr. 21.

She noted that the dialogue with the EU is one of priority spheres for Azerbaijan, and it is important for the development of relations.

The Eastern Partnership program is one of the effective platforms for forming cooperation with the EU and the program participants, said the department head.

Yagubova also recalled that during the recent visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels, negotiations on a new document between Azerbaijan and the EU were officially started.
Hyundai has been one of the biggest automakers in the Indian car industry. While most car buyers have followed Hyundai based on affordability, increased ease of ownership and maintenance and driving comforts, much of its latest push behind cars is on the technology front. For instance, its latest cars like the Hyundai Elantra and the facelifted 2017 Grand i10 offer increasing technology like ever before. Its older cars, the Hyundai i20 Elite and the Creta have also received significant updates with the new AVN variants, providing a complete overall technology package in the cars.

Looking forward, it is this and a lot more of technology that Hyundai aims to include in its cars in future. In an interview with ET Auto, Rakesh Srivastava, Director of Sales and Marketing at Hyundai India, affirmed the same, alongside pledging to introduce more technology than just the in-car infotainment services. In tandem with discussing a number of pertinent questions for car technology, Srivastava also spoke about Hyundais focus on hybrid and mild hybrid driving, alongside introducing a sustainable framework for electric vehicles and automatic gearboxes in its compact hatchbacks.

Eight new cars in four years

While specific model details were not revealed, Hyundai seems in line for launching eight new cars in India by 2020. India is incidentally one of Hyundais prime markets, with the company recording second-highest number of units sold behind Maruti Suzuki and registering a year-on-year rise for the month of February in 2017. The Korean carmaker has targeted cumulative sales (including domestic and exports) of 6,72,000 units in CY 2017, and its manufacturing plant in Chennai is capable of churning out 7,00,000 units in one calendar year.



The Hyundai Grand i10 - soon to become smarter?

According to latest affirmations, Hyundai will focus on in-car technology on all of its upcoming cars to differentiate itself, and as Srivastava puts it, the company is pushing to achieve sales of 1 million units annually, by 2021. Hyundais latest cars have differentiating elements in their respective classes, like cooled seats, Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and integrated satellite navigation on the Hyundai Elantra, and a similar infotainment suite and DRLs on the new Grand i10. With its upcoming cars, Hyundai also plans to introduce fully hybrid and mild hybrid drivetrains to rival the likes of Maruti Suzuki and Toyota. The new cars will range across compact, sedan and SUV categories.

Hybrid, Mild hybrid, Electric and AMT

The Toyota Camry Hybrid is the most affordable hybrid car in the country right now, closely followed by the new Prius, and then the Honda Accord Hybrid, which costs significantly more by virtue of being a CBU. It is this segment that Hyundai may attempt to target, introducing a hybrid drive car loaded with end-user-accessible technology like 3D satellite navigation units, improved in-car AV based on its present infotainment platform, and pricing it competitively. Hyundai India also holds the distinction of being the third highest contributor to Hyundais global sales, which also gives ground for Hyundai to make the car in India and avail taxation benefits on the pricing of an India-assembled hybrid vehicle.

Maruti Suzuki, meanwhile, has cashed in on the mild hybrid drive benefits, introducing the Smart Hybrid Vehicle System (SHVS) to increase fuel efficiency and provide better power optimisation. Cars like the Maruti Ciaz and Ertiga have differentiated themselves with SHVS variants, and Hyundai may also enjoy a similar run of form with mild hybrid versions of its compact offerings like Grand i10, Xcent and others. This can also make for an interesting market distribution, as Maruti has been said to have plans for introducing a mild hybrid version of its new Swift in 2018.



The new Maruti Suzuki Swift may get a mild hybrid variant

While mild hybrid systems are not as efficient and clean as full-fledged hybrid cars, they still use regenerative power stored while braking to take the load off engines and provide effectively higher mileage. They also save on emissions and fuel with automatic start/stop systems, and all of this makes these cars significantly cleaner and more efficient.

Hyundai is also focusing on electric vehicles going forward, and Srivastava has talked about the importance of simultaneously setting up an electric charging framework across India over the next few years. The need for establishing the electric vehicle charging framework has been previously discussed when Tesla CEO Elon Musk briefly mentioned of his plans to introduce the companys uber-futuristic cars in India. The government is reportedly involved in looking into the specifics of such an infrastructure, and talks/arrangements of electric charging networks can certainly encourage wider sales and awareness of electric cars in the country.

Being an early mover can be a major boon for Hyundai. Indian automaker Tata Motors is looking to enter the commercial segment of electric vehicles by unveiling a production-ready prototype of an electric commuter bus, the Starbus Electric. Electric cars in India include Mahindras range of e2o and e-Verito in India, but none of them have really experienced significant upsurge of sales. The ground is reasonably empty, and the Korean giant has the expertise to include sophisticated technology in its cars.

In terms of AMT transmissions, more car buyers are showing inclinations toward inexpensive automatic transmission vehicles in face of rising city traffic by the day. As a result, Hyundais word of looking at more cars featuring AMT variants may fare well for its increasing customer base. The likes of Hyundai Grand i10 and Xcent may particularly benefit from AMT gearboxes, seeing that the likes of Tata Tiago, etc have gone ahead and unveiled AMT variants to appeal to the increasing customer demand for automatic transmissions.

Hyundai Ioniq

In line with all of Hyundais present future-oriented plans, the company will also reportedly bring the Hyundai Ioniq to India by 2018. Confirmed to be present at the 2018 New Delhi Auto Expo, the Hyundai Ioniq will be a tech-laden car to be offered in hybrid and electric trims, along with a host of gizmos inside. The new Hyundai Ioniq reportedly offers better on-road fuel efficiency than the Prius, house two LCD displays inside to relay information, and a lot more. Expect more information as more launches approach later this year.



2018 Hyundai Ioniq - heading to India next year!

Hyundais big bet is to play to its strengths and provide more technology to make its cars more appealing. The company has the resources to make its future models successful, and it now remains to be seen how its upcoming lineup fares in accordance with present market conditions.
Samsung Galaxy S8 was launched in May 2017 & runs on Android 7.0 OS. The Smartphone is available in more than three color options i.e.Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver, Coral Blue, Maple Gold, Burgundy Red & has a built in fingerprint sensor as the primary security feature, along with the host of connectivity options in terms of 3G, 4G, GPS, Wifi, NFC Bluetooth capabilities. Priced at Rs. 37990 the phone is available with 64 GB of internal storage.

The Smartphone

is powered by 2.3 GHz Octa core Exynos 8895 Processor. A 4 GB of RAM ensures phone runs smoothly even the most memory intensive applications & still shows no signs of lag. 64 GB of internal storage can be expanded to 256 GB via a microSD card.

The Phone comes with a large 3000 mAh battery to support it's 5.8 inch screen with Quad HD Plus Super AMOLED Capacitive touchscreen display having a resolution of 1440 x 2960 at 570 ppi. The screen is also protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass.

Samsung Galaxy S8 comes with a 12 megapixel rear Camera and 8 megapixel front Camera. The Smartphone is also loaded with Optical Image Stablization and has a low camera aperture of 1.7. It also supports Face Detection and high dynamic range(HDR) imaging.
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The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday fined Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) $156.6 million for violating foreign exchange rules and running afoul of the Volcker Rule, Reuters reported.

The German bank failed to detect and halt its traders from using chat rooms to communicate with competitors, the Fed said in a statement.

Central bank officials are "requiring the firm to cooperate in any investigation of the individuals involved in the conduct underlying the FX enforcement," according to the statement.

In a statement, the bank said, "we are pleased to resolve these civil enforcement matters with the Federal Reserve."

The Fed also said it found gaps in Deutsche Bank compliance with the Volcker Rule, which prohibits government-protected banks from engaging in proprietary trading.

The foreign exchange violations were discovered during a four-year-old review of dealings at the bank, the Fed said in a consent order reached with Deutsche Bank.

The bank agreed to improve its oversight of foreign exchange trades as part of the agreement with the Fed.

Deutsche still faces a probe by New Yorks Department of Financial Services into whether its automated trading platform was programed to manipulate foreign exchange rates, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The New York regulator has been investigating whether the bank used algorithms on trading platforms to front-run or otherwise take advantage of clients.

Renee Calabro, a spokeswoman for Deutsche, declined to comment on the status of the New York probe.

Deutsche was not sanctioned in earlier global probes of foreign exchange manipulation. It was among a handful of banks that settled with Brazil's antitrust watchdog Cade in December.

But the U.S. Department of Justice, UK's Financial Conduct Authority and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission all declined to bring actions against Deutsche, while other banks were hammered for failing to stop traders on the spot market from trying to rig foreign exchange rates.

Seven banks have paid authorities in the United States and Europe a total of more than $10 billion, and some pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Transcripts of traders communicating in online chat rooms that led to earlier settlements show them working together to move rates, which are used daily by everyone from investment houses to tourists buying foreign currencies on vacation.
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Supporters say new federal rules will make it much easier for small businesses to raise money from in-state investors.



By CARA LOMBARDO

Associated Press

MADISON, Wis.  A former Green Bay Packers player whose consulting business has connected 400 high school athletes with college teams got a lesson in federal securities law when he sought to raise money for a new smartphone app.

Videoscore owner Darryl Ingram decided to seek Wisconsin investors through a process called state crowdfunding, a relatively new and underused tool available to small businesses. What he didn't realize was that the system bans any ad that can be seen by an out-of-state resident, including solicitations through Facebook and Twitter, so his effort to raise $100,000 failed to land a single taker.





. . .
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WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump is directing the administration to investigate whether steel imports are jeopardizing U.S. national security.

In the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump signed a memo ordering the investigation while surrounded by executives from U.S. steelmakers.





. . .
Tillamook Bay reopens after spill

SALEM, Ore. (AP)  Oregon officials say Tillamook Bay has reopened to commercial shellfish harvesting after it was closed because of a massive spill of liquid manure.

Wym Mathews of the Oregon Department of Agriculture tells The Statesman Journal the estimated 190,000 gallons of manure that went to the bay came from the Tony Silveira Dairy after the valve of an above-ground storage tank broke.

The manure pooled in a field near the dairy barns before traveling into a slough that connects to a drainage system that pumps water into the Tillamook River. It then entered the bay.

ODA received reports of the spill in the middle of last week.

Mathews says the dairy likely will be cited and possibly fined. It has operated in Tillamook County for about six years and has not had any previous enforcement actions.




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There is sadness around the county with the news that 81-year-old Cllr. Sean McEniff has passed away in the Mater Private Hospital surrounded by his family. He died as a result of an accident in Puerto Rico in the Canary Islands in October.

Cllr. McEniff was the longest-serving county councillor in the country, and only last year he was honoured by the leader of Fianna Fail, Micheal Martin at a banquet in Dublins Fir Tree Burlington Hotel.

He was regarded as a consummate politician.

In one of his last interviews, Cllr McEniff spoke to the Donegal Democrat about his life in politics.

I have no regrets, I enjoyed and continue to enjoy every minute of it. Politics has presented me with great challenges over the years and I relished every one of them. We had manys an argument in the chamber but at the end of the day we left it all behind when the meetings were over. I always lived by the saying: Never let the sun set in your anger, he said.

He had this can-do attitude, there was no such thing in his vocabulary as the word problem; to Sean McEniff this was just another challenge. He was regarded very much as the peoples politician.

As you can imagine, it has been like a roller-coaster. There have been ups and downs, but there is also that great rush of adrenalin knowing that you have achieved something worthwhile.

At my age I can afford to be retrospective, but there are many things around now that the younger people take for granted that were not there in my time. We now have great roads, and a much improved infrastructure, a wealth of both indoor and outdoor facilities, a county that we can be proud of and above all, peace in our time.

Sean and his family built up a large portfolio of hotels, not only at home, but also in the capital city where he brought that touch of Donegal hospitality.

His main love in life, along with his family, had always been politics.

His time in politics spanned the career of Fianna Fail leaders including Lemass, Lynch, Haughey, Reynolds, Ahern and Cowen - testifies to this.

Asked what he attributed his success and unlimited energy to, Cllr McEniff replied: Its quite simple really, he said.

I like to think I have a listening ear. I try my best to help people out. Sometimes this has gotten me into bother, but I can assure you I have no regrets, I would do it all again.

I have a truly wonderful family, including 21 grandchildren. I would like to thank each and everyone of them here on record.
On Wednesday, April 26, the Alabama Department of Transportation will close a portion of Alabama Highway 141, a half-mile north of Alabama Highway 189, in the Basin community to replace a drainage pipe.

ALDOT will be close the road and begin work at approximately 6:00 a.m. and will reopen the road by Thursday morning.

Motorists should expect delays and plan accordingly.

ALDOTs mission is to provide a safe, efficient, environmentally sound transportation network across Alabama. For further information, visit www.dot.state.al.us.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

A delegation of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs led by Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev that is on a visit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has had a meeting with the management of DP World company, said the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry.

During the meeting, the Azerbaijani delegation was informed about the work carried out by the DP World Group in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the Alat township of Bakus Garadagh district. The sides discussed the general plan on construction of industrial and logistics infrastructure, development concept of the free trade zone and other issues.

The Azerbaijani delegation also met with the management of VPS Healthcare company. During the meeting, Shahin Mustafayev recalled that currently, two medicine plants are being built in Azerbaijans Pirallahi Industrial Park, which specializes in pharmaceutics.

It was noted that negotiations are also underway with other medicine producers. The Azerbaijani minister reminded that the Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) and VPS Healthcare signed a memorandum of understanding in February, on the basis of which the groundbreaking ceremony of a joint pharmaceutical plant will be held in the near future.

Moreover, a business forum, which was attended by entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan and the UAE operating in the spheres of industry, agriculture, construction, finance, tourism and others, was also held. The Azerbaijani delegation invited the UAE businessmen to invest in priority spheres of the Azerbaijani economy, such as industry, agriculture, IT and tourism.

Then the Azerbaijani delegation visited the Lulu supermarket chain and met with the companys management. Participants of the meeting discussed the issues of cooperation and sale of Azerbaijani products in the companys trade facilities located in the UAE and Gulf countries. It was noted that Azerbaijani products are in great demand in the UAE and some Azerbaijani goods, are already sold in Lulu supermarkets.

Azerbaijani entrepreneurs also visited the Union Coop chain of supermarkets and met with its management. During the meeting, the possibility of selling Azerbaijani products, especially fruits and vegetables, in Union Coop supermarkets was discussed. Representatives of the company noted that certain Azerbaijani products, which are in great demand in the UAE, are already sold in these supermarkets.
A bill in the Alabama Legislature dealing with puppy mills failed to pass this week, but a Dothan animal advocate still has hope that something will be done in the future.

Attis Bill, formally known as HB45/SB17, failed to pass on Thursday.

We dont give up, Dothan Attorney Ben Irwin said of the bills failure. Now we all work together and educate everyone we can on this bill and what it stands for.

Following the recent discovery of a puppy mill at a Dothan home, Irwin created the Animal Rights Support Group on Facebook.

I realized something needed to be done to help promote animal safety in the state of Alabama and I started the group, Irwin said. I had no idea so many individuals felt the same way.

Attis Bill was penned over a year ago and has been part of an ongoing process known as the Alabama Puppy Mill Project led by Attorney Angie Hubbard Ingram, in partnership with Allison Black Cornelius, CEO of Greater Birmingham Humane Society. The bills name was changed to honor one of Irwins four-legged family members that previously passed away.

We all had high hopes this bill would pass, but it did not, Irwin said. Now we focus on our next step, which is to regroup and continue to educate. Everyone involved in this bill has learned a lot about what concerns our oppositions had regarding the bill. We heard their concerns and now we look at what areas we can make compromises in. We have until February 2018 before the Legislature meets again.

According to Irwin, the best thing everyone can do is to continue to educate others on the purpose of Attis Bill.

This bill is not targeting puppy breeders, Irwin said. Our goal is to make sure animals rights are protected. We are targeting illegal puppy mills and breeders who mistreat animals when it comes to breeding. The only way breeders are targeted is if the animals are not treated properly and the breeders are not following the laws. I have heard concerns voiced about farm animals. This bill is in no way related to cows, chickens or goats. This bill is related to pets.

According to Irwin, he is not the only animal rights supporter dedicated to educating everyone on the purpose of Attis Bill.

I am so excited about working with Allison and the Greater Birmingham Humane Society, Irwin said. I really cant say enough about everything she has done to help protect the animals. I look forward to working with her even more in the future. We all have one common goal, protecting the animals. The more we educate everyone on exactly what this bill will do, if passed I believe we will see a change in 2018.
Misty Bradley has cause to be hopeful.

The Alabama House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill on Thursday that would require private insurers to provide coverage for applied behavioral analysis (ABA), a therapy thats been found effective in helping people with autism adjust to society. Alabama is one of the few states in the U.S. not to require insurers to cover this therapy, which is quite expensive.

Im excited, Im really proud, said Bradley, the mother of a child with autism.

Applied Behavior Analysis uses behavioral techniques to help children learn how to handle everyday situations. Sessions take place in classrooms and everyday environments such as playgrounds and the dinner table.

Bradleys son Logan, 4, receives ABA. She said she and her husband currently spend between $12,000 and $15,000 each year, out of pocket, on their sons care, including ABA and other services, and even that does not provide him with the optimal level of care recommended.

Bradley said her sons prognosis is uncertain at this point, but he does respond to his name and has developed a better vocabulary, although speech challenges remain.

The bill doesnt give autism advocates everything they want. The House Insurance Committee put amendments on the bill capping coverage and allowing businesses to drop the coverage if it causes a one percent rise in premiums.

Im not 100 percent sure how its going to work out, but it really should alleviate a lot of the burden, Bradley said.

The bill now goes to the Alabama Senate, where just one month remains for the legislative body to pass the bill this session.
A number of local people have played a significant role in the search for the remaining two members of Rescue 116.

The Irish Coast Guard lost contact with Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter Rescue 116 on the morning of Tuesday, March 14th.

The bodies of local man Captain Mark Duffy and pilot Dara Fitzpatrick were recovered, however two other crew members - Paul Ormsby and Ciaran Smith - are yet to have been found.

An extensive coordinated search for the missing Coastguard Crew of Rescue 116 was carried out over the weekend. This was one of the largest open water and shoreline searches undertaken in this country.

Dundalk Sub Aqua Club have released a statement in relation to their role in the search for the missing crew of Rescue 116.

The statement reads:

The search extended from North Donegal to South Mayo. Over 120 boats took part. There was a large fleet of fishing vessels which did a sweep in the deeper waters, while the smaller boats covered the inshore waters.

Search and Recovery Units from Dundalk Sub Aqua Club and Alpha Sub Aqua Club Navan had boats and crew assisting. Each club was assigned to a particular search area and under instruction of the Area Sea Search Coordinator. The Dundalk and Navan Clubs were based in Mullaghmore and covered sections of Donegal Bay. This area was monitored by the Bundoran Lifeboat Station.

It was heartening to see the enormous response from the voluntary groups who worked alongside the official agencies. Huge shoreline searches were also being carried out. Sadly at the end of the day their endeavours were not successful. The search will go on. Our thoughts are with the families, friends and colleagues at this time.

A ship commanded by Blackrock man Captain Harry McClenahan also completed its roll in the search for the crew of Rescue 116.

The Air Accident Investigation Unit and An Garda Siochana in conjunction with Coast Guard expressed their sincere appreciation to the Commissioners of Irish Lights (CIL) and Marine Institute who were supported by GSI (Geological Survey Office), for the extensive search conducted in the vicinity of Black Rock lighthouse following the tragic loss of Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 116 on March 14.

The search operation conducted by the Marine Institute's Holland 1 ROV concluded last week when the Granuaile departed Blacksod Bay.

Captain Harry McClenehan was from just up the road from where Captain Mark Duffy resided in Blackrock.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

Trend:

The United Arab Emirates has invested $778.1 million in the Azerbaijani economy so far, Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev said at the 6th meeting of the Azerbaijan-UAE intergovernmental commission in Dubai.

The minister added that Azerbaijan has invested $284.4 million to the UAE, the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry said Apr. 21.

Mustafayev said 255 UAE companies operate in Azerbaijan.

He recalled that the Baku-Dubai and Baku-Sharjah flights are currently being operated, while there is also a plan to launch the Baku-Abu Dhabi flight.

The minister stressed that after simplifying the visa regime and introducing the ASAN Visa system, the number of tourists from the UAE visiting Azerbaijan in the past two years increased by 30 times.

The meeting also discussed the possibility of establishing new enterprises in Azerbaijan with participation of UAE investors, as well as making investments in industrial parks and zones of Azerbaijan.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was also discussed during the meeting. The UAE side once again stressed the unchanged position on the issue and support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

After the meeting, the two sides signed a protocol that provides for expansion of cooperation in communications and high technologies, alternative energy, industry, culture, tourism, transportation, trade, investments, agriculture, environment and other areas.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UAE amounted to almost $70 million in 2016, $11.6 million of which accounted for exports from Azerbaijan.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UAE declined by 3 percent over the year. Nevertheless, exports from Azerbaijan to the UAE increased by over twofold in the same period.
If you fancy a giggle this weekend, head to the Spirit Store on Saturday night as funnyman Danny OBrien is in town and guaranteed to make you laugh.

The Wicklow man will be doing a one-off extended headline set of 'Who Breaks Up With Stella? - his solo show which had a 26 date sell-out run at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The 31-year-old will spill all on performing Down Under, being forced to do a show in Gaelic, the worst Tinder date in history, living life, losing love and the question everyone needs an answer to Who breaks up with Stella?

Following in the footsteps of Simon Pegg, Dylan Moran and Dara O Briain, Danny was chosen last year to perform as part of the iconic Best of The Edinburgh Fest Show.

Danny told the Dundalk Democrat he can't wait to bring his high energy show to the Spirit Store stage.

He said: "I'm really looking forward to being back at The Spirit Store in Dundalk, the room always has amazing energy and the crowd there are always crazy in a good way!

"There will be fantastic support from Gary Sansome, Alan Irwin, Ronan Linskey and the gig will be hosted by Juicebox Comedy's Aidan Shields, it's a hell of a lot of live comedy for a tenner - get on it Dundalk!"

Danny has travelled the globe on the comedy circuit  performing at The Edinburgh Fringe, The Kilkenny Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, Latitude Comedy Festival, BugJam Festival, Ravloid (Irish speaking) Festival, Perth World Fringe, Electric Picnicthe list goes on  but what he really hankers after is a Dundalk snack box.

He said: "I had an immense snackbox in the town the last time I was there - I'll be tracking that chipper down again on Saturday night after the show - any chipper suggestions for the best snack box in the town feel free to tweet me Dundalk!"

Grab your tickets now at http://www.spiritstore.ie and give Danny a tweet with your snackbox suggestions @dobcomedy
Recently named one of Australias nine most influential female entrepreneurs*, Melbourne businesswoman and start-up advocate Dominique Fisher has made a career out of developing products to assist university students successfully transition into employment.

That is the core business of CareerLounge, which Fisher co-founded in 2008 with her son John Collins. Launched in March 2016, Paddl is both a CareerLounge subsidiary and the companys hero product. According to Fisher, the idea for Paddl  a web application that helps students gather employment experiences to prove their job-readiness after graduation  was born out of the frustration Collins had experienced when weighing up his education and employment options.

Having worked in this space for a while now, John and I realised that while students were acquiring technical knowledge undertaking quals, they lacked actual workplace experience to truly be considered job-ready, she told Dynamic Business. Students had told us of a conundrum where they couldnt get a job without experience and they couldnt get experience without a job. Similarly, employers had revealed that employing students was hard work in the absence of employment history. So, John and I set about designing a solution that would give students the ability to create a relevant employment history that employers value.

With Paddl, our ambitious vision is to ensure every student has the opportunity to pursue their career dreams. This involves getting them into employment as quickly as possible and ensuring they are building a mix of experience by the time they graduate. Our strategy, in this regard, is to work with educators, employers and industry bodies to drive simple, engaging and fun ways of exploring employment options.

No more embarrassing applications

Fisher said Paddl provides students with a feed of course-relevant work opportunities (based on where they are enrolled, what they are studying and the relevant industry sector) so they can confidently apply for any opportunity, knowing a) their qualification is relevant, b) the employer is looking for students and c) the role is not beyond their level of experience. This means no more keyword searches, no more embarrassing applications and no more not knowing what to look for, Fisher added.

From an educators perspective, Paddl is an opportunity for institutions that pay an annual fee (based on the number of enrolled students at their institution) to integrate the platform into their career services offering. Fisher explained that while educators have a range of services on offer for their students, only 10  15% of students engage those services. She said Paddl also allows educators to validate their students and access employment activity data.

Meanwhile, Paddl gives employers the option to post a work opportunity ad for $50 (plus GST). To help them make an informed decision in this regard, Fisher said employers are told the the size of the candidate pool in their industry sector. In addition, she said Paddl is a quick and simple way to identify and shortlist qualified, interview-ready applicants in their industry sector with the aid of optional checks and challenges, some of which attract a fee.

Currently, employers can create a set of yes/no questions to filter out unsuitable applicants  for example, can you work weekends?, do you have an RSA licence? or are you in your third year of study?, Fisher said. To gain further insights into a candidates suitability, employers can ask additional questions such as do you have social marketing experience?, Do you run a blog? or Do you like working with animals? We will add further optional checks and challenges, such as police checks, psychometric testing and aptitude tests, to enrich the application and shortlisting process.

Students can solve real business problems

Fisher said the platform is being used by more than 340 employers, including hundreds of SMEs plus Myer, Metro Trains, Crown, Urbanise, Canon and Ai Group, with new registrants every day. In addition to being able to tap into a growing pool of students in their relevant industry sector (e.g. 500+ IT students, 250+ engineering students, 300+ health and community services students, 300+ retail and hospitality students), Fisher said employers are working with Paddl to roll out exciting new ways to engage students and graduates this year.

In addition, she said industry peak bodies, known as Paddl Champions, play an important role in spreading the word to employers and ensuring their labour needs are met. Paddl is currently working with AusBiotech, Restaurant & Catering Association, Australian Hotels Association (Vic), Study Gold Coast, Australian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA), Energy Skills Australia, Australian Industry Standards, Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET), Aviation Aerospace Australia and Startup Victoria. This ensures we understand the needs of their employer members, which we feed back to our Paddl Educators who then encourage students to activate a Paddl account, Fisher added.

Paddls engagement strategy also includes digital marketing via social media and the companys latest offering: Paddl Games.

Inspired by the popularity of hackathons, these professionally-facilitated, two-day challenges are a new way for businesses to identify, invest in and recruit talent, Fisher explained. We connect major companies with students and grads, across various disciplines to solve real business challenges in a competitive environment.

Paddl Games involve five teams of four students paired with the staff of the participating employer. The events culminate in pitches to the employer judging panel. Employers benefit by seeing talent in action and having commercial problems solved. Meanwhile, students and grads build industry experience, network and win some great prizes. It also helps students at graduation demonstrate industry experience  something many have trouble with.

I am disappointed about the 457 Visas changes

To support the growth of Paddl, CareerLounge, which has raised $2.5m in funding to date, is currently raising capital to onboard new educators, boost marketing and secure key hires. On the topic of recruitment, Fisher admits it has been a huge challenge to find software engineers. With the abolishment of 457 visas, she believes this will continue to be the case.

I am incredibly disappointed with the 457 visa changes, she said. It is a constant struggle to find software engineers, not made any easier by the invitations being extended to offshore companies to set up Australian offices. They are typically large and successful tech businesses who arrive offering salary packages to engineers that local companies cannot compete with. Given that it takes at least 3 to 5 years to train and develop an engineer, the only hope we have of building teams is by hiring international talent. The 457 visa changes are just another example of a populist public policy decision with scant regard for the impact it will have on the growth engine of the Australian economy.

Asked about her working relationship with her son, Fisher said Collins focused on the product, design and communications aspects of the business while she takes care of the commercial and revenue aspects.

We talk every night about the day and what we need to address, how our team is faring, and what we need to do the following day, she said. We are both passionate about the business so it does get robust at times! We have always been able to leave work at work  I am still Mum on the weekends!

We need to optimise the innovation ecosystem

Outside of CareerLounge and Paddl, Fisher is very active in the business world, where she has held numerous board positons including as a non-executive director with both Australia Post and independent start-up body LaunchVic.

I am definitely very busy but you have to be if you are an Australian entrepreneur, she said. Building your networks, constantly exposing yourself to other businesses, sharing successes and failures, and learning every day what trends are emerging in a range of industries  this helps you survive and keeps you on your toes.

I am passionate about creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and given that all the research indicates a vast percentage of our population will need to be creating their own jobs in the future, we need to optimise the innovation ecosystem as best we can to ensure they have the opportunity to thrive.

* Australias nine most influential female entrepreneurs, The Age
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Azerbaijan is ready to open a trading house in the UAE and appoint a trade representative there, Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev said.

He made the remarks at the 6th meeting of the Azerbaijan-UAE intergovernmental commission for trade, economic and technical cooperation in Dubai, reads a message of Azerbaijans Economy Ministry.

Speaking about trade relations between the two countries, Mustafayev noted that Azerbaijan can supply a number of agricultural products to the UAE  hazelnuts, tomatoes, persimmons, apples, sour and sweet cherries, cucumbers, tobacco, chocolate, grapes and others  as well as industrial products  aluminum plates, pipes and other goods.

He said Azerbaijan and the UAE successfully cooperate in agriculture, ICT, trade, investment, education and other areas.

Mustafayev noted that there is great potential to develop cooperation effectively using the existing opportunities.

In turn, UAE Economy Minister Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori supported the idea of exporting Azerbaijani products to his country and noted that he would also support the opening of Azerbaijans trading house in the UAE and the appointment of a trade representative.

The minister added that the UAE attaches special importance to cooperation with Azerbaijan.

After the meeting, the two sides signed a protocol that provides for expansion of cooperation in communications and high technologies, alternative energy, industry, culture, tourism, transportation, trade, investments, agriculture, environment and other areas.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

The upcoming OPEC meeting may prove ineffective, says Valentin Zemlyansky, director for energy programs at the Center of World Economy and International Relations of the Ukraine National Academy of Sciences.

The measures taken earlier led to reduction in oil reserves by only 20 million barrels, while supply exceeds demand by more than 250 million barrels, he told Trend Apr. 21.

The expert said the US shale companies have already taken advantage of the OPECs decision, occupying the vacant niche in the global market.

Given this, an OPEC decision to extend the oil cut agreement could lead to further strengthening of the US oil producers positions, the expert said.

During a meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 30, 2016, OPEC members decided to cut oil production to 32.5 million barrels per day. Later, non-OPEC countries agreed to reduce the output by another 558,000 barrels per day during the meeting held Dec. 10, 2016.

Eleven non-OPEC countries  Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan  agreed to reduce the oil output.

OPEC and non-OPEC countries pledged to start implementing the deal from Jan. 1, 2017 for six months, extendable for another six months.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Russia has reduced its oil output by 250,000 barrels per day as of April as compared to the output recorded in October 2016, the countrys Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters Apr. 21.

In accordance with the plan, we should cut the output by 300,000 barrels per day by late April, RIA Novosti quoted Novak as saying.

Russia agreed to cut its oil output by 300,000 barrels per day under the OPEC deal signed in Vienna.

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 oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from Jan. 1, 2017 for six months, extendable for another six months.

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 barrels per day.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 21

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Kazakh Government appointed Ruslan Dalenov to the post of the first vice - minister of the national economy, the ministry said in a message.

He replaced Marat Kussainov who was appointed as the Minister for Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission (regulatory body of the Eurasian Economic Union) last week.

Dalenov served as vice-minister of finance since 2008.

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Kazakhstans Government appointed Ernar Bakenov as the vice minister of national economy, the National Economy Ministry said in a message April 21.

Bakenov earlier headed the National Economy Ministrys Department for International Economic Integration.

Earlier today, Kazakhstan named Ruslan Dalenov as the new first vice minister of the national economy.
Privacy advocates and consumer groups are fighting back against the U.S. Senates Thursday vote to undo privacy restrictions on Internet service providers.

In a 50-48 party line vote, the Senate approved the Congressional Review Act, S.J. Res. 34. If the House of Representatives gives it the green light, it then will go to the president to be signed into law.

Were working actively with a coalition of other consumer groups pushing to defeat the resolution in the House, said John Simpson, director of the Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project.

If the consumer groups dont succeed in the House, we will remind President Trump that he has expressed concerns about invasions of his own privacy, and call upon him to veto the resolution to protect consumers, Simpson told the E-Commerce Times.

Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has put up a Web page urging consumers to call their members of Congress about the resolution.

The Center for Democracy & Technology also has pledged to fight the resolution.

Without the FCC rule, Americans will have no real privacy protections online because of current limitations placed on the Federal Trade Commission by Congress and the courts, said Katharina Kopp, policy director at the Center for Digital Democracy.

For example, an ISP could infer a subscriber was unemployed, based on online usage patterns, and sell this information to predatory financial vendors, which can have unforeseen consequences, Kopp told the E-Commerce Times.

What the Legislation Provides

The Senate resolution lifts the FCC privacy rules adopted last fall.

The rules require, among other things, that ISPs get opt-in consent from consumers before sharing such sensitive information as geolocation data; financial data; health data; childrens personal information; Social Security numbers; Web browsing and app usage history; and the content of communications.

The resolution enables ISPs to profit by collecting and selling consumer information without prior consent or notification, said James Scott, senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

Further, ISPs will continue to operate without associated liability, culpability, and accountability for the irresponsible collection, dissemination and exposure of consumer data the resolution will enable, Scott told the E-Commerce Times.

Redlining and other discriminatory practices in housing and loan pricing could be facilitated, noted Consumer Watchdogs Simpson, and drug companies could assemble extremely personal health information and use it to target consumers without running afoul of HIPAA.

Psychographic big data algorithms are powerful enough to precision-target and leverage pretty much anyone being targeted, ICITs Scott warned. Get ready for turnkey nation state perception steering and psychographically targeted propaganda unlike anything weve seen before.

Can Consumers Protect Themselves?

Consumers will have to encrypt all their traffic, using either a virtual private network or Tor, advised EFF Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula.

You cant just install Privacy Badger or browse in incognito or private mode, he told the E-Commerce Times.

However, VPNs usually cost money, and you have to trust your VPN provider not to spy on you instead, Gillula pointed out, while Tor users frequently encounter excessive CAPTCHAs and other impediments to browsing freely since websites often treat Tor users differently.

Forever and Ever, Oh Man!

The FCC cant do anything if the Congressional Review Act is signed into law, because CRAs prohibit an agency from passing a new regulation in the same form or one that is substantially the same, Simpson observed.

Further, because the FCC reclassified broadband access providers as common carriers to enact Net neutrality, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission would have no jurisdiction, he noted.

There would be no privacy rules, said Simpson, and nobody could enact them.
There are more than three dozen previously unknown flaws that pose a potential threat to consumers using some Samsung TVs, watches and phones, a security researcher reported Monday.

Hackers could exploit the vulnerabilities found in Samsungs Tizen operating system to gain remote access and control of a variety of the companys products, Amihai Neiderman, head of research at Equus Software, told Motherboard.

Neiderman presented his findings at a security conference sponsored by Kapersky Lab.

Tizen is running on some 30 million smart TVs, as well as on Samsungs Gear smartwatches and on phones in a limited number of countries, including Russia, India and Bangladesh, according to the Motherboard report.

Samsung plans to have 10 million Tizen phones in the market this year and has announced the OS will be installed on its new line of smart washing machines and refrigerators, it added.

Store App Vulnerable

While all the vulnerabilities in the software allow a hacker to take control of devices running Tizen, a flaw Neiderman found particularly disturbing compromised the software used to install software through the app store for the OS.

Although the TizenStore software authenticates apps before theyre installed on a device, Neiderman exploited a vulnerability that let him gain control of apps before they could be authenticated.

Neiderman contacted Samsung months ago about his findings, he told Motherboard, but he received only an automated email message in response.

The company apparently has approached him about his research in recent days, however, and he has shared some information with the firm.

Samsung Electronics takes security and privacy very seriously. We regularly check our systems and if at any time there is a credible potential vulnerability, we act promptly to investigate and resolve the issue, Samsung said in a statement provided to LinuxInsider by spokesperson Danielle Meister Cohen.

We continually provide software updates to consumers to safeguard their products, the company maintained. We are fully committed to cooperating with Mr. Neiderman to mitigate any potential vulnerabilities.

Reinventing the Wheel  Badly

With Tizen, which is an open source operating system based on Linux, Samsung is trying to offer an alternative OS to a market dominated by Googles Android and Apples iOS.

Its trying to reinvent the wheel and doing a bad job of it, said Patrick Tiquet, director of security and architecture at Keeper Security.

It sounds to me, too, that they cheaped out on their software development team, he told LinuxInsider. You cant do that when youre taking on Google and Android.

Tizens programming is the worse code Neiderman has ever seen, he told Motherboard, noting there are mistakes in the software similar to those programmers made 20 years ago.

It appears that no one who understands security was involved either in the writing of the code or in reviewing it, he said, resulting in everything going wrong that possibly could go wrong.

Botnet Bonanza

Consumers should be concerned about the vulnerabilities Neiderman discovered in Tizen, maintained James Scott, a senior fellow with the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

Previously unknown, or zero day, flaws are found in all software, he acknowledged.

That said, consumers should be very concerned by the sheer number of zero day vulnerabilities discoverable by a single researcher, Scott told LinuxInsider. Other pen testers, researchers or attackers may be able to discover tens or hundreds more exploitable zero day vulnerabilities.

Shipping devices running software that puts consumers at risk violates a tacit agreement between a company and its customers, said Michael Patterson, CEO of Plixer International.

Technology consumers have an unspoken trust that new technology purchases are shipped from the manufacturer with the latest security features and functionality embedded, he told LinuxInsider.

If Amihai Neidermans findings are accurate, it is alarming that Samsung is shipping smart TVs, smartwatches and mobile phones with many serious security flaws, Patterson continued.

Given that Tizen is currently running on 30 million devices and that Samsung plans to have 10 million Tizen phones this year, the potential for these devices to become members of the next big botnet is very real, he warned.

Eyeballs on Security

One of the pillars of open source software is that the many eyes of the community will catch flaws in a projects code. That apparently hasnt been the case with Tizen.

I havent seen a lot of interest in Tizen from developers, and it hasnt been widely deployed  so you dont have the interest in it that youd see in something like Android, Keeper Securitys Tiquet said.

If there are no eyeballs looking at the source code, he noted, then you dont have the security or the review that you would have with a more popular open source project.

Tizens problems are familiar, said Chris Clark, principal security engineer for strategic initiatives at Synopsys.

When Linux came out, the same comments about terrible code, poor security, and other more colorful explanations flowed freely, he recalled.

Now that Linux is more mature, these issues are harder to find, although they still exist, Clark told LinuxInsider. This is not a simple problem. TV manufacturers must focus on testing automation and development methodologies to minimize successful attacks.
An alleged spam kingpin with possible ties to election meddling in the United States was arrested in Spain last week under a U.S. international warrant.

The alleged spam czar, Pyotr Levashov, was taken into custody in Barcelona while vacationing with his family, according to news reports.

Levashov was arrested for interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the Russian news outlet RT reported, but a U.S. Justice Department official told Reuters the arrest was a criminal matter without any national security connections.

On its list of the worlds top 10 worst spammers, Spamhaus, a spam-fighting group, ranks Levashov No. 7.

He allegedly partnered with convicted pump and dump stock scam specialist Alan Ralsky to carry out a wave of fake antivirus software scams. The two reportedly also ran the Waledac botnet that infected 70,000 to 90,000 PCs over several years and was capable of pushing out 1.5 billion spam messages a day.

Levashov has been able to evade prosecution for at least 20 years, said Vitali Kremez, threat intelligence director at Flashpoint.

From an email spam perspective, his arrest means well be seeing less incoming malicious email, he told TechNewsWorld.

Kelihos Clobbered

Meanwhile, the day after Levishovs arrest, the U.S. Justice Department announced it had taken down the Kelihos botnet, which is believed to be part of the Russians spam empire.

The operation announced today targeted an ongoing international scheme that was distributing hundreds of millions of fraudulent emails per year, intercepting the credentials to online and financial accounts belonging to thousands of Americans, and spreading ransomware throughout our networks, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the DoJs Criminal Division.

The ability of botnets like Kelihos to be weaponized quickly for vast and varied types of harms is a dangerous and deep threat to all Americans, driving at the core of how we communicate, network, earn a living, and live our everyday lives, he continued.

Our success in disrupting the Kelihos botnet was the result of strong cooperation between private industry experts and law enforcement, and the use of innovative legal and technical tactics, Blanco said.

Among the new legal tactics used by the bot busters was a new kind of warrant authorized by recent amendments to the Rules of Federal Criminal Procedure that allows law enforcement to redirect Kelihos-infected computers to a substitute server, and to record the Internet Protocol addresses of those computers as they connect to the server.

Those IP addresses can be used to provide assistance to people whose computers have been infected with the malware.

Rent a Botnet

Taking down Kelihos should disrupt the spam ecosystem, noted Keith Jarvis, a senior security researcher at DellsSecureWorks.

It was one of the larger, more active botnets out there, he told TechNewsWorld, and it was one for rent.

Levashov made more money renting out his botnets than he did spewing spam from them, according to investigative journalist Brian Krebs.

For US$200, vetted users could hire one of Levashovs botnets to send 1 million pieces of spam, Krebs noted. Auction and employment scams cost $300 per million, and phishing emails designed to capture usernames and passwords cost $500 per million.

Thats why we saw a wide variety of spam over Kelihos over the years, but we should see smaller volumes of spam in in-boxes for the foreseeable future, SecureWorks Jarvis said.

Election Meddling

Though a connection to the U.S. elections has not been established, Kelihos does have a known election connection.

The botnet was used in the 2012 Russian elections to send spam containing links to fake news stories saying Mikhail Prokhorov, a businessman who was running for president against Vladimir Putin, had come out as gay, according to The New York Times.

There isnt much public source information on the technical aspects of the Russian attacks on the DNC, so its hard to tell if spamming, one of Levashovs specialties, was a technique used by the hackers, observed Leo Taddeo, chief security officer for Cryptzone and a former FBI special agent.

What we do know from the indictments issued last month against the Yahoo hackers is that Russian intelligence officers protected, directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the U.S. and elsewhere, he told TechNewsWorld. This means we cant rule it out.

Its more than a possibility  its very likely to be true, maintained Avivah Litan, a security analyst with Gartner.

The guys conducting cybercrime are the same guys that meddled in the elections, she told TechNewsWorld. Theyre using the same infrastructure.
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Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Apr. 21

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will pay a visit to China in mid-May, Zhavlon Vakhabov, Uzbek first deputy foreign minister, told reporters in Tashkent Apr. 21.

"President Mirziyoyevs upcoming visit must open a new page in the Uzbekistan-China relations," Vakhabov said.

The main issue on the agenda is the current state of the Uzbekistan-China bilateral relations in trade, investments as well as a number of security issues, he said.

During the presidents visit to China, numerous documents are planned to be signed, including commercial contracts and agreements between business entities and enterprises of Uzbekistan and China.

Mirziyoyev is also slated to have negotiations with President of China Xi Jinping, members of the Chinese State Council, as well as heads of leading enterprises and large financial and economic organizations.

The Uzbek president will participate in the One Belt-One Road high-level forum in Beijing, organized by the Chinese government.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency Wednesday for coastal Louisiana to highlight the states need for more federal funding to address extreme weather events.

We are in a race against time to save our coast, and it is time we make bold decisions, Edwards said. The Louisiana coast is in a state of crisis that demands immediate and urgent action to avert further damage to one of our most vital resources.

More than half of Louisianas 4.65 million residents live on the coast. Parts of our state remain unprotected from or vulnerable to future hurricane and flood events, Edwards emphasized, and estimated that 2,250 square miles of coastal Louisiana will be lost in the next 50 years unless immediate action is taken.

Edwards attributed the problem to factors including climate change, sea level rise, subsidence, hurricanes, storm surges, flooding, disconnecting the Mississippi River from coastal marshes and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Louisiana is still reeling from last Augusts historic flooding, which killed 13 people and caused more than $8 billion in damage. The Shreveport Times reported in January that Edwards was vigorously seeking more federal flood recovery funding beyond the $1.6 billion, which was finally made available last week.

According to The Advocate, Edwards is seeking $2.2 billion in additional federal flood aid, nearly half of which would go toward homeowner assistance programs.

Also on Wednesday, Louisianas Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority approved the 2017 Coastal Master Plan and the 2018 Annual Plan, in which spending priorities for restoration and protection were identified.

Americas Wetland Foundation praised Edwards announcement and said it could expedite federal help needed to enact coastal restoration projects.

This declaration of emergency could greatly speed up the process and eliminate delays in permitting for some of these crucial projects, said King Milling, the foundations chairman. We urge President Trump to act on this declaration now.

According to the state of emergency announcement:

Louisiana and its citizens have suffered tremendously as a result of the catastrophic coastal land and wetlands loss, and the threat of continued land loss to Louisianas working coast threatens the viability of residential, agricultural, energy, and industrial development, and directly affects valuable fish and wildlife production that is vital to the nation;

Louisiana continues to experience one of the fastest rates of coastal erosion in the world, and this complex and fragile ecosystem is disappearing at an alarming ratemore than 1,800 square miles of land between 1932 and 2010, including 300 square miles of marshland between 2004 and 2008 alone.

New Orleans Public Radio WWNO reported that Edwards has written letters to Trump and to Congress, and if Louisiana is to get more federal aid, it could take months.
This Saturdays March for Science is inherently connected to the April 29 Peoples Climate March, climate scientists and environmentalists say: one march is about listening to science, the other is about acting on it.

The March for Science, taking place on Earth Day, will march in defense of truth and scientific fact. A week later, these values will manifest at the Peoples Climate March where movements for climate, jobs and justice will put forward a vision to build bold solutions that tackle climate change, create and retain fair jobs, and bring forth justice truly for all.

The Science March is about respecting science, the Peoples Climate March is about acting on it, said Ploy Achakulwisut, PhD Candidate in Atmospheric Science at Harvard University.

Science has helped us understand the climate crisis, now we need to demand political action to help solve it. The March for Science calls for science-based policymaking, and the Peoples Climate March puts this value into practice by opposing Trumps reckless anti-climate agenda, defending the integrity of climate science and democracy, and standing up for justice.

The March for Science and Peoples Climate March will bring the fight for truth and justice right to the doorstep of the Trump administration. The week of action, dubbed From Truth to Justice: Earth Day to May Day 2017, will see more than 50 events, including: climate education opportunities and the launch of visionary legislation, youth speak-outs and convergences, direct actions and more.

A series of climate education videos have been developed for use during the Truth to Justice week of action. The videos feature 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, actor and activist Maggie Gyllenhaal, renowned climate scientist James Hansen, longtime head of the EPA Environmental Justice program Mustafa Ali, and top atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

[facebook https://facebook.com/EcoWatch/videos/1520354927977439/ expand=1]

Many of the organizers and participants of the March for Science have backgrounds in climate science, and many have been advocating for bold climate action well before the election of Donald Trump.

The March for Science and the Peoples Climate March go hand-in-hand, said MIT and Harvard renewable energy modeler Dr. Geoffrey Supran.

Because attacks on science dont just hurt scientists, they hurt scientists ability to protect the people, and climate change epitomizes that. When politicians cater to fossil fuel interests by denying the basic realities of climate science and pursuing anti-science climate policy, they endanger the jobs, justice, and livelihoods of ordinary people everywhere. The Peoples Climate March is about scientists and citizens uniting to protect the people and places we love by demanding that evidence, not ideology, inform policy.
If you dont agree with 97 percent of climate scientists that climate change is real, you should at least believe your own eyes.

The Earths rapidly rising temperatures has dramatically transformed our landscapes, as you can see quite clearly in these vivid photos of the worlds melting glaciers.

Retreat of the Columbia Glacier, Alaska, USA, by ~6.5 km between 2009 and 2015. Credit: James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey

The photos appeared in the new paper Savor the Cryosphere, published in the peer-reviewed GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America. The cryosphere is the Earths frozen waters.

We have unretouched photographic evidence of glaciers melting all around the globe, co-author Gregory Baker, adjunct professor of geology at the University of Kansas, said.

That includes the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarcticatheyre reduced in size. These arent fancy computer models or satellite images where youd have to make all kinds of corrections for the atmosphere. These are simply photos, some taken up to 100 years ago, and my co-authors went back and reacquired photos at many of these locations. So its just straightforward proof of large-scale ice loss around the globe.

Bakers research career centers on geophysical imaging of Earths subsurface and geoscience education.

Stein Glacier, Switzerland, retreat of ~550 m from 2006 to 2015. Credit: James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey

Photographer James Balog, who was featured in the Emmy Award winning climate change documentary, Chasing Ice, contributed photographs from the Extreme-Ice Survey.

Other co-authors of the paper include Richard Alley, an American geologist who was invited to testify about climate change by Vice President Al Gore; Patrick Burkhart of Slippery Rock University; Lonnie Thompson of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University; and Paul Baldauf of Nova Southeastern University also contributed to the paper.

The team hopes the paper will raise awareness about the worlds melting glaciers.

We have all heard of the impact of melting ice on sea level rise, but the public also need to be aware that places around the world depend on glaciers for their water and are going to come under increasing stress, and we already see how water shortages lead to all kinds of conflict, Baker said.

The other critical point often overlooked is that when glaciers melt were losing these scientific archive records of past climate change at specific locations around the Earth, as if someone came in and threw away all your family photos.

Solheimajokull, Iceland, retreat of ~625 m from 2007 to 2015. Credit: James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey

Glacier ice contains fingerprint evidence of past climate and past biology, trapped within the ice, Baker continued.

Analyzing ice cores is one of the best ways to analyze carbon dioxide in the past, and they contain pollen we can look at to see what kind of plant systems may have been around. All of this information has been captured in glaciers over hundreds of thousands of years, and sometimes longerGreenland and Antarctica cover perhaps up to a million years. The more that glacial ice melts, the more were erasing these historical archives that we may not have measured yet in some remote glaciers, or deep in ice caps, that can tell us the history of the Earth that will be gone forever.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill into law Monday that will end a state tax credit several years early for electricity generated by wind power.

Under the new legislation, wind farms that start producing energy after July 1 will not be able to claim the states zero emission tax credit program. The credit was originally set to expire in January 2021.

Fallin acknowledged that the program, which pushed claims from $3.7 million in 2010 to $113 million in 2014, helped Oklahoma become the third-largest producer of wind power in the country. However, the Republican governor noted that the states estimated $868 million budget shortfall necessitated the phaseout of wind incentives.

The zero emissions tax credit was key to the growth of wind energy in Oklahoma, and Im grateful to the industry for their ambitious successes, as well as their willingness to work with the state to address our challenging budgetary circumstances, Fallin said. It is time to ensure that Oklahoma has a bright future, and continues its position as a prominent energy state.

The measure appeared to have support from the wind industry itself. Jeffrey Clark, president of The Wind Coalition, told The Oklahoman that the incentives have been incredibly beneficial, but we remain the first and only industry to offer to phase out its incentives.

But Fallin and state lawmakers have been criticized for keeping generous tax breaks in place for the oil and gas industry while squeezing other public services such as school funding during the budget crisis.

As the Associated Press reported:

Even then, the revenue generated by wind facilities wont move the needle very much on the state budget, said Dr. Stephen Stadler, a board member of the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Council. He said lawmakers should roll back other tax credits and incentives, including generous subsidies provided to the oil and natural gas industry.

Can we afford those subsidies? he asked. Things are not even. Its not a level playing field.

Oklahomas wind subsidies are dwarfed by subsidies to the oil and gas industry, David Blatt from the Oklahoma Policy Institute pointed out.

The estimates of the cost of subsidies for wind producers vary, but we do know they are substantially less than the $400 million to $600 million cost of subsidies for oil and gas, Blatt wrote.

Fallins executive budget proposed in February sought to phase out wind incentives that she said are no longer necessary.

This industry was incentivized sufficiently to now be a major player in the Oklahoma energy industry, and a major winner of now-unnecessary incentives, the budget read.

The Oklahoman reported last year that state fossil fuel executives, including oilman and Trump advisor Harold Hamm, had formed a coalition to lobby for the end of wind tax credits in the state.
The United Kingdoms grid operator just announced an incredible predictionApril 21 is probably going to be the countrys first

coal-free day since the Industrial Revolution.

Great Britain has never had a continuous 24 hour period without #coal. Today is looking like it could be the first, according to a

tweet from the National Grids Electricity National Control Centre.

The National Grid confirmed with the

Mirror that Friday is on track to be the first time the UK has been without electricity from coal since the worlds first centralized coal fired generator opened at Holborn Viaduct in London in 1882.

The first day without coal in Britain since the industrial revolution marks a watershed in the energy transition, Hannah Martin, head of energy at Greenpeace UK, told the Guardian. A decade ago, a day without coal would have been unimaginable, and in 10 years time our energy system will have radically transformed again.

The UK intends to phase out the polluting fossil fuel, with plans to switch off its last coal power station in 2025 in order to meet climate commitments.

The direction of travel is that both in the UK and globally we are already moving towards a low carbon economy. It is a clear message to any new government that they should prioritize making the UK a world leader in clean, green, technology, Martin added.

Great Britains use of

renewable energy has vastly expanded in recent years and the country is now a world leader in offshore wind. And last month, the nations large expanse of solar fields and rooftop panels reached a milestone when the amount of electricity demanded by homes and businesses was lower in the afternoon than at night.

Solar power turned the countrys grid demand upside down, Duncan Burt, National Grids head of real time operations, explained in a tweet at that time.
The worlds wealthiest nations appear to be slowly acknowledging the destruction that decades of coal burning has wrought on the environment, though campaigners are warning that pledges to curb subsidies and close power plants still fall substantially short of the radical shift necessary to keep global warming beneath the stated goal of 2C.

UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on Wednesday announced that her country would close all coal-fired power plants by 2025, making it first major global economy to commit to such a plan.

UK says they will phase out all coal power plantsbut fail to remember that renewable energy is the path of the future. Photo credit: Coal Atlas 2015

That came on the heels of an announcement Tuesday that the 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreed to cut back on subsidies to build coal power plants overseas, but not eliminate the financing completely. The OECD claims the move represents a major step ahead of the COP21 climate talks towards aligning export credit policies with climate change objectives.

However, while both developments were seen as significant milestones in the movement to end coal, environmentalists say that neither goes far enough to tackle the polluting legacy and future of coal power. For example, the UK plan calls for an increase in nuclear power and plants fueled by fracked gas, rather than renewable alternatives.

We welcome that UK wants to close all coal-fired power plants by 2025, Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice & energy co-coordinator for Friends of the Earth (FOE) International, told Common Dreams. But the UK needs to do much, much, much more. They have huge responsibility for climate change, and they need to end all fossil fuels completely. They cannot move to fracking, nor nuclear. They need to completely transform their economy away from dirty energy.

Similarly, because the OECD agreement only slashes some of the groups credit financing for coal power plants and ignores altogether subsidies for mining, transport, and related coal infrastructure, it wont do what is needed to solve the climate crisis, FOE stated.

With so many loopholes, this agreement has more holes than a sieve, said FOE U.S. international policy analyst Kate DeAngelis of the OECD plan.

A visual analysis of the global use and impact of coal power published Wednesday reveals that western governments, which by and large grew their wealth through decades of coal-fired industry, continue to subsidize coal power both at home and in developing nations, despite it being one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal Atlas 2015, by FOE International along with the Heinrich Boll Foundation, a Germany-based think tank which focuses on peace and climate issues, argues that because of this historic emissions debt, western nations have a specific responsibility to accelerate the transition from its current energy-mix into an emissions-free one.

Lucy Cadena, climate justice and energy coordinator for FOE International, explains: Europe has grown wealthy whilst burning coal for over 150 yearsdue to the lag effect, it is these emissions that have caused the 1C increase in temperature we are experiencing in 2015.

Barbara Unmuig and Ralf Fucks, presidents of the Heinrich Boll Foundation, further note that the EUs financing of international coal projects has been calamitous for both the environment and local populations, and must be ended completely.

Worldwide, the EU is subsidizing its coal industries investments, generating countless environmental and social conflicts, Unmuig and Fucks state. One things for certain: The European Union must give a very clear signal to phase out fossil fuels, and first and foremost coal, if it wants to lead the global transition into an emission-free world and have its specific weight in advocating for any possible climate agreement at the COP21 in Paris.

Through this lens, campaigners say, these latest developments fall substantially short of the radical shift needed.

The silver lining, FOE U.S. policy program senior manager Doug Norlen told Common Dreams, is that the moves show there exists a recognition that financing for coal must be curbed.

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(Photo: REUTERS / Sergio Moraes)People from the Baha'i religious community pose for a picture next to a giant painting created by Brazilian artist Siron Franco, as part of the "Five Years Too Many" protest campaign marking the five-year anniversary of the imprisonment of seven Iranian Baha'i leaders, on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro May 5, 2013. The image represents that "Human beings should be free as birds," according to the artist. The Baha'i community in Brazil is protesting against the 2008 arrest of seven leaders of their religion in Iran for espionage, propaganda against the Islamic republic and the establishment of an illegal administration among other things, according to the organizers.

The Bahai community says that orders for the arrest of at least 25 Baha'is have been issued by certain authorities in Sana'a, Yemen, who are harassing the Yemeni Baha'is and pressuring them to recant their faith.

The community said that accusations the Baha'is are baseless and include showing kindness and displaying rectitude of conduct in order to attract people to their faith.

In an April 21 statement from New York the community said the accusations bear are strongly resemble those encountered by the Baha'is in Iran, noting that reports indicate the influence of Iranian authorities behind incidents transpiring in Yemen.

"We call upon the international community to unitedly denounce these alarming and ominous actions undertaken by specific authorities in Yemen, including the National Security and the Prosecutor's Office," said Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations.

"We demand that they stop this recent wave of arrests and release the Baha'is in prison, who are in grave danger."

The recent events placed on the Yemeni Baha'i community include the 2013 arrest and ongoing court case of Hamed bin Haydara, as well as the mass arrest of over 60 participants, half of whom were Baha'is, at an educational gathering in 2016.

The community said that Kaiwan Qaderi, who was among those arrested, was detained for over eight months.

Just weeks ago, an employee of the Red Cross who is a Baha'i was arrested on 5 April in Sana'a simply because of his faith.

"Let us not stand by and allow a case of tyranny and injustice against a religious community to unfold," said Dugal.

Baha'i International said that immediately preceding the call for their arrest, on April 17, dozens of Baha'is received telephone calls between 10:30 p.m. and midnight and were told that they should appear in court the following morning.

Aware of recent efforts to persecute the Baha'is and given that no official court order had been presented to them, the Baha'is agreed to send several lawyers in their stead.

However, one Baha'i, Badi'u'llah Sana'i, a prominent civil engineer in Yemen followed the advice given to him at his workplace and appeared at court on 18 April.

He was immediately arrested, confirming the suspicion that the request for Baha'is to appear at court was a ploy for their arrest.

On April 19, two additional Baha'is, including Walid Ayyash, a member of a prominent Yemeni tribe, were arrested by authorities as they were driving from the city of Ibb on route to Hudaydah.

Their whereabouts are presently unknown and concerns are mounting as to their safety.

During a turbulent period of civil conflict in Yemen in recent years, the members of the Baha'i community have refused to side with any group and have endeavored to serve all people, said the statement.
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 21

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Iranian investment company Ghadir has signed an agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for the development of four oil and gas fields.

The fields are Kish, Sepehr, Jafir, and Darkhoveins third phase, IRIB news agency reported April 19.

Speaking on the sidelines of the agreement signing ceremony, NIOCs director of development and engineering Gholamreza Manuchehri said Ghadir is expected to finish the related studies on the fields in six months and after that provide a fund of $10 billion for their development.

Sepehr, a West Karoon field holds 2 billion barrels of oil, 200 to 300 million of which is extractable.

Jafirs development is aimed at extracting 25,000 bpd of crude.

Darkhoveins third phase aims at production of 110,000 bpd of crude and 210 mcmpd of gas.

Kish is expected to yield 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas, to be used domestically, and 11,300 bpd of gas condensate set for export.

Ghadir Investment Company was established in 1991. Ghadir is one of the biggest holding investment companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).
Latest News

SSC declares Constable GD final result, more details here The result is live on the SSC website

Registrations open for IIT Kanpurs eMasters Degree program in Communication Systems The last date to apply is November 12, 2022, for the batch beginning in January 2023

CGBSE Chhattisgarh board practical exam dates announced for class X, XII The practical exams 2023 will be conducted from January 10 to 31, 2023
The average superintendent tenure is approximately three years in urban districts and six years in suburban districts, according to a 2014 Council of the Great City Schools survey, and those time spans make it hard to develop and institute significant improvements. While some factors shortening superintendent tenure are beyond control, many other factors are manageable. Here are some common pitfalls your local school board must circumnavigate when choosing new district leadership:

1. A mismatch between district and leader.

Too often, boards hire based solely on interviews, with little deep knowledge about the candidate. It is easy to confuse confidence for competence in any work setting. And sometimes superintendents commit to leading districts without a true understanding of the dynamics of their new bosses, the members of the school board. Visions may differ, but there is real danger in conflicting expectations for management styles, priorities, and the governance working relationship.

Solution: During the interviewing phase of the hiring process, the board and the prospective superintendent should develop a joint set of agreements. The dialogue around these questions will be very revealing for both parties.

For example, how will the superintendent communicate with and inform the board? How should constituent concerns be handled? How should school visitation by board members be handled? How are requests for information handled? How are district priorities to be set, and what are they?

2. Poor understanding of the candidate.

Candidates and boards dont know each other. Resumes are not very revealing, and search firms tend to seek out points of agreement, not areas of potential conflict. Boards should demand search and hiring processes that truly reveal the personalities of candidates and the often-hidden priorities of the board.

Solution: In addition to the search firm, the school board should hire someone with investigative skills (possibly the districts HR leader) to conduct a comprehensive review of the candidates. It should rely on real experiences of the candidate to understand management style, handling of successes and failures, quality of people the candidate has hired, personal quirks, and treatment of employees and the community.

In turn, the superintendent candidate should look for examples of how the board handles conflict, community controversy, priority setting, and relationships.

All candidates have strengths and weaknesses, but the current hiring process tends to highlight the strengths.

Many superintendents are not prepared to properly involve school boards in the work for the district."

3. Reliance on the interview to make a selection.

Most superintendent selection processes rely heavily, if not entirely, on interviews. Often, follow-up and probing questions are discouraged. In the end, the board has heard a couple of canned statements that give a very superficial impression and reveal little more than who is the slickest talker in the candidate pool. During these brief and high-stress interviews, there is no time to establish rapport between the candidate and the board.

Solution: Instead of prioritizing interviews, the board should first rely on the investigations of past behaviors by the candidates, as past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. In addition, it should initiate a series of interactions between the candidates and the board members in a variety of settings where interaction ranges from casual to structured.

4. Superintendents arriving with a 100-day plan.

Boards want actionfast. Even superintendents hired from within the district learn that the view from the top within the local context is different.

The board, staff, and community are left out of the discussion of problems and solutions when superintendents arrive with all the answers. These already-baked plans are a problem and may well pit the board or the community against the superintendent immediately.

Solution: New superintendents should arrive and spend 30 to 90 days on a listening tour of the district and the community. During this time, they can find good information on the real condition of the district, not the propaganda on the website or the bashing in the newspaper. The superintendent can also educate the board and the community on the tough choices ahead.

5. Lack of continuous training and facilitation to help with the rough patches.

Most boards arent clear on their job duties. Boards tend to behave in the way the prior board behaved. In addition, many superintendents are not prepared to properly involve school boards in the work for the district. Because the roles and responsibilities are not mutually agreed upon, conflict arises when expectations arent met. Missteps and confused expectations create tension, frustration, and anger.

Solution: Savvy superintendents and board presidents see that a neutral training partner can be a bit of a buffer, clarifier, tough-message deliverer, and confidant that helps the governance team get through the bumpy first year. A regular training program with dates set a year in advance gives the governance team a place to reach mutual understanding and safely air concerns.

The constant churn of superintendents in a district has a significant negative impact on the district. Everything from student achievement to staff stability is affected. It is true that turnover is sometimes unavoidable, but many times a savvy school board-superintendent team can create an environment for longer tenures for superintendents. It is both important and possible. Just like maintaining an effective governance team, slowing down superintendent turnover is a partnership activity.






Nutriad hosts technical symposium in Brazil



For the fourth consecutive year, Nutriad hosted a well-attended technical symposium (SITEC) in Brazil, where current trends and future challenges in animal protein production were discussed.



Ten renowned industry experts, from academic and industry backgrounds, presented to an international group of poultry and swine producers at the Costao do Santinho Resort in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina.



Participants varied from the production sector including integrators, feed and premix producers, to consultants, veterinarians, nutritionists and researchers. They interacted with global experts that hosted talks on agribusiness topics both globally and in Brazil, with focus areas including feed intake via palatability, mycotoxin management, and, digestive performance.



The opening day was dedicated to the applications of flavours and sweeteners in animal feed to promote nutrition at critical life stages. Nutriads David Vanni Jacob, from Brazil, and Simon Eskinazi from the UK, provided the audience with an array of technical data from across the world.



As producers sometimes have difficulties in determining the real threat that mycotoxins pose to their animals, the second day of the programme was dedicated to enhance the understanding of mycotoxin management. A lineup of researchers, raw material experts and industry leaders brought presentations from Dr. Radka Borutova, Prof. Ana Paula Bracarense, Prof. Dr. Eduardo Micotti da Gloria and Guilherme Bromfman.



Gut health is also a key requirement for healthy and high yielding animals. A range of topics on digestive performance were presented by Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Santin, Dr. Tim Goossens and Prof. Dr. Roberto Guedes.



According to the event's host, Marcelo Nunes, managing director Nutriad South America, the 4th edition of SITEC once more exceeded expectations. 'The intention is always to offer our clients and partners a programme with relevant and updated guidelines on maximising the potential of their animals. At SITEC we are not only presenting technical content, we promote the interaction between attendants and speakers to forge productive relationships. Choosing Florianopolis to host our symposium - against the backdrop of exuberant beaches and stunning nature - further confirms SITEC as one of the most prestigious events in the sector,' Nunes said.




Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:



The Guardian Council of Iran, the country's constitutional watchdog, has disqualified former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, preventing him from entering the presidential race in the country.



Police forces were sent out to the streets of Tehran, following the announcement of the Guardian Council on the list of accepted presidential race candidates. ISNA reports that on April 21, situation in Tehran is calm.



President Hassan Rouhani, Vice President Eshag Jahangiri, the custodian of Razavi holy shrine Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, Mayor of Tehran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former minister of culture and islamic guidance Seyed Mostafa Agha Mirsalim and reformist politician Mostafa Hashemi-Taba were the only qualified among more than a thousand candidates.



Irans former and controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad submitted his name for the countrys forthcoming presidential election to be held May 19.



Ahamadiejad, who arrived on April 12 in the building of the countrys Interior Ministry to accompany his former Vice-President Hamid Baqaei during the registration process, made a surprise move by registering himself as another hopeful for the upcoming presidential race.



It should be noted that previously Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Ahmadinejad to refrain from contesting in the presidential elections.



Ahmadinejad served as Iran's president from 2005 to 2013.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

Iran has condemned the Paris terror attack, which killed one policeman and seriously wounded two other people.

Iranian Foreign Ministrys Spokesman Bahram Qasemi, commenting on the attack, wrote on his official Telegram page that unfortunately appeasement or sometimes support to terror groups by the West has been making the terrorists rabid.

He accused the West of double standards on terror groups.

Iran names all of Syrian opposition militants terrorists.

The Islamic State (IS) terrorists undertook the responsibility of the attack in central Paris on Apr. 20.

It [the Islamic State] identified the attacker as one of its soldiers naming him as Abu Yousif, the Belgian, Reuters reported.

Qasemi said that terrorism is the biggest and most pressing threat against global peace and security, which wont be eliminated unless international community reaches a common sense, determination and an honest decision to fight it.
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The United States has so far failed to act in accordance with both the letter and spirit of the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, says Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, IRNA reported.

We will see if US prepared to live up to letter of JCPOA let alone spirit, Zarif wrote in a tweet on Friday.

Should I use my highlighter again? the Iranian Foreign Minister said, trying to refer to the US failure to fulfill its JCPOA commitments.

US President Donald Trump in a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Thursday alleged that the Islamic Republic of Iran has failed to live up to the spirit of the 2015 nuclear agreement known also as the joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 21

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

Militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist organization attacked a base of the Turkish Armed Forces in the Uludere district of the southeastern province of Sirnak, said the Turkish General Staff in a message.

As a result of the attack, two Turkish servicemen were killed and other two were wounded, says the message.

The Turkish Armed Forces have launched a large-scale operation to neutralize the attackers. Additional forces have been sent to the event scene.

Seven Turkish servicemen were killed in a week during the anti-terrorist operations of the countrys Armed Forces. Meanwhile, 45 PKK members were neutralized during the operations in the provinces of Hakkari, Sirnak, Diyarbakir, Batman, Mardin and Bitlis.

The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for more than 30 years and has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

The UN and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist organization.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
The UN Security Council has strongly condemned a missile launch by North Korea on Sunday, amid rising tensions between the reclusive island state and the U.S, Anadolu reported.

Council members on Thursday "expressed their utmost concern" over the North's "highly destabilising behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council", a statement said.

The U.S. has recently ramped up rhetoric against North Korea, declaring the end of its "strategic patience" over its provocations.

"The United States of America will always seek peace but under President (Donald) Trump, the shield stands guard and the sword stands ready," Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday told sailors aboard a U.S. carrier in Tokyo Bay, as part of his Asia tour.

Pence promised an "overwhelming and effective American response" to any use of conventional or nuclear weapons.

In an escalating war of rhetoric, North Korea on Thursday threatened a "super-mighty" pre-emptive strike against the U.S.
Peter Capaldi, the Scottish actor who is currently playing the role of the Doctor in BBC's longest-running Sci-Fi series "Doctor Who," has explained the reason why he is leaving the series after Season 10.

Capaldi, on his recent guest appearance in "The Graham Norton Show," said that the reason boils down to the show being a "television factory." Which is why he has come to the decision to leave the series after "Doctor Who" Season 10. He did, however, expressed that "Doctor Who" is a "great job."

"You do twelve episodes a year, and I just worried that I wouldn't be able to continue to do my best work," the Scottish actor explained. "I like to be able to learn the lines and do some preparation and come in and give it some vigor and not hate it. I just figure, while you're enjoying it, leave."

Capaldi first broke the news during his guesting at BBC Radio Monday while speaking with show host Jo Whiley in early January, Vanity Fair reported. He confirmed that he will officially park the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) for good after "Doctor Who" Season 10.

Elsewhere on the interview, Capaldi has confirmed that the filming for the Doctor's death - or regeneration rather - has already finished. But he did not reveal any specific details about how it will actually happen.

However, on his past interview, the Scottish actor teased that fans should expect to see the Doctor go through a different kind of regeneration in "Doctor Who" Season 10. He mentioned that the Galifreyan's regeneration in the upcoming season is complicated compared to his previous transformation. And just like his interview on "The Graham Norton Show," Capaldi did not disclose any specifics.

No official word yet coming from BBC on who will replace Capaldi as the next Doctor in the show. More news about "Doctor Who" should surface in the coming months.
Brad Pitt shows off a surprising thin physique in a rare appearance while visiting his art studio in Los Angeles, California.

The "Fury" actor donned a simple look with his beige, long-sleeved shirt with undone buttons and jeans. He tops it off with a tinted blue glasses and boots.

The 53-year-old does not only look struggling but also, he acts a little bit confused as he enters the code of the studio's front door. Apparently, the actor has spent a lot of time in this place after his shocking split with Angelina Jolie.

According to ET, an eyewitness said that the "Inglourious Basterds" actor look "a little disoriented and confused."

While the father of six, who was described as "disheveled" and "skinny," received negative feedback about his appearance after his split with the "Maleficent" actress, some source says that he is doing otherwise.

Apparently, the "World War Z" star is looking great and has been working out regularly. He also said that Pitt has been meeting some old and new friends recently.

The "Troy" actor rarely made an appearance, however, he managed to attend the red carpet at the premiere of "The Lost City of Z" in Hollywood, California, where he is the executive producer.

Meanwhile, several reports suggested that Pitt "has been dating a bit."

'It's not anything serious,' a source spilled. "He doesn't have a girlfriend. It's more of a way to get out and be social." Apparently, is friends have encouraged him to go out as they don't want him to stay at home alone.

Pitt and Jolie have sent shockwave when they first announced their divorce. Apparently, the "Changeling" actress has decided to broke up with the "Moneyball" star because of his parenting with the kids. The couple has been together for over 10 years however, they've decided to separate ways.
Samsung has released the first ever firmware upgrade for Samsung Galaxy S8+ in Europe bringing enhancements to facial recognition feature.

According to Phone Arena, the South Korean tech company Samsung is already in the process of rolling out its first Samsung Galaxy S8+ software upgrade in Europe. The said new over-the-air update encompassed Google's April monthly security update. This contains fixes for 49 CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) that can be found on Android and a patch for 16 problems that are particular to Samsung Galaxy handsets.

It was also mentioned that a news outlet has obtained the entire changelog in Dutch. Moreover, the translated information indicates that the new software update also brings enhancements to the systems of the facial recognition feature on the Samsung GalaxyS8+.

Moreover, GSMArena has noted that currently the update for Samsung Galaxy S8+ has been spotted in Belgium and Germany. Nevertheless, it will certainly pave its way to other markets in some point in time.

Upon applying the recently released upgrade, the Samsung Galaxy S8+ will now be on build NRD90M.G955FXXU1AQDD, at least in Europe. It will carry in the latest security updates and after installing it, the Samsung Galaxy S8+ owners in Europe will have the April 1, 2017 security patch level.

Furthermore, the users of Samsung Galaxy S8+ are reminded that over-the-air updates may take a while before it could reach all units. They should also keep in mind that if they have purchased a carrier-specific version, they could have to wait even longer. Conversely, if they already received their Galaxy S8+ and they would like to check if the OS update already reached their handsets; they just have to go to Settings and then Software update.

As of this moment, there is still no available information if the patch will also debut for the smaller Samsung Galaxy S8. But then, it is likely to follow soon since the two smartphones are very similar.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone conversation that Moscow regrets that Washington opposes a proposal to send inspectors to Syria to probe the alleged chemical attack in Idlib, Sputnik reported.

On Thursday, the OPCW rejected voted against the Russian and Iranian proposal on investigation of a suspected chemical weapons incident in Syrias Idlib.

"Lavrov expressed regret over the fact that at the OPCW the US opposed Russia's initiative to send inspectors to Syria to verify allegations of sarin use in Khan Shaykhunon April 4 and of the presence of poisonous substances on the Syrian Sha'irat airbase."

Lavrov and Tillerson agreed to study a possibility of launching an unbiased investigation into the Idlib incident under the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) auspices, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The sides also discussed bilateral ties, including the controversy over the seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the United States, the statement said.

On April 4, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces claimed that 80 people were killed and 200 injured in a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, putting the blame on the Syrian government. Damascus vehemently rejected the accusations and said militants and their allies were responsible.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Syrian Air Force hit a warehouse where militants stored chemical weapons, which were sent to Iraq. The Russian Foreign Ministry reminded that the Syrian government doesn't possess chemical weapons since mid-2014. Chemical weapons have been taken out of the country with US' help.

In response to the Khan Sheikhoun incident the United States launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Syrian military airfield in Ash Shairat, located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the city of Homs. Russia described the attack as an aggression against a sovereign state.

In January 2016, the OPCW announced that all chemical weapons in Syria had been destroyed.
After the landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and forming the government in four states after the assembly elections of 2017, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now focusing its attention on West Bengal. The recent move to send 40 of its national leaders to lend support to its political activities in Bengal is part of that initiative. Led by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, these leaders will tour various parts of the state and try to mobilise people in support of their party. BJP is aiming at securing around 12 of the total 42 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In 2014, the BJP had won three seats in Bengal. But, in a state, where the opposition parties (Congress and the left) are steadily on a decline, a situation has arisen where BJP might come up as a powerful opposition. Buoyed with its spectacular performance in the recent elections, the BJP now wants to seize this opportunity.

The BJPs political offensive in the state has put Mamata Banerjee in a quandary. The chief minister and the ruling TMC supremo, who does not let go any opportunity to attack the BJP to protect her partys non-communal credentials, is now tentative in her approach towards the BJP. Earlier, before the five states went to poll, Mamata went into an overdrive to form an alliance at the national level against the BJP. Though the ostensible reason was to oppose the Modi governments demonetisation policy, she was using the opportunity as a testing ground for forming a broad alliance against the BJP before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But the move backfired badly. Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party, which joined Mamatas campaign against the BJP, backed out of it immediately after the arrest of Sudip Bandyopadhyay, a senior Member of Parliament (MP) of the TMC, allegedly involved in a Ponzi scheme (Rose Valley case). Moreover, Mamatas campaign in her home state also failed to mobilise people around demonetisation. A diffident Mamata maintained silence for some days once the Uttar Pradesh election results were out.
Pehlu Khans wife Zaibuna (L) and eldest daughter Abida. Credit: Farah Naqvi

Anguri Begum is blind. It spared her the pain of watching the video of Pehlu Khan, her only son, being lynched to death. But her heart knows and her unseeing eyes wont stop their weeping. I watch helplessly; suddenly her slumped sparrow-like body begins to shudder, as if a fresh tremor has just struck its core. Women who gather around her say she is like this all the time now.

It is hard to write about the pain of other people. You feel like a voyeur, but you also bear witness to injustice. So I labour on. Khans wife, Zaibuna sits unmoving on a nearby charpai. She looks up as we enter the inner verandah where the women of the house gather. But she doesnt see. What hits you is the aura of private hell that seems to envelop her entire body. I touch her arm gently, one human being to another. The spell breaks. Its like she sees me for the first time. Tadpa tadpa kar maara (They tortured him to death), the wail bursts from her body. She covers her face with her dupatta. I put my arms around her and hold her sobs for as long as I can.

Khans eldest daughter, Abida, tells me her mother saw the video but not the entire sordid thing. She couldnt because she broke down too soon. I mutter empty solace to Zaibuna. Himmat rakhiye, Ammi (Be brave), I say. Aise waqt par taaqat chahiye (At times like this we need strength). Abida turns to me, her face hardened by pain, mouth trembling with vulnerability  Insaaf chahiye, phansi chahiye (We need justice, we want the noose), she says.

We have all known death. The loss of a loved one. The pain. That sense of an unfillable void. But this feels different. This death is of an innocent. A death of hate. You can see it in Jaisingpur, on the faces of all the villagers who gather in a protective flock, as if guarding Khans defenceless family. Its a look I have seen before. In Gujarat and in Muzaffarnagar. It is the look of being victims of a hate crime. A crime that can never settle in the human soul  to be brutalised simply for who you are. For that is something you can neither change nor ever accept. What did I do? I simply was.

Khans village, Jaisingpur, is in Nuh district, part of Haryana. The lynching that killed him and injured others took place in Behror, in Rajasthan, where the legal process will unfold. We have here the luxury of not just one but two state governments, with a chance to fulfil their duties to a wronged citizen  but so far there is no sign of life from either. No one from the ruling party has visited. Who should these families turn to for justice? I look questioningly at Irshad, the older of the two brothers, who was driving one of the transport vehicles when they were attacked. He looks blank, bewildered at having nowhere to turn, few reservoirs of fight left, little anger. Perhaps it is too early. Anger takes a boil. For now, the pressing demand is of daily grief and survival.

Anguri Begum (L). Credit: Farah Naqvi

The family is poor by any standards. Khan was the primary wage earner. At best he brought home Rs 8,000-12,000 a month to feed an aged mother, a wife, four sons, two of whom are married, and two unmarried daughters. He managed by selling vegetables on occasion, doing share cropping at other times. And on this blighted occasion, he was one of only five-ten people in the village who regularly travelled to the Jaipur fair, to buy cattle at modest prices and sell them locally, earning a few thousand each time as premium. At 55, Pehlu wanted his sons to learn the cattle trade, so Irshad (24) and Arif (19) had accompanied him, along with two others from the village  Rafiq and Azmat.

This time there was an additional lure for all of them  the coming month of Ramzan, for which they wanted good animals capable of giving milk and providing curd, so essential for the pre-dawn Sehri ritual. Buffaloes were steep, so all of them settled for cows. Pehlu and his sons bought two milch cows, with newly-birthed calves. Barah, barah din ki biyahi thi (They calved just 12 days ago), Arif tells us. Biyahi (married) is the term they use for a cow that has just given birth. These cows would give good milk during Ramzan and they were affordable. The cost for the pair was a princely Rs 45,000. This was money taken on loan, as always, from an adjoining Thakur village at a neighbourly 5-6% interest.

Azmat, the other young cattle trader from Jaisingpur, bought three cows with calves for Rs 75,000. Now, Azmat lies unmoving with an injured spine on a charpai in the verandah of his house, just a short distance away from Khans home. The pain is visible on his thin face. Bas char-paanch din ki biyahi thi hamari gai. 10-15 litre doodh dene wali (Our cows had calved just 4-5 days ago. They would have given 10-15 litres of milk), says Nafisa, his wife, holding their infant daughter Khushnuma in her arms. The baby, true to her name, smiles sleepily, unaware of the grimness of our conversation. Azmats mother Zahira shakes her head in disbelief at what has befallen them. This was the first time Azmat, a small sharecropper, had ventured to the Jaipur cattle fair. But things went so horribly wrong. Ab koi nahin jayega, kabhi nahin (Now no one will go, never), she says.

Between Khan and Azmat, cattle worth Rs 1.2 lakh is gone, as is the Rs 45,000 in spare cash they were carrying. A total of five cows and five calves were seized by the police, like contraband, without a receipt or any formal acknowledgement. Placed in a gaushala, no one has any hope of their recovery. Besides, given the state of the gaushalas, these healthy cows are likely to be dry and half dead soon, according to the villagers. That pains them. The women of Khans family tell me, We love our animals, like our own children. We bathe our cows like babies. We feed them. They give us milk and curd. Outside, in the gathering of men, we hear similar voices, but angrier and louder  Yeh jo gau raksha ki baat karte hain, gai ki poonch bhi saaf nahin karni aati unhein. Hamein sikhate hain? Hum par gau hathya ka case kartein hain? (These people who talk of cow protection, dont even know how to clean the tail of a cow. They teach us? File cases against us of cow slaughter?)

The gau rakshaks are self-styled vigilantes and there are legal provisions to deal with them. The question is what we do with a vigilante state, that is outsourcing its street politics to these groups? The political message they together send is what makes the families of Jaisingpur despair. Not only are Muslim cattle traders to be beaten and killed, they must also bear the moral blame for their own death. The farce enacted by the Rajasthan police leaves one speechless. The first legal salvo in this vile episode is not a FIR for the violence unleashed upon Khan and his fellow travellers, instead it is an FIR against Khan, Arif and Irshad under the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 1995. This was lodged on April 2 at 2:42 pm, despite zero evidence that they were cow smugglers or intended to kill the cows. Evidence simply shows that they traded in cattle. Only the second FIR in the matter is against the cow vigilantes. This one is also dated April 2, but time-stamped 4:24 pm, nearly two hours after the first FIR, despite the immediate irrefutable physical evidence of bludgeoned human bodies.

As we leave Jaisingpur, we hear talk of cattle traders giving up the trade. A Muslim is scared to even own a cow, let alone transport it, we are told. What if someone storms into our house and says we have kept the cow for slaughter? If cows belong only to them, let them have their cows back, one man tells us. Others nod in grim agreement. Yes, well return lakhs of cows. Call it gau wapsi.
To reach me for collaborations, sponsorships, and event invitations, I am contactable at

the-ice-angel@hotmail.com


According to the US Navy, a F/A-18E jet based on the US Carl Vinson aircraft carrier crashed near the Philippines, Sputnik reported.

A pilot flying an F/A-18E combat aircraft ejected safely from his cockpit on landing approach to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and was recovered unharmed by a helicopter rescue crew, the US Navy said in a press release on Friday.

"A pilot safely ejected and was quickly recovered by a helicopter assigned to [helicopter squadron] HSC-4 aboard USS Carl Vinson while conducting routine flight operations during a transit in the Celebes Sea," the release explained.

The incident took place in the Celebes Sea in the western Pacific. The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia border the body of water. The distance from the Celebes Sea to the South Korean port of Busan is about 2300 miles.

The incident occurred as the F/A-18E assigned to Carrier Air Wing 2 was on final approach to the Carl Vinson, the release explained.

The incident is under investigation and the pilot under review by the Carl Vinson's medical team.

After it turned out that the Carl Vinson deployed to deter North Korea did not reach the Sea of Japan reportedly because White House and Pentagon failed to communicate effectively and was spotted near Indonesia, it was reported that it will finally reach the Korean Peninsula later this month.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that an "armada" is heading to the Korean Peninsula's shores amid a tensions with North Korea had escalated.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged the European Union to promote economic globalization and free trade. Since US President Donald Trump took office, China has intensified its dialogue with the EU as it fears that the new administration in the White House could undermine international trade with Mr. Trumps protectionist American First policies.

China and the EU, as two great forces in the world, shouldrespond to global challenges, reform and improve the international governance system, [and] promote a positive signal of economic globalization and free and fair trade, Mr. Li told High Representative of the EU, Federica Mogherini on Tuesday (18 April) during his visit in Brussels for a China-EU Strategic dialogue. Mr. Li also sought to stress that both China and the EU should respond to changes and uncertainty in the international situation with the cooperation and stability of China-EU relations.

Mrs. Mogherini added that both the EU and China recognized the need to support the World Trade Organization and to avoid any protectionist policy or attitude. Chinas top diplomat State Councilor Yang Jiechi said that his country valued relations with the EU. No matter how the situation in Europe will change, China will always firmly support the path of integration that the EU has chosen, Mr. Yang said.

Beijing and Brussels are committed to acting together to respond to terrorism, climate change and other global challenges. However, the EU remains concerned about the direction of its second-largest trading partner, concerned by Chinas massive steel exports, its militarization of islands in the South China Sea and a shift towards greater authoritarianism under President Xi Jinping.

Although Beijing tries hard to depict China as a wide open economy, foreign companies operating in the country complain about discrimination against them with measures that curb their access to the Chinese market. Brussels is now looking to finalize a bilateral investment deal with Beijing that should make life easier for the European firms doing business in China.
The European Commission has launched a new initiative for the sustainable development of the blue economy in the Western Mediterranean region. The region covers economic hubs like Barcelona, Naples, Tunis as well as tourist resort destinations like the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Corsica. In addition to this, there are security and safety concerns from the increase in migration from the South to the North. This initiative will allow the EU and the neighboring countries to work together to boost maritime safety and security, promote sustainable blue growth and jobs, and preserve biodiversity and ecosystems.

The goals of the initiative are mainly a safer and more secure maritime space, a smart and resilient blue economy and better governance of the sea. Priorities include cooperation between national coast guards and the response to accidents and oil spills. Other priorities include new data sourcing, biotechnology, coastal tourism as well as special planning, marine knowledge, habitat conservation and sustainable fisheries. The program will be financed by existing international, EU, national and regional funds, and financial instruments, which will be coordinated.

Karmenu Vella, Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries commented that millions of holiday makers have a happy association with the Western Mediterranean. Like the millions more who live across the region, they understand the fragile link between conserving national habitats and traditions and ensuring economic viability. Blue economy is important for each of the countries involved and they have recognized the strength of working together.

The initiative is the result of many years of dialogue between ten countries of the Western Mediterranean region that are ready and willing to work together: five EU member states, namely France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Malta, and five Southern partner countries, namely Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. It follows up on the Ministerial Declaration on Blue Economy endorsed by the Union for Mediterranean (UfM) on 17 November 2015.
A planned free trade agreement between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur could boost Europes exports by a factor of two within five years. Such an increase would be conditional upon eliminating trade tariffs between the two blocs, which costs European exporters 4.4 billion euro a year, out of which 400 million euros sits with Spanish companies. The European Commission and the Mercosur member states, namely Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, met in Buenos Aires at the end of March for talks.

The Commission said that both sides had made some progress in the negotiations but discrepancies remain in the areas of agriculture and market access. Despite these problematic areas, Brussels believes that the talks are at a very advanced stage, in part thanks to the great reception and availability of Argentinian President Mauricio Macri. Argentinian Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra has also recently met with Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom to advance the negotiations.

The combined 250-million population of four Mercosur countries is very attractive for European companies, of which many are present in the South-American bloc. Even a sector that has difficulties competing globally, like European steel, would find a huge market with Mercosur that would allow it to compete with Chinese steel, with the competitive advantage of not having to pay tariffs, a European source commented. The EU hopes that the talks will be concluded by the end of this year. However, since it is a mixed agreement, EU member states will have to ratify the final deal in a similar manner like in the case of Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) or the freshly negotiated EU-Canada treaty.
Written by ACM



*Strasbourg/CoE/Angelo Marcopolo/- Just after having Denounced the "Extensive resort to Lengthy Remand Detention" of Dissidents "by the Turkish Authorities", often even Before any Trial might Start, (see Infra), CoE Slamed "Remand Detentions" as a matter of General Principle Today, in a Report Published by its Watchog against Torture and InHuman Treatments, CPT, whose President, Mykola Gnatovskyy, speaking to "Eurofora", observed that even its long awaited Latest Findings in Turkey, that CPT Visited on August-September 2016, just After the Mass Arrests of various Dissidents on pretext of the Short-lived, 6 Hours long only, alleged "Coup" of July 2016, could Not even be Published, as long as Ankara's Government has Not Accepted yet to Disclose that information.



President Gnatovskyy Revealed, in substance, Replying to specific "Eurofora"s Questions, that a Special CPT's Report on these Issues has Already been Completed and Given to the Turkish Authorities, so that the Ball is Now in their Yard, since it all Depends from whether, and when, they might Accept, or Not, to Publish CPT's Findings, as well as Comply with its Recommendations. At least for the Time being, Ankara appears to have Refused to do so, and CPT's Head did Not Exclude that CoE's Anti-Torture Watchdog, might, eventualy, find itself perhaps Obliged to Trigger a Procedure foreseen by CoE's Convention's Article 10, about Making a "Public Statement", or not, (See Infra).



The Move came on the occasion of a Press Briefing by the CPT's President, at the CoE in Strasbourg, about its Annual Report for 2016, precisely Focused on "Remand Detention" in general, just After he was Heard by the PanEuropean Organisation's Highest Political body, that of its Committe of Ministers, Earlier this Same Day that it heard also the President of the PanEuropean Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, which has Recently Denounced "Extended" and "Lengthy" Remand Jailings in Turkey among Political Dissidents, (See Infra).



Apparently, Turkey seems to be Really Refusing to allow the Publication of that Report, since CPT's Draft was normaly Ready (as CPT's President Anounced to "Eurofora"), somewhere between the Beginning of November 2016 and January 2017, so that Ankara Government's Reply should, normaly, have been given on March or at the Beginning of April 2017, according to usual CPT's standards on Time Deadlines, which have just Lapsed.



----------------------------



- "Eurofora" reminded to CPT's President, the Fact that: "Everybody speaks, since Last Summer, about Very Harsh, Alarming Conditions, in which would have been Submitted Many People in the Turkish Prisons, that you have Visited : What has really Happened ? Will there be a Message coming from you (CPT), in one way, or another ? Sorry for this Question, to which, may be, your are Not Free to Answer" as such, "but, perhaps, you can Find anOther Way to Give a Message", we asked President Gnatovskyy.



- "The (CoE's) Message will Only Appear If, and When that Report will be Published !", CPT's President immediately reacted.



- Indeed, Nowadays, "the (CPT) Report (on the Latest, August - September 2016 Visits to Turkish Prisons thoughout the Country) is there !", he clearly Announced.



- In consequence, already, "The (Turkish) Authorities Can Authorize its Publication at Any Time. Now, it's up to them !", he pointed out.



- Otherwise, in the meantime, "We (CPT) CanNot do Anything, because the (CoE's) Convention is very Strict" about Confidentiality.



+ Questioned by "Eurofora" whethe he Might, eventualy, Find that the Real Situation, perhaps, Is, or Not, so Important as to Motivate, at least, an Unilateral Declaration by the CPT, using the Exceptional Power that CoE's Convention's "Article 10" gives to that body, its President declined to say now, but did not exclude anything a priori :



- "Article 10 (possibility), Any way, it's Something that I canNot Comment on", "Because it's an Internal matter", (to CPT's obligatorily Confidential Functioning).



- However, Independently of that, Questioned, in fine, "if there is Something on the pipe-line there, any move, in the foreseeable Future", CPT's President did Not Deny :



- "I can't say. No Comment, No Comment on that", he Simply Replied, Kindly Excusing himself, But, nevertheless, withOut Denying such (and/or, perhaps, anOther, relevant), eventual Possibility...



+ Given, inter alia, also the Fact that, according to CoE's "Convention Convention for the Prevention fo Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"'s Article 10, "if" a Member State "Fails to Cooperate, or Refuses to Improve the Situation, in the Light of (CPT's) Recommendations, the (CPT) May Decide ... to Make Known its Views", by "Making a Public Statement on the matter", such a Move (already used in the Past, particularly vis a vis Turkey), may Appear quite Logical, and rather Probable, according to relevant developments.



For that purpose, the concerned State should have "had an Opportunity to make known its (own) Views", (f.ex. by Publishing also its Reply to CPT's Report), while CoE must get "a Majority of 2/3 of (CPT's) Members", (i.e. at least 32 Member States, out of 47).



-------------------------------



++ Already, in the Informations that CPT Published Today, on the Occasion of its Annual Report for 2016, it Underlined the Fact that "2016 was a Busy Year", mainly because of Exceptional, Non-Scheduled, "Ad Hoc Visits, some of them Organized at Short Notice, in Response to Current Events", as, f.ex., that which was made "to Turkey, following the Military Coup Attempt", in Addition to 2 Earlier Visits "to Greece, to Examine the situation in the so-called <<Hotspots>>", already Noted Before, as well as one in Belgium, for a quite Old Problem (Prison Staff's Strikes, etc), and Ukraine (mainly at the Eastern Region around "Kharkiv"), Russia, (at "Dagestan" in "Northern Caucasus", etc), and, at a Lesser extend in Spain.



>>> In particular, CoE's Anti-Torture Watchdog, during a Full Week-Long "Ad Hoc" Visit to Turkey, between 29 August and 6 September 2016, Visited Many Prisons in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, including 3 Controversial Isolation "F Type" Prisons, 2 "Closed" and 1 "High Security" Prison, added to "Ankara's Police Headquarters", etc.



- Indeed, the main "Purpose ... was to Examine the Treatment and Conditions of Detention of Persons detained in connection with the Military Coup Attempt of 15 July 2016", CPT confirmed. => "To this end, the (CoE's) Delegation Interviewed, in Private, several Hundred" Detainees throughout Turkey, Strasbourg's Organisation Revealed.



----------------------------------------



Meanwhile, CPT's President clearly Confirmed, on the occasion of the Publication of the Annual Report for 2016, as a matter of General Principle, that - "Publication of CPT's Reports is a Sign of Transparency, and also an Opportunity to Open a Wider Debate on the Issues raised in them".



A Growing, Recent Trend in this Direction, is currently Advancing further :

President Gnatovskyy "Welcomed the Decision" of 4 More CoE Member Countries, (Austria, Finland, Monaco and Sweden), "to Agree to the Automatic Publication of CPT Reports" recently. They are Added to anOther 4 Countries (Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Moldova), which have Already Done so Previously, (i.e., Bringing Today this Group to a Total of 8 Pioneer Countries).



+ Moreover, Already, a very Large Majority among CoE's 47 Member States, currently practice de Facto, a pro-Transparency policy, concerning CPT's Reports, since, 35 among them do Not have, Today, Any Pending Non-Published Report at all.



AnOther 8 Member States, have Only 1 CPT Report which has Not yet been published, in Most of these Cases (5) the concerned Governments having Just Received that Report "Recently", as it results from the Statistics of CoE's Official Text, Published Today, so that the Number of 100% pro-Transparency States might Soon grow up to, at least, 40 out of 47, or, subsequently, even more.



_____________________________



+ Meanwhile, an "Extended Resort, by the Turkish Authorities, to Remand Detention" has been Recently Denounced by anOther CoE's Report on the Dire "Situation of Local Elected Representatives in Turkey", various Political Dissidents, Debated and Adopted in Strasbourg at the End of March 2017, (See Detailed Facts Infra).



In particular, a Resolution Adopted, on that occasion, with a Wider than 3/4 Majority of 109 Votes against Only 32 and 10 Abstentions, Slamed as "CounterProductive and ...Weakening the capacity of Turkey" to adequately "Deal with" any "Threats" that it might face, that phenomenon of "Extensive resort to LENGTHY Remand Detention" by Ankara's Authorities".



This is a real "Feature of these Measures" of Massive Jailings of Dissident Elected Politicians, "Many... carried out" not only After, but Even "Before the Attempted Coup" of the Short-lived, 6-Hours long alleged Army Move of July 2016, since CoE's Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE) had "Already Drew Attention to in its 2014 Report on <<The Situation of Lula Guven (a CLRAE Member) and Other Local Elected Representatives Detained in Turkey", on the base of which, a Public Debate and Vote in Strasbourg had resulted in the Adoption of "Resolution 367 (2014)".



+ A "Similarity with Situations Previously Condemned" by the CLRAE, "particularly" in a "2007" and a "2011" Earlier Reports, CoE's body observed.



=> Interestingly, Both CPT's President Gnatovskyy, and CLRAE's President Gudrun Mosler-Toenstroem, were Heard by, and Debated with 47 Member State's Ambassadors, in CoE's Highest Political body : its Committee of Ministers, on one and Same Day, Yesterday (19 of April 2017) in Strasbourg, as "Eurofora" was informed by Official sources.



------------------------------------------



>>> By a Topical "Coincidence", CoE Officialy "Urged" Today, as a matter of General Principle, all its 47 Member States, to Only Use on "Last Resort" the "Remand Detention", and, in that case, at least provide Remand Prisoners with "Adequate Detention Conditions".



+ Indeed, another well-informed CoE's Official stressed from the outset to "Eurofora" that, the Most Important Problem, in this regard, is Not so much the Number of Remand Prisoners, but "More the Conditions of their Detention".



So that CoE's Secretary General, Thornbjorn Jagland, clearly Denounced "Serious Shortcomings in the Conditions in which PreTrial Prisoners are Held", "Calling on States to Ensure that these Conditios of Detention are In Line with Human Rights Standards, and that Pre-Trial Detention is Only Applied If Absolutely Necessary".



CPT's President added, in this regard, that "Detention on Remand Can have Severe Psychological Effects", (pointing, f.ex. at "Suicide Rates" sometimes "Several Times Higher than among Sentenced Prisoners"), as well as "Other Serious Consequencies, such as the Breaking up of Family ties, or the Loss of Employment or Accomodation", etc.



---------------------------



+ Replying to anOher "Eurofora" Question, on the occasion of the above-mentioned Press Briefing, CPT's President carefuly Observed that a relevant Statistical Table distributed Today, with Numbers from 47 CoE's Member States, may be Out-Dated, at least as far as the Real Magnitude of the Problem in Turkey is concerned :



- "These are rather Old Figures ("from September 2015"), so that "Things might have Changed in Turkey" recently (i.e. on 2016-2017), President Gnatovskyy Warned, (given also CLRAE's latest Findings : Comp. Supra + Infra).



- Moreover, "Situations are Diverse", he said Earlier. F.ex., in Some Cases, it's "When there are Alternative" Sanctions, and/or "when the Justice System works well, that you'll have Less Remand Prisoners". But, obviously, this could Not Explain why Countries as ...San Marino, Andora, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, might have ... a Bigger Percentage of Remand Detainees, compared to the Total Number of All Jailed People, (i.e. also those who have become duly Sentenced Prisoners, than ... Greece, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Spain, FYROM, Serbia, Bulgaria, Armenia, Poland, Ukraine, etc., as that OutDated Statistical Table curiously suggests, (made Not by the CoE, but by anOther, Independent, External body). A possible Explanation of this Paradox, might, perhaps, be, that, at least in Certain Countries, a High Number of Remand Detainees, does Not Exclude an ...even Higher Number of Sentenced Prisoners, (so that an Approach based Only on the "Average" of "Remand" compared to "Sentenced" Inmates, would inevitably provoke False Appearances)...

Otherwise, such False Appearances might push to so Absurd Claims as, f.ex., to pretend that ...San Marino and Andorra may have Bigger Problems in Prisons than Turkey !...



- In fact, the Main Problem are "Bad Conditions, but also Lack of (Adequate) Regime", for Remand Detainees, CPT's President Explained, later-on, to "Eurofora".



- F.ex., Problems Start, already when, simply, "they are Condemned to do Nothing for too many Hours". Indeed, "Remand Prisoners, in too Many (CoE) Member States, are Locked up, for 23 Hours, out of 24, in a Single Day, they Sit there Idle, withOut doing Anything. They don't have any Opportunities. They Might have Rights, but they are Not Implemented. Because, there are No Activities for them", he Replied. At best, - "They have just 1 Hour or so of Out-Door Exercice", where "they Just Walk. Sometimes it's even Only on a Roof, in a Concrete Cage, they Call it "Out-Door", becaue there is Some kind of Air, and there is Nothing Else. There is Nothing that they can do. Because, just Sitting there, for Years, ... That's the balk of the Concern, that's the Problem", already emerging even from such a Simple Fact, President Gnatovskyy told "Eurofora".



-------------------------------------------------

+CLRAE on Turkey and Remand Detainees among Political Dissidents :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Meanwhile, in a Related Move, CoE's Committee of Ministers held, this Same Day, also a Meeting for exchange of views with the President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE), Gudrun Mosler-Toenstroem, just after CoE's Local Democracy Watchdog's Plenary had Debated and Adopted, at the End of March 2017 in Strasbourg a Resolution and a Recommendation on the current Situation in Turkey, asking, inter alia, also for the CPT to "Examine Reports of Inhuman Treatment of Detained Local Elected Representatives in Turkey", (See : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/turkeylocaldemocracysuspended.html ).



This particular point was Voted by CLRAE with a Very Strong Majority of 118 Votes in favor, and Only 21 against : i.e. a large 4/5 Majority at that PanEuropean, 47 Member States strong body.



This is Doubly Related to CPT's Annual Report Published Today, since CLRAE had already Denounced clearly "the Extensive resort, by the Turikish Authorities, to Remand Detention, which Often Extends for Several Years", in the cases of more than a Hundred of Local Elected Representatives recently Jailed in Turkey, (some Before, some After the Short-lived, 6 Hours long, alleged "Coup Attempt" of July 2016).



Moreover, since "None of the 81 "Co-Mayors" in Prison have been Convicted of Any Offense, and Most have Yet to be Put on Trial", (which has Not yet occured for them), while, in Addition, "Most of the Charges, against these Elected Representatives relate to the Ideas that they have Expressed", (and Not Violence, Neither Corruption, etc), then, "such Detention canNot be Justified", said CLRAE's Official Report, which Resulted in a Resolution asking to "Release" many of them.



"InHuman Treatment" specific Concerns regarded, among others, "notably" the Victims' "Solitary Confinement", but also the Turkish Authorities' practice of a "Systematic Transfer to Prisons Far (Away) from their Homes".



This Latter "Systematic Practice" of Separation "Makes Contacts with their Lawyers and Families very Difficult", CLRAE's relevant Report "on the Situation of Local Elected Representatives in Turkey" observed.



+ Worse : There are even Complaints "that Many" Jailed Elected Local Representatives "were Placed in Solitary Confinement", Denounced that CLRAE's Report, drafted by 2 CoE's co-Rapporteurs, Anders Knape, Experienced Long-Time ChristianDemocrat MEP from Sweden, President of CLRAE's Chamber of Local Authorities, and Socialist MEP Leendert Verbeek, Head of the Dutch Delegation, and President of CLRAE's powerful "Monitoring" Committee.



That Official CoE's Text makes f.ex. a special "Mention of a Member of the Congress (CoE's body), Ms Nurhaya Altun, "co-Mayor" of Tunceli", who "was Arrested ... and Detained in Kocaeli <<F Type>> Prison", (i.e. those Controversial Jails with Confinement, against which, at least 2 Massive Collective Protests of various Other Prisoners in Turkey, Already as Early as since the 1990ies and on 2000-2001, had resulted in Violent Mass Oppression and Deaths of several Inmates, including Women, in Addition to Hunger Strikes, during which many Prisoners prefered Risks to Die, than to be Kept in Isolation, complaining also of Growing Threats of Torture/Inhuman-Degrading Treatments in such cases).



Ms Altun was "Arrested ...Shortly After her Participation in the ... Plenary of the (CoE's) Congress" in Strasbourg, since the "17 November 2016", CLRAE's Report Criticaly observed, as far as apparently Politicaly Motivated Oppressive moves of the Turkish Authorities are concerned.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPT Visits +

----------------------------------------------------------------------------



Even if the various Political Dissidents "Detained" in Turkey since that Strange, Failed and Short-lived : 6 Hours-long Only, Alleged "Coup Atempt" of July 2016 amount "110.000" People, according to CNN, from which, the Turkish Ministry of Interior admits "55.000 Arrested on specific Charges", i.e. More than the Total Number of Irregular Migrants/Mass Asylum Seekers recently Trafficked by Turkish Smugglers into EU Member Greece and still remaining there ("around 47.400" according to Amnesty International) , Only a Part of whom currently are in "Reception and Identification Centres" alias "Hotspots", (Less than 15.000, ibid, or 13.500 according to "AsylumInEurope" NGO Website, almost 16.000 according to the Greek Ombudsman's last Report), nevertheless, CoE's Anti-Torture Watchdog, on 2016, paid 2 Visits to Greece's "Hotspots" and Other "Irregular Migrants" facilities (on 4/2016 and 7/2016), but Only 1 Visit in Turkey for the More Numerous and Dangerous Mass Arrests of Political Dissidents (on 8-9/2016).



--------------------------



+ AnOther, Earlier "Ad Hoc" CPT Visit to Turkey, on April 2016, was Exclusively Focused Only on the "Imrali" Island, controversial "F Type, High Security, Closed Prison", where is, notoriously, Jailed Kurdish Rebels' former Long-Time Leader Ocalan, since 1999.



- "The Purpose... was to Examine the Treatment and the Conditions of Detention of the (4) Prisoners" there, and, particularly, "the Measures Taken by the Turkish Authorities", since "the Previous Visit, by the CPT, to that Prison, on January 2O13", ("in the Light of the Recomendations" that it had made then, as the Report Published Today reminds).



>>> Indeed, according to recent Kurdish NewsMedia, Ocalan "has Not Seen his Lawyers, since July 2011", while, "his custodial and Family have beern Barred from the Island, since October 2014", and even "the Political Delegation of HDP Parliamentarians could Not Confer with him, since April 2014", i.e. "After Turkish President Erdogan Halted (Peace) Talks with Ocalan and PKK", so that, in Practice, "No Independent Information whatsoever, from Imrali Island, exists, Since April 2014". Even "2 ..Other Inmates of Imrali Island Prison have been Moved to a(nOther) Prison, in Mainland Turkey, possibly on ...December 2015, withOut prior Notice to Family and/or Lawyers", who "sere Not Allowed to See their Clients", Not even "in their New Prison".



- So that, even the 2nd CPT "Ad Hoc" Visit to Turkey, on 2016 (Comp. Supra), "was also an opportunity to Raise, once Again, with the relevant Authorities, certain Issues related to the Situation of Abdulah Ocalan and other Prisoners held at Imrali", CPT's Annual Report for 2016 Revealed Today.



-------------------------



Until Now, Turkey has had Also 6 "Periodic" (i.e. Scheduled) Visits by CPT, i.e. ...Less than ... Portugal (7), Italy (7), Russia (7), Spain (7) and the UK (8), and Equal to Austria, France, Italy, Ukraine, Moldova and Greece (6 too).



It's true that Turkey has been, however, Monitored in 28 CPT's Reports, compared to 26 for Russia, 18 for the UK, 16 for Spain, 14 for Greece, 13 for FYROM and Ukraine, 12 for France, etc. But, in Real Practice, this Still represents, in Average, ...More CPT Monitoring Reports on Russia, than on Turkey, which was Already a Member of the PanEuropean Organisation since the Cold War era of the Past, while, on the Contrary, Russia only became CoE Member during the 1990ies, and Started to be Monitored by the CPT only 8 Years Later than Turkey : So that, During Just 18 Years of CPT Monitoring of Russia (1998-2016), Moscow Authorities have Faced 26 Reports, i.e. 1,44 Reports per Year, in Average, while, During 27 Years of CPT Monitoring on Turkey (1990-2016), Ankara's Authorities faced "Only" 28 Reports, i.e. just 1,03 Reports per Year, which is, Comparatively, Less.



As for the Non-Publication of CPT's Reports, it's also True that Russia, followed by Azerbaijan and Moldova, has apparently Refused More Times than Turkey, even this might be due also to the Fact that Russia, during recent years, Often Found several Critical CoE's Decisions on Human Rights to be "Biaised" by alleged "Double Standards" against Moscow, (a "Peak" being also a Last Week's ECHR Chamber's ruling Condemning the Russian Authorities for alleged Abuse during the Heavily Armed Deadly Islamist Terrorists' brutal Masacre of Children taken Hostages with Bombs and Explosives in Beslan School on 2004, Shortly After that same ECHR surprizingly Absolved entirely the 2005 UK's "Socialist" Government of Mr. Bliar from Any Responsibility for the Brutal Killing of a Peaceful, Calm and Innocent Student by an UnWarned Violent Armed Attack of its Secret Services in London, who had committed a Gross Blunder, Confusing a Totaly Innocent Youngster, a White Christian, with an Arab Islamist Extremist supected to prepare a Terrorist Attack : "Da Silva" of Menendez affair)... The particularity of the "Transnistrian" and/or "Nagorno Karabach" areas, with a notoriously Controversial Legal Status, might, eventualy, Explain also the Special Situations of Moldova and/or Azerbaijan for the rest, (which, however, in the case, at least, of the Moldovan Authorities, Left "just" 3 CPT Reports Non Published yet, i.e. Equal to Turkey's Refusals until now).



Moreover, concerning Greece, those remaining in those "Hotspots" near the Greco-Turkish Borders (which are also EU's External Borders), are "Not Detained" in normal Legal terms, according to the Greek Ombudsman, and they Stay there Only 1 or 2, up to 25 Days, except from those whose Asylum Demands were Rejected and are due to be Returned Back to Turkey, (even if several sources have Denounced a "De Facto Detention", which might be Longer). This is, almost Excusively, a notorious Consequence of the 2015-2016 initiated, sudden, Unprecedented, Giant "Tsunami" of Irregular Migrants/Mass Asylum Seekers tresspassing in EU Member Greece through Turkey.



One of the Issues often raised, both in Greece and in Many Other EU Member Countries, since the above-mentioned "Tsunami" emerging though Turkey, is that of AbNormaly Numerous so-called "UnAccompagnied Minors", for whom, inter alia, "Separate" Areas have been strongly Recommended, from those used for Adults. But, given also the Fact that, notoriously, Most of them are of an UnDetermined real Age, (i.e. in Several Cases Adults, having Hidden or Lost their ID documents), recently Incidents have been Reported about "Rapes" of Small Children by Young Adults, probably Dissimulating their Real Age, inside that Group of Population, showing that "Promiscuity" Risks exist Also Among such "Non-Accompagnied Minors" themselves, (f.ex. at least 2 proven such Incidents in 2017 at the Islands Near Turkey, etc).



As for a Recent (March 2017) Tragic Incident of a Syrian Asylum Seeker reportedly committing "Suicide" while still Awaiting a Reply to his Demand for Asylum in Greece, it occcured Not in Detention at the Islands' "Hotspots", but in Mainland Greece, at the Pireus SeaPort, (i.e. Out of such facilities), eventualy Similar to Various such "Suicides" of Non-Detained Asylum Seekers reported f.ex. in Sweden, etc., (probably because, precisely, that Excessively "Massive" aspect of the Giant Wave of Irregular Migrants/Asylum Seekers smuggled through Turkey has apparently Downgraded in a Public Opinion the Classic Image of real "Refugees", and almost "Hidden" and/or "Crashed", by its Huge Mass, certain Real Refugees among an indiferenciated "Tsunami" notoriously Including also Many Petty Criminals, some Deadly Terrorists, and a lot of Economic irregular Migrants, Scandalously Mixed with some realy Persecuted Political Dissidents.

At any case, such isolated Incidents, obviously have Nothing to do with the, Absolutely Differend, Cases of several "Suicides" reportedly Committed by real Political Dissidents Targetted, Arrested and Detained by Ankara's Authorities, particulaly after those Mass Purges in Turkey aggravated since the July 2016 alleged "Coup Attemp of July 2016...



------------------



Meanwhile, however, the Greek Police has just Found and Liberated more than 16 Immigrants ...Detained as "Hostages" by a Gang of Pakistani Traffickers, only two Weeks after being Smuggled into EU Member Greece by Turkish Smugglers, as it was Anounced Earlier this Week (16 April 2017), in one among Several such Incidents of "Hostage Taking" by Human Trafficking Gangs for Money (2.500  being Asked by the Smugglers for the Release of Each Hostage in these latest cases) already also at various Other occasions recently.



Naturaly, it's No Question about any CPT Visits in such cases...

-------------------------------------------





***



(NPLR : Text of 19 April, but Published on the 20th, according with an "Embargo" deal, to give Time for Brussels' Collegues, who had the Press Briefing 1 Day Later there, since the CPT President had to Meet CoE's Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg's Headquarters Earlier).





***

("DraftNews", as already send to "Eurofora" Subscribers/Donors, earlier. A more accurate, full Final Version, might be published asap).





***




Author

Jill Griffin Country Chief Executive Officer and Head of the Depositary Bank for the Luxembourg branch of Standard Chartered Bank

European and Asian investors look to Asia-Pacific (APAC)

In Europe, the mass affluent market is growing. Data from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates this investor segment will control $31.6 trillion by 2020, an increase from $22.8 trillion in 2012. [1]

As traditional markets remain weak, European investors are looking further afield for better returns, and identifying products or managers in APAC to complement and diversify their portfolios. A typical hedge fund in APAC (ex Japan) has returned 17.6% over the last 12 months, beating the industry average of 10.73% during the same period. [2]

Meanwhile, the mass affluent market in Asia is growing even faster than in Europe. PwC estimates mass affluent investors in Asia will control $43.3 trillion by 2020, a rise from $20.5 trillion in 2012. [3]

The appeal of European fund products to global investors

Both these investor markets are strong champions of European fund wrappers such as Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS).

Under the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) and UCITS, fund managers are subject to strict regulatory oversight and this supervision provides assurance to conservative clients.

AIFMD and UCITS V require a depositary to be appointed for each fund, and assigns liability to the depositary in the event of their assets being lost or stolen in the custody or sub-custody chain. A non-EU Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) can appoint a third country depositary provided it meets equivalence rules. Investors clearly understand this to be a positive advancement for consumer protection.

As a result, the APAC region  specifically Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan  accounts for around $200 billion in UCITS Assets under Management (AUM).[4] AIFMs are still relatively new in Asia, although inflows are expected to increase as local institutions familiarise themselves with the brand, which only launched in July 2014.

Despite strong demand, challenges exist

Although APAC managers have outperformed many of their peers, there are barriers to European and domestic inflows.

Most managers in Hong Kong and Singapore use limited liability company structures in offshore jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Curacao or Bermuda. While this provides tax neutrality, some EU governments are applying pressure on investors  particularly public sector pension funds  to invest in onshore products only, and APAC investors themselves sometimes view offshore fund structures as unregulated.

Access to some APAC managers is also being curtailed by EU regulation. AIFMD introduces restrictions around distribution, particularly for non-EU firms using National Private Placement Regimes (NPPR). Some markets such as Germany and Italy do not permit private placement of non-European Economic Area (EEA) funds to local investors.

Managers can obviously rely on reverse solicitation, but any omission around marketing to EU investors will be met resolutely by regulators. For most firms, reverse solicitation is a risk to be avoided.

Brexit planning has absorbed significant EU resources, and AIFMD equivalence discussions have become a secondary issue for European policymakers. In fact, there is a strong possibility certain EU regulators could insert additional demands for third countries in exchange for equivalence.

Move onshore to promote more inflows

The growing European and Asian investor community, strong performance by APAC managers and the barriers faced by investors, provide several compelling reasons for managers to bring their products onshore.

Onshore structures can aid capital raising. Onshore products can be passported across the EU with little difficulty, without having to rely on complex, bespoke private placement arrangements in individual countries.

Furthermore, the procedures will become more consistent as regulators work through the Capital Markets Union (CMU) to synchronise the distribution rules for UCITS and AIFMs.

Established APAC managers have set up UCITS or AIFM structures in the past, but an increasing number of mid to small-sized managers are contemplating a move onshore as well in response to institutional investor pressure. Setting up a EU fund structure is undeniably expensive, particularly for a sub $100 million firm,[5] but the possibility of being awarded big-ticket investments is an enticing prospect.

And firms are finding ways to mitigate the cost

Firms may set up management company structures if they have reservations about investing heavily in onshore physical infrastructure. They can avail of one of the manythird party management companies, or rent a sub-fund on an established fund platform, often referred to as a rent-a-sub-fund or plug & play platforms.

Standard Chartered  through its Luxembourg-based Staight2UCITS platform  allows boutique managers and those new to cross-border distribution to build assets through dedicated sub-funds. This product helps fund managers achieve quick speed to market; low set-up costs, and operational efficiency.

Other managers simply establish a master-feeder structure for their home market. The master-feeder approach  permissible since the introduction of UCITS IV  is highly efficient, and appeals to APAC investors who appreciate the Luxembourg UCITS brand, and the countrys strong regulatory regime.

Whatever the approach or size of firm, adopting a fund structure  whether UCITS or AIFM  will help managers win mandates from Asian and European institutions and retail clients, who appreciate the depositary protections, transparency and regulatory framework of these products.

For further information about Straight2UCITS, please contact Jill Griffin (jill.griffin@sc.com, +352 28 55 00 204).

[1] PwC. (2014). Asset Management 2020: A Brave New World. Retrieved from PwC website: https://www.pwc.com/jg/en/publications/asset-management-2020-a-brave-new-world__main-report.pdf





[2] HFRI Indices Performance Tables. Retrieved from HFR website: https://www.hedgefundresearch.com/family-indices/hfri





[3] PwC. (2014). Asset Management 2020: A Brave New World. Retrieved from PwC website: https://www.pwc.com/jg/en/publications/asset-management-2020-a-brave-new-world__main-report.pdf





[4] PwC. (December 2015). Asset Management Newsletter (December 2015). Retrieved from PwC website: https://www.pwc.ie/media-centre/assets/publications/2015-pwc-ireland-am-newsletter-december.pdf





[5] KMG Capital Markets. (July 2014). Risk Management  More Expensive Than You Think. Retrieved from KMG Capital Markets website: https://www.kmgcapitalmarkets.com/index.php/news/item/60-risk-management-more-expensive-than-you-think#

Euromoney and Standard Chartered will be running a series of webinars on debt capital markets. The first one will be on 'Investing China: CGB futures and the Bond Connect on May 15. Find out more

Based in Luxembourg, Jill Griffin is the Country Chief Executive Officer and Head of the Depositary Bank for the Luxembourg branch of Standard Chartered Bank.

Jill has worked in Asset Services for over 25 years and is an established and active member of the Luxembourg Funds community. Areas of expertise include: Depositary roles & responsibilities, Fund Regulation, Global & sub custody operations & services, Fund distribution, Fund data, and Financial reporting. Beyond her technical knowledge, Jill is most known for the relationships that she has built within the Investment Funds community along with her reputation for delivering exceptional client service.

Since rejoining Standard Chartered Bank in January 2015, Jill has been responsible for establishing SCB Luxembourgs UCITS V and AIFMD Depositary Services; including the launch of a Luxembourg Platform Proposition which offers asset managers a unique tool to distribute their investment expertise via a dedicated and entirely segregated sub-fund within an existing Luxembourg UCITS structure.

Prior to joining Standard Chartered Bank, Jill was the Managing Director of Northern Trust Global Services Ltd Luxembourg Branch where she was responsible for the Depositary Bank as well as a director on the Board of the Luxembourg Management Company. Other senior positions include Chief Sales & Marketing Officer and Member of the Executive Board at KNEIP, as well as roles with Deloitte, Standard Chartered Bank and JP Morgan Bank. This is Jills second term at SCB having worked in the London Branch of Standard Chartered Bank as a Senior Relationship Manager between 1995 and 2001.

Jill is a British national, who has lived in the UK, Germany and Japan. She currently resides in Luxembourg where she is the Chairwoman to two International charities: the NGO Stop Aids Now and the Luxembourg affiliate of the global charity Dress For Success.

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In the first of a new ELN Issue Brief series on arms control, Dr Alexey Arbatov examines the evolving policies of Russia and NATO on the first use of nuclear weapons.

Dr Arbatovs brief goes beyond specific doctrinal points of concern, such as the concept of escalating to de-escalate (the limited first use of nuclear weapons in order to force an opponent to choose between accommodation or escalation to full nuclear conflict), identifying the serious flaws in the political decision-making process that may ultimately lead to the use of nuclear weapons in Europe.

According to the author, in the present state of confrontation, a direct military conflict between Russia and NATO in Eastern Europe, the Baltic or the Black seas would provoke an early use of nuclear arms by any side which consider defeat otherwise unavoidable.

Dr Arbatov concludes with a plea that nuclear escalation in current circumstances is eminently possible, and that this must be addressed immediately by the leadership of all regional actors.

The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELNs aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europes capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security challenges of our time.
The actor says he is not against Karnataka or Kannadiga; will continue to fight for the issues of the Tamils, be it Sri Lanka, Cauvery or farmers rights

The storm over the release of Bahubali 2 - The Conclusion in Karnataka has abated with actor Sathyaraj apologising for his comments made nine years ago about the Cauvery water dispute.

The actor apologised for his comments and said he is not against Karnataka or Kannadigas. He added that he will continue to fight for the issues of the Tamils, be it Sri Lanka, Cauvery or farmers rights.

Pro-Kannada groups had threatened the release of Bahubali 2 - The Conclusion in Karnataka and said that they would not allow the movie to release in the state unless Sathyaraj, who plays Kattappa in the film, apologised.

The actor was given time until April 28 to apologise, barring which, the activists led by Vattal Nagaraj had threatened to shut down Bangalore to mark their protest.

The groups have now cleared the films release following the apology from the actor, according to media reports.

Sathyaraj had supported the demand of Tamil farmers to release Cauvery water back in 2008. A video of his public speech at a solidarity rally had surfaced on social media channels earlier this week, sparking the protests against the actor and movie.

The second part of SS Rajamoulis epic blockbuster is one of the most-awaited movies of 2017 and Karnataka is one of the major markets for the film.

Director Rajamouli appealed to the protesters through a video he shared on Twitter and reasoned with them to consider the plight of the entire crew of the movie which has worked very hard to make the movie.

An appeal to all the Kannada friends... pic.twitter.com/5rJWMixnZF  rajamouli ss (@ssrajamouli) April 20, 2017

Interestingly, Bahubali - The Beginning was released in the state in 2015 without any controversy.

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China-Albania Cooperation: Partnerships Under Belt and Road Initiative, 16+1 Framework To Be Expanded

Zhang Gaoli, China's vice premier, visited Albania as part of his five-leg Eurasia tour. (Photo : Getty Images)

On Monday, China and Albania announced that they will be expanding their partnerships that are under the Belt and Road initiative and the 16+1 Framework featuring China and Central and Easter European (CEE) countries, the Xinhua News Agency reported.



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The agreement, which was made during the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli to the Balkan country, covers China-Albania cooperation in areas of agriculture, infrastructure, tourism as well as production capacity.



According to Zhang, Albania's strategic geographic location in southeast Europe is advantageous for China.



"China is willing to conduct more substantial cooperation with Albania taking the country's features and actual needs into consideration under the Belt and Road Initiative and the 16+1 mechanism," Zhang remarked when he met with Albanian President Bujar Nishani.



The Chinese vice premier urged that the two countries should sign an intergovernmental memorandum of understanding regarding the Belt and Road initiative in order to get more fruitful benefits.



The landmark endeavor was first proposed by China in 2013. It aims to enliven the ancient Silk Road trading routes by establishing a trade and infrastructure network linking Asia, Europe and Africa.



Meanwhile, during Zhang's meeting with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, he noted that China desires to align its development strategy with Albania's.



The Chinese official further suggested that both countries should expand the scales of their two-way trade and investment. He said that the local government is set out to import more Albanian products such as olive oil and encourage more businesses to invest in Albania.



For infrastructure and energy projects, China expressed commitment to helping Albania in building roads, hydro-electric power stations and economic development zones. Partnerships between people-to-people exchanges, film-making, tourism and education will also be fostered, Zhang noted.



Albanian President Nishani believes that strengthening the China-Albania cooperation will be important to the growth of his country. The ties between the two nations were first established in Nov. 1949, around a month after the People's Republic of China was founded.



Data from China's Ministry of Commerce shows that the bilateral trade volume between the two hit $636 million last year. Currently, Albania considers China as its major trade partner and prime source of investments.



Regarding the 16+1 mechanism, Zhang said that China appreciates Albania's long-standing support to the framework that was created in April 2012.



Last November, the Asian giant and the CEE countries agreed to deepen their ties in terms of economy and trade, education, science and technology, culture, forestry, agriculture, local governments, logistics and e-commerce.



Zhang's trip to Albania was part of his five-leg Eurasia tour covering Moscow; Tallinn, Estonia; and Astana, Kazakhstan.


I heard this term mentioned a few times since coming to UAE. The last time someone mentioned it I asked what they meant by it but the person also seemed lost. I even asked what would be the attributes of a non "family friendly" school but that too could not be explained.



I have come across schools that focus on students in terms of academic achievement, personal development, pastrol care, sports, culture, environment, liberal or conservative tilt etc but never heard of a school rated for being family friendly.



Not sure if it is a euphemism for an active PTA.
I don't know how it works for Indian nationals, but usually being the spouse of a French citizen is a pretty sure-fire way to obtain a visa. As a tourist, you're much more suspect than as a spouse.



Just make sure you give them EVERYTHING they ask for in terms of papers, and make lots and lots and lots of copies of absolutely everything. Be very polite during and come organized to your appointment with the consulate. Guard your Livret de famille with your life, and before leaving France ask for several copies of your acte de marriage (from the mayor's office).



However, this could be all null-and-void if the French elections tip in favor of the nationalists, as their candidate has promised to instate a moratorium on ALL immigration following her election. Stay tuned, and keep your fingers crossed.
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President Xi Jinping is known for his intense anti-graft and corruption campaign. (Photo : Getty Images)

Since the Chinese government launched its 10th round of anti-graft inspection in July, several positive changes have been made, according to a report from state-run Xinhua News Agency.



The inspection covers 32 central agencies and provincial regions. Several teams were also deployed in regions that were already included in previous inspection rounds.



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The Party group of the National Audit Office has already established a tracking system that would supervise any corrections made in response to the instructions of the designated inspectors. It will track all the progress undertaken during the inspection process.



On the other hand, the Party group of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, an advisory body, has already started dissolving companies affiliated with them.



Meanwhile, the Party committee of the Ministry of Public Security has created different mechanisms and measures that would edify its reforms regarding the selection of its officials.



These changes are part of the government's collective effort to crack down on graft and corruption.



In Jiangxi, the provincial Communist Party of China (CPC) committee has launched a series of campaigns that aim to educate its Party members after a top official was imprisoned for corruption.



Su Rong, who is also the former vice chairman of China's top political advisory body, was held accountable by the CPC's Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) for committing serious corruption in Jiangxi where he served as Party chief from 2007 to 2013.



Forty-three prefecture-level officials involved in the high-profile case have been investigated by the inspection team. Su's case serves as an example for fellow officials in Jiangxi and in other local governments as well.



When Chinese President Xi Jinping assumed the country's top position in 2013, he already vowed to fight corruption from top to bottom.



"We must . . . punish every corrupt official and constantly eradicate the soil which breeds corruption. No exception . . . no leniency . . . no one can enjoy absolute power outside of the law," Xi previously remarked as quoted by Xinhua.



Back in 2015, the government's anti-graft inspection has already punished around 300,000 officials.


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The stakes are high for employers with foreign workers as the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigrants with high-profile raids and a surge of deportations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is projected to hire 10,000 new agents this year under an executive order signed in January by President Donald Trump, in part to strengthen enforcement of I-9 record-keeping rules.

The forms can be tricky and complex for employers, and the penalties for noncompliance significantly increased this year. ICE fined a vegetable packing firm outside San Antonio $180,000 because its paperwork wasnt in order, not because it employed illegal immigrants, said San Antonio lawyer Alfredo Lozano.

Its not a difficult form, but in some industries where companies do not have a human resources department or have people who are not well trained in I-9s, mistakes can be made that, unfortunately, can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, Lozano said. The community at large thinks that companies that get fined have illegal workforces, but thats not true. The forms can just be filled out incorrectly, and the companies still can be fined.

Employers are responsible for maintaining records verifying their workers eligibility. The I-9 form recently changed, and the penalties for noncompliance almost doubled under an initiative started by former President Barack Obama.

There are employers who may not be aware they have the obligation, said Cyndi Mergele, senior director of the San Antonio office of the audit, tax and consulting firm RSM, based in Chicago.

The individual who completes the form must attest, under penalty of perjury, they have examined the documents the employee has presented to them. They must attest, to the best of their knowledge, that the workers are authorized to work in the U.S., Mergele said.

Violations may occur in two ways, Mergele said.

Technical violations occur with incomplete, inaccurate or untimely I-9 forms. Substantive violations include willfully employing people unauthorized to work in the U.S.

Employers are obligated to maintain I-9 forms on all workers who get W-2 income-tax forms. Lozano, whose law firm specializes in I-9 compliance, explained that employers must sign the I-9 forms after viewing the birth certificates, drivers licenses, legal permanent resident documents and Social Security cards to certify they have been inspected. Lozano recommended that employers make copies of the documents and maintain paper I-9 forms with hard signatures.

The new form, which took effect Jan. 22, must be kept on-site in case ICE agents show up to inspect employees. Technical violations carry penalties of up to $2,156 per form, up from a maximum penalty of $216 under the Obama administration.

Knowingly hiring someone who is unauthorized to work in the U.S. or continuing to hire unauthorized people carry heftier fines of up to $21,563 per unauthorized employee, Mergele said.

The aim of the Obama administration was to deter employers. That was the strategy. We know that under President Trump that deportation will be a strategy. I-9 enforcement is part of the strategy, Mergele said.

More times than not, companies get in trouble by making mistakes filling out the form, Lozano said.

Mergele said some industries are at higher risk of inspections, notably the construction and food service industries.

Those are the clients who have indicated they have been visited multiple times, Mergele said.

Lozano agreed that ICE targets certain industries because they tend to attract a high concentration of immigrant workers. He listed the restaurant, landscaping, poultry and construction industries.

With ICE, there is no set pattern, but in the last four to five years, these industries have been inspected the most, Lozano said.

Some companies are inspected multiple times in a two- to three-year period. If they are fined once, there is a tendency to be inspected again within 24 months, Lozano said.

San Antonio-based ICE Public Affairs Officer Nina Pruneda wouldnt say how many ICE agents operate in the area or how many might be added in the upcoming hiring wave.

For operational security reasons, ICE does not release local staffing levels, she said in an email, declining to comment on whether ICE agents target certain industries.

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.

ICE must give a company three days of notice before inspections start. Some companies prepare for inspections by having immigration lawyers regularly audit their I-9 files. After an inspection notice is given, employers can have their I-9 files reviewed by lawyers before the inspection begins.

In addition to I-9 files, ICE agents can request to see employer payrolls, lists of current employees, business licenses and incorporation papers.

Five factors are considered in establishing penalties, according to ICE: employer size, good faith effort to comply, seriousness of violations, whether the violation involved unauthorized workers, and any history of previous violations.

ICE agents follow up inspections with notices of compliance, or other notices if problems were found with suspect documents, discrepancies, or technical or procedural failures. ICE agents also can issue warning notices and notices of intent to fine.

Some companies use E-Verify to help ensure they are hiring eligible job candidates. E-Verify uses government data online to match Social Security numbers provided by new employees on I-9 forms, but enrolling in E-Verify is voluntary for most employers.

Some employers are required by law to use E-Verify. Federal contractors must use E-Verify. Texas law requires that higher education institutions and state agencies use E-Verify. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has announced that the Texas Senate recently passed a bill that requires state contractors to use E-Verify.

E-Verify has been controversial for years because of inaccurate matches and mismatches that have kept or delayed some applicants from being hired.

The challenges people have seen are related to employees with multiple last names or hyphenated last names, Mergele said.

Almost 99 percent of E-Verify cases totaling 32.82 million from July to September 2016 were confirmations of eligibility to work. Mismatches were detected in 1.08 percent of the cases.

Upon review, 0.16 percent of all cases were confirmed as eligible to work after mismatches were resolved, leaving 0.92 percent of cases as ineligible to work either because the case was dropped by the employee or the employer, according to a CIS report.

dhendricks@express-news.net
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Exxon Mobil Corp. is moving forward with plans to build the worlds largest ethane steam cracker plant on a 1,400-acre plot of bucolic farmland just north of Corpus Christi following a six-month battle that left the 20,000 residents of Portland divided.

The decision comes after community protesters called Portland Citizens United unsuccessfully tried to block tax incentives for Exxon and its foreign partner, Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corp. or SABIC.

The group opposes the $9.3 billion facility because its proposed site is 1.75 miles away from the areas high school and junior high.

The plant would use high heat and pressure to turn natural gas into 1.8 million metric tons a year of ethylene and polyethylene, the base materials used to make plastic.

Exxon and SABIC announced their site choice Wednesday, saying they will buy the land from the McKamey family if the state approves the companies permits. Cotton grower Jeff McKamey, who farms the land with his father, confirmed in an email that the companies havent yet exercised options to buy the property.

The announcement doesnt change anything Jason Mutschler, a member of Portland Citizens United, said by phone. Were still going to fight this in the permitting stages.

Exxons Project Executive Rob Tully said air-quality and wastewater permits are being filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

When we submit our permits to the TCEQ, we have to meet very rigorous standards, and those include best control technology, Tully said.

Errol Summerlin, a former lawyer and member of Portland Citizens United, called the fight against the permits an uphill battle and said support from Gov. Greg Abbotts office made the project sound like the best thing since sliced bread.

If we cant get them (TCEQ) to deny the permit, then we will be advocating for the most stringent air quality standards we can get, Summerlin said. They have got to use the most technologically advanced equipment to reduce emissions and were going to insist on that.

The Texas Enterprise Fund awarded $6.4 million to Exxon and SABIC for the project, according to a statement released Wednesday. Abbott said the decision is a tremendous win for not just San Patricio County, but for the entire state of Texas. Exxon was looking at two sites in Louisiana and another in Victoria.

This record-breaking project illustrates that our business climate is exactly what leading and growing companies are seeking when investing in their future, Abbott said in a statement.

The governors office estimated that it will create 600 direct jobs and up to 3,500 indirect jobs with an economic impact of $22 billion during construction.

Abbott said the project will create more than $50 billion in economic output during the first six years of operation after its complete in 2023.

The project was awarded more than $531 million in tax incentives from the county and Gregory-Portland Independent School District.

The school boards tax package requires Exxon to create at least 400 permanent jobs and over 15,000 temporary construction jobs over the course of 10 years.

Exxon and SABIC choose San Patricio County over Louisiana because of its proximity to productive shale gas fields in South Texas.

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.

With the shale gas development over the last five years North America has become a very important region for our industry and more important if we want to maintain our position as one of the top petrochemical leaders  you cannot afford to not be part of this growth, Yousef Abdullah Al-Benyan, CEO of SABIC, said by phone.

Tully previously said the San Patricio County locations access to rail, deep-water facilities, the local workforce and proximity to raw materials were the driving reasons behind their decision, according to a statement.

The location is less than 100 miles from the Eagle Ford Shale oil field, which is a major producer of natural gas, and about 10 miles north of the port in Corpus Christi.

This story has been updated to correct the amount of tax breaks that Exxon Mobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. will receive from the Gregory-Portland Independent School District. The tax incentives are are valued at $531.4 million over 15 years.

rdruzin@express-news.net




AUSTIN  It was the middle of the night at the Texas Capitol, and once again a long line of people were waiting to testify about a bathroom bill.

Many of the arguments were the same, though the bill and the venue had changed. This time, dozens of transgender people, their families, advocates and local officials were pleading with legislators to vote against House Bill 2899, which would ban cities and school districts from creating nondiscrimination policies for groups not already protected by state or federal law, as it relates to bathrooms and changing facilities. They spoke into the early hours Thursday to a House State Affairs panel, in a scene that bore many similarities to last month, when some of the same individuals testified against another bathroom bill, Senate Bill 6.

One day, everybody will be treated with respect and equality, and history will tell that story, said Jess Herbst, the openly transgender mayor of New Hope, who also testified last month. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, what side of history will you be on?

A handful of people, including several pastors, voiced their support for HB 2899, whose author, Rep. Ron Simmons of Carrollton, said addresses a majority of Texans concerns. The room grew visibly tense during testimony from Jack Finger, with the San Antonio Family Association, who claimed that sexual orientation and gender identity are changeable characteristics and called being transgender an affliction. Supporters of HB 2899 were far outnumbered by opponents.

No vote was taken on the bill, and it is unclear how much support it will have in the House. Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott praised the legislation as a thoughtful proposal that he hoped would find its way to his desk. The legislation was heard as momentum on SB 6 has stagnated since it passed the Senate last month.

The overnight hearing capped a busy day at the Texas Capitol  including lengthy House debate on a bill that would overhaul the states school finance system  that delayed the State Affairs hearing until around 8:30 p.m. The panel considered several other bills until shortly before midnight, when five hours of public testimony on HB 2899 began.

What it does is it protects our citizens in an area that they believe they need to be protected in, Simmons said while introducing the bill.

Several representatives from San Antonio, including City Councilman Rey Saldana, argued otherwise. In 2013, the city updated its nondiscrimination ordinance, which includes a section on public accommodations, to include sexual orientation, gender identity and veteran status. Saldana said the new legislation was unnecessary and would disproportionately harm San Antonios tourism industry.

Were left scratching our heads as policymakers and law enforcement as to what problem 2899 is trying to solve, he said.

At several points, committee Chairman Byron Cook expressed similar reservations, saying he was unaware of major bathroom incidents that have occurred in Texas.

Emmett Schelling, president of the San Antonio Gender Association, shared some of the most emotional testimony of the night. He explained what it felt like to be transgender, like youre living out of your body sometimes, and described his trauma after being raped.

This is a life-and-death stance for us, that we need to be able to exist and have our lives, he said.

lcaruba@express-news.net
Ah, the Texas legislative session: A 140-day mad scramble to amend the laws of our big state between Jan. 10 and Memorial Day, with more than 9,000 bills filed so far.

Of those, roughly 375 introduced in this 85th Legislature have something to do with water. They cover a huge variety of subjects including water utilities, groundwater rights and regulation, navigation and environmental protection.

Here are three of the most interesting water bills this session, chosen for their relevance to San Antonio and its surroundings.

Sewage and streams

Senate Bill 1796, sponsored by state Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, could put an end to a long-running battle over whether sewage plants should be allowed to discharge treated effluent into streams that eventually flow into the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.

The fight pits environmentalists and longtime Hill Country landowners against developers and sewage plant engineers. An influx of new housing in the Hill Country often brings new sewage plants that discharge treated wastewater into some of Texas cleanest streams.

They are spring-fed, pristine and unique to other streams in the state, Con Mims, executive director of the Nueces River Authority, said at a Senate committee hearing this month. Essentially, they are long, flowing aquariums.

Groups such as the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance say sewage effluent degrades these streams and that the sewage should instead be applied to the ground as fertilizer or dried out via evaporation. In January, a district judge in Travis County sided with GEAA and overturned a wastewater discharge permit for the Johnson Ranch development in Comal County.

But at the committee meeting, business groups and engineers argued that such discharge permits come with stringent requirements that do a good job of protecting streams.

Highly treated effluent will not adversely impact the receiving water, said Robert Callegari, an engineer who worked on a sewage plant for Dripping Springs. In my opinion, the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) is better suited to sort through these arguments on a case-by-case basis instead of making a broad ban on discharges.

David Galindo, water quality division director for the TCEQ, asked to give neutral background information on the bill, responded to a question from state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, about what developers would do if they cant discharge in the Hill Country.

Thats a good question, Galindo replied. When your options are limited like that and you dont have the area available to land-apply, you might opt for septic tanks.

The bill is pending in the Senate Agriculture, Water and Rural Affairs Committee.

School lead testing

The crisis that left drinking water in Flint, Michigan, contaminated with toxic levels of lead is still causing ripples as far as Texas.

State Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, is sponsoring House Bill 2395, which would require schools to test their facilities for lead contamination. Currently, state law, for the most part, requires only drinking water utilities, not schools, to test their systems for lead.

Students typically spend 180 days a year in these school buildings, and we should at least be able to ensure the water they drink doesnt hinder their ability to learn, Collier said at a recent committee hearing.

Because water sources and quality vary greatly throughout the state, Collier gave several different examples at the hearing, from Texarkana to San Antonio.

The water system in San Antonios good, but we just need to make sure when it gets to the children in the drinking fountains and so forth that its good, she said.

At the hearing, San Antonio pediatrician Ryan Van Ramshorst called the bill a great step in the right direction in terms of building on the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, struck a neutral tone, saying the bill could do more to protect children from lead exposure.

We absolutely think the Legislature needs to require testing, he said, but the ultimate solution is to remove those lead pipes.

The bill is pending in the House Public Education Committee.

Groundwater power struggle

One of the most intense debates over groundwater issues in Texas centers on whether the states 99 groundwater conservation districts have too tight a grip on the transfer of water to other areas.

Most districts have boundaries that extend to one or two counties, though they sit over aquifers that often extend under large swaths of the state. While there are certain requirements, districts for the most part create their own rules about who gets a groundwater permit and how much they can use. A landowner on one side of a county line might face completely different rules than a neighbor on the other.

Perry, who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Water and Rural Affairs Committee, has filed an omnibus bill, Senate Bill 1392, that would in part require districts to work with neighboring districts to create similar rules for a subdivision of a groundwater reservoir that the districts share.

Weve got all these little micro-managers running around on the same aquifer that performs the same way, the same geology, recharges the same, use is the same, and weve got different sets of rules, Perry said in a committee hearing.

People from groundwater districts across the state testified for and against Perrys bill, which may see significant changes before it leaves committee. Some said the current system of greater local control is working fine for their districts.

Why should we change all of our rules to an unproven similar set of rules that may not fit any one singular district and may not change our (desired future conditions)? said L.G. Raun, a board member of Coastal Bend Groundwater Conservation District.

The bill is pending in the committee.

bgibbons@express-news.net

Twitter: @bgibbs
In a bitterly divided Legislature, Jennys Law is notable for its lack of controversy. Crafted to protect the rights of crime victims, the bill sailed unanimously through the Texas Senate this month and passed a Texas House committee  again, unanimously  on Thursday.

Nonetheless, Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood opposes the legislation.

In a testy exchange last month with a Senate committee, Michael Hoyle, chief of LaHoods criminal trial division, surprised legislators by minimizing the circumstances that inspired it.

Jennys Law is named for a mentally ill Houston rape victim who was jailed in 2015 by Harris County prosecutors intent on securing her testimony against her own attacker.

The victim had agreed to testify against her assailant, serial rapist Keith Edward Hendricks, but she suffered a breakdown and was taken to a hospital for treatment. After her release, she was jailed for 27 days at the request of prosecutors who wanted to ensure that she would testify.

Putting a victim in jail should never be an option, Jennys mother said in a statement read to the Senate committee by attorney Maisie Barringer. Jenny was housed in the general population. During her stay in jail, she received two black eyes, one from another inmate and one from a guard.  Today, Jenny is still struggling with the entire trauma she endured by the rapist and also being revictimized by the justice system.

The bill would require court-appointed lawyers to represent victims or witnesses before prosecutors could request a so-called writ of attachment to hold them in jail. It also would require a public hearing and a rehearing of the case after 15 days.

Hoyle argued against the legislation on behalf of District Attorney LaHood, he said, by asserting that witnesses come in all shapes, sizes and backgrounds.

Hoyle continued, If youre going to prosecute the devil, youre going to have to go to hell to get your witnesses. Well, now those witnesses have a right to an attorney at taxpayer expense so they can litigate their participation in the states prosecution.

Hoyle added, This is something that happened in Harris County in a Harris County case that happened to a Harris County victim involving a Harris County prosecution. Bexar County, we dont have this issue.

The bills author, state Sen. John Whitmire, was taken aback.

Im a little shocked by your insensitivity to the circumstances that we just heard described that were trying to remedy, said Whitmire, D-Houston.

Im not insensitive at all, senator, Hoyle said.

Well, thats my judgment, Whitmire responded. Jenny would probably not have been lost in the system if she had a court-appointed attorney that could have represented her over with the sheriff, the jail and certainly the DA and the judge.  Youre entitled to your opinion. Im just shocked, quite frankly.

Im entitled to facts, senator, Hoyle said.

Im describing the facts in Jennys case, Whitmire said.

Well, those facts apply in Harris County, Hoyle said. They dont necessarily apply in Bexar County.

Prosecutors in Bexar County, however, have requested writs of attachment, a point pressed by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston.

Would you agree with me, when you do that, that you take someones liberty away? You are incarcerating them, Huffman told Hoyle.

Of course, Hoyle said. But 

Then why would you object to them having counsel at that point? she asked.

I dont necessarily object to a victim having counsel  Hoyle said.

Its still a citizen who is being incarcerated, Huffman said.

It is a citizen who might be incarcerated, Hoyle said.

At that moment, it was clear that Hoyles problem  and, by extension, LaHoods  is a troubling lack of fairness and compassion. They are arguing that a citizen who is not accused of a crime, but who is facing jail nonetheless, has no right to an attorney  the same right that any accused criminal would have.

In a statement on Friday, LaHood said, (While) I am not opposed to the concept of Jennys Law, the bill is not practical as it is currently written. I am happy to meet with the authors of the bill to discuss revisions that would benefit the justice system.

Thats unlikely to happen.

At the close of Hoyles testimony, Whitmire quipped, I just want to thank Mr. Hoyle for being here  because youve made it clear and convincing why we need this bill.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
US First Daughter Gaining Success as Entrepreneur in China, Mixing Business and Politics

Ivanka Trump is criticized for using her position at the White House to gain financially. (Photo : Getty Images)

The U.S. first daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her company received approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks. The company now has rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services.



The success of Ivanka Trump's company in China is largely attributed to her role as the first daughter. Investment deals were easier to close as Trump's daughter uses her political ties.



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During the U.S. visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner sat beside the Chinese leader during dinner.



After the election of her father, President Donald Trump, Ivanka has gained nine new trademark deals in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Canada and the U.S for her company.



Experts call the sales growth of Ivanka's midline clothing line insane and incredible. Her company saw a 771 percent increase in sales from Feb. 2016 to Feb. 2017.



Her flourishing business is criticized because of Ivanka's political life in a conflict of interest with her business, Ivanka Trump Marks LLC.



Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said, "Put the business on hold and stop trying to get trademarks while you're in government."



He added, "She has to comply with the Criminal Conflict of Interest statute, which will prohibit her from participating in government matters that have a direct or predictable impact on her businesses, and this includes trade with China."



The first daughter's act of building a company is not illegal. However, she is criminally liable if she uses her White House stature to seal financial gains.



Her lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said in a statement that Ivanka will not weigh in on business strategy, marketing issues, or the commercial terms of agreements.



"She has retained authority to direct the trustees to terminate agreements that she determines to create a conflict of interest or the appearance of one," said the lawyer.


United Airlines is suffering from one of the worst PR crises in history. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese social media are in a frenzy as they found out that David Dao is a Vietnamese national. Dao is the passenger from the United Airlines (UA) flight who was dragged down the plane's aisle by the flight crew.



Dao is a doctor who was flying from Chicago to Louisville when UA crew forcibly removed him from his seat. The act was caught on video and went viral on social media.



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The doctor suffered a concussion, a broken nose, and two missing teeth. Flight officers accidentally slammed his head against an armrest while removing him from the plane.



In one of the worst PR catastrophes in history, United Airlines is battling with waves of criticism from all over the world. The criticism was strongest from China because many speculated that Dao was Chinese.



Judy Chu told Chinese state media, "No person should be treated in this manner, and it is especially notable that this person was Chinese-American."



Much support came from the Chinese community and included a signature campaign and a famous hashtag, #ChineseLivesMatters. The campaign produced 200,000 signatures.



Upon learning that Dao was not Chinese, many reacted on social media and some Weibo users claimed that Dao is not part of the Chinese community.



A Weibo user posted, "David Dao is not Chinese. He's not one of us."



Other users responded to the post and wrote, "Does it really matter if David Dao is Chinese? Would it take away the damage that has been done?"



The airline is trying to appease the public by an apology and changing booking policies. Crew members are now required by United to book 60 minutes before the flight.



Consumers and critics are not pleased with the changes and are calling for the resignation of the airline's CEO, Oscar Munoz.



In light of this overbooking issue, Delta Airlines declared that they will compensate overbooked passengers with $10,000.


It all started with a conversation with reporter Catie Noyes.

You know, Id like to do a story on ag colleges in Ohio.

Dont forget Pennsylvania and West Virginia, I replied. And how are you going to identify schools or programs that yield graduates that go into agriculture?

The special supplement, Your Ag College Guide, is the result of that conversation. A story that kept getting bigger until we gave it its own section.

What we tried to do is show high school students that there are many paths to a career in agriculture  broad paths, narrow paths, winding paths, surprising paths. There is no cookie-cutter advice that fits every student. Youll have to find your own way.

In the supplement, we share information that was provided by institutions that responded to our emailed survey. You can compare different universities enrollment or tuition at a glance. And on a special landing page online  www.farmanddairy.com/agcollegeguide  you can find the listing as well as an interactive map, and more words of wisdom for high school students.

The special section also includes lots of great information from admissions experts: Visit more than one school, dont pick a school just because your boyfriend is going there, and get organized!

(High school students, you will need to learn to check your emails and keep track of your information, because colleges will be corresponding with YOU, not your parents. Oh, hello, late tuition fee.)

Parents, students and teachers: We plan to keep updating this online landing page with more information about scholarships, college information and tips, so be sure to bookmark the page and check back often.

If youd like a copy of our special supplement, please email the newsroom at editorial@farmanddairy.com. Teachers, 4-H or FFA advisers, if youd like multiple copies for high school students, just ask!

In the special section, we also spotlight seven graduates who are working in a variety of ag careers, from an attorney specializing in ag law to someone who returned to the family farm. You can also read the larger feature about one of these young ag professionals, who actually started his own farm enterprise in high school.

We asked these graduates why they selected their particular university, and found their answers interesting, and think you will, too. We also asked these graduates to share some what I would tell the 17-year-old me advice. I think it should be required reading for everyone headed to post-high school education.

Regular readers may remember that I didnt graduate from an ag college. My degree is from the (then) School of Journalism at Kent State University. Although I was raised on a small farm, I had no idea of the vast career opportunities available in agriculture. I mean, thats just farming, right?

Chris Hogan changed his major four times, finally landing on history, with an eye toward law school. But it was a job he held during a gap year between college and law school, that solidified his interest in ag law. And Melanie Snider found her love of horses propelled her to a degree in recreational therapy, highlighted by a college program that emphasized equine therapy.

There are many facets to agriculture, and we need good people in the pipeline to keep it going: geneticists, lenders, agronomists, chemists, communicators, engineers, marketers and growers. We also need skilled tradesmen in fields like high-tech diesel technology, or water systems or bioenergy.

We need to encourage the brightest and best from our farms  and the brightest and best who werent raised on a farm  to consider careers in agriculture.

So, pull out that special section and put it aside. If you dont have anyone in your immediate family in high school, share it with a friend, a church member, a neighbor, heck, even a complete stranger at the fair. Teachers, FFA or 4-H club advisers, well be happy to send you extra copies.

And take some time to listen to the next generation. Encourage them to explore their interests, and to figure out their passion. Show them the breadth and depth of all things agriculture.

We need them.
SALEM, Ohio  The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has issued two violations to the company responsible for constructing the Rover Pipeline, after learning of an unauthorized discharge into state wetlands.

Between 1.5 and 2 million gallons of a clay mud material known as bentonite, and cuttings from the natural formation, were released into a state wetland near Navarre, Ohio, April 13, according to James Lee, media relations manager with the Ohio EPA.

An additional 50,000 gallons of the same material were released April 14, in a wetland at Amoy Pavonia Road in Mifflin Township, Richland County.

The Stark County incident covers an area about 500,000 square feet, and is contained within a natural berm and other barriers that the company has constructed in order to keep the material out of the Tuscarawas River.

The Richland County incident affected about 30,000 square feet.

No public water systems have been impacted, Lee said.

Out of wetlands

The clay mud is a naturally occurring material, Lee said, but he added that it also does not belong in a state wetland. The material was being used as a lubricant for the drilling process of installing the pipeline.

The company, Energy Transfer, has completed cleanup at the Richland site, and has ceased drilling operations at the Stark County site while cleanup efforts continue. Vacuum trucks and pumping systems are being used to recover the material.

Immediate action

Alexis Daniel, Rover spokesperson, said the company immediately referred to its procedures plan to properly dispose of the mud in compliance with regulations.

Lee said the issuance of fines is yet to be determined. According to the citation in Stark County, fines could range from $10,000-$25,000 a day, depending on the type of damages and the duration.

He said Rover has been actively cleaning up the material and the Ohio EPA continues to monitor the situation.

When completed, the Rover Pipeline will transport 3.25 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas, through about 710 miles of pipeline, from the Marcellus and Utica shale regions, to northwestern Ohio and into Michigan. The company hopes to have the first phase completed by July and the second part finished by November.
By Annie Specht

Its me, your college professor.

You know, the person who stands at the front of the classroom you didnt come to and shares information you didnt bother to hear.

Look, at the risk of sounding like the parents who may be helping you finance your college education, Im not mad  Im just disappointed.

Im disappointed because I spent hours  HOURS  working on a lecture that was both informative and entertaining.

I researched the topic exhaustively, combing through the library, peer-reviewed journals, popular-press outlets and my own experiences to provide you with a well-rounded overview of concepts that you can use in the future.

(The notes online, while comprehensive, dont contain the puns everyone pretended were funny.)

Discussions

You also missed a great conversation among your classmates. Some of them not only came to class, they also did last nights readings. They offered some really interesting insights into the material.

A few of the students didnt agree with the authors premises, so we had the opportunity to talk through our differences of opinion and gain a better understanding of conflicting perspectives. I think you wouldve really enjoyed it.

Oh, and we talked about the project thats due in two weeks. There were a few things that your classmates were confused about on the assignment sheet, so I took a few minutes to clarify the specifications.

You obviously understand the directions, as you didnt feel your presence was necessary today, so Im sure you can complete the assignment without my input.

Wasted money

A college education is a huge investment for, and in, you. I hate to beat the very dead youre paying to not go to class horse, but you are, in fact, spending a lot of money to sit in your dorm room and watch Netflix.

Paying tuition and avoiding class is like buying a pair of expensive winter boots but walking around in flip-flops in January  its a waste of money that ultimately hurts no one but you. And Ohio frostbite is no joke.

Lets be honest: I miss you. My favorite part of my job is getting to know my students.

We care

I want to know how youre doing, what your goals and dreams are, what struggles youre facing and if theres anything I can do to help. That type of interaction cant be replaced, no matter how many emoji you use in your apologetic emails.

I also write a mean (in a good way) recommendation letter, but I struggle to endorse students I rarely see and dont know, especially because I assume that absentee students grow up to be absentee employees.

In closing, you missed a lot today. Not just the lecture, but also the understanding that comes from asking questions, engaging in discussion and building camaraderie with your classmates and instructor.

Also, I baked cupcakes.

See you tomorrow.

(Dr. Annie Specht is a professor in the department of agricultural communication, education, and leadership at Ohio State University, and she wants you to come to class.)

More college tips and advice here.
China-North Korea Connection (Photo : Getty Images)

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is trying to convince China to stop its economic assistance to North Korea to prevent it from causing fear and threatening the security of countries in the region.



A report by news.com.au said that the Australian leader is not overestimating China's influence on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but he said that he had discussed the North Korean aggression issue with Chinese officials some years ago.



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Turnbull added that since he took office as prime minister, he had already called attention to the North Korean problem with the Chinese leadership.



"China, if it wishes to, it can cut off North Korea's economic lifeline to the world," Turnbull said in an interview with ABC radio on Wednesday, April 12.



Turnbull, however, admitted that the Chinese even find it difficult to deal with Kim Jong-un, but the Australian leader believed China has the leverage to negotiate with the North Korean government.



"The eyes of the world are on Beijing," Turnbull said.



As tensions between the U.S. and North Korea continue, U.S. President Donald Trump and his deputy Mike Pence have warned Pyongyang against making military action.



Last week, North Korea's latest missile test failed, but last year, it successfully carried out two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missiles test.



Australian opposition Leader Bill Shorten has also warned that ignoring the North Korean problem would be dangerous, adding that "you'd have to be a fool" not to be worried. He called for a bolder action in dealing with the rogue nation.



Turnbull said that North Korea's nuclear capabilities threaten the political stability of countries even beyond the Asia-Pacific region.



"[North Korea is a] reckless and dangerous threat to peace and stability in our region and, indeed, in the world," Turnbull said.



"If it were able to obtain [and] develop a missile that could travel as far as the United States with a warhead, or as far as Australia, then it obviously could threaten Australia and, indeed, the United States.



"My message is to Australians, that their government, my government, is committed to ensuring that the North Korean regime acts responsibly," Turnbull added.


Jo Wood has lashed out at EasyJet after being kicked off an overbooked flight.

Jo Wood

The former wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and her partner Paul Scarborough were booked to fly from Murcia in Spain to Gatwick in London earlier this week with the low-cost airline, when they discovered that EasyJet only had one seat for them both.

Jo explained during an appearance on 'Good Morning Britain': "I arrived at Murcia Airport, checked in, had no luggage, went through security and had my boarding pass.

"Just before we were about to go onto the plane, they pulled us aside. because I was with my fella, and said 'one of you can get on and one of you has to stay'.

"I said 'hold on a minute this is ridiculous, I bought my ticket three weeks ago, why should we stay?' We've bought our tickets. And they said they had overbooked.

"I reckon it's because we had no luggage, we were easy to take off. I was furious because I had to get back for work the next day.

"They didn't stand there and ask who would come off the flight! Nobody said that - they just took us aside."

Jo, 62, and her 53-year-old partner ended up paying to fly home on a later flight on Ryanair instead.

Jo fumed: "They picked on the wrong woman, didn't they? Picked on the wrong woman, they did. They must have thought, 'She won't complain, she looks very sweet, she hasn't got any luggage so we don't have to drag her luggage off the flight, that's fine, we'll pick on that girl, Jo.' Little did they know."

An EasyJet spokesman said: "We were sorry to hear of Miss Wood's experience and would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.

"While there was one seat available, we understand that she wanted to fly with her travel companion. We have been in contact with Miss Wood directly to apologise."

MailOnline reports that Jo will be given a full refund for the Ryanair flights, 167 for her EasyJet flights and 120 for a taxi to her home in London.
The true inside story of the Iranian Embassy siege is headed to the big screen later this year with 6 Days, starring Jamie Bell, Mark Strong and Abbie Cornish in leading roles. Chronicling the events that took place in London in 1980, the country stopped still to watch an intense six-day standoff between British security forces and armed militants, with a brutal assault the result of the negotiations. Check out the first trailer for the flick below:

Shot on location in London, the film is directed by Toa Fraser and written by acclaimed screenwriter Glenn Standring, who undertook extensive research and interviews with various individuals involved in the real-life events that the movie is based on.

Following the perspective of three people largely throughout the film  hostage negotiator Max Vernon (Mark Strong), news reporter Katie Adie (Abbie Cornish) and leader of one of the SAS assault teams, Rusty Firmin (Jamie Bell). Check out sleek new character posters for those three as well as an extra poster based on the movies SAS offering below:

6 Days hits cinemas across the UK on August 4, 2017.

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia have postponed their visit to the UK to meet Queen Elizabeth "in light of the General Election".

King Felipe VI

The royal family has issued a statement confirming that their meeting will now take place between July 12 and 14 instead of June 6 to June 8, after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced there will be a poll on June 9.

The notice on the official royal website, royal.uk, reads: "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain have agreed that, in light of the General Election, the planned State Visit to the United Kingdom from 6th to 8th June 2017 by King Felipe and Queen Letizia should be postponed. The Visit will now take place on 12th to 14th July 2017."

The pair last came to the UK in July last year, when they attended Rod Stewart's concert in Madrid.

The royal couple - who got married in 2004 - snuck into the show at the Teatro Real, a major opera house, through a side door and sung the night away with other attendees.

Letizia, who was dressed to impress in a skimpy black dress, couldn't resist documenting the event on her phone as she pulled out her device and began snapping away.

However, the couple may have been enjoying themselves but, according to HELLO! magazine, they refused to get up and dance and, instead, sang along to the lyrics.

It was a busy few months for the pair as earlier in 2016 they spent three days in the UK.
Danniella Westbrook feels "really strong" following a spell in rehab.

Danniella Westbrook

The 43-year-old actress checked into the Villa Paradiso facility in Mijas, Spain, almost a month ago and Danniella - who returned to taking cocaine after suffering a miscarriage in 2016 - has revealed she is currently feeling happy and healthy.

She said: "I'm having a great time.

"I've been here three and a half weeks - my head is straight, I'm not on any medication, I'm not taking any drugs and I've worked loads on myself.

"And loads on my past issues. All the stuff that I felt I got left with at the end of last year I'm dealing with and I feel strong, I feel really strong."

However, the mother-of-two admitted she is looking forward to being reunited with her children once her spell in rehab ends.

In a video posted by The Sun Online, the former 'EastEnders' star said: "I'm happy to be alone and on my own.

"I'm happy to be doing this but looking forward to seeing my kids in a few weeks and looking forward to getting back to work and all the exciting things I've got coming up.

"I'm in a wonderful place and I'm truly blessed again but thank you one and all for everything."

Danniella has endured a particularly troubling few months, after she split from her boyfriend George Arnold and miscarried their baby.

But her former 'EastEnders' co-star Patsy Palmer has voiced her support for the actress.

She recently said: "Danniella Westbrook is so sweet. We all went through our own struggles. It was intense."

As part of the rehab process, Danniella has been having one-on-one meetings with therapists, who have been talking to the star about her long-standing battle with addiction.
Britains Got Talent made its return to the small screen last week with an incredible debut episode full of memorable acts, from singing, to doggy yoga, dancing and illusions. This weekend it doesnt seem to be letting up on the pedal, speeding ahead with more exciting and jaw-dropping routines to astonish those watching.

Weve got our hands on some brilliant preview videos ahead of the new episode, showcasing Simon Cowells spoon-balancing namesake, the young and magical Issy Simpson and comedian Jonny Awsum, who ropes in both Ant and Dec for his act. Check out those previews below:

Having travelled the length and breadth of the country once more, hosts Ant and Dec along with the returning judging panel of Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams are looking for a winning act that can capture the imagination and heart of the Great British public.

Once more, the winner of this years series will perform for royalty at the Royal Variety Show, as well as taking home a big cash prize.

Britains Got Talent continues tomorrow, Saturday April 22 at 8pm on ITV.

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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A new trade association in Gujarat is planning to address issues facing the apparel industry, and develop an ecosystem for the growth and strengthening of the sector as a whole, availing maximum benefits from government. The Association of Apparel Manufacturers and Exporters of Gujarat (AAMEG) was launched on April 21, 2017 towards meeting this objective.Speaking at the AAMEG inauguration, Gujarat's minister of state for industries, mines & minerals, and finance Rohitbhai Patel highlighted the importance of growth and development of the garment industry in the state, and emphasised on the necessity to strengthen and improve the value chain of the industry.

A new trade association in Gujarat is planning to address issues facing the apparel industry, and develop an ecosystem for the growth and strengthening of the sector as a whole, availing maximum benefits from government. The Association of Apparel Manufacturers and Exporters of Gujarat (AAMEG) was launched on April 21, 2017 towards meeting this objective.#

"Textiles have a strong base in Gujarat. Now, we need to focus on developing the apparel industry in the state. We should organise more trade shows to create awareness about fairs, as also incentives available from the government. As an organisation, we plan to attract international brands and buyers towards working with apparel units in Gujarat," AAMEG director Meena Kavya said during her inaugural address.Speakers from various segments of the garment industry shared their experiences and views on the development of the industry in Gujarat. They also recognised the remarkable contribution of the sector towards the overall industrial climate in the state. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Sonakshi Sinha's Noor which has been released today is an adaptation of a successful novel, Karachi, You're Killing Me! by Saba Imtiaz.

So far the film has received a lot of good response. The viewers who are watching the first day first show have mostly positive things to say about the movie. Read the live review of Sonakshi Sinha's Noor below.

Ekta Rajani @EktaRajani Pointful story, witty, colloquial dialogues and a sparkling performance by @sonakshisinha, #Noor is heartfelt & fresh @sunhilsippy. Go watch Neeraj Udhwani @Neeraj_Udhwani Such a superlative performance from @sonakshisinha.She keeps it real and effortless. And sparkling dialogue by @misschamko! Uff yeh #noor. Sudha  @MISS_MAHESHOLIC @sonakshisinha Stealed The Show #NOOR  Great Job Done By Her Go Watch In The Theater's Now With Family & Friends.Don't Miss It Guys Salilacharya @Salilacharya she roared in #akira and she nails it in #noor she fresh , vibrant and needs no #hero @sonakshisinha aces it again Liam/NOOR~21 APRIL  @Its_LiamGill Watched #NOOR @sonakshisinha What a fabulous performanceso proud of you. kuldeepsinh chauhan @kuldeepsinhch19 @sonakshisinha in #noor - A movie for the women of our nation.proud of u mam..Great story.Can't wait mam.MY FAVOURITE ACTRESS BEAUTY QUEEN vishwajeet Kumar @vishwajeetroy1 @sonakshisinha superb #noor Aakash V Shivach @Aakashk85850020 #Noor.A story of a girl trying to know what life actually says about living & loving it. The magnificent act of #sonakshisinha is on roll

Talking about the movie, Sonakshi Sinha told TOI, ''Basically it's the journey of a girl who just happens to be a journalist. It's about the ups and downs in Noor's relationships with friends, family and coworkers that every girl will be able to relate to. It's a nice novel but since our film is based in Mumbai and not Karachi, it's more about a single girl in the city. There are no bomb sites, ours is a fun film.''

Joining Sonakshi in the movie is Kanan Gill as Saad Sehgal. The film also features Shibani Dandekar as Zara Patel, Noor's friend and Purab Kohli as Ayan Banerjee, who is playing the role of a photo journalist.
China Conducts First Live-Fire Drill with Destroyer Xining; Trump Hails Chinas Efforts to Help the US

Missile launcher Xining made its first live-fire missile testing in the Yellow Sea. (Photo : Twitter)

China's missile destroyer Xining recently conducted tests in the Yellow Sea. The live-fire exercise was done between China and Pyongyang.



Video footage of the exercise was aired by the China Central Television Station as well as a warning from Beijing to Pyongyang to stop its nuclear exercises.



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According to China's Ministry of Defense, the Xining is "integrated with 'many new types of weaponry,' including main artillery on the deck, anti-aircraft and anti-missile close-in weapon system, torpedo and missile."



The statement added: "It has high informatization level, advanced stealth capability, and electromagnetic compatibility. The destroyer is mainly responsible for formation command, regional air defense, anti-submarine warfare and other missions."



Xining, a Type 052D-class guided-missile destroyer, was for the service of the North Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy in January.



Xiang Zhihong, a supervising officer from China's North Sea Fleet, said, "This live-fire exercise not only provided officers and sailors with an opportunity to fire the artillery but also tested and regulated their firing techniques and help them gather battling experience."



Pyongyang is reacting to the statement of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who said that the "era of strategic patience" is over. North Korea vowed to conduct weekly missile testing as a form of response.



North Korea tried to test a missile for the sixth time but failed as the missile blew five seconds after it was launched.



North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol issued a warning to the U.S.: "We'll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis."



Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump praised the Chinese government for declaring a stoppage in coal exports to North Korea.



Trump said, "Nobody has ever seen it like that. Nobody has ever seen such a positive response on our behalf from China."



North Korea is very dependent on China, with the "rogue nation" getting 80 percent of its imports from China.


Nazriya Nazim, the charming young actress is back on social media after a short break. The actress recently posted a few clicks of her look for actor Maqbool Salmaan's wedding, on her official Facebook page.

Interestingly, Nazriya Nazim is back to her best looks in the pictures, to the much excitement of her die-hard fans. The photos have already started going viral on social media, and has crossed 97K likes on Facebook.

Nazriya Nazim is looking simply gorgeous in the beautiful blue raw silk gown, designed by the popular label T&M By Maria.Tiya.Maria. The actress has specially thanked her designers for the elegant gown, through her post.

It is noticeable that Nazriya Nazim has lost all the weight she had put on, after her marriage with Fahadh Faasil. Looks like the young actress is all set to make a comeback to the movie industry soon, and is busy preparing for it.

Recently, Nazriya's husband, actor Fahadh had clarified that he is not against his wife's career choices. The young actor had also funnily stated that he hasn't locked up Nazriya in the house, and she will soon sign a new film.

Nazriya Nazim, who is a Kerala State Film Award winner, last appeared in the blockbuster movie Bangalore Days, which was directed by Anjali Menon. Nazriya was paired up with hubby Fahadh in the movie.
VIENNA, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

CDI is one of the top ten hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in European Hospitals[1]and is estimated tobe three times as deadly as MRSA[2],[3]

Data released at the 27thEuropean Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) 2017 demonstrate the impact of CDI on the health service amounts to 10,670 bed days over a year, the equivalent to a fully occupied 30 bed ward, with each CDI case costing approximately 7,500.[4]In addition, the study conducted by the Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute (SHAIPI), reveals that a sixth of patients cured of the initial CDI recur within three months and nearly one third of those have a second recurrence within a year.[4]The SHAIPI CDI study investigated the clinical outcomes following hospitalisation of patients with CDI in Scotland and consisted of two analyses; the first analysis aimed to understand the impact of the infection;[4]the second investigated clinical outcomes in community associated CDI (CA-CDI) and hospital associated CDI (HA-CDI).[5]

CDI costs healthcare services approximately 3 billion across Europe each year.[6] Recurrence of CDI occurs in up to 25% of patients within 30 days of initial treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics[7],[8],[9]and patients with one recurrence have an estimated 40% risk of a further episode.[10] Recurrent CDI is associated with increased mortality rates and longer hospital stays.[11],[12]CDI is more common in those taking antibiotics, the elderly, transplant patients, those with underlying diseases and hospital patients.[13],[14],[15],[16],[17]

Professor Alistair Leanord, Consultant Microbiologist, University of Glasgow, commented, "We have seen large reductions in CDI in the UK over the last decade, however, there has been little change in the rates of recurrence and death as a result ofClostridium difficileinfection. This study shows that patients with CDI, whether community or hospital associated, have a doubling of mortality, and a longer length of stay with a significant cost to the NHS. We now have a clearer understanding of the national burden of CDI in terms of recurrences, deaths, cost to the healthcare service and the increasing importance of community acquisition of infection. This will allow us to target future interventions in a more focused, cost effective manner to improve patients' care."

The study was undertaken by the universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde and Dundee, and data was analysed from 3,304 hospital cases of CDI and 9,516 controls from August 2010 to July 2013. Of the total number of CDI cases recorded, 58% came from female patients. In terms of mortality, 29% of those with CDI died within two months compared to 14% of control cases and hazard ratio of death was also found to be 2.1 times greater for CDI cases compared to controls (95% 1.9, CI 2.5). With regard to time spent in hospitals, those with CDI had an estimated additional length of stay of 9.7 days compared to controls.[4]

The second data analysis consisted of 1,297 CA-CDI cases and 3,980 controls and 2,007 HA-CDI cases and 5,536 controls. Results suggest that, compared to controls, mortality rates are higher amongst HA-CDI cases (33.0% vs 17.7%) than in CA-CDI cases (22.4% vs 9.6%). Median length of stay was 7.2 days greater than controls for CA-CDI cases and 12.0 days greater for HA-CDI cases.[5]

Professor Mark Wilcox, Professor of Medical Microbiology, Leeds Teaching Hospitals & University of Leeds, commented,"These new studies focus on the outcomes associated with CDI, including community- and hospital-associated cases.The findings, based on large groups of cases and control patients, emphasise the considerable healthcare and societal burdens of CDI.Notably there was a doubling risk of death for both community- and hospital-associated CDI cases compared with (non-CDI) control patients." He continued, "Furthermore, the lengths of hospital stay for both groups of CDI cases was about twice as long as that for controls; these add up to a substantial burden on the NHS, at a time of major service pressures.The figures mean that we must optimise efforts to prevent CDI and to treat cases optimally to reduce the risk of recurrent infections."

Reducing the threat and the burden of infectious diseases like CDI is increasingly linked to antibiotic stewardship.[18]In this context, inappropriate use of antibiotics may cause the development of antimicrobial resistance,[19]increasing risk of CDI and other medical complications.[13],[15],[20] CDI is also often treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics that further damage the 'good' bacteria, increasing the risk of the CDI returning.[10],[21]Refining and optimising the use of antibiotics in the treatment of CDI therefore has the potential to serve as an accepted practice example for antibiotic stewardship in the treatment of infectious diseases.

AboutClostridium difficileinfection

Clostridium difficileinfection (CDI) is a recurring and preventable bacterial infection of the colon that causes severe and potentially deadly diarrhoea.[14],[15],[22]C. difficilebacteria are naturally present in the gut of up to 3% of healthy adults, usually without any problems. This is because the colonisingC. difficilebacteria are 'kept under control' by the 'good bacteria'.[15]An alteration in the balance of the gut microflora, often caused by broad-spectrum antibiotics, can reduce the number of 'good' bacteria, allowingC. difficileto multiply and cause inflammation, severe diarrhoea and potentially life-threatening complications.[14],[15]CDI is one of the top ten hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in European hospitals[1] and is estimated to be three times as deadly as MRSA.[2],[3]People in hospital with CDI are up to three times more likely to die in hospital (or within a month of infection) than those without CDI.[23],[24]Recurrence has been identified by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) as the most important problem in the treatment of CDI,[25]and occurs in up to 25% of patients within 30 days of initial treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics.[7],[8],[9]

About Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute (SHAIPI)

The Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute (SHAIPI) has been set up with Scottish Government funding via the Scottish Infection Research Network (SIRN). It involves partnerships with a number of Scottish universities, NHS stakeholders and industry to develop research in the three main areas of molecular epidemiology, informatics and applied infection prevention and control to tackle the threat to public health from emergent healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance, utilising rapid knowledge transfer, state of the art laboratory techniques and novel interventions.[26]

About the SHAIPI study

The SHAIPI CDI study investigated the clinical outcomes following hospitalisation of patients with CDI in Scotland. The primary analysis 'Clinical outcomes following hospitalisation with Clostridium difficile' aimed to quantify the impact of CDI on recurrence of CDI, mortality, readmissions to hospital and length of stay, in order to understand the impact of the infection.[4]The second analysis 'Clinical outcomes following community associated and hospital associated Clostridium difficile infection: matched case-control studies' investigated the recurrence of CDI and readmissions to hospital, in both community associated CDI (CA-CDI) and hospital associated CDI (HA-CDI) cases, and mortality and length of stay in CA-CDI cases compared to controls and HA-CDI cases compared to controls.[5] The research was funded by Astellas Pharma EMEA.

About Astellas Pharma EMEA

Astellas Pharma EMEA operates in 40 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is the EMEA regional business of Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc. Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world through the provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceuticals. The organisation's focus is to deliver outstanding R&D and marketing to continue growing in the world pharmaceutical market. Astellas presence in Europe also includes an R&D site and three manufacturing plants. The company employs over 4,500 people across the EMEA region. In 2013 Astellas was awarded SCRIP Pharmaceutical Company of the Year in recognition of its commercial success and pipeline development.

References

1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Point prevalence survey of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial use in European acute care hospitals 2011-2012. Stockholm, 2013. Available from:http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/healthcare-associated-infections-antimicrobial-use-PPS.pdf(last accessed April 2017).

2. Bauer MP,et al.Clostridium difficileinfection in Europe: a hospital-based survey.Lancet. 2011;377:63-73.

3. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control/European Medicines Agency (ECDC/EMEA). Joint technical report The bacterial challenge: time to react. Stockholm: ECDC / EMEA; 2009. Available from: http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/0909_TER_The_Bacterial_Challenge_Time_to_React.pdf(last accessed April 2017).

4. Data on file, AI/17/0003/APEL, Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd, April 2017.

5. Data on file, AI/17/0002/APEL, Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd, April 2017.

6. Kuijper EJ,et al. ESCMID study group forClostridium difficile. Emergence ofClostridium difficileassociated disease in North America and Europe.Clin Microbiol Infect. 2006;12:2-18.

7. Johnson S,et al. Vancomycin, Metronidazole, or Tolevamer for Clostridium difficileInfection: Results From Two Multinational, Randomized, Controlled Trials.Clin Infect Dis. 2014;59(3):345-54.

8. Lowy I,et al. Treatment with monoclonal antibodies againstClostridium difficiletoxins.N Engl J Med. 2010;362;3:197-205.

9. Louie TJ,et al. Fidaxomicin versus vancomycin forClostridium difficile infection.N Engl J Med. 2011;364:422-31.

10. Kelly CP, LaMont JT.Clostridium difficile- more difficult than ever. N Engl J Med. 2008;359(18):1932-1940.

11. Olsen MA,et al. RecurrentClostridium difficileinfection is associated with increased mortality.Clin Microbiol Infect. 2014;1-7.

12. Heimann SM,et al. Economic burden ofClostridium difficileassociated diarrhoea: a cost-of-illness study from a German tertiary care hospital. Infection. 2015:43:707.

13. Barbut F, Petit JC. Epidemiology ofClostridium DifficileAssociated Infections.Clin Microbiol Infect. 2001;7:405-10.

14. McMaster-Baxter NL, Musher DM.Clostridium difficile: recent epidemiologic findings and advances in therapy.Pharmacotherapy. 2007;27:1029-39.1.

15. Sunenshine R, McDonald L.Clostridium difficile-associated disease: new challenges from an established pathogen.Cleve Clin J Med. 2006;73:187-97.

16. Klingler PJ,et al.Clostridium difficileInfection: Risk Factors, Medical and Surgical Management.Digestive Diseases Anti-infectives. 2000:18:147-160.

17. Donnelly JPet al. Hospital-OnsetClostridium difficileInfection Among Solid Organ Transplant Recipients.J Am Transplantation. 2015:15(11):2970-2977.

18. Mamoon A. An evaluation of the impact of antibiotic stewardship on reducing the use of high-risk antibiotics and its effect on the incidence ofClostridium difficileinfection in hospital settings.Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy. 2012:67(12):2988-2996.

19. Bell BG. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of antibiotic consumption on antibiotic resistance.BMC Infectious Diseases. 2014;14:13.

20. Bignardi GE. Risk factors forClostridium difficileinfection.J Hospital Infect. 1998:40:1-15.

21. Louie TJ,et al. Fidaxomicin preserves the intestinal microbiome during and after treatment ofClostridium difficileinfection (CDI) and reduces both toxin reexpression and recurrence of CDI.Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2012:2:S132-142.

22. Ananthakrishnan AN.Clostridium difficileinfection: epidemiology, risk factors and management.Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2011;8:17-26.

23. Oake N,et al. The effect of hospital acquiredClostridium difficile infection on in-hospital mortality.Arch Intern Med. 2010;1701804-10.

24. Hensgens MP,et al. All-Cause and disease-specific mortality in hospitalized patients withClostridium difficileinfection: a Multicenter Cohort Study.Clin Infect Dis. 2013;56:1108-16.

25. Bauer MP,et al. European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (ESCMID): treatment guidance document forClostridium difficile-infection (CDI).Clin Microbiol Infect. 2009;15:1067-79.

26. Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute. About SHAIPI. Available from:http://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/research/researchcentres/sirn/shaipi/welcometoshaipi/(last accessed April 2017).

April 2017

AI/17/0002/CB
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/20/17 -- Star Navigation Systems Group Ltd. (CSE: SNA)(CSE: SNA.CN)(OTCBB: SNAVF) ("Star" or the "Company) is pleased to announce that Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems has extended its relationship with STAR's Man Machine Interface Division ("STAR-MMI ") through a multi-year agreement for the repair and maintenance of U.S. Navy TFEL multi-function displays.

This agreement covers all maintenance work on existing displays used on P3 maritime aircraft directly supported by the OEM until 2020.

This extension results from a very good relationship having been developed between the companies over the past years during which STAR maintained the displays under ad-hoc purchase orders. It also illustrates the ability of STAR to support a major avionics player, with the added benefit of direct Canadian content.

In addition, two other major aerospace companies have shipped similar displays to STAR for repair under specific purchase orders. Star is actively pursuing maintenance, repair and upgrade business with operators and integrators in order to develop this business together with the STAR-A.D.S.  activities.

About Star Navigation:

Star Navigation Systems Group Ltd. owns the exclusive worldwide license to its proprietary, patented In-flight Safety Monitoring System, STAR-ISMS, the heart of the STAR-A.D.S.  System. It is the first system in the world to feature in-flight data-analysis, monitoring and diagnostics with a real-time connection between aircraft and ground. Its real-time capability of tracking performance trends and predicting incident-occurrence enhances aviation safety and improves fleet management while reducing costs for the operator.

Star's MMI Division designs and manufactures high performance, mission critical, flight deck flat panel displays for defence and commercial aviation industries worldwide.

Certain statements contained in this News Release constitute forward-looking statements. When used in this document, the words "may", "would", "could", "will" and similar expressions, as they relate to Star or its management are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect Star's current views with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause Star's actual performance or achievements to vary from those described herein. Should one or more of these factors or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Star does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this release.

Please visit www.star-navigation.com.

Contacts:

Star Navigation Systems Group Ltd.

Viraf Kapadia

CEO

(416) 252-2289 Ext. 230

viraf.kapadia@star-navigation.com

www.star-navigation.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/28/17 -- SelectCore Ltd. ("SelectCore" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SCG) is pleased to announce that it was able to settle debts of $2,749,000 related to its telecommunication business for an aggregate amount of $478,000 net.

The Company has successfully negotiated the discount and terms on the mentioned debt, and has funded the necessary payments. The full settled amount of $478,000 has been paid in full, with the last tranche was recently funded.

"The Company has strived to cleanse its balance sheet and will continue to do so, as a stronger balance sheet will enable SelectCore to achieve more corporate and governmental business," stated Mohammad Abuleil, President of SelectCore.

About SelectCore

Established in 1999, SelectCore is a leading prepaid financial services provider and transaction processor for under-banked and underserved markets. From prepaid mobile top-up to stored-value cards and remittance solutions, SelectCore services a market of millions of under-banked consumers through its technology platforms and extensive retail distribution network. SelectCore is a publicly traded company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "SCG" (TSX VENTURE: SCG). SelectCore was ranked by Profit100 as one of Canada's fastest-growing companies in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010. SelectCore was also ranked one of North America's fastest growing companies on Deloitte's 2011 Technology Fast 500.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on assumptions, uncertainties and management's best estimates of future events. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward- looking statements are detailed from time to time in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Ontario Securities Commission and other regulatory authorities. The Company has no intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

SelectCore Ltd.

Mohammad Abuleil

(866) 825-1267 ext. 246

mabuleil@selectcore.com

www.selectcore.com




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Maple, the start-up that focused on delivery of restaurant-quality food, has ceased its operations in the New York City after being in business for just about two years. 'The Maple of today still has many challenges to overcome,' said founders Caleb Merkle and Akshay Navle in a letter to customers and supporters. 'While an incredibly difficult decision for us given the effect on our core operations, it became clear that we needed to close the Maple operation here in New York and look for a partner with scale-one that would allow us to leverage all that we had built across a broader platform.' The company also announced its decision to team up with London-based food deliver service Deliveroo. 'Given the overlap in our goals and the significant scale of Deliveroo's operations, working together makes sense. As a result, some members of the Maple team will join Deliveroo operations in London, and our technology will be used to help accelerate growth and efficiency across the platform.' Deliveroo delivers food made in restaurants, while Maple had control over the whole process-- from ingredient sourcing to preparation to delivery. Deliveroo has developed from a local London affair started four years ago to a business operating across 12 countries and 140 cities globally. 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.
Supports Upcoming Commercialization of GYNrepair

Elanix Biotechnologies AG (FSE: ELN.F), a developer of tissue regeneration products, announced today the signing of an agreement with Apraxon GmbH to establish a logistics center in Hofbieber, near Frankfurt, Germany. In anticipation of expanded commercialization activities for Elanix's topical women's health cream, GYNrepair, the European logistics center will initially coordinate all storage and shipping of the product. Of significant importance will also be Apraxon's ability to act as the logistical center for Elanix's e-commerce platform, delivered through its subsidiary, Repair-A, which will provide customers an easy to use, secure and discreet ordering experience.

Furthermore Elanix continues to negotiate with potential distributors to market more broadly its CFPC-Creams in Switzerland and Europe.

"Situated in central Germany, Apraxon is an ideal partner to support the growth and expansion of Elanix as we enter the next phase in commercialization of our topical bioactive creams outside of Switzerland, particularly through our dedicated e-commerce platform. With their extensive expertise in chronic wound and home care, Apraxon brings much more than the logistics element to this agreement. We look forward to exploring additional ways in which we can collaborate," stated Tomas Svoboda, CEO of Elanix Biotechnologies.

"Based on our expertise in all aspects of wound patient care, including product development, registration, supply and commercialization, we know Apraxon provides an experienced and like-minded strategic partner to Elanix," said Oliver Pokrzewinski, Managing Director of Apraxon.

Apraxon GmbH is part of a group of several companies with about 300 employees, which are managed by the brothers Mark and Oliver Pokrzewinski. Apraxon was founded in 1994 and is a specialist in the field of modern wound care. In addition, the company offers all types of medical devices and various aids to ensure optimal patient care. The basis for the company's success is a high transparency, as well as the close communication in a coordinated network of service providers and doctors. Furthermore, Apraxon impresses with its extensive expertise in the treatment of chronic wounds, as well as home and hospital care.

Apraxon already supplies more than 1,200 customers every month, and employs staff all over Germany to take care of the patients. Customers are supplied from the Hofbieber location throughout Germany.

Repair-A Ltd. is dedicated to the development and marketing of progenitor cell based bioactive CFPC creams. Since its founding in 2007, Repair-A has marketed two bioactive CFPC creams, based on animal progenitor cell technology that originated from Professor Lee-Ann Laurent Applegate's research in Switzerland. Elanix Biotechnologies Ltd. acquired Repair-A in September 2016 and is in the process of scaling up marketing of the products and commercialization worldwide.

Elanix Biotechnologies Ltd. (Frankfurt: ELN.F) develops and commercializes tissue regeneration products for acute wound care, dermatological and gynecological applications, and provides services in cell technologies. The company was founded in 2012 as a spin-out from the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV), Switzerland, to commercialize a patented human progenitor cell technology. Progenitor cells are fully differentiated yet immunologically neutral cells that are very potent inducers of tissue growth and healing. Elanix owns GMP certified Master and Working human cell banks with vast quantities of cells.

Elanix is headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland with offices in Potsdam, Germany, and listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange under the symbol ELN.F. For more information and updates, visit www.elanixbiotechnologies.com.

Disclaimer Forward-looking statements:

This publication may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning the Company and its business. Such statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Readers should therefore not place undue reliance on these statements, particularly not in connection with any contract or investment decision. The Company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006329/en/

Contacts:

Elanix Biotechnologies AG

Tomas Svoboda, CEO

Tel: +41 22 363 66 40

investor.relations@elanix-bt.com

or

Halsin Partners

Mike Sinclair

Tel: +44 (0)20 7318 2955

msinclair@halsin.com
Regulatory News:

EOS imaging (Paris:EOSI) (Euronext, FR0011191766 EOSI), (the "Company"), pioneer in 2D/3D orthopaedic medical imaging, today announced the completion of a private placement in favour of domestic and international investors conducted by way of an accelerated bookbuild offering. The Company has placed 1,868,000 new shares at a nominal value of 0.01, for a price of 4.20 each, issue premium included, which amounts to a total amount of c. 7.8m representing approximately 9.2% of the Company's share capital. Bpifrance Participations, which has undertaken to participate in the transaction, was able to increase its holding to 10.02% of the share capital by subscription of c. 1.7m.

On an illustrative basis, a shareholder holding 1% of EOS imaging's capital before the offering will now hold a stake of 0.92%.

The net proceeds of the offering will be used by EOS imaging to strengthen its capital, in particular to finance investments in product design and industrial processes, aimed at improving the company's operating profitability. Marie Meynadier, CEO of EOS imaging, comments: "I would like to thank our investors in the financing, including lead investor Bpifrance Participations, for their confidence in the Company. This financing strengthens our shareholder base and cash position, which will allow us to accelerate our strategic investments in the business aimed at improving profitability while also sustaining our strong growth trajectory."

The operation was carried out following the decision adopted by the Board meeting of April 20th 2017 and the CEO's decision as of April 20th 2017 in accordance with the 11th and 12th resolutions of the shareholder's extraordinary general meeting held on June 17th 2015 and at a negotiated price representing a discount of 4.55% from the closing price on April 20th 2017 and 11.23% from the volume weighted average share price of the Company's shares on the regulated market of Euronext Paris over the last 10 trading days prior to the launch of the operation.

The capital increase was carried out via the issuance of ordinary shares without pre-emptive rights through a private placement amongst qualified investors in accordance with Articles L.225-136 of the French Commercial Code (Code de commerce) and L.411-2 II of the French Monetary and Financial Code (Code monetaire et financier) (the "Private Placement"). Settlement of the new shares issued in the context of the Private Placement and the new shares' admission to trading on Euronext Paris is expected to occur on 25th April 2017. The new shares will be admitted to trading on the Euronext regulated market in Paris under ISIN FR0011191766 EOSI. EOS imaging's share capital will consist of 22,261,027 shares following the settlement-delivery.

In the context of the Private Placement, the Company has entered into a 90-day restriction agreement from the settlement-delivery date. Bpifrance Participations has signed a lock-up agreement with regard to the Company's shares held during the 90 days that follow the Private Placement's settlement-delivery date. This agreement may be waived by the Lead Manager and Bookrunner.

This transaction is not subject to the publication of a prospectus requiring a visa from the AMF (Autorite des Marches Financiers, the French financial markets authority). Detailed information about EOS imaging, notably regarding its activity, results and related risk factors, are laid out in the Company's registration document registered with the AMF on June 29th 2016 under reference number R.16-061, and can be found, along with other regulated information and all of the Company's press releases, on EOS imaging website (www.eos-imaging.com).

EOS imaging has been chosen to be included in the new EnterNext PEA-PME 150 index, composed of 150 French companies and listed on Euronext and Alternext markets in Paris.

EOS imaging is an "Entreprise Innovante" (innovative business) for the FCPI Bpifrance Financement.

EOS imaging is listed on Compartment C of Euronext Paris

ISIN: FR0011191766 Ticker: EOSI

About EOS imaging

EOS imaging Group designs, develops, and markets EOS, an innovative medical imaging system dedicated to osteoarticular pathologies and orthopaedics, as well as associated solutions. The Group is authorized to market in 51 countries, including the United States (FDA), Japan and the European Union (EC). The Group posted 2016 revenues of 30.8 million and employs 129 people at December 2016, including an R&D team of 43 engineers. The Group is based in Paris and has five subsidiaries in Besancon (France), Cambridge (Massachusetts), Montreal (Canada), Frankfurt (Germany) and Singapore.

Disclaimer

This announcement does not, and shall not, in any circumstances constitute a public offering nor an invitation to solicit the interest of the public in France, the United States, or in any other jurisdiction, in connection with any offer.

The distribution of this document may, in certain jurisdictions, be restricted by local legislations. Persons into whose possession this document comes are required to inform themselves about and to observe any such potential local restrictions.

This announcement is not an advertisement and not a prospectus within the meaning of Directive 2003/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003, as amended (the "Prospectus Directive

With respect to the member States of the European Economic Area, no action has been undertaken or will be undertaken to make an offer to the public of the securities referred to herein requiring a publication of a prospectus in any relevant member State. As a result, the securities may not and will not be offered in any relevant member State except in accordance with the exemptions set forth in Article 3(2) of the Prospectus Directive or under any other circumstances which do not require the publication by the Company of a prospectus pursuant to Article 3 of the Prospectus Directive and/or to applicable regulations of that relevant member State.

This document does not constitute an offer to the public in France and the securities referred to in this document can only be offered or sold in France pursuant to article L. 411-2-II of the French Monetary and Financial Code to (i) providers of third party portfolio management investment services, (ii) qualified investors (investisseurs qualifies) acting for their own account and/or (iii) a limited group of investors (cercle restreint d'investisseurs) acting for their own account, all as defined in and in accordance with articles L. 411-1, L. 411-2 and D. 411-1 to D. 411-4 and D. 754-1 and D. 764-1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code.

This document is only being distributed to, and is only directed at, persons in the United Kingdom that (i) are "investment professionals" falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (as amended, the "Order"), (ii) are persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc.") of the Order, or (iii) are persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of Article 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) in connection with the issue or sale of any securities may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "Relevant Persons"). This document is directed only at Relevant Persons and must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not Relevant Persons. Any investment or investment activity to which this document relates is available only to Relevant Persons and will be engaged in only with Relevant Persons.

This document may not be distributed, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States. This document does not constitute an offer of securities for sale nor the solicitation of an offer to purchase securities in the United States or any other jurisdiction where such offer may be restricted. The securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or an applicable exemption from registration requirements under the Securities Act. The shares of the Company have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act, and the Company does not intend to make a public offering of the securities in the United States.

The Lead Manager and Bookrunner in connection with the Private Placement is acting solely for the Company in relation to the placing, and will not be responsible to any other person for providing the protections afforded to its clients nor for providing advice in connection with the matters contained in this announcement. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is or will be made as to, or in relation to, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by the Lead Manager and Bookrunner or by any of its affiliates or agents, as to or in relation to, the accuracy or completeness of this announcement or any other written or oral information made available to or publicly available to any interested party or its advisers, and any liability therefore is expressly disclaimed.

Not for release, publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan. This press release is not intended as an offer, and is for information purposes only.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006695/en/

Contacts:

EOS imaging

Anne Renevot

CFO

Ph: +33 (0)1 55 25 61 24

investors@eos-imaging.com

or

NewCap

Financial communication and investor relations

Pierre Laurent Valentine Brouchot

Ph: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 96

eosimaging@newcap.eu

or

Press Relations

Annie-Florence Loyer

Ph: +33(0)1 44 71 00 12 +33 (6) 88 20 35 59

afloyer@newcap.fr
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - The Restaurant Group plc (RTN.L) said that Barry Nightingale, Chief Financial Officer, will step down from the Board and leave the Company with immediate effect. The Board has commenced a search for a new Chief Financial Officer and will update the market in due course. The company will next provide a trading update on 26 May 2017, the date of the Company's 2017 AGM. 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.
IMF on Global Financial Stability (Photo : Getty Images)

Due to the strong momentum of the Chinese economy last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its growth forecast for China's economy in the next two years, the Xinhua News Agency reported.



Advertisement

China's economy is expected to grow 6.6 percent in 2017 and 6.2 percent in 2018, which are 0.1 percentage point and 0.2 percentage point higher than its forecast in January, according to IMF's latest World Economic Outlook.



According to the IMF, the upgrade is a reflection of the strong economic growth of China in 2016 and the country is expected to continue its growth, supported with policies.



As the outlook on Chinese economy is strong, the IMF has also raised the global growth forecast for next year. The global economy posted a growth of 3.5 percent this year, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the projected growth in January.



"This improvement comes primarily from good economic news for Europe and Asia, and within Asia, notably for China and Japan," IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld was quoted as saying.



Obstfeld added that China is continuing its process of rebalancing accounts as shown by the decline in current account surplus and the increase in the share of services in the country's gross domestic product (GDP).



The IMF, however, warned the country to implement measures to curb risks that are caused by rising credit.



It also cautioned China about protectionist policies adopted by countries, such as the U.S., which could further drive capital outflows that could affect financial conditions in the country and the economy, in general.



In January, the IMF warned of risks to China's economy that may be caused by a sharp slowdown or disruptive adjustment, as it urged the government to tackle the high corporate debt worsened by capital outflows.



The country's corporate debt has reached 169 percent of its GDP, which international financial institutions fear could lead to a financial crisis.



China's leaders, however, pledged that they would address the financial risks this year and limit the corporate debt ratio at current levels.


SHENZHEN, China, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ZTEWelink Technology Co., LTD. has launched its LTE Cat.4 module ME3630 to provide quality and reliable communication connection for IoT clients in Europe.

ME3630 has been approved by CE, RoHS and WEEE, which means it can run over the European operators' 4G LTE network, so IoT devices can transfer information more efficiently.

As a new member of ZTEWelink's cellular module family, ME3630 features

Developed based on Qualcomm chipset MDM9X07

Supports FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B8/B20, WCDMA B1/B8 and GSM B3/B8

Delivers theoretical rates of 50Mbps (UL) and 150Mbps (DL)

Can be in 30*30 LCC form factor or Mini PCIE form factor

Pin to Pin compatible with other 3G/4G modules

Supports GNSS, FOTA, TCP/UDP

ME3630 can be widely applied in various M2M scenarios such as telematics, industrial gateway, security and surveillance, vending machine, smart grid, etc. In the latest report of Berg Insight, Europe is the world's most active area of IoT in 2016 with the number of cellular connections up to 95.5 million.

ZTEWelink has been the major cellular vendor in global market. In the past few years, ZTEWelink has made some successful cases in European market, such as CDMA 1X 450MHz module in smart meter industry and GSM tracker in UBI. The product quality has been verified by European customers.

"Several major customers have already carried on design-in work on our products," said Wang Peng, VP of ZTEWelink. "ME3630 enriched the product portfolio for European market. We will closely cooperate with the upstream and downstream industry chain and bring real value to industry customers."

According to an IDC forecast, the size of the global IoT markets will increase from 4.8 trillion US dollars in 2012 to 8.9 trillion US dollars by 2020. The worldwide IoT market is expected to grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9 percent.

For more information about ZTEWelink ME3630 module, click here.

If you have any procurement requirements, please contact with our distributor partner Techip (Website: https://techship.com).

About ZTEWelink

ZTEWelink Technology Co., Ltd., is dedicated to the development, production and marketing of Wireless Communication Modules, Industry Customized Terminals and M2M Solutions. ZTEWelink's products and solutions have been widely used in Vehicle-mounted terminals, Smart Power Grids, Remote Controllers, GPS, Wireless POS Machines, Security and Surveillance.

http://www.ztewelink.com/en/

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492698/ZTEWelink_ME3630_E.jpg
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Rise Gold Corp. (CSE: RISE)(CSE: RISE.CN)(OTC PINK: RYES) ("Rise" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Mr. Alan Edwards has been appointed a Director and Chairman of the Board of the Company. The Company is also pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Thomas Vehrs as a Director of the Company.

Mr. Alan Edwards is an experienced executive and engineer with over 35 years of experience in the mining industry. Mr. Edwards was the General Manager for three major mining operations in the United States and the Senior Vice President of Operations for Freeport Indonesia where he was responsible for the leadership of a workforce of over 6,000 employees. Mr. Edwards served as the Vice President Operations for Kinross Gold Corporation and as the Chief Operating Officer for Apex Silver Mines where he directed the successful construction of the $675M San Cristobal Mine in the difficult political climate of Bolivia. Mr. Edwards has served on numerous boards of public companies including as Chairman of AuRico Gold Corporation during a period of extensive growth which culminated into a successful US$1.5B merger with Alamos Gold. Mr. Edwards holds an MBA and a Mining Engineering degree from the University of Arizona.

Dr. Thomas Vehrs is a highly regarded and experienced exploration geologist with over 40 years of experience in the Americas. During his career, Dr. Vehrs has conducted and managed numerous exploration programs resulting in the discovery and delineation of major copper, gold and silver deposits, including the Los Pelambres porphyry copper deposit in Chile, the Northumberland sediment-hosted gold deposit in central Nevada, the Rio Blanco porphyry copper deposit in northern Peru and orogenic gold deposits in Central Guatemala. For the past ten years, Dr. Vehrs held the position of Vice President of Exploration for Fortuna Silver Mines and was responsible for the development and execution of exploration programs at the Caylloma Mine in Peru and the San Jose Mine in southern Mexico. During this period, Fortuna Silver Mines was successful in expanding the resources, reserves and production rate at the San Jose Mine resulting in a market capitalization in excess of $1 B. Dr. Vehrs holds a Ph.D. in geology from Syracuse University and served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Company announces that Mr. Fred Tejada has resigned as President, Secretary and Director of the Company and announces that Mr. Brad Scharfe has also resigned from the board of directors. The Company thanks Mr. Tejada and Mr. Scharfe for their excellent work in the successful acquisition of the Idaho-Maryland Gold Project. Mr. Benjamin Mossman will remain as CEO and Director and has been appointed President of the Company. Mr. Cale Thomas will remain as CFO and Director and has also been appointed Secretary of the Company.

In connection with their appointments, the Company announces the grant of 500,000 incentive stock options to Alan Edwards and the grant of 400,000 incentive stock options to Tom Vehrs at an exercise price of $0.28 per share for a period of 3 years.

About Rise Gold Corp.

Rise is an exploration stage mining company. The Company's principal asset is the historic past producing Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine located in California, USA. Rise was incorporated in Nevada, USA in 2007 and maintains its head office in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

Benjamin Mossman, CEO and Director

Rise Gold Corp.

Contacts:

RISE GOLD CORP.

Suite 488, 1090 West Georgia Street

Vancouver, BC V6E 3V7

604.260.4577

www.risegoldcorp.com



INVESTOR RELATIONS

Skanderbeg Capital Advisors Inc.

Mario Vetro

604.687.7130

mario@skanderbegcapital.com




Siauliai, Lietuva, 2017-04-21 10:34 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The following decisions were adopted in the Ordinary general meeting of shareholders of Gubernija AB (the code of the Company is 144715765), held on 21 April 2017:



1. Annual Report of the Company for 2016.



It is stated that the Company's annual report 2016 is heard. The meeting does not take a decision in this regard.



2. The independent auditor's report.



It is stated that the independent auditor's report is heard. The meeting does not take a decision in this regard.



3. Approval of the annual financial statements of the Company for 2016.



To approve the annual financial statements of the Company for 2016.



4. Appropriation of the result of the year 2016.



To leave the Company's result of 2016 unappropriated.



5. Election of the Company's Board.



To elect Romualdas Dunauskas, Sigitas Vilciauskas, Augustinas Radavicius, Muradas Bakanas, Lina Dunauskaite as members of the Board of the Company.



6. Election of audit company for performing audit set of financial statements of the Company for 2017 and setting payment conditions.



To elect Grant Thornton Baltic UAB, company code 300056169, for performing audit set of financial statements of the Company for 2017. To authorize General Manager of the Company to sign an audit contract, to assign EUR 6800, excluding VAT for remuneration for audit services.



This information is also available at: www.gubernija.lt/investuotojams.



AB "Gubernija" General Manager Vijoleta Dunauskiene +370-41-591900

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 4.30 am ET Friday, the Office for National Statistics releases UK retail sales for March. Sales are forecast to drop 0.5 percent on month, in contrast to a 1.4 percent rise in February. Ahead of the data, the pound pared its early gains against its major rivals. The pound was worth 1.2809 against the greenback, 139.87 against the yen, 0.8372 against the euro and 1.2780 against the franc as of 4:25 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.
Flexible, Scalable Solutions and Strategic Partnerships Showcased at Hall 6, Booth D10

Adents,a leading provider of versatile and easily deployable serialization and track trace software, will showcase its latest solutions to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain from May 4-10 at Interpack, the world's largest packaging trade fair. Located at Hall 6, Booth D10, Adents will showcase its two primary products, Adents Seriza and Adents Prodigi, each of which enable marketing authorization holders (MAHs) and contract manufacturers (CMOs) to comply with laws and regulations on drug traceability.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170421005216/en/

Adents is a leading software company providing solutions for unique product identification and traceability to help Marketing Authorization Holders (MAHs) and Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMOs) adapt to market changes and comply with regulations on drug traceability. (Photo: Adents)

Adents has been supported worldwide by a steadily growing collection of about 300 certified solution partners and qualified mechanical engineers. The company's co-founder and CEO, Christophe Devins, has over 25 years of experience in unit-level product identification and traceability, and has overseen the outfitting of more than 2,000 packaging lines with serialization solutions.

"Our solutions for pharmaceutical packaging are primarily designed to meet regulatory requirements," said Mr. Devins. "They also ensure complete control throughout the supply chain." A designated serialization expert, Mr. Devins has participated in several international pharmaceutical congresses, and regularly lends his expertise to industry working groups and meetings toward the establishment of globally standardized serialization communication.

Pharma companies and contract manufacturers use Adents' solutions to gain speed to compliance with regulatory requirements. Since the software is hardware agnostic and therefore compatible with existing devices, Adents solutions also help increase equipment efficiency and reduce the risk of production downtime. And because the software is a 100% standardized solution, it also can be quickly implemented and configured on a new line or at multiple production facilities.

Adents Seriza and Siemens

Adents Seriza is a serialization solution for drug production. Its advantages lie in its ease of implementation into pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging operations, and in maintaining comparably high levels of Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) for continued high-capacity production. This is particularly important in view of the approaching deadline for binding compliance with the EU Anti-Counterfeiting Directive (2011/62 EU) in 2019.

The recent collaboration between Siemens and Adents creates a new approach to the market for track trace solutions, one comprising the integration of a fully configurable software suite into the full range of standard hardware, all supported and serviced by an extensive network of global integration partners. This is among the most efficient and future-proof approaches to tackling the challenges of serialization and aggregation in the pharmaceutical industry.

"Pharma companies will have a multitude of complex issues to take into account when choosing a serialization solution: budget control, risk of productivity drops, variety of industrial equipment and tight implementation planning. The combined know-how and business insight of Siemens and Adents will provide drug manufacturers with a reliable and efficient hardware/software solution at competitive cost," said Hans Bijl, Business Development LifeScience at Siemens.

Adents Prodigi and Microsoft

Developed in partnership with Microsoft, Adents Prodigi is celebrating its first major appearance at Interpack. Adents Prodigi is a cloud platform for unique product identification (UPID) and track trace, amounting to a powerful Level 4 traceability solution that centrally manages all serialization requirements of the pharmaceutical industry.

Based on Microsoft Trusted Cloud Azure platform (selected by the European Medical Verification Organization EMVO), Adents Prodigi is currently the only solution that provides comprehensive tools and applications for data analysis and data processing. In this way, pharmaceutical companies can make use of the immense amounts of data that accumulate during the serialization and track trace processes.

About Adents :

Adents is a leading software company providing solutions for unique product identification and traceability to help Marketing Authorization Holders (MAHs) and Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMOs) adapt to market changes and comply with regulations on drug traceability.

- Adents Seriza, a serialization solution for manufacturing sites, selected as preferred solution by Siemens for its customers

- Adents Prodigi, a Cloud solution jointly developed with Microsoft and empowered by Azure technologies, allows for secure data exchange and helps leverage the power of serialization data.

Adents operates globally with offices in Europe and in the United States as well as with a global network of solution partners. For more info, visit www.adents.com - @Adentsinfo

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170421005216/en/

Contacts:

Adents

Laurence Zeeraerd, +33 6 15 90 86 22

presse@adents.com

or

Turchette

Christopher Dale, +1 973.227.8080

cdale@turchette.com
Joint offering will combine Dovetail's payment solutions with IBM's Watson Financial Services solutions

PARSIPPANY, New Jersey, April 21,2017 /PRNewswire/ --Dovetail, the provider of best-in-class payments and liquidity management solutions, today announced a global strategic partnership with IBM to offer Dovetail payment solutions in combination with IBM's Watson Financial Services products.

The agreement will cover the joint sales and marketing of Dovetail payment solutions with related IBM payments and cognitive analytic solutions, including Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) and CFM for Safer Payments.

"At IBM, we seek to partner with organizations who offer world-class solutions to help our joint clients succeed in the Cognitive era," said Neil Isford, IBM GM, Watson Financial Services Solutions. "Dovetail is a key player in the provision of payments solutions to many of the world's leading transaction banks and joining forces with Dovetail will enable us to offer financial institutions with a comprehensive set of payments and related solutions across both high and low value payments domains and better serve our customers and their broader payments initiatives."

Martin Coen, Dovetail CEO said, "We are excited to have formalized this relationship with IBM. It's another significant step for us as we take our best-in-class payment solutions out to a wider market. It will enable us to combine Dovetail solutions with the breadth and depth of IBM propositions in facilitating the digital transformation of financial institutions. Together we will be a powerful combination that will be very attractive for banks looking to accelerate their digital transformation journey in payments."

About Dovetail

Dovetail provides best-in-class payments and liquidity management solutions that enable banks to simplify their infrastructure and deliver effective digital transformation. All solutions, based on a single real-time architecture, are available on premise or in the cloud, scalable up and down, across functional and volume needs and offer unrivalled customer and segment personalization. The choice of solution provides flexibility for a bank in setting the pace of its modernization, addressing point needs or replacing multiple legacy systems.

Leveraging the continuing investment from Dovetail and its world-leading client base, banks can rapidly achieve a measurable return on investment, increase strategic agility and operational excellence, optimize total cost of ownership and ensure regulatory compliance.

For more information on Dovetail, please visit our website, www.dovetailsystems.com

Press Contact

Trevor LaFleche

Vice President, Global Product Marketing and Analyst Relations

+44 20 7652 7788

trevor.lafleche@dovetailsystems.com
HTC Vive marks Earth Day by unveiling the first grant recipients from its $10 million program targeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; projects include launching the first VR satellite into space later this year

SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HTC VIVE', the leader in room-scale Virtual Reality (VR), today announced the first grant recipients in its VR for Impact program. VR for Impact is Vive's $10 million commitment to drive VR content and technologies that will increase awareness and create positive impact in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Vive is commemorating Earth Day by unveiling projects from three creators with unique visions for how VR can address the UN's set of defined goals for the planet such as "Climate Action" and "Zero Hunger." These projects include SpaceVR, the first virtual reality satellite launching into space later this year, Tree, a creatively immersive perspective on deforestation, and The Extraordinary Honey Bee, a joint project with Haagen-Dazs, Reach Agency and SPECTACLE to raise awareness about dwindling bee populations. All projects that receive funding by VR for Impact will be available on Viveport, HTC's app store for VR.

"We believe virtual reality and the immersive experiences it delivers have the potential to positively impact the biggest challenges that mankind faces," said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport, HTC Vive. "We welcome the first VR for Impact grant recipients who will introduce VR as a powerful tool in raising awareness for the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and what better way to mark Earth Day than to unveil projects with three unique visions for helping the planet."

Vive launched VR for Impact as a multi-year program, and SpaceVR, Tree and The Extraordinary Honey Bee represent the first grants awarded. Vive is planning to announce additional grant recipients for 2017 through the end of the year.

SpaceVR is the world's first virtual reality platform allowing users to experience space first hand through the immersion of VR. Founded in 2015, the team has built the first VR satellite, the Overview 1, which will launch later this year on Space X. Once in orbit, SpaceVR will stream video that users can experience in full virtual reality or as 360-degree video. For more information on SpaceVR, please visit www.spacevr.co.

"We're thrilled to be chosen as one of the first participants in HTC Vive's VR for Impact program," said Ryan Holmes, CEO of SpaceVR. "We share a vision with Vive that VR and its power to immerse and affect viewers like no other medium can be used to make the world a better place. By launching the first virtual reality satellite, we want to create the most vivid and visceral reminder yet that despite our individual trials and travails, we all live on this same fragile pale blue dot hurtling through space."

Tree is a critically acclaimed virtual reality experience enhanced by haptic feedback to immerse viewers in the tragic fate that befalls a rainforest tree. The experience brings to light the harrowing realities of deforestation, one of the largest contributors to global warming.Tree is an official selection of Sundance Film Festival New Frontier and Tribeca Film Festival Immersive 2017. For more information on Tree, please visit http://newreality.co.

"We are incredibly honored to announce our collaboration with the ViveVR for Impactprogram," said Milica Zec, co-director on Tree and co-founder of New Reality Company. "New Reality shares withVR for Impacta core tenet: that VR storytelling is key to raising awareness for the many challenges facing our earth."

Added Winslow Porter, co-director on Tree and co-founder of New Reality Company: "TheTreeVR experience has incited emotional, empowering reactions among a wide array of viewers. During the final moments ofTree, a number of individuals have cried or shouted while in the headset and vowed afterward to take action. Together withVR for Impact, we want to reach people from all over the world to helpmake widespread global impact."

The Extraordinary Honey Bee is a joint project with Haagen-Dazs, Reach Agency and SPECTACLE looking at the alarming rate at which bee populations are falling. In Honey Bee, users will shrink down to the size of a bee for a guided VR experience where they learn of the risks bee colonies face and solutions currently being implemented to offset their decline. For more information on The Extraordinary Honey Bee, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUt2PC0Ks4Y.

"We believe in the transformative and educational power of VR and are excited to use this technology to bring the plight of the honey bee to life," said Orchid Bertelsen, Nestle USA Digital Innovation Lead. "We are thrilled to partner with Vive, not only because of their innovative technology and valuable audience, but because of their ideals and shared belief of harnessing the power of VR to drive true impact."

For press only, you can access assets including video trailers and key art here: http://bit.ly/2ovRU2A.

About VR for Impact

Announced at the World Economic Forum 2017, Vive's VR for Impact is a multi-year program providing grants to VR projects in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The UN goals are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Through VR for Impact, HTC Vive is committing $10 million dollars to industry partners and content developers to create VR experiences that improve awareness, education, and lead to action. For more information please visit https://vrforimpact.com/.

About HTC VIVE'

VIVE is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality platform developed by HTC and Valve for total immersion in virtual worlds. Designed from the ground up for room-scale VR and true-to-life interactions, VIVE delivers on the promise of VR with game-changing technology and best-in-class content. VIVE has been recognized with over 65 awards and wide critical acclaim since its unveiling in 2015. For more information, visit www.VIVE.com.

HTC and the HTC logo are the trademarks of HTC Corporation. All other names of companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/454105/HTC_VIVE_Logo.jpg
- Visteon to provide SmartCore' for variant of 2018 domestic Chinese light-vehicle platform

- New business with China's second-largest auto manufacturer expands global reach of industry-leading technology

- Latest award follows announcements of two major SmartCore' wins on Europe-based vehicle programs slated for 2018 and 2020

SHANGHAI, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --China's second largest vehicle manufacturer, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., has selected SmartCore' cockpit domain controller technology from Visteon Corporation (NYSE: VC) for a future domestic Chinese light vehicle program. This will be Visteon's first SmartCore' application in China, the company's largest market and the world's biggest automotive market.

Visteon will supply the SmartCore' domain controller, with an integrated center information display and thin-film transistor (TFT) instrument cluster display, for a high-line variant of a high-volume Dongfeng light vehicle scheduled for production starting in 2018.

Visteon also will supply a reconfigurable instrument cluster and infotainment system for other variants of the vehicle.

Visteon is the first supplier offering an automotive-grade, integrated domain controller approach that can independently operate the infotainment system, instrument cluster and potentially other features on one System on Chip (SoC).

This is Visteon's third new business award for SmartCore'. Visteon is scheduled to launch the first SmartCore'-based solution in 2018, for a European vehicle manufacturer. Earlier this year, Visteon announced a second SmartCore' program, also with a European automaker, offering instrument cluster and infotainment features and expanding the platform to high-end applications with a 3-D display and augmented reality head-up display capabilities.

"This latest business win with the second largest vehicle manufacturer in China further validates SmartCore' as a viable solution to manage the increasing cost and complexity of in-vehicle electronics," said Sachin Lawande, Visteon president and CEO. "Visteon is well-positioned to lead the consolidation of electronic control units in the cockpit space, and we are in active dialogue with several more automakers in China and elsewhere around the world to adopt this technology in their vehicles."

Visteon, a global leader in cockpit electronics, is showcasing SmartCore' at its exhibit (2A15) at the 2017 International Automobile Industry Exhibition in Shanghai, April 19-23.

SmartCore' is designed to integrate infotainment, instrument clusters, information displays, head-up displays, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and connectivity - providing a foundation for the evolution to autonomous driving.

About Visteon

Visteon is a global technology company that designs, engineers and manufactures innovative cockpit electronics products and connected car solutions for most of the world's major vehicle manufacturers. Visteon is a leading provider of instrument clusters, head-up displays, information displays, infotainment, audio systems, telematics and SmartCore' cockpit domain controllers. Visteon also supplies embedded multimedia and smartphone connectivity software solutions to the global automotive industry. Headquartered in Van Buren Township, Michigan, Visteon has approximately 10,000 employees at more than 40 facilities in 19 countries. Visteon had sales of $3.16 billion in 2016. Learn more at www.visteon.com.

Follow Visteon:

www.twitter.com/visteon

www.youtube.com/visteon

http://blog.visteon.com

www.google.com/+visteon

www.linkedin.com/company/visteon

https://www.facebook.com/VisteonCorporation

https://www.instagram.com/visteon

http://www.slideshare.net/VisteonCorporation

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/352910/visteon_corporation_logo.jpg
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE: PSE) (FRANKFURT: PNX) (the "Company" or "Pasinex") is delighted to announce the appointment of CSA Global to complete the first independent Mineral Resource estimate under CIM guidelines on the Pinargozu High-Grade Zinc Mine in southern Turkey. The Pinargozu Mine is a part of the 50/50 JV company, Horzum AS. This technical study will be disclosed via NI 43-101 Technical Report.

A site visit by the independent QP Dr. Neal Reynolds is scheduled for late May and Pasinex expects completion of the estimate and filing of the technical report by Q3 2017.

CSA Global has offices in Australia, UK, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Singapore and Russia. It has recognized expertise in zinc mineral systems, both sulphide and, most importantly, non-sulphide in the context of Pinargozu. In Turkey, CSA Global has completed a country-wide assessment of Zn-oxide projects including oxidized CRD/manto, MVT and Irish-type systems. CSA Global's international experience on zinc-oxide projects includes Padaeng (Mae Sod) in Thailand, Sierra Mojada in Mexico (CRD), Huize district in China (MVT & CRD), Jabali in Yemen (MVT) and multiple deposits in Tunisia, Morocco, Guatemala and Vietnam.

Dr. Neal Reynolds, Director of CSA Global will lead the assignment and is an international expert in carbonate-hosted zinc mineralizing systems with almost 30 years of experience in the mineral exploration industry.

Steve Williams, CEO of Pasinex said "We have been mining high-grade zinc at Pinargozu for over two years now based on in-house estimates. These estimates have proved to be robust based on what we later mined. However, it is high time now that we complete a formal code-compliant resource estimate which we can announce to the market, via NI 43-101 Technical Report. This will provide additional confidence to our shareholders and investors and easier comparison with our relatively small zinc peer group. I am particularly delighted that we have been able to secure the services of CSA Global for this exercise. Reporting of a maiden Mineral Resource estimate under NI 43-101 guidelines will be exciting and a major milestone in the project development of the Pinargozu Mine."

Horzum Zinc Trend (HZT)

The Pinargozu Mine is located in southern Turkey. Pinargozu is one of several exploration targets along the Horzum Zinc Trend (HZT), which hosts a series of Carbonate-Replacement-Deposit (CRD) type mineral occurrences, extending north for at least eight kilometres from the high-grade Horzum Mine. The HZT has been prospected and mapped to some extent in the past but has not previously been systematically explored. Pasinex is the first to apply advanced exploration technology and CRD exploration concepts and models to the HZT district.

About Pasinex

Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE: PSE) (FRANKFURT: PNX) is a metals company which is a 50% owner of the high grade Pinargozu Zinc Mine which is in production and, under its DSO Program, is shipping directly to zinc smelter / refiners from its mine site in Turkey. The Company has a strong technical management team with many years of experience in mineral exploration and mining project development. The mission of Pasinex is to build a mid-tier zinc company based on building a large land position within a productive CRD district in Turkey.

The Pinargozu Mine is included in the 50-50 company, Horzum Arama Isletme AS (Horzum AS), which is a corporate joint venture between Pasinex and Turkish mining house, Akmetal Madencilik San ve Tic. AS (Akmetal AS). Akmetal AS is one of Turkey's largest family-owned conglomerates with the nearby past-producing Horzum Zinc Mine.

Visit our web site at: www.pasinex.com

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

PASINEX RESOURCES LTD.

"Steve Williams"

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although Pasinex Resources Ltd. believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, exploration results, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Contacts:

Pasinex Resources Limited

Steve Williams

President/CEO

416.861.9659

info@pasinex.com



Cathy Hume

CHF Investor Relations

416.868.1079 ext. 231

cathy@chfir.com






CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The euro retreated from early highs against its major rivals in the European session on Friday, weighed by a terror attack in Paris before the crucial French Presidential election on Sunday.



An Elabe poll for BFM TV and L'Express magazine found that centrist Emmanuel Macron leads the first round of election with 24 percent, while far-right leader Marine Le Pen scored 21.5 percent. Conservative candidate Francois Fillon and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchonon gained 20 percent and 19.5 percent of votes, respectively.



Even as Marcon hold onto lead, the gap between the other three front runners are narrowing, making the outcome too close to call.



Sentiment was hurt by the news of terrorist attack in Paris, where a French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded ahead of the first round vote in the most uncertain election in recent French history.



In economic front, survey results from IHS Markit showed that Eurozone private sector growth hit a fresh six-year high in April.



The flash composite output index rose unexpectedly to 56.7 in April from 56.4 in March. Economists had forecast the score to remain unchanged at 56.4.



Meanwhile, German private sector expanded strongly in April, despite slower rises in both manufacturing output and services activity.



The flash composite output index dropped to 56.3 in April from March's six-year high of 57.1.



The euro held steady against its major rivals in the Asian session, with the exception of the Swiss franc.



Reversing from an early high of 1.0738 against the greenback, the euro dropped to a 3-day low of 1.0691. Continuation of the euro's downtrend may see it challenging support around the 1.05 region.



The single currency slipped to 116.69 against the yen, off its early high of 117.31. The euro is seen finding support around the 115.00 mark.



Figures from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed that Japan's tertiary activity index increased at a slower-than-expected pace in February, after falling in the previous two months.



The tertiary activity index rose 0.2 percent month-over-month in February, reversing a 0.2 percent drop in January. Economists had expected a 0.3 percent climb for the month.



The common currency declined to a 2-day low of 1.0679 against the Swiss franc, from a high of 1.0710 hit at 11:45 pm ET. If the euro's extends fall, 1.05 is possibly seen as its next support level.



The euro eased back to 0.8355 against the pound, after having advanced to 0.8386 at 4:30 am ET. The currency had already set a 2-day low of 0.8354 at 4:00 am ET. On the downside, 0.82 is likely seen as the next support level for the euro-pound pair.



Figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that retail sales including automotive fuel decreased 1.8 percent month-on-month in March, reversing a 1.7 percent rise in February. Sales were forecast to fall moderately by 0.5 percent.



Excluding auto fuel, retail sales volume declined 1.5 percent, in contrast to a 1.6 percent rise a month ago and bigger than the expected 0.5 percent drop.



The 19-nation currency dropped to 2-day lows of 1.4194 against the aussie and 1.4401 against the loonie, from its previous highs of 1.4262 and 1.4453, respectively. The next possible downside target for the euro may be found around 1.38 against the aussie and 1.43 against the loonie.



Pulling away from an early high of 1.5337 against the kiwi, the euro weakened to 1.5259. The euro is poised to target support around the 1.50 area.



Looking ahead, at 7:45 am ET, the Bank of England member Michael Saunders speaks at the Federation of Small businesses in London.



In the New York session, Canada consumer prices for March, Markit's U.S. manufacturing PMI for April and U.S. existing home sales for March are set for release.



At 9:30 am ET, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari speaks at the Community Economic Development Symposium, in St. Paul.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is not included in the list of Silk Road Summit attendees. (Photo : Getty Images)

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is missing in the list of world leaders who are set to attend China's Silk Road Summit on May 14 and 15 in Beijing, Bangkok Post reported.



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Though the speculation is not confirmed yet, it is believed that the Thai leader was invited but decided to bypass what can be considered as the biggest diplomatic event of 2017.



In May last year, reports surfaced that Thailand has rejected China's request for land rights for a railway project.



China, through Foreign Minister Wang Yi, announced on Tuesday the 28 nations who will be sending their top officials--may it be their president, prime minister or senior minister.



The roster of countries who will be represented by their president includes Argentina, Belarus, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Laos, the Philippines, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.



Meanwhile, nations who are sending their prime minister to the event are Cambodia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Greece, Hungary, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Sri Lanka and Italy (the sole G7 nation on the list).



Myanmar will be represented by its effective leader, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.



Invitations were rolled out back in February.



The Silk Road Summit is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's landmark initiative, "One Belt, One Road," which aims to link Asia, Africa and Europe through modern-day Silk Road trading routes.



The endeavor will see the establishment of different billion-dollar infrastructure projects including power grids, railways and ports. The Chinese government has pledged a Silk Road fund worth $40 billion. The initiative is reported to be the main reason behind the creation of the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.



According to Wang, "One Belt, One Road is to date the most important public good China has given to the world, first proposed by China but for all countries to enjoy."



"The culture and historical genes of One Belt, One Road come from the old Silk Road, so it takes Eurasia as its main region," he further remarked.



A total of 110 countries will send representatives to attend the Silk Road Summit.



Apart from Thailand, the list did not also include officials from India, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and Australia.


Torchmark Corporation Company Announces 2017 Annual Meeting Of Shareholders

MCKINNEY, Texas, April 21, 2017 --Torchmark Corporation (NYSE: TMK) announces the following webcast:

What: Torchmark Corporation Annual Shareholders Meeting Webcast

When: April 27, 2017 @ 11 AM Eastern 10 AM Central

Where: https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/904/20706

Live over the internet - Simply log on to the web at the address above.

If you are unable to participate during the live webcast, the call will be archived on the Web site http://www.torchmarkcorp.com/on the Investors/Calls and Meetings page under "Annual Meeting of Shareholders".

Torchmark Corporation is a holding company specializing in life and supplemental health insurance for "middle income" Americans marketed through multiple distribution channels including direct response, and exclusive and independent agencies. Torchmark has several nationally recognized insurance subsidiaries. Globe Life And Accident is a direct-response provider of life insurance known for its administrative efficiencies. American Income Life provides individual life insurance to working families. Liberty National Life is one of the oldest traditional life insurers in the Southeast. United American is a consumer-oriented provider of supplemental life and health insurance. Family Heritage Life provides individual supplemental health insurance.

CONTACT: For additional information contact:Mike Majors, Phone: 972/569-3239, Fax:972/569-3282, tmkir@torchmarkcorp.com, Website: www.torchmarkcorp.com,3700 S. Stonebridge Drive, McKinney, Texas 75070

SOURCE Torchmark Corporation
SEATTLE, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Workstreampeople has recently released its groundbreaking next version of Anywhere365, the largest native Skype for Business-based contact center and dialogue management platform. With the client base doubling in size in the last year, Anywhere365 is now trusted by 438 global customers in 36 countries, including 26 members of the Fortune Global 500. This accelerated success places Release 5.0 in an ideal position to continue to take the world by storm. Anywhere365 is officially certified for Skype for Business in three areas: Contact Center, Reception Console and Call Recording, which is unique in the market.

Already well equipped to successfully compete with large legacy contact center vendors, Anywhere365 continues to add powerful new features as standard that provide tangible benefits to their customer base. Examples include:

- Seamless support for social media as a dialogue management channel. Anywhere365 enables customers to interact directly via Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Twitter, etc. Companies have chosen Skype for Business as their communications platform, but the flexibility of Anywhere365 allows customers to reach companies via a modality of their choosing, managed and delivered by Anywhere365 via Skype.

- Addition of powerful speech analytics to analyze dialogues, create transcripts, extract keywords or quickly translate a chat for an agent in a different language.

- Off-the-shelf connectors for 20+ CRM/ticket platforms such as Dynamics CRM, SalesForce, ServiceNow, Oracle RightNow, Remedy, etc. Anywhere365 leverages the information in these platforms during all moments in the dialogue management cycle.

- Enhanced Dialogue Intelligence via Power BI and numerous new standardized reports and analytics. Anywhere365 helps companies to make quick sense of all their big dialogue data, even if they run hundreds of Anywhere365 Contact Center instances.

- Robust redundancy. Already in use as critical infrastructure at dozens of multinationals, including members of Fortune 500, Anywhere365 has full failover and high availability capabilities. This ensures that any downtime is further minimized, and ensures the highest service levels.

- Transparent license model based on the number of contact center instances and required features, not on the number of users or supervisors. Unique in the market, Anywhere365 provides a clear total cost of ownership without a long list of expensive options. Just select the right license for the required features, and companies can add as many agents, supervisors or managers as they want, free of additional charge.

- High value, low effort. Anywhere365 has been further enhanced to empower businesses with dialogue management capabilities, without the need for extensive professional services. Deployed and configured in record time, Anywhere365 can deliver value quicker than agents can say "dialogue management".

In addition to the continuous expansion of the feature set, Anywhere365 University has been established to fill a need in the market for in-depth training for partners and customers. Last year, during five fully sold out sessions, more than 60 partners received extensive training and official certification, which enables them to extract maximum value from Anywhere365 for their customers.

Anywhere365 is delivered on premises, as a hybrid, or from the cloud; it can leverage CloudPBX and Office 365 based agents, wherever they are.



NOTE FOR EDITORS



About Workstreampeople

Workstreampeople B.V. designs, develops and sells Anywhere365, the market leading Contact Center and Dialogue Management platform exclusively built for Skype for Business and Lync. Recognized by Gartner with an honorable mention in the latest Magic Quadrant Report on Contact Center Infrastructure, Anywhere365 is offered globally to 430+ enterprises of all sizes across all market sectors. Workstreampeople has its headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with regional offices in Brussels, London and Seattle. For more information, visit www.workstreampeople.com or contact info@workstreampeople.com.
BIELEFELD, Germany, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Hannover Messe 2017, Hall 7, B04, itelligence AG is an SAP Platinum Partner

Experts from itelligence will be demonstrating the enormous potential of Industry 4.0 by means of three best-practice scenario models. Specifically, visitors will see developments for SAP Business Suite, SAP Leonardo solutions and SAP S/4HANA. According to SAP, the innovative SAP Leonardo portfolio of offerings for the Internet of Things (IoT) helps enable companies to realize a digital transformation of existing end-to-end business processes and to adopt new business models to run digitally.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492751/NorbertRotter_CEO_itelligence.jpg )



"The innovative SAP tools are increasingly turning into front-end solutions, thereby contributing significantly to the digitisation of our customers' business," explained Norbert Rotter, CEO itelligence AG. "We shall show our visitors how they can use SAP S/4HANA, SAP Leonardo or holographic systems for digital value creation in their company."

Best Practice #1: SAP BusinessObjects' Cloud

The fundamental purpose of digitisation and Industry 4.0 is to monetise all of the company's data. To this end, all data records from all sources need to be available for discussions, processes and decision-making. The aim is to replace conventional ad hoc decisions by decision-making informed by ongoing data analysis in future, where some of the decisions may even be delegated to the systems themselves (key term: Artificial Intelligence). Detailed analysis and visualisation facilitate a continuous "dialogue" with the data. The SAP BusinessObjects Cloud solution provides the technology for reporting, analysis, planning and simulation. At the trade fair, itelligence experts will demonstrate how they can use this technology to create a digital core in the company, which will provide the correct information required at any point in time.

Best Practice #2: Microsoft HoloLens

Microsoft HoloLens is a mixed-reality technology, on which users can build business processes to achieve unprecedented value creation. itelligence will explain how the holographic computers are integrated with SAP Cloud Platform, the SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer application and SAP S/4HANA, and what service models are possible.

Engineers will be given a 3D model of a machine, which they then disassemble step by step using hand gestures. This process of learning about the construction of a machine from a digital model will provide them with a better understanding of the real machine. It will also help them to recognise the causes of defects more quickly so that they can take prompt remedial action.

Best Practice #3: Automated High Rack Storage

itelligence specialists have added sensor equipment to a high rack storage model. They will use the model to explain how a high rack storage system provides data about all ongoing activities and describe the different statuses in detail. The aim is for the "digital high rack storage" system not only to control itself, but to continually optimise itself as well. The system can also exchange data continuously across company boundaries. This allows the manufacturer's systems, for example, to monitor all the functions and dispatch service engineers to the customer to undertake preventative maintenance and repair tasks.

Expert presentations by itelligence AG during Hannover Messe:

11th German-Japanese Economic Forum

Wolfgang Moller, Global Director Discrete Industry & Internet of Things, itelligence AG, will explain the sea change that the Internet of Things will bring about. The future of industry will entail integrated production facilities, equipment networks, predictive analyses, networked products and services of all kind. itelligence designs future-oriented processes based on the SAP Leonardo IoT portfolio. These start with the sensor, proceed via data integration, data storage and transformation to integration into the process and production landscapes.

Hall 3, Business Forum 1,

Wednesday, 26 April 2017, 15.20 - 15.45

itelligence AG operates around the world and performs the global coordination for SAP solutions within the NTT DATA Group. itelligence is one of 32 companies that have achieved "Gold Partner" status for SAP Hybris. itelligence specialists will share their SAP solution expertise by taking part in the program of presentations of SAP at Hannover Messe.

Mobile scenario for commissioning and servicing processes with SAP Asset Intelligence Network

Commissioning and servicing processes using the SAP Asset Intelligence Network, the SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer solution, Bluetooth and Beacon are the edge components for the transmission of sensor and instruction information to the itelligence mobile device InfoCollector.

Hall 7, Stand B04

Microsoft HoloLens: mixed reality in SAP-supported IoT scenarios

Microsoft HoloLens is a fascinating mixed-reality technology with a significant business impact. itelligence experts will explain how the holographic computers are integrated with SAP Cloud Platform, SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer and SAP S/4HANA and describe the possible service models.

Hall 7, Stand B04

Uber itelligence

itelligence ist als eines der international fuhrenden SAP-Beratungshauser mit rund 6.000 hochqualifizierten Mitarbeitern in 24 Landern vertreten. Als SAP Hybris Gold Partner, SAP Business-Alliance- und SAP Global Hosting Partner, SAP-zertifizierter Anbieter von Cloud Services und Application Management Services, SAP-Certified Provider of Hosting Services for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud sowie SAP Platin Partner realisiert itelligence weltweit komplexe Projekte im SAP-Umfeld. Mit seinem umfassenden Leistungsspektrum - von der SAP-Strategie-Beratung, SAP-Lizenzvertrieb uber selbstentwickelte SAP-Branchenlosungen sowie Application Management Services bis hin zu Hosting Services - erzielte das Unternehmen in 2016 einen Gesamtumsatz rund 778 Mio. Euro. Fur das renommierte Wirtschaftsmagazin "brand eins" gehort itelligence zu den besten Unternehmensberatern in Deutschland.

###

SAP, SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, BusinessObjects, Hybris and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Head of Corporate Public Relations itelligence AG

Silvia Dicke

itelligence AG

Konigsbreede 1

D-33605 Bielefeld

E: silvia.dicke@itelligence.de

T: +49-(0)-521/9-14-48-107

W: http://itelligencegroup.com/de




Regulatory News:

Vivendi (Paris:VIV), Telecom Italia's largest shareholder, wishes to reaffirm its role as a long term committed shareholder of the Italian telecoms operator prior to its May 4, 2017 Shareholders' meeting for which it has proposed a slate of candidates.

The media and telecoms industry is evolving towards a convergent digital ecosystem, with the integration of content and distribution. Vivendi is in a unique position to be present across the value chain by leveraging its premium content, distribution platforms and partnerships, and its wide customer reach. Within this framework, Vivendi sees Telecom Italia as a key distribution asset playing a major role in its ambitious plan to become a world class provider of premium content. It is also in the interest of Telecom Italia to have a long term investor.

Vivendi will be able to strengthen Telecom Italia's position. It will enable the company to capture the opportunities as well as overcome the challenges that rise from the major changes in the telecoms sector and the arrival of a new player shortly. Benefiting from Vivendi's assets and expertise in content, digital distribution and communications, the Telecom Italia management will build significant value for customers, employees and shareholders.

In addition, Vivendi believes in the importance of continued investment in the expansion of the Telecom Italia mobile and fixed broadband networks to address the strong demand in high quality converged services as well as in multiplay bundles. Enabling the best customer experience in converged services, and combining it with the best price/benefit ratio of the market will allow Telecom Italia to increase both its market share and its revenue.

Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Chief Executive Officer of Vivendi, said: "In 2016, Vivendi supported the Telecom Italia management in its drive to put in place the conditions to improve operational and financial results. Vivendi will continue to help it, bringing its expertise and resources in order to drive revenue and margin increase, while improving the customer experience in all segments.

In addition, Vivendi is willing to work closely with the Telecom Italia management and teams, with the Italian government and regulatory bodies to successfully develop a major Italian company.

About Vivendi

Vivendi is an integrated media and content group. The company operates businesses throughout the media value chain, from talent discovery to the creation, production and distribution of content. Universal Music Group is engaged in recorded music, music publishing and merchandising. It owns more than 50 labels covering all genres. Canal+ Group is engaged in pay-TV in France, as well as in Africa, Poland and Vietnam. Its subsidiary Studiocanal is a leading European player in production, sales and distribution of movies and TV series. Gameloft is a worldwide leader in mobile games, with 2 million games downloaded per day.Vivendi Village, groups together Vivendi Ticketing (in the United Kingdom, the United States and France), MyBestPro (expert counseling), Watchever (subscription streaming services), Radionomy (digital radio), the venues L'Olympia and Theatre de L'uvre in Paris, and CanalOlympia in Africa, as well as Olympia Production. With 3 billion videos viewed each month, Dailymotion is one of the biggest video content aggregation and distribution platforms in the world.

www.vivendi.comwww.cultureswithvivendi.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations, business, strategy, plans and outlook of Vivendi, including the impact of certain transactions. Although Vivendi believes that such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside our control, including but not limited to the risks related to antitrust and other regulatory approvals as well as any other approvals which may be required in connection with certain transactions and the risks described in the documents Vivendi filed with the Autorite des Marches Financiers (French securities regulator), which are also available in English on Vivendi's website (www.vivendi.com). Investors and security holders may obtain a free copy of documents filed by Vivendi with the Autorite des Marches Financiers at www.amf-france.org, or directly from Vivendi. Accordingly, we caution readers against relying on such forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and Vivendi disclaims any intention or obligation to provide, update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170421005312/en/

Contacts:

Vivendi
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. ("Cornerstone" or "the Company") (TSX VENTURE: CGP)(FRANKFURT: GWN)(BERLIN: GWN)(OTCBB: CTNXF) announces the following project update for the Cascabel copper-gold porphyry joint venture exploration project in northern Ecuador.

Figures and photographs referred to in this news release can be seen in PDF format by accessing the version of this release on the Company's website (www.cornerstoneresources.com) or by clicking on the link below:

http://www.cornerstoneresources.com/i/pdf/NR17-11Figures.pdf.

HIGHLIGHTS:

-- Hole 21 (CSD-17-021) assay results extend by 150m (from 750m to 900m, 20%) strike- extension of the Alpala known mineralized zone. -- Hole 21, with collar situated approximately 250m along strike to the southeast of the collars of Holes 23R (in progress) and Hole 16 (856m @ 0.80% Cu, 1.04g/t Au, 1.46% CuEq), returns (1) : -- 844.0m @ 0.73 % copper and 0.43 g/t gold from 688.0m (1.00% CuEq), and -- 670.0m @ 0.82 % copper and 0.51 g/t gold from 826.0m (1.14% CuEq), and -- 304.0m @ 0.99 % copper and 0.63 g/t gold from 962.0m (1.39% CuEq). -- Holes 23R, 24, and 25 continue in mineralization.

Note (1): Further information (including true widths of intersections and cut off grades) is provided in Table 1 and in the Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) section.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

The Cascabel Project is located within the gold-rich northern section of the Andean Copper belt (Figure 1). The project area hosts mineralization of Eocene age, the same age as numerous Tier 1 deposits along the Andean Copper Belt in Chile and Peru to the south. The project base is located at Rocafuerte, in northwestern Ecuador just west of the City of Ibarra, approximately 3 hours' drive north of Quito and close to water, power supply and Pacific Ports (Figure 2).

Fifteen individual targets have been defined at Cascabel. SolGold has successfully drill tested three of the fifteen targets, being Alpala Central, Alpala Northwest, Hematite Hill (Hole 25), and Alpala Southeast (Hole 24) (Figure 3). Current drilling focuses on defining the geometry of the growing Alpala deposit, which is open in virtually all directions. Over 35,000m of drilling has been completed to date, and the arrival of Rigs 4, 5, 6 and 7 over the coming two quarters will see drill testing expanding to Alpala East, Alpala West, Trivino and Aguinaga by mid-year. The drilling program is planned to expand to eight drilling rigs by year end, which will also see drill testing of the Tandayama-America prospect. (Figure 4). SolGold believes that several targets clustered within the Alpala area may coalesce.

Hole 21 (CSD-17-021) assays received from 650m to 1619.2m (end of hole) extends by 150m strike- extension of known Alpala deposit from Holes 23R and 16 to Hematite Hill. The outstanding Hole 21 assay results from 0m to 650m are not expected to produce significant intersections.

Hole 21, with a collar situated approximately 250m along strike to the southeast of the collars of Holes 23R (in progress) and Hole 16 (856m @ 0.80% Cu, 1.04g/t Au, 1.46% CuEq), returned the following significant intersections:

-- 844.0m @ 0.73 % copper and 0.43 g/t gold from 688.0m (1.00% CuEq), including -- 670.0m @ 0.82 % copper and 0.51 g/t gold from 826.0m (1.14% CuEq), and -- 304.0m @ 0.99 % copper and 0.63 g/t gold from 962.0m (1.39% CuEq).

The position of Hole 21 is shown in cross-section A-A' in Figure 5. Selected examples of mineralization encountered in Hole 21 are shown in Figure 6. Detailed results from Hole 21 are shown in Table 1 below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cascabel Project - Summary of Drill Hole Intersections ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Depth Depth Interval True Hole ID From To (m) Cu_% Au_g/t Cu.Eq_% Cut-off Width (m) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 668 1614 946 0.67 0.39 0.92 0.10 568 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 688 1532 844 0.73 0.43 1.00 0.30 506 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 826 1496 670 0.82 0.51 1.14 0.50 402 ----------------------------------------------------------------- CSD-17-021 962 1266 304 0.99 0.63 1.39 0.70 182 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1278 1376 98 0.57 0.46 0.86 0.70 59 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1396 1496 100 0.69 0.46 0.98 0.70 60 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1014 1260 246 1.04 0.69 1.47 1.00 148 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (i) Data Aggregation Method -- Intercepts reported with up to 10m internal dilution. (Excluding bridging to a single sample) -- Intercepts selected using Cu equivalent cutoff grades of 0.10, 0.20, 0.30, 0.50, 0.70, 1.0 and 1.50 (ii) Gold Conversion factor of 0.89 calculated from copper price US$2.20/lb and gold price US$1350/oz. (iii) Gold Conversion factor of 0.63 calculated from copper price US$3.00/lb and gold price US$1300/oz.

Table 1: Selected intersections results from Hole 21 at Alpala Central.

Holes 23R, 24, and 25 are in progress at current depths of 844.3m, 1170.7m, and 1203.7m respectively. Further update on the progress of these holes, testing both depth and further strike extensions to the southeast of Hole 21 Alpala, will be provided when drilling of these holes nears completion.

GEOPHYSICS

Solgold has completed the ground magnetic survey over Cascabel, and preparations are being finalized to commence a detailed Orion-Spartan 3D IP survey across most of the concession (Figure 7). Processing of this improved magnetic data is underway and this work will not only augment the existing geophysical targets at Alpala and Aguinaga, but further investigate the promising Tandayama-America anomaly and other satellite targets on the property. Following analysis of these datasets, Solgold will further refine drill targets along the Alpala cluster, as well as those at Moran, Aguinaga, and Tandayama-America. A 'LIDAR' topographic control survey is being planned for commencement mid-year.

The presence of magnetite with chalcopyrite and bornite with potassic alteration endorses the predictive nature of the 3D Magnetic model at Cascabel. The magnetic bodies at Alpala, Moran and Aguinaga envelope represent approximately 15 billion tonnes of untested magnetic rock.

OUTLOOK

Upgrade and expansion of site facilities are well underway at Cascabel as the project continues to expand to 7 rigs by October and 10 rigs next year. The geology team have yet to define the extents of the Alpala porphyry system, and the deposit remains open in most directions, continuing to grow with each new drill hole. An aggressive drill program, producing approximately 90,000m of diamond drill core per annum from early 2018 is planned to delineate the system limits along the greater Alpala trend prior to a maiden resource statement, and to test the other multiple targets within the concession.

An increasing understanding of the deposit is now leading to much larger step-outs in drilling as Solgold directs its program towards the copper and gold at a predicted large and rich core of the Alpala system. The presence of magnetite with chalcopyrite and bornite with potassic alteration endorses the predictive nature of the 3D Magnetic model at Cascabel. The magnetic bodies at Alpala, Moran and Aguinaga envelope approximately 15 billion tonnes of untested magnetic rock. SolGold is excited by the strong correlation between magnetic signatures and copper mineralisation in this system.

About Cascabel:

Exploraciones Novomining S.A. ("ENSA"), an Ecuadorean company owned by SolGold Plc and Cornerstone, holds 100% of the Cascabel concession. Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, including SolGold's fully funding the project through to feasibility, SolGold Plc will own 85% of the equity of ENSA and Cornerstone will own the remaining 15% of ENSA. SolGold Plc is funding 100% of the exploration at Cascabel and is the operator of the project.

Cascabel is in northwestern Ecuador in an under-explored northern section of the Andean Copper Belt, 60 km northeast of the undeveloped inferred resource of 982 million tons at 0.89% Cu Llurimaga (formerly Junin) copper project (0.4% Cu cut-off grade; Micon International Co. Ltd. Technical Report for Ascendant Exploration SA, August 20, 2004, pages 28 & 29). Mineralization identified at the Llurimaga copper project is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on the Cascabel Property.

Plans:

To date SolGold has completed geological mapping and soil sampling over 25 km2, along with and an additional 9km2 of Induced Polarisation and 14km2 Magnetotelluric "Orion" surveys over the Alpala cluster and Aguinaga targets. SolGold has completed 34,000m of drilling and expended over USD 4M on the program, corporate costs and investments into Cornerstone. Diamond drilling is planned for the next 12 months with multiple drill rigs.

The Company is currently planning further metallurgical testing and completion of an independent Pre- Feasibility Study at Cascabel (which may or may not be the equivalent of a National Instrument 43- 101/CIM definition standards Pre-Feasibility Study). SolGold is investigating both high tonnage open cut and underground block caving operations, as well as a high grade / low tonnage initial underground development towards the economic development of the copper gold deposit/s at Cascabel.

Qualified Person:

Yvan Crepeau, MBA, P.Geo., Cornerstone's Vice President, Exploration and a qualified person in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for supervising the exploration program at the Cascabel project for Cornerstone and has reviewed and approved the information contained in this news release.

Logging, sampling, assaying and reporting

Holes referred to in this release were or are being drilled using HTW, NTW, NQ and BQ core sizes (respectively 7.1, 5.6, 4.8 and 3.7 cm diameter). Geotechnical measurements such as core recovery, fracturing, rock quality designations (RQD's), specific density and photographic logging are performed systematically prior to assaying. The core is logged, magnetic susceptibility measured and key alteration minerals identified using an on-site portable spectrometer. Core is then sawed in half at the ENSA core logging facility, and half of the core is delivered by ENSA employees for preparation at ALS Minerals Laboratories (ALS) sample preparation facility in Quito. Core samples are prepared crushing to 70% passing 2 mm (10 mesh), splitting 250 g and pulverizing to 85% passing 75 microns (200 mesh) (ALS code CRU-31, SPL21 and PUL-32). Prepared samples are then shipped to ALS in Lima, Peru where samples are assayed for a multi-element suite (ALS code ME-MSP61, 1g split, 4-acid digestion, ICP-MS finish). Over limit results for Ag (greater than 100 g/t) and Cu, (greater than 1%) are systematically re-assayed (ALS code Ag- AA62, 4-acid digestion, AAS finish). Gold is assayed using a 30 g split, Fire Assay (FA) and AA finish (ALS code Au-AA23).

Drill hole intercepts are calculated using a data aggregation method, defined by copper equivalent cut-off grades and reported with up to 10m internal dilution, excluding bridging to a single sample. Copper equivalent grades are calculated using a gold conversion factor of 0.63, determined using an updated copper price of USD3.00/pound and an updated gold price of USD1300/ounce. Copper equivalent calculation assumes 100% recoveries of copper and gold.

All reported drill core intervals from the Cascabel Property are core lengths, unless otherwise indicated. At present the true thicknesses of all the holes has not been calculated by SolGold. True width of down hole intersections is estimated by SolGold to be approximately 25-50% of the core length.

Quality assurance / Quality control (QA/QC)

The ALS Laboratory is a qualified assayer that performs and makes available internal assaying controls. Duplicates, certified blanks and standards are systematically used (1 control sample every 15-20 samples). Rejects, a 100 g pulp for each core sample and the remaining half-core are stored for future use and controls.

About Cornerstone:

Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. is a well-funded mineral exploration company with a diversified portfolio of projects in Ecuador and Chile, and a proven ability to identify, acquire and advance properties of merit. The company's business model is based on generating exploration projects whose subsequent development is funded primarily through partnerships.

Further information is available on Cornerstone's website: www.cornerstoneresources.com and on Twitter.

Cautionary Notice:

This news release may contain 'Forward-Looking Statements' that involve risks and uncertainties, such as statements of Cornerstone's plans, objectives, strategies, intentions and expectations. The words "potential," "anticipate," "forecast," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "may," "project," "plan," and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify 'Forward-Looking Statements.' Although Cornerstone believes that its expectations reflected in these 'Forward-Looking Statements' are reasonable, such statements may involve unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed in our regulatory filings, viewed on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets, predicting natural geological phenomena and from numerous other matters of national, regional, and global scale, including those of an environmental, climatic, natural, political, economic, business, competitive, or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our Forward-Looking Statements. Although Cornerstone believes the facts and information contained in this news release to be as correct and current as possible, Cornerstone does not warrant or make any representation as to the accuracy, validity or completeness of any facts or information contained herein and these statements should not be relied upon as representing its views after the date of this news release. While Cornerstone anticipates that subsequent events may cause its views to change, it expressly disclaims any obligation to update the Forward-Looking Statements contained herein except where outcomes have varied materially from the original statements.

On Behalf of the Board,

Brooke Macdonald, President and CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

For investor, corporate or media inquiries:

Investor Relations

Mario Drolet

(514) 904-1333

Mario@mi3.ca

www.cornerstoneresources.com




BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --BioGX, a developer and manufacturer of molecular diagnostics CE-IVD tests has announced the establishment of European operations based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. BioGX EU operation is at the core of the company's growth strategy into the European market with a goal to place sales, supply and support resources closer to its European customers. BioGX EUwill provide direct supportto customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA)through regionaltechnical sales and field application resources.

According to Shazi Iqbal, Ph.D., CEO of BioGX, "BioGX EU operations will enhance the customer experience and lower costs by eliminating the complexity and expense associated with an international supply chain. BioGX is well positioned to offer its full range of products and services to customers throughout the EMEA region."

About BioGX

BioGX manufactures molecular diagnostic CE-IVD tests and provides partner-specified formulation and manufacturing services for custom molecular reagent components. Operating in a cGMP compliant environment, BioGX has a decade of experience in applyingits proprietary platform-agnostic reagent technology across a variety of real-time PCR and Next Generation Sequencing platforms. The Sample-Ready' technology is applied withinclinical, food safety, pharma, and water quality analysis industries worldwide.For itsachievements in exporting goods and services around the world, BioGX was honoredwith the 2017 Alabama Governor's Trade Excellence Award.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/415789/BioGX_Logo.jpg
We hereby inform that after the general meeting of the shareholders of AB Klaipedos Nafta convened on 21 April, 2017 the term of office of AB Klaipedos Nafta's supervisory council has expired, as provided in Article 31 Paragraph 4 of Law on Companies of Republic of Lithuania. The term of office of the audit committee has expired together with the term of office of the supervisory council.



Candidates to the supervisory council will be selected according to the regulation No 631 of the Government of Republic of Lithuania dated 17 June, 2015 Regarding the Approval of the Selection Procedure of the Candidates to the Board of State Company or Municipality Company and Candidates to the Management or Supervisory Body Elected by the General Meeting of the Shareholders of State or Municipality Controlled Company. The members of the audit committee are elected by the supervisory council.



Marius Pulkauninkas, Director of Finance and Administration Department, +370 46 391 763

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MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Critical Elements Corporation (TSX VENTURE: CRE) (OTCQX: CRECF) (FRANKFURT: F12) announce that, at its annual meeting held on April 21, 2017, shareholders of the Company approved all the items, including:

-- Election of Jean-Sebastien Lavallee, Jean-Francois Meilleur, Richard Saint-Jean, Jean-Raymond Lavallee, Marc Simpson and Matthew Starnes Lauriston as directors; -- The appointment of KPMG s.r.l./S.E.N.C.R.L. as auditors of the Corporation for the current financial year.

The shareholders also proposed and approved the appointment of Dr. Steffen Haber as an additional director of the Company, bringing the number of directors to seven.

Dr. Haber was President and Chief Executive Officer of Rockwood Lithium GmbH when Chemetall GmbH was legally split off in 2012. From 2011 to 2012, he was Managing Director of Chemetall GmbH and since 2007 President of Chemetall's Lithium business. Prior to joining Chemetall GmbH, Dr. Haber worked in different executive positions for Sanofi-Aventis SA and its predecessor companies, in France. Dr. Haber completed his doctorate in organic chemistry at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, in 1991 and added one year as a Post-Doc at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. In 1997, Dr. Haber earned his Bachelor of Science in Management from the International School of Management in San Diego, in the United States. Dr. Haber is a fellow of the International Directors Program of INSEAD.

About Critical Elements Corporation

A recent financial analysis (Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the Rose lithium-tantalum Project, Genivar, December 2011) of the Rose project, 100% owned by Critical Elements, based on price forecasts of US $260/kg ($118/lb) for Ta2O5 contained in a tantalite concentrate and US $6,000/t for lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) showed an estimated after-tax Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 25% for the Rose project, with an estimated Net Present Value (NPV) of CA $279 million at an 8% discount rate. The payback period is estimated at 4.1 years. The pre-tax IRR is estimated at 33% and the NPV at CA $488 million at a discount rate of 8%. (Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability). (The preliminary economic assessment is preliminary in nature). (See press release dated November 21, 2011.) The PEA includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized.

The conclusions of the PEA indicate that the operation would support a production rate of 26,606 tons of high purity (99.9% battery grade) Li2CO3 and 206,670 pounds of Ta2O5 per year over a 17-year mine life.

The project hosts a current Indicated resource of 26.5 million tonnes of 1.30% Li2O Eq. or 0.98% Li2O and 163 ppm Ta2O5 and an Inferred resource of 10.7 million tonnes of 1.14% Li2O Eq. or 0.86% Li2O and 145 ppm Ta2O5.

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:

Jean-Sebastien Lavallee, P.Geo.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

819-354-5146

jslavallee@cecorp.ca

www.cecorp.ca



Investor Relations:

Paradox Public Relations

514-341-0408




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Constellation Software Inc. ("Constellation") (TSX: CSU) today announced that its wholly-owned division Volaris Group ("Volaris") has entered into an agreement to acquire an Asset Management software provider of telematics solutions. Completion of the acquisition remains subject to mutually agreed closing conditions.

About Volaris Group

Volaris acquires, strengthens and grows vertical market technology companies. As an Operating Group of Constellation Software Inc., Volaris is all about strengthening businesses within the markets they compete and enabling them to grow - whether that growth comes through organic measures such as new initiatives and product development, day-to-day business, or through complementary acquisitions. Learn more at www.volarisgroup.com.

About Constellation

Constellation Software acquires, manages and builds vertical market software businesses.

Contacts:

Constellation Software Inc.

Jamal Baksh

Chief Financial Officer

(416) 861-9677

jbaksh@csisoftware.com

www.csisoftware.com




PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Rubrik, the Cloud Data Management company, today announced its data protection solution for Pure Storage FlashBlade, along with new integration between Rubrik's Cloud Data Management Products and Pure Storage's FlashArray//M. With this new collaboration, customers can achieve simplicity, performance and integrated data management across hybrid cloud environments.

"We are pleased to lead the market with our data protection solution for FlashBlade. Finally, customers can achieve unparalleled simplicity, performance and scalability across their environment with Pure and Rubrik," said Bipul Sinha, founder and CEO of Rubrik. "Our integration truly ties together Pure's performance and manageability, to Rubrik's cloud native data fabric, making data more agile across hybrid cloud environments."

Rubrik Cloud Data Management integration across Pure Storage's FlashArray//M and FlashBlade, delivers high performance backups without compromising application consistency, granularity, or cloud mobility. Customers using Rubrik and Pure benefit from:

Deployments in under one hour vs. weeks;

Unrivaled performance with near zero latency and significantly reduces VM stuns;

Management across a data fabric that spans on-premises and cloud;

Seamless scalability;

Powerful onboard reporting; and

Reductions in footprint by 70% or more.

"As a FlashArray and FlashBlade customer, we're excited to pair the Pure platform with Rubrik for our backup needs," said Katie Bye, Director of Infrastructure, Farm Bureau Insurance of Michigan. "The integrations with array based snapshots, combined with the ease of use of both products has greatly enhanced our operations as well as disaster recovery."

"Pure and Rubrik wipe away storage and backup management complexity, resulting in massive operational savings. We trust Pure and Rubrik to run and backup our highly transactional applications," said Jacob Warren, Systems Administrator, Red Hawk Casino.

Rubrik's support for FlashBlade, Pure Storage's unstructured data offering, has been designed to cater to companies running complex, data intensive workloads between private and public clouds.

"We are excited to partner with Rubrik on this integration because it offers clear benefits of simplicity and performance for hybrid cloud environments," said Matt Burr, VP of Global FlashBlade and FlashStack, Pure Storage. "For forward thinking IT teams who are seeking innovative and efficient technology, Rubrik and Pure are a great choice."

For more information, read Rubrik and Pure Storage Joint Solution Brief, or attend our upcoming joint webinar Rubrik and Pure Storage Integration and Technical Overview featuring Rubrik Product Management Director Nitin Nagpal, Pure Storage VP and CTO Americas Chadd Kenney, and Pure Storage Technical Director Cody Hosterman will be taking place on May 5 at 10 a.m. PT. Sign up today to learn more.

Separately, Rubrik recently announced a global annual run rate approaching $100M.

About Rubrik

Rubrik has developed the world's first Cloud Data Management platform for data protection, search, analytics, archival and copy data management for hybrid cloud enterprises. Fortune 500 companies use Rubrik to manage data at scale while realizing data-driven services anytime, anywhere. Rubrik has been named to Gartner's Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies, 2016; Forbes' Next Billion Dollar Startup, and Business Insider's 51 Enterprise Startups to Bet Your Career On. For more information, visit http://www.rubrik.com and follow @rubrikInc on Twitter.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang hopes for "a united, stable and prosperous European Union." (Photo : Getty Images)

Through Premier Li Keqiang, China has expressed its firm support for the European integration as the government hopes for "a united, stable and prosperous European Union," state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.



Advertisement

Li's comments, together with his remarks emphasizing China's high regard to the China-EU relations, were made during his meeting with Federica Mogherini, EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and the European Commission's vice president.



"China is willing to work with the EU in the spirit of mutual respect and treating each other as equals to advance bilateral investment treaty talks and the feasibility study of the free trade agreement," the premier stated.



The official also noted that the Chinese government will be closely working with the union in order to "handle differences properly and to better the China-EU relations within the rule-based international order and contribute vitality to world economic growth."



Meanwhile, Li said that both China and the EU should "abide by the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter," considering the constantly changing international political and economic landscape.



Li further urged both parties to join hands in maintaining regional stability and world peace. He proposed that the two should help tackle global challenges, champion economic globalization and improve governance at an international level.



According to the premier, these endeavors will all the more stabilize the China-EU relations.



Mogherini reflected the same sentiment, adding that the EU and China should share the obligation to sustain international order. The two should also make concerted efforts in combatting various challenges including climate change and terrorism.



The EU envoy also shared that the organization remains unwavering in its campaign to deliver its international obligations.



She added that the EU will work with the Chinese government to facilitate and track the progress of the partnerships between the EU and China.


2AB Klaipedos nafta, legal code 110648893, registered at Buriu str. 19, Klaipeda (hereinafter, the "Company"), Annual General Meeting of Shareholders held on 21 April 2017 in between the other questions approved the audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2016.



-- AB Klaipedos nafta revenues for the year 2016 comprise EUR 103,839 thousand, 5.3% less compared to the year 2015 (EUR 109,702 thousand); -- Net profit of the Company comprise EUR 13,794 thousand, 37.4% less compared to year 2015 (EUR 22,036 thousand), net profit margin - 13.3 per cent (in 2015 - 20.1 per cent). -- Company's EBITDA for the year 2016 comprise EUR 28,446 thousand, 23.4% less compared to the same period of the year 2015 (EUR 37,136 thousand), EBITDA margin - 27.4 per cent (in 2015 - 33.9 per cent).



Management comment:



The previous year definitely could be named as year of growth. Activities volumes in 2016 significantly increased: oil and LNG terminals' activity volumes were record high. Total in Klaipeda port 8.2 million tons of cargos were handled through the KN operating terminals that is approximately 20% of total handling turnover of the port of Klaipeda.



Total during 2016 the Company reloaded 7.3 million tons of petroleum products in the oil terminals of Klaipeda and Subacius that is more by 13.6% comparing to 2015 when 6.5 million tons were reloaded. Significantly increased petroleum product cargo identified that KN terminal provides transhipment services professionally and effectively. The main reason for volume increase is related with the transhipment results of AB ORLEN Lietuva, which are the best since 2005. In previous year transit cargos from Byelorussian refineries also increased despite the slowdown in the second half of the year.



LNG terminal regasification volume in 2016 was 14.6 million MWh or by 3.2 times more comparing to the same period of 2015 when 4.6 million MWh have been regasified. That is the largest activity volume throughout the history of FSRU INDEPENDENCE. We may state that LNG terminal results of 2016 represent in full the market needs and ensure the benefits of the LNG terminal as energy source. It should be noted that in previous year during certain periods almost 100% of total gas usage In Lithuania were imported through LNG terminal.



Next to the successful activities of oil products and LNG handling we have been implementing several investment projects foreseen in the Strategy of the Company for the years 2016 - 2020. These projects will ensure the optimal operations of our managed infrastructure, effectiveness of activities and development.



AB Klaipedos nafta financial results for the year 2016 prove intensive and effective performance of KN. Despite the increased volumes of activity and implementation of the projects, the Company professionally managed its costs and ensured high return for the shareholders. For the analysed period the return on equity was 7.1%, EBITDA margin - 27.4%.



KN Oil terminal revenues in 2016 comprise Eur 34.1 million that comparing to 2015 (Eur 37.3 million) decreased by 8.5%. Change of situation in the oil products transhipment market has modified the pricing of the services and structure of the service contracts that caused decrease in revenues.



Sales revenues of the KN LNG Terminal in 2016 comprise Eur 67.0 million when for the same period in 2015 - Eur 69.9 million. Decrease in revenues is related with the lower natural gas consumption capacities. It must be taken into account that LNG terminal profit level is set by the legal regulation as to the laws of the Republic of Lithuania so it is going to be compensated through the other periods.



Enclosed:



1. Approved Financial Statements of AB Klaipedos nafta for the year 2016, prepared according to the International Financial Reporting Standards approved for application within the European Union, provided together with the Independent Auditor's Report hereto, as well as the Annual Report of AB Klaipedos nafta;



2. Financial results presentation for the financial year ending on 31 December 2016.





Marius Pulkauninkas, Director of Finance and Administration Department, tel. 8 46 391763



Attachment:

https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=626428

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CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. (TSX: ENF) will hold its Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Calgary, Alberta on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

Annual Meeting of Shareholders When: Thursday, May 11, 2017 10:00 a.m. MT (12:00 p.m. ET) Where: Metropolitan Conference Centre 333 - 4 Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta

A live audio webcast of the Annual Meeting will be available at enbridgeincomefund.com/agmwebcast. A webcast replay will be available on the Company's website approximately two hours following the event. An mp3 and transcript will be posted to the website shortly thereafter.

Members of the media interested in attending the meeting in person are asked to please register in advance by calling the Enbridge Media Line at 888-992-0997.

For additional information on the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, including voting and attendance procedures please refer to enbridgeincomefund.com/agminfo.

ABOUT ENBRIDGE INCOME FUND HOLDINGS INC.

Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. is a publicly traded corporation. EIFH, through its investment in Enbridge Income Fund indirectly holds high quality, low-risk energy infrastructure assets. Enbridge Income Fund's assets consist of a portfolio of Canadian liquids transportation and storage businesses, including the Canadian Mainline, the Regional Oil Sands System, the Canadian segment of the Southern Lights Pipeline, Class A units entitling the holder to receive defined cash flows from the US segment of the Southern Lights Pipeline, a 50 percent interest in the Alliance Pipeline, which transports natural gas from Canada to the U.S., and interests in more than 1,400 MW of renewable and alternative power generation assets. Information about Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. is available on EIFH's website at www.enbridgeincomefund.com.

Contacts:

Media

Suzanne Wilton

(403) 231-7385 or Toll Free: (888) 992-0997

suzanne.wilton@enbridge.com



Investment Community

Enbridge Income Holdings Inc.

Adam McKnight

(403) 266-7922 or Toll free: (800) 481-2804

adam.mcknight@enbridge.com




CARDSTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- American Creek Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: AMK) ("American Creek") is pleased to announce that it has again engaged AGORACOM to implement an online marketing and awareness program.

American Creek will receive continued significant exposure through millions of content brand insertions on the AGORACOM network and extensive search engine marketing over the next 12 months. In addition, exclusive sponsorships of invaluable digital properties such as AGORACOM TV, the AGORACOM home page and the AGORACOM Twitter account will serve to significantly raise the brand awareness of American Creek among small cap investors.

Shares for Services Program

American Creek intends to issue shares for services to AGORACOM in exchange for the online advertising, marketing and branding services. Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the company will be issuing;

-- $11,250 + GST Shares for Services on July 31, 2017 -- $11,250 + GST Shares for Services on October 31, 2017 -- $11,250 + GST Shares for Services on January 30, 2018 -- $11,250 + GST Shares for Services on April 30, 2018

The number of shares to be issued for each period will be determined at the end of each period, after the services are provided to American Creek, and in any event, all share issuances will be subject to a minimum deemed share price of $0.10. The term of the Agreement is for 12 months effective May 1, 2017. American Creek will issue a press release after each issuance of shares under the terms of the Agreement.

This shares for services agreement is subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.

Darren R. Blaney, President & CEO, stated: "We were very pleased with Agoracom's efforts and results over the course of the last year and are happy to be engaging their services for another 12 months. Agoracom is good at what they do and we are confident that they can increase the exposure and profile of the company to an even wider audience in the future."

About AGORACOM

AGORACOM is the pioneer of online investor relations, online conferences and online branding services to North American small and mid-cap public companies, with more than 250 companies served. AGORACOM is the home of more than 767K investors that visited 5.4 million times and read 51.5 million pages of information every year. The average duration of visit of 8min 43sec is more than double that of global financial sites, which can be attributed to the implementation and enforcement of the strongest moderation rules in the industry (All Metrics Average 2008 - 2016).

AGORACOM traffic ranks within the top 0.5% of all websites around the world. These traffic results are independently tracked and verified by Google analytics. AGORACOM traffic can be attributed to its strategy of maintaining the cleanest, moderated small-cap discussion as a result of implementing the first ever Investor Controlled Stock Discussion Forums.

About American Creek

American Creek is a Canadian junior mineral exploration company with a strong portfolio of gold and silver properties in British Columbia. Three of those properties are located in the prolific "Golden Triangle"; the Treaty Creek and Electrum joint venture projects with Tudor Gold (Walter Storm) as well as the 100% owned past producing Dunwell Mine.

The Corporation also holds the Gold Hill, Austruck-Bonanza, Ample Goldmax, Silver Side, Red Tusk and Glitter King properties located in other prospective areas of the province.

Information relating to the Corporation is available on its website at www.americancreek.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

American Creek Resources Ltd.

Kelvin Burton

403 752-4040

info@americancreek.com




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Enbridge Inc. (TSX: ENB)(NYSE: ENB) will hold its Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Calgary, Alberta on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

Annual Meeting of Shareholders

When: Thursday, May 11, 2017 1:30 p.m. MT (3:30 p.m. ET) Where: Metropolitan Conference Centre 333 - 4 Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta

A live audio webcast of the Annual Meeting will be available at enbridge.com/agmwebcast. A webcast replay will be available on the Company's website approximately two hours following the event. An mp3 and transcript will be posted to the website shortly thereafter.

Members of the media interested in attending the meeting in person are asked to please register in advance by calling the Enbridge Media Line at 888-992-0997.

For additional information on the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, including voting and attendance procedures please refer to enbridge.com/agminfo.

About Enbridge Inc.

Enbridge Inc. is North America's premier energy infrastructure company with strategic business platforms that include an extensive network of crude oil, liquids and natural gas pipelines, regulated natural gas distribution utilities and renewable power generation. The Company safely delivers an average of 2.8 million barrels of crude oil each day through its Mainline and Express Pipeline, and accounts for nearly 68% of U.S.-bound Canadian crude oil production, and moves approximately 20% of all natural gas consumed in the U.S. serving key supply basins and demand markets. The Company's regulated utilities serve approximately 3.5 million retail customers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State. Enbridge also has a growing involvement in electricity infrastructure with interests in more than 2,500 MW of net renewable generating capacity, and an expanding offshore wind portfolio in Europe. The Company has ranked on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations index for the past eight years; its common shares trade on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges under the symbol ENB.

Life takes energy and Enbridge exists to fuel people's quality of life. For more information, visit www.enbridge.com.

Contacts:

Media

Suzanne Wilton

(403) 231-7385 or Toll Free: (888) 992-0997

suzanne.wilton@enbridge.com



Investment Community

Enbridge Inc.:

Jonathan Gould

Toll Free: (800) 481-2804

investor.relations@enbridge.com




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Vital Energy Inc. ("Vital") (TSX VENTURE: VUX) announces that, further to its news release dated March 31, 2017, and the agreement with a Third Party described therein, the Third Party has made the first cash advance to Vital under the terms of the agreement. Vital was successful in acquiring 4 leases at the April 11, 2017, Saskatchewan crown land sale. The lease acquisitions totaled 5,220 acres more than doubling Vital's current Pennant Area project lands and bringing the total 100% owned Pennant Area, S.W. Saskatchewan project lands to approximately 8,337contiguous gross and net acres (13 contiguous Sections). The Phase 1 seven (7) well drilling program referred to in the March 31, 2017 news release is expected to commence immediately after spring breakup 2017.

Vital Energy Inc. is a publicly traded junior oil and gas company ("VUX" TSX-V) whose primary focus is developing light and medium crude oil production in Western Canada.

Cautionary Statement

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved nor disapproved the information contained herein.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of Vital Energy Inc. and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding future plans and objectives of Vital Energy Inc., are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Vital's expectations are exploration risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Corporation with securities regulations.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Vital. As a result, we cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and Vital does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Contacts:

Vital Energy Inc.

Jeff Standen

President

Tel: (403) 615-5827

(403) 699-9660 (FAX)

Email: jstanden@vitalenergyoil.com

Or visit our website at: www.vitalenergyoil.com




1. To approve the reports of the Company's management board and the supervisory board on the Annual Report for the Year 2016. 2. To approve the Annual Report for the Year 2016. 3. To pay as dividends 63 366.00 EUR from the retained earnings of 850 184.99 EUR carried forward from previous years, which is 0.15 EUR per share. To retain the earnings of the reporting year 85 322.06 EUR. To set 15 May 2017 as the dividend calculation date and 22 May 2017 as the dividend payment date. 4. To discharge the members of the management board, the members of the supervisory board and the auditor from responsibility for action in the year 2016 and to resign from bringing claims against them. 5. To elect certified auditor Vija Dzene (certificate No. 108, V. Dzenes Audits Ltd, license No. 120) as the auditor. To confirm the remuneration of 1 600.00 EUR for the auditor for the audit of the Annual Report for the Year 2017, applicable to VAT under the effective legislation. 6. To elect Inita Bedrite, Maija Beca, Jekaterina Kreise, Baiba Mecauce and Maruta Niedrite in the supervisory board for a three-year term. The newly elected member of the supervisory board Baiba Mecauce, a veterinarian and a holder of 10 304 shares of the company, has been a project manager at 'A.Medical' Ltd. for more than 10 years. The newly elected member of the supervisory board Maruta Niedrite, who holds 8 307 shares of the company, is the chief accountant at 'Kalsnavas komunalais uznemums' Ltd. since 2013. To approve the remuneration of 150.00 EUR per month to each member of the supervisory board. We hereby inform that at the supervisory board's meeting on 21 April 2017 the chairman of the supervisory board was reelected Inita Bedrite, and the deputy chairman of the supervisory board was reelected Maija Beca. 7. To assign the performing of the functions of the audit committee to the supervisory board for a three-year term without any additional remuneration.



All resolutions approved with the required majority of votes.



The management board of the Joint Stock Company 'Siguldas ciltslietu un maksligas apseklosanas stacija'



Valda Malniece Manager of the Financial and Accounting department, member of the management board E-mail: valda.malniece@sigmas.lv

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LAVAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Urbanimmersive Inc. ("Urbanimmersive" or the "Company) (TSX VENTURE: UI)(OTC PINK: UBMRF), a real estate content marketing platform, is pleased to announce the signing of a 5 year affiliate program agreement with Drone Studio, a top aerial real estate photography agency, for the use of Urbanimmersive's visual content marketplace ("Centris Marketplace")("Marketplace") for 100% of their real estate customer business transactions. All customer business transactions of Drone Studio taking place on the platform will grow Urbanimmersive's top-line revenue and the Marketplace will then take a transaction fee in line with its current pricing model on each transaction generated through its platform. The real estate division of Drone Studio generated an average of $50,000 annually for the last two fiscal years.

Quebec-based Drone Studio is one of the few drone operators to have a Special Flight Operating Certificate (SFOC) which is a crucial aspect in the real estate industry. The SFOC, received from Transport Canada, allows them to provide aerial photoshoot services in the entire province in both urban and non-urban zones within 3 days notice. Drone Studio has collaborated on a number of projects and boasts an impressive customer portfolio serving major TV producers in Quebec. (More information available on www.dronestudio.ca )

"This is the second visual content provider to join our Affiliate Program in less than a week," stated Ghislain Lemire, CEO of Urbanimmersive. "Our Marketplace continues to gain traction since its recent official launch and we firmly believe that our Affiliated Program has the ability to encourage the active participation of additional specialized photographers and visual content providers."

Patrick St-Arnaud, President of Drone Studio, said, "The Marketplace Affiliate Program is definitely a must have for specialized visual content providers like us. It provides the marketing, the flexibility and the productivity we need to excel in this highly competitive market segment." M. St-Arnaud added, "With this program, we are confident we will increase our real estate division business revenues."

Drone Studio becomes the first aerial photography agency to join Urbanimmersive Marketplace's Affiliate Program. The Affiliate Program is offered to visual content providers ready to use Urbanimmersive's Marketplace for 100% of their real estate business transactions. The program provides real estate photography agencies and photographers an increased marketing visibility in the Centris Marketplace while enabling to effectively manage their internal operations and account receivables. The Affiliate Program offers a white label ordering interface, presenting only services offered by the agency or by other Marketplace's content providers selected by the agency. It also provides a dashboard to manage bookings and payments from incoming customers phone calls, emails and SMS. As part of the Affiliate Program, visual content providers become Urbanimmersive resellers of the Company's internal products and services.

About Urbanimmersive

Urbanimmersive is a content marketing platform for the real estate industry. The Company connects real estate professionals, photographers and writers in order to simplify and optimize original content production workflow. Urbanimmersive enables its customers to leverage their marketing investment while increasing productivity, competitiveness, their web visibility, consumer engagement with their brand and ultimately, their revenue.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain statements in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties. Such statements relating to, among other things, the prospects for the company to enhance operating results, are necessarily subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which are significant in scope and nature. These uncertainties may cause actual results to differ from information contained herein. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of the management on the dates they are made and expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management estimates or opinions change. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other assumptions and risk factors, please refer to the last Corporation's MD&A filed with the Canadian securities commissions. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release represent our expectations as of the date hereof. We disclaim any intention and assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Contacts:

Urbanimmersive Inc.

Ghislain Lemire

President & CEO

514-394-7820 X 202

ghislainlemire@urbanimmersive.com

www.urbanimmersive.com



For investor relations, please contact:

Contact Financial Corp.

Frederick Chabot

438-863-7071

frederick@contactfinancial.com




Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN--(Marketwired - April 21, 2017) - Stonegate Mortgage Corporation (NYSE: SGM) will issue a press release to report its results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 before the market opens on Thursday, May 4, 2017. The release will be available on Stonegate Mortgage's Investor Relations Website at http://investors.stonegatemtg.com/.

About Stonegate Mortgage Corporation

Founded in 2005, Stonegate Mortgage Corporation (NYSE: SGM) is a leading, publicly-traded mortgage company that originates, finances and services agency and non-agency residential mortgages through its network of retail offices and approved third party originators. Stonegate Mortgage also provides financing through its fully integrated warehouse lending platform, NattyMac. Stonegate Mortgage's operational excellence, financial strength, dedication to customer service, and commitment to technology have positioned the firm as a leading provider in the emerging housing finance market.

For more information on Stonegate Mortgage Corporation, please visit www.stonegatemtg.com.

Media Contact:

Whit Clay

Sloane & Company (on behalf of Stonegate Mortgage Corporation)

W: 212-446-1864

Email contact





Investor Contact:

Michael McFadden

Stonegate Mortgage Corporation

W: 317-663-5904

Email contact


TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- The Ontario Federation of Labour and the Fight for $15 and Fairness are holding a pre-budget press conference at the Queen's Park Media Studio on Tuesday, April 25 at 9:30 a.m. to lay out what the Ontario government can do in its upcoming budget to stop the rise of precarious work in Ontario, and ensure that all jobs in Ontario are decent jobs.

They will call for action this year to create an economy built on decent work through legislation that will help raise the bar for all Ontario workers, with the Special Advisors making the recommendations in the Changing Workplaces Review public in May.

Where: Queen's Park Media Studio When: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 9:30 a.m. Who: Chris Buckley, President, Ontario Federation of Labour Pam Frache, Provincial Coordinator of the Fight for $15 and Fairness Dr. Kate Hayman, Decent Work and Health Network

For information on OFL priorities in the Changing Workplaces Review, please visit: http://www.makeitfair.ca/priorities.

For information on the Fight for $15 and Fairness demands, please visit: http://15andfairness.org/demands/.

The OFL's www.MakeItFair.ca campaign takes on issues of inequality in the workforce, and coincides with the province's "Changing Workplaces Review." The campaign gives voice to unions' demands for across-the-board changes to the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act that would improve standards for every worker and make it easier for them to join a union.

The Fight for $15 & Fairness is a campaign supported by community, labour, student and faith groups across Ontario, calling for sweeping reform to employment and labour laws. Central in the campaign is the demand for a $15 minimum wage for all workers, regardless of age, student status, job or area of work. For more information, visit 15andfairness.org or follow @fairwagesnow.

OFL represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter.

Contacts:

Meagan Perry

Director of Communications

Ontario Federation of Labour

mperry@ofl.ca

416-894-3456



Nil Sendil

Communications Coordinator

Fight for $15 & Fairness

nil@workersactioncentre.org

647-710-5795




Japan's Bid for TPP Leadership (Photo : Getty Images)

Following the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Japanese leaders have found a way to gain greater dominance than China through a reformulated Pacific Rim trade liberalization pact, Forbes reported.



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According to the report, negotiators from the 11 remaining countries are set to meet and talk in Canada next month to revive the pact and discuss how it would be implemented.



In addition, trade ministers are expected to discuss the TPP on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) which will be held in May in Vietnam, a TPP member.



Japan was not keen about the TPP before, but with Trump's protectionism, "calls have been growing from the government for Japan's leadership to maintain momentum on free trade issues."



"The value chain of the global economy is no longer unilateral, so multilateral agreements are a logical approach to international trade," according to Naoki Kamiyama, chief strategist at Nikko Asset Management in Tokyo.



"I believe Japan wants to restart TPP talks involving the U.S., and at the moment the aim is to be set to do so after Trump, or to eventually change the Trump administration's mind."



The new Pacific Rim pact is also expected to benefit Japan's automotive and electronics exporters and intensify competition in China-Japan trade.



Some member countries also believed that as a leader, Japan will retain and uphold the protection of labor rights, environmental standards and state-owned firm reforms, which China is likely to implement.



Japan and China have been rivals to gain dominance as an Asian power, both militarily and economically. The dispute between the two countries dates back to World War II that extended to parts of the East China Sea.



Through its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and its "Silk Road" initiative, China has linked up Asia and Europe.



Meanwhile, Japan's investments in Southeast Asia grew almost three times from 2011 to 2016, reaching about $181 billion.



Instead of the TPP, China is pushing for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an Asia free trade deal that covers the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and other countries such as Australia, India, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan. RCEP is more focused on reducing tariffs for goods rather than other liberalization aspects.



Zhao Xijun, deputy School of Finance dean at the Renmin University of China, said that the Japan-led liberalization deal will find it difficult to contend with those secured by China, the EU and the U.S., whose economies are too large to be left out.



"This is the most basic commercial element for consideration," Zhao said. "If you negotiate with countries that don't do much commerce, then they don't add much value to your foreign trade."


RARITAN, New Jersey, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (Ortho), a global leader of in vitro diagnostics, today announced that it has been awarded an Edison Award' for Global Product Innovation,for its ORTHO VISION Platform. ORTHO VISION is a portfolio of fully automated analyzers that test blood for compatibility with patients receiving blood transfusions.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492772/Ortho_Clinical_Diagnostics_ORTHO_VISION_Max.jpg

The ORTHO VISION Platform is comprised of the ORTHO VISION and ORTHO VISION Max analyzers. Tailored to the needs of blood banks or hospitals, the ORTHO VISION platform helps improve workflow and supports the standardization of systems and processes, enabling labs to increase productivity while remaining operationally efficient. The distinguished Edison Award honors the products, services and solutions that represent the best in innovation from around the world.

"With comprehensive testing capabilities, the ORTHO VISIONplatform enables labs to automate their immunohematology testing menu. This helps labs deliver accurate results, even during staffing shortages and in the face of cost constraints," said Heidi Casaletto, vice president Transfusion Medicine at Ortho. "This prestigious recognition from The Edison Awards acknowledges our commitment to innovating and reimagining what's possible for our customers."



The innovative ORTHO VISION platform introduces:

Continuous access during testing - The ORTHO VISION platform helps labs manage the flow of incoming orders and reduces the need to batch samples. It allows for organizing and prioritization of STAT requests without disrupting existing testing queues, a critical advantage in helping hospitals respond to crises

e-Connectivity' Technology - Ortho specialists remotely monitor the ORTHO VISION Analyzer's performance, so they can intervene to predict and prevent issues before they occur.

Proprietary Intellicheck Technology - Verifies, documents, and resolves diagnostic checks throughout sample processing.

Virtual collaboration - Lab staff can log on from the hospital and/or blood bank network for real-time interaction to review results.

Standardization -- ORTHO VISION and ORTHO VISION Max are the only immunohematology analyzers available today that are built on the same instrumentation platform. This creates lab standardization across instrumentation, technology, procedures, training and quality, which leads to greater consistency across workflows and staff proficiency.

In addition to this Edison Award, earlier this year, Ortho received two Global Business Excellence Awards, which honored the ORTHO VISION platform for its innovation and excellence. Also this year, Ortho was honored with an internationally recognized Gold Stevie Award for Global Customer Service for Ortho Care', a comprehensive collection of high-quality lab services and resources provided to Ortho customers at hospitals, hospital networks, blood banks and independent labs to enhance their overall performance.

About Ortho Clinical Diagnostics

Ortho Clinical Diagnostics is a global leader of in vitro diagnostics serving the global clinical laboratory and immunohematology communities. Across hospitals, hospital networks, blood banks, and labs in more than 120 countries, Ortho's high-quality products and services enable health care professionals to make better-informed treatment decisions. For the immunohematology community, Ortho's blood typing products help ensure every patient receives blood that is safe, the right type and the right unit. Ortho brings sophisticated testing technologies, automation, information management and interpretation tools to clinical laboratories around the world to help them run more efficiently and effectively and improve patient care. Ortho's purpose is to improve and save lives with diagnostics, and it does that by reimagining what's possible. This is what has defined Ortho for more than 75 years, and it's what drives Ortho forward. For more information, visit www.orthoclinicaldiagnostics.com.

Ortho Care' is a trademark of Ortho Clinical Diagnostics.

ORTHO VISION is a trademark of Ortho Clinical Diagnostics

 Ortho Clinical Diagnostics 2017

PR-02841

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/376902/ocd_only_black_Logo.jpg
NEW ORLEANS, LA--(Marketwired - April 21, 2017) -The 25 th Anniversary of the New Orleans Food & Wine Experience will take place May 25 - 28, 2017, and tickets are on sale now for this highly anticipated, annual four-day event. For more than two decades NOWFE has showcased the culinary excellence in the New Orleans community alongside national and international wines at wine dinners, seminars, special events and the Grand Tasting. This year, the Grand Tasting will move to a new location on Saturday, May 27 th -- Mardi Gras World on Convention Center Blvd. "The environment of Mardi Gras World lends itself to the festive and fun atmosphere that the Grand Tasting conjures," states Traci Beninate, 2017 NOWFE President. "Tickets to all of this year's events are on sale now on our website. We hope everyone who has enjoyed NOWFE over the past 25 years will join us for this special silver anniversary celebration."

NOWFE 2017 includes Wine Dinners hosted by New Orleans area restaurants; VINOLA, NOWFE's premium tasting event; the Royal Street Stroll, NOWFE's signature event, a definitive evening event set in the heart of the French Quarter; exciting Culinary Seminars and Experiences, the Grand Tasting on Saturday in true grand fashion showcasing wines from around the world and chefs serving culinary delights from our region, and the Big Gateaux Show, a scintillating pastry competition, all of which will fill the days and nights with all things wine and food.

NOWFE has played a vital role in fighting hunger and supporting culinary education through its more than $1 Million in donations over the past 25 years. "We are extremely proud of the work we have done to showcase the culinary excellence in our region, while supporting and advancing our beneficiaries," states Beninate. In 2016, the Culinary Arts Program at Nunez Community College was chosen as the sole beneficiary of our event proceeds, which totaled $35,000. Nunez will again serve as the beneficiary of our 25 th Anniversary event, with that donation being determined following the close of the event. "We are honored to be chosen for a second year to receive this funding," states Ruth Varisco, Culinary Arts Professor at Nunez Community College. "Nunez has been a part of the culinary fabric of New Orleans for many years, and we are proud to infuse so many talented and promising young culinary professionals into the mix."

The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience is proudly sponsored by: Lifeway Foods, Louisiana Office of Tourism (LOT), Stella Artois, Mountain Valley Spring Water, Wines of Portugal, Stella Rosa Wines, Wines of Germany, Kerrygold (Ornua), Riedel, Le Meridien New Orleans, Omni Royal Orleans, Marriott New Orleans Downtown Convention Center, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, Stubb's BBQ Sauce, Design Management Group (DMG), Kobrand, Fernet-Branca, Limousine Livery, gindesignsgroup, Albert Uster Imports, Patrick Gros, CPA, Felchlin, Pure Leaf, St. Germain, The Advocate and WWL-TV.

For 25 years the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience has showcased the culinary excellence in our community alongside national and international wines at wine dinners in many of the city's finest restaurants; at VINOLA, a premium tasting event; at the iconic Royal Street Stroll; at dozens of culinary seminars and demonstrations; at the Big Gateaux Show; and ultimately at the Grand Tasting. NOWFE has raised more than $1 million for local non-profit organizations. This year, the Culinary Arts Program at Nunez Community College will be the sole beneficiary. NOWFE 2017 will be held May 25- 28, 2017. For additional press information, including downloadable images, contact Liz Bodet 504.583.5550, lizbodet@gmail.com or visit the media center at www.nowfe.com.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/19/11G136346/Images/NOWFE_Royal_Street_Stroll-32a1e0098e4185b8bb2bf0a153b2b668.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/19/11G136346/Images/NOWFE_Big_Gateaux_Show_1-06cd2d477d2b8f01a12654cff5977ef7.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/19/11G136346/Images/NOWFE_Grand_Tasting_1-35064d1f6fee881798e3896b0c660bfd.jpg

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Liz Bodet

504.583.5550

lizbodet@gmail.com
PUNE, India, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The report "Blister Packaging Market, by Material (Paper & Paperboard, Plastic, Aluminum), Type (Carded, Clamshell), Technology (Thermoforming, Cold Forming), End-use Sector (Healthcare, Consumer, Industrial Goods), and Region - Global Forecast To 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets', the global market was valued at USD 17.49 Billion in 2015, and is projected to reach USD 28.38 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 7.2%.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse 151 market data Tables and 71 Figures spread through 183 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Blister Packaging Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/blister-packaging-market-24775059.html



Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The global market is witnessing demand, owing to the rise in manufacturing activities and growth in demand for conveniently packaged products. Growth in demand from the healthcare industry also provides an opportunity to the market to grow further, especially in the emerging Asia-Pacific and South American regions.

"Thermoforming segment, by technology, to gain maximum share during the forecast period during the forecast period"

The materials on which the thermoforming process is used include low density polyethylene (LDPE), high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), and others such as acrylic. Thermoforming technology is widely used to manufacture aluminum and plastic blister packs. Thermoforming of plastics require low initial tooling and equipment cost as compared to injection and blow molding techniques. Thermoformed plastic films give wide design scope and a visually pleasing appearance leading to a rise in its demand for blister packaging.

Download PDF Brochure @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=24775059

"Carded Blister Packaging Market segment is estimated to have the largest share in 2015"

The Blister Packaging Market, on the basis of type, is classified into carded and clamshell. The carded segment accounted for the largest share in 2015, due to its ability to form different shapes, stack many products, and its ease of handling and damage prevention properties. The increase in demand for consumer durables, pharmaceuticals, and food & beverages supports the growth of the Blister Packaging Market.

"Asia-Pacific projected to be the largest share in the Blister Packaging Market in 2022"

On the basis of key regions, the Blister Packaging Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and Middle East & Africa. The North American region held the largest share among all the regions in 2014. This is mainly due to the rise in consumption of packed products, focus on reducing packaging waste, rise in healthcare awareness, and continuous innovation & technological developments in both pharmaceutical & medical industries, which are further transforming the healthcare packaging industry, thereby driving the growth of the Blister Packaging Market.

Make an Inquiry @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=24775059

The major players include Amcor Limited (Australia), Bemis Company, Inc. (U.S.), The Dow Chemical Company (U.S.), WestRock Company (U.S.), Sonoco Products Company (U.S.), Constantia Flexibles (U.S.), Klockner Pentaplast Group (Germany), E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (U.S.), Honeywell International (U.S.), Tekni-plex, Inc. (U.S.), Display Pack, Inc. (U.S.), and Pharma Pack, Inc. (U.S.). Companies have adopted strategies such as acquisitions, expansions, new product launches, and agreements & collaborations to cope with the increase in demand in the emerging markets.

Browse Related Reports:

Thermoform Packaging Market by Material (Plastic, Aluminum, Paper & Paperboard), Heat Seal Coating (Water-Based, Solvent-Based, Hot Melt-Based), Type (Blister Packaging, Clamshell Packaging, Skin Packaging), End-Use Industry - Global Forecast to 2021

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/thermoform-packaging-market-145630051.html

Flexible Packaging Market by Material (Plastic Film, Paper, Aluminum), Printing Technology (Flexography, Rotogravure, Digital), Type (Stand-Up Pouches, Retort Pouches), Application (Food & Beverages, Healthcare, Cosmetics & Toiletries) - Global Forecast to 2021

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/flexible-packaging-market-1271.html

About MarketsandMarkets'

MarketsandMarkets' provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 5000 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets' for their painpoints around revenues decisions.

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.

MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.



Contact:

Mr. Rohan

MarketsandMarkets'

701 Pike Street

Suite 2175, Seattle,

WA 98101, United States

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com





Visit Our Blog @ http://mnmblog.org/market-research/packaging

Connect with us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets


NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO, THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA OR JAPAN

BH Macro Limited (the "Company")

(an authorised closed-ended collective investment scheme established as a company with limited liability under the laws of Guernsey with registration number 46235)

21 April 2017

31 March 2017 Final month end net asset value per share and

Tender Offer redemption prices and timetable

As at the close of business on 31 March 2017 the month end final net asset value per share of each class of the Company's shares are as follows:

Fund Name Sedol NAV MTD Performance YTD Performance NAV Date BH Macro Ltd B1NPGV1 $21.15 -2.84% -2.44% 31 March 2017 BH Macro Ltd B1NP514 2184p -2.95% -2.67% 31 March 2017 BH Macro Ltd B1NPGZ5 21.25 -3.04% -2.85% 31 March 2017

Accordingly, the final repurchase prices per share for the shares to be acquired by the Company pursuant to the tender offer to shareholders (the "Tender Offer") launched by the Company on 27 January 2017 are as follows (being in each case 96 per cent. of the relevant net asset value per share):

Tender Price Sterling shares 20.9706 Euro shares 20.3956 US dollar shares $20.3041

The shares to be acquired by the Company pursuant to the Tender Offer will be repurchased effective 25 April 2017 and the Tender Offer consideration despatched thereafter.

The net asset value figures in this announcement have been calculated by Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited and are based on unaudited valuations. The month-end net asset values do not take any account of the effect of the Tender Offer or the costs associated with the Tender Offer.

This document is for information purposes only and is not an offer to invest. All investments are subject to risk. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns and the value of investments may fluctuate. Prospective investors are advised to seek expert legal, financial, tax and other professional advice before making any investment decisions. Results achieved in the past are no guarantee of future results.

The MTD performance figures are calculated by reference to the previous estimated month end NAV or, if published, the previous month end confirmed NAV. The YTD performance figures are calculated by reference to the NAV at the end of the last calendar year. MTD and YTD performance figures are based on the NAV per share calculated to four decimal places.

Enquiries

Brevan Howard:

Dan Riggs

020 7022 6236

J.P. Morgan Cazenove :

William Simmonds

020 7742 4000

Northern Trust :

Sharon Williams

01481 745436

Important notices

J.P. Morgan Securities plc, which conducts its UK investment banking activities as J.P. Morgan Cazenove ("J.P. Morgan Cazenove"), which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom. J.P. Morgan Cazenove is acting as corporate broker to the Company and has no liability or responsibility to any person or entity other than the Company in such capacity.

This announcement does not constitute an offer or solicitation to acquire or sell any securities in the Company.

There is no guarantee that, following the Tender Offer, the Company will make any purchases of its own shares or that any class discontinuation vote will be held. Accordingly, investors should not expect that they will necessarily be able to realise, within a period which they would otherwise regard as reasonable, their investment in the Company, nor can they be certain that they will be able to realise their investment on a basis that necessarily reflects the value of the Company's investment in Brevan Howard Master Fund Limited.

This announcement is not for distribution in or into the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan or any other jurisdiction in which its distribution may be unlawful. This announcement is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States or elsewhere. The securities of the Company have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold in the United States unless registered under the Securities Act or pursuant to an exemption from such registration. The Company has not been and will not be registered under the US Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, and investors are not entitled to the benefits of that Act. There has not been and there will be no public offering of the Company's securities in the United States.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Integrated Asset Management Corp. ("IAM") (TSX: IAM) and its' private corporate debt group, IAM Private Debt Group ("PDG"), announce the closing on April 11, 2017 of a senior term loan to JMB Crushing Systems ULC ("JMB"), a portfolio company of Seattle-based private equity firm Westward Partners, LLC.

JMB has been producing and distributing gravel, sand, rocks and other materials for over 30 years, supplying aggregates from 35 different quarries and gravel pits. JMB's aggregates are used for a variety of applications including industrial projects, oilfield developments, asphalt and concrete production and road work, giving the Company a broad, diversified customer base.

The capital raised by JMB will allow the business to refinance existing debt and free up working capital to support its growing operations in Western Canada and the Northwest United States.

Philip Robson, President of IAM Private Debt Group said "We are pleased to include JMB, a well-managed and sponsored firm focused on long term infrastructure growth in Western Canada and the United States in our portfolio. The structure of our funds is well suited to meet the long term, patient capital needs of firms such as JMB."

IAM Private Debt Group manages and provides funding from Integrated Private Debt Fund LPs on behalf of a number of pension funds and other institutional investors. IAM Private Debt Group offers fixed rate, investment grade term loans to mid-market companies for such purposes as refinancing existing debt, acquisitions, plant expansion or modernization, project financing and management buyouts.

IAM is one of Canada's leading alternative asset management companies with approximately $2.6 billion in assets and committed capital under management in real estate and private debt.

Contacts:

Stephen Zagrodny

Director

IAM Private Debt Group

416-367-6868

szagrodny@iamgroup.ca



Philip S. Robson

President

IAM Private Debt Group

416-367-3972

probson@iamgroup.ca

www.iamgroup.ca




EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- F12.net, Inc. ("F12") is proud to announce the appointment of Devon Gillard to Director of Client Relations. Devon joined F12 in 2009 when Twin Solutions merged with F12 (then SSI Solutions). Devon was a co-owner of Twin Solutions and continued with F12 as an IT Consultant and Shareholder. In 2012 Devon became the General Manager of the Calgary branch, which tripled in size over the next 5-years. This growth included the acquisition of Calgary-based XCEL Professional Services Ltd., which Devon initiated and lead. With more than 20 years of IT and business experience, Devon has a passion for supporting entrepreneurs in achieving their goals.

"The best part of my job," said Devon, "is talking with business leaders about their vision for their organizations; from them, I have learned more than from any business strategy book. It is my mission to deepen these relationships throughout F12 by improving our strategic engagement and reinforcing our personal commitment to their success."

As Director of Client Relations, Devon will ensure F12 provides exceptional value to organizations seeking a long-term, strategic IT partner essential to their growth. Devon will lead F12's national team of regional managers and IT consultants in safeguarding F12's brand and relevance. Devon will play a critical strategic role in the senior leadership team as F12 continues to enhance its products, culture, and brand. F12 currently supports over 600 client locations throughout Canada, with a team of nearly 100 Networkers.

"In today's complex and risky IT environments, businesses require a high level of IT knowledge and business acumen in order to make decisions that will propel their businesses forward. Devon's business leadership and technical experience make him invaluable to the F12 team and our clients." Alex Webb, CEO

About F12.net, Inc.

F12.net is an expert in delivering Hardware as a Service (HaaS), Managed Services, and Canadian Private Cloud solutions. The company's premier product, Service Plus, is an all-inclusive hardware and software licensing program, offering peace of mind for any business. All equipment, licensing, and technical support is included for one monthly payment. With guaranteed equipment replacement, Service Plus allows businesses to continue to function regardless of technical glitches. Additional information can be found at www.f12.net.

Contacts:

F12.net, Inc.

Leanne Yeatman

Director of Administration

780-444-8661 ext. 3104

lyeatman@f12.net

www.f12.net




The third of four new appointments this fall, as NelsonHall expands its global team focused on next generation digital services

NelsonHall, the leading global analyst firm dedicated to helping organizations adopt new digital process models, is delighted to welcome Daniel Griffin as Marketing Manager, responsible for developing and executing NelsonHall's digital marketing strategy and client engagement programs.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171009005771/en/

Dan Griffin, NelsonHall's Marketing Manager (Photo: Business Wire)

Dan joins from e-commerce giant Amazon, where he held several senior marketing roles. Previously, Dan worked for international business school Ashridge-Hult, and as a marketing consultant for several U.K. charities and small businesses.

The mix of industries and cultures Dan has worked for has driven his belief that the only effective long-term marketing strategy that works is one that focuses on the customer first providing the right benefits, to the right people, at the right time. Dan has won multiple awards in his career, specifically for his knowledge and application of marketing and learning gamification, process automation, and web design.

Dan holds a BA (Hons) in Accounting and Finance from Exeter University, and two professional qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Dan's appointment is the latest in a series of key additions to NelsonHall's team, which is expanding in response to market demand for its unique brand of rigorous and insightful research and advice. John Willmott, NelsonHall's CEO, said "I'm delighted to welcome Dan to our global team. His proven skills and expertise as a digital marketer in particular will help us to further enhance our offerings to clients and bring our distinctive market intelligence to a wider audience."

About NelsonHall:

NelsonHall is the leading global analyst firm dedicated to helping organizations understand the 'art of the possible' in next generation IT and business services. With analysts in the U.S., U.K., and Continental Europe, NelsonHall provides buy-side organizations with detailed, critical information on markets and vendors (including NEAT assessments) that helps them make fast and highly informed sourcing decisions. And for vendors, NelsonHall provides deep knowledge of market dynamics and user requirements to help them hone their go-to-market strategies. NelsonHall's research is based on rigorous, all-original research, and is widely respected for the quality, depth and insight of its analysis.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171009005771/en/

Contacts:

NelsonHall

Paul Connolly

Phone: +44 (0)7768 803315

paul.connolly@nelson-hall.com


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Lawmakers were said to be making progress on a spending bill to prevent a government shutdown next week, but the White House has purportedly thrown a wrench into negotiations with a series of demands.



The White House demands unveiled this week include providing funding for President Donald Trump's controversial border wall.



At an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance on Thursday, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney indicated Trump wants money for the wall as well as more money for defense and immigration enforcement.



Mulvaney said the White House is willing to negotiate with Congressional Democrats and suggested Trump would pay for insurance subsidies for low-income Americans under Obamacare in exchange.



'I will be curious to see how they respond,' Mulvaney said. 'If they tell us to pound sand, I think that's probably a disappointing indicator of where the next four years is going to go.'



He added, 'If they tell us, however, that they recognize that President Trump won an election, he should get some of his priorities funded for that reason.'



The remarks from Mulvaney come as lawmakers must pass a spending bill by next Friday to avoid another government shutdown.



In a recent interview with the USA Today Network, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said congressional leaders were making great progress on avoiding a shutdown but warned of interference by the president.



Schumer spokesman Matt House subsequently lashed out at the White House demand for the bill to include funding for a border wall.



'Everything had been moving smoothly until the administration moved in with a heavy hand,' House said. 'Not only are Democrats opposed to the wall, there is significant Republican opposition as well.'



Late last month, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., expressed confidence there will not be another government shutdown and indicated the spending bill would not include some controversial provisions.



Ryan said the bill would not include funding for Trump's promised wall along the border with Mexico, claiming money for the wall would instead be included in next fiscal year's appropriations.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump will leave for Germany next week on her first official international trip as the US presidential adviser.



Ivanka, First Daughter and Assistant to the President, will visit Berlin on April 25 at the direct invitation of Chancellor Angela Merkel to participate in the W20 Summit, the White House said. Ivanka will join a panel conversation with other women leaders regarding Women's Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship.



Ivanka's visit to Berlin stemmed from the roundtable on Vocational Education and Workforce Development she hosted with Chancellor Merkel at the White House in March. She will visit Siemens Technik Akademie for an interactive tour and discussion with program apprentices. In commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Ivanka will visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. She will also stop by the US Embassy in Berlin to meet Embassy staff.



The organizers of the summit said more than one hundred delegates from all G20 member states, including experts and high-ranking representatives from the world of politics, economics, international organizations and civil society will take part in it.



German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, and IMF Director Christine Lagarde will speak in a key session.



The 35-year-old eldest daughter of Trump is serving as an unpaid adviser to the US President at the White House.



Ivanka's role is to serve as the president's 'eyes and ears' while providing broad-ranging advice, not just limited to women's empowerment issues.



She has already shared many high-profile platforms along with President Trump and world leaders.



Thursday, she was named in TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2017 list along with her father and her husband Jared Kushner, who also is a presidential adviser.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
LAS VEGAS, NV -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Fortem Resources Inc. (OTCQB: FTMR) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that on April 17, 2017, it entered into and closed a Membership Interest Purchase Agreement (the "MPA") with two arm's length vendors to acquire 100% the membership interests of Rolling Rock Resources, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company. Rolling Rock has the right to acquire a 50% working interest in and to certain leases, hydrocarbons, wells, agreements, equipment, surface rights agreements and assignable permits totaling approximately 101,888 acres (160 sections) at an 80% net revenue interest located in the Mancos formation in the Southern Uinta Basin, Utah.

The Mancos property is a proven producing shallow oil shale resource play and its acreage sits in the peak oil maturity window of the Southern Uinta Basin. Multiple vertical penetrations have produced up to 120,000 bls which confirms commercial resource presence. The property is drill-ready with shallow to medium depths for low findings and reasonable development costs. Other deeper formations like the Granite Wash/Arkose are present and could make for a very interesting play with potential larger oil in place to accompany the Mancos formation. Three Federal exploratory units have been formed under Mancos Flats, Windy Mesa and Grand Mancos. There are currently 17 legacy wells producing oil and gas with 75-mile natural gas gathering lines, gas processing facility and compressor stations.

Michael Caetano, Director and CEO, stated, "We are fortunate to acquire another large position to give us a strong presence in Utah. We believe that the current production in place with minimal upside costs will definitely contribute to our cash-flow position. We look forward to working with our partners."

Agreement Terms

In consideration for the acquisition of Rolling Rock Resources, LLC, the Company issued an aggregate of 20,000,000 shares of its common stock to the two vendors on the closing date and paid US$100,000 prior to the closing as a non-refundable deposit.

Rolling Rock's sole asset consists of the rights and obligations arising from a Purchase and Sale Agreement dated effective March 1, 2017, as amended (together, the "PSA"), between an arm's length vendor and Rolling Rock. Upon the satisfaction of the payments and obligations by Rolling Rock as set out below, the vendor has agreed to convey certain leases and related assets (the "Leases") to Rolling Rock. The Leases include certain leases, hydrocarbons, wells, agreements, equipment, surface rights agreements and assignable permits all as further set out in the PSA.

Under the PSA, Rolling Rock has agreed to pay the vendor cash consideration totalling US$2.4 million based upon the following schedule:

US$100,000 as a non-refundable deposit within 5 business days of closing (completed);

US$1,300,000 on or before September 1, 2017;

US$500,000 on or before March 1, 2018; and

US$500,000 on or before September 1, 2018.

However, if Rolling Rock pays a total of US$2,150,000 on or before September 1, 2017, the parties have agreed that the cash consideration above will be deemed to have been paid in full.

Carry Obligation

Under the PSA, and in addition to the cash consideration, Rolling Rock has agreed to pay all costs and expenses incurred on the Leases with respect to any and all exploration, development and production during the carry period. The "Carry Period" continues until the later of either (i) the date that Rolling Rock pays the full cash consideration set out above or (ii) the date that Rolling Rock pays all costs and expenses for the drilling, logging, testing and completion of three new wells in each of the three Federal Units, each well with a horizontal leg extending at least 1,000' in the target zone within the Mancos formation (the "Three Obligation Wells"). Rolling Rock is required to drill to completion or cause to be drilled to completion (or plugging and abandonment) the Three Obligation Wells on or before February 28, 2019, failing which, Rolling Rock's right to earn any assignment in and to the Leases will terminate immediately. For each vertical well drilled to the top of the Dakota formation through completion (or plugging or abandonment) within a Federal Unit, the obligation deadline will be amended to the later of (i) the current obligation deadline or (ii) 6 months from the date the rig that drilled such vertical well to total depth has been removed from the wellsite.

The obligation well in the Grand Mancos Unit will be a vertical well drilled to a depth sufficient to test the Granite Walsh formation within such Federal Unit. For this well, completion (or plugging and abandonment) will take place no later than 2 months after the rig that drilled to total depth has been removed from the wellsite and for a period of 6 months after completion of this obligation well (or plugging and abandonment), and Rolling Rock will have the exclusive option to purchase an additional 25% of the vendor's right, title and interest in and to the leases with respect to the Granite Walsh formation within the boundary of the Grand Mancos Unit for an additional payment of US$10 million.

Within 10 business days after the later of Rolling Rock paying the cash consideration in full or Rolling Rock meeting in full its carry obligation, the vendor will convey to Rolling Rock an undivided 50% of the vendor's right, title and interest in and to the Leases, or a 80% net revenue interest in the Leases as further described in the PSA. Notwithstanding this transfer, within 10 business days after the later of payment of $300,000 on or before September 1, 2017 (which amount is in addition to the deposit and included in the cash consideration set out above) and the replacement of the vendor's bonds on or before September 1, 2017, the vendor will convey to Rolling Rock an undivided 50% of the vendor's right, title and interest in and to the Cisco Dome leases and related assets as further set out in the PSA. However, if Rolling Rock fails to timely meet any of its obligations under the PSA, after having taken assignment of the Cisco Dome leases and assets, then, if the vendor elects in its sole discretion, Rolling Rock is required to reassign the Cisco Dome leases and assets to the vendor without any additional encumbrances.

Additional Payments

On or before September 1, 2017, Rolling Rock is required to pay the vendor US$65,000 for rental, minimum royalty, option payments and shut-in royalty payments due on the leases through December 31, 2018.

None of the securities issued have been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act"), and none of them may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the 1933 Act. The securities issued must not be traded in or from a jurisdiction of Canada unless the conditions in Section 13 of Multilateral Instrument 51-105 Issuers Quoted in the U.S. Over The Counter Markets are met. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any state where such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful.

About Fortem Resources

Fortem Resources Inc. is a publicly traded oil and gas production, development and exploration company, which holds properties in Western Canada and Utah and is seeking North American & International expansion through an acquisition strategy. The Company's common shares are quoted on the OTC.QB under the symbol FTMR.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

FORTEM RESOURCES INC.

"Michael Caetano"

Michael Caetano

Chief Executive Officer

This news release contains forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties regarding future events. Such forward-looking information can include without limitation statements based on current expectations involving a number of risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance of the Company, such as statements about (i) obtaining a strong presence in Utah; and (ii) the current production in place with minimal upside costs will definitely contribute to the Company's cash flow position. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and the Company's plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information, including: (i) adverse market conditions; (ii) risks inherent in the oil and gas industry in general; (iii) the inability of the company to finance the execution of its business plan; or (iv) the inability of the Company to achieve the milestones required under the Milestone Payment Addendum. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

FORTEM RESOURCES INC.

Michael Caetano

Chief Executive Officer

mcaetano@strongbowinc.com




Trump: Korea was "a part of China" (Photo : Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump has recently made another false claim. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal a week ago during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said that Korea used to be a part of China.



Advertisement

On April 12, Trump told WSJ that Xi then went into the history of China and Korea. . . . And you know, youre talking about thousands of years . . . and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China.



The false claim was not published by the journal. However, it was later picked up by Quartz, an online news agency.



Trump reportedly said that he then understood how difficult it would be for China to demand North Korea to forsake its nuclear ambitions.



After listening for 10 minutes I realized that . . . its not so easy, Trump added.



Assisted by interpreters, the leaders of the worlds largest economies spent more than two hours talking about the North Korean nuclear crisis.



It is uncertain to assume what Xi said. Nonetheless, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made unrelenting efforts to depict ancient Korean kingdoms as part of Chinas empire.



Since Xi became president, Beijing has displayed behavior that seems to idealize the old system of Asian countries paying tribute to China, a South Korean diplomatic source said.



This is a glaring historical inaccuracy that has, somehow, not yet enraged South Korea, which is usually extremely defensive about suggestions that it is lesser than China or has ever been dependent on it, Quartz ironically said.



We can probably assume that Trump did not have ideas of his own about this matter of Asian history, and in fact got this notion from Xi, the online news agency added.



There have been instances where the U.S. Senate and Trump administration has criticized China for its hegemonic nationalism.



Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis referred to Chinas territorial dispute with other Asian countries over the claim on the South China Sea as China shredding trust as they adopt a tribute-nation kind of approach where all other nations have to pay tribute or acquiescence to the more powerful nation, the larger nation.



It is a fact recognized by the international community that Korea was not a part of China during the thousands of years of historical relations between the two, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry official.



Though it is unclear what Xi told Trump during their meeting, China has denied the false claim that Korea was a part of the country.


SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- CFN Media Group ("CFN Media"), the leading agency and digital media network dedicated to legal cannabis, today announced publication of an article discussing Canada's upcoming legalization and some licensed producers that are poised to capitalize on the greatly expanded market. Companies discussed include Maple Leaf Green World (TSX VENTURE: MGW) (OTCQB: MGWFF), Emerald Health Therapeutics (TSX VENTURE: EMH), and Invicuts MD Strategies (TSX VENTURE: IMH) (OTC PINK: IVITF). Three licensed producers expected to go public in the next week or so are also discussed: ABcann Global (ABcann Medicinals), WeedMD, and Harvest One.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government introduced long-awaited legislation that would permit adults to possess, share, and purchase marijuana earlier this month. Under the new regulations, provinces and territories would make their own decisions about the distribution and sale of marijuana. Consumers living in provinces without a regulated retail framework would be able to purchase cannabis online from a federally-licensed producer with secure home delivery.

Parliamentary committees will review the legislation, but the Liberals' majority in the House of Commons means that it's extremely likely to pass into law. According to senior government officials, Canadians should be able to legally smoke marijuana by July 1, 2018 after the bill passes through final regulatory steps and provinces have time to build a framework and develop specific regulations that work best with their jurisdictions.

Canada's legal cannabis industry could see sales of $4.9 billion to $8.7 billion after recreational legalization, according to Deloitte Canada. The consultancy based its findings on a survey of 5,000 Canadians through market research firm RIWI Corp. Deloitte Canada reckons that the market could be worth between $12.7 billion and $22.6 billion when including ancillary goods and services that support the industry -- excluding tourism and paraphernalia.

Many analysts believe that the market will experience a shortfall in supply given that there are only about 40 licensed producers. For instance, PI Financial believes that licensed producers will need to cultivate a total of 610,000 kilograms of cannabis to fulfill domestic and export demand by 2019, but existing capacity could result in a 200,000 kilogram shortfall.

"The rigorous process of becoming a licensed producer of cannabis in Canada imposes significant barriers to entry and there will be a shortfall in supply in a legalized market in the short-term until production capacities catch up by 2020," said Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. analysts in a November 2016 research note. This could create an enormous opportunity for existing licensed producers that enjoy an oligopoly over the short- to medium-term.

Please follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/canadas-licensed-producers-gear-recreational-market/

Learn how to become a CFN Media featured company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/become-featured-company/

Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from your smart phone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8

Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com

About CFN Media

CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed.

Disclaimer:

Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CFN Media and CannabisFN.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/.

CFN Media

Frank Lane

206-369-7050

flane@cannabisfn.com




BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market ended Friday's session little changed, finishing with a very small loss. The market fluctuated between small gains and losses over the course of the trading day. Investors were in a very cautious mood ahead of the French presidential election on Sunday. The Swiss market concluded the trading week with an overall loss, largely due to Tuesday's pullback. In addition to the nervousness ahead of the French election, investors continued to be plagued by various geopolitical concerns this week. The Swiss Market Index decreased by 0.05 percent Friday and finished at 8,553.99. The SMI ended the trading week with an overall loss of 0.9 percent. The Swiss Leader Index dropped 0.14 percent and the Swiss Performance Index lost 0.06 percent. Aryzta was the weakest performing stock of the session. Shares of the volatile bakery group dropped 4.0 percent. Dufry declined 2.0 percent, Clariant surrendered 1.1 percent and Sika lost 1.0 percent. Givaudan decreased 0.9 percent and LafargeHolcim fell 0.7 percent. Syngenta weakened by 0.8 percent and Adecco slipped 0.6 percent. Index heavyweight Roche forfeited 0.5 percent. Meanwhile, Novartis and Nestle increased by 0.1 percent each. Industrial group ABB gained 1.9 percent, adding to its gains from the previous session. The company reported better than expected results on Thursday. UBS climbed 0.4 percent and Swiss Re added 0.3 percent. Swiss Life advanced 0.7 percent, while Zurich Insurance and Baloise added 0.2 percent each. However, Credit Suisse weakened by 0.6 percent and Julius Baer surrendered 0.5 percent. In the broad market, Sulzer climbed 4.1 percent after UBS rated the stock a 'Buy.' 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.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Looking to get an investigation into Russian meddling in last year's presidential election back on track, the House Intelligence Committee has sent letters inviting Trump and Obama administration officials to testify before the committee next month. The committee said letters were sent to FBI Director James Comey and National Security Adviser Admiral Mike Rogers inviting them to appear at a closed hearing on May 2nd Former CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates were also invited to appear at an open hearing. Yates was due to appear before the committee to testify about former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn's communications with Russian officials last month, but the hearing was canceled. A report from the Washington Post alleged the Trump administration sought to block Yates from testifying, although the White House has denied the claim. Earlier this month, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., stepped aside from leading the investigation amid questions about his handling of the probe. In a statement, Nunes attributed his decision to several left-wing activist groups filing accusations against him with the Office of Congressional Ethics. Despite calling the charges baseless, Nunes said he believed it was in the best interests of the committee to turn over leadership of the investigation to Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Tex. 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.
CHESTER, PA--(Marketwired - April 21, 2017) - Recently, Chester Community Charter School (CCCS), the largest K-8 charter school in Pennsylvania, held its annual "Doughnuts For Dads" program, on the school's East Campus, wherein approximately 150 CCCS kindergarteners and first-graders presented special, handmade gifts to their father and/or male guardian. At the event, fathers and male guardians, including stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers and male cousins, spent the morning reading their favorite books to CCCS scholars, and shared several varieties of doughnuts, provided by the school.

Mrs. Robinson, principal, CCCS East Campus, delivered remarks to the fathers: "I am glad that so many of you took time out of your schedules to join us this morning. It brings me great joy to see, in person, the supportive presence of the fathers, male guardians and role models, so clearly evident, here, at CCCS, and the surrounding community."

"Doughnuts For Dads" served as a "Thank You" to the fathers and male guardians for their continued support of their child, and the CCCS community, at-large.

About Chester Community Charter School

Chester Community Charter School opened its doors on September 9, 1998, serving 97 students from its modest, four, meeting rooms, in the lobby of the Howard Johnson Hotel, in Chester, PA. Since that time, the school has steadily grown to include more than 3,000 students in 11 state-of-the-art-buildings, spanning three campuses.

Through collaboration with the Gureghian Charitable Foundation, and CCCS' High School Search and Selection Program, more than $9.5 million in scholarships and financial assistance to prestigious private secondary schools has been awarded to 225 of the school's graduates, since 2009. http://chestercommunitycharter.org

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/21/11G136585/Images/mw1be8q367prjes1q193c1sfog5h2-182579bdb58da1f99e07c60fd9322824.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/21/11G136585/Images/mw1be8q5bl21a5p1c4p10j93sn1dlp2-255763cc2182ba5cbaca34aeff976747.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/21/11G136585/Images/mw1be8q6npgj8rki51ru4kv1134a2-7784475af11297248ecffb5965b9fea1.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/21/11G136585/Images/mw1be8q9gis8ie1ejh1flkvgmtlg2-320e0adbd967aa8fb0b2f13d4c595712.jpg

Contact: Meaghan F. Washington

Millennium 3 Management, Inc.

Tel: 215-751-0140

Email: mwashington@m3mpr.com

Social: @M3M_PR



Contact: Dr. David Clark

Chester Community Charter School

Tel: 610-447-0400

Email: dclark@chestercommunitycharter.org

Social: @Chester_Charter
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Condor Resources Inc. ("Condor" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: CN) is pleased to provide an update regarding the Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with Chakana Resources S.A.C. ("Chakana") on the Company's wholly owned Soledad project in Ancash, Peru, as announced on February 24th.

As disclosed in our news release of March 31st, Chakana and the Company agreed to extend the time period to conclude the comprehensive agreement until April 21, 2017. While the comprehensive agreement is substantially complete, both parties have now agreed to a second extension until May 9th, 2017 in order to finalize. All other terms remain unchanged.

Pursuant to the MOU, Chakana has the option to earn a 100% interest in Soledad, over a period of 4.5 years, subject to a 2% net smelter return royalty in favour of the Company. To earn the 100% interest, Chakana is required to complete 12,500m of drilling (or work equivalent), make cash payments totaling US$5.375 million, and issue 500,000 Chakana shares to Condor.

The Company also wishes to announce that it has reached agreement to settle up to $111,180 in accounts payable by the issuance of up to 1,482,000 shares at $0.075 per share, subject to TSXV approval. Any shares issued will be subject to a four month hold period.

About Chakana

Chakana is a private Peruvian mining company focused on acquiring and exploring base and precious metal projects with high potential to host economic deposits.

About Condor

Condor is a project generator focused exclusively on Peru, and our objective is the discovery of a major new precious metals or base metals deposit. Project acquisition and development is managed by our Lima based exploration team.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Lyle Davis, President & Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information: All statements, trend analysis and other information contained in this press release relative to markets about anticipated future events or results constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are subject to business and economic risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results of operations to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the date the statements are made. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements even if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. Investors should not place undue reliance on 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 news release.

Contacts:

Condor Resources Inc.

1-866-642-5707

info@condorresources.com




LIVINGSTON, NJ--(Marketwired - April 21, 2017) -Med Ad News -- the leading pharmaceutical business and marketing publication -- announces the winners for the 2017 Manny Awards, celebrating the best in the healthcare communications industry. The black-tie gala affair occurred last night at Pier Sixty in New York City with 500-plus people in attendance. Twenty awards were bestowed throughout the night to healthcare agencies achieving excellence in various categories.

Dana Maiman, CEO and president of FCB Health, was honored as Med Ad News' Industry Person of the Year. Dana brings the intellectual prowess and strategic rigor of a legal education to her position as the CEO and president of the FCB Health family of companies worldwide. Also a member of FCB's Global Executive Team, Maiman has combined her strategic orientation with a single-minded commitment to client service, resulting in the healthcare network's impressive growth under her leadership. In recent years, she has broadened her focus from one office -- FCB Health -- to a network of companies including Area 23, FCBCURE, FCBHalesway, FCBVIO, Hudson Global, ICC London, Mosaic, Neon, ProHealth, and TBD (The Branding & Design Group). With 20 years of client service and healthcare marketing experience, Dana has worked in virtually every therapeutic category, ranging from antibacterials, women's healthcare, and cardiovascular to diabetes, oncology, and HIV in a multichannel fashion, integrating professional, consumer, patient, payer, and digital.

Capturing the Category I Agency of the Year award was Area 23. Category I agencies generate annual revenue exceeding $50 million. After a banner 2015, the New York-based agency produced another explosive year in 2016, breaking all of its own records once again including its revenue total, Area 23 also expanded 55 percent in size and finished the year with 325 employees and more creative recognition than in any prior year. A member of the FCB Health Network, Area 23 also garnered four other Manny Awards during the evening: Most Creative Agency, Most Admired Agency, Best Medical Device Campaign (The Breakthrough Cancer Pain Moment - Lazanda), and Best Interactive Physician Campaign (Time Hides Alz).

McCann Echo, based in Mountain Lakes, N.J., was recognized as the Category II Agency of the Year (agencies with yearly revenue between $25 million and $50 million). 2016 represented another year of consecutive growth for McCann Echo, starting with new partnerships, continuing with long-standing relationships, and building with a nearly pitch-perfect year of new business wins. A McCann Health Company, McCann Echo won nearly 100 percent of its business pitches throughout 2016. McCann Echo also received a Manny statue in the Best Consumer Campaign category for the "Toddler Tips Sleep Awareness Campaign."

The Navicor Group took home the honors for Category III Agency of the Year (for healthcare communications shops that produce under $25 million in revenue). 2016 marked another strong year of growth for the Ohio-based inVentiv Health company. Now in its 12th year of business, the oncology-focused agency generated more than 50 percent financial growth for 2016 and increased its head count from 74 to 107 employees across two office locations. For a third consecutive year, Navicor achieved a new business win rate of more than 50 percent, adding eight new clients. As a result, Navicor expanded its Philadelphia office space during July.

On behalf of the entire healthcare communications industry, Med Ad News presented the 2017 Heart Award and $5,000 to Sunayana Dumala and Intouch Solutions. In February, Sunayana's husband was tragically killed in an act of terrorism in a restaurant in Kansas.

In the days following the tragedy, her colleagues at Intouch were struck by Sunayana's bravery and also her plea at a news conference two days following the event. Sunayana said she wanted to come back to their home in south Olathe, Kansas, fulfilling her husband's wishes for an American life and "me being successful in any field I choose."

Intouch CEO Faruk Capan accepted the Heart Award on behalf of Sunayana and the Intouch family.

New York-based TBWA\WorldHealth was the Vision Award winner. TBWA\WorldHealth took its Disruption Live team to client TedMed's annual conference during 2016, and that team harnessed the power of each talk at the conference by providing tools for healthcare innovators and entrepreneurs to express their game-changing ideas.

Best Launch Campaign honors went to DDB Health for its promotional work for Zurampic. The medicine addresses inefficient renal excretion of uric acid, a critical mechanism leading to elevated serum uric acid levels for many patients with gout. The Kidney Road imagery created by the agency clearly indicates how and where this drug works, highlighting the renal excretion pathway that physicians can now access.

The Med Ad News "MedAdvocate" jury was once again instrumental in helping determine the winning Manny Award creative campaigns. The panel convened via a roundtable discussion to review and discuss each of the creative award finalist campaigns previously determined through online voting. The MedAdvocates were each assigned specific campaigns and tasked to initiate meaningful dialog amongst the jurors. MedAdvocates were selected based on their creative expertise and widely recognized performance within the industry. Ultimately, the team scored each finalist campaign using a point system that, combined with the popular vote conducted online, arrived at the eventual winners that were crowned last night.

The Best Professional Campaign Manny Award was bestowed upon Heartbeat, which was also a finalist for Agency of the Year Category II and Best Interactive Physician Campaign. Heartbeat's winning professional campaign focused on postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), a condition that manifests in a feeling of excruciating pain that lasts long after the rash and blisters of a shingles case have cleared. PHN pain is so significant, it can wreak havoc on patients' lives, often leaving them in so much pain that they are unable to put clothes on in the morning. Horizant's "Naked Truth" campaign depicts this as an evocative human moment that truly illustrates the pain that PHN patients experience while they wait for a slow drug to kick in, or when the effects of one of their treatments wears off before the next dose.

For Best Interactive Physician Campaign, GSW captured the award with its "Meet the Puffagins" work. When people with COPD use Atrovent HFA correctly, they breathe better. But many do not, and instead of realizing their mistake, they just think Atrovent does not work. To help with this problem, GSW created the Puffagins, a clan of cloudlike characters who prompt patients to puff throughout the day.

FCB Health gained the Manny Award in the Best Nonbranded Campaign category for "Her Endometriosis Reality." The goals of the campaign were to educate physicians about what it actually means for women to have unresolved endometriosis pain, and to encourage them to ask their patients specific questions about how pain may be impacting their lives.

As the winner of the Best Managed Markets Campaign, Entree Health New York was recognized for its Victoza creative work. According to the agency, Victoza needed to find a way to deliver complex managed care and reimbursement messages to both HCPs and payers in order to cut through the noise. With three unbranded HCP-facing videos, and three branded payer-facing videos, client Novo Nordisk engaged in a two-pronged approach: explaining complex reimbursement processes to providers and defending access with payers.

ghg | greyhealth group captured the 2017 Manny for Best Point of Care Campaign with "It's Best to Test." ghg needed to create tools to facilitate a dialogue about routine CT/NG screening, help healthcare professionals establish office screening protocol, and educate patients. Within a year of this program's launch, Quest Diagnostics processed 11.5 million tests.

With all of the healthcare agencies in the Med Ad News community extending their assistance through various philanthropic efforts, AbelsonTaylor won the vote for Best Philanthropic Campaign with "Power of One." Through the Power of One pop tab campaign, AbelsonTaylor increased its amount of tabs collected by over 600 percent, which added up to more families being able to stay close to their child at a Ronald McDonald House.

For Best Self Promotion among the healthcare communications agencies, McCann Healthcare was recognized as the winner with its GoodPress campaign. McCann sent out more than 100 packages that included origami-size paper filled with the "bad news" of 2016, as well as a link to a website hosting instructional videos and steps so others could fold their own shapes. Each shape represented different ways to bring about good news within your life in 2017, for health, moving forward, work, social life, stress, frustration, and even Game of Thrones.

As the Med Ad News Manny Awards event annually recognizes the excellence in creative for healthcare brands, this year's theme celebrated content and creative that is "not able to be forgotten ... or removed." Participating agency creatives were invited to design and submit tattoo artwork that best represents the healthcare advertising industry and the creativity required to effectively communicate in life sciences. The Med Ad News team selected Palio's "Golden Ratio" tattoo artwork for capturing the balance of precision and creativity and leaving an indelible mark in healthcare communications. The Golden Ratio is a number used by artists, architects, and designers to yield "divine proportions" in their designs. This concept is symbolic of the harmonious relationship that exists between the science community and creative advertising.

2017 event sponsors included Platinum sponsors: Calcium, Dudnyk, Fingerpaint and Intouch Solutions; and Gold sponsors: Centron, Concentric Health Experience, Juice Pharma Worldwide and TBWA\WorldHealth.

2017 Manny Award Winners

Industry Person of the Year

Dana Maiman, CEO and president, FCB Health

Agency of the Year - Category I

Area 23

Agency of the Year - Category II

McCann Echo

Agency of the Year - Category III

Navicor

Heart Award

Sunayana Dumala and Intouch Solutions

Vision Award

TBWA\WorldHealth

Most Admired Agency

Area 23

Best Launch Campaign

DDB Health - Zurampic

Most Creative Agency

Area 23

Best Consumer Campaign

McCann Echo - Toddler Tips Sleep Awareness

Best Interactive Patient Campaign

GSW - "Meet the Puffagins" (Atrovent HFA)

Best Interactive Physician Campaign

Area 23 - Time Hides Alz

Best Managed Markets Campaign

Entree Health New York - Victoza

Best Medical Device Campaign

Area 23 - The Breakthrough Cancer Pain Movement (Lazanda)

Best Nonbranded Campaign

FCB Health - Her Endometriosis Reality

Best Philanthropic Campaign

AbelsonTaylor - Power of One

Best Point-of-Care Campaign

ghg - It's Best To Test

Best Professional Campaign

Heartbeat - The Naked Truth Campaign

Best Self-Promotional Campaign

McCann Healthcare - GoodPress

Indelible Ink Tattoo Design

Palio - Golden Ratio

About the Manny Awards

For more than 25 years, the Med Ad News Manny Awards have paid tribute to the creative work of agencies serving the healthcare market, their people, and their contributions to the industry. Each year at this gala awards ceremony, Med Ad News and agency professionals come together to celebrate creative excellence in pharmaceutical and medical device advertising and to acknowledge those making significant contributions to healthcare communications. On this special evening, more than 600 industry peers are anticipated to join Med Ad News in honoring winners in a range of award categories.

About Med Ad News

The pharmaceutical industry's publication of record since 1982, Med Ad News provides broad coverage and incisive analysis of the issues, events, trends, and strategies shaping pharmaceutical business, marketing, and sales. More than 30,000 readers -- comprising corporate executives, marketing, sales, and product managers -- receive Med Ad News. Med Ad News is a publication of Outcomes LLC. For more info, visit http://www.medadnews.com

About Outcomes LLC

A marketing and media company built to quench the evolving consumption habits of B to B audiences, Outcomes supports the healthcare communications industry via industry leading brands Med Ad News, PharmaLive, leading events including the Manny Awards and content marketing services. For more info, visit www.outcomes-marketing.com.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/21/11G136594/Images/DanaMaimanManny-a607accb7270b5b7b5f1e8ccd03dc692.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/4/21/11G136594/Images/MannyAwards-fc2309bc7fa38079a08bd9077a0af935.jpg

Press inquiries, contact:

Andrew Humphreys

215-860-2106

andrew.humphreys@medadnews.com



Contact:

Daniel Becker

Owner, Brand Director

Outcomes LLC

Tel: 973-507-6701

daniel.becker@medadnews.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Fortress Paper Ltd. ("Fortress Paper" or the "Company") (TSX: FTP) is pleased to announce that, effective April 24, 2017, the Company's common shares will commence trading on the OTCQX Best Market in the United States under the symbol "FTPLF". Fortress Paper's common shares continue to trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "FTP".

Yvon Pelletier, Chief Executive Officer and President of Fortress Paper, commented, "In response to growing international interest in Fortress Paper, we have endeavored to improve visibility and access to Fortress Paper's common shares for investors outside of Canada. We believe that the OTCQX platform will expand Fortress Paper's exposure and liquidity in the United States by offering interested investors additional access to information and buying and trading our common shares."

"We are pleased to welcome Fortress Paper to OTCQX," said Jason Paltrowitz, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "OTCQX provides an efficient and transparent United States trading market for Canadian companies that are looking to expand their visibility and shareholder base in the United States. We look forward to supporting Fortress Paper and its shareholders in the public markets."

Information relating to Fortress Paper as well as Real-Time Level 2 quotes for Fortress Paper will be available on www.otcmarkets.com.

About Fortress Paper

Fortress Paper operates internationally in two distinct business segments: dissolving pulp and security paper products. The Company operates its dissolving pulp business at the Fortress Specialty Cellulose mill located in Canada, which has expanded into the renewable energy generation sector with the construction of a cogeneration facility. The Company operates its security paper products business at the Landqart Mill located in Switzerland, where it produces banknote, passport, visa and other brand protection and security papers.

Contacts:

Fortress Paper Ltd.

604-904-2328

info@fortresspaper.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Cadillac Ventures Inc. (TSX VENTURE: CDC)(OTC: CADIF) ("Cadillac" or the "Company") announced today Cadillac has agreed to settle debt obligations for management services in the amount of CDN$140,000 through the issuance of 2,800,000 shares at $0.05 per share to non-arms' length parties Norman Brewster, President and Chief Executive Officer and Leo O'Shaughnessy, Chief Financial Officer for services rendered to the Company.

The issuance of the shares to Norman Brewster (2,000,000 shares) and Leo O'Shaughnessy (800,000 shares) is subject to approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The issuance will not create a new control person.

For more information regarding Cadillac or the shares issuances, please visit the Company's website at www.cadillacventures.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.

Contacts:

Cadillac Ventures Inc.

Norman Brewster

President and Chief Executive Officer

416 203-7722

www.cadillacventures.com




OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/09/17 -- Canada's unions are celebrating an announcement by Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, that Canada will finally ratify the International Labour Organization's Convention 98.

The minister confirmed the news ahead of participating in an international solidarity event at the Canadian Labour Congress Convention in Toronto.

"Our government understands that organized labour is key to healthy labour relations that benefit people in workplaces all across our country," said Minister Hajdu. "We are committed to ratifying Convention 98 and sending a clear message to the world about the right of workers to organize in Canada."

"This is a long overdue and important step forward for Canadian labour relations," said CLC President Hassan Yussuff.

The convention is the only one Canada has yet to ratify out of eight considered by ILO to be the minimum "enabling rights" people need to defend and improve their rights and conditions at work, and to work in freedom and dignity.

The Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949, protects all workers from anti-union discrimination, including being forced to give up union membership in order to get a job, or job termination for participating in union activities.

Canada's unions have been working for ratification for decades, but since 1949 and until now, successive Canadian governments have refused. The decision will make Canada the 165th country to ratify. The United States, Mexico, and 20 other countries have yet to ratify.

"Internationally, this ratification means Canada can more effectively insist that trade partners like the United States and Mexico must respect and enforce labour rights," said Yussuff. "This is key as we face the prospect of the renegotiation of NAFTA."

At home, Yussuff said, ratification will help reinforce recent decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada that protect union rights.

"Those Supreme Court decisions are binding in all of Canada's courts and tribunals, and now provincial and territorial governments will be expected to conform under Convention 98 as well, and Canada's unions will work hard to ensure they do," said Yussuff.

Contacts:

Media contact:

Kerry Pither

National Director, CLC Communications

613-294-2203

kpither@clc-ctc.ca




CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - April 21, 2017) - Husky Energy (TSX: HSE) will release its 2017 first quarter results before markets open on Friday, May 5, 2017. A conference call will be held the same day beginning at 8 a.m. Mountain Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time).

CEO Rob Peabody, CFO Jon McKenzie and COO Rob Symonds will participate in the call.

To listen live: To listen to a recording (after 10 a.m. May 5) Canada and U.S. Toll Free: 1-800-319- Canada and U.S. Toll Free: 1-800-319- 4610 6413 Outside Canada and U.S.: 1-604-638- Outside Canada and U.S.: 1-604-638- 5340 9010 Passcode: 1316 Duration: Available until June 5, 2017 Audio webcast: Available for 90 days at www.huskyenergy.com under Investor Relations

Following the call, the Company will hold its Annual Meeting of Shareholders at 10:30 a.m. Mountain Time in the Palomino Room at the BMO Centre, 20 Roundup Way S.E., Calgary, Alberta.

A live webcast of the meeting will be available at www.huskyenergy.com under Investor Relations. The archived webcasts of the conference call and the meeting will be available for approximately 90 days.

Husky Energy is a Canadian-based integrated energy company. It is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and its common shares are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol HSE. More information is available at www.huskyenergy.com

For further information, please contact:



Investor Inquiries:



Rob Knowles

Manager, Investor Relations

Husky Energy Inc.

587-747-2116



Media Inquiries:



Mel Duvall

Manager, Media & Issues

Husky Energy Inc.

403-513-7602
Zhang said he was inspired to seek asylum in Taiwan by the campaign of Lee Ching-yu (pictured, center) to "rescue" her NGO husband, activist Lee Ming-cheh. (Photo : Twitter)

Taiwan's government said on Wednesday that the Chinese activist Zhang Xiangzhong, who intended to apply for asylum in the country, had voluntarily returned to China after meeting with immigration officials, sparing the island nation from a potential diplomatic tangle with its mainland neighbor.



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Zhang, an anti-corruption activist who spent three years in prison in China, had arrived in Taiwan on April 12 as part of an eight-day group tour.



The next day he abandoned the group and on Friday announced in an interview with Radio Free Asia that he intended to apply for political refugee status, The New York Times reported.



However, according to a statement from Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, Zhang flew back to China on Wednesday morning with his tour group.



The 48-year-old Zhang, who had campaigned for greater transparency from the Chinese government, was jailed in 2013 for "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order."



In 2014 he was sentenced on what his lawyers said was a trumped-up charge of credit card fraud, and he was released last July.



In his interview with Radio Free Asia, Zhang said he was made to do a forced confession under torture and that his health had deteriorated in jail due to lack of medication for his asthma.



"There's legitimate concern about Zhang's safety after he's sent back to China," said Patrick Poon, a researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong.



Taiwan currently does not provide political asylum to Chinese citizens, although it has granted long-term residence for political reasons on a case-to-case-basis. The nation previously offered asylum but stopped doing so following a string of hijackings of planes by Chinese asylum seekers in the 1990s.



China claims independent Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to annex it, making the cases of Chinese political refugees more complicated.



In the statement by the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwanese immigration officials ruled that Zhang's application for asylum "did not conform to the rules for special cases of long-term residence currently in effect."



"After explaining this to Mr. Zhang, he fully understood and agreed to depart with his original tour group upon completion of its travel period, in accordance with the rules of the Cross-Strait Tourism Agreement," the statement said.



The Council also clarified to The Times in an email that Zhang's case is "not connected in any way" to Lee Ming-cheh, a Taiwanese rights activist currently imprisoned in China.



Zhang told Radio Free Asia that he was inspired to apply for asylum following a statement made last week by Lee's wife, Lee Ching-yu. Lee, who has been detained in China since last month, had donated cash and books to relatives of imprisoned Chinese rights lawyers.



Ms. Lee had announced that she intends to go to China to "rescue" her husband, whose whereabouts remain unknown, but Chinese officials have canceled her permit to enter China, preventing her to board a flight to Beijing on April 10.



Lee's wife's statements, which have drawn criticism from Chinese officials and several Taiwanese politicians who claim her activities were interfering with backdoor negotiations, struck a chord with Zhang.



"I remember something Lee Ching-yu said," he told Radio Free Asia. "I must carry on fighting. I will not allow my husband to lose his dignity in return for his freedom and to spend the rest of his life little better than a dog."



"It doesn't matter how powerful China becomes," Zhang added. "They can only take our freedom and our lives, but they can't break our dignity."


The World's Leading Business Referral Organization - Which Generated Over $11 Billion USD For Its Member Organizations in 2016- Aims to Support Business Growth Amongst Local Kuwaiti Entrepreneurs

KUWAIT CITY, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --This week, BNI - the world's leading networking and business referral organization - is participating in the 1st Edition of the Entrepreneurship & Franchise Expo Middle East (EFE), an event organized by Franchise Arabia.

With more than 215,000 members in over 70 countries worldwide, BNI is currently exploring opportunities to introduce its franchise in Kuwait, as well as other countries across the Middle East. While at the Expo, BNI plans to host a series of significant meetings this week with local business leaders who are interested in exploring the Master Franchise opportunity available through BNI Global in Kuwait. In addition, BNI's Director of Global Franchise Development, Marcel Portmann, will present at the Expo on key considerations for business leaders when buying a franchise.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a major role in most economies, but particularly across the Middle East and North African region. According to a recent study published by BLOOVO Middle East, 90 percent of the total registered companies in MENA are SMEs. And in the GCC, SMEs alone employ approximately 17 million people.[1]

"In recent years, Kuwait has seen an exponential rise in entrepreneurship and small business growth," stated Graham Weihmiller, Chairman & CEO of BNI Global. "As a result, there's a tremendous opportunity for BNI here in Kuwait; BNI will provide a truly unmatched global business network for local businesses owners and entrepreneurs who are seeking ways to bolster their growth. Each week, our members gather in 7,800+ chapters across the world to pass business to one another, helping to grow local businesses and economies, and create jobs."

Commenting on the franchisee opportunities available in Kuwait, Portmann stated, "We couldn't be more excited to expand our global footprint by bringing BNI to Kuwait. BNI is an organization for people who love business, and has the right processes, people and culture to be an enduring franchise. Around the world, our Master Franchisees are highly capable and passionate business leaders who thoughtfully and energetically build the BNI brand. They enjoy helping people connect and doing work that makes a positive impact in their communities. I'm thrilled to be here at the Expo this week, and look forward to meeting local Kuwaiti business leaders who want to make a difference, and drive BNI's growth in Kuwait."

Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, USA, BNI serves a greater good by helping businesses around the world to create a culture of collaboration. Givers Gain is the underlying philosophy of BNI, meaning that by giving business to others, you will receive business in return.

About BNI

Founded in 1985, BNI is the recognized leader in business networking worldwide. With over 7,800 chapters meeting every week in 73 countries, we have grown to over 215,000 member-businesses. Our members meet each week to share qualified business referrals with their colleagues and to grow personally and professionally with like-minded business professionals. In 2016 alone, BNI member referrals generated over $11 billion USD of business for member-businesses.

BNI Contact Details

For more information about BNI's franchise development opportunities or our franchisee qualification process, visit www.bnifranchise.com or reach out to Marcel Portmann, BNI's Director of Global Franchise Development at franchise@bni.com. For media inquiries including interview requests, please reach out Virginia Pond, BNI's Executive Communications Manager at virginia@bni.com.

[1] http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/smes-continue-drive-regional-growth-report/

DISCLAIMER: This information is not intended as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. It is for informational purposes only. BNI will not offer you a franchise unless and until we have complied with any applicable pre-sale registration and disclosure requirements in your jurisdiction.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/21/17 -- Petro Vista Energy Corp. (TSX VENTURE: PTV) ("Petro Vista" or the "Company"), announces that its shareholders and the board of directors of the Company (the "Board") have approved a return of capital distribution (the "Return of Capital") of $0.0471 per share of the Company (each, a "Share"). The Return of Capital will be paid to all registered shareholders of record as at the close of business on May 12, 2017.

The Return of Capital will be made in accordance with the "due bill" trading procedures of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). The purpose is to have traded shares carry the value of the Return of Capital until it is paid. A due bill will notionally represent the Return of Capital of $0.0471 per Share which a holder of a Share is entitled to receive. A due bill will attach to each Share traded from the second trading day before the record date for the Return of Capital until May 26, 2017 (the "Payment Date"), being the date the Return of Capital is paid. Based on the Payment Date, the due bill period for the Return of Capital will be May 10, 2017 to May 26, 2017. Anyone acquiring a Share up to and including May 26, 2017 will be entitled to receive the Return of Capital. The Shares will commence trading on an ex-distribution basis (without an attached "due bill" entitlement) effective from the opening of trading on May 29, 2017, the next trading day following the Payment Date. The due bill redemption date will be May 31, 2017 (the second trading day after the ex-distribution date, when all trades with due bills attached have settled).

Shareholders do not need to take any action. Computershare Investor Services Inc., the Company's transfer agent, will send to registered shareholders funds representing the return of capital and beneficial shareholders will have their brokerage accounts automatically updated to reflect the Return of Capital.

Eligible shareholders are strongly cautioned to consult with their financial, broker, legal, tax and/or investment advisors regarding any matters pertaining to the Return of Capital and the tax consequences associated therewith.

ON BEHALF OF PETRO VISTA ENERGY CORP.

Darren Devine, Executive Vice President, 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.

Forward Looking Statements

This release includes certain statements that, to the extent they are not statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking information and forward-looking statements which reflect the current view of the Company with respect to the Company's objectives, plans, goals, strategies, future growth, results of operations, financial and operating performance and business prospects and opportunities.

Wherever used, the words "may", "will", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "estimate", "plan", "believe" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information should not be read as guarantees of future events, performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether, or the times at which, such events, performance or results will be achieved. All of the statements and information in this release containing forward-looking statements or forward-looking information are qualified by these cautionary statements. These forward-looking statements and information include statements regarding the amount and timing of the Return of Capital, any future distribution, by way of completion of return of capital or otherwise, including the number, amount and timing of such future distributions, the receipt of any future proceeds to the Company and the use of any such future proceeds by the Company, and the due bills process.

Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information are based on information available at the time they are made, underlying estimates and assumptions made by management and management's good faith belief with respect to future events, performance and results, and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations generally. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this release. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited the timing and amount of any future distributions, by way of return of capital or otherwise, any regulatory or legal approvals required for the Return of Capital, the due bills process of the Exchange, the estimated future expenses of the Company, regulation of the Company's business, state of the public markets, and global economic conditions, among other things.

The Company cautions readers that this list of factors is not exhaustive and that should certain risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying estimates or assumptions prove incorrect, actual events, performance and results may vary significantly from those expected. There can be no assurance that the actual results, performance, events or activities anticipated by the Company will be realized or, even if substantially realized, that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. Readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating forward-looking information and forward-looking statements and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information or forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and forward-looking information are made as of the date hereof, and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any such factors or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments. You should also carefully consider the matters discussed under "Risk Factors" in the Company's management's discussion and analysis filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Contacts:

Petro Vista Energy Corp.

Attention: Darren Devine

+1(604) 638-8067

investor@pvecorp.com

www.pvecorp.com




BigRep, a Berlin, Germany-based 3D printing startup, received an investment from Klockner & Co., via its venture capital subsidiary kloeckner.v.

The amount of the deal, which is part of an ongoing international Series B financing round, was not disclosed.

Alongside the financial investment, Klockner & Co. (ISIN: DE000KC01000; WKN: KC0100; Common Code: 025808576), one of the largest producer-independent distributors of steel and metal products and one of the leading steel service center companies worldwide, plans to use BigReps industrial 3D printers in its extensive European and US site network going forward.

Founded in 2014, BigRep designs and produces a 3D printer and provides consulting for additive manufacturing system solutions via a multinational team of over 60 employees based in Berlin, New York and Singapore.

As well as new products, the company based in Berlins Kreuzberg district focuses on end-to-end solutions for industrial customers in the form of integrated additive manufacturing systems.

FinSMEs

21/04/2017
RS Research, a Teknopark Istanbul, Turkey-based nanomedicine startup, raised 1.1m in funding.

Technology focused venture capital fund ACT Venture Partners, whose main backer is the European Investment Fund (EIF), provided the funds.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop its drug delivery platform from preclinical steps towards investigational new drug applications.

Founded by Dr. Rana Sanyal (Chief Science Officer) and Sena Nomak (Chief Operating Officer) in March 2015, RS Research is a therapeutics company developing novel nanomedicines which are in various stages of preclinical development for treatment of cancer. Along with advancing their own candidates toward clinic, the company provides preclinical services to industrial and academic partners bringing to them specific expertise in biosimilar characterization as well as in vivo experiment design.

FinSMEs

21/04/2017
The Ukrainian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (UVCA) published the first overview of Ukrainian investment market displaying current players activity, sectors of interest, and portfolio.

The Investors Book identified 34 active investors, which deal with global companies from Ukraine (mostly IT sector). According to the Book, there are 29 funds operating in Ukraine, consisting of:

 5 incubators and accelerators,

 1 corporate fund,

 17 venture capital funds, and

 6 private equity funds.

Out of the total, 10 funds may participate in rounds A or B, 16 funds are ready to invest in seed startups, 7 funds would invest at the pre-seed stage.

Ukrainian investment funds have 20 portfolio companies on average. Funds are ready to invest from 50k to dozens of millions USD, depending on the fund type and project stage. Thirty-seven percent of the funds may invest from 100k to 1 million USD.

Have a look at the Book here

Established in mid-2014 and led by Olga Afanasyeva, CEO, UVCA currently unites 40 members  private equity and venture funds, accelerators, incubators, educational institutions, and non-government organizations that make significant impact on the development of Ukrainian investment market. The association promotes investment opportunities across the country for foreign investment funds, conducts market research, lobbies laws for improving investment and business climate, and implements Invest in Ukraine activities.

FinSMEs

21/04/2017
New Delhi: National carrier Air India has lowered the age limit to 60 for availing travel concession under its scheme for senior citizens.

As per the scheme, an Indian citizen who has attained the age of 60 on the date of commencement of journey is entitled to a 50 percent discount on the basic fare of an economy class seat, an Air India spokesperson confirmed.

Earlier, the age limit for this offer was 63 years.

This offer, however, is only valid for domestic travel.

Those seeking to avail this scheme will have to produce a valid identity proof like voter identity card, passport, driving licence, or senior citizen card issued by Air India, among others.
Withdrawing money from bank ATMs is becoming increasingly difficult for scores of people across the country in recent times, according to reports. This, even after total curbs were removed by the government in March post the demonstisation exercise. Several ATMs continue to dispense little or no cash. The propensity is to display 'no cash' signs more frequently on ATM monitors.

So, what is the reason for this cash crunch in the ATMs these days? The reason is people have once again started to withdraw huge amount of cash from the automated teller machines of late, so much so that the withdrawals have reached the levels seen before the pre-demonetisation days, The Times of India report said.

As against this, supply of currency from banks to ATMs stood at just 50 percent of the total supply seen before 8 November, 2016, the day when the Narendra Modi government in a bid to squeeze black money from the system invalidated high value denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 with immediate effect.

Supply of cash from banks to ATMs has currently dropped to Rs 6 lakh from Rs 12 lakh per booth on an average before the note ban days.

Data from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows that bank ATM withdrawals exceeded Rs 1 lakh crore last month, almost the same level seen in October 2016 but double the amount in December.

Since the withdrawal cap was removed, average ticket size of each transaction has increased to Rs 4,000, similar to the withdrawals during the pre-note ban days.

"Since the limits on ATM withdrawals were removed, we found the average ticket size of each transaction has risen to Rs 4,000 which is equal to the pre-demonetisation days. The average size was Rs 2,000 between November and February ," TOI report said quoting Loney Antony , managing director of Hitachi Payment Services.

"While demand has crept up, we are receiving only 50 percent of the cash we are demanding from banks which is causing machines to go dry," said Antony.

Another reason for increase in cash usage for transaction purpose is the banks' reluctance to bring down transaction charges through digital platforms. Despite the higher cash usage, transactions through digital platform has picked up significantly over the past few months. In fact, digital transactions increased by about 23 times in March to nearly 64 lakh, with total value of Rs 2,425 crore, from last November when demonetisation took effect.

"Volume of all digital transactions increased by about 23 times with 63,80,000 digital transactions for a value of Rs 2,425 crore in March 2017, compared to 2,80,000 digital transactions worth Rs 101 crore till November 2016," NITI Aayog said in a statement last week.

Aadhaar Enabled Payments have increased from 2.5 crore in November 2016 to over 5 crore in March 2017, the statement said.

Earlier this month, media reports suggested how shortage of cash at ATMs led to chaos in several cities. Faced with repeated messages of no cash at ATMs, there was a rise in cases of people getting angry and resorting to vandalism, the report said, adding that a group of unidentified people vandalised a State Bank of India ATM in the Sangvi area of Pune.

In places like Chennai, people queued up in bank branches to withdraw cash using their cheques after ATMs in the city failed to dispense any cash.

The situation has not improved much, months after the demonetisation exercise and the government's efforts to make digital the prime method of transactions in the country. The problems persist.
New Delhi: Ousted Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry has moved appellate tribunal NCLAT against the National Company Law Tribunal, which had rejected his plea for waiver in the eligibility criteria for filing case against the Tata Group.

The petition is likely to come for hearing next week before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal bench, headed by NCLAT Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya.

On 17 April, National Company Law Tribunal had dismissed a petition filed by two firms belonging to Cyrus Mistry's family, seeking waiver of an eligibility condition for moving the forum against Tata Sons.

The Companies Act mandates that a petitioner should hold at least one-tenth of the issued share capital of a company or represent 10 per cent of the total number of members to file cases alleging mismanagement and oppression of minority shareholders.

The two firms -- Cyrus Investment Pvt Ltd and Sterling Investments Pvt Ltd had sought to challenge Mistry's ouster from Tata Sons last year and alleged that there was mismanagement and oppression of minority shareholders.

They had urged the NCLT to use its discretion and waive an eligibility condition for filing such a petition.

The tribunal had held last month that the plea was not maintainable, because the petitioner firms did not meet one of the eligibility criteria prescribed by the Companies Act.

The firms contended that under the Act the tribunal can waive a requirement that petitioner should hold at least one- tenth of `issued share capital' of the company, or represent at least one-tenth of the company's minority shareholders.

Tata Sons had argued that if preference capital was also considered, the petitioner firms held only 2.17 percent of the total issued share capital of Tata Sons.

Mistry was removed as Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding firm of Tata Group, one of the country's largest conglomerates, last October.
If the petroleum ministrys tweet on Friday offers any clue, you will soon get petrol and diesel delivered at your home on pre-booking.

Options being explored where petro products may be door delivered to consumers on pre booking, said the tweet. This would help consumers avoid spending excessive time and long queues at fuel stations, the ministry tweeted.

About 3.5 crore people come to fuel stations every day, it said. Annually Rs 2,500 cr ($387 million) worth of transactions takes place at fuel stations.

Presently, only the LPG gets delivered at home while the consumers has to go to the retail outlets to avail other petroluem products.

India, the world's third biggest oil consumer, will be introducing daily price revision of petrol and diesel in five cities from 1 May, ahead of a nation-wide roll out of the plan.

Options being explored where petro products may be door delivered to consumers on pre booking @dpradhanbjp (1/2)  Petroleum Ministry (@PetroleumMin) April 21, 2017

This would help consumers avoid spending excessive time and long queues at fuel stations @dpradhanbjp (2/2)  Petroleum Ministry (@PetroleumMin) April 21, 2017

About 3.5 cr people come to fuel stations every day; Rs 2500 Cr worth of transactions every year  - @dpradhanbjp  Petroleum Ministry (@PetroleumMin) April 21, 2017

This comes at a time when petrol pumps have threatened to shut shops on Sunday and the government has expressed its displeasure about this move citing inconvenience to consumers.

The oil ministry has denounced the decision of a section of petrol pump operators, mostly in South India, to keep outlets shut on Sundays, saying such a move will inconvenience the general public.

It took umbrage at the Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers using Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal of not using fuel for a day to help cut India's import dependence, saying it was aimed at conserving fuel and not for petrol pump owners to remain shut.

Already, the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, which claims to represent 80 percent of the 53,224 petrol pumps of public sector oil firms, has said it is not participating in the closure exercise.

For customers, the proposed move could be beneficial as prices of petrol and diesel are unlikely to change much on a daily basis, barring few paise.

"Daily price revision is about introducing international standards in the Indian fuel retail market. It helps both customers as well as dealers in managing their purchase, the ET report said quoting a executive of a state-owned oil firm.

With the current practice of fortnightly change in fuel prices, prices of petrol and diesel at times are hiked by more than a rupee or two reflecting volatility in global crude prices, thereby pinching customers' pockets. For instance, oil firms on 1 September, 2016, hiked petrol rate by Rs 3.40 a litre and diesel prices by Rs 2.70 a litre at one go, putting pressure on vehicle users.

Similarly on 16 October, petrol prices were raised by Rs 1.80 per litre and Rs 2.80 per litre for diesel as global prices were on the rise forcing domestic oil companies to follow suit.

However, on 31 March this year, the state-owned oil firms slashed prices of petrol by Rs 3.77 a litre and diesel by Rs 2.91 per litre, bringing relief to lakhs of vehicle owners.

Currently, state oil firms Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum control around 95 percent share of the retail market, and with automation in several retail outlets, daily price changes may not be that difficult for the companies, the ET report said.
Australian PM's Visit to India (Photo : Getty Images)

Australia is getting more from its relationship with China than with India, according to James Laurenceson, professor and deputy director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology in Sydney.



In his article on the Australian Financial Review, Laurenceson noted that although Australia and India have agreed to work together, signing six agreements during Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull's visit to India last week, the relationship is not strong enough to provide stability in case Australia's relationship with China falls off.



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According to Laurenceson, China is the only country that can deliver benefits to Australia, other than the U.S. He cited a report by Deloitte which found that if China's economic growth would slow down to less than 3 percent of the expected 6.7 percent, about 500,000 Australian jobs would be affected.



A new survey by the Australia-China Relations Institute also examined the ties between Australia and India, as well as between Australia and China.



The survey showed that in the past five years, Australian exports to India dropped 31 percent while exports to China increased further to 21 percent.



Between 2015 and 2016, China bought $73.3 billion worth of Australian goods, which account for about 30.9 percent of the total, while India's share was only 4 percent.



China also took $10.7 billion worth of Australian services, compared with India's $3.2 billion, which is understandable considering the size of India's economy.



Although India was the second largest source country for Australian educational institutions with a total enrollment reaching 78,128, it was still lower compared to China with 196,052.



While Australia welcomed about 259,000 tourists from India last year, this is only a fraction compared with the 1.2 million Chinese who traveled to the country last year.



Nick Bisley, professor of international relations at La Trobe University, said that there is only one direct flight between India and Australia, while there are more than 30 direct flights from Australia to several Chinese cities.



In terms of investments, China's direct investments in Australia amounted to $35.2 billion, while India has a meager $896 million.


Is the $150 billion Indian IT sector going through a downturn faced with multiple challenges of a slowing global economy, automation, Artificial intelligence and the H-1B visa issues? In the backdrop of these challenges, major IT firms have been resorting to downsizing of their staffs in large numbers over the past few months. The latest being Wipro which sacked 600 employees after a performance appraisal.

So, is the outlook for the sector looking gloomy? The medium-to-long-term outlook for the sector is anything but worrisome, say analysts. The sector is healthy and thriving, and will even do better in the coming years, they aver. They reason that the number of employees being sacked is hardly one or two percent of the IT majors overall workforce, and that is the ratio for the top IT firms, be it for Infosys, Wipro, Accenture, HCL or any other in that category.

The industry has been working towards a value-added shift for some years now. Automation has taken over mechanic, repetitive jobs and those who have been unable to up the value chain for these advanced jobs have been laid off, said Arvind Singhal, Chairman and Managing Director, Technopak Advisors, a Delhi-based management consultancy firm.

Singhal says that the numbers per se of the employees laid off may look surprising but it is just a fraction of the large workforce of each of the home-grown top information technology firms.

Agreeing with Singhal, Kris Laxmikanth, Chairman & Managing Director at The Head Hunters India, and visiting faculty, Institute of Management, Ranchi, says the numbers of employees retrenched are not just programmers and coders but also a sizeable chunk of middle and top management. There are people high up the rung in these organisations who are not able to cope with the rapid pace of technological changes in the industry. They are being sacked, too, he says.

This has been the norm across the IT majors in the country who have been sacking employees in small parcels for some time now. In 2016, Infosys sacked around 8000-9,000 due to automation taking over in low-end jobs. We have been releasing about 2,000 people every quarter and also training them in special courses that will help them in their new assignments," Krishnamurthy Shankar, Human Resources head had said on the sidelines of an event organized by the Bengaluru chapter of Global shapers, the TOI reported.

At the recently held Nasscom Leadership summit in Mumbai, French IT major, Capgeminis India chief executive Srinivas Kandula said that a majority of the workforce cannot imbibe the skill sets required for increasing use of digital technologies, a PTI report said. Kandula warned of high job losses at the middle and senior levels. I am not very pessimistic, but it is a challenging task and I tend to believe that 60-65 percent of them are just not trainable, he said.

The domestic arm of the French IT major employs nearly 100,000 engineers in the country. A large number of them cannot be trained. Probably, India will witness the largest unemployment in the middle level to senior level, Kandula said.

Campus hiring slows down

The top five -- TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and HCL Technologies -- are not hiring en masse from campuses as they used to earlier. According to a report in the Business Standard, IT companies are expected to hire 40 percent less this year. The top five IT services companies hired around 60,000 engineers from campuses this fiscal, as against little more than 100,000 last year. The reason for the reduction in recruitment at the entry level is on account of aggressive use of automation and technological advances that have rendered the lower level jobs in the sector redundant.

Adding to the worries is the protectionist policies in the US  one of the major offshore business partners and supporters of IT services industry in India  laying restrictions on outsourcing and stringent controls on H-1B visas.

Industry body Nasscom said in its annual review that while the industry grew at 8.6 percent, jobs grew only by 5 percent in the fiscal year 2016-17. It also said that there is going to be a 20-25 percent reduction in jobs over the next three years.

The traditional BPO operations model is being phased out and the $155-billion IT industry in the country is trying to reinvent itself to adjust to the advent of automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

According to consulting firm Zinnov, India stands to lose about 94,000 jobs by 2021 due to the increasing adoption of technology. Performance-appraisal sacking of employees may not be purely just that. It could be the compulsions of the shareholders and investors. How do one monitor coders on a large project, for instance, and pick out the bad performers among them? Thats a difficult job to monitor. You cant say 100 lines of coding of x was junk. So largely the cutting down of employees is arbitrary decisions too, says Laxmikanth.

Most IT companies put a large number of its employees through a performance-improvement program for 3-6 months and at the end of it, many are asked to go as they cannot perform. However, there is a target given to managers and top management to reduce employees, says Laxmikanth. The 3 percent of workforce that are being sacked now will go up by the end of the year to even larger numbers and no one should be surprised. This is because their jobs will be taken over by automation. This involuntary separation from the company is something it is forced to undertake to increase profitability. IT workforce accounts for almost 70 percent of its costs and this has to be trimmed. The industry has 12-15 percent of attrition, and forced or involuntary separation is the only way to achieve it," says Laxmikanth.

In order to support this transformation, the industry players need to prioritise automation as one of their key offerings and build appropriate talent around this area, says Sashi Kumar  CEO and MD of the Bengaluru-based IT firm, Happiest Minds Technologies.

Contract jobs in offing

Indian IT majors have been hiring people as permanent staff unlike MNCs which hire staff on contract. In the changing work scenario, Laxmikanth of The Head Hunters India said that contract labour may soon be the norm in the Indian IT sector, too.

The view on the sector as is being reported in the media focusses only on the number of people sacked, says Singhal. It is important to know that there is a continuous process of hiring and training that is going on in the IT firms. The idea is to be a value-added and tech-intensive company from being just labour-intensive firm." He is optimistic that large companies, well-funded, are showing healthy growth in their balance sheets. Indian companies are very well suited to move from one model to another. The challenge for India is for these companies and new ones to ramp up for which more people will be hired.

While making these changes in the business model, some firms that have been focussed on manpower arbitrage and have not been able to make transition to become an IT company will have to shut down too when automation sweeps across the IT landscape. When changes happen in such a large scale, some jobs will be destroyed which is par for the course.

Many of the top IT majors have been investing in setting up development centres. So has Microsoft and Google among others in India. These centres are focussed on do advanced technological work for the parent companies and in the process they are also job creators.

Data support from Kishor Kadam
Mumbai: Hindi film actor Akshay Kumar wants to portray police officer K Vijay Kumar, who is credited with killing sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.

After portraying the character inspired by naval officer KM Nanavati in Rustom, which won him the National Film Award, Akshay now wants to be the Indian Police Service officer on screen.

Vijay headed the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force that executed Veerappan in 2004, ending the outlaw's decades of terror on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border.

On Wednesday, Akshay was present to show his support to security agencies by attending the launch of a book, Veerappan - Chasing the Brigand, in Mumbai.

Asked which role among the two he would like to play, he said, "Both Veerappan and Vijay Kumar's characters are really interesting but I would love to play the role of Vijay Kumar because the whole planning had been done by him and how brilliantly he executed the entire operation."

The book is a first hand account of Veerappan's end, written by Vijay Kumar himself. The book release was attended by eminent politicians and bureaucrats among others.

Akshay was last seen in Naam Shabana in which he played a RAW agent. He has three releases lined up this year: Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, Padman and Rajinikanth's 2.O.
Sticking to their guns, pro- Kannada outfits have threatened that they will not allow film Baahubali 2: The Conclusion to release under "any circumstances" unless actor Sathyaraj tendered unconditional apology for his "anti-Kannadiga" remarks.

However, the actor appeared on TV news channels on 21 April, Friday, and apologised for his remarks. Dressed in black, he read out his comments from a piece of paper in a recorded video.

He said, "I will be more careful in the future. My remarks should not affect the film. I made them 9 years ago during the Cauvery conflict. While I will continue to speak out for all issues related to Tamil Naude, I apologise if I hurt anyone's feelings."

#BREAKING Under pressure Sathyaraj apologises, says "I would like to apologise for the statement I had made 9 years back" pic.twitter.com/N2AwHuDeSO  News18 (@CNNnews18) April 21, 2017

However, India Today TV reports that the protests are continuing despite his apology, and the anti-Baahubali stir is still on in Bengaluru. This could be given Sathyaraj has also commented saying he will continue to fight for the right of Tamil people.

Also read Sreedhar Pillai's analysis of the origins of this controversy  Baahubali 2's Karnataka release in jeopardy; did trade disagreement snowball into political row?

'Kannada Okoota', an umbrella organisation of Kannada bodies, had announced 'Bengaluru Bandh' on April 28, the date of release of the most anticipated Indian movie of the year, to protest the remarks of Sathyaraj, who plays the key character of 'Katappa' in the epic fantasy.

Here's a part of the #Sathyaraj clarification video (note the 2min 20 secs limit for Twitter videos). #Baahubali2 Karnataka release issue! pic.twitter.com/Qr4zsJlsuT  Kaushik LM (@LMKMovieManiac) April 21, 2017

"The remarks made by Sathyaraj against Kannadigas during the Cauvery row (a few years ago) had crossed limits of decency. We will not allow the film to be released under any circumstances," Vatal Nagaraj, who heads Kannada Okoota, said.

Kannada activists would stop the release in every district, Nagaraj, also the leader of Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha, a Kannada outfit, said. "There is no scope for the release unless and until Sathyaraj tenders an unconditional apology," he said, adding, "The exhibitors will have to bear the consequences if they venture to screen the film."

The organisations were not against the film as such, but opposed to Sathyaraj's remarks, he said.

Nagaraj said Kannada activists would stage a protest march on April 28 in Bengaluru and have sought the support of Kannada litterateurs for it.

Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce President and Kannada activist Sa Ra Govindu said Sathyaraj had hurt the "self- respect" of Kannadigas and there was no going back on stalling the release of the film till he apologised for making "provocative anti-Kannadiga remarks."

Karnataka Rakshna Vedike President Pravinkumar Shetty said the release would not be allowed to take place anywhere in Karnataka, as it involved "self-respect" of Kannadigas.

Meanwhile, SS Rajamouli in a television interview to India Today when asked about the controversy, had said: I (have) worked with Sathyaraj for almost five years and I could have never ever imagined he is a person who could hurt someone. Some videos were posted on the internet. When we started inquiring, we learned that whatever comments Sathyaraj made... this was nine years ago. And after that, about 30 films of his were released in Karnataka. Baahubali 1 released there as well. No one had problems with that. And suddenly, raking up the issue at this point in time is not right. He (Sathyaraj) is not the director of the film. He is not the writer or producer or the hero. He is just a supporting actor. He acted in the film and took his remuneration and went away. So whatever people do against Baahubali 2 will not affect him in any manner. It is sad. I think people will understand the issue and it will be resolved.

#EXCLUSIVE "What is happening between Sathyaraj & K'taka is a sensitive issue; we are no way connected with it," @ssrajamouli to CNN-News18 pic.twitter.com/mZuvjUC64V  News18 (@CNNnews18) April 21, 2017

(With inputs from PTI)
Director-producer Sabbir Khan's upcoming film Munna Michael is set to release on 21 July, the film's makers said.

Munna Michael stars Tiger Shroff and debutante Nidhhi Agerwal. The Eros International and Viki Rajani's action-music entertainer also stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui in an all-new avatar. Siddiqui sported an uber cool look for the film. With a funky hairstyle and quirky sunglasses and ear studs, Siddiqui amazed his fans in his new avatar.

In the look revealed by the makers, Siddiqui paired up his hairstyle and sunglasses with a dark green henley t-shirt, blue jeans and a black leather jacket which upped his cool quotient.

Hindustan Times quotes Sabbir as saying, "While writing Siddiquis character I knew exactly how i wanted him to look, how he would walk, talk. Once we started workshops on the script and Nawaz had got into the skin of the character, i explained how I wanted him to look and expected him to raise a few questions but there were none. He surrendered completely and went through everything patiently.

Let's Drive to the next Ride... pic.twitter.com/16Lo78k5Zy  Nawazuddin Siddiqui (@Nawazuddin_S) April 21, 2017

Munna Michael is based on the story of Munna, a street boy from Teen Batti slum locality here. He loves dancing and grows up idolising King of Pop Michael Jackson. The son of actor Jackie Shroff, who lived in chawls (a residential building in Mumbai for relatively poor people), has paid a tribute to his father in the film.

The mass entertainer will push the envelope when it comes to action and dance, promised the film makers in a statement.

With inputs from IANS.
Mumbai: National Film Award-winning actor Rajkummar Rao will be seen playing a man aged 324 in the forthcoming film Raabta.

The just released trailer of Raabta is packed with intrigue, love and the promise of a powerful storyline. The trailer ends with an element of surprise. At the end of the trailer, one can spot a mysterious looking character, played by the Trapped actor.

The team of the film did 16 look tests before picking the final one. Director Dinesh Vijan and Rajkummar sat along with the team over a couple of days to get the final look in place. A special team from Los Angeles got on board and worked with Zuby Johal of Dirty Hands company to etch the look for the actor.

"Rajkummar was kind enough to do me a favour. It was tedious but, he patiently sat through it everyday. I think, the idea of the prosthetics making him completely unrecognisable excited him as an actor," said Vijan in a statement.

In addition to his look, his body posture and voice modulation had to be worked upon. Rajkummar underwent five to six hours of prosthetic everyday to get into his character. In addition to that, his styling was important. He had to wear accessories and also have tattoos.

Talking about his friendly appearance in the film, Rajkummar said, "It was so much fun as an actor. Dinoo (Dinesh) has a very clear vision as a director and he gave me a lot of freedom as an actor to explore. The prosthetics used to take almost five to six hours everyday and then I would start sweating inside all that make-up. It needed quite a bit of patience."

And here is my Guest appearance from #Raabta. pic.twitter.com/AZaHryWX6a  Rajkummar Rao (@RajkummarRao) April 21, 2017

The movie stars Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon, Jim Sarbh and Varun Sharma. It is co-produced by Homi Adajania and Vijan's Maddock Films and Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar's T-Series Films. It is slated to release on 9 June.

Rao's other future projects include Ajay K Pannalal's romantic comedy Behen Hogi Teri, Hansal Mehta's Newton, Namrata Singh Gujral's Indian American slice of life drama 5 Weddings, Ashwini Iyer Tiwari's romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi, Abhay Chopra's remake of Ittefaq, Tabrez Noorani's Love Sonia and Mehta's web series on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

With inputs from IANS.
Actor Kamal Haasan has been summoned by a Tamil Nadu court in connection with remarks he made about the Mahabharata in March 2017.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed against the veteran actor for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments and causing enmity between groups and cause disturbance to public tranquility.

It was filed after Haasan made certain comments about the Mahabharata to a Tamil news channel. The Financial Express had reported that Haasan expressed shock that Indians celebrated a book in which a woman (Panchali) was depicted as an object and men (the Pandvas), as gambling her away.

The same report quotes him as saying, "In Mahabharata, Panchali was used as... collateral. India is a country that respects and honours a book that revolves around men gambling away a woman as if she was a mere object."

India Today reported that it was a religious group, Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK) of the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, that filed the PIL against Haasan. They also dubbed him as an anti-Hindu.

Meanwhile, Pranavananda Swami from the Basaveshwara Mutt also filed a police complaint against Haasan for the same remarks, demanding an apology from the actor.

Parvananda Swami had told PTI, "It is unbecoming of actor Kamal Haasan to hurt the sentiments of any religious community, including Christians and Muslims. He has been in the thick of controversies even in the past, and we demand he should apologise."
NEW DELHI Thirteen people were charred to death on Friday in a fire at a kerosene distribution centre in Madhya Pradesh, a senior police official said.

Four people were injured in the fire that broke out at about 1600 local time, Gaurav Tiwari told Reuters. "The fire has been brought under control," he said.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Stephen Nellis

| SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO When Gokul Gunasekaran was offered a full scholarship for a graduate programme in electrical engineering at Stanford University, he saw it as the chance of a lifetime.He had grown up in Chennai, India, and had a solid job offer with a large oil company after getting his undergraduate degree. He came to America instead, got the Stanford degree and now works as engineer at a data science in Silicon Valley.But for the past five years, he has been waiting for a green card that would give him full legal rights as a permanent resident. In the meantime, he is in a holding pattern on an H1-B visa, which permits him to live and work in the United States but does not allow him easily to switch jobs or start his own company."It was a no-brainer when I came to this country, but now I'm kind of regretting taking that scholarship," said Gunasekaran, 29, who is also vice president with a non-profit group called Immigration Voice that represents immigrants waiting for green cards. Immigration Voice estimates there are some 1.5 million H1-B visa holders in the country waiting for green cards, many of whom are from India and have been waiting for more than a decade.Many of these immigrants welcomed President Donald Trump's executive order this week to the federal departments overseeing the programme to review it, a move that may lead to H1-B visas being awarded to the highest-paying, highest-skilled jobs rather than through a random lottery.Their hope is that merit-based H1-Bs might then lead to merit-based green cards.

"I think less random is great," said Guru Hariharan, the CEO and founder of Boomerang Commerce, an e-commerce startup. Hariharan, who was previously an executive at Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and eBay Inc (EBAY.O), spent 10 years waiting for his green card and started his own company as soon as he got it.Green cards can be a path to naturalization and Hariharan expects to become a U.S. citizen soon.H1-B visas are aimed at foreign nationals in occupations that generally require specialised knowledge, such as science, engineering or computer programming. The U.S. government uses a lottery to award 65,000 such visas yearly and randomly distributes another 20,000 to graduate student workers.'INDENTURED SERVANTS'

The H1-B and the green card system are technically separate, but many immigrants from India see them as intimately connected.The number of green cards that can go to people born in each country is capped at a few percent of the total, without regard to how large or small the country's population is. There is a big backlog of Indian-born people in the line, given the size of India's population - 1.3 billion - and the number of its natives in the United States waiting for green cards.That leaves many of those immigrants stuck on H1-B visas while they wait, which they say makes them almost like "indentured servants," said Gaurav Mehta, an H1-B holder who works in the financial industry. Mehta has a U.S.-born son, but he could be forced to take his family back to India at any time if he loses his job and cannot find another quickly. "He's never been to my country," Mehta said of his son. "But we'll have no choice if we have to go. Nobody likes to live in constant fear."

The H1-B visa is tied to a specific employer, who must apply for the visa and sponsor the employee for a specific job laid out in the visa application. To switch employers, the visa holder must secure their paperwork from their current employer and find another employer willing to take over their visa.Some H1-B holders suspect that employers purposely seek out Indian immigrants because they know they will end up waiting for green cards and will be afraid to leave their employers.But changing the green card system away from country caps to a merit-based system would require an act of Congress. Some executives also worry that allocating H1-Bs and green cards based on salary - while it would be done to counter the argument that immigrants undercut American workers - would hurt startups that cannot afford high wages.In the meantime, H1-B holders like Nitin Pachisia, founding partner of a venture capital firm called Unshackled Ventures, are taking more practical measures. His firm specializes in taking care of the legal paperwork so that H1-B holders can start their own companies, a process that is possible but tricky.Pachisia is hopeful that changes to the H1-B visa programme could revive interest in making the entire system, from H1-B visas to green cards and eventual citizenship, more merit-based and focussed on immigrants who are likely to start companies and create jobs."If the purpose of our high-skilled immigration programme is to bring in the most talented people, let's use that as a lens. From that perspective, it's a good thing we can focus on the most talented, and I'd say most entrepreneurial, people," he said. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Frances Kerry)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
As this column had argued recently, there is something apparently schoolboyish about China's move to rename six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

And yet, India must not remain blind to the larger design. It must resist the temptation to dismiss China's move as a game of silly nomenclature. It is not. There is quite a bit of method in this madness.

To begin with, this is far from just a retaliation against India for allowing the 14th Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh. That may have served as an immediate provocation. We would be sorely mistaken, though, to remain under the assumption that had the Tibetan spiritual guru not visited the northeastern state, China would have not taken this step.

Weight of history alone should be enough to dismiss that illusion. China's position on Arunachal Pradesh, what it calls 'South Tibet', has undergone a series of flip-flops since 1914 when the tripartite Simla Conference between British India (as part of Great Britain), Tibet and China upheld the legality of McMahon Line. India shared, even during its Independence, no common boundary with China. This situation was permanently altered when Chinese troops marched into the buffer state of Tibet in 1950.

Four years later, Jawaharlal Nehru gave legitimacy to China's occupation of Tibet through the signing of 'Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India,' better known as the Panchsheel Agreement.

As historian and Tibetologist Claude Arpi writes in Tibet  The Lost Frontier, this was a historic blunder that negated the will of Tibetans, resulted in India's loss of strategic advantage arising from Simla Conference and sanctified China's expansionism. In this bad deal, India was guided by Nehru's idyllic philosophy while China was focused on self-interest.

"Beijing got what it wanted: the omission of Demchok pass in the Treaty, (leaving the door of Aksai Chin open), the removal of the last Indian jawans from Tibet, the surrender of Indian telegraphic lines and guest houses, but first and foremost the Indian stamp of approval on their occupation of Tibet."

The Panchsheel Agreement will go down in history as the key determinant of Sino-Indian relationship. For the next few years, India's discomfort at Chinese military presence grew as the PLA insisted on negating the McMahon Line and used frequent incursions on to the Indian side of the boundary to render it as a flexible, negotiable demarcation instead of a legalised boundary.

As former Indian NSA and one-time envoy to China Shivshankar Menon notes in his book Choices, when Nehru raised the topic with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, he was assured that "China has no claims on Indian territory". And yet, five years later in 1959, we find the first written assertion from China that McMahon Line is 'disputed' and the entire Sino-Indian boundary line should be renegotiated.

China presented a solution. As Menon notes in his book, in 1960, Zhou offered to accept McMahon as the boundary in the east (that would include the whole of Arunachal) if India is ready to accept the status quo in Aksai Chin, which India considered a legitimate part of Jammu and Kashmir.

While we were lost in the dream of Sino-Indian brotherhood that would 'change the world', China was aggressively scaling up infrastructure near Into-Tibetan border and building roads in Aksai Chin.

Following the 1962 war, the Sino-Indian boundary settlement issue was kept in freezer as India was busy licking its wounds and China in dousing Tibetan rebellion.

It was not until 1985, notes Menon, that China made its intentions clear. In the 23 intervening years, it had built up a formidable network of infrastructure and prior to Rajiv Gandhi's visit in 1988, it demanded that India hand over Tawang in return for an early settlement of boundary dispute. There were indications that Aksai Chin might be part of the swap deal. Note the change in Chinese position.

In subsequent years, Chinese position has increasingly hardened. To the extent that not only has Aksai Chin deal been withdrawn, the red lines along the 4,056 km boundary line has come under increasing pressure despite the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement.

PLA's incursion during Xi Jinping's visit made it clear  even as Narendra Modi was extending the red carpet  that the Chinese president was more intent in showing that India can never take the Line of Actual Control for granted and Beijing will continue to treat the McMahon Line as a tool for negotiation.

This perspective is necessary as we see the latest developments in northeast. Despite the incendiary language in China's state-controlled media, it is unlikely that PLA will attempt a repeat of 1962.

Chinese foreign policy is based on realism. It uses a unique 'punishment and reward' policy to influence smaller neighbours while larger geopolitical rivals are treated to a policy of incrementalism. It may inch forward, test the red lines before retreating but in doing so, effect a minuscule alteration of ground situation.

As Indrani Bagchi noted in a column in The Times of India: "China is playing the same game in South China Sea and PoK  inch forward, but altering the ground situation irrevocably on the way. In fact, the PLAs frequent incursions/ transgressions (whatever you will) also have the same aim of marking territory. China is using both infrastructure and political tools to make Pakistan 'own' PoK."

It also uses Sinocentrism as a tool for cultural dominance. Consider the nomenclatures in six places of Arunachal. According to the Global Times report that used Roman alphabets to denote the names, these are: Wo'gyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidengarbo Ri, Mainquka, Bumo La and Namkapub Ri. Quoting a Beijing University professor, the report said, "naming the places is a step to reaffirm China's territorial sovereignty to South Tibet."

These names, aver experts, are China's way of extending cultural hegemony over an area where it claims territorial rights. This is an old game played by the Chinese. Sinocentrism and military advances are used as complementary tools to extend geopolitical influence underwritten by imperialism.

Strategic affairs expert Manoj Joshi writes in Hindustan Times, "China has long mastered the art of 'lawfare' or the system through which legal claims are put forward to delegitimise adversaries. Renaming places is not something new. So the Chinese call the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea as the Xisha and Nansha islands or the Senkaku islands which they dispute with Japan as the Diaoyu islands. So Aksai Chin which India claims as being part of Jammu & Kashmir is occupied by China and is said to be the southwestern part of the Hotan Prefecture of Xinjiang."

Why China may not go to war with India

Where we must be careful in distinguishing Chinese strategy in South China Sea from Arunachal Pradesh is that it may not prefer a military confrontation with India. Apart from mercantile benefits that it enjoys due to a huge trade imbalance with India, controlling the ladders of escalation of even a limited war against a nuclear-armed nation is fraught with difficulties. Besides, it is not in China's nature to advertise geo-strategy.

The editorial published on Friday in Global Times, where it issues a naked threat of war against India should be reason enough to believe that the intention is intimidation, not prior warning of an impending war.

It writes, "India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardized names in South Tibet at this time. Playing the Dalai Lama card is never a wise choice for New Delhi. If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in paying dearly for it."

The message is clear. China is already in war against India except that this is psychological warfare, designed to dominate the adversary in a mental game of one-upmanship. The motto here is dominance. This is part of China's larger geopolitical strategy. If it can extend its regional domination over its biggest rival in south Asia, that gives China'e hegemony unquestionable heft.

India would do well to note it and upgrade its strategic infrastructure along the Sino-Indian boundary line but should not get sucked into a game of issuing provocative statements. A clear, calm head and understanding of each other's red lines should be enough.
White Deer Plain (Photo : ying wang/YouTube)

The sudden shelving of the new Chinese drama White Deer Plain is puzzling TV viewers since a specially made footage of scenes carefully selected from the drama was shown to Tsinghua University students on Thursday, April 13. Adapted from the Chinese literature classic novel by Chen Zhongshi, the footage ran for 90 minutes.



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Mysterious Disappearance



However, it remains a mystery why it was shelved suddenly. It did not help that Jiangsu TV and Anhui TV, broadcasters of White Deer Plain, posted only identical messages on their official Weibo accounts, CMP reported. Their explanation, which reads, In order to obtain better broadcasting results, the drama White Deer Plan will be broadcast selectively, is rather cryptic.



China.org noted that it took the producers of the epic drama 17 years to prepare and make White Deer Plain at a cost of 230 million yuan or $33.39 million. To have a better understanding of the storys background and for the actors to give great performances, the creators, cast and crew went to rural areas in China to experience life in the countryside for one month before they starting filming the drama.



Historic Epic



However, it is more than just a drama about rural life but a historic epic, Liu Jin, director of White Deer Plain said. The novel follows the hard life and spiritual pursuits of several generations of White Deer Plain residents in Shaanxi Province. The drama is also a realistic reflection of Chinese contemporary history because it mirrors the changes in the countryside in China over the first half of the 20th century.



The director describes the drama as the most difficult novel to be made into a film. The novel, published in 1993, was awarded the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1997. It had sold more than 1.6 million copies. The 85-episode drama was supposed to air on Anhui TV, Jingshu Tv and www.le.com beginning April 16.



This is not the first time that a drama was shelved. In January 2015, Chinas censors ordered the producers of the period drama The Empress of China to be edited because of scenes showing plunging necklines and cleavages.


CRPF officer Chetan Cheeta, 45, who was discharged from AIIMS hospital in New Delhi two weeks ago, after he battled life-threatening injuries in a gunfight with militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Bandipora district, on Friday in an interview to CNN-News18 expressed happiness over his recovery process.

Cheeta, who took nine bullets, said barring the injuries he felt wonderful to be recovering and hoped to be fit in 20 days.

Commanding officer of the 45th Battalion, Cheeta, described his recovery, "I am not fighting fit, but I wouldnt require any support and will be able to do things on my own."

#EXCLUSIVE | 'People who know me knows 'Cheeta kaise kaam karta hai' Chetan Cheeta to @anubhabhonsle pic.twitter.com/ZA1ybyzIkB  News18 (@CNNnews18) April 21, 2017

His wife Uma Singh described the events of the day and how she flew out to Srinagar to be with her husband and how an air ambulance was, fortunately, available and was diverted to Srinagar which was originally flying to Imphal. She said, "It all fell into place."

Halfway through the interview Anubha Bhonsle, executive editor of CNN-News18, who conducted the interview read out messages from some of the CRPF jawans who wanted to share their thoughts with their commander.

When asked if he would like to continue working in the security sector of India, the 45-year-old said that he is due for a promotion and that he has asked for a posting as commander of a COBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) unit. When asked what does a soldier desire, he said, "A soldier wants recognition for his work and when he doesn't get that he gets disheartened. This is happening in the Army right now."

He added, "Wars are not won by numbers alone, need spirit too."

On a parting note, he advised his troops, "Hold the gun till the last minute and listen to the nation."

Cheeta was injured in the gunfight between three suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba militants and a joint team of CRPF, Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police on 14 February morning in Parraypora village, located in Bandipora district's Hajin area.

The operation was conducted after security forces got a tip-off about the militants having holed-up in the village. Eight people  seven security personnel and one civilian  were injured in the gunfight.

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had expressed happiness on his recovery saying, "I would want to thank the team of doctors for their effort. Its a miracle as I never thought Cheeta would talk to me."
New Delhi: European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, on Friday, held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on a range of issues including on preparations for the annual India-EU summit scheduled to be held in Delhi later this year.

Mogherini also held delegation-level talks with Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar during which they discussed progress on decisions taken during the annual summit in Brussels last year.

Mogherini is in Delhi on a two-day visit.

In the meeting, the EU side is understood to have pushed for early resumption of talks for the long-pending free trade pact between India and the EU.

India's bilateral investment pacts with several European countries are expiring and citing this, the EU has been strongly pushing for moving ahead with the free trade agreement which is known as the EU-India Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA).

The EU has been pressing India to extend by six months its bilateral investment pacts with several EU-member countries which are expiring soon, saying absence of the treaties could adversely impact trade ties and FTA talks.

India's existing trade and investment pacts with the Netherlands came to an end in November while similar pacts with several other EU countries are expiring in the coming months.

The EU has been maintaining that expiry of the pacts will make it difficult for European countries to go for fresh investments in India. The body wants India to first give the extension to the pacts and then move ahead with BTIA.

The BTIA talks have been stalled since May 2013 when both sides failed to bridge substantial gaps on issues like data security status for the IT sector.

Launched in June 2007, negotiations for the proposed agreement have witnessed many hurdles as both sides have major differences on crucial issues.

In the last EU-India Summit in Brussels, the two sides had failed to make any announcement on resumption of the negotiations as many bottlenecks still remained.

The two sides are yet to iron out issues related to tariff and movement of professionals but the EU has shown an inclination to restart talks.

Besides demanding significant duty cuts in automobiles, the EU wants tax reduction in wines, spirits and dairy products, and a strong intellectual property regime.

On the other hand, India is asking the EU to grant it 'data secure nation' status. The country is among nations not considered data secure by the EU.

The matter is crucial as it will have a bearing on Indian IT companies wanting market access.
Chhindwara (MP): At least 14 people were charred to death in a major fire that broke out during sale of of kerosene oil and various food grains at a fair price shop in a village near Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, senior officials said.

The blaze started in a cooperative society building, which housed the shop, in Bargi village under Harrai tehsil and engulfed the entire single-storey structure, Chhindwara Superintendent of Police Gaurav Tiwari told PTI.

At least three dozens people were inside the building and many others standing in a queue outside at the time of the incident, he said.

14 dead in fire that broke out at a ration store in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara district. pic.twitter.com/teiLVtQIWl  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

"So far, 14 bodies, three of them of women, have been recovered from the building," the SP said adding three persons were injured.

The tragedy took place when villagers were buying ration during the Friday weekly market. The fire reached the kerosene drums stored in the shop for distribution and quickly spread to all directions, eyewitnesses said.

Soon after getting information, the police and district administration officials rushed to the spot along with fire tenders and brought the blaze under control, the SP said.

He said the cause of the fire was not yet known.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan expressed grief over the loss of lives in the mishap and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh each to the kin of those killed and Rs 50,000 each to the injured.

Chhindwara Collector J K Jain also confirmed the death of 14 people in the tragedy and said a magisterial probe has been ordered.

Among the injured, two were referred to the neighbouring Narsinghpur district hospital, while the third one was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Harrai tehsil, he said.

The government also sanctioned Rs 10,000 each for conducting the last rites of the deceased, the collector said.
As if banning of cow slaughter and the rise of the gau rakshaks were not enough to indicate that the BJP-led government is extremely serious about cows, Minister of State (Home Affairs) Hansraj G Ahir told The Indian Express that government is mulling a proposal to set up cow sanctuaries on the lines of Tiger Project.

Ahir expressed concerns over protection of cows and proposed that every state must have cow sanctuaries. "We need to stop cow slaughter, but the biggest stumbling block is who will take care of these cows We need to make cow sanctuaries for this, and need to make arrangements for fodder also," he told The Indian Express.

He further said that the proposal has been discussed with the Ministry of Environment and plans are on to expedite the proposal.

The Gujarat assembly on 31 March made its anti-cow slaughter law the toughest in the country with the offence now becoming non-bailable and punishable with a life-time in jail. Immediately after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came to power, the Uttar Pradesh administration began crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses. A Muslim man was recently beaten to death by cow vigilantes in Rajasthan's Alwar district.

Khan and at least four others were injured when a mob attacked nearly 15 persons hailing from Haryana, while transporting cows in vehicles on the Behror highway. Reports suggested that Khan and the others were beaten up even after they produced valid documents.

According to Indiaspend, as of March 2017, cow slaughter has been prohibited in 84 percent of states and Union territories, which account for 99.38 per cent of the population.

Project Tiger was launched in 1973 by the Government of India to ensure conservation of the tigers. Does the minister suggest that cows require the protection and care on the scale usually reserved for endangered species?

With inputs from agencies
As the tussle between the Central government and the judiciary over judicial appointments continues, the Supreme Court has refused to agree to a government veto on a judges appointment on grounds of national security, according to a report in The Indian Express. The report alleges that the Union government used adverse Intelligence Bureau reports to reject the candidature of six former judges for posting as chairpersons or members of tribunals and commissions.

The six judges, according to The Indian Express, include two judges who recently retired from the apex court; two who retired as chief justices of high courts; and two former HC judges.

The names of the judges were sent for approval to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) after due diligence by the administrative ministry concerned, according to the report. According to The Indian Express, four of the six former judges were not cleared and approved for the job by the ACC on accounts of "adverse IB reports", while the names of the other two were sent by the committee without attributing any reason.

The Indian Express reported that this rejection of judges by the committee, based on IB reports which contain little or virtually no corroborative evidence, is bound to make it harder for the Chief Justice of India to persuade retired judges to accept such posts.

Meanwhile, according to The Tribune, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said that the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) is in the process of being finalised.

The Tribune reported that Prasads statement was at variance with that of Chief Justice of India JS Khehar who had on 20 March said that the MoP for the appointment of judges has finally been cleared and vacancies of judges in high courts would be filled expeditiously.

A bench headed by Khehar, while disposing of PILs seeking to fill vacancies for reducing the huge pendency of cases, said progress has been made and the number of posts of judges in high courts would be increased by 25 percent.

Earlier, last month the Supreme Court collegium finalised the MoP for the appointment of judges in the higher judiciary, ending a year-long face-off with the executive by agreeing to include the contentious clause of national security in the selection of judges. It had agreed to the national security clause, which the government had been insisting be included as one of the necessary criteria for appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.

The collegium after deliberations had also agreed on setting up secretariats in the apex court and the high courts to collate data about judges and assist in the selection procedure for their appointment to the higher judiciary.

The Tribune further reported that the law ministers statement is indicative of the fact that the tussle between the NDA government and the top courts collegium over some tricky issues in the MoP, including rejection of appointments on the ground of national security, is not yet over.

With inputs from PTI
Washington: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has strongly raised with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross India's concerns over the Trump administration's move to tighten the H-1B visa regime, highlighting the key role played by Indian professionals in boosting the American economy.

President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its "abuse" and ensure that the visas are given to the "most-skilled or highest paid" petitioners, a decision that would impact India's $150 billion IT industry.

The Indian IT industry has expressed serious concerns over the US' move to tighten the rules for grant of the H-1B visa, mainly used by domestic IT professionals for short-term work.

During the meeting, Jaitley raised the issue of recent executive orders which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime. He outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.

During the meeting  the first cabinet-level interaction between the two countries under the Trump Administration  Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H-1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on them yet, they said.

Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administration's objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly-skilled professionals.

The executive order signed by Trump earlier this week calls for a review of H-1B visas by the departments of State, Labour, Homeland Security and Justice.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. Indian technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year for their US operations.

The US market accounts for about 60 percent of the revenue of the Indian IT industry.

Reforming the H-1B visa system was one of the major election promises of Trump. As per several US reports, a majority of the H-1B visas every year are grabbed by Indian IT professionals.

India accounts for the highest pool of qualified IT professionals, whose services go a long way in making American companies globally competitive.

As mandated by the Congress, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) every year issues 65,000 H-1B visas and another 20,000 to those applicants having master's and higher degrees from a US educational institution.

Jaitley, leading an Indian delegation, arrived on Thursday to attend the annual Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Over the next two days, the Finance Minister is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, Australia, France, Indonesia and Sweden. He is also likely to meet finance ministers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Stressing that India-US relationship has bipartisan support in both the countries, the finance minister during his meeting with the US commerce secretary, said the two largest democratic countries of the world over the years have developed strong strategic, economic and defence ties.

The three phone conversations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump had, along with the officials meeting, has shown that the two governments are going to build on this momentum in the years to come, the officials said.

Briefing Ross on India's growth story, Jaitley is believed to have given him an insight into a series of "far-reaching reforms" being undertaken by the Modi government

post-demonetisation including the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The US Commerce Secretary Ross congratulated Jaitley on making the GST a reality, an official statement said in New Delhi.

Jaitley said the two countries should be able to move towards achieving the goal of $500 billion per annum in bilateral trade in the next few years.

The finance minister was accompanied by the India's Ambassador to the US, Navtej Sarna and Secretary Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das.

In addition to his meetings and presentations at the annual Spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, Jaitley is also scheduled to attend meetings of other multilateral forums including that of the G-20 finance ministers.

Before leaving Washington DC for New York on Sunday, he is expected to interact with think-tanks and eminent Indian-Americans.
Washington: The Indian-American community in the US has launched a White House petition, seeking the Trump Administration's intervention to save Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for alleged espionage and subversive activities.

Created by one SS, the 'We the People Petition' on the White House website said the allegations against Jadhav that he was spying for India are totally false and fabricated.

The petition requires at least 100,000 signatures before 14 May to qualify for a response from the Trump Administration.

"The fact that India is not given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated," it said.

"In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which he never committed, the petition said.

Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and subversive activities Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy."

The Pakistan Army had also released a "confessional video" of Jadhav after his arrest.

However, India denied Pakistan's contention and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by the Pakistan authorities.

India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.
Wednesday's ruling by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Bellandur Lake in Bengaluru came as a huge boost to various civic organisations and activists, citizen forums and resident associations fighting for the lakes right to breathe. The NGT ordered all industries discharging effluents into the Bellandur Lake to be shut down and also imposed a Rs five lakh fine on anyone found dumping either municipal solid waste or domestic waste into the lake.

Further, it ordered the Karnataka government and its agencies like the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), Karnataka Lake Development Authority and Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) to get cracking on the job of desilting the lake and clear it of all pollutants within a month, and also to get an action plan ready within a fortnight. The NGT also told the agencies to ensure no new untreated sewage enters the lake and inspect and analyse the effluents from the industries around the lake to ensure that they were within permissible limits.

Following this NGT ruling, The Times of India reported on Thursday that 97 water based industries polluting Bellandur Lake had been served closure notices by the KSPCB from the 486 industries it had identified in a five kilometre radius of the lake. Most of these industries are small-scale units working in the areas of dyeing, washing, laundry, garments, leather tanning and automobile repair.

That, the government has acted so swiftly is good to see, especially as the Bellandur Lake has been much in the news for frequently frothing, foaming and catching fire  the last such incident being as recent as February this year.

One of the largest lakes in Bengaluru, the Bellandur Lake is spread across 917 acres and situated in the southeast of Bengaluru. It is also one the most polluted of lakes and its polluted water flows into Varthur Lake, which too has had a record of catching fire a few times. Bellandur Lake receives around 40 to 45 per cent of the city's sewage and has a catchment area of around 148 square kilometres or 37,000 acres.

However, this is not the first time that the NGT is showing its ire at the Karnataka government. It had taken objection to the state government interpreting its May 2016 order of maintaining a buffer zone around lakes from 30 metres to 75 metres; it also pulled up the various government agencies for not stopping sewage discharge into the lake and for not following its earlier orders to clean up the lake after last years fire.

But is this all possible in a month  the deadline set by the NGT to desilt the lake? Bearing in mind that Bellandur Lake is also the largest and most polluted of Bengalurus lakes, with toxic effluents, including methane that caused the earlier fires?

Firstpost reached out to Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO, Namma Bengaluru Foundation (NBF), which is at the forefront of the various civic organisations, like The Forward Foundation, Citizens Action Forum and other citizens bodies and resident welfare associations, fighting for Bellandur Lake. He told Firstpost that a lot could be achieved in a month by state agencies. "De-weeding; fencing of the lake; and sewage quantification exercise  time for guesstimates is over, measure how much MLD sewage is really being released into the lake; continuously monitor the water quality; and ensure that industries work according to the norms and strictly monitor them for compliance," he said.

In fact, he felt that most of the short-term measures suggested by the expert committee formed by the BDA could be achieved in six months, which is the time frame suggested by the committee.

This expert committee was formed under the chairmanship of the chief secretary to the state government, comprising heads of various government agencies and representatives from the civic bodies and resident welfare organisations. As CEO of NBF, Pabbisetty is a member of this expert committee.

Meanwhile, Professor TV Ramachandra of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), who is also part of this expert committee, had famously declared last year through a study he had undertaken  with his colleague Dr Bharath H Aithal of the Centre for Ecological Sciences from IISc  that Bengaluru would be a dead city in five years. The IISc report pointed to the unbridled growth of 525 percent of built-up area, 78 percent decline in vegetation, and 79 percent decline in water bodies as major reasons for the citys decline.

The IISc report stated that 54 percent of lakes had been encroached upon by illegal buildings, untreated sewage was being sent to 66 percent of lakes, 14 percent of lakes were surrounded by slums, 72 percent of lakes had losses of catchment area and that there was a lack of a proper policy on land use and water.

So, what are the short-term recommendations of this expert committee?

Among those listed on the BDA website are:

-Regular harvesting of macrophytes that help in curtailing nutrients accumulation.

-Stopping the dumping of municipal solid and construction and demolition waste.

-Evicting all waste-processing units (in the vicinity of lakes and the lake bed).

-Ensuring all apartments let only treated water to the lake.

-Providing water quality details and inflow to the lake.

-Installing online water quality monitors at the treated water outlets from a 250 MLD Sewage treatment plant (STP).

-Installing surveillance cameras; to ensure zero untreated effluent discharges by industries.

-Putting in place surprise environment audit mechanisms; and ensuring the free passage of water by restoring storm water drains, waste weirs, freeing of all debris; and improve aeration by installing fountains.

To be fair to the government, it undertook a massive demolition drive last year around storm water drains. This drive was undertaken, following NGTs ruling in May 2016, when it had directed government agencies to demolish or disallow any further construction around 75 metres from lakes and 50 metres around primary storm water drains. Meanwhile, the Central governments sanctioned Rs 800 crore under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme to Karnataka to mitigate pollution in the lakes  of which, Rs 500 crore was for laying a 74-kilometre-long trunk sewage pipeline and Rs 162 crore to construct four sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Bellandur Lake. Of these, one STP is expected to become functional by July and another one is also expected to be completed later this year.

Last month, the state government even invited experts from the UK and Israel to examine the Bellandur Lake, to find solutions for its clean-up.

NDTV quoted Sam Morgan, head of Bluewater Bio Ltd, as saying, "Biologically, it is dead on the surface, but you have lots of plant life, so there is potential there. We can treat the incoming waste water, get rid of the pollution, get rid of the oxygen load on the lake  and the lake will then clean itself up."

Of the 280 or so lakes in Bengaluru in 1993, only 100-odd lakes still exist, of which around 17 lakes are considered healthy ones. The city has been steadily losing its lakes over the past few decades to contamination from immersion of idols, sewage inflow, debris lining the shores, erosion of tree cover and unrestricted commercial fishing.

Interestingly, one of Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs pre-poll budgetary announcements in March, was the cleaning up of all the lakes in Bengaluru. He had even told corporators and officials recently, to "make Bengaluru a smart city and not a smart thoti (garbage bin)", and utilise all their grants and get cracking on implementing all projects by December. And, what the government can definitely hope to achieve by December, is the implementation of all the short-term goal recommendations of the expert committee of the BDA.

After all, this could impact the Congress' re-election chances next year, when Assembly elections are announced in 2018.

Meanwhile, the citizens fora have to continue to be vigilant. And towards, this, the NBF announced on Wednesday, the formation of a 10-member committee, called United Bengaluru for Bellandur  comprising petitioners, local residents and experts to ensure implementation of the NGTs directions.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday asked all states to ensure the safety of Kashmiris living in different parts of the country. Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiris, the home minister said they are like any other Indian and an advisory is being sent by the home ministry to all states to ensure the safety and security of people from the Valley.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all chief ministers to ensure the security of Kashmiris," he told reporters in Delhi.

I appeal to all states,they should ensure safety of all Kashmiris anywhere in country.They are also equal citizens of India:HM Rajnath Singh pic.twitter.com/aJgrA0qJYu  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were receiving threats.

Condemning the incidents, the Home Minister said proper inquiry should be initiated in each case and strongest possible action should be taken against the guilty. Singh said that Kashmiris are like any other Indian.

"The contributions of the people of Kashmir in nation building are immense. They are like any other Indian. I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well. They are part of the family," he said.

Rajyon ko kaha hai ki koi bhi Kashmiri bacchon ke saath kahin badsalooqi karta hai uspe kadi karyavahi ki jaaye: HM Rajnath Singh pic.twitter.com/QDp06DGmwG

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were being threatened after the latest incidents of stonepelting and assault on security personnel by Kashmiri youths in the Valley.

Banners calling for the boycott of Kashmiris and asking people from the Valley to leave Uttar Pradesh have come up in Meerut. The banners have been put up by a little-known outfit, Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena. Its chief Amit Jani said that they have put up these banners and hoardings along the Partapur bypass outside the colleges where Kashmiri students study.

Police said that action will be taken against those putting up such hoardings. But the outfit said it is only the first step and it will launch a "halla bol" campaign from 30 April to "banish" the Kashmiris who do not leave the state on their own.

Reports from Rajasthan said tension prevailed in Chittorgarh on Wednesday when a group of locals clashed with a few Kashmiri students of Mewar university after they were allegedly called "stone pelters" and taunted over a video showing a CRPF jawan being heckled in the Kashmir Valley.

A video clip of some youths assaulting soldiers on their way to poll duty in Kralpora area in central Kashmir's Budgam district had gone viral on social media recently, drawing nationwide outrage.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear in detail a plea seeking probe into alleged torture, rape and extra-judicial killings by the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in the border areas of West Bengal.

The plea has also challenged the constitutional validity of Section 46 of the BSF Act, which provides the situations in which a BSF personnel can be tried by a Security Force Court, and Section 47 which deals with the condition when a security personnel can be prosecuted by an ordinary criminal court.

Initially, the bench was not inclined to hear the plea filed by Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha, a Kolkata-based NGO, saying there were provisions in the BSF Act which provided the circumstances in which an ordinary regular court can try a BSF personnel for criminal offences.

"If an encounter is genuine, then there is nothing to worry as section 46 (of the BSF Act) will come into play. And if it is not a genuine encounter, then the personnel is not considered to be on active duty and can be tried by the ordinary court as described under Section 47," a bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justices DY Chandrachud and SK Kaul said.

Bijan Ghosh, appearing for the NGO, said the trial of an errant BSF personnel before the Security Force Court is opaque and hardly leads to the conviction and claimed that the two provisions of the Act are unconstitutional.

The apex court in 2012 had issued a notice to the Centre on the plea alleging torture, rape and extra-judicial killings by the BSF personnel in the border areas.

The court was hearing the plea of the NGO which alleged that there were more than 200 cases where the BSF personnel had indulged in extra-judicial killings or torture in these areas and the cases were never probed by the state police.

"The present case will show the procedure followed by the West Bengal Police makes a mockery of the rule of law. This petition pertains to the cases of torture or torture followed by extra-judicial executions of more than 200 Indian nationals by the BSF between 2005 and 2011," the NGO has alleged.

"In over 100 cases, there are eye-witnesses to the BSF taking into custody the person concerned and there are eye-witnesses to the torture in custody of the person concerned, leading to his death," it has claimed.

The petition alleged that instead of registering an FIR against the BSF personnel, it is registered against the deceased and the case is closed on that basis.

"As a result, not a single one out of more than 200 cases, of torture and killings, set out in this petition, has been investigated by the police," the petition said, alleging that "thus the BSF operates above the law."
Haute Living Honors Richard Gere With Rolls-Royce And Hublot (Photo : Getty Images)

Since a lot of Hollywood producers now consider the Chinese film market when making movies, the situation is seen by actor Richard Gere as the reason why he had not made a big Hollywood blockbuster movie in 10 years.



Richard recalled a recent incident when someone told him that they would not finance a film if he is cast because it would upset the Chinese who have been co-producing movies with Hollywood studios. Chinas dislike for Richard stems from his speech in 1993 during the Oscar awards, according to The Hollywood Reporter.



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Horrendous Human Rights Situation in China



While he was presenting the nominees for the art-direction category, the Pretty Woman actor drew attention to the horrendous, horrendous human rights situation in China. It also does not help that Richard is a practicing Tibetan Buddhist and a friend of the Dalai Lama whom Beijing also despises.



Four years after he made the remark, Richard starred in 1997 in the film Red Corner. His role was an American businessmen who was wrongfully accused of murder in China. While he said everyone was happy with the movie which he was promoting, MGM, the producer, told him to stop the promotions for the film. At that time, MGM was negotiating with the Chinese who threatened not to buy the rights to the movie, News.com.au reported.



MGM released the movie which got mixed reviews. But the critics liked Red Corner which gave Richard and Jon Avnet the 1997 National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award.



Indie Films



The actor, given the situation, is now sticking to movies made by smaller but independent productions that do not aim for the Chinese market such as the upcoming film Norman. However, once, a Chinese director working for an indie producer had to back out of the movie or remove Richard from the cast because the director's family and his career were threatened.



But the actor is not affected financially by the lack of a big Hollywood film because his net worth is estimated at $250 million. The influence being exerted by Chinese film producers in terms of content, which the U.S. Congress has expressed alarm over, appears to have some basis.


The Supreme Court of India lambasted the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre for making Aadhaar card a mandatory prerequisite to avail government services. The government was told that the Aadhaar can only be an optional requirement, as per the court's earlier ruling on the issue.

Supreme Court asks Centre 'how can u make Aadhar card mandatory when we have passed an order to make it optional?'  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

The court was making the observations while hearing a PIL filed against the government's decision of making Aadhaar compulsary.

To this, the Centre responded saying Pan cards were found to be misused, and the only option to combat this problem was to make Aadhaar mandatory. "We found a number of PAN cards were being used to divert funds to shell companies. To prevent it (from happening), the only option was to make Aadhar card mandatory," said Attorney General of India, Mukul Rohatgi, appearing in the Supreme Court on the government's behalf.

AG in SC: We found a no.of Pan cards being used to divert funds to shell cos,to prevent it the only option is to make Aadhar card mandatory.  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

Last month, the government had said it is mandatory to use one's Aadhaar card while filing Income Tax returns. The move was purportedly part of the Centre's efforts to battle the menace of black money. Aadhaar is also a must while applying for a Pan card.

This apart, an Aadhaar number has also become mandatory to seek free gas connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. Those below poverty line (BPL) women looking to avail free LPG connections but do not have the Aadhaar number, have been asked to apply for it by 31 May.

The Supreme Court had said in August 2015 that Aadhaar cards will not be mandatory for availing benefits of government's welfare schemes, and had also barred authorities from sharing personal biometric data collected for enrollment under the scheme.
What percentage of a man's salary should go as alimony to one's estranged wife? The Supreme Court has set this figure at 25 percent, calling it a "just and fair" amount.

As reported by The Times of India, the apex court made this observation while directing a resident of West Bengal's Hoogly district earning Rs 95,527 a month, to pay Rs 20,000 towards alimony to his ex-wife and son. The man had appealed in the Supreme Court against an earlier Calcutta High Court order.

The high court had asked the man to pay Rs 23,000 as alimony, and while the Supreme Court said there was nothing remiss in the order, it did reduce the amount by Rs 3,000, since the man has since remarried and also needs to pay to provide for his second family.

"Twenty-five percent of the husband's net salary would be just and proper to be awarded as maintenance to the (former) wife. The amount of permanent alimony awarded to her must be befitting the status of the parties and the capacity of the spouse to pay maintenance, which is always dependent on the factual situation of the case... and the court would be justified in moulding the claim for maintenance passed on various factors," the bench said.

This is the second decision on alimony the apex court has taken in under a month, coming just days after it held that a woman is entitled to maintenance from her estranged husband even if she was the one deserting him.

As reported by The Times of India on 7 April, the Supreme Court faced a dilemma when one Manoj Kumar challenged a judgment of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, which had ordered him to pay an alimony of Rs 3,000 per month to Champa Devi despite the divorce being granted on ground of desertion.

The apex court had held that though the woman isn't entitled to maintenance as per legal technicality, social welfare should dictate she should get alimony after divorce if she is unable to sustain herself.
The Supreme Court on Friday said it cannot pass an order for reclaiming the Kohinoor from the United Kingdom or to stop it from being auctioned.

Disposing off a plea seeking directions to bring back the treasured diamond to India, a bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar said it cannot ask a foreign government not to auction a property. The court made it clear it could not pass an order with regard to a property which was in another country.

"We are quite surprised that such petitions are filed for properties which are in the USA and the UK. What kind of a writ petition is this," the bench, also comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and SK Kaul, commented.

The apex court referred to an affidavit filed by the Centre and said: "the Government of India continues to explore ways and means with the UK government on the issue."

The petitions, filed by an NGO, the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front, and Heritage Bengal, a registered organisation, were tagged together by the court last year.

The pleas had said "India won independence in 1947. But successive governments at the Centre have made little or no attempt to bring back the Kohinoor diamond from the United Kingdom to India, the place of its origin."

"Whenever issues have been raised, central governments maintained on the floor of Parliament or in reply to RTI queries that Kohinoor is an Indian artifact but claims for repatriation thereof cannot be made for the same is not covered under the UNESCO Convention, 1972.

"The lackadaisical approach of successive Governments in making positive and meaningful diplomatic parleys has not been in the national interest. All attempts on the part of the petitioners and other right-thinking persons to activate the central government have failed," the pleas had said.

The Centre had earlier told the Supreme Court that Kohinoor was neither "forcibly taken", nor "stolen" by British rulers but given to the East India Company by the rulers of Punjab.

The apex court had then asked whether the government was willing to stake a claim to the Kohinoor, one of the most valuable diamonds in the world.

The Centre had then said that the demand to get back Kohinoor have been raised time and again in Parliament.

Kohinoor, which means mountain of light, is a large, colourless diamond that was found in Southern India in early 14th century.

The 108-carat Kohinoor gem, which fell into British hands during the colonial era, is the subject of a historic ownership dispute and claimed by at least four countries

including India.

The pleas had sought directions to the Indian High Commissioner in the United Kingdom for the return of the diamond, besides several other treasures.

Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Culture, High Commissioners of UK, Pakistan and Bangladesh were made as parties in the case.

The NGO's PIL had also sought the return of the "ring and talwar of Tipu Sultan and other treasures of Tipu Sultan, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Rani of Jhansi, Nawab Mir Ahmad Ali Banda and other rulers of India."
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday awarded seven-year jail term to two members of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group after their application for pleading guilty to charges against them was allowed.

Those convicted by District and Sessions Judge Amar Nath are Sheikh Azhar-ul-Islam alias Abdul Sattar Sheikh and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh alias Mohammed Rafiq Shaikh.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested Sheikh Azhar, Mohammed Farhan and one Adnan Hassan alias Mohammad Hussain in January last year on charges of involvement in a conspiracy to identify, motivate, radicalise, recruit and train potential members for the international militant group.

While the first two have pleaded guilty, Adnan Hassan is currently in judicial custody and facing trial.

"They were members of terrorist organisation and got themselves associated with their activities. That may be their folly either on account of misguidance or lack of maturity of mind and circumstances," Judge Amar Nath said.

"This court needs to take into account positive aspect from their act of pleading guilty."

The court felt that the convicts had realised their mistakes and were willing to repent for their acts and deeds.

"In this case, the convicts should get an opportunity to reform themselves and be good citizens of this country," the judge observed.

"Keeping in view the facts and circumstances, I am of considered opinion that there is a necessity to show some leniency while imposing punishment on the convicts, but at the same time, a wrong message should not go to the society," the court said while awarding them the jail term.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 12,000 on each of them.

The NIA submitted before the court that the accused had shown their repentance for their acts and requested the court to consider that the accused's action was a move towards re-connecting with society.

Sheikh Azhar's counsel had sought leniency for his client on the ground that he was young, unmarried and the sole bread winner of his family, while Mohammed Farhan's counsel sought leniency citing his poor family background and no previous criminal record.

Both the accused requested the court to take a lenient view of their acts, which could give them an opportunity to lead a normal life.

In their applications, both of them had pleaded that they were remorseful of their actions.

"We want to return to the mainstream and be productive for society and want to rehabilitate ourselves," they said, adding that their guilty plea was made without any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence.

Sheikh Azhar hails from Jammu and Kashmir while Mohammed Farhan is from Maharashtra. Adnan Hassan is a resident of Karnataka.

The court observed that the accused were members of a terrorist gang, who entered into a criminal conspiracy and acted as a frontier group of the IS for inciting, motivating, inviting and facilitating people of different nationalities to leave their respective countries and travel to Syria to support its further activities.

The court also noted that they organised meetings of like-minded persons and also instigated people who disregarded national boundaries and motivated people of different nationalities to travel to Syria.

The court convicted them under Section 40 (raising funds for terrorist organisation) Section 39 (giving support to terrorist organisation), sections 38 (membership of terrorist organisation) and 20 (member of terror group), Section 18 (conspire to do a terrorist act) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
A village of books in Maharashtra, called 'Pustakanche Gaon' in Marathi, is set to open on 4 May 2017. Stretched over 2 km, it is located at Bhilar, which is roughly 8 km away from the hill station of Panchgani.

Pravin Bhilare, a resident of this village, provided his premises for the purpose of stacking books for public reading. Apart from this, roughly 25 other premises including three temples, two schools, several houses and homestays in the Bhilar village have been offered up for this cause.

75-odd artists were asked by the Maharashtra government to paint the premises that are to be used for public reading. Last week, the artists participated in a three-day painting camp to cover the walls with paintings and graphics that indicated which genre of books are placed there, resembling the demarcations used in libraries. Each of the 25 premises have different paintings.

"These artists voluntarily accepted our invitation and boarded a bus to Mahabaleshwar to paint the walls in the village with their imagination. The outcome was amazing and for people to see," said minister Vinod Tawde.

This initiative was crowd-sourced by inviting artist and art-lover network Swatva, which operates over Whatsapp, to decorate the village.

Bhilar is likely to have the highest per capita availability of books for any village in the country, as 10,000 books will be made available for reading for a population of 10,000 people. This means that the ratio of book to person will be 1:1. This village earns Rs 40-50 crore annually from its produce of strawberries.

Tawde also praised the people of the village, describing them as enthusiastic and saying that they understood the concept very well. The idea for this book village is inspired by Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town known for its book stores and literature festivals. The Bhilar book village was supposed open in November 2015, as announced by Tawde himself.

The minister said that the village will have an Indian look, and that the goals behind setting it up were promoting tourism and the Marathi language.

As of now, all the books provided by the Maharashtra government are in Marathi. Books written in Hindi and English will be added to this collection, and they will comprise roughly 15-20% of the total books. Author interactions, literary events and book-reading sessions will also be conducted in the village.

It is being reported that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is likely to attend the inauguration of this village of books.
Patna: A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad said on Friday that he too would soon meet the AICC chief for a stronger opposition unity against the BJP.

"Definitely we will talk about the present political conditions and also the ways to forge a stronger unity between the secular and the socialist parties against the BJP," said Prasad.

The RJD chief said a Bihar-like grand alliance was required at the national level to check the BJP's political surge.

"It has been seen that wherever the secular and socialist parties have fought together, they have won elections against the BJP. But where they fought separately, they have lost," said the RJD president.

Referring to the grand alliance of the RJD, the JD(U) and the Congress inflicting a massive defeat to the BJP-led NDA in 2015 assembly poll in Bihar, he said the parties lost to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh due to lack of wider unity.

Prasad praised the Congress saying it played a crucial role in independence struggle for the country and for its post-independence growth.

Nitish Kumar, also the JD(U) president, had on Thursday met Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and was learnt to have discussed the need for forging unity among the opposition parties to take on the BJP-led NDA.

The JD(U) also used the meeting to call for a joint opposition candidate for the election to the President's post and urged Gandhi to take the lead in the matter.
The tone from Greenways Road, O Panneerselvam's official residence, was anything but conciliatory. Former minister KP Munuswamy, one of the senior leaders in the Panneerselvam camp, ridiculed Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Thambidurai calling him a person with no following, labelled Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy a Sasikala appointee and admonished Finance Minister D Jayakumar for his comments. At the heart of the hard talk is a feeling in the OPS camp that Palaniswamy is taking them for a ride.

Panneerselvam's associates are convinced that the disassociation from Sasikala and TTV Dinakaran (also spelt as Dhinakaran) is a set-up. Independent sources also indicate that Dinakaran was told that if he is seen as throwing in the towel easily, the ruling party could at a later date, use its good offices with Delhi to help water down the cases against him. With his back to the wall, Dinakaran agreed to lose the battle today with an eye on winning the war for AIADMK at a future date.

"It is a conspiracy," said a senior OPS camp leader to me, requesting that he should not be named, "Dinakaran is the mastermind. They have just stepped aside for some time. They will still control the affairs of the party without appearing to do so."

What has got the OPS camp annoyed is Palaniswamy's refusal to cede the chief minister's chair. With Dinakaran having softened his stand, the MLAs loyal to him are also expected to fall in line and this will mean Palaniswamy's group of 122 MLAs will stay intact, with no threat to the government.

Which is why within the EPS camp, many of the constituents of which do not like the way Panneerselvam's stature has risen in the past two months, the question being asked is whether they really need OPS to survive. They feel that after declaring a divorce from Sasikala and family, they too have been washed of the Mannargudi taint. And that OPS has no locus standi to call himself the only Mr Clean.

The problem with that position is that the public does not buy into it. And while EPS could carry on as chief minister, he will have to spend much of his time looking over his shoulder for any MLA turning into a black sheep. Just half a dozen legislators could terminate his innings in the top job.

Then there is the elephant in the room: The Income Tax Department. More than anything else, the Damocles sword of an I-T raid has got many seniors worried, especially those whose names are believed to be under the radar. The I-T raid on Health Minister C Vijayabaskar's properties rattled them and anyone with skeletons in his cupboard, feels he could be next. It is this group that is pushing EPS, trying to convince him to hold merger talks and accept the formula of OPS as chief minister and Palaniswamy as his deputy. Except that there is no precedent of a chief minister stepping down to become a deputy.

But those opposed to this idea ask if OPS can be trusted to ensure that tainted ministers will not get a knock on their door if they are on his right side. The trust deficit is extreme on both sides.

As far as Panneerselvam is concerned, until two days ago, he was reportedly open to the idea of becoming only general secretary. But others around him convinced him that he would be writing his political obituary by not insisting on the chief minister's chair. They told him that if the EPS government is bad, he cannot defend it at election time. The OPS group also feels that it can draw power only if their man is the chief minister.

The hard talk is dictated by the OPS camp belief that at this point in time, a snap poll will be in its interest. They feel nothing much is going to come out of the merger and even if they do under pressure from Delhi, the OPS aura will only lose momentum by 2021  when the next Assembly election is due. They feel now is the time to encash the goodwill OPS has and try to form the government without the baggage of the Palaniswamy camp and Sasikala. An alliance with the BJP is part of that plan, although to offset the drop in vote share, Panneerselvam may have to woo other smaller parties like the PMK and the DMDK to its fold.

Which is why OPS is making it tough to arrive at a reconciliation by insisting on a CBI probe into J Jayalalithaa's death and that the Mannargudi clan should be publicly humiliated by being shown the door. The Palaniswamy camp argues that it has already declared Sasikala persona non grata on its own and not at Panneerselvam's bidding.

With both sides hardening their positions, the ball, rather ironically, is in the court of a third political party. If it reads out the riot act and insists on a merger by laying down the conditions on the table, errant politicians could be forced to fall in line. The future of the AIADMK will then depend on how the mediator sees its own political future in Tamil Nadu.

Politics indeed is stranger than fiction.
Faizabad/New Delhi: Ram Vilas Vedanti, a former BJP MP and an accused in the Babri mosque demolition case, on Friday claimed it was he and not the BJP patriarch LK Advani who incited the frenzied karsevaks to pull down the disputed shrine.

"I demolished and got demolished the disputed structure, the ruin that stood there. The accusations against LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia are wrong," he said.

Vedanti's remarks came two days after the Supreme Court resurrected the conspiracy charge against Advani, Joshi and Union Minister Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

Vedanti said, in fact, Advani, Joshi and Scindia even took the microphone from him and tried to persuade the

karsevaks to come down from atop the structure and leave. They even made the plea in English, he later told a TV news channel.

Vedanti said he, Mahant Avaidyanath, also a former BJP MP, and VHP leader Ashok Singhal exhorted the karsevaks to raze the disputed structure. Both Avaidyanath and Singhal are now dead.

He told India Today TV channel he was prepared to be "hanged" for the cause of Ram temple.

When asked was his claim an effort by him to "derail" the trial against BJP veterans, Vedanti said," I have spoken about this earlier too."
The differences in the PDP-BJP coalition government are spilling into the open with the parties engaging in a war of words over stone-pelters and the deteriorating law and order situation in the Valley. The verbal duel began after the PDP lost a supposedly safe seat to BJP in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council and Chandra Prakash Ganga, BJP MLA from Vijaypur, Samba district, said that stone-pelters in Kashmir were anti-national and that they should be dealt with bullets.

The controversial statement by a minister in the coalition government came at a time when the government led by Mehbooba Mufti is struggling to return normalcy to the streets of the Valley and after young Kashmiris across ten districts marched to protest against the security forces' "excesses" against the students of the degree college in Pulwama, where more than 50 students were injured on the college premises.

PDP vice-president Sartaj Madni, responding to Ganga's statement, said that such utterances were not only "disgusting" but also "perilous", adding that it was unbecoming of a senior minister to dish out such a sweeping, sickening and intimidating statement against Kashmiri youth.

Instead of reaching out to the distressed and alienated Kashmiri youth, the hawkish rhetoric of such fringe elements has the danger of further adding to alienation of people and impeding the governments efforts to restoring peace, Madni said in a statement.

Late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed entered into an alliance with the BJP only with the objective of bridging the gulf between people of different regions of the state to new heights of inclusive development and prosperityUnfortunately the unwarranted statements of such fringe elements are negating the basic philosophy of this alliance.

However, BJP state president Ashok Koul told Firstpost that Ganga's remark was his personal opinion and not the stand of the BJP. Our alliance has come on the plank of development and we would abide by that. What individual leaders say is not the stand of the party, he said.

The remarks by Ganga has further strained the already tense atmosphere between the alliance partners and embarrassed the BJP partner, which is demanding Ganga's immediate resignation. The cracks deepened further after Peoples Democratic Party lost a berth last week in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly after Syed Bakir Rizvi, an independent lawmaker from Zanskar area in Ladakh, decided to vote for the BJP at the last moment.

In the Assembly, BJP has strength of 26 members and the support of two MLAs of Sajad Lones Peoples Conference, while PDP has 29 MLAs. As per the understanding between the coalition partners, Rizvi had to cast one vote for PDP candidate Abdul Qayoom Dar to ensure his victory but the party decided otherwise and preferred voting for their candidate.

And the BJPs victory on an unsafe seat and PDPs defeat on a safe seat in the council has only deepened this rift. Senior PDP leaders have already taken up the matter with senior functionaries of BJP in New Delhi.

They want to have everything," Nizam ud Din Bhat, general secretary of the PDP, told Firstpost. "It is the responsibility of both parties to follow coalition dharma. It was decided by party leaders not to attend the oath-taking ceremony of the newly-elected members of council to protest against poaching."

Yasir Reshi, the lone elected member of PDP, did not take the oath, although he was seen in the council secretariat minutes before the ceremony began. Yes, I boycotted the oath ceremony. But it was my personal decision, not of the party. What happened during elections was a big shock to me, Yasir said.

The Bharatiya Janata Partys core group meet in New Delhi to discuss the situation in Kashmir also sent shock waves through the PDP. According to reports, some top BJP leaders said the Centre must consider imposition of Presidents rule in the state. Only time will tell how the coalition of compromise fares.
Political churning has begun over possible changes in who governs Jammu and Kashmir. Tensions are high between the main coalition partners: PDP and the BJP. A series of meetings were underway on Friday. Even if this does not lead to an immediate split, recent events have certainly put the coalition on thin ice.

At some point, a period of Governors rule may ensue, after which Delhis political strategists might try to install an alternative civilian government. According to rumours in Srinagar, BJP leaders are in touch with a prominent PDP politician who could help them to cobble an alternative government.

As is well known, they also had a pow-pow with the top leaders of the National Conference immediately after fiasco that was the Srinagar by-election. Party patron Farooq Abdullah won the seat following repolling in some booths a couple of days later.

However, the Centres strategists might not adequately read the quicksand that is Kashmiri politics. They might find that events move too swiftly and dramatically for them to keep control.



Army repression

Over the past couple of weeks, the different attitudes of each major coalition partner to tough army action has caused strains. Kashmiri youth have been terribly upset at a series of videos showing army men battering, abusing and torturing young Kashmiris.

What has upset PDP leaders even more is that these videos appear to have been leaked by the army. Such vicious, abusive repression seems tailor-made to satisfy the irate 'teach them a lesson' mood that has increased among many citizens.

On the other hand, an FIR against the army officer who allegedly tied a young Kashmiri voter to a jeep to deter stone-pelting at polling booths in Budgam has upset many BJP supporters. They, and many others, who view Kashmiris as generically 'anti-national' support harsh, even abusive action.

The wide support for the humiliation of a voter who was tied to a jeeps front fender indicates that many make no distinction not only between militants and stone-pelters, but also no distinction between demonstrators and law-abiding citizens.

A war of statements followed. A BJP minister, who had made some pithy anti-Muslim statements during the 2008 agitations too, said the army ought to shoot troublemakers. PDP vice-president Sartaj Madani gave a very sharp retort, saying that such disgusting utterances are unjustifiable and perilous.



Politicians terrified

This political polarisation comes at a very bad time in Kashmir. The abysmal turnout for the by-election combined with a spree of killings by militants has demoralised political workers, officials and policemen across the Valley.

Politicians are terrified, from the topmost echelons to the grassroots. Armoured BSF vehicles were parked across the gates of former chief minister Omar Abdullahs house this week, with huge spikes to puncture tyres laid just behind. One of those gates is already gaudily vast and reinforced. In towns and villages, thousands of political workers have published statements disassociating themselves from politics.

The police have been asked to stay away from their own homes. Meanwhile, extortion and threats have become common. Some villages now defy army cordons. Militants' ranks are swelling, and they roam freely, spreading terror amid the sympathy generated by those army videos.

Festering sore



The terrible jolt which the by-election fiasco, the new regime of militant terror, and the viciousness that has become apparent in the armys conduct have all contributed to bringing the rift between the main coalition partners to the surface. Both sides believe it is time for tough talk with the other.

The fact remains that the Centre has given short shrift to the agenda for alliance which the two parties hammered out over ten weeks at the beginning of 2015. Not only that, the Centre starved the state of funds right until Mufti Sayeed, the first chief minister of this coalition, died on 7 January, 2016.

The Centre's leaders trust his daughter and successor Mehbooba Mufti even less than they liked him. While Mufti cajoled and pleaded with the Centre for the last six months of his life, Mehbooba has largely remained unhappily guarded.

For the most part, her government has been in low gear, and her party in a near coma.
Longchamp Luxury Fashion House (Photo : Getty Images)

France's Longchamp has set its eyes on the China luxury market. Taking into account the huge potential for growth, more outlets of the luxury fashion house will be opened in China as the company seeks to expand its presence, according to Longchamp CEO Jean Cassegrain.



Advertisement

Currently, we have 18 stores in China. There is a potential for us to open stores at new locations and there are still cities where we are not present, Cassegrain said.



The Chinese economy continues to grow, and with that growth, the number of people considering luxury purchases increases because of higher incomes, he said.



The Longchamp CEO is also positive about the companys vision in China's luxury market.



In October, we will open a new store in Beijing, at a landmark shopping mall on Wangfujing Street, Cassegrain said, noting that the company also considers putting up outlets in second-tier cities like Changsha.



On Thursday, the Paris-based fashion house opened its flagship store at the Kerry Center, located in the heart of Shanghai.



The Shanghai store will feature the widest range of Longchamps collection in China which includes women's ready-to-wear, shoes, handbags, leather accessories, men's collections and luggage bags.



According to Cassegrain, the flagship store in Shanghai is an important investment and a milestone for the brand.



Aside from Longchamp outlets, Chinese customers can also purchase the French luxury items using online platforms such as the official WeChat account of the brand.



It is our plan to continue developing online channels in China, said Cassegrain.



Longchamp was established in Paris in 1948 by the Cassegrain family. Up to the present, the family still owns and manages the brand.



It has a wide range of products, with collections of handbags, luggage, accessories, and shoes to ready-to-wear items. Longchamp products are now available in 80 different countries through a network of 1,500 points of sale.



France's Longchamp hopes to expand its business in China's luxury market, benefitting from the countrys rising middle class.


Hitting out at Ram Madhav, the architect of the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, the education minister in the coalition government  Syed Altaf Bukhari  said on Friday that the BJP general secretary is trying to legitimize the acts by armed forces in Kashmir which have been termed as illegal under international law.

Madhav, while speaking to CNN-News18, had justified the controversial video in which armed forces are seen using a Kashmiri man as shield in front of their jeep. I compliment the major for not allowing both these things to happenIf I were to blame anybody today for that scenario, it would be those who were responsible for failing to send reinforcements when the situation was critical and it was informed to the seniors. In a war and love, everything is fair. Madhav told CNN-News18.

Is it a war declared against Kashmiris who despite all odds casted their votes reaffirming their belief in democracy? Or it is a war declared to satiate the sanguine electoral interests of a particular political party in the country, Bukhari was quoted in a statement.

The PDP and BJP are seemingly on a war-path after Madhav defended human shield incident saying all is fair in love and war. Taking a strong exception Bukhari said one fails to understand against whom has Madhav declared war!

These statements smack of a hyper-nationalist environment in the country. Unfortunately, people with right-wing approach consider any support for human rights in Kashmir to be anti-national. Let Madhav be reminded that no civilised society can afford to use it's citizens as shields for military operations, said Bukhari, the close aid of the chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

He also said modern nations operate under the presumption that in the case of an armed conflict, the State must do everything to ensure civilians are not hurt. However, Madhav seems to be justifying what is unjustifiable. Almost all general legal approaches consider human shields illegal both in domestic circumstances and international conflicts.

If Kashmiris are perceived as enemies and anti nationals why BJP agreed in principle for the agenda of alliance calling for dialogue with all stakeholders, good relations between India and Pakistan, maintaining status quo on Article 370, steps for revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Afspa), opening of new cross-LoC route, settlement of issues of refugees etc., Bukhari asked in his statement.

On the one hand Honble Prime Minister Narendra Modi compliments our chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and on the other hand BJP ministers and leaders act in contradiction to those compliments. It seems a difficult and vitiating scenario is being created to hamper her performance on the ground, Bukhari observed.

The differences in the PDP-BJP coalition government are spilling out into the open with the two parties indulging in the war of words over the deteriorating law and order situation in valley.

The separatists too have condemned Madhav's statement saying it was a historical fact that the "founders of RSS had met Mussolini and Hitler" and were inspired by these enemies of humanity.

Hitler and Mussolini killed people in gas chambers without any regret and today Ram Madav and somebody called Ganga by issuing nonsensical statements are proving their fascist credentials, said Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik, while reacting to Madhav's statement that killing and terrorising Kashmiris was absolutely right thing to do.

Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani too hit out at Madhav for defending the forces saying human shield incident illustrates their national policy about Jammu and Kashmir'.

They have declared war and his statement stands testimony," said Geelani, while referring to the statement of Ram Madhav. It is a clear clean chit to forces to carry massacre in state, he added. Geelani said that it is red signal and carry perilous message for forces to go ahead with killings and serves an apparent threat to people.

The moderate faction of the Hurriyat conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that finally the cat is out of the bag and Madhavs statement condoning and complimenting the army for using a civilian as a human shield reflects the BJP's mindset and approach towards the people of Kashmir.

"Madhav's justification of this inhuman act as 'everything being fair in love and war' finally is an open admission by the Government of India that it considers itself at war with the people of Kashmir and will treat Kashmiris as such," Mirwaiz said in a statement.
Kolkata: Describing the political situation in the country as "terrible", West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday reinforced her message to all the regional parties to come together to corner the BJP.

"I am giving the message to all the regional parties, be together, be united. My party will stand by all of you. Because this is the right time that the parties unite for the people," Banerjee said at the end of a party programme.

"A terrible thing is going on in the country in the name of politics. The situation in the country is such now that this is an opportunity for all the regional parties to get together and fight united," she said while addressing the party workers after the organisational election of the party for the national council members.

Taking a swipe at the BJP-run central government, the Trinamool Congress supremo said she would travel all over the country to convince people for building an allied front if the BJP tries to capture Bengal.

"If they take up the strategy to capture Bengal, my strategy is to go from place to place in the country and unite everyone," she said.

Banerjee also asked her party workers present at the meeting to consolidate the party in the state and help the neighbouring states when needed.

She urged everyone to take the next two years as a challenge to fight day and night until the "wrongdoers" are toppled at the Centre.
New Delhi: Over 56,000 police and paramilitary personnel will be deployed to ensure that the

upcoming city civic polls are conducted without any glitches.

Dependra Pathak, chief spokesperson, Delhi Police and special commissioner of police (Operations) said a total of

774 premises and 4,748 booths in the city are sensitive and hypersensitive.

There are adequate and full security arrangements in all facets, including anti-terror measures by Delhi Police, he said.

There are 13,022 booths in total and various Delhi Police units, paramilitary, CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces)

personnel will be deployed to ensure that no untoward incidents take place, said the officer.

"As many as 56,256 personnel will be deployed for the elections. There will be 40 companies of paramilitary and CAPF personnel and 20,000 Home Guards will be deployed. Apart from this, various Delhi Police units will be looking after their areas," said the officer.

The officer said the sensitive and hypersensitive booths have been identified on parameters including the number of cases registered in the area, demographic composition, experience during previous elections.

Following consultation with government and election authorities and the above parameters, these areas have been

earmarked.

"There are 573 sensitive and 197 hypersensitive premises respectively that have been identified. Out of the 13,022 booths, 3,284 have been declared sensitive and 1,464 hypersensitive. There will be deployment of more forces at these places," said Pathak.

According to the officials, south district tops the list with maximum (585) sensitive booths. Shahdara district has 114 sensitive booths, the lowest among all districts.

The southeast district has 382 hypersensitive booths, the highest among all districts while the northwest district has the lowest (15) hypersensitive booths.

Some of the prominent hypersensitive areas of the city are Tughalakabad, Jamia Nagar, Sangam Vihar in southeast

Delhi; Seemapuri in Shahdara, Seelampur in northeast Delhi; Adarsh Nagar, Bharat Nagar in northwest Delhi; Karol Bagh, Patel, Chandni Mahal in central Delhi; and Najafgarh, Mundka, Sultanpuri, Nangloi in outer Delhi, the officials said.

The civic polls are slated for 23 April.
With just a few days to go before the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in an interview with Hindustan Times said that if AAP comes to power, "MCD will only be run by Kejriwal."

"The BJP is seeking votes only, and only, in the name of Modiji. I would like to tell people that Modiji is not going to run MCD MCD will only be run by Kejriwal," HT quoted Kejriwal as saying.

The strange part, though, is that the MCD is supposed to be an autonomous body. So, neither the BJP nor the AAP is supposed to run it.

He also alleged that BJP had unnecessarily stopped much of the development works or proposals by the AAP.

"In our budget last year, we allocated around Rs 250 crore for safety of women. We identified 40,000 dark spots across the city. We decided to make those areas well-lit. The BJP got a resolution passed in the MCD House that we will not allow installation of streetlight on MCD roads if they are funded by the AAP government. Who lost due to such petty politics? The women of Delhi," HT quoted him as saying.

He also said that in the 10 years of BJP in MCD, people of Delhi could not remember one work done by the BJP-ruled MCDs. "When you remember two years of AAP in government, everybody names at least these: Power rates halved, free water, potable water in taps in some areas, improved conditions in hospitals," he said.

He added that the Delhi government had taken action against the mafia and would also "demolish" the mafia in MCDs.

Kejriwal also accused the BJP of trying to cover up its corruption in the three municipal corporations by projecting the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the civic polls, and asserted the strategy would not work.

Citing poor sanitation in the national capital which is leading to a rise in vector-borne diseases such as dengue, he told PTI there is no hope from the BJP and that the only hope for the people of Delhi is his party.

"The hope of the BJP is only Narendra Modi through which the party wants to cover up its corruption and the poor sanitation condition... How will Modiji improve the situation in MCD. Work in the MCD will not be undertaken by Modi, but local BJP leaders Vijendra Gupta and others," Kejriwal told PTI in an interview.

He also accused the BJP of "completely destroying" the MCD during its 10-year rule.

The elections to all the 272 wards of the three civic bodies where the BJP, Congress and the AAP are locked in a triangular battle will be held on Sunday.

With inputs from PTI
The picture below could very well be passed off as a manuscript from the medieval era, which philologists are racking their brains over, trying to decipher. As it turns out, this document is very much from the 21st century. It was retrieved from the records of the central control room, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, to be precise, and comprises of complaints made by citizens.

This snapshot encapsulates exactly what is wrong with the complaint redressal mechanism of the municipal corporations of Delhi. Among the government departments, which provide services to the people, the municipal corporations of Delhi (MCDs) have by far the highest number of pending complaints.

This does not come as a surprise, as the civic bodies provide services which touch upon almost every aspect of the daily lives of citizens  be it roads, buildings, schools and hospitals. But for a government authority that arguably requires the most interaction with citizens, the civic administration of Delhi has a surprisingly inefficient way of dealing with complaints.

The mind-boggling multiplicity of authorities is just one part of the story. Registering a grievance with the civic body is another tough ordeal. There are multiple ways in which one can lodge a complaint with civic bodies in Delhi. This can be done by physically going to the office of the municipal corporation, writing a letter to the authority or through a telephone call to the municipal office.

However, the data on the number of complaints received through different mediums is not properly synchronised and there is no citizen-friendly tracking mechanism to find out if the complaint has been resolved, or if any action has been initiated.

What further muddles the situation is that different authorities, which provide the same service, have different modes of complaint. Thus, as of now, the onus lies on the citizen to make sense of the maze of interconnected authorities while registering a grievance.

This is an unfortunate state of affairs for two reasons: On one hand, citizens find it cumbersome to track the complaints they have filed, as the authorities are not proactive in informing them about the status of their complaints. On the other hand, authorities have little means to understand the big picture on just how good or bad the state of various civic services is.

For governance to be responsive, it is important for citizens to be able to track their grievances after they are lodged. There needs to be a single complaint number which can be tracked across multiple mediums of communication  personal visit, telephone call or website.

Equally important, there needs to be one unified helpline number to complain about all major civic services provided by different authorities. Particularly in a set-up like Delhi, it cannot be the responsibility of the citizen to know which authority is responsible for which service. The complaint redressal mechanism must forward it to the authority which is in charge of providing the particular service.

Further, complaints cannot be allowed to disappear indefinitely into a black hole. There needs to be a mechanism to automatically escalate complaints to higher levels if they are not resolved within a stipulated period of time. This period can be decided in accordance with the citizens charter.

Also, at present, there is no way to find out if citizens are in fact satisfied with the resolution of their complaints. The need of the hour is to institute a complaint audit mechanism to assess this aspect. This can be done by conducting a random survey of complainants after their grievance has been resolved, at the municipal corporation's end.

If these measures are adopted, they will simplify governance for the citizens, as also for the authorities. With the MCD elections around the corner, one hopes that the new councillors will mark a new beginning.

Praja Foundation is a non-partisan organisation working towards enabling accountable governance
Leaders of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have spoken against their chief Raj Thackeray and blamed him for the party's disastrous performance in the recently-concluded civic polls. In a rare show of dissent in a party where Thackeray's word is law, the leaders who met Thackeray to review the party's poor performance said that the cadre felt rudderless and that the party has no specific ideological stand.

Speaking to The Indian Express, one of the MNS leaders said, "There has been discontent among our party workers that the leadership is not accessible and that we do not have a strategy in place for the growth of the party. It was not a confrontation but the leaders today chose to speak their mind before the chief." The leaders told Thackeray that the cadre wanted the MNS to dilute its sons of the soil agenda.

MNS had suffered a crushing defeat in the 2014 Assembly election also, with its tally reduced to just one seat in the Legislative Assembly from the previous 13 MLAs.

Thackeray, however, said that the party will not dissociate itself from the Marathi Manoos. "Doesnt matter if we dont get votes, I wont budge from the Marathi Manoos agenda. Those who dont agree with me can take a call and leave," Mumbai Mirror quoted him as saying. He was addressing a meeting of the party office-bearers and the leaders to take stock of the MNS' organisational set up and the defeat it suffered in the civic polls, including in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Dismissing charges that he is inaccessible, Thackeray also said that he has always been available to his party workers.

According to the party sources, senior leaders Bala Nandgaonkar, Nitin Sardesai, and Aditya Shirodkar were tasked to prepare a detailed report of the MNS' performance in the BMC polls, where the party's tally came down to seven seats from 28 seats it had won in 2012. MNS was also routed in Nashik civic body, where it was the ruling party.

Sources said the report was submitted to Thackeray on Thursday. The report further said that the MNS workers have expressed that Thackeray did not properly highlight the issues faced by the common people and also failed to take them to their logical end. The meeting also discussed the need to take along all sections of the society living in Mumbai, a party leader said, suggesting the deviation from the party's the sons of the soil agenda.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, more leaders may quit if the party doesn't show any signs of revival. Top MNS leaders such as Pravin Darekar, Ram Kadam, Ramesh Patil and Vasant Gite, all former legislators, have already switched to the BJP. The report further added that the leaders spoke against Thackeray, when the MNS head reprimanded the party leaders for failing to take the party message to the masses. The party leaders also tried to convince Thackeray that the party needed to woo other communities, considering the changing demographics. Thackeray dismissed the suggestion and refused to dilute his Marathi Manoos agenda. "You should have done more hard work," Hindustan Times quoted the leader.

With inputs from PTI
Lucknow: Barely four months after it was thrown open to the public, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's ambitious Lucknow-Agra Expressway project has come under the scanner of the Yogi Adityanath government.

The expressway is being scrutinised for an alleged scam, involving farm land being passed as land for residential purposes to get higher compensation.

According to official sources, the state government has directed 10 district magistrates to probe all land deals done in around 230 villages over the last 18 months. It has hired public sector company RITES to conduct a technical survey of the expressway within a month.

The move comes after a special field officer of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), Y N Lal, filed an FIR in Firozabad against five chakbandi (land consolidation) officers and 22 landowners accusing them of showing agriculture land in Bachhela Bachheli village as land for residential purposes.

Around 3,500 hectares of land was purchased from 20,456 farmers in 10 districts of 232 villages for this project.

UPEIDA chief executive officer Awanish Awasthi told PTI that he has sent letters to the district magistrates concerned on 19 April. The idea is to ensure that genuine farmers are not affected, he said.

The previous Samajwadi Party government had claimed that the 302-km long expressway was constructed in record time and then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav often peppered his election speeches with the mention of his "dream project".

The present government claims that around Rs 670 crore allotted for the project is lying unused in its accounts.

Around Rs 200 crore of this amount is with the district magistrates and the rest were with the UPEIDA, despite around 99.5 percent of land for the project have already been purchased.

The district magistrates have been asked to return funds lying with them, while the amount with UPEIDA has been reversed, officials said.

The expressway, which cost Rs 15,000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unnao, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi. It has an airstrip near Unnao, where fighter planes can land, making it unique.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been reviewing the schemes of the Akhilesh Yadav government, including the Samajwadi Pension Yojana, Gomti riverfront project,

Smartphone Yojana and cycle track project.

He has also ordered a thorough review of the prestigious Yash Bharti Awards, started by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1994, saying that giving them away to undeserving persons lowers the prestige of such an honour.

The government has also instructed magistrates of districts along the proposed Poorvanchal Expressway, connecting Lucknow and Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh, to

stop land consolidation in 19 villages of Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur districts till land acquisition is completed.

So far, the government has purchased about 35 percent of the land required for this project.
You will make a monumental mistake if you assume that the trial of the patriarchs of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Babri Masjid demolition case is a setback for the saffron fold. Those who have a faintest idea of the saffron brotherhoods philosophy and functioning of Indian jurisprudence would never fall for such naive assumption.

On the other hand, there are unmistakable signs that the road for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya would be greatly facilitated with the BJP firmly in the saddle in Delhi and Lucknow. LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi , Vinay Katiyar and Uma Bharti have outlived their utility in the Sangh Parivars larger project and hence deserve to be treated as individuals.

It is deeply ingrained in the training of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the cause is more sacrosanct than individuals. But there is an inherent flexibility in the saffron familys approach when an individual often symbolises the cause. In 1990s Advani happened to emerge as the most potent symbol and rallying point for the Ayodhya movement. Advani continued to enjoy the unconditional trust of the RSS , Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and his own party  the BJP.

After demolition of the mosque on 6 December,1992, the Ayodhya movement gradually lost its relevance as a make-shift temple came up at the site. Advani along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee retained his primacy in the partys scheme of things as Hindutva posterboy and steered the party to attain the power at the Centre in 1998 and 1999. But Advani's tenure as the home minister became suspect in the eyes of the saffron fold on account of his wavering commitment to the Ram Temple.

If you have any doubts, then try to remember the face-off he had with the RSS-VHP leaders on the issue of mobilisation of karsevaks in Ayodhya during his tenure as the home minister. Advani ordered a crackdown on VHP-inspired mobilisation in a fashion no less ruthless in its efficacy than that ordered by VP Singh-Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1990. In his utterances, he was seen as leader keen to distance himself from the temple agenda and eager to assume the mantle of a Hindu moderate much to the chagrin of the Parivar. In the six years of Vajpayee-Advani regime, Ayodhya was not even a blip on the partys political radar.

Contrast that with todays scenario in which neither the Centre nor the Uttar Pradesh government is apologetic about pursuing the Parivar's greater objectives of "nation building" which is quite in consonance with building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. With Adityanath Yogi as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state government would be more keen than ever to drop even a pretense of secular values. Of course, Adityanath is more determined than anybody to see to it that the project bears fruition sooner than later.

Unlike other BJP leaders, Adityanath is not a dyed-in-the-wool politician. He is essentially a head of a Hindu religious peeth with a deep commitment to religious beliefs and faith. He knows it well that following the recent election that saw complete marginalisation of traditional Muslim leadership, those championing the cause traditional secularism stand thoroughly discredited in the eyes of Muslims. And this offers an opportune moment to make determined moves for arriving at a conciliation to pave way for temple construction at Ayodhya.

With the Supreme Courts direction to revive the conspiracy case against the BJPs patriarchs and other leaders and expedite the case, the issue of Ayodhya will grab centre-stage once again. In this context, the day-to-day trial will give enough scope for the saffron fold to revive the issue and take it to the logical end, that is, construction of the temple. In such a situation, Adityanath would play a critical role not only as a political executive but also as a religious leader of eminence.

Far from being a setback, the Supreme Courts intervention in the case against Advani, Joshi, Uma and others has revived the Sangh Parivar-inspired Ayodhya movement at the most critical phase. As it progresses, the sight of Advani, Joshi, Uma and others going in and out of court room at Lucknow for trial would become a side story. In it's latest avataar, the Ayodhya story will have new heroes like Adityanath who may be instrumental taking the Sangh Parivars political project to fruition much sooner than we anticipate.
Britain may be leaving the EU but it will still have to settle the divorce bill in euros, not pounds, according to an EU document on the upcoming negotiations on Thursday.

"An orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union requires settling the financial obligations undertaken before the withdrawal date," said the European Commission document.

"The agreement should define the precise way in which these obligations will be calculated... the obligations should be defined in euro," it added.

The document did not say how much the Brexit settlement might cost was but EU officials have previously said it could be as much as 60 billion euros, sparking howls of outrage in London which puts the figure nearer 20 billion.

Titled "Non-Paper on key elements likely to feature in the draft negotiating directives," the document was drawn up for the European Commission, which will conduct the Brexit negotiations with Britain.

It covers in more detail the same ground outlined last month by EU president Donald Tusk in response to Prime Minister Theresa May's official March 29 notification that Britain was leaving the bloc.

Citizens' rights

Tusk stressed then that the EU will insist on agreeing the future of citizens in Britain and the Brexit bill first before considering London's demand for a free trade pact.

The Commission document outlined its aims for a reciprocal deal for EU citizens in the UK and Brits elsewhere in the bloc, saying their rights should last "for the lifetime of those concerned" rather than giving a cut-off date.

The Brexit divorce settlement should not just be limited to workers, the paper said, and should also apply to family members who join citizens "at any point in time before/after the withdrawal date".

Residency and social security were also highlighted by the Commission as rights it will seek to protect in the two-year negotiations with London, as the two sides try to undo the mass of legislation agreed since Britain joined then European Community in 1973.

Both the divorce bill and the fate of EU citizens are expected to be among the toughest areas to reach agreement on, following a Brexit campaign which rallied against Britain's payments to Brussels and the number of migrants in the country.

Anticipating possible disputes, the draft paper envisaged setting up "an institutional structure to ensure an effective enforcement of the commitments under the agreement," while maintaining the primacy of the European Court of Justice.

For disputes outside EU law, "an alternative dispute settlement should only be envisaged if it offers equivalent guarantees of independence and impartiality as the ECJ," it added.
Iran is "not living up to the spirit" of the nuclear deal struck with world powers, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, warning America would set out its position on that soon.

Trump's administration has been publicly tightening the noose on Iran over the deal, which was negotiated by the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany to roll back Tehran's nuclear program in return for the easing of sanctions.

"It was a terrible agreement," said Trump, who has regularly blamed his predecessor Barack Obama for securing it. "That was a bad one, as bad as I've ever seen negotiated."

"Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement, and they have to do that," Trump said in a joint news conference in the White House with Italy's visiting Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

"We're analysing it very, very carefully and will have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future."

Iran under US pressure

Trump on Tuesday ordered a review of the deal led by his National Security Council. It will decide whether suspending sanctions "is vital to the national security interests of the United States."

Although the State Department admits Iran has so far stuck to its side of the bargain, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday called the pact a failure and warned Iran risked becoming another North Korea: a hostile, nuclear-armed state.

He said Iran is "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" and highlighted its military support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Houthi rebels in Yemen and militias in Iraq and in Lebanon.

"Iran's provocative actions threaten the United States, the region, and the world," Tillerson said.

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis reinforced that tone during a visit to Saudi Arabia, when he said Iran was the source of many problems in the Middle East.

On Thursday, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, followed up by calling Iran the "chief culprit" in conflicts in the Middle East and urged the UN Security Council to make handling the country a "priority."

Iran's ambassador to the UN, Gholamali Khoshroo, hit back by accusing the United States of waging a "misleading propaganda campaign" against his country.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter that "worn-out US accusations can't mask its admission of Iran's compliance" with the nuclear deal.

Deal still intact

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program has no military purpose. But world powers were not convinced and the accord provided for regular inspections of facilities.

Thus far, Trump has made no steps to tear up the deal, as he had threatened to do when campaigning to become president.

And Tehran has given no indication of wanting to ditch the deal, properly known as the JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

But Iranians in their day-to-day lives have not seen as much advantage from the eased sanctions as they had hoped.

Disappointment over their continued economic stagnation has created an opening for conservative candidates in May 19 elections who are opposed to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who helped oversee the nuclear deal's conclusion.

US military might

In the US, Trump has backed down from a number of policy positions he took on the campaign trail, as the political novice embarked on a steep learning curve since taking office in January.

After calling NATO "obsolete," he now endorses it as a "bulwark" of international security.

And he has softened an aggressive trade stance vis-a-vis China as he realised how key Beijing was to reining in nuclear-armed North Korea.

At the same time, Trump, who has appointed several generals to his administration, has not shied away from exercising American military might.

Trump ordered a multiple missile strikes on a Syrian air base suspected of being the launch point for an April 4 chemical attack on civilians that killed at least 87 people.

And last week his generals dropped, for the first time in combat, the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal on a complex in Afghanistan used by the Islamic State group.

Both those showy displays of force could be seen to be sending ominous messages to Iran  or at least a warning that there's a new sheriff in town.
WASHINGTON Finance leaders from the Group of 20 major economies were expected to discuss ways to better combat the financing of terrorism on Friday, in part as a way to demonstrate the value of the group to the Trump administration.The G20 session on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings comes just over a month after the group dropped an explicit pledge to fight against protectionism from the communique of its meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany, at the insistence of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.The G20 is not expected to issue a new statement after Friday's meeting, which comes amid tension between the Trump administration's plans to shrink U.S. trade deficits and IMF warnings that increasing trade barriers will stunt economic growth.

British finance minister Philip Hammond told reporters that multilateral anti-terrorism initiatives were on the G20 agenda and that Britain supports them. U.S. President Donald Trump has made efforts to stop the flow of money to terrorist groups and to sanctioned states such as North Korea a priority and has sought the help of other countries, including China.

Hammond said the anti-terrorism topic can help demonstrate to the Trump administration the value of cooperating through multilateral organizations.

"I think there is an appetite among G20, G7 partners to look for areas where we can demonstrate by our actions, rather than words, to the new U.S. administration how these multilateral organizations can help the U.S. administration to achieve its objectives," Hammond told reporters at the British Embassy in Washington.He said that there was a "healthy and helpful" recognition in the international community that Trump may need some persuasion about multilateral cooperation."The new administration comes into office with, shall we say, a degree of skepticism about the value of the multilateral organizations," Hammond said. "It's for the multilateral organizations to demonstrate their value." (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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MOSCOW Russia's Federal Security Service said on Friday that a gunman had burst into one of its regional offices in the far east of the country and opened fire, killing one of its employees and a visitor.The region where the incident happened is close to China. The FSB, the successor organisation to the Soviet KGB, said the attacker had been killed and that another person had been injured in the incident."An unknown person entered the reception of the FSB's Khabarovsk regional branch and started shooting at people inside," the FSB said in a statement.

The Site Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based monitoring service, said that Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the attack. It said that the claim of responsibility had been made through the militant group's Amaq news agency.

That contradicted earlier media reports, which said the FSB believed the gunman was a nationalist. The TASS news agency cited an unnamed FSB official as saying that the gunman was a local resident and born in 1999.The visitor who was killed and the one who was injured were from former Soviet states outside Russia, according to the security service.

Russia was this month shaken by a suicide bombing of the St Petersburg metro, which killed 16 people. The suspected suicide bomber and his alleged accomplices were from Central Asia.The man Russian police believe was the suicide bomber had developed an interest in Islam and soon after travelled to Turkey, two people who knew him told Reuters. (Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Denis Pinchuk; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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Ameen Mukdad, a Mosul violinist made his first public appearance since Islamic State took control of the Iraqi city in 2014. The musician held a small concert amid the bombed-out ruins of an ancient site revered by both Muslims and Christians in Mosul, on Wednesday.

Mukdad, 28, had to flee from Mosul to Baghdad to hide from the Islamic State militants who had confiscated his instruments, deeming his music a violation of their interpretation of Islam. Gunfire could be heard from Mosul's western district while Mukdad played the music he had composed, on instruments made of wood and old guitar strings, during his exile.

In October 2016 , the Iraqi government, with support from the US, began the operation to take back Mosul from ISIS control. Iraqi forces have taken control of the eastern part of the city, but Islamic State still holds some districts in the west.

The hour-long concert was attended by 20 people and marked his first return to the city that was controlled by Islamic State.
TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday sent an offering to a controversial shrine to Japan's war dead seen in China and the two Koreas as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, a move likely to spark protest, Kyodo news agency reported. The offering at the Yasukuni Shrine spring festival came as Japan seeks greater cooperation with China and South Korea in the face of rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

The premier is unlikely to visit the shrine during the festival, Kyodo said.

Visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni Shrine in downtown Tokyo have outraged Asian neighbours since the shrine honours 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with the other war dead.

Abe has visited the shrine in person only once, in December 2013, since becoming premier the previous year. Eager to improve ties with China and South Korea, strained by territorial and other disputes, he has instead opted to send ritual offerings on several occasions. (Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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On Thursday, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif received a temporary reprieve from the Supreme Court which said there was "insufficient evidence" to remove him from office but ordered setting up of a joint team to investigate the allegations of graft against his family.

However, if history is any indication, Sharif doesn't have much cause for concern. Despite Pakistan being plagued by corruption since its inception, and almost every past Pakistani prime minister and president being accused of corruption, Yousaf Raza Gillani remains the only Pakistan head of state to be convicted while in office. That too on charges of contempt of court for refusing to correspond with the Swiss authorities to reopen a money-laundering case against Asif Ali Zardari.

According to a report in News Line Magazine, the first attempt to check corruption came in 1949 under prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan. The Public Representative Offices Disqualification Act (PRODA) was invoked against two chief ministers. However, the law failed to check the tide of corruption and was denounced as "anti-democratic."

Many blame the military dictatorship of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq for institutionalising the culture of graft.

Indeed, during his time in power from 1978 to 1988, Haq repealed anti-corruption laws enacted by prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, introduced development funds for Members of the National Assembly and Members of Provincial Assembly and also wrote off bank loans taken by Haq's supporters, according to News Line Magazine.

However, according to a report in The Daily Journalist, corruption was arguably, at its worst between 1990 and 1999. In that decade, four democratically-elected governments under Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were alternately dismissed as a result of charges of corruption and misuse of power.

Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari

According to a report in The New York Times, between 1994 and 1998, a Swiss company that was hired to curb customs fraud in Pakistan also allegedly paid millions of dollars to offshore companies controlled by Bhutto's husband and her mother Nusrat. A gold dealer in the Middle East also reportedly deposited $10 million into an account controlled by Zardari after the Bhutto government gave him a monopoly on Pakistani gold imports, The New York Times reported. In fact, such was the cloud of corruption that hung over the Bhutto administration, that Zardari was nicknamed by the press as 'Mr 10 percent'.

In 1998, Pakistani investigators claimed they traced more than $100 million to foreign bank accounts and properties controlled by Benazir Bhutto and her family, according to a report in The New York Times. In 1995, French military contractor Dassault Aviation reportedly agreed to pay Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari and a Pakistani partner $200 million for a $4 billion jet fighter deal. The deal fell through when her government was dismissed.

Dawn reported that when Sharif was re-elected as Pakistani Prime Minister in 1998, he initiated the case, dubbed Swissgate, which accused Benazir and Zardari of embezzling $60 million in kickbacks in Swiss bank accounts. in 1999, Benazir and Zardari were found guilty of the scam in 2003, but the order was suspended on appeal. In 2007, Bhutto allegedly negotiated a deal with Pervez Musharraf who issued an amnesty law under which the cases were closed. Zardari was never convicted but remained in prison from 1997 to 2004 on charges pertaining to money laundering, corruption and murder.

Nawaz Sharif

Panamagate isn't Nawaz Sharif's first brush with the law. While allegations of corruption have chased him since the 1980s, Sharif was convicted for tax evasion and corruption in 2000, while he had been serving a life sentence for hijacking and terrorism. At the time, Sharif was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, fined 20 million rupees and barred from holding public office for 21 years. Sharif then went into exile and returned in 2007.
Pakistani prime ministers have to be a hardy lot. At any time, they may find themselves incarcerated in prison, unceremoniously thrown out of office, or even killed as in the case of two members of the Bhutto family. According to their detractors however, the booty is well worth the risk.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is no exception. After once having escaped the noose by a hairs breadth, he is now accused of not only disproportionate assets worth millions  that too in pound sterling, not rupees  as well as lying to the Parliament during his address to them. Three constitutional petitions essentially propelled by Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf forms the basis of the case. Simply put, it is charged that the prime minister was not 'Ameen (honest)'  a requirement of Article 62(1) (f) of the Pakistani Constitution for an MP. The clause would probably disqualify more than half of the parliament, but thats another story.

A reading of the 549-page judgment is indicative of the extreme scepticism of the court regarding the innocence of the Head of State and his family. Details of suspicious money movements abound, as do revelations of the activities of offshore companies. The court is however is equally harsh on State institutions. For one, the judges wonder how the Income Tax Department was able to give a clean chit to the person who paid "a few thousands" as tax between 1981 and 1991, when he was receiving "gifts worth Rs 200 crore" from his son at intervals. The Chairman National Accountability Bureau is charged with being "partial and partisan".

Other State institutions are lambasted as being "disinclined, disinterested, and unwilling" to remedy the plunder, since they are headed by handpicked officers. In the end however, the court was forced to rule 3-2 in favour of the prime minister, for a simple reason. In spite of more than 35 court hearings, no one can really prove who owns four mansions on Park Lane, London, which as everyone knows, is about as exclusive as it gets. These properties and two offshore companies are the main focus of the case, the judges having decided that to consider all of the various assets owned by the family would be nigh on impossible.

Even as Sharif went out to the cheering crowds and fawning sychophants, his manner hardly indicated any sign of relief or happiness. Indeed, the next two months are likely to be an edge-of-the-seat affair. While the court has directed the setting up of a Joint Investigative Team, perforce made up of the very same institutions that have been castigated as being indifferent to the point of criminality, it has added one officer from the Inter-Services Intelligence and one officer from Military Intelligence, to be nominated by their respective heads. The JIT is to give its findings in 60 days.

This is not a reprieve, its a looming tsunami for the Sharif family.

That the angry old man of Pakistani politics Imran Khan, who started this whole mess, is very affable to the deep state is generally acknowledged. His ambitions  and as we have seen, old men are deeply ambitious  may also have prompted him to launch this petition against his erstwhile friend and colleague. The deep state is also unhappy with Sharif as apparent from their props in the Urdu press who have accused the prime minister of kowtowing to India. The radical Right is even more incensed, following the prime ministers recent plea that religion should not be used to incite terror. All told, the prime minister is without friends, barring possibly the Pakistan Peoples Party which is also trembling in the wings, being another accused in "Panamagate".

The crux of the case is now whether the military establishment wants Sharif out of the chair or not. Left to itself, the JIC will meander into nothingness, unless it is prodded into actual investigation. The military can hardly prop up Imran, since his party is far from having anything like a national presence relative to the two major parties with just 33 seats in the 342-member National Assembly. Cobbling together a mess of allies will be no easy task.

Traditional "pro-establishment" parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur), have between them a mere 13 seats. Other Independents, or even the Muttahida Quami Movement, now under serious threat from divisions, could be roped in. The end result would be a prime minister perpetually rocking in his chair. Ideal, one would say, for the establishment. The alternative is the usual tried and tested policy, where a prime minister remains on a 'drip' with the strength of the dextrose decided by the establishment.

In such a situation, Sharif has the option of either resigning in good grace, or continuing with the army breathing down his neck. For an "Ameen", the choice would be obvious.

The author is former director of the National Security Council Secretariat
Paris: A known terror suspect shot dead a French policeman and wounded two others Thursday on Paris's Champs Elysees in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group days before a presidential election.

Observers had long feared bloodshed ahead of Sunday's vote in France following a string of atrocities since 2015 and the violence is likely to thrust security to the front of voters' minds.

The shooter opened fire with an automatic weapon on a police van on the world-famous boulevard at around 9 pm (7 pm GMT), prompting tourists and visitors to run for their lives.

After killing the officer and injuring his colleagues just a few hundred metres from the Arc de Triomphe, the gunman was shot dead in return fire while trying to flee on foot, police sources told AFP.

A statement from the Islamic State group published by its propaganda agency Amaq said the attacker was "one of the Islamic State's fighters."

The killer, identified as a 39-year-old French man, was known to anti-terror police, sources told AFP, and raids took place at his address in a suburb to the east of Paris.

He was condemned to 15 years in prison in February 2005 on three counts of attempted murder, including against police officers.

The impact on the outcome of the French election is unclear  Sunday is the poll's first round  but far-right leader Marine Le Pen, her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron, and scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon cancelled campaign events planned for Friday.

Up until now, surveys showed voters more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this would change in the event of violence.

The shooting comes two days after the arrest of two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the campaign.

French President Francois Hollande promised "absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process" and paid tribute to the police.

Security in campaign

Anti-immigration contender Le Pen earlier welcomed security moving to the heart of the campaign as she took part in a prime-time interview show alongside 10 other presidential candidates.

"We are suffering the consequences of a laxity that has continued for years," she said shortly before the shooting, promising to take a hard line against extremists and anyone suspected of being an Islamist.

For weeks, former banker Macron and Le Pen have been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a chance that any of four leading candidates could reach the election's second-round runoff on 7 May.

Conservative candidate Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.

"The first responsibility of the president is to protect," Macron said on the interview show. "This threat will be part of our daily lives in the next years."

Fillon, who penned a pre-election book called "Beating Islamic Totalitarianism", declared that "the fight against terrorism must be the absolute priority of the next president."

As the first details of the attack filtered through, US President Donald Trump said that "it looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It just never ends."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent her condolences.

State of emergency

The bustling Champs Elysees lies in the heart of Paris and is lined with shops and restaurants. It was immediately blocked by armed officers after the attack and nearby metro stations were closed.

"We had to hide our customers in the basement," Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting, told AFP, saying there was "lots of gunfire."

A spokesman for the interior ministry paid tribute to the fast reflexes of police at the scene who managed to kill the gunman and prevent further bloodshed on a busy spring-time evening.

A foreign tourist was slightly wounded in her knee by shrapnel during the shooting.

France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of terror alert.

The Charlie Hebdo magazine was hit in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall were targeted in November the same year, and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July 2016.

In between, there have been a series of smaller attacks, often aimed at security forces.

Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets, including government buildings and religious sites.

In February, a man armed with a machete in each hand attacked soldiers on patrol at Paris's Louvre Museum. The attacker, a 29-year-old Egyptian, was seriously injured.

And in March, a 39-year-old man was killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking a soldier.
By Leigh Thomas and Marine Pennetier

| PARIS

PARIS The killing of a policeman by a suspected Islamist militant pushed national security to the top of the French political agenda on Friday, two days before the presidential election, with leading candidates clashing over how to keep citizens safe. With the first round of voting in the two-stage election to take place on Sunday, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, an anti-EU politician who wants to ditch the euro, seized on the Paris shooting to push her policies on national security. Le Pen - narrowly trailing frontrunner Emmanuel Macron in opinion polls - said she would take steps to beat "Islamist terrorism" if elected, including introducing tougher immigration and border controls.Macron, a former economy minister in the government that Le Pen has criticised repeatedly for its security record, said the solutions were not as simple as she suggested. The centrist candidate, a political novice compared with his opponents, said there "no such thing as zero risk" and anyone who said otherwise was irresponsible. There are four leading candidates in a race that is still too close to call. Sunday's round of voting will be followed by a second-round runoff on May 7 between the top two candidates.Macron is in the lead with 24 percent of the first-round vote, ahead of Le Pen who had fallen back slightly to 21.5 percent, according to an Elabe survey of voter intentions taken before the shooting.Conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister, and the far left's Jean-Luc Melenchon were snapping at their heels with 20 and 19.5 percent respectively. The attack on Thursday night on the Champs Elysees boulevard added a new source of unpredictability to a closely contested election that will decide the management of France's 2.2 trillion euro economy, which vies with Britain for the rank of fifth largest in the world.The outcome could also have a bearing on France's place in Europe and the world. Should Le Pen win, it could deal a hammer blow to the European Union, which is still reeling from Britain's decision to leave the bloc. All the candidates are seeking to woo the high proportion of people that are undecided about who to vote for - 31 percent according to an Ipsos poll on Friday.Fillon also seized on the attack, which was claimed by Islamic State, saying the fight against "Islamist totalitarianism" should be the priority of the next president. "It's us or them," he said.

TRUMP TWEET

Financial markets though shrugged off the latest twist in the presidential campaign with French bond yields hitting a three-month low on Friday.The Champs Elysees shooting is the latest in a series of attacks by Islamist militants on France in recent years in which more than 200 people have been killed. A truck ploughed into people in Nice on Bastille Day last year killing more than 80 people while coordinated attacks across Paris including the Bataclan concert hall claimed about 130 lives in November 2015. There have also been attacks on a Jewish school, a satirical weekly and a kosher market.U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter that the shooting would influence the French election."Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!" he said.However previous attacks that have taken place soon before elections, including the November 2015 attacks in Paris ahead of regional polls and the shooting in a Jewish school before the 2012 presidentials, did not appear to change the course of those ballots in favour of those espousing tougher national security.

An assault on a soldier in February at the Paris Louvre museum by a man wielding a machete also had no obvious impact on this year's opinion polls, which have consistently said that voters see unemployment and trustworthiness of politicians as bigger issues.SECURITY FORCES ON ALERT

A French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in Thursday night's attack in central Paris.After an emergency meeting of security officials, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said security forces, including elite units, were on alert to back up the 50,000 police earmarked to ensure citizens' safety during the election."The government is fully mobilised. Nothing must be allowed to impede the fundamental democratic process of our country," Cazeneuve told reporters. "It falls to us not to give in to fear and intimidation and manipulation which would play into the hands of the enemy."

Controls on immigration and national security are cornerstones of Le Pen's National Front agenda and on Friday she said she would reinstate border checks and expel foreigners who are on watch lists of intelligence services. Macron was quick to respond to his rival's comments."I've heard Madame Le Pen saying again recently that with her in charge, certain attacks would have been avoided," he said on RTL Radio. "There's no such thing as zero risk. Anyone who pretends (otherwise) is both irresponsible and deceitful."TIGHT RACE

In the Elabe poll, which was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, both Fillon and Melenchon were seen narrowing Macron and Le Pen's lead over them.Should Macron and Le Pen make it to the second round, the former economy minister was projected to win the runoff - and thus the presidency - with 65 percent against 35 percent for Le Pen, the survey for BFM TV and L'Express magazine showed.Fillon, who has slowly clawed back some ground lost after being hit by a fake jobs scandal, saw his score in the first round rise half a percentage point to 20 percent.Melenchon, who would hike taxes on the rich and spend 100 billion euros ($107 billion) of borrowed money on vast housebuilding and renewable energy projects, gained 1.5 points to 19.5 percent as he built further on momentum he has seen after strong performances in television debates.If Melenchon makes it to the runoff, he is projected to beat both Le Pen and Fillon by comfortable margins although he is seen losing to Macron 41 percent to 59 percent.($1 = 0.9336 euros) (Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Ingrid Melander, Laurence Frost, Bate Felix, Jean-Baptiste Vey; Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Pravin Char)

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By Steve Holland and Phil Stewart

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump praised Chinese efforts to rein in "the menace of North Korea" on Thursday, after North Korean state media warned the United States of a "super-mighty preemptive strike."Trump told a news conference "some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours," and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would "try very hard" to pressure Beijing's ally and neighbour North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.While Trump gave no indication of what the moves might be, U.S. officials told Reuters that the United States was aware of a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers, signalling a possible heightened state of readiness. The officials played down concerns and left open a range of possible reasons.Those possibilities included defensive exercises or Chinese concerns over North Korea. None of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested alarm or signalled that they knew the precise reason for such Chinese activity. U.S. officials have been saying for weeks that North Korea could soon stage another nuclear bomb test, something both the United States and China have both warned against. Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests. Trump, who took office in January, has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile.

Trump has focussed his efforts on North Korea on trying to persuade China to put more pressure on its ally and could view any unusual Chinese military movements as supportive of this.He told a news conference with the visiting prime minister of Italy on Thursday that the United States was "in very good shape" on North Korea and that China's Xi, whom he met this month for a summit in Florida, was working hard to help."We dont know whether or not theyre able to do that, but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very very hard."Trump repeated a past comment that he had told Xi in Florida that China would make much better deal on trade with the United States "if you get rid of this menace or do something about this menace of North Korea."'SUPER-MIGHTY PREEMPTIVE STRIKE'

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, struck an aggressive tone earlier on Thursday. "In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes," it said.Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, which followed a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying that the U.S. Air Force had dispatched a nuclear sniffer aircraft on Thursday to the east of the Korean Peninsula in anticipation of a possible nuclear test.

The U.S. Defense Department does not comment on deployments of the WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft used to collect samples from the atmosphere to detect and analyse nuclear explosions. The U.N. Security Council on Thursday condemned North Korea's latest failed missile test and demanded it not conduct any more nuclear tests.South Korea's acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.The South Korean defence ministry said U.S. and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion. "We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever," South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. "Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy's intention to provoke us." William Perry, who served as U.S. defence secretary from 1994 to 1997 and negotiated with North Korea, said he did not believe Pyongyang was planning a surprise attack, despite the fiery rhetoric.But he warned: "They are doing a lot of bluster and a lot of threats, and they might misplay that hand and blunder into a war." (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, William James in London, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Idrees Ali in Riyadh, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Kim Do-gyun in Gunsan, South Korea; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON The United States said on Thursday it was troubled by the growing number of extrajudicial killings in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs and called on Manila to stick to its commitment to investigate them.Close to 9,000 people, mostly drug users and small-time dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office almost 10 months ago and promised an unrelenting campaign to rid the Philippines of illicit narcotics.Police say about a third of the victims were shot by officers in self-defence. Human rights groups believe many of the remaining two thirds were killed by paid assassins cooperating with the police or by police themselves, disguised as vigilantes. The government and police reject that.Patrick Murphy, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Southeast Asia, said the United States shared Manila's objective of eliminating the scourge of illicit drugs and wanted to help.

"We however do have a very sustained and deep concern when elements of the drug war are operating outside the rule of law," Murphy told reporters. "The growing number of extrajudicial killings is troubling." Rights advocates were concerned when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sidestepped questions about extrajudicial killings in the Philippines during his January confirmation hearing, raising the possibility that President Donald Trump might take a softer line on the issue than his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Murphy said there was a distinction between being a nominee and the secretary of state and Tillerson was now the leader of the policy of expressing concern about the way the drug war was being waged."We are urging the Philippines to follow up on its commitment to investigate extrajudicial killings whether they are committed by law enforcement, or of a vigilante nature," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, Duterte's office rejected allegations by two senior police officers in a Reuters report that police received cash rewards for executing drug suspects, while the most high-profile critic of the president backed the officers' claims.Duterte was infuriated by U.S. expressions of concern about extrajudicial killings after he took office last year and threatened to sever the long-standing U.S. defence alliance.Duterte spoke positively about Trump, a fellow populist, after the U.S. presidential election in November, although his anti-U.S. rhetoric continued. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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The Egypt-Sudan Political Consultation Committee released a statement on Thursday calling for a shift in media discourse after media outlets in the two countries attacked each other which nation has the right to control Egypts southern Halayeb and Shalateen region.

The committee has also called for the signing of a code of ethics between the press and media outlets in Egypt and Sudan to guarantee working towards mutual interests and maintaining brotherly relations.

The committee  which held a meeting in Khartoum headed by Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour and was attended by Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry  vowed to maintain cooperation and mutual support between both countries in issues of common interest, as well as the holding of periodic meetings between the FMs of both countries to facilitate cooperation between Cairo and Khartoum.

Ghandour stressed the necessity of exchanging information between security agencies in both countries to reflect a commitment that Egypt and Sudan would not harbour groups that work against either country's interest.

Egyptian FM Shoukry met with Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir during his visit tot Khartoum, conveying a message from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi that Cairo is committed to maintaining strategic ties between the brotherly countries of the Nile Valley.

Earlier this month, Sudan's foreign ministry said a new a decision by Khartoum requiring Egyptian men between 18 and 50 to obtain entry visas to travel to Sudan is aimed at preventing "terrorists" from infiltrating the country.

While Egyptians could previously enter Sudan without a visa under a deal signed between the two countries in 2004, Sudanese nationals had to obtain visas before entering Egypt.

Last week, Sudan's FM Ghandour asked Cairo to explain Egypts position on the UN's Darfur Sanctions Committee, after rumours circulated that Egypt had backed in a 7 April meeting a call to maintain sanctions against Khartoum.

Cairo has denied these reports.

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The United Nations is concerned that Pakistan was not adequately exercising due diligence to prevent violence by members of extremist groups, while its intelligence agencies had been accused of providing sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani Network, and Kashmir-focused armed groups, a UN committee told Pakistan during the review of its torture record.

Pakistan intelligence agencies have been accused of providing sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban, to Haqqani Network, and to certain Kashmir-focused armed groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed associated with, I think, the Mumbai events, Felice Gaer, the Rapporteur for Pakistan and the Vice-Chairperson of the UNs Committee Against Torture (CAT) told Pakistan during the countrys review on 18 and 19 April.

He also said that Pakistan is not adequately exercising due diligence to rein-in terror groups with recently released reports by the countrys financial monitoring unit reportedly detailing how terror groups like these generate funds through criminal activities including kidnapping for ransom.

Organisations, among them LeT, are reportedly generating millions of dollars annually this way, Gaer said. She cited a report published last year by the UNs Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that said that children are falling victims to sexual abuse by extremist groups, including by the Taliban, and in particular in provinces of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, parts of Punjab and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Can you provide details concerning cases in which Pakistani authorities have prosecuted members of any of these groups for abduction, sexual abuse and other related offences? Gaer asked.

The Committee had been presented with very troubling statistics suggesting that the military and intelligence agencies had been implicated in a significant number of cases of suspected enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings involving torture, the UN expert said.

The delegation was also asked about the number of cases, as well as investigations, prosecutions and sanctions meted out to members of the Inter-Service Intelligence agency who were suspected of being involved in incidents, including the recent abduction and torture of human rights activists who were critical of the military establishment.

Were there any updates on, particularly, four cases that include the case of the missing 24-year-old Zeenat Shahzadi, a local reporter of Daily Nai Khaber and Metro News TV channel, who was pursuing the case of an Indian engineer jailed on espionage charges.

There were 1,200 registered cases of enforced disappearances between 2010 and 2016. Last year, the UNs Working Group on enforced and involuntary disappearances had concluded that there was a climate of impunity with regard to enforced disappearances, and that the authorities were not sufficiently dedicated to investigating the cases and holding the perpetrators accountable.

Credible sources alleged that Pakistani police regularly use torture and ill-treatment to obtain confessions from witnesses, suspects, and accused personsthe UN is gravely concerned about the capacity of the police to carry out their work.

How many cases of alleged torture and offences ancillary to torture had been attributed to members of the Pakistan Armed Forces since 2010? How many had led to a criminal or disciplinary investigation, by which authority and how many had led to prosecutions, asked the Committee.

In October 2012, Pakistan's Supreme Court had issued an interim order, which held that there was overwhelming evidence implicating the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force, in cases of missing persons in Balochistanthe country had failed to prosecute for torture members of the paramilitary troops, Gaer said.

Had there been any inquiry into the responsibility of members of the Frontier Corps for disappearances in Balochistan (that amounts to 1,080 cases according to a source cited by the Committee), including investigations into alleged enforced disappearances of political leaders Shulam Mohammad Baloch, Lula Baloch, and Sher Mohammad Baloch?

How many complaints of torture had been received against members of the Pakistan Rangers since 2010 and what measures had been taken to investigate and prosecute them?

Other issues of concern to the CAT included the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan, and sectarian attacks such as the one on a Shia procession in October last year that killed 27 persons, as well as the lack of effective action to prevent domestic violence that some 90 percent of Pakistani women faced and so-called honour killings like the murder of Qandeel Baloch, a well-known Pakistani model killed by her brother last year, and the existence of parallel justice systems like the 'jirgas'.

Gaer said that though there are legal safeguards such as the prompt accesses to a lawyer and others, those were not systematically implemented in practice. Moreover, these safeguards provided for in the general legal framework against torture are absent for persons detained under the anti-terrorism act and protection of Pakistan Act.

"Could the Pakistani delegation comment about the situation of Afghan refugees, whose homes and shops were being attacked and destroyed, who were arrested and extorted, or forcefully returned to Afghanistan?" Essadia Belmir, Co-rapporteur for Pakistan and Committee Vice-Chairperson, asked.

Were the tribal areas an integral part of the territory of Pakistan or did they have a specific legal status?" Belmir added.

These are an array of concerns that have been quite shocking to the members of the Committee, the UNs CAT noted.

"Why was there such a stark difference in the picture of the country when one read the Pakistani government's report to the UN compared to the information received from non-governmental organizations and publicly available sources?" Gaer asked.

In response, the Pakistani delegation said that with regard to military courts, the country was spending more than Rs 100 billion per annum on the fight against the menace of the terrorism and terrorists who to date had killed 30,000 Pakistanis.

The government has launched a large military operation against militants and terrorists, now in its second phase, called, the anti-disorder which aimed to stop all those who aided and abated sleeper cells.

New anti-terrorism police units were being created to enable the police to fight terrorism and avoid long-term engagement of the Army and the Pakistani Rangers, the delegation said.

FATA would be fully integrated with the territory of Pakistan on an equal footing with other provinces within ten years, an official told the Committee.

These were some of the responses given by the Pakistani government on 19 April.

The delegation said that Pakistan was before the CAT in a dialogue, and not in a trial, and the governments views must be respected with the same force as those of NGOs. Pakistan needed to be encouraged and not demolishedit deserved to be treated better by the Committee.

Pakistan ratified the UNs Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in June 2010. Its first report was due in 2011 but was submitted last year.
Polling data released on Thursday showed strong support in Canada for a government drive to legalise recreational use of marijuana, but many would like the proposed minimum age for consumption to be raised.

Sixty-three percent of respondents told the Angus Reid Institute that they support legalisation.

However, 58 percent said a touted minimum age of 18 years for use should be higher.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's administration unveiled legislation on 13 April to fully legalise pot by mid-2018.

The new rules would allow individuals to grow up to four plants at home for personal use, or to purchase up to 30 grams (one ounce) of dried cannabis at a time from a retailer.

Trafficking outside the new regime would continue to be illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison, as would selling cannabis to youths, driving under its influence, and importing or exporting pot.

During consultations, health professionals expressed concern about the potential impact of marijuana on developing brains under the age of 25.

But a government task force on pot concluded that the "current science is not definitive on a safe age for cannabis use."

Since the aim in legalisation is to stop the criminalisation of users, the panel chose an age that would not force adults under 25 to turn to the illicit market. The age chosen  18 years  is in line with the minimum age for alcohol consumption in Canada.

The government also said that the stated aim of the initiative is to reduce policing and prosecutions, and keep marijuana out of the hands of children.

But, according to the Angus Reid Institute poll, 66 percent doubt the new rules will stop children from taking. They also believe organised crime won't be shut out of the marijuana market.

With inputs from AFP
By Warren Strobel and Arshad Mohammed

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON The United States wants new commitments from Saudi Arabia to improve its targeting procedures to minimize civilian casualties in its part in the Yemen civil war as it weighs resuming sales of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh, U.S. officials told Reuters.An announcement of the weapons sale had been anticipated last month, but objections by mostly Democratic lawmakers and human rights groups have complicated the matter, the U.S. officials and others close to the issue said."We want the Saudis to show that they are committed to use these things properly," said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.At issue is the sale of about $390 million worth of guidance systems made by Raytheon Co (RTN.N) that convert "dumb" gravity bombs into precision-guided munitions that are supposed to more accurately hit targets.Nearly 4,800 civilians have been killed in Yemen since the latest round of conflict began in March 2015, most of them by the Saudi-led coalition seeking to restore ousted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the United Nations human rights office said in March.The conflict pits Iran-allied Houthi rebels against the government backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition.A representative of the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined comment on discussions with Washington over the precision-guided weapons.

The Saudi government has called allegations of civilian casualties fabricated or exaggerated, and has said the coalition follows rigorous rules of engagement. A group of U.S. senators introduced legislation on April 13 to set new conditions for U.S. military support for Riyadh."The Saudis are important partners in the Middle East, but they have continued to disregard our advice when it comes to target selection and civilian protection," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said in a statement.The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of diplomacy with Saudi Arabia, declined to specify what additional safeguards they were seeking to avoid civilian deaths and injury.

The first official said the commitments could come in the form of a letter from Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir."This is an unconditional sale. There are no conditions attached. The decision has been made to let the sale go through," a second U.S. official said.The official said the United States was in "regular dialogue" with Saudi Arabia on the issue of civilian casualties "and specific steps on how to do this."

In the past, Washington has pressed Riyadh to take more care in targeting; abide by "no strike" lists of off-limits areas; and promptly investigate reports of civilian casualties.U.S. President Donald Trump's predecessor Barack Obama suspended the arms sale in December after an estimated 140 people were killed when planes struck mourners at a funeral in the Yemen capital, Sanaa, in October 2016. The Saudi-led coalition received incorrect information from Yemeni military figures that armed Houthi leaders were in the area, a coalition probe found.Asked about the new commitments being sought from Riyadh, the State Department did not respond directly."The Saudi-led coalition is supporting the legitimate Yemeni government and defending itself from Houthi incursion into Saudi territory," a State Department official said.The official said that the Saudi government "is taking measures to improve its targeting processes" and adopting measures for recording reports of civilian casualties.A White House spokesman declined comment. (Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy, Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Cairo is set to host a tripartite meeting between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia on the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) next week to discuss initial reports by consultancy firms tasked with assessing the possible impact of the dam on downstream countries, the spokesman of the Egyptian foreign ministry told Ahram Online on Thursday.

The Egyptian irrigation ministry spokesman was not available for comment on the details of what will be discussed in the committee's meetings.

The meeting would come few days after a visit by Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu to Egypt, where he met with Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and foreign minister Sameh Shoukry to discuss bilateral relations.

Gebeyehu affirmed that his visit comes as an assurance to Egyptians that Addis Ababa would never harm the Egyptian people and their interests, in reference to Ethiopia's construction of the GERD on the River Nile.

Officials from the two countries have agreed to hold talks every two months to work on improving relations, with El-Sisi expressing hopes to the Ethiopian minister for Cairo to host a joint high committee meeting soon, with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in attendance.

In late 2016, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia signed the final contracts for the long-awaited impact studies with French consultancy firms BRL and Artelia, as well as British law firm Corbett, which will carry out studies on the potential impact of the on the flow of the Nile.

The studies by the French firms, expected to take 11 months from their start date in late 2016, will include the managing of water and hydroelectric resources as well as an assessment of the cross-border environmental, social and economic impact of the mega project.

Cairo has expressed concerns that the construction of the Renaissance Dam, which is more than halfway complete, could negatively affect Egypt's share of Nile water.

Addis Ababa, however, has maintained that the dam project, which Ethiopia says is vital for generating electricity, will not harm downstream countries.

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Freed Egyptian-American activist Aya Hegazi has returned to the United States only a few days after an Egyptian court acquitted her and others of charges related to the abuse and exploitation of children, following three years of detention.

A White House official who was not authorised to discuss the case by name and requested anonymity told AP Thursday evening that Hegazi and her husband Mohamed Hassanein, an Egyptian included in the case, had arrived in the Washington area.

On Sunday, the court acquitted the seven other defendants in the case after finding them not guilty of charges of human trafficking, kidnapping and the sexual exploitation and torture of children.

Hegazi, now 30, and her husband were arrested in May 2014 over allegations that her NGO Belady Initiative, which works with street children in Cairo, was involved in child abuse and was operating without a licence.

Local and international rights groups have criticised the case, alleging a lack of evidence and complaining about the prolonged pre-trial detention.

During his April visit to the US, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that he might be willing to give Hegazi a presidential pardon if she were convicted.

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Samsung officially launched Samsung Pay, contactless mobile payments service in India last month. The company had confirmed it will add UPI support for Samsung Pay in future. Now, th UPI support has gone live for Samsung Pay that will allow users to make payments with their bank accounts.

In order to add your bank account using Samsung Pay, you will need to select UPI in the main screen of Samsung Pay and tap on Add. You can create your own Payment Address in Samsungs UPI app and link your bank account, which is registered with your phone number following which you can send or receive money.

For those unaware, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a payment system launched by National Payments Corporation of India and regulated by the Reserve Bank of India which facilitates the instant fund transfer between two bank accounts on the mobile platform.

Samsung Pay is available for Samsung Galaxy smartphone (Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S7, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy A5 (2016), Galaxy A7 (2016), Galaxy A5 (2017) and Galaxy A7 (2017). Samsung Pay works with Samsungs patented Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology as well as with Near Field Communication (NFC). MST replicates a card swipe by wirelessly transmitting magnetic waves from the supported Samsung device to a standard card reader.
Produced by Roy Conli,

Brian Leith, Phil Chapman

Screenplay by David Fowler, Brian Leith,

Phil Chapman, Lu Chuan

Directed by Lu Chuan

Narrated by John Krasinski

Released in time for Earth Day, Born in China is the latest addition to the Disneynatures True Life Adventure series.

This is not your standard nature documentary, rather it is a series of slice of life vignettes. The focus is to connect audiences on a personal level with these wild animals, so that viewers are invested in the animals future long after the film is over.

Narration by The Offices John Krasinski is light and humorous, and beautifully supports the writing that works to draw parallels in our everyday human lives with the lives of the films subjects.

Shot in the diverse regions that China has to offer, the film Born in China follows four animal families.

Dawa, the Snow Leopard, fights to maintain her territory and provide for her young cubs, not unlike the plight of most single moms. Tao Tao is an adolescent snub-nosed golden monkey dealing with feeling of displacement in the family due to the birth of a younger sibling. Ya Ya the Pandas story is not unlike many mothers struggle to let go of a child as it learns to become a self sufficient adult. Only the story of the Chiru, the Tibetan Antelope, feels like a Discovery Channel show. The narrations subtle tongue in cheek humor is a gift for the adults while the kids laugh at the funny animals.

The cinematography is exactly what you would expect from a large budget documentary, simply breathtaking. The film is brimming with beautiful vistas, stunning macro shots, and memorizing time lapse photography. Director Chuan Lu has gathered a talented crew of nature cinematographers who have pieced together a beautiful collection of stories. The photography displays both the beauty and dangers of the remote landscapes. Because we are following living animals, not all the stories end well. The brutality is handled in a truthful nature with sensitivity towards young viewers. It is a film that you may have to have some conversations with your children afterward about the cycle of life, but wont have them crying in their seats during the film.

While this type of nature film will never be the blockbuster that their animated cousins are, it is heartening that Disney will still back and distribute these kinds of films. It is films like Born in China that plant the seed for young, impressionable audience to see the world in a larger view. It is also laudable that Disney will donate a portion of the the opening weekend proceeds to the World Wildlife Fund for the benefit of Snow Leopards and Pandas.

So, celebrate Earth Day with a few new families.

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Kong: Skull Island burst its way into multiplexes to usher out this past winter, presenting tons of movie monster bombast and over-the-waterfall-and-through-the-rocks action thrills meant for 3D.

The movie, a prequel to the 2014 Godzilla set at the end of the Vietnam War, doesnt waste time getting us to Kong, either.

A military-escorted group of scientists arrive at Skull Island in a company of helicopters. They then begin dropping depth charges during a survey, which unsuspectingly draws out Kong. Enraged, the giant gorilla smashes several copters, kills a dozen men in creatively shot, spectacular fashion.

The commanding officers helicopter is struck and goes down. That officer, Lt. Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), survives and wreck and stands in hateful awe of the raging beast.

The camera locks onto Kongs eyes, then cuts to a close-up of Packards eyes. The film locks onto Kong and Packards eyes a second time, during the third act, when Packard tries to kill Kong and avenge the deaths of his men.

In these moments, Kong: Skull Island connects Kong and Packard, as combative beings whose intentions of protection through warfare are seen as atrocity.

Or, to put it bluntly, the camera work equates Jackson, a black man, with an ape.

Hand, meet forehead.

But hey, it wouldnt be a King Kong movie without questionable racial stuff thrown in the mix, right? We also get a tribe of silent Pacific Islanders, a shipwrecked white soldier (John C. Reilly) using a katana blade presumably left to him by his deceased Japanese foe-turned-friend, and a pair of woke white protagonists (Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson) trying to save Kong from the bad black man.

And that black man? Hes as savage as the giant ape, but for evil.

At least Kong: Skull Island tries to balance this out by having a black man and Asian woman on the side of the good guys, as part of the group of monster-hunting scientists.

None of this casually racist stuff detracts from the movie, which is big and dumb and generally lazy in its use of archetypes. (The lead female character is an empathetic photographer? The lead male character is a tracker hardened by loss? Woof.)

It doesnt really distract from Jacksons performance, either. Hes good in the role. But then why wouldnt be he? Hes Samuel L. Jackson.

At the very least, its another in a trend of genre films in which the white male protagonist saves the day against an army of foes made up of people of color and women (or both).

And Samuel L. Jackson has been in the middle of this trend.

Think of the 2014 film Kingsman: The Secret Service, based on the Mark Millar/Dave Gibbons comic book series The Secret Service. The big bad in the story is a billionaire cellphone entrepreneur who plans to save the planet from global warming by killing off most of humanity through satellite-assisted mind control. But not before he abducts his favorite sci-fi celebrities such as Mark Hammill and Patrick Stewart.

Add to this how insecure this technocrat is about impressing his model-hot girlfriend, Ambrosia Chase, whos only with Arnold for his money.

In the comic book, Gibbons draws Arnold as a nerdy-looking white man, with bad haircut, glasses, a cable turtleneck sweater. In other words, exactly as youd expect the character to look.

But when its time for the movie, Arnold is renamed Richmond Valentine. For the role, Jackson is dressed in sweatsuits, popped collars, ballcaps turned sideways, and apparently his own eyeglasses. And hes got a lisp! Its more Russell Simmons than Bill Gates.

None of it appears to inform the character. Hes a collection of costume pieces and swagger. But, really, who cares? Jackson is having a hell of a time because he knows this is a cartoon and is playing it as such.

However, because of the VIPs Valentine has decided to keep, including most world leaders, it feels like hes not remaking the world into something else, but doing a smaller version of the same world. Why would he, a black man, mastermind such a thorough replication of the system? It just doesnt feel genuine.

Then add to it how Eggsy goes from Eminem street youth to learning upper-crust, WASPy refinement, to take on a black man and a fatally handi-capable woman with razor-sharp prosthetic running blades. (Coincidentally, the woman is Algerian-French actress Sophia Boutella, who wore alien makeup in Star Trek Beyond and will threaten white good guy Tom Cruise in the relaunch of The Mummy coming this summer.)

Or, take Jackson in the remake of RoboCop. He plays right-wing talk show bloviator Pat Novak, who is used ot frame the film. But Jackson, in his peak-lapeled suits, straightened hair and rah-rah-America diatribes, basically is playing Bill OReilly.

The wig really sets it off. Jackson looks like hes in some kind of racial drag. It may as well be Chappelles Show. (Which is ironic, in that Chappelles caricature of a white mans speaking voice is as good as it gets.) Ultimately, its distracting that Jackson is playing this role, because its Bill OReilly.

And no matter what you say, I cant buy Sam Jackson as Bill OReilly.

Jackson of late appears glad to step all over racially problematic and complicated roles in genre films, and that includes when its a role made for a black actor.

We have Jacksons work with Quentin Tarantino  a man often accused of exploiting racial stuff though his liberal use of nigger and nigga in his screenplays  as proof.

In Tarantinos 2012 blaxploitation Western Django Unchained, theres a perverse thrill to seeing the unapologetically black Jackson play Stephen, a house slave of main villain Calvin Candie. Jackson plays Stephen with shifty-eyed, condescendingly vicious, self-abasing fervor while looking like Uncle Ben fresh off the box of rice.

Sure, Django Unchained is the same film in which a runaway slave shoots a masters entire family and burns his plantation big house to the ground, all in the name of rescuing his wife. However, Django spends most of the film acting as sidekick to the slavery-hating Dr. King Schultz, who comes off as more heroic in the film. Even the black hero has a white hero.

Tarantino and Jackson teamed up again in The Hateful Eight, another Western mixed with a murder mystery. Jackson, who plays former Union soldier and current bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren, is centered in the films most talked-about scene. Warren gives a monologue toward General Sanford Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), an old, proud Confederate veteran, about how he killed Smithers son Chester for head hunting black folk after the war.

But first, Warren says, he forced a pleading Chester to strip completely naked at gun point in the cold Wyoming mountains and walk several miles in the snow before Warren forced him to perform oral sex. Warren lavishes over each graphic detail, making sure to note his warm black dingus while the scene is intercut with a flashback.

As transgressively bold as this monologue sets itself up to be, am I really supposed to be rooting for sexual violence as payback? This ends up being another episode in fear of a black penis. Sexualized violence, a frequent item in Tarantino films, again meets white Americas torturous, fearful relationship with black masculinity.

And even though Tarantino is turning upside down the great American rape myth, which launched The Birth of a Nation and countless lynchings, were still left with a threatening black penis.

Oh well.

Kong: Skull Island wasnt Jacksons only foray into the jungle this past year. He also played a supporting role in The Legend of Tarzan as the real-life historical figure George Washington Williams.

Williams was a former soldier and preacher who found his niche as a journalist and writer on African-American history. Born in Pennsylvania, Williams ventured to Africa and wrote on the atrocities associated with the enslavement of the Congolese people under Belgian King Leopold IIs orders to supply rubber.

Its great that a big Hollywood movie decided to expose its audience to George Washington Williams bravery and Leopolds atrocities  two things likely not well known these days. I was able to portray a real life character who actually went to the Congo and exposed King Leopold, Jackson said at the premiere. I think thats important for us as a people to understand.

However, when you know Williams biography, the fact that he is wedged into a Tarzan movie, playing sidekick to a white man supposedly more African than the black man helping him, is sorta insulting, right? Shouldnt George Washington Williams get his own movie?

Jackson is enjoying himself, getting paid to perform in the kinds of action-adventure fantasy films that would have captivated him as a child: spy thrillers, giant monsters, cowboys, ape-men and cyborgs.

Its like I say, sometimes I just do movies that I wouldve gone to see when I was a kid, he told Vibe magazine when promoting Tarzan.

If anything, Jacksons presence complicates much of the casual racism baked into these genres. Whether its enough, I dont really know.

At least he is entertaining.

He is Samuel L. Jackson, after all.

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This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
Egypt strongly condemned on Friday a shooting on Paris's famed Champs Elysees on Thursday that killed one police officer and injured others.

In an official statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry, spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid reiterated Egypts stance calling for resolve in fighting terrorist organisations and putting an end to operations that target civilians.

Abu Zeid offered his condolences to the victims family, emphasising Egypts support for the government and people of France in facing a terrorism that targets all nations without exception."

On Thursday, a French police officer was killed and two other officers were wounded in a shooting on the Champs Elysees, just days ahead of France's presidential election.

France's interior ministry said the gunman was killed after opening fire on the officers at around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on the boulevard. Anti-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Saudi Arabia plans next month to award licenses to at least 15 U.S. companies to operate in the kingdom, two Saudi officials said on Thursday, with one saying they would go to technology and pharmaceutical firms among others.

Dow Chemical Co last June said it had become the first foreign company to receive a trading license from Saudi Arabia as the kingdom seeks to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil exports amid a slump in global oil prices.

A year ago the world's top oil exporter announced a package of economic and social policies known as Vision 2030 to try to dramatically increase non-oil revenue. A plunge in oil prices since mid-2014 has intensified the need for the plan, which relies on an expanding private sector, selling shares in the Saudi state-owned oil company and cutting government subsidies.

"Next month we will ... give 15 licenses to American companies," a Saudi official told reporters on condition of anonymity, later saying "at least 15" would be awarded and that they would go to technology, pharmaceutical and other sectors.

"Most of them are outside the oil and gas field," a second Saudi official told reporters, also on condition of anonymity.

The officials said none of the licenses would go to firms affiliated with U.S. President Donald Trump or his family.

The first official said all major stock exchanges, including those in Tokyo, London and Shanghai, were vying to make the case for Saudi Aramco to list with them in the oil company's planned initial public offering next year.

China is creating a consortium, including state-owned oil giants and banks and its sovereign wealth fund, that will act as a cornerstone investor in the initial public offering, people with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.

The planned Chinese investment makes it more likely that Saudi Aramco would seek a listing in Asia, with Hong Kong currently the front-runner among bourses in the region, the same people said.

(Reporting by Yara Bayoumy and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
KFC, a unit of Yum! Brands, announced Friday that actor Rob Lowe is taking on the role as the companys new Colonel Sanders.

Debuting on Sunday, the former West Wings star will appear in a new ad campaign promoting the fast food chains Zinger chicken sandwich, which KFC has spent nearly $80 million to create over the last two years.

Lowe said in statement that he signed on as a spokesman to pay tribute to his grandfather.

My grandfather was the head of the Ohio chapter of the National Restaurant Association in the 1960s and took me to meet Colonel Harland Sanders when I was as kid, Lowe said in a statement Friday. It was a big deal. I thought this would be a nice homage to both Colonel Sanders and to my grandfather.

Lowe joins a list of other celebrities who have filled the colonels iconic shoes. Comedians Darrell Hammond, Jim Gaffigan, Norm Macdonald and actors George Hamilton and Billy Zane have also played the king of fried chicken.

The new spicy Zinger is the companys first fried chicken sandwich to be made by hand, daily in-house, the companys president told FOX Business Stuart Valley.

We have been actually working on this for two years, we spent $80 million dollars upgrading our back house equipment and we spent the last six months re-training all of our staff on how to make a fried chicken sandwich fast because ultimately at lunch, we have to win on speed, Kevin Hochman, president and chief concept officer for KFC, told FOX Business.

The sandwich, which is already sold in more than 120 countries around the world, will officially debut in the U.S. on Monday. In addition to that, it will be made with 100% real chicken from U.S. farms (without using any antibiotics).

KFC recently joined other fast-food restaurants in announcing plans earlier this month to stop using antibiotics important to human medicine in its chickens by the end of 2018.

We share the publics concern about  antimicrobial resistance, Hochman said in a statement.

Chipotle, McDonalds, Burger King, Panera and Wendys have already made similar pledges. But KFC says they believe they are on the cutting edge in trying to forgo antibiotics when it comes to on-the-bone chicken. The Zinger will also be free of added hormones, steroids and food dyes.
The first thing most income-seeking investors consider when looking at a potential investment is the dividend yield. But because dividend growth stocks have historically outperformed their stingier peers by a wide margin, what matters more is whether a company can increase its payout on a consistent basis. While many companies aim to do just that, some stocks stand out because they have the fuel to deliver high-octane income growth in the coming years.

Three such companies are Antero Midstream (NYSE: AM), EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG), and Noble Midstream Partners (NYSE: NBLX) since they're all on track to double their dividends over the next few years. That makes them great stocks for not only income seekers but for growth-focused investors as well.

High-octane dividend growth ahead

Antero Midstream currently expects to increase its dividend at a 28% to 30% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2020, and a 20% annual rate in 2021 and 2022. This outlook implies that Antero Midstream's dividend will skyrocket 138% from 2018's level by 2022. That's by far the fastest dividend growth rate in the oil and gas midstream sector. What makes this even more impressive is that Antero Midstream currently yields an impressive 6.6%, meaning investors stand to collect significant income along the way.

Fueling Antero Midstream's high-octane growth is the $2.7 billion of expansion projects the company expects to build over the next few years. The bulk of that spending will be on new natural gas gathering pipelines to support the anticipated production growth of its parent Antero Resources. Those projects should supply the company with enough cash flow to increase its dividend at a fast pace while maintaining sound financial metrics. That makes Antero a great option for investors seeking a high yield, as well as those wanting a high growth rate.

Hitting the accelerator on dividend growth

Oil producer EOG Resources probably doesn't catch the attention of most income seekers since its current dividend yield is only 0.85%. However, the oil company plans to put a priority on increasing its dividend in the coming years. EOG already boosted its payout 31% in 2018 and planned on growing it at a more than 19% CAGR going forward. At that pace, the oil giant could double its dividend from 2018's annualized rate by 2022.

The reason EOG expects to grow its dividend at such a fast pace is that its low-cost oil business is producing more cash than it needs. At $50 oil, for example, EOG Resources can generate more than the $6.3 billion required to fund its dividend and expand its U.S. oil production by a high-teens rate. That leaves it with plenty of excess cash to pay down debt, which will reduce its interest expenses. The growth in production, meanwhile, when combined with declining interest expenses, should expand EOG's cash flow at a fast pace in the coming years, giving it the funds to increase its dividend at a high rate.

Fast-paced growth for years to come

Noble Midstream Partners shares many similarities with Antero Midstream. Not only does it offer income investors an attractive yield of 6.5%, but it expects to increase that payout by a 20% CAGR through 2022. This forecast implies that Noble Midstream's payout will more than double from 2018's level by 2022.

The main fuel driving Noble Midstream's outlook is the continued expansion of its midstream footprint. The company is currently building out several oil and gas gathering systems in both the Delaware and DJ basins to support the growth of its parent and serve third-party producers. These projects are primarily low-cost, high-return expansions that will enable the company to steadily grow cash flow in the coming years as production from newly drilled wells flows through these systems.

In addition to building out its gathering business, the company holds options to buy two long-haul pipelines that are currently under construction. Noble Midstream can acquire up to 30% of the EPIC crude pipeline and 15% of the EPIC natural gas liquids pipeline that should start service by 2020. Exercising these options would provide another boost to Noble Midstream's cash flow while diversifying its revenue stream, providing even more support for the company's dividend growth plan.

The fuel needed to produce market-crushing returns

These energy stocks are all on track to double their dividends by 2022. That sets investors up to collect a significant amount of income in the coming years. And since companies that grow their dividends tend to outperform all other stocks, this trio seems to have a higher probability of beating the market considering how much they expect to increase their payouts over the next few years.

10 stocks we like better than Antero Midstream PartnersWhen 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 quadrupled the market.*

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*Stock Advisor returns as of November 14, 2018

Matthew DiLallo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
ATHENS, April 21 (Reuters) - Greece far exceeded its international lenders' demands for budget savings last year, official data showed on Friday, outstripping even 2017's target and presenting a strong case for unlocking more bailout funds.

Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT -- to be confirmed on Monday by the European Union -- showed the primary budget balance, which excludes debt servicing, hit a surplus of 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015.

This was calculated under European System of Accounts guidelines, which differs from that used by Greece's International Monetary Fund-European Union creditors in bailout deliberations.

But the IMF-EU number is expected to be even better.

A Greek government official told Reuters that last year's primary budget surplus under the bailout program reached "about 4 percent, or slightly higher."

That compares with a bailout surplus target of 0.5 percent of GDP and with a primary budget surplus target of 1.75 percent of GDP this year.

Debt-strapped Greece and its creditors have been at odds for months over the country's fiscal performance, delaying the conclusion of a key bailout review which could unlock needed bailout funds.

The IMF, which has reservations on whether Greece can meet high primary surplus targets, has yet to decide if it will fund Greece's current bailout, which expires in 2018.

The 2016 outperformance could lead the fund to revise some of its projections. The IMF's participation is seen as a condition for Germany to unlock new funds to Greece.

Athens hopes to discuss the fund's participation and its projections at the sidelines of the IMF's spring meetings in Washington.

Analysts attributed the outperformance to the implementation of bailout measures and increased efforts to improve the state's revenue collection capacity.

"It's an impressive outperformance versus the bailout program target for the primary surplus," said Athens-based Eurobank's chief economist Platon Monokroussos.

"The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout program is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario," he said. (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Greece far exceeded its international lenders' demands for budget savings last year, official data showed on Friday, outstripping even 2017's target and presenting a strong case for unlocking more bailout funds.

Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT -- to be confirmed on Monday by the European Union -- showed the primary budget balance, which excludes debt servicing, hit a surplus of 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015.

This was calculated under European System of Accounts guidelines, which differs from that used by Greece's International Monetary Fund-European Union creditors in bailout deliberations.

But the IMF-EU number is expected to be even better.

A Greek government official told Reuters that last year's primary budget surplus under the bailout program reached "about 4 percent, or slightly higher."

That compares with a bailout surplus target of 0.5 percent of GDP and with a primary budget surplus target of 1.75 percent of GDP this year.

Debt-strapped Greece and its creditors have been at odds for months over the country's fiscal performance, delaying the conclusion of a key bailout review which could unlock needed bailout funds.

The IMF, which has reservations on whether Greece can meet high primary surplus targets, has yet to decide if it will fund Greece's current bailout, which expires in 2018.

The 2016 outperformance could lead the fund to revise some of its projections. The IMF's participation is seen as a condition for Germany to unlock new funds to Greece.

Athens hopes to discuss the fund's participation and its projections at the sidelines of the IMF's spring meetings in Washington.

Analysts attributed the outperformance to the implementation of bailout measures and increased efforts to improve the state's revenue collection capacity.

"It's an impressive outperformance versus the bailout program target for the primary surplus," said Athens-based Eurobank's chief economist Platon Monokroussos.

"The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout program is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario," he said. (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Diversified U.S. manufacturer Honeywell reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Friday, as sales in its aerospace and energy businesses came in above the company's forecast.

Honeywell also raised the low end of its 2017 earnings forecast by 5 cents to $6.90-$7.10 per share.

Analysts on average had were expecting 2017 earnings of $7.03 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales in Honeywell's aerospace business, its biggest, fell 4.3 percent to $3.55 billion, but were above the 5-7 percent decline forecast by the company.

Honeywell said sales its aerospace unit, which makes engines for aircraft made by Bombardier, Textron and General Dynamics among others, were partly helped by growth in its commercial after-sales business.

Sales in Honeywell's performance materials and technologies unit, which makes catalysts and adsorbents used for petroleum refining, dropped about 9 percent to $2.07 billion, but were above the 10-12 decline forecast by the company.

Net income attributable to Honeywell increased to $1.33 billion, or $1.71 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $1.22 billion, or $1.56 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, Honeywell earned $1.66 per share.

However, revenue fell to $9.49 billion from $9.52 billion.

Analysts on average had expected first-quarter earnings of $1.62 per share, and revenue of $9.33 billion.

(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Martina D'Couto)
iHeartMedia Inc. , the operator of radio and television stations, is planning to include language in its next quarterly report warning investors that it may not survive another year, according to a regulatory filing. The company, which owns iHeartRadio and outdoor advertising company Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings , said it continues to expect cash flow to be negative and is uncertain as to whether it will be able to refinance or extend the maturities of some of its borrowings. The company has almost $350 million of debt coming due this year, part of a massive $20 billion debt load it took on as part of a $24 billion leveraged buyout of then Clear Channel Communications Inc. by private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners in 2008. "Management anticipates that our financial statements to be issued for the three months ended March 31, 2017 will include disclosure indicating there will be substantial doubt as to our ability to continue as a going concern for a period of 12 months following the date the first quarter 2017 financial statements are issued," the company said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. iHeartMedia shares were trading up 3% on Friday, while Clear Channel Outdoors shares were down 2%.

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Puzder says rising confidence since Trump's election has had an immediate effect. There is tremendous optimism in the business community," Puzder told FOX Business Network's Stuart Varney. "There hasnt been this kind of optimism in maybe eight, ten years. And you saw the consumer confidence hit a high it hasnt been at since 2009 recently, so consumer confidence is up, businesses are optimistic, more people are working, more people are employed.

But Puzder warned Republicans still need to repeal and replace ObamaCare and achieve tax reform to keep up the positive momentum. We need to get tax reform done and ObamaCare but were heading in the right direction.

Tax reform and ObamaCare are still on the table with Trump calling for House Republicans to vote next week on an ObamaCare replacement. Puzder believes it will happen, but cautions Republicans to avoid mistakes.

Weve got some people in the House of Representatives that need to wake up. Were now the ruling Party. Were the party that has to govern and you cant govern if you give up the good because youre trying to achieve the perfect.

When Varney asked if the Freedom Caucus has listened to the criticisms and is willing to be more flexible in an effort to pass something on health care, Puzder said, I do think that. I think President Trump handled it very well.

Puzder said Trumps threat to deal with Democrats on health care was effective as well. I think thats going to wake the Freedom Caucus up a little bit, he told Varney, noting the potential pitfalls for GOP legislators should they fail to fulfill their promise of repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

These guys are up for election every two years, they know if they go home and they havent done what they promised they would do for the past eight years, which is get rid of ObamaCare, or at least make changes in that direction, theyre not going to be reelected.
The United States will not make an exception for American companies, including oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, seeking to drill in areas prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday.

The unusually direct statement served to clarify that the United States would maintain a tough stance on sanctions against Moscow.

"In consultation with President Donald J. Trump, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions," Mnuchin said in a statement.

The United States and European Union imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its annexation of the Crimea region in 2014 and its role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions forced Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil producer, to wind down drilling in Russia's Arctic in 2014.

"We understand the statement today by Secretary Mnuchin in consultation with President Trump," Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said.

Exxon had asked for and received in 2015 and 2016 waivers to operate a joint venture with Russian oil producer Rosneft in Russia. European Union sanctions do not keep European oil companies from operating in Russia, a point of annoyance forExxon.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Exxon had in recent months applied for a Treasury Department waiver to drill with Rosneft. Jeffers said Exxon had not applied for waivers from Treasury since Trump took office.

Any such request would have drawn attention becauseExxon's former chief executive, Rex Tillerson, is now U.S. secretary of state. Under his leadership, Exxon lobbied Congress on Russia sanctions, and Tillerson opposed sanctions against Russia in 2014, saying they would be ineffective.

U.S. lawmakers are investigating possible ties between some Trump campaign aides and Moscow. Republicans in Congress as well as U.S. allies in Europe are anxious about any sign that the Trump administration might ease some of the sanctions imposed on Russia.

During his confirmation hearing in January, Tillerson said he never personally lobbied against sanctions and that he was not aware of Exxon Mobil directly doing so, later acknowledging that he spoke to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew regarding gaps between American and European sanctions on Russia.

Tillerson has pledged to recuse himself until the end of this year from any matter involving Exxon Mobil unless he is authorized to participate. He also has until early May to sell his Exxon Mobil stock.

SANCTIONS CLARITY

U.S. companies frequently file license applications to the Treasury Department asking permission to undertake activities that would otherwise be barred by sanctions. The U.S. government weighs each application based on national security interests, the law and other factors.

The refusal is unlikely to affect Exxon Mobil's bottom line, as it has not been able to operate in Russia for several years, but it does hinder its growth potential.

Treasury almost never comments publicly on license applications. Mnuchin's statement will likely serve to clarify the U.S. stance on sanctions against Russia at a time when American allies are looking for clues to U.S. policy, observers said.

"It's good from a regulatory perspective as it provides clarity to U.S. companies, but it's also great from a foreign policy perspective," Edward Fishman, a fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and former State Department official during the Obama administration, said of Mnuchin's statement. "Any uncertainty about the future of sanctions scares our allies and encourages Russia to prolong its aggression in Ukraine." (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Ernest Scheyder; editing by Andrew Hay and Alistair Bell)
Pump it up? You wont really need to, soon.

Bridgestone has revealed a new airless bicycle tire that it plans to put on sale by 2019.

The non-pneumatic features a ring of flexible composite spokes -- connected to a smaller, solid inner hub -- that both hold its shape and provide cushioning on par with an air-filled tube. A conventionally-shaped tread is mounted to the outside.

Bridgestone has been developing tweels intended for automobiles for several years, but has yet to commercialize any of the designs. Polaris currently sells an ATV with flat-proof tires of a similar design thats available to military and consumer users, while Michelin offers one for small commercial vehicles.

Projected pricing and size availability for the Bridgestone bicycle tires have not yet been determined.

----------

POLARIS AIRLESS TIRES WON'T GO FLAT:
An Egyptian-American charity worker freed after nearly three years of detention in Egypt is meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, says that Trump was directly involved in negotiations to free Aya Hijazi. Hijazi and her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, an Egyptian, returned to the Washington area this week.

Earlier this week, a court acquitted Hijazi of charges of child abuse. The charges were widely dismissed as bogus by human rights groups and U.S. officials. She and her husband had established a foundation to aid street children in 2013, but were arrested along with several others in 2014.

Her case was on the agenda when Trump met this month with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

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Short link:


Dodge made ponycar history for 2017 by introducing a Challenger model with all-wheel drive. Although equipped with a V-6, its sure to please enthusiasts in Snowbelt states. Might Ford follow suit with the Mustang? The company did, after all, test four-wheel drive in the Mustang 52 years ago. The drivable prototype, which also has an early form of anti-lock brakes, still exists.

As the 1965 Mustang set sales records, Ford product planners were already looking forward with design concepts for two-seaters and even a four-door. Even more radical thinking came from England, however. Ferguson Research, a company funded by Harry Ferguson, of Massey Ferguson tractors, had developed the first full-time four-wheel drive system for passenger cars. Former race drivers Fred Dixon and Tony Rolt were the brains behind it, and they had also adapted Dunlops Maxaret anti-skid braking system from aircraft landing gear for automotive use.

MORE CLASSIC CAR STORIES FROM HAGERTY

Known as Ferguson Formula, the 4WD system got its big test with the Ferguson P99 Formula One racecar in 1961, winning the Oulton Park race with Stirling Moss at the wheel. Ferguson Research, however, was eager to convince carmakers to adopt its sophisticated chassis technology for passenger vehicles. Someone at Ford noticed. In December 1964, the company shipped two identical blue Mustangs, both equipped with the A-code 289-cid V-8 and automatic transmission, to Ferguson in England. One would be converted to 4WD, while the other would remain stock for comparison tests. Alain Cerf, whose Tampa Bay Auto Museum owns the unusual 4WD Mustang prototype, has the paperwork to verify that.

We dont know exactly how many were built, Cerf said. Ferguson was converting numerous cars in the 1960s for testing.

Cerfs company, Polypack, Inc., manufactures high-tech packaging machinery, which inspired a car museum to showcase examples of innovative technology. On display in the Pinellas, Fla., facility are front-wheel-drive Cords and Citroens, air-cooled Tatras and other vehicles that introduced daring ideas. In addition to the 4WD Mustang, the museum also owns one of the 22 English Ford Zephyr sedans converted to Ferguson Formula 4WD for evaluation by British police forces in the late 60s.

LONG-LOST "BULLITT" MUSTANG FOUND IN JUNKYARD

The Ferguson Formula system employed a planetary center differential to yield a 37:63 front-to-rear torque split. Clutches allowed the front and rear wheels to turn at different speeds, enabling 4WD to remain engaged all the time. The Mustang needed some modifications to accommodate the system, including converting the front suspension from coil springs to torsion bars.

It looked just like any other Mustang but handled much better on all roads, according to published tests, but particularly well on slippery surfaces. The Maxaret anti-skid brake system was purely mechanical and not nearly as sophisticated as the electronic ABS systems that debuted laterbut it worked.

If some of that rings a bell, its because the same hardware went into the worlds first production car with full-time 4WD, the 1966 Jensen FF, an offshoot of the companys Interceptor luxury coupe. The FF stood for Ferguson Formula.

Whatever Ford thought of the 4WD Mustangs performance, it likely would have been too expensive to offer as an option, perhaps over $500. At the time, the Mustangs top engine option, the K-code high-performance 289-cid V-8, cost $328 and was rarely ordered.

The 4WD Mustang returned to the United Kingdom and remained in Fergusons museum on the Isle of Wight until 2007. A subsequent owner sold it to the Tampa Bay Auto Museum in 2009, where it remains a drivable testament to forward thinking.

----------

DODGE CHALLENGER GT IS A WINTER WONDER:
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Cuba Gooding Sr., the father of Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr. who found fame in his own right with the 1972 hit "Everybody Plays the Fool," was found dead in his car on Thursday. He was 72.

The former member of the group The Main Ingredient was found in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.

Coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter says the cause of death is under investigation, but drug paraphernalia and alcohol were found in the car parked on a busy street.

The elder Gooding rose to fame for "Everybody Plays the Fool," which he sang with the rhythm-and-blues group. The song helped the family move from the Bronx to Southern California.

Cuba Gooding Sr.'s own father fled Barbados and went to Cuba  hence the name of his son  before becoming a taxi driver in Manhattan.

An email message to Gooding Jr.'s agent was not immediately returned.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
When Iraq War Veteran and Pat Tillman military scholar Chris Roessner sat down to write his debut screenplay "Sand Castle," he wanted it to be personal and to reflect the just over 12 months he spent in Iraq.

Most movies about war are mission oriented, about taking a hill, or a village, or capturing enemy troops. Roessner's movie is also mission oriented, but its a different kind of mission.

"I wanted to talk about what it feels like to be a young man or woman at war and what it feels like to need the local population [to work with you] to be successful," he told Fox News.

Set in the early days of the second Gulf War, "Sand Castle" is the story of inexperienced Private Matt Ocre (Nicholas Hoult), whose unit is ordered to the outskirts of Baqubah to repair a water pumping station damaged by U.S. bombs. But as Ocre quickly discovers, winning over the locals is a job fraught with danger and extreme frustration.

Ocre's war experience, very much like Roessner's, is dependent upon his ability to work with the Iraqi people, and he soon finds out that if the locals were willing to help, they paid a high price for that.

"Not by us, but by insurgents," Roessner explained. "They were killed for helping us and they were well aware of that. Thats not something that we realized right away. We learned it quickly, but the price that people paid for helping us was very, very high."

Even though "Sand Castle" filmed in Jordan, not Iraq, it was still emotionally battering for Roessner to revisit certain aspects of his time in the war zone, especially scenes where they were filming the deaths of men who had been his friends.

"I was surprised to find that, even though Id lived with the script for seven years, watching it happen, I really wanted to change it," Roessner said. "I really wanted to make it happen differently, and that feeling was surprising and overwhelming. But ultimately, if I changed it, I think I would do a disservice to the folks that Ive served alongside. It was much too important for me that I stay true to those moments, but it was very, very hard."

Another way Roessner, who knew he wanted to be a filmmaker before he joined the military but couldn't afford the tuition, stayed true to his experience was by referencing a journal he kept during his tour in Iraq.

"I came back from Iraq when I was 20 and I said, 'Whats fascinating about war is that if youre a 19-year-old kid from Arkansas with a GED, war will turn you into a philosopher,' and that is absolutely true."

An example of a scene reconstructed from his journal is a conversation in which one of the men in his unit tells Ocre that "there's a bullet out there for everyone."

"It is something that was discussed but it doesnt mean we talked like that all the time -- absolutely not," Roessner recalled. "And indeed, they dont talk like that in the film the entire time, but my journal is filled with little bits of dialogue of things that people would say to me. They werent intending to be philosophical at times. But I got the wisdom. It never left me, obviously, because it made it to the film a decade later. Youd be surprised at how intelligent people get when the bullet starts flying."

"Sand Castle," also starring Henry Cavill, Glen Powell, Logan Marshall-Green, Neil Brown Jr., and Beau Knapp, premieres on Netflix on April 21.


An Englewood couple went to their first pregnancy appointment expecting one baby - but they learned they were having four.

Amanda and Kyle Corcoran were pretty surprised, but completely excited. Now theyre about to begin their new lives as a family of six.

The babies  three boys and a girl  are natural fraternal quadruplets.

DEAF DAD, TODDLER HEAR EACH OTHER FOR FIRST TIME

Amanda is an only child. Kyle has a younger brother. Neithers family has a history of multiple births. The odds of Amanda having multiples were 1 in 70,000.

"We always joked when we did have kinds we would want one. We'd spoil him, Amanda teased. We have four 'only' children that we will spoil a whole bunch."

They knew months ago that they were expecting, but when they heard a total of four heartbeats, their expectations went out the window.

"It was one of those things where we went in for our first sonogram and they just kept counting heartbeats," Amanda said.

DOCTORS TEAM UP TO STOP PREVENTABLE BLINDNESS

And on March 28 at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, the babies were born by C-section.

"It was the most incredible experience. When all four of them are crying at once, that was a surreal moment," she said.

Harrison, Preston, Jackson and Lila now remain in the NICU unit, and their parents couldn't love them more.

"We are still freaking out a little bit, but very ready and mentally prepared for them to come home," Kyle said.

Doctors and the Corcorans hope theyll be ready to go home by the end of May.

"Theres going to be a lot of laughs, a lot of tears from both them and from us I'm sure. We feel really blessed that we get to raise these four beautiful babies and it's going to be an exciting journey - and a journey that is going to change every year, every month, every minute," Amanda said.

The family says they have a support group ready to help them care for all four babies.

Theirs marks the second set of natural quadruplets to be born at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

This article first appeared on Fox 13 News.
Kate Middletons latest confession about motherhood is sure to tug at the heart strings of moms across the globe.

The Duchess of Cambridge revealed to an audience of high school students in west London that motherhood can be lonely and isolating sometimes, the Belfast Telegraph reported. Her talk was part of the royal familys recently launched mental health campaign, Heads Together.

KATE MIDDLETON SPEAKS OUT ABOUT WHAT MOTHERHOOD MEANS TO HER

Middleton made the heartfelt admission while talking to two mothers who discussed how they forged a friendship while comforting each other through loneliness.

Yes, it is lonely at times, and you do feel quite isolated, Middleton, mother to Prince George and Princess Charlotte, told the women, who have reportedly created an app to help other mothers who feel similarly. But actually, so many other mothers are going through exactly what you are going through.

It is being brave enough, like you obviously were, Middleton continued, to reach out to those around you.

NEW MOM FIRES BACK AT DIET SALESWOMAN WHO BODY-SHAMED HER IN TARGET

In her talk, Middleton encouraged parents to raise the topic of mental health through play with children whose language skills have not yet developed, the Belfast Telegraph reported.

Also at the event was her brother-in-law Prince Harry, whom Middleton applauded for discussing his own mental health after the 1997 death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a recent interview with the Daily Telegraph. Harry, now 31, was 12 when his mother died in a car crash in Paris.

After 20 years of avoiding the topic completely, and two years after total chaos, Harry sought help.

IS KATE MIDDLETON'S SECRET FOR GLOWING SKIN ON A GROCERY STORE SHELF?

Harry's older brother and Middleton's husband, Prince William, also made headlines earlier this week when the royal family released a video of him discussing mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with Lady Gaga for the campaign.

Its time that everyone speaks up and really feels very normal about mental health, William tells Gaga in the video. Its the same as physical health.

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According to data released in 2017 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, about 9.3 million American adults, or about 4 percent of those age 18 or older, have serious mental illness that affects their daily activities.

While it is unclear whether Middleton was ever formally diagnosed with postpartum depression, the mood disorder affects about one in seven women, according to the American Psychological Association.
The slaying of at least one police officer and the wounding of two others by an ISIS gunman in Paris on Thursday was yet another tragedy for France. It joins the long list of French atrocities committed by ISIS, from the Bataclan massacre in November 2015 to the truck rampage in Nice that killed 84 last summer.

France is the perfect target for jihadists. It is an icon of Western pleasures, from the Champs-Elysees, where Thursdays attack occurred, to the beaches of the Riviera and Nice. It has an aggressive foreign policy: contra the laugh-lines of congressmen from 2003, the French do not surrender lightly. They invented the counterinsurgency techniques American forces refined in Iraq and Afghanistan, and aggressively fight Islamic extremism and militias in Western Africa. And they have a huge immigrant population, mostly from their ex-colonies in North Africa, ripe for recruiting by extremists.

Between seven and nine percent of France's population is Muslim, according to the CIA. In a nation of 66 million people, that translates to about 5 million, give or take a few hundred thousand. Even if a fraction of that population supports violent jihad, and a fraction of that population engages in it, France faces far more threats than it can guard against. The suspect in Thursdays attack was reportedly known to police. So were 15,000 other people, potential terrorists the security services were apparently monitoring. France, even more so than America, will never police its way to complete safety. The government has declared repeated states of emergency for nearly eighteen continuous months. It was scheduled to expire after the forthcoming elections, but the threat of more jihadist violence certainly will not.

Since 2014, the standard-bearer of the armies of radical Islam has been ISIS. But at long, long last, ISIS is on the run and reeling. Mosul, its last major stronghold in Iraq, is encircled and falling street by street to Iraqi security forces. Raqqa, its capital, is likewise encircled and facing an assault by Syrian Kurds allied with the U.S. In twelve or eighteen months, ISIS will surely be almost expunged. It will have been hanged by its own inflexibility, insisting by biblical verse on going to war with all its neighbors simultaneously. Even for the Middle East, that is a lot of enemies, and now it faces extinction.

Except two weeks ago, a remarkable thing happened. The United States broke through six years of paralysis on punishing the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad for his repeated and wanton use of chemical weapons. President Trump dropped 59 Tomahawk missiles on Syria, and for a moment it looked like Trump, the great realist and lover of stability, would commit himself to removing Bashar Assad. The coalitions of ISISs two main adversaries would finally turn on each other. All it had to do was do nothing, and wait for its enemies to fight.

Instead, ISIS has struck Paris again, in an unbelievably stupid move. This does not appear to be a lone wolf attack the Islamic State has belatedly claimed credit for, but an actual operation, planned and executed. The alleged culprit reportedly had a nom de guerre  Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, or Abu Yusuf the Belgian  and used an AK-47, a weapon of war like the ones ISIS used to carry out the last Paris attack in November 2015. Those guns are trafficked through ratlines of drug smugglers, crime rings, and violent jihadist networks and are not easy to acquire.

The rigidity of ISIS will be its undoing, but is also its strength. Call it a dead hand trigger. The all-against-all ideology that drove Abu Yusufs attacks against the three policemen yesterday will eventually drive ISIS on to defeat, but will also ensure that future attacks continue regardless. Since that night in Paris 17 months ago, the word has been to destroy ISIS, posthaste and two seconds from yesterday. But in 2012 nobody had heard of the Islamic State. The enemy then was still Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network in Afghanistan, and associated jihadists in the Arabian Peninsula, Nigeria, Libya, and elsewhere. After ISIS perishes, the radicals of political Islam will find a new banner, and France will remain the top target. Their ideology will permit nothing less.
As a theoretical physicist, I was excited to hear about Saturdays nationwide March for Science. But after learning who is leading it and why, I am disappointed to report it is but a brazen attempt by political activists to hijack science.

My dream of becoming a scientist started in the second grade and was my ticket out of the disadvantaged, gang-plagued neighborhoods of East Los Angeles, where I was born. Ive spent my life teaching science in and out of classrooms to millions of people worldwide  and my efforts have been rewarded with everything from distinguished teaching awards to Emmys.

I believe the scientific method is by far our best hope for elucidating the physical universe. Its why I feel so protective of it. I cant bear seeing the organizers and partners of the so-called March for Science trying to politicize it.

Bill Nye, the marchs highly visible co-chairperson, is barely even a scientist. After earning an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, he worked for an airplane company, did stand-up comedy, and hosted a PBS kids show, in which he cleverly branded himself The Science Guy.

In science-related debates, Nye consistently defends a strident, liberal position. (Id also call him out if he were a strident conservative.) And he promotes a woefully benighted stereotype of a scientist  an old, nerdy white guy sporting a tweed jacket and bow tie. Given all the highly qualified, bona fide researchers out there  including Nobel Prize winners  it boggles the mind that march organizers would choose Nye to represent science and expect to be taken seriously.

The marchs flagrant political bias is also plain in its choice of partners  for instance, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group of fiercely anti-nuke, anti-Trump lobbyists. Its president, Kenneth Kimmel, defends the march by deliberately confusing attacks on his political agenda with attacks on the scientific method: Nowhere is the attack more ferocious than on the issue of global warming, where the Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the modest but important policies put in place by President Obama.

The marchs official website isnt reassuring either. While reading its stated principles and goals, I came across this doozy of a statement: Political decision-making that impacts the lives of Americans and the world at large should make use of peer-reviewed evidence and scientific consensus, not personal whims and decrees.

Like wizards uttering a magical incantation, lobbyists routinely invoke the existence of a scientific consensus to lend an aura of infallibility to their political stands. At a seminar years ago, Arianna Huffington explained the Huffington Post did not tolerate any debate about climate change, because Al Gore  that world renowned scientist  personally assured her the matter was settled science, another oft-heard political spell.

The only thing Huffington revealed that day was her scientific illiteracy. Science is never settled. As Albert Einstein once observed, No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

Einstein knew whereof he spoke. As a young physicist in Switzerland, he confronted a stubborn scientific consensus  supported by a mountain of peer-reviewed evidence  that decreed Newtonian physics was settled science. In 1905, when Einstein dared to challenge it  to publish the special theory of relativity  the scientific establishment promptly reared up against him. Prominent Nazi physicists even accused him of promulgating disreputable Jewish science.

There is enormous room for improving science education in our nations public schools, colleges, grad schools, media, and  yes  political institutions. But the March for Science  lobbyists claiming that supporting the scientific method is equivalent to supporting their political agendas  is a very big, very public step in the wrong direction.
President Trump is sending a signal to the world that the United States of America is back, and that going forward, we will be leading from the front.

The commander-in-chiefs message that he will not be repeating the mistakes of his predecessors should not be lost on North Korea and Iran. The Hermit Kingdom, which this week threatened a "super-mighty preemptive strike" that will reduce America's military to ashes, is facing new pressure from President Trump. And Tehran, the worlds No. 1 state sponsor of terror, is learning it is no longer dealing with a solicitous Obama administration that gave it a flawed and lucrative nuclear agreement.

They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that, Trump said. And we're analyzing it very, very carefully, and we'll have something to say about it in the not too distant future. But Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement, and they have to do that.

These rogue regimes must never be allowed to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Allowing them to do so would put tens of millions of lives in immediate danger. North Korea routinely threatens South Korea and America with nuclear attacks. The Iranian government repeatedly calls for the destruction of America and Israel.

President Trump is forced to face all of these threats after years of the timid and naive appeasement policies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. For example, back in the 1990s, the Clinton administration struck a deal with the North Koreans, giving them $4 billion in energy aid in exchange for what they said was a promise that Pyongyang would eventually end their nuclear program.

This is a good deal for the United States, Clinton crowed on Oct. 21, 1994. North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.

Obviously, this deal was completely flawed. It didn't work, as evidenced by the situation we now find ourselves in.

Then you have Barack Obama. Now, instead of learning from Clinton's massive mistake, he secretly brokered a deal with Iran that gave it $150 billion while still allowing them to spin the centrifuges that could weaponized nuclear material.

Today, the United States, together with our allies and partners, has reached a historic understanding with Iran, which if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Obama said in April of 2015.

Sort of like when Obama said his red line would stop Assad from ever using chemical weapons. Didn't work.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is now making it clear that Iran nuclear deal does nothing to stop Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon. And with Tehran also testing ballistic missiles which could one day potentially carry a nuclear warhead, maybe even to the continental United States, you can bet the Trump administration wont sit on its hands.

President Trump understands that when dealing with countries like North Korea and Iran, you've got to speak from a position of strength. Any time weakness is shown, they will exploit it to their own advantage.

If America wants an example of why it must lead from the front to combat these many threats, all one has to do is look toward Israel. The Jewish state shares borders with Lebanon, which is the home of the terrorist group Hezbollah, and Syria, which is engaged in a brutal civil war and where ISIS is headquartered.

Unlike America, Israel is not protected by thousands of miles of oceans. It is, instead, surrounded by enemies and complete chaos. Israel cant afford to sit back and let its enemies have their way. And neither can President Trumps America.

Adapted from Sean Hannity's monologue on "Hannity," April 20, 2017
The Egyptian and Russian foreign ministers agreed in a phonecall on Friday to meet in Cairo at the end of May, along with the two countries defence ministers, an Egyptian ministry spokesman announced.

Ahmed Abu Zeid, the official foreign affairs ministry spokesman, said in a statement that Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov discussed several issues during the call, including enhancement of bilateral relations, the situation in Syria and Libya, and issues on the Security Council agenda which are of concern to both countries.

On Saturday, the secretary-general of the Egyptian parliament's environment and energy committee said that Egypt and Russia are close to signing the final contract for construction of the Dabaa nuclear power plant northwest of Cairo.

In November 2015, the two countries signed an agreement to build Egypts first nuclear power plant at the site on the Mediterranean cost. The construction will be financed by a $25 billion loan from Russia.

In March, Russia's top oil producer Rosneft agreed with the Egyptian gas company EGAS to provide Egypt with 10 shipments of liquefied natural gas this year.

In February Russia announced the delivery of 50 MiG-29 fighter aircraft to Egypt by 2020. According to Russian state news agency Sputnik, the contract  reportedly initiated after Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in February 2014  is the largest order for MiG-29 jets in the post-Soviet era.

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Justice Clarence Thomas made headlines last month when he criticized civil forfeiture, a notorious police practice that allows law enforcement to confiscate property, even from people who have never been charged with a crime. This system, he wrote, has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses.

Hearing one of the Supreme Courts most conservative members denounce such a shameful violation of our civil liberties gives us hope that civil forfeiture can be drastically curtailed.

To prevent future abuses, I, along with Rep. Tim Walberg, reintroduced the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR Act) in March. The FAIR Act would dramatically reform federal civil-forfeiture laws to respect the American peoples Fifth Amendment rights while maintaining the ability of courts to order the surrender of proceeds from crime.

During the 1980s, as the war on drugs was ramping up, Congress enacted legislation that made it far easier for the federal government to seize cash, cars, and even real estate.

Worst of all, Congress created powerful financial incentives to pursue civil-forfeiture cases.

Once a property is forfeited, federal agencies can auction it off and collect up to 100 percent of the proceeds or retain it for their own use; previously, forfeiture proceeds were directed to the Treasurys General Fund.

According to a report by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, the Justice Departments Assets Forfeiture Fund skyrocketed from just under $94 million to more than $4.5 billion between 1986 and 2014.

State and local law enforcement can get a cut of the action, too, thanks to a program that Congress also created in the 1980s. Under equitable sharing, police and prosecutors can bypass state laws and collaborate with a federal agency to forfeit property under federal law. If successful, local and state agencies can even receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds.

In a bombshell report released last week, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the Justice Department has funneled more than $6 billion in equitable-sharing funds to local and state agencies since 2000. Several law enforcement officials even told the OIG that the primary reason they turn to equitable sharing is because their states forfeiture laws restrict law enforcements use of forfeiture.

Allowing agencies to win bounties from forfeiture has warped priorities for law enforcement.

Russ Caswell knows this all too well. Russ owned a motel in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, which had been run by the Caswell family since 1955. But his small business, which he owned free and clear and was valued at $1.5 million, became a tempting target for equitable sharing.

Although Russ was never charged with a crime, the federal government and local police claimed his motel facilitated criminal activity.

The reason? Prosecutors identified 15 drug-related incidents that occurred out of 196,000 rented rooms.

It was later revealed that a federal drug agent was found combing through public records, searching for properties the government could seize.

Thankfully, after the Institute for Justice took on his case pro bono, Russ won in federal court and could finally sell his motel and retire.

But the vast majority of forfeiture victims are not so lucky. A sweeping investigation by The Washington Post found over 60,000 cash seizures where police never filed charges. The seizures disproportionately affected African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities.

Stories like these are why the FAIR Act is so critical. First and foremost, the FAIR Act would abolish equitable sharing and redirect all forfeiture proceeds to the Treasurys General Fund. Both reforms would end the perverse incentives that encourage police to pursue cash over criminals.

In order to restore the constitutional right to due process, the FAIR Act would ensure all property owners facing civil forfeiture have a right to an attorney, and it would restore the presumption of innocence. Right now, owners must bear the burden of proof, which flips our constitutional protections on their head.

The FAIR Act is bipartisan, bicameral legislation that has brought together a diverse coalition. The ACLU, Americans for Tax Reform, Campaign for Liberty, Drug Policy Alliance, FreedomWorks, Heritage Action, Institute for Justice, NACDL, and NFIB  organizations from all across the ideological spectrum  have endorsed the FAIR Act.

Further, forfeiture reform is the rare issue that earned the backing of both the Republican and Democratic Party platforms last summer.

For far too long, civil forfeiture has ruined the lives of tens of thousands of Americans who have done nothing wrong.

Government agents should not profit from seizing property, especially if that property was taken from the innocent. We call on Congress to support the FAIR Act and end this un-American injustice.

Scott Bullock is president of the Institute for Justice.
When President Obama promised to fundamentally transform America, we had no idea he was secretly plotting to ban biscuits and grits.

The 2010 Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act strictly limited calories, fat, salt, sugar and just about everything else that makes food edible  including grits.

Click here for a free subscription to Todds newsletter: a must-read for Conservatives!

It was the War of Culinary Aggression.

We could originally serve half whole grains but that changed in 2012 when we had to start serving 100 percent whole grains, said Stephanie Dillard, the child nutrition director for Geneva County Schools in Alabama.

That meant no more grits.

And grits are a staple in the South, Ms. Dillard told me. Students really want to eat their grits.

Im fairly certain that, had Southerners known President Obama had taken away their biscuits and grits, Mitt Romney wouldve won the South in a landslide.

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My editor just sent me an email reminding me that I have a diverse readership and I should probably include a working definition of the word grits.

The word diverse is a polite way of saying I have a number of Yankee readers.

So for all yall up in the Bronx, grits are made from stone-ground corn and prepared with lots of butter. Grits are also versatile  meaning you can eat them for breakfast or supper (which is the meal called dinner north of the Mason-Dixon Line).

Grits and fish go well together, Ms. Dillard said. Students love that.

Of course, the folks from South Carolina are renowned for shrimp and grits and I know a few folks in Mississippi who toss a few eggs in theirs. Im from Tennessee and we prefer a little cheese in our grits  but I digress.

RELATED STORY: Chef Michelle Weaver's shrimp and grits

The Obama administration also had a problem with traditional Southern buttermilk biscuits made from Martha White Flour.

Biscuits have to be 100 percent whole grain, Ms. Dillard said. Its not the kind of biscuit you would see at a restaurant.

Nor is it the kind of biscuit you would see on your grandmothers dining room table or a Wednesday night church supper. Why, no self-respecting Southerner would ever serve such an atrocity.

I had the unfortunate experience of eating one of those government-approved biscuits. I wouldnt wish that culinary apostasy on Bernie Sanders.

Its hard to find good, fluffy, 100-percent whole grain biscuits, Ms. Dillard told me.

Im not terribly surprised. The South has a better chance of rising than a 100-percent whole grain, government-approved biscuit.

The students have gotten used to them, she said. They really arent that bad.

My friend, the Southern humorist Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, seems to think whole grain biscuits are a Communist plot.

No freedom honoring nation should force whole grain cathead biscuits on their young, she told me.

Like Grandmother Starnes used to say, biscuits should only be made from buttermilk and Martha White Flour, the way the Good Lord intended.

All that to say, a delegation of school nutritionists recently paid a visit to Congress to politely inform lawmakers that the Obama-era food rules were overcooking their grits.

Were asking for some flexibility so we can serve 50-percent whole grains, Ms. Dillard said. If we can have that, we would be allowed to serve our grits.

The School Nutrition Association is lobbying for a relaxation of the rules, too. But they took me to task for saying President Obama had banned grits.

Theres no ban on one kind of food  it just has to fit within the criteria, their spokesperson told me.

Grits dont fit into their criteria  so in my estimation that means theyre banned.

For what its worth, Miss Shellie stands with the good people of Alabama as they try to bring back grits.

May God have favor on their efforts, she said. Grits can heal America.

We now ask Speaker Ryan to do the right thing and restore biscuits and grits to their rightful place.

And the next time the federal government decides to outlaw basic Southern provisions, We the People should rise up and tell Uncle Sam to kiss our grits.
French voters turn out Sunday to vote against the candidate they most detest. Yes, you read that right. The first round of Frances presidential elections this weekend will be about who citizens dislike the most, not which one they support.

And there is plenty to dislike about all four front-runners.

The stakes could not be higher. France, which after Germany is the biggest economy in the European Union, must choose among two anti-establishment candidates  one far-right and the other a throw-back communist, and two middle-of-the-road stanchions of the political elite that has misruled France for decades.

The top two vote-getters will move on to a runoff in May. The new president will have to decide if France remains in the E.U., if it keeps the euro as its currency, and whether it will leave its borders open to hordes of refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

For the front-runner, Marine Le Pen of the National Front, the answers to these questions are: non, non, et non. Her candidacy, often compared to that of Donald Trump, has awakened long-smoldering resentment among native-born Frenchmen about loss of jobs and against the influx of Muslims, who now make up 11 percent of the countrys population.

Le Pen favors a referendum to decide if France should leave the E.U.  the so-called Frexit option. She wants to crack down on illegal immigrants, especially those who engage in terrorist activities. She wants to ditch the widely despised euro and bring back Frances beloved currency, the franc.

All these traditionalist positions have resonated with the electorate, putting Le Pen slightly ahead of her opponents. Thursdays fatal shootout on the Champs Elysees, the high holy ground of Paris, can only boost her chances.

But Le Pen has heirloom baggage. Her dad, Jen-Marie Le Pen, founded the National Front, and ran for president as an unrepentant Holocaust denier. Le Pens efforts to soften the partys image have been successful. But have they convinced moderate voters to support her?

Three other candidates have a chance to get through the first round. The most interesting is the far-left winger Jean-Luc Melenchon. His proudly socialist agenda would also allow Frenchmen to vote for a Frexit, but only because he wants to make his country even more of a welfare state than E.U. rules allow.

Emmanuel Macron, who was a minister in the current Socialist administration, has campaigned on the fact that he is not Le Pen. His baby face and nebulous promises initially appealed to voters who thought they couldnt stomach a National Front government. Now, some of them are having second thoughts.

In other circumstances, the slightly right-of-center candidate, Francois Fillon, would be a shoe-in. But Fillon, who extols his strong Catholic faith, has been unable to shake accusations that he put his wife into a no-show government job at a hefty salary. Frenchmen might have shrugged off this kind of petty larceny in the past, but the publics tolerance for hypocrisy has evaporated.

Whoever wins, France will have a weak president, says Vincent Deluard, a San Francisco based global strategist for INTL FCStone, a financial services firm. The French Republic is efficient only if the president can count on a disciplined parliamentary majority. Without a parliamentary majority, the French president is like the Queen of England. He can cut ribbons, but nothing will get done. And none of the candidates can count on a parliamentary majority.

Bellwether thinks Le Pen will narrowly win the first round. Get ready for howls of panic from mainstream media around the world, who are already predicting doom if she becomes president.

Theres just one thing: media cant vote. That privilege is reserved for Frenchmen, and they are in a sullen mood for change.
Stuart Varney joined FOX Business Network (FBN) in 2007 and is the host of Varney & Co. (weekdays 9 AM-12 PM/ET), the highest rated market program on television. He is also the host of My Take with Stuart Varney on FOX Nation, where he offers his perspective on leading economic issues facing the country. In addition, he serves as the host of FBN Prime's American Built, an hourlong series that showcases individuals that work to keep our infrastructure in working order.Read More

Throughout his tenure with the network, Varney has interviewed leading titans of business, politics, sports and entertainment, including former New England Patriots all-star turned entrepreneur Rob Gronkowski, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai, United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, among others.

Additionally, Varney serves as business contributor across FOX News Channel (FNC) programs. Since joining FNCs business team in 2004, Varney has appeared as a guest on the network's weekday and weekend business programming including FOX & Friends and Your World with Neil Cavuto.

Prior to joining FNC, Varney served as the host of CNBC's Wall Street Journal Editorial Board with Stuart Varney. Before that, he was a co-anchor of CNN's Moneyline News Hour. Varney helped launch CNN's business news team in 1980 and hosted many of their financial programs including, Your Money, Business Day and Business Asia. His reporting and analysis of the stock market crash of 1987 helped earn CNN a Peabody Award for excellence in journalism.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Varney began his broadcast journalism career as a business anchor for KEMO-TV in San Francisco.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and DHS Secretary John Kelly made a stop in El Paso, Texas Thursday and warned potential illegal immigrants dont come.

When you are caught, you will be detained, adjudicated and deported, Sessions said. Do not come unlawfully. Wait your turn.

Sessions and Kelly were making their first stop in a two-day border trip including El Paso and San Diego.

They toured the U.S.-Mexico border and got a first-hand look at border operations and also visited the immigration court in El Paso. Sessions described El Paso as the front lines and ground zero in the fight against illegal immigration, gangs and drug cartels.

Both men reaffirmed the Trump administrations tough stance on illegal immigration and tried dissuading citizens of other countries from trying to come in illegally.

For those who still seek to violate our laws and enter the country illegally, let me be very clear. Dont come. Please dont come, said Sessions.

We will continue to expand our approach of deterring illegal immigration. Everythings on the table in that regard, said Kelly. That includes our approach of prosecuting anyone who pays traffickers to smuggle people into the country. Especially those who smuggle in children.

The Attorney General announced the DOJ will hire 50 immigration judges this year and 75 next year to help overcome the massive backlogs of cases that can take years to be heard.

Kelly added that judges are being moved from the interior of the country to border cities to handle immigration-related cases as close to the border as possible.

This means detained immigrants arent biding their time in the United States. Theyre not using our governments resources. It means we can move them through our system more efficiently, shorter waits and faster repatriation to their countries of origin, said Kelly. If thats what the law allows.

In addition to more judges, Sessions said he placed a border security coordinator in each U.S. Attorneys office who will be personally responsible for overseeing the efforts to prosecute immigration cases and report back directly to the Attorney General.

He also said hes told U.S. Attorneys offices to make criminal immigration cases a priority and hes provided specific guidance on how to adjudicate the cases.

Kelly and Sessions continue their trip in San Diego Friday, where theyll be joined by Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and observe DHS border and immigration detention operations.
Steve Hayes, Editor and Chief of the Weekly Standard said Thursday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that the Trump administration is taking a whole new approach to the threat from Iran.

"The Trump administration is going to take on Iran as a threat looking at the nuclear program, looking at terrorism, looking at what it's doing in the region," Hayes said. "Remember the Obama administration had this chosen, this deliberate policy of decoupling the nuclear talks from everything else Iran does. You heard in Rex Tillerson's comments yesterday, you've heard from other people in the administration, that's over, that's not happening anymore."

Trump has vowed to take a look at the Iran nuclear deal, which was put in place by the Obama administration. However, Hayes said the Trump administration is sending mixed messages.

"The reason for it is Iran, as part of this deal got the goods, got the rewards for the deal early and now it's about compliance," said Hayes. "So if the administration tears up the deal Iran has already gotten much of what it took to sign the deal and the United States and people would keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon now want to test the compliance."
Two media reports say U.S. prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including its founder Julian Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets.

CNN reports that authorities are preparing to seek Assange's arrest.

The Washington Post reports prosecutors are weighing charges against the organization's members after the Obama-era Justice Department declined to do so.

The newspaper says possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act.

WikiLeaks last month released documents it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and smart TVs. It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange's attorney says authorities have not apprised him of the status of their investigation.
One of Hawaiis most well-known governors is appealing to President Trump to end funding for the states most notorious government boondoggle project.

The controversial 20-mile elevated heavy steel rail system now under construction on Oahu is slated to cost $10 billion or $500 million per mile, former Hawaii Gov. Benjamin Cayetano said, the most costly rail project in the world.

As a lifelong Democrat and former governor of Hawaii, I opposed your candidacy, said Cayetano in a statement published in a full-page newspaper advertisement in The Washington Post on Friday and provided to Fox News. I must admit, however, that you are on the right track scrutinizing wasteful spending on pork barrel projects.

NORTH KOREA TENSIONS HAVE HAWAII POLS REVISITING EMERGENCY ATTACK PLANS

Cayetano, governor of Hawaii from 1994 to 2002, met Trump in Honolulu in 1998 when Trumps Miss Universe Pageant was held there.

I recall you commented on the beauty of Honolulu, Cayetano said in his appeal to Trump. The rail project plans include seven massive elevated rail stations 50-60 feet high and the 35-foot high elevated rail line through the heart of downtown Honolulu. If built, this will change the beauty and ambience of the city forever.

City officials initially promised that the rail would reduce the current level of traffic congestion dramatically, Cayetano said. But the final environmental impact statement reported the rail would reduce traffic congestion by under 2 percent and noted traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today (without rail).

The project is so over budget that the city and county of Honolulu, which includes all of Hawaiis main island of Oahu, does not have the funds to complete the 20-mile system, falling $3 billion short and six years behind schedule, Cayetano said.

HAWAII WOMAN'S DOG SHOT, KILLED AT HONOLULU AIRPORT

Internal emails among [Federal Transit Administration] staff revealed there was much doubt and cynicism about rail and the citys multi-million-dollar public relations campaign, yet the FTA did nothing and is now on the verge of providing the remaining $800 million of the $1.5 billion grant, Cayetano said.

Honolulus rail project was initially driven more by politics, pushed through by the powerful U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, who was then chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Cayetano said. Inouye, proud of securing billions of dollars in pork barrel projects for Hawaii over his 50 years in political office, died in December 2012.

Numerous critics of the project want the Trump administration to terminate the FTAs Full Funding Grant Agreement, which would force the city to consider less costly transportation alternatives.

Honolulus rail project does not deserve a single dollar more from the federal government, Cayetano said. It has become a poster boy for how politics, incompetence, disinformation and outright lies are at the root of wasteful rail projects which do little for the public except raise taxes.

The project was initially pushed through in 2008 by Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who was backed by the steel workers union among other construction unions whod benefit from the project, and an initiative supported by 50.8 percent of the voters. The current Honolulu Mayor, Kirk Caldwell, is one of the projects main advocates and has pushed to make Oahus temporary general excise tax increase permanent to fund the project.

"I think it's better to continue to march forward, Caldwell said about the rail, which is already visibly under construction in West Oahu.

However, the projects cost could balloon even further as it moves into downtown Honolulu, said Panos Prevedouros, a professor of engineering at the University of Hawaii, and a world-renowned expert in transportation projects.

"They cannot complete the four in-town miles because those are very expensive and we don't have an actual budget for them, Prevedouros said, noting politicians low-balled the cost and misrepresented the benefits to easing traffic.

"It is political corruption, Prevedouros said about the reason the project was approved and continues to move forward. There are a lot of funds, a lot of money circulating, for a totally useless project.
President Trump is creeping up in the polls now that foreign policy has seized center stage.

With his domestic agenda lagging for now, Trump is discovering, as his predecessors did, that a president has far greater latitude on the world stage. At the same time, global events have demanded an administration response.

Its hardly surprising that Trumps approval rating is getting a little betterup six points, to 40 percent, in a new Quinnipiac poll. He launched widely praised airstrikes against Syria over a chemical weapons attack, and used the Mother of All Bombs against ISIS in Afghanistan.

Presidents usually get a boost after taking military action, though that can be short-lived.

By challenging North Korea with tough verbal exchanges, as that regime is making nuclear threats, Trump also keeps the focus on foreign affairs--as opposed to tax reform or the failed health care bill.

Now the medias critique of Trump is shifting. New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush tweeted: Will he talk us into a war?

Here is the story he coauthored with Mark Landler:

Mr. Trumps confrontational and improvisational approach to foreign affairs has lifted his mood, fortunes and poll numbers in recent days

But Mr. Trumps mix of chest thumping and real action  the missile attack and the use of a huge bomb against Islamic militants in Afghanistan  entails serious risks overseas. It could also backfire at home, where a majority of Americans, and many of the populist conservatives who backed him in 2016, oppose long-term military commitments.

And here comes the Mother of All Nut Grafs:

The biggest risk, critics say, is that Mr. Trump will talk himself into a war. Only slightly less dangerously, he could weaken the nations standing by backing off from a threat to use force.



Well, there is certainly risk in pressuring North Korea, bombing Syria and escalating firepower in Afghanistan. But there is also the risk of inactionwhich Barack Obama was often accused of, especially in Syria, with his leading from behind approach.

The Washington Post says the presidents foreign policy is being undercut by confusing and conflicting messages from within his administration.

Over the past two weeks, policy pronouncements from senior Trump aides have often been at odds with one another  such as whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power as part of a negotiated resolution to end that nations civil war.



And there is evidence to back that up. Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley sometimes use harsher rhetoric than Trump, whether its on Russia, Syria or ISIS. But another view is that this reflects Trumps unique style. By letting his lieutenants rattle sabers, the president may project ambiguity about his intentions and keep our enemies guessing.

One of his constant refrains during the campaign was that he wasnt going to telegraph military action.

But there are times when the mixed messages simply dont work. After Trump tried to exert pressure by saying he was sending an armada to the region of the Korean Peninsula, the administration had to admit that it sailed to Indonesiaa rather roundabout route.

In the end, the president has to produce results in some of the worlds trouble spotsand his track record will matter more than any media scorekeeping.
President Donald Trump is holding his first meeting with Italy's prime minister.

Trump will meet Thursday at the White House with Paolo Gentiloni. They'll discuss the Group of Seven industrialized nations meeting in Italy next month.

The G-7 nations have urged Russia to pressure the Syrian government to end the six-year civil war. They have blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad's military for a recent chemical attack that killed more than 80 people.

Trump will travel to Europe next month for the first time since taking office for a NATO meeting in Brussels, followed by the G-7 meeting in Italy.

G-7 members include the U.S., Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Japan and Italy.

Italy is also a member of NATO, the military alliance to which Trump says the U.S. contributes more than it receives.

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The Egyptian American charity worker who was sent to prison for three years in Cairo met with President Trump Friday at the White House.

We are very happy to have her back home, Trump said. Thank you very much."

The White House has been working for weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to secure the release of Aya Hijazi, 30, as well as her husband Mohamed Hassanein and four other humanitarian workers.

Wade McMullen, managing attorney at the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights organization which has been advocating on Hijazi's behalf, told National Public Radio that Sisis visit to Washington came during a short window of time before the final verdict in Hijazis case.

McMullen said during the trip, senior administration officials were engaging with Egyptian officials on Ayas case.

Hijazi became the face of Egypts crackdown in 2014, She had her husband were sentenced to prison on May 1,2014 on child abuse and trafficking charges that have been widely criticized and dismissed by multiple human rights workers and U.S. officials as false.

Hijazi is a graduate of George Mason University and grew up in northern Virginia. There was virtually no evidence brought against her, her husband or the four humanitarian workers.
Marilyn Monroe, aided by a tight group of confidantes, set out in 1961 to find a home of her own in the Los Angeles area, and eventually landed on a modest but secluded Hacienda with white stucco walls and a red tile roof in Brentwood.

Tucked beyond a cul-de-sac and behind a walled and gated entry on 5th Helena Drive, the property, built in 1929, offered the star refuge from the spotlight. Monroeby some accounts worth more than $30 millionagreed to pay less than $80,000 for the 2,624-square-foot house in 1961 and moved in with her long-time maid Eunice, according to a biography by Donald Spoto.

This home, the only one Monroe ever owned and where she died months after the purchase, hit the market on Friday with brokerage Mercer Vine, priced at $6.9 million and barely modified since the star lived there, despite changing hands half-a-dozen times, according to property records.

Theres this wall and gate and trees and this beauty You feel like its an oasis, said listing agent Lisa Optican of Mercer Vine. Thats really what I think attracted to her to the property and that still exists today.

The troubled beauty appeared at peace in a 1962 interview and photoshoot with Time magazine in her new house, though Twentieth Century-Fox had fired her weeks before from the film Somethings Got to Give.

Anybody who likes my house, I am sure I will get along with, she said during the interview with Life Associate Editor Richard Meryman. In a photoshoot for the story, she lounged on an ornately carved green velvet chair and basked in the sunlight coming through one of many casement windows.

The house inspired the actress to decorate with Mexican furniture in keeping with the architectural style, and she took a special trip south of the border to search the roadside and factories for the right things to put in it, Meryman wrote in 1962.

As she led me through the rooms, bare and makeshift as though someone lived there only temporarily, she described with loving excitement each couch and table and dresser, where it would go and what was special about it, he recounted.

She would never see the larger items she bought in Mexico arrive, the home only half furnished when she was found dead face down and naked in her bed from an apparent overdose on Aug. 5, 1962.

Her doctor, called to the house in the middle of the night by Monroes anxious maid, banged on the dark wooden door to her bedroom to no avail, and eventually used a fireplace poker to break through a window into her disheveled bedroom. The doctor found her with the telephone receiver clutched in her hand and an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to the bed, according to an article published in The Los Angeles Times the day after her death.

The house and many of the furnishings sold to a family from Los Angeles a year later, according to a biography of the star.

In total, the property has changed hands seven times since Monroes death, though her short residence and tragic end still define the house. Most of the residents have been private people, including the current owner, who bought the home in 2012 for $5.1 million, according to property records.

The only exceptions were actress and model Veronica Hamel, who lived there in the 1970s, and director Michael Ritchie, who bought the house for $995,000 in 1994 and triggered brief news that it might be torn down. It never was, and remains largely the same as when Monroe owned it.

A kidney-shaped pool sits in the lushly planted backyard, which hosts a brick-paved courtyard, a line of citrus trees and a separate guest house.

The main house has retained many of the details Monroe selected and offers the same privacy and tranquility that attracted the star, Optican said.

The living room has terracotta floors, lancet arch doorways and original wood-beamed ceilings. The ceilings continues into a kitchen, with a skylight over the center island, images of the home show.

A blue-tiled fireplace present in photos from Monroes time is still the centerpiece of the living room, though her 1960s carpeting was replaced with tile floors.

When you walk the house and grounds, youre immediately struck by its serenity and warmth, Optican said. Its an absolute oasis in the heart of one of the best neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

More from MansionGlobal.com.
Archaeologists have found incredible evidence of a huge Wichita Indian town in Kansas that was once home to 20,000 people.

Donald Blakeslee, a professor of archaeology at Wichita State University, told Fox News that experts harnessed 400-year-old Spanish documents and modern technology to locate the long-lost town of Etzanoa near Arkansas City, Kansas.

A single community of 20,000 people was not something that any of us expected, he said over the phone. Its a completely different view of everything.

NASA ASTRONAUTS SPACE TREASURE MAP SPARKS HUNT FOR CARIBBEAN WRECKS

Etzanoa, which existed from the early 15th century to just after 1700, was visited by Spanish soldiers in 1601. The soldiers were interviewed about the town in Mexico City the following year and their eyewitness accounts were recorded in documents, which are now in Seville, Spain. A new translation of the documents provided the catalyst for the latest discovery.

The Cibola Project at the University of California, Berkeley, made photocopies of the documents, re-transcribed them from the Old Spanish and retranslated them. This showed that earlier historians and archaeologists had been dealing with errors in transcription and translation, leading to the misinterpretation of previous archaeological finds in the area.

The new translations are just wonderful, they are much cleaner than all the previous attempts, said Blakeslee, adding that earlier historians thought the Spanish were exaggerating the size of Etzanoa. The Spanish who were there in 1601 counted 2,000 houses and estimated 10 people per house, he said.

GLADIATOR GAMES: EXPERTS HARNESS TECH TO REVEAL ROMAN CITYS SECRETS

Blakeslee started work at Etzanoa in 2015 and used metal detectors to locate iron shot from a battle fought at the site in 1601. A National Park Service magnetometer was also used to confirm the towns layout.

We had Spanish records of how the town was laid out with clusters of houses, when we applied the magnetometer thats exactly what we found, he added. Scattered surface finds also correspond with Spanish descriptions of the town as extending about five miles. The description of the landscape and the route taken by the Spanish army were also found to be correct, according to WSU.

Radiocarbon dating suggests that Etzanoa emerged around 1425 and lasted until just after 1700.

VIKING DISCOVERY: EXPERTS USE TECH TO REVEAL SETTLEMENT BENEATH SAINT-KING'S CHURCH

While Etzanoa may lack the monumental structures found at the famous ancient city of Cahokia in southern Illinois. Blakeslee noted that the sites significance should not be underestimated. Cahokia is a little over six square miles, Etzanoa is a little over five square miles, so its not a huge difference.

The Wichita Nation, he said, inhabited an area the size of the Republic of Ireland.

Blakeslee, who recently presented his findings at the annual conference of the Society for American Archaeology, told Fox News that there will be further research at the site this summer.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Following Thursday nights terrorist attack in Paristhe latest in one of the worlds most popular cities for touristsboth Parisians and travelers have been on edge as authorities continue to investigate the shooting.

The incident shut down the crowded, tree-lined Champs-Elysees, one of the main arteries in Paris and a tourism magnet, just three days before the upcoming French presidential elections.

Nobody wants to be afraid when they go to take the metro or are out for dinner, but there is a nagging worry in the back of everyones mind, Melanie Mathis, an American national living in Paris, told Fox News. You think twice about going certain places or being in large crowds.

Terror attacks have become increasingly frequent in France, leaving many wondering just how safe the beautiful city really is. Long one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, France received 83 million foreign visitors last year, according to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, that number is down from 2015, when France reported more than 85 million tourists.

LE PEN CALLS FOR FRANCE TO RESTORE BORDER CONTROLS AFTER ISIS-CLAIMED ATTACK

Just two months ago, French statistics agency INSEE reported that tourism had sharply rebounded in 2016, after two consecutive quarters of decline linked to terrorism attacks. The news came at a welcome timetourism is the biggest industry in the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, and as recently as late 2016, the region reported a devastating 750 million euros (over $802 million) in lost revenue.

Paris has been on the downside since November 2015, followed by the Nice truck attack in 2016, but we were seeing slowly travelers returning back to Paris, New York-based travel agent Ginny Caragol, Executive Director of Valerie Wilson Travel, told Fox News.

While Caragol noted a decline in French bookings following the Bataclan attacks, that trend was beginning to reverse. With these recent incidents, the agency has yet to receive requests to cancel future bookings, although, says Caragol,this could change.

Adds Mathis, A lot of people dream of traveling to or around France and the thought of that being taken away or diminished by terrorist threats is simply unacceptable.

France in particular, and Paris in general, has experienced a recent uptick in terrorism, with incidents including the March 2017 Orly attack; the February 2017 Louvre attack; a July 2016 attack at a church in Normandy; the July 2016 Nice truck attacks; the November 2015 attacks (including the Bataclan theater), and the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015.

Meanwhile, just this week, two men were arrested in Marseille on suspicion of planning another imminent attack before the Presidential election.

PARIS UNVEILS PLANS TO SECURE EIFFEL TOWER WITH BULLETPROOF GLASS WALL

The US State Department has not issued an alert for Americans traveling to France, although the France page contains a warning for those traveling or living in France, saying When traveling or living in France, you should: Be aware of your local security situation, and take appropriate steps to bolster your personal security.

The website cautions US citizens to avoid demonstrations, gatherings and protests, and reminds travelers about Frances national state of emergency in place following the deadly November 2015 attacks. In December, the French Parliament voted to extend the state of emergency until July 15 of this year, after the elections are over and a new President has taken office.

Travel risk management firm E Travel Alerts, however, has France listed as Country Risk Level: High, indicating the fact that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, and noting this weeks earlier arrests in Marseille.

Travelers are also being advised by the US Embassy in France to download the Government of France smartphone application, SAIP, to receive alerts regarding terrorist attacks or other exceptional events.

"We are faced with a specifically high terrorist threat," Ministry spokesperson Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters Thursday.

As of Friday morning, traffic on the city's metro line was back to normal, with the three stations closed yesterday following the incidentGeorge V, Champs-Elysees-Clemenceau, and Franklin Rooseveltopen again.

While fears of terror incidents have become a fact of life all over the world, many recent attacks have been small in scale. Far from the 9/11 or 7/7 images of mass-scale terrorism, the new trend appears to be lone-wolves acting out with whatever they can get their hands on: including cars, trucks, knives, and machetes.

The trend is known as a low-grade attackas opposed to targeting high-risk areas like airportswith last months London attack on the Westminster Bridge and in front of Parliament recent high-profile examples of this scary trend.

Its particularly insidious because it means that, theoretically, anybody could strike out at any time.

There is a general malaise that has woven itself into Parisians lives, says Mathis. More than that, there is a feeling of frustration that these people are somehow allowed to wreak havoc and disrupt the normally carefree Parisian lifestyle.

In a statement to Fox News, the French Consulate said, Francois Hollande said that a shooting on the Champs Elysees on Thursday evening was suspected to be "of a terrorist nature." He promised "absolute vigilance" in the next two days ahead of presidential elections on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the French Interior Minister, Mattias Fekl, has promised 50,000 policemen and soldiers will be on hand for both election rounds, hopefully soothing fears for those worried as the critical election approaches.

For many, however, the nerves remain.

Yet another attack in Paris tonight. Three days before the elections... terrible terrible things. I'm even more scared now, a Twitter user posted Thursday.

Another potential traveler tweeted, i'm reconsidering going to paris because of all these attacks.

Somebody else chimed in, A bunch of my friends are on a school trip to Paris this week and there's shootings going on. A bit worried.

But while fear and apprehension in the wake of incidents is an understandable response, Craig Sabasch, of North South Travel, a Canadian-based agency, has a different take.

We do send lots of travellers to Paris and France, but all in all we really have not seen much of a reduction for clients travelling to there, Sabasch explains.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

I think after the Bataclan concert killings it got a bit quiet, but then it picked up again. France and Paris are one of the most popular destinations in the world. I dont expect a decreaseI think that Canadians are not as easily scared by these types of situations as Americans are!

Time will tell if tourists start to abandon France again. As for locals, theyll press on.

They cant beat the French spirit, affirms Mathis.

The terrorist attacks actually created a sense of national identity and unity, and the country has come together to refuse any hindrance to the French way of life. The French are quite defiant and wont let anyone ruin the party."

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo echoed the sentiment on Twitter, saying In the face of this ordeal, I know that the determination of Parisians to defend their way of life and their values is total.
A New Mexico school board passed a resolution this week to ensure undocumented immigrant students and children of undocumented immigrants receive benefits such as free and reduced cost meals, transportation, health care from the school nurse, extracurricular activities and educational services.

Its all part of a growing national trend thats schools say protects children in the country illegally.

Las Cruces School Board President Maria Flores said the district wanted to create the policy because of what they call threatening and scary language by the Trump administration for immigrant families in parts of New Mexico.

A lot of our families, friends neighbors have come to us and are worried, Flores said. If the language werent so harsh coming in from Washington D.C. and our Attorney General, we wouldnt need this. But we need to protect their students she added.

Similar policies have been passed by school districts around the country including one in Clark Country, Nevada near Las Vegas, which approved the policy after stories emerged of children taunting other students that theyll face deportation under the Trump administration. The Milwaukee Board of Education also voted to become a sanctuary school district, along with Austin, Houston and dozens of school districts in California.

Milwaukee public schools board unanimously passes safe haven policy

But critics say those policies are more symbolic than anything else.

These are school administrators who are venting they dont like the policies the new administration is implementing, said Ira Mehlman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform. They dont change anything, and theyre solutions in search of a problem.

In Las Cruces, the board said it took action after a February immigration raid in the area. The next day, there was a 60 percent increase in absences across the school district compared to an average day. Parents, teachers and administrators said immigrant families were afraid to bring their kids to school because they thought Immigration and Customs Enforcement might confront them when they left.

Public education is something that should not be denied to any child or any person based on immigration status. I think our district is being very progressive and I think that theyre taking a stand at a time when we need it the most, said Nayomi Valdez, the parent of a fifth grade student at Central Elementary in Las Cruces.

Flores, the school board president, said the district always had a plan in place for handling immigrant students and schools never asked about a students immigration status. But because of the new national interest, they felt a formal policy was needed that strengthened their stance on how to handle immigration.

Things were always in place, but now with the renewed interest it needed to be strengthened, said Flores.

The resolution is based on the 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe. The class action suit on behalf of illegal immigrants challenged a Texas statue, which withheld state funds from illegal immigrant students education and allowed school districts to deny them enrollment. The Supreme Court agreed that the statute violated the 14th amendments Equal Protection Clause. The court also ruled withholding education would cause harm to the child and society.

The Las Cruces resolution acknowledges ICEs policy is not to conduct enforcement at schools, school related activities and school bus stops.

Mehlman said that makes the school board vote irrelevant, really, since ICE does not enforce immigration law at schools or school events.

He said he is less concerned about school districts educating illegal immigrants and more concerned about the illegal immigrants taking advantage.

The school house door and the emergency room door is not the place we should be enforcing immigration laws, he said. What we need to be doing is preventing the school house or the emergency room from becoming places used by people in the country illegally.
Canadian legislators may soon pass a law extending the right to physician assistance in dying, also known as physician-assisted suicide, to the mentally ill.

The possibility of such a move, which would bring Canadian policy somewhat into line with Dutch and Belgian policies, stems from a 2015 decision by the nations highest court that mentally competent Canadian adults suffering intolerably and enduringly from a physical ailment have the right to a doctors help in dying. Since that decision, Canadian lawmakers have been working to revise their statutes so they conform to the high courts ruling.

The debate gained attention because of the suicide of prominent blogger Adam Maier-Clayton, 27. He suffered from severe mental illness and argued for including those like himself  who tried numerous medications, treatments and therapies that did not relieve his torment  in the classes of people covered by assisted suicide laws.

Shanaaz Gokool, head of Dying with Dignity Canada, praised Maier-Clayton in a recent article in The Globe and Mail newspaper.

What Adam did over the last year and a half is he asked a lot of medically difficult questions related to medical assistance in dying and people who have severe psychological and psychiatric illness, Gokool said.

Gokool also urged Canadians to explore -- with an open mind -- the possibility that the mentally ill could gain physician assistance in dying.

We have to find a way to understand what are the parameters [through which] people with severe mental illness may be included in medical assistance in dying, she wrote.

Opponents, who use terms like physician-assisted suicide or physician-assisted euthanasia, ask how a mentally ill person can be deemed mentally competent enough to form a rational, authentic will to kill himself or herself.

They also dismiss claims that granting the mentally ill a right to a physicians help in dying is compassionate. To them its the opposite. Among those is Wesley J. Smith, a bioethicist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism.

Once society broadly accepts the agenda of killing as an acceptable end to human suffering, said Smith, who is a consultant to the Patients Rights Council. We eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferers.

Once society broadly accepts the agenda of killing as an acceptable end to human suffering, we eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferers.  Wesley J. Smith, consultant to Patients Rights Council

Smith raises concern that people who seek death to end their suffering -- whether caused by physical or mental illness -- may be giving up too soon on remedies that could relieve their suffering or even cure their condition.

The issue is suffering and the response to it, he said. There are a lot of people who suffer far more severely and for a much longer period than people who are terminally ill.

Charles Lane, writing last year in the Washington Post, warned that opening the door to assisted suicide is a slippery slope, at the bottom of which are assisted suicides by the mentally ill  including delusional people.

He pointed to Europe. Lane noted that over the previous two years the Belgian medical system administered lethal injections upon the request of five non-terminally ill people with schizophrenia, five with autism, eight with bipolar disorder and 29 with dementia  an increasingly common condition in the aging Western world  as well as 39 with depression.

Lane also challenged the medical profession to oppose helping mentally ill people kill themselves.

When I say giving access to the mentally ill, I'm not talking about someone who has a panic attack once every two years. I'm not talking about someone who has a tendency for melancholy...I'm talking about treatment-resistant patients. The people whom modern science can't help.  Adam Maier-Clayton, assisted suicide advocate who took his life in April

Euthanasia of people with autism, depression, schizophrenia and dementia in the Low Countries represents a global moral crisis for psychiatry, and all of medicine, that can no longer be ignored, Lane said.

Proponents, who prefer terms like physician assistance in dying, say withholding the right to assistance in dying from the mentally ill ignores the logical basis for granting such a right to those with physical ailments that are grievous and irremediable. After all, psychological suffering can be grievous and irremediable, too.

Andre Picard, writing in The Globe and Mail newspaper, said, Were not talking about granting assisted death to someone who is delusional, or suffering from psychosis or someone who is depressed and treatable. The suffering has to be persistent and painful, though not necessarily imminently lethal.

He also dismisses the opponents observation that what is irremediable today might be curable tomorrow.

Faint hope is not a reasonable justification for denying assisted death, whether a person suffers from cancer or refractory mental illness, Picard stated.

Maier-Clayton, the prominent Canadian blogger, knew all the arguments against what he sought, and responded to them in his advocacy campaign before he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Maier-Clayton said he had mental illness as far back as he could remember, which got better during college but then went into a downward spiral. He said he tried desperately to halt and reverse the ailments through medications traditional Freudian psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure-response prevention therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy.

In a perfect world, Id get better. But in real life, theres a chance that my progress will continue to be as poor as it has been in the past three years. Im not going to endure this agony indefinitely.

The debate is also raging south of Canada. The Discovery Institutes Smith said that in California a person committed to a state psychiatric hospital can petition to be released for assisted suicide. He sees it as an example where the extension of assisted suicide to the mentally ill makes no sense.

You have people who are certifiably mentally ill, Smith said, to the point where theyre involuntarily hospitalized, having access to euthanasia.

Thats a misunderstanding of California law that is totally ludicrous, according to Robert Rivas, general counsel for Final Exit Network, a group that seeks to advance physician assistance in dying.

Rivas says the process is far more complicated, with key safeguards in place.

He's ignoring the extensive protections, which  are in place to prohibit PAD [physician-assisted suicide] for people who are incompetent to make the decision, Rivas said. All doctors in California would be prohibited from signing a PAD prescription for a patient who is involuntarily committed because they are, by law, declared incompetent.

Rivas notes that besides California, PAD is permissible in Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Vermont, plus the District of Columbia.

PAD is only lawful in those five states if the legal drugs are prescribed by a physician in accordance with all the safeguards, he said, adding that about 20 states are considering PAD laws.

The ethical questions around giving the mentally ill the right to physician assistance in dying has driven Canadian lawmakers to ask for advice. Specifically, they have asked the Council of Canadian Academies to report on how the law that implements the Supreme Courts 2015 decision may be extended to those with mental ailments. The council is expected to report back to Parliament next year.

For now, Canadians debate Maier-Clayton's arguments.

When I say giving access to the mentally ill, Im not talking about someone who has a panic attack once every two years, Maeir-Clayton said last year. Im not talking about someone who has a tendency for melancholy when bad things go on in their life and they have a rough couple months. Im talking about refractory patients  thats the term I always use, refractory or treatment-resistant patients. The people whom modern science cant help.
When then-candidate Donald Trump cut the ribbon reopening Washington's storied Old Post Office Pavilion as the new Trump International Hotel, little attention was given to the national treasure hidden inside: A clock tower that now provides the best view in the nation's capital.

The gilded, Romanesque building, completed in 1899, is the second tallest structure in Washington D.C. is owned by taxpayers, but leased to Trump's company. And with the Washington Monument closed for renovations, the tower is the highest point the public can visit.

Fox News recently toured the clock tower, taking in the 360-degree view of the city from a room that includes 10 bells. The tower is operated by the National Park Service, and public tours conducted by the service are set to begin soon.

The bells that chime on federal holidays, presidential elections and inaugurations are a big part of the buildings legendary history. In 1976, to mark the Bicentennial, a British philanthropic organization, the Ditchley Foundation of Great Britain, gifted them to Congress.

In 1983, the bells, a symbol of friendship between old allies, were installed in the clock tower. In addition to ringing on special occasions, they are also heard on Thursday nights, when the Washington Bell Society practices for the big events.

The Old Post Offices position between the White House and Capitol Hill is part of ots historic legacy, according to Jane Levey, a member of the Historical Society of Washington.

In 1899, the post office was the glue that held the nation together, Levey told Fox News Jenna Lee. In that era, before we had electronic communications, before we had good transportation, if you were a congressman and you needed to be in touch with your constituents, you needed the post office. And if you were a businessman and you needed to be in touch with your customers, you needed the post office.

So it was the most important government function for the pretty much the first hundred years next to defense, she added.

But over the years, the building has had narrow escapes from the wrecking ball and was even once a focal point in a sketchy neighborhood that included numerous bars and brothels. Levey said the surrounding area was once so dangerous, it was unofficially dubbed Murder Bay.

Those days are gone, and the Old Post Office and its clock tower are once again a prominent part of the nation's capital, with a direct link to the current occupant of the White House. And soon, the public will be able to take in the view Fox News enjoyed.

"Now the Old Post Office is right in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue, Americas main street," said Mike Litterst, spokesman for the National Park Service. "So youve got the Capitol out the east side, youve got the White House out the west side, a complete view of the National Mall with all the museums, Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

"If youre coming to town to explore and see what there is," said Litterst, "this is a great place to start."
Conservative speakers are under fire on college campuses, and critics say school officials who should be fostering a climate of intellectual diversity are instead siding with violent groups out to shut down free speech.

The ongoing controversy at University of California, Berkeley involving a planned speech by conservative firebrand Ann Coulter is the latest example of a school caught between provocative speech and the threat of reactionary violence. And although the school, which was the scene of violent protests earlier this year during an aborted appearance by conservative Milo Yiannopoulos, claims it reversed a decision to cancel Coulters April 27 remarks, Coulter insists she is still be censored. The alternative date the school offered falls after classes let out.

"You cannot impose arbitrary and harassing restrictions on the exercise of a Constitutional right," Coulter told Fox News Sean Hannity Thursday night.

ANN COULTER REJECTS BERKELEY'S PROPOSAL TO RESCHEDULE HER SPEECH

School officials appear to be hoping to avoid a replay of the Yiannopoulos incident, in which masked vandals did more than $100,000 worth of damage, setting fires and breaking windows in protest of the anticipated speech. That was followed by a violent attack on conservative author Charles Murray during a speech at Vermonts Middlebury College and part of what critics say is a growing acceptance of violence directed at conservatives on college campuses.

Many are blaming the violent protests targeting conservative speakers on the left-wing agitator group Antifa. Critics say Antifa, a group that calls itself anti-fascist, has sparked violence on college campuses across the country to further its radical agenda.

In the UC Berkeley riots that broke out recently, pictures and video were tweeted out of rioters beating people with Antifa flagpoles and then spraying them with pepper spray. Antifa rioters often wear masks to conceal their identity. And to separate themselves from anarchists in the black bloc, they often wave distinctive red and black flags that were often seen at the Berkeley riots.

In no uncertain terms we are working in close concert with local, regional, and national law enforcement agencies on investigations concerning the group referred to as the black bloc, UC Berkeley Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof told Fox News.

Kyle Shideler, director of the Threat Information Office at the Washington D.C.-based think tank Center for Security Policy, said Antifa proudly trace its roots back to Antifaschistische Aktion, the street fighting wing of the German Communist party in the 1920s and 1930s.

Increasingly college campuses have become bastions for radical leftist politics. If an individuals free speech is viewed as inherently unsafe or dangerous by these colleges, then it creates a milieu where the violent resistance to such speech is viewed as legitimate, Shideler said. Antifa routinely take credit for such violent activities.

OH, SHUT UP: LET'S PROSECUTE CRIMINAL CAMPUS CRAZIES

Some wonder whether universities are doing enough to stop the violence  and whether they are holding those responsible for the violence accountable.

UC Berkeley told Fox News that the university employee suspected of taking part in the February riots and even may have tweeted a boast about beating up a Trump supporter at the event remains employed.

In the wake of a careful and comprehensive investigation detectives were unable to develop sufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges, against Ian Dabney Miller, Mogulof told Fox News. Its unclear whether Miller was actually in control of his twitter account at the time, and therefore responsible for the photos of an unconscious man with accompanying captions about punching out a Trump supporter.

By not taking the proper steps to stop the violence, some say, universities are basically letting those suppressing free speech win the war against the First Amendment.

Manhattan Institute fellow Heather MacDonald, who writes about policing in America, said when she was on her way to roundtable at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, she had to be escorted past throngs of protesters.

There was a blockade of 250 and 300 students who prevented other students from entering. I gave my talk to an almost empty room. During the talk the protesters banged on the plate glass windows, said MacDonald. She said there was a Facebook posting ahead of her event that called for protesters to shut down the white supremacist fascist Heather MacDonald.

Ultimately, she said, they got their wish.

It was the threat of brute force, she said, The police decided they couldnt guarantee our safety and I was told its over and hustled out of the building under police protection.

Some experts wonder whether its time for the Trump Administration or Congress to step in.

I think an argument can be made that there is a compelling government interest in restoring safety and free exchange of ideas on college campuses, or at a minimum, in reducing or ending government funding for institutions of higher education which refuse to defend student and faculties free speech rights, said Shideler of the Center for Security Policy.

An inquiry to the Department of Education went unanswered about potentially withholding funds from universities that do not adequately address the concerns about violence and free speech on campus.

As for whether the Department of Homeland Security is checking into the actions of antifa on campus as a potential terrorist threat, a high-ranking DHS official told Fox News, We are not and typically would not unless they were threatening critical infrastructure.

For MacDonald, the law enforcement expert, there is already a solution available to local and campus authorities.

The only way to stop this is with swift certain penalties for this sort of behavior, MacDonald said. If people get away with quite literally fascist behavior without consequences were going to see more of it.
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The suspect in this week's Fresno, California, mass shooting is set to appear in court to face a first-degree murder charge in a killing five days earlier.

Kori Ali Muhammad has his arraignment scheduled for Friday morning in a Fresno County courthouse.

On Thursday, he was charged with killing unarmed security guard Carl Williams at a Motel 6 a week earlier.

Authorities say Williams was the first of four killings by Muhammad. Police say he told them that learning he was wanted for the Williams killing spurred him to try to kill as many white people as possible before he was caught.

Police say he shot three other white men at random on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say they're waiting to file those charges while investigators assemble their case.
A police officer in Philadelphia has created a digital portrait honoring 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr., the Ohio man killed last week in a shooting that was recorded and posted to Facebook.

To celebrate the life of Godwin, Philadelphia Police Department forensic graphic artist Jonny Castro created a digital painting of the Cleveland victim.

ROBERT GODWIN SPENT FINAL HOURS WITH FAMILY

The image, accompanied by a message thanking the community for their help, was posted to the Philadelphia Police Departments Facebook page on April 18.

This digital painting of Cleveland, Ohio homicide victim Robert Godwin, Sr. is being shared in order to get an extremely important message out there, the department wrote in a post thats since been shared more than 9,000 times. YOU  the public  are the best weapon we have in the fight against crime. Sure, thats a cliche  but some cliches become cliches for a reason. FACT: Mr. Godwins killer is no longer a threat because a citizen picked up a phone and called police.

The post was in reference to employees at a McDonalds in Erie, Pennsylvania. Workers there spotted the murder suspect, Steve Stephens, at a drive-thru on Tuesday and subsequently tried to hold him off as they contacted police. Police quickly responded and participated in a brief chase two miles from the restaurant before Stephens killed himself.

A group of police officers in Philadelphias 18th district asked Castro to paint the commemorative photo of Godwin, CBS News reported. The officers then combined funds to ensure that the victims nine children and 14 grandchildren each would get a copy of the photo for free.
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday that there can be "no doubt" Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis made his comments during a one-day visit for talks with Israeli leaders, who strongly backed a recent US strike against a Syrian airbase in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

"The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," Mattis said during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman.

"It's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they'd be ill-advised to try to use any again. We've made that very clear with our strike."

Mattis added that Syria had "dispersed their aircraft in recent days".

An Israeli military assessment has found that Assad's regime was still in possession of "a few tonnes" of chemical weapons, an army official confirmed.

Assad, backed by his ally Russia, has strongly denied the allegation that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, describing it as a "100 percent fabrication".

He has said repeatedly that his forces turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.

The agreement was later enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution.

Mattis, the first member of President Donald Trump's cabinet to visit Israel, later held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, followed by a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin.

Israel and the United States have long had close strategic ties, with Washington providing Israel more than $3 billion a year in defence aid and Trump pledging unstinting support for the country.

Despite tensions over Israeli settlement building, Barack Obama's administration signed a new agreement with Israel before he left office increasing the amount to $3.8 billion for a 10-year period beginning in 2018.

Mattis sought to hear directly from Israeli leaders on their concerns and what they expect from the Trump administration, a US defence official said.

Iran's influence is at the top of the list for Israel, a worry shared by the United States.

Mattis accused Iran of "destabilising activities", including threatening Israel and other nations in the Middle East with ballistic missiles, cyber activities and proxy groups.

Netanyahu welcomed Mattis's comments on Iran and Syria, calling the Trump administration's approach a "welcome change".

Israel is closely watching Iran's presence in Syria, where it is backing Assad.

Israeli enemy Hezbollah is also fighting with Assad in Syria. Israel fought a devastating war against the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement in 2006.

Israel has sought to avoid being dragged into the six-year civil war in Syria, but acknowledges carrying out air strikes there to stop what it says are deliveries of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Hours after Mattis left Israel, three mortar rounds fired from Syria hit the northern Golan heights, an army spokeswoman said.

The army said in a statement it responded by targeting the source of the fire inside Syria, but gave no further details.

Testy relations between Obama and Netanyahu reached a low point over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, led by Washington.

Obama pushed hard for the agreement, but Netanyahu fiercely opposed it, arguing that it will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and that the lifting of sanctions would allow it to support proxy groups.

Trump also harshly criticised the deal, and on Thursday said Iran was "not living up to the spirit" of the agreement, adding that the United States would set out its position on it soon.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered a review of the deal to be led by his National Security Council, although the State Department admits that Iran has so far stuck to its side of the bargain.

Mattis said on Friday that Iran appeared to be living up to the agreement, but that it "in no way mitigates against or excuses the other activities of Iran in the region".

Mattis's visit was part of a tour of the Middle East and Djibouti. He had previous stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and flew to Qatar later Friday.

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Two young children and one adult were shot at a party Thursday night outside a home in Fulton County, Ga., police said.

One of the children was still listed in critical condition as of early Friday morning.

OREGON MAN ACCUSED OF LIGHTING DENNY'S CUSTOMER ON FIRE IS ARRESTED

Commanders on scene called those responsible "horrible," and asked for witnesses with information to come forward "for the sake of the victims."

Police said they responded to the scene at 6:50 p.m., after reports of shooting outside the home. Authorities on the scene said there were numerous people outside the home and children playing in a bounce house, when a vehicle drove up to the scene, and people started an argument; officers said gunfire erupted and at least a dozen shots were fired, but could not immediately give details as to who was responsible or how many weapons were present.

Witnesses said a silver vehicle fled the scene. Authorities said a lookout was placed for a silver vehicle, but could not provide a detailed description of the car.

FOX 5 News was able to confirm a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old and an adult in their 20s were admitted to Southern Regional Hospital, which was placed on a temporary lockdown upon their arrival.

Police said the 3-year old and 5-year-old were later transported to Children Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.

Click for more from Fox 5.
Shauna Prewitt was a 21-year-old college senior in 2004 when she was raped and impregnated by her attacker. Her decision to keep her child -- a baby girl -- brought with it an unexpected twist: her rapist sought custody of their daughter when she was born.

Prewitt is not alone.

Women in seven U.S. states can be legally forced to share custody of their children with their rapist fathers -- including in Maryland, where an all-male panel failed April 10 to pass legislation that would have allowed victims who have children from rape to block rapists' parental rights.

"They have the same rights as any other biological father," said Lisae Jordan, an attorney and executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

"It's outrageous," Jordan said of the bill's failure to pass, noting it was "tone-deaf" to have six male legislators handling last-minute negotiations on the bill.

The Rape Survivor Family Protection Act, which received bipartisan support, passed in both the Maryland House and the state's Senate but a panel of six male legislators had to create a final version of the legislation because the drafts approved by each house had considerable differences. A final bill failed to pass April 10 because time ran out on the last day of the Maryland General Assembly's annual three-month session.

The Assembly isnt set to reconvene until Jan. 10, 2018, but state legislators told Fox News an emergency session is being considered.

Maryland delegate Kathleen Dumais had introduced the legislation -- her ninth time trying to pass a bill that changes the law surrounding custody rights for rape victims.

"After nine years, Maryland can do better," Maryland State Sen. Cheryl Kagan told Fox News.

Under current Maryland law, if a rape victim decides to put her child up for adoption, she can be faced with another hurdle: permission from her rapist.

"It's insane to think that if a woman who became pregnant as a result of rape and wanted to continue her pregnancy and give her baby up for adoption would somehow need her rapists permission," said Kagan, a Democrat from Montgomery County.

"That's nuts," she said. "This issue is one that resonates so strongly with average folks who just dont think it makes sense."

The realities of such laws, according to Jordan and others, make rape victims who conceive more likely to consider abortion. Change to these laws is supported by people on both sides of the abortion debate. The Rape Survivor Family Protection Act, for instance, garnered support from both the Maryland Catholic Conference and Planned Parenthood of Maryland.

Delegate David Moon, a Democrat, told Fox News on Friday that the bill failed because the session timed out -- not for lack of support.

Moon and two others on the panel -- State Sen. William Smith Jr., a Democrat, and Delegate Brett Wilson, a Republican -- were original co-sponsors of the legislation.

"We were desperately trying to pass the bill in the closing minutes of the session but the timing obstacles put in front of us proved to be insurmountable," Moon said, while acknowledging, "the optics were really horrible for having an all-male panel for rape and custody issues."

But Maryland State Sen. Michael Hough, a Republican on the panel, said he thinks the bill "got tanked on purpose."

"Democratic leadership scheduled the conference to meet at 11 p.m., an hour before the session was to end," Hough told Fox News. "This bill has been floating around for almost 10 years."

Hough, who has always supported the bill, noted a provision within it he said presents legal hurdles. The legislation calls for the termination of parental rights for "alleged rapists," he said.

"If it just dealt with convicted rapists, it would be cut-and-dried," Hough said. "Because it's about alleged rapists, theres a lot of legal challenges."

The four other members of the panel were not immediately available for comment Friday.

Shauna Prewitt, a Chicago lawyer, penned an open letter in 2012 to former U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., in response to remarks he made about rape and pregnancy. Akin, a Senate candidate at the time, said pregnancy rarely occurs as a result of what he called "legitimate rape" -- a comment roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats as well as medical experts and women's rights groups.

Prewitt explained the circumstances of her rape in an impassioned letter that received national attention.

"My name is Shauna Prewitt. You do not know me, but you should," she wrote. "I am one of the approximately 25,000 women who every year become pregnant as a result of rape, and I would like to help you better 'empathize' with my story."



There are seven states without laws preventing rapists from gaining custody of children conceived without consent. In addition to Maryland, such states include Alabama, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wyoming and New Mexico, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

"It's not that there is an act of law saying rapists have parental rights," Jordan explained. "It's just that this issue hasn't been addressed in their laws," therefore making it possible for rapists to pursue shared custody.

In Maryland, however, progress has recently been made on a number of other state rape laws.

On Tuesday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed into law a package of bills that make it easier to prosecute rape cases and protect victims -- including one that's become known as the "no means no" bill. The bill exempts rape victims from having to provide evidence of "physical resistance" to prove they have been raped.

"As a result of this law, sexual assault survivors will no longer be in the position of choosing between physically resisting and getting hurt, or not resisting and losing access to justice," Dumais said.

Maryland also expanded the definition of sexual abuse to include sex trafficking and now requires that rape kits be kept for at least 20 years.

"Maryland is a fairly progressive state and theres a lot that we do right to move things forward but sometimes those in leadership have a blind spot and dont move forward in the way that we should," Kagan said.

Cristina Corbin is a Fox News reporter based in New York. Follow her on Twitter @Cristina Corbin.
The Latest on the killings of two utility workers in St. Louis (all times local):

9:20 a.m.

St. Louis utility workers are back in the field but taking extra precautions after the fatal shooting of two natural gas company employees.

A gunman walked up to the Laclede Gas Co. workers Thursday and began shooting, before walking away and turning the gun on himself. The workers and the gunman have not been identified.

Police believe the victims were picked at random. But there was enough concern for Laclede Gas and electric company Ameren Missouri to pull all of their workers from St. Louis' streets Thursday. Two other utilities, Missouri American Water and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, removed workers from the area where the shooting happened.

On Friday, water meter readers were given the option of working in pairs. Other crews were given safety reminders.

___

1 a.m.

Investigators are trying to determine what led a gunman to open fire on two utility workers in a residential neighborhood in St. Louis, killing both of them before fatally shooting himself.

Police say the gunman walked up to the two men who worked for Laclede Gas on Thursday morning and started shooting, then turned the gun on himself. Police Capt. Mary Warnecke said, "It does not appear words were exchanged."

Both Laclede Gas and the electric company Ameren Missouri pulled workers from the streets for the rest of the day as a precaution.

Police described the St. Louis shooter as black, and both victims as white, but there was no indication the shooting was racially motivated.

The names of the shooter and the men he killed have not been released.
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A defense lawyer is being criticized for telling a Tennessee jury that women are "especially good" at lying "because they're the weaker sex."

The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports (http://memne.ws/2p2pSzy ) attorney Steve Farese made the comments during closing arguments of the trial of Mark Giannini, a wealthy businessman accused of raping a woman who came to his house for a job interview. Farese maintains that the sex was consensual and has questioned the woman's credibility.

Memphis Area Women's Council executive director Deborah Clubb calls Farese's comments "absolutely despicable."

Farese tells the newspaper that his job "is not to care if anybody gets offended" and "smart people will see it for what it is."
Massachusetts' highest court has dismissed more than 21,000 drug convictions because of misconduct by a chemist who tested evidence in a state lab.

Lawyers who fought for the cases to be dismissed call the ruling a historic victory for justice and fairness, but are countering fears that dangerous criminals might soon walk free from state prisons.

They say few prison doors will swing open as a result, since most defendants had either completed their sentences or were never given prison time to start with.

Annie Dookhan was accused of manipulating drug tests and falsifying results. She pleaded guilty in 2013 to charges she tampered with evidence and falsified results.

After a five-year legal battle led by the American Civil Liberties Union, the court Thursday approved the dismissal of 21,587 convictions.
A 27-year-old man on Friday pleaded guilty to murder in the fatal shooting of an Indianapolis police officer, in a deal that spares him the death penalty.

Major Davis will be sentenced April 27 in the July 2014 slaying of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer Perry Renn. The plea agreement calls for Davis to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"By this plea, the family, friends, and witnesses impacted by this violent act will avoid what would likely have been years of courtroom proceedings," Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said in a statement.

Renn, 51, and another officer were responding to reports of shots fired on the city's north side when they came across Davis in an alley. Davis and the officers exchanged gunfire. Prosecutors said Davis struck Renn with three rounds from an assault rifle. Davis was critically injured in the exchange.

His case was repeatedly delayed by his attempts to fire his attorneys and by questions about his mental competency. But a judge ruled in February that Davis was mentally competent to stand trial and jury selection was set for October.

His attorneys have not responded to messages left Friday seeking comment.

Renn's widow, Lynn Renn, said in a statement that "justice has been served."

"This is the conclusion that I wanted and that Perry would have wanted. The plea provides finality and allows me and others deeply impacted to avoid the possibility of a lengthy trial and appeals process," she wrote.
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After being missing for more than a month, a 15-year-old Tennessee girl was found near a cabin in a remote part of northern California and the 50-year-old teacher accused of kidnapping her was arrested.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says health sciences teacher Tad Cummins surrendered to sheriff's deputies Thursday without incident in Cecilville, California. The girl was apparently healthy and unharmed, but authorities say their main concern was her emotional and mental state.

Cummins faces state charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor as well as a federal charge of taking a minor across state lines to have sex. Acting U.S. Attorney Jack Smith says that if convicted of the federal charge, he faces at least 10 years in prison.
Russian Bear bombers and spy planes buzzed Alaskan airspace the past two nights in a repeat of incidents earlier this week, two U.S. officials told Fox News on Friday.

Wednesday night a pair of Russian spy planes Ilyushin IL-38s flew near the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea staying in the U.S. Air Defense Zone for a few hours before departing.

RUSSIAN BOMBERS AGAIN FLY NEAR ALASKA

Thursday night, a pair of long-range nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers flew near Alaska and Canada staying in each countrys air defense zone for hours.

Two U.S. Air Force F-22 fighter jets intercepted the bombers, a NORAD spokesman told Fox News without elaborating. The spokesman would not say how close the Russian bombers came to the Alaskan coast or Canada. CF-18 Hornets also participated in the intercept.

The Russian jets in both incidents remained in international airspace. It was not immediately clear how close they came to mainland Alaska.

AIR FORCE, RUSSIAN BOMBERS PLAY OUT FAMILIAR DRAMA IN CRITICAL ALASKAN SKIES

Russia now has flown bombers or spy planes near Alaska on four consecutive nights this week, the first time since President Trump took office that Russia has flown this close to the United States. The U.S. Air Force scrambled fighter jets in some of these instances.

Pentagon officials said they believed the Russians were testing the U.S. Air Forces response to their bomber flights.

Tuesday night, the only plane launched from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska was an E-3 Sentry, an airborne early warning plane known as AWACS, to make sure no other Russian planes were inbound.

The Russian action comes less than a week after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Trump said U.S.-Russian relations had reached a "low point."

The last time Russian bombers came this close to the U.S. was on July 4, 2015 when a pair of Russian bombers flew 40 miles off the coast of California.

The U.S. military also conducts flights near Russia, but in most cases uses its own reconnaissance aircraft like the U.S. Air Force Boeing RC-135 and not long-range bombers, according to officials.

In the past, the U.S. Navy often has performed reconnaissance below the sea near Russia using Los Angeles or Virginia-class attack submarines, but these operations are classified and not disclosed publicly.
Arkansas has executed an inmate for the first time in nearly a dozen years as part of its plan to execute several inmates before a drug expires April 30, despite court rulings that have already spared three men. Ledell Lee's execution was the first in the state since 2005. He was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m. Thursday, four minutes before his death warrant was due to expire.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on a previous batch of appeals with new justice Neil Gorsuch voting with the majority of five on the to deny the stay. Justice Stephen Breyer said in a dissent he was troubled by Arkansas' push to execute the inmates before its supply of midazolam expires.

"Apparently the reason the state decided to proceed with these eight executions is that the `use by' date of the state's execution drug is about to expire...In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random," Breyer wrote.

(WATCH FNC'S CASEY STEGALL'S LATEST REPORT AT 9 AM ET ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL)

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Authorities in Paris on Friday are investigating a home believed to be linked to the attack on police on the Champs-Elysees that resulted in the death of one officer.

Two police officials said the chief suspect in the fatal attack was a 39-year-old man from a suburb east of the French capital. Officials said the assailant was armed with an automatic firearm akin to a "war weapon."

OPINION: THE UNBELIEVABLE STUPIDITY OF ISIS

BORDER WALL PLANS

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Fox News' "The First 100 Days" Thursday that construction on the much-promised border wall would be able to "move forward by the end of the summer."

"I think something in the neighborhood of 100 companies from across the nation have shown interest and are starting to put together their prototypes," Kelly told host Martha MacCallum. "Of course, contracting is a pretty complicated business in the federal government, unfortunately. Too complicated. But I think by late spring, early summer well have some prototypes."

FOX NEWS OPINION

DR. MICHAEL GUILLEN: As a theoretical physicist, I was excited to hear about Saturdays nationwide March for Science. But after learning who is leading it and why, I am disappointed to report it is but a brazen attempt by political activists to hijack science.

COMING UP ON FOX BUSINESS

8:30 AM ET: Blackrock's CEO Larry Fink appears on 'Mornings With Maria"

1 PM ET: Newt Gingrich appears on 'Cavuto: Coast to Coast'
Deputies have arrested a suspect accused of walking into a Denny's restaurant in Oregon Wednesday night and setting a man on fire.

Deputies arrested the man Thursday evening at a home in Clackamas County.

FATHER OF MISSING TENNESSEE TEEN FOUND SAFE SAYS SHE WAS BRAINWASHED

According to deputies, the suspect came outside of the home and was arrested without incident.

The suspect has been identified as DeShaun James Swanger, 24. Swanger does have a criminal history, according to the sheriff's office.

FACEBOOK SHOOTING VICTIM HONORED BY POLICE WITH DIGITAL PAINTING

Deputies say several people recognized Swanger from the surveillance pictures that were released.

Buck Sleight told FOX 12 he saw one of those pictures Thursday morning and called 911.

Sleight says he had once lived at the transitional home where Swanger was living. He adds the 24-year-old kept to himself and was quiet but kept his family away from Swanger.

Sleight says he now lives across the street from the home.

It is disgusting to me, you know, hearing what happened to this elderly man, Sleight said. He did not deserve that so, I think anything they give him, he is going to get what he deserves.

Investigators said the suspect was seated at a booth near a 69-year-old man. Deputies said surveillance video showed the suspect dump liquid onto the victim and then toss a lit item at him. A large flash resulted and the victim was critically injured.

Click for more from Fox 12.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri criticised the powerful Hezbollah movement on Friday for organising a media tour of the country's demarcation line with Israel amid speculation about a new war.

Speaking from the town of Naqura in Lebanon's far south, Hariri said "what happened yesterday is something that we, as a government, are not concerned with and do not accept".

His comments and his trip to the south came a day after Hezbollah took a group of over 100 local and international journalists on a rare tour of the border area.

Members of the group's armed wing stood guard on part of the tour, displaying weapons despite an official prohibition on any armed paramilitary presence so close to the demarcation line.

Hariri, who was accompanied by the defence minister and army chief, said his trip was intended "to tell the Lebanese armed forces that they and only they are the legitimate force in charge of defending our borders".

There has been rising speculation about a new conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, who fought a 34-day war in 2006.

That conflict killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending a 22-year occupation, but the two countries remain technically at war and there have been occasional skirmishes on the border.

Hariri met with the head of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL during his visit and urged UN chief Antonio Guterres to "support efforts to secure, as soon as possible, a state of permanent ceasefire".

Hezbollah is a major force in Lebanon, with an arsenal that exceeds even that of the country's armed forces.

It holds parliamentary seats, but is classed by the United States as a "terrorist group" and has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad against an uprising.

Hariri's political bloc is now in government with Hezbollah, despite years of rivalry and acrimony.

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Up to 87,000 customers remained without power Friday after a widespread outage left a large swath of San Francisco homes and businesses without electricity, prompting officials to close a BART station while crews worked to restore service.

The power outage, which affected several neighborhoods, including the Financial District, Cow Hollow and the Presidio, resulted in the closure of the Montgomery BART station in San Francisco and halted service on all of the city's cable car lines this morning.

A PG&E spokeswoman said around 11:15 a.m. that power has been restored to about 6,000 customers Friday morning. The utility blamed the outage on a fire at the Larkin substation, which is located at 600 Larkin Street.

Traffic lights out at 4th and Market @PGE4Me says power should be restored by noon. pic.twitter.com/hLGnmP36t7  Christien Kafton (@CKaftonKTVU) April 21, 2017

SHOOTING AT BOUNCE HOUSE PARTY WOUNDS 2 CHILDREN, 1 ADULT

"San Francisco Fire Department has responded and is working to extinguish the fire," the spokeswoman told KTVU. "All employees have been accounted for."

The utility did not say what caused the fire at the Larkin substation. Authorities said the outage started around 9:15 a.m. PG&E officials said they were unsure when power would be restored to all customers. San Francisco residents were asked to call 911 only in the event of an emergency.

Service to the Montgomery BART station resumed around 11:30 a.m. after the agency was able to bring a power generator online at the station, according to a social media post. "Normal service has resumed through DTSF," the agency tweeted.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said that all cable car lines were down as a result of the outage around 9:45 a.m. The transit agency said shuttles were operating to provide service while the power was out.

READ MORE NEWS FROM FOX 2 SAN FRANCISCO.
A sentencing date has been set for a man who admitted to causing the evacuation of two buildings at Ohio's largest military base.

Edward Novak pleaded guilty in federal court in Dayton in February to charges of trespass, driving under the influence and disorderly conduct.

Other charges including assault, making false alarms and fleeing a police officer were dropped.

Magistrate Judge Michael Newman on Thursday set the sentencing for April 26.

A message was left for Novak's public defender seeking comment.

Authorities say the unarmed Beavercreek man entered a secure building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in November 2015 after driving past guards at a security gate.

Base officials say the intrusion and building evacuations hindered operations at the base near Dayton for hours.
For the first time in its 105-year history, a fire department in southern Texas has hired a woman as one of its firefighters.

Bree Rios was officially hired on April 12, joining the 108 men at the Harlingen Fire Department.

ARIZONA BOY NAMED HONORARY FIREFIGHTER AFTER SAVING MOM WHO SUFFERED SEIZURE

Here in Harlingen, its a first, and Im proud to be that person, Rios told KGBT-TV. Its just something that I wanted to do ever since I was younger.

Rios will have some company working at the fire department. Her father, Victor, has been working as an engineer there for more than 20 years.

NEW YORK CITY FIREFIGHTER DIES AFTER FALL WHILE BATTLING BLAZE

When she was little she told me, Well, one of these days Im going to work with you, daddy, said Victor.

Now, father and daughter will be working together.

If you set your mind to something and you really want to do it, go out and do it, Bree said. It can happen.

Previous women had tried to become firefighters in the city but Rios was the only one to fully pass the firefighter exam, albeit on her third attempt.

But Rios wont be working with the fire department directly until she successfully completes orientation and a firefighter course during the next four months.
Five people were rescued after a home explosion in Navarro County, Texas, Thursday night.

It happened around 11:00 p.m. at a home in Dawson.

SAN FRANCISCO HIT WITH MASSIVE POWER OUTAGE

Sheriff Elmer Tanner said all five people were rescued after the home colllapsed.

Three people were taken by air ambulances to Parkland Hospital.

Highway 31 was closed for several hours in Dawson.

Authorities said the cause of the explosion is under investigation.

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Two men suffered extensive cuts this week trying to break out of a Virginia jail protected by barbed wire fences, according to a report.

Clayton Musselman, 28, and Frank Arthur, 35, scaled two razor wire fences at the Henrico County Jail East Tuesday night, but not a third, The Richmond Times Dispatch reported.

BOUNCE HOUSE PARTY SHOOTING: 2 CHILDREN, 1 ADULT HURT

The botched escape left the pair bloodied and exhausted, according to the paper. They were taken to a hospital.

Arthur mapped out the escape plan, but left it behind in his cell, the paper reported.

OREGON MAN ACCUSED OF LIGHTING DENNY'S CUSTOMER ON FIRE IS ARRESTED

They used a bench to scale the fences. They also tried to use their jackets as a shield from the razor-wire without much success.

Col. Alisa Gregory of the Henrico County Sheriff's Office said guards saw Musselman and Arthur trying to escape on surveillance cameras.

The cameras have motion sensors, so when one came on at nine at night, it's either a deer or somethings not right," Henrico deputy Anna Burton told WTVR-TV.

Arthur was behind bars awaiting trial on meth manufacturing charges.

Musselman was serving a three-year jail sentence for grand larceny.

They are expected to face escape charges.
A white former South Carolina police officer charged in the death of an unarmed black motorist is expected in court as his federal trial approaches.

A motions hearing is scheduled Friday in the case against 35-year-old Michael Slager.

Slager's federal civil rights trial in the death of 50-year-old Walter Scott starts next month. Another hearing is scheduled for Monday, when attorneys will discuss the admission of certain experts to testify.

Last month, a federal judge ruled prosecutors may show jurors video of the former North Charleston officer shooting Scott. The bystander's cellphone video was viewed millions of times around the world.

Slager also faces murder charges in state court, where his first trial ended in a hung jury. His retrial is scheduled for August.
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From far left to far right, young to old, 11 candidates are vying for France's presidency in an election that is being watched as an indicator of populism's global appeal. The traditional left-right contenders are joined  and often have been overshadowed during the campaign  by rivals pledging to scrap long-held expectations, such as France's participation in the European Union and NATO.

French voters cast ballots Sunday in the first round of the election. The top-two vote-getters there move on to a presidential runoff vote on May 7.

Here's a look at the candidates competing Sunday, who they are and what they promise for France:

___

EMMANUEL MACRON

Macron, 39, is a centrist with strong pro-business, pro-European views and an unconventional love story.

A former investment banker at Rothschild, he was unknown to the French people until Socialist President Francois Hollande named him economy minister in 2014, Macron never has held elected office. He now is considered one of the race's front-runners.

Macron launched his own political movement, En Marche! (In Motion!) last year, and is running without the backing of an established party.

Macron wants more robust counterterrorism efforts and pledged to put pressure on internet giants to better monitor extremism online.

Macron's wife, Brigitte, is 24 years his senior. The couple has publicly described the unusual way their romance started  when he was a student at the high school where she was a teacher, in the town of Amiens in northern France.

She was then a married mother of three children. She eventually divorced and joined him in Paris, where he was studying.

The couple married in 2007.

___

MARINE LE PEN

The 48-year-old leader of the far-right National Front party is making her second bid for the French presidency. Le Pen placed third in the 2012 election and would be France's first woman president if she wins this time around.

A bold and gritty leader, she has become a political force by promising to restore France as a secure sovereign state. The methods she proposes include taking France out of the European Union and cracking down on what she calls the "massive immigration" of radical Muslims she claims are trying to supplant her country's Judeo-Christian heritage.

Le Pen has tried to remake the image of the National Front since she assumed its leadership in 2011. To remove the taint of racism and anti-Semitism that clung to it for decades under the leadership of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, she expelled many old-guard members, her father included.

However, Le Pen has a reputation for being loyal. Old friends from her days studying law in Paris, former members of a student group known for violence and anti-Semitism, hold crucial roles in her inner circle.

Her longtime associates also are at the center of an alleged party financing scheme that has resulted in charges due to be heard in court.

____

FRANCOIS FILLON

The conservative candidate has fallen from front-runner to struggling survivor in the presidential race after corruption allegations severely damaged his earlier image as an earnest and honest politician.

Fillon's campaign has been flailing since the allegations that he used public funds to pay his wife and two of their children for jobs they never performed surfaced in January. He denies wrongdoing.

Fillon, 63, was France's prime minister from 2007 to 2012 during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency. He first was elected to Parliament in 1981, when he was 27.

He said his priority as president would be the fight against Islamic extremism.

Fillon has pledged to boost police and military forces, cut business taxes, slash public spending to boost France's stagnant economy and to reduce immigration "to a strict minimum."

He also has a strong focus on traditional family values.

The corruption scandal has put his Welsh wife, Penelope, under the spotlight. The couple has five children.

Last month, Fillon was handed preliminary charges that include misuse of public funds and receiving money from misuse of public funds.

___

JEAN-LUC MELENCHON

A radical Trotskyist in his youth, the 65-year-old far-left candidate is now backed by the Communist Party.

Along with Le Pen, Melenchon is one of the faces of French populism. He also is unhappy with the European Union, which he says is driven by money instead of concern for the people of Europe.

Melenchon is running for president for the second consecutive time after finishing in fourth place five years ago with 11 percent of the vote.

This year, his debating skills, anti-capitalist rhetoric, pugnacity and grasp of social issues have helped him surge during the campaign's closing stages.

Melenchon promises to tax the rich, spend heavily on the public and to renegotiate France's role in the 28-nation EU. He also wants to give more power to Parliament, where he previously served as a senator.

Melenchon says migrants need to be welcomed humanely. At one rally by the sparkling Mediterranean Sea, he held a moment of silence for the thousands of migrants who drowned while trying to cross it.

He has used technology to his advantage during the campaign, most notably by using holograms of himself speaking at political rallies to appear simultaneously in multiple venues.

___

THE OTHER CANDIDATES

The governing Socialists are on the verge of a stunning collapse.

After five years of Socialist Francois Hollande's presidency, voters appear to be abandoning Socialist contender Benoit Hamon, with many switching to Melenchon.

Hamon's promise of a universal income has failed to charm voters, and polls suggest he has no chance to advance to the presidential runoff.

However, he and six other candidates could pull enough votes away from the top contenders to influence the race.

Right-wing candidate Francois Asselineau is campaigning for a "Frexit" from the European Union, as is left-leaning Jacques Cheminade. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, another candidate on the right, has spoken like Le Pen of wanting to restore France's "sovereignty."

The far left is further splintered between Trotskyist Nathalie Arthaud and Philippe Poutou of the New Anti-Capitalist Party.

Centrist candidate Jean Lassalle made headlines in 2006 when he lost 21 kilograms (46 pounds) during a hunger strike to preserve jobs for his constituents.
Russia's FSB intelligence agency says three people were killed  including the attacker  and one wounded in an armed attack at its office in the Far East.

The FSB, the main successor to the KGB, said in a statement on Friday that an unidentified man passed by metal detectors, entered the reception area of the FSB's office in Khabarovsk and opened fire at the people who were there. One FSB officer and one visitor were killed on spot and one was wounded. Security shot dead the attacker.

The FSB would not immediately release any details about the shooter.

Social media users posted pictures of police cordons around the FSB building in Khabarovsk with special forces standing by.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.

The leafy "masakaki" plant was sent for the shrine's spring festival.

Over 90 Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine Friday, and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi also visited.

Abe has made regular offerings for Yasukuni's seasonal festivals but last visited the shrine in December 2013, drawing rebukes not only from China and South Korea, but also the United States.

As victims of Japan's wartime aggression, China and South Korea see the shrine as a symbol of Japan's militarism. Past visits by Japanese leaders have sparked criticism from its neighboring countries.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai doesnt see a difference between the U.S. and the Islamic State.

I do not differentiate at all between Daesh and America, Karzai said in an April 19 interview with Voice of Americas (VOA) Afghan Service. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

U.S. DROPS LARGEST NON-NUCLEAR BOMB IN AFGHANISTAN AFTER GREEN BERET KILLED

In the interview, Karzai specifically condemned the recent dropping of the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb in eastern Nangarhar province by the U.S. Karzai said the Mother of all bombs attack, which allegedly killed 95 militants, did little to eliminate ISIS.

"After it (the U.S.) dropped the bomb on Afghanistan, it did not eliminate Daesh, Karzai continued.

AFGHAN ARMY COMPOUND ATTACKED BY GUNMEN, DOZENS DEAD AND INJURED

"They dropped an atomic bomb on Afghanistan  there's no difference between 'the mother of all bombs' and an atomic bomb," Karzai said. I consider Daesh [the U.S.] tool, he stated.

Karzai, who took office in 2001 and remained in power until 2014, has seen his relationship with the U.S. sour in recent years. He has accused the U.S. of trying to destabilize Afghanistan along with the Taliban, and in 2014 refused to meet with President Barack Obama during a surprise stop Obama made at a Bagram military base.

Karzais unhappiness with the U.S. has grown amid worsening ties between the U.S. and Russia.

Karzai was upset by the U.S. refusal to attend recent Moscow-brokered talks regarding the future of Afghanistan. The U.S. didnt attend the meeting because of concerns with Russia but in the interview with VOA Karzai accused the U.S. of being insincere in attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan.

[Russia] talk[s] to the Taliban, the U.S. also talks to the Taliban. Norway, Germany, and other countries also talk to them. Russia has the right to hold talks with the Taliban, he said.
Israel's army said Friday it had targeted positions inside Syria in retaliation for mortar fire that struck the northern part of the Golan Heights.

"The Israeli army targeted the source of the fire," an army statement said without giving further details.

An army spokeswoman told AFP she was unable to give details on how Israel retaliated or to identify any targets that were hit.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

Around 510 square kilometres of the Golan are under Syrian control.

The two countries are still technically at war, although the border remained largely quiet for decades until 2011, when the Syrian conflict broke out.

The Israeli side is hit sporadically by what are usually deemed to be stray rounds, and Israel has recently taken to opening fire in retaliation.

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Decades' worth of man-made junk is cluttering up Earth's orbit, posing a threat to spaceflight and the satellites we rely on for weather reports, air travel and global communications.

More than 750,000 fragments larger than a centimeter are already thought to orbit Earth, and each one could badly damage or even destroy a satellite.

Experts meeting in Germany this week say the problem could get worse as private companies send a flurry of new satellites into space over the coming years, unless steps are taken to reduce space debris.

Luisa Innocenti of the European Space Agency said Friday a first mission to capture space junk is being planned, but noted that it is highly complex because failure could worsen the problem by creating more debris.

___

ESA video explaining problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7typHkpVg
Australian police are investigating claims the remains of a murdered Brit are buried in the outback after an anonymous letter was sent from London.

FRESNO RAMPAGE SUSPECT'S TIMELINE OF ALLEGED CRIME SPREE INCLUDED 3 DAYS OF VOODOO

A one-page letter was sent from an Australian expat living in the UK to the NT News, claiming Peter Falconios body was dumped in remote Western Australia after he was killed in July 2001.

The letter said convicted killer Bradley Murdoch had cut the body up and put it in two large bags that were watertight and smell proof. He told (the associate) to go straight back to Perth and dissolve the body parts in acid and put what was left in (Perths) Swan River.

AARON HERNANDEZ REPORTEDLY FOUND WITH BIBLE VERSE WRITTEN ON FOREHEAD

It has previously been claimed the backpackers convicted killer could be innocent, according to an ex-lawyer who claims the notorious Wolf Creek murderer should be freed.

Peter Falconio was travelling around Australia with his girlfriend Joanne Lees when the pair were set upon by drug smuggler Bradley Murdoch in 2001.

Today, an ex-lawyer has sensationally claimed Murdoch is innocent after studying the case for eight years.

Andrew Fraser claims the 59-year-old, who is currently serving a life sentence for Falconios murder, could even be freed by new DNA tests.

Lees has repeatedly denied any accusations that she was behind the killing, previously speaking of her despair when she realised she was a suspect at one point.

Click for more from The Sun.
An Australian subsidiary of U.S. energy giant Chevron Corp. has lost a court appeal against a 340 million Australian dollar ($260 million) tax bill in a ruling with ramifications for how multinational corporations transfer money.

Three judges of the Australian Federal Court unanimously rejected on Friday Chevron Australia's appeal against tax assessments for five years ending 2008.

The court found the company had reduced its Australian tax debt through 9 percent tax-deductible interest payments on a $2.5 billion loan from U.S.-based subsidiary Chevron Texaco Funding Corp.

The Australian Taxation Office welcomed the ruling which it said had direct implications for other cases the office was pursuing regarding loans within multinational corporations.

Chevron said it might appeal to the High Court of Australia.
Asia Bibi, the Christian mother of five in Pakistan who for seven years has been facing death by hanging for allegedly insulting Islam, could face her final Supreme Court hearing in June, her lawyer has said.

PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE, SAYS PAKISTANI ARCHBISHOP

Saiful Malook, Bibi's lawyer, told Asia News in an interview on Thursday that "the request to reopen the hearing was submitted to the president of the Supreme Court of Pakistan last week."

He added: "The case continues to be postponed due to the problems of this country. We are in the midst of a continuing war between Islam and Kufr (infidels). But our hopes for her release are many."

As International Christian Concern noted, Bibi's case is one of "the most controversial blasphemy cases" in the world, with persecution watchdog groups calling it "the best example" of how blasphemy laws can be abused.

Bibi was accused by a group of female Muslim co-workers of insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad back in 2009, and in 2010 was handed a death sentence despite pleading her innocence.

Since then she has been on death row and the subject of numerous campaigns from watchdog groups calling for her freedom. Her final appeal hearing was initially scheduled for Oct. 16, 2016, but the hearing was postponed after one of the judges pulled out of the case.

Groups such as ICC, and others, like Open Doors USA, have noted that Pakistan's blasphemy laws are often used to target Christians, who are a distinct minority in the country, and are used as a means to settle personal feuds.

Click Here to Read the Full Story at ChristianPost.com
Judging from his Twitter feed, President Trump is keeping a close eye on Sundays French presidential election.

With polls showing the top four, radically different candidates neck-and-neck, and the outcome central to the European Union and to NATO, it is little surprise Trump is paying attention. The election is possibly the most important of 2017.

In a Friday morning tweet, Trump noted the terror attack in Paris on Thursday, and said it will have a big effect on Sundays election.

What is happening this weekend?

The French will go to the polls on Sunday to vote in the first round of their presidential election and will choose from 11 candidates. The top two candidates from that vote will go into a run-off in May. Whoever wins that vote will be the new French President and will replace current Socialist President Francois Hollande in the Elysee Palace.

Whom should I be keeping an eye on?

While there are 11 candidates, there are four major candidates who are running almost neck-and-neck, and have a chance of getting through to the next round. They are:

Emmanuel Macron (En Marche!)

If there is a French Obama, Macron is it. Posing as a pragmatic, independent centrist, the dashing 39-year-old has captured the hearts of many French citizens looking for a change candidate without lurching to the extreme left or right. In many ways, his style models former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led his Labour Party to power by adopting a so-called third-way centrism.

Macrons background as a former civil servant and investment banker who served in Hollandes government have led his critics to say he is less of a change candidate as he is a savvy spokesman for globalist elites and the status quo.

But Macron seems not to have been too shaken by these criticisms, and he has gone from a long shot to leading favorite. He has been outspoken in his support for the European Union, and in the past backed Angela Merkels unpopular refugee policies, saying she saved Europes dignity. His economic policies include careful cuts to corporation taxes, reducing labor costs and a public investment spending program.

Macron is currently tipping ahead in the polls by a few points, and was given a possible boost Thursday when he received a phone call from former President Barack Obama, who gave the clearly enamored French candidate some support  which Macron quickly posted onto social media.

Lets keep defending our progressive values. Thank you for this discussion @BarackObama. pic.twitter.com/8rhNdHkLo8  Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 20, 2017

If there was both a media and pollster's favorite for Sunday, it would be Macron. Should he make it through to Round 2 and be pitted against a more extreme candidate, he has clung close to the center so as to scoop up the votes from the opposite wing and put him over the 50 percent mark.

Marine Le Pen (Front national)

While Macron may be the favorite, Le Pen and her rise to the top has been the story of French politics for over a year. The right-wing populist has moved the once extremist party that bathed in anti-Semitism under her father Jean-Marie Le Pen to de-toxify itself of its racist baggage, and embrace more populist policies.

Le Pen has had significant success, and has proved to be a shrewd politician as she moved her party's focus to restricting immigration, opposing Islamism and leaving the European Union. On the economy, she has blasted what she calls unregulated liberalism and has called for protectionist policies, as well as a tax on businesses employing workers from abroad.

With her focus on what she calls economic patriotism, as well as her strong stances on immigration and Islam, she invites comparisons to President Trump  comparisons she has welcomed. She has praised Trump multiple times and was seen at Trump Tower earlier this year.

While Le Pens chances on getting into the second round are strong, as she sits in second place in the polls, her chances in the second round seem significantly weaker. When Frances traditionally left-wing electorate are faced with a candidate identified with the far-right versus a possibly more centrist candidate, polling shows her losing comfortably. But Frances political system is so volatile, and with French voters stinging from Thursday's terrorist attack in Paris, it would be foolhardy to write the savvy Le Pen off so soon.

Francois Fillon (The Republicans)

Francois Fillon, if you spoke to almost any European commentator in February, was a political dead duck. Once at the top of the polls after winning the main center-right partys nomination last year, the former prime minister was brought to his knees by a deadly cocktail of allegations of corruption.

Fillon was running a socially conservative campaign with a focus on moral values, free-market economics, fiscal responsibility, as well as a strong stance on Islamism that threatened to eat into Le Pens vote (Fillon wrote a book in 2016 on the dangers of Islamic totalitarianism). Fillon presented himself as a rejection of the unpopular policies of President Hollande, and it seemed to be working.

But Fillon's numbers dove when the French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine revealed that Fillons wife Penelope and their two children were paid almost a million euros of taxpayer money, with little evidence they did any work in return. What quickly became known as Penelopegate led to a police probe into possible embezzlement and calls from his own party to pull out.

Fillon refused, and has clawed his way back into relevance. Recent polls now put him only a few points behind Macron and Le Pen, suggesting that a dive in the fortunes of either rival could allow Fillon to squeak into the second round. Despite being under investigation, and with a deeply divided party at war behind him, the Catholic Fillon has seen his political fortunes undergo an unlikely resurrection -- and now will be hoping to see an ascension to the Elysee Palace.

Jean-Luc Melenchon (Unsubmissive France)

Often, Europeans get sick of being compared to American politicians. But in the case of the far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, the former-Trotskyist has openly welcomed comparisons to 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

It is easy to make comparisons between Melenchon and Sanders. Both have pushed economic socialism, arguing for higher taxes on the wealthy (Melenchon has called for tax rates as high as 90 percent,) more spending on public programs, regulation on banks and industry, a priority on environmentalism, as well as fewer military commitments abroad.

But on many issues, the firebrand Melenchon is a few steps beyond Sanders. Melenchon has praised former Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and has called for the complete withdrawal of France from NATO and the European Union  the latter is a rare moment of parity between him and Le Pen.

Once he was seen as too radical even for the French electorate  which has been a lot cozier with socialism than the American electorate. But the implosion of the French Socialist Party, from which the vastly unpopular President Hollande hails  has given Melenchon an opening, and he has surprised critics to leapfrog Hollandes Socialist successor Benoit Hamon (whose numbers have collapsed into the single digits) to jump into the top four.

One poll has him only a point behind Fillon, and six behind Macron. A last minute change in fortunes, or a polling error (a common occurence in 2016) could throw the man who newspaper Le Figaro called The French Chavez into the run-off.

What is the most likely outcome on Sunday?

Its simply too close to call. While polling has Macron and Le Pen ahead, it isnt by much, and polling errors, turnout, and the fallout from yet another Islamic terror attack on Thursday makes anything possible.

A gambling man looking to put his money on the safest bet would probably throw his weight behind Macron getting into the second round and soundly beating whoever his rival is. But that same gambler would also have put his money on Britain remaining in the European Union and Hillary Clinton being President of the United States.

Some commentators have noted that an unlikely, but not impossible outcome, is a second-round run-off between Le Pen and Melenchon  giving the French a choice of two extremes. Or it could be a choice between Fillon and Macron  a more traditional center-left vs. center-right battle.

The world will know on Sunday.
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Conservative candidate Francois Fillon has fallen from front-runner to struggling survivor in France's presidential race as corruption allegations have damaged his image.

Fillon's campaign has been flailing since the investigation began in January. He was handed preliminary charges last month, including misuse of public funds, and receiving money from misuse of public funds and company assets.

The 63-year-old politician denies any wrongdoing, and opinion polls suggest he has a chance to be one of two candidates to advance to the May 7 runoff election.

Fillon hopes his experience as former prime minister and hard-line views on security issues will give his campaign a boost following the shooting of police officers Thursday in Paris.

He initially said he would withdraw from the race if he was charged, but later said he was determined to let voters judge him instead of investigators.

"France is greater than my errors", he said, calling the judicial investigation a "political assassination."

Fillon, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2012 during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, says his priority as president would be to fight "Islamic totalitarianism."

He has pledged to boost police and military forces, cut taxes on businesses, slash public spending to boost France's stagnant economy and to reduce immigration "to a strict minimum."

He also promises to drastically reduce the number of public servants, raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 and extend the workweek beyond 35 hours.

He has a strong focus on traditional family values. He pledged to ban full adoption by same-sex couples.

Since January, he was forced to limit his campaign events to political rallies and a few visits under high security, to avoid anti-corruption protests and demonstrators shouting "Fillon in prison!"

In 1981, Fillon was elected to parliament for the first time, representing his electoral fief of Sable-sur-Sarthe, a small town in rural western France.

At 27, he was the youngest lawmaker of the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly.

He served five times as a government member under Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac.

In the wake of the global economic crisis in 2008, Fillon as prime minister implemented a plan to cut public spending and raise taxes.

The corruption scandal has his Welsh wife, Penelope, under the spotlights. She was previously seen as a discreet housewife, the mother of five, and not involved in politics.

Fillon is suspected of paying Penelope and two of their children more than 1 million euros ($1.1 million) over many years for positions as parliamentary aides that involved no sustained work.

It is legal, and not uncommon, for French lawmakers to hire family members or close acquaintances as parliamentary aides  but they are expected to work.

Judges are also looking into allegations that Fillon was given suits by lawyer Robert Bourgi, an unofficial adviser for French and African presidents, worth more than 48,000 euros ($52,000) over the past five years  including two suits with a combined value of 13,000 euros ($14,000) last month.

Bourgi had close links to former French presidents Jacques Chirac and Sarkozy, as well as the former leaders of Senegal and Gabon.

Judges are also investigating whether Fillon and his wife committed fraud and forgery in a cover-up attempt.
West African forces clashed with Gambian soldiers loyal to former leader Yahya Jammeh, shooting and injuring three who were guarding graves at his home, the soldiers said Friday.

Modou Mbye said he and his colleagues were guarding graves at the property Thursday and refused when the troops asked to enter. They then entered by force in an armored personnel carrier, firing their guns, Mbye said.

"We do not fire back as we were commanded not to," Mbye said.

The conflict was caused by a misunderstanding between the two forces and investigations have begun into the incident, Gambia Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Omar B. Bojang said.

Tensions remain in the village where Jammeh once said he would return after he lost December elections to President Adama Barrow. Jammeh flew into exile in Equatorial Guinea as regional countries threatened a military intervention.

Thousands of the West African forces are now providing security in Gambia as the new government settles in.

Barrow has promised to reverse many of the actions taken by Jammeh, who was accused by human rights groups of leading a government that arrested, tortured and killed opponents during his more than two-decade rule.
As a significant trading and security partner, Frances presidential election Sunday will likely hold substantial consequences for the United States.

The State Department says the U.S. and France work closely on many issues including counterterrorism, the Iran nuclear agreement and in international organizations like the United Nations Security Council and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

Even the past two U.S. presidents are either talking about, or to, the French candidates.

President Trump told the Associated Press that far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is "strongest on borders and what's been going on in France." The president said he offered no official endorsement. Le Pen wants to dramatically reduce immigration to France and withdraw from global alliances.

The relative centrist in the race, Emmanuel Macron, spoke this week with President Obama and tweeted Lets keep defending our progressive values. Thank you for this discussion @BarackObama.

The former presidents spokesman said Obama spoke with Macron, about the important upcoming presidential election in France, a country that President Obama remains deeply committed to as a close ally of the United States, and as a leader on behalf of liberal values in Europe and around the world, said a statement from Kevin Lewis, a spokesperson for President Obama. An endorsement was not the purpose of the call, as President Obama is not making any formal endorsement in advance of the run-off election on Sunday.

Also polling among the top four candidates are Jean-Luc Melenchon, a far left candidate who also wants to withdraw from global alliances, and Francois Fillon, a center-right candidate.

Of the top four candidates, three are in favor of closer ties to Russia, two others want to boost France and Europes defense capabilities to rely less on NATO and the United States. Two have spoken openly about leaving or redefining the European Union and NATO.

If France were to withdraw from NATOs integrated military structures that would be a big blow to U.S. interests, said Jeffrey Rathke, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. France is one of the most militarily capable allies that we have and their participation in NATO missions is extremely important and it advances us security as well.

There is also the U.S.-France economic relationship. France is the United States third-largest trading partner in Europe. The government says the U.S. exports about $30 billion in goods to France and imports more than $47 billion.

One analyst said a withdrawal from the European Union could prompt major economic promises.

Both Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen advocate a very deep renegotiation of Frances stance with the EU that could in actuality result in Frances exit from the euro zone, said Dalibor Rohac, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Its default on its sovereign debt which would propel a financial crisis on a scale much bigger than the one we saw in 2008.

If no candidate wins a majority, the top two participate in a May 7 runoff.
From deep within an Israeli prison, Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti has once again thrust himself to the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By organizing a mass hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Barghouti has solidified his standing as a likely successor to President Mahmoud Abbas. He also has proven to Israel that, despite serving multiple life sentences, he cannot be ignored as the country marks 50 years of control over the Palestinian territories.

Barghouti is the most prominent of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, and even after 15 years behind bars, he continues to cast a long shadow over the region.

While viewed by Israel as an arch terrorist, he is seen by Palestinians as a national hero, often drawing comparisons to the late South African President Nelson Mandela. He has called the new hunger strike the "long walk to freedom," the title of Mandela's autobiography about life in prison during the apartheid era.

"Marwan is the best candidate to inspire and lead the new generation from behind bars, just as Mandela did," said Qadura Fares, a Barghouti supporter and leader of the Palestinian prisoners' association.

Palestinian officials say Israel is holding some 6,500 "security prisoners" -- people jailed for charges ranging from stone-throwing and membership in groups outlawed by Israel, to attacks that wounded or killed Israelis. Several hundred are being detained without charges.

Barghouti was arrested in 2002 during the violent Palestinian uprising and convicted on multiple counts of murder. Israel charged him with directing suicide bombings against its citizens, and he was sentenced to five life terms. Barghouti did not offer a defense, refusing to recognize the court's authority.

As many as 1,500 prisoners are believed to have joined the strike. Their immediate demands included better conditions, more contact with relatives, and an end to Israel's practice of detentions without trial.

But the strike's significance runs far deeper, with long-ranging implications in the brewing struggle to succeed the 82-year-old Abbas and efforts to end a bitter 10-year rift between Abbas' Fatah movement and the rival Hamas militant group.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Barghouti wrote that Israeli prisons have become the "cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination."

Over the years, polls have indicated that Barghouti is the most popular choice among Palestinians to succeed Abbas, who has refused to groom a political heir.

He also is seen as the only figure in Abbas' Fatah movement who also enjoys support from Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas' forces a decade ago. The ongoing rift is a major impediment to Abbas' goal of establishing a Palestinian state in both territories.

Barghouti appears intent on becoming the next Palestinian president, and some believe that Israel will be forced to release him because he is such a unifying figure to the Palestinians. Over the years, Israel has released a number of top security inmates in prisoner swaps and other agreements with the Palestinians.

With peace efforts frozen, any potential release seems far off at best. But Barghouti is busy preparing for the future by using the hunger strike to shore up his standing.

In December, he was the top vote getter at a Fatah leadership contest, but was nonetheless denied a senior position in the movement, in what many saw as an effort by Abbas to sideline him.

"This strike is bringing him back again to the forefront of Palestinian politics," said Akram Atallah, a columnist for the pro-Fatah al-Ayyam newspaper.

"Barghouti is preparing himself for the post 82-year-old President Abbas era," he said.

Israel's prison service said Barghouti has no special status and is treated like any other prisoner. But the day after the strike began, Israel announced that Barghouti had been transferred to a new prison and placed in solitary confinement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the New York Times for describing "arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti as a `parliamentarian and leader"' in his op-ed piece. Under Israeli pressure, the paper amended his article with a note describing the crimes for which he was convicted, while also noting his refusal to recognize the Israeli court's legitimacy.

For now, Israel is taking a tough line, vowing not to negotiate with the hunger strikers.

Michael Oren, Israel's deputy minister for public diplomacy, called Barghouti a "convicted mass murderer of Israelis."

Oren said Barghouti "should remain behind bars and serve out those sentences until the last day of his life."

He said the hunger strike "has nothing to do with the state of Israel," and instead was connected to Fatah infighting. "I think Israel should sit quietly. If these people want to go hungry, that is their decision," he said.

But as the strike drags on, it may become harder to ignore. The strike has generated widespread support among the Palestinian public, and if anything happens to Barghouti it could ignite unrest.

Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, said she fears for her husband's life and the health of all prisoners. "This is a matter of life or death. A hunger strike is not easy," she said.

Elias Sabagh, Barghouti's lawyer, said he has received permission to visit his client on Sunday for the first time since the strike began. He said Barghouti is mentally tough and has spent time in solitary confinement. He described Barghouti as a voracious reader who enjoys books in English, Arabic and Hebrew, and closely follows the political situation.

Alon Eviatar, a former high-ranking officer in COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said that as the hunger strike drags on, both sides will be pushed to compromise.

Barghouti "views himself not just as the Fatah leader but leader of all the Palestinians. He will succeed if he gets better conditions for all prisoners," he said.
One police officer was killed and two others wounded Thursday in a shooting on Paris's famed Champs Elysees, just days ahead of France's presidential election, police said.

France's interior ministry said the gunman was killed after opening fire on the officers at around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on the boulevard. Anti-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation.

"The attacker arrived by car and got out. He opened fire on a police car with an automatic weapon, killing one of the police officers and trying to attack others while running," a police source told AFP, asking not be named.

The bustling shopping street in the heart of the city was blocked by armed officers and nearby metro stations closed.

The election has long been seen as a potential target of Islamist militants. Witnesses recounted scenes of panic as people ran for cover and sought shelter.

"We had to hide our customers in the basement," Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting, told AFP, saying there was "lots of gunfire."

Dozens of vehicles from the emergency services were sent to the area, where a helicopter was also deployed.

As the first details filtered through, US President Donald Trump sent his condolences and said that "it looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It just never ends."

The shooting comes two days after the arrest of two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the first-round of the presidential election on Sunday.

France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of alert since a string of Islamist militant attacks that began in 2015, which have killed over 230 people.

Up until now, polls showed voters more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this would change in the event of further bloodshed.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen welcomed security moving to the heart of the campaign on Thursday as she took part in a prime-time interview show alongside the 10 other presidential candidates.

"We are suffering the consequences of a laxity that has continued for years," she said shortly before the shooting, promising to take a hard line against extremists and anyone suspected of being an Islamist.

For weeks, centrist former banker Emmanuel Macron and the National Front's (FN) Le Pen have been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a chance that any of four leading candidates could reach the second-round runoff on May 7.

Though Le Pen and Macron are the frontrunners, scandal-plagued conservative Francois Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.

"The first responsibility of the president is to protect," Macron said on the interview show. "This threat will be part of our daily lives in the next years."

Major attacks in France targeted the Charlie Hebdo magazine in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall in November the same year and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July last year.

In between, there have been a series of smaller attacks, often targeting security forces.

Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets including government buildings and religious sites.

In February, a man armed with a machete in each hand attacked soldiers on patrol at Paris's Louvre Museum. The attacker, a 29-year-old Egyptian, was seriously injured.

And in March, a 39-year-old man was killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking a soldier.

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The White House responded cautiously Friday to claims by an Iranian dissident group alleging that Irans clandestine work on a nuclear weapon has continued unabated by the landmark nuclear deal that Tehran finalized with the Obama administration and five other world powers two years ago.

At a news conference in Washington, members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) brandished recent satellite imagery and intelligence purportedly derived from informants inside the Iranian military to bolster their claim that the Islamic Regime is still working covertly on what nuclear experts call weaponization: the final station on the path to nuclear weapons.

The engineering unit that is charged and tasked with actually building the bomb in a secret way for the Iranian regime is called the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of NCRIs Washington office. That unit, whose Persian acronym is SPND, was first exposed by Jafarzadehs group in 2011, and was designated by the State Department in 2014 because U.S. officials said SPND took over some of the activities related to Irans undeclared nuclear program.

Our information shows that their activities have been continuing in full gear, despite the JCPOA, Jafarzadeh said, using the acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is the formal name for the nuclear deal.

NCRIs startling claim came in the same week that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson certified to Congress that Iran is meeting the terms of the JCPOA but also announced an interagency task force to reevaluate the entire deal, saying the JCPOA is not meeting its objective. President Trump followed that up the next day by saying the Iranians are not living up to the spirit of the agreement.

That prompted a sharp tweet of rebuke from the Iranian foreign minister, an architect of the nuclear deal. Dr. Javad Zarif posted: Well see if US prepared to live up to letter of #JCPOA let alone spirit. So far, it has defied both.

Asked about NCRIs allegation and supporting evidence, Michael Anton, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said only that his colleagues are carefully evaluating the NCRI package against the best intelligence reporting and analysis available to the United States.

NCRIs satellite imagery is focused on the military base at Parchin, a site to which inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have been granted only limited and tightly controlled access. The photos outline an area in the north of the sprawling base where installations surrounded by berms are visible. According to NCRI officers, the newly constructed site is known internally as Plan 6.

There, the dissident group alleged, a sub-unit of SPND known as METFAZ  another Persian acronym for the formal title of the Center for Research and Expansion of Technologies on Explosions and Impact  is working with high explosives in ways the NCRI said are identical to the possible military dimension that Western officials long suspected Iran was pursuing with its nuclear program.

Skeptics of NCRI note that it is the political affiliate of an Iranian opposition group, known as MEK, that spent fifteen years on the State Departments list of foreign terror organizations. But many have seen NCRIs disclosures about alleged clandestine nuclear activities or sites in Iran borne out, starting with the groups identification of the theretofore secret installations at Natanz and Arak. Frank Pabian, an adviser on nuclear nonproliferation issues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was quoted in 2010 as telling the New York Times of the NCRI: Theyre right 90 percent of the time.

To assess the imagery of Plan 6 at Parchin, Fox News consulted a pair of nuclear scientists and arms control analysts who are among the worlds most renowned. David Albright, the trained physicist and former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, told Fox News the structures visible in the satellite photography are consistent with a facility that makes high explosives; but he noted that Iran has the right to do so under the JCPOA, and that the imagery yielded no outward sign that Iran was also testing high explosives at the site. Still, he believes the IAEA should press for access there. The international inspectors should use authorities under the nuclear deal to go and look at this site, and see what's going on and start to verify a critical part of the nuclear deal, Albright said, namely, those activities involved in the development of nuclear weapons.

Olli Heinonen spent nearly three decades at the IAEA, eventually rising to the level of the number-two official at the agency: deputy director-general. He has traveled to Iran for inspection tours and other business some twenty-five times. He reached a similar assessment about Plan 6, even as both men emphasized the need for more information to make determinative judgments.

We see that the buildings are surrounded by berms; they are a distance from each other. This is a typical design for a site that works with high explosives, Heinonen told FoxNews. I think there are serious questions to be asked [of] the Iranian government. Most likely IAEA should have access to this site.

Neither the IAEA nor the Iranian mission to the United Nations responded to requests for comment.
In the wake of increased airstrikes and pressure applied from three directions by U.S.-backed Syrian forces, the Islamic State has essentially moved its so-called capital in Syria, U.S. defense officials told Fox News.

ISIS is now centered in Deir ez-Zur, roughly 90 miles southeast of Raqqa, the officials said.

PARIS OFFICER KILLED IN TERROR ATTACK WAS ON DUTY FOR 2015 MASSACRE

U.S. military drones have watched hundreds of ISIS bureaucrats, or administrators, leaving Raqqa in the past two months for

the city of al-Mayadin located further down the Euphrates River from Deir el-Zour where U.S. Central Command announced that it killed mid-level ISIS operative Abdurakhmon Uzbeki.

The looming battle for Raqqa is imminent but the ISIS government is no longer there, according to officials.

ELECTION ROCKED: PARIS TERROR ATTACK LOOMS LARGE AHEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

Now that Turkeys constitutional referendum has been completed, U.S. military officials hope to forge ahead with a more aggressive plan to assault Raqqa in the near future. A major sticking point of NATO-ally Turkey is the use of Syrian Kurdish fighters of the YPG which for years the Pentagon has called the best fighters on the ground against ISIS. Turkey has claimed the YPG is an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, a group labeled a terrorist organization by Ankara and Washington.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the head of the U.S.-led coalition based in Baghdad, said last month that Syrian Kurdish fighters would participate in in some form or fashion in the operation to retake Raqqa.

Ideally, the Pentagon would like to have Kurdish fighters surround Raqqa, in much the same way that Shia-militia forces have surrounded Mosul next door in Iraq. In Syria, American military commanders have said they'd like a local Arab force to assault Raqqa. Questions remain about the hold force necessary to keep the peace after ISIS is uprooted from Raqqa. Much will be determined by the civilians in Raqqa held captive starting in 2014, about who is able to run the city moving forward.

There are other looming questions about whether the Pentagon will supply heavy weapons to the Kurdish fighters over objections from Turkey. The speed at which fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) can get into Raqqa depends on their access to heavy weapons, according to U.S. officials. While there is an Arab component to the SDF, American officials admit there are not enough of them.

Last week on a visit to the United States, Turkeys Minister of Defense Fikri ISIK visited Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in the Pentagon before the referendum vote.

Ahead of their meeting, both ISIK and Mattis ignored shouted questions from a reporter about the role Syrian Kurdish fighters would play in the upcoming Raqqa battle.

In a sign of the increasing American role on the ground in Syria, last month a U.S. Marine artillery battery with some 400 Marines was inserted outside Raqqa to shell the ISIS capital with artillery rounds. The Marines later supported a U.S.-led air assault, when hundreds of Syrian fighters, along with some U.S. backed special operations forces, were inserted in Tabqa located some 30 miles west of Raqqa, home to a strategic airfield and dam.

The U.S. military announced late last month the Tabqa airfield had been successfully recaptured from ISIS.

The battle for the dam remains ongoing.
U.S. forces in Syria have killed a top Islamic State operative who played a key role in the New Years Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Abdurakhmon Uzbeki was a close associate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the ISIS terror network.

Confirmed: death of senior #ISIS terrorist & #Baghdadi associate via US military operation near Mayadin, #Syria. We will reach u anywhere, Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, said on Twitter.

Confirmed: death of senior #ISIS terrorist & #Baghdadi associate via US military operation near Mayadin, #Syria. We will reach u anywhere. pic.twitter.com/Y1MYBwx67o  Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) April 21, 2017

Central Command spokesman, Col. John Thomas, said Uzbeki was killed in a ground operation on April 6.

Thomas said Uzbeki helped ISIS move foreign fighters and funds, and played a key role in plotting terror attacks.

Thomas didn't provide details on Uzbeki's role in the Istanbul attack, in which a gunman opened fire inside a crowded nightclub. Dozens of people were wounded.

Turkish authorities nabbed the suspected gunman, an Uzbek national, in Istanbul a week later.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A young generation of kindergarteners in Vienna, Austria, may be learning radical Islamic viewpoints, unbeknownst to their parents and guardians, a research study suggests.

"Some 10,000 children aged two to six attend around 150 Muslim preschools, [which teach] the Koran much like Christian ones do with Bible studies," according to religion education professor Ednan Aslan of the University of Vienna and as noted by the global news agency Agence France-Presse. The news agency also reported, "Vienna has 842 registered kindergartens, 100 of them Catholic-run and 13 Protestant, but the number of Muslim ones is not known."

ISIS MOVES ITS CAPITAL IN SYRIA

Aslan, a Turkish-born Austria professor who teaches Islamic studies, published his research study last year.

"The most important prerequisite for religious education -- and for education in general -- is that the children need to learn to think," he argued, as reported by The Local, an English language publication in Austria. "Islam, as it is now, is not sustainable," he also said recently.

ELECTION ROCKED: PARIS TERROR ATTACK LOOMS LARGE AHEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

The Islamic kindergarten issue has stirred up controversy in Vienna. Some see Aslan's study as flawed, while others are concerned with the subject matter.

"[Parents] are unaware that they are shutting [children] off from a multicultural society" when sending them to an Islamic school, Aslan told Agence France-Presse.

Could kindergarten teachers, possibly inadvertently, indoctrinate children into radical thinking or a parallel society? In Indonesia, a group "discovered textbooks aimed at kindergarteners containing 'dangerous radical Islamic teachings,'" Todayonline.com reported in January 2016.

"This could endanger the children's future," said Benny Ramdani of the Ansor Youth Movement, a group associated with Indonesia's largest Muslim community, Nahdlatul Ulama (a traditionalist Sunni movement).

"In its report Ansor noted certain sentences in the book: 'Sahid di medan jihad'[die as a jihadist], 'Rela mati bela agama' [willingly die for religion], 'Hati-hati zona bahaya' [warning, dangerous zone] and 'Bahaya sabotase' [danger of sabotage]," The Jakarta Post noted last year.

While the Ansor Youth Movement found concerns in the kindergarten textbook material, others deny any intention to radicalize the youth through the texts.

The terror group ISIS has through its indoctrination techniques.

"The recruitment of children takes place in several phases, beginning with harmless socialization," German news magazine Der Spiegel says. "Islamic State hosts events in which children are given sweets and little boys are allowed to hold an IS flag."

Der Spiegel continued in a July 2016 article: "Then [the children] are shown videos filled with violence. Later, in the free schools IS uses to promote the movement, they learn Islamic knowledge and practice counting and arithmetic with books that use depictions of tanks. They practice beheading with blond dolls dressed in orange jumpsuits. With a new app developed by IS, they learn to sing songs that call upon people to engage in jihad."
A Japanese government panel has endorsed Emperor Akihito's apparent desire to abdicate but avoided a key question of succession amid a declining royal population.

The six-member advisory panel in its final report Friday proposed Akihito abdicate under legislation that would be specially drafted for such an event.

The report detailed procedures such as the title, status and roles for an abdicated emperor and his heir, but avoided divisive issues such as whether to allow a female emperor.

The government will now write legislation for a parliamentary approval.

The 83-year-old Akihito expressed last August his apparent wish to abdicate, citing his age and health. The elder of the two sons, Crown Prince Naruhito, is first in line to the Chrysanthemum throne.
Kenya's military says it has killed 52 fighters with the extremist group al-Shabab in neighboring Somalia.

Military spokesman Col. Joseph Owuoth says the army destroyed an extremist camp in Badhadhe region of Lower Jubba early Friday using ground troops and artillery fire.

He says an assortment of weapons was recovered at the scene.

Kenyan troops are part of an African Union mission supporting Somalia's weak central government against the al-Shabab insurgency. Kenya sent troops to Somalia in 2011, and al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for that.

The extremist group has been blamed for more than 100 attacks inside Kenya since then.
An organization of teachers in the U.K. has argued that homosexuality and transgenderism should be taught to young children starting in nursery school.

Members of the National Union of Teachers group voted for a measure at a conference in Cardiff to "campaign to ensure a comprehensive age-appropriate content including promotion of LGBT+ matters for all schools from nursery throughout all phases of state education," The Evening Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

'ISLAMIC' KINDERGARTENS IN AUSTRIA RAISE EYEBROWS

Annette Pryce, a NUT executive member from Buckinghamshire, claimed that the U.K. government hasn't been doing enough to promote inclusion.

"Those generations of young LGBT people who have been failed by the system are still not told explicitly in the law that their lives are important too," Pryce said.

"The NUT ... needs to ensure that SRE is inclusive to LGBT young people now and forever."

Education Secretary Justine Greening announced back in March that age appropriate sex and relationships guidance is to be made compulsory for all children, though it allowed parents and faith schools to opt out of the new rules.

U.K. ministers have been facing "mounting pressure" to respond to concerns that children are not being educated about online porn, cyber bullying and sexting, the Telegraph said.

Click Here to Read the Full Story at ChristianPost.com
Kuwait's most prominent opposition figure has been released after serving a two-year prison sentence for insulting the ruler in a speech critical of the country's sheikh.

Hundreds of supporters welcomed Musallam Al-Barrak, 61, outside of Kuwait's Central Prison, with a procession of cars following him to his house, after his release Friday afternoon.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Barrak's lawyer Thamer Al-Jadaei said his release was being celebrated because many admire his courage to speak out against what they see as corruption and stagnation.

The former lawmaker was convicted after giving a speech in late 2012 in which he called on Kuwait's ruler Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah not to "drag the country into a dark abyss" and said Kuwait risked becoming an autocratic state.
Frances far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Friday called on President Hollande to restore the countrys border controls one day after a gunman opened fire on police on the Champs-Elysees.

Because our country is at war, the response must be global, total, she said, according to Bloomberg. She went on to say that the French government has been weak in its effort to confront terrorism.

French citizens head to the polls in two days for the first round of the countrys election.

One police officer was killed and two others seriously injured when a gunman with an automatic weapon opened fire. Officers shot and killed the assailant. Officials said the assailant was armed with an automatic firearm akin to a "war weapon."

The suspect's name was not publicly released. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium. The attacker opened fire on a police van on the avenue before being killed.

Two French officials said the gunman was detained in February for threatening police then freed.

The officials spoke Friday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss details of the probe into Thursday night's attack.

The officials said the gunman was detained toward the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police but then released for lack of evidence.

He was convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in shootings on two police officers.

Besides Le Pen, other presidential candidates have expressed their solidarity with police forces. The 11 candidates were appearing on a television program ahead of the first round of voting in the two-part election when the attack occurred.

Conservative contender Francois Fillon said on France 2 television he was canceling his planned campaign stops on Friday.

Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard is reopen and picking up its usual early morning routine Friday. Delivery trucks were making their rounds. Traffic was going up and down the famous tree-lined street and police barriers have been taken down.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
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Lebanon's prime minister has paid a visit to south Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah organized a tour for journalists along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri criticized the media tour organized by Hezbollah during which armed militants from the group appeared in a U.N.-created border buffer zone meant to be free of Hezbollah presence, calling it "unacceptable in our opinion."

The Hezbollah tour, intended to show journalists defensive measures taken by Israel along the border in the past year, was also criticized by other opponents of the Iranian-backed group as a provocation and a violation of a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that created the buffer zone.

Hariri, on his visit Friday, met with United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the area and renewed Lebanon's commitment to international resolutions.
A terror suspect sought by France in the wake of the Champs-Elysees shooting attack has turned himself in to Belgian police, France's interior ministry said Friday.

"The man in the wanted notice issued by Belgian authorities presented himself to a police station in Antwerp," ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told AFP.

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He's been labeled the French Fidel Castro, but his mentor in politics is the late French President Francois Mitterrand. A radical Trotskyist in his youth, he's also served as a minister in a Socialist government.

It took Jean-Luc Melenchon a long time to find his own way in politics.

Now at the peak of his popularity, the far-left French presidential candidate is the new face of French populism, embodying the fight against austerity politics in the European Union, where he feels that money  not people  is its driving force.

"The error is not the worker," Melenchon often says. "The dough is the error."

The 65-year-old is running for president for the second consecutive time after finishing in fourth place five years ago with 11 percent of the vote. This year, Melenchon's debating skills, anti-capitalist rhetoric, pugnacity and grasp of social issues have seen him surge in the campaign's closing stages.

French voters cast ballots Sunday in the first round of the country's presidential election. The top-two vote-getters there move on to a presidential runoff vote on May 7.

In the face of France's chronic high unemployment  which now stands at 10 percent  Melenchon's appeals to the working class have struck a chord. After five years of Socialist Francois Hollande's presidency, voters appear to be abandoning Socialist contender Benoit Hamon, with many switching to Melenchon, who left the Socialists to found the Left Party.

Melenchon promises to tax the rich and spend heavily, to renegotiate France's role in the 28-nation EU and international trade pacts. He also wants to get rid of what he calls the "presidential monarchy" by giving more power to parliament, and to stop France's use of nuclear power, the source of nearly 80 percent of the country's electricity.

Renowned for his temper tantrums against journalists, the former Socialist senator is described by opponents as a dangerous, angry and irresponsible autocrat.

"You need to kick the doors open. This is the meaning of anger," says Melenchon, who is backed by the Communist Party.

Another Melenchon trademark: a little red triangle he wears on his jackets, worn by political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Melenchon says it differentiates him from far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen  his political nemesis  after critics likened his platform to hers.

Their sharpest difference is on migrants. Le Pen wants to staunch their flow into France while Melenchon says they need to be welcomed humanely. At one rally by the sparkling Mediterranean Sea, Melenchon held a moment of silence for the thousands of migrants who have drowned while trying to cross it.

"Listen: It's the silence of death," he told the crowd.

Melenchon distanced himself from Le Pen again following the shooting of Paris police officers on Friday night. While Le Pen urged the government to restore France's borders immediately, Melenchon said France should not give in to panic.

"Our duty as citizens is to stay away from the polemics our enemies are dreaming of, and, on the opposite, to stay together," Melenchon said.

Born in Tangiers, Morocco, from parents of Spanish and Italian origins, Melenchon started his political life with the Trotskyist movement OCI before joining the Socialist Party in the late 1970's.

After becoming the youngest French senator ever, he also served as minister for vocational training under Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Deeply shocked by Jospin's elimination in the first round of the 2002 presidential election, when far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine, went through to face Jacques Chirac, Melenchon bounced back three years later during the campaign against EU's proposed constitution.

Rejuvenated by the "no" vote at that referendum, Melenchon, however, failed to impose his leftist views and left the Socialist Party.

Melenchon's platform has not changed much from 2012 but he has toned down a bit. French tricolor banners have replaced the seas of red Communist flags at his gigantic rallies. His supporters now sing the French national anthem instead of L'Internationale.

Criticized by some as a man of the past, Melenchon has still exceled in mastering new technologies. His Twitter account has more than 1 million followers. His YouTube channel is popular and his use of holograms at rallies to appear simultaneously in multiple venues has attracted headlines.

"We are inextinguishable, nobody and nothing can finish us off," Melenchon said. "All you need is an ember to ignite the prairie."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday in an exclusive Fox News interview that Israel would make peace with Palestinians by demanding they "pass the test of peace."

Netanyahu told Fox News' Sean Hannity in Jerusalem that the world doesn't have to pressure him to make peace with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"I want peace. I've been to war," Netanyahu said on "Hannity."

The Israeli Prime Minister said the first test of peace is for Palestinians to prove they want it.

"Confront terrorism, stop rewarding terrorism, stop paying terrorists, and don't finagle the books," Netanyahu said. "What they do is 'ok, we won't pay directly, we'll pay it to somebody else and they'll pay it to the terrorists' in a sort of circular fashion."

Netanyahu said Palestine must "come clean" and stop paying terrorists.

President Trump is set to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on May 3.

Watch the full exclusive interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu at 10pm ET Friday on "Hannity."
The spokesman for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News' "Hannity" Thursday that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians requires "the fundamental acceptance of the Jewish State."

David Keyes spoke to Sean Hannity at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, where Palestinian terrorists shot and killed four Israelis and murdered 16 others last year.

CATCH SEAN HANNITY'S INTERVIEW WITH ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU FRIDAY AT 10 P.M. ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL

"They ordered brownies. They were dressed in suits. They tried to blend in," Keyes said of the attackers, "and they stood up and they murdered four people in cold blood."

Keyes noted that "every time weve had a real partner for peace, Israel has actually worked out peace deals which have lasted decades, [as] in the case of Egypt and Jordan."

"Look, everyone in this region deserves to live in peace," Keyes added, "and theres nobody who would want peace more than the Israeli people and the Israeli Prime Minister."

Hannity also toured the market with Dore Gold of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, who decried Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for "rewarding those who engage in terrorism."

"The real stumbling block for making peace," Gold said, "is the culture of hatred that the Palestinian Authority has built."
The policeman gunned down on the iconic Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris in a terrorist attack has been identified as Xavier Jugele by Flag!, a French association of LGBT police officers.

The group's president, Mickael Bucheron, told The Associated Press on Friday that the slain officer would have celebrated his 38th birthday in early May.

Pour ne jamais oublier Xavier.

RIP pic.twitter.com/HWzvWN0R90  Flag ! (@flagasso) April 21, 2017

PARIS TERRORIST ATTACK THREATENS CITY'S REBOUNDING TOURISM, TRAVEL EXPERTS WARN

Jugele was among the officers who responded to the gun and bomb attack on Paris' Bataclan concert hall in November 2015, part of a wave of assaults in the French capital that killed 130 people, the slain officer told People.com when the venue reopened a year later with a concert by Sting.

People.com quoted him as saying how happy he was to be at the "symbolic" reopening, "here to defend our civic values."

ELECTION ROCKED: PARIS TERROR ATTACK LOOMS LARGE AHEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

He added, "This concert's to celebrate life, to say 'No' to terrorists."

Jugele was sitting in a police vehicle when he was shot in the head during Thursday night's attack. Two other officers and a bystander were wounded. Police killed the gunman as he tried to flee. ISIS claimed credit for the attack.

He was a simple man who loved his job, and he was really committed to the LGBT cause, Bucheron said, according to The New York Times. He joined the association a few years ago, and he protested with us when there was the homosexual propaganda ban at the Sochi Olympic Games.

Jugele once helped police officers in Greece deal with the flood of migrants who had crossed the Aegean Sea and were seeking shelter in the European Union, The Times reported.

He was aware of the risks of the job and the terrorist threat, although we did not speak a lot about it, Bucheron said, according to paper. He was a great man and friend. It is a big shock for us.

The Times quoted Yves Lefebvre, general secretary of the police union, Unite SGP Police-Force Ouvriere, as saying that Mr. Jugele had been known for his professionalism and as an excellent colleague.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Investigators in Paris on Friday searched a home believed to be linked to the attack on police on the Champs-Elysees that resulted in the death of one officer.

The gunman, whom police shot and killed after he launched his attack, had been detained in February for threatening police but then freed, two officials told The Associated Press on Friday. He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in the shootings of two police officers.

PARIS ATTACK LOOMS LARGE AS PRESIDENTIAL VOTE NEARS

The shooter, identified as 39-year-old Frenchman Karim Cheurfi, apparently acted alone in killing a police officer and wounding two others and a German tourist on Thursday night, a French official who discussed details of the investigation with the AP said on condition of anonymity.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium. The attacker opened fire on a police van on the avenue before he was killed.

LE PEN CALLS FOR FRANCE TO RESTORE BORDER CONTROLS AFTER ISIS-CLAIMED ATTACK

The claim of responsibility came unusually swiftly for the group, which has been losing territory in Iraq and Syria.

Police found a pump-action shotgun, knives and a Quran in the car that the attacker used, and a handwritten note praising ISIS turned up nearby, The Guardian reported citing local media.

Searches were conducted in at least one suburb east of Paris after Thursday's attack. Police tape surrounded the quiet, middle-class neighborhood in Chelles early Friday, and worried neighbors expressed surprise at the searches.

Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard was back open and picking up its usual early morning routine Friday. Delivery trucks were making their rounds. Traffic was going up and down the famous tree-lined street and police barriers have been taken down.

France's presidential candidates have expressed their solidarity with police forces.

The 11 candidates were appearing on a television program ahead of the first round of voting in the two-part election when the attack occurred.

Conservative contender Francois Fillon said on France 2 television he was canceling his planned campaign stops on Friday. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen took to Twitter to offer her sympathy for law enforcement officers "once again targeted."

The first round of the presidential race is scheduled on Sunday. The two top contenders will advance to a runoff on May 7.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said the shooting was the "latest reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere, anytime." He added that the U.S. "will not relent in our effort to end terrorism."

Australia's prime minister has offered his country's prayers for police officers who were shot in Paris and urged Australians in Europe to be wary.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An apparent terror attack at one of Paris most storied landmarks has forced an early end to campaigning in Sundays presidential election, but the murder of a cop on the Champs-Elysees could have a huge effect on the race even as candidates are silenced.

The police officer, identified Friday as Xavier Jugele, was shot in the head Thursday by a reported Islamic radical known to police in what appeared to be the latest terror attack in the City of Lights. With Sundays first-round voting pitting hard-liner Marine Le Pen against a crowded field of 11 that includes a Republican, a centrist and a socialist, the event is likely to bolster National Front nominee Le Pen, analysts have said.

PARIS TERRORIST ATTACK THREATENS CITY'S REBOUNDING TOURISM, TRAVEL EXPERTS WARN

I think this election is sufficiently unstable that it could still move things, Bruno Jeanbart, head of political studies at pollster OpinionWay, told Bloomberg News. Marine Le Pen is notably one to watch.

Marine Le Pen is notably one to watch.  Bruno Jeanbart, OpinionWay

Le Pen, Republican Francois Fillon, centrist Emmanuel Macron and Socialist Benoit Hamon canceled Friday events and released statements vowing to get tough on terror. But Le Pens pledge could ring truer than most, as the 48-year-old attorney has made fighting Islamic radicalism one of the cornerstones of her campaign.

PARIS POLICE SEARCH HOME BELIEVED LINKED TO ISIS-CLAIMED ATTACK

Because our country is at war, the response must be global, total, Le Pen said Friday in a statement in which she criticized sitting President Francois Hollande as weak and inadequate on terror.

Le Pen, already the front-runner in Round 1, is expected to make it to a May 7 runoff, in which she would likely face either Melenchon or Fillon.

Thursdays attack unfolded as the candidates appeared on a television news program. Although campaigning was stopped due to the incident, their appearance offered a unique opportunity for voters to see their immediate reactions.

Le Pen repeated calls for a crackdown on radical Islam, which Macron pronounced nonsense. Fillon called for greater cooperation with Russia and Iran and Melenchon warned that France must not give in to violence.

Although the attack left only one police officer and the killer dead, terror has been on the minds of the French for years. A January 2015 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine targeted after mocking Islam, left a dozen dead. That was followed later in the year by coordinated attacks that killed 130 in Paris. Several other attacks have unfolded in France since then, including the shocking murder of a priest in his church in Normandy and a truck attack in Nice that killed 84.

Fillons position is closest to Le Pens, offering voters the possibility of a tough-on-terror choice without the far-right association Le Pen carries, in part due to the fact her extremist father founded the party.

We are in a war that will last: The enemy is powerful, its networks are deep, its accomplices live among us, Fillon said. Some dont seem to have understood the depth of the evil thats attacking us and that I intend to combat with an iron fist.

The Champs-Elysees attacker had a note defending the Islamic State terror group with him when he opened fire on police officers, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said during a news conference. He identified the killer as Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old with a criminal record, and said the note apparently fell out of Cheurfi's pocket.



ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack and gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he had ties to Belgium. The attacker opened fire on a police van on the avenue before being killed.

Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard was reopened and picking up its usual early-morning routine Friday. Delivery trucks were making their rounds. Traffic was going up and down the famous tree-lined street and police barriers have been taken down.

While candidates will be sidelined from the campaign trail, the attack looms large as the vote approaches. President Trump even weighed in, tweeting on Friday that the attack will have a big effect on presidential election!

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The leader of Poland's main opposition party is calling for the dismissal of Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, saying his actions and choice of aides raise security questions.

Grzegorz Schetyna said Friday his Civic Platform party is filing a motion in parliament for a no-confidence vote on Macierewicz.

He said there are "many reasons" why Macierewicz should go, including his two aides who were treated in a "privileged" way despite lacking proper qualifications for their sensitive jobs.

One was dismissed under pressure from the ruling party's leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski; the other one resigned Thursday.

Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said she was not considering Macierewicz's dismissal.

Macierewicz survived a no-confidence vote last year, thanks to the ruling party's majority in parliament.
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The Paris police officer who was shot to death while at work on the French capital's most famous boulevard had seen firsthand the horror that could be carried out in the name of the Islamic State group.

Xavier Jugele was one of the officers who raced to the Bataclan concert hall the night three armed men in suicide bombs stormed a show and slaughtered 90 people on Nov. 13, 2015.

In the latest attack, Jugele was the only person killed when an assailant opened fire with an assault rifle on a police van parked on the Champs-Elysees. The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility, and authorities say the gunman had a note defending IS with him.

Paris police declined to give details about Jugele's career and life, saying his family had asked for privacy. Mickael Bucheron, president of a French association of LGBT police officers, told The Associated Press Jugele would have celebrated his 38th birthday at the beginning of May.

"He was a very simple man, with a big heart. A real nice guy," Flag! Vice President Alain Parmentier told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "And he really loved his job."

Jugele was in the van's driver's seat when he was shot dead. Two other officers were wounded. The attacker was shot and killed by officers at the scene.

Laurent, a police colleague and friend of Jugele's who also was deployed to the Bataclan attack, said Jugele was in a civil union and that his partner has a child. Laurent asked not to be identified by his last name because he does not represent the Paris police officially.

Both officers returned to the concert venue a year later when it reopened with a concert by Sting. Jugele told People magazine at the time how happy he was to be "here to defend our civic values."

"It's symbolic. We're here tonight as witnesses. This concert's to celebrate life. To say no to terrorists," he said.

Jugele had worked in the Paris area as a police officer since 2011. At the time of his death, he was a member of the Paris police department's public order and traffic division.

"It was one of his final missions, he was about to join another service," Parmentier said.

Jugele had received praised from his bosses earlier this year for his courage during the evacuation of a building ravaged by an accidental blast in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt.

Laurent said Jugele had also served in Greece for Frontex, the agency in charge of border control of Europe's 26-nation Schengen Area.

French president Francois Hollande said a national tribute will be paid to Jugele, "who was cowardly assassinated."

___

Associated Press writer John Leicester contributed to this report.
A gunman shot and killed a policeman and wounded two others on the world-famous Champs Elysees avenue in Paris on Thursday night, an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Here is what we currently know about the shooting, which occurred three days before the first round of the French election.

At approximately 9:00 pm (1900 GMT), 39-year-old Frenchman Karim Cheurfi pulled out an automatic weapon and opened fire on a police van just a few hundred metres from the iconic Arc de Triomphe.

After killing one officer Cheurfi fled on foot, with other officers in pursuit. He was killed and two officers were wounded during the ensuing gun battle. A foreign tourist was also slightly injured.

The Champs Elysees, busy with tourists and locals on a pleasant spring evening, became a scene of panic. Diners in some restaurants took refuge in basements, cinema-goers cowered in the theatres and pandemonium broke out in a nearby metro station, according to witnesses.

Police immediately sealed off the area with dozens of emergency vehicles and helicopters buzzed overhead.

Anti-terror prosecutors immediately took up the investigation and President Francois Hollande said the attack was of "a terrorist nature".

Cheurfi was being investigated by anti-terrorism authorities but was not on a watchlist of known radicals, police sources said.

In 2005, he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for trying to kill a police officer and another man. While in custody over that attack he grabbed the gun of an officer and shot and injured him.

He was arrested in February this year on suspicion of plotting to attack the police again but was released because of a lack of evidence.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed the perpetrator as one of its "fighters" and a note praising IS was found near his body. Authorities also found a Koran in the car he abandoned at the scene of the attack.

In what may have been a case of mistaken identity, IS named him as "Abu Yussef the Belgian". This raised concerns that a possible second attacker could be on the loose.

On Friday, France said it was hunting for a new suspect based on a Belgian alert received a day earlier, but it later emerged that the man had handed himself in to a police station in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

During a search of his home, Belgian police found weapons, balaclavas and a train ticket for France departing Thursday morning.

France, which has suffered from a wave of bloodshed over the past two years killing more than 230 people, has long feared an attack on the presidential election, the first round of which takes place on Sunday.

Authorities foiled an attack in the southern city of Marseille just a day before a campaign appearance by far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Polls suggest that voters have been influenced more by France's sluggish economy and sky-high unemployment than terror fears but analysts have always stressed that this could change in the event of bloodshed.

Le Pen is seen as the "hardest" on the terror threat and in recent days has switched her campaign rhetoric back to core issues of immigration and the fight against terrorism.

Some analysts have speculated that the attack could benefit conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister seen as an experienced hand at a time of crisis -- despite an expenses scandal that rocked his campaign.

The inexperienced front-running centrist Emmanuel Macron and late-surger from the far left Jean-Luc Melenchon are not seen as particular experts on security and foreign policy.

Macron is currently leading the polls but any of these four candidates could feature in the second-round run-off on May 7, surveys suggest.

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Eight crew members on a tugboat off the coast of Brass, Nigeria have been kidnapped, according to The Maritime Herald.

The vessel was attacked approximately 11 miles south of Brass on April 19 after armed men on a motor skiff boarded the vehicle and took control. They then took eight of the crew members and fled to the Niger Delta.

TWO PIRATES KILLED TRYING TO HIJACK SHIP OFF SOMALIA

The incident was reported to local authorities and the Nigerian navy but by the time two rescue boats arrived on the scene the pirates had already departed with the hostages. One sailor injured in the attack was left behind, and subsequently airlifted by helicopter for medical treatment.

Local authorities are investigating and trying to get in contact with the pirates. The name of the tugboat in question wasnt released by local authorities or The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre because of attempts to free the kidnapped sailors.

The incident came amid a separate attack in which a group of nine pirates in a skiff approached and fired on a tanker about 60 miles south-southwest of Brass. The crew on the tanker raised the alarm and increased speed and were able to successfully elude the attackers.

The crew and tanker were reported to be safe.

There have been five boardings, four vessels shot at, and two reports of suspicious vessels off of Nigeria so far in 2017, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
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Prime Minister Theresa May is vowing that Britain will continue spending 0.7 percent of gross domestic product on foreign aid despite pressure to drop the target.

May, who is campaigning in a national election, said Friday that the commitment "remains and will remain" if her Conservative government is re-elected in June.

May says she is proud British aid helps people around the world, though she said there is a need to "make sure that we are able to spend that money in the most effective way."

Some members of May's Conservative Party want to cut aid spending, arguing the money could be better spent at home.

This week Microsoft founder Bill Gates urged Britain to maintain current aid levels, calling it a good investment for the U.K. and the world.
A pilot was forced to eject from a Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet while attempting to land aboard the USS Carl Vinson as the carrier steamed north toward the Korean Peninsula on Friday, according to the U.S. Navy.

Crews quickly rescued the unnamed pilot who wasn't hurt, the officials said. The Carl Vinson was in the Celebes Sea at the time, south of the Philippines.

NORTH KOREA: 'SUPER-MIGHTY PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE' WILL REDUCE UNITED STATES TO ASHES

The single-seat jet, from the VFA-137 Kestrels squadron, was conducting "routine flight operations" before it crashed, according to a statement from the U.S. Navys 7th Fleet. It did not specify exactly when the pilot ejected, and the cause of the crash was unclear.

'THE SWORD STANDS READY': PENCE WARNS NORTH KOREA

Navy officials have said the Carl Vinson, intended as a show of force to North Korea, will arrive in the region next week. The carrier has been making its way from Singapore to the Sea of Japan since last week, making stops in Asia along the way.

Top U.S. officials have described the deployment as a message to North Korea as it conducts missile tests, and may be planning a nuclear test.

"The incident is currently under investigation. The pilot is being assessed by the medical team on board USS Carl Vinson and there are no apparent injuries at this time," the 7th Fleet added.

The United States periodically sends aircraft carrier strike groups to waters near the Korean Peninsula to project power. The Carl Vinson took part last month in the U.S.-South Korea war games.

The Carl Vinson is accompanied by two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser with Aegis combat systems to track and intercept missiles.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The 49-year-old Culpeper woman convicted of an assault stemming from an altercation that left a mans right ear severely torn in May 2015 was sentenced to one year in prison on Thursday.

Judge Susan L. Whitlock ordered Jennifer Lee Newman in Culpeper County Circuit Court to serve five years before suspending all but one year.

Her sentencing was part of a plea agreement, which amended the original charge from assault: malicious wounding to unlawful wounding. Based on the deal, Newman was facing seven months to two years in prison. To avoid serving the entire sentence, Newman must remain on good behavior for five years and supervised probation for two years. She must also undergo a mental health evaluation and anger management classes.

Court records show Silvester Santiago Cruz, who Newman described in court on Thursday as a friend with benefits, was left with a torn right ear after Newman bit him.

Before sentencing, Newman testified that after she and Cruz got into an altercation, she just wanted to get him off of her.

Prosecutor Travis Owens asked Newman why she has changed her story from accusing Cruz of trying to rape her. Owens asked about two previous men Newman claimed tried to rape her before reportedly recanting her stories. Owens also asked Newman if she was jealous of Cruzs girlfriend. To that, Newman said it didnt bother her.

Owens said Newman has a history of falsifying information, adding that shes been convicted of 24 felonies stemming from forgery and probation violation charges in the past 15 years.

Newmans defense attorney Amy Harper said her client has remained on good behavior since being released in October 2015.

In her mind, she felt like he was attacking her trying to have sex with her, said Harper. Shes been doing remarkably well since shes been out and taking care of her elderly aunt and a relatives five young children. Shes on the right track.

Harper and Owens did agree that Newman may be suffering from a mental disorder dating back to her difficult upbringing.

Owens also submitted photo evidence of the victims ear pre- and post-surgery during a previous hearing.

A destruction of property charge estimated at about $1,000 against Newman was dropped.

Newman has already served five months in jail from May to October 2015 before being released on a secured bond.

Harper also submitted three character reference letters to the court, showing support for Newman, who said shes been attending church where she receives counseling to deal with her anger issues.

Whitlock also granted Newmans request to turn herself in on May 26, allowing her to continue taking care of her relatives children.
RICHMONDIvan Teleguzs death sentence for the murder-for-hire of his ex-girlfriend in 2001 was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Thursday.

Teleguz, 38, was scheduled to be executed Tuesday for the capital murder of Stephanie Yvonne Sipe, the mother of their 23-month-old son. Sipe was stabbed to death in her Harrisonburg apartment. According to trial testimony, he hired two men to kill her for $2,000 and drove them from Pennsylvania, where Teleguz had moved.

On July 23, 2001, Sipes mother, Pamela Woods, went to her daughters apartment because she had not heard from Sipe for two days. Woods found her daughters body and her grandson unharmed in a bathtub full of water. A neighbor took Woods and her grandson out of the apartment.

Teleguzs lawyers filed a clemency request with McAuliffe, among other things arguing that courts have never fully examined new evidence pointing to his innocence. They say two prosecution witnesses admitted that they testified falsely in exchange for leniency in their own cases, and have no reason to think Teleguz was involved in the murder-for-hire.

His lawyers say that one of the witnesses has been deported, and the other was told he would lose his release date if he went back on his testimony.

In 2015, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that a lower court judge held an evidentiary hearing in 2013 concerning the recantations. One recanter refused to testify and the other did not appear. In other words, neither of the recanters testified in support of their recantations, said the appeals court.

Marsha L. Garst, the commonwealths attorney for Rockingham County, has declined to comment on the case. However, the appeals court opinion noted: Prosecutor Marsha Garst, whom [the recanters] accused of threatening them into testifying against Teleguz, appeared and testified that those accusations were false.

Some religious leaders urged McAuliffe to grant clemency and a Change.org petition in support of clemency has been signed by more than 114,000 people. Teleguz also has submitted written requests for clemency from thousands of supporters.

Earlier this week three former Virginia attorneys generaltwo of whom became opposed to the death penalty since leaving officewrote to McAuliffe urging the death sentence be commuted, citing what they said was unreliable investigative techniques, coercive tactics by both law enforcement and the prosecution, recantations of key trial witnesses and consideration of false testimony in support of a death sentence.

Virginia has executed 112 people since the death penalty was allowed to resume in 1976. Virginia governors have commuted eight death sentences during the same period.
A Woodbridge teenager who authorities suspect was part of a trio trying to steal from cars in Stafford County early Friday was apprehended after a stolen van he was driving crashed into a deputys cruiser, police say.

According to Stafford Sheriffs spokeswoman M.C. Morris Moncure, the incident began at 2:46 a.m. when a resident in the Somerset Landing subdivision called 911 to report cars being tampered with on Pinehurst Lane. The caller reported that a van with its headlights off was moving slowly down the street while two people carrying flashlights were running back and forth from the van to parked cars.

The subjects with the flashlights took off when a car alarm activated. Meanwhile, deputies were already arriving in the area.

Deputy M.R. Flick was traveling slowly through the neighborhood in search of the van, Moncure said, when he noticed a Toyota minivan traveling east on Masters Drive with its headlights off. Flick turned on his emergency lights, and the minivan spun around and headed toward Flick at a high rate of speed, police said.

The van narrowly missed Flicks cruiser, and the deputy began pursuing it. The van increased its speed and turned onto Persevere Drive, Moncure said, where it crashed into a parked SUV, pushing the SUV about 20 feet.

The van then flipped on its side and slid head on into an oncoming cruiser. No one was seriously injured, authorities said.

The driver, identified as a 15-year-old boy whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, got out of the wrecked van and was taken into custody. Police did not find any other suspects.

The van had been stolen from the Woodbridge neighborhood where the 15-year-old lives, Moncure said.

The boy was charged with eluding police, attempted malicious wounding of a law-enforcement officer, grand larceny of a vehicle, destruction of property, trespassing and driving without a license. He was placed in the local juvenile detention center.
The Islamic Center of Culpeper has ratified a settlement agreement with the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors that will allow it to move forward with building the areas first mosque.

The Islamic Center officially signed off on the agreement Wednesday, a day after the board of supervisors approved it with a vote of 4-3. The settlement grants the center a pump-and-haul sewer permit for a bathroom in the planned prayer house on State Route 229.

This was the only sensible solution, said University of Virginia Law Professor Douglas Laycock, a religious freedom expert. It would have made no sense to take this case to trial.

The U.S. Justice Department filed suit against the county in December, alleging that it religiously discriminated against the Islamic Center when it voted 4-3 a year ago to deny the sewer permit. The Justice Department claimed the board was influenced by anti-Muslim sentiment in the community.

The Islamic Center of Culpeper filed a similar complaint seeking approval of the routine permit and compensatory damages.

The settlement followed a finding last month by U.S. District Court Judge Norman Moon that the countys denial of the sewer permit was based on religious hostility.

The board was caught between constituent pressure on one side and legal obligations and liability risk on the other, said Laycock, adding, A majority eventually did the right thingbetter late than never.

Islamic Center of Culpeper spokesman Dr. Nabeel Babar commended the board for reversing its decision. He said approval of the settlement agreement reaffirmed the commitment to protect the religious freedoms of all its residents, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew or any other faith group.

We thank our friends and neighbors in Culpeper and beyond for their kind words and support during this process, Babar said.

The Islamic Center has said it plans to start construction on the prayer house as soon as the judge approves the settlement and signs the order.

We can finally move ahead and start building our mosque so we can fully meet the needs of our religious community, said Mohammad Nawabe, co-director with Babar of the Islamic Center. Our members have lived in Culpeper County for decades, and all we have ever asked for is to be treated the same as everyone else.
Two men accused of fundraising and recruiting for the Islamic State group in India were sentenced to seven years in jail Friday, an official said.

Azhar-ul-Islam and Mohammad Farhan Shaikh were arrested by India's counterterrorism body the National Investigation Agency (NIA) last year after being deported from the United Arab Emirates for illegal fundraising activities.

"Both of them were already in jail, and were today sentenced to seven years in prison by the court," Alok Mittal, an inspector general at the NIA, told AFP.

The duo, both in their mid-twenties, had pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy last month "without any pressure, threat, coercion or undue influence" according to the Press Trust of India.

In a news release late Friday, NIA said the two of them had acted as a front group for the IS and incited people of different nationalities to travel to Syria to "join and support" the activities of the group.

The men were active on social networks and promoted the IS ideology on WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook to enlist new recruits and assist others to link up with the IS.

They also raised cash for IS -- which controls swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria -- receiving and transferring funds in the UAE where the pair frequently travelled for work.

"They had also raised, collected and received funds in the UAE and transferred it to their associates in India, Philippines and Tunisia to facilitate their travel to Syria to join IS," the NIA said in the statement.

A third accused, Adnan Hassan, will face trial starting in June.

Friday's verdict comes a day after Indian police arrested 10 suspected IS sympathisers in raids conducted across four states.

The government insists IS does not have a foothold in India, which has a large but traditionally moderate Muslim minority.

There have been some reports of Indians going to fight for the group in Iraq and Syria but the numbers are low relative to India's population of 1.2 billion.

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The administration at King George Middle School responded to a shooting threat by a student, according to county school spokeswoman Sharon James.

A student at the middle school allegedly said on Thursday that he planned to shoot any students who didnt wear a white shirt to school today.

The administration quickly identified the student and contacted his parent. Future action taken by the school and school division will be a student disciplinary matter and cannot be shared publicly, James explained.

An alert was sent to school staff and families Thursday evening to address concerns and put an end to inaccurate rumors circulating on social media.

James said a letter will be sent home to parents today with further information.

King George County Sheriffs Office spokesperson Kecia Wharton said the department has been working closely with the school in response to the threat. No other details are available at this time.
Related British PM Theresa May calls for early general election on June 8

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that she was not taking anything for granted as she geared up for a snap election in June, in which polls suggest her Conservative party was heading for a landslide victory.

May called the national election in a surprise move on Tuesday, saying it was necessary to boost her majority and provide stability as Britain gears up for two years of negotiations with the European Union about its departure from the bloc.

Polls give May's governing Conservative party a lead of around 20 percentage points, enough to potentially give her a parliamentary majority of more than 100 seats, but May said she was not complacent.

"The election campaign has only just begun. I'm not taking anything for granted. The result is not certain," she said in a speech at a GlaxoSmithKline factory in her electoral area of Maidenhead, west of London.

The Labour party has been riven by divisions over its leader Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit, while May's commitment to a clean break with the EU has undermined support for the eurosceptic UK Independence Party.

SPENDING PLEDGES

While many specific policy positions have yet to be filled out, both May and her finance minister, Philip Hammond, gave the first indications on how the party's spending plans on key voter issues like foreign aid, pensions and tax will look.

May reaffirmed a commitment on foreign aid spending - a pillar of predecessor David Cameron's attempts to soften the image of the Conservative party.

May said that the pledge to spend 0.7 percent of national income on foreign aid would remain. Media reports had said it would be scrapped in the Conservatives' election manifesto amid opposition from some lawmakers and newspapers who said it should be spent at home instead.

"Let's be clear - the 0.7 percent remains, and will remain," she said. "What we need to do, though, is to look at how that money is spent, and make sure that we are able to spend that money in the most effective way."

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who chairs the charity Christian Aid, had earlier called on May to wear the commitment as a "badge of honour". Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also called for spending to be maintained.

May avoided committing to renew the government's policy of increasing old-age pensions by a minimum of 2.5 percent each year, when asked to do so by a reporter. That position was echoed by Hammond, speaking in Washington, who said the government had solved the problem of pensioner poverty.

Hammond also said that 2015 manifesto commitments not to raise key taxes, made before he was appointed, were hampering his ability to manage the economy.

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PRESIDENT Donald Trumps recent use of military assets in Afghanistan coupled with our naval armada in Korean waters emboldens our defensive might. The interventionist message was hard for our adversaries to miss.

Such presidential decisiveness reminds veterans of previous conflicts times when Americas political support was unquestioned and localities embrace of veterans was more visible.

Honoring the remembrance of such veterans and their historical actions begins at 2 p.m. Sunday as Caroline honors World War I and II veterans and families in the community center in Milford during the countys A Tribute to Our Legacy program.

An impressive slide pictorial with accompanying history has been coordinated by the well-known historian and community leader Susan Sili as the presenter. Veterans will be honored on stage.

The Caroline project was inspired by a small grant from the Virginia General Assemblys WWI & II Commemorative Commission for yearlong activities. The cost of Sundays program has been minimal, at just under $5,000, with hundreds of in-kind donations thanks to the outpouring of support from residents. The extensive historical record will be preserved for generations at the county visitors center.

The program will highlight sometimes-overlooked generational military tributes such as the family of WWI hero Elibom Satterwhite, who lost his life 100 years ago. His family still honors his Arlington National Cemetery grave with a yearly pilgrimage.

Then theres the historic generosity to veterans by area business entrepreneurs such as Larry Silver, whose WWII veteran father build a residential and commercial development empire.

A similar but more expensive patriotic undertaking awaits completion of Staffords Armed Services Memorial at a cost of $838,000. A little over a third of expenses for the stone monument came from county coffers, utilizing taxpayer funds. It was funding well spent for the huge veteran community in the region, but there should be no more use of tax dollars.

Again, the generous Silver family provided the initial public donation of $100,000 for the monuments main wall.

But according to retired Marine Lt. Gen. Ron Christmas, who continues to be the public face of the project, it is about $80,000 short of reaching its goal, with 85 days left until the July 15 dedication.

Sponsorships are still available for patriotic businesses to support the monuments needed irrigation system, war markers and site lighting, or hardscape replacement.

What if 400 area veterans or citizens honored a friend or family member who served, by purchasing a $200 brick to make up the monetary difference? And if county supervisors encouraged a brick-purchasing competition in their districts, with the winning district being recognized in the dedication program?

Citizen involvement in supporting these difficult but needed testaments to our military resolve, which will honor thousands of fallen veterans dating back to the Revolutionary War, remains the pinnacle of patriotism. Both Caroline and Staffords actions of demonstrated pride provide a permanent repository for history while offering a place of healing for veterans who still suffer.

What must be avoided in the midst of the regions intense political campaign season are candidates vying for office who seize this opportunity to use veterans and patriotic events to subtly pander for votes.

Its not far-fetched to envision an impassioned speech by a manipulative candidate or a scheming advocate before the Stafford Board of Supervisors, with an 11th-hour plea for more taxpayer funds to meet the monuments remaining goal so that the dignity of our fallen will be preserved. Then, come Election Day, said candidate takes credit for saving the project.

Thats exactly the kind of political grandstanding to be expected from those who have never worn a uniform or seen a shot fired in anger. But such nefarious actions couldnt occur in our regions demure political playing fields. Could they?

It remains my fervent hope and patriotic prayer that the humble voting class or an honorable business establishment will take heed of Thomas Jefferson when he said, The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.

Yes, the price for many has been blood. I hope our red-blooded community will continue to show more financial heart in support of these patriotic unions, without another taxpayer expense.

Daniel P. Cortez of Stafford is a Northern Virginia writer and broadcaster active in veterans and political affairs. Email him at dpcortez1969@yahoo.com.
Health care remark led to Scripture

A conservative recently suggested that if liberals read the Bible, they would come to his position on health care.

Try as I might, I could not find God helps those who help themselves in Scripture. Perhaps he can blog as to where it is.

I was shocked, though, to find the question, Am I my brothers keeper?

For the conservative, the answer is self-evidently no, but Genesis seems to imply the question is open to discussion.

Leviticus has a command to treat the alien among us as a native, which doesnt directly relate to health care, but doesnt conform with conservative immigration policy, either.

Luke, in the Good Samaritan parable, suggests that we should all pay the equivalent of two days wages to support medical care for the needy.

Finally, Matthew has a king telling his about-to-be banished subjects, that in as much as they did not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or provide for the care of the destitute, sick and injured, they did not do it unto him.

I want to thank a recent letter writer for admonishing a reading of Scripture; I learned a lot.

Jack Dawkins

Stafford
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Rising growth outside the troubled oil sector is offering some relief to economies in the Middle East and Central Asia, a senior IMF economist said Friday.

But the subdued overall outlook is not enough to spur needed job growth and reduce poverty, according to Jihad Azour, the new head of the International Monetary Fund's Middle East and Central Asia department.

"A more favorable environment, including higher-than-expected growth and some firming up of commodity prices is providing some breathing space," he told reporters during the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington.

In its World Economic Outlook this week, the fund said Middle East oil exporters would see growth drop precipitously in 2017 as producing countries cope with lower petroleum production and fiscal reforms.

Middle East economies, taken together with those of Afghanistan and Pakistan, should expand at a rate of 2.6 percent -- a 1.3 percentage point decline from 2016's estimated growth rate.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in November acted to stabilize tumbling oil prices by agreeing to the first production cuts in eight years.

But Azour said Friday that growth outside the oil sector in oil exporting countries was on the rise, expected to shoot up from 0.4 percent in 2016 to 2.9 percent in 2017.

"Although the production cuts following the OPEC agreement are reducing the headline growth," he added.

For oil importers, meanwhile, the IMF expects growth to rise from 2016's 3.7 percent to four percent this year, Azour said.

"While this represents an improvement, our medium-term growth projections are too low to create enough jobs and improve the living standards," he said.

"Many countries, especially oil importers, are also carrying a high level of debt."

Azour said the fund was encouraged by regional governments' efforts to introduce new taxes and reform energy subsidies, noting that recent gains in oil prices should help reduce fiscal deficits.

But even oil importers were running an average debt-to-GDP ratio of 80 percent, he said.

"Therefore fiscal reforms and fiscal consolidation will remain an ongoing priority across the region."

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The declaration of a state of emergency last week prompted no major controversy. The president made the declaration on Monday evening, the government approved it immediately upon receipt, and parliament ratified it the next day, after MPs agreed to forgo debate.

According to a Baseera poll, 63 percent of respondents supported the declaration, 17 percent were opposed, and 20 percent were undecided.

This relative equanimity, in my view, indicates societys readiness, in light of recent events, to accept state counterterrorism policies without worrying too much about their legal content, effectiveness, or what broader policies they should entail.

The most significant impact of the state of emergency is the application of the 1958 emergency law, which gives security agencies exceptional powers to arrest and detain suspects without judicial oversight, monitor communications, refer suspects to State Security courts, ban demonstrations, and restrict certain economic and commercial activities.

But although we have lived under emergency law at various times the past century, and almost continuously from 1967 to 2012, there are two major constitutional differences this time. First, in 2013 the Supreme Constitutional Court declared paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the emergency law, which permitted the arrest and detention of suspects without judicial oversight, unconstitutional. Second, the new constitution puts a three-month ceiling on a state of emergency, renewable only once got a similar period.

These constitutional limits are significant, giving form to a pivotal idea: that any state of emergency must function within a sound constitutional framework that regulates it, restricts it, and grants it legal and political legitimacy. It shouldn't be a pretext to trample the constitution, disregard the law, and postpone progress on the political track.

The fact is, however, that much legislation issued in the past three yearsin the realm of counterterrorism, the regulation of foreign funding, oversight of civic associations, the prohibition of demonstrations, and new criminal procedureshave already given state agencies broad latitude and imposed strict penalties, up to and including death, for numerous crimes.

Moreover, in practice the security apparatus exercised many exceptional, emergency powers even before the declaration, as documented in numerous independent reports, including by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.

This poses the question of whether stricter penalties, broader security prerogatives, and the disregard of constitutional safeguards are in fact the best way to confront terrorism. Maybe a different method should be tried this time?

Moreover, on the same day it ratified the state of emergency, the House of Representatives approved amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure governing how long suspects can be held in custody. These were forwarded to the State Council for its opinion prior to issuance.

A few weeks ago, the House also approved a bill curtailing judicial independence, which is still awaiting the State Council opinion. These changes raise further questions: is the government willing to subordinate the state of emergency and associated laws to the overriding constitutional framework, or does it believe an emergency overrides the constitution itself?

At the same time, the official and media focus on the emergency law as the principal means of confronting terrorism has overshadowed otherno less and perhaps more importantaspects of this battle: the need for a thorough reassessment of security policies, the economic and social conditions that give rise to and fuel hatred and the desire for retribution, as well as the disconnect between official rhetoric on renewing religious discourse and the reality on the ground, where a discourse of incitement, hatred, and discrimination spreads unchecked.

These issues are not marginal to the fight against terrorismthey go to the heart of the matter, relevant as they are to draining the intellectual and organizational wellsprings of terrorism. They shouldnt be ignored or delayed in the belief that the law and exceptional security measures alone can do the job.

There is no argument over the gravity of the present situation, the real threat terrorism poses to the security and future of the nation, or the need to take all possible measures to confront it. The matter is too serious to be used for political grandstanding, division, or accusations of treason. The question, instead, is about state policies and tools to combat violence and terrorism. And now is the right time to recognize the error of relying solely on a security approach or believing that suspending constitutional and legal guarantees offers the path to victory over terrorism.

What the country needs is to expand the scope of the confrontation by mobilizing societys indispensable economic, social, and cultural energies. Egypt must encourage political and party activity, which can attract young people and posit a moderate discourse. Egypt needs to let civic associations freely operate, as they are well placed for community outreach and the provision of effective social services.

Egypt requires a free media and an independent intellectual and cultural climate that can counter benighted thought leading to aggression and violence. It needs a balanced social and economic policy that addresses citizens urgent needs and lifts bureaucratic hurdles for small producers who want to work and provide jobs. And above all else, it must restore societys faith in the law, justice, and constitution, for this is the real safeguard for the future of the civil state.

Our battle with terrorism is long and difficult. If all of society is to stand behind the state, supporting it and participating and willing to make more sacrifices, current policies must be reconsidered. The public sphere must be opened, not closed, and the constitution and law defended, even during a state of emergency.

*The writer holds a PhD in financial law from the London School of Economics. He is former deputy prime minister, former chairman of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority and former chairman of the General Authority for Investment.

A version of this article was published in Arabic in El-Shorouq newspaper on Monday, 17 April.

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A buoyant forestry market in Scotland and north-east England is creating strong demand for marginal farmland for woodland creation.

Premiums above a parcels agricultural value are being paid if forestry investors are involved, with upland sheep units often viewed as strong propositions.

Jamie Adamson, Savills head of forestry investment, said the purchase of agricultural land in Scotland for new woodland creation was one of the most buoyant marker sectors in 2016.

See also: 8 mistakes that can put someone off buying your farm

This was driven in part by a shortage of quality, stocked woodland property on the market, he added.

What are forestry buyers looking for?

What makes a good proposition for forestry investors hinges on project viability, said Mr Adamson.

Mountainous terrain and prime arable or grassland are not a target for new plantations, but upland farms can be suitable.

A lot of farmland sold [for tree planting] is in the sheep sector with people either retiring or leaving farming, Mr Adamson said.

Location can be important but if the land is physically plantable then it can generate significant interest.

Land within conservation designations are often not viable, and planting on deep peat soils is prohibited  those issues are considered show stoppers.

Other barriers can be site specific such as access, geology, soil type, surrounding forestry and proximity to mills, which can affect how attractive the land is.

Northern England

Chris Edmunds, director at Davidson & Robertson Rural, said that while Scotland was the main market, land is being sold to forestry investors in Northumberland, too.

He said middle hill land, which is not too rocky or steep, is attractive and some marginal grazing is also plantable.

If land can be planted then it is underpinning land values and usually [achieving] over and above agricultural value, he said.

Recent sales we have handled included 780 acres in north-east England and 1,600 acres in Dumfries and Galloway for forestry purposes. We have advised on various woodland creation schemes.

Whats happening in the market?

Statistics on exactly how many acres of farmland were sold last year for the sole purpose of tree planting are not available, but Savills says investors are extremely active.

A recent sale of a 1,000-acre site in Scotland saw the top three offers tabled by bidders from the forestry sector and the bottom three bids from farmers. The firm said the range between the offers was significant.

The forestry market as a whole continues to perform well for investors, particularly in Scotland.

The political will is there to plant more trees, backed up by grants, and the investment case for forestry is a very strong, Mr Adamson said. People want alternative land-based assets that they can put money in to.

Northern Scotland saw the most activity last year, with nearly 18,500 acres sold and an average value of 6,422/acre. Just over 40,700 acres in total were sold across the county.

About 4,500 acres were sold across the whole of England and Wales in 2016.
More than 1,700 people signed a Farmers Weekly petition urging Defra to repeal the August hedgecutting ban.

At the end of this month, Farmers Weekly staff will present the petition to an MP to deliver on our behalf to Defras offices in London.

Ahead of this, we asked three people to tell us why they signed our petition. Heres what they told us.

See also: 10 reasons why farmers want hedgecutting ban lifted

Robert Rutt  farm contractor

Cuts more than 2,630ha of hedges each year on farms, council land, golf courses, woodland and equestrian centres in Northamptonshire

August was traditionally my busiest period for cutting hedges. The income helped me through the lean periods. I have lost thousands by being forced to sit out the busiest month of the year.

We would normally follow the combines around and trim hedges. But the August ban impedes cultivations and some landowners are reluctant to let you on the land if the weather deteriorates in September.

Defra arent listening to the people who love, live and work in the countryside. The only birds I have ever seen nesting in August are woodpigeons.

Nine out of 10 of the birds Defra is concerned about are migrants. Its the out-of-season time at home that is affecting their numbers, including climate change, a lack of food source, etc. An increase in raptors and cats is a contributory factor.

We cut the hedges tight. The birds dont nest in the sprigs on the outside, but on the inside where its safe and the raptors cannot get them.

In my view, trimming hedges in August wont make any difference to birds  if there are any  that are still breeding at this time.

David Bolton  farm consultant

Farm business consultant, Bridgham, Norfolk

Defra has forgotten that rotational farming means we combine oilseed rape in July, or very early August, which is usually the forerunner to planting winter wheat.

The time window between the break crop coming off is roughly three to four weeks. During this time, farmers are caring for their fields with cultivations and clearing ditches etc.

Its a very tight window and a wet September can cause all sorts of bother.

Yes, you can get a derogation to cut hedges in August if you are drilling oilseed rape. But does Defra really have the time to micromanage the country to this degree?

Other than woodpigeons  which I would argue are vermin and need reducing, not sparing  experienced farmers tell us nearly all the birds have finished nesting by August.

As a gardener, you can cut hedges all year round. This ruling against farmers is dotty nonsense and the economic implications are quite severe if you transgress your Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions [GAEC] rules.

David Pearce  farmer

Beef and sheep farmer and experienced hedgecutter in Burrington, north Devon

We used to trim hedges in August for years without any problems. I have never seen a cloud of bird feathers. By then, there are never any birds left in the hedges anyway.

The people who are having the say on this policy dont actually complete the work.

Defra is listening too much to pressure groups and not taking the views of farmers seriously enough.

Some people recommend trimming hedges every two to three years. But you end up cutting the hedge back too much. I think a hedge that is trimmed twice a year looks better than one which is trimmed every year.

I take pride in my job and I always like to trim my hedges early. It gives more time for the hedges to green up before the winter and creates a tighter hedge for birds to nest in.

There is no pride in trimming hedges in December or January. It causes more damage to the hedges.

Little birds need nice, tight hedges to keep out of sight of the raptors. There are so many magpies and buzzards trying to pick them off. Defra should change the rules back to what they were before.
On The Water: You might need a bigger boat for Transpac 2023
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
March of Science in Bonn : A signal against Fake News

Bonn On Saturday, there will be a worldwide March for Science with people demonstrating against an anti-scientific worldview at the Hofgarten at the University of Bonn.

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In October of 1983, hundreds of thousands of people protested for peace and disarmament and against the NATO Double-Track Decision at the Hofgarten of the University of Bonn. This coming Saturday, another kind of signal will be sent out from the same location. March for Science at the Bonn Hofgarten is a demonstration for scientific-based knowledge as a basis for society and democracy. Its not only a local phenomenon, people all around the world will be taking to the streets, in the U.S. and Europe, in Brazil, China and Nigeria. The demonstrations correspond with Earth Day.

Support for fact-based knowledge

We want to stand for something, emphasizes Andrea Bauer, who has organized the event with a team of seven like-minded people. For the 34-year-old, its about science, freedom in research, fact-based knowledge and independent information. This is an important asset in a democratic society, she said. But in the times of Fake News, where the tone in social debate has changed, she sees this asset in danger. Organizers emphasize that the demonstration is non-partisan and not institutional. Bauer is chair of the Bonn Green Party but is involved in this event as a private person.

As Bauer describes it, the idea of a rally for science and research came at the end of last year in the U.S. in response to the de-democratization of public discourse by the new U.S. president Donald Trump. He initiated a departure from the climate protection policy of his predecessor, Barack Obama, by decree. On Twitter, he wrote "The concept of global warming has been created by and for the Chinese to make American production uncompetitive. In mid-February, hundreds of researchers in Boston demonstrated, holding signs in support of science.

Rallies to reach the wider public

On Saturday, the protests are intended to reach the greater public and as the website of the German organizers put it, acknowledge that scientific facts as a basis for social discourse is not negotiable. Around 21 cities or regions from Berlin to Munich, and Hamburg to Helgoland will participate.

Science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar also promotes an open and critical dialogue and supports the action. He told the Berliner Zeitung (Berlin Newspaper) that in social networks, such as the channels of the right-wing populist party AfD, one could observe the constructing of eigener Wahrheiten (ones own truths). "Many of these platforms avoid the real controversy, the civilized exchange. What they offer is a reflection of the users and the echo of their thoughts, says Yogeshwar, which can lead to a distorted reality and fake news.
Light aircraft for the future : Bonn investor backs vertical starting aircraft

Bonn The electric-powered aircraft is intended for use by commuters and as an Air-Taxi and has now completed its maiden flight. But it will take awhile until it is introduced on the market.

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Anyone who has experienced traffic jams more often, has for sure wished they would be able to fly to work. Several dozen firms worldwide are working on the development of easy-to-use flying machines and Bonn-based investor Frank Thelen is one of those involved. He is counting on the Munich-based start-up company Lilium, which he says has developed the worlds first electrically driven vertical starter.

The Lilium Jet is the only electric aircraft that can fly and land vertically and also fly forward by using its wings like a normal aircraft for boost. With this capability, the jet consumes up to 90 percent less energy than a drone-like aircraft. This allows the Lilium Jet to reach a range of over 300 kilometers with a top speed of 300 km / h. But it will take years until the aircraft comes on the market.

Thelen says he has a two-digit percentage share in the young company. The Lilium Jet has now completed an unmanned maiden flight over Bavaria. 41-year-old Thelen is CEO of the Bonn venture capital firm e42. He finances and supports technology-oriented young entrepreneurs in the early stages of their companies.

Daniel Wiegand, Sebastian Born, Patrick Nathen and Matthias Meiner founded Lilium in 2015 and have been working intensively on the development of the aircraft since then. "Daniel Wiegand and his co-founders are the most impressive founding team I have seen in my career so far," says Thelen. Atomico, the investment company of Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, has invested ten million euros in the start-up. The company also receives support from European Space Agency (ESA).

The first successful flight of the Lilium Jet means that the team can go on to develop a five-seat aircraft. It would make travel at least five times faster than with a car and would be very efficient, especially in crowded cities. Starting and landing requires only a small open space or a flat surface on the roof of a building. A flight from Manhattan to the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York would take only about five minutes instead of the usual 55 minutes by car.

Other firms are working on easy-to-use aircraft as well but the price is not for everyone. The Dutch company Personal Air and Land Vehicle (PAL-V) is now offering the Liberty model flying car for 499,000 euros. Twenty of these vehicles are to be delivered by the end of 2018.

Some flight experts are still skeptical about the development of flying cars. And the Lilium founders know they still have a ways to go. It will take several years before we are on the market, says Wiegand. Investor Frank Thelen congratulated the young entrepreneurs on the maiden flight and said, "For me, they represent the pioneering spirit that Germany needs in order to remain the world leader in mobility."
Many of the dangerous spots are in Cologne : NRW police name areas with bad reputations

Dusseldorf In the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Cologne is the city with the highest number of spots considered dangerous. This is the response received by the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) in its inquiry to the state government.

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None of the areas named were in Bonn. According to NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jager (SPD), from a police perspective there are 13 places that they regard as having a reputation as a bad or dangerous area. From a legal standpoint, this means that in these locations police can inspect persons without a specific reason.

What is important is that these are not No-Go-Areas, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The definition as a dangerous place gives police the legal basis to determine the identity of the people who are there, said the ministry spokesman. In normal cases, citizens are not obliged to present identification without a reason, a spokesman for the Cologne police added.

In March 2017, police named 25 areas considered dangerous. But not all police stations reported; Duisburg is missing on the list for example. In Cologne, on the list is the area in front of the Cologne Central Train Station, Ebertzplatz in the inner city, the Gorlinger Center in Bocklemund and the Kolner Ringe (Cologne Ring roads). They attract partiers from the region and are particularly rowdy on the weekends.

Bonner Loch is not on the list

Police in Bonn say the only area that might have come into question here is the so-called Bonner Loch, the area across from the Bonn Central Train Station. However, rebuilding and redevelopment in that area takes it out of the equation at this time. But police say they will continue to keep an eye on the area.

In Wuppertal, the Berliner Platz and the area around the Oberbarmen train station are considered dangerous. The Maghreb-Quarter in Dusseldorf is no longer considered a dangerous area.
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 Incredible Moment South African Police Arrest Pastor Tim Omotoso For His Sex Crimes (VIDEO)

bayonel3 at 21-04-2017 09:50 AM (5 years ago) (m)

, Tim Omotoso, who was accused of sleeping with over 30 female members have been arrested. The Pastor who went into hiding after South African Broadcasting Corporation 3 (SABC3), reported that the police had received several petitions that Pastor Omotosho, the General Overseer of Jesus Dominion International based in Durban, was arrested and paraded round an airport where people gathered to cheer the police. It was gathered, that he had been abusing young girls at his Umhlanga home, and

when a warrant was issued for his arrest, he reportedly skipped and has been in hiding. It was also alleged that all three cell phones linked to him was deactivated.

Wanted South Africa based Nigerian Pastor , Tim Omotoso, who was accused of sleeping with over 30 female members have been arrested. The Pastor who went into hiding after South African Broadcasting Corporation 3 (SABC3), reported that the police had received several petitions that Pastor Omotosho, the General Overseer of Jesus Dominion International based in Durban, was arrested and paraded round an airport where people gathered to cheer the police. It was gathered, that he had been abusing young girls at his Umhlanga home, andwhen a warrant was issued for his arrest, he reportedly skipped and has been in hiding. It was also alleged that all three cell phones linked to him was deactivated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rvmyVC10eY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZwoqOWpfaI





Post Reply I scour the world wide web to bring you interesting stories from around the globe. [email protected] Posted: at 21-04-2017 09:50 AM (5 years ago) | Hero

jereva at 21-04-2017 10:16 AM (5 years ago)

(m) After sanko, God dey wait for you. Posted: at 21-04-2017 10:16 AM (5 years ago) | Upcoming After sanko, God dey wait for you. Reply

MOYOSORE1 at 21-04-2017 10:17 AM (5 years ago)

(m) But I don't understand one thing. Is a sin for pastor to Mary many wife's if you have power to organise there living?please don't roob God. we need respect honest in our cominte and world Posted: at 21-04-2017 10:17 AM (5 years ago) | Newbie But I don't understand one thing. Is a sin for pastor to Mary many wife's if you have power to organise there living?please don't roob God. we need respect honest in our cominte and world Reply

starzx at 21-04-2017 11:10 AM (5 years ago)

(f) WHT A SHAME. Posted: at 21-04-2017 11:10 AM (5 years ago) | Upcoming WHT A SHAME. Reply

gogoman at 21-04-2017 11:13 AM (5 years ago)

(m) am so happy!! thank you SA.. if na naija them go sweep am under than carpet, all because na PASTOR!!! YEYEYEYEYEYE Posted: at 21-04-2017 11:13 AM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero am so happy!! thank you SA.. if na naija them go sweep am under than carpet, all because na PASTOR!!! YEYEYEYEYEYE Reply

DrSoba at 21-04-2017 11:21 AM (5 years ago)

(m) Anywhere Nigerians are, they must show themselves (negatively) even at pastoral level. Posted: at 21-04-2017 11:21 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Anywhere Nigerians are, they must show themselves (negatively) even at pastoral level. Reply

Zaki68 at 21-04-2017 11:24 AM (5 years ago)

(m) IF ITS NIGERIA NOW PEOPLE WILL SAY ITS BUHARI BECAUSE HE IS A MOSLEM, THIS KIND OF RAID SHOULD HAPPEN ALWAYS IN NIGERIA. Posted: at 21-04-2017 11:24 AM (5 years ago) | Upcoming IF ITS NIGERIA NOW PEOPLE WILL SAY ITS BUHARI BECAUSE HE IS A MOSLEM, THIS KIND OF RAID SHOULD HAPPEN ALWAYS IN NIGERIA. Reply

bensow at 21-04-2017 01:19 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Na apostle suleiman time e go be if he go Canada.Anybody wey rubbish God name go get the disgrace of devil IJN Posted: at 21-04-2017 01:19 PM (5 years ago) | Upcoming Na apostle suleiman time e go be if he go Canada.Anybody wey rubbish God name go get the disgrace of devil IJN Reply

morgan1 at 21-04-2017 02:40 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Pastor Keu!! ke,,,,ke,,,keu!!! u don break record ooo,,,go continue for prison Posted: at 21-04-2017 02:40 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Pastor Keu!! ke,,,,ke,,,keu!!! u don break record ooo,,,go continue for prison Reply

Slimchery at 21-04-2017 06:04 PM (5 years ago)

(m) WHY NAIJA NEVER DO SAME SINCE OTOBO DONE DEY CRY FOR JUSTICE, NAIJA I HAIL OOH.. DEAD COUNTRY WERE DEAD ANIMAL RULE AS LEADERS Posted: at 21-04-2017 06:04 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac WHY NAIJA NEVER DO SAME SINCE OTOBO DONE DEY CRY FOR JUSTICE, NAIJA I HAIL OOH.. DEAD COUNTRY WERE DEAD ANIMAL RULE AS LEADERS Reply

crocatum at 21-04-2017 06:24 PM (5 years ago)

(m) As For Apostle Suleiman, Not guilty until proven. Posted: at 21-04-2017 06:24 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac As For Apostle Suleiman, Not guilty until proven. Reply

schmit at 21-04-2017 08:02 PM (5 years ago)

(f) N.a. wa ooo Posted: at 21-04-2017 08:02 PM (5 years ago) | Hero N.a. wa ooo Reply

jp-free at 22-04-2017 12:37 AM (5 years ago)

(m) Isues about Nigerian is always a spicial case in South Africa...................Nigerians should live that HIV and crimes infected country still under colonization Posted: at 22-04-2017 12:37 AM (5 years ago) | Upcoming Isues about Nigerian is always a spicial case in South Africa...................Nigerians should live that HIV and crimes infected country still under colonization Reply

ashertech2000 at 22-04-2017 06:34 PM (5 years ago)

(m) You dont rough handle Pastor that way,mark my word all these people shall regret it.everyone involved. Posted: at 22-04-2017 06:34 PM (5 years ago) | Newbie You dont rough handle Pastor that way,mark my word all these people shall regret it.everyone involved. Reply

masade4real at 22-04-2017 07:08 PM (5 years ago)

(f) demonic pastors,if it were to be nigeria now,they will say no, they are lying against the man of God,touch not my anointed,which anointed?anointed of the devil,suleiman is just there blabling,hand will meet him very soon,except he repent,and confess his secret sins,before he will go free. Posted: at 22-04-2017 07:08 PM (5 years ago) | Newbie demonic pastors,if it were to be nigeria now,they will say no, they are lying against the man of God,touch not my anointed,which anointed?anointed of the devil,suleiman is just there blabling,hand will meet him very soon,except he repent,and confess his secret sins,before he will go free. Reply
Russia's Supreme Court on Thursday declared Jehovah's Witness as an extremist organization and ordered the state to seize its property in Russia. The court, after six days of hearings, ordered the closing of the groups Russia headquarters and its 395 local chapters.

The Interfax news agency quoted Justice Ministry attorney Svetlana Borisova in court as saying the Jehovahs Witnesses pose a threat to Russians. 'They pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security,' she told the court.Confirming the ruling, the religious group said:

Quote

'We are greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity,

Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, said in emailed comments.

Quote

'We will appeal this decision, and we hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible, the statement added. Interfax news agency quoted Sergei Cherepanov, a Jehovah's Witnesses representative, as saying that the group will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. 'We will do everything possible,'

he said.The ban would directly affect around 175,000 Jehovahs Witnesses followers, a group which was legally registered as a religious group in Russia in 1991 and re-registered in 1999.
felicilin at 21-04-2017 12:53 PM (5 years ago) (f)

Zambian President Edgar Lungu's motorcade was involved in an accident on Friday morning. A Police outrider (sweeper) suffered injuries when he fell off his motorbike in Livingstone.

Zambian President Edgar Lungu's motorcade was involved in an accident on Friday morning. A Police outrider (sweeper) suffered injuries when he fell off his motorbike in Livingstone. Amos Chanda, the Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations to President Lungu, said I can confirm that a police rider, who was the lead sweeper of the presidential convoy heading to the airport, collided with a police vehicle that was returning from the airport.

The car is the official vehicle for Southern Province Commissioner of Police Bonnie Kapeso who had been dropped off at the airport since he was in the advance party that left for Sinazongwe earlier. The driver of the vehicle seemed to have failed to observe the rider resulting into this accident. The rider got off the damaged bike and sat by the roadside to wait for the medics to assess him whilst the driver of the vehicle managed to stop and park his car safely. he said.

President Edgar Lungus main presidential motorcade drove past shortly after the accident.

The accident is the second involving President Lungu's motorcade in a month.













Amos Chanda, the Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations to President Lungu, said I can confirm that a police rider, who was the lead sweeper of the presidential convoy heading to the airport, collided with a police vehicle that was returning from the airport.The car is the official vehicle for Southern Province Commissioner of Police Bonnie Kapeso who had been dropped off at the airport since he was in the advance party that left for Sinazongwe earlier. The driver of the vehicle seemed to have failed to observe the rider resulting into this accident. The rider got off the damaged bike and sat by the roadside to wait for the medics to assess him whilst the driver of the vehicle managed to stop and park his car safely. he said.President Edgar Lungus main presidential motorcade drove past shortly after the accident.The accident is the second involving President Lungu's motorcade in a month.

Post Reply Posted: at 21-04-2017 12:53 PM (5 years ago) | Hero
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tipped to have Dual-Camera setup News oi -Shilpa The camera will be the biggest upgrade in Note 8.

Samsung has finally launched the most awaited flagship phones Galaxy S8 and S8+ in India. That's not the end of rumors flowing around Samsung devices. Now, new rumors regarding the another flagship device named as Samsung Galaxy Note 8 started surfacing online.

In investors note, Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities said that the dual camera system on Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will be the biggest upgrade compared to Samsung Galaxy Note 7 which failed last year. He says that the upcoming Note 8 will have a 12-megapixel wide-angle CIS (CMOS image sensors) which has a support for dual photo diode that helps in absorbing more light and produce better shots.

On the other hand, a 13-megapixel telephoto CIS supports both the dual 6P technology and 3X zoom. Both the sensors also have a support for Optical Image Stabilization. Kuo gave some more information by stating that the Note 8's dual-camera will turn out to be much better than iPhone 7 Plus and may match upcoming OLED iPhone.

Buy Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ and get 448GB Jio data for Rs. 309

That dual-camera setup may be of vertical one rather than horizontal. Few leaked images support this concept as well. Other than the camera, the Note 8 is expected to follow the same aspect ratio of 18.5:9 on 6.4-inch Quad HD+ display (1440 x 2960 pixels).

Some rumors even said that it may go for 4K display but according to few sources it doesn't make any sense. This device is also said to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or Exynos 8895 processor. But at least the rumor saying that the company may drop Note series in future turned out to be false now.

Best Mobiles in India

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Discovery of more mass graves reveal 'unfolding horror' in DR Congo - UN rights chief

19 April 2017  Raising alarm over increasing reports of serious human rights violations in the Kasai Central and Kasai Oriental provinces of Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations human rights chief underscored that the scale and nature of the allegations could warrant an investigation by an international mechanism, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC).

According the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), between 5-7 April, a team of UN human rights and police officials found 17 further mass graves in the Kasai Central province, which had been the location of clashes between security forces and the Kamuina Nsapu, a local militia.

"The discovery of yet more mass graves and the reports of continued violations and abuses highlight the horror that has been unfolding in the Kasais over the last nine months," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a news release, highlighting the need to monitor the situation closely.

"Should there be no effective national investigation, I will not hesitate to urge the international community to support an investigation by an international mechanism, including the International Criminal Court," he added.

Fifteen of the recently discovered mass graves were in a cemetery in the town of Tshimbulu and two in the locality of Tshienke.

According to information received by the UN investigators, soldiers from the Forces armees de la Republique democratique du Congo (FARDC) had reportedly dug the graves, after clashing with presumed elements of the Kamuina Nsapu between 26-28 March. At least 74 people, including 30 children, were reported to have been killed by soldiers as a result of these clashes.

The militia, loyal to a local customary chief who was killed in August last year, has been accused of a number of crimes and human rights abuses, including killings and abduction, recruitment of children, and targeting schools, hospitals and churches.

"It is absolutely vital that the Government takes meaningful steps, which to date have been lacking, to ensure that there is a prompt, transparent, and independent investigation to establish the facts and circumstances of alleged human rights violations and abuses perpetrated by all parties," underscored the UN rights chief.

The UN team also visited Kananga, a town in Kasai Central, where between 28-30 March, FARDC soldiers were reported to have shot dead at least 40 people, including 11 children and 12 women, in the town's Nganza commune, and injured at least 21 others. There are also allegations that at least two women and three girls had been raped by the soldiers during that operation.

The UN investigators were also informed of the killing of three individuals, including a 17-year-old boy and a one-month-old baby during search operations by the Police Nationale Congolaise.

Also in the statement, High Commissioner Zeid offered his Office's assistance in conducting a credible investigation into the reports and allegations but underscored that it must be provided with unfettered access.

"We reiterate our request for access to all sites of mass graves, as well as to all witnesses, including those in detention, and other relevant information necessary to determine responsibility at all levels," he added.

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NATO partners conduct close air support exercise

By Airman 1st Class Daniel Snider, 23rd Wing Public Affairs / Published April 20, 2017

CAMP GRAYLING, Mich. (AFNS) -- Today's fight against terrorism doesn't rest on the shoulders of one country. It's a team fight, meaning countries must be interoperable to effectively defeat that threat.

To better support the team, members of the German air force's Air Ground Operations Squadron partnered with the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron to conduct a close air support exercise, April 10-14, 2017, at Camp Grayling, Michigan.

"With everything happening in the Middle East and across the globe, like (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) trying to fight their way into the European area, it provides a legitimate reason as to why we should all get together and become as strong as we can through joint training," said Master Sgt. Thomas Jenn, the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron division flight chief.

This training is relevant because nearly every operation the U.S. engages in, such as Operation Inherent Resolve, is a joint effort.

"NATO is fighting together as a coalition," said Maj. Nader Samadi, the German AGOS commander. "We do everything together, whether it's U.S. or other NATO partners, the standards are the same. We try to work the same ways so we're interoperable, and that's the best thing."

Samadi explained that currently, air-to-air dogfights between aircraft are far less common than air-to-ground strikes or ground-to-ground skirmishes. This makes Tactical Air Control Parties consisting of Joint Terminal Attack Controllers a crucial piece of the battle puzzle.

"Nobody really knows what the JTAC is doing but everybody wants to have them," said Samadi. "It's really important because we don't want civilian casualties. So NATO forces send us JTACs on site to find out the best way to conduct what we call surgical strikes, where we have civilian collateral damage concerns. It's really important that somebody is there to liaise between the boots on the ground and the air guys. That's our job, being the liaison and bringing in the biggest weapons."

With bigger weapons come greater stakes. While the JTACs are attached to ground units, they must be precise with their directions and clear on the radio to effectively put bombs on target.

"It's extremely unique," said Jenn. "The TACP and JTAC capability is a lot like a language translator. Two very distinctive branches from the same country speak, think and act differently, so we are that in-between. We can speak Army to the Air Force, and Air Force to the Army."

As brokers of airpower, being able to convey the ground commander's intent to the Airmen in the cockpit allows an effective joint effort against the enemy, while also mitigating the potential for error.

"The worst things could go wrong if we can't understand each other," said Samadi. "If we didn't train together or have these opportunities, we cannot set the standards. I'm saying 'look left there is a tree,' and (the pilot) is hearing that there's three to his left. So we have to work together as much as possible to get our synergies, wording and brevity on the same page. If we don't have that, things can go bad and you hit wrong targets, and then you could have civilian casualties."

The week of close air support missions, briefings, learning moments and creating bonds allowed almost everyone to walk away being more efficient and more confident in their job.

"Seeing a scenario that is closely mirroring what's happening overseas right now and seeing some of the tactical problems that we throw at these guys, it makes them think," said Jenn. "It's a chance to make mistakes without any negative repercussions. That's probably one of the best things about it.



Not only does the training environment allow error and correction, but it also allows a bond to grow between the NATO allies.



"Probably one of my favorite parts is getting to work with all the different coalition partners," said 1st Lt. Megan Cox, the 19th ASOS air liaison officer. "Just learning about their culture and the way they work, we're able to just relate to them better. It really strengthens the relationship when you're working with them downrange."

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U.S., Coalition Continue Strikes Against ISIS

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, April 20, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 26 strikes consisting of 66 engagements, 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 17 strikes consisting of 19 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed a vehicle-bomb factory.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, six strikes destroyed six ISIS wellheads and two ISIS oil equipment items.

-- Near Raqqa, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a front-end loader and a fighting position.

-- Near Tabqah, seven strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units; destroyed five ISIS oil tankers, two command-and-control nodes, two fighting positions, a tunnel, an ISIS-held building and a vehicle-bomb facility; and damaged a fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted nine strikes consisting of 47 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed a heavy machine gun and an ISIS vehicle.

-- Near Mosul, seven strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units and destroyed five vehicle bombs, five front-end loaders, four mortar systems, a medium machine gun and a vehicle-bomb factory.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed an ISIS tactical vehicle.

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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Government of Canada - Sustainment Support for C-17 Aircraft

Media/Public Contact: pm-cpa@state.gov

Transmittal No: 17-18

WASHINGTON, Apr. 20, 2017 -- The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Canada for sustainment support for C-17 aircraft. The estimated cost is $195 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on April 19, 2017.

The Government of Canada has requested a possible sale of follow-on support for five (5) CC177 aircraft (Canada's designator for the C-17), including contractor logistics support (CLS) provided through the Globemaster III Integrated Sustainment Program (GISP), in-country field services support, aircraft maintenance and technical support, support equipment, alternate mission equipment, software support, spares, personnel training and training equipment, U.S. Government and contractor engineering and logistics support services, publications and technical documentation, and major modification and retrofit kits support. The total estimated program cost is $195 million.

This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by sustaining the military capabilities of Canada, a NATO ally that has been, and continues to be, an important force for ensuring political stability and economic progress in the world, including through its involvement in military, peacekeeping, and humanitarian operations. The sustainment of Canada's C-17s will ensure the country's continued capability to rapidly deploy its forces, as well as the continued interoperability between the U.S. and Canadian Air Forces' C-17s.

The proposed sale of defense articles and services is required to maintain the operational readiness of the Royal Canadian Air Force C-17 aircraft. Canada's current contract supporting its five (5) C-17s will expire on 20 September 2017. The Royal Canadian Air Force will have no difficulty absorbing this support.

The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.

Sources of supply will award contracts when necessary to provide the defense articles ordered if items ordered are not available from U.S. stock or are considered lead-time away.

The prime contractor will involve the following contractors:

Boeing Company, Long Beach, California

Boeing Company Training Systems, St. Louis, Missouri

Lockheed Martin Corporation/MFC, Lexington, Kentucky

There are no known offsets. Any offset agreements will be defined in negotiations between the purchaser and the contractor.

Implementation of this proposed sale will not require the assignment of any additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to Canada. There is an on-going foreign military sales case providing C-17 sustainment services. There are currently 13 contractors from Boeing in-country providing contractor technical services support on a continuing basis.

There will be no adverse impact to U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.

This notice of a potential sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded.

All questions regarding this proposed Foreign Military Sale should be directed to the State Department's Bureau of Political Military Affairs, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, pm-cpa@state.gov.

-30-

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Lithuania FM Says NATO Deployment Shows Commitment

RFE/RL April 20, 2017

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius says the recent NATO deployments to the Baltic region and elsewhere in Eastern Europe are a sign that the Western alliance "will do anything" to defend the security of member nations.

In an interview on April 20 with Current Time TV, Linkevicius also said Vilnius desires "normal" relations with Russia but that they should be based on "principles and values."

Linkevicius spoke to the Russian-language network, run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, as the 28-member alliance is bolstering its presence in the region to reassure member nations in the face of a renewed aggressive foreign policy by neighboring Russia.

Particularly worrisome is Moscow's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and its continued support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has also been accused of interfering in the affairs of countries looking to move closer to the NATO alliance.

NATO has deployed four battalions to Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, led by U.S., German, Canadian, and British troops and each with about 800 troops.

Linkevicius told Current Time TV that the level of threat from Russia against the Baltic states -- all NATO members and all former Soviet republics -- remains high.

"The situation has not really improved since [last year]," he said.

Linkevicius denied the NATO deployments should be seen by Moscow as a threat, given their small size compared with the level of Russia's forces in the region.

"If we compare figures, there are 300,000 servicemen in the Western Military District of the Russian Federation, plus the three more divisions whose deployment has been announced just recently," he said.

But Linkevicius said the NATO presence should be seen as a sign of its commitment to the region's security.

"The main thing is that we are not talking here about competition or escalation," he said.

"What we are doing is meant to leave no doubts for anyone that the NATO alliance will do everything necessary to guarantee the security of its territories and population," the foreign minister said.

Linkevicius said there was a "war" of sorts already taking place in the region -- the so-called "hybrid" war of unconventional methods, including disinformation and fake news.

"This war already is taking place -- a cyberwar, an information war. In general, the understanding of security has been expanded," he said.

"Once, there were times when before a real fight, an artillery barrage took place.... This is no longer needed. It may be sufficient to use brainwashing to create the staging ground for [military] action.

"I am deeply convinced that this is what happened in Crimea," Linkevicius said.

"A ban or some type of censorship are not solutions. It is necessary to set up alternative sources [of information] and to fight those tendencies directly, in a positive way," he said.

On relations with Russia, Linkevicius said there have been few contacts in recent times between Vilnius and Moscow.

"It has been a while since we have had any high-level meetings," he said. "We do not think this is because of our position.

"In the future, we do want to have relations like normal neighbors. But [relations] should be based on some principles and values, and this is very important."

Linkevicius noted that next month a Russian forum will be held in Lithuania where scholars, journalists, and political science experts will be invited.

"Politicians will be there, too," he said. "We will talk about the future of Russia and of Russia in Europe and about freedom of speech.

"And, by the way, we will be speaking in Russian."

With reporting by AP and AFP



Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/lithuanian-fm-nato-deployment-commitment/28442889.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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Reuters: Think Tank Linked To Putin Distributed Plans to Influence U.S. Election

RFE/RL April 20, 2017

The Reuters news agency reports that a Russian government think tank run by Kremlin-appointed former intelligence officials developed a plan to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election last year.

The April 19 Reuters report cited three current and four former U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It said they described two confidential documents that were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS) and acquired by U.S. intelligence officials.

One was a strategy paper, written in June 2016 and circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government, which the report said recommended the Kremlin conduct an online and broadcast media propaganda campaign encouraging U.S. voters to elect a president who would be softer on Russia than Barack Obama had been.

The second document, drafted in October, warned that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win. It said Russia should halt its pro-Trump propaganda and focus on efforts to undermine Clinton's potential presidency and the legitimacy of the U.S. electoral system by fomenting suspicions of voter fraud.

U.S. intelligence agencies released a report in January saying they assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "influence campaign" using computer hacks, leaks, and other methods to interfere in the election, and that Putin's government developed a clear preference for Donald Trump, who won the November 8 election.

Reuters cited the current and former officials as saying the RISS documents were central to the Obama administration's conclusion that Russia conducted a "fake news" campaign and launched cyberattacks against Democratic Party groups and Clinton's campaign.

"Putin had the objective in mind all along, and he asked the institute to draw him a road map," the report quoted a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who was one of the sources, as saying.

'Conspiratorial Consciousness'

Putin has denied that Russia interfered in the U.S. election.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said of the Reuters report: "I don't know anything about this, I can only say that seven anonymous sources are not worth one real one."

RISS Director Mikhail Fradkov said that what he called an "attempt to involve RISS" in allegations of meddling in the election was "unsuccessful in essence."

"It seems that in their conspiratorial consciousness the authors of this conceit did not weigh reality against their...fantasies," Fradkov said in statement on the institute's website.

Fradkov, who headed Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) from 2007 to October 2016 and served as Putin's prime minister in 2004-2007, became the director of RISS earlier this year.

The state-run Russian news agency TASS on April 19 quoted an unnamed RISS spokesperson as expressing the hope that requests for comment from Western media outlets were "a joke and nothing more."

With reporting by Reuters and TASS



Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-reuters-report- influence-u-s-election-influence-putin/28440730.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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Middle East engulfed by 'perfect storm'  one that threatens international peace, warns UN envoy

20 April 2017  Reporting on the dire situation across the Middle East region, marked by the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, fractured societies, proliferation of non-State actors and unbelievable human suffering, a United Nations envoy today reiterated the need for a surge in diplomacy for peace to ease the suffering of innocent civilians.

"Let us not forget that behind the images of savagery [there] are the millions [struggling] every day not only for their own survival but for the true humane essence of their cultures and societies," Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the Security Council today.

"Today, a perfect storm has engulfed the Middle East, and continues to threaten international peace and security," he added, noting that divisions within the region have opened the doors to foreign intervention and manipulation, breeding instability and sectarian strife.

In his briefing, Mr. Mladenov noted that developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict continued to resonate across the region and that the question of Palestine remained a "potent symbol" and "rallying cry," one that is easily misappropriated and exploited by extremist groups.

"Ending the occupation and realizing a two-state solution will not solve all the region's problems, but as long as the conflict persists, it will continue to feed them," he said.

The UN envoy also informed the 15-member Security Council of sporadic violence that continued to claim lives and reported on Israel's approval of the establishment of new settlements and declaration of "State land" in the occupied Palestinian territory. On the Palestinian side, he noted multiple worrying developments that are "further cementing" the Gaza-West Bank divide and dangerously increasing the risk of escalation.

Turning to the wider region, Mr. Mladenov briefed Council members on the ongoing crisis in Syria that continues to be a "massive burden" for other countries and called on the international community to do more to stand in solidarity with Syria's neighbours. He also underlined the need for a political solution to the conflict, now into its seventh year.

Further in his briefing, the UN Special Coordinator spoke of the situation in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen as well as of social exclusion and marginalisation that tend to provide fertile ground for the rise of violent extremism.

"Unity across ethnic and religious lines, reconciliation and a fair sharing of resources help heal wounds and isolate extremists," he underscored.

Recalling Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for a "surge in diplomacy for peace", Mr. Mladenov urged UN Member States, especially through a united Security Council, to assume the leading role in resolving the crisis.

"Multilateral approaches and cooperation are necessary to address interlinked conflicts, cross-border humanitarian impacts and violent extremism," he said.

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Venezuelan Opposition Insists on 'Peaceful Protest'

By Alvaro Algarra April 20, 2017

Opponents of the Venezuelan government converged on downtown Caracas for a second day Thursday, pledging to sustain peaceful pressure on leftist President Nicolas Maduro to restore democracy in the crisis-ridden country.

Security teams were out in force nationwide after at least three people were fatally shot Wednesday, as tens of thousands of pro- and anti-government factions took to the streets in the largest anti-government demonstrations in decades. Among the victims were a 17-year-old boy and a 23-year-old woman, both shot in the head in separate incidents.

A National Guard soldier also reportedly was killed in protests in Miranda state, near Caracas.

Wednesday's deaths bring the number of people killed in almost three weeks of escalating protests to eight. In recent protests, security forces have fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons.

It hurts to see "our brave young people" subjected to violence, tweeted human rights activist Lilian Tintori, adding, "We swear we will regain [Venezuela's] freedom. See you on the street!"

Tintori marched Thursday wearing a T-shirt with a posterized image of her jailed husband, political opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. She told VOA that Venezuela's opposition supporters would continue peaceful protests.

"We do not want confrontation, we want the regime of Nicolas Maduro to leave in peace," Tintori said, noting it must schedule long-delayed elections, release political prisoners and open a humanitarian channel to deliver food and medicine now in critically short supply. "Venezuela is in resistance," she added.

Late Wednesday, Maduro announced that security forces had detained 30 people for allegedly planning violence.

Maduro supporter Diosdado Cabello, a National Assembly lawmaker with the ruling United Socialist Party, decried the National Guard member's death and blamed it on opposition protesters.

"Be assured, there will be justice," he warned.

On Thursday morning, supporters of the center-right political opposition blocked the Prados del Este freeway in both directions.

Businesses and universities were closed for a second consecutive day, Agence France-Presse reported, noting that the previous day was a national holiday -- April 19 marked the anniversary of the Venezuelans' 1810 opening battle for independence from Spain.

In recent days, Maduro ordered troops to fan out around the country on high alert, and he encouraged his backers, including civilian militia members, to defend against alleged plans to overthrow his government. He announced plans to expand the militia to half a million from its current strength of 100,000 and to arm them with rifles.

The United Nations issued a statement Thursday expressing concern "about the latest developments and urge that all efforts be made to lower tensions and prevent further clashes."

U.S. response

In Washington, administration officials are worried the Venezuela government is working to suppress the opposition.

"We are concerned that the government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in a way that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people," U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday at the State Department.

"We are concerned about that situation. We're watching it closely and working with others, particularly through the OAS [Organization of American States] to communicate those concerns to them," Tillerson added in a brief news conference.

The Maduro government's seizure of U.S.-based General Motors' sole factory in Venezuela is likely to add to Tillerson's worries. The Detroit automaker described Wednesday's takeover by Venezuelan authorities as an illegal judicial seizure of assets. In a statement Thursday, GM said vehicles and other assets were taken from the plant.

The company has about 2,700 workers in Venezuela. GM's statement said that if the government allowed the move, employees would get separation benefits "arising from the termination of employment relationships beyond the parties' control."

Counter march

Maduro had rallied his supporters to turn out for a counter march Wednesday, and thousands showed up wearing the red clothing that marked them as Chavistas.

"Today, the entire Venezuelan population comes out to ratify its support for the Bolivian revolution" and its "loyalty to supreme commander Hugo Chavez," one man in a red cap and T-shirt told VOA.

Chavez launched the leftist movement carried on by Maduro, who succeeded him as president in 2013.

The demonstrations erupted after the Venezuelan Supreme Court's March 30 announcement that it would strip the opposition controlled National Assembly of its legislative powers. The court, stacked with appointees of Maduro and Chavez, reversed its position in the wake of domestic and international outcries about an attempted power grab.

The National Socialist Party has ruled Venezuela for 17 years. Economic pressures have mounted in recent years, especially since the price of oil, Venezuela's chief export, began falling in 2014. Venezuelans face chronic, severe shortages of food, medicine and other basics in what once was Latin America's wealthiest country.

(State Department correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report, with Carol Guensburg contributing from Washington.)

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Hollande: Paris Shooting Looks Like Terrorism

By VOA News April 20, 2017

French President Francois Hollande says all signs point to terrorism in Thursday night's attack on the Champs-Elysees in Paris that killed one policeman and wounded two others.

Hollande said on French television that security will be tightened ahead of Sunday's presidential election.

"We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election," the president told the nation.

Details on what happened are still sketchy, but according to witnesses, a gunman jumped out of a car near a subway station and opened fire with a machine gun. He was killed by police gunfire. It is unclear if anyone else was involved.

Islamic State is claiming responsibility through its news agency. It identifies the shooter as Abu Yussef, a Belgian, calling him "one of Islamic State's fighters."

Paris police have yet to respond to IS' claim, but reports say the gunman was known to them.

Police have closed off a large part of the Champs-Elysees, one of the world's most renown boulevards and popular with residents and tourists for its countless shops and restaurants.

In Washington, President Donald Trump sent condolences to the French people. He called the attack "a terrible thing," and said it was another example of the sort of violence that "never ends."

France is on edge ahead of Sunday's presidential election, with a very close outcome expected. The country is still feeling the effects of a series of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks over the past two years that killed more than 200 people.

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Security Council condemns latest 'highly destabilizing' DPRK ballistic missile test

20 April 2017  Strongly condemning the 15 April ballistic-missile launch conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United Nations Security Council today demanded that the country immediately cease further actions in violation of the UN body's relevant resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions.

In a press statement, the Council expressed its utmost concern over the DPRK's "highly destabilizing behaviour and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council by conducting this ballistic-missile launch in violation of its international obligations under its successive resolutions on the issue between 2006 and 2016.

Council members agreed that the 15-member body would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures, including sanctions, in line with its previously expressed determination.

Stressing that the DPRK's illegal ballistic-missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear-weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond, the members of the Council further regretted that the country is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons while its citizens have great unmet needs.

The members of the Security Council went on to emphasize the vital importance of the DPRK immediately showing sincere commitment to denuclearization and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions in the Korean Peninsula and beyond. To that end, the Council demanded the DPRK conduct no further nuclear tests.

Further to the press statement, the Council strongly urged all Member States to significantly accelerate their efforts to implement fully the measures imposed on the DPRK by the Security Council, particularly the comprehensive measures contained in resolutions 2321 (2016) and 2270 (2016).

The Security Council reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in North-East Asia at large, expressed their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation and welcomed efforts by Council members, as well as other States, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue.

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Former Iranian President Ahmadinejad Barred From Election

RFE/RL April 20, 2017

Iranian state TV says the body charged with vetting candidates has disqualified former hard-line President Mahmud Ahmadinejad from running in next month's presidential election.

Although Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had previously urged him not to run, Ahmadinejad shocked the country by registering last week.

Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust, and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear program.

Khamenei has said Ahmadinejad candidacy would create a "polarized situation" that would be "harmful for the county."

State television said that incumbent Hassan Rohani and hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi have both been approved to run in the election.

Raisi, 56, who is close to Khamenei, is considered by many to be the 68-year-old Rohani's main challenger.

Raisi is expected to draw support from Iran's hard-line factions, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Rohani negotiated the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal with world powers, but some disappointment that the accord has not spurred economic growth has boosted the opposition against him.

The Guardians Council, the agency that vets all candidates before they can appear on the ballot, said it had compiled a final list of candidates earlier on April 20 and that the Interior Ministry would announce their names by April 23.

Officials said a total of 1,636 people registered for the election, including 137 women. The council has not allowed women to run in the past.

Traditionally, about six candidates are finally approved to run.

The council routinely disqualifies those it regards as a threat to the clerical establishment. In 2013, it prevented ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running.

The campaign officially opens later this month (April 28) and the vote is on May 19.

With additional reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/irans-ahmadinejad-barred- from-prez-election/28442998.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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Tillerson Says Iran Nuclear Deal Failed, Only Delays Arms Development

RFE/RL April 20, 2017

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on April 19 sharply criticized a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, saying it "only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state" and does not address "alarming ongoing provocations" by Tehran in the Middle East.

Tillerson said a 90-day review of the deal by the Trump administration will not only look at whether Iran is complying with the deal, as the State Department certified it was on April 18, but also whether Tehran's behavior in the region continues to undermine U.S. interests.

The deal "fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran," Tillerson said at a news conference. "It only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state."

While Iran has repeatedly said it is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, Tillerson said Iran's "nuclear ambitions are a threat to the world's peace and security... An unchecked Iran has the potential to travel the same path as North Korea and take the world along with it."

The deal between Iran and major global powers, including the United States, imposed restrictions on Tehran's nuclear activities in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

Tillerson said the agreement made the mistake of "buying off a power that has nuclear ambitions" for a short time and then leaving the problem to future generations to resolve.

"The Trump administration has no intention of passing the buck to a future administration on Iran," he said.

Tillerson said the Trump administration is reviewing the deal in light of these and other concerns.

"A comprehensive Iran policy requires we address all of the threats posed by Iran, and it is clear there are many," he said. "We have to look at Iran in a very comprehensive way in terms of the threat it poses in all areas of the region and the world."

Tillerson's harshest comments to date on Iran came one day after he appeared to take a softer approach by certifying that Tehran had complied with the nuclear deal in a notice to Congress that also extended the deal's sanctions relief for Tehran.

Tillerson on April 19 appeared to be siding with the deal's strongest critics, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, which opposed the agreement because it did not entirely shut down Iran's nuclear industry or address other alleged aggression by Iran in the region.

Earlier on April 19, on a visit to Riyadh, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also leveled strong criticism at Tehran.

"Everywhere you look, if there is trouble in the region, you find Iran," Mattis said. "So right now, what we're seeing is the nations in the region...trying to checkmate Iran and the amount of disruption and instability they can cause."

Even the nuclear deal's proponents have acknowledged that it has limitations. Key restrictions it places on Iran's enrichment of uranium for potential use in nuclear bombs, for example, are scheduled to end in a decade.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama, who viewed the deal as one of his major achievements, acknowledged that it did not address concerns about Iran's role in regional wars in Syria and Yemen or its continued development of ballistic missiles.

Obama argued that the deal was narrowly tailored to prevent what he said was the imminent emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran. After the deal was negotiated, he worked with Congress to maintain U.S. sanctions targeting Iran's missile development and alleged human rights violations.

Iran has yet to comment on the Trump administration's latest round of criticism, but Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has warned that Tehran would retaliate if the United States breached the nuclear agreement.

With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/tillerson-says-iran-nuclear-deal- failed-only-delays-arms-development-/28440318.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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Political momentum must be renewed if Libya's challenges are to be addressed - UN envoy

19 April 2017  It is more important than ever to forge unity within Libya, the United Nations envoy for the country told the Security Council today, while he called on Libyan stakeholders to regain the optimism generated by the 2015 Political Agreement, which has faded and is being replaced by "frustration and disappointment."

In his briefing to the Council, Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya, said that the majority of Libyans and the international community continued to strongly support the political agreement and its institutions and recognized the Presidency Council as the sole national executive authority.

"Both Libyans and the international community support the Agreement. Yes, it can be amended. But no, there is no alternative, there is no 'plan B.' And there is no need for one," he said, underscoring: "If the parties do not uphold their responsibility in the Libyan Political Agreement, there is no reason to think that they will have any greater commitment to an alternative agreement."

Turning to the many other signs of positive developments in the country, including recent developments in the fight against terrorism and the improvement of the security situation in Tripoli, Mr. Kobler said that on the economic front, Libyan wages are on the rise and oil production has increased.

Despite progress, uncertainty contributing to 'dangerous political power vacuum'

But the optimism generated by the signing of the Agreement has diminished, reported Mr. Kobler, emphasizing that instead of the "sharp horizon" established by the Agreement he now sees instead "frustration, disappointment, sometimes anger, and often it is justified." He cited rising criminality, which remains widespread throughout the country, the division of institutions and the lack of guarantee of public services for the population.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP), he added, has been steadily declining since 2012, not to mention the persistence of the parallel economy and illegal activities.

Mr. Kobler regretted that the current political vacuum is hampering efforts to create a united security force, to the point where some actors are considering a return to a military solution. "Competition for the control of national resources risks generating new violence," he said, adding: The results of these divisions are setting Libya on a worrying path. Public services, including access to electricity, health, education, water, are failing many."

Against this backdrop, he said the time has come to return to the negotiating table and "regain the spirit of Skhirat," referring to the seaside Moroccan town where the deal was reached. For this, he said, the country needs a strong international support, not only from an institutional point of view. He thus defended the creation of partnerships with Libyan society.

Seven steps to peace

With all this in mind, Mr. Kobler called on all political actors to agree on a fair and inclusive process to amend the political agreement. Secondly, he called for an immediate end to violence, including in the south of the country, as well as establishing unified security and confidence-building measures. In this regard, he said, the Committee responsible for supervising the ceasefire in Tripoli is an excellent starting point.

He went on to call for improving cooperation between the Presidency Council and all the economic players. The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which he heads up, should help them to do so, he said.

Finally, the Special Representative called on the international community, including the UN, regional organizations and neighbouring States, not only to react after the fact but to anticipate the Libyan problems.

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Pakistan Supreme Court Rules Sharif Can Stay In Power

RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal April 20, 2017

Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered further investigations into corruption allegations against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but ruled that he can remain in office for now.

Amid tight security, the five-member court panel ruled on April 20 that there is insufficient evidence to order Sharif's removal from office, and ordered the establishment of a joint investigation team.

"A thorough investigation is required," Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said as he announced the highly anticipated decision, which prompted an opposition call for Sharif to step down pending further probes.

The court in Islamabad launched a probe last year into Sharif's family's offshore wealth after his children were linked to accounts in the so-called Panama Papers leaks in 2015.

Sharif's critics have suggested that offshore companies were used to launder illegally obtained wealth or avoid taxes, and opposition politicians threatened to launch street protests if the allegations were not investigated.

Sharif and his family have denied any wrongdoing.

Hundreds of police officers surrounded the Supreme Court building as it delivered its highly anticipated verdict, and unauthorized people were barred from the area. Public and private transport was also kept away from nearby roads.

The court panel was split, with two judges recommending that Sharif should step down and three backing instead a further investigation.

The prime minister's daughter, Maryam, tweeted a photo of the family and leaders of Sharif's PML-N party celebrating the verdict.

Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb described the ruling as a "defeat for all those who have been levelling baseless allegations" against Sharif.

But Pakistan's main opposition leader, Imran Khan, called on the prime minister to step down until the investigation is completed.

"How can he continue as prime minister when he is being investigated? What moral grounds does he have to continue in office?" Khan told reporters.

The joint investigation team is to include officials from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the State Bank of Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Military Intelligence.

They are to issue a report about their probe within 60 days.

The new investigation team is to focus on how the family members transferred money from Pakistan to Qatar that was later allegedly used to buy property in London using offshore companies.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and Dawn

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-sharif-court- ruling-panama-papers/28440928.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 Bans Jehovah's Witnesses as 'Extremist'

By Ken Bredemeier April 20, 2017

The Russian Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian sect, are an "extremist" group and ordered their Russian property turned over to the government.

Supreme Court Judge Yuri Ivanenko declared the denomination's Administrative Center, its head office in Russia, an "extremist organization" and, on that basis, ordered the Jehovah's Witnesses group in Russia "dissolved" and its activities banned.

Russia's Justice Ministry had sought the order, which the group said it will appeal.

Jehovah's Witnesses, best known worldwide for their door-to-door preaching and distribution of religious literature, has 175,000 adherents and 395 branches in Russia.

It registered in Russia as a religious organization in 1991 and again in 1999. But Russian authorities repeatedly targeted the group in a wide-ranging crackdown on religious freedom.

In 2006, Russia changed its definition of extremism, eliminating the requirement for violence or hatred, but saying the criteria included "incitement of ... religious discord."

Russia blocked the Jehovah's Witnesses' international website two years ago over alleged extremism, and the group's Bibles were banned last year.

Russian authorities had also placed several of the group's publications on a list of banned extremist literature. Prosecutors claimed that the organization destroys families, foments hatred and threatens lives, which Jehovah's Witnesses says is a false characterization.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a previous Russian judgment against the organization was "unlawful."

Jehovah's Witnesses has more than 8 million adherents worldwide, but the group stands apart from key aspects of Christian doctrine as practiced by Roman Catholics and numerous Protestant denominations.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not observe Christmas, Easter, birthdays and other holidays, which they consider to have pagan origins that are not compatible with Christianity. They also reject military service and blood transfusions.

Human Rights Watch condemned the Russian Supreme Court's ruling against Jehovah's Witnesses in a statement Thursday.

"The Supreme Court's ruling to shut down the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is a terrible blow to freedom of religion and association in Russia," said Rachel Denber, the New York-based group's deputy Europe and Central Asia director. "Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are now given the heartrending choice of either abandoning their faith or facing punishment for practicing it."

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All sides in Syria crisis felt impact of 'horrific' weekend attack on evacuee convoy, says UN envoy

20 April 2017  Speaking to journalists after a meeting of the Humanitarian Taskforce (HTF), Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, stated that the horrific attack on a convoy of evacuees this past weekend had impacted everyone at today's talks.

"Armed groups' representatives [present at the HTF], Government representatives and non-governmental organizations, all of them [were] affected by the explosion, all helped to make sure that [the wounded] could get to the hospital," said Mr. de Mistura.

"That was the main moment of total unity among all the members of the HTF [] in a way the divisions were blurred by the horrific attack which was meant to do the opposite," he added.

At least 130 people, including 67 children were killed in the attack near Rashideen, western rural Aleppo, and more than 200 were wounded. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), video showed children gathering around a person giving out sweets just prior to the explosion.

Mr. de Mistura also informed the media that he will be meeting with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister on Monday, 24 April, to discuss the next steps regarding both Astana process  which yielded the December 2016 ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran  and the UN-facilitated intra-Syrian talks.

He also noted that though the trilateral meeting, involving the UN, the United States and Russia has been postponed, it "is still on the table" and there is a clear intention to maintain the forum and resume it at a later date.

Together with the Ceasefire Taskforce, the Humanitarian Taskforce was established last February by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). They have been meeting separately on a way forward in the crisis. Russia and the United States are the co-chairs of the taskforces and the ISSG, which also comprises the UN, the Arab League, the European Union and 16 other countries.

Also speaking alongside Mr. de Mistura, Jan Egeland, the UN Senior Advisor informed the media that as of mid-April, some 564,000 people across front lines, and in besieged and hard-to-reach areas were provided with relief. Compared to last year, fewer people were reached in besieged areas (160,000) but more were provided relief in hard-to-reach areas.

"So 30 per cent less access to besieged areas, 35 per cent more to hard-to-reach areas," he said, noting that there are resources for relief in Syria and humanitarians willing to deliver them, "but the military logic is [prevailing over] the besieged areas these days [and] we are not able to go there."

Mr. Egeland further underlined that besiegement should end by being lifted, not by places being emptied from people, and expressed hope for a breakthrough so that people are able to access urgently needed humanitarian relief as well as get back to their normal lives.

"If they follow a military logic, I think they will continue, if they follow a humanitarian logic I think a breather could be wise to ensure that there are sufficient protection guarantees," he said. "[Sieges] belong in the Middle Ages, they do not belong in 2017, they could be lifted, you can still choose to fight a war, but without suffocation of civilians."

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Moscow Hails ICJ Ruling On Ukraine

RFE/RL April 20, 2017

Russia's Foreign Ministry has hailed a ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague rejecting Ukraine's request to order Moscow to stop supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine said in a case filed at the ICJ in January that Russia had stepped up its interference in Ukraine's affairs since 2014, "intervening militarily...financing acts of terrorism and violating the human rights of millions of Ukraine's citizens, including, for all too many, their right to life."

But the court on April 19 said in its ruling that "the conditions required for the indication of provisional measures," as requested by Ukraine in order to block Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, "are not met."

In a statement on April 20, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the ICJ "also called on all parties to the dispute to implement in full the Minsk agreements, recalling that these agreements were approved and signed by representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk in particular, a fact that Ukraine attempts to deny."

Moscow seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and has supported the separatists in a war that has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine since April of that year.

"It is important that the court has taken a principled stand and did not support Ukraine's claims about supposed 'aggression' and 'occupation,' and on the status of Crimea as a matter not relevant to the substance of the dispute," the Russian Foreign Ministry's April 20 statement said.

However, the ICJ did issue a provisional ruling calling for a halt to what it says is "racial discrimination" against Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians in Russia-occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called the ICJ ruling "very promising."

"The international court in The Hague recognized its jurisdiction over both court cases. We are confident that today we are pursuing the right course, and hope for a successful hearing of these cases," Poroshenko said during a visit to London.



Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/moscow-hails-icj-ruling-ukraine/28442760.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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The heartbroken owner of a young dog stolen from Winchcombe is trying to get their pet back.

An appeal on social media says the two-year-old fawn Saluki was taken when thieves broke into the house last night.

They took only the young bitch, seemingly not finding other dogs there of any interest.

A neighbour was said to have seen two men with a white van with ladders on the top.

The posting said the owner, who can be contacted on 01242 602534, was waiting for police to arrive.
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A Birmingham man dealt drugs in Cheltenham because "he wanted to raise money for the races," a court was told today.

Kaine Pollin, 20, of Central Avenue, Longbridge, Birmingham, was sent to prison for three years three months at Gloucester Crown Court after he admitted two charges of possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply.

He also admitted one offence of possession of a bladed article on the same occasion.

Alistair Hegarty, prosecuting, told Judge Tabor QC that Pollin was seen on March 14 on Edinburgh Place near the King George playing fields, by police officers, on March 14.

The officers "saw him in conversation with known drug users," Mr Hegarty said.

"On March 17 they saw Pollin again in the same area. They stopped and searched him. He was found to be in possession of 850 worth of crack cocaine and heroin.

"He also had a black lock knife tucked into the waistband of his trousers, and 240 in cash."

In total Pollin was found to have 35 "wraps" of heroin and crack cocaine on him.

Defending, Arvind Sharma, told the court that Pollin had "rarely been out of work.

However he developed a drug habit and was selling partly to fund that but also he wanted to raise money for Cheltenham Races too."

Mr Sharma added "He is presently doing a catering course whilst on remand in prison.

"He is in a long term relationship and acts as a father to his partner's child."

Sentencing Pollin, the judge said "You announced from the very beginning that you would plead guilty, You are a young man who has already been in quite a bit of trouble. Also carrying a knife is treated very seriously in this court."
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Police are being put under pressure by failures of other public services including those which care for young peoples mental health, according to an official report.

The annual report into the state of policing in England and Wales, published today, said it is wrong that police are often seen as the service of first resort for people with mental health problems needing urgent help.

Sir Thomas Winsor, Her Majestys Inspector of Constabulary who wrote the report, said: The provision of mental healthcare has reached such a state of severity that police are often being used to fill the gaps that other agencies cannot. This is an unacceptable drain on police resources, and it is a profoundly improper way to treat vulnerable people who need care and help.

By the time depression or some other mental disorder has been allowed to advance to the point that someone is contemplating suicide, or engaging in very hazardous behaviour, many opportunities to intervene will have been missed by many organisations.

When that intervention takes place on a motorway bridge or railway line, or when someone is holding a weapon in a state of high distress, the expense to all concerned is far higher than it should be. The principal sufferer is the person who is ill, especially when it is realised that his or her suffering could have been much less or even avoided altogether.

The report also says a tsunami of online fraud, and crimes against vulnerable people including the elderly and the sexual abuse of children  crimes which require more police resources  are putting officers under strain.

Sir Thomas added: The changing nature of crime, and the increasing opportunities to exploit the vulnerability of children and the elderly in particular, creates a greatly intensified need for police leaders to improve their efficiency and effectiveness to prevent crime and deal with offences.

In too many cases, police leaders are still too sluggish in ensuring their plans to meet new demands are sound, particularly in the need to ensure the complete interoperability of law enforcement information and communications systems.

It comes after serious concerns were raised by HMIC about Gloucestershire polices ability to fight organised crime.

The report, published last month, described Gloucestershire polices response to serious and organised crime is 'inadequate' and that it 'requires improvement' in crime prevention, investigations and how it protects vulnerable victims.

Gloucestershire Constabulary said it takes mental health very seriously.

Around 25 per of people will suffer mental distress at some point in their lives and its been estimated that 50 per cent of the people coming into contact with police will have some form of mental health issue, a force spokesman said.

The spokesman said: "Financial pressure on police resources, as with other public services, never goes away and we continually work hard with partner agencies to achieve the best outcomes and support for people who are in distress. When there is a need for police involvement to protect people at times of crisis we will act with compassion and sensitivity."

Gloucestershire Constabulary said cyber security is a priority and that it will strive to maintain its reputation "as a leading force in the field of cyber policing."

The spokesman added: "We are responding to the changes in the nature of criminal activity with a growing number of officers dedicated to investigating online crimes, such as child sexual exploitation and fraud.

"However, the speed of technical advancement, together with financial constraints, continue to present challenges as we look to further develop the way we tackle online criminality in the digital era."
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Oisin Murphy will miss the Guineas meeting after failing in his appeal to overturn a ten day ban.

Qatar Racings retained jockey was found guilty of careless riding on Ballynanty in the Betway Handicap Stakes on April 14, which resulted in the fall of PJ McDonald.

The incident occurred on the first bend at Newcastle, when Murphy was said to have made a misjudgement when manoeuvring left which resulted in McDonalds mount Final clipping heels and being unseated.

In a post-race enquiry, the stewards found the rider in breach of causing increased interference which warranted a suspension of 5-14 days, but it was taken to appeal because Murphys team felt it was on the harsh side.

The appeal was heard at the British Horseracing Authority this morning and the panel accepted Murphy was remorseful and had taken full responsibility for McDonalds fall.

However, they decided video evidence suggested it should have been clear to him that moving left would cause interference.

The members noted that although Murphy took action on hearing a shout from Mr McDonald the interference had already taken place.

The 10-day suspension was upheld and will run from April 28- May 7, ruling Murphy out of the Guineas meeting on May 6-7.

Qatar Racing currently have outsiders South Seas and Bless Him engaged in the 2000 Guineas, with Bletchley for the 1000.

The organisations racing manager is Hartpury-based David Redvers.
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The case of Cheltenham woman who is accused of attacking a fellow resident of the care home she lived in has been further adjourned as the mental health assessment had still not taken place.

Victoria DiCapita, 26, of Alstone Lane, appeared today via video link from Eastwood Park Prison at Gloucester Crown Court. It is alleged that she blinded a woman in one eye during the assault on March 10 this year.

His Honour Judge Tabor QC heard that the assessment has still not been carried out.

The judge told her: "Community psychiatric nurses are coming to see you. They want to help you. It hasn't been possible to arrange this. I am disappointed.

"This has to happen within 14 days. It is my job to ensure that you are treated quickly and fairly."

The case was adjourned until May 5, 2017, and DiCapita was further remanded in custody.
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A teenaged woman burglar who took part in a raid on a flat in Tewkesbury has walked free from court after a judge decided to 'take a chance' with her.

Samantha Thomas, 19, of Despenser Road, Tewkesbury, was told at Gloucester Crown Court that only her young age saved her from going straight into custody.

She was sentenced to 18 months jail suspended for two years and ordered to undergo alcohol treatment programmes and activities.

Last month Thomas pleaded not guilty to breaking into a flat in Queens Road, Tewkesbury, and stealing property including an X-Box, jewellery and ornaments.

She claimed she was not the person seen on CCTV with three other masked burglars but a jury convicted her.

Today she returned to court for sentence together with Lewis Rogers, 29, of Belfry Drive, Tewkesbury, who admitted his guilt.

Rogers was of previous good character but Thomas had three convictions for a total of 11 offences, most of them for assault and disorder, the court heard.

The judge, Recorder Timothy Grice, sentenced Rogers to an 18 months community order with a requirement to do 200 hours of unpaid work.

During last month's trial the jury heard from neighbour Amy Poke that she watched the burglary gang leaving the targeted flat and was positive Thomas was among them.

Thomas later allegedly approached Ms Poke begging her not to give evidence against her.

The court heard that Melissa Bayliss, who lived in the burgled flat, was away with her family at the time of the raid.

The front door of the block of flats was kicked in to gain entry, causing 600 damage, and a variety of her family's belongings were taken.

Today, Jason Coulter, for Thomas, said the vast majority of her previous offending was due to drink. The court could justifiably jail her immediately but there was hope that she could be turned away from crime with the help of the probation service, he said.

He handed the court a letter she had written herself as well as one from a church where she has been doing 'considerable voluntary work.'

Recorder Grice said he had no doubt whatever that a jail term was deserved in her case because it had been a nasty offence and she had denied it. He had been 'adversely impressed' by what he had seen of her during trial, he said.

But Mr Coulter urged the judge not to pass a sentence which would merely mean her 'sitting about in Eastwood Park (prison) for a few months."

For Rogers, James Mott said that he had stopped drinking since the offence and was moving to Bristol where he 'has the love of a good woman' and a job with a logistics company.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - April 20, 2017) -

NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Earlier today a draft version of this news release was inadvertently disseminated through certain news providers. This draft contained certain typographical errors and should not be relied on. The below news release amends and restates this earlier draft.

Coro Mining Corp. ("Coro" or the "Company") (TSX:COP) is pleased to announce the closing of the final tranche of the non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") announced March 22, 2017 and has, in the closing of this final tranche (the "Final Tranche"), issued a total of 32,152,869 common shares, at a price of CA$0.15 per common share, raising gross proceeds of approximately CA$4,822,930. An aggregate of 107,680,000 common shares were issued pursuant to the Private Placement raising a total of CA$16,152,000. The first tranches of the Private Placement, pursuant to which the Company issued an aggregate of 75,527,131 common shares, closed on March 31, 2017 and April 3, 2017. All common shares issued pursuant to the Private Placement are subject to a statutory four month hold period.

Greenstone Resources L.P., or an affiliate thereof ("Greenstone"), the Company's major shareholder, acquired 92,088,333 common shares pursuant to both first tranches and the Final Tranche of the Private Placement. Following completion of the Final Tranche, Greenstone now holds approximately 61% of the Company's outstanding common shares.

The Company now has 593,267,539 common shares issued and outstanding. The proceeds of the Private Placement will be used to fund the acquisition of Minera Rayrock Ltda. (see the Company's news release dated August 4, 2016 for further details), continued exploration of the Company's Marimaca Project and working capital purposes.

CORO MINING CORP.

Alan Stephens

President and CEO

About Coro Mining Corp.:

Coro's strategy is to grow a mining business through the discovery, development and operation of "Coro type" deposits. These are defined as projects at any stage of development, which are well located with respect to infrastructure and water, have low permitting risk, and have the potential to achieve a short and cost effective timeline to production. The Company's preference is for open pit heap leach copper projects, where minimizing capital investment takes priority over maximizing NPV, where profitability is prioritized over production rate, and finally, where the likely capital cost is financeable relative to the Company's market capitalization. The Company's assets include the Marimaca development project; its 65% interest in the SCM Berta company, which includes the Berta and Nora operations; the Planta Prat project; the Llancahue prospect; and a royalty on the San Jorge copper-gold project located in Argentina.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These forward looking statements relate to future events or the Company's future performance, business prospects or opportunities including, without limitation, statements relating to the use of proceeds of the Private Placement. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Forward looking information involves risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward looking information. Such risk and uncertainties relate to, among other things: management's discretion to reallocate the proceeds of the Private Placement, as well as other risks disclosed in the Company's documents filed from time to time with the securities regulators in the Provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Coro undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements contained herein whether as a result of new information or future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law.
CARDSTON, April 21, 2017 - American Creek Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:AMK) ("the Corporation") today announced that it will be offering on a non-brokered private placement basis ("the Offering") up to 6,000,000 units ("Units") at a price of $0.05 per Unit for proceeds of $300,000 if the Offering is fully subscribed. Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Corporation ("Common Share") and one non-transferrable Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant may be exercised for one additional Common Share at a price of $0.08 for a period of 24 months from the closing date of the Offering. The Warrants will be subject to an acceleration provision which provides that from and after the date that is four months and 1 day after the closing date, if the closing price of the Corporation's shares on the TSX Venture Exchange exceeds $0.12 for 20 consecutive trading days, then the Corporation may provide notice to the Warrant holders of early expiry and thereafter, the Warrants will expire at 4:00pm MST on the date which is 15 business days after notice to the Warrant holders.

The securities will be offered to qualified purchasers in reliance upon exemptions from prospectus and registration requirements of applicable securities legislation.

Proceeds will be used for general operating purposes including settling current debt. Insiders may participate in this Offering.

This private placement is subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

About American Creek

American Creek is a Canadian junior mineral exploration company with a strong portfolio of gold and silver properties in British Columbia. Three of those properties are located in the prolific "Golden Triangle"; the Treaty Creek and Electrum joint venture projects with Tudor Gold (Walter Storm) as well as the 100% owned past producing Dunwell Mine.

The Corporation also holds the Gold Hill, Austruck-Bonanza, Ample Goldmax, Silver Side, Red Tusk and Glitter King properties located in other prospective areas of the province.

Information relating to the Corporation is available on its website at www.americancreek.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.



NOT FOR DISSEMINATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES







Contact



American Creek Resources Ltd.

Kelvin Burton

Phone: 403 752-4040

Email: info@americancreek.com


The UTSA men's track & field team will return to action on Saturday when it travels to Houston to compete at the 14th annual J. Fred Duckett Twilight at Holloway Track/Ley Field on the campus of Rice University.The one-day meet will begin at 10 a.m. with the discus and the afternoon running session will start six hours later with the 110-meter hurdles (click here for the complete meet schedule).Other schools scheduled to compete in addition to the Owls and Roadrunners include Dallas Baptist, Houston, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, Prairie View A&M, Sam Houston State, Southeastern Louisiana, Southwestern, St. Edward's, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Texas Southern, Texas Wesleyan and Trinity.'s victory last Friday in the long jump highlighted the Roadrunners' busy weekend of action at two meets on the West Coast. All told, the Roadrunners posted a total of a dozen top-10 finishes at the three-day Mt. SAC Relays while also competing at last Saturday's Beach Invitational.Riley leaped a career-best 24-4  (7.43m) in topping the field of 18 long jumpers. The nine-inch improvement from his previous personal record moved him up to fifth place on this season's Conference USA leaderboard.UTSA has three athletes that rank among the top 25 nationally in their respective events heading into the weekend.Leading the way is, who ranks 15th in the country in the 110-meter hurdles. The sophomore from Conroe clocked a career-best time of 13.79 back on March 30 at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin. It was the second-fastest performance in program history.Meanwhile, Riley currently stands 22nd nationally in the decathlon. His personal-record score of 7,318 points came from March 23-24 at the Roadrunners Invitational and it was the fourth-best effort in school annals.The Roadrunners' other athlete in the top 25 is, who is 25th in the 400m with his career-best time of 46.45 that came on March 25 at the Roadrunners Invitational. It was the third-fastest clocking in UTSA history.As for the C-USA rankings, Roadrunners athletes and relays sit atop the league standings in four events, rank second in five and third in three.
Florida state Sen. Frank Artiles resigned from the Florida Legislature on Friday, consumed by a scandal that erupted three days earlier over a diatribe of insults the Miami Republican unleashed against two lawmakers at a Tallahassee bar.In a letter to Senate President Joe Negron, Artiles said he was stepping down for the sake of his family and of the institution of the Senate, whose work ground to a near halt this week as Republican leaders grappled with Artiles' political future."My actions and my presence in government is now a distraction to my colleagues, the legislative process, and the citizens of our great State," Artiles wrote. "I am responsible and I am accountable and effective immediately, I am resigning from the Florida State Senate."It's clear there are consequences to every action, and in this area, I will need time for personal reflection and growth."Negron forced Artiles to apologize on the Senate floor Wednesday for his alcohol-fueled racist and sexist Monday night tirade against Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville. But black lawmakers outraged at Artiles for calling Gibson a "bitch" and a "girl" _ and for referring to some Republicans as "niggas" _ said saying sorry was not enough: They formally sought his expulsion from the Senate.Negron, R-Stuart, whom Artiles had derided in his rant as a "pussy," ordered an investigation. On Friday, he commended Artiles, saying "he made the right decision.""As Senator Artiles has noted, he holds himself responsible and accountable for his actions and comments," Negron said in a statement."Despite the events of the last week, Senator Artiles has a long and proud record of public service. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for serving our country in the United State Marine Corps, where he fought for our freedom in the Global War on Terror. Additionally, his years of service in the Florida House and Senate demonstrate a commitment to helping others that will not end with his departure from the Senate. My Senate colleagues and I wish Senator Artiles and his family well."Negron noted that as a result of the resignation, Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, who filed the complaint accusing Artiles of violating the rules of Senate conduct, had withdrawn his charges."Accordingly, I have directed the Special Master to close her investigation," Negron wrote. "No further action by the Senate will be taken in regard to this matter."Artiles, an ex-Marine known for his combative style, hired a sharp-elbowed Tallahassee lawyer and vowed to fight. He chose as his lawyer, Steven R. Andrews, one of the most feared lawyers in Tallahassee for his reputation as an opposition researcher and his ability to use public records to fight political battles has extracted settlements from those he has sued, including Gov. Rick Scott.In a Thursday letter to Negron, Andrews asked that an independent prosecutor with no association with the Senate be named to conduct the investigation. Then, in what appeared to be an overt threat, he twisted the knife, naming the senators whom Artiles would call to answer questions under oath.But the Senate process does not allow for Artiles to question lawmakers, and Negron simply overlooked the letter, ordering Senate General Counsel Dawn Roberts to continue her investigation as planned.By Thursday afternoon, even Artiles' friends in the state Capitol, convinced he couldn't possibly redeem himself, had begun to say privately that Artiles had to go. The most evident sign of his looming exit: Political hounds started chatting about his competitive southern Miami-Dade seat soon becoming open.In a statement Friday, Artiles was more contrite than he sounded when he addressed the full chamber."This experience has allowed me to see that for too many years I have sacrificed what I hold most dear in my life, my wife and my two young daughters," he said. "While I take full responsibility for using language that was vulgar and inappropriate, my family has fallen victim to a political process that can distort the truth for the sole purpose of political gain."Friends of Artiles, who spent the last few days outside of the Capitol seeking their counsel, said he had been angry and indignant at what he saw as a double standard: colleagues whose own behavior in his mind has not risen to their standards."Frank has acted honorably in his decision, and my prayers are with him as he moves on from this process," future House Speaker Jose Oliva of Miami Lakes, a longtime Artiles friend, said Friday morning.Artiles, a former state representative, was elected in November to District 40 in Southwest Miami-Dade County. With his resignation, his constituents will have no Senate representation for the last two critical weeks of the annual lawmaking session.Gov. Scott would have to call a special election to replace Artiles, probably within the next 60 days. Candidates are already lining up.Speaking to reporters Wednesday after he apologized, Artiles said then that he had no intention of resigning."If every time a senator made a mistake or someone made a mistake that they were going to resign, we'd have half the Senate gone for whatever reason," he said.Asked a second time, Artiles dug in his heels: "Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I'm not only (not) going to resign, but I'm also going to file for 2018 and win my election."
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is under fire today for comments about Hawaii and the federal judge who halted President Trump's travel ban.In media reports, Sessions is characterized as dismissively referring to Hawaii as "an island in the Pacific." In an interview on "The Mark Levin Show" Tuesday evening, Sessions says:"We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power."Hawaii federal Judge Derrick Watson issued an order last month that blocked the ban on travelers from several Muslim-majority countries. The Department of Justice is currently appealing the decision.Hawaii's two U.S. senators were harsh in their responses, particularly on Twitter.Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, tweeted: "Hey Jeff Sessions, this #IslandinthePacific has been the 50th state for going on 58 years. And we won't succumb to your dog whistle politics;" and " Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences -- including my own. Jeff Sessions' comments are ignorant & dangerous."Meanwhile, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted: "Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It's my home. Have some respect."Hirono also slammed Sessions in a statement: "The suggestion that being from Hawaii somehow disqualifies Judge Watson from performing his Constitutional duty is dangerous, ignorant, and prejudiced. I am frankly dumbfounded that our nation's top lawyer would attack our independent judiciary. But we shouldn't be surprised. This is just the latest in the Trump Administration's attacks against the very tenants of our Constitution and democracy."According to CNN, Justice Department spokesperson Ian D. Prior clarified Sessions' remarks in a statement: "Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific -- a beautiful one where the Attorney General's granddaughter was born," he said. "The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the President's lawful exercise of authority to keep the entire country safe."Late this afternoon, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin expressed disappointment with Sessions."President Trump previously called a federal judge in California a so-called judge," Chin said in a statement. "Now U.S. Attorney General Sessions appears to dismiss a federal judge in Hawaii as just a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific. Our Constitution created a separation of powers in the United States for a reason. Our federal courts, established under article III of the Constitution, are co-equal partners with Congress and the President. It is disappointing AG Sessions does not acknowledge that."
Protecting Privacy

Enforcing Immigration Laws

In the face of stepped-up deportation efforts, many unauthorized immigrants worry that state and local programs that are designed to help them could instead be used by federal agents to identify and expel them from the country.About a dozen states have created special drivers license programs for people who cant prove U.S. citizenship, and more than a dozen cities have started identification programs so that unauthorized immigrants and others can complete tasks such as opening bank accounts, enrolling their children in school and receiving government services.Under the programs, most of which were created in the last five years, state and local government agencies have reviewed and perhaps retained millions of documents with personal information about the applicants, such as their names, addresses and foreign identification numbers. Although there has always been a risk that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could request the documents, immigration advocates say the information could be more vulnerable now, in a political atmosphere that is increasingly hostile to immigrants.Fear is growing in immigrant communities that the federal government might try to obtain the information from local governments, said Emily Tucker, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, which backs the expansion of municipal ID programs and seeks to help unauthorized immigrants facing deportation.To try to ease the fear, lawmakers in states such as Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont have pushed various measures to prevent state and local resources from being used to enforce federal immigration law. In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed a law requiring local governments to get approval from the governor before assisting federal enforcement. In Washington state, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee issued an order saying state agencies will not collect information on immigrants beyond what is necessary to perform agency duties and will not use resources to apprehend people for being in the country illegally, except as required by law.Concerns over how information will be used are playing out in New York City, which has the largest municipal ID program in the country, serving more than 1 million residents.The city denied a request for copies of application documents from two Republican state lawmakers. The Assembly members, Ron Castorina and Nicole Malliotakis, then sued the city when it decided to move forward with destroying the documents as it had planned. A New York Supreme Court justice ruled earlier this month that the city can destroy the documents. The lawmakers plan to appeal the decision, their attorney said.The lawmakers said that they wanted the documents to carry out legitimate governmental and public interests, according to the judges ruling. The lawmakers did not respond to a request to elaborate.The growing concern over stepped-up enforcement has caused cities that were considering starting municipal ID programs to hold off or proceed more carefully, Tucker said.Tucker said that while its not likely ICE would be able to get hold of a list of cardholders, the perception that it might be able to is enough to make a program not work. The success of a program depends on high participation rates, she said.Matthew OBrien, research director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national organization that advocates halting illegal immigration, said the federal government legally can  and should  try to get any information it can from state and local governments as part of its investigations.OBrien said unauthorized immigrants should not be given access to public benefits such as drivers licenses in the first place. But if the programs are created, he said, immigrants who apply should know the risks.They made a conscious decision to enter the U.S. and remain here, he said. And then they made a conscious decision to apply for a drivers license.  So the claim that this is being unfair to them  Im not persuaded at all.Federal law prohibits unauthorized immigrants from enrolling in most public benefit programs, such as cash assistance, food stamps and Medicaid. But some states offer some benefits to unauthorized immigrants, such as health care for children and prenatal care, and review and collect personal information in the process.Local school districts also collect information on children, and states must provide free public education to all children regardless of their immigration status, in accordance with a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. About 20 states also allow unauthorized immigrants who are residents to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities under certain conditions. But federal law largely bars the schools from handing over most private student data without the students consent, a subpoena or a court order.At the local level, about 15 cities have created municipal IDs as a way to make life easier for undocumented immigrants, Tucker said. If youre a citizen, you dont think about what a privilege it is to have an ID or how often you need it.Documents that cities require to prove identity and residency under the programs include birth certificates, foreign identification documents, passports or utility bills. Under most programs, cities are prohibited from copying or retaining documents. City officials must simply review them and give them back, Tucker said.New York Citys was one of just a few city programs under which documents were retained. Under a December rule change, the New York program will no longer do so.As other cities consider creating programs, Tucker suggests that they follow the same practice. And applications should only ask for the information needed to administer the program, Tucker said. ICE cant get data that you dont keep.Philadelphia has been studying whether to create a program since last year, when Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez submitted a bill. Quinones-Sanchez said the program would provide a unified way for residents to access all city services that require identification, including health care, public safety and libraries.But Miriam Enriquez, director of Philadelphias Office of Immigrant Affairs, said her concerns about protecting the privacy of applicants are even greater under the Trump administration. There is so much anti-immigrant sentiment across the country and throughout the state right now.The city plans to study what other cities have done to address privacy concerns before moving forward, she said.Another way to increase the privacy of immigrants, Tucker said, is to get the general public to sign up for the IDs by offering various benefits to cardholders.New Yorks ID card gives free memberships and discounts at cultural institutions, said Rosemary Boeglin, spokeswoman for the Mayors Office of Immigrant Affairs. The program has never asked for or recorded information on immigration status, Boeglin said, and it has always been very confident in its ability to protect cardholder privacy.The New York Civil Liberties Union did not support the program when documents were being retained, but now it does, said Johanna Miller, the organizations advocacy director.As a privacy organization, one of the things we are constantly fighting against is unnecessary databases that could expose people, Miller said. This was just a textbook example of that.But some think its crucial to keep the documents. In testimony to the Supreme Court, Edward Mullins, a sergeant with the New York City Police Department and the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the union for city police sergeants, said that the citys decision to not retain backup documentation limits the ability of police to investigate crimes, particularly crimes involving undocumented immigrants.In those cases, his testimony said, the documents could assist law enforcement in locating a suspect by tracing previous addresses or family, which could be found in birth certificates, passports or residency documents.ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said federal agents often obtain information from state and local law enforcement agencies when conducting investigations on unauthorized immigrants, just as any other law enforcement agency would.ICE uses information from state motor vehicle departments to confirm someones identity or to locate them. But Bennett said those efforts are targeted at certain individuals, including those who pose a threat to public safety or national security, or those who are wanted for criminal or immigration charges. And while the agency has made requests for bulk data in the past, it found it to not be an effective way to do things.States created the special drivers license programs to benefit unauthorized immigrants, but also in an attempt to make the roads safer. The documents retained under the programs and the confidentiality protections built into the laws vary by state, said Tanya Broder, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrants.California has the largest drivers license program. It has issued 865,000 licenses under the program, which began in January 2015. It keeps proof of identity and residency documents for 13 years, according to Jessica Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles.The state has not received any requests from ICE to provide any documents submitted under the programs, such as birth certificates and passports, Gonzalez said. The state wont provide copies to any external entity, she said, except as required to by law, such as under a court order.Illinois also offers a drivers license available to those without proof of U.S. residency. If the secretary of states office, which administers the program, received a legally valid request from a federal agency for information regarding undocumented cardholders, the information would be provided, according to a state document. Other states have said that they would only provide the information if they were subpoenaed.The National Immigration Law Center has found that no federal policy governs how and when ICE obtains information from motor vehicle departments, although it has found instances in which ICE field offices have made bulk requests for information. In Atlanta, for instance, the field office planned to attempt to gain access to any temporary driver licenses issued to foreign born applicants for possible leads in an attempt to apprehend unauthorized immigrants with criminal warrants.Because it is still unclear what ICEs priorities in identifying and deporting unauthorized immigrants will be under the Trump administration, Broder said all drivers license applicants who are not in the country legally need to weigh the benefits of getting a license, which would prevent them from getting cited for not having one, against the risk of being easier to locate.So far, ICE spokeswoman Bennett said, the agencys priorities have not changed. It prioritizes finding and deporting unauthorized immigrants who pose a threat to national security or public safety, including those who are wanted on criminal or immigration charges.People like to make a lot of allegations about things that have changed from one administration to the next, she said. But we continue to be a law enforcement agency that continues to have priorities and do things in a way that is targeted and lead-driven, and that has not changed.
Regulators in Maryland have eased restrictions on the amount of marijuana prospective police officers may have smoked before being hired in the state _ a move Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis championed to boost his department's hiring efforts.The new rule, which received final approval from the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission on Wednesday, bars the hiring of any prospective officers who have smoked marijuana in the past three years. It replaces a state policy dating to the 1970s that had disqualified police applicants who had used marijuana more than 20 times in their lives, or five times since turning 21 years old.The rule was reviewed by the Office of Attorney General Brian E. Frosh. It takes effect June 1."It's a long time coming," said Davis, who is vice chairman of the state commission. "It gives us a greater pool of police applicants to consider as we are at a very critical time in our profession's history and we want to identify the right people."The department is still trying to recover from a surge in departures after the unrest of 2015. Davis said past marijuana use has been the "No. 1 disqualifier" of new applicants.Already in 2017, he said, 30 applicants have been denied employment solely because they ran afoul of the state policy.The training and standards commission, part of the state corrections department, regulates police hiring in the state. The panel voted 16-1 to approve the change, spokesman Gerard Shields said.The commission had recommended the change at its inaugural meeting in October. A legal review and a public comment period followed. Officials said they received no comments.The new rule allows individual police chiefs to hold applicants to their agencies to a stricter marijuana standard if they choose, officials said.Vince Canales, president of the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police and a member of the commission, cast the lone vote against the change.In an interview after the vote, he noted that marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, and said there "is still no real clarity" on how states _ including Maryland _ will treat the drug in coming years.Maryland has decriminalized the drug and has approved the use of medical marijuana. Other states have legalized the drug for recreational use."Until this thing settles, shakes itself out and it's determined how it's going to be handled around the country, we think the standard should be maintained as far as police officers are concerned," Canales said."I don't know that it necessarily takes away from the quality of the applicants that we have," Canales said. "I just think at this time, changing the standard without a wholesale look at the way marijuana is viewed in the state and around the country ... is premature."Davis noted that several federal law enforcement agencies maintain the standard the commission accepted Wednesday. As the state has relaxed its laws on marijuana, he said, it makes sense to ease restrictions on prospective officers.He said that the previous rule set an arbitrary cap on past pot use that stripped discretion from police leaders to hire otherwise qualified candidates _ including military veterans, and those with advanced degrees.Under the new rule, he said, "we're still going to ask if you smoked marijuana, we're still going to ask how many times, what the circumstances were, how old you were. ... But now we're going to take the totality of your answer and use discretion."Davis said disqualifications based on past pot use have been particularly prevalent among applicants from Baltimore _ a population from which the department is trying to recruit as it looks to repair its relationship with the local community as part of a broad reform effort.The U.S. Department of Justice reported last year that the department routinely engaged in discriminatory and unconstitutional policing, particularly in poor and African-American neighborhoods.The police department and the city have signed a consent decree with the Justice Department mandating reforms.The police department currently has about 120 vacancies to fill. Davis said the pot rule change will help it meet its goal of filling those positions and keeping up with future attrition by bringing on a new class of between 50 and 60 recruits every 11 weeks.He said it was "a big piece to the puzzle" to improving recruitment. He said the effort has also been helped by holding more recruiting events and easing other restrictions _ such as one that bars officers from showing tattoos on their arms."I would never want someone who would want to consider police work as a career to be discouraged from our profession because of tattoos on her arm or marijuana use in his past," Davis said. "I just want to be able to consider everyone who is willing to throw his hat in the ring, and pick the best ones."
Description

GIS - 21 April, 2017: The National Art Exhibition was launched on 19 April 2017 by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Prithvirajsing Roopun, at the Nelson Mandela Centre, at La Tour Koenig. The National Art Exhibition was launched on 19 April 2017 by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Prithvirajsing Roopun, at the Nelson Mandela Centre, at La Tour Koenig.

In his address, the Minister of Arts and Culture lauded the talents of the artists present and encouraged them in their endeavours. He urged them to get the necessary training to further develop and enhance their artistic aptitudes.

According to him, training is a key element that will enhance the skills of an artist and that the Ministry will provide incentives to open avenues for local artists to consolidate their status and increase their visibility.

In a bid to give a boost to local artists, Minister Roopun referred to Jane Constance, who has been designated as UNESCO Artist for Peace on 30 March 2017. He pointed out that the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, congratulated Jane Constance for her hardwork and dedication, on a symbolic ceremony held at the New Treasury Building, in Port Louis.

The exhibition is a platform for local artists to showcase and to sell their paintings and sculptures to the public, while also promoting their creativity, and their artistic skills. The exhibition will be open to the public on week days till 28 April 2017. It is organised by the Nelson Mandela Centre in collaboration with Action for Artistic Creation in the context of World Art Day celebrated annually on 15 April.

World Art Day

World Art Day is an international celebration of the fine arts which was declared by the International Association of Art in order to promote awareness of creative activity worldwide. This particular date was chosen in honour of Leonardo Da Vincis birthday, who is considered as a symbol of free expression, multiculturalism, tolerance, world peace and a visionary in the world of arts.
Description

GIS - 21 April, 2017: Mauritius signed a Memorandum of Understanding and initialled a Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with the Kingdom of Swaziland on 19 April 2017 at the Prime Ministers Office in Port Louis. The signatories for the Mauritian side was the Solicitor-General, Mr D. K. Dabee, and for the Swazi side the Director General of Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority, Mr Solomon Dube. Mauritius signed a Memorandum of Understanding and initialled a Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with the Kingdom of Swaziland on 19 April 2017 at the Prime Ministers Office in Port Louis. The signatories for the Mauritian side was the Solicitor-General, Mr D. K. Dabee, and for the Swazi side the Director General of Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority, Mr Solomon Dube.

The Agreement provides for multiple designation of airlines by each country and seven weekly frequencies to be operated by the designated airlines of each Party. Air Mauritius will also be able to exercise fifth freedom traffic rights at a number of intermediate and beyond points on routes specified in the Agreement. Both countries may operate all cargo services between and beyond the territory of the Contracting Parties without any capacity and frequency restrictions with full third, fourth and fifth freedom traffic rights.

It is expected that the new air services agreement will give a boost to passenger traffic between the two countries and will be beneficial for cross border collaboration, as well as enhance Swaziland investment opportunities in Mauritius. The BASA is also important for the air transport sectors contribution to the economic and social development of both countries.

The signature of the Agreement is a follow-up of a visit in February 2016 of a delegation from Swaziland, led by the Minister of Transport of the Government of the Kingdom Swaziland, to Mauritius. During the visit, it was agreed to review and modernise the existing Air Services Agreement.

The issue of air connectivity between Mauritius and Swaziland was also discussed between Mr Pravind K. Jugnauth, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Mauritius and Dr Sibusiso B. Dlamini, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Swaziland, in the margins of the inaugural session of the African Economic Platform, held last month in Mauritius.

Air Services between Mauritius and the Kingdom of Swaziland have so far been governed by the framework of an Agreed Record and a BASA concluded in May 1977. The Agreement provides, amongst others, for single designation of airline and one weekly frequency to be operated by the designated airline of each Contracting Party.

It will be recalled that in the late 70s and early 80s Royal Swazi National Airways operated direct air services between Mauritius and Swaziland. However, it ceased its services to Mauritius in 1981. In the absence of direct air links between Mauritius and Swaziland, passengers travel through the Johannesburg gateway. In 2016, tourist arrivals from Swaziland stood at 370.

The Singapore-Mauritius-Africa Air Transport Corridor project

In line with Vision 2030, the Government of Mauritius is implementing a more open and robust air access policy that takes into account both the national interest and economic growth. In this perspective, a collaboration agreement was signed between Air Mauritius and Changi Airport Group in Singapore.

The creation of this air corridor, which became operational in March 2016, serves as a link between Africa and Asia via Mauritius. As part of this initiative, Air Mauritius has expanded its network into Africa with two new destinations, namely, Maputo and Dar-es-Salaam.

Air Mauritius has also successfully managed to strike a commercial agreement and partnership with Singapore Airlines this year that gives a new impetus to the air corridor and makes travel beyond Singapore to Asian countries more economical. In this context, Swaziland has been invited to join the air corridor to bring new synergies and further strengthen this project.
Description

GIS - 21 April, 2017: A two-day national workshop on Mauritius Cooperatives and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) kicked off yesterday at the Intercontinental Hotel in Balaclava. This joint initiative of the Ministry of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aims to address the issues faced by cooperative societies as well as promote SDGs in the cooperative world. A two-day national workshop on Mauritius Cooperatives and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)kicked offyesterdayat the Intercontinental Hotel in Balaclava. This joint initiative of the Ministry of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aims to address the issues faced by cooperative societies as well as promote SDGs in the cooperative world.

Speaking of SDGs, Minister Bholah emphasised on the need to introduce sustainable development strategies in order to boost the cooperatives sector so that in turn, it can contribute to alleviate poverty in the fight against social and economic exclusion.

He underscored that the Government reckons the importance cooperatives and is committed to boost this sector for it to further contribute to the national economy. He pointed out that s everal schemes have been implemented to encourage the Small and Medium Enterprise sector (SME) and these can be extended to cooperative societies as well. These measures include: the 10-year master plan aimed at raising the SME share from 55% to 64%; the strategic plan 2016-2020 for the food crop and livestock to ensure food security; and the Marshall Plan to combat poverty and social exclusion.

For her part, the Head of Cooperation, European Union Delegation to Mauritius, Mrs Carla Osorio, reiterated the role of the UNDP which advocates for an equitable and prosperous society. She pointed out that SDGs, also referred as Global Goals, form part of a universal agreement to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development.

She stated that this platform will support the mobilisation of the Government and stakeholders for the better future of the cooperative sector. She appealed to the participants to take advantage of the workshop and to contribute in the implementation of an Action Plan for the SDGs.
In honor of the recent Open Data Day , here's what might seem a counterintuitive suggestion: Let'scelebrating open data.Why? A little history: It was back in early 2010 when a groundbreaking open data ordinance was introduced in the New York City Council. It became law two years later and provided a presumption that information previously hoarded by government agencies belonged not to them but to the public. In subsequent years, organizations like the Sunlight Foundation advocated for open data, and an enormous change began to occur across the country. Open data policies are now common at every level of government. We've moved beyond the need to celebrate it as special. Rather, we should regard it as a minimum and core requirement of government.What the movement should be pushing for instead isdata, and we're seeing considerable progress on that front. A group of chief data officers from large cities recently released a letter to the open data community that makes the point in a compelling way. The CDOs argue that the real issue is accessibility of data to a wider audience so that the number and types of users continue to expand. Simply counting the number of released data sets as a performance accomplishment misses the point. It's the production of useable data, along with the essential metadata to tie it together.Among other things, the CDOs call for governments to incorporate well-designed open data portals, with mobile-friendly access, that allow for chats and include guides, dashboards and social media communication. And they advocate making geospatial data, which they say has been "an underdeveloped and undervalued asset," integral to open data platforms.That approach to geospatial data is the direction Chicago is moving toward. CDO Tom Schenk Jr., who led early breakthroughs with his city's WindyGrid open data portal and its recent OpenGrid update , sees embedding maps in the fabric of open data is part of the broader strategy of lowering the level of data literacy needed to make use of it. OpenGrid, he pointed out, contextualizes information based the user's physical location and has a strong focus on mapping. "It's all about data literacy, whether you're enabling city employees, or the general public, or trying to get someone like your mother or your grandmother to interact with these sort of tools," Schenk said. "These are all very important things to make sure we're empowering our respective residents."Pittsburgh's "Burgh's Eye View" 311 visualization tool is a prime example of taking rather incomprehensible datasets and using visualization to translate lists of complaints filed into insights about the city. Launched last November, the site maps not only service requests but also arrests, police actions, building code violations and the like to allow residents to visually understand what happens in their neighborhoods. Citizens who report a faulty streetlight or a pothole can not only see their requests on a map but also the frequency and locations of similar requests, and can understand the broader context of the problems they report. Providing access to the information only via a spreadsheet misses the point entirely.As important as streetlights and potholes may be, the power of visualization to enhance understanding of broader urban issues cannot be overstated. Thanks to a dynamic, interactive "story map," for example, citizens around the country now can see just how much the issue of wealth divides us. This platform, produced by Esri, expresses how visible the rich-poor divide is in America's largest cities, illuminating the reality that poor neighborhoods are often just blocks from rich ones. Those divides are not so clear in a spreadsheet view.Beyond enhancing understanding of issues, data visualization drives action and spurs citizen-government collaboration. When I was deputy mayor for operations in New York City, the city's 311 call center reported that we were receiving 20 million calls a year but that nobody really knew the results of those calls. So we began to implement mapping software that placed dots on the location of citizen reports, with larger dots representing reports of higher frequency.The city trained community boards to use the software, and one day soon after I got a call from a community board member telling me that a large number of pedestrian accidents were occurring at a single intersection where a senior-citizen home was across the street from a pharmacy. As a result of this insight, which came directly from analyzing the issue on a map, we lengthened the walk-signal timing for the intersection, and there was a marked reduction in pedestrian incidents.But as shown by the work now being done in Pittsburgh, that kind of mapping software is outdated. The technologies available now are far superior, providing seemingly endless opportunities to weave visualization into the fabric of municipal government, from budget spending to crowdsourced reporting of abandoned property with citizen-provided smartphone pictures.The lesson for municipal officials is clear: When people can visualize a problem, they can truly understand an issue and be empowered to act on it. When it comes down to it, aren't we all visual learners?
In 2015, more than 5,300 pedestrians in the U.S. were killed by moving vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (PDF)  an almost 10 percent increase from pedestrian fatalities the prior year. Although the public has largely accepted (or perhaps turned a blind eye to) these statistics, one entity is looking to reverse this alarming trend.The Vision Zero Initiative  a platform created via public-private partnership for the collected knowledge about technology around traffic safety, according to its website  was formed in Sweden, and has made its way to cities across the United States, including New York; Austin, Texas; Los Angeles; and Denver. The program enforces a simple yet ambitious goal: to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.Shifting the paradigm in which residents view crashes as an accepted aspect of driving requires a multifaceted approach, including vocabulary usage and safer street designs. In a webinar hosted by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, representatives from San Francisco, New York City and an advocacy organization in Seattle explained how to go from vision to reality in this space.Like most programs, nothing will happen without leadership and someone pushing for results. In New York City, for instance, Mayor Bill de Blasio made reducing traffic fatalities a prominent aspect of his campaign, explained Rob Viola, director of safety policy and research at the citys Department of Transportation (NYC DOT).One reason why this program can work in cities throughout the country is safer streets should not be a partisan issue. Transportation changes are a political good that can be distributed to your constituents, said Viola.And according to the Big Apples Vision Zero progress report, the first three years of the platform's presence in New York City is the safest three-year period in the citys history.After de Blasio took office in 2014, he pressured the DOT to accept, a culture of experimentation. The city went on to conduct several pilot programs from using new methods of road restriping to redesigning streets to protect people who walk or ride their bicycles. One thing that changed, explained Viola, was they moved on quickly from projects that did not yield expected benefits. City leadership, he reiterated, is crucial to getting widespread buy-in to a vision zero program.Along with leadership from politically elected officials, road safety projects are more likely to attract media and garner attention from the public. City officials should keep progress in the public eye by getting a series of wins often and early, explained Luis Montoya, who leads a section in the Livable Streets subdivision of the SF Municipal Transit Agency (MTA).The city launched a campaign to complete 24 projects in 24 months. They can be as labor and capital intensive as installing a protected bike lane or as simple as line restriping or sign installation, explained Montoya. The key is to focus on high injury corridors identified through data collection.One such corridor, Mission Street in San Francisco, was the site of nearly one-fifth of all crashes in the city. The MTA installed red transit-only lanes and converted some through lanes to turn only, which increased safety considerably. In an independent study done by Zendrive, speeding, aggressive acceleration and hard braking had all declined.Both Montoya and Viola stressed the significance of using that early momentum to get a big win as early as possible. One action is to pass city legislation reducing the speed limit in major cities. New York City was able to pass Local Law 54 of 2014 , which reduced the default speed limit in the city to 25 mph.Studies have shown that risk of severe injury or fatality when being struck by a vehicle increase dramatically if the vehicle is traveling over 30 mph. A person walking struck by a person driving 40 mph is eight times more likely to die than one struck by a person driving at 20 mph.San Francisco is working on its own legislation on this front, putting hopes in AB 342 , which allows for the use of automated speed enforcement cameras for ticketing. The technology is currently forbidden in California, but the bill creates an exception for San Francisco and San Jose for a five-year pilot program.I really encourage you to aim high and set some really big goals, said Montoya. These are the things it is going to take to get to zero.
(TNS) -- The project to build a high-speed internet network across Kentucky has hit some delays and wont be done nearly as soon as officials first announced, but its coming.Officials with the state agency overseeing the project, the Kentucky Network Communications Authority, said at a meeting Thursday that progress continues on the KentuckyWired initiative.There has been some construction, including installation of more than 225,000 feet of underground conduit, and the authority has signed agreements to attach fiber-optic cable for the network to 88 percent of the 78,000 utility poles needed.About 85 percent of the 3,200 miles of cable for the network will be strung on utility poles owned by companies or utilities, with the rest buried.In addition, negotiations continue with private businesses to use their systems as part of the network. The state signed a deal with the Bluegrass Network at the meeting Thursday.That will bring 315 miles of fiber in 21 counties into the network that otherwise would have been built as part of KentuckyWired, saving millions on the project, officials said.Its not clear when construction will be done and the network lit up in different areas, but the project will be completed, said Phillip Brown, executive director of the KCNA.The commitment to the project remains 100 percent by Gov. Matt Bevins administration, Brown said.The project is set up as a public-private partnership, with a private vendor building and running the network but the state owning it.The state legislature approved $30 million for the project and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, arranged for $23.5 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission.An Australian company, Macquarie Group, won the solicitation to build, operate and maintain the system for 30 years. It sold $270.9 million in bonds for the project, with Kentucky taxpayers obligated to make good on the debt.A key piece of Macquaries return will be from selling internet service to hundreds of state-government sites, technical-college campuses and universities.The project will provide an access point to the high-speed network in each county, but other providers will have to extend the service to individual homes and businesses  whats called last mile service.Supporters believe the network will have a historic impact on the states economy, helping businesses compete in a digital economy and improving education and health care.There are currently gaps in availability of high-speed internet in the state. One federal official said at a June 2016 conference that 34 percent of houses in rural Kentucky could not access what the federal government defines as broadband  a download speed of 25 megabytes per second.Officials first estimated the network would be up and running in Eastern Kentucky by April 2016.After Bevin succeeded Steve Beshear as governor in December 2015, a push began to set up partnerships with private companies, telephone co-ops and others that already provide internet service. That contributed to some delay, but avoids duplication and saves money, officials said.The deal with five service providers in Eastern Kentucky, for instance, saved an estimated $6.7 million in projected construction costs, the authority said earlier.Some people object to government owning a service that private companies provide, but the authority is making every effort to involve businesses, Brown said.Brown also said it took much longer than anticipated to negotiate agreements with pole owners to attach KentuckyWired cable, pushing back the construction timetable.Also, a separate engineering drawing is required for each of the 70,000-plus poles where the cable will be attached, Brown said.It may be possible to start stringing some cable on poles in the next three months, Brown said.Were working to make up that ground, he said.Eastern Kentucky and the Lexington-Louisville-Northern Kentucky triangle are slated to be the first areas to complete the project. Construction in the Golden Triangle is critical to expansion in Eastern Kentucky because of connection points to the worldwide web, according to the authority.The KCNA board approved Brown as the new head of the agency at Thursdays meeting. He had been chief of staff at the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet.Brown replaces Chris Moore, who left the job after less than a year.The administration has not resolved a hole in the initial plan to pay the states obligation for the network.Part of the revenue was to come from providing internet service to more than 170 public school districts. However, AT&T has a long-term contract to provide that service and didnt want to give it up. That meant about $12 million was not available to pay Macquarie as planned.In addition, the new system is not yet in place to generate revenue.The legislature provided money to cover the debt payments to Macquarie in the 2016-2017 budget.
(TNS) -- The use of Internet-connected devices like cell phones, tablets  and even garage-door openers and the thermostats on our living-room walls  is exploding. Internet providers are scrambling to keep up, and right now that includes shoebox-sized antennas that can be affixed to traffic signals and that can greatly increase the number of people connected in congested areas.Unfortunately, the scramble to affix these so-called small-cell antennas, or small cells, is being hampered by outdated state and local regulations and requirements written for and put in place for the massive cell towers of yesterday.Because Minnesota must keep pace with technology if it wants to keep up with other states and the rest of the world in attracting business and encouraging economic progress, the Legislature this session can take action to streamline and make consistent throughout the state rules, regulations and requirements for small cells."The deployment of small cells is one way providers can meet the demands on the network and also prepare for the next generation of wireless technologies called 5G," Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO David Ross wrote in February in a letter urging lawmakers to find agreement on new measures. "This legislation will help enhance the wireless networks that Minnesota businesses rely upon to grow their companies and attract new investment.""These are the future," AT&T Minnesota President Paul Weirtz said of small cells in an interview last week with the News Tribune editorial board. "The argument is if we can get some parameters as to how to deploy this over the 854 communities in Minnesota, just some standards around that, it's going to get those antennas employed sooner. And that's going to help bring that 5G wireless coverage quicker to Minnesota."The parameters the Legislature needs to determine  and, encouragingly, it's working with providers, the League of Minnesota Cities and others to do so  include how much cities receive in rent, or rates, for small cells on traffic signals and in public right-of-ways. That varies widely right now. In cities in Ohio, it's $200 per year, for example. In Indiana, cities charge $50 a year, according to Weirtz.But in Duluth, he said, the reported rate runs $6,000 annually.Clearly, Internet providers right now aren't getting the consistent and fair rates they deserve and for which they can plan and with which they can do their work."We're not seeing these rates anywhere else in the country," Weirtz said of Duluth's. "The legislation we're hoping to do would put some common sense around a statewide rate structure. We don't know what that number is going to be, but, you know, we're hoping it's south of $6,000."There's urgency in the Legislature getting this done this session. The Super Bowl is coming to Minneapolis next year. How embarrassing to our state if the throngs of fans and media from around the world aren't able to stay connected. Also, other states  including Ohio, Arizona, Virginia, Colorado and Iowa  are ahead of Minnesota in the race to cash in on the 5G technology."You really can't underestimate the demand for 5G that's going to be out there. It's less than two years away," said Weirtz, who's also a member of the Governor's Task Force on Broadband. "And my concern is, OK, right now, if Iowa signs a bill into law before we do, Radar O'Reilly's hometown of Ottumwa, Iowa, is going to look like a lot better place to invest in than Duluth. Its terms and conditions are going to be better. ... This is job creation."And the sort of legislation that stands to benefit all of Minnesota. A deal has to be found. This session.
(TNS) -- RALEIGH  The state House on Thursday approved the Bright Futures Act, a bill designed to expand high-speed internet service to rural communities and other underserved areas.The legislation now moves to the Senate.The bill will help those communities grow their economies and draw jobs, state Rep. John Szoka of Cumberland County said during debate on the House floor. He is the lead sponsor of the bill.Rural and underserved areas have historically been left behind when key technology and infrastructure have been required for economic development, Szoka said in a news release from the office of House Speaker Tim Moore.The news release says the bill could help bring high-speed internet to 3 million people in 85 of North Carolinas 100 counties.The legislation would allow cities and counties with fiber optic cables or other internet-capable infrastructure installed for municipal needs to lease the excess capacity to private internet service providers to offer internet to residents and businesses.Further, public-private partnerships could be created to install infrastructure to spread the service, Szoka said.The legislation is designed to be flexible on how the infrastructure is installed  it could be a traditional wired connection, a high-speed wireless connection, or whatever other technology is developed to do the job, Szoka has said in interviews about the legislation.The state has previously passed laws to prevent city and county governments from providing internet service to their communities. The policy was premised on the theory that the government would be competing against private companies.At the same time, private high-speed internet providers have skipped much of the state because there is insufficient profit potential in low-population areas to cover the costs.This legislation does not permit local governments to independently provide internet service to their residents.
(TNS) -- Museums are often catalogues of the past.But a new exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will showcase the possible future of cybersecurity.Mayhem, a cybersecurity bot that uses artificial intelligence to detect and defend against attacks, was put on display Tuesday on the first floor of the Washington museum's innovation wing. Mayhem was built and designed by Pittsburgh-based ForAllSecure.It's an amazing piece of technology by itself, said Arthur Daemmrich, director of the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation , a think tank inside the National Museum of American History and geared toward innovation. Mayhem represents not only an innovative approach to cybersecurity, he said, but it's also a symbol of the advancements in artificial intelligence. Mayhem won the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's first-ever Cyber Grand Challenge in August. The computer competed against six other computers in 96 rounds of Capture the Flag, a competitive hacking game in which players must protect their system while trying to exploit others. What made the Cyber Grand Challenge unique was that the computers were operating autonomously, detecting and patching holes in their own defenses while watching for intrusions.The competition showcased a new approach to cybersecurity.Instead of defending against known viruses, worms or other attacks, Mayhem can scan a system for vulnerabilities and fix them before they are exploited.We have defense mechanisms that rely on what the hack code is and searching for it, but then whenever someone creates a new one, it's not in one of those libraries, Daemmrich said. You're always behind the curve, but here's an artificial intelligence system that from the start was designed to prevent and find those hacks.That's a significant step forward.The museum is displaying Mayhem, a computer box that's lit with LED lights just as it was during the Cyber Grand Challenge. There is a placard in front of the computer explaining Mayhem's significance and a video playing next to it featuring footage from the Cyber Grand Challenge and interviews with ForAllSecure.Mayhem represents the possibilities for innovation, said Tiffany To, ForAllSecure's COO. This is a technology that is just starting to gain awareness and I think it will be really interesting to see how it progresses and how it will be used.Alexandre Rebert, a co-founder and the captain of the Cyber Grand Challenge team, said that while the Cyber Grand Challenge showed that a security system such as Mayhem is possible, he hoped its inclusion in the Smithsonian would spread the word.Business at ForAllSecure has picked up since the team won the Cyber Grand Challenge. ForAllSecure was founded in 2012 as a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff company. To, of ForAllSecure, said the company has attracted interest from agencies in the federal government, banks and financial institutions and companies that make connected devices to bolster their cybersecurity. Rebert said the company is also building a database of connected devices, the Internet of Things, that includes ForAllSecure's assessment of how secure the products are.Our commercialization strategy is to make it as useful to as many people as possible, Rebert said.The future of ForAllSecure aside, Daemmrich wanted to include Mayhem in the museum to spark a conversation about artificial intelligence and its effect on employment. The museum is full of technology that has disrupted the workforce, Daemmrich said. As you walk through the museum's innovation wing to get to Mayhem, you pass a patent model of a pin maker from the 1860s that automated the job of making clothing pins.That's not the end of employment, Daemmrich said of the pin maker. We're at a historical moment right now where our artificial intelligence is going to open new avenues but also threaten types of works.Daemmrich said society hasn't been great about transitioning workers displaced by technology into new fields. We need to do better this time, Daemmrich said. Exhibits in the museum, especially Mayhem, aren't included to tell visitors what technology will do to the future, it's to show people the technology that will affect the future and get them talking about how to manage it.Mayhem seems to be doing that, Daemmrich said. Not 48 hours after the museum put it on display, it was drawing quite a buzz.
As the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more pervasive in everyday life, more industrial systems are connected to the Internet, which creates risk to the operational technology (OT) involved in running those systems.That was one of the takeaway messages during a symposium on Thursday that discussed security issues surrounding supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The event was organized byparent company e.Republic and sponsored by ForeScout, Intel Security and Dyntek.Operational technology refers to all technology thats involved in real-world and time-sensitive processes, and its associated SCADA controls pipelines, HVAC systems and factories."It's very important that IT folks know that there are major differences between the IT system and the ramifications if they go down versus what will happen if a system goes down on the SCADA side of the house," said Intel Security's Senior Cyber Security Consultant Khaled Brown during the panel discussion.Since OT is technology that was built pre-Internet and is goal-oriented, its security is not always a top priority, Brown said. Others agreed."I think it's still sort of a nascent field which is ironic because industrial systems, operational systems are from a past era," said Alex Eisen, a security researcher for ForeScout. Eisen later continued, "Think about trains, iron, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and now we find ourselves in this modern world, information age, where a lot of these hard skills and experience is sort of tucked away."The panel discussed risks to assuming OT and IT systems are not connected. Brown went on to describe multiple attacks that have happened because of unknown entanglement between the two systems.The panelists  which included representatives from SMUD, the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District, security companies, and others  discussed how OT systems can be protected:Checking vulnerability updates  IT employees can keep up to date on OT vulnerabilities by checking in with vendors and drawing attention to concerns.Third-party patching  The OT vendor must have approved the patch since any applications could shut down while patches are being made. Even virus protection could shut down the system because the system regularly creates and deletes new files to fulfill its function.Physical security  This means knowing who handles hardware while in transit, giving background checks to those handling hardware and maintaining security cameras, on a separated network, that can watch for hardware that should not be connected to the OT system.Updating interfaces  Maintaining up-to-date maps and lists of where hardware is working. Not knowing where things are means they cannot be secured.Standards compliance  Understanding the standards that apply to an industry and whether or not a patch will meet those requirements will allow operators to assess the patch's worth and plan risk assessment.Meeting regularly with OT  Building relationships with OT operators allows for a more in-depth understanding of the system and employee concerns.
The German grand prix could move away from its traditional venues at Hockenheim and the Nurburgring in the future.

That is the claim of new F1 supremo Chase Carey, who told the German news agency DPA that the German market is important for the sport.

"Last year, a German driver won in a German car, so it's a very important market," the American said.

"It is certainly one of our goals to be represented in the German market," Carey added. "We are just about to investigate how best to manage this.

"We don't have any answers yet," he said. "I have already met with some German representatives, and naturally we are talking about the two race tracks that have held the German grand prix in the past.

"But we are also looking at other options. Ultimately, however, it is too early to make concrete statements," said Carey.

Carey said another priority for Liberty Media is a second American race, to complement the existing US grand prix.

"We have a great partnership with the circuit in Austin," he said, "but we believe we can add a race in a 'destination city', as I call it. I'm talking about New York, Miami, Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

"These are cities that are best suited to create a one-week event and attract people from all over the world. The race will remain the centre of the event, but overall it will be more than just a formula one weekend."

(GMM)
Honda could finally be set to add a customer team to its beleaguered F1 engine supply programme.

Since the struggling Japanese carmaker re-entered the sport in 2015, there have been rumours of customer deals, including with Red Bull and Sauber.

But works partner McLaren has had 'veto' power, and former team supremo Ron Dennis has insisted on exclusivity.

That could be about to change.

Honda is struggling more than ever in 2017, amid the latest rising speculation that a customer deal with Sauber is on the cards for next year and seen as an easy way to effectively double the data needed to improve.

Asked if the road is now clear for a 'customer' Honda team, McLaren team boss Eric Boullier said: "I think so.

"We will provide support in finding a customer," the Frenchman is quoted by the Swiss newspaper Blick.

Boullier explained: "This year, Honda would not have been able. Everybody would have been weakened. But now things are different."

(GMM)
F1 legend Gerhard Berger hopes Fernando Alonso's decision to do the Indy 500 next month is the start of a new trend.

"It's like the old days," said the former Ferrari and McLaren driver, referring to when drivers would routinely combine their F1 duties with races into other categories.

"We must finally break these formalities," Berger told Auto Motor und Sport.

"In 1985 I drove for Arrows in Adelaide and the day before did a national touring car race for Bob Jane," he recalled. "It was still possible in those days and everyone had their fun."

Berger is now the boss of the German touring car series DTM, and he hopes Alonso's move to Indy is the start of a new trend.

"I'm sure Vettel would like to do DTM races if he could," said the Austrian. "Drivers today have much more spare time than we used to, as there is hardly any testing."

(GMM)
Valtteri Bottas needs to win races to secure his place at Mercedes.

That is the view of former driver and now regular F1 steward Mika Salo, who spoke to Russia's Sport FM about the progress of his Finnish countryman.

"If you look at the statistics, Bottas is on average closer to Hamilton's times than Rosberg was," said the former Ferrari and Sauber driver.

"But he also knows that he is under pressure. Valtteri needs to win a few races, because he has a contract at Mercedes for only one year," Salo added.

Salo, 50, also commented on the fate of Russian driver Daniil Kvyat, who after a tumultuous 2016 season is now fighting back for F1 credibility this year.

"Daniil had a difficult year last year, with significant issues," said the Finn.

"But I'm glad that he is now back in shape and going better than Sainz. I'm sure Kvyat has a good future in formula one," Salo added.

(GMM)
President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into whether foreign steel imports are damaging U.S. national security, saying his administration would "fight for American workers and American-made steel."

The probe is authorized under a rarely used section of a 1962 trade law that allows a president to restrict imports in cases where security interests are at stake.

"This has nothing to do with China," Trump insisted, adding, "This has to do with worldwide, what's happening. The dumping problem is a worldwide problem."

 Steel Industry

Surrounded by steel industry executives at an Oval Office signing ceremony Thursday, Trump clearly stated the probe was not directed at China, which has long been accused of dumping its excess steel production on U.S. markets.

The president said the investigation could be completed within 50 days, far ahead of the nine months prescribed by law.

Shares of steel companies surged on news of the probe. The price of United States Steel Corporation stock was up more than 8 percent soon after the announcement.

"The important question is protecting our defense needs," said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who added the investigation is designed to find a balance between free trade and national security while building up the U.S. military. "And we will do whatever is necessary to do that."

Ross noted that steel imports rose nearly 20 percent in the first two months of this year, much of it from China, and now make up more than 26 percent of the entire American marketplace.

"Steel imports, despite measures already taken, have continued to rise despite repeated Chinese claims that they were going to reduce their steel capacity," he said. "Instead, they have actually been increasing it consistently."
Electric shoppers in California are now able to select one fixed payment for a 36-month term. No other manufacturer currently offers this kind of subscription option for their battery-electric vehicle offerings. Hyundai designed the entire process to be transparent, stress-free and enjoyable. The monthly payment includes:

Hyundai Motor America launched its new Ioniq Unlimited+ electric vehicle subscription program for California residents. This innovative program offers a carefree way to drive Hyundais newest zero-emission, eco-focused vehicle; the 2017 Ioniq Electric. ( Earlier post .)

$0 initiation fee after rebate

Hassle-free transaction

Initial tax, title, license and fees (except California sales tax)

Unlimited mileage (no mileage penalties)

Electric charging reimbursement

Scheduled maintenance

Vehicle wear items

Ioniq Unlimited+ provides zero initiation costs after rebate, where the customers initial $2,500 down payment is offset by the California electric vehicle rebate. This initiation fee includes all taxes (except California sales tax) and dealer charges, as well as the first monthly payment. The remaining monthly subscription payment is based simply on the Ioniq Electric model chosen.

Ioniq Unlimited+ Subscription Ioniq Electric Trims Monthly payment Electric $275 + tax Limited $305 + tax Limited w/ Ultimate Package $365 + tax

Ioniq Unlimited+, besides offering a single-payment method, includes an online buying experience, where customers can select the exact vehicle from their preferred dealers inventory and preview the all-inclusive monthly payment online. Once they complete a credit application and are approved, they go directly to the dealership to complete the purchase. At the dealer, the shopper just signs a few forms and drives away in an Ioniq Electric. The tax, title, license, and dealer fees are included. Equally important to many EV customers, the Ioniq Electric will be HOV-sticker eligible, allowing Ioniq drivers to use carpool lanes on their daily travels.

There are no mileage penalties during the 36-month subscription period. The program also includes reimbursement for electricity used by the owner, based on the number of miles driven, up to the first 50,000 miles. This electricity credit will be applied directly to the owners subsequent monthly payment, for immediate monetary benefit to the customer.

All service, maintenance and wear items on the Ioniq Electric are also included during the first 50,000 miles, further enhancing the worry-free experience.

The Ioniq Electric initially will be available to Los Angeles/Orange/Riverside county residents only, expanding to Northern California and San Diego later this year. The Ioniq Unlimited+ subscription program is only available to California residents.

For those customers who are interested in a more traditional buying experience, a direct purchasing option is available for the Ioniq Electric. The purchasing options include Hyundais industry-leading Lifetime Battery Warranty and Americas Best Warranty for the entire Ioniq powertrain, to the original purchaser.
Silexica , a provider of multicore software design automation addressing complex, multicore platforms, released of its new SLX Automotive Development package, which provides programming support for multicore automotive software. New features include source-level static/dynamic analysis and visualization of inter-component dependencies in automotive applications (i.e., dependencies across runnables and tasks), visualization of multicore runnable schedules, and compatibility with AUTOSAR configuration files, among others.

The SLX Automotive Development package integrates seamlessly with all other tools in the SLX IDE (integrated development environment), and also provides interactive source code navigation for complex multicore automotive projects.

The SLX Automotive Development package also features high-level models of the Infineon TriCore 1.6P architecture and Aurix TC297T multicore SoC (system on a chip). These models enable fast and accurate cross-target performance and communication overhead estimation during parallelization and distribution analyzes. The new platform models are also compatible with the SLX Mapper, SLX Parallelizer and SLX Explorer.

With its high-performing hexa-core architecture and its advanced features for connectivity, security and embedded safety, our TriCore-based microcontroller family AURIX is key to the fully automated and purely electric car. Infineon appreciates the efficiency and automation that Silexicas tools bring to the complex task of programming and distributing code over multi-processor based platforms helping to make vehicles of every class automated and purely electric. Ralf Kodel, Director Vehicle Assistance Systems at Infineon Technologies AG

We understand that the complexity of programming and code distribution for automotive applications will continue to increase dramatically as automotive multicore platforms are moving towards a central supercomputer. Our tools bring a new level of automation to this challenge while cutting development time and increasing efficiency. Maximilian Odendahl, Silexica CEO

In January 2017, Silexica joined the Automotive Open System Architecture (AUTOSAR), a worldwide development partnership of vehicle manufacturers, suppliers and other companies from the electronics, semiconductor and software industry. The company also participates in the ARAMiS II Project, a large-scale research project with a goal to create tools, methodologies, infrastructure and solutions for structured multicore development. Silexica is leading the work package Multicore Tools: Parallelization.

Silexica is a privately held company with offices in Silicon Valley, Germany, Japan, South Korea and China.
The White House has not confirmed the meeting, which would take place before the NATO summit in Brussels later in the month.

Erdogan said Thursday in an interview with Turkish broadcaster A Haber that the two leaders would meet May 16-17 for the first time since Trump was elected in November. "I hope and pray that this tete-a-tete meeting in the United States in May will lay the foundation for a stronger cooperation," Erdogan said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will meet in Washington next month with U.S. President Donald Trump, who called Erdogan on Monday to congratulate him on narrowly winning a disputed referendum that will significantly expand the powers of his presidency.

 European Reaction

Trump's congratulatory call to Erdogan contrasted sharply with the muted reaction of European leaders who are concerned about the results of the referendum, which are being challenged by the opposition.

While announcing the meeting with Trump, Erdogan also said challenges to the referendum's results were beyond the authority of the European Court of Human Rights.

Erdogan's controversial victory essentially reaffirms his authoritarian rule. The result is an amended Constitution that scraps the current parliamentary political system and allows the victor of the 2019 presidential election to take complete control of the government.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cazvusoglu told reporters in Ankara on Wednesday that the U.S. and Turkish leaders expressed a common desire to meet in Washington "to improve bilateral relations."

Turkey wants a strong relationship with the Trump administration. The country's relations with NATO and former President Barack Obama soured over Syria as well as Turkey's repeated requests for the extradition of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Ankara has accused Gullen of ordering last July's failed coup, an accusation Gulen strongly denies.

 Tillerson Visit

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson became the most senior American official to visit Turkey. Tillerson met with Turkish leaders and discussed the Syrian civil war and the battle against Islamic State (IS).

The U.S. and Turkey are at odds over whether Kurdish militia are the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria. Turkey claims the Kurdish militia are composed of terrorists who are associated with outlawed Kurdish militants leading an insurgency in Turkey.

The U.S. and Turkish presidents are in agreement, however, that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be punished for using chemical weapons against civilians. A White House statement issued after they talked Monday said "President Trump thanked President Erdogan for supporting this action by the United States" -- a reference to a U.S. missile strike April 7 on a Syrian airfield.
An Idaho woman is accused of slicing a mans ear with a knife during an altercation in Green River over the weekend.

Lexie Coziah, 57, of Lewisville, Idaho, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault Saturday night. The charge carries a potential maximum prison sentence of 10 years, as well as a maximum fine of up to $10,000.

According to court documents, officers from the Green River Police Department were dispatched to 135 Fox Hills Drive for a subject removal call. Officers were told the woman at the residence had attempted to stab the person making the call, later identified a...
The Green River Chamber is excited to announce our brand new Shop Green River campaign.

The idea was formed through the chambers Business Development and Retention committee to encourage Green River pride and entice people to shop locally.

As more people support our already existing local shops, more shopping opportunities will follow. Shopping locally helps strengthen the economic base of our community and contributes to new job creation. The average community derives 76 percent of their new jobs and capital investment from existing businesses. However, in a more rural area li...
We appreciate members of Wyomings delegation to Washington D.C., coming to Sweetwater County during the congressional break, but we think more could have been done to give residents a chance to voice their thoughts about what should be done in Congress.

We realize Sen. Mike Enzi, Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Liz Cheney have very strict schedules and do appreciate the time they do spend in Southwest Wyoming, but a hospital visit and lunch with the Sweetwater County Commissioners isnt the best way to get a feeling for what their constituents want done in Washington, D.C. We believe the d...
Wyomings Democrats decided new leadership is needed and chose a Rock Springs resident to head up the state party.

Two weeks ago, Joe Barbuto was elected chair of the Wyoming Democratic Party during a meeting in Sheridan. Barbuto replaces Ana Cuprill, a Democrat from Sublette County. He will serve a two-year term, which is up in 2019.

Barbuto is a former state legislator, having serviced residents in Rock Springs living in House District 48. Hes also served as chair of the Sweetwater County Democratic Party and was most recently the campaign manager for Ryan Greenes failed election...
Acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn on Thursday asked the military to reinforce its defenses and warned that North Korea is poised to carry out a provocation around April 25. There are increasing signs that the North is getting ready to conduct a fresh nuclear test, and a U.S. Navy strike group headed by the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is expected to return to waters off the Korean Peninsula around the same time. "Rumors about an impending crisis on the peninsula have now subsided significantly, but military tensions are still high," a government source here said.

Hwang told a meeting of ministers, "The North failed in its attempted missile launch on Sunday, but there are worries that it will carry out a provocation on the founding anniversary of its Army on April 25 given its recent behavior and statements." He called on the military and all ministries to "keep close watch for such a possibility and reinforce their immediate response posture." A nuclear sniffer plane was sent into skies over the East Sea on an emergency mission Thursday to prepare for another nuclear test by the North. The WC-135 of the U.S. Air Force has been on standby for any mission since it arrived at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan on April 7. It collects air samples from the atmosphere and can determine whether any nuclear detonation is from a plutonium or a uranium bomb.

South Korea's Air Force Operations Command and the U.S. Forces Korea's Seventh Air Force have been staging a massive joint exercise dubbed Max Thunder since April 14, an Air Force spokesman here said. It simulates precision airstrikes on the North's command posts, including leader Kim Jong-un's underground bunker, and air fields, as well as its nuclear and missile bases. A military source here speculated, "There's a likelihood that military tensions will rise again after a fresh provocation from the North."
GREENSBORO  Art decorates the citys downtown streets, colleges, parks, libraries, neighborhoods  even parking-garage stairwells.

Action Greensboro has created an easier way to find it all, through an online interactive map.

Located on the Google Maps website, it pinpoints the location of more than 165 sculptures, murals, decorative gates and benches and other art.

Simply click on a location or the name of a piece and find details about the work and the artist who created it, a photograph and the address where it can be found.

The real goal is for people to understand what a rich and vast collection of public art works we have in Greensboro, said Cecelia Thompson, the executive director of Action Greensboro, a nonprofit organization that champions efforts to enhance the citys economic development and quality of life.

Back in 2015, Thompson joined about 100 community leaders on a Greensboro Chamber of Commerce trip to Chattanooga, Tenn., to examine its amenities and workforce development.

They saw a brochure that mapped and described Chattanoogas 150-plus pieces of public art.

We thought, Wouldnt it be nice if we put together some sort of map of our own, to encourage the public to explore their city through its public art collection,  Thompson said.

Action Greensboro collaborated with ArtsGreensboro, the Public Art Endowment of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, public art consultants Cheryl Stewart and Barbara Peck, and City Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann to catalog the citys pieces.

Action Greensboro interns Will Leimenstoll and Taylor Curry compiled the data.

Nine photographers  Lynn Donovan, Bert and Rebecka VanderVeen, Smith Woosley, Khadejeh Nikouyeh, Ted Partrick, Lynn Hey, Carolyn DeBerry and Julie Knight  took photos and donated them to the project.

Curry and Candace Tucker, Action Greensboros communications manager, created the map without charge on Google Maps.

It made its debut earlier this month. Its images span from community murals  such as one newly installed on the wall of Westerwood Tavern  to the massive aerial net sculpture titled Where We Met by internationally known sculptor Janet Echelman in downtowns Carolyn & Maurice LeBauer Park.

Want to find Jim Galluccis signature decorative metal gates and other works? James Barnhills Greensboro Four sculpture? Erik Beerbowers bike racks and benches? No Blank Walls murals?

The map can guide you there. And it's accessible on cellphones.

If you are on foot and want to explore downtown art, you can navigate it more easily, Thompson said.

She said she wants people to submit other public artworks they know of so those pieces can be added to the map.

We wanted everyone to be able to own it, she said.

Having the map online rather than in print makes it easy for Action Greensboro to update it, Thompson said.

That will come in handy.

Since its debut, several people have emailed Action Greensboro about other public art pieces.

Its surprising to see how many pieces are added by the month in Greensboro, Thompson said.
GREENSBORO - Downtown is getting a new wine bar.

Jake Ngo said he is opening White + Wood at 215 S. Elm St.

It is opening in the former home of Mid-City Sandwich Company.

Chef Christopher Russell sold the space to Ngo and plans to reopen Mid-City at a new location.

Business was good, but it was an opportunity we would be foolish not to take and decided to go in that direction, Russell said.

Ngo, who moved to Greensboro from San Francisco, said the wine bar is inspired by the wine country of California.

Ive worked with a lot of the famous chefs from the bay area, said Ngo who has been in the food and wine business for 25 years. The Napa Valley and Sonoma areas have been my backyard. I am hoping to bring that to downtown Greensboro.

The wine bar will offer salads, sandwiches, raw fish and oysters.

Ngo said the concept will include a marketplace where you can pick up a bottle of wine and a cheese and cured meat board to go.

Ngo said he plans to open White + Wood in June after giving the space a facelift.

In the meantime, Russell, who also operates B. Christopher's at 201 N. Elm St., is not ruling out downtown in his search for a new home for Mid-City Sandwich Company.

We believe in the concept, Russell said. We are looking at other options and other locations.

Mid-City opened a year ago in the space formerly Fincastles Diner. It served sandwiches, soups, salads and flat-bread pizza.
April 21, 1986

A rediscovered vault in Chicagos Lexington Hotel that was linked to gangster Al Capone was opened during a widely watched live TV special hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Aside from a few bottles and a sign, the vault turned out to be empty. But it turned out to be the most-watched syndicated news special in television history. Murray Frymer of Knight-Ridder newspapers wrote in a profile of Rivera a few years later: It (the vault) was bricked in and had never been opened. So, it was hinted, maybe this was where Capone stashed some of his loot. Rivera ... loved the idea. He says he thought it was cant-miss television. The least likely thing, I figured, was that we would find nothing behind that wall. And most people agreed with me. We thought wed find cash or bodies. The IRS was there and the coroner was there. 
Washington is considering whether it should put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday. The remark came two days after Washington announced a new North Korea strategy of "maximum pressure and engagement" on Monday.

Tillerson told reporters at the State Department. "We're reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to reengage with us," he said. "We are evaluating all of those options."

A diplomatic source in Washington said the Trump administration is mobilizing all non-military sanctions but keeping military options open. But the source added Washington will not hold talks for the sake of talks but expects substantial signs that the North is willing to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.

But there are not many additional sanctions the U.S. can impose even if the North is put back on the list of terror sponsors, though that could make it harder for the North to receive aid from international organizations.

There are currently three countries on the list -- Iran, Sudan and Syria.

The North was put on the list in January 1988 after it blew up Korean Air Flight 858 the previous year. But it was struck off the list in November 2008 under a deal with the Bush administration.


Sthefany Flores is lucky. For now.

The 20-year-old student at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs was spared from deportation as an illegal immigrant just in time. On Monday night, she received an email from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency letting her know she did not have to report to Charlotte Wednesday for a meeting and possible deportation as previously instructed.

The initial order was a mistake. Flores has protected status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program instituted by the Obama administration. While President Donald Trump has toughened immigration enforcement, he hasnt revoked DACA.

Or has he? The same day that The Charlotte Observer and Asheville Citizen-Times wrote about Flores reprieve, USA Today reported on the deportation in February of Juan Manuel Montes from California to his native Mexico. Montes was picked up by ICE agents and removed from the country within hours when he couldnt provide his DACA papers. His attorneys showed USA Today a copy of Montes work authorization card, which is valid through 2018. Yet he remains out of the country.

Montes does have a conviction for shoplifting and three citations for driving without a license  violations not severe enough to warrant revocation of DACA status. The Charlotte Observer did a criminal-background check on Flores and found nothing. She is reportedly a good student and had strong support on the Gardner-Webb campus following her notice of potential deportation to her native Honduras. She was brought to the U.S. at age 8.

The official who wrote to Flores Monday apologized for any inconvenience, but an ICE spokesman told the Observer that she was not treated unfairly. He described her as a foreign national living in the country illegally who already has been the subject of a deportation order from an immigration judge, reportedly in 2005 when she was 8, the newspaper wrote.

The spokesman added that ICE was exercising its discretion in allowing her to stay.

In fact, the agency is following a presidential directive that is still in force. President Barack Obamas executive order establishing the DACA program was one of his finest actions, making so much sense that Trump hasnt touched it. At least not officially.

Yet, there are worrisome signs. Asked about the Montes case on Fox News Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, The policy is that if people are here unlawfully, theyre subject to being deported. His statement didnt acknowledge that DACA status means individuals are here lawfully and should not be subject to deportation.

If Trump overturns DACA, he should be prepared to deport not only college students but members of our armed forces or spouses of military men and women. Also subject to being deported will be bright young people who hold professional jobs or are otherwise gainfully employed, paying taxes, starting families and contributing to their communities.

Even people who view all illegal immigrants as criminals must recognize that small children arent committing crimes when their parents carry them across a border. The children didnt choose to enter the United States, and by the time theyve grown up, they dont know any home other than this country. Yanking them from their American lives and sending them to a foreign homeland is cruel to them and bad for the U.S.

ICE has plenty of high-priority illegal immigrants it should target for arrest and deportation. Its not a matter of discretion to leave DACA participants alone. Its good policy and a presidential order.
Some 22 percent of staff at travel agencies here catering to Chinese package tourists either quit or are on leave amid a boycott over Seoul's decision to deploy a U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery here.

The Korea Association of Travel Agents surveyed 101 travel agencies employing 1,124 workers and found that 245 staff either quit or are on leave.


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NEW MILFORD  While playing a game in a New Milford French class, Jana Bayoud taught a student how to say congratulations in Arabic.

That same day, she observed an English as a Second Language teacher move throughout the classroom, working with students from various grades.

When she was in that class, I saw myself in Lebanon doing that same thing, said Bayoud, one of three teachers from the International College in Beirut, Lebanon, visiting several area schools this week as part of a cultural exchange program.

The Lebanese teachers visit comes a few days after two Danbury teachers, Devin and Elise Samaha, and Mary Hajj, a music teacher in Monroe, returned from Lebanon. This is the biggest group to go and the first time the Monroe school district participated.

The program is a partnership between the International College and the school districts of Danbury, New Milford, Ridgefield, Monroe and North Salem, N.Y. It is supported by the Lebanon-American Club of Danbury, which covers the travel costs of the U.S. teachers, hosts a dinner during the Lebanese teachers visits for everyone involved and takes the Lebanese teachers to New York City.

Through the program, teachers experience different teaching styles and curriculum, as well as a bit of culture from the other country.

Its an exchange of ideas, said Ghassan Najun, the clubs vice president.

The program allows teachers to develop professionally within their discipline, and exposes them to a new culture to share with their students.

This is very, very important, said Pedro Maalouf, a biology teacher visiting from Lebanon. Teachers are constant learners. What better way to learn

than travel?

Bayoud said the program fills the gaps for teachers which, in turn, fills students gaps.

A trip has been offered annually since the program began 12 years ago, though last years trip was canceled because of the unrest in Syria. It stemmed from a relationship Michael Hubbard, Ridgefields assistant superintendent at the time, created with the group. Danbury was the first school district to join Ridgefield.

The program expanded organically when Hubbard moved to the North Salem district and Joshua Smith left Ridgefield to join New Milford, where he is now the superintendent.

Smith, who participated in 2011 when he was in Ridgefield, said the trip was a great way to learn things about the Middle East that cannot be found in a book. He remembered sitting at a cafe against a backdrop of Roman ruins.

When you go to a site where language was invented and the first writing was created, its a different experience than here, Smith said.

Devin Samaha, a Danbury High School English teacher, said he was nervous about going at first, but felt safe during his visit.

Instead of making friends, it felt like we had made family, he said. It was incredible how kind and open everyone was.

He noticed how similar the students he met in Lebanon were to his own, and hoped to foster communication between the two groups.

The trip was the first time the Lebanese teachers had visited the U.S., though one of them  Layla Kateurji  has family in Boston.

While they enjoyed the countries they visited, the teachers from both countries said their experiences in the classroom are what they will take back to their students.

Focus on culture

Bayoud said she was impressed by the big emphasis on student culture within the schools and said it was something she wanted to teach in her Arabic classes the whole year. Focusing on culture allows students to understand they are unique but also generates acceptance.

When you focus on culture, students will have the opportunities to make good actions, she said. Everything goes back to accepting culture.

Kateurji, who teaches art, said she would like to bring some of the wire and sculpture projects back to help develop fine motor skills. Maalouf said he plans to take back an approach that has students teaching their peers.

There are many interesting approaches, he said.

The American teachers said they plan to incorporate different elements they saw into their teaching, and were impressed by the students ability to speak English, French and Arabic in all of their classes.

Hajj said she plans to add other disciplines into her music lessons, especially teaching about different cultures.

We live in a big world, and our focus is often on the hometown, she said. Its good to make children aware of whats in the world.
Marion Milazzo, 86, who was born in Byram but grew up in Rye, enjoys keeping her great-grandchildren amazed by tales of World War II.

J: So you lived in Rye, N.Y., when you were younger?

M: Yeah, I lived in Rye. I went all through school in Rye. When I was born, we were living in Byram  of course, then it was called East Port Chester for years. We called it that.

J: East Port Chester is cool. Now its like, West Greenwich.

M: In our family, a lot of us still call it Eastport.

J: That's a good way to shorten it. So you went to school in Rye and you went to high school there. What did you like to do for fun in high school?

M: Roller skating or I practically lived in the library. (And I got married) when I was 19, it was 1950. I have five children, 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

J: Wow, that's amazing.

M: The funniest thing is when I talk to my great-grandson. I love when he starts asking me about things I did when I was a kid, and what we did during the Second World War -- I was a kid at the time -- but the different things we did to help the war effort. And he's fascinated with all of that. I was actually born in the depression, I was born in the 1930s, and I often wonder how people with big families managed. And to this day, Im not sure how in the world my parents managed with eight of us.

J: What did you guys eat for dinner. Was it simple starchy things?

M: Basically yes, but we always had meat on the table and veggies with all eight of us.

J: What did your parents do?

M: My mother, of course, was at home doing it all. My father had various jobs. At one point he was a chauffeur. Finally he was in electricity. He tried his hand at plumbing and carpentry, but as an electrician that was his favorite.

J: So you went from Byram or Eastport to Rye and you went to high school in Rye, so how did you meet your husband?

M: Well, my husband was born in Ireland and I met him through my aunt. She worked in First National and she invited him to a party, and that was the start of it. And we started dating and it took off from there. My husband was in the army right when the Korean War broke out, and we lived in Washington, D.C., for a while. He was stationed out there and when he was sent overseas, I went back home with my parents. And I was expecting my first. He came back when (our son) was maybe 4 months old.

J: Oh so you're lucky you had your parents.

M: Yes, I was always fortunate with my family.

J: And whats your first childs name?

M: Michael, the pride of the family.

J: Yes, the first born is always the one. Especially for the grandparents!

M: Yes, and he always had babysitters. My sisters and kid brothers were all around so every time he screamed, somebody was there to pick him up... So I was in Washington for a year, and then we came from Port Chester to Rye, and then came back to Greenwich when my kids were all in school. Well, my youngest one was in kindergarten when we moved, so they went to school up here and they all went through high school here in Greenwich. Now of course theyre all scattered. I have two of them in Cos Cob and one down in Rye, one up in Danbury and one up in Vermont.

J: So now, during the summers, when you were growing up -- what kind of stuff did you do here in the summer? Go to the beach a lot?

M: Not a lot. Not too much of a beach person cause I don't swim.

J: The library!

M: Oh yes, that was a big family joke. Theyd say, Oh, if you cant find Marion, shes in the library ... The Rye Free Reading Room, I loved it. I had a thing with the librarian there too where she always knew what Id like, and shed give me recommendations. And she was always right  Sometimes I would go down to the park in Rye (to read), places where all those kids at home couldnt bother me ---- Do you know, I was standing out in the hall talking, that was Gloria Richards sitting out on a bench out there. It was so funny. I said, I was just talking about you!

J: Yes! So she was your neighbor (in Rye) when you were 9.

M: Yes and so now shes here (in Greenwich). Who would have known after all these years. I don't even know what her married name is, but to me she is Gloria Richards. That's who shes always been. But its kind of nice being back in Greenwich. I have to admit, there aren't a lot of people around that I knew, because lets face it! Were not spring chickens anymore. But I have my girls closeby and they keep me busy.

J: So you must have seen a lot of things change over the years. That's always something I get curious about.

M: Oh, yes, there are so many changes. Sometimes I stop and think, did that change in my lifetime? Or is that something that's always been around here? Its really a lot of changes. I look around town, the differences in the buildings and everything. Even Rye. I know now I could go down Purchase Street, the main street in Rye. I could walk down the street and not see a face that I know. Half of the stores that were there that we used to go to, theyre all gone. Theyre high-end stores now. I know when I was living in upstate New York, it made me think of living in Rye. It was much more rural with farms up there. The problem is that things are spread out and people have all gone their own way  People (where I live now at Agnes Morley Heights) are my age and older, and very few of them did I know when they were younger. Very few of them. I keep thinking, whered all these old people grow up? They werent born this age!

J: People always say you become your mother, or your children become you. Do you notice?

M: Well, I think one thing that bothers me is the kids are freer with their mouth. You know, I see sometimes my grandchildren, and theyll say something, and Ill think to myself, If my kid said that theyd get a slap in the mouth!

J: Or if you did that!

M: Oh yes. I can remember one instance: I cursed and my mother came after me. I ran up the stairs and under the bed, all the way against the wall, and she stood there and said, Well, youve got to get out of there sometime. And I'm gonna be here when you do. I learned to watch my mouth after that! Yep cant stay under that bed forever. The thing is, those days parents werent afraid to give their kids a good whack on the bottom if they needed it.

J: And now, what is something that you learned over time or that you know now that you wish you knew before? Do you ever think of anything you would have done differently?

M: Well, there are a lot of things, but I think things worked out pretty well for me. There are always little bumps in the road, but I was very fortunate. Ive got, as far as I'm concerned, these five great kids, and my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Very happy with my family, I really am. The oldest great-grandchild is 20 and the youngest is 10.

J: That's great. So theres always somebody learning and asking questions.

M: Even the kids nowadays, like my great-grandson I mentioned, you know what he really loves? He would say, Tell me what you did when the war was on, Nana. And one thing you remember triggers another. Like, What did you do during the war? Well, as a kid we couldnt do much. But we used to save foil. Hed say, Well, what do you mean? I'd remember you'd buy gum, five sticks came in a pack. They were all wrapped separately, with plain white paper and foil on top. You'd separate it and make the foil into a ball, and every time you added more, it would get bigger and bigger. Why did we do it? I don't know. But when it was big enough you turned it in, and we were told it was for the war effort.

J: Oh wow.

M: And we had blackouts. Well, whats a blackout? Well at night your shades had to be pulled down tight. Why didnt they want light? They couldnt have street lights on. Why not? Because the enemy planes, when they came over, could use the lights as targets. He couldnt understand this. Imagine, when you went to the store you had to take your coupon book for the coupons. We were lucky, my mom had a coupon book for all of us. But a lot of people didnt have that many people in the family. How would you like to get gas  if it wasnt your day you couldnt get it. There would be a book of stamps, and they were only good certain days. Like depending on where you were in the alphabet. And your occupation -- f you needed gas to get things, if you were some kind of farm worker, you were able to get more gas because you had to travel to work. But somebody like a housewife wasnt able to get much gas at all and shoes and things like that were not that easy to get. It was amazing, the kind of stuff you had to get coupons for. They would sell war bonds. Even the kids. They would have a stand set up, and someone standing there, and for a few dollars you'd have a book to put stamps in and when you filled it up you'd turn it in for a bond, and it was encouraging the kids to help with the war effort. Kids would go around town and fill wagons with metal to turn in for the war effort.

J: And now theres stuff all over the ground and shoes for $2 dollars at the store. So much abundance.

M: Yeah and the kids were just so into it. It was their war effort.

J: Do you think theres a difference in the way people see America? What you're saying, everyone was so proud. At first its like, OK we had these two big wars, the first world wars. So its like, were a new country, were strong.

M: Yes, the patriotism in this country. I see kids, they don't seem to teach them any of that in school now. A lot of American history, theyre not taught. And Im surprised when you mention something to a kid about certain things. What is that all about? Its a part of your history. So many kids now cant believe we had almost a prison camp for Japanese (people) in California.

J: Did they talk about it during that time?

M: We knew about it, but once America and Japan went to war they put a clamp on everything Japanese. But the Japanese were born in this country, but they were all herded. And then when they finally came home, everything was gone and they had to start from scratch again. And I keep thinking and looking at the little kids now. What are they going to remember of American history? Atom bombs? Even that was a while ago. You wonder whats going to be the thing that's going to stick with them. Its scary. Because so many of the people in our family and friends went off to war.. My brother..

J: That I feel like must be scary enough! You dont know.

M: To this day I have what they call, ... letters we used to get. They were about that big (postcard size). Well the service men wrote the letters, and then the mail department would take them and go through them all, and make sure they werent giving their location or anything like that. And they would photograph it to bring it down to this size. When you got a letter, it was a thing like that, but you could still read it. I still have two my brother sent me from Germany. I remember we talked about school because he went to the same school I went to in Rye. Its so funny when I look back. Lots of times I'm just sitting talking to people who remember the things about life that you do, and how much has changed. Our kids will have the same things.

J: Its crazy how things happen.

M: Yep. Oh well. But lets face it. Once my generation dies, a lot of these memories will be lost with it. Like what happened with World War I. Everyones talking about North Korea now. I think, well, my husband was in Korea and it was hell. We already fought in Korea so what else can we do? It scares the wits out of me. I keep looking at these young people and saying, Lord don't let them go through this again. This time it would be a heck of a lot worse.
If your growing business has not made customer service a top priority, it's time to reevaluate your to-do list. After all, in this digital era, great customer service can be be your best (and least expensive) marketing tool.

Consider, for instance, that positive tweets and online reviews will undoubtedly draw curious consumers toward your brand and that your ability to address complaints from existing clients will help you earn their business again. In fact, according to Salesforce, customer service is the No. 1 factor that helps companies build trust with their audiences.

Related: Why Trust Is the New Marketing Currency

However, on the other side of the coin, American Express revealed that negative online reviews reach twice as many people as positive ones. For evidence of that, consider what recently happened to United Airlines when that now-infamous customer service snafu was caught on video. Within 24 hours, the clip had been viewed nearly 20 million times and the company's stock took a nosedive. The airline continues to be the subject of bad press and viral memes regarding the incident.

Needless to say, one negative customer service incident can cast a long-lasting dark shadow over your brand. That's why my own drug-testing company has created processes and policies to help make each customer's experience more than a mere transaction.

Recently, I garnered some new customer service lessons from an unexpected source. I had fractured my right foot, and doctors told me I wouldn't be able to drive for nearly three months. I began using Lyft for rides to and from work. And, en route, my amazing Lyft drivers revealed three key customer service concepts all entrepreneurs should apply to their business:

1. Leverage the employee effect.

Nearly all drivers told me they loved working for Lyft. They said the company treats them fairly, and they especially appreciate the many incentives provided by the brand's Accelerate rewards program. As a customer, I felt great supporting a company that conscientiously works to reward its employees.

Knowing my drivers were happy, in fact, made me happy -- which is actually a scientifically proven phenomenon. In 2008, researchers at the University of California at San Diego found that happiness is highly contagious. It doesn't just travel from one person to another; it reverberates throughout entire networks of people. In short, if your employees are happy, your entire client base will be more likely to be happy as well.

I've always believed customer service hinges on internal culture and employee happiness. My employees are my internal customers, and through servant leadership, I strive to make sure all of them -- especially the new ones -- are well-trained and set up for success.

This belief is held by other companies, as well: The Container Store is known for giving its new employees 300 hours of paid training in their first year at the company. Try a similar approach at your company. The extra effort you put toward your employees' happiness will pay dividends when your team interacts with clients.

Related: Here's How Going Cheap on Employee Training Is Costing You

2. Focus on proactive improvement.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the easier you make your customers' lives, the more likely they are to be loyal to your brand. This theory rang true in my experience with Lyft. The app was quick and easy to use, and the drivers proactively made sure the cleanliness of the car was first rate, and the temperature and even the music were all to my liking. I never once had to ask them to turn up the heat or turn down the music.

These little preemptive touches are what Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh calls the "wow experience" -- taking the extra step to make sure customers feel comfortable and fulfilled. Under this philosophy, you don't sit back and wait for clients to ask questions or voice concerns; you proactively seek these details yourself.

Before customers even have the chance to write an online review, contact them to ask whether they are happy with their purchase. Tell them you appreciate their business, and ask how you can improve your product or service in the future.

3. Personalize the experience.

It may sound simple, but seeing my name on a neon sign every time I entered a Lyft car made the experience feel extra special. It confirmed to me that the company recognized and valued me as a customer.

This is no small thing: Microsofts 2016 U.S. State of Customer Service report revealed that 66 percent of consumers surveyed said they didn't want to reintroduce themselves every time they interact with a brand. They expected companies to consistently provide personalized support and service.

As such, more and more businesses are seeing the importance of offering tailor-made experiences. Starbucks, for example, formed a partnership with Spotify that allows customers to influence the playlists at their favorite coffee shops.

My company provides a wide array of substance-abuse test kits to consumers and businesses. From steroids to alcohol to synthetic drugs, we make sure our online library is filled to the brim with relevant content that suits each unique client's needs. We also offer a live-chat feature that allows customers to receive personalized service around the clock. Further, we are connected to a network of treatment providers for a variety of substance abuse issues, so if customers require any additional help beyond at-home testing, we can refer them to a program of their choice.

Related: 3 Ways to Create Customer Experiences That Boost Sales

In sum, good customer service is much more than a passive strategy. It must be consciously embedded into every aspect of the business workflow. So, follow Lyft's lead by building your own happy internal culture. Then, be proactive about providing positive, personalized experiences to your clients.

Along the way, don't forget to listen. In today's social media-driven world, the customer's voice is what matters most.

Related:

How Bots Can Benefit Businesses, According to Messenger's Director of Global Partnerships

CSAT And The Art Of Keeping Customers Happy

3 Customer Service Strategies You Should Steal From, Would You Believe, Lyft Drivers



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
The Korea Equestrian Federation has effectively ended the riding career of Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of ex-President Park Geun-hye's crony Choi Soon-sil, who funneled much of the shush funds she allegedly amassed into her daughter's dressage ambitions.

The KEF on Thursday said Chung is banned from competitions for life.

Chung is a former member of the national equestrian team and won a gold medal in the team dressage event at the Incheon Asian Games in 2014. But she is accused of receiving illegal favors in her admission to Ewha Womans University under a last-minute rule change for equestrians.

The KEF also learned that Chung, a single mother, did not show up for regular training on many occasions and submitted false documents to get a spot on the national team.


Why anyone would opt for ketchup other than Heinz deeply confuses Grub, but Sir Kensingtons  which, to be fair, also makes condiments like mayonnaise and mustard  has become successful enough that Unilever just purchased the company. The exact terms arent being disclosed, but the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the deal cost $140 million.

Unilever, which also owns Hellmanns and Marmite, has full ownership of Sir Kensingtons, and plans to give it even wider distribution. Its also going to try to make aquafaba  chickpea water thats great for vegan cooking  more popular.

In February, Kraft Heinz actually offered to purchase Unilever for $143 billion, so this acquisition will certainly sting. Still, in the ketchup wars, theres no question as to which product is more satisfying. Heinz forever.
Turn back now if youve got any fond childhood McDonalds memories: Ronald McDonald is really loving It in this new video, an inevitable parody of the Stephen King remake. Danny and Michael Philippou, the Australian brothers whose RackaRacka YouTube channel is frankly the bane of the poor clowns existence, shot an alternate trailer starring McDonalds mascot as Pennywise, and its a role you might say he proves alarmingly good at.



Please, keep all the children you know away from the PlayPlace ball pit.
Suspects targeted exhibitions for thefts

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-04-21 02:29

EIGHT suspects from three gangs eyeing pickings at this years Shanghai Auto Show were arrested before the show opened, police said yesterday.

Four of them had allegedly stolen at least 300,000 yuan (US$44,000) worth of objects from various exhibition centers in Shanghai this year.

Shanghai New International Expo Center in Pudong, had reported thefts to police since the beginning of this year, and most of the thefts took place during the moving in and moving out stages of the exhibitions.

Using surveillance cameras within the venue, police spotted four suspects, wearing helmets and masks and dressed as workers, who were stealing computers, mobile phones and other valuables from the exhibitors offices and from the exhibition hall.

The four were considered to be involved in at least 14 theft cases, some of which occurred at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in western Shanghais Qingpu District where the auto show is being held.

Police observed them as they traveled to Shanghai again on April 10, suspecting them to be casing the show.

Two of them were arrested the following day in Kunshan city, Jiangsu Province, where they fled after stealing at the venue. The other two were caught later that day before trying to leave Shanghai at Hongqiao Railway Station.

Police said they found the suspects had a timetable of exhibitions in first-tier cities including Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Investigation is continuing.
Today the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are launching in the first few markets, and Google has outed an interesting announcement to coincide with that moment. The search giant is letting us know that it's partnered with Samsung to make its Play Music app the default music player and service on the Korean company's Android devices.

The first two to benefit from this arrangement are the Galaxy S8 and S8+, of course. This isn't just a matter of being the default app, however, as Play Music has a special feature on Samsung's new flagship smartphones.

While usually you can upload 50,000 songs from your collection to the service for easy streaming afterwards, if you have an S8 or S8+ you are able to upload twice that amount - so 100,000 tracks. This will come in especially handy if your musical tastes are of the niche variety and Play Music doesn't have your favorites in its database.

But wait, there's more! If you bought a new Samsung phone or tablet, you'll get a free three month trial of the Play Music subscription streaming service. This gives you ad-free and on-demand access to more than 40 million songs and thousands of playlists. You also get access to YouTube Red where that's available.

Finally, Google says Play Music will work well with Bixby, Samsung's nascent virtual assistant. If you're a Play Music subscriber you'll be able to ask Bixby to play stuff for you - that is, when Bixby's voice interface will launch for English, because at this point it's still "coming soon".

Source
A touch of Star Wars at citys four-day travel fair

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-04-21 02:29

THE four-day Shanghai World Travel Fair opened at Shanghai Exhibition Center yesterday, offering visitors a glimpse into other countries culture, history, landscape and people.

The annual travel carnival gathers exhibitors from 52 countries and regions that bring diversified performances, handicraft displays, virtual reality experiences and delicacies to the fair.

New itineraries are launched, lucky draws are hosted and generous discounts are offered at the event.

The delegation from Saipan, the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands, greets visitors with traditional Chamorro and Carolinian dance performances at the Marianas exhibition.

The dances were originally intended to rally warriors into battle. We want to showcase the culture and beauty of Marianas by introducing an abundance of cultural activities to the fair and we decorate the scene with tropical resort atmosphere, said Judy Torres, deputy director of Marianas Visitors Authority.

Marianas travel options are offered at the event, allowing tourists to explore more itineraries like family travel, weddings and honeymoons, or diving at the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Rota.

Japans Kintetsu Railway introduces its rail pass at the fair.

The pass has four discounted tickets ranging from one day to five days, allowing unlimited rides on the Kintetsu Line to travel in Japans Kansai region, which includes some renowned destinations such as Nara, Kyoto and Osaka.

Star Wars characters appear at the Tunisia exhibition stand to interact with visitors.

The Star wars movies were partially filmed in southern Tunisia. The African country displays its Mediterranean beaches and archaeological remains at the fair.

It has applied a visa-free policy for Chinese passport holders since February with a maximum stay of 90 days.

The participation is to show tourists the diversity of Tunisias landscape, ranging from seaside to desert and cultural heritage, said Neji Ben Othmane, general director of Tunisian National Tourist Office.

During the four-day event, two forums on the trends of Chinas tourism market will be held.




Haiti - FLASH : Final Results ASEC, CASEC and City Delegate





Following the judgments of the National Electoral Disputes Bureau (BCEN) and after deliberation and in accordance with Article 188 of the Electoral Decree of 2 March 2015, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) proclaimed the final results of the Elections of Local Authorities for the Assemblies of the Communal Sections (ASEC), the Boards of the Municipal Sections (CASEC) and the City Delegates (DV).



The results will also be available at the Direction des Operations Electorales, located at Route de Freres, Petion-ville, at number 133; At the level of all the Departmental (BED) and Communal (BEC) Electoral Offices.



NOTE : Elections must be organized and resumed for certain positions of Delegates of City, ASEC and CASEC in the following Communes and Communal Sections :



Delegate City of Pestel (Grand'Anse), for lack of candidacy;

ASEC/CASEC, Carrefour (West), communal section of Berly, for acts of vandalism;

ASEC/CASEC, Leogane (West), 7th section Beausejour, for acts of vandalism;

ASEC/CASEC, Acul du Nord (North); 5th section Coupe a David, for acts of vandalism;

ASEC, Ouanaminthe (Northeast), 7th section Savane au Lait, for non-holding of elections for lack of candidacy;

CASEC, Ferrier (Northeast), 3rd section Maribahoux, for equality of votes;

SEC, St Louis du Nord (North-West), 6th section Lafague, for non-holding of elections for lack of candidacy;

ASEC / CASEC, Cotes de Fer (Southeast), 6th section Jamais Vu, for acts of vandalism;

ASEC / CASEC, Jacmel, (Southeast), 7th section Grande Riviere de Jacmel, for acts of vandalism;



RESULTS :



City Delegate : www.drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B56RZ3-JtuHxY3U4ekpRNEVEM1k



ASEC : www.drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B56RZ3-JtuHxeW5vZGZwbDRRTkk



CASEC : www.drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B56RZ3-JtuHxSllmcE85TEV5bFU



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Europe : 45.3M for the construction of section RN3 - Hinche / Saint-Raphael





Thursday at the National Palace, Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant and European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica initialed an agreement worth 45.3 million Euros for the construction of the section of the road Nationale No 3 (RN3) connecting Hinche and Saint Raphael. The RN3 starts from Croix-des-Bouquets, then goes to Hinche, arriving at Cap-Haitien via Saint-Raphael.



The works, whose laying of the foundation stone will take place by next May, will last 2 years and will be executed jointly by the Haitian firm Vorbe et Fils and the French firm Razel BEC.



On the sidelines of this signing, the Head of Government welcomed the European Union's aid, in particular for the mobilization of additional funds of 35 million Euros following Hurricane Matthew, as well as the disbursement of 14.5 million Euros in the form of budgetary support for the consolidation of the Haitian State.



Neven Mimica said that the allocation of these funds was evidence of the confidence of the European Union in the Haitian Government and its determination to help it, in particular in institutional strengthening, economic and educational governance and improving transport .



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





NOTICE to the 13,000 police candidates

The General Directorate of the National Police of Haiti informs the general public and the candidates in particular that a new intellectual test will be organized for approximately 13,000 registered on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 8:00 am throughout the country. The list of candidates selected for the said tests, including the examination seats, will be posted from 24 April 2017 at all recruitment offices in the country.



Word of sympathy by Moise

"I am saddened by the attack that caused the death of a police officer and seriously wounded two others on Thursday on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris. I express my sympathy to the Government and to the French people and express my sincere condolences to them during these difficult times," declared Haiti President Jovenel Moise.



Reconstruction of the Legislative and Justice Building

Sen. Youri Latortue, President of the Senate, announced the resumption of reconstruction work of the Legislative and Justice Building in June or July. These two Palaces were destroyed during the 2010 earthquake.



PM remarks to the Senate

Thursday, during the session of presentation of the roadmaps of the Government in the Senate https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-20718-icihaiti-politics-government-faced-the-senate.html Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant told the Senators "Our duty is to respect the Constitution which provides for the formation of two armed forces [...] Several thousand kilometers of road will be built. We appeal to the patience of the people."



Moise visit the Caribbean Food Manufacturing

On Thursday, President Jovenel Moise visited the Caribbean Food Manufacturing company located in Santo 17. The Head of State took advantage of his visit to hold a meeting with the bosses of the company around the development of this sector and the promotion of domestic production in Haiti. Remember that "Caribbean Food Manufacturing" is a food production plant founded in 2011 by a group of young investors.



207th anniversary of the Independence of Venezuela

On the occasion of the celebration of the 207th anniversary of the Independence of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, this Wednesday, the Venezuelan Ambassador in Haiti, Luiz Ernesto Diaz Curbelo, accompanied by the Chancellor of Haiti Antonio Rodrigue, made a floral offering in front of Simon Bolivar's bust at the National Pantheon Museum (MUPANAH). Ambassador Curbelo highlighted the contribution of Haiti and other countries of South America to the liberation of Venezuela.



Moise holds talks with EU Commissioner

Thursday, on the sidelines of the signing of the agreement to relaunch the construction of the Hinche-Saint-Raphael road section https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20721-haiti-europe-453m-for-the-construction-of-section-rn3-hinche-saint-raphael.html President Jovenel Moise, accompanied by his Chief of Staff, Wilson Laleau, met with European Commissioner Neven Mimica. This meeting, whose content is unknown, was held in the presence of the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Port-au-Prince, Vincent Degert, the Foreign Ministers, Antonio Rodrigue and the National Authorizing Officer Charles Jean-Jacques.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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Published on 2017/04/20 | Source

Actor Lee Min-ho talked about going to the military.

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He recently had his pictures taken by @Star1 which was followed by an interview.

He said, "I didn't think National Service would affect me. But I am quite nervous. I think I'm just upset that my 20s is gone".

"Now that I'm near my 30s, I have a lot of thoughts about getting older and the work I've done until now".

"If I'd gone to the military earlier though, I wouldn't have done "Boys over Flowers" and I wouldn't have had the happy 20s I had. I personally think not going too early was a good choice. This generation also allowed me to gain popularity abroad and I feel like I've played a part in spreading Hallyu contents".

He was asked if there was something else he'd like to challenge himself in and he said, "Living a strict life is a challenge enough for me".

Lee Min-ho's pictorial called 'Lee Min-ho's Day' can be seen in the May issue of @Star1.
Published on 2017/04/21 | Source

Added episode 11 captures for the Korean drama "Radiant Office" (2017)

Advertisement

Directed by Jeong Ji-in, Park Sang-hoon-III

Written by Jeong Hee-hyeon

Network : MBC

With Go Ah-sung, Ha Seok-jin, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Dong-wook, Lee Ho-won, Kim Byung-choon,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00

Synopsis

An abrasive marketing director and a female temporary contract worker at the same furniture company. She faces repeat rejection in her job search until despair drives her to attempt suicide. At the hospital, she learns she has a terminal condition, but then, finally succeeds in getting hired. With nothing to lose, she tackles her job and her life with a perspective.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/03/15

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Published on 2017/04/21 | Source

Added episode 5 captures for the Korean drama "Queen of Mystery" (2017)

Advertisement

Directed by Kim Jin-woo-II, Yoo Yeong-eun-I

Written by Lee Seong-min-II

Network : KBS

With Choi Kang-hee, Kwon Sang-woo, Lee Won-keun, Shin Hyun-bin, Kim Hyun-sook, Jeon Soo-jin,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00

Synopsis

"Queen of Mystery" tells the story of a prosecutor's wife who's always dreamed of being a detective. After actually solving a case, she ends up in an unlikely crime-fighting duo with a young police captain.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/04/05

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Ruijin stand-up X-ray stands out

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-04-21 02:29

RUIJIN Hospital is to have a novel X-ray imaging system  the first hospital on the mainland to do so  based on a Nobel prize-winning technology in physics.

It will provide a low-dose, 3D imaging system that scans patients spines, hips and legs while they stand up, the city hospital announced.

Developed in France, the EOS X-ray system gives doctors a highly accurate view of a patients entire skeleton in a natural standing position.

Usually imaging machines can only scan the body by parts when patients lie on a bed, then doctors have to combine data to get the measurements needed. Errors during the procedure can impact surgery results.

Lying on the bed influences the accuracy of measurement, which is extremely important for an orthopedic surgery, said Dr Liu Zhihong from Ruijin Hospital.

The system can develop a 3D image of patients bones and skeleton quickly to help doctors design a proper surgery plan. The technology can greatly boost the improvement of orthopedics in the nation.

Since the system only generates about a tenth of radiation of an ordinary CT scan, it is also a good option for children for diagnosis and assessment, experts said.

Also yesterday, Shanghai Childrens Hospital signed an agreement with Circle Harmony Health Ltd, the only facility of British-based Circle Holdings in China, for cooperation on staff training, academic exchanges, patients transfer and technology cooperation. Circle Holding is a doctors group and a high-end health-care provider in the United Kingdom.

Circle Harmony Health will open a pediatric hospital in Shanghai, while patients with complications will be transferred to Shanghai Childrens Hospital, whose patients also have a better access for overseas transfer through Circle, officials said.
British parties witness hectic first day of election campaigning

From:Xinhua | 2017-04-21 09:29

British Prime Minister Theresa May (L) meets with President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain on April 20, 2017. (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

LONDON, April 20 (Xinhua) -- The first full day of campaigning got off to a flying start Thursday following British Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to call a snap general election.

With British voters going to the polls on June 8, the big parties did not want to waste any time ahead of the official launches of their election manifestos.

May is predicted to lead the Conservatives to victory with a bigger majority in June. In the first major opinion poll since the election was called, YouGov asked people who they would vote for if there was an election now.

Conservatives topped the list with 48 percent, up 4 percentage points on the last poll. Labour trailed in second place on 24, an increase of one point. Twelve percent opted for the Liberal Democrats and 7 percent chose UKIP.

YouGov said the results represent the highest vote share for the Conservatives since May 2008.

May continues to be the favored choice for prime minister, with 54 percent of people preferring her to Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, who is backed by 15 percent of voters.

Corbyn was in London to deliver what was the first major speech by a party leader in the election race. He told cheering supporters: "It is the establishment versus the people and it is our historic duty to make sure that the people prevail. A duty for all of us here today, the duty of every Labour MP, a duty for our half a million members -- including the 2,500 who have joined in the last 24 hours."

Convinced Labour can win, he said: "We will build a new economy... and we will build a country for the many not the few."

In Edinburgh, the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP is the only party standing in the way of a Conservative majority "because it is 'pie in the sky' to think Labour can win alone."

Speaking at First Minister's Questions on Thursday, Sturgeon said: "The idea in this election that Labour is going to replace the Conservatives is frankly pie in the sky."

"We face an unfettered out-of-control Conservative government. If people want to make sure a Conservative government can be held to account, if they want to make sure there is a strong voice for Scotland and they want to make sure Scotland is protected, they have to make sure they send SNP MPs back to Westminster," she added.

In 2015, the SNP scored its biggest ever electoral success, sending more than 50 MPs to Westminster.

Nigel Farage, founder and former leader of UKIP, the party that campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, said in a media interview he may stand in the general election. Currently the party has no MPs at Westminster.

Meanwhile, May was busy on government duties at 10 Downing Street. She held a meeting with European Parliament President Antonio Tajani.

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Leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn attends the launch of the Labour Party general election campaign in London, Britain, on April 20, 2017. (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

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Canadian trade minister to promote softwood lumber during visit to China

From:Xinhua | 2017-04-21 10:29

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By Christopher Guly

OTTAWA, April 20 (Xinhua) -- While exploratory talks on a Canada-China free-trade deal are set to resume next week here, the Canadian Cabinet minister in charge of the trade file will be in China hoping to expand demand for a key Canadian export.

Currently, the largest market for Canadian softwood lumber is the United States. But Canada and the U.S. have been locked in a decades-long trade dispute over the wood, which could intensify next week when the U.S. Commerce Department is expected to announce whether it will impose a countervailing duty on Canadian softwood lumber imports.

"Diversification is part of the solution to that," Canadian International Trade Minister Franois-Philippe Champagne told Xinhua in an interview here Thursday. "My role as chief marketing officer of Canada is to make sure the forestry industry throughout Canada is healthy."

In his view, there is a significant market opportunity for softwood lumber in China, the second-largest importer of the Canadian wood behind the U.S., which accounts for 78 percent of Canadian exports compared to China's 13 percent share, according to Canadian government figures.

Champagne, a 46-year-old lawyer and international trade specialist from the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec prior to entering politics in 2015, is leading a Canadian business delegation that will pitch Canadian softwood lumber as a must-have, environmentally friendly product during his first official visit to China that begins on Friday.

"I want to make sure that our Chinese friends understand that softwood lumber is a reliable, eco-friendly source of building new houses in China," he said. "There are a lot of people in the middle class there that are looking to move to cities, and my message to them is that wood is in vogue in Canada."

Champagne explained that he hopes Canadian softwood lumber can be part of China's "toolkit" to support the country's climate-change strategy and "promote environmentally friendly construction."

Appointed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Cabinet just four months ago, the International Trade Minister will visit four Chinese cities - Shanghai, Chongquing, Zhengzhou and Beijing - and will meet with several senior government officials, including Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan and Chen Zhenggao, China's Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

In Zhengzhou, Champagne will attend the 2017 China Green Companies Summit where he plans to position Canada as a source of "clean-tech" industry.

"As we have these exploratory talks on a possible free-trade agreement, trying to find areas where we can cooperate together for our mutual benefit is the right thing to do - and that is why I want to bring in softwood as part of our discussions," he said.
IS THE UNITED STATES READY FOR OFFSHORE AQUACULTURE?

Although coastal aquaculture has long been seen as harmful to the environment, some are calling for a new look into operations that move the practice into deeper water.

by Virginia Gewin, TheFern.org

April 20, 2017  Editors note: This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit investigative news organization.

Harlon Pearce walks muck-booted past processors gutting wild drum and red snapper to showcase a half-full new 5,000-square-foot (500-square-meter) freezer he hopes will someday house a fresh boom of marine fish. Harlons LA Fish sits just across the railroad tracks from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, perfectly positioned to ship fish out of Louisiana.

As president of the New Orleansbased Gulf Seafood Institute, seafood supplier Pearce is a big fish himself in these parts, connected to fishermen, federal agencies, restaurateurs and even the oil industry. He knows better than anyone that wild fisheries alone cant supply U.S. consumers growing demand for fish. Which is why hes doing his best to bring everyone to the table to achieve one goal: farming the Gulf of Mexico.

There are currently no commercial finfish operations in U.S. federal waters, located between 3 and 200 miles (5 to 322 kilometers) offshore. Pearce and others are convinced that jumping into the rapidly growing open ocean aquaculture industry expanding into offshore waters globally is the future of sustainable seafood.

In 2015, per capita fish consumption in the United States was 15.5 pounds (7 kilograms), up from 12.5 pounds (5.7 kilograms) in 1980. Globally, however, the amount of all wild-caught fish has stayed relatively stagnant  at around 8090 million metric tons (90100 million tons)  for the past two decades.

Globally, in total, around 160 million metric tons (180 million tons) of fish  wild, farmed, marine and freshwater  are produced to satisfy annual demand.

The Gulf of Mexico annually yields a catch of about 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons) of wild-caught finfish, which are bony fish such as snapper or grouper. Given regional demand, Pearce says, our wild marine fish dont go too far. To his point, in New Orleans French Quarter there is a seafood restaurant on practically every block.

The World Bank predicts that by 2030, two-thirds of fish being consumed will be farmed. Which is why Pearce and others believe the U.S. should be farming fish in its open waters.

Producing more of our seafood in the U.S. means that consumers will have local, safe, sustainable choices, explained Michael Rubino, director of the Washington, D.C.based Office of Aquaculture at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Fisheries, when he announced a federally approved plan taking shape in the Gulf of Mexico. The gulf, by volume, is second only to Alaska in terms of U.S. wild-catch fisheries. In January 2016, NOAA authorized up to 20 open-ocean aquaculture permits for the gulf. In total, these could produce 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons) of fish  effectively doubling the amount of finfish currently coming out of the area. (A draft environmental impact statement that would help guide offshore aquaculture development in Hawaii is expected later this year, and public hearings this summer will decide the fate of a proposed finfish farm to be located 8 miles off the coast of Hampton Bays, New York).

Open-ocean aquaculture could reduce some of the environmental concerns often associated with aquaculture based in coastal waters. Photo courtesy of NOAA Fisheries

Marine aquaculture, so far largely based in coastal waters, has long been anathema to environmentalists, its reputation blighted by everything from pollution and disease outbreaks to the destruction of mangroves and genetic contamination from escaped fish. Open-ocean aquaculture could reduce some of these environmental concerns, assuming it is sited in deep, swift waters, reducing the potential for pollution and disease without destroying habitat, and remaining challenges, such as fish escaping and forage fish being used as feed in huge quantities, have promising fixes.

As a result, some environmentalists are saying open-ocean aquaculture deserves a fresh look. Since all food we grow, on land or in the sea, has some environmental impact, isnt aquaculture worth exploring if it can satisfy rising demand for healthier protein with less impact than, say, beef or pigs?

Can It Really Be Sustainable?

Given the idealized small, local, low-input view of sustainable farming, offshore aquaculture presents something of a paradox. On one hand, U.S. fish farms would be local and more heavily regulated than some farms producing imports. On the other, to be economically viable, operations would need to be industrial-scale. There will be costs to the wallet and environment. Its unavoidable. But if done correctly, environmental costs will be negligible, says Greg Lutz, an aquaculture specialist with the Louisiana State University Aquaculture Research Station, based in Baton Rouge. As a society, we have to decide what impacts are acceptable. Theres no free lunch.

Open Blue, the largest open ocean fish farm in the world, located 8 miles off the coast of Panama, is a good place to look when addressing the idea of scale and sustainability. Owner Brian OHanlon and his investors chose to stock cobia for three primary reasons: it would avoid direct competition with wild fishing, it would offer versatility to chefs and it would appeal to health-conscious consumers.

Tenney Flynn, co-owner and award-winning chef at GW Fins in New Orleans, prefers his cobia spearfished, but sees aquaculture as inevitable in the U.S. Theres too many people in the world and fish is too popular, he says. If he does buy farmed cobia, he prefers the quality out of Central America compared with Vietnam. A local option would offer an incentive, however. The expense with aquaculture is the freight. If you can take freight out of the equation, it knocks off US$2 per pound, he says. Local fish are already Flynns preference: His menu in February listed 12 finfish, of which roughly 70 percent were local and wild.

There are signs that operations like Open Blue can be sustainable. OHanlon gave then University of Miami Ph.D. student Aaron Welch, who was studying the environmental impacts of aquaculture, the run of the farm during 201213 to collect environmental data as long as he shared it with OHanlon. One concern with offshore farms is that concentrated waste from these operations, either in the water or underlying sediment, could adversely impact ecosystems  at worst, resulting in eutrophication or fish mortality. According to Welch, the open-ocean cage operation left no nutrient footprint in the water column, either from dissolved oxygen or nitrogen compounds. He did find a modest uptick of organic carbon and nitrogen compounds in the sediment around the cages.

To see the full infographic, click on the image. Infographic Courtesy of Food & Environmental Reporting Network, Ensia and SwitchYard Media

Extrapolating published data to calculate a maximum amount of fish poop [4,000 metric tons (4,400 tons) of nitrogen compounds for each 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons) of fish produced] from the federally approved Gulf Coast operations would effectively be a drop in the bucket (and, Lutz says, a worst-case scenario given the methods used in the paper) compared with what already gets dumped into the gulf from Midwest farm chemicals via the Mississippi River. In May 2016, the gulfs estimated input of nitrites and nitrates was 150,000 metric tons (165,000 tons).

Another potential sustainability issue, antibiotic use  overuse can lead to bacteria resistant to antibiotics  has declined. Vaccines have largely supplanted antibiotic use, at least in Europe and the Americas, and antibiotics are more heavily regulated in aquaculture than in any other kind of animal production, says Neil Sims, co-founder of Kampachi Farms, a research facility in Kona, Hawaii, who is planning a commercial offshore operation, located 4 miles (6 kilometers) offshore from Bahia de La Paz, Mexico, to grow a sashimi-grade Almaco jack. He and colleagues have also experimented with untethered open ocean drifter pens and unmanned net-pen operations off the Hawaii coast. He laments the slow pace of the U.S. government actions to streamline the regulatory landscape.

The logic of not doing [open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S.]escapes me, says Albert Rusty Gaude, a fishery extension agent based in Jefferson, Louisiana, with the Louisiana Sea Grant program, one of 33 NOAA-funded state college research programs focused on long-term economic development and environmental stewardship. I cant think of any large-scale animal-production scheme that has been looked at as much as this has been. Cattle feedlots certainly werent.

Existing data indicate that marine fish farms are far more efficient and pollute less than cattle or pig farms. Based on Conservation Internationals 2011 Blue Frontiers report, says Jack Kittinger, senior director of Conservation Internationals global fisheries and aquaculture program, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, offshore aquaculture looks a lot more sustainable than other animal production methods, which was eye-opening for us.

According to the Conservation International report, fish turn feed into flesh four and 13 times more efficiently than pigs or cows, respectively.

And they generate less nitrogen and phosphorus pollution  for example, half to two-thirds less nitrogen (per metric ton of protein produced) than pigs or cows, respectively. Fish-generated phosphorus is roughly 15 percent less than pigs and 55 percent less than cows (per metric ton of protein produced).

One strong argument in favor of ramping up open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S. is that the country imports 90 percent of its seafood, and half of that is farm-raised overseas in operations that can have dubious internal levels of food-safety and environmental oversight.

If we put all the options on the same table and compare everything in terms of nutritional value and environmental impacts, open ocean aquaculture looks very promising, says Ben Halpern, director of the University of California, Santa Barbarabased National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

Marine ecologist Steve Gaines, dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UCSB, was stunned by what he and colleagues found while comparing available data on the greenhouse-gas footprint of different animal production methods. Finfish and shellfish aquaculture had a much lower GHG footprint than anything land-based (and shellfish aquaculture could even reduce nutrient pollution, something that could be useful in the Gulf of Mexico). Producing all of our future animal protein needs via beef adds [the equivalent of emissions from] another United States, whereas if we produced the same amount of shellfish protein, we would only add another Texas, he says. The main reason is that shellfish, filter feeders, do not require a food supply; they thrive on the copious nutrients already in the water. Aquaculture  specifically operations that use best practices, Gaines clarifies  offers great opportunities to meet future food demands.

A Changing Tide?

One strong argument in favor of ramping up open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S. is that the country imports 90 percent of its seafood, and half of that is farm-raised overseas in operations that can have dubious internal levels of food-safety and environmental oversight. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the top seven countries that export aquaculture-raised seafood to the U.S. are Canada, Chile, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, which led global aquaculture production with 69 million metric tons (76 million tons) produced in 2016. Since the FDA cant physically screen all seafood imports, it monitors whether foreign suppliers comply with U.S. food-safety laws and uses a program called PREDICT to identify higher-risk shipments for physical examination.

Intensive operations in Asia, the region with the fastest growth in aquaculture and the most lax environmental oversight, are ripe for the spread of disease. In 2010, a devastating disease, hepatopancreatic necrosis syndrome, rippled through shrimp farms throughout China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The FDA has issued two countrywide alerts requiring mandatory testing for antimicrobials for aquaculture-raised seafood before entry into the U.S.  one in 2007 for seafood from China, and another in shrimp from the Malaysian peninsula in April 2016.

Increasingly, global operations are moving into open ocean waters  except in the U.S., where stiff regulatory hurdles have so far made it difficult for investors in, for example, southern California to get approval for operations.

NOAAs gulf ruling was not without controversy. The day it went into effect, 11 groups  from associations of commercial and recreational fishers to local and national environmental organizations  filed a joint lawsuit challenging NOAAs authority to permit industrial aquaculture offshore. The lawsuit alleges that NOAAs authority under the 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing marine fisheries management in federal waters, is to regulate wild fisheries catches only, not industrial aquaculture operations. In essence, the plaintiffs legal argument is that this is farming, not fishing.

Fishermen are concerned about keeping the gulf safe and productive in light of the scale of aquaculture being proposed, says Will Ward, the attorney representing fisheries plaintiffs in the lawsuit and a former fisherman. They are the ambassadors for wild fish stocks.

One concern is the threat of escaped fish, but improved netting reduces the likelihood this will happen. In the gulf, only native fish can be farmed under NOAAs new permitting rules. Yet several studies have shown that hatchery rearing, even a single generation, can alter fish genetics  specifically, survival and reproductive success. While a few escapees would likely live long enough to mate and spread their genes, most would likely end up as prey, says Patrick Banks, assistant secretary of the Office of Fisheries at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Still, says Ward, [commercial and recreational fishing] is a multibillion-dollar industry were talking about. If something goes wrong, the citizens of the Gulf Coast are the ones left holding the bag.

So far, no one has submitted an application for an aquaculture permit in the Gulf. The reason, according to industry insiders, is that investors are loath to invite the ire of environmentalists or fishermen without a smooth regulatory pathway  and that includes resolution of the pending lawsuit.

Location, Location, Location

But all of this may be putting the cart before the horse. The most pressing question may be whether the Gulf of Mexico is even the best place for U.S. offshore farming.

There is one often-cited advantage to the oil-rich gulf over other potential regions in the U.S.: infrastructure. The Gulf of Mexico is a natural place for aquaculture to start [in the U.S.], says Gulf Seafood Institutes Pearce. Everything is here shoreside. Weve got vessels, processing facilities, and we shouldnt waste these oil platforms. Hes referring to the 2,110 oil platforms currently spread throughout gulf waters; over 600 are waiting to be decommissioned. Oil platforms could serve as aquatic barns, storing fish feed and pen equipment, which would reduce start-up costs.

But the gulf also presents formidable challenges. The region is still recovering from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The oil rigs share the waters with heavy marine traffic. A large portion of the gulf suffers from an annual hypoxic or dead zone resulting from the agrochemicals draining into it from the Mississippi River. And the region is vulnerable to increasingly severe hurricanes, although submersible pens exist that can be lowered to avoid a storms destructive wave energy.

Perhaps not surprisingly, fishermen, who have faced strict catch limits imposed to rebuild wild stocks in recent years, are among the most concerned about the potential negative impacts of allowing industrial aquaculture in these sensitive waters.

That concern was on display at the recent Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meeting in New Orleans in late January. Schools of commercial and recreational fishermen congregated outside the Astor Crowne Plaza hotel meeting room as the 17-member oversight body reviewed stock assessments, catch limits and catch-report requirements.

Buddy Guindon is executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, a non-profit that represents commercial fishermen interests. He fishes the waters near Galveston, Texas, where the organization is based. These waters are shallow and so wont likely be directly affected by offshore aquaculture operations, which is ideally located in deep, swift-moving water. Still, he explains that the gulf is essentially a semi-closed body of water dominated by a northward-flowing loop current of warm water from the Caribbean. Were concerned about the [fish farm] effluent, the waste, he says.

Gulf menhaden  a small, oily forage fish  is turned into fishmeal for aquaculture, but new sources of fishmeal from things such as soy and seaweed could reduce demand for forage fish. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Sea Grant

Regional fishermen arent just concerned about what goes into the water, though. What comes out is raising questions, too. Currently, 20 million tons (18 million metric tons) of wild fish  one-quarter of the worlds commercial catch  is turned into fishmeal. Greater regional demand for fishmeal production, they worry, could leave fewer forage fish for the wild species, given that a sizable chunk of gulf menhaden  a small, oily forage fish  is already turned into fishmeal for aquaculture elsewhere. In May 2015, Empire, Louisiana-based Daybrook Fisheries, the second biggest U.S. processor of menhaden, was sold for US$380 million to Oceana, a South African fishing business that supplies fishmeal around the world.

But new sources of fishmeal  from soy to insect larvae to seaweed  promise to alleviate the demand for forage fish. The frontier [on aquaculture feeds] is lowering the environmental footprint entirely, says Conservation Internationals Kittinger. He says this will include converting vegetable matter and even food waste streams into feed.

Still, the debate over aquaculture simmered in the hallways outside the fishery council meeting in January, where fishermens organizations discussed whether they should remain part of the lawsuit against NOAAs new permitting proposal. In the end, Guindon says, the Shareholders Alliance and the Charter Fishermens Association grew leery of appearing anti-aquaculture, and opted to leave the lawsuit in February. Guindon says fishermen would favor a slow ramping up of aquaculture if there were heavy requirements for third-party monitoring of any harm that might be occurring and the regulatory authority to cease actions.

But trust in that regulatory authority is a big issue in the Gulf of Mexico. Just blocks away from the meeting, Cynthia Sarthou sighs and shakes her head. It may be cynical, says the executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network, an oil-industry watchdog in the region and a remaining participant in the lawsuit, but she has little confidence that federal agencies, especially promoters of an industry, will fully enforce regulations. NOAA, for example, is housed in the U.S. Department of Commerce. I have never seen a situation where regulatory agencies in the gulf are fully able to implement regulations and safeguard the environment, especially when economic interests are involved. She blames a lack of funding and political pressure. Agencies are subject to political pressure, politicians answer to people who invest in campaigns, and industry invests in campaigns, she says. And while NOAA may mean well, she says, it is one of the weakest regulatory bodies in the region. She points to countries like Norway as admirable regulators of industry. If we had the environmental ethic of Norway, I would be much more comfortable with this, she adds.

Its unclear how offshore aquaculture will be perceived by the Trump administration. Wilbur Ross, the new head of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said in his January 2017 Congressional confirmation hearing that he would like to see the U.S. become a net exporter of fish. Yet the administrations newly proposed budget includes drastic cuts to federal agencies, including NOAA and the Coast Guard. Its too early to tell what that will mean for regulatory oversight.

Supporters of offshore aquaculture argue that current U.S. regulations are unnecessarily cumbersome. A new memorandum of understanding details the seven government agencies that will be involved in permitting offshore aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office, the lead agency, will issue permits to deploy operations offshore and sell the harvest. A pollution discharge permit will need to be secured from the Environmental Protection Agency, while the Army Corps of Engineers will regulate the placement of structures or modification of navigable waterways. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Coast Guard will also review operations.

The Economics of Aquaculture

Advocates like Gulf Seafood Institutes Pearce believe aquaculture will bring economic benefits to coastal communities, at least between southern Louisiana and the Florida panhandle, which are closest to the deep, rapid-moving waters where offshore fish farms would need to be placed. These communities have been hard hit in recent years from human-caused and natural disasters. For example, Hurricane Isaac struck Venice, Louisiana, in 2012, two years after the fishing community was devastated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred only 50 miles to the southeast.

The commercial fishing industry lost millions of dollars in sales and thousands of jobs in the first eight months after the oil spill, according to one study. But many in these coastal communities dont expect aquaculture to bring them anything but headaches. With this much risk and money at stake, aquaculture investors have little incentive to employ local fishermen, processors or dock handlers, predicts Margaret Curole, Gulf Coast native and a founding member of the Commercial Fishermen of America, an advocacy group. Rather, aquaculture fish could be transported up the Mississippi River directly to New Orleans suppliers, bypassing fishing communities all together.

Members of the coastal Venice, Louisiana, community are concerned aquaculture will bring only headaches and competition, yet few jobs. Photo courtesy of Virginia Gewin

Catch shares, allotted fish quotas allowed given total catch limits, which can be sold among fishermen, already proved unprofitable for a number of the smaller fishing operations, forcing them out of business. And Venice-based shrimpers, who struggle to compete with massive farmed imports from overseas, offer an example of how farmed seafood affects global markets. Now fin fishermen are nervous about competition, too.

Pearce hears such economic concerns often, but is convinced the opposite is more likely. Aquaculture creates markets, he insists. He says farmed Atlantic salmon is the perfect example. It makes seafood affordable for the masses, while wild-caught salmon garners a premium price for people willing to pay.

Cobia is one of only a few native species that would make economic sense to farm in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo courtesy of NOAA Fisheries

In the gulf, offshore aquaculture operations would likely focus on high-value species that dont make up much of current catches. There are only a few high-value native species that would make economic sense  fewer still that have developed successful hatchery production, such as cobia, pompano and red drum, says Rex Caffey, a natural resource economist based in Baton Rouge with the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center and Louisiana Sea Grant.

Cobia is an aquaculture favorite because of its remarkable growth rate, but that might bring problems of its own. A tsunami of cobia is coming at us from around the world, which could flood the market and cause prices to plummet, says Louisiana Sea Grants Gaude.

The biggest unknown, says Caffey, is whether offshore fish farms could survive economically in the gulf given the daunting infrastructure costs, labor, transport, liability concerns and environmental constraints.

One argument for open-ocean aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico is that oil platforms waiting to be decommissioned could serve as aquatic barns, storing fish feed and pen equipment, but costs to take over the platforms could prove to be prohibitive. Photo courtesy of NOAA

Investors may eye existing oil platforms, but their use is not without significant costs. Matt McCarroll, president and CEO of Fieldwood Energy, LLC, in Houston, says his company is the largest owner of offshore platforms in the U.S. and has been actively decommissioning them in recent years. He says hes been contacted five or six times in the past 10 years by potential aquaculture investors interested in using the platforms. But the conversations end, he says, as soon as he explains that it will cost US$2 million to US$10 million, depending on size and water depth, to take over maintenance, liability and responsibility for decommissioning the platforms.

Perhaps the biggest limitation in the gulf is that, under the NOAA provisions, no single operation would be allowed to produce more than 5,800 metric tons [6,400 tons, or 20 percent of the gulf maximum limit of 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons)]. Thats laughable  the size of a modest Norwegian fish farm, says Kampachi Farms Sims. Especially when you look at the moral imperative to grow more of our own seafood.

The economics of aquaculture have always been risky  with significant up-front cost and a lengthy time to recoup investment. Louisiana State Universitys Lutz tells an old joke among fish farmers: If you want to make a small fortune in aquaculture, start with a large fortune.

These operations only get efficient with scale; they require a large investment and a viable permit pathway in U.S. waters. Thats why people arent running to apply for permits in the gulf, says Sims. And, he adds, thats why operations that could have been in the U.S. end up in places like Panama, where Open Blue is located, and others such as Mexico and Costa Rica, where open-ocean aquaculture is already up and running.

Testing the Waters

Offshore aquaculture offers a glimpse of the kind of difficult food-security decisions societies will grapple with going forward  knowingly facing and mitigating the unavoidable consequences of producing the food we eat. As populations continue to grow, we wont be fighting over oil and gas, but over freshwater and food, says Robert Orr, managing director of Cuna del Mar, a private equity fund that invests in sustainable aquaculture companies, including Open Blue.

Conservation International soft-launched a program in January 2017 called Blue Production with the aim of shaping and spreading best practices throughout the aquaculture industry. Aquaculture is only going to grow, so how can we steer it in the right direction? asks Conservation Internationals Kittinger.

Any kind of farming can be done sustainably  or not. Offshore aquaculture could contribute to a future where food demand is met in a way that does not contribute to environmental degradation so often associated with farming. In the U.S., it remains to be seen whether strict regulations and a robust, sustainable form of fish production can go hand in hand. But supporters say its time to test the waters.

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Dear President Trump, (Paid ad in Washington Post, April 21, 2017)

As a lifelong Democrat and former Governor of Hawaii, I opposed your candidacy. I must admit, however, that you are on the right track scrutinizing wasteful spending and pork-barrel projects.

Massive cost overruns and inflated ridership projections are the norm in rail projects, but Honolulus 20-mile elevated rail system tops them all. Initially estimated to cost $5.28 billion, the projected construction cost is now $10 billion or $500 million per mile, the most costly in the world.

City officials initially promised that rail would reduce the current level of traffic congestion dramatically. However, the Final Environmental Impact Statement concluded that rail would reduce traffic congestion by less than 2% and that traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today (without rail).

Currently. the City does not have the funds to complete the 20-mile system, falling at least $3 billion short and six years behind schedule.

How did this debacle happen? Frankly, like Alaskas infamous Bridge to Nowhere, Honolulus rail project was driven more by politics than by objective engineering and planning.

The rail project exists today mainly because the FTA buckled under pressure from U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye who was then chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The powerful chairman famously declared it would take World War III to stop the rail project! Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood praised Inouye as its absolute lynchpin.

Internal emails among FTA sta revealed there was much doubt and cynicism about rail and the Citys multi-million-dollar public relations campaign. Yet the FTA did nothing and is now on the verge of providing the remaining $800 million of the $1.5 billion grant.

Honolulus rail project does not deserve a single dollar more from the federal government. It has become a poster boy for how politics, incompetence, disinformation and outright lies are at the root of wasteful rail projects which do little for the public except raise taxes.

The FTA should terminate its Full Funding Grant Agreement with the City, keep the $800 million, and use it for a worthy transit project. This would require the City to seriously consider some of the less costly alternatives to complement the rail system.

You and I met in 1998 when your Miss Universe Pageant was held in Honolulu. I recall you commented on the beauty of Honolulu and how you felt it was the perfect venue for the pageant. The rail project plans include seven massive elevated rail stations 50-60 feet high and the 35 foot high elevated rail line through the heart of downtown Honolulu. If built, this will change the beauty and ambiance of the city forever.

Respectfully Yours,

Benjamin J. Cayetano

Governor of Hawaii (1994-2002)

PDF: Original Letter

* * * * *

Mayor Caldwell statement on Washington Post ad about citys rail project

News Release from City and County of Honolulu, April 21, 2017

Honolulu - Mayor Kirk Caldwell issued the following statement:

The people of Oahu have now gone through three election cycles where rail was the issue of the day, and each time affirmed that rail should be completed as originally planned with 20 miles of guideway and 21 stations. In each of those elections, ads like the one that appeared in todays Washington Post were paid for by those who oppose the project, as is their right under the First Amendment. I remain focused on working really hard to extend the citys half-percent rail surcharge for at least another 10 years. This will allow the countrys first driverless train to reach all the way to Ala Moana Center and ensure a viable project. Thats what the people of Oahu expect, and thats what Im concentrating on.

-END-
Statement by George D. Szigeti, President and CEO, Hawaii Tourism Authority

RE: Rat Lungworm Disease is Very Rare and Easily Preventable in Hawaii

News Release from HTA, April 21, 2017

HONOLULU  George D. Szigeti, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA), issued the following statement to reassure Hawaiis tourism industry and visitors planning trips to the Hawaiian Islands that rat lungworm disease is very rare and easily preventable.

Some national media attention has been devoted recently to rat lungworm disease in Hawaii, raising concerns among visitors and groups planning trips to the Hawaiian Islands. It is important that people not overreact and gather reliable information before making any assumptions.

On the recommendation of the Hawaii State Department of Health, residents and visitors of Hawaii can be assured there is nothing to fear about getting infected as long as they use smart common sense when washing, preparing and storing food.

The key facts that everyone needs to remember about rat lungworm disease is that it is very rare, it is very uncommon for people to get infected, and the disease is easily preventable by properly washing and storing all food, especially produce, before eating.

To the visitors already in the Hawaiian Islands or planning a trip here in the coming months, there is no need to be overly concerned. Please patronize our restaurants and enjoy the delicious island cuisine and fresh produce that helps to make Hawaii such a beloved travel experience.

I would strongly recommend anyone wanting trusted information about rat lungworm disease to visit the Department of Health website (health.hawaii.gov) and learn the facts.

Hawaii, which has 1.4 million residents and welcomed more than 8.9 million visitors in 2016, typically has between one to 11 cases of rat lungworm disease reported annually, according to the Department of Health.

Thus far in 2017, 11 people have been infected with the disease, nine residents and two visitors. While the cause of two cases is still being investigated, the Department of Health reports that the remaining nine cases could have been prevented with better hygiene and by properly washing, preparing and storing food.

We hope knowing this information helps allay concerns about travel to the Hawaiian Islands, which continues to be the cleanest, healthiest, safest and most welcoming destination in the world.

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Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) causes gut infections and can be particularly dangerous for elderly patients. Because it is resistant to commonly used antibiotics it can emerge in patients who are already being treated in hospital for unrelated conditions. The new research used DNA fingerprinting to examine which particular types of the bacteria were causing infections in patients and how widely they are distributed in Europe.



Some strains were found clustered within a particular country, suggesting they were possibly being passed around within hospitals  a well-recognised route of transmission. However, because some other strains were found dispersed in several different countries, this adds weight to the idea that C. difficile could also be transmitted via our food.



The research was presented by Dr David Eyre, a clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He explained: We know that C. difficile lives in the gut in a small proportion of healthy people, where it causes no symptoms. However, its resistance to antibiotics means it can grow uncontrollably in patients treated with the drugs, causing diarrhoea that can be severe or even fatal. It is the most frequent cause of infectious diarrhoea in hospitalised patients, and the increase in the use of antibiotics has allowed C. difficile to spread more effectively.



Lots of effort has gone into controlling its spread including infection control interventions such as hand washing campaigns, and reducing the use of antibiotics that can lead to infection. Despite these measures, people are still getting C. difficile infections and the routes of transmission are not completely understood. Other sources of transmission that have been suggested include asymptomatic patients, children  who carry C. difficile more commonly than adults  and farm and domestic animals.



The new research included all the stool samples submitted on one day in summer and one day in winter in 2012/2013 from 482 European hospitals [2]. Dr Eyre and his team selected the ten most common types of C. difficile found in the samples. In each case, they used DNA fingerprinting to examine how widespread the type was within countries and between countries.



Dr Eyre told the congress: We know that C. difficile infection can spread within hospitals. If this was the only route of transmission, we would expect to see each type of the bacteria concentrated within one area. However, because we also saw some types that were spread around several countries, this suggests the bacteria are moving around by other means.



The research indicated that five of the types were clustered within countries while five others were not. One type, for example, was found in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.



Another type which was spread around Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and UK has previously been associated with pig farming. Dr Eyre continued: We dont know much about how C. difficile might be spread in the food chain, but this research suggests it may be very widespread. If that turns out to be the case, then we need to focus on some new preventative strategies such as vaccination in humans once this is possible, or we might need to look at our use of animal fertilisers on crops. This study doesnt give us any definitive answers, but it does suggest other factors are at play in the spread of C. difficile and more research is urgently needed to pin them down.



To investigate further, Dr Eyre hopes to repeat the study but, at the same time, obtain samples from food, the wider environment and hospitals, to better understand where the source of infection might be.



[1] The European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) is the annual meeting of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID). This year it will take place from 22  25 April 2017 in Vienna, Austria. At the worlds largest congress combining the fields of infectious diseases and clinical microbiology, researchers will present more than 3,000 regular and late-breaking abstracts with the latest findings and recommendations, which are set to help improve diagnosis, prevention and treatment of infection-related diseases. The congress offers almost 200 session, including keynote lectures, symposia, oral sessions, educational workshops and meet-the-expert session. ECCMID expects almost 12,000 participants from more than 100 countries.

[2] The hospitals were in Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Romania, France, the UK, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, The Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Greece.

[3] Funding: the cost of the DNA sequencing was met by Astellas Pharma. Data analysis was supported by NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.



Source: ECCMID
Premier Li Keqiang said that high-quality medical resources should be fully used through means such as medical alliances.

He made the remarks during a visit to Sunjiatuan Hospital in Weihai, Shandong province, on April 20. The community hospital featuring traditional Chinese medicine has formed a medical alliance with Weihai City Chinese Medicine Hospital.

The Premier saw experts from the citys Chinese medicine hospital receiving outpatients there and watched a video about remote diagnosis and treatment.

He said Chinese medicine believes that a person will no longer feel discomfort if his meridians flow smoothly. We should make efforts to break through the barriers and make high-quality medical resources flow, to seek better treatment for patients by means of medical alliances.

At the hospital, many elderly patients enjoyed the combined services of medical treatment and senior care. The Premier said, Given the fact that Chinas elderly population has exceeded 200 million, the integration of healthcare and elderly care services should be promoted to effectively protect their interests, putting them and their children at ease.

Also in Weihai city, the Premier visited Dishang Group, a clothing company, saying that although clothing is a traditional industry, it can be vitalized if integrated with the new economy.

Started from a small subcontracting factory, Dishang continued to develop self-designed brands and internet-based customized manufacturing, and has now become a transnational enterprise with annual export revenue of $1.5 billion.

The clothing industry contributed a lot to Chinas manufacturing several decades ago, but it is a low added-value industry, Premier Li said.

He urged traditional industries such as clothing to upgrade and strive for innovation in the fast-changing market, in order to reshape the worlds impression of Made in China.

At a market supervision bureau in Weihai, Premier Li learned that law enforcement officials in charge of industry and commerce, quality supervision, and food and drug, were merged into one team, and achieved satisfactory results.

The Premier praised the practice, saying that work efficiency will be greatly enhanced with wider coverage of supervision. He also stressed coordinated work between grassroots law enforcement and higher authorities.

According to local officials, in Weihai city, one-third of administrative items can be handled through the internet, saving people much time and effort.

Hearing this, Premier Li was pleased and called on governments at all levels to speed up such reforms. Nowadays, even wholesale payment can be handled online, why cant approval procedures? he said.
An inquest into the death of a man found with a stab wound to the heart has been postponed pending the outcome of a garda investigation.

Graham McKeever (32), of Hazelwood Lane, Clondalkin, died on February 18.

One person has been arrested in connection with his death.

The father-of-one's body was formally identified by his father, Joseph McKeever, the inquest into his death heard as it opened at Dublin Coroner's Court.

The court was told the cause of death was a single stab wound to the heart. This was according to a post-mortem conducted by deputy state pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan.

Det Insp John Walshe, of Tallaght Garda Station, told the court that one person has been arrested in relation to Mr McKeever's death and a file is being prepared for the DPP.

He applied for a six-month adjournment to allow for this process to conclude. The coroner adjourned the inquest for further mention on November 23, 2017.

Mr McKeever was discovered unconscious with several stab wounds to his body outside an apartment block in Deerpark Avenue, Tallaght, at 4.40am last February 18.

Emergency services were alerted but, despite the best efforts of paramedics, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A woman aged in her 30s was also in the apartment at the time of the attack.

She was also assaulted and suffered injures that were described as non-life-threatening.

Flee

Gardai believed a lone attacker broke into the Tallaght property shortly after 4am and began stabbing Mr McKeever.

The victim is understood to have tried to flee but was caught by the assailant and stabbed several times, including what turned out to be the fatal blow.

It is understood that Mr McKeever had been staying at the Deerpark property with a woman and a child.

It was unclear at the time whether the child was in the apartment when the killing occurred.
Lying: Can we ever regain the sanctity of the truth?
The union minister has hailed the former prime minister for giving India a new direction.
How do you handle a drunken Chihuahua?

Thats the challenge cops in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania faced earlier this month when they encountered Maxwell, a 12-pound ankle biter ripped to the gills on Smirnoff vodka.

Maxwell, according to reports from Pittsburghs Action News 4 and The Smoking Gun website, was accompanying his 44-year-old owner, who had a vehicular mishap, slamming his car into a fence and pole shortly before 3:30 p.m. on a Thursday. It appears the pair was getting a big head start on the weekend.

Here is a portion of the responding officers report:

As I ran to the vehicle, I located a white adult male, highly impaired, keys in the ignition, turned on, and still in gear. There was a small Chihuahua dog in the car. The driver was just staring at me and failed to respond to commands to secure the vehicle or put it in gear and turn it off. He just turned and stared at me. On his lap was a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka 375 ml. The open bottle was spilled on him and was still pouring into the console of the car. I repeatedly attempted to secure the vehicle but the dog was aggressive and snapping at my hands.

The human suspect was eventually removed from the car, the vehicle was secured with the dog, later identified as Maxwell, still inside while police questioned the suspect to gauge his level of impairment, which appeared to be around an 11 on a scale of one to 10.

Back to the police report:

When we returned to the vehicle the dog Maxwell was drinking the vodka that was spilled and pooled in the console.

Uh-oh.

The situation had taken a turn for the worse  the cops were now dealing with a drunken Chihuahua, a major threat to public safety.

None of the reports explain how the situation actually went down, but heres how I imagine it did: The police back away, secure the perimeter and the sergeant at the scene sighs deeply and shakes his head.

Just two more weeks until my pension kicks in and now this happens  a drunken Chihuahua. Get the chief of the horn. Weve got a Code Red on Cyprus Drive.

The chief deploys the SWAT team and crisis negotiator, then calls the mayor with the bad news.

Your honor, weve got a Code Red on Cyprus Drive.

My god, man. Are you telling me weve got a drunken Chihuahua, a major threat to public safety? Im supposed to give investors from the Sakyahmi Corporation a tour of the citys Cyprus Drive property for their proposed semiconductor facility at 4 p.m. This will ruin everything. You clean this mess up or Ill have your badge!

The chief quickly heads to the scene.

How do we stand, sergeant?

Maxwells still holed up in the car, sir. The negotiator approached and tried to pet him and now the negotiator is missing the tip of his index finger. Maxwell just keeps yapping. Its more of a slurring yap, kind of a shlap. From what we can make out, he wants to go to Taco Bell.

Negative. We cant endanger the citizens safety down there any more. Theyre already eating at Taco Bell. Hold my coat. Im going in to talk to Maxwell.

Sir, you cant. Its suicide. Thats a drunken Chihuahua.

If I dont make it tell my wife I love her. And tell the mayor he can kiss my $@@.

Out of my imagination and back in reality, police did get Maxwell out of the car and down to an animal hospital. After a night treatment, a doctor told Action News Maxwell was back to his normal self, not showing any signs of what happened. Looks like a different dog than the dog presented last night."

For the sake of public safety, lets hope Maxwell stays off the sauce.

Scott Hollifield is editor/GM of The McDowell News in Marion and a humor columnist.
NEWTON  District Attorney David Learner ruled the Feb. 3 shooting of a suspect by the Hickory Police as justified, according to a press release issued Thursday.

The shooting occurred while HPD attempted to serve a no-knock search warrant at the residence of William David Whetstone, 33. During the incident, Whetstone was shot and killed.

The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) gathered witness statements and evidence, including footage from multiple body cameras, according to the release.

HPDs Special Operations Team entered the home at approximately 8:14 a.m. and encountered Whetstone, according to a Feb.3 HPD press release.

Officers gave Whetstone verbal commands not to move; Whetstone reached between the cushions of a sofa producing a handgun and pointing it at officers, according to the release.

HPD Sgt. Rodney N. Harris was shot during the incident and has since recovered. Master police officer David H. Lee and Sgt. Randy W. Isenhour discharged their weapons during the incident, according to the release.

The law of North Carolina recognizes the principle of self-defense, Learner said, which is the inherent right to use deadly force to protect ones self or others from death or great bodily harm.

The SBI investigation uncovered the HPD knew Whetstone kept weapons at the residence, and the team announced themselves as law enforcement when they entered the residence.

A second suspect was in the home and complied with the officers orders.

(Whetstone) was told repeatedly not to move, yet he lunged to the arm of the sofa and rammed his right hand down between the cushion and arm of the sofa, according to the DAs release. Whetstone pulled a handgun out of the sofa and pointed it directly at officers who were only a few feet away.

The incident lasted a few seconds.
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Watching the ongoing prolonged political soap opera that has been leading to consecutive midnight vigils before the television in Tamil Nadu, what the people have been missing is the presence, aura and voice of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, who had been dominating the states political discourse for over half a century. Karunanidhi may not be part of the ruling AIADMK, around which the plot now revolves, but he would have helped the bewildered people make some sense of the absurdities unfolding at various venues, what with his inimitable wit, canny wordplay and sharp comments, all fashioned by his political acumen.

As the 92-year-old veteran has been confined to his home and remains incommunicado due to medical reasons ever since the latest farce began, soon after the passing away of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in December, he has been unable to put in perspective the plethora of connected and unconnected developments that together make up the present imbroglio. Besides, when the ruling party faces a crisis that has the potential to paralyse routine governance itself, as it has happened now, the people look up to the principal Opposition to rise to the occasion.

Put otherwise, the popular perception now in Tamil Nadu is that Karunanidhi would have done something about it had he been hale and hearty and politically active.

Would he have tried to form a government by roping in disgruntled MLAs of the ruling party soon after the crisis erupted with O Panneerselvam firing the first salvo from Jayalalithaas memorial at Marina? No one can say, for sure. But then, there is a section of leaders within the DMK that resents that no such attempt was even made. After all, the DMK could have pulled it off easily by weaning away 46 MLAs  one-third of the total strength of the AIADMK.

But the DMKs inaction was more glaring in the subsequent developments that kept Tamil Nadu in the national focus. If the AIADMK was seen floundering due to the lack of efficient leadership, there was also the suggestion that even the Opposition had the same deficiency. Or, both the principal parties seem to be on the same course, reveling in some past glory and invoking the names of bygone leaders.

Of course, no one is surprised that such a tribulation has befallen the AIADMK. After all, Jayalalithaa did not groom any second-rung leader during her long tenure. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami were just part of the scenery, bowing before Jayalalithaa in subservience like every other functionary. After all, in an open display of servitude, it was Panneerselvam who touched the wheels of Jayalalithaa SUV, besides looking up at her helicopter with folded hands in reverence. So, if they had become CMs by circumstances of fate, they cannot be expected to turn leaders overnight and inspire confidence in others.

But why should the DMK be seen as rudderless in the present scenario? After all, it is an organisation grounded in ideology, history and tradition unlike its rival that necessarily glowed in the reflected glory and charisma of larger- than-life personalities like MGR and Jayalalithaa. Why has the DMK failed to capture the popular imagination as a party just waiting to capture power and capable of bringing back order to the muddled political scene?

Of course, some swift developments have confused the people. Like a Delhi police team travelling all the way to Chennai to just deliver a summons, that too close to midnight amid the whirring of television cameras. Or, the faction of a political party having sufficient numbers to form the government and is firmly in the saddle going for negotiations with a weak breakaway group. Or over the temerity of the leader of the breakaway group in putting forward incredible conditions to begin talks.

Bogged down by such intrigue, the people miss someone who could explain how the wheels crank within wheels and throw light on the invisible forces behind the unfolding drama. And they miss the nonagenarian Kalaignar.

G Babu Jayakumar is a senior journalist based in Chennai

The views expressed are personal
Padma Vibhushan Zohra Segal is remembered for her joie de vivre, for being the one with a child-like smile, infectious energy and repertoire of work in the field of arts. In Delhi, at the second edition of The Zohra Segal Festival Of The Arts, a fest dedicated to the late actor, you can get a glimpse into her life.

Born on April 27, 1912, Zohra was an actor, dancer, and choreographer. She died at the age of 102 in 2014.

The two-day festival will have a photo exhibition, From Zohras Albums, besides the screening of a documentary on her, directed by Anant Raina. There will also be a screening of Gurinder Chaddhas film, Bhaji on the Beach; a Kathak recital by Pandit Vishal Krishna, and a Childrens Puppet Theatre performance. My mother enjoyed theatre, says Kiran Segal, festival curator and Zohras daughter, talking about the inclusion of dance and theatre in this years edition.

Zohra Segal (far left in the front row) performed as part of eminent dancer Uday Shankars troupe in the ballet Shiv Parvati, in the 1930s.

The exhibition has archival images from her album, which she clicked from her little Brownie camera. These give a glimpse into her chequered life, where she faced a lot of difficulties such as her husbands death that made her the sole caretaker of her two children, says Oroon Das, curator of the exhibition.

Zohra Segal and filmmaker Prithviraj Kapoor with Zohras children Kiran (left) and Pavan (right) in London in the 1960s. The children were close to Prithviraj Kapoor and used to refer to him as Papaji.

Das adds that it will be a delight for the viewers to see Zohra with personalities such as Uday Shankar (dancer) and Prithviraj Kapoor (filmmaker). There are significant chapters of her life such as a photo of her on a ship to Germany, where she first went to study. These give us a sense of the sheer scale and size of the lifestyle she lived to become the iconic figure she is in popular imagination.

Incorporating multiple art forms, the fest will also see a pottery exhibition by Shehla Hashmi Grewal. Bringing all this together wasnt easy. Weve managed with the help of donations from people. Visitors requested us to make it an annual event, but we need financial help for the years to come, says Kiran.

CATCH IT LIVE What: The Zohra Segal Festival Of The Arts Where: India International Centre, Lodhi Estate When: April 22 and 23 Timings: 11am to 6.30pm Nearest Metro Station: Jor Bagh on Yellow Line

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An age-old tradition of chopping leaves of a special tree by a groom ahead of his marriage to propitiate gods went horribly wrong at a Madhya Pradesh village on Thursday, killing a 10-year-old boy.

Police on Friday said a case pertaining to accidental death would be registered against the groom at Rampura police station, under whose jurisdiction the village falls.

The brides family has also called off the marriage after the boy, one of their relatives, died.

Phoolchand Bhoi (24), a resident of Bhoi Mohalla village in Neemuch district, situated some 400 km north west of Bhopal, was to get married on Thursday.

As part of a tradition known as Gaon Gawai, he was cutting leaves from Kherji tree with a sword in the evening. A large number of family members gathered around the tree having fun. Unfortunately, Hemant Shankar came in the way of the sword-wielding groom. The sword struck the boy in his stomach, grievously injuring him.

Hemant was rushed to the local government hospital, but as his condition was critical, he was referred to the Neemuch district hospital, some 60 km away from the village. He died on the way.

Rampura town inspector Amit Saraswat said since the boy died in Neemuch, a case would be registered there and then it would be transferred to Rampura, where a case of homicide not amounting to murder would be registered against the groom.
Actor Pallavi Sharda, who is busy balancing her Bollywood and international projects, rues not knowing how to spread the word and stay in the limelight.

Im shooting a television series in Australia, which makes me the first Indian- origin actor on Australian television. I spent the last two years on international projects, but its in my nature to keep quiet about my work. I am bad at understanding how I need to publicise myself. My body of work speaks for itself, says Pallavi, whose Hollywood film, Lion, got six nominations in the Oscars this year.

The actor, born and brought up in Australia, was recently seen in Begum Jaan alongside Vidya Balan. However, she is upset with stories and videos that revolved around the dresses that she wore during the promotions. In the course of promoting the film, the subject of my dress sense came up and that got million views. I cried because I was so ashamed with corrupted minds everywhere. My father goes online to see my latest interview, and the first headline that he sees is not about my role. I feel proud of myself for wearing a dress like that. We have every right to take ownership of what we wear but stories around your dresses can really hit your confidence sometimes, says Pallavi, who has been part of films such as Besharam (2013) and Hawaizaada (2015).

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Ranbir Kapoor left everyone speechless when photos of him as Sanjay Dutt for the biographical film got leaked on social media. Not just his fans and colleagues in the film fraternity, but Dutt too, was surprised and happily shocked to see that Kapoor resembles him in the photos.

Sanjay was taken aback when he saw the picture that was doing the rounds on the Internet. The resemblance is uncanny and Sanjay couldnt stop staring at them, says Dutts spokesperson.

In the recently released photos, Ranbir was seen sporting Sanjay Dutts look from the time when the actor was released from Punes Yerwada jail in February 2016, after serving a 42-month sentence for being convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial blast case.

A source close to the actor reveals that Dutt had no clue about the look and was surprised, when the photos took the internet by storm. Sanjay got to know from someone how Ranbirs look was circulated on various websites and everyone loved it. Thats when the actor learnt about the photos. On seeing them, he was stunned at the similarities that filmmaker Raju Hirani and Ranbir Kapoor had worked upon. He has absolutely loved it, informs a source.

UNBELIEVABLE: #RanbirKapoor as #SanjayDutt on the sets of #Dutt! #Bollywood #BollywoodActor #BollywoodPhoto #SanjayDuttBiopic #Desimartini #OnTheSets #RajkumarHirani #SonamKapoor #AnushkaSharma #DiaMirza @bollyone #bollyone A post shared by B O L L Y O N E (@bollyone) on Apr 12, 2017 at 8:08am PDT

Ranbirs look as a younger Sanjay Dutt, leaked in February last, and had also gone viral. At an event in Mumbai, last week, Ranbir said that the shooting for the film is 60 percent complete.

Ranbir Kapoor looks strikingly similar to young Sanjay Dutt...eagerly awaiting this @RajkumarHirani film.. pic.twitter.com/3qbqXln0yF  Faridoon Shahryar (@iFaridoon) February 21, 2017

As you can see, Im in the look of Sanjay Dutt and we have shot for more than half of the film. It feels proud that Im part of his biopic and Im very thankful to Vinod Sir (Vidhu Vinod Chopra) and Sanjay (Dutt) sir specially for it, Ranbir was quoted as saying.

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Salman Khan will have to appear in the District and Session Court here on July 6 when the arguments begin on an appeal against his acquittal by a trial court in an Arms Act case, according to the Public Prosecutor.

His counsels appeared in the court today, after which the judge Bhagwan Das Agarwal listed the matter for July 6 to start the arguments on the appeal filed by the State.

Public Prosecutor Pokar Ram Bishnoi said that before commencement of the arguments, Khan will have to submit a bail bond of Rs. 20000 in the court along with his appearance. The court has ordered (Khan) to submit a bail bond of Rs. 20000 in the court on July 6 and has also directed Khan to appear in the court for the hearing of our appeal, said Bishnoi.

The trial court had acquitted Khan of all the charges against him under the Arms Act on January 18 this year, citing technical grounds pertaining to framing of the charges and prosecution permission against him by the then district magistrate.

The Rajasthan government had challenged his acquittal in the District and Session court on March 7.

Admitting the government petition, judge Agarwal had issued notice to Khan listing the matter for hearing today.
Karisma Kapoors ex husband Sanjay Kapur and his new bride Priya Sachdev organised their wedding reception in New York and the pictures shared by their fan pages are gorgeous.

The Delhi-based industrialist and his model wife tied the knot on April 13 in New Delhi then flew to New York for the reception. The couple looked stunning as newlyweds in their traditional attire.

A post shared by POLO LIFE (@pololifeindia) on Apr 19, 2017 at 5:31am PDT

A post shared by indiacom (@indiadotcom) on Apr 20, 2017 at 12:39am PDT

The couple cut an enormous three-tier cake as they celebrated the happy occasion with their friends and family.

Priya Sachdev is the ex-wife of hotelier Vikram Chatwal who was recently in the news for allegedly setting his neighbours dogs on fire. Priya and Sanjay are rumoured to have been a couple since 2013.

Sanjay and Karisma got married in 2003 and their very messy divorce got finalised in June 2016. Things started getting sour for them after the birth of their daughter Sumeira. The Delhi high court advised the couple to explore the possibility of a settlement. Karisma moved out of Kapurs house in 2010, and permanently shifted base to Mumbai. In 2014, the two decided to end their 12-year-long marriage and filed for divorce through mutual consent.

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Much like its theatrical release, the TV premiere of Shahid Kapoor-Alia Bhatt-starrer Udta Punjab has faced the brunt of the censors scissors . Director Abhishek Chaubey, however, has expressed his gratitude towards the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

Shahid Kapoor played a star singer in Udta Punjab.

The world television premiere of Udta Punjab is scheduled on &pictures on April 30.

Claiming that he accepted the cuts suggested for television viewing, Abhishek said, I completely accept the kind of cuts that have been asked for the telecast as opposed to what had happened for the theatrical release. In theatres, there is a provision where only the adults could walk in and when that is happening, we should have the ability to express ourselves in the best interest of the film. But as far as television is concerned, it is a different medium, accessible to every walk of life and every age group. As a film-maker, I am responsible enough to understand that the contents of my film cant entirely be shown to a child. So the kind of cuts that were asked for TV viewing were truly acceptable to me.

Speaking on having portrayed Punjab as the land of drugs, while the state is known for music, farmers and happiness in Bollywood, he said, I did not have any intention of changing the image or portrayal or show Punjab in a different manner. I think if a film-maker talks about a problem prevailing in a particular area, he is talking out of a lot of love and concern. Since I love Punjab and care for it, I made the film. Those who deny the existing situations or hide the problems are people who do not love the state. So I consciously did not go out to change the image of Punjab and I shot Punjab for what it is. I took a big risk in shooting the film predominantly in Punjabi but I did that because when I met the people in Punjab, I thought to capture the authentic language and the dialect of the people so that the film looks real and not a fantasy. I shot it for what it is!

Diljit played a cop in Udta Punjab.

Asked whether he cast Diljit Dasanjh to target the Punjabi audience, Abhishek said, Not really. After, Shahid, Alia and Kareena were on board, we were still searching for someone to play Sartaj. Then somebody told me about Diljit. He usually does comedy films so I was hesitant but when I saw Punjab 1984, I knew that he had the potential for dramatic acting as well. I spoke to Kareena and she was also open to work with him. It was a fresh pairing. But I was still in two minds till he walked into my office to meet me. Within ten minutes I had found my Sartaj. Diljit belongs to Ludhiana and is extremely close to his roots. He is very real and brought a palette of authenticity to the film.

When Sudip and I were writing the script, it happened very organically. Neither did we force it nor were we trying to act smart or cool. . Alia was this extremely poor girl, lives on the margin of the society she doesnt belong to, barely earns enough to keep her body and soul intact and hardly has any friends. Her sorrow state deepens when she chances upon that world of drugs. At that point too, the character is interacting with people she doesnt know. She is a nobody; and nobody cares for her. She just wishes to be somebody but ends up being a nobody. There was no situation in the film that led us to write her name. There is nobody who cared enough to call her by a name. It just happened, he said about Alia Bhatts character.

I dont know if cinema really changes the world. It just makes people aware of what is happening in our neighbourhood. Movies, at times are a truer representation of reality than TV or newspapers. Cinema is not just a repository of information but also gets into the personal and emotional lives of people who are affected by a problem. Our duty was to represent the problem in all its dimensions and tell a human story about it. When the film came out, it did very well in Punjab which means people somewhere connected with what we were trying to say and they wanted to see all that was going on, he added.

Released on June 17 last year, Udta Punjab opened to mixed reviews and bagged several awards.

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Tanu Weds Manu producer Vinod Bachchans journey from a small UP village to tinsel town is a typical Bollywood potboiler. Bachchan, who is currently producing Rajkummar Rao starrer Shadi Mein Zaroor Aana, which is being shot in Lucknow, spoke to HT City on the sidelines of the shoot.

After his parents death, Bachchan ran away from scantly populated village Daryaganj in Etah and landed in Mumbai. The 14-year-old had come with dreams to become a hero but had to struggle to make ends meet. From assisting in films, doing job in Dubai, real-estate consultancy to owning a production company, he has come a long way.

Footpath at home, food at gurudwarathose were very tough years. My dream of becoming an actor soon faded. Then I got chance to assist actor-director Mazhar Khan. I worked with Shashilal Nair, Swaroop Kumar and did 18 films as an assistant director, he tells HT City. Bachchan also acted in few TV serials.

His life took another twist when he went to Dubai where he worked in the hospitality industry for two years. In his phase I was completely off the film industry radar and focused on earning money in the hotel industry. I came back to Mumbai and started property consultancy. Here my contacts the film industry during my assistant-director days came in handy and soon I started catering exclusively to the film industry people. Today my client list includes most of the big actors, directors, producers and technicians.

In 2004, he turned producer with Rain that had Meghna Naidu and Himanshu Malik. His film list includes TWM, Jigariyaa and Zila Ghaziabad. Out of six films that I have produced, five are based in UP. I like to produce films which tell the tale of the common man. My mantra is to make films on middle class family ke kahani and that is my real audience. Tanu Weds Manus success is a testimony of this. Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana, directed by Ratna Sinha (producer-director Anubhav Sinhas wife) is too a family entertainer and everyone would be able to relate with it, he says.

The film has been shot in Allahabad, has a 30 day schedule in Lucknow and will finally be wrapped off in Kanpur. The films story is by Kamal Pandey (Saheb Biwi and Gangster Returns).

Talking about UP and filmy connect he says, The film industry is full of people from our state. If this is our janmabhoomi, Mumbai is our karmabhoomi. Its great that so many people are shooting films here. There is lot to explore in Uttar Pradesh in term of locations and culture.

His next production, Yaaron Ki Baraat, too is set in the state capital. The film has been written by Ikram Akhtar, a Lucknowite, who wrote films like Ready, Thank You and No Problem. It has a big starcast but we will like to announce it after sometime, he says. Jassi Weds Jassi is another film he will be producing. This has Kartik Aryan, Arbaaz Khan and Paresh Rawal. This film has flavour of Punjab and we will like to shoot it there, he says before signing off.
After Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor became proud parents to a baby boy, Taimur, on December 20, 2016, Pataudi family is ready to welcome another bundle of joy in their clan. Actors Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Kemmu, too, are expecting their first child. Soha and Kunal got married on January 25, 2015.

Yes its true... Soha and I are very happy to announce a joint production coming later this year - our first child! :) We feel blessed and thank you all for your good wishes (sic), Kunal confirmed the news through a text message. When prodded further about his feelings on becoming a father soon, the actor replied, Hi Im shooting in Hyderabad and have bad network.

When we messaged mommy-to-be Soha Ali Khan, and congratulated on the good news, she, too, confirmed the news saying, Thank you so much.

Itll be interesting to see whether Soha, too, will follow the footsteps of her sister-in-law Kareena and make stylish appearances through her pregnancy. Looks like Taimur will get to celebrate his first birthday with his cousin! Fans surely cant wait to see Soha and Kunals joint production.

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No other popular author has got such publicity. Writers do benefit if celebrities express interest in their work, but Alistair MacLean may be the only one whose books are being read by characters in films -- even beyond Hollywood. Remember what Sharmila Tagore is half-way through on her train journey before being serenaded by Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana?

Then in Israeli film Operation Thunderbolt (1977), Col Yonatan Netanyahu (the elder brother of the present Israeli Prime Minister) is reading his Circus as Israeli commandos travel to Idi Amins Uganda to free passengers of a hijacked Israeli plane. Somehow, films have a certain bent for this MacLean novel about a German trapeze artist tasked to infiltrate a communist stronghold -- a character in British horror film The Comeback (1978) is also shown reading it.

For good reason too, as MacLean, whose 95th birth anniversary is on Thursday, was -- and is -- among the most well-known and enduring authors of the adventure/thriller genre ever, with a special focus on war, the sea and harsh, unforgiving climates (polar terrain and high, deep seas are particular favourites).

In his almost three-decade-long writing career, Alistair Stuart MacLean (1922-87) wrote a little over two dozen novels, but several became famous as well as highly visible due to their film adaptations -- The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare are the best examples.

It was also unique for a British author, for whom English was not the first language.

The third son of Church of Scotland minister, MacLean, who was born in Glasgow but spent most of young days in a town near Inverness, spoke Scottish Gaelic as his mother tongue and learned English as a second language.

Joining the Royal Navy in 1941 during World War II, he served in the ranks but saw quite a bit of action in the Atlantic, on escort duty with Arctic convoys, in the operation against German battleship Tirpitz, on various duties in the Mediterranean and finally in the Far East against the Japanese. All these experiences would be reflected in some of his best adventures.

Demobilised in 1946, MacLean studied English at the University of Glasgow and then worked as a school teacher. During his university days, he began writing short stories to earn some extra money. A maritime-themed story won a competition in 1954, and so impressed the publisher Collins that they asked him for a novel.

His debut HMS Ulysses (1955), based on his own war experiences, as well as credited insight from his brother Ian, a more senior sailor, Master Mariner. The novel was a great success and MacLean was soon able to devote himself entirely to writing.

In rapid succession followed a chain of best-sellers including The Guns of Navarone (1957), South by Java Head (1957), Night Without End (1959), Ice Station Zebra (1963), Where Eagles Dare (1967), The Way to Dusty Death (1973), Breakheart Pass (1974), and more.

And it was quality stuff he wrote -- in a bid to prove the worth of the content, he published two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart and they were equally successful. However, some critics contend that his best work came up to 1970, those till around the middle of the 1970s were of middling quality and the last half-dozen or so are more mechanical and depend on ambitiously convoluted plots.

Among his oeuvre was When Eight Bells Toll (1966) -- which is the one Sharmila Tagore is seen reading in Aradhana -- but this was not his only tryst with Bollywood. His drugs thriller Puppet on a Chain (1969), which became a British film three years later, also inspired the superhit Bollywood starrer Dharmendra-Hema Malini Charas (1976).

In all, over half of his 28 novels were adapted for the big screen and if most of the them remain quite true to the printed page, it is because MacLean wrote the screenplay -- Where Eagles Dare most notably.

And MacLean, who is still in print, owes a bit of his popularity and acceptability among young impressionable minds for most notably eschewing the love element. Asked about this in an interview, he replied briskly: Sex? No time for it. Gets in the way of the action.

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Have you ever wanted to read Little Women only from the point of view of Laurie?

No? Me neither. Nonetheless, here it is -- 27-year-old Sarvat Hasins debut novel, This Wide Night, published by Penguin. Set in Karachi, Pakistan, during the 1970s and through the Bangladesh War, this book isnt just inspired by the Louisa May Alcott novel, but lifts entire characters and scenarios from the 1868 classic. This, in itself, is an interesting concept: to impose the problems of white women from 19th century England onto five brown women in the 20th century. But it could also be an oversimplification of the very distinct differences between the struggles of Caucasian feminists and Women of Colour. While reading This Wide Night, I was inclined to think the latter rather than cheer the desi revival of a childhood favourite.

This Wide Night is supposed to follow the lives of five eccentric women in highly patriarchal Pakistani society. The characters include the smart, quiet one, Maria (or Meg), spritely writer-wannabe Ash (or Jo), quiet Bina (or Beth), charming and ditzy Leila (or Amy), and their mother. Their father, the Captain, works in the Pakistani Army; eventually he goes to fight in the India-Bangladesh War. Maria dabbles in teaching before marrying a senior professor; Ash never gets to go to journalism school, Leila gets to see Paris and reject this version of Laurie aka Jimmy, a rich half-French boy who is the womens neighbour.

From the beginning, this book is as it promises to be: a knock-off Little Women. Ash (or Jo) and Jimmy (aka Laurie) even meet while hiding during a party thrown by a snooty side character. Perhaps this is homage; perhaps its a bold strategy, but for some key issues.

Little Women was, in its time, a look into womens lives unencumbered by a male perspective. This is why the classic is written in an omniscient voice.

This Wide Night tells its story in the voice of the sixth character. The reader sees its world from Jimmys (or Lauries) eyes, hears his thoughts and ideas of the female characters. Hasin does a rather self-assured job of imitating a privileged boys voice. When Maria starts teaching at Jimmys school, he describes her womanly presence to be like honey, a phrase thats so typically overused by male authors that even Naipaul might not be able to exercise his special powers of being able to tell the gender of this writer through her language.

Sarvat Hasin (Tom de Freston)

Using this POV means a considerable portion of the novel follows a mans existential crisis. This dilutes the womens stories. At times, their presence in the book is solely via the narrators thoughts. This leaves huge gaps in the stories of the women, making This Wide Night yet another piece of fiction that uses its female protagonists as mere mirrors through which we witness yet another rich mans existential crisis. I rarely say books need to have a purpose, but if one is writing tales of women, isnt it safe to say it is best told through the eyes of a woman? By using omniscience, Alcott avoided this mousetrap of a question entirely; but Hasins novel is trapped by it and unable to gnaw its way out.

Read more: Book Review - The Blood Telegram

This is most apparent in the middle of the book, when the India-Bangladesh War breaks out and The Captain is taken away to fight for his country. The five women are probably making their own sacrifices. Lack of food, clothing, money, law and order are all likely issues they may face as Pakistani women in Karachi, a city that has always been fraught with tension, even during its well-known flamboyant incarnation in the 1970s. In the middle of the book, the mother is asked about her husbands health, and mentions that women have their own problems too. But, it is in passing only. What are these problems? Does the reader get to live them through these women or even see them through Jimmys eyes? No. He is immediately flown to London and thereafter a chunk of the book is dedicated to describing his boring existence in the United Kingdom. What are the sacrifices these women make during wartime? What are their hopes and dreams that are killed by the fighting? We dont know, because we are never told, because Jimmy is not there.

This is the true tragedy of this book. The female characters and what they go through is supposed to be the spine of the story. Alas the narrator is all wrong. As a result, if it werent for the hard cover, Id say this novel is spineless.

Avantika Mehta is an independent journalist. She lives in Delhi.
Nikki, the protagonist of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows (HarperCollins India), fits the mould of a rebellious child of first-generation Indian immigrants in London. Shes a law school drop-out, lives by herself, works as a bartender, and finds it difficult to align her beliefs with the traditional, conservative notions of the Southall-residing Sikh community. When she stumbles upon a flyer at the local gurudwara, to teach creative writing to women from her community, she jumps at the opportunity  shes passionate about womens empowerment and the editorial credentials would sit well on her bare resume.

Soon, Nikkis pre-conceived notions of the orthodox widows trooping into her classes are shattered  even though illiterate, these women have active imaginations that find an outlet through evocative, fantasy-fuelled stories. Author Balli Kaur Jaswal spoke to Brunch on her latest work. Excerpts -

Erotic Stories has a wonderfully unusual plot. How did the idea come to you? What were your inspirations for the various characters?

Ive always been interested in the taboos surrounding womens sexuality in South Asian communities, and how women who are silenced in the public sphere end up expressing themselves in private with other women in smaller, intimate groups. Ive heard some older Punjabi women tell the filthiest jokes  only to their trusted female friends/ sisters/ daughters of course.

From the characters, Arvinder (one of the widows who attends the classes with her daughter Preetam) is definitely one of those older women whos had enough with decorum  she doesnt feel she has anything to lose by speaking her mind. I created Preetam to reflect some of the same intergenerational tensions that Nikki has with her mother. Except in this case, Preetam is the more proper and reserved one while Arvinder feels her daughter should be more liberated because she didnt have that opportunity herself. Tarampal (the orthodox one who drops out) is the most troubled widow, and it was her deeply conservative and flawed values combined with her survival instinct that created a very duplicitous character, who sparked off a lot of the conflict in the novel.

You write about how close-knit and often, conservative, the Sikh-Punjabi community is. Was there ever an apprehension about tackling a supposedly taboo subject?

All of my novels have been somewhat critical of the diaspora culture and sometimes readers contact me to say finally, youve written about my experience, which is such a compliment. I was never really apprehensive about the storyline because I know that readers are aware its a work of fiction. And the reception has been very positive.

The book cover

The book tackles important issues like consent, marital rape and honour killings. How critical was this for you, given that many of these are easily politicised today?

I dont usually think of issues before I start writing a novel  the story has to come first. Within the Punjabi diaspora in the UK though, there are a lot of issues concerning women, so I didnt feel like I could write a novel about women becoming empowered without addressing the forces that were oppressing them. I try not to veer into polemics in my writing, but its pretty obvious that I want us as a society to be more outraged about these problems.

Did you also live in London at any point? How did your own experiences of Southall distill into the storyline?

I lived in Norwich for a year and visited family friends in Southall quite often. I certainly felt pulled in two directions whenever I visited, which is how Nikki feels when she visits for the first time in the book. Southall was an intriguing place - on the western fringe of London, yet culturally much further removed from London. There was something very welcoming about this enclave of Punjabi immigrants, so I could see why it would appeal to new arrivals in a country that was hostile towards them, especially in the 1940s and 50s. But I was definitely an outsider because I dont speak Punjabi and Im not into Bollywood music and movies, and it was an alienating experience to be in a place where there seemed to be only one way to be an Indian woman. I wanted to write about the tensions in this place, and to explore the idea of women defying expectations and rewriting their own narratives.

The central narrative in your previous works, Inheritance and Sugarbread, is also focused around the Sikh diaspora. Given that youve lived in different countries (Russia, Australia, Japan and now Singapore), how important is the immigrant perspective when you write?

Its significant because of all the worlds I had a chance to experience, owing to the travelling. The sense of displacement, alienation, the expectations of success, the pressure to fit in at the risk of losing ones identity - these became familiar, personal themes. And when I read, I sought out stories where characters grappled with these ideas and triumphed. As I became older and began writing fiction, I became more interested in the more realistic scenarios  what happens when immigrants dont follow the conventional paths of success or simply dont live up to expectations? Moving to different countries gave me a lot of insight into how people set up and then adjust, or further limit, their expectations.

Whats coming next?

Erotic Stories is being adapted into a film, and the rights have been sold to Ridley Scotts production company and Film4. Im also working on a novel about three British-Indian sisters who go on a Sikh pilgrimage to India to reconnect with each other after their mothers death. Im excited to be writing a road trip story that features only women, as so many of these stories are from the male perspective. Traveling in India  especially Delhi and Punjab where the novel takes place  is an entirely different thing if youre a woman, so Im focusing on how restricted/threatened/vulnerable these three sisters feel and how their movements are policed by men. Its also lighthearted with dark elements, similar in tone to Erotic Stories.

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Conveying Indias views directly to the Trump administration, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the US Thursday it must consider the contribution of Indian professionals to its economy as it conducts a review of a temporary visa programme for high-skilled foreign workers.

Jaitley raised the issue at his meeting with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy, the Indian embassy in DC said in a statement.

And, the statement added, he expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.

India has been alarmed by President Donald Trumps Buy American, Hire American executive order issued earlier this week directing federal agencies to review the H-1B temporary visa programme to end fraud and abuse and ensure only the most-skilled or highest-paid foreigners qualified, with the overarching goal of protecting American jobs.

Indian IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro are among the heavy users of H-1Bs, using them to bring workers from India for their operations in the United States, mostly involved in outsourcing business.

A large number of Indians also get get hired by American firms, specially in the IT sector, such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google, and they are the highest recipients of H-1B as a group defined by country of origin  around 70% in 2015.

Critics of the programme in the US have said this visa programme was being used by companies to bring foreigners on lower wages to replace local workers, and President Trump and some of his key advisers agree.

Right now, widespread abuse in our immigration system is allowing American workers of all backgrounds to be replaced by workers brought in from other countries to fill the same job for sometimes less pay, Trump had said at the signing of the order.

This will stop. American workers have long called for reforms to end these visa abuses. And today, their calls are being answered for the first time. That includes taking the first steps to set in motion a long-overdue reform of H1B visas.

India has pushed back since. This is not an immigration issue as we have said earlier, it is basically a trade and services issue, Gopal Baglay, spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs, has said, adding India will keeping a close watch on the issue.

The United States grants 85,000 H-1B visas under a congressionally mandated annual cap  65,000 to foreigners hired outside the US, and 20,000 to foreigners enrolled in advanced degree courses in American colleges.
A Jet Airways flight from Amsterdam to Toronto today suffered tail strike, forcing the pilot to return to the Dutch capital.

The airline was operating a Boeing 777-300ER plane, which has capacity to seat more than 300 passengers.

Sources said the flight suffered a tail strike while taking off from Amsterdam to Toronto and later faced pressurisation problems.

Following the issues, the pilot decided to return to Amsterdam, they added.

The exact number of passengers on board the aircraft was not immediately known.

Comments from Jet Airways is awaited.

In January this year, a Jet Airways planes tail had touched the runway during landing at the Dhaka airport. The flight was from Mumbai.
Engineering conglomerate Larsen and Toubro inked a deal with South Korean defence major Hanwha Techwin (HTW) on Friday to jointly manufacture over 100 self- propelled howitzers for Indian Army at a cost of nearly Rs 4,500 crore.

The first batch of the 155mm/52 Cal Tracked Self Propelled (SP) gun -- K9 VAJRA-T -- will be delivered later this year and the entire supply will be made within a span of 42 months.

While 10 guns will be directly brought from South Korea, 90 will be manufactured in L&Ts Strategic Systems Complex in Talegaon near Pune.

The K9 VAJRA-T gun is an enhanced version of HTWs K9 Thunder which is known as one of the best performing self- propelled howitzers in the world.

At a function to sign the deal, South Koreas Minister for Defence Acquisition Chang Myoung Jin said his country would like to significantly expand defence ties with India as envisaged during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Seoul in 2015.

Today, we have taken our defence partnership to a new high, he said.

Jayant Patil, Head of Defence and Aerospace at L&T, said the programme has set a new benchmark in co-development and co-production of defence systems by Indian private sector defence players and foreign majors.

This contract marks an important milestone in L&Ts defence business journey and in our relationship with Hanwha Techwin. It will create synergies not only for this programme but also for upcoming Indian and global programmes, said Patil.

He did not rule out exporting K9 VAJRA-T to other countries.

L&T also has initiated the process for setting up a greenfield manufacturing line at Gujrats Hazira to produce K9 VAJRA-T guns.

Patil said L&T will not only manufacture K9 VAJRA-T in India, with over 50% indigenous content, but also provide life support to the army with the weapon.

L&T said the contract is a result of nearly a decade long close relationship and joint efforts of the two companies on the programme, through extensive user evaluation and field trials followed by contract negotiations with the Ministry of Defence.

Addressing the gathering, South Korean envoy Cho Hyun said a new government will assume charge in South Korea by early May and hoped defence ties between India and his country will deepen further.

He also referred to the latest nuclear test by North Korea, saying his country has a troubled neighbour due to which South Korea has to focus majorly on defence preparedness.
A special SEBI court in Mumbai on Friday cancelled a non-bailable warrant (NBW) issued against Sahara chief Subrata Roy on March 31.

A special court issued a warrant against Roy and three other directors, after Roy failed to appear before the court. Roy challenged the warrant before the Bombay high court.

The high court had directed Roy to appear before the court on or before May 3.

On appearance, special judge Shayeda Razvi recalled the warrant. The court recalled the warrant on condition they give an undertaking that they will attend every hearing.

The case dates back to 2012. It is alleged the companies issued optionally fully-convertable debentures to public at large in 2009 under the guide of private placement, which is in violation of SEBI act.

The officer said according to the Company Act, if a company has to collect deposit from more than 50 people, you have to take money through recognised stock exchange without listing shares.

They had collected around Rs24,000 crore in the name of Sahara real estate corporation and Sahara housing investment corporation. This amounts to criminal offence, the officer alleged.

Roy and other directors of the companies are alleged to have violated Section 24 of SEBI Act, which if proved, a person can face imprisonment up to 10 years or fine of Rs25 crore.

The complaint was filed in 2012 for the alleged violation in 2009.

Read more: Blow to Sahara, SC orders auction of Aamby Valley

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Vodafone has agreed to sell 9.5% additional stake to Aditya Birla Group for Rs 130 per share after they merged their telecom operations to create the countrys largest operator worth more than $23 billion.

Aditya Birla Group has filed with the BSE the composite scheme of amalgamation between Vodafone and Idea Cellular, which stated that the merged entity shall be under the joint control of the two firms and will be governed by the shareholders agreement.

In the merged entity, Vodafone will hold 50% stake, while Aditya Birla Group hold 21%.

Upon completion of merger, Vodafone will transfer 4.9% shares of merged entity to Aditya Birla Group for Rs 3,874 crore.

Post such transfer, Aditya Birla Group shareholding will increase to 26 per cent and Vodafone shareholding will reduce to 45.1 per cent, according to the scheme.

The remaining 28.9% will be held by other shareholders.

Also, Aditya Birla Group will have the right to acquire more shares from Vodafone at a price of Rs 130 per share, in order to equalise the shareholdings over 4 years.

If equal shareholding is not achieved within four years, Vodafone will sell down its shareholding to equalise its shareholding with Aditya Birla Group over the following 5 years, the scheme said.

Until equalisation the voting rights on additional shares of Vodafone shall be exercised jointly by Vodafone and Aditya Birla Group.

The two firms had last month announced merger of their telecom operations in India to create the countrys largest mobile phone operator with a 35% market share.

The combined entity of Vodafone and Idea Cellular, which are Indias number 2 and 3 mobile players, respectively, will overtake Bharti Airtel and would be in a better position to take on a raging price war unleashed by newcomer Reliance Jio in the worlds second-largest market.

The new company, which will come into being over the next two years, will be headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, while Vodafone will have the right to appoint chief financial officer.

The CEO and the chief operating officer will be appointed with the approval of both companies. The two firms will have three nominees each on the board of the new entity, the scheme said.

The merger excludes Vodafones 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers and will be effected through issuing new shares in Idea to Vodafone, which will result in Vodafone deconsolidating Vodafone India.

This mechanism will facilitate reducing Vodafone Group net debt by Rs 55,200 crore and lowering Vodafone Group leverage by around 0.3x net debt/EBITDA, the scheme added.

Vodafone-Idea is the second merger in the sector to be announced this year. In February, Bharti Airtel unveiled plans to buy the Indian business of the Norway-based Telenor.

The merged venture will create Indias largest mobile operator with almost 400 million users and a 35 per cent market share by customers. The deal gives Vodafone India an implied enterprise value of Rs 82,800 crore and Idea an enterprise value of Rs 72,200 crore.
Two years ago when Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and the BJP came together to form the most unlikely alliance in Jammu and Kashmir I was (at first) a big supporter of what I thought was the sort of political innovation that had been missing in the state all these years. Admittedly the coalition was akin to bringing together the North and South Pole as Mufti Saheb described it to me. But given that the fractured mandated had divided the state along regional and potentially religious lines, he wisely believed that this was the only way to bridge the electoral polarities of the state. I also backed the idea of the alliance for the another reason: I thought that the hyper-nationalism of the BJP and the soft-separatism of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be moderating influences on each other. For over two decades I had watched the rhetoric of opposing extremes squeeze out the middle-ground with high-pitched confrontations. This new politics, I believed, would be an enabler of centrism, a much missing strain in the Kashmir discourse.

I have been proven wrong. And so has Mufti Sahebs optimism. Its time to say it out loud: The ideological dissonance of the Mehbooba Mufti and BJP partnership has done more harm than good on the ground. The idea of the alliance has failed.

I dont say this only because of the prolonged period of violence and street-unrest the Valley has witnessed since the Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces last year. Previous governments too have had grave crisis-like situations on their watch; the 2010 agitation in which more than a 100 young men were killed in clashes with paramilitary forces is not forgotten. (Omar Abdullah was CM and he has admitted later to being haunted by those months and the mistakes he made then).

I conclude that the alliance is a failed idea because its two parties are pulling each other in opposite directions unable to agree even on basic questions like whether Wani should have been killed or taken alive. Though the BJP leaders who crafted the coalition will insist to you that Mehbooba has mellowed - from their point of view a good contrast to her more outspoken years; many of her party colleagues and workers are disappointed to see her retreating behind a veil of confused silence.

Mehbooba Mufti, a woman I admire for single handedly building a new party, travelling to the most dangerous interior villages of the Valley and establishing an emotional connect with the people, today seems to have closed herself away behind a tightly controlled shell - exactly what she criticised Omar, her predecessor, for doing in 2010.

Or is that she cant or wont speak her mind because she would have to take a position fundamentally different from that of her political partners? The BJP has been less hesitant to speak up but their public articulations, especially when framed within the highly-charged nationalism debate, lay bare the deep contradictions of the state government.

Its no longer just the academic debate around Article 370 (the constitutional provision that gives J&K special status) that the PDP and the BJP disagree on. It isnt just administrative disagreements  like the control of power projects in the state or the use of civilian land by security forces - that expose the fault-lines of the alliance. Their lack of intellectual cohesion is evident in all matters of national debate on Kashmir - how the law should treat stone-pelting protesters; how to respond to the issue of beef politics and the murderous mobs that have claimed the lives of innocent Muslims; whether to talk to separatists or be tougher, whether to release political prisoners, the role of the army and paramilitary in the Valley and most recently how to intercede in the dangerous video versus video battle that has erupted in the state. Mehbooba would once visit the children of slain militants insisting that the price of conflict should not be borne by kids. Today the BJPs Twitter base would call her a seditious traitor if she did.

The PDPs claim that only 5% of the population was protesting has been challenged by the most dismal voter turn-out in Srinagar; just 2% on the day of re-polling. With mainstream politics getting marginalised the stakes are too high; the Valley can no longer afford an experiment with the contradictions of governance. The Election Commission made a misjudgment by insisting on bypolls despite clear opposition from the Union home secretary in writing. Fresh elections are not an option in this circumstance; Governors Rule is the writing on the wall.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author

The views expressed are personal

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Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is likely to be asked to speed up governance and adopt a visibly pro-active instance on the BJPs policy of zero tolerance against corruption at his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, BJP insiders said.

During his daylong visit to Delhi, Rawat will also meet BJP chief Amit Shah.

It will, however, be his second meeting with Modi since taking over as the CM a little over a month ago after the BJPs landslide win in the assembly polls. Rawats first meeting with the PM was a courtesy call.

Along with him, Modi would have an interaction with chief ministers of 12 other BJP-ruled states to review the implementation of the centrally supported schemes and projects and delivery in general.

They (CMs) have been called to have an interface with the members of Niti Ayog on various planning and budget related issues, the insiders said.

According to them, the prime minister is also slated to have a separate meeting with Rawat.

It has been organised to discuss the (Rawat) governments slow paced delivery besides its not-so-aggressive instance against the partys zero tolerance against corruption, a state BJP office bearer said. The twin issues are an area of concern for the prime minister as only two years are left for the next Lok Sabha election.

The BJP won all the five Lok Sabha seats in the mountain state in the 2014 general election which the saffron party won with a massive mandate.

Modi, who is eyeing the second term as the PM, doesnt want the BJP to lose its momentum.

The Rawat governments slow pace of delivery appears more pronounced as it is being compared with the proactive approach of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, another state BJP leader said.

According to him, they took over around the same time but Rawat hasnt been able to keep pace with his UP counterparts initiatives both on the good governance and law and order fronts.

BJP insiders said Prime Minister Modi was obviously concerned and might direct him (Rawat) to speed up implementation of all the centrally sponsored schemes.

Besides, he is also likely to ask Rawat to adopt a pro-active instance on the partys policy of zero tolerance against corruption, which was also one of our key poll planks in the assembly election, he said.

To be fair to him (Rawat) he did recommend to the Centre a CBI probe against seven officials owing to their alleged involvement in irregularities relating to the construction of National Highway74 in Udham Singh Nagar district soon after he took over.

But he is facing flak from within his own party owing to the slow progress of the inquiry.

A senior BJP leader said the Rawat government might not pursue the CBI inquiry after the name of one of the ruling partys senior leaders had started figuring in the NH-74 related scam.

The opposition Congress too has hit out at the Rawat government dubbing its recent move to restrict the sale of liquor for six hours a mere eyewash.

It is plain eyewash because this government is playing in the hands of a liquor syndicate, or else, it wouldnt notify 64 state highways as district roads, state Congress leader Surendra Kumar alleged. The governments move is aimed to manoeuvre a court order recommending a liquor ban. Parliamentary affairs minister Prakash Pant dubbed the allegation as baseless.

Officially, the BJP defended the chief minister claiming that he was doing well. Modi ji called the meeting because he wanted to evaluate the progress of the centrally sponsored schemes being carried out in all the 13 BJP ruled states, state BJP spokesperson Suresh Joshi told HT.

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The protest by Tamil Nadu farmers at Jantar Mantar is set to go from curious to revolting as the protesters vowed to drink their urine on Saturday if the government did not pay heed to their demands. Determined to get heard, they also said that if they are still ignored by the Centre, they will be forced to eat human faeces on Sunday.

The farmers have been grabbing headlines for their unique, and sometimes bizarre, methods of protest since they arrived in Delhi over 38 days ago. Armed with skulls, which they claimed to be of farmers who had committed suicide, they have stripped naked, bitten mice and snake, conducted mock funerals and even been flogged. They are now sitting at Jantar Mantar with urine collected in plastic bottles, awaiting a response from the government.

We are not getting water to drink in Tamil Nadu, and PM Modi has been ignoring our thirst. So, we will have to quench our thirst with our own urine, said P Ayyakkannu, the state president of the National South-Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association who is leading the protest.

A farmer dressed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi flogs protesting Tamil Nadu farmers at Jantar Mantar. (HT FILE)

On Wednesday, the farmers had agreed to wait patiently for two days, to give the government and ministers some time to get the affairs in order. The decision had come after the farmers met Pon Radhakrishnan, minister of state for road transport and highways, who is the only elected BJP MP from Tamil Nadu.

The minister had allegedly assured the farmers that he would talk to finance minister about their plight and try to come up with a solution by May 15. According to the farmers who met the minister, Radhakrishnan had said that he will try to get all loan collections and payments postponed for a year. He had also assured the farmers that any attempt to seize property, will also be suspended during this time. Ayyakkannu said that the minister had assured them of help in getting new loans, but was non-committal on the other demands, like the interlinking of rivers and setting up of a Cauvery Management Board.

Farmers sit with urine collected in plastic bottles at Jantar Mantar on Friday. (HT Photo)

However, as the protesting farmers at Jantar Mantar are yet to hear from the government, many claim that they are being forced to resort to such measures.

I know it is humiliating to eat and drink our own waste. But, should the government not be ashamed of forcing us farmers to use such desperate measures? If only Modi would meet with us and hear us out, said 65-year-old Palanichamy who has been protesting at the site since day one.

The farmers have been demanding intervention by Centre to write off their loans from nationalised banks, a revised drought relief package and resolve the alleged drying up of the Tamil Nadu leg of the Kaveri river. The state government and the Madras High Court have already waived their loans from co-operative banks.

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Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal warned Delhiites on Friday against voting for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the April 23 civic elections as he claimed that the dengue and chikungunya crisis will continue in the capital if the BJP comes back to power in the municipal corporations.

If people vote for the BJP, and their kid suffer from dengue and chikungunya, then nobody else but they themselves will be responsible for it. I will get your kid treated in Delhi government hospital for free, but the reason for lack of prevention will be yours because you voted for the dengue, chikungunya party, Kejriwal said, addressing reporters outside his residence, hours before the campaigning came to close.

The AAP national convener also advised the people not to waste their vote by supporting the Congress, as the grand old party has finished across the country. He urged the voters to vote for the AAP in civic polls as they did two years back when the party won 67 of the 70 seats in Delhi assembly elections.

Despite being in power for 10 years, the BJP could not clean the city. How will they do it in future? If you still vote for the BJP, then be assured that the level of sanitation and mosquito menace will remain unchanged for the next five years, Kejriwal said.

Kejriwal listed the mosquito menace as the second reason to not to vote for the BJP and the Congress, the first being a probable hike in the power and water tariff if the opposition comes to power in the MCDs.

The Delhi CM had alleged that the conspiracy was being hatched to take away power and water utilities from the Delhi government and vest them with the MCDs, restoring the arrangement Delhi had till 1998. Kejriwal and other party leaders repeated the allegations through the campaign trail.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari had accused the Delhi CM of threatening people by making such statements.
The disciplinary committee of Delhi Congress expelled Barkha Singh for six years from the party for undertaking anti-party activities just before the MCD election on April 23. The decision comes a day after Singh quit her party post and criticised the leadership.

The four member disciplinary committee in its meeting on Friday has unanimously decided to expel Barkha Singh for anti-party activities. A resolution to this effect has been passed, said Aman Panwar, who is in charge of the partys legal affairs. The members of the Committee are Dr Narender Nath, former Delhi minister Abha Chaudhary, former president Delhi Mahila Congress Mahmood Zia, and party leader Surender Kumar.

Singh had resigned as president of the womens wing of Delhi Congress on Thursday, saying she was not leaving the party, but only the post for now.

Singh, who was the president of Delhi Commission for Women when Sheila Dikshit was the CM, criticised the Congress leadership for not listening to workers grievances.

In a press conference at her residence on Thursday, she had said that Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken had allegedly misbehaved with her, for which she had lodged a complaint with the high command but no action was taken.

I have been seeking an appointment with vice-president Rahul Gandhi for the last one year. When I failed to get my grievance heard, I decided to step down from the post, the former RK Puram MLA had said.

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More than 30 hours after an 18-year-old student of Delhi Public School at Mathura Road allegedly ran over four homeless men in north Delhi, the deceased remains unidentified.

One person was killed and three injured in the accident in which a Class 12 student drove over the men sleeping on a pavement near Nigam Bodh Ghat crematorium. Police said the deceased had no identification papers on him and neither do the injured know anything about him. He was probably sleeping on the pavement in that area for the first time, police said.

One of the injured named Karan was discharged from the hospital on Thursday night. He or another injured, Sanjay, could not tell the police anything about the deceased though he slept next to them on the pavement that morning. They even failed to identify his face when shown his photograph.

The police at Kashmere Gate have now constituted three teams to look for clues to identify the deceased as early as possible. His body has been preserved at the Subzi Mandi mortuary. Police officials say they will keep the body for at least next 72 hours or longer, if required.

Karan claimed that he had not seen the deceased before. Even Sanjay was clueless about his identity. The third injured homeless, Asif, is still unfit for statement. His condition continues to be critical, said Jatin Narwal, deputy commissioner of police (north).

Some investigators believe that the homeless man, who died in the accident, was a new face among pavement dwellers around the Yamuna Bazaar Hanuman Temple and Nigam Bodh Ghat crematorium.

The photographs of the deceased have been shown to as many as 300 pavement dwellers who stay put in those localities. But nobody was able to identify him. There is a possibility that the man had recently shifted in that area and probably he was sleeping on the pavement for the first night, said Narwal.

Officials said that they will extend their operation to identify the deceased to other areas in north Delhi, such as Chandni Chowk, Daryaganj, Jama Masjid, Old Delhi railway station and Kashmere Gate interstate bus terminal. If required, we will show his photographs to vagabonds and homeless living in shelter homes and on pavements across the city, an officer said.

The areas around Kashmere Gate, Yamuna Bazar and Chandni Chowk have over a dozen night shelters for the homeless.

However, lack of basic facilities such as drinking water, blistering heat inside portable cabins and lawlessness forces them to choose pavements over those shelters. Chugh was driving an i20 car at more than 100 kmph when he lost control and the car climbed onto one such pavement.

The medical and forensic examination reports of the errant driver, Samarth Chugh, are still awaited. The police will know from the reports if Chugh was driving under the influence of alcohol. Police said Chugh, who turned 18 in March this year, was driving without a licence.

Chughs blood sample was taken after he was caught at the accident spot and later arrested for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash driving. He was produced before a city court that sent him to jail till May 4.
St Stephens College principal has circulated a letter by the chairman of the governing body asking him to proceed with the application of autonomy to the college. The letter was shared with the teachers on Friday.

The governing body of the college had, on March 25, decided that the college will apply for autonomy.

Autonomy means that the college will no longer be a constituent college of the Delhi University. It will be free to take its own decisions in framing syllabus, fee structure, starting new college branches and others. Students and teachers of the college have protested the decision saying it is being done without consultation.

On March 3, St Stephens principal John Varghese had assured the staff and students of the college that he would write to the governing body seeking permission to have discussion with stakeholders before application.

The letter by the chairman of the governing body to the principal, dated April 14, read, The governing body is the sole decision making body of the college on policy and governance. I therefore advise you to proceed as per the decision of the governing body. In this regard, the governing body has authorised you to execute and sign all necessary proposals, documents, applications, forms, letters, undertakings to the university, University Grants Commission and make requests for requisite grants in aid.

However, teachers and students said that no discussion has taken place in this regard and the letter is now being circulated. The teachers in the college said that with this letter, the principal is retracting from what he had promised.

There has been no consultation and no discussion on the autonomy issue, said a teacher.

Varghese could not be reached for comment on the matter.

The chairman has also stated in the letter that he was invited by the dean of colleges to discuss the offer of autonomy, which is a scheme of the University Grants Commission.

The university ordinance does not have legal provision for dean of college to invite colleges to apply for autonomy. How can they do this? said a senior teacher of the college.

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The Union ministry of civil aviation, in the wake of rising passenger traffic, has decided to increase the capacity of Delhi airport by 50%.

Union minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha, while admitting that Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airports Terminal 1 was handling passengers more than it could, said immediate and long term measure need to be undertaken to increase air side and terminal capacity.

Sinha also hinted at the construction of a second airport, possibly in Jewar, NCR, in the next 4-8 years, when Delhi airport will run out of capacity. NATS, UKs leading provider of air traffic control services, has been appointed to study the traffic pattern at IGI and suggest ways to improve capacity.

In the summer schedule, the Delhi airport will handle 67 flights in an hour, which we have planned to increase to 95 in the next 2-3 years. Similarly, Delhi airport has the capacity to handle 60 million passengers a year at present. We want to increase that to about 90 million a year in the next three years, he said.

The ministry has also formed a flight operation committee, which will meet once a month.

Last year, IGI airport handled one crore extra passengers when compared to 2015. The infrastructure during the period remained the same and as a result passengers often complained of congestion in the terminal and extra waiting time at the security checks and immigration checks.

The capacity of Terminal 1 is 20 million, while it handles 24 million passengers. There is a master plan in place and we will, in a month or two, decide whether to shift airlines to T2 or build a completely new terminal  T4. The capacity of Delhi airport will increase by 10% this year, he added.

Sinha said that capacity of terminals will be increased when capacity of air side is improved as number of passengers depends on number of flight an airport can handle.

On a new airport, Sinha said that the BJP government has requested for technical evaluation of Jewar airport. Delhi-NCR will need another airport when the passenger count reaches 110 million. Apart from terminal and air side capacity, airspace capacity will also need to be looked into, Sinha said.

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Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that his governments relationship with lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal declined since the announcement of MCD elections in the Capital. Speaking during an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Kejriwal said that the AAP governments interaction with the L-G office had improved after the appointment of Baijal, but the relationship had soured over the last 20 days.

 Till the end of March, we had very pleasant interactions with the new L-G. He cleared several projects. Now all files go to the L-G  he is supreme, the elected government has almost become advisory. He added that the last fortnight had seen a decline in terms again: But since the announcement of elections, the Shunglu Committee report was leaked, our office was taken away, recovery of advertisements worth 97 crore was ordered.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi had frequent run-ins with former lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung who had quit in December last year. Jungs exit and appointment of Baijal had sparked hopes that the Delhis governments troubled relationship with the L-G office will improve. While there was considerable bonhomie between the two in the beginning, the relationship has again gone south over the past month.

There was no provocation from our side. In fact, we had been praising him. But over the past fortnight, he has been firing one salvo after other, Kejriwal said on Thursday.

After praising the Kejriwal government and showing signs of improved relationship with the CM, Baijal had returned governments file on Rs 1 crore compensation for the family of an ex-soldier who had committed suicide during OROP protest. This was among the series of disagreements between the two offices, including returning of NSIT bill and slashing of DTC bus fares.

Asked who was better of the two L-Gs, Kejriwal said: I dont think we should comment on individuals. We had a very cordial relationship (with Baijal). I used to meet him at 5pm every Wednesday. Dialogues had increased, meetings were revived. But the development over the past 15-20 days raise doubts if his political masters are directing him to do all this.

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In the MCD election where almost 30% candidates are reportedly crorepatis, there are also at least 15 candidates whose net worth is below zero and who are in debt.

Hindustan Times analysed the affidavits of 2,130 candidates contesting the civic polls and found that there are at least 15 candidates whose dues far exceeded their declared assets. The net worth of the candidates was calculated by deducting declared liabilities, including outstanding loans, debts, and other government dues, against total declared personal assets (movable and immovable).

While most of the candidates found to be in debt are contesting as independents, two of them belong to the Aam Aadmi Party and one is from the Bharatiya Janata Party. The candidates owe between Rs10,000 to Rs88 lakh over and above the assets they own.

Money is definitely needed for elections. But it can still be done within the set limit of Rs5 ,75,000, said Sarika Suman, AAP candidate from north Delhis Nithari. Though she has assets worth over Rs65.4 lakh, she also has a loan of approximately Rs87.9 lakh, which she had taken to buy a flat in Rohini. This brings her net worth to a negative of Rs22.4 lakhs.

Raj Kumar, BJP candidate from Mahavir Enclave, also has a net worth below zero, at a negative of Rs1.3 lakh. Kumar has declared moveable assets, like cash, bank balances, and gold, worth Rs7.2 lakh rupees, and has said he does not own any property. However, he has a loan worth Rs8.5 lakh pending according to his affidavit.

When asked how they will reconcile their financial situation with a job like a councillors, where you are not paid a salary, they both look unfazed. Voters are not interested in whether I have money. They are interested in whether I will work. They know I am selfless and honest. I have been associated with the BJP for years, and have been doing social work in my locality since 2008, said Kumar.

Nine out of the 16 candidates come from a business background, as do the two candidates themselves. I will be the councillor, if I win, and money is not my aim. My husband is a businessman, and he will be able to pay back the loans, said Suman.

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Hours before the campaigning for the MCD elections came to an end on Friday, Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal accused the BJP and Congress workers of purposely sabotaging supply of power and water, besides blocking sewer lines.

Taking a jibe at the main opposition parties, Kejriwal said, I appeal to the BJP and Congress to spare the people of Delhi from their petty politics. Stop playing such dirty tricks with the people of Delhi. You have enmity with me; disrupt power and water supply to my residence, but spare people of Delhi.

Addressing reporters outside his residence he said that oil has been stolen from transformers at 70 places. It is being done purposely. We have also received reports of valves of water pipelines being stolen. In Sangam Vihar, a complaint has been received about cement sacks being stuffed in sewer lines which led to sewage overflow. It will continue to happen till Sunday, he added.

Kejriwal said that while people should immediately inform the authorities about such disruptions, which the government will try to rectify, they ought to be rest assured who all are behind it.

The Aam Aadmi Party is banking on its governments achievements in the power and water sector to seek votes in the municipal elections, besides showcasing revolutionary work done in education and health.

The Delhi chief minister also returned to his core areas of support in the last leg of the campaign holding jansabhas in areas such as Bawana, Najafgarh and Matiala, and roadshows in unauthorised and resettlement colonies in south Delhi, including Ambedkar Nagar, Dakshinpuri, Govindpuri and Kalkaji.

The response was very encouraging. The roadshow was planned on Monday morning. We could make the announcements only for about an hour and half, but the turnout was encouraging, a senior party leader said.

Leader of opposition in Delhi assembly, Vijender Gupta, however, said that the chief minister was already acting as defeated player and has resorted to rumour-mongering. Since he has realised that the AAP has lost the plot, Kejriwal has started spreading rumours. He is talking about fake survey undertaken by his party indicating big win for the AAP. I want to warn people of Delhi to remain cautious and dont fell prey to his tricks, he added.
At least 350 budget hotels in Delhi are facing closure with the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) giving them shutdown notices because of absence of proper effluent and sewage treatment plants.

There are around 1,500 budget hotels in Delhi, most of which are located in Paharganj, Karol Bagh and Mahipalpur.

The DPCC notice, individually issued on April 10, says if they (hotel owners) failed to comply, power and water supplies will be snapped.

Delhi Police and the health department of the North corporation have been asked to cancel the licences of these establishments.

The notices asks the individual owners to submit compliance reports under section 33A of Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and section 31A of Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, within 15 days.

According to Arun Gupta of the Delhi Hotel Mahasangh, around 350 small hotels and guesthouses in Paharganj, Karol Bagh and Rajinder Nagar have got these notices.

This order is unfair. Delhi Police is the nodal agency for granting licence to run a guest house. Delhi Polices licensing department never asked us to get permission from the DPCC. If it is mandatory to get the consent from DPCC, then why doesnt the licensing department show it on their website as it does for the nod from the fire department and MCD. We will meet the environment minister and ask him to keep small hotels, which dont have working kitchens, free from this DPCC consent, Gupta told HT.

These hotels dont have consent to establish or consent to operate, which are mandatory to run hotels in Delhi. Consent to operate is the first step for any industry or trade to begin operation and permission, given by DPCC, is given within four months of the application.

Both permissions are a mandatory part of the processes in place to ensure water and air are not polluted. But these hotels didnt have the required permission.

According to hotel owners, the air and water act is for industry and we (guest house) are not industrial units.

Our activity is purely residential and non-polluting. We are not at fault and we should be saved from this harassment. Small guest houses are already under burden to pay conversion charges, house tax, luxury tax and licence fees. Now for getting a consent from DPCC, small business owners like us have to pay additional fee, Gupta said.

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Three days ahead of the municipal elections, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that irrespective of outcome, the Aam Aadmi Party will continue its fight against the EVMs. In an interview to Hindustan Times, the AAPs national convener said the April 23 elections were a direct fight between AAP and the BJP.

Promising to personally monitor MCDs if his party comes to power in the corporations he said, I would like to tell people that Modiji is not going to run the MCD MCD will only be run by Kejriwal. He added that while the BJP was seeking votes in the name of he Prime Minister he will not be in a position to run the MCDs.

Taking potshots at his rival parties he said that while Congress is finished, BJP has been unable to resolve the Capitals garbage problem. Any vote for BJP is a vote for filth and chikungunya, he said. He also took up questions on the Rajouri bypoll and his relationship with the two L-Gs and outlined his road map for the MCDs.

Watch excerpts of the interview:

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A woman committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a train at Ghitorni Metro station in south Delhi on Friday morning. Sources said the incident took place around 10:40am when the woman jumped in front of a Shyapur Badli-bound train on platform 2. She was killed on the spot.

Police are yet to ascertain her identity. No suicide note was found on her. Cops are now scanning the footages of the CCTV installed at the platforms for leads. The victim didnt leave behind any suicide note. We are trying to identify the woman, a senior police officer said.

The lady jumped from platform number 2 towards Samaypur Badli at Ghitorni metro station around 10.40 am today (Friday) and died on the spot, Delhi Metro DCP Jitendra Mani told IANS.

Her body is still unidentified. No suicide note was discovered from her possession, Mani said.

The police are trying to identify her and are examining the CCTV footage.

Metro services were disrupted on the Yellow line for nearly 20 minutes during peak morning hours and passengers faced problems as trains got delayed.

Delhi Metro has been facing increasing incidents of suicides at platforms. Earlier on March 24, a woman had allegedly committed suicide at Kashmere Gate metro station. She was found hanging inside a store room on platform number 2.

Last year, 12 people had committed suicide at one of Delhis 156 metro stations, CISF data showed. While 21 people were saved by security personnel and other passengers, more than 20 had to be hospitalised after suffering varying degrees of injuries in their suicide attempts.

To prevent suicides and increase safety at the Metro station, the DMRC had introduced screen doors at platforms in 2015. However, only some of the key stations that see heavy footfall have been provided with these so far. Last year, the CISF too planned to introduce a special drill to train its personnel in identifying people who betray signs of suicidal tendencies and stop them from taking the fatal jump in front of an oncoming train.

(With agency inputs)

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When it comes to immigration stories, the United States governments decision to raise the salary requirements of H-1B visa workers have received the most attention among Indians. Contemporaneously, Australia and New Zealand have also announced plans to slash the number of visas available to high-skilled temporary workers. Similar policy moves are being considered or are being carried out by many other countries, largely in the developed world.

None of this should come as a surprise. High-skilled worker migration has generally been a phenomenon of advanced economies  and most of these are suffering from anaemic growth, weak job creation and stagnant middle-class incomes. As has happened before, poor economics undermines political support for this particularly category of visas. The parameters by which H-1B visas been issued have kept shifting over nearly three decades, depending on the political economy of the US at the time.

There are demands that New Delhi should treat this as a litmus test of the bilateral relationship and make H-1B visas a point of contention with the Trump administration. This would be a mistake. A countrys immigration policy, in effect its control of its own borders, is among the most sovereign-based decisions of any government. Washington will rightly reject any attempt to be told to who and whom it can issue a visa to  as would New Delhi if it was in a similar position. The larger geopolitical and economic drivers in the Indo-US relationship are much more important than the USs decision to raise the cost of a visa. In fact, the preservation of the steady flow of legal Indian migration to the US, a human bridge which has benefited both countries, is of greater importance than the H-1B niche.

Having said this, there can be no doubt that such visas have a larger-than-life profile with the Indian public because of their association with the successful software services sector. But the so-called Mode 4 model that drove the H-1B visa is slowly dying thanks to automation and an increasing preference in Silicon Valley for in-house software expertise. The Indian software industry is within its rights to lobby the US Congress for to save the H-1B visa, but the Indian government should be wary of investing too much diplomatic capital in what is likely to a quixotic campaign. There are much more important issues to be worked out with the Trump administration. New Delhi could have fixed skilled worker visas with some of these countries as part a free trade agreement  as other countries have done. But since India is allergic to such agreements, that was never a serious option. Migration is a door that slams shut when even a small breeze blows. Right now, a gale is blowing and India must wait for it to wane.
Every progressive educational institution and a creative teacher endeavours to optimise collaboration between students and teachers, constantly on the search for better ways to enhance the learning process.

Inevitable technological advancements have inched its way into every aspect of our lives, and education is not behind: From online virtual classrooms, online learning to 3D printing, students are now exposed to new innovative approaches to learning.

Lately, 3D printing has created a lot of buzz in the educational space; the revolutionary technology is being touted as a new catalyst for learning. Undeniably, this technology has infiltrated its way into various schools, institutes and eventually into curriculums, as educational entities realise its importance and how it assists in the fulfilment of a productive educational experience.

Here are a few reasons schools can benefit from 3D printing technology:

Spatial intelligence

Spatial intelligence is the ability to draw precise conclusions by observing a three-dimensional environment. This involves analysing and interpreting the size, shape, movement and relationships between surrounding objects. It is also used when figuring out maps and taking part in any kind of construction or engineering project. According to scientific research, 3D designing enhances a students spatial intelligence. It not only triggers ones imagination but also helps in bringing imaginations to life.

Experiential learning

Learning by doing or experiential learning is a much endorsed concept today and rightfully so. It encourages learning by doing as opposed to theoretical learning confined in a classroom. It follows the ideology that when learning becomes practical as opposed to theoretical, it enhances the learning capabilities of students, helping them gain a better understanding of core concepts. Similarly, 3D printing has the ability to create tangible activities through which students can learn important academic concepts such as buoyancy through a working motorboat and project motion through designing a 3D printed catapult.

In India, where rote learning is prevalent, experiential learning proves to be a boon. With the help of 3D printing technology, students can design and print subject models such as a skeleton to understand bone formation or an anatomical heart. The impact of this new-age technology is not only profound but also pragmatic. It enhances the visualisation skills and simultaneously adds a fun element to the learning experience. Also, students get a chance to make mistakes, learn and rectify it, which only augments the entire educational process.

Igniting innovation

Amidst todays ever-evolving and fast-paced culture, concepts such as creativity, which means thinking of new things, and innovation, referring to doing new things, are no longer underrated. New technologies such as 3D printing ignite ones imagination, and help them to executive and bring their ideas to life. Moreover, with AI and VR taking the world by storm, it is imperative for students to grow beyond academics and stay on top of their game, constantly exploring and thinking out-of-the-box.

Industry applications

3D printing has numerous applications spread to over 120 industries. The manufacturing sector is on the brink of a major transformation; within five years, industries will witness a paradigm shift in their manufacturing process that will save them huge amount of resources and money. Till now, industries have been relying on the traditional methods of production such as subtractive manufacturing which leads to huge wastage of material and money. 3D Printing involves additive manufacturing which basically means adding layers on top of each other, where only a required amount of material is used, assuring no wastage.

Marking its presence in major industries, from construction, academia, to automobile, 3D printing is a technology that is creating waves today. The concept may be relatively new; however, the implications of such a technology are enormous.

(Singhi is the managing director co-founder of 3Dexter. Views expressed here are personal.)
The Central Beard of Secondary Education (CBSE) has said that action will be taken against schools that indulge in commercial activities such as selling books, uniforms, shoes and stationery items to students.

In an advisory issued recently, CBSE warned schools across the country against forcing students to buy expensive textbooks produced by private publishers, rather than those belonging to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the Board itself.

The Delhi Police recently registered an FIR against a private publisher for indecently depicting women and misrepresenting the syllabus prescribed by the CBSE in a Class 12 physical education textbook. The book, which portrayed a 36-24-36 figure as the ideal body shape for women, drew widespread criticism in academic as well as social media circles.

All CBSE-affiliated schools were required to follow the directions provided in a circular issued on 12.04.2016 regarding the use of NCERT /CBSE textbooks, but the board often receives reports regarding the pressure exercised by schools on children to buy textbooks other than NCERT/CBSE, the circular read.

The CBSE, which provides affiliation to over 18,000 schools across the country, has started issuing showcause notices to institutions found violating its norms. The board even withdrew its affiliation from a few schools in Uttar Pradesh after noticing discrepancies in their functioning.

The letter then went on to note that the board has repeatedly warned schools against indulging in commercial activities. However, it has been brought to the notice of the board through various complaints that schools are still selling books and uniforms within the school premises, or through select vendors, the circular read.

The document further stated that as per rule 19.1 (ii) of the CBSE Affiliation By-Laws, institutions such as societies, trusts and companies registered under Section 25 of the Companies Act-1956 should ensure that schools are run as a community service, and not as a business venture. This means that the educational institutions concerned shouldnt indulge in any kind of commercial activity, it added.

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A class 10 student has been booked for not submitting her examination sheet to the invigilators during her board exam.

The cause for non submission is yet to be ascertained by the police. The police said that the teachers claimed that fear of mathematics made the student take her answer sheet home.

The student has been booked under Section 406 (punishment for breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code by the Gurgaon police. The accused is a student of Indian Senior Secondary School, Turkapur, Pataudi.

The class 10 mathematics exam had started at 2:30 pm and continued till 5pm. The exam was arranged and conducted through the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

As soon as the teachers found out that one answer sheet was missing, they informed the police and filed a case against the student. As per the rules, the students have to write their answers in the booklet, which includes both the question paper and the answer sheet, and submit them later.

After 5 pm, the invigilator counted the answer papers and found that one sheet was missing, the police said. Later, they checked the names of all students and their answer sheets and found that the girls answer sheet was not with them.

Investigation is on. A woman inspector has been sent to the students house. We will take the required action, Suresh Singh, station house officer, Pataudi police station, said.

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The social justice and empowerment department has identified about 90 buildings in Gurgaon and Faridabad that will be made disabled-friendly in a bid to ensure convenience of such people, said Raj Nirbhik, commissioner (disabilities) of the department.

Interacting with mediapersons here on Friday, Nirbhik said that 42 such buildings have been identified in Gurgaon of which two are in dilapidated condition. Apart from this, estimates of 20 buildings have been made and sent to the social justice and empowerment department for approval.

These include mini secretariat, court complex, office of the electricity department Kadipur, office of the police commissioner, civil hospital in Sector 10-A, public health department, state education research and training council and several other government and private buildings.

Read I Govt guidelines for disabled during national anthem: Maintain maximum alertness physically

He also highlighted that the initiative is a part of many being undertaken by the Haryana government for the welfare of disabled persons, including provision of pension under the Haryana Divyang Pension Rules, 2016 to persons with 60% disability.

Apart from this, pension is being provided to such people who are unable to visit banks, at their doorstep, he said. Sarfraj Khan, district social welfare officer, and Ram Kumar Phalswal, district primary education officer were also present at the interaction.
After the Punjab government fixed a fee pattern for private unaided schools, the parents in Gurgaon have decided to come together and plan a strategy to put pressure on the Haryana government to act along similar lines against schools that have made unjustified fee hikes.

Different associations of parents have decided to meet on Sunday at Leisure Valley park to discuss the rules and regulations of the Education Act.

No school in Punjab would be able to increase the fee by more than 8% annually and all other funds charged by the schools would also be regulated by the provisions.

In Gurgaon, the schools have hiked their fee by two-and-a-half-times this year and despite an explanation from the schools and the promise of a rollback, nothing has been done so far.

In Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and now Punjab, the governments are acknowledging the pain and anger and helplessness that parents are going through. The parents of these states have protested and got their rights. Why cannot the Haryana government and the authorities concerned see our pain? said Tripti Singh, the administrator of the Facebook forum, Gurgaon School for Better Education.

Hundreds of parents from Gurgaon have protested several times, including once at Jantar Mantar, against the unreasonable fee hike and illegal charges imposed by various prominent private schools.

At least the Punjab government has taken a good decision, a step forward in the parents direction. The schools will be asked to give a proper justification for any kind of hike and as it is the right of a parent to know why and for what they are paying more. It is time our chief minister woke up and took action, said Isha Vibhor, a parent and an entrepreneur.

Several parents associations in the city have served an ultimatum to the state government and given it a months time to get the fee hike rolled back, failing which they will further intensify the protests and burn effigies of the chief minister, education minister and other officials.

Rajan Kumar, senior executive of an MNC and a parent, said, Our government must address this relentless pain parents are going through. If it does not act, we will have to leave Gurgaon for another city as education has become a business for schools here. Parents have to shell out hard earned money just to provide a basic education to children and this is unjustified. When Punjab can take action why cant Haryana?

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Several new reports suggest that Angelina Jolie, just seven months after her separation from Brad Pitt, is looking to get married to a mysterious British man.

In Touch, Hollywood Life and OK! Magazine, all known for celebrity gossip, are saying that Jolies fourth marriage would be with a handsome British entrepreneur with strong political ties and aspirations.

Hollywood Life says that the two have already had several meet-ups at a Malibu estate where Jolie has been staying occasionally since her split from Brad.

The first time Angelina Jolie made a public return since the separation was in Cambodia. (REUTERS)

She struggles to find time for herself, so during the infrequent times Brad has the children, Angelina organizes romantic rendezvous with the British hottie. Angelinas dates have been happening all behind closed doors overnight dinners, drinks, everything inside the private Malibu residence and never out in public. Angelina finds the secrecy of their romance sexy and exciting. She wants the divorce to be well behind her and all of her children to be in a healthy place before she goes on a vacation or even out to a restaurant with any new man, the report continues.

The news caught Brad completely off-guard. He had no idea she was seeing anybody, let alone someone shes considering marrying, a source tells In Touch.

The idea that another man will be spending time with his kids is absolutely sickening and disheartening, the source adds. Brad hasnt met Angies man, doesnt want to meet him, and considers him an interloper in his family.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are involved in a custody battle over their six children. (REUTERS)

Initially, Angelina was hoping to wait until the divorce with Brad was settled, a second insider reveals. But now she may introduce her new man to her children in LA in the next few weeks. Shes especially concerned that he bonds with Maddox and Pax.

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016. In California, couples usually have to wait six months before divorce proceedings are finalised. They married in 2014 after meeting on the sets of 2005s Mr and Mrs Smith.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will contest the forthcoming civic polls in Uttar Pradesh on its elephant symbol, a first for a party which once avoided linking its name to what it apparently considered inconsequential in the bigger scheme of state politics.

The elections for 14 municipal corporations and 900 other local bodies, which have to to be completed by July, will be the first electoral challenge for the BSP after its drubbing in the recent assembly polls.

Former chief minister Mayawatis party was left with just 19 seats in the 403-member assembly amid a saffron sweep that saw the BJP win an overwhelming mandate in the state and form a majority government under chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

Mayawati told a select group of BSP leaders on Tuesday that the party needed to counter the narrative that it has lost control over urban areas and is confined only to certain rural pockets, party sources said.

We need to show that we are very much present in the ground. This can be proved if we contest municipal polls on party symbol. This will also give us an opportunity to make a self-assessment about our strengths, she was quoted as saying in the meeting.

Mayawati, 61, who went alone in the assembly polls, has also kept the possibility of an alliance open, but asked her party leaders to first concentrate on regaining ground.

This will help us get a respectable share in any alliance, if it is formed in the future, she said during the meeting with BSP zonal coordinators. We will form an alliance on our strengths.

In the past, BSPs put up own candidates or backed others in the civic polls but never used its poll symbol, ostensibly to avoid any loss of face in the case of poor results. Even at the height of her glory, Mayawati judiciously maintained the image of a party in control of the states affairs.

However, the latest assembly setback has forced her to rethink her strategies and make a fresh attempt at reconnecting to the people, especially in urban areas.

This was the third successive defeat for the party  it lost power to SP in the 2012 assembly polls and failed to win a single seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Mayawati, sources said, is unhappy with a section of party leaders who misguided her into going for an aggressive Muslim outreach during the assembly election. She is of the view that BSP could have done much better if it had not indulged in such a tactic.

She stripped a close aide Nasimuddin Siddiqui of all important organisation assignment, which will now be held by Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Siddharth, a leader who comes from Mayawatis caste.

Siddiqui will now be in charge of Madhya Pradesh while Siddharth will look after the party affairs in Uttar Pradesh.

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Two warring factions of the AIADMK appeared inching towards a merger on Friday as Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswami went into a huddle with senior ministers amid mounting speculation that the months-long political drama was nearing an end.

Television channels reported that Palaniswami formed a seven-member committee to take a final call on demands made his rival faction leader and former chief minister O Panneerselvam that include the ouster of party chief VK Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dinakaran.

News agency PTI reported that Palaniswami  a Sasikala loyalist -- was joined by cabinet colleagues D Jayakumar, C Ve Shanmugham, S P Velumani, Rajya Sabha MP R Vaithilingam, among others at party headquarters in Chennai.

This came a day after Panneerselvam hardened its stance, calling for Sasikala, Dinakaran and 30 other family members to be pushed out of the party. The camp has also demanded a CBI probe into the circumstances leading to former chief minister J Jayalalithaas death.

Channels indicated that the merger talks were inching towards a compromise that would likely include the expulsion or resignation of Sasikala and her controversial family that is accused of amassing crores through illegal businesses. The merger is likely to see the election commission restore the two leaves symbol to the party.

The party split in the run up to the RK Nagar assembly bypoll that was scrapped following widespread money laundering and bribery charges. The turmoil in the state was triggered last December when former CM J Jayalalithaa died.

A month later, Panneerselvam rebelled against Sasikala, a long-term aide of Jayalalithaa who was looking set to become CM.
A strike last week underscored growing public anger over the governments green light to explore uranium in the Nallamala forest  home to one of Indias oldest tiger reserves and the Chenchu, a primitive and protected hunter-gatherer tribe.

Hidden within its belly, Nallamala forest straddling the twin states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh apparently has the best quality uranium; unique and superior.

A 2015 study suggested a rich lode of uranium in Nallamalas Amrabad forest range.

Uranium-based nuclear plants are key to Indias future energy plans, where a quarter of the 1.2 billion people has little or no access to electricity. The country imports uranium from France, Russia and Kazakhstan, and operates 20 mostly small reactors.

The government hopes to mine uranium, and shift gradually from its dependency to coal-fired power stations.

The National Board for Wildlife cleared a proposal from the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research this April to conduct a survey and explore the expensive mineral over 83 square km of Amrabad.

The survey area might not be big, but enough for a sample study. Uranium reserves are present in a vast extent of Nallamala forest, extending from Amrabad to Peddagattu near the Nagarjunasagar reservoir. The entire area has to be explored to know how much is there, said G Ramadas, professor at the geophysics department of Osmania University.

Environmentalists and villagers in the area fear the sample survey will lead to a bigger exploration, ultimately leading to the forests destruction and uprooting of its indigenous inhabitants.

Nallamala has the Rajiv Gandhi Nagarjuna Sagar-Srisailam tiger reserve project, declared one of the oldest in the country in 1993.

It is a reserved zone for Chenchus, since the Nizams and British ruled the region. The Chenchus depend solely on the jungle, hunting game and gathering forest produce for a living.

As of now, it is just a survey and exploration, which doesnt cause much disturbance to ecology and wildlife. When mining starts, it is an issue of concern. There is still a long way to go, principal chief conservation of forest Prashant K Jha said.

The forest-dwellers and villagers living nearby feel threatened by the proposed exploration. People in Nagarkurnool district, which covers Amrabad, observed a total shutdown last week in protest.

They want the government to guarantee that no Chenchu will be evacuated from the area.

Exploration and mining will threaten Nallamalas rich bio-diversity. Mineral waste could pollute the Krishna river flowing through the forest, and that will be a serious health hazard, environmentalist P Purushottam Reddy said.

People living on the Krishna basin dont want the uranium mining to happen, according to social activist Sajaya Kakarla, representing the Anti-Uranium Mining Struggle Committee, a pressure group.

The government had to withdraw similar plans in the past because of strong protests, she said.

Forest authorities tried to allay the anxiety, assuring that mining will happen on forest fringes, not inside deep jungles.

So, there is no threat to wildlife or the tribal population. But all depends on the outcome of the exploration, said PK Sarma, a retired chief wildlife warden.

Geophysicist Ramdas gave perspective to the debate  admitting that mining would destroy forests and Nallamalas natural ecosystem.

But if the country needs uranium for strategic development, it is inevitable, he said.

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The Jodhpur district and sessions court on Friday asked Bollywood star Salman Khan to produce a bail bond of Rs 20 thousand and appear in person before it on July 6 in an Arms Act case.

The court issued the order while hearing an appeal filed by the Rajasthan government on Khans acquittal by a chief judicial magistrate (CJM)s court in the case over the illegal possession of weapons.

The police had filed the case against the actor in October 1998 for possessing and using unlicensed .22 rifle and .32 Us-made revolver and using them for allegedly poaching two black bucks in Jodhpurs Kankani village earlier that year.

Days earlier Khan was charged with poaching chinkaras in Bhawad and Ghora farm and blackbucks in Kankani.

The Rajasthan high court in July last year acquitted him in the case pertaining to the poaching of two chinkaras. The blackbuck case is in the final stages of trial.

In Arms Act case, Chief judicial magistrate Dalpat Singh Rajpuroti had on January 18 this year acquitted the 51-year-old actor saying the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against him.

Session Judge Bhawandas Agrawal, while hearing the appeal, ordered the lawyers of Salman Khan to furnish the bail bond. Khan, who was earlier asked to be present in the court for the hearing failed to turn up in the court on Friday.

Anand Desai and Hastimal Sarswat, the counsels of the Bollywood star produced the Vakalatnama.
The Narendra Modi governments commitment to protect cows does not make it anti-Dalit, minister of state for social justice and empowerment, Ramdas Athawale said on Friday.

Amid a growing clamour for a complete ban on bovine slaughter, a move perceived to affect livelihoods of Dalits and minorities, Athawale said the governments intent to protect cows is being politicised.

Atrocities against Dalits are not happening because this government pushes for cow protection. Dalits are being oppressed because casteism still exists in large parts, he told HT.

Athawale, who heads the Republican Party of India (A) said while the government must ensure that the ban on slaughter is not extended to buffaloes and bullocks because spent cattle becomes a burden on farmers. He said the governments intentions to protect the cow are being misread as anti-Dalit and minorities.

His statement comes in the wake of growing instances of Dalits and minorities being attacked by alleged cow vigilantes.

Read more: Living in fear: Dalits still at receiving end of caste atrocities in Uttar Pradesh

A diary owner Pehlu Khan who was beaten up by cow vigilantes in Rajasthans Alwar district succumbed to injuries earlier this month; while four Dalit youths were flogged for skinning a dead cow in Gujarats Una in July 2016.

What happened in Una (Gujarat) is a subject that the Congress will make an issue of in the elections (upcoming Assembly polls). But Prime Minister Modi has himself said that if anyone is upset with the Dalits, they should shoot him but not harm them, the Dalit Buddhist leader said.

Opposition parties blame the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Gujarat and the Centre for tacit support for these so-called cow protectors.

These accusations are all political. When Bhupinder Hooda was the chief minister of Haryana, Dalits were attacked in Gohana, Mirchpur and Jhajjar. Was the Congress behind those attacks? When the Samajwadi Party was in power, there were atrocities in Badaun and Sadhupur; there was Belchi in Bihar (where Dalits were attacked), Athwale said.

The minister said laws and government alone cannot stop atrocities against Dalits and called for a collective will to push for change.

He said though some changes visible on the ground with more inter-caste marriages, people doing business with Dalits and their entry into temples is not barred in the cities, discrimination is still prevalent in many villages.

No government can prevent discrimination; it is the society that has to change. The government must ensure there is strict punishment for the oppressors, the member of Parliament from Maharashtra said.

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The Australian government is keen to rejoin the Malabar naval exercise this year, but the request could be rejected by India due to concerns over Chinas reaction on the move, a media report said on Friday.

ABC said that Australian defence minister Marise Payne in Tokyo has acknowledged the countrys desire to join the defence event where military assets from the US, India, and more recently Japan, hold joint annual naval drills, north of Australia.

Australia is very interested in a quadrilateral engagement with India, Japan and the United States, Payne said, adding, What form that may take is a matter of discussion between our various countries.

The report, however, added that there was growing speculation that India will reject Australias request to take part in this years exercises over concerns that it could inflame diplomatic tensions with China.

The Australian Defence Department said, India has not indicated whether the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will be invited to the Exercise Malabar in 2017.

In a statement to ABC, the Defence Department said Australia has regularly discussed the matter of the ADFs involvement in Exercise Malabar with India since 2015.

The report said that in the past few weeks, the countrys defence attache to New Delhi has requested that India allow the ADF to attend this years exercises as an official observer.

In 2007, Australia took part in the Malabar exercise, but withdrew from the drills and accompanying security talks following concerns expressed by Beijing.
Attention, overweight army officers and soldiers. Unfit military men cant stand at ease until they slim down, or else they lose their eligibility for promotions and transfers, the right to attend ceremonial functions and much more.

The army has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards obesity in its rank and file, after a sample survey of 767 soldiers last year found a third of them overweight.

The findings put a question mark on the combat-readiness of the worlds third largest army with 1.3 million personnel, saddled with aggressive neighbours.

A fight against flab has started in the army as a special order, effective from this May, says all personnel must undergo an annual obesity evaluation examination.

The annual confidential reports (ACRs) of officers will henceforth carry a full-size picture, instead of the previous norm of a passport-size photo, so that any bulge around the waist is visible.

Waist size will determine promotions. A certificate from the officer, who writes the ACR of the personnel to be promoted, will be sent to departments concerned.

Promotion will be held back for anybody 10% above the ideal body weight, until he shaped up. If the promotion order comes before the certificate is issued, he will not be allowed to wear the next rank till the commanding officer certifies that he has reached the ideal weight.

Officers downgraded for their waistlines will not be allowed to attend career advancing courses such as the one offered at Defence Services Staff College, even if they clear the entrance exams.

Army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand said instructions for enforcement measures to help check the menace of obesity were sent for comments to all military commands last August.

The idea came from then army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, a fitness enthusiast who ran 10km each day, and was appalled at the increasing girth of the men under his command.

According to army officers instructions to stay fit were often issued, but seldom followed diligently and never attracted harsh punishments. The survey conducted by the defence ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research prompted the bosses to crack the whip.

Soldiers in forward areas tend to put on weight as the fitness regime is not followed. The fresh instructions will make people sharpen their focus to stay in top physical shape, an officer said.

No overweight personnel can go abroad on assignments unless he is specially exempted or is a war wounded.

Besides, plump officers will not be granted reemployment either. Applications will have to be accompanied by a fitness certificate, mentioning the ideal body weight.

These things were ignored if an officer was performing well and didnt look fat. The army has decided to take the problem head-on as it reflects on the image of the force, said a senior officer in the military headquarters.

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic, afflicting the armies of the US, Germany and Pakistan as well. The Indian Army is no exception, but it is striving to have a fit force with its battle against the bulge.

With inputs from Rahul Singh in New Delhi
A premier medical college and hospital in north Bihar turned into a battle ground on Friday following a pitched battle between doctors and relatives of a patient in which two ambulances were set on fire.

The incident occurred at Shri Krishna Medical College And Hospital (SKMCH) after the relatives, accompanying a patient from Sheohar, complained that doctors were not paying attention to the patient and beat up junior doctors at the Emergency ward, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Town, Ashish Anand said.

The junior doctors retaliated and beat up the attackers. The protestors then set on fire two ambulances and also damaged cars and two-wheelers of doctors, the DSP said. Some junior doctors, wielding sticks, retaliated by beating up the attackers.

Infuriated doctors have gone on strike, affecting functioning of the OPD ward in the hospital. The DSP along with sub divisional magistrate, Sunil Kumar, rushed to the hospital to bring the situation under control.

This is the second time in a week when doctors had come under attack at the SKMCH. Deputy Superintendent of SKMCH Sunil Shahi has complained of lack of security for doctors at the hospital.
A couple of days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the Kashmir situation with senior ministers, and amid a controversial comment by state BJP minister Chander Prakash Ganga on stone-pelters in the Valley, the partys national general secretary Ram Madhav made an impromptu visit to Jammu on Friday.

He discussed the situation in closed-door meetings with governor NN Vohra, finance minister Haseeb Drabu of the PDP ,and director general of police SP Vaid.

Even as state BJP president Sat Sharma maintained that Madhav visited the winter capital in view of a forthcoming visit of party president Amit Shah on April 29 and 30, a senior BJP leader told HT, The PDP-BJP government is facing a real tough phase in turbulent Kashmir, and Gangas video clip has added fuel to the fire. Therefore, Drabu and Madhav discussed the situation in Kashmir at a meeting which lasted an hour and a half this morning.

After Drabu, he met DGP Vaid while deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh also had a brief meeting in the morning. BJP leaders Avinash Rai Khanna and Satpal Sharma were also among those who attended the meeting.

Stone-pelting incidents have increased manifold in the region since the PDP-BJP alliance came to power in 2015. Most recently, eight people were killed in clashes with security forces during the Srinagar parliamentary bypoll on April 9, prompting the Election Commission to postpone the Anantnag bypoll to May 25.

Earlier in the day, Khanna, who is BJPs J&K in-charge, said, He (Madhav) has come and Kashmir situation is being discussed. A programme is also being finalised for the two-day visit of party president (Shah).

A Raj Bhawan spokesperson said, BJP national general secretary (Ram Madhav) discussed security environment related issues with the governor and the initiatives under consideration for hastening the developmental process and promoting peace and normalcy.

Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat had also met Vohra and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday afternoon, and the very next day briefed National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval in Delhi.

Cabinet rejig ahead

Sources said Madhav, who met senior office-bearers of the party too, also discussed an upcoming reshuffle of portfolios in the BJP, cross-voting by Zanskar MLA Syed Baqir Rizvi in the legislative council elections, and the Anantnag LS bypoll rescheduled for May 25.

As per the coalition agreement, the BJP and PDP had to share two seats each in the council polls, but PDP rebel independent candidate Rizvi from Zanskar voted in favour of BJP candidate Vikram Randhawa, which equalled his votes with the PDP candidate; and Randhawa subsequently won via lottery.

It is learnt that BJPs betrayal at the legislative council elections was also taken up by the finance minister, who expressed CM Mehbooba Muftis annoyance to the BJP leader.

The BJP did not obey the coalition dharma, and the PDP now wants to get the seat of the assembly speaker in the reshuffle, sources in the PDP said.

One of the elected PDP MLCs, Yasri Reshi, had not attended the oath ceremony of the MLCs here on Thursday.

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Buoyant over its triumph in the recently-concluded general assembly elections in four states, Bharatiya Janata Party has stepped up its efforts to dislodge the Virbhadra Singh-headed four-year-old Congress government in Himachal.

BJPs top brass went into huddle in New Delhi at Union health minister JP Naddas residence. Nadda is also the partys national general secretary.

Political scenario emerging in the state, particularly after the by poll in Bhoranj that BJP won, was discussed. BJP candidate Anil Dhiman triumphed over Congresss Pramilla Devi by over 8,000 votes. The party also discussed the growing unrest in the Congress party as many leaders are apparently in touch with the BJP.

The political grapevine has it that many Congress bigwigs are keen to switch over to the BJP. One of Congress chief parliamentary secretary had even posted on his Facebook page about Congress joining the BJP.

Also read | Money laundering case: Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh appears before ED

Many Congress leaders are in touch with us. We will reveal our cards at an appropriate time, state party chief Satpal Singh Satti told Hindustan Times. There is speculation that as many as half a dozen Congress legislators could defect to the BJP. According to sources, these include two ministers and chief parliamentary secretaries .

BJP is also trying to woo back two independent legislators  Pawan Kajal and Manohar Dhiman  who rebelled in the last assembly elections. Kajal is legislator from Kangra while Dhiman is the legislator from Indora.

Sources have told Hindustan Times that those wanting to join BJP are also seeking assurance from the party about their possible candidatures. The party is also drawing up its poll strategy as it is anticipating early polls in Himachal. Himachal governor Acharya Dev Vrat met Home minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi on Thursday and briefed him about the political scenario in Himachal .

Former Himachal CM Prem Kumar Dhumal too called on Rajnath Singh and later met Prime Minister Narender Modi, along with state party chief Satpal Singh Satti. Both invited Modi for a proposed meeting on historic Ridge in Shimla on April 27.

Modis visit comes close on the heels of the municipal elections, scheduled to be held next month. Those who attended the core group meeting included Satti, Prem Kumar Dhumal, JP Nadda, Lok Sabha members Ranswaroop, Virender Kasyap, partys organising secretary Pawan Rana and party vice presidents Randhir Sharma and Rajiv Bindal.

Former rural development minister Jai Ram Thakur was also present.

BJP which is eager to wrest back power in Himachal and beleaguered chief minister Virbhadra Singhs detractors have stepped up their activities, particularly after CBI filed a chargesheet against him and eight others in the money laundering case.

Congress leaders are demanding change in leadership prior to the assembly elections, due this year. Virbhadra was grilled by the enforcement directorate for over nine hours in New Delhi on Thursday.

HIMACHAL IN NUMBERS

Total members in assembly: 68

Congress: 36

BJP: 28

Independent: 4

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The Congress on Friday rubbished reports of senior leader Kamal Nath quitting the party and accused the BJP of spreading rumours, malicious insinuations and canards.

The BJP is running a malicious, ugly whispering campaign to malign the senior-most Congress leaders...

We completely reject any such malicious and negative insinuation that the BJP is spreading, Congress in-charge of the communications department Randeep Surjewala told reporters in the capital.

Asked about reports of Nath quitting the party, he said, Instead of spreading such canards, the BJP should answer to the people of Delhi about corruption in the three civic bodies over the last 10 years.

Surjewala said the BJP had perhaps forgotten that Nath was not only the senior-most parliamentarian and one of the most experienced Congress leaders, but he was also the architect behind the re-crafting of the partys strategy and narrative during challenging times.

Whether it was 1977 to 1980, post-1989 to 2004 or as part of the government, Nath continued to serve the party as a worker, leader and the general secretary, he added.

On others quitting the party, the Congress leader said, The mettle of a leader or a person committed to a political party is tested not when the party is in power but during challenging times.

In todays challenging times, those friends who have left the party can find the best place for them in the BJP as that party is very prone to attracting defectors nowadays, who are bereft of any ideology, direction or commitment to their own party, which is like the second mother to any political person.
The Congress said on Friday that the partys president, vice president and the working committee after consultation with all opposition leaders will take a conscious, concerted and balanced call on a joint Presidential candidate by the Opposition.

There have been hectic parleys over a joint candidate for the election of President by the opposition in place of Pranab Mukherjee, amid demands for putting up a united fight.

The Congress party will decide upon a Presidential candidate after consulting and taking into confidence all its allies as also all other Opposition Parties.

The Congress president, Congress vice president and the working committee, after consultation with all leaders of the opposition parties, will take a conscious, concerted and balanced call on the issue, communications department incharge of Congress Randeep Surjewala said.

He said as soon as it is decided, the party will be very happy to share it with the media and has nothing to hide.

When that stage arrives, we will be very happy to inform the media. So far, that stage has not arisen. So, the question of individuals name does not arise as yet, he said.

Surjewala also played down the meeting of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar with Sonia Gandhi, saying it was merely a courtesy call.

It was a regular courtesy call between two allies. To convert it into any other discussion perhaps would be unwarranted, he said.

He said that Nitish Kumar met Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi when he visited Bihar and met Congress President Sonia Gandhi when he was in Delhi.

Besides Nitish Kumar, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury had on Friday met Sonia Gandhi on possible confabulations over a joint presidential candidate by the opposition.
Pakistan has asserted that a decision on Indias request for consular access to its national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a military court, would be taken on the basis of merit.

Pakistans foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan and India have a bilateral agreement on consular access but all cases have to be decided on merit.

In all such cases...the request of this nature would be decided on the basis of merit, he said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Zakaria said India had summoned Pakistans deputy high commissioner over consular access to Jadhav but this was not something new. It was a reaction after the death sentence awarded to Jadhav, he said.

Indian high commissioner Gautam Bambawale, after meeting Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua earlier this week, had said that he had asked for consular access to Jadhav for the 14th time.

In response, Pakistan had said in a statement that India, in several cases, had denied consular access to Pakistani prisoners for years.

Meanwhile, army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor had ruled out consular access to Jadhav.

Under the law we cannot give consular access to Khubhushan who was involved in spying, Ghafoor had told reporters.
The Delhi high court on Friday refused to entertain a petition seeking a directive that the triple talaq or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women married to Muslim men.

Acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice Anu Malhotra said the matter relating to triple talaq is pending before a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court and as such the high court cant entertain the plea.

The top court will start a day-to-day hearing in the case from May 13, on a PIL filed by some Muslim women challenging the social practice of pronouncing talaq, the Arabic word for divorce, thrice, to annul a marriage.

The petitioner, a Delhi based advocate, argued that matter pending before the top court on triple talaq is pertaining to Muslim women and not to Hindu women married to Muslim men.

Irrespective of religion women are entitled to equal protection, the bench remarked.

Advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla withdrew the plea and said he would approach the apex court.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Shukla had also sought directions for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause for imposition of penalty for non-registration.

The petitioner argued that since the nikahnaama (marriage contract) is written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions related to triple talaq or polygamy.

The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the nikahnaama pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, said the plea.

Since there is no provision for registration of marriage under Muslim personal law, so directions for registration of marriages of Hindu women with Muslim men under the above-mentioned two laws is required to safeguard such womens interest, it added.
Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh  who was grilled by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for over nine hours on Thursday  was asked to explain about 37 transactions made into five bank accounts including the one allegedly owned by his LIC agent Anand Chauhan.

Chauhan was arrested by the agency in July last year for allegedly aiding Singh by issuing LIC policies worth Rs 5 crore in the name of the CM and his family.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the ED have accused Singh of amassing wealth worth over Rs 6 crore which was disproportionate to his known sources of income.

The probe agencies also accused the 82-year-old Congress leader of investing over Rs 5 crore in purchasing policies in his own and his family members name through Chauhan during his stint as the Union steel minister in the UPA II government.

On Thursday, Singh was summoned by ED investigators and grilled for over nine hours. Sources said that he was asked to provide details of 37 transactions made into LIC bank accounts of Chauhan, Meghraj Sharma and Kanupriya Rathore between June 25, 2009 and January 31, 2011.

Official sources in the ED said that the veteran leader cooperated with the investigators for most part of the questioning.

The questions were mostly financial in nature. Singh has asked for some time before responding to them, an ED official told HT.

According to documents accessed by HT, the said transactions were made into five bank accounts.

Chauhan had one LIC account each in Punjab National Bank and HDFC bank. Meghraj had one account in Punjab National Bank and another in Punjab and Sindh bank. Kanupriya Rathore had an account in Punjab National Bank.

The first transaction totalling Rs 5 lakh was made on June 25, 2009 into Chauhans HDFC account followed by transactions in July and December.

Many more transactions took place in 2010 with 10 taking place in March alone. Another 10 transactions were made into Meghraj and Kanupriyas accounts in March 2010.

ED officials also said that Singh was asked about his income tax returns for the year 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2011-12.

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When supermodels from 34 countries descended on the streets of Bahadurgarh in Haryanas Jhajjar district in the scorching April sun, they were on a mission. Attired in short red dresses, high heels and armed with placards in Hindi and English, the supermodels from Vietnam to South Africa didnt mind the 43 degrees Celsius as they marched through Jhajjar district, which has the lowest sex ratio in Haryana, hoping their bid to build respect for women finds support with the masses.

The models were in Delhi to take part in an international supermodel contest, organised by a Jhajjar-based talent promoting group Rubaru, to be held on April 22. (Manoj Dhaka/HtTPhoto)

The Jhajjar district administration took the initiative of inviting the supermodels, who were in Delhi some 50 km away to take part in a contest on April 22. When the district administration came to know about their arrival in Delhi for the international supermodel contest, it asked the organisers if they could take part in a workshop and promote the cause of womens empowerment, an official spokesperson said.

The administration organised a workshop to discuss the issues of women empowerment and open defecation with the residents, where it called these models to give their inspirational messages. (HT Photo)

When leggy lasses from Belgium, Japan, China, Vietnam, New Zealand, and Brazil, among others, walked the streets, they seemed to draw more attention to themselves than the issues at hand. Ram Ram tau ji, greeted Jeanine De Vries from the Netherlands, leaving spectators in splits. The supermodels addressed the crowd that gathered in Hindi, which was incoherent at times given their foreign accents. But the banners they carried to promote schemes of the Centre and state government such as Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, Stop violence against women, Real men dont hit women, Jhilmil Jhajjar, lota, botal (bottle) band karo, shauchalay ka prabandh karo.

Stephen Alien of the US had the last word when she said, The world will be a better place only when women and the environment will be respected.
They say marriages are made in heaven. But this one was kindled on the web, and blossomed in prison.

The groom came in a police van handcuffed, the bride with her parents in a car. The marriage registrar after going through their documents declared them husband and wife.

But this was no regular wedding. They fell in love on Facebook, he refused to marry her and she sent him to jail. But then, he had a change of heart. On Thursday, they wed in Dhanbad.

Unlike other couples who walk away from the ceremony hand-in-hand, this one parted ways. While the groom  28-year-old Bihar engineer Ritesh Kumar -- went back to jail, the bride  23-year-old Sudipti Kumari -- returned home with her parents.

The brides father, Haradhan Mahali, told reporters he respected her sentiments and love for Ritesh.

When the offer for marriage came, I couldnt say no. Now my priority would be to unite them at the earliest, he said. The couple may finally be united when the case next comes up for hearing on Monday. The grooms mother refused comment.

Police take Ritesh Kumar to jail after his court marriage on Thursday. (Pankaj Kumar/HT Photo)

Theirs is a love-hate-love relationship that culminated in marriage after a lot of upheavals, family members say.

The duo first met on Facebook in 2012 and chatted for long hours before they met, sources said. Soon the couple found themselves falling in love. Ritesh, who was working with the National Thermal Power Station in Kahalgaon, Bihar, would often visit Dhanbad to see her.

They also apparently married in a temple secretly. However, when Sudipti asked Ritesh to formally marry him, he refused arguing if he married her, his mother, Anita Devi would commit suicide.

Feeling cheated, Sudipti, who is Dalit, filed a case of sexual harassment under the ST/SC act against Ritesh in February 2017. Police picked up Ritesh from Kahalgoan on the basis of the complaint and sent him to jail.

But the story didnt end here. Friends of the couple say Sudipti had a change of heart and visited Ritesh in jail occasionally. Weeks later, Ritesh asked her to marry him and she accepted.

Ritesh applied for marriage from jail through court about a month ago. After getting the due permissions, families of the two met and reached the court on Thursday for the wedding.

Ritesh had to go back to jail after the legal wedding as he faces charges under Sections 326 and 493 of IPC, besides the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, and his bail was rejected in the past.

Riteshs lawyer Abhay Bhatt said marriage was allowed as both Ritesh and Sudipti were adults but to get the groom out of jail would be more difficult. However, since court has already rejected the bail application, we will have to see how the case ends in favor of Ritesh and how he could be bailed out from jail, the lawyer said. On Monday, Sudipti is expected to record her statement and the judge might decide to release Ritesh.

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A 30-feet tall metal cross was pulled down on Thursday as part of an official anti-encroachment drive in the hill station of Munnar in Kerala with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressing strong displeasure over the act.

Vijayan said the governments displeasure has already been conveyed to the Idukki district administration.

The steps taken by the district administration have resulted in some misunderstanding. A cross which was there was destroyed as part of an anti-encroachment drive, Vijayan said at a function in Kottayam on Thursday night.

Cross is a very important holy symbol in Christian faith. We have reservations in the manner in which it was demolished, Syro Malabar Church spokesman said.

The government viewed the matter very seriously, he said.

Reacting cautiously to the incident, Syro Malabar Church spokesman Fr Jimmy Poochakkatt said that there was no issue in removing a cross erected in an encroached land but questioned the manner in which it was demolished.

Cross is a very important holy symbol in Christian faith. We have reservations in the manner in which it was demolished, he said.

At the same time we are of the opinion that any such symbol --whether it is religious or political --situated on an encroached land should be removed, Poochakkatt said.

He also said the government should take steps to see that the anti-encroachment drive in Munnar is not stopped in the name of such incidents.

Some people try to rake up religious sentiments to sabotage such moves by the government. Authorities should be beware of such forces, the priest said.

The cross, set up under the garb of spiritual tourism atop a hilly area, was brought down with the help of earth movers Thursday morning, officials said.

It was set up on a 30-acre piece of land allegedly encroached by a group of people calling itself Spirit of Jesus, they said.

Besides the cross, some thatched sheds and a prayer hall too were also demolished, they added.

Prohibitory orders were clamped in the area before the officials began dismantling the cross.

Road blocks were created by some people by leaving cars on the narrow road leading to the location of the cross.

The ruling CPI-M Idukki district secretary K K Jayachandran expressed unhappiness over the removal of the cross and criticised the district collector and Devikulam sub-collector for taking the action.

The cross was set up for the faithful to offer worship, he said, adding there was no need to remove it.

KPCC president M M Hassan welcomed the action, saying all encroachments needed to be removed.

The local Congress leadership, however, opined that the cross should not have been removed first while there were other encroachments nearby.

Munnar, situated about 1600 metres above the sea level, was once the summer resort of the erstwhile British government in South India.

Sprawling tea plantations, picture-book towns, winding lanes and holiday facilities make Munnar a favourite town for the tourists.

It has of late become a hunting ground for encroachers as well.

Munnar also has the highest peak in South India, Anamudi, towering over 2,695 metres, which is an ideal spot for trekking.

Meanwhile, an expert committee of environmentalists and social activists set up by the BJP in Kerala has warned of serious consequences if encroachments were not stopped in ecologically sensitive Munnar.

Munnar was turning into a graveyard due to construction of resorts on alleged encroached government lands, the committee members said after visiting the tourist spot.

The committee said authorities should be vigilant to put a stop to use of religious symbols for encroachments.
Forty-five anti-mining protesters, arrested 13 days ago, were on Thursday released from jail after they signed bail papers following intervention by Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane.

The agitators, 23 of them women, are residents of Sonshi village. They were formally released from Colvale Jail.

They were given bail last week but refused to sign the papers necessary for their release unless their demand was met, leading to their continued incarceration. The villagers were protesting against air pollution caused in Sonshi due to iron ore transportation.

Read | Why 45 Goa villagers opposing mining are stuck in jail despite bail

I managed to convince them that their demand will be put before Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who would find a solution. Staying behind bars wont help in addressing the issues raised by them, Rane told PTI.

The villagers were arrested 13 days back after they forcibly stopped trucks that were carrying iron ore through Sonshi, located 45km from Panaji.

The residents of the rural hamlet were agitated over the unbearable dust pollution caused by transportation of iron ore.

The protest hit headlines after the villagers refused to sign bail papers, while their children walked to local police station demanding release of their parents.

All the protesters signed the bail papers and they were released this evening, Police Inspector Dipak Pednekar said.

Parrikar had yesterday intervened in the matter and asked the mining firms to reduce pollution in the village. PTI
The Central government is planning to hold about 100 conferences across the country to woo OBCs among Muslims as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modis outreach to backwards among the countrys largest minority group.

One of these conferences which the ruling BJP trying to push as a mega event, will be in Delhi.

A large number of backwards among Muslims are deprived of the benefits they should get. We want to inform and empower them about their rights, minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told HT. The senior BJP leader said more than 50% of communities among Muslims fall within OBC category and their population would be more than 12 crore.

We will inform the backwards among minority communities how the constitutional status to backward classes commission with benefit them. Only a few castes have benefitted so far, Naqvi added.

The Modi government has proposed constitutional status to National Commission of Backward Classes, arguing it will be accrue benefits to the backward communities. The bill has been cleared by the Lok Sabha, but the Opposition refused to play ball in the Rajya Sabha Tuesday, forcing the government to refer it to a select committee.

Read more: Modi asks BJP to start dialogue on triple talaq

The BJP has been making a determined push to woo the OBC communities over the past three years and PM Modi has tried to widen the efforts by reaching out to Muslims.

At the recent meeting of the BJPs national executive meeting in Bhubaneswar, Modi asked the party to reach out to the backward communities among the minorities, arguing they have been left behind.

Will Syed and Pathans continue to provide leadership to Muslim?

Backwards among them also need to benefit, a BJP leader quoted him saying at the BJP meet. Syed and Pathans are regarded as forward classes among Muslims.

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China on Friday asserted that it was its lawful right to standardise official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, while its state-run media warned that India will pay dearly if it continues to play the Dalai Lama card.

Chinas position on the eastern section of the India- China boundary is clear and consistent, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a media briefing here while reacting to Indias assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is its integral part.

Relevant names have been used by ethnic Momba and Tibetan Chinese who have lived here for generations. So it is a fact that cannot be changed. To standardise these names and publicise them is a legitimate measure based on our lawful right, he said.

Lu also countered Indias charge that China was inventing names to make its territorial claims over the area legal.

India on Thursday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six places in Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay in New Delhi had also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Earlier, the Global Times, in an op-ed article, said India will pay dearly if it continues the petty game of playing the Dalai Lama card and dismissed as absurd New Delhis reaction to Chinas renaming of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time, said the article titled India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China.

The daily said playing the Dalai Lama card was never a wise choice for New Delhi.

If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it, the daily warned.

South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places, it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet.

China on Wednesday had announced that it has standardised official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a legitimate action.

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lamas visit to the frontier state.

Lu had earlier said that the Chinese government was conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups.

He had also said that more standardised names will be announced later.

Highlighting Chinas stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, Chinas South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers the Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
A day after the central government banned the use of red, blue and amber beacons atop VIP vehicles, Himachal Pradesh governor Acharya Devvrat removed red beacons from his official vehicles and all other vehicles attached with him. The Raj Bhavan claimed that Devvrat is the first governor in the country to shun the red beacon.

As a fallout of the Centres decision, nearly 500 VIPs in the state are set to lose the sign of privilege. At present the number of VIPs using red beacons in the state is 28, including the governor, chief minister, chief justice of Himachal high court, Lokayukta, 11 ministers, eight high court (HC) judges, chief secretary, chairman of the public service commission, chairman of the state administrative tribunal, consumer dispute redressal commission president and advocate general.

Besides this, deputy commissioners, superintendent of police, ADMs, sub-divisional magistrates (SDMs), mining officials, deputy superintendent of police (DSP), regional transport officer (RTO) and other officials in a district use blue beacons vehicles.

Owing to a Supreme Court order, earlier in 2014, Himachal Pradesh had slashed the number of VIPs using red beacons. Even legislators and political appointees were not allowed to use red beacons but they fought a long battle and ensured amber light atop vehicles to keep the VIP privilege alive.

The Supreme Court, in its December-10 judgment of 2014, had asked the central and state governments to limit the use of flashers and red beacons.

Following the judgment, the state government had set the ball rolling to frame new rules in accordance with the SC directions. In its order, the Supreme Court had also directed that the states and Union Territories cannot increase the scope of high dignitaries beyond the prescribed notifications of January 2002 and July 2005 of the Centre.

Few days ago, state transport minister GS Bali had removed red beacon from his vehicle.

On Thursday, former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, who was in New Delhi, also removed the red beacon atop his vehicle. Shimla legislator Suresh Bhardwaj and state tourism board chairman Vijai Singh Mankotia had shunned amber beacon long ago.

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A court in Hyderabad on Friday granted permission till May 17 to Swami Aseemanand, an accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast case, to travel out of Hyderabad.

On April 13, Aseemanand filed a petition in the court of the additional metropolitan sessions judge seeking permission to appear in a court in Panchkula on April 28 in connection with a case pending against him there.

He also said he wanted to visit his ailing mother and avail medical treatment for himself.

While accepting his plea, the court asked Aseemanand to return to Hyderabad by May 17 for the Mecca Masjid blast trial.

On March 23, the court granted bail to Aseemanand and another co-accused in the case, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 each with two sureties of the equal amount.

They were also directed not to leave Hyderabad without the permission of the court. The court had also asked them to remain present in the city for the trial as and when required.

Aseemanand was released from Chanchalguda jail here on March 31.

Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, had been on the run since 2008 till his arrest on November 19, 2010 from Haridwar for his alleged role in the blast on May 18, 2007, in which nine people were killed.

On March, Aseemanand and six others were acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer bomb blast case by a Jaipur court. He was then brought from Jaipur and lodged in the Chanchalguda Central Prison.
Ayodhya Former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti on Friday said it was he and not senior leader LK Advani who provoked kar sevaks to demolish the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.

Addressing media persons at his residence here, Vedanti claimed the CBI had presented wrong facts before the Supreme Court.

When the mosque was being razed, Ashok Singhal, Mahant Avaidyanath and I exhorted the kar sevaks to bring the structure down, Vedanti said.

While we were inciting the mob, Joshi, Advani and Vijayraje Scindia were trying to stop the kar sevaks, he said.

Vedanti said the mosque had to be demolished so that a makeshift Ram temple could be constructed on its ruins. It was I who said ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tod do, he claimed.

It does not matter if I am hanged for making this statement. The mosque was in a dilapidated state and could have collapsed any time as it had faced 400 rainy seasons, he said.

He demanded that the 67.77 acre acquired land around the disputed site should be handed over to the Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas.

Vedanti is among the 13 people who have been accused of conspiracy by the CBI.

Vedantis statement comes after the Supreme Court asked the special court in Lucknow to proceed with the trial against LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, and Vinay Katiyar, among others.
A fourth-year engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur was found hanging in his hostel room late on Friday night, the latest in a string of similar deaths at premier institutes that have been blamed on high stress and mounting depression.

Sources said Nipin N, a fourth-year student of Aerospace Engineering, allegedly killed himself because of depression. He hailed from Kerala.

The death jolted the institute, considered among the best technical schools in the country that saw a third-year-students body found besides the railway tracks just last month.

College authorities had said that mental depression drove Sana Shreeraj, a third year student of electrical engineering, to suicide. Shreeraj, 20,hailed from Tekkali of Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh and stayed at Lala Lajpat Roy hostel in the campus. But his father had said his classmates tortured him, which forced the student to commit suicide.

Indias premier engineering and technical institutes have seen a rash of such deaths in the past couple of years, raising questions about the high-pressure environment young students were being subjected to.

In March, a student of IIT Delhi jumped off from the fourth floor of a hostel inside the campus. Nitish Kumar Purti, an engineering physics student had joined IIT Delhi in 2016. Police said Purti was depressed as he was forced to take up the course and was unable to cope with the pressure.

The same month, a final-year engineering student of NIT Warangal in Telangana allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of his hostel building on Sunday evening.

Authorities have tried several measures but have struggled to cope with the rising tide of such deaths, attributed also to the lack of counseling and support services on campus. IIT-Madras instituted a probe last year after two women committed suicide inside campus. Also last year, at least eight students killed themselves in Kota, Rajasthans entrance test coaching hub.
It was sometime in the 1970s. Susan Gole wanted something to hang up on one of the walls of her house in London. Another person might have gone looking for a work of art, but Gole wanted a map. I have always been interested in maps. My father had a big collection of maps of Africa because he had travelled to Africa. So I decided I should have a map of India, because I had travelled here, says Gole. The collector of maps of India who has also published books on the subject is in the country to deliver a series of talks on maps of India.

It was five years after decimalisation and maps of India were not even priced in the modern currency because no one wanted to look at maps of India, Gole continues. The shopkeeper pulled out some old maps  one done in 1730 and an old one from the previous century. I told him to show me a book about them, to prove that they were as old as he was claiming them to be. Thats when I found that in a general book of cartography, maps of India rated only half a page. So Gole decided to write about them herself. Her first book, Early Maps Of India, was published in Delhi in the late 1970s. But it was very deficient since I didnt know much about maps at the time. I rewrote the whole book in 1984 which was published again in India, and it was a much better compilation of maps printed up to 1800.

Printed Maps of India in the Alkazi Collection What: A talk by Susan Gole When: April 22, 6.30 pm

Where: Annexe Building, IIC, 40 Max Mueller Marg Nearest Metro station: Jor Bagh

The first maps were printed in the early 1470s, says Gole. And these were maps drawn from the coordinates of Claudius Ptolemy, who lived in the Alexandria in the third century AD. After the fall of Constantinople, the Westerners came to know of these because the geography was translated in Greek and then into Latin. The maps were printed later. But the number of maps being printed of India went up in the sixteenth and seventeenth century as Europeans started travelling to India. They would go back and write their accounts and maps were printed so that people could know where the places were, explains Gole. The first maps were often inaccurate or incomplete. India was only accurately mapped in the 1850s, she says.

Read: Topographic maps of India to be available online for free

The president of the International Map Collectors Association had 1580 maps of India, drawn between 1470 and 1947, which are now with the Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi. This month Gole is scheduled to deliver five lectures in Delhi, on subjects ranging from 18th century Shahjahanabad: Maps of Chandni Chowk, Faiz Bazar and the Palace to Printed Maps of India in the Alkazi Collection and Indian Mapping: Local tradition or foreign influence. But indigenous maps of India are very different. They are all manuscripts and have no scale, says Gole.

Plan de Bombay et ses Environs. No. 25 from Vol. III of Le Petit Atlas Maritime, Paris, 1763 and 1764. A map by Jean Nicolas Bellin, a Frenchman who made many maritime maps. At this time the French were leaders in map making and another French cartographer, dAnville, published a map of the whole of India, but left many gaps (Courtesy: Alkazi Foundation for the Arts)

A Map of the Countries Round Surat and Bombay in the East Indies, with the adjacent Provinces & settlements, from the London Magazine Vol. XXVIII, 1759. This is a map by T Kitchin. Bombay was just an empty island when the Portugese queen brought it with her dowry to the British and the latter built it up. (Courtesy: Alkazi Foundation for the Arts)

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A White House petition has been launched seeking US intervention to ensure Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian naval officer sentenced to death in Pakistan for alleged spying, doesnt get punished for the act which he never committed.

The petition that started on April 14 needs 96,984 more signatures by May 14 to qualify for a response from the administration. Reports have said that the new US administration is mulling the very fate of this practice of petitioning the White House, which was started by President Barack Obama in 2011.

None of the petitions launched since President Donald Trump took office have gotten a response. White House communications director Mike Dubke told US News the fate of the practice was under review.

If the Trump administration does decide to continue it and with the same rules, the Jadhav petition will need 100,000 unique signatures in 30 days from the day of its launch to get a response from the White House, which may or may not accept the demand.

This petition, To save Kulbhushan Jhadav from death sentence awarded by Pakistan millitry (military), was started by an individual identified only by the initials S.S, who doesnt indicate if he or she is Indian American, and says it seeks justice for Jadhav.

I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Mr Kulbhushan Jadhav doesnt get punished for the act which he never committed. I also United Nation(s) to look into this matter.

India called the charges against Jadhav farcical. In a demarche issued on Monday, New Delhi has said, If this sentence against an Indian citizen, awarded without observing basic norms of law and justice, is carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder.

The proceedings that have led to the sentence against Jadhav are farcical in the absence of any credible evidence against him. It is significant that our high commission was not even informed that Jadhav was being brought to trial.
The Indian-American community in the US has launched a White House petition, seeking the Trump Administrations intervention to save Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for alleged espionage.

Created by one S.S, the We the People Petition on the White House website said the spying allegations against Jadhav is totally false and fabricated.

The petition requires at least 100,000 signatures before May 14 to qualify for a response from the Trump Administration.

The fact that India is not given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated, it said.

In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Kulbhushan Jadhav doesnt get punished for the act which he never committed, the petition said.

Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and subversive activities.

Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was a serving officer in the Indian Navy.

The Pakistan Army had also released a confessional video of Jadhav after his arrest.

However, India denied Pakistans contention and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by the Pakistan authorities.

India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.
Jammu and Kashmir industries and commerce minister Chander Prakash Ganga, who stoked a controversy by calling for use of bullets on stone pelters in the valley, on Friday expressed regret over his comments.

If anyone is hurt by my statement, I express regret over it, he said in a video statement.

The ministers statement came after a meeting between BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav and PDP leaders in Jammu on a range of issues, including Gangas controversial statement, which had led to public bickering between the alliance partners PDP and BJP.

Ganga had reportedly called stone pelters as traitors.

There is only one remedy for them and that is bullets. And if not bullets, they should be given punishments like the youths who are beaten with sticks by forces. Take my word that next time they (the youth) wont throw stones, he was quoted as saying by the local media.

The BJP leader said his statement was twisted out of context by certain sections of media.

My entire focus was targeted at the National Conference which had made a statement on the issue (of stone pelting), he added.

On Thursday, speaking to Hindustan Times over phone, Ganga, BJP MLA from Vijaypur, had said, the video which has gone viral on social sites has been doctored. I had said the enemies of the country, either from Pakistan or internal, should be dealt with sternly and for them bullet for bullet should be the approach. I had spoken about Farooq Abdullah, who termed stone-throwers as nationalist. The video is doctored.
A court in Purnia district, 368 km northeast of Patna, has issued a non-bailable warrant of arrest against a woman legislator of ruling Janata Dal (United) in a 12-year-old murder case.

Additional district judge (ADJ)-5 Vidya Sagar Pandey on Thursday issued the non-bailable warrant against Rupauli MLA Bima Bharti and her two aides, Mahavir Mandal and Motka Awadhesh, in connection with a murder case lodged on May 6, 2005 at Bhawanipur police station of the district.

A sessions court in the district had earlier rejected Bhartis anticipatory bail petition.

Bharti, a former Bihar minister, and six others were charged under sections 302 (punishment for murder), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code and section 27 of the Arms Act.

READ: Bihar MLA accuses husband of poisoning son

Bhartis husband Awadhesh Mandal, a strongman of the region, is at present lodged in Purnia jail in connection with a number of criminal cases against him.

Complainant Sonia Devi had charged Bharti with instigating the other accused to kill her husband Chanchal Paswan, who was murdered in May 2005.

After investigation, police had absolved Bharti, Mahavir Mandal and Motka Awadhesh of all charges. However, the court issued summons against them on February 13 when witnesses, during the trial, said Paswan was murdered in the presence of the MLA. When they did not comply with the order, the court issued a non-bailable warrant of arrest against them.

Meanwhile, Bharti said she was not aware of the courts order. The case is a political conspiracy against me and I have already moved the Patna high court for bail, the MLA said on Friday.
His name means medicine, and for thousands of tribals in the heart of Chhattisgarhs Maoist-hit Bastar region, 41-year-old Bheshaj Ramteke is the only thing standing between life and death.

For most of the last 15 years, the government doctor has been the sole medical link for nearly 200 villages in the states Kanker district, braving dense forests and left-wing extremists on foot, bicycle and motorcycle.

Bheshaj in Sanskrit means medicine. I believe I was born to become a doctor and serve the tribals of this region, says Ramteke as he walks towards a remote village, Bhainsgaon , about 45 kms from Antahgarh.

The happiness of the tribals is the biggest award for me.

The diminutive man in his trademark white apron with a box of medical equipment is a familiar, and reassuring, sight for the 80,000-strong tribal population spread across Antahgarh block.

Many of them say Ramteke is the only person they trust enough in a region that is swarming with insurgents and police informants after decades of violence that has driven most medical staff away.

For the tribals, Ramteke is like a family member. My kid was ill and reached his house at around midnight. He came with me to our village and treated my kid, says Somaru, a resident of Bhaisaur village.

41-year-old Bheshaj Ramteke is the only thing standing between life and death, for thousands of tribals in the heart of Chhattisgarhs Maoist-hit Bastar region. (HT Photo)

Most other outsiders dont dare venture into these villages deep inside Maoist territory but Ramteke has no intention of moving out. He has been transferred thrice -- 2006, 2010 and 2016  but community leaders met state ministers to block his transfer.

Ramtekes commitment is something which I have not seen till now. He is like god for thousands of tribals of this region, says Ajay Mandavi, who works with surrendered Maoists in this area.

Born in a Dalit family in Dhamtari district bordering Bastar, Ramteke completed his MBBS from Raipur in 2003 and joined the Chhattisgarh health department the same year. He got his first posting in Antahgarh block that was in the grip of deepening insurgent violence at the time.

When I came here no one wanted to come here. It was considered as most difficult posting but I decided to join .My aim was to serve the tribals of Bastar, Ramteke says. A senior police officer told HT that Ramteke was only person who can reach some of the Maoist-hit villages.

The 41-year-old was the only doctor in the region for many years but recently has been joined by two colleagues at the community health centre, underlining the crushing shortage of doctors and medical staff. Until June 2016, more than 40% of all doctor posts in Bastar were vacant, and almost two-thirds of health worker positions hadnt been filled.

Last year, he was awarded the Icon of Health award by chief minister Raman Singh but he claims he never worked for awards. I am a follower of Ambedkar.He taught me to serve the people who are marginalized and poor.

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For decades, influential politicians and industrialists ran roughshod on the fragile ecology of Keralas scenic Munnar as they bulldozed through lush forests and valleys to build resorts, shopping plazas and hotels. The land mafia, with backing of local leaders, indiscriminately felled trees to make way for highrises in what the courts have called rape of mother nature.

But now, a young IAS officer says he is taking the mafia head on, serving eviction notices to 100-odd resorts and commercial establishments in the past month. Sriram Venkataraman, 30, has stirred protests in the area and even a public threat from controversial Kerala minister and local strongman, MM Mani.

But the 2013-cadre officer is unfazed. I am not afraid of anyone. I am only implementing the law of the land, says the sub-collector, also a doctor, who bagged the second rank in the tough civil services examination.

He has earned praise from former chief minister and Left stalwart VS Achuthanandan, who led a massive demolition drive in the misty hills of Munnar in xx, pulling down 92 illegal buildings and resorts.

Others are less than impressed. Devikulam MLA S Rajendran (CPI-M), who built a palatial house at the heart of Munnar town, said the sub-collector was illegally dubbing valid residents as encroachers. It is nothing but mere publicity stunt. It seems the sub-collector is carried away by media glitz, he said. Rajendran also had a running feud with Achuthanandan, who had called the MLA a part of the land mafia.

At stake is the delicate ecosystem of the picturesque Munnar, situated 1800 m above sea leavel, that houses two national parks and two wildlife sanctuaries that collectively hold more than 3,000 species of flowers, endangered birds, insects, mammals and amphibians.

Once they encroach on land, they legalise it and manage survey number and other details somehow. It is an organised activity going unhindered over a period of time, Sriram said adding land-grabbing was going at an alarming rate.

The officer says he has faced week-long protests by the ruling CPI(M) for serving notices to 100-odd resorts and unauthorised constructions. He also put on notice cardamom and tea plantations, which were on lease, for converting estates into resorts. Last week, a worried government beefed up his security. Two ruling alliance partners, CPI(M) and CPI, even locked horns over his operation.

The trouble began last month when he started implementing a government order to give construction licences only after examining land-holding records in at least five ecologically-sensitive villages in Devilukam taluk. The records revealed grave irregularities. Sriram says encroachers included politicians, religious leaders, government officials and businessmen.

During an eviction drive last week, police present ignored his order to evict people, fearing a local backlash. Later, he had to contact higher officials to rush more forces to evict protestors. With the sub-collector remaining adamant, CPI(M) workers, who had encroached on the government land, themselves demolished sheds and concrete fences. State revenue minister E Chandrasekharan and nature-lovers lauded his initiative.

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The Union cabinet is set to approve next week a new Rs 5,000-crore pension formula that is expected to benefit more than five million central government employees.

Official sources told HT the new formula will calculate pension based on the latest drawn salary for a particular post.

If a person retired as a director under the sixth pay commission, ten years later his pension would be fixed (based on) the salary of a director in the seventh pay commission, explained a senior government official.

The new pension scheme will be put up to cabinet for approval next week.

The new method was fixed by an empowered committee of secretaries (Ecos) headed by secretary (pensions).

The seventh pay commission recommended that pension could be calculated by two methods: One, pension would be 50% of the last salary and multiplied by 2.57. The second was an incremental method where pension was fixed at the last salary drawn with adjustments of increments drawn in that particular pay band.

The incremental method was found to have lacunae as 20% of records were found to be missing in various government departments, and officials felt this could lead to litigation in future.

To avoid legal hurdles, the Ecos came up with the pay fixation method, explained the senior official.
It was supposed to be a day of spreading awareness and starting discussions on triple talaq across thousands of mosques in India to prevent misuse of the controversial Islamic divorce practice.

Instead, the publicity campaign ran out of steam on its opening day with hardly any mention of triple talaq before Friday prayers across cities.

Clerics pinned the blame on the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) that had announced the initiative, saying it didnt print and circulate a two-page booklet containing the code of conduct for Muslims on marriage and divorce.

The body had distributed the document with much fanfare during its executive committee meeting in Lucknow on April 16.

With the exception of one of Lucknows 1,000-odd mosques, the controversial issue that has divided the country found no mention in any sermon. Even the revered Nadwa mosque, which can hold 5,000 worshippers and was packed on Friday, saw little discussion.

I usually make it a point to attend Friday prayers at this mosque. But I heard nothing about any code of conduct from the Imam, said Rehan Khan, owner of a furniture shop in Kaiserbagh locality.

Triple talaq  under which a Muslim man can divorce his wife by uttering the word talaq (divorce) thrice  has been thrust under the national spotlight after a number of women approached the Supreme Court to ban the ritual.

The government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have come out strongly against the practice and called it anti-women. The AIMPLB has called for internal reform and discussions to stop misuse of the law.

In Delhis iconic Jama Masjid, devotees said triple talaq found no mention during Friday prayers led by Shahi Imam, Syed Ahmed Bukhari.

The Khutbas (seroms) are delivered in Arabic. Most of the people who offer prayers behind the Imam do not understand the language. I could not hear any mention of talaq in the khutba, said Mohd Zeeshan. The courtyard of the mosque can accommodate at least 20,000. While Shahi Imam was not available for a comment, his spokesperson Ammanullah Bukhari said there was no such mention in the sermons before prayers.

The board said the booklet couldnt be printed in time because of errors in text. We have vetted the format only yesterday (Thursday). We are getting calls from our various state bodies and cities for the booklet, said board secretary Zafaryab Jilani.

He added that the document would be printed in a number of local languages and also distributed in the upcoming AIMPLB session at Bengaluru on April 29.

In the absence of the booklet, the discussion evoked little enthusiasm. In Jaipur, devotees who came to offer prayers at the Jama Masjid in Johari Bazaar were unaware of any AIMPLB directive. In his 25-minute sermon, the Imam only talked about the advantages of drinking cold water in the summer, according to a devotee, who attended the prayers.

We are yet to receive the booklets, said Maulana Shafique Qasmi, the imam of Nakhoda masjid in Kolkata. The same was the response from another mosque in Rajabazar locality. But I have got the directives on WhatsApp, and have circulated them among some people, said Maulana Shafique Qasmi .

In Patna, however, some clerics gave a brief talk on Muslim personal law. We are going to start an awareness campus among the Muslims about Muslim personal law, what are the provisions related to marriage, talaq (divorce), rights of children, said Ahmed Ali Akhtar, convenor of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Bihar.

(With inputs from Anupam Srivastava in Lucknow, Avijit Ghosal in Kolkata, Vijay Swaroop in Patna and Salik Ahmed in Jaipur)
A mention of Trinamool Congress heir-apparent and Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee six times in an FIR in the Narada sting video case has sent jitters down the spine of West Bengals ruling party.

The name appears as Abhisek, Abhisek Banerjee and Abhisek Bandopadhyay in different pages of the document but never as a suspect or, even as an MP.

But Trinamool leaders in touch with legal experts are fearful that the Central Bureau of Investigation probe may eventually affect not just the 12 MPs, MLAs and ministers named in the document filed on March 16, but hurt other senior leaders.

Their fears have been fuelled by the CBIs decision to keep the ambit of the probe beyond what has been seen in the edited videos released by Mathew Samuel, head of Narada News. After naming the 13 accused on page 2 and 3 of the FIR, the 14th entry mentions other unknown persons.

Abhishek Banerjee is the nephew of chief minister and party supremo Mamata Banerjee and is the youngest member of the Lok Sabha from Diamond Harbour. Currently the youth wing president, Abhishek is widely seen as being groomed to take over from the 62-year-old CM.

Photos of the Narada FIR that contain Banerjees name

The Narada sting videos were released ahead of the 2016 assembly elections and purportedly showed several senior leaders taking bribes. Last month, the Calcutta high court ordered a CBI probe into the charges.

Trinamool leaders named in the FIR are Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Roy, Lok Sabha MPs Saugata Roy, Aparupa Poddar, Sultan Ahmed, Prasun Banerjee and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, ministers Firhad Hakim, Suvendu Adhikari, Sovan Chatterjee (also the Kolkata mayor) and Subrata Mukherjee. Former minister Madan Mitra, MLA Iqbal Ahmed and IPS officer Saiyaad Mustafa Hussain Mirza have also been named as accused.

On page 7, the FIR elaborates charges against Iqbal Ahmed and mentions a movie file showing 10 different dates.

Iqbal Ahmed was also shown to have assured Santosh (Samuels fake identity during the operation) to arrange a meeting for him with Abhisek, says one part of the document.

He was also heard to be making a call to Abhisek for a meeting in this regard, says another paragraph.

In another file, he was shown to have assured the sting operator to arrange a meeting for him with Sudip Bandopadhyay and Abhisek Banerjee, says a portion on page 7.

On page 8, the charges against Kolkata mayor Sovon Chatterjee says:

1) He was shown to have received Rs 4 lakh in cash from the sting operator, who promised to pay a further amount of Rs 1 lakh to him the next day (April 17, 2014).

2) He was also shown to have assured the sting operator that he would arrange a meeting for him with Abhisek Bandopadhyay, at least once, after the election.

The FIR says that preliminary inquiry conducted by CBI Anti-Corruption Branch, Kolkata, has revealed prima facie material showing that the suspects had either accepted or agreed to accept illegal gratification from Mathew Samuel for showing favour to him / his firm (Impex Consultancy, the firm Samuel named before Trinamool leaders while conducting the sting operation).

The next sentence adds: The inquiry also revealed that several other unknown persons had also conspired with the accused persons in the commission of the alleged offences.

Top Trinamool leaders met two days ago but couldnt decide on one course of action. Some leaders felt the party should move court challenging the investigation but others advised a wait-and-watch strategy, sources said.

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Police on Friday detained a man, who works in the social media wing of YSR Congress party, for allegedly posting objectionable content against TDP general secretary and IT minister Nara Lokesh, son of Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, on various platforms.

A police team from Tulluru in Amaravati swooped down on the residence of Ravi Kiran Inturi at Shamshabad on the city outskirts at around 3.30 am and whisked him away.

They woke up my husband and asked him to accompany them. When I questioned who they were, one of them identified himself as a cop from Tulluru and said they were taking my husband to question him on the comments he had posted on the Facebook on the TDP leaders. They have not told me where they were taking my husband, Inturis wife Sujana told reporters.

Tulluru police refused to confirm the arrest. It has not come to our notice yet. However, a case has been registered against him under section 67 of the IT Act (punishment for publishing or obscene material in electronic form). We are investigating the case, a senior police official told Hindustan Times.

Ravi Kiran Inturi

This is the first time in Telugu states that police has taken action against a netizen for attacking political leaders on social media.

Inturi, who works in the social media wing of the YSR Congress party office in Hyderabad, runs a Facebook page named Political Punch, and has been posting satirical comments against Naidu and Lokesh, besides other TDP leaders.

Most of his posts are personally directed at Lokesh, whom he refers to as Pappu. He also morphs comical characters with the pictures of Lokesh to poke fun at the TDP leader.

The Facebook post that is believed to have led to Inturis detention shows Lokesh asking his father to send him to Peddala Sabha (Upper House), with a banner of a couple kissing placed in front of the new legislative council building in Amaravati, signifying that it is for adults only.

The 34-year-old TDP general secretary was elected to the state legislative council last month and was inducted into the cabinet for the first time, and given the portfolio of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development.

Sources in TDP said Lokesh has been angry with the posts. At a recent meeting with party functionaries, he had hinted at legal action against those who were deliberately indulging in personal criticism and tarnishing his image in public.

After he took over as the minister in the Chandrababu Naidu cabinet, he has become a subject of mockery in social media platforms for his faux pas in public.

Lokeshs struggle to read certain words while taking oath as a minister, his extending vardhanti (death anniversary) greetings to the people on the occasion of B R Ambedkars 126th birth anniversary, and his promise to ensure water scarcity, instead of saying he would mitigate water scarcity, in Anantapur have gone viral on social media.
An army soldier was killed and another injured in a TNT mine blast at a firing range in Madhya Pradeshs Sagar district on Friday morning.

The cantonment police have started inquiry into the incident at Mahar Regiment Center of the Indian army.

Cantonment police station officer BM Dewedi said between 8am and 9am the explosive accidentally went off when arms trainer Havaldar Bakul Kumar Patelia was planting it.

Kumar (40) died on the spot, while another jawan sustained injuries.

The TNT mine was being planted as part of a training schedule. The trainees were standing far away looking at how explosives were being planted.

The deceased is from Gujarat.

After getting information cantonment police reached the area and started investigation. A forensic team and a bomb disposal squad are also helping in the probe.

Mahar Regiment, however, did not give any official version of the incident.
To ensure that you dont miss your daily dose of news, HT brings you the top stories of the day. Have a look.

One policeman shot dead on Champs Elysees in Paris

A gunman shot dead a police officer injured two others on the Champs Elysees boulevard on Thursday  before being fatally shot by security forces. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. Police have not yet identified the gunman as they were looking to establish if he had any accomplices. The shooting occurs three days before France votes to elect a new President.

Read the full story here.

H-1B visa: India says its a trade and services issue, hints at retaliation against Trump move

The foreign ministry said on Thursday it was keeping a close watch on the US move to tighten H-1B visa rules that will impact the Indian IT industry and its professionals, asserting that the issue will be taken up with the Donald Trump administration. Union commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the whole debate has to be expanded to include several American firms that are earning their profits in India, signalling that New Delhi could retaliate in the face of protectionism by the US and several other countries.

Read the full story here.

He saved lives by tying Kashmir man to jeep: BJPs Ram Madhav lauds army officer

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav on Thursday praised the army officer responsible for tying a man to a jeeps bonnet in Kashmir, saying everything is fair in love and war and the harsh decision saved lives of civilians and soldiers. Asked in an interview about the controversial video showing the civilian tied to the army jeep, Madhav said if one persons human rights are violated in order to protect the human rights of many more, he would leave that judgement to the officer concerned. I will compliment him for the decision that he took. He saved the lives of the people in police station, officials and all, and also his own boys. He also did not allow any civilian casualty, he said.

Read the full story here.

China has no right to rename our cities, Arunachal a part of India: Govt takes firm stand

Union information and broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Thursday no foreign country has the right to rename Indian cities, responding to the Chinese action of unilaterally changing the names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh. Every inch of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India ... let them rename. How does it matter? Its like you renaming your neighbour. It does not change his name, Naidu said in a tit-for-tat response to Beijings symbolic snub.

Read the full story here.

Oppn unity in mind, Nitish Kumar meets Sonia Gandhi ahead of presidential elections

Pursuing plans to put up a common opposition candidate for the presidential elections scheduled in July, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday. After the BJPs thumping win in Uttar Pradesh, regional party leaders have initiated efforts to stitch together an alliance with the Congress to put up a joint fight against the BJP in the 2019 general elections. Sensing possibilities of putting up a forceful challenge to the BJP in the coming presidential elections, regional leaders have started efforts to bring together a grand alliance of Opposition parties at the national level.

Read the full story here.

Advani had appealed to kar sevaks to stop Babri demolition, claims former aide

The revival of criminal conspiracy charge in the Babri Masjid demolition case after 25 years raises a very serious question mark on the functioning of Indian judiciary, Sudheendra Kulkarni, former aide to BJP leader L K Advani, said on Thursday. Terming as baseless the case against Advani, he said the BJP patriarch had expressed deep regret at Babri mosque demolition and even called it the saddest day of his life. For the Supreme Court to revive the criminal conspiracy case after 25 long years raises a very serious question mark on functioning of Indias judiciary, Kulkarni said.

Read the full story here.

Second Wagah: India, Pak agree to new ceremony, beating retreat on Punjab border

Amid frosty ties between India and Pakistan, the Border Security Force and Pakistan Rangers plan to open a new front of bonhomie on the Punjab border. Both countries plan to develop the Sadiqi joint check post (JCP), 13 km from Fazilka, and adjoining Sulemanki in Pakistan as a tourist spot on the lines of the Attari-Wagah JCP soon. The decision to upgrade infrastructure was taken at a joint meeting at Sulemanki post on Wednesday. It was decided to conduct the retreat ceremony, including flag lowering and handshakes, daily on the lines of the ceremony at Wagah near Amritsar and Hussainiwala in Ferozepur.

Read the full story here.

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis says US wont reveal bomb toll in Afghanistan

The explosion from Americas mother of all bombs has been followed by calculated silence about the damage it inflicted. US defence secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday he does not intend to discuss damage estimates from last weeks use of the militarys most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan. The Afghan government has estimated a death toll of more than 90 militants. Reporters asked Mattis for his assessment of the bombs damage, but he refused. For many years we have not been calculating the results of warfare by simply quantifying the number of enemy killed, Mattis said.

Read the full story here.

North Korea warns of super-mighty preemptive strike as US plans next move

North Korean state media warned the United States of a super-mighty preemptive strike after US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programme. The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Norths ruling Workers Party, did not mince its words. In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes, it said.

Read the full story here.

IPL: Jos Buttler, Nitish Rana lead Mumbai to win after Hashim Amlas heroics

Hashim Amlas maiden century in the Indian Premier League went in vain as Mumbai Indians continued their brilliant run in the competition with a commanding eight-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab here on Thursday. Amla produced a brilliant performance to stay unbeaten on 104 off 60 balls, but explosive fifties by Jos Buttler and Nitish Rana were enough for the visitors to complete a record fifth consecutive run-chase in this years IPL.

Read the full story here.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday his government does not lack political will to push economic reforms, signalling the possibility of a fresh round of business-friendly measures after winning a string of emboldening election victories.

The Modi government has cleared several reforms legislation over the past two years. It scrapped about 1,200 outdated laws, pushed through a Goods and Services Tax, wrote a new bankruptcy code, sold shares in state-run firms and opened up the market to more foreign investment.

But Modi has largely stayed away from politically difficult reforms such as overhauling laws governing land acquisition and labour. Analysts say his partys victories in four of five state elections last month should give the government confidence to take a shot at reforming these sectors.

Also read: PM Narendra Modi has some social media tips for busy, busy bureaucrats glued to phones

Political will is required for reforms. I dont have any problem with that. Perhaps we have extra political will, Modi told a gathering of bureaucrats at the Civil Service Day celebrations.

He said while political will was important for reforms, the government could perform only through an efficient bureaucracy.

Reforms in the areas of land, labour, corporate bond market and NPA resolution will revive investor sentiment and encourage private investment.

We are talking about reform, transform perform. Political will is needed for reform but performance depends on your action and strength. And if there is peoples participation, then only transformation is possible, he said.

Although armed with a fresh mandate as a champion of the cosmo-urban middleclass and the poor, Modi still faces a challenge in implementing reforms, especially because the opposition can stall his plans in the Rajya Sabha where he lacks a majority.

The reforms investors expect the government to push include allowing banks to raise money from the market, setting a bad bank to tackle the problem of non-performing assets (NPA) of state-backed lenders and overhauling wages and industrial relations laws.

Reforms in the areas of land, labour, corporate bond market and NPA resolution will revive investor sentiment and encourage private investment, said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at ICRA, a unit of ratings agency Moodys.

In his pep-talk to bureaucrats, Modi also asked them to change their mind-set from that of a regulator to an enabler.

Things have changed vastly in the last 15-20 years. Earlier, the government was everything. But now they have an alternative, Modi said, citing private healthcare and airlines which are more preferred by people than state services.

Backing the bureaucracy that often delayed decisions owing to fear of scrutiny by the national auditors, CAG, Modi said there was nothing wrong in faster decisions if they were taken in the nations interest.

Our plans should be outcome-centric, not based on output. Output may be okay with the CAG. But if we look at CAG-centred output, then we cant change the nation. If someone takes quick decisions then it is not necessary that he has evil intentions, he said.

If you are working with honesty for people then no one can blame you. I will stand beside you.
Use social media for public service and not self-promotion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told bureaucrats on Friday, even as he pulled up a section of officials who he said spent too much time online.

If the social media is used for announcing the date for the anti-polio vaccination then its very good, Modi said in his address to bureaucrats on the 11th civil service day, asking officials to make better use of online interaction tools.

But giving two drops of polio vaccine and then circulating the photo through social media should not be done, he added.

Modi has more than 29 million Twitter followers with whom he constantly interacts besides using the 140-character interface to highlight government programmes.

The Prime Minister said the power of social media should be used only for peoples welfare and public causes.

I see officers of district level so busy on social media that most of the time is spent on this (social media), Modi said.

Modi said he was aware of the power of social media but added that at his meetings with bureaucrats through video conferences, he has often seen them busy taking pictures of the meeting on their mobile phones.

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Six employees  an area manager and five junior engineers (JEs)  of a private power distribution company were sacked for consuming liquor on office premises in Muzaffarpur district, 71 km north of Patna.

Police said a group of people, who had gone to a sub-station to lodge a complaint of power tripping, found the employees of Essel Vidyut Vitaran Pvt Ltd, consuming liquor while partying at the Miscot power sub-station (PSS) in Muzaffarpur on Wednesday. The residents immediately informed the police, which reached there and arrested four junior engineers. Two others, the companys area manager, Diwakar, and another JE, escaped after giving police the slip.

Ajay Pandey, an employee of Ashutosh Enterprises, a sub-contractor hired by the Essel Vidyut Vitaran Pvt Ltd to lay cables in the town, had arranged the party, the police said. He was also absconding.

Bihar went in for total prohibition on April 5, 2016. The Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, which came into force on October 2 last year, provides for arrest of all adults in case of recovery of liquor bottle from a premises and collective fine in case of habitual violation of prohibition.

READ: Booze laws dont matter, university students party

Essel Vidyut Vitaran Pvt Ltd public relation officer (PRO) Rajesh Kumar Chaudhury said the company had taken a strong note of the incident and promptly sacked all the six erring employees. We have taken immediate action against them and are taking steps to ensure that such incidents do not recur, he said.

The company had also terminated the services of Ashutosh Enterprises.

The JEs arrested were identified as Anis Ahmad, Mohammad Iqubal, Deepak Shukla and Santosh Kumar. They were produced before the court of chief judicial magistrate on Thursday and remanded to judicial custody.

READ: A year after alcohol ban, dry Bihar faces stiff challenges from liquor mafia

While Ahmad and Iqubal were deputed at Maripur and Bela power sub stations, respectively, Shukla was posted at Gobarsahi and Kumar at Sikandarpur.

Setting aside all the allegations, Shukla said they had been framed in the case. Pandey had called us to Miscot power sub-station for a meeting. When we reached there some local people caught us before we could understand anything, he said.

The Essel Vidyut Vitaran Pvt Ltd has been tasked with supplying electricity to Muzaffarpur since 2012.
Will Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar emerge as the common candidate of the Opposition parties for the upcoming presidential polls? Or, will former Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav fit the bill better? Alternatively, what are the chances of non-BJP leaders agreeing to nominate somebody like historian Irfan Habib  a man unconnected with politics  for the post?

Questions like these have been doing the rounds, even as regional party satraps urge the Congress to take the lead in presenting a united front against the ruling NDA in the presidential polls. Among the other names in circulation are that of former prime minister Manmohan Singh and previous Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar.

A new President will have to be elected before July 25, when Pranab Mukherjees term expires.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury stressed on the need for the Opposition camp to forge a combined strategy, and arrive at a consensus on a common presidential candidate, in separate meetings with Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday.

While the NDAs thumping victory in Uttar Pradesh has boosted its position in the electoral college meant for picking the new President, the ruling coalition remains short of the half-way mark by around 21,000 votes.

If the non-BJP parties unite, a realistic fight can be put up. The defeat of the NDA candidate will come as a big morale booster for the Opposition. But it is up to an all-India party like the Congress to take the initiative forward, said JD(U) spokesperson KC Tyagi.

CPI leader D Raja said that though non-BJP parties are trying to arrive at a consensus on a common candidate, they havent started discussing any names yet.

After being hammered by the BJP in the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Opposition parties plan to join forces as a means to achieve political survival. At a recent event held to launch the Hindi version of his autobiography, Pawar hinted that the Congress must unite with regional parties to fight their common saffron adversary.

Efforts at forming a grand alliance have gained traction in recent days. While Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has initiated talks with Odisha chief minister Navin Patnaik, both Akhilesh Yadavs Samajwadi Party and Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party have favoured the alliance option. Even Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has come around to supporting the unite or perish slogan.
Over 70 students from Jaypee University of Information Technology at Waknaghat, approximately 25 kilometres from state capital Shimla, fell ill allegedly after having a meal at the varsity mess.

Subsequently, 54 students were admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital in Shimla at around 2am on Friday. some were taken to a hospital in Kandaghat.

IGMC senior medical superintendent Ramesh Chand said most of the students complained about nausea.

Doctors are suspecting food poisoning but said that they are waiting for medical reports before confirming the same. Since all were experiencing similar pain, it feel it might be the after-effect of the meal they had last night, he added.

One student admitted in IGMC said that after having the meal, many started experiencing pain in the abdomen, at around 9: 30 pm . I dont know what happened as the food tasted good. This has happened for the first time with us, he said, requesting anonymity. We were served gulab jamuns (an Indian dessert), pav bhaaji and rice in the evening, a student said.

Students refused to talk to the media. We dont have anything to say, one of them remarked.

FOOD SAMPLES COLLECTED

Kandaghat sub-divisional magistrate Neelam Dulta, along with food safety officials, visited the university campus on Friday morning and collected samples of the food and water. I have visited the university campus after coming across reports of students getting admitted to the hospital. We are waiting for the reports to come, she said.

The university is frequently ranked among the top 100 institutes in the country by various surveys. University authorities did not respond despite repeated calls.

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Efforts to field a common Opposition candidate for the presidential have gathered momentum, with Congress president Sonia Gandhi meeting CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

Top sources told HT that two leaders decided on Thursday night to ask all Opposition parties if they are interested to field a candidate against the BJP-led NDA.

Gandhi called Yechury for talks on the upcoming Presidential election after meeting Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. Yechury also held a separate meeting with Kumar.

Sources added the CPI(M) chief has signalled his willingness to field an Opposition candidate and harped on the need for a very strong secular candidates.

Sources, however, claimed that no specific names were discussed in the Gandhi-Yechury meeting.

The drill will be to first talk to all parties and know if they are willing to give the government a fight. If there is a consensus, then we will discuss specific names as possible candidates, said a senior Opposition leader.

The CPI(M) central committee, in its recent meeting, had harped on the need for a secular supervision from the Rashtrapati Bhavan, especially in the current political scenario where the BJP is growing from strength to strength.

The BJP and even the NDA stand short of majority in the 11 lakh vote-strong electoral college of the presidential election. Both sides would be looking at the AIADMK and the BJD for their support, as these two parties are seen as kingmaker and their support may tilt equations.

Sources said the preliminary consultation with Opposition parties would be completed by next week and thereafter the Opposition may also choose to wait for the government to name its candidate.

Congress, the largest Opposition party, has taken the lead for consultations with other parties to seek their consensus. Some NDA partners may also be sounded out for any possible support for a non-BJP candidate.

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The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine a plea seeking a probe into the alleged torture and extra-judicial killings by the BSF in frontier areas of West Bengal where it is accused of being trigger-happy.

The public interest litigation (PIL) also challenged the constitutional validity of the law that grants the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel immunity against being tried in a regular court for any excesses.

A bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar admitted the petition filed by a Kolkatta-based human rights organization, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha.

The court will now go for a detailed hearing to determine the validity of Sections 46 and 47 of the BSF Act, whose validity the NGO has challenged. However, no formal date has been fixed for the next hearing.

The frontier force drew widespread condemnation when picture of the bullet-ridden body of Bangladeshi girl Felani Khatun dangling from a barbed-wire fence along Indo-Bangladesh border went viral in 2011.

Following public outrage the BSF filed a case against one of its constables Amiya Ghosh accusing him for culpable homicide. Ghosh was acquitted by a BSF court in 2015. Rights organisations in West Bengal and Bangladesh raised question over the acquittal.

Suraksha Mancha said the two provisions of the BSF law compel victims of the BSF atrocities to approach only the court of the security force for justice.

Counsel Bijon Ghosh appearing for the NGO told the court that the BSF courts were manned by relatively junior officers and victims were not provided with any legal aid or rights.

More than 200 cases of BSF personnel indulged in extra-judicial killings or torture have come to notice, the NGO alleged, adding they have never been probed by the state police.

The present case will show the procedure followed by the West Bengal police made a mockery of the rule of law, read the petition that pointed out cases of alleged torture by the BSF between 2005 and 2011.

In over 100 cases, there are eye witnesses to the torture in BSF custody leading to the death of captives, the petition said.

In 2014, the apex court had sought the Centres response in the petition which was filed in 2012. After more than three years the matter came up for hearing on Friday.

A bench also comprising justice DY Chandrachud and justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, after briefly hearing Ghoshs submission, said it was admitting the petition.

The petition alleged that the state police, instead of registering FIRs against the BSF personnel, file it against the deceased.

As a result not a single out of more than 200 cases of torture and killings listed in the petition has been investigated by the police, it claimed.

Thus the BSF operates above the law, their mechanical explanations as to how death came about is accepted as true in all cases, the statements of the eye witnesses are not recorded since no investigation is done and the cases are closed, the petition alleged.
A diamond businessman in Gujarats Surat has given away scooties to his employees as a gift for the company doing well despite a sluggish economy, agencies reported on Friday.

News agency ANI reported that Laxmidas Vekaria presented his 125 employees with the two-wheelers as annual increment at a colourful function. A photograph showed the scooties  reported as Honda Activa 4G by Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran  decorated with the tricolor.

Vekaria started his business in 2010 and is the second businessman from Indias diamond hub to hit the news for his largesse to employees. Last year, diamond export tycoon Savji Dholakia presented his employees with 1,260 cars, 400 flats and pieces of jewellery ahead of Diwali.

His company spent an estimated Rs 500 million (Rs 50 crore) under the loyalty programme to reward an unknown number of staff from a total workforce of 5,500. Similar figures from Vekaria werent available.

Surat is Indias diamond cutting and polishing hub but the jewellery is made elsewhere. Hence merchants in the city have been battling dwindling profits. This spurred the prime minister earlier this month to call for a Make in India push in the gems and jewellery sector, that contributes around 6-7% of the countrys GDP.
Corporate and private donations towards the Swachh Bharat Kosh (SBK), a corpus set up and controlled by the government to mobilise funds for building toilets across the country, have dwindled since the drive began in 2014.

State-owned public sector units (PSU), private businesses and philanthropic individuals contributed Rs 245 crore to the funds pool in the 2016-17 financial year.

But the bulk of the money, Rs 212 crore, came from PSUs such as Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation, and the Power Grid. Big corporate names were missing from the donor list, while small, lesser-known private companies, charitable organisations and individuals contributed Rs 33 crore.

This is a far cry from the first two years when top business houses  Bajaj, Larsen and Toubro, Fidelity Business, Nestle, ITC, GE, and Merrill Lynch  were among prominent donors.

The corpus got Rs 253 crore in 2015-16, and Rs 159.61 crore were generated in the launch year.

The fading private magnanimity towards the governments signature campaign to build toilets and free the country of open defecation is not surprising since most business houses run their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes.

A Bajaj Allianz General Insurance executive said the company contributed in the first year to give the project the initial push. Thereafter, it followed its existing CSR programmes.

We participate in a diverse range of CSR activities every year ... These efforts can range from donating money and actively working for various causes. In line with this vision, we have participated in the governments Swacch Bharat Yojana programme in 2014, a company spokesperson said.

Nestle has its sanitation programme providing drinking water and building toilets, as part of its CSR programme.

We continue to engage with stakeholders, including farmers, experts, NGOs and the government, and take up activities important for society. Our CSR initiatives are based on national priorities, including Swachh Bharat, said a Nestle India spokesperson.

The dwindling donations could be attributed to a clause that says private entities contributing less than Rs 10 crore to the corpus dont have the power to influence or decide where and how the money should be spent.

Naina Lal Kidwai, a former Ficci president and the chair of India Sanitation Coalition, said corporate organisations like to run their own CSR programmes where they have a direct say in the execution of projects.

This ensures that a project for which money is spent is sustainable. Corporate like L&T are directly engaged in implementing sanitation projects in states such as Rajasthan. In government-run corpuses, they do not have much of a say. This deters many of them from coming forward.

Besides, the government charges a Swachh Bharat cess on all taxable services to fund its programme.

One of the reasons for the tepid response can be the feeling that individuals are already paying a Swachh cess. So why contribute again? a government official said.

Among private organisations, the largest contribution came from the Kerala-based Mata Amritanandamayi Math, which gave Rs 100 crore in 2015.

But 2016-17 was a different story. The top contributor was Ganeshji Mandir Trust on Baba Kharak Singh Marg in New Delhi. It gave Rs 1.5 crore.

Mumbai-based Vidya Devi Kantakapur Trust donated Rs 52 lakh, while Kanchipurams Modine Thermal System Private Limited gave Rs 39 lakh.

The SBK governing council has appealed for more generous donations. But the response has not been forthcoming, a finance ministry official said.

Money from the corpus is given to the states to build toilets in rural households and government-run schools.

Top five PSU donors to Swachh Bharat Kosh in 2016-17

Top five PSU donors to Swachh Bharat Kosh in 2016-17 1) Rs 54.82 crore - Power Finance Corporation 2) Rs 50 crore - Rural Electrification Corporation 3) Rs 30 crore - Power Grid Corporation 4) Rs 20 crore - Airports Authority of India 5) Rs 17 crore - Nuclear Power Corporation of India 1)- Power Finance Corporation2)- Rural Electrification Corporation3)- Power Grid Corporation4)- Airports Authority of India5)- Nuclear Power Corporation of India

Top non PSU corporate/ organization individual donors in 2016-17

Top non PSU corporate/ organization & individual donors in 2016-17 V Rethinam member, executive committee Ganeshji Mandir, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi.

Donation: Rs 1.5 crore

member, executive committee Ganeshji Mandir, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi. Vidya Devi Kantakapur Trust , Mumbai.

Donation: 52 lakh

, Mumbai. Modine Thermal System Pvt Ltd , Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu.

Donation: Rs 39 lakh

, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. Rohit Kataria , Director, Rohit Jewellers, Kolkata.

Donation: Rs 13.7 lakh

, Director, Rohit Jewellers, Kolkata. Praveen Aggarwal , Director, Quality Bag Exporter Pvt. Ltd, Kolkata.

Donation: Rs 10 lakh

, Director, Quality Bag Exporter Pvt. Ltd, Kolkata. VR Ryankar, Retired lecturer, Bidar, Karnataka.

Donation: Rs 10 lakh Union finance ministry Source:

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Two youths were arrested on Friday in connection with the thrashing of Kashmiri students at Mewar University in Chhittorgarh district of Rajasthan on Wednesday.

Following the arrest, chief minister Vasundhara Raje tweeted:

Kashmiri students are our children. The Police have taken prompt action & apprehended the culprits.  Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) April 21, 2017

Both the arrested persons, Lalit Purabia and Manish Pandey, are local residents of Gangrar area where the incident had happened, police said, adding that they are not students of Mewar University.

They have been arrested under IPC section 151 (unlawful assembly) and investigation is underway under IPC section 341 (wrongful restraint) and section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), investigation officer sub-inspector Chena Ram told PTI.

On Wednesday evening, six Kashmiri students of the Mewar University were thrashed by the locals. The students had sustained minor injuries.

The accused had a scuffle with the Kashmiri students, alleging that they stare at the girls in the local market.

Following the incident, Gangrar police station had registered a case against the unidentified accused for voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful confinement.

The victims were taken to a hospital from where they were discharged after initial treatment.

Last year, some Kashmiri students of Mewar University were attacked over rumours that they cooked beef in their hostel.
He may not have been a witness to police brutalities, yet the two-year-old Dalit boy in Bihars East Champaran district, 153 km north of Patna, dreads men in uniform.

The reason: The minor boy from Bela Baiju village in Patahi police station area of the district has been receiving threats for the last one month from a police inspector to surrender in connection with an FIR lodged against him.

The FIR has been registered under Immoral Trafficking Act and section 379 (punishment for theft) of the IPC by a 35-year-old village woman, accusing the minor boy of molesting her and snatching a gold chain.

The mere sight of policemen evokes fear in my son. The panic-stricken boy has been spending sleepless nights for over a month, the boys father said.

He said the woman had lodged the complaint at Patahi police station on March 15 to save her husband, who was earlier booked under Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 379 of IPC and SC/ST Atrocities Act for an incident in which his father sustained serious head injuries.

The woman has instituted the case at the instigation of village head Sunil Kumar, who is an accused in the case along with her husband. Inspector Kanaiya Prasad, posted as station house officer at Patahi is persistently putting pressure on me to withdraw the case, the boys father said.

Instead of acting against culprits, the police have falsely implicated my two-year-old son in the molestation case. The boy is under severe trauma, he said, alleging that the inspector had threatened him on Motihari court premises to withdraw the case.

He said that on April 6,2017, deputy inspector general (DIG), weaker sections, Anil Kishor Yadav had instructed East Champaran superintendent of police to arrest the village head and all his co-accused in the case. But all the accused are roaming free, the boys father said.

Additional superintendent of police (ASP) Vijay Kumar said the matter had been brought to his notice. Kumar said he would look into the matter and take necessary action.
The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and sleuths from five other states on Thursday busted a self-radicalised terror module after arresting four people, including three UP residents, from different parts of the country.

The ATS also detained six people from Bijnore and Shamli.

The terror module was busted in a joint operation with police teams of five other states.

Speaking to HT, an ATS official said the four arrested were allegedly involved in recruiting youths, generating funds, and arranging arms and ammunition to carry out their terror activities. They are being interrogated by multiple agencies at both the central and states level at the ATS office in Noida while their background is checked.

Other than the UP ATS, the special cell of Delhi police, crime investigation cell of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra ATS and Punjab and Bihar police were involved in the nationwide crackdown on the terror module.

Daljeet Singh Chowdhary, additional director general (ADG) of UP Police, said those arrested were Umar alias Nazim, Mufti alias Faizan (residents of Bijnore), Ghazi Baba alias Zeeshan (resident of Unnao), and Zaqwan alias alias Mintu, a resident of Bihars Narkatiyaganj.

Chowdhary said the arrested youths were under continuous vigilance for the past several months and they were involved in reading and sharing terror literature on the internet. The detained youths were also in touch with those arrested.

Chowdhary said officials were counselling the detained youths to de-radicalise them and they would be released soon if their involvement is not found in anti-national activities.

The arrested youths would be brought to Lucknow for further investigation, he said.

An ATS official said Umar is the leader of the module and he was involved in recruiting youths to generate funds and commit terror activities. He said Umars close aides, Mufti and Ghazi Baba, helped him to recruit youths and radicalise them while Zaqwan was involved in arranging arms and ammunition.

The official said Umar was arrested from Mumbai, Ghazi Baba from Jalandhar, Mufti from Bijnore, and Zaqwan from Narkatiyaganj. The officials added that Umar was employed in Mumbai for last few years while Ghazi Baba did tailoring work in a Jalandhar boutique for the past two years.

Sources said the ATS was tipped off about the terror module by the special cell of Delhi police and crime investigation teams of Andhra Pradesh, who were keeping a close vigil on the activities of the self-radicalised youths for the past several months.

Earlier, the tip-off regarding the UP-based terror module, busted after a blast in a train in Madhya Pradesh on March 7, was also given by the Andhra police. In that case, seven people were arrested from Kanpur, Lucknow and Madhya Pradesh while a suspected militant, Saifullah Khan, was gunned down in a 12-hour gun fight with UP ATS commandos in Lucknow.

Read more: UP anti-terror squad, Delhi police arrest youth from Jalandhar
In a stinging remark, the Supreme Court on Friday said when it passes some directions, it is claimed that the courts are trying to run the government, which does not want to act.

You (government) do not want to do it and when we say anything, you say that court is trying to run the government, a bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said, while castigating the government for not caring about the destitute widows in the country.

The apex court also imposed a cost of Rs one lakh on the government for not coming out with the agreed directions to improve the condition of destitute widows, despite its direction and granted it four weeks to do so.

You do not care about the widows of India. You file an affidavit and say you are not concerned with the widows of India. You have done nothing... This is complete helplessness. Government does not want to do anything, the bench said.

The apex court had earlier asked the Centre to convene a meeting to consider suggestions mooted by the National Commission for Women (NCW) and formulate directions to improve the condition of widows in the country.

The counsel for ministry of Women and Child Development had intimated the court that a meeting was scheduled on April 12 and 13 to consider the suggestions of the NCW and experts.

During the hearing today, the bench asked the Centres counsel why this meeting was not convened despite an assurance given to the court.

You had told us about April 12 and 13 but there was no meeting and now you are giving explanations. Inspite of what was recorded, nothing has been done. You have not done anything, the bench said, adding we cannot do anything, they are so stubborn.

When the counsel sought time to come back with directions, the bench said, we will grant you time subject to cost of Rs one lakh.

At the last date of hearing, the court had said the government and other stakeholders should sit together and come out with a list of agreed directions which may be passed by it today.

The counsel for the ministry had told the court that it would be appropriate if agreed directions are formulated and issued, so that immediate steps are taken to improve the conditions of widows.

The apex court had taken note of situation of widows after a petition was filed in 2007 portraying their pathetic condition in the welfare homes at the holy city of Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh.

The apex court had earlier referred to various reports filed by the National Legal Services Authority, the District Legal Services Authority and the NCW on the condition of shelter homes for widows in Vrindavan.

One of the reports had said that there was lack of proper toilets and bathrooms in the shelter homes, besides poor water and electricity facilities.

The court was hearing the pleas seeking directions to the Centre and the state government to provide shelter and other necessary facilities to the widows in Vrindavan who have been abandoned by their family members.

The apex court had also appointed a seven-member panel to collect data on their socio-economic conditions. A majority of the 1,000-odd widows interviewed earlier in Vrindavan by the NCW have children who do not care for them.

In a report filed in the apex court, the statutory womens body had recommended fixing of liability on the children under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.

It had said an estimated 5,000-10,000 widows were living like beggars in ashrams dotting the two holy cities of Mathura and Vrindavan.
India will pay dearly for allowing the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh, Chinese media said on Friday, indicating that Beijings renaming of six places in the state was in retaliation to the Tibetan spiritual leaders trip to northeast.

The fresh attack on India came days after Beijing announced through its controlled media that it was standardising names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh  which China claims as its territory -- in pinyin or the system of official romanisation of Chinese.

India has dismissed the renaming and asserted that every inch of the state belongs to the country.

It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time. Playing the Dalai Lama card is never a wise choice for New Delhi. If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in paying dearly for it, the nationalistic tabloid Global Times said on Friday.

Saying that China is a more powerful country than India, the article said if it came to measuring which country was stronger, then China need not sit on the negotiating table to settle the border problem between the two countries.

India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table, the newspaper said.

It also quoted Indian media coverage of Beijings announcement.

Over the past two days, quite a few Indian media outlets, such as the Hindustan Times, described Beijings latest move as revenge and retaliation against India for hosting the 14th Dalai Lama in the disputed border region earlier this month, the newspaper said quoting Indian medias coverage of the announcement.

The reaction from India, it seems, was absurd.

It said South Tibet is historically part of China and the name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places, the newspaper said.

Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so, it added.

The article, written by Ai Jun, said: China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh Chinas South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987.

Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Thursday every inch of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India and China has no business to name any Indian place.

The minister said that no foreign country has the right to rename any part of India.
The rivalry between Delhi and Mumbai has been one of the fiercest in Ranji Trophy, Indias premier domestic tournament. While Mumbai are no doubt the undisputed leaders with 41 titles, Delhi have often given Mumbai a run for their money with seven titles to their credit.

Read more | Was MS Dhoni disrespected by Rising Pune Supergiant? Suresh Raina feels so

The Delhi-Mumbai rivalry has also spilled over to the Indian Premier League where Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils are the only teams to have a neck-and-neck contest with a 50 per cent win/loss ratio in 18 matches.

On Saturday, Mumbai Indians will have a chance to go one up over Delhi Daredevils when they clash at the Wankhede Stadium here.

The victory was anything but a piece of cake, but there were a fair few slices thrown around! Watch the boys celebrate.#CricketMeriJaan pic.twitter.com/clIF9x8LeG  Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) April 21, 2017

Delhi Daredevils top most priority would be to break their Mumbai jinx. Away from home, Delhi Daredevils have rarely managed to find success whenever they have squared up against Mumbai Indians.

Read more | Tim Southee keeps Mumbai Indians bus waiting for toilet break

In seven IPL matches hosted in Mumbai, Mumbai Indians have emerged triumphant on six occasions.

The only time Delhi Daredevils found everything going for themselves in Mumbai was during the 2012 IPL when a Harbhajan Singh-led Mumbai Indians were bowled out for a paltry 92 in 19.2 overs. Delhi Daredevils won that match by seven wickets.

In terms of not winning in Mumbai, if you look at last 5-6 games Mumbai have played they have been on a roll, home or away. Its a tough ask but we have the firepower to do it. Its just that we need to click, said Delhi Daredevils all-rounder and Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews ahead of the clash.

Mumbai Indians the master chasers

Toss would certainly be a crucial factor since team chasing have won 19 times out of the last 21 matches here. Mumbai Indians have become undisputed master chasers in this edition, having won all their five matches after being set a target.

Read more | Mumbai Indians performance in powerplay the deciding factor, says Hashim Amla

It was evident in the way Mumbai Indians played their last match in Indore on Thursday where Rohit Sharma & Co made a mockery of the 199-run target set by Kings XI Punjab, winning it with eight wickets and 27 balls to spare.

Mumbai Indians seem to be making the most of their best-ever start to an IPL campaign as they have now won five matches in a row after being beaten in their opening clash against Rising Pune Supergiant.

Delhi Daredevils middle order woes

Delhi Daredevils however havent been that imposing in their batting. One of their major concerns is batting in the middle overs (7 to 15) where they are averaging 7.33  the worst by any teams in this IPL so far.

Read more | IPL 2017: Dwayne Bravos new song to feature Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh Dhoni?

In these overs, Delhi Daredevils have lost 16 wickets, also the most by any side. This is where the momentum is lost and could cost them a few games.

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The Rajasthan Congress on Friday met Governor Kalyan Singh and demanded a CBI probe into the Alwar lynching case in which five people were beaten up by cow vigilantes and one succumbed to his injuries.

In a memorandum submitted to the governor, the Congressmen said that those involved in the inhuman act are allegedly related to BJP or associated parties.

The delegation, led by Sachin Pilot, stated that there is the Rajasthan Bovine Animal Act, 1995, and necessary action could have been taken under it. No one, be it cow smugglers or vigilantes, has the right to violate law.

In the incident, police action and statements of the home minister show that efforts are being made to protect the culprits. In the probe, points such as whether it was a milch cow, taken to slaughter or animal husbandry, when it was purchased from the cattle market and had ravvana receipt have been raised. Then why it is considered to be smuggled. What was the role of the municipal corporation officials in buying and selling bovines? It should be probed, Pilot said.

He said that the victims are not satisfied with the way the investigation is progressing and thats why we want a CBI probe.

Who is protecting these people, why are the police so scared of taking action against those who are allegedly close to the ruling party? I think in the name of cow protection, export, smuggling, beef etc, a lot of terror is being installed in the hearts of people, which is unacceptable. There is a cow protection act, there is a law, we all abide by it, if anyone deviates from it  he or she must be taken to task, said Pilot.

He further said, 20 days have passed, but the chief minister has not assured the victims family or the people of Rajasthan that justice will prevail. This Sadhvi, who had gone to meet the alleged perpetrator, has called him Bhagat Singh.

On one side the prime minister says that these Gau Rakshaks are doing Gau pooja in the morning and are Gunda Mawali at night but in BJP-ruled states no one is taking any action against this sort of lawlessness, he said.
A retired army man allegedly stabbed his son to death during an argument and then killed himself near a village in Rajasthans Sikar.

Police said 45-year-old Shubhkaran Punia was heavily inebriated when he attacked his son Rajesh, 20, in Hardayalpura village. He was apparently enraged by his sons admonitions over his drinking habit.

Police are waiting for the post mortem report to rule the incident as suicide, circle officer Ramgarh Shekhawati, Ramchandra Moond, said.

He said the father-son duo was taken to Ramgarh government hospital where doctors declared them brought dead.

Police registered a case against Shubhkaran, a retired havaldar, on the complaint of his daughter.
Two rival gangs with alleged links to West Bengals ruling Trinamool Congress clashed in Birbhum district with bombs and guns on Friday, killing at least eight people.

Police said the toll might spike as villagers reported more bodies lying in the fields. Locals said the Darbarpur village  about 180 km to the North-West of Kolkata  turned into a battlefield for hours over control of sand beds, wounding several women and children.

Our first priority is to restore peace and bring the situation under control. We are also conducting raids to recover weapons, said Amlankusum Ghosh, sub-divisional police officer, Bolpur.

Clashes over control of dry river beds  which form the bedrock of a thriving illegal sand-mining industry  are not uncommon in these parts of Bengal but the scale of Fridays violence stunned the administration.

A huge police contingent was deployed in the area. The gangs, villagers alleged, enjoyed the support of local Trinamool leaders.

According to locals, the victims could not be identified as most of the villagers fled after the clash that started in the morning and continued till late afternoon.

In Kolkata to attend a party conference, Trinamool district president Anubrata Mondal rubbished the allegation, saying goons backed by the CPI(M) had attacked Trinamool supporters. Former MP and CPI(M) district secretary, Ramchandra Dom, however said that rivalry between two gangs backed by the ruling party led to the violence.

The miscreants, local people said, came from the nearby Mirpur village and were headed by a person identified as Seikh Ahad. The groups first attacked each other with bombs in front of Dwarka High School where classes were on, locals said. The students and teachers locked themselves inside the building.

Later in the afternoon, fresh clashes started and four people died, police said. Some people also claimed a number of villagers were killed and injured when some miscreants were making bombs and the explosives went off by accident.

There is no conflict inside our party and no one from our party is involved the clash. The CPI(M) is liable for the deaths. They did all this with support from the BJP, alleged Anubrata Mondal. Some miscreants backed by the CPI(M) had taken shelter in an abandoned house at Darbarpur. They attacked the villagers, he added.

But opposition parties rubbished the defence. Just a few days ago there was a clash in the Suri area over control of a sand bed and Trinamool Congress was behind it. Today, too, Trinamool supporters clashed over control of a sand bed. They are trying to shift the focus and give us a bad name, said Ramkrishna Roy, local BJP leader.

Ramchandra Dom said: Its an old practice among Trinamool Congress leaders. They shift the blame on others.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday staged a demonstration in protest against the alleged e-tender scam in the Lucknow Municipal Corporation.

During the protest outside the civic bodys office in Lalbagh, AAP workers demanded a CBI probe into the scam and accused former mayor Dinesh Sharma (now deputy chief minister) of failing to fix responsibility for the anomalies.

Even after several representations to the municipal commissioner, nothing has been done to fix responsibility of senior officials of the municipal corporation involved in the e-tender scam, said Vaibhav Maheshwari, state spokesperson, AAP.

We are demanding action against municipal commissioner, zonal officers and finance controller who are responsible for the scam, alleged Maheshwari.

He also demanded that FIR be lodged against those involved in the scam.

Gross anomalies came to light after the LMC started e-tendering process in October 2015. After that, LMC constituted a one-member committee to probe into the scam.

On the basis of the report submitted by the committee, one clerk and six divisional engineers were indicted in the scam.

Only a clerk and six divisional engineers have been indicted in the report submitted by the one-member probe panel of the LMC. The civic body is trying to shield its senior officials, said Mahendra Pratap Singh, AAP leader.

Since October 2015, when the LMC started the e-tendering process, officials attached with the tendering committee have flouted the norms laid for opening of tenders, he added.
Surprise was in store for Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders when they were introduced to a youth clad in jeans and T- shirt during the partys meeting held under the chairmanship of Mayawati.

The youth was Aakash, son of Mayawatis younger brother Anand Kumar. An MBA, he will now be part of party affairs. Five days back, Mayawati had appointed Anand as national vice-president of the party.

She also reconstituted the organisation withdrew the charge of West UP from Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Muslim face of the party and considered second most powerful leader. Siddiqui has been appointed in-charge of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where assembly polls are due next year. He will continue as the national general secretary and member in the legislative council.

In the reconstituted party organisation, instead of 9 zones there will now be two zones- East and West UP. Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Siddharth, who belongs to Jatav community, will head the West UP zone and will also monitor the working of the East zone. The divisional committee, district committees and bhai-chara commitees that were dissolved will be reconstituted soon.

A party leader said during the meeting Mayawati told the party workers that her decision to join the anti- BJP front was not final. The BSP has decided to contest the urban local bodies election on its own strength. The decision over joining alliance will be taken before the Lok Sabha election, he said.

Read more: After drubbing by BJP, Mayawati seeks to revive BSP fortunes through civic polls
After strong censure of triple talaq in one sitting by the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, another Muslim religious body  Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH)  has decided to launch a campaign to remove misconceptions about Islamic laws.

JIH will kick off the two-week long countrywide initiative titled Muslim Personal Law Awareness Campaign (MPLAC) from New Delhi on April 23.

There is a need to educate, uplift and morally reform the Muslim society as a whole. A primary reason for violation of Shariah (Islamic laws) is lack of awareness among the Muslims. A large segment of Muslim society does not even know the basics of Islam. Many Muslims do not know the rules and instructions to follow in matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance, said convener of MPLAC Mohammad Jafar.

On April 16, AIMPLB, the apex body which represents all Muslim sects, had called for social boycott of those who divorce women by pronouncing triple talaq in one sitting.

It had issued a booklet titled Instructions for Talaq for circulation in all the mosques so that the Imams can read it out after Friday prayer to create awareness about the laws.

Apart from reforms in personal laws, it is the sceptre of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), actively pursued by the Narendra Modi Government after the Supreme Court order on the issue, which is a matter of concern among the Muslim clergy.

Since Independence, Muslims of India have been saying that they reject the idea of Uniform Civil Code. They have opposed attempts by courts or legislative bodies to interfere in Muslim personal law but they have not been equally vigilant on the internal front, said Jafar.

The organisation will hold seminars and interactive sessions in all the states during its fortnight-long campaign to make Muslims aware of the rights guaranteed to them under the Shariat Application Act, 1937.

Courts will not interfere in personal laws if Muslims follow it sincerely in letter and spirit. They should resolve their disputes through Shariat courts and counselling centres rather than turning to the courts which may act contrary to the Islamic law, he said.

The Supreme Court is hearing a case on the constitutional validity of the practice followed by some Muslims to annul their marriage pronouncing talaq, the Arabic word for divorce, thrice.

The union government had, on October 7 last year, opposed triple talaq and other Islamic practices such as nikah, halala and polygamy in the Supreme Court and favoured a relook in its continuation on the grounds of gender equality and secularism.

From May 13, the apex court will start day-to-day hearing of a case on a PIL petition filed by some Muslim women challenging the practice.

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Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said Sanskrit should be made compulsory in school curriculum from the very beginning to inculcate Indian culture and values among students.

Knowledge of English is must but dont make our children Englishmen. Only Sanskrit can help students learn Indian culture and ethos, Singh said while addressing a gathering at the inaugural function of the Jaipuria School, Kanpur Road branch, Lucknow.

Make Sanskrit compulsory in schools from early classes. A half-an-hour Sanskrit class must be made compulsory in schools every day, said the minister.

Rajnath Singh had made Sanskrit compulsory in schools when he was education minister in the first BJP government in Uttar Pradesh in 1991. He is also credited with bringing anti-copying law in the state.

The union home minister also stressed on character building of students.

Making students only knowledgeable is not enough. Even terrorists and hardcore criminals have technical and post graduate degrees. Therefore, character building of students is a must, Singh asserted.

Further clarifying his point, he said: By surfing the Internet for several hours, anyone can acquire knowledge about anything but not character. So, character building of students is equally important.

Former union HRD minister Smriti Irani, who is now union textile minister, had replaced German with Sanskrit as third language in the central schools in November 2014.

Iranis decision had triggered a nationwide debate over the issue.
Amid talks of finding an amicable solution to the Ram Temple issue, a group of Muslim kar sevaks reached the dispute site at Ayodhya on Thursday evening to have a darshan of Ram Lala.

The group, led by president of Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Muslim Karsevak Manch Azam Khan, also brought a truck full of bricks to donate for the construction of Ram Temple.

About four dozen Muslim kar sevaks from Basti, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj and Lucknow districts reached the entry point of the disputed site in 12 SUVs.

When they were stopped by security personnel, as the scheduled time for darshan was over, they chanted Jai Shri Ram and started forcing security forces to allow them entry.

President of Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Muslim Kar Sevak Manch Azam Khan interacting with the residents of Ayodhya on Thursday evening. (HT Photo)

The situation was defused when senior police officials intervened and asked them not to press for entry.

The kar sevaks then assembled at the entry point of the disputed site and took the vow to construct Ram Temple. They also took out a procession in the main market of Ayodhya and met the residents of the temple town.

President of Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Muslim Karsevak Manch Azam Khan said the Muslims of the country would contribute to the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Muslims do not want to see Ral Lala under a tent. They want to put an end to hatred in the society and are willing to contribute in the progress of the country. It will be possible only when Muslims come forward and join hands with the Hindus for the construction of the temple, he said.

Khan is a builder from Lucknow and is a staunch supporter of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Haji Nasarullah, a member of the group, said they were not allowed to have darshan of Ram Lala. He said they were trying to contact the members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) so that they could sit together and set the common agenda for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Kotwal, Ayodhya, Arvind Kumar Pandey said the truck was not allowed to enter Ayodhya and was parked in Naya Ghat. He added after visiting Ayodhya, the Muslim kar sevaks returned to their respective places.

VHP spokesman Sharad Sharma said the Parishad had no association with the Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Muslim Karsevak Manch.

He said the act might have been an attempt to get media attention but if any group was coming up with a positive thought on Ayodhya issue, the VHP would welcome them.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday declared that Bundelkhand would soon be connected directly with Delhi through a six-lane highway.

Addressing party workers and legislators at the Paramedical College ground here after a review meeting at Vikas Bhavan, the chief minister said the direct road connectivity with Delhi would open up new horizons for fast industrialisation of the region, besides generating employment.

He said for want of adequate employment opportunities, there was heavy exodus of youths and others from the district. This exodus could be checked if jobs could be provided here, the chief minister added.

The chief minister also ordered a probe into the digging of ponds in Chitrakoot and Jhansi divisions in the past three years.

Yogi warned party workers against taking the law in their hands and said that if they had any complaints against any authority, they should tell the local MP and MLAs, who would in turn inform him about the complaint. Action would be initiated against guilty officers, he assured them.

He said even if party workers found that hospitals failed to serve the people properly, they should complain to their representatives and the problem would be taken up for solution.

If fair price food grain, meant for the poor, was being sold in the open market, stringent action would be taken against the concerned officials, Yogi said.

The chief minister said now the work culture would be changed.

Yogi said now staff of the electricity department would go to houses of power connection seekers to give connection to them. People would not have to run for power connections from one window to another at their offices.

Public representatives, including UP minister for state Mahendra Singh, Swatantra Dev Singh, Manohar Lal, mayor Kiran Raaju and several others present at the review meeting told Yogi that a package of Rs 2,800 crore was given to Bundelkhand for its development but no development work was done so far as the money was misused.

Read more: UP police go into tizzy after car from CM Yogi Adityanaths fleet goes missing
Ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government started taking lal battis (red beacons) off their official vehicles in line with the Centres decision to do away with the symbols of power.

After UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh, who had stopped the use of hooters in his official vehicle after taking oath of office, more ministers joined the no beacon chorus.

Power minister Shrikant Sharma also started travelling without beacon from Wednesday.

The move was welcomed by the people, especially activists like city based-surgeon Dr RK Verma, who had over the last couple of years written seven letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and four to the Supreme Court calling for an end to the VIP culture.

It used to be such a nuisance. Imagine those whom you have elected passing by you, raising an irritating noise as if announcing their new-found power and status. With flashers and hooters gone, there would hopefully be less noise pollution too, Verma said, adding the decision would bring the government closer to the people.

That the politicians were in agreement was apparent with deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi and social welfare minister Ramapati Shastri removing beacons from their vehicles.

There are indications that nearly all Yogi ministers would go beacon free before May 1 when the Modi governments decision is likely to come into force.

We are against the culture of flaunting power. Our government is devoted to the cause of the poor, dalits and marginalised section. This decision reflects our desire to bridge the distance between the government and the people, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said.

After no-hooters, the rate at which UP ministers have started taking off beacons showcases our governments desire to come closer to the real masters  the people who elect us, agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi said.

Barely three days after coming to power, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had urged his ministers not to use hooters and sirens. In 2013, the apex court had described the use of beacon by ministers and government officials as ridiculous.

Around the same time, a political controversy of sorts was triggered when an official at the regional transport office (RTO) in Rampur took off the red beacon from the vehicle of the then Rampur MP Jaya Prada.

Read more: HP governor, Acharya Devvrat, removes red beacon, several to lose privilege soon

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The weekend is here, and for a change, restaurateurs in Delhi are not looking forward to it. Due to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections in the city, according to an order issued by the Delhi Excise Department, all liquor shops and bars will be closed from 5.30pm on Friday, April 21, and the ban on serving and sale of alcohol will stay in place for 48 hours, till 5.30pm on Sunday, April 23. And that means all the party people in the city are going to Gurgaon, Haryana, where they can grab a few drinks.

We had an event tomorrow that we have now had to cancel . - Atul Kapur

Its no surprise that hospitality business owners in the Capital are very unhappy about the situation. We had an event [on Saturday] that weve had to cancel now, since the guests chose to move their party to Gurgaon, says Atul Kapur, co-partner at Flying Saucer and QBA, adding that promotional offers dont help in such situations. Weve been in the business for years and such moves have never helped. People only want to party where they can unwind with a drink of their choice.

Some restaurants havent received any bookings. As it is, the business is slow this time of the year, but this weekend, we dont have any bookings. [The dry weekend] is really hampering our business, says Shiv Karan Singh, owner of multiple restaurants in Delhi.

The dry days have sent our entire months business for a toss. - Akshay Anand

Akshay Anand, owner, HotMess Kitchen & Bar, says, The dry days have sent our entire months business for a toss. We have salaries, rent, and a lot of [other] things to think of. The booking cancellations paint a bleak picture for us. Some of our customers have simply decided to postpone their bookings.

Weve got a lot of queries from Delhi asking if we are serving alcohol or not during dry days. - Shikhir Dhingra

On the other hand, Gurgaon business is plump. Weve got a lot of queries from Delhi, asking if were serving alcohol or not. And were also fully sold out. I dont know if this is because of the weekend or the elections or both, says Shikhir Dhingra, co-owner of Classroom.

As for those party animals who cant go to Gurgaon, this Friday and Saturday evenings are going to be a bit boring. Viren Aggarwal, a 24-year-old entrepreneur, laments that due to the unavailability of alcohol in Delhi, his gang wont be able to party at their favourite venues. We always go pub-hopping in Hauz Khas Village, but this weekend, weve put our plans on hold, he says. Gurgaon is just too far away, and theres too much traffic, so wed rather stay home.

However, Vaishnavi Saxena, a 22-year-old law student, doesnt mind shifting her party stop to Gurgaon. We have a friends birthday over the weekend, so of course, well continue to celebrate, she says. Gurgaon has so many restaurants, were spoilt for choice. But, I have heard that these places will be jam-packed, so well make our reservations beforehand.

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The Stables Rating: 4 / 5 Where: Peninsula Redpine Hotel, Near Airport Road Metro Station, Andheri (E) When: Noon to 1.30 am Cost: About Rs 3,500 for two, with one cocktail each Call: 3015-1747

Plonked on a noisy intersection close to the international airport, The Stables was surprisingly quiet when we entered on a sweltering April evening. The staff assured us that the quietude wouldnt last long. Come dusk, the after-office-hours crowd descends to unwind to a playlist of 80s tunes. There was even a DJ console and a jukebox in the corner as evidence.

The Stables is a casual, all-day restobar serving pub-style comfort food and reasonably priced drinks. The Mumbai outpost of the Dubai brand of the same name is new to the city, but it still exudes a sense of comfort and familiarity.

The place has a decidedly equestrian decor theme: circular stained glass windows featuring horses; comfy, six-seater booths fashioned like stable gates; barrel-shaped tables with bar stools.

Prepare for the wafting aroma of freshly popped corn. It comes free with your menu, dispensed from a retro-looking popping machine.

The classic nachos at The Stables are a great opening act. Tender bits of spicy pork, guacamole and pico de gallo sit atop cheesy chipotle-dusted tortilla chips. (Satyabrata Tripathy / HT Photo)

We started with a huge bowl of their classic nachos loaded with the works  a great opening act. Tender bits of spicy pork chilli con carne melded with cool guacamole and pico de gallo, atop cheesy chipotle-dusted tortilla chips. Next, BBQ lamb sliders, their meaty taste balanced by a tart onion jam.

The Jamaican rum- and passion fruit-based Stable Grog cocktail was in desperate need of some sugaring up. The Best Mate Passion, with smokey bourbon and orgeat syrup, on the other hand, suffered from an overdose of sweetness. The drinks made us feel like Goldilocks!

At The Stables, the tagliatelle ai funghi comes oozing with good pecorino cheese, a hit of truffle oil and sauteed mushrooms. (Satyabrata Tripathy / HT Photo)

The tagliatelle ai funghi came oozing with good pecorino cheese, a hit of truffle oil and sauteed mushrooms. It was perfect, as was the galletto  hunks of peri peri-spiced grilled chicken so soft they were falling off the bone, served on a large platter with a mountain of baby potatoes.

The sticky toffee pudding for afters was simple: a slab of gooey cake-like pudding, a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and a drizzle of smoked and salted caramel sauce. It has us satiated.

The galletto at The Stables features hunks of peri peri-spiced grilled chicken (so soft they fall off the bone) with baby potatoes. Its classic comfort fare. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

For fare like this, wed happily trot around the paddock.

HT pays for meals and reviews anonymously
Noor

Director: Sunhil Sippy

Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Purab Kohli, Kanan Gill

Rating: 2/5

Sonakshi Sinhas Noor is the story of a young journalist who covers small stories but aspires to bring real stories to the light.

It is an adaptation of Saba Kazmis critically acclaimed book, Karachi! You Are Killing Me! Directed by Sunhil Sippy, Noor fails exactly where the book excelled. Karachi... was appreciated thanks to its honest portrayal of a small journalist trying her best to maintain the eluding work-life balance and fighting the demons in a bad world in her efforts to find an award-winning report.

Sonakshi SInha in a still from Noor.

Noor comes across as a breezy, light-hearted rom-com - for almost half the film at least - that tells the story of Sonakshis Noor Roy Choudhary as a clumsy 28-year-old journalist, who lives with her unbelievably understanding father and a cute cat.

Noor starts off in a very Sex and the City style - rather longish but fun - voice-over by Sonakshi where she tells us about her life and ambitions. Dialogue writer Ishita Moitra Udhwani must be credited for keeping the tone light and conversationalist.

Sonakshi looks quite convincing with the grimaces, pouts, eye rolls, scowls and goofy grins - displaying an amusing dorkiness. Even when her character turns serious, Sonakshi displays her prowess and aces the grim looks.

Noor keeps complaining about her life, lack of opportunities to shine and a boyfriend but makes little effort to get any of those. Unlike Sabas protagonist, Noor is lazy as a person - she does not even research for her stories and at home, she does not even make her own bed.

She tells her editor (Manish Chaudhary) at least thrice that she has submitted 6 well-researched, good stories but is instead asked to cover a Sunny Leone interview or a woman who never takes off her helmet.

While these anecdotes could have made for a hilarious, light-hearted movie, the misunderstanding of the profession in the film is appalling.

Noors lack of professionalism is consistent throughout the film - she yawns while interviewing Sunny Leone, interrupts a meeting with her editor to meet a friend and, when she stumbles onto what she believes is her big break story, she records one statement and rushes to her editor insisting it must be aired ASAP.

Even for what she believes is the path-breaking story of her career, she does not bother to cross check facts, reach out to the accused and even give him a single chance to respond. And whats bothering, the film does not even pretend to ponder upon her unprofessionalism when she fails to get her name on the story - the narrative focuses on her heartbreak and the fact that she was conned.

Sonakshi Sinha and Purab Kohli in a scene from Noor.

While Sonakshi, Kanan Gill (who plays her friend Saad) and even Purab Kohli (who has a small but important role) and all other supporting actors are confident and impressive in their roles, the film fails to engage as a whole. Had it not been for her and Kanan, the movie would have been unbearable.

Noor does not understand journalism, it fails to establish enough angst for the protest it hopes to ignite, it stops being the rom-com (the one thing that the movie was getting right) pretty soon and it does not give the victims enough time for us to empathise, nor does it ponder over the aggressors enough, for us to loathe them.

Interact with Sweta Kaushal @swetakaushal

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Sand Castle

Director - Fernando Coimbra

Cast - Nicholas Hoult, Henry Cavill, Logan Marshall-Green

Rating - 2/5

When they asked Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated American soldiers in World War II, how he managed to single-handedly hold off an entire company of German soldiers during a skirmish, he shrugged, They were killing my friends.

Murphys sister helped him falsify documents to meet the minimum age requirement to enlist. Theyd just witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Events like Pearl Harbor, like 9/11, prompted many young men, and women, overcome by a sense of duty, to enlist. But the why of war is as foggy as the rest of it. Several war movies have made an attempt to rationalise the attraction of serving ones country in battle, but few have succeeded.

Some, like Winters Bone  which is not a war movie  suggest that poverty, the promise of a steady paycheck, and ironically, security, is something that might attract a person whos been backed into a corner. Others, like Jack Reacher  which is also not a war movie  offer the terrifying idea that there might be individuals out there who join because war gives them an opportunity to murder legally.

In Sand Castle, which is a war movie in the same way that Jarhead is a war movie, Matt Ocre (played by Nicholas Hoult), who is, ostensibly, our protagonist, joins because it is a family trade. His grandfather joined, as did his father. What else was he supposed to do?

I question Sand Castles status as a traditional war movie because like Jarhead, it spends very little time actually participating in war. Like Jarhead, it is about a platoon of characters who are a part of the war (in this case, the Iraq War of 2003), but arent actively involved in the taking of cities and the bombing of innocents.

Instead, their only duty is to help repair a small towns broken water supply. This repetitive act of drawing water from a large lake, and transporting it, daily, across a literal warzone, to the needy people of the town, reminded me of the almost ritual-like everyday bravery of the soldiers in The Hurt Locker. Of course, unlike that great movie, the threats that the soldiers face are of their own making. You see, the reason why that small town has a broken water supply in the first place is because the US troops bombed it.

As you can probably tell, with its small scale, Sand Castle manages to make, whether consciously or not, a rather powerful larger statement on the Iraq War  which is great  but it is the only statement that it is making. Also, it makes it in the same clumsy manner with which one would dress a self-inflicted wound.

It isnt the first film to suggest that the American invasion of Iraq could quite possibly have been a farce  Paul Greengrass Green Zone (no relation) remains the most thrilling, and honest mainstream movie about that war (yet). Sand Castle however, is one of the blandest, which is annoying, because for more than an hour, it was quite a refreshing change of pace from the usual Call of Duty clones.

It is also telling that I havent mentioned the fact that its biggest star is Superman himself, Mr Henry Cavill. Perhaps it is because his role is, generously speaking, a glorified cameo. With an impatiently done buzz cut, a beard that could, at some point, have been intended as a disguise, and a non-specific hillbilly accent, Cavill lumbers about, perpetually sweating, and barking orders in that same angry manner which confused so many Man of Steel fans.

There is a good chance that you might forget Sand Castle exits moments after watching it, much like how the world seems to have forgotten the massive scandal that the Iraq War was, now that every day basically begins with a chance of it ending in nuclear war.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

The author tweets @RohanNaahar

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After barring a Bandra engineering college from conducting admissions in the next academic year, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex regulatory body for technical education, has put an engineering college at Byculla under No Admission category.

An official from MH Saboo Siddik College of Engineering (MHSSCOE) in Byculla said that the apex body has refused to extend their approval, citing their alleged failure to meet land and building norms prescribed by the regulatory body. On Friday, the college, along with Thadomal Shahani College of Engineering in Bandra (TSEC), will appear before the standing appellate committee of AICTE and present their case, in the hopes of acquiring an extension of approval for the academic year 2017-18. The standing committee will also hear another college - Watumull Institute of Electronics Engineering & Computer Technology in Worli - whose plea to shift the institute to another campus in Ulhasnagar was rejected by the regulatory body.

Despite being two of the most popular engineering institutes in the city, TSEC and MHSSCOE were denied fresh intake last year as well, for allegedly failing to meet the norms. However, they had received an interim relief from Bombay high court (HC), which permitted them to admit students  with some conditions  in the case of TSEC. AICTE had, then, appealed against the HC order in the Supreme Court (SC), which refused to stall admissions and referred the matter back to HC.

While reviving the ban on admissions at MHSSCOE, AICTE has observed that the college lacks sufficient land for the college. It has also objected to the fact some of the college facilities, such as laboratories, are located on the premises of MH Saboo Siddik Polytechnic, which is also being run in the same campus. The regulatory has also cited insufficient faculty as the grounds for refusing the approval.

The college has argued they are being denied fresh intake on flimsy grounds. The college was established much before AICTE and its norms came into existence. And its impossible for us to add more land in a city like Mumbai. We have compensated the small land by adding more floors to college building. This position of ours was accepted by the apex court when they rejected AICTEs plea, said an official from Anjuman-i-Islam, the non-profit which runs the college.

The college feels that its being targeted unfairly by the regulatory body. We explained that we will move the facilities from polytechnic building to the engineering college, but to no avail. And which college in Mumbai has the sufficient faculty? We are being denied admission, just because AICTE wants to, said the official

Ramesh Unnkirishnan, AICTEs western region officer, didnt respond to calls from HT.

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Almost all state cabinet ministers have removed red beacons from their cars following the ban on what was seen as the ultimate status symbol. However, many of them are unhappy over the idea of losing their VIP status. The state government is likely to come up with an alternative measure to ensure that their security and identity is maintained in public.

While several ministers chose not to comment, Shiv Sena leader and MoS for home Deepak Kesarkar said the state has asked Director general of police to suggest a system to ensure the security, convenience and identification of ministers and VIPs.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis stopped using the beacon immediately after the Union cabinets decision was announced on Wednesday. Other ministers too have removed the beacons from their cars.

It is true that the beacons were used as the status symbol in the political system. But now the issues of security and identification of VIPs has been raised. When I was heading towards the Mumbai airport, I faced the problem in traffic. Escort vehicles find it difficult to identify my vehicle, other vehicles kept rushing in ahead of my vehicle as my vehicle had lost the identity without the beacon. Ministers keep attending number of meetings and functions in a day and every second is important for them, Kesarkar told HT.

I have told director general of police to think of an alternative system. The final decision will be taken after discussion with the CM and head of home department Devendra Fadnavis, he said.

Mayors cover-up

Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar has just covered his red beacon with a cloth. I have not got time to send my vehicle to the garage for its removal. As a first citizen of the city, I will abide by the Centres decision, he said.
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will meet representatives of the Sakal Maratha Samaj, the parent body of Maratha organisations,soon to discuss the communitys demands. The samaj was one of the organisers of the nationwide Maratha protests held to demand reservation in government jobs and education.

Revenue minister Chandrakant Patil welcomed the samajs decision to meet state government officials and said Fadnavis would meet with a committee of samaj members soon.

The Maratha community has held more than 40 massive protest rallies across the state between August and December last year. Their demands include a review of the Atrocities Act, the implementation of the Swaminathan Commissions recommendations on farming and other reforms in social and economic sectors.

So far, the organisers of these rallies had refused to hold talks with the government. However, at a round-table conference of prominent Maratha leaders on Wednesday, the samaj formed a high-power committee to prepare a comprehensive draft the Marathas demands and present it to the state. The committee does not comprise any politicians. At the meeting, called by Kshatriya Maratha Chamber of Commerce and attended by Chhatrapati Sambhajiraje  a Rajya Sabha member and a descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji  the samaj decided to appoint a district-level coordinator to ensure better communication at the local level.

The government will respond to the communitys demands positively. Earlier, the protest had no particular leaders and wasnt represented by a specific face. So, the government was confused over who to address. As a committee has been set up, it will now be easy for us to break the ice. The government has taken several decisions in the interest of the Maratha community already, said Patil.

Following the massive silent marches across the state, the state took various steps to pacify the Maratha community. Besides submitting an affidavit comprising proof the Marathas backwardness, the government announced freeships for Maratha students. It reconstituted the Maharashtra State Commission for Backward Classes, giving the community significant representation. The government also performed the bhoomipujan of the Shivaji memorial in the Arabian sea two weeks ago. It has constituted a training and research institute named after Maratha king Shahu Maharaj.

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If you travel on the Mumbai Metros Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar line and own a smart phone, you can now use Google Maps to check train schedules and even peek inside some of the stations using the app. Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd (MMOPL) has tied up with tech giant Google to provide timetables and geographical information, including the internal layouts of stations, for your convenience. Apart from accurate train schedules, you can also check the location of ticket counters, lifts, escalators and shops from Google Maps. The feature is available on both the Android and iOS (iPhone) versions of Google Maps.

According to MMOPL, this will help commuters plan their journeys better. While other apps do provide Metro timetables, the schedules and not provided by MMOPL. The schedules on such apps are taken from whatever is available in the public domain or is based on the estimated frequency of trains. We have provided Google with the schedules from our system so the timings will correspond to the services, said an MMOPL official.

The official said that if a commuter travelling from Chembur to Andheri enters in his destination on Google Maps, he or she will be shown the route from Chembur to Ghatkopar, which is a default feature of the app, and the corresponding Metro train timings from Ghatkopar to Andheri.

To view the schedules, all you need to do it touch the desired Metro station in the Google Maps smartphone phone app and tap on Metro Services. With this tie-up we have taken another step towards digitising Mumbai Metro One, an MMOPL spokesperson said.

In addition to train schedules, Google Maps also includes with internal maps of metro stations so that commuters can check the location of entries, exits, escalators, lifts and other facilities. This feature is currently available only for Versova station. There is also an option to display all three levels of the station  road level, concourse level and platform level. This is a part of Googles indoor maps, which shows users the insides of various large establishments such as airports and malls.

An MMOPL official said indoor maps of the other 11 stations will be uploaded in a couple of months. We have provided maps to Google and they are in process of uploading them. Currently, commuters can access indoor maps for Versova station. Details of other stations will be added in a month or two, the official said.

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Parents of students from around 20 schools across Maharashtra protested against the fee hike planned for the next academic year at Mumbais Azad Maidan on Thursday.

Their demand: Maharashtra government should put a cap on the hike, much like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat  where schools have to limit annual fees for primary section to Rs15,000 and Rs25,000 for secondary schools.

HT tells you all you need to know about fee regulation in schools:

1. Hike without intimation

What the law states: The Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Collection of Fee) Act, 2011, makes it mandatory for school management to submit the proposed fee structure to the executive panel of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) for approval at least six months before the start of the new academic year.

What schools do: Most schools hiked fees in March without prior notice. The PTA was not given a chance to approve the hike.

2. Fees hiked twice in two years

What the law states: The Act states schools can hike fees only once in two years

What schools do: They hike fees every year

3 .Government body set up only this year

What the law states: If there is more than 15% difference in the fees proposed by the management and approved by the PTA, the schools can approach divisional fee regulatory committees set up by the Maharashtra government.

Status: Although the Act was enforced in 2015, the committees were set up this year. Consequently, the committee has a lot of pending cases.

4. Delay in setting up Maha fee revision panel

What the law states: Parents or schools can file an appeal with a state-level revision panel, if they are unhappy with the decision taken by the divisional committees

Status: It became active only last month.

5. No clarity on rules

What the law states: If there is less than 15% difference between the fees suggested by the management and the amount PTA agrees to, the management can go ahead with the hike.

Status: Parents are oblivious to the rule. This explains why nothing much comes out of the protests by parents.

Read more: Maharashtra govt sets up panels to settle school fee rows

State should scrap or modify fee act

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Taking a cue from Sanjay Dutts hit film, Munnabhai MBBS, a 30-year-old man recently looked to cheat in a railway police recruitment exam at Ghatkopar, but unlike Dutt, the aspirant was arrested.

According to the police, Deepak Gokul Joshi, 30, was caught telephoning his friend for answers. Joshi used his earphones and was on call with his friend through the exam.

An officer from Pant Nagar police station said, Joshi buttoned his collar so that he can hide the wire of his earphones. He covered his ear with a hand and noted down the answers his friend dictated.

According to the police, mid-way through the exam, the examiner noticed him talking. The police said the examiner was initially confused as he could not understand who Joshi was talking to, but later realised what was going on. The examiner caught Joshi with the phone and along with other teachers, took him to the police station.

The police said that Joshi, who hails from Ratnagiri, had been staying in Mumbai for a while in search of a job. It was his last attempt to clear the exams, the police said.

Read: Mumbai police recruitment drive: Man sticks carom striker on head to increase height

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A nine-year-old girl was electrocuted after she came in contact with a wire while plucking fruits from a tree in Palghar late on Thursday. To add to her ordeal, after visits to four hospitals where doctors kept referring her to other hospitals, and a government ambulance breakdown, Rupali Varta was finally admitted at Nair Hospital, a source said. She is responding to treatment, according to a doctor.

Meanwhile, police inspector Manoj Chalke, from Manor police station, said he will question the MSEDCL on the wire, which flouted height norms.

Rupali, a resident of Chahade in Palghar, got stuck to the tree, which was noticed by a sugarcane-juice vendor,who alerted the locals and they informed the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL), the source said. According to the source, the company immediately disconnected the supply, after which Rupali was pulled down and rushed first to a hospital in Palghar where the medical officer advised her father to admit her in the Dr Dhawale Hospital in Palghar.

At the Dr Dhawale Hospital, the girl was given first aid and later referred to the Civil Hospital, Thane, as Rupali had sustained 40 per cent burns and severe head damages,which was bleeding. From there, a government ambulance broke down, following which the father arranged for a private ambulance that had no doctor onboard, the source said.

However, the doctors found Rupalis condition to be serious, so they advised her father to admit her at JJ Hospital. There, they were told that there was no empty bed to admit Rupali, following which an activist helped them by arranging for another ambulance to get her to Nair Hospital, the source said.

READ

High tension wire snaps in Ghaziabad, two electrocuted
Shifu Sunkriti cult leader Sunil Kulkarni sexually exploited his young followers, the Mumbai police claimed in court on Thursday. The court remanded him in police custody until April 28.

Public prosecutor RY Suryavanshi, seeking Kulkarnis custody, said that he would prescribe sedatives to his followers  mostly between 18 and 25 years old  in the name of treatment.

He would give such medicines to youngsters and turn them against their parents. He would then persuade them to into sexual activities, Suryavanshi said.

The crime branch said that two daughters of a couple from Malad  one a law graduate and the other a student of architecture  had left their home after being influenced by Kulkarni. The police alleged that Kulkarni was a visiting faculty member at the college of the elder daughter, who later introduced her sister to him.

Suryavanshi said that Kulkarni would show his victims obscene pictures and literature. The prosecutor argued that the two women  and various other victims, including men  lived with Kulkarni but were now untraceable.

The crime branch recovered a pen drive from Kulkarni that contained photographs of naked and semi-naked young men and women. The agency claimed these were people whom Kulkarni had lured into his cult.

The police also recovered a prescription, with Kulkarnis name in the letterhead, for abortion pills. They said it had been written for a woman whose identity is yet to be established.

The police are also investigating allegations that the younger daughter was sexually abused by Kulkarni.

Kulkarni rejected all the allegations in court. He did not appointed a lawyer, choosing to argue the case himself.The women were abused by their parents and they have filed complaint with the Borivli police station as well as the womens commission. The court should call the women and record their statements. They have not been heard, he said.

The public prosecutor said that Kulkarni had previously been arrested for sexually abusing a minor in Delhi and booked under The Protection of Childer from Sexual Offenses Act. Kulkarni was granted bail by a Delhi court and shifted to Mumbai. The Mumbai police will be looking into this case for clues.

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A high court order on Friday has saved the Noida authority from paying Rs10,000 crore in income tax. The order, by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court, considers the Noida authority a municipal body, making it eligible for exemption from income tax.

The income tax department had issued notices to the authority in 2012 directing it to pay around Rs10,000 crore in taxes between 2004 and 2015. The department considered the authority a profit-making government body that acquires farmers land for development and allots it to developers and industries to make a profit.

The authority, which is an industrial body, is like any other municipal agency, eligible to register itself under Section 12A of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

The Noida authority could have become financially bankrupt if the high court order had not been in its favour.

It is a big day for the Noida authority as we had been fighting this case since 2015. An income tax tribunal had agreed to our plea that the authority is a municipal body and does not need to pay income taxes. However, the income tax department challenged the local tribunal order in the income tax appellate tribunal in Lucknow, which dismissed our plea. Subsequently, we went to the Allahabad high court that has provided us relief, said Manmohan Mishra, financial controller, Noida authority.

The authority is facing a financial crisis as it has failed to recover around Rs15,000 crore in land dues from builders. It has only Rs1,000 crore in savings that will be spent on construction of metro projects, including the 30km Noida to Greater Noida and 6.8km City Centre to Sector 62 metro lines.

Had we lost the high court case, the authority would have faced a huge setback. Arranging the Rs10,000 crore would not have been easy amid the realty sector slowdown when the builders are failing to pay their land dues, said Mishra.

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The Gautam Budh Nagar district administration and police on Friday roped in the national disaster response force (NDRF) to conduct a search of the four-storey building that was gutted in a fire for more bodies.

Six employees of a factory that deals with the packaging of CFLs were burnt to death in a fire that engulfed the building in Noidas Sector 11 on Wednesday.

On Friday, the family of a company director, Sanjoy Das, identified his body by the help of a ring that he used to wear, according to a family friend, Atul Thakur, of Prateek Laurel apartment complex in Sector 120.

On the basis of photos in possession of his wife, rings in the picture and on the body are similar. The photos helped in identifying Das body. The family will cremate the body on Saturday, he said.

Dinesh Yadav, superintendent of police (city), said, Earlier, Dass wife was in a dilemma over identifying the body, but today, she came up to us with photos and identified Das body by the ring. One body is left to be identified. I suspect it to be of a trucker who was visiting the company.

Police said it will call the mans family.

Our teams had successfully searched the ground floor and the three floors above it till Thursday morning, but we could not comb the basement as it was filled with debris and water. The water used to douse the fire had filled the basement. We needed an expert team to comb the basement as our teams are not suited for this job, Yadav said.

Yadav on Thursday evening had written to the district magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar, NP Singh, seeking the help of NDRF.

The district magistrate asked the NDRF personnel to conduct a search in the basement to ascertain if there were any bodies there. The basement was being used to store electrical products.

A 35-member NDRF team from neighbouring Ghaziabad, along with the dog squad, cutter machines and specialised equipment reached the site at noon.

The team conducted a search operation in the basement for about seven hours. The operation was not easy because there is a large amount of debris and water inside the basement area. Till 7pm, the team did not find anything. However, our search operation will continue on Saturday as well, to cover all the portions of the basement, Rakesh Raka, head of Gautam Budh Nagar disaster management cell, said.

The NDRF team was supposed to search the site on Thursday, but their visit was delayed as the police, officials of the fire department and the administration were busy with state industrial development minister Satish Mahanas visit.

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The district tobacco control cell (DTCC) and other agencies involved in creating awareness against tobacco use are going by the mantra of nip it in the bud. DTCC, in association with an NGO, has conducted campaigns in 34 schools, students of which took a no-tobacco pledge.

Over 100 schools in the district are to be covered under the national tobacco control programme.

A workshop was organised on Wednesday by DTCC in association with Icancare (Innovative Cancer Care and Rehabilitation), an NGO, under the guidance of Dr Pawan Gupta, a cancer surgeon, who launched Save the Youth campaign, for a healthy and tobacco-free Gautam Budh Nagar.

Dr Gupta said, It has been seen that people take to tobacco at an early age, during schooling and in college, and then find it very difficult to quit. As per a survey, 5,500 youth start using tobacco and tobacco products every day in India and 2,200 die due to this, every day. This is an alarming situation. We are targeting schools as it will restrict the number of future smokers, he said.

Dr Gupta said the campaign aims to spread awareness and prevent people from taking to this habit. A comic booklet Jagrook Rahen Prarambh Na Karen (Beware of taking to the habit), with some interesting facts, has been made available for students class 6 and above. This school programme offers reading materials, a tobacco survey, a presentation on tobacco and a participation-cum-pledge certificate, he said.

The nodal officer for DTTC, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dr Bharat Bhushan, highlighted the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, (COTPA) 2003.

Dr Shweta Khurana, district consultant, DTCC, gave an audio-visual presentation on the national tobacco control programme. Dr Khurana said that besides conducting school programmes, 225 persons were penalised for unauthorised sale of tobacco and tobacco products, and around 2,000 daily wagers were counselled in 19 camps in the last year.

Sukriti Jain, senior programme officer, Voluntary Health Association of India, an NGO, gave a presentation on the enforcement mechanism on smokeless tobacco ban (twin packaging), surrogate ads and point-of-sale violations.

Chief medical officer (CMO), Gautam Budh Nagar, Dr Anurag Bhargava and additional CMO, Dr VK Dhaka, spoke about the ill-effects of using tobacco and tobacco products.

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Two separate incidents of alleged chain and mobile phone snatching were reported on Friday morning at Noidas sectors 50 and 34. Weapons were used in both the incidents  in one to threaten the victim, and in the other to fire in the air to keep people from giving chase.

In the first case, at 7.30am on Friday the gold chain and mobile phone of a senior citizen identified as Senapati was allegedly snatched by two bike-borne men when he was on his morning walk near Meghdootam park in Sector 50. The two also allegedly fired shots in the air when they were chased by some residents of nearby Hoshiyarpur village.

As soon as we received the information, we asked the chowki in-charge to reach the spot. However, the men had left by then. We are trying to nab them, said Bijender Singh Bhadana, station house officer, Sector 49 police station.

The police was informed about the shooting by the residents welfare association (RWA) of Sector 51.

We were shocked by the incident and many morning walkers approached us to complain about the shooting, said Sanjeev Kumar, general secretary, Sector 51 RWA.

Police claim the victim refused to lodge a formal complaint. We tried to find the victim, but he was terrified by the incident and left the spot. We have stationed our Police Control Room (PCR) van at the park for the safety of residents, said Bhadana.

In the other incident, reported from Sector 34, a Bihar-based doctor was allegedly robbed of his gold chain, gold ring and mobile phone near Manas Hospital by two bike-borne men.

Dr Anil Kumar, from Bihars Gopalganj, has been staying at a Sector 53 residents place for the past few days. According to the police, at 7.30am on Friday, he was on a morning walk near Manas Hospital at Sector 34 when he was apprehended by two men with countrymade pistols on an Apache bike. The two allegedly held him at gunpoint and robbed him of his valuables.

We have received the complaint and registered a case under Section 392 of the IPC. We are trying to nab the culprits, said Vinay Kumar, station house officer, Sector 24 police station.

In the light of the incidents, residents claimed that police security has fallen after the elections ended.

Till the election code of conduct was in place in Noida, there was adequate security. A PCR van was always stationed outside Meghdootam park. But today (on Friday), it was nowhere to be found. The polices response is appalling, said Sanjeev Kumar.

Police said security near parks has been increased in the wake of Fridays incidents.

We have also asked mobile vans to keep making trips of public parks in the morning and evening to ensure safety of residents, said Bhadana.

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Amritpal Singh, a PhD student in history, fought the elections of the Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) for the presidents post from Students for Society (SFS) in 2016. He was part of the protest against fee hike called by SFS and others on April 11 when stone-pelting took place. He took shelter in the university gurdwara and later surrendered. He was among the 53 students who were arrested and later released on bail. On Friday too, SFS called for a PU bandh.

Q. Could violence take place again on Friday?

We always believe in peaceful protest. We want to make students aware of what is happening. Last time on April 11, the protest had turned violent. It is up to the authorities to ensure peace, not us.

Q. Stone pelting has injured a number of cops. Do you justify this violence?

It was the police that instigated the students. Students were lathicharged, which is why they reacted. The violence happened from the other side. That is why this time too, it is up to the authorities to ensure peace.

Q. After April 11 violence, the joint action committee of students has fallen apart. Other student bodies are blaming you for violence. What is your take on it?

It is important to see that we all have different ideologies. The other student parties like National Students Union of India and Student Organisation of India are affiliated to Congress and Akali Dal, respectively. They are being run by their masters. They should have demanded that the case against us be taken back. They should have supported us rather than going diplomatic. I would ask whether they have any ideology.

Q. What will be the purpose of joint students action committee, which you have formed recently?

In the joint students action committee, we have All India Students Association (AISA), PSU Lalkar, Students Federation of India (SFI), Ambedkar Students Association, Panjab University Students Union (Evening dept) and Students for Society (SFS). Most of these are Left-oriented. We have not got together to get votes but there are specific goals for students welfare. We mobilise students on issues.

Q. Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher has also blamed you for violence. She said that you wanted to convert PU into Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). What is your take on it?

Kirron Kher has been reiterating what BJPs student wing ABVP says. She should know what is the standard of JNU. It is a top university. She speaks in the favour of RSS. They describe us as intellectual terrorists.

Q. What reaction have students given you after your release?

Students have supported us. They believe that stone pelting took place as we were lathicharged. But the PU authorities are working against us. Security guards have torn our posters. The students are being told not to join protest but focus on attendance. The record of attendance is being checked. They do not want us to spread our message.

Q. Some of your leaders are still absconding. Shouldnt they surrender?

Struggle is going on. The new students will join us. They have applied for anticipatory bail and they will get it soon. They do not have the need to surrender.

Q. Do you think you will be detained before Fridays protest?

Though I dont think so, if it happens, there are enough leaders to lead the protest.

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Canadian defence minister Harjit Singh Sajjan inaugurated the new Consulate General of Canada office in Chandigarh on Friday morning.

The new office is situated in the Elante office complex, which also houses the British Council. Earlier, the consulate office was in Sector 17.

New Canadian consulate office in the Elante office complex, Chandigarh. (Anil Dayal/HT Photo)

Officers briefed Sajjan, who is the first Punjab-born Sikh to hold the top defence job in a foreign land, regarding the various services that will be offered at the consulate. These include assistance to Canadians, visa services, service to help companies do business in Canada and it provides services to Canadian companies

It will also provide assistance to Canadian citizens travelling to, or who are residents of, India or Bhutan. Further, it will help people by guiding them about travelling to Canada and how to apply for a visa.

The Sajjan-Khattar meeting happens next door to Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh who has refused to meet the Canadian defence minister.  Ramesh Vinayak (@vinayak_ramesh) April 21, 2017

Sajjan will meet Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar later in the day before he flies to Mumbai.
The city could just well be emerging as a haven for women drug peddlers to ferry small quantities of contraband for a short distance, analysis of arrest made for possession of drug shows. Starting March 25, five women have been arrested for drug peddling in different cases. The latest in the chain being a 21-year-old receptionist at Hotel JW Marriot, Harkanwal Kaur, on Thursday.

The large margin --- a gram of heroin is reportedly procured for Rs 1,300 and sold for Rs 4,000 a gram to the end-user ---- means creating a long trail of suppliers is not really a hindrance to the masterminds.

Harkanwal, of Moga, was arrested by the SAS Nagar Police at a naka in Phase 6 carrying 10gm heroin. Putting up in Sector-12 in Chandigarh, police claim she was on her way to Mohali village to supply the drug. During initial questioning, she has admitted to procuring the drug from Chandigarh and selling it in SAS Nagar and Nayagaon. She has been remanded in judicial custody.

Must read | Chances are, a child you know is using drugs...

March 25: Two women held with 250-gm heroin from Nayagaon

Two common threads run through the arrests. One is women caught peddling drugs and second is the alleged involvement of three of the five into prostitution. On March 25, Rajwant Kaur and Simranjit Kaur, both aged 45, were arrested from Nayagaon with 250gm of drugs. They are accused of supplying contraband in Nayagaon as well as prostitution, according to police sources.

They also face two previous bookings for carrying contraband and are in judicial custody at Nabha Jail.

March 28: Nigerian woman held from Delhi

Police arrested 32-year-old Nigerian woman Helen from New Delhi, along with her boyfriend Newbooze Nigor on March 28. She is alleged to be the kingpin of a gang that supplied consignments in SAS Nagar for delivery.

April 18: Delhi woman held with 150-gm heroin

Monica (second name not known), of Delhi was nabbed from Nayagaon with 150-gram heroin on April 18. Police have charged her with prostitution and had been staying in SAS Nagar for five years.

End-users are Punjab, UT youngsters

Staff with the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) wing of the police that made the arrests said the arrests show that the drugs were ultimately meant for youngsters between 16-27 years in Punjab and Chandigarh.

Sources in the police also claim that these women, and other suppliers, of drugs used to get their fill from Nigerians. Heroin and synthetic drugs were mainly supplied and the SAS Nagar police have arrested eight Nigerians since March 29.

In all cases, the accused women have been booked under Sections 21/61/65 of the NDPS Act.

What police says

We want to nab conduits for supply into the interiors. Three Nigerians have been held over the past two months, said CIA inspector Atul Soni.

Hotel employee part of four-member gang

Harkanwal told the police during interrogation that she was introduced to drugs by her friends from abroad about three years ago. She first used it for self-consumption, before deciding to peddle it for easy money. Police said Harkanwal was part of a four-member gang and has named four male accomplices in Chandigarh and SAS Nagar. Her parents had died few years ago and used to stay with her friends. She had completed a course in computers and hotel management.

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Leprosy, which had been eliminated in Chandigarh years ago, is back with 128 new cases coming to the fore from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017, in the UT. The union territory is getting a fresh case of leprosy every third day, says district leprosy officer Dr Simrat Kaur.

Of these new cases, 121 are migrants, while seven are permanent residents of the city with nearly 70% of the those afflicted being males.

Leprosy, also known as Hansens disease, is a chronic infectious, but curable bacterial disease, that mainly affects the skin and the eyes. Leprosy is known to occur at all ages ranging from early infancy to very old age.

Must read | India accounts for 60% of total leprosy cases worldwide

From 2009 to 2012, the prevalence of leprosy was well under one for every 10,000 population, which is considered as elimination of the disease. In 2013, the rate crossed 1 per 10,000 people and it still stays over one according to the latest data for 2016-17, officials say.

Dr Kaur attributes the increasing prevalence of leprosy to the rising population of migrants from states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Explaining the rise in cases, officers handling the National Leprosy Education Programme (NLEP) in the city say that incubation period of the disease could be several years. Often the cases are detected very late, even a few years after one is afflicted.

The disease, which is curable and often attracts social ostracism because of ignorance, is mainly prevalent among the lower strata in the UT.

But one or two cases are also from the upper strata, says an officer.

Though the figures suggest there is a slight decline in the number of cases, Dr Kaur says the fall is marginal. The number of affected persons is high. Even the government of India is worried. The union health ministry has been funding annual surveys for the past couple of years.

Four clinics in Sectors 16, 32, PGI and Manimajra provide free leprosy treatment.

The doctors say that the disease is contagious only in the later stages and even then one dose of medicine can nearly eliminate the risk of infection.

Pointer to a trend

While 128 cases were reported in 2016-17, 136 and 142 cases were reported in 2015-16 and 2014-15. 144 cases were reported in 2013-14.

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Panjab University vice-chancellor, professor Arun Kumar Grover, has called for a special senate meeting to discuss the varsity's financial crisis on May 7. The issue of fee hike could be discussed during the meeting. Grover has also urged PU Campus Students Council (PUCSC) president Nishant Kaushal to give up his indefinite hunger strike. It was Kaushal who had made the senators call for the senate meeting.

The issue of additional grant pursuant to submissions of university filed in the Punjab and Haryana high court and Supreme Court of India is on agenda. All the senate members have been intimated of this meeting and the relevant documents of the court proceedings have been disseminated to them.

Prof Chaman Lal, prof Ronki Ram, Rabinder Nath Sharma, DPS Randhawa, assistant prof Ajay Ranga, Jagdish Chander Mehta, Anu Chatrath are the signatories among others, said Kaushal.

Prof Chaman Lal, PU fellow, who was earlier part of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), appealed that fee hike be considered afresh as students protests were spreading.

The payment of 30.5 crore was to be made to the PU, out of which 21.7 crore has been made. The balance payment of 8.8 crore, which was to be made, has been stayed against the high courts order, said PU in a press statement.

Also the core committee of senators, constituted to meet the chief minister of Punjab and Union minister HRD, which was earlier to meet on April 12, has now been rescheduled to meet on April 27. The core committee consists of the following members: V-C Arun Kumar Grover, former V-C RP Bambah, UT MP Kirron Kher, and senators Satya Pal Jain, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Sanjay Tandon, professor Promila Pathak, Deepak Kaushik, Gurdeep Sharma, professor Navdeep Goyal and professor Ronki Ram.

Invite PU to sort out crisis: MHRD to UGC

Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has asked University Grants Commission (UGC) to hold meeting with Panjab University (PU) to sort out its financial crisis.

PU vice-chancellor professor Arun Kumar Grover confirmed the development. The MHRD has directed the UGC to urgently conduct a meeting with the V-C, so that incongruity with respect to expenditure and revenue plan submitted by PU is resolved and a way forward regarding funding issue is arrived at. The ministry has sought a report from UGC after conducting the meeting latest by April 27.

Notably, the UGC had challenged the order of Punjab and Haryana high court dated January 19 before the apex court where it was ordered to release an additional amount of 30.5 crore to PU, out of which 21 crore had been paid to PU. MHRD is also a respondent in the case apart from PU.

The PU had earlier submitted a feasible revenue and expenditure plan before the UGC on January 13. The PU pointed out it would have a deficit of 244.3 crore in 2017-18, 253.4 crore in 2018-19, 277.7 crore in 2019-20, 296.6 crore in 2020-21 and 318 crore in 2021-22.

But the UGC observed,  the university has not committed to remove revenue deficit over a period of 3 years. The revenue deficit is projected to be increasing from 217.73 crore to 318.06 crore in the next five years." It added that the PU had not given any commitment regarding blanket ban on filling of any kind of posts.

Points of disagreement between UGC and PU

UGC wants a blanket ban on any new appointments, including temporary, which the PU has been opposing. UGC wants ceiling on grant to PU, which it has been opposing. UGC wants ratio of teaching and non-teaching staff to be 1 : 1 on the pattern of central universities, which PU has been opposing as it is an affiliating university. UGC wants PU to decrease the deficit, but it has been increasing.
Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modis support in allowing the state government to sell its surplus power to Pakistan or Nepal. The CM had an hour-long meeting with PM in New Delhi.

Amarinder also sought the Centres support in making agriculture more sustainable for the farmers in the state by putting in place a deficiency price payment mechanism to encourage a shift to non-paddy cultivation, media adviser to CM Raveen Thukral said.

Pointing to the 1,000-MW surplus power availability in Punjab after meeting its demand, the CM said sale of power to neighbouring Pakistan or Nepal would help Punjab generate additional revenues.

He said Punjab shares border with Pakistan and its Goindwal Sahib thermal power plant is situated close to the international border.

Referring to the plight of the states farmers, the chief minister stressed the need for diversification of farming away from paddy, helping the farmers to opt for growing maize. He also demanded higher compensation for farmers from the current Rs 10,000 per acre per annum.

Amarinder also expressed concern over reports of the ongoing efforts to revive the package of concessions for the neighbouring States of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, and urged Modi to intervene to ensure that no such special package is given at the cost of Punjab or a special package be given to the state also.

CM MEETS IT MINISTER

Union minister for law and justice and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday invited Punjab to be a part of the digital India revolution and suggested several ways for the state to raise the bar of development and generate employment.
I did not even get time to grieve after my wife died of breast cancer in September last year. I was too busy fighting for my daughter, Sarita, whose husband left her, says Jalandhar resident Jai Gopal, a lump forming in his throat.

For the 29-year-old girl, the cancer has stayed on, in their marriage. Her husband Saurabh Dharna, who works at a casino in Melbourne, now wants to have nothing to do with her.

The two had tied the knot in May 2015. After learning about my mothers illness, he got me medically examined thrice in Amritsar and once in Jalandhar. Following her death, he accompanied me to India but left after 20 days. He later told me I could also get cancer someday, says Sarita.

Though her family filed a case at the NRI cell in Jalandhar, there has been no hearing so far.

Jai Gopal was among the few parents who accompanied their daughters to a national seminar on NRI marriages, co-hosted by the National Commission for Women and Punjab State Women Commission, in Chandigarh on Thursday.

For others like Phagwara farmer Kulwinder Singh, the wait for their daughters visa papers culminated in divorce. They call daughters nanhi chaan in Punjab, but thats about it. I had to approach the Punjab and Haryana high court to procure bail for my child, Rajwinder, after she was arrested for refusing to vacate her husbands house, he says.

Sarita Dharna with her father Jai Gopal from Jalandher . (Anil dayal/HT Photo)

The 28-year-old woman says her husband, Pradeep Singh, returned to the United States a week into their marriage in 2013. He returned after over two years to buy a house in Phagwara, and things seemed fine even then. After a few months, I was still staying in the Phagwara house when he sent the divorce papers along. A few days later, he sent some goons over to make me vacate the property. I approached the local station house officer, who told me to take Rs 8 lakh as compensation and leave the house. I stayed put, and eventually wound up spending four days behind bars on false charges of cheating, stealing and criminal trespass, recalls Rajwinder.

However, not all the daughters are lucky enough to have such understanding parents. Manpreet Kaur (28), for instance, had to deal with familial opposition before taking the fight to her husband.

My husband, Tajvir Singh, lives in the US, she relates. He went back after our marriage in January last year and returned in June. We went touring Maldives and Sri Lanka, but he simply wouldnt consummate the wedding. When I questioned his behaviour, he sent me divorce papers in March. When I told my father about this, he reprimanded me for questioning my husband. He said I should have thought about my younger siblings first.

Ironically, deserted wives are the ones who face social stigma, and even being in a position of power gives them little leverage. One of the women, who identified herself as an assistant sub-inspector, claims she had to approach the inspector general of police to get an FIR filed against the groom and his family.

Satwinder Kaur from Toosa, Ludhiana, during a seminar in Chandigarh on Thursday. (Anil Dayal/HT Photo)

And then there are men who desert their wives after procuring foreign visas. Satwinder Kaur, a 38-year-old woman from Ludhiana, says her husband left for Ukraine after proclaiming that she was incapable of bearing a child. My father retired from the Army, and my brother is posted on the China border. If the daughters and sisters of Armymen cannot get justice, who can? she asks.

Another woman from Hoshiarpur says she will always be haunted by the holiday wife tag. Identifying her husband as a train driver in the UK, the 30-year-old says: After we tied the knot in 2014, he went back. Later, my husband told me over the phone that he already has a wife and two children  aged 20 and 12  in the UK, and he had only come to Punjab on holiday.

Its with tears in her eyes that the woman describes the sad situation her family is in. I lost my mother to cancer in February this year, and my father is too old. I worked mornings in a school and nights at a hospital to pay for her treatment. I filed a case against my husband two years ago, but the hearings keep getting postponed. I cant be certain if even my own lawyer is on my side, she says.

Punjab women commission chairperson Paramjit Kaur Landran admits that abandoned wives can grow old fighting such cases. But it is not easy to get NRI grooms extradited. An NRI commission has been set up to help them obtain legal aid. Our role is to counsel them to start a new life, Landran says.

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Former superintendent of police, Gurdaspur, Salwinder Singh surrendered in the court of chief judicial magistrate Mohit Bansal here on Thursday.

He was wanted by the police in a case registered on the statement of one Rajnish Kumar of Gurdaspur at the Gurdaspur city police station under Sections 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Read more | Gurdaspur ex-SP Salwinder booked for sexual assault on 7 constables

Read more | Gurdaspur SP less than truthful during questioning, suspects NIA

The court sent him to judicial custody till May 4.

Meanwhile, Gurdaspur central jail authorities shifted him to Amritsar central jail.

Salwinder courted controversy after reports that he was kidnapped by Pakistani armed terrorists before they attacked the Pathankot airbase on January 1 in 2016. But he was let off along with his two companions.

Salwinder is also accused of taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 from the wife of the complainant Rajnish Kumar and sexually abusing her for extending favour to him in a case.
Baahubali actor Sathyaraj on Friday expressed wholehearted regret over his Cauvery dispute remarks, while appealing for the smooth release of the second part of the SS Rajamouli-directed film in Karnataka next week.

The actor, who plays the role of Kattappa in the movie, clarified that he was not against Kannada people.

This statement comes following the demands of an apology from Sathyaraj by pro-Kannada outfits, who had threatened to stall the release of the film in the state.

In a video released to the media, Sathyaraj read out a statement, saying he had made the remarks nine years ago at a protest held by the Tamil film industry against the attack on Tamils in Karnataka over the Cauvery dispute.

I had spoken something nine years ago at the meeting which has been viewed on YouTube. And since they feel hurt over some of the words spoken by me, I express my wholehearted regret to them (Kannada people) for those words, he said.

Sathyaraj said he did not want the hard work of the films team go to waste and appealed for allowing its release in Karnataka.

I am a small actor in a mega film called Baahubali. I dont want the efforts of many people to go to waste. Not just that, I have the added responsibility of ensuring exhibitors in Karnataka, who have bought (screening rights of) Baahubali 2, are not affected, he said in what he termed as an explanation to Tamil people and activists.

An atheist, known for his pro-Tamil views, Sathyaraj insisted that he will continue to voice support for matters concerning Tamils including the Cauvery dispute and the Eelam issue in Sri Lanka.

The actor, sporting a black T-shirt synonymous with the states progressive movement led by rationalist leader, late EV Ramasamy Periyar, said he was not against Kannada people.

In a message to producers and filmmakers, he said those who fear problems in the future by casting him in their films may not do so and avoid facing losses.

Because I take more pride in living and dying as a Tamil without any superstition than living and dying as an actor, he added.

He also extended his thanks to director SS Rajamouli, the films producers, various professional bodies of Tamil cinema including an artistes association and his well-wishers for tolerating the difficulties caused by me.

Kannada Okoota, an umbrella organisation of Kannada bodies, has announced Bengaluru Bandh on April 28, the date of release of the film, to protest his remarks.

The remarks made by Sathyaraj against Kannadigas during the Cauvery row (a few years ago) had crossed limits of decency. We will not allow the film to be released under any circumstances, Vatal Nagaraj, who heads Kannada Okoota, had said.

An appeal to all the Kannada friends... pic.twitter.com/5rJWMixnZF  rajamouli ss (@ssrajamouli) April 20, 2017

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A controversy over a Baahubali actor Sathyarajs alleged anti-Kannada comment nine years ago threatens to stall the release of the second edition of the epic fantasy film by SS Rajamouli in Karnataka next week with fringe groups on Thursday insisting on an apology from him.

The controversy had broken out after a video in which actor Sathyaraj made the alleged anti-Kannada comments in the context of the Cauvery river water row surfaced a fortnight back and went viral. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are locked in a dispute over sharing of Cauvery waters.

Director SS Rajamouli sought to distance himself and his Baahubali 2 team from the comments that have led to a protest in Karnataka against the films release. He said the filmmakers were in no way related to the remarks.

He appealed to the activists of some Kannada fringe groups not to stall the release of the film.

An appeal to all the Kannada friends... pic.twitter.com/5rJWMixnZF  rajamouli ss (@ssrajamouli) April 20, 2017

But the appeal, made in Kannada, failed to pacify the Kannada outfits, who have called for a Bengaluru Bandh on April 28, the date of the release of the much-anticipated film, as they insisted on an apology by Sathyaraj, who plays a key character.

...We are not against the film or Rajamouli. Until Sathyaraj tenders unconditional apology, our protest will continue, Vatal Nagaraj, who heads Kannada Okoota, an umbrella organisation of Kannada bodies, said, in response to Rajamoulis appeal.

There will be a Bengaluru Bandh on April 28 and also there will be protests across the state. We cant accept anything else other than apology by Sathyaraj.

Nagaraj added that the actor compared Kannadigas to dogs. In his 2008 speech, Sathyaraj was quoted in the media as saying, Tamils should not be like a tree which stands silently as any dog comes and urinates on it.

Sathyaraj, who plays the role of Kattappa in the multi- lingual drama, made the alleged anti-Kannada comments during the Cauvery row between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka about nine years ago. Sathyaraj is from Tamil Nadu.

Rajamouli said the team was unaware of the actors remarks till it saw a video on a social media site.

The producer and I want to clarify on the issue... The comments must have pained some of you but we dont have any relation to it. Those were (his) personal comments and were made some nine years ago, the director said in a video message on his official Twitter page.

He also pointed out that many of Sathyarajs films have been released since then, including the 2015 film Baahubali.

The way you accepted and appreciated Baahubali Part I, I request you to do the same for Part II... Sathyaraj is neither the director nor the producer of this movie. He is one of the many artistes associated with this film.

If you stall the release of the film, it may not affect him (Sathyaraj) that much. But it is not right to show your anger on this film for the comments made by him, he said.

The director said Sathyaraj has been updated about the situation but beyond that the team could not do much.

I request you not to involve us in this matter as it is nowhere connected to us. We want your affection to continue, he said.

The films producer, Shobu Yarlagadda, had also expressed the hope that the issue would be resolved amicably.

This is a very sensitive issue, and I dont want to comment much on it. The only thing I want to say is -- we will resolve the issue amicably in the interest of all concerned, he had said.

With HT inputs

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Around 500 Baloch rebel militants on Friday surrendered to Pakistans government as Islamabad pursues its development agenda linked to the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the southwest province.

Some 487 militants from four Baloch rebel organisations, including at least eight senior commanders, laid down their arms at an official ceremony in Quetta city.

The militants pledged their allegiance to the state of Pakistan at the ceremony, which was also attended by the provincial chief minister.

A Baloch militant (L) hands over his weapon and surrenders to Baluchistan province Chief Minister Sardar Sanaullah Khan Zehri (R) in Quetta on April 21, 2017. (AFP)

Pakistan has been battling insurgency in mineral-rich Balochistan since 2004, with hundreds of soldiers and militants killed in the fighting.

A greater push towards peace and development by Pakistani authorities, including starting work on roads and infrastructure under the Chinese-assisted CPEC project -- which connects Balochistans deep sea port Gwadar to China -- has reduced the violence considerably.

These militants had killed my own son and brother but I have forgiven them. The state of Pakistan also forgives them and I welcome them to be part of Balochistans CPEC project, said Balochistan chief minister Sanaullah Zehri at the ceremony.

We will arrange employment for you. Nobody will be allowed to destroy peace in the province, he said.

Pakistani security officials inspect weapons after they were handed over by Baloch militants when they surrendered to Pakistani security forces in Quetta. (AFP Photo)

Those who surrendered were members of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Republican Army (BRA), United Baloch Army and Lashkar-e-Balochistan.

We were misled by Brahumdagh Bugti. We have now come to know that he works for India. Why should we fight in our own country for another country, said Sarbaz Baloch, former spokesman of BRA, who has been fighting for 15 years.

Bugti is an exiled Baloch leader based in Europe who has applied for asylum in India.

Baluchistan is the largest of Pakistans four provinces, but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.
US President Donald Trump has accused Iran of not living up to the spirit of the nuclear deal signed in 2015 under the Obama administration and termed the agreement as terrible and badly negotiated.

They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that, Trump told reporters at a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni yesterday. I think they (Iranians) are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed. It was a terrible agreement. It shouldnt have been signed.

The US President said his administration was analysing the agreement signed under former president Barack Obama very, very carefully and would take a decision on it soon.

We are analysing it very, very carefully and well have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future. But Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement. They have to do that. We will see what happens, Trump said.

It shouldnt have been negotiated the way it was negotiated. Im all for agreements, but that was a bad one, as bad as Ive ever seen negotiated, he added.

Trumps barbs come a day after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the US has started a review of the international nuclear agreement with Iran.

Meanwhile, Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said that the US will not allow Iran to mass produce intercontinental ballistic missiles.

We are not going to allow the Iranians, now that weve already had a deal where (the Obama administration) gave up all the leverage up front in terms of the sanctions, which was billions in relief, to go forward and mass produce ICBMs so that when we are at the end of the agreement...and we lift everything...they...have a turnkey operation for ICBMs, Royce told CNN in an interview.
Nepal was forced to scale down its first military exercise with China because of purported pressure from India, Chinese state media reported on Friday.

It was said the two countries initially planned to hold a battalion-scale military exercise. However, facing a strong opposition from India, Nepal had to compress the size of the military exercise and change the venue to a military school, state-run Global Times tabloid reported.

The exercise, code-named Sagarmatha Friendship 2017, began on April 16.

For Nepal, the joint military exercise has a deeper significance. For starters, it shows that Nepal moves forward in its pursuit of a balanced diplomacy among major powers, said the piece in the newspaper that often publishes articles critical of India.

Since the 1990s, balanced diplomacy has become the basic principle of Nepal's foreign strategy, which is established based on Nepal's nationalism and anti-Indian sentiment, it said.

Holding joint military exercises with China can contribute to deterring ethnic separatism in Nepal, the article added.

China, according to reports, has expressed its backing for Nepal's new Constitution that was strongly opposed by Madhesi groups because of fears that it marginalised their political and constitutional rights.

It is a normal development for China to hold a military exercise with Nepal as Nepal is China's friendly neighbour. There are many countries which have held joint military exercises, including India, with China. South Asia is a terrorism-prone region. Now that China and Nepal have developed closer economic relations, Nepal hopes to join China's Belt and Road initiative, for which regional security and stability is a necessity, the article said.

Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is in India on her first overseas tour. She arrived on a five-day trip on April 17.
Former US president Barack Obama is ending his self-imposed exile from public life with a series of events starting with one in Chicago on Monday, but aides tamped down expectations he will confront successor Donald Trump on their many differences.

Trump wants to kill Obamas legacy legislation on healthcare, routinely criticises him on Syria and the Iran nuclear deal and, in a stream of tweets, accused his predecessor of ordering surveillance on him and called him a bad (or sick) guy.

Obama has not said a word yet. Conceding the limelight to his successor, he withdrew from public life as he had said he would after leaving office. He went on a vacation with family and friends Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey and others.

But now the former president is back. His office announced on Friday he was travelling to his adopted hometown of Chicago on Monday for a conversation on community organising and civic engagement with young leaders at the University of Chicago.

He has a string of events coming up thereafter  including paid speeches  going up to a a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in May, where he will be joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to The New York Times.

His public appearances and speeches will be scoured for overt and covert swipes at his successor, especially by Democrats who are looking for leadership in a post-Obama America and are eager for someone to take on Trump.

Trump and Obama have had a testy relationship marked by years of nasty swipes and broadsides  Trump was a leading member of the group of Americans who flogged the false notion that Obama was not born in the United States.

And Obama had famously mocked Trump at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association as the real estate tycoon had looked on with a grim face from the audience; he would later claim he had no problems being mocked.

But Trump said after their first meeting after elections, he actually liked Obama and later said they spoke several times in the days running up to his inauguration. He held on to that version for a while after moving into the White House.

And then he fired off those tweets.

Obama, who remains of the firm opinion that the country can have only one president, is not expected to confront Trump. Not directly, the New York Times said, citing those closest to the former president, who is working out of a DC office.

The Obama advisers were also reported to have said they believed a public feud with Trump would give the current president the high-profile political foil he wants to further energize his conservative supporters.

Former presidents are known to come under pressure from supporters and others to engage their successors, especially on issues important to them. Some are known to have given in, others dont. Obama will be closely watched.
The reprieve given to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by Pakistans Supreme Court has not only given the ruling PML-N party a breather but also an edge for the forthcoming general election.

The PML-N now has enough time to use official machinery and set the stage ahead of the 2018 polls, which possibly it will now call for by the end of the year.

Opposition parties have seen Thursdays Supreme Court order for a fresh investigation into corruption allegations against Sharif as a setback to their electoral plans. The court ordered the creation of a joint investigation team to probe allegations linked to the Panama Papers leaks within two months.

Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party was hoping for Sharif to step down and for some sort of interim set-up to be put in place. Historically, the chances of an electoral upset become brighter in such a situation. Sadly for Khans party, this is not about to happen.

But what is striking about the judgment was that the two non-Punjabi judges in the five-member bench  one being a Sindhi and the other a Seraiki  had ruled that Sharif should step down. This reflects the growing resentment in different circles with the Punjab-centric federal government.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif looks out the window of his plane after attending a ceremony to inaugurate a motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad in February 2017. (Reuters)

Analysts said that while a two-month breather has been obtained, it remains to be seen whether Sharif will actually be sent home after the joint investigation team  which will include representatives from the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence  concludes its investigations.

The general view in Pakistan is that this will not happen and the only objective of the exercise has been to keep the Sharif government on the defensive.

The establishment continues to challenge the democratic government so that it remains on edge, said analyst and journalist Husain Naqi. It is part of the power struggle that has continued throughout Sharifs tenure.

It is this struggle that Sharif needs to focus on, say observers. Despite nearly a decade of democratic government, the establishment, which includes the all powerful army, jockeys for positions and power.

The verdict on Thursday can be considered a small victory for not just the PML-N but for democracy in Pakistan, some quarters believe. But the bigger victory, they say, is when a mainstream party wins the elections in 2018. That will strengthen the democratic disposition in the country for the years to come.
Taliban gunmen wearing Afghan military uniforms launched an attack on an army base in northern Afghanistan Friday killing more than 50 soldiers, officials said.

Afghan commandos were deployed during the attack which lasted several hours and targeted soldiers as they attended mosque and ate a meal.

Two of the ten attackers blew themselves up while seven were killed and one was detained.

More than 50 Afghan soldiers have been killed in a Taliban attack on their base near the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a US military spokesman told AFP.

US General John Nicholson, commander of NATOs Resolute Support operation, said in a separate statement that the attack targeted soldiers at prayer in a mosque and others in a dining facility of the 209th Corps of the Afghan army.

The general, who did not give a toll, praised the Afghan commandos who brought the atrocity to an end.

#AFG At least 61 people killed& 51 injured in complex attack against 209 Shaheen Corps, a military source tells me.  BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) April 21, 2017

The US has around 8,400 troops in the country with about another 5,000 from NATO allies assisting a much larger Afghan force in the war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

Nicholson in February told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that he needed a few thousand more troops to help train and assist the Afghan forces.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Dawlat Waziri said gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms had launched the assault on the army compound on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province.

In total, there were 10 attackers involved in the attack on the Afghan army corps. Seven of them were killed, two blew themselves up, and one was detained by Afghan forces, Waziri told AFP.

The attack began at around 2 pm (0930 GMT) and was over by early evening, he said.

Taliban spring offensive

The Afghan defence ministry gave an initial toll of eight soldiers killed and 11 wounded. Afghan officials tend to play down the toll from jihadist attacks.

Several military helicopters hovered over the site during the attack and ambulances evacuated the bodies of the victims, an AFP correspondent said.

In a statement the Taliban claimed responsibility for the operation.

The Taliban are preparing to launch their traditional spring offensive, although the lull in the fighting season was only partial this year.

The last major attack against a military site was in early March, a coordinated hours-long assault on the countrys main military hospital in Kabul.

Officials said around 50 people were killed in that attack, though credible sources said it was more than double that.

That operation was claimed by the Islamic State group.

US-led NATO troops have been at war in Afghanistan since 2001, after the ousting of the Taliban regime for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Efforts to negotiate a lasting peace settlement between Kabul and the Taliban have repeatedly fallen through.

More than a third of the country is beyond the control of the Afghan government and many regions are fiercely contested by various groups.

Earlier this month the US military dropped its GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, dubbed the Mother of All Bombs, in combat for the first time, killing 96 jihadists in IS hideouts in eastern Afghanistan.

The area has not been reopened to civilians since the bombing.

The attack triggered global shockwaves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered as big a threat as the resurgent Taliban.
The United States disclosed on Friday a secret military ground operation that killed an Islamic State operative seen as a close associate of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and linked to an attack on a Turkish nightclub that left 39 people dead.

Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, who was believed to be from Uzbekistan, was killed during the ground assault near Mayadin, Syria, on April 6, said Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for the U.S. militarys Central Command.

It was a ground operation. I think thats all were willing to say about that, Thomas said, declining further comment. He specified that Uzbeki did not die in an airstrike.

Thomas said Uzbeki helped facilitate the attack on the exclusive Istanbul nightclub Reina in Istanbul on New Years Eve. Islamic State claimed credit for the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

The attacker opened fire with an automatic rifle, throwing stun grenades to allow himself to reload and shooting the wounded on the ground. Among those killed in the attack were Turks and visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada.

We have clearly linked him with the New Years Eve Istanbul bombing, Thomas said.
The United States is reported to have prepared charges to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets, who has been living in the London embassy of Ecuador for at least four years.

While the CNN said, citing unidentified officials, the charges had been prepared, other media outlets said discussions were still on and no decision had been reached.

Asked at a news conference, attorney general Jeff Sessions said on Thursday that Assanges arrest was a priority. We have already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail, he added.

This development marks a significant departure from US President Donald Trumps own views on WikiLeaks. During the election campaign he had famously said he loved the website, which was then releasing embarrassing details from the campaign of his Democratic party rival Hillary Clinton.

But his administration has taken a different track.

CIA director Mike Pompeo said recently, WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service.

He had added: It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is  a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.

Now reports come of US preparing charges against Assange, whose lawyer, however, has said they have not heard yet from US authorities. They have been unwilling to have any discussion at all, despite our repeated requests that they let us know what Mr Assanges status is in any pending investigations, Barry Pollack told CNN.

Possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act, the Washington Post said, though any charges would need approval from high-ranking officials in the justice department.

The move comes after WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIAs cyber espionage tools for breaking into computers, cellphones and even smart TVs.

It previously published 250,000 state department cables and embarrassed the US military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Oct. 23, 1961, the commander of the Thirteenth Air Force ordered the RF-101Cs of Task Force Pipe Stem to fly a reconnaissance mission over Tchephone airfield in Laos to confirm reports of a North Vietnamese and Soviet presence. The mission provided highly detailed imagery of the airfield and surrounding area. The pictures confirmed the presence of North Vietnamese troops and caught Soviet-built Ilyushin I1-14 transport planes parachuting supplies to the troops below.

Once shown the images from the first and later missions, President John F. Kennedy ordered an expanded reconnaissance effort, but the International Control Commission assigned to monitor the 1956 Geneva Accords objected to the planes presence in South Vietnam and missions over Laos. The aircraft were withdrawn to their Kadena, Okinawa, home base on Nov. 21, 1961, exactly one month after their first mission.

Despite its short duration, Task Force Pipe Stem demonstrated the value of aerial reconnaissance and marked the RF-101Cs introduction to what would become a 10-year mission in Indochina.

The planes origins can be traced to 1946 Army Air Force requirement for a long-range jet fighter to accompany its strategic bombers. McDonnell Aircraft Corp. added more powerful engines, greater fuel capacity and an expanded airframe. A single-seat aerial reconnaissance variant became the RF-101A. All armament was removed and replaced by a camera suite derived from one developed for the Navy. The RF-101A was the only recon aircraft equipped for both drogue-and-probe and boom aerial refueling. The fighters radar navigation system was removed and a radar altimeter added for low-level flight operations. The Tactical Air Command had McDonnell add another UHF radio and two wing-loaded electronic countermeasure pods.

The resulting aircraft became the RF-101C in October 1956, and by 1959 it had replaced all RF-84As in the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, equipping the 14th and 45th Tactical Reconnaissance squadrons.

Although its lack of navigation radar precluded the RF-101C from becoming an all-weather aircraft, later camera upgrades enabled it to conduct night missions. Achieving many firsts as a general aerial recon platform (including discovery of North Vietnamese troops in Laos), the plane also provided electronic countermeasure support to Republic F-105D Thunderchief strikes in 1965 and conducted battle damage assessment missions throughout Operation Rolling Thunder. Ten were lost over South Vietnam and Laos and 38 over North Vietnam. The last RF-101Cs were withdrawn from Indochina in November 1970 to serve with Air National Guard units until 1982 and allied air forces until 1984.

McDonnell RF-101C Voodoo Crew: 1 Wingspan: 39.7 ft. Length: 89.3 ft. Max. speed: Mach 1.3 at 35,000 ft. Max. range: 2,435 miles Max. altitude: 51,450 ft.

First published in Vietnam Magazines June 2016 issue. Subscribe here!
On July 26, 1968, the North Vietnamese fired two SA-2 surface-to-air missiles at SR-71A No. 976. Neither crewman saw the SAMs detonate about 2 miles behind the supersonic Blackbird, whose crews called it Habu, after the deadly pit viper in Okinawa, Japan. No missile in the world came as close as the North Vietnamese SAM did to catching a Blackbird.

The Lockheed SR-71 and its A-12 predecessor derived from the CIAs 1956 Rainbow Study initiated in recognition of the Lockheed U-2 spy planes vulnerability to Soviet SAMs. The study stated that a plane capable of surviving SAM systems must have a small radar cross-section, use radar-absorptive materials, operate above 80,000 feet and fly at supersonic speeds. Those requirements far exceeded the aviation and engine technology of the time.

On Aug. 20, 1959, the CIA selected a Lockheed design conceived by the companys Advanced Development Department, aka the Skunk Works, headed by engineer Kelly Johnson. Virtually every aspect of the aircraft had to be developed from scratch. Problems with the Pratt and Whitney J-58 engines delayed the initial A-12 flight until Jan. 15, 1963.

The Air Forces two-seat version, the SR-71, first flew on Dec. 22, 1964. It included a backseat reconnaissance systems officer to operate its electronic surveillance systems, electronic countermeasures equipment, better cameras and ground-mapping radar.

The SR-71 began to replace the CIAs A-12s at Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa in March 1968 and flew its first mission over North Vietnam on March 21. During the next seven years, Kadena-based SR-71s flew more than 200 missions over North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Only two were lost, and that was because of mechanical failure. The Blackbirds provided the best imagery of the Son Tay prisoner of war camp, supported B-52 raids by jamming enemy radar and conducted sonic booms over the Hanoi Hilton POW camp to bolster morale and facilitate the prisoners intelligence activities.

The SR-71, with upgrades, served the Air Force from 1967 to 1998 and was its only warplane never to suffer a combat loss. Virtually everything about it was a first: the stealth features, computer-assisted avionics, inertial navigation system and engines. The Blackbirds longevity and unequaled combat record marks it as the 20th centurys most advanced high-performance aircraft.

First published in Vietnam Magazines August 2016 issue.
The Soviet-made PK general purpose machine gunnever as widely employed as the ubiquitous the Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle and RPD light machine gunbegan to replace the Soviets DP light machine gun in the North Vietnamese Army in late 1965. The guns open-bolt, gas-operated firing mechanism, which facilitated cooling and prevented cooking off during extended engagements, was based on the AK-47 design. The PKs rear sight, however, differs from that of the assault rifle by having a slight adjustment forward of the hinge.

Cheap to manufacture, easy to maintain and extremely robust and reliable, the PK (short for Pulemyot Kalashnikova, or Kalashnikovs machine gun) has little recoil or barrel climb when firing. The belt feed and ejection ports have spring-loaded dust covers so the openings are exposed only when required. The gun also features a quick change barrel with a carrying handle that enables gunners to swap barrels rapidly.

At 20 pounds with its bipod stabilizing legs, the PK is slightly lighter than the American M60 machine gun. However, its looser construction, done to reduce sensitive to debris, makes the NVA weapon less accurate. It can also used with a 17-pound tripod or mounted on vehicles and small riverine craft.

The PKs ammunition comes in 25-round belts that can be linked together using the attached coiling wires to provide additional rounds. The ammo belt can also be drawn from a 100-round rectangular box attached under the gun, which feeds from the right and ejects the cartridges out the left.

The PK fired a more powerful cartridge than the AK-47 or RPD did. The North Vietnamese used it in situations where the infantrys AK-47/RPD firepower needed reinforcement. For most combat missions, however, the combination of AK-47/RPD guns and rocket-propelled grenades was considered sufficient.

The PK was most often used to cover a units withdrawal or teamed with RPGs and light mortars against enemy strongpoints or small unit concentrations. The PK saw widespread use in NVAs final offensives in South Vietnam and its wars with Cambodia and China. It has remained in front-line service to this day.

First published in Vietnam Magazines December 2016 issue.
The San Antonio Rose II, steel propellers slashing the skies above the Celebes Sea, was hurtling toward hell at 200 miles an hour. The B-17 was leading a flight of 10 B-25s and two other Flying Fortresses, and had just reached the palm-fringed coast of Mindanao when a wall of black cumulus clouds suddenly appeared, towering to 20,000 feet and seeming to bar any approach to the southern Philippine island.

None of the pilots thought of throttling back. Not this close. Not with Ralph Royce, an unflappable aviator who had built his career on long flights under less-than-ideal conditions, personally commanding the mission. Navigators hastily plotted course corrections and the bombers proceeded to their destination: a secret military airfield in the highlands of northern Mindanao. As Royces bomber banked to bypass the rumbling tropical thunderheads, the 51-year-old brigadier general and the planes ranking passenger calmly bit into a chocolate bar and flipped to the next page of his book, The Worlds Greatest Adventure Stories.

The storm, not to mention Royces choice of reading material, was apropos. It was Saturday, April 11, 1942, the conclusion of Americas darkest, most turbulent week of the war. Two days earlier, 75,000 American and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula had surrendered, the largest capitulation in U.S. military history. That devastating defeat was the latest in a staggering series of Allied setbacks in the Pacific stretching back to December 1941, and news of the surrender cast a pall over the nation. Never was the need for heroes greater.

In the days to come, Royce and his men flew into that void and executed the United Statess first large-scale offensive bombing mission of the war. Their sorties, originating deep behind enemy lines, inflicted significant physical and psychological damage upon Japanese forces occupying the Philippines. The crews also evacuated key military and civilian personnel from the doomed territory. And they employed death-defying, unconventional tactics, quite literally on the fly, that provided a blueprint for aerial victories that would turn the tide of war in the southwest Pacific. Yet due to a twist of timing, only days after the triumphant completion of their mission, their sensational, singular adventure story all but vanished from public consciousness.

The operation that would come to be known as the Royce Special Mission to the Philippines, or the Royce Raid, was conceived not by a young pilot or air officer, but by an old army cavalryman. In late March 1942, Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright, commander of the besieged troops on Bataan and Corregidor, had radioed a plea to General Douglas MacArthur for bombers to clear a path for supply ships blockaded in the Philippine Visayan Islands. MacArthur ordered the commander of the Australia-based Allied Air Forces in the southwest Pacific, Lieutenant General George H. Brett, to proceeddespite Bretts protestations that such a mission was impossible.

As if the distance wasnt daunting enough4,000 miles of enemy-controlled skies and seas separated Manila from Australias northernmost air base, at DarwinBretts command was paralyzed by the Pacific pandemic of defeatism. In the wake of Japans early conquests, a flood tide of refugee military personnel had inundated Australia. But there was little with which to arm them, especially the pilots. Aerial assets included Australian Wirraway trainers and Hudson bombers, and a handful of worn-out B-17s and P-40 fighters.

Brett had access to a pool of officers who could lead the mission, but given the circumstances there was really only one choice: Ralph Royce. The West Pointer had served with the 1st Aero Squadron in the 1916 Mexican Punitive Expedition and in World War I, when he received the French Croix de Guerre for flying the squadrons first reconnaissance mission over enemy lines. In January 1930, Royce shepherded the 1st Pursuit Group on a long-distance test flight through freezing temperatures from Michigan to Washington state that earned him the prestigious Mackay Trophy. Four years later, Royce again braved blizzards and ice piloting a B-10 bomber on an experimental expedition led by then-Lieutenant Colonel Hap Arnold from Washington, D.C., to Alaska.

Yet for all of Royces experience with long journeys and long odds, he could not magically summon an air fleet. But there was someone in Australia who could.

As a teenager in Arkansas in 1917, Paul Gunn was caught running moonshine. A judge gave him a choice: go to jail or join the service. Gunn chose the navy, where a career as a chief petty officer and carrier pilot unlocked talents for mechanics and aviation that would become legend. By the time the United States entered World War II, Gunn, 42, had retired from the navy and was living in the Philippines with his family, managing Philippine Airlines. MacArthur called him out of retirement with a captains commission and orders to shuttle VIPs and supplies on the airlines twin-engine Beechcrafts.

When the capital city, Manila, fell to Japan in January 1942, Gunns wife and four children were interned. Japans defeat and his familys freedom became Gunns obsession. Called Pappy, the bourbon-loving flier was all over the southwest Pacific, swaggering around wearing a pair of shoulder-holstered .45 automatics and exhaling clouds of cigar smoke, exhorting superiors and civilians with salty language, and exhausting men half his age while pulling double duty uncrating and assembling A-24 Dauntless dive-bombers and flying combat missions on Java and supply runs to the embattled Philippinesone of which, on March 20, 1942, earned him a Distinguished Flying Cross.

After Gunns discovery of nearly two dozen Dutch B-25s, 3rd Bomb Group pilots took delivery of the bombers. (Australian War Memorial PO1818.003)

Fate guided Gunn on that flight, as it did days later on a moonlit night at a field in Melbourne, Australia. Gunn was scouting for machine shops that could service American transports when he made an exhilarating discovery: two dozen B-25 Mitchell medium bombers belonging to the Netherlands East Indies Air Force, which had no pilots to fly them. Gunn despised the Dutchhe felt American forces had done a disproportionate share of the fighting in Javaand the find left him furious. He had recently arranged a transfer to the 3rd Bombardment Group, which was still awaiting delivery of aircraft from the United States, so he flew 1,500 miles from Melbourne to the groups base at Charters Towers airdrome in north Queensland and marched straight to the office of his commanding officer, the 6-foot-6 Colonel John Big Jim Davies.

Jim, I just saw 24 of the prettiest B-25s you would ever want to see, Gunn said.

Davies was frustrated with his planeless outfits inability to fight in the Philippines. But when Gunn suggested they grab the B-25s, he objected. A military court could call that theft.

Goddamit, Jim, the planes have been sitting there for two weeks, Gunn barked back.I want you to get off your ass. Go to one of your buddies thats a general and ask him, beg him, threaten him, but come back with authorization to pick up our planes from Melbourne! Ill have them ready for combat in a few days and we can give the Australians in New Guinea some much-needed help!

Two days later, with orders secured from an accomplice at Far East Air Force Advance Headquarters in Brisbane, Davies launched a daring plan. He would snatch the Dutch bombers and when caught, as was inevitable, simply claim he had taken the wrong B-25s.

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Davies, Gunn, and 22 other pilots rode the mail plane to Melbourne. There, aided by paperwork authorizing the pickup of the 3rd Bomb Groups aircraft, they made off with 12 Dutch B-25s. By the time they stopped at Brisbane to refuel, complaints and condemnations had caught up with them. But Gunn duped a duty officer and the 3rd Bomb Group bandits were back on their way, parking the purloined bombers in revetments at Charters Towers in the early morning hours of April 3.

Protests by the American and Dutch ambassadors failed to make a difference. And the Dutch were destined to lose another battle: While prepping the bombers, Gunn discovered their Norden bombsights were missing and brazenly flew one of the planes back to Melbourne to secure them. A standoff with a Dutch supply officer ended when Gunn drew both his .45s; he returned with the Nordens. Military rules and regulations bothered him not,Lieutenant Harry Mangan, a pilot who would participate in the Royce Raid, said of Gunn. Rules be damned. He was fighting a private war.

The freewheeling Paul Pappy Gunnshown here in a B-25 called Out of Stock because Gunn used it to scour Australian bases for aircraft parts that were often out of stockwas a master at getting what he needed, and making it work. (Courtesy of Nathaniel Gunn)

On April 6, Davies and Gunn received urgent orders to report to the Melbourne headquarters of the U.S. Army Forces in Australia. Fearing disciplinary action, they instead were rewarded with a mission. Two days later, they met General Royce in a top-secret briefing. Royce told them that to increase the B-25s range, extra fuel tanks would be installed. The bombers, Royce explained, would stage out of secret fields on Mindanao still in friendly hands. The latest intelligence and weather reports would guide their target selection.

Also present was Captain Frank P. Bostrom, a B-17 pilot from the 19th Bomb Group, which would be teaming up on the mission. Bostrom knew the route well; just weeks earlier he had flown MacArthur and his family from Mindanao over the Celebes Sea, Timor, and New Guinea to Australia. Since only six B-17s were available, Royce got just three. Ultimately 10 B-25s would participate in the missionone with Pappy Gunn at the controls.

One of the 19th Bomb Groups B-17s being loaded at Del Monte Field on Mindano. For the Royce missions, three of the larger bombers would accompany the Mitchells. (National Archives)

The news of the mission surged through Charters Towers and, although pilots didnt know the objective, volunteers deluged Davies. So fierce was the competition that Captain Ronald Hubbard, scratched as a pilot because of dengue fever, volunteered to be a bombardier. Optimism was becoming contagious. On April 10, Brett ordered a Distinguished Service Cross, the armys second highest award for valor, be readied for Royces return. But when the expedition landed in Darwin the morning of April 11 en route to Mindanao, bad news caught up with them. Two days earlier, Bataan had surrendered.

The needles on their fuel gauges tilting towards empty, the bombers were about to be swallowed by the storm swirling above Mindanao when, as if by magic, there was a hole in the cloud cover, Lieutenant Frank Bender, co-pilot to Pappy Gunn, recalled. Below them, three gunshots punctured the silence at an airfield the U.S. military had bulldozed out of one of the Del Monte Corporations pineapple plantations. The rifle reports Del Monte Fields air-raid signalsent men scrambling for cover and the bombers scudded to successive landings before wide-eyed Del Monte personnel, none of whom had ever seen a B-25.

Brigadier General William Sharp, the commander of a few thousand Allied troops still carrying on the fight in the southern Philippines, ushered Royce into the Del Monte Officers Club, which would serve as the missions operations center. Bataans fall meant there was no longer a need to attack near Luzon. Yet they had come to attack and thats what they were going to do: make aggressive, archipelago-wide strikes on Japanese ships and naval and air installations, focusing on the ports of Davao and Cebu, until they ran out of bombs or fuel. They would also evacuate various civilians, reporters, and military personnel MacArthur had cleared to leave the islands.

As a precaution against enemy reconnaissance, Davies led five B-25s to a strip at Valencia, 40 miles away, where Filipinos camouflaged the planes with jungle foliage. At both fields, crews pumped fuel and swapped the auxiliary fuel tanks for ordnance before bedding down beneath their planes.

Royces raiders found it difficult to sleep.Here we were surprising the enemy for the first time, Bender said. What a pleasure [to be] going over the target after having taken so much grief without having anything with which to hit back.

The raids namesake, however, wouldnt be going with them. Official word was that the San Antonio Rose II, in which Royce was to fly, needed repairs to its number 3 engine. But its likely that army forces headquarters had grounded Royce to deny the Japanese a propaganda coup should he be lost. Royce would instead choreograph the raids from his war room.

The B-25s drew first blood around bustling Cebu Harbor, 150 miles north of Del Monte Field, at first light. Half struck a Japanese airfield; the rest bombed the harbor from 4,000 feet. As American bombers registered hits on two large ships, Daviess B-25 loosed five 500-pound bombs, which bombardier Ronald Hubbard watched walk through dockside warehouses setting off several fires and dockside explosions. The B-25s then raced home to refuel and re-arm for follow-up attacks the next day.

The raid successful, Jim Davies scrawled a telegram to Royce detailing the actions of the B-25s he led and warning, Our airdrome now known to the enemy. (National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)

The two B-17s were also on their way home after hitting targets in Luzon. One had sunk a tanker near the southern port of Batangas; the other Flying Fortress, Frank Bostroms, had bombed the runway and hangars at Nichols Field, a former American air base near Manila. Bostrom then zoomed past Corregidor, waggling his wings in view of its dazzled defenders.

Royce, riveted to his radio, was ecstatic. It was a picnic, he recalled.

But no sooner had the B-17s landed at Del Monte than three dive-bombing Japanese floatplanes damaged them and destroyed San Antonio Rose II. Gunn and other mechanics repaired the two Flying Fortresses so they could return to Australia the next day loaded with evacuees.A groggy Gunn then took off in his B-25 for the secondand most fatefully significantday of the mission.

On Gunns first run over Cebu, a large freighter evaded his bombs. Incensed, he instinctively plunged into a steep dive. Minutiae and memories of Gunns navy days went ricocheting through his mind: the arcane knowledge that ships guns automatically stop firing when lowered below 18 degrees, to keep them from blowing themselves out of their mounts. A pilot flying low enough could get unbelievably close if he dared to. He also flashed on the lucrative pots awarded to the pilot who could skip a bomb across the water the most times during dive-bombing training.

Gunn ordered the turret gunners and bombardier to fire their .50-caliber machine guns forward; hed release the bombs.Were going in low, Gunn told them. So low youll think were swimming. Within seconds, the B-25 was 100 feet off the waves, guns blazing, screaming straight for the ships bridge. Squeezing the trigger and squirming in the Plexiglas nose, Gunns bombardier pleaded with him to pull up, but Gunn had tunnel vision.Spray the deck! Spray the deck! he yelled over the intercom before releasing two 500-pound bombs and yanking back on the stick. One bomb convulsed the ship in fiery explosions.

Mortimer, a veteran of the raid, became one of Gunns gunships, fitted with another eight forward firing .50 caliber machine guns. Reassigned to the 90th Bomb Squadron, the bomber took part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in early March 1943. (National Archives)

G-forces pinned Gunn to his seat, but could not restrain his emotions. Thats the way to do it, boys! he yelled as he whipped the B-25 into a crisp, 180-degree turn for another run at the enemy. Thats the way to get em!

Yeah, thats the way, huffed Gunns hyperventilating co-pilot, Lieutenant Bender,If you want to get us all killed, thats the way.

Flush with adrenalin, Gunn dove again, resulting in catastrophic hits with 500-pounders that skipped across the surface to slam into the ship at the water line, shearing it in half.

Soon, the other B-25 pilots were emulating Gunn. The raid was stunningly successful: 10 B-25s hit Davao in the morning and four more in the evening, and four bombers pounced on Cebu. Despite antiaircraft fire and fire from Zeros and seaplanes, the strafing B-25s stitched warehouses, docks, and fuel dumps, mowing down men and sparking huge fires. The fat 500- pounders and shrapnel-spattering 100-pound fragmentation bombs with instantaneous fuses whistled a symphony of destruction upon the Japanese. At Davao, Daviess copilot, First Lieutenant James McAfee, saw three of five bombsthose with Mother,Daddy, and Sally scrawled on them after members of his familyobliterate a transport, a wonderful catharsis.I was scared to death, admitted one pilot, Major William Hipps. But Ive never had so much fun in my life.

They were the first Allied bombers to strike the Japanese and inflict real damage, as well as shock. Over Davao an enemy pilot sidled his plane up to Hippss ship.He was so close we could see his faceand it just registered blank amazement,Hipps recalled. He didnt seem to know where we came from or how we got there. He never found out eitherthe rear gunner got a direct hit on his motor and a few seconds later he went down in flames.

Back at Del Monte, bombs sent Royce running to a dugout five times. He even helped put out a fire. More enemy planes, as well as ground forces, were undoubtedly on their way. As smoke mushroomed over Cebu and Davao, the general decided that it was time to leave the Philippines. He ordered the B-25s home.

Gunn had made up his mind, too. Winging back to Del Monte, his scattered thoughts coalesced. This was the way to fight with a B-25. Get right down on the water with the ships and blow them to hell. He couldnt wait to tell Davies of his tactical revelations. But the news would have to waithe had another mission.

Landing that evening at a small strip on the island of Panay, 220 miles to the north, Gunn hurriedly took on four high-priority passengers: UPI war correspondent Frank Hewlett, two Japanese American intelligence operatives, and a Chinese military attache. Back at Del Monte, other priority evacuees pilots, staff officers, and a quinine expertcrammed aboard the remaining B-25s before they took off and headed for Darwin at 12:50 a.m. on April 14. It would be more than two years before large American bombers would again appear in the skies over the Philippines.

Royce and Davies were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross shortly after returning to Melbourne (though a Distinguished Flying Cross had to fill in until the other medal was available). The citation noted Royces gallant leadership. (National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)

Royces Raiders had departed Australia in secrecy and anonymity, but returned to fanfare. Royce received a priority telegram from U.S. Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall: Good work stop Congratulations. The April 16 New York Times called the raid the most spectacular aerial thrust of the Pacific War. There were press conferences and popping flash bulbs, as well as a ceremony during which Royce and Davies were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Gunn, Bostrom, and the other dirty, exhausted pilots received medals, too, but they cared little for the accolades or attention.Just give me a two-inch beefsteak and bed for a week, James McAfee said.

It was just as well. While Royces patchwork aerial armada had been descending to storm-shrouded Mindanao, a secret naval task force led by the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, 16 B-25s lashed to its flight deck, was sailing toward a higher-profile target: Japan (see The Avengers, ). The leader of this near-simultaneous operation was Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle.

Doolittles men had been equally unaware of Royces adventure. Captain Ted Lawson, in his book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, described thesick feelinghe and his fellow Doolittle Raiders got when a garbled report of the Royce attacks reached them on the Hornet and word spread through the ship that Tokyo had been bombed by four-motored American planes identical to those they had aboard.

News of the Doolittle Raiders April 18 strike against targets in Japan reached the world two days after word came of the Royce Raid, banishing the accomplishments of Royce and his men first to the back pages, then to obscurity. Yet the effects of Royces raid carried into 1943 and beyond, perhaps impacting the Pacific War more extensively than the more famous mission.

Royces men navigated a record 4,000 miles, operated for two days deep within enemy-held territory, sank eight ships, shot down five planes, inflicted incalculable damage on Japanese installations and personnel, suffered no casualties, and brought home all but onethe San Antonio Rose IIof their invaluable birds. Furthermore, those immediately tangible results paled in comparison to the raids short- and long-term effects at the individual, local, and theater levels. The mission rescued nearly three dozen important individuals from certain captivity or death, reinvigorated MacArthurs command, and signaled Americas resolvenot only to the subjugated people of the Philippines, but to anxious Australians as well.

Pappy Gunn went to work in his hangar laboratory almost immediately afterward, reconfiguring B-25s and A-20s into gunships. The mad scientists experiments, coupled with innovations in ordnance and the revolutionary tactics he conceived over Cebu, synthesized into a deadly technique for skip-bombing and low-level strafing that would bring astonishing results at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943 and render a devastating attack on the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul the following November. Gunn was reunited with his family after the liberation of Manila in early 1945.

Ralph Royce would receive a promotion to major general in June 1942, and serve in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States through the wars end. But, as his Distinguished Service Cross citation supports, it was in the early days of the Pacific conflict,at a time when defeatism wasthe mandatory doctrine of the day, that Royce and his raiders left their mark through their determined combative spirit of aggression, heroism, and extraordinary achievement.

We came back cocky, said a prescient Royce after the raid, foreshadowing the whirlwind of Allied aerial offensives that would descend upon the Japanese.Thats the way we should and will come back every time, too. When you have men who feel cocky; when they get the idea that theyve got to lick the world, thats the time they usually do it.
THE AUGUST 23, 1939, signing of a nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany came as a thunderclap. The Nazi regime had been so vociferously hostile to communism that rapprochement between the nations and their ideologies scarcely seemed possibleand yet for decades historians have smoothly rationalized the agreements logic for both sides. But the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not inevitable. Stalin could have decided that Hitler posed so great a threat both short and long term that he had to eschew a nonaggression pact with the Nazi dictator. In that event, the Soviet dictator most likely would have allied with Great Britain and France, two other great powers that had also been hard at work courting his favor.

Negotiations between the west and the Soviet Union were triggered by Hitlers annexation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, which violated the agreement made in Munich the preceding September and made clear that his next step almost certainly would be to invade Poland. In talks that started in earnest in April and continued through August, the British, French, and Soviets began with different starting points, but converged on an April 17 Soviet proposal. That arrangement posited a treaty of mutual assistance, binding all three to go to the aid of any states along the Soviet Unions western border. The French more rapidly embraced this position than the British. If the British had shown as much alacrity, it would have increased the chance of the three powers formally aligning.

It also would have helped if the French and British had accepted a Soviet demand to reach a simultaneous military agreement along with the political agreement, another stipulation at which the British balked. Not until early August did the British nominate a military delegation, and only then did British and French representatives proceed by ship and train to Moscow, arriving August 11.

Stalin had affixed a very high price tag to an agreement. He wanted Soviet troops to have access into Romania and Poland, as well as the granting of security demands in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estoniain short, Anglo-French recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The western powers were reluctantly prepared to accede, but the Poles refused to allow Soviet troops on their soil, on the convictionwell founded, as eventually demonstratedthat once the Soviets arrived they would be unlikely to leave.

Nonetheless, an Anglo-French Soviet alliance to protect Poland offered Poland its best chance of survival. The existence of an agreement to this effect might have led Polish leaders to reverse themselves and take the loathed step of allowing Soviet troops across their border. In that event, the tripartite alliance could have been in place by mid-Augustor earlier, if the British had been quicker to accept Soviet terms.

What would Hitler have done in the face of an Anglo-French-Soviet alliance? He might have backed off, lest he trigger a two-front war. Hitler believed that he could defeat Poland well before the west ern powers could intervene, but could scarcely have entertained the same hope with regard to the Soviet Union. In his manifesto, Mein Kampf, the Nazi leader warned against the danger of fighting on two fronts. And, if anything, his generals feared that prospect more than he did. A secret resistance to Hitler among the men of the German High Command already existed. An alliance between the Soviet and western powers might have made Hitlers foreign policy course seem so reckless as to spur that resistance into action.

It is also possible, as historian John K. Munholland suggests, that the sequel would have been another round of opportunistic diplomacy. The basis for an Anglo-French-Soviet alliance was, after all, tenuous. It had implications for the rest of Eastern Europe, and over time the Nazis might have concluded agreements offsetting or nullifying the Soviet alliance with the west.

But Hitler might have invaded Poland anyway. It was well known throughout Europe that Stalins military purges of the late 1930s had enormously damaged the Soviet armed forces. Hitler had contempt not only for the Soviet military but for its political leadership, and, countervailing alliance or no countervailing alliance, may well have pressed ahead with an attack on Poland, gambling that he could eliminate Poland before the Red Army could lumber into action and intervene effectively.

Some counterfactuals, once postulated, lead in obvious directions. This one does not. An Anglo-French-Soviet alliance might have achieved the desired effect of deterring Hitler from invading Poland. But an alliance also might merely have postponed that invasion while Hitler engaged in more of the diplomatic maneuvering that had characterized his foreign policy for years. Or a Soviet alliance with the Western Allies could have had scant effect, with Germany invading Poland on September 1, 1939, as occurred historically.

What then would have been the impact of an alliance between Stalin and the west? In many respects, Stalin would have gotten what he wanted: annexation of the Baltic states and an Eastern European sphere of influence. But although it is unlikely that he would have helped the Poles fend off the Germans, Stalin could have wound up holding onto an eastern strip of Polish territory.

The main differenceand this is vitalis that instead of a second front breaking open with the surprise attack of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, war would have broken out between Germany and the Soviet Union in Sept ember 1939. The French army would have stood undefeated, Britains forces on the continent would have remained formidable, and, whatever their military shortcomings, the Soviets would have threatened Germany in a way that Hitler could not have ignored. In short, an Anglo-French-Soviet alliance might not have achieved its objective of deterring war. But the alliance would have forced Germany into a two-front conflict that would have played out very differently to Germanys disadvantage.

Originally published in the June 2013 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
The sanguinary saga of Norwegian King Olaf Tryggvason relates his bloody raids, mercurial romances, warped religious convictions and ultimate fate.

Lashed together, the 11 longships of Norwegian King Olaf Tryggvasons flotilla formed a floating bastion,

with the monarchs own massive vessel, Ormen Lange (Long Serpent), at the center. Resplendent in his red tunic and gilded helmet, Tryggvason urged his men to stand fast as the fleet of enemy ships approached.

Though he radiated confidence, the Norse leader was far from certain of victory. Several of his trusted jarlsnobles who had sworn fealty in return for his patronagehad suddenly deserted, offering their ships and swords to the combined Danish-Swedish fleet intent on Tryggvasons destruction. Though what history records as the Battle of Svolder had not yet begun, the Norwegian king must have known his formidable Long Serpent would likely soon vanish beneath the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea, and with it his grandiose plans to forge a vast empire in Scandinavia.

Despite the increasingly dire situation Tryggvasontrue to his Viking heritagestood fast atop the raised aft section of Long Serpent, his personal guard raising a shield wall around him. No matter what fate intended for him, the avowed Christian king of Norway would not sell his life cheaply.

Surviving accounts of Tryggvason derive from early Scandinavian poetry and the semi-legendary Norse sagas, the latter including Oddr Snorrasons circa 1190 Saga of Olaf Tryggvason. Historians largely consider the later chronicles written in Icelandnotably the circa 1230 Heimskringla sagas of the Norwegian kings, written by poet-historian Snorri Sturlusonmore reliable than the mythological epics that preceded them.

Most scholars assume Tryggvason to have been the son of Tryggve Olafsson, a minor king of Norway, and his wife, Astrid. Tryggvason was born circa 964, shortly after usurpers to the throne had murdered his father. Astrid and son spent the next few years on the run from Olafssons killers. While crossing the Baltic Sea to seek refuge with Astrids brother, Sigurd Eriksson, in Novgorod (in present-day northeastern Russia), the pairs luck ran out, as pirates boarded their ship. The boarding party killed all aboard who were old or infirm and sold all boys into slavery in Estland (present-day Estonia). Thus were Astrid and Tryggvason separated. A slave trader named Klerkon traded the captive boys for a goat. The one who traded the goat then swapped Tryggvason for a cloak to a man named Reas, who treated the boy relatively well.

Six years after the pairs capture Astrids brother, Sigurd, was visiting Estland on business when he happened on young Olaf, whom hed never seen. Noting the 9-year-olds Norwegian features, Eriksson asked the boy his name and family. On learning the boy was his nephew, Eriksson bought Tryggvason out of slavery and took him back to Novgorod, raising him under the protection of Erikssons sovereigns, King Valdamar (Vladimir the Great) and Queen Allogia. Soon after arriving at his new home, Tryggvason spotted the slave trader Klerkon at a local market. Without hesitation the young Viking pulled his fighting axe from his belt and with a single swing split the mans skull, killing him instantly.

If not for the boys connections at the royal court he would have faced death for the brutal public murder. But given the harsh circumstances of Tryggvasons childhood, Valdamarwho had converted his people to Eastern Orthodox Christianitytook pity on the boy and welcomed him into court. Tryggvason remained in Novgorod through his teens.

Tryggvasons chance to make his own mark came at age 18 when King Valdamarwary of his wards increasing popularitygave him several ships and encouraged him to undertake a plundering voyage for which the Vikings were infamous. The first stop for Tryggvason and his crew was Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, which they duly pillaged, yielding considerable spoils. As the flotilla lay at anchor, a gale whipped up, impelling them to sail south to the Baltic coast of Wendland (along the present-day German-Polish border). Smitten by the regions ruler, Geiraone of Wendish King Burislavs three daughtersTryggvason courted her and within months married the princess.

Over the next three years Tryggvason alternated between raiding parts of Sweden, battling Wendish noblemen over back taxes and joining Burislav in helping Holy Roman Emperor Otto II fight the pagan Danes. Though Burislav and Otto were professed Christians, as was Geira, Tryggvason had not converted. It would take both a personal tragedy and the predictions of a soothsayer for the Viking leader to give up his ancestral beliefs.

The tragedy befell Tryggvason at age 21, when Geira, his beloved wife of three years, fell sick and died. Inconsolable, the widower fled Wendland and set out with a small fleet to bury his grief by plundering Saxony, Friesland and Flanders. For the next four years he ravaged maritime Europe, raiding among the British Isles and along the French coast. In 988 Tryggvason arrived in the Isles of Scilly, off the southwestern tip of England, where he heard tell of a celebrated soothsayera man who was to alter the course of the Viking leaders life and the history of Norway.

To test the soothsayer, Tryggvason sent a pretender to visit the man in his stead, but the seer knew instantly the visitor was an imposter. Intrigued, the Viking leader visited the man in person. The seer told Tryggvason he would become a renowned king who would bring many to the true faith. The soothsayer also predicted the Viking would face a battle against his own men in which he would be wounded, but he would heal in seven days and then be baptized. The sagas claim that soon after Tryggvason left the seers presence, the predicted events occurred, as the Viking defeated mutinous troops and healed from his battle wounds within a week. Tryggvason then returned to the seer to ask the root of his visions. The soothsayer replied that the Christian God revealed to him the events he saw. Convinced, Tryggvason agreed to be baptized, as did many of his followers.

After his conversion Tryggvason sailed to the British mainland. He arrived as free men of the region were gathering for a thing (an assembly at which to resolve debates and decide issues of community importance). Also in attendance was a widowed noblewoman named Gyda, who managed her late husbands estates but sought a new spouse to help her. A local champion named Alwin wanted to marry Gyda, but the young woman wished to choose her own mate.

Alwin came garbed in his finest raiment, while Tryggvason was dressed in rough-weather clothes and a threadbare coat. Gyda nonetheless selected Tryggvason as her betrothed, a decision that incensed Alwin. The champion then made what proved a poor decision: He demanded combat. The battle-tested Viking made short work of Alwin, forcing him to yield. He then ordered the disgraced champion and his personal retinue banished. Heaping insult upon insult, Tryggvason then claimed Alwins lands and married Gyda.

Married life did little to temper the newly baptized Vikings love of raiding, for Tryggvason soon embarked on a series of raids for plunder along the coasts of Essex, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. He stayed the winter of 9934 in Southampton, amassing booty from the surrounding countryside. Tryggvason then boldly offered Englands King Ethelred II a deal: In return for a ransom the Viking would cease his plundering of the kings realms. Ethelred accepted, and, true to his word, Tryggvason stopped raiding in Englandthough he soon found greener pastures.

Around the time Tryggvason made his deal with Ethelred, Norways de facto rulerJarl Hakon Sigurdssonwas facing increasing unrest. He had enjoyed widespread support following his assumption of power around 975, but his penchant for taking highborn women as concubines and attempts to limit the power of the bondes (free landowners) occasioned growing hostility to his reign. When news reached Hakon that a man of noble Norwegian blood was gaining renown in England and Ireland, he feared a challenge to his throne. He quickly dispatched a trusted friend, Thorir Klakka, to determine if the mystery man was Tryggvason.

Klakka caught up with the Viking in Dublin, where he went by the name Oli. Hakons emissary nurtured a relationship with the man until he ultimately revealed his true identity. When Tryggvason inquired about Norway and its leaders, Klakkaapparently not the trusted friend Hakon thought him to bepersuaded the Viking that were he to return to Norway, the people would accept him as their rightful king. The idea of ruling the land of his birth proved irresistible, and Tryggvason sailed for Norway in the autumn of 995. He first made landfall on the western isles of Moss. There and at each following stop Tryggvason offered locals a choice: be baptized or die. While an unbiblical form of evangelism, the Vikings method of spreading the Gospel was ostensibly effectivefew chose death over conversion.

Once on Norwegian soil Tryggvason won over the people while crushing Hakons forces at every turn. Eventually, one of the bondes beheaded the hated jarl and brought the head to Olaf. In a subsequent thing at Trondheim the people joyously chose Tryggvason king of Norway. Their goodwill quickly faded, however, as Tryggvason instituted his religious decrees, ordering the destruction of pagan temples and inviting his subjects to accept his version of Christianity. Those who did not were mutilated, banished or killed.

While Tryggvasons reign of terror led to the coerced baptism of people across much of Norway, some of the kingdoms more powerful bondes resisted the elimination of their long-held pagan rituals and organized a series of things to condemn and halt the new kings brutal actions. Yet at each gathering the presence of Tryggvasons elite warriors so intimidated the bondes that they lost their nerve; rather than denouncing the king and his beliefs, they chose to preserve their lives and submit to his rituals.

Not everyone was cowed by Tryggvasons power or ruthlessness, however.

According to the Heimskringla, during the first winter of Tryggvasons conversion crusade he sent couriers to Sigrid, the desirable, strong-willed daughter of a nobleman in Svithjod (present-day Sweden). Known as Sigrid the Haughty, she had refused many suitors but agreed to be courted by Tryggvason. As a symbol of his intent the Norwegian king sent her a ring of gold he had pried from the door of a pagan temple. It turned out to have been a poor choice, for when Sigrids smiths assessed the ring, they found it filled with copper. Furious at the deception, the noblewoman wondered what other falsehoods her betrothed might have in store.

The sagas say a meeting took place in the spring of 998, when Tryggvason traveled to Svithjod to finalize details of the wedding. A grave breach developed between the prospective bride and groom, however, when Tryggvason insisted Sigrid be baptized. Already suspicious of the kings motives and sincerity, Sigrid refused to give up the pagan religion of her forefathers. Outraged by her defiance, Tryggvason spurned her and struck her across the face with a heavy glove. The Heimskringla relates that Sigrid swore the king would come to regret the blow, and both angrily went their separate ways.

The collapse of the planned marriage to Sigrid did nothing to improve Tryggvasons temper, and he redoubled his attacks on those who insisted on clinging to paganism. At one public gathering that summer of 998, rather than making animal sacrifices to Thor and Odin, as a group of bondes demanded, Tryggvason instead suggested sacrificing 11 of the best men present. Seeing they were outnumbered, all at the gathering renounced paganism and submitted to baptism. At a feast in Trondheim Tryggvason was even more blunt, toppling a statue of Thor before forcing baptism on all present.

Later that year Tryggvason ordered construction of a great longship with which to undertake a domestic conversion voyage. The ship was of Viking design, with a single mast and benches for 30 rowers. He named it Crane, and in the spring of 999 Tryggvason made it the flagship of a flotilla he led to Halogaland, the northernmost province of his realm. There he and his men forcibly converted the population, slaughtering any who resisted.

On his return from that crusade Tryggvason decided that to voyage farther abroad he required a far larger ship than Crane. The new craft he ordered was 148 feet long, with a towering central mast and 34 oars to a side. Sheathed in gold leaf from dragon-headed prow to stern, it was the best and most expensive vessel thus far constructed in Norway, capable of carrying several hundred fully equipped warriors. The ship was Long Serpent, and its launch marked the beginning of the end of Tryggvasons reign.

As devoted as the Norwegian king was to his brutal methods of evangelism, he always made time for romanceespecially if it offered the chance to further enrich himself. Around the time his shipwrights were laying down Long Serpent, Tryggvason met a woman who seemed to promise both love and loot.

According to the sagas, that woman was Thyre, wife of Tryggvasons onetime father-in-law, King Burislav of Wendland. The unhappy young queen was on the run from her elderly and abusive husband when her arrival in Norway drew the kings rapt attention. Tryggvason offered to marry her, and she, jumping at the chance to help herself, accepted his proposal. The two were married in late 999, and the following spring Thyre pleaded with Tryggvason to secure from Burislav the property she had abandoned in Wendland. Eager to both please his wife and amass greater wealth, Tryggvason set out with 30 ships and men. There was no need for a fight, as Burislav welcomed his former son-in-law with open arms and agreed to an equitable settlement.

The peaceful resolution of Thyres claims did not prove an omen of continued success for Norways king, however, for Sigrid the Haughty, Tryggvasons jilted fiancee, remained determined to bring him down. By then married to King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, Sigrid convinced her husband to join forces with Swedens King Olaf, who was her son, and Norways Jarl Eirik Hakonsson, son of Tryggvasons late enemy Hakon Sigurdsson.

All three had good reason to wish the Norwegian king ill, and they soon hatched a plan. Rather than engage Tryggvason on land, where he could call up large numbers of fighters, the trio plotted to force him into a surprise sea battle in which he would be outnumbered. Knowing their enemy was returning to Norway from Wendland, they chose the waters around a small Baltic island known as Svolder in the sagas.

Tryggvason was not expecting trouble on the voyage back to Norway, and his ships were strung out rather than grouped together in battle formation. The sagas relate that the first inkling the Norwegian king had of danger was the sudden appearance of some 70 enemy vessels from behind the island. The mere sight of the Danish-Swedish-Norwegian fleet prompted his trusted jarl Sigvalde to hastily defect from Tryggvasons flotilla, leaving the king with just Long Serpent and 10 other longships.

After sounding the war horns, Tryggvason ordered his ships lashed together, knowing a floating-fortress tactic offered the only real defense against the stronger enemy fleet. The king then took his place on Long Serpents raised aft deck. The sagas relate that Tryggvason was not concerned at facing the Danes or Swedes, but on learning Eirik was present, he exclaimed that the jarls forces would put up the fiercest fight, as they were fellow Norwegians.

The battle opened with determined assaults first by the Danes and then the Swedes, but each faltered after running a gauntlet of fire from Tryggvasons archers, who shot down into the smaller vessels. Heavy casualties forced Sweyn and Olaf to withdraw, at which point Eirik threw his fresh and unbloodied Norwegians into the fight. His ships pulled alongside Tryggvasons floating fortress, their crews methodically clearing and cutting loose each outlying vessel.

Finally, only Long Serpent was left, surrounded by enemy vessels. Einar Tambarskelfir, one of Tryggvasons archers, launched a shaft that buried itself in the mast above Eirik and a second that passed between the jarls arm and body. The noblemans own bowman then fired back, his arrow snapping Einars bow in half. When Tryggvason asked what had broken, Einar prophetically cried out, Norway.

As the battle raged on, Tryggvason was wounded. When it became clear defeat was imminent, he leapt overboard rather than be captured, his heavy armor and sword immediately pulling him under. Eiriks men could only watch as he sank into the depths.

The Battle of Svolder was a turning point in Scandinavian history. The Danish, Swedish and Norwegian victors divided Tryggvasons kingdom, carving out areas of cultural and linguistic influence that remain to this day. Though Sweyn Forkbeard, King Olaf and Jarl Eirik were all pagans at the time of the battle, the sagas affirm that each man ultimately adopted Christianity but allowed their people to practice whatever faith they desired. While their decision initially undid many of Tryggvasons forced conversions, the Vikings misguided efforts had laid the foundation for the unification and conversion of Norway under King Olaf II Haraldsson (9951030), canonized in death as St. Olaf.

As for 36-year-old Tryggvason, his apparent death following the leap from Long Serpent did not preclude several reported post-battle sightings of him in places as far away as Jerusalem. Dubious as such reports might have been, most sources agree Queen Thyre was inconsolable, refused to eat and died just nine days after the Battle of Svolder.

Whatever Tryggvasons ultimate fate, the course of his life and accounts of his valor in combat off Svolder ensured his fame lived on in sagas, stories and song.

Deborah Stadtler is senior editor for Military History, Vietnam and MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. For further reading she recommends The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, by Oddr Snorrason, and The Story of Norway, by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen.

First published in Military History Magazines May 2017 issue.
MOST FEMALE spies in World War II werent Mata Haris. Witness Elizabeth Betty McIntosh (then MacDonald), a disinformation specialist with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. McIntosh helped the OSS devise campaigns in the Far East that under mined Japanese morale and saved American lives. She detailed those frenetic days in two books, Undercover Girl (1947) and Sisterhood of Spies (1999). Recalling them now, the spirited 97-year-old observes, The war meant women could do a lot more than theyd been allowed to before. Where I was, there was equality and openness between the sexes. Thats what made it work.

You started out as a journalist.

I worked on a Hawaiian newspaper, writing for the womens pagesstories women were supposed to be interested in. Alex MacDonald, my then-husband, was also a journalist. He and I visited a Japanese professor every day to study Japanese. We both were intrigued by the Far East; we wanted to be foreign correspondents.

What was December 7, 1941, like for civilians in Hawaii?

Honolulu was pretty gruesome. There was complete terror. Planes were everywhere, with a constant roar overhead. Ambulances were racing through the streets. I saw a building just disintegrate. An open air market took a direct hit. One dead little girl was still holding her jump ropes wooden handles; the rope had burned away. It was terrible. Our Niseisome, like the late Senator Daniel Inouye, were later in the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Teamstrung barbed wire along Waikiki Beach in case of invasion. At the hospital, there were dead bodies everywhere. So when my editor asked me to write about what was going on in the city, I took him at his word. I dont think he expected to get what I reported about the damage and dislocation and confusion. The story was never published. They thought it would be too damaging to morale.

But you got promoted.

The Scripps-Howard newspaper chain sent me to Washington, D.C., to write a womens column called Home Front Forecasts, largely about how to cope without things like gasoline and liquor that Americans couldnt get because of rationing. I also covered the White House, so I interviewed colorful people like Eleanor Roosevelt.

How did that lead you to the OSS?

In 1943 I met a businessman from Hawaii, and mentioned I was getting bored with this job and with Washington, that Id studied Japanese, and that like most correspondents I wanted to go overseas, where the action was. He got cagey, and said he might be able to help, but Id have to work for the government. I said that didnt matter, I just wanted to go. He arranged for me to join the OSS. Their offices were way off the beaten path; to find them you had to know where they were. For weeks they put me through examining and testing, including Japanese language skills. Then they decided Id be assigned to the Far Eastern section of something called MO Morale Operations.

What was that?

Disinformation, psychological warfare. We would be trying to change the minds of the enemy. Writing pamphlets and newspapers and books, broadcasting on the radio about how Japanese children were suffering and starving, for instance, and making these appear Japanese in originhowever we could get to the enemy to change their minds about the war and their role in it. That was black propaganda, as distinct from the Office of War Information, which did white propaganda: morale-boosting stories for our side.

How did the OSS train you?

Our commander was Major Herbert Little. Like most in the OSS, he was casual about rank; we called him Herb. He was shrewd enough to let me imagine scenarios that our instructors hadnt outlined, which introduced some radical thinking into our black propaganda. And we had field-agent training: ciphers, clandestine meetings, interrogation techniques, fire arms. The first time I fired a Thompson submachine gun it almost turned me around in a circlethe kick was so powerful! But I got the hang of it.

You got your husband into the OSS, too. Why?

Alex had been activated from the naval reserve and was in the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was very much better at Japanese than I was. He did a beautiful job for the OSS at radio in Burma while I was in India, then China in 194445. But like so many ,our relationship didnt survive the war.

How did you set up the MO unit in New Delhi?

My colleague Marjorie Severyns and I developed people and material. The first was Bill Magistretti, an OSS analyst who had lived in Japan. He spoke absolutely flawless Japanese, and had a huge cache of Japanese newspapers, postcards, and photographsjust what we needed. Bill and I pooled ideas and worked really well as a team. The son of my Japanese teacher joined us, as did other Nisei I knew from Hawaii. Each MO group had a Nisei member, whose contributions were essential: They made sure we grasped nuances of Japanese culture. They had to overcome so much to be there, but there they were.

What was your first operation?

A British major let me go through sacks of captured Japanese field manuals, books, magazines, and newspapersall grist for the MO mill. At the bottom of one bag I found a leather pouch. Inside were almost 500 clean, dry postcards with standard greetings from homesick soldiers, stamped by the censor. I said, Lets erase the messages and substitute our own. Bill immediately agreed, saying we could easily have them slipped back into the Japanese postal system. That was Project Black Mail. The cards would hammer the same message home, like an ad campaign slogan: The Japanese were losing in Burma, there was heartbreak and starvation in the jungle, and slackers back home werent supporting the troops. Several hours later, we were done. The pouch of postcards was success fully slipped into the Japanese mail. A week later Tojos cabinet resigned, and Bill joked, See what youve done!

Your next gambit was even more ambitious.

We were told there was a Japanese POW in jail in Burma; we could visit him, but he wouldnt talk to anybody, because he felt hed let the emperor down and was ready to die. Bill and I figured wed go anyway. When we walked into his cell, he wouldnt look at us. Bill managed to get his eye, and the POW recognized himtheyd been at school together in Japan. The man broke down, and from then on he was with us. He helped us to fake a Japanese order aimed at troops in northern Burma. It said they were now allowed to surrender if they were completely surrounded or wounded with no foodthe opposite of reality, of course. This was put into proper Japanese, and the orders paper and seal were taken from real ones wed captured. The POW forged the necessary signatures and corrected the language. We got the fake order through the Japanese lines by pretending it was a captured document. Soon Japanese soldiers were surrendering in increasing numbers. It was a wonderful feeling to have accomplished that.

What was your final operation?

In early August 1945, our black radio station broadcast a prediction by the Hermit, a Chinese seer and astrologer very popular with his people. We had the Hermit predict that a Japanese city would suffer a catastrophic disaster during the first week of August. Now, we had no idea about the atomic bomb. But we caught the dickens anyway, about how we could have blown this top-secret mission.

What did you do after the war?

I worked for Glamour magazine. Dis cussing fashion after all Id done seemed absolutely ridiculous. I lasted a year. Then I married Dick Heppner, one of [OSS chief] Bill Donovans law partners, whom Id met in the OSS through his wonderful dog, Sammy; we decided he needed a real family. After Dick died suddenly in 1958, I joined the CIA.

Originally published in the June 2013 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
FOR 15 YEARS now, the Legacy Project has been encouraging Americans to seek out and share war letters in an effort to help preserve these irreplaceable documents a campaign that World War II magazine has supported by asking readers to submit their own wartime correspondence. This letter, courtesy of reader Pamela Mitchell, is an eloquent reminder of how insightful and meaningful letters can be. In May 1943, Mitchells father, Private Howard Greenberg, was about to leave Camp Crowder, Missouri, to fight in the China Burma-India Theater when he sent home a loving Mothers Day greeting. (Harvey and Normy were his brothers, and also served.)

Dear Mom:

In sending that Mothers Day card to you  I know there was an expression of Mothers Day in it  but never could a card truly fulfill or express  the sentiments as my personal letter to you. The home life of yesterday is replaced by the life of correspondence. A form of living has changed Mom. It does seem strange how much this entire World is living on letters. Literally living on letters. The very lines of so many individuals keyed up to an anticipation, for the sight of a letter, it is almost painful. Just picture it Mom  a word, a confidence  a blessing is born in one side of the world  awaited, digested and treasured on the other side of that same world. So you see Mom, I and 8 million soldiers have come to regard mail  with a loyalty and a reverence, that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. A soldier doesnt leave his Bks. or his camp without the last minute comment I should take some writing material along, or a place is worth the visit if it answers this query, Can I write some letters there.

So on Sunday, Mom, when you receive this letter, think of it as my message of reassurance  to you. We have so much to be thankful for Mom. Each of us is getting a chance to do his share. We know each is well. Harvey  in Iran  Normy in California, and me in Missouri. We can only be thankful, He who watches over us has allowed me to remain in this country for so long. That my whereabouts are known to you at all times. And the thanks for those brief but wonderful, visits home that meant so much to both of us.

This coming Sunday is your day as set aside by glorious tradition but if all the tradition in this World were forgotten  the love that we hold for each other is capable of sustaining a Mothers Day to the end of Time.

Mom, we at home, our family, has always had a wonderful thing. It has been the result of your nourishing, your believing and your courage  it is the continuation of that courage Mom  that will keep all those things together  for our return. Then and only then can victory be spelled with a capital V.

So Mom dear  Ill bring this Mothers Day letter to a close  keep me in your thoughts as I do you  and may God bring this world of chaos to an end before the next Mothers Day is reached.

May everyday be a Mothers day.

All my Love

Howe.

Greenberg served in Kunming, China, and Calcutta, India, before returning home to the States alive and well after the war. (His brothers also survived.) He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign on the GI Bill, then worked for the state of Illinois as an accountant. Greenberg passed away at the age of 89 on July 4, 2010.

Originally published in the April 2013 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
New Delhi: To take part in the celebrations marking the UN 'Vesak Day' the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka next month. The celebration is going to held between May 12 to 14.

In 2015 PM Modi last went to Srilanka and this will be his second visit to the country.The 'International Day of Vesak' will be hosted by the Buddhist-majority country and the commemorations in Colombo will include an International Buddhist Conference in which over 400 delegates from more than 100 countries will participate.

On April 25 the Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe will be coming to India who will be on a five-day visit to the country.

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Supreme Court allows NDMC to E- auction Taj Mansingh Hotel
News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits.

Tuesday, October 25, 4:30  7 p.m.

Orr Area EMS Open House

Brats and burgers will be served. Event includes a new ambulance tour and blood pressure screenings. For more info: 218-780-3798.

Orr Fire Hall

4540 Lake St., Orr

Tuesday, October 25, 12  6 p.m.

Essentia Health Job Fair

Talent recruiters and department managers will be on-site at Essentia Health-Virginia. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to attendnurses, nursing and clinical assistants, surgery technicians, radiology technicians, respiratory therapists, human resource professionals, and those interested in environmental services or nutrition services. Essentia staff will greet candidates, conduct an initial screening and filter them to appropriate hiring managers for interviews. Select candidates will be verbally offered a position before leaving. Candidates are asked to bring a resume, but its not required. Attire is business casual. For more info: www.essentiacareers.org.

901 9th St. N., Virginia
Hotels are always looking for new ways to drive demand  and packages have been a solid vehicle to do just that. Packages, or combined hotel, airfare and/or car bookings, offer valuable benefits to hotels, as well as consumers, but there's a lack of industry information around how hotels can strategically manage this demand. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, there was a four percent increase in the number of U.S. travelers booking packages, and with the largest U.S. traveler pool since the pre-recession peak of 2008i, that demand is likely to continue growing in the years ahead.

Historically the traditional package booker was often a travel deal seeker. Today, budget and luxury travelers alike find package booking not only cost efficient, but time efficient as well. According to Phocuswright's 2016 report, Destination Unknown: How U.S. & European Travelers Decide Where to Go, travelers who book complex trips like packages tend to take more trips and/or spend more than those who buy just a flight, hotel or other single component  and these complex purchases are on the rise in the U.S. With the continued growth of this category, hoteliers can leverage travel data and partnerships to enhance their offering and make package bookings a key component of their success.

To provide hotels with more actionable insights, Expedia took a deep dive into 12 months of its first-party data (Full year 2016), comparing package bookings to standalone hotel bookings from global points of sale inbound to U.S. properties. The findings? A wealth of information and opportunity that should be music to hoteliers' ears. Packages are a great way to maximize revenue, secure longer booking windows, and minimize cancellations.

Packages Drive Increased Revenue

Overall, in full year 2016, Average Daily Rates (ADRs)  a common performance metric for hotels  for package stays were higher versus standalone stays by an average of 20 percent (see Figure 1). This shows a substantial rate boost for hotels  and an incentive to include their hotels in package offerings.

One potential reason for package bookings delivering a higher ADR? Hotels offering deeper room discounts in package bookings may successfully upsell consumers on room type, due to the overall perceived value. For example, in Hawaii  where package demand is high  a package consumer typically books a higher room view type; an ocean view room versus say, a courtyard view room. While the ADR for an ocean view room may be more expensive than a courtyard view room, if the ocean view room is more deeply discounted as part of the package, consumers may be more apt to re-invest their package savings into a higher category room.

Figure 1: U.S. POSu Average Daily Rate for 12- month period ending 4Q 2016 Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

"From extensive review, there is a comprehensive difference between a hotel-only consumer and a package consumer. We have found that package bookings showcase stronger consumer spend while on property along with a longer length of stay, and incremental upsell opportunities due to these guests booking further out and paying off their vacation in advance due the savings received. Because of this, Expedia's ability for us to garner extensive package bookings, specifically domestically, is a huge value to us!"

 Erin Naeve, Director of Leisure Sales, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

Packages Equate to Longer Stays, and Booking Windows

Package bookings typically have twice the length of stay than a standalone hotel booking, making them an attractive source of incremental demand for hotel partners. Interestingly, the length of stay for standalone hotel bookings is similar across markets, but broader variances occur when looking at package bookings. As illustrated by Figure 2, major U.S. markets and resort destinations have a noticeably longer length of stay for package bookings compared to standalone hotel bookings. For additional U.S. markets and details, see Figure 7.

Figure 2: U.S. POSu Average Length of Stay for 12-month period ending 4Q 2016 Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

Package bookings also typically have a two times longer booking window than standalone hotel bookings, providing more opportunities for hoteliers to upsell consumers  both prior to check-in and on-property. Looking at data for all of 2016, a broad view of the 30-60-90-day package booking windows reveals that the average booking window for packages is just under 50 days. As a leading resort destination, Hawaii has one of the longest booking window for packages (67 days out), just short of New York City at more than 68 days prior to travel.

Fewer Cancellations

In package bookings, since the hotel stay is commonly linked to a non-refundable flight, packages have half the cancellation rate of a hotel-only booking (see Figure 3). This is especially important for hoteliers, particularly during a time when consumers are paying for trip protection [travel insurance] or potentially booking refundable, standalone hotel stays in a separate booking to get the most competitive rate.

Figure 3: U.S. POS Cancellation Rate for all of 2016 Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

Notably, some inbound markets with lowest cancellation rates for packages include Summit County, CO at less than seven percent, and Bryan- College Station, TX at less than eight percent. In comparison, a major metro market like Los Angeles has a package cancellation rate of over 10 percent. While this is a substantial delta when compared to the lowest cancellation rates, the Los Angeles package cancellation rate is consistent with the 2016 average, and has a nearly 35 percent lower cancellation rate than comparable standalone hotel bookings.

Less Decline in ADR as Booking Window Shrinks

Consumers have been bombarded with information pushing last-minute bookings for great deals or discounts, but how can hotels benefit and drive incremental revenue with packages? Expedia's data for the 12-month period ending 4Q 2016 shows that package bookings can benefit hoteliers  while still delivering a great value to consumers.

As the booking window shrinks  from six months to within 30 days out from stay  the ADR drops for both packages and standalone room nights, but the differential decline is substantial. On average, ADRs for packages dropped 18 percent, while the ADR decline for standalone room nights during the same booking window period is 34 percent double that of packages. (see Figure 4)

Figure 4: U.S. POSu Average Daily Rate Decline for 12- month period ending 4Q 2016 Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

SO HOW CAN HOTELS BE EVEN SMARTER ABOUT THEIR PACKAGE OFFERINGS?

Expedia dove deeper into the data to uncover insights and opportunities for hotels to take advantage of.

1) Understand and embrace the air connection

Air prices continued a three-year decline in 2016, per a report from Expedia and Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) ii, which allows hoteliers to capitalize on more attractive combined savings from air and hotel components. While aggressive airline pricing continues, package offerings should be a strategic consideration for hotels to over-index on their package channel mix, especially vs. the wholesale channel.

In addition, like ADRs, Average Ticket Prices (ATPs) start declining 10 months out, hitting their lowest price one to two months prior to booking on average, with an uptick one-month out from booking. This trend shows that hoteliers should try to load package rates a minimum of three months in advance, to take advantage of the lowest flight prices, offer the best value to consumers, and avoid the discounting that inevitably happens for last-minute hotel deals.

Know how your market fits in

Hotels in major metro markets  from Los Angeles to Chicago to Miami  and near airports or convention centers are likely to benefit the most from packages. One exception, however, is New York City, Manhattan proper. In the Big Apple, ADRs for standalone room nights are slightly higher than for package bookings, but the city also has a significantly longer booking window. In New York City, the average booking window for packages is 70 days, while standalone room nights are booked 29 days out, on average.

From a global perspective, during the 12-month period ending 4Q 2016, the top five countries booking packages into the U.S. were Canada, U.K., Germany, Japan, and France. U.S. package bookers who travel abroad are most likely to book a beach destination package in Mexico or the Caribbean, followed by U.K., Ireland, Canada and Italy. In general, resort destinations have higher percentage of package bookings than cities or non-resort areas, with Las Vegas accounting for the highest percentage of package bookings in the US.

In total, the top 10 package destinations (see Figure 5) generate more than half of all package business going into the U.S., while standalone stays are more spread across cities  the top 10 only account for just over onequarter percent share of business. Las Vegas stands out, with nearly one-quarter of its hotel bookings coming from packages  so Vegas properties more than any other should be including packages in its offerings.

Figure 5: Top USA Package Destinations from global POSa for 12-month period ending 4Q 2016 Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

"Our package consumer books further out, spends more on property and stays longer, which helps us layer on business further out.We also see a lot fewer cancellations with packages, which is important in Las Vegas because the market in general tends to have high cancellation rates. In general, we treat packages as its own channel and get great value from our packages offerings."

 Stephanie Cloud, Director Leisure Sales, MGM Resorts International

3) Know what packages consumers are booking

More than half of consumers who search for both a flight and hotel within a 90-day period start their search with a flight. By far, during the 12-month period ending 4Q 2016, the most popular package combination is lodging plus air, accounting for over 80 percent of package bookings. Adding a car accounts for an additional 15 percent, with car plus lodging accounting for only four percent of packages.

A deeper look at the package breakdown by traveler origin reveals that U.S. travelers booking a domestic package are more likely to include a car rental, in comparison to Canada and U.K. inbound travelers.

Figure 6: USA Package Type by Traveler Origin on U.S., Canada, U.K. POSa for 12-month period ending 4Q 2016 Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

4) Differentiate your property

With the typical package booking paid for in advance, the consumer likely has more funds available to spend on-property, whether at the restaurant, bar, spa, or on activities. There are numerous ways that hotels can stand out from their competitors and attract more looks and books. Knowing that package consumers are more likely to upgrade and spend more on property, hotels should target guests with special discounts and offers, Value Add Promotions, and complimentary amenities leading up to their arrival.



With Value Add Promotions, hotels can better promote their property and maximize their revenue by offering complimentary amenities that enhance a traveler's stay, including free Wi-Fi, parking, breakfast, and more. These prominently displayed and unique travel offers allow travelers to clearly differentiate hotel offerings and select the hotel and promotion that best meets their needs. Enticing spa and food & beverage credits can also stimulate additional spend in both outlets, which further drives non-room revenue.

5) Lean on the pros

Expedia has an army of Market Managers that know the intricacies of their market  from seasonal trends and events, to what works and when for their hotel partners. Smart hoteliers can input package options that deliver a compelling offering that meets the specific market needs of their travelers.

Additionally, Expedia's self-service website, Expedia PartnerCentral, offers several tools and insights to help hotel partners stay informed and competitive in the marketplace. Hoteliers can access realtime insights about the market, read and respond instantly to feedback from guests, and stay up-to-date with reservations, arrivals and cancellations. It can also help increase visibility by creating targeted promotions. Interested in packaging up a great deal for your consumers? Contact your local market manager or learn more about working with Expedia here.

Figure 7: Top U.S. Package Markets & Key Data for all of 2016 from global POSa Photo by Expedia Group, Inc.

Kari Ramsey

Crafted Communications for Expedia

3173740739

Expedia Group, Inc.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, our flight is overbooked today and we'd like to ask if there are any volunteers to take a later departure". The recent incident in which a bona fide paying seated customer of United Airlines was forcibly removed from the plane in order to accommodate a flight crew, has been drawing universal attention. The true culprit is the systematic habit of overbooking, both in air transportation and in hospitality. We are told that a room that goes empty tonight puts a dent in your annual revenue. Simply because it cannot be sold twice tomorrow or any other night. Period.

Whether it is the airline or our hospitality industry, do we have the right to overbook? And what consequences might we be running into?

How about using the laws of supply and demand to the benefit of our guests: we lower our prices when we have empty rooms and "jack them up" when we expect to sell out.

Is it illegal for a hotel to "walk" a confirmed guest?

"A common practice whereby an airline, hotel, or other company accepts more reservations than it has seats or rooms available, on the presumption that a certain percentage of people will not show up. Airlines have a legal right to overbook, while hotels do not. A hotel must find a room for everyone who has a reservation and shows up on time. An airline may be required to offer compensation for people involuntarily bumped from a flight, depending on several factors, including how long they must wait for another flight."

Walking a guest exposes the hotel to a lawsuit. As we all know, when one sues for damages, the sky can be the limit for that $465 room you were deprived of. Sure, a well managed hotel is supposed to maximize its occupancy and its average room rate. Within limits: that does not give the right to that Motel 6 in Madras, Oregon, who not only cancels confirmed aka low rate guests but then jacks up its prices to $2,600 a night for an upcoming solar eclipse.

Winning the loyalty of a walked guest is possible with a balance of communication, compassion, empathy and professionalism. A hotel has the right (and the obligation) to fill all its rooms, and to sell at the highest price.

However, overbooking is tantamount to selling a room more than once. We call it thievery and there is no arguing it.

I am sure each of us at one time has found ourselves in the awkward situation of walking a guest. In our industry, guests are usually only walked (moved to alternate accommodations because no rooms are available) because of two scenarios. First, when an event reduces your room inventory unexpectedly on a sold-out night, leaving you overbooked. Second, when strategically overselling your hotel backfires and more guests show up than you have rooms for.

More often than not, the poor soul that's the last guest to show up for the evening is the one who ends up relocated. There are actually two people that get the short end of this deal, the guest who shows up at midnight after a full day of travel only to learn his reservation was worthless and the desk agent on the night shift who takes that guest's inevitable wrath. I wouldn't want to be in either of their shoes. (Although I have experienced both personally)

SOME GUESTS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

First, you need to identify the guests you will walk. When choosing whom to walk, take into consideration a few factors:

is this guest someone who never stayed with you and is bound never to return, walked or not?

-what type of room did the guest book?

-is it a one-night-only stay?

-what rate?

-is the guest part of the frequent-stay program?

-is the guest "smooth walked" or "rough walked"?

Begin this process as soon as you realize you will need to walk someone. The best-case scenario includes walking guests who are staying only one night. If you walk guests who have a reservation for multiple nights, try to bring them back to your hotel for as much of the remainder of their stay as possible.

Have a hotel in your comp set, that never sells out, due to possible mismanagement. When you feel you will have to "walk" that night, call to ask how many rooms can be had (and at what rates). Your hotel pays for the alternate accommodations, a free phone call, transportation reimbursement and even a certificate to come and stay again. Make sure a fruit basket or token with a note of apology comes with it.

There will always be someone who will simply refuse to be walked: Remember, when dealing with a situation like this, that if you give in, you will just have to find someone else to walk, which will create additional problems and prolong the inevitable.

The final step is a critical one: You must follow up with the guests to make sure they are satisfied. If they were staying multiple nights and you were able to get them back to your hotel for the remainder of their stay, make sure you contact them or write them another note. Once again express your apologies and thank them for their patience. If the reservation was for only one night, or they do not return to your hotel for any reason, reach out to them anyway. Make sure everything went well at the alternate hotel and again express your apologies. Get your General Manager involved. He/she won't like it, but, yes, it is part of their job.

Walking a guest can have dire consequences on the hotel's General Manager or any of his underlings: suppose you walk a guest who ends up being as member of the Board of Directors of the company you are in deep trouble and so is your GM: the GM who that night, should have been standing in the lobby until 2am waiting for Mr. X to show. But did not.

Which hotels are most likely to walk: airport hotels accommodating cancelled fights or missed connections. These hotels are more than likely all alike, usually mediocre, and being walked from one to another is not a massive issue, except for the fatigue, the aggravation, and not earning the points as a frequent traveler. Convention hotels in periods of citywide conventions. Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and Las Vegas are among the biggest convention towns in the country. When a Chicago Hilton has 1,100 expected arrivals for one convention alone, chances are they will be tempted to overbook: there can be many reasons for no-shows. People double book themselves, or are booked by different organizations, family conflicts or illness cancel the trip at the last minute, a flu epidemic hits one entire region, or as usual, the dog ate your homework.

The problem is the guaranteed reservation, which ought to provide the hotel with some peace: it does not. You might be allowed to charge the no show for one night (by the way, is it not hard at all to get that charge removed, just ask me) but what about the other nights of the convention: the room is going to sit empty as there will be no way to rebook it on such short notice.

HOW TO AVOID GETTING THE BOOT

Arrive early  Since the vast majority of walked guests are late night arrivals, getting to the hotel early in the evening will all but eliminate the already low risk of being walked. If you're going to arrive late  after 10 p.m.  call the hotel to let them know. They will likely walk someone else first, rather than explain why they still didn't hold your room.

Book on the hotel's website  Most chains offer a price match guarantee, meaning their rate should be the same as places like hotels.com. Third party reservations scream "Walk Me!" to hotel managers. Try to avoid putting yourself in that situation.

Join the loyalty program  While this may not guarantee you won't get walked  especially if you're not a top-tier member  it is still better than nothing. If a hotel manager has to choose between two guests and one of them is not a member, guess who gets walked.

Call the hotel from the airport to confirm you are on your way and double check on your confirmed reservation. Insist that you will not be settling for a lesser room category.

Now that I've sufficiently scared you out of ever booking another hotel, here is the reality: Your odds of being walked are incredibly slim. However, just like on the airlines, it happens every single day to countless travelers across the world. If it does happen to you, I hope you'll try and remember one thing

The desk agent is just the messenger. Please don't shoot them.

Benoit Gateau-Cumin

The Boutique Search Firm

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As an independent hotelier, you don't want to buy 10 different hotel technology solutions. You need to spend your money wisely, and invest only in those technologies that will add value to your business and, importantly, grow your profits. But how can you know which hotel technology will accomplish this?

It's a valid question. So last week we sought out the answer at HITEC Amsterdam, an event where financial and technology professionals in the hospitality industry gather to discuss how hotels can use technology for greater profitability and efficiency. It was the first European HITEC (Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference), organised by the global nonprofit hospitality association HFTP.

Here are three tips we collected during the event; keep them in mind when investing in new hotel technology.

Tip #1: Invest in a data strategy

Setting up a data strategy requires time and effortbut it's worth it. According to Samir Sharma of the London-based company Datazuum, the first question you should ask is: How can you monetise your data? What will you get out if it? Whether it's upselling food and beverages to your VIP guests or optimising your rates, have a clear goal. It will tell you what hotel technology you should be using.

Daily Point CEO Michael Toedt pointed out seven important data sources from which you can gain insights into what your guests want. These are:

1) Property management system

2) Email

3) Restaurant reservations

4) Website

5) Wi-Fi

6) Newsletter

7) Questionnaires

And don't forget that, as leading global hotel metasearch, trivago has a wealth of significant data on guest preferences and traveller behavior that you can tap into.

Toedt's advice for hoteliers: "If you're not linking at least four of these sources to your customer database, you don't know who your customer is."

But bewarethere's always a risk of gathering too much data, warned both Sharma and Toedt. So invest time in setting up your data strategy correctly. Find out who owns the data in your company, how to connect the data from other staff members, andlast but not leastmake sure your staff is digitalising the data.

Think it's too early to start implementing a data strategy into your hotel business? Think again. Because even if you're not, your competitor is.

Want to learn more about how you can leverage big data for your hotel? Check out the webinar we recently hosted with Tnooz.

Tip #2: Hire millennials from hospitality schools

As the next generation of travellers, millennials are in the best position to help you bring your hotel into the future with the right hotel technology.

During a panel discussion, Senior Lecturer Ian Miller from the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne queried four students of hospitality schools about what they like to have in their hotel rooms and how they book.

Claudia Dradi, a Hospitality and Business Management student at Hotelschool The Hague, said: "We don't need a TV. I rarely watch the shows. What I need is an outlet so I can charge my devices."

When asked about millennial booking behavior, Dradi replied: "We compare prices, we want everything for less." So are they loyal to hotel brands? Not particularlybut they are loyal to the booking sites and metasearches that compare these prices for them.

And having found their ideal hotel for the best price, millennials will look for a personalised guest experience. They don't want to have to ask about dining recommendations, they want the hotel to offer them suggestions. And with millennials' personal preferences available for the taking on their social media profiles, there's no reason why hotels can't accommodate this expectation.

Does this all come across as pretty demanding? Perhaps it is, but millennials are used to a world in which everything is one click away. The good news is that today's hospitality students are ready to take on the challenge of digitalising the industry. Get them involved and let them test hotel technology for you. Because if millennials are not already your guests, they will be in the near futureso who better to give you feedback on whether something adds value to your hotel business or not?

Tip #3: Interconnect hotel technology

How can you connect all your existing software to one cloud-based system, so they communicate with one another? If this is your main IT struggle, then an Enterprise Service Bus solution might be worth looking into. It connects your applications, devices, and services, and makes it possible to collect data from your guests' social media profiles anddepending on your current softwarepush personalised offers to them through the hotel's Wi-Fi-connection. So if they're in the bar, for example, they receive vouchers for their favorite drink. Another perk is that when all devices are connected to the cloud, it notifies staff immediately when there's a technical error in a certain room or with a payment system.

Jan Jaap van Roon, CEO of IreckonU, described how their hotel tech helps deliver an enhanced guest experience. "We can even integrate into your hotel property technology that improves the experience of your guests. By using sensors in the carpets, we know when guests are approaching their hotel room and can open the door for them, before they've even reached for the key in their pocket."

Base7Booking also connects several hotel technologies for you by offering a property management system, channel manager, and optimised booking engine all in one cloud-based solution.

Where you at HITEC Amsterdam or do you have any other tips for hoteliers that would help them invest in hotel technology to grow their business? Share your thoughts below.

This article was originally posted on HFTP connect

Andrea Ricciarelli

Global B2B Content Marketing & Global PR Lead

trivago

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ATLANTA -- InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), one of the world's leading hotel companies, announces the opening of the new-build 153-room Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Bellingham hotel in Bellingham, Washington. The hotel, which is located steps away from Bellingham International Airport, is the first Holiday Inn property to open featuring the brand's new H4 design, which was developed in collaboration with Holiday Inn hotel owners and frequent guests to meet the changing needs of modern leisure and business travelers.

Eric Lent, Vice President, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza Brands, The Americas, IHG said: "Since its inception more than 60 years ago, the Holiday Inn brand has been a part of countless memorable experiences for travelers the world over. It's important for a brand with as much history as Holiday Inn to continually reinvent itself in order to maintain its place in the hearts and minds of guests. With H4, we've once again raised the expectation of what a great hotel stay can be, and we are thrilled to welcome the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Bellingham to the IHG family as the first of many properties to come featuring this innovative new design."

The Holiday Inn brand's H4 guest room design is a flexible solution that adapts to each guests' individual needs as they change throughout their stay, allowing them to work or relax wherever and however they want and truly make the space their own. As part of the design, the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Bellingham hotel features:

A Welcome Nook serves as a drop zone for guests to hang their coat, drop their keys and personal belongings and plug in their devices  much like they would an entryway or mudroom in their own home.

serves as a drop zone for guests to hang their coat, drop their keys and personal belongings and plug in their devices  much like they would an entryway or mudroom in their own home. An entirely new room type, the King Bed with Comfort Hideaway, features a trundle-type bed which doubles as a sofa during the day and can pull out into two twin beds at night. The room design is ideal for both business travelers, serving as a separate place to work or relax and unwind, and families with kids and teens, giving each member of the family a comfortable place to sleep and play.

the features a trundle-type bed which doubles as a sofa during the day and can pull out into two twin beds at night. The room design is ideal for both business travelers, serving as a separate place to work or relax and unwind, and families with kids and teens, giving each member of the family a comfortable place to sleep and play. A new Moveable Desk and more than five dedicated points of power throughout the room were designed with today's travelers in mind, giving them the ability to work and play anywhere in the room.

Ragan Humphrey, General Manager, Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Bellingham said: "We can't wait to welcome guests traveling to the beautiful Pacific Northwest to the new Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Bellingham. With wonderfully designed rooms, spacious public areas and state of the art conference facilities, we have everything covered whatever the reason travelers stay. We are confident that our hotel will quickly become a favorite choice of leisure and business travelers visiting the area."

Holiday Inn hotels are designed to provide a welcoming and sociable environment for business travelers spending time away from home. Amenities including free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel through IHG Connect, an onsite business center, 7,800 square feet of meeting space with capacity for more than 785 people, and convenient open public areas ideal for collaboration or post-meeting relaxation help travelers stay productive and accomplish their goals in a warm and social atmosphere, making business travel about more than just work.

Additional amenities at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Bellingham hotel include an indoor saline pool with steam room and sauna as well as a fully-equipped fitness center. Guests can also enjoy a drink or meal at the northwater restaurant, which offers a comfortable, casual setting to enjoy Pacific Northwest cuisine at its finest. The menu boasts a variety of seasonal favorites, including Ginger Shrimp Louie, Stuffed Rib Cap Steak and Saffron Shrimp Risotto, made from high-quality, locally sourced ingredients. As always at Holiday Inn hotels, kids 12 and younger eat free when ordering from the kids' menu in the hotel restaurant and accompanied by a dining adult.

The hotel, located at 4260 Mitchell Way is owned by Bellingham HI, LLC and managed by Hotel Services Group, LLC. The Holiday Inn brand is part of IHG's diverse family of brands in nearly 100 countries and territories. The scale and diversity of the IHG family of brands means that its hotels can meet guests' needs whatever the occasion  whether an overnight getaway, a business trip, a family celebration or a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The Holiday Inn brand participates in IHG Rewards Club. The industry's first and largest hotel rewards program is free, and guests can enroll at IHGRewardsClub.com, by downloading the IHG App, by calling 1-888-211-9874 or by inquiring at the front desk of any of IHG's nearly 5,200 hotels worldwide. The hotel also participates in IHG Green Engage and offers unique programs to ensure sustainability.

About IHG

IHG Hotels & Resorts [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is a global hospitality company, with a purpose to provide True Hospitality for Good.

With a family of 17 hotel brands and IHG Rewards, one of the world's largest hotel loyalty programmes, IHG has over 6,000 open hotels in more than 100 countries, and a further 1,800 in the development pipeline.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the Group's holding company and is incorporated and registered in England and Wales. Approximately 350,000 people work across IHG's hotels and corporate offices globally.

Visit us online for more about our hotels and reservations and IHG Rewards. For our latest news, visit our Newsroom and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
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Virgil Ablohs Off-White brand reportedly has an Air Jordan 1 collab in the works, featuring Off-Whites familiar deconstructed design coupled with the iconic Chicago colorway.

Rumors of an Off-White x Air Jordan 1 collab have been circulating since the beginning of the year but today we have detailed images of this reported collab.

While the kicks are built on the unmistakeable Chicago color scheme there are plenty of noticeable differences including the use of orange and blue stitching, an enlarged swoosh, AIR on the yellowed midsole and of course some Off-White branding on the medial side of the shoe.

Its still unclear if this collab will hit retailers, but if thats the case we know theyll be very limited.

Get a closer look at the Off-White x Air Jordan 1 collab in the gallery and stay tuned for more details.

Off-White x AJ1
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California's farmers have been plagued by drought in recent years, but the problem in 2017 is too much rain. That has squeezed U.S. salad supplies, and it may be a several more weeks before supermarket shelves are fully stocked again.

Warmer-than-usual weather meant the winter growing season ended early in Southern California and western Arizona. That was followed by heavy rain, pushing back planting in coastal regions of California, which is the largest U.S. fruit and vegetable producer.

The delays have led to shortfalls of crops including lettuce and broccoli and sent wholesale prices soaring. The cost of a carton of 30 celery heads has almost tripled since early February to $25, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

A carton of 36 hearts of romaine lettuce jumped to about $52 as of April 18, more than four times the cost last year. Prices may remain volatile and "relatively elevated" into mid-May, said Roland Fumasi, a senior produce analyst for Rabobank in Fresno, Calif.

"The harvestable crop is not at the level that it normally would have been had we not had these planting delays," he said. "Over the coming few weeks or 30 days, the supply gaps will hopefully be less intense and maybe begin to go away."

The West Coast is the main U.S. source of crops like leafy greens, cauliflower and broccoli at this time of year. California's Salinas Valley, dubbed the "Salad Bowl of the World," grows about 70 percent of the nation's lettuce, according to the City of Salinas Economic Development Department. Since the start of October, Salinas Municipal Airport received 16.3 inches of rain, more than four times the 30-year average, according to the National Weather Service.

Weather service meteorologist Brian Mejia said California has been inundated with a series of what are called atmospheric rivers - drenching weather systems that have helped to alleviate the dryness that previously gripped the state. The multi-year drought has been nearly erased, except for parts of Southern California.

Abnormally high winter rainfall disrupted planting schedules for lettuce, celery and spinach in coastal districts, said Timothy Hartz, an extension agronomist at University of California, Davis. Sowing in January and February occurred during short windows between precipitation. Now that winter-planted crops are maturing, there's restricted availability of some leafy greens.

Some of the affected crops have seen heightened demand in recent years, with the rising popularity of vegetables such as kale and cauliflower, said Christine Lensing, specialty crops economist at Greenwood Village, Colo.-based CoBank.

"People just tend to eat more of these things nowadays, because people are more health wise," she said. "That's why these supply interruptions are felt so much more through the marketplace."

But the shortfall shouldn't last too long. Lettuce matures in just a few months, and Salinas Valley growers produce multiple crops a year.

Steve Alameda, president of Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association and who farms vegetables, melons and alfalfa at Top Flavor Farms in Yuma, Ariz., increased his acreage of lettuce when rains halted planting in January on a second farm in California.

"We saw an opportunity to make some money," he said. "It's always a risk that if you grow, the market may not want it when it's time to harvest."

Not all stores solely rely on West Coast supply. New York-based BrightFarms produces lettuce, tomatoes and basil in greenhouses to stock supermarkets in cities including Chicago and Milwaukee. CEO Paul Lightfoot said the company has been contacted by additional retailers this year, though its output is already spoken for.

"Surety of supply sounds attractive all of a sudden," he said.
The owner of Tinkle Management was sentenced to four years in federal prison for his role in a $15.6 million fake invoicing scheme.

John Blake Tinkle, 60, of Tomball, who pleaded guilty in September to wire fraud and money laundering, admitted during his sentencing Thursday before U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett that he billed Houston-based Westlake Chemical Corp. for $15.6 million in shipping supplies that Tinkle Management never delivered.

ENERGY NEWS: Westlake Chemical closes Axiall deal, nets small profit

The fake invoices were sent between 2008 and 2015, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Houston.

In addition to the prison term, Tinkle was ordered to pay $15.6 million in restitution.

Tinkle Management supplied Westlake with plastic bags the chemical company used to ship its chemical products abroad. Westlake used a packaging and logistics company in La Porte and Tinkle Management submitted invoices to the packing company, including billing for bags that had not been delivered, according to the U.S. attorney.

To prove delivery, Tinkle attached "doctored" receiving reports to Westlake Chemical, according to the U.S. attorney. And to gain financing, the fraudulent invoices were provided as proof to Charter Capital, a Houston financing company.

Tinkle spent the money supporting his family's lifestyle, which included a new home, an airplane and travel, the U.S. attorney said.

Tinkle's lawyer, Dan Cogdell, said Tinkle could have been sentenced to as long as seven years in prison, but said the judge may have taken into account that it was Tinkle's first offense and non-violent. "This wasn't reflective of his life as a whole," said Cogdell.

In a statement, Westlake Chemical said, "We have fully cooperated with both agencies in their investigation and we were pleased to see this matter brought to its conclusion."

Charter Capital could not immediately be reached for comment.
In "The Sign," the first of nine linked stories in "Anything Is Possible," Elizabeth Strout's sequel of sorts to "My Name Is Lucy Barton," an elderly man named Tommy Guptill drops by the dilapidated Barton home where Lucy grew up and her brother, Pete, still lives. The Guptills and Bartons have a long history in and around the small town of Amgash, Ill., where most of this book, like its predecessor, takes place. Half a century earlier, Tommy watched his family's farm burn to the ground after he forgot to turn off the milking machines properly. Pete's father used to work on Tommy's farm. Once the farm burned down, Tommy had to take a job as a janitor at the school that Lucy, now a famous New York writer, once attended.

Tommy confides to Pete that he interpreted the fire as sign from God, and the experience taught him that each of us has a perpetual contest inside of us over how we should behave and that the ability to show remorse, "to be able to be sorry about what we've done that's hurt other people - that keeps us human."

The book's many other characters, most of whom are connected one way or another to the Bartons, are caught in the same perpetual struggle. One of the underlying themes of this collection of moving if occasionally forced stories is that, though such a struggle is inevitably tied to class, the rich are just as likely to suffer as the less fortunate.

Consider, for example, Patty Nicely, a widow and high school guidance counselor. In "Windmills," she's dealing with a foul-mouthed student named Lila Lane, Lucy's niece, who calls Patty by her old nickname of Fatty Patty. Your weight, Lila says, is the reason you never had kids.

More Information 'Anything Is Possible' By Elizabeth Strout Random House, 272 pp., $27 See More Collapse

This prompts a harsh response that Patty later discusses with her wealthy sister Linda Peterson-Cornell, the subject of "Cracked," the collection's most unnerving story. Linda is sympathetic - the Bartons have always been trash, she reminds Patty - but she's got problems of her own, the most recent of which is a young photographer named Yvonne Tuttle, whom Linda and her husband have invited to stay with them for a summer photography festival. Lila's name-calling may have upset Patty's life but not nearly as much as Yvonne is about to upset Linda's.

Strout has a gift for creating heart-wrenching scenes in deceptively simple strokes, as in "Dottie's Bed & Breakfast," when Dottie, the proprietor and one of the Nicely sisters' cousins, overhears a guest making fun of her "body parts not having been made use of in quite some time," and in "Mississippi Mary," in which the same Mary Mumford from the previous novel is now 78 and lives in a squalid two-room flat in Italy with her new husband. As in the earlier work, this story mentions her having suffered a heart attack upon learning of her first husband's 13-year affair. Now, her daughter Angelina is visiting in an attempt to reconcile her feelings about her mother's abandonment.

And in the closing story, "Gift," Abel Blaine, Dottie's wealthy brother, returns to a theater after a holiday performance of "A Christmas Carol" to retrieve the beloved pink pony his granddaughter left behind, only to have the actor who played Scrooge, a self-described "lunatic," force him to stay and listen to his sad stories about life in the theater.

In the weakest stories, "The Sign" and "Sister" - the latter is the only one in which Lucy appears - Strout uses characters to disseminate information or catch up readers unfamiliar with the previous book. They lack dramatic tension, and Lucy's jealous sister Vicky, who appears in the latter work, is one-note and cartoonish.

But the other stories are beautifully rendered and filled with perfect descriptions, as when Strout writes that Yvonne's sandals with high cork wedges gave away that "Yvonne had, in her youth, most likely not come from much. Shoes always gave you away."

In "The Hit-Thumb Theory," an older man describes a phenomenon that is a metaphor for many of his experiences. When you hit your thumb with a hammer, there's a split-second when you think the pain won't come, and then there is "the crash and crush of real pain." Strout's characters know all too well that their lives are only one improperly turned-off milking machine away from radical redefinition. Her gift is in recognizing that improper conduct often masks deep vulnerability and may be not so much an indication of pettiness as an attempt to form a cushion that will offer protection, however illusory, when the hammerhead strikes.
GALVESTON  An animal rights group has filed another complaint against researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch, citing a study published in a journal as evidence of animal abuse.

Stop Animal Exploitation Now! filed a complaint with the U.S Department of Agriculture alleging that an article by UTMB researchers published April 5 in the journal Translational Medicine contained information about animals that were allowed to suffer instead of being euthanized.
A man is in critical condition after he was shot about 10 times outside of a Near Northside bar in Houston early Friday morning.

Houston police arrived around 1 a.m. at the La Playita bar in the 2500 block of Elysian Street where they found the man lying on the ground. His body was dotted with gunshot wounds.
Pearland's May 6 city election features a crowded field of candidates vying for a new council position and a longtime mayor running against two challengers.

A former engineer who retired from Johnson Space Center after 32 years, Tom Reid has served as mayor from 1978-1990 and from 1995 to the present.

He is challenged by Quentin Wiltz, a 10-year resident of west Pearland who works as director of commercial at Stupp Coating LLC, a pipeline coating company that services the oil and gas industry, and Jimi Amos, a Shadow Creek Ranch resident who works as an engineer for Schlumberger.

Position 3

In the race for City Council Position 3, incumbent Gary Moore is challenged by J. Darnell Jones.

Elected to his first term in 2004, Moore is a senior environmental technologist for Dow Chemical Corp. Jones, a retired veteran who served in both the Army and Navy, owns Professional Services Ltd., a Houston-based diversity, compliance and business development consulting company.

Position 5

In January, City Councilman Greg Hill announced he would seek election as judge for Brazoria County Court at Law No. 1, and two candidates are competing for his Position 5 seat: James David Little, a certified public accountant and attorney who runs his own Pearland-based law firm, and Jude Smith, a Geico Insurance staff attorney at the Houston-based law firm Levin and Clinebell.

Hill will stay on council until the election's decided.

Position 7

Six candidates have filed to run for the newly created council Position No. 7.

Candidate Sherry Stockwell is a retired real estate broker with 30 years of experience. She also owns two businesses: the Reflection Bay Event Center in Shadow Creek Ranch and Pearland Med Spa.

Also running is Bud Tollefsen, a full-time student at the University of Houston who works as a recreation attendant for the city of Pearland.

Other candidates are retiree Terry Gray, who is a former city councilman who served from 1976-1978 and from 1980-1986, former Pearland police officer Grover "Sonny" Atkins who retired after 36 years and is police chief for the City of Brookside Village.

In addition, the race includes Dalia Kasseb, a pharmacist and co-owner of Pyramids Pharmacy, and Woody Owens, who served on the city council for 12 years before stepping down in 2013 due to term limits. Owens is vice president of Houston-based Aztec Engineering Group Inc.
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A homeless Spring man has been sentenced to two life sentences after admitting to killing his father and another man and burning their bodies in an abandoned warehouse in northwest Houston in 2015.

Jamie Walter, 29, admitted to the killings but insisted he did not kill a third man whose body was also burned in the same barrel, his lawyer James Stafford said Thursday.

THE CRIME: Man accused in 3 killings, burned 2 bodies in drums

"He did admit to killing his father and burning the body," he said. "It's morbid. And it's crazy. A Hollywood screenwriter couldn't make this stuff up."

After Walter was arrested in September 2015, prosecutors said the web of crimes were hard to investigate because almost everyone involved was part of the homeless community. They all knew each other from the streets, usually not with full names.

In his statement to police, Walter claimed his girlfriend, who has not been charged with a crime, fatally stabbed a man she believed had killed her ex-boyfriend weeks earlier. That man's body had been found after a train had run him over. Prosecutors are aware of that death but not sure it was was connected.

BACKGROUND: Man charged in abandoned Houston warehouse deaths has violent past

Walter, the woman, and two other men were sitting around a campfire at a homeless encampment in April 2015 when, according to Walter, the woman stabbed the man she believed to be a killer. Walter killed the other with a hammer because he was a witness.

The charred remains of Monty Kaiser and Donald Fleming were found in the burn barrel. Court records show that both were killed with a hammer.

Months later, Walter's sister apparently started a fight between him and their father, and Walter killed him, his lawyer said.

After Walter killed his father, Steven Walter, he said he burned the body in the same burn barrel in the warehouse at Todd Road near Antoine. He gave different accounts of how he committed the murder.

BRUTAL: Authorities link multiple killing suspect to death of his father

In September 2015, his girlfriend contacted police and accused Walter of hitting her in the head with a hammer and slashing her leg with a machete.

To bolster her claims of domestic violence, she told police about the slayings and led them to the burn barrel and the ashes of the three men, investigators said.

Prosecutors said she was not charged because there was no evidence, other than Walter's statement, that she was involved.

"She's denied involvement in the murder, she just admits to being present," Assistant Harris County District Attorney Samantha Knecht.

Walter pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder and aggravated assault of a family member, both first degree felonies with a maximum punishment of life in prison.

Knecht said the plea deal was a good result.

"I'm happy that he's taking responsibility," she said.

Walter, who has "God's Soldier" tattooed on his throat, is unlikely to see parole, his lawyer said.

"My client's I.Q. is way down the chart and he's been in and out of mental institutions since the age of 12," Stafford said. "With two life sentences, he'll never make parole."
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The Houston man accused of leaving a decomposing body in his car at the Captain D's Restaurant in Porter earlier this year had been driving around with the body for days, court records indicate.

Brayan Rodriguez-Valtierra, 18, probably will have his first-degree murder charge presented to a Montgomery County grand jury soon, as the mandatory 90-day deadline for obtaining an indictment for felony charges is coming up May 10. Rodriguez-Valtierra is accused of killing Pete Figueroa, Jr., 67, who was found dead in a car registered to the suspect Feb. 7 at the East Montgomery County restaurant.

The two had lived together for about eight months in an apartment in the 13800 block of Ella Boulevard, investigators said, although neighbors told detectives they had not seen Figueroa since Feb. 3.

An autopsy showed Figueroa died of a shotgun blow to the face and was likely strangled. Forensic detectives preliminarily ruled he died on either Feb. 4 or 5, or about two or three days before he was discovered Feb. 7.

Captain D's Discovery

A witness told detectives he saw Rodriguez-Valtierra driving north on the U.S. 59 feeder in a white Nissan car that was on its rims, creating sparks across the road, early in the morning of Feb. 7. Rodriguez-Valtierra pulled over into the back of the Captain D's Restaurant in the 23800 block of U.S. 59, which is where the witness drove up to offer him a ride after seeing his car troubles.

Rodriguez-Valtierra accepted the witness' help and, after pulling some items from his Nissan, told the witness to drive him to a gas station at the intersection of FM 1314 and Texas 242. The witness told detectives that Rodriguez-Valtierra was acting odd during the trip, sometimes mumbling curse words under his breath.

Trying to console the man, the witness told him it was going to be OK and that the only problem was with the car. But the witness told detectives that's when Rodriguez-Valtierra admitted there was a body in the Nissan.

The witness told detectives that Rodriguez-Valtierra wiped off his fingerprints from the door handle as he exited the witness's vehicle minutes later.

After the witness called 911, detectives rolled up to the Captain D's Restaurant and found Rodriguez-Valtierra's car parked behind the restaurant. Looking through the car, they found Figueroa covered with clothing, a board and a roll of black upholstery fabric.

The car's windows were rolled down, detectives said, and they found what looked like a painter's mask stuffed between the driver's seat and center console. Days later as forensic detectives were searching the car, they found 21 fired shotgun pellets consistent with the pellets recovered from Figueroa's autopsy, court documents show.

They found pooled blood and a rope-like material that was fashioned into a noose, detectives said. The investigators also found a traffic citation issued by the Harris County Sheriff's Office on Jan. 21.

'Smelled like a dead rat'

Detectives began working backward, first starting their investigation at Rodriguez-Valtierra and Figueroa's apartment in Houston the day his body was found. They met with neighbors, who said they thought Rodriguez-Valtierra could have been Figueroa's cousin and confirmed the suspect drove a white Nissan car.

The detectives entered the apartment and found no one home. They did find, however, a six-pack of beer that had been left on the counter.

The detectives found this odd, thinking any person would immediately put the beer in the refrigerator, they said. Investigators thought something abrupt must have occurred in the apartment, although they found no signs of a struggle.

The next day, the detectives talked with Figueroa's daughter and nephew about Rodriguez-Valtierra and his relationship with Figueroa. They told detectives Figueroa oftentimes had problems with getting Rodriguez-Valtierra's portion of rent from him and said Rodriguez-Valtierra almost always had Figueroa's phone on him.

Figueroa's wallet and credit cards also were missing, detectives discovered. Despite this, Figueroa's cards were used to withdraw a total of $760 on Feb. 3 and 6.

Detectives looked at ATM surveillance footage from the transactions on Feb. 3 and 6 and found a person matched Rodriguez-Valtierra's description making the withdrawals. None of the photos matched Figueroa's description, court documents show.

Investigators also discovered Rodriguez-Valtierra had purchased a pay-as-you-go phone from a retail store in the 11100 block of Airline Drive in Houston Feb. 6. Detectives spoke with the salesperson at the store, who recalled Rodriguez-Valtierra smelling like a "dead rat" as he talked to her in the store.

The clerk told detectives Rodriguez-Valtierra asked if the pay-as-you-go phone would track him before the purchase.

Rodriguez-Valtierra was arrested in Liberty County Feb. 11 on the first-degree murder charge. He will be back in Judge Patty Maginnis's 435th state District Court for a hearing sometime in May. He is in the county jail with no bond.
GALVESTON  Efforts to close pristine Christmas Bay to commercial oystering got a boost this week from the Brazoria County commissioner whose district includes the bay.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Donald "Dude" Payne sent a letter Tuesday to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department backing a petition sent to Parks and Wildlife commissioners last week asking that the commission close Christmas Bay to commercial oystering.
Houston police seized 560 pounds of Kush worth $2.5 million in an investigation that led to the arrest of two men this week, city officials said Thursday.

Mohamed Ebrahim Moton, 47, and Ataur Rehman Malik, 38, were charged Wednesday with delivery of synthetic cannabinoids and, if convicted, would face 10 years to life in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo linked Moton and Malik to what he said was the largest Kush manufacturing organization identified in Houston to-date, based in an Alief single-family home.

"I would just encourage all Houstonians, when they see something suspicious in their neighborhood, please be our eyes and ears, please be that force multiplier," Acevedo said, noting that the seized drugs amounted to nearly 100,000 doses of Kush.

The seven-month undercover investigation is part of Mayor Sylvester Turner's push to crack down on Kush manufacturing, distribution and use after 16 people overdosed last June in Hermann Park.

"These two arrests and the seizure will go a long way in improving the quality of life in our city," Mayor Sylvester Turner said. "We will not tolerate the manufacturing, sale and distribution of this drug."

Kush, often incorrectly called synthetic marijuana, is a mixture of leaves doused with a chemical that can mimic the effects of the active ingredient in marijuana.

Moton's attorney, Shahin Zamir, did not immediately return a request for comment. Malik had no attorney listed on the Harris County District Clerk's website.
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Halfway through the European Space Agency's new film, we're at the part where - if this were some happy space documentary from yesteryear - Carl Sagan might be giving us a tour of a distant galaxy.

But it's 2017, Sagan is dead, and this is a film about space trash. So six minutes in, we're stuck a mere 800 miles above Earth, watching a wasp swarm of defunct satellites whip around the globe to a frenetic soundtrack that sounds like the end of "The Dark Knight."

It's a dramatic simulation of what low Earth orbit looks like today. You can even watch it in 3-D. Because the European Space Agency really, really wants you to pay attention to the space debris problem.

The problem is about to get worse, experts say, as cheap, tiny satellites are shot through the stratosphere in unprecedented numbers.

Worst-case scenario: a massive, unstoppable, chain-reaction traffic wreck above our heads. So much for escaping Earth to distant galaxies.

The short film "Space Debris: A Journey to Earth" was screened this week in Germany at the world's largest annual gathering of space-debris experts.

The news from space was not great.

Hundreds of thousands of bits of space junk are orbiting Earth, according to NASA. These include tiny paint flecks that can take out a space shuttle window, and some 2,000 satellite shards left by a collision of Russian and American satellites several years ago.

In Germany, the audience was shown a slide from another depressing space film, "Gravity." The part where the International Space Station is destroyed in an avalanche of space trash.

"There were many mistakes in that movie; I will not go through that," ESA Director General Jan Woerner said. "But the effect, as such, is a very serious one."

Woerner cut to video from the real International Space Station, which has not yet been destroyed.

Bobbing around in zero gravity, astronaut Thomas Pesquet described what the space station crew has to do when a piece of debris whizzes past: Climb into an escape shuttle, wait and hope.

"This happened four times," Pesquet said. "In my own interests, let me wish you a successful conference."

Then it was on to a keynote speech from retired NASA scientist Donald Kessler, known for coming up with an apocalyptic space-crash theory called the Kessler syndrome - or "orbital Nagasaki," as a researcher once described it to The Washington Post.

Basically: A thing hits another thing at 25,000 mph or so. Those things then explode into more things, which hit yet more things, initiating a catastrophic chain reaction of collisions that makes low Earth orbit totally unusable.

Kessler predicted this in the 1970s, when space had fewer things in it. At this week's conference, he previewed a new study he worked on that found "a statistically meaningful number of satellites" that have been damaged by debris.

And an ESA official described a recent study finding that a particularly crowded region of space has already become unstable, which he worried could foretell Kessler's doomsday scenario.

The bad news didn't stop there.

As satellites get smaller and cheaper, more of them are going into orbit to potentially smash into each other.

In February, the New York Times reported, India launched 104 tiny satellites into space from a single rocket.

It was a world record, though one not likely to stand for long.

In all of human history, ESA's debris chief said at the conference, about 7,000 spacecraft have left Earth. He pulled up a slide of 12,000 new satellites set to go up soon, announced by companies such as Samsung and SpaceX.

Many of these - like the batch India sent into space - are nano-satellites: tiny, motorless machines that promise to revolutionize communications.

They're simple enough to make that grade school students in Arlington, Va., put one together for a class project. Once in orbit, they fan out into wide constellations, outperforming their bulkier ancestors.

But these tiny satellites have big problems, according to experts at the conference. There will be lots of them, for one thing. And since they can't navigate, they'll keep careening through space long after they've stopped working and are thus more likely to collide with other things.

Hugh Lewis, an aerospace researcher with the University of Southampton, spoke at the conference about a dire computer model his team ran. They simulated the effects of 270 nano-satellites launched into space each year for 50 years - a realistic assumption, Lewis said, as more than 100 a year are already going up.

He projected the results of the simulation onto the wall; the chance of space collisions more than doubled with the tiny satellites in play.

Lewis noted that "mega-constellations" of satellites aren't necessarily bad. He said they have the potential to provide affordable communications to the half of the world that lacks such technology.

But other experts at the conference noted that voluntary guidelines to mitigate space debris (bring your dead satellite out of orbit within 25 years, for example) often go ignored.

"No one has found an ideal solution for cleaning up the junk that's already there," Rachel Feltman wrote for The Post last year.

And if the next Space Age only adds more of it, low Earth orbit could resemble something even worse than a dramatically scored wasp swarm by the time the ESA makes a sequel to its space-trash film.

---
Four Texas County fire departments responded Saturday, April 15, to an early morning fire that destroyed a house on Highway 17 near the Big Creek bridge.

Raymondville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mike Jackson said a total of seven fire trucks and 14 personnel from his department, Clear Springs, Summersville and Tyrone responded at about 5:30 a.m., but by then it was already too late to save the house.

A motorist on Highway 17 reportedly saw the house burning and called authorities.

It was called in fully involved, Jackson said, and the roof had already fallen in by the time we got there.

The blaze was near the roadway, and a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper assisted with directing traffic while firefighters performed their duties.

We had half of Highway 17 blocked for a few hours, Jackson said. But I was surprised by how little traffic there was at that time in the morning on a Saturday, so that was good.

Jackson said the Summersville FD received several calls about rekindles.

We cooled it as much as we could, he said, but it did rekindle in one corner of the house where a lot of debris had fallen into the basement.

Jackson said the cause of the blaze isnt known, and no people or animals were injured.

The man and woman who lived in it were in Sikeston at the time of the fire.

There was a little concern at first, because we didnt know if anybody was home, Jackson said. We flowed more water than we would have if we had known everyone was out, but not knowing for sure, we continued to fight the fire hard until we knew nobody as inside.
Students attending Missouri State University-West Plains will see an increase in their basic tuition for the 2017-18 academic year

The Missouri State University Board of Governors Executive approved a resolution Wednesday calling for fees to increase $5 per credit hour for in-state residents and $10 per credit hour for out-of-state residents. The increases will put tuition at $124 per credit hour for Missouri residents and $248 per credit hour for non-Missouri residents, which is four percent more than last years rate.

Tuition is lower for Missouri residents because Missouri State-West Plains is a state-assisted institution, university officials said.

We at Missouri State University-West Plains are very mindful of the impact that increasing tuition has on students from our area, said Chancellor Drew Bennett. We carefully weigh the growing needs of our campus and the standards that we want to maintain against what it will cost our students in tuition and the other sources of revenue available when making these decisions. Unfortunately, in addition to reducing programs, people and services, we must also raise tuition to help compensate for the extensive budget cuts to higher education.

Several other fees also will increase.

The fee charged for online courses will go from $137 to $142 per credit hour for in-state and out-of-state students, and courses in the Associate of Science in Nursing degree program will go from $154 to $159 per credit hour for Missouri residents and $308 to $318 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Students in the Associate of Applied Science in Respiratory Care program will pay $149 per credit hour for in-state students, up $5 from last years rate of $144; out-of-state students will pay $298 per credit hour, up $10 from last years $288 rate.

University officials explained the fee structure for online, nursing and respiratory care courses is different than that for other classes due to the additional costs associated in providing these programs.

Fees for classes in the Viticulture and Enology Science and Technology Alliance (VESTA) program, headquartered at the Missouri State University campus in Mountain Grove, will remain at $210 per credit hour.

University officials also will begin charging the Common Fee first announced last spring. The $17-per-credit-hour Common Fee replaces the capital projects fee, student activities fee, professional services fee, computer and technology fee, the Student Recreation Center, application fee, diploma fee, graduation fee, transcript fee, and cap and gown fee.

University said that combining many of the campus fees into one Common Fee makes it easier to manage refunds of federal aid grants, remove barriers of application for admission, and potentially increase graduation rates by not requiring students to pay several graduation-related fees in the last semester. It also makes it easier for students to calculate all of their charges each semester. The fee, which includes a two-year subscription to the Chalk and Wire online software product that students use to upload electronic documents and assignments for their capstone courses, is designed to maintain the current funding level for the accounts the fees have historically funded, university officials said.

Course fees for high school dual credit and dual enrollment students will go up in 2017-18, as well, to $62 per credit hour  half of the tuition rate for Missouri residents rounded to the nearest dollar. In addition, dual credit students taking dual credit courses at area high schools will be charged a modified Common Fee of $6 per credit hour beginning this fall, bringing the total charge to $68 per credit hour. Dual enrollment students taking courses on the Missouri State-West Plains campus will pay the $17 per credit hour Common Fee.

Students staying in the Grizzly House residence hall also will see an increase in room and board. Those fees will go up from $2,851 per semester for housing and a 20-meal-per-week plan at the Putnam Student Center cafeteria to $2,910 per semester. Summer charges will increase from $1,218 to $1,250.

Students staying at the Grizzly Lofts, a privately-owned residence hall near campus on Missouri Avenue that is managed by the university, will pay $3,000 per semester for housing and a 20-meal-per-week plan at the on-site Sole Cafe.

For more information about tuition and student fees, contact the Missouri State-West Plains business office at 417-255-7260.
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Employers who exploit vulnerable workers by making them pay premiums in exchange for a job breach New Zealand law, and it will not be tolerated, warned Labour Inspectorate regional manager, Loua Ward.

This practice takes advantage of migrants who may not be aware of all their rights and entitlements in New Zealand, or may not feel like they have any other option, she added.

Singh, who operates both Drury Lane Fruit and Vegies and Waiuku Fruit and Veges, was fined $12,000 for the breach  half of which will go to former employee Khan.

The breach by Raw n Fresh was serious, member of the authority Anna Fitzgibbon wrote in her decision. The employee concerned was a migrant worker dependent on Raw n Freshs support for his immigration status. He was in an inherently vulnerable position.

Raw n Fresh deliberately took advantage of the employees vulnerability by seeking payment of a premium by him on two occasions, she added.
Non-profit BusinessNZ welcomed the early release, praising the rapid action towards implementation and saying the legislation could have a profound impact on those involved.

"The current Equal Pay Act does not enable the implementation of pay equity claims so this legislation is needed soon to keep faith with those who have worked to achieve the change in law, said chief executive Kirk Hope.

However, the PSA took a different stance and national secretary Erin Polaczuk expressed deep concern about the proposed bill.

"It is very disappointing that just two days after the jubilant celebrations by care and support workers, the government has released proposals to slam the door on future claimants," she said.

"If Kristine Bartlett were to lodge her equal pay claim against Terranova using this framework, she would not have achieved the great result they were celebrating.
A giant iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland has drawn sightseers to the small town of Ferryland. But while "Iceberg Alley" is experiencing a tourism boom, the giant 'berg's early appearance might be cause for concern.

Icebergs break off from Baffin Island or Greenland every spring and drift down the stretch of water along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador known as Iceberg Alley.

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Usually, the best time of year to view icebergs is between late-May and early-June, according Dr. Stephen E. Bruneau, author of "Icebergs of Newfoundland and Labrador." They are actually the most plentiful in April and May, but he notes that the formations are often trapped in sea ice at that time of year.

Canadian Ice Service estimated there were more than 1,000 icebergs  including "bergy bits" and "growlers," small 'bergs that are less than 5 metres above the sea level  in Iceberg Alley as of Thursday. The service estimates the number of icebergs in the area through observations from ships, planes and satellite images.

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Experts are attributing the high numbers to a mixture of uncommonly strong counter-clockwise winds that draw the icebergs south and global warming, which is making Greenland's ice sheet melt faster, according to The Associated Press. Last month, NASA announced that Arctic sea ice hit its lowest level on record.

"With climate change, more ice is disbursed into the ocean by the glaciers, effectively increasing the number of icebergs flowing out of Greenland," University of California, Irvine professor Eric Rignot told Vice's Motherboard.

Icebergs (although likely not ones as big as the Ferryland 'berg) are likely to become more common as melting of the Greenland ice sheet accelerates.

The ice sheet is disappearing at a net rate of 200 gigatonnes per year, which is making the sea level rise by 0.6 millimetres annually, according to The University of Cambridge.

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With a file from The Associated Press

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Ottawa police are asking the public for help in their search for a woman who allegedly forced a man with autism to give her money. They say the 25-year-old was likely targeted because of his "cognitive disability."

The incident occurred on March 31 at the city's Rideau Centre mall. Robert Jarencsni was on his way to catch a bus when he was stopped by a woman who asked him to donate to an unknown charity, his mother Susan Torrie told CTV News.

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Jarencsni avoided her at first, but then she became more insistent.

As he describes it, she then pulled him toward the bank machine and got him to enter his PIN number and, as soon as he did, she pushed him or moved him out of the way and emptied his account, Torrie said.

The incident has changed her son and he no longer feels safe taking public transit, she added.

Rideau Centre's general manager Cindy VanBuskirk told the Ottawa Sun that the mall has a no-solicitation policy, and they are co-operating in the investigation.

Police are now searching for the suspect, and describe her as an "Asian female, approximately 35 years old, small build wearing black pants and a black jacket."

People with disabilities more commonly targeted

Canadians with mental and physical disabilities are more likely to be victims of crimes, according to Statistics Canada. These individuals, particularly those between 15 to 24 years of age, are often targeted because of their reduced abilities to defend themselves.

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The RCMP lists several ways Canadians can avoid charity scams, such as asking for written information before donating, and refusing to give money to people being overly persistent. More tips can be found here.

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Your headphones may know more about you than you realize.

A lawsuit launched this week against headphone creator Bose alleges that the company has been tracking what users are listening to, including music, podcasts, news programs and other audio. The complaint, filed by Kyle Zak of Chicago, Ill., presses the company to stop disregarding its customers' privacy.

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Information is supposedly stolen through an app called Bose Connect, which links wireless headphones to smartphones, and requires users to enter their name, email and headphone serial number. The app is meant to help customers control features such as noise cancellation, but it apparently does a lot more than that.

Christopher Dore, a lawyer representing Zak, told Reuters that the alleged privacy breach should make people "uncomfortable."

"People put headphones on their head because they think it's private, but they can be giving out information they don't want to share," he said.

Watch the video above for more on the issue.

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For the last time: Asylum claimants who illegally cross into Canada from the U.S. dont receive an automatic welcome into the country.

Thats the message Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale wanted to send with a statement shared to his website in March.

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"To be clear  trying to slip across the border in an irregular manner is not a "free" ticket into Canada," reads the statement, which was recirculated to media this week for stories about a recent increase in illegal border crossers.

"The asylum seekers are apprehended and secured by police or local authorities. Their identities are determined from both biographic and biometric information. Health checks are done. Their records are examined for any immigration, criminal or terrorist flags against both Canadian and international databases," it stated.

Those who can't be identified, are deemed a flight risk or a danger to the public may be detained, according to the statement. Each person appears before the Immigration and Refugee Board to have their claim heard. If their claim is deemed invalid and the person inadmissible, officials start the deportation process.

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The number of people stopped by the RCMP after illegally entering Canada rose in March.

New figures released Wednesday by the federal government show the RCMP intercepted 887 people crossing between official border points, up from 658 in February and 315 in January.

Between March 20 and April 16, three out of 135 people intercepted crossing near Emerson, Man. were detained because RCMP determined they were a danger to the public, according to numbers obtained by CBC News.

One of those detainees was charged with assaulting a police officer.

But in a tweet sharing Goodale's statement, Reuters reporter Anna Mehler Paperny pointed out that people arent usually interested in being arrested unless theyre serious about seeking refugee status.

statement from Public Safety Minister @RalphGoodale is worth clipping and saving. no one* is here for lulz unless they love being in custody pic.twitter.com/xvdjMQFMh4  Anna Mehler Paperny (@amp6) April 20, 2017

Those who cross in search of asylum also do not get to "jump the queue" ahead of those in refugee camps.

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People who cross the border into Canada and those waiting to be resettled from outside the country are processed differently.

Canada does have a target for the number of resettled refugees it wants to accept  the government aims to take in 25,000 in 2017  but immigration lawyer Ken Zaifman told CTV Winnipeg he thinks Canada has to pick a limit for all refugees.

"The government has to decide, at the end of the day, theres a limited number of refugees that Canada can absorb and take and fund," he said.

People who are self-selecting by walking into Canada may have an impact on the total number of refugees accepted from outside the country, he said.

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Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, people who seek asylum in Canada at official crossings can be turned away, because they are obliged to seek it in the first country they enter. But a loophole in the agreement allows people to make a claim if they manage to get into Canada another way.

With files from The Canadian Press

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The young royals have been stepping up their efforts to talk candidly about mental health, and the Duchess of Cambridge is no exception.

In a new video posted to the Royal Family's Facebook page on Friday, Kate Middleton, along with Prince William and Prince Harry, talk about a range of subjects from the stresses children face today, grief, and dealing with trauma in the workplace.

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But one topic really struck a chord with the Duchess  the challenges that come with being a new mom.

"Having a child, particularly your first child, is such a life-changing moment," said the 35-year-old Duchess. "Nothing can really prepare you for that. Remember the first few days with little George, you have no idea what really you are doing, no matter how many books you read, nothing can prepare you for it."

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Watch the video below:

Catherine then recalled how she, Will, and baby George spent the first few weeks after his birth at Kate's parents' home before returning to their home in Anglesey.

"Do you remember up in Anglesey, so we've had our couple of weeks of family support and you were keen to get back to your work and I was like, 'Yeah I'll come with you', so we scooted off back to Anglesey with George," Kate said to Will. "Those first few weeks were a steep learning curve massively."

William, for his part, completely agreed with his wife, adding that having children helped him access his emotional side.

"There's no rule book, there's no training that teaches you how to do it, you've just got to learn from previous generations and hope that translates into what you want to do," said William. "When you have children, it really does put your own emotions and your own life into perspective and it has been very interesting why I get so upset about some things and why some things really affect me. I thought I was quite straight down the line, but I'm actually, I feel quite a lot more than I used to do."

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The Duchess of Cambridge carries her son Prince George alongside her husband Prince William as they visit the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, July 2, 2014. (REUTERS/John Stillwell/Pool)

On Thursday, the Duchess reiterated her sentiments about how hard it can be for new moms to adjust to their new lives at an event at the Global Academy in London.

It is lonely at times, she said to attendees, referring to motherhood. You do feel quite isolated... But actually, so many other mothers are going through exactly what youre going through. But its being brave enough, like you obviously were, to reach out.

The young royals have been increasingly visible the past couple of weeks, stepping up their efforts to spark conversations about mental health.

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Princess Diana, Prince Harry and Prince William on the balcony Of Buckingham Palace. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

Prince Harry also opened up in an interview about how the death of Diana affected him, noting that he sought counselling in his late 20s after nearly suffering several breakdowns.
Given the fragile nature of our planet's environment, there are lots of things to think about this Earth Day, perhaps most notably, what we can do to limit the effects of climate change. That's certainly on my mind. But this year I'm thinking bigger: specifically, I'm thinking about how climate change -- and the droughts that are becoming more frequent and more severe as a result -- is affecting some of the most vulnerable communities in the world.

The scale of the East Africa drought is immense. Across the region, farmers have been left waiting for rains that haven't come, in some areas for many seasons in a row. As a result, crops are failing and livestock populations are dwindling, meaning that residents are not only facing dehydration and malnutrition, but also significant economic shortfalls. Famine has already been declared in parts of South Sudan, with 100,000 people facing starvation and a further one million on the brink of famine. According to the UN, nearly 1.4 million children face imminent risk of death from severe malnutrition as famine grows across East Africa.

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A woman and her son walk towards their traditional nomadic home in drought-stricken northern Kenya. (Photo credit: Plan International)

Children who are not at immediate risk of starvation may face the consequences of this drought long after it's passed. In Kenya, for example, nearly 200,000 students in drought-affected areas have stopped attending school, while in Ethiopia, close to 600 schools have already closed. It is estimated that about five million children could soon have their education disrupted because of drought.

Even students who are still able to attend school are struggling. In eastern Kenya, a teacher at an elementary school noted that "at around 10am, we notice our children are falling asleep at their desks. After speaking to them, we realized that the majority miss breakfast." And the exhaustion worsens throughout the day: "Many times we see children come back from lunch with less energy. Most families have been affected by this drought, making it difficult for them to provide adequate meals for their children."

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Children fall asleep in class and struggle to concentrate on their studies in areas where food and water are scarce. (Photo credit: Plan International)

The drought is also having an acute impact on girls. Many girls in Kenya are responsible for fetching water in the afternoon before they go back to school. Longer and longer walks to the nearest water source in midday heat saps their energy. Nisha, a Plan International youth activist from a drought-affected community in eastern Kenya explains that despite the longer walks for water, "girls are expected to remain alert during the afternoon classes."

Students dropping out of school may seem like a short-term issue -- they'll just go back to school once the drought is over, right? But that's not necessarily the case. Not only can an extended absence make it difficult to reintegrate into classes weeks, months, or years later, it can also have a huge impact on a child's participation in their community. Not attending school often means being cut off from their social network and community resources.

Kenyan youth activist Nisha speaks out about the drought's impact on girls. (Photo credit: Plan International)

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These issues can be compounded for girls, whose risk of child marriage and early pregnancy increase in times of crisis. In many communities, older men will try to lure girls with gifts as they fetch water. Youth activist Nisha explains that "it is common to be approached by older men seeking sexual favours in exchange for money" -- a resource that many families are desperately lacking right now as a result of poor or non-existent harvests. We know that the longer a girl stays in school, the less likely it is that she'll be married early. But without access to education, she can quickly become isolated, and her risk of child marriage and early pregnancy rises.

So what can be done to address an issue so immense as widespread drought, or climate change more broadly? In the short term, millions of people need immediate humanitarian assistance to cope with the lack of food and water, and urgent medical help. Plan International Canada is helping by distributing Jerry cans and water purification tablets to ensure that any available water is collected and safe to drink. We're also supporting a new school feeding program in eastern Kenya to prevent malnutrition, improve school attendance rates, reduce financial and emotional stresses on parents and secure a better future for children.

Children queue for their school lunch, part of a new school feeding program in

eastern Kenya. (Photo credit: Plan International/Ndokolani Ndundi)

We must also prioritize reversing the effects of climate change. For people living in countries like Canada, that means reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, cutting our greenhouse gas emissions and making other greener choices in our daily lives. That's not only good for us, it's also an investment in a stronger, healthier world.

Of course, these lifestyle changes will take time to impact the environment, so Plan and other development agencies now factor climate change into our planning and assistance programs as another risk facing vulnerable communities. A key part of that is helping to improve the resilience of communities to deal with disasters when they strike. From direct experience, we know that programs that address women's and children's rights are particularly effective in improving resilience, because they are the populations most at-risk when disaster strikes.

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We've come a long way since the first Earth Day was held in 1970, and we've learned a lot more about how interconnected our world is. So on Earth Day 2017, join me in thinking about what we can do in Canada to help make the planet healthier and more liveable for us all.

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It's been one year since world leaders gathered at UN headquarters in New York to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change. Four months ago, Canada released its own climate change plan. Less than a week ago, Christians around the world celebrated Easter. And now we've come to Earth Day.

One of these things is not like the others.

There has often been some distance between celebrations of faith and environmental action -- between Easter and Earth Day. This year, however, these two springtime celebrations lined up pretty closely. Not only are they just days apart but their messages of sacrifice and renewal have also come together for people of faith around the world.

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As more and more Christian faith communities are coming to understand care for creation as central to their spiritual mission, ecological and climate justice are featuring prominently in the ways they live out their faith and celebrate seasons like Lent and Easter.

Christians around the world know that a great deal more action is required to address the global environmental crisis.

Lent marks a time of preparation, of making space for revival and better things to come. It commemorates Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the wilderness ahead of his crucifixion and resurrection. Throughout church history, faith communities have modelled their Lenten journeys on Jesus' example.

Increasingly, this period of sacrifice is focused on caring for creation.

It's true that a lot of international progress has been made over the last year and a half. Governments have acknowledged the dangers of climate change. Political leaders have proudly and confidently proclaimed their commitment to climate agreements and frameworks. Yet Christians around the world know that a great deal more action is required to address the global environmental crisis.

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Here are six initiatives that highlight some of the ways in which Christian communities have emphasized ecological and climate justice in the lead up to Earth Day 2017.

Anglicans and Lutherans published the essay "Creation -- Not for Sale" in Liberated by God's Grace. The underlying message of these reflections is that "[people of faith] continue to stand against every form of exploitation of nature and against all attempts to turn nature into a mere commodity."

The Green Churches Network calendar, "Protecting God's Creation," offered some first steps on living into this Christian call to stand in defence of creation.

Ideas about how individuals and churches can reduce their ecological footprint -- such as installing solar panels or switching to FSC certified paper -- were combined with suggestions on reconnecting with nature. Citizens for Public Justice organized Give it up for the Earth!, a faith-in-action campaign, to encourage personal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (by reducing meat consumption and divesting from fossil fuels, for example). This initiative also emphasized the critical need to go "beyond greening," and engage our political leaders about the need for stronger and more urgent climate policy and action.

People from close to 100 communities from BC, to Newfoundland and Labrador, to the Yukon sent postcards to Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna calling for more ambitious climate action. "[People of faith] continue to stand against every form of exploitation of nature and against all attempts to turn nature into a mere commodity." The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund (of the Anglican Church of Canada) Lent 2017 resource reflects on the five principles of food security: availability, accessibility, acceptability, appropriateness, and agency, and the ways in which they are influenced by complex factors including environmental degradation and climate change.

Reflections from the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network, Seven Weeks for Water , draw on both the spiritual and material significance of water around the world, and the many significant water-related challenges linked to inequality, poverty, and environmental strain.

, draw on both the spiritual and material significance of water around the world, and the many significant water-related challenges linked to inequality, poverty, and environmental strain. The Global Catholic Climate Movement's #Mercy2Earth campaign brings together reflection and action around Pope Francis' message "Show Mercy to our Common Home." On April 22 and 23, Catholics are encouraged to show mercy to the Earth through actions such as offering educational events, purchasing less, and supporting the switch to a low-carbon future.

So you see, the efforts of Canadian and international governments to address environmental decline are not all that far removed from Christians' Easter preparation, at home and around the world.

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Happy Easter. Happy Earth Day.

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This Earth Day, we invite you to take your children outside, into nature, to strengthen their connection with the environment. It is the best way to motivate them to protect it.

The effects of climate change are not always obvious to us. Yet, they are undeniable. It is easier to see the harmful effects in parts of the world with very different geography from Canada: the arid lands, where three billion people live.

Such areas are extremely vulnerable to desertification, land degradation and drought--phenomena exacerbated by climate change.

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Too often the people who live in these areas, particularly small-scale farmers, are seeing their means of subsistence threatened and their families overwhelmed by water, food and energy shortages. When these shortages go on long enough, they escalate into greater crises: famines, armed conflicts and forced migrations.

In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 75 per cent of the land is degraded and 10 million hectares becomes so every year. For farmers, this represents lost income of more than $4 billion annually. For woman farmers it's even worse, because women often have access only to less fertile land. They also receive less training and financial aid.

Like poverty, desertification affects women and girls disproportionately. Twice as many women and girls suffer from malnutrition as men and boys. Women and girls spend an enormous amount of time providing their families with water: in sub-Saharan Africa, 40 million hours every day. And when conflicts break out, they are more affected by violence and lack of security.

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In the next few decades, desertification could create as many as 135 million climate refugees. By 2050, water shortages will affect 52 per cent of the world's people.

More than ever, arid-land populations -- particularly women -- need to prevent the degradation of their land, restore it and make it productive.

On this Earth Day, Canada is proud to re-establish its support for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. It is key to our commitment to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

We want to help affected communities develop resilience in the face of the effects of climate change. We want to improve their food security and stabilize their incomes. We want to enhance the economic power of women and girls and to help build inclusive, stronger and more prosperous economies.

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We also want to share our expertise in green technologies with developing countries, particularly with regard to sustainable management of natural resources, climate-smart agriculture and the response to natural disasters.

We join in celebrating Canada's commitment to the fight against desertification, one of our time's major causes of instability.

Marie-Claude Bibeau

Minister of International Development and La Francophonie

Monique Barbut

Executive Secretary

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

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As we near the hundred-day mark of U.S. President Donald Trump's presidency, many Canadians are concerned about a shift in Trudeau's government's foreign policy. Instead of keeping the promises made by Trudeau for constructive engagement and the return of Canada as a force for peace in the world, Canadians are seeing a government which is obediently following an increasingly unstable and bellicose U.S. administration.

Perhaps no example of this unfortunate tendency is as salient as what happened earlier this month in Syria. Within 24 hours, our prime minister expressed two opposing views on Syria, following in lock-step the about-face of U.S. President Donald Trump on the matter. At first, Trudeau reacted in an admirably measured fashion to the gross and violent chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun in Syria; he called for an independent investigation while condemning the attack. However, less than 24 hours later he very publicly supported the rash and potentially disastrous military intervention of Donald Trump and called for regime change in Syria.

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When Prime Minister Trudeau stated in 2015 that "Canada is back," many observers were hopeful that this would mean a Canadian foreign policy in which Canada took its historic place as an honest mediator. The hope was that Canada would help usher in an age of diplomatic solutions and peace: reducing conflict and standing up to tides of war. This path would not only be morally correct, but would also increase Canada's international reputation and influence.

However, what we've seen since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump has put that hope in jeopardy. Trudeau has reshuffled his cabinet, pushing the well-respected and fiercely progressive Stephane Dion out of the position of foreign affairs minister. He has placed election promises such as re-engagement with Iran on the back-burner, and we stand on the cusp of two years without engagement with Iran while Canadian allies in Europe and elsewhere reap the economic benefits of the Nuclear Deal. He has hinted at greater sanctions on Russia and most recently has supported President Trump's deeply controversial and possibly irresponsible missile attacks on Syria, strikes which may deepen the conflict in the area and cause even more loss of innocent life.

This is in stark contrast to what the prime minister promised when he entered office. Canadians expect their country to chart an independent path in the world as an honest broker and a force for peace and stability in the world; they do not expect us to surrender our foreign policy to our larger neighbour to the south in the hopes of gains which are proving increasingly unlikely to materialize.

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Furthermore, to follow this deeply unpopular U.S. administration has its own risks. The first 100 days of Trump's presidency clearly demonstrate that he is unable or unwilling to build bridges and alliances around the world. Therefore, to follow Trump's international line may (or may not) put us on good terms with our largest trading partner in the short-term, but undermines Canada's long-term interests by putting into question our independence in the foreign policy realm.

Canada must go its own way in the foreign policy sphere and look out for its own interests, rather than following a visibly unstable and often irrational U.S. administration. Our leaders must take the long view and think about Canada's place in a post-Trump world. We must not allow our country be bullied by overblown fears of a renegotiation of NAFTA; we must also recognize that the world is changing and that Canada cannot rely on one international partner in perpetuity.

In a world shaken by Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and instability in the Middle East and East Asia, the world needs middle powers such as Canada to take a leading and principled role. We must be willing and able to chart an independent path that will allow us to build new partnerships and alliances among the world's emerging powers and weather changes in administration in our neighbour to the south. This is what Canadians are expecting, and what I hope the prime minister will deliver in the coming months and years.

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Earth is a world composed of water but we have now just discovered that we have ocean worlds all around us. Some which could possibly harbour life. So what is it about water that is so life giving?

The water on Earth is able to remain on the planet due to a magnetic field acting as a shield from the solar wind. Without this magnetic field, our atmosphere would be stripped away. Some of the planets and moons in our solar system seem to work, or have worked, in the same way.

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Which moons and planets are we talking about?

Venus in particular has been left in a terrible state. A runaway greenhouse effect which led to a build-up of carbon dioxide is thought to have evaporated what was once a world of oceans. Mars is also thought to once have had oceans on its surface but its own global magnetic field decayed, leaving its atmosphere vulnerable to erosion from solar winds.

Jupiter is orbited by three moons which are thought to contain oceans; Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. Europa is full of icebergs along its cracked surface. Scientists believe there could be double the amount of water on Europa as there is on Earth, hidden just below the crust of this moon. Water vapour plumes were noticed coming out of the cracks from this moon in both 2014 and 2016 by the Hubble based telescope. Photos of Ganymede also show signs of water. Images have provided what looks like ancient ice flows visible on its surface. Similar to Europa, Callisto too appears to contain an ocean of salt water under its own frozen crust.

Scientists are most excited about their newest discoveries orbiting the satellites of Saturn.

What makes Saturn so special?

Well, Saturn has 62 moons and out of them all, one appears to have all the ingredients for life. Back in 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered Saturn's moon, Enceladus, visibly puffing out plumes of water vapour. Along with this, it also appeared to be releasing organic compounds from its tiger stripes known as fishers. Nano-silica grains and molecular hydrogen have since then been discovered which suggests that there is moving hot water on this moon. Molecular hydrogen and vapour plumes occur when hot rocks come together and meet with ocean water to create hydrothermal vents. Hydrothermal vents are also present on Earth and are thought to be the reason that life began on our planet.

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The chemical reaction known as methanogenesis is believed to occur under Enceladus' hydrothermal vents. This is the formation of methane caused by bacteria or other living organisms known as methanogens. Methanogenesis is crucial for the development of microbial life as the methane creates an energy source for living organisms. Certain types of bacteria are able to use methane to create and use their own oxygen in order to survive without plants. Essentially, they breathe anaerobically rather than aerobically. Hunter Waite of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio and lead author of the Enceladus study says: "Although we can't detect life, we've found that there's a food source there for it. It would be like a candy store for microbes'.

For there to be life, there must primarily be a source of energy, liquid water and the correct chemical elements such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur. So far, Enceladus has shown almost all of these ingredients for habitability but Cassini has not finished its mission yet. There is still time to uncover more. Scientists strongly believe phosphorus and sulphur will be discovered within its oceans. This is because Enceladus is thought to be chemically similar to meteorites which contain the two elements.

"This is the first time that we have found so many of the essential components for life in one place beyond our own planet and it is one of the least expected places, too: a small moon far from the sun," says Mark Perry, Planetary Scientist from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland and co-author of the study. "This remarkable discovery gives us great hope that we will eventually find life somewhere besides Earth."

Here's a video from NASA showing the final steps in Cassini's mission:

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"It's inspiring, adventurous and romantic... a fitting end to this thrilling story of discovery," - NASA

Cassini will continue to uncover the secrets of Saturn's moons and the mysteries of outer space until September 2017 when its 20-year mission comes to an end.

By Simone Kelly - Online Journalism Intern

Frontier runs conservation, development, teaching and adventure travel projects in over 50 countries worldwide - so join us and explore the world!
The five things you need to know on Friday, April 21

1) ROLLING IN THE DEEP

The news from Paris, where the latest terror attack may bolster Marine Le Pens chances of becoming French President, throws into sharp relief our own general election and the sense of voter fatigue it has so far engendered. Over the Channel, the contest is deadly serious. Over here, its seen by many voters as either a joke non-contest or a needless distraction.

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One thing the French impose from midnight is a ban on opinion polls and thats something that Jeremy Corbyn supporters probably dearly wish was copied here. Still, the Labour leader sought to use his underdog status as an advantage yesterday with a passionate first big speech of the campaign that confirmed he really is up for it.

My full sketch/analysis of Corbyns speech is HERE. He played to his biggest strength, his raw authenticity in an age of overspun politics, while taking non-handpicked questions from the media and seeking to turn the scepticism to his advantage. But the real problem was the Trump tactic of claiming that the whole nation was going to hell in a handcart (American carnage as the Prez put it in his weird inauguration). In vowing to fight for those left behind by the rigged system, Corbyn sounded like he had little to offer the swath of voters for whom life isnt awful but could be a bit better.

And just as Trump refused to change tactics from his own primary to the general election, Corbyn is not changing the message that won him his own two leadership elections. There was never going to be any tacking to the centre. Whats surprising is the absence of any attempt to persuade Labour doubters or sceptics, Tory switchers or Lib Dem flirters, preferring what looks like an attempt to preach to the converted to secure his base.

The Tories have talked about Labours day of chaos on the first full day of campaigning. To me, it looked like the whole seven-week election campaign compressed into a few hours: a decent launch; then the wobble and confusion (over a second EU referendum); the expected Tory attack on Corbyns patriotism (Fallon saying Putin would welcome a Labour victory); Dawn Butler revealing the inexperience of those close to the leader (she last night apologised to Costa for claiming they dodged taxes); then Labour MPs disappearing (with 12 standing down).

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Butler even went on Newsnight to suggest there would be a rolling manifesto, with pledges unveiled through the campaign. That may sound like the 'new politics' but old rules may kick in: either a policy is good enough to tell voters early on, or it isn't?

The Conservatives are already regretting the way expectations of a 140 seat majority have been ramped up. Yet when Ian Lavery introduced Corbyn yesterday as the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, it was hard to suspend disbelief, unless you were a member of the Labour congregation. Barring some rapid change in fortunes, for many Labour MPs their leaders campaign resembles one of those huge exercises where the emergency services take over a city centre to cope with a fake disaster. Those playing the roles have to persuade themselves its real and that they can win, when in fact the reality may be much more grim.

2) COALITION OF THE WILLING?

Some around Corbyn think that if they can take a clutch of marginals from the Tories (though no side is actually naming their key seats this time), and the Lib Dems can damage May too, then its game on. The Mirror reports a senior campaign source saying the party is willing to "cut a deal" with the Lib Dems and Greens (and even the SNP) if there is a hung parliament.

The paper quotes its source: "Our number one goal is to deny the Tories a majority, and that is not beyond the realms of imagination. If we can take say 40 seats off them - and were only talking overturning small majorities - then we can be somewhere near parity. And if the Lib Dems do well too, the Tories will be out of government. Who is going to be able to cut a deal (with the other parties) over Brexit , us or them? The only problem with all that is Corbyn ruled out any coalition with the SNP only this week.

The Times reports that Labour MPs listened to a presentation on polling by Marcus Roberts of YouGov on Tuesday and the news was sombre. Even seats with decent majorities were at risk because of their Leave vote percentage. The basic advice was to stress your own personal story and not so much the national party message, said one Labour MP who was present. There was also some stuff on focusing the effort on under-25s, which was less helpful, frankly, since they dont tend to vote.

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But the believers still persist. Corbyn yesterday pointed out he was a 200-1 shot for the Labour leadership in 2015 and still won. And Hackney Momentum put out a blog with a cunning plan: The odds are against Labour - but if enough of us bet a tenner on Labour to get the most seats or Corbyn to be the next PM, the odds will shorten and the narrative will begin to change. Call me a dinosaur, but wouldnt that cash be better spent on Labours campaign?

The Lib Dems have way fewer members than Labour but have a momentum of their own right now. And they raised 500,000 from supporters in just two days, party sources said.

3) THE NUMBERS GAME

The Tories had their very own wobble on a key policy yesterday, but its a measure of Labours own plight that it couldnt exploit it. Amid reports of taking students out of the migration figures, Cabinet minister Karen Bradley went on SkyNews and refused to recommit the Conservatives to their flagship pledge to cut immigration to under 100,000: Its not about putting numbers on it, its about making sure we can deliver where industries need skills, where the brightest and best want to come to Britain.

The resulting speculation that May could execute yet another U-turn, this time on her own favoured (yet broken) promise, began in earnest. The PM then popped up at a factory in north London to give a soundbite (no questions again) confirming she was sticking by the migration pledge. We have been very clear, as I was as Home Secretary for six years, that it is important that we have net migration that is in sustainable numbers. We believe sustainable numbers are the tens of thousands. You know when May is in trouble when she has to say shes been very clear - and you know how annoyed she is when she uses the Royal we.

One newspaper has this morning come out strongly against Mays decision. Setting a rigid, low figure - as the Tories intend in their manifesto - is counter-productive if it leaves employers short of workers, as in some areas and industries they already are. The tens of thousands a year target for net migration should be binned. It is a nonsense figure plucked from thin air. Which newspaper is that? The Sun.

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Another Brexit problem for May is the leaked report (in the Times and FT) that Brussels is demanding lifelong pensions, employment and welfare rights for EU citizens in the UK - a move that would undermine the PMs pledge to end the remit of the European Court of Justice.

BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR

Watch Andrew Neil fist-bump grime MC BigNarstie, as he asks if voters are bored of voting.

4) UNITE, THE UNION?

Its very name is Unite, but theres deep division among the ranks of Britains biggest trade union. The scale of that split will be revealed to a select few today when the ballots in its general secretary election are counted behind closed doors.

Before May called the Big One, this was supposed to be the proxy election on Jeremy Corbyns support in a key plank of the Labour movement. And reports varied wildly yesterday on just how close Len McCluskeys challenger Gerard Coyne was to ousting Jezzas loyal ally. The New Statesmans George Eaton reported one source saying a sample showed Coyne was actually ahead by 46% to Lens 44%. Others counter that McCluskey is on course for a landslide win.

Yet the union hit the headlines yesterday for its surprise announcement that it had suspended Coyne as regional secretary for the West Midlands, for an as yet unstated reason. Coyne had been given a previous written warning for addressing the new Labour for the Common Good group. In a letter headlined A serious breach of trust, McCluskey told him given that it is the brainchild of Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt who chose not to serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet, it is clear that there are obvious differences with Unites political vision.

5) BARNACLE BILL

One more barnacle has been scraped off the Tory election boat and its the hike in probate fees unveiled in Philip Hammonds Budget. Its hard to work out whether the Chancellor or Liz Truss will get the blame most for not stopping the plan earlier. But plenty of Tory MPs had been on the warpath about it, despite most of the post-Budget focus being on the bigger U-turn on the national insurance hikes.

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There seemed a lot of political pain with little gain for the Government under the plans. The current fee off up to 215 per application could have reached 20,000 for some estates in England in Wales from May.

The official reason for dumping the idea is that there simply isnt enough Parliamentary time left to get the measure passed. But the Ministry of Justice also refused to confirm that the plan will be re-introduced if Theresa May is re-elected. The Daily Mail, which has been pushing hard to scrap the so-called stealth death tax, had the scoop on its front page.

COMMONS PEOPLE

Our CommonsPeople podcast is back. Listen to us chinwag about the first days of the election, and make some rash/informed speculation about the outcome. Click HERE.

If youre reading this on the web, sign-up HERE to get the WaughZone delivered to your inbox.
This June, we'll have the opportunity to decide the Prime Minister for the next five years. And, with Brexit likely to dominate the debate - all is up for grabs for young citizens.

Following the Prime Minister's announcement, calling a snap General Election - slap-bang in the middle of exam season, no less - it feels as though history is repeating itself. How else do you ensure that 16-24 year olds have neither the time or inclination to research, register and vote for parties that do not appeal to them when they have more pressing issues such as exams and essays to think about? The problem was the same in the Brexit referendum last summer: young people were blamed for the fact that the referendum took place just at the end of exam season, when most students and young people were away, back home or at Glastonbury.

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The systemic issue of youth disengagement in politics is something that we have written about before. Young citizens do not feel as though their ideas and thoughts are listened to or that they matter. They are often faced with politicians that they do not trust, and a political spectrum which seems insincere. Take May's shock revelation this week - we face yet another lifetime decision without proper time for debate to enable us to make an informed decision on June 8th.

At My Life My Say, we are on a mission to rebrand politics. A mission to make politics accessible to young people and relevant to their lives and issues. Our work focuses on bridging that gap between the future of today - the youth - and a political agenda that simply does not aim to address their concerns. We understand how young people feel, because we are young citizens ourselves. We are determined to show that politics is relevant to the daily lives of the youth we work with, and if they feel like they are listened to and matter, they are much more likely to demand that they have a say. We reject the notion that young people are apathetic about politics; instead, young citizens are faced with a political situation which does not resonate with them, and which is often organised in a way which alienates them.

Last year, we engaged with 25,000 young citizens through our outreach projects. Thanks to the innovative idea of a 'Democracy Cafe' pioneered by our partners Bite The Ballot, we developed 'Brexit Cafes'; reigniting that concept of a 17th century coffeehouse where local people would meet and discuss current issues and applying it to a local Starbucks where the local youth would go to meet their mates anyway. We found that over 80% of young people had no idea what the EU was, how it worked or how it affects their daily lives. They were disengaged not because they didn't care but because they were uninformed. By bringing young people together in a nonthreatening local cafe you create a safe space for them to discuss their thoughts. In doing so, they develop opinions, beliefs, demands. We find that these often disadvantaged young citizens are extremely receptive and eager to learn; and once they do, they become much more engaged.

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This is why we have registered an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on a Better Brexit for Young People. With our partners of over 25 youth organisations from across the UK and the London School of Economics, we are carrying out up to 30 focus groups of diverse young people from different ethnic, economic and regional backgrounds to gather evidence for several reports that we will be producing on the views of the youth on Brexit, and what their Brexit would look like. We will then champion these demands and hold both UK and EU decision-makers to account over whether they are ensuring that young people are not overlooked in the negotiations.

Our APPG forms part of our campaign for a Better Brexit for Young People. We launched this campaign last wednesday in an incredible event in the heart of tech-city, Shoreditch. Instead of forcing the youth to engage with out-of-touch politicians and to go to the Houses of Parliament or Portcullis House to engage, we went to them. We used social influencers such as Slumflower, Nissy Tee, Sophia Thakur, Reuben Christian, Sugar J Poet and others, in order to create a safe space and environment to enthuse and inspire the 250 young people that attended. By these non-conventional influencers taking ownership of the political discourse as young people, and recreating it as something relevant, accessible and non-threatening, they reached out to those that would instinctively reject anything remotely related to the politics.

We believe we have revolutionised the way the youth engage with politics. By linking it to the intrinsic nature of social media to their everyday lives, and demonstrating how politics, too, is constitutive of their place in the world, we hope to tap into those groups of young people all over the UK that wouldn't ordinarily engage, encouraging them to get involved and demand they have a say. And as we all prepare for this election, we will be galvanizing alongside Bite The Ballot's #TurnUp campaign to ensure as many young citizens are engaged and registered to vote.

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This coming Sunday, France will go to the polls to select its new President in what is a critical election for Europe in many respects. One of the key issues that has characterised European elections in the past few years, has been the rise of the far right across the board, making these parties plausible competitors in European party systems. The Front National's performance in the polls suggests that, indeed, Marine Le Pen is a viable contender. Why is this happening and how does it compare with what is happening elsewhere in Europe?

A brief look at some electoral results gives us the full picture. And this picture is mixed.

More specifically, this picture tells us three things

1.The Front National is indeed improving its performance in a broader context of the rise of far right parties across Europe. The explanation is often 'the winners and losers of globalization' which holds that economic strain exposes the inequalities of globalization with the losers expressing their protest through voting for the far right. The picture, however, is mixed as a number of far right parties actually decreased from 2009 to 2014.

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In fact, among the European countries that have experienced the severity of economic crisis, only Greece has elected a far right party in its parliament, while such parties remain marginalized in Spain and Portugal. Ireland doesn't have a far right party at all. France itself was not one of the worst hit, it has relatively low levels of unemployment (at approximately 10% in 2016) and a fairly well- functioning welfare system. The classic 'winners and losers of globalization' view, therefore, does not hold comparatively for the simple reason that whilst all societies have losers, not all have successful far right parties.

2.Far right party performance, including the performance of the Front National, varies depending on election type. These parties tend to perform better in the context of second order elections such as European Parliament elections where voters can express their disapproval of the incumbent and main opposition party without risking placing an extreme party in government.

3.In terms of actually governing, therefore, the prospects for the far right are fewer. The last time the Front National made it to the second round was in 2002, when the then party leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, was defeated by Jacques Chirac by 82.2% to 17.79%. Does this mean we are exaggerating the potential for success? No. It means we are only focusing on success in terms of access to office, while overlooking another, less straightforward form of success, which is the ability of these parties to drive party competition regardless of whether they win elections by the very fact that their electoral success is a possible, even if not likely, outcome. The very fact that a Le Pen victory is plausible is the main problem.

In order to understand where this phenomenon is coming from, we need to examine the variations comparatively. Which are the most successful far right parties, and why are some better able to capitalize on voters' economic, social and political insecurities than others? How does the Front National fit in this picture?

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Supply: the 'new winning formula'?

While European far right parties differ in many ways, it is their shared emphasis on sovereignty and policies that promote a 'national preference', i.e. policies that place the 'native' inhabitants first in a range of areas including welfare and social services, that allows us to place them within the broader 'far right umbrella'. Nationalism is the key issue 'owned' by the far right. These parties offer 'nationalist solutions' to a range of socio-economic problems in order to capitalize on voters' insecurities.

With few exceptions (including the Greek Golden Dawn and the Hungarian Jobbik) the European far right parties that are most successful are those which are using a 'civic' version of nationalism in their rhetoric: i.e. those that are able to tailor their discourse to the liberal and civic characteristics of national identity so as to present themselves and their ideologies as the true authentic defenders of the nation's unique reputation for democracy, diversity and tolerance. Although far right parties are exclusionary by nature, this exclusion is no longer justified solely in ethnic terms, but rather is targeted at those who do not share 'our' liberal values such as democracy, multiculturalism and the rule of law. These parties present 'our' nation as one of tolerance, liberalism and diversity threatened by an influx of intolerant, reactionary and narrow-minded 'others'. 'We', they argue, do not exclude on the basis of race but on the basis of toleration, i.e. those who reject 'our' liberal democratic values. Instead of, therefore, justifying their positions on ascriptive, exclusionary, immutable criteria of national membership such as race and common descent, which is what fascist parties did, the 'new' far right increasingly uses ideological justifications thus increasingly occupying mainstream ground.

The Front National is doing precisely that. Since Marine Le Pen took over from her father, as she has pursued a strategy of "de-demonization" of the party and a softening of its rhetoric. The party justifies its anti-immigrant agenda (i.e., its policy of the "preference nationale") by invoking primarily the cultural and civic aspects of national identity, offering ideological rather than biological, rationalizations for who belongs to the French nation. The party increasingly presents the other as hostile because their so-called intolerant beliefs pose a threat to "our" national values, rather than because of their ethnicity per se, thus shifting the boundaries of exclusion from ethnicity to ideology.

Has the 'new winning formula' changed the voter profile?

This is precisely the aim: both in France and elsewhere in Europe, the far right seeks to penetrate the middle classes. Who votes for the Front National? The classic view is, the economically insecure. This usually translates to the automatic assumption that the economically insecure are first and foremost the working classes: blue collar, manual workers in precarious employment, or the unemployed. But economic insecurity is not only an argument about the haves and the have- nots, the unemployed and/or the working classes. It is an argument about the extent to which deteriorating economic conditions may have a negative impact on the expectations and/ or the socio-economic status of both labour market outsiders and insiders, i.e. a broad range of social groups, including the middle classes.

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This is why the front National's traditional voting base is slowly changing. In addition to the 'angry white men', i.e. the unemployed or low income working class males with low levels of education that are the more likely supporters of the far right, Marine Le Pen's 'de-demonization' strategy has reached a broader electoral base that captures "younger" votes and achieves a closing of the far-right gender gap in France.

Context: the competition

In this crucial election, Marine le Pen is attempting to capitalize on economic and political insecurities by putting forward her own 'nationalist' solution to French problems. Why should voters trust these solutions? In many ways, the increase in support for her party- and far right parties elsewhere- at times of economic instability constitutes a paradox. First, is the paradox of the centre: valence theories of party competition might lead us to expect that, during times of instability, voters are more likely to opt for the party they believe is a more credible manager. This should be the large, mainstream, non-populist parties that have long-term experience of governing. Then there is the paradox of the left: economic crisis is mainly an economic problem, and thus we should expect that parties which have 'issue ownership' of the economy are more likely to benefit electorally. But neither are benefitting, and the reason is the competition. Le pen and the European far right are not only exploiting voters' insecurities, but also the inability of the competition to attract voters because of their own ideological and identity problems. We may observe the so-called crises of the centre and the centre-left across Europe: in the recent elections in the Netherlands, the Labour coalition lost massively; in Greece PASOK imploded after the eruption of the economic crisis, never to regain its ground while new liberal- centre and centre-left initiatives remain marginalized; in the UK, Corbyn's Labour party is in search of its identity between 'old' and 'new'; and in France Hollande is seen as having failed to offer solutions to France's problems including social integration, vulnerability to terrorism and exclusionist- though highly protectionist- labour market. The consequences of this are severe: instead of offering compelling new solutions that directly contradict the far right narrative, competitor parties believe that in order to compete they must 'copy' far right agendas. And so instead of distancing themselves, they allow party competition to be driven by the far right.

Conclusion: Prospects

It is unlikely that Marine Le Pen will win the elections (I say this with a caveat. After all, Brexit and Trump, too, were unlikely). Despite increasing support in the recent Dutch elections, Geert Wilders' Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) didn't do as well as Wilders had hoped. For many, this was seen as a break to the far right trend. But there is another way to look it: The biggest danger posed by far right parties is that, regardless of whether they will win electoral contests, they are now entering the mainstream. Partly because of the new winning formula that blurs the line between what is extreme and what is mainstream, partly because of their increasing attempts- and successes- in attracting the middle classes, and partly because of the crisis of left and liberal centre, these parties are now permeating mainstream ground. They are effective in driving the agenda, consolidating the narrative and setting the terms on which other, mainstream actors, compete. Regardless of the electoral result, Marine Le Pen is a viable contender. And this is precisely the problem.

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ITV's decision to broadcast live debates with or without Theresa May seems like a gift for her left-wing opposition. Her decision not to appear in any TV debates had already earned criticism from both inside and outside her own party, Tim Farron saying that it shows her to 'hold the public in contempt'. The debates going ahead without her appears to leave the Prime Minister with egg on her face, adding fuel to the accusation that she is "running scared" of public confrontation, especially as the BBC looks set to follow in the same direction as ITV.

But debates without the Prime Minister may not be the blessing they seem. There's a real danger that in the absence of a genuine opposition, the remaining leaders tear each others' parties apart and Theresa May stays above it all.

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Rightly, the debates offer an opportunity for each party leader to hold others to account in a very public forum. But without conservative representation, the differences between the parties present might become the focus of discussion, rather than the Prime Minister's empty chair.

The centre-left parties have kick-started their campaigns with fighting talk. In his statement about May's absence from the TV debates, Farron resorted to sniping at Jeremy Corbyn, saying that he could 'defend her position as they seem to vote the same on these matters.' Even a cursory glance at their voting records says otherwise. Nicola Sturgeon has also turned on Corbyn, saying that although they would back a left-wing alliance there is 'total disarray in the ranks of the Labour party.'

In any other election, this might not matter. But this is already an unusual election for the UK, with May calling for a snap election for the explicit purpose of removing any opposition over Brexit in parliament. As she put it, 'Every vote for the Conservatives will make it harder for opposition politicians who want to stop me from getting the job done.'

Party leaders have acknowledged that the election may be less about individual parties than usual, and more about Conservative/not-Conservative. The Conservatives are currently polling with a 17 point lead over Labour, their nearest opposition. Even if taken with a pinch of salt, polling numbers don't look good for the UK's left.

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If polls are right, voters are choosing between May and a centre-left coalition. These leaders need to show the public that they can acknowledge their differences, but overcome them in favour of their greater similarities.

So my plea to the left is: don't forget who your real opposition is at the debates. Or at any other time, for that matter. Resorting to snide, misplaced character assassinations doesn't do anyone any favours. Put aside the theatrics of PMQs, and present a united opposition to May's 17 point lead in the polls.

Nobody's saying that the centre-left parties need to forget all their differences -- Corbyn and Farron have rejected the idea of a "progressive alliance" suggested by Caroline Lucas. Which is fair enough. The left-wing parties don't have identical policies, and a pre-election pact doesn't guarantee that votes will be drawn away from the Conservatives.

But the way the centre-left leaders talk about each other matters. Corbyn, Farron, and Sturgeon have all issued combative statements about each other, none of which does anything to reassure voters that a left-wing coalition would not be the 'coalition of chaos' that Theresa May has gleefully predicted.

The debates give a real opportunity to close the gap between left and right, but only if the centre-left parties group together and present a coherent alternative to the absent Prime Minister. May is not wary of the TV debates without reason; around 7 million people watched them in 2015, and BBC polls showed that 38% of voters were "influenced" by them.

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Recently, Vogue announced the appointment of Edward Enninful as editor to one of the most iconic fashion tomes around. Across the industry and beyond there was great excitement. Enninful is an incredible force within fashion - he was made fashion director of i-D at just 18 and has been acknowledged by the British Fashion Awards and with an OBE for services to diversity in fashion. Yet his stellar CV and impressive list of accolades are not what excited me most. Now, as the dust settles, it's time to consider what the future will hold under this new reign.

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The fashion industry has been late to the party when it comes to embracing diversity. We've only just started to see more plus-size models, models of colour, transgender models, and models with prosthetics among the models that normally populate the catwalks and campaigns. Fashion shapes culture and the industry has a responsibility to shed light on issues of importance. The institution that is Vogue is doing just that, and shaking things up in the process. The appointment of Edward Enninful is poised to embolden that voice of diversity, thanks to his progressive approach to an industry that has oft been criticised for its closed ranks.

The choice of a black man to replace Alexandra Shulman shouldn't be the main topic of discussion. Yes, this is a positive step for a publication that has traditionally been steered by white, middle class women, but I don't think we should be blinded by Enninful's race or gender - ultimately he is a huge talent with incredible experience. If the roles were reversed and a woman was appointed as editor-in-chief for a men's magazine, would we be having this same conversation?

Instead, we should be celebrating how Enninful's perspective on our world will likely influence huge change and transformative effect across our industry. It's likely we will see a much more diverse use of models throughout the editorial stories and beyond. I would love to get to the point where I pick up a fashion magazine and see an array of models of all ethnicities, cultures and identities. For so long the fashion industry has been dominated by white (and usually blonde) models but as we know not everyone can relate to that aesthetic. The beauty of fashion is that we are exposed to a world of endless possibilities, so we need to show that on the pages of magazines. I'm excited to see what the future holds for diversity within the industry.

Already we are seeing evolution across the industry with the rise of modest fashion. Epitomised by Halima Aden's incredible cover for CR Fashion Book, more and more designers and brands are paying attention to Muslim women's fashion needs. While there is an element of political motivation influencing this, it's really indicative of a truer reflection of the market. We are starting to see a growing number of magazines and brands thinking in a much more inclusive way. We are all different shapes, races and sexualities, and I think Enninful will bring a new dynamic eye to the pages of Vogue.

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Looking to what the future holds, I feel great optimism about how the fashion industry will integrate a mood and approach reflective of Enninful's own ethos. We are entering a new era of fashion where diversity is celebrated. It's crazy to think that an industry that talks about self-expression has historically been so slow to explore diversity and consider the masses rather than a tiny percentage of the population - but the change is happening. As a man exploring the future of womenswear at WGSN, this consideration of the bigger picture where we consider all races, genders, body types, sexualities and religions when we create stories is second nature; it's hugely encouraging to see that others are starting to be more considered too.

Having seen Andreja Pejic become the first trans model to grace the cover of GQ Portugal it got me so excited to consider a future where trans models are no longer viewed as the other sex. This was a huge step forward, to see a trans model on a men's lifestyle magazine and to be seen as a sexy, beautiful woman rather than a 'statement'. Gender is not just the biology of man or woman, gender is a beautiful complex world that we need to explore and by mixing things up with all genders working in high profile fashion positions we will see a much more diverse future.
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What do you think of when it is said that someone is 'hearing voices'? For many people, nothing good comes to mind; mental illness, violence, a broken brain. Even in the wizarding world, J.K. Rowling tells us, hearing voices is not a good sign. But why do people, and wizards apparently, think this?

The media play a role. A recent study found 47% of news stories on voice-hearing associated it with violence towards others. This grossly over-represents the small proportion of instances in which voice-hearing and violence are entangled. People who live with voices unimpaired are rarely discussed, with 84% of news stories not mentioning that voice-hearing can happen in 'normal' people. The by-line of the story that voice-hearing is a biological illness has multiple authors. This story has been millennia in the making, but also three decades in the unmaking.

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The past was a not a glorious country for voice-hearers. Once Church dogma had been established, prophecy was decommissioned and God deemed silent. Yet something continued to speak. This could have destabilised the Church. Although voice-hearing couldn't be controlled, voice-hearers could. The easiest way to discredit people's claims that God was speaking inconvenient truths was to label them ill. The Church of England did this during the English Civil War, when many people popped up claiming to hear God's voice.

When psychiatry was born, centuries later, it didn't disagree. Psychiatry's biological approach seems commonsensical. Antipsychotic drugs can help some people's voices. Voices erupt in MRI scanners in enticing technicolour. Research, including my own, has found voice-hearing is associated with changes to the wiring of the brain.

But just because something is associated with brain changes doesn't make it an illness. Voices are associated with problems when they are frequent, nasty, uncontrollable, and start later in life. Just knowing whether someone hears nasty voices allows us to predict with an 88% probability whether they are a patient or non-patient. So why are voices nasty? One factor is culture. It turns out that hearing voices is cross-cultural, but how cross the voices are, is cultural.

For example, a recent study found voice-hearers from the USA typically hated their voices, a feeling that was apparently mutual, whereas Indian and Ghanaian voice-hearers had much better experiences. Why? The authors proposed that the Western sense of self as private and bounded caused those from the USA to experience their voices as an intrusion into their private world. People from India and Ghana were more likely to experience their voices as relationships, rather than as signs of a violated mind.

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So, could a shift in how we think about voices, liberate voice-hearers? This is the promise of the Hearing Voices Movement (HVM). Born in 1987, the HVM encourages voice-hearers to explore and define their experiences for themselves. If voice-hearers find antipsychotics helpful, this is respected. Empowerment comes before ideology. However, the HVM suggests that accepting voices is often more helpful than attempting to suppress them, and that what voices say is typically not meaningless, but can often be related to traumatic life-events. The HVM has developed tools to attempt to decode the meaning of voices, often coming to conceptualise them as misunderstood messengers who have something to offer the hearer. Whilst this may not work for everyone, powerful individual testimonies of its benefits are now starting to be accompanied by preliminary scientific trials, although more definitive trials are needed.

So, what should we think of hearing voices? Hamlet knew there was something rotten in Denmark, because a phantom appeared and told him so. Many voices are telling us the same thing. There is a strong relation between voice-hearing and trauma. It is estimated that if we eliminated five types of child abuse we would prevent a third of cases of psychosis. This has led people such as Eleanor Longden to argue we should ask not "what's wrong with you?" but rather "what happened to you?" If trauma is the basis for someone's voices, this does not mean that biological changes aren't present. Childhood adversity is associated with brain changes. The question is, what is the best level to understand such voices at, and to provide support?

For other people, a brain disease model may be the most appropriate level of understanding and assistance. For yet others, voices may be spiritual experiences, or just a benign quirk. Voices can be many things. People need information and the freedom to explore what their voices mean, in a supportive environment. In order to do this, neither the demonization of psychiatry nor the dismissal of voice-hearers' insights is helpful. A respectful partnership, where expertise is recognised as diverse and distributed, is a way forward. Whether power and interest permit this, remains to be seen. History does not cause us to be optimistic, but the present does.
Image taken by Mayte Torres via Getty Images

Last month saw Dawn Butler MP ask a question in sign language in Parliament. To see an MP using sign language in our Parliament was a powerful symbol to deaf people across the country.

But while it is important to celebrate this milestone, Dawn's question also put into sharp relief how little many lawmakers have to say about many of the challenges facing the deaf community. Now with a general election just around the corner, it will be interesting to see how all politically parties respond to the very real issues faced by the deaf community.

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A key area that has been getting a lot of local attention, but that is all but ignored by policymakers nationally, is the scandal of quality in children's audiology services.

Audiologists, hearing specialists in hospitals and health centres, are a vital lifeline for the 45,000 deaf children in the UK. They are gatekeepers to a child's access to spoken language through their hearing, ensuring they get the support to which they are entitled. Being misdiagnosed, diagnosed too late, given ill-fitting hearing aids or outdated advice can all have serious repercussions.

With the right support, deaf children can do anything their hearing friends can. Without good audiology support, their language and communication skills can suffer and their wider development can be delayed. These problems are often overlooked because they're not life or death issues - but deaf children's quality of life and development into adulthood can be damaged hugely.

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The National Deaf Children's Society's new report 'The health of children's hearing services in England'

Against this backdrop, the Government abolished mandatory inspections of children's audiology services in 2012. Every deaf child has the right to the best possible audiology service. But for the past five years, parents simply do not know whether they are receiving world-beating care, or a substandard service.

Some of the parents we have talked to paint a bleak picture. A mum in London told us she had to sellotape her son's hearing aids to his head because of mistakes and delays by her audiologist. Another talked about how she broke down crying on the phone to her hospital because waiting times were so long. Another parent was told it would take at least 100 days before they could even consider putting their child on the audiology waiting list. This is more than twice the Government target. For a deaf child, who will already struggle to pick up crucial language skills, 100 days is simply too long to wait.

You wouldn't dream of sending your child to a school that had not been Ofsted inspected. You wouldn't get into a car with your children that had not passed an MOT test. But this Government feels that the vital audiology services on which 45,000 deaf children rely, are fine to be unchecked, uninspected, and it has no idea if they are any good or not.

When the Government scrapped inspections, they were replaced with an optional accreditation scheme. Newly published research shows that, unsurprisingly, 85% of children's audiology services haven't been inspected since 2012. For parents up and down the county, they do not know if their children are getting the support they need.

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This means families across the country have been left in the dark. Not being accredited doesn't mean hospitals and audiologists are failing, but it does mean they are an unknown quantity. At the moment, it is a postcode lottery for parents and this has to stop.

While it is great to see sign language being used in Parliament, I say to all MPs and to all those candidates now standing for election, there is so much work still to be done.
Voter turnout "steady" in Reno County Tuesday, election officials said

Cool, damp weather may have delayed some voters from voting early, but traffic at the polls picked up during the day.
This Sunday, Brazilian society celebrates three years of the enactment of the Internet Bill of Rights (Marco Civil da Internet). It is the first ever national law to establish principles, guarantees, rights and obligations for the use of the Internet and has been praised internationally for its progressive nature. Among many reasons to commemorate, two aspects of the Marco Civil deserve to be highlighted.

First, the Bill has brought transparency and legal security to the Brazilian digital landscape. Before it became law, no Internet user in the country could be sure about how service and content providers would handle their data. With the current legislation, any request of an Internet user to remove personal information from social media or website must be promptly honoured. Moreover, the so-called metadatafor example, information about ones date and time of accessmust be stored under absolute secrecy by telecommunication providers and may only be disclosed in response to a court order. The Marco Civil has also affirmed the principle of network neutrality. Companies and organizations, regardless of size, resources and influence, can rest assured that their content will be accessed and transferred under exactly the same technical parameters as those of any other institution.

Second, the Brazilian Marco Civil is not only a product of lawmakers, but of Brazilian society as a whole. Its original idea stems from protests of civil society organizations against an Internet criminalization draft Bill that would typify crimes such as illegal downloads, electronic financial fraud and paedophilia. Cyber activists claimed that before criminalizing Internet users behaviour, their rights and responsibilities had to be defined. Facilitated by an online platform provided by the federal government, Brazilian Internet users began a collaborative drafting process that eventually resulted in the text that was submitted to Congress in 2011 and three years later became the Marco Civil da Internet.

The Brazilian tradition of multi-stakeholder participation in the digital realm dates back to the year 1995, when the Brazilian Internet steering committee (CGI.br) was established. The CGI.br is the body responsible for managing the .br top-level domain and the countrywide assignment of IP addresses. Since its inception, it has been governed by a multi-stakeholder board, composed of representatives from governmental institutions, private sector, non-governmental organizations and academia. Despite the natural differences that arise during the committees debates, its decisions carry the approval of the various national sectors involved in the maintenance and evolution of the Brazilian Internet. Such a democratic platform confers stability and predictability, which are essential to a dynamic digital economy and to the effectiveness of information and communication technology-related policies. Using the same participatory approach, Brazilian society has been fully engaged in discussions on a national data privacy law and has contributed to the drafting of the national policy for the Internet of Things, which is soon to be released.

In the international arena, Brazil has been a long-standing advocate of multi-stakeholder Internet governance mechanisms, in combination with multilateral arrangements. Brazil is the only country to have hosted the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) twice [Rio de Janeiro (2007) and Joao Pessoa (2015)]. The NETmundial Meeting (Sao Paulo, 2014) attracted over 1,000 people from more than 100 countries and was the first ever multi-stakeholder bottom-up process to agree on a set of Internet governance principles and a road map for the future evolution of the Internet. Within Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)the California-based company responsible for managing the Internet address bookBrazil has been vocal in defending the suppression of its unilateral command. And in the context of the UN Human Rights Council, Brazil and Germany have proposed a resolution on the principle that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. The resolution ultimately resulted in the establishment of the role of the special rapporteur on the right to privacy, whose final report is expected to be released in 2018.

During the 10-year review of the World Summit of Information Society (WSIS+10), in New York, in December 2015, Brazil, together with India and other delegations, played a key role in overcoming the traditional polarization between countries that either only support multi-stakeholderism or otherwise defend an exclusive intergovernmental management of the Internet.

Our countries have shown that the two models are not contradictoryrather, they complement each other. While cybersecurity matters require the leadership of governments, given their legal implications, topics such as the coordination of critical Internet resources are better treated under a multisectoral scheme. Similarly, the definition of Internet communication standards should be guided by the private sector and academic/engineering bodies, due to their technical capabilities, while transnational electronic trade rules need to be deliberated under a multilateral arrangement.

The Internet should be governed by many. And it has to serve all. As of today, more than half of the worlds population has never had access to its benefits. The collaborative approach will continue to be the most suitable one to address the challenge of bringing online those hitherto offline.

Tovar Da Silva Nunes and Pedro Ivo Ferraz Da Silva are, respectively, ambassador of Brazil to India and head of the energy, environment and science & technology section, Embassy of Brazil in New Delhi

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/KhzCjqS3Xv9zVy2x04JH3O/Participatory-approach-to-the-Internet.html
Husband's Ex-Girlfriend Charged in Case of Missing Clarksburg Woman

Authorities are asking for information of the whereabouts of Laura Reilly of Easthampton on March 2 and March 3 in relation to the disappearance of Joanne Ringer of Clarksburg. Joanne Ringer of Clarksburg has been missing since March 2. Police are asking if anyone saw Ringer or her green Volkswagen Jetta between March 2 and the discover of her car on March 6 in Easthampton. Authorities are asking for information of the whereabouts of Chad Reidy on March 2 and March 3 in relation to the disappearance of his wife, Joanne Ringer of Clarksburg. PreviousNext

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  The husband of missing Clarksburg woman Joanne Ringer is the "sole suspect" in her disappearance, say authorities.

Ringer went missing on March 2; her husband, Charles "Chad" Reidy, was found dead on April 7 in the couple's garage.

"From the beginning, we have suspected foul play and have approached this as a homicide investigation and we have considered Joanne's husband, Chad Reidy, as the sole suspect," Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless said a press conference in Northern Berkshire District Court on Thursday. "Reidy's apparent suicide on April 7 has not changed that view."

Laura J. Reilly, 42, of Berkeley Street, Easthampton, described as Reidy's former girlfriend, was arraigned in the court shortly before the briefing on three counts of misleading investigators, an obstruction of justice, in providing erroneous information during the investigation of Ringer's disappearance.

Capeless said she had been arrested Wednesday evening and arraigned on the three charges. He declined to speculate whether further charges would be forthcoming.

Instead, he asked for the public's assistance in ascertaining the whereabouts of Ringer, Reidy and Reilly between Thursday, March 2, when Ringer failed to arrive at her new job in Easthampton, and Friday, March 3.

Ringer, 39, was last seen at her home on Hall's Ground in Clarksburg on March 2, but never showed up at her new job driving a taxi in Easthampton. Her green 1999 Volkswagen Jetta was discovered on Exeter Street in Easthampton, less than a half-mile from Reilly's address, on Monday, March 6.

"We had kept hope that Joanne Ringer would be found alive. But seven weeks have passed since her disappearance and she has made no contact with family or friends, particularly with her 19-year-old daughter, Savanah, and animals that she loved were left without care at home," Capeless said.

He would not go into specifics other than to say information authorities had received pointed to Reidy.

"Obviously we don't rule out any possibility, but he has been the suspect from the start," Capeless said.

A number of Ringer's friends and relatives have said Reidy was abusive but Capeless declined to confirm that or whether Reidy had left a note. Reidy's death is so far considered a suicide although autopsy results are pending; the manner of his death has not been revealed.

Investigators have been searching around the couple's Clarksburg home, a rural wooded area on a dead-end road, and other areas of interest with the help of Berkshire Mountain Search and Rescue. Capeless noted turkey hunting season begins on Monday is asking hunters to be observant.

"We are not asking the public to conduct searches," he said. "But to be aware during normal activities and report anything suspicious and leave the investigating to professionals."

Reilly had not-guilty pleas entered on her behalf and her case was continued to a pre-trial conference on May 22. She was released on $1,500 bail.

The investigation has also been assisted by the Berkshire County Law Enforcement Task Force, the Berkshire County sheriff's office, Clarksburg Police Chief Michael Williams, North Adams Police Director Michael Cozzaglio, Easthampton Police Chief Robert J. Alberti, Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper, and their officers.

"Returning Joanne Ringer to her family is the most important thing we can do," Capeless said. "We have been focused on that from day one."
Cheshire Wants to Brighten Up DPW Garage

CHESHIRE, Mass.  The town will consider installing LED lights in the Town Garage to help save money and actually light up the facility.

Chairman Paul Astorino asked Town Administrator Mark Webber on Tuesday if there was a way for the town to receive free light-emitting diode lighting for the Department of Public Works facility. He said the past DPW director had a program lined up but the lights were not compatible with the fixtures.

Newly hired Director Blair Crane said the situation is grimmer than just having efficient lighting and out of the building's 32 fixtures, only 20 operate correctly.

"It is pretty darn dark in there," Crane said. "In the morning, we open the doors and get what sunlight we can."

Selectwoman Carol Francesconi said even if the town cannot install LED lighting it should at least put new light bulbs in.

"To me if we can't light our own garage aren't we a little sad?" she said. "That's a dumb problem to me and it's dumb that it's not fixed."

Crane added that the DPW's new truck is ready however he asked the dealer to correct some minor issues before handing over the keys.

"I was over there today to give it a final inspection to make sure everything is the way that I wanted it to be and I did find a couple of things last minute," Crane said. "They are going to fix them and it is just a couple fabrication problems. I just want to do it right and be done with it."

Crane added that the Sand Mill Road Bridge project is moving steadily along and the pavement has been cut and the beams that need to be replaced are exposed.

"They are on schedule and at the rate they are going they are ahead of schedule but they will never tell you that," he said. "They are making good progress."

In other business, the Selectmen voted to change the way the town sells transfer station permits and bags at the request of the Board of Health.

Residents can purchase just a sticker for $100 or a sticker and 52 bags for $152.

Board of Health member Mickey Biagini said with this new system, residents who have leftover bags can use up what they have.

Biagini added that the town's trash compactor is broken.

"We are working on it," he said. "It is a very expensive motor but we are looking to have it up in running by next week."

Currently, there are open-top trash roll-offs at the transfer station for trash.

The Selectmen also addressed trash issues on the Wells Road area and Police Chief Tim Garner said if a bag is found to call the station so an officer can inspect the trash and figure out where it came from.

Garner believes the trash to be from haulers.

Crane said he, too, noticed the issue.

"The guys picked a bunch of stuff out there," he said. "They filled a pickup truck with larger items like a TV and a couch."

The Selectmen also went over some of the warrant articles to appear at the annual town meeting.

Webber said there will be an article to purchase a new police cruiser but before he writes the article up, the town needs to decide what it wants to do with the old 2008 cruiser with 138,000 miles on it.

He said the police chief was interested in donating the cruiser to the Special Olympics annual Law Enforcement Torch Run.

"It is possibly worth less than $1,000 and the dealer may not even take it in for trade," Webber said. "The article would have to say what we are going to do with it."
Clarksburg Seeking Write-In Candidates for Empty Posts

CLARKSBURG, Mass.  This town of 1,702 is heading for a crisis on May 23.

That's the day of the town election and five offices will have blank spaces next to them on the ballot, including for the Select Board. Three are on the Planning Board, and if there are no write-in candidates, that board effectively won't exist on May 24.

"It takes a village to run a village," said Town Administrator Carl McKinney on Thursday. "And I will have no Planning Board after the election. The state demands we have five people on the Planning Board.

"I will have one. Nobody took out papers to run."

Like many small towns, Clarksburg has been having trouble finding people to fill the important elected and appointed positions that keep it running. Some officials wear multiple hats, like the current chair of the Select Board who's also chair of the School Committee.

McKinney got involved in town government after the 2001 attacks with the idea of thinking globally while working locally to fix this one corner.

Since then, he's served on the Finance Committee and the Select Board and in various offices. In addition to his paid post, he's still the town's representative on the solid waste district as well as the emergency management coordinator and the Americans With Disabilities coordinator. Most recently, he stepped in as a replacement on the Planning Board to keep the number on the board to at least four people.

"I'm not afraid of working but I can't be five people at once," he said. "Our Finance Committee needs two people, our Board of Selectmen is going to be short one."

The town also needs two alternates for the Zoning Board of Appeals, somebody for the Handicapped Commission and someone for the Northern Berkshire Solid Waste District. The town's in the middle of budget season and has exactly one person on the Finance Committee.

McKinney is pushing get current issues on the Planning Board's agenda done before the election. Getting a public hearing for a proposed solar bylaw scheduled will be tight, and might end up being held the night before the election. And sitting out there is a final decision on a proposed cell tower on River Road  a project that first came before the board last year.

"If I don't have a Planning Board next year it's not going to happen," he said of the solar bylaw. And as for the cell tower, "I would be remiss in my responsibility to dump that on a new and inexperienced board. It behooves us to make our decision."

Public service isn't glamorous, McKinney acknowledged, and isn't well paid. It takes a lot of time and a lot of patience.

People expect a level of service but it takes, he said, "living, breathing human beings to operate a town."

He's encouraging citizens to come forward and write-in candidates to fill out an empty roster.

"If we chose to be a town unto ourselves, we need people," McKinney said. "If not, then the type of government we have becomes questionable, the sustainability becomes questionable, and the ability to govern is highly questionable."
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Montreal, 21 April 2017  ICAO has confirmed its strong support for a new Declaration on the Improvement of Search and Rescue (SAR) services in Africa.



Adopted during the recent High-level Conference on SAR in Africa which convened in Lome, Togo, the new agreement will be implemented in part under a separate Plan of Action adopted by the participating States Ministers.



In his keynote address to the event, which was hosted by the Government of Togo with support from ICAO and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), Council President Aliu underscored the crucial role SAR services play in ensuring the safety of civil aviation operations. He appealed to States for greater cooperation to enhance compliance with ICAOs current and incoming Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) for SAR services, noting as well the important and related need for concrete financial commitments.



The provision of effective SAR services entails the mobilization of essential State assets, and requires substantial financial commitments by your governments. Additionally, assets of neighbouring States and other international organizations are most likely to be involved in SAR missions, requiring the approval of high-level authorities, Dr. Aliu remarked in his address. The ICAO No Country Left Behind initiative is specifically aimed at ensuring that international standards are implemented in a harmonious manner in all member States, so that they all have equal access to the socio-economic benefits of aviation. We are here to help you with these challenges, and our Regional Offices stand ready to consult with you on the most practical means forward to the required assistance and capacity building.



The President of Togo, H. E. Faure Gnassingbe, enthusiastically agreed to champion regional progress on SAR issues. Dr. Aliu highlighted that Togos engagement was consistent with the significant commitment and regional leadership the State has already demonstrated in terms of aviation infrastructure development and ICAO compliance.



To commemorate the countrys related progress and achievements under the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP), Dr. Aliu presented Togos Prime Minister, the Hon. Mr. Koni Selom Klassou, with an ICAO Council President Certificate of Recognition.



The ICAO Council President was accompanied at the Togo conference by Captain Musa Shuaibu Nuhu, Representative of Nigeria on the ICAO Council, Mr. Halidou Moussa, ICAO Air Navigation Commissioner, and Mr. Mam Sait Jallow, ICAOs Regional Director for Western and Central Africa. The special high-level event was attended by over 200 participants from 34 States, including many States Ministers.



During his mission to Togo, the Council President also undertook a number of bilateral meetings with the countrys President and Prime Minister, as well as its Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, the Hon. Mr. Ninsao Gnofam.



Dr. Aliu also met with various other Ministers as well as Directors-General of Civil Aviation in attendance at the Conference, and visited the newly completed passenger terminal at Gnassingbe Eyadema International Airport.

Resources for Editors



About ICAO



A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency, capacity and environmental protection, amongst many other priorities. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 191 Member States.



ICAO's Western Africa Regional Office

ICAO's No Country Left Behind initiative

The High Level Conference on the Improvement of Search and Rescue (SAR) services in Africa



Contacts



Anthony Philbin

Chief, Communications

aphilbin@icao.int

+1 514-954-8220

+1 438-402-8886 (mobile)

Twitter: @ICAO



William Raillant-Clark

Communications Officer

wraillantclark@icao.int

+1 514-954-6705

+1 514-409-0705 (mobile)

Twitter: @wraillantclark
COLOR MANILAS CM CHALLENGE RUN, which is the biggest obstacle fun run in the country, will be back in Cebu City on May 14, 2017, at the Cebu Business Park in Ayala Cebu.

We are more than excited to bring back the CM Challenge franchise to Cebu, and we are expecting thousands of participants once again to take part in our trademark colorful run, says COLOR MANILA VP Justine Cordero.

Participants may choose between four (4) race categories, 3K, 5K, 10K and the Yakult-sponsored 16K race. They also have the option of choosing between the Deluxe and the Trooper race kit. The Deluxe kit, priced at Php 750, includes a white singlet, race bib, sunglasses, finishers medal and color packet. While the Trooper Kit, priced at Php 1,050, includes a colored singlet, race bib, sunglasses, finishers medal, color packet, drawstring bag and headwear. Participants of the 16K in the meantime would get the following items - a white singlet, race bib, sunglasses, color packet, Yakult finishers medal, Yakult finishers singlet, and Yakult pillow.

Previous participants can expect more obstacles, mazes and challenges from this race, as we have put more exciting elements into it. As for first time runners, they can look forward to the color festival and various color stations which are worthwhile stopovers, just to take selfies and group photos with friends. We are encouraging all runners, both veteran and first-timers, to take part in this very exciting event, guaranteed to be a memorable experience, adds Justine Cordero.

Tickets may be purchased at SM Tickets, Runnr Ayala Cebu and www.colormanilarun.com. Race kit claiming will be from May 11 to 13, 2017 at The Court Yard, Vibo Place. Sponsors for the event include Cebu Grand Hotel, Vibo Place, Natures Spring, Yakult, and Steel Art.

Apart from the CM Challenge Cebu, upcoming CM Challenge events are as follows: CM Challenge - Laguna on June 25 and CM Challenge - Cavite on July 9, 2017.
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An intriguing tidbit came out of Star Wars Celebration in Orlando last week, confirming a new "major cast member" in the Han Solo prequel with the character name 'Dryden Vos'.

It has sent fans into theorising overdrive, as it can't be a coincidence that the character bears the same surname as favourite Quinlan Vos.

The Jedi, with dreadlocks and a yellow stripe of paint on his face, was active during the prequel trilogy (briefly seen in the background of The Phantom Menace) and a key part of animated series The Clone Wars, in which he was embedded as an undercover spy with Count Dooku.

Hailing from the planet Kaffu, he was a maverick within the Jedi Order and had a reputation for bending the rules. Harnessing the power to perceive others' memories when touching objects they had contacted, he was an expert tracker often sent on missions into the criminal underworld.

Vos is thought to have featured in a scene George Lucas wrote for Revenge of the Sith but didn't use, and Disney have been pouring over Lucas' unused plot strands lately.

"So our attitude [is,] we dont want to throw any of that stuff away. Its gold," producer Kathleen Kennedy told /Film. "And its something were spending a lot of time looking at, pouring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further. We definitely want to."

Making Star Wars speculates that Quinlan could be using a pseudonym with 'Dryden' in the Han Solo movie, as Obi-Wan Kenobi once did with 'Ben Kenobi'.


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In many ways, the release of an artist's second album is the defining moment of their career, with anything too similar or inferior seeing them disregarded as just another one record wonder.

Should an artist ride that wave to successfully deliver something that matches its predecessor's quality, however, and you're pretty much guaranteed an entry into the hall of fame.

The past quarter of a century has seen several successful endeavours - Radiohead, Blur, Oasis and Adele spring to mind - but no group of musicians have embraced the task with quite as much gusto as Sheffield quartet Arctic Monkeys whose sophomore album Favourite Worst Nightmare - the rowdy sequel to their record-breaking debut - was released in the UK ten years ago this Sunday (23 April).

Perhaps what is most striking about album number two is just how well they avoided succumbing to the pressures that so many other bands would have invariably fallen victim to had they scored the UK's fastest-selling debut record just 15 months previous.

Instead, Alex Turner and company returned with this gem which - after a decade - still stands tall as a metaphorical middle finger in the face of 'second album syndrome.'

With their follow-up, Arctic Monkeys blended the attributes that had worked so well on their debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, with a fearless promise of what was to come. What Favourite Worst Nightmare fails to boast in freshness, it makes up for in unabashed ferocity.

Take as the proof the lead single 'Brianstorm', a hurricane of an opening track featuring all four band members working at their peak: drummer Matt Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and bassist Nick O'Malley's frenetic instruments all heightening Turner's delivery.

It's a breathless opener backed up by the double punch of standout track 'Teddy Picker', the opening beat and riff of which is impossible not to expect as soon as the former grinds to a halt - the hallmark of an album that demands to be played back in order.

Favourite Worst Nightmare has zero time for messing about - every song immediately makes its presence felt and ends just as abruptly before hurling the listener full throttle into the next. It's a 38-minute ride allowing a mere five-minute breather (the wistful 'Only Ones Who Know' and the first half of 'Do Me a Favour') before carousing its way to perennial set-closer '505'.

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Then there's 'Fluorescent Adolescent'. Could it be the indie pop crowd-pleaser of the noughties? It's certainly a contender.

With its instantly recognisable "ba-da-da"s and lewdly nostalgic talk of fishnets and Mecca daubers, the track - inspired by John Cooper Clarke's poem 'Out of Control Circus' (bolstered by the fairground-evoking organ) - is a refreshing lull whose lyrics, so concerned with the banality of routine, prove that not even widespread acclaim could ever take the Sheffield out of these lads.



On one level, the album's electrifying attitude is unsurprising - the band themselves found themselves caught up in a whirlwind year following the gargantuan success of Whatever People Say I Am... which plucked them from their Sheffield haunts to send them on tour around the world.

Upon its release, the album outsold the entire top 20 in its first day of sales, was nominated for the Mercury Music prize and won the group their fourth Brit - yet it's clear these achievements were never the goal.

Favourite Worst Nightmare was the first sign that Arctic Monkeys would change up their sound with each new record in as drastic a fashion as they wished - something which will no doubt continue with record number six (which they're rumoured to be currently writing).

If their debut defined a generation, this record shaped the band's future in a manner more mature, sexy and - just like the party depicted in the rowdy track 'This House Is a Circus' - berserk as f*ck.
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We wanted to say something about the way the world is, Maximo Park frontman Paul Smith says.

If you see something and you think somebody needs to stand up for it  whatever issue it might be  then you should. Theres a responsibility as a citizen and as a human.

We're sat in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on the banks of the River Tyne to discuss his bands new album Risk To Exist.

The gallery is exhibiting Disappearance At Sea, which draws attention to the journey undertaken by migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Its themes are close to Smith  and Risk To Exists  heart, and they reoccur throughout our conversation.

The first new song to enter the public sphere was the albums title track: it laments the governments reaction to the migrant crisis. All profits were donated to Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a Malta-based foundation dedicated to preventing loss of life to refugees and migrants at sea.

I read an article about MOAS and the impulse behind it, says Smith. It seemed devoid of politics and was responding on a humanitarian level. It relates to the exhibition thats on here.

Every person has their story and nobody would put themselves in that position if they didnt feel desperate. Its hard for these people to leave their home and feel displaced, never mind being a scapegoat for everybodys problems.

He articulates this subject at length, citing articles and art as he goes, and it is clear he is frustrated with how a song he wrote two years ago still remains relevant today.

We have to be engaged as a country rather than being the island nation and turning our back on people, he says. We are all connected. Our government is part of the world  were all linked. So you cant say its nothing to do with us, he says.

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Politically tinged lyrics are nothing new for Smith. After all, he writes about the world he lives in. But, without preaching, Maximo Park dig deeper on Risk To Exist, using personal stories and situations to represent broader issues of responsibility, empathy and togetherness.

On The Reason I Am Here, in which Smith adapts a line from a Lorcas poem Landscape of a Pissing Multitude (We will have to make a journey through the eyes of idiots), sees him tackle Brexit, identity and his decision to stay a resident of his native north-east.

People say who does feel European anyway?, says Smith. "Well I do. Ive been connected to the art and literature of Europe. I accept a lot of people dont feel like that in this country, but much of that will be fuelled by this base feeling of who are these people to tell us what to do?'"

Elsewhere on the record, 'Get High (No, I Dont)' sounds like a twisted and sultry salute to the Spencer Davis Group and deals with political leaders polluting the nations conscience with poisonous ideas and language.

Ill Be Around  another early song to surface in this cycle  came about when Smith was staying above Berlins famous Hansa Studios. Its use of the phrase a government that is out of touch set the agenda for the songs that would follow.

Smith's use of the G-word was not without considerable thought and, as a collection of lyrics, Risk to Exist carefully tows the line between the literal and the overbearing.

"That song is saying I wont use these familiar cliched allegories and metaphors," he notes. "There must be another way of writing about these things. In the end, the songs answer is Ill be around for you. Its a solidarity song. It can be very intimate and personal."

But that notion of having answers is one that Smith is keen to dissect  not least because the album raises plenty of questions.

There are no answers on this album, he concedes. "But its good to question the world we live in. Thats what all art does and pop is art to me."

The record will be released almost exactly 10 years after the hugely successful Our Earthly Pleasures LP, and is evidence of a band refusing to rest on earlier successes. Instead, Maximo Park have subtly shape-shifted over time, flirting with varying genre and style.

Right from its opening seconds  the smooth, Stevie Wonder-style beat of What Did We Do To You To Deserve This?  it is clear they thrive on challenging themselves and their art.

We had a number of different directions we could go in, says Smith. And that is exactly what the album does: it twists and turns in different directions, referencing disco, groove and Eighties pop along the way.

There are flashes of influence from Prince, Roxy Music and Genesis, but the now-familiar Maximo Park core is central  the energetic, jagged hooks that punctuate their previous records  and from there the band branch off and explore new ideas.

Smith and co flew to Chicago in autumn having chosen to record with Tom Schick where, in between watching the Chicago Cubs make World Series history, catching Angel Olsen live and avoiding the spiders, centipedes and interesting insects they shared their Airbnb with, the band knuckled down in Wilcos Loft studio for three weeks.

They recorded live, working with a horn section and roping in one of Smiths all-time-favourites, Lows Mimi Parker, who tracked five songs worth of vocals in one day.

"It was just weird hearing her talk," he says. "Its like the woman from Low is talking and I can hear everything! It was one of those dream-come-true moments."

Crucially, though, the album sounds like a band having fun. And that provides a perfect juxtaposing platform for the at-times-bleak political and social tones of Smiths lyrics.

That light and shade is something Smiths heroes do well  he talks about Fela Cuti, Red House Painters and Smokey Robinson as masters of the craft  and when put through the Maximo Park prism and packaged as an entity, the dynamic of sound and subject is Risk To Exists greatest asset.

Touring is next on the Maximo Park agenda  a string of UK dates will see them close Live At Leeds festival and take on Royal Festival Hall  but you get the sense Smith is already wondering which direction the band can go in next.

"Its life or death when youre in the moment," he says. "Youre thinking; if this is rubbish, how embarrassing would that be? But if this is great it could be the best song ever written.

"Those wild thoughts and extremes are what drive you to keep making music, and aim for this impossible perfection."

Risk To Exist is out via Daylighting now. Maximo Park play a special closing show for Live at Leeds festival on 30 April
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Prince was such a private figure that any insight into his creativity is greedily welcomed. The latest comes from a former art director that has pulled together shots of the music legend from over a decade and is publishing them along with anecdotes that give glimpses of working life in Prince's studio complex, Paisley Park.

Picturing Prince has been compiled by Steve Parke, an American artist and photographer that worked with the enigmatic artist for 13 years from 1988. He has selected an overview from hundreds of images culled from album-cover photo shoots to more laidback moments, as with Prince shooting hoops at midnight. Through a series of vignettes and memories, Parke builds up a portrait of a figure overflowing with energy, often infuriating to work for, but passionate about music and with an impish sense of humour.

(Steve Parke)

It was the passion that would prove vital in this period of Prince's creative life. In 1988, the musician was seemingly at the height of his powers, a year after releasing the brilliant Sign o' The Times. Yet his talent was already showing mercurial tendencies, having pulled the ready-to-release Black Album and hastily recording what became that year's Lovesexy. It was the harbinger for a tumultuous few years that saw Prince disown his own name and eventually break ties with the label, Warner Bros, that he had been involved with for 18 years and break out on a more independent-minded path.

(Steve Parke)

Apparently a typical move for Prince, Parke's invitation to the Paisley party came out of the blue. Working as a gig photographer in Virginia, he had befriended guitarist Levi Saucer Jr, who later joined Prince's band and offered to show the boss the snapper's photorealistic art. Parke was called to paint stage-floor designs for a post-Lovesexy tour, warned the last team had been fired for working too slowly. The multi-tasker showed his stamina  staying up for 72 hours  and jobs continued to come his way, an early highlight being the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack cover, along with designs for tour programmes, T-shirts and eventually photo shoots..

(Steve Parke)

At some point, Parke believes 1995, it dawned on him he had been accepted as a full-time artistic factotum, though the only official recognition of a job title came with tour or record company jackets with his name and 'art director' printed on them. It was never official, like someone signing a piece of paper, but that was what I was doing. The idea was cool, but knowing what the job involves, I was actually art directing myself. Leafing through the tome, you quickly appreciate Prince was not someone to take no or not possible as answers, forcing collaborators to work through the night, with 2am often a break for cinema trips or ping-pong games.

More importantly, Prince was happy to share ideas, thoughts and feelings with one of the few non-musicians in the compound. What shines through in Picturing Prince is the subject's humour that ran from cutting put-downs to practical jokes when he took to picking up the phone on unsuspecting callers. Parke remembers one particular all-nighter towards the end of his tenure when as dawn broke Prince pulled the blinds as if to pretend it was still dark. You know, I could tell the sun was rising. Even better was that Prince occasionally gave Parke lifts to the unassuming hotel where out-of-towners stayed, his distinctive Plymouth Prowler (purple, natch) dropping off Parke in the morning as departing business guests looked on open mouthed.

(Steve Parke)

It is difficult to get a sense of evolution or development from Parke's randomly accessed memories, but then Parke was at the eye of a storm that was unremitting even when the boss was at his most frustrated and staff had to work out what to say instead of Prince. It ramped up [when Prince left Warners], when he decided to do things on his own terms, he brought everything in-house. It meant more work for me certainly and other people there. From the late nineties onwards, Paisley Park gradually became a relative ghost town as Prince downsized, made the complex his home and less acts came to hire the studios or rehearsal spaces. No more Chaka Khans or George Clintons.

(Steve Parke)

Parke finally hit the buffers in 2001, when he realised he was not looking forward to monthly flights to Minneapolis from his Baltimore home and wanted to spend more time with his newly born son, Duncan. It is notable, though, that this hit home most forcefully during a conversation with Prince. I had a picture of [Duncan] on my laptop and Prince one day said, 'I bet you really miss him' and I'm, like, yeah. I hate to say it, but I think that did it. I might even have poked him in the arm and said you're not helping. And when Parke left, he knew he could not go back even on supposedly one-off jobs. Couple of days in Prince's world can end up being weeks. He was a very compelling person.

(Steve Parke)

'Picturing Prince: An Intimate Portrait' by Steve Parke is out now published by Cassell Illustrated, 20. All images  Steve Parke
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Prince, we know, was quite particular about his work. He also left behind a treasure trove of it  an entire vault. Add in Prince's pop-icon status and lack of a will, and we have a recipe for drama over what to do with his legacy.

It's already begun. New Prince recordings that were supposed to be released today, the first anniversary of his death, may not come out after the musician's estate filed a federal lawsuit against the sound engineer behind the EP.

The dust-up this week underscores the messiness of music legends' posthumous careers, which can see many parties battling for creative control amid intense public interest in a body of work and millions of dollars in potential revenue.

Recommended That surprise Prince EP might not happen after all

In the suit filed in a county court last week and moved to a federal court on Tuesday, Paisley Park Enterprises alleges the engineer, George Ian Boxill, does not legally own five recordings, and that in releasing them he is violating an agreement he signed with Prince that the artist had exclusive ownership over any recordings.

Mr Boxill maintained copies of certain tracks, waited until after Prince's tragic death, and is now attempting to release tracks without the authorisation of the estate and in violation of the agreement and applicable law, the estate said in a statement sent to media outlets.

Attorneys representing Boxill, whose credits includes Janet Jackson, 2Pac and many Prince albums, did not immediately return a request for comment.

According to a press release announcing the new EP Deliverance, Prince and Boxill co-wrote and co-produced all of the tracks starting in 2006, and the majority of the sales will benefit the late artist's estate.

I believe Deliverance is a timely release with everything going on in the world today, and in light of the one-year anniversary of his passing. I hope when people hear Prince singing these songs it will bring comfort to many, Boxill says in the release. Prince once told me that he would go to bed every night thinking of ways to bypass major labels and get his music directly to the public. When considering how to release this important work, we decided to go independent because that's what Prince would have wanted.

Managing an artist's career after death can mean walking a tightrope of competing interests: treating the legacy with dignity, ensuring heirs get what's rightfully theirs and doing right by fans. It's especially complicated when a prolific artist like Prince didn't detail his wishes through a will  which also means his estate is subject to a hefty tax bill that needs to be paid.

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There's been some infighting among his siblings  accusations of mismanagement among some heirs about the estate advisers  and fans debating about how to honour a musician who famously distrusted record companies and lawyers, the same kind of entities now very involved with managing his career.

Prince's estate has already signed a merchandising deal with the company Bravado. His older catalogue has returned to most streaming services, two years after he pulled it from all except Tidal. The artists Paisley Park home and studios have been turned into a museum, managed by the same company that runs Graceland. Warner Bros had a deal prior to Princes death to control much of the music from his earlier career. And Universal struck a deal with the estate with plans to explore Prince's vault and release new albums  although that's been thrown into doubt amid reports that the company may try to nullify the deal over questions about the Warner Bros assets.

Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Show all 15 1 /15 Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park CHANHASSEN, MN - MAY 2: Tributes and memorials dedicated to Prince on the fence that surrounds Paisley Park on May 2, 2016 in Chaska, Minnesota. Prince died on April 21, 2016 at his Paisley Park compound at the age of 57. As a will has not been found, court proceedings have started to decide how his assets should be divided. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park MINNEAPOLIS, MN - APRIL 22: Jacqueline Pruitt wipes away a tear after leaving flowers at a memorial to Prince outside the First Avenue nightclub on April 22, 2016 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prince, 57, was pronounced dead shortly after being found unresponsive yesterday at his Paisley Park Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota near Minneapolis. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park CHANHASSEN, MN - MAY 2: Tributes and memorials dedicated to Prince on the fence that surrounds Paisley Park on May 2, 2016 in Chaska, Minnesota. Prince died on April 21, 2016 at his Paisley Park compound at the age of 57. As a will has not been found, court proceedings have started to decide how his assets should be divided. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park CHANHASSEN, MN - APRIL 24: People walk past the memorial outside Paisley Park on April 24, 2016 in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Prince died on April 21 at his Paisley Park compound at the age of 57. (Photo by Jules Ameel/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park CHANHASSEN, MN - APRIL 23: Mementos left by fans are attached to the fence which surrounds Paisley Park, the home and studio of Prince, on April 23, 2016 in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Prince, 57, was pronounced dead shortly after being found unresponsive April 21 in an elevator at Paisley Park. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park CHANHASSEN, MN - APRIL 23: Music fans visit a memorial created outside Paisley Park, the home and studio of Prince, on April 23, 2016 in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Prince, 57, was pronounced dead shortly after being found unresponsive in an elevator April 21 at Paisley Park. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Getty Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Getty Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Getty Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park AFP/Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park A Prince fans attachs flowers to a memorial wall as he pays his respects outside the Paisley Park compound in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 22, 2016. Prince died April 21, 2016. / AFP / Mark Ralston (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park Getty Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park MINNEAPOLIS, MN - APRIL 22: A photo of Prince is attached to the wall outside of the First Avenue nightclub where fans have created a memorial to the artist on April 22, 2016 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prince, 57, was pronounced dead shortly after being found unresponsive yesterday at his Paisley Park Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota near Minneapolis. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Fans mourn Prince outside Paisley Park TOPSHOT - Messages left by fans outside the Paisley Park residential compound of music legend Prince in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 21, 2016. Emergency personnel tried and failed to revive music legend Prince, who died April 21, 2016, at age 57, after finding him slumped unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park studios in Minnesota, the local sheriff said. / AFP / Mark Ralston (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images

For an estate like Prince's, there's enormous potential to generate money, and not just from music.

There's tremendous, tremendous interest in doing things with his legacy, whether it's a motion picture, documentaries, Broadway, Cirque de Soleil, former Sony and EMI executive Charles Koppelman, one of the estate's advisers, told Billboard in February.

It's not uncommon for a musician to have a career boost after death. For instance, David Bowie's financial worth grew after his 2016 death, and his posthumous release Blackstar was his first to reach the top spot on the Billboard charts.

Michael Jackson's career also had a revival. Prior to his 2009 death, his image had become linked to child molestation accusations, and his finances were thought to be in bad shape. But after he died, his status became cemented as the most consequential pop superstar, propelled by documentaries, books, albums and live shows. Co-executors of Jackson's estate have made an estimated $1bn (780m) since Jackson died, according to Forbes.

Much of a deceased artist's post-death career hinges on how much unreleased work they left behind. As many as 10 new Michael Jackson albums could be on the horizon. A pair of unreleased Bowie albums are expected to be released tomorrow.

Prince, on the other hand, left so much music behind that it probably won't be tapped in our lifetimes, a former Paisley Park employee Scott LeGere told the Star Tribune.

But should it be tapped? Prince was careful about his music and how it was made available. He took on record companies and pioneered the realm of digital releases.

Some believe there is an intrinsic, almost scholarly value in cracking open his vault. The audience will be served things they've never heard before, things that will blow their minds, Susan Rogers, a Berklee College of Music instructor and the studio engineer who worked on Purple Rain, told the Star Tribune. She then pointed to her music students: I want these kids to understand how extraordinary he was, the sheer amount of his creative output.

Despite the lack of a will, it doesn't take much guessing to assume how the pop icon would have felt about all the deal-making with major companies. But Koppelman, the estate adviser, told Billboard that the estate retaining ownership rights over Prince's work is the biggest priority: While some people may say 'Why are you making all these deals? Prince wouldn't make these deals,' Prince [also] never wanted to lose ownership and control of his creations.

Such deal-making, Koppelman argued, preserves that ownership and control.

I do want to make clear that if Prince were here, we likely would not be making these deals, Koppelman told the outlet. Also, Prince would not be needing half the value of his estate (to pay the estate tax bill) right now.

 Washington Post
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Pollution from Europe helped cause a drought in India that was one of the countrys worst ever natural disasters, affecting more than 130 million people, according to new research.

Sulphur dioxide  produced mainly by coal-fired power plants  causes a number of harmful effects, such as acid rain, heart and lung diseases, and damage to plant growth.

But sulphate aerosols also have a cooling effect on the atmosphere because it reflects sunlight back into space, a property that has led some to suggest it could be used as a form of geo-engineering to reduce the rate of global warming.

However, emissions from the northern hemisphere can change the relative rate of warming in the south, causing the tropical rain-band to shift  with potentially devastating results.

Now researchers at Imperial College London have calculated just how big an effect emissions of sulphur dioxide had on rainfall in India in 2000.

The north-west of India experienced a staggering drop in precipitation of about 40 per cent because of emissions from the northern hemispheres main industrial areas.

Europes emissions alone caused reductions of up to 10 per cent in the north-west and south-west regions.

One of the researchers, Dr Apostolos Voulgarakis, of ICLs Grantham Institute, said the study showed how emissions in one part of the world could have a significant effect on another  even if the pollution itself didnt actually get there.

East Asia is contributing more [of an effect] because its closer, but there is an effect from Europe and also the US, he told The Independent.

Dr Voulgarakis said their research, along with other studies, showed the kind of problems that might result from attempts to use sulphur dioxide in a geo-engineering scheme.

Geo-engineering has generally suggested to be problematic because of the knock-on effects it could have, he said.

This research shows one of those reasons as it can affect rainfall quite dramatically.

The figures were produced using a climate model which Dr Voulgarakis said tended to give results on the high side of the range produced by different methods.

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

A briefing note prepared by Grantham researchers about the techniques to assess air pollutants said they could have complex and diverse effects.

Sulphate aerosols could cool the atmosphere and so off-set some global warming but also increase air pollution levels and cause drought.

The impacts of short-lived pollutant emissions on air quality and climate change vary greatly depending on both the region where emissions occur and the location of the affected region, it said.

The climate effects of air pollutants are best assessed on a region-by-region basis, and are not easily captured by global metrics.

It suggested air pollution and global warming should be dealt with as a single issue.

Air quality and climate policy should be designed simultaneously to maximise beneficial outcome, the briefing note said.

As the harmful effects of sulphur dioxide became clear, the European Union worked to reduce emissions.

A switch away from fuels with high levels of sulphur saw a 74 per cent reduction between 1990 and 2011.

By 2011, sulphur dioxides were less than half the amount in 2000.

In a blog post, Dilshad Shawki, a PhD student at the Grantham Institute, described how important understanding rainfall was, particularly in India and the surrounding area.

Each summer the South Asian monsoon drenches the Indian subcontinent, as strong moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean deliver over 70 per cent of the regions annual rainfall in just three months.

As such, the monsoons bountiful rain is crucial to the economy and to livelihoods in the region.

In recent decades however, rising pollution levels and increases in global surface temperatures have influenced atmospheric circulation patterns in the tropics, in turn affecting monsoon rainfall patterns.

The challenge for scientists, including myself, is to gain a better appreciation of these relationships in order to build more accurate forecasts. Understanding and predicting monsoon rainfall is of huge importance to those societies that have developed following its rhythms.

Despite the fall in European sulphur dioxide emissions, Indias droughts have continued as the world has got warmer.

Last year, the country saw its highest temperature on record  a sweltering 51 degrees Celsius (123.8F). Hundreds of people died as crops failed in more than 13 states.

Tens of thousands of small farmers also abandoned their land and moved to cities, while others killed themselves rather than face life in an urban shanty town.
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Set over eight floors, Soho House Berlin is awash with neon signs, graffiti style artwork and that signature rustic charm. Comprising 65 bedrooms and 20 serviced apartments in a range of sizes, there is something to suit every taste. There are also four vast lofts  a favourite with the regular celebrity clientele. Velvet fabrics create a sumptuous ambience with a navy, green and blue colour scheme running throughout the property.

The retro style of the 50 sq m Big bedrooms is irresistible. A 1920s inspired shell-like headboard on a king-sized bed, vintage armchairs and a trolley stacked with Cowshed products are among sumptuous touches.

There is also a walk-in steam shower, separate freestanding bath and a vanity desk. Steeped in history, the hotel and members' club sits in a fascinating building in the hip Mitte district, close to the coolest restaurants, bars and shops.

The Grade II-listed property has a complex past. Designed in the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) style by architects Georg Bauer and Siegfried Friedlander, it began life in the late 1920s as Jonass & Co, a seven-storey department store with a rooftop restaurant. When the store relocated to Alexanderplatz, the vacant building was sold to the Reich Youth Leadership and served as the organisations headquarters under Artur Axmann during the Second World War.

In 1945, the Allies handed control of East Berlin to the Soviet Union and 1 Torstrasse became the seat of the Communist Partys central committee, home to party top brass such as Walter Ulbricht and Wilhelm Pieck. In the late 1950s, the ruling SED party moved to a more central Berlin location and the building was converted into the Institute of Marxist-Leninism, its cavernous spaces housing the Central Party archive.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the descendants of the original Jewish owners succeeded in having the building returned to them under the reparations act. The building then lay vacant for almost a decade. Soho House Berlin opened in 2010. A stay includes access to the rooftop members' club. Overlooking Berlin, this is the ideal spot for breakfast.

Pop back up in the evening when the restaurant and bar area turns into a cocktail destination. Lunch at Cecconi's on the ground floor is another must.

The lower ground Cowshed spa is home to five comfy manicure and pedicure chairs, private treatment rooms, relaxation pods, a sauna, steam room and a spacious Hamam with basins and a fountain. We suggest booking in for a Cowshed facial.

An enthusiastic therapist will closely examine your skin before deciding on the best treatment. If you are feeling fit, check out Cowshed Active with Technogym equipment and don't forget the rooftop pool.

Visit sohohouseberlin.com to book.

Follow Amira Hashish on Twitter @amiranews and Instagram @thedesigneditor
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Starbuckss Unicorn Frappuccino tastes like sour birthday cake mixed with a creamsicle covered in Pixie Stix and a healthy sprinkling of despair. But that doesnt really matter. The drink, released in participating stores nationwide on Wednesday, exists only to be Instagrammed.

That hasnt stopped people from ordering it. The Instagram hashtags for Starbucks and unicorn are flooded with the Lisa Frank-colored drink. And on Twitter, users are complaining that the drink has sold out at several locations.

It appears that Starbucks baristas dont really like the drink, either. Braden Burson, a barista in Colorado, published a video rant on Twitter about the drink, saying that it is difficult to make and very messy. (The video has been deleted from his account.)

Please dont get it! he said in the video. I have unicorn crap all in my hair and on my nose. I have never been so stressed out in my entire life.

The Associated Press reports that Starbucks is reaching out to Burson to talk about his experience and how to make it better.

Hes not the only one. On a Reddit forum for Starbucks baristas, complaints have been rolling in. One barista called it the Frap from hell. Another posted a photo giving the Unicorn Frappuccino advertisement the finger.

Baristas have been speaking their mind on Twitter, too.

On the bright side for these baristas: The drink is only available through Sunday.

The Washington Post
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The administrators of group WhatsApp chats could be sent to prison, according to a new law.

People who run accounts that see people share false or misleading information could be sent to prison under new rules meant to stop the spread of fake news in India.

The new rules hold the admin of any group accountable for what is posted inside of it. Both Facebook and WhatsApp allow one or more users to manage groups, deciding who is let into it and changing its name.

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Now those administrators will be responsible for ensuring that their friends and family continue to post true things in their group, according to the law in Varanasi. WhatsApp users  of which there are more than 200 million in India  have been told to only add people they personally know to conversations.

The new rules were set out in a joint order by District Magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra and Senior Superintendent of Police Nitin Tiwari, and make clear that anyone breaking it could be referred to the police.

"There are several groups on social media which are named on news groups and also groups with other names which are propagating news and information which is not authentic," the order said, according to local reports. "These are being forwarded without cross checking."

Instead, admins must monitor what everyone is posting and, as soon as something false is identified, make clear that it is wrong and remove the person from the group. They must also inform the police about the misleading information.

If they don't do so then they'll be held responsible for the propagation of the fake news, the officials suggested. They must also not allow statements that hurt religious people to be posted on such groups.
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The chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover has become the latest business leader to warn on the effects of Brexit.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4s Today programme, Ralf Speth, said that his company might not be able to attract top engineers after Britain leaves the EU, due to higher immigration controls.

He told the programme that he is pushing for free and fair access to other EU markets as well as Turkey after the split.

Coventry-based JLR is a multinational company with operations in countries including India, China, Brazil, Slovakia and Austria.

Earlier this week, the company posted record-breaking annual global sales, according to media reports, smashing the 600,000 barrier for the first time in its history.

But experts have warned that the automotive industry may be one of the hardest hit sectors as a result of Brexit, due to its global exposure and its reliance on overseas talent.

The number of cars built in the UK hit a 17-year high last year and more cars are being exported than ever before, but in January the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned that a failure to establish proper trade deals after Brexit could damage the industry beyond repair.

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More than one in two cars produced in the UK in 2016 was exported to Europe, thanks to a 7.5 per cent increase in demand from the Continent.

Global appetite for British-built cars rose by 10.3 per cent to an all-time high of just over 1.3 million  a second consecutive annual record.
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Mattel shares took a hit after the worlds largest toy company reported a much worse than expected sales slump dragged down by poor demand for key brands such as Barbie and Fisher-Price.

Shares in the company dropped 6 per cent to $23.70 (18.50) in after-hours trading in New York on Thursday after the toymaker reported a loss of $133.2m or 33 cents per share for the three months to 31 March.

Sales dropped by 15.4 per cent to $735m during the period, well below the analysts average estimate of $801.4m (624m), according to Reuters.

"What we didn't expect was the prolonged impact from the leftover retail inventory. It's essentially isolated to North America and a few markets in Europe " Margo Georgiadis, who became Mattel chief executive in February , told Reuters.

Barbie sales, which begun to recover last year after the toymaker introduced new dolls with different body types and skin colours, slipped again with gross sales down 13 per cent compared to a year ago - their second consecutive quarter of decline.

Fisher-Price responsible for the Bob the Builder or Dora the Explorer brands, saw sales fall 9 per cent year over year to $246.9m.

Mattel has been trying to boost sales in China by striking deals with the likes of online retail giant Alibaba, but elsewhere its facing fierce competition from tival Hasbro.

The latter received a sales boost after winning the contract from Mattel in 2014 to make dolls based on Disney princesses, including Elsa from Frozen and Cinderella.

Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Show all 9 1 /9 Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones Barbie adds 'tall', 'curvy' and 'petite' sizes and new skin tones

Hasbro will release its results on Monday and, according to Reuters analysts, is well positioned for the year ahead thanks to the release of Disneys Beauty and the Beast and other popular franchises such as "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and "Spider-Man: Homecoming.
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British homebuyers take three times longer choosing a sofa than on the decision to buy a home, according to new research.

The average house hunter makes a decision on buying their new pad within just 27 minutes of walking through the door while almost a quarter (24 per cent) knew it was for them in 10 minutes or less. This compares to 88 minutes selecting the perfect sofa.

The survey from property website Zoopla also revealed that buyers take twice as long deliberating over a home appliance (59 minutes), as they do choosing the home itself.

Recommended House prices rise at slowest rate for four years

Other purchases Brits mull over more than their property include a car (89 minutes) a laptop or computer (71 minutes) and a smartphone (46 minutes).

Regionally, buyers in the East of England appear to be the most considered, taking the longest to make their property purchase decision, closely followed by those from the West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber. House hunters in the East Midlands are the speediest, where they take just 26 minutes to decide.

Over half of homeowners said they made an offer on the same day they viewed the property.

The research found that despite the snap decisions people make when they see their dream home, most people are still meticulous about the research they put in beforehand.

The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 Show all 10 1 /10 The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 Exterior On Davies Street close to Claridges is a 956 sqft two bedroom priced at 500,000; agent Wetherell believe this is the cheapest two bedroom apartment currently for sale in Mayfair and the wider West End Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 Located over ground, lower ground and basement floors the triplex apartment has a spacious reception room Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 Adjacent to this is a separate fully fitted kitchen/breakfast room. Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 The flat is recently built, its spacious, its in a triple AAA ultra prime location and the price is a "mega bargain" in Mayfair terms Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 The master bedroom has an ensuite bathroom and there is a second bathroom located in the property. Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 The master bedroom suite occupies the lower ground floor and consists of master bedroom with fitted wardrobes and ensuite bathroom Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 The flat will be snapped up by a super-wealthy Qatari or Saudi A-level student as luxury student digs, according to Wetherell Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 The apartment scheme is complete with smart foyers and a communal garden Wetherell The cheapest house in Mayfair is going for 500,000 Last year, less than 5 per cent of homes sold in Mayfair were priced at less than 7-figures and none were priced below 750,000. Nearly 50 per cent of sales during 2016 were priced between 2m to 10m. Wetherell

The average house hunter now spends a total of 75 hours over the course of 15 weeks in their search, and attends an average of eight viewings before they find "the one", the survey found. Residents of Wales take the longest, with buyers searching for an average of 83 hours over 18 weeks, while the quickest property hunters are those in the East Midlands, who take 62 hours (over 12 weeks).

Lawrence Hall, spokesperson for Zoopla said: The process of buying a home is a hugely emotive one and whilst a quick decision can help secure a property in a fast-moving market, it's essential to keep a strong head and do as much research online and with your local agent to help build knowledge prior to viewings and making an offer.
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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is confident that the Trump administration will avoid a government shutdown as a result of a battle with Congress over funding the border wall with Mexico and healthcare.

Donald Trump thinks the White House and Congress are in good shape to avoid any work stoppage.

Obviously we don't want the government to shut down, but we want to make sure that we're funding the priorities of the government, said Mr Spicer.

Democrat Representative Nita Lowey said she does not see how we can meet that deadline.

Federal agencies are only funded until 28 April  the day before Mr Trumps 100th day in office  and Congress is in recess until 24 April, so the race is on to pass a spending package that would cover the last five months of the fiscal year ending in September.

I think we want to keep the government open, Mr Trump said. But as part of a routine procedure, the Office of Budget and Management has asked all federal agencies to submit their work plans in case the government is forced to shut down.

Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House, making this ability to continue governing a basic test of their abilities.

Garnering Democratic support for the spending bill will be dependent on what provisions Republicans want to include.

Democrats have already said they would not support any spending bill that would allocate taxpayer money to pay for a border wall with Mexico, one of Mr Trumps core campaign promises.

Women go on strike against Donald Trump Show all 7 1 /7 Women go on strike against Donald Trump Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump Protestors march during a demonstration against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump near Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, December 12, 2016. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Women go on strike against Donald Trump Protestors march during a demonstration against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump near Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, December 12, 2016. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images

For several months he said Mexico would pay for the construction project, but after taking office he included line items in his initial proposed federal budget to cover repairs to sections of the existing border fortifications and some new construction.

There have been no accurate cost estimations of how much the entire wall  over 2,000 miles long  would be because of varying prices of materials, labour, land clearing, and other factors.

Republicans have also floated a provision to end subsidies for low-income people to purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Democrats do not support any such legislation and the Republican replacement to Obamacare failed to even come up for a vote in the House of Representatives in March 2016 because of strong dissent within the Republican party.

Another point of contention is Planned Parenthood, a nationwide womens health organisation.

The group receives federal funding and Democrats would like to see that continued but Republicans oppose it since Planned Parenthood offers abortion services in some of their clinics.

Only about three per cent of all medical services offered by Planned Parenthood are abortion-related.

Perhaps one of the thorniest topics on the agenda is Mr Trumps proposed $54bn (42bn) increase in defence spending while cutting an almost equivalent amount in environmental, housing and urban development, the Coast Guard, and diplomatic programmes at the State Department.

The last time the federal government shutdown was in October 2013 during former President Barack Obamas second term. Republicans orchestrated the 17-day shutdown in an effort to repeal Obamacare, which was ultimately unsuccessful in that goal.

A short-term extension could be passed by the House but ultimately the discussions will have to continue.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said that even our most recalcitrant members understand that if you shut down the government while you're running it and you control the House and the Senate, you can't blame anybody but yourself.
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Thousands of mosquitoes have been infected with a bacteria that will stop them reproducing and released in Florida Keys, in a bid to prevent outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases including Zika virus.

The Mosquito Control District set free 20,000 male Aedes aeqgypti mosquitoes, after company in Kentucky manually injected each one with Wolbachia bacteria.

When the infected male mosquitoes mate with females, the eggs they produce will not hatch.

It is hoped the 12 week field trial on Stock Island, just north of Key West, will reduce or eliminate the population of female mosquitoes, which bite humans transmitting diseases like Dengue fever and Chikungunya, as well as Zika.

"The eggs never even hatch," said Stephen Dobson, founder of Mosquitomate, which injected the creatures.

The infected mosquitoes were flown in cardboard tubes  similar to ones used in paper towel rolls  from Lexington, Kentucky, to Key West.

At the 25 acre test site district staff released them by shaking or blowing into the tubes, said Andrea Leal, the district's executive director.

"They liked the humidity," Ms Leal said. "They were very happy mosquitoes."

The trial is expected to last about three months, with twice-weekly releases. Seven Wolbachia-infected males should be released for every one wild male to drive down the mosquito population, Mr Dobson said.

To date, 5,238 cases of Zika virus have been reported in the continental US and Hawaii, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Less than 300 reported cases were locally transmitted and in the continental US all of those occurred in Florida and Texas. Most people were infected while travelling to areas where the virus is more prevalent.

One in 10 Zika-infected mothers had babies with related birth defects in the United States last year, according to the CDC.

A successful trial with the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes could mean the availability of a new tool in the fight against the Aedes aegypti mosquito for not only our District, but for Mosquito Control Districts around the country, Ms Leal told CNN .

"We're looking at these sterile insect techniques because our conventional mosquito control methods are costly and labour-intensive," she added.

Stock Island is about 130 miles southwest of Miami, where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were blamed for spreading the Zika virus last year.

Battling the zika virus - in pictures Show all 19 1 /19 Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures A worker of the Salvadorean Ministry of Health fumigates a house in Soyapango, 6 kilometers from San Salvador, El Salvador. Salvadorean authorities have began a three days campaign of fumigation to reduce the presence of the mosquito that transmit the Zika virus. EPA/Oscar Rivera Battling the zika virus - in pictures A Health Ministry employee fumigates a home against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango, six km east of San Salvador. Health authorities have issued a national alert against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, because of the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly and Guillain-BarrE Syndrome in foetuses. AFP PHOTO/Marvin RECINOSMarvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pediatric infectologist examines a two-months-old baby, who has microcephaly, on 26 January 2016 in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A woman walks through the fumes as Health Ministry employee fumigate against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango. Marvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A health ministry employee sprays to eliminate breeding sites of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which transmits diseases such as the dengue, chicunguna and Zica viruses, in a Tegucigalpa cemetery on January 21, 2016. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. AFP PHOTO/Orlando SIERRA Battling the zika virus - in pictures A man walks away from his home with his son as health workers fumigates the Altos del Cerro neighbourhood as part of preventive measures against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Soyapango, El Salvador REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Battling the zika virus - in pictures A three-months-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pregnant woman waits to be attended at the Maternal and Children's Hospital in Tegucigalpa. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Army soldiers apply insect repellent as they prepare for a clean up operation against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus in Sao Paulo, Brazil. AP Photo/Andre Penner Battling the zika virus - in pictures Workers disinfect the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro to fight the spread of the Zika virus Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, measures the head of a 2-month-old baby with microcephaly in Recife Battling the zika virus - in pictures Mother Mylene Helena Ferreira cares for her son David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who has microcephaly, on January 25, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures U.S. women who are pregnant from traveling to many South American countries Battling the zika virus - in pictures In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, examines a two-month-old baby with microcephaly on January 27, 2016 in Recife, Brazil Battling the zika virus - in pictures Washington Post Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures

Officials are still considering a separate test of mosquitoes genetically modified by the British biotech firm Oxitec to produce Aedes aegypti offspring that die outside a lab.

The US Food and Drug Administration initially approved a trial in a residential neighbourhood near Key West, saying the test would not significantly affect the environment, but outrage from anti-GMO activists and residents forced the district to find a new location.

The FDA is currently seeking public comment on a proposal clarifying which mosquito-related products it regulates and which ones would be regulated by the EPA, which has stalled progress.

Mr Dobson said he hopes the regulatory issues will be resolved quickly, so that mosquito controllers will have more tools to keep the viruses carried by invasive mosquito species from spreading, and more flexibility to address the public's concerns about human health.

"It might be in some places that people will say, 'We don't want Wolbachia,' or they'll say, 'We don't want GMO,' or they'll say, 'We don't want planes spraying overhead,'' Mr Dobson said.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
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Extinct humanoids dubbed hobbits because of their short stature may have been one of oldest forms of humans, according to new research.

Since the discovery of their remains on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, debate has raged about where they fit on the evolutionary tree. There were even claims they were simply short Homo sapiens.

But now researchers in Australia claim to have finally established that Homo floresiensis  as the hobbits are formally known  was actually related to Homo habilis, which lived in Africa about 1.75 million years ago, making it one of the earliest known human species.

This raises the intriguing possibility that floresiensis evolved in Africa some time before that and then migrated to Indonesia and perhaps other parts of the world.

The species were about 3.5ft tall and used stone tools up until about 50,000 years ago, but then mysteriously vanished. Previous research has suggested that modern humans may have wiped them out.

Dr Debbie Argue, of the Australian National University, who led the new research, said: The analyses show that on the family tree, Homo floresiensis was likely a sister species of Homo habilis.

It means these two shared a common ancestor.

Its possible that Homo floresiensis evolved in Africa and migrated, or the common ancestor moved from Africa then evolved into Homo floresiensis somewhere.

She said it was possible that floresiensis evolved before the earliest habilis, which would make it very archaic indeed.

One competing theory is that the hobbits evolved from Homo erectus, who existed from more than 1.8 million years ago to possibly as recently as 35,000 years ago.

However, Dr Argue said their study, which involved looking at 133 different parts of the hobbits bones, found no evidence that they had evolved from erectus.

We found that if you try and link them on the family tree, you get a very unsupported result, she said.

All the tests say it doesn't fit  its just not a viable theory.

For example, the hobbits jaw was deemed to be a version that evolved earlier than the bone seen in erectus.

Logically, it would be hard to understand how you could have that regression  why would the jaw of Homo erectus evolve back to the primitive condition we see in Homo floresiensis? Dr Argue said.

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

Another researcher, Professor Mike Lee, of Flinders University and the South Australian Museum, said a statistical analysis of the remains and how well they compared with other human species left little chance that the hobbits were simply short modern humans.

When we did the analysis there was really clear support for the relationship with Homo habilis, he said.

Homo floresiensis occupied a very primitive position on the human evolutionary tree.

We can be 99 per cent sure its not related to Homo erectus and nearly 100 per cent chance it isnt a malformed Homo sapiens.

The research was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
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A 14-year-old girl, who spent two months in hospital after being shot in the head, has said she is tougher than a bullet after being allowed to go home.

After being in a medically induced coma for some time in the Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, Deserae Turner has been reunited with her parents Matt and April.

Recommended Utah school installs wash rooms for homeless students

Making her first public appearance since the shooting, Deserae said she was so thankful to be here today, to be alive and thanked the many people in her community and strangers who prayed for her family and took care of her parents.

Her father said he had seen "many miracles" in his daughter's recovery to date and was overwhelmed by all the love and support from people praying for the family. He and his wife did not speak about the crime that almost ended their daughters life.

She was reported missing on 16 February by her parents when she did not return home from school. She was found that night, having been shot, by family friends who were walking by the canal as part of a search party.

Police said Ms Turner was allegedly lured to a dried out canal in Smithfield, Utah, shot in the back of the head, and left for dead by two teenagers from a local high school.

Two boys - aged 16 - have been arrested and charged on a number of counts including attempted murder. A judge will decide if they will be tried as adults or juveniles. When asked in a preliminary court hearing why they allegedly shot Ms Turner, one of the boys said it was due to her use of social media platform Snapchat and the messages she was allegedly sending him.

"I just didn't want anything to do with Snapchatting her anymore," said the boy. He claimed to have gotten the gun from his brother.

Deserae will have to undergo intensive physical therapy to regain basic functions, according to her father.

She appeared on camera in a wheelchair but remained upbeat as she wore a t-shirt that read happy on the front and there are so many beautiful reasons to be happy on the back of it.
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A second man has been arrested following an acid attack in a London nightclub.

Two people, aged 24 and 29, were seriously hurt in the attack in Hackney and have been moved to a specialist burns hospital in Essex, according to police. Twenty people suffered the effects of an acidic substance sprayed inside the Mangle club.

A 24-year-old man has been arrested in north London on suspicion of GBH, the Metropolitan Police said on Friday afternoon, after a 21-year-old man was also detained.

But detectives are still hunting Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of Ferne McCann of The Only Way is Essex, in connection with the incident.

Detective Inspector Lee McCullough, of Hackney CID, said: This investigation continues to move at great pace and the net is closing in on those we believe to be responsible.

My team continue to act on a number of leads to bring in those wanted for questioning in relation to this awful incident.

I am continuing to appeal to Arthur Collins to hand himself in so that we can talk to him about the incident in the nightclub. I would also urge anyone who knows of his whereabouts to contact police.

Equally, anyone found harbouring those wanted for questioning by police can expect a knock at the door and could well find themselves under arrest.

We have 20 people suffering from the effects of an acidic substance being sprayed in a confined space in a busy nightclub. All have burn-related injuries. This incident has caused suffering to a large group of people and left many others needing long-term treatment.

The noxious substance used has not yet been confirmed but samples retrieved from the scene have been sent for analysis. If you were there and saw anyone involved inside or leaving the nightclub, please get in touch.

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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 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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. 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Ms McCann appealed to her boyfriend to turn himself in.

A spokeswoman for her said: Ferne is aware that the police wish to speak to Arthur Collins and the nature of the accusations against him. Obviously these are highly shocking and Ferne has co-operated with the police in their inquiries.

She was not with Arthur on Sunday night; was not at Mangle, and has no direct knowledge of the events that unfolded. As much as anybody she wants to know the truth and urges Arthur to co-operate fully with the police and attend a police station immediately.

Police have also raided homes in Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes.

A 33-year-old woman was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of firearms offences, and has been bailed.
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Doctors have launched a campaign against new government policy that they say requires them to act as border guards for the Home Offices immigration enforcement.

Medical charity Doctors of the World, which runs clinics for undocumented migrants, victims of trafficking and asylum seekers, will use a petition and social media push to put pressure on the Government to end new measures brought in since the start of the year, which it warns are frightening vulnerable migrants away from accessing healthcare.

Concern has been mounting among medical staff since a memorandum of understanding published in January stated that NHS digital was required to share patient information with the Home Office. According to the Department of Health, the Home Office made 8,127 requests for data in the first 11 months of 2016. This led to 5,854 people being traced by immigration enforcement teams.

More recent measures that came in at the start of April require hospitals to check whether patients are eligible for free care on the NHS before providing most kinds of care. Doctors and campaigners were not consulted about the changes, and have warned these changes are increasingly discouraging people from accessing healthcare, with potentially fatal consequences.

Dr Peter Gough, a GP who volunteers for Doctors of the World, told The Independent: We feel like border guards. The deal done in January is not known to medical staff until it happens. It goes against every ethic we stand for.

"We need to be neutral. Our patients need to trust us  its vital to them getting better. The migrants we see in the clinic are absolutely desperate. Theyre traumatised; theyve often been trafficked or tortured or raped and discriminated against all along their journey. Then to find that they cant even trust their doctor  theyll just disappear.

It comes after an investigation by The Independent earlier this week found that thousands of asylum seekers and migrants had been wrongly denied NHS healthcare, in some cases being refused treatment despite suffering from life-threatening conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

The investigation also found that a large number of migrants had been wrongly turned away from registering at GP surgeries on the grounds that they did not provide identification documents, and that others had been wrongly charged for hospital treatment, sometimes up to thousands of pounds each.

Recommended Thousands of asylum seekers and migrants wrongly denied NHS healthcare

Doctors of the World told The Independent more than a fifth (22 per cent) of its patients are wrongly turned away from an NHS GP or hospital because they did not have ID or address documents, including people with serious illnesses, and that others were too afraid to access healthcare for fear of being charged or deported.

As part of the campaign, the charity, which saw 1,758 people at its UK clinics last year, said its toolkit for healthcare professionals who want to defy the data sharing, advising they take measures such as registering patients by using the address of the practise instead of their home address and instructing frontline staff not to ask for a passport or proof of ID when registering patients.

Dr Miriam Beeks, a GP in Lower Clapton Group Practice in east London who is already making a stand against data-sharing by putting up posters telling patients that they can register as no fixed abode, said: Doctors in general hate the idea that they are being used as immigration officers.

They feel that everybody has a right to healthcare. In this country, healthcare is regarded as a basic human right. Most doctors have no idea about the data sharing agreement. Its extraordinary that doctors have not been asked about this there has just been some sort of ministerial dictum. How could they think that doctors would not object to this?

Deborah Gold, Chief Executive at the National AIDS Trust, which is supporting the petition, said: We profoundly disagree with the decision by the NHS to share patient information with the Home Office. Patient confidentiality is a cornerstone of an ethical and effective healthcare system.

"Data sharing will breakdown trust between doctors and patients, deterring migrants from seeking care and leaving vulnerable people isolated. This includes people who have been tortured, trafficked, who have communicable diseases, and people who have vulnerable dependents including children.

"The policy poses a fundamental risk to both individual and public health. It politicises our GP surgeries and our hospitals, turning healthcare professionals into border guards. We call on NHS Digital to suspend this service to the Home Office and consult widely on their proposals.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

A Government spokesperson said: We share non-clinical information between health agencies and the Home Office to locate individuals suspected of committing immigration offences.

Access to this information is strictly controlled, with strong legal safeguards. No clinical information is shared, and before anything at all is shared there has to be a legal basis to do so. Immigration officials only contact the NHS when other reasonable attempts to locate people have been unsuccessful.

This simply streamlines the existing process by which Home Office requests for data are considered. No additional NHS data is being provided to the Home Office and anyone in genuine need can always receive treatment from the NHS  urgent or necessary care is never withheld.
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Julian Assange's arrest is a priority for United States authorities, America's attorney general has said.

Prosecutors are believed to be preparing or considering charges against WikiLeaks and its founder, according to US media reports, and Jeff Sessions said officials had "already begun to step up our efforts" to crack down on leaks.

Mr Assange is wanted in Sweden over a sexual assault allegation dating back to 2010, but he fears he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he complies with Swedish authorities.

However, Home Office sources have told The Guardian that Sweden's existing arrest warrant would be the UK government's first consideration if Mr Assange left the embassy.

Last month WikiLeaks released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyber-espionage tools for breaking into computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.

Mr Assange has not left Ecuador's embassy, tucked behind Harrods in London's Knightsbridge, since he walked through the door seeking political asylum in June 2012.

According to reports on Thursday, authorities are preparing to seek his arrest.

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 Justice Department has been unable to build a case against Mr Assange, or any of the more high-profile figures who have leaked to the organisation, until now. Lawyers have found a way around first amendment concerns in the prosecution of Mr Assange, sources tell CNN.

But Mr Assange's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he had not been made aware of any developments.

He added: The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher.

Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Theresa Mays promise to end the European Courts jurisdiction in the UK has hit an immediate block after it emerged the EU will demand its power is upheld after Brexit.

Detailed draft negotiating guidelines reveal the European Council wants the courts UK role to remain, in particular when it comes to preserving the rights of EU citizens in Britain.

It could mean European nationals can turn to the court if they believe the British Government is breaching their rights in the future, but also that UK citizens elsewhere in Europe could do the same.

But it comes after it emerged Ms May is expected to make eliminating the European Courts influence in the UK an election manifesto pledge.

Ministers told The Independent as early as December last year that they suspect legal disputes may have to be settled by European judges for years after Brexit.

The draft negotiating directives state that any Brexit deal should safeguard the status and rights derived from Union law at the withdrawal date, including those the enjoyment of which will intervene at a later date, such as rights related to old age pensions.

The document goes on to say those rights should be protected for the life time of the EU citizens living in the UK, before adding: In these cases, the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (and the supervisory role of the Commission) should be maintained.

Agreeing to the provision could mean that if the UK Government breaches an EU citizens rights after Brexit in relation to state pension payments, for example, the individual might call on the Strasbourg court to remedy the issue.

 Theresa May greets Antonio Tajani at 10 Downing Street

It comes after the President of the European Parliament said any Brexit deal which did not protect EU citizens rights would be vetoed by the body.

Antonio Tajani was in London to meet with Ms May and discuss the parliaments position on Brexit negotiations and said the issue of rights was a red line.

The negotiating document also says the courts role should be maintained in the application and interpretation of other parts of the Brexit deal like the financial settlement  meaning the so-called divorce bill which will see the UK settle its liabilities to the EU.

Estimates have put the cost of Britains liabilities on departure at anything between 30bn and 60bn Euros.

Any measures adoptedto deal with unforeseen situations, where UK product standards diverge from EU standards in the future for example, should also be dealt with by the court the document says.

Finally, the guidelines say the courts role should be maintained in all matters relating to EU law.

Brexit Secretary David Davis admitted only recently that EU law and legal precedent will still play a role in British cases for years to come.
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The Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into spending on the European Union referendum by the campaign group Leave.EU, it has announced.

The Commission says the investigation will focus on whether the Brexit-supporting campaign took impermissible donations and said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offences may have been committed by the campaign.

A spokesperson said: The Electoral Commission has begun an investigation into Leave.EUs EU Referendum spending return. This followed an assessment which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offences under the law may have occurred.

Recommended Tory MPs face being prosecuted for electoral fraud before election

The investigation is focused on whether one or more donations  including of services  accepted by Leave.EU was impermissible; and whether Leave.EUs spending return was complete.

The time taken to complete an investigation varies on a case-by-case basis. Once the investigation is complete, the Commission will decide whether any breaches have occurred and, if so, what further action may be appropriate, in line with its Enforcement Policy. The outcome of concluded cases can be seen on the Commissions website.

Leave.EU, which was co-founded by Arron Banks and Richard Tice, lost out on official campaign status to Vote Leave.

Responding to the launch of the cash probe, Mr Banks said: The Electoral Commission allowed the Government to spend 11 million on a pack of Remain lies. We will be vigorously defending their allegations.

Brexit racism and the fightback Show all 9 1 /9 Brexit racism and the fightback Brexit racism and the fightback Demonstrators protest against an increase in post-ref racism at London's March for Europe in July 2016 PA Brexit racism and the fightback These cards were found near a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day after the EU referendum Twitter/@howgilb Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback Romford, Essex, June 25 @diamondgeezer Brexit racism and the fightback A worker at this Romanian food shop was asleep upstairs at the time of this arson attack in Norwich on July 8, but escaped unharmed. Hundreds later participated in a love bombing rally outside the shop to express their opposition to racism and their support of the shop owners. JustGiving/Helen Linehan Brexit racism and the fightback This neo-Nazi sticker was spotted in Glasgow on June 26 Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback But after news emerged of neo-Nazi stickers appearing in Glasgow, some in the city struck back with slogans of their own. Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback More signs began to appear in some parts of the UK, created by people who wanted to show their opposition to post-referendum racism Courtesy of Bernadette Russell

He added: Its clearly politically motivated just as the Clacton campaign is announced.

The former Ukip donor and insurance millionaire is set to campaign to become the MP for Clacton. He previously said he wanted to un-seat former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, but Mr Carswell has since announced he will be stepping down on his own accord.
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An arms company that sold missiles to the Gaddafi regime in Libya is a role model for the sort of business Britain will be engaged in after Brexit, the Defence Secretary has said.

Sir Michael Fallon said MBDA is strengthening the reputation of this country with its work and that it is a role model for the kind of partnerships well be seeking once the UK has left the EU.

In 2007 MBDA signed a contract to provide 200 million worth of missiles and military communications equipment to Colonel Gaddafis regime in Libya. The dictator was deposed in 2011 during a brutal civil war during which he was accused of bombing his own citizens.

Recommended Britain is now the second biggest arms dealer in the world

The firm also makes the Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles and sells them to the Saudi Arabian air force, which is bombing civilians in Yemen. The UN estimates that Saudi-led forces have caused the vast majority of civilian deaths in the countrys bloody conflict, with reports of schools, hospitals and food factories being bombed. It is estimated that one third of Yemens 24 million people are at risk of starvation.

Anti-arms trade activists slammed the Defence Secretary for courting the arms company, accusing him of glorying a firm that profits from war and arms tyrants.

Sir Michael said MBDA had built a great reputation manufacturing missiles that keep us safe as he unveiled a 539 million MoD contract for the firm to supply Britain with three new missile systems. He said the contract was worth 130 jobs in Britain.

As you know we are leaving the European Union but in leaving the European Union we are going to become an even more global country, reaching out to our friends and allies across the world, he told assembled staff members at the firms headquarters in Stevenage.

If you want to know what that means in practice look at yourselves, look at your company here. A partnership that already combines British, French, German, Italian skills in one company, forming the only European group that is capable of creating these kinds of missile systems that meet the multiple demands of all the different domains: land, sea, and air.

You are a role model here for the kind of partnerships well be seeking in future: for our defence, for our manufacturing, and for our country.

When asked by The Independent whether he considered the sale of arms to the Gaddafi regime to be role model behaviour, Sir Michael said: You know our arms export criteria are some of the strictest we have in the world and we take very good care to look at every single licence application to make sure they conform to the criteria.

Asked whether the British Government was making the same mistake it had made in 2007 by signing off arms sales to Saudi Arabia, he replied: Saudi Arabia has the right to defend itself. Its being attacked by Houthi missiles over its southern border and is also attempting to restore the legitimate government of Yemen.

Every export application that we have for Saudi Arabia gets scrutinised against our normal criteria. Theres a court case pending at the moment and well wait for the result of that.

Colonel Gaddafi was deposed in 2011, four years after the missile deal was signed (AFP/Getty) (AFP)

Sir Michael also backed BAE, which part owns MDBA, to sell more arms to the Saudi Arabian government. The firm is seeking a significant new contract with the autocratic petro-state.

Are we supporting them? Absolutely. Its something ministers have been pressing with the Saudi government for a number of years now, he said.

Britain is the second biggest arms exporter in the world, according to UK Trade and Investment. The Independent revealed last year that Britain has sold weapons to 22 of the 30 countries on its own human rights watchlist since 2010.

The Government is currently defending a High Court challenge by campaigners who say that it is breaking its own arms exporting licence criteria by continuing to sign off the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.

As many as 460,000 children face severe malnutrition in Yemen and 70 per cent of the population struggle to feed themselves (Reuters/Naif Rahma) (REUTERS/Naif Rahma)

Documents revealed in court show the head of the Governments own Export Control Organisation recommended arms sales be stopped, but this advice was not adopted by ministers. The court is currently considering its verdict. Saudi Arabia is intervening in Yemen on the side of the internationally recognised Yemeni government and fighting against Houthi rebels.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against the Arms Trade said: If Fallon believes MBDA is a role-model then it says very worrying things about how he sees the UKs post-Brexit future

MBDA is a company that profits from war and arms tyrants, it is among the last companies Fallon should be encouraging others to replicate.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

If the UK is to play a positive role on the world stage then arms companies like MBDA need to be condemned, not celebrated and glorified by Government ministers.

Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tom Brake accused Sir Michaels party of turning the UK into the arms dealer of choice for the world's most repressive regimes.

If this is Theresa Mays vision of a global Britain, it is one which millions of people across the country are disgusted by and want nothing to do with, he said.

Dave Armstrong, managing director of MBDA UK, said: MBDA is delighted by the continued trust placed in us by the Ministry of Defence and the British military.

The contracts announced today for Meteor, CAMM, and Sea Viper will help protect all three UK armed services, providing them with new cutting-edge capabilities and ensuring their current system remain relevant for the future.

They will also help to secure hundreds of highly-skilled people at MBDA UK and in the UK supply chain, maintaining the UKs manufacturing base and providing us with a platform for exports.
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Michael Dugher has become the 13th Labour MP to announce they will step down at the general election.

The former shadow Culture Secretary said he was resigning from his Barnsley East seat with some sadness after serving seven years as the area's MP.

Mr Dugher, who became an outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn after he was sacked from the shadow Cabinet in January 2016, said he wanted to make a difference in life outside of politics and spend time with his family.

He was fired after an interview with House magazine in which the then shadow Culture Secretary criticised Ken Livingstone and Momentum, the pro-Corbyn campaign group.

I cant see the point of Momentum ... their aggression is matched only by their stupidity, he said.

Announcing his decision to step down, Mr Dugher told the PoliticsHome website: "It is with some sadness I can confirm that I will be standing down from Parliament.

"As someone who grew up in a South Yorkshire pit village very close to my Barnsley constituency, I have been proud beyond all words to represent the great people of Barnsley East. I will always be grateful for their support and friendship.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

In what some have interpreted as a parting shot at Mr Corbyn, Mr Dugher said that Labour must be a party in touch with working-class people and capable of winning elections.

"I have worked for the Labour movement for nearly all of the past 20 years, he said. "Throughout that time I have always tried to fight for a Labour party that is in touch with working class people and one that can get into government so we can actually do something to really help people.

I wish the party and more importantly the people of Barnsley nothing but the best for the future. There are always lots of reasons when you make any big decisions.

It's time now for me to make a difference in life outside of politics. It's also time that I do what is best for my wife and children, whom I love with all my heart.

His announcement comes after 12 other Labour MPs said they would not seek re-election on 8 June.

They include Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, Tom Blenkinsop, Dave Anderson and Gisela Stuart.
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Reports that Jeremy Corbyns son, Seb, will stand for Labour at the general election have been dismissed by sources close to the 25-year-old.

It had been suggested that Mr Corbyn junior, who is currently chief of staff to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, was hoping to secure the safe Labour seat of Liverpool Walton.

The constituencies current MP, Steve Rotherham, who has served as a aide to the Labour leader, is standing down to focus on his bid to become mayor of Liverpool.

A source close to Seb Corbyn told The Independent the story was nonsense.

Recommended Jeremy Corbyn rules out a second referendum on final Brexit deal

His father's office added that it was categorically untrue.

A Labour spokesperson said: Were not giving a running commentary on selections when they were asked about Mr Corbyn's potential candidacy and that of his father's political secretary, Katy Clark.

Liverpool Walton is one of the safest Labour seats in the country, with a majority of more than 27,000.

Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Show all 6 1 /6 Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves The elderly We acknowledge that there are pressures on the health service, there are always extra pressures on the NHS in the winter, but we have the added pressures of the ageing population and the growing complex needs of the population, Theresa May has said. Waits of over 12 hours in A&E among elderly people have more than doubled in two years, according to figures from NHS Digital. Getty Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Patients going to A&E instead of seeing their GPs Jeremy Hunt has called for a honest discussion with the public about the purpose of A&E departments, saying that around a third of A&E patients were in hospital unnecessarily. Mr Hunt told Radio 4s Today programme the NHS now had more doctors, nurses and funding than ever, but explained what he called very serious problems at some hospitals by suggesting pressures were increasing in part because people are going to A&Es when they should not. He urged patients to visit their GP for non-emergency illnesses, outlined plans to release time for family doctors to support urgent care work, and said the NHS will soon be able to deliver seven-day access to a GP from 8am to 8pm. But doctors struggling amid a GP recruitment crisis said Mr Hunts plans were unrealistic and demanded the Government commit to investing in all areas of the overstretched health service. Getty Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Simon Stevens, head of NHS England Reports that key members of Ms Mays team used internal meetings to accuse Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, of being unenthusiastic and unresponsive have been rejected by Downing Street. Mr Stevens had allegedly rejected claims made by Ms May that the NHS had been given more funding than required. Getty Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Previous health policy, not funding In an interview with Sky Newss Sophy Ridge, Ms May acknowledged the NHS faced pressures but said it was a problem that had been ducked by government over the years. She refuted the claim that hospitals were tackling a humanitarian crisis and said health funding was at record levels. We asked the NHS a while back to set out what it needed over the next five years in terms of its plan for the future and the funding that it would need, said the Prime Minister. They did that, we gave them that funding, in fact we gave them more funding than they required Funding is now at record levels for the NHS, more money has been going in. But doctors accused Ms May of being in denial about how the lack of additional funding provided for health and social care were behind a spiralling crisis in NHS hospitals. Getty Images Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Target to treat all A&E patients within four hours Mr Hunt was accused of watering down the flagship target to treat all A&E patients within four hours. The Health Secretary told MPs the promise  introduced by Tony Blairs government in 2000  should only be for those who actually need it. Amid jeers in the Commons, Mr Hunt said only four other countries pledged to treat all patients within a similar timeframe and all had less stringent rules. But Ms May has now said the Government will stand by the four-hour target for A&E, which says 95 per cent of patients must be dealt with within that time frame. Getty Images Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves No one Mr Hunt was accused of hiding from the public eye following news of the Red Crosss comments and didnt make an official statement for two days. He was also filmed refusing to answer questions from journalists who pursued him down the street yesterday to ask whether he planned to scrap the four-hour A&E waiting time target. Sky News reporter Beth Rigby pressed the Health Secretary on his position on the matter, saying the public will want to know, Mr Hunt. Sorry Beth, Ive answered questions about this already, replied Mr Hunt. But you didnt answer questions on this. You said it was over-interpreted in the House of Commons and you didnt want to water it down. Is that what youre saying? said Ms Rigby. Its very difficult, because how are we going to explain to the public what your intention is, when you change your position and then wont answer the question, Mr Hunt. But the Health Secretary maintained his silence until he reached his car and got in. Getty

Seb Corbyn has worked for Mr McDonnell since graduating from Cambridge University in 2013. Upon Jeremy Corbyns election as Labour leader in 2015, his son stepped up to become the Shadow Chancellors chief of staff.

Labours National Executive Committee has agreed that it will take control of the process of selecting parliamentary candidates, working alongside regional boards to ensure vacancies are filled.

Officials believe the usual system of party members being invited to choose a candidate in their area is impractical because of the short timeframe for the 8 June election.
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Labour has made an official complaint to the EU after a leaked document allegedly suggested officials were being told to discriminate against British firms when handing out multi-billion pound contracts.

The partys international trade spokesman Barry Gardiner told The Independent the document represented an appalling revelation that had been missed by Theresa Mays government while it focussed on fighting an election.

Mr Gardiner has now lodged a maladministration complaint with the European Ombudsman, after the leaked document indicated European Commission officials had told staff to avoid unnecessary additional complications with Britain before Brexit.

Recommended UK firms to lose out on EU space mission contracts because of Brexit

The Labour frontbencher said: It shows that officials are telling companies to actively discriminate against the UK. That is an appalling revelation.

The Commission, are supposed to be the guardian of the treaties, and the guarantor of fair treatment.

They should know that this sort of discrimination is against EU rules. While we are still a member of the EU we must be treated equally as a member state, and this means there can be no discrimination against British companies.

He argued that Ms May and her government had dropped the ball in failing to properly respond, because they are distracted by the general election.

Mr Gardiner went on: Theresa May called this election for petty party political advantage and it is the national interest that is now suffering.

A government spokeswoman made clear that the UK remains a member state of the EU, subject to all the rights and obligations of membership.

She said: UK organisations, businesses and universities should be in no doubt that they should continue to bid for competitive EU funds while we remain a member of the EU and we will continue to work with the Commission to ensure payment when funds are awarded.

 Theresa May denies early general election is about seeking a 'blank cheque' from voters

As part of the negotiations, we will also carefully consider how best to maintain our ability to share and protect EU data with other EU member states, to ensure we reach an agreement that works in the interests of both the UK and the EU.

The note leaked to the Financial Times earlier this week, was sent a week after Ms May triggered Article 50 and was signed by Alexander Italianer, the Commissions secretary-general, Martin Selmayr, Jean Claude Junckers chief of staff and Michel Barnier, the EUs Brexit negotiator.

It outlines how Britain could in practice end up losing out on money and influence, even while it still retains the legal rights and obligations supposed to be enjoyed by members states .

Where legally possible, the Commission and its agencies will be expected in all activities to take account of the fact that Britain may be a third country within two years, including in appointing staff and in awarding direct contracts.

It stated: Apart from the legal requirement for a contracting party to be established in the EU, there may be political or practical reasons that speak in favour of contracting parties established in a specific member state, not only at the conclusion of the contract, but also throughout the duration of the contract.

As well as offering informal guidance on awarding contracts, the note suggests agencies should prepare for a disorderly Brexit by deciding how to sever the UKs access to EU information in databases.

A final section calls on EU staff to encourage the private sector to prepare for the legal repercussions of Britain leaving the bloc and losing member state rights.
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Len McCluskey has been re-elected as general secretary of the Unite trade union, it has been announced.

Mr McCluskey, an ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, beat main challenger Gerard Coyne, who was challenging him for the leadership of Britain's biggest trade union.

The general secretary narrowly retained his post in a close race, with 59,067 votes versus Mr Coyne's 53,544.

Ian Allinson, the third placed candidate in the election, won 17,143 votes. Turnout in the election was just over 12 per cent.

Voting in the contest ended on Wednesday. Mr McCluskey can now stay in post at the trade union until 2022, should he choose to do so.

Unite acting general secretary Gail Cartmail said the union now had to "pull together" and work for a Labour victory at the coming 8 June general election.

I congratulate Len McCluskey on his victory and would urge the entire union to pull together in the interests of our members, and not least to work for a Labour victory in the General Election," she said.

The turnout in this important election can give no cause for satisfaction and, while the tone of the campaign will not have helped, the underlying reason remains the archaic and expensive balloting system imposed on trade unions by law.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

The sooner we can move to secure and secret workplace and online voting the better for union democracy.

As polls closed, Mr Coyne was suspended from his position as a regional union official in the West Midlands for allegedly "bringing the union into disrepute".

Mr Coyne may now be considering a legal challenge to the election result, according to Sky News.

The results of the elections for Unite's executive council, which was being elected at the same time, have not yet been counted.
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The number of Labour MPs who have confirmed or are expected to stand down rather than contest their seats is rising amid fears the party could face a trouncing at the polls and concerns over the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

The surprise decision by Theresa May to call a snap election could see several high-profile bids to return to Parliament as well as a number of departures.

Labour MPs have until 20 April to announce whether or not they will contest their seats at the election on 8 June.

A dozen have now indicated they intend to get off the Commons stage  but two of these are remaining in politics and hope to become Mayors of Liverpool and Manchester.

Four Conservatives and one Liberal Democrat have also announced their intention to stand down, along with newly independent Douglas Carswell, who was previously Ukips only MP.

Conservatives

George Osborne, Tatton

One of the least surprising announcements of the last few days, given that the former Chancellor will soon have his hands full editing the Evening Standard. He has various other outside interests, including lucrative after-dinner speaking engagements and financial consultancy work for Black Rock. But Mr Osborne left the door open for a return to politics at some stage, saying he is leaving for now.

Gerald Howarth, Aldershot

The backbench Brexiteer is standing down at the age of 69.

He said: I have every confidence in the outstanding leadership of Prime Minister Theresa May and I have assured her of my fullest support from beyond the Palace of Westminster.

Simon Burns, Chelmsford

A veteran Tory MP of 30 years, he served as a health and transport minister during his time in Government. He said now is the right time for him to go.

Angela Watkinson, Hornchurch and Upminster

The former Tory Whip who has been an MP since 2001 is stepping down for health reasons after suffering a minor stroke last year.

 Anyone who takes on the establishment gets vilified, Corbyn says

Labour

Michael Dugher, Barnsley East

The most recent Labour MP to announce he is leaving Parliament is former Shadow Cabinet member Michael Dugher.

Mr Dugher told Politics Home he was stepping down after seven years after an MP to spent more time with his family "with some sadness".

Alan Johnson, Hull West and Hessle

The former postman who rose to become Home Secretary and Chancellor during the Blair and Brown years, Mr Johnson is perhaps the best known of the Labour MPs to have announced their imminent departure.

An MP since 1997, he told his constituents: Next month will mark the 20th anniversary of my tenure as Member of Parliament for Hull West and Hessle.

Every day has been a privilege and a pleasure but it cant go on for ever and the electoral cycle means that each incumbent has to think again about whats best for them, the constituency and the Party.

As far as the constituency and the Party are concerned, no MP wants to put them through the anguish of a mid-term by-election, so for me the personal decision is whether to retire now or in 2022 when Ill be into my 70s.

Mr Johnson has written several books and is a regular guest on the BBCs This Week programme.

Andy Burnham speaking in Manchester at the Soccerex Global Convention (Getty)

Andy Burnham, Leigh

Another high-profile Labour MP, Mr Burnham is standing to be Manchesters new metro mayor on 4 May and always planned to step down from his seat and trigger a by-election if he won.

The former shadow Home Secretary lost the battle to become Labour leader against Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. He told his constituents: In standing to be the first elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, I am of course still seeking to represent Leigh on the national stage, alongside the other towns and cities of Greater Manchester.

Gisela Stewart, Birmingham Edgbaston

A prominent Breixteer, she was one of a handful of Labour MPs to back the Leave campaign, sharing a stage with Conservatives including Boris Johnson in the run-up to the Referendum.

After two decades in the Commons representing the marginal constituency, the Corbyn critic said she is leaving because it is time to pass on the baton.

Before she won the seat when Tony Blair swept to power in 1997, Edgbaston was a Conservative stronghold and could fall to the Tories again with Ms Stewarts departure.

David Anderson, Blaydon

The shadow Scotland and Northern Ireland Secretary has announced he will not seek re-election because of health reasons, his age and family needs.

Jim Dowd, Lewisham West and Penge

A former chief whip who joined Parliament in 1992 during the Major years when Labour was stuck in opposition, he denied Mr Corbyns leadership is a factor in his decision to stand down, although he has called for a change of leadership.

If a week is a long time in politics, then 25 years is an eternity, he said.

Tom Blenkinsop, Middlesborough South and East Cleveland

Mr Blenkinsop was forthright about his reasons for standing down after seven years in Parliament, citing irreconcilable differences with the Labour leader.

He said on his personal website: I have made no secret about my significant and irreconcilable differences with the current Labour leadership.

It is because of these differences I feel I cannot in good faith stand as the Labour candidate for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.

Recommended Douglas Carswell quits as an MP and says he will vote Tory

Rob Marris, Wolverhampton South West

Mr Marris will step down from a seat which the Conservatives will see as ripe for the taking as he had a majority of just 801 at the 2015 election.

He served in the shadow Treasury team under Jeremy Corbyn until he quit midway through a committee meeting, telling MPs he could not serve under his leadership.

His statement explaining why he will not stand in the forthcoming election simply says he believes it is the right time to go.

At my age and after 11 years in Parliament, I have decided that its time to step down and support a new Labour candidate for the city.

Pat Glass, North West Durham

The MP, who became shadow education secretary under Jeremy Corbyn for just two days before resigning, had already announced she would step down in 2020 when the next election was expected.

Steve Rotherham, Liverpool Walton

A Corbynite who served as the Labour leaders closest aide, Mr Rotherham is expected to stand down because he is running to be Liverpools new metro mayor.

His constituency is said to be the safest Labour seat in the country. Rumours have circulated that Mr Corbyns son Seb might contest the seat, but these have been denied.

Iain Wright, Hartlepool

The MP said in his statement only that he wants to do other things after being in Parliament since 2004, when he succeeded Peter Mandelson. The seat is understood to be one of Ukips key targets.

Andrew Smith, Oxford East

The long-serving MP and former chief Treasury secretary cited his age as the reason for stepping down in his statement to his constituents.

Fiona MacTaggart, Slough

One of just 13 MPs to vote against holding the snap election, she wrote in a letter to Labour colleagues than she had become bored by the political squabbles over personalities and I know I dont still have the passion which has driven my politics for 20 years.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

Lib Dems

John Pugh, Southport

The Liberal Democrats are hoping to utilise their pro-Remain position to recapture some of the seats they lost in 2015, but one of their nine MPs has announced he is standing down. The 68-year-old entered Parliament in 2001.

Ukip

Douglas Carswell (Clacton)

He was the partys only MP until he resigned from the party amid fierce in-fighting and declared himself an independent, having previously defected from the Conservatives to Ukip.

Former Ukip donor Arron Banks had announced his intention to stand in the Clacton constituency.

Mr Carswell said in his statement he intends to vote Conservative in the election, and that he is looking forward to being able to read newspapers without first appearing in them.

Nigel Farage, who is not an elected MP, has also confirmed he will not be standing for election in June.
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He will undoubtedly be the butt of jokes, but the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats escaped unharmed after getting into a fight with a rather large ram.

As party leader Tim Farron officially launched his partys campaign in Manchester, Willie Rennie was forced to take the ram by the horns in a field in Fife.

The Member of the Scottish Parliament, was visiting Mill House farm in Kelty as he campaigned ahead of the Scottish local elections on 4 May.

But the election fight took on a literal turn as the solidly-built animal did not appear to want to play nicely with the Lib Dem leader.

The MSP, with farmer Stuart McDougall, gets close to the ram during a visit to Mill House farm in Kelty, Fife (Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

The politician takes the ram by the horns as he campaigns in the Scottish local elections (Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

This was not his first close encounter with a woolly beast. Back in 2015, Mr Rennie was photographed feeding a lamb just days before David Cameron was famously pictured nuzzling one.

And he had another memorable moment last year when a pair of pigs formed a close coalition in the background of an interview with the BBC.

The Lib Dem spent four years as the MP for Dunfermeline and West Fife between after a by-election in 2006 until he lost the seat to labour at the 2010 General Election. He has held the constituency seat of North East Fife in the Scottish Parliament since 2016.

Mr Rennie is hoping for a Liberal Democrat fight back north of the border, after the SNP landslide of 2015 culled the partys MPs from 11 to just him.

He said: From Edinburgh to the Highlands, we're relishing the opportunity to take the fight to the opposition parties and we fully intend to win seats at this election.
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Theresa May has said that Britains commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of its gross national income (GNI) on foreign aid spending will remain, amid concerted pressure from right-wing ministers and newspapers to cut the aid budget.

Speaking to reporters after visiting a toothpaste factory in her Maidenhead constituency, the Prime Minister said: The 0.7 per cent commitment remains and will remain [in the Conservatives election manifesto].

What we need to do though is to look at how that money is spent, she added.

This is the second election pledge that Ms May has made after she announced that the Tories will also stand by their promise to reduce net migration to below 100,000 a year.

It comes after Bill Gates urged Ms May to keep up the 0.7% target, telling The Independent in an interview that the British people should be very proud of what their money is achieving around the world.

Mr Gates said he expected the Prime Minister was looking at her priorities as a result of Brexit but added: We are hopeful that the commitment to 0.7 per cent  and things like neglected diseases  stays strong.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

A number of Conservative MPs have previously called for the target to be dropped, claiming it is inflexible and unnecessary. Right-wing newspapers such as The Sun and the Daily Mail have also called for the pledge to be scrapped.

Britains commitment to meeting the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNI being spent on foreign aid was enshrined in law by the Coalition government in 2015. Britain met the target for the first time in 2014, when it spent 11.4 billion on overseas aid.
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Theresa May has restated her commitment to reducing net migration to below 100,000.

Speaking in Enfield during a campaign visit to a factory, the prime minister said she would not abandon the target.

Weve been very clear, as I was as home secretary for six years, that its important that we have net migration that is in sustainable numbers. We believe sustainable numbers are the tens of thousands, she told Sky News.

Leaving the European Union enables us to control our borders in relation to people coming from the EU as well as those who are coming from outside the EU."

The Independent is campaigning for the target to be dropped, with a steep reduction in immigration numbers posing a severe risk to the country's economy.

Ms May also criticised Labour over Jeremy Corbyn's refusal to rule out a second referendum on the terms of Brexit, as he avoided a question on the subject after his speech on Thursday morning.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

But the leader later released a statement saying a second referendum was not Labour policy and would not feature in its manifesto.

Ms May said: What we saw from Jeremy Corbyn this morning was his refusal to rule out the possibility of a second referendum over Brexit. Thats wrong.

"People voted in the referendum last year to leave the European Union. That is what the government needs to put into place. And his failure to rule that second referendum out shows the coalition of chaos that we would have under Jeremy Corbyn."
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The Government may shelve a clean air plan which it was mandated to produce by the High Court to tackle illegal pollution levels in UK cities, due to rules which restrict the activity of the civil service during an election period.

The civil service is about to enter purdah - a word used to described the period between the time an election is announced and the date it is held.

In this period, government departments are subject to strict rules about policy announcements which could benefit a political party.

After a legal challenge by environmental lawyers Client Earth last year, the Government was ordered to produce a draft of a new national air quality plan by 24 April.

The judge ruled that two previous government plans were inadequate to tackle the UKs air pollution crisis, which causes more than 40,000 premature deaths a year, and costs the UK around 27.5 billion annually, according to government estimates.

However, the Civil Service has said purdah will officially begin on Saturday, April 22, which has led to speculation about the future of the scheme.

Air pollution causes 7 million deaths in a year, report finds Show all 3 1 /3 Air pollution causes 7 million deaths in a year, report finds Air pollution causes 7 million deaths in a year, report finds china-2.jpg Air pollution causes 7 million deaths in a year, report finds pollution-3.jpg Getty Images Air pollution causes 7 million deaths in a year, report finds p36-pollution-3.jpg Getty Images

James Thornton, chief executive of Client Earth, said: The High Court ordered the government to prepare its draft Air Quality Plan by Monday 24 April at 4pm.

If the Government does not intend to comply with that ruling, and wants to change that legal deadline then it will have to go back to court to seek permission.

The charity also accused the government of dither and delay on everything from climate change to clean air to the natural environment.

A spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) told The Independent only that the plan would be published in due course, and did not confirm whether the Monday deadline would be met or not.

 Sadiq Khan calls air pollution in London a killer

Last year, the Government declared air pollution a "public health emergency", but environmental charities say far more comprehensive action is required to tackle urban pollution.

In January, London breached its annual air pollution limits in the first five days of 2017.

A spokesperson for road safety charity Brake said: Air pollution in the UK has become a major public health emergency. It contributes to 40,000 deaths each year, with vehicle pollution being a significant factor.

"The government has been dragging its heels on this issue. It needs to take swift, radical action to reduce vehicular emissions.
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Bets are "pouring in" backing Yvette Cooper to become the next Labour leader putting her joint favourite with Keir Starmer, a bookmaker has said.

And while Ladbrokes has "taken a few small bets" on Jeremy Corbyn being Prime Minister after the 8 June general election a spokeswoman said it was "nothing that has left our trading department quaking in their boots just yet".

Ms Cooper, whose husband Ed Balls has said he will not try to regain the parliamentary seat he lost in 2015, took Theresa May to task at PMQs on Wednesday and claimed voters "cannot believe a word she says".

She said: "The Prime Minister yesterday said she was calling a general election because Parliament was blocking Brexit.

"But three quarters of MPs and two thirds of the Lords voted for Article 50 - so that's not true, is it? A month ago she told her official spokesman to rule out an early general election, and that wasn't true either, was it?

"She wants us to believe she is a woman of her word. Isn't the truth that we cannot believe a single word she says?"

The fiery contribution led Conservative Scottish Secretary David Mundell to shout "Leadership pitch!"

Ladbrokes had Ms Cooper 5/1 as the joint favourite to become the next permanent Labour leader on Thursday.

It came as the betting comparison site Oddschecker showed nearly 42 per cent of punters trying to guess who would occupy 10 Downing Street this summer had put money on Mr Corbyn, compared to just 32 per cent on Theresa May - who is widely thought to be the most likely resident.

Meanwhile Betfair said that on its Exchange site, where people set their own odds and bet against each other, 30 per cet of bets had been on Mr Corbyn and that there was "growing support" for the Islington North MP.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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

Both Ladbrokes and Betfair declined to draw comparisons with the US presidential election last autumn in which Republican Donald Trump triumphed, because of the short time-scale involved and the predicted result of the UK contest - a crushing Conservative win.

Ms May's party is on on 48 points, compared to Labour's 24, with the Liberal Democrats on 12 and Ukip falling to seven, according to a YouGov/Times survey.

The Ladbrokes spokeswoman said: "In terms of comparisons with the US Election it would be unfair to do that as this is the most lop-sided contest we've seen in decades."

Up to 20 million will be wagered over the coming weeks across the UK, she said.
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When it comes to the threat of nuclear war, 2017 is shaping up to be a watershed moment.

Relations between the US and Russia  the two foremost nuclear superpowers  has reached a "low point" because of the US's accusations that Russia meddled in the US election and is involved with the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Meanwhile, North Korea draws ever closer to constructing a device that could threaten Washington.

President Donald Trump has also inherited a $1 trillion program to modernize US nukes, and Russia now strains its budget to do the same for its arsenal. (In regard to Russia's nuclear modernization, Trump has even said, "Let it be an arms race.")

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists took note of these and other developments in January by advancing its Doomsday Clock 30 seconds. The symbolic shift implies that humanity is now just 2 minutes 30 seconds away from an apocalyptic "midnight."

World events since January would do little to improve that outlook.

Tensions between the US and North Korea have soared in recent months, with the isolated nation threatening to rain down "nuclear thunderbolts" if the US follows through on rumblings of preemptive strikes  all while the isolated nation reportedly gears up for another test of a nuclear device.

Experts disagree on how many deliverable nuclear weapons North Korea possesses, but more is known about other arsenals around the world. Below is a map that shows the best estimates of which countries have them and how many they have.

(Sky Gould/Business Insider (Sky Gould/Business Insider)

Read more:

 The biggest real estate development in American history will have a 15-story maze of stairwells

 Mark Zuckerberg just signed the death warrant for the smartphone

 See inside the 350,000 London flat the size of Harry Potter's 'cupboard under the stairs'

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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Barack Obamas post-presidential holiday is coming to an end, with the former US leader set to hold his first public event since leaving the White House.

After weeks of taking a well-deserved break with former First Lady Michelle Obama  including spending time in Palm Springs, hanging out with Richard Branson in the British Virgin Islands and relaxing on movie mogul David Geffens yacht  Mr Obama will return to the US to host a town hall-style gathering with students at the University of Chicago.

The discussion is set to take place at 11am local time on Monday and will be focused around community organising and civic engagement, Mr Obamas press office said in a release.

The event is part of President Obamas post-presidency goal to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world, the press release said.

The Obamas have kept out of the public spotlight since Donald Trumps inauguration (Getty) (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

While the town hall is not open to the general public, young adults from schools in the Chicago area have been invited to attend the event, alongside students at the university.

The discussion will also be televised, Mr Obamas press office has said.

Aides did not say whether he would be taking open questions from the audience  or whether he plans on speaking on Donald Trumps presidency so far.

Many have been anxiously awaiting the Obamass return to public life.

After the former President left the Oval Office, he tweeted: Michelle and I are off on a quick vacation, then well get back to work.

Ms Obama wrote: After an extraordinary 8 years, I'll be taking a little break. Will be back before you know it to work with you on the issues we care about.

Mr Obama is all smiles during a vacation with his wife and business magnate Richard Branson (Jack Brockway/Virgin)

Mr Obama is expected to have a busy month ahead, according to The New York Times.

After Mondays town hall meeting with students, the 44th President is expected to attend an awards ceremony in Boston and make a number of private paid speeches in the United States and Europe, according to the newspaper.

He is also expected to make an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel in coming weeks.
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Donald Trump has a dangerous mental illness and is not fit to lead the US, a group of psychiatrists has warned during a conference at Yale University.

Mental health experts claimed the President was paranoid and delusional, and said it was their ethical responsibility to warn the American public about the dangers Mr Trumps psychological state poses to the country.

Speaking at the conference at Yales School of Medicine on Thursday, one of the mental health professionals, Dr John Gartner, a practising psychotherapist who advised psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School until 2015, said: We have an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump's dangerous mental illness.

Dr Gartner, who is also a founding member of Duty to Warn, an organisation of several dozen mental health professionals who think Mr Trump is mentally unfit to be president, said the President's statement about having the largest crowd at an inauguration was just one of many that served as warnings of a larger problem.

 Donald Trump responds to Paris shooting: 'It looks like another terrorist attack'

Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist, in addition he is paranoid, delusional and grandiose thinking and he proved that to the country the first day he was President. If Donald Trump really believes he had the largest crowd size in history, thats delusional, he added.

Chairing the event, Dr Bandy Lee, assistant clinical professor in the Yale Department of Psychiatry, said: As some prominent psychiatrists have noted, [Trumps mental health] is the elephant in the room. I think the public is really starting to catch on and widely talk about this now.

James Gilligan, a psychiatrist and professor at New York University, told the conference he had worked some of the most dangerous people in society, including murderers and rapists  but that he was convinced by the dangerousness of Mr Trump.

Ive worked with some of the most dangerous people our society produces, directing mental health programmes in prisons, he said.

Ive worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognise dangerousness from a mile away. You dont have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend fifty years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is.

Recommended Trump gets historically low approval ratings after first quarter

Dr Gartner started an online petition earlier this year on calling for Mr Trump to be removed from office, which claims that he is psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President. The petition has so far garnered more than 41,000 signatures.

It states: We, the undersigned mental health professionals (please state your degree), believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States.

And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is 'unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office'."

The claims made in the conference have drawn criticism from some in the psychiatric establishment, who say they violate the American Psychiatric Associations Goldwater rule, which states psychiatrists are not to give professional opinions on people they have not personally examined.

They have also been condemned by Republicans, including Connecticut Republican Party Chairman JR Romano, who accused the group of throwing ethical standards out the window because they cannot accept the election results.

Responding to the criticism, Dr Gartner said: This notion that you need to personally interview someone to form a diagnosis actually doesnt make a whole lotta sense. For one thing, research shows that the psychiatric interview is the least statistical reliable way to make a diagnosis.

A spokesperson for Yale University told The Independent the panel at the conference abided by the Goldwater rule during the discussions, but that the organiser was "troubled" by the "silencing of debate".

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 panel at Yale School of Medicine abided by the Goldwater rule'. Eminent psychiatrists were invited to speak about whether there are other ethical rules that override it, as in ordinary practise," said the spokesperson.

"The organiser, Dr Bandy Lee, agrees with the Goldwater rule but is troubled by its recent expansion (as of March 16, 2017) and the silencing of debate. She hopes that the public and politicians will understand that mental health issues are not to be used as a weapon, just as other health issues are not.

"Dr Gartner was invited as an activist and was not on the actual panel, nor a spokesperson for the event. The organiser emphasises that the event was independently organised and did not represent the views of Yale University or Yale School of Medicine.

The doctors have said that even if it is in breach of tradition ethical standards of psychiatry, it was necessary to break their silence on the matter because they feared too much is at stake.

It is not the first time Mr Trump's mental health has been called into question. In February, Duty to Warn, which consists of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, signed an open letter warning that his mental state makes him incapable of serving safely as president.

The letter warned that the Presidents tendency to distort reality to fit his personal myth of greatness and attack those who challenge him with facts was likely to increase in a position of power.
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Donald Trumps lawyers have argued that protesters have no right to express dissenting views at his campaign rallies because it infringes on the US Presidents First Amendment rights.

They made the claim in a court documents filed in relation to a case involving three demonstrators who have alleged that Trump supporters roughed them up, before throwing them out of a March 2016 rally, after the US leader called on members of the crowd to get em out of here!

The President's comments at the Louisville, Kentucky event, were protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment, protecting freedom of speech, his legal team said. The document was published by the Politico website.

The President's lawyers claim that the plaintiffs provoked a response with their efforts to disrupt a free assembly and campaign event and to infringe rights.

The federal district court judge hearing the case issued a ruling last month that questioned that argument, stating there were ample facts supporting the plaintiffs allegations that their injuries were a direct result of Mr Trumps actions.

That ruling cleared the case to proceed into discovery and move towards a trial.

Mr Trumps legal team have now asked the judge to pause proceedings so that they can appeal the previous ruling to a higher court before subjecting the President to unique and extraordinary burdens of litigation.

Mr Trumps lawyers specifically want the the courts to reconsider whether Mr Trumps calls for supporters to remove protesters from the crowd were protected under the First Amendment and whether it is fair to consider the calls incitement to violence.

One of the men accused of assaulting the protesters has also accused the US leader of inciting violence at his campaign rallies and claimed he was encouraged by Mr Trump to remove them.

Matthew Heimbach, who leads the white nationalist Traditionalist Youth Network, claimed in cross-suit that he acted in self defence and in reasonable defence of others.

His alleged actions were taken pursuant to the directives and requests of Donald J Trump and Donald J Trump for President lnc, he said in a legal filing.

Mr Trumps lawyer's filing claims that because the plaintiffs obviously interfered with the Trump campaigns First Amendment right to choose the contents of [its] own message'."

They said had "and the campaign had every right to expel the protesters from the event.

It added: By holding to the contrary, this Courts decision effectively transforms Mr Trumps protected political speech into an unlawful tortous act."

They suggested that if the court does not wish to pause the proceedings, it should consider dismissing the case in its entirety.

Dan Canon, A lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told Politico: We anticipated that the President would do everything in his power to prevent this case from proceeding to the discovery phase, so this motion was not a surprise.
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Hawaiis Attorney General has taken aim at Jeff Sessions on Twitter, after Donald Trump's chief lawyer suggested Hawaii should not be able to block the President's travel ban because it is just "an island in the Pacific".

Using the Hashtag #IslandinthePacific to poke fun at Mr Session's comments, the official Twitter account of Hawaiis chief legal officer Doug Chin shared an image of the Admission Act 1959, which officially made Hawaii America's 50th state.

US Attorney General Mr Sessions had sought to undermine district judge Derrick Watson's decision to block Mr Trump's revised executive order, which prohibits new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries and temporarily halts the USs refugee program.

He told a conservative talk show host that a judge sitting on an island should not be able to stop the President exercising his constitutional power.

His comments came after Judge Watson issued a longer-lasting hold on the travel ban, concluding Mr Trump's policy discriminates against Muslims and hurts the state's tourist-dependent economy.

Mr Sessions said he was "amazed" Hawaii had so much power, and expected the order to be overturned.

"We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit," he said. "So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.

Mr Chin quickly responded, emphasising the importance of federal courts in a public statement released online.

He said: President Trump previously called a federal judge in California a so-called judge. Now U.S. Attorney General Sessions appears to dismiss a federal judge in Hawaii as just a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific.

Our Constitution created a separation of powers in the United States for a reason. Our federal courts, established under article III of the Constitution, are co-equal partners with Congress and the President. It is disappointing AG Sessions does not acknowledge that.

Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban Show all 11 1 /11 Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty Activists protest Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. Dozens or demonstrators and activists converged at Columbus Circle to denounce the politics of Trump and the treatment of Muslim refugees both in America and Europe. Spencer Platt/Getty

Hawaii was the first state to sue over Mr Trump's revised ban. The imam of a Honolulu mosque joined the challenge, arguing that the ban would prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting family in Hawaii.

In his arguments, Mr Chin quoted Mr Trump's comments that the revised travel ban is a watered down version of the original.

We cannot fault the president for being politically incorrect, but we do fault him for being constitutionally incorrect, Mr Chin said.

The implied message in the revised ban is like a neon sign flashing 'Muslim ban, Muslim ban' that the government did not bother to turn off, he told the judge.

Extending the temporary order until the state's lawsuit is resolved would ensure the constitutional rights of Muslim citizens across the US are vindicated after repeated stops and starts of the last two months, the state said.
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The US Attorney General has come under fire for dismissing Hawaii - Americas 50th state - as an island in the pacific.

Jeff Sessions was complaining about district judge Derrick Watson's decision to block Donald Trumps executive order prohibiting new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries and temporarily halting the USs refugee program.

"This is a huge matter," he told conservative talk show host Mark Levin. "I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power."

Recommended Donald Trump misses his own cyber security plan deadline

He added that he was confident Mr Trump's administration will prevail with its appeal of Judge Watsons travel ban ruling.

His comments were picked up upon politicians and citizens on the archipelago, who criticised the Attorney General for his apparent lack of knowledge of US geography and history.

Hawaiian senator Mazie Hirono took to Twitter to chastise the Attorney General.

Hey Jeff Sessions, this #IslandinthePacific has been the 50th state for going on 58 years. And we wont succumb to your dog whistle politics, she said.

She added: Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences  including my own, branding Mr Sessionss comments ignorant and dangerous.

Her colleague and fellow Hawaiian Senator, Brian Schatz, pointed out that Mr Sessions had even voted as a senator to confirm Mr Watson as a judge.

You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. Its my home. Have some respect, Mr Schatz tweeted.

Others posted images of the beautiful images of the state, while some pointed out Hawaii's history.

A US Justice Department spokesman defended Mr Sessionss comments, saying the Attorney Generals point was to question one judges ability to block the Presidents executive order for the travel ban.

Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific, he told the Associated Press in an email. A beautiful one where the Attorney Generals granddaughter was born, Mr Prior added.

The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the Presidents lawful exercise on authority to keep the entire country safe.

Mr Schatz criticised the DOJs statement, demanding an apology.

Try: I'm sorry. That was offensive. I disagree with the ruling, but I respect the judiciary and shouldnt have taken such a cheap shot, he tweeted.

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

Douglas Chin, Hawaiis attorney general, said in a statement he was disappointed Mr Sessions failed to acknowledge that the federal courts are co-equal partners with Congress and the President.

Trump previously called a federal judge in California a so-called judge, Mr Chin wrote. Now U.S. Attorney General Sessions appears to dismiss a federal judge in Hawaii as just a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific, he said.

A clerk for the US District Court in Hawaii said Mr Watson declined to comment.
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A Louisiana district attorney has said he will jail rape survivors who choose not to testify against their assailants.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said he would use material witness warrants to compel victims in some rape and domestic violence cases to testify, despite criticism from advocacy groups.

"If I have to put a victim of a crime in jail, for eight days, in order to... keep the rapist off of the street, for a period of years and to prevent him from raping or harming someone else, I'm going to do that," Mr Cannizzaro told Morning Eyewitness News on 13 April.

Louisiana law allows law enforcement to jail so-called material witnesses until they testify or pay bail. In domestic abuse and rape cases, the victim is often the only witnesses with material information about the crime in question.

The DAs office reports six alleged victims were jailed in connection with their own sexual assault or domestic violence cases last year.

Mr Cannizarro said he does not understand why such witnesses may not want to step forward.

"[If] steps have been taken to arrest that person, to indict him, to bring him to court and they say, 'I don't want to get involved,' in my opinion that is wrong," he said.

The day before, Court Watch NOLA issued a report highlighting the various reasons some victims may wish not to testify. These include fear of retribution from the assailant, concern about being ostracised from their community, or distrust of law enforcement.

Lynn Schafran, director of the National Judicial Education Program for Legal Momentum, explained how many survivors are traumatised from their initial interactions with law enforcement.

Very often what we find is that, when police interview victims, theyve been trained in techniques that are applicable to how you elicit information from a suspect, Mr Schafran told The Independent. When they interview victims, they interrogate them.

Many survivors choose not to continue with the process rather than face law enforcement again. Police officers mark them as uncooperative witnesses, when in reality, Ms Schafran says, theyve been abused by the system thats supposed to help them.

Maya Raghu, Director of Workplace Equality for the National Womens Law Center, said the use of material witness warrants only furthers this abuse.

Being jailed to be forced to participate in a prosecution is extremely traumatic and has economic consequences on the survivor as well, Ms Maya Raghu told The Independent. It's punishing victims of violence for reporting the violence against them.

Both women said they fear this policy would dissuade victims from reporting crimes in the first place. More than 60 per cent of sexual assaults go unreported nationwide, according to statistics from the National Institute of Justice.

Mr Cannizzaros office did not return requests for comment.
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United Airlines has reversed plans to name CEO Oscar Munoz chair of the company's board in 2018, following a high-profile incident in which a passenger was violently dragged from one of the airline's flights.

A recent United Airlines filing officially removes provisions in Mr Munoz's contract related to his future appointment as chairman of the board. It leaves future decisions about the chairman position up to board members.

The airline faced widespread backlash this month when they called police officers to drag a middle-aged man from his seat on the plane. The passenger, David Dao, had refused to give up his seat to make room for airline crew.

Recommended United Airlines changes policy on staff taking overbooked flights

Leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee sent a letter to the airline in the wake of the incident, asking about the airlines policy for bumping passengers off oversold flights. They also asked about Mr Dao in particular, and the reasons given for his removal.

The senators instructed United to reply by Thursday, but Mr Munoz wrote the committee on Friday asking for an extension. He promised a full response by 27 April.

We are in the process of gathering the full set of facts about this incident and finalising a thorough review of our policy, he wrote. We look forward to sharing the full results of this ongoing review and the immediate, concrete actions we will take to better serve our customers with the committee.

Senators John Thune, Bill Nelson, Roy Blunt and Maria Cantwell said in a statement that they were disappointed by the airlines response. They promised to continue pressing their airline, as well as the Chicago Department of Aviation, for their response.

Getting answers for the public about what happened and what can be done to prevent such an incident from happening again is a priority for the members of our committee, the senators wrote. "We find any further delay in getting necessary answers unacceptable.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Munoz has previously been criticised for his lackluster response to the incident. His initial statement failed to acknowledge the violence against Mr Dao, and his second statement appeared to blame the passenger for what occurred.

In their letter to the airline, the senators wrote that Uniteds response has been unsatisfactory, and appears to underestimate the public anger about this incident.

Consumers communicated their anger through social media, and by dumping United stock. The airlines share price dropped as much as 4.4 per cent following the event, before bouncing back.

Mr Daos lawyers have directed both United and the city of Chicago to preserve any evidence  including surveillance video, cockpit recordings and passenger logs  that may pertain to the incident.
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The historian Allan Lichtman is known as one of the small number of political pundits who predicted Donald Trump would win the presidential election.

But the Washington professor does not believe the New York tycoon will be in the White House for long. The academic is convinced Mr Trump is going to be impeached, and thinks there is a 50/50 chance it could happen before the mid-term elections of 2018.

Ive said there is a Russian sword of Damocles hanging over him, Mr Lichtman, a professor at American University in Washington DC, told The Independent.

Everything depends on the FBI or congressional investigations, which could unravel his administration.

Mr Lichtman, who is currently promoting a new book, The Case for Impeachment, believes there are a number of reasons Mr Trump could be thus censured, including crimes against humanity for his decision to withdraw the US from the effort to stop climate change.

But more realistically, he believes the president has fallen foul of two other rules that impact the Oval Office - the emoluments clause of the US constitution which prevents him from taking gifts from a foreign power, and another law which prohibits public officials benefiting from insider knowledge.

 Trump repeatedly calls Paul Ryan 'Ron'

Mr Lichtman argues that Mr Trump has so far failed to hand over the money from foreign officials who have stayed at his hotels. Meanwhile, the ongoing probes into Russias alleged inference in the 2016 election and possible links between Moscow and members of Mr Trumps team, could throw up all sorts of things worthy of pursuing.

The process for impeaching a president is reasonably straightforward and starts with a vote in the House. The case then moves to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required to convict the commander-in-chief.

Only two presidents - Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson - have suffered the first fate. No president has been convicted by the Senate, though Richard Nixon most likely would have, had he not resigned.

Mr Lichtman points out that at the moment, the Republicans control the House and the Senate. However, he believes if the Russian probes were to come up with something so bad about Mr Trump that Republicans believed it could damage them at the mid-terms not to ditch him, they might quickly do so. Then Mike Pence would assume the presidency.

The like Mike Pence much more than they do Trump, said Mr Lichtman. Then Mr Pence would be able to pick his own vice president and the Republicans would have their dream team - Mike Pence and Paul Ryan.

Mr Lichtman, who claimed not to be a betting man, said he believed there was a 50 per cent chance Mr Trump would be impeached before the mid-terms and a better than 50 per cent chance that it would take place before he completed his term.

Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University in New York, said everything depended on what the Republican Party decided what was in its best interests. She said it sill considered what befell Nixon as one of its darkest moments.

The genius of this is that there is so much out there out there that is impeachable, but because there is so much it becomes hard to form a narrative, she said.

The Republicans are more loyal to the party than they are to the people. Impeachment will not reflect well on the party.
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Donald Trump, who once told supporters I love WikiLeaks, has said its OK with me if the Justice Department wants to charge Julian Assange.

US officials have prepared charged seeking the arrest of the Wikileaks founder. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told reporters that securing the arrest of Mr Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, is a priority.

We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks. This is a matter thats gone beyond anything Im aware of, said Mr Sessions.

We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.

The Justice Department investigation of Mr Assange and WikiLeaks, dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained widespread attention for posting thousands of obtained by the former US Army intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning.

 Julian Assange announces WikiLeaks will publish CIA cyber weapons

Prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Mr Assange, but now believe they have found a way to move forward.

Mr Trump has said that he is not in the decision-making process as to whether Mr Assange should be charged. Yet according to to the Associated Press, he said if Mr Sessions and the DOJ wanted to proceed with such a move, he would be fine with the decision.

CNN said that in recent months, US officials have focused on the possibility that a new government in Ecuador would expel Mr Assange and he could be arrested. But the left-leaning presidential candidate who won the recent election in the South American nation has since promised to continue to provide a safe haven to him.

Last week in a speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said: WikiLeaks directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information, and it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States.

He added: Its time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.


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Chinas military is on high alert in light of the increased tensions between the US and North Korea.

North Korean state media warned the US they have super-mighty preemptive strike planned should the US try to deter its nuclear weapons program with military force after Donald Trump said Americans always have to be concerned about the prospect of a thermonuclear war with the communist nation.

The warning came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the US was looking for ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang. National Security Advisor HR McMaster also commented that all of our options are on the table to deter North Koreas nuclear weapons programme.

Mr McMasters comment is not abnormal, Bruce Bennett, a Senior International/Defense Researcher at the RAND Corporation, told The Independent.

Previous administrations have taken that stance on numerous occasions.

North Korea has also made such threats before as well but now Chinas patience with their one-time ally in Pyongyang is wearing thin and escalating the situation, according to TJ Pempel, a political science professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

He told The Independent that what is new is the US posturing.

Obama didn't do stupid things like pretend a US aircraft carrier in Indonesia was part of an armada off the coast of North Korea ready to 'respond' at any minute, said Mr Pempel referring to the error by the White House about the position of the USS Carl Vinson.

Mr Bennett argued that North Korea had no other option but to make the super mighty threat due to enough elites in [the country] knowing what is going on.

He said what leader Kim Jong-un is doing is really a way to get the US to back down, knowing past administrations have been so averse to another conflict on the peninsula after the Korean War in the 1950s.

Seoul, with its population of 10 million, is also within ballistic missile-striking distance of North Korea. It has much more retaliatory capability than it has in the past, according to Mr Bennett.

In some ways South Korea would love to see us stand up to North Korea because of that, he said.

However, Mr Pempel noted that South Korean media has not taken kindly to Donald Trumps aggressiveness on the matter and that the country want[s] and deserve consultation before any military moves.

US options are limited as a result of Seouls location as well. Mr Bennett said a surgical strike on North Korean rocket plants, for example, is not really an option.

Mr Kim would no other option but to respond due to the political culture of the country, he said.

How do they know its not just phase one? of a large-scale war, Mr Bennett posited.

The problem for China is a complex one. On the one hand they want peace and stability on the peninsula to their north and know that North Korea's recent failed nuclear test may be indicative of their programme. However, they are also angry at Mr Kim for testing the weapons.

Tightening sanctions on North Korea is an option for China, but they don't want to see the regime collapse and have American troops on their border, said Mr Pempel.

Reigning in Mr Kim without getting involved in a larger conflict will require caution on their part despite readying their missile-capable bombers.

Mr Bennett said the North Koreans have a sense that they and the US are not really playing chess because Mr Trump appears to only be thinking about the next move by considering a surgical strike as a real option.

If you play chess youre regularly thinking several moves ahead.
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The Trump administration has dispatched letters to officials in sanctuary cities, threatening to withhold federal funds if they refuse to cooperate with an immigration crackdown.

In the latest effort to lever those communities that have said they will not cooperate with Donald Trumps proposals, the US Department of Justice sent letters to nine cities and jurisdictions, warning them to fall into line.

Alan Hanson, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Departments grant-making arm, warned the cities that they are required by law to provide proof to they are complying with federal immigration law.

Failure to comply with this condition could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grant, ineligibility for future grants, or other action, as appropriate, Mr Hanson wrote.

The letters went to officials in California and in major cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans, all places the Justice Department's inspector general has identified as limiting the information local law enforcement can provide to federal immigration authorities about those in their custody.

 US Sanctuary Cities: We in California have a responsibility to say 'no'

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has increasingly warned the administration will punish communities that refuse to cooperate with efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Justice Department said the recipients of its letters were crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime.

The Associated Press said the letters warned officials they must provide proof from an attorney that they are following the law or risk losing thousands of dollars in federal grant money that police agencies use to fund anything from body cameras to bulletproof vests.

Failure to comply with this condition could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grant, ineligibility for future OJP grants or sub-grants, or other action, as appropriate, said the letter.

A series of cities have resisted the Trump administration's threats. Seattle, which was not one of the places targeted with a letter, and other jurisdictions have sued the Trump administration over the sanctuary issue.

Earlier this week, Mr Sessions accused sanctuary cities of undermining law enforcement efforts to fight transnational street gangs.
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China has placed its bomber jets 'on high alert' amid escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.

US officials said there was a higher-than-usual level of activity by the country's bombers, although they played down concern and left open a range of possible reasons for the actions.

China, North Korea's only secretive Communist state's only major ally, denied its aircraft were on an increased level of alert.

The country's Defence Ministry said hat its forces on the border with North Korea were maintaining a state of normal combat preparedness and training.

 US and South Korea hold joint military exercises amid North Korea crisis

China has repeatedly stated it opposition to war in the region and called for a political solution to the crisis.

However, a US defence official told CNN that Chinese land attack bomber planes, capable of carrying cruise missiles, were readied earlier this week,

Huge numbers of the country's People's Liberation Army Air Force planes had also been undergoing intense maintenance to ready them for operations, they added.

The actions form part of a Chinese plan to reduce the time to react to a North Korea contingency the defence official said.

Beijing has toed a diplomatic line over the crisis, fearing the impact of a war on its southern border could produce instability, a refugee crisis and a US-allied reunified Korean peninsula.

However, a military build-up in the region could heighten the dangers of a conflict being triggered.

Elsewhere, Russian authorities have denied reports that they are moving troops to their countrys border with North Korea.

In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Show all 16 1 /16 In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun North Korean women soldiers take part in a military parade in Pyongyang on 15 April AFP/Getty Images In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun A huge military parade in Pyongyang marks the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder and grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun North Korean leader Kim Jong-un waves during a military parade on 15 April 2017 AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun North Korean soldiers carry flags and a photo of Kim Il-sung during a military parade in Pyongyang on 15 April AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Soldiers march across Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade on 15 April AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun What military experts say appears to be a North Korean KN-08 inter-continental ballistic missile is paraded across Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade on 15 April AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Women wearing traditional Korean dress wave flowers and shout slogans as they pass Kim Jong-Un during a parade in Pyongyang on 15 April AFP/Getty Images In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun North Korean female soldiers march during a parade for the 'Day of the Sun' festival on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on 15 April EPA In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Military vehicles carry missiles with characters reading 'Pukkuksong' during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang on 15 April 2017 EPA In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Attendees carry sheets in the colours of North Korea's national flag during a military parade in Pyongyang on 15 April Reuters In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun A soldier salutes from atop an armoured vehicle during a military parade in Pyongyang on 15 April Reuters In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun A North Korean woman cries as she looks towards Kim Jong-un during a parade on 15 April AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun University students carry the national flag and two bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il during a military parade on 15 April AP In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Missiles are driven past Kim Jong-un and other high ranking officials during a military parade marking the Day of the Sun in Pyongyang on 15 April Reuters In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun North Korean leader Kim Jong-un waves from a balcony during a parade for the 'Day of the Sun' festival in Pyongyang on 15 April 2017 EPA In pictures: North Korea marks the Day of the Sun Missiles are driven past Kim Jong-un and other high ranking officials during a military parade marking the Day of the Sun in Pyongyang on 15 April Reuters

Alexander Gordeyev, a spokesman for the Far Eastern Military district told the Interfax news agency that the movement of heavy weaponry, caught on film and widely distributed on social media, is part of "absolutely scheduled manoeuvres of combat readiness."

Mr Gordeyev said the military hardware was on its way back from drills elsewhere and denied any connection to the tensions around North Korea's nuclear program.

In Moscow, first deputy chairman of the defence committee at the Federation Council Frants Klintsevich told RIA Novosti new agency that the movement was pre-planned and dismissed reports suggesting Russia was preparing for a possible US attack on North Korea as speculation.
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In most cultures the dead are buried or cremated within days of passing away, but Indonesia's Torajan people keep the bodies of their relatives to "live" at home with them, sometimes for years after their deaths.

Providing corpses with their own rooms, they are washed and their clothes are regularly changed.

Food and cigarettes are brought to them twice a day and they have a bowl in the corner that acts as their "toilet".

The bodies of the dead are injected with a preservative called Formulin, which stops the bodies from decomposing.

Mamak Lisa has kept her fathers body at home for 12 years (BBC)

One Torajan woman told BBC journalist Sahar Zand that she kept the body of her father, Paulo Cirinda, in her home for 12 years.

If we buried him straight away, we would also feel the pain very suddenly, Mamak Lisa said. We wouldn't get time to deal with the grief and adjust to the separation."

Ms Lisa added her father is still sick. Illness is often used to describe the dead.

Paulo Cirinda died 12 years ago, but his daughter says she still feels a strong connection with him (BBC)

He's a very good man and a loving father and there's still a very deep emotional connection between us, told the BBC.

The tradition for the million plus Toraja community dates back centuries. With animist beliefs - the doctrine that every natural thing in the universe has a soul - the line between this world and the next world is blurred.

Family members see Paulo Cirinda say they view him as still being sick

Even after a funeral ceremony is completed, the physical relationship between the dead and the living still continues through a ritual called ma'nene, or the cleaning of the corpses," according to the BBC.

The ritual involves digging up the coffins of dead loved ones every couple of years and grooming and cleaning them. Then, family members typically pose with their deceased relatives for fresh family portraits.

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 biggest funerals in the Torojan culture are typically held in the dry season months of July and August, according to Lonely Planet.

Tourism to the area typically sees a boost during the summer months, with many travellers looking to experience Torojan rituals around death first hand. 
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Three female friends confessed to killing a man for insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad in a rare incident days after he returned from living in hiding abroad for 13 years, police have said.

A local police inspector investigating the case, Nadeem Ashraf, said the women were arrested this week for killing Fazal Abbas, aged around 50, who fled Pakistan in 2004 following accusations of blasphemy.

The incident came days after a mob in the northwestern city of Mardan lynched a university student, Mohammad Mashal Khan, over alleged blasphemy, drawing nationwide condemnation. Police detained 22 suspects following the incident.

Mr Ashraf said the three women went to the man's home in a village near the town of Pasrur in Punjab province on Wednesday and shot him dead. He said the women wanted to fire a shot each to kill Abbas, but only one fired a single shot.

The inspector identified the women as Afshan Bibi, Razia Bibi and Amna Bibi, and reported them as saying that they would have killed Mr Abbas earlier had he not fled the country.

Mr Ashraf said Mr Abbas was being sought by police in connection with a blasphemy case dating back to 2004.

Also on Friday, a mob tried to kill a mentally disturbed man, Syed Abdul Rashid, inside a mosque after he declared that all Muslims should follow him as he has been appointed as their religious leader by God, according to local police official Asad Ullah.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Ullah said initially worshippers beat Mr Rashid, but the Imam leading prayer intervened and handed the man over to the police. Mr Ullah said hundreds of people attacked the police station as the man was being questioned inside, and some officers were wounded in the clashes.

These people attacked the police station in Chitral and started beating our officers when they refused to hand over Syed Abdul Rashid to them, he said.

Blasphemy against Islam is punishable by death under Pakistani law, and the mere suspicion of blasphemy is enough to ignite mob violence in the Muslim-majority country.

Associated Press
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An Italian court has ruled a worker who developed a tumour after more than 15 years of intense phone usage will receive compensation in what is thought to be a world first.

Italy's national insurance provider has been ordered to compensate the man with a lifelong payment usually only given to people who suffer serious harm in the workplace.

The 57-year-old employee of national network Telecom began using the phone for work in 1995, co-ordinating other company technicians.

After having used the phone for four hours a day without any protection for 15 years, Mr Romeo was no longer able to hear from his left ear.

The victim's lawyer described the ruling as "historic", telling Italian media: "It's the first time in the world that a tribunal has declared a causation between a tumour and the use of a phone."

Mr Romeo said doctors had first told him it was a blockage, but a brain scan later showed it was a benign nerve sheath tumour.

"It was quite big and it occupied a big part of the brain, so I had an operation," he told local media.

However, the operation was just the start of the struggle for the Italian, who had his auditory vestibular nerve removed during the operation, contracted meningitis and has since lost hearing in his right ear.

I dont want to demonise the use of mobile phones, but I believe it is necessary to use them properly and knowingly, said Mr Romeo.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. 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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. 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On 11 April the court of Ivrea in Piedmont, Northern Italy, recognised the damage to the employee, and ordered the national insurance provider compensate Mr Romeo with the lifelong payment.

The case follows decades of speculation around suggested links between cancer and the intense usage of mobile phones, with a number of other trials also currently underway in Italy.

A US government-funded study concluded last year: Given the widespread global usage of mobile communications among users of all ages, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to [radio-frequency radiation] could have broad implications for public health.

Other studies which suggested the correlation in the past have been criticised for methodology or lack of samples, witnessing the divisions in the scientific community.

The Cancer UK website says: "So far, the scientific evidence shows it is unlikely that mobile phones could increase the risk of brain tumours, or any other type of cancer. But we do not know enough to completely rule out a risk."
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The police officer killed by a gunman in Paris has been identified as a man who responded to Isis previous attacks on the French capital in November 2015.

Xavier Jugele, 37, was one of hundreds of officers deployed to the Bataclan as militants massacred 90 people with guns and suicide vests.

He returned to the concert hall for a commemorative event almost a year later, telling journalists he was happy to be part of the symbolic reopening.

Were here tonight as witnesses, Mr Jugele told People magazine. Here to defend our civic values. This concerts to celebrate life. To say no to terrorists.

He was shot dead on Thursday night by a gunman who opened fire on a parked police van using a Kalashnikov.

Mr Jugele died of his injuries and two other colleagues were injured, including a man who needed emergency surgery overnight.

Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Show all 23 1 /23 Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers block the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting in which one police officer was killed and another wounded. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers control passersby near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists. Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People run away after a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French people hold their hands in the air after a shooting in which a police officer was killed along with the attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Bystanders are frisked by police officers near the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People hold their hands up as they walk towards police officers before being controlled near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police look through binoculars as officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Police officers, after a shooting in which two police officer were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Forensic experts and police officers examine evidence from a police van on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police investigators inspect the car used by the attacker on the Champs Elysees Avenue after a policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France Reuters Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A French soldier patrols on the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers patrol near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees in Paris, France Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, flanked by Interior Minister Mathias Fekl and Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas, speaks to the media outside the Elysee Palace after a defense council meeting in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A damaged window is pictured on the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris AP

Flag, a group representing French LGBT police officers and gendarmes, posted a photo of the officer on social media with the caption: "We will never forget Xavier. RIP."

Colleagues said he was a member of the 32nd company of the Paris police departments public order and traffic division.

They remembered him as a committed officer who was helpful and led a good life, leaving behind a partner.

Friends told Marianne magazine he had been in the service for six years and also made two trips to help refugees in Greece.

Mr Jugele was killed in one of almost a dozen attacks and plots targeting the French security services since 2012, including the murder of a police officer and his wife by an Isis supporter north of Paris, a machete attack outside Le Louvre and an attempted murder at Orly airport.

The main suspect for Thursday's atrocity is Karim Cheurfi, who had an extensive criminal record including the attempted murder of two police officers.

One police officer was killed and two more injured in the shooting (Getty Images) (Getty)

Three of his relatives were detained in searches of his family home in Chelles, although police stressed the move was standard procedure for questioning.

Cheurfi was jailed for attempted murders that saw him shoot two police officers  one during a car chase in 2001 and a second days later after seizing his gun in custody, Le Parisien reported.

At a trial in 2003, Cheurfi was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, which was later reduced to 15 on appeal, and it was unclear when he was released.

He was also arrested in February as part of a counter-terror investigation - reportedly for threatening police officers - but was released by the courts because of insufficient evidence the following day.

Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesperson for the French interior ministry, described the suspected gunman, who has not yet been officially named, as an individual known by the judiciary and police services  a dangerous individual.

Isis swiftly claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it was carried out by a "fighter of the Islamic State" given the war name Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki, indicating he had links with Belgium.

The murder, coming just days before the French presidential election, is expected to affect the vote as far-right candidate Marine Le Pen seeks to gain ground.
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By lunchtime on Friday on the Champs-Elysees, life seemed already to have resumed its course. The terraces were full, everyone enjoying the mild spring weather and a glimpse of sun.

It is hard to imagine that the evening before, an attack claimed by Isis caused the death of a policeman on the most famous road in Paris. The only signs were the police cars, posted at each corner of the street, and the policemen patrolling with weapons in their hands.

Tourists wandered, doing some shopping, as even those shops which were unusually closed in the morning had reopened by midday. In one of them, a member of staff told The Independent they had been ordered by management to stop responding to journalists, let alone frightening anyone by talking about the enhanced security measures, but instead to give the impression that everything is normal.

And it seems to work. There are families out for the day, parents with strollers. A father with his two children told The Independent he is not afraid to be there, that "life goes on". A couple of Portuguese tourists ask to have a picture taken in front of the Arc de Triomphe, yards from where 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi went into action yesterday, but that does not seem to cross their minds.

Is it the same for the presidential campaign? Can it recover as quickly? Three of the 11 candidates cancelled all their trips on what would have been the final day of canvassing votes: Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, Francois Fillon, for Les Republicains, and Emmanuel Macron, and his party, En Marche!, though all spoke from their headquarters in the morning.

Ms Le Pen was the first to speak, and struck hard, calling it a "war" with Islamist extremists and accusing "left-wing and right-wing governments" of doing everything to lose it, for 10 years", indirectly accusing Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande and their respective administrations.

The Republican candidate, Mr Fillon, also used the term "war": "We are at war, it is them or us," he said. "Our enemy has a name: radical Islamism. He has a face: hatred. He has only one obsession: terror," said the former Prime Minister under Nicolas Sarkozy. The current Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, promptly reacted, accusing both candidates of choosing "exaggeration and division".

Emmanuel Macron more soberly declared: "The primary role of the President of the Republic is to protect the French. I'm ready. I will be relentless to protect you." He called on the French not to yield to division or intimidation.

But if they feel like they can make political gains from this turn of events, Ms Le Pen and Mr Fillon are not mistaken, says Bruno Cautres, a researcher at the Political Research Centre of Sciences Po. If there are two candidates "whom it cannot hurt, it is them", he says.

Cheurfi had already had several dealings with the courts, for robbery and then three homicide attempts, and was the subject of a previous terror investigation. "This is the dream scenario for Marine Le Pen, it is devastating," says Mr Cautres, who explains: "This gives credence to her speech about the judges who are looking for trouble with her when theyd better deal with the delinquents."

The same applies to Mr Fillon, who has also denounced a conspiracy from the judges and media during the campaign, over alleged fake jobs for members of his family. "The wind can also turn in favour of Francois Fillon," says Mr Cautres. "Security is his usual playing field and as he was Prime Minister, he can put forward his experience and his stature," he explains. Voters on the right may end up closing ranks behind this message as they consider the future of the country on Sunday.

Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Show all 23 1 /23 Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers block the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting in which one police officer was killed and another wounded. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers control passersby near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists. Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People run away after a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French people hold their hands in the air after a shooting in which a police officer was killed along with the attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Bystanders are frisked by police officers near the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People hold their hands up as they walk towards police officers before being controlled near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police look through binoculars as officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Police officers, after a shooting in which two police officer were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Forensic experts and police officers examine evidence from a police van on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police investigators inspect the car used by the attacker on the Champs Elysees Avenue after a policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France Reuters Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A French soldier patrols on the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers patrol near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees in Paris, France Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, flanked by Interior Minister Mathias Fekl and Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas, speaks to the media outside the Elysee Palace after a defense council meeting in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A damaged window is pictured on the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris AP

That background in the government, however, means Thursday night's attack could really offer a double benefit to Ms Le Pen's cause. On the one hand she used it to attack the former Prime Minister, saying he participated in what she called a failure in the fight against terrorism.

And on the other hand, "the electorate of Marine Le Pen, from a popular background, who feel helpless and abandoned, they are more likely to feel insecure and in need of protection", Mr Cautres says.

"Voters for the Front National are very mobilised," he adds. "This attack can only strengthen the electorate of Marine Le Pen."
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The man believed to be responsible for Thursdays terror attack in Paris was previously investigated for terrorism threats and jailed for shooting police officers, it has been confirmed.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins officially named Karim Cheurfi, 39, as the perpetrator of the Champs-Elysees attack during a press conference on Friday.

Cheurfi lived with his family in the suburb of Chelles, where his home has been shut off by counter-terror investigators. A hunting licence application, a sawn-off shotgun and a rifle butt were among a number of possessions seized from the property by police, according to local media.

Three of his relatives were detained in the operation, although police stressed the move was standard procedure for questioning.

Recommended Le Pen and Fillon seek to capitalise on Paris terror attack

Cheurfi was previously jailed for attempted murders that saw him shoot two police officers  one during a car chase in 2001 and a second days later when he shot an officer after seizing his gun in custody, Le Parisien reported.

At a trial in 2003, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and it was unclear when he was released.

He was also arrested in February as part of a counter-terror investigation  reportedly for threatening police officers  but was released by the courts the following day due to insufficient evidence.

In January, he reportedly bought two hunting knives, a GoPro and a Scream mask, explaining to police when questioned that the knives were for fishing and the mask was for a carnival.

Police officers search Cheurfis family home in the Parisian suburb of Chelles (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesperson for the French interior ministry, described Cheurfi as an individual known by the judiciary and police services  a dangerous individual.

Jan Jambon, the Belgian interior minister, confirmed he was a French national, adding: He is definitely not a Belgian  could he have had links with Belgians? That is part of the investigation.

Cheurfi was shot dead at the scene, and an alert was later issued by Belgian security services for a second suspect.

He presented himself at a police station in Antwerp but was found not to be linked to the case, prosecutors said.

Francois Hollande chaired a meeting of the national defence council early on Friday morning, just two days before voting to elect his successor begins.

Speaking afterwards, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve extended a solemn tribute to the police and military and said security measures were in place under Frances extended state of emergency.

 One police officer dead after shooting near Champs Elysees

Barbarity and cowardice struck Paris last night, as they also recently struck elsewhere in Europe  in Berlin, Stockholm, in London, he added.

The whole of Europe is targeted because it represents the values and ideals of peace.

Mr Cazeneuve called for French citizens not to succumb to fear, saying that more than 50,000 police would be protecting Sundays vote, with an additional 7,000 soldiers on patrol and intelligence services working in the shadows.

Isis claimed responsibility for Thursday nights attack, saying it was carried out by an Islamic State fighter given the war name Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki, indicating he had links to Belgium.

The speed of the claim and the fact the attacker was identified suggests he was in contact with the group and informed militants of his plan in advance.

War names were previously used by Isis to identify the jihadis who carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks, which were coordinated with commanders in Syria

Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Show all 23 1 /23 Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers block the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting in which one police officer was killed and another wounded. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers control passersby near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists. Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People run away after a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French people hold their hands in the air after a shooting in which a police officer was killed along with the attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Bystanders are frisked by police officers near the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People hold their hands up as they walk towards police officers before being controlled near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police look through binoculars as officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Police officers, after a shooting in which two police officer were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Forensic experts and police officers examine evidence from a police van on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police investigators inspect the car used by the attacker on the Champs Elysees Avenue after a policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France Reuters Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A French soldier patrols on the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers patrol near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees in Paris, France Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, flanked by Interior Minister Mathias Fekl and Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas, speaks to the media outside the Elysee Palace after a defense council meeting in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A damaged window is pictured on the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris AP

The attack came just days before the French presidential election, following an operation to foil an imminent Isis bombing plot that was in an advanced stage of preparation.

Witnesses said a man pulled up in a car behind a police van and opened fire with a Kalashnikov outside a Marks & Spencers department store on the famous Champs-Elysees.

One officer was killed and two more injured, as well as a German woman who suffered injuries to her foot.

One of the officers underwent emergency surgery overnight, but an interior ministry official said both injured officers were now out of danger.

Local reports said Cheurfis car contained a shotgun and a knife, indicating he was preparing for a more extended assault.

It is one of almost a dozen attacks and plots targeting the French security services since 2012, including the murder of a police officer and his wife by an Isis supporter north of Paris, a machete attack outside Le Louvre and an attempted murder at Orly airport.
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Marine Le Pen and conservative candidate Francois Fillon have declared war against Islamism as they seek to gain from a terror attack that left a police officer dead in the centre of Paris.

A suspected Isis supporter opened fire with a Kalashnikov on the famous Champs Elysees, killing one officer and injuring two others before being shot dead.

Coming three days before the first round of Frances presidential election, there has been speculation that increased security fears could drive voters to either far-right leader Ms Le Pen or Mr Fillon.

 Donald Trump responds to Paris shooting: 'It looks like another terrorist attack'

Donald Trump was among those predicting the atrocity would have a "big effect" on the election, while the French Prime Minister attacked candidates for seeking to turn it into a political opportunity.

Bernard Cazeneuve launched an unprecedented intervention, saying it was "necessary to re-establish the truth".

He accused Ms Le Pen of seeking to divide France, while picking apart Mr Fillon's policies.

The two candidates and frontrunner Emmanuel Macron cancelled planned events on Friday, which would have been the last day of campaigning.

But Ms Le Pen chose to launch a high-profile speech in an apparent attempt to gain political capital from the bloodshed, hitting out at Frances so-called leaders for failing to protect citizens.

(Statista (Statista)

Islamism is a monstrous totalitarian ideology that has declared war on our nation, on reason, on civilisation, the Front National leader said.

The names of these new victims are added to the long list of martyrs of terrorism.

She called for France to reinstate border checks and to arrest all suspects on Frances fiche S terror watch list, while deporting foreign suspects and removing French citizenship from dual nationals.

Following reports that the suspected attacker had been arrested as part of a counter-terror investigation in February but released the following day, Ms Le Pen called him a symbol of [state] failure.

She made no mention of the fact the chief suspect is a Frenchman, but denounced the laxity of the judiciary and announced proposals to stop Islamism spreading in France, including banning Salafist organisations, expelling hate preachers and stopping the foreign financing of mosques.

Ms Le Pen, who has moved her party into the mainstream after her anti-Semitic father's leadership, claimed a war was being waged aiming to subject France to a totalitarian ideology.

This war is being waged without pity and without respite the response must be total across the entire country, she added.

I call for the awakening of our peoples ancient soul, capable of opposing a bloodthirsty barbarism.

She was speaking after facing off against 10 other presidential candidates in a final television debate on Thursday night, with the attack taking place as they were on air.

Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Show all 23 1 /23 Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers block the access of a street near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting in which one police officer was killed and another wounded. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers control passersby near the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. The attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists. Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People run away after a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French people hold their hands in the air after a shooting in which a police officer was killed along with the attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Bystanders are frisked by police officers near the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees People hold their hands up as they walk towards police officers before being controlled near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed after opening fire on police in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police look through binoculars as officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A tourist is blocked by French soldiers next to the Champs Elysee Avenue during ongoing police operations after a shooting in which two police officers were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in a terror attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Police officers, after a shooting in which two police officer were killed along with their attacker and another police officer wounded in an attack near the Champs Elysees in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Forensic experts and police officers examine evidence from a police van on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker AP Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police investigators inspect the car used by the attacker on the Champs Elysees Avenue after a policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France Reuters Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A French soldier patrols on the Champs Elysees in Paris after a shooting. One police officer was killed and another wounded today in a shooting on Paris's Champs Elysees, police said just days ahead of France's presidential election. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident on the world famous boulevard that is popular with tourists Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers patrol near the site of a shooting at the Champs Elysees in Paris Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French military secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees in Paris, France Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees One police officer has been killed, and a second injured by a gunman on The Champs Elysees Getty Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees Police secure the area after a gunman opened fire on Champs Elysees. Getty Images Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, flanked by Interior Minister Mathias Fekl and Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas, speaks to the media outside the Elysee Palace after a defense council meeting in Paris, France EPA Gunman attack on the Champs-Elysees A damaged window is pictured on the Champs Elysees boulevard in Paris AP

For several months, polls have forecast Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron to progress to the second round of the election, with the centrist former finance minister expected to easily beat the radical candidate.

But debates have seen the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon enjoy a surge in support, amid a recovery by the former Prime Minister Mr Fillon, whose chances were damaged by a scandal involving payments to his wife.

Voting intention was on a knife-edge on Thursday morning, with a chart for The Independent by Statista showing 24 per cent supported Mr Macron, 22.5 per cent for Ms Le Pen and 19.5 per cent for Mr Fillon.

Analysts have predicted the latest terror attack  coming after the murder of almost 240 people in a series of Isis-related atrocities in France  could drive voters to the right wing.

While Ms Le Pen could profit, pushing her radical policies on immigration, security and Islamic fundamentalism, anxious voters could also turn to Mr Fillon as a more experienced pair of hands.

He has also put security centre stage in his campaign, vowing to increase police officers by 10,000 and prison places by 16,000, while stripping French jihadis who fight abroad of their nationality and banning them from returning to France.

Francois Fillon was considered a frontrunner before the "fake jobs" scandal (REUTERS)

Like Ms Le Pen, he has also proposed an overhaul of the Shengen agreement that allows border-free movement through Europe and called for a new European border police force and an annual immigration quota.

Mr Fillon echoed his rival in claiming that Islamist totalitarianism should be the priority of France's next president.

Radical Islam is challenging our values and our strength of character, he told reporters.

We are at war, there is no alternative, it's us or them.

Striking a more conciliatory tone, frontrunner Mr Macron appealed to French voters to keep a cool head, telling RTL radio: What our attackers want is death, symbolism, to sow panic and to disturb a democratic process, which is the presidential election.

He vowed that, if elected, he would create a task force to coordinate French intelligence efforts against Isis within weeks of taking power.

Thursdays attack came days after police foiled an imminent bombing plot believed to be linked to the election.

Isis flags were found at the suspects homes and the group also claimed responsibility for the Champs Elysees shooting, identifying the attacker as a fighter of the Islamic State using the war name Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki.

 Paris shooting: Police search home after Champs-Elysees attack

It indicates a link to Belgium but the countrys interior minister said the suspect was a French national, amid searches at the home of a Frenchman previously convicted for shooting two police officers.

Karim Cheurfi, 39, was reportedly the subject of another counter-terror investigation in February but was released because of a lack of evidence.

A Belgian man also handed himself into police in Antwerp after being identified as a suspected accomplice, but was not found to be linked to the attack.

Investigators found a pump-action shotgun and knives in the car of the gunman, who pulled up behind a police van and opened fire with a Kalashnikov.

One officer was killed and two more injured, as well as a German woman whose foot was wounded.

It was one of almost a dozen attacks and plots targeting the French security services since 2012, including the murder of a police officer and his wife by an Isis supporter north of Paris, a machete attack outside Le Louvre and an attempted murder at Orly airport.

The Prime Minister said the government has reviewed its already extensive election security measures and says it is fully mobilised for Sunday's vote, deploying 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers.

Nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country, Mr Cazeneuve said, appealing for national unity and for people not to succumb to fear.
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French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has accused Marine Le Pen of turning an atrocity into an opportunity after the terror attack that left a police officer dead on the Champs-Elysees.

Mr Cazeneuve said the leader of the far-right Front National was seeking to divide the French people and use the attack for political gains as she reacted to the Paris tragedy.

The Front National candidate is seeking, like after each tragedy, to utilise it and divide, he said.

Mr Cazeneuve blamed Ms Le Pen for seeking to shamelessly exploit fear and said Frances best response is to remain united.

A day after the attack, Ms Le Pen, who has made security and immigration her priorities during the campaign, hit out at French leaders for failing to protect its citizens, called for border checks to be reinstated and all suspects on Frances terror watch list to be arrested.

The Front National leader said the attack was an act of war and that France's response had to be total.

She said: Our police officers are not being attacked because they are the symbols of the state. France is not being targeted for what it does but for who she is, French people are being targeted for the only reason they are French.

This war, which is being waged on us is uneven and revolutionary and its aim is to subject us to a totalitarian ideology. Since the country is at war, the response must be global, total, and come from the country as a whole. I am calling on every French person to unite like members of a family would when faced with hardship. I am calling for the unity of a nation, which is confident in itself and its values.

As part of her answer to the security issues facing France, Ms Le Pen said she would reinforce the use of military force against terrorist group and would put into a government of national unity with "war objectives" to fight against "Islamism and terrorism".

The latest attack in Paris saw a suspected Isis supporter open fire with a Kalashnikov on the famous Champs-Elysees, killing one officer and injuring two others before being shot dead. The attacker has been named as French 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi, who had previously been jailed four times for robbery, violence and attempted murder.

Francois Fillon, the candidate of the conservative Les Republicains, also referred to a "war" against extremism, and implicitly criticised the Socialist government by suggesting some in power had not "taken the full measure of the evil" they faced.

Mr Cazeneuve included Mr Fillon in his own comments, attacking his record on security when he was Prime Minister for five years under Nicolas Sarkozy.

The intervention against candidates was an unusual one from a serving Prime Minister, coming only 10 hours before campaigning was due to end ahead of the first round on Sunday. French commentators said his motivation was itself "politicised, and that he owed a duty of discretion on the eve of an election.

In a tweet, Luc Chatel, an elected representative for Les Republicains, said Mr Cazeneuve's comments were appalling.

Another member of the French Assembly for Les Republicains, Eric Ciotti, condemned the Prime Minister's speech as a "basely political attack against the worthy and responsible speech of Francois Fillon".

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. 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Hitting back at Ms Le Pen, Mr Cazeneuve said there was no evidence to link the country's immigration and asylum seekers policies with the attack.

In the face of growing concerns over security issues during the election, he called for truth to be reestablished.

But that did not stop the US President, Donald Trump, from suggesting in a tweet in the aftermath of the attack that it would "have a big effect" on the result.

He told the Associated Press later that the attack would "probably help" Ms Le Pen. Asked if that meant he endorsed the Front National candidate, because she's the candidate who is he stopped short of doing so, but said she was strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France.
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I told myself, Look at yourself  you came to Europe, what was your aim? I am not doing this because I like it but I dont have the money, I dont have a choice.

Those are the words of one of many refugee children forced into selling sex to survive in Greece, where a four-year-old girl is among those raped in camps that were supposed to afford them protection.

A study by Harvard University is warning of a growing epidemic of sexual exploitation and abuse in the country, which houses 62,000 asylum seekers stranded by the EU-Turkey deal and border closures through Europe.

We had a case of a four-year-old girl who was raped, a psychologist at a camp in Athens told researchers. The mother did whatever was possible to report it.

But aid workers and officials say there is often nowhere to turn, with victims trapped in camps with their abusers too frightened to go to police or authorities, who frequently lack interpreters and specialists.

The absence of arrests can lead asylum seekers to take violent retribution. In one Greek camp, a man who had already married one child raped another underage girl, and was badly beaten by other migrants.

Aid workers told the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights of criminal gangs thriving in squalid camps, where many refugees have been living for more than a year, and terrorising victims into silence.

 Refugees in Greece: Every day you die many times

Having endured the risks of sexual violence or having experienced sexual violence during their journey, migrant children suffer from the fear of sexual abuse in a place that should have guaranteed them safety and protection, the report said.

It found that weak or non-existent structures leave children at heightened danger, with reports of sexual assault rising while gangs blackmail minors and threaten to send humiliating photos to their families.

A man from one of the mafia groups asked a couples seven-year-old daughter into their tent to play games on his phone and then zipped up the tent, a doctor told researchers.

She came back with marks on her arms and neck. Later, the girl described how she was sexually abused.

Rape and sexual assault is feared to be significantly underreported because of the fear of retribution and stigma, while administrative backlogs can cause long delays before victims can be moved away from their abusers.

The EU-Turkey deal has left thousands of children detained among 13,000 migrants in overcrowded island camps, despite concerns from the UN over unsafe conditions seeing several refugees die of hypothermia and killed in fires over the winter.

Charities previously warned of rising self-harm and attempted suicide in detention centres and elsewhere in Greece, where at least one asylum seeker has killed himself this year amid rising desperation to escape.

Smugglers in Greece, Italy and elsewhere in Europe are known to force refugees including children into prostitution to pay debts, while migrants are also resorting to survival sex for food and shelter, or to raise money to leave Greece.

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.

Eleni Kotsoni, a psychologist at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic in Athens, told The Independent that an increasing number of asylum seekers were coming forward about the phenomenon.

Its not something they talk about easily, she said. They are basically doing it to be safe, to be sheltered, to have a roof over their head, to have food in the winter.

This can be children who are unaccompanied, or it can be women who come here without a husband or person to protect them.

Refugee women can make deals with men from their home countries in exchange for safety inside detention camps, where overcrowding, outbreaks of violence and a lack of security and facilities leave them vulnerable.

In Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities, refugees tend to live in open camps or informal settlements, where adolescents may be preyed on by older men.

Children desperate to raise money or find shelter also seek to sell sex themselves, particularly in notorious parks in Athens where they wait to be approached by paedophiles.

The Harvard study found that the purchasers of migrant child sex were mainly men over 35, while children engaging in survival sex are mainly teenage boys, particularly from Afghanistan.

Some refugees have been trapped in Greek camps for more than a year (AP)

Elderly men offer food and shelter to children, an informant told researchers.

They are willing to satisfy the childrens basic needs in exchange for sexual services, but the children want money.

Some purchasers demand children to accompany them to their homes or meet at a hotel, the report said, while others insist on having sex in a park such as the notorious Pedion tou Areos (Field of Ares) in Athens.

The report found prices rarely exceed 15 (13) per exchange. With smugglers hiking fees as borders and fences have gone up across Europe, prospects of escaping Greece are fading.

One child said he had given up the hope of finding a way out of Greece, but other boys are still trying to collect the money to leave, while another told journalists: I never thought Id have to do something like this.

When the money ran out, I had to learn to do thisit was the first time I did this, I had no experience.

Aid workers expect the situation to worsen as refugees remain trapped in Greece for ever-lengthening periods and relocation programmes including a British scheme are scrapped.

Within the first 10 months of 2016, more than 10,400 children applied for asylum in Greece, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and other Middle Eastern and north African nations, creating huge backlogs in an unprepared system.

A migrant sleeps outside a tent in the port of Piraeus, where nearly 1,500 refugees and migrants live in a make-shift camp (AFP/Getty)

But by the end of the year only 2,413 migrant children  11 per cent of those stranded in the country  had been successfully relocated to other European countries despite 160,000 slots being promised.

Marleen Korthals Altes, a senior child protection adviser at Save the Children, said the closure of borders through the Balkans route had increased the risk of sexual violence and exploitation.

People are remaining either in camps that are generally lacking security and law enforcement on the mainlandaccommodation is poor and people are living in limbo, she told The Independent.

They came with a certain amount of money to survive but they got stuck and it has run out, and now they are desperate.

Ms Korthals Altes said that although child protection is heavily legislated in Greece, laws are inconsistently applied by overwhelmed authorities, adding: The policies and the practices are different.

The Harvard report identified six major risk factors needing to be urgently addressed  the lack of childrens facilities, risky living conditions inside camps, unsupervised mixing of migrant adults and children, under-resourced child protection systems, a lack of coordination among authorities and a radically inadequate relocation scheme.

Its authors, Vasileia Digidiki and Jacqueline Bhabha, concluded that EU policies were exacerbating risks by forcing the youngest and most vulnerable refugees to turn to smugglers and take desperate measure to meet their extortionate fees.

While more migrants are dying in treacherous attempts to reach Europe than ever before, political will to help survivors is waning, they noted, adding: National and international stakeholders should come together to ensure adequate prevention measures, as well as to create safe and legal paths to migration for migrant children in acute need of protection.
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Britain could rejoin the EU if voters wanted to withdraw Article 50 after the general election, the president of the European Parliament has said.

If the UK wanted to stay, everybody would be in favour," Antonio Tajani told The Guardian after a meeting with Theresa May at Downing Street to discuss Britains withdrawal from the EU.

The veteran Italian politician's comments appeared to contradict the prime minister, who has repeatedly said there can be no turning back now that Article 50 has been triggered.

Labour has also ruled out a second referendum on EU membership if they are elected on 8 June.

A spokesperson for party leader Jeremy Corbyn said it was "not our policy and it wont be in our manifesto.

But Mr Tajani said:If tomorrow, the new UK government decides to change its position, it is possible to do. The final decision is for the 27 member states, but everybody will be in favour if the UK (decides to reverse article 50).

Vowing to protect EU citizens in the UK, he added that he was prepared to veto a deal that did not guarantee their current treaty rights.

 Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn hit the election campaign trail

Its important to ensure that Brexit does not have negative effects on [EU Citizens] lives, and rights they are enjoying," he said. "For us, its a priority and a red line.

In draft negotiating guidelines leaked earlier this week, the EU said the European Court of Justice would rule on the terms of its citzens rights after Brexit.

This would mean any future British government could not change the terms of the agreement.

Mr Tajani said his meeting with Ms May had been "positive".

"Its the beginning, theres a long way but its important to start well, he said.
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Hundreds of Israelis have gathered for a sit-down protest outside the Knesset in Jerusalem calling for the full legalisation of marijuana in the country.

As part of the worldwide pot-smoking tradition held on every 20 April since the 1970s, people carrying picnic blankets, food and guitars settled in for the peaceful protest on Thursday afternoon, lighting up when the clock struck 4.20pm. Police left those breaking the law alone, reports said.

The Israeli government gave the green light to plans to decriminalise marijuana use in public spaces last month. Under the new rules those who break the law will have to undergo treatment or pay fines rather than face criminal charges.

(AFP/Getty Images (AFP/Getty Images)

However, advocates are still calling for full legislation.

The annual 420 event is known as Big Bong Night in Israel, a name coined by Amos Dov Silver, a marijuana legalisation advocate who went to prison for his role in organising the 2014 event.

Mr Silver emigrated to the US on his release.

(AFP/Getty Images (AFP/Getty Images)

Once a year we celebrate cannabis day. We forget all our troubles, gather here - all the brothers who smoke - and we bond," 22-year-old Itamar Yitzhakov told the AFP news agency, adding that he came out of the cannabis closet to his family and employers recently.

He used pot to relax after a hard day, he said - an activity that did not harm anyone.

The more people present, the more the awareness will rise and we'll be able to start advancing legalisation, Mr Yitzhakov said.
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Camels are mentioned several times in the Quran. They are Gods way of reminding us that beauty is superficial, Jabbah al Tabib says as he strokes one of his most expensive camels necks. I think theyre amazing. Id rather die than sell my camels for meat.

Mr Tabib describes himself as Saudi Arabias foremost camel expert, and he certainly has a claim to it. He gets around four calls a week from insurance companies seeking his advice on how to settle road traffic accident claims involving the animals, and frequent requests from around the country to weigh in on other camel-related legal disputes.

When cars were invented it was predicted that using the camel as a means of transport as well as source of milk and meat would die out  but well into the 21st century, around four million of them remain an important part of daily life for many Saudis, as well as a connection to an ancient heritage.

Jabbah al Tabib describes himself as Saudi Arabias foremost camel expert (Bethan McKernan)

Currently the self-proclaimed camel czar and his son are presiding over the chaotic auctions and care of more than 30,000 of them as part of the King Abdul Aziz camel festival  the kingdoms latest idea for showcasing its culture and history for tourists.

Vision 2030, Saudi Arabias long-term blueprint for weaning itself off its reliance on oil revenue, involves investment to the tune of $20m (15.6m)  including a shot in the arm for the kingdoms nascent tourism industry.

While 18 million people visited Saudi Arabia from abroad in 2016, almost all foreigners came on pilgrimage to Mecca, rather than to spend time and money soaking up the countrys other sights.

More than 30,000 camels were entered into the festival near Riyadh (King Abdul Aziz Camel Festival ) (King Abdul Aziz Camel Festival)

Although the kingdom is home to many archaeological sites, pristine beaches and excellent diving, its not thought of as a holiday destination like Egypts Red Sea resorts or the city of Petra in Jordan.

Conservative social rules, a lack of alcohol and restrictive dress codes coupled with blazing desert heat arent the usual ingredients Western holidaymakers look for.

Nonetheless, the kingdoms authorities say they are working on introducing tourist visas to make it easier for foreigners to visit  and investing in tourism infrastructure.

Thats clear at the King Abdul Aziz camel festival, where around 60,000 visitors came to the month-long celebration of camel and desert culture which ran from 15 March to 15 April.

Around 60,000 visitors attended the month-long desert culture celebration in total (King Abdul Aziz Camel Festival)

The annual heritage festival in Rimah was founded in 1999 by local Bedouin tribes who decided to host a competition to find the most beautiful camel, but went on to receive support from the Saudi royal family; this year it was opened up to camel owners and tribes from across the Gulf and visitors from all over the world.

Best in show-type competitions for the 1,200 breeders and owners who visit (featuring combined prize money to the tune of 115 million riyals, or 24m), huge auctions, cultural shows and a small museum are featured at an impressive tented site covering 12 miles of the ad-Dhna desert which organisers managed to set up in just 10 weeks.

Camels are like buying diamonds or art, said Dr Badiah AlSubaie, head of protocol at the festival. You dont buy them to hide them away, you want to share them with others. Its a matter of habit, hobby, and culture.

Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel Show all 4 1 /4 Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20597.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20596.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20598.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20601.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images

The festival has plans to expand next year with races, the tradition of baby camel tipping, and possibly the creation of an international forum for all countries with a camel culture, he added  from Australia to Mongolia.

First-time visitors thinking about becoming a collector should know it isnt a cheap hobby, however. Picking up a pet camel at the King Abdul Aziz auctions could set you back as much as $500,000 for a top specimen.

We are competing with the horses, Dr AlSubaie said. But theres no reason in time camels are just as appreciated!
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There will be "catastrophic" consequences when "luck runs out" on nuclear deterrence, the United Nations (UN) has warned in a major report which highlights the massive risk of an accidental or deliberate use of the worlds most deadly weapons.

The poor relations between nuclear powers has contributed to an atmosphere that lends itself to the onset of crisis, said the report by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.

The rise in cyber warfare and hacking has left the technical vulnerabilities of nuclear weapons systems exposed to risk from states and terrorist groups, it added.

Nuclear deterrence worksup until the time it will prove not to work, it said. The risk is inherent and, when luck runs out, the results will be catastrophic.

 North Korean TV shows animation of a nuclear bomb hitting a US city and rows of graves

The more arms produced, particularly in countries with unstable societies, the more potential exists for terrorist acquisition and use of nuclear weapons.

It comes as Donald Trump of the US and Vladmir Putin of Russia have both indicated support for expanding their countrys nuclear weapon arsenals.

Deterrence is at the greatest risk of breaking down in North Korea and between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir, it said .

North Korea has continued with its nuclear weapons development programme, despite heavy sanctions being imposed against it by various countries and international bodies.

While the secretive Communist state has conducted several tests with nuclear bombs, in order to launch a nuclear attack on its neighbours, it needs to be able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on to a missile.

There is no consensus on exactly where North Korea is in terms of miniaturising a nuclear device so that it can be delivered via a missile.

President Trump has said he will deal with the country and has not ruled out military action against it.

The report also cited a string of recent attacks and threats between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Pakistan raised the stakes in January, when it fired its first submarine-launched nuclear capable cruise missile.

In addition, the report expressed concern over tensions between the West and Russia, which have grown since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. President Putin has maintained Russia would use nuclear weapons if it felt sufficiently threatened.

North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone Show all 13 1 /13 North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP

Denuclearisation would require visionary leadership, the report said, but added this was sadly rare as many powerful states increasingly turn inward.

It added that new technology and spending on nuclear weapons had enhanced the risk of a detonation. However, it acknowledged the secrecy surrounding the programmes made it difficult to accurately assess their true scope.

Increased reliance technology has also introduced new problems, the report said. In the past, accidental nuclear detonations have been averted by a human decision. Replacing military officers with computers could therefore rule out a potential safety check on the weapons, and open the possibility of hacking a nuclear weapon.

The report also referenced the January 2017 decision of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science to move the publications Doomsday Clock two and a half minutes to midnight over nuclear fears  the most risky it had been since 1953.

The UN maintained risk was inherent to nuclear weapons and the only way to truly eliminate it was to get rid of the bombs.
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By the time we weary passengers from British Airways flight 487 at Heathrow reached UK border control, all the self-service passport kiosks had been switched off. Apparently these queue-busting machines are subject to a 10.30pm-5.30am curfew. During the night, passengers are obliged to wait in line for the two officials checking EU passports.

Perhaps the thinking is that hardly anyone arrives at Heathrow so late. All the passengers on the BA plane from Barcelona should have comfortably been through passport control before the bewitching hour; it was due to arrive at Terminal 3 at 9.50pm.

Recommended Couple ordered off overbooked easyJet flight day after United scandal

But a couple of things went wrong. Part of the tardiness was down to what, from my experience, appears to be a systemic problem involving BAs ground handling at Terminal 3: the arrival of a plane at a remote stand seems to take everyone by surprise, with neither steps nor buses in position for the increasingly fed-up passengers.

But the fact that the flight left Barcelona 20 minutes late didnt help. And that demonstrated the unlimited capacity for aviation to deliver improbable causes of delays.

The inbound plane had touched down 20 minutes early, making the turn straightforward. With 10 minutes to go before departure, all the passengers were on board. What could possibly go wrong?

Topically, a variant on overbooking. Not of the easyJet orders holiday couple/Ronnie Woods ex-wife off plane and then fails to book them on another flight variety, though. This was a kerfuffle over a passenger who wasnt there.

British Airways had sold every seat on board, but had not overbooked the flight. As is common, airline staff on standby can use a spare jump seat in the cabin if the plane is full.

But thats not ideal, and if there is a proper seat empty it should be used instead.

There was one no-show, and one person in a jump seat, so that seems a simple equation. The trouble was, the wife of the person had not turned up to claim their seat was on board. Why her husband wasnt able to travel with her was unclear. Since his seat was paid for, though, she insisted she wasnt prepared to have anyone sitting next to her.

As time ticked away, the costs to British Airways increased: hundreds of pounds in extra fees, and about 170 fed-up passengers.

To her credit, the captain emerged from the flight deck and patiently explained to the lady that since her husband was AWOL the airline could assign his seat to anyone it chose. But the passenger was having none of it: from what I could make out, her line was: Weve paid for that seat and what we do with it is our business. I volunteered to offload so everyone else could get home (and, I hoped, get a night in a good hotel, a flight in the morning and a small cash incentive for my trouble), but the offer was politely declined. The staff traveller perched on the jump seat, and we set off 20 minutes late.

Airlines have work to do to educate passengers about the nature of the contract that a flight ticket constitutes. As promises go, its fairly flimsy. Certainly no one was especially surprised not to be at Heathrow at the appointed hour. If you choose not to show up for a flight, then the airline has every right to reassign your seat. And if the carrier wants to sell more tickets than there are seats (which, on this occasion, BA had not), it is able to do so  subject to observing some rules which, thankfully, are fairly stringent.

Am I the only person in Britain who still thinks flight overbooking is a good idea? When carried out properly, it benefits the airline, desperate passengers, the environment and cheapskates like me on the lookout for a good bump offer. I look forward to writing about overbooking success stories  but it would really help if the airlines would behave as they should when their predictions on no-shows go awry.
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After the fatal attack on police in Paris, the Foreign Office has urged British visitors to the French capital: If youre in the area and it is safe to do so, contact your friends and family to tell them you are safe.

The travel advice issued this morning says: The British Embassy is in contact with local authorities and urgently seeking further information following reports of a shooting incident on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. It tells travellers to remain vigilant and follow the advice of the local security authorities and/or your tour operator.

France is classed as having a high threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, says bulletin.

The attack in Paris on 13 November 2015 killed 130 and injured hundreds more at multiple sites across the capital, including the Bataclan Club. On 14 July last year, 84 people were killed when a truck was driven through a crowd of people on the promenade in Nice.

The Foreign Office says: Due to ongoing threats to France by Islamist terrorist groups, and recent French military intervention against Daesh (formerly referred to as Isis), the French government has warned the public to be extra vigilant and has reinforced its own domestic and overseas security measures.

You should be vigilant in public places and follow the advice of local French authorities.

The French domestic terror threat level is currently at the second highest level, securite renforcee  risque d'attentat (Enhanced security due to risk of attack).

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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 Australian government has told its citizens: Exercise heightened caution across France.
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Even by his own standards the intrusion by Donald Trump into France's private grief is in breathtakingly poor taste. Foreign statesmen, if thats the right word in this context, usually keep their snouts out of other countries elections. At the best of times for the American President to make what is a thinly veiled endorsement of a neo-fascist would be a grave breach of the usual conventions. To do so now, insidiously and cynically, should not be forgotten by the people of France.

It is facile to see the assassination of French police officers as necessarily a political gift to Marine Le Pen, as Mr Trump appears to. Indeed, it is probable that the timing of the attack, undertaken at the same moment as the landmark TV appearance of all 11 candidates for the presidency, was considered by the terrorists themselves, with the aim of securing maximum propaganda value for Isis.

And yet all the evidence suggests that the French people are both more resolute in their defiance of terror and not so easily manipulated as some suppose. Even after other terror attacks  and France has endured more than most Western nations  there has been no significant and lasting swing to Marine Le Pens Front National. Her party, so far from being a recent phenomenon feeding on terror, has in fact been around for decades, with rising popularity as it exploits every possible grievance the French people may feel about joblessness, community cohesion and the impact of globalisation on traditional aspects of their way of life.

 Paris shooting: Police search home after Champs-Elysees attack

France is not a frightened nation, as some have lazily said, and nor is it bewildered. The great majority of the French people of all backgrounds understand what is going on, and why. They understand that the Islamists, whether directly ordered by Isis or not, seek to provoke a violent, vengeful reaction from the likes of Marine Le Pen, the better to foment a racial or religious conflict. That was more or less explicitly the agenda set by Osama Bin Laden before and after 9/11, and is plainly behind the high profile atrocities by Isis.

France remains a vibrant democracy, with republican progressive values made more precious in the context of the threats the people of France have to face up to. What happened on the Champs-Elysees will not end French democracy; just as French political life survived what happened at the Charlie Hebdo office, the massacre in Nice, the attack on the Bataclan, the murder of an 86-year-old priest in Normandy and all the other attacks in recent years. President Trump, like the terrorists, underestimates the spirit of the French people.
The number of fatalities and injuries taking place involving All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) on Irish farms in recent years has increased in tandem with the surge of ATV or "quad bike" ownership in this country.

The injuries can often be fatal, because when an ATV overturns, there is nothing to protect the driver's head or neck, as is the case with a tractor or utility vehicle.

Already this year there have been two farming-related deaths due to ATV accidents.

That is a worrying figure given that we are less than one third of the way through 2017. So is it time to ban them altogether or is there a case for less drastic action?

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It is estimated that there are now around 10,000 ATVs in use on farms around the country. The farm vehicles are falling in price and so are becoming more accessible to all.

The ATV has a bad name when it comes to safety.

But there is no doubting that when used properly with the necessary personal protective equipment, they can be a real aid on the farm, whether it is for fencing, helping sheep farmers through the lambing period, cleaning out stables or bringing cows in for milking.

Regardless of the application, safety is paramount.

It is imperative that farmers who decided to purchase an ATV take the time to familiarise themselves with safe driving practices and prevent children (those under 16 years of age) from driving the ATV in all circumstances, including off road. Children are the most at-risk group.

It says it all when spinal surgeons across the globe have called for reform of the legislation surrounding the use of ATVs.

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Here in Ireland, doctors working in Accident & Emergency units all over the country have been calling for legislation banning the use of quad bikes by children under 16 years of age.

Doctors Justin Curran and Colman O'Leary in Limerick's Mid-Western Hospital have dealt with a number of children injured in accidents involving ATVs. Both men highlight the fact that young children lack the physical size and strength, cognitive abilities, motor skills and perception to safely operate ATVs.

Despite this, both have seen cases of children being killed or seriously injured while using ATVs.

Farms represent a unique situation where children are exposed and naturally drawn to the excitement of driving ATVs at speed.

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Unlike tractors, and to the dismay of many health campaigners, these vehicles are not yet legally required to have rollover protection bars fitted.

The result is that when an ATV overturns, there is no cab or support structure to protect the driver's head and upper body. Whether wearing a helmet or not, this means the driver's head and spinal column are at major risk of serious injury on overturning.

A 2008 US-based study found the main mechanism of spinal cord injury from an ATV-related accident is an axial compression type fracture.

In this type of injury, excessive vertical force is placed on the spine, forcing pieces of broken vertebrae to move outwards in a horizontal direction.

The injury location is usually between the C1 and C5 vertebrae of the spine, a crucial area with long-term neurological damage highly likely.

The weight of your average ATV will be anywhere between 300-750kg. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this weight can do some nasty damage to the fragile human spinal cord.

Apart from spinal injuries, other injury mechanisms sustained from ATV accidents include upper limb fractures, facial lacerations and fractures of the skull.

Manufacturers have long been promoting the use of helmets for some time now, and those who still refuse to wear protective headgear must be ready for the consequences.
Charlie Chawke pictured with daughters Ali and Jenny in Searsons pub on Dublins Baggot St

Three of the pubs in the Charlie Chawke pub empire enjoyed a bumper year last year posting combining profits of almost 800,000.

New accounts filed for the companies that operate the Bank pub, the Dropping Well and the Goat Grill in the family-owned business recorded combined profits of 780,884 last year.

In an interview yesterday, Mr Chawke said: "Things are going well. Business is improving, we have had a good year and we are happy and looking forward to a better year this year."

Mr Chawke, in the pub business for over 50 years, said: "We are trading profitably and we are keeping our banks happy."

Accounts for the firm that operates the Goat Grill, Charjon Investments Ltd, show that its accumulated profits rose from 1.747m to 1.8m in the 12 months to the end of March last year.

It was outside the Goat Grill bar in 2003 where Mr Chawke lost a leg during an armed robbery.

Figures for the firm show that the numbers employed rose from 63 to 69 last year with staff costs at 1.465m.

The cash pile increased from 333,081 to 368,949.

Separate accounts for the Milltown Inns Ltd that operates the Chawke-owned Dropping Well pub show that accumulated profits rose from 3.111m to 3.381m in the 12 months to the end of May 31 last. The firm's cash pile rose from 488,755 to 634,715. Numbers employed remained static at 66 with staff costs declining from 1.59m to 1.57m.

One of the group's best known pubs is the Bank pub on Dublin's College Green. Accounts for the company that operates the pub, College Inns Ltd show that it was the best performing of the three pubs last year with its accumulated profits increasing from 909,486 to 1.364m.

The cash pile dived from 246,090 to 38,120 in the 12 months to the end of April 30 last. The value of the company's tangible assets increased from 3.54m to 4m last year.

Numbers employed rose from 35 to 38 during the year with staff costs going up from 999,056 to 1.12m.

Asked had the group any plans to expand further, Mr Chawke said: "We have nothing on stream at the moment, but are always looking for new ventures."

Mr Chawke's group of pubs employs around 400 people. In 2005, Mr Chawke was involved in the most expensive pub sale in Irish history when he paid 22m for the Old Orchard Inn and site at Rathfarnham, Dublin.

According to its latest accounts, the Orchard Inn property had a net book value of 20.5m at the end of October last year after non-cash depreciation costs over a number of years after factored in.

Mr Chawke's other pubs include the Lord Lucan, the Oval bar and renovated Searsons on Baggot Street.
Debenhams aims to grow by becoming a destination for 'social shopping'

Shares in UK department store operator Debenhams fell more than 6pc at one stage yesterday as its new chief executive, Sergio Bucher, unveiled a strategic review aimed at returning the business to growth.

He said the chain will close up to 10 of its 176 UK stores within the next five years. He also plans to close some warehouses.

Debenhams has 11 outlets in Ireland, most of which it acquired from Roches Stores in 2006. Last year, the Irish arm of Debenhams entered examinership, arguing that high rents were making its business here unsustainable.

It exited examinership last August, saving 1,330 jobs that had been under threat.

Debenhams said yesterday that its group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first half of its financial year fell 2.5pc to 149.1m (178m). In the UK, EBITDA slumped 6pc.

It added that its business in Ireland has benefitted from last year's restructuring.

The chain aims to boost growth by becoming a destination for "social shopping", by offering new products, services and experiences.

It will also see 2,000 staff switched to customer-facing roles, and stores decluttered by reducing its range by 10pc.

"Our customers are changing the way they shop and we are changing too," insisted Mr Bucher, whose plan will also involve trialling new concepts.

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"If we deliver differentiated and distinctive brands, services and experiences both online and in stores, our customers will visit us more frequently and, having simplified our operations to make us more efficient, we will be able to serve them better and make better use of our resources," he added.

But investors are concerned about how much the plans might cost. Annual capex will rise to 150m (179m) between 2018 and 2020 from the current 130m.

There will also be exceptional costs of 50m between 2017 and 2020, of which 50m will be cash.
Carbery Group, the Cork-based international manufacturer of value-added ingredients, flavours and cheese, has reported an increase in annual earnings of 4.8pc to 37m for year ended 2016.

The group, which is owned by four Irish co-operatives, reported operating profit before interest, tax, amortisation and exceptional items of 27.1m, an increase of 6pc year-on-year.

However turnover for the year was down to 340m compared to 349.5m in the previous year.

Carbery's Irish-based dairy business had a good year with solid margins and new business from both its cheese and ingredients divisions.

Milk supply processed at Ballineen in 2016 was up 4.4pc to 470m litres.

Dan MacSweeney, CEO at Carbery Group, said that the results were achieved against a market backdrop of weak global dairy prices.

"During the year, we prioritised the need to support milk prices for our dairy farmers and, once again, Carbery paid industry-leading milk prices," Mr MacSweeney said.

"This was possible due to the underlying strong performances from our Ireland based dairy and nutrition divisions and our international division, Synergy, which continued to grow its customer base in overseas markets."

During the year the group invested a further 15.4m in its dairy and ingredients divisions in line with the group's growth strategy, bringing investment in the business over the past five years to 78.2m.

Synergy, the group's international flavour and natural extracts division, reported strong growth in its key customer markets of the US, South America, Europe and South East Asia.

The business operates three sites in North America, one in Brazil, one in the UK and a site in Thailand serving South East Asia. As well as driving organic growth, Synergy plans future growth through further acquisitions.

Commenting on the market environment during 2016, Mr MacSweeney said that while dairy markets were difficult in the early part of the year as milk flows in Northern Europe grew strongly, the reduced milk flows late in the year had a positive impact with prices increasing.

"This trend continued into 2017, however, market pricing for the second half of this year is still a challenge due to the current weakness in dairy markets in the last month or so," he said.

In the medium term, Brexit presents a significant challenge to many businesses in the food industry in Ireland, and Carbery is not immune to this.

"We are currently evaluating all potential scenarios with a view to limiting the impact of the Brexit process on our shareholders and milk suppliers," he said.
Vodafone has around 2.3 million Irish customers across its mobile, broadband and TV offerings. Photo: Bloomberg

Vodafone has admitted that the company has overcharged a number of customers in Ireland.

"We are aware of an issue with duplicate credit and debit card payments for some customers caused by a processing error. Customers will be fully refunded over the next few days," Vodafone said in a statement.

"All impacted customers will also receive an SMS with confirmation of their refund. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

The company has had issues with overcharging in the past: in 2015, the telecom giant was fined 10,000 at Dublin District Court for charging customers too much.

In October of last year, UK regulator Ofcom fined Vodafone a record 4.6m (5.5m) "for serious and sustained breaches of consumer protection rules".

Vodafone said that under 4pc of its Irish bill pay customers have been overcharged.

The company has around 2.3 million Irish customers across its mobile, broadband and TV offerings.

However, Vodafone said it could not specifically comment on the number of counts that had been affected for "commercial reasons". The company said the overcharging was identified over one monthly billing period and that the money would be repaid in the coming days.
An artist's impression of the Mountpark Logistics hub in Dublin

Mountpark Logistics EU has been given the green light by An Bord Pleanala (ABP) to proceed with the development of a 40m logistics and industrial hub at Baldonnel in south county Dublin.

Construction of the scheme, which is being billed by the developers as the "largest speculative logistics development in Ireland", is expected to get under way this summer.

While some 120 jobs will be created during the construction phase, 850 people are expected to be employed by the companies that occupy the hub.

A further 150 ancillary roles are being anticipated by the project's promoters.

"This project is a significant development for Mountpark and one that we have already invested heavily in," said Mountpark CEO Philip O'Callaghan.

"With the increasing importance of ecommerce, purpose-built logistics facilities are strategically important. This site at Baldonnel is ideally located to serve Dublin and the eastern region."

Mr O'Callaghan added: "We know, from the discussions we have already held with businesses and development bodies, that there is strong demand for well-located hubs such as this.

"We believe that the project will facilitate agencies such as the IDA and South Dublin County Council in attracting companies to the region."

The new logistics hub will consist of a number of units for logistics and warehouse use ranging in size from 10,837sq m (116,648sq ft) to 21,934sq m (236,095sq ft). The development's total ground floor area is set to extend to some 32,771sq m (352,742 sq ft) and will include 1,569sq m (16,889sq ft) of ancillary office floorspace.

A joint venture between UK-based Mountpark and the USAA RealCo company of America, Mountpark Logistics EU specialises in building logistics centres. Formed in 2014, the joint venture is already engaged in projects in the UK, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Among the larger projects completed in the UK are the Mountpark Bardon (near Junction 22 on the M1 motorway), Airport City in Manchester and Sered in Bratislava. All three developments are anchored by online retail giants Amazon.

Mountpark's Dublin site is well located at Barneys Lane on the N7 between Casement Aerodrome and Baldonnel Business Park. The proposed hub is ideally located for access to the M50, Outer Ring Road, N81 and N4.

The location is just 5km from the M50. The scheme is also close to existing business parks including Citywest, Grange Castle and Greenogue.
Isme has called on the Government to assist small and medium businesses in learning how to win EU tenders.

The organisation, which has over 10,000 members, said that the Government should nominate one development agency to facilitate and drive international tender consortium information.

Last month the group identified that billions of euro in tendering opportunities would open in the years ahead for Irish businesses as a result of Brexit, as British companies will be forced out of the EU tendering process.

There is an onus on government to act on these opportunities right now for the sake of the SME sector in Ireland, Isme ceo Neil McDonnell said.

The group also suggest that the government should charge the Irish diplomatic corps as well as public servants with placing this at the top of Irelands list of priorities to mitigate the impact of Brexit.

We cannot just sit back and assume these opportunities will fall into our laps. We cannot wait. Action by the government is required now, McDonnell added.
Danone has reported strong results for the first three months of the year, with sales of 5.4bn, up 3pc year-on-year.

However organic sales at the food products corporation increased by just 0.7pc year-on-year, with volumes declining by 2.6pc.

The company, whos brands include activia and actimel, reported positive organic sales growth in three of its four divisions.

In its fresh dairy division, organic sales declined 2.3pc year-on-year in the quarter, with volumes falling by 5.3pc.

The poor volume was driven mainly by Latin American and European markets.

European dairy in particular struggled despite the relaunch of the Activia brand, while market conditions in Brazil were difficult.

For the next three months of 2017 Danone expects low-single-digit negative sales growth in the fresh dairy division.

Read more: Single digit growth in milk prices predicted for European farmers

Sales of early life nutrition products were up 4.1pc on an organic basis, the solid performance highlighting major gains in developing a direct distribution model in China, where direct sales benefited from double-digit growth.

Meanwhile, Danones medical nutrition also grew strongly, with sales up 8.8pc on an organic basis. These figures reflect the divisions strong performance in Europe and continued growth in emerging markets, mainly driven by China.

Its sales of water products were up 1.7pc, however the segment was still impacted by the transition of Mizone and tough competition.

On the conference call announcing the results, Danone categorised its second quarter as a transition quarter, which suggests limited revenue progression.
An Indian man who is extremely concerned about the welfare of his Irish born child has secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing his deportation.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, has been living in Ireland for almost two years, but was arrested and detained in prison by the Gardai on foot of a deportation order issued by the Minister for Justice.

However the man's lawyers secured an interim injunction halting his removal from the state after the High Court heard the man fears for his son's on going safety.

This is because shortly after his incarceration the child and his mother moved in with another man, whom she had previously been in a relationship with, who it is claimed has a history of drug taking and violence.

The father believes the other man has "no affection or regard" for his son and fears there is a threat to the young boy's well being.

In order to protect his son the man wants to remain in Ireland and has brought proceedings on both his and his son's behalf against the Minister for Justice and Equality Ireland and the Attorney General seeking orders including an injunction preventing his deportation.

He also seeks by way of judicial review declarations that his deportation would be unlawful on grounds including that the Minister has failed to consider his application, made earlier this month, to revoke the deportation order against him.

Counsel for the man Paul O Shea Bl, instructed by solicitor Peter Keatings, told the High Court the child's father came to Ireland in 2015.

In Ireland the man met and fell in love with a woman, who is an EU national, who became pregnant.

In early 2016 he applied for asylum, but failed to pursue that application because of his relationship and the arrival of their child, who was born late last year.

Counsel said his client had been in a loving relationship, and the couple and their child had resided together.

Sadly difficulties arose after the man's partner got in contact with her ex-boyfriend, who it is claimed has acted violently.

Last month the Gardai had to be called after the ex boyfriend attempted to kick down the door of their house.

Counsel said her contact with him caused difficulties in the relationship.

In early April the child's father was arrested by Gardai and detained in prison on foot of a deportation order.

He did not know when that order was made, but given the change in his circumstances asked the Minister to revoke the order given the fact the man is now the father of an EU citizen child.

His solicitor Mr Keatings wrote to the Minister, but had not received any reply in relation to the revocation application.

Following the father's arrest and detention his partner and child left where they were living and are now residing with her ex-boyfriend.

The child's exposure to the ex boyfriend is of deep concern to the man, and was the reason Mr O'Shea said why the application for an injunction was "urgent."

His client wanted to stay in Ireland, and if permitted to will consider making a guardianship application for access to or custody of his young son.

This, counsel said, would not only be in the best interests of the father but also of the child.

Counsel said the man is of limited means and would find it very difficult to return to Ireland if deported.

The was little chance of his son going to India.

At a vacation sitting of the High Court on Friday afternoon Mr Justice Tony O'Connor said he was satisfied that the man had raised a prima facie case which would merit the granting of an injunction temporarily halting the man's proposed deportation.

The Judge said the injunction, which was granted on an ex parte basis, is to remain in place until Monday, when the case returns before the High Court.

The Judge also adjourned to Monday the man's challenge against the Minister's refusal to consider his bid to have the deportation order revoked.
Dublin Fire Brigade came to the rescue of a new mum last night when they helped her deliver her son  in the back of a car.

Crews were called to the scene in Whitehall shortly before 7pm last night.

Officers from Finglas fire station attended and aided delivery of the baby boy, a spokeswoman said.

Swords ambulance crew then arrived to bring the pair to hospital.

Mum and baby are said to be doing well.

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DFB officers are no stranger to an emergency delivery when some new arrivals just can't wait until mum arrives in hospital.

In some cases the bundles of joy have visited officers in the fire station in the weeks after the birth to say thank you.
The parents of Siobhan Phillips, who was left for dead when her partner opened fire on her and Garda Tony Golden, are requesting an investigation "at the highest level" on behalf of their daughter into developments reported on in last night's RTE Primetime programme.

Heroic Garda Golden was killed by Adrian Crevan Mackin in October 2015, before Crevan Mackin turned the gun on himself.

A documentary broadcast by RTE has raised questions about why shooter Crevan Mackin was not convicted on weapons charges after he admitted to weapons possessions during an interrogation.

His family have claimed he was an informer and have questioned why he was freed on bail after he was arrested for buying weapons online.

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The programme also carried claims Mackin was sent to Portlaoise Prison to spy on the Real IRA and was later released on reduced bail after republicans refused him access to their wing.

His sister said that in the aftermath of being imprisoned he became paranoid and violent toward his partner.

Reacting to last nights programme, the family said in a statement today:

"This is a significant development in relation the familys pursuit for information and accountability relating to the serious shooting of Siobhan on 11th October 2015 and the serious threat to the family beforehand.

"These revelations raise issues of significant public importance and require an investigation at the highest level.

"We have been instructed today to issue proceedings in the High Court in Dublin and we will be writing to Frances Fitzgerald, the Minister for Justice, requesting that she immediately establish a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Siobhan and the murder of Garda Golden."

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Siobhan's father, Sean attended Omeath garda station in Co Louth on the Sunday of the shooting with his daughter and other family members.

The family had made an appointment with gardai in order for Siobhan to make a statement about a sustained attack which Crevan Mackin had inflicted on her.

During a 12-hour attack Crevan Mackin beat Siobhan, cutting her on her arms and legs and making threats against her and her family.

After the statement had been made Siobhan, Gda Golden and her dad made their way to the home she had shared with Crevan Mackin.

It happened that quick, inside about two minutes," Mr Phillips said.

"He said 'what are you doing here?' Then Tony Golden said 'Siobhan is here to collect her things'. He didnt answer Tony.

"Then I heard bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I was running, zig zagging... I was actually shouting the names of my kids [thinking that I would be killed], he said, growing emotional as he recalled the ordeal.

Fianna Fails Justice and Equality Spokesperson, Jim OCallaghan, also reacted to the programme, saying; "Last nights Primetime documentary about the murder of Garda Tony Golden and the maiming of Siobhan Phillips raises issues of considerable concern.

"The documentary revealed that at the time of Garda Golden's murder, Gardai were aware that Crevan Mackin had admitted in interviews to the importation of bomb making materials and parts for 6 firearms.

"He had also admitted responsibility for the possession of 2 guns in an unused property near his home.

"This information had initially been brought to the attention of the Gardai by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Notwithstanding these admissions, Mackin was not charged with possession of this serious arsenal. Instead, he was charged with an offence he did not admit to and which therefore would have been more difficult to prove, namely membership of the IRA.

"What is even more disturbing is that after Mackin was excluded from the Republican wing in Portlaoise prison, a term of granting him bail was significantly reduced. This had the effect of permitting this dangerous man, who was self-medicating for anxiety, back into the community.

"Garda Golden should have been made aware prior to accompanying Siobhan Phillips to Mackins home in Omeath that this was a dangerous man who had admitted to the importation and possession of guns. Had Garda Golden been aware of these factors he most probably would not have approached the premises without armed support," he continued.

"If Mackin was a Garda informant, as was suggested by the programme, and was prosecuted with an offence that would facilitate his informing, rather than the serious offences to which he admitted, then this needs to be explained by the relevant authorities.

"Garda operational matters are not the concern of politicians but if decisions are made by State authorities that expose the community to danger, then those decisions must be explained and subject to scrutiny.

"There is no more serious offence than the murder of a member of An Garda Siochana; it is an attack upon the whole community. The bravery and memory of Garda Golden, and the horrendous crime committed against Siobhan Phillips require that a full explanation of the States involvement in the matters identified in the programme be provided."
A general view of protesters opposed to the Sisters of Charity owning the new national maternity hospital gather outside the Department of Health, Poolbeg St, Dublin. Photo: Caroline Quinn

Simon Harris with a model of the new maternity hospital (left), and the Sisters of Charity

Health Minister Simon Harris has been accused of "practising hypocrisy" over his stance on the Sisters of Charity's controversial ownership of the long-awaited National Maternity Hospital.

The charge came as Mr Harris insisted the religious order would not gain financially or have any say over medical procedures or treatment at the new hospital. In an official statement, the minister said it was "not true" to say that the "nuns will be running the hospital".

However, fresh questions have been raised over the minister's position on the religious order after it emerged that he previously attacked financial arrangements linked to the charity.

Three years ago, Mr Harris lambasted the St Vincent's Care Group, which is owned by the under-fire religious order, for using a public hospital as collateral for bank loans to build a private car park and health facility.

The loans meant the banks had first call over assets linked to St Vincent's public hospital.

Read more: 'The State's interests will be protected and no religious order will gain financially' - Minister Harris breaks silence on maternity hospital row

Expand Close A protester opposed to the Sisters of Charity owning the new national maternity hospital, outside the Department of Health on Poolbeg St, Dublin. Photo: Caroline Quinn / Facebook

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Whatsapp A protester opposed to the Sisters of Charity owning the new national maternity hospital, outside the Department of Health on Poolbeg St, Dublin. Photo: Caroline Quinn

At the time, Mr Harris, who was a member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said he was "appalled" by the revelation. However, the minister is now being forced to defend his decision to allow the charity to have ownership of the new 300m maternity hospital.

Yesterday, Labour Party health spokesman Alan Kelly said the minister seemed to have forgotten the "gross misuse" of a State funding by the religious order, which he previously raised.

"Mr Harris knew of this gross misuse of a public hospital and was scandalised at the time, yet here we are three short years later with Mr Harris being very vocal in his defence of the Sisters of Charity having ownership of a new State hospital," Mr Kelly told the Irish Independent.

"He was outraged at its behaviour three years ago, it's time he was again and acted accordingly, otherwise he is practising hypocrisy."

However, last night Mr Harris hit back, insisting Mr Kelly was making a "political charge".

"Deputy Kelly is entirely correct - as a member of PAC I was very robust in my defence that the taxpayers' interest must always be protected and that's why before one cent is spent on construction of the maternity hospital a contractual arrangement will be put in place to protect the State's investment and interest," he told the Irish Independent.

In his statement, the minister said there would be "no financial gain" to any religious order from the development of this hospital.

"Legal arrangements will be put in place which will 100pc protect the State's investment and interest in the new hospital," he added.

He said redress owed to the State by the nuns was "extremely important" but said it was wrong to "conflate" it with the construction of the new hospital. Mr Harris said the charity should "cough up" the money it owes to the victims of abuse by the religious order.

The controversy over the ownership of the new maternity hospital has resulted in more than 65,000 people signing a petition urging the minster to reverse the decision.

Read more: National maternity hospital explainer: The nuns, the 300m in taxpayer's money, and the suddenly-quiet health minister

The agreement was arranged after protracted negotiations between St Vincent's and Holles Street Hospital over the site for the maternity hospital. The final deal was reached between the two hospitals following talks chaired by former chairman of the Workplace Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey.

Former health minister James Reilly, who kick-started the national maternity hospital project while in office, yesterday said it was a "good deal for the State".

"I fully understand the predicament of those who were abused by the Church but it is a good deal for the State and why would we want to jeopardise the health of our children in the future while focusing on the past?" Mr Reilly said.
Martin Coffey a few hours before he jumped in to the pond. Photo: Douglas O'Connor

A little girl who almost drowned in St Stephen's Green, Dublin, has finally been reunited with the hero that saved her, 51 years later.

Anne Byrne, from Sheriff Street, was just three years old when she and her siblings visited the Dublin park in July, 1966.

Ms Byrne fell into the water in the duck pond and floated out beyond reach.

Luckily, 15-year-old Martin Coffey, from Cabra West, Dublin, noticed the commotion and jumped into the water to rescue her.

Mr Coffey, now aged 64, said he gave Ms Byrne the kiss of life, reviving her almost immediately.

Now, 51 years later, the Irish Independent has captured the moment when the two reunited for the first time after getting in touch on Facebook.

Expand Close Martin Coffey and Anne Byrne at St Stephens Green pond yesterday. Photo: Douglas OConnor / Facebook

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Whatsapp Martin Coffey and Anne Byrne at St Stephens Green pond yesterday. Photo: Douglas OConnor

"I've grown up being forever grateful to this person who saved me even though I had no idea who he was. I'm so happy to finally be able to thank Martin personally," she said.
Tributes have been paid to a well-known councillor who died in hospital today.

Donegal Cllr Sean McEniff (81) sustained injuries while holidaying in Spain last October.

Having been transferred to Dublin from Spain he was later moved to Sligo University Hospital but had then returned to hospital in Dublin earlier this month. The Fianna Fail politician died on Friday afternoon.

Party Leader Micheal Martin expressed his sympathy to the family and friends of the Donegal politician.

Having been first elected to Donegal County Council in 1967 he was the longest serving Councillor in Ireland.

Deputy Martin commented: This is an extremely difficult time for Seans family and I wish to extend my sincere sympathies to them. Sean was a proud Donegal man and played an integral role in the promotion and development of business and tourism in the county and the North West region.

"His experience and expertise in these areas saw him appointed Chairman of North West Tourism in 1986  a post he held for two decades. He was also awarded the title of Donegal Person of the Year in 1996  an accolade I know he was particularly proud of.

Sean was our longest serving Councillor, first elected to Donegal County Council in 1967 and subsequently re-elected on seven occasions, most recently in the 2014 local elections. This record alone is testament to the work he undertook across the community, and the respect in which he was held by the people of Bundoran.

On behalf of myself and the Fianna Fail organisation I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Seans family and wide circle of friends."

It is with shock and sadness today that we have learned of the death of our fellow colleague and friend Cllr Sean McEnif," said Cllr Niamh Kennedy, on behalf of the Donegal Municipal District.

"Cllr McEniff was a member of the Donegal Municipal District and during his absence he was considered and thought of at every MD meeting and workshop, work continued with Cllr McEniffs wishes respected by all his colleagues," said the Chairperson.

"Cllr McEniff was a witty character with a great big smile, a hard worker on top of his game, always promoting his beloved Bundoran. Sean will be sadly missed by many and there will be an everlasting void in this chamber. It really is the end of an era, we extend our sincerest sympathies to Seans family, friends and supporters of which he had many. It is the end of an era of a remarkable man. May he Rest in Peace," added Cllr Kennedy.

Donegal Councillor Terence Slowey said: "It's a very sad day in Donegal. He was the longest serving councillor in Ireland, it was a very long political career. He was a very prominent business man in the tourist industry in Donegal as well."

"He was a people person. He said to me last year he loved coming to the meetings, he enjoyed politics, he enjoyed people and he was great company. It's the end of an era for us in Donegal."

Cllr McEniff will be waked on Saturday and Sunday in his home in Bundoran.

His removal will be on Monday at 11.30am, and the funeral mass will be in Bundoran.
Ferne McCann attends the National Television Awards at The O2 Arena on January 25, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Fred Duval/FilmMagic)

A man wanted for questioning over a London nightclub attack that injured 20 may have fled to Ireland, police have told one of his victims.

Arthur Collins, the partner of reality TV star Ferne McCann, is being hunted by detectives investigating a suspected acid attack at a packed nightclub last weekend.

Twenty people were injured when corrosive liquid was sprayed at Mangle in Dalston, east London.

Read More

The 25-year-old, from Hertfordshire, has been in a relationship with Ferne, best known for her appearances on The Only Way Is Essex and Im A CelebrityGet Me Out of Here!

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Whatsapp Ferne McCann attends the House Of Fraser British Academy Television Awards 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall on May 8, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Police have arrested a second man and are seeking a third.

Victims Sophie Hall (21) told the Daily Mail she suffered third degree burns in the attack.

Miss Hall, who is now recovering at her family home in Poole, said: "You never expect to go to a club for the night out and leave disfigured. The people responsible should never be let out of prison.

"We have spoken to the police investigating this and they told us they have received a tip off Arthur Collins fled to Spain or Ireland."

On Thursday Scotland Yard said it was working around the clock to locate Mr Collins.

Expand Close Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann. Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann. Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Detective Inspector Lee McCullough, warned Collins is potentially dangerous and said anyone suspected of helping him evade the authorities also faces arrest.

"My team is acting on a number of leads to bring in those wanted for questioning in relation to this awful incident," he told the Daily Mail.

"I am continuing to appeal to Arthur Collins and the two men who were seen with him to hand themselves in so that we can talk to them about the incident in the nightclub.

"I would also urge anyone who knows of his whereabouts to contact police.

"Equally, anyone found harbouring those wanted for questioning by police can expect a knock at the door and could well find themselves under arrest."
A mother who travelled to Spain to obtain medicinal cannabis for her daughter said it was confiscated by customs officials today.

Vera Twomey arrived at Dublin Airport carrying a three month supply of cannabis based medicine, which contains THC, that had been prescribed for her daughter Ava by a medical consultant in Barcelona.

Vera Twomey travelled to Barcelona in order to gain access to medicinal cannabis under prescription for her daughter Avas seizures.

Her seven-year-old daughter suffers from Dravet Syndrome which can cause her to have hundreds of seizures each month, despite the use of conventional medications, she said.

The medicine was taken away from me when I arrived. I told the customs officials I had it. The officials were sympathetic but the ban in Ireland on this medicine is the lowest form of cruelty," she said.

If I was a parent in Spain, Germany, Italy, Canada, Poland, or in 30 states of the US, I would be allowed give my daughter this medication, she said.

She travelled to Barcelona to the Kalapa Clinic to see a specialist who had examined Avas medical files compiled in the US and had accessed Ava on Skype.

She travelled with Dublin TD Gino Kenny and MEP Luke Ming Flanagan who accompanied her as a public show of support. They made a video before the flight back to Dublin about the purpose of the trip and launched it on Facebook.

I did no wrong. I wasnt going to hide it and come through the airport like some sleveen. I told the officals I had the medication, she said.

People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny said Health Minister Simon Harris has forced families like Veras into desperate measures in order to access medicinal cannabis.

The TD offered his full support to Ms Twomey and said that it was terrible that the government and Simon Harris had forced her into taking this trip.

Deputy Kenny said: I wish to offer my full support and solidarity to Vera and her family at this moment in time.

It's ludicrous that in the 21st Century this is happening where people like Vera Twomey have to travel abroad to gain access to vital medication for their loved ones.

In this case people have been propelled to expose bad laws in order to make good laws for the greater good.

"The bill which I put forward which got cross party support last December would give broad based access to cannabis for medicinal use, on the recommendation of a doctor, to people who could benefit from using it.

People suffering from illness such as chronic pain, MS, intractable epilepsy and other conditions could benefit tremendously from using medicinal cannabis in helping to alleviate some of their symptoms and pain, he said.
An Air Corps corporal's wife has revealed that she resorts to moneylenders and the credit union to mark almost every big day of the year for her children.

Emma Magee, from Coolock in Dublin, was one of scores of protesters who took to the gates of Defence Forces' barracks around the country to raise awareness over cuts in pay and allowances which leave many struggling to make ends meet.

The couple live with the 34-year-old's parents and have a six-year-old and 11-year-old twins, one of whom is on the autism spectrum.

Ms Magee, who quit her own job to help her son's development, said the family are 150 a week worse off than they were in 2007 and 2008, because of cuts to allowances and restrictions on overtime and bonus duties.

"We just seem to be on an endless loop of debt," she said from the protest at McKee Barracks in Dublin.

"We are living off my husband's wages. We don't make it through the week any more. We don't have a social life."

They also borrow from the local credit union but have been forced to go to money lenders, including last Christmas.

"We couldn't say to the kids on Christmas morning, sorry kids, Santa didn't come," she said.

"It's Christmas and then Easter and then back to school. But we are very lucky that my husband has a job.

"I'm not the worst off. We know that. There's people out there in a hell of a worse situation."

Army wives took to the streets to protest yesterday - 29 years after their intervention helped pave the way for the setting up of a representative association for soldiers.

The recently formed group WPDF (Wives and Partners of the Defence Forces) staged two-hour demonstrations outside military barracks around the country at lunchtime yesterday.

Its aim is to highlight the poor pay and conditions experienced by Defence Force personnel.

A spokeswoman for WPDF told the Irish Independent that more than 20pc of enlisted personnel were receiving the family income supplement because they could not afford to feed their families properly.

"No person who volunteers to serve their country should be allowed to have wages so poor that they need social welfare," she said.

Defence Minister Paul Kehoe said he had given an assurance to the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces that concerns raised would be dealt with by the new Public Service Pay Commission.

"I will continue to work with their representative associations in order to achieve the best possible outcome," he said.
Mr Rose stepped down after an emergency meeting of the Glen board. Photo: Tommy Clancy

The co-founder of gay rights charity Glen has resigned from its board amid the controversy over the printing of his Seanad election campaign literature.

Kieran Rose, who made an unsuccessful bid to win a Seanad seat last year, made the shock announcement last night, revealing that Glen - the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network - backed his political campaign to the tune of 11,500.

He said he regrets resigning from the board, but the issue of the support Glen provided to him in 2016 is "causing a distraction" to the organisation's work.

Mr Rose stepped down after an emergency meeting of the Glen board.

It comes after the Irish Independent revealed Mr Rose did not disclose the help he got from Glen during his Seanad campaign to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) watchdog.

Glen's printing facilities were used for Mr Rose's election literature. He reimbursed the costs involved.

His statement last night did not provide a breakdown of the cost or nature of support offered to him by Glen, but puts the overall value at 11,500.

Mr Rose said: "It is with regret that I am tendering my resignation today from the board to the chairperson.

"Last year, I sought to secure a seat in Seanad Eireann, and part of my programme was to continue to seek further progress on equality, including for LGBT people.

"Glen executive provided temporary supports to me during my campaign. These equated to 11,500 (approximately), which I repaid to Glen.

"At no point was there any reason on my part not to disclose this and any breach of regulations that may have occurred was completely inadvertent.

"I regret that the arrangement has contributed to recent controversy."

Mr Rose is regarded as one of the gay rights movement's most ardent campaigners since before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993. He co-founded Glen in 1988.

In his statement, Mr Rose said he stepped down as co-chairman of Glen last December. The board asked him to stay on as a director due to his vital contribution to Glen over several decades and Mr Rose said he was "happy to remain on the board to continue to serve the organisation", until last night.

He said: "During the 30 years with Glen, I have worked tirelessly to address social injustice and to seek to remove prejudice and discrimination whilst promoting equality for all.

"I regret this issue has occurred and is causing a distraction from the important work of Glen and the other issues that are concerning it at present."

He wished the board well in its work and said he'd be making no further statement.

A number of allegations about the management of finances at Glen emerged last weekend. The Charities Regulator is investigating.
TAOISEACH Enda Kenny has said he'll make his intentions about his future leadership of Fine Gael "very clear" once he's "happy" with the ground rules for the EU's negotiating position on Brexit.

Meanwhile, Mr Kenny said he can understand why British Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election to strengthen her position ahead of the crunch talks.

Mr Kenny was asked if he will still be in office to congratulate the winner of the UK election in June.

He said: "I always congratulate people on many things".

And he added: "Ive already made my position very clear that once Im happy with having the ground rules for Brexit in place Ill make my intentions very clear."

The EU's negotiating guidelines could be agreed as early as Saturday next week at an EU Council meeting in Brussels.

Mr Kenny refused to say if there will be a new Fine Gael leader in office at the end of the current Dail term this summer.

"I've already said in respect of making my intentions clear.

"I want to deal with this matter next Saturday and hopefully we get clarity about that... and then make my intentions very clear after that".

Mr Kenny was also asked if there is hope that the calling of the election in Britain could result in a a softer Brexit.

He said: "I can understand as a politician why the Prime Minister would decide to seek a mandate from the electorates of the UK to strengthen her position... in entering into negotiations for Brexit.

Obviously its going to cause quite a deal of angst I would think, particularly in Scotland and there will be a different political impetus from Northern Ireland out of this."

He said the political battle ahead in Britain is "a matter for the electorates of the UK".

But he added: "I do think that if as expected the Prime Minister gets an enhanced majority it strengthens her position as the Prime Minister in conducting the Brexit negotiations.

Mr Kenny said it should be pointed out that Mrs May "has been very clear that shes not negotiating on the basis of a hard Brexit."

The Taoiseach was speaking after a meeting in The Hague with the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Denmark, two of the other EU countries expected to be worst hit by the impact of Brexit.

Mr Kenny used the occasion to discuss the strategy for the upcoming talks on Britain leaving the EU with Dutch leader Mark Rutte and Danish prime minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen.

Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark share a range of common interests in relation to Brexit, including strong trading relations with the UK.

Both Mr Rutte and Mr Rasmussen referenced issues important to Ireland.

Mr Rutte said that the priority for the beginning of the Brexit talks should be to "deal with financial matters with border issues."

Mr Kenny thanked both prime ministers for their understanding of Irish issues including the "question of the Irish border which is unique in being the only land border in the European Union after Brexit is completed."

Mr Rasmussen said the UK's intention to leave the Customs Union "risks a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy and a lot of barriers to trade.

"We will need to lead with those issues including the particular problem which Ireland will be confronted with and I hope we can find fair and pragmatic solutions," he said.

Later Mr Kenny explained that he came to The Hague to meet the two leaders: "because we have similar interests of a very common nature".

He added: "We wanted those reflected in the ground rules being set out by the European Council, not to be seen as some sort of breakaway group, we are part of the 27."
DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy leader Nigel Dodds speak to the media on the grounds of Stormont Castle. Photo: PA

Crisis talks at Stormont aimed at restoring power-sharing are to be extended to after the UK general election.

It is understood parties will be given three weeks after the June 8 poll to reach a deal. Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire is expected to announce the extension today.

Sources involved in the negotiations have said that provisions to form an executive by that date will be included in emergency legislation that will be fast-tracked through Westminster.

The region's two largest parties and former power-sharing partners, the DUP, led by Arlene Foster, and Sinn Fein, have spent weeks blaming each other for the failure to restore the institutions.

Read more: May's election call 'shows disinterest and disdain for Northern Ireland'

Long-running rows over a proposed Irish language act and divisions over how to deal with the legacy of the Troubles are holding up a deal. News of the extra time followed another day of discussions between Stormont parties.

Alliance leader Naomi Long said she did not expect fresh Assembly elections would be held on June 8. She believed the talks process would be "stretched" instead.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood also said he expected the talks deadline to be pushed to June. The SDLP has met with Sinn Fein and the Green Party to discuss the possibility of forming an anti-Brexit alliance in the run-up to the general election.

Mr Eastwood said a majority of pro-Brexit MPs cannot be sent to Westminster.

Earlier in the day, Sinn Fein accused the British government of wanting power-sharing to fail.

Michelle O'Neill, leader of the party in the North, said the British prime minister did not want a Stormont executive that would stand against Brexit.

"There is a growing belief out there among the wider nationalist community that the government doesn't want a power-sharing executive to work here," Ms O'Neill said.

"They don't want an executive that is going to take a firm stand against Brexit because obviously the majority of people here voted to remain in the EU."
Maria Ryan, president of the Public Service Executive Union, at the unions conference in Co Galway. Photo: Hany Marzouk

A union chief has condemned "beggar my neighbour" calls to cut public service pensions and warned that unions will not agree to a deal that reduces their entitlements.

President of the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU) Maria Ryan said unions may have to build protections for pensions into any agreement at talks due to begin next month.

She also warned that State workers face a "big challenge" - due to economic uncertainties including Brexit and the Donald Trump presidency - to get back pay cuts that were "stolen" from them.

Ms Ryan said the purported value of public service pensions had generated massive amounts of commentary, most of which was in the form of complaining that they were "so good".

The background to this is that there has been an erosion of occupational pension cover in the private sector, she said.

"Rather than generate justifiable indignation that this has occurred, the effect has been to cause an inordinate amount of 'beggar my neighbour' calls to disimprove public service pensions," she said.

"We need to provide members with some certainty that they will not face into poverty in their old age and we need to ensure that their pensions are funded adequately into the future.

"I believe that agreement on this is possible, provided that there are no unreasonable expectations on the other side."

The union's agenda at upcoming talks on a deal to replace the Lansdowne Road Agreement will be to ensure they get full restoration of 1.4bn pay cuts that still apply to their salaries, she said.

But she said members had to recognise that all of their lost income would not be restored in one go and a deal may span a few years.

Responding to the early 1.4bn demand, a spokesperson for Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe said the Public Service Pay Commission will produce a report in the coming weeks.

"This report will form the basis for public service pay negotiations. Any pay settlement emitting from these negotiations must be affordable and sustainable," they said.

Fianna Fail expenditure spokesman Dara Calleary told the Irish Independent he is looking forward to getting the report and "will engage" with all sides afterwards.

Ms Ryan was addressing the PSEU's annual conference, which opened yesterday afternoon in Galway.

"The agenda of public service unions is to seek a deal from those discussions that will 'break the back' of the Fempi (cuts) impositions so that by the end of any agreement negotiated, we will see full income restoration for all our members," she said.

"That is a big challenge against a background of some uncertainty due to events external to this country, such as Brexit and the Trump presidency.

"However, it is a challenge for all unions to face up to as the time has come for us to have restored what was stolen from us."

She said the removal of those cuts must be the unions' objective and it was an outcome that they should not allow themselves to doubt.

Ms Ryan noted once the Pay Commission reports, it was expected that talks would begin within four to five weeks.
Sgt Valerie Cole was the face of the military for last years campaign. Photo: Mark Condren

A Defence Forces recruitment campaign with a focus on digital and social media saw a massive 13pc increase in applications with more than 600 women coming forward.

The campaign, which ended earlier this month, was aimed at filling 860 posts at recruit, apprentice and cadet grades. It built on last year's successes when recruitment reached a historic high, with an intake of 690 personnel including the largest cadet class in the State's history.

The campaign attracted 5,210 applicants, compared with 4,590 in 2016 - and 13pc of them were women, which is in line with the Government's plan to double female participation in the Defence Forces from its current 6pc.

Following a review, advertising during the campaign concentrated in particular on "sporty" women, who were reckoned to be highly motivated, ambitious, fit and regarded as team players while also highlighting the attractions of a life for them in the military.

The face of the military for last year's campaign was Sgt Valerie Cole (31), a prominent athlete with the Rathfarnham club in south Dublin but native of Annaduff, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.

She has now started a six-month tour of duty as a platoon sergeant with the Irish peacekeeping mission on the Golan Heights, between Syria and Israel.

Up to now, the military has struggled to increase the number of women above 6pc.

As part of the fresh approach, the Defence Forces also became the first military organisation in the world to create a first-person interactive video in the recruitment campaign. It was launched in February with a social media video which asked people if they had what it took to "make an impact". The video received almost one million views.

Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Vice Admiral Mark Mellett said: "How we are reaching out to potential recruits is different this year but what we offer them remains the same.

"A career in the Defence Forces is an opportunity to serve your country and make an impact in some of the world's most troubled regions while also receiving first-class training and education along the way."

Defence Minister Paul Kehoe said one of his main priorities was to ensure the achievement of the establishment figure of 9,500 for the Defence Forces and he had provided finances for that. He said this year's campaign was likely to be the most successful in more than a decade.

"Recruitment is vital as it ensures that the Defence Forces are re-invigorated with new ideas, new thinking and energetic personnel to meet the challenges both at home and overseas. In turn a career in the Defence Forces opens up significant opportunities, for each individual, offering unique career prospects and first-class training."
Elliot (13) Lynnmarie and Jessica (9) Walsh. Jessica has received a Toby Gaze machine to help her communicate.

A girl who could not speak was able to say her brother's name for the first time with the help of a device gifted by an anonymous donor.

Jessica Walsh (9) has been unable to walk, talk or feed herself because of a rare and devastating disorder.

However, the new device, operated by her eye movements, enabled her to say her brother's name - Elliott - this week for the first time ever.

Her mother Lynn Marie Walsh said: "I'm overwhelmed. It's like I've won the lottery."

The device, named the Tobii Eye Gazer, was delivered to the family home in Newbridge, Co Kildare, this week thanks to a generous listener who heard Lynn Marie speak of her plight on the Today with Sean O'Rourke programme on RTE Radio One in February.

The anonymous donor, who paid 22,000 for the device, is "Jessica's guardian angel", said the delighted mother.

Expand Close Douglas O'Connor. Lynn Marie and Jessica (9) Walsh. Jessica has received a Toby Gaze machine to help her communicate. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Douglas O'Connor. Lynn Marie and Jessica (9) Walsh. Jessica has received a Toby Gaze machine to help her communicate.

Lone parent Lynn Marie (39), who grew up in Inchicore, Dublin, provides full-time care to her daughter with the help of her son Elliott (13).

Jessica appeared to be "a healthy, bouncy baby when one year old, who was learning to walk and babbling baby words", but she suddenly suffered a very bad seizure.

"She was diagnosed with Rett syndrome and lost her ability to walk and talk within weeks," Lynn Marie told the Herald.

"It robbed Jessica of everything. The Jessica I knew had giggled and laughed. It was like I was handed back an empty shell.

"So it took me two years to even register that in my brain and I suffered with depression over it."

She said her son Elliott had always wanted a little sister to be able to play with.

He was very sad about her condition and has always helped to care for her.

"Oh my God, now this machine has opened so many doors for all of us," she said.

She said photographs can be installed in the device, which allows Jessica to say the names of the people in the pictures.

"Jessica's first words after that were 'Elliott, Elliott, Elliott'," said Lynn Marie.

"It was a great moment. Elliott couldn't believe it.

"He told me: 'She's actually calling me.' And he went over to her and asked 'Are you looking for me?' And she said 'Yes.' Then he gave her a big hug and a kiss.

"He was crying and she was smiling at him .

"He said it was the best thing he ever experienced in his life," she added.

"It uses infrared. Jessica operates it with her eyes.

"A normal person would touch a screen or a keyboard. She has good eye coordination.

"I've been in floods of tears. It's like hearing a new baby talk for the first time.

"I know that my little girl was trapped in her body.

"Thanks to the Tobii Eye Gazer and the anonymous caller, my daughter will eventually be able to have a full conversation with her mammy. And that's all I want.

"After the past nine years, I will now be able to sit down with her and ask her what she likes and what she doesn't like, what her favourite colour is and where she likes to go.

"And to enjoy and cherish every moment of that, because with Rett syndrome there's very limited life expectancy and I want to cherish every moment that Jessica has."

She said Jessica has taken to the machine "like a duck to water" and has progressed far beyond expectations, exhibiting a great deal of intelligence.

"She's as happy as Larry now. She's just having a whale of a time," she said. "All I can hear is her giggling away to herself with the machine. She's having great fun."

Lynn Marie is delighted that the device is portable and can be attached to Jessica's wheelchair, which means she will eventually be able to talk to people on the street during outings.

She said the unknown person who donated the device "is classed as one of our family now" and that anonymous person is Jessica's "guardian angel".

"All I can say is I cannot thank that person enough," Lynn Marie said. "This has opened so many doors for Jessica and has made me the happiest mother in the world.

"Elliott is over the moon."

Yesterday, she spoke of her joy on the Sean O'Rourke radio show.

"We are delighted to think there was somebody there with a generous heart and a decent bank account who could write the cheque for it," said O'Rourke.

An RTE spokeswoman said later: "We are thrilled to hear that, on foot of her interview with Sean, this generous offer has been made.

"We look forward to hearing how Jessica and Lynn Marie's lives will be so dramatically improved as a result of the eye sensory machine."

The broadcaster had originally invited Lynn Marie in February to speak on behalf of Family Carers Ireland and its new campaign, Share The Care - Nobody Should Care Alone.
Appeal for help: Jack McNiffe and his mother Aisling who is calling for a catch-up programme for the meningitis B vaccine. Photo: Gerry Mooney

Aisling McNiffe's son Jack is 11. He doesn't speak, has a severe to profound intellectual disability, is non-verbal, takes 18 different medications a day for a variety of serious health problems, is tube-fed, in a wheelchair and needs round-the-clock care.

Jack has Down Syndrome and a string of health conditions including a rare auto-inflammatory disease, arthritis, scoliosis and hip dysplasia (misalignment of the hip joint.)

Because he has Down Syndrome, Jack has been deemed medically at risk from meningitis - the National Immunisation Advisory Committee has recommended that children with Down Syndrome receive the meningitis B vaccine to protect them against this potentially fatal disease.

However, Jack, along with any other child born after October 1 last, is not entitled to get the meningitis B vaccine under the planned expansion of the Government's Childhood Vaccine Programme which allows for the introduction of the meningitis B vaccine for new-borns.

The introduction of the vaccine to the childhood immunisation programmes means that all children with Down Syndrome born on or after October 1, 2016 will automatically receive the vaccine - but there are no plans at this stage to introduce a catch-up programme for older children like Jack.

Ireland has the highest incidence of meningitis B disease in Europe. Up to 10pc of people affected will die from the disease, and studies show that one in five are left with devastating lifelong complications, including brain damage and hearing loss.

Down Syndrome Ireland believes the availability of the vaccine to children who have been deemed medically at risk should be backdated as a matter of urgency. Although prices vary, the vaccine is reportedly difficult to source and it is expensive.

Prices range from 136 to 260 per administration, going as high as 450 for just two doses.

"All of our children are immune-compromised and we believe that in these circumstances, the backdating of the vaccine for children with Down Syndrome would be essential," declares Pat Clarke, chief executive of Down Syndrome Ireland, who adds that if the Government cannot be persuaded to backdate the availability of the vaccine, the organisation will have to consider actively lobbying for it. "The Government must find some means of enabling this to happen. Essentially, by not doing it, the Government is putting the lives of children with Down Syndrome at risk.

"We are hoping to persuade the Government of the importance of this, and if it does not happen we would have to consider a lobbying campaign to ensure the Government will change its mind."

Jack, however, is even more at risk than other children with Down Syndrome, says Aisling McNiffe - he also has CINCA (Chronic Infantile Neurological Cutaneous Articular Syndrome), a rare auto-inflammatory and degenerative disease.

In fact, says his mother Aisling, he is the only case known worldwide with both Down Syndrome and CINCA (also known as Nomid) syndrome.

At the time of his birth, Aisling recalls, Jack was believed to be the first case in Ireland with CINCA.

He is immune-deficient and, furthermore, on medication which suppresses the immune system, warns his worried mother.

"According to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee Guidelines, Jack should get the vaccine," she says, adding that she has contacted the HSE and written to the Minister for Health.

"I feel if something is advised, it should be freely given. I cannot afford to buy the vaccine privately but I feel I will have to do it," says the 43-year-old former flight attendant, who is now a separated mother-of-two and a full-time carer for Jack at the family home in Ardclough, Co Kildare.

CINCA brings with it a variety of health problems - Jack, who spent the first three years of life in Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, gets strong headaches, is extremely light-sensitive and nose-sensitive, suffers from arthritis, frequent temperatures, skin rashes and abdominal cramps.

"If you have Down Syndrome you are immune-compromised but on top of that, Jack has CINCA so he is also having high doses of medication," says Aisling, who also has a 12-year-old daughter, Molly.

As part of Jack's Down Syndrome he has congenital heart disease. He had closed heart surgery at six weeks and open heart surgery at 10 weeks, and will require further surgery.

His mother adds that he has chronic lung disease and was on oxygen for more than three years. Jack, who now attends a special school, also has low muscle tone and gets frequent chest infections.

"He is on 18 different medications, which means he is immune-suppressed.

"I really want him to get this vaccine. He is in a wheelchair and is tube-fed 24 hours of the day so he is vulnerable. The vaccine is not available to him and it definitely should be," says Aisling.

"It would be a great weight off my mind for him to be given this vaccine.

"I feel I am speaking out for the whole special needs community when I say that if something is recommended, it should be given," she adds.

It makes sense to backdate the vaccine, argues Dr Ronan Leahy, consultant in Paediatric Immunology at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin and the Children's University Hospital in Temple Street - and not just for children with Down Syndrome, but also for other children with immune deficiencies that leave them prone to meningitis B.

"We know there are older children who are quite vulnerable to meningococcal disease and they should be getting the vaccine.

"It is only sensible to include them in the vaccination programme. It would be good value for money as they would be less likely to present with the disease as a result of having it."

World Meningitis Day is on April 24. The theme for this year's event is '24 Hours - Trust Your Instincts'. For more information, visit meningitis.org.
A mother whose daughters were killed by her husband in a murder-suicide believes they would be alive today if she had been involved in his mental health treatment.

John Butler, who had been receiving treatment for depression, took his own life after he killed daughters Ella (2) and Zoe (6) in the family home.

Speaking at a symposium on media coverage of mental health stories at the University of Limerick, Una Butler called for accurate and sensitive reporting of murder-suicide cases.

"I can understand that people just cannot comprehend or don't want to read about it and that is why it is so important that when murder-suicide cases are being reported on that it should be reported accurately and in a sensitive manner - no sensationalising, no glamorising of the events," Ms Butler said.

"People and society have a right to know how often these cases are happening."

Ms Butler has advocated for reform of the Mental Health Act since the tragic deaths of her family in Ballycotton, Co Cork, on November 16, 2010.

Read more: Mother who lost two daughters and husband in tragedy: 'I believe the healthcare professionals have got this wrong'

She believes her children would "still be alive" had she been involved in her husband's treatment - and said she "turned to the media" in seeking a detailed investigation.

She said: "Why is a person treated in isolation?

"They're not living in isolation, and the family are there to support them."

She added: "I believe Zoe and Ella would be alive today.

"My husband (had) never hurt me; he was suffering with a psychiatric illness.

"I believe had I been involved in his treatment...he may have been treated differently.

"I should have been educated about his illness."
Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: The judges were impressed with the kitchen which made use of the local parish hall's old floors. Photo Credit RTE

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: The living area in Louise and Dominic's home in Clare Photo Credit: RTE

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: The bedroom in Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare home. Photo: RTE

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: The couple split their time between London and Ireland

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: Judge Declan O'Donnell was thrilled with the 'floating' fireplace. Photo credit: RTE

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: A staircase made from old railway sleepers leads way to the couple's comfortable bedroom Photo Credit: RTE

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage:The cottage once belonged to Louise's grandmother in Co Clare.

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare cottage: The judges were impressed with the kitchen which made use of the local parish hall's old floors. Photo Credit RTE

Louise McGuane and Dominic McCarthy's Co Clare Home: Judge Declan O'Donnell was thrilled with the frameless picture window in the Co. Clare cottage. Photo credit: RTE

Entrepreneur Louise McGuane and her husband Dominic McCarthy renovated an old cottage which once belonged to her grandmother

A couple who split their time between London and Ireland impressed the judges of RTE's Home of the Year, who said the picture windows and "cathedral" ceilings within the County Clare cottage gave them "goosebumps".

Entrepreneur Louise McGuane and her husband Dominic McCarthy renovated an old cottage which once belonged to the Clare native's grandmother, with a vision to pair modern architecture with the old spirit of the home.

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Speaking on the programme Louise said the home was a perfect combination of old and modern, and pays testament to her travels around the world.

"The job that I had meant that I was travelling extensively. I got to see all these beautiful places, pick up bits of art and buy nice antiques but I had nowhere to put them," she said.

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The intimate kitchen of the cottage thrilled judges Declan O'Donnell, Hugh Wallace and Deirdre Whelan who were impressed by the couple's use of wood salvaged from the local parish hall, which still bears stiletto marks.

"I danced on that floor, my parents danced on that floor, my grandparents danced on that floor," said Louise.

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The kitchen is a contrast to much of the house, with its low ceilings and stainless steel counters. A large chalkboard wall personalises the kitchen, a touch which pleased the judges.

Upon entering the home, the couple's focus on volume and height is evident with double height ceilings stretching to the roof of the build, the hall finished with large flagstone tiles.

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A short angled hallway leads to the couple's open plan living and kitchen space, of which the large picture window framing the outside field is the focus. Architect Declan O'Donnell said the feature seamlessly connected the outdoors with the home's interior.

A 'floating' fireplace is the centre piece of the room, with a chimney breast stretching the length of the room's "cathedral" height ceiling.

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A staircase made from old railway sleepers leads way to the couple's comfortable bedroom at the top of the home, which sits next to a cosy bathroom flooded with natural light.

Interior designer Deirdre Whelan said the home gave her goosebumps, while Declan O'Donnell said he was ready to move in.

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"The sheer volume of the rooms and that massive picture window it took my breath away. This home is really at one with nature," she said.

Giving the home a score of nine out of ten, Declan said: "There is a sense of home here and to accomplish that within such crisp architecture is what makes this home special. I'm ready to move in."

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The home will now be entered into the final of RTE's Home of the Year.

The final of Home of the Year is broadcast on RTE One next Thursday at 8.30pm and you can also catch up on the RTE Player.
IT started off two years ago as a novel initiative to celebrate one of Irelands most rugged and best-loved western counties.

But this years Mayo Day celebration has turned into a full-on bank holiday weekend festival of cultural and historical events aimed at drawing in visitors from across Ireland  whatever their county colours.

Mayo Day, which this year is spread over three days, will see arts, history, music and street theatre come alive to celebrate a special sense of 'Mayo-ness' at home and abroad.

Enda Kenny might be the local celebrity but this years guest of honour is French ambassador to Ireland Jean-Pierre Thebault, as Mayo celebrates its 200-plus year connections to France.

As well as a local and global campaign to light buildings in the colours of the western county, Mayo pubs will be serving green and red cocktails from April 28 through April 30.

To add to the excitement, local groups and historical societies will also be staging full-blooded re-enactments of past battles against the English.

Westport will stage an outdoor concert and fireworks spectacular while Ballina and Westport will also host free concerts  all coming under the social media hashtag #MayoDay.

In 1798, French General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert led a military force to Ireland in a doomed effort to overthrow English rule. A major academic conference at GMIT in Castlebar will mark the event and feature free talks from experts and academics based at the famous Sorbonne University in Paris, NUIG and Trinity College Dublin.

The weekend will also see a series of formal wreath-laying ceremonies to commemorate the dead of 1798 and a look back at the life of Mayo man John Moore, who General Humbert appointed the first-ever President of Connacht.

Organisers Mayo County Council have ensured that the bank holiday weekend programme is packed with plenty of family-friendly events that will bring culture and history to life  for locals and tourists.

Castlebar will experience a French takeover throughout the weekend with live French music, food, street theatre for children and historical battle re-enactments taking place in period costume.

Key highlights include:

* A Living History Village with people in 18th century costume and a battle re-enactment of the Races of Castlebar

* An Irish and French Street Spectacle on Sunday

* The Larbre de La Liberte Conference, at GMIT with speakers including Dr. Sylvie Kleinman of Trinity College, Mathieu Ferradou of the Paris-Sorbonne University and Dr. Adrian Frazier of NUI Galway.

* Street theatre for children and a string of other activities including Up, Up and Away  a self-guided family workshop to make a hot-air balloon, a mode of travel which General Humbert was apparently very fond of.

Other events across Mayo include a live outdoor concert in the Military Quarter, Ballina, featuring Ryan Sheridan and the Gig Rig at the Quay in Westport which will be followed by a spectacular fireworks display at 10pm.

For more information on the festival's line-up visit www.mayo.ie
Dundalk based data analytics and diagnostics intelligence firm 'Diaceutics' announced 30 new jobs across the company which specialises in the integration of diagnostic testing into drug launch programmes.

The jobs, which will be filled by year-end 2018, are aimed at 'facilitating further international growth for Diaceutics and allow it to expand its presence in all of its key markets including the US, Europe, Asia and South America.'

Peter Keeling, CEO confirmed the expansion of the workforce, saying: 'The announcement reflects Diaceutics' growing international influence in the commercialisation of precision medicine by revolutionising access to diagnostic data. In doing so, Diaceutics allows pharmaceutical companies to reach more patients that need to be on specific - and often life-saving - drugs by helping them better understand testing for specific illnesses and biomarkers.'

Since inception, Diaceutics has been involved in more than 200 drug launches and currently has a 60% share in the top 10 global markets. It currently counts 26 out of the world's top 30 pharmaceutical companies as clients and provides oversight of testing in 23 markets.

In order to build on its 60% growth last year, Diaceutics will create 30 extra jobs over the next two years in areas including global operations, marketing and data analysis, bringing its global team up to 100. The jobs will be created at its global headquarters in Ireland; US headquarters in Parsippany, New Jersey; as well as in satellite offices in Asia and South America.

Peter Keeling explained that 'testing is now at the heart of pharmaceutical companies' ability to identify the right patients for their new therapies. We are uniquely positioned to provide the global testing perspective that allows this identification and treatment of patients who will benefit from specific and often life-saving drugs.'

He added: 'To put the importance of what we do into context, we have put structures in place that each year help 48,000 cancer patients in the US and EU get biomarker testing and therefore potentially gain access to the right drug for their specific condition.'

He highlighted that the company has been growing by an average of 60% per annum for the past three years expect that trajectory to continue.

'To facilitate that, we will require a number of new team members in key roles over the next two years. Some 70% of new cancer drug launches will be diagnostics-dependent in the next five years. Pharma will be relying on us to show them how they can maximise their market share in what is going to become an increasingly profitable area, and a hugely beneficial one to patients.

The CEO added: 'Diaceutics has positioned itself as a key partner for pharma to capitalise on the unique opportunity to use diagnostics intelligence to roll out precision medicine.'
The Forest Owners Co-op is holding an information meeting at the Riverside Park Hotel, Macroom, at 8pm on Thursday, May 11, to brief private owners on Chain of Custody requirements, how they will affect them and the most effective way of addressing the issue.

Speakers will include Karl Coggins (Assistant Principal, Forest Service) John Casey (Forest Advisor, Teagasc) Conor McSweeney (GP Wood) Eugene Curran (Forest Service, West Cork) and Michael Greaney (Participant, Certification Pilot Project). All private forest owners are welcome.

Forest certification programmes typically require that forest management practices conform to existing environmental and biodiversity laws. The two largest international forest certification programmes are the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Chain of Custody certification tracks the certified material through the production process - from the forest to the consumer, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution. It provides evidence that certified material in a certified product originates from certified forests.

The United Nations Market Review reported that companies that produced or traded in certified forest products often had a market advantage during the recent financial crisis because, in a buyers market, buyers could be more selective in choosing their sources of supply.

The largest supplier of wood to the processing sector in Ireland, Coillte, is Chain of Custody certified. However timber from the private sector is expected to exceed Coillte's output in the near future.

Ireland's forestry industry is export driven with overseas markets demanding certified timber, it is critical that access to these markets is maintained, according to the Forest Service which has initiated a pilot programme to implement certification in what the service sees as a milestone for Irish forest owners.
Three men are due back in court in Fermoy this Friday after they were charged at the weekend with drug offences following the discovery by gardai of a cannabis growhouse in the town with plants with a potential street value of 250,000.

The three foreign nationals were brought before a special sitting of Mallow District Court on Easter Monday following a garda operation by officers in Fermoy and Portlaoise which led to the discovery of a growhouse with 320 plants in Fermoy on Saturday evening.

Zoran Spasich (56) a Serbian travelling on a New Zealand passport, Hong Kong-born British citizen Kim Cheung Johnson Liao (51) and Malaysian Kim Wong (38) were all charged with a single drugs offence in relation to the discovery of the growhouse in Fermoy.

All three men, whose addresses were given as No Fixed Abode, were charged with possession of cannabis for sale or supply at Weston, Rathealy Road, Fermoy on April 15th contrary to Section 15 of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Mr Wong was also charged with a second offence of failing to produce a valid passport or equivalent document to establish his identity when requested to do so by Det Garda David Moynihan at Weston, Rathealy Road, Fermoy on April 15th, contrary to Section 12 of the Immigration Act.

Det Garda Moynihan gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution in relation to Mr Wong and told the court that the accused made no reply to either of the two charges when they were put to him after caution.

Det Garda Tom Ryan gave evidence of arrest charge and caution in relation to Mr Spasich and told the court that he made no reply to the single charge against him while the court heard similar evidence that Mr Laoi made no reply when the single charge against him was put to him.

Insp Mick Corbett said that gardai were objecting to bail and seeking a remand in custody for all three men but solicitors for the three, John Hussey, Cathal Lombard and Eddie Burke said each of their clients were not seeking bail at this point.

Insp Corbett said that gardai were seeking a remand in custody for all three to appear at Fermoy District Court on Friday, April 21 and Judge David Waters remanded all three in custody to appear again on that date.

Judge Waters also asked Insp Corbett to set out in writing garda objections to bail for the three men in advance of the hearing in Fermoy on Friday and Insp Corbett confirmed that he would do that, and supply the objections to the three defendants' solicitors.

Solicitors for the three men also applied for free legal aid for their clients and Insp Corbett indicated that gardai had no objection to free legal aid as gardai were satisfied that they did not have the means to pay for legal advice and Judge Waters granted free legal aid to all three accused.

Mr Burke also asked that his client, Mr Wong, would be examined by a doctor at Cork Prison as he was on a number of prescription medicines and Judge Waters directed that Mr Wong be so examined by medical staff at the jail.

Mr Wong was assisted during the 15 minute hearing by an interpreter fluent in Cantonese Chinese and Judge Waters also agreed to a defence application that an interpreter being present in Fermoy on April 21 to assist both Mr Wong and Mr Laoi whose first language is Mandarin Chinese.

Det Garda Ryan told the court that Mr Spasich had no need of an interpreter as his English was good, having lived in New Zealand for some 18 years prior to his arrival in Ireland. Mr Spasich confirmed that he understood the proceedings during the court hearing.
A classic U2 hit which features Arklow Shipping Silver Band on the backing track has been re-released and had its world exclusive on the Dave Fanning Show on Easter Sunday.

'Red Hill Mining Town' which featued on the Joshua Tree in 1986 is also part of the 2017 Joshua Tree tour and Bono's vocals on the track have been re-recorded and remastered.

'Arklow Shipping Silver Band had the privilege of playing on the backing track for this song in 1986 and while the band were not very prominent on the original they are featured much more on the remix. The recording was done in the Windmill Lane Recording Studios in Dublin over a couple of days,' said PRO Kevin Fitzgerald.

The song was inspired by the National Union of Mineworker's 1984 strike in England, which was due to the National Coal Board choosing to close uneconomic mines. The strike at its height involved over 142,000 mineworkers, and the strike lasted from March 6,1984 until March 3, 1985.

A music video for the song was filmed in early 1987 by Neil Jordan, on a set representing a coal mine, but the video remained unreleased until 2007. The song was once considered for a single, but the band chose to go with other songs instead, and indeed, 'Red Hill Mining Town' is the one song that the band has not yet played live in concert.

'It was a privilege for the Arklow Shipping Silver Band to play on the backing track for this newly released single and adds further to the wide reputation the Arklow band,' Kevin said.

'Red Hill Mining Town' being released as a single for Record Store Day on Saturday, April 22. It has also been loaded at Apple Music, for digital release also.
Britain's Prince Harry leaves after opening the Global Academy, a state school funded by a broadcasting group to train young people for careers in the media industry, in Hayes, near London, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/John Sibley

Britain's Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton attend the opening of the Global Academy, a state school funded by a broadcasting group to train young people for careers in the media industry, in Hayes, near London, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Dominic Lipinski/Pool

Since Prince Harry went public with his relationship with American actress Meghan Markle, he's only addressed it once, through Kensington Palace's initial written statement last November.

The relationship is becoming increasingly serious with reports that the Suits actress is "waved right through" by security at Kensington Palace.

She has also closed her lifestyle website and is ending some of her business partnerships as she steps closer to becoming fully integrated within the royal circle.

So as their relationship intensifies, so does public interest and it was only a matter of time before Prince Harry was directly asked about it.

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He was recently asked by Sky News reporter Rhiannon Mills if his happiness can be contributed to the "lady in his life" during an interview for his mental health awareness campaign, Hands Together.

"You seem in a really good place at the moment, you seem very focused on what you want to do, but you also seem to be very happy. Is that partly to do with having a lady in your life?" the reporter asked.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Britain's Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton attend the opening of the Global Academy, a state school funded by a broadcasting group to train young people for careers in the media industry, in Hayes, near London, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Dominic Lipinski/Pool Britain's Prince Harry leaves after opening the Global Academy, a state school funded by a broadcasting group to train young people for careers in the media industry, in Hayes, near London, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/John Sibley / Facebook

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Prince Harry at this point directed the conversation back to the Heads Together campaign that he's doing press for this week, along with Prince William and Kate Middleton.

"I think, I think the point that we've learnt over this campaign is that if you talk, if you're able and comfortable enough to be able to talk about certain issues, certain experiences, then you come out of it a far better person," he said.

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"But you're in a good place at the moment?" Mills tried again.

"Yeah, of course. I'm in a good place. We're all in a good place and we want the UK to be in a good place as well," Harry finished as he closed the line of questioning down with politeness and grace.

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A fairytale or a nightmare?

Once upon a time, there was a man named Mr Cameron who was the ruler of the United Kingdom.

One day Mr Cameron decided to ask all the people in the kingdom if they still wanted to be part of a big club called the European Union.

Just over half of the people said: No we dont, thank you very much! The rest said: Yes we do, we do , we do!

So that was it. Goodbye Europe, and goodbye Mr Cameron.

But the tale was not to end here. Along came Mrs May. She was sad because nobody could agree if there should be a hard Brexit, a soft Brexit or a red, white and blue Brexit.

So to try and make sure everybody would still be friends, she called a snap general election.

Now all the people had to decide whether they wanted Mrs May, Mr Corbyn or someone else to rule the country.

And who did they choose? Well thats a story for another day

Jeremy Corbyn read to kids as he visited the Brentry Childrens Centre on the campaign trail today. This almost certainly wasnt the story he actually told.
Julian Assange has not left Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012

Julian Assange's arrest is a "priority" for United States authorities, America's attorney general has said.

Prosecutors are believed to be preparing or considering charges against WikiLeaks and its founder, according to US media reports.

WikiLeaks has a reputation for publicly posting leaked information on US government activities.

Last month WikiLeaks released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyber-espionage tools for breaking into computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.

Mr Assange has not left Ecuador's embassy, tucked behind Harrods in London's Knightsbridge, since he walked through the door seeking political asylum in June 2012.

He is wanted in Sweden over a sex allegation dating back to 2010, but he fears he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he complies with Swedish authorities.

US attorney general Jeff Sessions was asked in a press conference whether it was a priority for him to arrest Mr Assange.

He said: "We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks.

"This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.

"So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail."

According to CNN, authorities are preparing to seek his arrest.

But Mr Assange's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he had not been made aware of any developments.

He added: "The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher.

"Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing."

When approached by the Press Association, the US Department of Justice declined to comment on the reports.
French security forces secure the area around the Champs Elysses after the gun attack that left a police officer and the attacker dead. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

One police officer was killed and two wounded on the Champs-Elysees last night by a gunman believed to be carrying a Kalashnikov rifle, prompting French prosecutors to open a terror investigation.

The shooting in Paris came just days before the first round of the country's presidential election and was allegedly carried out by a 39-year-old man from a suburb east of Paris who was previously known to the security services, according to reports.

Hundreds of police flooded the area around the Champs-Elysees after the attack which left one officer dead, according to police sources.

French prosecutors said they had opened a counterterrorism investigation, while a French interior ministry spokesman said there may be more than one attacker and the police had been "deliberately targeted" though the motive remained unconfirmed.

Raids

Police immediately began a series of raids in Paris last night amid reports that a second assailant may have escaped the scene.

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There were reports last night that French authorities had issued an arrest warrant for a Belgian man said to have entered the country in the preceding days.

President Francois Hollande, who said he was convinced the attack was terrorism-related, scheduled an emergency meeting for this morning following the attack, which comes after two men were reportedly arrested yesterday in Marseille in the final stages of preparing "several" attacks.

Donald Trump, the US president, said: "Our condolences from the people of the United States to the people of Paris. It looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It never ends."

Initial reports from the French police union said that the officer were killed while sitting in a car at a red light by an attacker wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

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Read more: Paris police officer killed and two wounded in suspected terror attack

One eye-witness said the attacker jumped out of a car and began shooting "with a Kalashnikov" hitting the officers.

He was shot as he walked along the street towards other policemen.

Forensic officers were last night examining a grey Audi thought to have been driven by the gunman.

Expand Close Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on the Champs Elysees. Photo: GETTY / Facebook

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Whatsapp Police officers secure the area after a gunman opened fire on the Champs Elysees. Photo: GETTY

Police helicopters were seen flying low over central Paris, apparently part of a follow-up police operation, as authorities threw a massive security cordon around the area.

Reports said the first shots were heard outside the branch of Marks & Spencer in one of the world's most renowned shopping districts.

The attack came just three days before the first round of France's presidential election which has been marked by the resurgence of Marine Le Pen, the French National Front leader, who has campaigned heavily on the potential security threat posed by immigration.

Election

And presidential candidate Francois Fillon last night called for the election to be suspended in the wake of the attack.

Expand Close Anti-terror officers on the Champs-Elysees. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann / Facebook

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Whatsapp Anti-terror officers on the Champs-Elysees. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

There was immediate speculation on social media that the attack would benefit Ms Le Pen, particularly if it was confirmed to have an Islamist connection or motive.

However, analysts noted that in the past populist politicians have not received a polling bounce following terror attacks, including the attack on the Bataclan theatre in 2015 that led to the imposition of a state of emergency.

During the televised debate Ms Le Pen repeated her demands to take France out of the Schengen free movement zone and introduce tighter immigration controls. She wrote: "The influx of migrants is in front of us. Control our borders, otherwise we won't stop this wave!"

Later, as news of the attack emerged, Ms Le Pen tweeted to express "solidarity" with the forces of law and order.

Her stance was echoed by the centre-right candidate Francois Fillon, who paid tribute "to the security forces who give their lives to protect ours".
Participants attend a hearing on the justice ministry request to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses at Russia's Supreme Court in Moscow on April 20, 2017.AFP PHOTO / Vasily MAXIMOVVASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty Images

Russia's Supreme Court has banned the Jehovah's Witnesses from operating in the country, accepting a request from the justice ministry that the religious organisation be considered an extremist group.

The court ordered the closure of the group's Russian headquarters and its 395 local chapters, as well as the seizure of its property.

The Interfax news agency quoted justice ministry lawyer Svetlana Borisova in court as saying the Jehovah's Witnesses "pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security".

The Jehovah's Witnesses claim more than 170,000 adherents in Russia. The group has come under increasing pressure over the past year, including a ban on distributing literature deemed to violate Russia's anti-extremism laws.

Ms Borisova also said Jehovah's Witnesses' opposition to blood transfusions violates Russian health care laws.

Yaroslav Sivulsky, a spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, said in a statement they are "greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity."

Jehovah's Witnesses said they would appeal the ruling.

Human Rights Watch criticised Thursday's decision as an impediment to religious freedom in Russia.

"The Supreme Court's ruling to shut down the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is a terrible blow to freedom of religion and association in Russia," said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The rights group also expressed concern that if the ruling takes effect, Jehovah's Witnesses could face criminal prosecution and punishment ranging from fines to prison time.

AP
The Russian military has questioned the conclusions of the international chemical weapons watchdog that victims of the April 4 suspected chemical attack in Syria were exposed to sarin or a similar toxin.

Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov issued a statement yesterday questioning how the samples were collected and how the analysis could have been done so quickly.

His comments came as France promised proof 'within days' that the Syrian regime carried out the chemical attack which killed at least 90 people.

But Mr Konashenko said only by carrying out an objective investigation on the spot can the truth be established about what happened in the Khan Sheikhun area of Syria's southern Idlib province and who was responsible.

The US and many other nations have accused the Syrian government of responsibility.

Attack

Mr Assad has denied that he was behind the attack. Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal in 2013.

Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said on Wednesday that the results "from four OPCW-designated laboratories indicate exposure to sarin or a sarin-like substance".

The findings supported earlier testing by Turkish and British laboratories.

Israel's military yesterday said it believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces still possess several tonnes of chemical weapons.

A senior Israeli military officer told reporters that "a few tonnes of chemical weapons" remain in the hands of Assad's forces.

Some reports put the amount at up to three tonnes.

In a 2013 agreement brokered by Russia and the United States, Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on April 6 that he was "100pc certain" that the attack was "directly ordered and planned by Assad".

He did not elaborate on how he reached that conclusion.

France yesterday said it will provide proof within days that president Bashar al-Assad's regime carried out the attack.

Foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said: "We will provide proof that the regime did indeed organise these strikes with chemical weapons."

He said he could not provide evidence now because analysis is still under way, but added: "In a few days I'll be able to provide proof."

French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon called on the United Nations to punish those behind the attack and said "whoever uses chemical weapons should be condemned".

Meanwhile, the UN's chief humanitarian adviser for Syria says aid agencies have been able to reach fewer besieged people with relief this year compared to the same period last year.

Speaking in Geneva, Jan Egeland said the front lines have shifted but civilian suffering has "remained the same" in 2017.

Of nearly five million Syrians living in besieged or hard-to-reach areas, agencies have only been able to reach 564,000 this year, according to Mr Egeland.

The Syrian government and rebels are allowing up to 30,000 people to leave areas besieged by their forces over the coming two months in a deal critics say amounts to demographic rearrangement.

The UN is not supervising that deal.

Mr Egeland said no Syrians should be forced out of their homes through starvation or siege.
Donald Trump meets with Sarah Palin, Kid Rock, and Ted Nugent in the White House for dinner (Photo:Sarah Palin on Facebook)

Donald Trump might not have realised that when he invited Sarah Palin to a White House dinner, she would bring along a man who had publicly called for the death of his predecessor.

The former governor of Alaska and 2008 running mate of presidential candidate Senator John McCain decided to bring as her guest the rock musician Ted Nugent.

Best known for the song "Cat Scratch Fever," Nugent said in 2012 that Barack Obama should "suck on my machine gun". He added: "Hey Hillary [Clinton], you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b****."

Mr Nugent also called Mr Obama a sub-human mongrel.

"Im going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people." (Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Kid Rock meet Trump in the Oval Office) pic.twitter.com/wE8ww5tZ7D  Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) April 20, 2017

Ms Palin also invited Kid Rock, another musician who supported Mr Trump during the 2016 campaign and said that the country should let the business guy run the country like a business.

The former governor herself called Mr Trump the "golden wrecking ball" as a compliment during a 2016 Republican campaign rally, and lambasted the media for not reporting more on Ms Clinton's health.

Of course, Twitter took immediate notice a picture from the dinner posted to social media by Mr Nugent's wife. The White House has yet to issue any kind of statement on the dinner party.

CNN political commentator Keith Boykin quoted Mr Trump's campaign promise.

Jon Favreau, Mr Obama's former speech writer, mocked CNN's Fareed Zakaria's comment about how Mr Trump "became President" after the US missile strike in Syria on 6 April.

Ms Palin posted a series of pictures taken in the Oval Office on Facebook as well.
It's a tragic loss to cinema history: according to 'Scent of A Woman' star Chris O'Donnell, Donald Trump filmed a short scene for the 1992 film - but the footage was later cut.

O'Donnell, who was speaking on Conan O'Brien's chat show in the US, explained that Trump was 'cast' in the Al Pacino film as a condition for allowing the filmmakers to use a hotel he owned at the time, The Plaza in New York.

Luckily for fans of Trump's acting, the President was able to indulge his thespian side a few months later, in 'Home Alone 2: Lost In New York', in which he played himself.

He has also appeared, as himself, in a number of other titles, including 1996's 'Eddie', 'Zoolander' (2001), and 'Two Weeks' Notice' (2002), in which he appeared in a scene with Hugh Grant.

O'Donnell was unable to confirm exactly why Trump's scene in Scent of A Woman was cut from the film.
North Korean soldiers get off the backs of trucks as they arrive at the Central Zoo in Pyongyang yesterday. Photo: Wong May-E

Russia has moved heavy military equipment towards its border with North Korea amid fears of a military clash between Pyongyang and the United States.

A flurry of military activity in Russia's far east came as the UN Security Council condemned North Korea's latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its "highly destabilising behaviour".

In a unanimous statement, the council demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests" and said Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond".

North Korea carried out a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after displaying missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said yesterday: "In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes."

The threat appeared to be a response to comments by Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, who said the US was looking for ways to "bring pressure" on the North Korean regime into giving up its nuclear ambitions.

It was revealed earlier this week that a US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Carl Vinson would spend another 30 days at sea before heading towards North Korean waters.

Last week Donald Trump, the US president, said he had ordered an "armada"

into the northwest Pacific in a show of force designed to deter North Korea from further missile and nuclear weapons test.

The US defence ministry laster acknowledged the ships had actually travelled into the Indian Ocean to carry out manoeuvres with Australian forces, and only began their journey north recently.

Mr Trump has called on China, Pyongyang's only ally, to rein in North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but has threatened to act alone to "solve" the problem if necessary.

Residents and local media in Russia's far east reported large military convoys travelling in the direction of the North Korean border since the weekend, in what appear to be contingency plans to contain fallout from a possible military clash between the United States and North Korea.

A video published by a local news site showed a train carrying 12 tracked vehicles, including Tor surface-to-air missile systems, towards Vladivostok.

Missiles

Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the US and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after Sunday's failed missile test.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has been accused of "shocking ignorance" after asserting that Korea "used to be a part of China" shortly after a meeting with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.

And the White House yesterday raised the possibility of Donald Trump meeting Pope Francis during the US president's trip to Italy in late May, although it stressed nothing has been scheduled.

"We will be reaching out to the Vatican to see if an audience with the pope can be accommodated," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
The group have been released into the custody of Iraq's interior ministry (Maya Alleruzzo/AP)

Twenty-six hostages, including members of Qatar's ruling family, have been released after 16 months in captivity in Iraq.

Iraqi officials said they were released into the custody of the interior ministry.

The group was kidnapped in December 2015 from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq.

The abduction sparked more than a year of negotiations between Iran, Qatar and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, resulting in millions of pounds in payments to Sunni and Shiite factions.

No group had claimed responsibility for the abduction, though local Arabic media frequently cited suspicions that it was the Iraqi Shiite group Kata'eb Hezbollah. The group denies it was behind the kidnapping.

Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi confirmed earlier this week that a Qatari delegation was in the country to help with the group's release. The nationalities of the other hostages in the group have not been made public.

In April 2016, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said one of the hunters and an Asian worker on the trip had been freed.

An Iraqi security official said the group will leave Baghdad later on Friday.

AP
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, right, with US counterpart James Mattis in Tel Aviv (Jonathan Ernst/Pool photo via AP)

Syria still possesses chemical weapons, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said as he warned against the banned munitions being used again.

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Israel, Mr Mattis said: "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all."

Although he did not give details on the amount of weapons held, he added: "I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike."

He also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft - perhaps a result of concerns in Syria about additional US strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Israeli defence officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of president Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Speaking alongside Mr Mattis, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said: "We have 100% information that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels".

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government.

Russia, a top Assad ally, has asserted a Syrian government air strike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mr Mattis in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

"We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," he said.

He referred to the US cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's "forthright deeds" against the use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has been locked in a six-year civil war against an array of opposition forces. The fighting has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syria's population.

AP
Iran is failing to fulfil the "spirit" of its nuclear deal with world powers, US President Donald Trump has declared, setting an ominous tone for his forthcoming decision about whether to pull America out of the landmark agreement.

As he often had during his election campaign, Mr Trump ripped into the deal struck by Iran, the US and other world powers in 2015 and said "it shouldn't have been signed". Yet he pointedly stopped sort of signalling whether or not the US would stay in.

"They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that," he said of the Iranians on Thursday, though he did not mention any specific violations.

Earlier this week, the administration certified to Congress than Iran was complying - at least technically - with the terms of the deal, clearing the way for Iran to continue enjoying sanctions relief in the near term.

Mr Trump and his top officials have been walking a narrow line as they seek to show an aggressive stance. While disparaging the nuclear deal and accusing Iran of fomenting violence and terrorism throughout the Middle East, Mr Trump has avoided committing to abandoning the agreement, a move that would be staunchly opposed by US businesses and European allies.

Yet the president seems keenly aware that his indecisiveness about the deal's future is a step back from his campaign declaration that as president he would rip it up or renegotiate.

He said of Iran: "I think they are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed."

Under the deal, brokered during the Obama administration, Iran agreed to roll back key aspects of its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from certain economic sanctions.

Critics have said it is unfathomable that the USwould grant sanctions relief to Tehran while it continues testing ballistic missiles, violating human rights and supporting extremist groups elsewhere in the Middle East.

By design, the nuclear deal does not address those Western grievances, meaning that Iran can be in compliance even as it violates UN resolutions and remains a US-designated state sponsor of terrorism. The US has continued to punish Tehran for those activities with non-nuclear sanctions.

Mr Trump has not given a timeline for when his administration's review of Iran policy - including whether to stick with the deal - will be complete. But the US must decide next month whether to renew a waiver so Iran can continue receiving sanctions relief.

At a news conference in Israel on Friday with Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was asked about Iran and the administration's position on the nuclear agreement.

He said Iranians "appear to be living up to their part of the agreement" and that "it continues to be in force".

"That in no way mitigates against or excuses the other Iranian activities in the region including the war in Yemen that grinds on and what they're doing in Syria" to keep President Bashar Assad in power," he said, adding: "But the agreement on nuclear issues still stands and that's all I can say about it."

In Washington, Mr Trump joined Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni for a White House news conference at a tense time for Europe, which was reeling from another deadly attack in Paris on Thursday ahead of a pivotal presidential vote in France on Sunday.

The French election is being seen as a bellwether for whether the move toward nationalism and separation from the European Union, displayed by Britain's move to leave the EU, will continue spreading to other European countries.

Mr Trump did not specifically weigh in on the French election, nor would he say outright whether he supported countries staying in the EU. But he said a strong Europe is "very, very important" to the US.

"We will help it be strong, and it's very much to everybody's advantage," he said.

AP
Donald Trump said progress was being made on health care reform

The White House has expressed confidence that a breakthrough on the troubled Republican health care bill can be achieved in Congress next week.

But house of Representatives Republican leaders, burned by a March debacle on the measure, were dubious and signs were scant that an emerging plan was gaining enough votes to succeed.

During a White House news conference, US president Donald Trump said progress was being made on a "great plan" for overhauling the nation's health care system, but provided no details.

"We have a good chance of getting it soon," he said. "I'd like to say next week."

The White House optimism is driven largely by a deal brokered by leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group aimed at giving states more flexibility to pull out of "Obamacare" provisions.

A senior White House official acknowledged that it was unclear how many votes Republicans had, but said House speaker Paul Ryan had told the White House that a vote could come together quickly.

But Republican politicians and aides to party leaders, conservatives and moderates alike, were sceptical that the House would vote next week on the health legislation.

They cited the higher priority of passing a spending bill within days to avert a government shutdown, uncertainty over details of the developing health agreement and a need to sell it to politicians.

Mr Trump said he planned to get "both" a health care deal and a spending bill.

Many Republicans also expressed doubts that the health care compromise would win over enough members to put the bill over the top, especially among moderates.

The bill would repeal Barack Obama's health care law and replace it with less generous subsidies and eased insurance requirements.

"Every time they move the scrimmage line, you risk losing other people who were 'Yes' but this changes them to a 'No'," congressman Dan Donovan said of attempts to win over one end of the party spectrum without losing votes from the other side.

The Staten Island centrist said he remained a No vote, partly because the legislation would increase Medicaid costs for New York City's five boroughs.

An outline of a deal has been crafted by Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who heads the hardline Freedom Caucus, and New Jersey's Tom MacArthur, a Tuesday Group leader.

US vice president Mike Pence also played a role in shaping that plan, Republicans say.

It would deliver a win to moderates by amending the Republican bill to restore Mr Obama's requirement that insurers cover specified services like maternity care.

But in a bid for conservative support, states would be allowed to obtain federal waivers to abandon that obligation.

In addition, states could obtain waivers to an Obama ban on insurers charging sick customers higher premiums than consumers who are healthy - a change critics argue would make insurance unaffordable for many.

To get those waivers, states would need to have high-risk pools - government-backed insurance for the most seriously ill people, a mechanism that has often failed for lack of sufficient financing.

"It looks to me like we're headed in the right direction," Dave Brat, a Freedom Caucus member, said.

He said that assuming the outline is translated into legislative text he backs and is added to the health care bill, he would now support the legislation and believes most of Freedom Caucus' three dozen members would also back it.

The Tuesday Group has about 50 members and does not necessarily vote as a bloc, and it is unclear how many colleagues Mr MacArthur would bring with him to such an agreement.

The White House is anxious to pass legislation quickly, partly because Mr Trump will probably hit his 100th day in office without a having signed a major piece of legislation.

In an interview, budget chief Mick Mulvaney said he was surprised at "the toxicity levels" that have divided the party over health care and hoped members' two-week break would prove "healing".

But House Republican leaders face the same problem that has plagued them for seven years of trying to concoct a plan for repealing Mr Obama's 2010 law: the party's conservatives and moderates are at odds over how to do it.

With Democrats solidly opposed, Republicans can lose no more than 21 House votes to prevail, and Mr Ryan short-circuited a planned vote last month because more than that would have defected.

That was a major embarrassment to Mr Ryan and Mr Trump, and House leaders are loath to bring a revised health care bill on to the floor unless they are convinced it would pass.

Mr Ryan sent a mixed message about the bill's prospects in remarks on Wednesday to reporters in London.

"It's difficult to do. We're very close," he said, adding: "It's just going to take us a little time."

AP
One young life snuffed out too soon shocked a city.

One young life snuffed out too soon devastated a community.

But that one young life lives on in those who knew him, calling his friends and family to do more to fix the fissures that rip society apart and led to his death.

Two Kannapolis Middle School students answered that call.

As part of an eighth-grade class project, Braden White and Jordan Anthony decided to hold a community cookout Friday, April 21, at Veterans Park to talk about racism and gun violence.

[The goal is] to stop racism and gun violence because one of my friends was shot, Jordan said. We want to honor him.

Kannapolis Middle School student Anthony Frazier was shot and killed while visiting family in Charlotte in January. The news rocked the entire school family and the community at large and clearly spurred these two young men to action.

So when eighth-graders faced an assignment to research a topic they were passionate about and create a plan of action, they seized the opportunity. Braden settled on racism and Jordan on gun violence, combining forces to create the Love Your Neighbor Community Cookout idea.

Some people in my class, in my school, sometimes can be racist to each other, Braden said. I want people to just get together and hang out.

When the duo originally pitched the idea to their teacher, Steve Fulton, he was a little taken aback by the scope of the project.

It was Bradens idea, Fulton said. He said racism is, like, this really complex thing, but one thing I found is if people get to know each other and talk to each other as people, then things like race or class or politicsall those things that divide usbecome much less of a thing because people see each other as people.

So their big idea was were going to get all these people from everywhere together at this giant party that were going to host. And I was like, whoa, you guys are thinking really big. Theres a lot thats going to go into this. But they seemed really committed.

So Fulton decided to ride it out and see where things went. He helped the pair craft an email to the park about renting the facilityand 15 drafts later they hit send. Braden took to social media, creating a Facebook event and asking people for donations.

The event itself positively hopped with music and activity. A DJ set the tone with upbeat pop songs, and everything from outdoor board games to corn hole, from face painting to giant coloring pages kept people busy and laughing.

Racism has been going on for years and years, and we need to stop it, Jordan said. Were bringing all the people from around the community together and sitting them together with free food.

Jordan and Braden said they hoped people who came out would take the time to talk to and really get to know each other, putting their differences aside.

That was the idea behind it, that people need to be able to talk to each other and socialize with each other and so what better way to do that than create an event with food for free that invites people of all backgrounds and all interests together for just the purpose of spending time together and hanging out and having a god time? Fulton said. And also under the umbrella of remembering the friend who they lost this year.

Braden and Jordan gathered a whole host of donated items to give away in an auction, and they plan to use that money to create a memorial to Anthony at the new middle school building thats opening next year. They also designed T-shirts for the event complete with a heart surrounded by different colored handsto show people coming together, Braden saidand the hashtag Antman, Anthonys nickname, along the bottom.

One thing I found is that eighth-graders, theyre really excited and passionate, and if they get ahold of an idea and I stay out of their way and just support them as they need it, theyre going to be able to accomplish far more than I initially thought they would be able to, Fulton said. That was the case in this one. Students are finding something important in the community and going out there and being active participants in making it better.
An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2018-19 will provide readers with an overview of the fundamentals o...
New Delhi, Apr 20 (IBNS): Seeking bigger market in eastern Europe, India will participate as a partner country in the prestigious MSV Brno Fair for technology and engineering in Czech Republic , in October this year.

The engagement would further cement trade and investment ties between the two countries, said Czech Republic Ambassador to India Milan Hovorka in New Delhi.

India had participated in this fair earlier as well. "India had a spectacular presence in 2012 edition of the fair in the dynamic city of Brno , with participation of 113 companies," Hovorka said expressing hope that this year again, a strong Indian participation would be visible at the fair.

He was speaking as a chief guest at the award ceremony of the EEPC India Northern Region, on April 19.

He said business and industry of both the countries can benefit immensely in the areas of cutting-edge sustainable technologies, pioneering research and development, world-class management, and leadership in environmental sustainability.

"Indias participation at MSV Brno International Engineering Fair is therefore a part of a sustained effort to strengthen our strategic relations with Czech Republics dynamic manufacturing sector." he said.

The Indian Commerce and Industry Ministry has implemented an initiative of technological up-gradation for boosting engineering manufacturing and exports through EEPC India as the lead implementing agency.

"The future growth and competitiveness will be anchored in productivity, innovation and the skills of our workforce. We have to gear up to move to the next phase of industrial development with technology up-gradation as our industry has to outperform not just domestic but global competitors." he said.

Bilateral trade relations between the two countries have been growing at a rapid pace. "I aspire the bilateral trade between the two countries to reach USD 1.3 billion by the end of this year", the Ambassador said.

Complimenting the award winnders, EEPC India Chairman T S Bhasin said engineering sector enjoys a major share of over 26.4% of total Indian merchandise export.

There has been a 195.5% rise in cumulative FDI flows into Indian Engineering Industry during 2010-2016 which testify the lucrativeness of this sector.

Now, the importance of engineering sector in India is reflected in the fact that it is by far the largest segment of Indian industry and the sector accounts for 25 percent of Indias total factories in the organized sector and contributes around 35 percent of total output in the country.

This sector is also the largest foreign exchange earner for India at present.Government is aiming at raising the share of Indias manufacturing sector from 16% in GDP to 25%.
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After Bahubali director S.S. Rajamouli, the protestors have made Sathyaraj aka Kattapa apologise for what he said nine years ago, because had he not done that, the movie wouldnt have released in Karnataka.

The whole nation was in a mood of celebration now that the magnum opus is finally all set to hit the theatres in a week, and the question that led them to scratch their heads for almost two years will be finally be answered. But Kannadigas were apparently not happy.

They were outraged by the comments that actor Sathyaraj made in 2008, during the Kaveri agitation, which had no connection with the movie. The speech which didnt even hog the limelight at that time has now surfaced online, creating a whole new controversy. So much so, that Rajamouli had to apologise and request to let his film be released in Karnataka for it involves the hard work of thousands of people.

An appeal to all the Kannada friends... pic.twitter.com/5rJWMixnZF  rajamouli ss (@ssrajamouli) April 20, 2017

Here's what Rajamouli said in his apology:

ytimg.com

But seemingly, the Kannadigas werent convinced. And so, today, actor Sathyaraj, who was reportedly given eight days to apologise, has seeked apology today.

For those who came in late, here is the speech that almost led to the ban of Bahubali in Karnataka:

Sathyaraj attended the meeting in 2008 where the farmers were demanding water from Karnataka. The actor, in his speech, urged the fans to stand up for their rights and not act like trees dogs urinate on. Pro-Kannada activists took offence of his dogs comment.

First, the Snapchat fiasco, then the Sonu Nigam controversy, when will we stop taking offense on everything and anything?
Just a few days ago we told you how PC is on a slay mission and her latest achievement was being on the Jury of the 16th Tribeca Festival. Even though PC has bid her emotional goodbye to New York after wrapping up Quantico season 2, she attended the 16th Tribeca Festival.

#setup #production #tribecafilmfestival #tff #tff2017 #2017 #work #redcarpet A post shared by Hannah Hibbart  (@hannahh8631) on Apr 20, 2017 at 8:38pm PDT

PC was appointed as one of the jury members for the ongoing 12-day annual film extravaganza, where she will be judging the documentary and student visionary competitions alongside Olivia Thirlby, Ryan Eggold, Brendan Fraser and Ileen Gallagher.

Today  / #priyankachopra #tribeca2017 A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Fan Page (@pcourheartbeat) on Apr 20, 2017 at 11:36am PDT

And after her jury duties, PC was hanging around with Hollywood biggies such as Robert DeNiro, Whoopi Goldberg and film producer and organizer of Tribeca Film Festival, Jane Tribeca. PC took to her social media accounts to post about her experience. She wrote,

Our Desi Girl PC is one Global celebrity now and we are proud!
Young men, who recently joined terror outfits after being disillusioned with the state machinery, are said to be roaming openly in Shopian district of south Kashmir, posing a tricky situation for security forces who have to be extremely cautious in dealing with them given the local support that they enjoy.

punemirro

A top police official told Mumbai Mirror on the condition of anonymity that these militants were moving around freely in Shopian, Kulgam, Pulwama and parts of Awantipora.

Mirror has also accessed video footage and photos, which show a large number of AK 47-toting youths at an orchard in Shopian.

Highly placed sources said that these youths have aligned with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahiddin. "The main advantage that these militants enjoy is the civilian support in areas of south Kashmir. The local residents offer them food and shelter.

reuters/representational image

The increasing incidents of stone-pelting and protests near encounter sites over the past year prove the growing support for them. There have been attempts by civilians to break down the security cordon several times," said the official.Police sources also said that the men also hold small gatherings to address the locals, urging them to "stay loyal to the movement". In one such gathering, the residents were told to adhere to protest programmes as charted out by the Hurriyat Conference.

Since the killing of Burhan Wani in south Kashmir on July 8 last year, around 200 local youths have joined militancy, said sources.

ap/representational image

Jammu and Kashmir police remain tight-lipped on the issue though, only saying they were assessing the reports of missing youths.

However, a top police official did concede that the ground situation was indeed worrisome, especially in south Kashmir. "The time to take action is now. The difference between present-day militancy and that during the early 1990s is that the ideological conviction of today's lot is far superior. These people are disillusioned by both mainstream and Hurriyat leaders and are losing hope in the system. Moreover, heightened social media activities are luring more and more youths to the terrorists' way of life," said the official.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has asked its affiliated schools across the country to shut down shops selling textbooks, stationery, school bags, uniforms, shoes and similar articles within their premises.

bccl/representational image

The board asked schools on Thursday to strictly comply with its affiliation byelaws and "not indulge in commercial activities".

This includes sales through "selected vendors".

The directive comes close on the heels of the board's effort to make schools follow NCERT textbooks and created an online link for schools to raise demand for these books in February this year.

bccl/representational image

CBSE's circular on "commercial activities" in schools said the board had received complaints from parents and other stakeholders on schools "indulging in commercial activities by way of selling of books and uniforms etc within the school premises or through selected vendors" despite being asked not to do so.

"There is a nexus of profiteering. But our affiliation byelaws are clear that schools are a community service and not commercial entities. It is mandatory for schools to adhere to the provisions," said R K Chaturvedi, chairperson, CBSE.

bccl/representational image

The circular asked school managements to strictly comply with its directive.

The board cited "rule 19.1 (ii) of CBSE affiliation byelaws" which mandates that managements shall ensure that the school is run as a community service and not as a business and that commercialisation will not take place in the school in any shape whatsoever.

bccl/representational image

CBSE said it had taken a "serious view" of violations of this rule. "Schools are directed to desist from the unhealthy practice of coercing parents to buy textbooks... from within the premises or from selected vendors only."

The board also reiterated that all affiliated schools are "required to follow directions given in its circular dated April 12, 2016, regarding use of NCERT/CBSE textbooks. Often the board receives reports and complaints regarding pressure exercised by schools on children and their parents to buy textbooks other than NCERT/CBSE."
Yes, it's that time of the year when you have awkward conversations with your boss and then with your peers, about your appraisal.

While all of us buckle up for some good bonus, never have I ever thought of getting a bike or a scooter as part of annual increment.

A diamond businessman in Gujarats Surat has given away scooters to his employees as a gift for the company doing well despite a sluggish economy.

Surat(Gujarat): Diamond businessman Laxmidas Vekaria gifts a scooter each to his 125 employees as an increment pic.twitter.com/u3iejDnk9v  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

Laxmidas Vekaria gifted one scooter each to his 125 employees as their annual increment at a colourful function in Surat.

He gifted Honda Activa 4G, decorated with the tricolour.

tomorrowmakers

Vekaria commenced his business operations back in 2010 and has now become the second businessman from the diamond hub in India for such generosity. Last year Savji Dholakia gave his 'best performing' employees cars and flats as Diwali bonus.

At the time when most bosses are cranky, owing to the appraisals, this businiessman has certainly gone miles ahead by gifting such enormous presents.

Surat is Indias diamond cutting and polishing hub, contributing around 6-7% of the countrys GDP.
While the first carriage flight of Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft with BrahMos missileonly a dummy dropwas successfully achieved in June 2016, the firing of the actual supersonic missile is now scheduled for April. This integration will allow India to order surgical strikes destroying targets about 300 km away.

TOI

A senior officer privy to the testing process told TOI: "The testing is in the advanced stages. A few minor marrying issues (integrating Indian systems with the Russian aircraft) are being sorted out. We are confident that the fighter and the missile will be ready for a flight in April."

When the Su-30MKI becomes operational with BrahMos missiles, it will provide the Indian Air Force with its most lethal fighting power till date. Indian pilots will no longer be required to fly to heavily defended airspace to strike enemy fighter bases, or targets like terrorist camps, nuclear installations and military headquarters.

"Out fighters can launch this missile about 300-km from their target and return to safety. The missile will take care of the rest," a senior pilot who flies the Su-30s for IAF said.

DefenceTalk

Pointing out that all of IAF's fighter jets have foreign origins, a retired Air Marshal said that while minor modifications had been carried out in the past, to be able to mount an indigenised cruise missile, which can boast of being one of the best in the world, is an achievement.

The project, which was first conceived in 2012, saw defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) take more than two years to handover a modified Su-30MKI which could be integrated with the missile.

After that was achieved, the process of integration began and the team, in 2015, ran into some certification issues. Brahmos Aerospace, the lead agency for the integration, was yet to complete the certification of the launcher that would launch the missile then. But sources have said that the problem was overcome before the June 2016 flight.

Economictimes

"Now, all that is left is a few minor problems, which should be sorted out in about 30-35 days," another source said. The IAF's initial requirement is for two Su-30 MKIs with BrahMos, but it eventually wishes to integrate 216 missiles on 42 Sukhoi fighters. The project was first conceived in July-August 2012.
Adding a news shot in its arm, an Indian Naval ship for the first time fired a land-attack BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.

twitter/youth congress

"Land attack version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was fired for the first time from an Indian Navy's stealth frigate, off the eastern coast, at a land target," Times of India quoted a source in the Ministry of Defence.

"So, far only anti-ship version of BrahMos had been fired by Indian Navy," the source added.

This puts India in a select club of nations with such capability.

bccl

The land-attack version of BrahMos has been operationalised in the Indian Army since 2007.

The BrahMos missile, with a range of 290 km and a Mach 2.8 speed, is capable of being launched from land, sea and sub-sea pads against sea and land targets.

bccl

BrahMos, jointly developed by India and Russia, is considered the only supersonic cruise missile in the world. The missile was first inducted in the India Navy in 2005.

India is developing 450 km and 800 km range BrahMos missiles and an air launched version, designed to be delivered from Su-30 jets. It is also in the development phase.
A special court in Delhi has sentenced two men to seven years each in prison for raising funds for the Islamic State jihadists.

The two convicts, Azhar-ul- Islam (24) from Jammu and Kashmir and Mohammed Farhan Shaikh (25) from Maharashtra had pleaded guilty of criminally conspiring to raise funds and recruiting people for the terror outfit. Read more

1. SC Once Again Slams Govt On Aadhaar Card; Asks, 'How Can It Be Made Compulsory For Pan Cards

The controversy over the use of Aadhaar card does not seem to be ending anytime soon. The government's decision has been once again criticised by the Supreme Court, which asked the Centre why it made the Aadhaar card mandatory for getting a PAN card when the top court passed an order saying it couldn't do that.

"How can you make Aadhar card mandatory when we have passed an order to make it optional?" the top court asked today. Read more

2. Those Who Want Australian Citizenship Must Learn English, Live There For Four Years & Embrace Aussie Values

In a move that could affect a lot of Indians seeking citizenship in Australia, the country has announced a new set of requirements for applicants, including higher English language skills and longer residency requirement.

Now on, applicants must be permanent residents of Australia for at least four years before they can apply for citizenship. This is three years longer than the current requirement. Read more

3. CBSE Orders All Its Schools To Immediately Stop Selling Books, Uniforms Inside Premises

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has asked its affiliated schools across the country to shut down shops selling textbooks, stationery, school bags, uniforms, shoes and similar articles within their premises.

The board asked schools on Thursday to strictly comply with its affiliation byelaws and "not indulge in commercial activities". Read more

4. In A New Video, BSF Jawan Tej Bahadur Seeks Peoples' Support In His Fight Against Injustice On Soldiers

Five months ago, Tej Bahadur Singh, the BSF soldier whose video showcasing the poor quality food given to the soldiers sent shock waves across the country. People were appalled at the deplorable state in which the Jawans were living.

In the Facebook video, Bahadur from the 29th Battalion of the BSF in Jammu & Kashmir exposed the substandard food being served to him and the rest of the army Jawans after 10 hours of duty. Read more

5. After Reports Of Threats To Kashmiris, Govt Tells All States To Ensure Their Security

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiri youths outside J&K, home minister Rajnath Singh has asked all the states to ensure their safety.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure the security of Kashmiris in their states." Read more
A wedding celebration turned awry early on Thursday morning after the partying wedding guests had an altercation with the Koparkhairne police, who tried to stop the loud music being played hours after the 10 pm deadline.

mumbaimirror

The wedding party started pelting stones on the cops who in turn had to resort to lathi charge. Two police constables suffered grievous injuries and are being treated at the Vashi civil hospital.

A case has been registered against 15 people and three DJ artists have been arrested by the police.

According to Koparkhairne police, a pre-wedding 'haldi' party was in progress at the residence of Kundan Mhatre in sector 19 of Koparkhairne. Police received several calls about loud music playing on a DJ system way past the deadline of 10 pm - this after the police had issued Mhatre a warning about the permissible time till which one can play music.

"Our night duty officer Police Inspector Suryawanshi got multiple calls at 2.30 am about loud music being played at the function. Hence, at around 2:45 am he, along with a female officer and a few constables went to the spot, armed with sound level metres," Satish Gaikwad, senior police inspector of Koparkhairne police said.

mumbaimirror

According to Gaikwad, when the police party reached the spot, they were met with hostility. "The guests, who were in an inebriated state, snatched the metres from the inspector's hand and tried to break them. Some of them also started heckling our men and in the ensuing fistfight, the uniforms of our men were torn, their badges broken," Gaikwad recounted.

Realising that the situation is escalating, Suryawanshi immediately called the police station and asked for reinforcements. "I rushed immediately to the spot along with five to six more men. As soon as they saw us approaching, they started retreating inside. We went inside and picked up the three DJ artists," Gaikwad added.

According to the police, the situation escalated even further when the police tried to take the DJ artists to the police station. "They started pelting stones and physically blocking our vehicles. Some of our constables were dragged out of the police car and beaten up," said one of the officers who was present on the spot and suffered injuries on his head and legs.

It was after this that the police had to resort to lathi-charge to control the crowd.

bccl/representational image

"The three men who we have been arrested are sound technicians. While two are from Pune, one is from Ghansoli. We have booked them and an additional 15 people under Sections 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 332 (Voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) and 143 (Punishment for unlawful assembly) among others of the Indian Penal Code," said Gaikwad.

The guests, however, have termed the incident as police brutality. According to them, the police violated their celebrations and rituals while being aggressive and violent. "We have handed our land to CIDCO but never did we think this day would come when we would be alienated from our customs. The police resorted to lathi charge to our unarmed guests and not even women were spared. We will make sure our voice is heard and the policemen are punished," one of the guests, who refused to reveal his name, said.

Responding to their allegations, Gaikwad said, "We are humans who love our sleep as much as the next person. Why would we wake up at 3:00 am and trouble the villagers? Yes, we had to be strict and aggressive, because we were attacked. If we had not resorted to lathi charge, they might have hurt us further or even taken away the three accused. Had they stopped the music at the designated time, none of this would have happened."
The recent increase in stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir has once again affected the normal life the common people living there. But with the violence spreading to colleges and students resorting to stone-pelting it is not just the people in the valley that are being affected.

AFP

The repercussions are being felt in neighbouring states too. Kashmiri youths studying outside the state have complained that they are being called 'stone-pelters' and taunted over the recent viral video of a CRPF jawan being heckled in Budgam.

BCCL

According to a report in The Times of India, a group of Kashmiri students in Mewar University, Rajasthan were harassed by locals on Wednesday following a heated argument.

"We went out to buy some groceries. The youths outside held us responsible for heckling of the CRPF official. They started beating us for no reason at all. The entire episode has wasted our day, at a time when we're busy studying," said a Kashmiri student who wanted to remain anonymous told The Times of India.

Police said two Kashmiri students were returning to their hostel when the incident happened.

"The incident happened at 6 pm when Kashmiri students were returning to their hostel. They had a heated argument with two unidentified youths for unknown reasons. The arguments soon turned violent. The two youths ran away from the spot after the clash. We are locating them with the help of locals," said Dinesh Kumar, SHO, Gangrar police station.

Following the incident police have stepped up security around the campus to avoid any further escalation.

The university has around 1,100 students from Kashmir pursuing various courses under the Prime Minister's scholarship scheme for students of the Valley.

It is not just in Rajasthan, in UP too a fringe group has put up posters asking Kashmiris to leave the state.

The posters in Meerut which have the images of stone pelting in Kashmir was issued by a little-known outfit called Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena.

In neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, tribal youth from Jhabua have offered their "expertise" in using slingshots to help the paramilitary forces in countering stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir.

ANI

They said their traditional weapon, Gofan, can be effective against the stone pelters. The youths have appealed to the government to set up a Gofan battalion.

ANI

"A Gofan battalion of local tribal youth should be constituted and be posted in Kashmir Valley to deal with the stone-pelters. This battalion will be a suitable answer to stone-pelters," Prem Singh, a tribal youth from Jhabua told PTI.

The recent incidents of stone peltings were triggered by clashes between students and Police after security forces entered the Pulwama college on Saturday.

BCCL

Schools and colleges in the valley have remained shut since, in the fear of more violence.
With the ever growing energy requirements on earth, scientists are looking for new avenues for energy in other parts of the universe. And now they have gone as far as the moon to find an alternate source of energy.

In a bid to help meet India's energy needs, scientists from ISRO are claiming to mine lunar dust.

sputniknews

An ISRO scientist has stated that India is working to use natural resources on the moon to power the countrys energy requirements by 2030. Lunar dust, which is rich in Helium will be transported to India, said Dr Sivathanu Pillai, an ISRO scientist who earlier worked as the chief of the Indo-Russian venture, BrahMos Aerospace.

All of Indias energy requirements could be met through Helium 3 mined from the moon. By 2030, this processing target will be met," he added.

abc7

Pillai claims that the upper layer of the moon is a rich source of Regolith, with abundant Helium 3 to meet the energy requirements of the entire planet and not just India.

This Helium 3 is capable of facilitating nuclear reactors to provide an enormous amount fo power, sans harmful carbon emissions or radioactive products.

(Also read: Here Are The Men Who Made ISROs World Record 104 Satellite Launch Possible)

The substance is dispensed by solar winds on the moon and gets absorbed due to lack of magnetic fields, contrary to earth's magnetic field, that prevents the solar Helium 3 from reaching the surface.

nasa

"Helium 3 is abundant in the moons soil by at least 13 parts per billion (ppb) by weight", reports NASA.

With this in action, we can soon see ourselves jammed up with energy, however, India did not pioneer this idea. Prior to this, both Russia and China have expressed their plans of tapping resources on the moon.

The project is not unrealistic, but it will surely require a lot of effort and investment.
Audio gear manufacturer Bose is being sued by a customer who claims the company has been gathering data about his listening habits without his consent.

The Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones mentioned specifically in the lawsuit

Chicago resident Kyle Zak filed an injunction in court to put a stop to Boses data gathering. He claims the information it steals from users is then sold to other companies for targeted advertisements. Zak is also seeking $5 million in damages.

People put headphones on their head because they think it's private, but they can be giving out information they don't want to share," Christopher Dore, a lawyer representing Mr Zak, told Reuters. Dore works for law firm Edelson PC which specialises in cases revolving around data privacy.

Legal documents filed by Edelson say Zak downloaded the Bose Connect app soon after buying a pair of QuietComfort 35 headphones. He provided his basic information in order to sign up for the app. Soon after, he says he noticed that it was logging far more data about his audio choices than he expected. The lawsuit also claims that similar data is taken from users of other Bose gadgets as well.

Meanwhile, Bose has posted a response on both Twitter and Facebook, calling the allegations inflammatory and misleading.
If you watch regularly watch the launches of spacecraft, with a livestream from inside the cockpit, youll notice theres one key accessory thats always on board: a wee stuffed animal.

NASA

NASA astronaut Jake Fischer and Russian Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin blasted off from Kazakhstan on Thursday, bound for the International Space Station. But it was before the launch that the duo hung a little stuffed puppy from their dashboard, something thats visible on the cockpit camera.

No, the astronauts hurtling away from Earth arent big babies; the plush toy hanging in front of their faces has a significant purpose. When the adorable little bundle of squishiness stops dangling from the rope and begins floating, the passengers know theyve escaped Earths orbit.

Sure enough, about nine minutes into their voyage (go to the 9:25 marker in the video), you can see the stuffed dog abruptly jerk into the air and begin to drift.

Intriguingly, the little stuffed puppy isnt the first adorable gravity warning ever used, or even the second. Its a tradition as old as human spaceflight itself, space historian and collectSPACE editor Robert Pearlman told Mashable. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin took a small doll on board the Vostok 1, when he became the first man to go into space 56 years ago, and the tradition has continued across the world ever since.

Last year Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin took a stuffed pink owl (gifted to him by his daughter) on board the Soyuz spacecraft with Oleg Skripochka, and NASA's Jeff Williams.

#Soyuz separation! Looks like they reached the correct...

(puts on sunglasses)

..owltitude.

YEAAAAAAHHH pic.twitter.com/wussbv7N0o  Jason Davis (@jasonrdavis) March 18, 2016

In 2015, the plushie of choice was a tiny little R2-D2 for the Soyuz mission.

You definitely want to have an R2 unit onboard your spaceship to fix any issues that might come up. pic.twitter.com/eFFkh7fgKI  Rob Pegoraro (@robpegoraro) July 22, 2015

In 2014, crew hung the stuffed snowman Olaf from the newly-released movie Frozen as a gravity marker. My youngest daughter is 8 years old and she selected that as a talisman, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said at the time.

       Cupola // With Zero-G Indicator #Olaf in the #Cupola module pic.twitter.com/K5kS5qlWna  Anton Shkaplerov (@AntonAstrey) December 8, 2014

Even astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko took a snowman to the ISS in 2015, while launching for their year-long mission. The snowman belonged to Gennady Padalka, the commander of the Soyuz.

The snowman doll is floating! #Soyuz reaches space. Scott Kelly & Mikhail Kornienko begin their #YearInSpace. pic.twitter.com/bv6ieklcpg  Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) March 27, 2015

Other missions have featured similar talismans like stuffed Angry Birds and Smokey Bear. Over the years, the cosmonauts added to the tradition by having their children, or their crewmates children, select the doll for the flight, Pearlman added.

That has led to some interesting and popular choices, including Frozen's Olaf snowman, a red Angry Bird and small hippopotamus wearing a cosmonaut flight suit  complete with a miniature version of the crew's mission patch.

However, astronauts can't just picke up their favourite stuffed animal and ship it to space. NASA has strict hazard precautions and so requires that each plushie be made of special materials it approves. Yes, it's someone's job at NASA to vet stuffed animals before they leave Earth.
A 25-year-old university student in Kenya, Abdulkarim Njoroge, has been arrested for allegedly killing his lover, Irene Kananu and hiding her corpse in a freezer in his house.

Njoroge strangled Kananu in his house in Mtwapa region in Mombasa following an argument when she wanted to dump him for getting another woman pregnant.

Njoroge was arrested on Tuesday, April 18, 2017, two weeks after the family of the deceased, an HR officer with chemical giant Henkel in Industrial Area, declared her missing on March 31.

The victims body was found Unclad with her head, inside the refrigerator while her legs and hips were sticking out.

The pair reportedly fought after Kananu learned that Njoroge had impregnated his secret lover who is his neighbour living in the same block of flats with him.

They frequently argued over claims of infidelity on his part and Kananu had threatened to leave him several times.

the victims sister, Catherine Nduta , reported her missing on April 3 at Githurai Kimbo police station, after trying to get her on phone several times to no avail.

Police opened investigations and two days later, investigators broke into Kananus house where they found Kananu dead.

Apart from murdering the lady, Njoroge was also said to have stolen her car and allegedly withdrew Sh40,000 from Kananus M-Pesa account.

Source: BreakingTimes
A Nigerian couple identified as Victor Omoruyi and Michelle Omoruyi ,have been arrested by the authorities in the United States say a Nigerian ,and two Canadian citizens have been apprehended as part of an investigation into human smuggling.

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said yesterday, in a statement, their own agents apprehended the two Canadian citizens and Mr Omoruyi on the North Dakota side of the border between North Portal and Northgate. According to The National Post, Mr Omoruyi was being held Thursday at the Grand Forks County Correctional Center.

On Wednesday, April 20, authorities announced that Michelle Omoruyi, 43, of Regina, was facing rare human smuggling charges after she was stopped by RCMP last Friday evening driving a vehicle near the border with nine foreign nationals from West Africa.

So far, authorities have released few details about how these individuals fell under suspicion and whether other arrests could follow. But a senior U.S. border official said Thursday the growing numbers of migrants seeking to jump the border has everyone on high alert.

Its on everybodys radar, said Alan Zeitvogel, acting division chief of operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Grand Forks, N.D.

The nine individuals had bypassed formal channels to come into the country, entering instead somewhere between the North Portal and Northgate crossings, the legal entry points into Saskatchewan from North Dakota. They subsequently filed refugee claims and were released from CBSA custody pending the outcome of their refugee hearings.

The following day, police searched a Regina residence and found a significant amount of cash  some in foreign currency, RCMP said.

During a four-month investigation, the Canada Border Services Agency uncovered evidence to suggest suspected smugglers were allegedly bringing foreign nationals into Canada from the United States by facilitating their illegal crossing between designated ports of entry, Jason Evert, a CBSA assistant director, told reporters Wednesday.

The identities of the other two  a man and a woman  could not be verified, but Zeitvogel confirmed all three were still in custody and charges were pending.

It is not known how many other people may be connected to the suspected smuggling operation. The charges against Omoruyi have not been proven in court.

There are many reasons why migrants might pay a smuggler to help them get across the border, Zeitvogel said. Maybe its because of their knowledge of the area or because they can provide a means of transportation, he said.

In January, five Nigerians including three children were believed to be headed for Saskatchewan but became stranded in a North Dakota field near Portal in the bitter cold. Burke County Sheriff Jeremy Grohs said they were suffering from frostbite and the onset of hypothermia. The youngest, about 15 months old, was flown to the hospital.

According to federal data, Saskatchewan saw only a handful of irregular border crossings from asylum seekers in the first three months of this year. Nationwide, the number of irregular crossings climbed from 315 in January, to 658 in February, to 887 in March.

Source: ( Linda Ikeji )
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has advised Nigerians to focus on non-oil revenue growth, tax compliance and budget transparency to drive economic development in the country.

The minister gave the advice on Friday during a Finance Ministers meeting convened by the G24 Group at the ongoing IMF/World Bank Spring meetings in Washington DC. She discussed strategies to drive non-oil revenue growth and achieve inclusive growth in Nigeria.

Revenue mobilisation is critical to the success of Nigerias economic reform agenda. We have an unacceptably low level of non-oil revenue and much of that is driven by a failure to collect tax revenues.

With a tax to GDP ratio of only six per cent, one of the lowest levels in the world, we have a lot of work to do if we are going to build a sustainable revenue base that will deliver inclusive growth.

Our data gathering programme, over the past year, has now given us the tools we need to be more aggressive at pursuing tax evaders both domestically and abroad, she said.

Adeosun said that Nigerias strategy to improve tax in 2017 was through an asset income declaration scheme to address low tax revenue collection and ensure improved compliance.

She said that the strategy would lead to a broader tax base and more sustainable revenue for all tiers of government.

This is fundamental to delivering on our reform plans, she said.

Adeosun also highlighted the need for strong budget implementation and transparency to create trust and accountability in government:

While we focus on raising revenue and bringing people into the tax system, we must be equally aggressive in our approach to budget implementation and transparency.

Our people must know where their hard earned tax contributions are being spent and the impact that they are having on national development and the daily lives of citizens.

This will be a core focus for us, she said.

The minister, during her stay in the U.S, will also meet with the ratings agencies Moodys and Fitch to update them on progress toward economic reform objectives.

Adeosun and the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, will also meet with the World Bank Country team to discuss the status of ongoing projects in Nigeria and planned projects for 2018.

Source: Guardian
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd) has approved the redeployment of 48 Comptrollers of the service in a move he said, was aimed at effective and efficient service delivery.

A statement by spokesman of the Customs, Joseph Attah yesterday said the redeployments were in line with the ongoing reforms in the service.He listed some of the affected officers in the redeployment exercise as Comptroller Madugu, M. J from Sokoto/Kebbi/Zamfara to Ogun Command, Comptroller Udo-Aka, E. A from Investigations to Oyo/Osun Command and Comptroller Isiyaku, K. from Tariff and Trade to Port Harcourt 1, among several others.

He also said the Comptroller-Generals Compliance team has been disbanded and a new team reconstituted. The new team is divided into three. Team A for Western Axis, B for Northern axis and C for Eastern axis to be led by Assistant Comptrollers of Customs.

They are to complement the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) to vigorously crackdown on smuggling activities nationwide with particular focus on the enforcement of non-importation of rice and vehicles through the land borders.

The new CGCs Compliance team will be coordinated by Comptroller Azarema, A.A who was the Comptroller, License and Permit at the Customs Headquarters. While effecting these changes, Ali expressed his determination to strategically reposition the service as a crucial contributor to the nations economic recovery. Revenue leakages must be blocked because the country needs all collectable revenues, he added.

He called on all stakeholders to support the service by being compliant and provide needed information for the operatives to nip smuggling activities in the bud.

Source: Guardian
The quest to put a last end to corruption in the country has been on a rise as the Economic and financial crimes commission ( EFCC) as the commission are in the business of hunting down Nigeria billionaires.

One of the latest billionaires discovered by EFCC is a former Commissioner for Local Government in Niger State, Kantigi Liman.

The Commission is reported to have traced an additional 2 billion Naira to the United Bank for Africa account of Mr. Liman, bringing to 6 billion Naira, the funds traced to accounts held by the politician and companies linked to him.

EFCC had weeks earlier traced 4 billion Naira to two accounts in GTBank, both managed by Liman.

The first account belongs to Sadiq Air Travel Agency Limited and the second to Kantigi.

The suspect, Liman, may be declared wanted by the anti-graft agency as he has been evading arrest and invitations.

He is on the run and all efforts to track him down have been futile. The next option left for the Commission is to declare him wanted, the source said.

The source further disclosed that investigations so far points in the direction that the funds were siphoned from the local government joint account of Niger State.

EFCC desperately wants to confront him with available evidence.

Liman is said to have invested the money in fixed deposit accounts where he is believed to rake in monthly interest worth over 33 million Naira.

Source:( Bounce News)
Continuing in tour around Nigeria, Big Brother Naija 2017 winner, Efe, has stopped by at Nigerias ex-Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiros house. Efe who is currently in Abuja, paid a courtesy visit to the ever-smiling ex-IGP.

Heres what he wrote on his official Instagram handle;

Courtesy visit to the Chairman Police Service CommissionSir. Mike Okiro IGP (Rtd)

Source: Instagram
There was a heavy downpour in Lagos, Nigerias commercial capital, yesterday that left many roads across the state covered by flood. For more than two hours, movement both at the mainland and the island became hellish due to the flooded roads and traffic, forcing commuters to trek long distances while some vehicle owners parked to allow the flood to recede before continuing their journey.

However, as the 2017 rainy season gathers momentum, the Lagos State government has allayed the fears of residents over the torrential rainfall witnessed yesterday, saying that necessary steps had been taken to avert any incidence of flood disaster in the state.

The Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare, in a statement said government had in recent times carried out intensive tour of some flood-prone communities in the state to clear up blocked drainages and canals.

The commissioner wondered why any right thinking person would be dumping refuse on watercourses and drainages, created for free-flow of storm water, saying the numerous campaigns against such practice was for the interest of the residents.

Canal is a storm water channel for the conveyance of storm runoffs, they are Gods natural protection for holding water during massive flood and it is not a place for anybody to build a house or dump refuse. Those in the habit of doing such must stop henceforth, Adejare said.

Allaying fears of teeming Lagosians apprehensive of the rain, the commissioner said indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the gutters had caused a lot of environmental disasters, warning that the government would no longer tolerate the building of illegal structures along channel right of ways in the state.

To this end, he said the government had since begun demolishing illegal structures and shanties erected on the drains especially in flood-prone areas. Meanwhile, the offices of the Speaker and some members of the Kwara State House of Assembly were partially damaged by a downpour that happened late on Wednesday. The clerk of the house, Alhaji Mohammed Katsina, who announced this yesterday said the rainstorm also damaged the Assemblys chambers.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that there was a downpour accompanied with storms, which lasted over three hours in Ilorin on Wednesday. Katsina described the incident as unfortunate. He said some sections of the Assemblys main chamber were mostly affected by the rainstorm.

Source: Guardian
Toke Makinwa has finally spoken up since the drama surrounding her invitation to lecture at the New York University.

The drama started days ago, when Makinwa revealed that she had been invited to lecture at the university. Some students of the university requested details to enable them attend the lecture, but it all degenerated into a messy drama after the OAP referred them to a certain Lilian Ajayi-Ore, a lecturer at the university, who clarified that it was a closed event. Many people questioned the authenticity of the scheduled lecture.

However, Makinwa later shared photos of the event on her Instagram story, and now she has posted an elaborated response on Instagram, revealing that not only was it a successful outing, the NYU students also realised how much she was trolled in Nigeria, and the negative criticism gave her a practical example to illustrate with.

The students checked me out online and found out I was trending and it led to questions about dealing with negative feedback from customers and how to deal with the not so great comments, and it was nice to use a practical example, said Makinwa.

The media personality continues to face intense criticism since publishing her first book, On Becoming. While she continues to battle her ex, Maje Ayida, who accused her of slandering him in the memoir, Toke Makinwa says she remains unfazed.

I pray my life inspires someone out there to be BOLD in the face of storms, I hope you take a chance and live unapologetically, she said today.

Read her full note:

Awww thank you Prof L. Getting feedback of my guest lecture at NYU warms my heart. This was my first attempt at teaching and it went really well. To share my knowledge on brand building even while Im still learning can only be a blessing from God and I am available to be further used by him. Was I nervous? Hell yeah. But just the thought of a Nigerian girl sharing her success story to a room full ofI multinational students was enough to push me. Funny thing is while the lecture was going on God used the ignorance of many to further illustrate my point to the class. The students checked me out online and found out I was trending and it led to questions about dealing with negative feedback from customers and how to deal with the not so great comments and it was nice to use a practical example. You cant take the good alone, try as much as possible to cater to every customer there will be some that are completely hard to please and thats ok! Keep working on your product, keep evolving and pushing the envelope, dont get distracted, keep at it till you perfect your craft and even after you think you have, theres still some room to become some more. I pray my life inspires someone out there to be BOLD in the face of storms, I hope you take a chance and live unapologetically. #onbecomingaglobalbrand #NYU #guestlecturer #TMtotheworld #ProfessorTM#Repost @lilianajayi with @repostapp  I have had the privilege of inviting various leading professionals and subject matter experts to guest lecture in my class. However, inviting Toke Makiwa (@tokemakinwa) to speak to my Grad students on her experience with developing her #brand in the digital space  gave me a sense of pride, as a fellow African Woman. It also offered my multinational students a closer prospective on #Africa, Digital Marketing and #Technology. Toke was confident, engaging and got personal about what she had learned thus far. My #students all appreciated their time with Toke, and I am glad to have been the catalyst of such an insightful exchange. *************************************************#togodbetheglory#knowledgeispower #nyu #guestlecture #gc4w #digitalmarketing
The Lagos State Government has concluded plans to construct three new ultra modern General Hospitals this year to improve healthcare the state of health in the state.

The Governor also directed contractors handling several ongoing road projects across the State to return to their various sites or risks their contracts being terminated

Governor Akinwunmi Ambode announced this on Friday at the second quarterly Town Hall Meeting for the year and seventh in the series held at Shibiri/Ekunpa Area Office in Oto-Awori Local Council Development Area.

The governor said his administration was already concluding the necessary paperwork before the contractors would move to site.

The Governor, who took time to take questions from community leaders, traditional rulers, market women, youth leaders and party leaders in the area, said the decision to bring the Town Hall Meeting to Oto-Awori LCDA was in continuation of his commitment to leave no community behind in the development of the State.

He said he was also in the area to listen to the requests of the people in the axis and see how his administration could respond accordingly.

Responding to the request for a General Hospital to be constructed in the area, Governor Ambode said three new facilities have been catered for in the 2017 budget.

Talking about General Hospitals, in the budget we have designated General Hospitals for three areas and Ojo Local Government is one of them. It is in the pipeline, its just a matter of time, we are already closing in on it, he said.

Governor Ambode also assured that efforts would be made to improve healthcare service delivery in the riverine area in Oto Awori, saying that residents in such areas have remained relevant in the governments achievements over the years.

This area is traditionally and historically known to be a major supporter of government and we must give them back for the support which they have always been known for, he said.

The Governor also acceded to the request of the residents for the rehabilitation of the access roads linking the area to the Alimosho General Hospital which they currently use pending the construction of a nearby General Hospital.

He, therefore, directed the State Public Works Corporation to immediately fix the roads to improve accessibility to the facility.

The Governor directed contractors handling several ongoing road projects across the State to return to their various sites or risks their contracts being terminated, saying that his administration would not tolerate any form of laxity in project delivery.

I like the idea of bringing to the fore the issue of uncompleted projects. If we are able to do a link bridge in 11 months, if we are able to do Ajah flyover in 13 months and Abule Egba flyover in 13 months and we are going to commission all of them next month, how can these roads be there forever? So, obviously we should use the same spirit of delivering service to do all the outstanding roads. The Ministry of Works must go back to these sites, I must know what is going on within the next few days, he said.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
A man identified as Azeez Oladipupo was arraigned beforea Tinubu Magistrates Court, Lagos for hitting his neighbour with an iron rod on the face.now risks going to jail.

The 25-year-old is facing a charge of assault occasioning harm, to which he pleaded not guilty before the court.

The prosecutor, ASP Richard Odigie told the court that the accused committed the offence on April 14 at about 4.00PM at Sapati Village, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.

The offence contravened Section 171 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (as amended) which, on conviction, attracts a three-year jail term.

The Magistrate, Mrs F.O. Ikobayo, released Azeez on a 500,000 bail and granted the accused two responsible sureties in like sum.

The case was adjourned until April 24 for mention.
As part of measures to mitigate the dwindling manpower of the police and meet the United Nations (UN) standard of effective policing in Nigeria, the Nigeria police, said it is poised to recruit about 155,000 policemen and women in the next five years.

There has been clamour for more policemen to curb the rising criminality in the country, as current workforce of the police did not meet the UN recommendation of 222 police officers per 100,000.

The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Training and Development and Supervising (DIG) in charge of South-South geopolitical zone, Mr. Emmanuel Inyang, noted that more recruitment were in the pipeline to get enough manpower for the force.

The police boss said the hierarchy had written to President Muhammadu Buhari to give them the power to recruit about 155,000 police officers for the next five years, that is 31,000 policemen every year.

Inyang stated this yesterday at the headquarters of the Bayelsa Police Command in continuation of his inspection tours of the commands under his watch.He also said the police is aware that some personnel worked for up to 12 hours, stressing that the hours would be reduced to about eight hours for effective discharge of their duties.

On the crime wave in Bayelsa, the DIG said that available statistics indicated that the crime rate had reduced drastically.

He charged officers and men of the force to shun corruption and embrace President Muhammadu Buharis change syndrome.Inyang, who said discipline remained key to the police organisation, emphasised the imperative need for the officers and men to continue to be disciplined.

The Commissioner of Police, Bayelsa State Command, Mr. Amba Asuquo, said the command in a bid to secure the state had established a functional community policing programme, stressing that it is proactive, intelligent driven and result-oriented.

Source: Guardian
The Akwa Ibom Police Command says it has rescued two Turkish nationals kidnapped on April 9 in their hotel rooms at Eket, Eket Local Government Area of the state.

The Turkish citizens are staff of BKS Construction Company in Onna Local Government Area.

The Commissioner of Police, Mr Donald Awunah, disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Uyo on Friday.

Awunah said that the two expatriates were rescued along Oron/Calabar creeks on April 19.

He said that five suspects have been arrested in connection with the crime.

It will be recalled that on April 9, two Turkish nationals were kidnapped and taken to the creeks of Calabar/Oron waterways.

Following sustained Police activities in the waterways, deployment of technical platform, cultivation of actionable intelligence and skilful professional negotiation, the two Turkish gentlemen were released on April 19, 2017.

The victims of crime have been reunited with their colleagues after medical assessment.

Five suspects have been arrested and further investigation is ongoing, Awunah said.

The commissioner said that the suspects would be arraigned after the investigation.

(NAN)
Popular columnist and convener of Every Nigerian Do Something, Perry Brimah , has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is chronically ill and in need of urgent rest.

Brimah, in a statement on Friday, alleged that the President was being kept locked up in Aso Rock by some selfish cabal instead of receiving best therapy.

The columnist flayed Nigerians for their uncompassionate reaction to Buharis health status despite seeing his asthenic figure now no more than skin-and-bones as he sat down for the Jummah service with Kaduna state governor Nasir el-Rufai last Friday.

He wrote, There can be no denying how chronically ill president Muhammadu Buhari looks when he seldom does appear in public. The last time was last week Friday when Kaduna state governor Nasir el-Rufai came visiting.

The videos of Buhari walking for Friday prayers bring tears to eyes. His asthenic figure now no more than skin-and-bones as he sat down for the Jummah service was heart-wrenching.

How can a people be so cold they expose a grandfather to this type of extreme stress and deprive him from his needed rest and medical expert attention by tasking him to lead the worlds most complex nation?

Have we as a people lost our humanity that we continue to task Buhari like this and not campaign for him to be relieved of our burden and rest towards recovery?

It is insane to continue to deprive him and the nation by locking him up and burdening him with a challenge too heavy for even a strong young man to bear talk-less an old man who just returned from a 49-day leave in which he received blood transfusions and unknown cocktails of serious medications.

For those of us in the medical profession, we recognise the presidents loss of hair on his head and facial hair as well as his reported blood transfusions as possible evidence of cancer chemotherapy.

God forbid, however, if this is the condition the president is being managed for that the cabal is hiding from the people, the wickedness of the selfish cabal that forces him to remain locked up, dying in Aso Rock instead of receiving best therapy, should be vehemently opposed by us masses.

Whoever is found guilty of hiding any serious diagnosis the president may have and bundling him back to deteriorate in Aso Rock under pressure of Nigerias humongous burden should be dealt with according to the full extent of the law. This is not only criminal but sinful.

A great fear is, what if (God forbid) president Buhari should collapse? This time he may not yet have handed over to Vice president Yemi Osinbajo as acting president and Nigeria may be thrown into the chaos that perhaps some desperate politicians eyeing the presidency seat are secretly plotting for. Nigeria cannot afford to be thrown into such state of dilemma and disarray.

Its time for Nigerians to demand full disclosure of the true state of health of president Muhammadu Buhari and immediate best options for him to be allowed to rest and recover instead of being locked up to literally die under the weight of Nigeria.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Queen Elizabeth II marks her 91th birthday today,the celebration with gun salutes, as the monarch celebrates quietly at home.

The royals have been sharing photos of the queen to mark the occasion on their social media profiles.

A troop of the Royal Horse Artillery will ride horse-and-gun carriages past Buckingham Palace before staging a 41-gun salute in Hyde Park at noon, UK time. There will also be a 62-gun salute at the Tower of London an hour later.

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born at 2:40am on April 21, 1926. She is Britains oldest and longest-reigning monarch, having become queen on Feb. 8, 1952. She is also the worlds longest-reigning living monarch since the death of Thailands King Bhumibol Adulyadej last year.

On February 6, the queen became the first British monarch to reign for 65 year, celebrating her Sapphire Jubilee.

The queen usually spends her birthday privately. She also has an official birthday, marked in June  when the weather is better  with the Trooping the Color military parade.
At last, men of the Nigeria police have tracked down and arrested two notorious armed robbers who have been terrorizing women at the Federal Low Cost Housing Estate, Umuahia.

It is the end of the road for two deadly armed robbers who usually rob women who live alone as they were caught by operatives of the Abia State Police Command yesterday.

The two young robbers Obinna Anyanwu and Chinedu Awa, who engaged in robbing women that live alone at the Federal Low Cost Housing Estate, Umuahia were also beaten thoroughly.

One of the victims, Mrs Beatrice Okpi said the robbers have been terrorizing them for a long time before they were arrested. Residents said that the criminals burgled homes of cart away their clothings, kitchen utensils and other valuables.

The day for the owner came yesterday as they raided the home of one Uche Jonathan, in the Estate hurried to carry two wielding machines valued at N46, 000.00.

While they hesitated in carrying the heavy machines, Uche alerted the residents who assisted to call the Police before the suspects were arrest.

While addressing newsmen in the Abia state capital, the Abia State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Leye Oyebade, said: These same suspects ransacked the shop of Emeka Aharaumunna, at the estate and carted away six generators valued at N450,000.

They also stormed the house of Pastor Gabriel Nwankwo and fired gunshots in an attempt to break into the victims house to rob.

Oyebade revealed that the residents had first caught the thieves before handing them over to the police, adding that they had already confessed to robbing Mrs Okpis house in Ohafia, where their ringleader resided.

Obinna who confessed to the allegations claimed his friend, Flex, had initiated him into the crime. I have been involved in robbery operations five times, he said.

However, Chinedu Awa aka Pastor who hailed from Ndi Uduma Awoke, Ohafia Local Government Area of Abia State, denied partaking in the robbery claiming he only bought the stolen items, which he also, claimed, he didnt know were proceeds of the robbery.

He said: Im not part of the gang. I only bought some stolen items from them. I didnt know the items were stolen ones.

Recovered items from the suspects included, glass table, Tiger generators, two mattresses, one TV set, two DVD among others.
Three persons were killed in a renewed crisis between Fulani herdsmen and Tiv at Tse Igba Uke Village near Ikpayongo, a suburb of Makurdi, Benue State capital, yesterday.

The Guardian learnt that following the killing of two persons on Wednesday by suspected Fulani herdsmen who invaded Tse Igba Uke Village near Ikayongo in Makurdi Local Council, some youths irked by the development, mounted a roadblock with bonfire along Makurdi/Otukpo Road causing commotion that led to the death of an unidentified passenger.

An eyewitness, who pleaded anonymity, said: Some youths barricaded the federal highway at Ikpayongo to protest the killing of two persons at Tse Igba village, few kilometres away from Ikpayongo by Fulani herders.

The incident happened on Wednesday night and up till yesterday, nobody could say anything. The non-challant attitude of government propelled youths to take to the streets.

Unfortunately, some motorists were fighting with the youths, which led to serious pandemonium until policemen came and dispersed the youths. Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Moses Yamu, who confirmed the report, said only two persons were killed while another was critically injured.

We got report that suspected herdsmen attacked Tse Igba Uke Village, killed one Sunday Kachuwa and injured Zongu Aliade.

Youths at Ikpayongo blocked the road in protest of the killing of their own and killed a passenger in the process, he added.

He said that policemen had been drafted to restore normalcy in the area.He, however, enjoined youths not to take the law into their hands as, according to him, the command frowns at jungle justice.

Source: Guardian
IT security consultants tend to be busy people. Given the widespread shortage of professionals with skills in many different aspects of cyber security, organizations frequently need help from outside experts.

Like many others who work in information security, Kevin Beaver, did not initially set out to pursue a career in the fieldor to eventually become an independent IT security consultant. During my senior year of high school, my late mother, Linda, encouraged me to go to college and study computers. That seemed to be a growing field with lots of opportunities, Beaver says. My mom was exactly right! My computer studies led to me pursuing this thing called computer security.

For his undergraduate college education, Beaver attended Southern College of Technologynow Kennesaw State Universityand received a bachelor's degree in computer engineering technology. He attended graduate school at Georgia Tech and received a master's in management of technology.

While in college, Beaver held part-time positions at companies including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Lotus Development. These were call center/help-desk related jobs, he says. Those roles taught me how to best deal with people and learn the technical ins and outs of the products I was supporting.
Wheat, W. D. Gann natural support and resistance levels ONE44 Analytics - Tue Nov 8, 5:17PM CST The Charts below are natural support and resistance levels that are based on W. D. Gann's "Law of Vibration".

Mid-Term Elections, Gold & The Markets Cannon Trading - Tue Nov 8, 5:00PM CST Gold broke out to the upside on election day -is this the beginning of a change in direction or simply short covering?

Cotton Closes Mostly Red Barchart - Tue Nov 8, 4:29PM CST The rally faded momentum on Tuesday with a tighter range on a mixed mostly lower close. Dec futures ended the day with another 19 point gain and stayed in just over a 3c range. The other front months closed... CTZ22 : 87.68s (+0.22%) CTH23 : 85.74s (-0.10%) CTK23 : 84.84s (-0.27%)

Hog Prices Fade for Turnaround Tuesday Barchart - Tue Nov 8, 4:29PM CST Following the sharp +$4 runnup in Dec hogs to start the week, Tuesdays action pulled the board back down by $1.47. The other front months were mixed with 15 to 55 cent losses nearby and 2 to 15 cent... HEZ22 : 85.575s (-1.69%) HEJ23 : 94.200s (-0.16%) KMZ22 : 95.975s (-0.23%)

Cattle Close Firm, Mostly Red Barchart - Tue Nov 8, 4:29PM CST Live cattle futures stayed in a relatively tighter range on Tuesday and closed UNCH in the Dec contract. The other nearbys went home 15 to 30 cents weaker. Feeder cattle were mixed on the board on Tuesday.... LEZ22 : 153.050s (unch) LEG23 : 154.775s (-0.16%) LEJ23 : 158.250s (-0.19%) GFX22 : 178.275s (+0.03%) GFF23 : 179.900s (-0.01%)

Tuesday Loss for Corn Market Barchart - Tue Nov 8, 4:29PM CST Corn futures faded more on Tuesday to complete the day 4 1/4 to 8 1/4 cents in the red. Open interest had been rising, hinting at net new selling ahead of the report. Preliminary OI data will be released... ZCZ22 : 667-0 (unch) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.6542 (-1.14%) ZCH23 : 673-4 (unch) ZCK23 : 673-4 (unch)

Soy Futures Mostly Weaken Barchart - Tue Nov 8, 4:29PM CST Soymeal prices were the complexs canary on Tuesday, though even gains there were limited to 0.5% in the front months. Soybean prices gave back 3 3/4 to 6 3/4 cents on the day past the in-delivery Novs... ZSX22 : 1447-0 (+0.21%) ZSPAUS.CM : 14.1389 (-0.10%) ZSF23 : 1444-2 (-0.16%) ZSH23 : 1450-4 (-0.19%)

Double Digit Losses for Tuesday Wheat Barchart - Tue Nov 8, 4:29PM CST Tuesdays wheat trade ended with futures down by +1%. CBT SRW closed 1.8% to 2.1% in the red on losses of as much as 18 cents before the USDA reports. KC HRW closed down by 1.2% to 1.5% with a 14c loss... ZWZ22 : 829-4 (+0.21%) ZWH23 : 849-2 (+0.21%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.6015 (-2.29%) KEZ22 : 946-2 (unch) KEPAWS.CM : 9.0379 (-1.26%) MWZ22 : 955-0 (+0.47%)
#KBO Former MLB All-Star Choo Shin-soo celebrates 1st championship in S. Korea His eyes all red, from all the tears of joy he'd shed and from the beer shower to celebrate his first professional baseball title, SSG Landers outfielder Choo Shin-soo was a gratef...
Update 1/26/18  Dittmar appears to have garnered planning-commission support for a self-storage development on the west side of Hillside Road, also known as Highway C. Commissioners recently recommended approval for a conditional-use permit, as long as the developer meets several conditions. The latest proposal was Dittmars fourth since April, according to the source. The first phase includes two climate-controlled buildings.

The commission must approve the site plan, which requires fire-lane integration connecting to Stoney Lane. Buildings facing Hillside Road will be required to feature 30 percent masonry. Planners also stipulated additions to Dittmars landscape design. The Slinger Fire Department also has requested a second fire hydrant added to the site, a widening of the driveway as a first access point for fire vehicles, and the addition of a second point of fire-vehicle access.

Planners are more favorable to Dittmars latest proposal because it has less density than earlier versions, Marchek told the source. One solution was shortening the storage buildings to provide larger turning radiuses.

The path to approval has also been hampered by Wisconsin Act 67, a new state law regulating conditional-use permits. Dittmars project is the first to fall under the measure, which makes granting conditional-use permits a very methodical, but fact-based process, Marchek said.

Several residents still oppose the development. Dozens of signatures against the permit were submitted to the commission at its last meeting, and several opposition letters were read into the formal record, the source reported.

The commission is scheduled to discuss Dittmars revised plans on Feb. 14.

7/24/17  Dittmars pursuit of a self-storage development in Slinger could be in jeopardy now that the planning commission has rejected a second proposal from him. Dittmar didnt seek a public hearing for his initial plan on American Eagle Drive and instead petitioned for a conditional-use permit on a 5.41-acre site on the west side of Hillside Road, according to the source. Dittmar also sought approval for related architectural, lighting and site plans, but commissioners voted 4-3 against the new application.

Though commission chair and village president Russ Brandt indicated he favored the second property, other commissioners sided with a few residents who were opposed to both projects. Resident Bob Reynolds told planners the storage facility would affect their property value and quality of life.

Fredericks indicated he received five letters from residents who opposed Dittmars original plan as well as other negative correspondence that was never entered into public record because Dittmar effectively withdrew the original plan by not pursuing the public-hearing process. Fredericks opposed the second proposal on grounds it wouldnt attract people into the village, create jobs or diversify the tax base. He also indicated self-storage wasnt the best use for the property, citing an economic-development study from Washington County that determined Slinger had few flat parcels left on which to build.

Another issue with the second proposal was the need to install a new fire hydrant at the site, as the city fire chief expressed concerns about the propertys proximity to existing hydrants, Marcheck told commissioners.

The first target site proposed by Dittmar also appears off the table because the property is under new ownership, Fredericks said during the meeting.

5/2/17  During a preliminary discussion last week, the Slinger Planning Commission didnt appear to favor the self-storage project proposed for American Eagle Drive. Among the sticking points are that the property has access to sewer and water, which some commissioners said was unnecessary for the storage business, according to the source.

By having a building constructed there that does not use village sewer and water takes away future funding for growth for our sewer and water utility, Jim Haggerty, public-works director, said during the meeting.

Though Dittmar argued that once all 10 storage buildings were built the facility could add up to $2 million to the village tax base, he wasnt sure how quickly that would occur. We would start with probably three buildings and then let the economy dictate when the others would be built, Dittmar said during the meeting.

The buildings would be arranged in a courtyard concept, Dittmar told the commission. In addition, the facility would include a resident manager, wrought-iron fencing with gated access, and video cameras, the developer said.

Commissioner and board trustee Lee Fredericks believes self-storage isnt the best use for the property. There will be other better opportunities that will come forward for the propertys use, he said. We need to be patient, and let the economy take its course.

The commission wont decide on the conditional-use permit until after a public hearing, for which Dittmar has begun the formal process of scheduling, the source reported.

4/21/17  The Slinger, Wis., Planning Commission will consider a self-storage proposal from local real estate developer Kevin Dittmar on April 26. Dittmar, president of Dittmar Realty Inc., intends to build a 52,000-square-foot facility on 4.42 acres on the south side of American Eagle Drive. The $2 million project would include multiple structures built over several years. Though the site is zoned for commercial business, self-storage is a conditional use, according to the source.

Were going to build the project in phases, which will be determined by demand, Dittmar told the source. Right now, its too early in the process to say how many units we might build at the start.

The site is near Interstate 41 and Highway 60 and would serve residents of Cedar Lake, Wis., in addition to Slinger. It would include units large enough to hold boats and RVs, according to the source.

Architectural design would include 30 percent brick on exterior walls, cedar-style shingles under gables, decorative awnings, several windows and planting beds as part of the landscaping, Carla Dunn, vice president of sales and administration for Dittmar Realty, told the source. The buildings have been designed such that all doors face the interior of the site, and all lighting will be comprised of cut-off fixtures, which prevent illumination from extending beyond the property boundary, she said.

The property is also in a tax-increment financing district, which means all the tax revenue from the facility will go to the village rather than shared with other taxing authorities, Dunn said.

Language in the village ordinance isnt particularly favorable toward self-storage, citing a lack of job creation, lower-quality buildings, and less desirable visual appearance than other land uses. It also stipulates self-storage should be located on sites which have locational characteristics which may be adverse to accommodating higher quality land uses, the source reported.

Section 4 also enables the planning commission to require additional conditions related to self-storage facilities including specific security measures, such as fencing and lighting, planner Marty Marchek wrote in a memo to other village officials.

The site has been vacant for more than 10 years. A furniture store had been planned for the property in 2005 but was never constructed, according to the source.

Founded in 1959, Dittmar Realty specializes in manufactured-home communities, multi-family property management, subdivision projects and self-storage, according to its website. It previously developed Jackson Mini Storage in Jackson, Wis.

Sources:

Dittmar Realty, Website

GM Today, New Storage Facilities Proposed in Slinger

GM Today, Proposed Slinger Self-Storage Project Granted CUP

GM Today, Slinger Panel: No Recommendation on New Self Storage Facility

GM Today, New Self-Storage Buildings in Slinger Rejected
But why aren't there any claims?
When 11-year-old Spencer Hensley learned that his classmate needed US$30,000 for an assistance dog, he knew he had to take action.Connor McKenna, who Hensley had known since Year 3, suffers from a syndrome which causes the 12-year-old to faint unexpectedly due to reduced blood volume to the brain while standing up.An assistance dog would be able to help cushion the fall for McKenna and spot the warning signs of an episode 15 minutes before it occurs, but insurance would not cover the hefty price tag.I would be able to have a little more independence, McKenna said, according to The Daily Mail.Currently, McKenna can only attend a few hours of school a day and his mother must remain by his side.Hensley took matters into his own hands and began a school fundraiser for his fellow student at their school in Washington State, The Daily Mail reported.A handwritten letter from Hensley was delivered to his school principal and the student began selling bracelets on campus while McKennas mother set-up an online crowd-funding page to help raise funds.Hed done his research on why Connor needs this, and he had a plan, Lisa Rowan, principal at Edgerton Elementary School in Puyallup, Washington, said, according to the publication.I was touched. It was the first time somebody said I want to do a fundraiser for a student.Hensley made the bracelets alongside another classmate during lunch and recess and began selling them in school and at local businesses.In six weeks, Hensley was able to raise US$1,000 from bracelet sales and so far, the fundraising campaign has raised over US$17,000.
The Turnbull government has yet to issue its response to a report released by the Northern Australia insurance taskforce a year ago, to the growing frustration of the insurance industry.The report explored the establishment of a government mutual to deal with natural disasters in the Top End, which it found would cost taxpayers from $2 billion to $5 billion.In a report handed to the federal government in November 2015, the taskforce, headed by former Treasury official Mike Callaghan, rejected the idea of government intervention in the insurance market. A number of Queensland Coalition MPs, meanwhile, have been pushing for some sort of intervention, including a reinsurance pool instead of a government mutual.A spokesman for Financial Services minister Kelly O Dwyer said it is unlikely that the response would be made before next months federal budget.Insurers meanwhile, are against a government mutual or a reinsurance pool, and are pushing instead for mitigation in cyclone and flood-prone areas.The impact of Cyclone Debbie and the flooding in Queensland and northern NSW reinforces the taskforces key finding that mitigation is the only sustainable way to address household insurance prices in cyclone-prone areas, an ICA spokesman said in the report.The report also supports the industrys argument that government intervention would not address the cause of the issue and could cost taxpayers billions of dollars.A spokesman for Suncorp said there is a need for the federal government to respond to the reports findings.Its time for the government to act and uphold the findings of this and numerous other inquiries that have recommended shifting funding towards mitigation, the spokesperson said.
With the rise of artificial intelligence, driverless cars and insurtech grabbing the headlines, what technology should brokers and the wider industry be investing in?Ben Pring, co-director of Cognizants Center for the Future of Work, said that the insurance industry should focus on foundational technology before it impacts other areas.Data analytics is a game-changing technology for the insurance business, Pring told Insurance Business.Analysis of data will help brokers and providers better understand which products to bring to market, which to offer to clients and prospects, and when to target these offers.Pring noted that data analytics will be the key to opening up other technological doors for the industry.A recent report from Accenture found that two-thirds of insurers are already using artificial intelligence-based virtual assistants and Australia is at the cutting edge of this technology thanks to start-ups such as Flamengo, which was founded in the country.While the rise of robotics may be seen over the next three years, Pring noted that analysis of data will be the foundation for the development of more autonomous technology.Data analysis will also help brokers continue to remain close to clients as customer expectations shift.A digital presence of some kind is more important than ever for the broker channel and the data that can be provided by both new and old clients can help brokers tailor their offerings to individual businesses and improve both retention and new business rates.In this challenging environment, personalised and engaging customer experience becomes critical in not just attracting new customers, but also retaining existing ones, Pring continued.While robo-advice and artificial intelligence may not replace brokers in the short to medium term, an appreciation of the use of data and technology will help brokers free up their time and boost their businesses in the long run.
An Ohio jury ruled this week that thousands of former and current American Family Insurance agents should be considered as employees and not independent contractors.If the judge rules in favour of the plaintiffs in the class action suit against the major insurer, it will be required to pay more than $1 billion in retirement benefits to almost 7,000 agents.The decision comes after a two week trial, which followed more than four years of litigation. The collective complaint from the agents was classified as a class action suit by US district judge Donald Nugent.The jury apparently agreed that (American Family) cannot have it both ways, Erin Dickinson, a Milwaukee attorney who worked on the case, said in a Cleveland.com report.A company cannot just call its agents independent contractors to avoid following the federal law protecting retirement benefits and then insist on controlling how those agents do their work, she added.Judge Nugent will then have to issue his own ruling on the matter. He could either agree or disagree with the jury. If he agrees with the jury, the court will have to decide on a course of action through which the major insurer can correct the situation.Meanwhile, American Family spokesman Ken Muth issued an emailed statement which said: We value our agents and the important roles they play in the lives of our customers and success of our company.We strongly disagree with the advisory verdict and believe it is contrary to the facts that American Family treats our agents as the independent contractors that they are.The classification of insurance agents as independent contractors is common in our industry and has been affirmed by the courts in the past. Not only does our agents independent-contractor designation comply with the law, it benefits our agents by providing them great independence to make their businesses successful, Muth also explained.
Florida congressmen have taken a step towards scrapping a decades old law that supports the no-fault insurance system in the state and have passed legislation to reform it.Also known as Personal Injury Protection (PIP) in Florida, no-fault insurance covers at least $10,000 in medical expenses without the need to determine which party is at fault during a vehicular accident.This means that the motorists insurance pays up for any losses even without being able to hold the at-fault party accountable.Local media outlet 10news reported that PIP has been in place in the state for the past 50 years. Previous attempts to scrap it have proven unsuccessful.Changing the auto insurance system could save Florida motorists at least $81 in annual premiums, regardless of mounting costs, the report said.However, lawmakers are concerned over the timely availability of coverage if the no-fault system is replaced. PIP allows immediate coverage for an accident since insurers do not have to determine who is at fault before cutting a check for damages.Proponents also say that PIP prevents out-of-pocket expenses in the event of a crash.Some policies also cover for lost work days due to hospitalization or medical rehabilitation.The report said that the state Senate is also mulling over its own version of the measure to discard the no-fault auto insurance system.
A life insurance company is suing a competitor for allegedly poaching more than 1,400 of its sales agents.First Financial Security claims that a rival business, Freedom Equity Group, induced sales agents to break noncompete agreements, a move that cost First Financial more than $1.6 million.According to reports, First Financial claimed that Freedom Equity intentionally interfered with its contracts in the hiring of two former First Financial executives, Mai Lee and Gilles Moua. First Financial lawyer Clifford S. Davidson told a California federal court that within weeks of Mouas May 2014 resignation, his team of 1,400 sales agents had resigned and taken jobs with Freedom Equity.(Freedom Equity) intentionally encouraged Moua and Lee to recruit their team in violation of the sales contractor agreements they signed with FFS, Davidson said during opening arguments.According to Davidson, that interference has cost First Financial more than $1.6 million in business and commissions so far  losses he claimed would only grow with time. Davidson said that by the end of 2019, First Financial will have lost more than $3 million because of the defection of so many sales agents.First Financial claimed that on the day Moua resigned, he held a meeting in his home to tell his sales team why they should move to Freedom Equity  complete with computers they could use to apply for the jobs then and there. Davidson also claimed that Moua, who is Laotian, used his heritage to convince his agents  who were mostly of Laotian descent  to move to the rival company.However, Freedom Equitys lawyer, Kenneth D. Sisco, said Moua resigned from First Financial because of mistreatment and humiliation. After Moua resigned, Sisco claimed, First Financial locked out his access to the company database  along with the access of mid-level managers. That lockout caused them to think theyd been fired  leaving them free, they thought, to pursue other employment, Sisco claimed.
A bill that is polarizing the Texas constituency passed the Senate committee level this week, and is now waiting for its turn to be voted on by the Upper House in the final six weeks of the session.SB 10 aims to address abusive lawsuits which have proliferated as a series of foul weather systems have pummelled the state over the years. The Senate Business & Commerce Committee advanced the proposed law by a 7-1 vote without any discussion.According to local media outlet Chron, its provisions include the requirement of a pre-suit notice to be served. The notice must outline acts or omissions that resulted in the claim, the purported amount owed to the policyholder, and the amount of reasonable and necessary attorneys fees. Furthermore, the bill states that if the pre-suit deadline is missed, the complainants lawyer cannot collect fees from the lawsuit, whereas the law currently in place requires the plaintiffs attorney to notify the insurance company 60 days or more prior to filing a suit.Apart from hail, the bill applies to other natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or tremors, wildfire, flood, tornado, lightning, hurricane, wind, snowstorms and rain.In response to the criticism that the bill limits consumer rights by restricting their legal reach, proponents maintain that it still protects the policyholders right to sue their insurance company during instances when it acted in bad faith or in an unfair manner.However, the bill reduces the penalty that insurance firms have to pay if they do not fulfil a claim in a timely manner at the full amount. From 18%, the bill brings it down to 10%, which is 5% higher than the Texas judgement rate of 5%.Consumer advocate Ware Wendell said in the report that the proposed measure is a blue tarp bill because it could potentially delay storm damage repair.Wendell, executive director of the non-profit consumer group Texas Watch, said in a statement: This legislation threatens every property owner in this state. It is a giveaway to insurance companies at the expense of Texas families, businesses, churches, and schools. Lawmakers should represent their constituents, not the insurance industry.Meanwhile, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, an enterprise-backed non-profit, lauded the committee approval of the proposed law.Lucy Nashed, TLR spokeswoman, said in the report that the bill provides a common-sense solution to the worst lawsuit abuse in Texas today, shutting down the abusive lawsuit mills that are jeopardizing affordable property insurance coverage for all Texans while maintaining the strongest consumer protections in the nation for property owners.
Louisianas governor has declared a state of emergency as concerns over the rapid erosion of the states coastline mount.Governor John Bel Edwards has declared the state of emergency as an alarm bell to the federal government to take legislative action and expedite the environmental and federal permitting review process in relation to the state.Edwards said he is asking for the support of President Donald J. Trump to speed up the said processes, which are hampering the implementation of the states 50 year restoration and protection masterplan.The Two-Way, a local media outlet, said that Louisiana has developed a $50 billion, 50-year plan to recover its coastlines and wetlands and protect them from the onslaught of hurricanes. The masterplan is mainly funded through a 2010 settlement with oil firm BP after litigation over an oil spill in the states coastal waters.The emergency declaration is meant to complement the said plan, according to The Two-Way.According to Edwards, if the state does not take action over the problem, it stands to lose 2,250 square miles of productive land to erosion over the next 50 years.Edwards explained that land resources are important to the states energy, maritime transportation and trade sectors, among others.
The Connecticut Insurance Department has launched a new licensing web site, designed to improve customer service for the nearly 200,000 agents, brokers, adjusters and other licensees who conduct business with the department.

The new licensing site features online tools that allow licensees to apply, renew, update and print a license, find continuing education classes and get all the latest news from the departments Licensing Division.

We are pleased to provide this latest enhancement for the tens of thousands of industry professionals who interact with the department on a daily basis, said Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Katharine L. Wade in a press release. We continue to strive for more regulatory efficiencies so that doing business with the state of Connecticut is more user-friendly. This new licensing site is another example of how we are accomplishing that.

Other recent regulatory enhancements at the department include:

Online renewal notices for casualty adjusters and motor vehicle property damage appraisers has saved $40,000 in processing and mailing costs.

An online pay portal for licensees that expedites revenue collection for the General Fund.

A new licensing phone system automatically routes caller to the proper subject matter expert.

An online electronic application for all out-of-state (foreign) carriers seeking to do business in Connecticut through the Uniform Certificate of Authority Application. This includes applications for expansion and corporate amendments.

Turnaround time for product reviews in both Life & Health and Property & Casualty have greatly improved as a result of the CIDs LEAN processes.

The mission of the Connecticut Insurance Department is to protect consumers through regulation of the industry, outreach, education and advocacy. The department recovers an average of $4 million yearly on behalf of consumers and regulates the industry by ensuring carriers adhere to state insurance laws and regulations and are financially solvent to pay claims. The departments annual budget is funded through assessments from the insurance industry. Each year, the department returns an average of $100 million a year to the state General Fund in license fees, premium taxes, fines and other revenue sources to support various state programs.

Source: Connecticut Insurance Department

Topics Legislation Training Development Connecticut
Pennsylvanias attorney generals office on Wednesday charged a dozen people as part of an organized crime ring that it said had made millions of dollars renting out fraudulently obtained license plates, primarily in New York City.

The people who rented the Pennsylvania plates  which were packaged with fraudulent insurance paperwork  allegedly used the anonymity to evade traffic tickets, parking fines and highway tolls.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro estimated the price tag in losses to Pennsylvania, New York and Florida at $2 million, and possibly higher. He suggested there could be similar operations in other states.

The ring, allegedly led by Raphael Levi, of New York City, used a web of fake car dealerships and transporter businesses it set up across rural Pennsylvania to get license plates, starting around 2008. All told, it obtained more than 1,000 license plates, and about 400 were still active. It then rented out the plates for $400 per month, or more, to hundreds of people, prosecutors said.

All of this was a big facade, it was phony, it wasnt real, Shapiro said. There werent these big storefronts where legitimate operations were going on, and then in the back maybe some illegitimate business practices. This was all constructed as one big fraud.

Each plate was registered to a business associated with Levi, authorities said. When law enforcement, parking authorities or toll operators mailed fines, notices or other violations, it went to post office boxes or addresses associated with the businesses within the Levi organization, they said. The Levi organization ignored the violations, they said.

They also used fake auto insurance cards, so that when an accident happened and other motorists filed claims, no payment resulted, Shapiro said.

Shapiro would not say whether users of the rented plates will be charged, but said the investigation is ongoing and that the state will seek restitution. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is taking steps to address shortcomings that were exploited by the ring, including limiting the number of license plates that are issued to one business before an internal review is triggered, Shapiro said.

A lawyer for Levi did not return requests for comment Wednesday evening. Levi and 11 other defendants were booked in suburban Harrisburg on Wednesday, the attorney generals office said.

Levi was ordered held on $600,000 bail, an attorney generals office spokesman said.

A stolen notary seal and falsified insurance policy paperwork helped extend schemes that also included washing car titles to evade loans and selling cars with rolled-back odometers to pump up resale values, the attorney generals office said. The ring evaded paying state sales tax by reporting false vehicle trade-in values, it said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Fraud New York Pennsylvania
Britains financial watchdog is investigating five insurance brokers over information-sharing on aviation insurance, the companies said, in one of the first cases of its kind by the watchdog.

Aon, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT), Marsh , UIB and Willis Towers Watson issued statements saying they were cooperating with the Financial Conduct Authoritys investigation, with Willis and Marsh adding the probe followed recent visits by the FCA to their offices.

The FCA indicated that it had reasonable grounds for suspecting that Marsh Limited and others have been sharing competitively sensitive information within the aviation (re)insurance sector, Marsh said in its statement on Friday.

Marsh said it was also conducting its own review of its aviation insurance business, with the help of an external law firm.

The FCA declined to comment. The watchdog was given new powers in 2015 to crack down on uncompetitive behavior, and had hitherto only mentioned one other enforcement case, in March last year, without elaborating further.

The watchdog has powers to fine firms the equivalent of up to 10 percent of worldwide turnover in the last business year.

Aviation insurance  covering airlines against damages to their planes and injuries to passengers caused by accidents or war or terror attacks  totalled around 1.5 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) in gross written premium in 2015 across Lloyds of London and other London-based insurers.

The sector has been under pricing pressure for several years, due to increased competition given relatively high returns compared with many asset markets.

Following a report in The Insurance Insider, Aon said in a statement late on Thursday that it was working diligently with the regulator, but could not comment on the details of the ongoing investigation.

It said aviation broking represented less than $100 million in global revenue in 2016.

JLT, in a statement earlier on Friday, said it was providing all appropriate assistance to the FCA, and UIB and Willis Towers Watson said in emailed statements that they were cooperating fully with the FCA investigation.

($1 = 0.7822 pounds) (Additional reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Rachel Armstrong and Susan Fenton)

Topics Aviation Aon
AXA has appointed Richard Benjamins as chief data officer (CDO) of the AXA Group and head of the Data Innovation Lab (DIL), effective May 2.

Benjamins will report to Benoit Claveranne, chief transformation officer (CTO) and a member of the Management Committee of the AXA Group.

In his new role, Benjamins will steer the groups data strategy and manage data governance, helping to make AXA a data empowered organization, the company said in a statement.

Previously, he was director of External Positioning & Big Data for Social Good at LUCA, Telefonicas newly created big data unit. Before that (from 2014 to 2016), he was group director of Business Intelligence & Big Data for Telefonica, a company he joined in 2007. From 2000 to 2007, he was director and board Member of iSOCO, a Barcelona-based sourcing company.

Benjamins holds a PhD in Cognitive Science/Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam. From 1993 to 2000, he was successively a visiting professor at the University of Sao Paulo, a visiting researcher at the Universite Paris-Sud, visiting researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) for the Spanish Ministry of Sciences (CSIC), and assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam.

Topics InsurTech AXA XL Data Driven
Taxi app Uber could face an increase in operator license fees in London under proposed changes by the citys transport authority, the latest in a series of moves by regulators to rein in a firm that has disrupted the traditional taxi industry.

Transport for London (TfL) launched a consultation on Thursday on plans to change the fee structure for private hire operators so that firms pay fees that reflect the increased costs of regulating the sector.

San Francisco-based Uber, which allows people to book journeys on their smartphones, said it supported the principle of larger operators paying higher fees and would look at the details once it received the consultation documents.

More than 30,000 licensed drivers in London use the Uber app, making it the largest operator of private hire vehicles in the city. TfL said the private hire industry in London had grown dramatically, from 65,000 licensed drivers in 2013/14 to more than 117,000 now.

The transport authority said this meant the cost of regulating the industry was soaring, with enforcement costs over the next five years set to reach 30 million pounds from a previous estimate of 4 million.

It is only fair that license fees for private hire operators accurately reflect the costs of enforcement and regulating the trade, said Helen Chapman, TfLs general manager of taxi and private hire.

As things stand, there are only two rates for five-year licenses: around 1,500 pounds for small operators of up to two vehicles and around 2,800 pounds for firms operating three or more vehicles.

Under the new proposals, the existing two tiers would be replaced with five. For large operators with more than 1,000 vehicles  Uber and rival Addison Lee  fees would rise to 167,000 pounds plus 68 pounds per car.

Uber has generated controversy in many countries, facing protests from traditional taxi drivers, lawsuits from its own drivers and regulatory bans.

In Britain, the firm has suffered several legal setbacks. It lost a court battle in March to stop TfL from imposing strict new English reading and writing standards on drivers.

In a separate case, a tribunal ruled in October it should treat two drivers as workers and pay them the minimum wage and holiday pay.

A spokesman for Uber said the firm had been granted permission to appeal against that ruling. The case will be heard at the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London on Sept 27/28.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Kate Holton)

Related:

Topics London
American International Group Inc. is weighing a plan to hire Brian Duperreault as the companys seventh chief executive officer since 2005, according to people familiar with the boards deliberations.

Other candidates are still being considered as the board seeks a replacement for outgoing CEO Peter Hancock, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

Duperreault, 69, is a former deputy to longtime AIG leader Maurice Hank Greenberg and went on to lead one of the companys biggest rivals, Ace Ltd. He later became CEO of the biggest insurance broker, Marsh & McLennan Cos., and then Hamilton Insurance Group, a Bermuda-based carrier backed by principals of hedge fund firm Two Sigma Investments. Representatives for AIG and Hamilton said the companies dont comment on speculation. Two Sigma declined to comment.

AIG extended gains in New York trading, climbing 1.4 percent to $59.79 at 3:45 p.m.

Among the Best

Duperreault is among the best possible candidates to become AIGs next CEO, Barclays Plc analysts led by Jay Gelb wrote in a note to investors after Bloomberg reported on the boards deliberations. Duperreault would be able to form a workable strategy for AIG and also attract top industry talent.

His Hamilton has already been working with AIG to improve the use of analytics in underwriting. The two insurers partnered last year with Two Sigma to form a venture focusing on the $80 billion market for small- and medium-sized businesses. And in 2016 he hired Seraina Macia, a former AIG executive, to run Hamiltons U.S. operation. AIG has also weighed making an offer to purchase Hamilton, one of the people said.

AIG is seeking a replacement for Hancock, who announced March 9 that he was stepping down after losing the support of investors including activist billionaire Carl Icahn. The company has become increasingly reliant on commercial property-and-casualty insurance after divesting life operations in many nations and exiting businesses like plane leasing. Hancock, who has a background in banking, was stung by higher-than-expected claims costs on policies covering against environment liabilities and worker injuries.

The new CEO will have to restore the confidence of Wall Street, which has been frustrated by four losses in six quarters. The job will also involve efforts to retain commercial clients after New York-based AIG endured the departure of many top executives and a downgrade by S&P Global Ratings.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
After a four-year battle in the Florida Legislature, lawmakers on Wednesday passed statewide regulations for ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft that would undo a patchwork of local rules across the state.

Floridas patchwork of ridesharing regulations is finally history, said Samantha Sexton, vice president of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs for the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida. [This bill] ensures that when drivers are operating during the app-on to app-off time frame, there are clear levels of required insurance to protect the driver, passengers and others sharing the roadways. If enacted, the bill will clarify the claims process, which will help consumers recover their losses faster.

Lawmakers were quick to send the measure (HB 221) to Gov. Rick Scott, who has yet to take a definitive stand on the issue. If it is signed into law, Florida would create a single statewide set of rules on the ridesharing industry.

Uber and Lyft currently have tens of thousands of drivers in Florida, and the proposed legislation would help them expand their app-based services throughout the state.

Lyft spokesman Chelsea Harrison said in a statement the company welcomes the bills passage because it provides certainty for its customers.

With this bill, local ordinances targeting ridesharing services would be overturned on July 1. That includes local rules in the Florida Keys where Uber and Lyft cant operate.

Floridas future is directly tied to its ability to encourage innovation, and ridesharing services represent a groundbreaking transportation option for Floridas residents and visitors, said Sen. Bill Galvano, a co-sponsor of the bill. This legislation will boost economic opportunity for the thousands of ridesharing drivers in Florida, while prioritizing public safety.

Under the bill, drivers would have to undergo criminal background checks to weed out people with certain convictions, including sexual assault and drunken driving. The bill would also require drivers to carry a $1 million liability insurance policy.

Local governments could not slap new regulations on the companies, but they could impose airport pickup fees as long as cab drivers face the same fees.

Those fees are now up for negotiation. Uber spokesman Colin Tooze said the company will be talking to airport officials in the coming weeks to begin striking deals.

The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), applauded the passage of the bill.

PCI urges Governor Scott to expeditiously sign the bill into law and make Florida the 46th state along with the District of Columbia to take action on this public policy priority, said Logan McFaddin, regional manager for PCI.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Florida Legislation
The family-owned La Coruna-based company is best known for its Estrella Galicia beer. It has reached agreement to buy a 32% stake in the Carlow Brewing Company for an undisclosed sum. The deal is understood not to be the first step in a takeover of the Bagenalstown-based brewer, but rather a solidifying of existing ties. Hijos de Rivera is already Carlow Brewings Spanish importer and the deal will help push OHaras labels into other European and South American markets.

We have spent the last two years developing our connection with the brewery since they became our Spanish importer, and this gives me great confidence they can make a significant contribution to the future success of Carlow Brewing Company, especially in helping us develop new and existing export markets for our beer and cider, said Carlow Brewing Company chief executive Seamus OHara.
Residents in a number of two-bedroom apartments at Fishermans Quay at Grove Island in the city have vowed to fight the evictions, which are being carried out by Munster Pensioner Trustees Limited.

This pension fund purchased a number of properties in the complex out of receivership earlier this year.

Now, residents are gearing up for a battle to hang on to their homes after receiving notices informing them they must vacate and give up possession of the dwelling since the apartments are being put up for sale.

The letters arrived in tenants apartments on Good Friday.

Local Independent councillor John Gilligan has said that while the funds action is legal, its almost certainly immoral.

Alan McCarthy, who lives with his only son Daniel, 19, in one of the apartments, said that when he received the termination notice he couldnt stop being sick.

My whole life has been turned upside down, he said.

Mr McCarthy  who pays rent of 550 a month and has lived in the apartment more than three years  added: I think its all about money. Someone is trying to make a fast buck at our expense.

The Property Price Register, the national database of all residential sales, currently lists two apartments as sold at Fishermans Quay.

One sold for 111,000, the other for 89,300, both in the last month.

A number of other apartments in the complex are on the market from 100,000, while a unit there was recently listed for rent at 900 per month.

Mr McCarthy also criticised the timing of the letter, adding: It just suggests a total lack of any heart. Im not particularly religious, but on Good Friday  come on. Thats not particularly nice.

Ryan Mowat, 20, has lived in the complex for five years with his father Andy.

He said: We were shocked, and taken aback. To get a letter telling us to pack up and go, because we dont want you, is not right.

Mr Gilligan condemned the letters, saying: These people will have no place to go. These people have the indignity of being kicked out on the side of the road.

Munster Pensioner Trustees Ltd  which has an address in the city suburb of Castletroy  referred queries onto the management firm in the area Kersten Mehl Property Management.

Its boss, Kersten Mehl, said: We have managed this complex for the last eight years. I received instructions to issue these notices on a number of two-bedroom apartments, as the landlord wished to sell them.

While residents claim 14 apartments are subject to the notices, Mr Mehl said that number is closer to eight.
Senior officials and county councillors were responding to unconfirmed reports the Government may resort to including a large part of the existing M8 Cork-Dublin motorway for a long-awaited improved intercity link between Cork and Limerick.

Some proposals suggest forcing traffic into South Tipperary  where it would connect to a new motorway linking Cahir and Limerick  would be financially more viable than a direct route from Cork through towns such as Mallow and Charleville.

However, Cllr Gerard Murphy told colleagues the council must act to ensure a direct route is built.

The importance of the direct route cannot be underestimated, he said.

Any change in the proposed route would completely cut off North Cork, Kerry, and West Limerick from the rest of the country. We need the route to go ahead as planned, with proper access routes to Mallow, Buttevant, Charleville, West Limerick, and Kerry.

Have no doubt, there is pressure mounting to change the route.

He pointed out businesses in the Munster region have given their overwhelming support to the proposed M20 motorway, with 98% stating that a direct connection will enhance economic linkages between Cork and Limerick.

Initial findings from a Red C Research survey of businesses, conducted as part of a study into the proposed motorway, also found a large majority believe it would lead to increased road safety.

Cllr Frank OFlynn said he was aware of demands for the motorway to be built to Limerick from the M8 near Cahir in Co Tipperary.

The future of the whole Mallow area depends on a direct Cork-Limerick motorway, he said. Were the only country in Europe where the second and third cities are not connected.

Cllr Gearoid Murphy said not having a direct route would increase the carbon footprint, as vehicles would travel further if forced through South Tipperary.

The councils director of roads Tom Stritch said he had no doubt the Government would examine the possibility of building a motorway link somewhere between Mitchelstown and Cahir to Limerick, but he pointed out council officials wanted a direct route between the two cities providing access to Mallow, Buttevant, and Charleville.

Mr Stritch said officials were liaising with Limerick County Council on the matter.

Cllr Tim Collins said the present main road between Cork and Limerick was very dangerous in sections. He said it was, therefore, imperative a new motorway be built directly to make travel between the two cities safer.

Mr Stritch also said Jacobs Consultants were expected to finalise by the end of next month, or early June at the latest, a feasibility report into the building of a northern relief road around Mallow.

Assistant county manager James Fogarty said the road was vital to prevent Mallow grinding to a halt.

The relief road could be built three years ahead of the motorway and were pushing for that, said Mr Fogarty.

It was indicated if funding was immediately available to build the motorway, it would take at least six years to complete.
Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe has told ministers they face hard spending choices because of the cost of special pay deals granted to public servants this year.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, senior Government sources were keen to downplay the chances of such demands being met, insisting the work of the Public Service Pay Commission, due to report next month, will determine what is doable.

We have a lot of pressures on the purses this year and pay obviously is a key one. Demands have to be reasonable and realistic. But the Government will not be held hostage, said one senior source last night.

A spokesman for Mr Donohoe told the Irish Examiner: The issue of public service pay is currently under consideration by the Public Service Pay Commission.

In line with their mandate, the Public Service Pay Commission will produce a report within this quarter.

"This report will form the basis for public service pay negotiations. Any pay settlement emitting from these negotiations must be affordable and sustainable.

Addressing the Public Service Executive Union conference in Galway yesterday, its president, Maria Ryan, said that in forthcoming talks on a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement, public service unions would seek a deal to break the back of the cuts imposed under financial emergency legislation.

The union said it is going to seek restoration of what has been taken from public servants since 2009.

General secretary Tom Geraghty said about 1.4bn is outstanding, equating to an average of a 10% reduction in affected workers income.

The emergency is over and the justification for pay cuts imposed upon public servants is now gone, he said.

While not expecting the return of the monies in one go, he said it is time for all parties to negotiate a fair outcome. Public servants are reasonable, we do not expect it all in one fell swoop.

Mr Geraghty said the union will always be cognisant of available funds but that it wants to see an end to Fempi (Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) legislation, which permitted the previous two governments to cut public service pay.

Mr Geraghty said the governments ran out of money because of decisions taken on fiscal policy that saw the tax base narrow and become dependent on property transaction taxes.

The recession was not, he said, the fault of public servants but the fault of public policy  and public servants paid a huge price nonetheless.

Mr Geraghty said it was not in the interests of public servants to make an unsustainable deal and the union will be responsible in any negotiations.

Mr Donohoe has delivered a stark warning that the cost of meeting the public sector pay demands will be be very difficult.

The commission will have regard to the state of the national finances, he said.

I expect the commission to report by May or even before then. They are going to be very difficult discussions and negotiations.

The amount being sought by the Public Service Executive Union is double what is being given in pay rises under the Lansdowne Road agreement.
Cian Walsh, of 17, Mercier Park, Turners Cross, Cork, pleaded guilty at Cork District Court yesterday to charges arising out of the crash.

Judge Olann Kelleher jailed him for six months and banned him from driving for 10 years.

Inspector Daniel Coholan said the incident occurred on June 22, 2016. The inspector said Walsh drove at excessive speed through Ballintemple village on Blackrock Road on that date when he hit a wall and caused injuries to himself and was removed by ambulance to hospital.

Frank Buttimer, solicitor, said the accused recently had a more serious case against him sent forward to Cork Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing after he signed a plea of guilty.

Mr Buttimer said the accused expected a lengthy prison sentence to be imposed on him for that. That case relates to the discharging of a shotgun.

The solicitor said the accused had addiction difficulties and that in some respects, his health had improved through accessing prison facilities.

Mr Buttimer said the accused had overtaken a car while he was under the influence of intoxicants.

He was the author of his own misfortune. He was critically disabled for a period of time as result. His survival was an issue at one point, Mr Buttimer said.

Judge Olann Kelleher noted there were previous convictions for similar offences in the past.

The judge imposed a six-month term and disqualified the accused from driving for a period of six months.
It comes as countries visiting the US could be forced to reveal social media passwords, mobile phone contacts, political ideologies, and financial data under new extreme vetting rules proposed by the Trump administration.

A survey of more than 1,000 people by travel search engine Kayak found 78% of Irish people said they would likely not visit the US if the rules came into force, with 38% stating they would definitely not visit.
Irish coastal dwellers have been harvesting seaweed by hand for hundreds of years but thats about to change in Bantry Bay.

Following a five-year application process, the first licence for the mechanical harvesting of seaweed in Ireland and Britain has been secured by a Kerry-based bioengineering company, BioAtlantis Ltd. CEO John T OSullivan hopes to begin harvesting the bays underwater kelp forests on a five-year rotation basis later this year.

He faces growing opposition, however, as locals are only now becoming aware of the plan. Residents along Bantry Bay describe the lack of public consultation as alarming and fear the seaweed wont grow back. One of the conditions of the foreshore licence, issued by the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government (DECLG), is that the project will be subject to an environmental study and monitoring paid for by BioAtlantis. As such, the harvesting at Bantry Bay will act as a test case to ascertain whether or not mechanical seaweed harvesting is sustainable.

We applied for a licence in 2009. We went through every loop that was there, Mr OSullivan said.

John T. OSullivan, CEO, BioAtlantis

The public consultation process required the posting of a notice in Bantry garda station and the publication of an advertisement in a local and national newspaper. The notice was posted at Bantry garda station for 21 days in December 2009 and an advertisement was published in the Southern Star newspaper on Dec 12, 2009. The department states that a notification was placed in a national newspaper but no record of this has been found. A department press officer confirmed that normal public consultation procedures were followed in this case. No submissions were received.

Asked if he spoke to any local people about mechanical harvesting in Bantry Bay, Mr OSullivan said everything was done by the book.

As part of the foreshore licence process, the application was circulated to various bodies and submissions were received from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Underwater Archeology Unit, the Marine Survey Office, Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, Eastern Regional Fisheries Board, Central Fisheries Board and the Marine Institute.

A qualified accountant by profession, Mr OSullivan plans to use the harvested seaweed to develop alternatives to the use of antibiotics in pig feed. He insists he jumped through hoops to secure the licence, a process he says has cost him in the region of 5million to date.

An eight-year monitoring process is a requirement of the licence, four years pre-harvest and another four post-harvest, monitoring fish, invertebrate fauna, fauna attached to kelp and kelp holdfasts as well as on rocks in the understory of the kelp area and marine flora at harvested and non-harvested sites. BioAtlantis is required to provide an annual report on harvesting activities to include the areas and quantities harvested and measured regeneration.

There is 20% of the standing stock of Laminaria (kelp) washed ashore every year. So one storm on one bad day will do more damage than we can ever do, Mr OSullivan said.

Bantry resident and Coastwatch Ireland volunteer, Summer Sheehy, testing materials in Bantry Bay.

One of the criteria for the granting of the licence is that its in the public interest. The Marine Institute sees kelp as a significant natural resource that, if sustainably exploited, could lead to the development of novel products which would, in turn, stimulate economic development.

We want to see an indigenous Irish seaweed sector and it is our responsibility to ensure that it takes place in a safe and controlled manner, the Institute said in its statement on the mechanical harvesting of kelp in Bantry Bay.

Jobs will be created in the harvesting and processing of the kelp, according to Mr OSullivan.

We have 58 people employed, working in the seaweed industry. We have a patented product, we are extracting and purifying compounds from seaweed that can help in pig health. There is a huge issue across Europe in terms of overuse of antibiotics. One or two of the compounds in the seaweed helps to mitigate that issue.

Im trying to build an industry, not a company. Its never been done before. Above in Norway, they can put down a dredge and just pull it off the seabed. Im trying to develop technology where you dont touch the seabed at all. Its seriously complicated because you have to take account of the undulating seabed and the waves of the sea, he said.

Concerned Bantry resident Deirdre Fitzgerald has been investigating the licensing procedure and sharing information on social media. She is alarmed by various aspects of the process.

This only come to light earlier this year, when an episode of Eco Eye discussed the planned harvest of 1860 acres of kelp forest in Bantry Bay. There were no public meetings to inform people, she said.

We have White Tailed Eagles resident in the bay, whales, dolphins, seals, otters, and so many bird species that rely on this bay for food. What will be the impact on juvenile fish as a food source for all these species once this kelp is removed from the bay?

Ms Fitzgerald set up a Change.org petition to Minister Simon Coveney against the mechanical harvesting of kelp in Bantry Bay which has gathered more than 3,300 supporters.

In response to an Irish Examiner query, the Department of Housing and Planning confirmed that approval in principle was made in 2011 with final determination of the application in 2014. The Minister took into consideration the valuable scientific information that would be provided through the monitoring programme, feeding into policy development in the area of sustainable development of seaweed, the fact that there were no objections from members of the public and the Marine Licence Vetting Committee had recommended that harvesting trials be carried out, spokesman John Whelan said.

Bernie Connolly, Cork Coastwatch coordinator, Owen Boyden, skipper, and Karin Dubsky Coastwatch Europe co-founder.

Coastwatch Europe co-founder Dr Karin Dubsky says the planned method of cutting kelp 25cm from the root will effectively kill the plant. Kelp provides a natural canopy for a whole ecosystem of marine life.

Its like clear felling a forest. The result would be barren ground and other species will come in. But what other species? she said.

The licence allows for the mechanical harvesting of more than 80% of kelp stocks in Bantry Bay, according to Ms Dubsky. She believes the licence area of 753 acres is an excessive test area in an already vulnerable bay.

We already have a problem in Bantry Bay, which is the invasive alien Japanese seaweed Sargassum muticum. When you do something to the environment like a clear felling, you leave it wide open to an invasive species and in this case the invasive species is already in the bay, nibbling at the edges, she said.

The effect of a proposed salmon farm of approximately one million fish, now the subject of a suspended hearing by the Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board, is an additional environmental concern.

We dont think the cumulative effects are being taken into account adequately, she said.

John O Sullivan agreed that mechanical harvesting might have a negative impact but only in the short term.

Of course there is going to be adverse effects initially but is it significant in the longer term? Probably not. We are not affecting crustaceans, so the only question is will there be re-growth in the areas we harvest, he said.

His methods will be watched closely by coastal communities further north, where the largest seaweed processor in Ireland, Arramara Teo, is seeking harvesting licences along 20%of the coastline stretching from north Clare to north Mayo.

The company, bought by a Canadian marine biotechnology company in 2014, has purchased seaweed from hand-harvesters in Connemara and Mayo for the past 60 years.

John Connolly from Lettermullen in Co Galway has been cutting seaweed by hand in the traditional methods all his life. Hes seen a sharp rise in seaweed harvesting by hand on the shoreline in recent years. Its not a worry as long as its not pulled off the rocks.

But we dont want mechanical harvesting here in Galway Bay. It will damage the seashore and the environment and we wont see that happening here, we have our own methods to do it, he said.
Caroline Sweeney Di Domenico

Caroline, aged 35, is originally from Saleen in East Cork. She met her husband Raphael, 38, in 2006 while backpacking around south-east Asia and, after a whirlwind romance, both went their separate ways.

But, determined to be together, Rapha followed Caroline to Ireland and, after a brief spell living in Cork City, the couple upped sticks and moved to his native Brazil, where they are now the proud parents of two little boys, Luka, 5, and Diego, 1.

I met Rapha in Laos  we were both crazy about each other from our first kiss, says Caroline.

We spent several romantic weeks in a tiny hut in Thailand before parting ways as I had to return to college and he had a ticket to India.

"But even though we had only been together a short time, we were very much in love and miserable without each other, so Rapha cut his trip short and we moved into a tiny flat in Sundays Well in Cork.

The couple got married in 2009 and went to Brazil for a few years where their eldest son was born.

They returned to Ireland in 2014 as Caroline wanted to train as a doula, but not long after their second son was born, they made the decision to move back to Brazil as Rapha was missing the sunshine and relaxed way of life.

I love Ireland and have a very close family, says Caroline.

However from a financial point of view it made more sense for us to be in Brazil because in Ireland, we seemed to be just working to pay bills and had nothing left over.

Plus Rapha really missed the sun, the beach, and the Brazilian lifestyle. It was hard to leave my home and family but I had to think of what was best for us.

Caroline, who now works as a GentleBirth instructor, says while she misses Ireland, shes enjoying life in Brazil and taking life as it comes.

I miss my family and friends, my dad bringing Diego out for a walk in the afternoons, my mum popping in for a coffee and chat, and my kids growing up with their grandparents, uncles, auntie, and cousins around, she says.

I also miss how safe it is in rural Ireland and the beautiful countryside. But I dont miss the dreary, wet winter weather and being stuck indoors all those cold, rainy days.

I dont know what the future holds for us in the long term but it would make me sad to think I would never live on Irish soil again.

"I think in a lot of cases this is one of the challenges of being in a relationship with someone from another part of the world  there is always someone missing home.

So right now Im focused on living in the present, not overthinking the future and appreciating all the positives of where we are now.

"10 years from now we might be back living in Ireland, but then again we might be somewhere else altogether.

Kasha Connolly

Kasha lives in Galway with her husband John, who she met on a walking tour of the Burren in 2012.

The 35-year-old, who runs Hazel Mountain Chocolate with John, 39, is originally from Poland but changed her life plans to move first to north Clare and then on to Galway to be with the man of her dreams.

I was working for a multinational company and came to Dublin in 2007, she says.

My friend and I visited Galway for New Year (2011) and booked a hiking trip of the Burren. The weather was unusually cold and the roads very icy, but we were determined to go and when we were greeted by a handsome, blue-eyed guide, my heart warmed up instantly.

After a beautiful walk we returned to his cafe and sat by the fire for ages just chatting. I thought he was a very nice and interesting person, so after I returned to Dublin, we kept in touch and after a while, began to meet up at weekends.

Despite living at opposite sides of the country, love blossomed for the couple and in 2012, Kasha made the decision to move out west to be with her new man  and as they also both had a keen interest in food, decided to join forces in both their personal and professional lives.

I stayed in Dublin for a year after meeting John and then decided to move, she says.

The prospect was equally fascinating and scary. I felt a little overwhelmed, but had found an amazing guy and was really excited  also at the prospect of setting up a business which I had true passion for.

Since then I have published two cookbooks and we have set up two chocolate shops, a cafe, and factory. Its been very intense and, of course, it has been difficult not seeing my friends and family very often but its been worth it, even though

I do miss Polish food. I never thought my life would take this turn as Dublin was meant to be a temporary stop but Ireland is a wonderful country with wonderful people and now my life, love, and business are here  this is my home, Im forever changed, and would never go back to live in Poland.

Peter Scanlon

Peter met his wife Salla, 38, in Scotland almost two decades ago.

The Mayo man says it was love at first sight and when the time came for the couple to settle down, they agreed to move to her native Finland as she was pining for home.

I met Salla through a friend in Scotland and was smitten at once, although it was a few months before I first asked her out  but after that, the rest is history, says Scanlon, 50.

She had come over for one year but ended up staying three and when the day came that we had to decide which country to move back to, we chose Finland because I wanted to be with her and she wanted to go home.

Peter, who has two sons with Salla (Max, 6, and Kevin, 2), works for an environmental services agency and says while there are times he misses Ireland, he is happy to stay up north.

The first few years were tough and I did at times consider moving home but I am glad now that I stuck it out, as Finland is not only a great country to raise a family in, but services are good, things run on time, and the people, once you get to know them, are really friendly, he says.

Of course, I miss friends, family, my mum in particular as she is getting on in age. I get home at least three times a year.

"Its only a three-hour flight from Helsinki to Dublin so its not like being in America or Australia. As for the future, it is hard to say.

"Yes, I would like to move back at some point but for now, my life is here and I enjoy it.
AFTER the United Kingdoms unexpected vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trumps unexpected triumph in the US presidential election last year, you might imagine that Europes chancelleries have developed detailed contingency plans for a victory by the far-right National Fronts Marine Le Pen in Frances presidential election. Youd be wrong.

The thought of President Le Pen is so terrifying, it seems, posing such a threat to the future of Europe, that it remains for many a possibility they dare not entertain, much less plan for. But that threat is precisely why Europe must address seriously the possibility of her winning, however unlikely it may seem.

There is no doubt that, as president of France, Le Pen could do serious damage to the European project. She has positioned herself as the antithesis of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and pledged to leave the EUs border-free Schengen Area and the eurozone. As for the EU itself, she promises to follow in the UKs footsteps, renegotiating the terms of her countrys membership, and then calling a referendum on the agreement. If the EU rejects the reforms Le Pen demands, she will campaign for a French exit.

But there would be important differences between Brexit and Frexit. Whereas many UK Euroskeptics envision a global Britain trading with the world, Le Pen wants to introduce protectionist policies. In lieu of openness, Le Pen  who now casts herself as a Gaullist  wants to deepen great power relations with Russia and the United States, as she focuses on defending traditional Christian values and fighting terror in the context of a multipolar world order.

To support those objectives, Le Pen promises to increase French defence spending to 3% of GDP (the Nato target is 2%), while making it clear to voters that none of that spending would support stabilisation missions in Africa. In this sense, a Le Pen victory would amount to a rupture not just with the European mainstream, but also with Frances strategic orientation over the last few decades.

To be sure, opinion polls still favor the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron in a second-round run-off. But many fear that Macrons supporters will not be as inspired as Le Pens to turn out to vote.

In fact, in recent months, Le Pens popular support has remained rather consistent, with her lead in opinion polls for the first round remaining stable, even as French politics is thrown into upheaval by scandal and mistrust. This perfect political storm has caused Frances two-party system to fragment into a four-party arrangement and has all but knocked the favorites out of the running, while leaving Le Pen largely unscathed.

The reasons for Le Pens rise have as much to do with her reinvention of the National Front as with the external political environment. She has managed to escape the extreme-right ghetto, with a grand strategy, shaped by her ally Florian Philippot, that aims to broaden the Fronts appeal to key groups that previously avoided it, especially civil servants, women, and Catholics.

As Philippot has advanced this plan, claiming that the National Front is neither left nor right, he has also been working to lay the groundwork for a Le Pen-led government. To this end, he is seeking to build a new political elite to serve in a National Front government and help overcome resistance to the partys agenda from Frances deep state. And he has been exploring what the president can and cannot do  including calling referenda  without permission from parliament.

Compared to Le Pen and her team, Europes leaders seem woefully underprepared. Of course, with so many unknowns, there is a limit to the plans they can share publicly; indeed, at this stage, specific statements may even prove counterproductive. But that does not mean EU leaders should simply warn that a Le Pen victory would spell the end of the EU and leave it at that.

Instead, EU leaders should be considering to what extent they would be able to work around a Le Pen presidency. Even if she wins, she will struggle to gain a parliamentary majority, meaning that she may well end up in what the French evocatively call cohabitation with a hostile parliament and prime minister. Would other EU leaders be able to form an informal coalition with those elements of the French government?

Europes leaders must also begin thinking about how they should respond to Le Pens request to renegotiate the terms of Frances EU membership, and to what extent they should resist her efforts to remove France from the rest of Europe. Should the European Commission develop its own plans for a French exit from the eurozone and Schengen?

There may even be a case for Europes leaders to facilitate Frances withdrawal from the EU, lest Le Pen attempt to dismantle the EU from within, by building alliances with the likes of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It is certainly a possibility that must be considered.

To say that these are difficult questions is an understatement. But that is precisely the point: bringing them out into the open demonstrates just how disruptive Le Pens victory would be. Indeed, from the EUs perspective, a hostile president in France, the country of Jean Monnet, would be far more destructive than Brexit.

If we have learned one thing from the annus horribilis that was 2016, it should be that opinion polls are fallible. Rather than shut their eyes and hope that, this time, the pollsters are vindicated, the EU should prepare even for the worst-case scenario. Such plans may never have to be implemented, but Europes leaders should make them now, rather than wishing later that they had.
Intense competition in the $2 trillion commercial real estate market is driving technology startups to pitch property sellers on their latest applications to help close sales. Adam Stanley, CIO of commercial real estate powerhouse Cushman & Wakefield, has a system in place to vet those pesky vendors.

Cushman & Wakefield Adam Stanley, CIO of Cushman & Wakefield.

As Stanley considers whether a new technology will benefit C&W, he refers to a one-page, laminated document on his desk that describes strategic imperatives and highlights how his IT organization aligns with business objectives, including value drivers and how partnerships can play a role in expanding or creating market opportunities. If Stanley cant map out how a startup could help him tie IT to the strategic framework then he discounts it out of hand. Its an important process for Stanley, who one morning this week counted five vendor pitches in his inbox by 11:15.

If I cant check at least a few boxes on the framework then I dont even continue the conversation, says Stanley, who estimates he talks to about five vendors via phone or in person each week. Its an easy test for us so that were not just chasing after the shiny red ball, which is the temptation when youre in technology.

Its time for startup bingo triage

Partnering with startups is a critical part of Stanleys IT strategy to deliver innovation and serve as sherpas in the vast market for commercial real estate technology, in which Stanley says spending has rocketed from $500 million in 2014 to $2 billion in 2016.

Stanley works with Greylock Partners, Jump Capital, Moderne Ventures and other venture capitalist firms to identify potential startups. Stanley says meeting with startups via venture capitalists gives C&W street cred because some startups assume a commercial real estate CIO prefers to build proprietary technologies rather than bet on startups. We are constantly preaching disruption and the fact that we would rather be leaders in disruption than followers, Stanley says.

Stanley has also hired a consultancy that can help triage and vet vendors. The firm, which he declined to name, will help Stanley choose from the smorgasbord of technology offerings, which include analytics, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA), as well as 3D visualization and augmented and virtual reality tools. The theory is this company will know our strategy and what were looking for and they will scour the startup universe for players that make sense in our space, Stanley says.

Other hot areas Stanley is exploring include cybersecurity and internet of things (IoT), leveraging software and sensors that can do anything from permit or deny access to buildings to improving property management. Cybersecurity tools that can, say, predict when a corporate employee will go rogue based on his behavioral patterns, are also crucial. Ninety percent of data created in the last two years means 90 percent more real estate to protect, Stanley says.

Partnerships already underway include a collaboration with EX3 Labs on HoloLens to let a prospective buyer get a virtual tour of a property. Stanley is also working with consultancy Slalom Consulting on something he calls proof-of-concept-as-a-service. The idea, Stanley says, is to create a repeatable process for testing new technologies, building a minimally viable product and deciding whether it will bear fruit. Stanley says this could help reduce the frequency of fizzling pilots; C&W tried more than 20 pilots last year.

Were trying to say every pilot will have a business owner, super users, an IT partner and defined success criteria that will get us to the next steps, Stanley says. Stanleys team and Slalom are building a proof of concept regarding the use of AR and VR using data and analytics to provide 360-degree views of properties.

Eventually, Stanley hopes to tap into more sophisticated IoT technologies that can bridge building and equipment sensors with data and analytics, ostensibly to reduce costs. Hes also exploring RPA scenarios, including chatbots that assist employees with technical issues as well as self-service kiosks that enable visitors to check-in to a building and alert the person with whom they are schedule to meet. Chatbots might also be used to regulate temperature in rooms.

Partnerships over M&A

C&W, which has 46,000 employees worldwide, could purchase innovation in the form of cutting-edge startups. Rival CBRE, for example, has picked up 3D technology player Floored and Mainstream Software, a maker of facilities management applications. Integrating startups, typically a tricky proposition where cultures and egos can clash, isnt Stanleys preferred approach.

Each of the major firms has a different philosophy in terms of how we find innovation, Stanley says. Im not a huge proponent of looking for companies to buy. What were trying to do is augment the people we have in place, working on the strong platform globally and find the right partnerships to bring innovation.

Partnerships comprise the third leg of people, platforms and partnerships stool Stanley began building when he joined C&W in 2014.

Stanley has adopted a mobile-first, cloud-first approach for his platform strategy. He has implemented Workday SaaS for both human capital management and financials, migrated to Office 365 for email and productivity and implemented Skype for Business for telephony.

His team of roughly 600 IT workers is also leveraging data visualization tools to help brokers deliver better dashboards to clients via laptops and mobile devices. They are also creating analytics to better manage C&Ws four billion square feet of property. Ideally, this will help C&W brokers access client profitability and productivity metrics, while helping C&W identify markets to enter and exit.

But its the people leg of the stool that Stanley says remains the most important element in delivering IT services to the business. Stanley, who created tiers of technology managers to make IT more nimble, is seeking new blood in research, analytics and innovation  those who know how to initiate, build, run and see a pilot test through to its conclusion. Members of Stanleys leadership team are also taking a training course with Harvard Business Publishing. Stanley is cultivating an IT team that is increasingly focused on strategic, client-facing efforts a  break from the traditional operational tasks with which commercial real estate IT shops have long been associated.

People are still the fundamental strength and the most critical leg of the stool because if we dont have the right people its impossible to do anything else, Stanley says. We will constantly look for ways to improve talent.
Today

Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 60F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 60F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.

Tomorrow

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally sunny. Slight chance of a rain shower. High around 70F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
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RAI Services Co., a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., gave at least $1 million to President Donald Trumps inauguration committee, according to an inauguration committee report.

The Winston-Salem company was one of 45 corporations, trusts and individuals to provide at least that amount. Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. also was listed.

The report, released Wednesday, disclosed that Trumps inaugural committee raised $106.7 million in donations, according to The Fiscal Times. The previous record was $55 million set by President Barack Obama for his first inauguration.

The committee does not have to disclose how much was spent on the inauguration and how it will spend any leftover money, so its unclear how the Reynolds money was spent.

The peaceful and orderly transition of power is not only a hallmark of our nations greatness but also critical to our social and economic stability, RAI spokesman David Howard said Thursday.

As a proud American employer for more than a century, RAI was pleased to be one of many organizations celebrating the inaugural events. We are committed to playing a constructive role in our communities regardless of which party is in charge.

Howard said he is not aware that RAI was approached by previous inaugural committees and therefore cannot speak to other inaugurations.

The largest donation was $5 million from Sheldon Adelson, founder, chairman and chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.

The RAI donation, as well as $500,000 from Altria Group Inc., was provided at a time the Trump administration was considering three important regulatory issues affecting the Big Three tobacco manufacturers.

The first was gaining federal regulatory approval of British American Tobacco Plcs $49.4 billion offer for the 57.8 percent stake of Reynolds American Inc. it doesnt already own.

The second is an expectation among analysts, economists, investors and politicians that the Trump administration may cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to between 15 percent and 20 percent.

The third is consideration in the U.S. House of a bipartisan bill that could serve as the legislative path for peeling back tightened Food and Drug Administration regulations on electronic cigarettes and other innovative tobacco products. The bill would set a new grandfather date for marketplace introduction of those products from Feb. 15, 2007, which excludes the clear majority in the marketplace.

When asked about whether those three developments were tied to Reynolds inauguration donation, Howard said absolutely not.

Along with many other organizations and corporations, RAI was asked if we were interested in making a donation.

Reynolds and BAT announced March 9 that a federal anti-trust waiting period related to the transaction has expired without requests for additional information by the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission. On April 5, the companies received unconditional antitrust approval from Japanese regulators.

The companies expect the deal to be completed during the third quarter, pending shareholder approvals. Olivetree Financial analyst Tyler Tebbs expects the companies shareholder votes to take place by Aug. 10, and the deal to close by Aug. 12.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said there is "no secret" why the tobacco manufacturers donated to the Trump inauguration committee.

""They're waging a multi-pronged assault" on the heightened FDA restrictions, Myers said. "Tobacco lobbyists and their congressional allies are working to insert these harmful provisions in the spending bill Congress must pass by April 28 to keep the government open."

"Congress must reject the tobacco industry's efforts to weaken FDA oversight of e-cigarettes and cigars, and the Trump administration must continue to vigorously defend the FDA's authority."

Another prominent donation, of $2.08 million, was made by AT&T. In February, the FTC said it would not review AT&Ts proposed $85.4 billion deal for Time Warner Inc.

There are ethical controversies every day in the news concerning the Trump administration, said John Sweeney, a marketing professor at UNC Chapel Hill.

In this environment, a corporate controversy concerning support for the inauguration is just a blip compared to things like the Russian hacking of the election.

Reynolds said it contributes to state and national political campaigns, typically more often to conservatives than liberals, and to tax-exempt organizations addressing and lobbying on specific referendums affecting its products and the tobacco industry.

Reynolds discloses political contributions in the investors/corporate governance section of its website www.reynoldsamerican.com. The most recent disclosure is for 2015.

Products manufactured by the operating companies of Reynolds American Inc. are sold, taxed and regulated in all 50 U.S. states, the company says in the corporate governance webpage.

As a result, the companies businesses can be affected both by laws and regulations that impact the business climate generally as well as those that specifically govern the manufacture and sale of tobacco products.

Accordingly, RAI and its operating companies participate in the political and public policy process in a manner consistent with the law and the interests of their businesses.

Reynolds cautions that its companies may not necessarily agree with all of the positions taken by each candidate or organization to which they contribute.

As a matter of policy, corporate contributions are not made based on any officers or employees personal political preferences.
GREENSBORO  Police are trying to determine the location of a shooting today after a man suffering gunshot wounds showed up at a local hospital.

James Will Johnson, 28, of 1114 Vance St. died from his injuries, police said in a news release.

He was taken to a hospital at about 4:20 p.m. via private vehicle and later died, police said.

Officers are looking for the crime scene. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 336-373-1000.
The Better Business Bureau of Northwest North Carolina is warning job seekers of an alleged work-from-home employment scam from a source claiming to be a company in Clemmons.

The BBB said the alleged scam was discovered after several potential victims, primarily out-of-state, asked the organization to investigate job offers they recently received.

The source claimed to be Carpenter and Company, an antique automobile parts and supply company in Winston-Salem.

While there was at one time a company of that name in nearby Clemmons, N.C., it is no longer in business, said the BBB.

Over the past month, the BBB website has received more than 140 inquires on Carpenter and Company.

The business name here in the area is being used by the scammers to lend some credibility to their ploy, said Brian Wright, the president and chief executive of the Better Business Bureau of Northwest North Carolina. By using that company that is no longer in business, they are assuming the identity of someone that was at one point legitimate.

The BBB currently has an alert message on its website warning people of the potential for a scam.

The agency said that potential victims indicated that the only communication they have had with the company was via email. When people call a Winston-Salem phone number listed in the email, they get an automated message requesting the caller leave a message for a return call.

The BBB said that its staff was unable to speak to anyone at the phone number after multiple attempts.

The agency added: All of the callers received job offer emails, which included links to multiple forms needed for employment. The completed forms would supply the company with all of the employees personal information, copies of identification and authorization to perform a background check.

The BBB is recommending that anyone who receives a job offer should not complete or forward the forms requested and cease communication with the company.

The appeal that they are making is on job seekers who are essentially maybe a little bit desperate to find a new career or maybe pressed for money if theyve been out of work for a period of time, Wright said. So the scammers are appealing to that as a weakness.

Comments from potential victims

Many job seekers contacted the BBB.

None of the job seekers reporting to the BBB went on to share any sensitive information with the fraudulent employer, though it is likely that others have, the BBB said.

Jamie Gaines of Richmond, Calif., and Thomas Coulson of Shrewsbury, Penn., both were contacted by the company claiming to be Carpenter and Company after uploading their resumes on national job-posting websites earlier this year.

Gaines said he is a project manager and has experience working from home.

It seemed like a great opportunity to put in a 40 hour a week job, Gaines said of the operations manager job described in the emails he received that offered $4,500 for full-time employees and $2,300 for part-time employees a month after a probationary period.

He said he believed the company was fishing for people because its initial emails thanked him for his interest in the job opening, but he was not the one to initiate interest.

Once he did indicate he wanted to know more about the position, he received more information and links to fill out forms, including an I-9 form, which is for citizenship verification, and a background check release.

Gaines started doing his own research to find out about the company, including checking its website and contacting the N.C. Secretary of State office. Eventually, his research led him to the BBB.

Coulson had a similar experience and also did his own research.

He said he has gotten two similar emails within the same week, one that claimed to be Carpenter Company in Winston-Salem and another company that claimed its client was an antiques dealer in Ohio.

After checking with the BBB website, Coulson said he replied to the person listed on the emails for Carpenter Company and stated his concern that the company was trying to scam him.

He said that the next email from the company never addressed his accusations.

My opinion is they are targeting middle-aged people looking for work that have a professional background, Coulson said. The salary that they put down thats available wasnt unrealistic like most of these scams are. It was pretty much within the ballpark of what you could expect from a position like that. So they had done their homework.

Coulson said he would never send his sensitive information online unless he could verify a legitimate reason to do so. But he said he can understand how somebody who is low on cash or in danger of losing their home to foreclosure might be desperate enough to provide their personal information then run the risk of having their identity stolen.

Coulson said scams annoy him because he has been hit with various ones in the past 10 months, including having an email account hacked.

I actually had my identity stolen about 25 years ago, Coulson said. Somebody picked a pre-approved credit card application out of my trash. So Ive got an ax to grind with people like this to begin with.
GREENSBORO  Best-selling author John Grisham, who hasnt toured bookstores in 25 years, will stop in Greensboro this summer.

Scuppernong Books said this week that Grisham will sign books and give a talk in the downtown Greensboro store June 27.

Grishams newest book, Camino Island, comes out June 6. The author starts his bookshop tour that same day in New Jersey. Hell visit just 11 other stores throughout the month.

Four of Grishams scheduled stops are in North Carolina: Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh (June 13), Park Road Books in Charlotte (June 14), Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville (June 15) and Scuppernong at the end of the month.

Scuppernong co-owner Brian Lampkin said hes thrilled that Grishams publicists picked his shop.

Lampkins not sure how Grishams people heard of the 3-year-old independent bookstore thats less well known than some of the authors other stops. Maybe a friend had stopped in? Or maybe the author had heard of the stores support of the Innocence Project, a program that helps free wrongly convicted people from prison? (Grisham is a long-time supporter of the program.)

Im pretty sure that (Grisham) hasnt been in the store, Lampkin said.

At Scuppernong, Grisham will sign books from 1 to 5 p.m., then give a talk at 5 p.m.

The event will be limited to 200 people and Scuppernong will use a raffle to pick attendees. Other bookstores will limit audience size, too.

Lampkin noted that the author, not the bookstores, set the rules for the appearances.

Camino Island, Grishams 30th novel, is about a young writers quest to recover priceless F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts stolen from a secure vault deep inside the Princeton University library.

Grisham is best known for legal thrillers such as The Firm, The Client and The Pelican Brief. But hes also an avid book collector and this is his first novel about rare books and bookstores.

Lampkin said Grishams visit will give Scuppernong a good financial boost and a lot of visibility.

The word is getting out, he said. It takes time to build tradition and to become known as a place that loves writers and loves literature and can handle big events.
RALEIGH  District Court judges in North Carolina would be allowed to join three-judge panels that hear lawsuits challenging the legislatures actions under a bill that passed the N.C. House on Thursday.

House Bill 677 would add District Court judges to the panels at the discretion of the N.C. Supreme Court chief justice, who currently can name only Superior Court judges.

In making the case for her bill, Republican state Rep. Sarah Stevens of Mount Airy did not explain why the District Court judges should serve on the panels.

It puts District Court judges in the mix, she said.

District Court is referred to as the states entry level court, typically hearing misdemeanors and minor lawsuits, while Superior Court handles felony cases and lawsuits involving larger amounts of money.

Thursdays 67-48 vote was largely along party lines, with only two Democrats supporting the change and five Republicans voting against it. The bill now goes to the Senate.
The News & Observer of Raleigh recently published this editorial.

The environmental group American Rivers is a credible, cautious, thoughtful and precise organization, and the fact that it lists the Neuse and Cape Fear rivers in North Carolina as among the most endangered in the country is alarming.

The risk, the group says, comes from the threat industrial agricultural waste poses to drinking water. In this state, that waste comes from hog farms and poultry farms, and if, for example, a hurricane brings much flooding, wastes can be discharged into waterways. It happened, river keepers say, during Hurricane Matthew in October.

Representatives of hog producers said the greater threat to rivers is from cities and that criticism of the problem of agricultural waste is part of a coordinated attack on farmers, including hog and poultry farmers. Its a weak defense and a nonsensical one. Such farms are important to North Carolinas economy, and no one is suggesting they be put out of business.

What is important, as family farms have increasingly diminished in favor of large, industrial-type agricultural operations, is to strengthen environmental protection.

But the industry has continued to fight regulation.

For its part, the state launched the Swine Buyout Program in 1999 after three hurricanes flooded hog farms. The program was voluntary and some swine production and development rights were bought from hog farms in the 100-year flood plain. That helped.

Unfortunately, the program isnt now funded, though American Rivers is advocating that it be restored. The state also needs to keep pushing for strong regulation of farms and a renewed interest in alternative waste disposal systems.

Thankfully, the states rivers are safe for recreation. But make no mistake: Waterways are at risk. The state can lower that risk with regulation, and the agricultural industry should not be calling the shots.
Internet services were returned [CRTV report, in French] to two areas of Cameroon with English-speaking populations on Friday following a three-month shutdown, according to a state-run radio report. President Paul Biya had restricted Internet services in Northwest and Southwest regions of the country following violent, sometimes deadly [Reuters report], confrontations between English-speaking protesters and government officials in the mostly French-speaking African country. Restoration of the Internet follows condemnation over the shutdown from international human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Internet Without Borders [advocacy websites]. Cameroon Communications Director Issa Tchiroma Bakari said the Internet was being restored because the shutdown was no longer necessary, but the restrictions could be reimposed if protests continue.

The Government urges the populations of these Regions to be vigilant in order to continue to block the way for the extremists, secessionists and enemies of the Republic. It is understood that the Government of the Republic reserves the right to take, as necessary, appropriate measures to prevent the Internet from being used again to incite hatred and discord between Cameroonians or to create public order.

The shutdown began January 17, leading a UN human rights expert to refer to the situation [JURIST report] as an appalling violation of their right to freedom of expression. The growing rift between the French and English speaking populations comes at a time when Cameroon faces many problems resulting from their military conflict with the terrorist group Boko Haram. Last July Amnesty International reported [JURIST report] on numerous human rights violations by Cameroon authorities as the country fights the insurgency of the Islamic extremist group. Cameroons harsh practices have come in response to atrocities committed by Boko Haram which, according to a report [JURIST report] last September by AI, is accountable for the death of at least 400 civilians in Northern Cameroon. The militant Islamic group Boko Haram, whose name means Western education is a sin, has been fighting to overthrow the Nigerian government in the interest of creating an Islamist state.
Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] and other advocacy groups urged [press release] UN Secretary General on Thursday to investigate alleged abuse against LGBT people in Chechnya. According to the open letter about 100 gay and bisexual men have been detained, went missing, were tortured, or were murdered under the authority of Chechen officials. The advocacy groups asked the UN Secretary General to make contact with Russian officials to end violations against men who may or may not be apart of the LGBT community, take measures to have all detainees released from detention camps, provide support for those illegally detained, and investigate those accountability for these violations. According to the groups, those who are perceived to be apart of the LGBT community in Chechnya remain in great risk of being murdered, tortured, beaten, illegally detained, or otherwise stripped of their rights until the UN steps in.

News of the conditions faced by those perceived to apart of the LGBT community in Chechnya was first reported by Novaya Gazeta [report, translated]. Earlier in April, Chechen authorities have denied that gay people live in Chechnya, which is concerning to UN experts. In July, the UN Human Rights Council [official website] voted in favor of [JURIST report] appointing an independent expert to report on and investigate worldwide violence and discrimination against the LGBT community. Since then, UN human rights expert have provided reports of other countries dictating their discriminatory policies against the LGBT community, such as the report [JURIST report] conduct in Thailand in November. That same month, a group of UN human rights experts expressed concern [JURIST report] over countries attempting to retroactively block a mandate of an independent expert to investigate sexual orientation and gender identity-based rights abuses.
[JURIST] Seven human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch [advocacy website], on Thursday denounced [press release] the government of Equatorial Guinea for arresting Enrique Asumu and Alfredo Okenve, activists who lead the Center for Development Studies and Initiatives (CEID) [advocacy site; Spanish]. Government authorities barred the organizations president, Asumu, from boarding a plane. When Asumu and vice-president Okenve met with the security minister the next day, the minister interrogated them and then detained them at the police station. The government had ordered the organization to halt its activities in March of 2016. Human rights organizations are upset about the violation of the laws of Equatorial Guinea, which require those arrested to be brought before a judge within 24 hours and formally charged within 72 hours. Tutu Alicante, executive director of the human rights organization EG Justice [advocacy website], said The authorities have a long history of harassing, arbitrarily detaining, and generally interfering with the work of human rights defenders in Equatorial Guinea. This latest incident shows the authorities willingness to trample on the countrys due process laws to intimidate and silence dissent.

This is not the first issue in Equatorial Guinea that has drawn concern from human rights groups. In 2011 Human Rights Watch and EG Justice claimed [JURIST report] voter fraud in Equatorial Guinea. Amnesty International condemned the government for the execution of four men convicted [JURIST report] of an attempted assassination on President Obiang in 2009. Obiang defended [JURIST report] the decision, stating that no laws were broken and all necessary legal procedures were followed.
Dutch timber trader Guus Kouwenhoven was sentenced [ruling, in Dutch] to 19 years in prison by an appellate court in Den Bosch [official website] on Friday after he was found guilty of smuggling weapons into Liberia during that countrys civil war. Kouwenhoven, who has denied wrongdoing, was convicted [JURIST report] of violating an embargo related to the arms-dealing in 2006. That conviction was overturned in 2008. Kouwenhoven ran two timber companies at the time, which he used to smuggle weapons to then-President of Liberia Charles Taylor, as well as various rebel groups, according to the court.

Liberia continues to be in the headlines for alleged and proven war crimes spanning a number of decades. Last April a 49-year old Liberian national and resident of East Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, Mohammed Jabbateh, was indicted [JURIST report] on two counts of immigration fraud and two counts of perjury for failing to disclose his crimes in Liberia when he applied for political asylum. As recently as September 2013, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) rejected an appeal by former Liberian president Charles Taylor [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] of his convictions for war crimes committed during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone. In February 2010 the UN emphasized [JURIST report] that reconciliation in Liberia hinges on the development of its national security and its legal institutions. A UN report issued in April 2008 examined [JURIST report] Liberias struggles with corruption in its criminal justice system, poor detention conditions, and sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and forced marriage.
[JURIST] The Pakistan Supreme Court [official website] rejected calls [opinion, PDF] on Thursday to disqualify Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [official website] from office stating that there was insufficient evidence concerning the corruption allegations against Sharif and his family to constitutionally compel his removal from office. The court presented a 549-page split judgment with two of the five justices dissenting. The dissenting justices stated that Sharif should be forced to resign for lying to the electorate and the legislative body of Pakistan. The court ordered an investigative team to look further into Shariffs family and gave it two months to report to a special bench to review the proceedings. Political analysts state that the ruling is a blow to Sharifs credibility [Reuters report], despite the favorable judgment, and that the investigations findings may weaken Sharifs chances at getting reelected.

Pakistans current government has been under scrutiny in the last few months both on a domestic and international context. Last week a Pakistan military court sentenced Kulbushan Jadhav [The Hindu backgrounder], an Indian naval officer who was detained in Pakistan for the past year, to death. The court handed down [JURIST report] the death sentence after finding Jadhav guilty of espionage and sabotage. India stated that the sentence would amount to the premeditated murder of an Indian national by the Pakistan. Last month the Pakistan National Assembly voted [JURIST report] to renew an amendment to the countrys constitution that allows military tribunals to oversee civilians accused of terrorist-related crimes. Advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch (HRW) have called [press release] on Pakistan to end the use of military court on civilians, saying it violates the the rule of law and creates human rights abuses. Also last month Sharif stated [JURIST report] that blasphemy is an unpardonable offense and ordered the state to remove such content from social media. In a Twitter post through the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [official website] Twitter account, Sharif directed Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to bring to justice all those who have posted blasphemous comments.
Turkeys Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag [official profile] said on Thursday that the Turkish Constitutional Court [official website] would reject any opposition challenge to a referendum that expanded President Recep Tayyip Erdogans [official website] powers, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] had no jurisdiction on the matter. The referendum was approved on Sunday after a 51 percent victory in favor of expanding President Tayyipp Erdogans powers. The changes, which will not come into effect until 2019, would abolish [JURIST report] the position of prime minister and give the president powers formerly granted to Parliament. Many opposing [Reuters report] the referendum called for a recount because election authorities made a last minute decision to allow unstamped ballots to be counted. The Republican Peoples party (CHP) is the main opposition to the passage of the referendum. The CHP stated on Wednesday that it wanted to appeal to the Constitutional Court or the ECHR.

Since the failed coup in Turkey in July, where Turkish military forces tried to overthrow the government, the Turkish government has taken several controversial steps to strengthen its power. Last month the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] published a report [JURIST report] describing a plethora of human rights violations committed by the Turkish government between July 2015 and December 2016. Also last month around 330 individuals were put on trial [JURIST report] for alleged involvement in the attempted coup. In November Turkey significantly restricted the activities of NGOs like human rights organizations and childrens groups and arrested opposition party leaders [JURIST report] alleging they were connected to terror organizations. In October Human Rights Watch (HRW) [official website] warned [JURIST report] that the emergency decrees put in place after the failed coup, had resulted in serious human rights violations.
The UK Ministry of Justice [official website] announced [press release] on Friday plans to separate 28 dangerous extremist from the main stream prison population by placing them in one of three separation centers. Prisoners who are subject to separation are those who were involved in planning terrorism or are considered to pose a risk to national security. Prime Minister Sam Gyimah has stated that the centers are necessary to combat extremism in prison and to limit the influence of extremists on other prisoners. Prisoners who are in the centers will undergo a review by experts every three months. They can be returned to the general prison population if it is determined that their risk can be effectively managed in the prisons. The first center will be established in the next few weeks at HMP Frankland. The ministry says the centers are the latest part of the UKs extremism strategy. Other steps include new training materials to prison officials, the formation of the Security, Order, and Counter-Terrorism directorate, a new intelligence unit for prisons, and banning extremist literature from prisons.

Critics [Daily Mail report] of the decision have compared the centers to the USs Guantanamo Bay. Former President Barack Obama had sought [JURIST report] to close Guantanamo Bay while he was in office. In January Omans Foreign Minister announced [JURIST report] that it accepted 10 detainees from Guantanamo Bay upon request from the Obama administration. In December a detainee was transferred [JURIST report] from Guantanamo Bay to the government of Cape Verde, a small country off the Western coast of Africa. In September the Obama administration shut down [JURIST report] Camp 5 of Guantanamo Bay, which was a 100-cell maximum security prison.
[JURIST] Spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) [official website], Babar Baloch, said in a press release [text] on Friday that over 11,000 refugees from the Kasai province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have recently escaped to Angola due to violence in their province. Refugees say that they are targeted by militia groups who believe the refugees are supporting the government. Violence in the province between government and militia groups began almost one year ago. Many of the refugees arriving in Dundo, Angola are ill from conditions relating to malnutrition. Baloch says the UNHCR is working with the DRCs government as well as shipping mosquito netting and other supplies to Dundo. The new arrivals are terrified and still fear for their lives and mentioned they do not have any immediate plans to return home, said Baloch.

The DRC has seen ongoing violence for the past several decades, which has led to growing international concern. Earlier this month the ICC said [JURIST report] violence in the DRC could constitute war crimes. In March seven army officials were arrested and charged [JURIST report] with war crimes. In February Human Rights Watch called on [JURIST report] the DRC to investigate the killing of alleged militia which was recorded in a released video. Earlier in February the UN human rights chief urged [JURIST report] the DRC to end violence against civilians. Also in February the UN human rights office expressed concern [JURIST report] over reports that at least 101 people were killed by Congolese soldiers. Last October violent protests erupted [JURIST report] after the electoral commission announced that the next presidential election, originally scheduled for November 2016, would be pushed back to 2018. In the beginning of 2016 [JURIST report] former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged African leaders to avoid using loopholes and undemocratic constitutional changes to cling to power.
Singapore-listed candy group Delfi has announced a new venture in Indonesia  its largest market  a month after pulling out of a different tie-up in the country.

Delfi is to work with Japans Yuraku Confectionery Company to produce and sell chocolate products in Indonesia under the Delfi brand.

Last month, Delfi said it would pull out of PT Ceres Meiji Indotama (CMI), a confectionery manufacturing joint venture in Indonesia with Japanese pharma-to-food group Meiji Holdings. Delfi is to sell its 50% stake in CMI to Meiji.

The Delfi Yuraku venture will set up manufacturing, as well as sales and marketing functions, in Indonesia. Delfi, which will own a 60% stake in the venture, said its own local distribution arm would handle the products made by the venture.

John Chuang, Delfis CEO, said the tie-up will allow the company to extend the breadth of our portfolio of snacking products, which is enjoying increasing consumer demand due to the attractiveness of these products because of lower price points, convenience and lighter products.

Chuang added: We believe the JVCs products, when launched, will fit this perfectly with the growth potential for the products in Indonesia driven by the relatively young and growing population and its suitability for both the modern and traditional trade channels.

Yuraku president Tomoharu Kawai added: Taking advantage of both companies strengths, I am convinced that our partnership can create tasty and unique products for the people in not only Indonesia but possibly other Asian countries.

Delfi said the deal was subject to regulatory approval.

The companys CMI venture with Meiji is expected to end during the second quarter of the year. Delfi will continue to distribute the products marketed by its former venture with Meiji. Delfi said last month the plan to end their joint venture is the result of a mutual and amicable agreement.
UK-based bakery group Warburtons is looking to close its Giles Foods bakery in Milton Keynes.

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Warburtons has started talks with the 218 employees at the site.

A Warburtons spokesperson told just-food today (21 April): After much consideration, we have made the extremely difficult decision to enter into a period of consultation on the proposed closure of our Giles bakery, which makes a range of own-label products including garlic baguettes. This proposal is a result of significant ongoing challenges facing the business and is despite considerable time and financial investment, the spokesperson said.

All 218 employees have been briefed and we will work closely with them throughout the 45-day consultation process. This proposal does not impact the Giles bakery in Warminster.

Warburtons acquired Giles Foods for an undisclosed sum in 2013 as part of what it said were plans to diversify its business.

Last month, Warburtons was given the green light to build a research and development centre and test bakery adjoining its Bolton headquarters in north-west England.

Related Companies
Photo Credit: Ruta Uleviciute

Investing in experiences rather than objects has been the trend for some years now, blossoming after global economic crisis of 2008. Ruta Uleviciute, who had a successful career in London managing high-end jewelry sales for top jewelry houses, made a decision to change her life and to offer her clients a different luxury investment: picturesque villas next to one of the most beautiful tropical beaches of the world in Tulum, Mexico.

The attitude amongst people who see jewelry as an investment is changing. If you buy a million dollar jewel, you will wear it once or twice and then keep it in the safe probably until the auction day. If you invest in a vacation house in a beautiful location, it can be your personal paradise. The joy and happiness you get from creating your memories can be priceless, and the property will also grow in value, says Ms. Uleviciute.

This general feeling in the market, as well as their own search for paradise, prompted her and her partner to shift their careers. The couple researched Tulum for a few years before making the move and starting to learn how the real estate business works in a fast-developing tropical paradise. Her partner, Claudio Catanzaro, purchased a small restaurant on the beach to understand the real estate business firsthand.

Tulum, which is a former fisherman's village, has been attracting celebrities and the jetsetting crowd in search of complete relaxation. The idyllic location has all of the ingredients for paradise: sugary sand beaches, the turquoise Caribbean Sea and a come-as-you-are yoga mentality. However, it is an area that still preserves its natural beauty. There is a strong local focus on solar energy, and the region has imposed strict ecological construction regulations.

Uleviciute and three partners founded the Riviera Maya Property Consultants company in Tulum, providing others with the opportunity to invest in an experience that can last a lifetime. A vacation villa, condo building or a hotel can bring serious return on investment, especially since Tulums real estate is among the fastest-growing in Latin America. Since 2008, Tulums employment rate has more than doubled, and its has population tripled since 2000. The state is now building a rail network, and development is visible in hotels, restaurants, tourism, and luxury.

I moved to London from Lithuania about 17 years ago in search of personal and professional growth. I think I have achieved a lot professionally. My clients were some of the most famous and wealthy people around the world, and I was honored by invitations to a few royal events. But there came a moment when I wanted a new challenge in my life, to learn new things and to follow my heart to the place that I fell in love from the very first sight. I wanted to offer a piece of this paradise to all my former clients, says Uleviciute. Her dramatic career and life change has been paying off, since there are a good number of people in search of a place to rejuvenate, relax and spend time with their families while still making a great investment.

Since founding Riviera Maya Property Consultants in April of 2014, the company has sold luxury penthouses and land lots. It has also undertaken architectural and construction projects ranging from upscale houses that combine modern architecture with local Mayan style. to exploring commercial construction options such as hotels and condos.

In my role as a Sales Director for Riviera Maya Property Consultants, I use my London high-end sales experience to set a new level of customer service and give a very personal treatment to each and every customer, explains Uleviciute. I dont see our company as a real estate agency. We are more than that. People come here with their dreams, and we do all we can to turn those dreams into reality. In addition, it can be daunting to purchase real estate in a new country. We take care of the entire buying, design and construction process for our clients.

Kimberly Richmond, a client from New York who purchased a luxury condo with Ms. Uleviciutes help, raves, Rutas stellar service continued during my visit with five-star, hands on, personalized attention...Working with them was the best decision I could have made. Not only was the process easy and fun, but I know Ive made a dear friend.
KEARNEY  Axtell Public Library and BraveHearts Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and Learning will receive funding through the United Way of the Kearney Areas Community Impact initiative.

The Axtell Public Library will begin 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten to prepare children, from birth to 5 years old, to become successful readers. The library will also launch a story hour for pre-kindergarten children.

The BraveHearts Equine Assisted Psychotherapy & Learnings Parenting from the Barn is an equine interactive parenting group. Its six-week pilot program targets parents and guardians of at-risk children, including foster care providers and parents/guardians who seek to been reunified with their biological children. The program teaches parents how to handle interactions with their children with increased empathy, developmental understanding and solid communication skills.

United Way also has a new partner agency, Family Advocacy Network, one of seven nationally accredited child advocacy centers in Nebraska. FAN is a nonprofit organization that serves 14 central Nebraska counties. FAN provides victims forensic interviews, on-site forensic medical exams, testing for drug-exposed children, advocacy, case coordination, community education and training.
LEXINGTON  Staff Sgt. Jose Torres-Garcia of Lexington was selected to compete in the U.S. Armys 34th-annual David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition April 7-9 at Fort Benning, Ga.

According to a Nebraska National Guard press release, the grueling three-day event included 52 two-soldier teams competing to be named Best Ranger. Of the eight National Guard Soldiers selected to compete in the competition, Torres-Garcia and two others were from Nebraska. He did not place in the competition.
KEARNEY  In the early 1990s, Ivona Kaminska-Bowlby attended a piano recital in Warsaw, Poland, that changed her life.

The Polish student listened to a performance by University of Nebraska at Kearney professor James Cook, who was on tour at the time.

She talked to people about coming here, Cook said in an interview from his office on campus. She got in contact with me, along with others at UNK. Ivona was given a scholarship in Poland, and she was also given a scholarship here. She came here in 1994. My recital was the reason she chose this school.

Kaminska-Bowlby finished her undergraduate work at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before she went on to study at the University of British Columbia.

The pianist will return to Kearney with her husband, Christopher Bowlby, for a piano music recital at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Fine Arts Recital Hall in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus. Admission to the concert is free.

In 2005, Cooks former student and her husband founded the Chopin Academy of Music in Issaquah, Wash.

Kaminska-Bowlbys success means a great deal to Cook.

Ive had several students, when they have finished their bachelors degree here, they have gone to other schools and they have gotten masters degrees and doctorates, he said.

Kaminska-Bowlbys performance on Sunday will feature works by Moritz Moszkowski, Franz Schubert and a one-piano, four-hands arrangement of Igor Stravinskys Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring).

Apparently, Stravinsky arranged it first for one piano, four hands, Cook said. After the big performance in Paris in 1913, the piece created hysteria in the audience. It was quite an event. Some loved it, but others hated it.

The Rite of Spring influenced many other composers throughout the 20th century. The very demanding score requires a high degree of technical ability to perform.

Its the devil to play, Cook said. I think it would work better on two pianos, but Ivona and Christopher are husband and wife. Theyre together all the time, and Im sure they have time to practice.
OMAHA -- The bickering between publicly appointed and privately retained attorneys for convicted quadruple-murderer Anthony Garcia led a judge Thursday to remind them that they were in a courthouse, not an elementary school.

Gentlemen, we are not in third grade, said Douglas County District Judge Gary Randall. I told you you had to work together. ... You both have an ethical responsibility to discuss the matter.

Randall ordered the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy and the Chicago-based legal team known as Team Motta to collaborate as counsel on Garcias impending sentencing.

But its not clear whether the partnership will hold. The commission said it plans to file a motion to remove Team Motta in as early as a week.

Also unclear is what Garcia wants; his silence at public court proceedings continued Thursday.

Robert Motta Sr. said via telephone during the hearing that Team Motta has no intention to withdraw as counsel.

He and his partners have not been able to communicate with Garcia to find out whether he wants them to stay on the case or hand it off to the state agency. He said, however, that they also havent received any messages indicating that Garcia doesnt want them to represent him.

Attorneys for the public advocacy commission, which was appointed by Randall three weeks ago because of Garcias lack of funds, suggested that they will file a motion within the next week seeking to remove Team Motta from the case.

Jeff Pickens, chief counsel with the commission, argued that if the Chicago team were a part of the case, the defense would not be able to raise the issue of whether Garcia received effective legal counsel in his trial.

If ordered by the court, we will work with Team Motta, Pickens said during the hearing. There is a possibility that the commission will file a motion to proceed without Team Motta based upon ethical rules, but were not in a position to do that at this point.

The courtroom fell silent.

Thats rather vague, Motta said via phone.

Purposefully, Pickens said.

Neither Team Motta nor attorneys from the commission have been able to communicate with Garcia, it seems.

Jeremy Jorgensen, a formerly Omaha-based lawyer who worked with the Mottas on the trial and has moved to Chicago to practice with them, said he visited Omaha last week to try to meet with Garcia.

He was not willing to see me, Jorgensen said.

Pickens also said he was met with silence.

I have concerns that Mr. Garcia isnt responding, but I dont have a history with him, Pickens said.

While the question of who will represent Garcia for sentencing is murky, an order from Randall is expected to come today on Team Mottas motion for reimbursement for expert testimony and fees.

In fact, that was the first thing Motta brought up in Thursdays hearing.

The first issue that Im concerned about is the money, he said. If I may be so bold to request the court to give me where its at with that.

Randall said his ruling was prepared and it would be released today.

In the roughly 30-minute hearing, Jorgensen also questioned whether Garcia, who was in the courtroom Thursday, could hear the proceedings.

Randall had ruled last month that Garcia was mentally competent to go forward with the death penalty hearing, based on an evaluation by a state psychiatrist.

Hes sitting mute in the courtroom, and I have reason to believe he might not be able to hear, Jorgensen said.

Garcia didnt respond to Randall when the judge called out to him twice by name.

Jorgensen asked for a physical examination of Garcia and told Randall that he and Garcia soon would meet with a doctor at the Douglas County Jail.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said the idea that Garcia is hard of hearing was unfounded, and that Garcia simply chooses to not speak with attorneys.

Thats more of a decision, not a physical disability, he said after the hearing. Were just trying to get this case moving.

In October, a jury found Garcia guilty of the March 2008 deaths of Thomas Hunter, 11, and Shirlee Sherman, 57, and the May 2013 deaths of Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife, Mary, both 65. Garcia, a 43-year-old former doctor, is said to have killed the four as revenge for his 2001 firing from Creighton Universitys pathology department, where his overseers included Thomas father, Dr. William Hunter, and Dr. Brumback.

A three-judge panel ultimately will decide whether Garcia receives a death sentence or life in prison for his crimes.
Youd think with 24/7 exposure to everything Donald Trump, wed know all about him. But here are a few fun facts you may have missed. During the presidents six business bankruptcies, investors lost $1.5 billion. He had to reduce his personal expenses to $450,000 a month. Ultimately, the government bailed him out from his many bankers, who didnt know about the others loans to Trump.

When Trump had money troubles, he asked an employee to put the arm on a friend who worked for a bank. She said she couldnt do it. Trump was furious. He said: She turned on me after I had done so much to help her. ... She ended up losing her home. Her husband ... walked out on her and I was glad. ... And now I go out of my way to make her life miserable.

Trump didnt always love the military. During the Vietnam War, he got four student deferments and one medical deferment, apparently for a bone spur, although he cant remember which foot had been affected.

Although Trump has spent almost two years urging Republicans to vote, he did not vote in any Republican primary for 27 years until he voted for himself.

The nearly nude photo of Melania Trump for GQ magazine was arranged by Trump, then her boyfriend, who watched the photo shoot. GQ says Melania was featured in our naked profile shoot on his customized Boeing 727 wearing handcuffs, wielding diamonds and holding a chrome pistol.

After Trumps father died, the young Trump sought out as his dads mentor, Roy Cohn, the chief lawyer for Sen. Joe McCarthy, the infamous conductor of witch hunts for non-existent communists.

Trump said that he was amazed Cohn told him he had spent more than two-thirds of his adult life under indictment for various charges. Cohn went on to unsuccessfully defend Trump on federal charges he engaged in racial discrimination in his housing projects despite getting federal money. Trump settled.

Trump has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits, either as plaintiff or defendant.

Trumps grandfather was kicked out of Germany for draft dodging. He set up a bordello and a bar in Seattle and later prospered as a barbershop owner in New York, although it isnt clear how. Trumps father partnered with a known organized crime figure, cheaply built 27,000 subsidized apartments and row houses and was accused of gaming the Federal Housing Administration.

Like father, like son. Trump, too, associated with known gangsters. And he loves manufactured news, as did his father. The elder Trump once hired beautiful women wearing hard hats and bikinis to start knocking down a beloved ride on Coney Island that stood where Trumps father planned to build an apartment building.

When Trump tore down the famed Bonwit Teller department store to build Trump Tower in New York, he used undocumented Polish laborers working off the books, without hard hats or face masks despite handling asbestos. They did have sledgehammers.

A federal court concluded they were paid $4 or $5 an hour for 84-hour weeks. No Social Security was paid. Workers slept on site on concrete floors and went hungry when their paychecks bounced while Trump threatened deportation. Sued, Trump settled out of court 10 years later.

To save money, Trump destroyed the art deco sculpture above Bonwits door that hed promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Trump Tower, billed as having 68 stories, has only 58.

Ann McFeatters is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service.
Based on his inflammatory  and familiar  rhetoric regarding immigration and the theft of American prosperity that Donald Trump spouted in a campaign-style appearance in Wisconsin this week, one might assume the America First president was putting the hammer down on the controversial H-1B visa program that allows high-skilled foreign workers to enter the country temporarily to fill specialized jobs. But when the dust settled in front of the Buy American Hire American sign at the Snap-On Inc. plant in Kenosha, what Trump actually did was entirely reasonable  he signed an executive order essentially authorizing a study of the H-1B program.

It appears President Trump discovered that H-1B, like the Affordable Care Act and North Korea, is complicated. The real challenge with the temporary visa program is not that its a giveaway of American prosperity but that its a flawed remedy to a real problem  the difficulty some domestic companies have in finding highly qualified individuals to fill jobs in certain high-tech, industrial and medical fields. Might it allow some companies to depress wages? That absolutely appears to happen in some cases. But the solution isnt to scrap H-1B, its to strike the right balance between the legitimate needs of companies to fill jobs and protections for domestic workers from unfair competition.

Surely, the biggest flaw in H-1B is that theres little rhyme or reason in how those visas are granted. Because the program authorizes only 85,000 new visas each year and the number of applicants is far greater, selection boils down to a lottery. Quite a few of those visas inevitably fall to foreign-based outsourcing firms in countries like India. That doesnt seem quite in the spirit of a visa program designed as a stop-gap for U.S. companies that cant fill specialized jobs, it looks more like a way to reduce information technology costs (as a high percentage of H-1B visas often go to software engineers) as salaries in places like Silicon Valley continue to soar.

But the solution shouldnt require a rocket scientist to devise. It requires coming up with a better way to evaluate the merits of any H-1B application. That might involve, for example, giving greater priority to the most highly educated, skilled and paid applicants instead of simply demonstrating that you pay your industrys prevailing wage or that you advertised the job locally. After all, its not much of an end-around of domestic hiring if the applicant from overseas is demonstrably better qualified and better compensated than anyone else in the job pool.

It would be a mistake, however, to simply slam the door on highly-educated foreign-born workers. That prospect is exactly what has high-tech industry officials most worried, and many expressed relief after President Trump signed his much more ho-hum order on Tuesday. If U.S.-based companies cant attract the best and brightest from around the world, the nations leadership in technology will suffer. If anything, Trump ought to encourage H-1B visa holders to seek U.S. citizenship.

Baltimore Sun
LONDON  Facing steep odds and low popularity ratings, Britain's main opposition leader launched his election campaign on Thursday, painting himself as a populist outsider who will overturn a "rigged" political and economic system.

Britain's opposition Labour Party's leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves after giving a speech in central London, April 20, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]



Labour Party chief Jeremy Corbyn said the June 8 election pitted "the establishment vs. the people" and insisted the result is not a foregone conclusion.

Labour trails a long way behind Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives in opinion polls, and many within the party believe 67-year-old socialist Corbyn is too left-wing to connect with voters.



Bookmaker Ladbrokes gives Labour 12-1 odds of winning the snap election called by May this week. Polls suggest the party could lose dozens of their current 229 seats in Parliament. The Conservatives currently hold 330 of the 650 seats.



In his first major speech of the campaign, Corbyn echoed anti-establishment sentiment that has upended politics from the United States to France.



To a crowd of supporters and journalists in London, he said that the old rules drawn up by political and economic elites no longer apply.



"I don't play by their rules, and if a Labour government is elected on the 8th of June we won't play by their rules either," he said.



"They are yesterday's rules, set by failed political and corporate elites we should be consigning to the past."Corbyn made little mention of the biggest issue overshadowing the election  Brexit.



Britons voted by 52-48 percent in June 2016 to leave the European Union, and May says re-electing her with a bigger majority will strengthen the U.K.'s hand in divorce negotiations with the bloc.



The issue presents problems for Labour. The party backed remaining in the EU, but many of its legislators represent working-class areas of northern England that voted to leave.

Corbyn tepidly backed "remain" after decades of criticizing the bloc for giving too much power to corporations over workers.



He said Thursday that the election was about "what kind of country we want to have after Brexit." He said Labour respects the referendum result but will ensure EU-enforced workplace rights and environmental protections are not watered down after Britain leaves the bloc.

Agencies




A police officer and his alleged lover have lost their lives in an auto crash while they were reportedly having sex on wheels.





The policeman, whose identity was given as Constable Ramon Stephens,

attached to the Motorized Patrol Unitn alongside the woman identified as

Kodian  Kody, died from injuries they sustained in the tragic

accident.

According to reports, the two dead victims were found naked.

Eyewitnesses said the car was travelling at a very high speed and lost control, probably at the climax of the sex.

The incident happened in the western parts of the Island, along the North-South link of Highway 2000, Jamaica.

Meanwhile, the Road Safety Unit has denied sexual act was the cause of the fatal crash

Director of the unit in the Ministry of Transport, Kanute Hare told

The Jamaican Star that despite calls on the subject on sexual

intercourse and suggestive photographs, the evidence on the ground

doesnt give latitude to make those statements at all.

Hare said, Persons have been calling me about it. There are some

photographs even flying about the place but I beg not to believe that

because my information is not telling me (that) and for somebody who

understands how traffic accidents occur, I am not surprised the clothes

were off.
Description

Free movie!

Friday, April 21 at 2:00 p.m.

Denial

Starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson. When Deborah Lipstadt speaks out against Holocaust denier David Irving over his falsification of history, she discovers that the stakes are higher than ever in the battle for historical truth. Now faced with a libel lawsuit in British court, in riveting legal fight with stunning consquences, Lipstadt and her attorney have the heavy burden of proving that the Holocaust actually happened. (Rated PG-13)

Open to all. No need to register.

Questions? Email askus@emmaclark.org
Description

After returning from his tour of Africa, Jamaican reggae superstar Turbulence will be passing through Long Island N.Y. Fri. April 21st for a night of live Reggae and nonstop jammin vibes as he perform many of his hit singles. this will be all taking place @ Theater 294, 294 Farmingdale Rd, Farmingdale, NY 11735 Long Island N.Y. Brought to you by World Class Promotions & Yard 1 Promote, for more info call 3216001234 see you there

https://www.facebook.com/100015968713181/videos/111488206060136/
By Anusha Ravindranath

April 21 (Reuters) - Australian shares gained on Friday as miners bounced back on higher metal prices, while financials and utility stocks rounded off a relatively solid morning session.

The S&P/ASX 200 index rose for the second day in a row, up 0.76 percent, or 44.11 points, to 5865.5 by 0245 GMT. The benchmark however was on track for a weekly fall.

A recovery in prices of iron ore and steel futures in China, Australia's major trading partner, reinvigorated material stocks, which were under pressure on worries about a growing production glut. Base metal prices gained on Thursday as investors, speculators and consumers resumed buying after recent losses, expecting increased seasonal demand. The market was also supported by Wall Street, which rallied overnight on strong corporate earnings, and as traders cheered news that the U.S. tax reform is finally underway. "It is very much a story of miners and banks today," said Ben Le Brun, a market analyst at OptionsXpress in Sydney.

Positioning ahead of banks' earnings underpinned financial stocks, he said.

Materials and financials were the top perfomers on the benchmark. Big miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto rose to more than a one-week high. Nickel miner Western Areas was the top gainer on the metal index, rising 8.1 percent.

Financial stocks traded higher for a second session, with the 'big four' banks rising between 0.8 percent-1.3 percent at one point.

Utility shares complemented the gains, with shares of DUET Group surging to its highest level in 8-1/2 years.

DUET said the Australian government gave the green light to the company's $5.5 billion takeover by Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI) consortium.

There had been concerns the government could reject the deal after it last year blocked CKI from buying a state-owned power grid, Ausgrid, on the grounds of "national security".

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.5 percent, or 37.73 points, to 7225.78 at 0250 GMT.

Consumer stocks and healthcare shares led the gains. a2 Milk Company Ltd was the top gainer on the benchmark index, rising 3.5 percent. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Ltd added 1.3 percent.

(Reporting by Anusha Ravindranath in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Hanna Paul; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
As North Korean state media threatens to launch a super-mighty preemptive strike, that would reduce South Korea and the United States to ashes, Gordon Chang, author of the 2006 bestseller Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World, says there are bad signs going forward.

The problem right now is that the Trump administration has a low threshold for the use of force. We saw that with the missile strike on the Syrian air base. Also, Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea, has a low threshold of risk. We saw a number of instances of instability in the regime not only with the killing of his half-brother Kim Jong-Nam, but also the demotion and detention of the Minister of State Security, and execution of five of his senior subordinates, Chang told Kitco News in an interview.

Jong-un may feel that his grip slipping and he can do things that surprise us, Chang noted.

The most important thing to do now is get China onboard. And to do that, Trump has to change the way the U.S. has interacted with China on this issue, Chang said.

In the past, both Bush and Obama tried to obtain Chinas cooperation by being friendly and trying to integrate them into the international system. That didnt work because the Chinese took that position and let the North Koreans have time to develop nukes and missiles, he said.

What Trump will have to do is impose costs on China for some very dangerous behavior.

We know they have been giving North Koreans components for their nuclear weapons program. And Chinese equities and banks appear to have been involved in North Koreans illicit commerce. That has to stop, Chang noted.

The Chinese government should be doing more, Chang stressed, pointing out that in the Saturdays military parade, there were what looked like Chinese missiles. So apparently, there has been leakage of this technology and we have to ask the Chinese government how the North Koreans got these.

The military parade was followed by North Koreas failed missile test on Sunday.

The increased tensions came as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. was looking at ways to pressure North Korea to the negotiation table over its nuclear program.

On Thursday, Trump applauded Chinese efforts to rein in the menace of North Korea, adding the he was confident that Chinese President Xi Jinping would try very hard to put pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

Trump stated that some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours. The comments were made during a news conference and Trump did not specify which moves he was talking about.

However, Reuters quoted U.S. officials as saying that they were aware of a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bombers.

Earlier in the day, the North Korean state media, the Rodong Sinmun, issued an aggressive warning to the U.S.

In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes, it said.
April 21 (Reuters) - The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index marked its biggest percentage decline since mid-December on Friday as rates for larger vessels dipped due to limited activity.

The Baltic index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, was down 3.86 percent.

The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, was down 48 points at 1,195, its weakest since March 22.

"Capesize and panamax vessels remain under pressure to close the week as both the Pacific and Atlantic markets remain rather quiet," Clarksons Platou Securities analysts said in a note.

The capesize index lost 161 points, or 8.09 percent, to their lowest since March 10, at 1,830 points.

Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were down $1,291 to $13,369, also the lowest since March 10.

The panamax index was down 59 points, or 3.8 percent, at 1,494 points.

Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, decreased $466 to $11,982.

Among smaller vessels, the supramax index was down 4 points at 895 points, while the handysize index rose three points to 575 points.

(Reporting by Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
By Yuka Obayashi and Aaron Sheldrick

TOKYO, April 21 (Reuters) - Japanese steelmakers have bought coking coal from the United States, Canada and China to replace supply lost after a cyclone closed rail links in Australia, their biggest supplier, industry and trader sources said.

Still, the Japanese buyers are paying nearly double the $150 a tonnes price that they were discussing with sellers for second-quarter supply before the supply disruption. The supply talks are now on hold and prices will likely stay high until full volumes start flowing again. In 2016, Japan bought about 71 percent of the 59.9 million tonnes of coking coal it consumed from Australia.

"We've tapped supplies by bringing forward shipping schedules of cargos from Canada and the United States, and buying some extra coal from China," an official at a major Japanese steelmaker who deals with raw material procurement told Reuters.

The emergency supplies were purchased at about $300 a tonne, said the official and a second source a major producer.

Premium coking coal prices from the east coast of Australia were quoted at $289.50 a tonne on Thursday, down from $314 a week earlier, but still more than 90 percent above levels four weeks ago, according to Platts TSI.

About 300,000 tonnes of coking coal from the U.S. is steaming for Japanese ports on bulk carriers, while dozens of empty ships sit offshore ports in Queensland awaiting loading, according to Reuters Eikon Data.

Buyers have also tapped supplies from Russia, according to a source at a major Japanese trading house.

Australian rail operator Aurizon Holdings Ltd temporarily closed four of its coal lines the Bowen Basin in the state of Queensland, which produces about 50 percent of global coking coal, after Cyclone Debbie made landfall on March 28.

Three of the rail lines hit by floodwaters and landslides have reopened already and Goonyella, largest in terms of export tonnage, is expected to open on April 26 - about 10 days ahead of schedule. Still, Aurizon said on Tuesday that the Goonyella line will be operating at a reduced level with trains moving at lower speeds for an undetermined amount of time. "The Goonyella situation is going to keep the spot price up. The coal coming off that line is pretty much the basis for the spot price," said Peter O'Connor, an analyst at Australian investment firm Shaw and Partners.

"It'll be important to keep an eye on when Aurizon finally gets the line back to full operating levels. No one knows that yet," he said, a sentiment echoed by the producer source.

BHP Billiton , the world's biggest coking coal shipper, was among five miners in the region to declare force majeure, a clause typically invoked after natural disasters when companies cannot meet supply commitments.

Japan's steelmakers were already running down inventories of coking coal prior to the current supply disruptions.

"You did see Japanese steelmakers ... actually run down their stocks quite considerably," said Paul Flynn, the chief executive officer for Australia's Whitehaven Coal Ltd on an earnings call last week, adding there would be a "lingering impact on ... coal sales for some time."

The price talks for the second-quarter coking coal term contracts may restart next month, said the source from Japanese steelmaker source.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ U.S. vessels carrying coking coal en route to Japan Cyclone disrupts coal market IMG GRAPHIC: Japan's coking coal imports ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Additional reporting by Jim Regan and Jonathan Barrett in SYDNEY; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
Photo courtes of British Museum

(Kitco News) - First, two British tank restorers find five solid gold bars in the gas tank of a Russian T54/69 tank. Now, in the same week, it was announced that a piano tuner has found what is believed to be the largest hoard of gold sovereigns in an old piano.

Making its way through the media-sphere is news that a piano tuner in Shropshire, a county in the middle of England, found 913 gold coins ranging from 1847 to 1915. According to reports, the coins were stitched into seven cloth packets and hidden under the keys of the piano.

"The keys were a bit stiff and a bit sluggish, so I took the keys out, said Martin Backhouse, the man who found the coins, in an interview with the BBC. As soon as I started lifting out the keys, I thought, uh-uh, what's this underneath the keyboard? I'd never come across anything like this in my whole life".

The loot was actually found around Christmas but it was only this week that a Shrewsbury court ruled the discovery officially as treasure and therefore owned by the crown. However, the tuner and Bishops Castle Community College -- the actual owner of the piano -- will split a reward based on the value of the treasure.

During the inquest, 50 people came forward claiming to be the owners of the gold; however, the court ruled that the true owner remained unknown.

In an interesting twist, for more than 22 years, the piano was owned by Graham and Meg Hemmings, who donated the piano to the college last summer after moving to the county.

So far, the value of the historic coins has not been set. Peter Reavill, the British Museum's finds liaison officer for the region, said it could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"It's been an amazing case to deal with but we have drawn a blank in terms of finding the original owner. We have meticulously gone through all the claims but there is a bar for the evidence and at the moment nobody has reached close to that bar, he told the BBC.

The moral of these two stories? Meticulously go through things before you throw them out.
HANOI, April 21 (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 5:59 GMT.

April 21 USD/VND mid-point 22,335 USD/VND interbank 22,715/22,720 USD/VND unofficial 22,710/22,730 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.60/36.82

Interbank offered rates Overnight 4.6-5.1

1 week 4.7-5.1

1 month 4.8-5.2

3 months 4.9-5.3

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)
April 21 (Reuters) - Major tin producers have agreed to begin reporting on compliance with a new code of conduct starting from third-quarter 2017, an industry body said, seeking to boost supply chain credentials ahead of new European rules on responsible sourcing of ore.

Ten producers have signed up to the code, which will cover environmental performance, protection of human rights and responsible metal production among other elements, and will be a prerequisite for membership of the International Tin Research Institute (ITRI), the London-based body said on Friday.

"The tin industry has an unusually high proportion of artisanal mining and this presents particular challenges in assessing and making improvements in the supply chain," ITRI said.

"ITRI and its members are committed to...engage and encourage positive change among the many small operators and artisanal miners whose livelihoods depend on the mineral sector and who make an important contribution to tin supply."

The spotlight has grown in recent years on minerals sourced from conflict areas. The European Union approved draft regulations to prevent trade in minerals from such areas last month, due to come into force from 2021.

The United States is meanwhile reviewing its conflict minerals rules, and has suspended enforcement of the costliest elements of the regulations in the meantime. The change in stance followed the election of President Donald Trump, who has vowed to cut costs for business. As far back as 2010, the ITRI launched a supply chain initiative covering conflict areas including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

In the past few years however, Myanmar has become one of the world's top tin suppliers. Much of its ore comes from an area controlled by an insurgent army that the U.S. sanctioned in 2003 for narcotics trafficking. The companies that have signed up to the ITRI reporting plan are Bluestone Mines Tasmania; Fenix Metals of Poland; Malaysia Smelting Corporation Bhd and its unit Rahman Hydraulic Tin Sdn Bhd; Belgium's Metallo-Chimique; Mineracao Taboca S/A of Brazil; Peru's Minsur S.A. ; Bolivia's Operaciones Metalurgicas SA (OMSA); Indonesia's PT Timah ; Thailand Smelting & Refining Company Limited and Yunnan Tin Group .

(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
(Adds comments from White House foreign policy adviser)

By Jane Wardell and Roberta Rampton

SYDNEY, April 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to discuss trade and regional security when he meets Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, Australian and U.S. officials said.

Pence landed in Australia late on Friday, his fourth stop on a 10-day tour of U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region that has included a series of roundtables with business executives in South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia. His trip to Australia is the first by a senior official in President Donald Trump's administration as the United States looks to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation amid disputes in the South China Sea and tension on the Korean peninsula.

Pence will emphasize the long-term partnership between the two countries on defense and the economy, even as Australia eyes the merits of developing a closer relationship with China, a White House foreign policy adviser said.

"We're the number two in the economy in this sense," the adviser told reporters traveling with Pence. "Obviously they lead with China. They are in the region, proximity matters to them."

An official in Turnbull's office noted Pence has already met and spoken by phone with several ministers about the Trump administration's commitment to the bilateral relationship.

"The prime minister will enjoy the chance to talk about opportunities for building on that partnership," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Australia's relationship with the new administration in Washington got off to a rocky start when Trump lambasted Turnbull over a refugee resettlement arrangement that Trump labeled a "dumb" deal. Details of an acrimonious phone call between the pair soon after Trump took office made headlines around the world.

'ANCIENT HISTORY'

It is unclear whether that deal, agreed with former President Barack Obama, will be discussed on Saturday.

"I really do think it's ancient history," the White House foreign policy adviser told reporters, noting Pence had discussed the deal with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop earlier this year.

Under the deal, the United States agreed to resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in offshore processing camps on South Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

In return, Australia would resettle refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The deal has taken on added importance for Australia, which is under political and legal pressure to shut the camps, particularly one on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island where violence between residents and inmates has flared. Pence will also meet Australian business executives in Sydney on Saturday, following similar meetings in Seoul, Tokyo, and Jakarta that have been thick with executives from Fortune 100 companies.

His message at each of those stops was to reassure political and business leaders that Trump's "America First" policy meant that the United States was open to foreign investment, and that his administration wanted to work with business leaders to knock down barriers for U.S. products.

He has also confirmed that Trump will attend this year's gathering of the Association of South East Asian Nations, scheduled for the Philippines in November. While in Australia, Pence and his family will also meet some local wildlife at Sydney's zoo, take a harbor cruise and tour the world-famous Sydney Opera House.

(Reporting By Jane Wardell and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)
(Kitco News) - Voters in the weekly Kitco News gold survey remain upbeat on the metals fortunes for the week ahead, although their enthusiasm has waned some since last week when roughly three-quarters of Wall Street and Main Street alike called for prices to rise.

Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VS Main Street Bullish Bearish Neutral

Nineteen traders and analysts took part in a Wall Street survey. Ten voters, or 53%, see gold prices rising by next Friday. Seven, or 37%, said lower, while two voters, or 11%, were either neutral or expected sideways prices.

Meanwhile, 1,232 Kitco readers submitted votes in an online Main Street poll. A total of 723 voters, or 59%, are bullish. Another 330, or 27%, say that gold will fall, while 179, or 15%, are neutral.

In the pre-Easter survey for the current week, 75% of Wall Street voters and 73% of Main Street voters predicted gold would rise. As of 11:09 a.m. EDT Friday, Comex June gold was up 20 cents for the week so far at $1,288.70 an ounce, although the metal did hit a five-month high earlier in the week.

So far in 2017 but not counting the current week, Wall Street forecasters collectively were right 10 of 14 times for a winning percentage of 71%. Main Street was 8-6 for 57%.

With the French elections coupled with geopolitical risk, I think you will see gold higher next week, said Bob Haberkorn, senior commodities broker with RJO Futures.

Colin Cieszynski, chief market analyst in Canada for CMC Markets, offered similar sentiment.

I am bullish on gold for next week, he said. I think we could see political risk return over the next few days between the French election on Sunday, the U.S. carrier Vinson arriving in the waters off Korea and reportedly a small risk of a US government shutdown (although September still more likely; someone could miscalculate now). On the other hand, if these events go by and nothing happens, gold could drift downward. Gold has been coming up off the bottom of a $1,275 to $1,300 range and appears to be under accumulation. 

Mark Leibovit, editor of the VR Gold Letter, is also bullish. We tested $1,300 resistance and backed off, but looking for a push back through that level in the next few weeks, he said.

Richard Baker, editor of the Eureka Miner Report, looks for gold to rise after the metal was in a tight range around the $1,280 area this week.

A strong FN (National Front) showing in first round of French voting or miscalculation in North Korea could easily boost gold above $1,300 per ounce, Baker said. On Monday, Comex prices nearly touched this key level, touching $1,297.40. More benign geopolitical outcomes and rallying stocks on strong earnings next week could push gold below Wednesdays low at $1,275.40, but not lower than a solid floor at $1,250. I believe it more likely to find gold at $1,290 next Friday.

Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, is among those expecting softer prices, citing an expectation that the first round of voting in French presidential elections this weekend will yield no major surprise.

If it does, the five-year downtrend is likely to (be) challenged properly but a stronger dollar is likely to cap the upside relatively to XAU/EUR, Hansen said.



Kevin Grady, president of Phoenix Futures and Options LLC, said he a little bearish on gold for the week ahead. Much will hinge on equities, he said. Recent gold buying has been encouraged by political and geopolitical worries such as upcoming French elections and tensions involving North Korea, which means gold bulls could be left standing out there if these worries abate, he said.

If (Marine) Le Pen does not win in France, that will give the stock market a little bit of a boost, and I think that would hurt gold, Grady said.

Here is a sampling of thoughts from some Kitco Main Street voters on Kitcos new commenting feature  Kitco Chat  which began last month:
LUSAKA, April 21 (Reuters) - Zambia is likely to receive $1.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) later this year, the presidency said on Friday, with a review meeting set for June to finalise the agreement.

"Our budget is in October, so they want to ensure that all the things that come with the IMF programme are part of our budget. It is likely to be $1.6 billion over a three-year period starting in September so that it fits into our budget cycle," presidential spokesman Amos Chanda told Reuters.

Chanda had said earlier this week that key elements of the programme were expected to be agreed by the end of this month. (Reporting by Chris Mfula; Writing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Stuff reports:

Lianne Dalziel and Gerry Brownlee have written to the agency fixing Christchurchs red zone to express a lack of confidence in its work programme.

The March letter, obtained by Stuff under the Official Information Act, shows both the mayor and Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister have concerns about Regenerate Christchurchs work programme, which outlines its work in the city.

The joint Crown-Christchurch City Council agency is tasked with developing plans for the residential red zone, New Brighton and the central city, but can also develop plans for other parts of the city.

Brownlee and Dalziel said it was concerning to us, that to date, it appears there is no troubleshooting capacity in your work programme to address regeneration opportunities outside those we have set in the letter of expectations
Stuff reports:

The funding freeze on schools has drawn in Green MP Marama Davidson and Manurewa MP Louisa Wall to get behind support staff who have been hit by it.

Support staff from various south Auckland schools have voiced their concern over the financial issue. Many fear hours being cut or even worse losing their jobs.

The staff appealing are members of teachers union NZEI Te Riu Roa.

Joining teachers and support staff in Manurewa, Davidson visited Homai primary and Wall was at Rowandale school.

The staff at Rowandale school gathered signatures from parents on a petition calling on the Ministry of Education to improve the pay of support staff in schools.

I think support staff are core staff. They are critical to our ability to meet the needs of our students, Wall says.

Their wages should be paid for in the same way teachers are  by the state  not from the Operations Grant which is for the day to day running of the school. They also deserve to be paid for the full year as teachers are.
African immigrant successfully operates healthcare company in Knoxville







Isaac Wachira RN (left) pictured with his family at th Pinnacle Awards; image by Wachira



Meet Isaac Wachira RN, an African immigrant who came to America with just $250 dollars, educated himself and started a healthcare company that is helping to take care of people with intellectual disabilities and providing jobs for lots of people. He also runs a technical training center where he trains nurses to serve hospitals and related facilities.



Wachira founded Compassionate Care Technical Center (CCTC) in 2012. Originally from Kenya, Africa he came to the US fifteen years ago to pursue his education. He began at Knoxville College in 2001. Shortly after arriving in Knoxville he began serving those with developmental disabilities as a direct support person in and around Knoxville. He soon realized serving and helping others is his passion. Wachira later joined Pellissippi State Community College for pre-nursing classes. He also completed Blount Memorials Licensed Practical Nurse program in 2004 and graduated from Lincoln Memorial Universitys Registered Nurse program in 2009.



CCTC began by offering certified nursing assistant training and has expanded to now offer EKG, Phlebotomy, Patient Care Technician, CPR and first aid training. In 2015 the center graduated 700 students.



The center offers a payment plan for tuition assisting those students who cannot pay the full tuition up front. They offer textbooks and classroom materials on loan at no additional fee. CCTC also accepts Project Grad Scholarships and vouchers from local career centers to assist those recently unemployed to obtain training and return to the work field in less than two months.



CCTC founded Compassionate Care Foundation in 2014 offering scholarships to underprivileged students whom would not have otherwise had the ability to attend training. Another unique aspect of Compassionate Care is our job placement rate. Compassionate Care holds job fairs for students to have access to available jobs.



The center has several local hospital and home health recruiters visit classrooms to discuss employment options with students prior to graduation. CCTC is also affiliated with Compassionate Care Home Health offering employment to many attending and graduating students. The center also offers a scholarship to employees whom have worked 1200 hours to complete training at no charge to them.



CCTC is located at 2424 Sutherland Ave, Knoxville. For more information, visit www.cnatrainingknox.com. Published April 21, 2017




















National Park celebrates beginning of the end for Foothills Parkway







Congressman Phil Roe delivers speech at the celebration of the end of the Foothills Parkway. Image courtesy of GSMNP.

GATLINBURG, TN  On Thursday, Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials hosted a celebration for the commencement of the final capstone paving project for Foothills Parkway. This groundbreaking event served as an opportunity to acknowledge the support received by the State of Tennessee and the Governors Office in securing the funds needed to finalize the uncompleted 16-mile section of road between Walland, TN and Wears Valley, TN and bring an opening date for the Parkway to the horizon.



Thanks to the support of the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and the Governors Office we now have an end in sight, said Superintendent Cassius Cash. Once completed, this section of road will afford local residents and the visiting public with a continuous 33-mile transportation and recreation corridor providing access to spectacular panoramic views of Great Smoky Mountains.



In 2016, the Tennessee Department of Transportation competed for a $10 Million dollar federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) VIII grant to complete construction of the 16-mile stretch of the Foothills Parkway and was successful in its acquisition. The State of Tennessee Governors Office committed to providing an additional $15 Million dollar match to fund the final paving of the project.



Local residents and tourists alike have waited a long time for the completion of the Missing Link of the Foothills Parkway, said Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner John Schroer. Having this 16-mile stretch from Walland to Wears Valley open to the public will provide gorgeous views for the millions of tourists who visit this area each year and a big boost for East Tennessees economy. Im pleased the State of Tennessee could partner with the National Park Service to complete this important project.



Of the seven congressionally mandated parkways in the country, the Foothills Parkway is the only one yet to be completed. Authorized by Congress in 1944, the entire 72-mile corridor is administered by Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Foothills Parkway was constructed in sections beginning in 1960. Due to funding limitations and environmental challenges, this 16-mile stretch was never completed. Currently, only three of eight segments of the Foothills Parkway are completed and open to the public, totaling 22.5 miles.



Senator Lamar Alexander, Congressman Phil Roe, as well as representatives from Senator Corkers and Congressman Duncans offices joined with Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner John Schroer, representatives with the Federal Highway Administration and the National Park Service to commemorate this monumental achievement.



Construction on the final stretch of the Foothills Parkway is to begin late spring 2017 and is expected to take 12-18 months to complete. Published April 21, 2017
Home improvements tops complaints list in Tennessee





NASHVILLE  According to the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurances (TDCI) Division of Consumer Affairs, home improvements category ranked as the No. 1 complaint category with more than 400 consumer complaints in 2016.



The Division of Consumer Affairs received a total of 4,432 complaints in 2016 and recovered both services and funds for Tennessee by working with consumers and businesses. Overall, the number of consumer complaints rose slightly in 2016 compared to 2015 when 4,259 complaints were reviewed by Consumer Affairs.



The Division of Consumer Affairs works alongside our partnering agencies to foster a positive consumer-to-business relationship in Tennessee, said TDCI Consumer Protection Director Cynthia Wiel. Our staff is committed to quickly routing complaints so that appropriate action can be taken in cases where deceptive business practices, frauds or scams are found to be at play.



For 2016, here are the top 10 complaint categories, number of complaints per category, and descriptions of each category:



1. Home improvements: 413 complaints

This category includes home warranties, as well as hiring a contractor for services to repair or improve the quality of your home. The most common complaints related to quality of work, incomplete work after receiving payment, and structural damage caused by employed individuals or businesses. Many of these complaints are referred to the Board for Licensing Contractors, Tennessee Housing Development Agency (THDA) as well as the Tennessee Regulatory Authority (TRA).



2. Utilities: 298 complaints

This category includes gas service, water service, sewer, electricity, landline phone service, mobile phone service, Internet service, and cable. Problems with billing and maintenance were the most common complaints. Often, these complaints will be referred to the TRA or the investor-owned utility.



3. Motor Vehicle: 265 complaints

This category often includes consumer dissatisfaction with the sale of the used vehicle they purchased. Problems with used vehicle sales and advertising were the most common complaints. Consumer Affairs often works closely with the Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission when handling these types of complaints. In addition, these complaints may be referred to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Tennessee Department of Revenue.



4. Personal/Professional Services: 253 complaints

This category relates to services offered by licensed professionals working in the State of Tennessee, including hair stylists, massage therapists, nail technicians, and others. Common complaints include the quality of service, charges for service not received, and problems redeeming gift certificates for services offered. Some agencies these complaints could be referred to include TDCIs Division of Regulatory Boards and Board of Professional Responsibility.



5. Landlord/Tenant: 250 complaints

This category relates to consumers leasing rental property in the State of Tennessee. The most common complaints related to security deposits and the conditions of the rental property. These complaints are most often referred to the THDA, city and county building codes enforcement, and TDCIs Fire Prevention/State Fire Marshals Office.



6. Timeshares/Vacation Clubs: 235 complaints

This category relates to consumers purchasing property under a timesharing agreement and the sale of these agreements. The most common complaints reported high-pressure sales tactics, misrepresentation of the contract, and resale scams. The Division will often refer these complaints to the Tennessee Real Estate Commission and the Board of Professional Responsibility.



7. Health Services and Products: 219 complaints

Consumers most common complaints include being misquoted for services and inaccurate billing. The Division will refer appropriate complaints to the Tennessee Department of Health.



8. Motor Vehicle Repair: 210 complaints

This category refers to companies offering services to repair vehicles. Most consumers report auto repair companies that return vehicles not fully repaired. The Division will refer to and work with the Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission, the NHTSA, and the Tennessee Department of Revenue.



9. Debtor/Creditor: 192 complaints

This category includes matters related to debt collection companies, payday loans, credit repair companies, and check-cashing services. Consumer complaints often related to harassing phone calls or billing issues. These complaints are often referred to the Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions.



10. Insurance: 177 complaints

This category relates to pet insurance, consumer health insurance, and unlicensed insurance companies. Most consumers complained about policy coverage and claims. These complaints are often referred to TDCIs Insurance Division.



A consumer may have a private right of action under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977. The Division of Consumer Affairs is prohibited from giving legal advice or representing private individuals. If you feel that you need legal assistance, consider contacting a private attorney, the Tennessee Legal Aid Services website, or other organizations that may offer legal guidance. For more consumer resources, or to file a complaint, visit the TDCI Division of Consumer Affairs website or contact us at 800-342-8385. Published April 21, 2017










By Yoon Ja-young



Scrapping the free trade agreement (FTA) between Korea and the United States will damage the U.S. more than Korea as the drop in U.S. exports to Korea will be steeper than the fall in Korea's exports to the U.S. Instead, the U.S. is likely to demand a partial revision, including reintroduction of a merchandise processing fee (MPF), a think tank said Friday.



The Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade prepared the report on how changes in the Korea-U.S. FTA (KORUS FTA) will affect exports and imports. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy requested the report earlier this year following U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration.



Trump has been criticizing trade deals, including the one with Korea, as "job killers" since he was campaigning for the election, prompting speculation the U.S. will push for the deal's renegotiation.



The institute said there are three possible scenarios for the KORUS FTA: the U.S may demand a total scrapping or partial revision or maintain it.



If the bilateral deal is scrapped, the two countries will apply tariffs according to the most favored nation (MFN) treatment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). As a result, Korea will apply tariffs between 4 and 9 percent and the U.S. 1.5 to 4 percent. Both now apply near-zero tariffs under the KORUS FTA.



If tariffs rise because the deal is scrapped, Korea's exports to the U.S. are expected to decrease by $1.3 billion while U.S. exports to Korea will plunge $1.5 billion. Since it means the U.S. trade deficit with Korea will increase by $200 million, the institute said it is unlikely the bilateral deal will be dropped.



The U.S. may choose to maintain the KORUS FTA and resort to other measures to restrict Korea's exports. For instance, it may strictly apply a country-of-origin clause in the deal. The institute expected small and medium enterprises to be hit hardest because it is costly for them to meet this clause.



If the U.S. strictly applies the clause, it is likely to decrease Korea's exports by $400 million. But the report notes that the Trump administration would have no political gain if it leaves the deal as is.



The institute expected the deal's revision is the most likely scenario. In that case, the U.S. may want to revise the MPF exemption clause. U.S. Customs charges MPF on imports, but the KORUS FTA exempts Korean goods. If the U.S. levies MPF on Korean goods, it will increase their price. Korea's exports to the U.S. are then expected to decrease by $200 million, according to the institute.



However, some experts doubt the MPF will be the target since the U.S. exempts it in most of the FTAs it has signed. And it hasn't mentioned the MPF.



The United States Trade Representative (USTR) noted in a report that "Increased access to Korea's automotive market for U.S. automakers remains a key priority for the United States."




Park Byung-soon Yoon Dong-ju Sohn So-hee Lee Ki-hyung Cho Hyang Choi Seok-doo



By Yun Suh-young

A century ago, Park Byung-soon, Sohn So-hee, Yoon Dong-ju, Lee Ki-hyung, Cho Hyang, and Choi Seok-doo were born. One hundred years later, only Yoon Dong-ju is widely remembered by the public.

The bitter truth about literary figures is that only a few become legends and are remembered for generations to come, while others are left in the shadows. As well as we know Yoon Dong-ju, we feel unfamiliar with the other five.

But there will be opportunities to discover more about these unknown writers next week thanks to a centennial event organized by the Daesan Foundation, which will host a symposium as well as a cultural event for readers to enjoy.

On April 27 at 10 a.m. at the Kyobo Building in Gwanghwamun, a symposium will be held all day on the theme "Violence of the ages and the path of a writer."

The symposium will begin with a general discussion on the topic and then touch upon each of the writers' lives and their works in detail. The first session will explore Lee Ki-hyung's poems which are characterized by his longing for the unification of the two Koreas. The second session will explore poet Cho Hyang's "hybrid adventure" while the third will discuss poet Choi Seok-du's "poem of belief" and himself as a "poet of action." The fourth session will explore novelist Sohn So-hee's self-punishing women in her novels and the breakdown of patriarchy.

The final three sessions will be dedicated to poet Yoon Dong-ju, one of Korean's most beloved literary figures. In the first part, a discussion will take place about the poet's inner side, while in the second part they will explore the mutual text of his poems. In the last, they will discuss perceptions about Yoon Dong-ju in Korean society based on a survey held in March.

"The commonality of these six writers is that they were born in the same year. They experienced the Japanese occupation when the Korean language was banned from use and disappeared from textbooks. They experienced the division of the country through the Korean War. They experienced modernism, the rise of the modern girl," Kim Eung-gyo, poet and professor at Sookmyung Women's University, said at a press conference Thursday. He is one of the eight presenters at the symposium.

"Koreans know Yoon Dong-ju so well they could easily name a few of his poems or recite a line of two from them. So I wanted to explore why this is so. There had been no academic reports on why Yoon Dong-ju was so famous and what attracted Koreans to him."

Although the foundation tried to equally distribute the portions dedicated to each writer, the part on Yoon Dong-ju was inevitably elongated due to his exceptional presence on readers. Over 1 million viewers watched the film "Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet" directed by Lee Joon-ik released in February.

"We had to dedicate three sessions to Yoon because he receives so much attention," said Kwak Hyo-hwan, director at the Daesan Foundation.

On a survey conducted by Kim with 1,087 people, 78 percent answered they liked Yoon because they liked his poems. Surprisingly, the likings were limited to popular poems such as "Seosi" (preface poem) or "Counting the Stars at Night."

"We will be exploring how Koreans view Yoon as a poet and what he means to them in their lives," Kim said.

Other than the symposium, the foundation will also hold "Literature Night" on April 28 at 7 p.m. at the outdoor stage "Yeollim" in Yeonhui Changjakchon (Literature Creation Town). It will be a mixture of cultural event, poetry recital, music and dance performance and visual arts.

Call 02) 725-5417 or visit daesan.or.kr for more information.
The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a press statement strongly condemning North Korea's latest missile launch.

"The members of the Security Council expressed their utmost concern over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council by conducting this ballistic-missile launch," the council said in the statement, referring to the April 15 launch.

The launch ended in failure as the missile blew up right after takeoff.

The press statement was issued by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who holds this month's rotating presidency.

It was the fifth time this year that the council has adopted a press statement on North Korea.

Since the North's first nuclear test in 2006, the council has adopted six resolutions, all banning Pyongyang from any ballistic missile activity over concern the technology could be used in making nuclear missiles.

"The members of the Security Council demanded that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea shall immediately cease further actions in violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions," the statement said.

The council also warned the North of "further significant measures, including sanctions."

"The members of the Security Council stressed that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's illegal ballistic-missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear-weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond," the statement said. (Yonhap)
South Korea's defense ministry said Friday it has signed an agreement with Ethiopia to construct a community center in Addis Ababa for its nationals who fought in the 1950-53 Korean War.

It's one of Seoul's friendship projects for the people of Ethiopia, the only African country that dispatched ground troops to help South Korea fight against invading North Korea during the conflict.

Ethiopia sent more than 3,500 soldiers and around 650 of them were killed or wounded in action, according to the ministry.

Under the deal, the ministry plans to open the welfare service facilities in downtown Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city, in August next year. It was signed at the City Hall of Addis Abada on Thursday (local time).

The envisioned community center would be the third of its kind for Korean War veterans abroad following those in Thailand and Colombia under the ministry's project launched in 2013 and sponsored by Lotte Group, a South Korean conglomerate. (Yonhap)
By Park Si-soo



With many Koreans still aggravated by U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial comment that "Korea used to be a part of China," his closest business partner, Vice President Mike Pence, has jangled their nerves again.

During a Tuesday meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Pence called the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan the "Sea of Japan."

Pence told Abe that the United States stood firm with Japan against what he called "provocation from across the Sea of Japan."

The name has been a long-standing point of conflict between Seoul and Tokyo, which the former has promoted as the "East Sea." The naming dispute is considered a sentimental rivalry between the two countries that stems from Japan's 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
South Korean historians and activists rallied in downtown Seoul Friday angered by a report that U.S. President Donald Trump quoted Chinese leader Xi Jinping as saying the two Koreas "used to be a part of China."

The members of the Institute of Korean Cultural Studies and other history institutions lambasted Xi for "absurd remarks." They demanded Xi apologize and the international community act against "the disingenuous and irrational fabrication of history."

After the rally, the protesters marched to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul and handed over a statement that criticizes Xi's misunderstanding of history and urges China to stop their attempt to distort facts to place Korea as part of its history.

Trump made the remark while sharing what was discussed during their recent summit in a April 12 interview with the Wall Street Journal.












Sean Blakeley, CEO of the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea, poses in this file photo. The chamber is stepping up its activities with British companies looking to advance into the Korean market. / Courtesy of the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea



By Kim Ji-soo

The allure of all things British  from classic luxury fashion brands and iconic beauty brands to the beloved royal family  has had Korean consumers spellbound for many years.

But as U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May started last month the two-year negotiations for the country to leave the European Union, following the "Brexit" vote last year, many economic partners, including South Korea, are seriously pondering British prospects in terms of trade and investment. Sean Blakeley, the CEO of the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea (BCCK), sees this uncertainty as an opportunity.

"Post-Brexit, Korea was one of the first countries to come out and say it was keen to have a bilateral trade agreement with the U.K., which was very positive," Blakeley said during an interview in the chamber's office in downtown Seoul, adding that the British government also confirmed Korea to be among the priority countries for bilateral trade agreements. "The signs are positive between the two countries, and I think it is more of an opportunity than a concern."

Last December, Korean Industry Minister Joo Hyung-hwan and U.K. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox agreed to work toward a bilateral free trade agreement that would be uninterrupted in the wake of Brexit and be at least at the level of the South Korea-European Union Free Trade Agreement. They also agreed to set up a trade working group that would meet four times a year.

"Because trade has increased under the Korea and EU agreement, any bilateral agreement that will be produced can add features to make it stronger," Blakeley envisioned. He saw significant potential in the areas of renewable energy and nuclear decommissioning.

And with regard to concerns about London losing its financial hub status, Blakeley assured that nothing will change, that London remains in the same time zone necessary to deal with the United States and Asia, and that there are top services to support institutions that have global or European headquarters. "Also, the British government said it will work keenly on the passporting issue," which benefits foreign banks that have subsidiaries in the City of London by giving their employees access to the EU market through the issuing of passports.

In addition, fintech is an area where synergy between South Korea and the United Kingdom can be high, he said.

"Last year, Level 39, a financial accelerator space, said it would set up its Asia hub office here through XN Tree, and discussions are ongoing," he said. Level 39 has a 7,400-square-meter fintech accelerator space in Canary Wharf, London, and more than 200 fintech startups as members.

The U.K. government is moving aggressively to ease any short-term uncertainties, he said. But overall, any short-term uncertainties should be addressed in the long term.

"It is hard to change the fact that the United Kingdom has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe, 19 percent, among the G7 countries, the highest transparency grades in the European Union, and the world's top talent in multiple industries, and the fact that is a still huge innovator across sectors," he said.

Korea and the U.K. have vital ties; Korea is the U.K.'s 15th-largest trading partner and third-largest consumer market. The trade volume between the two countries holds at around $13 billion.

The two governments also work together through the Korea-U.K. Joint Economic Trade Committee (JETCO), which serves as a ministerial-level forum and has held annual meetings in the past couple of years. The last JETCO meeting in December 2016 confirmed the establishment of a trade working group to discuss a potential bilateral trade agreement, and it will now hold quarterly meetings led by John Alty, director general of trade policy in the Department for International Trade from Britain, and his Korean counterparts at the ministry of trade, industry and energy.

Should consumers be worried about possible price hikes in British products including luxury brands such as Burberry?

"If you look at statements made by the British government, there should be no interruption in the trade between the two countries, and if you think of it this way, any rise in a Bentley car means a rise in a Hyundai car going to U.K.," Blakeley said, explaining why there is no benefit in price increases for either party.

Blakeley said the attractiveness of the Korean and the U.K. markets to each other is very clear.

Blakeley, who earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Leeds, has lived in Korea for the past 12 years, including when he earned his master's degree in international relations with a focus on the North Korean economy at Seoul National University. Before joining the chamber 18 months ago, he was director of business development at a Korean publishing company, the managing director of a British consulting company, and worked at GE Capital U.K.

The BCCK, a nonprofit organization in which a majority of members are British companies, has become much bigger now and has a more extensive role in volume-trade areas. The chamber helps British companies in all sectors that are looking to enter the Korean market, while the strategic value trade in energy and defense contracts are still handled by the British embassy, Blakeley said.

An expert of both the Korean and U.K. markets, Blakeley has worked with companies across a broad range of sectors, including electronics, retail, consumer goods and food and beverages.

He said the Korean market is growing in fashion, retail and consumer products, music and creative industries, and it is a very trend-driven market with significant trade potential with China, Japan and South Asia.

"Also, Korea has strong conglomerates globally and in third-party countries, so if you can secure a relation with Samsung or LG, you can sell products in India, Africa and South America. The global reach of Korean companies has been growing," he said.

There are certain similarities between the peoples of the two countries, he said: "both are conservative outside but have a hidden passion and eccentricity on the inside."

One of the chamber's events to watch for this year is the black-tie ball with a British theme on May 27 at Grand Hyatt Seoul to commemorate Queen Elizabeth's 91st birthday. For more, visit www.bcck.or.kr.




The front gate of Seoul National University. / Korea Times file



An engineering professor at Seoul National University (SNU) is under police investigation for alleged molestation of a graduate student.

Police booked the professor on Thursday who is suspected of having touched the female student's body several times at a laboratory for months. Police are considering seeking a warrant to arrest him. The professor's identity remains unknown.

"The professor canceled his classes after his case was made public," a SNU spokesman said. "The school's human rights committee has already looked into the case and is considering taking an independent disciplinary action against the professor."

The spokesman said the professor will be sacked if he is found guilty by the court.
By Lee Han-soo

A woman was convicted of biting six centimeters off the tongue of a man who kissed her against her will.

The woman, 56, argued that the tongue-biting was self-defense against sexual assault. But the Incheon District Court rejected it, sentencing her to six months' jail, suspended for two years. It said her self-defense went too far.

"The degree of injury the victim sustained was significant and the woman failed to reach a settlement with the victim," the court said in a ruling statement. "However, we decided the ruling after taking into consideration the victim was also responsible for the case and the defendant is raising children."

According to the court, the woman bit off about six centimeters of the man's tongue as he thrust it into her mouth against her will, demanding sex while drunk at a bar in Incheon on Feb. 16, 2016.

The man had seven weeks of medical treatment. It is unknown whether he now has speech problems.
By Kim Bo-eun



The trial for former President Park Geun-hye, who has been indicted on charges of receiving or asking for bribes amounting to 59.2 billion won ($52.1 million) from conglomerates, will begin May 2, earlier than projected.



Many projected that the process would not begin until after the presidential election scheduled for May 9, but prosecutors said the date was moved up given the gravity of the case and the need for swift proceedings. Another factor is that the suspect can only be detained for six months for the first trial.



People won't see Park in the courtroom on May 2, however. It will be a pretrial meeting among Park's lawyers -- Yoo Young-ha and Chae Myung-sung -- with prosecutors and judges to confirm the stances of the prosecution and defendant and discuss the trial procedure, including filing for witnesses.



Park faces 18 charges including bribery, abuse of power and mishandling classified state information. As Park has been denying all of the charges raised against her, the pre-hearing sessions are expected to be numerous.



The prosecutors said it would merge Park's case and those of her confidant Choi Soon-sil and her former aide An Chong-bum because they are all related. Choi and An were indicted on charges of abuse of power and extortion for their involvement in ordering conglomerates to donate funds to the Choi-controlled K-Sports and Mir foundations. Choi, who was earlier indicted on other charges, was additionally indicted as an accomplice of Park.



Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin, who has been indicted without detention on charges of contributing 7 billion won in additional funds to the K-Sports Foundation after a private meeting with Park, will also be tried by the same panel.



Park is currently being held at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province.



Yonhap News Agency reported Friday that Park is moving into a new house in Naegok-dong, southern Seoul, south of where her current house is, next week.



"The Samseong-dong house is too old and Park made many of her neighbors feel uncomfortable," the team of Park's secretaries said. "Also, she wants a quiet place now."



The news drew jeers on the internet. "Prison is her new home, isn't it?" one poster remarked. "Is she already getting ready to be pardoned?"




By Kim Se-jeong

Descendants of Korean independence activist Lee Hoe-yeong (1867-1932) gathered in Seoul, Friday, to celebrate his 150th birthday.

The activist founded Shinheung Military Academy in Manchuria under Japanese rule and trained young resistance fighters. Rep. Lee Jong-kul of the Democratic Party of Korea is his grandson.

During the ceremony held in Seoul, the younger Lee remembered his grandfather's courage. "He was the perfect example of noblesse oblige (meaning privilege entails responsibility)," Rep. Lee said at the Seoul YWCA.

Lee was born to a noble family on March 17, 1867. He had five siblings.

In 1910, the entire family moved to Manchuria where they opened an autonomous governing body for Korean immigrants and founded Shinheung Military Academy to train young resistance fighters against Japan.

In 1919, he moved to Beijing then to Shanghai where he helped form the interim Republic of Korea government. Back in Beijing in 1924, he founded an anarchist group and published magazines. In 1932, he was arrested at Dalian upon his arrival from Shanghai and died in November that year.

Posthumously, he was awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1962 from the government. His descendants opened Woodang Memorial Hall in 1990 to remember his achievements.
Presidential candidate Hong Joon-pyo of the conservative Liberty Korea Party is in hot water after controversy erupted over his suspected involvement in a potential sex crime about four decades ago.

Hong initially wrote about his role in the crime that took place while he was in university in an autobiographical essay published 12 years ago, but the scandal has drawn fresh attention from local netizens in the run-up to May's presidential election.

In the 2005 essay, Hong confessed that he provided an animal aphrodisiac powder to his friend who wanted to seduce a coed while attending Korea University's Law College in Seoul.

"One of my boarding house mates asked me and others to buy him aphrodisiac powder ahead of a school outing. He mixed the powder into a coed's beer but failed to bring her to bed. Thereafter we argued over the medicinal effects of the powder," Hong writes. "I did it for fun at that time, but realized how serious the act was after I became a prosecutor."

As excerpts of Hong's essay began to spread online this week, a growing number of netizens expressed resentment and are calling for him to drop out from the presidential race.












By Kim Se-jeong



A conservative civic group tried to place statues of former presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee, Friday, next to the famous girl statue in front of the Japanese Consulate in Busan, but the attempt failed.



According to news reports, the group, led by a man surnamed Choi, was blocked by almost 40 supporters of the girl statue. The police reported a mild clash between them but no injuries.



The girl statue signifies former sexual slaves mobilized by the Japanese military during its occupation of Korea. The girl statue is not allowed there by law, but the district government won't act to remove it for fear of public outrage.



"I don't hate the former sex slaves," Choi said upon his arrival. "But it's time to accept Japan's apology and move on. Please stop using these victims for politics. I am proud to erect the statues of Park and Rhee."



The statue supporters were quick to condemn him. "Go away! It's you who is trying to politicize the issue, not us," people shouted at him before surrounding him to take away his statues. In the end, the statue of Rhee was taken by the district government, while Choi kept the Park statue and left the scene in a taxi.



"All this happened because there's no law protecting the statue," Chang Seon-wha, an activist advocating for the sex slavery issue, told online news agency News1, urging the government to act.



Choi has shown his opposition to the statue before. He brought trash bags and old furniture to the site and wrote anti-statue messages on them.



The statue erected in January was also a diplomatically contentious point.



In protest, the Japanese government recalled its top envoy to Korea. Ambassador Yasumasa Nagamine returned to Korea earlier last week, together with Japanese Consul General to Busan Yasuhiro Morimoto.



The foreign ministry in Seoul told the district government to remove the statue, citing diplomatic protocols, but instead received a barrage of public criticism. Critics said the foreign ministry was not working for the interest of Korea.



The sex slavery victims went through the atrocity from the early 1930s till 1945. An accurate number is unavailable but estimates say almost 200,000 women and young girls from China, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and others were tricked or forced to provide sex for Japanese troops.



On Wednesday, the Japanese consul general visited the district head Park Sam-seok in Busan to press for the statue's removal. "In Japan, there is unfavorable sentiment toward the statue in front of the consulate," the consul general was quoted as saying by Yonhap.












Kori 1 and 2, above, in Busan are among 23 nuclear reactors in operation, from which Korea gets about 30 percent of its power. Five more reactors are under construction. / Yonhap



All major candidates vow to stop building new reactors

By Jung Min-ho

The future of nuclear energy looks bleak in Korea for whoever becomes the next president.

All major candidates have vowed to stop building new nuclear reactors and close down older ones in an effort to reduce the country's dependence on nuclear energy.

Left-leaning Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) candidate Moon Jae-in, the frontrunner in the race, promised to cancel construction plans for two additional nuclear reactors  Shin Kori 5 and 6. He believes Korea will have to phase out all of its remaining nuclear power plants over the next 40 years.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party, the runner-up, also made the same promises, though he did not mention specifically by when he plans to remove all nuclear reactors.

Korea has 23 nuclear reactors in operation, from which it gets about 30 percent of its power. Five more reactors are under construction.

Sim Sang-jeung of the minor Justice Party is taking the strongest stance against nuclear energy. She said she will immediately close down all the reactors under construction and rid the country of nuclear reactors by 2040.

The two right-wing candidates  Yoo Seong-min of the Bareun Party and Hong Joon-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party  are more cautious about the idea of removing all the nuclear reactors, but still, they are not far apart on the issue compared to other candidates.

Four of the candidates have also vowed to reduce the country's dependence on coal power plants as well to resolve the issue of fine dust, which has become worse in recent years. Hong alone remains skeptical of doing so, but he said he will regulate their operations more strictly instead.

The biggest problem of fine dust, Moon noted, is the fact that so much about it is unclear, including what exactly causes it and how harmful is it to humans. So he said he wants to do more research through a presidential body, which will also lead related ministries in solving the problem.

Ahn wants to include fine dust as a national disaster by revising laws so the government can provide more systematic support for those who suffer from it.

Given that China is believed to be responsible for at least part of Korea's fine dust issue, Ahn said he will also do more research to present more objective data before negotiating with China to tackle the problem together.

Meanwhile, all the candidates vowed to increase investment into developing renewable energy sources. The two leading candidates said they will initiate the project to increase the country's reliance on renewable energy to 20 percent by 2030.

"Compared with the previous presidential election, candidates have taken more progressive approaches over the issue," said Kim Mi-kyung, a climate change activist at the environmental group Greenpeace. "We expect Korea to follow the global trends of nuclear-free, coal-free and more renewable energy."

But the activist noted the candidates lack details on how they will cope with energy shortage issues as they reduce the number of nuclear and coal power plants.
Moon Jae-in, the leading presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, was embroiled in controversy Friday over his role in South Korea's abstention from the 2007 U.N. resolution on North Korea's human rights during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.



The controversy erupted after former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon disclosed a document in a JoongAng Ilbo interview supporting a claim in his memoir that Moon had initiated a consultation with Pyongyang prior to the U.N. vote. Moon was serving as presidential chief of staff at the time and Song headed the foreign ministry from 2006 to 2008.



The speculation that Moon had consulted Pyongyang about the U.N. resolution was first raised when Song published his memoir "Moving the Glacier" last October. However, the media lost interest in the memoir in the wake of the corruption scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye and her friend Choi Soon-sil. With the presidential election imminent, the fresh evidence supporting Moon's role in the abstention has dealt a blow to Moon's campaign.



During the entire campaign, Moon has continued to be dogged by labels such as "leftist" and "pro-North Korean" by his political opponents. Moon is leading in public opinion polls, but there are still a lot of people who are skeptical of his ability to serve as commander-in-chief. He did not properly answer a question from presidential contender Yoo Seong-min of the conservative Bareun Party about whether he deemed North Korea as our main enemy during a TV debate. He also made some rash claims regarding the North, such as visiting Pyongyang before Washington if he is elected president.



Since Moon is a frontrunner in this election, he has a responsibility to present a clear view on North Korea to voters. If he does not properly deal with the latest allegations, he will continue to be badgered by them even after he arrives at Cheong Wa Dae. If Song's allegations are true, Moon should explain why he sought Pyongyang's opinion. His truthful explanation is necessary if he wants to reassure voters he will be a strong leader against North Korea.




Proper reaction missing to deal with slight from Xi, Trump



China's historical perception of Korea has emerged as a diplomatic issue after belated news reports of a discussion the leaders of the U.S. and China had about the North Korean nuclear crisis at a summit in Florida earlier this month.



In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, U.S. President Donald Trump said, "Xi went into the history of China and Korea, and you know, you're talking about thousands of years and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China." This remark caused widespread speculation that Chinese President Xi Jinping explained his country's long ties to the Korean Peninsula to the new U.S. president from the Chinese nationalist perspective.



During a regular briefing on April 20, the Chinese foreign ministry did not confirm exactly what Xi said, but stopped at only saying that there is nothing for Koreans to worry about. This explanation is totally insufficient and does little to assuage Koreans' concerns about the perception held by the Chinese leadership and the Chinese people that Korea was a part of their country in ancient times.



This is not the first time Xi has made a derogatory remark about Korea. During a meeting with former President Park Geun-hye at last year's G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, Xi mentioned the Chinese saying "eum su sa won." This translates to "When one drinks water, one needs to think about where the water came from." The saying is used to remind someone about the need to remember one's roots and be thankful for them.



It has been 25 years since Korea and China established diplomatic relations. Over the years, Korea has done its utmost to develop fruitful relations and a strong friendship with China. Reports about Xi's "history lesson" for Trump on Korea came when many Koreans are upset with Beijing's retaliatory measures for Seoul's decision to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system to counter North Korea's provocations. It is China that is undermining mutual trust and holding back bilateral ties.



Trump's remark about Korea being part of China triggered outrage from many Koreans toward not just China, but also the U.S. It is an unacceptable diplomatic affront on the part of the U.S. president to speak about Korea in this manner. Even if Xi had said those words, Trump should not have repeated them to the media out of consideration for a close ally. The insensitive remark shows Trump's ignorance and lack of respect for Korea. If Trump needed a lesson on Korean history, he should take one from Koreans.



There is more reason to be concerned about the new U.S. administration's lack of knowledge on Korea. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence used the term "Sea of Japan" during a recent interview while explaining the false timeline the U.S. had given on the deployment of the USS Carl Vinson to the region.



During Park's term, Korea's diplomatic leadership was significantly weakened. It is partly our own fault that Korea is being mistreated by two of the world's most powerful nations.



What is truly disturbing is the lethargic response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministry has not issued an official statement or lodged a complaint against Beijing, but simply told the local press that it is a historical fact that Korea was never a part of China and there is no reason to respond to such a claim. But the ministry should find out what exactly Xi said. The ministry should express its regret to the White House over Trump's remark. It should also seek a correction from the paper or submit a rebutting contribution to spread the correct view of Korean history in the international community.








Next president should avoid fake' conferences



By Choi Ha-young





"Please refrain from asking questions that were not coordinated in advance."

A campaigner for leading presidential candidate Moon Jae-in posted this message Tuesday in an online chat room the campaign team is running to communicate with foreign journalists in Korea.

The campaign official referred to an encounter in which an unidentified foreign reporter approached Moon and asked a question while on the campaign trail in Seoul a day earlier. The camp said Moon's security could be at risk if this kind of thing happens.

The official posted another provocative message Wednesday. He said if such incidents occur again, he would have no choice but to reveal the names of violators, and "control" them with other measures.

His attitude agitated many reporters.












By Oh Young-jin



Over his handling of North Korea so far, Korea has three reasons to thank U.S. President Donald Trump.



First, despite some snafu, Trump's show of force  the most dramatic being the redirection of the USS Carl Vinson to the Korean Peninsula  has obviously forced North Korea to rethink its strategy of pressing ahead with its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests.



True, Pyongyang still has a window of opportunity to conduct a sixth nuclear test or fire a long-range missile. Indeed, it did fire one that exploded seconds after liftoff.



Facing the world's strongest military, Kim Jong-un's survival instincts will no doubt start working overtime.



It is quite a reversal of positions for the North.



For more than 20 years from Clinton to Obama and from Kim Dae-jung to Park Geun-hye, South Korea and the United States have been played by the Kim dynasty. Now, the North is on the verge of becoming a nuclear weapons state, while trying to perfect an ICBM.



For Koreans, the pre-nuclear North Korea has been a nightmare. But the post-nuclear North will be even worse. The North would use its weapons of mass destruction to terrorize and, if possible, unify the South with it, a dream that has motivated the young dictator to fulfill just because his father and grandfather failed to achieve it.



Second, Trump has silenced China. Beijing is suspected of cheating on a series of the United Nations resolutions for sanctions against the North. Beijing and Pyongyang have acted as inseparably as "lips and teeth"  without the North, China would feel vulnerable, finding itself in direct contact with the U.S.-friendly South.



Then, China shows how fair game Seoul is  stopping the flow of its tourists, cutting off K-culture exports and its foreign minister shaming his Korean counterpart in official settings. Its mouthpieces cursed that Korea would be vaporized at the center of the battle between China and Russia on one side against the U.S. The bone of contention is Seoul's decision to deploy U.S. missile interceptors against the North's missile attacks. No matter what Seoul has done in pleading and cajoling, China has been adamant with its ultimatum  cancel the deployment or face the wrath of China, Korea's biggest trading partner and next door neighbor.



In Seoul, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said it out loud  telling Beijing to stop harassing Seoul for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system deployment. He, the son of a Korean War veteran, showed his country's commitment to the defense of the South.



Some Chinese media outlets reported Xi had told the Americans that he was opposed to THAAD apparently only to save their leader's face.



Trump used a carrot-and-stick policy with China by offering China a pass from being designated a currency manipulator. The stick was Trump's vow to go at the North alone, if China didn't help. Aiding this is a U.S. "armada" in the Pacific.



The effect has been immediate. China scolded the North and told it to behave with Chinese media talking about the closing of the main oil pipelines to the North. Without Chinese fuel, the North is a basket case.



Third, Trump is an unconventional leader in an unconventional era, the combination of which may not come again for a long time. Trump can do what his predecessors have failed to do by applying an imaginative customized solution to the North Korean challenge.



Also one can't rule out the possibility that this could be the last time for the U.S. to exert its unilateral power to impose world order. China has been growing and is likely to learn from how it has wobbled under Trump. It's like an inevitable contest of the one on the throne and a pretender. Sooner or later, there is bound to be a changing of the guard. If it is not China, there will be others.



The Korean problem needs a closer and Trump can be one. A desired end is the North getting disarmed of its nuclear weapons and missiles and heading on the path to become a normal nation. Of course, there is no guarantee that the North can survive a peace march.



Koreans in the South are either skeptical or suspicious about a happy end to their cold-war saga.



In the vortex of the current North Korea-U.S. standoff, they feel a kaleidoscope of emotions. At the center is their frustration from the feeling of being relegated to being a bystander in the formation of their own fate. A lot of them would have deja vu about how their country lost its independence at the turn of the 20th century or suffered even before. They fear a repetition of it.



So they suspect that the U.S. and China are cutting a secret deal. This suspicious mind is based on historical precedents.



The pity is that the wealthy South acts as if it is the only party that doesn't know it has grown itself and become a force to be reckoned with.



The time is right to stop being enslaved by history because of the risk that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and invite a repetition of an unhappy portion of it.



To solve the North Korean problem means to provide it with a new future that departs from history.

So far, Trump is presenting that chance. If Korean modesty prevents us from embracing it with open arms, at least let's root for it.





Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.




By Lee Min-hyung

Samsung SDI is tightening its grip in the global battery market for electric bicycles as demand for them surges on their economic and eco-friendly benefits.

As of the end of last year, the company was No. 1 with a 27 percent share in the global electric bicycle battery market, according to U.S.-based data analytics firm B3. The battery-making affiliate of Samsung Group expects the market to grow more quickly in years to come.

The company estimates that the lithium-ion battery market for electric bicycles will grow 18 percent to 252 million cells this year from 214 million last year.

Despite the relatively-high initial purchase price, electric bikes are gaining traction here and abroad, as they can travel up to 100 kilometers per charge, which is a fit for daily commuters, the company said. On top of that, the emerging transportation does not emit carbon, as it does not use fossil fuel.

One notable difference from traditional bicycles is that electric bicycles drivers do not have to hassle to pedal up slopes.

The global electric vehicles industry is on a path to adopt the lithium-ion batteries as a major power source instead of lead-acid batteries, according to Samsung SDI. The company estimates more than 80 percent of existing electric bicycles are equipped with lead-acid batteries, but lithium-ion batteries expanded their market share to 17 percent last year.

Jun Young-hyun, Samsung SDI CEO

Global sales of electric bikes were 40 million in 2015, up from 32 million in 2012, according to the Electric Worldwide Report.

"Even if Koreans are lesser-known for electric bikes, other countries  particularly China and European countries  remain quick to embrace the emerging transportation as a substitute for cars," a Samsung SDI official said. "This is because demand runs high for eco-friendly products in such countries."

In Korea, only some 17,000 electric bicycles were sold in 2015, lagging far behind the numbers in other major economies, according to the Korea Transport Institute.

But Samsung SDI remains optimistic for the industry's growth potential here, as the nation is one of the most optimized markets for the electric bikes because of geographical features  represented by many hills, mountains and heavy traffic jams in most downtown areas.

Samsung SDI tapped into the industry in 2010 when the market was in its infancy. The company then focused on some target countries  mostly in Europe and Asia, rapidly expanding its sales channels with the firm's touted high battery capacity, long-term life cycle and compact design.
By Jhoo Dong-chan



Tesla Korea is set to build 14 supercharger stations in Korea this year.



Tesla Global Sales & Service President Jonathan McNeill confirmed during his visit to the company's local affiliate headquarters in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, that it will build six supercharger stations in Seoul, three at highway service stations and the remaining five in other major Korean cities.



The Tesla supercharger is the U.S.-based electric vehicle maker's high-speed device that can charge more than 50 percent of its Model S 90D's battery in 20 minutes. One charging station can accommodate six to eight cars at a time.



Tesla has established 14 supercharger stations in Japan since it entered the market in 2014, but it is expected to take only two years to have the same number in Korea.



Tesla Korea said it will first build three supercharger stations in the Gran Seoul building in Jongno-gu, the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in Gangnam-gu and the Tedin Resort near Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, by the end of June.



It is also reviewing its plan to build a supercharger station in Pyeongchang by the time the Winter Olympics are held.



Tesla Korea said last month it has almost completed the destination chargers in the Shinsegae Department store in Gangnam and the Yeoju Premium Outlets in Gyeonggi Province. The destination charger is Tesla's low-speed charging device.



With five or six destination chargers now being built, the Gangnam Shinsegae Department store is expected to become the nation's largest Tesla charging station. The Yeoju Premium Outlets are expected to have three destination chargers.



Tesla vehicles have a high-capacity battery that takes more than 10 hours to charge fully with existing 7.7 kilowatt chargers. But it takes just 20 minutes to charge a battery to 50 percent with the high-speed supercharger and 40 to 60 minutes to fully charge it.



Tesla Korea has started finalizing the purchasing process for customers who ordered its Model S 90D sedan. Delivery is expected to start in June.



The Ministry of Environment has certified that the Tesla Model S 90D has a range of 378 kilometers when fully charged. The car's price starts at 121 million won ($106,937) and is expected to reach 161 million won for the full-option package.








Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) CEO Cho Hwan-eik, third from right, with Sunverge CEO Kenneth Munson, second from right, in San Francisco after signing a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the rapidly emerging virtual power plant (VPP) market, Thursday. Sunverge is a leading developer of the VPP platform, which integrates different power sources by using information and communication technologies and internet of things devices to provide a reliable supply. / Courtesy of KEPCO



By Lee Hyo-sik

The Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) will enter the rapidly growing virtual power plant (VPP) market in the United States as part of efforts to find new growth engines.

The state-run utility said Friday that it signed an agreement with KOKAM, a local lithium polymer battery maker for energy storage systems (ESS), and Sunverge, the California-based renewable energy management firm and ESS maker, to conduct VPP business.

Sunverge has been developing a VPP platform that integrates conventional power sources with renewable energy by using information and communication technologies and internet of things (IoT) devices to provide a reliable power supply. An efficient and reliable ESS system is the key to running the VPP.

According to Sunverge, the ESS market in the U.S will reach $2.8 billion in 2021, up sharply from $280 million in 2016, in line with the increasing use of solar, wind and other renewable energy.

On Thursday, KEPCO CEO Cho Hwan-eik signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sunverge CEO Kenneth Munson and KOKAM officials in San Francisco.

The three companies agreed to take part in the $50 million project, initiated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), to install solar panels and ESS on fire stations, police stations and other public buildings, as well as creating a power management system. This VPP will supply electricity to public facilities in case of blackout caused by an earthquake or other natural disasters.

"The paradigm of the electricity industry has been changing drastically amid the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution," Cho said. "We just cannot sit idle and stick to our conventional business models. The latest MOU will serve as a significant turning point for KEPCO because it now can develop various new business models using ESS and the smart grid system."

Forming a partnership with Sunverge and KOKAM will present lucrative business opportunities for the utility, according to the CEO. He said KEPCO will evaluate the feasibility of the VPP business by undertaking the LADWP project and expanding its presence in the behind-the meter (BTM) market.

BTM is the energy storage system installed on the customer's side of the utility meter to reduce the bill.

"To become a leader in the BTM market, which requires the optimal integration of big data, IoT, artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, KEPCO has to transform itself into a digital utility," Cho said. "We will fulfill our duty as a builder of a new renewable energy ecosystem."
Shin was indicted while Chey was acquitted





Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won

By Park Jae-hyuk

The fates of Lotte and SK groups have been swayed by the prosecution's decision this week to indict without detention Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin on the charge of bribery, while SK Chairman Chey Tae-won was given the all clear.

Wrapping up a six-month investigation into the corruption scandal that saw former President Park Geun-hye removed from office, prosecutors concluded that Lotte gave 7 billion won to the K-Sports Foundation to receive favors in its bid for a license to operate a new duty-free shop, and other business projects.

Chey on the other hand, was acquitted of bribery charge as SK did not actually give the 8.9 billion won in "donations" sought by the former president.

As a result, Lotte will likely face a setback in its domestic and global management by the end of the year, while SK will operate normally.

In response to the prosecutors' move, Korea's fifth-largest conglomerate said in a statement: "We will sincerely follow the decision and attend the trials to resolve suspicions about the chairman."

However, Shin will face difficulty in managing the conglomerate, as he will have to attend hearings almost every day on various charges through the end of the year.

As well as the bribery charge involving the former president, the chairman is awaiting a court ruling on alleged embezzlement and malpractice of the Lotte owner family including founder Shin Kyuk-ho and the chairman's older brother Shin Dong-joo.

Industry officials said the retail giant will be unable to continue its mergers and acquisitions, and aggressive foreign investment, which have been pursued over the past 10 years since the chairman began to participate in the group's management.

They also point out that it will be hard for Lotte to take countermeasures against China's economic retaliation over its offering of a site for the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system here.

Unlike Lotte, SK will likely begin its aggressive domestic and global investment again.

Industry officials expect Chey will soon visit Japan and the United States to focus on SK hynix's attempt to acquire Toshiba. Until now, SK had appeared to be left behind its rivals because of the chairman's long-term travel ban.

In addition, he is expected to take care of the group's businesses in China where he has many friends. Just like Lotte, Korea's third-largest group has faced setbacks in its business there after Beijing began economic retaliation due to the missile row.

Chey will push for SK Innovation's acquisition of Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical and for the reopening of its suspended EV battery factory there.

Industry officials said that SK will invest 17 trillion won to enhance the competitiveness of its subsidiaries and hire 8,200 additional employees this year.

Meanwhile, Chey has reacted to cyber bullying over his private life, filing lawsuits against people who wrote false and malicious comments on internet sites. Dozens of people  most of whom are housewives  have been booked by the police.
Dear ONCE, listen up, for this chance won't come TWICE!

The nation's favourite girl group is hitting Singapore, and they are inviting you to their first World Tour 'TWICELAND' that is happening on 29 April!

JYP's popular female group TWICE, has hit the K-pop scene with a heavy impact from debut. The flawless 9 membered girl group consists of Leader Jihyo, members Nayeon, Jungyeon, Momo, Sana, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung and youngest Tzuyu.

Straight from the survival show 'SIXTEEN', the girls debuted with 'OOH-AAH' in October 2015, turning heads left and right. The girl group has since then released 3 EPS and a repackage album. They also have a scheduled 4th EP coming up for their Japan debut during summer! The girls are well known for their song 'CHEER UP', which won several 'Song of the Year' awards, and their records during 'TT' and 'KNOCK KNOCK' for being the fastest girl group to reach 10M views on Youtube.

The tour kicked off in Seoul during the mid of February, with Singapore being the last stop in their maiden world tour. Tickets for the Seoul concert was sold out within minutes of the launch, and their popularity roared clear still with the VIP and CAT1 tickets being snapped up in a blink of an eye. Psst.. We heard that the girls have many special stages prepared for us, each to perfectly show off every member's perfect charms!

Don't say we didn't share! The lucky owners of the VIP tickets will be able to take part in a lucky draw for group photos with TWICE and to win an autographed poster. All VIP ticket holders will also be treated to exclusive gifts.

Is your heart thumping yet? While, we're going to pump you up more! The TWICE girls sent Singaporean fans a message before the concert, so be sure to steady your heart!

TWICE first World Tour 'TWICELAND' - The Opening in Singapore

Date: 29th April 2017 (Sat)

Time: 6 PM

Venue: The Star Theatre, The Star Performing Arts Centre

Tickets: $288 (VIP) Sold Out, $248 Sold Out, $208, $168 (excludes booking charge)

Online: WWW.APACTIX.COM

HOTLINE: +65 3158 8588

Tickets will also be available at:

1. Singapore Indoor Stadium box office

2. The Star Performing Arts Centre box office

3. ALL SINGPOST outlets
Fresh from the success of workplace drama Chief Kim, Namgoong Min has confirmed that he will be starring in a legal drama "Fabrication". The new series is expected to show a different and more serious sideto his acting.

According to a report by Soompi, Namgoong Min was very careful in choosing his new project after his last project "Chief Kim" was positively received by audience and critics alike. It also posted consistently strong ratings that averaged 15.9 percent on AGB Nielsen and 14 percent for TnMS. "Chief Kim" performed much higher in the Seoul region averaging 16.1 percent and 15.1 percent respectively.

The show has also been praised for introducing viewers to Namgoong Min's ability to lead the show and its ragtag bunch of characters straight to viewers hearts. Prior to Chief Kim, Namgoong Min also appeared in dramas like "Beautiful Gong Shim", "Doctors" and "The Girl Who Sees Smells."

Namgoong Min's next project will be very different from "Chief Kim" and his other recent projects. "Fabrication" will tackle the more serious issue of corruption in society. According to early descriptions of the series, "Fabrication" will revolve around reporter who uncover incidents of corruption.

Namgoong Min will reportedly play the role of a reporter who only became a journalist to get revenge for his brother, a reporter who was killed while investigating a case of corruption. According to Namgoong Min's agency, the actor wants to do well with the role and is already doing initial work to study the part.

"Fabrication" is expected to start filming in May and air on SBS. Namgoong Min's legal drama is expected to air in July to replace the upcoming "My Sassy Girl" reboot which will begin airing next month. No further details have been reported about "Fabrication" and it remains a surprise who will star opposite Namgoong Min for the exciting new series.
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FILE PHOTO: Office workers are reflected in a glass railing as they cross a street during lunch hour in Tokyo June 1, 2015. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's plans to implement more employee-friendly laws are set to prove painful for many companies, with half saying labor costs will rise and two-thirds considering ways to lift productivity to offset the impact of the reforms, a Reuters poll showed.

Graphic: Japan Inc braces for employee-friendly labor reform - http://tmsnrt.rs/2pIv0Xj

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government last month endorsed an action plan for sweeping reforms of employment practices, including caps on overtime and better pay for part-time and contract workers.

The proposals, which may come into effect from 2019, will only add to strains already being felt as firms grapple with a deepening labor shortage due to a rapidly aging population. That said, more pressure to boost productivity is seen as long overdue and could boost growth in the long-term.

"Coming on top of labor shortages, Abe's plan will cause declines in sales and profits. We have done what we can in terms of streamlining," wrote a manager at a machinery maker, one of the nine percent of firms which saw a considerable jump in labor costs.

The Reuters Corporate survey, conducted April 4-17, showed 41 percent saw costs rising somewhat, while 38 percent expect no change and 11 percent forecast that labor costs will decrease.

The impact of Japan's labor shortage is already pressuring earnings at some firms, and at others, management has found it no longer has the bargaining power it used to have as failure to reward employees sufficiently can result in less staff.

Convenience store chain Lawson Inc <2651.T> last week forecast its first decline in annual profit in 15 years, due in part to investments in new technology that will help it cope with fewer workers.

And this week, delivery service firm Yamato Holdings Co <9064.T> slashed its profit estimates for the financial year just ended by almost half, saying it needed to pay unpaid overtime for the past two years.

Story continues

Service sector firms - which include labor intensive industries such as retailing and construction - are the most vulnerable. Nearly 60 percent of non-manufacturers polled in the survey said costs will increase.

The survey, conducted monthly for Reuters by Nikkei Research, polled 529 big and mid-sized businesses. Around 240 firms, which reply on condition of anonymity, answered the questions on labor.

SHRINKING WORKFORCE

Japan's working-age population shrank to 77.2 million in 2015 from a peak of 87.2 million in 1995 and is forecast to fall further to 45.2 million by 2065.

At the same time, Japan - the world's third-largest economy - ranks higher than many other advanced economies in terms of annual total working hours per worker, while its per-capita GDP undershoots most of them, government data shows.

"The government wants companies to seize this opportunity to raise productivity to cope with labor shortages, and many firms appear to share the objective," said Hidenobu Tokuda, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute, who reviewed the survey results.

Public outrage over long working hours has also motivated Abe to make labor reform a key policy plank. The suicide of a young worker at advertising agency Dentsu Inc <4324.T> in 2015, later ruled by the government as 'karoshi' or death by overwork has only fueled momentum for reform.

In addition to legal caps on excessive overtime that would carry penalties for infringements, Abe's action plan calls for better pay for part-time and contract workers, with the government noting that around 40 percent of Japanese workers are 'non-regular' workers and are paid far less compared to other advanced countries.

Investing in technology - from new computer systems to artificial intelligence, robots and the internet of things - was the most cited method of boosting productivity in the survey. But implementing this could be easier said than done.

"One problem is that Japanese firms are short of talented workers in the fields of IT and AI," said Tokuda.

Firms also said they would introduce flexible work schedules, cut down on internal meetings and train employees to multitask more.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by Izumi Nakagawa and Ritsuko Shimizu; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
West Texas Intermediate crude oil has given up most of its early gains. WTI rallied more than 1% early on Thursday after Saudi oil minister Khalid Al-Falih suggested major oil producers could extend their agreed upon cuts.

"There is an initial agreement that we might be obligated to extend to get to our target," Al-Falih told attendees at a conference in Abu Dabi, according to Bloomberg.

However, WTI failed to break above the $51 level and has rolled back over.

The energy component trades up just 0.16% at $50.93 a barrel after gaining about 1% early on Thursday. WTI tumbled 4% on Wednesday following a smaller than expected drawdown in oil inventories and the first jump in gasoline supplies in several months.

WTI has not been below the $50 level since April 4.

Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, is higher by 0.36% at $53.12 a barrel.

Oil

NOW WATCH: Here's footage of the US military's new helicopter that'll cost as much as an F-35





More From Business Insider


Military, education and elected leaders, along with some 1,500 students, gathered on Friday at Waynesville High School to celebrate a $100,000 grant from the National Math and Science Initiative. The grant, funded by the Department of Defense, lets the Waynesville School District continue its work in NMSIs College Readiness Program for Military Families, which was implemented in school year 2014-15.

Waynesville R-VI is No. 1 in the nation in the growth of AP math, science and English qualifying scores at Army-affiliated schools across the nation. I am so proud of our students and their teachers. Its great to be No. 1 number one in the nation and I am especially proud that we have the second highest number of qualifying AP exam scores produced by African-American and Hispanic students in the state of Missouri," said Brian Henry, Waynesville School District superintendent.

Henry also noted Waynesvilles leadership position in Missouri in Advanced Placement education as being a result of NMSIs College Readiness Program.

Our partnership with NMSI has helped us become a national leader in educating military children, Henry said. This facet of our college readiness program drives students to push themselves and, while doing so, they can earn college credit through qualifying AP exam scores.

A score of 3 or higher on the APs 5-point scale illustrates mastery of college-level skills and knowledge and qualifies students for course credit at the majority of U.S. colleges and universities.

Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven said Waynesvilles leadership position in the state in the past two years in Advanced Placement math and science is a direct result of the NMSI College Readiness Program. She also highlighted the districts recognition as a national leader in educating military children.

Brig Gen. James Raymer, the U.S. Army Engineer School commandant at Fort Leonard Wood, was the keynote speaker at the ceremony.

"The quality of education offered to military children is directly related to soldier and family quality of life, which, in turn is important for mission success. Given our many moves and transitions, few things are as important to military families as knowing that our children are being given challenging opportunities to learn and grow in our school systems," said Raymer.

Marcus Lingenfelter, NMSI senior vice president, praised the educational advances made by Waynesville School District.

We are extremely proud of Waynesvilles accomplishments in the growth of students achieving success in the rigorous AP math and science exams. Their leadership position in the state of Missouri helps ensure that all students  from military and civilian families  will find the highest-quality educational opportunities available in the Fort Leonard Wood community.

Lingenfelter noted that NMSIs College Readiness Program launched this school year in Knob Noster School District and St. Louis School District with grant funding from the U.S. Departments of Defense and Education, respectively.

Waynesville School District serves the overwhelming majority of children who have parents and guardians serving at Fort Leonard Wood. Thanks to the NMSI program, the Advanced Placement math and science results in the school district have been exceptional. For example, after just two years in the NMSI program, the district has experienced a 300 percent increase in successful AP math and science exams and earned the top ranking among all U.S. Army Garrisons being served by this highly successful, evidence-based STEM education program.

The NMSI Military Families Mission, funded by the Department of Defense and private sector partners, has been formally serving schools educating the children of uniformed active duty military families since 2010. By the fall, the College Readiness Program for Military Families will have been implemented in 215 military-connected high schools across 30 states and serving 89 installations of all four military services.

The mission of the program is to provide consistent and rigorous STEM education offerings at the public high schools educating the overwhelming majority of DoD children, to document and validate the student learning outcomes of those offerings via the Advanced Placement framework and assessment, and to enhance the K-12 STEM education pipeline necessary to supply the future scientist and engineer workforce  both uniformed and civilian.

Advanced Placement and AP are registered trademarks of the College Board.

About the National Math and Science Initiative:

NMSI, a national nonprofit organization, breaks down barriers to access in education and prepares all students to graduate college and be career ready. Launched in 2007, NMSI's programs improve student achievement and teacher effectiveness, particularly in math and science, through scalable solutions rooted in local partnerships.

NMSI has received national recognition for programs benefiting school communities nationwide, including the College Readiness Program for AP teachers and students, the Laying the Foundation Program for non-AP teachers in grades 3-12, and the UTeach Expansion Program that is preparing the next generation of great STEM teachers. For more information, visit www.nms.org.
If you thought our neighbors to the north were all chill and chummy, think again.

President Trump, fresh from a visit to Wisconsin, told reporters on Thursday that certain Canadian trade practices are a disgrace. Canada, it turns out, recently lowered prices for a particular class of domestically produced dairy products, making them cheaper than imports from states such as Wisconsin and New York. That, in turn has led to the cancellation of some big contracts with family farmers in those states, and others. An industry group estimates the spat could cost American farmers $150 million, and force some of them to sell their cows.

What happened to our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and New York State  were not going to let it happen, Trump said. The fact is, NAFTA, whether its Mexico or Canada, is a disaster for our country. Its a disaster. Its a trading disaster.

Some people forget that the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has blamed for lost jobs, falling incomes and a bunch of other problems, involves not just Mexico, which Trump railed against while campaigning last year, but Canada, as well. Although its a free-trade deal, NAFTA still allows some tariffs and other types of protections on various categories of products, which is stipulated in the agreement. And products that were developed after NAFTA went into effect in 1994 sometimes fall into a grey zone where theyre not subject to tariffs that apply to other, similar products that did exist at the time.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (R) is greeted by U.S. President Donald Trump prior to holdiing talks at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

That appears to be what happened with a dairy product called ultrafiltered milk, which contains protein and fat products used to make cheese. Ultrafiltered milk was developed after NAFTA went into effect, and American product has been flowing into Canada for several years, subject to none of the tariffs that apply to other dairy products. Several Canadian provinces recently lowered the price of domestically produced UF milk, making it cheaper than the American version. Those changes are due to go national in Canada soon. Canada also protects its dairy industry through a supply management system meant to keep prices higher than market forces might otherwise determine.

Story continues

The US dairy industry claims the recent price moves by Canada represent an illegal trade protection, similar to a tariff. On April 12, the entire Congressional delegation from Wisconsin signed a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and others in the Trump administration urging themto take immediate action to address this dire situation where apparent unfair trade practices are putting Wisconsin dairy farmers livelihoods at risk. In response, Trump has lumped the dastardly Canadians with other countries, namely Mexico and China, that he feels are cheating on trade deals and hustling American workers out of their jobs.

Worth knowing: Canada sees it differently.

Its not Canada thats the challenge here, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said recently, pointing out that Washington protects agriculture just as Ottawa does, and that the United States has a $400 million trade surplus in agriculture with Canada. Lets not pretend were in a global free market when it comes to agriculture, Trudeau said, meaning that just about every developed nation protects farmers viewed as indispensable pillars of national identity. Other Canadian politicians have argued that unfiltered milk from America has been getting a free ride in Canada, since it has been exempt from tariffs meant to apply to all dairy imports. Some also argue that American dairy farmers simply produce more milk that consumers demand, and its not Canadas job to sop up the excess.

For the farmers on either side of the border, this dairy skirmish is a big deal that directly affects their livelihood. But theres a broader point, as Trump continues to promise that his grand effort to revamp NAFTA is coming soon, and will be terrific. Trump has bitten off a gigantic piece of gristle with his promise to revamp NAFTA or withdraw from the deal, and he cant tweet-bash Canadaor even Mexico, for that matterand expect rapid acquiescence. NAFTA covers thousands of products, and the whole point of more-or-less-free trade is to eliminate petty, one-by-one disputes over import tariffs on every single thing that crosses a border. (Anybody who wants to check for themselves can read the whole text of NAFTA here.)

A sign featuring an image of Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen as dairy farmers protest against imported milk products in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada June 2, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

If Trump wants to fight with Canada over ultrafiltured milk, then why not fight over powdered buttermilk (tariff item 0403.90.10), egg albumin (tariff item 3502.10.10), or whey powder and modified whey powder (tariff item 0404.10.10)? And those are just a few items in the dairy category. There are dozens more, and dozens of other categories. For every producer in America who feels hes getting a raw deal on a given product, theres one in Canada and Mexico who feels the same way about a different product. Litigious trade spitballers could spend many lifetimes fighting over tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, product-by-product, while the movement of goods atrophied and producers waited for waited desperately for litigation to end so somebody might buy their stuff.

Trump earned a few nominal victories at the start of his presidency when he tweet-blasted companies such as Carrier, Ford and General Motors, criticizing them for conduction operations in Mexico. Most companies targeted by Trump ginned up announcements touting investments that create jobs in America, even if those announcements were rehashed news of plans already on the books. Trump, typically, tweet his approval and claimed credit for the new jobs, with the whole kabuki seeming to do no real harm.

Canada is unlikely to play that game. Like Republican members of Congress Trump has struggled to corral, Trudeau and other Canadian politicians dont answer to Trump. They answer to their own constituents in Canada, and that includes farmers happy with the new rules on ultrafiltered milk imports from America. Canada has voters too, and Trump will never be on the ballot there.

Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com

Read more:

Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
The workplace often becomes like a second home where employees share their lives, help each other through good and bad times, and form strong bonds. Playwright Dominique Morisseau highlights this dynamic in her Skeleton Crew, now playing at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.

Faye (Tonye Patano) is one of those workers whose daily routine at a Detroit auto factory rarely changes. She enters the breakroom and proceeds to turn on the lights, put her things in her locker, and get the coffee ready. With signs all over the room reading No Smoking-Faye, she ignores the loud noise coming from the factory and lights her cigarette.

Co-worker Dezs (Amari Cheatom) chirpy entrance doesnt change Fayes inert expression. He complains about the absence of heat in the room and mentions that she is not supposed to be smoking. Faye lashes back with several comments and a heart-broken rant about her status, insisting he should not bother her.

A lively and obviously pregnant young Shanita (Rachel Nicks) arrives and goes through her morning routine. When she discovers someone has used her salad dressing, she reveals a discontented attitude; heres yet another day of annoyances. The employees slowly come awake through conversations about whats happening on the auto lines, a possible strike, and everything thats wrong with their jobs.

Foreman Reggie (Brian Marable) makes his entrance with a heater. His demeanor suggests a light in the darkness. He puts his things away, comments about the smoke in the room, and answers questions from the crew now arguing over who gets overtime.

Barely making it, maybe sleeping in a cold car or afraid the plant will shut down, their retorts are worn on their sleeves. Dez is hot and cold with his opinions. Hes kind of a what-can-we-do-about-it? guy and looks for the good things. He likes being a flirtatious with Shanita, but she barks back at him every time, telling him to get real.

When Reggie finally reveals that Human Resources will soon be sending out a notice that the plant will be shutting down, the crew asks questions Reggie doesnt want to answer.

Playwright Morisseau, born and raised in the Motor City, has an excellent cast carrying out this look at real life. The dialogue paints a vivid picture of what these workers are facing and feeling.

Patano (Globes The Last Goodbye, Craig Noel Award winner for La Jolla Playhouses Ruined, Heylia on Weeds) plays the role of Faye as a toughie, but with time its clear her bleak outlook might be more of a warning for her crew. At one point she says to Dez, You can pretend you and me aint affected by the same things, except we both got battle scars. May work for you in the short-term, but in the long term, it kills.

Cheatoms (On the Levee, Dutch Masters, Django Unchained) Dez is a man caught between worry and hope. He appears happy, likes to trifle with his co-workers as if all is good, but he seems to be hiding the same angst about his future as well.

Marable (Detroit 67, The Mountaintop, The Citizen) perfectly portrays Reggie, a good foreman who cares for his crew and wants them not to be worried, but behind that  all is well attitude  he knows their job is short-lived. Nicks (The Good Negro, War, And I and Silence) is a bright light as Shanita. Her life is far from perfect, but she faces every day with a it-is-what-it-is outlook.

Delicia Turner Sonnenbergs directing talent (and her role as founding Artistic Director of MOXIE Theatre), pays off in her very well done Old Globe debut. Skeleton Crew is an excellent reminder of what was and what may always be right around the corner.

IF YOU GO: Skeleton Crew plays through May 7 in Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre at The Old Globe complex, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Tickets from $29. (619) 23-GLOBE. theoldglobe.org
If you like funny, offbeat stories, youll not want to miss Travels with My Aunt at the North Coast Repertory Theatre. Four actors  James Saba, David McBean, Richard Baird and Benjamin Cole  perform more than 20 roles sporting different identities, nationalities, ages and genders, and when the play opens, they are apparently waiting for a train.

Dressed in look-alike suits, they banter about their lives. At one moment, they take a turn that brings lots of laughter from the audience. Saba takes on the title role as Actor 1  Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager. Throughout the performance, he excels in also being the wiggly, feisty-yet-informed Aunt Augusta. But then every once in a while, he becomes another character talking to Aunt Augusta.

This may seem confusing since Aunt Augusta is now in an urn waiting her funeral. Actors 1, 2, 3 and 4 participate in the funeral confusion and what happens to the urn. However, thats trumped by the other characters they portray  Baird as a hunky African manservant, who regularly makes jig-jig with Augusta and plays all the characters with accents; Bean as CIA operative and all of the women and Henry; Cole as the dog and onlooker.

These characters travel the world to places like Paris, Istanbul and Paraguay, experiencing a whirlwind of excursions, and we learn that Henry still has secrets about his Aunt and himself, as he and his manservant get into some heated discussions.

No matter what the characters are doing or plotting  or the confusion of whos who  its the humor in Giles Havergals adaptation of Graham Greenes novel that fills the evening with laughs. Marty Burnetts Scenic Design and the North Coast Reps design team provide a wonderful window into this puzzling and distinctive production.

IF YOU GO: Travels with My Aunt plays through May 7 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. Tickets from $39. Discounts. (858) 481-1055. northcoastrep.org
County health officials closed the north side of WindanSea beach early afternoon Thursday, April 20 from Nautilus Street north to Marine Street after a sewage spill occurred at the 102 Fern Glen pump station. Signs were posted to notify beach-goers that about 2,000 feet of beach was closed to human contact with the water. Danger; contaminated water; keep out, the signs read.

Sample results showed the beach was safe for recreational use, and county officials reopened north WindanSea Sunday, April 23.

An estimated 1,350 gallons of sewage were spilled when a force main, a pipeline that conveys wastewater, broke near the Fern Glen pump station and sewage flowed into the ocean. Water quality samples were collected and are being analyzed to assess further impacts. Warning signs will remain in place until samples come out clean.

The most popular local surf beach, in front of the historical Surf Shack at Bonair Street, was not closed. Keith Kezer, program coordinator of the Land and Water Quality division of the San Diego County Environmental Health Department, told La Jolla Light 2,000 feet of closure was a good, cautious area to be secured.

Learn more about how bacteria and sewage affects ocean water and human recreation in the La Jolla Lights series What are we swimming in?
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting to discuss design concepts for the resurfacing of State Highway 120 on Wednesday, May 3 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Mt. Zion Christian Church.

The project, which is tentatively scheduled to occur either in the fall of 2019 or spring of 2020, will resurface the road from State Highway 36 to the Como Creek Bridge in the town of Lyons, as well as improve traffic flow in the area.

This includes upgrading the Buckby/Krueger Road intersection to include right turn lanes and creating a bypass lane for the northbound Highway 120 at Oak Lane. Bicycle accommodations will also be implemented.

The public is encouraged to attend the meeting, provide input and ask questions concerning the project. DOT representatives will be available to discuss the project on an individual basis and maps showing the proposed improvements will be on display.

If you are unable to attend the meeting or would like additional information, contact DOT project manager Gary Metzer at 262-548-5685 or at Gary.Metzer@dot.wi.gov. Written comments regarding the project can be mailed to Gary Metzer at 141 NW Barstow Street, PO Box 798, Waukesha, WI 53187. Citizens who are deaf or hard of hearing and require an interpreter may request one by contacting Metzer at least three working days prior to the meeting via the Wisconsin Telecommunications Relay System (dial 711).
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa is seen rising between this year and 2019, helped by better commodity prices and improved global conditions, the World Bank said in a report on Wednesday. The bank said in its latest "Africa's Pulse" report economic growth was seen expanding to 2.6 percent this year and further to 3.2 percent in 2018 and 3.5 percent a year later. Sub-Saharan African growth was an estimated 1.3 percent in 2016, the World Bank said. "The upturn in economic activity is expected to continue in 2018-19, reflecting improvements in commodity prices, a pickup in global growth, and more supportive domestic conditions," the bank said in its report. The bank said the 2016 growth was the worst for the region in more than two decades, hurt by poor performance in Nigeria, South Africa and Angola. "This low growth rate was driven mainly by unfavourable external developments, with commodity prices remaining low, and difficult domestic conditions," the report said. It said growth in Nigeria contracted by 1.5 percent, due to tight liquidity, delays in implementing its budget, and militant attacks on oil pipelines. The bank said Angola's growth slowed due to a fall in oil production while South Africa's economic expansion slowed to 0.3 percent due to contractions in the mining and manufacturing industries and the effects of drought on agriculture. "Excluding these three countries, growth in the region was estimated to be 4.1 percent in 2016," the report said. (Reporting by George Obulutsa; editing by John Stonestreet and Pritha Sarkar)
Historic ties of north Meck span throughout region Though the north Mecklenburg area didnt see significant population growth until a few decades ago, its rich history dates back to the Revolutionary War. That was the basis of...

An easier-than-expected first mammogram experience HUNTERSVILLE  Scheduling a cancer screening probably ranks somewhere on your to-do list between "clean out the garage" and "donate those clothes that don't fit." Sure, you'll get to it at...




Watch the entire speech



Mayor Eric Garcetti used his annual state of the city speech on Thursday to boast about some accomplishments and praise Los Angeles, while adding that "we also acknowledge its an imperfect paradise." He mentioned traffic, the high cost of rent and home buying, fear of deportation and the usual civic imperfections, but he devoted the most time to the homeless. They  the tent and car people of Los Angeles  are living now in every part of the city, he said.

Today, there are people without shelter in just about every neighborhood.

As Mayor, theres no issue I spend more time on  because I believe that homelessness is the moral issue of our time.

I am outraged when there are Angelenos who cant escape the cold rain ...

Horrified when someone who has worn our countrys uniform is begging for change on the corner.

I recently talked with a friend who told me her children have grown up seeing the tents in our communities  they think its just a normal part of Los Angeles.

And I worry that my 5-year-old daughter wont know any different either.

We cant accept that. We wont.

We have made significant progress:

Since 2014, weve helped 24,000 men, women, and children find safe homes  more than 9,000 in the last year alone.

Those are real people  real stories ... real results. But the problem persists. Thats why we wrote Measure HHH.

And thanks to the voters who passed it, were going to more than triple our production of

permanent supportive housing in the next two years.

But we cant just build floors and walls. We have to rebuild lives.

Thats why we fought hard to pass Measure H  so we could generate $355 million dollars a year to expand mental health, substance abuse, and employment services across the County  getting people off the streets, on track, and into homes of their very own.

And this morning, Im proud to announce that the budget I am presenting to City Council

dedicates more than $176 million dollars to house the unsheltered, connect them with services, and keep our communities safe and clean.

We are not here to address homelessness  or manage homelessness  or reduce

homelessness  we are here to end homelessness once and for all.


This transcript appears in the April 21, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE

Whither the U.S.:

Nuclear War or New Silk Road?

[Print version of this transcript]

Dennis Speed: In June 1996, our keynote speaker appeared in Beijing at a conference which discussed the concept of the New Silk Road. She, and her husband Lyndon LaRouche, had designeda bit earlier than that conference, starting in 1989a concept of development and peace that would unify East and West. It had other names earlierthe European Triangle was one such name, and then later it was extended to Asia as the Eurasian Land-Bridge. A fight to make that concept real was begun at that time. During the period between June 1996 and January/February 1997, she was given the name the Silk Road Lady. At the end of 2014, a new report and a new evaluation was supplied by the Schiller Institute and published by Executive Intelligence Review; it was called The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge. In this time of great turmoil, the capacity to concentrate and to focus on what the true goals of mankind and mankinds future are, is of utmost importance. It is specifically important for Americans to hear that perspective from the eyes of people who consider themselves to be Americans in character and in principle. Thats the way that the Schiller Institute, from the time of its inception, has thought; it has always been from that time until now my great honor to introduce on whatever occasion it requires, the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

EIRNS/Jason Ross

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Dear friends of the Schiller Institute, when we designed the title of this conferenceand I hope I am not mistaken, because you gave a different nameI had the title of Whither the United States? Nuclear War or New Silk Road? We did not have exactly an inkling at that time that the seed of both options would be condensed in the two-day summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping in Florida just a little while ago. But the first day of this summit was very positive. It was reported that the chemistry between the two Presidents was very good; President Trump called it an outstanding relationship and lots of possibilities to get rid of potentially bad problems, hoping that they will go away. President Xi Jinping, for his part, said that he received a very warm reception; that they had an in-depth communication, and he stressed the unique importance of the U.S.-Sino relationship. And, which is very important, he offered to the United States to join the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road. As many of you may know, I had called earlier that we must have a nationwide mobilization in the entire United States, that the United States must join in this fantastic new project.

Obviously, what happened is not yet totally clear. Trump did not say anything explicitly; he didnt take up the offer. But if he does, and I said this a little while agopeople were actually quite shocked to hear me say that, and I still say that despite what happened in the recent days: If he [President Xi] can convince President Trump to take up the offer to join with China and the other nations in the New Silk Road, he can become one of the greatest Presidents in the history of the United States.

In light of what happened with the air strikes against Syria, many people may wonder why Im still saying this, but Im absolutely convinced of it. Because if we can get the United States to join and cooperateand later I will elaborate what that will meanit would mean to overcome geopolitics, which has been the source of two world wars in the past century. The United States would join what President Xi Jinping all the time calls a community for the shared future of mankind, and it would indeed begin a new era of mankind and eliminate the danger of nuclear war.

The first day went very positively, but then during the night to Friday, the United States launched the military strike into Syria under the pretext that the Syrian government had allegedly used chemical weapons in the province of Idlib, which caused the deaths of civilians, babies. But no proof was presented. It was immediately contradicted by many ex-intelligence experts, saying this was a typical false-flag operation. Fortunately, President Xi Jinping maintained his countenance; he did not leave. They stayed for the second day and concluded agreements to have a new Cabinet-level framework for negotiations and continue a dialogue on four pillars: First, a diplomatic and security dialogue; then, a comprehensive economic dialogue; a law-enforcement and cyber-security dialogue; and a dialogue concerning social and cultural issues.

Now this was obviously not our demand, but it opens the door. As we have seen in recent phone calls between the two Presidents, especially as a consequence of these strikes against Syria, the North Korean crisis is flaring up in a very dangerous way. At least the two Presidents got on the phone, and at times like this, this is extremely important.

What happened is a de facto coup detat inside the United States, which has two elements. One is the false-flag operation in Syria, combined with what one could call a palace coup inside the administration. This coupand I will elaborate on that alsois a British intelligence operation; and it must be recognized as such in order to liberate President Trump from this great danger. If you look at the chronology of what happened, March 30, both Secretary of State [Rex] Tillerson and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said very clearly that it is no longer an option of the United States to oust President Assad, our priority is to fight terrorism and ISIS. One day later, the American Secretary of Defense [James] Mattis was in London and gave a press conference with the British Defence Minister, Michael Fallon, where he praised the British global role worldwide and threatened Russia, saying they are responsible for manipulations of the elections in the United States and Europe. On the same day, British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who already in December had called for a joint U.S. military attack on Syria, had to admit that the U.K. investigation about Russian interference in the U.S. election had produced no result.

The Chemical Attack

Then on April 4, there were the first reports about the bombing attacks on Idlib province with chemical weapons. The next morning, President Trump received his daily intelligence brief, and this brief said it was an attack with chemical weapons by the Syrian government. And as evidence, they showed photographs and videos of people dying, apparently from chemical poisoning. The source of this was an organization called the White Helmets. The following two days, there were National Security Council meetings in Washington, and on the same day, the House Intelligence Committee chair, Representative [Devin] Nunes [R-CA], recused himself from the investigation into the two narratives: one narrative being that Russia had helped Trump to become President; the other narrative being that the Deep State in the United States has been leaking classified information about Americans being spied on. These two narratives are in a showdown, and Nunes was on the right track, because he had received in meetings in the Old Executive Building, proof that there was such cooperation with British intelligence on this matter. So, he was accused by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, MoveOn.org Civic Action, and other groups, in a complaint to the House Office of Congressional Ethics, that he had not briefed [House Intelligence Committee ranking member] Adam Schiff [D-CA] first, but the President. In any case, he thought he had to recuse himself. It turns out that this Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is financed entirely by the British; George Soros, among others. Then the next day, on April 5, [White House Chief Strategist Steve] Bannon, the campaign advisor of Trump, was removed from the National Security Council. It is generally known that he opposed the attack against Syria. On April 6, in the middle of the summit with President Xi, when the decision was taken to attack the Syrian airbase with 60 Tomahawk missiles, Michael Fallon, the British Defence Minister, bragged that he was in constant communication with the United States on all levelsbefore the strike, after the strikediscussing the options. So, this immediately brought the world to the verge of a serious showdown with Russia. Many security experts, including Scott Ritter, who is a senior chemical weapons inspector who had numerous times in the past denounced the White Helmets, pointing out that the White Helmets were associated with al-Qaeda, refuted this immediately.

This organization, the White Helmets, was founded by a retired British military officer, James Le Mesurier; it receives $30 million from the British Defence Ministry, but also from the U.S. State Department. They have quite a portfolio of $100 million, and they have been seen in videos assisting al-Qaeda in the execution of Syrian soldiers. The idea that this evidence, that it was the Syrian government who did that, was refuted two days ago by a very prominent nuclear weapons expert, MIT Professor Ted Postol, who was the single person who, in 2013, proved that the apparent use of chemical weapons at that time was not done by the Syrian government, but by rebel groups. He responded to the four-page memorandum by the White House, claiming that they had absolutely undebatable proof that it was the Syrian government. He published a 14-page paper in which he used Google Earth material and photographs that are generally made available, to say that by analyzing the pipe out of which the so-called chemical gas came, it could not have been dropped by an airplane, but it had been delivered by other ways. Here he shows some more technical details. This is now a situation where yesterday Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov and President [Vladimir] Putin met with Secretary of State Tillerson; they had five hours of discussion, and with President Putin two more hours of discussion. The White House maintained the story that they have the proof that this was the Syrian government; the Russian government said no, we need an international investigation immediately, because you cannot condemn somebody where the evidence is so absolutely ludicrous.

The site where the [chemical] attack occurred was held by an organization called Liwa al-Aqsa; and the Syrian government and also the Russian government maintain that the object which was hit was a storage place for chemical weapons that are produced by the rebels. The logic of the whole thing is also clear. Remember that in 2013, there was a tremendous intervention with Russian help; the Syrian government agreed to dismantle its entire chemical weapons stockpile. It was destroyed. Eight of ten production places were destroyed, and two remained in the area where the rebels are. The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations put out a statement yesterday saying that he sent 80 letters to the UN Security Council, giving them data on where the rebels were using this; where it came fromeven Turkish intelligence helped. So why would President Assad, who is currently, with the help of Russia, winning the battle on all fronts, why would he risk this very favorable situation by using chemical weapons against a target which is of no military use whatsoever? Why would Russia, which has put a lot of political investment in getting the Syrian government to dismantle its chemical weapons, why would they idly sit by and allow this to happen? It just does not make any sense at all.

Whats Going On?

There is no evidence. If there were any evidence, the U.S. would have presented it already; but the latest statement from the United States is that they have to protect their methods and sources. To take pictures like that from the air, from satellites, is not such a secret thing. This is now a serious problem, because there are many experts, including top Mideast experts in Europe, who say that this military strike [on the Syrian airbase] was completely illegal; it had no UN mandate, it had no Congressional legitimization, it had not the article of legitimate self-defense according to Article 51 of the UN Charter. If there are further attacksand President Putin has warned already that the U.S. attack encourages other rebel groups to do other such operations in order to lure the United States more into this conflictthis could then bring a showdown with Russia in the short term.

It also has relevance for NATO. There was a judge of a federal court in Germany who made the point that if it were to come to a military confrontation between the United States and Russia over this issue, NATO members could not be asked to come to the defense of the United States according to Article 5 of the NATO Charter; because if a force reacts to an aggression, this article does not apply.

So, its a very hot situation. But one of the most incredible things is that the same international corps of neo-cons and neo-liberals who immediately after the election victory of Trump, used the most inciting words for Trumpcalling him a fascist, a hate preacher, an unstable sociopath, an incompetent monsterthey are suddenly saying he is a great commander-in-chief; he did everything right. [German Chancellor Angela] Mrs. Merkel and [French] President [Francois] Hollande said they are full of understanding for what Trump did; which is incredible! How can heads of government who supposedly hold up democracy and human rights, who are the defenders of Western values; how can they condone something which is so blatantly illegal?

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson insisted that an ultimatum should be put to Russia to give up support for President Assad; which naturally and predictably, President Putin refused.

There are many people who are warning that if Trump gets lured further into a direct conflict with Russia, that will lead to nuclear war. We are still, despite the effect of Tillersons mission, on red alert.

What is going on? After Congressman Nunes had been shown evidence, in the Old Executive Office Building, that there was invasive electronic surveillance of Trump and the Trump team, two former high-ranking intelligence officials wrote an article with the headline The Surveillance State behind Russia-Gate. They were Ray McGovern and Bill Binney. They said the fact that this evidence about this surveillance has now been documented, presents Trump with the unwelcome but unavoidable choice to either confront those who have kept him in the dark about such rogue activities or live fearfully in their shadow, and capitulate to them.

Now, this is hopefully not yet a finished question, but Trumps choice of what he will do in the future, will decide whether there is a future for this constitutional republic, if the human species exists or not. Now earlier in the year, in the The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, they wrote that already with 90% of the world nuclear weapons at the ready in the United States and Russia, that in 2017, tensions could lead to a thermonuclear conflagration, that it is two and a half minutes to midnight, the clock is ticking. And after the U.S. military attack, Russian Prime Minister [Dmitry] Medvedev said the relationship between the United States and Russia is now completely ruined, the U.S. is on the verge of a military clash with Russia.

This was a little bit toned down, but President Trump said yesterday that the meeting with Tillerson in Moscow went better than expected, but the relationship with Russia is still very bad.

What happened to that Donald Trump who won the election on the basis of promising to improve relations with Russia, to collaborate with Russia, to defeat ISIS, and to end the policy of regime change and interventionist wars? All these policies mentioned by Trump represent a direct threat to the British Empire. People are completely mistaken to think that the British Empire no longer exists. What happened is that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the efforts went under way by Great Britain and the neo-cons in the United States to establish a unipolar world. One can also say its the same thing as globalization: its an attempt to establish a world empire based on the Anglo-American relationship; Francis Fukuyama prematurely declared the end of history, meaning the whole world would be turned into democratic states, and they came up with such things as the right to protect, humanitarian intervention, regime changecolor revolution against any government that would not submit.

Enter the British Empire

And just for the record, the Ukraine crisis was entirely the fault of the West. It was not the fault of Russia, because when the European Union (EU) tried to bring Ukraine into the EU Association Agreement, and President Yanukovych refused that, that is what triggered the Maidan which was financed by NGOs [non-governmental organizations], by [Assistant Secretary of State] Victoria Nuland, and by people who are clearly fascists, in the tradition of Stepan Bandera. They made a coup, and Russia reacted to each step, including the situation in Ukraine, and including the vote in Crimea, which was not an annexation, but a vote of the people of Crimea that they wanted to be, again, with Russia.

The narrative about Ukraine has to be straightened out, and I would urge all of you: help us to disseminate the documentation we have made about this case. Because this is the cause for the demonization of Putin and Russia in general.

Now, this idea of regime change is what led to the Orange Revolution of 2004 earlier in Ukraine, to the Rose Revolution [in Georgia], and to the attempted White Revolution against Russia. They attempted a Yellow Revolution against China with the yellow umbrellas in Hong Kong, which fortunately, didnt go anywhere. But this was the basis for the regime change policy in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It left much of Southwest Asia in ruins. It is the cause for the refugee crisis. It had a military side, turning the Middle East into a Hell; it had an economic side, which made the rich richer by deregulation of the banks, and made the poorer. It was the rejection of this policy paradigm which was the reason for the Brexit, which was the reason for the election of Trump, and the reason for the No of the Italians to the referendum by then Prime Minister Matteo Renziand it will continue if the injustice which is associated with that paradigm is not cured. And because we have a couple of very important elections in Europe still to come, you may have some more surprises along these lines.

It was that empire, not a nation, not Great Britain, but the idea that you can run the world as an empire by an oligarchy, which regarded the Trump election and the Trump campaign promise as an existential threat. This is why immediately after Trump was elected, the British paper Spectator openly said that he will not stay in office for long, he will be removed, either by assassination, impeachment, or a coup detat.

And the role of British intelligence in creating the dodgy dossier by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 agent, is also very clear. And the entire story that Trump won the election because of Russian interference comes not only from the Hillary Clinton campaign, but this was concocted with the help of British intelligence.

President Putin correctly said what happened against Trump is a color revolution, is a Maidan, and that anti-Russian hysteria, targeting one of the more efficient members of the Trump administration, General [Michael] Flynn, and then [Attorney General Jeff] Sessionsthis all created a McCarthyite hysteria, where just talking to a Russian diplomat is already something which makes you a stooge, an agent. It is the business of diplomats to reach out to the people of the country where they are and have contact! So the mainstream media are completely uniform in lockstep and they are continuously putting out fake news to control the narrative.

On the other side, when President Trump did something really beautiful and good, like making a speech in his Weekly Address about renewing the space program, using beautiful pictures from the Hubble Telescope, or saying he wants to revive the American System of economy, quoting Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and [President Abraham] Lincoln, there was not one word in the mainstream media.

The big question is, can this coup be reversed? Well, it requires a comprehensive national and international effort. First of all, we have to mobilize Trumps base, who must understand that what is happening is a British operation. If they are just disappointed and turn away, this is not good enough, because then the efforts to control Trump will escalate and the danger is small attacks against Syria, a clash with Russiawho knows what will happen in the North Korea crisis, which is extremely hot and may get hot toward the weekend.

Remember that the American War of Independence, that which created the United States, was made against the British Empire, and the British Empire never gave up the idea of reconquering the United States. The first time they attempted that was in the War of 1812; then the British Empire allied with the Confederacy. If you go to the battlefield of Gettysburg, you can actually see the traces of this, and if you study this matter, the British banks financed the Confederacy in this war through their affiliates in Boston and Philadelphia and so forth.

Britains War on America

The British Empire got totally upset when Trump announced that he wants to go back to the American System of economy, of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Lincoln. You should just re-read what Henry C. Carey wrote about the difference between the British Empire economy, which makes people poor, and the American System of economy, which is concerned about the well-being of the labor force, and raising living standards and so forth.

We need people to become conscious of American history again. We need an immediate UN investigation into these chemical substances. We should distribute the work of the former intelligence people who are already on the move, issuing open letters to President Trump trying to correct this story. The fight for Glass-Steagall must be accelerated; the bills in the House and the Senate must win overwhelming support. Then, we should push and mobilize for President Trump, who accepted an invitation to China for early this year at his meeting with President Xi Jinping, should accelerate that visit, so that Trump should actually participate in the next months meeting: On the 14 and 15th of May, there will be an historic summit, the Belt and Road Forum. This will be the confirmation of the New Silk Road initiative, in which already about 20 presidents of countries, 150 leaders of international organizations, and 1,200 scientists, economists, and businessmen, have agreed to participate and discuss further how to develop the idea of the Belt and Road Initiative.

This means four weeks to escalate the mobilization in the United States, for the United States to join the Silk Road.

Now, this initiative, which was announced three and half years ago by President Xi Jinping, has in the meantime developed a gigantic dynamic. Its the biggest infrastructure program in history. Its already 12 times bigger than the Marshall Plan; it already involves 70 nations and 30 international organizations. And it includes six economic development corridors and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The first such corridor is the one from China to Central Asia and West Asia, going potentially into Afghanistan. When President Xi was in Iran last year, President [Hassan] Rouhani already agreed Iran will cooperate. It can be extended to Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Europe.

One of the next corridors is China-Myanmar-Bangladesh-India, which is right now a little bit in trouble, because India is not yet totally convinced, because they are still are a little bit in the old geopolitical view; but it would mean the first express highway between China and India.

You have the China-Western Europe route, which is developing incredibly quickly. It goes from Chengdu, Chongqing, Yiwu, and Lianyungang, to Duisburg, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Lyon, and Madrid, and it reduces the travel time of cargo and people from five weeks by ocean to two weeks by land. And it already has eight routes, and there is now a daily train leaving Chongqing to Western Europe.

Then you have the Mongolia-China-Russia corridor, which involves 32 projects. You have the China-Pakistan corridor which is huge: It is already creating 700,000 jobs in Pakistan, and it produces 10,400 kW electric power; China has invested $46 billion into that corridor.

This great project is developing great attraction, because it offers win-win cooperation to do what China did in the last 30 years, when they brought about the biggest economic miracle in history, by lifting 800 million people out of povertyand the countries which are now cooperating simply will have the same advantages.

In Eastern Europe and Africa

For example: The 16 plus 1 groupthese are the Central and Eastern European countries which officially are mostly in the European Union, but because the European Union has an insane austerity policy and is not investing in infrastructure, many of the East European countries are now with the New Silk Road, including Greece, Serbia, and Hungary. The EU opposes a fast train connection between Budapest and Belgrade, which is completely crazy because China is financing it, and Serbia is so happy that for the first time they are getting real investment in infrastructure. [Serbian] President [Tomislav] Nikolic, who was just on a state visit to China, said that Chinese help in building their infrastructure shows the greatness of China, because they have done something which no other country did for Serbia.

But also the Swiss are absolutely happy about the cooperation with the New Silk Road. The Swiss President will go to the Beijing forum; also Italy, which has a huge problem with the refugees, as well as Spain and Portugal.

But the truly fantastic development is the change the New Silk Road is causing in Africa. There is a completely new spirit, where African leaders who for many years were completely desperate about poverty, famine, and wars, are now saying there is a real chance to overcome poverty and underdevelopment with the help of China. Just a couple of weeks ago, the first railway between Djibouti and Addis Ababa was opened. This is extremely important, if you want to transport, for example, food to these famine-stricken areas. Also, a new railway is being built between Rwanda and Congo. China is the leading job creator in Africathey have created 30,000 jobs in the past two years, and 40,000 Africans will be trained in China. China-Africa cooperation has been upgraded from a trade relationship, into an industrial relationship focusing on manufacturing, energy, and maritime economic development. And many Africans have told me and others that they see in the Belt and Road Initiative the possibility to realize the African Dream of poverty reduction and elimination.

The Transaqua Project

View full size

China has pledged $75 billion of funding to Africa, especially for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The Rwanda situation is a showcase for the Chinese model of assisting African growth. Rwanda, as you know, was struck by terrible genocide in 1994, but with the help of China it is now on a completely new path, becoming one of the fastest-growing economic areas in Africa. Its landlocked, it has almost no raw materials, but the Chinese are training the local population. They are already building the Rwanda segment of a 2,000-km northern corridor between Kigali, Rwanda, and Mombasa, Kenya, via Uganda.

The Chinese Export-Import Bank is giving a $1.2 billion loan to fund the Rwanda section which starts this year. This means that for the first time, there will be a railroad from the coast to the heart of Africa, something the colonialists never did.

Look at the slide of the Transaqua project again. This is one of the most promising projects for the future of Africa, the Transaqua Project for which we in the Schiller Institute have fought for 30 years: Its the idea of taking the water from the tributary rivers of the Congo, at a height of 500 meters, and bringing it back through a system of rivers and canals to Lake Chad, to refill it, and it would help 12 countries to get irrigation and hydropower, and have modern navigation for shipment by water.

Now, given the starvation crisis going on in South Sudan; Somalia, where 8 million people are in danger; and in Yemen, where half the population is about to die because of the Saudi blockade, China has said that because of the refugee crisis in West Asia and North Africa, it is now the time for China to expand its humanitarian assistance and more deeply engage in global refugee governance. That since the Western countries decided to decrease contributions to the refugee crisis, and in the United States, even impose a travel ban on some people from these countries, China, given its increasing strength, will play a bigger role to help to solve this problem.

Now, if you compare that with the despicable policy of the European Union, which knows nothing better than to build fences, get the EU border patrol Frontex to push people back, and to have intern camps in Turkey. They tried to do it in Egypt and Tunisia, but, fortunately, the Presidents did not go along with that. You can see that the way to go is, that if the United States, and hopefully some European countries, would join hands with Russia and with China, we can rebuild the Middle East from its war-torn condition, we can overcome poverty in Africa, and solve the refugee crisis in a human way.

In terms of investment volume, China is first in railways, but people dont know that Africa right now has the highest growth rate in new railway construction, due to Chinese investment. The Japanese monthly Sentaku attributed the miraculous growth in Africa to the Belt and Road Initiative, connecting the ancient trade routes in China to Europe and to Africa. The five biggest railway projects are currently being built in Africa with Chinese participation, and Chinese investment is huge! They invested $75 billion in 1,700 projects between 2000 and 2011; it has gone up since then, and in 2016 alone, they invested another $75 billion.

U.S. Participation

Now, why am I saying that the well-being, Happiness, and likely existence of mankind depends on the United States accepting the offer by Xi Jinping to join the Belt and Road Initiative? Because if the United States would leave geopolitics and cooperate in a win-win mode, it reverses and eliminates the danger of a geopolitical confrontation. And there are many, many areas of possible cooperation, bilateral but also involving third parties.

Now, Trump has promised to invest $1 trillion in the reconstruction of U.S. infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers has said the requirements are actually $4.5 trillion, and at a recent conference in Hong Kong, some Chinese scholars made the point that the actual need is $8 trillion. Now, having driven by car yesterday from Washington to New York, I would say the need is $20 trillion at least!

So, the Belt and Road cooperation could use the Chinese experience to build up U.S. infrastructure. And China has done miraclesif you go to China and you go on the fast trains, they go 350 kph, they are smooth, no noise, they dont rattle, and China has already built 20,000 km of such high-speed railways, and they want to have, by the year 2025, some 50,000 km of high-speed trains connecting all the major cities of China. But this would also be a big boost to U.S. manufacturing: It would create jobs and revitalize the U.S. economy. Because of the outsourcing under the previous free trade agreements, the United States has no more middle-level industry. They dont have a complete upstream and downstream industrial chain. China, on the other hand, has a complete industrial chain, and a relatively low cost of production. China is also the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds, and these bonds have been offered by China already to be used for infrastructure financing in the United States. My husband, Lyndon LaRouche, has long made a proposal to create a National Bank in the tradition of Alexander Hamiltonwhom Trump recently has talked about based on the American System. This National Bank could become a vehicle to move those Chinese holdings into productive investments in the United States.

So, what the United States needs, both in terms of experience in infrastructure-building, but also in terms of financing, China could provide. And I think that this kind of financing will be important, because many people who want to make 25% per year, will hesitate to invest in infrastructure, because infrastructure does not yield a direct profit, but it creates the environment for the economy to grow.

Also, a point which I think needs to be discussed much more, is that the American model of economy is actually much closer to what China is doing than people know, and since we have a day to discuss these matters tomorrow, this will also become clearer.

Now, building up U.S. industry would mean the United States can export more to China. China has a growing middle class, and because of the structural reforms initiated by President Xi Jinping, they want to build up their domestic market, which means potentially a huge market for U.S. exports. But the United States and China could also join hands and have joint ventures in third markets. The United States has more experience in investment in some countries, and then China and the United States could be complementary in their efforts. In 2016, the bilateral trade volume was $519.6 billion. The bilateral investment grew to $170 billion in the same year, but in the past 10 years, U.S. exports to China grew 11%, but Chinese exports to the United States only grew 5.6%.

Now, with the Belt and Road, this potential would rise tremendously. If the United States, which has right now almost no train system worth speaking of, were to have such a system of infrastructure development, you could solve all problems; you could revitalize the Rust Belt; you could reindustrialize Detroit; you could have water management systems along the West Coast; and you can build beautiful new cities. This is the model of a Renaissance city, and when we build new cities, they must not look like Houston. They can be based on the Golden Mean in architecture; they can be beautiful, and they can become research centers, science cities where international scientists work together, and where students are being educated.

History of Human Evolution

When we designed the World Land-Bridge, which is actually the product of 26 years of work by the Schiller Instituteits really a plan for the reconstruction of the world economy; its the idea that you will have fast train systems connecting the southern tip of Latin America, Argentina and Chile; you go up by a fast train system through Central America, through North America, and connect through the Bering Strait to the Eurasian transport system; and we can really move to bigger things in the future.

If you reflect on how much mankind has progressed in the past 10-20,000 years, which on the scale of universal history is a very, very short moment: You had the first human infrastructure development when people settled by the rivers and the oceans; then they started to build roads going inland; then you had shipping, then people started to build canalsthe first one in Europe promoting this idea was Charlemagne. And a gigantic jump in human development was made with the railway system. You had transcontinental corridors, and that process will grow into the World Land-Bridge, where you will have a connection between all continents through tunnels and bridges. You will have future generations of maglev systems going through evacuated tubes where you can travel at Mach 1 very quickly to anywhere in the world. This will completely change the character of civilization.

And the next phase of human development, which already has started, is the industrialization of space, beginning with the Moon, and with fusion technology, we will soon have interplanetary travel. This will change and improve the character of our species again and again, because human beings are limitlessly perfectible. Just think about the incredible upward development of the past 10,000 years, and then think what we will do in 10,000 years from now? And that exponential development we can only have as a hypothesis.

Should we ruin this optimistic vision of the future by having a nuclear war, which will end civilization? On the sidelines of the annual National Peoples Congress in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed the importance of China, the United States, and Russia working together, by emphasizing that it is the relation among these three that makes the difference. It must not be a see-saw game, not a zero-sum outcome, but their healthy collaboration means their joint responsibility for world peace.

The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Peter Thomson, recently said that the Chinese initiative of the New Silk Road/Belt and Road Initiative is the only future for mankind. And I fully agree. Because it elevates the collaboration among nations to a higher level of reason, to what Nicholas of Cusa would call the coincidence of opposites, where the One has a higher existence than the Many. And it must be accompanied by a dialogue of the best traditions of the cultures of all nations of this worldand that will be the subject for tomorrow.

But I want to remind people that one of the founding fathers, if not the founding father of America, Benjamin Franklin, discovered at a certain point the writings of Confucius, and he was so excited about Confucian teaching that he wrote that only through self-improvement can you progress and have peace, in the family, in the state, and finally, among the nations. He used the moral teachings of Confucius to shape the becoming of the United States. And the most important thing about Confucian teaching, is the idea that you must have one thing above everything else, and that is, love for mankind.

Confucius said, you can love at willif you decide to love, you can do it instantly. I think this is what we should keep in mind and have that love for mankind right now, because I think mankind is the most beautiful thing in the world, and its in mortal danger. But the horizon, what mankind can become if we go to a new epoch, the New Paradigm of working together, and of developing each others creativity, is limitless. So lets mobilize such a love.
This editorial appears in the April 21, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

British Stand Exposed as Source of the Wa r Drive : Thei r Meddlin g Mus t End!

[Print version of this editorial]

April 14In the face of an ongoing deluge of lies and disinformation about Russia, coming from the institutions of the British Empire and its pathetic mouthpieces, there are two points of emphasis which must not be forgotten: first, that the City of London and Wall Street, the centers of power of the Empire, are hopelessly bankrupt, and are willing to risk thermonuclear war to maintain their global dominance; and second, that the great fear of those running the collapsing empire comes from the emergence of a New Paradigm, which rejects their geopolitical manipulations, and is based instead on cooperation between the United States, on the one side, and Russia and China on the other. The potential for realizing this New Paradigm has increased since the election of President Trump, with his promise to reverse the policy of regime change wars launched by his predecessors, Bush and Obama.

It is this potential which has been the target of the British-directed campaign against Trump, in first accusing him of being a de facto agent under the control of Putin, and then delivering fake intelligence to him, which convinced him to order a cruise missile strike against the Shayrat air base in Syria.

These two points were highlighted in an exchange between British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, and Russias Acting Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov, during the United Nations Security Council debate on April 12, on yet another British sponsored resolution condemning the Assad government in Syria. Rycroft launched a vitriolic diatribe against Russia, blaming Russia for the deaths of Syrian civilians from chemical weapons, due to its continued support for Assad.

Safronkov responded sharply: What you are afraid of is that we [Russia] might work with the United States. Thats what you lose sleep over. He continued, saying the United Kingdom is more focused on regime change than in aiding the Syrian people, and instead invite illegal armed groups to London. The latter point is a clear reference to British support for groups such as the White Helmets, a phony aid group infiltrated by jihadists terrorists, which was the main source for the allegations that it was Assads forces which used chemical weapons which killed civilians in Khan Shaykhun.

In his denunciation of the Queens representative at the UN, Safronkov correctly identified the British as the instigator of the crisis that put the world on the edge of nuclear war. In doing so, he echoed U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche who warned U.S. President Trump that he must break out of the trap set by the British, by meeting immediately with Russian President Putin to reverse the march toward war. LaRouche reminded Trump that the British have been the enemy of this nation since its beginnings, and have repeatedly engaged in efforts to sabotage the American System of economics, which Trump has been championing.

The British Empire has been the enemy of mankind for a long time, LaRouche said, Shut down the British System! The U.S. is a nationalways has been a nation... so we must not submit. He added that Trump must clean out the nest of British advocates of confrontation with Russia who are responsible for pushing the false reports of Assads responsibility for using chemical weapons. But, above all, he must meet with Putin as soon as possible.

Tillerson-Putin Meeting

A major step in this direction occurred on April 12, when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and then with President Putin. An attempt to sabotage that meeting had been undertaken by Britains Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who demanded that the G7 foreign ministers, meeting in Italy, demand new sanctions against Russia, claiming Russian complicity in the alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack. Johnson intended that Tillerson use the scheduled meeting in Moscow to deliver an ultimatum to the Russians, that they would face new, tougher sanctions, unless they dropped support for Assad.

This ploy was thwarted by a rare show of good sense, as several European governments, including Germany and Italy, joined with Japan in rejecting Johnsons demand. Instead, they demanded a full UN investigation to determine the facts about the chemical weapons incident.

Reports from the Tillerson-Lavrov meeting, and the later meeting with Putin, indicate that, despite some tough language from both sides, progress was made in the discussions. While acknowledging that differences between the two nations exist, a working group will be established, to address those differences, and that the memorandum on de-confliction, to avoid possible inadvertent attacks on each others forces in the regionwhich had been suspended by Russia after the U.S. missile attackwould likely be restored.

In his comments, Lavrov spoke of the shared responsibility of the two nations, and added, We understand each other better after todays talks. He said the U.S. and Russia are not worlds apart on many key issues, but reviewed Russian concerns over recent U.S. and NATO interventions, including in Yugoslavia and Libya. He reiterated Russias contention that the U.S. has presented no proof of Assads responsibility for the chemical attack, and reminded Tillerson that there must be a presumption of innocence until a full investigation has been conducted.

While Tillerson stuck to the story that there is conclusive evidence of Assads guilt, he stated that the low level of trust between our two countries is a problem, and that the worlds two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship... We need to attempt to put an end to this steady degradation. He added that the two-hour meeting with Putin was productive.

It is worth noting that, prior to the British efforts to blame Assad for the chemical weapon attack, Tillerson had stated that the U.S. no longer was committed to regime change in Syria, which had been a key part of Trumps pledge, during the campaign to put an end to the regime change wars of Bush and Obama.

For his part, Trump seems to have stepped back from the confrontation the British intended to provoke, despite continuing efforts by the neocons to escalate, including reviving the plan to move 150,000 U.S. troops into Syria. Asked about the possibility of escalating against Assad, the President told Fox Business News, Are we going to get involved in Syria? No. And following the Tillerson meetings in Moscow, he tweeted, Things will work out fine between the USA and Russia.

Must Take on the Brits

Despite such sentiments, there can be no secure peace without going after the British instigators of the anti-Trump, anti-Russian operations, as they will not stop until Trump is either completely submissive to their intentions, or ousted. This news service has documented the role of British intelligence in directing the anti-Trump campaign. Among the more obvious lies is its authorship of the charge that the Russians control Trump through sexual blackmailthe notorious dossier produced by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele, in collaboration with Trumps enemies in the Republican Party, the Clinton campaign, and the FBI. Despite the near-universal recognition of that dossier being a complete fraud, there are still efforts by the media, and by Congressmen from both parties, to bring Steele before Congressional committees to testify.

Additional new evidence has been forthcoming of the overall role of the British in targeting Trump. On April 13, the Guardian confirms that the GCHQ, the coordinating center of British intelligence, began investigating suspicious interactions between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, that they picked up from surveillance in the summer of 2015, then passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies. In the summer of 2016, the head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, delivered material directly to CIA Director and Obama intimate John Brennan, who used it to launch a major inter-agency investigation. That investigation, or rather witch-hunt, is continuing, with the aim of destroying the Trump presidency.

Another example is an April 13 article in the Daily Mail, which says that former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove suggests, without offering any evidence, that Trump received money from Russians in 2008. Sir Richard was head of MI6 in 2002, when his agency produced the dossier which asserted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He personally wrote the forward to the dossier, in which he stated that the threat from Saddam was beyond doubt. He then delivered the dossier to Tony Blair, who joined with George W. Bush in using this lying dossier to justify the invasion of Iraq, which triggered the broader regional war and terrorist recruitment which threatens the world today.

In addition to Russian Acting UN Ambassador Safronkovs direct identification of the British role in concocting the Syrian provocation, the former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, stunned a BBC interviewer by saying he did not believe the so-called intelligence that led to Trumps attack. The Daily Mail reported on this interview on April 11, under the headline, Truth Bomb Dropped Live on BBC by British Ambassador Goes Viral. When challenged by the BBC interviewer, who asked of the charges against Assad, Thats a statement of fact, right?, Ford calmly replied, Its a myth....Its a statement of non-fact.

He said that, in the run-up to the Iraq war, The experts... were convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.... They were all wrong. Its possible that they are wrong in this instance as well. That they are just looking for a pretext to attack Syria. He called the chemical weapons attack a fake flag that may have been done by the terrorists, to lead to an escalation against Assad, and warned that the terrorists may launch another chemical weapons attack, to provoke further retaliation.

There is a growing number of individuals and institutions coming forward to challenge the Assad-did-it line. Among the most significant is weapons expert Ted Postol, who issued a 14-page report to thoroughly refute the four-page dossier released by the White House that claims to prove Assads responsibility. Postol concludes that the White House report does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the U.S. government has concrete knowledge of the government of Syrias responsibility for the attack.

Another significant statement against the lurch toward war comes from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), in an open letter to President Trump. Signed by twenty-four retired intelligence and military officers and released under the heading, Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation, they say they are writing to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russiawith the risk of escalation to nuclear war. Also joining those warning of the danger is retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has repeatedly referred to Powells use of the Blair dossier in his address to the UN as a fraud. Wilkerson demands that Tillerson apologize to Lavrov for his charges against Russia.

While the interventions of Postol, Wilkerson and the VIPS are significant, as they establish a standard of truth as essential before missiles are launched, they do not identify the key role of the British. In his comments, LaRouche has insisted that such an omission can be fatal.

What we are witnessing, LaRouche said, in the escalation against Syria and Russia, is treason against the U.S. from the inside, using forces inside the government to destroy that government. No British institution has the right to meddle in American affairs. Obama is an example of this evil. Mankind has to learn to fight, to shut down things that are wrong. The British Empire is wrong.... People must have the guts to do what must be done. The time has come to crush this thing. Get this nation and other nations to agree to that.
PRESS RELEASE

Drought-Ravaged Somalia on the Verge of Famine; Millions at Risk

April 20, 2017 (EIRNS)According to the latest report from the international aid group Save the Children, Somalia is on the verge of a mass famine. The group, in its latest survey, noted "life-threatening malnutrition rates are rising sharply. We are on the brink of a massive catastrophe in Somalia with the death of three quarters of the countrys livestock, a rapid increase of children suffering severe malnutrition, and the depletion of water stores in dozens of communities," said Hassan Saadi Noor, Save the Childrens Somalia country director, who said "he fears seeing children dying in significant numbers," Associated Press reported.

Noor also pointed out that more than half of the population of Somalia, around 6.2 million, needed immediate lifesaving assistance as a result of drought in the country, while a further 8.3 million living in countries like Kenya and Ethiopia, including those stranded in refugee camps, needed urgent help, according to a report from Irans PressTV.

Britains Guardian, in its report on the life and death crisis in Somalia, described that in the villages around Baidoa, northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, and

"across the worst-hit areas of southern and central Somalia, the toll is mounting. There are scattered deaths from lack of food, but illness is the main killer. Spend an hour with those pouring into the town, 180 miles northwest of Mogadishu, and you will find fathers who have buried four children in as many days, grandparents left to fade away in villages, and breastfeeding mothers who have carried twins for 70 miles under a searing sun in a last-ditch bid to find help."

Aid authorities

"also admit that an official UN figure of about 550 deaths as a result of cholera and similar diseases in Somalia since the beginning of the year is grossly underreported. The true figure could be 10 times as many, or more,"

the Guardian reported.
PRESS RELEASE

Italian Prime Minister visits U.S., Calls for New Peace of Westphalia in the Mediterranean

April 20, 2017 (EIRNS)Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni is on a three-day visit to the United States and Canada, where he will discuss issues concerning the coming G7 summit in Italy, and also especially the crisis in the Mediterranean region, with President Donald Trump.

In a speech at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies today, Gentiloni called for a new U.S.-Italian alliance for leadership in the Mediterranean, based on the spirit of a "sort of New Peace of Westphalia or Helsinki Agreements."

Italy has three priorities in the Mediterranean, Gentiloni said: 1) controlling the refugee flows, 2) stabilizing the situation and 3) defeating terrorism.

On the refugee flows, "The figures are impressive" he said, speaking in English.

"Around 500,000 migrants were saved from death at sea by the Italian Navy and Coast Guard and by European rescue teams over the last three years. This dramatic situation requires renewed efforts, in a short- and long-term perspective. Indeed, there is space for a more vigorous international engagement, based on a reinforced American and European (in particular, Italian) leadership, aimed at stabilizing the states of the Southern Mediterranean."

Next,

"Libya remains on top of our priorities. In this country where the mistakes of our past lack of vision have been more evident, the clearer should now be our common engagement. I deem that upholding joint Italy-U.S. leadership is not only an opportunity, but a political must.... An inclusive political process could safeguard the unity of the country to the benefit of all Libyans, as well as of the entire region."

Gentiloni concluded his speech by saying:

"We need to cooperate to contain conflicts and to better manage crises. At the same time, however, we should start working on the definition of a new order for this region, that exerts such a profound influence on global order. Some sort of new Peace of Westphalia or some sort of a Helsinki agreement for the Mediterranean have sometimes been suggested. The limits of tracing such ambitious historical parallelisms are evident. Nevertheless, I believe that the consciousness that should guide us in this process has very much in common with the spirit that led the way to ending the wars of religion in Europe and, during the last century, to overcoming the Cold War."

During the questin-and-answer period, Gentiloni paid lip service to EU-U.S. policies on sanctions and even on Trumps bombing of Syria, but when he was asked what suggestion he has for the United States, in view of Italys historically good relations with Russia, he said:

"Showing strength is necessary, but at the same time we have to engage Russia. To say that isolating Russia is productive is inaccurate. History shows that when Russia is attacked, it reacts with energy."

Gentiloni said we should study "the lesson of what happened in the 80s, with Ronald Reagan."
In The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, at No. 2 on the L.A. Times bestseller list, Lisa See tells the story of a mother in a remote Chinese village who must give up a child born out of wedlock, alongside the girls life after being adopted by an American couple. In this passage, Li-yan, from the Akha ethnic minority, brings her infant daughter to town.

I come to a tiny roadway that divides a block. Its also unpaved but empty of people and bicycles. I creep into the shadows and sit shielded by a discarded cardboard box with my back against the wall. From here, I can watch the street without being seen. Surely those people will need to sleep. I eat some rice balls, ration my water, and feed Yan-yeh again. I tell her everything I can about Akha Law, about her a-ma and a-ba, about the lineage, and what it will mean to become a woman one day. How I will always love her. How I will think of her every breathing minute of my life. I whisper endearments into her face, and she looks up at me in that penetrating way of hers. Her tiny hand grips my forefinger, searing my heart and scarring it forever.

Im awakened later  who knows how much time has passed?  by her mewling. I feel dawn coming in the quiet around me, but for now the night is still murky and dim. I must act now. Already tears pour from my eyes. I make sure her blanket is tight around her and the tea cake secure. I put her in the box. She doesnt cry.

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At the corner, I peer in both directions. To the left, in the distance, two women approach, sweeping the powdery dust from the surface of the dirt road with brooms made of long thatch  slowly from side to side, swish, swish, swish. I step out, turn right, and scuttle forward. I pass over two more streets, both deserted. All the while, Im whispering, Your a-ma loves you. Ill never forget you. I place the cardboard box on the steps of a building. No more words now. I must run, and I do  to the next corner, right, then right again, and to the next corner, so that Ive returned to the edge of the main street. The two sweepers come closer  swish, swish, swish. I dart across the road and hide on that side so I can see the abandoned cardboard box. Its sides tremble. My daughter must be moving, realizing Im gone. And then it comes  a terrible wail that cuts through the darkness.

The two sweepers look up from their work, cocking their ears like animals in the forest. And then another croaking shriek. The two women drop their brooms and come running. They dont notice me, but I see them clearly  two elders with faces like rotten loquats. They drop to their knees on either side of the box. I hear them clucking, concerned yet comforting. One picks up the baby; the other scans the street. I cant hear their conversation, but theyre decisive and knowing, as though theyve encountered this situation before. Without hesitation, they begin marching back the way they came, back toward me. I slither farther into the shadows. When they pass me, I watch them until they reach their discarded brooms and continue on. I leave the safety of my hiding place and follow, creeping from doorway to doorway. They arrive at a building I passed earlier right on this same main road. The woman holding Yan-yeh sways and pats her back. The other woman bangs on the door. Lights come on. The door cracks open. A few words are exchanged. My baby is handed over, the door closed, and the two old women walk back to their brooms. The sign on the door reads: Menghai Social Welfare Institute.

I stay until the sun comes up. Grocers set baskets brimming with vegetables on the sidewalk. Barbers open their doors. Children walk hand in hand to school. The door to the Menghai Social Welfare Institute remains closed. I cant stop crying, but theres nothing more I can do. I begin my long walk back up Nannuo Mountain. I only get lost a few times. When I feel I cant take another step, I venture into the forest. I fall asleep holding A-mas knife. The next day, by the time I reach my grove with the mother tree, where A-ma is waiting for me, Im empty of tears. From now on, I cannot  I must not  let anyone see my sorrow. The loneliness of that  like Im drowning 

See Lisa See at the L.A. Times Festival of Books at 11 a.m. Saturday on the panel Everybodys Got One: Fiction and Families. And find her other appearances on her website.

Excerpted from The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane.  2017 by Lisa See. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
I am the proud owner of a pair of $350 Bose QC 35 noise-canceling headphones, and I confess I love them. They sound great, and theyre very comfortable.

Their noise-canceling ability is effective enough on an airliner to eradicate the sound of engines, squalling babies, probably the tramp-tramp-tramp of storm troopers piling onto the plane to haul a passenger out of his seat to make room for a crew member, and perhaps even the sound of his screams as hes dragged down the aisle. (I may find out the next time I fly United.)

But according to a lawsuit filed this week by headphone owner Kyle Zak in Chicago federal court, my QC 35s also are enabling Bose to spy on me. Via a smartphone app, Bose can tell when Im using the device and the music Im playing through them. This is done through a smartphone app called Bose Connect, which the manufacturer encourages me, and all other owners, to download and install. Bose says the app is necessary to get the most out of your headphones, which is absolutely untrue.

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We may partner with certain third-parties to ... engage in analysis, auditing, research, and reporting.  Bose disclosure of data-tracking on its smartphone app

In fact, according to the lawsuit and the fine print that users typically skate over when installing and launching the app, its mostly useful for Bose.

Boses response to the lawsuit, emailed to me by a company spokeswoman, is both overwrought and suspiciously narrow. It calls Zaks allegations inflammatory and misleading, and adds as a message to customers: In the Bose Connect App, we dont wiretap your communications, we dont sell your information, and we dont use anything we collect to identify you  or anyone else  by name.

This statement obviously acknowledges that the app collects something, but doesnt say what. My request to Bose for details went unanswered. The statements reference to wiretapping is legalistic, since Zak filed his lawsuit under the federal Wiretap Act, but the actions he describes arent what most people think of as wiretapping.

Bose says it doesnt sell customers information, but the fine print in the app disclosures states, We may partner with certain third parties to collect user information and engage in analysis, auditing, research, and reporting. That sounds as though its placing a very precise definition on the word sell. Among the partners disclosed by Bose is a company called Segment, which as Zak states in his lawsuit, is a data-mining firm that helps companies collect and use customer information.

In other words, Bose doesnt deny collecting some of the information Zak names. Not only that, it even discloses this to users, if they bother to read the small print of the apps privacy policy. There it states that Bose claims the right to collect information about use of the app, as well as a variety of information about the mobile phone, tablet, or other device that you use to access the app, and can transmit the information to third parties.

From time to time, the policy says, Bose may share anonymized and aggregated information about app users.

The disclosure doesnt specify that the app collects information about the music files being heard through the phones, which is the crux of Zaks lawsuit. (He doesnt say what makes him think this is part of the information stream being collected.) Zak asserts that even a small amount of anonymized personal data can speak volumes about a user. For example, a person that listens to Muslim prayer services through his headphones or speakers is very likely a Muslim, a person that listens to the Ashamed, Confused, And In The Closet podcast is very likely a homosexual in need of a support system. Hes right.

Zaks lawsuit points to the growing privacy issues of the so-called Internet of Things: Our household devices are increasingly enabled to collect data about their surroundings, and us, and transmit it to manufacturers, service providers their commercial partners. These abilities are invariably portrayed as boons to the consumer, but more often than not theyre useless to anyone except the firms poised to exploit the information.

Its hopeless to look to government to put a leash on this activity, especially under the current political regime. Last month, the Republican Congress voted to scrap Internet privacy rules, which will allow Internet service providers to sell the personal data they collect about their customers  browsing habits, apps, their travels with mobile devices  to any other buyers, even without customer permission. President Trumps Federal Communications Commission, under its new chairman, Ajit Pai, is scrapping privacy protections instituted under his Democratic predecessor.

And thats leaving aside other known hazards of our Internet-connected devices, including their vulnerability to being hijacked by hackers and used for mischief or crime.

Lets be clear about a few things here. Theres absolutely no reason for Bose to collect any information whatsoever about users of its headphones or other devices. Most of what it claims to need pertains to its app, which isnt needed to use the headphones. Its disclosure policy says it may use its collected information to respond to subpoenas [or] court orders,  to investigate  illegal activities,  to facilitate the financing, securitization, insuring, sale  or other disposal of its business. Some of this is none of Boses business, and some of it is not the users problem.

As for the app, its one of the more underwhelming on my smartphone. It allows me to connect the headphones by Bluetooth to my phone, computer or music player and to adjust the volume, but buttons on the headphones do that. It tells me how much charge is left on the headphones, but a voice prompt does that every time I switch them on. Thats about it.

But the apps uselessness shows the best way to shut down Boses invasion of my privacy. As soon as I type the last word of this post, Im deleting it forever.

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.
No one is willing to swear that the lawsuit by 10 California cities and counties against three lead paint manufacturers is the longest-running litigation in the state courts.

They only know two things: that thousands of children are still being poisoned every year by deteriorating lead paint used in homes before 1980, and that the lawsuit to force the companies to pay for the cleanup has been in court for 17 years, with no end in sight.

Thats frustrating for public health officials, because lead poisoning is a major health threat to children. Even though lead paint was outlawed for residential use in the U.S. in 1978, the residue from its decades of use is today the primary source of child lead poisoning. Thats especially true in rental units in low-income neighborhoods where housing stock is poorly maintained, occupants dont have the resources for upkeep, and children can ingest paint chips and breathe in lead-contaminated dust.

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Aside from the kids that are poisoned ... its a serious problem from the viewpoint of adverse publicity.  Lead industry lobbyist Manfred Bowditch, lamenting reports of lead paint poisoning in 1956

Lead is common, the health problems it causes are severe, it affects children, and its preventable, says Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, the interim health officer and medical director for Los Angeles County. Its at the top of our list of environmental threats.

Although the rate of lead poisoning has come down sharply in recent years, more than 2,000 children still test positive for lead in their bloodstream each year in L.A. County. The actual number is almost certainly higher, because children arent routinely screened for lead unless theyre seen by a pediatrician. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 4 million American households have children exposed to high levels of lead.

The California lawsuit, which was originally filed in state court in Santa Clara in 2000, has become a symbol of the inability of the judicial system to meet an urgent social need. In January 2014, Judge James P. Kleinberg held three companies ConAgra Grocery Products Co., NL Industries and Sherwin-Williams Co.  liable for the costs of inspecting more than 3.5 million California homes and apartments and removing or abating residual lead hazards. That means painting over deteriorating surfaces and removing lead chips and dust, especially in units housing children.

Kleinberg assessed the companies $1.15 billion. Most of the money, $632.5 million, was designated for Los Angeles County, where the vast majority of suspect units are located.

The companies promptly appealed and filed briefs by early 2015, but there the matter has rested. The San Jose court hearing the appeal hasnt even set a date for oral arguments. In the meantime, not a dime has been paid.

The prospect of a billion-dollar fund to abate a known hazard beckoning just out of reach only heightens the frustration for medical authorities.

From our point of view, prevention is a simple solution, Gunzenhauser told me. Children who test positive for lead poisoning can be treated, he says, but why should we wait till children are sick and their growth is at risk because of lead? The funding ordered by Kleinberg would allow us to stop worrying about the treatment part and remove the problem up front.

The delay in resolving the lawsuit is partially due to a state law requiring appeals judges to rule on a case within 90 days of oral arguments. The law gives judges an incentive to defer a hearing until theyre almost ready to issue a decision. But the cities and counties have based their lawsuit on an unusual legal argument, which the manufacturers are determined to fight to the bitter end.

Instead of suing the paint manufacturers on product liability grounds, the cities and counties argued that the companies created a public nuisance. Thats a centuries-old legal doctrine, but one almost never invoked in a case like this. Often its used by municipalities to combat ongoing activities, such as a homeowner operating a crack house or a factory with noxious emissions, not to something that happened decades ago, says Sean Hecht, an environmental law expert at the UCLA law school.

Public nuisance law provides recourse against anyone who obstructs a public right, Hecht says. That language has never been construed in a case that looks just like this one. The question is whether its obstruction of a public right to have put lead paint on all these buildings. Although [this case] is much wider in scope than most public nuisance cases, theres an argument that its exactly the kind of thing that public nuisance law is meant to address.

Public nuisance claims against lead paint manufacturers have failed in other states. Rhode Island won a trial in 2006 against three manufacturers, including NL and Sherwin-Williams, but the verdict was overturned by the states supreme court.

The basis of the California lawsuit is that the defendant companies predecessors understood the health hazard of lead paint but nevertheless energetically promoted its use as a key to improving the durability and water-resistance of house paint. The dangers of lead had been known since antiquity, Judge Kleinberg observed, and as early as the 19th century manufacturers were taking steps to warn their own workers against breathing lead dust on the factory floor.

Articles warning about childrens propensity to gnaw on painted surfaces and become poisoned with lead were common in medical journals by the 1920s: A child lives in a lead world, advised a 1924 paper. By the 1930s, parents were warned to avoid using lead-based decorative materials in childrens nurseries and bedrooms.

Yet the industry kept advertising residential lead paint  Lead helps to guard your health, declared a 1923 magazine ad for Dutch Boy lead paint placed by National Lead Co., the precursor to NL Industries. Property owners  are using white-lead paint to prolong the lives of their houses.

Even once they began to acknowledge the dangers, the industry showed a disdain for the families, says Nancy Fineman, an attorney for the cities and counties. In a 1956 letter introduced in court, Manfred Bowditch, the director of health and safety for the Lead Industries Association, complained to an Interior Department official about a Parade Magazine article reporting on lead hazards in the home. While acknowledging that the article was mainly factual, he asserted that the problem was concentrated in the slums.

Aside from the kids that are poisoned, Bowditch wrote, its a serious problem from the viewpoint of adverse publicity. The basic solution is to get rid of our slums, but even Uncle Sam cant seem to swing that one. Next in importance is to educate the parents, but most of the cases are in Negro and Puerto Rican families, and how does one tackle that job?

Evidence of the danger lead exposure poses for young children has become more alarming over the years. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased setting minimum acceptable standards for childrens blood lead levels. That was based on scientific studies that couldnt identify any concentration that didnt have deleterious effects on childrens health. The only proper approach, the CDC said, is prevention to ensure that no children in the U.S. live in buildings with lead paint.

The defendants argue that such hazards werent known when residential lead paint was widely marketed. This is litigation by hindsight, says Antonio F. Dias, an attorney for Sherwin-Williams. Youre applying todays standards as if they existed in the early 1900s.

He says that the risks to factory workers cant be equated to those that developed decades later. ConAgra declined to comment on the case and a representative for NL Industries, now a holding company, could not be reached.

Workers were literally working in clouds of dust, Dias says. There is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that anyone knew of the risks associated with old, deteriorating lead-based paint. The paint industry learned of the dangers at the same time as the rest of the public in the 1940s, and then worked to develop alternatives, he says. There is not a shred of evidence that these companies ever concealed anything concerning the medical or health risks associated with lead paint.

Dias argues further that the problems presented by deteriorating lead paint is really one of housing code enforcement, which is a government responsibility. Theres a question of whether the state and local governments were doing enough to enforce the housing code, he says. The plaintiffs are going after the wrong targets, he says. If theres a public nuisance, shouldnt the property owners be looked at?

The scale of childhood lead poisoning remains dire, its victims facing lifetime consequences of stunted intellectual development as well as cardiovascular, immunological and endocrine problems. After 17 years, whether the public nuisance doctrine is adequate to meet their needs remains a question mark. But if not, what then?

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.
The nations biggest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, had a pretty good quarter, judging from the preening by its executives during a conference call with Wall Street analysts this week.

The company turned a profit of $2.2 billion on revenue of $48.7 billion for the quarter ended March 30. That was partially the result of the companys bailing out entirely on Affordable Care Act individual insurance exchanges, on which it was losing money.

Executives from Chief Executive Stephen Hemsley on down shed crocodile tears on the difficult decision to abandon the ACA, but they werent shy about proposing changes to the law that they think will make it better. Interestingly, every change they mentioned would make the ACA work a lot better for UnitedHealth, though not for its customers.

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This waiver is a pure wave-through. States can do what they want.  Health reform commentator Andrew Sprung

Even more interestingly, everything they mentioned has been made part of the Obamacare repeal package proposed by House Republicans and endorsed by President Trump. That includes the latest tweak, announced just this week, which would allow states effectively to eliminate protections for people with preexisting medical conditions. If you want to know why the Republicans are so assiduously pushing a package thats universally detested by members of the public, this may give you a clue: The big money is in favor.

Put simply, the GOP proposal is what health insurance policy would look like if it was written by people like Hemsley, who collected more than $41 million in pay from 2013 through 2015.

As we write, the prospects for the latest version of Obamacare repeal in the House are uncertain. No one has seen a formal draft, and a vote hasnt been scheduled. Still, the Republicans are under pressure from Trump to do something on the issue by his 100th day in office, the customary yardstick for a new administrations accomplishments since Franklin Roosevelts first term. For Trump, that day is Saturday, April 29.

UnitedHealths prescriptions for the ACA provide a textbook case of how a big corporation can see a public program entirely as a profit-maximizer for itself. The companys wish list was laid out by Hemsley and his team during the April 18 conference call. It can be found in greater detail in two manifestos appearing on the companys website, to which its PR department referred me. Theyre here and here.

The company is heavily in favor of Medicaid expansion, an ACA program from which it makes a ton of money  a profit margin of 3% to 5%, according to the conference call. It endorses expanding health savings accounts, which amount to a boon to the wealthy and a business in which UnitedHealth is a major player.

UnitedHealth advocates eliminating federally mandated essential health benefits and giving the states more authority to approve insurance plan designs. This would include restoring short-term and limited coverage policies, which were essentially outlawed by the ACA because so many of them proved to be overpriced junk insurance that left owners stranded when genuine medical needs cropped up.

UnitedHealth also proposes to strengthen and grow employer-sponsored insurance. UnitedHealth is a major player in this market, from which nearly half of all Americans get their health coverage. Healthcare experts, however, generally consider this system to be one of the major flaws in our healthcare system. Before the ACA, its what made millions of Americans vulnerable to losing their health insurance because they lost their job, and kept millions more locked into jobs they didnt like or that kept them from quitting to start their own entrepreneurial enterprises.

The ACA began the process of decoupling healthcare from employment, a good thing. UnitedHealth, which profits from this outdated system, wants to expand it.

UnitedHealths big cause is permanent elimination of the ACAs tax on health insurance companies, which was suspended for 2017 at a cost to the government of nearly $14 billion. The company says the tax, which helps to fund government subsidies for insurance buyers, drives up premiums. But the company must really be concerned that it couldnt pass it all through to consumers, or it wouldnt be so anxious to kill it. In any event, UnitedHealth doesnt have any proposal for making up the tax revenues from other sources, so obviously it doesnt care all that much about the subsidies that make policies on the individual exchanges affordable for middle- and working-class families.

As I reported earlier, the Republicans Obamacare repeal proposal would throw 24 million people in the individual market off their health insurance and drive up costs for millions more. Further negotiations made the package even worse, by including a proposal that would eviscerate consumer protections and all but eliminate the safeguards guaranteeing coverage for people with preexisting medical conditions. These features contributed to the collapse of the repeal effort in the House in March.

Since then, Trump has pressured the House Republicans to try again. During the most recent congressional recess, they came up with an additional provision they hope will please right-wingers and moderates in their caucus. This one would maintain the ACAs list of 10 essential health benefits at the federal level, but allow states to apply for a waiver to amend the list and restore permission for medical underwriting  that is, rejecting or surcharging people with medical histories.

As Ive reported many times, this effectively would return the health insurance market to the dire days before the ACA, when Americans could be refused coverage not only if they had had cancer, a heart condition or diabetes, but even a history of hay fever or hives. The 2011 guidelines from Blue Shield of California telling its underwriters when to jack up the premiums for applicants or reject them outright ran to 25 pages of fine print. Insurers kept lists of hobbies and occupations warranting rejection, such as pilots, meat packers, taxi drivers and scuba divers.

The new proposal, fashioned by moderate Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), head of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, would allow states to obtain a waiver allowing them to pare the ACAs 10 essential benefits and to charge people with preexisting conditions higher rates. Those buyers couldnt be refused insurance, but obviously they could be priced out of the market, which is the same thing.

The prerequisites for getting the waiver, moreover, are very loose. Under the existing ACA, states can apply for innovation waivers starting this year, allowing them to tinker with the ACA rules only if they can show that the changes will provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and affordable as that under the ACA and that they wont result in anyones losing coverage.

The proposed new language requires only that the state attest that the purpose of their requested waiver is to reduce premium costs, increase the number of persons with healthcare coverage, or advance another benefit to the public interest in the state. Those are loopholes big enough to drive a careening ambulance through.

This waiver is a pure wave-through, writes health reform commentator Andrew Sprung. States can do what they want. Judging from the rhetoric in many Republican-led states, you can expect them to eliminate maternity benefits, allow excessive surcharges for a huge number of medical conditions, and allow the sale of policies that may not cover hospitalization or preventive care.

Over at UnitedHealth, the idea of giving states this kind of authority is all to the good.

The company praises state-based Health Care Markets by asserting that theyre flexible and coherent and provide more choice, and are able to respond to the specific circumstances and needs of the States communities.

Is that so? Lets check this by examining a public program that is largely under states control: traditional Medicaid. The federal government provides 50% to 75% of the cost of this program, with higher percentages going to states with lower per-capita incomes. But the states have the option to set their own eligibility standards, so we can judge how well they do in meeting their residents specific circumstances and needs.

Some do OK, some do terribly. Some cover parents and non-parent adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, which would be $16,643 in annual income for an individual; these are states that agreed to expand Medicaid under the ACA. Most non-expansion states dont cover childless adults at all.

For parents, eligibility limits are all over the map. California and 28 other states cover parents with income up to 138% of the poverty line (that would be $28,180 for a family of three). In Florida, the cutoff is $6,738 for that three-person family. In Alabama and Texas, Medicaid eligibility stops at annual household income of $3,676. Raise your hand if you think that Alabama and Texas cover the needs of their needy residents as well as those other states. Anyone?

By the way, Alabamas refusal to accept Medicaid expansion left 435,000 of its residents without health insurance and will mean giving up more than $14 billion in federal funding over 10 years.

Ive raised the issue before of whether corporations in the healthcare field have a greater duty to their communities than just pocketing as much money as they can, much of it from public sources. UnitedHealths Hemsley plainly doesnt see it that way. But thats an argument in favor of playing hardball with companies that cherry-pick which public programs theyll work with, and which theyll shun.

Heres a suggestion: If UnitedHealth wants to to play in the lucrative sandbox of Medicaid, it should be required also to participate in the ACA exchanges. It might not make as lavish a profit as it did this quarter, but by all indications it would still be in the black  the company said it expected to lose $500 million on the exchanges in 2016, a year in which it recorded $7 billion in profits. Its participation would help stabilize the exchanges so they actually could become profitable for all participating firms.

For all that congressional Republicans pay lip service to the need to stabilize the individual market so that its millions of enrollees arent left without affordable coverage, theyve never even mentioned this option. Every proposal theyve set forth would make the American healthcare system immeasurably worse for its users, though immeasurably more profitable for its insurers. Is that really the goal?

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.

MORE FROM MICHAEL HILTZIK:

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Womens apparel retailer Bebe Stores Inc. said its closing its remaining 168 stores, the latest in a string of retailers shutting physical outlets.

Bebe said it expects to close all of the stores by the end of May, according to a filing the Brisbane, Calif., firm made this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The firm already had trimmed its store count to cut costs, and had said last month that it still had 134 Bebe stores in 31 states, Puerto Rico and Canada along with 34 Bebe outlet stores.

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Bebes website lists 33 locations in California, seven of them outlet stores.

The store closures mean roughly 700 job losses in California, according to so-called WARN notices of impending layoffs filed with the state government.

Bebe also sells merchandise through its website, and the company did not indicate in its SEC filing that it has any plans to cease its online operations. A spokesperson for the company could not be reached for comment.

Shares of Bebe rose 6.4% to close at $4. Two years ago, the shares traded for more than $30.

The chain specializes in what it calls unique, sophisticated and timelessly sexy contemporary clothing, and its velour tracksuits and tops with bebe printed in studded rhinestones once helped give it a popular cachet.

But its stores have struggled with competition not only from e-commerce but also from the likes of fast-fashion retailers Zara, owned by Inditex of Spain, and H&M Hennes & Mauritz of Sweden.

Bebe lost $13 million in the six months that ended Dec. 31, the first half of its fiscal year, as its sales fell to $189.2 million, down 13.5% from the same period a year earlier. Its comparable sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, fell 7.4% from a year earlier.

Other apparel retailers that have announced store closures in recent months include American Apparel Inc., Limited Stores Co. and Wet Seal. Footwear seller Payless ShoeSource Inc. recently said it plans to close about 400 underperforming stores, including 30 in Southern California.

james.peltz@latimes.com

Twitter: @PeltzLATimes
The Trump administration has denied a request from Exxon Mobil Corp. to waive U.S. sanctions against Russia to allow the company to resume oil drilling around the Black Sea.

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said Friday in a brief statement that the administration will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions.

Exxon said it understood the decision, while suggesting that the outcome will merely help European oil companies operating under less-stringent restrictions.

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The decision comes two days after the news that the energy giant was seeking a waiver to resume a joint venture with Rosneft, a Russian state-owned oil company.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon Mobils chief executive before joining President Trumps Cabinet. While at the company, he cultivated close ties with Rosneft and Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin, and he spoke against sanctions that were imposed in 2014 in response to Russias annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The sanctions bar U.S. oil companies from transferring to Russia the advanced technology that is used to drill more efficiently offshore and in shale formations. Exxon Mobil has said in regulatory filings that the sanctions could lead to losses of up to $1 billion.

The Irving, Texas-based company has disclosed receiving three waivers from the sanctions during the Obama administration for limited work with Rosneft. The company applied in 2015 for a waiver to allow Black Sea drilling, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously because the process is confidential.

Exxon Mobils critics urged the Treasury Department to block more waivers, which they feared would give new momentum to drilling in the environmentally sensitive Russian Arctic.

Shares of Exxon Mobil fell 0.4% to $80.69 on Friday.

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President Trump, who has vowed to dismantle the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law, took aim at two of its pillars Friday.

During an appearance at the Treasury Department, Trump signed two presidential memos ordering six-month reviews of the 2010 laws authority for regulators to designate large firms as a risk to the financial system and to try to shut them down with minimal collateral damage if theyre on the verge of failing, the White House said.

Although the regulations were designed to end the problem of too-big-to-fail banks, Republicans have complained they do the opposite because the government would still step in rather than let a firm fall into bankruptcy.

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These regulations enshrine too-big-to-fail and encourage risky behavior, Trump said.

Trump also signed an executive order directing Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin to review significant changes to the tax code since the start of 2016 to determine whether they impose an undue financial burden on American taxpayers, add undue complexity or exceed statutory authority, the White House said.

That review will include rules enacted by the Obama administration to crack down on so-called inversions in which companies shift their headquarters abroad to reduce their U.S. tax bills, Mnuchin told reporters Friday.

But while inversions are one of the significant things to be looked at, the review will be broad, he said.

I think everyone would agree the tax system is way too complicated and burdensome, Mnuchin said.

Trump also said he would have a big announcement on tax reform on Wednesday. He provided no details during his Treasury appearance, but earlier Friday told the Associated Press that his proposal would contain a massive tax cut for businesses and individuals.

Like other Trump executive actions, Fridays orders simply direct Cabinet-level reviews and dont make any substantive changes in federal policy. In the case of Dodd-Frank, Trump already ordered the Treasury Department in early February to consult with regulators on a review of the entire law and report back in four months.

The purpose of the orders is to make clear what the presidents and the administrations priorities are and to signify the importance of these issues to the American people, Mnuchin told reporters Friday .

Trump is turning his attention to financial reform again as a top House Republican this week unveiled the latest version of legislation to replace Dodd-Frank, which was enacted in the wake of the financial crisis.

One of President Obamas signature accomplishments, Dodd-Frank was enacted with almost no Republican support. GOP lawmakers have criticized it as too heavy-handed and have sought major changes.

The legislation toughened bank regulations, sought to avoid future bailouts by creating a process to shut down teetering financial giants, established a powerful panel of regulators to watch for signs of instability and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to oversee credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) criticized Trumps efforts to change the law.

Any actions to undermine these protections encourage Wall Streets risky behavior and leave taxpayers and our economy exposed to another catastrophe, Brown said.

On Friday, Trump made the short walk from the White House to the Treasury Department for the first time since taking office to sign executive memos targeting two specific provisions about which Republicans have complained.

The first memo directs Mnuchin to review the laws orderly-liquidation authority and determine whether making changes to bankruptcy law would be a superior alternative to resolve failing financial companies.

A key trigger to the 2008 financial crisis was the bankruptcy filing of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Bros. in September of that year, which threw financial markets into chaos.

Under the liquidation authority, regulators would safely shut down a major financial firm in the same way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. winds down failing banks.

Republicans have complained the process could be similar to a bailout because it saves financial firms from bankruptcy, therefore encouraging them to engage in speculative behavior. Trumps order directs Mnuchin to determine whether the authority could lead to costs for the Treasury, and hence to taxpayers.

President Trump is absolutely committed to make sure taxpayers are not at risk for government bailouts of entities that are too big to fail, Mnuchin told reporters.

If regulators liquidation authority were to be repealed, the move would have to be accompanied by revisions to bankruptcy laws, Mnuchin said.

The bankruptcy code right now doesnt work, so if entities were going to go through bankruptcy, I think its important that we have necessary changes to the bankruptcy code, Mnuchin said.

The second memo focuses on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a panel of top regulators created by Dodd-Frank.

The council has the authority to designate some non-banks as systemically important financial institutions, which face tougher oversight. Banks with more than $50 billion in assets are automatically designated as systemically important.

The memo directs Mnuchin to assess the councils designation process and the risks created by such designations.

Some lawmakers have wanted the $50-billion level raised so only the biggest banks receive the designation, and have complained that the designation process for non-banks is flawed.

Insurance company MetLife Inc. was designated systemically important in 2014 and sued to have the tag rescinded. A federal judge sided with MetLife last year, but the Obama administration appealed the case.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, this week released an updated version of his legislation to replace Dodd-Frank.

The bill, called the Financial Choice Act, repeals the orderly-liquidation authority and replaces it with a new bankruptcy process for financial firms with assets of more than $50 billion. The legislation also repeals the Financial Stability Oversight Councils authority to designate firms as systemically important.

Mnuchin said the administration has been working closely with Hensarling but did not say whether it supported the legislation.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

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UPDATES:

12:30 p.m.: This article was updated with President Trump signing the orders and with comments from Trump and additional comments from Treasury Secretary Steven M. Mnuchin.

11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from Sen. Sherrod Brown.

9:30 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

7:20 a.m.: This article was updated with details about Rep. Jeb Hensarlings Dodd-Frank replacement bill.

This article was originally published at 5:35 a.m.
Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to boost its payout in a class-action settlement over unauthorized accounts to $142 million, up from the $110 million it announced just three weeks ago, according to documents filed late Thursday.

The scandal-rocked bank agreed to the larger settlement after an internal report released last week showed that bank officials knew about unethical sales practices  including the creation of debit cards without customers authorization  as early as 2002.

The settlement as proposed last month would have covered customers who had unauthorized accounts opened for them in 2009 or later. Now the bank has added $32 million to the pot and agreed to pay customers affected by that practice going back to May 2002. A federal judge must still sign off on the deal.

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Settlement documents filed in federal court in San Francisco late Thursday did not make clear how many customers may be eligible for the settlement or how many additional customers will be eligible because of the extension. The documents outline a process for how affected customers can make a claim for compensation, so the number of eligible settlement participants may grow.

The bank has said up to 2.1 million unauthorized checking, savings and other accounts were created, but that figure includes multiple accounts created for some individual customers.

Tim Sloan, the banks chief executive, said the expansion of the agreement was an important step to make things right for our customers.

On our journey to rebuild trust, we want to ensure our customers feel confident that we have heard their concerns about retail sales practices, which includes offering them numerous opportunities for remediation, he said in a statement released Friday.

But consumer advocates and attorneys for other Wells Fargo customers say the revised settlement still isnt enough.

A class-action settlement has to be big enough to punish them. I think, given the scale of the crime, the way they abused the public trust, it should be a bigger number, said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. For the amount of hassle and the amount of outrage Wells Fargo caused, theyre getting off cheap.

The banks agreement to the new terms comes just ahead of the companys annual shareholder meeting, which is to be held at a Florida resort on Tuesday.

Investment advisory groups and Californias state treasurer have called on investors to vote against many of the companys board members to chide them for lax oversight of the bank in the years leading up the the scandal.

The proposed settlement is the result of negotiations between Wells Fargo and attorneys at Seattle law firm Keller Rohrback, who represent a handful of bank customers from across the country.

In that case, filed two years ago in federal court in San Francisco, plaintiffs alleged that bank workers, driven by onerous sales goals, opened accounts for customers without authorization  precisely the kind of conduct that the Los Angeles Times first reported in 2013 and that Wells Fargo has since admitted to.

The $142-million settlement calls for making different kinds of payments to customers depending on how they were affected by the unauthorized accounts.

Customers who paid fees related to the accounts would get refunds, but only if they havent received refunds already. Customers who say their credit was damaged by unauthorized accounts  either by unwanted credit inquiries or by debts caused by hidden fees  would be paid back for added costs, a process that will involve checking customer credit scores.

Customers will have to show that their credit was harmed and they took out a loan at a higher interest rate to be eligible for repayment of the extra costs.

Any settlement funds left over after refunds and credit-related payments will be split up among eligible customers, based on the number of unauthorized accounts they had.

The settlement would put an end to the 2015 lawsuit, Jabbari et al vs. Wells Fargo & Co., but would apply to all customers who had unauthorized accounts opened in their name.

That means the settlement, if approved by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, would effectively put an end to nearly a dozen similar cases filed across the country in the months after the banks misdeeds came to light last year.

Now that the settlement plan has been filed, attorneys representing plaintiffs in other cases can have until May 4 to voice their support or opposition to the proposed deal. A hearing on the proposal is scheduled for May 18.

Last month, some attorneys said they would object, saying the original $110 million Wells Fargo agreed to pay was too low and that customers could get a better deal if they continued to fight the bank in court. That argument could continue, even with the larger settlement sum.

Christopher Hood, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney who is representing plaintiffs in two federal cases against the bank, said Friday he was still reviewing the new settlement proposal. He said that its impossible to know whether this amounts to a good deal because its not clear how many customers will be compensated or how much they will get.

Its conspicuous that they still dont know or wont say how many members of the class there are, Hood said.

Mierzwinski agreed, and noted that the settlement amount was increased because of new information that was recently released in the banks internal report.

With several federal and state agencies  including the U.S. Department of Justice and the California attorney generals office  still investigating the bank, Mierzwinksi said its possible that more information could come out that would push the bank to go still higher.

We shouldnt close the door this soon for this little, he said.

Customers so far have had limited success in suing the bank. When customers open Wells Fargo accounts, they sign a contract that requires customers to settle disputes with the bank in private arbitration rather than in court.

Chhabria and some state court judges have ruled that those arbitration agreements mean that customers must go to arbitration, even if they allege the bank created unauthorized accounts in their name.

Despite that, attorneys in other jurisdictions say they believe their cases might be allowed to proceed in court rather than being pushed into arbitration.

Attorneys at Keller Rohrback addressed that issue in Thursdays filing, saying that the odds of any court case being allowed to proceed is low and that the settlement represents the best deal bank customers are likely to get.

james.koren@latimes.com

Twitter: @jrkoren

UPDATES:

12:10 p.m.: This article was updated with more details from the proposed settlement and comments from attorney Christopher Hood and Ed Mierzwinski of the U.S. Public Interest Group.

6:45 a.m.: This article was updated with an estimate of the number of sham accounts created by the bank.

6:25 a.m.: This article was updated with a statement from Wells Fargo Chief Executive Tim Sloan.

This article was originally published at 6:20 a.m.
Daniel Levine paid $5,000 to the dating service Master Matchmakers to help him find true love. Now, instead of a soul mate, he has a sworn enemy in the form of the companys chief executive, Steven Ward.

After speaking with them both, Im not hopeful this relationship can be saved. But there are still lessons to be learned for the rest of us.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

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May 11, 2017: This column advised consumers to watch for provisions in contracts that limit the ability to resolve disputes, such as language that prevents suing or joining class-action lawsuits. The company in the column, Master Matchmakers, did not include a class-action waiver in its contract, though it did include limits on damages that may be recovered. Also, the column said that after customer Daniel Levine posted negative reviews on Google and Yelp, Master Matchmakers CEO Steven Ward responded by posting a review of Levine on the Yelp page for Levines employer, Top Dog Solutions. That company lists Levine as vice president of operations and his father as president and chief executive.

------------

Levines and Wards spat illustrates the frequently toxic nature of negative online reviews, especially for small businesses, as well as the danger of cyberbullying in the form of retaliatory posts from businesspeople who feel they were unfairly criticized.

It also highlights so-called non-disparagement clauses  provisions that increasingly cropped up in consumer contracts in recent years that forbid people from saying bad things about a company, including on review sites such as Yelp.

Companies that try to include these clauses in their terms are predicting that their customers will be unhappy and will bad-mouth their services, said Emily Rusch, executive director of the California Public Interest Research Group. They should instead focus on making sure consumers are satisfied with their services.

As of this week, Master Matchmakers had such a clause in its terms of service, leaving Levine with the impression that he could be targeted with a lawsuit for breach of contract.

Its been very stressful, he told me. I dont want to be sued. But I feel like if I let them push me around, theyll just get away with doing it to others.

Ward, for his part, countered that if we caved every time someone threatened to bad-mouth our business, we wouldnt be in business.

Im the victim here, he insisted.

As it happens, a new federal law, the Consumer Review Fairness Act, took effect last month. According to the Federal Trade Commission, it protects peoples ability to share their honest opinions about a businesss products, services, or conduct, in any forum, including social media.

In other words, a company cant stop you from expressing yourself on Yelp or any other venue.

But there are gray areas. For example, the law doesnt give carte blanche to post opinions that are harassing or abusive in nature, or that are clearly false or misleading.

The FTC says the wisest policy for businesses is to let people speak honestly about your products and their experience with your company.

Levine, 37, told me he wanted to find a woman whos Jewish, politically liberal, college-educated, cute and preferably not taller than him (hes 5 foot 8). She also should live near Boston, where he works for a software company.

He said he decided to splurge on Florida-based Master Matchmakers because he knew he was being picky and figured a professional cupid might be able to expedite the process.

The first woman Levine was introduced to last summer lived in New York, not Boston, so that was a thing. He said the second woman he met, several months later, was very politically conservative.

A third woman who never got beyond the phone-call stage was conservative and didnt have a college degree. A fourth match proposed by Ward wasnt Jewish.

Levine had reason to think he wasnt getting his moneys worth.

Ward, 36, currently resides in Santa Monica, where hes overseeing development of an app called Love Lab and preparing to wed his fiancee. He used to host a reality show on VH1 called Tough Love.

Ward told Levine by email that he could be in for a long wait for lamour if he didnt display some flexibility, particularly on the question of height. Nearly all his female clients prefer a man taller than 5 foot 9, he said.

Levine responded by hiring a lawyer and demanding a refund of his five thousand bucks.

I would have walked away with even a partial refund, he said. But Ward just wasnt willing to negotiate.

Levine also turned to Google and Yelp. He posted reviews saying that Master Matchmakers takes advantage of people, offering a service they do not perform.

Ward responded by posting a review of Levine on the Yelp page for Levines employer. It accused Levine of being an unscrupulous businessperson who has maligned my business for personal gain just to extort money from me.

This is whats known as irreconcilable differences.

Online reviews are blunt instruments, and businesses would be smart to do everything possible to avoid bad customer experiences.

Im not telling Ward how he should run his company, but Im figuring its cheaper over the long haul to offer a partial refund to anyone who looks like theyre going to be impossible to please  especially when that person doesnt hesitate to lawyer up.

Meanwhile, Ward took a big risk by including a non-disparagement clause in his contract even as the Consumer Review Fairness Act came into force. Prior to the new law, he was just being sneaky and unfair, preventing clients from criticizing him or his firm. Now he faces a possibility of financial penalties.

He also did himself no favors by publicly attacking the integrity of a client. Master Matchmakers contract says the client can get all his or her money back if the company engages in willful misconduct.

Im no lawyer, but Ward seems to have nudged right up against that line by impugning Levines business ethics and accusing him of extortion.

If nothing else, this whole sorry mess drives home the importance of reading contracts and fine print. I know, I know: Nobody does this. Levine admitted he didnt read the contract when he signed up for Master Matchmakers.

But taking a little extra time to see what youre agreeing to can avoid trouble down the road. If you see a non-disparagement clause, walk away. That company may be a lawbreaker. Also watch for provisions that limit your ability to resolve disputes, such as language that prevents you from suing or joining class-action lawsuits.

And above all, remember that dating services arent for everyone. Some matchmakers may not always have the magic touch, while people who are rigid about their romantic expectations probably will be frustrated.

Daniel, Steve  get over here you two. Lets hug it out.

David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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That ever-present real estate breed, the home flipper, has spawned a new progeny: flipsters, or hipsters who flip homes  often to a hipster market.

If you picture millennial flippers wearing flannel and pork pie hats as they peer through ironic eyewear at fixer-uppers, that might be a fairly accurate  if stereotypical  summation of the group thats finding its niche in real estate.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said Thomas Bayles previously worked as a loan officer. He still works as a loan officer.

Paul Habibi, a professor at UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, said hes seeing a growing number of flipsters.

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In my classes, I always talk about eating your own cooking, Habibi said. Its easier to design something thats palatable to both you and the end user. Hipsters know what other hipsters like best.

Think of hipsters as updated 1940s hepcats or 50s beatniks: youth who favor a style and sensibility found outside the cultural mainstream (stereotypically beards, obscure music and bicycles in car-smitten Los Angeles).

Since 2013, Alan Quach, 28, has flipped about a dozen homes in the L.A. area with his high school friend Thomas Bayles, 30. Their flips take from four to six months to complete, with sale prices ranging from $750,000 to $2.4 million.

The duos home buyers are all millennials, said Quach, qualifying his team as purebred flipsters.

Quach in the Neal Drive property. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Though Quach, whose success with Bayles now includes new builds as part of their company, Urban Asset Group, notes: I wouldnt say Im hip.

These flipsters  who also include older flippers who deal in hipster-centric neighborhoods  are rousing todays market with more than a cheeky name. Theres a flipster aesthetic that begins with a homes (literally) flipped fence. Instead of a traditional vertical fence, flipsters are said to favor horizontal board fences that boldly box in frontyards.

That immediately identifies a house  OK, someone has come in and hipsterized this, said David Raposa, who heads Los Angeles-based City Living Realty. Its a way for flipsters to put their stamp on a house, a kind of advertisement for buyers who can then expect an upgraded, hip house.

Flipster Sheena Schwartz has put in three horizontal fences out of the four homes she has flipped that included new fences. I like the continual clean, crisp line, said Baldwin Vista-based Schwartz, who began flipping in 2014.

Schwartz, 36, has flipped five homes; her just-sold 1920s Spanish Jefferson Park flip is her biggest success to date. She bought the home last June as a duplex for $490,000, invested $200,000 in converting the property into a single-family 2,200-square foot residence and sold it for $940,000.

In my opinion, it was uninhabitable, Schwartz said of the duplex, citing an aboveground sewer pipe that traversed the backyard to an illegal bathroom. She tore that out, along with interior walls, gracing the new home with an organic modern look that blends pervasive white interiors with warmer wood accents.

Quach and Bayles favor a transitional style (sans the flipster fence), blending elements of super-modern, contemporary and traditional in their flips.

All three flipsters source their looks through Pinterest boards and home design sites. Designs are skillfully executed by trusted contractors  Quach quickly burned through his first contractor and needed to redo some features. You learn by making mistakes, he said. At first it was trial by fire.

The trio of flipsters borrowed money from family for their initial flips, covering 20% of total costs; theyve used hard-money loans for the bulk of financing.

Excellent industry networks help the flipsters lure cash-rich young buyers.

Schwartz got her start in late 2010 scraping paint off windows for a real estate developer. She became a flip project manager within six months. Bayles is a loan officer who is well-connected to Realtors, which helped him and Quach launch Urban Asset Group.

And, of course, flipsters have plenty to work with in Southern California.

Flipsters, and their hipster clientele, key to locales where they can find stocks of older, cheaper homes in highly urban areas  perfect for young buyers who disdain long commutes. Those neighborhoods include among others: West Adams, Mid-City, Baldwin Hills, Jefferson Park, Baldwin Hills, Atwater Village, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Chesterfield Square, Historic Filipinotown and Vermont Knolls.

hotproperty@latimes.com

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Caitlyn Jenner memoirs version of life with Kris Jenner creates a new rift in the family

(Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images)

As Caitlyn Jenners just-published memoir The Secrets of My Life pulls back the curtain on her gender transition and her life among the Kardashians, not everybody is taking it well.

Especially not Kris Jenner.

Details about the Olympian-turned-reality-stars decision to transition in 2015 from Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner and confirmation that she had her final gender reassignment surgery are all in the book, but some dishy material about the Kardashian matriarch is reverberating with fans and upsetting the reigning first family of reality TV.

The memoir, co-written by Buzz Bissinger, who penned the Vanity Fair article that introduced Caitlyn Jenner to the masses, has some kind words for the momager, including admiration for Kris connections, her business acumen and her ability to perfectly apply lip liner without a mirror.

However, Caitlyn also said in the book that she told Kris about her gender issues before they got married and said Kris knew that for 4 years before they met, Caitlyn had been on hormones. Additionally, Caitlyn wrote that she told Kris about her gender problems before they would make love.

I told her there had been a woman inside me all my life, she wrote.

The couple announced their split in 2013 and finalized their divorce in 2014. During their decades-long union, Caitlyn cross-dressed in front of her ex but was asked by Kris to do it only while traveling, so that their children wouldnt get wind of it. It was something Caitlyn grew to resent, she said, and she would steal her wifes gowns and purses to wear while traveling. (Their differing takes on their marital woes have been a topic of discussion for years.)

In a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kris fumed with anger about passages in The Secrets of My Life that claimed she knew Caitlyn was transgender before they wed.

None of it makes sense,Kris said to daughters Khloe and Kim Kardashian. I read it and basically the only nice thing she had to say was that I was great socially at a party one time. ... Everything she says is all made up. Why does everything have to be that Kris is such a bitch?

She added: Ive never been so angry and disappointed in somebody in my whole life.

In response, the Olympic gold medalist said on Good Morning America that the book is extraordinarily honest.

It is my perspective, and obviously when you do a book like that, there are different opinions. I have a lot of friends that know the truth and know what Ive been through and know the whole situation, Caitlyn said.

She told Andy Cohen that in the wake of publishing, Kris said she didnt want to talk to Caitlyn ever again. (Caitlyn also elaborated on her claims that she was a punching bag on the show and a revelation that Kris had been in charge of her finances.)

Honestly, I never had a low point [while doing the show], actually, until the other day when Kris said some of that stuff. It was the first time I was really upset, she said. I had some of the best conversations with my children on that show. ... It forces you to deal with issues. ... It forces you to sit down with your kids and deal with a lot of things.

Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenners second-born child with the late Robert Kardashian, shared her thoughts on the feud on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in an episode that aired Thursday.

My heart breaks for my mom, you know, because I feel like shes been through so much and [Caitlyn is] promoting this book and shes saying all these things, Kardashian said. I just dont think its necessary and I just feel like its unfair. Things arent truthful.

Kardashian said Caitlyn was dishonest with certain things about Kris in the book.

I feel like its taken [Caitlyn] a really long time to be honest with herself, so I dont expect her to be honest about my mom now. But its just so hurtful, she said. I wish her all the success in the world, but not at our expense.

Kardashian said she and husband Kanye West have been avid supporters of Caitlyn Jenners transition and wanted to remain respectful of her, but thought there was no need to bash the family. She said she was hurt by her stepfather, whos dad to her half-sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and hasnt spoken to Caitlyn in a few weeks.

Kendall and Kylie, thats their dad and I think my moms been so respectful for so long and always wanting Caitlyn around and always wanting to have a great relationship with Caitlyn, Kardashian said. But that doesnt appear to be the case for the rest of the Kardashian brood.

Ill always love her. That was my stepdad for so many years. She taught me about character and so much growing up and I just feel like I dont respect the character that shes showing now.

Kim Kardashians younger sister, Khloe Kardashian, is also taking it a little tough, Caitlyn said at a book signing, according to RadarOnline. Everyone on the Jenner side is fine. All this stuff tends to work itself out!

Someone call Ryan Murphy, because this needs to be turned into a Feud series, stat.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

April 27, 3:31 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner finalized their divorce in 2013. They divorced in 2014.

------------
In the Martin Scorsese-produced shoot em up Free Fire, South African actor Sharlto Copley plays Vern, a narcissistic gunrunner in a polyester suit whos prone to a certain behavioral grandiloquence. He describes himself as a rare and mysterious pearl but cant shoot a gun to save his life; hes revealed to be a misdiagnosed child genius but never recovered from discovering his brilliance lacks any basis in truth.

Its a baroque characterization  all antic energy and adenoidal line readings  that allows Copley to steal just about every scene hes in. Which is no small feat considering Free Fires ensemble cast is rounded out by Oscar-winner Brie Larson and Armie Hammer (as a studly stoner) and offers determinedly demented performances by British actors Sam Riley and Babou Ceesay  all amid a cartoonish crime tableau where the sense of suspense comes from just how many bullets the characters can pump into one another before finally bleeding out.

Copley explains his objective in Free Fire, opening Friday, wasnt to keep it real so much as surreal.

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With the Vern character, I thought, Can I pitch the voice that way? Is the voice going to annoy the  out of people? the actor says, seated on the patio of a Beverly Hills hotel restaurant. Is the audience going to go, That was funny for the first minute. Now please shoot him and shut him up!

Sharlto Copley, pointing, in the shoot em up Free Fire, with from left, Babou Ceesay, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer and Noah Taylor. (Kerry Brown / Associated Press)

Copley, though, isnt the sort of actor who plays things safe. Its not for everyone, he says. When you take a strong position as an actor, its risky. It is what you might call scene-stealing or chewing the scenery. But thats my instinct: to do the thing Id like to watch on-screen.

Eight years into what can fairly be called an accidental movie star career, the 43-year-old has built a bizarre yet fascinating filmography by gnawing off sizable chunks of Hollywood scenery and chewing them to smithereens. With his natural talent for accents, implacable joie de vivre, gonzo skill at improvising dialogue and bottomless capacity to change his appearance from role to role, Copley is becoming increasingly well-known for his self-styled, sui generis screen presence. One that can bring to mind Crispin Glover or John Malkovich or Jeff Goldblum in the performances proud eccentricity.

Which makes it all the more surprising to discover, then, that Copley had barely contemplated acting when he was cast in his debut movie, 2009s documentary style sci-fi thriller District 9. At the time, the Pretoria native had his sights set on becoming a media maverick, operating a film and TV production company while trying to set up ETV, what Copley describes as South Africas first national, free-to-air terrestrial TV channel.

He fluked into the role when writer-director Neill Blomkamp  a Johannesburg school friend and filmmaking collaborator  asked Copley to appear as a bumbling Afrikaner bureaucrat in a 10-minute test film he intended to show Hobbit and Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. In the short, Blomkamp was pursuing the kind of lo-fi, found footage aesthetic that eventually found its way into District 9, which Jackson ended up producing.

Sharl was always this guy who was extremely overt and larger than life and very funny. He also could create characters very easily even though acting was never on his radar, Blomkamp says. Being a personality was on his radar. When he was starting his TV station, one of the shows was like Punkd. He was the guy who would manipulate people and mess with them. But that was in the greater goal of becoming a writer-producer-director.

Despite that lack of acting bona fides, the test footage persuaded Blomkamp and Jackson that Copley could carry the $30-million Sony film. And D9, of course, went on to become a surprise smash, grossing $210 million worldwide and earning four Academy Award nominations including best picture. You could imagine the conversations Neill must have had when he said, I want to cast my buddy from South Africa, Copley says, growing wide-eyed at the memory. What has he done? Well, hes not really an actor. And hes going to make up the dialogue. Its impossible! I didnt even know I could do it!

Since then, the actor has gone on to rack up memorable performances in a dozen-odd films. Appearing alongside Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson as the mentally unstable Capt. James Howling Mad Murdock in Foxs 2010 A-Team movie adaptation, Copley adopts a drawling Southern accent and attempts to use a defibrillator to jump-start a car engine. Thats one of my favorite all-time characters, an absolute essential part of being able to work in Hollywood, he says. After District 9, my agents were very quick to set up that meeting saying, Look, he isnt the bureaucrat guy. But people thought, Hes not an actor. This is him. I got that a lot.

Playing a psychotic baddie in Spike Lees 2013 Oldboy, the actor grew out his nails, donned prosthetic scars and assumed an upper-crust English accent (as well as what Copley calls a bisexual edge). He plants loves true kiss on Angelina Jolie as the unrequiting subject of her storybook sorceress characters affections in Maleficent. And as a samurai sword-wielding mercenary pursuing Matt Damons character in the 2014 sci-fi thriller Elysium (also directed by Blomkamp), Copley displays a convincing homicidal streak and outre physicality that had remained, until then, an unproven commodity.

The actor also provides a motion-capture performance and weirdly childish voice-over as a Pinocchio-like A.I. battle bot in Blomkamps action-dramedy Chappie. And by this point, Copley serves as something like a spirit animal for the writer-director.

Off camera, as a friend, he really has a heart of gold, says Blomkamp. On-screen, working with him, theres a level of intensity he has that 99.9% of actors dont have: a specificity and intensity about what hes doing with the role, and wanting to know every single possible thing he can know about it. Its probably what makes him so magnetic to watch.

But none of those roles offered such a pu pu platter of dramatic personae as last years first-person-shooter action flick Hardcore Henry. Portraying a character named Jimmy, Copley appears in 11 incarnations  as a homeless alcoholic, hippie biker, ghillie suit-wearing sniper and quadriplegic scientist among them  getting his head blown off, going up in flames and dying repeatedly, only to come back and chew the scenery again.

Is the audience going to go, That was funny for the first minute. Now please shoot him and shut him up!  Sharlto Copley on taking risks

The actor called it his most challenging professional experience to date (and not just because at one point he thought he had accidentally run over and killed a stunt man during production). A good character actor is going to do those characters really different, says Copley. The real challenge is, how do you play 11 versions of the same guy? If you go too different, it starts to feel like, No, thats weird. Youve got to feel like its him still in there.

To hear it from Ben Wheatley, director and co-writer of Free Fire, Copleys background behind the camera gives him certain advantages inhabiting different characters. On set, hes offering up loads and loads of stuff all the time  almost to the chagrin of the other performers, Wheatley says. Hes come up through postproduction, through sales and all sorts of stuff. He can look at how everythings made with a much more understanding eye.

Of Copleys overall body of work, the director adds: A lot of why those performances are so rounded is because they come from that position of understanding  what the world of the work is like.

Toward the end of the year, however, Copley plans to cross the filmmaker-performer divide once more, having written, with the intention of directing and starring in, a film project he describes as satirical science fiction with a lot of comedy.

Sharlto Copley is starring in Free Fire. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Currently casting the movie, the South African admits some difficulty in finding actors who can conjure the heartfelt yet buck-wild je ne sais quoi that imbues his own performances.

Im thinking, Who do I put with me? What Ill often find is theyre great in serious but not that funny. Or theyre so funny but am I going to feel them? Its that line of: How much heart and how much humor? Copley says. Like Woody Allen has his thing. Will Ferrell has his thing. The tone, if I get it right, becomes my thing.

And what, precisely, is that tone? Its the instinct I have as an actor. Its for the purpose of entertaining, not the purpose of, Thats so real! Those performances never interested me.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

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ALSO

Why Ghost in the Shell is far from the last Hollywood film youll see based on Japanese manga

Toronto 2016: Ben Wheatleys Free Fire has a fittingly raucous premiere

Toronto 2016: Off to a violent start with Magnificent Seven, Free Fire
Superheroes, pirates, apes and atomic blondes: Where the action is this summer

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5)

Filmmaker James Gunn delivers Mixtape #2 as the team explores the mystery of Peter Quills heritage and fights galactic baddies. With Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Tommy Flanagan, Laura Haddock, Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell. Walt Disney Pictures

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (May 12)

A new imagining of the Excalibur myth finds Arthur once more searching for his rightful place in the kingdom. With Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, Jude Law, Eric Bana. Written by Joby Harold and Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram; story by David Dobkin and Joby Harold. Directed by Ritchie. Warner Bros.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (May 26)

Captain Jack is down on his luck and his survival depends on an alliance with an attractive astronomer and a Royal Navy sailor. With Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin R. McNally, Golshifteh Farahani, David Wenham, Stephen Graham and Geoffrey Rush. Written by Jeff Nathanson, story by Nathanson and Terry Rossio. Directed by Joachim Rnning and Espen Sandberg. Walt Disney Pictures

Wonder Woman (June 2)

The Amazonian princess gets her own movie and leaves her island paradise to fight a war to end all wars. With Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Lucy Davis, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Eugene Brave Rock, Said Taghmaoui. Written by Allan Heinberg, story by Zack Snyder & Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs, based on characters from DC. Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston. Directed by Patty Jenkins. Warner Bros.

 Watch the trailer for Wonder Woman.

Baby Driver (June 28)

Writer-director Edgar Wright spins a music-fueled saga about a youthful getaway driver whose romantic dreams of escape take a detour when a planned final heist goes sideways. With Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Bernthal, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx. TriStar Pictures

Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7)

Fresh off his adventures with the Avengers, Peter Parker adjusts to life as a webslinger and faces off against the villainous Vulture. With Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Zendaya, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover, Tyne Daly, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr. Written by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley and Jon Watts & Christopher Ford and Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Directed by Watts. Columbia Pictures

War for the Planet of the Apes (July 14)

Caesar and his apes battle a human army led by a brutal colonel in this third film in the latest series inspired by Pierre Boulles 1963 novel. With Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn, Amiah Miller, Terry Notary, Karin Konoval. Written by Mark Bomback, Matt Reeves. Directed by Reeves. 20th Century Fox

 Woody Harrelson, Judy Greer and Andy Serkis star in War for the Planet of the Apes.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (July 21)

Based on the graphic novel series in which government operatives travel to a rapidly expanding intergalactic metropolis called Alpha, a Utopian convergence of talents where dark forces are at work. With Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu. Written and directed by Luc Besson. STX Entertainment

Atomic Blonde (July 28)

Charlize Theron stars as an MI6 agent ordered to Berlin to break up a savage spy ring. With James McAvoy, John Goodman, Sofia Boutella, Til Schweiger, James Faulkner, Eddie Marsan, Roland Mller, Bill Skarsgard, Barbara Sukowa, Johannes Johannesson, Toby Jones. Written by Kurt Johnstad, based on the graphic novel by Antony Johnston and illustrator Sam Hart. Directed by David Leitch. Focus Features

The Hitmans Bodyguard (Aug. 18)

Ryan Reynolds stars as the agent assigned to protect assassin Samuel L. Jackson and transport him safely from England to the Hague. With Gary Oldman, Salma Hayek. Written by Tom OConnor. Directed by Patrick Hughes. Lionsgate

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For the last two years, movie audiences have been treated to scripts by former actor Taylor Sheridan. These are character-rich pieces that quietly subvert their genres predecessors (David Mackenzies Oscar-nominated western Hell or High Water) or upend them entirely (Denis Villeneuves drug-trade thriller Sicario).

Turns out, Sheridan has been saving his boldest work for himself.

I always knew I wanted to direct this screenplay, Sheridan, 46, said by phone recently from his home in Wyoming. So, I just didnt show it to anybody. I hid it in a drawer for three years and just waited.

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The film in question is Wind River, a snow-bound thriller that will evoke A Simple Plan and a host of Coen Bros. works while retaining a style thats distinctly Sheridan-esque. The waiting? Well, that was done so he could build enough of a track record for financiers to feel comfortable with him directing too.

SEE OUR COMPLETE SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 

The years paid off. The third in the writers so-called frontier trilogy, Wind River examines big themes like Native American-white tensions, geography-as-destiny and the residual nature of grief, all in the context of a potboiler. (The Weinstein Co. film opens in August.)

Sheridans directorial debut concerns a government animal trapper named Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), who lives in the rugged and wintry mountains of Wyoming. He was once happily married to a Native American woman and had two kids but now nurses a private pain due to a family tragedy  a tragedy that impels him to investigate the death of a young Native American woman on nearby reservation land.

Far from a simple procedural, however, Wind River ups the cultural stakes when a Florida-born FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) flies in to help solve the case, bringing the investigation into conflict with the closed Native American community. As with Sheridans previous work, the setting plays a key role; after the dusty-plained Texas of his earlier work, Wind River centers on an unforgiving-but-resplendent snow, shot so strikingly that just looking it can practically give you frostbite.

The character details are equally clarified. Whether its Lamberts tortured soul or the wary Native Americans, the people of Wind River are textured and lived-in, with quirks and flaws.

Director Taylor Sheridan (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

I like writing love poems to these places. But as someone who tries to be a naturalistic storyteller, my love poems do point out the warts.  Taylor Sheridan

I like writing love poems to these places, Sheridan said. But as someone who tries to be a naturalistic storyteller, my love poems do point out the warts.

The filmmaker spent much of his adolescence in Wyoming after his parents divorced; the movie is informed by his time there. In fact, Sheridan (TV fans will recall him as David Hale from Sons of Anarchy) moved back to the region four years ago, leaving Los Angeles with his wife around the time his child was born. He now splits his time between Wyoming and the Park City, Utah, area, living a life of writerly isolation. (I dont even know what a siren is anymore. If I hear a one, I can call and ask, Uh oh, what happened to Bob?)

He also spent part of his 20s on a reservation, finding the simplicity as appealing as he did the social challenges distressing. He believes reservations to be a natural spot for a story about an unsolved assault, in part because of the skepticism with which Native American leaders regard white America, in part because theyre in places with little media or means of communication.

That remoteness was no production deterrent, however. Sheridan and his cinematographer, Ben Richardson, undertook some serious challenges shooting in Wyoming and northern Utah  not least of which was getting camera rigs in places only snowmobiles tread. (He used a lot of handhelds.)

They also had to contend with erratic snow patterns. The film needed snow, and its too expensive on an indie budget to manufacture or CG any of it in. That could seriously throw off his filming, so Sheridan designed an entire alternate shoot schedule that would allow him to shift his plan with the weather.

Sheridan, who cites Clint Eastwood and Michael Mann as influences for what he calls naturalistic genre films, says he thinks the modern way has actually been paved by another medium.

Television is responsible for allowing these kinds of movies  whether you take Breaking Bad or The Sopranos or any of the others, they were all trying to say something about the genre they live in.

Sheridan added, however, that the wide-screen format was critical for his style  and, equally important, for the empathy he wanted to create.

I think film cannot only teleport you to places you dont know, but it can help you see people you thought were one way and in fact are another, he said. They can allow us to examine ourselves.

See the most read stories this hour 

steven.zeitchik@latimes.com
Movie recommendations from critics Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and other reviewers.

Frantz Beautifully shot in black and white with the occasional warm burst of color, French writer-director Francois Ozons intricately layered post-World War I drama puts a feminist spin on Ernst Lubitschs 1932 antiwar film Broken Lullaby. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

Graduation A film of gripping moral suspense from the writer-director Cristian Mungiu, this tough, clear-eyed and humane movie follows a father (Adrien Titieni) who will do anything to help his daughter (Maria Dragus) escape post-Ceausescu Romania. (Justin Chang) R.

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The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki A lovely piece of work from Finland, a sweet, warmly observed tale about a boxer falling in love before his biggest bout overlaid with just the right amount of Scandinavian melancholy. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

I Am Not Your Negro As directed by the gifted Raoul Peck, this documentary on James Baldwin uses the entire spectrum of movie effects, not only spoken language but also sound, music, editing and all manner of visuals, to create a cinematic essay that is powerful and painfully relevant. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

La La Land Starring a well-paired Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, writer-director Damien Chazelles tuneful tribute to classic movie musicals is often stronger in concept than execution, but its lovely and transporting all the same. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

The Lost City of Z Based on David Granns nonfiction bestseller about the British explorer Percy Fawcett (well played by Charlie Hunnam), James Grays rich, meditative and deeply transporting adventure epic is the sort of classical filmmaking that feels positively radical. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

Norman: The Modern Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, Israeli director Joseph Cedars first English-language film provides Richard Gere with a splendid role as a hustler forever on the make in Manhattan. (Kenneth Turan) R.

A Quiet Passion Cynthia Nixon gives a brilliant performance as Emily Dickinson in Terence Davies masterful biographical portrait of the great 19th century poet, which begins as a razor-sharp drawing-room comedy before edging almost imperceptibly toward tragedy. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

Their Finest Genial and engaging with a fine sense of humor, this story of making movies in World War II Britain stars Gemma Arterton and a marvelous Bill Nighy and makes blending the comic with the serious look simpler than it actually is. (Kenneth Turan) R.

Truman A great success in Spain, this life-affirming film about the last days of a life features top acting by stars Ricardo Darin and Javier Camara. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

The Womens Balcony An Israeli box-office hit about a Jerusalem clash of religious cultures, this is an unapologetically warmhearted comedic drama, a fine example of commercial filmmaking grounded in a persuasive knowledge of human behavior. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

Your Name. The highest-grossing anime of all time and winner of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.'s animated feature prize, Makoto Shinkais thrillingly beautiful film juggles an out-of-body farce, a time-traveling romance and a terrifying epic of survival. (Justin Chang) PG.

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@LATimesMovies
Sofia Coppolas low-key personal style and soft-spoken demeanor can make it easy to overlook that she is among the worlds most celebrated contemporary filmmakers. Her movies float gossamer light, though anchored by a steely will  not unlike the director herself.

She won an Oscar for the screenplay to 2003s Lost in Translation and received a director nomination for it as well  one of only four women ever nominated for the Academy Award for director. Her 2010 film Somewhere won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Her new picture, The Beguiled, will have its world premiere next month as part of prestigious main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Set during the Civil War, it features a wounded Union solider (Colin Farrell) who finds refuge on the grounds of a Southern girls school whose residents include Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning. As Farrells character convalesces, it becomes increasingly unclear whether he is manipulating his female caregivers or whether they are playing out their own power games through him.

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SEE OUR COMPLETE SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 

 Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell star in Sofia Coppolas The Beguiled.

Coppolas movie is based on the 1966 novel by Thomas P. Cullinan, previously adapted for film in 1971 by director Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood. After watching the original at the suggestion of her longtime production designer Anne Ross (also an executive producer on The Beguiled), Coppola found herself unexpectedly haunted by the story, which lingered in her mind.

I just thought the premise was so interesting, because the story of power between men and women was such an interesting, loaded topic, and this premise really heightened it with this setting during the Civil War, the 45-year-old director said. The women were raised to be these perfect feminine creatures there for men, and then all the men disappear.

Where Coppolas Marie Antoinette was notoriously playful in its treatment of its period setting, particularly with its use of more contemporary pop music, the filmmaker said her approach on The Beguiled was different.

Its more grounded in the period, but we tried to make it relatable, she said. Especially with the costumes, I really wanted to emphasize that lacy, feminine world and the Southern gentility of these women. They dont wear the big hoops under their dresses anymore because there is no one to entertain, so they wear these long dresses you could wear today.

There is that kind of feminine, pastoral world of faded nature that the movie starts in, but then I love that it takes a dark turn.  Sofia Coppola on The Beguiled

Coppola said that while shooting at the historic Madewood Plantation House in Louisiana, the film inadvertently gained a more contemporary influence.

Portions of Beyonces longform Lemonade video were shot at the same location, and Fanning and Dunst re-created an image of Beyonce and Serena Williams posing on an ornately carved chair that was posted online. Both images have an enigmatic mix of languid sexuality and forceful feminine power.

I didnt see Lemonade, but I saw the chair and it was explained to me, Coppola said with a light laugh. Definitely, we had a bunch of references, and there is that kind of feminine, pastoral world of faded nature that the movie starts in, but then I love that it takes a dark turn.

I was really excited about the whole Southern gothic genre and really embracing that. Especially when they were in their long white nightgowns at night with their candelabras, I got so into it. That was a fun element to get into, the Southern gothic style and the challenge of how to do that in my own way, to find my own style within that genre.

Coppola has often worked with young or unknown performers, capturing pivotal performances from Dunst, Fanning, Scarlett Johansson and Emma Watson. But other than Bill Murray, she has rarely worked with seasoned, full-on movie stars of the likes of Kidman or Farrell. Coppola admitted that she had Kidman in mind when writing her screenplay and added that to see the actress bring the role to life was even more than she could have imagined.

I dont want to say intimidated, but she was something new, and shes such an experienced, talented actress, Coppola said. I think shes unique. It was like watching a virtuoso or an incredible athlete. Wed do a scene, and shed have five different emotions going on at the same time.

Coppola said she was excited to see new works by Lynne Ramsay and Jane Campion that will also be premiering at Cannes. For Coppola, in the time since her feature debut, 1999s The Virgin Suicides, the conversation around female filmmakers has amplified, making her less of a lonely outlier as someone bringing to the screen stories of the interior and emotional lives of women.

I just wanted to make what was interesting to me, and I hoped that there were like-minded people that would connect with it, Coppola said. I didnt feel alone, I felt glad to be part of the film conversation. I just think we all want to see different points of view, and all you can do is try to put yours out.

She added, I feel like all I can do is keep making my films.

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mark.olsen@latimes.com
When he was 18, Kumail Nanjiani emigrated from Karachi, Pakistan, to Iowa to go to college. Four years later his parents came to the U.S., settling in New Jersey.

Nanjiani welcomed the thousand-mile buffer zone, not because he didnt love his parents but because they expected, per traditional Pakistani culture, that theyd soon be finding a young woman for him to wed in an arranged marriage. His mother wasnt letting distance deter her either, emailing Nanjiani pictures of prospective matches, some of whom he knew from Karachi.

Nanjiani had no intention of letting his parents dictate his choice of a romantic partner. But he also had no idea how to broach the subject with them.

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I was really scared of visiting them because I knew they were really into it, Nanjiani, best-known for his work on the celebrated HBO comedy Silicon Valley, reveals in an interview in the garage office of the Los Feliz home he shares with his wife, Emily V. Gordon.

Nanjiani mined that cultural conflict in The Big Sick, a movie he wrote with Gordon about their real-life rocky romance, a relationship that faced numerous hurdles, including a serious illness and the specter of familial betrayal. The film premiered to great acclaim at Sundance in January, sparking a bidding war that resulted in a $12-million sale to Amazon Studios.

The Big Sick (in theaters June 23) upends expectations at every turn, beginning as an engaging romantic-comedy and then becoming a sometimes harrowing (but still funny) and deeply personal drama that takes in cultural assimilation, growing up and medically induced comas. Nanjiani stars, portraying a version of himself, with Zoe Kazan playing the Emily character.

The movies most dynamic element might be the spot-on specificity of its Pakistani family, including the devout Muslim parents (played by Zenobia Shroff and Anupam Kher) and a brother (Adeel Akhtar) happily married to a wife (Shenaz Treasurywala) he met through an arranged marriage. They are by turns caring and disapproving, funny, weird and exasperating  in other words, a typical family.

We knew from the beginning that the movie would be good or bad depending on the family, Nanjiani says. If we show a truly loving family, then the stakes for the relationship are that much higher. If its a family thats strict and cold  which is what you see from stereotypical portrayals of Muslim families  then its going to be a disservice, both to my actual parents and to the movie itself.

The events depicted in the film took place a decade ago. Shortly afterward, Nanjiani, 39, realized he had spent years defining himself by rejecting his Pakistani heritage. He still struggles with his identity. He doesnt feel American and he doesnt feel Pakistani. But through his writing as a comedian, hes continuing to get a handle on how he fits in with American culture.

We didnt make the movie to be political at all, but Im glad at this moment that this movie exists.  Producer Judd Apatow

Certainly, Nanjianis work both as a writer and star of The Big Sick represents a significant step forward in representing Muslim culture on screen.

Producer Judd Apatow, who worked with Nanjiani and Gordon for three years honing the script, believes the movies truthful depiction of the immigrant experience is essential in the current, heated political climate.

We didnt make the movie to be political at all, but Im glad at this moment that this movie exists, Apatow says. Im also glad we didnt make it in this environment because maybe we would have done it differently. It doesnt have a chip on its shoulder in any way. Its just showing a normal, loving family. Its unfortunate that there have been so few portrayals of Muslim families in America.

Nanjianis parents havent seen the film yet. Premiering it at Sundance was stressful enough without adding another layer of anxiety.

But weve already had the awkward conversation  one of many awkward conversations, Nanjiani says. Im still trying to figure out how to have an adult relationship with my parents. The movie ends with the first step. Id like to think weve taken a couple of more in the past 10 years.

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glenn.whipp@latimes.com
A year and a half ago, Fionn Whitehead was an unknown aspiring actor working in a coffee shop in the Waterloo district of London. On his off hours, hed go in for every audition he could, hoping to catch a break that would free him, he says, from washing dishes and taking orders from angry businessmen.

Then one day Whitehead went in to read for a part in director Christopher Nolans World War II thriller, Dunkirk, and  if youll forgive the Hollywood cliche, which happens to be true here  everything changed.

Arriving in theaters on July 21, Dunkirk recounts the harrowing story of the evacuation of nearly 400,000 British and Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, France, where they were surrounded and under heavy fire from German forces in the spring of 1940. Chronicling a pivotal moment in the war  albeit one unfamiliar to many Americans  the film plays out on an epic scale on land, sea and air and features such boldfaced British names as Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and, in his first film role, pop star Harry Styles.

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 Christopher Nolans Dunkirk stars Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy and Mark Rylance.

But it is Whitehead, as a teenage soldier named Tommy, who serves as the audiences eyes and ears and gives the sweeping story its emotional center of gravity.

You kind of experience this world through him, the 20-year-old Whitehead  whose only previous credit is a 2016 British miniseries called Him  explained by phone from his home in London. These young and inexperienced soldiers are thrown into this dire, brutal situation, and you follow Tommy on this journey as he tries to get home.

Throughout the months of auditioning, Whitehead didnt know much at all about Dunkirk beyond the title and general subject matter. As with Nolans previous films, which include the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Interstellar, details about the project were kept tightly under wraps.

Everyone was going in blind, said Whitehead. No one knew how many characters there were, who the characters were, how old they were, the plot, anything. It was very, very secretive.

No one knew how many characters there were, who the characters were, how old they were, the plot, anything. It was very, very secretive.  Fionn Whitehead

It was only when Whitehead was finally offered the role that he learned that he wouldnt merely have a handful of lines but would, in fact, be the films main protagonist. That was when my jaw hit the ground and I got the nervous sweats, said the actor, who immediately threw himself into reading firsthand accounts of soldiers whod survived the ordeal.

Nolan says hed been impressed with Whitehead from the very first time he saw him. Theres a naturalness and a genuineness to the way Fionn performs thats extraordinary, said the director, who also wrote the screenplay for Dunkirk. Hes got a very charismatic presence. He reminds me of a young Tom Courtenay.

In the wake of Dunkirk, Whitehead will next be seen opposite Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci in the drama The Children Act, an adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel that will hit theaters later this year.

Beyond that, he says, he has no real career plan and is just taking things as they come. Having caught a glimpse of the extremes of fame working alongside Styles, with screaming One Direction fans waiting outside his hotel, hed like to hold on as long as he can to some of the anonymity he had back when he was serving those angry businessmen their coffee.

I like to think Im fairly grounded, and I have friends who will very happily tell me if Im ever being big-headed, Whitehead said. I know things will change. But Im hoping its nothing too drastic.

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josh.rottenberg@latimes.com

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When Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs first started dating, neither was certain the relationship had long-term potential. They were in their twenties, just out of college and met in an improv class at New Yorks Upright Citizen Brigade.

We were like, Were making comedy, and were hooking up! Haha!  Aniello, now 34, recalled. We were young, and I dont think we were assuming that it was going to be this long-term relationship and writing partnership  no offense.

She turned to look at Downs, 35, who was sitting next to her in their joint New York hotel room. Yes, a decade after meeting at UCB, theyre still partners  both in romance and comedy. Since 2012, the couple have worked as co-producers and writers on Comedy Centrals Broad City, the popular show starring Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson as two adventurous, marijuana-loving BFFs. Aniello also has directed over a dozen episodes of the show, and Downs stars in it, playing Abbis boss-turned-love-interest, Trey.

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But before the programs fourth season returns this August, Aniello and Downs will have another milestone to celebrate. (No, not their wedding  theyre happily un-engaged.) On June 16, the first feature film they collaborated on, Rough Night, hits theaters.

The R-rated comedy  which, like Broad City, was co-written by the pair, directed by Aniello and co-stars Downs  follows a group of girlfriends (Glazer, Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Zoe Kravitz and Jillian Bell) who head to Miami for a bachelorette party. But just as the festivities get underway, the ladies accidentally kill a stripper theyve hired to entertain them in their luxe beachside mansion.

Which, yes, is kind of an insane premise. But Aniello and Downs tried to go for heart in addition to high jinks, exploring how the dynamic with old friends can shift over time.

These are the friends who saw you throw up at 3 a.m. on yourself on the steps of a frat house, said Aniello, who lives in Silver Lake with Downs but was video chatting with him from New York, where theyd spent the day location scouting for Broad City.

They defibrillated you, Downs said, causing Aniello to crack up laughing. No, we obviously like writing for funny women because we know and love a lot of them, but the real impetus was our experience of having great friends who you share so much with  but when youre not in the same place, its kind of hard.

Aniello, who studied film at Columbia, always hoped to work in the movie business. But she said she and Downs have always tried to work in mediums that best serve their ideas

Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs are romantic and professional partners. (Michael Nagle / For The Times)

We have ideas that are like Web series, she said.

Or, like, That would make a great two-minute comedy sketch,  added Downs, a New Jersey native who graduated from Duke.

Its a great Instagram story, Aniello joked.

No matter the script, though, the partners always start with the same unique writing process. First, on Google Docs, they break story together, coming up with an outline, figuring out story points and mapping out some major jokes. Then, they go their separate ways and individually write their own versions of the same scene. When theyre done, they swap drafts, highlighting what they like and ultimately combining the two scripts into the best possible version of the scene.

We write 15 pages a day that way, Aniello said.

Dont say that. That sounds insane, Downs said.

Why not? Im an open book, she replied. Im a source code. Take the code.

Even so, it would probably be difficult to replicate the partners brand of humor, which landed the Rough Night script on the Black List and sparked a bidding war before the project landed at Sony Pictures.

They have a very specific tone and ability to write brilliant female characters  grounded characters in slightly outrageous situations, said Matt Tolmach, the producer who brought the film to Sony. As a man, its a movie that appeals to me because its about people who have lost themselves. It doesnt matter that the characters in the movie are five women.

Indeed, because both Broad City and Rough Night star women, Aniello and Downs acknowledged theyre still primarily offered female-driven projects. They even wrote a female-led spinoff of 21 Jump Street, though that script has yet to be made.

I dont mind us being associated with that genre, though it will be interesting when we do something that isnt with a female lead, how open people will be to that, Aniello said.

We dont write for women, we just write a joke that if a man or a woman said it, it would be funny, Downs said. But slowly, youre getting more realistic portrayals of women, so I get why people are like, Wow! These are women that are dimensional and arent just talking with a guy or squabbling with each other. They have fun and are horny and smoke weed. 

Maybe its just weird, Aniello countered, that people dont already know women like that.

calendar@latimes.com
Talking animals are nothing new to Steve Zahn. Over the years, in various kids movies, hes played a wise-cracking circus bear, an alley cat and a couple of different pigs. He was even a pterodactyl once.

Still, when Zahn was first approached about playing a chimpanzee in the upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes, he had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea. Simply lending his voice to an animated critter was one thing, but creating a fully developed, three-dimensional simian character using performance-capture technology was something else entirely.

I had no clue whatsoever what it entailed, Zahn, 49, said by phone recently from his farm in Kentucky. I was like, Oh, they cant just make me an ape  I really have to be an ape! Then I got nervous.

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For the latest chapter in the sci-fi-action series, in theaters July 14, director Matt Reeves and co-writer Mark Bomback wanted to introduce a new ape character who would feel fresh and unfamiliar  no small challenge for a nearly 50-year-old franchise thats featured all manner of talking gorillas, orangutans and chimps, from thoughtful scientists to brutal generals to venal politicians.

Reeves and Bomback landed on the idea of a sweet-natured chimp who escaped from captivity and now lives alone in the mountains. Lonely and desperate for contact, this simian hermit, who was simply called Bad Ape by his abusive zookeepers, is discovered by the ape leader Caesar (played by Andy Serkis) and recruited to guide an expedition to a human military camp led by a ruthless colonel (Woody Harrelson).

I knew Steve was going to make me laugh, but we did this heartbreaking scene about Bad Apes past and he made me cry.  Director Matt Reeves

 Woody Harrelson, Judy Greer and Andy Serkis star in War for the Planet of the Apes.

Bad Ape just felt like a kind of voice wed never had in any of the movies, and it allowed for a lot of heartbreak but also a tremendous amount of humor, said Reeves, who also directed the series previous installment, 2014s critically acclaimed hit Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. To play him, I wanted to look for comedic actors who also had great dramatic underpinnings in their performances. Steves name came up, and I got very excited.

Reeves set up a Skype meeting with Zahn, who was in Puerto Rico at the time shooting the erstwhile Amazon series Mad Dogs. He asked the actor, who has frequently been cast as a comic sidekick, to try reading a few scenes. That quickly sealed the deal.

I knew Steve was going to make me laugh, but we did this heartbreaking scene about Bad Apes past and he made me cry, Reeves said. He was so nakedly emotional in that vulnerable way that the character needed to be.

In the run-up to shooting, Zahn watched countless YouTube videos of chimps in zoos to try to get in the proper monkey head space.

The interesting thing is I found the most compelling videos were of chimps that were just sitting there, doing nothing, he said. How do they sit? What are they focusing on? I would just study them.

The task of translating Zahns performance into a fully realized, photo-realistic ape fell to the VFX artists at Weta Digital. To help guide the look of Bad Ape, Reeves had sent Weta a photo hed found on the Internet of a chimp that seemed to be smiling a sweet, hopeful smile. But until he started seeing the first rendered footage, he wasnt sure exactly how the character would come to life. As the translation begins and you see the first glimpses, it becomes very exciting, Reeves said.

For Zahn, seeing himself onscreen for the first time as Bad Ape was truly mind-bending. It was trippy, and I was really moved by it, Zahn said. He paused, grasping for the right words to describe the experience. Its hard to explain. It was just beautiful, you know?

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calendar@latimes.com

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Bill OReillys more than 20-year reign at Fox News was, essentially, a series of confrontations.

Pinheads, culture warriors, political correctness and the media elite were the favored targets for a host who structured his show, The OReilly Factor, as a nightly account of the larger fight he and, presumably, his audience were waging against Where This Country Is Headed (i.e. away from what he called traditional values).

OReilly was a pugnacious and assured onscreen presence, and he helped shift the TV news landscape toward the ratings potential of opinion and outrage entertainment. The OReilly Factor, which aired daily at 8 p.m. EST and again at 11 p.m., spoke primarily in absolutes and paved the way for Glenn Beck , Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann and, to an extent, Stephen Colbert, who based his pundit persona on OReilly for Comedy Centrals Emmy-winning Colbert Report.

But before the controversy, his beginnings as a broadcaster were far more conventional.

Cutting his teeth

After graduating from New Yorks Marist College with a history degree in 1971, OReilly briefly taught high school in Florida before heading to Boston University in 1973 and earning a masters in broadcast journalism. There, he was a classmate of Howard Stern, who is certainly no stranger to evoking a response with his on-air antics, either.

From there OReilly bounced around a number of network affiliates in Dallas, Portland and New York in the early 80s before being picked up as a correspondent for ABC and CBS News, where he covered combat situations in El Salvador and the Falkland Islands.

Switching tacks on Inside Edition

In 1989, OReilly transitioned into the tabloid arena with Inside Edition, a syndicated news magazine that competed with A Current Affair and was originally hosted by David Frost. OReilly left the show in 1995 to pursue a second masters degree, this time in public administration, from Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Becoming The Factor

The following year, OReilly was hired by Roger Ailes of the newly launched Fox News Channel. Originally called The OReilly Report, The OReilly Factor kicked off its hourlong taped broadcast by welcoming its audience to a No Spin Zone, a tidy encapsulation of the networks We Report, You Decide tagline. (A syndicated radio broadcast, Radio Factor, also ran from 2002 to 2009.) Regular segments looked back at the stories of the day or the week with interview segments with news makers in addition to his fellow Fox News voices. OReilly drew large numbers, and over his run he interviewed presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Allegations of misconduct begin

In 2002, OReilly was investigated by the network for verbally abusing junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein (who later left Fox with a small settlement). In October 2004, OReilly was sued for $60 million by his shows 33-year-old associate producer, Andrea Mackris, who cited the host sharing inappropriate stories about his sex life as well as propositioning her. OReilly filed suit the same day, alleging this was a multimillion-dollar extortion plot on the part of Mackris.

The two parties reached a settlement out of court for approximately $9 million and agreed to release a statement that no wrongdoing occurred whatsoever.

Allegations within the network return

In 2011, Rebecca Gomez Diamond of the Fox News program Happy Hour filed a suit similar to Mackris with recordings of OReillys voice to support her claims. Terms of a settlement were not revealed, and Diamond left the network under a confidentiality agreement.

Two more former Fox News employees reach settlements

In the wake of the sexual harassment scandal surrounding Ailes, Fox News parent company, 21st Century Fox, settled two more complaints against the network. Laurie Dhue, a Fox News anchor from 2000 to 2008 outlined harassment claims against OReilly and Ailes during her time at Fox News and reportedly reached a settlement for more than $1 million.

Juliet Huddy, who was with Fox News from 1998 to 2009 and was a frequent guest on The OReilly Factor, claimed that OReilly propositioned her and placed numerous explicit phone calls to her in 2011. 21st Century Fox reached a settlement with Huddy for $1.6 million.

Advertisers flee and OReillys exit from The Factor

Shortly after a report was published on April 1 that recounted about $13 million in settlements that had been paid as a result of OReillys behavior toward women over the previous 15 years, major advertisers such as Mercedes-Benz discontinued their relationship with The OReilly Factor. As of April 10, just over eight minutes of ad time was sold during the show, which stood in contrast to the 15 minutes of ads that had aired during the time slot a month earlier, according to the ad-tracking firm iSpot.tv.

On April 12, OReilly announced on his show he was going on vacation. A week later, Fox News announced it had officially cut ties with its biggest star. After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the Company and Bill OReilly have agreed that Bill OReilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel, 21st Century Fox said in a statement.

That afternoon, OReilly issued his own statement that read with a defiance typical of the opinionated pundit. It is tremendously disheartening that we part ways due to completely unfounded claims, he said. But that is the unfortunate reality many of us in the public eye must live with today. I will always look back on my time at Fox with great pride in the unprecedented success we achieved and with my deepest gratitude to all my dedicated viewers. I wish only the best for Fox News Channel. OReilly, according to two people familiar with the matter, left the network with a payout of $25 million (equivalent to one years salary).

Tucker Carlson, who joined Fox News weekday lineup in 2016, took over OReillys time slot. The chat show The Five was moved to take over Carlsons place on the schedule.
Mary Kills People, which premieres Sunday on Lifetime, feels cut to order for the networks evolving, more substantial brand, as spearheaded splendidly by the 2015 reality-behind-the-fakery reality-show drama UnREAL.

A medical drama hung on the bones of a thriller  or a thriller with elements of a medical drama  it does have as its complicated heroine a Lifetime type: a divorced working woman, a doctor yet, with an unemployed ex-husband who impugns her mothering skills and a potentially dangerous potential love interest targeting her like a heat-seeking missile. But it goes its own ways.

Caroline Dhavernas plays Mary Harris, an ER physician with a sideline in assisted suicide. Thus the title.

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The question of motive is quickly laid on the table: Sometimes I dont know if youre a compassionate doctor or a serial killer, Mary says jokingly to her roguish yet more practical assistant Des (Richard Short), who has just volunteered to give their clients injections rather than their usual mix of Champagne and Pentobarbital  literally a drug cocktail  which the patient must drink on their own (agency is important to her). They are in a fast-food drive-through, to give the conversation its context.

Still, its never suggested that Marys work, to which shes committed even at the risk of her liberty or safety is, if a little reckless, anything but admirable; she is not willy-nilly a murderer. (She has personal reasons, were quickly informed, with details held back.) Created by Tara Armstrong and directed in its entirety by Holly Dale, the series, of which Lifetime is a co-producer, is top to bottom made-in-Canada, where physician-assisted suicide has been legal, as it is in several U.S. states, since last year. (Indeed, that law passed while Mary Kills People was shooting). So what happens happens in some other time or place.

Its a mix of tones and styles. The opening scene, in which an assisted suicide goes wrong, is presented essentially as farce; a later case is played to the hilt for pathos. But this is not really a series about the philosophical niceties of euthanasia; thats just a risky business to put the main character in danger, doing an illegal thing she hides from her children and the world (older daughter has a reckless best friend; younger daughter loves their cat). There is melodrama, there is sexiness.

Only two of six episodes were available for review, but complications happen fast  you will not have to wait long to learn whether Jay Ryans hunky terminal cancer patient Joel is what he seems. But even when the elements of the story are obviously arranged to make trouble for Mary, even when you can see where a scene is going from the start, the suspense stays tense. And however many dumb things its characters do  there are ways, one thinks, that Mary might have better arranged her business  the series doesnt feel dumb.

What ties it together, keeps it in line and most makes it go is Dhavernas. An actress of wit and intelligence, shes perhaps best known as psychologist Alana Bloom on Hannibal and for the short-lived Wonderfalls, in which she played a sullen, sardonic underachiever driven to good deeds by the gnomic instructions of inanimate animals.

Grounded and believable, with the dry, witty, old-fashioned self-assurance of a Barbara Stanwyck or Katharine Hepburn, Dhavernas shades her comedy with drama, and playing drama is never more than a breath away from comedy; her presence distracts you from the occasional bare spot on the carpet, the smudge on the walls, the crack in the ceiling.

Mary Kills People

Where: Lifetime

When: 10 p.m. Sunday

Rating: TV-14-DLS (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language and sex)

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloyd

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Hailey Baldwin looked down at her feet. She was wearing a delicate powdery blue suede shoe. I love what Im wearing, she said of the high-heeled Caiolea pump from Brazilian footwear label Schutz. Ive been a fan of the brand for a long time.

The 20-year-old fashion model and all-round Hollywood it-girl had just arrived at the party this week, celebrating the first-year anniversary of the Schutz store in Beverly Hills. She was posing in the VIP-room-turned-mirror-walled-art-installation at the rear of the store. (The installation, titled Mirror Rorrim, was created by Los Angeles-based creative director Maria Rubin.)

In the main space, guests, who included model Delilah Belle Hamlin, daughter of Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna, nibbled on button-sized canapes and swayed to music from a set including Khalid and Ricky Blaze spun by DJs-du-jour, twin sisters Simi and Haze Khadra (together professionally known as SimiHaze).

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In addition to celebrating its first year of business in the 2,800-square-foot location, the party also was the launch event for a series of metallic beach slides, which will be available at the Beverly Hills store and online. Thats fitting, given that the slides boast phrases such as Malibu Baby and Cali Love.

The phrases are super-fun, said Alexandre Birman, founder and chief executive of Schutz (the word means protection in German). Theyre really very Los Angeles.

The slides, which come shades such as metallic copper and turquoise, retail for $125. Birman said the price point of the collection is part of its appeal. The majority of the all-leather, on-trend shoes sell for less than $200.

The City of Angels has a special significance for Birman. When he visited Los Angeles in 1995, he was struck by the high-stacked cork wedge shoes that he saw being worn by women on Melrose Avenue.

I had the idea to start making ladies shoes that had a natural feeling, he said. Our brand is warm, Latin  there is a different type of vibration in everything we do, and we try to translate that to our stores and our shoes.

Now a company with annual sales of $200 million, Schutz, which has 84 stores in Brazil and a Manhattan outpost, has drawn avid fans including Baldwin, who said she feels a connection with the footwear label, partly because her mother is Brazilian.

It totally matches my aesthetic, she said, wearing an oversized leather trench coat and shirt from Zimmermann and denim shorts from Ksubi. Ive known about it for a long time. (Earlier that same day, Baldwin shot her first official campaign for Schutz.)

She wore our shoes many times without any sort of business relationship, Birman said. We always try to work with people who really connect with the brand.

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Lancome hosted some 300 guests at a sit-down dinner on Wednesday in Monaco, which was infused with a wonders and stars theme.

What do you think makes life wonderful? was what Francoise Lehmann, international general manager of the LOreal-owned brand, asked a trio of its ambassadresses.

Well, we were all just backstage gushing about our families, so dare I speak for the three of us to say that would be number one on the list  followed quickly by fragrance and sunscreen, said Julia Roberts, eliciting a great guffaw from the crowd.

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And husbands, definitely husbands, said Kate Winslet.

Gratitude makes life more wonderful, continued Penelope Cruz.

Also backstage before the dinner began, Winslet talked to WWD about projects  including recent movie filmings. Work on Wonder Wheel marked the first time she was directed by Woody Allen.

Its one of those sort of things that you hope to experience as an actress, but you never really dare yourself to even dream it  because it seems so impossible, said Winslet, who called the experience extraordinary.

The movie is set in Coney Island, N.Y., in the Fifties and also features Justin Timberlake, Jim Belushi and Juno Temple.

I play the lead. My character is called Ginny, and shes a waitress in a clam house, Winslet said. Thats as much as I think Im allowed to tell you.

She added, though: It was probably like the second most stressful part Ive ever played, but the experience itself was just utterly incredible.

Winslet afterward filmed The Mountain Between Us with Idris Elba in Vancouver, which wrapped about a month ago.

Its a contemporary story about a couple who are complete strangers and survive, somehow, a light aircraft crash into the side of a mountain, and then its really a survival story of how they get themselves off the mountain and stay alive, she explained.

Winslet said with acting, shes keen to try anything new.

But funnily enough, one thing that I feel I havent done very much of, and would love to do, is to play English people, she said. Im almost always playing Americans. And whilst I love that, I would really love to experience doing something British  maybe even British comedy of some kind. That for me would be actually quite novel.

Theater, too, is of interest. But the hefty time commitment it commands is tricky vis-a-vis family life.

Although Winslet doesnt use specific makeup or fragrance to get into character for movie roles, the actress said beauty-wise she believes in everything in moderation. I also believe in being healthy  at the same time in terms of inside and in terms of a general outlook.

For me, so much of unlocking a character is actually in the clothes, she revealed, explaining that helping choose the costumes is among her favorite parts of moviemaking. I love that process. It is fascinating.

What she got to wear in two films were particular standouts. There was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because they were just fun, stupid clothes, Winslet said. We could be as mad as we wanted with that and also pare it back as much as we wanted.

The Allen film was a favorite, too. I loved it because it was Fifties, but its poor Fifties, she said. The costumes did not feel like costumes, they really felt like clothes.

The Lancome dinner, which was live-streamed on Facebook, also counted among its attendees actresses Liu Tao and Kim Go-eun; Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, who lens the brands advertisements, and vlogger Tati Westbrook.

The latter shared her key beauty secret for looking good while jetting around. The first thing that I always use on a plane is one of those crazy-looking sheet masks to keep my skin in check as I travel, she confided.

Guests were serenaded by Josef Salvat, who had people up on their feet while joining him in singing I Say a Little Prayer, and were spangled by silver-colored stars wafting from the ceiling.

In between courses, a dazzling light show involved rows of rose-shaped lamps and crystal chandeliers rising and falling to music, in a little dance of their own.

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Have you stopped by Mas Chinese Islamic Restaurant? Because its kind of wild on a Sunday afternoon, a world of head scarves and bright dresses, skinny suits and skullcaps, and children dumbstruck at the massive piles of sizzling black-pepper beef. The green-onion flatbreads  every table has one!  are as big as birthday cakes, and when you pick up a wedge you can see dozens of strata. Crisp shards of beef short ribs, cut laterally and thin in what Korean restaurants call L.A. style, are stacked six inches high.

The air is heady with garlic and cumin, burnt chiles and charred meat. The tables are set with forks  you have to ask for chopsticks. Jamillah Mas cooking is hearty and full flavored, spicy except when it isnt, and unafraid of excess.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when Islamic Chinese cooking looked like the future; a future awash in sesame sauce and mutton-organ warm pots. When the big Chinese food mall San Gabriel Square was young, the most popular restaurant was probably Tung Lai Shun, inspired by a famous Islamic restaurant in Beijing and serving a style of food we had never seen here before. I used to take visiting cookbook writers to Tung Lai Shun  I was convinced that Richard Olney would find hints of Provence in the plush braised lamb and that Fannie Farmer auteur Marion Cunningham might find inspiration in the flatbreads. (They didnt, but it in no way diminished my admiration.)

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I rejoiced in the sharp flavors of the Xinxiang-style mutton skewers at Feng Mao and the short-lived 818 and of the delicious Uyghur cooking at Omars in San Gabriel. For a while, the halal-restaurant database at zabihah.com seemed as good a place as any to seek out interesting new restaurants, especially given its contributors emphasis on hospitality and respect, even in the humblest dining rooms.

Mas Islamic may not be what you would consider a service-oriented restaurant  food can take a long time to get to the table  but it is a cheerful one, perhaps catering more to the needs of large families than to scattered parties of two or three, who can be overwhelmed by the lengthy menu and the sheer quantity of food. It is possible to order things like orange chicken, delivery-style fried shrimp and cream cheese won tons, although I wouldnt recommend it.

The short ribs, as served at Mas Chinese Islamic Restaurant in Anaheim. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

You should note that the parking lot includes a lot of bus-size spaces. This is not going to be a 15-minute meal.

What are you going to be eating, then? There is that sesame bread stuffed with green onions, either the giant one or a thinner, somewhat crispier and tastier version that comes out in about a third of the time. (Think of it as thick- versus thin-crust pizza.) You can stuff bits of Mongolian beef into the bread, or lamb stir-fried with cumin, dry-fried string beans with chile, or lamb with green onions. If there are a lot of you, you might consider the crunchy bread stuffed with red bean paste too. It isnt a bad dessert.

Most of the cold dishes are lovely  spicy cold beef, cold tripe with chile  especially slices of gently spiced beef tendon pressed into a translucent sort of terrine, and maybe the delicate, slippery mung-bean sheets slicked with garlicky sesame paste.

If Anaheim ever had a cold winter night, the warm pot  a mammoth tureen filled with broth, lamb, cellophane noodles and pickled cabbage  would probably be just the thing. I am fond of what the menu calls home-style croutons in lamb stew, which resembles the Xian dish of braised lamb and dense, torn bread that you may have tasted at one of the Shaanxi-style places in the San Gabriel Valley. The thick, hand-sliced noodles stir-fried with vegetables, lamb and egg, have a nice bite, although they may be heartier than they are refined.

The last time I was in, I asked a manager to recommend a dish that his mother might like. He brought out a loose, steaming tofu omelet in brown sauce, an omelet so heroic in stature that the leftovers filled two quart-size containers. Im not sure the tofu omelet was my favorite dish at Mas, but I appreciated the gesture. Mom didnt want anyone to go away hungry.

::

Mas Chinese Islamic

Jamillah Mas halal Chinese restaurant in Anaheim

LOCATION

601 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Anaheim, (714) 446-9553, masislamic.com.

PRICES

Appetizers $5.95-$7.25; cold dishes $9.95-$18.95; dumplings and breads $3.95-$13.95; soups and warm pots $9.50-$26.95; main dishes $9.95-$23.95.

DETAILS

Lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily; dinner 5 to 9:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m. Friday to Sunday. Credit cards accepted. No alcohol. Lot parking.

RECOMMENDED DISHES

Cold spicy beef tendon; thin sesame bread with green onions; Mas short ribs; home-style croutons in lamb stew.

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jonathan.gold@latimes.com

@thejgold
California bullet train Chief Executive Jeff Morales will leave the rail agency in June, ending a five-year tenure that saw mixed results in moving the $64-billion project forward.

An announcement by the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Friday did not give a reason for Morales departure but quoted Gov. Jerry Brown as saying, Jeff was instrumental at a crucial point in time and led Californias  project through a very challenging period.

Under Morales leadership, the rail authority was able to secure legislative approval for additional state funding and fended off several legal challenges that could have caused grave damage. Construction on the first, 119-mile segment in the Central Valley began in late 2015.

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But the project has fallen about seven years behind schedule, encountered growing Republican opposition and floundered in its efforts to secure private investment.

Morales was unable to solve problems with the acquisition of property  an issue that led the lead contractor to file a $50-million claim related to delays. Agreements with utilities, railroads and other entities affected by the bullet trains route also dragged on.

In December, the Federal Railroad Administration warned that the cost for building the 119 miles from Madera to Shafter could increase by 50%, to about $10 billion, because of all the problems. But Morales and rail board Chairman Dan Richard said that estimate was wrong.

Officials close to the rail project on Friday offered a variety of reasons Morales might be leaving.

Some suggested that anybody in the job would be exhausted after five years of struggling with political, legal and engineering challenges. Others said that while Morales  who was paid an annual salary of nearly $400,000  had helped to keep the project alive politically, he mismanaged its operational aspects.

And an internal rail authority survey earlier this year obtained by The Times reported that employees complained morale was low and had declined in each of the last three years. Employees interviewed by The Times said turnover was high, leaving staff overworked.

Morales stepped into the job shortly after Brown signaled that he strongly backed the project and began installing his representatives on the rail authority board. The prior chief executive, Roelof van Ark, had been criticized for shunning the political necessities of the job and putting his focus on engineering. At the time, the authority was under pressure for having many vacant positions.

Before his appointment, Morales had been working on high-speed rail at Parsons Brinckerhoff, the states main consultant on the project. His appointment drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike in the legislature, who worried about his relationship with the company affecting his management of the project.

Morales previously had worked as Caltrans director at the time when the controversial replacement for the earthquake-damaged eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was under construction. He also served as executive director of the Chicago Transit Authority, on the Obama transition team and in former Vice President Al Gores attempts to improve federal efficiency.

His departure from the California High-Speed Rail Authority comes six months after the projects chief deputy director, Dennis Trujillo, announced he would be leaving. That position remains open. Other top officials also have departed in recent months, including the chief administrative officer and the chief information officer for the project.

At the time Trujillo said he was leaving, rumors were swirling inside the rail authority that Morales would be going as well  something officials strongly denied.

On its website Friday, the rail authority announced a special board meeting to consider appointing a new chief executive would be held May 1, the earliest possible date that would comply with requirements for a 10-day notice. The scheduling indicates that the authority may have already begun searching for Morales replacement.

Morales refused requests to comment on his departure. But in a letter to the governor, he cited a long list of his accomplishments:

I am very proud of the progress we have made in advancing the nations first high-speed rail system, against the odds and in spite of all the obstacles, Morales said. We have 119 miles of construction underway through three major design-build contracts. To date, the project has supported thousands of jobs, put almost a thousand tradesmen and women to work, and injected upwards of $4 billion into Californias economy.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

Twitter: @rvartabedian

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The president of the Buena Park School District Board has been arrested on suspicion of trafficking in child pornography, Fontana police said Thursday.

Dennis Brian Chambers, 50, was allegedly found with thousands of pornographic videos and images of children on an electronic storage device after police tracked an IP address to his Buena Park home.

Chambers arrest followed a six-month collaboration between Fontana police and the Flathead County, Mont., Sheriffs Department. The investigation centered on a group that was distributing child pornography online, police said in a statement.

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Greg Magnuson, superintendent of the Buena Park School District, said in a statement Thursday that administrators were shocked and disturbed by Chambers arrest.

Chambers will no longer be allowed to attend school functions or enter any of the districts campuses, Magnuson said.

Chambers is being held at Santa Ana Central Jail on $250,000 bail, according to jail records. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

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The California Department of Public Health has issued penalties to 14 California hospitals, including three in Los Angeles County, for incidents that could have caused serious injury or death to patients, the state health agency announced this week.

The penalties  as well as more than $1.1 million in fines  were issued for incidents between 2012 and 2016. The Department of Public Health conducted an investigation in each case.

In Los Angeles County, the hospitals cited were Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, PIH Health Hospital in Downey and White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights.

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Harbor-UCLA was cited for leaving gauze inside a patients pelvis after a surgical procedure. The patient, who was not named, had a hysterectomy on April 30, 2015, according to state documents detailing the incident.

The gauze stuck to numerous internal organs, including the patients small intestines, colon and bladder, causing pain and infection, documents show. She experienced thick, foul-smelling discharge and severe pain, according to the health department.

More than a month after her initial surgery, she had to have a second procedure, in which surgeons had to remove 30 cm of her bowel to remove the dressing.

The hospital was fined $47,025 by the state.

The health department penalized PIH Health Hospital over its treatment of a female patient in September 2015. That person was admitted to the facility with pneumonia and congestive heart failure, records show. The patient underwent an MRI and was returned to her room in the hospitals telemetry unit.

However, documents state, the floors monitor technician  someone trained to watch telemetry monitors and recognize irregular heart rhythms  never was told the patient was there. She was found later in her room, slumped over, without a heartbeat, according to the state health department. She had not been connected to a central telemetry monitor, and no alarms sounded when her heart stopped.

The patient died in the intensive care unit days later. PIH Health Hospital was fined $47,025.

White Memorial Medical Center was penalized for its care of a 73-year-old patient who was admitted in January 2013 with a urinary tract infection, records show. The patient was not properly repositioned in bed and developed a deep-tissue bed sore.

The hospital was fined $50,000.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson
Robert Nunez hadnt been seen for three days when his mother got an alarming text message, saying her son was dead, police said.

The frightened woman went to the Santa Ana Police Department on April 16 and filed a missing person report, said police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna. Nunez, who had been homeless, was struggling with substance abuse issues, the corporal said, and his mother had tried to help him.

But little did she know her son had created a bogus kidnapping story in attempt to extort $300 from her, Bertagna said.

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Prosecutors charged Nunez, 31, this week with one felony count of attempted extortion by threat, according to an Orange County Superior Court criminal complaint.

Nunezs suspected scheme was discovered April 17, when his mother received more text messages demanding a ransom, Bertagna said. The messages appeared to coming from Nunezs cellphone, he said.

The notes indicated that her son was still alive but would be killed if she didnt pay the ransom, he said. She received a photograph showing a set of tools, including a knife and coping saw, as well as a message instructing her to tape the money to the tire of her daughters vehicle.

Soon after, Bertagna said, detectives began investigating Nunezs disappearance as a kidnapping.

After investigators got information that Nunez was possibly in Anaheim, they spotted him and another man inside a car, he said.

When detectives pulled the car over, they discovered Nunez had faked his kidnapping, he said. The other man told investigators that he knew nothing about Nunezs plan, Bertagna said.

Turns out he made it up, the corporal said.

Nunez was taken into custody and is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
A former Tennessee teacher accused of kidnapping his teenage student told Northern California authorities that he was relieved the five-week, nationwide search for him and the girl had come to an end, officials said.

Siskiyou County Sheriffs Sgt. Mike Gilley, speaking at a news conference on Thursday, said that Tad Cummins told him, Im glad this is over, as he was being arrested in Cecilville, a remote, unincorporated mountain community where Cummins is said to have hidden in a small cabin for several days with 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas.

Cummins, 50, was arrested Thursday morning. Elizabeth, who was found safe at the cabin, had been missing since March 13. The search for the pair spawned Amber alerts in Tennessee and Alabama, a sighting in Oklahoma City and more than 1,500 tips before they were found this week in Siskiyou County, which borders Oregon.

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Cummins was scheduled to be arraigned in Siskiyou County on Friday morning, but the arraignment was canceled after federal authorities took him into their custody to transport him to Sacramento, where hell be arraigned on a federal charge, the Redding Record Searchlight reported.

Jack Smith, the acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said Thursday that his office filed a federal charge of transporting a minor across state lines for criminal sexual intercourse. The charge, he said, carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years.

Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey said Thursday that Cummins appeared to have made an arrangement with someone connected to the property where the Cecilville cabin was in exchange for gas and food.

The cabin, authorities said, was a small, one-room building, and Cummins and Elizabeth appeared to have been sleeping on a foam mattress on the ground, the Siskiyou Daily News reported. They did not have any apparatus for cooking or preparing food.

Lopey said that at the time of the arrest, Elizabeth was emotional at times, sometimes stoic. It just kind of shifted back and forth.

Elizabeth was in protective federal care and would be returned home on a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation aircraft, authorities said.

The man who alerted authorities to the pairs whereabouts was 29-year-old Griffin Barry, the caretaker of the property on which the cabin was located, according to the Record Searchlight. Barry said Cummins used a fake name and said they had lost everything in a fire in Colorado and needed a place to stay.

Barry, a Tennessee native, recognized Cummins photo from a news story and called 911 Wednesday night, according to the Record Spotlight. Siskiyou County deputies formed a perimeter around the 12-by-12-foot cabin for several hours that night before drawing Cummins out the next morning to arrest him.

Barry told Good Morning America that he became suspicious because the girl wasnt really looking at me.

He was always dominating the conversation. You know, that kind of clues people in.  I had a photo of him that was the Amber Alert, and I was like, thats definitely the guy.

Michael Monk OHare, who owns the property, told The Tennessean he was out of town the night Barry contacted authorities and that he was shocked when Barry and a neighbor told him they thought it was Cummins in the cabin.

I thought, Oh my God, no, we are way too far from [Tennessee], OHare told the Tennessean.

The area is so remote, a lot of people come out there to hide. Its like a one-horse wilderness town. Theres no cellphone service for about 30 miles outside the town.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson
This week in Arkansas, lives came down to minutes.

Ledell Lee never saw Friday. Less than an hour before a midnight deadline to carry out the sentence, Arkansas officials learned the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his last appeals. The lethal injection began and Lee was dead by 11:56 p.m. Thursday  the first execution in the state since 2005.

Earlier in the week, Don Davis and Bruce Earl Ward saw the clock expire as courts halted their executions just before midnight Monday. Stacey Johnson got a reprieve Thursday as well.

Arkansas planned to execute eight convicted murderers over 11 days this month and the state will try again next week, with two scheduled for Monday and one on Thursday. A fourth scheduled for Thursday currently has a stay in place.

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The pace and volume of executions has troubled capital punishment opponents  though they took heart this week when the scheduled executions were stopped and when Johnsons case was stayed.

Lees execution was a blow, however.

Nina Morrison, a lawyer with the Innocence Project, worked until the last moments leading up to Lees execution and said the grim spectacle that played out in Arkansas was unlike anything shed seen in her 17 years of practicing law and working capital punishment cases.

Nobody can look at what happened in Arkansas and feel proud, Morrison said. It was a rushed, unfair and arbitrary process and we deserve better. The families of the victims deserve better, the courts deserve better and the defendants lives we have in our hands deserve better.

Lee was convicted in the 1993 murder of 26-year-old Debra Reese, the mother of a 6-year-old boy. She was robbed and strangled in her Jacksonville, Ark., home. Prosecutors said Lee then beat her 36 times with a bat-like tire thumper her husband had given her for protection.

Prosecutors came forward with evidence that Lee had previously committed violent crimes against several other women, though he maintained his innocence until his death.

But Morrison said the request for delaying Lees execution centered on the need for DNA testing that hadnt previously been available and that justice demanded it to ensure an innocent man wasnt put to death.

The flurry of legal challenges was seen by Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Atty. Gen. Leslie Rutledge as a stalling tactic to delay justice. A spokesman for Rutledge said Friday that it was impossible to know if the scheduled executions of Marcel Williams and Jack Jones on Monday would mirror this weeks frantic pace.

J.R. Davis, spokesman for Hutchinson, said the men facing execution already have had plenty of time to appeal and fight their cases.

You start to worry whether or not this is a big hit on the judicial system. You have all these last-minute appeals that are essentially thrown up against the wall to see what sticks, Davis said. These cases have been going on for decades  and that is part of the process. You want to make sure a person is guilty of the crime so you have the appeals set in place and there was time for that.

Arkansas Department of Corrections spokesperson Solomon Graves awaits news from the death chamber. (Kelly P. Kissel / AP)

But some of the legal challenges to Lees execution were focused on the methodology of the execution  namely the drugs used during lethal injections.

The states supply of one, midazolam, expires April 30. McKesson Corp. had filed for a temporary restraining order last week to keep Arkansas from using its product, vecuronium bromide, after the company said it had been misled because the state had never said it planned to use the drug in executions.

A temporary restraining order was put into place on April 14, but three days later the state Supreme Court removed it, agreeing with Rutledge that the judge who issued it was biased because he had attended an anti-death penalty protest.

McKesson filed for a new restraining order, which was approved Wednesday but then removed Thursday afternoon by the state Supreme Court.

We believe we have done all we can do at this time to recover our product, the company said in a statement lamenting the ruling.

Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, said the drug manufacturers unwillingness to be involved with products used for the death penalty may be a way capital punishment becomes a less viable form of justice as options diminish.

He said boycotts of companies that deal in drugs related to executions can make supplies for the states even harder to obtain and that its a tactic that may be more effective than seeking to abolish the death penalty through the legislative process.

The lack of supply has already hamstrung other states trying to conduct executions. In Nevada, an $860,000 execution chamber was built last year after being approved the Legislature in 2015, but it has yet to be used because the state cant obtain the drugs used for lethal injections.

Arkansas rush to complete its execution schedule  April 17 through 27  was set by Hutchinson in February when it was clear the drug would expire April 30.

Davis, the governors spokesman, said the dates were important for the families of the murder victims to see the will of juries carried out.

Lees execution, he said, was justice.

Lee had a last meal of fruit punch, four slices of bread, two cinnamon rolls, stewed tomatoes, sweet rice, corn and two pieces of fried chicken. He took Holy Communion and did not have any last words.

The two scheduled to die Monday are Marcel Williams and Jones. Williams, 46, was convicted of the 1994 rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson. Jones, 52, was convicted of the murder of a bookkeeper, Mary Phillips, in 1995.

One of the men scheduled to die Thursday, Jason McGehee, 40, currently has a stay in place and is unlikely to face execution because the legal process would extend beyond the April 30 deadline.

Public support for capital punishment, which peaked in the mid-1990s, when 80% of Americans favored the death penalty, is now at its lowest level since 1972, according to the Pew Research Center. Its poll in September showed 49% of Americans supported executions for convicted murderers.

The debate is expected to continue as Arkansas begins the process again Monday. And like last week, vigils are planned outside the governors mansion in Little Rock on Monday and Thursday.

The Rev. Steve Copley, chairman of the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said he will be praying Sunday in church and will be attending the protests Monday.

Ill be remembering the victims and family of the victims, but also remembering those on death row and the attorneys trying to make sure life isnt taken from them, Copley said. Ill be praying to ask God to be in the midst of this situation as it happens.

david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemontero

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Building on a case in which two girls were victims of genital mutilation, federal agents arrested a Michigan doctor and his wife Friday on allegations of helping to arrange the procedures.

Federal prosecutors say Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, offered the use of his medical clinic to Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, the Detroit emergency room doctor who was charged last week with carrying out the procedure on two 7-year-old girls.

In a complaint unsealed Friday charging the couple in the conspiracy, prosecutors offered new details about how they say the procedures were arranged and carried out.

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To help set them up, the complaint said, Attar exchanged more than 50 phone calls with a Minnesota number in the four months leading up to the evening of Feb. 3, when surveillance cameras captured him, his wife and Nagarwala arriving at Burhani Medical Clinic in Livonia, Mich.

At 6:25 p.m., a woman is seen entering the clinic with a young girl. Less than 20 minutes later, the pair emerges. Soon after, another woman and girl are seen going inside for 20 minutes.

The girls were brought to Detroit from Minnesota for a special girls trip, one of them told investigators. After arriving at a hotel, the girls were taken to the doctor to get the germs out because our tummies hurt, she said, according to court filings.

Both girls were instructed to keep what happened a secret, the complaint said.

One girl told authorities that she was given a pad to wear in her underwear. The other said that after the procedure she could barely walk and felt pain down to her ankle. Her parents told investigators that they took their daughter to Nagarwala for a cleansing of extra skin.

Attar told authorities that he opens his medical clinic after hours five or six times a year, on Friday evenings or Saturdays, so that Nagarwala can see girls between the ages of 6 and 9 for problems with their genitals, including treatment of genital rashes.

He said his wife, 50-year-old Farida Attar, who works as the clinics office manager, stays in the examining room to hold their hands, according to court records.

Investigators identified other children who may have been cut at Attars clinic since 2005. Multiple girls in Michigan told authorities that Nagarwala performed procedures on their genitals.

In a phone call intercepted by the FBI, Farida Attar told one of the Michigan parents to deny to authorities that the procedures were taking place. The conversation was in Gujarati, a language spoken in western India.

International health authorities say female genital mutilation has been performed on more than 200 million girls, primarily in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In 1996, then-Sen. Harry Reid pushed for a law criminalizing the practice.

Carried out mostly on girls between infancy and age 15, the ritual is intended to reduce sexual pleasure and promiscuity and to prepare a girl for marriage. It may involve a partial or total removal of the clitoris, excision of the inner and outer folds of the vulva or the narrowing of the vaginal opening.

The Detroit Free Press reported that Shannon Smith, an attorney representing Nagarwala, said that the doctor removed the membrane from the girls vaginal parts as part of a custom practiced by a small sect of Indian Muslims known as the Dawoodi Bohra.

Bohra clergy have banned genital mutilation of young girls, according to Jonah Blank, author of Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity Among the Daudi Bohras.

An organization representing the Dawoodi Bohra community in Detroit released a statement Friday saying that any violation of U.S. law is counter to instructions to our community members.

We take our religion seriously but our culture is modern and forward-looking, the statement said. We are proud that women from our community have high levels of educational attainment and enjoy successful, professional careers.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @AleneTchek

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After an election this week in which Georgia Republicans forced Democrat Jon Ossoff into a run-off for a closely contested House seat, Virginia Kilgore looked forward to voting for him on June 20.

Then she learned that under a quirk in Georgia law she wont be allowed.

The state constitution stipulates that only those who registered to vote in the general election are entitled to vote in a run-off election, meaning that anybody who wasnt registered by March 20 is ineligible to vote in the election.

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Its so frustrating, said Kilgore, a 57-year old substitute teacher.

She had recently moved to the district and was not able to vote in Tuesdays election due to a misunderstanding when she updated her drivers license. But she assumed she would have plenty of time to register before June 20.

Why do the same rules not apply to the runoff as to any other election? she said. Why are they trying to make it harder for people to vote?

On Thursday, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based advocacy group, filed a complaint in federal court in Atlanta, claiming Georgias law violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from imposing a registration deadline of more than 30 days before any federal election.

Cutting off the registration period makes absolutely no sense, said Ezra Rosenberg, co-director of the committees Voting Rights Project. We should be doing everything to help people vote. Not putting arbitrary blocks in front of them, particularly blocks that are in violation of federal statutes. Its just wrong.

At least 100 people have already learned that they will not be allowed to vote in the June election because of the law, and thousands more could be in the same situation as they try to register, Rosenberg said.

David Dove, chief of staff for the Georgia Secretary of States office, issued a statement dismissing the lawsuit as political theatre.

Setting voter qualifications is completely within the purview of states and the U.S. Constitution and cannot be altered by the National Voter Registration Act, it said.

But Daniel Tokaji, a professor of constitutional law at The Ohio State University, said the Georgia law was a clear violation of longstanding federal voting rights law.

I dont think that Georgia has much of a legal leg to stand on, he said. Georgia has an obligation to follow federal law, period, he said.

The stakes are particularly high in this election, which will fill a seat vacated when Tom Price was confirmed as the secretary of Health and Human Services. The race is widely seen as an early referendum on President Trump.

Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker and former Congressional aide making his first run for public office in a traditionally Republican district of suburban Atlanta, finished in first place Tuesday with 48.1% of the vote, shy of the 50% he needed to win the seat outright.

He will face the leading Republican, Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, in the run-off.

In this very critical election that has national implications, all voices should be heard, said Francys Johnson, an attorney who is president of the Georgia NAACP, one of the civil rights groups that is a plaintiff in the case. Thats what this is about  whether we will be expansive in our view of who can make decisions in search of a common good or hold to traditional notions that this right should only be exercised by a few.

Civil rights groups have long accused Georgia officials of gerrymandering districts and restricting voting rights. In 2005, Georgia was one of the first states in the nation to pass a strict law requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls.

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Arkansas carries out its first execution since 2005

Mysterious death of New York judge was initially called a suicide. Now, police think its suspicious

UPDATES:

3:30 p.m.: This article was updated with details about the law, the story of one voters experience and commentary from experts.

This article was originally published at 9:15 a.m.
The highest court in Massachusetts has formally approved the dismissal of more than 21,000 drug convictions that were tainted by the misconduct of a former state drug lab chemist.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says the final order from the Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday marks the single largest dismissal of convictions in U.S. history.

The action by the court was expected after seven district attorneys in eastern Massachusetts submitted lists on Tuesday totaling 21,587 cases they would be unwilling or unable to prosecute if new trials were ordered.

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The cases were called into question when chemist Annie Dookhan was charged with tampering with evidence and falsifying drug tests.

Dookhan pleaded guilty in 2013 to obstruction of justice, perjury and tampering with evidence after being accused of falsifying her work as far back as 2004. She was sentenced to three years in prison and was paroled last year.

Many of the drug case defendants have already completed their sentences, though some probably remain in prison because of other charges not contaminated by the lab scandal. About 2,000 cases had been resolved before Tuesday.

While its unknown how many cases Dookhan falsified, her conduct cast a cloud over the many thousands she worked on. As a result, in January, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said prosecutors would have to show that they could retry these cases without relying on evidence handled by Dookhan.

Prosecutors said Dookhan admitted to testing only a fraction of a batch of samples, and then listed them all as positive for illegal drugs. Her motive, they said, was to boost her productivity and burnish her reputation.

For those who have completed their sentences, wiping away their convictions will help them in other ways, such as employment, housing or immigration status, said Daniel Marx, an attorney who argued for the dismissals.

Now, a majority of these wrongfully convicted individuals will have the opportunity to clear their records and move on with their lives, he said.

Anthony Benedetti, chief counsel of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, said some of the defendants lost their jobs or homes and some have been deported.

In many respects, the damage has been done, Benedetti said. Justice delayed is justice denied.

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Supreme Court urged to give church schools an equal right to state funds

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Neo-Nazi website unleashed Internet trolls against a Jewish woman, lawsuit says
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Friday, April 21, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

Good jobs are disappearing

The stories of Eddie Ybarra and Francisco Martinez, two construction workers in their 40s, show the hollowing out of blue-collar jobs in Los Angeles and America writ large. Ybarra is a union worker and makes $40 an hour with pension, healthcare and unlimited vacation, while Martinez works for a nonunion contractor, makes $12.50 less with no insurance and gets just five vacation days a year. As immigrants like Martinez flooded Californias job market, pay sank. But which came first? Los Angeles Times

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Charting a course of bold action for L.A.

In a State of the City speech that focused heavily on homelessness and creating new revenue streams, Mayor Eric Garcetti struck a hopeful tone. The speech  his fourth as mayor  presented Los Angeles as a compassionate counterpoint to whats coming out of Washington and focused on pledges and programs to protect immigrants. The 45-minute address was delivered on the same day the mayor unveiled the budget. Los Angeles Times

Education as a way out

In Californias prisons, inmates are teaching each other how to start over as they hope and plan for a life on the outside. California corrections officials unveiled new regulations last month that will expand the credits some inmates earn for demonstrating good behavior and completing educational programs. The highly anticipated  and fiercely debated  guidelines could help trim the sentences of nearly 2,000 inmates over the next fiscal year. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

Be aware: Lead poisoning is prevalent in hundreds of areas across Los Angeles County, from affluent hubs to low-income or gentrifying areas. The results shocked some local leaders and showed how lead hazards persist even in a health-conscious region. Reuters

March for Science: On Saturday, Los Angeles streets will fill for the March for Science, which was organized by a stay-at-home mom in Temple City who launched a Facebook group that spawned the march. Los Angeles Times

Who rides those bikes? The L.A. Metro bike-sharing program has drawn about 130,000 riders since July, but numbers released thus far show that the L.A. County transit agency has a way to go before reaching its mid-summer goal to have two rides every day for each of its 800 bikes. KPCC

A school closes: Whittier College trustees have made the surprise decision to close the colleges law school, angering students at the Costa Mesa campus. Los Angeles Times

IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER

The cutters: Migrant workers in Mendocino County are making thousands of dollars trimming marijuana. Many trimmers in the county looking for work this season have come from all over the U.S. and all over the rest of the world, including Spain, France, Portugal and Switzerland. ABC News

This is different: In two weeks, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood will ask the Kern County Board of Supervisors to adopt a resolution that will declare Kern County a law and order county and not a sanctuary county. Los Angeles Times

A familiar face: The San Diego federal judge whom Trump criticized as a hater is now hearing a key deportation case. Theres a political irony here. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Coulter is coming: UC Berkeley officials on Thursday reversed their decision to cancel conservative commentator Ann Coulters appearance at the university. Its been rescheduled from next week to May 2, according to a statement from the university. Los Angeles Times

Hunter changes course: Rep. Duncan Hunter says he has halted campaign payments to his wife. The congressman is under federal criminal investigation amid allegations of using campaign money for personal purposes. San Diego Union-Tribune

Oops! L.A. City Council candidate Joe Bray-Ali apologized for comments he made about Mexicans in a video on YouTube. Los Angeles Times

Changing tune: Since he almost lost in November, Rep. Darrell Issa has shifted toward the center on several issues, including calling for Atty. Gen. Jeff Session to recuse himself from the Russian investigation and being hesitant about Trumps attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Los Angeles Times

Train fare: The California treasurer sold $1.2 billion in high-speed rail bonds Thursday, which would be tapped for Central Valley construction. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

Arrest made: A 50-year-old Tennessee man accused of kidnapping his 15-year-old former student was arrested in Northern California  and the teenage girl was recovered safely after she was missing for more than a month. Los Angeles Times

A gun snafu: Federal officials have admitted that procedures were violated at Los Angeles International Airport when an off-duty police officer boarded a flight to Taiwan with a handgun in her carry-on bag. Los Angeles Daily News

Big sting: Prosecutors charged 26 doctors and other medical professionals Thursday in an alleged $40-million kickback scheme that may have defrauded up to 13,000 patients in California. Los Angeles Times

THE ENVIRONMENT

Yard makeover: The drought is over, but some homeowners say they will be keeping their water-sipping landscapes. This home in Woodland Hills shows that you dont need turf to look good. Los Angeles Times

The salad squeeze: Too much rain in the state has squeezed U.S. salad supplies, and it may be a several more weeks before supermarket shelves are fully stocked again. That means the salad shortage could last until May. Bloomberg

A clean car problem: Zero-emissions vehicles arent selling, according to car consultant Eric Noble. In his mind, it would be better if the state incentivized purchases of low-emissions vehicles rather than zero-emissions vehicles. Capital and Main

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Out at night: To beat the crowds, surfers in San Diego are heading out after sunset and braving the waves with LED boards. Sharks, not visibility, are their biggest concern. New York Times

Twenty-five years on: There are two new documentaries about the L.A. riots that are coming out, as the 25th anniversary of the violence approaches. Here are Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turans thoughts on both. Los Angeles Times

Go west! Whats been billed as the best Mexican restaurant in New York City, Cosme, is coming to L.A. The spot will probably open in 2018. Eater LA

Takei alert: The musical Allegiance, inspired by the early life of actor George Takei in World War II internment camps, will come to L.A. in 2018, co-producers East West Players and the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center announced Thursday. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: sunny Friday, partly cloudy Saturday. Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco area: sunny Friday and Saturday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from Vic Pentz:

When I grew up in inland Riverside during the 1960s, a constant tug was the lure to escape our orange groves for the sensual delights of Newport Beach. Some afternoons, the rumor surfs up! seemed to almost empty out our high school in a caravan of cars down the 91. Invariably my father seemed to know. You ditched school for Newport! hed fume. How did he know? One day we looked out the window and spotted Dad leaning in behind the steering wheel, jotting down the odometer mileage. In auto shop class my brother soon learned how to disconnect and reconnect the odometer cable. It was simple now. Just wash all the sand off really well before heading home.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
Voters in the 7th Council District have a refreshingly difficult decision on May 16. The two contenders who emerged from a field of 20 during the primary are both experienced public servants committed to improving the quality of life in the often forgotten northeast corner of Los Angeles.

Either candidate, Monica Rodriguez or Karo Torossian, would be a good representative on the City Council. They couldnt be any worse than the incumbent  there isnt one! Former Councilman Felipe Fuentes quit the job a year before his term ended to become a lobbyist in Sacramento; the district has been represented by a caretaker councilman since September.

Even before Fuentes, residents of Council District 7, which includes the communities of Sylmar, Mission Hills, Pacoima, Lakeview Terrace, Sunland-Tujunga and Shadow Hills, have suffered from inconsistent leadership due to redistricting and rapid councilmember turnover. Thats one reason district residents have been frustrated with City Hall. Too many communities lack basic infrastructure, such as sidewalks and street lights, and they havent seen the same level of economic investment as neighboring districts or the city as a whole.

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This is a district that needs a committed representative in City Hall who has a track record of getting things done. Between two strong candidates, Rodriguez has the edge for her extensive resume of service and record of accomplishment. Most recently an appointed member of the citys Board of Public Works, shes practically done it all in local government. She handled community affairs for former Mayor Richard Riordan, then worked on policy and constituent services for Councilmen Mike Hernandez and Richard Alarcon. Shes known for being a persistent and effective advocate.

As a deputy to former Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Caprice Young, Rodriguez walked neighborhoods with parents to find suitable locations for dozens of new schools during the districts building boom. She also worked with residents concerned about the impacts, all while navigating the districts notorious bureaucracy. It was good practice for the challenges facing the next council member: how to work with skeptical residents to build homeless and affordable housing in their community.

Although shes backed by top city officials and most of the city employee unions, Rodriguez insists that she is unapologetically me and not afraid to buck the political establishment, which she did in 2007 when she ran against her former boss, Alarcon. The Times endorsed her then too.

Torossian is the planning deputy for Councilman Paul Krekorian, and hes an expert in development and land-use issues. As a staff member, he has developed a reputation for being a good listener, a consensus-builder and a policy wonk committed to finding solutions. Voters have a hard choice between two strong candidates. In this case, The Times favors Rodriquez, the candidate who has spent two decades preparing for the job.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
In the final weeks before the runoff election, the Los Angeles City Council District 1 race has taken an unfortunate dark turn as incumbent Councilman Gil Cedillo fights off a surprise challenge by community activist Joe Bray-Ali. Harsh campaign mailers are arriving in the mail, racist comments have been made, supporters can be found screaming at each other at events, and accusations of unethical behavior have been leveled. That sort of thing.

Its in stark contrast to the relatively mild race that led to the March primary election, in which the biggest drama that occurred was when someone was caught on video tearing down a Bray-Ali campaign sign.

Though council members almost always win outright, with more than 50% of the vote, in the primary, Cedillo has found himself fighting for re-election in a runoff race against an opponent with a fraction of his campaign cash, political support or name recognition. Thats because District 1, which stretches from upscale parts of Highland Park to the dense, low-income neighborhoods around MacArthur Park, is in need of a responsive, respectful steward as it experiences transformative growth.

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The council member must balance the needs of the districts constituents with the formidable pressure from developers to build more housing. Many community leaders say the councilman is not succeeding at that. They say he is unresponsive to and dismissive of constituents. Some say hes too cozy with developers; some are concerned that his policies are encouraging gentrification of the districts neighborhoods, which in turn is resulting in displacement.

Bray-Ali offers a credible, appealing alternative to Cedillo. He earned the recommendation of The Times editorial board in the March primary and is still the best candidate. Bray-Ali, a former bike store owner, has been active in the community for more than a decade, first as a neighborhood council member and then as an advocate for bike lanes. He has a deep understanding of land-use issues, fresh ideas grounded in reality and a clear commitment to the district and its issues. Its telling too that Councilman Mitch OFarrell in neighboring Council District 13 has broken with tradition and endorsed Bray-Ali over Cedillo, calling him an independent voice.

Regrettably, this campaign has been characterized by mudslinging rather than a deep examination of the issues. Why did Bray-Ali once register to vote as Republican? Why wont Cedillo apologize for a supporter yelling go back to India to Bray-Ali at a debate? (Bray-Alis father is Indian American.) Does posting a question to the hilarious OC Weekly column Ask a Mexican mean Bray-Ali is a racist?

If voters look beyond the campaign distractions and identity politics on the surface of this race, they will see that Cedillo is an old-school politician whose policies and actions have helped bring about some of the very gentrification he now decries, and that Bray-Ali offers the kind of energetic, visionary and community-focused leadership that this district, and city, deserves.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

UPDATES:

4/27: Due to new information, The Times has rescinded this endorsement of Joe Bray-Ali.
Today I voted to authorize the leaders of my union to call a strike that I desperately dont want. The result of the vote will be announced Monday, but the outcome was never in doubt: Hollywood writers will give our negotiators the power to call a second strike in ten years if they cant agree on a new deal with producers before the Writers Guild of America contract expires May 1.

Ive gone on strike twice. During the last one, in 2007 and 2008, my wife and I  like so many other writers  were both fired. In our community, the financial and emotional scars remain fresh, which is why no one I know wants a work stoppage, including our negotiating team, who are thoughtful, restrained and reasonable. Too reasonable, in my view. Im sure the producers think the guild is asking for too much. I think theyre asking for too little.

Thanks to the Clinton administration, wages paid to Hollywood writers have been stagnant for a generation. Bill Clinton overturned rules preventing studios from owning TV networks. The rules promoted competition by preventing vertical integration. As soon as they were gone, the studios gobbled up the networks, killing independent production companies that competed for writers. Corporate consolidation has been great for corporate profits  the six major conglomerates reported $51 billion in profits in 2016  but not so great for labor. In the past two years, the average salary for a TV writer-producer has declined 23%, according to the WGA.

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The only way to improve everyones financial prospects is to demand salary increases.

If wages have been stagnant, what accounts for the staggering decline in salaries? The advent of the 12-episode season. In the old days  all of five years ago  most shows produced 22 episodes a year. Now, as many or more, including everything on cable and streaming services, make 12 episodes or fewer. TV writers are paid per episode. Fewer episodes means fewer paydays. Wage stagnation was a tolerable frustration in the days of 22-episode seasons. In a world with half as many, its a recipe for financial disaster.

To combat this, the guild wants producers to agree to make 12 episodes fast enough that writers could conceivably work on two short-order series in the same year. This is a great idea as far as it goes  but it doesnt go far enough. Some writers may find a second show. Most probably wont. And the ones who do, wont they simply be taking jobs away from other writers, who will make even less? The only way to improve everyones financial prospects is to demand salary increases.

Here are two ways the guild could do that. First, set salary minimums. There are eight levels on every writing staff in TV, from staff writer up to executive producer. The guild should demand a minimum salary for each position. Agents negotiate an individual writers contracts, but they have proved unable or unwilling to combat stagnant wages on a case-by-case basis. The guild could go a long way toward solving the problem by setting floors across the board.

Second, allocate a percentage of a shows episodic budget for writers. As I recollect, the first show I worked on cost about $2 million per episode to make. Of this, about $200,000 went to writers. Thats 10%. Today, a show that costs $4 million an episode may have a writers budget of $300,000. Under 8%. Tying the writers budget to the overall budget will reverse this trend.

Soaring corporate profits. Declining compensation for the labor that makes those profits possible. Management demands to roll back health coverage (yes, thats on the table). Sound familiar? It should. The labor-management relations in our business reflect whats happening nationwide. A lot of people mock Hollywood for being too, well, Hollywood, but this is not a cat fight between one-percenters. According to the WGA, the average TV writer made $250,000 last year. Sounds great, but take away 23% every other year, and in a decade, it wont be. The only obvious way in which our situation is unique is that, so far, robots cannot do our jobs. If producers could replace us with an algorithm, they would.

Everything in our business starts with writers. Every character you love, every story that moves you, a writer dreamed it up. Im as much in awe of what my colleagues do today as I was when I started 30 years ago  including their willingness to strike to get a deal they believe in. I just wish they believed in one that increased our wages.

John Eisendrath, a television writer, is the executive producer of The Blacklist.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
I voted for Donald Trump because he promised to pursue a new foreign policy. As he said in December, We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. Our goal is stability, not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country. He vowed to appoint those with new approaches, and practical ideas, rather than surrounding myself with those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies.

After decades of disastrous interventions, Trump inspired me. But less than 100 days into his administration, Im feeling the sting of betrayal. In recent weeks, Trump and his surrogates have abandoned virtually every foreign policy stance he took during the campaign.

He launched missiles against the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad  mere months after telling the New York Times: I thought the approach of fighting Assad and [Islamic State] simultaneously was madness, and idiocy. Now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is saying Assad must go, a clear indication that the Trump administration is looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments.

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In another interview with the New York Times, Trump declared NATO obsolete, explaining, When NATO was formed many decades ago we were a different country. There was a different threat. Now we are told that NATO is no longer obsolete. Stay tuned for the Trump administrations campaign to bring back Betamax.

Trumps appointees are now echoing the Washington policy wonks who want to start a new Cold War.

Wouldnt it be nice, Trump often said, if we could get along with Russia? This was music to my ears: finally a Republican candidate who wasnt locked into a Cold War mentality. Yet, Trumps appointees are now echoing the Washington policy wonks who want to start a new Cold War.

H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security advisor, claims the Russians are engaged in a campaign of global subversion. Tillerson, during his recent visit to Moscow, denounced Russias alleged interference in the 2016 election  an echo of the Democrats unproved claim that the Kremlin colluded with his boss.

As Trump threatens to go to war with North Korea  which would spell doom for the 38,000 American troops stationed on the Korean peninsula  I am reminded of his comments on our military commitments in the region: There is going to be a point at which we just cant do this anymore . At some point, we cannot be the policeman of the world . [I]f we are attacked, [Japan doesnt] have to do anything. If theyre attacked, we have to go out with full force . Thats a pretty one-sided agreement.

Im not alone in feeling betrayed.

Ann Coulter, author of In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome, wrote recently that Trumps Syrian misadventure is immoral, violates every promise he ran on, and could sink his presidency. At Breitbart News, the online headquarters of the Trump insurgency, a piece about the Syria attacks attracted more than 50,000 ferociously negative comments. Pat Buchanan, the ideological godfather of Trumpism, despaired that the promise of a Trump presidency  appears, not 100 days in, to have been a mirage. Will more wars make America great again? A baffled Laura Ingraham tweeted, Missiles flying. Rubios happy. McCain ecstatic. Hillarys on board. A complete policy change in 48 hrs. Talk radio host Michael Savage complains that People in Trumps own sphere are turning him toward the beating war drums. Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit forces in Britain who campaigned for Trump in the U.S., opined that the presidents supporters will be scratching their heads at these foreign policy reversals.

Its the same sad story on the domestic front. Instead of repealing Obamacare, Trump pushed what the House Freedom Caucus dubbed Obamacare lite. Trump the campaigner denounced both Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz as pawns of Goldman Sachs; as president, hes appointed several Goldman Sachs executives to top spots in his administration. Not long ago, he told Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen  whose visage was featured in a negative ad that ran in the last week of the campaign  that she should be ashamed of herself, accusing her of politicizing the Fed and creating a very false economy. Now he says hes open to reappointing her.

The liberal media are thrilled by Trumps transformation: The chorus of gushing praise on CNN and MSNBC as bombs fell on Syria was loud and practically unanimous. And Trump is reciprocating: Last week at a White House event honoring first responders, he characterized the media as honorable people. Remember when he called them out as the worlds most dishonest people? Ah, those were the good old days!

And while Trump praises his enemies, he denigrates his loyal friends, openly downgrading Stephen K. Bannon, the architect of his victory, as just someone who works for me.

As the elites rush to embrace the president, those of us who supported him are horrified, angry and increasingly convinced that instead of draining the swamp, Trump has jumped headlong into it.

Justin Raimondo is editorial director of Antiwar.com and author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
Cal officials are doomed, no matter how they try to manage the Ann Coulter speech mess. Extremists have picked Berkeley as the location of their brewing ideological war, and there is little university or city officials can do about it.

Except to make matters worse. And it appears UC Berkeley Regents have done just that this week when, freaked out about violent clashes days before, they tried to shut down the Coulter speech scheduled for April 27. Backtracking a few days later, they offered Coulter a later date, when classes will be finished.



For the record: An earlier version of this post referred to the violent free speech movement of the 1960s. While there was some violence by police and hecklers during the Free Speech Movement protests in Berkeley in 1964-65, the movement itself was non-violent.

Conservative author Ann Coulter addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Feb. 20, 2010. (Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

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Too late. Damage done. Coulter says theres no way shes waiting until May 2. Shell be in Berkeley on Thursday to speak, invite or not. And her faithful supporters will be there too, protecting Coulters right to speak, whatever nasty thing comes to mind.

The black clad masked anarchists from out of town making so much mischief in Berkeley lately would be nuts to miss this opportunity to take on their conservative nemeses, maybe get some payback for a white nationalist who punched a woman in the face during last weeks protest.

Coulter couldnt have planned it any better herself.

I feel for the people in charge of the campus and the city who have to deal with the cost of hosting the battles between leftist revolutionaries and alt-right warriors. There will be damage to public property. There will be overtime for the police and campus security. There will be blood. Maybe not this time. But the next time. Or the next.

There will be another clash because the provocateurs on the right know that if you want to start a public fight with the reactionaries on the left, you come to Berkeley to do it  the campus or the city, it doesnt matter as they are one and the same in the eyes of the world. This is the way it has been forever, or at least in the half a century since the protests of the 1960s birthed the liberal, supposedly tolerant haven Berkeley is now.

People who choose to live in the city know this, students know it and the few conservatives there know it too, which is why they keep trying to bring in politically explosive speakers like Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz. All of whom were invited to speak this year by Republican groups who knew exactly how much trouble they were stirring up. The Yiannopoulos and Horowitz events were both shut down. Coulter, it seems, wont let Berkeley off easy.

Hopefully, University officials now realize they cant win by trying to shut down free speech, vile and vicious though it may be. Its not the Berkeley way and, as is now clear, it only feeds the fire.

mariel.garza@latimes.com

Follow me @marielgarzaLAT
University of California administration is paying excessive salaries and mishandling funds, state audit says

UCLA campus (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The administration of the University of California system pays top workers salaries and benefits significantly higher than that of similar state employees, and failed to disclose to the Board of Regents and the public that it had $175 million in budget reserve funds while it was seeking to raise tuition, a state audit found Tuesday.

The audit triggered a dispute with UC President Janet Napolitano, who said charges of hidden funds were false, while two members of the UC Board of Regents charged recommendations to give the Legislature budget authority over the Office of the President encroached on UCs constitutional powers.

Among the sticking points, the auditors believe the regents should contract with an independent third party that can assist the regents in monitoring a three-year corrective action plan.

The audit of the Office of the President also found that it failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on system-wide initiatives and inappropriately screened surveys submitted by auditors to campus officials.

Our report concludes that the Office of the President has amassed substantial reserve funds, used misleading budgeting practices, provided its employees with generous salaries and atypical benefits, and failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on systemwide initiatives, State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature.

Furthermore, when we sought independent perspective from campuses about the quality and cost of the services and programs the Office of the President provides to them, the Office of the President intentionally interfered with our audit process, Howle wrote.

The auditor said that because of recent tuition hikes, she recommends the Office of the President should refund available funds in the reserves by returning them to the campuses for the benefit of students.

Ralph Washington Jr. president of the U.C. Students Assn. said if any reserve money is found it should go to help students, possibly by killing the tuition increase or helping students who are starving or homeless, but he is concerned legislators may use the audit to say the U.C. doesnt need so much general fund money.

Students definitely dont want their tuition to go up, he said.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount), who serves on the board of regents, said the audit requires more inquiry.

The audit of the UC Office of the President appears to have uncovered the same kind of budgetary misrepresentations and executive excess that weve seen before with the State Parks Department and the Public Utilities Commission, Rendon said in a statement. There are many questions that need to be answeredand answered honestly.

The audit was requested by legislators concerned about high tuition and complaints of a bloated administration overseeing the UC systems 10 campuses.

The reserve included $32 million in unspent funds it received from an annual charge levied on the campusesfunds that campuses could have spent on students, the audit said.

Auditors said salaries paid to those in the presidents office are much higher than the pay of comparable positions in other state government jobs.

President Napolitano agreed with the vast majority of recommendations for improving budget processes and spending, but denied that $175 million was hidden from the UC Board of Regents.

In a letter to Howle, the president said changes were already underway.

The recommendations to [the UC presidents office] are helpful, Napolitano wrote. We welcome this constructive input, which aligns with our proactive efforts to continually improve UCOPs operations, and UCOP intends to implement the recommendations.

However, Board of Regents Chair Monica Lozano and Regent Charlene Zettel asked Howle to remove recommendations that they feel encroach on the constitutional autonomy of the university system, including proposals to have the Legislature approve the Office of the Presidents budget.

As written, we believe these recommendations threaten the Universitys standing as a constitutionally autonomous entity, and the Board of Regents itself, the regents wrote.

Administrative salaries amounted to $2.5 million more than the maximum annual salary ranges for comparable state employees, auditors found.

For instance, an accounting managers maximum annual salary is $169,000 at UC compared to $156,000 for other state employees.

An information system manager can make $258,000 with UC, but $150,000 with other state agencies.

The audit said: 10 executives in the Office of the President whose compensation we analyzed were paid a total of $3.7 million in fiscal year 2014-15  over $700,000 more than the combined salaries of their highest paid state employee counterparts.

On benefits, the Office of the President provided a regular retirement plan but also offered its executives a retirement savings account into which the office contributes up to 5% of the executives salariesabout $2.5 million over the past five years, the audit found.

The Office of the President also spent more than $2 million for its staffs business meetings and entertainment expenses over the past five yearsa benefit that the State does not offer to its employees except in limited circumstances, the audit said..

The audit also said the Office of the President reimbursed questionable travel expenses, including a ticket for a theater performance and limousine services. One person spent $350 per night on hotel rooms, which is above the allowable standard for other state agencies.

The audit said the Office of the President has not managed its own budget  which amounted to $747 million in fiscal year 201516  in a fiscally prudent or transparent way.

Napolitano said the audit was in error in claiming her office failed to publicly disclose tens of millions in surplus funds.

In fact, UCOPs budget and financial approaches reflect strategic, deliberate and transparent spending and investment in UC and state priorities, said a statement by the Office of the President.

Howle disagreed.

Significant reforms are necessary to strengthen the publics trust in the Office of the President, the audit concluded.

Read the audit here.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hampered by poor organization and an overworked staff, will have trouble keeping up with the Trump administrations plans to ramp up deportations of people in the country illegally, government inspectors have concluded.

ICE has overwhelming caseloads, its records are likely inaccurate and its deportation policies and procedures are outdated and unclear, said a report released Thursday by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department.

ICE is almost certainly not deporting all the aliens who could be deported and will likely not be able to keep up with the growing number of deportable aliens, the 19-page report concludes.

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The harsh assessment is the latest dash of cold reality for Trump, who was swept into Washington promising vastly tougher enforcement of immigration laws, including more removals, thousands more Border Patrol agents and deportation officers, and construction of a formidable wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Congress faces a looming deadline to fund the federal government after members return next week, and the proposed wall and other new border security measures probably wont get anything extra in this round of spending. Trump had asked Congress to provide an additional $5 billion this year.

A vast surge of new hiring is also problematic. Although Trump has signed an executive order directing the Border Patrol and ICE to hire 15,000 more agents and officers to boost enforcement, that goal will be nearly impossible to achieve anytime soon.

An internal memo in February from Kevin McAleenan, acting director of Customs and Border Protection, revealed that Border Patrol was able to vet and hire only about 40 agents a month last year despite aggressive efforts to streamline the hiring process.

Reports this year that Customs and Border Patrol might stop using polygraph tests, intended to ferret out unqualified agents, drew a storm of criticism. So did the reason: Two out of three new applicants had failed the lie detector.

The agency first required polygraph tests for prospective employees in 2012 after an Obama-era hiring surge led to a sharp increase in agents getting charged or arrested for bribery, drug smuggling and other crimes on or near the border.

Moreover, the Border Patrol  the nations largest federal law enforcement agency  has more than 2,000 jobs empty even before a Trump-led hiring surge. The force fell below 20,000 agents this year for the first time since 2009, when Obama came to office.

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said Sunday that Customs and Border Protection would continue to use the polygraph as a hiring tool, although he added that the agency was considering changes to make the process less arduous.

Kelly, a retired Marine general, took the offensive in a speech at George Washington University on Tuesday, blaming poor morale in his department on what he called pointless bureaucracy and disrespect and contempt from political leaders.

If lawmakers do not like the laws that we enforce. then they should have the courage and the skill to change those laws, he said. Otherwise, they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines.

Under the Trump administration, the Border Patrol and ICE have ramped up arrests of people in the country illegally  21,362 from mid-January to mid-March, compared with about 16,100 for the same period last year.

Removals by ICE reached a peak of 409,000 a year under President Obama before plummeting to 235,000 in 2015 and 240,000 last year.

In the first three months of this year, ICE has deported 54,936 people, a rate that appears to put the Trump administration on track to remove fewer people than the Obama administration.

On Thursday, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions boasted during a visit to El Paso of making progress, saying the number of people trying to cross the border illegally had fallen to the lowest in 17 years.

For those that still seek to violate our laws and enter the country illegally, let me be very clear: Dont come. When you are caught, you will be detained, adjudicated and deported, he said.

Sessions said he had ordered each of the 94 U.S. attorneys offices to make criminal immigration enforcement a priority, and said each now has a border security coordinator who is personally responsible for overseeing immigration enforcement.

After taking office, Sessions ordered nearly every U.S. attorney in the country to resign. He has yet to nominate any replacements to the Senate, which must confirm each one, so its unclear when federal prosecutors will start to change their focus.

Sessions also said he had streamlined the hiring of immigration judges, and that the Justice Department would add 50 such judges this year and 75 next year to help adjudicate asylum claims, deportation orders and other disputes.

That will help but hardly solve the problem. There are now 250 immigration judges, and a backlog of 542,000 cases in immigration courts.

Moreover, the latest report from the inspector generals office at Homeland Security said ICE agents, who are supposed to identify, detain and deport people in the country illegally, are ill-equipped to monitor those on their caseloads.

ICE tries to keep track of about 2.2 million foreigners who are not in jail, including more than 368,000 convicted criminals, the report said. Some officers have more than 10,000 cases, the report said, criticizing agency officials for not managing the problem.

Although many ICE deportation officers  reported overwhelming caseloads and difficulty fulfilling their responsibilities, ICE does not collect and analyze data that could be used to ease the pressure.

In one office, according to the report, officers complained that they had to manage so many thousands of cases that they couldnt keep track of some migrants who had been flagged as risks to national security.

The report faulted ICE for insufficient training and failing to issue up-to-date, comprehensive and accessible guidelines on deportation. Resolving the failures, it said, may require significant time and resources.

These management deficiencies and unresolved obstacles make it difficult for ICE to deport aliens expeditiously, it said.

The inspector generals office launched the review last year after Jean Jacques, a Haitian national, was released from ICE custody in 2015 even though he had been convicted of attempted murder and given a final order of deportation. While on the street, he killed another man.

ICE said it agreed with the reports recommendations and that it was prioritizing deportation efforts to focus on those who pose the greatest threats.

The agency remains committed to implementing safeguards to ensure that its deportation operations are executed in a way that promotes public safety and protects our communities, Jennifer D. Elzea, an acting press secretary, said Thursday.

Randy Capps, research director at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the Trump administration may have promised more than it can deliver given the systemic problems.

Sooner or later, they are going to have to narrow down [deportation priorities] or the system is going to be overwhelmed, he said. Thats certainly what the Obama administration found. Theres a certain size past which the system is very hard to manage efficiently.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @jtanfani

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The Trump administration fired an opening salvo in its promised crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities Friday, asking nine jurisdictions for proof that they are cooperating with immigration enforcement, and warning they are at risk of losing federal grants.

The Justice Department sent the letters to the California Board of State and Community Corrections, as well as officials in Cook County, Ill., Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.

More than 150 communities have laws or policies that restrict the ability of police and jails to hand over people who are in the country illegally to federal immigration officers, but the nine were chosen because they were named in a Justice Department review last year.

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California officials reacted with defiance Friday, promising to double efforts to guard the states policies in the face of the implied threat to cut the funds.

It has become abundantly clear that Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration are basing their law enforcement policies on principles of white supremacy  not American values, Senate leader Kevin de Leon said in a statement.

Their constant and systematic targeting of diverse cities and states goes beyond constitutional norms and will be challenged at every level, he added.

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said the state will defend its policies against fearmongering by the Trump administration.

Federal threats to take away resources from law enforcement or our people in an attempt to bully states and localities into carrying out the new administrations unsound deportation plan are reckless and jeopardize public safety, he said in a statement.

The emerging dispute between communities and the Trump administration is already in the courts, and the letters may bolster the administrations case.

President Trump repeatedly vowed to cut all federal funds to sanctuary cities during last years campaign, but its highly doubtful Congress would permit that. Thus far the administration has only threatened to cut off grants administered by the Justice Department.

The actual amount at risk is relatively small  a total of $4.1 billion in federal grants to governments and law enforcement agencies across the country, and far less to the nine jurisdictions named Friday.

The California Board of State and Community Corrections, for example, received $20 million last year from the Justice Department program identified in the letter. The state then distributed the money to 32 counties and the state prison agency.

Los Angeles County received $3.59 million, the largest county grant, for a program that coordinates law enforcement, prosecution and treatment for illicit drug abuse and narcotics-related crime and gang culture. Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell has opposed a so-called sanctuary state bill from De Leon that would limit cooperation with immigration officials.

De Leon on Friday also released a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions written by a private attorney hired by the Legislature who said the state and its cities are in compliance with the law.

It is our understanding that these [state] laws do not violate federal law and would not be subject to an enforcement action by the federal government, wrote attorney Daniel Shallman.

Shallmans law firm, Covington & Burling, has been hired by California legislators to assist the state in communicating with the Trump administration. The legal strategy is being guided by former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder.

Shallman asked that the federal officials confirm that they will not take action against the state to enforce a Trump executive order threatening to withhold money from sanctuary cities.

Officials in San Francisco County, which received $3 million last year for a program aimed at reducing recidivism for young people, have also said they will limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Another $1 million from the federal grant program went to San Bernardino County to cover costs following the 2015 terrorist shooting that killed 14 people, and $396,310 went to a state prison program to reduce rapes of convicts.

The Justice Department warned that the grants could be jeopardized unless authorities can verify in writing that the state, counties and cities are not restricting sharing of information with federal immigration authorities on the citizenship status of people in prison and jail cells.

Trump and Sessions long have contended that sanctuary cities are defying federal law and are promoting crime by sheltering people who have violated immigration statutes, including gang members and other violent criminals.

Supporters of the sanctuary policies argue that immigrants here illegally would go underground and refuse to report crimes or cooperate with police if they feared doing so could lead to deportation.

In a statement, the Justice Department said many cities are crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime, citing Chicagos alarming murder rate and gang killings in New York City.

And just several weeks ago in Californias Bay Area, after a raid captured 11 MS-13 members on charges including murder, extortion and drug trafficking, city officials seemed more concerned with reassuring illegal immigrants that the raid was unrelated to immigration than with warning other MS-13 members that they were next, the release said.

The letters follow one of Trumps executive orders, and a speech by Sessions at the White House in which he claimed that countless Americans would be alive today  and countless loved ones would not be grieving today  if the policies of these sanctuary jurisdictions were ended.

The nine jurisdictions were chosen because they were the focus of a study last year by the Justice Departments inspector general.

They were among 155 cities, counties and jails that the Obama administration said were not fully cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for identifying, detaining and deporting undocumented migrants.

Under President Obama, immigration officials tried a diplomatic approach to solve the dispute, sending Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to statehouses and city halls across the country to try to broker deals for some level of cooperation.

Obama administration officials didnt press hard on the grants issue. Of places singled out by the inspector generals report, only Connecticut has responded thus far  and it was not named on Friday.

The Trump team is taking a much blunter approach as Sessions rails about uncooperative jurisdictions at nearly every opportunity. Briefly, ICE had been putting out reports to shame uncooperative jurisdictions into complying, but the agency suspended them after they were riddled with errors.

Speaking in San Diego on Friday, Sessions mentioned the letters and repeated his charge that sanctuary policies are boons for hardcore criminals and gangs such as MS-13.

Forcing local law enforcement to release criminal aliens only helps violent gangs and criminals, he said. Sanctuary jurisdictions put criminals back on your streets. They help these gangs to refill their ranks and put innocent life  including the lives of countless law-abiding immigrants  in danger by refusing to share vital information with federal law enforcement.

I urge California to reconsider [its policies], he said.

The letters, signed by Alan R. Hanson, an acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Justice Programs, set a June 30 deadline for compliance, including an official legal opinion from counsel. Failure, he wrote, could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grants  or other action, as appropriate.

Tracie Cone, a spokeswoman for the California Board of State and Community Corrections, said the agency has received the letter and is reviewing it, but believes it is in compliance with the federal law cited by Hanson.

The initial letters may signal a more widespread crackdown on defiant, immigrant-rich cities like Los Angeles or Boston. Pushback already has begun: Seattle has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare that it can refuse to help Trumps ramped-up deportation campaign.

Other communities have signaled support for the crackdown.

In Floridas Miami-Dade County, police and jails cooperate with ICE and only are pressing for reimbursement of costs to keep immigrants here illegally in jail, said Mike Hernandez, a county spokesman. The county received $6.5 million in police grants over the last two years, he said.

There are some individuals who are undocumented and who have violent histories, and they should not be in our communities, he said.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @jtanfani

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcgreevy99

Tanfani reported from Washington and McGreevy reported from Sacramento.

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A week ago, a lot of people held their breath, worried that the U.S. and North Korea were headed for a showdown.

In the end, however, a much-rumored North Korean nuclear test didnt happen, Kim Jong Uns effort to launch a ballistic missile turned into an embarrassing flop and the Trump administration did not have to decide whether to back its threats with actual force.

The result this week was something weve seldom seen since President Trump took office  a week without a crisis.

Good afternoon, Im David Lauter, Washington bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in Washington and elsewhere in national politics and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

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THE WRONG-WAY CARRIER

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of the latest flaring of tensions with North Korea was the revelation that a U.S. Navy carrier strike group that administration officials had said was steaming toward the Korean peninsula was, in fact, thousands of miles away and headed in the other direction.

Exactly how the misstatements came about remains somewhat unclear: Military officials decided to send the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and the rest of its flotilla north to Korea, but did not expect the ships to arrive in the North Pacific until May. In official statements and news accounts, however, that timeline was ignored, and, from the president on down, the administration gave the impression that the carrier would be in position to take part in U.S. retaliation if the North Koreans went ahead with another nuclear test.

As Bill Hennigan wrote, whether those inaccurate statements resulted from miscommunication between the Navy and the countrys civilian leadership or confusion or deliberate misstatement, they had the effect of heightening tensions at an already fraught time. They also hurt the administrations credibility with South Korea.

But the carrier incident, while embarrassing, doesnt change any of the underlying realities of the North Korean nuclear problem. The essence of the dilemma, for Trump, as it has been for the previous three occupants of the White House, is that there are no really good options, as Hennigan and Barbara Demick wrote.

From Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, several types of diplomacy have been tried to little avail. A covert sabotage program, reportedly ordered by Obama, appears to have had some impact on slowing North Koreas progress, but not stopping it.

As for military approaches, in 1994, when the North Korean nuclear program was in its infancy, the Clinton administration considered a military strike, but backed off, in part because of Pentagon estimates that as many as a million South Koreans could die if the North Koreans retaliated. Casualties today would likely be higher because the population of Seouls northern suburbs has grown, putting even more residents within range of North Korean artillery. And, of course, the North now has several nuclear weapons.

Trump is hoping for help from China, and has executed a remarkable 180-degree turn in his rhetoric about that country, praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In the meantime, the U.S. sent Vice President Mike Pence to Seoul where he met with officials and repeated that the Trump administration is ending the Obama-era policy of strategic patience toward the Norths nuclear ambitions.

GEORGIA SHOWDOWN  ROUND 1 ENDS INCONCLUSIVELY

Special elections to Congress often take on outsized importance  in part because they come along when political strategists and political reporters have nothing else to focus on.

This weeks election in a suburban district outside Atlanta fit that pattern. In the end, as Cathy Decker reported, the main Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, fell just short of the majority he needed to win the seat outright in a primary open to candidates from both parties. Now, voters in Georgias 6th Congressional District can look forward to nine weeks of a runoff campaign between Ossoff and Karen Handel, the Republican who came in second.

Both sides spun the results as a victory: Democrats noted that in Georgia, as in an earlier special election in Kansas, their candidate did far better than is typical in a district that leans heavily to the GOP. Republicans noted that the Democrats still didnt win, and, although Handel got fewer than half as many votes as Ossoff, the several Republican candidates together outpolled him.

As Decker wrote in an analysis of the race, the results underscored that the Republicans face a Trump problem: He has mobilized and energized Democrats in ways not seen for decades. But, she said, the results also pointed to challenges that Democrats face  how to harness that fervor in ways that wont scare off less partisan, and often more conservative, swing voters.

The evidence that Republicans see the risks ahead, especially in the well-educated, suburban precincts where Trump has fared poorly, can be seen in the behavior of the partys incumbents.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), for example, built a reputation over his years in Congress as a fierce partisan, staging high-profile hearings to attack the Obama administration. In an Orange County district that Trump lost by more than 7 points, Issa barely held onto his seat last year. Now, as Sarah Wire reported, Issa has taken a series of steps toward the center.

In an interview, the congressman rejected any such talk of repositioning on his part as bullshit.

HEALTH AND TAXES

Trump insisted during a brief news conference on Thursday that his administration is getting closer to a deal with Republicans that would revive the Obamacare repeal bill that GOP leaders had to scuttle last month.

The plan gets better and better and better, and it has gotten really, really good, he said.

But officials close to the negotiations tell Noam Levey that Republican leaders still do not have the 216 votes needed to pass the bill in the House. Some steps the administration has taken to placate conservatives in the House are likely to drive away moderates.

And next week, Congress has more urgent matters to attend to: Lawmakers face an April 30 deadline to pass an appropriations bill or else many parts of the government will shut down.

Congressional leaders in both parties have been making progress on a deal to avoid a shutdown, but the administration could complicate things by insisting that the bill include money to start Trumps proposed wall on the southern border.

The fate of the health reform bill has a major impact on another Trump priority  tax reform. The collapse of the healthcare plan has slowed down what was already going to be a difficult task of coming up with a tax reform plan acceptable to all the GOP factions.

This week, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin conceded that his hope of getting a tax overhaul done by August was probably unrealistic. For now, the administration has no plan, and Republicans in the House and Senate disagree deeply over what to do.

Once the tax reform debate gets fully underway  assuming that happens  Trump will face another problem, Noah Bierman reported: He doesnt like to talk about tradeoffs, and tax reform involves almost nothing else.

Theres also the issue of Trumps own taxes, which he has continued to refuse to release. Democrats plan to make that an issue in any tax debate, arguing that Congress shouldnt pass a tax deal that might be a windfall for the president and his family without at least knowing whats at stake for him. During the current congressional recess, a number of Republican lawmakers also have been saying Trump should release his taxes.

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

In his campaign, Trump promised that on Day 1 he would rip up the nuclear deal the Obama administration reached with Iran.

This week, however, the administration certified to Congress that Iran is abiding by the terms of the deal, as Tracy Wilkinson reported. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the administration would review the deal to determine if it remains in the national interest, but so far, theres no sign the administration will try to cancel the pact.

The certification is the latest move by the administration to soft-pedal campaign promises of a big shift away from Obamas foreign policies.

IMMIGRATION

The Trump administration has also not revoked President Obamas DACA program, which provides a shield against deportation for young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. But that doesnt mean that all DACA recipients are safe.

The latest evidence involves Juan Manuel Montes, a 23-year-old covered by DACA who was detained in Calexico and deported to Mexico in February. Montes has filed suit, alleging his deportation was improper, Cindy Carcamo reported. The circumstances of Montes detention are hotly disputed, and immigration officials have already changed their account at least once.

In addition, as Jennie Jarvie reported, 43 people were deported after losing their DACA status in the first two months of Trumps presidency. The deportees were stripped of their protection because of a criminal conviction or gang activity. More than 740,000 people have protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Most of those who were deported probably lost their DACA status during Obamas presidency, Department of Homeland Security officials said. The number who were deported, however, is up significantly and likely reflects stepped up immigration enforcement under Trump. The Obama administration deported 365 people whose DACA status was revoked during the roughly four years after the program started.

Meanwhile, as Mike Memoli and Don Lee reported, Trump issued a new executive order that aims to change the rules on the H-1B visa program, which is widely used in the tech industry.

The order, however, does not actually make any changes in the rules. Instead, it sets up a review process that could lead to changes next year.

BOLD PROMISES, LESS ACTION

If that pattern sounds familiar  an executive action that orders a review but doesnt really change policy  it should. According to a review we did, of 39 executive orders and presidential memorandums that Trump signed through the end of last week, more than half simply ordered studies. Only about a dozen actually changed policy.

A good case in point is the presidents promise, which hes often repeated, that from now on, all pipelines built in the U.S. will have to use American-made steel. His actual order did no such thing  it directed the Commerce Department to study the issue and come up with a plan.

Today, Trump is signing yet another executive order asking for a policy review. This one will examine the bank regulations imposed under Dodd-Frank, the Obama-era financial reform law.

Trump has similarly stepped up his rhetoric about trade this week, including an attack on Canadas dairy industry. But his administration so far hasnt done much that differs from past practices on trade disputes.

ALMOST FAMOUS

A recent poll showed that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has become, if not a household name, at least a recognizable one to millions of Americans  a level of public awareness that most of his predecessors did not receive.

Unfortunately for Spicer, a lot of the notice has been for gaffes and misstatements, some of which clearly stemmed from being required to defend presidential comments that were baseless accusations or other false claims. Michael Finnegan talked to several former press secretaries, who offered some advice to Spicer.

ALL THE PRESIDENTS TWEETS

Twitter has long been Trumps favored means of pushing his message. Were compiling all of Trumps tweets. Its a great resource. Take a look.

LOGISTICS

That wraps up this week. My colleague Sarah Wire will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration with our Essential Washington blog, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

If you like this newsletter, tell your friends to sign up.

David.lauter@latimes.com

@davidlauter
Records show ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manaforts firm received payout from Ukraine ledger under investgation

Last August, a handwritten ledger surfaced in Ukraine with dollar amounts and dates next to the name of Paul Manafort, who was then chairman of Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

Ukrainian investigators called it evidence of off-the-books payments from a pro-Russian political party  and part of a larger pattern of corruption under the countrys former president. Manafort, who worked for the party as an international political consultant, has publicly questioned the ledgers authenticity.

Now, financial records newly obtained by the Associated Press confirm that at least $1.2 million in payments listed in the ledger next to Manaforts name were actually received by his consulting firm in the United States. They include payments in 2007 and 2009, providing the first evidence that Manaforts firm received at least some money listed in the so-called Black Ledger.

The two payments came years before Manafort became involved in Trumps campaign, but for the first time bolster the credibility of the ledger. They also put the ledger in a new light, as federal prosecutors in the U.S. have been investigating Manaforts work in Eastern Europe as part of a larger anti-corruption probe.

Separately, Manafort is also under scrutiny as part of congressional and FBI investigations into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russias government under President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The payments detailed in the ledger and confirmed by the documents obtained by the AP are unrelated to the 2016 presidential campaign and came years before Manafort worked as Trumps unpaid campaign chairman.

In a statement to the AP, Manafort did not deny that his firm received the money but said any wire transactions received by my company are legitimate payments for political consulting work that was provided. I invoiced my clients and they paid via wire transfer, which I received through a U.S. bank.

Manafort noted that he agreed to be paid according to his clients preferred financial institutions and instructions.

Previously, Manafort and his spokesman, Jason Maloni, have maintained that the ledger was fabricated and said no public evidence existed that Manafort or others received payments recorded in it.

The AP, however, identified in the records two payments received by Manafort that aligned with the ledger: one for $750,000 that a Ukrainian lawmaker said last month was part of a money-laundering effort that should be investigated by U.S. authorities. The other was $455,249 and also matched a ledger entry.

The newly obtained records also expand the global scope of Manaforts financial activities related to his Ukrainian political consulting, because both payments came from companies once registered in the Central American country of Belize. Last month, the AP reported that the U.S. government has examined Manaforts financial transactions in the Mediterranean country of Cyprus as part of its probe.

Federal prosecutors have been looking into Manaforts work for years as part of an effort to recover Ukrainian assets stolen after the 2014 ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled to Russia. No charges have been filed as part of the investigation.

Manafort, a longtime Republican political operative, led the presidential campaign from March until August last year when Trump asked him to resign. The resignation came after a tumultuous week in which the New York Times revealed that Manaforts name appeared in the Ukraine ledger  although the newspaper said at the time that officials were unsure whether Manafort actually received the money  and after the AP separately reported that he had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraines pro-Russian Party of Regions.

Officials with the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which is investigating corruption under Yanukovich, have said they believe the ledger is genuine. But they have previously noted that they have no way of knowing whether Manafort received the money listed next to his name. The bureau said it is not investigating Manafort because he is not a Ukrainian citizen.

Still, Manaforts work continues to draw attention in Ukrainian politics.

Last month, Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko revealed an invoice bearing the letterhead of Manaforts namesake company, Davis Manafort, that Leshchenko said was crafted to conceal a payment to Manafort as a purchase of 501 computers.

The AP provided to Manafort the amounts of the payments, dates and number of the bank account where they were received. Manafort told the AP that he was unable to review his own banking records showing receipt of the payments because his bank destroyed the records after a standard seven-year retention period. He said Tuesday the computer sales contract is a fraud.

The signature is not mine, and I didnt sell computers, he said in a statement. What is clear, however, is individuals with political motivations are taking disparate pieces of information and distorting their significance through a campaign of smear and innuendo.

Leshchenko said last month the 2009 invoice was one of about 50 pages of documents, including private paperwork and copies of employee-issued debit cards, that were found in Manaforts former Kiev office by a new tenant.

The amount of the invoice  $750,000 and the payment date of Oct. 14, 2009, matches one entry on the ledger indicating payments to Manafort from the Party of Regions. The invoice was addressed to Neocom Systems Ltd., a company formerly registered in Belize, and included the account and routing numbers and postal address for Manaforts account at a branch of Wachovia National Bank in Alexandria, Va.

The AP had previously been unable to independently verify the $750,000 payment went to a Manafort company, but the newly obtained financial records reflect Manaforts receipt of that payment. The records show that Davis Manafort received the amount from Neocom Systems the day after the date of the invoice.

Leshchenko contended to AP that Yanukovich, as Ukraines leader, paid Manafort money that came from his governments budget and was stolen from Ukrainian citizens. He said: Money received by Manafort has to be returned to the Ukrainian people.

Leshchenko said U.S. authorities should investigate what he described as corrupt deals between Manafort and Yanukovich. Its about a U.S. citizen and money was transferred to a U.S. bank account, he said.

A $455,249 payment in November 2007 also matches the amount in the ledger. It came from Graten Alliance Ltd., a company that had also been registered in Belize. It is now inactive.

The AP reported last month that federal prosecutors are looking into Manaforts financial transactions in Cyprus, an island nation once known as a favored locale for money laundering.

Among those transactions was a $1-million payment in October 2009 routed through the Bank of Cyprus. The money was deposited into an account controlled by a Manafort-linked company, then left the account on the same day, broken into two disbursements of $500,000, according to documents obtained by the AP.

The records of Manaforts Cypriot transactions were requested by the U.S. Treasury Department Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which works internationally with agencies to track money laundering and the movement of illicit funds around the globe.

Dozens of Ukrainian political figures mentioned in the Black Ledger are under investigation in Ukraine. The anti-corruption bureau, which has been looking into the Black Ledger, publicly confirmed the authenticity of the signature of one top official mentioned there. In December, the bureau accused Mykhaylo Okhendovsky of receiving more than $160,000 from Party of Regions officials in 2012, when he was Ukraines main election official.

The bureau said it would identify more suspects in the coming months.
The March for Science is kind of a funny thing.

The organizers insist that the event will be nonpartisan. But it will feature many of the trappings of a political march  signs, chants and speakers riling up the crowd.

The situation presents a quandary of sorts. Being a scientist requires objectivity. Bias of any kind is not acceptable.

With that in mind, is it OK for scientists to march and make a public statement  even if it is in defense of their work?

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Its a legitimate question, said Alex Bradley, a PhD candidate in molecular biology at UCLA who was instrumental in organizing Saturdays march in Los Angeles.

Luckily, he said, it has an easy answer: Standing up for science is OK.

Were not lobbying for any specific policies, Bradley said. Were just asking that policymakers consider the available evidence before making decisions.

Were just asking that policymakers consider the available evidence before making decisions.  Alex Bradley, PhD candidate in molecular biology at UCLA

The March for Science in Los Angeles will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday in Pershing Square, after an hour of speeches to rally the crowd. Participants will walk about seven blocks to City Hall for more speeches, then return to Pershing Square for presentations on air quality, dinosaurs and how to spot alternative facts on the Internet.

Similar marches will occur in more than 500 cities around the world, including more than 40 in California.

Dianne Newman, a Caltech microbiologist who recently won a MacArthur Fellowship grant, is planning to march. But the decision to join a public protest wasnt an easy one.

It felt awkward at first, she said. But the more she considered it, the less conflicted she became.

At the root of every scientist is the respect for truth above everything, said Newman, who joined the Womens March in January and then a campus rally in March to show support for immigrants. Thats what defines us. If we dont speak out now, when would we speak out? Its about respect for the truth. Its the truth that counts.

Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Caltech who is scheduled to address the marchers in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, said he sees the event as an occasion to remind people that science has a lot in common with democracy.

They share some DNA, he said. In both spheres anybody can be wrong and nobody has all the right answers. You can be the lowest graduate student in science, but if you do an experiment that shows Einstein was wrong, you win. Similarly in a democracy there is no philosopher king  no one person who should be in charge.

Geneticist Maria Elena Zavala of Cal State Northridge said that to her, marching for science also means marching to protect disenfranchised people who will probably be the most affected by cuts to federally funded research and the rollback of environmental protections, both of which President Trump has advocated.

Think about who is downstream from that, she said.

Zavala, who will also address the crowd on Saturday, said she worries that the consequences of decisions being made now will be felt for years to come.

Im marching for now and Im marching for the next generation of scientists, she said.

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

Will you be marching on Saturday? Ill be at the March for Science in Los Angeles and I want to talk to you about why youre there. Follow me @DeborahNetburn and look for me in the crowd.

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North Korean state media is warning the U.S. of a super-mighty preemptive strike that could wipe out the U.S. mainland. These sorts of threats from a country with limited capability are something weve heard before, of course, but tensions do seem high now. So should Californians be concerned?

This post was written in April. For more recent coverage:

Trump threatens fire and fury, North Korea considering strike on Guam

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North Korea: What Trump, Mattis and Tillerson are saying amid nuclear threat

If you read a report in the San Francisco Chronicle about a celebration of the 105th birthday of North Koreas founder this past weekend featuring a uniformed brass band accompanying a video of missiles striking San Francisco, you might say  maybe.

But the consensus among experts is that the reclusive nation isnt likely to have the weapons capability it is constantly threatening to use against the U.S. and South Korea to reduce them to ashes  at least yet.

Lets take a look at what a handful of experts are saying about North Koreas nuclear capabilities these days.

A lot of bluster

William Perry served as U.S. defense secretary from 1994 to 1997 and worked on negotiations with North Korea. He told Reuters he doesnt believe the country could pull off a surprise attack on the U.S.

They are doing a lot of bluster and a lot of threats, and they might misplay that hand and blunder into a war.

A year or two

Joshua Pollock, a senior researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California is quick to remind The Guardian that North Korea hasnt tested any intercontinental ballistic missiles yet, so the starting line is a ways away.

If they do get to the point where they decide to start a campaign of ICBM flight testing, that will allow them to work through the usual technical difficulties, he said. It will allow them in time, Im confident, to create a reliable weapon.

Likely by 2020

The Guardian also interviewed Joseph Bermudez, an analyst for 38 North, a think tank affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

If everything proceeds as is, its likely by 2020 that they could have a system reaching the United States, he told The Guardian. It should be viewed as an emerging threat.

Maybe in five years

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Vox that he thinks a long-range missile capable of hitting the U.S. could be ready within five years.

U.S. mainland? No

Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association admitted to Business Insider that its clear North Korea has made significant advances when it comes to nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

But she said if anything, a nuclear warhead on a medium-rang missile would put South Korea, Japan and US military installations in range of the North Korean nuclear threat.

If the experts cant agree, whats an average person to do? Lets take a look.

Californians seem to have a mix of feelings about the recent talk of attack on the West Coast.

If Pyongyang drops a stinky one on Los Angeles, I've already got my artisanal apocalyptic agricultural kickstarter ready to go pic.twitter.com/Zgrg7JzB97  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) April 20, 2017

Ps North Korea: California and Oregon and Washington State are filled with people who didn't vote for #trump . Please don't bomb us.  moby XX (@thelittleidiot) April 17, 2017

Live each day like it might be the last before North Korea nukes LA  rachel binx (@rachelbinx) April 15, 2017

Wait, I live in California. Should I clear my calendar 4 the promised retaliatory nuclear strike? Pls advise.  canyoncolor   (@canyoncolor) April 17, 2017

Do you feel better after hearing from experts? Or is the nuclear threat from North Korea on your mind lately?

Let us know in the comment section below.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
To Kelly Rundle, the large wooden frames and soaring ceilings within the barns of the Midwest are almost church-like.

As a kid, he grew up in northwestern Illinois and took trips to Wisconsin to visit his grandfather.

There are plenty of things to explore in the area and one of those things is a barn, Rundle said Wednesday. To a kid, its a magical place with so many sights, sounds and atmosphere.

Now he and his wife, Tammy, both filmmakers of Illinois-based Fourth Wall Films, will take viewers into the world of these country cathedrals in their recently completed documentary The Barn Raisers, which will play at the Newport Beach Film Festival on Monday.

While the Rundles lived in Southern California for 18 years, they found themselves drawn to the stories of their home states: Illinois for him and Iowa for her.

Rundle believes that some of the greatest stories of the Midwest are somewhat overlooked.

Filming for The Barn Raisers took place in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The drift of the film is to examine barns as architecture and give barns the same cinematic reverence that someone might give to a film on Frank Lloyd [Wrights] buildings, Rundle said. I dont say that barns are more important than any other piece of architecture, but its true that theyre no less important.

The documentary delves into different barn styles and what their building methods reveal about the people who constructed them and the time in which they fashioned them.

The filmmaking duo spent three years finding and interviewing historians, artists, architects, preservationists and farmers who still own barns for their documentary.

Rundle said they were able to track down the interviews by reaching out to barn preservation organizations.

The Barn Raisers also explores the many ways that barns have been repurposed as event venues, art studios, storage and even office space.

The Rundles documentary is one of 10 films that were selected from around the world and featured in the Newport Beach Film Festivals Art, Architecture + Design category, according to a release.

If someone wants to evoke the notion of American history and something thats wholesome and rural, you see the red gambrel roof barn, even though weve moved on from that, Rundle said. But thats history.

IF YOU GO

What: The Barn Raisers

When: 5 p.m. Monday

Where: Island Cinema, 999 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach

Cost: $15

Information: newportbeachfilmfest.com/event/the-barn-raisers/

Alexandra.Chan@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
The kids always knew to use the side or back doors to get into the house. After helping out with the farm chores near the orange groves, they dared not walk through the front door and foyer in dirty clothes.

Instead, theyd enter through the family parlor or the kitchen, both next to their fathers office, where hed run his business as a citrus rancher.

More than 100 years later, the rotary phone he used to make calls and the burn marks on his desk from putting out cigarettes still remain.

The 6,000-square-foot Placentia estate, built in 1902, was originally home to Albert Sumner Bradford, his wife, Fannie, their four children and Fannies sister Ellen.

Today, the 15-room structure on 136 E. Palm Drive, known as the Bradford House, serves as a museum. It welcomes school tours, string quartet performances, weddings and those curious about north Orange Countys early history.

A large wooden table for kneading dough, a butter churn and a rocking chair occupy the kitchen. The dining room has a long table adorned with candlesticks, and green drapes cascade down tall windows that once captured a view of Bradfords ranch.

In the upstairs bedrooms are, among other items, a pan that would store hot coals to warm the bed and a metal pick used to unlace the tightly wound shoe strings of the Bradford familys boots.

The home is cared for by the Placentia Founders Society, a group that fought for the propertys preservation in the mid-70s, when Placentias City Council contemplated demolishing it.

Since the Founders Society was formed in 1974, its mission has been to maintain the historical contents of the home, host community events and offer docent-led tours of the estate.

The family gave the house to the city in 1973, when preservation started to sound like a pretty good hedge against the shopping centers and other projects that were springing up in the area.

The last family member to own the house was Bradfords son, Hartwell.

Hartwells daughter Irene Rene Kamin, who lives in nearby Yorba Linda, said there was an interest in keeping the house, so it was donated to the city.

During her childhood in Placentia, Kamin said, her father worked as a businessman mainly in Los Angeles, so she grew up in her uncle Warren Bradfords home up the road from the historic house.

But Hartwell would return home once a week, which is when Kamin would see him and occasionally stay in the Bradford House.

I dont think hed believe [the house] would ever become a museum, Kamin said of her father. Back then he was just living in it.

Perhaps we dont know were a part of history, Founders Society member Kay Pfaffle said, until were gone.



Albert Bradford is known fondly by the Founders Society as the Father of Placentia.

Working alongside other members of the community, he became instrumental in supporting the opening of the local post office, Presbyterian church and newspaper and otherwise preparing the foundation of a city. Placentia was incorporated in 1926.

Bradford was born in 1860 in Maine. He grew up poor on a little New England farm, according to archival sources.

At age 27, he took a train to California because, according to some sources, the cold climate of Maine aggravated his asthma.

He sought after sunshine and later a job in the booming citrus industry of Orange County.

At the time of his move, he was married to Fannie and they had three kids: Elsie, Hartwell and Percy. Warren was born in 1893 in California.

In 1890, Bradford had saved enough money to send for his family and purchase 20 acres on what is now Palm Drive. He named his land Tesoro Ranch, meaning Treasure Ranch.

Twelve years later, his familys house was built. The property would someday land on the National Register of Historic Places.

The forest-green, box-shaped house with attic windows peeking out of the roof has a porch that wraps around the front of the house.

Basement windows can be seen wedged between the stacked stones that form the base of the house.

Its more common for East Coast homes to have basements, but Bradford built what he was used to seeing, a Bradford House docent said.

On a recent clear day, a line of pink could be seen across the foyer floor as the sunlight streamed through the stairways ruby red window, a fixture that museum docents believe Fannie Bradford wanted to rival that of Helena Modjeskas now-historic house in Modjeska Canyon, about 30 miles away. Modjeska was a renowned actress.

An upstairs bedroom in the Bradford House is attached to a sunroom-type area, a space where Pfaffle suspects Bradfords daughter Elsie slept because of her tuberculosis. Early 20th century society believed that cold temperatures could kill the bacterial disease.

But whether the family used the perceived remedy, it did not matter. Bradfords only daughter died of tuberculosis in 1908.

Two years later, tragedy would strike the family again. Bradfords wife, Fannie, died of peritonitis, an inflammation of the lining in the abdominal walls.

The Founders Society noted that Bradford threw himself into work after the deaths of his wife and daughter.

Two years after Elsies death, he formed Placentia National Bank, took part in laying out the town site, and made efforts to get the Santa Fe railroad a track from Fullerton to Atwood, a neighborhood in Placentia, to encourage more business development.

After Fannies death, Bradford had two water towers built on Chapman Avenue to allow water to be supplied to the town.

We think of Bradford as having a lot of fortune, but he also had a lot of sadness, Pfaffle said. Its possible that we may be benefiting from his misfortunes.



When the property was no longer in the Bradford familys hands, a vote of the citys five-member council in January 1976 would determine if the house would be demolished and a park developed in its place.

In a close call, two members voted aye while three voted no, according to city documents.

A measure on the ballot for the April municipal election of 1976 then asked Placentia residents if tax revenues should be used to preserve the house.

In pressing its case, the Founders Society held an open house at the Bradfords former home every weekend for the five weeks leading up to the vote. Almost 1,600 people toured the house, according to news articles.

But the measure failed.

Everyone was afraid it was going to be torn down, said Founders Society member Mary Castner, who was born and raised in Placentia. It had been there for so long and its a treasured piece. We always tell the children that if they live in Placentia, the house belongs to them.

The city agreed to lease the house to the Founders Society in 1977 while the group of history enthusiasts offered to provide the funds for the upkeep and insurance costs of the house, according to news articles.

Our heritage is rich . Theres a lot to be learned from history that could impart a better appreciation of what we have today, Placentia Mayor Craig Green said.

Some people dont want to fly all the way to the Smithsonian to see what life was like back then. You come to the [Bradford] House and see how wide the porch is and how people would just sit out there and talk. It was simpler times.

The Bradford Houses grand opening as a museum took place in 1978.

Today, the houses upkeep is funded by Founders Society membership fees, fundraising activity and rent from tenants who stay in half of the upstairs level for $1,000 per month.

A tour from Glenknoll Elementary School in Yorba Linda last month brought dozens of third-graders to the property as part of their social studies curriculum.

Glenknoll teacher Judy Rees watched as her students observed the differences between early 20th century and modern-day technology.

A typewriter rests on an office desk instead of a computer. A wooden box in the kitchen had to be filled with ice since there were no refrigerators.

After 19 years of living in Placentia and driving through and around Bradford Avenue in the city, Rees finally found herself at the home of the streets namesake, a place that will teach her students the history of their local community, she said.

A place that used to have horse-drawn carriages riding among the lines of palm trees now sees neighbors playing fetch with their dogs.

A place that is no longer inhabited by orange groves, but still keeps a piece of Placentia history wedged right between the suburban homes and shopping centers.

A place that Bradford purposefully built for his family, but unknowingly created to be enjoyed by the masses.

The Bradford House holds public tours from 2 to 4 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month, except for May. To schedule group tours, call (714) 993-2470.

alexandra.chan@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
Not a day goes by that Rich German says he does not see a balloon floating on the ocean while paddleboarding off the Laguna Beach coastline.

He wants the Laguna Beach City Council to take notice.

German, a Laguna resident, started a petition that seeks to ban the sale and release of balloons made of materials such as plastic and latex and filled with lighter-than-air gases such as helium.

Join the conversation on Facebook 

They dont biodegrade and sea lions tend to mistake balloons as food, said German, who garnered attention in 2015 for his videos of orcas off the Laguna coast. I want people to be aware where they release balloons.

Im not a rule guy, but in this case were needlessly harming sea life.

When ingested, balloons can block the marine animals digestive tract and cause it to slowly starve to death, according to the petition.

As of Thursday the petition had 1,356 signatures.

German said he did not know how enforcement would be carried out with such a ban, but added that this would not be the first time a city has addressed balloon use.

Leaders of Nantucket, Mass., in 2015 passed a law that prohibits the sale or use of balloons filled with lighter-than-air gases such as helium, according to the Boston Globe.

The Globe story noted that some residents thought the law went a little too far, claiming that education about responsible use would be a better tactic to use.

German, an entrepreneur who founded the nonprofit Project O, whose mission is to restore and protect the ocean, called Laguna Beach Mayor Toni Iseman in hopes of getting it on a future council agenda.

Iseman could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
Top-level city employees in Costa Mesa will get their first pay increases in almost a decade, City Council members decided this week.

The council voted 3-2 on Tuesday, with members Allan Mansoor and Jim Righeimer opposed, to approve raises ranging from 2% to 15.88% for executives and division managers.

The increases are the first for those positions since 2008, according to the city.

Under the pact, those employees also will contribute more of their pay toward their pensions. They currently pay 7.75% to 10.47% but will be required to kick in 9% to 12%, depending on their retirement plan.

Overall, the agreement is expected to create $362,723 in additional annual costs, according to city estimates.

Mayor Katrina Foley said the agreement will help make Costa Mesa more competitive in attracting and retaining high-quality employees.

The city currently has about 90 unfilled positions, she said, and many of our director positions are vacant.

I think weve got a very fair agreement here that takes into consideration fiscal conservatism and protects our finances, she said. Its frugal, but its functional.

Mansoor and Righeimer said theyre worried about how the agreement could affect the citys pension debt, which totaled about $246 million in 2015.

The pension issue thats been mentioned is a ticking time bomb, Mansoor said. Its a huge issue thats going to affect our city.

Righeimer said the city should have looked at more-targeted salary increases.

I think we really need to look at what positions we cant fill and maybe raise those pays, he said.

The approved raises apply to Costa Mesas executive leadership positions, including city manager, assistant city manager, finance director, information technology director, economic development services director, public services director, fire chief and police chief.

Also receiving raises are division managers, including the assistant development services director, assistant finance director, building official, city clerk, city engineer, human-resources manager, legislative and public affairs manager, maintenance services manager, recreation manager, senior center program administrator and transportation services manager.

In 2012, those employees volunteered to increase their contributions for their pensions to the California Public Employees Retirement System without a salary increase, which effectively resulted in a pay reduction, Assistant City Manager Tammy Letourneau said earlier this year.

Pay raises for executives will range from 2% for the fire chief to 15.88% for the assistant city manager position. For division managers, the increases fall between 2% for the legislative and public affairs manager to 15.76% for the assistant finance director.

The increases were calculated based on a council direction to adjust salaries so they are 5% below the average total compensation for similar positions in Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Newport Beach and Santa Ana, according to Costa Mesa staff.

If a positions salary range was already within that 5%, staff recommended the council adjust it so the employee wouldnt see a pay reduction after contributing more to CalPERS.

The agreement approved Tuesday also increases the monthly car allowance for city executives from $477 to $575 and establishes a new technology allowance of $75 per month.

Executives and division managers also will now have a lower cap on the amount of vacation they can accrue  320 hours rather than 424  and a lower rate at which they earn vacation time.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter @LukeMMoney
Two doctors from Newport Coast and another from Huntington Beach were among 26 medical professionals and business owners charged this month with participating in a $40-million medical insurance billing and kickback scam, the Orange County district attorneys office announced Thursday.

Authorities accused Tanya Moreland King, 37, and her husband, Christopher King, 38, of Beverly Hills of masterminding a complex insurance fraud scheme of recruiting doctors and pharmacists to prescribe unnecessary treatment for patients on workers compensation. The Kings own medical billing and medical management companies Monarch Medical Group, King Medical Management and One Source Laboratories.

Prosecutors allege the Kings made oral and written agreements with doctors across California, paying them each time they prescribed a compound cream or oral medication or ordered a urine drug test. The payments were labeled as marketing expenses to conceal the kickbacks, authorities said.

Dr. Ismael Geli Silva Jr., 38, of Huntington Beach, Dr. Ismael Silva, 63, and Dr. Kourosh Shamlou, 49, both of Newport Coast, are among more than two dozen defendants facing a series of felony charges including referral of clients or patients for compensation, filing false claims and filing fraudulent insurance benefit claims, according to Orange County Superior Court records. If convicted, each could face up to 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors allege that from 2011 to 2015, the Kings billed for unnecessary creams, tests and treatments for their own profit.

The Kings and their co-conspirators played with patients lives, buying and selling them for profit without regard to patient safety, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a statement. Patients have the right to expect [that] treatment decisions by healthcare professionals are based on medical need and not unadulterated greed. The magnitude of this alleged crime is an affront to ethical medical professionals.

Irvine pharmacists Charles Bonner, 56, and Mervyn Miller, 66, who own Stevens Pharmacy at 1525 Mesa Verde Drive East in Costa Mesa, are accused of conspiring with the Kings to manufacture a variety of creams with unknown effects that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Kings bought the creams for $15 to $40 per tube. The products were then billed to patients workers compensation insurance carriers for $250 to $700 dollars per tube, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors allege the Kings purchased repackaged oral pain medication at reduced cost and sent it to physicians involved in the alleged scam. When doctors dispensed the medication, authorities said, the Kings would bill workers compensation insurance carriers without disclosing the wholesale cost or that they had bought the medication on behalf of the physicians who ultimately prescribed it. The Kings would split the profits with the prescribing physicians, prosecutors contend.

Authorities also allege that doctors ordered unnecessary urine tests for people under the guise of verifying that patients on workers compensation insurance were taking their medications as prescribed. Once the urine samples were tested, they were referred to a lab for additional testing, regardless of results. Each test cost $60, but insurance carriers were billed hundreds of dollars, prosecutors said.

Authorities allege that more than 13,000 patients and at least 27 insurance carriers were victimized. About $23.2 million was paid out to the 26 defendants, but a total of $40 million was billed to insurers, according to prosecutors.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
Five years after Anaheim residents took to the streets to protest police-involved shootings that left two Latino men dead, a group of activists and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California are pushing the City Council for a more robust citizen oversight commission with subpoena and investigatory powers.

The citys Public Safety Board was launched in 2014 in response to public outrage and major protests after the deaths of Joel Acevedo and Manuel Diaz during the same week in July 2012.

The Public Safety Board, the first year, they never asked any questions, said Donna Acevedo-Nelson, the mother of Joel Acevedo, at a forum about the board on April 8 hosted by the Anaheim Community Coalition.

A year and a half later, they finally did, and even they learned that they arent allowed to review anything, said Acevedo-Nelson, who since her sons death has become an active voice at City Council meetings.

She also co-chairs the Community Coalition with Theresa Smith, whose son was also killed by Anaheim police.

Now the City Council must decide whether to keep the 2-year-old Public Safety Board as-is, expand the board and its powers or do away with it altogether. The board only was set up to exist for two years. It held its last meeting in February, and if the city doesnt renew it, it will go out of business. The council hasnt set a date to discuss it.

Unlike city commissions, which report to the council, the Public Safety Board has no policy-making authority and makes recommendations to the city manager. The board cant conduct or order investigations into incidents and does not have subpoena power.

Although billed as one of several major changes to improve public confidence and citizen input into the Anaheim Police Department, police accountability activists say much of the public is unaware of the boards existence and often deride it as a do-nothing body lacking any real authority.

Calls for more authority

At the forum, activists painted a picture of a city that has not moved on from the protests of the summer of 2012.

Jennifer Rojas, a policy advocate for the ACLU, cited statistics she said were based on FBI data claiming Anaheim is the ninth-deadliest police force per capita among the 60 largest U.S. cities.

From 2002 to 2016, APD (Anaheim Police Department) were involved in 37 deaths, of which three were homicides during arrest, Rojas stated in a letter to the City Council. Between the first Public Safety Board meetings in October 2014 to the most recent in February 2017, seven people were killed by APD.

The ACLU report has yet to be published and released to the public. The ACLU also has recommended the Public Safety board report directly to the City Council; not include representation from the police union or police department; have broad scope to review complaints and incidents; have the ability to issue subpoenas; and be able to recommend disciplinary action for officers.

[The mission] doesnt need to be vague, said David Haas  who benefits when its unclear? The police.

Haas, a member of the Latino advocacy group Los Amigos and a Long Beach-based attorney who served on a similar board for San Diego County in the 1990s, said activists should push for the board to have its own legal counsel.

What kind of advice you are getting, it can be very conservative, Haas said. Things like, oh no. you cant try a subpoena. Nobody does a subpoena. 

A report conducted for the City Council by consultant Joseph Brann found several of the boards members felt their work was hampered by conflicts within the board and with City Manager Paul Emery, who has sole discretion over whether or not to implement any of their recommendations.

Board members complained in Branns report that they dont have a set budget or part-time staff support.

Right now, the public safety board is tucked away  it should be archived on (the citys TV) Channel 3, in the same setting as City Council, said panelist Renee Balenti.

One of the ACLUs recommendations is for the board to have funding that is a fixed percentage of the police departments total noncapital budget.

The police department spent $132,889,000 during the 2015-16 fiscal year, according to the citys 2016 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. If the council devoted 1% of that to the Public Safety Board, it would have a $1.3 million annual budget.

Berkeleys Police Review Commission, for example, the oldest police review board in the country, has a budget of $570,417 for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

By comparison, Anaheim spent $1.55 million in a 2012 settlement to the widow and parents of Julian Alexander, a man shot and killed by Anaheim police.

Pushback from the Police Assn.

Although the City Council has not voted on any specific proposals for the board, already two council members and the Anaheim Police Officers Assn. have come out against giving the board increased authority.

Councilwomen Kris Murray and Lucille Kring have both rejected calls from Councilman Jose Moreno to elevate the Public Safety Board into an independent, investigative police commission.

I dont think anything weve heard today warrants that measure [of authority], Murray said at a meeting in late February.

Association President Edgar Hampton said at a council meeting in March that the union agreed with the original concept of the Public Safety Board but objects to giving more power to a board run by civilians.

You need to understand that a civilian point of view of what police work is being done is not necessarily the best point of view to have, Hampton said.  I dont like what that police officer diddoesnt mean its out of policy or against the law.

Hampton said of the 208,710 calls for service the department received in 2016,136 involved use of force.

In my opinion thats hardly some agency thats on the verge of consent decree, Hampton said.

He was critical of efforts in other cities to establish police review boards, calling meetings for the civilian-run Los Angeles Police Commission a zoo.

It should be a professional organization with people who act professionally  and not people who decide to scream obscenities at the police, Hampton said.

This story was reported by Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, as part of a publishing agreement with TimesOC. Contact Thy Vo at tvo@voiceofoc.org or follow her on Twitter @thyanhvo.
Anaheims signature transportation hub  the $185 million, glittering glass dome known as ARTIC  will for the first time since its opening in 2014 have its entire operating deficit paid out of the citys general fund.

When the city cut the ribbon for the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center in December 2014, officials predicted the station would attract 3,000 riders daily and pay for its own operating costs.

The city initially planned to cover some costs with a naming rights deal, but that hasnt materialized, and for the past three fiscal years the station has operated in the red, with a $2.5 million deficit for 2016-17. The total cost to taxpayers this fiscal year, including debt service, operating expenses and personnel, is $6.9 million.

The past two fiscal years, the Anaheim Tourism Improvement District (ATID), a self-assessed public taxing district financed by businesses for improvements within the Anaheim Resort district, has subsidized property and operating expenses of nearly $2 million annually for ARTIC. The Anaheim Resort area includes Disneyland, the Anaheim Convention Center, hotels and other businesses.

In late March, two members of the districts three-person board  Fred Brown, director of operations for the Desert Palms Hotel & Suites, and Kris Theiler, vice president of the Disneyland Park  raised questions about whether funding ARTIC was an appropriate use of the money and said they would not vote to pay for it again, according to city spokesman Mike Lyster.

At the March 28 meeting, the third board member, Assistant City Manager Kristine Ridge, moved to have ATID pay ARTICs shortfall. The motion died when neither Brown nor Theiler supported it.

Now that deficit will be paid for entirely by the general fund.

The city never has depended on the Tourism Improvement District funding to subsidize the station as staff has always budgeted for the full cost of ARTIC each year, said Lyster, and they then try to find other sources of funding such as the money from ATID.

He said the cost of running ARTIC doesnt compete with other services and is only a fraction of the citys total budget.

$2.5 [million] out of $300 million is less than 1% of the general fund, Lyster said.

This fiscal year ARTIC is projected to generate $1.4 million in revenue, in part from television shows and commercials filmed there, to offset its $3.87 million total operating budget.

Another $3 million in annual debt payments is paid for by taxpayers countywide through a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects called Measure M2.

Recently, officials also approved an advertising deal with the Honda Center that would guarantee another $80,000 in annual revenue for ARTIC.

But Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait, who has viewed ARTIC and the state high speed rail project it was built for as a waste of taxpayer funds, says the money spent on ARTICs operations and for debt service is money that could be spent on other city services.

Tait said he was surprised the Anaheim Resort district would not pay for ARTIC.

It was built to benefit the resort district, thats obvious, and the benefit will mostly go toward the resort, Tait said. They advocated strongly for the building of it.

A quarter of the ATID funds are required to go toward transportation projects. In the past those funds have been used to pay for the environmental review process for the Anaheim streetcar project, after the Orange County Transportation Authority voted to stop any work on the project.

At the end of this fiscal year, the ATID transportation fund will have about $9 million, and is expecting an additional $4.4 million in revenue. They estimate another $4.9 million in 2017-2018.

Now with the streetcar going away I dont know what the money would go toward, Tait said.

Tait has also argued, just three years after the stations opening, another use should be found for ARTIC, pointing to the San Francisco Ferry Building, a former ferry station built in the late 1890s that has been turned into an indoor marketplace and food hall.

It needs to be repurposed because its obviously not working, Tait argued. It was designed for high-speed rail, and thats not going to be happening any time soon.

A 2015 survey of total ridership at ARTIC estimated 2,406 people on weekdays and 3,878 people on days where there are special events in the area.

The national standard for counting ridership, however, counts a single passenger more than once based on their mode of travel. So if a passenger rides a taxi to ARTIC and gets on the train, they would be counted twice.

When you break down the numbers, the number of riders leaving ARTIC by train is 880 daily, with 702 people arriving by train, according to the 2015 study.

Since that study, ARTIC has garnered another 400 daily riders through a bus service to Mexico called Tres Estrellas del Oro.

The service, which is geared toward immigrant families and includes on-board amenities like Spanish-language television, takes passengers from Anaheim to Tijuana and Guadalajara.

This story was reported by Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, as part of a publishing agreement with TimesOC.
Students at Rosemont Middle School spent their lunchtime on Wednesday walking together to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, acknowledge other atrocities, and sharing stories about how genocide impacted their families.

Beginning in 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Modern-day Turkey denies the deaths were genocide.

For Rosemont eighth-grader Lianna Simonyan, the walk is one way students can raise awareness about the genocide.

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Today is recognition for the things that happened in 1915. Its to show that were not going to back down from whats happened, and were going to keep fighting until recognition is given to us, she said. Thats something important to the Armenian culture. Turkeys taken away everything from us and our country. We need to keep telling people This is not over. And we need to recognize it.

Its to show that were not going to back down from whats happened, and were going to keep fighting until recognition is given to us.  Lianna Simonyan, Rosemont Middle School eighth-grader

As she walked with her peers, she asked her friends to share their families stories about the Armenian Genocide.

On April 24, 1915, many Armenian intellectuals and leaders were rounded up and killed. Each year on that date, many Armenians commemorate the genocide.

Throughout April, Rosemont teacher Janna Kasmanian said many students learn about their own families histories and attend events to acknowledge the atrocities.

1 / 16 A girl with the Lilia Dance Studio runs with an Armenian flag across the stage at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 2 / 16 R.D. White Elementary Schools Elen Abramyan, 8, sings with her classmates at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 3 / 16 Youth from the Davidian & Mariamian Educational Foundation Choir sing and wave Armenian flags at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 4 / 16 R.D. White Elementary School children perform at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 5 / 16 The ceremony to present the colors at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 6 / 16 Most of the seating in the bottom two-thirds of the John Wayne Performing Arts Center are taken at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 7 / 16 The Gendale High School acapella choir sings the Armenian National Anthem at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 8 / 16 Glendale Supt. Winfred Robertson, Jr. speaks at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 9 / 16 An original song is performed by members of the Glendale High School Armenian Club. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 10 / 16 A television photographer puts lights on Glendale Unified school officials during the show at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 11 / 16 A young girl from R.D. White Elementary asks the crowd a question at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 12 / 16 The presentation of colors by the Glendale Homenetmen Ararat Chapter at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 13 / 16 Erik Chilingaryan, with the Davidian & Mariamian Educational Foundation Choir, recites a poem at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 14 / 16 Youth from R.D. White Elementary School sing at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 15 / 16 Dancers with Lilia Dance studio perform at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 16 / 16 A boy with the Lilia Dance Studio waves a large Armenian flag at the 16th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Glendale High School on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer)

This is an emotional time for the students since they hear so much  in their homes, and they participate in a lot of events and activities outside of school, she said.

Kasmanian worked with Rosemont Principal Cynthia Livingston to host the schools first Walk, Talk & Learn event last year after parents and students had for years urged for a commemorative event at Rosemont.

About 100 students participated on Wednesday, and many were of other ethnic backgrounds who were encouraged to attend.

We thought this would be a positive way to approach it, Kasmanian said. Hopefully, year by year, well get more students to come.

The event also acknowledged other mass killings.

This is not just about the Armenian Genocide because theres been  other genocides that have not been recognized, Lianna said. Were just trying to spread awareness of other countries that have done [mass killings]. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away.

kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan

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In a campaign laced with religious and ethnic tensions, the minority Christian governor of Indonesias sprawling capital was unseated by a former education minister backed by conservative Islamists, unofficial results showed Wednesday.

With nearly all the votes counted, polling companies said Anies Baswedan won about 60% of the vote in a runoff election to lead the city of 10 million people, soundly defeating incumbent Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent.

The bitter campaign evolved into a test of ethnic and religious tolerance in the worlds most populous Muslim nation, long seen as a bastion of moderate Islam.

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Purnama, better known as Ahok, is facing blasphemy charges over remarks that allegedly insulted Islams holy book, the Koran. Hundreds of thousands of Islamist demonstrators took to the streets during the campaign, demanding that Purnama be jailed.

Although Purnama was widely perceived as a problem-solving administrator who cleared riverside slums and shuttered brothels, his blunt, confrontational manner was at odds with the more diffident style of Indonesian politics.

Unofficial results showed he won about 40% of the vote, roughly the same as in the first round of the election in February, indicating that he did not attract additional support in a city that is 80% Muslim.

If you look at the [preelection] surveys, Ahok gets 70% of people satisfied with his work, but when asked if you will vote for Ahok the number drops to 40%, said Bonar Tigor Naipospos, vice chairman of the Setara Institute, a Jakarta research organization.

It is because of the religious sentiment, Naipospos said.

Few would have predicted that it would be such a landslide victory. Pretty much all the pre-election polling data suggested a much tighter race...  Charlotte Setijadi of the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore think tank

The result was a blow to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who preceded Purnama as the capitals governor. It came a day before Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to visit Indonesia and meet with Widodo on the third leg of an Asian Pacific tour that includes South Korea, Japan and Australia.

Baswedans margin of victory was a surprise, as polls in the week leading up to the runoff showed the candidates running neck and neck.

Few would have predicted that it would be such a landslide victory, said Charlotte Setijadi of the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, a think tank in Singapore. Pretty much all the preelection polling data suggested a much tighter race or even a stalemate.

Baswedan, who was fired in 2016 as Widodos education minister, made a political comeback after allying with Islamists who staged mass demonstrations twice in late 2016 calling for Purnamas removal  and in some cases his execution.

The demonstrations ended with Widodo joining protest leaders onstage under a Jakarta thunderstorm in early December in an apparent bid to neutralize the campaign against the governor.

Baswedans aides denied that they pandered to religious hard-liners.

We went back to focusing on unity, jobs, cost of living, education, said Sandiaga Uno, a businessman who will serve as deputy governor under Baswedan.

But asked about the tone of the campaign, Uno acknowledged, It has been divisive, toward nasty.

Baswedan was supported by Prabowo Subianto, a former general whom Widodo defeated for president in 2014. Subianto is said to be eyeing a rerun of that contest in 2019.

But Widodo  a mild-mannered former furniture salesman known by the nickname Jokowi  remains popular for his efforts to cut red tape, boost small business and upgrade the countrys aging infrastructure.The Jakarta election creates momentum for Prabowo for sure, said Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani in Bandung, Indonesia. But a major blow to Jokowi? Dont think so.

Roughneen is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Shashank Bengali contributed to this report from Mumbai, India.
Tin Ko Ko Oo stepped off the bus on a humid Sunday evening carrying a binder thick with reading material and a duffel bag overstuffed with food and clean laundry.

He turned the key to his room, avoided the stacks of papers on the floor and set his bags down on a bunk bed next to his bike helmet.

He looked a bit like a college freshman returning to campus after a weekend at home. Except Tin Ko Ko Oo is 41 years old and a member of the parliament of Myanmar, coming back to one of the worlds most desolate capitals.

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The generals who once ruled this country  formerly known as Burma  were so paranoid about security that they built a new capital in secret, announcing its existence just as it was being completed a decade ago. Atop a lush plain of rice paddies and sugar cane fields, the city seems almost to have been dropped from outer space, with 20-lane highways, grandiose hotels, government complexes so monolithic that they invoke comparisons to North Korea  and very, very few people.

The generals called their new capital Naypyidaw, which means abode of kings. The abodes of most of the 440 lawmakers who live here for a few months every year are far from regal.

Because the generals extravagant urban planning did not extend to housing  at least not for politicians who were unconnected to the army  dormitories were built to accommodate opposition lawmakers and civil servants.

The departure area at Naypyidaws international airport sits deserted on a weekday. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

Last year, the opposition swept into power after Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy party  which led the five-decade struggle against military rule  won a historic majority in parliament. Hundreds of freshman lawmakers descended on remote Naypyidaw for the first time and found their way to the low, pastel-green dorms of Si Bin Guest House No. 2.

The spartan accommodations may feel familiar to the opposition lawmakers who spent time in prison under the military government.

Inside each 15-by-15-foot room are bunk beds with slender foam mattresses, a couple of hard wooden chairs, a desk and a bathroom with a tiny round mirror. There are no closets, so clothes and wet towels hang from the bedposts, the way your messy college roommate used to do it.

In Tin Ko Ko Oos room, a poster of Suu Kyi is taped to the wall above a desk cluttered with books, a cheap Chinese lamp and a deodorant stick. An empty bed serves as the kitchen-slash-pantry, strewn with pots, pans, spice jars and noodle packets that he cooks on an electric stove outside, on a tiny veranda where mosquitoes buzz in the fluorescent light.

Theres no TV, although in March wireless Internet was finally installed in the complex.

The boyish legislator from coastal Mon state attended university in Malaysia and then returned to his hometown to teach politics before contesting the 2015 elections as a member of Suu Kyis party. Growing up under the junta, he never dreamed he would serve in parliament. He betrayed no disappointment at the lack of luxury.

My life as a member of parliament is like my life as a student, he said. Except as a student I didnt have to cook.

Their days are highly routinized, like an adult summer camp with briefing books. Few have cars, and the distances in Naypyidaw are too vast to cover by bike, so buses bring them to the mammoth, 31-building parliament complex every weekday morning at 8 and back to the dorms before dark.

In the evenings and on weekends, international agencies hold classes in English or parliamentary procedure. Sometimes a few lawmakers will gather on Saturday night at one of the citys karaoke bars.

Most whose hometowns lie within driving distance elect to spend the weekends with their families and meeting constituents. Every other weekend, Tin Ko Ko Oo takes a six-hour bus ride back to Mon. On his lawmakers salary of less than $4,000, he cant afford a car.

Over here there is nothing to do but work, sleep and eat, he said. It is good because we have a lot of work to do to build our country. But even if you want to take a walk, there is nowhere to go.

Lawmaker Ma Thandar sips tea in an empty restaurant in Naypyidaw, Myanmar. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

The city sprawls over 2,700 square miles, more than five times the size of Los Angeles, and although some 1 million people are said to have moved here, there are rarely more than a few in sight at any given time. Its main landmark, a golden pagoda, is a hollow replica of the renowned Shwedagon Pagoda in the former capital, Yangon; Junction Center, a multistory shopping mall with a cinema, sits alone by the highway, a few palm trees swaying lazily by the entrance.

Like other purpose-built capitals, including Brasilia in Brazil and Islamabad in Pakistan, Naypyidaw is obsessively organized  residential, military and commercial and hotel zones are divided and carved into grid patterns, set apart by miles and miles of asphalt. A 5-acre diplomatic area, meant for embassies, is deserted because most countries have kept their quarters in Yangon.

At an empty restaurant on one of the tree-lined streets near the dorms, another lawmaker from Suu Kyis party, Ma Thandar, quietly sipped a cup of tea. Her niece was visiting from their home in the southern Irrawaddy River delta region. That evening, she reckoned, they would cook chicken on her electric stove and steam rice in her rice cooker.

Then it would be back to her briefing papers.

Sometimes I think Im in prison, she said, laughing.

The lifestyle is isolating, but parliament is only in session for about three months in a year. Some lawmakers even acknowledge they enjoy parts of it: There are few distractions, they can focus on work, Internet is relatively fast, and, unlike booming Yangon 200 miles to the south, traffic is nonexistent.

Oh, there is great nightlife in Naypyidaw, said a Yangon businessman who travels there regularly. Do you meditate?

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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In recent months, South Korea has endured the arrest of its ousted former president, threats from a nuclear-armed neighbor and economic retaliation from its most important regional trading partner.

Also, the Trump administration came into office.

Despite reassuring diplomatic visits by its strongest ally, the United States, two symbolic gaffes by the new American president have in recent days caused considerable consternation here  just as South Koreans prepare to elect their own leader.

The concern began several days ago, when the Trump administration fueled what became the widespread perception that a powerful U.S. aircraft carrier group was speeding to the region  an apparent show of force in response to recent nuclear and missile provocations by North Korea.

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It turns out that wasnt quite right.

And then Trump told the world this week about a recent history lesson he received on Sino-Korean relations from Chinese President Xi Jinping. In his recounting, Trump said Korea  which has an independent cultural identity spanning thousands of years  was once part of China.

That also isnt accurate.

In another time, the two incidents might have been quickly forgotten. But these are tense days in South Korea, a nation under existential threat from its northern neighbors while also feeling economic heat from the regions preeminent power, China.

Words and credibility are crucial in foreign affairs, but the administration so far isnt doing a good job of either, said Duyeon Kim, a visiting senior fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul.

Analysts like Kim doubt that Trumps recent gaffes  which could be explained as strategic ambiguity about a military asset and a misunderstanding about a translated Chinese conversation  will do long-term damage to the relationship between Washington and Seoul.

The United States has about 28,000 troops stationed here in an agreement to protect South Korea from the North. The United States and South Korea also have a robust trade relationship  and roughly 1.5 million ethnic Koreans live in the United States.

If he cared about either China or Korea, before he said things like this, he would do a fact check.  Student Nam Sang-uk on President Trump

The two Koreas, however, have maintained a warlike posture since the armistice in the 1950s, and tensions between them are particularly high right now.

The North, under its young leader Kim Jong Un, the grandson of the communist nations founder, has conducted two underground nuclear tests since the beginning of 2016 and launched numerous ballistic missile tests during that time  all violations of United Nations resolutions.

The confusion about whether the Trump administrations defense officials actually ordered the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to the region immediately, or just eventually, as it appears now, and the confusing public statement about Korean history do add to a sense of concern in the country about its safety and sovereignty, some say.

This only deepens the concern among South Koreans, in terms of how credible the security commitment of the United States really is, said Bong Young-shik, a research fellow with the Institute for North Korean Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Both incidents, he said, reinforce a sense among some South Koreans that they dont control their own fates, especially when sandwiched between the interests of the United States and China.

Its that relationship between the United States and China  and their shared interest in denuclearizing North Korea  that set the stage for the history lesson Trump received from Xi during their recent summit.

In an effort to explain his newly discovered understanding of the complexity of the relationship, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that Xi went into the history of China and Korea.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Not North Korea, Korea, the president said. And you know, youre talking about thousands of years  and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China.

That last remark showed a lack of understanding of regional history, not to mention the nationalist sensitivities in the region. It sparked strong reactions from South Koreans, including the diplomats at the countrys foreign affairs ministry.

It is a clear historical fact recognized by the international community, which cannot be denied by anyone, that Korea was not a part of China over the past several thousands of years of history of Korea-China relations, said Cho June-hyuck, a ministry spokesman.

A news anchor on a South Korean state-funded television network, Arirang, called the remark outlandish on its face.

China, for its part, downplayed the issue without specifically addressing whether Xi, whose words were translated, meant to say the phrase Trump uttered.

Sino-Korean relations date back thousands of years, and there was in fact a historical tributary system in which imperial China influenced much of the cultural and economic development of various nations in the region, perhaps in Korea more than any other.

Roughly 2,000 years ago, the Chinese Han Dynasty established an administrative district in the northern part of the peninsula. And there have been historical invasions by forces from China, but also close cooperation with past Korean leaders over the years.

A Chinese proverb describes the relationship as one of lips and teeth  a roughly translated metaphor indicating how South Korea in imperial times served as a protective buffer from invaders like Japan. In the last century, Chinas revolutionary leader, Mao Tse-tung, repurposed the phrase to describe a kind of close, yet different, relationship between his comrades in North Korea.

But from about the 7th century on, Theres a clear independent political entity on the peninsula, said John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Delury, like others, wasnt privy to what precisely was said between the two leaders  and whether Trump misunderstood or misstated the contents. Delury said he believes Xis history discussion with Trump was probably intended to illustrate Chinas historic lack of control over Korea, which has remained fiercely independent and culturally homogeneous.

Either way, the words were disheartening for some South Koreans  who also know that China is currently retaliating economically over their nations decision to deploy a U.S. defensive missile system to protect against the North.

If he cared about either China or Korea, before he said things like this, he would do a fact check, said Nam Sang-uk, 21, a university student who lives in central Seoul. Im not sure if Trump is capable of understanding South Korea and having diplomacy with South Korea and able to keep us safe from our enemies.

Stiles is a special correspondent.

For more news from Asia, follow @stiles on Twitter
Frances eternal revolutionary, Jean-Luc Melenchon, man of the people, is sitting in the first-class carriage of the TGV (train a grande vitesse, or very fast train) returning to Paris from a meeting in the city of Rennes.

His journeys crisscrossing France on the campaign trail for the nations presidency are used to study speech notes, for team debriefings and interviews with journalists, hence the first-class ticket.

At the moment, Melenchon is tired. He has just held a rally at which he spoke for more than three hours with barely a glance at his notes. But his weary look brightens when he is asked about being compared to former U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont.

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You know, we sent someone to the U.S. to study Bernie Sanders. I like the comparison. And hes 10 years older than me, which makes me feel young, Melenchon said recently. Yes, I like him.

On Sunday, French voters will go to the polls for the first part of a two-part process to elect a new president. The two candidates with the most votes are expected to face off in the second part of the election May 7.

In a remarkable turnaround, the hard-left Melenchon, who is not just a fan of Sanders but also of the late socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has risen to be a serious contender.

An opinion poll by Ipsos for the Sciences-Po university and Le Monde newspaper published Wednesday suggested independent candidate Emmanuel Macron of the En Marche! party was favored to win the presidential race (23%) with far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen just behind (22.5%).

The poll showed Macron and Le Pen followed by the scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon of Les Republicains (19.5%), Melenchon of France Insoumise (Unbowed France) (19%) and Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon trailing (8%). Six other candidates are polling lower.

Melenchons campaign, run on a shoe-string budget using volunteers and employing a high profile on the Internet and social media  tactics relatively new to France  are credited to Sophia Chikirou, the someone dispatched to the United States last year to join Sanders team.

Melenchon shares many points in common with Sanders, Chikirou, Melenchons communications director, told Europe 1 radio in January. Sanders relied on having the people campaign for him and mobilizing them through social media. Thats mainly what we took from him.

The Sanders strategy has helped Melenchon. Just weeks ago, the idea that the 65-year-old head of the France Insoumise movement, a poetry and opera-loving former Trotskyist and onetime teacher, could make it to the Elysee Palace would have raised a good laugh. Today, nothing could be more serious, according to French political analysts.

Melenchon is on a roll with his calls for a nonviolent citizens revolution, proposed minimum monthly wage of $1,790, anti-capitalist, anti-globalization rhetoric and plans to renegotiate European Union treaties to put an end to economic liberalism.

The man who asks supporters not to chant his name because it is all about the program, not the person, is drawing support from French millennials with pop-star-like hologram appearances that on Tuesday allowed him to address rallies in seven different cities at the same time. Fans even created a game called Fiskal Kombat in which Melenchon walks down a street shaking money from the pockets of men he meets.

Melenchon says he is appealing to voters who feel abandoned by the mainstream parties.

If things were going well in society, nobody would need me. Now, we have to have a citizens revolution and change things bit by bit. It has to start somewhere in Europe and I hope France will lead the way, he said in an interview.

The thing about revolution is that there is no instruction book, people just act because they can no longer tolerate a society in which people have nothing to eat, cannot afford healthcare or look after themselves.

France goes into this election, after five years of President Francois Hollandes Socialist administration, having weathered the global economic crisis, but with a stuttering recovery. Unemployment remains stubbornly around 10%  and twice the figure among the young  public debt is high, growth feeble and consumer spending power has declined.

Last year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said France had an enviable standard of living and had come through the crisis without suffering too heavily, but that a lack of growth was the fundamental economic problem.

Dominique Reynie, founder of the French think tank Fondapol and a professor at the Sciences-Po university, said a Macron-Le Pen runoff was the most likely outcome of Sundays vote, but acknowledged there was a lot of uncertainty.

Le Pen, 48, the youngest daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, is a trained lawyer and is standing on an economic nationalism program that includes a referendum on pulling France out of the European Union and dumping the euro, halting immigration, closing Frances borders and giving French nationals priority for housing, social benefits and jobs.

Le Pen is under investigation for allegedly using EU funds to pay for party staff, including a personal bodyguard.

At 39, Macron is the youngest of the 11 presidential candidates and the only one of the front-runners to have never held elected office. The former Rothschild investment banker was recruited by Hollande first as deputy general secretary at the Elysee Palace and then as economy minister.

He resigned in 2016 after two years at the ministry to launch his own political movement, En Marche!, insisting he was not left, not right, not even a centrist, but a pro-Europe progressive.

Reynie described the prospect of the radical socialist and revolutionary Melenchon getting into the second round as extraordinary and a great risk to the country.

Melenchon represents the anti-system-left, not a left of government, and the prospect of the complete overturning of Frances political system, Reynie said.

Manuel Bompart, Melenchons campaign director, suggested the idea that the candidate was a threat to the country was fearmongering.

The situation in France is not exactly very reassuring at the moment, Bompart said. Theres nothing to fear by voting Jean-Luc Melenchon. He is presenting a reasonable response to the problems confronting France.

On the TGV, Melenchon was in a reflective mood.

Everything in the middle is being blown apart, society is disintegrating, and many, like me, are outraged by the greed of certain people and the destruction of social norms, he said.

This disorder serves me well. You would be surprised how well my message goes down in some of the countrys renowned business schools where I am welcomed and where my diagnosis is shared.

Willsher is a special correspondent.
Twenty-six hostages, including members of Qatars ruling family, were released Friday after 16 months in captivity in Iraq, two Iraqi officials said, in what had become one of the regions most complex hostage negotiations.

The two  a government and a security official  told the Associated Press the hostages were released into the custody of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The abduction sparked more than a year of negotiations between Iran, Qatar and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, resulting in millions of dollars in payments to Sunni and Shiite factions, according to Iraqi officials.

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The group, which includes members of Qatars ruling Al Thani family and also other nationals, was kidnapped in December 2015 from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq. They apparently had permits to hunt in that area inside Muthanna province, about 230 miles southeast of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Shiite militias are active in that area and work closely with neighboring Shiite power Iran. No group claimed responsibility for the abduction, though local Arabic media frequently cited suspicions that it was the Iraqi Shiite group Kataeb Hezbollah. The group denies that it was behind the kidnapping.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi confirmed earlier this week that a Qatari delegation was in the country to help with the groups release. The nationalities of the other hostages in the group have not been made public.

Qatari officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In April 2016, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said one of the hunters and an Asian worker on the trip had been freed.

Another Iraqi security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations, said the group would leave Baghdad later Friday.

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UPDATES:

5:25 a.m.: This article was updated throughout with additional details about the hostage situation and background on the group that was abducted.

This article was originally published at 4:35 a.m.
Syria has dispersed its air force combat planes in recent days in response to the U.S. cruise missile strike two weeks ago following a chemical attack on civilians in the province of Idlib, said Defense Secretary James Mattis during a visit to Israel on Friday.

Mattis, speaking at a news conference with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, also said there was no doubt that the Syrian government has retained stockpiles of chemical weapons in violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution from 2013 that called for their removal.

The defense secretary declined to reveal how many chemical weapons Syria has held on to, but said that the issue would have to be taken up diplomatically. An Israeli army officer told local reporters earlier this week that most of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile was either removed or destroyed after 2013, but that Syrian President Bashar Assad held on to a residual amount.

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Mattis, on a swing through the Middle East that includes stops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, warned that Syria would be ill advised to use chemical weapons in the future, saying that weve made that very clear with our strike two weeks ago. On April 7, the U.S. fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles in response to a Sarin gas attack, which killed scores of people.

The Defense secretarys remarks about the dispersal of the Syrian combat aircraft came in response to a question about reports that Assads military had moved its planes near Russian air bases in the governorate of Latikia to protect them from a possible U.S. attack.

They have dispersed their aircraft in recent days, no doubt, Mattis told reporters Friday morning at the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

The Defense secretary, the first Cabinet level official in the Trump administration to visit Israel, later held a meeting in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reiterated praise for the U.S. cruise missile strike, calling it a sign of a strategic change in U.S. leadership and policy from the Obama administration.

Israeli politicians and defense experts unanimously hailed the attack earlier this month, arguing that it indicated that the Trump administration would become more deeply engaged in the region than its predecessor and that it would not hesitate to use force when necessary to defend its policy red lines.

However, its still unclear what changes if any the Trump administration is planning regarding U.S. policy toward Irans nuclear program  a source of bitter open disagreement between Israel and the Obama administration.

When asked by a reporter whether he supports changes to the U.S.-led international agreement from 2015 to limit Irans nuclear fuel program, the Defense secretary declined to comment except to reiterate the conclusions of a State Department report this week that Iran is honoring the agreement.

Standing alongside Lieberman, Mattis said that we are pretty confident that they are living up to their part of the agreement the agreement on nuclear issues still stands. The Defense secretary said, however, that Tehrans fulfillment of the deal did not excuse Irans involvement in Yemens civil war and its support for Assad in the Syria conflict.

After the regular criticism of Obamas policy on Iran and on the peace process with the Palestinians, Netanyahu and other politicians in his right-wing government have largely been deferential to the Trump administration despite the mixed messages from the president and U.S. officials on policy.

Given the opportunity to comment on what Israel would like to see change in the U.S. stance toward Iran, Lieberman said that Israel welcomed a decision by the U.S. to initiate a review of Washingtons policy toward Iran, and that Israel is not in a position to give advice.

We are satisfied, and have enough patience to wait for concrete steps, the defense minister said.

Mattis visit comes less than two weeks before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to visit Washington for a White House meeting with the president, and the defense minister also steered clear of thorny issues on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When asked if he still stands by a 2013 remark that the Israels Jewish settlements in the West Bank could lead to apartheid, he gave a rambling and confused response.

Whatever it takes to keep Israel secure is where we stand, he said. How Israel achieves its level of sustainable security is absolutely critical, and that includes all the peoples here inside the borders of the Middle East. All of these people are going to have to work together, were going to have to resolve it, and its got to be done in a way that looks out for the rights of all those people.

The U.S. has been trying to enlist Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to help restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Questioned about Trumps hesitation to make good on a promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Mattis declined to comment and referred reporters to the State Department.

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

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UPDATES:

8:55 a.m.: This article updated with additional details about the Syrian warplanes.

11:15 a.m.: This article updated with additional background on U.S.-Israeli relations.

This article was originally published at 5:40 a.m.
Amid the rubble fields of eastern Aleppo, Ibrahim Shabelle was hawking a traditional licorice drink to shoppers, tradesmen and others frequenting a shattered but lively main drag.

Cold juice! Shabelle cried out, offering cool glasses of the dark beverage to all takers for the equivalent of about 20 cents.

He was in the Al Shaar neighborhood, which was under control of antigovernment rebels for more than four years. Al Shaar has seen more than its share of trauma  gun battles, bombardments, mass abandonment, power blackouts, food shortages, and lack of water and medical care.

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But now a sense of relative stability has descended on the district, despite vast expanses of pancaked buildings, rubble-strewn streets and walls perforated with bullet holes and shrapnel scars. Some residents who fled during the war years have returned, and there is a halting sense of renewed life on the streets. But the area remains largely depopulated. And no one dares say that the war is ending anytime soon.

1 / 10 Aleppos Salahuddin neighborhood was divided between opposition and government forces until rebels left in December. Now, many former residents are coming back to see what became of their homes. Others come to pick through the rubble. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 2 / 10 Produce vendor Mohammed Abdullah, 42, helps customers from his stand on a rubble-strewn street in east Aleppos Shaar district. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 3 / 10 A heavily damaged entrance of the historic souk in Aleppos Old City. The government retook Aleppo from rebel forces in December. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 4 / 10 A woman watches her children play at Alkabakim Park in a district of east Aleppo formerly under rebel control. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 5 / 10 Schoolgirls visit the Citadel, a medieval fortress in Aleppos Old City that has remained in government hands throughout Syrias civil war. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 6 / 10 Years of clashes and bombardment have left east Aleppo a rubble-strewn disaster zone, but people who left during the fighting are beginning to return. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 7 / 10 An ice cream vendor sells treats to children at Alkabakim Park in east Aleppo. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 8 / 10 Mohammed Doqmaq, 23, smokes on the balcony of his familys apartment in Aleppos Shaar district. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 9 / 10 Street life is returning to Aleppos Shaar district since it was retaken from rebel control. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times) 10 / 10 Aleppos Old City has been deeply scarred by years of war. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)

This is the reality today of eastern Aleppo, much of which was under opposition control between mid-2012 until last December, when antigovernment fighters and their supporters agreed to leave the zone. The government of President Bashar Assad then assumed full control of Aleppo, marking a major milestone and giving the government control of most major cities.

The war has seen the exodus of about half of the six million people who lived in greater Aleppo before the war, officials say. East Aleppo is a vast expanse of obliteration. The demarcations of east and west Aleppo hardly existed before July 2012, when opposition forces launched their offensive on the city.

Before the war, Aleppo was an engine of wealth, a hub for tens of thousands of factories and workshops. Its prosperous merchants exported goods  textiles, pharmaceuticals, agricultural goods  across the region, and the world. But the war saw much of Aleppos industrial might destroyed or looted, merchants say.

While peace has returned, the neighborhoods of east Aleppo remain largely ghost towns.

In truth, I dont know if we will be able to rebuild. Maybe it will never be the same.  Ahmad Rihan

Entire apartment blocks were flattened and untold numbers of people lost in bombardments and clashes as government forces attacked relentlessly in an ultimately successful bid to evict opposition fighters. Rebels, in turn, fired rockets and mortars into government-controlled western Aleppo, killing hundreds.

We used to live there, said an electrician named Abdu Ali, gesturing with a smile into a small mountain of jagged masonry, twisted rebar and other residential detritus. This was in Salahuddin, a densely packed district of multistory apartment buildings that was the scene of fierce fighting in the summer of 2012.

Ali had taken his wife, his mother, his sister and his three children to see their old neighborhood, or what remained of it. During the worst of the fighting, they moved to the government-controlled side of Aleppo.

The building that housed their apartment was in the middle of what became Salahuddins no mans land. Nothing there was unscathed. Against all odds, Ali seems to hold out hope that he can move back to his apartment, now little more than a pile of rocks.

Many in Aleppo are glad that the worst seems over, at least for now. Residents appear eager to declare their allegiance to the government, though some likely supported the opposition when its forces held sway. In Syria, choosing sides is sometimes a question of getting along, not ideology. Mostly, people seem drained and eager to move on with their lives.

From the archives: In war-shattered Aleppo, some of Syrias toughest civilians stay put 

Here, even the stones reek with sadness, said Mohammed Kharma, 38, who, along with a partner, Abdullah Aweeja, was selling ice and bricks from a makeshift stand. Sales were desultory.

Overhead, Syrian Air Force fighter jets rumbled in the sky. People stared upward, more out of curiosity these days than fear. The jets likely destination was Idlib province, which is largely in opposition hands and is now home to many of the Sunni Islamist militants who once held sway here.

Like so many people, Kharma had a story of woe to tell, a personal tragedy in a city, and country, where such accounts are so commonplace that no one seems surprised. Some Syrians even seem embarrassed to recount their hardships, since someone else has always lost more.

We left this neighborhood when the problems started, recalled Kharma. My family went to live with my in-laws.

That was in the western suburb of Al Rashadeen, then in government hands. In 2013, however, opposition forces overran Al Rashadeen; at the time, the front lines tended to shift rapidly in the city suburbs. Kharmas family was on the move again. But he said a sniper shot and killed his 6-year-old son, Ali, as the family tried to escape amid heavy clashes. His wife telephoned Kharma, who was working in western Aleppo at the time, with word of the boys death.

Everyone here has a story like that, Kharma said, not seeming inclined to make too big a deal of the whole matter.

Alkabakim Park in a section of east Aleppo that was formerly under rebel control. The district suffered catastrophic damage, but some families have begun to return. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)

Shabelle, the juice vendor, also lost a son  Ahmad, 11, killed in shelling last year, he said, on a spot right down the street.

The armed groups said it was the government that fired the shell, said Shabelle, as he poured plastic glasses of juice for customers. But I know it was [the oppositions] mortar.

Ahmads twin brother, Mohammed, now 12, listened as his father recounted the circumstances of his siblings death. He expressed no emotion.

One after another, residents told of having returned to Al Shaar after years in internal exile in government-controlled zones. Some seemed exhilarated about being back, despite the tableau of ruin confronting them. Their enthusiasm bespoke a deep affection for their historic hometown.

There is no place on Earth like Aleppo, said Abdu Kadr Doqmaq, 54, patriarch of a large East Aleppo family that spent the war in Latakia province but has returned to the Al Shaar district.

He and other men were smoking shisha pipes on the familys third-floor balcony, overlooking a rubble-filled street. The family paid handsomely to rebuild the five-bedroom apartment, which was occupied by antigovernment forces during the war years, Doqmaq said. An extended family of 10 now live in the flat, relying on a generator for electricity and a delivery truck for water. A Syrian flag and portrait of Assad hang from the building.

We will never leave Aleppo again, vowed Doqmaq, a businessman whose son, Fadel, 23, a Syrian army soldier, was also smoking on the balcony. This is our home. Forever.

Sabah Sheikh Ali, 29, holds her 2-month-old son Taim, accompanied by her mother-in-law Souad Rasheed, 60, and other children. Their former family home in Aleppos Salahuddin neighborhood is now rubble. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)

Across town, in another formerly opposition-held district known as Bustan al-Qasr, Ahmad Rihan was assessing the damage to his shop in the citys Pistachio Souk, once one of the largest such markets in the Middle East. Today, the place is a wasteland of twisted metal rods, charred beams and bullet-riddled walls.

In truth, I dont know if we will be able to rebuild, said Rihan, 46, a civil engineer and father of five daughters, who waited out the war in western Aleppo. Maybe it will never be the same.

Down the street, some mothers took their children to a small park in front of a stretch of bombed-out apartment buildings. Somehow, the trees survived the shelling. In an ingenious adaptation, children used flat stones from the rubble as makeshift seats for the damaged swings. They rambled about and shouted in joy like kids everywhere. A teenage ice-cream vendor offered his wares.

Before the crisis, our children used to wear the best clothes, said one of the mothers, Seham Hammameh, gazing toward the kids, dressed informally but not shabbily. Its sad to see them this way.

Some more Syrian fighter jets roared in the sky. From the distance came the thud of mortar fire. The war may have paused in eastern Aleppo, but it rages just beyond the city limits, with no sign that it will end anytime soon.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

twitter: @mcdneville

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Archaeologists Uncover Mummies In Ancient Tombs Near Luxor

staffwriter@latinoshealth.com By Melvin Magadia Apr 20, 2017 06:18 PM EDT

Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what they call an "important discovery" in an ancient tomb near Luxor, Egypt. The tomb, which dates back to 3,500 years old to the 18th Dynasty, contained right mummies, wooden sarcophagi, and over 1,000 funerary statues. The discovery was revealed by the Antiquities Ministry Tuesday.

The Daily Star reports that the ancient tomb was owned by a nobleman named Userhat who is employed as a municipal judge. According to Mustapha Waziri, Archaeological Mission Head, the tomb was opened 3,000 years ago in the 21st Dynasty to accommodate more mummies. "It was a surprise how much was being displayed inside," Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Enany told reporters outside the tomb.

Aside from the mummies, about a thousand ushbati figurines were unearthed as well. In ancient Egyptian tombs, these small carved figurines were often placed with the dead individual to help them become responsible in the afterlife. Officials from the Antiquities Ministry said they first found six mummies along with partial remains near Luxor but later found two more.

"There are 10 coffins and eight mummies. The excavation is ongoing." confirmed Waziri. The team are also examining a mummy wrapped in linen found in one of the coffins. There were also white, orange, green, and patterned pots found in one of the tombs. Waziri explained that the age of the tomb was determined through the drawings on the ceiling.

Phys.org reveals that the tomb is T-shaped and has an open court leading into a rectangular hall, corridor, and inner chamber. Inside the tomb is a 9-meter shaft that held the Ushabti figurines and "wooden masks and a handle of sarcophagus lid." According to Waziri, the mummies trace its roots from an age called "era of the tomb robbers."

The Antiquities Ministry bared that the team discovered another room in the tomb but it has not yet been completely excavated. The tomb was buried under 450 meters of debris. For years, the tombs and ancient temples of Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt and now Luxor, served as a major tourist attraction.

However, tourism in the area has dropped in the height of the turmoil that removed longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak from power. Enany is hoping that with the new discoveries tourism in this side of Egypt would pick up again.

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Bose Corp. is allegedly spying on its customers with the use of an app that secretly tracks music files, podcasts and any kind of audio that customers are listening to. A lawsuit has been charged against the audio products maker stating that they have violated the rights of their customers by sharing their information without any permission. Reports say that Bose privacy agreement does not contain any clause on data collection.

Kyle Zak from Illinois, sued Bose Corporation in a federal court in Chicago. He wants to stop the company's disregard for the privacy of customers. Zak is talking about the use of the free app called Bose Connect app available on Google Play and Apple Inc., Reuters reported.

Zak's lawyer, Christopher Dore, said that people should be aware and should feel uncomfortable about this app since they could be thinking that it's safe to use headphones because of the privacy it gives. Users of Bose headphones could be giving information that they might not want to share at all. Zak's move came from his personal experience as he used the Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones along with the app.

Zak gave his name, email address and serial number of his $350 Bose headphone to sign up for the app. He was surprised one day upon learning that Bose has sent all media information that he had in his smartphone to Segment.io, a third party company that collects customer data.

Zak is seeking millions of dollars in damages for all customers that have used Bose headphones as well as their line of speakers like SoundLiink Around-Ear Wireless Headphones II, SoundLink Color II, SoundSprot Wireless, SoundSport Pulse Wireless, QuietComfort 35 and QuietControl 30, Science World Report said. Furthermore, the lawsuit wants Bose to stop its data collection and sharing of data from customers. It states that all information that it has collected should be destroyed.

Zak vs. Bose Corporation case has been filed at the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois with a case number 17-02928. Bose has not commented about the allegations of Zak
Bella Thorne sure is a multi-talented personality. Not only does she act but she's also known for her singing abilities. Another important characteristic trait that she's known for, are her radical lifestyle choices. In a recent turn of events, she was reported to have said that she's completely natural and that she doesn't even believe in taking birth control.

According to Hollywood, Bella Thorne was expressing her lifestyle choices recently. While doing so, the Hollywood actress was heard saying that she believes in doing her own make-up too. In fact, while talking about her sense of fashion, she suggested that she dresses up depending on what she is feeling that day. She can go anywhere from dressing up like she is super-goth or even representing a complete hippie.

As reported by Yahoo, Bella Thorne even went all out while describing her thoughts while filming. She was heard saying that sometimes when she is analyzing her character, she feels that the character is too naive too.

Not many are aware of this but Bella Thorne has been in the performing industry for years. She got her first break with Disney Channel's Shake It Up after which, she moved on to Hollywood and acted with Adam Sandler in the movie Blended.

Another report published by Perez Hilton further spoke about how outspoken Bella Thorne had been over the years. All the way from battling with her skin problems to tackling suicidal thoughts, to accepting her sexuality - she has been very expressive regarding her opinions.

It wasn't long before suggesting that she is completely natural. She said that she doesn't take Advil or Tylenol or even birth control. She's always believed in keeping the negativity away. It seems like Bella Thorne is finally growing up, to deciding her views.
Most women are having a body conscious after being pregnant and worried that might their husband did not like them which feels they were very unresponsive in every way. But the upcoming mother, Beyonce prove it wrong since she won Peabody awards.

Last Thursday, Beyonce proclaimed as the winner of Peabody award for her studio album "Lemonade" last year. The award was joined by the 33-year old actor Donald Glover in his important scene on the American comedy series "Atlanta."

The Peabody had a massive number of entries but only select 25-35 winners which Beyonce and Donald Glover. Both artists were part of the 60 finalists to won the award to encourage and captive the viewers and listeners to the stories by using modern journalism.

According to Peabody judges, the "Lemonade" by Beyonce brings out bravery and depth meaning to listeners which have a deep imagination about on women lives, color and the friendship that is very rare to hear on American widespread culture, Billboard reported. Donald Glover scene on "Atlanta" was appreciated also which they called as "enchanting series" that deals about the two young black men who having troubled to explore and enjoined things they are more cheerful to do.

On NPR report, the 2016 music and documentary by HBO Canada was also announced as Peabody winner which is very interesting and skilled history in hip-hop music. Hip-Hop Evolution was consists of interviews by proficient moguls, DJs, and MCs which is present at the very start.

Moreover, Beyonce had the pride to raise women banners that being pregnant is not an obstruction to fulfill everything and achieve anything. The 35-year-old actress really impressed her fans since she won another achievement despite for having baby bumps which made her so proud of.

Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter gained massive awards such as Grammy Awards, Billboard Music Award, MTV Video Music Award, MTV Europe Music Awards, and Brit Awards. But Beyonce was also a favorite artist by a young person since she was selected as Kid's Choice Award for Favorite Song.
Apr 21, 2017, 11:18am ET

Tesla owners sue over 'defective' Autopilot

Plaintiffs claim the cars steer out of lanes, lurch, slam on the brakes for no reason and fail to slow when approaching other vehicles.

A group of Tesla Model S and Model X owners has filed a lawsuit claiming the Autopilot system is dangerous and 'defective.'

Plaintiffs claim the Autopilot system is managed by "half-baked software" that causes the vehicles to steer out of lanes, lurch, slam on the brakes for no apparent reason and fail to slow or stop when approaching other vehicles, according to details of the lawsuit reported by Bloomberg.

Many of the cars listed in the class-action suit are equipped with Tesla's second-generation Autopilot hardware. The owners allege that Tesla indicated the Autopilot 2.0 system would be fully operational by December, but it still lacks full autonomous functionality.

Tesla's website says the "Enhanced Autopilot" software -- a $5,000 option -- has begun rolling out and features "will continue to be introduced as validation is completed."

For another $3,000, buyers can add "Full Self-Driving Capability" that doubles the number of cameras and "enables full self-driving in almost all circumstances." The company clearly states in bold lettering that "Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval" that can vary by individual jurisdiction.

"It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval," the disclaimer adds.

The company has fired back at lawyers representing the owners, arguing that the lawsuit is a "disingenuous attempt to secure attorney's fees posing as a legitimate legal action, which is evidenced by the fact that the suit misrepresents many facts."

"The inaccurate and sensationalistic view of our technology put forth by this group is exactly the kind of misinformation that threatens to harm consumer safety," the statement added.
We are lucky to have some of the finest historical houses in Ireland right here on our doorstep in County Laois. These stately homes are wonderful examples of the rich architectural heritage in Laois and the good news is that you can visit most of them.....

Emo Court

The large neo-classical mansion of Emo Court is arguably one of Laois most famous buildings.

It was designed by the famed Georgian architect, James Gandon in 1790 for John Dawson, the first Earl of Portarlington. It was built in the style of the Custom House in Dublin also designed by Gandon. Construction began in 1790.

Emo is one of the few houses to have been designed by Gandon, others include Roslyn Park, Sandymount and Abbeville, Charles Haugheys former home in Kinsealy.

Gandon was also responsible for the nearby Coolbanagher Church, the only ecclesiastical structure he was associated with.

Emo Court had many owners throughout its history. It ceased to be the Irish residence of Lord Portarlington in 1915. In 1929, it, along with about 60 acres of the demesne, was taken over by the Jesuit Order.

The Jesuits spent years here, until they sold the property to Major Chomeley-Harrison, a London stockbroker by profession. He spent years and huge resources restoring the property, under the supervision of Sir Albert Richardson and Partners of London. The gardens and lake at Emo were also restored.

Major Chomeley-Harrison presented the entire property to the State in 1994, with President Mary Robinson in attendance at Emo for the occasion. The only proviso he sought was that he could reside there until his death.

Emo Court is now managed by the Office of Public Works and is open to visitors.

Access to the house is by guided tour only, and these are available hourly.

For further information, check out the following link:

www.heritageireland.ie/en/midlands-eastcoast/emocourt/

Ballyfin House and Demesne

Nowadays an internationally famous exclusive hotel, Ballyfins rich history saw it as a home to the OMores, the Crosbys, the Poles, the Wellesley-Poles and the Cootes.

The house was built in the 1820s for Sir Charles Coote, and designed by the well known architects Sir Richard and William Morrison.

The Cootes spent a century in the house, their reign coming to an end in the turbulent 1920s. In 1928 Ballyfin was sold by Sir Ralph Coote to the Patrician Brothers, and it became Patrician College Ballyfin, a school which attracted pupils not only from Laois, but from all over the country.

The Patricians sold the house in 2002 to Chicago businessman, Fred Krehbiel. Mr Krehbiel spent $50 million on its restoration and renovation.

Ballyfin House opened in 2011 after eight years of restoration work, longer that it took for the house to be built in the 1800s.

Among the many fine features of the property are its mile lone meandering driveway, its private lake, and huge porticoed entrance.

Its many famous features also include the Whispering Room, where two people standing in opposite corners can hear each other's whispers thanks to the curved construction of the ceiling.

There's also nearly 10 miles of paths throughout the 614-acre walled estate.

Ballyfin House has played host to a variety of celebrities, including most famously Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and also the likes of JK Rowling and Richard E. Grant.

It's open to guests, and an overnight stay will cost you.

For further information, check out the following link:

http://www.ballyfin.com/Home.aspx

Abbeyleix House

Abbeyleix House is one of Ireland's undisputed great houses.

It has been intertwined with the town of Abbeyleix since the town's early settlement by Cistercian monks in the 12th century.

The town was subsequently acquired by the De Vesci family, who commissioned the architect James Wyatt to design the mansion, the centrepiece of their estate.

Abbeyleix House was home to the De Vesci family for almost three centuries until it was sold in 1994 to Welsh businessman, Sir David Davies. Sir David is President of the Irish Georgian Society and President of Wexford Festival Opera.

He embarked on a comprehensive restoration project, which took five years.

The Davies family took up residence at Christmas in 1999. Along with Ballyfin it was was one of the great houses to have been restored in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Abbeyleix House is a private family home, not open to the public.

For further information on the House and town of Abbeyleix, see the following link:

http://www.abbeyleix.ie/history/

Castle Durrow

Castle Durrow is one of the country's best known hotels.

However, it enjoys a rich history amongst the pantheon of fine Irish country houses.

It was originally built as a family home by Colonel William Flower, between 1712 and 1716.

William's son Henry received the title of first Viscount Ashbrook in 1951, a peerage which still exists to this day.

The Flower family owned the estate until 1922, at which time they sold up and returned to England.

The Land Commission eventually took over the arable section of the estate.

The house lay vacant for a number of years until it transformed, in 1929, into a school - St. Fintan's College and Convent.

In 1998, it was purchased by Peter and Shelley Stokes who began the gargantuan task of transforming it into what is now Castle Durrow Country House Hotel.

The property is also renowned for its gardens, and walled garden, the origins of which date back to the Flower family. It has 50-acres of lawns, parkland and forest.

The Stokes' began the work of rejuvenating the garden when they bought the property. They stress that the gardens remain a work in progress but the work to date has been extremely impressive resulting in a mature and beautiful garden, creating splendid grounds to set off the Castle.

Stradbally Hall

One of the best known houses in the country, thanks to its latter day incarnation as host of the Electric Picnic, Stradbally Hall has been the seat of the Cosby family since the reign of Edward VI.

Almost uniquely in the history of Irish country houses, the Cosby family still resides here and, with the exception of a certain weekend in September, it is a private residence.

The house dates from the middle of the 19th century and is an enlargement in classical style of a Georgian house, which had been built in 1772, to replace a yet older residence.

The north front, with its massive pillared entrance faces a broad stretch of parkland. The south front, of which the most remarkable feature is a lofty pillared pavilion, overlooks the terraces and gardens.

Major Ashworth Cosby served in the first and second world wars with the Rifle Brigade, and was Joint Master of the Queen's County Hounds from 1933 until 1938.

He died in 1984 and passed the estate to his eldest son, Adrian. Adrian farmed the estate before passing it to his son, Thomas.

For further information see:

http://www.ihh.ie/houses/16/Stradbally-Hall-/index.cfm

This article is sponsored by AOCA Engineering Consultants. Check out their website at http://aoca.ie/
Sinn Fein TD, Brian Stanley has strongly rejecting claims by Minister Charlie Flanagan about Sinn Feins position on water charges as published in the local press last week.

"I want to set the record straight and correct many false claims made by Minister Flanagan on this issue," stated Deputy Stanley.

"Minister Flanagan was totally misleading when he falsely stated that there are water charges in the North. The actual position is this  domestic water charges were introduced by the British in the North in 2007 under Direct Rule.

"Subsequently the Assembly and Executive were established and the Sinn Fein Minister with responsibility for water, Conor Murphy, abolished domestic water charges. These are the facts and Charlie Flanagan either doesnt know this or he chose to deliberately mislead people.

"He also said that Sinn Fein forgot about those in Group Water Schemes. If he checked the record we repeatedly raised the need for those in group water schemes to have parity with urban dwellers.

"This was done consistently over recent years both in the Dail and at the Water Committee. In addition we made provision for extra subvention for rural group water schemes in our budget proposals.

"Finally Minister Flanagan alleged that Sinn Fein changed its position on water charges a number of times. Again if he took the time to check his facts our opposition to being charged twice for domestic water has never changed over the past 30 years.

"Either Charlie Flanagan, as a senior Government Minister, is unaware of the facts or he deliberately chose to make false assertions about Sinn Feins stance on the issue of water charges," charged Deputy Stanley.
The construction of a new high security wing for Portlaoise Prison to house some of Ireland's most dangerous criminals is scheduled to get underway at the start of 2019.

In what should be an economic boost for Portlaoise, the Irish Prison Services has confirmed to the Leinster Express that, in the meantime, work is to start on the refurbishment of the existing facilities.

The statement follows an announcement this week by the Tanaiste and Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald that the prison, which is one of the main employers, in Laois is set for an overhaul.

She also said the first recruits to the prison service since 2008 would go into training this year.

Minister Fitzgerald addressed the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality on spending plans for services under her responsibility, last Tuesday, April 12.

She said that the gross spending estimate for the prison service in 2017 is 327 million, plus an additional 2.833 million in unspent capital from 2016.

According to the Tanaiste, Portlaoise Prison is down for refurbishment.

"A significant capital provision of over 25 million will allow enabling works continue in relation to the major redevelopment work planned for Limerick and Portlaoise prisons as well as refurbishment works in Wheatfield, Cloverhill and Castlerea prisons," the Minister said.

The Irish Prison Service outlined the plans in a statement to the Leinster Express.

"The core infrastructural modernisation requirements at Portlaoise Prison are the need to eliminate slopping out and to bring the prisons existing infrastructure to an acceptable standard including prisoner accommodation.

"The Irish Prison Service have committed capital expenditure in 2017 to Phase 1 of the Portlaoise redevelopment project and this entails a refurbishment of the outdated E Block and the Demolition of the D Wing. These projects will be tendered in the coming months.

"Construction of the Portlaoise New High Security Block is currently scheduled to commence in Quarter 1 of 2019," it said.

The statement adds that as these projects are subject to the tendering process it would be inappropriate to give an indication in relation to costs at this stage as this would be commercially sensitive information which may affect the process.

Portlaoise Prison is part of the Portlaoise Prison Campus, and is the only high-security prison in the State which serves as the committal prison for those sent to custody from the Special Criminal Court and accommodates prisoners linked with subversive crime.

It detains prisoners that pose the greatest security risks within the Irish prison system, and those requiring the most stringent standards of internal and external security and containment.

As well as prisoners requiring enhanced security for a range of reasons, it accommodates prisoners associated with the highest elements of gangland crime, as well as subversive and politically motivated criminals.

The prison service recently began the tender process for the purchase of fleet of new vans for the transportation of prisoners.

Money has been set aside for 'major redevelopment' of Portlaoise Prison, according to the Minister for Justice, who is also to confirmed that the first new prison officers recruited in nearly a decade will begin training this year.

The Minister said that new recruits are also on the way for the first time in nearly ten years.

"The Public Appointments Service (PAS) launched a recruitment campaign last year for recruit prison officers, the first such campaign since 2008. It is estimated that 80 new recruit prison officers will commence training this year and this will increase to over 200 in 2018.

This recruitment will allow the Prison Service to keep pace with expected retirements.
Dunnes Stores has accused Kildare County Council of acting outside its legal parameters in the way it has dealt with its planning application to revamp its Newbridge store.

The council had asked the company for clarification on its plans, including the status of the Great Wall of Dunnes.

Last Wednesday, April 18, Dunnes Stores submitted its response, and expressed its increasing concern at the manner in which the application was being handled.

It said it was making no modifications to the plans, despite the councils insistence that the wall be taken down.

It said the development would not give rise to an unacceptable traffic hazard and would be in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.

On March 31, the local authority asked the supermarket to address the serious concerns it had about the wall between Dunnes Stores and Newbridge Retail Park. KCC had asked the store owners to provide details of the reinstatement of the gap.

The council said the wall may endanger public safety by reason of a traffic hazard.

It also said it reduced connectivity between the shopping centre and the adjacent retail park.

In response to the local authoritys previous demand for further information, the supermarket said the shopping centre got planning permission as a standalone unit.

It said planning permission had never been sought for a vehicular access/pedestrian link to Newbridge Retail Park.

The concrete block wall was built in September 2015, just days before the neighbouring SuperValu store opened.

Appeals were made for it to be taken down, but Dunnes stood firm.

Cllr Paddy Kennedy and fellow local councillors called for it to be removed, saying the structure was not in line with the local area plan.

He said the access point had been open for 14 years prior to it being blocked up.

A Facebook page was set up to campaign for the destruction of the wall.

Dunnes contended the majority of the adjacent retail park was vacant and used for bulky retailing goods only when he gap was open.

It said more traffic was generated more units were occupied and this is why it was closed.

It has also said it does not own the land the other side of the wall and has no legal right to open up an access point to it.

A final decision is due on May 15.
A drugs charge against a resident of Eyre Court, Eyre Street, Newbridge was struck out after the Judge was not satisfied with the search warrant used to enter the defendants apartment.

His concern over the search warrant arose when he cross examined Micheal Nolan, a Newbridge-based Peace Commissioner who had signed the warrant.

Detective Seamus Doyle had called to the home of Mr Nolan on July 29, 2016 to get the warrant. This is normal practice when, for instance, a judge is not immediately available.

The practice is that the Garda will present evidence to the Peace Commissioner outlining why he believes he needs to search a property, swear to its validity on a bible and answer any questions the commissioner might have.

On this occasion, Detective Doyle wished to get a warrant to search an apartment in Eyre Court, Eyre Street, Newbridge. He believed that there was drugs activity going on there and presented that evidence to Mr Nolan.

At the time he was getting the warrant, he was not aware of the number of the apartment, saying there were no numbers on the doors. However, he specified that it was the second door in a row of apartments, and specified where it was. He subsequently learned that the door in question was number five.

Despite questioning from solicitor Matt Byrne on the lack of a specific number, Judge David Waters was satisfied with this element of the warrant.

However it was when Mr Nolan was questioned that the judge raised concerns.

He asked Mr Nolan what he believed his responsibilities as Peace Commissioner in dealing with an application for a search warrant were. Mr Nolan said he believed his role was to make sure the Garda was carrying out his responsibility to his duty.

However Judge Waters said the Peace Commissioners role was to be satisfied as to how the detective had reached his conclusion about the activity at the address he wanted to search. The Peace Commissioner should be certain that the evidence presented by the Garda provided reasonable grounds to search the apartment.

For that reason he felt that the search warrant could not form part of the evidence.

Without the search warrant, and what the Gardai encountered in the course of searching the apartment, using that warrant, Prosecuting Gardai had no further evidence to put forward and the case was dismissed.
WHEN it comes to Punchestown festival memories, Jessica Harrington is at the top of the tree.

Its been over 25 years since she saddled her first runner at her local festival but its a long time before that which gives the Moone trainer her first memories of the five day meeting.

I used to go to the festival as a kid. We used to hang out at the old doubles and were talking 60 years ago when the Punchestown festival was only held over a couple of days, reminisces Punchestowns most favourite lady.

We would have a picnic on the top of the banks down at the very back of the racetrack, where the quarry is now, and wed look at the races from there. I would go there with my friends and back then, the majority, if not all of the races, were bank races. Thats how long ago it is.

Its over 20 years since Dance Beat gave Harrington her first big success as a trainer at the festival but she has no trouble in remembering her first Punchestown runner, which came a couple of years before that 1996 triumph.

I remember Brockley Court running in a hurdle (the 1993 festival) and it was Dance Beat which gave me my first big Punchestown win when she won the Champion Novice Hurdle. She was a great mare and won a good few races for me at that time, says Harrington of the talented mare, who won her bumper at the 1995 Punchestown festival.

Oh So Grumpy was another of the Harrington stars around that time to taste Punchestown success and by this time, she had very much established herself as one of the best trainers in the land. All she was missing now was a household name and in Moscow Flyer, he would become a Punchestown regular from the 2000 festival onwards.

Moscow Flyer won at four different festivals and he started off by winning the Champion Novice Hurdle in 2000. After that, he won a Punchestown Champion Hurdle, the Swordlestown Cup Novice Chase and a Champion Chase as well. He really loved Punchestown. says Jessica of her most famous inmate.

However, its two of his later Punchestown festival appearances which stand out in Harringtons mind more than most. One for the right reasons and the other for the wrong reasons.

The year when Rathgar Beau beat him in the Champion Chase shouldnt have happened because there was no mirror on the far side of the winning line like there is now. We dont actually know if he was really beaten that day but what happened that day happened and we move on. Kate then rode him to win the Charity Race at the 2007 festival and that was a great day. It was a lovely way for Moscow to finish off his career.

Of the four main races at the Punchestown festival, Harrington has won three of those and its Jetsons victory in the 2014 Ladbrokes World Series Hurdle which stands out as good as any. Just weeks before that triumph, Harringtons husband John passed away.

That was a very special day and a very emotional day for all of us. Jezki also won that same race a couple of years later and Macs Joy and Jezki both won a Punchestown Champion Hurdle too.

Despite enjoying numerous big race success at past Punchestown festivals, its quite likely that next week, Harrington will bring her best team to the end of season extravaganza, headed by Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Sizing John. She reports her new stable star in fine fettle too.

Sizing John is in great form. To have any winner at Cheltenham is very special but to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup was wonderful. If he could win a Punchestown Gold Cup would be very special and while its a home game, Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott will be throwing everything at this race as theyre going hammer and thong for the trainers title. Its nice to see that Coneygree is coming over and thats great for the race.

Rock The World will move up into Grade 1 company to run in the Boylesports Champion Chase. Weve also got Dont Touch It going for the Grade 1 Novice Chase over two miles while Woodland Opera will run in the novice handicap chase. Jezki will run in the Grade 1 race over three miles while Sandymount Duke, which is a summer horse owned by Ronnie Woods, will run in the Champion Novice Chase over three miles. Someday will run in the Champion Bumper after missing Cheltenham while well have a couple of runners in the Goffs Land Rover Bumper too. Everything that will possibly go there will run, reveals Harrington of the plans for her festival fancies.

The Irish National Hunt Festival has been a lucky place for the Harrington team but regardless of that fact, she is full of praise for the five day meeting, which signals the end of the Irish jumping season.

The festival itself is getting bigger and better every year and the team there do a fantastic job. Its always very well supported by the English trainers and hopefully, there will be a good few English runners again this year. It was a bit of a one-sided scenario at Cheltenham but Im sure they will travel. Punchestown is a place very close to my heart and I just love it.

The Punchestown festival wouldnt be the same without the presence of Jessica Harrington and her team of horses. If recent results are anything to go by, shell be here for a long time to come.
Over sixty people gathered from Tidy Towns groups in the Bush Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon last month for a Networking for Nature event organised by Leitrim County Council and the Waters & Communities Office.



Joseph Gilhooly Director of Services with Leitrim County Council welcomed and commended the Tidy Towns on the excellent work they do in their communities.

Padraig Mc Shera (Area Engineer) and Carmel Coll (Environmental Awareness Officer) highlighted the resources available to support Tidy Towns Groups with their efforts.



Tidy Towns groups from Roscommon, Sligo, Longford and Cavan joined 20 people from Leitrim Tidy Towns groups to learn and share experiences on how they could enhance their waterways and support biodiversity as part of the National Tidy Towns Competition.



Bernie OFlaherty and Karen Kennedy from the Waters & Communities Office emphasised the value of our water catchments and the importance of reconnecting with our rivers and lakes as they provide a wide range of benefits for all of us including health and wellbeing. They also gave practical examples of how local groups can get involved in protecting and managing their own local water environment and encouraged communities to have their say on the Draft River Basin Management Plan for Ireland through consultation events being organised by the Waters & Communities Office over the coming months.

Guest speakers included Emer Brennan from Monaghan Tidy Towns Network who encouraged groups to go and visit other Tidy Towns as their network had benefited from a recent visit to Letterkenny.



Also on hand to offer support were Leitrim Development Company, Inland Fisheries Ireland, Waterways Ireland, The Organic Centre and BirdWatch Leitrim to provide advice on funding and other resources available to Tidy Towns groups.

The day finished with a biodiversity walk and talk in glorious sunshine along the boardwalk and River Shannon led by Billy Flynn.

There will be community consultations events on the draft River Basin Management Plan announced by the council shortly.
1. Join the Irish army, you'll get lots of free stuff

Not the finest example of a recruitment ad. Oh joy, the Irish Army gives recruits the chance to travel to such war torn locations as Lebanon or the Congo and you get the following benefits - 'free food, free uniform, free holiday travel, free sport'. Possibly the worst call for recruits to the Irish Army ever. (Leitrim Observer, January 1970)

2. Any spare teeth in your house?

Ever wondered why some false teeth were cheaper to buy than others....this may answer that question. #prelovedteeth. (Leitrim Observer, August 1911)

3. If it's good enough for the Czar of Russia's sprog......

I'm not sure if the claim it was used in the Russian imperial nursery was going to sell this product to parents in Leitrim. (Leitrim Observer, January 1905).

4. Big enough for a family of FOUR - or 12 if you are creative with the seating choices for the children!

Ah the new Austin Seven with 30 bhp - a modern lawnmower probably has a stronger engine. Apparently having independent front suspension, four rear opening doors and ample room for four people - with luggage! - makes this the "greatest event in post-war motoring". Our question is: what Irish family in the 1950s only consisted of four people? (Leitrim Observer, December 1953)

5. There's nothing worse than a cow going wrong.....

Ah yes, we've all heard farmers diagnosing a problem as a "cow going wrong".... It's ok though, apparently a dose of VAP will fix that right up. Who needs qualified vets when you can dose an animal with something containing hard paraffin? (Leitrim Observer, February 1963)
One of the partys best ever campaigners has been chosen to chair the Scottish Liberal Democrats General Election campaign. Alex knows a lot about winning seats from the SNP after sensationally grabbing Edinburgh Western from them last year.

Alex said:

Im honoured to take on this important role for my party. We have a great grassroots organisation that is hungry for victory. We have the wind in our sails and a hugely motivated activist base, keen to bring the party back to strength. I cant wait to get my teeth into the campaign.

Willie Rennie explained why he had chosen Alex:
Well, er, no.  America after the fall  Painting in the 1930s is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts which breathtakingly displays how public funding for the arts during a depression (let alone a recession) can work wonders. As part of President Roosevelts New Deal, the Federal Arts Project employed artists to create visual art works, which eventually included over a hundred thousand paintings as well as many sculptures and other works. Artists who benefited included Jackson Pollock. There were other New Deal art projects such as the Public Works of Art project , the Section of Painting and Sculpture and the Treasury Relief Art Project

All these programmes helped to produce an extraordinary decade for American Art, which is reflected brilliantly in the Royal Academy exhibition, on until June 4th in Piccadilly, London.

What comes over is that the decade established a distinctive American Art world, which was finally free of reference to art elsewhere. There is an extraordinary variety of styles producing a most colourful and impactful exhibition, reflecting the profound changes going on in the USA at the time.

It is a very powerful testament to the power of arts spending in a recession.

The photo above is of American Gothic by Grant Wood, which heads up the display. Below is another painting from the Academy show, Aspiration by Aaron Douglas, which graphically portrays the escape of Black Americans from slavery and their aspiration to move to professional employment in the cities of America.



* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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.
LIMERICKS billionaire Collison brothers have launched a new online magazine, billed as the New Yorker for geeks.

Their global online payments firm, Stripe, has backed a new software engineering magazine, Increment, which is already being lauded by tech insiders in Silicon Valley after its inaugural issue.

Stripe chief executive and co-founder Patrick Collison said the publication aims to illuminate the most sophisticated practices from the best companies in the world.

As software becomes more important in the world, the practice and art of software engineering becomes more important too. Our hope is that Increment can help surface the institutional wisdom and practices of the most effective software engineering organisations in the world so that the industry as a whole can make faster progress, said Mr Collison.

Patrick, 28, and John Collison, 26, earlier this year made the Forbes billionaires list for the first time, joining the ranking of the worlds richest as the youngest newcomer billionaires.

The Irish duo each has an estimated fortune of $1.1 billion thanks to their firm raising money at a $9.2 billion valuation last year. Last year they launched another spin-off, Stripe Atlas, a platform to help start internet businesses, which has now helped entrepreneurs from 124 countries, including a cosmetics start-up in the Gaza Strip.
CENSUS results showing that 78% of Irish people consider themselves Catholic is a striking figure, the Bishop of Limerick has said.

Dr Brendan Leahy said that while he is encouraged by the preliminary results of the 2016 Census, he urged that the Church needs to admit the wounds it has caused by those within to so many.

Despite everything, we have discovered in recent days that 78% of our population still declare themselves Catholic. Its a striking statistic.

On the one hand, it is good news to hear that in the privacy of their own homes, 78% of our population have affirmed their Catholic identity. We can thank God for that. I doubt even the GAA has such a level of affiliation, said Bishop Leahy.

He noted that before the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, left the country recently he said there is still so much to play for in Ireland.

Perhaps thats why there is such a struggle going on. There is still so much faith. There is a deep spiritual vein in the Irish psyche. The ground is fertile for the seed to be sown in new ways and nurtured better than we have before.

He said while the Church has failed people in many ways...the door is still open to engagement around the Catholic faith that still is recognised as part of personal identity.

He added that as the Church is facing severe challenges, there must be wariness towards quick solutions that can be proposed in response to them.

As we go out towards families, lets be ready also to listen to those who want to share with us why it is they register as Catholic but somehow don't connect with the Church, he said.

Other religions listed in the Census include Hare Krishna, which includes 53 men and 34 women; and Rastafarians, which include 91 men and 23 women.

There were also 59 male and 28 female members of the controversial Church of Scientology living in the State in 2016.
MARY Immaculate College president, Prof Michael A Hayes found courage, peace and acceptance in his final weeks of life, hundreds were told at his funeral Mass this week.

The esteemed Limerickman, academic and priest died, aged 59, in the early hours of Easter Saturday morning, following a short illness.

He was laid to rest at Mount St Lawrence cemetery, after a well-attended requiem Mass in St Johns Cathedral, this Wednesday afternoon.

Delivering the homily at the ceremony, Fr Tony Mullins, vicar general of the Limerick diocese, said that Prof Hayes found that sacred space during his final months.

Last October, Michael received a call from his doctor, and asked to see him immediately. The news was not good.

And in the following weeks and months, Michael battled hard against his illness. During the past few months, he also moved to a place of reflection, a time of encounter with the Lord.

In a recent conversation with Michael, he said to me: I have no fear, I see this next phase of my existence as a great adventure, and there are many there ahead of me that I know, Fr Mullins added.

He said that he gave an immense contribution to education in Ireland and the UK and that he was an enthusiastic exponent of the arts.

Speaking after the Mass, Bishop Leahy reflected on Prof Hayes calm and philosophical attitude before his untimely passing.

Even while ill, he still imanaged to see positive aspects in his illness, spending time with family, time for prayer.

Bishop Leahy said that Prof Hayes knew that death was a real possible outcome of the illness, even when there was hope in new medicine available.

He told me that he had promised his consultant early on that, even when this is over, I will continue to pray for you, he said.

The respected priest, who attended St Munchins College and St Patricks Pontifical College in Maynooth, was appointed the president and the chief executive of the South Circular Road institution in October 2011.

He first served as a priest in St Johns parish, after being ordained in 1980.

Bishop Leahy said that it was a real gift that Michael was Mary Immaculate College (MIC) president when he arrived in Limerick to take up his post.

In the past six years, MIC had become Michaels life. His work rate was phenomenal. I marvelled at just how much he managed to do and how much detail he managed to master.

There seemed to be so many irons in the fire at anyone one time that I dont know how he kept on top of it all, but he did and did so with the graciousness and calm that characterised him.

He said that he was very much saddened at the passing of his mother Margaret, seven months ago. He was grateful that he had those last years to be nearer home, Bishop Leahy added.

Before serving as MIC president for six years, Prof Hayes lived and worked in the United Kingdom for more than 30 years.

He was a priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark in South East England.

During Prof Hayes successful six years, he contributed immensely to myriad major developments at MIC.

This included the colleges incorporation of St Patricks in Thurles; the opening of the Lime Tree Theatre; the expansion plans of the John Henry Newman Campus on OConnell Avenue; and the development of the state-of-the-art 21m library and learning centre, which received the green light from the council.

He previously served as vice-principal of St Marys College, Twickenham.

He is deeply mourned by twin sister Elizabeth, brother David Aiden, sisters Deborah, Marjorie, Bredette, and Marie-Therese; extended family, and Mary Immaculate College colleagues.
A RACIST tirade by a woman on a Limerick train, which has been described by Irish Rail as painting a very poor picture of the country, has attracted the attention of media outlets in India, Australia, Malaysia, and the UK.

The womans verbal attack on a passenger, believed to be of Indian origin, during which she told him F*** off back to India, has been reported by The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The New Indian Express and The Economic Times in India, as well as other international news outlets.

Gardai in Bruff, County Limerick, are investigating the incident which took place on a train from Limerick's Colbert station to Limerick Junction after 7pm on Easter Sunday night.

Officers with the community diversity integration section in Harcourt Square, Dublin, are also seeking to trace the woman involved, who is identifiable in a series of videos captured by passengers.

Barry Kenny, corporate communications manager with Iarnrod Eireann, said while the incident was horrific, he said thankfully its not hugely prevalent on their services.

When incidents like these are captured [on video] they travel. We have had queries from British media, Ive seen it on other overseas media, and on Australian media. It paints a very poor picture of the country," said Mr Kenny.

The incident has also been reported by the Malaysia Digest and the Metro in the UK.

Every country sadly has its share of racists. It highlights racism here in Ireland, but these incidents get a lot of exposure overseas as well. What was said to these customers was not acceptable, said Mr Kenny.

He said the customer who perpetrated this attack wasnt known to their staff, but working alongside investigating gardai they believe they have a very good chance of identifying who the person is.

Chief Superintendent David Sheahan, head of the Limerick garda division, said no formal complaint has been made to date by the victim.

"We are endeavouring to identify that person, and are actively trying to progress our investigations but we are asking for the public's assistance in that regard," he told the Limerick Leader.

Should a formal complaint be made, it is understood that the incident would proceed under the Incitement to Hatred Act (1989), under which it is an offence to use words which are threatening, abusive or insulting and are likely to stir up hatred.

The racist remarks appear to have been made after a man placed his bag on a seat on the train.

However, Mr Kenny said that the level of hostility shown by the female passenger is not related to the bag on the seat.

There have to be consequences for people who behave in this way against customers for any reason, and particularly for discrimination. This is above and beyond a seat availability issue. Its motivated by hate, sadly, and every time you see it [the video], you gasp, he said.

We have a very multicultural workforce, and it is important that both staff and customers are protected from this, he said.

He added that passengers names are not displayed above seats on the connection from Limericks Colbert Station to Limerick Junction, but on other connecting trains.

A video of the incident was posted on Twitter by a passenger and has been viewed by both gardai and staff at Irish Rail.

In the video a woman can be heard saying: F**k off back to India. Dont give me your guff, you f**king cheeky p***k.

Respect my f**king country and get your bag off the seat.

Come on Ireland. Come on the Republic. Let the Indians in and take our seats, she said.

She continued: Speak f***ing English when you're in f***ing Ireland.

Brian Killoran, chief executive of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, said it was harrowing watching footage of passengers being abused because of their ethnic identity.

Every year the Immigrant Council of Ireland runs an anti-racism campaign alongside Transport for Ireland encouraging victims and witnesses of racism on public transport to report all incidents.

Sadly we know from this experience racial abuse on public transport is an issue, with victims often being transport staff themselves. Evidence of this nature highlights the need for effective hate crime laws to more robustly tackle such unacceptable behaviour and work towards eradicating it from our society, said Mr Killoran.

Along with Transport for Ireland and other public transport providers, Mr Kenny said Iarnrod Eireann works with the Immigrant Council of Ireland to counteract racist abuse and encourage reporting of any instances of abuse suffered by customers or employees.

In March, a study issued by the European Network against Racism Ireland (ENAR Ireland) found that there was an alarming growth in the number of racism incidents reported over the last six months.

A total of 245 reports were made in that time frame, an increase of 55 on the previous period.
THE Bishop of Limerick has confirmed that no Mass will take place for a day in the Diocese next week.

On Tuesday  with priests attending an important in-service formation gathering  services will be led by lay members, but Mass or Communion will not take place.

It is believed to be the first time a Catholic diocese in Ireland will be without Mass for an entire day.

Bishop Brendan Leahy confirmed that there would be lay-led public prayers in Churches across the diocese on Tuesday morning.

Limericks top cleric said that the move had come on foot of an initiative floated at last years Synod, which called for greater involvement from the laity in the operations of the Church.

He did acknowledge that it was inevitable with the fall off in vocations that we need to explore new and exciting opportunities to celebrate the Word and one of the ways will be through lay-led times of public prayer.

Our Diocesan Synod last year strongly encouraged this. As we move forward, we need to prepare for a time when, even though priests are not available, each local community will be prepared to arrange for moments of public prayer for various occasions.

No parish should find itself in a position where it is not prepared for such a possibility so it makes sense for us to begin right now.

Bishop Leahy said that communion will not be distributed on Tuesday next, though he stressed that this is not to suggest that it might never be at future lay-led liturgies.

The Bishop had recently hailed preliminary results of Census 2016, which showed that 78% of Irish people consider themselves Catholic, which he called a striking figure.

Dr Leahy said that while he was encouraged by the preliminary results of the 2016 Census, he urged that the Church needs to admit the wounds it has caused by those within to so many.

According to those figures, Limerick has a Catholic population of 184,340 in 60 parishes with 94 churches, with 83 active priests, made up of 45 parish priests and 38 curates.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Limerick Leader last year, Bishop Leahy said that, with regard to the shortage of priests in the Diocese: "I think we are coping well in the sense that we are looking at the issue. We are not trying to pretend it isnt there.

"We are acknowledging the issue and being proactive. One of the things we are doing here is we have moved more clearly towards a team ministry model, that is three or four priests looking after several parishes together. There will be teething problems because its new and we have to think it through but we have to move in that direction.

"In moving in that direction we are going to see teams of priests but not just teams of priests, I think we will see lay people working within the teams so that is going to be a development."
HARDENED criminals are robbing taxpayers on the double - first when they break in to their homes and, secondly, with the cost of free legal aid  says Deputy Niall Collins.

The Fianna Fail TD revealed that 17,104,428 has been paid out in criminal legal aid in County Limerick since 2009.

It is a huge sum of money that would be much better spent in investing in the gardai to prevent crime. Some of these criminals have more money than you or I yet they get free legal aid with the stroke of a pen. They are coming out of court laughing at the system," said Mr Collins.

He stresses that everybody has the right to a defence but that the line must be drawn somewhere.

It is very wrong that a man or woman with dozens of previous convictions, and sometimes over a 100, gets the expertise of a solicitor for absolutely nothing.

They should forego that right after they have been been found guilty of a certain number of offences. And once they have passed that threshold it is up to them to pay for representation or represent themselves. The taxpayer shouldn't be the one constantly picking up their tab, said Mr Collins, who is calling for a three strikes and youre out type programme.

After availing of legal aid three times you should be disbarred from it. Currently you have serial reoffenders availing of free legal aid again and again, said Mr Collins, who believes a constitutional referendum would be required and is calling for a constitutional convention to consider this as a matter of urgency.

In Ireland if your constitutional right to legal representation applies and you don't have the means to pay for legal representation, then the State, or government, is obliged to provide that legal representation. The Supreme Court has held that there is a need to put the defendant on equal terms with the prosecution.

Mr Collins said it is sickening for people who have had their possessions robbed and mental distress of having their home invaded seeing the same individuals waltz into court and be represented for free.

It is like they are being robbed twice. If that same hardworking citizen needs a solicitor they have to pay for it," he added.

Mr Collins tabled a parliamentary question to Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald to source the information. The reply shows that in Limerick - 2,670,988 was paid out in 2009 in criminal legal aid; 2010, 2,370,426; 2011, 2,138,382; 2012, 1,983,567; 2013, 1,914,361; 2014, 2,060,344; 2015, 1,717,567 and 2016, 2,248,793.

He also asked for the amount paid out in civil legal aid the reply said: It is not possible to extract and isolate the total cost of civil legal aid in any one office/county.

Mr Collins said it is a lot more difficult to get civil legal aid.

From meeting women at my clinics, who have come through abusive marriages and are seeking legal separation or maintenance orders to provide for their children, I know there is an absolutely massive waiting list. Criminal legal aid seems to be a bottomless pit but yet for civil matters they cant seem to get it  where is the fairness in that? he asks.

Mr Collins also referred to the case of Deputy Paul Murphy getting legal aid.

It is an absolute disgrace that a TD, who is earning 90,000 per year is availing of free legal aid. I think it is time we have a serious debate over the granting of free legal aid in this country," he concluded.
On TUESDAY afternoon, a five-year-old boy drags his parents to Steamboat Quay to see what second-hand records he can add to his expanding vinyl compendium.

They are getting younger and younger all the time, Steamboat Records owner, Mark Carey tells the Leader, fascinated by the growing demand in the 12-inch discs in recent years.

In 2016, 3.2m LPs and EPs were sold across the globe  a 53% rise on the previous years sales  making it the highest annual success since the early 1990s.

And celebrating International Record Store Day this weekend, Mark can say that these global figures reflect the success of his vinyl sales, with 50% of all record store sales coming from the LP.

But what is the resurging allure of this age-old product, which has been around for more than 100 years?

People, in their nature, the vast majority of us like to collect something, and they want to be proud of their collection, whether it is vinyl, DVDs or artwork. People, in their nature, like to have something. And vinyl is a very tactile product. It is great to pick them up and read the sleeve notes.

"And even the act of putting the vinyl on the record players is a lot more fun than just putting a CD into a player, or putting on Spotify, Mark explains.

He adds: It is a great hobby to have, and it allows people show what music that they are passionate about.

Not just for artwork and interesting artist information, the vinyl sleeve contains download codes, so customers can avail of the best quality audio files online. But, mainly, it is down to the collectibility of the disc, Mark says.

Sales have been great. The fascinating part of it is the wide spectrum of people that is buying it.

I think its down to the collectability of the vinyls, compared to CDs. With vinyl, we are always trying to be price competitive, but with second-hand vinyl, it allows to, for example, sell that kid three vinyls for 20 quid. But if you were to buy them new, you would be spending a fair bit more. Theres that, as well as coming in for a browse and finding something, like a diamond in the rough  there could be something there that is hard to come by, or really sought-after.

Steamboat Records, which has moved location and seen a huge upgrade of facilities, has two good reasons to celebrate International Record Store Day this Saturday  a major boost in record sales, followed by the Steamboat Takeover at Dolans.

Eight rising acts from the Mid-West will take to the Warehouse and its neighbouring Kasbah Social Club at 8.30pm, with tickets selling at 10 per person.

That is something that we have always wanted to do. Being the main music shop in Limerick, we get to deal with a lot of the local and international bands, he says.

He says that up to 25 strong acts in the Mid-West have released music over the last 18 months.

And we want to give back a bit, and throw a big party. And if Munster do the business during the day, there will be lots of celebrations going on in Dolans that night, adding that there is serious talent on the bill.

Last week, Steamboat Records was involved in a unique global campaign to promote British virtual band Gorillaz new album, Humanz. As part of the campaign, Steamboat Records was tasked by major label Warner Music with delivering a monster mural along the Limerick city riverfront.

The giant graffiti piece, which was delivered by local artist Steve ODonnell in 24 hours, is on the wall outside the Riverpoint building, by Shannonbridge Roundabout.

The image depicted in the city centre is of fictional Japanese lead guitarist, Noodle, and is featured on the albums front cover and music video Let Me Out.

Mark said this project was a big coup for Limerick.

Mark added that the Riverpoint building is such an iconic building in the city, and it works well for two reasons; it is close to where we are, and it represents the future of Limerick.
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The son and brother of Claire and Charlotte Hart, who were shot dead by in Spalding last year, has revealed that they were subjected to decades of domestic abuse by their "terrorist" father.

Lance Hart shot and killed Claire Hart, 50, and Charlotte Hart, 19, near a swimming pool in Spalding on July 19 last year before shooting himself.

Now Charlotte's brother Luke, has set up a fundraiser to honour fellow, younger sibling Ryan, as a thank you for all he has done to help him in his life as he turns 26.

And in its first hour, has raised more than 1,000.

Luke has shared his story to encourage others to stand up to and speak out about domestic abuse and to empower other victims to take action.

He said: "On July 19, our father shot and killed our mum Claire and our 19-year-old sister Charlotte.

"It was the result of decades of abuse and controlling and intimidating behaviour.

"He was a tyrant who wouldn't let his family live outside of his domination.

"Our father was a terrorist living within our own home. He had no cause but to frighten his family and to generate his own esteem from trampling and bullying us.

"For over a decade we had tried to leave on numerous occasions but he manipulated and threatened on every occasion.

"Ever since we were young boys, Ryan and I aspired for a better life for mum and Charlotte and to finally give our family the life our father had deprived us of.

"Ryan and I had been working abroad since leaving university and had raised enough money to rent a small place for Charlotte and mum while we saved to find a place elsewhere for them.

"We moved mum out of our house while our father was out, only a few days before the event on July 19.

"Killing our mother and sister was our father's final denial of the future we had spent our lives trying to create for mum and Charlotte, the life that they deserved.

"He killed himself in an act of cowardice, finally showing how little he had to live for outside of punishing his family for his own distorted sense of power."

Luke said he always thought of himself as the strong, older brother, putting on a brave face as he attempted to defuse the tensions created by their father.

He said: "After university, Ryan and I moved away from home for work and our father's behaviour deteriorated further.

"The effects were becoming unmanageable for me. Charlotte was suffering from severe depression and suicidal thoughts and had dropped out of university.

"Mum's multiple sclerosis was deteriorating rapidly from the stress our father was causing her and she was taking prescribed morphine every day in an attempt to dampen the pain that her disease inflicted.

"I could no longer face going home because I didn't know what I could do anymore - I didn't feel I could manage.

"I felt entirely helpless. I was overwhelmed."

He said Ryan would come home from Holland every weekend he could to check on his mum and sister.

He said: "He would always look after mum and Charlotte and spent his money on them rather than himself.

"Since July 19 last year, it's become clear to me that I wouldn't be here without my little brother.

"I act strong, but he is strong.

"Even when we struggled through our darkest moments against our father, Ryan dared to remain resistant when I had broken down and couldn't face any more.

"He was still able to love and believe in a world that our father had filled with hate.

"Ryan's resilience and hope was perceived by our father as a rebuttal to his dominance and for that Ryan suffered the strongest wrath from our father.

"Ryan protected us; he never hid but always threw himself in the firing line to protect us.

"Nothing can ever replace what we lost on July 19 and no words can describe what we have endured.

"Each and every day, I still feel the panic and scramble for the reset button, struggling with the feeling that somehow we live in the wrong world.

"For the rest of our lives, we must learn to deal with what happened on that day."

Luke and Ryan now live together with their dogs, Indi and Bella, which Claire and Charlotte gave so much love and attention to.

He said: "It's Ryan's determination that has kept me going, minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day for 26 years and for that I honestly owe him my life.

"He is indestructible; a force for good that cannot be stopped.

"Ryan is the strongest, most kind hearted person and refuses to let the hate triumph over the love he fought for. I've piggybacked on his strength for all these years.

"Ryan refuses to give up fighting for something better, he stares hard-nosed into the face of cruelty and he always finds hope when everything seems futile."

Luke has started a crowdfunding page on the website, youcaring.com, to thank Ryan on his 26th birthday, tomorrow Saturday April 22 and to show him he cares.

He said: "I don't think mum and Charlotte could be prouder of him now; if they were looking down I'm sure they'd have tears in their eyes as they wonder what on Earth he is made of.

"I'm certain that evil is haunted by nightmares of my little brother.

"It's Ryan's 26th birthday and I want to wish him the best future that he could ever hope for.

"My little brother is my hero and I love him."
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Film Review | Noor A likeable comedy becomes an unconvincing protest film /how-to-lounge/movies-tv/film-review-noor-111646835784912.html 111646835784912 story

Any film that begins with an ancient quote" attributed to Buddha believes in the power of the Weighty Statement. Such a film is Noor (based on Saba Imtiazs novel Karachi, Youre Killing Me!), where director Sunhil Sippy and dialogue writer Ishita Moitra Udhwani have their characters saying stuff like If Ive learnt anything its that I should live for today" and You remind me of the person I used to be". These just arent the sort of things people say in their day-to-day lives, which is why they stick out awkwardly in a film that adoptsfrom its opening voice-over onwardsa breezy, conversational tone.

On the other hand, the writers (Sippy, Althea Delmas-Kaushal and Shikhaa Sharma worked on the screenplay) show impressive speed and skill in sketching their titular character. Noor (Sonakshi Sinha) is klutzy, frumpy (if only by movie star standards), dissatisfied with her job as a sensation-chasing journalist, and prone to complaining about her weight, her love life, and her life in general. She wants to do issue-based broadcast journalism"; instead, shes assigned local stories about a woman who never takes her helmet off and a man who only walks on his hands.

Im unsure whether the film is knowing or oblivious about Noors ineptitude at her job. When she lands an actual storyan organ harvesting racket carried out by a doctor working under a charitable trustshe conducts exactly one interview (which could be easily discredited) and immediately heads to office and demands that her editor, Shekhar (Manish Chaudhary), put the story on air. Issue-based broadcast journalism is such a breezeor so the audience is led to think until things suddenly go south. Yet, even when this happens, the film is more concerned with Noor being cheated out of her story than the high probability that, had it been aired, the story would have invited scorn and possibly a lawsuit.

While an unconvincing portrait of a working journalist, Noor is still a fully realized character: both under- and over-confident, capable of staring down her mentor but also of giddily crushing on 40-something photojournalist Ayan (Purab Kohli). Sinha conveys Noors many frustrations through a series of grimaces, eye rolls, pouts, scowls and goofy grins; theres an amusing dorkiness to Noor, even if her general appearance is a little too perfect for someone whos just woken up hungover. Kohli supplies smarm and little charm (Hey gorgeous" is how he opens a Skype conversation with someone hes only just met); comic Kanan Gill, debuting as Noors super-nice friend, Saad, is very watchable, but could have done with a little more definition from the writers.

The films social commentary is as well-intentioned as it is heavy-handed. Despite Smita Tambes searching performance as Noors hired help, theres a sense that she exists in the film so that her employer can find her purpose in life (theres a bordering-on-insensitive moment involving a Facebook request). Its difficult to take Noors truth-seeking avatarinterrupted as it is by a holiday in Londontoo seriously. Her near-constant state of discontentment is, however, intriguing. As a well-off youngster whos vaguely dissatisfied with her life, she might be grouped with Wake Up Sids Siddharth, Tamashas Ved and Dear Zindagis Kaira. This may be why the latter stages of Noor are so difficult to believe. Can the mildly disaffected ever lead the revolution?
How to improve your sense of smelland why youd want to A technology reporter's refreshing new book traces our deep-rooted olfactory inferiority complex /health/wellness/how-to-improve-your-sense-of-smell-and-why-you-d-want-to-111646834736650.html 111646834736650 story

Superman could fly. The Incredible Hulk had incredible strength. Even Deadpool had healing powers. Among superheroes, it isnt that sexy to have one of your regular five senses heightened, much less become a mutant with a super sniffer.

Bianca Bosker, New York-based technology reporter and author of the new book Cork Dork, acknowledges that our noses occupy a lower tier among the senses. Even the phrase that smells" reeks of ammonia. We have a real bias about smell," says Bosker. Most of us have learnt at an early age that this is a sense that it does not pay to cultivate." Best-case scenario: You end up a sommelier.

Over the course of 18 months, Bosker spent a year with some of the top oenophiles in the world to try to understand what the big deal about wine is.

She met scent scientists to see if there was a short cut to becoming a wine connoisseur. I started out wondering if we can even hone our sense of smell," she says. In other words, are we born confined to a certain amount of sensitivity, or can we get better if we really try?

Bosker traces our olfactory inferiority complex back to the days of Aristotle, who prophesied that man can smell things only poorlybecause his sense-organ is not accurate". In the 19th century, Charles Darwins theory of evolution seemed to prove that humans had evolved beyond the need to know their noses. The French scientist Paul Broca found that as animals ascended the evolutionary chain, their limbic lobe, a part of the brain then thought to control our sense of smell, decreased in size. It was so small in humans, he concluded, that the delicacy of his olfactory sense isof no utility in his life". The famous tongue mapthe idea that the front part of your tongue is sweet, and the back bitterwasnt disproved until 1974.

Cork Dork, acknowledges that our noses occupy a lower tier among the senses.

The scientists Bosker spoke to say the biggest problem is that most people dont even know the difference between taste and smell.

We assume that everything that happens in our mouth is taste, which is not true," she explains. We confuse one for the other, when wed never confuse sight and sound." One study she cites from the University of Pennsylvanias Smell and Taste Center found that most people failed to diagnose themselves properly. People who complained about losing their sense of taste were three times more likely to be suffering from a smell disorder. New research by the University of Dresdens Smell and Taste Clinic found that the part of the brain responsible for processing smell can grow with exercise. Even those with just an average sense of smell can increase the size of their olfactory bulbs via a regimen of trying out four aromas, twice a day, for about 30 seconds each.

Its a curious paradox: Enlightened humans today obsess over spending time and money to find food that tastes better, whether its organic blueberries or third-wave coffee, and yet, she continues: We rarely train ourselves to taste well. We let price and labels and menu descriptions substitute for our own sensory experiences."

***

Steps to achieve an evolved nose

Establish your baseline

Even if you are doing this to better appreciate wine or food, sharpening your sense of smell doesnt start at the table.

If you want to establish a base level of smellyour own scent-focused control group, in other wordssmoking is out, for obvious reasons. Also banned: coffee, hard alcohol, hot sauce, perfume and cologne, overly strong shampoo, most salt, and toothpaste (right before a smelling exercise). Many sommeliers also refuse to drink anything at more than tepid temperatures.

Practise the art of description

One helpful exercise, Bianca Bosker says, is to try to describe all the smells over the course of your daily routine. This could involve coming up with tasting notes for the shampoo you use every morning and the toothpaste you use at night. Push yourself to go beyond obvious descriptors. So having the right words to describe what youre tasting is essential to understanding it and in communicating to others.

Exercise your nose

The expensive short cut is a $400 (around Rs26,000) kit called Le Nez du Vin. Its a collection of glass vials that contain liquid versions of the aroma of nearly 54 different scents.

I would smell four vials of these samples every day," Bosker says. At the end of the month, they were like smell flash cards."

Apparently, it worked. When Bosker went in for her sommelier exam, she smelt the ripe raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, plum, blueberry and cassis, with a hint of pyrazines, to correctly deduce that it was a Cabernet Sauvignon from California, one-three years old. And by the end, when she replicated a French and Italian study that used an fMRI machine to compare the brains of expert wine drinkers with those of amateurs, her own scan lit up like that of a professional. Instead of just processing flavour in an emotional way, which is how the brain of an amateur does it, she was using parts of her brain reserved for high-functioning skills, including reason, memory and cognitive thinking.

Bosker also began picking up on information she had neglected before, clues that add richness to daily life". The only downside? In New York, she became aware of specific smells in subway stations. Now, she says, there are clues that tell me where we are before we get there". The Times Square stop, for example, has notes of grease, dirty diapers, and blue cheese. Bloomberg
Protesters walk up Pennsylvania Avenue during the Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C. The March for Science will take place in the nation's capital on April 22, 2017, to support scientists and emphasize the need to include science in crafting policies.

Scientists and science enthusiasts will hit the streets in cities across the globe on Saturday (April 22) to convey to the government and public alike how important science is to the health and safety of our planet's inhabitants.

"The March for Science is the first step of a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies, and governments," according to the march organizers.

While that is the broad message of the March for Science, Live Science decided to find out why individual scientists were marching, some of them with their spouses and kids. [March for Science 2017: What You Need to Know]

Here are some of the voices from the march:

Jennifer Vaughn COO of the Planetary Society

(Vaughn will be marching in Pasadena, California.)

"Our goals are engaging and empowering the world's citizens to have a real relationship with space exploration and science in general. We're a science organization. Anything that activates or gets people out there and excited to promote and think about this discipline that exists all around us but sometimes we take for granted is an opportunity to push for advancement and furthering our ultimate goals in science.

"It's a good time to stand up and celebrate and activate the public to get more involved and develop a deeper appreciation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

Gretchen Goldman Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists

(Goldman will be marching in Washington, D.C.)

"I'm really concerned about the role of science in federal decision-making. Right now, we're witnessing this administration and this congress try to dismantle the very process we use that allows science to inform decisions," Goldman told Live Science.

That process, Goldman said, has a host of benefits, from keeping food safe to ensuring clean air and water, to making sure drugs are safe. "If we dismantle that process that affects everyone's public health and safety." [Neil deGrasse Tyson Warns Science Denial Could 'Dismantle' Democracy]

As for her personal reason for marching, Goldman said: "Personally, I have a toddler and so I think a lot about his future; and I want him to live in a world that values evidence and the role it plays, in giving us progress and allowing us to have the quality of life that we do."

Karl Flessa, former president of the Paleontological Society Professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona

(Flessa is marching with his friends from the Paleontological Society in Washington, D.C.)

"I'm marching because there are a whole bunch of policy decisions that I think need to be informed by science." He said that included things like decisions on environmental protection, food safety, and research and basic science funding. "I think that advocating for evidence-based decisions is not a partisan issue," he told Live Science.

"I think there are several benefits [of marching]: I think it's the march itself that is going to highlight for the American public some of the importance of science to their lives and their livelihoods  all the science-based jobs in this country  and the importance of science education for their kids. I think the march will really help this visibility.

"I think it should catch the eye and ear of our representatives in congress and in the administration to realize how deeply felt some of these concerns are in the scientific community."

In addition, he said, the march could "increase the solidarity among scientists  that we have a common cause. We're not marching for our particular disciplines. We're marching for science overall. We're all in this together. We want to make sure the public understands the value of science."

Cristian Samper President and CEO, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)

(Samper will be marching in D.C. with his familiy.)

"Science is at the core of wildlife conservation. It allows us to understand how to conserve wildlife and wild places and measure the impact of our work to save them. At WCS, we march for science every day through our field work in nearly 60 nations and in our zoos aquarium in New York City," Samper said in a WCS statement.

"By marching, we aim to celebrate science, not to politicize it. While science is the fine print in all smart policy  at WCS, we want to highlight at the March for Science the importance of science to all our work. Science is behind the good news and bad news about wildlife conservation, but it has nothing to do with the fake news. Science is the antithesis of fake news.

"In 1970, more than 20 million marched on the first Earth Day. I will be honored to march with the millions who are expected to march from around the world on Earth Day 2017 in recognition of the power of science."

Collette Adkins Senior Attorney, Center for Biological Diversity

(Adkins will be marching in D.C. with her kids.)

"I really think of myself as a scientist. It's such a big part of my identity, and I've been having such a hard time coping with the new administration and from a personal level, I thought it would be good for me to have the opportunity to get inspired by other folks that share the same value sets. Important policy decisions should be based on truth and science. And I thought it would help me stay motivated and keep fighting the good fight. Beyond that, I just think it's one thing I can do to show my resistance and hopefully by folks like me making these same decisions all across the country, we can hopefully have some influence over decision-makers.

"For me, the D.C. march is going to be influenced by the fact that I'm bringing my two kids  my daughter who is 9 and my son who is 11. And they will have never participated in a march of this magnitude. They've never been to D.C., and I really hope this is a formative experience for them, one that might someday inspire them to be an activist and to stand up and advocate for causes they believe in, and just to give them some insight into the work that I do and why it's important. On a personal level, it's about sharing this value set with my children and hoping it shapes who they become. I want to accomplish having people draw the connection between science and protecting the environment with the idea that climate change is not alternative facts, and that endangered wildlife need science to survive."

Rob McDonald Lead Scientist, Global Cities, The Nature Conservancy

(McDonald will be marching in D.C.)

"It's an important event for me personally because as a scientist, I want to make sure that there is recognition in public debate and policymaking that science has a crucial role to play. Sometimes, I worry that in the public debate now there is increasing denial that there are such things as scientific facts. Policymakers will understandably and appropriately bring their values and opinions into the formation of policy, but those policies still should be informed by sound science," McDonald wrote in an email to Live Science.

"A crucial example is around the issue of climate change. The science onc limate change is clear. Ninety-seven percent of climate change scientists believe climate change is happening and is human-caused. Last year was the hottest year on record. And 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000. So, while reasonable people can disagree about the appropriate policy response to climate change, debate about what the right policy is has to start with these basic facts.

"I think success is for the march to force a public discussion, in newspapers and website and cable news shows, about the value of science and why it is (and is not) always acknowledged by policymakers. I also hope the march encourages Congress to maintain funding for important science, both basic and applied."

David Evans Executive Director, National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)

(Evans will be marching in D.C.)

"Science education is what underpins science and when you look at the issues we're dealing with now around the public understanding of science and the way we use or don't use science in making decisions, it means the march is highlighting the importance of science and we're participating because science education is what underpins that.

"I'm hoping that what we get is visibility. I'm sure that's the main goal of the march organizers themselves, trying to help the public understand how fundamental science is to the way we live now.

"The kinds of issues that we have to deal with collectively are the things that will be brought out by the march. What we want to do is make sure people understand if we want our kids to understand what to do on these issues, from climate change to GMOs [genetically modified organisms], the kids in school now are going to be participating in making decisions on what we do, how we collectively live, and science education is critical in them being able to participate with that."

Rachael Beaton Postdoctoral research associate, Carnegie Observatories

(Beaton will be out of the country during the march, but helped with preparations for the march in Pasadena, California.)

"One reason we're having this science march is because science is mangled at the political level. It's really easy for the message of science and the conclusion of science to get mangled when it comes down to the average person. To me, it has to do with the fact that the average person and the average congressman don't know how science works and what scientific consensus is, and what science is as a body of knowledge. Understanding that when you get to be called a theory  that's pretty much the strongest designation that you can get in science. But, that term in vernacular means something very different. That's the kind of science literacy that is a challenge when we're trying to communicate science results to the public.

"I think the whole crowd mentality when you're all working toward something is pretty wonderful. Day to day, being a scientist, you're so deep into the minutiae of these projects. When you get to do an outreach event where you get to talk to the community or you get to participate in a movement, it adds a component to your job that you don't get to do every day. It makes me reenergized as a scientist."

The Field Museum in Chicago

"The Field Museum is proud to be participating in the Chicago chapter of the nationwide March for Science this upcoming Saturday, April 22," the museum said in a statement. "The March is a non-partisan demonstration for supporters of science to voice their passion for and commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, facts, and discovery. With overwhelming support from our own staff, volunteers, and trustees, we'll be showing up 700 strong on Saturday, with bright green shirts, giant T. rex puppets, and lots of enthusiasm in tow."

John Vandermeer Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan

(Vandermeer and his wife Ivette Perfecto, a University of Michigan ecologist, will march in Washington, D.C.)

"My participation is to protest the Trump administration's anti-science stance," Vandermeer said in a statement from the university. "Our world today is especially in need of rational thought to solve the urgent problems we face, and the most troubling challenge to the rational thought processes that we have relied upon since the Enlightenment is the apparent rejection of science by the Trump administration. I stand with the bulk of the world's scientists in opposing this sort of dangerous and ignorant policy."

Original article on Live Science.

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The thyroid gland stretches across the front of the neck, below the voice box.

The thyroid gland is a small, butterfly-shaped organ in your throat, and it is very important to your health and well-being. The thyroid is part of the endocrine system, which is essentially a collection of glands. Glands produce hormones that regulate mood and various functions in the body.

"Thyroid hormones impact a host of vital body functions, including heart rate, skin maintenance, growth, temperature regulation, fertility and digestion," said Dr. Jerome M. Hershman, a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and author of the thyroid sections of the Merck Manual.

Size

The thyroid gland is 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide and it weighs between 20 and 60 grams (0.7 to 2.1 ounces), according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The gland stretches across the front of the neck, below the voice box. Like a butterfly, it has two wings called lobes that stretch around the windpipe. The wings are connected by a small piece called the isthmus.

Function

The thyroid gland, in particular, controls just about every cell in the human body. It secretes hormones calcitonin, T4 (thyroxine, or tetraiodothyronine) and T3 (triiodothyronine) into the bloodstream. The hormones control the rate at which cells and organs turn nutrients into energy and the amount of oxygen cells use.

"In this way, the thyroid gland is the body's master metabolic control center," said Cindy Samet, a chemistry professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. "Brain, heart and kidney function, as well as body temperature, growth and muscle strength  and much more  are at the mercy of thyroid function."

The thyroid also regulates the brain and nerve function and development, plus the function of the skin, hair, eyes, heart and intestines.

The thyroid works in conjunction with the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland regulates how much hormones the thyroid releases.

The thyroid gland produces a large amount of T4, but that hormone is not very active. T4 is converted to T3 via an enzyme that removes one of its iodine atoms. "Although T3 is much more potent than T4, there is much evidence to support that people with hypothyroidism feel much better when they receive a combination treatment that includes a small amount of T3 with the commonly prescribed T4," Samet said.

Diseases & conditions

Thyroid conditions affect an estimated 20 million Americans, and as many as 60 percent of people with a thyroid disease don't know they have a problem, according to the American Thyroid Association.

"Women are particularly at risk for a thyroid issue," Hershman said. "One in eight women will develop a thyroid disorder during the course of their lives  that's five to eight times the rate in men."

One of these conditions is called Graves disease, which was discovered by the Irish doctor Robert James Graves in 1835. Graves' disease is an autoimmune disorder. The immune system attacks the thyroid gland and makes it become overactive. An overactive thyroid is a condition called hyperthyroidism. A bulge on the neck, called a goiter is a common symptom. The patient may also experience an increased heart rate, according to the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

Hypothyroidism is the opposite of Graves' disease. It occurs when the thyroid gland does not produce enough hormones. This can cause body functions to slow down or stop completely. Screening newborns for hypothyroidism is mandatory in the United States, Hershman said.

Cancer is another disease that can affect the thyroid. A 2017 study published in in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has found that between 1975 and 2013 the number of thyroid cancer cases diagnosed each year has more than tripled. Cases of advanced forms of the disease rose by about 3 percent each year while deaths rose by about 1 percent each year. [Related: Thyroid Cancer Rates Triple, and Scientists Look for Cause]

A lump or swelling on your thyroid gland is called a nodule. Nodules can be harmless, but some can cause a production of too much hormone or be cancerous, according to the Endocrine Society.

"Up to 70 percent of middle-age females and 40 to 50 percent of middle-age males have thyroid nodules, said Dr. Melanie Goldfarb, an endocrine surgeon and director of the Endocrine Tumor Program at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, and an assistant professor of surgery at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica. "You can also be born with an extra piece anywhere as high up as the base of your tongue."

In some medical cases, such as cancer, the thyroid is removed. Humans can live without their thyroid if a hormone pill is taken daily.

Promoting good health

For the thyroid to remain healthy, it needs iodine to produce hormones, but just a little. "It turns out that one teaspoonful of iodine is enough for a lifetime of thyroid hormone production. But the thyroid gland needs a constant supply of iodine, so we must intake iodine in some form on a daily basis and not all at once," Samet said. Too much iodine can actually make the thyroid produce less hormones.

The best way to get iodine is through eating healthy foods, such as seafood and dairy products. You can also get it by seasoning your food with iodized salt. Iodine was first added to salt in the United States in the 1920s to combat goiters.

Additional resources
This story was updated at 2:29 p.m. ET on April 22. Keep up to date with our live updates from the 2017 March for Science.

Science is highly collaborative, and on April 22, scientists and science supporters alike will come together for a massive collaboration in the name of science, gathering in hundreds of cities worldwide to take part in the March for Science.

The march grew from a Reddit thread in January, in which people expressed growing concerns about the future of scientific research and science policies under the current White House administration, particularly in the areas of environmental protection and climate change mitigation. Plans began to emerge, first for a march in Washington, D.C., and later for a string of satellite marches  now numbering 517  extending across the U.S. and around the world.

The Facebook page for the March for Science has more than 500,000 likes. Thousands of people are expected to attend in many of the participating cities, marching to show their solidarity and respect for science, according to the event's organizers. [Live Updates from the 2017 March for Science]

Live Science will be reporting from marches in several cities  including Washington, D.C., New York, Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco  and will be reporting on events throughout the day.

In Washington, the day begins with teach-ins scheduled to start at 9 a.m. local time on the grounds around the Washington Monument. The march begins at 2 p.m. on Constitution Avenue NW at 15th Street, proceeding east to 3rd Street NW, and then turning south on 3rd Street NW to end at Union Square, according to the March for Science website.

"Any kind of opportunity where we can participate with other members of the general public and the science community coming together and showing support, it's exciting," Jennifer Vaughn, chief operating officer of the Planetary Society, told Live Science.

"It's a good time to stand up and celebrate and activate the public to get more involved and develop a deeper appreciation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics," Vaughan added.

As individuals, marchers will likely represent a range of interests and priorities, but a Marcher Pledge on the March for Science website encourages participants to embrace several unifying goals, including a commitment to fight discrimination and inequality within the scientific community, and to make research, resources and professional opportunities more accessible to people from historically underrepresented backgrounds.

"We march for countless individual reasons, but gather together as the March for Science to envision and sustain an unbroken chain of inquiry, knowledge and public benefit for all," the pledge stated.

Follow Live Science on Twitter and Facebook to receive the latest updates and photos from the march!

Original article on Live Science.
NEW YORK  Science superhero Bill Nye plans to save the world by cultivating a superpower that exists in everyone: critical thinking.

"We want you to learn how to evaluate evidence," said Nye, host of the 1990s television hit "Bill Nye the Science Guy" and star of the new Netflix series "Bill Nye Saves the World," which debuts today (April 21).

Critical thinking is a crucial everyday skill, he said. Case in point: During a preview of his show here at the Paley Center for Media on April 18, Nye showed a sold-out crowd an "acid test" that he did with Steve Aoki, an electro house musician and 2017 Grammy nominee. ['Bill Nye Saves the World' Trailer | Video]

Their goal? To see whether an expensive product from Whole Foods promising to treat heartburn worked as well as milk of magnesia, a well-known antacid that can neutralize excess acid in the stomach. Their results? After testing the acidity of each after adding it to an acidic solution, milk of magnesia worked, while the pricy product flopped.

"This hippy stomach treatment, it has extract of elm, peppermint and vinegar," Nye said on the show. "Yeah, that's right  vinegar: acetic acid. You ever had sweet and sour anything? The sour is the vinegar. So, they want you to put vinegar in your stomach when it's upset? People, no!"

Just like in his "Science Guy" show, Nye performs a number of experiments as he "saves the world" in the new series. But unlike the '90s show, the new one includes special correspondents who travel to places such as Amsterdam and San Francisco to investigate artificial intelligence and alternative medicine, respectively. The series also has a cadre of performers, comedians and experts who weigh in on scientific issues.

With each segment, Nye encourages his audience to think critically, he said.

"When somebody makes a claim, think it through, see if it seems reasonable to you," Nye told Live Science. "How would you have an experiment to test that claim, or how would you evaluate the results of somebody's experiment to test that claim?"

Science may be the pursuit of facts, but it's also a process, he said.

"Observe, design a test, test, see what happens, compare that to what you thought would happen and then what?" asked Nye, an engineer by training. "Start over."

The new, 13-episode season is rated TV-14, meaning that "anybody from middle school on up to centenarians" is welcome to watch as Nye and his team investigate a number of hot topics, he said. Those include the science behind climate change, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), vaccinations and video game addiction, Nye said. [Creative Genius: The World's Greatest Minds]

The show also promotes women in science, which dovetails with a nationwide push to promote women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. Including female scientists and reporters in the show was a no-brainer for him, Nye said.

"My mother was really good at math and science," he said. "She was recruited by the [U.S.] Navy."

Bill Nye (right) cracks a joke with "Save the World" correspondents Joanna Hausmann (center) and Derek Muller (left) at the Paley Center for Media in New York. (Image credit: Courtesy of the Paley Center for Media)

In its entirety, the show is for everyone, especially for people who watched Bill Nye as a kid, said Joanna Hausmann, a comedian and special correspondent for the show. "It's [about] the democratization of science," she added. "Hopefully, it makes people better thinkers and makes them laugh at the same time."

The show's message  promoting critical thinking  will hopefully resonate with viewers, especially voters who may start paying more attention to science at the national level, said Derek Muller, another special correspondent and host of the YouTube channel "Veritasium."

"When politicians are making decisions that go against what we know about science, it's a problem," Muller told reporters. "Scientists have a responsibility to stand and say, 'You know what, our work is based on evidence. You can't reject it just because you don't like it.'"

Original article on Live Science.
Whether it's clean water gushing from a faucet, a weather forecast or a new smartphone game, kids see the accomplishments of science all around them, and tomorrow's "March for Science" provides an opportunity for parents and other adults to talk to kids about the importance of science, experts say.

Parents can tell their kids that the march is being held to show that "science is for everyone  it's really that simple," said David Evans, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, which is one of the more than 300 organizations working in partnership to organize the event. The march will start from the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday (April 22), and satellite marches will be held in more than 500 other cities worldwide.

If a child asks why people are marching for science, an adult can explain that organizations that support science are concerned about the public's understanding of science, Evans told Live Science. "There are many important issues facing society right now where science comes to bear on people's decisions," he said. [Best Supporting Role: 8 Celebs Who Promote Science]

A key idea to explain to kids is that science unfolds in many steps, he said. Adults can explain to kids that this means starting with an observation about the world, then asking questions about that observation and testing one's understanding of it to see if it holds up, he said.

"Everyone needs to understand that science is a process so they can participate" in society's decisions, he said.

Emily Graslie, the "chief curiosity correspondent" for The Field Museum in Chicago, said even young children can learn that science is a way of learning about the world.

"The march is an opportunity for scientists and science enthusiasts to show up and our make presence known as citizen of our communities," said Graslie, who will be giving the keynote address at the march in Chicago on Saturday. Scientists have not always done a good job of communicating about their work, and the public may mistakenly think that scientists work in isolation, in labs, she said. The march will change that.

The march will also show kids that scientists are a diverse group, Graslie said. "Kids might think of a scientist as a kooky guy with crazy hair, but science is a diverse field, a collaborative field, and there are people from all walks of life who contribute."

Some in the public might feel that they are distant from the world of science, but science just means expressing curiosity or an interest in a question, she said. For anyone who's just looking to develop a better understanding of science, participating in a march is a good first step, she said.

Mike Carapezza, a biomedical engineer who works as a research associate at Columbia University in New York City and as a partner with a children's science education program called Hypothekids, said adults can explain to kids that the march is happening because "people who understand the value of science are trying to make the statement that we can't ignore scientific facts." [25 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy Kids]

Taking kids to the march is a good idea because it would let kids see how many people think science is important, Carapezza said. Kids can benefit from "seeing how many people really trust and value science, and trust in the 'good faith' of science  that scientists are trying to find answers, not push an ideology," he said.

Adults can explain to kids that science is "a systematic way of understanding the world," he said. "It's a method of asking questions and answering them as well as you can," but still acknowledging that those answers may not be completely correct, he told Live Science.

"The uncertainty is built in," he said. And anyone who feels that they don't know a lot about science can rest assured that they will feel at home at the march. "Admitting that you don't know something -- that's actually exactly what scientists do," he said. Scientists look for questions that they don't have answers to, and try to learn.

With kids, "it's never too early to foster an interest in science," Graslie said. "In times like these, it's important to keep dialogues open and encourage that curiosity."

Originally published on Live Science.
A duck with a pink head, a tree-climbing crab, and a monkey with red thighs are among the targets of a new global hunt for "lost" species.

Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC), an organization based in Austin, Texas, with a focus on biodiversity and wildland preservation, has launched a new initiative to search for 25 species that have not been seen for years or decades  or, in the case of the Fernandina Galapagos tortoise, more than a century. The goal is to see if any of the species still survive and, if so, save them.

"While we're not sure how many of our target species we'll be able to find, for many of these forgotten species, this is likely their last chance to be saved from extinction," GWC spokesperson Robin Moore said in a statement. [10 Extinct Giants That Once Roamed North America]

Lost but not forgotten

A conservation organization is launching a global hunt for 25 "lost" species that could be saved. (Image credit: Global Wildlife Conservation/Alexis Rockman)

The group is focusing on species that have not been seen since at least 2007. Collaborating with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), GWC actually came up with a list of 1,200 "lost" species but chose the charismatic creatures with decent chances of being saved, if they can be found.

On the list is the Syr-darya shovelnose sturgeon (Pseudoscaphirhynchus fedtschenkoi), a fish once found only in the Syr Darya river of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that has not been seen since the 1960s. Both the silvery Zug's monitor (Varanus zugorum) and the Wallace's giant bee (Megachile pluto), the latter of which is considered the world's largest bee, have been missing from Indonesia since the early 1980s. Another lost denizen of Indonesia is the Wondiwoi tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus mayri), a teddy-bear-faced marsupial missing since 1928.

Also on the most-wanted list are the Sierra Leone crab, a freshwater, tree-climbing crustacean not seen since 1955; the elusive Pondicherry shark (Carcharhinus hemiodon), not seen in its Indo-Pacific coastal habitat since the late 1970s; and the riotously colored Sinu parakeet, missing from Colombia since 1949.

Scientists will also be searching for the pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea)  a brown diving duck with a distinctive pink head and neck. The species was last seen in 1949 in Myanmar. They'll also hunt in the Ivory Coast for Miss Waldron's red colobus (Piliocolobus waldronae), a monkey known for the scarlet fur on its thighs and forehead, which has not been seen since 1978.

Hope for the missing

Some species on the list threaten to slip out of living memory. The Fernandina Galapagos tortoise lived on Fernandina, the least-disturbed island in the Galapagos archipelago. The first specimen was collected in 1906, and the turtle hasn't been seen since.

Missing doesn't mean extinct, however. The Omilteme cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus insonus) from Guerrero, Mexico  one of the top 25 animals on the wanted list  disappeared from humanity's radar soon after its discovery in 1904. In 1998, however, researchers went looking and found two dead specimens. Now, GWC hopes to find living examples of the shy rabbits.

One species on the list has never been seen in the wild. Hippocampus minotaur, the bullneck seahorse, is known from four museum specimens collected between 1927 and 1981, according to the IUCN. No one knows anything about its behavior in the wild, its habitat or its population numbers.

The Search for Lost Species project is currently in the fundraising phase, with a goal of launching expeditions by the fall. More information can be found at lostspecies.org.

Original article on Live Science.
Huge icebergs, some so massive they dwarf nearby buildings, are drifting along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, creating an awe-inspiring sight for locals and tourists alike.

Iceberg-watching by the aptly named Iceberg Alley is a seasonal hobby for many people. Normally, there are about 80 iceberg sightings in North Atlantic shipping lanes in April, when iceberg season begins, but this month, more than 600 of the massive objects have already floated by, the International Ice Patrol of the U.S. Coast Guard in New London, Connecticut, told The New York Times.

One iceberg, in particular, caught people's attention. It towered 15 stories above the water, an amount that accounted for just 10 percent of the object's mass, according to the Times. [Gallery: An Expedition into Iceberg Alley]

Many of these icebergs split, or "calved," off of Greenland's ice sheet, according to the Associated Press (AP). However, it's not entirely clear why so many more icebergs are traveling down the alley this year.

One possible reason is climate change, Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, told the AP. In addition, wind patterns likely play a large role, Mann said.

Bystanders have wasted no time snapping photos of the icebergs and posting the shots on social media. The Twitter account "Fresh Tracks Canada" uploaded a photo with a note saying, "#Iceberg near St. John's Narrows, Fort Amherst #Newfoundland, #Canada (by Shawn Hudson via @IcebergQuest)."

See more

Meanwhile, the Sunshine Squad tweeted "a pic from Ferryland Cottages  yes there is a helicopter on the iceberg. . now this is impressive #newfoundland #iceberg #amazing #canada."

See more

The icebergs may attract curious onlookers, but the objects present a headache for local fishermen. This year, the icebergs have clogged the entrance to the harbor in the provincial capital of St. John's, the Times reported.

"A lot of our fisher folks are just tied onto the wharf, waiting for the ice to move offshore," Barry Rogers, owner of Iceberg Quest Ocean Tours, a Newfoundland tour company, told the Times.

According to the International Ice Patrol, the number of icebergs in shipping lanes has set records in recent years. There were 1,546 icebergs in shipping lanes in 2014, making it the sixth most severe season since 1900, the AP reported. Moreover, 1,165 icebergs floated into shipping lanes in 2015, but that number dropped to 687 in 2016, the patrol reported, according to the AP.

Icebergs made the area famous when one sank the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. The International Ice Patrol was formed soon after, and the organization reported that no ship that has followed the group's warnings has struck an iceberg in 104 years, the AP said.

Original article on Live Science.
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Everything you need to know to stay safe amid this heat wave

A man and a woman were arrested after an unsuccessful attempt to shoot and kill an 11-month-old baby boy  the mans son from another relationship  in a McDonalds restaurant in downtown San Leandro, police said Thursday.

The baby was with his mother when the failed attack occurred about 2:30 p.m. Monday inside the restaurant in San Leandro Plaza, said police Lt. Isaac Benabou.

According to court documents, Marcel Brooks, 29, allegedly baited the mother into meeting him at the fast-food restaurant while his girlfriend, Adanna Ibe, 27, sat in a corner with a handgun in her purse while dressed in a mask, hoodie and gloves.

Ibe approached the mother and child, aimed the gun at the baby and pulled the trigger, missing the boy and piercing one of the shops front windows, Benabou said at a news conference.

She fired from 1 foot away, he said. In my opinion, it was a miracle that she missed.

Brooks and Ibe, both of whom are Antioch residents, were arrested the morning after the shooting at a Sacramento motel, authorities said. They were charged with counts of attempted murder and conspiracy and made their first court appearance Thursday in front of an Alameda County Superior Court judge in Hayward.

Benabou said Brooks and Ibe planned the shooting together and had an undisclosed motive stemming from a history between the male subject and the female victim and her child.

Members of Brooks family, who gathered outside the courtroom Thursday, said Brooks would never hurt his son. Though police described Ibe as Brooks girlfriend, his family said the two had broken up years ago after dating for about a year.

Family members said Brooks had nothing to do with what happened at the restaurant. Ibe had long been unstable, they said, repeatedly getting evicted from homes and fired from jobs. She is now homeless, they said.

Jealousy has always been a problem for her, said Ebone Danielle, who said she was Brooks current girlfriend. Shes come to my house, yelling and screaming. Shes gotten in my (3-year-old) daughters face before. Shes an evil person.

According to court documents, Brooks denied any involvement in the crime but implicated Ibe. Meanwhile, Ibe allegedly confessed, but said it was Brooks idea.

There were about 20 to 30 other patrons in the restaurant, Benabou said, when Ibe fired the shot and then fled.

A witness who was inside the McDonalds, who declined to be identified, said the shooter had a black bandanna wrapped around her face and was trembling moments before she got up from a seat and aimed the gun at the baby.

Investigators originally believed the mother was the intended victim, but Ibe confessed that she had been targeting the baby, according to court documents. Mondays shooting may not have been the first attempt to harm the child, Benabou said.

At the time the incident occurred, we werent thinking the child was the victim, he said. A lot of us involved in this case have been in police work for many years, and I can tell you I have never been part of a case where the intended murder victim was an infant. Its very disturbing.

Nina Clark, Brooks aunt, said the situation was a nightmare. She said her nephew, a UPS driver, had no criminal record and had done what he could for his four children.

When Clark visited him in jail, He was more worried about his son than anything, she said.

He loves his kids, Clark said. We all brag on Marcel. Hes so young but taking care and loving and spending time with his kids, and going to work. ... We know this is not him.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
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A 42-year-old ex-police officer has been sentenced in a Laredo federal court to 10 years in prison for trying to lure a child into having sex.

Chad Michael Bennett, of Odessa, pleaded guilty in March 2016. Visiting U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison sentenced Bennett to 120 months in federal prison. The sentence will be followed by 20 years of supervised release. Upon release from prison, he will have to comply with requirements designed to restrict his access to children and the Internet.

Bennett will also have to register as a sex offender.

He was arrested in December 2015 after traveling from Odessa to Laredo with expectations of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, according to court records. Federal agents arrested him at the airport and charged him with using a facility and means of interstate commerce to entice and coerce a minor.

At the time of his arrest, Bennett possessed numerous images of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

READ MORE: 5 arrested for alleged reckless highway race in north Laredo

The criminal complaint states that from Dec. 14 to Dec. 30, Bennett communicated through cell phone calls, texts, emails and online chat detailing his intended plans to engage in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl.

An undercover HSI agent posing as the fictitious girls mother corresponded with Bennett at all times.

In a post-arrest interview, he stated he came to Laredo after the mother responded to his Craigslist post and offered her daughter for sexual activity.

Bennett stated he knew it was illegal  and that he was unsure if he would have gone through with (it), the complaint states.

Bennett will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statement says Bennett formerly was an officer with police departments in San Diego and Murrieta, California.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Click through the gallery above to see where sex offenders live in Laredo.
A woman left her three children alone in a hotel room to go hang out with a friend at another room, according to Laredo police.

On Thursday, Natalie Joanna Pescador, 23, was arrested and charged with child abandonment by criminal negligence.
Piney Woods Elementary School first-graders created classroom bubbles depicting different environments. Brought forth by their teachers Angela Trimm, Brandee Lane and Eva Freeburn, the students took over the projects by researching and creating their chosen habitat.

Not only did first-graders enjoy the environments they created, they visited the other bubble atmospheres, too. First-grader Macie Morse, whose class developed a coral reef, said, "I really enjoyed walking through the different environments."

In January, Trimm and Lane attended the Staff Development for Educators for Texas First Grade Teachers conference in San Marcos. "We learned many invigorating ideas to keep students engaged in learning. One of the things we learned was how to create a classroom bubble," Lane said. The teachers looked ahead at the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) to be covered for the remainder of the year and decided to use the giant, plastic bubbles to create environments. "Students are learning all about environments this six weeks in science, and we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to get them really involved in their learning," Lane said.

Sharing what they learned at the conference, fellow first-grade teacher Freeburn brought the information to her classroom, too.

First, students voted as a class for which environment they wanted to create. Second, they researched that environment and made crafts depicting that habitat. "This was such a great opportunity to flip the classroom and let the students lead in their learning," Trimm said. "The bubble habitat provides a way for students to develop a vocabulary from what they are seeing and doing. This way, it means something to them and they learn more as they discuss and work together rather than just listening," Trimm said.

Lastly, the students shared their habitats with each other and the whole school. Trimm's class created a coral reef, Lane's class created a tropical rain forest, and Freeburn's students developed a desert. The environments have been open all week for other classes to enjoy. When asked what her favorite part of creating the environment was, first-grader Morse replied, "Getting to pick which animal we wanted to research and create and also showing everyone else in the school what we created as a class."
State Sen. Brandon Creighton is pushing a bill that would require Texas to use only steel made in America in state projects.

With Texas and steel manufacturers across the country long struggling to compete with foreign companies offering steel at cheaper prices, the Conroe Republican says his Senate Bill 1289 will help preserve jobs by requiring that only steel made in the United States be used on any Texas state project or construction job.

Although Texas does not have a vast Rust Belt area like regions across the Midwest were known for as steel plant after steel plant shut down, Creighton points to Texas companies -- including Tenaris -- that have laid off workers. Houston-based Tenaris blamed what it called "unfairly traded imports" from South Korea for forcing it to suspend work at its welded tubes mill in Conroe in April 2015. The closure put 230 people out of work.

Also last year, U.S. Steel laid off nearly 700 workers at its plant it operates in the Lone Star State.

"Iron and steel manufacturers have closed across the state," Creighton told The Courier. "We will continue to lose our manufacturing jobs to China and Turkey"

Although China leads the world in steel production, having long surpassed the U.S., according to the World Steel Association, production in Turkey is growing so rapidly that it is now among the world leaders in steel making.

In speaking of his bill, Creighton noted an executive order signed by President Trump earlier this week directing federal agencies to implement the so-called "Buy American, Hire American" promise he made during the presidential campaign. The directive from the president seeks to boost protections for American companies and their workers.

"These buy American provisions are creating jobs," Creighton told The Courier.

After being heard in the Senate's Business & Commerce Committee this week, the measure is expected to come up for discussion again next week in the committee, where Creighton says he's "confident" the bill will advance out of the committee.

In another matter, Creighton says he still is seeking to change the wording in his proposed bill that would allow development in a portion of Jones State Park for "educational purposes." The bill -- SB 1964 -- has sparked a torrent of local outrage over concerns about commercial development in the park, or that the owner and operator of the park -- Texas A&M University system -- intends to build a campus in the park.

Creighton has pledged to remove the word "commercial" from the bill when it is heard in committee, although no date has been set for a hearing. University system officials have denied they have plans for a campus in the forest.

Still, local opposition to the bill remains fierce, with more than 8,500 people signing a change.org petition seeking Creighton to kill the bill or amend it to protect the entire park.
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New York City

The minimum price for a pack of cigarettes would rise to $13 in New York City under a proposal backed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

De Blasio is backing an effort to force people to quit smoking by raising the city's current legal minimum price of a pack from $10.50, further cementing New York City's claim on having among the most expensive cigarettes in the country.

The Democrat announced his support Wednesday for a series of legislative proposals that he said could reduce the number of smokers in the city by 160,000 by the year 2020. An estimated 900,000 New York City residents currently smoke.

"What we're here today talking about is saving lives," said Dr. Mary T. Bassett, the city's health commissioner, who appeared with the mayor at offices of the American Heart Association. "We want to make it easier to quit and harder to smoke."

The proposals are set for hearings later this month.

The city council also will consider legislation to gradually reduce by half the number of licenses issued to retailers to sell tobacco products. Philadelphia and San Francisco have similar licensing restrictions.

An American Cancer Society study found that 8,992 retail outlets were licensed to sell tobacco in New York as of October, and about a third of those were within 500 feet of a school.

Other proposals would set minimum prices and create taxes on smokeless tobacco and small cigars, and require sellers of electronic cigarettes to obtain licenses.

Opponents of the city's high cigarette prices have argued that it has pushed many smokers into buying untaxed, unregulated cigarettes on the black market.
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Some of the Alamo devotees who drew a defiant line in the sand against a conceptual plan for the Texas shrine have modified their stance, saying some of its elements would improve the mission and battlefield.

In the days since renderings were publicly revealed April 11, downtown residents, Hispanic heritage scholars and Alamo lovers worldwide have registered strong opinions about the most ambitious project ever presented for redevelopment of Alamo Plaza and the surrounding area.

A third public meeting on the plan is set for 6 p.m. May 2 in the Convention Center, Room 301. The second meeting on Tuesday ran nearly twice as long as planned as 56 people addressed officials of the city, Texas General Land Office, nonprofit Alamo Endowment and design team members.

RELATED: State purchases Alamo Plaza buildings

Many consider it hallowed ground. More than 1,000 mission-era burials were documented there before some 500-700 Mexican soldiers, pro-independence Tejanos and American and European settlers and adventurers were killed or wounded in the famous battle of March 6, 1836.

Gene Powell, chairman of a six-member Alamo master plan management committee, said the plan is not fully baked, but seeks to expand pedestrian space, by closing streets to traffic and other changes, to up to nearly 12 acres, at least doubling the existing vehicle-free zone. Although most people associate the Alamo with the iconic facade of its mission-era church, the fortified compound besieged in 1836 contained several other buildings, cannon ramps, small courtyards and a large main courtyard, now covered by the city-owned Alamo Plaza.

What were trying to do is return the reverence and dignity in front of the church, while at the same time providing twice as much, (or) three times as much additional space around for the community to use, Powell told some 300 people Tuesday.

RELATED: 20 unique facts about the Alamo

Although the House version of the state budget includes $75 million requested by the Land Office for the Alamo, the Senate proposal is $46.2 million. A conference committee of House and Senate members will iron out those differences.

Well end up somewhere in between the two figures, predicted Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond. He was neutral on the proposed changes when asked earlier this week.

I did get previewed on the plan before it was made public, and its a pretty aggressive plan, and I dont have any basis to say whether its the right plan or not, Zerwas said.

Calls and letters from the public can sometimes be effective, or at least it helps us stop and dig a little deeper into what some of the circumstances might be, Zerwas added.

Sen. Jane Nelson, appropriations chair in the Senate, also did not voice support or opposition Thursday.

RELATED: Little known facts about the Alamo defenders

We have heard from thirty individuals who are concerned about the Master Plan and want to ensure that the Alamo and its historic significance is preserved, said Nelson, R-Flower Mound.

The plan follows decades of complaints from visitors  many having seen movies about the legendary siege and battle for Texas independence  that the state-owned, 4.2-acre Alamo complex is small, unimpressive and hard to find. Unlike the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, it lacks open space for large-scale commemorations involving horses, cannons and re-enactors.

Officials have said the plan would add more than 100 shade trees, providing comfort areas on the plazas perimeter, and save as many trees removed from the plaza as possible. It would replace existing flagstones with material that replicates compacted caliche soil of the 1800s Alamo courtyard.

Critics, such as Teresa Stoker, an Austin resident and former park ranger who spoke Tuesday, have said that the plaza would be too hot for visitors. Stoker said she saw visitors and park rangers faint in triple-digit heat at Mission San Jose in the 1980s. She criticized the plans proposed use of vertical glass to replicate the Alamos outer walls, calling it post-modern architecture incompatible with the Long Barrack, church and other structures in the plaza.

It doesnt go together, Stoker said.

For years, some Alamo enthusiasts have said the sites historic stone walls should be reconstructed. But members of the design team have said that would block views of the iconic church; create a false sense of history, with visitors thinking it was part of the original stucture; and forever cover up footings of the historic walls that the team hopes to have archaeologically excavated and displayed under durable transparent walkways.

The Land Offices budget request for the project has met opposition from the Senate during a tight budget year. The city, meanwhile, has committed $17 million in its capital improvements budget, and put $21 million for Alamo area enhancements in a May 6 bond issue. The city plans to retain ownership of the plaza, with the Land Office managing it under a master lease agreement.

The endowment intends to start privately raising $225 million for the project, once it has an approved master plan.

The City Council is set to vote May 11 on conceptual approval of the plan. But its components, including disassembly, repair and relocation of the Alamo Cenotaph, closure of parts of Alamo and Crockett streets, light and noise restrictions and other individual projects would each return for a council vote, after a review by advisory boards.

Sen. Carlos Uresti, a San Antonio Democrat and Senate Finance Committee member, said no amount of money for the Alamo has been secured for the state budget.

And if anyone thinks that, then they have a false sense of security, Uresti said.

Alamo enthusiasts on Facebook reposted a statement Wednesday by Glenn Effler, a Colorado resident, Alamo researcher and author of 13 The Alamo Book of Days, encouraging others to oppose any new funding for the Alamo project at the present time.

But Effler posted Thursday that portions of the plan are critical, including structural repair and preservation of the 250-year-old church, closure of the plaza to traffic and relocation of amusement businesses that have long made a home there.

Although the state should halt the ill-conceived plan for the plaza, we dont want to turn off the money completely, Effler wrote.

But removing traffic and businesses and erecting walls of any kind doesnt appeal to some. Katie Otten, past president of the Professional Tour Guide Association of San Antonio, asked officials Tuesday why the plan sought to close off the central meeting spot for every major event in our city.

Alamo Plaza is a vibrant area that has gone through many different identities over the years. But closing it off destroys the ambiance of our beautiful city, Otten said.

Staff writer Peggy Fikac contributed to this report.

shuddleston@express-news.net

Twitter: @shuddlestonSA
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When their military service ended, they came home.

The five men had served in Korea, Vietnam and the twilight struggle of the Cold War. Over time, they drifted into obscurity in the country theyd defended.

Each of the men  Jerry Stephen Harris, Laird Earnest Orton Jr., Michael John Papinchak, Michael Wayne Topp and Ronald Stevenson  died alone in the Amarillo area in the past two years, their remains unclaimed.

On Friday, scores of people who never knew them gave them a final salute at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.

My brother. I call him brother, retired soldier and Desert Storm veteran Benito Ace Acevedo, 62, of San Antonio, said of all five men just before the ceremony

These guys deserve it, said Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner, 66, of Amarillo. They went to war not knowing if they were coming back alive, and then, when they did come back, they came back to civilian life only to die all alone, all by themselves.

Little is known of Harris, Orton, Papinchak, Topp and Stevenson, but they were welcomed by a crowd of about 200 at Fort Sams assembly area, including members of the Alamo Silver Wings Airborne Association, volunteers from Wreaths Across America, Patriot Guard Riders, and the posts Memorial Services Detachment, which provides final honors to veterans at the cemetery.

Like Acevedo, no one cared about how they lived or why they fell off the grid.

Its more that they served our country and that means just everything to me, said Bea Hoeffner, 66, of San Antonio and a Wreaths Across America volunteer.

In my unit we lost a lot of guys, and I couldnt remember their names, said Joe Rios, a 25th Infantry Division veteran of Vietnam who carried the remains of one of the men on his Harley Davidson motorcycle from Amarillo.

I dont know if it was PTSD or whatever that we suffered from, some of the horrific scenes that we saw, but I just  suppressed those memories, and I kind of regret that, added Rios, 68, of San Antonio. And now that Im retired, I have extra time and its very gratifying to be able to do something like this.

The final salute occurred because three people who had never served in the military lived by one of its highest core values  refusing to leave a fallen comrade behind. Joel Carver, co-owner of A to D Mortuary Service in Amarillo, which has a contract with Potter County, had a list of 92 people whose cremated remains were in a basement vault at the courthouse.

He wondered if any had served in the armed forces  his own son is a Marine helicopter pilot. Carver got in touch with Tanner, the custodian of the remains, and reached out to a San Antonio Military Medical Center volunteer named Joyce Earnest, the Texas coordinator for the Missing in America Project, a group that hopes to give final honors to an estimated 25,000 veterans nationwide whose remains have not been claimed.

I was driven to do it. I witnessed one (Missing in America Project) burial and it touched me that there were veterans out there that could be buried but were sitting on shelves, said Earnest, said Earnest, 65, a retired AT&T service executive.

Carver, 59, now the Texas Panhandle representative for the Missing in America Project, said getting their first confirmation from the Veterans Administration on one of the basement urns was like finding a lost loved one.

The veterans are to be placed in a section of Fort Sam for those whove been cremated, with the inscription, You are not forgotten, on their markers. Theyll join more than 170 other homeless veterans buried here since 2003 under the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program.

Statewide, the men interred Friday joined 20 others laid to rest across Texas under the Missing in America Project, which began in 2006 and has arranged for final honors for 3,115 veterans around the nation.

At the start of a somber ceremony that ran about an hour, 10 MacArthur High School JROTC cadets brought the urns of each man before the crowd, setting them on a table next to five folded American flags. An Army, Navy and Air Force honor guard stood before them.

Fort Sams Memorial Services Detachment fired three volleys, and a pair of buglers played echo taps in the distance.

Patriot Guard Rider Don Williams, a Vietnam veteran who carried Papinchaks remains on his Harley, wept throughout the ceremony.

How is it that when you pass away, that you have no one around to claim you? I mean, thats probably the emptiest feeling in the world, he said.

Williams, 69, had ridden 1,236 miles, counting the journey to Amarillo from his home in Hallettsville. He was struck by the reverence motorists showed as the two-mile caravan of cars and hundreds of motorcycles rode Thursday to San Antonio, escorted by police and sheriffs deputies.

People along the 485-mile route from Amarillo stood on overpasses, hands over their hearts. Others stopped their cars on shoulders and the median. Between Sweetwater and Menard, an elderly woman stood in a pasture with one hand over her heart and the other waiving an American flag.

You dont think that dont make you proud to be a veteran, to see that? sobbed Williams, an airman who served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969.

Harris was a Navy radioman seaman apprentice who served from 1977 to 1981. Specialist 4 Orton, a Vietnam veteran, soldiered in the Army from 1967 to 1969. Earnest said the VA told her that Papinchak, a senior airman from 1974 to 1977, was a Vietnam veteran.

Topp was an Air Force sergeant and Vietnam veteran who served from 1965 to 1969. Stevenson, the oldest of the five, was an airman third class from 1949 to 1953. He was a Korean War veteran.

Details surrounding their deaths are a mystery. Earnest, who confirmed their service records with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, didnt know much about their lives, but federal privacy law also prohibits disclosing personal information about them.

All died homeless or destitute, four of them in Potter County. Topp, whose remains were in a mortuary, died in Randall County, just south of Amarillo.

Of these five, I know they passed away from illnesses. There were no traumatic deaths, but most of them were in a hospital or some sort of hospice care. There could have been some that passed that were found on the street, said Earnest, whose husband, Tom, and three brothers served in the military.

I dont know.

A San Antonio Honor Flight volunteer who is president of the Brooke Army Medical Center Retiree Activities Group and works on Mondays as an unpaid clerk in one of the hospitals four trauma intensive care units, said this was her first homeless veteran burial.

But, she added, it will not be the last.

I am absolutely ecstatic that Im able to lay these veterans to rest in their final location where they deserve it, in their sacred ground, Earnest said. It just means so much to us to give them some peace.

sigc@express-news.net
One man was shot to death after an officer intervened in an assault Thursday night on the West Side, police said.

San Antonio Police Department Chief William McManus said a man in his 50s was fighting with his girlfriend when the officer was flagged down at about 8:40 p.m. in the 200 block of North Zarzamora.
AUSTIN -- Following a criminal complaint by a GOP former lawmaker, an Austin representative has asked the Travis County District Attorney's Office to look a letter-writing campaign that has deeply troubled rural Republicans in the Texas House who are opposed to school vouchers.

In a letter obtained by Quorum Report, Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, told prosecutors that she's heard from many of her Republican colleagues who cannot believe the way in which many of their constituents' names were used.
Running out of time

With airline bumping a hot topic these days, CBC News has heard from many Canadians wanting to share their own sagas.Vicki Russell's story stood out.She missed a $10,000 dream cruise of the Galapagos Islands because she was bumped from an overbooked Air Canada flight."I was so upset, I thought I was going to cry," Russell said from her home in Toronto. "Air Canada caused me to miss the trip of a lifetime."The retired lawyer had always wanted to witness the unique wildlife in the Galapagos. She decided that this year she'd finally make her lifelong dream come true.After doing extensive research, she booked a National Geographic tour with New York-based Lindblad Expeditions.It included a round-trip Air Canada flight from Toronto to Miami. In Miami, she would meet up with the tour group and continue on to the Galapagos, off the coast of Ecuador. Everything had been booked more than two months in advance.On April 1, Russell checked in shortly after 8 a.m. for her 10:55 a.m. Air Canada flight.Her plans started unravelling about two hours later when she spoke with an Air Canada agent at the boarding gate. Russell says the agent informed her that the Miami flight was overbooked and that she wasn't getting on board because she didn't have a valid ticket.Russell was dumbfounded because Air Canada had already issued her a boarding pass and checked her luggage for a $25 fee."It was extremely upsetting," she said. "The woman could not have been more rude, hostile. In all my years of travelling, I have never had a travel person treat me so badly."Russell says she stressed to the agent that time was of the essence because she had a connecting flight that evening in Miami and then a cruise to catch.She also showed the agent her travel documents and managed to contact the tour company to email her a receipt, proving that she had indeed paid for her airline ticket.But by then, the gate had closed and the flight was already full."I was so distraught," said Russell.She informed the agent she urgently needed another flight to Miami or she'd miss her Galapagos cruise. Russell says the agent directed her to Air Canada customer service in another section of the terminal, where she had to wait in line for help.By the time she got to speak with customer service, Russell says she learned it was too late to get another Air Canada flight to Miami to make her connection.She didn't get her checked luggage back until 2 p.m.  too late to book a flight herself on another airline."They could not have cared less," Russell said of the Air Canada staff. "Time did not seem to have any importance to them at all."Russell was devastated when she realized she was going to miss her cruise.She believes if Air Canada had informed her at check-in that she was being bumped, she would probably have had time to book another flight."The series of errors that they made, their lack of apology, their disinterest in helping me is appalling," she said.Air Canada confirmed the flight was oversold and says its staff made every effort to find Russell another flight so she wouldn't miss her cruise."Our agents worked hard looking for options," spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick said in an email to CBC News."This is a very regrettable situation and we are sorry we were unable to do more to help this customer get to her cruise."Fitzpatrick didn't address Russell's claim that she'd been accused of not possessing an airline ticket.Russell filed a complaint with Air Canada on April 2. It begins with the statement: "Air Canada shattered my dream vacation." She's since received a cheque for $800 compensation.Russell had paid $10,320 for her trip, including $430 for her round-trip Air Canada flight.She says Air Canada should foot the bill. She also wants an apology and explanation from the airline for the way she was treated.Air Canada said it continues to review the file.Meanwhile, the tour company has come through with a promising offer. CBC News contacted Lindblad Expeditions and explained why Russell missed her cruise.The company said it will book another expedition for Russell, covering all costs except her flight to Miami."Absolutely fabulous," Russell said of the news, "totally thrilled, excited, relieved."She says she's still waiting for a personal apology from Air Canada. She plans to rebook her trip in May and says this time she'll fly to Miami on a different airline.
With borders closed and the war raging, these types of headlines will increase.Four-year-old girl among refugees raped in Greece as thousands of asylum seekers trapped in camps...I told myself, Look at yourself  you came to Europe, what was your aim? I am not doing this because I like it but I dont have the money, I dont have a choice.Those are the words of one of many refugee children forced into selling sex to survive in Greece, where a four-year-old girl is among those raped in camps that were supposed to afford them protection.A study by Harvard University is warning of a growing epidemic of sexual exploitation and abuse in the country, which houses 62,000 asylum seekers stranded by the EU-Turkey deal and border closures through Europe.We had a case of a four-year-old girl who was raped, a psychologist at a camp in Athens told researchers. The mother did whatever was possible to report it.But aid workers and officials say there is often nowhere to turn, with victims trapped in camps with their abusers too frightened to go to police or authorities, who frequently lack interpreters and specialists.The absence of arrests can lead asylum seekers to take violent retribution. In one Greek camp, a man who had already married one child raped another underage girl, and was badly beaten by other migrants.Aid workers told the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights of criminal gangs thriving in squalid camps, where many refugees have been living for more than a year, and terrorising victims into silence.the rest of this vileness:
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Local News, Crime, Business & Finance

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

Investigation By AGs Office Found Hundreds Of Vehicles Had Been Sold With Serious Safety Recall Issues, Including Unintended Acceleration, Airbag Problems, Vehicle Fires, Steering And Brake Loss, And More.

New York, NY - April 21, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced today that he reached settlements with 104 auto dealerships that sold vehicles to New Yorkers without disclosing that the vehicles were under recall for dangerous unrepaired safety issues such as unintended acceleration, airbag problems, vehicle fires, steering and brake loss, and more. The settlement requires the auto dealers to provide consumers with advance notice of any existing and unrepaired recall, among other measures.

An investigation by the AGs office found that while many prospective car buyers reasonably assume that any known and existing safety issues have been repaired or disclosed by the dealer, that is often not the reality of car buying in New York. As part of its investigation, the Attorney Generals office surveyed advertisements, monitored vehicles covered by safety recalls, and identified auto dealers that advertised vehicles with unrepaired safety recalls.

As part of the settlements, the participating auto dealers are required to adhere to a set of guidelines in order to alert consumers that their vehicles may have unrepaired recalls, including the following:

Dealers that advertise used vehicles online must include information that enables consumers to check the recall status of advertised vehicles; that information includes the SaferCar.gov website operated by NHTSA.

Dealers who advertise in print or other media must also disclose in the advertisement that the vehicle is subject to a safety recall.

Dealers must place a decal notice in the window of used cars that include information that allows consumers to check the recall status of the vehicles, including the SaferCar.gov website and mobile application operated by NHTSA.

Two days prior to any sale, dealers must provide consumers with a copy of the NHTSA recall status report for a vehicle with an unrepaired safety recall, and obtain a written acknowledgment from the consumer.

Dealers must send notices to customers who have purchased vehicles with unrepaired safety recalls that are still unrepaired, from January 2016 to present. Manufacturers franchise dealers must also cover up to five days of a loaner car for consumers if their vehicle requires repairs that will take longer than one day.

Each auto dealer will also pay a fine of $1,000 to New York State.

The safety recalls we uncovered were serious  and potentially deadly," said Attorney General Schneiderman. Consumers deserve to know of any unresolved safety issues before buying a car for themselves or their family. I am pleased that thanks to our investigation and today's settlement, more New Yorkers will finally receive the critical safety information they need to make an informed decision. I encourage all auto-dealerships across the state to follow our guidelines to ensure that they too uphold the highest standards of consumer safety. This is an important first step towards making all cars on New Yorks roads safer.

Under Federal Law, used car dealers, as well as new car dealers who sell used cars from unrelated auto makers, are required to either have a manufacturer authorized repair person on their premises or transport the vehicle to a dealer related to the vehicles maker to have the recall work done.

The Attorney Generals office investigation is ongoing.

Consumers who purchased vehicles after January 1, 2016 who believe they have possibly unrepaired safety recalls should contact the Attorney Generals office at 1-800-771-7755 or via web form at https://ag.ny.gov/complaint-forms

Consumers can check the recall status of your vehicle by entering its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) on the NHTSA website https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls

The list of 104 dealerships is as follows, broken down by the OAG regional offices that reached the settlements.

BINGHAMTON REGIONAL OFFICE  15

Butler Auto Sales, 304 State Highway 7, Sidney, NY Chambers & OHara Truck Center, Inc., 268 State Highway 7, Sidney, NY North Norwich Motors & Trailer Sales, LLC, 7044 State Highway 12, North Norwich, NY SHB Associates LLC (Serafini Nissan Volvo), 3103 Vestal Parkway East, Vestal, NY VanDervort Service Center, Inc., 1694 State Route 26, Vestal, NY Ridge Road Imports, LLC, 2025 East Shore Dr., Lansing, NY Milller Motor Car Corp (2 Dealerships), 4477 Vestal Parkway East, Vestal, NY Royal Ford Motors, Inc./Royal Chrysler Motors, Inc. (2 Dealerships), 3964 Waverly Rd, Owego, NY Gault Auto Mall, Inc. (3 Dealerships), North St., Endicott, NY Gene Balmers Auto Sales, 400 South Walnut St., Elmira, NY Jeff Kies Auto Sales, Inc., 8768 Route 434, Apalachin, NY

BROOKLYN REGIONAL OFFICE  2

Compass Luxor Hamilton Avenue Auto Sales

BUFFALO REGIONAL OFFICE - 12

Basil Ford, Inc SCGA Holdings, LLC DBA Castilone Chrysler Dodge Jeep & Ram CrazyCheapCars, Inc Northtown Automotive Companies, Inc Landmark Chevrolet, Inc Olean Class Cars, Inc Ontario Sales, Inc Pellegrino Auto Sales, LLC Riverfront Auto Sales, Inc Shults Management Group, Inc Superior Auto Sales, Inc V&A Enterprises, Inc DBA Buffalo Auto Group

HARLEM REGIONAL OFFICE  4

Best Auto Group, 4053 Boston Rd, Bronx, NY Boston Road Best Motors, 4064 Boston Road, Bronx, NY New York Motors Group Solutions, 2803 A Boston Road Bronx, NY 10469 Manhattan Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, 678 Eleventh Avenue New York, NY 10019

NASSAU REGIONAL OFFICE  1

LA Auto Sales

POUGHKEEPSIE REGIONAL OFFICE  5

Hudson Valley Auto Sales Ruges Automotive, Inc. (2 Dealerships) Autos by Joseph, Inc. Frank Siena Auto Sales, Inc.

ROCHESTER REGIONAL OFFICE  16

Auction Direct USA, L.P. Best Value Auto Cavallaro Neubauer Chevrolet Buick: Doan Buick, Inc. Doan Chevrolet, LLC Doan Kia Good Buy Auto J & J Auto, Inc. Pioneer Truck Sales, Inc. Pool Auto Sales, Inc. Ralph Honda Santa Motors, Inc Stone Road Auto Inc Tiffany Transportation Services, Ltd Websmart Auto, Inc. Websmart Imports

SYRACUSE REGIONAL OFFICE  25

Bill Rapp, Inc (2 Dealerships) Bridgeland Auto Brokers Cortland Used Cars Liverpool World Car, LLC Par-K Enterprises TDK Property Company of Oneida, LLC TDK Property Co. LLC TRK-2 Operating Company, LLC (3 Dealerships) Tecforce Automotive, LLC Drivers Village, Inc. (13 Dealerships)

WATERTOWN REGIONAL OFFICE  (15)

FX Caprara Dealerships (14 Dealerships) Waite Motor Sales, Inc.

WESTCHESTER REGIONAL OFFICE (8)

JC Lopez Auto Sales Corp., 305 Willet Avenue, Port Chester, NY 10573 Croton Auto Park, 1 Municipal Place, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 New Rochelle Chevrolet, Inc., 291 Main Street, New Rochelle, NY 10801 The Rivera Auto Group, Inc. d/b/a Rivera Toyota, 325 N. Bedford Road, Mt. Kisco, NY 10549 Rockland Motors, Inc., 85 Route 303 North, West Nyack, NY 10994 Rye Subaru, 1175 Boston Post Road, Rye, NY 10580 Saw Mill Auto Sales, 12 Worth Street, Yonkers, NY 10701 Westchester Auto Exchange Inc., 2311 Crompond Road, Cortlandt Manor, NY 10523

OVERALL TOTAL  104
Local News, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

Coalition Of 20 Attorneys General Oppose Funding Cuts For Addiction Prevention And Treatment In States Facing Massive Drug Epidemics.

New York, NY - April 21, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today joined a coalition of 20 Attorneys General in opposing the Trump Administrations efforts to scale back funding for drug use prevention and addiction treatment originally included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In a letter addressed to President Trump, Leader McConnell, and Speaker Ryan, the state Attorneys General urged the President and members of Congress to adequately fund drug treatment in their upcoming proposal to replace the ACA.

While the initial ACA replacement plan would have cut federal funding for drug treatment by an estimated $5.5 billion, moving to a "block grant" or any form of "capitated rate" for Medicaid would further jeopardize $7.9 billion in treatment funding, which represents 25% of all funding for drug treatment.

New Yorkers and families across the country have seen the devastating impact of drug addiction first hand  and theyre depending on their government to help. That includes developing a comprehensive strategy to address the soaring number of overdose deaths in our communities and make lifesaving treatments accessible to those suffering from addiction, said Attorney General Schneiderman. I am proud to stand with my fellow Attorneys General in urging President Trump to ensure New Yorkers and Americans struggling with addiction get the vital treatment they need.

The ACA currently allows significant and critical assistance for drug treatment, providing coverage to an additional 2.8 million Americans suffering from addiction. It also requires both private plans and Medicaid to cover certain drug treatment.

The state AGs argue this provision is essential in their fight against the growing drug epidemic, which many view as one of the greatest challenges facing their communities  several of which are still recovering from the flood of addictive pain pills and surge in drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and carfentanil over the past few years.

In the midst of an ongoing public health crisis, the federal government cannot abandon this commitment to our communities, the group stated in its letter. Our nation faces a drug epidemic that grows more difficult and dangerous by the hour. These drugs are causing record numbers of overdoses and are destabilizing whole communities.

The group says the loss of any form of coverage for 24 million Americans under the draft plan undoubtedly will leave many Americans suffering from addiction with no means of securing or paying for treatment.

We urge you to protect access to substance use treatment and maintain our partnership and necessary levels of federal funding as we work to tackle this deadly and destructive epidemic, the groups said.
campaign - I love WikiLeaks, he once told

authorities has been investigating Assange and WikiLeaks since at least 2010 when it released, in cooperation with publications including the Guardian, more than a quarter of a million classified cables from US embassies leaked by US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

and Trump himself told an interviewer, I think its
School & Education, Local News, Business & Finance

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

A.G. Schneiderman Urges Eligible New York Students To Complete DOE Application For Student Loan Cancellation; Students Not Receiving The Application May Still Be Eligible For Relief.

New York, NY - April 21, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that today his office began notifying 3,000 New Yorkers who attended certain programs at schools operated by Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (Corinthian), including Everest Institute in Rochester, that they are eligible for cancellation of their federal student loans. The students are eligible for federal loan cancellation based on findings by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) that the school made misrepresentations about the employment success of graduates of certain programs.

Corinthian Colleges used false promises of career success to lure students, leaving many with enormous debt and few job prospects, said Attorney General Schneiderman. My office is committed to helping these students receive much-deserved relief from their student loan debt.

Corinthian, which operated for-profit colleges Everest Institute in Rochester and Everest University, abruptly ceased operations in 2015. The DOEs investigation found that Corinthian misrepresented graduates employment success in connection with some of its programs. Students who enrolled in the identified programs during specified time periods are eligible for discharge of their federal student loans. For a list of the programs and time-periods, visit here

Attorney General Schneiderman joins 43 other states and the District of Columbia in this outreach effort. Students will receive a notification from his office that contains an application for loan cancellation. If a students application is approved by the DOE, the students loans will be cancelled, and any payments already made will be refunded.

Attorney General Schneidermans outreach will target students who attended the programs identified by the DOE during the relevant time-period and who are eligible for a streamlined process to discharge their federal student loans. However, any student who attended a Corinthian school who believes that the school lied about job prospects or other issues may apply to have their federal student loans canceled using the DOEs discharge application . More information is available here

The Attorney General had previously called upon DOE to clarify students options following the closure of Corinthian Colleges in 2015.

The Attorney General has made cracking down on illegal activity by for-profit colleges a priority. The office reached a $10.25 million settlement with Career Education Corporation for fabricating placement rates, and was part of a settlement with Education Management Company to resolve allegations that the school misled prospective students on program costs, graduate rates, and placement rates. As part of the settlements, EDMC agreed to forgive over $100 million outstanding loan debt. In January, the Attorney General reached a $2.75 million settlement with DeVry University over misleading advertisements about employment and salary prospects.

Borrowers should beware of student loan scams. You can apply for loan forgiveness, or get information on loan forgiveness, FREE through the DOE. The DOE never charges application or maintenance fees, so if youre asked to pay, walk away.

It may take time for the DOE to process applications, so anyone who applies for loan discharge should continue making payments on his or her loans until informed by the DOE or his or her loan servicer that the federal loans are in forbearance while the application is pending, or that his or her loans have been cancelled.
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

Long Island resident William Tolley, 44, fell five stories to his death while combating a blaze in Queens, officials say.

Queens, NY  April 21, 2017 - While working on the roof of a Ridgewood, Queens apartment building where a two-alarm fire raged three floors beneath his feet, 14-year FDNY veteran and Long Island resident, William Tolley, 44, tragically fell five stories to the street and later died of his injuries in a local area hospital on Thursday, April 20, officials report.

Tolley, a member of Ladder Company 135, fell while on the roof of the building located at 1615 Putnam Avenue performing a venting procedure, described by officials as a routine operation which involves opening the roof to allow heat, smoke, and potentially deadly gasses to rise and exit the structure; this enables responding firefighters below to more easily search for victims trapped in the building and reduces the chances of explosions brought about by build-ups of trapped gas.

At 2:20 p.m., for reasons unknown but currently under investigation, Tolley somehow fell from a ladder  it is currently unknown if he was in the ladders bucket or not  and plummeted to the ground below. Tolley, one of over 100 responding firefighters at the scene, was immediately taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where he died of his injuries, according to FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

Tolley, who lived in Bethpage with his wife, Marie, and his 8 year-old daughter, Isabella, also served as a volunteer firefighter for the Bethpage and (previously) Hicksville Fire Departments.

President of The FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association Jake Lemonda offered his condolences to the brave firefighters friends and loved ones, recalling Tolleys willingness to put his life on the line selflessly for the sake of others.

I join with all FDNY members in honoring the memory of our brother who unfortunately lost his life in the line of duty earlier today, he said. This is an extremely dangerous job that our dedicated members put their lives on the line every day to protect the residents of the City of New York. On behalf of the Officers Union, I offer condolences to his family and friends.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the death of Tolley at a press conference held that afternoon at the Brooklyn hospital where the firefighter had sadly lost his battle for life.

Im very sorry to report that tragedy has struck our city againwe lost another hero today, he said. A man dedicated to protecting others gave his life for this city. Everyone is in a state of shock and grief. To his family, we say we will stand by younot only today, but in the days ahead, and for the years to come.

Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano  who also resides in Bethpage  has decreed that all flags on Nassau County Buildings are to be flown at half-mast from April 21 through April 27 in memory of Tolley and his sacrifice.

The FDNY has announced that they will be launching two probes into the still-unknown circumstances surrounding Tolleys death. The probes will center on any possible mechanical, equipment, or training-related issues that could have contributed to the incident, with the NYPD assisting in the investigating as needed, officials said.

Currently, the death toll of FDNY firefighters killed in the line of duty stands at 1,147, according to FDNY Commissioner Nigro.
Local News, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

New Yorkers Can Now Register as Organ Donors through NY State of Health, New Yorks Official Health Plan Marketplace.

Albany, NY - April 21, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New Yorkers applying for health insurance through NY State of Health, New Yorks official health plan marketplace, can now enroll in the New York State Donate Life Registry as an organ donor. April is National Donate Life Month, and the launch of this new option builds on New York States commitment to increasing organ donation rates. In addition, Governor Cuomo directed One World Trade Center, the SUNY Administration Building in Albany and the State Fairgrounds Entrance in Syracuse to be lit blue and green for Donate Lifes Blue and Green Day on April 21.

"There are more New Yorkers waiting for organs than there are organs available and we are addressing this critical public health issue by making it easier than ever to register," Governor Cuomo said. To honor those waiting for a donor and countless donor heroes across the state, New York has gone blue and green across the state, and I encourage all eligible New Yorkers to enroll today.

Last year, Governor Cuomo signed legislation requiring NY State of Health to add the organ donation component to its health insurance application. With the launch of the option, individuals 16 years of age or older, who are completing an application, renewing a plan, or making a life status change will be asked if they would like to be added to the NYS Donate Life Registry.

In February, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced new legislation that makes 16 and 17 year olds eligible to register to be organ, eye and tissue donors. The new legislation enables this population to enroll in the Registry at the same time they first apply for a driver license, learner permit or non-driver ID, potentially increasing enrollments in New York by thousands.

New Yorkers can now enroll in the NYS Donate Life Registry through the following:

NY State of Health- nystateofhealth.ny.gov

NYS Department of Motor Vehicles  dmv.ny.gov

NYS Board of Elections - elections.ny.gov

When applying for a New York City Identification Card  nyc.gov

NYS Department of Health health.ny.gov

According to the federal Organ Procurement and Transplant Network , more than 118,000 people nationwide are currently waiting for organ transplants. As of today, the total number is close to 10,000 in New York State. On average, 22 people die every day in the United States from causes that could have been treated with a donated organ. In addition, tissue donated by one person can positively impact the lives of more than 50 other people.

Five years ago, Governor Cuomo signed Laurens Law to increase enrollment rates in New York State. The legislation was named for Lauren Shields, a then 12 year-old girl from Stony Point in Rockland County who received a heart in a transplant operation in 2009. The law changed the language on the DMV license renewal form to highlight the choice for New Yorkers to enroll in the NYS Donate Life Registry. Customers are now required to check one of the two boxes related to organ donation in order for their application to be processed.

Since 2012, DMV and DOH have enabled New Yorkers to enroll as organ donors online through MyDMV . During the online sign-up process, prospective donors are required to provide basic information found on their license or non-driver ID, including date of birth, zip code and last four digits of their Social Security number. Procedures and controls built into this process ensure authenticity, integrity, security and confidentiality. To become a registered donor in New York State, applicants can register when obtaining a driver license or non-driver ID card, or by renewing their driver license and signing the donor box that appears on each of these forms.

In addition, New Yorkers can register through the New York State Health Department's website, www.health.ny.gov/donatelife or on their voter registration form

Commissioner of Health Dr. Howard Zucker said, "Im pleased to see that Governor Cuomo continues to make expanding the Donate Life Registry a priority in New York State. During National Donate Life Month and throughout the year, we call upon the kindness of New Yorkers and ask them to enroll in the registry, encourage their friends and family to enroll, and give someone in need the gift of life.

DMV Executive Deputy Commissioner Terri Egan said, We are delighted that many New Yorkers have chosen to donate the gift of life over the years, but there is still much work left to be done. DMV encourages anyone who hasnt already done so to sign up to be an organ and tissue donor. Its quick and easy to register through DMV, whether online or at our offices. We will continue to promote organ and tissue donation and work to make enrolling as convenient as possible for New Yorkers.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher said, In our state alone, there are nearly 10,000 New Yorkers currently waiting for an organ transplant, and the need grows every day. The State University of New York is proud to join Governor Cuomo in supporting Donate Life efforts taking place this month and year-round in communities throughout New York State and across the country.

New York State Senate Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon said, "As a long time proponent of organ donation and the sponsor of new laws which allow 16 and 17 year olds to register as donors and allow registration through the NY State of Health Insurance application process, I strongly urge residents to consider registering to become a donor. Giving the gift of life through organ donation is vitally important, as far too many New Yorkers die while waiting for an organ."

New York State Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther said, New Yorkers are generous and bravethey want to help others. They just need the opportunity to say yes. Organ donation isnt something we like to think about every day, but its important. Our bill, which passed last year, created that opportunity by adding a question about organ donation when New Yorkers consider their healthcare choices. Its a natural moment to consider enrolling in the registry and saving a life.

Former New York Mets All Star and Current Organ Donation Candidate Ed Kranepool said, I know firsthand that miracles can come true, that's why I encourage all New Yorkers to become an organ donor and help make a lifesaving miracle come true for those individuals who are waiting for an organ transplant.

Organ Donor Recipient and Organ Donation Advocate Lauren Shields said, "Without organ donation I would not be here today. My donor, and countless others, are making life possible by registering to donate. And now, New York State is making it even easier to add to this vital list of heroes by allowing 16 and 17 year-olds like myself to sign up. I am forever grateful for my donor and for New York's efforts to increase donor participation and awareness."
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Health & Wellness

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

Citizens encouraged to join the New York State Donate Life Registry through the DMV, Board of Elections or the State Health Benefit Exchange.

Long Island, NY - April 21, 2017 - Each year the waiting list for organ transplants grows longer, with nearly 10,000 New Yorkers currently awaiting a transplant in this state alone, said Senator Kemp Hannon (R- Each year the waiting list for organ transplants grows longer, with nearly 10,000 New Yorkers currently awaiting a transplant in this state alone, said Senator Kemp Hannon (R- Nassau ). As a longtime proponent of organ donation, and the sponsor of a new law enacted last year to allow donors to sign up through the States Health Benefit Exchange (S.6952, Laws of 2016), I urge residents to strongly become donors during Organ and Tissue Donation Month.

Hannons bill, signed into law last year by the Governor, provides New Yorkers with additional opportunities to become donors by signing up for the Donate Life Registry when they applied for insurance through the State Health Benefit Exchange. Prior to this law, would-be donors primarily signed up via applications at the DMV the Board of Elections.

Additionally, Hannon has had a Senate Resolution passed memorializing the Governor to Proclaim April 2017 as Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness in the State of New York.

No one knows when they or a loved one may need a transplant to survive, or tissue to repair injury or treat disease, said Hannon. While there are over 19 million New Yorkers, currently only 4.4 million are enrolled in the New York State Donate Life Registry. The Awareness month provides the opportunity to educate people, to encourage them to consider organ and tissue donation, and to add their names to the Donate Life Registry. 

New Yorkers have for years been urged to sign up to be organ and tissue donors  a database who have chosen, upon their death, to donate organs and tissues. This is done through on-line registration, when they apply for or renew their drivers license, complete voter registration forms, or sign up for the State Health Benefit Exchange, as well as at events held throughout the State.
Tech & Science, Local News, Business & Finance, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

State Funding Will Establish New CryoEM facility for growing industry.

Brookhaven, NY - April 21, 2017 - Senator Ken LaValle announced that he secured $15 Million in funding in the newly adopted NY State budget for a Cryo-electron Microscopy (CryoEM) Facility to be located at Senator Ken LaValle announced that he secured $15 Million in funding in the newly adopted NY State budget for a Cryo-electron Microscopy (CryoEM) Facility to be located at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

Establishing a CryoEM Facility would provide a foundation for a growing industry in bio-technology situated on Long Island. Combining the full suite of capabilities with Brookhaven Labs expertise in data and instrument development will dramatically accelerate the determination of biostructures that are key to such things as battling against disease.

Senator LaValle said, The $15 million funding of the CryoEM is an important step. With the creation of this facility, BNL would attract additional global corporations and institutions in the biological, medical, and pharmaceutical fields to our area. Brookhaven National Lab is one of the largest employers in the First Senatorial District and a major economic driver for the State. I am pleased that BNL will be given the tools to once again lead the way in research and discovery.

Doon Gibbs, Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory said, We very much appreciate the support of Senator LaValle and New York State in obtaining funding for a state-of-the-art cryo-electron Microscope for Brookhaven Laboratory. Co-locating the microscope at our National Synchrotron Light Source, the brightest synchrotron light source in the world, will enable Brookhaven to leverage its existing expertise and capabilities to allow imaging of bio-molecules in entirely new ways. This will accelerate the determination of biological structures, leading to impacts in life sciences, pharmaceutical and medical research, among other areas. Working with Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Lab and other research institutions in the region this represents another important step in helping to establish Long Island and New York as leaders in life sciences and bio-technology.
Local News, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness

By Long Island News & PR Published: April 21 2017

Proclamation to Focus Attention on End-of-Life Care Planning Discussions.

Lake Success, NY - April 21, 2017 - At this week's Suffolk County Board of Health meeting, Health Commissioner James L. Tomarken, MD, MPH, MBA, MSW, signed a proclamation declaring the week of April 16 National Healthcare Decision Days in the county, presenting the proclamation to end-of-life care expert Patricia Bomba, MD, MACP, VP of Geriatrics for Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, and to Carolyn Kazdan, MHSA, NHA, Quality Improvement Specialist, IPRO.

Dr. Bomba is working with IPRO to educate the public and healthcare professionals about end-of-life care planning and New Yorks Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) and eMOLST, which aim to improve the quality of care that people receive at the end of their lives by honoring their preferences, values and beliefs through a shared informed decision-making communication process with their families and healthcare professionals. Ms. Kazdan is coordinating the end-of-life care planning project.

The 10th Annual National Healthcare Decisions Days (NHDD) are being observed with a number of educational events in Suffolk and Nassau Counties. National Healthcare Decisions Days were created to inspire, educate and empower the public and healthcare professionals about the importance of advance care planning.

By signing this proclamation today, I hope to encourage conversation among Suffolk County residents, their families and healthcare providers about advance care planning, said Dr. James Tomarken. We want them to know there are tools available that will help them to begin the conversation and will enable them to make decisions that will be well-understood by their families and their healthcare providers.

The proclamation states, in part: As a result of activities during April 16-22, 2017, being recognized as National Healthcare Decisions Days in New York State, more citizens will have conversations about their healthcare decisions; more citizens will execute healthcare proxies to make their wishes known; seriously ill citizens will be aware of New Yorks MOLST program and eMOLST; and fewer families and physicians will have to struggle with making difficult medical decisions in the absence of guidance from the patient.

Most people near the end of life lack the ability to make their own decisions about the treatment they wish to receive, as well as what they want to avoid, says Dr. Bomba. A majority of patients will receive their care after a hospitalization and long-term care from physicians who do not know them. Advance care planning is essential to ensure that patients receive care and treatment that reflects their values, beliefs and goals for care and treatment.

As part of a two-year Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) funded initiative to transform end of life care in Nassau and Suffolk counties, IPRO is partnering with organizations in both counties to conduct outreach and provide educational sessions for seniors, their families and caregivers to help them better understand how to ensure that their end-of-life wishes are properly carried out.
The Taliban launched a suicide assault on an Afghan Army corps headquarters in the northern province of Balkh today and attacked the mosque on the base.

Taliban fighters managed to penetrate multiple layers of protection at the Afghan National Armys 209 Shaheen Corps Headquarters near the provincial capital of Mazar-i-Sharif, TOLONews reported. The Taliban fighters reportedly entered the base in two Ranger pickup trucks, which are used by Afghan security forces and supplied by the US. The Taliban fighters were wearing Afghan military uniforms, according to Pajhwok Afghan News.

The Taliban assault team is said to have attacked the mosque on the base. At least 10 people are reported to have been killed in the fighting. It is unclear if the casualties include Taliban fighters.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed the attack on his Twitter feed, and said the Taliban opened the assault by using suicide attacks, which allowed a large number of Mujahideen to penetrate the base. According to Mujahid, more than 100 Afghan security personnel were killed in the fighting, including a battalion commander known as Shirin Agha and Colonel Abdul, the Chief of Staff Corps. His account could not be verified, and the Taliban routinely inflate the number of casualties caused by their operations.

In a series of tweets, Mujahid said that Afghan forces have been demoralized by the suicide assault in Balkh, and Taliban forces are entrenched in the western province and capable of conducting offensive operations. In a statement released by the Taliban at the end of March, the group claimed it fully controls one of Balkhs districts and contests nine others. While the Talibans claims of control of districts in Afghanistan are difficult to confirm, they largely match with an analysis by FDDs Long War Journal.

The suicide assault, or coordinated attack using one or more suicide bombers and an assault team, is a tactic frequently used by the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda and its branches. It is also used by allied groups such as the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Shabaab, and by the rival Islamic State. Suicide assaults are commonly executed by jihadist groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Nigeria.

Taliban, allied jihadists operate in Balkh

The Taliban has launched several major attacks against high-profile targets in Balkh in the past. Most recently, in November 2016, a Taliban suicide assault team killed six civilians and wounded more than 100 in an attack on the German consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Additionally, In early January 2016, jihadists assaulted the Indian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif and held off security forces for a day before being killed. No group has claimed credit for the attack, but one of the fighters wrote in Urdu Afzal Guru is avenged on the wall in his own blood before being killed, according to The Indian Express. Afzal Guru was a Jaish-e-Mohammed operative who was executed for his involvement in the Dec. 2001 assault on Indias Parliament in New Delhi. That attack was executed by Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

To complicate matters further, Asmatullah Muawiya, a Pakistani terrorist who serves as one of several al Qaeda company commanders as well as the leader of the Taliban in Punjab province, had threatened to avenge Gurus execution.

Whichever group attacked the Indian consulate in January 2016 would need the help of the local Taliban to carry it out.

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.
The US military announced today that Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, a senior Islamic State operative and close associate of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, was killed during a special forces raid on April 6. The operation was carried out near the city of Mayadin in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor.

The Islamic State has long battled forces loyal to Bashar al Assads regime in the city of Deir Ezzor and the surrounding area. The US also frequently carries out airstrikes against the jihadists fighting positions and oil infrastructure in the province, but raids involving ground forces are rare.

Uzbeki facilitated the movement of ISIS foreign terror fighters and funds, according to a statement issued by the US military. He played a key role in the groups external terror attack plotting.

US intelligence officials have concluded that Uzbeki facilitated the high profile attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey this past New Years Eve. The massacre left 39 people dead and dozens more wounded.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), which helps coordinate coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State, has released a grainy photo purportedly showing Uzbeki. The picture can be seen on the right. On its Twitter feed, the KRSC identified Uzbeki as Gayratzon Uzimof, noting that he was also known as Abdulrahman Uzbeki, which is a different phonetic spelling of the nom de guerre used by US officials. The KRSC said that its counterterrorism department had confirmed Uzbekis death on April 12, adding that he was in charge of the self-declared caliphates financial and logistical affairs, including the movement of fighters.

Air Force Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command (CENTCOM), told the press that Uzbeki was known to interact with [Baghdadi] in various ways over time.

Weve clearly linked him with the Istanbul attack, Thomas added, according to Military.com.

There was some initial confusion over the identity and ethnicity of the gunman who opened fire at the Reina nightclub.

But the Turkish government arrested an Uzbek man, Abdulkadir Masharipov, at an apartment in Istanbul on Jan. 16. Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said that Masharipov is a 34-year-old Uzbek who speaks four foreign languages (Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Turkish), according to BBC News. Sahin added that Masharipov was very well trained. The Turkish government also released a video Masharipov had recorded of himself in Istanbuls Taksim Square.

Early accounts said that Masharipov learned his deadly skillset while fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some Uzbek jihadists defected from the Taliban-al Qaeda axis and joined Baghdadis network after the caliphate declaration in 2014. It is not publicly known if that is how Masharipov ended up in the Islamic States camp, but it is possible.

However, subsequent reports indicated that he was trained in al Qaeda camps in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) evolved into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and then eventually into the current Islamic State.

Turkish officials found that Masharipov (pictured on the right) was likely smuggled into Turkey via Iran in Jan. 2016.

I arrived in Turkey through Iran after receiving the orders to participate in the war in Syria last January [2016], Masharipov told authorities, according to Turkeys Hurriyet Daily News. Masharipov continued: I settled in [the Central Anatolian province of] Konya. While I was there, I received the order from Raqqa. I received the orders to carry out an attack on New Years Eve in Taksim [Square].

After sending the surveillance footage back to the Islamic States headquarters in Raqqa, Syria, Masharipov determined that the original operation he planned to carry out wouldnt be successful. So he put Reina in his crosshairs.

Hurriyet reported that Masharipov told officials the order for the operation came from Raqqa, Syria via the Telegram smartphone app.

If true, then the slaughter in Istanbul is yet another example of the Islamic State using publicly-available, encrypted messaging applications to direct operations around the globe. The groups cyber planners have guided remote-controlled attacks everywhere from Europe to Southeast Asia using Telegram and similar apps. They have also reached out to willing recruits inside the US as well.

At first, the Islamic State was reticent to claim credit for attacks inside Turkey. Even significant operations that were widely suspected of being the groups work, such as the June 2016 assault on the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, went unclaimed. Turkey has been a significant gateway for the jihadists throughout much of the Syrian war, and the Islamic State likely didnt want to give authorities additional reasons to disrupt the flow of its fighters. But Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and his lieutenants began to change their approach after Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield in Aug. 2016. That cross-border invasion, which relied on various Syrian rebel groups, seized significant ground from Baghdadis caliphate in northern Syria.

In early November, Baghdadi called on his followers to strike inside Turkey. Within hours, the group claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the southeastern part of the country. The bombing may or may not have been the Islamic States doing. Turkish authorities blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a US-designated terrorist organization.

Then, in early January, Amaq News Agency (one of the Islamic States main propaganda arms) issued a statement saying the New Years massacre in Istanbul was the work of the groups hero soldier.

The fifth issue of the Islamic States Rumiyah (Rome) magazine, which was released in January, also celebrated the killings at Reina. Rumiyahs editors said one of the soldiers of the Khilafah struck a famous nightclub in Istanbul while the Christians were celebrating their pagan holidays inside. The jihadist responsible attacked the pagans with hand grenades as well as his assault riflein response to the order from Amirul-Muminin [Emir of the Faithful Baghdadi] to target Turkey, the servant of the Cross.

The US military now says that a key facilitator of that attack, Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, is dead.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Donald Trump slams Canada for trade practices in energy, lumber, and dairy

I wish somebody would part this fukkers hair and soon.

TORONTO  U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on cross-border trade Thursday, repeating his criticisms of Canadas dairy industry but expanding his rhetoric to condemn lumber and energy.The remarks will test the good lines of communication Canadas government says it has established with Trumps White House since the new administration took office.After signing an executive order in Washington that directs his administration to investigate whether steel imports jeopardize U.S. national security, Trump decided to repeat remarks he made earlier this week on Canadian dairy policies. He called them a disgrace to U.S. farm workers.Trump then went on to criticize Canadian policies on lumber and energy, and said that Canada, and not just Mexico, has made the North America Free Trade Agreement a disaster for our country.We cant let Canada or anybody else take advantage and do what they did to our workers and to our farmers, Trump said. And again, I want to also just mention, included in there is lumber  timber  and energy. So were going to have to get to the negotiating table with Canada very, very quickly.The dairy trade battle erupted earlier this week after Trump condemned Canadian policies during a speech to dairy farmers in Wisconsin. The U.S. dairy industry has been complaining about Canadas policies on ultrafiltered milk, an ingredient used to make cheese.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Bloomberg News that Canada will stick with its policies, despite Trumps remarks. The U.S. has a $400 million dairy surplus with Canada, so its not Canada thats the challenge here, Trudeau said, adding that many other countries subsidize agriculture. Lets not pretend were in a global free market when it comes to agriculture.Trumps heated rhetoric on Canadian trade changes a softer tone his administration has directed toward Canada since he took office in January. During the election, Trump repeatedly attacked NAFTA, but always did so in reference to the U.S. relationship with Mexico.Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, in Toronto Thursday to speak to a meeting of the Public Policy Forum, a high-level think tank, said that despite some of the rhetoric on the trade file, the Trudeau government has developed very good lines of communication with the new U.S. administration.I feel our country really gets that this is a critical moment. Its a new U.S. administration with some openly protectionist views, and I do feel we have a strong, Team Canada approach that is serving us well, Freeland said.Since the Trump administration took office, Canadian officials from all levels of government have made more than 80 trips to the U.S. and held more than 180 meetings  including a friendly get together between Trump and Trudeau in Washington in February. Following that meeting, Trump said he only wanted to tweak the U.S. relationship with Canada under NAFTA.While Canada and the U.S. enjoy the worlds largest bilateral trading relationship, with roughly $2 billion in goods and services crossing the border each day, disputes do boil over.Lumber has been a trade irritant between the two nations for generations, so its little surprise it would be singled out by Trump. Lumber was excluded from NAFTA and its predecessor, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. A nine-year lumber trade agreement signed in 2006 eased tensions, but that deal expired in 2015.Trumps decision to single out Energy seemed unusual, however. NAFTA currently grants the U.S. access to Canadian oil without import fees.Whatever Trump has in mind, his comments on dairy, lumber and energy suggest his administration is ramping up to play hardball in future NAFTA talks.Freeland, who was Canadas trade minister before being named foreign minister in January, said she understands the U.S. political position. But she insists that on dairy, Canada is in compliance with both NAFTA and the World Trade Organization rules.I understand that Wisconsin dairy farmers are unhappy. I actually talk to unhappy farmers all the time  one of them is my dad, although hes not a dairy farmer, Freeland said. Its the job of politicians to respond to some of the unhappiness of their constituents. And on dairy, we are very comfortable with our position. And I think trade lawyers agree.[youtube]9ATnaiimixM[/youtube]Canadians needs to stop their cross border shopping.. Fukk the USA. Tank all the border towns that rely on Canadian shoppers.










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Its been a hectic four days for Bob Evnen, theres no doubt about it.

Evnen, a Lincoln attorney who announced Monday his intention of running for secretary of state, wasted no time after making his declaration.

Hes been to Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney, Ogallala, North Platte, Sidney, Scottsbluff, Broken Bow, Lexington, Columbus, Norfolk and on Thursday, Fremont, speaking about the position he desires.

Evnen, 64, spent the majority of his time in Fremont speaking with a group at the L.A. Fireproof Door Co., about what he hopes to accomplish should he get elected to the position of secretary of state in 2018, currently being held by incumbent John Gale.

The upcoming election holds special significance  its the first time in 24 years that an incumbent isnt seeking re-election for the position. Gale, appointed in 2000, won four straight terms.

While other potential candidates have juggled with the idea of running for the position, Evnen isnt making it easy, garnering early support from heavy political hitters including: U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, former Governors Kay Orr and Charles Thone and U.S. Reps. Jeff Fortenberry and Don Bacon, all Republicans.

Im very, very grateful for it, Evnen said of receiving the endorsements. I was introduced at my announcement by Senator Fischer, who announced her endorsement of me at the Capitol Rotunda.

While campaigning can be tiresome, Evnen hopes it will ultimately position himself nicely come election time. Evnen does have experience working as a public servant, serving on the State Board of Education from 2005 to 2013.

This is a position that when I think about my own background, experiences and qualifications, I think that I am pretty well-suited to serve as secretary of state, Evnen said. Ive been involved in public service for a long time. I was on the State Board of Education for almost eight years.

Evnen was appointed by former Gov. Dave Heineman to the position in 2005, and was elected in 2008.

During my time on that board, I feel like we were really able to do some things that we think advanced the cause of educational achievement in Nebraska. It was very satisfying and very rewarding in that way, and I found myself looking for other ways that I can be of service to the people of the state, he said.

Being secretary of state, Evnen said, is a big basket of responsibilities. The secretary of states duties include overseeing state elections, corporate records, serving on various board, perhaps most notably the Board of Pardons.

The Board of Pardons is controlled by the secretary of state, governor and attorney general. The trio hears requests for pardons from people convicted of crimes, as well as commutation requests from inmates serving life imprisonments for murder. A pardon is granted with a majority vote, Evnen said.

Being a member of the Board of Pardons is a colossal responsibility, he said, highlighting the need for cases to be analyzed closely because public safety is of the utmost importance. To keep the public safe, people must be held accountable for the crimes they have committed, he said.

In 2015, Evnen served as the primary spokesman for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, which led the charge to pass a referendum reversing the Legislatures 2015 repeal of capital punishment.

I spoke on many occasions all over the state about the death penalty and why we should keep it on the books for the most heinous crimes committed by the most depraved criminals, he said. As part of that, I came away with the conviction that we have to put public safety first, and that would be my paramount consideration on the Pardons Board.

Another area of emphasis for Evnen, should he get elected, would be to advocate for voter identification laws to preserve the fairness and integrity of elections. While voter fraud has always been an issue in some capacity, Evnen said it appears its becoming more widespread.

For people to vote, he said, all registered voters should have their identifications confirmed and their immigration statuses confirmed. If you are not a United States citizen, by law, you should not be able to vote, he said.

They fill out the form and check the box that says they are a citizen, but there is no confirmation of that, and there is no system in place to confirm it, he said.

He believes Nebraska is doing a good job with running fair elections, however, there is no reason to wait until things turn south.

If you wait until fraud has insinuated itself into your voting system, its very difficult to irradiate, he said.

Throughout his tour, Evnen has also spent some time talking about state economic security and development.

The secretary of state is the protocol officer of the state, Evnen said. And in that sense the secretary of state is sort of like the ambassador of Nebraska to the world. When foreign leaders consider the office of secretary of state, in a state, they think of it in similar ways to the office of secretary of state of the United States. So this gives the secretary of state a certain amount of status with foreign dignitaries and foreign business people.

Because of this, Evnen wants the secretary of state to be part of the governors team with promoting international trade for Nebraska. While this already happens to a certain extent, Evnen believes more can be done.

We have $7 billion worth of exports on the average over the last four years from Nebraska, he said. And over 90 percent of that is Ag related. I really want to work to expand that, I want to work with the governors office  in the role of secretary of state  to expand that  I want to kick it up a notch in terms of participation in international trade, and the promotion of Nebraska in international trade.
Apple has a new high-flying project in the works.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is getting involved in launching satellites that would beam down broadband Internet access. Recently, Apple poached two Google satellite executives to form a new hardware team within the company. John Fenwick led Googles spacecraft operations and Michael Trela was head of satellite engineering.

The report adds that Fenwick and Trela will now report to Greg Duffy, the Dropcam founder who joined Apple earlier this year. Presumably, they will be working on a secret project to design and develop Apples own satellites.

Another recent development that points to Apples growing interest in this area is a partnership with Boeing to launch more than 1,000 low-orbit satellites. Apple has held discussions with Boeing about being an investor/partner in the project, according to Bloomberg. Furthermore, aerospace insiders believe Apple is helping fund the Boeing satellites.

Its not hard to discern why Apple might want to consider a satellite constellation.

Its not hard to discern why Apple might want to consider a satellite constellation, wrote Tim Farrar, a satellite consultant at TMF Associates. SpaceX alone could generate $30 billion in revenue from satellite Internet by 2025.

Why this matters: A world with better access to faster, low-latency Internet will definitely help Apples future. It would help increase the demand for the iPhone in emerging markets, and also help make connected homes the next big thing.

There are a few caveats, however. Satellite-beamed Internet from the sky has long been a dream for major tech companies, including Google and Facebook, which would also benefit from a more-connected world. But launching a fleet of satellites has proven to be expensive and risky, and many satellite companies have gone out of business as a result.

Its entirely possible that Apple hired the ex-Googlers to work on a project thats more down to earth. Duffys experience is more in consumer products and image-capturing, so perhaps Apples new hardware team could be creating drones for improving Maps, and thus replacing the camera-equipped minivans.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2017 > Remembering Anuradha on her 63rd Birth Anniversary

Noted Leftist intellectual Anuradha Ghandy was born on March 28, 1954 and died on April 12, 2008 shortly after her 54th birthday. In this piece, written on March 28, 2017, her husband and Leftist thinker Kobad Ghandy remembers her on her 63rd birth anniversary. He has sent this piece from the Cherlapalli Central Jail, Cherlapalli, Medchal district, Hyderabad where he is currently lodged.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but those who watch without doing anything. Albert Einstein

Anu took this to heart and lived and died working tirelessly so that good could prevail over evil. Born to communist parents on March 28, 1954, she was brought up in an atmosphere which valued honesty, justice and hard work. While her father was a straight-forward lawyer, her mother had been active in social work still a decade back (now she is 89). While her only brother, Sunil, is a renowned progressive theatre director with many creative popular plays to his credit, Anu followed the path of her parents.

Anus life was snatched away barely a fortnight after her 54th birthday (April 12, 2008), a victim of the unscrupulous medical profession. She had just spent a couple of weeks in the Jharkhand forests taking classes on womens rights and patriarchy among tribal women activists. It is reported that within those few days the young tribals grew so attached to her that they had tears in their eyes as Anu walked away into the horizon, tripping and falling on the stony terrain due to her artheritic knees. Little did they realise she would be no more within a few days.

Immediately on returning to Mumbai she fell ill. Fearing falciperum malaria, which is rampant in Jharkhand, she immediately did a blood test at a nearby pathological lab. The report was negative. But, when I returned to Mumbai after a few days we did another test at a big hospital. The report was positive, but by then it was too late. Falciperum is easily curable, but has to be detected and treated immediately; otherwise it is fatal. So, that pathological lab was directly responsible for her death due to its incorrect (or false) report.

Though it amounts to murder, does any police, court or government ever take action against such unscrupulous elements? But Anu is not a lone victim, lakhs and lakhs are killed, maimed, paralysed each year by this murderous nexus of pharma companies, doctors, hospitals and labs. Earlier what was a noble profession (and there are still some in the profession who work in the same spirit) has been converted into Indias biggest killer-machine due to the government policy of making fortunes off peoples suffering. Right from the time of the medical education (a la the Vyapam scam), where lakhs are extracted by the politico-education mafia, to the privatisation of every conceivable aspect of healthcarethe govern-ment spends a mere one per cent on healthcare, the lowest in the worldit is now the biggest money-spinner in the country. And the govern-ment ensures a rich market for these vampires by creating an entire country of sick people through the pollution of water, food, air, soil, everything!! No wonder the largest number of billionaires in India are from the health sector21 out of the total 132 billionaires ($).

Be that as it may, this mafia snatched away a precious life at a young agea model socio-political activist, an exemplary example of womens liberation, a popular mass leader, a dedicated educator/teacher and, above all, a true patriot who worked selflessly for the oppressed of our country.

Let us thus, on this occasion, look at the varied facets of the life of this noble being.

Anu and Patriotism

Anu realised that nice words like freedom and democracy are meaningless unless combined with freedom from want, freedom from patriarchy, freedom from casteist terror, freedom from communal apartheid etc. etc.in short, freedom to live a life with self-respect and dignity for all.

She observed that even after decades of independence, the goals for which her parents and others fought were still an illusion. In fact since the neo-liberal policies of the 1990s, the conditions have further worsened. While earlier patriotism was associated with the fight against British rule, post-1947 it is linked to the liberation of our starving masses from all forms of oppression.

So from a young age Anu became an activist struggling against injustice. When in Elphinstone College, besides being a brilliant student, she took up many college issues as a student leader. Later, as a sociology lecturer, first in Mumbai colleges and then at Nagpur University, she continued her activities in the institutions, but now her focus was on slum dwellers, Dalits, unorganised labour etc.

She lived a frugal life, active from early morning till late at night. In Nagpur she would cycle over 20 kms from our residence in Indora basti to the University for her lectures, then from afternoon to late evening she would be active in bastis, workers colonies etc. and at night she would prepare for lectures or study/write on social issues. Her entire movements were on cycle or bus, that too in the Nagpur heat. And she did all this with so much liveliness and cheerfulness, never saw it as a burden. In Nagpur she soon emerged as a well-known mass leader and an authority on Dalit issues and caste oppression. Yet, her interests were multifaceted, being well versed in theatre, literature and progressive films.

Today, when there is so much debate on nationalism/patriotism, one needs to look at Anus life to see what it really entails in a post-independence India. No nation can be really proud of itself when, 70 years after independence, everything from defence equipment to soaps, toothpaste, mobiles are made by foreign-owned/controlled companies, and even when our Vice-President laments that the richest one per cent have claim to 60 per cent of the countrys wealth, and the bottom 50 per cent to two per cent. Anu sought a stake in Indias independence for this 50 per cent. Anu knew that real patriotism meant the flourishing of the 99 per cent; not just the top one per cent.

Anu and Freedom

Real freedom must necessarily be linked to the innate goodness in men. The factor of goodness is essential as ones individual freedom should not act to deprive/curtail others/another of their freedom. If it is associated with evil, it will restrict others freedom. On the other hand, if linked to good, ones awakening to freedom would be contagiousimpacting ones entire circle. In addition, freedom and happiness should be intrinsically linked as the final goal of all activities should be greater happiness. Freedom, equality, justice etc. are all pathways to the goal of happiness for the majority.

To be ones natural self, as Anu was, is the starting-point of a persons freedom. Anu, with her straightforwardness and frankness, was an example how one can move towards freedom. Most of us bind ourselves in thousands of complexities, always playing to the gallery, never being ourselves, covering up our flaws etc.in short, live life deeply alienated from ourselves. Rather than being free we become prisoners of our situation. Such a person will only fuel such an atmosphere (of lack of freedom) in any organisation or surrounding.

Anu, on the other hand, had the least compexities, and her innate naturalnesss resulted in a relaxed atmosphere for those around her (people need not be on guard) where everyone could be themselves. Anu generally brought a fresh breeze of freedom wherever she went.

Anu and Truth

Indias motto is Satyameva JayateTruth shall Prevail. To start with, in our country this motto is itself the biggest untruth, as we can see falsehood, dishonesty, deceit prevail. Not surprising, as Chanakya said centuries back: A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people victimised first.

But, truth and honesty are a pre-requisite for creating a new just order. Often, communists think that as their goals are just, so to resort to duplicity (in the supposed interest of the move-ment) is legitimate. This is, of course, short-sighted, as though it may give some immediate results; in the long term there will be no basic change.

Anu was, in fact, the epitome of truth. Pretences, hypocrisy, deceit, cunning, manipu-lativeness were totally inconceivable to her. Anu would frankly speak what she thought, believed, felt. There was no question of putting on an act, playing games etc. That was why she was normally at ease and put others at ease. She was an extremely principled person. It is in an unjust system/environment that Truth and Principles are the first to be sacrificed at the altar of power.

Anu and Love

Anu was one of the most lovable persons due to her naturalness and child-like behaviour. She would be equally liked by progressive people as by those who differed with her. Besides social and Marxist themes, her keen interest in varied facets of life and her extensive knowledge (she had a good memory) made her an interesting and lively person.

Of course, there are two aspects to lovelove for ones fellow beings and sex-love.

First, let us consider love for ones fellow beings. The excruciating suffering of the masses in India cannot but move a person to action, however limited. Altruism and a deep empathy for the oppressed and suffering is inevitable for any humanist and/or socialist/communist. Most activists start with such empathy; but slowly this goes into the background and intellectual baggage, organisational activities and routinism tend to come to the forefront. One blatant example of this in India has been the communists attitude to Dalit/caste oppression. For decades, involved in the class-caste debate, they were blind to the horrific terror perpetrated daily on Dalits; it is unimaginable to think such inhuman and medieval behaviour could be ignored by those seeking socio-economic justice. Obviously, empathy had totally ceased to exist, and for such people love for ones fellow human beings (here Dalits) was subsumed by intellectual play. For Anu, in the 1970s and 1980s itself her heart went out to the Dalit cause supporting the four great Dalit movements that shook Maharashtra. At that time such support was anathema to most communists, though many sought to co-opt them and turn them into decent class movements. Though Anu was quick to support their cause due to her innate stand against injustice, it did not end there. This was followed by a deep study and brilliant analysis of the Dalit/caste question in India.

Love for humanity cannot be neutral where the tyrant is put on the same plane as the sufferer. The heart and mind need a deep connectivity to make the love meaningful. In India, many a communist, arrogant about their superiority of Marxism, often tend to view life through formulae, negating the heart, emotions and feelings, turning the person into a robot-like being. On the other hand, many an NGO do the Oppositehave deep empathy for the suffering, but are unprepared to seek its root cause. The former tends to see the woods (system) and not the trees (individuals); the latter sees only the trees but miss the woods. Anus warmth and depth of feeling was combined with a sharp intellect, giving an excellent balance between heart and mind.

Now if we turn to the second aspect of lovesex-love, Anu was a truly liberated person unconstrained by the thousands of invisible threads of patriarchy/feudalism which tend to bind even progressive people in India with archaic social mores. On this issue we tend to have two extremes hereat one end womens liberation is promoted as the vulgarity associated with Western culture; at the other end its opponents (both Hindutvavadis and Islamists) promote the mother image or sati-savitri culture. In fact both are two sides of the same coin of commodifying womenthe former as sex-objects, the latter as children-producing machines. Anu strongly felt that women had their own feelings, emotions, desires which need to be respected, and patriarchal relations, however subtle, tend to suppress these. Speaking on such issues from her heart, it was no wonder she endeared herself to the young tribal activists in Jharkhand.

Anu and Passion

Any task Anu did or any interaction with others she did with a passion. She would get deeply immersed in anything she did, even if it was the most minor task, and take it up with both responsibility and enjoyment. I am sure no one can forget watching Anu eat a meal she relishedshe went at it with such passion, resembling a child eating an ice-cream. But a similar passion and involvement was seen in any task she took upbe it organising, teaching, lecturing, studyingand any relation she established, Delay, postponement, procrasti-nation, unpunctuality were unthinkable, as were superficiality, aloofness and routinism. For example, in spite of her hectic social activities, she would never miss a lecture nor go unprepared. In organisational work she could always be relied upon to finish any task on time. In her interactions she was generally dynamic, lively, cheerful, yet not frivolous.

The only sphere she neglected was attention to her health, though she had developed painful arthritis in both knees and had been detected with systemic sclerosis.

Anu and Simplicity

Anu had little or no complexities. In spite of being a well-known figure she never put on airs. As already seen, cunning and duplicity were just not part of her nature; yet by no stretch of imagination was she naive. She had an excellent combination of simplicity with perceptiveness; straighforwardness with intellectual sharpness.

In India, with our Chanakya culture, simplicity is seen as foolishness, while the clever ones tend to rule the roost with their retinue of charlatans and flatterers (mostly sub-standard). An organiser with street-smartness often gets quick results, but those attracted may not be the best elements. With the Anu-type simplicity one may not get immediate results, but those attracted are likely to be far more genuine. Have we not witnessed even powerful movements crumble overnight like a pack or cards?

Anu and Naturalness

Anu never lost her child-like simplicity through all the vicissitudes of the movement and her academic life. This was no easy task, specifically for a woman in Indias feudal-dominated culture. To sustain such simple values became even more difficult as time passed, particularly after the 1990s, with society turning more and more selfish and self-centred. The retreat of socialism and communism worldwide added to the vileness all around, something which is reaching peak levels today. The values we witnessed in the 1960s and 1970s we cannot even dream of today. This sea-change is to be even witnessed in the Indian films/songs of that period and those post-1990.

How then was Anu able to sustain her naturalness, innocence and simplicity in an increasingly alien environment? Besides her innate goodness and the support she received from many an honest and sincere cadre, as also from the masses, the reasons were mainly twofirst, she never aspired for post and pelf, whether in the organisational sphere or in her academic life; so there was no need to resort to tricks to climb any ladder. Second, her commitment and high sense of responsibility and discipline resulted in her ability to excel with ease. Those with superficiality, inefficiency, irresponsibility etc. and yet aspiring for posts, favours, impor-tance are the ones who tend to resort to all forms of chicanery, flattery, manipulativeness, one-upmanship, vindictiveness, duplicity etc. in order to push others down and push themselves up the ladder. The latters commitment to the masses and country is generally partial as it comes with a caveatself-promotion.

Anus naturalness remained with her till the very end. Her every emotion, feeling, desire was reflected like a mirror. When hurt she would easily cry, when angry her face would get flushed, and, of course, when cheerful and happy her eyes would dance around like a bird. No doubt the appreciation she got from many a genuine activist, helped her sustain the beauty of her innocence,

AnuA person of the Future

On this, her 63rd birth anniversary, I write this not to praise her, but to remember her as a model for those seeking to create a new society built on justice, freedom and equality. No doubt she had her shortcomingsshe was only humanbut it is the positives from which one can learn. This is particularly important today when the rulers worldwide have reached the drags of social rot, when humanity is being strangulated, when culture is fostered through hate and criminality, when even nature (environment) is being raped and destroyed and when the masses die like fleas due to hunger, starvation, disease, pollution..... Worse still, the rot has reached so deep that many are beginning to lose hope. They see no light at the end of the tunnel; darkness appears to develop all aspects of life.

And with the Animal Farm Syndrome dominating the 20th century, when the leaders of the new societies are beginning to mimic the old, the guarantee for a bright future becomes even dimmer.

In this depressing scenario Anus life comes as a beacon of light, and a hope that good can finally prevail over evil. The fact that her memorial meetings have been held in Mumbai every year since her death, is an indication of that flickering hope. But one lesson from the 20th century failures is that no new just order can be built merely on economic, politics, organisation etc.; it requires primarily a new set of values in order to sustain it. And herein lies the importance of an Anu. Let her life be a tiny atom for a new explosion of freedom and happiness.

(March 28, 2017)
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2017 > Radhika Vemula on Bhim Auto, Let us Light a Candle for Rohith

This article was the written at the beginning of last month and carried in kafila.online from where it is being reproduced with due acknowledgement.

..The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote.To a number.To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust.In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.

....My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

Excerpts from Rohith Vemulas suicide note)

The middle of this month would witness a different type of Yatra on the streets of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Neither would it be led by high-profile leaderswho have the aura of Z plus security with themnor would it be undertaken in an ultramodern bus fitted with latest facilities and which could even be used as a podium for a public meeting.

It would be taken out on a blue pickup truck renamed Bhim Autoand would be led by a fifty- year old woman, Radhika Vemula, along with her son, Raja, demanding justice for her elder son, Rohith. During this Yatra Radhika intends to visit one Velivada (Dalit hamlet) after another in these two States to tell the people how casteiest forces are hell-bent upon denying Dalits their due rights and how justice is still being denied to her son who committed suicide because of the machinations of such people. (http://nsi-delhi. blogspot.in/search/?q=rohith+vemula) She would also communicate to them that not only the ruling dispensation at the Centre led by the BJP but the State governments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been callous towards the plight of the Dalits and have joined hands to deny justice to her son. Sometime ago the Government of Andhra Pradesh had made outrageous statements about Rohith not being a Dalit and even earlier in February had demanded that Radhika prove in 15 days that she was a Dalit. Speaking at a rally in Bengaluru RadhikaVemula announced her plan in detail.

On March 14, Raja (her other son) and I will start the Dalit Swabhiman Rath Yatra. We will travel across Telangana and Andhra for a month and conclude it on Ambedkar Jayanti (April 14). We will try and cover every Dalitwada (Dalit settlement) in these two States. She also exhorted the audience [t]o revisit what Rohith used to say the radical Ambedkar for liberation of Dalits. (http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rohith-vemula-s-mother-announces-dalit-rath-yatra-in-telangana-andhra/story-9uKlANIBSDU-VovfS66U67N.html)

She plans to raise two key demands through this awakening programme:

 Sacking of Hyderabad University Vice- Chancellor and his prosecution under the SC/ST Atrocities Act.

 Passage of the Rohith Act aimed at stopping discrimination in educational institutions.

Today Radhika Vemula might have become a household name for her uncompromising struggle to render justice to her deceased son but a year-and-two-months back not many peoplebarring those from her own village and surroundingshad even heard her name. The mass upsurge which erupted immediately after Rohiths death, demanding justice to him and the manner in which she joined the ongoing struggle, has helped her emerge as a symbol of resistance against the dispensation at the Centre. And she has not kept her concerns confined to her deceased son only. She was there when thousands of Dalits and other anti-caste forces and democratic formations gathered in Una, Gujarat on August 15 to demand land to Dalits, she joined Fatima Naseem, mother of JNU student Najeeb, whose sudden disappearance after a scuffle with the members of the ABVP on the JNU campus has become a cause of concern.

2.

It has been more than a year that Rohith Radhika Vemulas elder sonended his life but there have been no concrete steps to ensure justice to him. We know how this activist of the Ambedkar Students Associationwho had started his political journey with a Left student grouphad decided to take the extreme step, how a biased administration, with due connivance of a Rightwing student formation and support from representatives of the Central Government, continued to play havoc with the lives of Dalit students, how it expelled them from hostels, how it stopped their scholarships, how it was instrumental in compelling them to live on Velivada of a different kind on the campus.

Podile Apparao, the controversial Vice- Chan-cellor of the Hyderabad Central University, who had to leave office temporarily in the immediate aftermath of the movement, has since resumed his duties. And an all-out attempt is being made to silence all dissenting voices on the campus. The authorities are so keen to mute all such opposition voices that they did not even allow a rally of students, youth led by RadhikaVemula to enter the university campus and pay their homage to Rohith on his first death anniversary (January 17, 2017). All those students and concerned citizens were arrested at the gates of the Hyderabad University itself. Perhaps the authorities feared that if they are allowed to get in then it can as well rekindle the mass uprising which had rocked the campus last year.

While justice still seems to elude Rohith, the only saving grace is that bowing to tremendous public pressure put up by the mass movement of students and youth, cases have been filed under the strict provisions of the SC/ST Act, 1989 against all those who supposedly had a role in the whole episode. We are told that Podile Apparao and two Central Ministers do find mention in the FIR filed in the particular case. It is a different matter that things have stood still since then. And there has been no action against them.

What has further added urgency to the whole case is the planned manner in which attempts are on even today to deny Rohith his identity as a Dalit and portray him as basically a cheat and fraud and not a radical activist.(http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/9/margin-speak/robbing-rohith-his-dalitness.html) The logic is simple : deny Dalithood to Rohith, and thus dilute the case filed against all those people who find mention in the concerned FIR. The authorities have tried every trick in their kitty to deny him his identity and instead portray him as a member of the backward Vaddera caste, to which his fatherwho had deserted his mother long ago belonged. The latest in the case is the manner in which it was declared that Raja, Rohiths younger brother, had submitted a false certificate to prove that he was a Dalit.

It is clear that the powers that be have deliberately glossed over the historic judgement by a two-member Supreme Court Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Desai which deliberated on the caste of the offspring in an inter-caste marriage where the mother happens to be belonging to one of the Scheduled Castes. It had clearly opined that the determination of the caste of such a child was essentially a question of fact to be decided on the basis of evidence in each case. The child can claim the mothers caste if he or she is brought up by the mother as an SC or ST.

In a marriage between a tribal woman and a forward casteman, the offspring will get tribal status if the child is brought up in the mothers environment and will be entitled to reservation, the Supreme Court had held.

Though earlier judgments of this Court said that in an inter-caste marriage between a tribal woman and a non-tribal, the woman must in all cases take her caste from the husband, these were not binding precedents, said the Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Desai.

Writing the judgment, Justice Alam said: To hold that the offspring of such a marriage would in all cases get his/her caste from the father is bound to give rise to serious problem. (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/intercaste-child-can-get-st-status-if-raised-in-mothers-tribal-environs/article2821924.ece)

Perhaps the matter should have ended at that but it still simmers, thanks to their machinations.

3.

The authorities are not even bothered about how Rohith self-identified himself as a Dalit in his last video. (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/i-am-a-dalit-says-rohith-vemula-video-before-suicide-3088768/) The video was released by his comrades since many questions were being raised about his caste. In the video Rohith Vemula clearly says: My name is Rohith Vemula. I am a Dalit from Guntur. Jai Bheem to all. I am a student of UoH since 2010. I am doing Ph.D in the Social Science Department. The university has decided to suspend five Dalit students and they have expelled us from the hostel premises. They have said that the notice that we were served says that our presence in public places, hostel premises and adminis-tration building can be treated as criminal acts. I am the son of a daily wage labourer and my mother raised me.

The mischievous manner in which the retired Justice Roopanwal Commissionwhich was formed to look into the casedeclared that Rohith was not a Dalit clearly transgressing its brief was also more than transparent. In fact the one-man commission had been assigned two specific tasks via a proper notification:

 Examining the circumstances and facts, which led to the death of Ph.D scholar Rohith Vemula, and bringing the perpetrator, if any, to task.

 To review the functioning of the grievance committee and suggest measures for its improvement.

A cursory glance at the 12 pages of the judgement report of the committee makes it clear that four of its pages were devoted to declare the caste of Rohith Vemula and this despite the fact that it was not even asked to give an opinion about his caste nor was the judge the competent authority to do so. The retired Justice clearly glossed over the fact that Guntur District Collector Kantilal Dande had already communicated to the National Commission on Scheduled Castes that Rohith was a Dalit. Based on the inputs by the District Collector and all related documents, the National Commision on Scheduled Castes had also clearly declared that Rohith was a Dalit. P.L. Punia, its then Chairman, had even demanded strict action under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against all those who compelled Rohith to end his life.

The powers that be did not want to take any chances.

Perhaps looking at the growing controversy around the determination of Rohiths caste and their dubious role to deny Rohith his due, the vested interests planned another move. One Darsanpu Srinivas, who himself is a Dalit but belongs to some Hindu organisation, was asked to file a complaint to the Guntur Collector regarding Raja Vemula. Darsanpu approached the Guntur Collector with the complaint that Raja had obtained his caste certificate by fraudulent means. It is difficult to understand why the same Collector, who had already confirmed Rohiths caste, sent the complaint to the Caste Scrutiny Committee of the district for verification. And this district level committee came out with a report that Raja was not a Dalit.

4.

Anybody can gather that the stakes are really high for the dispensation at the Centre. Imagine one fine morning they have a change of heart and they decide to admit the Dalithood of Rohith Vemula; then what would happen? Under the strict provisions of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, actions will have to be initiated against all those peoplewho included Central Ministers tooagainst whom FIR had been filed.

And this possibility looks remote.

Taking into consideration all the aspects of the particular case the powers that be seem to have resolved that Rohiths Dalithood could wait for a few more years.

On further probing one understands that it is not merely a question of Rohith alone and the manner in which this whole episode has exposed the anti-Dalit content of the Hindutva worldview. There are instances after instances where this facet of their politics has come to the fore again and again. Ranging from the banning of a student group Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle to the (http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/search/?q=ambedkar+periyar+ study+ circle) to the demolition of Ambedkar Bhavan (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/mumbais-ambedkar-bhavan-demolition-from-left-to-right-leaders-join-protest-2924596/) to the way they tried to hush up the rape and murder of a Dalit girl, Delta Meghwal (https://sabrangindia.in/article/real-story-behind-rape-and-killing-dalit-girl-student-delta-meghwal) or the planned manner in which they tried to axe the admission policy of JNU which had made the entry rule for deprived students easier. (https://www.telegraphindia. com/11a70102/jsp/nation/story_128075.jsp#.WL-HlG997IU), a random selection of news clippings makes it evident that whatever might be their pretensions, they are Manuvadi to the core.

It was not for nothing that they decided to raise the whole bogey of nationalism focussing themselves on JNU with a pliant mediaready with doctored videoseven to further their agenda just when the movement around Justice for Rohith was at its peak. Remember, it was a time when the government had been put on the defensive because of the large-scale churning among the students, youth as well as broad sections of the Dalit masses.

5.

Looking at the ambience in the country and the way the powers that be seem determined not to listen to the demands of aggrieved sections, it is not difficult to predict what would be the outcome of this Dalit Swabhiman Rath Yatra. A layperson can even predict whether the demand for Justice to Rohith and enactment of the Rohith Act would be fulfilled or not. But it is difficult to hazard a guess whether the onward journey of this ordinary looking woman would help rekindle a similar mass movement across campuses to pressurise the powers that be to listen to the voices of the humiliated and the marginalised.

The victory of the struggle or its continuation, one thing is certain: that the justness of the cause which Radhika Vemula represents and the indomitable manner in which she has persistedthanks to the grand support she has received from concerned individuals and various Left, Ambedkarite and democratic organisations has already delivered a moral victory to her against the unholy trinity of insensitive and biased university administration, duly supported by people in power at the Centre and a brigade of violent young lumpens who, with all their acts and analyses, seemed to imitate the storm- troopers of the Nazi era.

Rohith might be dead but the cause for which he fought remains incomplete.

The question arises as to what people like usstudents, youth, members of the academia and other concerned citizens, who are keen that justice should be ensured to Rohith and who are themselves under the onslaught of various typescan do in this unfolding situation.

We should remember one thing. Hindutva supremacists have reached the citadel of power on their own for the first time but they are not going to remain there forever. If we join hands and launch united struggles it would be difficult for them to curb all such voices. Perhaps the issue of Justice for Rohith could be a starting-point once again.

Let us resolve to light a candle in Rohiths memory wherever we are and raise our voice in unison remembering a Chinese proverb which says:

Earth sticks to earth and makes a wall

Poor people stick to poor people and overthrow a kingdom.

(Courtesy: kafila.online)

Subhash Gatade is a writer and Left activist who is associated with the New Socialist Initiative.
A 22-year-old woman whose black lab starved to death in a kennel was given a chance on probation Thursday for abandoning or cruelly neglecting an animal resulting in injury or death.

Leslie Byron had pleaded no contest.

Im sorry, she said, dabbing away her tears with a tissue before Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson sentenced her to two years of probation, plus 250 hours of community service.

She also prohibited Byron from owning or living with any animal for 15 years, the maximum she could on the charge, which the prosecutor had sought.

Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Charlie Byrd said the dog, Diamond, suffered for a number of days if not weeks before dying of starvation and dehydration.

Last year, Lincoln police sought the communitys help in finding the owner of a dog found dead in a kennel near 37th and South streets, and Byron came forward to say it was her 3-year-old dog, Diamond. At a plea hearing in January, Byrd said Byron told police her mom wouldnt let the dog stay at her house and a landlord kicked Diamond out of a rental, so she left the dog in a crate. She told police she visited and fed her for a while, but then she got busy and didnt return for three weeks and found the dog dead on Feb. 29, 2016.

At sentencing, Deputy Lancaster County Public Defender Jennifer Houlden said in Byrons own words, this is the worst thing shes ever done. Houlden said she had lost her grandmother, was abusing alcohol and severely depressed at the time.

But shes since sought counseling and was subjected to harassment and threats from the community as a result of what happened.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2017 > Behind Chinas Outbursts on Dalai Lamas trip to Arunachal Pradesh

After the debacle at the hands of the Chinese in 1962, I went to Bum La Pass from where the Dalai Lama had entered India to seek asylum. His land, Tibet, had been occupied by the Chinese who also destroyed their culture. The Chinese imposed communism and had no respect for either the Dalai Lama or his monastery. The Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh has brought back memories of the days when the Chinese annexed Tibet. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first Prime Minister, did not raise any objection because he was then on friendly terms with Chinese Premier Zhou-Enlai.

True, Tibet was under the suzerainty of Beijing but the autonomy of Tibet was considered unviolable. Suzerainty means a government exercising political control over a dependent state. Suzerainty does not translate into absorption. Tibet was not even a part of China but India agreed to the suzerainty part. Beijing betrayed Nehru further when in 1954 it made Dalai Lamas stay in Lhasa impossible. The biggest betrayal was when China attacked India eight years later.

The Dalai Lamas visit may not have raised doubts about Tibet but it has renewed the debate of its annexation by Beijing once again. The Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh a few days ago despite Chinas warning to India that his visit would affect the normal relations between the two countries.

It is heartening to see that India did not pay any attention and went ahead to bless his visit. But I cannot understand why Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had to emphasise that the Dalai Lamas visit was purely religious. It is up to the Dalai Lama to describe what took him on a week-long trip to Arunachal.

The rift between India and China is all about the latters claim over Arunachal Pradesh. China had for long been claiming this Indian State to be its territory and referring it to be the abode of the spiritual leader. Hence, the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunchal would not be in its interest because they regard him as a separatist.

As for Kiren Rijijus remarks, he says that China was trying to project the Dalai Lama as a political person. We dont have any intention of engaging with the Dalai Lama so as to irritate China, says the Minister. The spiritual leader, during his week-long stay, is expected to conduct religious discourses in Tawang, Bomdila and other areas of Arunachal Pradesh.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the spiritual leader had visited Arunachal Pradesh six times beforebetween 1983 and 2009. Rijiju thinks that no artificial controversy should be created over his present visit because he is considered as Indias guest. The Minister is also expected to accompany the Dalai Lama during his trip as the latter will be consecrating a gompa (Buddhist place of learning) at Rijijus native village, Nafra.

Chinas problems with India have its roots in the British demarcation of the India-China border. Even today, China refuses to acknowledge the MacMahon Line that demarcates Arunachal Pradesh to be a part of India. Any activity that takes place in this area is viewed sceptically by the Chinese soldiers. Visits from Indian diplomats and government authorities have always caused the issue to flare up.

For instance, the Dalai Lamas visit to Tawang to address his followers irritated China to no end. And any person with even a little knowledge of the India-China-Tibet problem knows that Beijing has always had a love-hate relationship with the Dalai Lama. Another issue that irked the Chinese was the huge voter turnout of the local people in the State elections.

It was reported in 2009 that the voter turnout was almost 72 per cent in the Assembly elections that year. China had also opposed the then Defence Minister A.K. Anthonys visit to Aruna-chal Pradesh. They even went on to openly question Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to the State. Although the then Prime Minister was not named, he was the subject of a veiled criticism. The Chinese mouthpiece called his visit as an audacious and reckless move.

It is difficult to understand why New Delhi bends over backward to please Beijing, be it in the cases of stapling of visas, or the treatment meted out to Indian traders in China. Some years ago, an Air Force officer was denied a visa to China because he belonged to Arunachal Pradesh. The government did not voice its protest and instead dropped the officer from a military delegation that went to Beijing. The delegations strength was just reduced to 15 from 30. There is news that during the border talks, the Chinese representatives asked India to tell how much of Arunachal Pradesh it was willing to part with.

Silence seems to have become New Delhis policy. India is a mute spectator to yet another uprising crushed in Tibet. Any protest in Tibet aimed at preserving the indigenous culture is taken by Beijing as a mischief perpetrated by the Dalai Lama. This is invariably followed by more cruelty. Clashes between ethnic Tibetan protesters and the Chinese police had led to the death of protesters, apart from landing many in jail in the past.

Buddhism, which is at its strongest and purest form in Tibet, is akin to Hinduism, a religion which 80 per cent of Indians profess. The Nalanda University, which is being revived at its old site in Bihar, will trace how Buddhism broke off from its mother religion, Hinduism, and became a separate religion. Yet the bond between Hinduism and Buddhism remains intact. Lord Buddha is considered one of the gods that the Hindus worship.

While China has often called on countries not to host the Dalai Lama, it has adopted a different approach towards India, knowing well how sentimentally Hindus are attached to Buddhism and the Dalai Lama. Beijing wants him to be confined to Dharamshala where he and his followers have been settled since 1959. That China has been more than successful goes without saying. That the Dalai Lama has still visited Arunachal Pradesh goes to show New Delhis military strength. It was a different story in 1962 when the soldiers did not even have shoes for a mountain combat.

The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has strongly raised the Trump Administration's move to tighten the H-1B visa programmes with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, highlighting the key role played by highly-skilled Indian professionals in boosting American economy. President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its "abuse" and ensure that the visas are given to the "most-skilled or highest paid" petitioners. The Indian IT industry has expressed serious concerns over the US' move to tighten the rules for grant of H-1B visa, mainly used by domestic IT professionals for short-term work.

Taking up the case of Indian IT companies and professionals, Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly-skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries, officials said. During the meeting -- the first cabinet-level interaction between the two countries under the Trump Administration -- Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on it yet, they said.

Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administration's objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly-skilled professionals. The executive order signed by Trump early this week calls for a review of H-1B visas by the departments of State, Labour, Homeland Security and Justice. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. Indian technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year for their US operations.PTI
COLLINSVILLEMichael Randolph Stowe will serve 2 1/2 years years in prison after being sentenced in connection with the sexual assault and battery of a girl less than 13 years old.

The Axton resident, who pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery of a girl less than 13, was sentenced Wednesday in Henry County Circuit Court. All total, Stowe was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with 17 1/2 suspended on conditions including indefinite probation, counseling and no contact with anyone under 18, the victim or her family and no unsupervised Internet access.

The case stems from a series of incidents between June 21, 2015 and Aug. 13, 2016. The prosecution claimed that Stowe made the girl, who was 9 years old during that time, watch pornographic videos and inappropriately touched her on multiple occasions.

HENRY COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT

Also in Henry County Circuit Court, Shelby Lee Coleman, 19, and Erica Nicole Taylor, 29, both of Ridgeway, each pleaded no contest to robbery (which the prosecution reduced from robbery with a dangerous weapon). A judge found Coleman and Taylor guilty of that charge, ordered a presentence report and set sentencing for July 26.

The prosecution nolle prossed (dropped but could reinstate) a charge of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony against Coleman and Taylor.

A third co-defendant, Gary Thomas Taylor II, 23, of Ridgeway, is scheduled to be tried on April 28. He is charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

The two Taylors and Coleman are charged in an incident on Oct. 8, 2016. According to a criminal complaint, the Taylors are brother and sister, and Coleman was Gary Taylors girlfriend at the time of the alleged incident.

The prosecution claims that Jamel Hill, who had rented a room at a motel in Collinsville, woke up about 4 or 4:30 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2016, when he was hit with an object and then felt the muzzle of a firearm on the back of his head. A male voice told Hill not to move, and Hill didnt because he was scared of what the man might do with the gun. Hill heard rustling around the room and what sounded like girls yelling and screaming. Shoes were taken off his feet, a gold watch from his arm and a chain from around his neck. Then Hill heard everyone leave and the door slam shut.

Hill waited a bit, then looked for his cell phone so he could call police. Unable to find his cell phone, Hill went to the owners office, but the owner would not let him in. So Hill went to the motel next door, used the phone and called the police. Eventually, Hill found his wallet (which contained $60 in cash and a couple of credit cards), Nike shoes worth $175 and a cell phone worth $300. His gold watch and gold chain worth $320 were missing.

Later, when Hill saw motel surveillance footage, he allegedly identified Erica Taylor and Gary Taylor. Hill said he had worked with both of them before. He did not know a dark-headed woman in the video. At some point, Hill looked at his bank account and noticed $120 was missing from his account.

Investigator M.M. Price of the Henry County Sheriffs Office watched the motel surveillance footage, which showed two people walking down a hallway toward a room. They were identified as Gary Taylor and Coleman. As Gary Taylor moved toward the room, he allegedly pulled something that looked like a firearm from the back of his pants. Coleman stood near the doorway, allegedly coming in and out. About 1 minute and 13 seconds into the video, Erica Taylor ran toward the room and then she and Coleman allegedly entered the room.

About 1 minute and 46 seconds into the video, Erica Taylor allegedly ran from the room with something in her hand and Coleman allegedly followed with what looked like a chain in her hand. Taylor and Coleman returned to the room empty handed. They left the room again around 2 minutes and 57 seconds into the video. Gary Taylor allegedly exited the room about 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the video with a gun in his right hand as he slammed the door and left.

Erica Taylor then allegedly headed to a store on Virginia Avenue, entered the store about 5:05 a.m. and went to the ATM machine. Surveillance footage showed her putting a card into the machine and eventually receiving money and a receipt before leaving the store.

In addition to the charges mentioned above, Erica Taylor was charged with felonious credit card theft, which the prosecution nolle prossed (dropped but could reinstate) and misdemeanor credit card fraud, to which she pleaded no contest. A judge found her guilty of misdemeanor credit card fraud and set sentencing for July 26.

Paul Collins reports for the Martinsville Bulletin and can be reached at .
We need the Senior Center

This letter is to remind people how important the Senior Center is to seniors here in the city of Martinsville. The center provides much more than transportation. Fellowship, spiritual uplifting and togetherness are also found at the senior center.

Its hard for people who have family, money, two or three cars and havent reached the senior stage to understand the importance of those much-needed services provided by the center. Many seniors are alone and they need a place to be with other people.

Needing a ride to the grocery store is a need for some senior citizens because some dont drive and some dont have a car to drive. I know for a fact that a ride for some to get their food is necessary. I dont understand the humor that some people find in people needing a ride to the grocery store. Its no laughing matter.

I hope that members of the city council will remember that they will be seniors one day. Imagine how it would be to have no place for recreation, socialization or a meal. Imagine having those things taken away. Seniors dont have many choices. The senior center is so important because of the services it provides. I am concerned about what will happen without its help. Im hoping that people in all walks of life will join me in praying for the senior center and its services not to be cut.

I know that sincere prayer can move a mountain, so please everybody, join me as I humbly submit this request to God and people. Please dont let us lose the senior center; we need it.

Mary Farris

Martinsville

School district needs funding

It seems that educational systems are always struggling. It is the reality that economic cuts are the root of these struggles. But in the world of education you cant be satisfied with the idea of sacrificing the school needs of the present because it will affect the future outcomes of student performance. Educating our children brings value to our lives, not only to future generations. The goal of political grandstanding is to project the self which creates barriers between people. The goal of education is to eliminate barriers so that all people will benefit. You cannot provide adequate education for tomorrow, if you dont provide adequate education today, now. If politicians want to help educate our children it must be in their hearts and not in their ideologies. So where do we go from here?To know whether to stand still of move forward, you must have a point of reference. That point of reference is pure action which is the service education provides for our children. The goal is right before our eyes, and the very means to attain it is to provide the economic means to reach that goal. If educating our children is in you political heart it should be in your political economic actions.

Lawrence Mitchell

Vice-Chairman

Martinsville School Board

100 Days

So, as we are into the first 100 or so odd days of the Trump administration, we reflect on what was done, what was said and who is being investigated.

President Trump declared that President Obama ordered telephone wire taps at Trump Tower. FBI Director and other intelligent sources confirm it did not happen. President Trump announced that millions illegally voted in the 2016 elections; again, no evidence for this is found. There are various appointments to positions and subsequent firings and withdrawals. There are continual White House leaks which would perhaps lead to one to conclude that there is a lack of confidence in our President.

We are a nation who always wants to know the facts. We may not know all the facts contained in our Constitution, or in our Bill of Rights, but when they are in question or in jeopardy we know others will light them up and they will be reported and defended. An example is the First Amendment to the Constitution.

We are, as a nation, facing unprecedented doubts as to the credibility of President Trump. His own press secretary, Sean Spicer said Americans can believe what President Trump says  unless hes joking. I guess we ought to know this by now.

Recently he has admitted that the affordable health care plan is more complex than anyone knows. Everyone knows. The conversation with the leader of China made our President change his stance on China as a currency manipulator which was constant as he campaigned. He also now realizes that the North Korea problem has no easy solution. Has anyone figured out how and who supplied the material and technology for North Koreas nuclear program? Who in the world provides food and provisions to North Korea? Does Made in China sound familiar?

I really worry about President Trump rattling sabers with North Korea. Both leaders seem to be rattled and the sabers are nuclear bombs.

John Rehder

Ridgeway
WEST SPRINGFIELD - The good things in life start with a song, and so too did night four of 'La Cage Aux Folles' at the Majestic Theatre in downtown West Springfield.

The story follows the trials of one of France's biggest drag queens Albin, or ZaZa (played by Luis Manzi) and his romantic partner, Georges (played by Ben Ashley) who own the La Cage Aux Folles, the most outrageous cabaret in Saint Tropez.

Things get interesting for the couple when Georges son Jean-Michel (played by Josiah Durham) brings home his new fiancee Anne, along with her ultra conservative parents who do not take kindly to their daughter's new fiance or his family's lifestyle.

Producing Director Danny Eaton has done an amicable job of balancing the delicacies of what could still widely be considered controversial subject matter. The cast's balance of comedic relief throughout the performance was not overdone, and was a refreshing light in what could potentially be a dark subject if not done correctly.

The vocal stylings of lead actors Luis Manzi and Ben Ashley (neither a stranger to the Majestic stage), who share a series of musical numbers throughout the night, are an exceptional match, and, as a whole; the cast's choreography and musical talent were nothing short of delightful thanks to choreographer Stacy Ashley and musical director Mitch Chakour.

A notable actor taking the stage at the Majestic with 'La Cage' for the first time and hopefully not his last, is Doug Lebelle who portrays Jacob the maid/butler, a main source of humor throughout the performance. Lebelle comes to western Massachusetts from Austin, Texas, where he lived and performed for 15 years, receiving an award for Best Actor in a Musical from BroadwayWorld.com for his portrayal of Billy Flynn from the musical Chicago.

An audience favorite, and somewhat underrated character in the plot, he kept members roaring with laughter at his portrayal of the somewhat quirky and always sassy butler turned maid, Jacob.

The musical, originally written by Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein, had its opening night back on April 13, and performances will continue every week, Wednesday through Sunday nights, closing out the theater's 20th anniversary season on May 28.

Overall, if the performance were going to get a star rating, I would give it 4.5 out of 5 stars as the performers were hard to hear at times, making the plot difficult to follow unless you're paying close attention through some of the musical numbers.

But, the story and adaptation are done well, the costumes are incredible, the music is wonderful and the actors seem to have excellent chemistry with each other on stage.

To learn more about the musical, and the theater's upcoming schedule, visit their official website.
groveland-pool-table-fire-1.png

The Groveland Fire Department shared a photo of the pool table that was burned by an overheated drone battery.

Fire officials in Groveland are warning residents to be cautious when charging battery-powered devices after an overheated drone battery caught fire in a home last week.

Groveland Fire Chief Robert Lay said in a statement that a charging drone battery overheated as it rested on a pool table in the home. A smoke detector went off and prompted the family to safely evacuate as fire crews responded to the home, which firefighters said smelled like acid. The fire was contained to the room where it started, badly burning the pool table.

The drone was technically an automobile battery, a powerful source of energy that is combustible when placed on soft surfaces. The Groveland Fire Department said a similar home fire happened a year ago when a charging three-foot helicopter burned into the home's rug.

Chief Lay noted that such fires are more common than people expect. "Any type of battery, whether it's in a drone, toy, or even a cell phone, creates heat and if they're on a combustible surface, they can cause a fire."

While charging devices, the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services has several suggestions: avoid soft surfaces, use approved-charging packs, avoid extreme temperatures, do not overcharge batteries for too long and properly remove damaged battery packs.
NOTE: The correct address is 67 Mechanic St. An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect address.



WESTFIELD - Thirteen people have been displaced and two children were treated for smoke inhalation following an early Friday fire on Mechanic Street.

Westfield Fire Deputy Chief Eric Bishoptold WWLP that all of the displaced were taken to the hospital for evaluation.

The blaze at 67 Mechanic St. was reported about 5:15 a.m.

The building appeared to have sustained heavy fire damage to both the interior and exterior. Firefighters also cut a hole in the roof to ventilate smoke.

This is a developing story. Additional information will be posted as soon as it is available.
The FBI has interviewed two of the men who say they were beaten two years ago by off-duty Springfield police officers, they and their lawyer said.

The alleged beating of Paul Cumby, Michael Cintron and Jackie and Jozelle Ligon after an argument with four off-duty officers at Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant has already led to several local investigations.

Criminal and administrative internal investigations by the policedepartment have been completed, and 12 officers, including uniformed police who responded to the fight, are awaiting disciplinary hearings. The Hampden District Attorney's Office announced in February that it would not file charges in the case, concluding that while the men were victims of an assault their identifications of the men who attacked them would not hold up in court.

And earlier this month, MassLive obtained the full internal affairs investigation into the case, revealing new details of the fight and contradictory testimony between a responding patrolman and an off-duty officer accused of being one of the assailants.

In a recent interview, Jackie Ligon, Jozelle Ligon and their attorney Joe Smith III offered a new detail: that agents with the FBI's Springfield office interviewed the Ligon brothers in March as part of an active investigation into the case.

Smith said that FBI Special Agent Joseph Brannan contacted him to set up an interview with Jozelle and Jackie Ligon last month.

Reached by phone, Brannan declined to comment; a spokeswoman for the FBI refused to confirm or deny whether an investigation was taking place.

In response to questions about the investigation from MassLive, Springfield City Solicitor Ed Pikula said the city would fully cooperate with any investigation if contacted by federal authorities.

"The City is in the process of scheduling a disciplinary hearing on this matter which had been delayed due to Commissioner Barbieri's request for a criminal investigation by the Hampden County DA, but, after the DA's review, that office declined to prosecute," Pikula wrote in an email. "That being said, the DA's decision does not preclude other law enforcement agencies from moving forward should they decide to do so."

Pikula added that the city was not aware of any FBI interviews of city personnel or any grand jury subpoenas directed to city departments in relation to the fight.

Cumby's attorney Michelle Cruz also declined to speak about any FBI involvement.

But the Ligon brothers described an interview by FBI personnel in a Springfield office building, in which agents took them minute-by-minute through security camera footage of the parking lot outside Nathan Bill's from an adjacent Bank of America branch.

The footage did not show the fight itself but captured the movements of people near the bar, Jackie Ligon said.

"They pretty much wanted to know every time they saw us in the camera what we were doing there and what was happening," he said.

The FBI agents did not provide them with any details of the investigation and the interview ended after the review of the video footage, Ligon said.

The case stretches back to the night of April 7, 2015, Cumby, his cousins Jozelle and Jackie Ligon and Cintron were drinking at Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant.

Jozelle became involved in a verbal dispute with another group of patrons, identified as off-duty Springfield officers, over whether he had whistled at a woman in their party.

Uniformed officers responded to a report of the initial nonviolent argument around 1:15 a.m. on April 8 and identified four off-duty officers as being present: Daniel Billingsley, Christian Cicero, Anthony Cicero and Melissa Rodriguez. Cumby and his group were asked to leave and did so peacefully, according to officers' accounts to investigators.

The group stayed near the bar before walking toward the parking lot of Rocky's Hardware Store, a block away. About 50 minutes after the initial argument, after last call, Cumby and his group were jumped in a parking lot in a nearby shopping plaza, the DA's report said.

Cumby suffered serious injuries including a fractured ankle and four damaged front teeth. Jackie Ligon was hit and kicked in the torso and head while on the ground, and Jozelle Ligon and Cintron had cuts and bruises, according to the DA's report.

Internal Investigation Unit and Major Crimes Unit inquiries were launched by the police department after Cumby filed a complaint in May. Investigators interviewed Cumby and his group and responding officers, canvassed for witnesses, reviewed police logs and examined footage from a nearby Bank of America camera.

The off-duty officers who were allegedly involved in the fight exercised their Fifth Amendment rights and refused to speak to investigators.
Joanne Ringer's disappearance is being considered a homicide and Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless asked for help from turkey hunters as they begin the spring season.

"I ask hunters, a group that is typically quite alert, to be especially observant as they walk through the woods," Capeless said.

He also noted during the press conference that he is asking the public to not conduct their own searches but to be "aware during normal activity and report anything suspicious."

This isn't an unusual request.

Twice this month, mushroom hunters have found human remains in forested areas in Missouri and once in Ohio, according to the Kansas City Star. It also happened multiple times in 2016.

The Star points out that hunters seek out places no one else goes to. Hikers, joggers and campers might be near by but typically stick to the beaten path.

"So you're in areas that are heavily wooded (in Missouri, where I'm from, that meant that heavy underbrushy stuff...we don't have big old wood forests) and very remote, yet accessible by foot. Thus, great places to place bodies," one Reddit user said.

Although, it's not limited to turkey or mushroom hunters.

In 2015, a team of Mississippi ghost hunters found a body in a haunted hospital, according to USA Today.

Police are also asking if anyone has information on other aspects of the case, including information about Ringer's, Reidy or Reilly's vehicles.
Last month's disappearance of 39-year-old Clarksburg resident Joanne Ringer will be the focus of a press conference being held by Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless today in North Adams.



The announcement came Thursday evening, offering no more information than that Capeless plans to address "the investigation into the disappearance." The press conference is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.





Ringer vanished March 2 -- the evening she was supposed to work her first shift as a taxi driver in Easthampton. Authorities found her car abandoned in that city at the intersection of Parson and Exeter Streets on March 6.



Chad Reidy, 42, Ringer's husband, was found dead in the pair's garage in Clarksburg on April 7 of an apparent suicide.



Ringer's friends and family and independent investigators told MassLive Reidy was verbally and physically abusive in pair's tumultuous year-and-a-half-long relationship.



Ringer confided in friends about the alleged abuse in conversations and Facebook messages -- saying, "I'm not safe (with Chad)," in one message.







According to Ringer's daughter, 19-year-old Savanah, her mother told friends prior to her disappearance, "If anything happens to me, Chad did it."



Sources close to the investigation told MassLive police suspected Reidy in the disappearance and his suicide came two days after he was interrogated.
A Brazilian national who has been in the U.S. illegally since 2002 will face charges in federal court Friday for allegedly offering to sell firearms and saying he would "kill anybody for a fee."

Acemar Damaceno, 37, was living in Weymouth when he was taken into federal custody Thursday, officials announced on Friday.

A cooperating witness gave federal law enforcement authorities information that a man known as "Marcus" was offering to sell him firearms, according to a statement from the U.S. District Attorney's office.

The witness visited Marcus' home in Weymouth on March 11 when Marcus allegedly said that he would "kill anybody for a fee." He then went on to show the witness a .45 caliber handgun, a shotgun and a bag containing various amounts of ammunition that were hidden in the basement, the statement said.

Marcus then offered to sell the witness the handgun for $1,500, the statement said. Marcus was later identified by law enforcement as Acemar Damaceno.

Law enforcement stopped Damaceno in his car as he left his home on April 7, and he allegedly told them that he was not a U.S. citizen, the statement said. He was arrested and a search of his residence uncovered a .45 caliber Kimber Ultra Ten II pistol loaded with ten .45 caliber rounds of ammunition and an Iver Johnson Champion shotgun without a serial number. The Kimber pistol was determined to be reported stolen in Connecticut in October 2011.

Damaceno is charged with one count of being an alien in possession of a firearm and ammunition. He is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in Boston at 2:30 p.m. for a probable cause and detention hearing.
Of all his business accomplishments, Peter was most proud of founding the MAPS Media Institute http://mapsmediainstitute.com . He was in awe of Montanas youth and dedicated his final 14 years to helping them "Find Their Voices" through the arts. He leaves behind his trusted MAPS http://www.matr.net/news.phtml?showall=1&catlabel=MAPS+%3A+Media+Arts+in+the+Public+Schools&cat_id=84 partner and confidant Clare Ann Harff, along with staff Bill Bratches, Tim Kolberg, Dru Carr, Mika Virtaneva, Lucas Laparra and Sarah Jones. His world was enriched immeasurably by the thousands of students and supporters that grew MAPS beyond his wildest hopes. They all join in celebrating his unfailing message of inspiration while forgiving his occasional lapses into more colorful language.

Full Obituary: http://ravallirepublic.com/news/local/obituaries/article_51972caf-ad38-5874-b164-8bf35cfb7d78.html

Archive of success: MAPS : Media Arts in the Public Schools http://www.matr.net/news.phtml?showall=1&catlabel=MAPS+%3A+Media+Arts+in+the+Public+Schools&cat_id=84
During the second day of the workshop concerning the validation of China-Mauritius Free Trade Agreement, Huawei Technologies showcased further objectives earmarked in the near future following the ambition of Shaping Future Economic Perspectives. The Free Trade Agreement will enable Huawei to collaborate with a multitude of companies at local and international levels. It will also expand Huaweis reach to not only businesses but also financial services, including numerous global banks from around the world.

The second day of the workshop was attended by various prestigious banking firms as well as Hon. Darsanand Balgobin, Minister of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation, Hon. Mahen Kumar Seeruttun, Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Hon. Alan Ganoo, Minister of Land Transport and Light Rail; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr. Harvesh Seegolam, Governor, Bank of Mauritius, along with Mr. Ian Valentine, Principal Consultant, Huawei Technologies.

The Hon. Darsanand Balgobin has highlighted that, Mauritius can serve as an ICT service base for the African market. Chinese and Mauritian ventures are most welcome to set up assembly plants in Mauritius for technological products like smart phones, smart TVs and target the African Continent.

Big Chinese multinationals, in the ICT sector, like Huawei, has brought in their contribution in the sector. He said, They have structured their HQ in Mauritius and employing more than 300 employees. Huawei is also contributing to create the talent to support Mauritius shift into a digital and service-based economy for example the Seeds for the Future programme where they provide local students training and exposure to cutting edge technology and know-how from China. Huawei has been a major partner in organizing various events likes the World AI Show, to shape the AI roadmap of Mauritius, the 5G seminar, Innovation for All Summit. 

Other big Chinese businesses like Alibaba could leverage Mauritius geographic position as a logistics hub and service the Eastern and Southern African region, Minister Balgobin also said.

Representing Huawei on the panel discussion The Trilateral Axis: China  Mauritius  Africa, Mr. Ian Valentine claims that, Mauritius can act as a bridge between the Western Clouds, and the Chinese Clouds which implies that Mauritius will be a gateway for China to the Western countries, and vice versa. During the panel discussion, the focus was on the exponential digitisation of the economy in the Financial Sector and its positive effect on revolutionizing Africa. Mr. Valentine also reveals that Mauritius can be a Catalyst for the unification of Africa as a force on the global economy.

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Smart Rating: 94.99

Genre: Western

Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood

In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother's family are killed or abducted by Comanches, Edwards vows to track down his surviving relatives and bring them home. Eventually, Edwards gets word that his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is alive, and, along with her adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), he embarks on a dangerous mission to find her, journeying deep into Comanche territory.
Famous with its low cost overseas flights, Norwegian now announced a new route from London Gatwick to Singapore this winter. From 28th September, Norwegian will operate four weekly flights, increasing to five in the winter, from London Gatwick to Singapore Changi Airport, with fares starting from 179.

The new Singapore route will be operated on Norwegians new state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliner aircraft offering up to 344 seats in both economy and Premium cabins. Premium cabin fares are available from 699 one way which includes No1 Lounges access at Gatwick, spacious seating with more than a meter of legroom, complimentary meal service and a generous baggage allowance.

As one of the worlds leading centers for financial services, logistics and technology, Norwegians new route to Singapore opens up new opportunities for business and leisure travelers and access to the wider access Asia-Pacific.

Norwegian will offer UK passengers an affordable way to access the cosmopolitan Lion City, which perfectly combines the old with the new - historic neighborhoods and temples; picturesque beaches and parks; all bordered by modern skyscrapers offering a city lifestyle of shopping malls and fine dining.

Norwegian CEO Bjorn Kjos said, The UK is at the heart of Norwegians ambitious plans for growth so it is a significant moment not only to launch this exciting new route, but also for it to be the first long-haul route to take to the skies with our new Norwegian UK subsidiary.

Flights are now on sale at www.norwegian.com from 179 one way, see hotel prices in Singapore.

Norwegian carries 5.2 million UK passengers each year from four UK airports, to more than 50 global destinations. The airline has one of the youngest aircraft fleets in the world with an average age of 3.6 years, and more than 200 new aircraft on order. Norwegian has been awarded the World's best low-cost long-haul airline for two consecutive years at the SkyTrax World Airline Awards.
The 3rd International Congress on Ethics and Tourism will be organized by UNWTO in partnership with the Government of Poland and the European Commission in Krakow, Poland on 27-28 April 2017. The congress will discuss ways to advance the commitment of tourism towards sustainable and responsible practices.

The event is one of the major components of the Enhancing the Understanding of European Tourism Project, conducted by UNWTO in cooperation with the European Commission.

Social responsibility champions, academics, private sector and representatives from national tourism administrations will meet in Krakow with civil society and international organizations to discuss how advance in the shared responsibilities of tourism development. The Congress acquires particular relevance as it takes place during the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, which is being celebrated worldwide throughout 2017.

The event, with the presence of Rajan Datar host of Fast Track - BBC World News flagship travel programme, will feature the views of policy makers and companies such as NH Hotel Group, TripAdvisor, ClubMed, TUI, and Amadeus IT Group. National, regional and international organizations like the European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT), European Destinations of Excellence Network (EDEN), UNESCO World Heritage Centre and VisitScotland will also share their best practices.

Topics under discussion include strategic policy frameworks and models of governance as well as innovative and multi-stakeholder management models for the development of a more responsible and inclusive tourism sector.

Special attention will be devoted to the Tourism for All, the preservation of natural and cultural resources and best practices that contribute to socio-economic empowerment of local communities, women and youth.
Are you planning to a trip to Brussels? For tourists, Belgian organizations join forces and offer one convenient and advantageous travel formula, the Hi Belgium Pass. The new Hi Belgium Pass is created following cooperation between Brussels Airlines, Brussels Airport, the Belgian Railways and several tourist offices, cities and attractions.

With the Pass, tourists can fly from 50 European cities to Brussels Airport, from where they can take unlimited train rides to Belgian cities and visit a wealth of tourist attractions for free.

After the attacks of 22 March the number of tourists visiting Belgium has decreased significantly. The Hi Belgium Pass project is launched to restore the image of Belgium. And now with the Hi Belgium Pass, planning a weekend trip to Belgium becomes a breeze and is more attractive than ever.

For only 149 euro, Hi Belgium Pass travelers can fly with Brussels Airlines from 50 airports in 18 different countries to Brussels Airport (Check&Go ticket). From there they can take unlimited train rides to different Belgian cities, where they have free access to a wealth of tourist attractions (musea, guided tours, etc.). The only choice the visitor has to make is which two cities he or she wants to visit.

Hi Belgium Pass travelers can fly in on Thursday, Friday or Saturday and leave on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. The offer is valid throughout the year. The pass is available for tourists from Germany, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Lithuania, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Hi Belgium Pass can easily be booked via brusselsairlines.com

Click here to book your hotel in Brussels, Brugge, Antwerpen.
Gastroenteritis is one of the main causes of death in children under 5 years old, leading to 2.5 million deaths annually, with younger infants being most at risk. New research in mice has shown promising evidence that a type of gut bacteria could provide protection against the adverse effects of gastrointestinal infections in babies. Share on Pinterest New findings in mice could pave the way for novel approaches to protect human babies from gastrointestinal infections. Gastrointestinal infections are a common cause of diarrhea and vomiting and are triggered by germs including viruses, bacteria, and parasites. Bacteria  such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli  are estimated to be responsible for between 10 and 20 percent of cases of gastroenteritis in children. Most cases of Salmonella and E. coli infection get better without treatment within 4 to 10 days. However, in young children with weak immune systems, there is a greater risk of complications, some of which include dehydration, kidney failure, and even death. The University of Michigan Medical School explored mice of different ages to evaluate whether the gut bacteria Clostridia may play a role in protecting the mice from the life-threatening consequences of Salmonella and E. coli. The findings could lead to new approaches to protect human infants from gastrointestinal infections. The researchers results were published in Science. Any parent knows that newborns are very susceptible to infections in the first year of life, including enteric, or gut, infections, says Gabriel Nunez, the studys senior author and a University of Michigan pathology professor. This work suggests that the lack of protective bacteria in the gut microbiota is a mechanism for that susceptibility, perhaps more than the age of the immune system. Clostridia are a group of more than 100 species of harmless bacteria that grow in the gut. The research indicates that Clostridia is absent in newborn mice but begins to grow days later. The absence of Clostridia makes young mice vulnerable to invading bacteria, which is similar to the pathogens that infect human babies. With the knowledge that newborn mice have no natural gut bacteria, the researchers saw an opportunity to observe how gut bacteria microbes from mice of different ages would affect newborn mices vulnerability to infection when transplanted into their guts. Advanced DNA analysis techniques were used to detect the types and measure the amounts of bacteria in the guts of the mice.

Clostridia reduced harmful bacteria, lowered risk of death Nunez and colleagues used newborn and adult germ-free mice to carry out a series of experiments. Gut microbe samples were extracted from the feces of 4-day-old, 12-day-old, and 16-day-old normal mice. The team found that the 16-day-old mice had the most diverse range of gut microbes  including Clostridia and Bacteroides bacteria  which were not observed in the younger mice that were still receiving all their nutrition from their mothers milk. Germ-free mice received a transplant of bacteria from either 4-day-old or 16-day-old normal mice. They were then exposed to a strain of Salmonella that would infect the gut only. Of the mice that received the 4-day-old microbes, half of them died. However, none of the mice that received the 16-day-old microbes died. Next, the investigators tried the same experiment using Citrobacter rodentium  a strain of bacteria similar to the E. coli strains that affect humans. Many of the mice that received the 4-day-old microbes died. The surviving mice were then given a transplant of the 16-day-old microbes, which rapidly decreased the amount of C. rodentium in their guts. The researchers subsequently wanted to find out what would happen if germ-free mice were given the microbes from a newborn mouse but which contained extra doses of either Clostridia or Bacteroides bacteria. When the groups of mice were exposed to C. rodentium, only the mice that had received Clostridia were able to resist infection. Similarly, 90 percent of mice that received Clostridia were still alive a week later and after being exposed to Salmonella, compared with those who had not received Clostridia. Salmonella and E. coli also affect adults, although to a much lesser extent, so the researchers decided to evaluate the consequences of giving vancomycin  an antibiotic that destroys Clostridia and Bacteroides  to adult mice. The Salmonella and C. rodentium thrived in this weakened gut environment.
Everybody loves those rare "aha moments" where you suddenly and unexpectedly solve a difficult problem or understand something that had previously perplexed you.

But until now, researchers had not had a good way to study how people actually experienced what is called "epiphany learning."

In new research, scientists at The Ohio State University used eye-tracking and pupil dilation technology to see what happens as people figured out how to win a strategy game on a computer.

"We could see our study participants figuring out the solution through their eye movements as they considered their options," said Ian Krajbich, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology and economics at Ohio State.

"We could predict they were about to have an epiphany before they even knew it was coming."

Krajbich conducted the study with James Wei Chen, a doctoral student in economics at Ohio State. Their results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most decision-making research has focused on reinforcement learning, where people gradually adjust their behavior in response to what they learn, Chen said.

"Our work is novel in that we're looking at this other kind of learning that really has been neglected in past research," he said.

For the study, 59 students played a game on a computer against an unseen opponent. On the screen were 11 numbers (0 to 10) arranged in a circle (like a rotary phone, for those old enough to remember). The students chose one number and then their opponent chose a number. The details of how they won are somewhat complex (it had to be complex for them to have something to figure out), but essentially the optimal game strategy boils down to picking the lower number. Therefore, picking zero was always the best choice.

The participants played 30 times in a row, always against a new opponent. The researchers created an incentive to win by awarding small payments for each victory.

An eye-tracker sitting under the computer screen could tell what numbers they were looking at as they considered their options during parts of the experiment.

After each of the trials, participants had the option of committing to playing one number for the rest of the trials. They were encouraged to do so by the promise of an extra payment. Participants were then reminded what number they chose, what number their opponent had chosen, and whether they had won or lost.

The goal for the researchers was to see when players had that epiphany, that "aha moment," in which they realized that zero was always the best choice and then committed to playing that number for the rest of the experiment.

The results showed that about 42 percent of players had an epiphany at some point and committed to playing zero. Another 37 percent committed to a number other that zero, suggesting they didn't learn the right lesson. The remaining 20 percent never committed to a number.

The researchers could tell when a player had an epiphany.

"There's a sudden change in their behavior. They are choosing other numbers and then all of a sudden they switch to choosing only zero," Krajbich said. "That's a hallmark of epiphany learning."

These participants gave clues that they were about to have that aha moment, even if they didn't realize it. The eye-tracker showed they looked at zero and other low numbers more often than others did in the trials just before their epiphany, even if they ended up choosing other numbers.

"We don't see the epiphany in their choice of numbers, but we see it in their eyes," Chen said. "Their attention is drawn to zero and they start testing it more and more."

Those who had the epiphanies also spent less time looking at their opponents' number choices and more time considering the result of each trial - whether they won or lost. The researchers said this suggests they were learning that their choice of a low number was the key to victory.

A key to epiphany learning is that it comes suddenly, which was evident when the researchers looked at eye-tracking results on the commitment screen. This was the screen where participants could choose to commit to zero (or another number) for the rest of the trials.

"Those who showed epiphany learning weren't building up confidence over time. There was no increase in the amount of time they looked at the 'commit' button as they went through the trials, which would have indicated they were considering committing," Krajbich said.

"They weren't paying a lot of attention to the commit button until the moment they decided to commit," Chen added.

Findings on pupil dilation provided additional evidence that epiphany learners were reacting differently than others.

"When your pupil dilates, we see that as evidence that you're paying close attention and learning," Krajbich said. Results showed those who experienced epiphany learning experienced significant pupil dilation while viewing the feedback screen (telling them whether they won or lost) before they made the commit decision. The dilation disappeared after they committed.

"They were showing signs of learning before they made the commitment to zero," Krajbich said. "We didn't see the same results for others."

These results suggest that you have to look within to truly experience epiphany learning.

"One thing we can take away from this research is that it is better to think about a problem than to simply follow others," Krajbich said.

"Those who paid more attention to their opponents tended to learn the wrong lesson."

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Career Grant to Krajbich.

Article: Computational modeling of epiphany learning, Wei James Chen and Ian Krajbich, PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1618161114, published online 17 April 2017.
Research published in Scientific Reports uses computer image and statistical shape analysis to shed light on which parts of the face are most likely to be inherited.

The study, by researchers at King's College London, examined 3D face models of nearly 1,000 UK female twins, and found that the shapes of the end of the nose, the area above and below the lips, cheekbones and the inner corner of the eye were highly influenced by genetics.

The team took scans of twins' faces using 3D cameras and custom built statistical software to generate thousands of points that were perfectly aligned across the faces and then measured how 'curved' each face looked at each one of those locations.

The researchers then compared how similar these measurements were between identical twins, who have the same genes, and non-identical twins, who only share half of the genes. By seeing which parts of the face are the most similar in shape in a pair of identical twins, the researchers then calculated the likelihood that the shape of that part of the face is determined by genetics.

This likelihood is quantified as the "heritability", a number between 0 and 1, where a larger number implies that it is more likely that the shape of the face is controlled by genes. The researchers have published 'atlases' showing how heritable each part of the face shape is, which can be viewed online at: http://heritabilitymaps.info

Lead researcher, Professor Giovanni Montana from King's College London said: "The notion that our genes control our face is self-evident. Many of us have facial traits that clearly resample those of our parents and identical twins are often indistinguishable.

"However, quantifying precisely which parts of the face are strongly heritable has been challenging so far. By combining 3D models of the face with a statistical algorithm that measures local changes in shape, we have been able to create detailed 'face heritability maps'. These maps will help identify specific genes shaping up the human face, which may also be involved in diseases altering the face morphology."

"This study also shows us that even identical twins can vary quite a lot on facial features, but because of the key areas being genetically controlled, we perceive them as being 'identical,'" added Professor Tim Spector, Director of the TwinsUK study at King's College London.

The software for analysing 3D scans could also have other uses in medical imaging, engineering and facial recognition technology.

This study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London and the NIHR Guy's and St Thomas' Clinical Research Facility.
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The study is the first to prove that cow's milk, which contains calcium, interferes with levothyroxine absorption.Levothyroxine is commonly prescribed to replace the natural thyroid hormone thyroxine (T4) that is too low in hypothyroidism where there is the under-activity of the thyroid gland or for patients with thyroid cancer, to suppress their thyroid stimulating hormone levels.In hypothyroidism, the activity of thyroid gland is decreased and the level of thyroxine hormone in the blood is reduced. Women over 60 years of age are more likely to be affected by this condition.A few symptoms of hypothyroidism include weight gain, fatigue, heavier menstrual bleeding, depression, elevated blood cholesterol, puffy face, constipation, decreased heart rate and hoarseness of voice.A survey from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics (now QuintilesIMS) in the U.S found that, levothyroxine was the most commonly prescribed medication in 2014.The study recruited 10 adults including 6 men and 4 women, with an average age of 33.7 years.They had no known thyroid disease and had normal thyroid hormone function at the start of the study. The participants were not allergic to cow's milk or levothyroxine, and none of the women were pregnant or using birth control pills.The participants had to visit the study center twice, spaced a month apart. They had to fast the night before the visitDuring one visit, participants took 1,000 micrograms of oral levothyroxine alone. At the time of second visit, they took the same dose concurrently with 12 ounces of 2% milk.The blood samples of the participants were tested for T4 levels, before supplementation and one, two, four and six hours after ingestion of levothyroxine.The levothyroxine absorption was measured as the concentration of total T4 in the blood plotted on a graphic curve against time after drug administration, called area under the curve.Six hours after taking levothyroxine, participants who consumed milk at the same time as the medicine had significantly lower total T4 absorption compared to when they took the drug alone: average area under the curve of 67.3 versus 73.5.The manufacturer of a brand of levothyroxine recommends that the medication be taken preferably on an empty stomach, 30 to 60 minutes before eating food or taking other medications or vitamins."The main message of this study is that patients managed with thyroid hormone replacement therapy should be advised to avoid taking levothyroxine simultaneously with cow's milk, given its interference," Chon said.The results were presented at ENDO 2017, the Endocrine Society's 99th annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.Source: Medindia















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For Mexican American children, discrimination and socioeconomic status (SES) act together with discrimination having an effect on asthma only among low-SES children.While the relationship between discrimination and physical health in adults is well understood, less is known about the role it plays in children.This study is the first to show an association between discrimination and asthma diagnosis in African American and in Latino children, contributing to existing evidence implicating racial/ethnic discrimination as a predictor of negative health outcomes in children.For asthma specifically, the findings are consistent with results correlating discriminatory experience and subsequent asthma diagnosis in African American adult women."Discrimination is a common and everyday experience for minority populations in America. People can be exposed to it at the individual and society levels. This constant stress gets embodied into our biology or DNA to change our bodies' responses to diseases and medical treatments. Our findings support this biological embodiment for asthma and its control among African American children and among low-SES Mexican American children," explained lead investigator Luisa N. Borrell.Using data from the Genes-Environment and Admixture in Latino Americans study (GALA II) and the Study of African Americans, Asthma, Genes, and Environments (SAGE II), researchers found that African American children who reported discrimination had 78 percent greater odds of having asthma than participants who did not report discrimination.In addition, reported discrimination was a good predictor of a child's asthma being poorly controlled. SES and discrimination are complex issues, with many different aspects to consider.The results of this study suggest that they work together to influence asthma rates for Latino youth, but that for African American youth, discrimination works independently of SES; however, the authors note that many unmeasured factors surrounding both discrimination and SES may help explain the association with asthma."With overt events of discrimination, whether towards one's race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and/or sexual orientation increasing, this study is now more relevant than ever," concluded first author Neeta Thakur."Discrimination is a real and everyday experience for many Americans, especially for those from minority communities. In this study, we demonstrate how this seemingly unrelated stressor is directly related to asthma and its associated outcomes in African Americans. This is significant as asthma is an incredibly common and costly disease of childhood and is on the rise in African American communities.""Given the current political climate, our findings are very significant, especially for minority children," stated Borrell."Children are being exposed directly or indirectly to different sources of psychosocial stress discrimination, bullying, and fear, while our focus was asthma, this stress may play a role in other diseases, behaviors, and learning opportunities."The study is published inSource: ANI
ISLAMABAD, Members of parliament from Pakistan and Afghanistan are scheduled to hold a rare official dialogue next week in Kabul to find ways to promote tension-free ties between their two countries.

Officials on both sides told VOA that Pakistani lawmakers will be traveling to the Afghan capital on April 29 for the open ended substantial discussion. Speaker Ayaz Sadiq of the legislative lower house of parliament, or National Assembly, will lead the delegation.



The Pakistani members of parliament will stay in Afghanistan until May 1 and also meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other government and political leaders, says Afghan ambassador to Islamabad Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal.



This is the first time that a high-powered, broadly representative (Pakistani) parliamentary delegation of this nature visits Kabul and gets involved directly in bilateral relations, Zakhilwal told VOA.



Mutual allegations of harboring anti-state militants and sponsoring deadly terrorist attacks against each other have hurt Afghanistans traditionally tense relations with Pakistan. The two countries share a nearly 2,600-kilometer, largely porous border.



However, Pakistani and Afghan officials note recent high-level contacts both at political and military levels have led to an improved atmosphere, paving the way for the coming unprecedented dialogue between parliamentarians of the two countries.



The discussion would be forward looking with the aim to find a path to improved bilateral relations with responding to our grievances, issues and perceptions, explained Zakhilwal.



A Pakistan government official told VOA Islamabad proposed the idea of opening direct interaction between lawmakers of the two countries to allow them to exchange views and proposals on how to bring stability to bilateral political and security relations.



The official, who requested he not be identified, said that President Ghani, in a letter to Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, welcomed the proposal and agreed to receive the Pakistani parliamentary delegation.

Pakistani government and military officials also acknowledge the active role Afghan Ambassador Zakhilwal has played in pushing the two sides to allow parliamentary interaction. Both sides hope the rare initiative will help reduce acrimony often witnessed during government-level negotiations, making the discussions less productive on issues dividing the two nations.



Afghan officials allege that safe havens on Pakistani soil are helping the Taliban to prolong the conflict in Afghanistan and have been demanding Islamabad take effective steps to stop the activity.



On April 20 Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria again rejected Afghan allegations that Pakistani security forces are fighting only anti-state militants on their soil and sparing those involved in attacks against Afghanistan.



We have said this thing time and again that we do not draw any distinction. We have taken action against ally types of terrorists and the manifestation of that is the improved security situation in Pakistan, Zakaria said.



For their part, Pakistani officials maintain the insurgents have long moved back to Afghan areas where the Taliban has established its control over the past two years, and that security forces are not allowing anyone to use Pakistani soil for engaging in cross-border violence.



Islamabad also lately has stepped up demands for Afghan authorities to prevent anti-state Pakistani Taliban militants from using their territory for plotting attacks against Pakistan.

-- Ayaz Gul wrote this for Voice of America
MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan -- The Afghan government has announced a day of mourning in the wake of an April 21 attack by the Taliban on a military compound in Balkh Province that officials say left more than 130 army personnel dead.



President Ashraf Ghani's office said in a statement that flags across the country would be flown at half-staff on April 23 following the deadly assault in Mazar-e Sharif that officials say was carried out by militants dressed in Afghan Army uniforms.



Ghani's acting spokesman, Shah Hussain Murtazawi, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in a telephone interview from Kabul that Ghani announced the national mourning "in order to pay tribute to the martyrs of Friday's attack."



Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Daulat Waziri said on April 22 that two of the 10 attackers carried out suicide bombings during the assault, while the other eight were shot dead during the ensuing gunbattle.



The ministry said that more than 100 military personnel were killed or injured in the attack.



But officials in Kabul told Radio Free Afghanistan that more than 130 had been killed, and a high-ranking military official in Mazar-e Sharif put the figure at 138. Officials said the death toll could rise.



The Defense Ministry said it is investigating the exact number of those killed and injured in the attack. It said it would announce the final numbers to the nation but did not indicate when such an announcement might come.



Waziri, the ministry spokesman, said that the victims were almost all members of the 209th Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA).



The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that more than 500 Afghan soldiers had been killed or wounded. The Taliban statement also said four of the attackers were soldiers who had been stationed at the outpost.



The attack targeted a mosque where soldiers were at Friday Prayers, as well as a dining hall.



Ismael, an Afghan Army soldier who witnessed the assault, told Radio Free Afghanistan that he was baffled at how the assailants managed to penetrate the military compound, and that the attack "will make people have second thoughts about joining the ANA."



"If [the militants] could enter the army base today, they probably could do something bigger at another time," he said, adding that he was "in a state of confusion and shock."



German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered condolences to Afghanistan, saying she was horrified by "the Taliban's deceitful, brutal barracks attack on your soldiers."



"My sympathy to the many injured and the relatives of the many victims," she wrote in a telegram to Ghani.



A German Army contingent is stationed at the base, which serves as the Afghan Army command center in the north of the country.



In an April 21 statement following the attack, U.S. General John Nicholson, commander of NATO's Resolute Support operation, praised "the Afghan commandos who brought today's atrocity to an end."

With reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa
Alternate Foreign Minister G. Katrougalos today met with Serbia's European Affairs Minister, Jadranka Yoksimovic.



During the meeting, which took place in a very friendly atmosphere, they discussed issues of bilateral and European interest. More specifically, they discussed economic cooperation issues, as Greece is the third largest foreign investor in Serbia.



Mr. Katrougalos stressed that the Greek government's longstanding position is to encourage the European perspectives of the Balkan countries.



Serbia will participate in the Meeting of the Adriatic & Ionian Initiative that is being held in Ioannina from 10 to 12 May 2017.



A Greek-Serbian Joint Interministerial Committee meeting will take place in July, in Belgrade.
On Monday, 24 April, the first Ministerial Conference of the Ancient Civilizations Forum will take place in Athens, at Zappeion Megaron. The proceedings of the Ministerial Conference will be opened by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, at 09:00, at Zappeion Megaron.

During the Conference, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will address the high-ranking guests, who will have the opportunity to exchange views on the role of culture as a factor for soft power and on the effective promotion of a positive cooperation agenda aimed at capitalising on cultural heritage.

The Forum proceedings will culminate in a press conference given by the participants, at 15:15. Attending officials will then be taken on a guided tour of the Acropolis Museum, and a dinner will be hosted at the museum's restaurant.

The Ancient Civilizations Forum  conceived of by Foreign Minister Kotzias  will be attended by ten countries that represent major ancient civilizations: Greece, China, Bolivia, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Mexico and Peru.
Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias had a bilateral meeting, at 12:00 today, with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla, with whom he discussed current issues of bilateral and international interest.

More specifically, the two Ministers looked at Greek-Cuban bilateral relations as a whole and explored the potential for further promotion of cooperation, mainly in the sectors of culture and education. They also discussed regional issues, with emphasis on developments in the Balkans, Syria and the wider eastern Mediterranean region. Finally a review was carried out of the present state of affairs in the European Union, and views were exchanged on the course of the Middle East peace process and on current developments in Latin America.
At 11:30 on Sunday, 23 April, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias will meet at the Foreign Ministry with the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, Wang Yi, who will be carrying out a two-day official visit to Greece. Following the talks, at about 12:30, the two Ministers will make joint statements to the news media.
At 15:00 on Sunday, 23 April, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias will meet at the Foreign Ministry with the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who will be in Athens within the framework of the Ancient Civilizations Forum.
"On Sunday, the day after tomorrow, the meeting of ACForum begins, a meeting of states with great historical cultures that continue to be relevant today, influencing humanity and constituting a form of soft power and economic power.

On Greece's initiative, and with the People's Republic of China as co-organizer, we organized the meeting of the ten states with important historical civilizations, which are China, India, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. At the same time, we also have requests from other countries to participate in the Forum in the future.

As part of this International Conference, we have also organized cultural events, including a concert by Mr. Mikroutisikos and a visit to the Acropolis Museum. We have organized a Scientific Conference, which will be attended by academics from all of the aforementioned countries, and of course the main event is the meeting of the Foreign Ministers, at which we will talk about how we can best capitalise on our capability and cooperation in the culture sector, to the benefit of peace and our peoples."
LINCOLN TOWNSHIP  With residents going to the polls in early May to vote on Lincoln Township becoming self-zoned, many of them have questioned how much it would cost.

Some residents have said that township zoning could be self-supporting.

Others are afraid that zoning costs could drive the township into a deficit.

Citizens are concerned about the Lincoln Township board creating a deficit budget, said Arlene Schipinski, a resident who attended a recent Lincoln Township Board of Trustees meeting.

When questioned if costs would be more, (Supervisor Melvin) Drake said adjustments would have to be made. That raised many red flags with the citizens about higher taxes and additional millages, she added.

Drake told the Tribune he does not believe self-zoning would be totally self supporting. However, he doesnt expect additional millages will be necessary to support zoning in Lincoln Township.

As of last fall, the township had spent more than $10,000 in legal fees in efforts to become self-zoned, rather than to continue to function under the countys zoning authority.

A legal fund was established last summer, and funds have periodically been taken from the general fund to support the legal fund.

Revenue received at the county level for zoning permits in Lincoln Township averages between $200 and $400 a year, said Jeff Smith, Huron County building and zoning director.

Thats mostly for residential and agricultural structures.

Smith noted the township does not pay the county any zoning fees.

Meade Township, which is next to Lincoln, is also primarily agricultural, and it has no wind turbines.

Diana Collins, secretary of the Meade Township Planning Commission, said the township spends at least $9,000 a year for planning and zoning costs.

That includes her salary of $2,400; the zoning administrators salary of $2,400; and the other six members salaries totaling $3,600.

Planners receive $75 per meeting, and printing supplies and costs total about $500.

For attendance at Michigan Township Association workshops, it costs $150 to $200 a person.

Collins said the Meade Township planners are among the lowest-paid in the county, and recently received a raise. They do not receive mileage.

State law mandates four meetings per year.

Meade Township planners have met eight to 10 times over the past year because the township is currently revising its wind ordinance, Collins said.

Last year, zoning income was $830, and most of it came from land divisions and site permits, she added.

Drake said that although conversations with Meade Township officials have shown that zoning would not be self-supporting, he hasnt looked into exactly how much it will cost.

Were waiting to see how the vote turns out, he said.

On May 2, Lincoln Township voters will be asked to approve the formation of a township planning commission, which would make Lincoln self-zoned. A yes vote supports self-zoning.
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...
Russian Bear bombers and spy planes buzzed Alaskan airspace the past two nights in a repeat of incidents earlier this week, two U.S. officials told Fox News on Friday.

Wednesday night a pair of Russian spy planes Ilyushin IL-38s flew near the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea staying in the U.S. Air Defense Zone for a few hours before departing.

Thursday night, a pair of long-range nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers flew near Alaska and Canada staying in each country's air defense zone for hours. Two U.S. Air Force F-22 fighter jets intercepted the bombers, a NORAD spokesman told Fox News without elaborating.

The Russian jets in both incidents remained in international airspace. It was not immediately clear how close they came to mainland Alaska.

Russia now has flown bombers or spy planes near Alaska on four consecutive nights this week, the first time since President Trump took office that Russia has flown this close to the United States. The U.S. Air Force scrambled fighter jets in some of these instances.

Pentagon officials said they believed the Russians were testing the U.S. Air Force's response to their bomber flights.

Tuesday night, the only plane launched from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska was an E-3 Sentry, an airborne early warning plane known as AWACS, to make sure no other Russian planes were inbound.

The Russian action comes less than a week after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Trump said U.S.-Russian relations had reached a "low point."

The last time Russian bombers came this close to the U.S. was on July 4, 2015 when a pair of Russian bombers flew 40 miles off the coast of California.

The U.S. military also conducts flights near Russia, but in most cases uses its own reconnaissance aircraft like the U.S. Air Force Boeing RC-135 and not long-range bombers, according to officials.

In the past, the U.S. Navy often has performed reconnaissance below the sea near Russia using Los Angeles or Virginia-class attack submarines, but these operations are classified and not disclosed publicly.

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

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Less than a day after T-45 Goshawk instructor pilots took to the air after a 12-day safety grounding, two pilots reported headaches and oxygen deprivation issues during a single flight, Military.com has learned.

In light of the incident, the Navy has doubled down on altitude restrictions, limiting instructor pilots to 5,000 feet and less than two Gs of force.

Cmdr. Jeannie Groeneveld, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Forces, told Military.com the incident took place near the previous safety-restricted altitude of 10,000 feet, when a senior instructor pilot out of the Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas, training command was performing maneuvers and pulling in excess of 4 Gs. The pilots were intentionally performing challenging maneuvers to understand the limits of new restrictions and procedures, she said.

"When we did the deep dive with our medical folks and talked through it with them, it was more like an event where you're exerting energy at high altitude," Groeneveld said, adding that the pilot's symptoms subsided after descending to a lower altitude. This contrasts with previous cockpit hypoxia-like episodes that persisted even when pilots would use emergency oxygen and descend in altitude.

The Navy grounded all 197 of its T-45 trainers earlier this month after a reported 100 instructor pilots refused to fly, citing concerns about the safety of the aircraft due to a recent spike in these cockpit incidents. The problem was cast in especially sharp relief when an instructor pilot and a trainee ejected from a T-45 near the Meridian, Mississippi, training command after experiencing hypoxia-like symptoms.

Naval Air Forces announced that senior pilots would begin flying again April 18 without students to record their experiences and brief the command. It imposed an altitude limit of 10,000 feet, and ordered that pilots' masks be reconfigured to bypass the onboard oxygen generation systems. As of Thursday, Groeneveld said, senior pilots have completed 92 flights, with just the one reporting issues.

Pilots have also provided feedback about the new mask configuration, complaining that the restraint connecting the mask to the flight vest was coming loose, she said.

"We are re-evaluating the new mask configuration based on feedback aircrew conveyed after their flights," she said in a statement. "Safety is our priority; we will ensure that all mitigations are implemented, required procedural changes identified and communicated with all our aviators."

In the wake of the cockpit episode in Kingsville, the Navy sent engineers to the command as a precautionary measure, though they don't believe the incident is connected to previous problems.

The 10,000-foot altitude restriction meant that pilots could conduct only about 75 percent of the operational flight envelope for the T-45, officials have said. Groeneveld said it isn't immediately clear how the new restrictions will further limit operations.

"At this point, we're not doing any of the syllabus because we're not flying students, so we're just doing currency flights," she said.

She added that high-altitude operations were generally limited to dogfight and combat flight training, and much of what took place between 5,000 and 10,000 feet for the trainers was limited to transit. The pilots are also unable to conduct carrier landings with the restrictions in place.

Since the senior instructor pilots began flying again this week, she said, she is not aware of any new requests not to fly.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
A top adviser to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi believed to have been involved in planning the New Year's Eve terror attack in Istanbul was killed earlier this month in a rare U.S. special operations raid in Syria, U.S. Central Command said Friday.

"He was involved in plotting external terror" and in recruiting foreign fighters and preparing them for terrorism in their home countries, Air Force Col. John Thomas, a CentCom spokesman, said of Abdurrakhmon Uzbeki. "We've clearly linked him with the Istanbul attack" that killed 39 on New Year's Eve at a nightclub.

In a phone briefing to the Pentagon, Thomas said that Uzbeki was a close associate of Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed "caliph" of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. "He was known to interact with him in various ways over time," he said.

Thomas declined to give details on the April 6 special operations raid that killed Uzbeki but said it occurred in the eastern Syrian village of Mayadin, close to ISIS-held parts of the crossroads town of Deir ez-Zor. "This was not an airstrike" on a suspected ISIS hideout but rather a long-planned ground operation that specifically targeted Uzbeki, he said.

Thomas could not immediately say whether the raid was carried out by the Expeditionary Targeting Force of special operators, possibly including the Army's elite Delta Force, that was set up in 2015 by former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to hunt down and kill or capture top ISIS leaders in Iraq and Syria.

At the time, Carter told the House Armed Services Committee that "in full coordination with the government of Iraq, we're deploying a specialized Expeditionary Targeting Force to assist Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and to put even more pressure" on ISIS.

"These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture" ISIS leaders, Carter said.

The ETF teams are separate from the estimated 200 mostly Special Forces in Syria on the train, advise and assist mission with local partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Earlier this month, Turkish security forces conducted raids and arrested 20 suspected ISIS militants also believed to have taken part in the New Year's Eve attack on Istanbul's Reina nightclub.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
If you think about it, there is not a better time to build a new morning fitness habit than right now with the end of...
Severe weather brought on by climate change is threatening crops in Ohio and across the U.S., and a study is underway at the University of Missouri to determine how corn grows in drought conditions. It's part of a grant by the National Science Foundation.

University engineers have built robots to monitor soil and air temperature, humidity and light levels.

Professor Gui DeSouza says crops are struggling with the changing weather and won't be able to produce enough food for a world population of nine billion by 2050 - as they're learning firsthand.

"Last year, for example, we were trying to plant," he said. "A sequence of very intense rain came and we had to start over from scratch. So, plants are subjected to a lot more stress than they used to be."

DeSouza says the idea is to find plants that can resist the changing climate, and that may mean developing new genotypes.

DeSouza explains how the technology works, saying measurements are taken from a mobile sensing tower in the field - and if plants are under stress, the robots are sent out.

"So, we study different types of corn, different types of sorghum, and we're looking at those areas and trying to identify when the plants are not responding well, or responding better than the other areas," he explained. "And the mobile robot can go and inspect individual plants."

DeSouza says science has to adapt to the changing conditions, with an end goal of producing crops that are able to feed as many people as possible, and for that, there's much more work to be done.

"We want to collect more and more data and be able to address those issues, but we don't expect those questions to be answered completely," he added. "Every time in research you ask one question you find a few more that you don't understand, that you have to pursue."

Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska account for more than half of the corn grown in the U.S.
CLEAR LAKE | Attention, muskie hunters.

A 49.3-inch female muskellenge netted by state fisheries biologists was recently released back into Clear Lake.

Better hurry up and grab the fishing pole, though.

At age 15, the old girl's getting pretty long in the tooth.

"From our other years of collecting this data, I would say pushing out there to that 15-16 years old (age range) is what we see about nearing the lifespan of what we see in Clear Lake," said Scott Grummer, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist.

The more than 4-foot-long fish was the largest of the 312 muskellunge, or muskies, netted this month during the annual walleye spawn in Clear Lake.

The Iowa DNR's primary focus of the spawn is to collect walleye eggs for state stocking efforts, but biologists also measure muskies and walleyes caught in the gillnets.

Each animal is scanned for an electronic chip. Those that don't have one get one.

The chips allow biologists to track each fish's growth, which is how staff knew they'd caught the 49.3-inch muskie a few times before.

Hatched in 2002 at the state hatchery in Spirit Lake, the fish spent her first winter at another state hatchery in Lake Rathbun near Centerville and was released into Clear Lake in May 2003.

Back then, she would've been about a foot long.

Biologists didn't see her again until April 11, 2007, which isn't surprising considering fish don't get caught in the Iowa DNR's gillnets until they're about 26 inches long.

Then age 5, she was 42 inches long.

She'd grown to 44 inches by April 20, 2008, when she got snagged in the state's gillnets for the second time.

The fish managed to avoid the nets every spring until April 11, when she once again got lodged in gillnets set up for the walleye spawn.

The Clear Lake muskie's third recapture  and large size  prompted the Iowa DNR to post her picture on their Facebook page with a caption, "Hello, old friend."

At 49.3 inches, she's reached a size that's getting close to the 52-inch state record muskie caught in 2000 on Big Spirit Lake.

Of course, everyone would love to catch a fish that big, said Jason Anderson, of Crazy Minnow Bait and Tackle Co. in Clear Lake. Thats getting up to the size of muskies theyre catching in Minnesota and Canada."

Over the years, a big muskie caught on Clear Lake has generally been in the mid 40-inch range, although anglers do catch bigger specimens, Anderson said.

He credited restoration and water-quality improvement efforts by groups such as the CLEAR Project with creating good habitat for muskie and other fish.

Theres a lot of forage, a lot of different species of fish that are thriving in Clear Lake now, Anderson said.

Biologists get a scientific picture of the lake health through data taken during the annual fish spawn.

"It gives us a really good chance to get a look at the fish populations," Grummer said.

He said the 2017 data is still being analyzed, but preliminary numbers indicate fish are doing well in Clear Lake.

"We have a good muskie population, good size structure," said Grummer, of the Iowa DNR's Clear Lake office. "So, that shows the stockings that we put in are surviving well and growing well."

DNR's walleye egg harvest is messy, slippery and fun CLEAR LAKE | On the ready with a wet towel, Michael Wentworth went to work walleye after wal

Clear Lake is stocked with muskie every other year.

Baby walleyes, or fry, are released annually.

About 16 million walleye fry collected during spawns at Clear Lake, Lake Rathbun and the Iowa Great Lakes chain earlier this month will be released in the next week or two.
ALGONA  Applications to construct and operate wind energy conversion systems can occur after the Kossuth County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution adopting the ordinance.

The ordinance was passed 4-1 during the board meeting April 4. Supervisor Don Besch voted no to the resolution.

The 11-page ordinance defines a wind energy conversion system, includes setback regulations and the number of turbines and the application process.

Adam Jacobi, public relations representative for corporate communications with MidAmerican Energy Co., said in an email the company is pleased Kossuth County has adopted a wind ordinance so the company can move forward with plans for how a project can be sited in the county.

MidAmerican Energy continues to develop the Plum Creek project and is currently working with landowners and performing multiple project studies, Jacobi said. Our plan is to submit an application to the county in late 2017 or early 2018.

MidAmerican wants to build the 250-turbine facility near Wesley, according to Electric Light & Power's website, with it operational by December 2019.

The company is continuing to work with landowners on easement acquisitions in order to understand where it can site wind facilities to make the most efficient use of their property for their farming practices and our wind project, Jacobi said.

MidAmerican appreciates the efforts of the Kossuth County officials in implementing the wind ordnance and is looking forward to working with the county and landowners, Jacobi said. With their continued support, we hope to bring a project to the county and all of the economic benefits such as clean renewable energy, jobs, landowner payments and increased property tax revenues that come with a wind project.
Healthcare major Abbott on Friday announced the withdrawal of two of its latest generation coronary stents from India, including a bio-absorbable stent it had introduced four years ago, citing commercial unviability.

The decision comes just months after the country's drug pricing regulator capped the prices of stents.

The company said it was disappointed that the government has not fixed prices of old and new technology of stents separately.

However, Abbott said it is aligned with the government's intent to provide affordable stents and reassured that there will be no shortage of Xience Gold Standard range of stents.

NPPA (National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority) had effected up to 80 percent price cuts on stents under the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) in February 2017.

A stent is a tiny expandable tube shaped mesh to open up narrowed or weakened arteries to prevent chest pains and reduce chances of a heart attack. Doctors place stents in the artery through a less-invasive procedure called angioplasty, performed in a catheterization laboratory known populary as cathlab.

Price of bare metal stents was fixed at Rs 7,260 and drug eluting stent (DES) and biodegradable stents at Rs 29,600. Both the prices are exclusive of value added tax.

DES constitutes 95 percent of the market.

Naresh Trehan of Medanta said that the move was inevitable and other firms may follow suit eventually.

"The cap has led to a lack of stent innovation in the country. Patients from abroad have stopped coming as they feel we lack the latest in stent technology. We need a quick decision from the government to resolve this as we have started to lose ground" said Trehan.

Before the cap, prices of such stents to most patients undergoing heart procedures spanned between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh, based on the make, the hospital charges and fees of the surgeon involved.

Read more: Heart of the matter: 5 things to know about pricing of stents

The NPPA's decision has caused a fair deal of heartburn to stent makers. Many have threatened to pull out their products from Indian market, while some said that the decision will be detrimental for bringing in innovative therapies to the country.

MNCs including Abbott, Medtronics, Meril Lifesciences and Boston Scientific have around 60 percent market share of Indias stent market which is valued at around USD 531 million in revenues by 2016-end.

The NPPA's move was also intended to put an end to profiteering by stent manufacturers, distributors, hospitals and doctors through highly inflated margins. NPPA study found out that distributors had trade margins between 13 and 196 percent for sale of stents to hospitals, while hospitals enjoyed a margin between 11 percent and 650 percent on sales to patients.

Around 25 percent of deaths in India are attributed to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common CVD accounting for 90-95 percent of all CVD cases and deaths.
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Hinduja Group flagship firm Ashok Leyland today said it has lined up around Rs 600 crore capex for this fiscal to enhance cabin and engine capacity besides setting up new assembly units in Kenya and Ivory Coast.

The company is bullish on the Indian commercial vehicle market and expects the industry to grow around 10-15 per cent this fiscal.

"We will have capex (capital expenditure) to enhance capacity of cabin and engines. We will not be building new plant for enhancing overall capacity," Ashok Leyland Managing Director Vinod Dasari told PTI here.

He further said the second requirement of capex will be for developing future technologies like modular vehicles and BS-VI emission norm.

The company will also be investing in setting up small plants in Andhra Pradesh, Kenya and Ivory Coast.

Asked how much has the company earmarked as capex for the fiscal, Dasari said: "We are looking at Rs 500-600 crore per year."

There will be no acquisition, he added.

Elaborating on the company's plans for assembly plants in Africa, Ashok Leyland President, Global Sales and Distribution, Rajiv Saharia said these would be smaller units with an initial capacity of rolling out 200 units a month, scalable to 400 units.

"We are hopeful to set up the plants in Kenya and Ivory Coast within this fiscal but land acquisition has been a bit of an issue there," he added.

The Kenyan plant will be used to cater to neighbouring countries in East Africa, while the Ivory Coast unit will do the same for West Africa, Saharia added.

He also said the capacity of the company's plant in Ras al-Khaimah will be enhanced beyond 400 units a month to cater to increased demand from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

On the domestic market, Dasari said the three main drivers of commercial vehicle sales -- GDP growth, infrastructure and mining -- are firing simultaneously at the moment.

"We expect the industry to grow around 10-15 per cent this fiscal," he said.

The first quarter will be a bit slow as people are still evaluating the BS-IV transformation.

"However, there is a lot of pent up demand which we think will transform into sales sooner rather than later," Dasari added.
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Truck and bus maker Ashok Leyland today announced plans to invest Rs 500-600 crore every year into launching new products, open two new assembly plants in Africa and venture into new global markets and aggressively bid for defence contracts.

The company will inaugurate new assembly facilities in Kenya and Ivory Coast to begin with while doubling capacity at the Ras Al Khaimah plant, all of which will happen this financial year.

It is getting ready to supply the first consignment of Boss trucks to Russia later this month. "We will enter every market which has a monthly market of 200 vehicles", said Vinod Dasari, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland.

Each assembly plant will cater to at least six countries. However, the one in Bangladesh which it opened earlier this month will be for captive use only but may look to cater the north eastern states of India.

Ashok Leyland is presently competing in only 25-30 percent of the potential defence pie and would thus aggressively expand its reach with new products for the Indian Army.

"We won 12 out of the 13 bids that we competed for in defence. We recently bagged the contract to supply 4X4 mine-protected vehicles to the Army. We are looking to increase revenues from defence business to 5,000 crore from the current Rs 500 crore", added Dasari.

The Chennai-based company also said that the sudden switch to BS-IV level had created problems for 10,664 of its vehicles as they were of BS-III variant. However, there was no significant financial impact of it, the company claimed.

"About 95 percent of the BS-III vehicles were with us, not dealers as they are on cash and carry basis. So we have already started the process of upgrading them to BS-IV and already 250 of them are upgraded using our indigenously developed iEGR technology", added Dasari.

It will take 2-3 months for the company to convert all the units to BS-IV which will incur a cost of Rs 20,000 per engine. The iEGR technology was developed by Ashok Leyland after a four-year research. The company is not patenting the technology as that would mean disclosing the details of it to the IPR bureau.

Intelligent Exhaust Gas Recirculation (iEGR) technology is a simple yet innovative solution to achieving the desired results in order to meet the BS-IV norms. The company will be the only one to implement this technology for its products above 130hp.

Dasari did not disclose the investment made by the company to develop the iEGR technology but stated that around 200 engineers worked on the project.
Vinod Dasari, MD, Ashok Leyland in an interview to CNBC-TV18 spoke about upgrading their BS-III vehicles the BS-IV compliant engines.

He said the two most important things that helped them move over to BS IV compliant vehicles is one, discipline of having cash and carry with dealers - that is never pushing vehicles into dealer pipeline.

Over 90 percent of the unsold BS-III inventory is lying with the company and not dealers.

Two, development of this innovative new intelligent exhaust gas recirculation (iEGR) technology system, which allows the company to just slot the new engine in place of old one.

He said the one-time cost of retrofitting BS-IV engines will be around Rs 20 crore.

The company will retrofit over 10,000 BS-III unites with BS-IV Engines.

Dasari said the company would also look at de-risking business model with focus on exports and other businesses.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.

Q: How is company going about retrofitting the BS-III vehicles?

A: With Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), you have an entire piping which has to be changed. Your muffler has to have vanadium pentoxide or copper zeolite coated material inside. You have to a urea tank, you have to have a urea dozing mechanism, you have to have a pump that keeps dozing this urea, you have to have an after-treatment control unit which has electronics to do all of this, wiring harness that goes all the way. Sensors that feedback to you, all this jazz, I do not have to do at all because I am following the Internal Exhaust Gas Recirculation (IEGR) system. That is the beauty of this.

Q: Could you quantify the advantage for us?

A: The entire urea system and all of that easily will cost about Rs 40,000-50,000. I do not have to pay that cost. So, my IEGR system based engine, my powertrain versus somebody else's BS-IV powertrain system, my IEGR will definitely be cheaper, a lot less complexity.

Q: So you are saying yours would be almost one-fourth the cost you will do compared to your competitors.

A: One-fourth meaning?

Q: Overall. You are saying initial upfront cost for you will be Rs 20,000 as opposed to company A will be spending Rs 60,000-80,000 to do the same thing. So you are saying you will be doing at one-fourth the cost of your competitors?

A: No, I do not know how others will choose to do that. If they were making a new BS-IV vehicle, they would have anyway put these exhaust systems and all of that.

Q: But I am talking about existing BS-III vehicles.

A: Existing BS-III, maybe they will have to take it out and they will also sell in the aftermarket. But the new BS-IV engine will it fit exactly in the same thing? Another advantage 95 percent of the vehicles we sold have no cabin. So the engine does not have a cover. So I can easily replace it. If it was already sitting under a cab and I have to do new piping under the cab which is not designed properly with a different engine, you can imagine the complexities that somebody has to go through. So, I do not have to deal with that.

Q: So, you are sitting easy today?

A: Three things helped us. First and foremost, our discipline of having cash and carry with our dealers. That means we never ever pushed our vehicles into the dealer pipeline. Since we had that discipline, there was nothing left with the dealer that I had to bring back, virtually nothing.

Second, development of this very innovative IEGR system which allow us to simply slot a new engine in place of the old one. It is like taking a torch-light, replacing the batteries and putting new batteries. It is as simple as that and I do it at no cost because I make after market margin.

Q: Then you also talked about how these engines will be far more fuel efficient.

A: Last five years, I have gained market share in this market regardless of how many new players have come. Five years ago, we were at about 23-24 percent market share. We just finished the year at 32.5 percent market share. It is the highest we have ever been.

Q: Last year, it was 31.3 percent.

A: 31-point-something percent, this year, 32.5 percent. And the beauty of it is that we have gained or defended market share in 90 percent of the regions and segments. So, we have a grid of all the segments and all the regions. In 90 percent of the places, we have either defended or gained.

A few areas where we actually lost, one was the state transport undertaking (STU), the city buses inside the city where we have deal with state governments, we have actually backed off from that because they are not profitable and it is difficult to do business with the state governments, so we have backed off from that. Purposefully lost business. So our market share in bus has come down, but it was by design. Very low margin business, painful to do business, so we have actually dropped.

Q: Is Ashok Leyland completely pulling out of the state?

A: No, I have decided to choose which STUs I will compete in and which STUs I will not.

Q: So, which are the STUs you have decided to completely pull out of?

A: I do not want to comment. We have literally blacklisted a few STUs we will not do business with because it is unethical and I do not want to say that publicly, but we have chosen to bring our market share down.

Q: What is your plan with light commercial vehicles (LCV) because that is an area where Ashok Leyland's volumes of LCV is about 25 percent your overall volumes?

A: Before I get to LCV, can I tell you one last thing about the entire thing that I am very excite about?

Q: Yes, you are entitled to that.

A: Thank you. I take great pride in Indian innovation. Western companies who are afraid of Indian innovation, they will say, 'ye jugaad karte hai'. This is not 'jugaad'. Five years, my engineers have worked on this. Day and night they have come up with this kind of solution. Give them some credit. For seven years I was selling mechanical fuel pump driven BS-III engine, world's only one to the extent that our fuel system supplier took it and demonstrated Indian innovation in their German research and development (R&D) labs. So they are proud of what we are doing. Sometimes, we ourselves beat ourselves up. So, IEGR was one superb innovation that we have done.
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Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) is seeking diesel cargoes in a rare move as a planned maintenance shutdown at its Mumbai refinery takes longer than expected to complete, trading and refining sources said.

BPCL is seeking two 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur diesel cargoes of 40,000 tonnes each for delivery into Mumbai over May 10-12 and May 16-18, according to documents for a tender that closes on April 25, oil traders said.

The firm shut a 120,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) crude distillation unit, a hydrocracker and some secondary units at its 240,000 bpd Mumbai refinery from early March. The unit was initially expected to be back on line earlier this month, but will now only be on stream next week, a company official told Reuters.

"We have some domestic shortages due to the delay," he added.

BPCL didn't answer calls from Reuters seeking comment on the tender.
Jet Airways

Jet Airways has put a freeze on salary hikes for its senior employees including most pilots, the Times of India reported today.

In a letter believed to have been sent out to employees, Jet said the company is now on the threshold of change and it is imperative to reengineer processes and systems.

As it is essential to re-examine the standard remuneration policy and introduce a more dynamic reward mechanism, there is an immediate need to stabilise employee costs, the carrier said.

This salary freeze will be applicable to all employees in manager grades M3 and above and will be effective April 1, 2017, the letter read. The company acknowledged these measures are difficult and unsettling, but said they were unavoidable.

The salary freezes come at a time when the industry is going through a gradual slowdown in demand. Passenger traffic grew 14.9 percent to 9 million passengers during the month, as against 7.8 million a year ago, according to data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday. The last time it grew sub-15 percent was in September 2015.

Jet Airways had spent around Rs 2,316 crore in FY17 on salaries of 15,000 employees, out of which 2,000 are pilots that account for nearly half of the wage bill. In addition, employee cost was up by 26 percent on a year-on-year basis for the period.

The company has been also of late been facing the flak from its pilots. Earlier this week pilots body National Aviators Guild (NAG) had slammed the airliner saying the company was meting out step-motherly treatment to its Indian pilots compared to expats.

It had also pointed to the alleged racist approach of expat pilots at the airline and called for disallowing them in the cockpit. The union of Jet's Indian pilots had also asked local pilots to not fly with foreign pilots in the airline from May 1.

The carrier has around 60 expat commanders, who mainly operate its Boeing 737 and ATR fleet.
Have a long-term outlook | Timing investment is logically impossible because the best entry and exit opportunities are known only in hindsight. No one can predict market movements with certainty. Therefore, it is important to allow your investments to compound over a long term.

Hero Enterprises Chairman Sunil Kant Munjal today committed an investment of Rs 100 crore in a new fund of social venture capital firm Aavishkaar -- Aavishkaar Bharat Fund.

The fund is sixth by Aavishkaar and a Sebi-registered category II alternative investment fund (AIF).

"At this stage in India's evolution, it is clear that for the entire country to develop, rural areas and underprivileged citizens must become part of the economic miracle, not through charity, but through real opportunities," Munjal said in a statement.

The fund, targeting a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore will invest in businesses that deal in under-served population in sectors such as agriculture, financial services, healthcare, waste and sanitation, renewable energy and logistics and supply chain.

Aavishkaar Founder and CEO Vineet Rai said: "With this investment, we can continue to build and scale enterprises that are working at the grassroots while simultaneously multiplying their impact outcome."

Incorporated in 2012, Aavishkaar is part of the global impact investment firm Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group and has made more than 50 investments across sectors and geographies, including low-income states.

It has raised five funds delivering commercial returns with a total of Rs 1,300 crore under management.
Commercial vehicle makers are likely to move a caveat in the Supreme Court against the Bharat Stage-III (BS-3) ban order, sources close to the information told CNBC-TV18. The CV manufacturers are likely to ask for a three-month extension to sell the BS-3 vehicles in their inventory.

Among the automobile manufacturers who plan to move the Supreme Court are Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and M&M. They account for 95 percent of the CV market.

CV makers have roughly 30,000 units lying unsold, which could lead to a loss of over Rs 2,000 crore, said sources. Half of the unsold inventory (around 15,000) is with Tata Motors.

Ashok Leyland had confirmed that 10,664 units of its commercial vehicles were impacted by the Supreme Court ban on BS-3 vehicles, but the financial hit will be minimal as the affected engines would be upgraded for after-market sales.

The Hinduja flagship firm said the BS-III engines would be upgraded to BS-4 standard using its new intelligent exhaust gas recirculation (iEGR) technology.

On March 29, the Supreme Court had declined to postpone the ban on sale of BS-3 vehicles from April 1.

(With inputs from PTI)
Moneycontrol Research

A global slowdown has led to a rise in unemployment in various countries. This in turn is leading to populist measures with political parties the world over seeking to protect jobs at home; this is especially true in the developed world. Right-wing parties have capitalised on the move by coming to power stoking fears of job losses.

The Brexit vote was all about jobs on account of immigration and so was Donald Trumps winning the US presidency.

At the receiving end of the protectionism are countries like India and China, the latter being the shopfloor of the world. India is hit on another front as it is the largest outsourcing play in the information technology space.

President Trumps move to put hurdles in issuance of H1-B visas was the first step that directly hit Indian IT companies. However, the original stance has been somewhat diluted after companies in the US realised that that are few in-house talents in place to take over from Indian professionals, at least at the same price point.

Not happy protecting employment in the United States, Trump has also raised the issue of protectionism in India. He pointed out that Harley Davidson bikes have to pay an import duty of 100 percent to be sold in India. The reality, as this article points out is that Harley pays an import duty of only 10 percent.

India has finally raised its voice and issued a veiled threat that it can also retaliate. Commerce and Industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that it would be submitting a proposal to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) seeking an agreement on trade facilitation in services. The proposal is aimed at liberalising rules for movement of professionals and other steps to reduce transaction costs to boost services growth.

Sitharaman makes a valid point when she says that America has committed a certain number of these visas to India and it should honour that commitment. India has been the only country that thwarted attempts by the United States and other developed countries to skew WTO trade talks in their favour.

Apart from the United States, Australia and New Zealand have also taken steps to prevent immigration and job losses. Sitharaman said she always protests when movement of skilled professionals is being equated with asylum-seeking migrants.

Trump, like a true protectionist, wants American people to use goods manufactured by American companies and also wants other countries to do the same by removing tariff barriers. Trump has repeatedly pointed that companies from other countries make huge profits in the United States while American companies are given unfair treatment globally on account of tariff and other barriers.

Countering this Sitharaman has said, "Let us also understand that not just Indian companies in the US, several big US companies are in India too. They are also here, they are earning their margins, they are earning their profits which go to the US economy.

Though Indian minister has taken an laudable tough stance against the Americans, there is little that India can do. For Indian companies, especially in pharmaceuticals and IT, the US is a big part of their revenues but for US companies India is just one of the markets, though among the faster growing ones.

Most American companies in India outsource their manufacturing to Indian companies. Companies like PepsiCo, Coke and pharma majors like Pfizer get their goods manufactured from other companies. Some of the bigger players are in the services sectors, especially finance. The few who have set up manufacturing bases have just about enough capacity to cater to India and smaller neighboring countries.

India exports USD 40 billion worth of goods and services to the United States but imports only USD 20 billion worth. US accounts for 15 percent of Indias exports while India accounts for only 1.7 percent of US exports. India clearly has more to lose. But this does not mean we should not retaliate.

The problem is India has few weapons in its armory to hit America where it hurts. Most US companies in India are established players with deep penetration and do not rely much on imports. These companies make good profits from their Indian market. The only way to hit them is to increase taxes on the money that is repatriated.

Taxing dividend selectively only to foreign promoters will not be possible, thus the only option left is to tax royalties. Or the other way to do is to use Trumps strategy of starting a silent campaign for Be Indian, Buy Indian.
It is "extremely important" for India to increase and accelerate its investment in children and education as the country has a "very high" child stunting rate, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said today.

Lauding Narendra Modi for demonetisation and Swachh Bharat mission, Jim said the Prime Minister needs to accelerate things quickly in educational outcomes so that India as it marches on its fast pace growth can compete in the "economy of future".

"I think it is extremely important for India to increase and accelerate its investment in children and education," Kim told reporters at a news conference at the start of the annual Spring Meeting of International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

"There are so many great things that Prime Minister Modi is already doing. But it is very difficult to see how with such high child stunting rate the economy evolves, become much more digitally demanding that those children would be able to compete, Kim, 57, said.

"India has a very high 38 per cent childhood stunting rate, and has much better nutritional status than many countries that have a lower childhood stunting rate and a big part of it is sanitation," he said.

The Swachh Bharat mission is a programme that we support is around sanitation, which is very important, he said.

"We are so impressed by so many things that are happening. For example the digital money, the way that the demonetisation programme was very difficult, yet moving the system and providing finance to the poor people has gone digital has saved billions and billions of dollars, he said.

"We think that his approach to the goods and services taxes, so many things that he has done is great. My advice would be in addition to spread things that India Prime Minister Modi has a very strong commitment to this but I would say that he needs to accelerate quickly things like educational outcomes that India can compete in the economy of future, Kim said in response to a question.
Have a long-term outlook | Timing investment is logically impossible because the best entry and exit opportunities are known only in hindsight. No one can predict market movements with certainty. Therefore, it is important to allow your investments to compound over a long term.

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Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will likely stay invested in legacy companies like Larsen & Toubro, Corporation Bank and ITC where their stake exceeds 15 percent.

Sources told Cogencis that the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has asked LIC to reduce their stake to below 15 percent in some companies. However, LIC officials said that they have not received any communication from the regulator to this effect.

Whatever investments were made have been made with the regulators approval. Only when IRDAI has permitted have the limits been exceeded," said a senior LIC official.

Apart from the fact that LIC has exceeded 15 percent stake in ITC, a public interest litigation (PIL) recently filed in the Bombay High Court has raised concerns about large government entities investing in tobacco companies. A senior LIC official said that all the concerned stakeholders including the government, Finance Ministry and IRDAI are well aware of their investment portfolio.

"They have not told us to reduce our stake. We are merely trustees here and only take a call based on the regulatory limits," he added.

The regulator allows insurers to hold only up to 15 percent stake in one company. Earlier this year, the government divested 2 percent of its stake held in ITC through the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI). LIC bought this 2 percent taking its overall shareholding to 16.32 percent.

There were some concerns about LIC breaching the maximum permissible limit of 15 percent. However, LIC officials clarified that this is not the new normal.

During the tenure of J Hari Narayan, the previous chief of IRDAI, there were some differences on the investment cap applicable for LIC. IRDAI had then clarified that investment caps apply to all insurers. The regulator has prescribed norms for equity investments in a company based on the size of the insurer. It ranges from 10-15 percent depending on the funds controlled by an insurer.

The LIC Act has said that it can invest up to 30 percent in a company. In most companies, the insurer has stuck to the 15 percent limit and it is only in a handful of cases that the stake has been increased on account of divestment or similar investment opportunities.
The NDA government has approved 17.73 lakh affordable houses for 2,008 cities and towns in the last two years as against 13.82 lakh sanctioned for 1,061 cities during 10 years of UPA rule, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said.

Naidu said the Centre has done whatever it could and now it was for the state governments to take forward its Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) scheme to provide housing to all the poor people in urban areas by 2022.

Noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's is a "government with a difference", the Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister said the Centre has announced various concessions and tax benefits for the affordable housing scheme.

Besides, the Centre has relaxed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for affordable housing and also accorded infrastructure status to it, he said, and recalled that the Real Estate bill was also passed by Parliament last year.

"What else (can be done by the Centre)... you require the political will and the administration skills... Government of India has done whatever it could do. Now the ball is in the court of the the state governments," he told reporters here.

As the government inches closer to completing three years and two years of PMAY (Urban) scheme, Naidu said 17.73 lakh affordable houses have been approved for 2,008 cities and towns in the last less than two years as against 13.82 lakh sanctioned for 1,061 cities in the earlier 10 years.

He said an investment of Rs 96,266 crore has been approved so far for construction of houses for urban poor as against Rs 32,713 crore during 2004-14.

Central assistance of Rs 27,883 crore has already been approved for release to states and UTs under PMAY (Urban) as against Rs 20,920 crore during the ten years of the previous government, Naidu said.

Elaborating on the strategy to meet the 'Housing for All' target by 2022, Naidu said 15 states and UTs are being targeted to meet their respective goals by 2019.

These are Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar Islands,Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Puducherry.

He said other large states have been asked to submit housing proposals by end 2018 so that construction of houses could be completed by 2022.

The Minister said within 22 months of launch of PMAY (Urban), 97,489 houses have been constructed for urban poor.

Tamil Nadu tops the list of states for which the Centre has approved construction of affordable houses with nod for 2.27 lakh houses, Madhya Pradesh (2.09 lakh), Andhra Pradesh (1.95 lakh) and Karnataka (1.46 lakh).

Gujarat got approval for 1.44 lakh affordable houses, followed by West Bengal (1.44 lakh), Maharashtra (1.26 lakh) Bihar (88,293) and Telangana (82,985).

Jharkhand, Odisha and Tripura each got approval for less than 65,000 affordable houses.

However, Gujarat was on the top of the list of states which have completed the construction of the affordable houses with 28,070, followed by Karnataka (14,328), Tamil Nadu (8,382), and Maharashtra (6,963).

Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Telangana, Jharkhand, Odisha and Tripura constructed less than 6,000 houses.

The Minister said the Delhi government has not yet joined the PMAY (Urban) scheme, adding, as though it has "no poor people".

"Instead of spending on ads (advertisements), the Delhi government should add money to the Centre's housing scheme to provide affordable houses to the poor," he said, responding to a query related to Kejriwal government's reported claim that the Centre was not providing enough money for the scheme.

To another query, Naidu said it would be wrong to compare the performance of the states on the basis of which party is ruling it.

He said whichever state does not come forward with the implementation of the scheme will face the wrath of the people.

To a query on China "standardising" the official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, the Cabinet minister said, "Arunachal Pradesh is totally part and parcel of India. China has no business to name any of the district. I don't know why they have taken this step."

On the political storm in Tamil Nadu, the Union Minister said the AIADMK factions should work together for the welfare of the people of the state.

"They should stay united and work for welfare of the state. That is the wish of all of us. We don't interfere and don't give directions. We don't side with this group or that group as far as Tamil Nadu Politics is concerned," he said.

Naidu said there was also no question of tie-up with either group as no election was slated for the state as of now.
New Delhi: Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman walks to attend a Cabinet meeting at Parliament Library in New Delhi on Wednesday. PTI Photo by Kamal Singh (PTI3_15_2017_000320B)

Concerned over Indian companies getting hit by tightening of US visa rules, Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the "whole debate" has to be expanded to include several American firms that are earning their profits in India.

The comments assume significance in the wake of Indian companies, especially IT services providers, getting concerned over protectionism by the US and several other countries. Sitharaman said, "Let us also understand that not just Indian companies in the US, several big US companies are in India too. They are also here, they are earning their margins, they are earning their profits which goes to the US economy.

"So, it is a situation where it's not just unilateral just Indian companies having too face the US executive order, there are several US companies in India who are doing business for some years now and therefore I want this whole debate to be ... if it has to be expanded, it has to be expanded to include all these aspects and we shall ensure that all these factors are kept in mind."

The minister said that developed nations are now clearly raising protectionist walls with regard to flow of labour and a WTO-backed global framework is needed to facilitate the services trade.

Citing examples of the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, which are making their visa norms stricter for movement of skilled professionals, she said: "Countries are now very clearly raising protectionist walls as regards service trade."

"And it is time that we have a global framework within which trade in services can happen. We will be actively pursuing our proposal in the WTO," she told reporters here.

The proposal is aimed at liberalising rules for movement of professionals and other steps to reduce transaction costs to boost services growth.

India is pitching for this pact at the WTO as the services sector contributes over 60 per cent to GDP and 28 per cent to total employment. The move is aimed at developing a broader framework governing global services trade similar to a pact implemented by the WTO on goods trade.

India wants all the member countries to study the proposal before the forthcoming ministerial meeting in Argentina in December.

About the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on H1B visas, she said America has committed a certain number of these visas to India and "we would definitely want America to honour that commitment".

The minister is in touch with the Indian industry on these issues amid fears that the new American visa regime would make visas more expensive and restrictive.

She further said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is in the US, would take up the matter with the US administration.

"It is not just the US, but several countries now adopting such measures," she said, suggesting that the government and the industry need to work together on the issue.

According to Sitharaman, India will engage with these countries to sort out the visa related matters. The restrictive visa regime would also impact the US companies that are operating in India.

"So, it is not a unilateral (issue) where Indian companies would have to face this, there are several US companies in India which are doing business for years here," she said.

Asked whether India would drag the US and Australia to the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism, she said: "At this stage, we will engage constructively. At the same time, India will ensure it will not accept unfair treatment."

Indian IT companies use temporary work visas to send employees to work on client sites. With visa programmes in these countries becoming more rigorous, domestic technology firms will face challenges in movement of skilled professionals and spike in their operational costs.

These companies get over 60 per cent of their revenues from the North American market, about 20 per cent from Europe and the remaining from the other economies.

With the rising protectionism across markets like the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia, domestic companies are beginning to adjust their business models to reduce their dependence on visas by hiring more locals.

The US, under a new executive order, proposes to replace the current lottery system for issuing H-1B work visas with a merit-based approach. The country is reviewing its visa programme for foreign workers to curb purported abuse and frauds related to visas.

Similarly, Australia has abolished a work visa programme -- 457 visa -- used by over 95,000 temporary foreign workers, a majority of them Indians, to tackle the growing unemployment in the country.

New Zealand, too, is introducing tougher norms for immigrant workers. One of the changes will need immigrants to get a job in which they earn at least the median income to qualify as skilled.

Speaking at the Hero Mindmine Summit here, Sitharaman said India has asked the WTO for a special session to discuss "why trade facilitation in services cannot be formalised".

She was "surprised" that trade in services does not have any global framework despite the fact that "trade in services has a very big chunk" in global trade.

The minister said she always protests when movement of skilled professionals is being equated with asylum-seeking migrants.

"... So, this false equivalence which is being brought to manage numbers is just a smokescreen behind which many countries do realise that they are going to have to depend on these services trade," the commerce minister said.

She rejected the view of developed countries that Indian professionals are taking away their jobs.

Citing an example, she said the UK charges extra visa fee and uses that money to train their own people.

"Increasingly, we are approaching bodies like the WTO to question such practices in the services sector," Sitharaman said, adding that many of the rich countries are framing policies on their "whims and fancies".

This kind of discretionary use of measures to control movement of professional is "hurting them and us also".

Asked about demographic dividend, Mohandas Pai, former director of Infosys, said there are "no" demographic dividend in India as crores of youth are unemployed here.

"... we are in the midst of a disaster. But whatever we produce, that is adequate to serve the world because of digitisation," he said.

"India produces a million engineers, of which two lakh are good quality, 2,00,000 can be trained and the balance 60 per cent can drive Ola and Uber. I mean they are good for that."

The minister, however, asserted that the remaining lot will not be driving Ola only, they will do better things.

Sitharaman added that the government is taking a lot of steps to impart skills to the youth.
Medical Council of India (MCI), the statutory body that regulates medical education and registers doctors, on Friday issued a public notice to all physicians in the country to prescribe drugs only by generic names and warned of disciplinary action against doctors violating the code.

"All the registered medical practitioners under the IMC Act are directed to comply with the aforesaid provisions of the Regulations without fail," MCI said in a notice addressed to deans of all the medical colleges, director of all hospitals, presidents of all the state medical councils, health secretaries, directors of medical education and directors of health services of all the states.

"For any doctor violating clause 1.5 of ethics regulation, suitable disciplinary action would be undertaken by the concerned state medical council or Medical Council of India," the regulatory body warned.

MCI in September 2016 amended the clause 1.5 of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002 making it mandatory for every physician to "prescribe drugs with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters".

If a medical practitioner is found to be guilty of committing professional misconduct, the appropriate Medical Council will remove the concerned practitioner name from Indian Medical Registry rendering him ineligible to practice.

MCI's latest notification assumes importance in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating earlier this week that the government is contemplating to bring in a law that makes it compulsory for doctors to prescribe drugs by generic names against the existing practice of writing brand names in prescriptions.

The proposed legislation intends to break the unholy nexus between pharmaceutical companies and doctors and to ensure patients get cheaper generics.
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JSW Steel, which saw its financial ratios go awry last year, is focused on lowering its debt in the new fiscal. While the company is looking at making acquisitions to take its steel capacity to the targeted 40 MT, it wants to keep a tight control over key financial ratios. The company has raised USD 500 million to refinance expensive foreign currency loans.

JSW Steel is not only looking at bringing down debt but also its overall finance cost. The companys weighted average finance cost is 7.19 percent and it intends to bring this down to 7 percent by end of FY18.

In 2016, these ratios went haywire due to exceptional market conditions and provisioning of the investment the company made overseas. The company has guided that it would like to bring debt/EBITDA down to 3.75x and debt/equity 1.75x levels over time.

Explains JSW Steels Managing Director and Group CFO, Sheshagiri Rao, In FY17, we worked on bringing down the ratios. In December 2016, we brought down debt/EBITDA to 4x and debt/equity 2.1x. Our aim is to bring financial ratios down to guided levels.

Any acquisitions in future will have a capital structure that will comply with these ratios. The company does not feel the need to raise money to fund any acquisition as in the nine months period ended December 2016, it had free cash flows of Rs 5000 crore. Rao does not expect debt to increase in the near-term.
Moneycontrol Research

Global markets, which have had to weather a Brexit and a Donald Trump victory, are now edgily watching the first round of the French elections slated for Sunday. The polls show a nail-bitingly close race between four candidates, setting the stage for heightened volatility.

Investors ultimately expect victory from the centrist Emmanuel Macron but are fretting over the likelihood of a strong showing by either far-Right candidate Marine Le Pen or far-Left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Two candidates qualify for the second and final round on May 7.

The main risk of Le Pen or Melenchon getting to the final runoff and coming to power is that it could spell the beginning of the end for the eurozone. Investors globally have been hedging ahead of the vote by piling into safe haven assets like US Treasury and gold, and buying yen against the euro.

A surge in the polls by Melenchon has again reminded investors of the anti-establishment sentiment sweeping across large parts of the world, and underlines the fact that this feeling can be harnessed for their ends by the Left as well as the Right, even if the latter has been the bigger beneficiary in recent times.

Le Pen is also doing well in the polls and has a high probability of getting one of the two spots in the runoff. The big question is who will she face in the second round?

The markets favourite is Macron. This 39-year-old former banker has never held public office and has emerged as Frances last, best, and perhaps only chance of staving off Le Pen to emerge as president in May. The other centrist, Republican Francois Fillon, has a slender hope. But what could rattle markets more is a victory for Melenchon, who has promised to rework the treaties that set the framework for the EU and then hold a referendum on whether to remain in the bloc.

Depending on how well Le Pen does in the first round, the market could react quite violently. If her runner-up is 6, 7 points behind her, many people would see that as her victory.

It is an easy generalisation to say if Le Pen wins, France pulls out of the euro and the EU collapses. For France to pull out, there has to be a vote in parliament. There is a parliamentary election in June, and it in fact could be the more important election. Nevertheless, the Presidential election will help gauge the mood of the nation.

The bigger near-term risk is a Le Pen victory which could foster other nationalist groups in Europe.

The cost of Frances government debt  the yield it pays on its bonds, known as OATs  has generally been close to that of Germany's, reflecting their status as being among the safest of sovereign debt to own. However, recently this relationship has begun to break down: since late 2016 the yield that France pays on its 10-year bonds has risen sharply relative to Germanys. In February, the OAT/Bund relationship touched its highest levels since mid-2012, amid the worst days of the eurozone crisis.

France-Germany 10 Year Bond Spread is currently at 0.78 percent, compared to 0.36 percent last year.

Last week the spread between French and German 10-year yields was back near those highs after polling suggested a swing towards the leftwing Melenchon. The rise in yields means that French sovereign bonds have begun to perform more like those of peripheral eurozone economies such as Italy.

Experts predict that the worst of all outcomes for the market, a Le Pen-Melenchon second round, could see the 10-year spread back at its 2011-12 eurozone crisis highs. Even a Macron-Le Pen face-off would not calm markets entirely.

While markets are likely to gyrate contingent on the outcome of the Sunday polls, we have seen time and again that such ructions pass fairly quickly, and while they last, bring valuations to a reasonable level for investors.
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Kshitij Anand

Moneycontrol News

HDFC Bank reported yet another strong quarter amid demonetisation woes, a slowdown in credit demand as well as rising concerns of non-performing assets on Friday.

HDFC Bank reported 18.25 percent year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit to Rs3,990.09 crore which was higher than the CNBC-TV18 estimate of Rs 3,966.60 crore. The private sector bank reported a net profit of Rs3374.22 crore in the year-ago period.

We have collated a list of top ten takeaways from HDFC Bank Q4 results:

Net Interest Income (NII)

NII which is the interest earned less interest expended for the quarter ended March 31 grew by 21.5 percent to 9,055.10 crore which was higher than the CNBC-TV18 estimate of Rs8684.40 crore, driven by average asset growth (loan growth) of 19 percent and a core net interest margin for the quarter of 4.3 percent. It reported an NII of Rs 7453.30 crore in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Other Income

Other income (non-interest revenue) at Rs 3,446.30 crore was 27.6 percent of the net revenues for the quarter ended March 31 grew by 20.3 percent to Rs 2865.90 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Operating Expenses

Operating expenses for the quarter ended March 31 rose 13.9 percent to Rs 5,220 crore for the quarter ended March 31, compared to Rs 4584.30 crore reported in the year-ago period. The core cost-to-income ratio for the quarter was 42.4 percent compared to 44.9 percent reported in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Provisions and contingencies

Provisions and contingencies for the quarter ended March 31 came at Rs 1261.8 crore which consisted of specific loan provision of Rs 977.9 crore, the general provision of Rs 280.3 crore and other provisions of Rs 3.6 crore.

The bank recorded provisions of Rs 662 crore in the year-ago period. The specific loan provisions for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, include provisions on account that would have turned non-performing assets during the December quarter.

Total Deposits increased

Total deposits saw a surge of 17.8 percent for the quarter ended March 31 to Rs 643640 crore. The current account deposits grew by 30.7 percent over the previous year to reach Rs 115,574 crore and saving account deposits grew by 30.9 percent over the previous year to reach Rs 193579 crore.

Capital Adequacy Ratio

The Banks total capital adequacy ratio (CAD) as per Basel III guidelines stood at 14.6 percent as of quarter ended March 31 as against a regulatory requirement of 10.25 percent.

Dividend

The board of directors recommended a dividend of Rs 11/share of Rs 2 each for the year ended March 31, 2017, as against Rs 9.50 per equity share provided in the year-ago period. This would be subject to the approval by the shareholders at the next annual general meeting.

Network

As of March 31, the banks total distribution network stood at 4715 branches and 12,260 ATMs in 2657 cities/towns as against 4520 branches and 12000 ATMs in 2587 cities in the year-ago period.

Asset quality

Gross non-performing assets stood at 1.05 percent of gross advances as on March 31, compared to 1.05 percent as on December 31, 2016 and 0.94 percent as on March 31, 2016. The net non-performing assets were 0.3 percent as of net advances as on March 31, 2017.

Loan Portfolio
The discussion will be on how one country has achieved carbon neutral status and the barriers in the U.S. to safeguarding the environment. There will be short videos to focus discussion on current issues and what can be done.
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Kshitij Anand

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Investors mostly focus on big largecap names which are tracked by most analysts on D-Street, but there is a lot of value in small and midcap space which cant be ignored.

There are a lot of companies which started their journey as a small player in the market, but over the period of time, they become a midcap player and then larecaps.

However, not every small or a midcap stock is a value buy and requires a deeper understanding of the business model, growth prospects, as well as pedigree of management. Hence, investors should be careful when putting their money in lesser known companies.

In FY17, midcaps have delivered 35 percent positive returns, as against nearly 19 percent by the Nifty. Midcaps have been consistently been able to outperform benchmark indices not just in last 12 month but in the last five years.

The action is shifting from large caps to small caps. Large indexes are consolidating in line with the global market while mid and small caps continue to rally, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol.

A decisive move will depend upon the outcome of Q4 results and stability in the global market. A normal monsoon forecast has not been taken positively by the market given more clarity needed on the El Nino effect.

Most analysts continue to remain constructive on market, but see short term correction amid geopolitical concerns, muted earnings for the quarter ended March amid high expectations. The overall impact on the market will be limited given the improvement in global economy and prospects of GST in listed entities.

But, the long-term trend still remains intact; hence, investors should not shy away from buying stocks on declines. Analysts see nearly 20 percent upside from current levels on Nifty towards 11,000 in the next 12-18 months.

We believe that the broader market is going to remain fairly steady above 9000, with only some significant global geopolitical issues derailing the markets. We expect markets to be scale 10500-11000 levels over the next 18 months, Nikhil Khandelwal, MD, Systematix shares told Moneycontrol.com.

With consistent improvement in operating leverage of companies, better consumer demand, improving infrastructure spend, and improving export growth - we are seeing almost all major growth drivers being in place for Indian companies, he said.

Going by the buzz on D-Street we have collated a list of six little-known companies from different analysts which could make it big in next 2-3 years:

Analyst: Hitesh Agrawal, EVP & Head  Retail Research, Religare Securities Ltd.

Mayur Uniquoters (MUL) is the largest manufacturer of PVC leather. The company has a capacity of 3.05mn meters leather per month, through its 6 state of the art Italian coating lines.

The company is a leading synthetic leather supplier to branded footwear, automotive and leather goods and garments companies in India and abroad. MUL enjoys 50% market share of organised industry, which mirrors its strong positioning and growth opportunities, in line with industry growth.

MUL's diversified clientele base, increasing exports sales, PU and PVC leather capacity addition augur well for company's future growth prospects. Competition from unorganised players weighed on FY17 earnings; however, we expect earnings to improve gradually over FY18E onwards.

Implementation of GST leading to market shifting from unorganized to organized players will benefit players like Mayur Uniquoters considerably over the next 2-3 years. Religare has a BUY recommendation on the stock with a price target of Rs 478.

Sutlej Textiles (STIL) is Indias largest spun dyed yarn manufacturer and a leading textile player with presence across the value chain from Yarn to Home Textile. With a total installed capacity of 3.78 lacs spindles of Yarn and 8.4 mn meters of Home Textiles, STILs manufacturing facilities are located in Rajasthan, J&K, HP, and Gujarat.

Led by capacity expansion and demand uptick, we expect Sutlej to deliver a healthy revenue growth over the next two years. With leadership, diversified offerings and strong clientele, STIL is well placed to exploit the available opportunities in the Textile industry.

The company is aggressively scaling up its Home Textiles business and is targeting higher share from value-added cotton melange yarn, which should improve its margin trajectory. Religare has a buy recommendation on the stock with a price target of Rs 1,032.

Analyst: Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services

Banco Products Ltd (BPIL) is a manufacturer of radiators and gaskets that have applications in automobiles, oil engines, compressors & locomotives. 80% of the consolidated revenue comes from the commercial vehicles (CV) Industry in which 60% of the revenue comes from the overseas subsidiary.

The slowdown in international radiator sales has been impacting the business and has started witnessing recovery. Revenue from overseas business has delivered a growth of 7% in 9MFY17. We believe that higher road infra spending and impending scrappage policy will bring increase volume sales in the domestic CV segment, said Nair.

BANCO brand is the well-accepted product brand in the aftermarket as well as has attained a reputation of being able to develop and deliver complex cooling solutions amongst OEM customers in various. We expect subdued demand has come to its bottom and will start witnessing recovery and factor 12%/18% CAGR in consolidated revenue/PAT over FY17E-19E, said Nair.

Astra-microwave products Ltd (AMPL) is one among few leading designers and manufacturer of sub-systems for radars and missile electronic systems. The GoIs thrust on indigenous procurement and modernization of defence infrastructure has opened significant opportunities for domestic defence manufacturers.

The order book has marginally improved on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, which currently stands at Rs640cr as on December 2016. The order intake guidance for FY18E is at Rs650cr which is encouraging.

Going forward, the future outlook has significantly improved given better visibility on order pipeline. With the improvement in sales mix towards higher domestic order execution, we anticipate better earnings growth & margins. We are factoring earnings growth of 20% CAGR over FY17E-19E and we maintain BUY rating on the stock, said Nair.

Analyst: Vaibhav Agrawal, Head of Research and ARQ, Angel Broking Pvt Ltd.

The company has high-value generic product pipeline which is expected to be monetised over next three to four years. Lots of products from this pipeline are niche products with low competition which mean that company will enjoy good market share and will also see less erosion in its prices even if competition increases.

Even in the domestic space, company continues to show healthy growth rates. We believe that Natco is most likely to get an approval to gCopaxone ANDA as an innovator of Copaxone has lost several patents on this drug already, said Agrawal.

This will help the company to increase its revenue and net profit at a very fast pace; hence, Angel Broking is bullish on this stock and believe that it can make it big in next few years.

KEI has a healthy order book and a strong revenue visibility. The company is currently strengthening its distribution network with a focus on B2C business. This is likely to result in an increase in retail business' contribution from 30% to about 45% in the next two to three years.

It is also participating in international projects which will help in increasing export revenues. Overall, we believe that the business is expected to show strong growth over next few years. Considering this and healthy margins, one can expect good returns from this stock over next few years, said Agrawal.
Farmers plant saplings in their paddy field on the outskirts of Jammu July 6, 2009. India will boost spending on irrigation and roll out more jobs and loans for farmers to spur the rural economy and lift farm sector growth to 4 percent, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Monday. REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta (INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR POLITICS BUSINESS AGRICULTURE) - RTR25D8S

Most debt-laden farmers in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu continue to wait for some relief while many have committed suicide.

A group of IT professionals has joined hands with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) Centre for Sustainable Agriculture for "Project One Crore" to raise funds to help the farmers.

They are targeting a sum of Rs 1 crore and have managed to collect about Rs 60 lakh so far. The team plans to use the funds for three categories  developing production techniques, market farm produce and assist farmers with government schemes.

India has seen several droughts in last few years leading to an agrarian crisis in the country. In 2016, as many as 229 cases were reported according to the data placed by Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala in the Rajya Sabha.

Between 1995 and 2004, number of farmer suicides went up to 2,96,438. As many as 229 cases of farmer suicides have been reported in 2016 in four states  Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Punjab  due to agrarian reasons.

While some government relief is eagerly awaited, a group of samaritans have come together to help these farmers via crowd funding. "We can make useful interventions to improve their situation. For one, we procured 20 tonnes of redgram in Enabavi in Jangaon district in Telangana after prices crashed to Rs 40 a kg. We bought it for Rs 60-65, giving them significant relief. If we develop a workable model, people will emulate and scale this up to several villages," GV Ramanjaneyulu, Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture told BusinessLine.

The group will put the action plan first in Telangana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

Suresh Ediga, an NRI IT professional in US  co-founder of i4Farmers  started the fund raising campaign on crowd funding platform Milaap.

The fund is also planning to set up a call centre that will help clear doubts on farmer distress and the groups initiative. Farmer suicide statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau show that indebtedness or bankruptcy as one the bigger reasons for suicides.
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, Rakesh Bansal, Sumeet Jain and Ashish Kyal battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis:

Rakesh Bansal of R K Global

Buy Gayatri Projects with a stoploss at Rs 145 and target of Rs 184

Buy EID Parry with a stoploss at Rs 284 and target of Rs 319

Buy Aditya Birla Fashion with a stoploss at Rs 171 and target of Rs 194

Buy Schneider Electric Infrastructure with a stoploss at Rs 143 and target of Rs 169

Sumeet Jain of Destimoney Securities

Buy Granules India with a stoploss at Rs 141 and target of Rs 153

Buy Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers (RCF) with a stoploss at Rs 83 and target of Rs 92.50

Buy Deepak Fertiliser with a stoploss at Rs 276 and target of Rs 304

Ashish Kyal of Waves Strategy Advisors

Buy Petronet LNG with a stoploss at Rs 428 and target of Rs 465

Buy Gujarat Alkalies with a stoploss at Rs 430 and target of Rs 478

Buy Phillips Carbon Black with a stoploss at Rs 380 and target of Rs 430

Buy Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) with a stoploss at Rs 540 and target of Rs 573
Sandeep Wagle of powermywealth.com told CNBC-TV18, "I would go with a buy in M&M Financial Services with a stop loss at Rs 344, target Rs 360 and a sell in Cipla with a stop loss at Rs 568, target Rs 548. "

"I have been a buyer in Reliance Industries from Rs 1,140 and at every dip, I have recommended even when the stock corrected to Rs 1,250-1,260 levels a couple of weeks back. That was the right level to buy it. If you are a trader, I think near around Rs 1,500, you can book some profits but talk of the next 12-15 months, I have my targets set anywhere between Rs 2,000 and Rs 2,200," he said.

"So I would be a buyer on every dip. I do not see the stock go below Rs 1,200, that would be a very safe stop loss," he added.

: Reliance Industries owns Network 18 that publishes Moneycontrol.com.
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Motilal Oswal Financial Services is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 820, target of Rs 855. Reliance Industries is a buy with a stop loss Rs 1,395, target of Rs 1,430."

"All these real estate stocks are now taking out that big red bar, which came in two-three days back, so DLF is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 172, target of Rs 184."

"Ashok Leyland has not violated that low and todays 3-3.5 percent move shows that there is buying and probably short covering which has begun on that stock, so anybody who is interested in that stock probably the downside is now Rs 4 and upside could be closer to Rs 12-15."

"Larsen & Toubro started a large move from Rs 1,400 and now that is what is happening that a lot of stocks are going through small pullbacks and then are showing upside. L&T seems to be one of them. Today I will not say it is breaking out but definitely at some point, I would think it would do that and probably get above Rs 2,000. This is the kind of pattern it is showing, it has had its consolidation for two years now and now the stock looks like it is in accumulation."

: Reliance Industries owns Network 18 that publishes Moneycontrol.com
Hosiery & garments manufacturer Dollar Industries share price started off the day one with 5 percent rally on the National Stock Exchange Friday.

The stock hit a 5 percent upper circuit at Rs 1379.70 after it settled at Rs 1,314 in pre-opening session, amid high volumes. It traded with volumes of 21,574 equity shares at 10:18 hours IST.

The exchange has fixed upper price band for the stock at Rs 1,379.70 and lower price band at Rs 1,248.30, which is five percent up & down from its pre-opening price.

Meanwhile, Dollar Industries, in a board meeting on April 18, has appointed Rakesh Biyani and Sunil Mitra as independent directors of the company for a period of five years while Shashi Agarwal is appointed as chief financial officer & key managerial personnel.

"We have constantly been changing product profile to cater to customer needs and we have a market share of 15 percent in the branded segment," Vinod Gupta, MD said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

The company has capacity of 22,000 spindles currently, which can go up to 1 lakh spindles going ahead, he said, adding it has maximum advertising spends in the industry currently.

He added that good & services tax will transform revenue efficiency and will drive growth.

The stock was earlier listed on Calcutta stock exchange but hasnt been traded for the past 14 years.

Company manufactures and sells hosiery and garments under brands like Big Boss (vests and briefs), Club, Myme, Force go-wear, Force denims, Missy, Ultra thermals, Champions kids, Gap free etc. Its manufacturing facilities are located at Kolkata, Tirupur, Dindigul, Erode, Delhi and Ludhiana.

In the quarter ended December 2016, Dollar Industries had reported profit at Rs 6.06 crore against Rs 3.82 crore in year-ago quarter while revenue fell to Rs 166.21 crore from Rs 196.23 crore year-on-year.

At 10:11 hrs Dollar Industries was quoting at Rs 1,379.70, up Rs 1,369.70, or 13,697.00 percent.

Posted by Sunil Shankar Matkar
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Shares of Jain Irrigation Systems advanced more than 1 percent intraday Friday as it has Received order from Karnataka government of Rs 569 crore.

The company has been awarded the Poorigali Integrated Micro Irrigation project by Cauvery Neeravari Nigam, government of Karnataka through National Competitive bidding.

The project will be implemented in 18 months time and cost of the project valued at Rs 569 crore.

At 11:04 hrs Jain Irrigation Systems was quoting at Rs 114.75, up Rs 0.85, or 0.75 percent on the BSE.

Posted by Rakesh Patil
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Bank of Baroda is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 179, target of Rs 168. State Bank of India (SBI) is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 290 and target of Rs 274. Bank of India (BOI) is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 154, target of Rs 142."

"Reliance Industries is a buy trade and the entire market is hoping that results will be something to cheer about. It is a fresh breakout today and basically you could have easily an 80-100 points type move in case the results are what the market is expecting," he said.

"Tech stocks are looking like they could have a bit of a pullback."

: Reliance Industries owns Network 18 that publishes Moneycontrol.com.
Achiievers Equities' commodity report on Silver

Silver trading range for the day is 40785-42335.

Silver prices edged lower amid fading demand despite jitters ahead of the French presidential election and ongoing geopolitical tensions over North Korea.

Polls ahead of the French vote, which begins this weekend, give both far-right and far-left candidates a chance of making it into next month's run-off.

The Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 244,000 for the week ended April 15.

SELL SILVER MAY 2017 @ 41850 SL 42000 TGT 41550-41220.MCX

For all commodities report, click here

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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Varanasi: Bharatiya Janata Party members celebrate the party's lead in UP and Uttarakhand state elections, at the party office in Varanasi on Saturday. PTI Photo (PTI3_11_2017_000046B)

Delhis three municipal corporations head to elections on April 23 with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeting a third successive victory. The elections may turn out to be a close contest between the saffron party and the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party. Vote counting for MCDs 272 wards will take place on April 26.

The parties have released their manifestos which majorly dwell upon regularisation of old buildings in the capital.

The BJP is relying upon Prime Minister Narendra Modis vision  a tactic that landed the party a massive win in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Its poll manifesto for MCD elections is in line with populist measures implemented by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The Congress is focusing on empowering youth in terms of education and employment. The party plans to earmark Rs 2,000 crore regularisation of unauthorised colonies and expediting their regularisation.

The AAP is playing up the weed-out-corruption card in the municipal polls. The anti-corruption stance is in line with the partys ideology right from the days of its inception.

Here's a peek in to BJP, Congress and AAPs poll promises in their election manifestos.

BJP

 No new municipal taxes and no hike in existing rates.

 Meals for just Rs 10 under a new scheme to be rolled out.

 Party wants to expedite regularisation of sanitation workers (safai karamcharis), and also step up pressure on AAP government to regularis unauthorised colonies.

 It has promised Rs 10 lakh insurance cover for students studying in MCD schools and health cards for Delhi's citizens.

Congress

 Congress has also vowed to abstain from imposing any new taxes. Besides, it wants to lower exisiting house tax rates.

 The party wants to identify, registers and provide licences to 5 lakh street vendors. It plans to regularise sanitation workers within two years if voted to power.

 The Congress is focusing on empowering youth in terms of education and employment. The party plans to earmark Rs 2,000 crore regularisation of unauthorised colonies and expediting their regularisation.

Aam Aadmi Party

 Arvind Kejriwal's AAP plans to train its sights on eradicating corruption and hopes to turn around the civic bodies financial health.

 It wants to ensure that civic body workers get salaries before the seventh of a month.

 It has promised free medicines and laboratory tests at civic-body run hospitals and plans to set up world class hospitals.
OSAGE | When students return to classes this fall at Lincoln Elementary in Osage, there could be two new four-legged staff members greeting them.

Lincoln Elementary Principal Greg Adams requested board members support the idea or concept of implementing the use of one to two therapy dogs at the school.

Adams during a meeting Monday explained several teachers had seen the positive of therapy dogs in other school districts, including Charles City and Cresco.

At Lincoln Elementary, school counselor Erin Bremer and third grade teacher Kari Brown have both expressed interest in having their personal dogs be trained as therapy dogs, Adams said. Brown has a King Charles Spaniel/Bichon, named Charlie and Bremer has a Golden Retriever, named Miles.

Once professionally trained, the dogs will be used be used as reading partners and rewards for students who have shown they are able to regulate their behaviors during school.

Children are more comfortable reading to pets, at times, because they see them as listeners and non-evaluative, Adams said.

We are very excited to be able to offer this to our students, Brown said. For some students, the opportunity to spend time with and read to a dog will be the highlight of their day.

The dogs will also be used to help students regulate anxiety as studies have shown animals can be a calming influence.

"From speaking with others that have had experience with therapy dogs, within the school, it creates a heightened sense of excitement for me," Bremer said. "Therapy dogs are non-judgmental, caring animals, and children find that to be a relief when reading or showing self-regulation struggles.

"We are fortunate that our school district understands the importance of providing therapy dogs to our students."

Adams informed board members the dogs were just beginning their therapy training sessions, which take place one day a week for 25 weeks, at a cost of $440 per dog. The training sessions include the classes of Puppy Kindergarten, Basic Obedience, Manners II and Canine Good Citizen and are held at the Good Dog Center in Decorah.

The dogs will need to pass their therapy training tests, Adams said, and we will need to have insurance coverage in order to begin.

The district will also have to evaluate its current policies regarding pets at school, as well as allergy concerns of the elementary students.

If used, the dogs would be moved throughout the building during the course of the day, not being located in any one certain classroom.

Adams requested initial support of the program, so the employees could begin the training, which started on Tuesday. He also requested the district pay the $440 cost for the training, nothing more, since the employees were attending the classes on their own time, at no cost to the district.

The board took no formal action but members indicated their interest in pursuing the possibility pending insurance and needed policy revisions.
China said today that it was its 'lawful right' to standardise official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, while its state-run media warned that India will pay "dearly" if it continues to play the Dalai Lama card.

"China's position on the eastern section of the India- China boundary is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said here reacting to India's assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is integral part of India.

"Relevant names have been used by ethnic Momba and Tibetan Chinese who have lived here for generations. So it is a fact that cannot be changed. To standardise these names and publicise them is a legitimate measure based on our lawful right," he said.

Lu also countered India's charge that China is inventing names to make its territorial claims over the area legal.

India yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

However, Lu did not react to Union Minister Venkiah Naidu's remarks that Arunachal Pradesh has got an elected government.

Earlier, the Global Times, in an op-ed article, said India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card and dismissed as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.
Foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) in India has increased by 10.7 per cent with 9.05 lakh people visiting the country in March as compared to 8.17 lakh in the corresponding period the last year, the government said.

A total of 1.46 lakh tourist arrived on the e-tourist visa last month as compared to 1.16 lakh in March 2016, registering a growth of 25.8 per cent, the Tourism Ministry said in a release.

The Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) through tourism during March were Rs 14,953 crore as compared to Rs 13,115 crore in the corresponding period last year, recording a growth of 14 per cent.

The share of FTAs during March was highest from Bangladesh (21.31 per cent), followed by the USA (10.39 per cent), the UK (10.30 per cent) and Russia (4.26 per cent).

The share from Malaysia stood at 3.41 per cent, while that of Canada was 3.28 per cent, Germany 3.03 per cent, Sri Lanka 2.91 per cent, China 2.83 per cent, France 2.79 per cent and Australia 2.54 per cent.

The share from Japan was 2.34 per cent, Afghanistan 1.82 per cent, Singapore 1.66 per cent and Iran 1.54 per cent.
India will pay 'dearly' if it continues the 'petty game' of playing the Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warned today, dismissing as 'absurd' New Delhi's reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Referring to allegations that it was 'silly for China' not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said "these comments are absurd.

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China' said.

The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi.

"If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily said.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places," it said.

China also said that it was its "lawful right" to standardise official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, while its state-run media warned that India will pay "dearly" if it continues to play the Dalai Lama card.

"China's position on the eastern section of the India- China boundary is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said here reacting to India's assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is integral part of India.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'.

China on April 19 announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action".

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.

India yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Chinese Foreign Ministrys spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, "an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."

He also said more standardised names will be announced later.

"In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names," he said.

Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, "China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."

"Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," it said.

"India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table," it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
Losing His 'Cool', Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad Attacks AI Staffer With Slipper , Leaving from the Parliament on 23march 2017. Express photo by Renuka Puri.

Barely a month after being grounded for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad took to the skies again.

His airline of choice was Air India, as he took a flight from Hyderabad to Delhi shortly after 4 PM, an aide of Gaikwad told PTI.

"Ravi Sir (as Gaikwad, a former teacher, is known in his Osmanabad constituency) travelled business class from Hyderabad to Delhi today, days after the flying ban was lifted," the aide said.

On April 8, private airlines had lifted the nearly two week-long flying ban on Gaikwad.

The decision of the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) had come a day after the national carrier, following direction from the Civil Aviation Ministry, revoked the ban on Gaikwad.

The flying restriction on the Lok Sabha member had been lifted after he gave an undertaking that such incidents would not reoccur.

Meanwhile, Gaikwad had a heated argument with cops over 'non-functioning' of ATMs at Latur in Marathwada region on Tuesday, police said.
According to the data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), the total assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry has surpassed Rs.14.90 trillion in 2016 which represents an 18% growth in assets over the previous year. Initially viewed as an investment opportunity exclusive to the financially savvy, around 4.89 crore investor accounts exist as of this year. The increase can be attributed to a growing financially secure middle class and investor education.

The increasing interest in mutual funds have raised many pertinent questions namely what fund to invest in and for how long? Even after deciding on the investment duration and identifying the right mutual fund, the main dilemma for investors is the strategy itself. Should they try to time the market or maintain a buy and hold strategy?

The right strategy

Both methods have their fair share of promoters and detractors, and data supporting both claims is available. Market timing is the process where investors buy units at a low price and sell it when the prices are high. However, this method requires a vast knowledge of financial markets, accurately predicting future movements and nerves of steel. There is no algorithm or perfect process to accurately time the market for the simple reason being the sheer number of variables in the economy.

On the other hand, buy and hold strategy requires investors to buy units and keep them for an extended duration of time preferably five years or longer. As they have already decided their portfolio and identified their goals, they usually do not involve themselves in daily tracking, often checking the monthly or quarterly statements and deciding whether to invest more or not.

Despite the complexity of timing the market, a large number of investors flock to this route. The chief reason being the reward of greater returns compared to an equalized SIP. While a great deal of luck is involved, there are some events investors watch out for to time the market.

One such event is price corrections. A 'timer can wait for corrections and then decide to invest. This helps bring down the average cost and would mean higher returns. However, this would involve both anticipating a correction and deciding to buy after the correction. While many analysts can predict when the current trend is about to change depending on certain parameters, to predict them and then profit from these transactions can be impossible in many cases. Another question to ponder over is what the right amount of correction is? 5%, 10% or maybe 20%. This would depend on the stock and the investor.

The downside to time the market is the withdrawal of money at uncertain intervals which is invested again at an unknown time. Contrast this with an equalized SIP where you have a steady corpus building up with compounding.

Tax efficient

The buy and hold strategy is also more tax efficient. Taxation comes into the picture when the investor is ready to cash out and with a long term SIP, the capital gains tax is virtually none. However, a timer will end up withdrawing their investments and have the very real possibility of paying short-term capital gains tax. And in India, short-term capital gains are the same as the highest tax bracket which is at 30%.

The Bottom Line

According to A Balasubramanian, CEO, Birla Sun Life AMC, trying to time the market is impossible. He says, (Market) volatility is something which you cannot escape. It is more important to spend time in the market rather than timing the market.

The right way would be a slight mix of both. Dont throw caution to the wind when it comes to market movements. Stay updated and informed. If there is a price correction, one can choose to invest more depending on the risk capacity of the individual. When it comes to timing, there is a greater risk of losing out on the upswing. While it may be possible to boost returns with perfect timing, there is no clear, systematic approach.
Justice Chandrachud: The judge who is not afraid to dissent'
DES MOINES | Officials backing a $36 million downtown Mason City redevelopment were encouraged by state economic board members Friday to be vigilant in ensuring public support ahead of a city vote on portions of the project.

Getting approval in a city referendum can be a heavy lift, board members cautioned Mason City officials on Friday at the boards monthly meeting in Des Moines.

Dont get me wrong, I mean (the redevelopment project) sounds great and you guys have a lot of cool components to this, board member David Bernstein said. But running a referendum and getting broad community support is always a trick. So you want to make sure that you guys get broad buy-in from the community to do that.

Officials from the city, a key developer and the foundation that oversees The Music Man Square made a presentation to the board on the projects latest developments.

The biggest changes eliminate a parking structure and mixed-use building, and adding a hotel in the south parking lot of Southbridge Mall, a skywalk from the hotel to The Music Man Square, which would be remodeled to include a convention center. The current museum would be relocated on-site.

The hotel replaces the one proposed by G8 Development for the lot adjacent to City Hall. It fulfills private investment requirements for the project.

The ice arena and pavilion remain part of the project, which has earned preliminary approval for $7 million from the states reinvestment district program.

City administrator Brent Trout said officials will continue to work on the project and they hope to ask for contingent approval of the financial assistance during the state board's September meeting.

A petition was filed to make the citys proposed $18 million lease with the mall for the ice arena a referendum, and Trout said a $4 million loan as part of the agreement with the hotel and convention center developer could also become a referendum issue.

The referendums would require 60 percent approval. Trout said the last city referendum, for a $7.5 million bond for library renovations, passed with 60.8 percent approval.

When asked by the board what would happen if one or either referendum failed, Trout said it would be devastating for the project.

That would be a problem, Trout said. If one or both fail, wed have obviously a serious issue to deal with and would have to come back and talk to the board as to whether or not we could continue to move forward. At that point, the public will have spoken relative to the project.

However, Trout said he believes the recent changes to the project proposal will draw even more backing.

Its new. Its exciting. It reinvigorates whats going on with The Music Man Square. It saves a piece for the community that everybody really enjoys, Trout said. So I think that well get a continued up-swell of support.

A representative of Texas-based developer Gatehouse Capital, who would build the hotel, said a similar project in a smaller city in Minnesota has created more than $50 million in economic activity for the area.

Delena Barz, with the Mason City Foundation Board that oversees The Music Man Square, said the group is excited about the project.

The Music Man Square and the Mason City Foundation Board are very excited about the possibility of what this can mean to Mason City, the economic development that can come from this, and the conference center that will bring a lot more conventions and people to town, Barz said.

In other action, the board approved tax benefits for Cargill Kitchen Solutions, which is proposing an expansion of its Mason City facility.

The company produces value-added further-processed egg products and breakfast entrees for North America. The project represents a $9.8 million capital investment and is expected to create 44 jobs, of which 26 are incented at a qualifying wage of $16.79 per hour.

The project includes the accommodation of an additional production line and freezer space.
Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,
Ex-choir director in Bucks County pleads no contest to molesting two students, secretly filming another
April 21, 2017 U.S.: 'No doubt' That Villain-Of-The-Day Has Banned Weapons Mattis: 'No doubt' Syrian regime has chemical weapons, April 21, 2017 "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt," Mattis told reporters. Full text of Dick Cheney's speech, August 27, 2002 Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors ... Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.  Edmund Burke Posted by b on April 21, 2017 at 17:04 UTC | Permalink Comments
The only one that couldn't make it had a pretty good reason not to be there...

21 hours ago
For the second time in less than a week, a motorcyclist died April 19 in a traffic collision at the intersection of Leavesley and Holsclaw roads in Gilroy, according to authorities.

About 9:05 p.m., a Honda Accord was traveling northbound on Holsclaw Road, just south of Leavesley Road when the driver came to a stop at the intersection of the two roads, according to a press release from the California Highway Patrol.

At the same time, a 62-year-old Los Banos man riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle was traveling eastbound on Leavesley Road. As the motorcycle approached the intersection of Holsclaw Road at an unknown rate of speed, the Honda proceeded from the stop sign directly into the path of the motorcyclist on Leavesley Road, according to police.

The motorcycle collided into the left front fender of the Honda, which was driven by a 17-year-old Morgan Hill man. A 14-year-old passenger was also in the Honda.

Fire and emergency personnel responded to the scene, where the motorcyclist was pronounced dead after paramedics attempted first-aid, police said. The motorcyclist has not been identified.

Police do not think alcohol or drugs were a factor in the collision. An investigation into the accident is ongoing.

Just five days earlier, on April 15, Richard Ricky Luciano Martinez, 53 of Gilroy, died after he collided with a vehicle at the same intersection. Martinez was riding his motorcycle eastbound on Leavesley Road when a 2000 Ford traveling westbound turned directly in front of him onto Holsclaw Road, according to police.

Martinez was pronounced dead at the hospital, after he was transported from the scene, police said.

Anyone with information about either of the fatal accidents can call CHP at (408) 848-2324.
Carolinas HealthCare System Blue Ridge welcomed liver transplant patient Steve Granger and members of the community to celebrate National Donate Life Month with its annual flag-raising ceremony on Monday.

Granger spoke at the ceremony held at the Morganton campus and was invited to raise the Donate Life flag to fly next to the hospitals U.S. flag.

Brandi Denton, director of nursing practice at Blue Ridge Health, which includes critical-care, telemetry and cardiac cath-lab, shared that she was the liaison between the hospital and Life Share of the Carolinas, a nonprofit organization that facilitates transplants in western North Carolina.

Ive been a critical-care nurse my whole entire nursing career, so Ive seen firsthand the wonderful value that organ donation has, Denton said. Its been a very big passion of mine for a long time.

Denton introduced David Pope, assistant vice president of administration and associate counsel for Blue Ridge Health. Pope said Granger received a liver in 2013, which inspired him to become an ambassador for LSC. He also founded a nonprofit organization with other transplant patients called Save a Life to raise awareness of the need for organ donors. Save a Life has raised nearly $100,000 in the last three years for Donate Life, Life Share of the Carolinas and the Cleveland-Rutherfordton Kidney Association.

Pope said about 123,000 people are on a waiting list for an organ in the U.S., but only about 20 percent will receive transplants at the current rate of organ donation.

Unfortunately, that means the other 80 percent of folks usually die without an organ donor, Pope said.

He noted the discrepancy between a survey that found 90 percent of people viewed organ donation as a good thing and necessary to save lives, and the fact that only about 45 percent of the nations population are actually registered to be donors. He said the percentage of registered organ donors in North Carolina is about 53 percent.

What that tells us is that there is a huge opportunity to be able to raise awareness, Pope said. Thats the sort of work Mr. Granger does, and the sort of work that we as an organization need to continue to do. Even in a small, rural community, this is something that touches every one of us.

He said one donors organs can help up to 80 people with serious or terminal medical conditions or injuries.

Granger, who is from Shelby, shared his transplant story with attendees, which included a few misdiagnoses before doctors found his liver was failing. He was on the transplant list for several months before receiving the call that a liver was available. He had his transplant done at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, a surgery that took 11  hours.

After being sick for several years, it was a real life-changing moment, Granger said.

He said a team member from LSC came to the hospital during the surgery at the request of the organ donors mother to give Grangers wife a hug, a gesture that began a special bond between the two families.

At the same time this donors mom was losing her son, she was worried about me regaining my life, Granger said.

Granger and his wife eventually met the organ donors parents and now visit with them often. He said the families recently tailgated together at a Carolina Panthers game.

He highlighted the fact that he now owes his life to the man who gave him a liver.

The doctors, the nurses, Life Share, they didnt do any of this, Granger said. The donors the hero. Without the donor, none of this would be possible.

He said his recovery after the transplant was swift and his prognosis going forward is positive.

He urged people to consider becoming organ donors if they had not already done so, and to let family members know about the designation so they would not be surprised in an emergency situation.

Just ask yourself  if it was you (needing an organ), would you take it? Granger said. If you take out, you ought to put in. Twenty-two people die every day in the United States waiting on some type of transplant. The greatest gift of life is giving someone else life.

Tammie Gercken can be reached at tgercken@morganton.com.
LENOIR  A new organization, The Harris Global Network, is kicking off its spring fundraiser to raise money for a mission trip to Haiti on June 30 through July 8.

During the trip to Haiti, members of the organization will feed families and provide food to orphanages that house anywhere from 20 to 60 children in each orphanage. The spring fundraiser campaign has set a goal to raise at least $75,000.

Harris Global Network is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that services and assists third world countries through an organizational network of programs that include food and nutrition, medical assistance, orphanage and home building, financial support, educational support, farming and fresh clean water.

Founder and president of Harris Global Network, Kaliph "K.J." Harris, a native of Lenoir, s ai d that the organization,which he formed after his first trip to Haiti in July of 2016, is quite important to him.

I went to Haiti back in July 2016 on my first mission trip, and it actually changed the whole trajectory of my life," Harris said. "When I experienced real poverty, I could not believe my eyes. When I returned back to North Carolina, I immediately filed for my 501(c)(3). The organization is so important to me because I know my purpose in life and that is to serve people, and people that live in third world countries as they are so underprivileged and need opportunities and help.

Harris also said that his personal experiences in life have helped shape his idea to create the nonprofit organization.

I used to work at a food distribution company, and I saw the company throw good packaged sandwiches away from the freezer to make room for more sandwiches," Harris said. "It had a huge impact on me, as I know that people in Haiti would walk miles to get one sandwich. I look at food differently now and see that we in America are really privileged.

Another goal, other than raising money to feed people in need in Haiti, is to raise awareness about the daily trials Haitians face.

During his first trip to Haiti, Harris learned that eight out of 10 Haitian families go without food, 60 percent of Haitians eat one meal a day, and five out of nine die from starvation. Those who go without food suffer from malnutrition, depression, starvation and anemia. Because of what Harris learned, he is determined to touch the lives of third world citizens and impact their lives through his organization.

Although a relatively new organization, Harris has reached out to churches, small businesses and associations to partner with Harris Global as a means to meet the organizational mission and goal. The ultimate goal is to raise between $75,000 and $100,000 to feed families and orphanages in Haiti.

Harris said the organization will purchase staple foods such as bags of rice, beans, corn, cooking oil and spaghetti in Haiti when they arrive.

Small businesses that donate to the organization would be able to use it as a tax write - off. A donation of $1,000 feeds an orphanage with 20 children for a whole month. A donation of $3,000 feeds an orphanage with 60 children for a whole month.

We hope to raise enough money so we can feed two orphanages for one year and families in the villages, said Harris.

Harris made more than just an impact with food on his first trip to Haiti. He also became a g od f ather.

I also gained a godson while I was in Haiti," Harris said. "When I arrived to Haiti I met this child, Jhon. We played together every day and when I held him in my arms I knew he was special to me. Right before I got on the bus to leave out of the village, Jhon came up to me and asked if I would be his father, because he did not have one.

Jhon is now 5 years old and , before the help Harris provides, Jhon was only eating one meal a day.

I make sure financially he eats three meals a day and goes to school, Harris said. I even brought his uncle, who speaks English, an iPhone so I could stay in contact with Jhon.

The spring fundraiser will occur during the months of April, May and June. Various donation methods will be available to respond to the campaigns call to action. These methods include online, text-to-give and direct mail. The campaign officially kicked off on April 1.

Harris Global Network is asking anyone and everyone to donate to help meet the needs of the organizations goal. In order to donate via text, text HARRIS to 91999. You can also donate on the website, HarrisGlobal.org.

The organization also is looking for volunteers to go to Haiti on the next trip. To be a volunteer, fill out the form on the website and email it to Volunteer@HarrisGlobal.org.

For more information on Harris Global Network, visit their Facebook page Facebook.com/HarrisGlobalNetwork. Email questions or inquiries toHarrisGlobalNetwork@gmail.com.
Two men are in custody on felony charges after Burke County Sheriff's deputies served a search warrant on a home of what officials say was a validated gang member Thursday night.

David Allen Pearson, 47, of 2670 Mount Home Church Road, Morganton, and Michael Allen Wright, 34, of 2271 Shanghai Lane, Conover, each were arrested on charges of possession of a firearm by a felon Thursday evening, according to Sheriff Steve Whisenant.

Whisenant said Pearson's violent criminal history, and other factors, led to the BCSO SWAT team busting into the home to serve the warrant.

"Due to David Allen Pearson being a convicted felon and a validated gang member with convictions for Conspiracy to Commit Common Law Robbery, Possession of Methamphetamine Precursors, Manufacturing Schedule VI Controlled Substance, Habitual Misdemeanor Assault, Assault on a Female, Possession of Schedule IV Controlled Substance and information that he had weapons in the residence, we used a 'no knock search warrant' and used ours SWAT team to make entry into the residence," Whisenant said.

Also contributing to the "no knock" warrant was numerous recent calls to the home, including one Wednesday for shots being fired.

"(Wednesday), we were here answering a call to shots fired around 5:30 p.m.," Whisenant said. "We came out and there were 10 people here and two of them we had warrants on and we took into custody. We went back (Thursday) and were doing some research in the database and discovered we have been to 10 calls (at this residence) since February.

"Worked on it today and developed some probable cause that showed that they had methamphetamine and guns inside the home so we got a 'no knock' search warrant. ..."

Whisenant said this type of warrant helps to ensure safety of officers and the public.

"We used our SWAT and the 'no knock' search warrant for the safety of our officers and everyone involved," he said.

Both men were issued a $25,000 secured bond and placed in the Burke-Catawba Jail.

More information on this story will be published as it becomes available.

Editor Lisa Wall can be reached at lwall@morganton.com or 828-432-8939.
Two men are in custody on felony charges after Burke County Sheriff's deputies served a search warrant on a home of what officials say was a validated gang member Thursday night.

David Allen Pearson, 47, of 2670 Mount Home Church Road, Morganton, and Michael Allen Wright, 35, of 2271 Shanghai Lane, Conover, each were arrested on charges of possession of a firearm by a felon Thursday evening, according to Sheriff Steve Whisenant.

Whisenant said Pearson's violent criminal history, and other factors, led to the BCSO SWAT team busting into the home to serve the warrant.

"Due to David Allen Pearson being a convicted felon and a validated gang member with convictions for conspiracy to commit common law robbery, possession of methamphetamine precursors, manufacturing schedule VI controlled substance, habitual misdemeanor assault, assault on a female, possession of schedule IV controlled substance and information that he had weapons in the residence, we used a 'no knock search warrant' and used ours SWAT team to make entry into the residence," Whisenant said.

Pearson most recently served one year and six months in prison on charges of possession of methamphetamine precursors, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. He was released on March 28, 2016.

Wright also has a long criminal history including felony convictions for larceny, drug possession, assault with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury dating back to 2000, according to the NCDPS. He served more than seven years in prison for the two assault with a deadly weapon charges.

Also contributing to the "no knock" warrant were numerous recent calls to the home, including one Wednesday for shots being fired.

"(Wednesday), we were here answering a call to shots fired around 5:30 p.m.," Whisenant said. "We came out and there were 10 people here and two of them we had warrants on and we took into custody."

Brandy Alexandria Carter, 28, of 2670 Mount Home Church Road, Morganton, was charged Wednesday with felony failure to comply. She was issued a $1,000 secured bond and given a May 2 court date.

Michael Paul Denton Jr., 31, of 525 Prayley St. SW, Valdese, was charged Wednesday with felony possession of schedule II drugs. He was issued a $9,500 secured bond and had his first court appearance Thursday.

Further investigation into incidents at the home led to BCSO obtaining the search warrant that was served Thursday.

"We went back (Thursday) and were doing some research in the database and discovered we have been to 10 calls (at this residence) since February," Whisenant said. "Worked on it (Thursday) and developed some probable cause that showed that they had methamphetamine and guns inside the home so we got a 'no knock' search warrant. ..."

Whisenant said using a "no knock" warrant helps to ensure safety of officers and the public.

"We used our SWAT and the 'no knock' search warrant for the safety of our officers and everyone involved," he said.

Both men were issued a $25,000 secured bond and placed in the Burke-Catawba Jail. Their first court appearances were slated for Friday.

Editor Lisa Wall can be reached at lwall@morganton.com or 828-432-8939.
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.
Its been a long-time coming, but Ontarios government has finally made good on its promise to address affordability in the province. Have your sayPremier Kathleen Wynne, along with Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, announced Ontarios Fair Housing Plan -- which includes 16 new housing policies -- in Toronto Thursday.Some are meant to addressing affordability and rental supply; while another  a 15% tax for foreign buyers  is aimed at cracking down on speculation.The foreign buyer tax is perhaps the most controversial; Vancouver implemented a precursor to it last year, which split industry opinion down the middle.But according to Premier Wynne, Ontarios plan is aimed at helping Canadians first and foremost.Effective immediately: non-resident speculation tax. It will be 15% in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. It has nothing to do with new Canadians and people who want to make Ontario home. With this tax were targeting people who  are looking for a quick profit or a safe place to park their money, she told reporters in Toronto neighbourhood Liberty Village Thursday. Were taking action to discourage the practice. Our priority here is the people who live and work in Ontario.See the entire suite of policies below  and let us know your thoughts on the new plan in the comments section below. A 15-per-cent non-resident speculation tax to be imposed on buyers in the Greater Golden Horseshoe area who are not citizens, permanent residents or Canadian corporations. Expanded rent control that will apply to all private rental units in Ontario, including those built after 1991, which are currently excluded. Updates to the Residential Tenancies Act to include a standard lease agreement, tighter provisions for ``landlord's own use'' evictions, and technical changes to the Landlord-Tenant Board meant to make the process fairer, as well as other changes. A program to leverage the value of surplus provincial land assets across the province to develop a mix of market-price housing and affordable housing. Legislation that would allow Toronto and possibly other municipalities to introduce a vacant homes property tax in an effort to encourage property owners to sell unoccupied units or rent them out. A plan to ensure property tax for new apartment buildings is charged at a similar rate as other residential properties. A five-year, $125-million program aimed at encouraging the construction of new rental apartment buildings by rebating a portion of development charges. More flexibility for municipalities when it comes to using property tax tools to encourage development. The creation of a new Housing Supply Team with dedicated provincial employees to identify barriers to specific housing development projects and work with developers and municipalities to find solutions. An effort to understand and tackle practices that may be contributing to tax avoidance and excessive speculation in the housing market. A review of the rules real estate agents are required to follow to ensure that consumers are fairly represented in real estate transactions. The launch of a housing advisory group which will meet quarterly to provide the government with ongoing advice about the state of the housing market and discuss the impact of the measures and any additional steps that are needed. Education for consumers on their rights, particularly on the issue of one real estate professional representing more than one party in a real estate transaction. A partnership with the Canada Revenue Agency to explore more comprehensive reporting requirements so that correct federal and provincial taxes, including income and sales taxes, are paid on purchases and sales of real estate in Ontario. Set timelines for elevator repairs to be established in consultation with the sector and the Technical Standards & Safety Authority. Provisions that would require municipalities to consider the appropriate range of unit sizes in higher density residential buildings to accommodate a diverse range of household sizes and incomes, among other things.With files from Canadian Press
Servicing News; Fannie/Freddie News; Another Blow for Ocwen

The origins of job interviews? Here you go. And speaking of employment, yesterday the commentary mentioned companies coming and going. Here in Florida, thank you to Genworth's Karen M. for passing along Sir Richard Branson's well-written tribute to his Virgin America brand which is being eliminated in its merger with Alaska Airlines.



Servicing news & trends

MIAC Capital Markets is offering an MSR package totaling $2.1 billion of government servicing rights. The seller has a nationwide footprint and is a well-capitalized non-bank originator. Key pool characteristics are: $123,290 average loan size, 23% GNI and 77% GN2. WA rate is 3.806%, WA loan age is 53 months. WA FICO is 672. The bid date is May 9, 2017 by 5pm EST. Please contact Dan Thomas, Steve Harris or your MIAC sales representative for more information. 212-233-1250.

The MBA tells us that independent mortgage banker net servicing financial income, which includes net servicing operational income as well as mortgage servicing rights amortization and gains and losses on MSR valuations, fell to $34 per loan in 2016, from $73 per loan in 2015. Most servicers posted net servicing financial losses in the first half of 2016 because of heavy MSR amortization and valuation losses, but recovered in the last quarter of the year.

Regulatory risk around servicing transfers continues to be a hurdle for enticing investors to engage in the market. This is largely dependent upon lenders' ability to ensure the quality of the assets being traded. The best strategy for taking the risk out of servicing transfers from a regulatory standpoint and verifying the soundness of underlying assets is through enhanced data and process management. MetaSource's newest whitepaper addresses best practices for leveraging better data and process management in servicing transfers.)

Fannie Mae has updated the Servicer Expense Reimbursement Job Aid, which provides operational instructions based on Servicing Guide policies. Updated topics include claim status, property preservation, required documentation, attorney fees and legal costs, property inspections, and changes to line items. Click here for a detailed list of all revised items and specifics about where the revisions were made. Visit the Servicer Expense Reimbursement page for additional training and resources.

Ocwen - it'll be a challenge to put a good spin on this news

Yesterday the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks, along with mortgage regulators from 20 states, issued Cease-and-Desist orders to Ocwen. Separately, the CFPB also sued Ocwen. Some analysts opined that since Ocwen is not currently purchasing servicing the immediate impact of these actions should be small. The news, however, does suggest that expenses could remain elevated and growth limited even if it the company settles with NY DFS, which is expected.

The stock reacted accordingly from news regarding the cease-and-desist order to subsidiaries of Ocwen to address mishandling of consumer escrow accounts and a deficient financial condition. The Order prohibits the acquisition of new mortgage servicing rights and the origination of mortgage loans by Ocwen Loan Servicing. Further, the company will probably be unable to grow servicing, even through the retention of its own originations, until it resolves these issues. This could result in portfolio runoff being faster than current forecasts.

For its part, in its defense Ocwen did release a statement worth reading. The U.S. case is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Ocwen Financial Corp., 17-80495, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach).

Fannie, Freddie, and conventional conforming news

The residential lending industry continues to banter about the future of Freddie and Fannie. Certainly the man in charge of fixing Fannie and Freddie knows them well. You may not know much about Craig S. Phillips, special counselor to Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary. That is because Mr. Phillips has not garnered any headlines. Nor was he a political appointee, so did not face congressional scrutiny before he began directing our nation's housing policy, one of his main tasks.

Yesterday the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released a white paper GSE Reform: "Creating a Sustainable, More Vibrant, Secondary Mortgage Market" which provides a detailed picture of a reformed and revitalized secondary mortgage market. It also attempts to shed light on two critical areas that have tested past reform efforts - the appropriate transition to the reformed system and the role of the secondary market in advancing an affordable housing strategy.

"Key leaders on Capitol Hill and in the new administration have made it clear that GSE reform should be accomplished through bipartisan legislation," said David H. Stevens, CMB, MBA's President and CEO. "While progress has been made during conservatorship, only Congress has the power to ensure lasting reform."

The MBA's approach to GSE Reform includes several topics. Among other things it is designed to inject much higher levels of risk-bearing private capital into the mortgage system, while dramatically reducing the system's reliance on government support. Another is to enhance the stability of the mortgage system with multiple Guarantors that will operate as privately-owned utilities. The MBA noted it will protect taxpayers and consumers with a clear set of market conduct rules, prudential requirements, and a new federally-backed Mortgage Insurance Fund (standing behind the mortgage backed securities, not the Guarantors themselves) financed with appropriately priced insurance premiums.

David G. Kittle, CMB, president and vice chairman, The Mortgage Collaborative, wrote, "The issue of GSE reform is critically important for the independent mortgage banks, community banks and credit unions that today originate more than 3 out of every 4 home loans in the country. The MBA's reform proposal recognizes the value of a competitive and diverse primary market, and calls for important reforms that will provide stable liquidity for the 30-year fixed mortgage and preserve a level playing field for smaller lenders. Guarantee fees based on loan quality not volume, and a new structure that encourages increased private capital flow into the primary market are all central elements to the MBA plan and key principles for the members of The Mortgage Collaborative."

Tom Millon, President and CEO of Capital Markets Cooperative, a Computershare company, noted, "With both Congress and the new Administration making legislative reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a priority, it's important that the mortgage industry has a strong voice at the table. As a member of the MBA's Task Force that developed the new white paper, I believe the MBA plan offers a viable path forward to reforming the GSEs. Of particular importance, the MBA paper recognizes the critical role that smaller, community-based lenders play in the market, and recommends key protections to ensure that they maintain direct and reliable access to the federally supported secondary market guarantors."

Leo Pareja, 2017 President of The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), noted, "Housing Finance Reform is the most important issue facing the housing market. Today, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) presented a proposal that is a very thoughtful and constructive contribution to the housing finance reform debate. Considering that Hispanics currently represent roughly 40% of the nation's first-time homebuyer population, NAHREP was particularly pleased with the MBA's formidable attention to affordable housing. Congress needs to prioritize Housing Finance Reform and should seriously consider many of the principles laid out by the MBA in their deliberations."

Meanwhile, the Agencies and investors continue to make changes. The April 3 release of Fannie Mae Connect includes functional enhancements to the user experience and adds new reports to provide lenders with more transparency and analytics around quality assurance and market activities. For details on the release, log in to Fannie Mae Connect and view its latest Release Tracker, and view the Report Directory for report descriptions (these documents are available to Fannie Mae Connect users only).

Fannie Mae is enhancing LoanSphere Invoicing. The Pending Submitter Review (PSR) Status, Bankruptcy Attorney's Fees, and Foreclosure Attorney's Fees sections are impacted by the updates. The timeline for enhancements has shifted to May 1. The Servicer Expense Reimbursement Job Aid has been updated since the initial March update to accurately reflect the new timeline. Click here for a detailed list of all revised items, and visit the Servicer Expense Reimbursement page for additional training and resources.

Take advantage of the Day 1 Certainty Resource Guide. This document provides everything you need to get started, including eLearning modules, FAQs, job aids, and reference guides.

NationStar Mortgage Seller Guide update includes a change to the max cash-out limit, the requirement to provide a letter of explanation for cash-out transactions and delayed financing eligibility for owner occupied properties (conventional only). NationStar Mortgage has eliminated its CO-OP Lending program. For co-op lending loans already committed, the last day to purchase these loans will be April 24.

Pacific Union Financial will not accept Freddie Mac Desk Review Form 1033 to establish market value for the subject property in lieu of a subsequent appraisal or field review. The opinion of market value for the transaction must be established by an appraisal or inspection that meets Loan Product Advisor (LPA) requirements and/or an appraisal field review of the initial appraisal report/valuation. Pacific Union will utilize Freddie Mac Desk Review Form 1033 only to substantiate the market value established by the original appraisal. The Overlay Matrix has been updated to reflect the restriction.

Beginning April 1, for Non-Delegated and Delegated Correspondent lenders submitting loans to ditech for underwriting, it will be required to upload the Fannie Mae 3.2 file (1003 Import). Once the 3.2 file has been uploaded and the 1003 application image along with the rest of the credit file has been uploaded, the loan will advance into the underwriting queue.



Capital markets

Rates crept higher yesterday. Blame the small move on anxiety over the upcoming French presidential election subsiding, or the Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing activity survey showing sentiment pulling back sharply from March to April, but remaining at a level consistent with strong growth. Initial jobless claims exceeded expectations last week but continuing claims fell to a 17-year low. And throw into the mix chatter about another go at ACA repeal in addition to comments from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin saying that a major tax reform proposal would be coming "very soon".

Regardless of MBS prices worsening .125-.250 yesterday, and the 10-year ending at 2.24%, rates have certainly been behaving themselves lately. And there isn't much scheduled news today to move them. The only item of substance is March Existing Home Sales which will be released at 10AM ET.



Jobs and Announcements

In wholesale product & AE job news, Greenbox Loans was founded based on the concept of 'out of the box' underwriting of residential loans in the Non-QM/Non-Prime market. Greenbox is providing real lending solutions for its broker partners with an exception minded mentality and a committed approach to specialty lending. "Greenbox has been dedicated to the Non-QM programs for the last 3 years while other lenders have been pursuing agency and government loans - we are focused and determined to be #1 in the Non-QM lending marketplace" per Raymond Eshaghian, President. Greenbox is offering TEN unique programs that provide solutions for any Non-QM/Non-Prime Borrower including four different bank statement programs to accommodate A+ borrower to Non-Prime borrowers with 580 Fico score, three Non-Prime Full Doc programs, two Investor based programs with No Income, No Employment, and one Foreign National program. Greenbox is actively hiring Regional Sales Managers, Area Sales Managers, Wholesale Account Executives as well as Operations staff nationwide as part of its expansion plans. Send your resume to careers@greenboxloans.com or call 213-235-4204.

"PRMG Retail is continuing its nationwide growth and is looking for LOs. Built by Originators for Originators, PRMG continues to deliver consistent service levels allowing their LO's to close more loans in less than three weeks. Chris Sorensen, SVP Director of National Retail said, "We've built a 'best-in-class' retail platform allowing us to maintain a competitive edge by providing better products, pricing, technology and marketing. This has fostered tremendous growth for retail; over 225% annually while creating Raving Fan's across the country. We offer a wide-range of loan products including Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, DPA, and 2nd Liens! Plus, we pay some of the highest commissions and branch credit to the P&L amongst our peers. We deliver on what we promise!" Voted No. 1 of the 50 Best Companies to Work for in America 2015, No. 1 Best in the Desert 2017 and TOP 25 of 100 Mortgage Companies in America! PRMG employees over 1,300 people with 93 branches across the country. Contact Chris Sorenson to learn more (909.262.0452).

Here at Assurance Financial, our success isn't a secret: we hire great people. Start to finish we not only have a talented operations team in the back office, but also talented loan originators and branch managers on the sales side. If you think you're ready to join Assurance Financial and grow your career, call Sales Recruiting Manager Paul Peters, CMB at 225-239-7948 or visitLendTheWay.com/Careers.

In product news, "Need to validate wire info & state licenses of your closing agents before sending funds? FundingShield can significantly enhance your anti-fraud and compliance protocols leveraging their technology that provided diligence at transaction level. They provide closing agent oversight with verification services for Wires, State Licensing, CPLs, and UPL enforcement. FundingShield will be at the MBA Secondary May 1st - 3rd in New York City and would welcome meeting interested lenders, technology firms and investors seeking a risk enhancement that "pays for itself many times over." The firm is seeing a significant increase in client outreach resulting from several cyber-based fraud schemes that have amounted to individual lender losses ranging from $200k up to $2mm plus over the last 3 months. FundingShield has also expanded into insurance underwriting due diligence services to benefit those in the mortgage industry. Contact Adam Chaudhary (949.706.7888) to schedule a meeting or demo.
Posse saddles up to help children Russell Libby describes his golden palomino horse, Sonny, as the calmest, sweetest guy and his best friend for nearly two decades. Sonny is the reason Libby and his wife, Laura,...

Kris Kringle to support library programs The Moorpark Friends of the Library is offering the second annual Letter from Santa fundraiser. For a $25 donation to the Moorpark Friends of the Library, children will receive a...

Oakmont welcomes new executive director Ronda Wilkin, certified dementia practitioner and a senior living executive, joins Oakmont of Moorpark with more than three decades of experience in health and human services. During her 15 years...
Slow yet steady improvement in Midlands labor market continued to be seen as the Texas Workforce Commission issued its March unemployment data.

The commission reported Midlands unemployment rate was 4 percent, down from 4.2 percent in February and 4.4 percent in March 2016.

Odessa followed a similar trend with its March unemployment rate dropping to 5.6 percent from 5.8 percent in February and well below the 6.4 percent rate seen last March.

The primary reason for Midlands dip in unemployment rate was a decline in the civilian labor force, which declined almost 400 from February to March and is about 1,100 below March 2016 levels. Similar declines were seen in the number of employed and unemployed Midlanders, down about 200 each.

Willie Taylor, chief executive officer of the commissions Workforce Solutions Permian Basin, acknowledged that trend but remained upbeat about how steady the areas workforce has remained amid the sharp decline in crude prices.

One thing we saw during the slow down is a lot of people stayed here, he said.

Taylor added that the offices in the 17 West Texas counties he oversees have seen a sharp decline in the number of continuous claims, from about 4300 last year to about 1300 this year.

He praised the steadiness of the labor market, pointing out that Midlands industry composition is little changed, with the Mining, Logging and Construction sector continuing to dominate at 28 percent, followed by Trade, Transportation and Utilities at 20 percent.

Having just returned from a board meeting of the commissions various workforce boards, Taylor said representatives from Houston told him the Permian Basin is moving faster than Houston in terms of job recovery.

Another consensus at the meeting is that no one expects an exploration of new employees coming in because of technology, which has improved efficiency and productivity and cut the need for as many jobs. Taylor said. Thats why he continues to encourage people, employed or not, to upgrade their skills to increase their earning opportunities.

Amarillo Economist Karr Ingham reported that Midlands employment in February was down less than a percent from February 2016 levels, far below the 8 to 9 percent declines seen in the last couple of years amid low oil prices.

Despite the slow recovery in jobs, Taylor noted that Midland also continues to enjoy higher average wages than the rest of the state.

As summer approaches, Taylor said there are factors that could impact employment that will need to be watched, primarily crude oil prices, which will affect the level of activity in the Permian Basin and thus employment levels.

So far, industry members on my board tell me theyre hiring, whether it technicians or medical personnel, he said. If you have good skills you can go to work.

Still, Taylor said, I continue to say if we want to bring stability to the region, we need to work on diversifying the economy.

Midland lost 100 jobs from February to March as 100-job gains each in the Leisure and Hospitality sector and the Government sector were offset by 100-job losses each in the Mining, Logging and Construction sector, Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector and Education and Health Services sector.

For the 12 months from March 2016 to March 2017, Midland lost 100 jobs as a 1,100-job loss in the Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector and 300 jobs in the Professional and Business Services sector offset sharp gains other sectors: A 900-job gain in Mining, Logging and Construction, 300 in Government, 200 in Education and Health Services and 100 jobs in Other Services. The Financial Services and the Manufacturing sectors each posted 100-job losses.

Statewide, the unemployment rate rose to 5 percent from 4.9 percent in February.

While Amarillo had the lowest unemployment at 3.5 percent, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission reported the highest at 8.5 percent.

---

Midland Unemployment

January 2017 4.1 percent

January 2016 4 percent

---

February 2017 4.2 percent

February 2016 4.2 percent

---

March 2017 4 percent

March 2016 4.4 percent

Preliminary numbers for March with February numbers in parentheses:

Amarillo 3.5 (3.6)

Austin-Round Rock 3.6 (3.7)

College Station-Bryan 3.6 (3.8)

Lubbock 4.0 (3.7)

Midland 4.0 (4.2)

San Antonio-New Braunfels 4.1 (4.2)

Abilene 4.2 (4.4)

Dallas-Plano-Irving 4.2 (4.3)

Sherman-Denison 4.2 (4.3)

Fort Worth-Arlington 4.4 (4.4)

Waco 4.3 (4.5)

San Angelo 4.5 (4.6)

Wichita Falls 4.5 (4.6)

Tyler 4.7 (4.8)

Killeen-Temple 4.8 (4.9)

Texarkana 4.8 (5.3)

Laredo 5.0 (5.2)

El Paso 5.3 (5.5)

Odessa 5.6 (5.8)

Victoria 5.6 (5.9)

Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land 5.7 (5.9)

Longview 6.3 (6.6)

Corpus Christi 6.6 (6.8)

Beaumont-Port Arthur 7.9 (8.1)

Brownsville-Harlingen 7.9 (8.3)

McAllen-Edinburg-Mission 8.5 (8.8)
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Those drilling rigs that are increasingly dotting Permian Basin skies are generating more than crude oil and natural gas.

With more drilling comes more waste byproducts to be processed. The higher the rig count, the higher our revenues, said George Wommack, founder and chief executive officer of Petro Waste Environmental.

Speaking by phone from his San Antonio office, Wommack said the new regulatory atmosphere in Washington, D.C., could benefit the industry, and those benefits could trickle down to his company.

His company is primarily regulated at the state level, specifically by the Railroad Commission, he said.

There is more scrutiny at the state level of how E&P companies dispose of oil-based cuttings, he said.

Any changes to state regulations could affect his company in the future, he said.

At the federal level, Wommack sees only positive changes that are making it more attractive to drill in the U.S.

The biggest benefit, I believe, really, in the Permian Basin, is the relaxation of regulations on drilling on federal lands and the relaxation of regulations on pipelines, he said. First, that would drop the break-even cost on developing minerals on federal land, speed up the process and make it more seamless. Second, with a more pro-industry approach to pipelines, we can avoid bottlenecks and ensure producers get top dollar.

That all happens when government gets out of the way and lets businesses do their job, Wommack said.

His company just opened its Orla Landfill in Reeves County, to accept oil- and water-based mud, oil- and water-based drill cuttings, contaminated soil and RCRA-exempt non-hazardous E&P waste. A second facility in Howard County is expected to open in July, and Wommack said the company holds Railroad Commission permits for two more facilities.

More and more of the large oil companies making these substantial acquisitions are taking it upon themselves to exceed the minimum regulatory requirements in disposing of oil field waste, Wommack said. The bigger they are, the more likely they are to do so.

He said the larger companies, with departments dedicated to environmental issues, have studied the issue extensively and decide to dispose of waste as opposed to deep-burying it at the site.

I dont think legislation is needed to entice companies to do the right thing  theyre doing it on their own, he said.
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Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017-04-21 07:34 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ordinary general meeting of Litgrid AB shareholders is summoned on 25 April 2017, 10:00 at the initiative and by the resolution of the Board of Litgrid (company code 302564383, registered at A. Juozapaviciaus g. 13, Vilnius). The meeting will be held at room 226, at A. Juozapaviciaus g. 13, Vilnius. Beginning of shareholders' registration: 25 April 2017, 9:30. End of shareholders' registration: 25 April 2017, 9:55.

The record date of the ordinary general meeting of shareholders has been set for April 18, 2017. The right of participation and voting in the ordinary general meeting of shareholders can be exercised only by the persons who remain shareholders of Litgrid AB by the end of the record date of the ordinary general meeting of shareholders.

The record date of rights of the ordinary general meeting has been set for May 10, 2017. The shareholders property rights provided for in Article 15 (1) Items 1-4 of the Law of Companies of the Republic of Lithuania will be exercised only by the persons who remain the company shareholders at the end of the record date of the rights of the meeting.

Agenda and proposed draft resolutions of the general meeting of shareholders:

1. Approval of the consolidated annual report of the Company for 2016.

Proposed resolution:

To approve the consolidated annual report of Litgrid AB on the activities of the company and the group of companies for 2016 (Annex No. 1)

2. Presentation of the external auditor's report.

Independent Auditor's Report is heard. No resolutions on this matter are adopted (Annex No. 1).

3. Approval of the consolidated and set of financial statements of the Company for 2016.

Proposed resolution:

To approve the set of financial statements of Litgrid AB for 2016 (Annex No. 1)

4. Distribution of the Company's profit (loss) of 2016.

Proposed resolution:

To approve the profit distribution of Litgrid AB of 2016 proposed by the Board of Litgrid AB (Annex No. 2)

5. Approval of the transfer of 0.004% of shares of Technologiju ir inovaciju centras UAB.

Proposed resolution:

5.1. To approve the resolution of the Board of Litgrid AB of 20 March 2017 (Minutes No. 7) on approval of the sale of all the shares (1 000 shares, or 0.004% of total shares) of Technologiju ir inovaciju centras UAB (company code 303200016) owned by Litgrid AB to Lietuvos energija UAB for the price of EUR 847, calculated according to Paragraph 1.1. of the Shareholders Agreement No. SUT-309-15.

5.2. To authorise CEO of Litgrid AB and Director of Finance Department to sign the agreement on purchasesale of 1 000 shares of Technologiju ir inovaciju centras UAB with Lietuvos energija UAB following the procedure established by the laws and to carry out all other necessary actions related with the sale of 1 000 shares of Technologiju ir inovaciju centras UAB.

Documents related with the agenda of the meeting, draft resolutions, general voting ballot are available for the shareholders for familiarisation at the premises of Litgrid AB, at A. Juozapaviciaus g. 13, Vilnius, Room 141, during the working hours of the company (7:3011:30 and 12:1516:30, Fridays: 7:3011:30 and 12:1515:15). These documents and other public information by the laws, related with the shareholders' right to propose supplements to the agenda of the meeting, to propose draft resolutions on the matters of the meeting agenda and the shareholders' right to submit questions to the company in advance regarding the matters on the meeting agenda, are also published on the company's website http://www.litgrid.eu.

Upon a written request of a shareholder with the voting right or his/her duly authorised proxy, the company will draw and send the general voting ballot by registered letter or deliver it in person upon signing at least 10 days before the general meeting of shareholders. General voting ballot is also available on the company's website http://www.litgrid.eu. Completed and signed general voting ballot and the document certifying the voting right can be sent to the company by registered letter or delivered to the company at the address: A. Juozapaviciaus g. 13, Vilnius by the end of the working day of 24 April 2017 (16:30) for the latest.

The Company reserves the right to disregard the advance voting of the shareholders or his/her authorised proxy, if the submitted general voting ballot does not meet the requirements established in Paragraphs 3 and 4, Article 30 of the Law on Joint Stock Companies of the Republic of Lithuania, was received after the deadline, or completed in the manner that prevents determining the real will of the shareholder on an individual manner.

A person attending the general meeting of shareholders and holding the voting right must produce a personal identity document before the end of registration of the shareholders of the general meeting of shareholders. A person, other than a shareholder, in addition to a personal identity document, must also produce a document certifying his/her right to vote at the meeting.

Persons have the right to vote at the general meeting of shareholders by proxy. At the general meeting of shareholders, a proxy has the same rights as his/her represented shareholder would have, unless otherwise stated in the proxy. Proxy issued in a foreign country must be translated into Lithuanian and legalised following the procedure established by the laws. The company does not establish any special form of proxy.

Shareholders having the right to attend the general meeting of shareholders are entitled to authorise a natural or legal person via electronic means of communication to attend the general meeting of shareholders and vote on their behalf. Such authorisation is not subject to notarisation. The company recognises an authorisation issued by electronic means of communication only if electronic signature of the shareholder is affixed developed by using safe signature creation software and certified by the qualified certificate valid in the Republic of Lithuania, i.e. if security of the transmitted information is ensured and shareholder's identity can be established. Shareholders must inform the company in writing about the authorisations issued via electronic means of communication by sending such authorisation to electronic mail info@litgrid.eu by the end of the working day of 24 April 2017 (16:30) for the latest.

No participation and voting by electronic means of communication at the general meeting of shareholders.

Enclosed:

1. Consolidated and the companys financial statements for 2016, drawn in accordance with the international financial reporting standards applicable in the European Union, presented together with the independent auditor's report and the consolidated annual report;

2. Profit (loss) distribution draft of Litgrid AB of 2016.

3. Voting ballot.
Oslo, April 21, 2017: Scatec Solar ASA will release its first quarter results on Friday, May 5, 2017 at 07:00 (CET).

A presentation of the results will be held on the same day at 08.00. The location of the presentation is Hyres Hus (6th floor), Stortingsgata 20, 0161 Oslo. The presentation and Q&A session can be followed through a live webcast from our website on www.scatecsolar.com/investor.

For more information please contact:

Mikkel Trud, CFO

Mobile: +47 97699144



About Scatec Solar

Scatec Solar is an integrated independent solar power producer, delivering affordable, rapidly deployable and sustainable source of clean energy worldwide. A long term player, Scatec Solar develops, builds, owns, operates and maintains solar power plants, and already has an installation track record of close to 600 MW.



Currently, the company is producing electricity from 322 MW of solar power plants in the Czech Republic, South Africa, Rwanda, Honduras and Jordan. With an established global presence, the company is growing briskly with a project backlog and pipeline of more than 1.8 GW under development in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Scatec Solar is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.



Subscribe for press releases here: www.scatecsolar.com/investor/stock-exchange-notices/subscribe



This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
The Annual General Meeting of Aker ASA (the "Company") was held on Friday 21 April 2017 at Fornebuporten, Oksenyveien 10, Norway.

All proposals on the agenda were adopted, cf. the notice of the Annual General Meeting that was published on Oslo Stock Exchange on 31 March 2017.

It was resolved to distribute a dividend of NOK 16.00 per share for 2016. The dividend is payable to shareholders holding shares in the Company as per 21 April 2017. The share will be traded ex-dividend on Oslo Stock Exchange from and including 24 April 2017. The dividend will be paid on or about 3 May 2017.

The complete minutes of the Annual General Meeting are attached to this release and are also available on www.akerasa.com.



ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Investors:

Per Kristian Reppe, Head of Investor Relations

Phone: +47 24 13 00 67

Mobile: +47 900 33 203

Media:

Atle Kigen, Head of Corporate Communications

Phone: +47 24 13 00 08

Mobile: +47 907 84 878
GET OUR APP Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here.
Voting rights may soon be automatically restored for felons in Florida once they complete their sentences.

The Florida Supreme Court just signed off on a proposed ballot initiative that would apply to most felons.

The proposed amendment would undo a policy change by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Governor Rick Scott put in place in 2011 that requires most convicted felons to wait five years after prison before they can file a clemency petition to regain voting rights.

The court ruled for the initiative to be put on the 2018 ballot for voters to decide, but the group proposing the ballot initiative still needs to gather nearly 700,000 voter signatures for that to happen.

If the amendment makes the ballot and at least 60 percent of voters approve, felons would have their voting rights restored once the finish their sentences, including probation or parole.

People who commit murder or felony sexual offenses wouldn't be eligible for automatic voting rights restoration.




Sen. Frank Artiles, the state senator accused of using the "n-word" and other expletives in private conversation with black legislators earlier this week, has resigned.

Sen. Frank Artiles reportedly used 'n-word' in private conversation

Conversation was with black colleagues, included expletives

He apologized on Florida Senate floor Wednesday

Artiles (R-Miami) reportedly used the "n-word" at a gathering at Tallahassee's Governor's Club on Monday night with Democratic Sens. Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville and Perry Thurston of Fort Lauderdale. They said Artiles also used obscene and belittling language directed at them.

Artiles apologized on the Florida Senate floor Wednesday.

"In an exchange with a colleague of mine in the Senate, I unfortunately let my temper get the best of me. There is no excuse for the exchange that occurred and I have apologized to my Senate colleagues and regret the incident profusely," Artiles said, according to reports.

Senate President Joe Negron removed Artiles as chairman of the Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee on Wednesday.

Here is Artiles' resignation letter to Negron:

Dear President Negron,

Seven years ago, I began my public service with one goal in mind, and that was to serve a cause greater than my own.

Serving my constituents and improving their lives is why I serve. On many important issues, caring for the elderly, education and job creation, I have made it my personal mission to put others first. Its the way I was raised, and the way I still choose to live my life today.

As a Marine, this attitude was embodied in our motto: Semper Fidelis, or Always Faithful. Be faithful to God, to country and to our fellow soldiers.

As a father and husband, despite the daily demands of elected office, I always keep the promises that I make to my two beautiful daughters, Bella and Giavanna, and my loving wife Aimee. Im a fulfilled man, because of their unconditional love and support.

It is clear to me my recent actions and words that I spoke fell far short of what I expect for myself, and for this I am very sorry. I apologize to my family and friends and I apologize to all of my fellow Senators and lawmakers. To the people of my district and all of Miami-Dade, I am sorry I have let you down and ask for your forgiveness.

My actions and my presence in government is now a distraction to my colleagues, the legislative process, and the citizens of our great State.

I am responsible and I am accountable and effective immediately, I am resigning from the Florida State Senate.

Its clear there are consequences to every action, and in this area, I will need time for personal reflection and growth.

I leave this office knowing that despite my shortcomings, I have fought hard to change the status quo while remaining true to myself. Im grateful for those that have stood by my side, including my family, friends, and supporters.

Serving my community in the Florida Legislature has been the honor of a lifetime and I do not leave this process lightly. I will discover ways to continue to serve my community in the future.

God bless the great state of Florida and our great country.

Sincerely,

Senator Frank Artiles
The 19-year-old Israeli man accused of making bomb threats to Jewish community center across the United States has now been linked to bomb threats made against centers in Tampa, Orlando and Maitland.

Michael Kadar arrested in Israel recently

Justice Department says he made dozens of bomb threats to Jewish facilities

Accused of making bomb threats against centers in Florida

Michael Ron David Kadar is accused of using a spoofing company to make dozens of threatening calls.

A criminal complaint says Kadar was the one who called Chabad South Orlando the Jewish Academy of Orlando in January to say there were explosives at the facilities. No explosives were found.

The complaint also says Kadar called the Chabad South Orlando on Jan. 5 and said he was coming to the school with guns to kill dozens of children. The report says he made a similar call to JCC preschools in Tampa.

Over the next several weeks, the criminal complaint accuses Kadar of making dozens of calls to Jewish facilities across the country and around Florida, reporting bomb threats.

The complaint also says Kadar reported a bomb threat in February at Glenridge Middle School in Orlando, and reported a bomb on a plane at Orlando International Airport. No bombs were ever found.

By using a spoofing company, investigators say Kadar was able to hide his true caller identification, disguise his voice as female and record the calls. They say he also used Bitcoin to pay for the service.

Kadar was recently arrested in Israel. He has dual citizenship with Israel and the U.S.
The father of a 6-year-old girl whose bludgeoned body was found in a southeast Houston ditch almost a year ago has been arrested.

Raymond Jefferson Jr., 48, was arrested early Wednesday and was charged in the assault that led to the death of Raysate Chain Knight, whose body went unidentified for six months.

Her body, wrapped in a blanket, was found last Sept. 9, in a trash-filled ditch just blocks from her family residence in Houston. Her body showed signs of abuse, but investigators said she died from blunt trauma to the head.

The child's mother, Connie Gazette Knight, 40, has been in the Harris County Jail since her arrest 4 months ago. The two are not married. She previously accepted all the blame for the death of the girl, who became known as "Angel Doe" during the initial six-month investigation.

Tuesday, Knight changed her mind and implicated Jefferson. Police quickly arrested him, and both now are charged with injury to a child.

"We knew there was more to the puzzle than just what the mother had told us," Houston Police Department investigator Darcus Shorten told the Houston Chronicle.

"Having Raymond arrested was definitely some closure, not only for us, but also for Raysate herself. She did not have a name, she was thrown away like a piece a of trash, and when we interviewed her father about her, he denied her," Shorten said. "It's a true relief, not only just for investigative purposes, but closure in putting the puzzle together in how this child suffered."

Jefferson, who has a history of arrests for DWI and other misdemeanors, is accused of beating the child because he was angry that a TV was too loud, said Houston police Sgt. Clarence Douglas.

The assault occurred in front of the child's mother and several of the girl's siblings in the family home, officials say. The girl immediately became unresponsive after the beating, Douglas said.

The latest break came from police interviews with two of Knight's children, as well as cooperation from Knight, Douglas said.

It is believed that the girl's mother and father acted together in dumping her body, Douglas said.

The girl was identified six months after her body was found. Her grandmother, who lives in Houston, called police, saying she recognized a drawing of the child's face on TV.

Knight and Jefferson had abruptly moved from Houston without telling anyone. Police traced the child's parents to Lafayette, La., where Knight was arrested in March. At the time, Jefferson denied any knowledge of the girl's death.

Jefferson was arrested early Wednesday at his sister's home in Missouri City, a southwest Houston suburb.

For now, the injury to a child charge against Knight stands, police said. Hans Nielsen, a Harris County assistant district attorney, said he could not immediately say what will become of the case against her.

Knight's four other children, ranging in age from 4 to 17, remain in the custody of Louisiana protective officials, where they have been since their mother's arrest.

Jefferson, who fathered Raysate and two of the other children, had a short temper with the slain child, police said.

"He became very angry very easily with this particular child _ not the others. This child ticked him off," the Houston Chronicle quoted Douglas in its Thursday's editions.
Covenant Health Plainview is making pain management more convenient for their patients as the hospital announced its newest partnership with pain specialist Bolkar E. Sahinler M.D., FIIP.

Sahinler is an associate with the Lubbock Spine Institute which offers cutting-edge treatment options to relieve a variety of chronic pain.

We are going to be able to help out a lot of people, said Bob Copeland, CEO at Covenant Health Plainview.

Copeland said he was approached by the Lubbock Spine Institute about creating a regional center for pain management at Covenant Health Plainview.

We are happy to do so because so many patients have chronic pain conditions and right now have to travel to Lubbock to the see these specialists. Now our patients can see the physician here in Plainview, Copeland said.

The Lubbock Spine Institute has a strong relationship with the Covenant Health system in Lubbock and Sahinler came highly recommended.

Sahinlers satellite practice will begin May 10 at Covenant Health Plainviews Edgemere Medical Center, 2606 Yonkers.

Sahinler was born in Turkey. He spent a large portion of his childhood in Washington, D.C. where his family served as diplomats. He later received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Ankara with honors. Once he had his medical degree he returned to the United States and began his Anesthesiology residency at Texas Tech University School of Medicine. After residency, he completed his interventional pain management fellowship also at Texas Tech University. He was given the prestigious Dr.Racz/Dr. Raj award for outstanding Pain Management Fellow. He has been in private practice in Lubbock Texas since 2004. Sahinler is married to Dr. Michelle Sahinler who is a gynecologist and a Plainview native. The couple have two children, Seth and Jake. He is a diehard Red Raider and enjoys tailgating, spending time with his family and hunting.

His special clinical interests are neuromodulation, implantable drug therapies and kyphoplasty for the repair of osteoporotic fractures. Sahinler is board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology with added qualifications in pain management.
English Finnish

Unemployment Insurance Fund Stock Exchange Release 21 April 2017 at 11:30

Unemployment Insurance Fund (TVR) has signed a revolving credit facility (RCF) agreement

TVR released on 12 April 2017 a Stock exchange release regarding the plan to renew the revolving credit facility (RCF) and the state guarantee attached to it.

Unemployment Insurance Fund has signed on 20 April 2017 a 400 million euro Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) with OP Corporate Bank PLC, Nordea Bank AB (publ) Finnish Branch, Swedbank AB (publ) and Svenska Handelsbanken AB (publ) Branch operation in Finland. The maturity of the Facility is two years and it is attached with a state guarantee of 440 million euros.

The RCF is aimed to ensure the financing of the benefit payments entitled to TVR. With the reference to the base scenario estimate released by TVR on 12 April 2017 it is stated that Unemployment Insurance Fund would most probably not be in a situation to need new debt financing within the next two years.

Additional information:

Janne Metsamaki, Managing Director. tel. +358 40 522 3614

Tapio Oksanen, Deputy Managing Director, CFO tel. +358 40 539 4651

Helsinki, 21 April 2017

Unemployment Insurance Fund (TVR)

Tapio Oksanen

Deputy Managing Director

Distribution:

NASDAQ OMX Helsinki

Media

www.tvr.fi
Mike Fox, executive director of the Plainview/Hale County Economic Development Corp., presented the groups first quarter report to the Plainview City Council during Thursdays work session. He is scheduled to give the same report to the Hale County commissioners during their Friday work session.

While Fox wasnt able to report landing any new industry for the community during that period, he told the council that he remained extremely busy calling, writing, phoning and emailing various industrial prospects. I believe activity breeds activity which produces results, and that activity will eventually bring positive results.

As identified by a comprehensive market study and with input from Site Location Partners, the EDC is focusing on five primary industry categories: Food Processing/Agribusiness; Precision Metalworking/Fabrication; Specialized Warehousing/Distribution; Advanced Manufacturing/Renewable Energy; and Aerospace/MRO. This means meeting with site selection consultants and reaching out either directly or indirectly to manufacturing and industrial prospects.

He also has been working with Site Location Partners, the High Ground of Texas and Team Texas to represent Plainview and Hale County at various trade shows and conference. Fox also has been contacting and surveying major local employers on specific workforce needs, and conveying that information to representatives at South Plains College, Wayland Baptist University and Plainview ISD.

Fox reports having eight prospects currently in his pipeline, including two existing local companies that are looking to either expand or relocate. These eight firms range from food processing, ag industry, manufacturing, warehousing/distribution to health care related businesses. The range of full time employees is 15 to 600.

During the first quarter, Fox responded to two request for proposals from the governors office as well as toured the Rust Belt. That included meetings with seven manufacturing and industrial prospects looking to expand in Texas. He also attended various trade shows.

He conducted workforce interviews with representatives from Larson Manufacturing and Martin Resources and assisted a business prospect seeking a large grain storage facility.

Fox reported that the former Cargill plant is still being actively marketing and has been shown to several site selectors, as has the Jimmy Dean plant.

One thing I would like for us to do is to erect a wind turbine locally that we could use to train workers on safety, Fox said. Thats an opportunity that we really need to explore.
ICG ENTERPRISE TRUST PLC

TRANSACTION IN OWN SHARES

21 April 2017

ICG Enterprise Trust plc ("the Company") announces that on 20 April 2017 it bought back 500,000 of its own shares, to be held in treasury, at an average price of 700.0p. The highest and lowest price paid was 700.0p. Further details are set out below:

Number of shares held in treasury following this purchase: 3,308,508

Total shares in issue excluding treasury shares following this purchase: 69,604,492

For further information, please contact Nikki Edgar on 0203 201 7700.

Notes

The Company has bought back these shares under the authority granted by shareholders at its Annual General Meeting in June 2016, which permits the Company to repurchase a maximum of 14.99% of its ordinary shares. The actual number of shares repurchased by the Company will depend on market conditions. This authority lasts until the next shareholder authority granted (expected to be at the Annual General Meeting in 2017), or until expressly revoked by shareholders.

No maximum consideration payable has been determined by the Company, but the Company is unable to pay a price for any shares pursuant to the buyback which would equate to a premium to the net asset value. It is the Company's current intention to hold any shares bought back in treasury.

The Company has instructed Numis Securities Limited as its broker in respect of its buyback transactions. This arrangement is in accordance with Chapter 12 of the UKLA Listing Rules and the Company's general authority to repurchase shares.
Norwegian English

The annual general meeting (AGM) of Selvaag Bolig ASA was held on Friday 21 April 2017. The general meeting adopted the resolutions proposed by the board and as set forth in the notice.

Minutes are attached.

Further information from

Kristoffer Gregersen, CCO Selvaag Bolig ASA

Telephone: +47 957 75 593, e-mail: kgr@selvaagbolig.no

Selvaag Bolig ASA is a residential property developer controlling the entire value chain from acquisition of land to sale of homes. The company has several thousand homes under development at any given time, and focuses on the growth areas in and around Greater Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim. Selvaag Bolig represents a continuation of Selvaag's 60-year history and experience, and offers a broad variety of property types marketed under the brand names Start, Hjem and Pluss. The company is headquartered at Ullern in Oslo.

www.selvaagboligasa.no/en



This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.



Attachments:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c53300ac-f4b5-427c-b38a-e9c6b407a453
Happy State Bank is hosting Shred Week to help customers be safe and secure. This is the fifth year Happy has hosted this event for its customers.

All Happy State Bank locations, except those in the DFW Metroplex, are taking documents for shredding Monday through Friday, April 24-28.
The Workforce Solutions Alamo CEO search committee has tentatively narrowed its list of applicants to four finalists, interim CEO Alan Miller said Friday after the agency board met in closed session.

The seven-member search committee will meet Tuesday to decide whether to continue with the four finalists or expand the search to other candidates, Miller said.

In February, the agency set a target date of June 1 for a new CEO. Were still shooting for that. But that may be pushed back a little bit. I dont think were too far off track, Miller said.

At the previous WSA board meeting in February, the agency set a goal of announcing a finalist from an initial round of more than 80 applicants during todays meeting. But there is no consensus yet among the search committee members, Miller said Friday.

To meet the June 1 target, the 25-member board must hold a special meeting in May to approve a finalist, Miller said. The next regular board meeting is set for June 16.

The agencys CEO vacancy was created in November when the previous CEO, Gail Hathaway, was fired by the board following a report by the Texas Workforce Commission that cited discrepancies in procurement procedures and allegations of a hostile workplace environment.

Hathaway defended herself against the charges during a Nov. 7 board meeting, saying her changes over a two-year period were making the agency more effective. But the board voted to go ahead with firing her.

In early April, Hathaway filed a lawsuit against the agency for up to $1 million for breach of contract, slander and emotional distress.

In the pending lawsuit, Hathaway blames her dismissal on false accusations made by an agency employee who since has left the agency.

The lawsuit also states the organization could have avoided litigation had the board given her 14 days written notice or provided written reasons for her firing. Hathaway said in the lawsuit that neither of those things happened.

Miller said Friday he could not comment on the pending lawsuit.

Fridays WSA board meeting was the first held at its new headquarters in downtowns The Vistana building where the agency leases 16,352 square feet. The agency moved March 17 from the downtown Milam Building where it had operated since September 1996.

Workforce Solutions Alamos board and staff govern a network of service providers and contractors that match people with jobs. The agency also provides child care, career counseling, job-search workshops, training, job fairs and labor market information services.

dhendricks@express-news.net
A day after canceling a scheduled speech by Ann Coulter for security reasons, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said Thursday that the right-wing pundits insistence on coming anyway persuaded him to rethink her banishment.

An appropriate, protectable venue will be made available on campus May 2  not next Thursday, as originally planned  he said, adding that he would disclose the location only after Coulter accepts the new date.

Thats not likely.

Hours later, Coulter shot down the invitation in a series of tweets and said she will speak at Berkeley on Thursday as planned not only because she cant do May 2, but THERE ARE NO CLASSES AT BERKELEY THE WEEK OF MAY 2!!!

That week is Dead Week, a time when classes are suspended so students can study for exams.

Its at an awful time, said Naweed Tahmas, 20, of the Berkeley College Republicans student group that invited Coulter. Also, the last day of instruction is three days later.

Do not fall for b.s. Berkeley press release claiming they rescinded cancelation, Coulter tweeted. GOOD NEWS FOR CA TAXPAYER! You won't be required to pay $$$$ to compensate me & my crew for rebooked airfare & hotels. I'm speaking on 4/27.

Dirks rejected accusations from Coulter, the student Republicans and the national Young Americas Foundation that the university was infringing on their right to free speech by originally canceling the talk this week.

The university has an unwavering commitment to the First Amendment of the Constitution, Dirks said, adding that student safety is of equal importance.

He said campus police had uncovered threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event.

Dirks said Coulters response to the cancellation  that she planned to speak on or off campus next Thursday regardless of security concerns  led him to ask his staff to find a protectable venue.

The location is not one we have used for these sorts of events in the past; it can both accommodate a substantial audience and meet the security criteria established by our police department, Dirks said at a hastily called news conference Thursday.

UC Police Capt. Alex Yao said, Our approach (to Coulters security) will be different than for the Milo (Yiannopoulos) event Feb. 1, when masked and violent agitators infiltrated a student protest of Yiannopoulos  another right-wing pundit  breaking windows, setting equipment on fire and shutting down his talk before it began.

Declining to offer specifics on security, Yao suggested that more police would be on hand. He said the Yiannopoulos protest and others March 4 and Saturday in Berkeley are causing police to look at how we staff.

Meanwhile, its unclear from Coulters tweets whether she intends to try to speak on campus or in the city of Berkeley on Thursday, and neither the Republican students nor the national Young Americas Foundation, that is paying most of her $20,000 speaking fee, responded to requests for comment.

An informal Chronicle survey of half a dozen event sites in Berkeley yielded not one that would or could have her.

Absolutely not, said Mirian Wolodarski Lundberg, co-manager of the 200-seat Finnish Lodge on Chestnut Street, when asked if Coulter could speak there Thursday.

The Finnish Hall was built in 1932 by immigrants, Wolodarski Lundberg said. Coulter, who was invited by the student Republicans to speak on immigration, is famously anti-immigrant. She also has labeled herself a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative.

Not only would we not agree with her politics, but we would also be concerned about the kind of crowds that she would attract, she said.

Nor could Coulter speak at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse on Addison Street, which has 490 seats. The Cowboy Junkies, a Canadian country-blues band, is playing that night, and I wouldnt consider canceling it for Coulter, said executive director Sharon Dolan.

Besides, Dolan said, the sites nonprofit status could be in jeopardy if it started hosting partisan speakers.

Other places booked Thursday: the 550-seat UC Theater, where a Beatles cover show is playing, and the Berkeley Repertory Theater, where Hershey Feder is playing Irving Berlin.

As for the 120-seat Berkeley Yacht Club, the Sierra Club has it that night.

And even if it didnt, there would be a riot problem to consider.

I would, obviously, have a slight concern about that, said the Yacht Clubs manager, Mark Sokolov.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
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From the elaborate parade floats to the intricate, glittering gowns of royals, theres an art to Fiesta.

So its no surprise to see creativity on display in the ever-growing array of Fiesta medals. San Antonio artists and arts organizations have gotten in on the act, putting their own stamp on the tradition.

For this years celebration, State Rep. Diego Bernal called on Ray Tattooedboy Scarborough to design a medal for him once again. Together they brainstormed the concept for the Star Wars-themed piece, which features characters from the sci-fi classic in full-on Fiesta mode. In the vignette, Han Solo wields a turkey leg instead of a blaster, Yoda brandishes a pinata stick in place of a cane, and Princess Leia wears pink conchas in place of the buns of her iconic hairstyle.

Ray is a friend and a creative genius. Hes done three of my medals so far, Bernal said via text. Hes also a fellow geek. He gets what Im going for.

While the medal is playful, it also carries a political message: #RESIST.

Bernal is giving away medals in exchange for food donations 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday in the Sears Park North parking lot. The donations will go to the San Antonio Food Bank.

A medal designed by artist Chris Sauter also packs a political punch. It features a toilet bowl with a glittery splash of yellow and the slogan free to pee.

It is in protest of the heinous bathroom bill being considered in our state government, Sauter said via email.

It is available for $10. Proceeds go to help cover the production costs of Cornyation. To get one, contact Sauter via Facebook or his website chrissauter.com.

As The Pinhole Queen, photographer Melanie Rush Davis is encouraging her subjects to go forth and make their own art. Her medal has a pinhole drilled into it so it can be used as a lens on a homemade pinhole camera. The medal is $10. To get one, look out for Rush Davis at Fiesta events or contact her via her web site pinholequeen.com.

Click through the slideshow to see some of the other arty offerings.

lsilva@express-news.net
Their Finest is a charming and thoughtful movie about people making a charming and thoughtful movie.

The characters in the real film often poke fun at the film-within-a-film, a propaganda movie made by the British before the U.S. has entered World War II. But the two pieces of cinema become tied together, with many of the same weaknesses and strengths.

The largest asset is a general positive outlook for humanity, something that makes the production well-timed for cynical 2017 audiences. Their Finest features tragedy and a constant state of tension, as London faces air raids and its population makes sacrifices. But nearly all the characters  from its plucky scriptwriters to a haughty and oblivious actor played by Bill Nighy  have a hidden trait of decency that is excavated with each bomb strike.

Our heroes are Catrin Cole and Tom Buckley (Gemma Arterton and Sam Clafin), writers who are tasked with making an inspiring film about a fishing boat rescue after the battle of Dunkirk at the beginning of the war. As the minister of information (Richard Grant) keeps adding new challenges, Cole and Buckley try harder to make a piece of art. They develop a convincing romance that complicates the script, then inspires the finished product.

Based on a book by Lissa Evans and directed by Lone Scherfig, the film is infused with a receiving line of lively characters, including an American who cant act, and two sisters-turned-boat captains who are less than ideal heroes. The female characters are particularly strong, mining many of the same themes and struggles seen in TVs Mad Men. Rachael Stirling is particularly good as an uptight movie studio rule enforcer who softens as she realizes Coles struggles are her own.

As the propaganda film-within-the-film morphs from a by-the-numbers drama into a piece of art, Their Finest falters. The second half of the film has a pair of contrivances, both conveniently timed to move a sputtering plot forward. Scherfig does steer the film right before the ending, taking advantage of the goodwill built up in the first two acts.

More Information Their Finest *** Quick take: Life and art during wartime See More Collapse

While it was probably an accident, the timing for Their Finest is excellent - with Christopher Nolans big budget action/drama Dunkirk arriving this summer. This is a smaller, more tangential and certainly more humorous film. There are no real battles, beyond the bombs raining from above. But the triumph over adversity is inspiring nonetheless.

Running time: 117 minutes

MPAA rating: R (profanity, sexuality)
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Chef Andrew Weissman is bringing Le Reve back for one night as a fundraiser.

There are only 75 spots for the One Last Night at Le Reve dinner to be held at 6:30 p.m. June 2 in the Ewing Halsell Foundation Reception Hall of the Jane & Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions, and that kind of exclusivity doesn't come cheap: Each ticket costs $1,000.

Proceeds go to the McNay Art Museum's McNay Transforms Lives: The Fund for Exhibitions and Education, and the choice of event is a perfect complement to the McNay's exhibit "Monet to Matisse: A Century of French Moderns," which closes June 4.

Weissman's famed French entry, which opened in 1998 downtown and closed in 2009, is credited with contributing strongly to the evolution of San Antonio's food scene.

The dinner will feature five courses highlighting seasonal ingredients available in time for the dinner. Because of that the menu has not been set yet.

The dinner will also include wine pairings selected by Weissman and his sommelier. The night will end with a fine wine auction, with bottles handpicked by the McNay's wine committee, chaired by museum board President Toby Calvert.

This is not the first time Weissman has brought back Le Reve for a one-night fundraiser. In 2011, Weissman held a dinner at the Hotel Havana for 35 guests. Proceeds from the $250 tickets benefited Haven for Hope.

Click here for more information and to buy tickets to the McNay's event.

espicer@express-news.net

Twitter: @Spiced1

Instagram: @spiceoflife_en
For someone who is not remotely religious, the moment was almost surreal. Standing by a hillside stream in the Sierra Morena mountains of southern Spain, I was face to face with the wife of the mayor of a nearby town, and she was baptizing me.

She scooped water into her hand, asked me to lean over and dribbled it into my hair. With this water we baptize you in the Stream of the Rooster, witness to your first journey, the woman, Cabe Tebar Gil, said with a smile. Then, draping a small medallion on a ribbon around my neck, she declared me a pilgrim. With that, she kissed me on both cheeks and sent me on my way, with applause from the gathered crowd.

Although raised as a Roman Catholic, in Spains Basque Country, I had long since abandoned any connection to the church. And yet I did not need much persuading when a friend suggested that I join him for a trek  alongside thousands of other people  to the mountaintop basilica that holds the shrine of Our Lady of the Cabeza. Some 20 miles north of Andujar in the province of Jaen, the site was where, in 1227, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a shepherd and healed his afflictions.

Peregrinations to the site began shortly thereafter and have been an annual event since the beginning of the 16th century, interrupted only by the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. Always held on the last weekend in April, it is considered the oldest romeria  or religious pilgrimage  in Spain, a country that takes its holy holidays seriously even as the influence of the Catholic Church wanes.

What sealed it for me was learning that the romeria and its attendant events would be nothing like the portentous, gloomy services, usually in impenetrable Latin, that I had to endure as a child. Instead, I was promised a vivid assemblage of ritual and pageantry in the manner of old Spain, full of style and accompanied by all manner of festivities, regional food, elegant parades of horses and carriages, beautiful attire and hours of music and flamenco dancing. In other words, a big party.

Its all about joy, Isabel Uceda Cantero, the mayor of Lopera, a town southwest of Andujar, said over drinks the night before the romeria, adding, People here cry with joy.

That same evening, my friend Francisco Senra  everyone calls him Fran  and I walked for blocks in Andujar through an enormous street fair, an event that always precedes the romeria. People had set up elaborate picnics on tables, rows and rows of them, and offered friends and strangers whatever they had. Toasts rang through the air, and, at the slightest provocation, regal, beautifully attired flamenco dancers broke out in the middle of the street, into Sevillanas and other dance steps emblematic of Andalusia, the region of southern Spain that encompasses Jaen and seven other provinces.

Mixed with the sounds of strumming guitars and palmas  the rhythmic clapping of flamenco  was the clopping of hoofs. The horses were in festive finery and obedient to every subtle command from perfect-posture riders whose stiff-brimmed Cordobes hats complemented their high-waisted paseo trousers, short jackets  chaquetillas camperas  and tall leather boots.

During the street fair, Fran introduced me to everyone he knew, and to some he didnt, and we were plied with refreshments, including wine, beer, and gin and tonics, and tapas. This went on for hours. You dont sleep during the romeria, said Jose Parrado, the owner of Los Naranjos, a bar and restaurant on Calle Guadalupe, who has done the pilgrimage for almost all of his 60 years. Maybe you can rest your brain a little. Maybe.

Despite my bilingualism, an American like me was a bit of an oddity in the streets of Andujar, since most visitors to the region  the ones with no interest in religious pilgrimages  tend to flock to more glamorous places like Granada, Seville and the Costa del Sol. But I soon learned that Andujar and its surrounding area are studded with enticements for the curious.

There are medieval Moorish castles, Neolithic cave paintings in red hues, deep gorges with cascading rivers, wild orchids and ancient oak trees. Vast stretches of mountainous forest include Spains largest protected wilderness  named after the town of Cazorla, which traces its history back 2,000 years  as well as the Sierra de Andujar Natural Park, where the basilica of Our Lady of the Cabeza sits atop a commanding peak.

The area is home to wildlife like the endangered Iberian lynx, wolves and Spanish Imperial eagles. The province is said to produce more olive oil than all of Greece and has been in the business of fine ceramics since Roman times, when the delicate wares were exported throughout the empire. Two of Jaens most imposing cities, Baeza and Ubeda, filled with Renaissance palaces and churches, were declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO in 2003.

In the 19th century, I was told, the densely wooded Sierra Morena range, more than 300 miles in length from east to west, was known for the bandits who trawled for spoils among mail and gold wagons en route to the southern cities from Madrid, sharing their plunder, like Robin Hood, with the poor. The range has areas so remote that a 7-year-old boy, Marcos Rodriguez Pantoja, was said to have been lost there in the early 1950s after the death of his caretaker and was not found until 12 years later, living with wolves, dressed in animal skins and communicating in howls. Antonio F. Agenjo Fernandez, one of Andujars historians, insists on the truth of the story, which has been told in two documentaries, a play by British playwright Kevin Lewis and in newspaper articles and television news programs that have featured Rodriguezs halting accounts of his early life in the hills.

The regions art treasures include an imposing El Greco painting, La Oracion del Huerto, or The Prayer in the Orchard, which I saw during a walk through the 15th-century Church of Santa Maria la Mayor in Andujar. The canvas was saved from destruction during the Civil War only because it had been sent to the Prado Museum in Madrid for restoration.

As we headed into the hills, Araceli Gonzalez Rubia, a former leader of the Cofradia Matriz de la Virgen de la Cabeza, the organizing entity of the pilgrimage, struck a similar note. We pray for those who dont know how to, and when we get to the top, we thank her, she said. And when we have to go, we become sad because we have to leave her behind. I even see her as sad.

As Gonzalez Rubia spoke, thousands of people around us  I met travelers from Brazil, Panama and all over Spain  were making their way along winding, forested roads and dirt paths on foot, on horseback, in cars and aboard long wagons pulled by tractors and filled with noisy, merry pilgrims. Hundreds of horsewomen, in full festive regalia, rode sidesaddle in specially constructed wooden armchairs known as jamugas, a tradition since the 16th century.

After traveling part of the route with Fran in a sport utility vehicle, I was to ride the rest of the way in one of the wagons, known as carretas. By the time we got to the staging post, the wagon had already left, so a police officer waved at me to climb on the back of his motorcycle. Off we went, roaring past the slow wagon caravan, bouncing precariously at the edge of the mountain path as I clasped my notebook in one hand and his waist in the other. (Helmet? What helmet?)

Having reached my assigned wagon, I joined a party in progress, with a dance floor in the middle, flamenco music blaring from speakers and drinks on ice. There were at least 15 people aboard, most of them in their 20s and dancing with abandon as the wagon rattled up the mountain path.

Anyone who tells you theyre here only to express their devotion, theyre not being truthful, said Miguel Cano Villar, the owner of the wagon and of a restaurant in Andujar called El Puchero. Yes, there are some, but look at these kids. Theyre here to have a good time. Although there are people who go up the mountain on their knees because, perhaps, they have a sick child and they believe hell be cured.

Once we got to the top of the mountain, it became clear how vast the crowd was, as many as half a million, according to the local police department. A huge tent city housed most of the pilgrims, near a village in which many of the houses, bedecked with flags and banners, were built expressly by fraternal organizations connected to the romeria. My friends and I spent the night in one of those houses, eight to a room, in bunks.

The following morning, an open-air Mass next to the sanctuary preceded what I had been told would be the most dramatic moment of the weekend: a procession through the village by the effigy of Our Lady of the Cabeza, carried aloft on an elaborate platform by dozens of heaving men.

At one point, I noticed a woman watching the procession with tears running down her face. She was praying.

I asked the Virgin to give me faith so that I can have hope, so that I can start again, said Victoria Borde, a 38-year-old hairdresser from La Guardia de Jaen, about 50 miles southeast of Andujar. Sometimes bad things happen and you lose faith, even though I know that strength and belief is something we have inside.
AIM: MARL

TSX-V: MARL







21 April 2017



Granite House, La Grande Rue,

St. Martin, Guernsey, GY1 3RS

Channel Islands





Issue of Equity- Warrant Exercise

Mariana Resources Ltd ("Mariana" or the "Company"), the AIM ("MARL") and TSXV ("MARL") listed exploration and development company with projects in Turkey, Cote d'Ivoire and South America, announces that the following warrants have been exercised into ordinary shares with funds received.

1,977,812 Warrants exercised at GBP0.30

The Company will issue and allot 1,977,812 new ordinary shares.

Admission to AIM

Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and the TSXV. Dealings are expected to commence on or about 27 April 2017 ("Admission").

Following Admission, there will be a total of 128,399,830 ordinary shares on issue.

Mariana Resources Limited

"Glen Parsons"

Glen Parsons, CEO

**ENDS**

Glen Parsons (CEO) Mariana Resources Ltd +61 2 9437 4588 Eric Roth (COO) Mariana Resources Ltd +56 9 8818 1243 Karen Davies (IR) Mariana Resources Ltd (Canada) +1 604 314 6270 Rob Adamson RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0041 Will Souter RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0050 In U.K. Oliver Stansfield Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5061 Jonathan Evans Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5016 Camilla Horsfall Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3224 Megan Ray Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3203

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.

About Mariana Resources

Mariana Resources Ltd is a TSX.V and AIM (MARL) quoted exploration and development company with an extensive portfolio of gold, silver, and copper projects in South America, Turkey, and Ivory Coast.

Mariana's most advanced asset is the Hot Maden gold-copper project in northeast Turkey, which is a joint venture with Turkish partner Lidya Madencilik (30% Mariana and 70% Lidya) and which is rapidly advancing to development. On January 17, 2017, Mariana released the results of a Preliminary Economic Study ("PEA") which demonstrated exceptional potential economics for the Hot Maden Project (after-tax NPV and IRR of USD 1.37B and 153%, respectively) based on a development scenario incorporating a 1Mtpa underground mining / processing operation and the production of two saleable concentrates (a copper-gold concentrate and a gold-pyrite concentrate). This PEA was based on the updated (July 25, 2016) mineral resource estimate of 3.43 Moz gold equivalent (Indicated Category) and 0.09 Moz gold equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) in the Main Zone, as well as a maiden 351,000 Moz gold equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) resource in the New Southern Discovery. Elsewhere in Turkey, Mariana holds a 100% interest in the Ergama gold-copper project.

On October 7, 2016, Mariana announced the signing of a binding Term Sheet to acquire an indirect 80% interest in Ivory Coast-focused private exploration company Awale Resources SARL ("Awale"). Through the transaction Mariana will gain an immediate foothold in an established exploration portfolio with known gold mineralisation and artisanal gold workings, and which comprises i) 3 granted contiguous licenses (1,191 km2) in the Bondoukou area, and ii) 4 licenses under application (1,593 km2) in both the Bondoukou and Abengourou areas. The Boundoukou concessions lie along the southwestern extension of the Birimian Bole-Nangodi greenstone belt in adjacent Ghana, host to a number of high grade orogenic gold deposits.

In southern Argentina, the Company's core gold-silver projects are Las Calandrias (100%), Sierra Blanca (100%), Los Cisnes (100%), and Bozal (100%). These projects are part of a 100,000+ Ha land package in the Deseado Massif epithermal gold-silver district in mining-friendly Santa Cruz Province.

In Suriname, Mariana has a direct holding of 10.2% of the Nassau Gold project. The Nassau Gold Project is a 28,000 Ha exploration concession located approximately 125 km south east of the capital Paramaribo and immediately adjacent to Newmont Mining's 4.2Moz gold Merian project.

In Peru and Chile, Mariana is focusing on acquiring new opportunities which complement its current portfolio.

Hot Maden Mineral Resource Estimate - Main Gold-Copper Zone (2 g/t AuEq Cut-off) Indicated Mineral Resource Domain Tonnes Au Cu Zn AuEq Au Cu AuEq t g/t % % g/t* Ounces Tonnes Ounces** Main Zone LG 463,000 1.1 1.1 0.3 2.4 17,000 5,000 36,000 Main Zone HG 4,501,000 3.9 1.9 0.2 6.3 570,000 87,000 908,000 Main Zone UHG 2,086,000 32.7 3.5 0.1 36.9 2,195,000 73,000 2,476,000 Mixed Gold-Zinc 17,000 7.5 3.1 3.6 11.2 4,000 1,000 6,000 Peripheral Lodes 60,000 2.1 0.4 0.4 2.5 4,000 5,000 Total 7,127,000 12.2 2.3 0.2 15.0 2,790,000 166,000 3,431,000 Inferred Mineral Resource Domain Tonnes Au Cu Zn AuEq Au Cu AuEq t g/t % % g/t* Ounces Tonnes Ounces** Main Zone LG 395,000 1.7 0.9 0.03 2.8 21,000 4,000 35,000 Main Zone HG 31,000 3.9 1.6 0.1 5.8 4,000 6,000 Main Zone UHG 6,000 39.1 2.1 0.01 41.6 7,000 8,000 Mixed Gold-Zinc 4,000 1.7 0.4 2.4 2.2 Peripheral Lodes 282,000 3.2 0.9 0.1 4.3 29,000 2,000 38,000 Total 718,000 2.7 0.9 0.1 3.8 62,000 7,000 88,000



Hot Maden - Southern Gold-Copper Zone (2 g/t AuEq Cut-off) Inferred Mineral Resource Domain Tonnes Au Cu Zn AuEq Au Cu AuEq t g/t % % g/t* Ounces Tonnes Ounces** South Zone LG 396,000 2.8 0.7 0.0 3.6 35,000 3,000 46,000 South Zone HG 583,000 5.3 0.7 0.0 6.1 98,000 4,000 114,000 Main Zone UHG 224,000 22.2 1.0 0.0 23.4 160,000 2,000 169,000 Mixed Gold-Zinc 44,000 9.0 1.0 3.2 10.2 13,000 15,000 Peripheral Lodes 104,000 1.9 0.3 0.0 2.2 6,000 7,000 Total 1,352,000 7.2 0.7 0.1 8.1 313,000 10,000 351,000

*Au Equivalence (AuEq) calculated using a 100 day moving average of $US1,215/ounce for Au and $US2.13/pound for Cu as of May 29, 2016. No adjustment has been made for metallurgical recovery or net smelter return as these remain uncertain at this time. Based on grades and contained metal for Au and Cu, it is assumed that both commodities have reasonable potential to be economically extractable.

*-The formula used for Au equivalent grade is: AuEq g/t = Au + [(Cu % x 22.0462 x 2.13)/(1215/31.1035)] and assumes 100 % metallurgical recovery. **-Au equivalent ounces are calculated by mulitplying Mineral Resource tonnage by Au equivalent grade and converting for ounces. The formula used for Au equivalent ounces is: AuEq Oz = [Tonnage x AuEq grade (g/t)]/31.1035

Safe Harbour

This press release contains certain statements which may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as at the date of this press release and include, without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, the realization, cost, timing and extent of mineral resource estimates, estimated future exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, and requirements for additional capital. The words "plans", "expects", "budget", "scheduled", "estimate", "forecasts", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "may", "will", or similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the effects of general economic conditions; the price of gold, silver and copper; misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements; risks associated with international operations; the need for additional financing; risks inherent in exploration results; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters; currency and commodity price fluctuations; title matters; environmental liability claims; unanticipated operational risks; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or in the completion of development or construction activities; political risk; and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's annual financial statements for the most recently completed financial year which is available on the Company's website at www.marianaresources.com . Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions and have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
The West Texas Chapter of Safari Club International is donating $75,000 to honor Sydney Dickerson-Matthews, 11, a Midland sixth-grader who died in an ATV accident in September. The donation will go toward a $6 million campaign for San Antonio-based nonprofit Trinity Oaks, which provides outdoor experiences for disadvantaged children, children with terminal illnesses or disabilities and wounded veterans.

The funds will be used to purchase and renovate Thumbtack Ranch, a 2,000-acre site near San Antonio that Trinity Oaks uses for its excursions. The ranchs main lodge will be named in memory of Sidney, according to a press release.
Lake Houston area residents are invited to "Explore Your Texas" at this year's Chicks and Hogs Barbecue fundraiser hosted by Family Promise.

Fifteen barbecue teams have signed up for the eighth annual competition, scheduled for 2-7 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at Harley-Davidson of Kingwood, 111 Northpines Dr. Celebrity judges are Terry Vaughn, of Walgreen's; Noah LaBauve, State Farm agent; Nancy Shortsleeve, owner of LogoStuff; Jenna Armstrong, Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce president; Kap McWhorter, social action teacher with Humble Independent School District.

Attendees also will be able to vote for their favorite "pig pen" with dollars - every dollar counts as a vote.

Live auction items all point to this year's theme, "Explore Your Texas." Carole Brady, executive director of Family Promise of Lake Houston, previewed some of the items available, such as a his and her kayaking trip, which includes Bucee's gift cards for gas, and a weekend getaway in a cabin.

Family Promise also is raffling off a 2017 Canyon from Texan GMC. Only 350 tickets will be sold at $100 a piece. Each ticket comes with two VIP wristbands for the event. The winning ticket for the truck will be pulled at 7 p.m., according to Brady. The live auction is at 4 p.m., and the silent auction runs until 5:30 p.m.

There will also be a wine pull, where $20 will net attendees a bottle of wine valued between $10 to more than $100.

Admission to the event is $5, and kids aged 12 and under get in free. For the $5 donation, attendees will receive a pulled pork sandwich and a chance to sample each of the competitors in the "pig pens."

Family Promise of Lake Houston is a nonprofit agency that aims to end the cycle of homelessness. It is debt-free, walking its talk when it teaches families not to rely on state and federal government assistance.

A mother and son duo, who graduated from the Family Promise program, are scheduled to sing the National Anthem.

"We raise about a third of our entire budget from this event," Brady said, "And we're just so grateful for the whole community who wants to come out and join."

For more information, visit www.fplh.org.
Rancho Santa Fe  The first Aston Martin to carry the DB nameplate was the DB2, which was powered by a 2.8-liter Lagonda inline six-cylinder engine that cranked out 105 horsepower  an impressive figure for the era. The Aston Martin DB2 and DB2/4 reigned from 1950-1957, with the latter based on the DB2, but featuring modest design and styling modifications.

On to the next chapter of the iconic companys second hundred years. The DB11 is the first of several new products to come as part of the companys Second Century plan. It marks the beginning of an all-new generation of cars, and is the most powerful and at the same time, the most efficient DB production model in Aston Martins history.

The DB11 is based on a brand new bonded aluminum platform combining strength, lightness and increased interior space. The DB11 sets a new benchmark for luxury sporting Grand touring machines. The styling is instantly recognizable as penned by Aston Martin designers, yet it is a distinctively different marriage of form and function. Up front is the iconic, but reinterpreted grille with accentuated lines, the front-hinging clamshell bonnet and distinctive LED headlights. In profile, the gracefully arched roof strakes flow without interruption from the A to C-pillar. Front-end lift is reduced by a gill-like Curlicue that releases high-pressure air from inside the wheel arch via a concealed vent within the modified side-strake. Clean lines continue at the rear, with a sloping decklid that smoothly blends into pronounced sculpted tail-lights creating a new, unmistakable graphic. Rear-end lift is minimized by Aston Martins AeroBlade; a virtual spoiler fed by discreet air intakes located at the base of each C-pillar. Air is ducted through the bodywork, before venting as a jet of air from the aperture in the rear decklid.

The heart of every Aston DB is its engine, and the DB11 is powered by a 5.2-liter, DOHC, 48-valve, twin turbocharged V12 longitudinally mounted front engine with dual variable camshaft timing, intelligent bank activation and an electronically controlled exhaust. It is the most powerful DB production engine in Aston Martins history producing 600 horsepower at 6,500 rpm, while also developing 516 pound feet of torque from 1,500 rpm. The engines motive force is delivered to the rear wheels by a rear mid-mounted ZF eight-speed automatic transmission with electronic shift-by-wire control system, through a carbon fibre propeller shaft and Limited Slip Differential. The DB11 is capable of accelerating from 0-62 mph in a scant 3.9 seconds and can reach a top speed of 200 mph.

The chassis, suspension, steering and electronics have all been revised and enhanced, providing adaptive damping and multiple driver-selectable dynamics including a GT mode, a Sport mode and a Sport Plus mode. The latter intensifies suspension settings, steering responsiveness, shift mapping and the Torque Vectoring system.

The DB11s suspension componentry consists of Independent double wishbone, coil springs, anti-roll bar and adaptive dampers up front and Multi-link, coil springs, anti-roll bar and adaptive dampers aft.

The interior reflects old world craftsmanship delivering superbly elegant fit and finish. A full-colour 12 TFT LCD display, and all-new instrument cluster presents primary vehicle information with absolute clarity, while a second, centrally-mounted 8 TFT screen focuses on infotainment, controlled via an intuitive rotary control, with an optional touchpad offering character recognition, multi-touch and gesture support, the new satellite navigation and audio system are more effective than ever, sounding better and easier to operate. A newly implemented auto-park assist feature and 360-degree birds-eye view camera assists in providing safe maneuvering at slow speeds and is also operated via the cars infotainment system. Safety features include ABS, DSC, EBD, EBA, TC, HBA, PTC and Active Torque Vectoring.

My test 2017 Aston Martin DB11 wore an elegant exterior coat of Fiamma Red metallic, while the interior was executed in Black leather with Red accents. The base price was set at $211.995. and the final sticker came to $214,820.

Summary: The 2017 Aston Martin DB11 is an exemplary exercise in emotion stirring elegance. The ultimate focus of its engineering was to provide maximum doses of exhilaration from static elegance to dynamic levels of performance.

This newest gem from Aston Martin is a genuine luxury 2+2 grand Touring Coupe. The acceleration is instantaneous and the electric power steering with its 13:1 ratio is a speed dependent rack and pinion affair featuring 2.4 turns lock to lock for a precise, spot on responsiveness. Bringing the DB11 to a halt is just as impressive.

The seats are highly supportive and comfortable at the same time, holding occupants in place during even the most spirited maneuvers.

Should one wish to abandon the sweet sound of the engines growl and melodious exhaust note, the standard Aston Martin Audio System admirably delivers ones favorite tunes or one may choose the optional Bang and Olufsen Premium sound system.

On a sojourn from Californias Rancho Santa Fe to Mount Palomar, encountering virtually every road scenario from congested inner city travel to challenging, twisty mountain roads with some high speed freeway stints thrown in for good measure, as well as weather conditions from sun to fog to rain to hail and snow, this latest DB Grand Touring Coupe delivered nothing short of the grandest touring imaginable. Passing other vehicles was effortless, even in minimal situations, and maneuvering back and forth over the sharply twisting curves along the way, came across as smooth and Ballet-like.

As a final commentary, the 2017 Aston Martin is an exercise in elegant craftsmanship and design execution that provides sensory satisfaction on all levels without compromise.
NEW YORK, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digital Arts Media Network, Inc. (OTCMKTS:DATI), a specialized tech accelerator leveraging the Public Accelerator-Incubator (PAI) model, announced today that the Company will provide its first Shareholder Update on Monday, April 24th, 2017.



Visit Our Contact Page: http://www.digitalartsmedianetwork.com/contactus.html to request your shareholder update!

As the public begins taking an interest in our innovative investment model, its a salient time to provide shareholders with a corporate update giving insight into Company operations, stated Ajene Watson, Chairman and CEO of Digital Arts Media Network, Inc., on the heels of an Inc. Magazine article featuring the company. We believe that Digital Arts Media Network can provide the investment community with an incredible opportunity to participate in an innovation that was designed specifically for emerging and microcap markets. It is important that both our business model and the Companys direction are well understood.

Highlights of the update will include:

A further description of the Companys business plan and the implementation of the Public Accelerator Incubator (PAI) Model.



Capitalization structure of Digital Arts Media Network, Inc. as it aligns with our core market philosophies: extremely low float, no toxic instruments, internal finance, etc;



Current status and capital raise of non-toxic financing; and,



Insight into our current portfolio, outlook on portfolio growth and valuations.

Ajene Watson continued, Digital Arts Media Network is unlike any other accelerator in that we are an add-on to top tier accelerators such as Techstars, Angelpad, Y Combinator, StartX and 500 Startups. We accelerate capital investment into startups by providing angel investors with a hedge against their private equity investments versus purely attempting to fund and mentor startups. This combination makes us attractive to investors of all socio-economic classes and provides a value-add to the entire startup community.

Using the PAI model, Digital Arts Media Network has garnered the interest, support and participation of private equity investors, consultants, business professors and start-up mentors alike. Being altruistic at its core, yet highly efficient and lucrative in its process, the PAI model has the potential to grow the Companys portfolio of startups quickly and efficiently; placing Mom-and-Pop investors, with little capital to invest or connections to leverage, in a position to participate in the same vetted startups coveted by angel investors.

Techstars Alum, Co-Chief Architect of PAI, and Board Advisor to Digital Arts Media Network, Ruben Porras, says, The investment community has never been a space for all people, until now. True access to wealth and financial prosperity through investments has never been within arm's reach for the majority of people in this country... finally, microcap investors will... have the confidence they're investing in solid teams and technologies.

To echo Mr. Porras sentiment, the corporate update you will be pleased to review, is a comprehensive explanation as to why the Company has garnered interest from news organizations and private investors, making DATI an opportunity for the microcap investor to be super excited about, said Ajene Watson. Digital Arts Media Network is not simply a company trading on the OTC, it is a product specifically designed to trade on the OTC; with hope of setting a precedent, and becoming an agent of change and wealth redistribution to the average investor. We all know, this type of opportunity is long overdue.

ABOUT Digital Arts Media Network, Inc.

Digital Arts Media Network, Inc. (OTCMKTS:DATI) is the first company to utilize the Public Accelerator-Incubator (PAI) model, with the intent to follow the global success of accelerators and incubators around the world, adding niche opportunities to both the microcap and startup communities. As a PAI, Digital Arts Media Network will develop and acquire innovations that solve problems through digital platforms and other electronic applications.

Digital Arts Media Network aligns with leading private accelerators and incubators to form unique partnerships. These partnerships enhance the vetting process and expedite traction. Further, Digital Arts Media Network partners with successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and development teams to provide startups with general and functional mentorship from industry leaders.

Digital Arts Media Network offers all investors the ability to (i) diversify, (ii) maximize success, (iii) see money at work, and (iv) exit. For those persons invested directly in the PAI, there is an additional opportunity to effectively support startup ventures through mentorship, and angel investors in startup ventures receive additional benefit from various strategies which further hedge and mitigate risk.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DigitalArtsDATI

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/digital-arts-media-network

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DigitalArtsMediaNetworkDATI/

Medium: https://medium.com/@DigArtsMedNet

Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not statements of historical or current fact constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other unknown factors that could cause the Company's actual operating results to be materially different from any historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition to statements that explicitly describe these risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider statements that contain terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "expect," "intends," "intend," "anticipate," "anticipates," "plans," "plan," to be uncertain and forward-looking.
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Bevil Oaks residents got "just about the best possible answer" to their request to leave Beaumont ISD Thursday night when the district's board of managers voted to table consideration while they receive more information.

"I'm pleased with it, it's the best outcome we could have hoped for," said Jeri Sterling, a Bevil Oaks resident who attended the public hearing, and one of more than 700 who signed a petition requesting to leave.
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A Conroe butcher has made the cut to represent the entire Houston region. Now he's vying to be branded the best in Texas.

Majkszak Meat Market Owner Michael Majkszak won the Regional Semifinal round of the inaugural Best Loving Texans' Best Butcher in Texas competition March 4 in Houston. The Texas Beef Council is hosting the contest to name the state's top butcher. Now Majkszak will compete for the title against two other finalists from the Dallas and San Antonio regions at the final round at the Austin Food & Wine Festival on April 29.

During the semifinal rounds Majkszak faced four judges as he competed against Joe Nathan Muras of Lone Star Provisions in Katy, Mark DeWitt of HEB in College Station, and Hunter Dieringer HEB in Midland.

"I'm going to face the best from Dallas and the best from San Antonio just like the guys I faced in Houston," "They are going to be excellent butchers. Nice guys. It was truly an honor to meet them, work with them, and I'm sure these guys are going to be no different. I'm very excited."

Each of the butchers were tested in a three-part challenge on cut identification, along with their skills to cut to order and cut beef for retail merchandising.

"I wasn't nervous," Majkszak said. "I wasn't afraid. I wasn't anything. I was ready to go in and win this thing. Until it was time to suit up. Then I was nervous as hell."

To level the playing field, each competitor is equipped with Victorinox Swiss Army boning knives, a breaking knife, a cut resistant glove, a steel and a knife roll. The competitors receive top marks based on their technique, creativity, presentation and consumer interaction.

Majkszak cuts meat for a living and participates in about five or six cook offs and competitive barbecue contests a year, including at the Montgomery County Fair and Rodeo and Lone Star Cowboy Church with Majik Smokers. But, he said the battle for best butcher has been no easy test.

"They were watching everything you did," he said with trophies on display in the room behind him. "It was cool.  I'm cutting meat daily and with competitive barbecue I felt the pressure and time crunch, just the shear rush of that, helped me in this competition."

His career started brewing at Conroe High School in 1994 around the age of 17 when few schools offered a meat slab class for vocational training. Raised around animals, involved in 4-H class, and accepted to study poultry at Sam Houston State University helped stir his feelings for the business.

"I fell in love with it," he said. "I went to the meat market (at Randall's through the school program) and never looked back.  It's my passion  It's my life."

Majkszak worked with five men at Randall's in Conroe who had been in the industry between 10 to 30 years where he said he learned more than anywhere else and remains friends with Conroe resident Martin Worley who now works at Randall's in Kingwood. After a year-long Texas State Technical College near Waco went to work at Albertsons from 1996-2002 until the stores were shut down in Houston. Then, Majkszak called Martin.

"He said, 'don't worry, you have a job,'" said Majkszak who returned to Randall's from April to July 2002, which was originally located where Academy is today on Loop 336 West. The grocery store eventually moved to Highway 105 where Hastings recently closed in Conroe.

Since then Majkszak has seasoned his career with his mentors' wisdom and years of experience to run his meat market, which he opened at 4900 West Davis St in July 2002.

"You couldn't ask for a better person," Martin said. "He's a good meat cutter, but more than anything else he has great customer service skills. You can't walk into his store without him being happy go lucky."

The customers who walk through his doors are greeted on a first name basis. His walls relate to customers' lifestyle with pre-bundled meat selections like a big family deal. A good butcher specializes in the different cuts of meat and should know every aspect of it, including how to cut, trim, and cook it, according to Majkszak.

"Never trust a skinny butcher I always tell people that," he laughed jokingly before continuing. "Butchers have a strong passion for what they do, a passion for food and meat, pride to know they are the best. We try to put our best foot forward every day."

To be the best requires hard work, preciseness, skills in the labor intensive and sometimes industry that deals with knives and machinery, he said. And, it's not for everybody.

"You're on your feet eight to 12 hours a day," he said. "Somedays you might cut 200 pounds of meat and somedays you may cut 2,000 pounds of meat and that's one man. You have to be ready for that. Luckily, I'm very blessed and still have all 10 fingers."

He has survived the recession and competitors moving into the area with a booming population. He feels he persevered through his passion, relationship with customers, and carrying the best quality meat he possibly can. He's adapted to change, from specialty items to pre-made items including by making meat loaf and casseroles to help many young mothers of today he said that do not know how to cook.

"I had to learn my community and my customers," he said. "First and foremost, I learned right off the bat not only was I giving my customers the best-it was what they expected. They want nothing less. So I try not to do nothing less than the best."

Now he's eager to make the final cut in April.

"I feel awesome," Majkszak said. "I'm ready to rock. I'm ready to show what H-Town is all about."

The three winners from each regional competition will come out on top as Finalists, return home with a $2,500 cash prize and a seat on the Beef Loving Texans' Best Butcher Council, according to information from the Council. The Best Butcher in Texas will receive an additional $5,000 grand prize, a knife set courtesy of Victorinox Swiss Army from their Fibrox Pro Cutlery line as well as inclusion in a one full-page co-branded ad in Texas Monthly.

For more information, visit majkszaksmeatmarket.net or BeefLovingTexans.com.
Lithuanian English

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017-04-21 15:05 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On 22 March 2017, the General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Baltic Farmland, AB (identification code 303299781, address Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, LT-01109) decided to allocate EUR 0.07 dividend per share.



Dividends will be paid to the shareholders who at the end of the tenth business day following the day of the General Shareholders Meeting that adopted a decision on dividend payment, i.e. on 5 April 2017 were shareholders of INVL Baltic Farmland, AB.



From 21 April 2017 the dividends will be allocated in the following order:



- to the shareholders, whos INVL Baltic Farmland, AB shares are accounted by a financial brokerage company or credit institutions, which provide securities accounting services, the amount of dividend, after deduction of Personal or Corporate withholding income tax applicable by the laws of Lithuania, will be transferred to the shareholders account held with a respective financial brokerage company or credit institution;

- to the shareholders, whos INVL Baltic Farmland, AB shares on behalf of the Company are accounted by the authorised custodian Siauliu bankas, AB, the dividend amount, after deduction of Personal or Corporate withholding income tax applicable by the laws of Lithuania, will be transferred to the shareholders account with Lithuanian commercial bank as indicated by the shareholders (requests with account indications should be submitted to any branch of Siauliu bankas, AB. The list of the branches of Siauliu bankas, AB can be found here).

Procedure for dividends taxation for the year 2016:

- dividends paid to natural personsresidents of the Republic of Lithuania and natural personsresidents of foreign countries are subject to withholding Personal income tax of 15 per cent;

- dividends paid to legal entities of the Republic of Lithuania and legal entitiesresidents of foreign countries are subject to withholding Corporate income tax of 15 per cent, unless otherwise provided for by the laws.



For additional information on payout of the dividends please contact Siauliu bankas AB tel. 1813.
DALLAS, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. (NYSE:WHG) will release its first quarter 2017 earnings after the close of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, April 26, 2017. Following the release, the Company will host a live audio webcast and conference call at 4:30 pm Eastern Time (3:30 pm Central Time).

To listen to the conference call, dial 877-303-6235 (U.S. and Canada) or 631-291-4837 (International). The conference call will be available for replay through May 3 by dialing 855-859-2056 (U.S. & Canada) or 404-537-3406 (international) and entering passcode 2165728. The conference call will also be available via webcast and can be accessed at Westwood's website, www.westwoodgroup.com, under the Investor Relations tab.

Date: April 26, 2017

Time: 4:30 PM ET

Listen via Internet: http://ir.westwoodgroup.com/

Telephone: 877-303-6235

International: 631-291-4837

Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. provides investment management services to institutional investors, private wealth clients and financial intermediaries. With $21.2 billion in assets under management (as of December 31, 2016), the firm offers a range of investment strategies including U.S. equities, Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), Multi-Asset, Global and Emerging Markets equities and Global Convertible securities portfolios. Access to these strategies is available through separate accounts, the Westwood Funds(R) family of mutual funds, UCITS funds and other pooled vehicles. Westwood benefits from significant, broad-based employee ownership and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "WHG." Based in Dallas, Westwood also maintains offices in Toronto, Boston, Omaha and Houston.

For more information on Westwood, please visit www.westwoodgroup.com.

For more information on the Westwood Funds(R), please visit www.westwoodfunds.com.

(WHG-G)
Associated Press file photo

AUSTIN - Attorney General Ken Paxton gave a boost to the Texas Senate Friday in its battle with the House over how best to fill a $2.5 billion revenue gap, saying that senators proposal to delay a transportation payment would likely be found constitutional in court.

Senate Finance Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, had asked for the legal opinion after House leaders criticized that aspect of her chambers funding plan.
Over $10 million was raised for the construction of the new Confluence Park, and behind-the-scenes photos show how all that money is being spent.

Confluence Park, located at 310 W. Mitchell St. on the South Side, is slated to open this December as an outdoor education center, which will include a classroom and an interactive space for students to learn about ecology.
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King William-Lavaca-area parking problems could be alleviated later this year if a proposed program is approved in January.

The City of San Antonio's Development Services Department held a meeting April 13 to discuss the Pilot Modified Residential Parking Permit (RPP) Program

The issue arose in Fall 2015 when residents asked the city to evaluate the parking situation for the growing downtown district. One of the concerns from residents and businesses pertained to the 2-hour time restriction imposed on visitors.

RELATED: 39 of the worst places to park in San Antonio, according to locals

The program and budget is expected to be finalized by May and if approved in June will likely be implemented by September.

Impacted streets include the commercial corridor, which encompasses St. Mary's, Presa and South Alamo streets, as well as surrounding blocks.

Each segment would follow different restrictions imposed as part of the program.

The commercial corridor would have 3-hour parking "to provide turnover and prevent cars from parking all day," according to a presentation given to the community last week.

RELATED: Photos: S.A. sets the Fiesta mood with a King Anchovy garden party in Southtown

The parking program extends to the streets adjacent to Cesar Chavez in the Lavaca neighborhood and blocks adjacent to the commercial corridors in the King William neighborhood. If approved, the program would provide resident parking on one side of the block and no restrictions for the opposite side for residents and visitors, according to the presentation.

Other streets like Callaghan Avenue, Refugio Street, Garfield Alley, Beauregard and Forke Street would have one-sided parking only under the proposed program.

All restrictions would come with increased enforcement and would be reviewed.

The city currently offers a $20 residential decal program, which allows one decal and one visitor permit per address. The program is purposing a residential use-only permit program that allows four per residential lot and would cost $10 a year.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
CUPERTINO, Calif., April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EduNav, a leading developer of student academic planning software for colleges and universities, has earned the Innovation Award for College Readiness and Completion from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).



Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c6451dc9-1615-40ff-9deb-30de1246de05

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2a426a6d-bc0e-4e1b-a524-8c19543db593

AACC is a prominent advocacy organization that represents almost 1,200 two-year, associate degree-granting institutions and more than 13 million students in the United States and internationally.

This award recognizes EduNav for advancing and improving student access, success and completion through personalized educational planning.

EduNav SmartPlan is a dynamic planning solution that works much like a GPS system, automatically recalculating students best path to completion as any circumstance changes. SmartPlan detects when a a class section fills, a student withdraws from a course, even when degree requirements change. The tool then updates the students entire educational plan, replacing courses where necessary to keep the student on the most optimal path to graduation.

SmartPlan is a game changer, the most comprehensive and intuitive product we have seen for successful degree, career and transfer planning for students, said Denise Swett, vice president of student services, Foothill College. It is also a predictive enrollment management tool for deans. We anticipate we will see very impressive completion data as a result of this state-of-the-art software.

Because educational plans are always current, students always know their best next step, and so do institutions as theyre planning courses and allocating resources for future terms. That knowledge drives smart decisions for improved academic and institutional outcomes.

We are committed to helping students and institutions reach the U.S. goal of increasing two-year completion rates by 50 percent by 2020, said Isaac Segal, president and CEO of EduNav. We are honored that AACC has recognized that commitment.

About AACC

The American Association of Community Colleges represents nearly 1,200 two-year, associate degreegranting institutions and more than 13 million students, as well as a growing number of international members in Puerto Rico, Japan, Great Britain, Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. AACC supports and promotes its member colleges through policy initiatives, innovative programs, research and information and strategic outreach to business and industry and the national news media.

About EduNav

EduNav is a leading developer of student academic planning and optimization software for colleges and universities. Our algorithmic-based solutions help drive student success by unifying the planning, scheduling and registration experience of your students and generating a personalized, always up-to-date optimal path to completion for every student. This results in greater student insight and accountability, improved student persistence and completion, and better institutional outcomes.
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As scientists and their supporters march in Washington on Saturday, San Antonio residents will hold their own march to deliver a message about the importance of facts and rational inquiry.

The San Antonio March for Science from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at San Pedro Springs Park is one of 517 satellite marches planned in nearly every U.S. state and in countries around the world. Local organizers come from diverse backgrounds but say theyre united in support of the scientific method itself as the best way to guide government and inform society.

Facts are being replaced by opinions or cherry-picked or taken out of context, said organizer Alejandra Mora, a data analyst based at San Antonio Military Medical Center. She crunches numbers on anything and everything that has to do with transporting casualties, trying to improve care for wounded soldiers.

At a meeting at Woodlawn Theatre on Wednesday, Mora and other organizers talked about their experiences navigating a culture increasingly straying from facts. That may be the most common thread running through the small group of scientists, educators and advocates organizing San Antonios march.

On Saturday, the march  the first of its kind in San Antonio  will start at 10 a.m. at the park. Marchers will make a loop around Main Avenue, heading back to the park about noon. Along the way, organizer Grace Barnett said, they will walk through a timeline of scientific discovery that begins with the ancient Egyptians invention of the calendar and the creation of the compass in China.

Dont give it away! joked Katie Benson, another core member of the group.

The event will also feature speakers and displays from local universities and research groups about scientific efforts in San Antonio.

If we can raise awareness about those and get people excited and wanting to promote that in their communities, to me, we will have accomplished a great deal, Barnett said.

She and the others say they began meeting in February after local science teacher Matt Poarch saw early news and social media reports about a national march and began organizing such an effort in San Antonio.

I did not know these people before, and I love them, Mora said. I just think its great that something so basic, science, and the foundation of it just brought us together.

The local group insists its nonpartisan, even though rumblings of a national march began after the inauguration of President Donald Trump and the Womens March on Washington, which drew almost half a million people.

The national March for Science also has a San Antonio tie, with researcher Jonathan Berman of UT Health San Antonio serving as co-chairman.

Trumps campaign, transition and early actions as president have sent fear rippling through the scientific community. Trump appointed Myron Ebell, an economist who denies the science behind global warming, to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition team, then appointed former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the agency. Pruitt has said he does not believe greenhouse gas emissions are driving catastrophic climate change.

A recent White House budget proposal slashes at least $7 billion to federal scientific agencies and grant programs, including the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Energy Department.

Despite all this, none of the San Antonio march organizers mentioned Trumps name even once at their meeting Wednesday. Instead, they talk about their own experiences.

Theres Julian Chavez, a research associate at the University of Texas at San Antonio studying monarch butterflies and milkweed, the host plant of the caterpillars that become monarchs. Sara Beesley runs the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center in South Bexar County. Barnett coordinates monarch butterfly outreach efforts for the National Wildlife Federation. Benson is a special education teacher at Judson Independent School District.

Barnett remembers someone telling her while she was working on one of her monarch programs that she shouldnt refer to programs as evidence-based because it has a negative connotation.

That is awful, she said. We need to have science be trusted and respected for what it is.  We need to challenge this idea thats out there now that we have ulterior motives when we share these scientific principles. We dont. Were just trying to share the truth.

More information on the march is available at Marchforsciencesa.com.

bgibbons@express-news.net

Twitter: @bgibbs
Officers with the Violent Gang Task Force seized drugs, guns and $7,000 in cash Thursday while executing a search warrant at an East Side home where alleged gang members resided, police said.

Street Crimes Unit detectives assigned to the task force developed information that "documented" gang members in possession of crack cocaine were at a home in the 800 block of F Street, according to a statement from the San Antonio Police Department.
New Haven, Conn, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Melinta Therapeutics, a privately held company developing novel antibiotics to treat serious bacterial infections, announced today that the company and investigators will be presenting clinical evidence from the Baxdela (delafloxacin) clinical program at the 27th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). Baxdela, an investigational fluoroquinolone, has completed Phase 3 testing and is the subject of a New Drug Application (NDA) currently under review at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of patients with serious hospital-treated skin infections (ABSSSI). The presentations at ECCMID include data from the complete Baxdela Phase 3 program, and demonstrate that Baxdela is comparable to vancomycin/aztreonam combination therapy in the treatment of patients with ABSSSI. Importantly, this comparability was demonstrated not only in the global study population, but in three key subgroups: patients with diabetes, renal impairment and obesity.

It has long been understood that renal insufficiency, diabetes and obesity put patients at risk for infection and impair a patients ability to heal from bacterial skin infections, explained Dr. Sue Cammarata, Melintas chief medical officer. Further, comorbidities like obesity and renal impairment pose dosing challenges for many current antibiotics. That Baxdela (IV and oral formulations) was comparable to a two-drug regimen that included the gold-standard treatment vancomycin in these difficult-to-treat patients, including patients with MRSA as well as Gram-negative infections, was an important finding. We believe that hospital formularies and physicians will view these characteristics favorably when evaluating antibiotics for use in their most challenging ABSSSI patients.

The two Phase 3 clinical trials that comprise the Baxdela Phase 3 program enrolled a total of 1,510 patients with ABSSSI. Within this patient population, 164 patients were diabetic, 244 had renal impairment, and 639 were obese. Baxdela met both studies primary and secondary endpoints, including both the FDA and EU primary endpoints, and was shown to be well tolerated among study participants. Diarrhea and nausea were the most frequent treatment-related adverse events reported for Baxdela, and did not lead to study discontinuation. Success rates at follow up in the Intent-to-Treat population among diabetic patients were 85.5% for patients receiving Baxdela and 84% for those receiving vancomycin/aztreonam. Patients with renal impairment experienced success rates of 87.7% and 88.5%, respectively; and obese patients 86.1% and 85.1%, respectively.

In each subgroup, Staphylococcus aureus was the most common source of infection. The microbiologic response rates were 87% vs 88%, respectively among diabetic patients, 94.9% and 94.1%, respectively among those with renal impairment and 98.0% vs 92.8%, respectively among obese patients with this type of infection.

Details of the Baxdela presentations are as follows:

- E-poster EV0435 (abstract A1467): Patients tolerate switch from IV to oral antibiotics in acute bacterial skin and skin structure Infections (ABSSSI) earlier than European physicians may predict. Session: Pharmacoepidemiology, improved prescribing and antibiotic stewardship. Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 8:45 - 3:30

- Poster P1351 (abstract A1567): In vitro evaluation of delafloxacin activity when tested against contemporary ABSSSI isolates from Europe and surrounding areas (2014-2016): results from the SENTRY antimicrobial surveillance programme. Session: New antibiotics  new approaches. Sunday April 23, 2017 at 12:30 - 1:30

- Poster P1352 (abstract A1210): Delafloxacin (DLX) is effective and well-tolerated in treatment of European patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) versus vancomycin/aztreonam (VAN/AZ). Session: New antibiotics  new approaches. Sunday April 23, 2017 at 12:30 - 1:30

- Poster P1353 (abstract A1261): Delafloxacin (DLX) is effective and well-tolerated in treatment of diabetic (DM) patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) versus vancomycin/aztreonam (VAN/AZ). Session: New antibiotics  new approaches. Sunday April 23, 2017 at 12:30 - 1:30

- Poster P1354 (abstract A1465): Delafloxacin (DLX) is effective and well-tolerated in treatment of obese patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) versus vancomycin/aztreonam (VAN/AZ). Session: New antibiotics  new approaches. Sunday April 23, 2017 at 12:30 - 1:30

- Poster P1355 (abstract A1466): Delafloxacin (DLX) is effective and well-tolerated in treatment of patients with renal impairment and acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) versus vancomycin/aztreonam (VAN/AZ). Session: New antibiotics  new approaches. Sunday April 23, 2017 at 12:30 - 1:30

About ECCMID

ECCMID is the annual meeting of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and is being held April 22-25, 2017 in Vienna, Austria. It attracts approximately 10,000 participants, making it the largest European congress for the presentation and discussion of research in the fields of clinical microbiology and infection. The scientific program is a synthesis of current priorities in the fields of clinical microbiology and infection. The diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases, as well as related basic microbiology, are addressed by leading scientists during keynote lectures, symposia, meet-the-expert sessions, educational workshops, as well as poster and oral sessions. For more information, visit www.eccmid.org.

About Baxdela

Baxdela (delafloxacin) is an investigational anionic fluoroquinolone antibiotic for hospital-treated skin infections, known as acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). Baxdela has robust in-vitro antimicrobial activity, including activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a major cause of hospital-treated skin infections, a favorable tolerability profile, and both intravenous and oral dosage forms, which may facilitate hospital discharge. The studies (studies 302 and 303) were Phase 3, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, active-controlled trials to evaluate IV and oral Baxdela monotherapy compared with vancomycin plus aztreonam combination therapy for the treatment of patients with ABSSSI. Both studies met the primary endpoints for efficacy.

Overall adverse event rates were similar between treatment arms in the Phase 3 studies which enrolled over 1,500 individuals. The most common treatment-emergent adverse events in the Phase 3 studies of Baxdela were diarrhea and nausea, which were generally mild and did not lead to treatment discontinuation. The treatment discontinuation rate due to treatment-related adverse events for patients treated with Baxdela in the Phase 3 trials was 0.8%. Unlike some other quinolones, Baxdela has not shown any potential for QT prolongation or phototoxicity in definitive clinical studies. In addition, there were no elevated rates of liver or glucose abnormalities compared to vancomycin plus aztreonam in the clinical studies conducted to date.

The 450 mg tablet has been shown to have bioequivalent exposure (area under the curve) to the 300 mg IV dose, and can be dosed without regard to food. There are no anticipated drug-drug interactions with delafloxacin other than co-administration with chelating agents.

Melinta submitted NDAs (New Drug Applications) to the U.S. FDA for the intravenous and oral formulations of Baxdela for the ABSSSI indication in October 2016 which are currently undergoing regulatory review. A PDUFA date of June 19, 2017 has been set by the FDA.

Melinta is also assessing Baxdela in a clinical trial in patients with hospital-treated community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) and planning to initiate a clinical trial in complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) in the near future. Baxdela has been designated a Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) and has been granted fast track designation for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

About Melinta Therapeutics

Melinta Therapeutics, Inc. is dedicated to saving lives threatened by the global public health crisis of bacterial infections, through the development of novel antibiotics that provide new and better therapeutic solutions. Melinta has submitted NDAs to the FDA for the intravenous and oral formulations of its late-stage investigational antibiotic, Baxdela, for the treatment of acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). Baxdela is also being studied in Phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP). Melinta is committed to developing, through the application of Nobel Prize-winning science, a new class of antibiotics designed to overcome the multi- and extremely-drug-resistant pathogens for which there are few to no options, known collectively as ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter species and Escherichia coli), which cause the majority of life-threatening hospital infections.

Melinta Therapeutics is privately held and backed by Vatera Healthcare Partners (www.vaterahealthcare.com) and Malin Corporation plc (www.malinplc.com) among other private investors. The company is headquartered in New Haven, CT with offices in Lincolnshire, IL. Visit www.melinta.com for more information.
I want to tell you two stories about Bill OReilly.

Neither involves allegations of sexual harassment, which led to the decision by Fox News to dump the commentator. But each tells us something about him.

First story: The Umbrella Man

Two years ago, when I was researching a piece about OReilly, I learned that in 1979 and 1980 he was a reporter and part-time anchor at Connecticuts WFSB, Channel 3.

He is still remembered at the Hartford-based television station for his report about the Umbrella Man.

OReilly, then 30, looked into the conspiracy theory that President John F. Kennedy was shot in the neck with a dart fired from the tip of a folded umbrella held by a man in Dealey Plaza.

OReilly appears on camera in Dealey Plaza, brandishing an umbrella, and says some hard evidence supports the theory.

But OReilly failed to mention that the previous year a Dallas resident had told a Congressional committee he was the man with the umbrella.

The man said he meant it to symbolize the failed policy of Neville Chamberlain, the umbrella-carrying British prime minister who tried to appease Nazi Germany. Apparently, the man did not want Kennedy to try to appease the Soviet Union.

This was an early example of OReillys penchant for telling tales of questionable veracity.

Later, OReilly said many time that he was in a war zone while covering the 1982 conflict between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands.

Others who were there said all American journalists were confined to Buenos Aires, 1,000 miles away.

Second story: A Dozen Roses?

Ten or so years ago, when I was teaching journalism at Quinnipiac University, I was invited to go to New York to talk with OReilly about something in The New York Times.

On the set of The OReilly Factor, the 6-foot-4 OReilly stood to greet me, and we sat down on opposite sides of a table.

Then, with the cameras recording our tete-a-tete, he read aloud portions from a negative review of his program by Alessandra Stanley, The Times television critic at the time, well-known for her acerbity.

In the review, she made it clear she was not impressed by OReilly.

Now, Professor, is that objective journalism? OReilly asked me.

No, I responded. Its a review and is supposed to include the reviewers opinions.

I added, You should send her a dozen roses.

A dozen roses? Why? he said, his voice rising.

For all that free publicity, I responded with a smile.

OReilly frowned, went to a commercial and bid me good-bye.

After I left the set, a young woman on OReillys staff came up to me and said in a subdued voice: Professor, thank you for coming. I should tell you that Bill likes his guests to agree with him or disagree with him but not tease him.

I was never invited back.

Paul Janensch, of Bridgeport, was a newspaper editor and taught journalism at Quinnipiac University. His weekly Memo on the Media can be heard on wqun.com. Email: paul.janensch@quinnipiac.edu.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population is around 324 million, and the number of smartphone users in the U.S. (according to The Statistics Portal) is estimated to reach 222.9 million by the end of 2017, with the number of smartphone users worldwide forecast to exceed 2 billion users by then.

Apparently once we get them, we cant live without them. University of Maryland researchers report that a majority of students in the 10 countries they studied experienced distress when they tried to go without their devices for 24 hours. One in three admitted theyd rather give up sex than smartphones.

Its not just having them, its how much time we spend using them. In her book, The Power of Off, New York psychotherapist Nancy Colier writes, People now check their smartphones up to 150 times per day, or every six minutes, and young adults are sending as many as 110 text messages per day.

There are dangers. Distracted drivers talking or texting on their cellphones. People walking down the street with eyes on their phones, bumping into other people or crossing busy intersections without looking. The National Highway Safety Council reports there has been an increase in pedestrian accident fatalities and says that one of the causes can be attributed to distracted walking.

I have a friend I greatly admire. You send him an email or text message, any time of day or night, weekend or holiday, and he responds within 10 minutes. I genuinely appreciate his prompt responses. But I wonder, is he ever without his phone? Does he take it to bed? To the bathroom? Inside church?

How often is a special moment or conversation interrupted by signals from your smartphone you find impossible to ignore? Check out this scene. A couple goes to an expensive restaurant for a romantic dinner. Even before they glance at the menu, they check their smartphones for text messages, emails and social network announcements. Too often, technology has made us slaves of the very devices that were supposed to free us, give us more time to experience life and be with the people we love. Ms. Colier writes, Its connections to other human beings, not digital ones, that nourish us and make us feel like we count. Our presence, our full attention is the most important thing we can give each other.

Can I break my addiction? I woke up on recent morning, got dressed and ready to go to my 9:30 a.m. class. I grabbed my cellphone and  oh no! It wouldnt turn on. I know it had an 80 percent battery charge last night. Didnt it? I connected the charger and waited. And waited. Finally, the screen came alive. Five percent battery charge, it said. What am I to do? I have to leave, but my iPhone? Shall I leave it behind. Can I go somewhere, without it? Shall I just carry it in my pocket for security like Linus keeps his blanket close by. No, I will go cold turkey. I went without my cellphone for two whole hours  and I survived. Perhaps you can, too. And thats how I see it.

Larry P. Johnson is an author and motivational speaker. You can contact him at larjo1@prodigy.net or visit his website at www.mexicobytouch.com. Larry will be at the Twig Book Shop on Pearl Parkway from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. today to offer readings and sign copies of his six books.
Early voting starts Monday for the city election, and I have a prediction. No, its not about the mayors race. Its about the $850 million bond package, the largest in city history.

Some supporters are nervous about it, worried major portions could sink because of criticism of the inclusion of the land bridge at Hardberger Park, major improvements to Broadway and a number of downtown projects. Not to mention the sheer size of the package.

One major mayoral candidate, Manuel Medina, says he is voting against it.

I am confident in saying none of the criticisms will keep San Antonians from approving the bond package. Why? For the simple reason that such criticisms never do.

For the past 50 years, San Antonio has approved bond package after bond package despite criticisms. It helps that the packages typically  as is the case this year  do not involve tax increases. The new bonds are approved as older bonds are retired.

San Antonio has always believed in investing in itself. So much so that only one bond proposal in more than 50 years has failed. And that was because the mayor herself mounted a campaign against it. Heres the story.

The year was 1979. City Hall was in the midst of a transformation. For more than 25 years, all members of City Council were elected at-large, with tickets formed by the business-oriented Good Government League dominating the elections. The organization almost always selected two Hispanics and one black person for the nine-member council, and for the most part they followed the party line.

But in 1977, under pressure from the Justice Departments civil rights division, citizens barely passed a charter revision electing the mayor citywide and 10 members from districts. For the first time in a generation, voters in poorer parts of town who had little influence on citywide elections got to pick their own representatives.

The result: five Hispanics and one African-American, all of them younger than 40, with constituencies whose areas had been underserved for decades.

It was a generational change and an ethnic change, recalled Henry Cisneros, the only incumbent among the six-person majority.

Under the leadership of Mayor Lila Cockrell, a GGL veteran who had been elected the citys first woman mayor two years earlier, the council in early 1979 worked up a bond package to take to voters. But before the election took place, a dispute arose over allocation of a chunk of money from a federal program called Community Development Block Grants.

We had all agreed on a package through a long process of negotiation, Cockrell said this week. But when the issue came to a council vote, she said, Councilman Bernardo Eureste introduced an amendment that completely changed the package.

With little discussion, the five Hispanics and one black member voted as a bloc  and started a battle.

There was a situation when the council was forming cliques, Cockrell said. So I simply stood against the voters approving a bond issue under those conditions. It strengthened my standing. It showed I wasnt going to allow myself to be pushed around.

The business community raised money to amplify her message and hired Austin political consultant George Shipley, who would later work for Cisneros, to run the anti-bond campaign.

Their slogan was Dont give them a blank check, Cisneros said. It was a very divisive campaign.

It was not a close vote. The bond package was defeated. But Cockrell made it clear she was not anti-bond but that the council needed to be taught a lesson. The next year, the bond package passed.

Cisneros said both sides learned a lesson. The business community learned that the long-neglected southern sector of the city needed considerably more investment. And the new council members learned that they could not pass those investments without working to get a full consensus of the council and the community.

It is a lesson that has held. Every bond package since has passed. This one will, too.

This column appeared as a commentary on Texas Week with Rick Casey, which airs Fridays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 1 p.m. on KLRN.
Look for blessings

Re: Easters miracles play out every day, Robert Sosa, Another View, April 12:

I have never written a letter to the editor before, but I have never been as touched by a column as I was by this one.

Is Robert Sosa an angel? His words simple and mysterious capture our loves. As the golden rule says, love God above all things, and love your neighbors as yourselves. Could it be we do not love our neighbors enough? Not in a vain way, but as one who was created in the image of God, a God of love, understanding and forgiveness. We must not judge but understand, and accept all He created.

As Mr. Sosa said, look around you. Look for the good. There is so much of it. We must look for the blessings, not the negatives. A friendly hello, a smile, a thank you.

There is more good in this world than we realize.

Marie Squilla

But he started it!

Re: Hit piece on Trump, Your Turn, April 16:

A letter writer recently called a column by Michael Gerson (Republicans now realizing what theyve done, Other Views, April 4) in which he accused President Donald Trump of being shallow, vindictive and undisciplined an example of hate speech.

As I read this, I recalled a saying from my childhood that went something like this: Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you!

It seems to me that what we have here is an example of blowback. Hate speech was a big part of Trumps campaign and hasnt ended with his presidency. No one should be surprised that hate speech is now being redirected at him.

At the risk of sounding childish, I would say to the letter writer: He started it!

Carl Lloyd

Public disclosure

Re:  He-said, she-said is reason Roane is gone, Metro, April 5:

The article said an unnamed co-worker filed a sexual harassment complaint against Seguin ISD Superintendent Stetson Roane, but information about the complaint will remain secret. San Antonio recently lost a college president over accusations of sexual harassment, and again, the accuser was not identified.

If careers are to be ruined, I think it only fair the accusers be identified. Otherwise, I believe, it encourages such claims. There must be some measure of protection against he-said/she-said matters, or it will become rampant and may lack substance.

Just what constitutes sexual harassment?

James W. Kenney

If the name fits

Re: Show some respect, Your Turn, April 11:

A reader recently wrote that using the word pendejo when referring to President Donald Trump is disrespectful to the office of the presidency.

Normally, I would agree; but stop to think. When someone holding a high position in society, government or the military makes an outrageous statement without a shred of evidence  such as President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or 3 million illegal immigrants voted against him, or Obama wiretapped Trump Tower  then that qualifies that person for the title of pendejo; in fact, Trump may be the quintessential Pendejo!

Greg Castillo

Trump disappoints

I truly did try to believe that President Trump would rise to the office, leaving behind some of his demeaning campaign twitters and rhetoric. I deleted emails and news that focused on his personal peccadillos and that inflated minor errors Trump made. I waited for the gravity of the office to uplift him.

Unfortunately, these 100 days have shown patterns even worse than I had imagined. I'm disappointed and concerned about what may come out of a presidency focused more on self-image than honesty and more on serving short term business interests than the long term best interests of our citizens.

Judy Godinez
Texas should overhaul its antiquated school finance system, but the job is probably too big for one session the Legislature - especially late into this one, which ends in six weeks. Given that reality, the Senate should accept the House plan, which somehow found a way to inject $1.8 into public schools despite a major budget shortfall this session.

Above all, the Senate should not reject the House plan in petty retaliation for the House killing the Senate's school voucher proposal, which never had a realistic chance to begin with.

At this point both chambers should realize that the pursuit of perfection should not stop a reasonable agreement.

House Speaker Joe Straus, once again serving as the voice of reason, stressed that the House proposal would provide at least some additional money for every school district and eliminate several outdated provisions in the funding formula.

The House also approved the bill overwhelmingly, 134 to 16, showing broad support in both parties.

"Fully reforming our school finance system may take several years and much more work," Straus said, "but now is the right time to start."

The Senate favors a comprehensive overhaul of school funding in Senate Bill 2145.

But the May 31 adjournment is too close for that, and there's no guarantee that Gov. Greg Abbott would convene a special session for that topic - or whether both chambers even have an appetite for more time in Austin.

In the Supreme Court ruling of May 2016 that upheld the school finance system as legal but inadequate, Justice Don Willett said Texas students "deserve transformational, top-to-bottom reforms that amount to more than Band-Aid on top of Band-Aid."

He's right.

But by now, something is better than nothing, and taking on this challenge in manageable chunks makes sense.

If the Senate truly wanted to resolve this issue in this session, it should have begun the discussion in January, not April.

-----------------------------------

This is our opinion; what is your's? Email us a letter to the editor at opinions@beaumontenterprise.com Make sure to include your name, mailing address and phone number so we can contact you to verify the letter, but only your name and city of residence will be published. You can also mail letters to The Enterprise, P.O. Box 3071, Beaumont, TX, 77704. The limit on letters is 200 words.
South Africa's Branden Grace fired a 6-under 66 Thursday for a one-shot lead after the first round of the 2017 Valero Texas Open.

Taking advantage of favorable conditions  gentle winds, soft greens - on the AT&T Oaks Course while playing in the morning group, Grace made his score stand up with seven birdies and only one bogey.
Denver, Colo., April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The increase in the risk from cyberattacks has received significant attention from the research and education (R&E) community and has spurred many campuses to adopt new security controls and implement additional tools to protect their institutions. These risks include ransomware attacks, which are typically attacks on a system or computer with the intent to disrupt or block access to data until a ransom is paid, as well as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that are intended to interfere with the availability of a campus network or applications.

In 2015, the Department of Homeland Security issued an Intelligence Assessment on Research and Education. In general, the report noted, cybercriminals do not target university systems and users more than any other victims. This finding holds true today.

There are always new threats to cybersecurity, and the threats often evolve faster than the safeguards, said Kim Milford, executive director of the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), which started in 2002 and coordinates information sharing about computer-security threats and countermeasures among higher education institutions. Through active sharing among the research & education community about the most current threats, we can collectively defend against them by updating our processes and finding safeguards that most effectively protect against those threats.

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving because threats on the internet continue to not just grow, but also morph. In the past, risk mitigation was heavily focused on network controls and patching applications. As IT organizations deployed safeguards, malicious actors moved on to more lucrative attacks, such as phishing and ransomware, which target the user more than the application or hardware.

Higher education could be susceptible to cyberattacks for many different reasons, but are likely targets due to their computing resources, intellectual property, and vast amount of personal information belonging to their students, faculty, and staff. In 2016, REN-ISAC sent out 67,000 notifications to R&E institutions about potential machines compromised by vulnerability exploits.

It can be difficult to talk about the risks of cyberattacks without invoking fear, uncertainty, and doubt among IT professionals in research and education, added Milford. They may feel ineffective at risk mitigation and outsource critical security tasks. In the other extreme, they may feel the need to spend down their whole budgets to counteract the threats. The truth is, there is a happy medium. An objective analysis of the threats and threat actors can assist todays IT professional in managing those risks.

Milford will present an annual assessment of the current risks along with practical and operational advice to the research and education community in a Global Summit session on Tuesday, April 25 from 4:30  5:30 p.m. EST at the Renaissance Downtown Washington, D.C. Hotel. For more information on the Global Summit, taking place April 23-26, visit https://meetings.internet2.edu/2017-global-summit/

EDITORS NOTE: Interviews are available to members of the media upon request. Reporters interested in obtaining a press badge for the 2017 Global Summit should contact Sara Aly, saly@internet2.edu or 720-379-9674.

About Internet2

Internet2 is a non-profit, member-driven advanced technology community founded by the nations leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 serves 317 U.S. universities, 70 government agencies, 43 regional and state education networks and through them supports more than 94,000 community anchor institutions, over 900 InCommon participants, and 78 leading corporations working with our community, and 61 national research and education network partners that represent more than 100 countries.

Internet2 delivers a diverse portfolio of technology solutions that leverages, integrates, and amplifies the strengths of its members and helps support their educational, research and community service missions. Internet2s core infrastructure components include the nations largest and fastest research and education network that was built to deliver advanced, customized services that are accessed and secured by the community-developed trust and identity framework.

Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Denver, Colo.; Emeryville, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; and West Hartford, Conn. For more information, visit www.internet2.edu or follow @Internet2 on Twitter.

About REN-ISAC

Established in 2004 as part of the National Council of Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACS), the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) is a member organization committed to aiding and promoting cybersecurity protection in the research and education (R&E) community. With over 500 member institutions and 1600 active participants, REN-ISAC helps to analyze cybersecurity threat trends and protection techniques that impact R&E. REN-ISAC receives and shares intelligence with the R&E community as well as governmental and private entities. REN-ISAC analyzes this information, along with information provided in publicly available resources such as the Verizon Data Breach Report and provides the R&E IT professionals with alerts, advisories, ongoing discussions and recommendations to help reduce risks. For more information, visit https://www.ren-isac.net/index.html

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f5d8ae2f-1778-418d-ad46-755c6ce60b50

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/bb1e7f3f-5ff1-4163-9cc6-5ff2bac6cb7b
Jeff Lenard of NACS cited survey results that show customers want clean restrooms and healthy food options at the NACS State of the Industry Summit earlier this month.

By Diane Rusignola

CHICAGO  At the NACS State of the Industry Summit earlier this month, Jeff Lenard spoke about the importance of the industrys perception, and how a better image can lead to increased sales. Lenard, who is the NACS vice president of industry initiatives, referenced survey results NACS has collected over the years to drive home that the industry is changing for the better, but it still has work to do.

This is a numbers conference, and the numbers Im going to talk about now relate to whats in the [April 2017 NACS Magazine], Lenard said, pointing attention to the issues cover story, How Gas Prices Affect Consumer Behavior.

At NACS, we look at three levels of metrics. We talk a lot about store metrics and the numbers, the physical salesthat is the actual sale itself. We also talk about what the customer does at the moment of purchase, the moment of truth. And NACS has a CTP program that does that. If youre not familiar with it, it a great tool to talk about what the customer says is going on at the store. But what Id like to talk about it what the customer thinks about, what the customers say, Lenard said.

I want to talk about different ways we can own conveniencewhether its about the customer, whether its about the community, whether its about choice, whether its about cleanlinesswhat are the customers saying? he asked.

Referencing the NACS reFresh initiative, Lenard stressed that its about more than fresh, nutritious and healthy food. Its also about community. Its about jobs. Its about, What are they saying about us? How do we get stores built?

Lenard said NACS did a benchmarking survey four years ago and asked consumers a host of questions about the industry and their take on itwhat can the industry do better; what is it doing well and can do more of.

It basically came down to three things. They like the basic value propositionthey like convenience, he said. On healthy foods, there are some issues related to that. They didnt necessarily think that we sold very healthy foods. What can we do about that, both in changing the perception, and possibly what we sell in stores? And number three, NIMBY (Not in My Backyard).

Lenard said another work for NIMBY could be the acronym BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.

Basically we were perceived as being disconnected with the community and we really didnt have an opportunity for advancement. So lets compare what we had in 2013 to what we had recently. We asked consumers in our recent [January 2017] survey one simple question: If you could ask a retailer to do one thing, what would it be?

Lenard admitted it was no surprise that the No. 1 answer was about lowering prices, particularly at the gas pump. But the No. 2 answer was to keep stores cleaner. That relates to everything else that relates to our imagewhether its food, whether its communitythis will drive our sales. [Cleanliness] is what they say they want.

Own the Restroom

Lenard walked the audience through some specific ways consumers said they want to see cleaner stores, beginning with the bathrooms. He said NACS asked consumers in May 2016 about their upcoming summer road trips, and how and when they might stop along their drives. The No. 1 thing they said was use the bathroom, Lenard said. 70% of consumers say on their Memorial Day drive, they will be using the restroom. So when we talk about owning convenienceowning the C in convenience, owning the C in customer, owning the C in all these other elementsI want to introduce a new one. Its not brand-tested yet, but we want to own the C in commode.

The first purpose-built gas station in the United States was built in 1913. The first gas station program to talk about restrooms was 1933. So for the first 20 years, people were using gas stations and really holding it in.

In 1933 though, oil companies started to focus on bathrooms as a central part of their operations. Lenard said gas stations at the time were characterized by the acronym TBAtires, batteries, accessories, and all of the affiliated servicesbut bathrooms were also a big part of their original image. After the Great Depression and World War II though, the industry lost focus on the importance of bathrooms and it eventually led to the poor image of gas station restrooms in more recent years.

When 70% of people use our restrooms, and thats the first thing they do, are they going to buy your food? Thats the central question you have to ask if youre going to grow your food sales, if youre going to sell something else.

Lenard talked about a company that, as part of a venture capital bid, built a bathroom to get people to come into their store.

Lenard shared a video of an average customer who shot a one-minute about a Shell bathroom in the Philippines simply because it was so nice and clean. At a c-store in the U.S. that Lenard once visited, the bathroom included a one-way mirror so people inside the restroom could see out, but people in the store could not see in. The owner said he stole the idea from a New York City club.

Lenard said both Kwik Trip and Sheetz have signs in their bathrooms that direct customers to call their leadership team if they have any concerns about the bathroom. The stores told Lenard that just showing they care about a customers restroom experience is the real win there, and they hardly receive calls as a result.

Lenard also referenced the amazing bathroom at Slovaceks in West, Texas, and how RaceTrac uses humor throughout their store, including in the restroom, where there mens room sign says in small print: Leaving the seat up is allowed. Lenard said it can be simple things like this that help emphasize your bathroom and its cleanliness.

Lenard challenged the audience to think about a customers visit as beginning not when they walk into your store, but instead when they walk out of your bathroom. And once they walk out of your bathroom into your store, Lenard said to keep in mind that half of all consumers say they go into c-stores to buy a beverage.

QSRs are food first; I might get a drink. Our stores are drink first, might get some food. How do you build off of that? he asked. He said the numbers show women are coming in for beverages but theyre not necessarily getting food, and to consider that when you position your offers.

The Shift Toward Healthy

Regarding the perception of whether stores offer healthy food, the numbers have improved. In 2013, one in five customers said c-stores sell healthy foods, but in 2017, one in three said that. The customers we wantthe 18- to 34-year-olds40% say they have noticed fresh inside of stores. So we have a great opportunity to sell to those customers.

Lenard mentioned salads, fruit and nuts as healthy options that NACS surveyed customers about, and he said it was important to mention all three because even though nuts are packaged, they are still considered to be healthy by the consumer.

But dont forget that newspapers and mainstream media can play a big role in the industrys perception too. Lenard referenced a March 2017 New York Times article titled, Honey, Please Pick Up Some Grilled Tilapia at the Gas Station. The reporter was the NYT lead food critic for 12 years, has eaten at 5,000 restaurants including all of the best restaurants in New York, and he picked up on this important trend of great gas station food, so thats saying something, Lenard said. USA Today also has run stories on the best gas station food, and even celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris will occasionally post on social media about their great gas station food experiences.

Perhaps most importantly, figures at the highest points in government are noticing the industrys improving image and increasing healthy offerings, namely Michelle Obama. While just a few years ago she was a critic, she wrote a letter to NACS last year that was read at the 2016 NACS Show, noting how enthusiastic she is about the change in the industry and what stores have done to offer healthier foods. Lenard said c-stores are even beginning to get involved with Partnership for a Healthier America, and their annual summit that will take place in May 2017 is a great event for c-stores that have nutritionists on staff or any kind of focus on nutrition.

So much has changed. The perceptions about nutritionwhat is appropriate and what is not appropriateand where we [have] evolved as an industry, Lenard said.

The Breakfast Opportunity

With this evolution, comes a new opportunity, Lenard said. McDonalds and Dennys have been focusing on breakfast, and convenience stores can do it better than anyone else, Lenard said. People wake up aspirational toward the idea of healthy, so when customers come into c-stores in the morning, theyre ready to buy something nutritious. They start the day thinking healthy, and we have the opportunitywhether theyre coming there for a fill-up, whether theyre coming there for something elseto move that, he said.

And while 50% of Americans eat breakfast every day, they arent necessarily eating that breakfast at home. Millennials in particular dont want to eat at home, Lenard said, because theyd rather spend their time doing something else. Again, this creates an opportunity for convenience stores. Stores capitalizing on this idea include Wawa, which offered free coffee on Fridays in March to customers who downloaded their app, and Florys, which offered the same to drive-thru customers, Lenard said.

NACS asked consumers what they eat for breakfast, and Lenard noted that convenience stores essentially sell all of the items on the list, including cereal, oatmeal, fruit, yogurt and bagels. Doing something as simple as calling out protein bars on a sign can alert customers to a stores healthy breakfast offerings.

Another question customers would ask retailers is, How fresh is your food? With that top of consumers minds, how do you tell a story about how fresh your food is? [Dont] just merchandize it, but show it, he said.

C Is for Community

Harkening back to the idea of NIMBY, Lenard said NACS asked consumers who oppose c-stores what the industry could do to improve its image, and one of the top answers was to offer healthy foods. He said based on survey results, the industry is moving the needle on the perception of stores as positive for the community, but we still have work to do.

Even if its just a simple sign, tell your story about locally-owned stores, Lenard said. People like local, however youre going to define local. Get credit for it.

Lenard said 17% of adult Americans say they have worked at a convenience store, gas station or corner store, and stores can use that demographic to help with their image. 86% of people who worked at convenience stores said the experience was valuable, he said, adding that the positive feedback is an opportunity to address community members who are concerned about labor issues, like where the minimum wages sits. Most of them agreed that the salary they were paid was commensurate with their experience, Lenard said.

He closed his presentation stressing the importance of taking everything you do to the next levelwhether its community, care, clean or commode. Consumers expect moredont just do what you have to do, Lenard said.

Diane Rusignola is the deputy editor at NACS. She can be reached at drusignola@convenience.org.
So here it is, 2017, and finally we have a meaningful action against a predatory servicer, Ocwen. As well discuss below, the Consumer Financial Services Protection Bureau said its suit alleged misconduct at every stage of Ocwens business. Ocwens stock fell 40% on the day.

Yet why has this taken so long? Ocwen was long known to be a particularly abusive servicer in a field rife with misconduct. New kid on the block Benjamin Lawsky, at the New York Department of Financial Services, went after Ocwen, alone, in 2014. As we wrote then:

New York State Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky has forced the resignation of the chairman and CEO of a mortgage servicer, Ocwen over a range of borrower abuses in violation of a previous settlement agreement, including wrongful foreclosures, excessive fees, robosigning, sending out back-dated letters, and maintaining inaccurate records. Lawsky slapped the servicer with other penalties, including $150 million of payments to homeowners and homeowner-assistance program, being subject to extensive oversight by a monitor, changes to the board, and being required to give past and present borrowers access to loan files for free. The latter will prove to be fertile ground for private lawsuits. In addition, the ex-chairman William Erbey, was ordered to quit his chairman post at four related companies over conflicts of interest. The Ocwen consent order shows Lawksy yet again making good use of his office while other financial services industry regulators are too captured or craven to enforce the law. Unlike other bank settlements, investors saw the Ocwen consent order as serious punishment.

Mind you. abusive foreclosure practices were a major topic in 2010 and 2011, including banks foreclosing on people who didnt have mortgages, telling borrowers to become delinquent to qualify for assistance programs like HAMP while having procedures almost certain to produce a foreclosure (like losing their paperwork pretty much all the time), not crediting payments so as to make borrowers late and impermissible foreclosures on active-duty servicemembers. Many of the horror stories were incredible, like banks foreclosing on borrowers of burned-down homes by virtue of refusing to accept settlements from insurers and a bank refusing to take a cash payment from a borrower in the branch who had done so for years, assuring a delinquency and eventual foreclosure.

The extent and severity of mortgage servicing misconduct was well known, yet the Obama administration threw its weight behind a get out of liability nearly free card in the form of a mortgage settlement that included a servicer settlement that Adam Levitin derided as the equivalent of scolding a child in public, then taking him inside and giving him hugs and kisses.

The reason nothing got better, particularly at Ocwen, was no accident.

Servicers cheat if they run into more than a trivial level of delinquencies. Mortgage servicing is unprofitable unless delinquencies are very low. Servicing is a standardized, high-volume, routinized business. Dealing properly with delinquent borrowers is high touch and costly. Again and again, servicers who experience more than a low level of delinquencies have violated their agreements with borrowers and investors to boost their profits. The most common way is to drive borrowers into foreclosure, since servicers are paid to foreclose, not to modify loans. And they also act against investors by charging excessive fees nominally against the borrower but that are ultimately charged against the investor, like overpriced and/or overly frequent BPOs (broker price opinions) which are required for delinquent borrowers.

The software and data underlying servicing is a mess. From 2011 onward, we wrote regularly as to how the underlying systems in these businesses were broken. That was confirmed in our Bank of America whistleblower series, where ultimately nine whistleblowers came forward to discuss the nature of abuses they saw during a botched effort to give wronged borrowers restitution via a program called the Independent Foreclosure Review. The program was shut down before completion as leaks exposed that it was serving, not surprisingly, as a cover up. From our overview:

The reviews confirm what both servicing experts and foreclosure defense attorneys have seen since the crisis: Bank of Americas servicing standards were poorly designed and thus unable to handle the deluge of troubled borrowers (suspense accounts, modifications, bankruptcy, etc.). In addition, BofA had a low level of competence in their servicing area and, as a result, the problems with their servicing was made worse. For instance, reviewers gave examples of types of behavior where Bank of America practices were clearly contrary to the law, yet the banks personnel confidently maintained that they were proper.

Note that this took place despite Countrywide, which Bank of America acquired, being widely recognized as having the best software platform in the industry. Yet the whistleblowers state that for some servicers that Bank of America acquired later, there was no data whatsoever in the servicing files. They could also see other signs of abuse, like failure to send out the initial delinquency notices at all or when they did, in a proper legal form (with all the required items included), along with an effort to create new records falsely showing the notice was properly made. Bear in mind these are just the abuses I recall readily.

The industry has refused to change the servicing model to pay for proper default servicing. The bad incentives, of servicers profiting from foreclosure but not for modifications or other efforts to prevent delinquencies, remain. Why? Better servicing would cost more, and thus is believed to increase the cost of borrowing and hence reduce affordability. I am not making that up.

No one has gone to jail. Again, this is arguably the most important reason nothing has changed much. Bank servicers stole homes, which are both the most important source of personal stability as well as the most important store of wealth for most households, particularly middle and lower income families. Yet Obama sided with the banks and was willing to help only responsible borrowers, which meant those who didnt become delinquent. Let us not forget that it was the banks own nearly destroy the global economy for fun and profit exercise that led to the near-depression of late 2008 and 2009 which in turn produced job losses and work cutbacks, and also pushed many small businesses over the brink.

Notice a related idea that seems verboten in the US: if a business is a recidivist, and Ocwen certainly fits the bill, why are regulators unwilling to shut it down? Ocwen is not too big to fail and servicing rights are transferrable.

So while the CFPB suit against Ocwen sounds impressive by virtue of the scope of bad conduct it describes, and the fact that many other states are engaging in parallel cease and desist orders and license revocations, count me as underwhelmed.

Below are highlights from the CFPBs press release, with the filing embedded at the end of the post.
ST.THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Iyanla Vanzant, prolific and commanding author, soulful priestess, television personality and healer of people, will be the keynote speaker at the University of the Virgin Islands 2017 commencement ceremonies. These ceremonies will take place on May 11, on the Albert A. Sheen Campus on St. Croix; and on May 12, on the St. Thomas Campus. Both ceremonies will begin at 1:30 p.m.

"Commencement is the most special part of our academic year," said UVI President David Hall. "It is the time we celebrate the enormous work of our students, faculty and staff. It is the culmination of a life changing journey, especially for our students." Hall continued, "I am especially proud that our Commencement Speaker is world renown author, inspirational speaker, and television personality, Iyanla Vanzant. She is the anchor program of the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and has helped to heal and inspire so many individuals and families."

From Brooklyn welfare mom to New York Times best-selling author and NAACP Image Award winner, Iyanla Vanzant is one of America's most influential writers and speakers on topics such as social engagement and spiritual development. Her breakout hit, "Iyanla: Fix My Life" on OWN, now in its fifth season, has received critical acclaim including from Winfrey herself who said that Iyanla's program "puts the real in reality."

Vanzant is also a frequent co-host on "Oprah's LifeClass"  the revolutionary self-help program that showcases lessons, revelations and a-ha moments through which people strive to makes their lives happier and more fulfilling. Each episode features guests from around the world who connect through Skype, Facebook and Twitter.

As an author, Vanzant has penned 19 books, an amazing six of which have landed on the New York Times Best-Seller List. Her work has been translated into 23 languages and has sold more than 10 million copies. With her no-nonsense approach to self-discovery and her underlying message of "live better by loving yourself," Vanzant has focused on faith, empowerment and loving relationships to inspire millions of people around the world.

A woman of passion, vision and purpose, Vanzant is also a highly sought after public speaker and spiritual guide who founded the Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development. With classes and workshops conducted throughout the United States, this multicultural global network seeks to facilitate healing, growth and spiritual development.

Honorary Degrees

"This commencement ceremony is particularly special because it is occurring during the Centennial year of the Virgin Islands' transfer to the United States, and during the 55th Anniversary of the University,' said President Hall. "These dual landmarks create a profound moment for the institution and its graduates. We are also honored to again recognize two outstanding Virgin Islanders at the commencement ceremony by awarding honorary degrees to Ms. Ruth E. Thomas, an outstanding educator, and Mr. Stanley Jacobs, a musical genius."

Ruth E. Thomas

Ruth Elma Thomas is a widely respected linguist, community activist and educator who has received numerous honors and awards for her outstanding achievements in education, government and community service. Her determination to elevate standards of public education in the Virgin Islands are well-known throughout the community, and have left an indelible mark on the territory.

In recognition of her service to her community, Thomas' work and qualities have been recognized by many groups such as Charlotte Amalie High School (CAHS) reunion classes, the Business and Professional Women's Club, the Nevis Benevolent Society and the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce. Most notably, in 1998, legislation designated that the auditorium at CAHS be named the Ruth E. Thomas Auditorium. In recent years, Thomas has served as a regular Monday morning commentator on Radio Station WSTA's "Sound Off," which has developed a large fan base, and has published anthologies of her commentaries and poetry.

Thomas started her higher education at the City College of New York before transferring to Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1949. Two study leaves earned her a Master's of Science in linguistics in 1957 and an Education Specialist degree in secondary school administration in 1970, both from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

She returned to St. Thomas and began teaching at her alma mater, Charlotte Amalie High School (CAHS), where she served for 33 years until she retired from her post as principal in 1982.

Formal retirement did not curtail Thomas' involvement with education or service to the community. A partial list of her post-retirement activities includes part-time teaching at the University of the Virgin Islands; consulting and administrative work for the V.I. Community Action Agency; memberships with the League of Women Voters and the V.I. Partners for Health; board memberships at the University of the Virgin Islands, Foundation for the Reichhold Center for the Arts, the Girl Scouts, and the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands. In recognition of her exemplary service to UVI, Thomas was named Trustee Emeritus of the UVI Board of Trustees and an Emeritus member of the Foundation for the Reichhold Center.

Stanley Jacobs

Stanley Jacobs, known affectionately as "Stanley" to thousands of Virgin Islanders, has also made enormous contributions to the territory, most notably with his merry band of "Sleepless Knights". Born on the island of Vieques, he migrated to St. Croix at an early age where he eventually became a master musician, maestro, historian and cultural preservationist with a special passion for promoting the territory's indigenous music, Quelbe, not just locally but globally as well.

Jacobs spent his formative years in Gallows Bay where he attended Christiansted High School, then went on to graduate from Lincoln University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 1963. After serving in the U.S. Army as a medic and becoming a social worker at the Herbert Grigg Home for the Aged, he returned home to his beloved St. Croix. Although he had started playing instruments at a young age, it wasn't until he worked at Herbert Grigg Home that he received the education of a lifetime from residents who taught him about Quadrille and Quelbe music, many of whom were musical icons of their times.

In the late 1960's, Jacobs formed a band with his childhood friends, which eventually assumed the moniker, "Stanley and the Ten Sleepless Knights." The group, which has been performing locally and abroad for the last 45 years, is often referred to as the "Kings of Quelbe" and a "Virgin Islands Treasure." They award scholarships to Virgin Islands students who are pursuing degrees in music, which is compatible with their mission to preserve Virgin Islands indigenous music and teach its historical and cultural significance.

Jacobs' has received numerous awards and recognitions for his outstanding public service and impactful contributions to folkloric local music and culture. Because of his passion and leadership, in 2003, the 25th Legislature of the Virgin Islands passed Bill No. 25-0056, which designates Quelbe as the official music of the Virgin Islands, requiring that it be taught in the public schools. Jacobs is a true Virgin Islands music ambassador and icon who continues to offer his time, energy and musical talent for the enjoyment and benefit of the people of the Virgin Islands.

Photos accompanying this release are available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=42326

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=42327
Quantum mechanics is complex enough, for now... (Nanowerk News) Quantum mechanics is based on a set of mathematical rules, describing how the quantum world works. These rules predict, for example, how electrons orbit a nucleus in an atom, and how an atom can absorb photons, particles of light.

The standard rules of quantum mechanics work extremely well, but, given that there are still open questions regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics, scientists are not sure whether the current rules are the final story.

This has motivated some scientists to develop alternative versions of the mathematical rules, which are able to properly explain the results of past experiments, but provide new insight into the underlying structure of quantum mechanics. Some of these alternative mathematical rules even predict new effects, which require new experimental tests.

Physicists use an interferometer to test whether standard quantum mechanics is correct, or whether a more complex version is required. They used the interferometer to send photons around a loop in opposite directions. In this way, photons travelling in one direction interact with objects inside the loop in one order, while photons travelling the opposite direction interact with objects in the opposite order. The physicists were interested whether the order of the interaction mattered, as predicted by alternative versions of quantum mechanics. (Image: MSc. Jonas Schmole, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna)

Everyday experience of mathematical rules

In everyday life, if we walk all the way around a park we end up back at the same place regardless of whether we choose to walk clockwise or counter-clockwise. Physicists would say that these two actions commute. Not every action needs to commute, though. If, on our walk around the park, we walk clockwise, and first find money lying on the ground and then encounter an ice cream man, we will exit the park feeling refreshed.

However, if we instead travel counter-clockwise, we will see the ice cream man before finding the money needed to buy the ice cream. In that case, we may exit park feeling disappointed. In order to determine which actions commute or do not commute physicists provide a mathematical description of the physical world.

In standard quantum mechanics, these mathematical rules use complex numbers. However, recently an alternative version of quantum mechanics was proposed which uses more complex, so-called "hyper-complex" numbers. These are a generalization of complex numbers. With the new rules, physicists can replicate most of the predictions of standard quantum mechanics. However, hyper-complex rules predict that some operations that commute in standard quantum mechanics do not actually commute in the real world.

Searching for hyper-complex numbers

A research team led by Philip Walther has now tested for deviations from standard quantum mechanics predicted by the alternative hyper-complex quantum theory (Nature Communications, "Single-photon test of hyper-complex quantum theories using a metamaterial").

In their experiment the scientists replaced the park with an interferometer, a device which allows a single photon to travel two paths at the same time. They replaced the money and ice cream with a normal optical material and a specially designed metamaterial. The normal optical material slightly slowed down light as it passed through, whereas the metamaterial slightly sped the light up.

The rules of standard quantum mechanics dictate that light behaves the same no matter whether it first passes through a normal material and then through a metamaterial or vice versa. In other words, the action of the two materials on the light commutes. In hyper-complex quantum mechanics, however, that might not be the case. From the behavior of the measured photons the physicists verified that hyper-complex rules were not needed to describe the experiment.

"We were able to place very precise bounds on the need for hyper-complex numbers to describe our experiment," says Lorenzo Procopio, a lead author of the study.

However, the authors say that it is always very difficult to unambiguously rule something out.

Lee Rozema, another author of the paper, says "we still are very interested in performing experiments under different conditions and with even higher precision, to gather more evidence supporting standard quantum mechanics."
Two-dimensional melting of hard spheres experimentally unravelled after 60 years (Nanowerk News) After extensive research, scientists from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford have found experimental evidence that sheds new light on the melting of two-dimensional substances. Findings from the study could be used to support technological improvements to thin film materials such as graphene.

Researchers from the group of Professor Roel Dullens at Oxford's Department of Chemistry have experimentally elucidated how melting of a two-dimensional solid of hard spheres occurs ("Two-Dimensional Melting of Colloidal Hard Spheres").

Fig. 1: This is a microscopy image of the two-dimensional colloidal hard sphere system titled by a small angle. (Image: Oxford University) (click on image to enlarge)

With this work they resolve one of the most fundamentally important but still outstanding issues in condensed matter science. In addition, these results provide the cornerstone for the further understanding and development of two-dimensional materials.

Melting, the phase transition in which a substance turns from a solid to a liquid, is widely understood in basic terms. But despite being encountered regularly in everyday life, (whether in the workplace, home or natural world), scientists have long been trying to understand the melting process on a fundamental level.

The melting of a solid into a liquid is one of the most commonly experienced scientific phenomena. However, understanding this transformation is especially mysterious for solids in two-dimensions. Here, the celebrated Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young (KTHNY) theory proposes that an intermediate, partially disordered state, called the 'hexatic', exists between the solid and liquid.

Fig. 2: This is the interface between the liquid (top) and hexatic (bottom) states. (Image: Oxford University)

Substantial effort has been made towards the understanding of these 'topological' transitions, for which Kosterlitz and Thouless were awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics. Yet for the simplest interacting system of many particles, two-dimensional hard spheres, there has been an astonishing lack of consensus despite the first simulations being performed over 60 years ago.
3D-Printing of glass now possible

(Nanowerk News) Three-dimensional printing allows extremely small and complex structures to be made even in small series. A method developed at the KIT for the first time allows also glass to be used for this technique.

As a consequence of the properties of glass, such as transparency, thermal stability and resistance to acids, the use of this material in 3D-printing opens up manifold new applications in production and research, such as optics, data transmission, and biotechnology.

The process is published in Nature ("Three-dimensional printing of transparent fused silica glass") and also presented at the Hanover Fair.

Complicated high-precision structures made of glass can be manufactured in a 3D-printing process developed at the KIT. (Image: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

Glass is one of mankinds oldest materials. It was used as far back as in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome and has found a place now also in manufacturing technology of the 21st century.

An interdisciplinary team at the KIT led by mechanical engineer Dr. Bastian E. Rapp developed a process using glass for additive manufacturing techniques. The scientists mix nanoparticles of high-purity quartz glass and a small quantity of liquid polymer and allow this mixture to be cured by light at specific points  by means of stereolithography.

The material, which has remained liquid, is washed out in a solvent bath, leaving only the desired cured structure. The polymer still mixed in this glass structure is subsequently removed by heating.

The shape initially resembles that of a pound cake; it is still unstable, and therefore the glass is sintered in a final step, i.e. heated so that the glass particles are fused, explains Rapp. He conducts research at the KIT Institute of Microstructure Technology and heads a working group of chemists, electrical engineers, and biologists.

The variety of 3D-printing techniques available so far have been used on polymers or metals, but never on glass. Where glass was processed into structures, for instance by melting and application by means of a nozzle, the surface turned out to be very rough, the material was porous and contained voids.

We present a new method, an innovation in materials processing, in which the material of the piece manufactured is high-purity quartz glass with the respective chemical and physical properties, explains Rapp.

The glass structures made by the KIT scientists show resolutions in the range of a few micrometers  one micrometer corresponding to one thousandth of a millimeter. However, the structures may have dimensions in the range of a few centimeters, emphasizes Rapp.

3D-formed glass can be used, for instance, in data technology. The next plus one generation of computers will use light, which requires complicated processor structures; 3D-technology could be used, for instance, to make small, complex structures out of a large number of very small optical components of different orientations, explains the mechanical engineer.

For biological and medical technologies, very small analytical systems could be made out of miniaturized glass tubes. In addition, 3D-shaped microstructures of glass could be employed in a variety of optical areas, from eyeglasses meeting special requirements to lenses in laptop cameras.

The development by scientists under Junior Scientist Group Leader Bastian E. Rapp is a result of the NanoMatFutur junior scientist funding scheme run by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) to support the development of innovative materials for industry and society.

The work performed by the research group headed by Rapp has been funded by the BMBF since 2014 for a total of four years to the tune of approx.  2.8 million.
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.
Monday last, April 17 marked exactly 100 years since Henry Ford established Henry Ford & Son Limited on the Marina in Cork, his ancestral home city.

It also kicked off a week-long series of activity that will see great-grandson of Henry Ford and Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company, William Clay Ford, Jr., arrive in Cork to mark the centenary and participate in a number of commemorative events, including a visit back to the ancestral home of the Ford family.

I am excited and honored to be coming home to Cork to celebrate 100 years of Ford in Ireland, Ford said. Ford has deep roots in Cork, not only through my familys historical connection, but also through the impact that the Ford factory has had as an engine for prosperity for the area over many decades.

Henry Fords father, William Ford, with his siblings and parents, emigrated from Ballinascarthy, Co. Cork, to the US in 1847 during the Famine and Henry was subsequently born in Michigan in 1863.

Proud of his Cork roots, he came back and opened the first purpose-built Ford factory outside of North America here in April 1917.

During the week of April 17, William Clay Ford, Jr. will attend a commemorative event at Ballinascarthy and will unveil a plaque marking the centenary as well as attending a Gala Event at Cork City Hall.

Other planned activity will include an event recognising the valuable contribution of Henry Ford & Son Ltd. pensioners at a Civic Reception hosted by the Cork City Lord Mayor Cllr. Des Cahill. There will also be an event at University College Cork announcing a partnership between Ford and the University. Commenting on the centenary, Ciaran McMahon, Chairman and Managing Director of Ford Ireland, said: We are thrilled to welcome Mr. Ford to Cork for the centenary celebrations. What a great opportunity to mark the wonderful legacy and contribution to Cork and indeed, Ireland, that Ford has made in that 100 years.

The factory is sadly no more, but Ford remains one of the best-selling brands in both the car and van market in Ireland, he added. Several of our models including the Fiesta, Focus and Transit are segment leaders while the all new Mustang is in a class of its own.

The company is also looking to the future as we plan for the next century of business in Ireland, said the Ford Ireland chief. Ford is the company with the largest test fleet of autonomous driving vehicles in the world, and in 2017 we will start testing autonomous vehicles across Europe. The company is moving from traditional vehicle manufacture to being a smart mobility solutions provider as we tackle the global mobility challenges of the 21st century.
An international expert has warned of a threat to fish life in the river Suir from invasive species.

The warning comes as the new Blueway on the river in Clonmel opens with extra numbers of boaters using the river.

Dan Minchin of the Lough Derg Science Group highlighted the risk of non-native organisms to our waterways at a recent meeting attended by Inland Fisheries Ireland, anglers from around Co Tipperary and scientists from Queens University Belfast.

Commenting on the dangers posed by non native species to native species and the local economy, he emphasised the need for vigilance, good monitoring and good practices by river and lake users to reduce the threat of the spread of these alien species.

He said most aquatic invasive species were spread by boats and activities associated with water such as angling, and that there is a need for a greater understanding on how their spread can be avoided.

It is estimated that the cost of invasive species to the Irish economy is in excess of 230 million per annum and rising.

With the opening up and promotion of Blueways throughout the country, and the increased movement of people and boats between these Blueways, there is a need to ensure that invasive species are not spread.

He said by simply washing boats, canoes, kayak and angling keepnets in hot water and drying them out is enough to significantly reduce the risk. Ideally disinfectant detergents should be used and there is plenty of information online (e.g., Inland Fisheries Ireland website) on how to do this.

The big concern for the River Suir is to ensure that species such as the highly invasive Asian Clam, which clogs up fish spawning gravel beds, does not make an appearance in the River Suir. It is already present in Lough Derg and the River Barrow.

Mr Manchin explained that once Asian Clam enters a waterway, there is no stopping it as they can spread very quickly , bringing with them serious problems for native species and the local fishing economy.
Clonmels Adi Roche is to travel to Belarus and Ukraine to mark the inaugural, Irish-initiated United Nations Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day

On April 26th 2016, the 30th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Adi Roche addressed a special session of the United Nations General Assembly and made the suggestion that, as part of a campaign to raise global awareness of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, April 26th should be designated as Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.

Now, 12 months later, the Clonmel native will travel to Belarus and Ukraine along with Chernobyl Children International (CCI) Board Director Ali Hewson, to commemorate the inaugural Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day  which was ratified by the United Nations in December 2016 following Adis landmark address.

For the first time since the devastating accident of 1986, the global community will be welcomed to come together, by the United Nations, to commemorate the disaster and remember the generations of victims who have been and will be affected for years to come.

Hewson, wife of U2s Bono, and Roche, who together have advocated for Chernobyls victims over 3 decades, will travel to the Chernobyl affected regions to visit CCIs flagship Medical Care and Cardiac Programmes.

Ali and Adi will meet a team of Irish-funded International Cardiac Surgeons, who will be performing complex life-saving surgeries on young babies suffering from congenital heart defects as a result of inherited radiation exposure.

Speaking on why the timing of this visit is of special significance Adi Roche, founder and voluntary CEO of CCI, said - It is important that we spend this time in the stricken regions, as Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day, is our legacy to the victims of Chernobyl.

This commemoration is so much more than one day  it is the Worlds way of telling the past, current and future generations of Chernobyl victims that they are not alone.

Sadly, the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident that weve witnessed since 1986 is not something that has gone away; while the accident itself is a thing of the past, Chernobyl remains an unfolding tragedy that will affected the stricken regions for generations to come. Chernobyl is forever.

As initiators of the day of commemoration the Irish charity, who are the only United Nations recognised NGO working in the Chernobyl affected regions, are co-organising a photo exhibition and round-table discussion at the United Nations headquarters in New York due to be attended by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
(Natural News) Instead of moving forward, researchers are looking to the past for solutions to the antibiotic crisis. The Ancientbiotics team is a group of scientists from different universities and countries unified by the belief that medieval medical history holds the key to beating drug-resistant superbugs. To that end, we are compiling a database of medieval medical recipes. By revealing patterns in medieval medical practice, our database could inform future laboratory research into the materials used to treat infection in the past, states Erin Connelly, an expert in medieval medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in an article in DailyMail.co.uk.

Among the discoveries Connelly and her team made was a 1,000-year old eyesalve recipe against sties. The pilot study, published by the American Society of Microbiology in 2015, discussed Balds eyesalve from Balds Leechbook, an Old English medical text. The recipe called for wine, garlic, an Allium plant and ox gall (bile from the stomach of a cow) to be mixed and left to stand in a brass vessel for nine nights. Connelly and her team found that Balds eyesalve was a powerful antistaphylococcal agent. In particular, they learned that it was highly effective against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a superbug responsible for a wide array of chronic infections, and one resistant to many modem antibiotics. (Related: Ancient onion and garlic medicinal recipe cures drug-resistant superbug infections)

A similar breakthrough was made by chemist Tu Youyou, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Youyou was awarded for her discovery of a new malaria therapy after going through over 2,000 recipes from ancient Chinese texts on herbal medicine. The chemist found the answer in a hundreds-year-old text, The Manual of Clinical Practice and Emergency Remedies by Ge Hong from the East Jin Dynasty. Ge Hong prescribes sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) as a treatment for malaria. Youyou and her team were eventually able to isolate the compound that attacks malaria-causing parasitesa compound that has since become a vital tool in the battle against malaria in Asia and Africa.

Is another silver bullet for microbial infection hidden within medieval European medical literature? asks Connelly.

Currently, Connelly and her team are working on a 15-century medical text, Lylye of Medicynes. A Middle English translation of the Latin Lilium medicinae, the text is a translation of the work of a noteworthy medieval physician by the name of Bernard of Gordon. The Lilium medicinae was first completed in 1305 then translated and printed continuously well into the late 17th century. According to Connelly, the text contains a wealth of medical recipes easily numbering at 360 recipes with thousands of ingredients.

Further research may show that some medieval medicines were more than placebos or palliative aids, but actual ancientbiotics used long before the modern science of infection control, states Connelly. Our work suggests that there could be a methodology behind the medicines of medieval practitioners, informed by a long tradition of observation and experimentation.

More tests and studies are being carried out. Connelly is still uncertain of what makes the eyesalve so effective. However, she is positive that archaic European medicine is ripe with untapped clinical potential. The medieval medical database Connelly and her team are working on is proof of the richness in pre-modern history.

Connelly makes special note of the standstill in the drug discovery pipeline, of how current antibiotics are losing their efficacy against microbes. An estimated 700,000 people around the world die annually from drug-resistant infections. If the situation does not change, it is estimated that such infections will kill 10 million people per year by 2050, Connelly warns.

Learn more healing news and suggestions by reading the articles at Healing.news and Discoveries.news.

Sources:

Journals.ASM.org

DailyMail.co.uk

TheGuardian.com
(Natural News) Dumbo may be a misnomer. Elephants may be more intelligent than we thought  and trust us, we already thought very highly of these gentle giants. A team from Cambridge University said in a new study that elephants have high levels of self-awareness; an ability that doesnt develop in human children until at least the age of two. The research showed that elephants recognize their own bodies as obstacles to problem solving, showing amazing capacity to view themselves as separate from the environment.

Who is this cute creature I see? Oh, its me!

The standard test for self-awareness for both animals and young children is the mirror self-recognition test; that is, understanding that the reflection is their own. Only four animal species have shown skill in this: great apes, dolphins, magpies, and yes, elephants. Elephants were first tested for this ability more than a decade ago. A 2006 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that elephants were able to recognize themselves in the mirror. One specific elephant, which researchers named Happy, repeatedly touched her trunk to the white X painted on her forehead that was only visible in the mirror. Researchers of this study concluded that self-awareness is correlated with other higher-levels of thinking. There seems to be some correlation between an ability to recognize oneself in a mirror and higher forms of social complexity, said one of the authors of the 2006 study, Joshua Plotnik.

However, environmentalists and animal behaviorists say that the mirror test is not a good indicator for self-awareness. Their argument focuses on the tests limitation in demonstrating complex thoughts and understanding. Moreover, these critics point out that this test is less useful among animals that rely less on vision than other species. (Related: Learn more about animals and how we interact with them at Natural News Pets.)

Look at that house, Dumbo. Youre standing on the threshold of success!

To address this, researchers from Cambridge developed a stick-and-mat test. This is an adaptation of another test in which young children were asked to push a shopping cart attached to a mat on which they were standing. Twelve elephants were asked to walk on a mat, pick up a stick, and pass it to the experimenter in exchange for a food reward. In control conditions, the sticks were loose, but in the experiment, the sticks were tied to the mat. The new Cambridge study showed that elephants in the experiment condition stepped off the mat 42 out of 48 times, on average, compared with only three out of 48 in the control. This shows that test subjects were able to see their bodies as an obstacle to their progress.

Dr. Joshua Plotnik, visiting researcher at Cambridge and founder of Think Elephants International, said in an article on DailyMail.co.uk that this is a deceptively simple test, but its implications are quite profound. The elephants understood that their bodies were getting in the way, so they stepped aside to enable themselves to complete the tasks. In a similar test, this is something that young children are unable to understand until they are about two years old.

In the experiment, Dr. Plotnik and his colleague, Rachel Dale, saw that elephants were able to recognize their weight as preventing them from passing the stick to the researcher unless they walked off the mat. Elephants are well regarded as one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, but we still need more empirical, scientific evidence to support this belief, said Ms. Dale. We know, for example, that they are capable of thoughtful co-operation and empathy, and are able to recognize themselves in a mirror. These abilities are highly unusual in animals and very rare indeed in non-primates. We wanted to see if they also show body-awareness.

This new study was published in Scientific Reports.



Sources include:

ScientificAmerican.com

PNAS.org

DailyMail.co.uk
GUELPH, Ontario, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On April 27th, food and beverage manufacturers are meeting to define what is needed to improve the business environment in Ontario. This consultation, hosted by Food and Beverage Ontario, will bring together start-up, small, medium and multi-national businesses from across all segments of the food and beverage sector. FBO will collect input from businesses on their priorities with respect to regulatory reform, r&d and innovation, market and trade development, skills gaps and workforce, environmental sustainability and the next Agricultural Policy Framework (2018  2023). The focus is on understanding what steps must be taken to foster a strong business growth environment for Ontario food and beverage manufacturers.



As a small, family-run company started in 1983 we have experienced first-hand the ups and downs of operating a food business in Ontario, said Will Rootham of Rootham Gourmet Preserves. We know that success comes from smartly managing our business in tandem with a supportive economic environment. Connecting with other processor businesses to discuss what we need for success is an important step to communicating those needs to the provincial government. Later this month we will be meeting with our colleagues in the Ontario processing industry and in government to have this important conversation.

Recent economic analysis completed by Food and Beverage Ontario using the most current 2015 statistics has provided insight on the state of the industry and the economic impact of Ontarios 3,800 food and beverage manufacturing businesses.

Approximately $71.8 billion in total output , consisting of direct output of $42.0 billion, indirect output of $24.5 billion and induced output of $5.2 billion.

, consisting of direct output of $42.0 billion, indirect output of $24.5 billion and induced output of $5.2 billion. Approximately $28.5 billion in total GDP , consisting of direct GDP of $13.6 billion, indirect GDP of $10.7 billion, and induced GDP of $4.2 billion.

, consisting of direct GDP of $13.6 billion, indirect GDP of $10.7 billion, and induced GDP of $4.2 billion. Approximately 387,786 total full time equivalent (FTE) positions , consisting of 139,549 direct FTEs, 174,600 indirect FTEs, and 73,637 induced FTEs.

, consisting of 139,549 direct FTEs, 174,600 indirect FTEs, and 73,637 induced FTEs. Approximately $5.6 billion in total federal, provincial, and municipal tax revenue, consisting of direct tax revenue of $2.6 billion, indirect tax revenue of $2.2 billion, and induced tax revenue of $890.0 million.

Since the previous economic impact study completed by Food and Beverage Ontario in 2012, the sectors total output, GDP and government tax revenues increased by approximately 3 percent, said, Norm Beal, CEO of FBO. I am sorry to say, but this is really lackluster growth given the nominal GDP in Ontario increased 12 percent during the same time period. We are the number one employer in the province so why arent we performing better? Processors from across Ontario will be wrestling with this issue on April 27th.

The announcement of the federal 2017 budget last month did signal a turning point for the food and beverage manufacturing industry nationally with commitments to innovation, discovery science, food industry eligibility as a supercluster, skills initiatives and new investments for food safety.

There is every reason to be happy with federal budget 2017 and acknowledgement of food and beverage manufacturing as a key growth sector for the country. We have worked hard to reach this level of recognition. It is now incumbent on businesses to step up and identify specific priorities for success with an emphasis on pre-competitive issues that collectively will make our sector a global leader in areas like innovation and skills training, said Rory McAlpine, Maple Leaf Foods.

Ontario processors are invited to participate in Food and Beverage Ontarios Consultation for Success on April 27th. To read the pre- consultation paper follow this link and for details on the consultation click here.

This project is funded in part by Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative.

About Food and Beverage Ontario

Food and Beverage Ontario is a not-for-profit, leadership organization dedicated to advancing the interests of Ontario's food and beverage processors. FBOs focus is on the success, prosperity and growth of the food and beverage processing sector  a $42 billion industry and major contributor to the provinces economy.
(Natural News) In the state of North Carolina, a total of 541 residents are currently suing Smithfield Foods subsidiary Murphy-Brown over the alleged use of liquid swine waste by hog farmers. According to the suits, the spray attracts flies, causes strong odors and other problems. But on Monday, the state passed House Bill 467, which limited the financial payoff from citizen lawsuits except for lawsuits that are currently pending in federal court. Thus, the bill will only have an effect on future lawsuits. (RELATED: This new bill would allow farmers to sue if GMO crops invade their property).

Initially, there were no exemptions included in the bill at all  that is, it would have impacted both future lawsuits and lawsuits that are pending. However, this proposal was shot down by House Republicans, who argued that it would be unconstitutional it interfere with an ongoing lawsuit, and that doing so would also deprive citizens of their property rights.

According to Republican Representative Jimmy Dixon, a sponsor of the bill, the residents who were filing the lawsuits against Murphy-Brown are being prostituted for money by opportunistic lawyers who are endlessly on the lookout for new clients. These allegations are at best exaggerations and at worst outright lies, Dixon added. When you talk about spraying effluent on peoples houses and peoples cars, that does not exist.

Other republicans made the case that altering the rules on existing cases is unwise, inappropriate and irresponsible. Representative Michael Speciale, for example, argued that it was inappropriate for lawmakers to single out a specific court case and try to determine the outcome. Representative John Blust said, We dont need to be rushing in at the last minute and bailing out a defendant.

Still, those who are defending the bill claim that the legislation was necessary to prevent hog farmers from experiencing financial ruin. They describe the bill as a reasonable response to trivial lawsuits brought about by neighbors who are merely inconvenienced by the sprays odor. Indeed, a statement from the North Carolina Pork Council said, Farmers continue to believe that this clarification is appropriate to apply to pending cases as well as future cases, adding, Many farmers need this protection from predatory lawyers who wish to use our farms to line their pockets.

But the residents who are bringing the lawsuits argue that the sprays odor is no joke. Allegedly, the liquefied waste forces neighbors to stay inside, turn up their air conditioners, purchase fragrance dispensers to mask the smell, and sometimes even leave the area for a short period of time. If these claims are all in fact true, then it is easy to see how the spray is much more than a mere inconvenience. On the contrary, it is having a direct effect on the way people live their day-to-day lives.

The official vote to apply the bill only to future lawsuits was 59-56.

This isnt the first time that hog farmers have found themselves caught up in lawsuits, however. In 2014, Paul Dagostin of Pennsylvania was threatened with a $20 million lawsuit when neighbors complained about the overwhelming stench coming from his barn, which housed nearly 5,000 hogs.

The Pennsylvania residents that sought to bring Dagostin to court argued that the zoning laws should be changed in an effort to prevent local farms from becoming more industrialized. The primary focus of the lawsuits was on preventing pollution.

John OBrien, himself a farmer as well as a lawyer at Snell and Wilmer, explained, Its a big issue especially in parts of the country like the Southeast where they produce a lot of hogs. OBrien also noted that the foul smell produced by hog farms had the ability to travel up to 15 to 20 miles.

Sources

NewsObserver.com

NBCnews.com
(Natural News) While some states and counties in the US are making moves to encourage food freedom and stop the use of toxic herbicides and pesticides, citizens in other areas of the country are fighting for their voices to be heard. Take Oregon, for example. Senate Bill 1037 would have restored counties rights to protect their farmers crops from GMOs after they were stripped away in 2013 with the passing of SB 863. SB 863 created a statewide preemption but no protections for local farmers were ever put into place. House Bill 2469 would have also helped to restore farmers rights and exempted GMO crops from the statewide preemption.

These bills would have represented great strides for farmers in Oregon, but unfortunately, these bills have died. As Capital Press reports, Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, said hes decided to let SB 1037 die during the April 13 meeting of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs.

HB 2469 also met its end in the House Agricultural and Natural Resource Committee, thanks to a legislative deadline.

Dembrow claims that there are simply too many looming questions about GMO cross-pollination, and the effectiveness of co-existence efforts. I want to get a sense if there are problems with contamination or if there are problems with the mediation process, he stated. Does it really matter where the problem is stemming from  either way, SB 863 has greatly infringed on farmer rights, and it has stripped counties of the ability to make decisions on what is grown in their communities. For example, residents of Josephine County elected to ban GMOs in 2014, but a judge ruled that the states preemption law superseded their vote.

Supporters of SB 1037 said that the presence of GMO elements in their crops could wreak havoc on their farms  and consequently, their livelihoods. Josephine County resident Carol Valentine commented, Our farms remain at risk of contamination because the state has not put any protections in place.

Some of the bills detractors noted that very few organic farmers had reported crop losses due to GMO contamination to the USDA, while others went straight to denying that citizens should have the right to choose at a county level. Mike McArthur, the executive director of The Association of Oregon Counties states the organization opposed SB 1037 because genetic engineering is a complex issue best left to state government.

This is not the proper role for a county government to be engaged in, he brazenly stated.

While the process of creating a GMO crop may be very complex, the issue at hand is not: It is an issue of rights, and not an issue of science, though it is often misconstrued that way. Regardless of how one feels about GMOs, whether or not you think them safe has very little to do with the fact that peoples rights are being infringed upon. Real farmers are actually being negatively affected by GMOs, and they should not be effectively silenced by their own government.

FoodAndWaterWatch.org reported on a survey of organic Midwestern farmers in 2013  and that survey found that 1 out of every 3 farmers had experienced some kind of contamination on their farms from GMO crops. Over half of them had their crops rejected by their buyers for that reason, and reported median losses of $4,500.

While no farmers have reported losing crops in Oregon this year, just because something hasnt happened doesnt mean it wont.

In 2014, a GMO-labeling bill was also defeated in Oregon  largely in part due to a huge lobbying effort pioneered by biotech and agribusiness giants like Monsanto and DuPont. Is it possible that something similar happened this time around too? It certainly isnt beyond reason to suspect that industry lobbyists played a role in the loss of these bills that would have restored rights back to where they belong: In the hands of the people. (RELATED: Keep up with the latest news on GM crops at GMO.news)

Sources:

CapitalPress.com

OurFamilyFarms.org

FoodAndWaterWatch.org

RT.com
Joining three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are two more crew members who arrived on the ISS last April 20.

NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin arrived at exactly 9:18 a.m. EDT. The new reinforcement brings the count to a total of five astronauts manning the science lab.

The two astronauts traveled for six hours aboard the Soyuz MS-04 rocket that was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:13 a.m. EDT, according to a report. The capsule transporting the crew orbited the Earth for a total of four times before finally docking on the ISS.

The two joined Expedition 51 astronauts namely European Space Agency's (ESA) Thomas Pesquet, Roscomos' Oleg Novitsky and NASA's Peggy Whitson, the current station commander.

According to NASA, Expedition 51 will complete a total of 250 science investigations in the field of biology, earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development in a span of more than four months.

By June, two astronauts, Pesquet and Novitskiy, will travel back to Earth while Whitson and the newly arrived Yurchikin and Fischer will remain aboard the space station until September of this year.

Astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the record of the oldest female astronaut to reach the ISS, will remain on board due to an extension from Expedition 51 to Expedition 52. Roscosmos and NASA both signed on the agreement that extended Whitson's ISS duty.

The ISS crew is also waiting for the arrival of Orbital ATK's resupply mission to the space station on April 22. The Cygnus cargo supply will bring supplies to enable astronauts to conduct antibody investigation concerned with chemotherapy drugs, advance plant habitat experiment and a study on magnetized cells and tools.

The resupply mission also carries with a 38 CubeSats, some built by students around the world as part of the QB50 program. The CubeSats could be deployed from the space station or the spacecraft itself.

Fischer will embark on a spacewalk with Whitson on May 12. The two will replace an avionics box on the ISS.
A giant iceberg is one of the newest tourist attractions in the town of Ferryland, drawing attention to travelers and iceberg chasers in the small Canadian town.

The giant iceberg that got stuck in Ferryland measures 15 storeys high above the waterline. The mountainous iceberg falls under the "large" category (46 to 73 meters high, 122 to 200 meters long) as per the Canadian Ice Service, Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Ferryland Mayor Adrian Kavanagh told The Star that it's the biggest icerbeg they have seen in the town.

Its a huge iceberg and its so close that people can get a good photograph of it, he said. Due to its massive size, tourists have flocked to Ferryland town to get a glimpse of the mountainous site.

"Most folks can't wrap their heads around how big it is," Barry Rogers, owner of Iceberg Quest Ocean Tours, added.

A 40-meter-tall iceberg passes near Ferryland, Newfoundland in Canada, drawing curious onlookers pic.twitter.com/VgRX0Tncg4  CCTV (@CCTV) April 21, 2017

Ferryland in Newfoundland is located in the most easterly province in Canada. The area -- particularly Iceberg Alley, a stretch of sea where hundreds of icebergs could be seen annually -- is a popular attraction for tourists and iceberg chasers.

The International Ice Patrol of the US Coast Guard in New London said that more than 600 icebergs have drifted to the North Atlantic sea, which is higher than the normal count during the start of iceberg season in April.

According to experts, the sudden onslaught of icebergs may have been caused by strong counter-clockwise winds as well as the rapid ice break-off in Greenland due to global warming.

Despite the boom of tourism, the giant icebergs do not sit well with local fishermen. Rogers told Sydney Morning Herald that the fishermen could not go out to the shore as the harbor in the provincial capital, St John's, has been "plugged solid."

READ: NASA's Photo of Terrifying Giant Crack on Greenland's Petermann Glacier Raises Curiosity -- How Did It Form?
President Donald Trump is set to make an out-of-this-world call, literally, as he is scheduled to talk to a female astronaut, the commander of the International Space Station (ISS) Peggy Whitson.

On April 24, President Trump will make an official call to congratulate Peggy Whitson, a female NASA astronaut, for her historic accomplishments.

Whitson is the oldest female astronaut to reach the ISS. Soon, Whitson will also break the record for the longest duty served by a female astronaut aboard the space station.

Presidential daughter Ivanka Trump and fellow NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will join President Trump in a 20-minute call to Whitson.

The Trumps and Rubins will make the call from the Oval Office on Monday. Whitson, a crewmember of Expedition 51, was extended to serve the ISS until September of this year as part of Expedition 52.

"Commander of the station's Expedition 51 crew, Whitson will officially set the U.S. record Monday for most cumulative days in space, surpassing NASA astronaut Jeff Williams' record of 534 days," a NASA official said in a press release.

NASA added that Whitson is also the first woman to command the ISS twice, as well as do the most number of spacewalks for a female astronaut.

Ivanka recently appeared at an event honoring women in STEM. This time, the businesswoman will join his father in honoring a remarkable female astronaut. Whitson's space feat started when she first flew to the ISS in 2002 then followed by Expedition 16 in 2007.

Aside from that, Whitson served as station commander twice, today and in 2007 during Expedition 16. Whitson also has eight spacewalks under her belt. The call will not only honor Whitson's accomplishments but will also raise awareness about space technology and science.

"The Department of Education and NASA are working together, on behalf of the White House, to encourage classrooms throughout America to tune-in to this historic event," a NASA official said.

This particular call from the president also shows how the White House supports STEM and other space science.
For the ancient Incas, the khipus -- an accounting device that's crafted from knotted and colorful string -- is more than just for accounting. Historical accounts say that these unique tools are also used for communication, an alternative method of sharing history, biographies and letters that uses their own secret language. Imagine the stories behind these strings, the details of the civilization's history and culture that it could tell.

Unfortunately, this secret language has remained a mystery after all these years. Despite the best efforts of researchers, no one has been able to decipher the meaning behind the complicated combination of knots. Now, fresh clues may offer a glimmer of hope of finally understanding this ancient Inca language.

According to a report from the National Geographic, a pair of mid-18th century traditional khipus that has been kept hidden from outsiders in the Andean village of San Juan de Collata was recently made available to researchers. Spanish accounts said that Inca messengers delivered khipus instead of written letters, most likely to ensure secrecy during a time of rebellion against the colonial government.

Sabine Hyland, professor of anthropology at St. Andrews University in Scotland, explained that they found complex color combinations between the cords.

"The cords have 14 different colors that allow for 95 unique cord patterns. That number is within the range of symbols in logosyllabic writing systems," Hyland said.

One theory is that combinations of colored strings and knots may represent words or syllables.

The Collata khipus are bigger and more complex than the kind used for accounting. It's also made from hair and fibers of Andean animals -- which react to dyes better -- instead of the usual cotton. Locals told Hyland that understanding the khipus involves more than just looking at it. Touch also plays a significant part and it's necessary to pay attention to other features like color, fiber and direction of weave.

In ancient times, the Incas may have made thousands of khipus for correspondence and records, but fewer than a thousand remain today. A report from Asian Scientists pointed out that the technologically advanced civilization never developed a system of writing outside of khipus. Unraveling the mysterious code could reveal a huge chunk of the Inca history and culture, particularly during the colonial times.

Hyland shares her findings in a paper published in the journal Current Anthropology.
It is no secret that China wants to become the next space giant. In order to do that, they showed their capability to launch Tiangong 1 and 2 and send Chinese astronauts for long haul space duties. Recently, they also managed to successfully launch their first unmanned cargo spacecraft Tianzhou 1.

The unmanned cargo was sent to space last Thursday, April 20. The cargo is bound for China's own temporary space lab, Tiangong-2. It's part of the country's goal to become the first non-U.S. nation to have its own space lab.

The Long March 7 rocket boosted Tianzhou 1 from Wenchang in Hainan, the newest Chinese spacecraft launch pad. The mission was declared a success by the ground controllers in Beijing.

Reports say that the unmanned cargo spacecraft is programmed to perform scientific experiments at the Tiangong-2 station, formerly manned by two Chinese astronauts. The pair spent 30 days on board the station last year.

Tiangong-2 was launched to prepare for China's modular space station. The Chinese space lab's core is set for launch in 2018. The space station will be assembled part by part and the 60-tonne station will be operational by 2022, according to a report.

Meanwhile, the first spacecraft Tiangong-1 is not longer operational. The Chinese government lost contact with it last year. Reports say that it is now spiraling back to Earth and is expected to burn during re-entry on Earth's atmosphere.

According to a report, China was banned from the International Space Station (ISS) due to U.S. legislations and the country's obvious concerns over China's military affiliations. But China is not one to back out, instead, they are planning to "internationalize" their own space station. Some say that the Chinese government offers to finance missions to Tiangong-2.

China has obviously launched pretty successful space missions over the years. The country is also sending a rover on Mars expected to launch in 2020.
For many species, oxygen is everything. Three minutes without it would make a normal person faint. According to The Atlantic, a person needs at least 20 percent of oxygen around him to survive, however, a naked mole rat, which lives in tiny burrows usually with hundreds of others of them, can go on healthily with only six percent of oxygen around it. What's more incredible about these weird-looking mammals is that they are able to survive 18 minutes with zero oxygen.

Thomas Park, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and Gary Lewin, a physiologist at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, placed naked mole rats and mice in a chamber with only five percent oxygen.

Results of the experiment, published in the journal Science, revealed that after few minutes, the mice died while the naked mole rats survived the harsh condition.

In an interview with Discover Magazine, Park said that they were nervous to conduct the study as their test involved putting naked mole rats in 5 percent oxygen.

"We knew a five percent oxygen would be deadly for humans and for laboratory mice, so we were kind of ready to abort this experiment right at the beginning," Park said. "And we put them in and fifteen minutes later they looked fine, after an hour they looked fine, and after five hours of exposure to five percent O2 they still looked fine," he continued.

But the experiment did not stop there. The duo placed the naked mole rats in another set-up, this time, with zero percent oxygen. Still, the incredible mammals weathered though it. The same condition kills a mice in 45 seconds.

Speaking with WPRL 91.7, the researchers said the naked mole rats passed out after about 30 seconds, but their hearts kept beating. Eighteen minutes after, as they were exposed to normal oxygen conditions, the naked mole rats regained their consciousness and acted as if nothing happened.

By looking at the chemicals that build up in the creature's heart, brain and other organs as they were without oxygen, the researchers saw fructose (a sugar compound found in plants) all over the naked mole rat's body.

National Geographic said that usually, when there is a buildup of fructose in an organism, the body tissues will be damaged. However, naked mole rats have enzymes to process the fructose and prevent damage.

Without oxygen, they start to metabolize the fructose. It is distributed even on their heart and brain, and that is what keeps them alive. They are the only known mammal that can exhibit such amazing ability.

Sydney Morning Herald noted that aside from being unfazed by low-oxygen levels, these hairless mammals also don't get cancer, are immune to types of chronic pain and the irritant in chili peppers.
A new study by the US Geological Survey revealed that coral reefs are having a hard time adjusting to the increasing water depths brought by rising sea levels and sea floor erosion,

The study, published in the journal Biogeosciences, showed that the rising sea levels, partnered by sea floor erosions, have already increased the water depths more than what scientists previously thought. With the rising sea level alone, the scientists estimate a 0.5- to 1-meter increase in water depth in the next century .However, factoring in sea floor erosions, the researchers predicted the water depth to increase by two to eight times more than what was estimated with rising sea levels alone.

"Our measurements show that seafloor erosion has already caused water depths to increase to levels not predicted to occur until near the year 2100," said Kimberly Yates, a biogeochemist at USGS' St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center and lead author of the study, in a press release.

For the study, the researchers gathered detailed sea floor measurements of five large coral reef tracts in Florida, the Caribbean and Hawai'i that was taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between 1934 and 1982. The researchers then compared these measurements with the surveys conducted by the USGS Lidar Program and the US Army Corps of Engineers from the late 1990s to the 2000s.

Using a computer model based on elevation changes, the researchers calculated the volume of sea floor materials lost in five coral reef systems. Overall, the sea floor elevation has decreased at all sites, ranging from 0.09 meter to 0.8 meter.

Large amounts of sands, corals and other sea floor materials were lost due to erosions. In one of the coral reef site in Hawaii, the materials lost due to erosion amounted to 81 million cubic meters of sand, rock and other material.

With lots of coral reef systems being lost to rising sea levels and sea floor erosions, the researchers warned that it can greatly affect people living in coastal communities. Coral reef systems are known for their ecological and economic value. Corals serve as habitat for many species of fishes. Additionally, corals act as natural barrier against storms, waves and erosions.
Wasps are already scary enough, but scientists from the University of California Riverside created a new breed of mutant wasps featuring terrifying red eyes.

According to a report from UC Riverside, the team introduced the new strain of wasps to prove that the CRISPR gene-slicing technology can be applied to the parisitic jewel wasps. With the success of this project, the scientists have a new method of studying the biology of the wasp including how males are able to turn all their progeny into males.

The way the males are able to produce only male offspring is an intriguing mystery that scientists are looking forward to cracking. Assistant professor of entomology Omar Akbari explained, "To understand that, we need to pursue their PSR (paternal sex ratio) chromosomes, perhaps by mutating regions of the PSR chromosome to determine which genes are essential for its functionality."

It's the first time the new CRISPR technology has been used in such a tiny organism that has eggs estimated to be about a quarter the size of a grain of rice. Utmost precision with a very small needle and a microscope is necessary to pull a small egg out of a bigger egg, inject it with the materials to mutate its DNA and then put it back in the large egg.

For the most recent study, Akbari and the team targeted the genes controlling the wasps' eyes.

"We wanted to target a gene that would be obvious, and we knew from previous studies that if the gene for eye pigmentation was knocked out, they would have red eyes, so this seemed like a good target for gene disruption," Akbari explained. "Big beautiful red eyes are something you won't miss."

The practical implications of understanding wasps and various insects would also be universally beneficial as it can lead to figuring out a way to control species that are known to destroy crops or spread diseases such as malaria.

In the meantime, enjoy the presence of red-eyed mutant wasps somewhere out there in the world. This mutant has heritable traits, so the demon-like color of their eyes will be inherited by their offspring.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Orco Property Group

Societe Anonyme

40, rue de la Vallee

L-2661 Luxembourg

R.C.S. Luxembourg B 44.996

(the "Company")

CONVENING NOTICE

OF THE COMPANY'S ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

TO BE HELD ON 24 MAY 2017

Dear Shareholders,

You are invited to attend the Annual General Meeting of the shareholders of the Company (the "Meeting") to be held at the registered office of the Company at 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, on 24 May 2017 at 14:00 CET , to discuss and to vote on the agenda indicated below.

AGENDA

Presentation of the reports of the Board of Directors and of the approved auditors (reviseurs d'entreprises agree) of the Company for the financial year ended 31 December 2016. Presentation and approval of the statutory annual accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2016. Presentation and approval of the consolidated annual accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2016. Allocation of the financial results in relation to the financial year ended 31 December 2016. Discharge to be granted to the members of the Board of Directors in respect of the performance of their duties during the financial year ended 31 December 2016. Discharge to be granted to the auditors in respect of the performance of their duties during the financial year ended 31 December 2016. Decision to appoint Mr. Jiri Dedera to the Board of Directors of the Company until the Annual General Meeting of 2018 concerning the approval of the annual accounts of the Company for the financial year ending 31 December 2017. Decision to appoint Mr. Edward Hughes to the Board of Directors of the Company until the Annual General Meeting of 2018 concerning the approval of the annual accounts of the Company for the financial year ending 31 December 2017. Decision to appoint Mr. Erik Morgenstern to the Board of Directors of the Company until the Annual General Meeting of 2018 concerning the approval of the annual accounts of the Company for the financial year ending 31 December 2017. Subject to approval of item 7 of the agenda, decision to appoint Mr. Jiri Dedera as the Managing Director (administrateur delegue) of the Company until the Annual General Meeting of 2018 concerning the approval of the annual accounts of the Company for the financial year ending 31 December 2017. Decision to appoint KPMG Luxembourg Societe cooperative as the auditors of the Company until the Annual General Meeting of 2018 concerning the approval of the annual accounts of the Company for the financial year ending 31 December 2017.

ATTENDING THE MEETING

In order to attend the Meeting, shareholders must provide the Company with the following three items as explained in greater detail below: (i) Record Date Confirmation, (ii) Attendance and Proxy Form, and (iii) Proof of Shareholding.

Record Date Confirmation: This document shall be provided to the Company by a shareholder at the latest by 23:59 CET on the Record Date. The Record Date is 10 May 2017 (the "Record Date", i.e. the day falling fourteen (14) days before the date of the Meeting).

The Record Date Confirmation must be in writing and indicate that a shareholder holds the Company shares and wishes to participate in the Meeting. A template form of the Record Date Confirmation is available on the Company's website at www.orcogroup.com.

The Record Date Confirmation must be sent to the Company by post or electronic means so that it is received by the Company at the latest by 23:59 CET on the Record Date, i.e. 10 May 2017 , to:

Orco Property Group

40, rue de la Vallee

L-2661 Luxembourg

Tel: + 352 26 47 67 1;

Fax: + 352 26 47 67 67;

email: generalmeetings@orcogroup.com

Attendance and Proxy form: A template form is available on the Company's website at www.orcogroup.com and is to be duly completed and signed by shareholders wishing to attend or be represented at the Meeting.

Proof of Shareholding: This document must indicate the shareholder's name and the number of Company shares held at 23:59 CET on the Record Date. The Proof of Shareholding shall be issued by the bank, the professional securities' depositary or the financial institution where the shares are on deposit. Please note that Proof of Shareholding is not necessary for those shareholders whose shares are still recorded as registered shares in the Company's shareholders register.

Shareholders wishing to attend the Meeting must send the Attendance and Proxy form together with the relevant Proof of Shareholding by post or electronic means so that they are received by the Company at the latest by noon (12:00 noon CET) on 21 May 2017 , to:

Orco Property Group

40, rue de la Vallee

L-2661 Luxembourg

Tel: + 352 26 47 67 1;

Fax: + 352 26 47 67 67;

email: generalmeetings@orcogroup.com

Please note that only persons who are shareholders at the Record Date and have timely submitted their Record Date Confirmation, Attendance and Proxy form, and Proof of Shareholding shall have the right to participate and vote in the Meeting.

Documentation and information: The following documents and information are available for the shareholders on our website: www.orcogroup.com and, in particular, in the "Shareholder Corner":

the present convening notice;

the total number of shares and the voting rights in the Company as at the date of this convening notice;

the documents to be submitted to the Meeting (in particular the reports of the board of directors and of the approved auditors ( reviseurs d'entreprises agree ), the statutory annual accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2016 and the consolidated annual accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2016);

the draft resolutions of the Meeting. Any draft resolution(s) submitted by shareholder(s) shall be added to the website as soon as possible after the Company has received them;

the Record Date Confirmation form; and

the Attendance and Proxy form.

The above documents may also be obtained by shareholders upon written request sent to the following postal address: Orco Property Group, 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg.

For further information, visit our website: www.orcogroup.com and, in particular, the "Shareholder Corner".

Quorum Requirement: The Meeting shall validly deliberate regardless of the corporate capital represented. Resolutions, in order to be adopted, must be carried by a majority of the votes cast. Votes cast shall not include votes attaching to shares in which the shareholder has not taken part in the vote or has abstained or has returned a blank or invalid vote.

Right to add new items on the agenda : One or more shareholders together representing at least five per cent of the share capital has the right to (i) put one or more items on the agenda of the Meeting and (ii) table draft resolutions for items included or to be included on the agenda of the Meeting.

Such requests must:

be in writing and sent to the Company by post (at the following address: Orco Property Group, 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg) or electronic means (at the following email address: generalmeetings@orcogroup.com ) and be accompanied by a justification or draft resolution to be adopted in the Meeting;

include the postal or electronic address at which the Company may acknowledge receipt of the requests;

be received by the Company at least twenty two (22) days before the date of the Meeting, i.e. 2 May 2017.

The Company shall acknowledge receipt of requests referred to above within (forty-eight) 48 hours from receipt. The Company shall prepare a revised agenda including such additional items on or before the fifteenth (15th) day before the date of the Meeting.

If you need further assistance or information, please contact : Orco Property Group, 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg, Tel: + 352 26 47 67 1; Fax: + 352 26 47 67 67; email: generalmeetings@orcogroup.com

Luxembourg, 21 April 2017

Yours faithfully,

The Board of Directors of the Company
Four supernovas for the price of one? Kind of. For the first time ever, scientists were able to witness multiple angles -- four to be exact -- of a single exploding star.

According to a report from the Hubble Space Telescope website, an international team of researchers from the Stockholm University in Sweden were able to spot a distant type of supernova dubbed the "supernova iPTF16geu" using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The exploding star is far, far away -- so distant that its light took 4.3 billion years to get to Earth. However, the most remarkable feature of this supernova isn't its distance from the planet nor the time it spanned to travel here.

A report from Popular Mechanics revealed that the astronomers were initially puzzled at the unnatural brightness of the supernova. Further analysis led them to realize that the magnified supernova was merely the effect of a galaxy passing in front of it.

The passing galaxy warped the space-time fabric surrounding the exploding star, acting as a lens. It split the light four ways and bent it in a way that boosted its intensity. Lead author Ariel Goobar, professor at the University of Stockholm's Oskar Klein Centre, explained that tracking the arrival times of the four separate images can actually help measure the expansion rate of the universe.

These four images form a circle with a radius of 3,000 light years around the lensing galaxy.

Type Ia supernovae -- also known as standard candles -- consistently shine at the same intrinsic brightness, so astronomers can approximate its distance by how bright it appears. With the newly discovered supernova iPTF16geu, scientists can learn also more about the warping of spacetime on smaller extragalactic scales.

"Resolving, for the first time, multiple images of a strongly lensed standard candle supernova is a major breakthrough," Goobar explained. "We can measure the light-focusing power of gravity more accurately than ever before, and probe physical scales that may have seemed out of reach until now."

This findings are available in a paper published in the journal Science.
For Prince fans, Friday's one-year anniversary of his shocking death from an accidental drug overdose will be a time for sadness and celebration.

At his Paisley Park home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap, ranging from concert performances by his former bandmates to panel discussions. Fans who can't afford those high-priced tickets can head to a street party outside First Avenue, the club he made world famous in "Purple Rain." And the Minnesota History Center is staging a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia, including his iconic "Purple Rain" suit.

Here's a look at how Prince's home state will honor his legacy and mourn his loss:

Paisley Park

Prince's home base in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen is marking the anniversary with a roster of shows from artists such as his old band The Revolution, Morris Day and the Time and New Power Generation. Also on the docket: panel discussions featuring such speakers as his old band mates  think Lisa (Coleman) and Wendy (Melvoin) from "Purple Rain" and The Revolution  along with many more.

Fans who could afford it spent $999 for VIP passes for the Paisley schedule, and the estate said those were sold out. A relatively cheaper option  $549 general admission passes  was still available midweek.

Prince's siblings, who are on track to inherit an estate valued around $200 million, are hosting an all-night dance party in the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley with Dez Dickerson, Apollonia Kotero, Andre Cymone and others.

First Avenue

The downtown Minneapolis club where Prince filmed key parts of "Purple Rain" is hosting late-night dance parties Friday and Saturday with tracks from the late superstar.

A memorial street party outside the club is also on tap for Saturday. It will be reminiscent of the one that drew thousands of mourners on the night of Prince's death to cry, dance and sing along.

Pieces of History

Prince's "Purple Rain" costume  purple jacket, white ruffled shirt and studded pants  was put out for display at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul through Sunday. The museum is also marking the anniversary by featuring handwritten lyrics to an unreleased song, "I Hope We Work It Out," signed by Prince in 1977. Prince performed it for record executives when he first signed with Warner Bros.

Painting the Town Purple

Several landmarks in Minneapolis will be lit up in Prince purple, including U.S. Bank Stadium, Target Field, the IDS Center, and the Interstate 35W and Lowry Avenue bridges over the Mississippi River.
The nation's bank regulators admits it dropped the ball when it came to addressing the fake account scandal at Wells Fargo.

In a report out this week, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency says it failed to supervise Wells Fargo even after regulators identified significant problems with the bank's sales practices.

The report notes that as early as 2010 the OCC met with a bank executive and asked about, but failed to follow up on, 700 whistleblower complaints. Those complaints involved sales tactics that led to the opening of two million fake accounts.

Last year, the Investigative Unit exposed allegations of another federal agency mishandling whistleblower complaints. The Investigative Unit found the Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened 65 whistleblower cases from Wells Fargo employees. The majority involved allegations of consumer financial fraud.

An OSHA investigator that spoke to the Investigative Unit claims his agency failed to look into several of those complaints back in 2010. A former employee in Napa told the Investigative Unit said she was fired after raising red flags about fake customer accounts.

It should be noted that when the employee filed a federal lawsuit, a judge dismissed her case.

OSHA is now conducting a review of how it handled Wells Faro whistleblower cases. As for the OCC, it says it will develop new ways to research each whistleblower complaint it receives.
California health officials are fining Redwood City-based Sequoia Hospital $47,452 for erroneously removing a patients ovaries last year.

The Peninsula facility is one of 14 hospitals facing 17 penalties issued by the California Department of Public Health on Thursday. Accused of not complying with licensing requirements that caused, or were likely to cause, serious injury or death to patients, the hospitals are being made to shell out a total fine of $1,135,980.

Including Sequoia, the Bay Area houses four of these hospitals: California Pacific Medical Center-St. Lukes Campus Hospital and Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco; and Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa.

According to the CDPH, doctors at Sequoia were supposed to surgically remove the patients uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix. But the procedure was entered incorrectly in the hospital's surgery log, leading to the removal of her ovaries. The report does not specify whether the womans ovaries were taken out instead of or along with the uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix, but says the patient will require lifelong estrogen replacement therapy as a result of the misstep.

Meanwhile, a St. Lukes patient felt dizzy and fell off her bed, but was not put through hourly neurological checks as prescribed, the CDPH found. The woman hit her head and died despite undergoing emergency brain surgery, and the hospital is facing a $47,452 penalty.

Kaiser is being fined $147,025 for two separate incidents, both of which led to the deaths of patients in 2015 and 2016.

In the first, a dialysis patient suffered massive blood less and cardiac arrest when his femoral catheter got disconnected from his bloodline, both of which were under a blanket. In the second, the patient experienced acute respiratory failure after a tracheostomy tube cuff valve was mistakenly left inflated. The mismanagement of the tracheostomy  described by the CDPH as a surgical procedure to create an opening through the neck into the trachea  led to the patient dying.

At Queen of the Valley, three separate incidents in 2013 in which hospital staff didnt track patients symptoms and administered incorrect treatment, resulted in two deaths while the third patient is left in a vegetative state. The CDPH has levied a $225,000 fine on the Napa hospital for its mistakes.

Other hospitals on the CDPH list are LAC/Harbor UCLA Medical Center in Torrance; Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara; Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in Bakersfield; Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs; and Sutter Davis Hospital in Davis.

The CDPH says regulations adopted in 2014 allow the agency to issue up to $75,000 in fines for a hospital's first administrative penalty, up to $100,000 for the second, and up to $125,000 for the third and every following violation within three years. Penalized hospitals are required to put forth a plan of correction, and have 10 days to appeal the fine.
A homeowner who wants to retrofit their home with green, energy-saving technology usually has to hire inspectors, engineers and contractors  a long and costly process.

This Earth Day, a green startup is releasing an update to its green retrofitting app that let users' phones scan their property to assess how a feature in their home or business like a boiler can be upgraded, and how much it could save.

It's one of three new features being launched on BlocPower's retrofitting app that crowdsources funding, construction and jobs to retrofit properties across low- to moderate-income communities. The New York-based company's CEO says the updates put the ability to green a property directly into the property owners' hands, to cut out the red tape.

Green building "is a highly technical and expensive skill set and we at BlocPower are trying to make that available for the common property owner, said Donnel Baird, BlocPower's co-founder and CEO.

Two years old, BlocPower takes on retrofitting projects by invitation and connects home- and propertyowners with investors, local communties or even crowdfunding websites. Among the retrofits it's completed is Trinity United Church of Christ, which Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey have attended, on Chicago's South Side.

There are a few steps to get through the green process that the app tries to make easy: grouping properties for bigger, more cost-efficient projects; financial analysis; engineering analysis and financing and payment options. After a project is finished, the retrofitted building might have soalr panels, energy-saving windows or a boiler or greener insulation.

Baird grew up in a Brooklyn neighborhood where hearing gunshots and having no heat was normal. His childhood experience pushed him to become a community organizer and he went on to join Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

After the elections, he spent a few years as a community organizer in Brooklyn, which led to his role as contact director for Obama For America. He went on to manage a national Laborers' International Union of North America campaign with the Department of Energy to manage energy efficiency financing to create green construction jobs throughout America under the Obama administrations Better Buildings Initiative.

After working with the White House, he connected with the Washington Interfaith Network to help gain government funding for underserved communities in Washington, D.C.

But for Baird, the initiative, funded by Obama's Great Recession stimulus package, was not cost-effective enough for his community. The missing ingredient gave birth to BlocPower, he said.

There is an engineering problem, there is a financial problem, there is a customer problem and an acquisition problem  these are all super hard and expensive to solve. We solve that in a transparent way, Baird said.

The three new mobile features being launched  visual recognition, progress tracking tools for city governments and crowdsourcing for houses of worship or community-based properties  streamline the BlocPower app, said Baird and chief engineering officer Tooraj Arvajeh, speaking in Microsoft's tech hub in Manhattan.

"A customer can take photo of a boiler then it goes into our visual recognition technology to find out which boiler it is. We can also recognize building [materials] like brick or stone or concrete," said Tooraj Arvajeh, BlocPower's head of the engineering team.

Baird added, "A high-end engineering company might charge $40-50 thousand dollars for doing an analysis for a small building and so we are trying to bring that cost down for free by using machine learning, visual recognition technology and big data. These [services] that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for an engineering analysis, we are trying to make that basically a free commodity."

BlocPower is not first tool of its kind but it does have a niche, its community-based resources.

What is interesting is its crowdsourcing [financial] model, said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. That can help lower the costs, or there wont be any costs at all.

Typically there are two ways to finance green building projects, Reicher said, either through investors or taking on loans. Usually investors look at smaller buildings as risky.

Reicher said investors look at credit risk, what kind of building it is and whether the investment would actually improve the value of the property.

Those risk factors make it difficult for community-based organizations to make small but effective changes. For example, BlocPower's New York City pilot program is in the middle of helping the Fordham United Methodist Church in Bronx change its boilers, among other energy-saving features, so it can save money and reinvest back into the community.

There are many factors that can deter investors: if it is lower quality, less attractive and there are tenants, its not an attractive investment, said UCLA professor Magali Delmas, who has studied Los Angeles green building programs.

"Over $10,000 to $200,000 investment can be a real hurdle for property owners," she said. They "look at the initial investment rather than the long term benefits."

Delmas said upgrading a building or a home really benefit the larger community, not the individual, because it improves the local environment. But it can be difficult to do if a building- or homeowner doesnt have extensive knowledge of engineering or finances.

In Brooklyn, BlocPower was assigned by the New York City government to help retrofit buildings that were eating up power and led to brown-outs, when lights dim due to ebbing power. Retrofitting buildings prone to brown-outs in the area would help keep the lights on during extreme hot or cold weather.

We are trying to make that a free commodity so people learn about their buildings and the sustainability opportunity each building has, Baird said.
The U.S. military has deployed sniffer aircraft, drones and U-2 spy planes in preparation for a possible North Korean nuclear test, NBC News reported.

The sniffer aircraft is capable of detecting evidence of a nuclear explosion, according to NBC News.

In a statement to NBC, the U.S. Air Force said the plane, known as the WC 135, "has been deployed on a routine mission to Northeast Asia. These missions are planned well in advance."

Officials also told NBC that a nuclear test by North Korea could come without warning.

"We expect that they are able to do it at any time, without any real warning," one official said. "They have been engaging in steady preparations."
HERSHEY, Pa., April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Hershey Company (NYSE:HSY) announced today new commitments that will increase the visibility of nutrition information and portion options as part of their ongoing efforts to offer a broad range of delicious snacks and clear information. This builds on Hersheys ongoing commitment to provide choice and transparency.



Infographics accompanying this announcement are available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e8b7bb4c-18e6-484e-a744-5e4fdeb6bb36

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/93ba7292-dfbc-4378-bde5-27e0da907caa

By 2022, Hershey will make 50 percent of its total portfolio of individually wrapped standard- and king-size confectionery products with 200 calories or less. In addition, 100 percent of Hershey standard- and king-size confectionery products will have easy-to-read front-of-pack calorie labels by the end of next year. Hershey is the first confectionery and snacking company to make such a commitment for its entire standard- and king-size range of products.

Consumers are at the heart of all that we do and we have been at the forefront of providing the choice and transparency they want, said Michele Buck, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Hershey Company. We aim to delight our consumers and these steps will provide an even wider range of portion options and clear information to help them select treats that fit their lifestyle.

Currently, about 31 percent1 of Hershey standard- and king-size confectionery products are already 200 calories or less and 70 percent of products carry the Facts Up Front calorie label. Through these new commitments:

100 percent of Hershey standard- and king-size confectionery products will carry the Facts Up Front calorie label by the end of 2018;

New king-size options that enable consumers to more easily share or save a piece for later will be available by 2020; and

50 percent of Hersheys total offering of individually wrapped standard- and king-size confectionery products will be 200 calories or less by 2022.

Hershey expects that the 200 calorie commitment will be achieved through a combination of reformulation, innovative new products and adjusting the size of certain items in the portfolio. Above all, Hershey will continue to deliver great-tasting and high-quality products, core to its business since 1894.

Building on Commitments to Simple Ingredients and Transparency

In February 2015, Hershey committed to transitioning to simple ingredients, and today offers products that deliver on this promise across its portfolio, from the iconic Hersheys Milk Chocolate Bars and Hersheys Kisses Milk Chocolates to snacks like KRAVE Jerky. By 2020, all everyday Hersheys brand chocolate confection products will have simple ingredients.

Hershey is a leader in transparency, making it easier for people to access more information about their food. In 2015, the company led the development and adoption of the innovative SmartLabel platform. This year detailed SmartLabel product and ingredient information will be available online for 100 percent of its products, and next year SmartLabel QR codes will be on all packaging linked to detailed product and ingredient information.

Most recently, Hershey launched the interactive Sourcemap tool, enabling people to trace the origins of key ingredients for Hersheys Milk Chocolate with Almonds and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. In addition, Hershey recently reported it had sourced 60 percent of all the cocoa it purchased globally in 2016 from certified and sustainable sources, enough cocoa to surpass the amount required for the global production of four of its most popular chocolate brands: Hersheys, Kisses, Kit Kat (United States only) and Brookside. The company is on track to achieve its commitment to source 100 percent of all the cocoa it purchases globally from certified and sustainable sources by 2020.

To learn more about Hersheys Food Philosophy and commitments, visit www.TheHersheyCompany.com.

According to Nielsen market data.

About The Hershey Company

The Hershey Company, headquartered in Hershey, Pa., is a global confectionery leader known for bringing goodness to the world through its chocolate, sweets, mints and other great-tasting snacks. Hershey has approximately 18,000 employees around the world who work every day to deliver delicious, quality products. The company has more than 80 brands around the world that drive more than $7.4 billion in annual revenues, including such iconic brand names as Hershey's, Reese's, Kisses, Jolly Rancher, Ice Breakers and Brookside. Building on its core business, Hershey is expanding its portfolio to include a broader range of delicious snacks. The company remains focused on growing its presence in key international markets while continuing to extend its competitive advantage in North America.



At Hershey, goodness has always been about more than delicious products. For more than 120 years, Hershey has been committed to operating fairly, ethically and sustainably. Hershey founder, Milton Hershey, created the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and since then the company has focused on giving underserved children the skills and support they need to be successful. Today, the company continues this social purpose through 'Nourishing Minds,' a global initiative that provides basic nutrition to help children learn and grow. From neighborhoods across the United States to the streets of Shanghai and Mumbai and villages of West Africa, our goal is to nourish one million minds by 2020.

To learn more -

Visit: www.thehersheycompany.com

Follow:

https://twitter.com/hersheycompany

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-hershey-company

https://www.facebook.com/HersheyCompany/

https://www.youtube.com/hersheycompany

https://www.instagram.com/hersheycompany/
According to a lawsuit filed this week in Chicago, one popular brand of wireless headphones may actually be sharing everything you listen to with someone else.

Kyle Zak alleges that the Bose quiet comfort headphones he bought for around $350 collected information about what he listened to when used with Bose sound connect, a smartphone app the company recommends to get the most out of its product.

"Our client found out that Bose was secretly tracking everything he listened to--from songs to audiobooks to podcasts," says attorney Jay Edelson.

Bose did not immediately respond to request for comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says Bose never got Zak's permission to share his habits with others, even though the companys privacy policy does say it collects information and shares it with third parties.

"People dont read it and what needs to evolve is a custom where, if you do something out of the norm, you have to get consent," says Kent College of Law's Dean Harold Krent. "You have to have some kind of notice or check a box that your conversations will be captured and used for our marketing purposes."

Most users NBC 5 spoke with on the street Thursday were surprised to hear their headphones might be spying on them.

Edelson and his client are suing Bose for more than $5 million and are hoping that others will join what eventually could become a class action suit.

Edelson Bose could stand up tomorrow and say they will stop doing this and avoid a long federal lawsuit

To protect your privacy, simply delete the Bose connect app from your phone.
Cook County sheriffs deputies walked Jason Van Dyke out of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse Thursday, after his lawyers complained to a judge about protesters harassing the Chicago Police officer during his court appearances, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

The angry crowds that greeted Van Dyke ahead of his nearly monthly court visits had dwindled in the weeks since he first was charged in 2015 with murder in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald.

But lawyers for Van Dyke on Thursday told Judge Vincent Gaughan that a protester had accosted Van Dyke with a sign that read 16 shots a reference to the number of bullets Van Dyke fired at McDonald in October 2014 as the officer entered the courthouse last month.

Van Dykes attorney Dan Herbert said he was filing a motion asking Gaughan allow Van Dyke to stay home for future hearings in the case, or to have the cop use an entrance that would allow him to avoid protesters.

Herbert had made a similar request months ago, when Van Dyke was consistently drawing demonstrators.

Gaughan, who has kept a tight rein on proceedings in the case, had not ruled on that motion, and took no action Thursday other than delivering a short a short speech in the courtroom addressing spectators before starting the hearing.

After spending 30 minutes in chambers with lawyers for both sides, the judge gave another, longer admonishment to the public.

I just want everybody in the courtroom to know that a judge has some duties required by the constitution, and by common sense and by civility, Gaughan said after the meeting in chambers.

Anybody compelled to come to a courtroom should not run a (gauntlet) where theyre insulted or intimidated, or even threatened. Thats not going to be allowed in this courtroom or on the outside of this courtroom or in this building. No matter what anybodys charged with, or no matter what anybodys done, they should not be compelled to undergo some type or harassment.

But Carolyn Ruff said she missed the judges lecture. As Van Dyke walked out of the courtroom flanked by six sheriffs deputies, Ruff held up a small, hand-written sign that read 16 shots and held it toward Van Dyke as he headed toward an elevator.

Four deputies walked Van Dyke and his father to the parkway on South California Street, without incident.

Deputies also led Ruff back to court, where she received a stern rebuke from the judge, and was led out of the courthouse herself.

It was really, really small. Couldnt nobody really see it, Ruff said of her sign outside the courthouse.

Ruff said she wasnt trying to intimidate Van Dyke.

I didnt mean anything by Jason Van Dyke, because hes history to us, Ruff said. Laquan McDonald will always be in our heart.
A 15-year-old Tennessee girl who disappeared with her teacher more than a month ago was found safe at a commune in California and the teacher was arrested, authorities said Thursday.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said 50-year-old Tad Cummins surrendered without incident in Cecilville, which is in northern California. Authorities said they found Cummins' Nissan Rogue and later located the pair.

"What happened in California this morning, however, proves it only takes one person to lead to a successful end. We are extremely thankful the hard work of all partners in this search has paid off. Were also grateful for the public's support and vigilance throughout this search effort," TBI Director Mark Gwyn said in a statement.

The pair's disappearance March 13 came after Cummins was investigated by the school system when another student reported seeing the then-married teacher kiss the girl at the Culleoka Unit School. Culleoka is a community about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Nashville near the Alabama state line.

"We're so happy that California police worked quickly and were able to find them and get her safe," one of the girl's sisters told The Tennessean.

"I believe the FBI are going to make sure she's healthy before she comes home," she said. "We'll make sure she'll get what therapy she needs and that she's safe, that she knows she's safe."

Police had previously issued an Amber alert for the girl and said they had warrants charging the health sciences teacher with sexual contact with a minor and aggravated kidnapping. The Associated Press is not naming the girl or her family members because she is an alleged victim of a sex crime.

Court papers filed recently in the girl's disappearance said she was afraid of the teacher and thought she would face repercussions at school if she resisted him.

A lawyer for the girl's family has said the teacher was allowed to continue working at the school for two weeks after he was reported kissing the student. Attorney Jason Whatley has said the school system must have not believed the student's report.

The school's investigative files provided to The Associated Press by the attorney show that both Cummins and the girl denied kissing. The teacher, however, acknowledged that the girl was "a really good friend and she does leave her other classes to come see him when she needs someone to calm her down," according to a school report dated Jan. 30.

The report recommended that the girl be taken out of Cummins' class and that he be reprimanded to uphold his professional responsibility. The report also recommended that the administration monitor Cummins' classroom to make sure students weren't there when they weren't supposed to be.

The teacher would later be reprimanded on Feb. 3 by school principal Penny Love after the girl was seen in Cummins classroom for a little more than half an hour that day. In her letter, Love said the girl being in his classroom was a violation of the principal's order to him.

The school system didn't suspend Cummins until Feb. 6. He was fired about a month later, a day after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued an Amber Alert about the teen.

The agency said it worked tirelessly for the past five weeks, investigating more than 1,500 leads from all 50 states. Two days after the girl disappeared, surveillance images from a Walmart in Oklahoma City showed Cummins and the girl purchasing food items in the store with cash, the agency said. The statement said the images captured showed Cummins had altered his hair to appear darker and the girl's hair may have changed to red.

Last month, the teacher's wife of 31 years filed for divorce. Court records show that Jill Cummins sued her then-missing husband on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and inappropriate marital conduct. The wife, who works for the Maury County school system, said she had not seen her husband since March 13. The couple has two children together.

Siskiyou County Sheriff's spokeswoman Kelly Giordano did not immediately return a call for comment.

Kristin Bender in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Gov. Dan Malloy said Thursday that his stance, and budget figures for that matter, haven't changed.

As many as 4,200 state positions might need to be eliminated if his administration didn't achieve a saving target of $700 million in union concessions, he said during a news conference.

The Malloy administration informed the State Employees Bargaining Coalition, or SEBAC, which represents tens of thousands of state workers in union negotiations, that his office had to start making plans for layoffs, which means some notices could be sent out in the near future.

"This isn't new, guys and gals," Malloy said Thursday.

He also said he is not attempting to use layoffs as leverage.

"I'm not doing that," the governor proclaimed.

The two-year budget proposal that the governor laid out in February depends heavily on union workers providing givebacks on things like wages and benefits. Negotiations started last summer and are ongoing, but it appears little progress has been.

Malloy said he wouldn't negotiate in public over specifics with SEBAC.

The fiscal year ends in June, but lawmakers have a deadline of June 7 to come up with a final budget.

Union leader Lori Pelletier with the AFL-CIO told NBC Connecticut that the governor has decided to limit his budget saving options by only relying on union givebacks.

Pelletier and even members of the General Assemblys Black and Puerto Rican caucus called for higher taxes on the wealthy to fill the gap.

"We're at the lowest level of state employment since the 1960's and state employees have already given back a billion dollars in concessions, Pelletier said. There are a lot of other ways to get through this."

She did said even though the governor is announcing the layoff contingency plan at a time when talks are ongoing, the state does have an obligation to inform workers when their jobs may be at risk.

"Some of it, he's obligated to make these announcements just because of contractual reasons but ultimately he doesn't have to go down this path."
A 5-month-old baby in eastern Connecticut has contracted the first case of a tick-borne disease in the state, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In November, the baby developed a fever and started vomiting. Over the next several days, the right side of the infant's face started twitching and that progressed to seizures that included eye deviation and right arm stiffening, the CDC reports.

Desiree Phillips, of Griswold, said within a week of the symptoms starting, her son, Liam, had to be taken by Lifestar to the Connecticut Children's Medical Center (CCMC) in Hartford.

Liam also lost function on his right side, according to his mom. He couldn't sit up, which was a skill he had before the symptoms began.

The Phillips family told doctors that a tick most likely had been brought in by a family member attached to Liam. With this information, plus an MRI and clinical findings, the CDC was able to determine that the child had contracted Powassan virus (POWV).

It took about a month for the official diagnosis, according to Phillips.

"This young man had a very unusual pattern of inflammation in the brain," said Dr. Nicholas Bennett, medical director of infectious diseases & immunology at CCMC.

Powassan virus is a rare, tick-borne disease that can be transmitted as fast as 15 minutes after tick attachment, according to the CDC. Symptoms can range from a fever to long-term neurological problems and even death.

Because the Phillips family was able to provide a clear story about what Liam was exposed to, plus the fact that it was not mosquito season, Bennett said he was able to make the final diagnosis.

"For this particular infection, there isn't a specific treatment," the doctor said. "It's all about supportive care."

The infant went through two months of physical therapy. Now at 11 months old, he is still left-side dominant-which could follow him into adulthood- and has some scar tissue on the brain, but he is expected to be normally functioning when he grows up, Phillips said.

"The worst nightmare to go through, but to that point, we still have him," Phillips said.

The first confirmed case of Powassan virus in Connecticut further underscores the urgent need for research into tick-borne diseases, Senator Richard Blumenthal said in a statement on Thursday.

Blumenthal visited the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station on Thursday to discuss the surge of Connecticut's tick population.

The CDC explained that about seven cases of POWV are reported each year in the United States. Cases are predominantly in the northeast and great lake region. Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia reported their first POWV cases within the last seven years.

"It is not known whether this represents spread of the virus within the local tick population, or increased testing and recognition of the virus as a cause of human disease," the CDC said.

It's also unknown whether people can have the disease and not show symptoms, Bennett added.

Both Bennet and Phillips urge families to check to ticks immediately after spending time outside.

Its important to let parents know not to just brush ticks off. Ticks are something that could kill your kid, potentially," Phillips said.
A Hartford student has been accepted into six Ivy league schools and Stanford University, after her friends told her she didn't have a good chance.

Shay Pezzulo is like most other seniors in her Classical Magnet School class: excited to graduate.

Only difference is, she has a 4.75 GPA.

Choosing between seven acceptance letters from top tier universities, including, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth and Stanford.

Honestly when I was reading them, I couldnt breathe! I was so excited and I was in such disbelief, as well!

Born in China, Pezzulo was adopted as a baby and grew up in Burlington.

"I applied with the idea that I would get maybe one if I was lucky," she told NBC Connecticut.

Someday she hopes to be a doctor.

Shays principal couldnt be more proud.

I have never supervised, be part of, supported a student who has had so many acceptances to Ivy league schools, Principal Zandralynn Gordon said. I am really overjoyed and what is more important to me is how modest Shay is in spite of her great achievements.

As Shay tries to figure out what her decision will be May 1, she has a message to other students.

A lot of my friends from other schools they would tell me, Shay, I love you and everything, but just because you dont take AP classes and everything you dont really have a good chance at these schools Im just going to be honest here, she said.

But I think having that mentality wasnt the best because looking back and looking where Ive come now, I think its evident no matter what your education is, as long as you make the most of it and you really adapt to your environment and work as hard as you can I think that you can really do what you want to do.
An off-duty Hartford firefighter was shot five times in an industrial park in Rocky Hill on Thursday night and is in serious condition.

Hartford Fire Department sources have identified the injured firefighter as Jimmy Ngo.

Rocky Hill Police said they were called around 10 p.m. to respond to Belamose Avenue and called in police from Newington and Wethersfield to help search the large 60-acre industrial park, consisting of several businesses, for the victim and shooter.

A short time later, officers found Ngo inside one of the businesses in the park. He was seriously injured, officials said. He was shot once in the face and four times in the back.

Hartford Fire Captain Raul Ortiz said the victim was off-duty at the time of the shooting.

Ngo's current condition is unknown, but he was conscious when he was taken to the hospital for emergency medical care. A law enforcement source told NBC Connecticut that the firefighter is expected to survive.

Investigators do not know why Ngo was in the area.

Authorities said they have a person of interest, but they have not released the person's name.

State Police said this was an isolated incident and there is no threat to the public.

Major Crimes detectives are also assisting in the investigation.

Investigators said everyone who works in the industrial park should call their employer about work today because the property will be off limits until the investigation at the scene is complete.
An investigation into allegations of patient abuse at the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital has now reached the top levels.

The state has just confirmed to us that Whiting's acting director and director of nursing have both been put on administrative leave in connection the investigation. That brings the total number of employees on leave to 22.

Sources tell NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters that staff at Whiting Forensic, which treats patients in both maximum and medium security settings, were told today that the two were put on indefinite leave. This all concerns allegations of abuse against a patient, or patients at Whiting.

Not everyone on leave is accused of committing the abuse and some may have been mandated reporters that failed to act, sources said.

The state said it is prepared to take action against these employees if the accusations are confirmed, including termination. Sources add the evidence includes surveillance video from inside the maximum security portion of the psychiatric hospital.
Where can you find the head of the Environmental Protection Agency sharing the spotlight with the very environmentalists who denounced his appointment?

The answer is Earth Day Texas, April 21-23 at Fair Park in Dallas.

"We're this open platform for discussion. We're unobstructed by politics and fueled by community engagement," said Earth Day Texas CEO Ryan Brown.

The three-day event is the largest Earth Day celebration in the country. The goal is to bring together people from two worlds that would seem to be opposed to one another: corporations and environmentalists.

"There's not a place that you can bring these folks together and get them in the same room, have that conversation, and hopefully precipitate some change or some policy move," Brown said. "This is a catalyst for it."

Visitors to Fair Park this weekend can hear eco-warriors talk conservation, go SCUBA diving, and learn how to live little in the tiny house village.

"It's cut down on my waste, it's cut down on my consumption," said Andrew Whittle, as he stood in the kitchen of his tiny home.

Whittle said the growing popularity of tiny homes is in conflict with what he calls the country's "go big" attitude. That apparent conflict has changed his life.

"Progress comes from conflict. A lot of the times when people have the need to fight for what they believe in good things come from it," he said.

Organizers have pulled out all the stops, literally. Big Tex has been moved from his familiar State Fair of Texas perch. In his place is the "Smart Flower"  a series of solar panels in the shape of sunflower that rotate and move with the sun.

"It sparks all kinds of unique conversations and brings out people of all ages who are looking to do the right thing environmentally, save money and look into energy independence," said Von Schafer, from Smart Flower North America.

Admission is free to Earth Day Texas.

MORE: Earth Day Texas
Reference is made to the stock exchange release from Polarcus Limited ("Polarcus" or the "Company") (OSE: PLCS) published 9 February 2017 regarding a Norwegian subsidiary's agreement with SCF GEO AS ("Sovcomflot") for a 5 1/2 year bareboat charter (the "Charter").

The Company is pleased to announce that the Charter agreement between Polarcus Amani AS and Sovcomflot has been signed and the vessel delivered to Sovcomflot today in Bergen. The vessel was delivered without streamers, providing the Polarcus fleet with one excess streamer package, which will significantly reduce capital expenditure requirements through 2017 and 2018.

Following delivery of the vessel to Sovcomflot, the Polarcus Group has two vessels on long-term bareboat charter and operates a fleet of four vessels in the contract market.

Duncan Eley, Group CEO said: "We are very pleased that Sovcomflot has taken a second Polarcus vessel on bareboat charter, reinforcing our collaboration with a strategic client. We see this as a strong endorsement of our vessels' capabilities and suitability for state of the art seismic data acquisition. Importantly, this agreement delivers significant positive cash flow throughout the charter period. Our two vessels on long-term bareboat charter provide a total fixed backlog in excess of $100 million with no associated operating costs."

Contacts

Duncan Eley, CEO

+971 4 436 0800

duncan.eley@polarcus.com

Hans-Peter Burlid, CFO

+971 50 559 8175

hp.burlid@polarcus.com

About Polarcus

Polarcus (OSE: PLCS) is an innovative marine geophysical company with a pioneering environmental agenda, delivering high-end towed streamer data acquisition and imaging services from Pole to Pole. Polarcus operates a fleet of high performance 3D seismic vessels incorporating leading-edge maritime technologies for improved safety and efficiency. Polarcus offers contract seismic surveys and multi-client projects with advanced onboard processing solutions and employs nearly 500 professionals worldwide. The Company's principal office is in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For more information, visit www.polarcus.com
Police said at least four people, including three students, were injured when two vehicles collided in front of a Fort Worth school Friday morning.[[420068273,C]]

Fort Worth police said an SUV T-boned a Chevy sedan, while the sedan was turning into the school entrance. It happened outside the Fort Worth Can Academy Westcreek in the 6600 block of Westcreek Drive at about 8:00 a.m.

Police said there were four people in the smaller car, three of them students. The driver was ejected, then pinned under the car.

Police say at least four people are injured after two vehicles collided in front of a Fort Worth school Friday morning.

Authorities said four people were transported to hospitals, one in critical condition, two serious and one with minor injuries.

Dr. James Ponce, Chief of Schools for Texans Can Acadmies, said, "We're keeping our thoughts and prayers with their families."

He added that staff was taking care of any fellow students who were shaken up by what they saw, and students weren't the only ones to witness the trauma.

Police say at least four people are injured after two vehicles collided in front of a Fort Worth school Friday morning.

"I hate the fact that that did happen. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later," said Dawn Baublit, who works in home healthcare across the street.

Her own car was badly damaged in a recent hit and run while it was parked on Westcreek Drive, across from the school.

"It's kind of like a curve and they do drive very, very fast," Baublit said. "They've come up on the curbs, hit quite a few vehicles."

But unlike nearby Southwest High School, there are no school zone signs posted outside the Can Academy campus.

"It should be a school zone because they do drive erratically," Baublit said. "We don't have enough officers out here patrolling the area."

Now she hopes the damage done to metal, mind and body will bring change and finally slow traffic down.

Fort Worth police say speed was likely a factor in the crash, based on what witnesses are saying.

A spokesperson for the City of Fort Worth's public works department told NBC 5 they put in school zones automatically for public schools that are part of an independent school district.

But since Texans Can Academy is a charter school, school administrators have to request the school zone themselves.

Dr. Ponce said, "Texans Can is always agreeable to do anything to make the schools safer. If that means having a school zone in front of the school, we welcome that."

The city does now expect to send out a crew to take a look.

School principal Ku-masi Lewis released the following statement regarding the crash:

Three of our students were involved in an automobile accident this morning on their way to school. They are in the care of medical professionals and their injuries are being evaluated.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those injured and with the family and friends of all who are involved.

Our focus at this time is to care for our students in class and make sure they are receiving any counseling resources and care needed.

Police say at least four people are injured after two vehicles collided in front of a Fort Worth school Friday morning.
Two separate crashes closed two major North Texas highways Friday afternoon.

North Richland Hills police closed westbound Texas 183 west of Precinct Line Road due to a major crash.

Following the crash, one person was taken to the hospital in an unknown condition. The cause of the crash is unknown.

Westbound 183 was reopened just before 6 p.m.

In Denton, southbound Interstate 35E is closed at Teasley Lane after a car crashed into a center dividing wall.

It is not known if any other vehicles are involved or if there were any injuries.

Denton police said just before 6 p.m. that the crash is clearing but that the backup is expected to remain for some time.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein attended a town hall meeting Thursday in Los Angeles.

The meeting, which follows a town hall earlier this week in San Francisco, was at First AME Church.

She drew both supporters and those who want her to do more to oppose President Donald Trump and his policies.

On Monday, the California Democrat was at the San Francisco Scottish Rite Masonic Center. Constituents who said she is too soft on President Donald Trump interrupted the town hall meeting Monday with boos and jeers. The majority of people at the forum seemed supportive of Feinstein and greeted her with applause, but some people yelled "you're a sell-out" and "stand up," The Mercury News reported.

Trump critics have filled town hall meetings across the country to push members of Congress to fight the Republican president on his tax returns, health care, foreign policy and other issues.

Questioners at Monday's event were chosen by random drawing. The crowd of about 750 people held up green and red "agree" and "disagree" signs.

The son of a Holocaust survivor asked Feinstein to agree that "politics as usual" was dead and to commit to not "normalize" the Trump administration. Feinstein told protesters that they were "pretty good at yelling" and when hecklers called her a "hawk," she said, "Why don't you leave the name-calling out of it?"

Feinstein tried to stress that she was just one senator out of 100 and a member of the minority party in the Senate. She pledged to support legislation to curb corporate money from elections and investigate the administration's ethics violations.
A 396-pound endangered crocodile underwent surgery at Zoo Miami Friday after suffering a critical injury.

The 13-year-old male Orinoco crocodile from South America underwent a procedure to treat an infected wound likely caused by a bite from another crocodile, according to Zoo Communications Director Ron Magill.

The nearly 10-foot-long crocodile sustained an injury to its wrist that needed medical attention, but in order to so, the massive reptile had to be immobilized and transported to the zoo hospital where it was attended to by veterinarians and zoo staff.

The affected area was successfully treated surgically by removing the infection and medicating the wound. The crocodile will remain in the zoo hospital for the next several days before being returned to its exhibit at the Amazon and Beyond area of the zoo.

Orinoco crocodiles are a critically endangered species that is found in isolated pockets of the fresh water tributaries of the Orinoco River in Colombia and Venezuela.
A report from one South Florida newspaper revealed President Donald Trump met with two former leaders of Colombia  both opposed to a peace agreement between the current government and rebel leaders.

The Miami Herald reported that Trump met with Alvaro Uribe and Andres Pastrana last weekend during the most recent visit to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach County. Colombian news media says the meeting was set up by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, according to the Herald.

Rubio has also been a critic of the agreement between current President Juan Manuel Santos  who will meet with Pres. Trump in May  and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The meeting was never made public and the media covering the Presidents trip was not notified. The White House later confirmed the meeting took place after initially declining to answer questions  calling it a mere coincidence that Uribe and Pastrana were at the club at the same time Trump was.

After an initial peace deal was voted down last October, Santos negotiated with rebel leaders and submitted a peace deal to the countrys Congress, which approved it one month later.
A South Florida father is outraged after he said his 8-year-old daughter was injured at the hands of a teacher at her school.

Little Tamara Gonzalez suffered scratches and bruises after she says the teacher aggressively dragged her at Caribbean K-8 Center in Southwest Miami-Dade.

Toni Renee Boykin was arrested and fired for the alleged attack, school officials said. Boykin was charged with child abuse.

"Grabs me by the hair, goes around the table, drags me and gets me off the table and drags me on the floor and I was hitting myself and she scratched me so I grabbed onto her necklace and her leg," said Tamara. The incident happened Thursday in the schools cafeteria.

The girls father, Eddie Gonzalez, was disturbed when he found out through her foster guardian.

"I felt very angry. I felt very hurt because she's an eight-year-old. You don't do that to a child, you don't do that basically to anyone but I think that's just completely wrong," Gonzalez said.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools released a statement regarding the incident:

Immediately upon learning about the disturbing allegations, Miami-Dade Schools Police began its investigation. The employee has since been arrested and dismissal procedures have been initiated. The alleged actions are reprehensible and unacceptable. Our decision to terminate, even as the criminal proceedings evolve, is guided by our highest priority - the protection and welfare of our students.

Tamara says she was suspended for an incident that happened at the YMCA, but that has now been lifted. She'll be back at school on Monday.
A Pembroke Pines teen is still rattled after his neighbor, a former police officer, allegedly pointed a gun at him and threatened his life Monday.

Tyler Muraida, 19, was driving his black Honda convertible in the Pembroke Shores community when he was confronted by an angry and armed Mario Perez, according to a police report. Perez yelled profanities at the 19-year-old and his 15-year-old friend, who was in the passenger seat.

Sources told NBC 6 that Perez is a former Hialeah Police officer. He was employed for six years and had several disciplinary issues before being fired in 1994.

In an exclusive interview over the phone, Muraida said he was in fear on his life.

"He was following me. I was just trying to get away," said the 19-year-old.

Muraida said Perez did not like the sound of his car and chased him out of the subdivision, but the victim was stopped at the security gate and that's when things took an ugly turn.

"He came out he pulled a gun out, put it to me, pointed it in my direction, started threatening me, saying all kinds of curse words," Muraida recalled.

Perez ordered the 19-year-old to turn off the car and remove the keys, according to a police report.

"And, he's like, 'Don't move. If you keep moving, I'm going to put three in you," Muraida said.

The suspect then punched Muraida, walked over to the passenger side and ordered the 15-year-old to pick up the keys at gunpoint, police said.

"He said 'you have 10 seconds to put the keys back in the ignition or I'm gonna kill your friend,'" Muraida said over the phone.

Perez then hit the 15-year-old passenger in the back of the head with the handgun, causing minor swelling, a police report said. The 49-year-old suspect walked back to the driver's side and said "If I ever see you again, I'm gonna kill you" and struck Muraida in the face again, according to an arrest report.

Perez was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a weapon and aggravated battery. He was being held on $21,000 bond.

Detectives questioned a passenger in the suspect's vehicle, who sources told NBC 6 is Miami Police officer James Faris. He was off-duty at the time of the altercation and told Pembroke Pines police he was unable to see exactly what happened between the teens and Perez.

"Someone who is an active police officer should really step in and make sure that something wrong, like what happened would not have been done," Muraida said.

NBC 6 confirmed that Miami Police Department Internal Affairs is investigating.
NEW YORK, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Ocwen Financial Corporation (Ocwen or the Company) (NYSE:OCN) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, and docketed under 17-cv-80500 is on behalf of a class consisting of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Ocwen securities, seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.



If you are a shareholder who purchased Ocwen securities between May 11, 2015 and April 19, 2017, both dates inclusive, you have until June 20, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Ocwen Financial Corporation is diversified financial services holding company. The Company's primary businesses are the acquisition, servicing, and resolution of sub-performing and nonperforming residential and commercial mortgage loans, as well as the related development of loan servicing technology and business-to-business e-commerce solutions for the mortgage and real estate industries.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Ocwen engaged in significant and systemic misconduct at nearly every stage of the mortgage servicing process; (ii) the foregoing conduct, when it became known would subject the Company to heightened regulatory scrutiny and potential criminal sanctions; (iii) as a result of the foregoing, Ocwens public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On April 20, 2017, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a press release entitled Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sues Ocwen for failing borrowers throughout mortgage servicing process, reporting that the Company had generated errors in borrowers accounts, failed to credit payments, illegally foreclosed on homeowners, and charged borrowers for add-on products without their consent.

On that same day, it was further reported that the North Carolina Office of the Commissioner of Banks and state regulators from more than twenty states issued a cease-and-desist order to Ocwens subsidiaries as a result of the Companys mishandling of consumer escrow accounts and a deficient financial condition. The Order specifically prohibits the acquisition of new mortgage servicing rights and the origination of mortgage loans by Ocwen Loan Servicing (NMLS number 1852), a subsidiary of Ocwen, until the company is able to prove it can appropriately manage its consumer mortgage escrow accounts.

On this news, Ocwens share price fell $2.91, or 53.89%, to close at $2.49 on April 20, 2017.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com
What to Know 42-year-old William Tolley was killed after he fell several stories while working to ventilate a building that was on fire in Queens

The 14-year FDNY veteran was either in the bucket of a ladder truck or on roof of the building when he fell; an investigation is ongoing

Tolley leaves behind a wife and 8-year-old daughter

UPDATE: Hours Before Death, FDNY Firefighter Was Looking for Cupcakes in Shape of Cross for Communion

A 14-year veteran of the FDNY died after falling several stories while containing an apartment fire in Queens on Thursday afternoon, officials said.

William N. Tolley, 42, was working on ventilating the apartment building when he fell five stories to the ground below, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at an emotional press conference. He was taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in serious condition and later pronounced dead.

Visibly emotional, Commissioner Nigro said Tolley leaves behind a wife and an 8-year-old daughter. He lived in Bethpage and was a senior firefighter at Ladder 135/Engine 286.

Its a terrible tragedy for the department, especially on the heels  one month after the death of Yadira Arroyo, Nigro said, referring to the FDNY EMT who was killed last month as she and her partner tried to stop a 25-year-old man from hijacking their ambulance.

Tolley is the 1,147th FDNY firefighter to die in the line of duty, Nigro said.

Mayor de Blasio said he and Nigro met with Tolley's wife, Marie, in "a painful moment when a loved one learns that this was a last day of the life of someone they loved so deeply."

"Everyone is in a state of shock and grief," the mayor said.

It is with deep regret that FDNY announces the line of duty death of Firefighter William N. Tolley https://t.co/ssgLlzjrmb pic.twitter.com/kj4sqDb8q5  FDNY (@FDNY) April 20, 2017

The fire broke out shortly after 2 p.m. in a bedroom on the second floor of a five-story apartment building on Putnam Avenue in Ridgewood.

Witnesses said they were watching fire crews battling the blaze when one of them fell. They described seeing a man falling to the sidewalk below.

"The body just hit the pavement," one woman said. "Hearing the impact, you knew he couldn't survive that."

It's unclear if Tolley was on the roof of the building or in the bucket of the ladder truck as he was working to ventilate heat rising up through the building. He had been standing inside the bucket at some point, but an investigation into how he fell and where he fell from is ongoing, officials said.

The fire was contained to a bedroom several stories below Tolley, and Nigro said his death was not directly related to the fire.

"It was really in the operation that he was performing on the roof, which is a routine operation for us, and, somehow, he fell from the roof," Nigro said.

The commissioner said it's common for firefighters to ventilate areas above a fire and to rescue anyone who may be in danger at a window or on a fire escape. Firefighters may work from a tower ladder bucket or a roof-rope as they battle a fire and search for survivors.

Noberto Arellano said he was coming out of the apartment building when he looked up and saw a firefighter plummeting to the ground. He said it appeared the fire truck moved before the fall.

"They move a little bit, they jump like this," Arellano said. "And they fell, that's how they fell."

The fire was brought under control by 3 p.m., but a number of streets in the area were still closed hours later and there was a heavy FDNY presence at the scene.

Three civilians suffered minor injuries in the blaze and were taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

Nigro said he and others in the FDNY are focused on comforting Tolley's wife and young daughter, whose world has taken a sudden and tragic turn.

Tolley's family clung to each other Thursday night as his body was draped in an American flag and loaded into a waiting ambulance at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. Fellow members of the FDNY gave honorary salutes as the ambulance slowly departed.

At Thursday's press conference, Mayor de Blasio said Tolley knew the risks of being a firefighter but dedicated his life to it nevertheless.

"A man dedicated to protecting others gave his life to this work and, like all members of the FDNY, understood every single day he was putting his life on the line, but he did it willingly in service of others," the mayor said.
A New Jersey teacher is under arrest for allegedly hiding a camera in a faculty bathroom at an elementary school, though authorities said no children appear to have been filmed.

Parsippany-Troy Hills Police said a school employee found the device inside the bathroom on Thursday, and an investigation "determined that the recording device was capturing footage of the toilet area and was placed there for an undetermined amount of time."

The investigation quickly led to physical education teacher Christopher Esnes, 40, of Gillette, who was arrested and charged with third-degree invasion of privacy.

A police spokesman declined to elaborate on how they determined so quickly that the camera allegedly belonged to Esnes.

Esnes was not immediately reachable for comment.
Four people were arrested during an early morning protest in support of immigrant workers at a famed Queens bakery who are facing a mass firing Friday, police say.

The protest, named "Day Without Bread," began early at the Tom Cat Bakery in Long Island City. They say they're striking for fair severance of the 31 longtime immigrant workers at the bakery who could be fired, and to highlight Trump's "inhumane" immigration policies.

A Department of Homeland Security audit led to Tom Cat Bakery telling undocumented immigrant workers in March to either produce new employment documents or be let go. Friday was the extended deadline.

The workers who were about to get cut walked out on what was supposed to be their final shift. They say they rejected an initial severance offer by Tom Cat and want to reach a "fair deal."

Demonstrators positioned themselves under the trucks overnight, laying down with pillows and sleeping bags and chaining themselves to the vehicles in an attempt to halt Friday's bread delivery.

Police officers were seen going underneath the trucks to retrieve the protesters. Four people were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, they said.

Supporters say the problem is bigger than what's happening at Tom Cat.

"The racist, the xenophobic Trump has really broken our nation's immigration system," said Gabriel Morales.

Tom Cat declined to comment Friday.

Tom Cat is New York City's oldest artisanal bakery, and provides bread to Citarella, Darden restaurants and the Grand Hyatt, among other fine restaurants and gourmet stores across the city. The bakery employs about 180 workers in the Long Island City neighborhood.
The years-long battle over how Philadelphia can reform its notoriously high wage tax rate is now pitting two of the citys business organizations against one another with Phillys political leaders backing differing sides.

The Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia released a statement last month opposing the Levy-Sweeney Plan for tax reform, named for Center City District executive director Paul Levy and Brandywine Realty Trust CEO Gerard Sweeney.

The Levy-Sweeney Plan was drafted a few years back, after decades of the city trying to find other sources of income beside its hefty wage tax (currently at 3.9004 percent for those who live and work in the city and 3.4741 percent for non-residents) and business-related taxes. The plan calls for taxing commercial properties on the front end but lowering the cost of doing business in the city by separating how residential and commercial taxes are collected.

The Center City District  which is dedicated "to enhance the vitality of Center City Philadelphia as a thriving 24-hour downtown and a great place to work, live, and have fun," according to its mission statement  backs its leaders plan.

"The city has lagged in job growth and has one of the highest urban poverty rates, despite more than two decades of vibrant growth and development in Center City and University City," CCD said in a statement based on its "Philadelphia: An Incomplete Revival" report earlier this year.

Dear SEPTA Users, The NFL Draft Is Adjusting Your Commute

"Last summer, both the Pennsylvania House and Senate overwhelmingly passed HB 1871, a bipartisan effort that will provide Philadelphia with the flexibility to assess properties used for business purposes up to 15 percent higher than residential properties, so long as all the incremental revenues raised are used to lower the Citys wage and business taxes," CCD's release said.

But that plan to lower Phillys tax (it would still come nowhere near to the 1 percent wage tax levied on people living and working in some Montgomery County municipalities) never came to fruition, and now lawmakers are pushing a new Senate bill (SB 41) that looks to give the same authority to back the Sweeney-Levy Plan.

The Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia doesnt want lawmakers to move ahead with the bill, however.

In its statement opposing it, the Chamber calls for local control to continue to bring down the wage and business taxes, and asks legislators to delay voting on the pending proposal.

"The proposed legislation SB 41 and anticipated House legislation on the same subject seeks to change Pennsylvanias Uniformity Clause to allow Philadelphia to set two different tiers of property tax  one for commercial properties and the other for residential homeowners," the chamber wrote. "In exchange for higher commercial property taxes, the plan calls for corresponding reductions in wage and business taxes  designed to spur growth and job creation citywide."

Instead, the Chamber proposes what it says is a local approach to lowering taxes and it lays out its plan in five steps: lowering the cost of government; pension reform; real estate taxes; wage and business taxes; and use and occupancy tax.

CCD, however, sees growth via the Sweeney-Levy plan already under consideration (which in past years has had wide support in the state) and won't advance the chambers alternate proposal.

"The constitutional amendment, if passed again in the current session in Harrisburg, will provide a framework that enables Philadelphia to implement the recommendations of two previous tax commissions, while ensuring no gap opens in the Citys budget," CCD said. "The goal is to get the wage tax below 3 percent for the first time in 50 years and cut the net income portion of the Business Income and Receipts Tax (BIRT) in half."

Neither Paul Levy nor Gerard Sweeney agreed to NBC10s request for interviews. And, a chamber spokesperson said its opposition statement would stand as its remarks.

Mayor Jim Kenney, however, did give NBC10 his thoughts on the tax squabble.

According to spokesperson Lauren Hitt, "the Mayor supports the Levy-Sweeney plan as the best proposal out there to create flexibility for serious tax reform that will promote job growth."

But the Democratic mayor could be swayed.

"Of course, he remains open to listening to all options on the table," Hitt said. "He has heard the Chambers proposal. There are a number of pieces of their proposal that we agree with and are already implementing or pursuing  pension reform, increased education funding, making government more effective and efficient, and continued wage tax reduction."

"But, even with those changes, we still need a tax structure that makes Philadelphia more competitive with other big cities when it comes to business attraction and job growth," Hitt said, "and Levy-Sweeney does that."

[Photos]Mary J. Blige to Headline Wawa Welcome America Festival on July 4th

Council President Darrell Clarke wants to see the uniformity amendment clause changed, but is unsure if the Sweeney-Levy Plan is the correct way to fix Phillys business-restrictive tax structure.

"The Sweeney-Levy plan amends the uniformity clause while further capping tax rates for commercial properties, potentially enshrining a huge tax break for wealthy commercial properties into the state constitution," Clarke spokeswoman Jane Roh said. "Philadelphia is the poorest large city in the country and we already struggle with tax-exempt status for wealthy universities and major hospitals. If there's a credible explanation for why we should be prioritizing tax caps for Center City high-rises at this time, we've yet to hear it."

State Rep. John Taylor, the bills sponsor, called the Chambers opposition a charade, according to a City & State Pennsylvania report.

"Theyve never been for it," The Philadelphia-based Republican told City & State. "They said they were but they werent. But I dont see it being stopped no matter who's against it at this point. Were looking at getting support from the statewide Chamber of Commerce. And our members will be reluctant to change their votes this season."

All the sides agree on one thing: Phillys current tax structure needs to change. Kenney wants to use that desire to get a plan passed.

"We all want the same thing which is a more competitive Philadelphia that produces more family sustaining jobs. What were discussing is how to get there."
As Philadelphia continues to battle a deadly opioid epidemic, the city is taking steps to reduce stigmatization from treatment centers.

The Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services (DBHIDS) sent a letter to halfway homes reminding providers they cannot turn away patients who are using medication-assisted treatment.

This applies to methadone, naltrexone, Vivitrol and buprenorphine.

These treatments are considered evidence-based and supported by several national organizations, including the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the city said.

Decreasing stigmatization of persons with substance use disorders has been a longstanding priority of the department, the letter read. Persons in recovery should not be deprived of any necessary level of care solely because they are receiving medications.

Some experts argue that medication-assisted treatment leads to better long-term outcomes. For instance, a recent study by Harvard Medical School found that 50 percent of patients treated with buprenorphine and naloxone stayed away from opioids 18 months after starting therapy. That number increased to 61 percent after three years.

Similarly, medication-assisted treatment has been shown to increase treatment retention and to reduce opioid use, risk behaviors that transmit HIV and hepatitis, and mortality, according to the World Health Organization.

Recovery is not a one-stop shop, said Roland Lamb, deputy commissioner of strategic planning and innovation at DBHIDS. It is important for us to say to providers as a whole please no discrimination. Were not going to allow that on public dollars.

Lamb added that the city is not mandating treatment centers to distribute these medications, but simply not to turn people away who are utilizing them.

Barriers to receiving methadone or other medications persist. Some in the recovery community contend that taking any form of pill means a patient is not really clean. Others distribute medication only for a short time  one or two weeks maximum. And then there is the issue of insurance companies, which tend to limit the availability of buprenorphine, for example, to patients on Medicaid.

We are a stigma-driven field, Lamb said. We have people preoccupied with these philosophies that do more harm than good and, right now, we need to do as much good as possible.

Across the Delaware River in New Jersey, tackling opioid addiction has become a top priority for Gov. Chris Christie. Recent legislation has taken treatment authority out of the hands of insurance companies and placed it in the care of recovery centers.

This means that the length and type of treatment is determined not by what patients can afford, but by what they need, said David Dorschu, CEO of Recovery Centers of America at Lighthouse in Mays Landing.

His facility offers the full continuum of care, starting with detoxification and moving into residential. The first phase takes about seven days to complete. The second stage is ongoing and can last up to six months depending on the severity of the disorder.

From there, patients undergo intensive therapy in a group and privately. Families are welcome to participate. Care continues outside the center when patients are ready to return home. Medication-assisted treatment is just one of the components to recovery, Dorschu said.

If you need it, if it works, then do it, he said. We have to get people into a position where they can receive treatment fully.

Lighthouse has 34 detoxification beds and 19 residential beds. The facility is typically filled to capacity, which Dorschu sees as a sign that people are getting the help they need. Lighthouse will be adding another 100 beds starting this summer.

Recovery Centers of America is also expanding facilities in the Philadelphia region, signaling an ongoing collaboration between Pennsylvania and New Jersey as both states fight against opioid addiction. RCA will break ground in the fall on a new center at the former Devon Manor near Wayne.

Recently, officials from six counties, including Philadelphia and Camden, met to discuss a partnership. Spearheaded by Councilman-at-large David Oh, the group agreed to communicate about each county's efforts via emails and video calls.

Lamb said this joint effort, coupled with removing stigma from treatment centers, is just the start of a more comprehensive approach. Philadelphia is also eyeing efforts to develop a better pathway to treatment for people in their teens and younger.
An 77-year-old man was found slain in a senior center in Virginia, and authorities are still searching for a suspect or suspects, Fairfax County police said Friday.

Cong Huu Nguyen, 77, was found dead Thursday morning in his apartment at the Little River Glen Senior Retirement Community in the 4000 block of Barker Court in Fairfax, Virginia. Police arrived on the scene shortly after 8 a.m.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Nguyen died of trauma to the upper body.

"I can't imagine somebody doing that," said Rebecca Mosser who has lived in the retirement community for two years.

Nguyen's apartment on the edge of the senior community is separated from Little River Turnpike by a small stretch of woods. The apartments that border the woods are easily accessible from the road, Mosser said.

Residents say they weren't told about the killing until late Friday.

"It frightens me that if it was someting bad, nobody was told," Mosser said.

Anyone with information about Nguyen's death is asked to call Fairfax Detective J.D. Long at 703-246-7800 or 703-246-7810, or submit information to Crime Solvers online at fairfaxcrimesolvers.org, text a tip by texting "TIP187" plus your message to 274637, or call 866-411-TIPS (8477).

Fairfax County police initially said Nguyen's age was 85. He was 77.
Sandoz receives positive CHMP opinions for biosimilars rituximab and etanercept to treat immunological diseases. Biosimilar rituximab also recommended to treat blood cancers

Comprehensive data packages, confirming Sandoz biosimilars rituximab and etanercept match their respective reference medicines, were the basis for CHMP decisions

Subject to EC** approval, Sandoz market leadership position extended as the only company to have five approved biosimilars in Europe[1]

Holzkirchen, April 21, 2017 - Sandoz, a Novartis division, and the pioneer and global leader in biosimilars, announced today that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has adopted positive opinions, separately recommending the approval of both Sandoz' biosimilar rituximab and biosimilar etanercept in Europe, to treat the same indications as their respective reference medicines.

"We are proud to help patients in Europe with blood cancers and immunological diseases by improving their access to effective treatments through the potential approval of not just one, but two new Sandoz biosimilar medicines," said Mark Levick, MD PhD, Global Head of Development, Biopharmaceuticals, Sandoz. "Today's recommendations from the CHMP will not only benefit patients, but they demonstrate our leadership in biosimilars and the strength of the Sandoz and Novartis immunology and oncology portfolios".

If approved, Sandoz biosimilar rituximab may be used in all indications of the reference medicine, MabThera***, which are non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - follicular lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma - chronic lymphocytic leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and microscopic polyangiitis.

If Sandoz biosimilar etanercept is approved, it may be used in all indications of the reference medicine, Enbrel****, which are rheumatoid arthritis, axial spondyloarthritis (ankylosing spondylitis, non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis), plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, Juvenile idiopathic arthritis and pediatric plaque psoriasis.

The CHMP recommendations were based on two comprehensive development programs in which analytical, preclinical and clinical - including pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic - data were generated. The programs demonstrated biosimilarity of biosimilar rituximab and etanercept to their respective reference medicines[2-8].

Studies within the biosimilar rituximab development program included a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) trial in rheumatoid arthritis (ASSIST-RA)[7] and a Phase III confirmatory safety and efficacy study in follicular lymphoma (ASSIST-FL)[8].

The biosimilar etanercept development program included an innovative Phase III confirmatory safety and efficacy study in moderate to severe plaque psoriasis (EGALITY), which included three treatment switches between the reference medicine and biosimilar etanercept[4].

Sandoz is committed to increasing patient access to high-quality, life-enhancing biosimilars. It is the pioneer and global leader in biosimilars, and currently markets three biosimilars worldwide. Sandoz has a leading biosimilar pipeline and, in addition to biosimilar rituximab and etanercept (ErelziTM approved in 2016 by the FDA), plans to launch three more biosimilars of major oncology and immunology biologics across key geographies by 2020. As a division of the Novartis Group, Sandoz is well-positioned to lead the biosimilars industry based on its experience and capabilities in development, manufacturing and commercialization.

Disclaimer

The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by words such as "proposed," "recommended," "positive CHMP opinions," "positive opinions," "recommending," "potential," "recommendations," "will," "may," "committed," "pipeline," "plans," "launch," "well-positioned," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals or labeling for biosimilar rituximab, biosimilar etanercept, or any of the other products in the Sandoz biosimilar pipeline, or regarding potential future revenues from biosimilar rituximab, biosimilar etanercept, and the other products in the Sandoz biosimilar pipeline. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs and expectations of management regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that biosimilar rituximab, biosimilar etanercept, or any of the other products in the Sandoz biosimilar pipeline will be submitted or approved for sale in any market, or at any particular time. Neither can there be any guarantee that, if approved, biosimilar rituximab or biosimilar etanercept will be approved for all indications included in the reference products' respective labels. Nor can there be any guarantee that biosimilar rituximab, biosimilar etanercept, or any of the other products in the Sandoz biosimilar pipeline will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding biosimilar rituximab, biosimilar etanercept, and such other Sandoz biosimilar pipeline products could be affected by, among other things, regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; competition in general, including potential approval of additional versions of biosimilar rituximab or biosimilar etanercept; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing pressures; litigation outcomes, including intellectual property disputes or other legal efforts to prevent or limit Sandoz from selling biosimilar rituximab, biosimilar etanercept, or its other biosimilar products; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general economic and industry conditions; safety, quality or manufacturing issues, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Sandoz

Sandoz is a global leader in generic pharmaceuticals and biosimilars. As a division of the Novartis Group, our purpose is to discover new ways to improve and extend people's lives. We contribute to society's ability to support growing healthcare needs by pioneering novel approaches to help people around the world access high-quality medicine. Our portfolio of approximately 1000 molecules, covering all major therapeutic areas, accounted for 2016 sales of USD 10.1 billion. In 2016, our products reached well over 500 million patients and we aspire to reach one billion. Sandoz is headquartered in Holzkirchen, in Germany's Greater Munich area.

* European Economic Area (EEA). The European Economic Area (EEA) provides for the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital within the internal market of the European Union (EU) between its 28 member states, as well as three of the four member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA): Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

** European Commission

*** MabThera is a registered trademark of F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG

**** Enbrel is a registered trademark of Pfizer in Europe and Amgen in the US.

References

[1] European Medicines Agency 2017. The European public assessment reports are published on the European Medicines Agency website (cited 03 March 2017). Available from: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/medicines/landing/epar_search.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058001d124

[2] Visser J et al. Physicochemical and Functional Comparability Between the Proposed Biosimilar Rituximab GP2013 and Originator Rituximab. BioDrugs. 2013;27:495-507.

[3] Da Silva A et al. Target-directed development and preclinical characterization of the proposed biosimilar rituximab GP2013. Leuk Lymphoma. 2014;55:1609-1617.

[4] Griffiths C et al. The EGALITY study: a confirmatory, randomized, double-blind study comparing the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of GP2015, a proposed etanercept biosimilar, vs. the originator product in patients with moderate-to-severe chronic plaque-type psoriasis. Br J Dermatol 2016 [Epub ahead of print].

[5] von Richter O et al. GP2015, a proposed etanercept biosimilar: Pharmacokinetic similarity to its reference product and comparison of its auto-injector device with pre-filled syringes. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2016 Oct 27. doi: 10.1111/bcp.13170. [Epub ahead of print]

[6] Hofmann HP et al. Characterization and non-clinical assessment of the proposed etanercept biosimilar GP2015 with originator etanercept (Enbrel). Exp Opin Biol Ther. 2016;16:1185-95.

[7] Smolen J et al. Pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, safety and efficacy of proposed rituximab biosimilar (GP2013) vs. EU-Approved rituximab (rtx) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: results from a randomized controlled trial (GP13-201) over 52 weeks. EULAR congress, 8-11 June 2016, London UK: FRI0222.

[8] Jurczak W et al. A Phase III Efficacy and Safety Study of the Proposed Rituximab Biosimilar GP2013 Versus Rituximab in Patients with Previously Untreated Advanced Follicular Lymphoma ASH annual meeting, 3-6 December 2016, San Diego, USA:1809.

# # #

For further information, contact:

Novartis Media Relations

Central media line: +41 61 324 2200

E-mail: media.relations@novartis.com

Eric Althoff

Novartis Global Media Relations

+41 61 324 7999 (direct)

+41 79 593 4202 (mobile)

eric.althoff@novartis.com



Duncan Cantor

Sandoz Global Communications

+49 170 650 6067

duncan.cantor@sandoz.com Tara Lanigan

Sandoz Global Communications

+49 172 8295 276

tara.lanigan@sandoz.com





Chris Lewis

Sandoz Global Communications

+49 8024 476 1906

chris.lewis@sandoz.com

Novartis Investor Relations

Central investor relations line: +41 61 324 7944

E-mail: investor.relations@novartis.com
An Egyptian-American charity worker freed after nearly three years of detention in Egypt returned Thursday night to the United States, the White House said.

Aya Hijazi, 30, and her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, an Egyptian, arrived in the Washington area, said a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the case by name and requested anonymity.

Earlier this week a court acquitted Hijazi of charges of child abuse that were widely dismissed as bogus by human rights groups and U.S. officials. She and her husband had established a foundation to aid street children in 2013, but were arrested along with several others in 2014.

Her case was on the agenda when President Donald Trump met earlier this month with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Details of their arrival were first reported by The Washington Post. Their release and the freedom of four other humanitarian workers were negotiated by Trump and White House aides, and Trump sent a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring them home, the Post reported.

Hijazi, a dual national, was born in Egypt and grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, a Washington suburb. She received a degree in conflict resolution from George Mason University in 2009.
A man charged with fatally shooting his estranged wife and two other people during a string of shootings over two days in Maryland last year is expected to plead guilty to killing the two strangers.

Eulalio Tordil, 63, is due for a plea hearing Tuesday in court in Montgomery County. Court documents indicate he intends to take a guilty plea. The agreement is not considered final until a judge accepts the deal; Tordil still could back out.

"The defendant will make a full admission of guilt," court documents say.

Prosecutors say Tordil killed his estranged wife, 44-year-old Gladys Tordil, on May 5, in the parking lot of High Point High School in Prince George's County, where she was a chemistry teacher. He also shot and wounded a bystander who tried to help her, authorities said; that man survived.

The next day, authorities say Tordil shot and killed two strangers during apparent carjacking attempts in Montgomery County: Malcom Winffel, 45, and Claudina Molina, 65.

Winffel was fatally shot outside the Westfield Montgomery mall after he and another man went to help a woman whom police said the suspect was trying to carjack. Both men and the woman were shot; Winffel died and the other two victims survived.

"In an instant, the female victim cried out for help," Montgomery County Police Assistant Chief Russ Hamill said in the aftermath of the crime. "These two men acted selflessly and heroically, not only coming to her aid, but likely saving her life. These men are heroes. Malcom Winffel gave his life for somebody he doesn't know in order to protect her from a predator."

Later on the same afternoon as the mall shooting, Molina was shot and killed outside a Giant grocery store in a shopping center in Aspen Hill.

Her family said she was originally from Bolivia and accomplished the American dream, working 16 hours a day for the past 25 years, only to be killed while resisting what police believe was a second carjacking attempt by Tordil. Molina was a nursing assistant who planned to retire within a year.

The manhunt for the shooter spread fear throughout the D.C. area.

Tordil, a former officer with the Federal Protective Service, faces life in prison without parole.
Social media pages in Northern Virginia exploded Thursday with conversation about a claim that a local high school refused to hold an "American-themed spirit day" because it was too political.

"Our Founding Fathers are rolling around in their graves. Sad," one Facebook commenter wrote.

Mr. President @realDonaldTrump what are your thoughts on this? This isn't just 1 school in Loudoun, it is several HIgh Schools. #unpatriotic https://t.co/21BSlQZ314  Chuck Meyer (@Chuckmeyer1) April 21, 2017

But school administrators say they never refused to hold a day celebrating American patriotism; the student council simply chose different spirit days intended to boost morale before exams.

The uproar at Loudoun County High School in Leesburg, Virginia, began because of a misunderstanding, Loudoun County Public Schools spokesman Wayde Byard said.

"On social media this got totally out of control -- people jumping in with no knowledge of the situation, ascribing motives to the principal and others that simply weren't there," he said.

Student council members said they initially suggested holding a Freedom Friday, but the principal encouraged them to hold days they previously had not held.

A group of students who call themselves the Young Conservatives took to social media to accuse the principal of refusing to hold an American day.

"I believe the administration was a little bit too afraid that they might have offended somebody with American Day," said Conrad Briles, a member of the group.

Then, a senior at the high school, Daniel Eisert, wrote a letter published Thursday in the local newspaper LoudounNow saying members of the student council told him they "recently proposed to have an American-themed spirit day, but the school administration shot it down for being 'too political' and 'might cause bullying,'" he wrote.

"American patriotism should be fostered in our public schools rather than discouraged," he wrote.

He said via FaceTime on Friday that he was not trying to be divisive.

"I just wanted to show that being American is not a political thing and should not be," he said.

The school spokesman said the administration never rejected the suggestion to hold the spirit day.

"It was never turned down. It was never on the table," he said.

Members of the student council said they thought the backlash at school and on social media was unfounded and unfair.

"The potential for this to get crazy and out of proportion was really weighing on our minds. Someone could take a hold of this and make it a big story about how Loudoun County is unpatriotic, when that's completely false," student council member Kirby Howerter said.

In light of the controversy, the student council suggested declaring an impromptu "America Monday" spirit day on Monday, April 24. The principal approved the request.

"It will be a red, white and blue day, and we'll show our patriotism, just like we do on Veterans Day," Byard said.

The Young Conservatives said they were thrilled that students would wear red, white and blue on Monday. They said they make no apologies for their tactics.

News4 got a first-hand look this month at how misinformation spreads online at lightning speed. Digital journalist Andrea Swalec reported that no D.C. public school marching bands had applied to participate in the inaugural parade. Within 24 hours, blogs and Facebook groups falsely claimed that schools across the country had organized a boycott of the parade out of opposition to...
Prince George's County police are searching for a 72-year-old woman who was last seen nearly two weeks ago.

Helen Johnson was last seen in the 5600 block of Helmount Drive in Oxon Hill at 4 p.m. April 10. Police say she could be driving a gray 2004 Ford Taurus with Maryland license plate 4ALD25.

Johnson is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. She was last seen wearing a light-colored top and a long denim skirt.

Anyone with information about Johnson's whereabouts is asked to call 301-749-5064.
Olympic medal-winning track and field athlete Germaine Mason died Thursday in a motorcycle crash in outside the capital of his native Jamaica, police in the Caribbean island said.

Mason apparently lost control of his Honda motorcycle before dawn in St. Andrew Parish, the Jamaica Constabulary Force said in a statement. The 34-year-old athlete was taken to a local hospital but did not survive.

Authorities did not disclose a possible cause of the accident. The Gleaner newspaper in Jamaica reported on its website that several other athletes, including sprinter Usain Bolt, turned up at the accident scene immediately after crash, which occurred around 4:30 a.m.

Mason was born in Jamaica but represented Britain in the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. He won a silver medal in the high jump.

The news stunned Jamaica, a country that takes particular pride in its relatively large number of standout athletes in track and field. Prime Minister Andrew Holness expressed "sincere condolences to the entire sporting fraternity" in a message on Twitter.
Money that Congress approved last year to help states combat the opioid epidemic is heading to New England.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced the first year grant amounts from the 21st Century Cures Act for all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories. A total of $26,577,483 will be allocated to New England's six states. The act was originally signed into law by President Barack Obama and dispenses a total of $485 million in grants.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has been urging President Donald Trump's administration to revise the formula used to allocate the funding so it prioritizes states like New Hampshire that are hardest hit by the crisis. She says she's pleased officials have indicated that they will review the formula ahead of distribution next year.

In a press statement, Shaheen said, Time and again Ive heard from law enforcement and treatment and recovery providers across New Hampshire that in order to stem the tide of the opioid epidemic they need more resources."

Secretary of HHS, Tom Price said in a statement, "While I am releasing the funding for the first year immediately, my intention for the second year is to develop funding allocations and policies that are the most clinically sound, effective and efficient."

HHS has chosen to prioritize public health surveillance, advancing pain management, improving access to treatment and recover services, targeting availability and attribution of overdose-reversing drugs, and research.

Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health

According to a study by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), opioid-related deaths in the state were more than four times higher in 2015 than in 2000. More than half of all admissions to substance abuse treatment centers in MA are opioid-related. The fatal epidemic claimed an estimated 1,979 lives in 2016, according to DPH. The increase in deaths is staggering.

Individual state breakdowns for 21st Century Cures Act Funding:

Connecticut: $5,500,157

Massachusetts: $11,742,924

Maine: $2,039,029

New Hampshire: $3,128,366

Rhode Island: $2,167,007

Vermont: $2,000,000

Number of deaths increased in every New England state in 2016

Massachusetts: 1,979 opioid-related deaths

Rhode Island: 329 opioid-related deaths

Vermont: 105 opioid-related deaths

Connecticutt: 917 opioid-related deaths

Maine: 378 opioid-related deaths

New Hampshire: 478 opioid-related deaths

Numbers from Departments of Public Health
There will be no school Friday in one Vermont city after a series of threats and a supposed "murder list."

The superintendent for South Burlington schools announced late Thursday that the entire district will be shut down Friday, extending next week's spring vacation by a day.

Superintendent David Young said its to ensure student safety and comfort, and to support the South Burlington Police Department's ongoing investigation.

For three days in a row now, someone has emailed or phoned in a series of threats to the school, prompting lockdowns, early dismissals, and event cancellations.

Thursday, necn learned the mystery caller gave specific names of faculty members and students who were at risk of death.

In a phone recording to parents announcing Friday's school cancellation, Young said, "At times like these, we are sincerely grateful for the continued support from our community. When we face challenges together, we are all stronger. We hope families and staff will enjoy a well-deserved school break."

One of the threats emailed to the school warned of violent consequences if South Burlington changes its mascot from The Rebels, which the city is planning on doing.

Police warn making threats like this carries very serious punishments, and said earlier this week they are working hard to determine the origin of the threats.

"We have subpoenas out all over the place to follow these email chains," Det. Cpl. Ron Bliss of the South Burlington Police Department said Wednesday. "Hopefully we will get an answer that will give us some closure."

Last week, investigators said a threat in nearby Essex was a hoax that originated from out of state.

Despite that, South Burlington officials indicated the grave content of this week's threats meant they needed to be taken seriously.

Anyone with information on the series of school threats is asked to come forward. There is a recorded tip line at 802-846-4187. Champlain Valley Crime Stoppers can be reached at 1-800-427-TIPS, and anonymous texts can be sent to 844-848-8477. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through this web portal.

If a caller does not wish to remain anonymous, that caller can reach South Burlington Police at 802-846-4111.
A man accused of shooting two people on Easter Sunday in Lawrence, Massachusetts, leaving one dead, has been arrested in Texas.

Forty-year-old Aracelys Valdez Deleon of Lowell and an unidentified 25-year-old Lawrence man prosecutors called her companion were shot around 8 p.m. outside the La Cava nightclub. The man survived, but Valdez Deleon was pronounced dead after being airlifted to Lawrence General Hospital.

On Friday, the Essex County District Attorney's Office announced that 24-year-old Luis Rodriguez of Haverhill had been arrested overnight in Sulphur Springs, Texas.

Rodriguez faces charges including murder, assault and battery with a firearm and illegal firearm possession. He was ordered held without bail after being arraigned as a fugitive from justice at the Hopkins County Law Enforcement Facility in Texas.

According to the district attorney's office, Rodriguez has indicated that he will not waive extradition. The district attorney will seek a governor's warrant to enforce his return to Massachusetts, a process that can take as long as three months.

It was not immediately clear if Rodriguez had an attorney.
A Massachusetts man charged with randomly stabbing an employee at a Rhode Island Rite Aid pharmacy is being held on $100,000.

Police say Jacob Gallant, 41, of Westport, stabbed 18-year-old Alyssa Garcia at least eight times in March. She survived the attack.

He was arraigned in court Friday on charges of assault with intent to murder, according to affiliate WJAR.

Gallant was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.

Prosecutors argued for his bail to be set at $200,000.

It's not clear when Gallants next court appearance will be.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is calling for additional beds at the state psychiatric hospital as part of a larger effort to re-engineer New Hampshire's mental health system.

Sununu spoke to reporters Friday after touring the emergency department at Concord Hospital, which is frequently full of patients waiting to be admitted to New Hampshire Hospital for inpatient psychiatric care. On the busiest day - in February - 22 psychiatric patients were waiting for beds in a space designed for six.

Sununu said he's been working with lawmakers on a proposal that will be released next week to increase capacity at New Hampshire Hospital. Longer term, he wants to improve community-based services so fewer inpatient beds.
NEW YORK, April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Alzheimers Foundation of America (AFA), a national non-profit organization whose mission is to provide optimal care and services to individuals confronting dementia, and to their caregivers and families today announced the appointment of former Congressman, Steve Israel, to its Board of Directors.



Mr. Israel is an extremely dedicated and accomplished individual who shares our mission of spreading awareness and knowledge of Alzheimers disease and other dementia-related illnesses, said Bert E. Brodsky, executive chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Alzheimers Foundation of America. He has done remarkable work throughout his career as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and was instrumental in securing increased funding for Alzheimers research and care. We are proud to welcome him to our team and look forward to his contributions to our cause.

AFA believes that, by raising awareness of the disease, and educating healthcare professionals and the public at large, they will help remove the denial and fear surrounding Alzheimers disease, prompt greater utilization of community resources, help lead to early detection and proper treatment, and ultimately, improve quality of life.

After serving in Congress for 16 years, Steve, during his tenure in Congress, demonstrated a commitment to helping his constituents. He is a hard-working individual with strong leadership skills, said Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Alzheimers Foundation of America. He is devoted to our cause as he has a personal connection to the disease, and I am confident that he will continue to lead the charge to help all individuals with Alzheimers disease, and their families and caregivers, while helping us to spread awareness of this debilitating illness. I am honored to welcome him to our team.

An Oyster Bay, Long Island resident, the Hon. Steve Israel is Chairman of the Long Island University Global Institute and a university Writer-in-Residence. He was the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for four years, where he ran campaign ads in defense of his vote for health care legislation. At DCCC, he was the chief architect of House campaign strategies. He was lauded for recruiting and electing the most diverse and entrepreneurial freshman congressional class in history.

In Congress, I helped lead the fight for expanded investments in Alzheimers research. The disease not only threatens lives and imposes future costs on families, but also imposes significant costs on our long-term budgets, said Steve Israel. As a private citizen, I am privileged to continue this fight on the Board of Directors of the Alzheimers Foundation of America, and look forward to working to support families and caregivers, as well as initiatives that will end Alzheimers once and for all.

Israel is considered a leading expert in congressional dynamics. In fact, former President Bill Clinton called him one of the most thoughtful members of Congress. The New York Times commended his leadership in middle class issues. Foreign affairs called him a staunch hawk.

After the DCCC, Israel was elected to chair the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, where he served from 2015 to 2017. In this role, he led the research and development of strategic brand messaging and communications strategies.

Israel is considered an expert in national and global security issues and a leader on infrastructure. He is currently a strategic advisor to the Democratic Governors Association and Third Way. He serves on the Boards of Long Island University, the Truman National Security Project, the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and the Civil War Trust. He is also a political commentator on CNN.

Congressman Israel was instrumental in securing passage of funding for the Defense Department to research Alzheimers and potential links to brain injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Israel is also a critically acclaimed author. His novel, The Global War on Morris is a parody of Washington politics, published by Simon & Schuster. His second book Big Guns will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2018.

About Alzheimers Foundation of America (AFA):

The Alzheimers Foundation of America, based in New York, is a non-profit organization that unites more than 2,600 member organizations nationwide in the goal of providing optimal care and services to individuals living with dementia, and to their caregivers and families. Its services include a national, toll-free helpline (866-232-8484) staffed by licensed social workers, educational conferences and materials, a free quarterly magazine for caregivers, the National Memory Screening Program, and AFA Partners in Care dementia care training for healthcare professionals. For more information about AFA, call 866-232-8484, visit www.alzfdn.org, follow us on Twitter, or connect with us on Facebook or LinkedIn.


Church admits mistakes in priest sex abuse case Church admits mistakes in priest sex abuse case

The Catholic Church has admitted it should have taken more robust action against a former Norwich priest jailed for sexually abusing a vulnerable teenage boy at a childrens home almost 40 years ago.
Visitors to Wymondham Abbeys Christmas fair will be able to treat their children to a magic show and fun baking workshop while they browse more than 60 stalls.

Visitors to Wymondham Abbeys Christmas fair will be able to treat their children to a magic show and fun baking workshop while they browse more than 60 stalls.

Salvation Armys new Christmas Appeal in Norfolk The Salvation Army has launched their new Christmas appeal across Norfolk which, this year, has evolved from the much-loved Toys and Tins appeal. Read more

Are we storing up treasures on earth? Rising prices affect us all, and Anna Heydon urges us to spare a thought for those who will be struggling with the cost of living this winter. Read more

Latest Norfolk Christian community events Events of interest to the Norwich and Norfolk Christian community happening over the next few weeks are listed. Read more

Covid leaf memorial at Norwich church St Peter Mancroft Church Norwich Presents The Leaves of the Trees an installation by sculptor Peter Walker which provides a memorial for those who died of Covid-19 Read more

Community Chaplaincy Norfolk begins a new chapter Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) celebrated the beginning of a new chapter this week, as the new chair of trustees Chris Tomlinson led his first annual meeting. Read more

Lowestoft Christians launch on-line bible helps app The Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth branch of Good News for Everyone (GNFE), formerly the Gideons, have introduced a new mobile phone app called On-line Bible Helps. Read more

Addicts' rehabilitation centre plan for Drayton Hall Christian addiction charity Teen Challenge London is planning to turn Drayton Hall near Norwich into its headquarters and a rehabilitation centre for men, after it was gifted the freehold of the hall by its owner, the Lind Trust. Read more

The power of positive protest Philip Young encourages us to take a stand for what we believe, and has just written to Therese Coffey regarding climate change and the forthcoming COP 27. He explains why we should be prepared to protest. Read more

Norwich church celebrates with cribs and trees Rosebery Road Methodist Church in Norwich will be holding its annual Cribs and Trees Festival in December. Read more

Transforming Norwich lunch offers ministry tips Ex-Brighton vicar, Rev Phil Moon, will offer tips on how to keep going in ministry to the Transforming Norwich leaders lunch on Wednesday November 16. Read more

Quiet Waters in Bungay offers healing retreat Quiet Waters Christian Retreat in Bungay is holding a gentle day retreat exploring healing in the Kingdom of God. Read more

Norfolk ministry coaching duo are guest speakers Former church leaders and now freelance ministry coaches, Jonathan and Paige Squirrell, are the guest speakers at the next dinner of Norwich FGB on Monday, November 21. Read more

Bringing light to Halloween Anna Price encourages Christians to engage positively with Halloween rather than hide away, on what many see as the darkest night of the year. Read more

First service takes place at Norwich church site SOUL Church hosted around 400 people for a special service on the site of their new building on Heartsease Lane. Read more

Dereham draws up list of warm places for winter As rising energy prices make it harder to heat homes, churches in Dereham are leading the way in creating warm spaces where people can go. Read more

South Norfolk church scoops national award A medieval Anglican church in a tiny hamlet in South Norfolk has won a national award and a 10,000 boost. Read more

Dereham churches help people to help themselves A group of churches in Dereham have launched an ambitious project which aims to meet needs in the town, including the provision of food and skills training. Read more
Microsoft announced it intends to stick to a twice-per-year cadence of major releases for Windows 10 and Office. Along with that, it has updated the Office Online Server for data centers.

Office Online Server basically lets companies deliver Office Online to their users from their data centers rather than over the internet and from Microsofts servers. Microsoft introduced the Office Online Server (OOS) as a successor to Office Web Apps Server 2013.

+ Also on Network World: Microsoft ends updates for Windows 7/8.1 on new processors +

Office Online is not the same as Office 365. There are differences in the apps, although the core remains the same. One thing different is that Office Online doesnt use the ribbon in some apps. But the basicsWord, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNoteare all there. Outlook is available only through Outlook.com.

This is the second major update to the Office Online Server with improvements across the board, such as:

Performance improvements to co-authoring in PowerPoint Online

Equation viewing in Word Online

New navigation pane in Word Online

Improved undo/redo in Word Online

Enhanced W3C accessibility support for users who rely on assistive technologies

Accessibility checkers for all applications to ensure that all Office documents can be read and authored by people with different abilities

Office Online is available from the Volume License Servicing Center. Microsoft said that from now on, it will release an update to the server every four months to deliver more value to the users.

Microsoft Windows 10, Office 365 ProPlus to get regular updates

Other Microsoft products getting regular updates are Windows 10, Office 365 ProPlus and System Center Configuration Manager. The company made the announcement via a blog post that it would release major updates to the three products twice per year going forward.

The next Windows 10 feature update, known by the codename Redstone 3, is targeted for September 2017. Each Windows 10 feature release will be serviced and supported for 18 months, which is why Microsoft announced the end of support for the original release of Windows 10. Time to get those machines upgraded.

Keeping a promised cadence can be a challenge, as Intel learned with its tick/tock strategy. Then again, Intel was fighting the laws of physics, something Microsoft is not doing. Thus far, Microsoft has done a decent job keeping major releases on schedule for Windows 10, jettisoning features if they cant get them done on time rather than delaying the release. So, they will likely stick to this schedule. At least for the time being.
This is a joint press release by NN Group N.V. ('NN Group') and Delta Lloyd N.V. ('Delta Lloyd'), pursuant to the provisions of Section 4 Paragraph 3 and Section 17 Paragraph 4 of the Decree on Public Takeover Bids (Besluit Openbare Biedingen Wft) (the 'Decree') in connection with the recommended public offer by NN Group Bidco B.V., a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of NN Group (the 'Offeror'), for all the issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the capital of Delta Lloyd (the 'Shares'). This announcement does not constitute an offer, or any solicitation of any offer, to buy or subscribe for any securities. An offer is made only by means of the 'Offer Memorandum', dated 2 February 2017, and subject to the restrictions set forth therein. Terms not defined in this press release will have the meaning given thereto in the Offer Memorandum. This announcement is not for release, publication or distribution, in whole or in part, in or into, directly or indirectly, Canada or Japan or in any other jurisdiction in which such release, publication or distribution would be unlawful.

93.3% of the Delta Lloyd Shares committed after Post Closing Acceptance Period - Legal Merger preparations continue

Post Closing Acceptance Period ended on 21 April 2017 (at 17:40 hours CET)

13.4% of all issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the capital of Delta Lloyd tendered during the Post Closing Acceptance Period

Settlement of the Shares tendered during the Post Closing Acceptance Period will take place on 26 April 2017

Following settlement NN Group will (indirectly) hold 93.3% of the Shares, including the 79.9% of the Shares already held

NN Group, the Offeror and Delta Lloyd will continue the preparations of the Legal Merger of Delta Lloyd into the Offeror

Reference is made to the joint press release by NN Group and Delta Lloyd dated 2 February 2017 regarding the publication of the Offer Memorandum for the recommended public cash offer by the Offeror, to all holders of issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the capital of Delta Lloyd to acquire their Shares at a price of EUR 5.40 (cum dividend) in cash for each Share (the 'Offer'). Further reference is made to the joint press release dated 7 April 2017 on the results of the Offer Period and in which the Offer was declared unconditional and the post closing acceptance period (na-aanmeldingstermijn) relating to the Offer (the 'Post Closing Acceptance Period') was announced, and the joint press release dated 12 April 2017 regarding the settlement of the Shares tendered during the Offer Period.

Acceptance

NN Group and Delta Lloyd jointly announce that during the Post Closing Acceptance Period, which expired today 21 April 2017 at 17:40 hours CET, 61,025,175 Shares were tendered for acceptance at an Offer Price of EUR 5.40 (cum dividend) in cash per Share (the 'Offer Price'), representing approximately 13.4% of all Shares and an aggregate value of approximately EUR 330 million.

Together with the 364,044,985 Shares that were already held by the Offeror following settlement of the Shares tendered during the Offer Period, NN Group will (indirectly) hold 425,070,160 Shares, representing approximately (i) 93.3% of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the capital of Delta Lloyd, (ii) 91.3% of the aggregate number of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares and preference shares A in the capital of Delta Lloyd, and (iii) 90.2% of the aggregate number of the issued ordinary shares and preference shares A (i.e. including shares held by Delta Lloyd in its own share capital) in the capital of Delta Lloyd.

Settlement

Settlement of the Shares tendered during the Post Closing Acceptance Period, and payment of the Offer Price will take place on 26 April 2017.

Legal Merger

As the Offeror will hold 93.3% of the Shares following settlement of the Shares tendered during the Post Closing Acceptance Period, NN Group is entitled to pursue a triangular legal merger of Delta Lloyd into the Offeror, whereby remaining holders of Shares will receive listed ordinary shares in the capital of NN Group ('NN Group Shares') (the 'Legal Merger'). In exchange for each Share, the owner of such Share will receive a fraction of one NN Group Share equal to the Offer Price per Share divided by the NN Group stock price on the last day prior to the date on which the notarial deed to establish the Legal Merger is executed (the 'Exchange Ratio'). Any NN Group Shares to be allotted pursuant to the Legal Merger will not be repurchased.

The Delta Lloyd Executive Board and Delta Lloyd Supervisory Board have approved and consented to the Legal Merger and the Delta Lloyd general meeting has resolved to the Legal Merger on 29 March 2017. NN Group, the Offeror and Delta Lloyd will continue the preparations of the Legal Merger. Any further update will be provided if and when required. Reference is made to Section 6.11.5 (Pre-wired post-closing restructuring) of the Offer Memorandum.

Qualified Institutional Buyers

Any NN Group Share received pursuant to the Legal Merger have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 'U.S. Securities Act'), and therefore, may not be distributed, sold or transferred in the absence of registration or an exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act. Any holders of Shares located in the United States will be required to make certain representations, warranties and undertakings in respect of their status as "qualified institutional buyers" within the meaning of Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act (the 'QIB Confirmations'), in order to receive the NN Group Shares on completion of the Legal Merger.

If a beneficiary to Shares located in the United States is unable to make the QIB Confirmations on behalf of itself or the person on whose behalf such Shares are held, any NN Group Shares allotted to such person will instead be transferred to a nominee, and such NN Group Shares will be sold on his, her or its behalf with the proceeds being remitted to such person within five (5) days of the completion of the Legal Merger.

Delisting

Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels have confirmed to co-operate with the delisting of the Shares as per the same date as the completion of the Legal Merger. The last day that the Shares can be traded on Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels will be the last trading day prior to the completion of the Legal Merger.

Announcements

Any further announcements in relation to the Offer will be issued by press release and, to the extent required, made public in Belgium by means of a supplement to the Offer Memorandum, in accordance with Article 17 of the Belgian Law on public takeover bids of 1 April 2007. Any press release issued by NN Group will be made available on NN Group's website (www.nn-group.com) and any press release issued by Delta Lloyd will be made available on Delta Lloyd's website (www.deltalloyd.com). Subject to any applicable requirements of the applicable rules and without limiting the manner in which the Offeror may choose to make any public announcement, the Offeror will have no obligation to communicate any public announcement other than as described in the Offer Memorandum.

Offer Memorandum, Position Statement and further information

This announcement contains selected, condensed information regarding the Offer and does not replace the Offer Memorandum and/or the Position Statement. The information in this announcement is not complete and additional information is contained in the Offer Memorandum and the Position Statement dated 2 February 2017.

Digital copies of the Offer Memorandum are available on the websites of Delta Lloyd (www.deltalloyd.com) and NN Group (www.nn-group.com). Copies of the Offer Memorandum are also available free of charge at the offices of Delta Lloyd and the Settlement Agent at the addresses mentioned below. A digital copy of the Position Statement is available on the website of Delta Lloyd (www.deltalloyd.com).

Delta Lloyd

Delta Lloyd N.V.

Amstelplein 6

1096 BC Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Settlement Agent (ABN AMRO)

Gustav Mahlerlaan 10

P.O. Box 283

1000 EA Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Other

To the extent permissible under applicable law or regulation, NN Group or its brokers (acting as agents for NN Group) may from time to time after the date hereof, and other than pursuant to the Offer, directly or indirectly purchase, or arrange to purchase, ordinary shares in the capital of Delta Lloyd, that are the subject of the Offer. To the extent information about such purchases or arrangements to purchase is made public in the Netherlands, such information will be disclosed by means of a press release to inform shareholders of such information, which will be made available on the website of NN Group. In addition, financial advisors to NN Group may also engage in ordinary course trading activities in securities of Delta Lloyd, which may include purchases or arrangements to purchase such securities.

Press enquiries NN Group

Media Relations

+31 70 513 1918

mediarelations@nn-group.com Investor enquiries NN Group

Investor Relations

+31 88 663 5464

investor.relations@nn-group.com Press enquiries Delta Lloyd

Media Relations

+31 20 594 4488

mediarelations@deltalloyd.nl Investor enquiries Delta Lloyd

Investor Relations

+31 20 594 9693

ir@deltalloyd.nl

NN Group profile

NN Group is an international insurance and asset management company, active in 18 countries, with a strong presence in a number of European countries and Japan. With around 11,500 employees the group offers retirement services, insurance, investments and banking to more than 15 million customers. NN Group includes Nationale-Nederlanden, NN and NN Investment Partners. NN Group is listed on Euronext Amsterdam (NN).

Delta Lloyd profile

Delta Lloyd offers products and services in insurance, pensions, investment and banking, serving 4.2 million commercial and retail clients in The Netherlands and Belgium. Our four brands are Delta Lloyd, ABN AMRO Insurance, BeFrank and OHRA. Delta Lloyd is listed on Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels, and included in the DJSI World and DJSI Europe.

Notice to US holders of Shares

The Offer will be made for the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Delta Lloyd N.V., a public limited liability company incorporated under Dutch Law, and is subject to Dutch disclosure and procedural requirements, which are different from those of the United States. The Offer will be made in the United States in compliance with Section 14(e) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the 'U.S. Exchange Act') and Regulation 14E promulgated thereunder, and the exemptions therefrom provided by Rule 14d-1(d), and otherwise in accordance with the requirements of Dutch and Belgium law. Accordingly, the Offer will be subject to certain disclosure and other procedural requirements, including with respect to withdrawal rights, the Offer timetable and settlement procedures and timing of payments that are different from those applicable under U.S. domestic tender offer procedures and laws.

The receipt of cash pursuant to the Offer by a U.S. holder of Shares will generally be a taxable transaction for U.S. federal income tax purposes and may be a taxable transaction under applicable state and local, as well as foreign and other tax laws. Each holder of Shares is urged to consult his independent professional advisor immediately regarding the tax consequences of acceptance of the Offer.

It may be difficult for U.S. holders of Shares to enforce their rights and claims arising out of the U.S. federal securities laws, since the Offeror and Delta Lloyd are located in a country other than the United States, and some or all of their officers and directors may be residents of a country other than the United States. U.S. holders of Shares may not be able to sue a non-U.S. company or its officers or directors in a non-U.S. court for violations of the U.S. securities laws. Further, it may be difficult to compel a non-U.S. company and its affiliates to subject themselves to a U.S. court's judgment.

To the extent permissible under applicable law or regulation, including Rule 14e-5 of the U.S. Exchange Act, in accordance with normal Dutch practice, the Offeror and its Affiliates or brokers (acting as agents for the Offeror or its Affiliates, as applicable) may before or during the period in which the Offer remains open for acceptance, directly or indirectly, purchase, or arrange to purchase, Shares outside of the United States, from time to time, other than pursuant to the Offer. These purchases may occur either in the open market at prevailing prices or in private transactions at negotiated prices. In addition, the financial advisors to the Offeror may engage in ordinary course trading activities in securities of Delta Lloyd, which may include purchases or arrangements to purchase such securities. To the extent required in The Netherlands, any information about such purchases will be announced by press release in accordance with Article 13 of the Decree and posted on the website of NN Group at www.nn-group.com.

Restrictions

The distribution of this press release may, in some countries, be restricted by law or regulation. Accordingly, persons who come into possession of this document should inform themselves of and observe these restrictions. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, NN Group and Delta Lloyd disclaim any responsibility or liability for the violation of any such restrictions by any person. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of that jurisdiction. Neither NN Group, nor Delta Lloyd nor any of its advisors assumes any responsibility for any violation by any person of any of these restrictions. Any shareholder who is in any doubt as to its position should consult an appropriate professional advisor without delay. This announcement is not to be published or distributed in or to Canada or Japan or in any other jurisdiction in which such release, publication or distribution would be unlawful.

The information in the press release is not intended to be complete, for further information reference is made to the Offer Memorandum. This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer or an invitation to acquire or dispose of any securities or investment advice or an inducement to enter into investment activity. In addition, the Offer made pursuant to the Offer Memorandum is not being made in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities or other laws or regulations of such jurisdiction or would require any registration, approval or filing with any regulatory authority not expressly contemplated by the terms of the Offer Memorandum.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this press release may be considered "forward-looking statements", such as statements relating to the impact of the Offer on the Offeror, NN Group and Delta Lloyd and the expected timing and completion of the Offer. Forward-looking statements include those preceded by, followed by or that include the words may, anticipated, expected or similar expressions. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Each of the Offeror, NN Group and Delta Lloyd, and any of their respective Affiliates, each with respect to the statements it has provided, believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions. Nevertheless, no assurance can be given that such statements will be fulfilled or prove to be correct, and no representations are made as to the future accuracy and completeness of such statements. The forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the Offeror's, NN Group's and Delta Lloyd's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical experience or those results expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, (i) the risk that required regulatory approvals may delay the Offer or result in the imposition of conditions that could have a material adverse effect on the Combined Group or cause the Offeror, NN Group and Delta Lloyd to abandon the Offer, (ii) the risk that the Offer Conditions may not be satisfied, (iii) risks relating to NN Group's ability to successfully operate Delta Lloyd without disruption to its other business activities, which may result in the Combined Group not operating as effectively and efficiently as expected, (iv) the possibility that the Offer may involve unexpected costs, unexpected liabilities or unexpected delays, (v) the risk that the businesses of the Offeror, NN Group and Delta Lloyd may suffer as a result of uncertainty surrounding the Offer, (vi) the effects of competition (in particular the response to the Transaction in the marketplace) and competitive developments or risks inherent to NN Group's or Delta Lloyd's business plans, (vii) the risk that disruptions from the Transaction will harm relationships with customers, employees and suppliers, (viii) political, economic or legal changes in the markets and environments in which NN Group and/or Delta Lloyd does business, (ix) economic conditions in the global markets in which NN Group and Delta Lloyd operate, (x) uncertainties, risk and volatility in financial markets affecting the Offeror, NN Group and/or Delta Lloyd, and (xi) other factors that can be found in NN Group's and its subsidiaries' and Delta Lloyd's press releases and public filings.

Neither the Offeror, NN Group nor Delta Lloyd, nor any of their respective Affiliates and advisors, accepts any responsibility for any financial information contained in the Offer Memorandum relating to the business, results of operations or financial condition of the other or their respective groups. Each of the Offeror, NN Group and Delta Lloyd expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based except as required by applicable laws and regulations or by any competent regulatory authority.
M Rajendran By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The commerce ministry will soon present a strong case for movement of professionals from India to other countries, impacted by various restrictions due to new visa rules. A team of officials in the ministry is in the process of discussing the strategy and a draft is likely to be presented to minister Nirmala Sitharaman soon. As part of the process the commerce ministry officials are likely to soon hold a meeting with top information technology firms and other industries that have been impacted by the revised visa norms stipulated by the US and Australia.

A strategy is being developed to help Indian industry if they are impacted by the new visa rules. But, as of now, even Nasscom is saying there is no impact. So, we will discuss the matter internally before it is taken up at the ministers level, said a senior official in commerce ministry.



It is time that we had a global framework within which trade in services can happen. We will be actively pursuing our proposal in the WTO, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of an event, she said India respects other countries right to protect their interests but will not accept unfair treatment. She also said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is currently in the US, would also take up the matter with the US administration.

The draft will include the inputs from various other ministries so that the case is put up strongly at the bilateral and multilateral forums, said a commerce ministry official. The ministries that will be consulted include external affairs, finance, labour and health, the officials said, adding, A discussion with the commerce secretary is being scheduled during the next few days, depending on the availability of others.

NEW DELHI: The commerce ministry will soon present a strong case for movement of professionals from India to other countries, impacted by various restrictions due to new visa rules. A team of officials in the ministry is in the process of discussing the strategy and a draft is likely to be presented to minister Nirmala Sitharaman soon. As part of the process the commerce ministry officials are likely to soon hold a meeting with top information technology firms and other industries that have been impacted by the revised visa norms stipulated by the US and Australia. A strategy is being developed to help Indian industry if they are impacted by the new visa rules. But, as of now, even Nasscom is saying there is no impact. So, we will discuss the matter internally before it is taken up at the ministers level, said a senior official in commerce ministry. It is time that we had a global framework within which trade in services can happen. We will be actively pursuing our proposal in the WTO, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. Speaking on the sidelines of an event, she said India respects other countries right to protect their interests but will not accept unfair treatment. She also said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is currently in the US, would also take up the matter with the US administration. The draft will include the inputs from various other ministries so that the case is put up strongly at the bilateral and multilateral forums, said a commerce ministry official. The ministries that will be consulted include external affairs, finance, labour and health, the officials said, adding, A discussion with the commerce secretary is being scheduled during the next few days, depending on the availability of others.
BELLEVUE, Wash., April 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trilogy International Partners Inc. (TSX:TRL) (TIP Inc.) today announced that its subsidiaries, Trilogy International Partners LLC (Trilogy LLC) and Trilogy International Finance Inc. (the Co-Issuer and, together with Trilogy LLC, the Issuers), priced their private offering of US $350 million aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes (the Notes). The Notes will bear interest at a rate of 8.875% per annum, will be issued at 99.506% of their face value and mature in 2022.



The Notes will be guaranteed by certain of Trilogy LLCs US-domiciled subsidiaries. The Notes will be secured by (x) a first-priority lien on the equity interests of the Co-Issuer and the guarantors of the notes and (y) a pledge of any intercompany indebtedness owed to Trilogy LLC or any guarantor by Trilogy LLCs New Zealand subsidiary, Two Degrees Mobile Limited (2degrees) or any of 2degrees subsidiaries and certain third party indebtedness owed to Trilogy LLC by any minority shareholder in 2degrees.

The offering of the Notes is expected to close on May 2, 2017, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

The Issuers intend to apply the proceeds of this offering, together with cash on hand, to redeem all of their outstanding 13.375% senior secured notes due 2019 and pay fees and expenses related to this offering.

The Notes are being offered in a private offering exempt from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act). The Notes will be offered only to persons reasonably believed to be qualified institutional buyers in reliance on Rule 144A under the Securities Act, and outside the United States, only to non-U.S. investors pursuant to Regulation S. The Notes will not be registered under the Securities Act or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent an effective registration statement or an applicable exemption from, or a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the Notes, nor does it constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful. Any offer of the Notes will be made only by means of a private offering memorandum.

Cautionary Statements

This News Release contains forward-looking information and forward looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Statements contained herein that are not based on historical or current fact, including without limitation statements containing the words anticipates, believes, may, continues, estimates, expects, and will and words of similar import, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking information may include, but is not limited to, the proposed offering, the terms of the Notes and the anticipated use of proceeds. Wherever possible, words such as plans, expects, projects, assumes, budget, strategy, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, anticipates, believes, intends, targets and similar expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative forms of any of these terms and similar expressions, have been used to identify forward-looking statements and information. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks relating to the need to satisfy the conditions set forth in the purchase agreement for the Notes, the need to satisfy regulatory and legal requirements with respect to the offering and those risks identified in TIP Inc.s Annual Information Form dated March 27, 2017 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and in the United States on Form 40-F through EDGAR at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Forward-looking information is based on the expectations and opinions of TIP Inc.s management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise. We do not assume any obligation to update forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by applicable law. For the reasons set forth above, prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

About Trilogy International Partners Inc.

Trilogy International Partners Inc. (TSX:TRL) is the parent company of Trilogy International Partners LLC, a wireless telecommunications operator formed by wireless industry pioneers John Stanton, Theresa Gillespie and Brad Horwitz. Trilogy's founders have an exceptional track record of successfully buying, building, launching and operating communication businesses in 15 international markets.

Trilogy currently provides wireless communications services through its operating subsidiaries in New Zealand and Bolivia. Its head office is located at 155 108th Avenue NE, Suite 400, Bellevue, Washington, 98004 USA.

For more information, visit www.trilogy-international.com.
By Reuters

SINGAPORE/LONDON: The jury is still out over whether an OPEC-led production cut aimed at tightening oil markets is working, or if the producer club has simply enabled higher prices without making much of a dent in the global fuel supply overhang.

Analysts say there are early indications that at least some inventories, key in gauging the health of the market, are starting to draw down.Analysts say there are early indications that at least some inventories, key in gauging the health of the market, are starting to draw down.

However, inventory levels are hard to judge outside of the United States, as many countries do not release specific figures. Oil shipments show an ongoing excess, while price activity in oil futures suggests sagging optimism the imbalance is being corrected.

Over two years into a 50 percent price slump, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and some other producers, including Russia, pledged to cut production by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) during the first half of the year.

But more oil than ever is currently traversing the world's oceans. Thomson Reuters Eikon data shows global crude shipments, which monitor tanker movements but exclude pipeline flows, hit a record 47.8 million bpd in April, up 5.8 percent since December, before cuts were implemented.

This is in part due to a jump in production and exports from producers who did not agree to cuts, especially the United States.

"OPEC seems more like a magician who is keeping the audience's attention fixed firmly on his hands (its production policy) while the actual trick takes place elsewhere (non-OPEC supply)," said Carsten Fritsch, oil analyst with Commerzbank.

U.S. production is soaring, jumping by almost 10 percent since mid-2016 to 9.25 million bpd. This brings its output close to the world's top two producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Futures prices suggest skepticism the market is rebalancing. Early this year the forward curve for Brent crude futures moved from contango, in which future prices are more expensive than those for immediate delivery, to flat or even briefly into backwardation, suggesting a balancing in prompt markets. This has since reversed sharply.

If they're (OPEC) so busy complying, how come we're taking so much extra inventory? Why is the whole curve in free-fall when supplies are supposedly tightening? said Robert Yawger, energy futures strategist at Mizuho Americas.

COUNTING BARRELS

To fully determine the state of oversupply, looking at storage levels is key, but it is not easy. U.S. inventories remain bloated, but outside the United States, it is notoriously difficult to reliably count stored barrels.

There are some signs these harder-to-track inventories are easing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said crude in less-visible places, such as barrels outside the developed world and those in floating storage, decreased in the first quarter.

But IEA data on the 35 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries paints a more bearish picture. OECD stocks fell by 17.2 million barrels in March, but since the OPEC-led cut started at the beginning of the year, inventories are up by 38.5 million barrels.

"If stocks are still rising strongly, you've still got an oversupplied situation," said Jamie Webster, a fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

"It doesnt make sense for OPEC to pat itself on the back for strong compliance. Thats what they agreed to, not what the impact is."

Some of the oil sloshing around the world could also have been taken out of OPEC's own storage to meet customer demand despite cuts. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday in an interview with the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper that supplies remained elevated in part because traders were selling oil out of tanker storage.

Russia has also been boosting oil exports, despite cuts under the deal.

Millions of barrels of Nigerian oil stored in South Africa's Saldanha Bay have been sold in recent weeks, and more are scheduled to leave in May.

In Asia, the world's fastest growing consumption region, many countries, especially China, treat inventory data as strategically sensitive. But trade flows around Singapore, a key way station for virtually all tankers from Europe and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, are a bellwether.

There has been a noticeable drop in crude storage around Singapore this year, although some cautioned these barrels will be quickly replaced by incoming cargoes from the United States and Latin America.

SINGAPORE/LONDON: The jury is still out over whether an OPEC-led production cut aimed at tightening oil markets is working, or if the producer club has simply enabled higher prices without making much of a dent in the global fuel supply overhang. Analysts say there are early indications that at least some inventories, key in gauging the health of the market, are starting to draw down.Analysts say there are early indications that at least some inventories, key in gauging the health of the market, are starting to draw down. However, inventory levels are hard to judge outside of the United States, as many countries do not release specific figures. Oil shipments show an ongoing excess, while price activity in oil futures suggests sagging optimism the imbalance is being corrected. Over two years into a 50 percent price slump, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and some other producers, including Russia, pledged to cut production by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) during the first half of the year. But more oil than ever is currently traversing the world's oceans. Thomson Reuters Eikon data shows global crude shipments, which monitor tanker movements but exclude pipeline flows, hit a record 47.8 million bpd in April, up 5.8 percent since December, before cuts were implemented. This is in part due to a jump in production and exports from producers who did not agree to cuts, especially the United States. "OPEC seems more like a magician who is keeping the audience's attention fixed firmly on his hands (its production policy) while the actual trick takes place elsewhere (non-OPEC supply)," said Carsten Fritsch, oil analyst with Commerzbank. U.S. production is soaring, jumping by almost 10 percent since mid-2016 to 9.25 million bpd. This brings its output close to the world's top two producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Futures prices suggest skepticism the market is rebalancing. Early this year the forward curve for Brent crude futures moved from contango, in which future prices are more expensive than those for immediate delivery, to flat or even briefly into backwardation, suggesting a balancing in prompt markets. This has since reversed sharply. If they're (OPEC) so busy complying, how come we're taking so much extra inventory? Why is the whole curve in free-fall when supplies are supposedly tightening? said Robert Yawger, energy futures strategist at Mizuho Americas. COUNTING BARRELS To fully determine the state of oversupply, looking at storage levels is key, but it is not easy. U.S. inventories remain bloated, but outside the United States, it is notoriously difficult to reliably count stored barrels. There are some signs these harder-to-track inventories are easing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said crude in less-visible places, such as barrels outside the developed world and those in floating storage, decreased in the first quarter. But IEA data on the 35 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries paints a more bearish picture. OECD stocks fell by 17.2 million barrels in March, but since the OPEC-led cut started at the beginning of the year, inventories are up by 38.5 million barrels. "If stocks are still rising strongly, you've still got an oversupplied situation," said Jamie Webster, a fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. "It doesnt make sense for OPEC to pat itself on the back for strong compliance. Thats what they agreed to, not what the impact is." Some of the oil sloshing around the world could also have been taken out of OPEC's own storage to meet customer demand despite cuts. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday in an interview with the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper that supplies remained elevated in part because traders were selling oil out of tanker storage. Russia has also been boosting oil exports, despite cuts under the deal. Millions of barrels of Nigerian oil stored in South Africa's Saldanha Bay have been sold in recent weeks, and more are scheduled to leave in May. In Asia, the world's fastest growing consumption region, many countries, especially China, treat inventory data as strategically sensitive. But trade flows around Singapore, a key way station for virtually all tankers from Europe and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, are a bellwether. There has been a noticeable drop in crude storage around Singapore this year, although some cautioned these barrels will be quickly replaced by incoming cargoes from the United States and Latin America.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI:Automotive giant Rolls-Royce on Thursday opened a facility in Bengaluru that will provide support to the over 750 Rolls-Royce engines that power Indian military aircraft, providing repair and service to those that urgently require it.

The Defence Service Delivery Centre (SDC) in Bengaluru will provide the India armed services with fleet management, services engineering and supply chain co-ordination. It will also be the base from which Field Service Representatives can be rapidly dispatched to frontline bases, subject to contract coverage, to provide on-ground technical support.

According to Rolls-Royce, the centre will increase serviceability of engines that power aircraft in service with the IAF, navy and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

These include the Adour, which powers the Hawk advanced jet trainer and the Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft.

The overriding goal is to improve availability of engines-on-the-wing through a step change improvement of in-country responsiveness for current fleets as well as for future Defence programmes, said a Rolls-Royce spokesperson.

CHENNAI:Automotive giant Rolls-Royce on Thursday opened a facility in Bengaluru that will provide support to the over 750 Rolls-Royce engines that power Indian military aircraft, providing repair and service to those that urgently require it. The Defence Service Delivery Centre (SDC) in Bengaluru will provide the India armed services with fleet management, services engineering and supply chain co-ordination. It will also be the base from which Field Service Representatives can be rapidly dispatched to frontline bases, subject to contract coverage, to provide on-ground technical support. According to Rolls-Royce, the centre will increase serviceability of engines that power aircraft in service with the IAF, navy and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). These include the Adour, which powers the Hawk advanced jet trainer and the Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft. The overriding goal is to improve availability of engines-on-the-wing through a step change improvement of in-country responsiveness for current fleets as well as for future Defence programmes, said a Rolls-Royce spokesperson.
C Shivakumar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: It was around 5:30 am when Asifa, who was offering Namaz, found slurry and foam engulfing her rented apartment on the ground floor in Muthai Street, Washermanpet.

Fearing something strange, she let out a shriek. The slurry and foam entered our house and, with the owners help, we rushed Asifa out. She was unable to move freely due to pregnancy, recalled Taj Sharif, her sister.

The slurry and foam, that sparked a panic in the household, is nothing but a mixture of bentonite and water used for constructing the tunnel for the underground stretch of the Chennai Metro. Bentonite is a range of clay minerals  potassium, calcium and sodium montmorillonite.

The mixture from the underground tunnel escaped out as one of the borewells in the residential complex was not plugged. The cavity resulted in a leak of pressure generated by the tunnel boring machine at work 18 metres below, said a Metro Rail spokesperson.

The owner had informed us about two borewells and they were plugged but information on the third borewell was withheld by the house-owner during instrumentation and monitoring carried out by Chennai Metro Rail, the spokesperson added.

Residents clear residue at home

| P Jawahar

Our apartment was engulfed by slurry that was four feet deep. Our clothes and other valuables including the washing machine and fridge was damaged, said Taj while hitting out at Chennai Metro for failing to plug the borewell. Last week, a similar incident happened. They should have double checked to ensure such a thing does not happen, said Taj.

House owner Mohammed Yousuf denied the allegations that he had withheld information about the third borewell. I had informed Metro Rail about the two borewells. Metro Rail officials did not take any measure to close it, he alleged.

Taj has sought compensation for the damages caused to the fridge and washing machine as well as clothes and furniture.

The mistake is on their part. They have to compensate us, said the tenant. But Chennai Metro has ruled out any form of compensation.

The owner withheld the information. The mistake is on his part, said the spokesperson.

CHENNAI: It was around 5:30 am when Asifa, who was offering Namaz, found slurry and foam engulfing her rented apartment on the ground floor in Muthai Street, Washermanpet. Fearing something strange, she let out a shriek. The slurry and foam entered our house and, with the owners help, we rushed Asifa out. She was unable to move freely due to pregnancy, recalled Taj Sharif, her sister. The slurry and foam, that sparked a panic in the household, is nothing but a mixture of bentonite and water used for constructing the tunnel for the underground stretch of the Chennai Metro. Bentonite is a range of clay minerals  potassium, calcium and sodium montmorillonite. The mixture from the underground tunnel escaped out as one of the borewells in the residential complex was not plugged. The cavity resulted in a leak of pressure generated by the tunnel boring machine at work 18 metres below, said a Metro Rail spokesperson. The owner had informed us about two borewells and they were plugged but information on the third borewell was withheld by the house-owner during instrumentation and monitoring carried out by Chennai Metro Rail, the spokesperson added. Residents clear residue at home | P JawaharOur apartment was engulfed by slurry that was four feet deep. Our clothes and other valuables including the washing machine and fridge was damaged, said Taj while hitting out at Chennai Metro for failing to plug the borewell. Last week, a similar incident happened. They should have double checked to ensure such a thing does not happen, said Taj. House owner Mohammed Yousuf denied the allegations that he had withheld information about the third borewell. I had informed Metro Rail about the two borewells. Metro Rail officials did not take any measure to close it, he alleged. Taj has sought compensation for the damages caused to the fridge and washing machine as well as clothes and furniture. The mistake is on their part. They have to compensate us, said the tenant. But Chennai Metro has ruled out any form of compensation. The owner withheld the information. The mistake is on his part, said the spokesperson.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said it was not inclined to go into the issue, as the Supreme Court was already seized of the triple talaq matter relating to changes in the Muslim personal law. It said there was no dispute that a constitution bench has been formed to hear the issue. So, the law laid down by it will be applicable to all women and children of the society.

The high court also said that "all women are entitled to equal protection under the law." "In view of this (Supreme Court being seized of the issue), we are not inclined to hear the issue. The petition is dismissed," the bench said.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla had highlighted the plight of Hindu women affected by triple talaq. It had sought directions to the Centre to make registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter- caste marriage is not registered.

A constitution bench of the Supreme Court will be hearing from May 11, a batch of petitions challenging the practice of triple talaq and polygamy as unconstitutional and discriminatory towards women. Muslim practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy are issues that are "very important" and involve "sentiments", the apex court had observed earlier.

The PIL had claimed that since the 'nikahnaama' (marriage contract) is written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions relating to triple 'talaq' or polygamy. The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the 'nikahnaama' pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, the petitioner had urged the court.

"Issue direction that in marriage of Hindu girl with a Muslim boy, provision of triple talaq by husband or plural marriage by men will not apply," the plea had said.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said it was not inclined to go into the issue, as the Supreme Court was already seized of the triple talaq matter relating to changes in the Muslim personal law. It said there was no dispute that a constitution bench has been formed to hear the issue. So, the law laid down by it will be applicable to all women and children of the society. The high court also said that "all women are entitled to equal protection under the law." "In view of this (Supreme Court being seized of the issue), we are not inclined to hear the issue. The petition is dismissed," the bench said. The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla had highlighted the plight of Hindu women affected by triple talaq. It had sought directions to the Centre to make registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter- caste marriage is not registered. A constitution bench of the Supreme Court will be hearing from May 11, a batch of petitions challenging the practice of triple talaq and polygamy as unconstitutional and discriminatory towards women. Muslim practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy are issues that are "very important" and involve "sentiments", the apex court had observed earlier. The PIL had claimed that since the 'nikahnaama' (marriage contract) is written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions relating to triple 'talaq' or polygamy. The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the 'nikahnaama' pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, the petitioner had urged the court. "Issue direction that in marriage of Hindu girl with a Muslim boy, provision of triple talaq by husband or plural marriage by men will not apply," the plea had said.
Daniel Thimmayya By

Express News Service

Director: Ding Sheng

Cast: Jackie Chan, Fan Xu, Wang-Da Lu, Alan Ng

Rating: 3/5

Somewhere between silly and satirical. That's where the bar lies for Jackie Chan's Railroad Tigers. Playing in India almost five months after its original Chinese release, Railroad Tigers is a fun ride - one that you can't help but laugh along with, especially if you're the kind of person who enjoyed all those dubbed Chinese films that used to play on TV back in the day.

Packed with gags, ridiculously exaggerated stunt sequences and characters that have a knack of making you laugh even they're doing a serious scene, Railroad Tigers chugs along happily with only a couple of song sequences that mar the flow.

Chan, who for some odd reason looks younger and happier in Chinese films, plays Ma Yuang, a railroad docker who moonlights as a rail robber along with a ragtag bunch. Their only targets are the Japanese soldiers who have occupied East China and have executed several people in the region, including Chan's wife.

After a chance encounter with a wounded soldier on a mission to blow up a crucial bridge, a move that will give the Chinese Army a huge tactical advantage, they decide to go from robbing soldiers to blowing up a bridge. The only people in their way are a weirdly stiff lady Japanese military officer and a violent, yet funny as nuts, a colonel who terrorises his troops.

Chan and company schmooze, shimmy, jump, scam and scamper their way towards the bridge with a load of explosives.

After a series of films that were a less-than-hollow stab at recreating Jackie Chan's bygone Hollywood magic, Railroad Tigers is a refreshing film. Not a particularly great one - but eminently watchable at the very least.

Director: Ding Sheng Cast: Jackie Chan, Fan Xu, Wang-Da Lu, Alan Ng Rating: 3/5 Somewhere between silly and satirical. That's where the bar lies for Jackie Chan's Railroad Tigers. Playing in India almost five months after its original Chinese release, Railroad Tigers is a fun ride - one that you can't help but laugh along with, especially if you're the kind of person who enjoyed all those dubbed Chinese films that used to play on TV back in the day. Packed with gags, ridiculously exaggerated stunt sequences and characters that have a knack of making you laugh even they're doing a serious scene, Railroad Tigers chugs along happily with only a couple of song sequences that mar the flow. Chan, who for some odd reason looks younger and happier in Chinese films, plays Ma Yuang, a railroad docker who moonlights as a rail robber along with a ragtag bunch. Their only targets are the Japanese soldiers who have occupied East China and have executed several people in the region, including Chan's wife. After a chance encounter with a wounded soldier on a mission to blow up a crucial bridge, a move that will give the Chinese Army a huge tactical advantage, they decide to go from robbing soldiers to blowing up a bridge. The only people in their way are a weirdly stiff lady Japanese military officer and a violent, yet funny as nuts, a colonel who terrorises his troops. Chan and company schmooze, shimmy, jump, scam and scamper their way towards the bridge with a load of explosives. After a series of films that were a less-than-hollow stab at recreating Jackie Chan's bygone Hollywood magic, Railroad Tigers is a refreshing film. Not a particularly great one - but eminently watchable at the very least.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Yogita Rana, IAS , is an alumna of Jammu Medical College and opted for Indian Administrative Service in 2003 , born in Telangana cadre was given award of best Civil Servant by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 11th Civil Services Day event organized in National Capital. Yogita Rana, became the only IAS officer to win three award since 2016, as she got Best District Collector award of Government of Telangana in 2016 in recognition of her excellent work in "Haritha Haaram" - A flagship program of state Government to increase green cover to 33 % in Telangana while bagging the national award from Ministry of Rural Development for her excellent work in implementation of MGNREGA in Nizamabad District in 2016.

Describing this day as one of rededication, the Prime Minister said that civil servants are well aware of their strengths and capabilities, challenges and responsibilities. He urged the civil servants to be more decisive and assured them to stand behind the officer taking decisions in the public interest and this should be their touchstone for taking decision. And he also asked civil servants to have out-of-the-box thinking to bring solutions to problems faced by people.

If a decision is taken with honest intention, truthfulness and for the welfare of public then there is nobody in the world who can raise fingers at you. Something momentary may happen but I am with you," PM said, which was applauded by hundreds of civil servants attending the event, while asking the civil servants to weigh their decisions from an outcome point of view and not on output.

But, several bureaucrats blamed three Cs -- the CAG, CBI and the CVC  as stumbling blocks in decision-making, ultimately resulting in policy paralysis and PMs statement of fearless decision gained significance in the backdrop.

Asking for the need to revamp the mindset and style of working, the Prime Minister said "there is a burden of hierarchy culture" that had been going on since the British rule. "If seniors/superiors feel that new entrants are doing good work and it is intimidating them, this is the pressure of hierarchy culture," he said.

While commenting on political will, PM said that he has got a bit extra political will to carry out reforms and asked bureaucrats to break silos and work together as a team to perform and transform the country.

Modi said political will can reform, but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms.

"We have to bring them on one wavelength and when we run these three (political will, performance by bureaucracy and public participation) on one wavelength, then we get good results," he said.

Modi said political will is needed to reform. "I do not lack it and may be having a bit extra," the Prime Minister said.

"We will neither be able to see any change, nor any change would come in the country. But if we see things from 'CAG+1' then there would be changes," the Prime Minister said, referring to outcome- and output- based decision-making in the government.

"It will be good if you change your working style and way of your thinking. If you come out of the role of being regulator and act as enabling entity, then challenges would convert into opportunities," Modi said.

Emphasing the importance of competition to bring qualitative change, PM said that the sooner the attitude of government can change from regulator to enabler, the faster this challenge of competition will become an opportunity. He also that while the absence of government in a sphere of activity should be perceptible, its presence in a sphere of activity should not become a burden. He asked civil servants to strive towards such arrangements.

He said hierarchy in the bureaucracy remains an issue which has been inherited from colonial rulers and "was not left behind in Mussoorie (where the civil service academy is located)".

"What is the reason? We must introspect and if we do that, then I don't feel we need big changes (in changing people's perception)," Modi said.

Narendra Modi said that anonymity is one of the greatest strengths of the civil services. He cautioned officers that the use of social media should not lead to a decline in this strength, even as social media and mobile governance are leveraged for connecting people to benefits and government schemes.

Modi said bureaucrats do not need to work in silos, but work together as a team. He said it is a matter of concern when he sees two departments of the same government having divergent views in courts over some matters.

"On this day, we need to think that do we accept our weakness or somebody running away from his responsibilities? Or some ego is coming in way? It should be a matter of introspection on this Civil Services Day. These are handicaps in meeting the needs of common people," he said, asking the bureaucrats to take responsibilities for works being done by them. The Prime Minister said civil servants need to take a vow to make India as per the dreams of freedom fighters by 2022.

Making a light comment on the banning the use of mobile phones in meetings after observing many of the bureaucrats were constantly using their phones, PM said "These days... I see district officials so busy, busy, busy (with their mobiles)...so I banned mobiles in meetings," he said. "People have moved from e-governance to mobile governance, it is a reality today."

NEW DELHI: Yogita Rana, IAS , is an alumna of Jammu Medical College and opted for Indian Administrative Service in 2003 , born in Telangana cadre was given award of best Civil Servant by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 11th Civil Services Day event organized in National Capital. Yogita Rana, became the only IAS officer to win three award since 2016, as she got Best District Collector award of Government of Telangana in 2016 in recognition of her excellent work in "Haritha Haaram" - A flagship program of state Government to increase green cover to 33 % in Telangana while bagging the national award from Ministry of Rural Development for her excellent work in implementation of MGNREGA in Nizamabad District in 2016. Describing this day as one of rededication, the Prime Minister said that civil servants are well aware of their strengths and capabilities, challenges and responsibilities. He urged the civil servants to be more decisive and assured them to stand behind the officer taking decisions in the public interest and this should be their touchstone for taking decision. And he also asked civil servants to have out-of-the-box thinking to bring solutions to problems faced by people. If a decision is taken with honest intention, truthfulness and for the welfare of public then there is nobody in the world who can raise fingers at you. Something momentary may happen but I am with you," PM said, which was applauded by hundreds of civil servants attending the event, while asking the civil servants to weigh their decisions from an outcome point of view and not on output. But, several bureaucrats blamed three Cs -- the CAG, CBI and the CVC  as stumbling blocks in decision-making, ultimately resulting in policy paralysis and PMs statement of fearless decision gained significance in the backdrop. Asking for the need to revamp the mindset and style of working, the Prime Minister said "there is a burden of hierarchy culture" that had been going on since the British rule. "If seniors/superiors feel that new entrants are doing good work and it is intimidating them, this is the pressure of hierarchy culture," he said. While commenting on political will, PM said that he has got a bit extra political will to carry out reforms and asked bureaucrats to break silos and work together as a team to perform and transform the country. Modi said political will can reform, but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms. "We have to bring them on one wavelength and when we run these three (political will, performance by bureaucracy and public participation) on one wavelength, then we get good results," he said. Modi said political will is needed to reform. "I do not lack it and may be having a bit extra," the Prime Minister said. "We will neither be able to see any change, nor any change would come in the country. But if we see things from 'CAG+1' then there would be changes," the Prime Minister said, referring to outcome- and output- based decision-making in the government. "It will be good if you change your working style and way of your thinking. If you come out of the role of being regulator and act as enabling entity, then challenges would convert into opportunities," Modi said. Emphasing the importance of competition to bring qualitative change, PM said that the sooner the attitude of government can change from regulator to enabler, the faster this challenge of competition will become an opportunity. He also that while the absence of government in a sphere of activity should be perceptible, its presence in a sphere of activity should not become a burden. He asked civil servants to strive towards such arrangements. He said hierarchy in the bureaucracy remains an issue which has been inherited from colonial rulers and "was not left behind in Mussoorie (where the civil service academy is located)". "What is the reason? We must introspect and if we do that, then I don't feel we need big changes (in changing people's perception)," Modi said. Narendra Modi said that anonymity is one of the greatest strengths of the civil services. He cautioned officers that the use of social media should not lead to a decline in this strength, even as social media and mobile governance are leveraged for connecting people to benefits and government schemes. Modi said bureaucrats do not need to work in silos, but work together as a team. He said it is a matter of concern when he sees two departments of the same government having divergent views in courts over some matters. "On this day, we need to think that do we accept our weakness or somebody running away from his responsibilities? Or some ego is coming in way? It should be a matter of introspection on this Civil Services Day. These are handicaps in meeting the needs of common people," he said, asking the bureaucrats to take responsibilities for works being done by them. The Prime Minister said civil servants need to take a vow to make India as per the dreams of freedom fighters by 2022. Making a light comment on the banning the use of mobile phones in meetings after observing many of the bureaucrats were constantly using their phones, PM said "These days... I see district officials so busy, busy, busy (with their mobiles)...so I banned mobiles in meetings," he said. "People have moved from e-governance to mobile governance, it is a reality today."
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: The PDP-BJP Coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir has identified 90 acres of land in Kashmir for setting up over 3400 transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandits.

The J&K government has identified about 90 acres of land in seven districts of Kashmir for setting 3440 transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, a report prepared by Union Ministry of Home Affairs has revealed.

It further disclosed that the PDP-BJP government in the State has issued authoritisation to the executing agency for construction of 400 transit accommodations in Valley for the migrant Pandits.

Sources said the transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandits are likely to be set up in Central, North and South Kashmir.

The Pandits migrated enmasse from Kashmir after militancy erupted in 1989. The migrated Pandit families are living in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country.

According to MHA report, at present, there are about 62,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families including Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in the country.

Of the 41462 Kashmiri migrant families living in Jammu province, 37347 families belong to Hindus including Kashmiri Pandits, 2252 are Muslim families and 1758 are Sikh families.

About 20,000 Kashmiri migrant families are living in Delhi/NCR and about 2000 families settled in other states.

The MHA report stated that constructing over 3400 transit accommodations in Valley for migrant Pandits is in addition to 505 transit accommodations already constructed in Kashmir.

These transit accommodations have come up in Sheikhpora in Central Kashmirs Budgam district and Mattan and Haal in South Kashmir.

The central government had in November 2015 approved employment package for the migrant KP youth willing to perform their duties in the Valley.

As per the package, about 3000 state government jobs would be provided to the migrant Kashmiri Pandits. The J&K government is implementing the package. So far the State Government has identified 3000 posts in 16 different departments and recruitment process is likely to be started soon, reveals the MHA report.

In 2008, the central government had announced relief package for migrant Pandits for their return and rehabilitation to Kashmir.

The relief package had provision of 6000 state government jobs (3000 jobs with Central funding and 3000 jobs with State funding), financial assistance for purchase / construction of houses, construction of transit accommodations, continuation of cash relief to migrants, scholarship to students, assistance for self-employment, assistance to the agriculturists and the horticulturist, waiver of interest on unpaid loan, etc.

As per MHA report, so far the J&K government jobs have been provided to 1917 migrant Pandit youth.

It further disclosed that two migrant Pandit families have availed financial assistance for construction of houses in the Valley.

The Central government had announced assistance of Rs 7.5 lakhs to Pandit families willing to reconstruct their damages homes in the Valley.

The government is providing cash relief of Rs 10,000 to migrant Pandit family living in Jammu. Besides it also provides ration to the migrant families.

SRINAGAR: The PDP-BJP Coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir has identified 90 acres of land in Kashmir for setting up over 3400 transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandits. The J&K government has identified about 90 acres of land in seven districts of Kashmir for setting 3440 transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, a report prepared by Union Ministry of Home Affairs has revealed. It further disclosed that the PDP-BJP government in the State has issued authoritisation to the executing agency for construction of 400 transit accommodations in Valley for the migrant Pandits. Sources said the transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandits are likely to be set up in Central, North and South Kashmir. The Pandits migrated enmasse from Kashmir after militancy erupted in 1989. The migrated Pandit families are living in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country. According to MHA report, at present, there are about 62,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families including Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in the country. Of the 41462 Kashmiri migrant families living in Jammu province, 37347 families belong to Hindus including Kashmiri Pandits, 2252 are Muslim families and 1758 are Sikh families. About 20,000 Kashmiri migrant families are living in Delhi/NCR and about 2000 families settled in other states. The MHA report stated that constructing over 3400 transit accommodations in Valley for migrant Pandits is in addition to 505 transit accommodations already constructed in Kashmir. These transit accommodations have come up in Sheikhpora in Central Kashmirs Budgam district and Mattan and Haal in South Kashmir. The central government had in November 2015 approved employment package for the migrant KP youth willing to perform their duties in the Valley. As per the package, about 3000 state government jobs would be provided to the migrant Kashmiri Pandits. The J&K government is implementing the package. So far the State Government has identified 3000 posts in 16 different departments and recruitment process is likely to be started soon, reveals the MHA report. In 2008, the central government had announced relief package for migrant Pandits for their return and rehabilitation to Kashmir. The relief package had provision of 6000 state government jobs (3000 jobs with Central funding and 3000 jobs with State funding), financial assistance for purchase / construction of houses, construction of transit accommodations, continuation of cash relief to migrants, scholarship to students, assistance for self-employment, assistance to the agriculturists and the horticulturist, waiver of interest on unpaid loan, etc. As per MHA report, so far the J&K government jobs have been provided to 1917 migrant Pandit youth. It further disclosed that two migrant Pandit families have availed financial assistance for construction of houses in the Valley. The Central government had announced assistance of Rs 7.5 lakhs to Pandit families willing to reconstruct their damages homes in the Valley. The government is providing cash relief of Rs 10,000 to migrant Pandit family living in Jammu. Besides it also provides ration to the migrant families.
By PTI

CHANDIGARH: Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan inaugurated the new office of the Consulate General of Canada here today and said nations do not build relationships, people do. "I am very proud of the work being done by the Consulate-General of Canada in Chandigarh in strengthening people-to-people ties between Punjab and Canada. Nations do not build a relationship, people do," he said.

Amid tight security arrangements, Sajjan reached the Elante office complex here shortly after 9 AM and inaugurated the new office of the consulate, which offers a wide range of services, including assistance to the Canadians, helping companies to do business with Canada, visa services.

The Indian-born Canadian defence minister who is on a seven-day visit to India from April 17, later held a meeting with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at Chandigarh airport, officials here said. Yesterday, Sajjan had paid obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and also visited the All India Pingalwara Charitable Society on the outskirts of the city, where he met underprivileged children.

Later that afternoon, he visited a girls' orphanage in Jalandhar. Sajjan also went to his native village of Bambeli in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab where he was accorded a warm welcome by the villagers. Ahead of the Canadian defence minister's visit, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said he would not meet Sajjan and described him as a "Khalistani sympathiser".

Sajjan, however, rubbished Amarinder's allegation that he is "pro-Khalistani" and said he would not get into any petty politics with the Chief Minister. He also downplayed the Ontario legislative assembly recently passing a motion describing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as "genocide" in India.

CHANDIGARH: Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan inaugurated the new office of the Consulate General of Canada here today and said nations do not build relationships, people do. "I am very proud of the work being done by the Consulate-General of Canada in Chandigarh in strengthening people-to-people ties between Punjab and Canada. Nations do not build a relationship, people do," he said. Amid tight security arrangements, Sajjan reached the Elante office complex here shortly after 9 AM and inaugurated the new office of the consulate, which offers a wide range of services, including assistance to the Canadians, helping companies to do business with Canada, visa services. The Indian-born Canadian defence minister who is on a seven-day visit to India from April 17, later held a meeting with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at Chandigarh airport, officials here said. Yesterday, Sajjan had paid obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and also visited the All India Pingalwara Charitable Society on the outskirts of the city, where he met underprivileged children. Later that afternoon, he visited a girls' orphanage in Jalandhar. Sajjan also went to his native village of Bambeli in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab where he was accorded a warm welcome by the villagers. Ahead of the Canadian defence minister's visit, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said he would not meet Sajjan and described him as a "Khalistani sympathiser". Sajjan, however, rubbished Amarinder's allegation that he is "pro-Khalistani" and said he would not get into any petty politics with the Chief Minister. He also downplayed the Ontario legislative assembly recently passing a motion describing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as "genocide" in India.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: A plea was today moved in the Delhi High Court seeking direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men.

The petition which is likely to come up for hearing before a bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal demands to shed limelight on the plight of Hindu girls affected by triple talaq.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Shukla sought directions to the Centre for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter-caste marriage is not registered.

The PIL said that since the 'nikahnaama' (marriage contract) is written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions related to triple 'talaq' or polygamy.

The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the 'nikahnaama' pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, the petitioner urged the court.

The petition said that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men.

The petitioner said that since there is no provision of registration of marriage in Muslim law, therefore, time has now come for a direction to the Union of India to make registration of Inter-caste marriages compulsory either in Special Marriage Act or in Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act.

The PIL said the issue is serious and of public importance as the plight of many Hindu girls married to Muslim boys is involved, due to the danger of triple talaq by their Muslim husbands or of another marriage by the men.

NEW DELHI: A plea was today moved in the Delhi High Court seeking direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men. The petition which is likely to come up for hearing before a bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal demands to shed limelight on the plight of Hindu girls affected by triple talaq. The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Shukla sought directions to the Centre for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter-caste marriage is not registered. The PIL said that since the 'nikahnaama' (marriage contract) is written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions related to triple 'talaq' or polygamy. The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the 'nikahnaama' pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, the petitioner urged the court. The petition said that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men. The petitioner said that since there is no provision of registration of marriage in Muslim law, therefore, time has now come for a direction to the Union of India to make registration of Inter-caste marriages compulsory either in Special Marriage Act or in Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act. The PIL said the issue is serious and of public importance as the plight of many Hindu girls married to Muslim boys is involved, due to the danger of triple talaq by their Muslim husbands or of another marriage by the men.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: After prestigious Gomti Riverfront and Jai Prakash Narain International Centre (JPNIC), one of the most ambitious and much-hyped infrastructure projects of previous Akhilesh government302 km long Lucknow-Agra Expresswayhas come under the cloud as the newly anointed Yogi Adityanath government has ordered a departmental probe into it. The State government has also engaged RITES, a public sector consultancy company to undertake a technical survey of the Expressway.

In a letter dated April 19, sent to 10 district magistrates, the State government has ordered an inquiry into all the land deals done in around 230 notified villages over the last 18 months. The DMs have been asked to submit their respective reports within a month.

The decision to hold probe into the project follows a complaint lodged by a special field officer of UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) against five chakbandi officers and 22 land owners in Firozabad for changing the land-use. They are accused of showing agricultural land in Bachhela Bachheli village under Sirsaganj Tehsil as residential land since residential plots fetch a greater compensation, said a UPEIDA official.

As per the mandate of the probe, the DMs will inquire if the lands across 10 districts, along the Expressway were acquired lawfully or they were purchased by the third party from the farmers at throwaway prices and later sold to authorities at government prices drawing huge profit, said a highly-placed source in UPEIDA.

The government has no intent to close any project. But it would ensure that genuine farmers have not incurred losses. However, the anomalies, if any, will draw harsh and strict action by the authorities, said Awanish Awasthi, newly appointed CEO of UPEIDA, adding that he expected the detailed inquiry to be completed in a month.

It may be recalled that Lucknow-Agra Expressway dominated the poll narrative of previous CM Akhilesh Yadav who flagged the project as one of the most astounding achievements of his government. The Expressway was inaugurated by Akhilesh Yadav along with father and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in the presence of Shivpal Yadav and other senior SP leaders and members of Yadav clan with much fan fare on November 21, 2017.

Meanwhile, the present dispensation has also underlined that fact that around Rs 670 crore earmarked for the project was lying unused in its accounts. Of the allocated amount, around Rs 200 crore was with district magistrates and the rest was with UPEIDA, it claimed.

Moreover, 99.5 per cent of the land out of the 3,300 hectare land that had to be acquired for the project has already been purchased. Now the DMs have been asked to return funds with them while the amount with UPEIDA has also been reversed. The UPEIDA finance controller has been replaced.

The Expressway, worth Rs 15,000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unno, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi. As per the claims of the previous regime, the project was completed in record time of 23 months but the opposition often contested the claim by saying that it completed only superficially and a lot needed to be done.

LUCKNOW: After prestigious Gomti Riverfront and Jai Prakash Narain International Centre (JPNIC), one of the most ambitious and much-hyped infrastructure projects of previous Akhilesh government302 km long Lucknow-Agra Expresswayhas come under the cloud as the newly anointed Yogi Adityanath government has ordered a departmental probe into it. The State government has also engaged RITES, a public sector consultancy company to undertake a technical survey of the Expressway. In a letter dated April 19, sent to 10 district magistrates, the State government has ordered an inquiry into all the land deals done in around 230 notified villages over the last 18 months. The DMs have been asked to submit their respective reports within a month. The decision to hold probe into the project follows a complaint lodged by a special field officer of UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) against five chakbandi officers and 22 land owners in Firozabad for changing the land-use. They are accused of showing agricultural land in Bachhela Bachheli village under Sirsaganj Tehsil as residential land since residential plots fetch a greater compensation, said a UPEIDA official. As per the mandate of the probe, the DMs will inquire if the lands across 10 districts, along the Expressway were acquired lawfully or they were purchased by the third party from the farmers at throwaway prices and later sold to authorities at government prices drawing huge profit, said a highly-placed source in UPEIDA. The government has no intent to close any project. But it would ensure that genuine farmers have not incurred losses. However, the anomalies, if any, will draw harsh and strict action by the authorities, said Awanish Awasthi, newly appointed CEO of UPEIDA, adding that he expected the detailed inquiry to be completed in a month. It may be recalled that Lucknow-Agra Expressway dominated the poll narrative of previous CM Akhilesh Yadav who flagged the project as one of the most astounding achievements of his government. The Expressway was inaugurated by Akhilesh Yadav along with father and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in the presence of Shivpal Yadav and other senior SP leaders and members of Yadav clan with much fan fare on November 21, 2017. Meanwhile, the present dispensation has also underlined that fact that around Rs 670 crore earmarked for the project was lying unused in its accounts. Of the allocated amount, around Rs 200 crore was with district magistrates and the rest was with UPEIDA, it claimed. Moreover, 99.5 per cent of the land out of the 3,300 hectare land that had to be acquired for the project has already been purchased. Now the DMs have been asked to return funds with them while the amount with UPEIDA has also been reversed. The UPEIDA finance controller has been replaced. The Expressway, worth Rs 15,000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unno, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi. As per the claims of the previous regime, the project was completed in record time of 23 months but the opposition often contested the claim by saying that it completed only superficially and a lot needed to be done.
G Ramesh Babu By

Express News Service

SRIKAKULAM/VISAKHAPATNAM: With the delay in getting the exit letters from their employer company, the condition of 24 workers stranded in Riyadh of Saudi Arabia is getting worse day by day.

The family members of the victims in Srikakulam district say that one of the workers is ill and they do not have money for treatment. With their money running out fast, the workers are left at the mercy of samaritans for food and water.

With the delay in getting the exit letters

from their employer company, the

condition of 24 workers stranded in

Riyadh of Saudi Arabia is getting

worse day by day.



A WhatsApp message received from Riyadh by the kin of the stranded workers said that one among the workers was severely sick for the last few days and they did not have money for treatment. However, they did not mention the name of the sick worker citing that they did not want the family members concerned to be more worried.

The workers after fleeing the torture by their employer company Aamal Al Muqawil Contracting Company (AMCO) on April 6, have been left at the mercy of samaritans since then for food and water.

I called my brother last night.

For the last two days, they have been taking meals once a day and are awaiting help from the Indian government. With less intake of food and water, most of them are suffering from dehydration and weakness, Rajam Lingaraju brother of Rajam Rama Rao, among the stranded labourers, told Express on Thursday.

I wait the entire day to get a call from my son. But, they have run out of money. Thinking about the worst conditions, I have not slept even for an hour since many days, said Kallepalli Krishnaveni, mother of

Arbiaanother stranded worker Karthik. The relatives of Dumba Bairagi from Telukunchi in Ichchapuram mandal said that they received a call from him last night.

The labourers who are working in the factories nearby are giving us some food and water. That is how we are surviving. Now, we are staying in a deserted factory shed, which has no roof, said Yerraiah Ulasi, a relative of worker Dumba Bairagi.

Meanwhile, Sri Hari, owner of Lakshmi Ganpathi Piping and Training Institute in Vizag, who had sent a few of the victims to SArabia, said that a representative of Voltech Company in Chennai that had completed the Visa formalities of the workers would leave for Riyadh on Thursday night. The Voltech representative will talk to the employer company there to speed up the issuing of the exit letters for the stranded workers, he said.

SRIKAKULAM/VISAKHAPATNAM: With the delay in getting the exit letters from their employer company, the condition of 24 workers stranded in Riyadh of Saudi Arabia is getting worse day by day. The family members of the victims in Srikakulam district say that one of the workers is ill and they do not have money for treatment. With their money running out fast, the workers are left at the mercy of samaritans for food and water. With the delay in getting the exit letters from their employer company, the condition of 24 workers stranded in Riyadh of Saudi Arabia is getting worse day by day. A WhatsApp message received from Riyadh by the kin of the stranded workers said that one among the workers was severely sick for the last few days and they did not have money for treatment. However, they did not mention the name of the sick worker citing that they did not want the family members concerned to be more worried. The workers after fleeing the torture by their employer company Aamal Al Muqawil Contracting Company (AMCO) on April 6, have been left at the mercy of samaritans since then for food and water. I called my brother last night. For the last two days, they have been taking meals once a day and are awaiting help from the Indian government. With less intake of food and water, most of them are suffering from dehydration and weakness, Rajam Lingaraju brother of Rajam Rama Rao, among the stranded labourers, told Express on Thursday. I wait the entire day to get a call from my son. But, they have run out of money. Thinking about the worst conditions, I have not slept even for an hour since many days, said Kallepalli Krishnaveni, mother of Arbiaanother stranded worker Karthik. The relatives of Dumba Bairagi from Telukunchi in Ichchapuram mandal said that they received a call from him last night. The labourers who are working in the factories nearby are giving us some food and water. That is how we are surviving. Now, we are staying in a deserted factory shed, which has no roof, said Yerraiah Ulasi, a relative of worker Dumba Bairagi. Meanwhile, Sri Hari, owner of Lakshmi Ganpathi Piping and Training Institute in Vizag, who had sent a few of the victims to SArabia, said that a representative of Voltech Company in Chennai that had completed the Visa formalities of the workers would leave for Riyadh on Thursday night. The Voltech representative will talk to the employer company there to speed up the issuing of the exit letters for the stranded workers, he said.
By Express News Service

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday quashed the petition filed by a couple, before Melur Judicial Magistrate court, seeking maintenance from actor Dhanush, whom they claimed was their son.

Justice P N Prakash held that "the couple-R Kathiresan and Meenakshi, from Melur in Madurai, had failed to produce documents to prove how their son Kalaichelvan metamorphosed into the actor Dhanush. The court said the evidence to prove a prima facie case was "miserably missing".

That being the case, a DNA test cannot be ordered, the court said, quoting the Supreme Court judgments that the person who wants a DNA examination to be conducted should make out a prima facie case for the court to exercise its power. As the parentage could thus not be established, the Melur couple have no claim to maintenance from Dhanush, the court held, dismissing their petition.

The court pointed to the gaps in the evidence presented before them. While the Melur couple's missing son had registered himself at the Employment Exchange on June 17, 2002, Dhanush's debut film Thulluvadho Ilamai was certified by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on March 15, 2002. The document (Employment Exchange registration certificate) showed that their son, Kalaichelvan, was unemployed in June 2002 but Dhanush was by then already engaged in the film industry, said the judge.

A letter which was left by the couple's son before leaving his school showed that their son Kalaichelvan did not inform them that he was going to join the film industry, as claimed by them, the judge added.

Besides, the judge pointed out that Dhanush never went into hiding since he entered the film industry. Even his wedding to Aishwarya, superstar's Rajinikanth's daughter, too was made public. That being so, what steps did the couple take to reach him, the judge asked.

Moreover, the School Transfer Certificate and Birth Certificate of their son have different dates of birth. With many gaps in the documents produced by them, the court came to the conclusion that the couple had failed to make a prima facie case against Dhanush. In the absence of foundational facts, the court could not direct that a DNA test, the best way to prove paternity, be conducted, the court said while quashing the maintenance petition.

In his petition, Dhanush alias Dhanus h K Raja, a resident of T Nagar in Chennai, said the couple had moved the Melur JM court claiming he was their son and that he had failed to provide them the maintenance. The couple had claimed maintenance of Rs 65,000 a month. Dhanush claimed that the couple's claim was completely false, and that his parents were director Krishnamoorthi alias Kasthuri Raja and his wife Vijayalakshmi. Kasthuri Raja is the director of Dhanush's first film 'Thulluvatho Ilamai.

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday quashed the petition filed by a couple, before Melur Judicial Magistrate court, seeking maintenance from actor Dhanush, whom they claimed was their son. Justice P N Prakash held that "the couple-R Kathiresan and Meenakshi, from Melur in Madurai, had failed to produce documents to prove how their son Kalaichelvan metamorphosed into the actor Dhanush. The court said the evidence to prove a prima facie case was "miserably missing". That being the case, a DNA test cannot be ordered, the court said, quoting the Supreme Court judgments that the person who wants a DNA examination to be conducted should make out a prima facie case for the court to exercise its power. As the parentage could thus not be established, the Melur couple have no claim to maintenance from Dhanush, the court held, dismissing their petition. The court pointed to the gaps in the evidence presented before them. While the Melur couple's missing son had registered himself at the Employment Exchange on June 17, 2002, Dhanush's debut film Thulluvadho Ilamai was certified by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on March 15, 2002. The document (Employment Exchange registration certificate) showed that their son, Kalaichelvan, was unemployed in June 2002 but Dhanush was by then already engaged in the film industry, said the judge. A letter which was left by the couple's son before leaving his school showed that their son Kalaichelvan did not inform them that he was going to join the film industry, as claimed by them, the judge added. Besides, the judge pointed out that Dhanush never went into hiding since he entered the film industry. Even his wedding to Aishwarya, superstar's Rajinikanth's daughter, too was made public. That being so, what steps did the couple take to reach him, the judge asked. Moreover, the School Transfer Certificate and Birth Certificate of their son have different dates of birth. With many gaps in the documents produced by them, the court came to the conclusion that the couple had failed to make a prima facie case against Dhanush. In the absence of foundational facts, the court could not direct that a DNA test, the best way to prove paternity, be conducted, the court said while quashing the maintenance petition. In his petition, Dhanush alias Dhanush K Raja, a resident of T Nagar in Chennai, said the couple had moved the Melur JM court claiming he was their son and that he had failed to provide them the maintenance. The couple had claimed maintenance of Rs 65,000 a month. Dhanush claimed that the couple's claim was completely false, and that his parents were director Krishnamoorthi alias Kasthuri Raja and his wife Vijayalakshmi. Kasthuri Raja is the director of Dhanush's first film 'Thulluvatho Ilamai.
By Associated Press

HARARE: Two major opposition figures in Zimbabwe have signed a pact pledging to work toward establishing a united front to challenge President Robert Mugabe in next year's elections.

Morgan Tsvangirai, whose MDC-T party is the biggest opposition in parliament, and Joice Mujuru, a former vice president, described the memorandum of understanding as a significant step in their efforts to form a coalition.

The memorandum of understanding signed today is a sign of the two political parties' desire to explore the possibility of working together in their bid to unseat the 93-year-old Mugabe. Mugabe has said he will contest the election. He has been in power since the end of British colonial rule.

He fired Mujuru in 2014, accusing her of plotting to unseat him. She now leads her own party.

HARARE: Two major opposition figures in Zimbabwe have signed a pact pledging to work toward establishing a united front to challenge President Robert Mugabe in next year's elections. Morgan Tsvangirai, whose MDC-T party is the biggest opposition in parliament, and Joice Mujuru, a former vice president, described the memorandum of understanding as a significant step in their efforts to form a coalition. The memorandum of understanding signed today is a sign of the two political parties' desire to explore the possibility of working together in their bid to unseat the 93-year-old Mugabe. Mugabe has said he will contest the election. He has been in power since the end of British colonial rule. He fired Mujuru in 2014, accusing her of plotting to unseat him. She now leads her own party.
By ANI

ISLAMABAD: Giving major relief to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's Supreme Court has clearly said that there was insufficient evidence to order his removal from office.



However, the Court has ordered a further probe into the corruption allegations levelled by the opposition based on Panama Paper leaks against the Sharif family.

Highlights of the SC verdict in Panama papers:



1. The Supreme Court has ordered further investigations into corruption allegations against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

2. Has refused to order his removal from office, saying there was insufficient evidence.

3. The apex court has ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to carry out further investigation.

4. The JIT will investigate how the funds were transferred to Qatar.



5. The committee comprising of one senior official each from the FIA, NAB, SECP, SBP, ISI and MI will be tasked to probe the assets.

6. The apex court has ordered the JIT to present its report every two weeks before a Supreme Court bench.

7. The court also ordered Sharif and his sons Hasan and Hussein to appear before the JIT as and when required.

8. The apex courts detailed decision comprised a total of 540 pages.

9. The apex verdict split 3-2 between the five-member benches.

10. Two dissenting judges were of the opinion that Sharif was dishonest to the nation and should have been disqualified.

11. The Chief Justice said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman had failed to carry out his duties.

ISLAMABAD: Giving major relief to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's Supreme Court has clearly said that there was insufficient evidence to order his removal from office. However, the Court has ordered a further probe into the corruption allegations levelled by the opposition based on Panama Paper leaks against the Sharif family. Highlights of the SC verdict in Panama papers: 1. The Supreme Court has ordered further investigations into corruption allegations against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif 2. Has refused to order his removal from office, saying there was insufficient evidence. 3. The apex court has ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to carry out further investigation. 4. The JIT will investigate how the funds were transferred to Qatar. 5. The committee comprising of one senior official each from the FIA, NAB, SECP, SBP, ISI and MI will be tasked to probe the assets. 6. The apex court has ordered the JIT to present its report every two weeks before a Supreme Court bench. 7. The court also ordered Sharif and his sons Hasan and Hussein to appear before the JIT as and when required. 8. The apex courts detailed decision comprised a total of 540 pages. 9. The apex verdict split 3-2 between the five-member benches. 10. Two dissenting judges were of the opinion that Sharif was dishonest to the nation and should have been disqualified. 11. The Chief Justice said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman had failed to carry out his duties.
By AFP

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its "highly destabilising behaviour."

In a unanimous statement, the council demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests" and said Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond."

The council threatened to "take further significant measures including sanctions" to address the crisis of North Korea's missile launches.

While previous statements have warned of further measures, the agreed text made specific mention of sanctions, signalling a tougher stance from the council.

The US-drafted statement was agreed upon after Russia insisted that language stressing the need to achieve a peaceful solution "through dialogue" was included in the final text.

Russia had blocked an earlier version of the statement -- which comes after North Korea carried out a failed test on Sunday -- even though China, Pyongyang's ally, had expressed its support for it.

Russian charge d'affaires Petr Iliichev, however, denied blocking the statement and said the United States had broken off talks on a consensus position in an "abrupt manner."

Council statements require a consensus among all 15 members.

The United States, which holds the rotating council presidency this month, has scheduled a ministerial-level meeting next week on North Korea, to be chaired by US Secretary of States Rex Tillerson.

While no resolution will be adopted during the April 28 session, the United States and its allies are expected to turn up the pressure on China to use its leverage to rein in Pyongyang.

The council has imposed six sets of sanctions on North Korea -- two of which were adopted last year to significantly ramp up the punitive measures and deny Kim Jong-Un's regime hard currency revenue.

Pyongyang is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

On Wednesday, US Vice President Mike Pence vowed that the United States would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its "highly destabilising behaviour." In a unanimous statement, the council demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests" and said Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond." The council threatened to "take further significant measures including sanctions" to address the crisis of North Korea's missile launches. While previous statements have warned of further measures, the agreed text made specific mention of sanctions, signalling a tougher stance from the council. The US-drafted statement was agreed upon after Russia insisted that language stressing the need to achieve a peaceful solution "through dialogue" was included in the final text. Russia had blocked an earlier version of the statement -- which comes after North Korea carried out a failed test on Sunday -- even though China, Pyongyang's ally, had expressed its support for it. Russian charge d'affaires Petr Iliichev, however, denied blocking the statement and said the United States had broken off talks on a consensus position in an "abrupt manner." Council statements require a consensus among all 15 members. The United States, which holds the rotating council presidency this month, has scheduled a ministerial-level meeting next week on North Korea, to be chaired by US Secretary of States Rex Tillerson. While no resolution will be adopted during the April 28 session, the United States and its allies are expected to turn up the pressure on China to use its leverage to rein in Pyongyang. The council has imposed six sets of sanctions on North Korea -- two of which were adopted last year to significantly ramp up the punitive measures and deny Kim Jong-Un's regime hard currency revenue. Pyongyang is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year. On Wednesday, US Vice President Mike Pence vowed that the United States would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.
By PTI

KANO: Nine Nigerian soldiers were killed and 14 others are missing feared abducted after an attack this week by suspected Boko Haram jihadists in the violence-torn northeast, security sources have said. Authorities had on Tuesday said five soldiers were killed and five others injured in the raid on a military post near the village of Sabon Garin Kimba about 140 kilometres (90 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram.

"The number of fatalities on our side has risen to nine with the discovery of four more bodies of our troops," said a military officer with knowledge of the incident yesterday..

"Since the attack 14 other soldiers remain missing. Their fate is unknown," said the officer who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorised to speak on the incident.

Scores of fighters loyal to the Boko Haram faction headed by Abu Musab Al-Barnawi stormed the checkpoint late Monday.

The Islamic State group last year appointed Al-Barnawi as head of Boko Haram, replacing long-time leader Abubakar Shekau.

Mustapha Karimbe, a member of an anti-Boko Haram militia, said he feared the missing soldiers had been seized. "Fourteen soldiers are unaccounted for, they have been missing since the attack and the fear is that they have have been abducted by the terrorists," Karimbe said.

The jihadists carrying heavy weapons engaged troops at the checkpoint in a shootout and forced the soldiers to withdraw. Karimbe said the jihadists took military vehicles and burned three armoured cars along with makeshift sheds.

This was the second attack on the same military checkpoint in under a month.

Late last month, jihadists dressed in Nigerian military uniforms attacked the checkpoint and forced soldiers to withdraw before looting food and medical supplies from the village.

Boko Haram has in recent weeks intensified attacks on military targets in the northeast.

The insurgency began in northeast Nigeria and has spread to Chad, Cameroon and Niger, claiming more than 20,000 lives and displacing 2.6 million people.

KANO: Nine Nigerian soldiers were killed and 14 others are missing feared abducted after an attack this week by suspected Boko Haram jihadists in the violence-torn northeast, security sources have said. Authorities had on Tuesday said five soldiers were killed and five others injured in the raid on a military post near the village of Sabon Garin Kimba about 140 kilometres (90 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram. "The number of fatalities on our side has risen to nine with the discovery of four more bodies of our troops," said a military officer with knowledge of the incident yesterday.. "Since the attack 14 other soldiers remain missing. Their fate is unknown," said the officer who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorised to speak on the incident. Scores of fighters loyal to the Boko Haram faction headed by Abu Musab Al-Barnawi stormed the checkpoint late Monday. The Islamic State group last year appointed Al-Barnawi as head of Boko Haram, replacing long-time leader Abubakar Shekau. Mustapha Karimbe, a member of an anti-Boko Haram militia, said he feared the missing soldiers had been seized. "Fourteen soldiers are unaccounted for, they have been missing since the attack and the fear is that they have have been abducted by the terrorists," Karimbe said. The jihadists carrying heavy weapons engaged troops at the checkpoint in a shootout and forced the soldiers to withdraw. Karimbe said the jihadists took military vehicles and burned three armoured cars along with makeshift sheds. This was the second attack on the same military checkpoint in under a month. Late last month, jihadists dressed in Nigerian military uniforms attacked the checkpoint and forced soldiers to withdraw before looting food and medical supplies from the village. Boko Haram has in recent weeks intensified attacks on military targets in the northeast. The insurgency began in northeast Nigeria and has spread to Chad, Cameroon and Niger, claiming more than 20,000 lives and displacing 2.6 million people.
By AFP

PARIS: A known terror suspect shot dead a French policeman and wounded two others Thursday on Paris's Champs Elysees in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group days before a presidential election.

Observers had long feared bloodshed ahead of Sunday's vote in France following a string of atrocities since 2015 and the violence is likely to thrust security to the front of voters' minds.

The shooter opened fire with an automatic weapon on a police van on the world-famous boulevard at around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT), prompting tourists and visitors to run for their lives.

After killing the officer and injuring his colleagues just a few hundred metres from the Arc de Triomphe, the gunman was shot dead in return fire while trying to flee on foot, police sources told AFP.

A statement from the Islamic State group published by its propaganda agency Amaq said the attacker was "one of the Islamic State's fighters."

The killer, identified as a 39-year-old French man, was known to anti-terror police, sources told AFP, and raids took place at his address in a suburb to the east of Paris.

Watch Video: Deadly shooting shuts down the Champs Elysees in Paris

He was arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill officers but was released because of lack of evidence.

He had been convicted in 2005 of three counts of attempted murder, with two of these against police officers, sources said.

The impact on the outcome of the French election is unclear -- Sunday is the poll's first round -- but far-right leader Marine Le Pen, her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron, and scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon cancelled campaign events planned for Friday.

Up until now, surveys showed voters more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this would change in the event of violence.

The shooting comes two days after the arrest of two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the campaign.

French President Francois Hollande promised "absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process" and paid tribute to the police.

Hollande, who said he was convinced the shooting was a "terrorist act", cancelled a trip to Bretagne and will chair a security cabinet meeting Friday.

Security in campaign

Anti-immigration contender Le Pen earlier welcomed security moving to the heart of the campaign as she took part in a prime-time interview show alongside 10 other presidential candidates.

"We are suffering the consequences of a laxity that has continued for years," she said shortly before the shooting, promising to take a hard line against extremists and anyone suspected of being an Islamist.

For weeks, former banker Macron and Le Pen have been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a chance that any of four leading candidates could reach the election's second-round runoff on May 7.

Conservative candidate Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.

Watch Video: Eyewitness to Paris shooting describes hiding in shop

"The first responsibility of the president is to protect," Macron said on the interview show. "This threat will be part of our daily lives in the next years."

Fillon, who penned a pre-election book called "Beating Islamic Totalitarianism", declared that "the fight against terrorism must be the absolute priority of the next president."

As the first details of the attack filtered through, US President Donald Trump said that "it looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It just never ends."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent her condolences.

State of emergency

The bustling Champs Elysees lies in the heart of Paris and is lined with shops and restaurants. It was immediately blocked by armed officers after the attack and nearby metro stations were closed.

"We had to hide our customers in the basement," Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting, told AFP, saying there was "lots of gunfire."

A spokesman for the interior ministry paid tribute to the fast reflexes of police at the scene who managed to kill the gunman and prevent further bloodshed on a busy spring-time evening.

A foreign tourist was slightly wounded in her knee by shrapnel during the shooting.

France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of terror alert, with jihadist-inspired assaults killing more than 230 people in recent years.

The Charlie Hebdo magazine was hit in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall were targeted in November the same year, and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July 2016.

There have also been smaller attacks, often aimed at security forces.

Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets, including government buildings and religious sites.

PARIS: A known terror suspect shot dead a French policeman and wounded two others Thursday on Paris's Champs Elysees in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group days before a presidential election. Observers had long feared bloodshed ahead of Sunday's vote in France following a string of atrocities since 2015 and the violence is likely to thrust security to the front of voters' minds. The shooter opened fire with an automatic weapon on a police van on the world-famous boulevard at around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT), prompting tourists and visitors to run for their lives. After killing the officer and injuring his colleagues just a few hundred metres from the Arc de Triomphe, the gunman was shot dead in return fire while trying to flee on foot, police sources told AFP. A statement from the Islamic State group published by its propaganda agency Amaq said the attacker was "one of the Islamic State's fighters." The killer, identified as a 39-year-old French man, was known to anti-terror police, sources told AFP, and raids took place at his address in a suburb to the east of Paris. Watch Video: Deadly shooting shuts down the Champs Elysees in Paris He was arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill officers but was released because of lack of evidence. He had been convicted in 2005 of three counts of attempted murder, with two of these against police officers, sources said. The impact on the outcome of the French election is unclear -- Sunday is the poll's first round -- but far-right leader Marine Le Pen, her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron, and scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon cancelled campaign events planned for Friday. Up until now, surveys showed voters more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, though analysts warned this would change in the event of violence. The shooting comes two days after the arrest of two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the campaign. French President Francois Hollande promised "absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process" and paid tribute to the police. Hollande, who said he was convinced the shooting was a "terrorist act", cancelled a trip to Bretagne and will chair a security cabinet meeting Friday. Security in campaign Anti-immigration contender Le Pen earlier welcomed security moving to the heart of the campaign as she took part in a prime-time interview show alongside 10 other presidential candidates. "We are suffering the consequences of a laxity that has continued for years," she said shortly before the shooting, promising to take a hard line against extremists and anyone suspected of being an Islamist. For weeks, former banker Macron and Le Pen have been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a chance that any of four leading candidates could reach the election's second-round runoff on May 7. Conservative candidate Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks. Watch Video: Eyewitness to Paris shooting describes hiding in shop "The first responsibility of the president is to protect," Macron said on the interview show. "This threat will be part of our daily lives in the next years." Fillon, who penned a pre-election book called "Beating Islamic Totalitarianism", declared that "the fight against terrorism must be the absolute priority of the next president." As the first details of the attack filtered through, US President Donald Trump said that "it looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It just never ends." German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent her condolences. State of emergency The bustling Champs Elysees lies in the heart of Paris and is lined with shops and restaurants. It was immediately blocked by armed officers after the attack and nearby metro stations were closed. "We had to hide our customers in the basement," Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting, told AFP, saying there was "lots of gunfire." A spokesman for the interior ministry paid tribute to the fast reflexes of police at the scene who managed to kill the gunman and prevent further bloodshed on a busy spring-time evening. A foreign tourist was slightly wounded in her knee by shrapnel during the shooting. France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of terror alert, with jihadist-inspired assaults killing more than 230 people in recent years. The Charlie Hebdo magazine was hit in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall were targeted in November the same year, and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July 2016. There have also been smaller attacks, often aimed at security forces. Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets, including government buildings and religious sites.
TEHRAN: Campaigning began today for Iran's presidential election with incumbent Hassan Rouhani facing a tough battle against hardliners, though not from former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was barred from standing.

Ahmadinejad's disqualification by the conservative-run Guardian Council was no surprise - he had been advised not to run by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said it would "polarise" the nation. His populist economics and defiant attitude to the establishment had alienated even Ahmadinejad's hardline backers during his 2005-2013 tenure.

"Once the supreme leader had told him not to stand, it became impossible for him to be cleared by the Guardian Council," said Clement Therme, research fellow for Iran at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "By his second term, (Ahmadinejad) was even challenging the clerics. He was not useful anymore for the system."

The mood in Tehran has been subdued - many are disillusioned with Rouhani's failure to kick-start the economy despite broad support for his efforts to rebuild ties with the West, notably through a nuclear deal with world powers that eased sanctions. There has been uproar over a decision by the election commission to ban live TV debates, seen by some as an attempt to prevent embarrassment to some of the candidates or the regime as a whole.

Campaigning, which the Guardian Council announced could begin immediately, had not been supposed to start for another week, so there was little activity today. But experts say the authorities are keen to excite interest in the vote. "They need that for legitimacy - the turnout is even more important than the result," said Therme.

Iran's elections are tightly controlled, with the Guardian Council allowing just six people - and no women - to stand for the May 19 vote out of 1,636 hopefuls that registered last week. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent, a run-off between the top two is held a week later.

Rouhani, a politically moderate cleric, squeaked to victory last time with 51 percent in the first round, helped by a divided conservative camp. The Guardian Council has resisted efforts by Iran's parliament, the Majles, to clarify the criteria by which they choose candidates.

The constitution adopted after the 1979 revolution offers only vague guidelines that candidates should possess "administrative capacity and resourcefulness... trustworthiness and piety".

The build-up to the vote has injected more interest than many predicted just a couple of months ago, when Rouhani was seen as a shoo-in for a second term if only because the conservative opposition seemed unable to offer a strong candidate.

Since then, the 56-year-old former judge and cleric Ebrahim Raisi has emerged as a front-runner for the conservatives. Little-known on the political scene, Raisi runs a powerful religious foundation and business empire in the holy city of Mashhad and is seen as a close ally of - and possible successor to - supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But despite emphasising his care for the poor, many say Raisi's hardline judicial background and entourage will turn off voters.

"He seems like a good and calm person himself, but the people around him are scary," said a tour operator in Yazd, echoing a widely heard sentiment. Some think he may drop out at the last minute in favour of Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who came second to Rouhani in 2013.

Ghalibaf - a war veteran, former Revolutionary Guards commander and police chief - has support from powerful backroom hardliners and presents himself as a pragmatic problem-solver. "Economic problems cannot be solved from behind a desk," he said today.

The other three candidates are seen as support for the main players in the upcoming debates. Moderate reformists Mostafa Hashemitaba and vice- president Eshaq Jahangiri are expected to defend Rouhani's achievements, while veteran hardliner Mostafa Mirsalim will back up Raisi and Ghalibaf. There were mixed reactions to Ahmadinejad's disqualification.

Despite controversial rhetoric against Israel that worsened ties with the West, and somewhat reckless financial management, he retained considerable popularity, particularly among the poor. "I think Ahmadinejad should not have been disqualified," said Mohammad Barkhordar, 20, doing his military service.

"He was the kind of president that took risks, like distributing money among people and giving houses to the poor, and he had big ambitions for Iran's nuclear programme. Rouhani doesn't take any risks." But many were glad to see the back of him. "It was right for Ahmadinejad to be disqualified but it happened 12 years too late," said one Twitter user.

TEHRAN: Campaigning began today for Iran's presidential election with incumbent Hassan Rouhani facing a tough battle against hardliners, though not from former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was barred from standing. Ahmadinejad's disqualification by the conservative-run Guardian Council was no surprise - he had been advised not to run by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said it would "polarise" the nation. His populist economics and defiant attitude to the establishment had alienated even Ahmadinejad's hardline backers during his 2005-2013 tenure. "Once the supreme leader had told him not to stand, it became impossible for him to be cleared by the Guardian Council," said Clement Therme, research fellow for Iran at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "By his second term, (Ahmadinejad) was even challenging the clerics. He was not useful anymore for the system." The mood in Tehran has been subdued - many are disillusioned with Rouhani's failure to kick-start the economy despite broad support for his efforts to rebuild ties with the West, notably through a nuclear deal with world powers that eased sanctions. There has been uproar over a decision by the election commission to ban live TV debates, seen by some as an attempt to prevent embarrassment to some of the candidates or the regime as a whole. Campaigning, which the Guardian Council announced could begin immediately, had not been supposed to start for another week, so there was little activity today. But experts say the authorities are keen to excite interest in the vote. "They need that for legitimacy - the turnout is even more important than the result," said Therme. Iran's elections are tightly controlled, with the Guardian Council allowing just six people - and no women - to stand for the May 19 vote out of 1,636 hopefuls that registered last week. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent, a run-off between the top two is held a week later. Rouhani, a politically moderate cleric, squeaked to victory last time with 51 percent in the first round, helped by a divided conservative camp. The Guardian Council has resisted efforts by Iran's parliament, the Majles, to clarify the criteria by which they choose candidates. The constitution adopted after the 1979 revolution offers only vague guidelines that candidates should possess "administrative capacity and resourcefulness... trustworthiness and piety". The build-up to the vote has injected more interest than many predicted just a couple of months ago, when Rouhani was seen as a shoo-in for a second term if only because the conservative opposition seemed unable to offer a strong candidate. Since then, the 56-year-old former judge and cleric Ebrahim Raisi has emerged as a front-runner for the conservatives. Little-known on the political scene, Raisi runs a powerful religious foundation and business empire in the holy city of Mashhad and is seen as a close ally of - and possible successor to - supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But despite emphasising his care for the poor, many say Raisi's hardline judicial background and entourage will turn off voters. "He seems like a good and calm person himself, but the people around him are scary," said a tour operator in Yazd, echoing a widely heard sentiment. Some think he may drop out at the last minute in favour of Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who came second to Rouhani in 2013. Ghalibaf - a war veteran, former Revolutionary Guards commander and police chief - has support from powerful backroom hardliners and presents himself as a pragmatic problem-solver. "Economic problems cannot be solved from behind a desk," he said today. The other three candidates are seen as support for the main players in the upcoming debates. Moderate reformists Mostafa Hashemitaba and vice- president Eshaq Jahangiri are expected to defend Rouhani's achievements, while veteran hardliner Mostafa Mirsalim will back up Raisi and Ghalibaf. There were mixed reactions to Ahmadinejad's disqualification. Despite controversial rhetoric against Israel that worsened ties with the West, and somewhat reckless financial management, he retained considerable popularity, particularly among the poor. "I think Ahmadinejad should not have been disqualified," said Mohammad Barkhordar, 20, doing his military service. "He was the kind of president that took risks, like distributing money among people and giving houses to the poor, and he had big ambitions for Iran's nuclear programme. Rouhani doesn't take any risks." But many were glad to see the back of him. "It was right for Ahmadinejad to be disqualified but it happened 12 years too late," said one Twitter user.
By PTI

TEHRAN: Iranian state TV said today that the body charged with vetting candidates has disqualified former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from running in next month's presidential election. It carried an Interior Ministry statement saying that President Hassan Rouhani has been approved to run for re- election, along with hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad, who remains a deeply polarizing figure even among Iranian hard-liners, had shocked the country by registering last week. Khamenei had previously urged him not to run.

Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear programme.

The Guardian Council, a cleric-dominated body that vets candidates, said it had compiled a final list of candidates earlier Thursday and that the Interior Ministry would announce their names by Sunday.

Others who made the cut, according to the statement carried by state TV, include Tehran's hard-line Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, moderate Senior Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri and former conservative culture minister Mostafa Mirsalim.

Hundreds of people registered to run. The Guardian Council, half of whose 12 members are clerics appointed by Khamenei, rejects all candidates who are seen as challenging clerical rule. Khamenei is Iran's top decision-maker.

TEHRAN: Iranian state TV said today that the body charged with vetting candidates has disqualified former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from running in next month's presidential election. It carried an Interior Ministry statement saying that President Hassan Rouhani has been approved to run for re- election, along with hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad, who remains a deeply polarizing figure even among Iranian hard-liners, had shocked the country by registering last week. Khamenei had previously urged him not to run. Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear programme. The Guardian Council, a cleric-dominated body that vets candidates, said it had compiled a final list of candidates earlier Thursday and that the Interior Ministry would announce their names by Sunday. Others who made the cut, according to the statement carried by state TV, include Tehran's hard-line Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, moderate Senior Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri and former conservative culture minister Mostafa Mirsalim. Hundreds of people registered to run. The Guardian Council, half of whose 12 members are clerics appointed by Khamenei, rejects all candidates who are seen as challenging clerical rule. Khamenei is Iran's top decision-maker.
By AFP

MOSCOW: Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad today blamed the country's former Al-Qaeda affiliate for a deadly bombing against buses carrying evacuees outside Aleppo at the weekend.

"It was Jabhat al-Nusra, they haven't hidden it from the very start, and I think that everyone agrees that it was Nusra," Assad told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency in an interview, referring to the jihadist group now known as the Fateh al-Sham Front that has supposedly severed its ties with al-Qaeda.

The bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at the Rashidin transit point west of Aleppo as people were evacuating from the besieged government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest episodes since the start of Syria's six-year civil war.

In the interview translated into Russian, Assad denied there had been a chemical attack this month in the town of Khan Sheikhun, claiming there was "100 percent" certainty that rebels had obtained chemical weapons from Turkey. "The only route for terrorists to receive money, weapons and any kind of materials, new recruits or such substances goes through Turkey," he said.

Assad added that Damascus had lost "more than 50 percent" of its air defence systems and that Syria was in talks with Moscow for weapons deliveries. Assad also minimised the death toll for the civil war that has raged in his country since 2011, which has killed more than 320,000 people. He said that merely "tens of thousands" had been killed in the conflict, accusing the West of overblowing the death toll.

"These (figures) are only given to inflate numbers in order to show how terrible the situation is and use this as a humanitarian excuse for the invasion of Syria," he said.

MOSCOW: Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad today blamed the country's former Al-Qaeda affiliate for a deadly bombing against buses carrying evacuees outside Aleppo at the weekend. "It was Jabhat al-Nusra, they haven't hidden it from the very start, and I think that everyone agrees that it was Nusra," Assad told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency in an interview, referring to the jihadist group now known as the Fateh al-Sham Front that has supposedly severed its ties with al-Qaeda. The bombing killed 126 people, 68 of them children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at the Rashidin transit point west of Aleppo as people were evacuating from the besieged government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest episodes since the start of Syria's six-year civil war. In the interview translated into Russian, Assad denied there had been a chemical attack this month in the town of Khan Sheikhun, claiming there was "100 percent" certainty that rebels had obtained chemical weapons from Turkey. "The only route for terrorists to receive money, weapons and any kind of materials, new recruits or such substances goes through Turkey," he said. Assad added that Damascus had lost "more than 50 percent" of its air defence systems and that Syria was in talks with Moscow for weapons deliveries. Assad also minimised the death toll for the civil war that has raged in his country since 2011, which has killed more than 320,000 people. He said that merely "tens of thousands" had been killed in the conflict, accusing the West of overblowing the death toll. "These (figures) are only given to inflate numbers in order to show how terrible the situation is and use this as a humanitarian excuse for the invasion of Syria," he said.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Two media reports say U.S. prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including its founder Julian Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets.

CNN reported Thursday that authorities are preparing to seek Assange's arrest. The Washington Post reported prosecutors are weighing charges against the organization's members after the Obama-era Justice Department declined to do so.

Possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act, the newspaper said, though any charges would need approval from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department.

The move comes after WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers, cellphones and even smart TVs. It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week denounced the group as a "hostile intelligence service" and a threat to U.S. national security. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters Thursday that Assange's arrest is a priority as the Justice Department steps up efforts to prosecute people who leak classified information to the media.

"We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail," Sessions said.

Their condemnation of WikiLeaks differed sharply from President Donald Trump's past praise of the organization. Before last year's election, Trump said he was happy to see WikiLeaks publish private, politically damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. He was less thrilled about the release of CIA tactics, which the White House said was different because it involved information about secretive national security tools.

The Post reported that it wasn't clear whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks' role in the Podesta case.

Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack, told The Associated Press authorities have not apprised him of the status of their investigation.

Assange, an Australian, has resided the last four years in Ecuador's embassy in London. He received political asylum after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted over a rape allegation. Ecuador's recently elected presidential candidate has promised to continue to harbor Assange, allowing him to avoid arrest.

Assange has said WikiLeaks acts in the name of liberty and privacy. The Post reported that Justice officials in the Obama administration believed prosecuting WikiLeaks would be similar to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information, but they did not formally close the case.

"The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher," Pollack said. "Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing."

But Pompeo said WikiLeaks' activity went beyond the First Amendment, alleging the group was involved in obtaining secret material, rather than just reporting information leaked to it.

WikiLeaks "directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information," Pompeo said last week, according to CNN, referring to the case of the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking the hundreds of thousands of documents that made WikiLeaks a household name. "And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States."

WASHINGTON: Two media reports say U.S. prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including its founder Julian Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets. CNN reported Thursday that authorities are preparing to seek Assange's arrest. The Washington Post reported prosecutors are weighing charges against the organization's members after the Obama-era Justice Department declined to do so. Possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act, the newspaper said, though any charges would need approval from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department. The move comes after WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers, cellphones and even smart TVs. It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan. CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week denounced the group as a "hostile intelligence service" and a threat to U.S. national security. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters Thursday that Assange's arrest is a priority as the Justice Department steps up efforts to prosecute people who leak classified information to the media. "We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail," Sessions said. Their condemnation of WikiLeaks differed sharply from President Donald Trump's past praise of the organization. Before last year's election, Trump said he was happy to see WikiLeaks publish private, politically damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. He was less thrilled about the release of CIA tactics, which the White House said was different because it involved information about secretive national security tools. The Post reported that it wasn't clear whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks' role in the Podesta case. Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack, told The Associated Press authorities have not apprised him of the status of their investigation. Assange, an Australian, has resided the last four years in Ecuador's embassy in London. He received political asylum after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted over a rape allegation. Ecuador's recently elected presidential candidate has promised to continue to harbor Assange, allowing him to avoid arrest. Assange has said WikiLeaks acts in the name of liberty and privacy. The Post reported that Justice officials in the Obama administration believed prosecuting WikiLeaks would be similar to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information, but they did not formally close the case. "The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher," Pollack said. "Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing." But Pompeo said WikiLeaks' activity went beyond the First Amendment, alleging the group was involved in obtaining secret material, rather than just reporting information leaked to it. WikiLeaks "directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information," Pompeo said last week, according to CNN, referring to the case of the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking the hundreds of thousands of documents that made WikiLeaks a household name. "And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States."
Why Jamo's Bagels is closing shop and what's next for its founder

food
Films, Hysteria, To Sleep With Danger and The Handmaiden are shown during the first full day of the 19th Annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival a
Reporter/Columnist

Julie Wurth is a reporter covering the University of Illinois at The News-Gazette. Her email is jwurth@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@jawurth).
With the help of genetically engineered mice, scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are moving closer to establishing the role that increased intestinal permeability, sometimes called a "leaky gut," plays in chronic inflammatory conditions. Regulated by a protein called zonulin, elevated intestinal permeability has been associated with several chronic conditions including autoimmunity, metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and even cancer.

In an article published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, lead author Craig Sturgeon, a graduate student in the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center (MIBRC) at MGH, and colleagues provide a direct link between increased permeability of the small intestine and chronic inflammatory disease. They describe how inducing colitis in transgenic mice with two copies of the zonulin-producing gene variant led to significantly more severe symptoms and increased mortality compared with inducing colitis in animals without the zonulin gene.

"This is the first time that we have been able to mechanistically link zonulin-dependent modulation of small-intestinal permeability and the resulting enhanced antigen trafficking to the development of an inflammatory disease," says Alessio Fasano, MD, director of the MIBRC and senior author of the article. "When we exposed these two groups of mice to inflammatory stress, the zonulin transgenic mice showed a remarkable increase in colon inflammation and in mortality -- up to 70 percent -- compared to normal mice."

In a related finding that Fasano calls "even more remarkable," adding a zonulin inhibitor -- AT1001, also called larazotide acetate -- to the drinking water of the transgenic mice completely protected the animals from colonic inflammation and death, reducing permeability of the small intestine to normal levels, despite continued zonulin expression.

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Fasano's group discovered zonulin, which controls the opening of "tight junctions" between cells lining the digestive tract, in 2000. Since then it has been the subject of numerous studies implicating intestinal permeability in chronic inflammatory disease. In 2001 while at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Fasano developed AT1001 as a therapeutic agent for celiac disease. The zonulin-blocking agent is set to undergo Phase III clinical trials later this year, according to Innovate BioPharmaceuticals, which has licensed development of the drug from Alba Therapeutics, a company co-founded by Fasano.

A professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Fasano explains that, while some alternative health care practitioners use the term "leaky gut syndrome" to describe a variety of health problems ranging from gastrointestinal complaints to neurological symptoms, he prefers the concept of loss of intestinal barrier function. "Leaky gut syndrome has been blamed by some non-mainstream practitioners as the reason for almost everything that is wrong with a person. With the development of this mouse model to study inflammation, we'll be able to separate science from speculation," he says.

Lead author Sturgeon adds, "Use of these mice will allow us to gain insight into specific mechanisms by which zonulin-dependent increased intestinal permeability can affect disease onset, clinical severity and outcomes, and even possible prevention." Jinggang Lan, PhD, of the MIBRC is also a co-author of the Annals of the New York Academy of Science paper.
A study of the impact and research topics of neuroscience papers from 2006-2015 has shown that the number of papers and highly-productive core neuroscience journals has grown, while psychology and behavioral sciences have become more popular research areas. China has emerged as a major neuroscience contributor, jumping from 11th place in 2006 to 2nd place in 2015 on the list of the most productive countries for neuroscience research.

Neuroscience seeks to understand how our nervous system functions in health and disease. Studying the brain can involve tackling some fundamental questions such as the nature of consciousness or how we form and retain memories. Neuroscience can range from studying psychology or behavior to investigating how the nervous system functions at a cellular or molecular level.

Neuroscience, and indeed all science, often seeks to answer highly specific questions. However, sometimes it is important to take a step back and look at an entire research field to understand how it is developing, who the major contributors are and what the most important research topics are. Understanding these trends can help people to quickly determine the most important and influential research in a field, which can then inform evidence-based education, policy, and investment.

"I was interested in applying bibliometric analytics to my field of research: neuroscience. I wished to see the overall picture and identify the hot research topics in the field," explains Andy Wai Kan Yeung of the University of Hong Kong, lead author on the study, which was recently published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

The researchers analyzed scientific articles or reviews listed by the Web of Science and published under the Journal Citation Reports "Neuroscience" category between 2006 and 2015. They used manuscript keywords to determine the most popular and cited research topics and recorded the country of origin of the authors.

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Finally, the scientists assessed the core journals in the field for every year. "The journals were sorted in descending order from the most productive to the least productive. Core journals are defined as the most productive journals that together publish one third of neuroscience papers in a year," says Yeung.

The number of neuroscience papers published each year increased linearly over the studied period, showing that the field is active and growing. In particular, psychology and behavioral sciences increased in popularity. The number one high-impact research term was "autism", while "melatonin", "microglia" and "neurofibrillary tangle", which all relate to Alzheimer's disease, appeared in the top ten in the last three years. The publication share of "geriatrics, gerontology" doubled from 2006 to 2015. "People are paying attention to neuroscience related to the elderly, most likely because of the aging population in developed countries," says Yeung.

The United States was the most prolific producer of neuroscience publications during the ten-year period, with European countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany also producing a significant quantity of manuscripts. However, China demonstrated the greatest change, by jumping from 11th to 2nd place in the list of the most productive countries for neuroscience papers over the studied period.

The number of core journals increased from 11 in 2006 to 22 in 2015, and 6 journals were consistently included as core journals throughout the entire study period. A total of 33 core journals were identified, and in the years 2014-2015 these included four Frontiers journals.

Source: Frontiers
Scientists at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health report elevated levels of a pathogen responsible for the tick-borne disease babesiosis in Suffolk County, New York, where rates are the highest in the state. Results are published in the journal mSphere.

Researchers developed and employed a method to simultaneously test for five common pathogens carried by deer ticks: Babesia microti, the pathogen behind babesiosis; Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease; as well as Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Borrelia miyamotoi, and Powassan virus -- pathogens responsible for other tick-borne infections.

The team collected and tested 318 adult and nymph ticks at five sites in Suffolk County (Southampton, Mannorville, Southold, Islip, Huntington) and three sites in Connecticut (Mansfield, Stamford, Greenwich). Nymphal ticks are about the size of a poppy seed, emerge in warmer months, and are responsible for the majority of tick-borne disease.

A Better Test

The new test uses a DNA amplification technique called polymerase chain reaction or PCR to test for tick-borne pathogens. Most existing tests use this method to test ticks for each agent individually. Even the tests that have the ability to test for more than one agent typically only test for up to three, not five agents, and never for Powassan virus, the rarest but most pathogenic of the five. The scientists say the technique has several advantages: it lowers costs, facilitates testing for agents (B. miyamotoi, and especially Powassan virus) that are rarely tested for, and provides risk assessments for co-infections which may adversely affect the course of disease.

What They Found

Tests found B. microti present in a higher proportion of ticks in Suffolk County than Connecticut, including 17 vs. 7 percent of nymphal ticks. In both locations, B. burgdorferi, the causative agent for Lyme disease, was the most frequently detected agent in ticks tested while A. phagocytophilum, B. miyamotoi and Powassan virus were more rare.

One-quarter of B. burgdorferi-positive nymphs were also positive for B. microti suggesting a risk of co-infection with both agents from a single tick bite. "Gathering data on co-infections is particularly important in light of the fact that antibiotics used for Lyme disease may be ineffective for babesiosis," says first author Rafal Tokarz, a research scientist at CII.

Better Surveillance Needed

The number of counties in the Northeast with high rates of Lyme disease has more than tripled since the 1990s -- a sign that ticks that spread disease have expanded their range. Rates of tick-borne illness may be much higher than reported: one study in Minnesota found 79 percent of cases were not reported to health authorities. Symptoms include fever and headaches, and, more rarely, neurological complications like encephalitis.

"This new test can strengthen surveillance for tick-borne illnesses which are underreported and growing rapidly," says W. Ian Lipkin director of CII and John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School.
A midday jolt of caffeine isn't as powerful as walking up and down some stairs, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

In a new study published in the journal Physiology and Behavior, researchers in the UGA College of Education found that 10 minutes of walking up and down stairs at a regular pace was more likely to make participants feel energized than ingesting 50 milligrams of caffeine-about the equivalent to the amount in a can of soda.

"We found, in both the caffeine and the placebo conditions, that there was not much change in how they felt," said Patrick J. O'Connor, a professor in the department of kinesiology who co-authored the study with former graduate student Derek Randolph. "But with exercise they did feel more energetic and vigorous. It was a temporary feeling, felt immediately after the exercise, but with the 50 milligrams of caffeine, we didn't get as big an effect."

The study aimed to simulate the hurdles faced in a typical office setting, where workers spend hours sitting and staring at computer screens and don't have time for a longer bout of exercise during the day. For the study, participants on separate days either ingested capsules containing caffeine or a placebo, or spent 10 minutes walking up and down stairs-about 30 floors total-at a low-intensity pace.

O'Connor wanted to compare an exercise that could be achieved by people in an office setting, where they have access to stairs and a little time to be active, but not enough time to change into workout gear, shower and change back into work clothes.

"Office workers can go outside and walk, but weather can be less than ideal. It has never rained on me while walking the stairs," said O'Connor. "And a lot of people working in office buildings have access to stairs, so it's an option to keep some fitness while taking a short break from work."

Study participants were female college students who described themselves as chronically sleep deprived-getting less than 6 hours per night. To test the effects of caffeine versus the exercise, each group took some verbal and computer-based tests to gauge how they felt and how well they performed certain cognitive tasks. Neither caffeine nor exercise caused large improvements in attention or memory, but stair walking was associated with a small increase in motivation for work.

O'Connor added that there is still much research to be done on the specific benefits of exercising on the stairs, especially for just 10 minutes. But even a brief bout of stair walking can enhance feelings of energy without reducing cognitive function. "You may not have time to go for a swim, but you might have 10 minutes to walk up and down the stairs."
Researchers hope to reduce unnecessary CT scans and radiation exposure in children with head injuries, following the results from a large-scale, multicenter validation study to assess the diagnostic accuracy of three clinical decision rules used by emergency doctors.

Head injuries are one of the most common reasons children are taken to emergency departments. To rule out a serious brain injury, a percentage of these children require a CT scan and while this process is obvious for serious head injuries, it's more challenging to determine whether CT scans are necessary for children with milder injuries.

The results from the Australasian clinical trial will help inform the use of the clinical decision rules for head injuries, which in turn could minimize CT scans, according to Lead investigator, Murdoch Children's Research Institute's Associate Professor Franz Babl.

"The aim of this study was to determine which children need CT scans to detect brain injury," said A/Prof Babl.

"Most head injuries are mild and don't require neurosurgical management, however, a small proportion of patients might present as having mild injuries, but have clinically significant intracranial injuries," he said.

"This can be a vexed issue because physicians need to balance the importance of diagnosing an injury with reducing radiation exposure as much as possible.

"The preferred course of treatment is to avoid a CT scan in minor head injuries if it is unnecessary. In particular, there is concern about the high radiation dose associated with CT scans of the head which can lead to cancer."

In these cases, clinicians can turn to clinical decision rules, which have been developed to identify children at high risk of intracranial injuries, aiming to assist clinicians to minimize CT scans while still identifying all relevant injuries.

In a prospective observational study, run across 10 Australian and New Zealand tertiary hospitals and involving, 20,137 children under the age of 18 years with head injuries, the research team compared three clinical decision rules:

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The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN, USA)

The Canadian Assessment of Tomography for Childhood Head Injury (CATCH) rule

The Children's Head Injury Algorithm for the Prediction of Important Clinical Events (CHALICE, UK).

The goal was to determine which of these three decision rules provided the best option when it came to identifying children at very low risk of a traumatic brain injury. The researchers found that all three rules were good options, but only one, the PECARN from the US, did not miss a single patient requiring neurosurgery.

Based on the research findings, the next step is for the group of emergency physicians to develop national approaches to optimize the management of children with head injuries in Australia and New Zealand.

Internationally, the findings will provide a useful starting point for individual clinicians as well as hospitals or regional bodies contemplating the introduction or modification of one of the clinical decision rules, according to A/Prof Babl.

"However, it will be important to relate the findings to a number of other factors before implementation, such as the baseline CT use, the effect of the rules on the projected CT rate, the baseline clinician diagnostic accuracy and experience, parental expectations, the medico-legal climate and economic considerations."

The outcomes from the clinical trial were recently published in The Lancet.

In The Lancet article, the researchers commented that patients reflected an Australia and New Zealand cohort from tertiary children's hospitals, which had much lower neuro-imaging rates than those reported from the USA and Canada.

Source: http://emergencyfoundation.org.au/2017/04/18/best-way-to-diagnose-head-injuries-in-children-and-minimise-ct-scans/
Looking to improve your overall life satisfaction? Try regularly hiking in a forest or otherwise engaging with the natural environment.

And then, for good measure, look for ways to build your trust in the scientists and policymakers involved in managing the forest where you like to hike.

New research at Oregon State University empirically demonstrates that a variety of mechanisms for engaging nature significantly contribute to a person's overall well-being.

Chief among those, the study found, was whether people believed their surrounding environments were being managed well -- for the earning of income and the underpinning of cultural practices as well as for the pursuit of recreation.

"Whether people feel like things are fair and they have a voice in process of making decisions and whether governance is transparent -- those are the foundations of why people even can interact with nature," said lead author Kelly Biedenweg of OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences.

Biedenweg, an assistant professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, and collaborators from Colorado State University and the University of Georgia analyzed results from more than 4,400 respondents to an online survey conducted in the Puget Sound region of Washington state.

The researchers used 13 different metrics to illustrate the relationship between overall life satisfaction and engaging with the natural environment. Among those metrics were community activities, access to wild resources, stress eased by time outdoors, and trust in policymakers.

"Eleven of the 13 had a positive correlation to overall life satisfaction," said Biedenweg, a social scientist who studies both how humans benefit from the natural environment and the impact human actions have on it. "The links between ecological conditions, like drinking water and air quality, and objective well-being have been studied quite a bit, but the connection between various aspects of engaging the natural environment and overall subjective well-being have rarely been looked at."

"We wanted to identify the relative importance of diverse, nature-oriented experiences on a person's overall life satisfaction assessment and statistically prove the relationship between happiness/life satisfaction and engaging with nature in many different ways."

The researchers quantified the relationship between well-being and six common mechanisms by which nature has effects on well-being: social and cultural events; trust in governance; access to local wild resources; sense of place; outdoor recreation; and psychological benefits from time outdoors.

"Controlling for demographics, all were significantly related to life satisfaction," Biedenweg said. "The fact that trust in governance was a significant predictor of life satisfaction -- in fact, the most statistically significant predictor of the ones we looked at - it was nice to see that come out of the research. The way we manage is the gateway to people being able to get livelihoods and satisfaction from nature."
A vaccination campaign is underway in Nigeria to contain an outbreak of meningitis C, a strain of meningitis which first emerged in the country in 2013. Since the beginning of this year, the country has reported 4637 suspected cases and 489 deaths across five states.

WHO/A. Clements-Hunt

The International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision, which coordinates the provision of emergency vaccine supplies during outbreak emergencies, has sent 500 000 doses of meningitis C-containing vaccine to Nigeria to combat the epidemic. The vaccines, funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, have been administered in Zamfara and Katsina states, which are the worst affected by the outbreak. An additional 820 000 doses of a meningitis C conjugate vaccine  a donation from the UK government to the World Health Organization (WHO) - is being sent to the country.

In the last week, the ICG, which is managed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), and WHO, has also sent 341 000 doses of the Gavi-supported meningitis C-containing vaccine to Niger, where there are over 1300 suspected cases of the disease in districts that border with Nigeria and in the Niamey region of the country.

Meningococcal meningitis is a bacterial form of meningitis, a serious infection of the thin lining that surrounds the brain and spinal cord and can cause severe brain damage. Meningococcal meningitis is fatal in 50% of cases if untreated. Though cases of meningitis occur throughout the world, large, recurring epidemics affect an extensive region of sub-Saharan Africa known as the meningitis belt which includes 26 countries from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east.

There are several different types of meningococcal meningitis (A, C, W, etc.) that can cause epidemics. Substantial progress has been made in recent years in protecting Africa from disease due to one of the main epidemic types, through the successful introduction of the Men A conjugate vaccine (MACV) against meningitis A. Since MACV was introduced in 2010, more than 260 million people have been vaccinated across 19 countries. This has resulted in a reduction of the number of meningitis cases by more than 57%. Much work, however, remains to be done to protect the region from meningitis C outbreaks and other types of the disease.

In addition to the use of vaccinations to prevent the transmission of meningitis, 20 000 vials of antibiotics have been sent by the ICG to treat people who have the disease in Nigeria. Vaccination can drastically reduce the magnitude of the epidemic, says Dr Sylvie Briand, Director of Infectious Hazard Management for WHO. But in addition, it is essential to strengthen the care of all those affected by the infection and to ensure those people living in hard-to-reach areas can get treatment.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, with support from WHO, US CDC, UNICEF and other partners, is leading and coordinating the response to the ongoing outbreak, including intensified surveillance, capacity building for case management and risk communication. WHOs Country Office in Nigeria, including a number of field offices, have been supporting the government since the outbreak began. An additional team of WHO of meningitis experts has arrived in Nigeria to provide additional epidemic response. In addition to improving the care of the sick, we are focusing on ensuring accurate information about the spread of the outbreak is available as quickly as possible to help us make the most effective use of vaccines, says Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu, WHO Representative to Nigeria.

The emergence of meningitis C in Africa

Since 2013, there have been outbreaks of meningitis C in Nigeria, initially limited to a few areas in Kebbi and Sokoto states in 2013 and 2014. In 2015, however, there were more than 2500 cases of the disease across 3 states in Nigeria as well as 8500 cases in Niger.

Concerns about vaccine supply

Most vaccines currently being used for meningitis C outbreaks in Africa are polysaccharide vaccines, which are in short supply as they are being phased out in other parts of the world. The more effective and long-lasting conjugate vaccines, however, are not readily accessible for outbreak response in the region. The ICG global emergency stockpile currently has approximately 1.2 million doses of meningitis C-containing vaccines left.

The very limited supply of vaccines to control outbreaks of meningitis C can affect our ability to control these epidemics, says Dr Olivier Ronveaux, WHO meningitis expert. In the long term, the accelerated development of affordable and effective conjugate vaccines to cover all epidemic types of meningitis is a high priority for WHO and partners.

Nigeria and Meningitis A

In the past, Nigeria has suffered large-scale outbreaks of meningitis A. In 2009, such an outbreak in the country caused over 55 000 cases with close to 2500 deaths. Niger was also affected, with 13 000 cases and 550 deaths. However, preventive mass vaccination campaigns supported by Gavi and partners, using the safe and effective MACV in Niger (2010-11) and Nigeria (2011-14) have provided high and long-term protection against the bacteria. Since 2010, less than 20 cases of meningitis A have been reported from all vaccinated areas in the region. WHO recommends the continued roll-out of the Men A conjugate vaccine campaigns along with its introduction into routine immunization to prevent a major recurrence of devastating meningitis A epidemics.

Useful links:

International Coordinating Group (ICG) on vaccine provision for meningitis:

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/meningococcal/icg/en/

Map of meningitis belt:

http://gamapserver.whoint/mapLibrary/Files/Maps/Global_MeningitisRisk_ITHRiskMap.png?ua=1&ua=1&ua=1

Meningococcal meningitis Fact Sheet:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs141/en/
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published the first-ever Global Hepatitis Report. The World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA) welcomes the publication, which is a follow-up to WHOs Global Strategy on Viral Hepatitis, and has set the goal to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030.

The report aims to standardize the understanding of the disease, which is a vital starting point for evaluating improvement towards reaching the 2030 goal to eliminate the disease, and reveals the regional and global new baseline data on the impact of viral hepatitis B and C.

A major public health challenge, viral hepatitis requires an urgent response. The Global Hepatitis Report has concluded for the first time that:

1.34 million people worldwide die every year due to viral hepatitis; the number is comparable with deaths caused by tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria annually.

325 million people are affected by viral hepatitis, which constitutes approximately 4.4% of the world population.

9% of the population has Hepatitis B, while 20% having hepatitis C are tested and are aware of the status of their disease.

The major cause for the majority of the 1.75 million new hepatitis C infections are due to the use of healthcare procedures and injectable drugs that are unsafe.

For the first time in the history of viral hepatitis, we have an understanding of the true impact of the disease. WHOs Global Hepatitis Report provides us with new data and a set of very specific, global and regional targets to reach by 2030 - for instance global deaths from hepatitis must be brought down from 1.34 million to lower than 469,000 people per year. Charles Gore, President of the World Hepatitis Alliance.

The report reveals that the death rate due to viral hepatitis has risen by 22%, while deaths attributed to other diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV show a downward trend from the year 2000.

Specific actions are to be implemented at the regional and national levels, to reduce the increasing trend.

Scaling-up of birth dose vaccination against hepatitis B is one such action. Although implementing childhood hepatitis B vaccination was successful, reaching a coverage of 84%, the initial birth dose vaccination coverage is as low as 39%. Another action highlighted in the report is to improve the access to significant affordable treatment, as currently it is limited to 1% of viral hepatitis patients.

Today, 325 million men, women and children are living with a cancer-causing illness despite the availability of preventative vaccines for hepatitis B and curative treatments for hepatitis C. We need to use this report to advocate for a public health approach, so that testing and treatment are rolled out at the scale necessary to ensure that every person has the opportunity to live a healthy life. We have the knowledge, what we need now is action. Raquel Peck, CEO of World Hepatitis Alliance.

Further information about Viral Hepatitis, the World Hepatitis Alliance, and the World Hepatitis Summit 2017

Viral hepatitis is liver inflammation caused by a virus, and 400 million people are affected globally. Annually 610 million people are newly infected and 1.4 million die due to viral hepatitis. There are 5 hepatitis viruses causing Hepatitis types A, B, C, D, and E.

Hepatitis A is transmitted through ingestion of contaminated food and water or through direct contact with an infectious person. The risk of infection is associated with unsafe water or food, and poor sanitation and hygiene.

is transmitted through ingestion of contaminated food and water or through direct contact with an infectious person. The risk of infection is associated with unsafe water or food, and poor sanitation and hygiene. Hepatitis B is transmitted through contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. Annually more than 600,000 people die of Hepatitis B complications.

is transmitted through contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. Annually more than 600,000 people die of Hepatitis B complications. Hepatitis C is transmitted through unsafe injection practices, inadequate sterilization of medical equipment, and the transfusion of unscreened blood and blood products. Globally, between 130 and 150 million people have chronic hepatitis C infection.

is transmitted through unsafe injection practices, inadequate sterilization of medical equipment, and the transfusion of unscreened blood and blood products. Globally, between 130 and 150 million people have chronic hepatitis C infection. Hepatitis D requires the hepatitis B virus (HBV) for replication, and is transmitted through contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. Worldwide, approximately 15 million people are chronically co-infected with Heptatitis B and Hepatitis D

requires the hepatitis B virus (HBV) for replication, and is transmitted through contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. Worldwide, approximately 15 million people are chronically co-infected with Heptatitis B and Hepatitis D Hepatitis E is transmitted via the fecaloral route, principally via contaminated water. An estimated 20 million HEV infections occur worldwide annually.

The World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA) is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) led and driven by patients. With 240+ member organizations from 80 countries, WHA contributes to the global fight against viral hepatitis by running global awareness days, convening high-level policy events, building capacity, and pioneering global movement.WHA works with governments, national members, and other key partners to raise awareness of viral hepatitis and influence global change. To achieve a world free from viral hepatitis, their work is strategically structured around awareness-raising, advocacy, and ending the social injustice of viral hepatitis

The World Hepatitis Summit 2017 is a joint initiative between WHO and WHA. The three-day event will be held between 1 and 3 November in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to discuss how to fast-track the path to elimination. Hundreds of policymakers, patients, civil society, and public health experts will gather to focus on key ways to implement WHOs Viral Hepatitis Strategy, with a specific focus on how to improve surveillance data, scale-up testing and treatment at the national level, and support service delivery among vulnerable populations. The event will also encourage innovation in research and have a dedicated focus on sustainable financing for elimination, all of which are needed to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030.
Commandant Chetan Kumar Cheeta took nine bullets in an encounter in Bandipore that led to the killing of top Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Abu Musaib. After weeks in coma, the CO of the 45th Battalion of the CRPF is back home at the CRPF Base Camp in Delhi. He has lost his right eye, his upper limbs are badly fractured, and a bullet is still lodged in his body. The recovery will be a long and painful one, but the man who led from the front is raring to go. Edited excerpts:



Anubha Bhonsle (AB): I think I have to begin by saying that it's an absolute honour and a great privilege to be here and get a chance to speak to you.



Chetan Kumar (CK): Same here.



AB: We're absolutely stunned at your resilience, at your spirit and extremely proud to meet both you and your wife.



CK: We are very thankful to the media as well. Because you are the people who got us so many prayers and I think prayers your prayers have been answered.



AB: Let me start by asking how are you feeling?



CK: Wonderful. Minus this injury, it's wonderful.



AB: I think it's a remarkable and a very noticeable recovery.



CK: Really? Do I look fine?



AB: You were always looking fine but you're looking better now



CK: Thank you. Thank you.

Wife: It's good to hear it from you actually. I live with him so, yes, I do feel there is a change in everything. There is a remarkable difference now. I do feel that but it's good to hear it from others.



AB: What are the doctors telling you, sir? How long is this recovery process going to be?



CK: I have been asking them the same thing, but they are reluctant to give me any date. I think it will take another 20 days.



AB: Will you then be fighting fit?



CK: Not fighting fit, but by then I won't require any support and so I will be able to things on my own.



AB: I think I know that for men in the forces taking support becomes a big thing.



Wife: It's a big thing A very big thing.



AB: But how do you know?



Wife: My father was in the forces as well. He's retired now but...



AB: Ok



Wife: Yes, it's absolutely right. It is very difficult to give help to Chetan because he doesn't want to take help from anyone. So whenever we try to extend any sort of support - you call it willpower, you call it anything, he doesn't want to take support.

CK: She is not allowing me to even brush my teeth on my own. Allow me to do this at least.

Wife: Yes, this is only time. I mean, I want you to thank me later actually.

CK: I'm an officer and she's also a daughter of a uniformed officer. Main lena nahi chahta aur ye har cheez meri karna chahti hai (I don't want to take help and she wants to help me in everything).



AB: I think you two are a great team. I keep going back to that image when he was discharged from the hospital and you said: I'm rocking, I'm on top of the world. I think the same sort of robustness and positivity was in you as well.



Wife: He doesn't want any sympathy. He's well aware of his problems. So am I and we know how to fight it out. So we are doing it. We are on the track already. There is a remarkable difference and it is because of his own will power.



AB: Are you in pain, sir? We can stop this interview if you're feeling uncomfortable?



CK: Nahi, nahi (no, no). It's ok.

Wife: He can take it. He's not on painkillers. He doesn't take painkillers. He's bearing the pain.

CK: Yes, it's not required.



AB: Sir, after taking nine bullets you are saying painkillers are not required?



CK: Actually, I'm past that phase.

Wife: Since he has come back to consciousness.



AB: Did he resist taking painkillers?



Wife: No, no. In hospital he was given painkillers but after we came back home he has stopped taking painkillers. He said, "I will bear."



AB: When did you get to know about the fact that he'd taken an injury; he'd taken a bullet injury?



Wife: In the morning itself.

CK: Actually, I told her in the morning that probably I'll go on an operation in the morning. Main zyada detail mein batata nahi hu isko (I don't usually tell her in detail about the operations).



AB: Of course.



CK: Kyunki uske baad first word hota hai ki Chetan please mat jao (As she usually stops me from going).

Wife: I usually expect his phone calls around 7:30 AM.



AB: In the morning?



Wife: In the morning. Every day. That's the natural practice. He usually calls me after children go to school. But that day he didn't call up, so I called up on both his numbers. The numbers were all switched off which is unusual for me. His numbers are usually not off. There was a man in the house, I asked him to call up on the exchange to find where the sahab is. From his expressions I understood that there was something wrong with Chetan and thereafter I went to Srinagar.



AB: I'm actually also told by the CRPF that everything fell into place, right?



Wife: Everything really did fell into place. The evacuation from Kashmir wasn't very easy, still it was done by the army jawans. Air ambulance was also arranged. Even though it was going to Imphal and was moved to Srinagar. So things definitely fell in place.



AB: What saved you?



CK: When you are doing some good job with a true conscience, definitely everyone is standing for you.



AB: I told you a little while before that we just returned from Kashmir from a reporting trip. We had a chance to meet a whole host of CRPF men and when I told them that I will be meeting you in a couple of days, my phone since then has been flooded with messages of people who've known you. I think I should read out a couple of them to you. So constable Sandeep from the 45 Battalion says: "Sir aap jaldi se swasth ho jayiye. Hum aap jaisa banna chahte hai. Aur aapki supervision mein hi ladhna chahte hai (Sir, we hope you will get better soon. We hope to be like you and want to fight under your guidance)." What would you say to him?



CK: Meri supervision mein kya ladna. Yedi mere jaise ban gaye toh aapko kisi ki supervision nahi chahiye ladne ke liye. (Well, if you become like me, you won't require any supervision)."



AB: Well said. The other person who sent a message is Niranjan, who's your deputy commandant and I think was with you on that particular day, right? So he said: "Sir aapki veerta ko salaam hai. Paltan ko aap par naaz hai. Hume besabri se aapka intezar hai. Hum aapke sath milkr desh ke dushmano se firse ladenge (Sir, we salute your bravery. The battalion is proud of you. We eagerly await your return. We want to fend off the nations enemies by your side again.)" They all sound exactly like you.



CK: That is what I wanted. Actually I encouraged them that whatever war you are fighting, that should be your war that should be like as your last war.



AB: The third person to write in was Suresh, He said:"Dearest Chetan, your exploits in Bandipura will continue to inspire all of us in the CRPF. Thank you for holding the flag high. We knew from day one the bullets of these cowards weren't capable of holding you down. Please come back soon. We need to hold our guns together and have a drink." That's also a common sentiment; everyone wants to have a drink with you.



CK: That is how the men express, ma'am.



AB: So you've inspired a lot of men.



Wife: And that's actually the love his men have for him.



AB: You've been a fantastic leader it means.



CK: I can be. I cannot say such things about myself. Aapne mujhe ye sunaya hai toh achha laga (I liked the fact that you read such things to me).



AB: Thank you



CK: Toh laga (I felt), yes, I'm doing something better.







AB: You know for everyone who has sent messages for you has this one line or one sentiment which is very common that you're a man who leads from the front.



CK: I have served in all the operation theatres in the country. North-East, Naxal areas and Jammu & Kashmir. This is my third posting in J&K and whatever achievements I have been with the support of my troops. Those who know me know how Chetan Cheeta functions.



AB: Chetan Cheeta kaise kaam karta hai (How does Chetan Cheeta function)?



Chetan: Obviously, ma'am, from the front.



AB: The challenges the CRPF faces in the state of Jammu and Kashmir while it's doing its duties are known to everyone. What do you say to your troops when they go on jobs that are not related to the operations.



CK: Ma'am our jawans are very mature. We need not tell them many things.



AB: Do you want to comment on this recent video where a young CRPF man showed so much restraint in the face of provocation? You don't want to comment?



Wife: We don't know. For the last two months, I am totally out of touch.



AB: What are you looking forward to next as far as work is concerned? Are you planning to head back?



CK: That's an answer I've given to my wife.



AB: what did you tell her?



CK: I want to go back.



AB: To Kashmir? You should tell me what her response was.



CK: She's always ki what is this?

Wife: Till you recover completely.



AB: Why is it important for you to go back to Kashmir?



CK: The answer is - unfinished business. And this business will be finished. I cannot say that if you give 10 years of my future posting in Kashmir or 20 years of my future posting in Kashmir, I'll finish all the problems. It is not possible. I enjoy being in the operation area. I was recently promoted as a commandant. They asked me what you want. I told them give me the command of the COBRA.



AB: You enjoy it. You want to be there?



CK: Enjoy. I want some action. Some actually. When I retire or when I'll be on my death bed at least when I look back I can recollect I have done some commendable job.



AB: What does a soldier want from the nation?



CK: Recognition of his work, medal on his chest and his name in golden letters. Toh ma'am recognition yedi nahi milta hai kaam ka toh wo disheartened hota hai (When we do not get recognition for our work, we feel disheartened). So this is actually what is happening between the army and the CRPF.



AB: I think the army chief recognised your bravery when he came to see you at the hospital



CK: It's very nice of him. Actually I also recognised that and I said in the hospital also ki ek soldier ko isse zada kya chahiye hota hai (what more does a soldier want).



AB: What do you say to your men? You know when their spirits may be a little dampened. When they face a great amount of hostility, stone pelting, violence. What do you say to them?



CK: Ki jisko jana hai wo jaye (Those who want to leave, can leave). They can go back to their barracks and those who are brave enough to stand, they can stand here with me. One thing I can assure you, I will be standing with you all the time.



AB: Spirit?



CK: It is the most important thing. I stayed there for almost three months, ma'am. I have done many operations with my battalion. It was probably the eighth operation of Chetan.



AB: What are the values you hold dear, sir, as a soldier?



CK: As a soldier, defend your nation. Lead your troops. Hold the flag till your last breath. So these are my values, ma'am.



AB: I'll wrap this interview here but I have to once again thank both of you and you especially sir for standing tall for the nation, and sort of being so positive and resilient in the face of great adversity.



CK: It is okay, ma'am. Achha hua. Malum toh padha ki bullet ka ghav kaisa hota hai. Dard kaisa hota hai. Koi ab aaj se mujhse bole ki... (I am happy it happened. I got to know what a bullet injury feels like, what pain is? Now if someone asks me...).



AB: Goli khayi hai?



CK: Toh main bolunga ki ek nahi 9 khayi (I took not one but nine bullets).



AB: Do you want to say anything to our viewers or anything that I haven't asked you or bothered you with?



CK: I just want to thank them for their prayers and I love my nation. I want to go back and serve my nation again in the best possible way.



AB: Thank you. Thank you very much for sparing time. And good luck, good health, good life ahead.



CK: Thank you.
"Arunachal Pradesh is totally part and parcel of India. China has no business to name any of the district. I don't know why they have taken this step," Naidu, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, told a press conference in New Delhi.

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said "every inch" of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India and China has "no business" to name any Indian place.Stressing that "every inch of the state belongs to India", the minister said that no foreign country has the right to rename any part of India.Naidu asked if anybody's name can be changed if his or her neighbour does so.The minister was responding to a query on the Chinese action of unilaterally changing the names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.China had on Wednesday announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a "legitimate action".The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged a strong protest with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state.
Islamabad: Pakistan has asserted that a decision on Indias request for consular access to its national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a military court, would be taken on the basis of merit.



Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan and India have a bilateral agreement on consular access but all cases have to be decided on merit.



In all such casesthe request of this nature would be decided on the basis of merit, he said at a media briefing yesterday. Zakaria said India had summoned Pakistans Deputy High Commissioner over consular access to Jadhav but this was not something new.



It was a reaction after the death sentence awarded to Jadhav, he said. Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale after meeting Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua earlier this week had said that he had asked for consular access to Jadhav for the 14th time.



In response, Pakistan had said in a statement that India, in several cases, had denied consular access to Pakistani prisoners for years.



Separately, army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor had ruled out consular access to Jadhav. Under the law we cannot give consular access to Khubhushan who was involved in spying, Ghafoor had told reporters.
Jaipur: Eight Kashmiri students, studying at Rajasthans Mewar University, were allegedly heckled on Wednesday night by a group of unidentified people.



Police said four students were hospitalised while four others suffered minor injuries.



The attack is said to be in response to the heckling of a CRPF jawan during the recent elections in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.



Meanwhile, students from Jammu and Kashmir protested at the university on Thursday night.



The incident happened on Wednesday evening when the students were in the market. Four-five unidentified persons asked the students about their names and permanent address and thrashed them," SHO Gangrar Dinesh Kumar said.







A case has been registered at Gangrar police station and a search has been launched for the accused.



Gangrar SHO said that there are nearly 500 Kashmiri students and 300 from Jammu studying at Mewar University.



Last year some Kashmiri students of Mewar University were attacked over rumours that they cooked beef in the hostel.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged bureaucrats to think out of the box and become enablers.



There is need for qualitative change along with the increase in workload. From regulator, we need to be an enabling entity, Modi said while addressing bureaucrats on Civil Services Day.



The PM asserted that he did not lack the political will needed to carry out reforms and asked officers to work together as a team to perform and transform. To reform, political will is needed. I do not lack itmaybe I have a bit extra," he said.



Modi said that senior officers should introspect if their experience is becoming a burden. Changing trends have altered the dynamics. Competition can play a big role in bringing a qualitative change, the PM said.



He said hierarchy in bureaucracy remains an issue which has been inherited from colonial rulers and was not left behind in Mussoorie (where civil service academy is located).



Modi said the role of the government was very strong but things have changed since the last 15 years.



He also asked the civil servants to use social media, e-governance and mobile governance for the welfare of the people by reaching out to them.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men.



A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra said it was not inclined to go into the issue as the Supreme Court is already seized of the triple talaq matter related to changes in the muslim personal law.



It said there is no dispute that a Constitution bench has been formed to hear the issue. So, the law laid down by it will be applicable to all women and children of the society.



The high court further noted that "all women are entitled to equal protection under the law."



"In view of it (Supreme Court seized of the issue) we are not inclined to hear the issue. The petition is dismissed," the bench said.



The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by advocate Vijay Kumar Shukla had highlighted the plight of Hindu women affected by triple talaq.



It had also sought directions to the Centre for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter- caste marriage is not registered.



A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will be hearing from May 11 a batch of petitions challenging the practice of triple talaq and polygamy as unconstitutional and discriminatory towards women.



Muslim practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy are issues that are "very important" and involve "sentiments", the apex court had observed.


The organization has claimed that it has support of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other Muslim organizations. The organization has also launched an android app named 'Muslim personal Law Campaign' to reach out to the youths

The Islamic organization, which as formed as an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has decided to organize over 10,000 conferences and deploy a team of women to travel across the country to speak on polygamy, triple talaq and nikah halala. The organization also aims to arrange over 700 symposiums and meetings of Muslim advocates across India.

Religious organization Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has said it will set up Shariah Panchayats across the country to deal with disputes related to Muslim Personal Laws.The announcement was made by Muhammad Jafar, vice president of the organisation, during the launch of the Muslim Personal Law Campaign on Friday."The panchayats will be established in all towns and villages. Muslim Personal Law disputes need not be settled in court and for this Shariah Panchayats will help. These Panchayats will consist of one or two alims (scholars), two or more advocates and a few members of the village panchayat to aid speedy disposal of the issue," said Jafar, who is also the convener of the Muslim Personal Law Campaign from April 23 to May 7.Elaborating on the campaign and the impending launch of the panchayats, Atiya Siddiqui, the lone woman representative of the organisation and the national secretary of the womens wing of the organization said issues like triple talaq existed due to "immaturity and ignorance"."The women who have gone to court have made a huge mistake. We need to understand that women, who do not cover themselves, are like pollutants. Islamic law is divine law for us and there can be no interference in this regard. These women have made a huge mistake by approaching the courts. We need to understand that women who are not covering themselves up are like pollutants," she added.Speaking to News18, Syed Jalaluddin Umri, president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind said, "Even if there were more than 5 crore Muslims demanding an interference in Muslim personal law, it cannot be allowed. Law commission showed 50,000 signatures to prove that there is a big case, which is false. Secondly, this is nothing but divergence from the real issues of poverty and lack of education. What is needed is to set things in perspective and priority."
New York's famed Empire State Building lit up with sky-high iconic fashion photographs after nightfall on Wednesday to celebrate the 150th anniversary of style magazine Harper's Bazaar.



Beginning at 8:30pm (0030 GMT Thursday) and slated to run until midnight, the north side of the building flashed iconic shoots and cultural moments from the pages of Harper's into the New York skyline.



Among reproductions of the glossy pages set to shine over Manhattan, and streamed live on the magazine's Facebook page, was Barbadian superstar Rihanna sitting in the mouth of Jaws.



Since 1976 the Empire State Building has traditionally changed the color of its tower lights to celebrate or commemorate different occasions and organizations throughout the year.



In 2012, they installed a new computer driven LED light system capable of displaying 16 million colors, which can change instantaneously.
A day after Baahubali 2 director SS Rajamouli issued a video statement wherein he clarified that Sathyarajs comments which he made nine years ago on the Cauvery water dispute had no connection with the movie or its crew, the actor has finally apologised.



I have got to know that what I had spoken during the Cauvery water crisis has created a lot of tension among the people of Karnataka. I am not against Kannadiga or Karnataka. The biggest example for this is that for the last 30 years, my assistant has been Shekar who is a kannadiga. I would like to apologise for the statement that I had made nine years back and would like to say that I am a small worker in Bahubali film and my comment should not affect the film. I appeal to Tamils to understand, he said.







Actor Sathyaraj, who plays Katappa in the film had allegedly made a controversial speech  which had anti-Kannada statements - during the Cauvery row some time back which didnt go down well with many. The protesters including Kannada Rakshana Vedike had declared on Wednesday that theyd stall the Bahubali press meet that was scheduled for Thursday. It has also been reported that they will also hold a rally against the films much-awaited release.



SS Rajamouli in a video statement had said, Whatever Sathyaraj has said has no relation with the movie or its crew. The comments were made by Sathyaraj 9 years ago. Since then many of his movies have released, even Baahubali. I request all to support Baahubali 2 the way they did for part one. We have informed Sathyaraj about the situation. We have nothing to do with his comments.







While speaking to CNN-News18 on Wednesday, Praveen Shetty, President, Karnataka Rakshana Vedike demanded an apology from actor Sathyaraj. Sathyaraj spoke against Karnataka people and the state Cauvery water issue. We are demanding an apology from him, not from others. He should come to Bangalore in front of media and the film chamber, he had said.



On being asked why they decided to stage the protest now, and not during the time the film was being released, Shetty said, We didnt get the information earlier. We got the video after the release of the first film."



Sara Govind, Head of Karnataka Film chamber too stated that he doesnt have an issue with Rajamoulis magnum opus, but protest against Katappa's comments. We are not against the film, instead we are against the actor Sathyaraj, he had explained.



Referring to Sathyaraj's contentious speech, Govind said, He spoke badly about Kannada people. That is why we arent releasing the film in Karnataka. He has to come to Bangalore and apologise in front of everyone. We are protesting after seeing the video, which we got now.

Besides the opposition by the film chamber, pro-Kannada organisations also plan a state-wide bandh on April 28, the release day of Baahubali 2.




The government will not stop any project. The only aim is to ensue genuine farmers are not affected. At the same time, the government will take strict action if any anomaly arises, said Awanish Awasthi, new chief executive officer of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA). Awasthi added that the probe will be completed in a months time.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadavs ambitious Lucknow-Agra Expressway project has come under the scanner of the Yogi Adityanath government. The expressway, which was thrown open to the public barely four months ago, is being scrutinised for an alleged scam, involving farm land being passed as land for residential purposes to get higher compensation.In a letter dated April 19, the state government directed 10 district magistrates to probe all land deals in around 230 villages done over the last 18 months. The Yogi government has also hired public sector company RITES to conduct a technical survey of the expressway.The move comes after UPEIDA special field officer Y N Lal filed an FIR in Firozabad against five chakbandi officers and 22 land owners accusing them of showing agriculture land in Bachhela Bachheli village as land for residential purposes. Around 3,500 hectare of land was purchased from 20,456 farmers in 10 districts of 232 villages for this project.The SP government had claimed that the expressway was constructed in record time. The expressway, which cost Rs 15000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unno, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi, regions which are considered to be Samajwadi bastions. The 302-km long expressway also has an air strip near Unnao, where fighter planes can land. The air strip on this expressway is 3 km long.
Probably that's what prompted Kejriwal's 2 pm outburst. Just hours before the campaigning was supposed to end, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal played his final card. He told the Delhi voters, "If you vote for BJP, and someone in your house suffers from dengue or chikungunya you will be held responsible for it. If BJP comes to power in MCD, then Delhi will remain dirty for the next five years."

This was a campaign much unlike the other AAP campaigns, the process was kept away from media. Most of Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia's rallies were not advertised to the media. The idea, many in the party said, was to connect with the people directly and not the medium. Many say that is also the reason why a party used to disproportionate air time was reduced to the third position in terms of air time, even in their den.

: Under the shadow of AAP's surprise defeat in Punjab and BJP's stupendous performance in Uttar Pradesh, the MCD elections have become a prestige fight for BJP and a battle of survival for AAP. Thus, it is no longer a fight for the three MCDs but has become 'The Mission Delhi'.Top leaders of BJP hit the campaign trail. Uma Bharti spoke about partition and Ayodhya; Rajnath Singh told Delhiites how for the first time Indian army chased the terrorists inside Pakistan's territory; and Smriti Irani invoked how only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can solve Delhi's problems. Somehow, the anti-incumbency of the 10 years of BJP at the municipal corporation level appears to have been washed out by the aura of Prime Minister Modi. But what would AAP do now?Did he attempt to bring the conversation back on the issues like sanitation, cleanliness, fumigation and garbage, an area where BJP hasn't fared too well in the last few years? But what is the lasting image that the voters are left with? A chief minister who refuses to take responsibility? Or is he invoking the fear of dengue to extract votes from the hapless parents?Did the party realise that the policy of seclusion was not working? Was this an attempt to return to the drawing room conversations? But while they are now back in the discourse and would continue to hog the space till Sunday, the voting day, is this attention going to get them votes or scare them away?
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will soon be making its first determined pitch to woo a section of the minority votes- a constituency which it is often accused of ignoring both in electoral politics and otherwise.



Taking a cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the Bhubaneswar national executive last week, the ministry of minority affairs is planning to hold a nationwide campaign on the proposed National Commission for Backward Classes or NCBC Bill.



The Ministry in the coming months will organise more than a hundred conclaves across country to 'impress upon and educate' the backward among the minorities on the benefits of the proposed bill aimed at providing constitutional status to the Backward Classes Commission.



Modi, in his intervention in Bhubaneswar, had stressed that the bill's passage would help backward communities across religious lines.



"Naming the well-off communities, like Sayyads and Pathans which dominate the political leadership, Prime Minister said the lower sections among the Muslims must benefit under the larger umbrella of social justice," said a BJP leader present at the conclave.



"There are castes which are considered backward both among Hindus and Muslims. And Muslim backward castes in the OBC lists are entitled to all the benefits including quotas in jobs and education. But because of lack of awareness, only a few communities avail these benefits," says Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, whose ministry will be organising these events especially in district with high minority population.



The final grand conclave is being planned for Delhi later, where the ministry is planning to invite PM Modi as the chief guest.



There are more than three dozen socially and educationally backward castes among Muslims listed in central and state lists of the OBC. Roughly, these communities together constitute more than half of the total Muslim voters.



The BJP has in the last three decades created for itself a distinct identity as the bearer of the Hindutva plank while accusing its adversaries of 'minority appeasement' and 'pseudo secularism' for vote bank politics.



A party which now aspires to rule from 'panchayat to Parliament', a chunk of the minority votes would do no harm. Especially if the community constitutes almost a fifth of the total national population. But the challenge really is to reach out to the minorities without being seen to be indulging in the same 'vote bank politics' which BJP has opposed all these years.



The NCBC and the concomitant political campaign, however, provides a larger canvas to the BJP to tap a sizable segment of the minorities without being seen to be overtly doing so.
If you vote for BJP and someone in your house suffers from dengue or chikungunya you will be held responsible for it. If BJP comes to power in MCD then Delhi will remain dirty for the next five years, said Kejriwal.

"How will Modi ji improve the situation in MCD. Work in the MCD will not be undertaken by Narendra Modi, but local BJP leaders like Vijender Gupta and others," he said.

AAP MLA Somnath Bharti said BJP is responsible for all healthcare problems in the national capital. Prime Minister is busy in international affairs and BJP is asking for votes in the name of Modi, he said.



Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said the people should hold themselves responsible for dengue outbreaks if they vote for BJP in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections.The CM also urged the electorate not to waste their vote by opting for Congress.He also accused the BJP of trying to cover up its corruption in the three municipal corporations by projecting the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the civic polls, and asserted the strategy would not work.Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said Kejriwal is playing blame game. He has been unable to perform his duties and is blaming others now. The CM should tell us what he has done for Delhi in last three years.The CM also accused the BJP of "completely destroying" the MCD during its 10-year rule.BJPs Nupur Sharma said health is a state subject but Kejriwal is always absent from the state. If BJP was responsible then court would have pulled up the BJP and not Delhi government.The elections to all the 272 wards of the three civic bodies will be held on Sunday.
Before AAP came to power, schools were in a deplorable condition. But since weve formed the government, things have turned around for the better, said Atishi Marlena, advisor to Sisodia on education.

We started with SQEP (School Quality Enhancement Program) in 2014, and various enrollment drives to deal with the dropout rate in schools. There were 60,000 reported dropouts from our schools over the period of five years, which means there used to be 15,000 dropouts in a year, but now it has been brought down to 9,000 a year. We hired agencies to help students too, he said.



My day starts by trying to find a safe place for my son and daughters to relieve themselves. For this, they have to go to school to use the washroom and freshen up, said Zakira, a laborer who stays in a shanty on Mata Sundari Railway Colony. A toilet, she said, matters more than a classroom.

Refurbished, shiny desks have replaced broken tables and benches at the government school on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in the heart of Delhi. Students are in full attendance as they listen to academician Pushpesh Pant speaking on Cold War via video conferencing.This scene is straight out of one of the model schools conceptualised by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodias team. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has been consistent in at least one aspect of their governance, which is carving out a lions share of their budget for education. The party has been trying to use this as an issue in the April 23 municipal elections.AAP leaders claim the schools under Delhi government are now markedly better than the ones run by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which runs its own primary schools across the Capital.News18 investigates the ground situation:The AAP government has time and again claimed that its allocation for education  24% of the budget  is the highest in the country. This is in sharp contrast to the nationwide allocation for education, about 3.8% of the Union Budget.Elaborating on how the new system has not only empowered children, but their parents too, Marlena said the latter were more content now. Our schools have regular parent-teacher meetings, which has only cemented the growth of students. There are school management committees too. Parents were scared of coming to schools earlier because of the treatment meted out to them. But now things have changed, and they are an equal participant in their kids development, added Marlena.Assuring that the work would only get better, Marlena said if AAP wins the corporation polls, MCD schools will get a new lease of life.We have 16 lakh students enrolled in our schools These children are the future of our country. If we win the MCD polls, we will be including schools run by the MCD in our model schooling system, she said.Schools run by MCD have over 9 lakh students. There are 3.5 lakh students in North, 2.75 lakh students in East and 2.79 in South corporations, respectively. State-run schools start enrolling students from nursery, right up till class 12. The schools run by the corporation can only enroll students for primary education, which means that the number of students in our schools will always be lesser than those of state-run schools, said Mukesh Yadav, additional director (education) in the corporation.This year, he added, the corporation has sent out a proposal to start secondary education. Even with fewer number of students, Yadav said, MCD schools had a good record.Replacing blackboards with green ones, involving 42 NGOs to work on enrollment in schools are some of the achievements listed by the official.We have 26 smart classes and will soon achieve our target of 104, he added.Ironically, issues like education and public health are hardly debated during election campaigns. And far from the claims of Delhi government and MCD, poor people in Delhi have some heartbreaking stories to tell.Mohammad Bashir, another labourer said, It doesnt matter which party wins the polls or how many schools are built. We are fighting a daily battle to save our homes. Schools come later.
Srinagar: The ruling coalition partners in Jammu and Kashmir - PDP and BJP - are sniping dangerously at each other, but even then there seems to be no immediate danger to government.



The PDP has answered BJP over a serving minister's controversial remarks, who called for shooting down Kashmiri protestors, and over 'BJP reneging' on a seat-sharing pact in state's legislative council.



An interview by BJP national secretary Ram Madhav to News18 where he takes a dig at Mehbooba government's failure to contain violence has escalated tensions between the two allies.



The offensive came as Madhav held a series of meetings with top government functionaries on Friday in Jammu, betraying Centres concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in the Valley.



The PDP's hard hitting response followed controversial remarks of states Industries minister Chander Prakash Ganga who called for shooting protesters to control the protests.



They are traitors. Whether they live in the country or come from Pakistan, they can only be treated by bullets, Ganga told reporters a few days back.



Madhav stirred the hornet's nest when he justified the army action of strapping a local man to an army jeep to prevent stone throwing on April 9, claiming "everything was fair in love and war".



His statement drew a reaction from senior PDP leader and education minister Altaf Bukhari.



One fails to understand against whom Mr. Madhav has declared war. Is it a war declared against Kashmiris who despite all odds cast their votes reaffirming their belief in democracy? Or is it a war declared to satiate the sanguine electoral interests of a particular political party in the country. Let Mr. Madhav be reminded that no civilised society can afford to use its citizens as shields for military operations, said Bukhari. He also did not spare Ganga.



"Instead of initiating dialogue as a confidence-building measure to instill a sense of belonging among bruised Kashmiris, some BJP insiders are trying to sabotage the whole peace process initiated under the Vajpayee regime.



Earlier, PDP vice president and Mehbooba's uncle Sartaj Madni said Gangas utterances were not only disgusting and unjustifiable but perilous as well.



"It is unbecoming of a senior minister in the government to dish out such a sweeping, sickening and intimidating statement against the Kashmiri youth, he said.



National Conference's Farooq Abdullah criticised Mehbooba Mufti for not taking action against Ganga.



"The failure of chief minister Mehbooba Mufti to act against the minister has beyond any doubt proved her lack of authority and responsibility towards the state and its people," he said.



The fresh war of words has come as Centre is believed to be unhappy with Mehbooba over her handling of the situation and some voices are calling for imposition of the Governors rule.



In an apparent snub to the ally PDP, Madhav on Friday held a series of meetings with governor N N Vohra, state police chief S P Vaid to discuss the law and order situation. Vaid was summoned by BJP to the party headquarters, setting tongues to wag.



Madhav also met states finance minister Haseeb Drabu, Drabu enjoys a good rapport with Madhav and BJP - to iron out differences between the two parties. And soon after that meeting, Ganga dramatically released a statement saying: If anyone is hurt by my statement, I express regret over it."
Joining people in over 500 cities across the world, Coimbatore in India will "stand up for science" in the world's first ever March for Science on Saturday.On Earth Day (Saturday), scientists are set to ditch their labs and hit the streets, in what is being dubbed as the largest ever protest by science advocates against US President Donald Trump.The march is seen by international organisers as "a global effort to push back against a political climate that has become increasingly hostile toward sound, evidence-based science and its value to society."The flagship event will kick off in Washington DC at 9 a.m. while as many as 605 satellite marches will roll out across the world with people -- scientists, science advocates, educators and concerned citizens -- marching together in support of science's role in society and policy.Two such marches in India are officially listed with the March for Science website, one at Coimbatore and the other at Hyderabad. Bhutan and Nepal have also signed up for the event.The march has spread to African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, Europe, UK, Australia, South Korea and Japan among others.In Coimbatore, the organisation for science education, School of Science, is organising the satellite march around the city's race course."Being the only event (we have no updates on the march in Hyderabad as of now) in India, we technically stand with March for Science," Arjhun Swaminathan of the organisation told IANS."We are expecting over 200 people to march with us on the 22nd. We here at Coimbatore are marching to bring a new era in science education in the city," said Swaminathan.He believes the event will motivate more people to stand up for what they believe in and act as a wake up call to those who have lost hope of changing the world."During the march however, we will try to spread the message that Science has never been a cause of destruction," he said.According to some of the international organisers, Earth Day Network, American Geophysical Union, National Science Teachers Association and Carnegie Science, "defending science, innovation and discovery is an absolute must in every community throughout the world."The global event follows the Women's March on January 21 where more than one million people marched across the world to show support for women's rights and express their discontent over the election of Trump who has called climate change a "hoax."Trump recently signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing global warming by moving away from fossil fuels."There is enough evidence for global warming yet the government is going against what is supposed to be done. It is time for masses to go out and tell the whole world that we believe in science," added Swaminathan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma were the only two Indians to make it to an annual list of '100 most influential people in the world' this year released by the Time magazine.The list features pioneers, artists, titans, leaders and icons from around the world honoured for "the power of their inventions, the scale of their ambitions, the genius of their solutions to problems that no one before them could solve."The magazine has also included US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister Theresa May in the new list of 100 most influential people.Watch videoThe profile of Modi, 66, written by author Pankaj Mishra, said that in May 2014 - long before Trump seemed conceivable as a US president - Modi became the prime minister of the world's largest democracy."Once barred from the US for his suspected complicity in anti-Muslim violence, and politically ostracised at home as well, this Hindu nationalist used Twitter to bypass traditional media and speak directly to masses feeling left or pushed behind by globalisation, and he promised to make India great again by rooting out self-serving elites," it said.Nearly three years after he came to power, Modi's vision of India's economic, geopolitical and cultural supremacy is far from being realised, the profile read, but his "extended family of Hindu nationalists have taken to scapegoating secular and liberal intellectuals as well as poor Muslims.""Yet Modi's aura remains undimmed. He is a maestro of the art of political seduction, playing on the existential fears and cultural insecurities of people facing downward or blocked mobility," it said.Modi's elections victory in Uttar Pradesh, India's most politically significant state, by a landslide confirmed that "elected strongmen are the chief beneficiaries of a global revolt against elites."For 43-year-old Sharma, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani wrote that when India's government unexpectedly scrapped 86 per cent of the country's currency notes in November, Sharma "seized the moment".
Two new crew members boarded the International Space Station bringing the total crew count to five.Crew members cheered as the capsules opened, safely delivering an American astronaut making his first space flight and a veteran Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station.NASA's Jack Fischer and Russia's veteran Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin lifted off from the Russia-leased launch facility in Kazakhstan at 0713 GMT.They reached orbit about nine minutes later, a moment demonstrated when a small stuffed white dog hanging from a string in the capsule began to float.Fischer and Yurchikhin joined the three-person crew under the command of NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who at 57 is the oldest woman to be in space.The others are Russia's Oleg Novitskiy and France's Thomas Pesque
One official in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where the attack occurred, said on Saturday at least 140 soldiers were killed and many others wounded. Other officials said the toll was likely to be even higher.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement on Saturday the attack was retribution for the recent killing of several senior Taliban leaders in northern Afghanistan.

As many 140 Afghan soldiers were killed on Friday by Taliban attackers apparently disguised in military uniforms in what would be the deadliest attack ever on an Afghan military base, officials said.The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the government has yet to release official casualty figures.A US official in Washington on Friday had put the toll at more than 50 killed and wounded.As many as 10 Taliban fighters, dressed in Afghan army uniforms and driving military vehicles, talked their way onto the base and opened fire on soldiers eating dinner and leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, according to officials. The attackers used rocket-propelled grenades and rifles, they said.The NATO-led military coalition deploys advisers to the base where the attack occurred to train and assist the Afghan forces but coalition officials said no international troops were involved in the attack.The Western-backed Afghan government is locked in a prolonged war with Taliban insurgents and other militant groups.
Islamabad: Pakistan's former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif left for Riyadh on Friday to head a 41-nation Islamic military alliance after getting the government's approval, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said amidst concerns in Islamabad about the Saudi-led grouping.



Asif told Geo News that Sharif had been "given permission to head the military alliance after completion of all legal formalities and requirements" by the federal government.



Media reports suggested that the 60-year-old former chief of army staff was granted approval to serve as head of the alliance for three years.



A military source, while speaking to Dawn.Com, said approval for Sharif's departure had also been granted by General Headquarters Rawalpindi according to established procedures.



Sharif, who has army chief for three years till his retirement on November 29, 2016, left for Riyadh on Friday on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother.



It was not immediately clear if the government had discussed its decision with opposition parties, which recently expressed serious misgivings regarding the issue in light of the possibility that the alliance may be used against Iran, Dawn reported.



The news also seemed to go against what the defence minister himself had assured Parliament of on April 13, the report said.



Asif had informed the house that the Saudi government would hold a grand meeting in May, where it would unveil the alliance's Terms of Reference (ToR).



"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former COAS Gen Raheel Sharif will attend the event," he had said.



He had further said the former COAS would formally apply for a No Objection Certificate after the ToR was made public.



He also said that the ToR and the aims and objectives of the alliance would be presented to Parliament before a formal decision would be made on whether Pakistan should become a part of it or not.



The 41-nation armed coalition was initially proposed as a platform for security cooperation among Muslim countries and included provisions for training, equipment and troops, and the involvement of religious scholars for devising a counter- terrorism narrative.



Since news of the alliance first surfaced, there have been concerns in Pakistan about its nature and how it may affect a pre-existing parliamentary resolution on Yemen passed unanimously by lawmakers calling for "neutrality in the conflict" in 2015.



On April 13, Asif had told the National Assembly: "We will stick to our prerogative when it comes to Yemen, and the agreement we have will remain binding.
Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan on Friday announced that he will hold a protest rally in Islamabad on April 28 to demand Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's resignation on the Panamagate issue.



"After the Supreme Court's decision, Sharif's party should have asked him to resign but they are distributing sweets to declare victory," Khan said.



"We will hold a rally on next Friday (April 28) to demand resignation of Nawaz Sharif," he said.



Khan's party earlier along with other opposition parties staged a walkout from the National Assembly in protest after he was not given a chance to address the lawmakers.



Also, the opposition parties staged a walk out from the Senate while demanding that Sharif should step down after the decision.



The two houses witnessed a ruckus after opposition lawmakers, wearing black armbands, demanded the prime minister to step down until a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) completes its investigation in the Panama Papers scandal.



A five-member Supreme Court bench in a 3-2 split decision on Thursday had ordered to set up the JIT to probe the allegations of money laundering against Sharif.



Khan on Thursday had termed the verdict as indictment of Sharif as the bench did not absolve him of the allegations.



He had said if Sharif is not ready to step down permanently, he should step aside for 60 days when JIT would probe the money laundering allegations, as ordered by the court.
Seoul: North Korean state media warned the United States of a "super-mighty preemptive strike" after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programme.



US President Donald Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from sole major ally China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.



The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, did not mince its words.



"In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes," it said.



Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday and a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.



Tillerson told reporters this week that the United States was "reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang."



US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said during a visit to London the military option must be part of the pressure brought to bear.



"Allowing this dictator to have that kind of power is not something that civilised nations can allow to happen," he said in reference to Kim.



Ryan said he was encouraged by the results of efforts to work with China to reduce tension, but that it was unacceptable North Korea might be able to strike allies with nuclear weapons.



North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.



The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned North Korea's latest failed missile test and demanded Pyongyang not conduct any more nuclear tests, in a statement that had been delayed as the United States and Russia sparred over language.



A North Korean missile blew up almost immediately on its test launch on Sunday, the US military said. The 15-member Security Council traditionally condemns all such launches by Pyongyang.



'MAX THUNDER'



South Korea's acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.



The defence ministry said US and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion.



"We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever," South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. "Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy's intention to provoke us."



The North has said it has developed a missile that can strike the mainland United States, but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead.



William Perry, who served as US defence secretary from 1994 to 1997 and negotiated with North Korea, said he did not believe Pyongyang was planning a surprise attack, despite the fiery rhetoric.



But he warned: "They are doing a lot of bluster and a lot of threats, and they might misplay that hand and blunder into a war."



South Korean presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night in a debate over the planned deployment in South Korea of a US-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which has angered China.



On Monday, Hwang and Pence reaffirmed their plans to go ahead with the THAAD, but the decision will be up to the next South Korean president. China says the system's powerful radar is a threat to its security.



There had been confusion over the whereabouts of a US aircraft carrier group after Trump said last week he had sent an "armada" as a warning to North Korea, even as the ships were still far from Korean waters.



The US military's Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia. It was now heading for the Western Pacific as ordered, it said.
The verdict, however, was of the view that Maryam "has received cash gifts from her father in substantial amounts on various occasions receipt of gifts from the father does not necessarily make Respondent No 6 (Maryam Nawaz) his (Nawaz Sharif) dependent in the legal sense of the word", Dawn reported.

The verdict further noted that Maryam "contributes a substantial sum of money towards her share in the joint expenses incurred by her grandmother on behalf of other members of the Sharif family residing in the compound".

In the operating part of the judgement, the bench constituted a joint investigation team comprising representatives of the Federal Investigation Agency, National Accountability Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, State Bank of Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.

: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's media savvy daughter Maryam Sharif's name has been virtually cleared by the Supreme Court in the high-profile Panama case, according to a media report.The Panama Papers leaks alleged that 43-year-old Maryam was the beneficial owner of the London properties owned jointly by her brothers.The petitions claimed that since Maryam was a dependant of Sharif, she should have declared the Mayfair properties in her wealth statement.The bench said in the verdict that "we also notice that she owns substantial agricultural property, receives income from the same, holds shares in limited companies worth more than Rs 200 million and her husband also receives a fair amount of money by way of pension as a retired military officer".In response to the arguments that Maryam lives in the Sharif's family house, the verdict said: "The mere fact that she has chosen to live in a compound owned by her grandmother does not ipso facto make her a dependent of Respondent No 1 (Nawaz Sharif) either".Subsequently, the bench declared, "in this context, whether or not Respondent No 6 is the beneficial owner of the Mayfair Properties becomes irrelevant at this stage, seen from the point of view of seeking disqualification of Respondent No 1 on the ground that he has failed to disclose the assets of a dependent".Even otherwise, the issue of dependency is a question of fact to be determined on a case-to-case basis after recording evidence.The bench concluded that in these proceedings sufficient material was not available on the record to establish that Maryam Nawaz was a dependant of Nawaz Sharif, in a legal sense."We do not feel the necessity to discuss this aspect of the case any further, lest it should prejudice the case of either party before a competent forum if and when this issue is agitated," it said.The court asked the proposed JIT to investigate allegations levelled against Sharif and his sons Hassan and Hussain by the petitioners.A senior lawyer and former deputy attorney general Tariq Jahangiri says that Maryam has been cleared for the time being, but in case the JIT finds some tangible evidence against her she may face the proceedings as well.
A worker for a Concord-based company died in an industrial accident during a structure demolition project Thursday in Roanoke County, company officials said.

Charles McFadden, 53, of Appomattox, was working for W.E.L. Incorporated on the project in Bonsack, according to a news release from the company.

He had worked for the company for nine years and will be deeply missed as a friend to all that worked with him, the company said.

Emergency responders were called to a report of a commercial structure collapse Thursday at about 11:15 a.m. in the area of Layman Road. Police and EMS from Botetourt and Roanoke counties went to the scene. Roanoke County Fire & Rescue spokeswoman Jennifer Conley Sexton said one person was taken to a hospital.

The company said there are ongoing internal and external investigations into the accident, and the company will continue to fully cooperate, and support all applicable agencies involved.

The Virginia Department of Labor and Industrys Occupational Safety and Health division is investigating the nature of the incident and whether any safety regulations had been violated, said Lee Willis, the departments southwest region safety director. The company contacted the department Thursday afternoon.

W.E.L. was established in 1984 with offices in Roanoke, Winchester and Bluefield, West Virginia. It provides disaster and industrial services along with demolition services.

The Roanoke Times contributed.
Ivan Teleguzs death sentence for the murder-for-hire of his ex-girlfriend in 2001 was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Thursday.

Teleguz, 38, was scheduled to be executed Tuesday for the capital murder of Stephanie Yvonne Sipe, the mother of their 23-month-old son. Sipe was stabbed to death in her Harrisonburg apartment. According to trial testimony, he hired two men to kill her for $2,000 and drove them from Pennsylvania, where Teleguz had moved.

On July 23, 2001, Sipes mother went to her daughters apartment because she had not heard from Sipe for two days. She found her daughters body and her grandson unharmed in a bathtub full of water.

Teleguzs lawyers filed pardon and clemency requests with McAuliffe, arguing among other things that courts have never fully examined new evidence pointing to his innocence. They say two prosecution witnesses admitted that they testified falsely in exchange for leniency in their own cases and have no reason to think Teleguz was involved in the murder-for-hire.

McAuliffe denied the pardon request Thursday. He said Teleguz has had exhaustive appeals and litigation of the case. Numerous state and federal judges have weighed the case and refused to grant relief to Mr. Teleguz. ... I believe that he is guilty, the governor said.

However, McAuliffe said that the sentencing phase of Mr. Teleguzs trial was terribly flawed and unfair. Evidence was introduced implicating Teleguz in another murder, he said.

During the sentencing phase of the trial, the prosecutor referenced it, arguing that Teleguz was so dangerous that he needed to be put to death.

She said to the jury that he solves problems with arranging murders. He would do so from prison, he said.

We now know that no such murder ever occurred, much less with any involvement from Mr. Teleguz, the governor said. The jury should never have been given that information. It was false, plain and simple, he said.

Marsha L. Garst, the commonwealths attorney for Rockingham County, has declined to comment on the case, noting that the issues have been tried and decided in local, state and federal courts.

McAuliffe also said there were references during the trial to Teleguz being a member of the Russian mob, while no evidence was introduced to support that. He said subsequent evidence showed the allegations had an impact on the jury when deliberating over punishment.

I dont know what the jury would have done had they not been given that information. I dont. None of us do. But just raising that question, I cannot see this man put to death. He will spend the rest of his life in a jail cell, McAuliffe said.

He added: My heart aches for this family, the entire family who knew Stephanie Sipe, especially for their son who has grown up without knowing ... his parents. I know this decision will be a difficult one for all of them.

The governor said he had spoken with Sipes father, mother and sister on Thursday, telling them of his decision. Asked by a reporter for their reaction, McAuliffe said: They thanked me for calling.

Sipes family could not be reached for comment. The Harrisonburg television station WHSV reported that Sipes sister, Jennifer Tilley, called WHSV last week and said: Theres no doubt in my mind that he hired these people to kill my sister ... and it blows my mind, it really does, that he is still trying to fight and plead for his life.

Elizabeth Peiffer, Teleguzs lawyer with the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, said in a statement that Teleguz, his family, friends and supporters are thankful that the governor granted clemency.

We do not believe the death penalty is rightly imposed where, as here, it is based on recanted and false testimony. Governor McAuliffe correctly recognized that our system of justice cannot stand by and allow an execution to proceed when jurors were told to impose a death sentence based on false information, she said.

Peiffer said Teleguz has maintained he had no involvement in the crime and that he will continue to work on proving it.

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU, said, We agree that the sentencing phase of this case was severely flawed, and Mr. Teleguz never should have been sentenced to death.

In 2015, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that a lower-court judge held an evidentiary hearing in 2013 concerning the recantations of two of the key prosecution witnesses. One recanter refused to testify, and the other did not appear. In other words, neither of the recanters testified in support of their recantations, said the appeals court.

The appeals court opinion noted: Prosecutor Marsha Garst, whom (the recanters) accused of threatening them into testifying against Teleguz, appeared and testified that those accusations were false.

Teleguzs lawyers said one of the witnesses was deported, and the other was told he would lose his release date if he went back on his testimony.

Some religious leaders urged McAuliffe to grant clemency, and a Change.org petition in support of clemency has been signed by more than 114,000 people. Teleguz also has submitted written requests for clemency from thousands of supporters.

A joint statement from Virginias two Roman Catholic bishops, Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond and Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, said, We welcome with gratitude Gov. Terry McAuliffes decision today to commute the death sentence of Ivan Teleguz. ... We continue to express deep sorrow and pray for all victims of violence and their loved ones.

Del. Marcus B. Simon, D-Fairfax, who had urged clemency for Teleguz, praised McAuliffes decision. Today the system worked as it was designed. The constitution of the commonwealth of Virginia grants the governor clemency powers for cases such as this, where obvious errors need to be corrected.

Earlier this week, three former Virginia attorneys general  two of whom became opposed to the death penalty since leaving office  wrote to McAuliffe urging the death sentence be commuted, citing what they said was unreliable investigative techniques, coercive tactics by both law enforcement and the prosecution, recantations of key trial witnesses, and consideration of false testimony in support of a death sentence.

Virginia has executed 112 people since the death penalty was allowed to resume in 1976. Virginia governors have now commuted nine death sentences during the same period.
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Politics in TT must be a conversation, not a row

It is unfortunate that an oil-rich nation, referred to in the past as the New York of the Caribbean for its economy, level of infrastructural and societal development, and its standard of living, is now on the path to become the Zimbabwe of the Caribbean if conditions and policies remain as are.

So how did TT reach this boiling point of underdevelopment when in the period 2010-2015, under the leadership of Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the nation enjoyed significant growth and improvement and was elevated from Third World to developing nation.

The fact is the past 18 months under the Dr Keith Rowley-led administration has been absent of vision, absent of innovation, no sense of national direction, little concern if any about the rights, liberties and standard of living of citizens, as well as total disregard for the principles of good governance.

If we are to remedy the crisis facing our nation, the politics must develop to where it is a conversation between the Government and citizens and not an argument.

The politics must be one where the citizens tell the Government where they want to go as a nation based on the principles of equality, democracy and liberty, while the Government responds with the best approach possible to achieve what is not only desired by the population but what is in citizens best sustainable interest.

As the renowned British Conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott said, Politicians should not see their task as moving society in a particular direction, towards a goal or series of goals. Rather, they should allow the people to set their own direction naturally and ensure the State is maintained in a safe and secure condition. Upon reflection, the Rowley-led administration has been doing the total opposite. It has been leading TT into a direction which satisfies its own political goals, enhances the economic gain of its financiers, promotes self-gain of a selected few of its supporters, all at the expense of citizens who are being economically, socially and humanly suppressed.

The ignorance towards the needs and wishes of the population by the Government is demonstrated in situations such as the deteriorating healthcare system coupled with numerous cries of citizens which are met with the Governments refusal to open the brand new Childrens Hospital built by the last administration.

With each passing day those in authority consistently ignore the pleas of the population to provide safety and security due to spiralling crime as the Government seems to lack the political will to address the situation.

In the past 18 months, the Government has abandoned its responsibility of ensuring a sustainable standard of living and prosperity for citizens as it has failed to generate employment, contributed to thousands of job losses, imposed numerous tax increases and significantly reduced if not eliminated the social safety net available to the vulnerable.

The term governance for the people is often proclaimed in global politics but this has been the perfect example of governance against the people.

Governance must be about listening and reacting to the needs of those the Government is constitutionally bound to serve. The alternative is leading the people towards goals which they may not desire, with unpredictable consequences which could threaten the preservation of the better features of society.

NICHOLAS MORRIS via email
Schoolboy to be buried today

He will be buried at the Phoenix Park cemetery. Yesterday, Rolles grandmother and mother were at a funeral home finalising arrangements for the final rites.

Rolle, 14, a Form Four student of Marabella North Secondary School, was discovered hanging from a rope attached to a Samaan tree by his grandmother 67-yearold Marilyn Davis on Tuesday afternoon. He was holidaying at Davis home for the long Easter weekend and was last seen swinging from the rope by his cousins, aged 10 and 14.

At about 12.30 pm, when Davis went to tell Rolle that his mother Elizabeth had called and wanted him to get ready to come home, she discovered him hanging. The frantic woman alerted neighbours who cut Rolle down and rushed him to San Fernando General Hospital where he died later. An autopsy revealed cause of death to be inconclusive but police have ruled the death as an accident.

Newsday understands counselling is being provided for Rolles classmates while the police are offering support for his relatives through the Victim and Witness Support Unit.

Yesterday, Assistant Commissioner of Police Surujdean Persad said he also asked officers from the Central Division to meet with immediate relatives and assist them in whatever way possible.
It's been over a decade since New Yorkers could spark one inside their local watering holecigarettes, friends, though wouldn't that have been a beautiful world? There are still a handful of places where smoking is legally allowed indoors, including Sugar East, a new "speakeasy" that replaces Merchants NY Cigar Bar. The space has a coveted, grandfathered tobacco license, which the Merchants Hospitality group will continue to lure in nicotine fiends and those who don't mind airing out their clothes in the shower after a night out drinking.

"We created a space with a mid-century modern feel, hearkening back to the decadent Havana high life where one might feel like a cigarette after a few cocktails," owner Abraham Merchant explained to DNAinfo. Who among us... It's also a warning to the smoke-averse that perhaps they should find a different speakeasy (so-called here since guests descend some stairs to find the joint).

The smokiness extends to the cocktails created by Jeremy Strawn, formerly of Mulberry Project. There's a charred lemon garnish to the cocktail ($16) of the same name, which features Elijah Craig bourbon, absinthe and honey, and the Coconut cocktail ($18)served in an actual coconutcomes with a singed cinnamon stick for a garnish.

The Havana theme continues with a Cuban Sandwich ($11) and a Grilled Vegetables platter ($12) that includes plantain chips; there are Mexican influences, too, including a Flat Bread ($12) with Oaxacan cheese, huitlacoche and cilantro, and a taste of Venezuela in the Lobster Arepa ($14).

1125 1st Avenue, 212-83-4610; sugareast.com

Sugar East Food Drinks Menus by Nell Casey on Scribd
TTUTA says, no way

TTUTA president Lynsley Doodhai said while he understands the rationale behind the proposal, the Ministry of Education, TTUTA, NPSPA and other stakeholders should get together to arrive at a position on the supervising of children during the lunch period rather than slash the lunch hour in half.

The NPSPA made the proposal on Wednesday during a meeting with Education Minister Anthony Garcia and senior ministry officials.

NPSPA president Coglan Griffith said the aim of the proposal is to help reduce indiscipline and injuries at school. It also means a shortened school day which will enable teachers to get home earlier, students to take part in extra curricular activities and the corporate and local communities to get involved in school affairs.

However, Doodhai said the proposal is ill-conceived and a kneejerk reaction to recent incidents in which some students suffered injuries while at school. The proposal, if implemented, will do more harm than good to students, he said, as they need a full hours break as an outlet for their energy and to learn to socialise.

He said TTUTA understands that supervision of children during the lunch break is an issue as the responsibility for monitoring students is placed on principals. It is impossible for principals to monitor 300 or 400 children at one time, he said. Decisions on what measures should be put in place for the supervision of children during the lunch break, he added, should be taken by all stakeholders involved, he said, noting that in some countries education ministries and education boards hire school/playground monitors to supervise students during the lunch break.

Teachers have a right to an hours lunch break, he said, as other workers in the public and in some private sector entities. It is a right that was fought for in the past and that right which teachers enjoy now, he said, TTUTA, as the recognised union, will not do anything that will infringe the rights of teachers. Despite their entitlement, he said, they do not take all of it.

Much of their time, Doodhai said, is spent in classrooms attending to students, correcting tests and preparing for the afternoon session. Some teachers also use the break as down time to refocus and re-energise so they can be more productive in the afternoon.
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France votes Sunday in a presidential election further roiled by the fatal shooting of a police officer in an attack claimed by ISIS. On Friday, President Trump tweeted that the shooting would "have a big effect" on the vote, without offering specifics. But the Washington Post points out that far-right candidate Marine Le Pen has espoused anti-immigration sentiments similar to Trump's, and she doubled down Friday by calling for the reinstatement of border checks and the deportation of foreigners being monitored by intelligence agencies. A look at election coverage:

Eleven candidates are running, but four are neck-and-neck: Le Pen; Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker who says he's neither left nor right; the scandal-plagued Francois Fillon, the only establishment candidate in the running; and Jean-Luc Melenchon, known as the "French Bernie Sanders." See NPR for quick bios on each.

Assuming no candidate gets 50%, the top two finishers go to a runoff on May 7, explains a primer at the Globe and Mail.

The Guardian has a profile of Le Pen, who has tried to distance herself from her Holocaust-denying father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front Party she now leads. (She is regularly accused of anti-Semitism herself, however.) Their relationship imploded when she kicked him out of the party; he disowned her and they no longer speak. An analysis at the Atlantic says she specializes in demonizing Jews and Muslims while pitting them against each other.

At 39, the centrist Macron would be France's youngest leader since Napoleon, per a profile at RTE. In its own profile, the BBC notes an unusual aspect of his life that has made headlines: His wife, 24 years his senior and married with kids when they met, was his drama teacher when he was a teenager.

Former President Obama, popular in France, made a point to call Macron on Thursday, notes Time.

There's much talk of a "Frexit," meaning the exit of France from the European Union. Le Pen and Melenchon in particular have raised the prospect. The New York Times has a look at that and other factors at play.

John Oliver thinks the stakes are huge for Europe and the world, and he explains why here.

One person likely to be happy with the outcome? Vladimir Putin. That's because Melenchon, Le Pen, and Fillon are "unabashed pro-Putin populists," per Quartz.

At Slate, Yascha Mounk makes the case that a victory by Macron "is the only realistic way to stave off disaster," given the alternatives.

(Read more France stories.)
East Side Councilman Ben Kallos is planning to introduce a bill to cut down on light pollution by mandating that the city use light-directing fixtures when replacing streetlights.

Kallos said that the measure would help limit light shining into New Yorker's apartment windows, and also conserve energy, darken the night sky, and reduce the harmful effects of stray light on wildlife.

"New York City may be the city that 'never sleeps,' but that shouldnt be because of a streetlight outside your bedroom window," Kallos said in a statement. "Fully shielded light fixtures will brighten up the day with fewer sleep-deprived New Yorkers walking around in a bad mood."



A diagram shows a range of streetlight fixture shielding, from totally unshielded on the left to fully shielded on the right. (Delmar Fans)

Fully shielded light fixtures cover the sides of streetlights' bulbs to ensure that they shine only where they're supposed to: on the ground. Currently, it's common for city streetlights to be only partially shielded, with the bulbs jutting out of their cobra-head fixtures. In parks, historic districts, and on the sides of flashy buildings, it's common to see barely or not at all shielded lights shining out into the surrounding area and up into the night sky.

Kallos plans to introduce the legislation on Tuesday in honor of Earth Day, which is this Saturday. He said he got the idea for the bill at one of his monthly policy nights, when an anti-light-pollution activist with the International Dark Sky Association brought up streetlight shielding.

It didn't hurt that he's an amateur astronomy buff.

"I enjoy stargazing. I enjoy astrophysics. Stephen Hawking is one of my favorite authors," he said. "Its hard for people in the city to get curious about the cosmos when you look up and all you can see is light."



The United States looks cool from space, but there isn't much reason we should be sending all that light skyward. (NASA Earth Observatory images by Robert Simmon and Jesse Allen, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge at the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center)

Kallos doesn't own a telescope, but he has some binoculars that he says let him see a bit of the astral action, and he is a fan of events held by the Amateur Astronomers Association, which brings high-powered telescopes to spots around the city for viewing by all comers. (Find them at Lincoln Center tonight starting a little after dusk.)

The issue of streetlights shining into people's apartments has taken on added urgency over the past three and a half years as the city has set out to replace its 250,000 yellow sodium streetlights with LED bulbs. The new bulbs are bluer, and more like daylight than the old ones, an attribute that can throw off people's circadian rhythms and potentially pose health risks. In places where the new lights have gone in, particularly in Brooklyn and Queens, where the city has installed the bluest lights, their arrival has prompted people to buy blackout curtains to beat back the invading rays from their bedrooms.



In February, Ridgewood, Queens was still a patchwork of yellow sodium lights and blue LED lights as workers gradually replaced the former with the latter. (Scott Heins/Gothamist)

The city's lighting problems are interconnected, according to Susan Harder, the New York state representative for the International Dark Sky Association. She explained:

Ideally good street lighting involves four components. It has to be fully shielded so all the light goes down, instead of up. It has to be controlledin other words, the light needs to fall where its needed, not shine into peoples windows. It needs to have the correct color, so its not very blue. The light levels [where the light hits the ground] shouldnt exceed the professional recommendations. The citys not doing any of this. They have complete disregard for how [streetlights are] installed. They have complete disregard for this blue problem. Theyre installing them so that theyre pointing into peoples windows on the second and third floor.

Harder called Kallos's bill "impressive and necessary," and noted that her group had first worked with former councilman Alan Gerson to try to introduce such a bill 12 years ago.

A separate bill, introduced by Councilman Donovan Richards in 2015, sought to require the city to only use bulbs with a color spectrum rating lower than 3,000 degrees Kelvin (Kelvin ratings range from red to yellow to blue, with lower numbers being redder). The old sodium bulbs have ratings of about 2,200K, whereas Brooklyn and Queens have gotten 4,000K bulbs. Richards's bill has yet to get a hearing, but following outcry from residents and the American Medical Association issuing new guidelines on the risks of blue LED streetlights, the DOT said it would install 3,000K lights going forward.

Kallos said he plans to sign onto the color temperature legislation and hopes to get both bills passed. A spokesman for Richards said the bill is currently "in limbo," and that the earliest it could next get a hearing is in the fall.

Asked if the ship had already sailed on New York light pollution, given the excesses of Times Square and Midtown's skyscrapers, Kallos said, "Most of the city isnt Times Square," noting that the majority of the city is made up of relatively low-slung residential neighborhoods. "Most New Yorkers just want to be able to get a good nights sleep and not see the kind of light pollution that we have in Times Square in their neighborhood."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, the agency that would be most impacted by the new light fixture requirement, said that officials there intend to review the legislation when it's formally introduced.
If you haven't tired of hearing about Rachel Dolezalthe woman who was born white but now identifies as black Ijeoma Oluo has penned "The Heart of Whiteness," a new piece for the Stranger that Jezebel calls "so good we never have to think about [Dolezal] again." Oluo flew out to Spokane, Wash., to interview Dolezal, who just published a new memoir and now calls herself Nkechi Amare Diallo, a fact that rubs Oluo the wrong way (Nkechi is her Nigerian-born sister's name) before they even meet. But Oluo decides to give the story a go, meeting in her subject's home for a conversation that ends up evolving into an often uncomfortable, sometimes cringeworthy expose on Dolezal's thoughts on race appropriation, authenticity, and what Oluo calls "The Question": "How is her racial fluidity anything more than a function of her privilege as a white person?"

Oluo has to note she's "a black woman ... who writes about race and culture for a living" when Dolezal exhibits a "dismissive and condescending attitude" toward blacks with different views of blackness from her own, which Dolezal chalks up to a lack of education on their part. Oluo muses whether it "isn't blackness that Dolezal doesn't understand but whiteness," taking her to task for the fact that she was first drawn to the concept of blackness when she saw images in National Geographic as a kid"representations," Oluo says, that were "crafted by white supremacy." Oluo soon realizes Dolezal is just caught up in a system that's not new. "She will haunt me no more and simply blend into the rest of white supremacy that I battle every day," Oluo writes. Her compliment for Dolezal: "She is, in all honesty, a very talented painter." Oluo's piece, including an uneasy exchange over taking Dolezal's picture. (Read more Longform stories.)
Russia's Supreme Court on Thursday banned Jehovah's Witnesses from operating anywhere in the country, accepting a request from the justice ministry that the religious organization be considered an extremist group, the AP reports. The court ordered the closure of the group's Russian headquarters and its 395 local chapters, as well as the seizure of its property. The Interfax news agency quoted Justice Ministry attorney Svetlana Borisova in court as saying that Jehovah's Witnesses pose a threat to Russians. "They pose a threat to the rights of citizens, public order, and public security," she told the court. Borisova also said Jehovah's Witnesses' opposition to blood transfusions violates Russian health care laws.

Yaroslav Sivulsky, a spokesperson for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, said they are "greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity." Jehovah's Witnesses said they would appeal the ruling. Jehovah's Witnesses claim more than 170,000 adherents in Russia. The group has come under increasing pressure over the past year, including a ban on distributing literature deemed to violate Russia's anti-extremism laws. Human Rights Watch criticized Thursday's decision as an impediment to religious freedom in Russia. The rights group also expressed concern that if the ruling takes effect, Jehovah's Witnesses could face criminal prosecution and punishment ranging from fines to prison time. (Read more Jehovah's Witnesses stories.)
Though a prison official initially said Aaron Hernandez left no suicide note, three notes were in fact found in his cell at Massachusetts' Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, reports the Boston Globe. A statement from Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. confirmed the handwritten notes were found next to a Bible in the cell following his death, ruled a suicide by the state medical examiner on Thursday. But a rep for Early wouldn't say to whom they had been written. Sources tell TMZ that one was addressed to the general public. However, sources tell CBS Boston that there was a note each for Hernandez's mother, fiancee, and 4-year-old daughter, reading, "I love you and please don't cry."

The investigation has found Hernandez was alone in his cell when he used a bed sheet to hang himself sometime after 8pm Tuesday, the last time he was checked by guards before being found dead around 3am. A lawyer for Hernandez says the former NFLer spoke to his fiancee on the phone until 8pm. The corrections officer who found Hernandez has apparently been "detached with pay" after admitting to missing a 2am check, per CBS Boston. It reports cardboard had been stuffed into the door tracks of Hernandez's cell and the floor made slick with soapy water, apparently to impede corrections officers. Hernandez had also written John 3:16 on his forehead and wall of his cell. Sources say he also carved an unknown word in his arm. There were no signs of a struggle, per Early's statement. (Read more Aaron Hernandez stories.)
Ann Coulter can speak at the University of California-Berkeley after all, the university saysbut the different date it has proposed is nowhere near good enough. After Berkeley, which said it called off her April 27 speech due to security concerns, issued a press release saying she had been offered a slot on May 2, Coulter slammed the university in a series of tweets, the Hill reports. The conservative author complained "burdensome conditions" were being put on her constitutional right to speak, likened Berkeley to a "Southern sheriff" trying to stop black people from voting, and vowed to speak on the original date.

Coulter's vow to come to campus April 27 "without regard for the fact that we dont have a protectable venue available on that date is of grave concern," Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said in Berkeley's statement, adding that he asked for an expanded search, which "identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available on the afternoon of May 2." Officials worry the Coulter speech will become the latest Berkeley clash between far-left and far-right activists. "It feels like we've become the OK Corral for the Hatfield and McCoys of the right and left," Dan Mogulof, the university's assistant vice chancellor for public affairs, tells the Washington Post. "We're the venue for these showdowns taking place." (Read more Ann Coulter stories.)
The manhunt for fugitive Tennessee teacher Tad Cummins is over thanks to somebody who spotted his vehicle in a remote area on the other side of the country, authorities say. The 50-year-old was captured and 15-year-old student Elizabeth Thomas was taken into custody unharmed after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the sheriff's office in Northern California's Siskiyou County received a tip late Wednesday that a vehicle with no license plate that matched the description of Cummins' 2015 Nissan Rogue was at a cabin in a rural area of Cecilville, near the Oregon border, ABC News reports. The caller said an adult male and a young female had been staying in the cabin for about a week.

Police set up a perimeter around the cabin after the call and arrested Cummins after he emerged around 9:30am Thursday, the Tennessean reports. Siskiyou Sheriff Jon Lopey says two loaded handguns were found inside. Cummins is being held without bond on a federal charge of knowingly transporting a minor with the intent to engage in sexual activity and will be arraigned on Friday. Police say Thomas, who came out of the cabin as Cummins was being arrested, has been transferred to FBI custody and is being treated as a crime victim, the Siskiyou Daily News reports. TBI chief Mark Gwyn says Cummins was caught because they "mobilized a nation" to be on the lookout, and "you can't hide from millions of people." (Read more Tad Cummins stories.)
In what appears to be a major foreign-policy victory for President Trump, a freed Egyptian-American charity worker is back in the US after the president personally intervened in the case, officials say. Aya Hijazi, a 30-year-old US citizen who'd been detained in Egypt for nearly three years, flew from Cairo to Washington with her family Thursday in a US government aircraft sent by Trump, the Washington Post reports. Hijazi, her husband, and four colleagues at a foundation to help street children had been jailed on what US authorities say were false charges of child abuse and human trafficking. Officials say the acquittal of all six on Sunday came weeks after Trump became involved in Hijazi's case.

Trump was criticized for not raising Hijazi's case when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi visited the US early this month, but officials say that before the visit, the administration quietly secured a promise to release her. After being briefed on the case, Trump "just said, 'Let's bring her home,'" an insider tells the New York Times. Administration officials contrast what they call Trump's "discreet diplomacy" with the approach of former President Barack Obama, who publicly called for Hijazi's release but didn't invite al-Sissi to visit the US. Hijazi and family members are scheduled to meet with Trump, daughter Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner at the White House Friday. (Read more Egypt stories.)
The Justice Department has long viewed Julian Assange as a menace, but it might soon officially view him as a criminal. Federal prosecutors are preparing criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder in order to seek his arrest, reports CNN. The possibilities range from the most serious one of espionage to lesser ones such as theft of government property, reports the Washington Post. Top officials such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions must still sign off on any charges, and that hasn't happened yet. The Obama White House also considered criminal charges against Assange after his group published classified information obtained by Chelsea Manning, but ultimately decided against it on freedom-of-the-press grounds. But now prosecutors think they can make the case that Assange went beyond the role of mere publisher.

That argument hinges on something that came up during Manning's court martial, notes the Post: the revelation that Manning and Assange chatted about a password-cracking technique. "I think their only realistic hope is some conspiracy charge based on WikiLeaks' involvement in the actual hacking, not just publishing the results of the hacking," says a former Justice Department official. Another potential avenue to criminal charges is WikiLeaks' alleged role in the hacking of US spy tools. On Thursday, Sessions said making arrests of leakers such as Assange is a "priority," reports the Guardian. That follows CIA chief Mike Pompeo's blistering criticism. Assange, meanwhile, remains holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, and he recently wrote an op-ed in the Post arguing that WikiLeaks deserves the same protections as newspapers. (Read more Julian Assange stories.)
Police say the gunman shot dead after killing a policeman and wounding two others in Paris Thursday was a 39-year-old man already known to authorities as a potential Islamist radical, the BBC reports. Three of his family members have been taken into custody and another man suspected of having links to the attack has surrendered to police in Belgium. Official sources tell the AP that the gunman was detained in February for threatening police then freed. He was convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in the shooting of two other police officers, say the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because authorities have not publicly disclosed the man's identity.

France began picking itself up Friday from the attack, which was claimed by ISIS, with President Francois Hollande calling together the government's security council and his would-be successors in the presidential election campaign treading carefully before voting this weekend. Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says the government has reviewed its already extensive election security measures and it is "fully mobilized" in the wake of the attack. He says "nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country." Candidates, who are banned from campaigning after Friday at midnight, canceled or rescheduled final campaign events ahead of Sunday's first-round vote. (Read more France stories.)
Hundreds of children fathered by the Islamic State's foreign fighters or brought to the self-proclaimed caliphate by their parents are now imprisoned or in limbo with nowhere to go, collateral victims as the militant group retreats and home countries hesitate to take them back. One young Tunisian orphan, Tamim Jaboudi, has been in a prison in Tripoli, Libya, for well over a year, the AP reports. He passed his second birthday behind bars and is nearing another, turning 3 on April 30. His parents, both Tunisians who left home to join ISIS, died in American airstrikes in Libya in February 2016, according to the child's grandfather, who is trying to win the child's return. "What is this young child's sin that he is in jail with criminals?" he asks.

Tamim now lives among two dozen Tunisian women and their children in Tripoli's Mitiga prison, raised by a woman who herself willingly joined ISIS. Last week, an unofficial Tunisian delegation went to negotiate for the children, only to be turned back by the Libyans because it did not get permission prior to the visit; a Wednesday visit was cancelled, too. Although ISIS says women have no role as fighters, France in particular has detained women returnees and some adolescent boys who it believes pose a danger. Young children often go into foster care. While it is unclear how many children were born in ISIS territory in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, a snapshot of the group at its height showed as many as 31,000 women were pregnant at any given moment (Read more ISIS stories.)
Elizabeth Thomas' father says he believes his 15-year-old daughter was brainwashed by Tad Cummins, the former teacher accused of kidnapping her, the Tennessean reports. Cummins and Elizabeth were found this week at a cabin in northern California, weeks after they disappeared from Tennessee. While Anthony Thomas says he hasn't had a chance to speak to his daughter yethe hopes to soonhe says she is going to need therapy to recover from the ordeal. It remains unclear whether Elizabeth went with Cummins willingly, according to the New York Daily News.

Meanwhile, authorities say Cummins' actions prior to going on the lam show he was planning on kidnapping Elizabeth, apparently for sexual purposes. According to a federal complaint, Cummins, 50, refilled his prescription for erectile dysfunction medication and made reservations for one-bed rooms at multiple Super 8 motels prior to kidnapping Elizabeth. CNN reports Cummins told his wife he needed to borrow her car for a (nonexistent) job interview and took out a $4,500 loan "to meet their financial needs." Cummins had been suspended from his teaching job for conduct with Elizabeth. The federal complaint also states Cummins bought chocolates and sexual lubricant at Walmart while on the run with Elizabeth. (Read more Elizabeth Thomas stories.)
A July night in 1990 changed both of their lives for the worse, but one phone call and the power of forgiveness then changed both their lives for the better. People details the story of Ian Manuel, who was just 13 when he was egged on to rob someone in Tampa, Fla., and confronted 28-year-old mom of two Debbie Baigrie. He shot her in the mouth, nearly killing her, and was arrested three days later and eventually sentenced to life in prison without parole for attempted murder and armed robbery. As Baigrie went through an excruciating recovery, which included dozens of dental procedures to rebuild her shattered mouth, Manuel thought about what he'd doneand right before Christmas in 1991, he placed a collect call to Baigrie to apologize.

A curious Baigrie accepted the call, per a 2014 New York Times article, and finally asked, "Ian, why did you shoot me?" "It was a mistake," the teen, who the paper notes had a troubled childhood, replied. They started exchanging letters, and over time she became one of his biggest supporters, pushing him to get his GED and eventually lobbying for his early releasedespite loved ones telling her she was nuts. "She became a mother to me," Manuel, now 40, tells People (the Times notes his own mom, dad, and brother have since died). He was released from prison in November after a Supreme Court ruling that nixed life sentences for juveniles who hadn't committed murder, and per WTSP, Baigrie was waiting outside to give him a hug. He is now "like my adopted son," she says of Manuel, who works for the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama while learning the life basicslaundry, cooking, drivinghe missed out on while behind bars. (This paralyzed NYC cop famously urged forgiveness.)
The US government won't be granting Exxon Mobil a waiver from Russian sanctions, Politico reports. It had been reported this week that the oil and gas company was seeking a waiver to allow it to drill in the Black Sea. The refusal of that waiver came Friday in the form of a one-sentence press release from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who added that no US companies will be given a waiver from Russian sanctions. The sanctions were put in place in 2014 by the Obama administration after Russia invaded Ukraine. They interrupted a partnership between Exxon and Russia's state-owned Rosneft.

Exxon's apparent request for a waiver was condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike, CNBC reports. For example, John McCain's response was a succinct, "Are they crazy?" It also put the Trump administration in a tough spot between continuing reports of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign and former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson's new gig as Secretary of State, according to the New York Times. An expert in energy geopolitics says had the waiver been granted, it may have ended up being bad, at least in terms of optics, for both the Trump administration and Exxon. The denial of the waiver comes with Trump apparently cooling on Russia and its president. (Read more Exxon Mobil stories.)
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Village clubstaurant The Anthony launches a decadent-sounding brunch this weekend. Indulge in Lobster Benedict ($22) on a cheddar biscuit, French Onion Fondue ($14) with vegetable crudite, Breakfast Mac & Cheese ($13) with chicharrones and a fried egg, and the Duck Waffle Sandwich ($22, pictured above), to which you can add an egg for $2.

On Friday and Saturday evening, East Williamsburg's The Well will be transformed into Beer Mansion, a beer playground organized by Brooklyn Brewery where each room of the venue is themed to different categories of beer. Explore the "Tart of the Tropics" (Sour ales, crisp pilsners and citrus-forward IPAs) or spend some time in "The Darkness" (Porters, stouts and Oktoberfests), just two of the five themed rooms. Beer samples are unlimited, but there will also be food on offer for purchase from Roberta's, Bunker and Frankel's. Tickets $65.

It's opening weekend of the Queens Night Market on Saturday, where you should head if cravings for Valencian paella and Barbadian fishballs strike. They're employing a new ticketing system for the first two opening weekends to alleviate overcrowding, so grab $5 tickets before hopping on the 7.



(courtesy Patacon Pisao)

Everything's coming up poutine of late, including a new "secret" poutine on offer at Patacon Pisao's three locations in Elmhurst, LES and Washington Heights. For its Venezuelan Poutine, the restaurant's using fried yucca as a base, adding stewed black beans, stewed shredded beef, nata cream sauce, chimichurri and fried queso blanco.

Seamus Mullen opens up the kitchens of his West Village restaurant Tertulia to chefs Laurent Gras, Alex Leonard and Tim Dornon for a Farm To Fire dinner Sunday evening. The trio will be cooking up a six-course meal celebrating spring vegetables like white asparagus and ramps. Dishes include smoked white radish, beetroot galcage, crispy olive; hollow carrot filled with red pepper paste, melted lardo, coffee note; and sunchoke in various textures, sherry wine vinaigrette, cured foie gras. Seats are $65 per person; called (646) 559-9909 or email events@tertulianyc.com for reservations.
Singapore:

In order to provide better training opportunities to students, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Friday signed agreements with three Singapore universities.



The memorandum of understandings (MoUs) will allow the universities and International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, a business promotion agency, to tap into CII's network of over 8,000 members to create overseas attachment opportunities for enrolled students.



IE Singapore, a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the lead MoU signatory, will be supporting these attachments under its Young Talent Programme. The MoUs signatories are Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University.

ALSO READ: Confederation of Indian Industry says demonetisation impact over, modest growth in Market



These MoUs were signed at the ASEAN-India Business Forum held here. The MoUs will help the universities' undergraduates access internship opportunities with CII's member companies across India, said Singapore's Minister of Trade and Industry S Iswaran.



"This will help build our pipeline of India-ready talent that can support companies as they expand in this important market," he said, underlining the importance of participation in the development of the Indian economy.



"Southeast Asia and India are increasingly important markets for Singapore and our businesses," Iswaran told delegates at the forum. Companies should, therefore, closely examine their strategies for Southeast Asia and India, and be open to adopting new business entry models. IE Singapore stands ready to support companies as they develop and execute their market engagement strategies," the minister said.

ALSO READ: Trade between India and UAE set to hit 100 billion dollars by 2020: CII
New Delhi:

Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education (HPBOSE) may declare the results of the class 12 exams today, that is, on April 25, 2017. Candidates can stay updated on the official website hpbose.org for the result notification for download.

This year the HPBOSE class 12 board exams 2017 was conducted from March 3 to March 28. The HPBOSE board has canceled and reschedule the physics and computer science exams after the question papers were allegedly stolen.

According to the reports,the question paper for class 12 board exam for Physics and Computer Science were stolen from the examination centre at Government Senior Secondary School, Nichar in Kinnaur district.The matter was brought to the notice of HPBOSE by the principal of the school.

The HPBOSE class 12th results 2017 will be announced for over 1 lakh students. The board has conducted Class 12th examination from 3rd March to 28th March, 2017 in 1846 centres all across Himachal Pradesh.

Steps to check HPBOSE class 12 exams 2017:

- Go to the official website of HP Board, hpbose.org.

- Click on the "HPBOSE Class 12 Exam 2017 Result" link given there

- Enter your roll number

- Click on the link to the HPBOSE class 12 results which will be displayed once the results are announced.

 Enter the required details in the fields provided and search for the results.

 Download the results sheet and take a print out of the same for further reference.

About HPBOSE :

The Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education, Dharamshala came into existence in 1969 as per Himachal Pradesh Act No. 14 of 1968 with its head-quarter at Shimla later shifted to Dharamshala in January 1983. The Board started with a staff of 34 officials which has subsequently increased to 438.
New Delhi:

Veteran actor Sathyaraj finally apologies for his controversial comment on Kannadigas after a massive protest staged by Pro-Kannada organisation activists in the city on Thursday against the Tamil actor who essays the character of Kattappa in 'Baahubali 2'.

Apologising for his comment made nine years back the Tamil actor said his comment was not against Karnataka and his motto is to continue speaking for the welfare of Tamil people even if he does not get work in the industry.

The movie had previously received threat to be banned in Karnataka and was said to be allowed to hit the silver screens of the state only if actor Sathyaraj apologies for his controversial comments made 9-years ago on Kannadigas and the vexed Cauvery water issue.

Supporting Tamil farmers demanding Cauvery water at a demonstration in 2008, actor Sathyaraj was quoted in the media saying, "Tamils should not be like a tree which stands silently as any dog comes and urinates on it".

Hence, 'Baahubali' fame Kattappa has given only 8 days to apologies to ensure the Karnataka release of 'Baahubali: The Conclusion'.

According to the activists the screening of the movie without an apology would be a big blow to the self respect of Kannadigas.

Led by veteran Kannada activist and former MLA Vatal Nagaraj, dozens of pro-Kannada organisations also threatened to shut down the state capital on April 28 as a sign of protest and also willing to ban all Tamil films all over the state.

"Tomorrow we will burn his effigy and day-after, we will block the highway connecting the two states at Attibele", Nagraj was quoted while interacting to a leading daily.

Meanwhile, SS Rajamouli, the director of the film took to twitter to make an emotional appeal to allow a smooth release of the movie considering the hard works of all other members of the cast who have given their days and nights to make the film happen.

An appeal to all the Kannada friends... pic.twitter.com/5rJWMixnZF  rajamouli ss (@ssrajamouli) April 20, 2017

"Preventing the film will not cause Sathyaraj any loss. Targetting the film because of one actor is wrong", the Telegu director further added.

Responding to Rajamouli's statement, Nagaraj said, "We have nothing against the film or its crew. I am told that it is a very good film. All we want is for him to apologise. The man compared Kannadigas to dogs. How can we keep quiet?"

However, Now we can finally expect an easy smooth release of the second installment of 'Baahubali' in Karnataka as Sathyaraj took that instant step to secure a healthy market of the 28th release in the state.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Gauahar Khan is elated with the response that she received for her role as Rubina in the recently-released "Begum Jaan". The actress desires to play a classic Bollywood heroine someday.

"The response that I have received for 'Begum Jaan' means so much to me. It was a pat on my back as an actor that Srijit Mukherji wanted me in his movie. I hope I get to play the quintessential heroine and also do some meaningful cinema soon. But I haven't found anything yet," she told PTI in an interview.

The 33-year-old actress, who started her Bollywood career in films with "Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year" in 2009, hopes that people take notice of her after "Begum Jaan". "I received a lot of acclaim for 'Rocket Singh'. But no character has ever been as recognised as Rubina. This is everything I have always dreamed of. I hope the filmmakers note this performance and take up the challenge to cast new talent in their films. I want it all."

Also Read: There is too much intolerance in India, says Gauahar Khan

Gauahar says she had a lot of expectations from herself as an actor while shooting for "Begum Jaan", given most of the scenes were physically exhausting. "It was physically so taxing. We walked through real fire and did all our action scenes on our own. We have beaten men and we got physically hurt. There's a scene where a man literally beats me up and that was all real. I didn't want him to fake it. The way I slip and fall in that scene is real. But, I'm ecstatic about this experience," Gauahar says.

The actress was also seen in "Badrinath Ki Dulhania" in a small role and says, "People remember me as the cop and that is amazing." Gauahar says she would love to do a serious romantic drama on television but only if it is not just another run-of-the-mill character.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

'Noor' is based on Saba Imtiazs novel Karachi, Youre Killing Me!. Directed by Sunhil Sippy, movie revolves around a journalist-writer Noor played by Sonakshi Sinha, about her misadventures and love life as she navigates her way through Mumbai. End of the story!

Noor is nothing but a 28 year old girl who is a journalist by profession and somehow managing her life in bits and pieces. She is so much frustated with her fat belly and not-so-happening life to which she decides to switch her personality to 'Tedhi Savitri' and then dances to the not-so-good remix of 'Gulabi' and then returns in her reality with 'epic hangover' and suddenly she realises of her 24*7 profession of journalism and brings up a story with no cross check of the facts and suffer hardships in order to make people believe of her story is all what you will get in those 1 hour 56 minutes. Better to save your time.

Sonakshi has once again proved us, better to choose your films wisely just not for the sake of 'women centric' tags. All you hear in the first half, from her are the problems she is dealing with right now. You shall HEAR them, literally.

Also Read: Actress Sonakshi Sinha raises voice against people who try to suppress opinionated women

Although Sonakshi looked perfect playing the slothy character but unfortunately the script could not help it out. Kanan Gill as Noor's childhood friend, could have been more promising but apart from supporting the protagonist he could not stand out. Purab Kohli in his small yet essential role held his charm throughout.

The movie doesn't hold the same pace throughout its 2 hour run time, 2nd half shall bring some twist and turns from the on going rom-com but at the end it drops down. It somehow tries to bring out the reality of a journalist, where the story of the journalist works only to the extent if people are interested but fails to create an impact on its viewers with that approach.

Let us know what others have in their kitty about the film:

Hindustan Times : Sonakshi looks quite convincing with the grimaces, pouts, eye rolls, scowls and goofy grins - displaying an amusing dorkiness, but Noor does not understand journalism, it fails to establish enough angst for the protest it hopes to ignite, it stops being the rom-com (the one thing that the movie was getting right) pretty soon and it does not give the victims enough time for us to empathise, nor does it ponder over the aggressors enough, for us to loathe them.

Also Read: Finally! 'Noor' aka Sonakshi Sinha opens on her wedding plans

India Today : Noor is neither a slice-of-life film on the lines of Bridget Jones' Diary which it tries to emulate nor does it develop into a good film about the journalism business. Noor calls herself a broadcast journalist but comes back to a newsroom which has literally no more than three people working at any given point. Is this a news channel or a website? We don't know. Sonakshi Sinha plays, perhaps, the most uncharismatic character of her life in Noor. After Akira, Noor is another failed attempt to reinvent herself as a solo-heroine who can put butts in seats.

Times Of India : Noor (Sinha) wants to shine a light on serious issues but is stuck being the torchbearer of mediocre puff pieces. Since the movie gets this generation right, it has to get its flaws right too. Noor introduces a conflict which is serious and relevant, but offers very little by way of resolution. It unintentionally gives a nod to armchair-activism, and as representative of our time as it is, it simply cannot cover-up the lazy writing towards the end. A slightly stronger effort on the protagonists part could have propelled the movie into greatness.

Also Read: Learnt a lot about my craft while working with big stars: Sonakshi Sinha

Indian Express : Noor the film is as mixed up as its female protagonist of the same name: it gets some things right and the others horribly wrong. The actors all do their job, though. Especially Sonakshi who brings a vulnerability to her looking-for-herself persona. Theres a delicious passage between her and the one-who-might-be-the-one, where the back-and-forth dialogue is pitch-perfect and beautifully timed, both the girl and guy clearly revelling in the zone: questing, probing, and waking up, to the possibilities of love. If only the whole film was like that.
New Delhi:

After keeping the tinselvile buzzing with their mid-air fight, Sunil Grover has recently praised Kapil Sharma over his talent and called him a great comedian. The television actor, who was seen playing Dr Mashoor Gulati on 'The Kapil Sharma Show', has admitted that he likes Sharma because he has the skill to make people laugh.



Sunil was quizzed about Kapil Sharma lately during his Dubai tour, where he stated, "Kapil is a great comedian who makes the whole nation (India) laugh." I like him because he makes people laugh. Just the thought that he is a doctor when he is not is funny. He comes across as an innocent and unapologetic character, Grover added.

Also Read | CONFIRMED: Kapil Sharma-Sunil Grover to REUNITE for THIS show!



Interestingly, Sunil's statement come almost a month after he was allegedly assaulted by Kapil Sharma during a flight in front of the passengers. Grover, who was quite miffed with the incident, even parted ways with Kapil and left his show. In fact, he even turned down several attempta of various celebs to reconcile with Sharma including that of veteran actor Rishi Kapoor.



But looks like, Sunil aka Mashoor Gulati is now in a mood to sort out the differences now. Notably, there are reports that Sunil Grover will be back on 'The Kapil Sharma Show' soon.

Also Read | Rishi Kapoor wants Sunil Grover and Kapil sharma to patch up , says 'Mil jao yaaron'



We wonder is this the beginning of patch up between Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover.
Bhubaneswar:

BJP president Amit Shah cautioned party leaders against complacency, saying it is yet to reach the peak as he rolled out plans for its expansion in states where it has been traditionally weak.

In his inaugural address at the BJPs two-day national executive here, he also asserted that the partys golden era would arrive when it rules across the country, from panchayats to Parliament.

Laying down his ambitious growth plan for the party in south and eastern India, Shah rejected the contention that the saffron surge had reached its peak with its domination of central and west India and maiden wins in states like Assam and Manipur.

LIVE | PM Modi in Bhubaneswar: Visits Lingaraj Temple; honours families of Paika Rebellion freedom fighters

Top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were in attendance as he asked the organisation to resolve for victory in the next round of assembly elections due in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka, noting that a similar resolve was made last year during the national executive meeting in Allahabad for five state elections, including in UP.

13 chief ministers of the party, the most BJP has ever had, were also in the audience.

Shah said he will spend 95 days touring the country to meet party leaders and workers and asked senior leaders and union ministers to give 15 days to strengthen the organisation while speaking about its growth prospects in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha.

The BJP is yet to reach its peak. Its golden era will arrive when it rules from panchayat to assemblies across the country and Parliament, he said.

Shah said the BJP should have governments in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and other North-Eastern states.

He said when the party has chief ministers in all states, that would mark its golden era.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad briefed reporters on his speech in a closed-door meeting of the party leaders.

He, however, steered clear of recent controversial issues like killing of a man in BJP-ruled Rajasthan by cow vigilantes and deepening impasse in Kashmir, where his party is in power in partnership with PDP.

Prasad suggested that a reference to Kashmir may be made during the national executive.

The partys gold era, he said, will coincide with Indias golden era and it will emerge as a great nation in the world.

The BJPs massive wins in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have changed the experts definition of big victories, usually associated with two-thirds majority, as it won more than 75 per cent of seats as people have embraced our politics of performance and rejected opposition parties politics of brazen appeasement, rank family promotion and casteism, Shah said.

The BJP has also disproved the claims that it can defeat the Congress but not strong regional parties by routing the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party in UT, he said.

Shah said when the BJP won 71 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP in 2014, it was said that it was a sudden development but by sweeping the state in the assembly polls the party has proved that people have embraced it decisively and whole-heartedly.

ALSO READ | BJP National Executive meet: Party underlines commitment to build Ram Temple

Its win in the state polls was due to the Modi governments pro-poor and welfare policies, Shah said, reaffirming that the prime minister was the most popular leader since Independence.

Hitting out at the Left government in Kerala over the killing of the BJP and RSS workers allegedly by communist cadres, he said his party will continue to oppose it peacefully and ensure that the lotus blooms there as well as Tripura, another Left-ruled state.

The BJP national president said he would spend three days in Kerala as part of the organisational expansion drive.

The Modi government, he said, has done more work in three years than other governments had done in two-three terms as he hailed its policies.

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New Delhi:

The BJPs thumping victories in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand has lent a sense of urgency to the oppositions efforts to forge unity ahead of the presidential election.

CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to explore the possibility of fielding a joint candidate, while RJD boss Lalu Prasad talked about cobbling together a Bihar-style Mahagathbandhan. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called for a larger unity among regional parties to take on the BJP.

Yechury called on Gandhi on Thursday, hours after she met Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar. We are right now meeting all the opposition secular forces to find a common candidate, Yechury said about the meeting.

Yechury and Gandhi discussed the possibility of fielding a candidate acceptable to all secular opposition parties. Gandhi responded positively to a suggestion in this connection by the CPI(M) leader, a source in the Left party said.

ALSO READ | President election: Sitaram Yechury meets Congress prez Sonia Gandhi, discusses strategy to take on BJP

The CPI(M) is also in talks with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad. The opposition leaders are likely to meet shortly to discuss the issue formally, the source said.

Though JD(U) spokesman K C Tyagi had yesterday insisted that the issue of presidential election was not discussed during Kumars meeting with Gandhi, he said the party was of the view that a strong joint opposition candidate was in national interest.

There should be a joint opposition candidate for the top constitutional post and Sonia Gandhi being the leader of the largest opposition party should take the lead, he said. In Patna, Lalu made a strong pitch for a broader alliance of opposition parties.

Wherever the parties of social justice or regional political entities have come together we have won. We want Mayawati, Congress, Mamata Banerjee, (SP president) Akhilesh ji to come together to defeat the communal and fascist forces, he said.

He referred to the success of the grand alliance of RJD JD(U) and Congress in Bihar where it stalled the BJPs juggernaut in the assembly election in 2015.

Notwithstanding their differences, Nitish Kumar and Lalu had joined hands ahead of the assembly election. Kumar heads the grand alliance government in Bihar despite his party having fewer seats than RJD.

Mamata Banerjee, meanwhile, called upon regional parties to unite to take on the BJP which, she alleged, has unleashed vendetta politics against those opposed to it and wanted to take the country on a dangerous path.

What is going on in the country in the name of politics is not politics. The situation demands all regional parties to unite, Banerjee told party workers at a meeting in Kolkata shortly after being re-elected as chairperson of Trinamool Congress for six years.

I do not want anything. I want you all (regional parties) to progress, I am there in your support. I am giving this message to all parties. Be together, be united, my party will stand by all of you, she said.

BJP has resorted to vendetta politics. They are out to break the federal structure of the country. BJP is against our party because we talk about the people.

They want to finish us by unleashing an agency (CBI) against our leaders but they themselves will be finished. TMC will strike back, she said, asking partymen not to get scared.

Referring to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, she said, Whatever the conspiracy is, you have to go to the grassroots level and meet our workers. Take the challenge for two years. We will fight taking along everyone.

ALSO READ | Nitish Kumar meets Sonia Gandhi; discusses current political situation and strategy for 2019 LS elections

The sudden flurry of activity in opposition parties follows the BJPs winning streak in states since the formation of the Narendra Modi government. It currently has governments in 13 states and is a junior partner in the ruling alliance in Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh. However, the party had lost badly in Bihar and Delhi.

Presidential election is scheduled in July and opposition unity for contesting it may well be a precursor to an anti-NDA front ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

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New Delhi:

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu asserted that the every inch of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India and China has no business to name any Indian place.

Arunachal Pradesh is totally part and parcel of India. China has no business to name any of the district. I dont know why they have taken this step, Naidu, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, told a press conference.

Stressing that every inch of the state belongs to India, the minister said that no foreign country has the right to rename any part of India.

Naidu asked if anybodys name can be changed if his or her neighbour does so.

The minister was responding to a query on the Chinese action of unilaterally changing the names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

China had yesterday announced that it has standardised official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a legitimate action. The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged a strong protest with India over the Dalai Lamas visit to the frontier state.

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New Delhi:

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiri youths outside J-K, Home Minister Rajnath Singh today asked all the states to ensure their safety.



"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states.



"I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well," he told reporters here.



The Home Minister said an advisory is being sent by his ministry to all the states for the safety and security of Kashmiris living there.

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were receiving threats.

ALSO READ: Will look into Kashmir viral video issue: Rajnath Singh



Condemning the incidents, the Home Minister said proper inquiry should be initiated in each case and strongest possible action should be taken against the guilty.



Singh said that Kashmiris are like any other Indian.



"The contributions of the people of Kashmir in nation building are immense. They are like any other Indian. I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well. They are part of the family," he said.



Reports from Rajasthan said tension prevailed in Chittorgarh on Wednesday when a group of locals clashed with a few Kashmiri students of Mewar university after they were allegedly called "stone pelters" and taunted over a video showing a CRPF jawan being heckled in the Kashmir Valley.



Also, hoardings asking Kashmiri students to leave Uttar Pradesh have appeared in Meerut.

ALSO READ: Pak attempting pre-planned murder of Kulbhushan Jadhav, will take issue to international forum if needed: Rajnath Singh

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New Delhi:

Politics in the sensitive Karbi Anglong district of Assam on Saturday changed drastically when people staged a 'nude' protest ahead of Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council elections.

Members of 24 tribal unions protested with no clothes on to bring their demands to govt's notice.

Protesters demanded that only Tribals should be allowed to vote in the upcoming elections. They are of the thoughts that allowing non-tribals to vote would affect their interest.

Assam CM Sonowal meets Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui

However, police dispersed protesters but the protest has raised alarms in the region as Karbi Anglong, which used to be a separatist majority area and some anti-national powers are still active.

Karbi Anglong is an autonomous district of Assam and will go on council polls in June this year.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday addressed the Bureaucrats on the ocassion of 11th Civil Services Day function in Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

Here's the highlights of PM Modi's speech -

Video:

#WATCH Live from Delhi: PM Modi speaking at the 11th Civil Services Day function in Vigyan Bhawan https://t.co/lZVLzAvtSo a ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017



# India is seen as a ray of hope world over and our democratic values are globally admired.

#A Every policy of ours and its implementation has to be outcome centric.



# The push for reform comes from political leadership but the perform angle is determined by officers & Jan Bhagidari transforms.



# A spirit of ownership is essential. Let us believe that through this set up we can bring a positive change in people's lives.A

A # E-governance, M-governance, social media- these are good means to reach out to the people and for their benefits.



# Hierarchy remains an issue- this is something we inherited from colonial rulers & we did not leave that behind in Mussoorie.



# With quantum jump in work must also come a qualitative change.



# With changing times, a need may arise that we may have to change our working style. From regulator, we need to be an enabling entity.



# Changing trends in the last 15-20 years have altered the dynamics. Competition can play a big role in bringing a qualitative change.



# People are now seeing alternatives. For example- it can be about a private airline or a private healthcare service.



# Earlier, role of the government, from healthcare to wanting to set up an industry, was very strong. Things are changing since 15 years.

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New Delhi:

The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) plea for the use oof paper trail paper trail hikes in the municipal polls scheduled on April 23, saying it cannot pass such an order at the lastminute.

Justice A K Pathak said an order for use of VVPAT(Voter-verified paper audit trail)-enabled Generation 2 or Generation 3 electronic voting machines (EVBMs) cannot be issued at the eleventh hour as it would amount to stalling theelection process.

The plea, filed by the AAP as also by Mohd Tahir Hussain who is a candidate in the MCD elections, has contended thatthe EVMs to be used in the polls were obsolete and open to tampering.

During the arguments before dismissing the plea, thecourt asked the state election commission of Delhi why it didnot opt for VVPAT EVMs in view of the Supreme Court's observation in Subramanium Swamy's case that such machines should be brought into use in a phased manner.

Also Read | MCD polls 2017: Two Swaraj India candidates ditch party to join BJP

In its arguments, the Delhi poll panel said the question raised by the AAP on the use of EVMs in the MCD polls was sending a wrong message to the voters.

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Beijing:

Nepal has scaled down the size of its first-ever military exercise with China after facing strong opposition from India, state-run Chinese media claimed on Friday.

The 10-day joint military exercise, code-named Sagarmatha Friendship 2017, commenced in Nepal from April 16.

It was said the two countries initially planned to hold battalion-scale military exercises. However, facing a strong opposition from India, Nepal had to compress the size of the military exercise and change the venue to a military school, an article in the state-run Global Times said.

For Nepal, the joint military exercise has a deeper significance. For starters, it shows that Nepal moves forward in its pursuit of a balanced diplomacy among major powers. Since the 1990s, balanced diplomacy has become the basic principle of Nepals foreign strategy, which is established based on Nepals nationalism and anti-Indian sentiment, the article said.

ALSO READ| China defends trade practices with North Korea

Chinese official media has been expressing its frustration over the fall of pro-China Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli who was replaced by Prachanda.

For China, the fall of the Oli regime was a big disappointment and a setback to its planned big push into Nepal through Tibet with rail and highway linkages to expand its influence in the landlocked country which was dependent on India for all its supplies, according to analysts.

Prachanda sought to improve ties with India much to the chagrin of Beijing.

Nepals dependence on India in political, economic, cultural and other aspects as well as Indias ambition to make Nepal its sphere of influence has made most people in Nepal fear losing their national independence as Sikkim did, the article claimed.

Holding joint military exercises with China can contribute to deterring ethnic separatism in Nepal, it said without elaborating.

China has expressed its backing for Nepals new constitution which was strongly resisted by Madhesis over fears that it marginalised their political and constitutional rights.

It is a normal development for China to hold a military exercise with Nepal as Nepal is Chinas friendly neighbour. There are many countries which have held joint military exercises, including India, with China. South Asia is a terrorism-prone region. Now that China and Nepal have developed closer economic relations, Nepal hopes to join Chinas Belt and Road initiative, for which regional security and stability is a necessity, it said.

The joint military exercise shows that the bilateral diplomatic relations have expanded from political, economic and cultural to the field of military defence. But for China, this is just one aspect of the overall national security outlook proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Nepal has taken a cautious attitude to avoid provoking India. The drill does not violate the Treaty of Peace and Friendship inked by Nepal and India in 1950, it said.

Due to geographic, political, economic, historic, religious and cultural factors, India has wielded much bigger influence over Nepal than China. Nepal cannot cut its economic ties with India, it said.

India views small South Asian countries such as Nepal and Bhutan as its sphere of influence and a strategic buffer zone against China.

It sees their relations with China from a geopolitical standpoint and a Cold-War mentality, it said.

Given the rise of nationalism in India, especially the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments among Indias diplomatic circles, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a tough China policy since assuming office. India is concerned about Chinas economic cooperation with South Asia and the region around the Indian Ocean and wants to push back Chinas influence, it claimed.

Over the past two years, India has raised a couple of unreasonable requests toward and imposed pressure on China, dragging the Sino-Indian relations into a vicious cycle.

If New Delhi does not change its mentality, it will be paranoid about every cooperation between China and South Asian countries, it said.

China has a clear-cut approach toward China-Nepal-India trilateral relations. It hopes Nepal can become a bridge between China and India. By pushing forward the China-Nepal-India economic corridor, it can boost development in all three countries. No matter how India views cooperation between China and Nepal, such cooperation will continue to expand, as it fits the interests of both peoples, it said.

Nepals President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is in India on her first overseas tour. She arrived on a five-day trip to India on April 17.

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has directed in its recent hearing over maintenance that a husband should pay 25% of his net salary to his former wife and set 25% as 'just and proper' amount as alimony.

A bench of Justices R Banumathi and M M Santanagoudar set the bench mark while directing a resident of West Bengal's Hoogly, earning Rs 95,527 a month, to set aside Rs 20,000 as maintenance for his former wife and their son, turning down the man's plea that the amount was excessive. The court said the amount of maintenance or permanent alimony should be enough to ensure that a woman live with dignity after separating from her husband.

The order came after a man challenged a Calcutta high court order directing him to pay her Rs 23,000 per month. Though the apex court said there was nothing amiss in the high court order, it reduced the amount by Rs 3,000 on the ground that the man had remarried and hence needed to provide for his new family.

"Twenty-five per cent of the husband's net salary would be just and proper to be awarded as maintenance to the (former) wife. The amount of permanent alimony awarded to her must be befitting the status of the parties and the capacity of the spouse to pay maintenance, which is always dependant on the factual situation of the case... and the court would be justified in moulding the claim for maintenance passed on various factors," the bench said.

The couple was fighting a legal battle over maintenance since 2003 when the district judge fixed the amount at Rs 4,500. The high court, however, awarded Rs 16,000 per month in 2015 and increased the amount to Rs 23,000 in 2016 as the husband's salary went up from Rs 63,842 to Rs 95,527.

Kiran Bedi accuses Puducherry chief secretary of violating administrative rules Also Read:

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New Delhi:

After its successful Mars mission Mangalyaan, the Indian Space Research Organisations (ISRO) is planning for a mission to Venus, which is likely to be launched after 2020, reports have said.

For studying for potential orbiter mission to Venus, ISRO has invited suggestions from scientists, reports said. In a way, the speculations have been made official. But according to a senior ISRO official, the mission to Venus is not happening before 2020.

ISRO has stated as of now that it is planning to send a spacecraft around Venus. Initially, the spacecraft will make an elliptical orbit and then get closer to the planet.

According to a report in The Hindu, the spacecraft using 500W of power will carry instruments what would weigh 175 kg. The scientific community has been given a deadline of May 19 to suggest space-based studies.



The Announcement of Opportunity is just a beginning. The studies must be finalised, a project report would have to be presented and approved. He further said that,  A formal mission may not happen before 2020, The Hindu quoted a senior ISRO official as saying.



An approval for the mission to Venus needs to be taken from ISROs Advisory Committee on Space Sciences, followed by the Space Commission and finally by the government.



ISROs planetary missions:

In 2013, ISRO successfully launched a mission to Mars, marking Indias second planetary mission. The project was worth Rs 450.



In 2008, ISRO had sent an orbiter to the Moon and a second moon landing mission is planned reportedly in early 2018.

Previous missions to Venus:

In 1963, a robotic space probe called the American Mariner 2 was launched on Venus. In 1970, a Soviet Spacecraft Venera 7 landed on the surface of Venus and beamed back data to Earth.

NASA obtained additional data with the project Pioneer Venus in 1978. According to reports, there were several flybys that were carried out between 1980-1990 apart from Russias continued interest in Venus.

In April 2006, European Space Agency put the Venus Express, long-term observation mission, into the orbit around Venus. In December 2015, Japan sent Akatsuki to the planet.

What mission to Venus will mean to India?

Closest to Earth approximately every 583 days, Venus is the second planet from the Sun. Similar to Earth in several aspects, Venus takes only 225 days to revolve around the Sun. Its closeness to the Sun, makes it hotter.

It will be another feather in the cap for India if ISROs mission to Venus turns out to be successful.

ALSO READ | ISRO eyes mega world record, plans to go to Venus; Mars revisit on card

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New Delhi:

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian and an American cosmonaut reached the International Space Station on Thursday, thereby completing the first two-man flight to the ISS in over a decade.

According to Russian space agency, The Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft with veteran Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA's rookie Jack Fischer successfully docked to the ISS.

Yurchikhin and Fischer are beginning a five-month mission at ISS where three astronauts, including NASAs Peggy Whitson, are already stationed.

In an interview, Fischer said he would be thinking about Dad as he enters orbit. When dying from cancer his father encouraged him to pursue his dream of becoming an astronaut.

Yurchikhin, 58, has racked up 537 days in space over the course of four missions to the ISS, more than any US astronaut but well short of the 879 days logged by record-holding compatriot Gennady Padalka.

Fischer and Yurchikhin will be onboard the ISS to witness whether Whitson breaks the 534-day American record for cumulative days in space previously held by Jeff Williams.

Manned launches to the ISS generally involve three crew members but Roscosmos announced last year that in the near future only two cosmonauts would be onboard the ISS rather than three as has been the case in recent times.

The agency explained it is seeking to cut costs on supply missions prior to the installation of a new module to expand the Russian section of the orbital lab at the end of 2017 or in early 2018.

Also Read: NASA Cassini spacecraft gears up for its final close encounter of Saturn's moon Titan before dying

Another Russian-American duo, Yuri Malenchenko and Edward Lu, undertook the last two-man mission to the ISS, in April 2003.

Whitson also became the first woman to take charge of the ISS twice, having inherited command of the lab for the first time from Yurchikhin in 2007.

She will return to Earth in early September with both Fischer and Yurchikhin after NASA decided to extend her stay in space by three months.

Frances Thomas Pesquet and Oleg Novitsky of Roscosmos will be the next members of the ISS crew to return to Earth, with a landing scheduled for early June.

Russia is currently the only country executing manned space flights to the ISS, despite its space industry having suffered a string of setbacks and launch failures in recent years.

The ISS laboratory, a rare example of American and Russian international cooperation, has been orbiting Earth at about 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,000 miles per hour) since 1998.

(With PTI inputs)

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Mazar-i-Sharif :

The ongoing Taliban attack on Afghan soldiers base in northern Afghanistan on Friday, at least 8 soldiers have been killed and 11 wound, the defence ministry told.



"Gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms have launched a complex attack on an army compound in the outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif",capital of Balkh province, ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri told AFP.



At least one armed man continues to resist, he said, with another killed and a third arrested. He could not confirm how many attackers there were in total.



"So far we have counted eight dead and eleven wounded, all military, there are no civilian casualties," General Waziri said.



General Mohmand Katawazi, the provincial corps commander, confirmed gunfire was continuing, and said one attacker had blown himself up in the assault.



Several military helicopters were hovering over the site and ambulances were evacuating the bodies of the victims, an AFP correspondent said.



In a statement the Taliban claimed responsibility for the operation.



The last major attack against a military site dates back to early March, a coordinated hours-long assault on the country's main military hospital in Kabul.



Officials said around 50 people were killed, though credible sources said it was more than double that.



That operation was claimed by the Islamic State group.

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Washington:

North Korea has been described as a 'menace' by US President Donald Trump, while he was lauding Chinas efforts to rein in the reclusive country.

"As far as North Korea is concerned, we are in very good shape. Were building our military rapidly," Trump said at a press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. "A lot of things have happened over the last short period of time. I have been here for approximately 91 days. Were doing a lot of work. Were in a very good position."

He was optimistic that China would be able to use its influence on North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un, who he hoped is "mentally stable".

Trump was asked by a reporter whether he thought the North Korean leader is mentally unstable and, therefore, unable to be reasoned with.

"I cant answer your question on stability. I hope the answer is a positive one, not a negative one. But hopefully that will be something that gets taken care of," he said.

Trump, who met with President Xi Jinping earlier this month at his Mar-a-Lago retreat, said he told his Chinese counterpart that he would get a "much better" trade deal with the US if he did something about the "menace" of North Korea. "Because that is what it is, it is a menace right now."

Trump also said he was confident that Xi would be trying "very, very hard" in the matter.

"I really have confidence that the President (Xi Jinping) will try very hard. We dont know whether or not they?re able to do that, but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very, very hard," he said.

"Some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours," Trump said without elaborating.

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Mumbai:

A Jet Airways flight from Amsterdam to Toronto on Friday suffered tail strike, forcing the pilot to return to the Dutch capital.



The airline was operating a Boeing 777-300ER plane, which has the capacity to seat more than 300 passengers.



Sources said the flight suffered a tail strike while taking off from Amsterdam to Toronto and later faced pressurisation problems. Following the issues, the pilot decided to return to Amsterdam, they added.



The exact number of passengers on board the aircraft was not immediately known.



Comments from Jet Airways is awaited.



In January this year, a Jet Airways planes tail had touched the runway during landing at the Dhaka airport. The flight was from Mumbai.

Also read:

Varanasi: Colossal tragedy averted as two planes miss mid-air collision by 15 secs

Jet Airways domestic plane gets hit by bird; flight cancelled



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Washington:

The White House budget director says money for the wall President Donald Trump wants to build along the US border with Mexico must be part of the massive spending bill Congress is preparing.

Trump's budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, tells The Associated Press in an interview that additional funding also must be included to hire more immigration agents.

Also Read: Donald Trump describes North Korea as 'menace'

Lawmakers hope to unveil the catchall spending bill next week. The USD 1 trillion-plus legislation is leftover business from last year's election season gridlock and would cover the operating budgets of every Cabinet department except forVeterans Affairs.

Talks on the spending bill have hit a rough patch and a deadline to avert a government shutdown looms late next week.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Kathmandu:

Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda on Friday warns Madhes-centric parties will have to pay a "terrible price" if they rejected to participate in the local-level elections on May 14.

The government has maintained utmost flexibility to address the concerns of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha, an alliance of seven Madhes-centric parties, to bring it on board the election process, Prachanda, also the chairman of the Maoist party, said while addressing an election rally organised by CPN (Maoist Centre) in Birtamod in Jhapa.

The alliance will pay a terrible price if it turns down the government's request to participate in the local-level elections, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post.

The Prime Minister said that he would try to convince the agitating Madhesis to participate in the polls. In case the Morcha leaders refused to participate in the local elections, the decision will only hurt them and their reputation, Prachanda said.

The people will reject Morcha if it decided to boycott the elections, he said, adding that the elections will be conducted in a single phase on May 14.

Also Read: Nepal scales down size of its first-ever military exercise with China after India's opposition

On Thursday, six prominent Madhesi parties merged to form Rastirya Janata Party. The six parties that have merged include Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party, Sadbhawana Party, Rastriya Madhes Samajvadi Party, Tarai Madhes Sadbhawana Party, Madhesi Jan adhikar Forum-Ganatantrik and Nepal Sadbhawana Party.

The six parties have 24 lawmakers in the Parliament. The Madhesi parties, who claim to represent the interests of inhabitants of the southern Terai region who are mostly of Indian-origin, demand that the Constitution promulgated in 2015 be amended to revise the provisions of citizenship and re-demarcation of the provincial boundary before going to the polls.

Although they have announced to boycott the polls, Prachanda-led coalition government is making efforts to bring them to the electoral process so as to implement the Constitution.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Tel Aviv:

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said during a visit to Israel on Friday that there can be "no doubt" that Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Bashar al-Assad's regime not to use them.

Mattis, speaking during a press conference with Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, declined to comment on the number of weapons Washington believes Syria has retained.

US President Donald Trump's administration carried out a strike against a Syrian air base earlier this month over an alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town.

Also Read: SC says cannot pass order on reclaiming Kohinoor from Britain or to stop it from being auctioned

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DANBURY  Gretchen Carlson, the woman who kicked off the sexual harassment investigations at Fox News that brought down former Chairman Roger Ailes and set the stage for Bill OReillys ouster, spoke about womens empowerment Thursday to an enthusiastic crowd.

Carlson became a national face of sexual harassment in the workplace last year after her Fox News contract expired in June and she followed up with a July lawsuit that accused Ailes of repeatedly propositioning her for sex when he was her boss.

I didnt expect not to be working television anymore, but here I am, Carlson said after telling the crowd what she could about her network departure and lawsuit. I didnt expect to be the face of sexual harassment, but the one constant is what I wear on my wrist every day, which is my life motto and that is carpe diem and that means seize the day.

Carlson, of Greenwich, was in Danbury for a Chamber of Commerce and Womens Business Council event, Conversations with Extraordinary Women.

It was the seventh annual event, and women far outnumbered men in the audience, but annual attendees noted more men attended this year than in the past.

Carlson was joined on stage by moderator Christine Palm, communications and policy analyst at the Connecticut Commission on Women, Children and Seniors; and speaker Holly Dowling, a former vice president of an international brokerage firm. Palm and Dowling began the discussion by recalling a time they were sexually harassed or abused by a partner.

More Information 21st Century Fox payouts: $40 million Roger Ailes severance $25 million Bill O'Reilly expected severance $20 million Gretchen Carlson legal settlement $13 million Fox and O'Reilly settlements with five women Fox News Timeline: 2016 - June 23: Fox News Channel anchor Carlson leaves Fox after 11 years July 6: Carlson files a lawsuit against Roger Ailes July 21: Ailes is ousted, given $40 million severance Sept. 6: Carlson and Fox reportedly reach $20 million settlement. Greta Van Susteren announces she is leaving Fox 2017 - Jan. 3: Megyn Kelly leaves Fox News, joins NBC April 1: The New York Times reports O'Reilly and Fox paid $13 million in settlements to five women who said the anchor sexually harassed them. April 19: O'Reilly is ousted by Fox News See More Collapse

Bill OReillys name was rarely mentioned during the hourlong discussion, but when Palm referenced his ouster the audiance erupted in applause. Through her publicist, Carlson declined to address OReillys departure, but pointed to a statement made Wednesday evening:

The only way to end harassment is to shine a light on it, Carlson tweeted. Ask Congress to pass the Fairness in Arbitration Act. No more silencing women!

In the crowd were Danbury business leaders, youth advocates, members of the General Assembly, young women and Miss America contestants with their sashes including Miss Connecticut, Miss Wolcott and Miss Bristol.

Before the discussion, female business leaders said the timing of the talk couldnt have been better.

It's really a kind of bullying, said Marie Miszewski, CEO of the Western Connecticut YMCA. There are lots of conversations that need to be had and sexual harassment is one of them.

Maura Ruby, Danbury Fair mall senior property manager, agreed.

Were glad this discussion is happening in Danbury, she said. State Senator Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, echoed the two before she left the event.

This was really, really inspiring, Boucher said referencing the three speakers mantra of Speak up, speak out and be heard.

Through the discussion, the audience shuddered as the three spoke of foreboding statistics on pay inequality, the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace  one-third of women face it, Palm said, and 70 percent of them dont report it. When talk from the stage veered to empowerment, the audience applauded and gave two standing ovations.

One of the things I have found out from my journey over the past nine months is that in 2017, unfortunately every woman still has a story and we need to change that, Carlson said. That is amazingly wrong and one of the gratifying things that happened to me after my life unfolded was that I started hearing from women all across the nation.

Almost every career women shared with me their stories for the very first time because they knew they could feel comfortable, she said. Because they knew that I could understand. The sad thing to me was, in so many of these cases, they had never told anyone else because of the shame and the pain that comes with this topic.

Politics was a point of discussion Thursday night, with the three women urging their peers to be involved in the political process, such as running for office and testifying to the General Assembly.

Carlson asked the audience to support her push to federally outlaw arbitration clauses in contracts, which often make it illegal to go public with harassment claims, she said.

Absent from the political chatter was Carlsons political future. Earlier this month, Hearst Connecticut Media reported state Republicans were courting her for a U.S. Senate run in 2018.

Thursday, Carlson said she was an independent.

Leading a talent exodus

Carlsons lawsuit claims she recorded Ailes saying, I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then youd be good and better and Id be good and better.

Ailes was ousted July 21 with a $40 million parachute from the networks parent company, 21st Century Fox. Carlson reportedly got $20 million in a settlement with the network in September.

A female talent exodus followed as more harassment claims surfaced. Popular anchors Greta Van Susteren and Megyn Kelly departed. Even as Fox apologized to Carlson as part of the settlement, Van Susteren in a Facebook announcement said Fox has not felt like home to me for a few years and I took advantage of the clause in my contract which allows me to leave now.

Then a damning New York Times article this month reported several women had accused veteran Fox host OReilly, 67, of sexually harassing them and sabotaging their careers when they declined his overtures.

OReilly and Fox reportedly settled with five women, paying a total of $13 million to them. Advertisers quickly left his show.

By Wednesday, OReilly, who had been on vacation, was out at Fox News. His The OReilly Factor program was renamed simply The Factor, as anchors were shuffled and posters for Foxs most profitable anchor were covered.

OReilly has denied the allegations. Reports Thursday said Fox will give him $25 million as part of a separation agreement. Ailes has denied accusations against him, too.
Authorities are asking for the publics help in locating a man with drug convictions who walked away from the Helena Pre-Release Center.

The Helena Police Department reported Yancy Lee McCrea, 30, did not return to the center after leaving work Thursday.

McCrea is described as a 5-foot-9, 260-pound Native American man with black hair and brown eyes. He has sleeve tattoos on both arms, in addition to tattoos on his chest, left calf, right leg, face and neck.

-- Independent Record

Anyone with information about his location is encouraged to notify local law enforcement. The Helena Police Department can be reached at 406-422-3233.

McCreas criminal record includes convictions of criminal possession of dangerous drugs.
TORONTO, April 20, 2017 /CNW/ - 407 International Inc. (the "Company") announced today revenues of $260.7 million for the first quarter of 2017, compared to $225.3 million for the same period of 2016. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA"1) totalled $220.5 million for the first quarter of 2017 as compared with $187.6 million for same period of 2016. The Company reported net income of $87.4 million for the first quarter of 2017 as compared with $64.6 million for same period of 2016.

The Board of Directors declared an eligible dividend of $0.268 per common share, payable on or about April 20, 2017, to shareholders of record on April 20, 2017.

The Company is owned by Cintra Global Holding Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ferrovial S. A. (43.23%), by indirectly owned subsidiaries of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (total 40%), and by SNC-Lavalin (16.77%).

News releases are available at www.407etr.com.

________________________________

1 EBITDA is not a recognized measure under International Financial Reporting Standards and investors are cautioned that EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to net income or cash from operating activities as an indicator of the Company's performance or cash flows. The Company's method of calculating EBITDA may differ from other companies' methods, and may not be comparable to measures used by other companies. EBITDA less depreciation and amortization, interest and other expenses and income tax expenses, results in net income.

Highlights

Unaudited





First Quarter





2017

2016























Selected Financial Information (in millions)









Revenues $ 260.7 $ 225.3













Operating expenses

40.2

37.7

Depreciation and amortization

24.4

25.8

Interest and other expenses

77.2

73.8

Income before tax

118.9

88.0

Income tax expenses

31.5

23.4

Net income $ 87.4 $ 64.6















































Traffic









Total trips (in thousands)

27,542

26,792

Average revenue per trip

$9.35

$8.33

Average workday number of trips

368,247

359,438

Total vehicle kilometres (in thousands)

564,174

534,337

Number of transponders in circulation









at March 31

1,360,489

1,290,243

SOURCE 407 International Inc.

For further information: Investors: Geoffrey Liang, Chief Financial Officer, Tel: 905-265-4070; Media: Kevin Sack, Vice President, Marketing, Communications and Government Relations, Tel: 905-264-5374
OAKVILLE, ON, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ - Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. ("APUC") (TSX: AQN, NYSE: AQN) today announced plans to release 2017 first quarter financial results on Thursday, May 11, 2017 after market close. APUC will hold an earnings conference call at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on Friday, May 12, 2017, hosted by Chief Executive Officer, Ian Robertson and Chief Financial Officer, David Bronicheski.

Conference call details are as follows:



Date: Friday, May 12, 2017

Start Time: 10:00 a.m. eastern time

Phone Number: Toll free within North America: 1-800-319-4610 or Local: 416-915-3239

Conference Access: please ask to join the Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. conference call

Presentation Access: http://services.choruscall.ca/links/algonquinpower20170512.html

For those unable to attend the live call, a digital recording will be available for replay two hours after the call by dialing 1-855-669-9658 or 1-604-674-8052, access code 1321, from May 12, 2017 until May 26, 2017.

About Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.

APUC is a North American diversified generation, transmission and distribution utility with $10 billion of total assets. Liberty Utilities provides rate regulated natural gas, water, and electricity generation, transmission, and distribution utility services to over 783,000 customers in the United States. APUC is committed to being a North American leader in the generation of clean energy through its portfolio of long term contracted wind, solar and hydroelectric generating facilities representing more than 1,300 MW of installed capacity. APUC delivers continuing growth through an expanding pipeline of renewable energy development projects, organic growth within its rate regulated generation, distribution and transmission businesses, and the pursuit of accretive acquisitions. Common shares and preferred shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols AQN, AQN.PR.A, and AQN.PR.D. APUC's common shares are also listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AQN.

Visit APUC at www.AlgonquinPowerandUtilities.com and follow us on Twitter @AQN_Utilities.

SOURCE Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.

For further information: Additional information can be accessed on APUC's web site www.AlgonquinPowerandUtilities.com or by contacting Investor Relations. Ian Tharp, CFA, Vice President, Investor Relations, Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., 354 Davis Road, Oakville, Ontario, L6J 2X1, E-mail: [email protected], Telephone: (905) 465-6770

Related Links

http://www.algonquinpower.com


Government of Canada endorses Under2 Coalition's goal of taking ambitious action to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 20, 2017 /CNW/ - Canada is committed to meeting its obligations under the Paris Agreement, and it recognizes the significant contribution to climate action by subnational governments such as states, provinces, or cities, and other groups.

That's why, today, the Government of Canada endorsed the Under2 Coalition of varied levels of governments committed to achieving emissions reductions believed necessary to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. The coalition identifies action being taken by regional and local jurisdictions around the world and promotes ambitious action on climate change.

California, San Francisco, and Sacramento are among the American signatories. Canadian signatories include British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Quebec, Vancouver, and Ontario. Canada joins national endorsers Costa Rica, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Panama, Peru, and the United Kingdom.

Endorsing the Under2 Coalition supports the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, developed with the provinces and territories and in consultation with Indigenous peoples. The framework sets out the path to meet or surpass Canada's emissions reduction target and grow the economy.

Quote

"The governments in the Under2 Coalition, like California, are leading the fight against climate change. Investing in clean growth will help all members reach their ambitious climate-change goals and grow their countries' economies."

 Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Quick facts

A total of 167 jurisdictions spanning 33 countries and 6 continents have signed or endorsed the Under2 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Signatories to the MOU commit to limiting their greenhouse gas emissions from 80 to 90 percent below 1990 levels, the level required to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. National governments that endorse the MOU indicate their commitment to support subnational governments within their boundaries in achieving their objectives.

Environment and Climate Change Canada's Twitter page

Environment and Natural Resources in Canada's Facebook page

SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada

For further information: Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 613-462-5473; Media Relations, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 819-938-3338 or 1-844-836-7799 (toll free),

Related Links

http://www.ec.gc.ca


TORONTO, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ - Canada's National Ballet School (NBS) will host the third Assemblee Internationale (AI 17) festival in Toronto from April 30th to May 6th, 2017, welcoming students and artistic staff from twenty-one professional ballet schools around the world. AI 17 participants will take part in an intensive week of classes, performances, forums and professional development activities providing a rich educational experience and further building relationships within the international dance community.

The 2017 event will build on the success of previous Assemblee Internationale festivals, held in 2009 and 2013. Estee Lauder is the Principle Performance Partner for all four performances.

Students from this year's participating schools will perform both a piece of existing repertoire, representative of their school's culture, as well as choreography created by NBS alumni, which will be performed by a blended cast of students from each of the partner schools. Shaun Amyot, AI 17 Co-Artistic Director and Choreographer, has collaborated with Don Sinclair and Doug Van Nort, professors in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design at York University, on using sensor technology in his work, titled Origin8. With the support of Thalmic Labs' Myo armbands, Amyot's choreography will be performed by a blended cast of AI 17 students.

"Canada's National Ballet School is thrilled to once again be welcoming students and artistic staff from the international ballet community for the Assemblee Internationale 2017," said Mavis Staines, NBS' Artistic Director and CEO. "The AI philosophy reflects the best of Canadian values: to initiate and facilitate creative collaboration with an open mind and open heart. Hosting this festival is an ideal way to celebrate Canada's sesquicentennial.'"

The full list of schools participating in the AI 17 is as follows:

The Ailey School (New York)

The Australian Ballet School (Melbourne)

Ballet Academy, University of Music and Performing Arts, Munich (Munich)

Boston Ballet School (Boston)

Canada's National Ballet School (Toronto)

Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet School (Winnipeg)

Codarts (Rotterdam)

Dutch National Ballet Academy (Amsterdam)

Ecole de Danse de l'Opera de Paris (Paris)

Ecole Superieure de Danse de Cannes-Mougins Rosella Hightower (Cannes)

Escuela Nacional de Ballet de Cuba (Havana)

L'Ecole superieure de ballet du Quebec (Montreal)

EESA/CPD de l'Institut del Teatre (Barcelona)

Houston Ballet School (Houston)

Palucca School (Dresden)

New Zealand School of Dance (Wellington)

The School of The Hamburg Ballet, John Neumeier (Hamburg)

The Royal Conservatoire (The Hague)

The Royal Ballet School (London)

The Royal Danish Ballet School (Copenhagen)

San Francisco Ballet School (San Francisco)

For more information about the Assemblee Internationale or Canada's National Ballet School, please visit: http://www.nbs-enb.ca/Assemblee-Internationale

Social Media

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbs_enb

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NBSENB/

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/nbs_enb

Hashtag: #AI17

About Canada's National Ballet School

NBS is the foremost dance training institution in Canada, with a rich, 58 year history and an international reputation. NBS' distinctive pedagogy for its Professional Ballet Program integrates elements from the best in classical ballet training methods, contemporary dance and the latest in advances in science and movement. NBS alumni work in 80 companies in Canada and abroad, frequently taking leadership roles as choreographers and artistic directors.

SOURCE Canada's National Ballet School

For further information: Joanna Gertler, Director of Marketing and Communications, Canada's National Ballet School, 416 964 3780 x 2100, [email protected]

Related Links

www.nbs-enb.ca


OTTAWA, ON, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ -The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that he will travel to Brussels, Belgium, to participate in the NATO Leaders' Meeting on May 25. Following the NATO Meeting, he will visit Taormina, Italy, from May 26 to 27, to participate in the 43rd G7 Leaders' Summit. He will then go to Rome and Vatican City.

Discussions at the NATO Meeting will focus on Euro-Atlantic security issues, including NATO's counter-terrorism role and burden-sharing within the Alliance.

During the Prime Minister's first official visit to Italy, the Prime Minister will seek ways to expand opportunities for Canadians and Italians alike, and to help create good, well-paying middle class jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. He will discuss the timely ratification of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and address pressing global issues, including international and regional security, climate change, and migration.

In Vatican City, Prime Minister Trudeau will have an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis for the first time.

Quotes

"Canada is a leading member of NATO and will lead the multinational battlegroup that will soon deploy to Latvia. I look forward to next month's meeting where we will reaffirm Canada's unwavering commitment to NATO, and take important steps to promote international peace and security, and a safer world for all."

 Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

"The G7 is committed to addressing many of the most pressing global challenges of our time. At next month's meeting, I will have the opportunity to sit down with some of our closest international partners, and promote the importance of a strong middle class, and building economies that benefit everyone, not just the wealthiest few."

 Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

"I look forward to meeting with His Holiness Pope Francis for the very first time. He is the religious leader for millions of Canadians, and our meeting will allow us to explore how Canada and the Holy See can further collaborate on a range of international issues."

 Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

Quick Facts

This will be Prime Minister Trudeau's second visit to Belgium .

. The NATO Leaders' Meeting will include an inauguration of NATO's new Headquarters.

Canada , along with 11 other countries, founded NATO in 1949 on the fundamental values of democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law. Over the past 68 years, NATO has proven itself to be a major contributor to international peace and security.

, along with 11 other countries, founded NATO in 1949 on the fundamental values of democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law. Over the past 68 years, NATO has proven itself to be a major contributor to international peace and security. Since 2014, Canada has actively worked alongside NATO allies to maintain security and stability in Central and Eastern Europe . Measures include training, exercises and other operational tasks.

has actively worked alongside NATO allies to maintain security and stability in Central and . Measures include training, exercises and other operational tasks. The Leaders of the G7  united by the common values of freedom and democracy, and respect for human rights  come together each year to discuss domestic and global issues. The G7 includes Canada , France , Germany , Italy , Japan , the United Kingdom and the United States . Representatives of the European Union also attend meetings.

, , , , , the and . Representatives of the European Union also attend meetings. A business delegation organized by the Italian-Canadian Chamber of Commerce will accompany Prime Minister Trudeau on his official bilateral visit to Rome .

. Canada and Italy enjoy strong and historic people-to-people connections. Canada's large and dynamic Italian-Canadian community, almost 1.5 million strong, is particularly interested and engaged in all aspects  cultural, social, economic and political  of our bilateral relations.

and enjoy strong and historic people-to-people connections. large and dynamic Italian-Canadian community, almost 1.5 million strong, is particularly interested and engaged in all aspects  cultural, social, economic and political  of our bilateral relations. Canada and the Holy See share a commitment to promote dignity and freedom of conscience and religion.

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

https://www.canada.ca


Authorities arrested a 41-year-old Helena man on drug charges after he allegedly sped through a construction zone on Interstate 15 early Thursday morning.

A sheriff's deputy pulled over a vehicle driven by Arnold Galo Garay just after midnight. Court documents allege Garay was driving 58 mph in a 45 mph zone.

Authorities say Garay, who is on probation, had a meth pipe and a bag of meth in the vehicle. The items were found after a K9 hit on the driver's side door, court documents note.

Garay is jailed on a felony charge of possession of dangerous drugs. He also faces misdemeanor charges of criminal possession of drug paraphernalia, traffic violations in a construction and work zone and driving without a valid driver's license.

Garay is on probation stemming from a 2010 conviction of criminal endangerment.
[April 20, 2017] SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Brower Piven Commences An Investigation Into The Proposed Sale Of Forestar Group Inc. And Encourages Investors To Contact The Firm For Additional Information

The securities litigation law firm of Brower Piven, A Professional Corporation, has commenced an investigation into possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by the Board of Directors of Forestar Group Inc. (NYSE: FOR) ("Forestar" or the "Company") relating to the proposed buyout of Forestar by Starwood Capital Group. Under the terms of the agreement, Forestar shareholders are anticipated to receive $14.25 in cash for each share of Forestar common stock held. The firm's investigation seeks to determine, among other things, whether the Company's Board of Directors failed to satisfy their duties to shareholders, including whether the Board adequately pursued alternatives to the acquisition and whether the Board obtainedthe best price possible for the Company's shares of common stock.



If you currently own common stock of Forestar and believe that the proposed buyout price is too low, and you would like to learn more about the investigation being conducted by Brower Piven, please visit our website at http://www.browerpiven.com/currentinvestigations.html. You may also request more information by contacting Brower Piven either by email at [email protected] or by telephone at (410) 415-6616. Attorneys at Brower Piven have extensive experience in litigating securities and other class action cases and have been advocating for the rights of shareholders since the 1980s.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006648/en/

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[April 20, 2017] UnitedHealthcare Invests $12 Million in PATH's New Supportive-Housing Community in Los Angeles to Serve Homeless and Low-Income Individuals and Families

UnitedHealthcare is the largest investor in PATH Metro Villas, a new 65-unit supportive-housing community under construction that will provide permanent homes to individuals and families who have been suffering from homelessness or struggling to find affordable housing. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006661/en/ Leslie Carter, chief operating officer of UnitedHealthcare of California, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for PATH Metro Villas, a new 65-unit supportive-housing community for people who are suffering from homelessness or struggling to find affordable housing (Photo: Jamie Rector). The $12 million investment is part of UnitedHealthcare's nationwide initiative to help people live healthier lives by connecting them to safe, affordable housing with important on-site support services to improve their well-being. When completed in the spring of 2018, Metro Villas will feature 65 apartment units adjacent to PATH facilities that provide comprehensive services and permanent supportive housing for homeless individuals and families. On-site services will include case management offices, community room with a teaching kitchen, on-site manager, security, picnic area and two roof terraces, among other amenities. "Metro Villas is an important investment to connect people struggling with homelessness with safe, quality housing and health services that will help them live healthier lives," said Rob Falkenberg, CEO, UnitedHealthcare of California. "This project brings together many partners in our community to help create innovative solutions to housing and better health." Since 2011, UnitedHealthcare has invested $350 million to build 56 new community developments throughout the United States, creating over 2,700 new homes for people with the greatest needs. A key goal for the program is to fund innovative projects like PATH Metro Villas that provide greater access to affordable housing for people in need and helping improve their quality of life by integrating on-site services such as health care, job training and child care into the new communities. UnitedHealthcare partnered with Enterprise Community Investment (Enterprise) to provide the $12 million in equity for PATH Metro Villas through the use of Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) approved by the state of California. UnitedHealthcare and Enterprise have worked together toinvest $124 million in affordable-housing developments in eight states, including $28 million in California.



"Enterprise is proud of our partnership with UnitedHealthcare and grateful for its critical investment in affordable homes," said Charlie Werhane, president and CEO, Enterprise Community Investment. "By matchmaking the right partners, Enterprise supports well-designed, affordable homes connected to resources that allow residents to reach their full potential." PATH Metro Villas is being developed by People Assisting The Homeless (PATH) in partnership with Affirmed Housing Group (AHG). Additional partners include the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services-Housing for Health, California Department of Housing & Community Development, Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Housing + Community Investment Department.

"Today's groundbreaking is the culmination of many years of hard work and planning," said Amy Anderson, executive director, PATH Ventures. "We are extremely grateful for the support we have received from so many partners whose passion will help create this beautiful, high-quality housing community that will serve some of the most vulnerable in Los Angeles." According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission on Health, the affordability of housing has clear implications for health. The shortage of affordable housing limits families' and individuals' choices about where they live, often relegating lower-income families to substandard housing in unsafe, overcrowded neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty and fewer resources for healthy outdoor and exercise activities (e.g., parks, bike paths, recreation centers and activities). The financial burden of unaffordable housing can prevent families from meeting other basic needs including nutrition and health care, and is particularly significant for low-income families. About Enterprise: Enterprise works with partners nationwide to build opportunity. We create and advocate for affordable homes in thriving communities linked to good schools, jobs, transit and health care. We lend funds, finance development and manage and build affordable housing, while shaping new strategies, solutions and policy. Over more than 30 years, Enterprise has created nearly 380,000 homes, invested $28.9 billion and touched millions of lives. Join us at www.EnterpriseCommunity.com or www.EnterpriseCommunity.org. About PATH and PATH Ventures: PATH Ventures is part of the PATH family of agencies working together to end homelessness for individuals, families, and communities. We do this by developing and maintaining quality affordable housing and services that bring personal stability and an improved quality of life for people in need. PATH's agencies are in 22 locations from San Diego to San Luis Obispo. PATH has been serving the community since 1984. In honor of its 30th anniversary, PATH set a goal in 2013 to house 3,000 people by 2015. To date, the PATH family has housed over 3,200 people including more than 1,000 veterans, 1,000 families and 1,000 chronically homeless individuals. www.epath.org. About UnitedHealthcare: UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @myUHC on Twitter (News - Alert). Click here to subscribe to Mobile Alerts for UnitedHealth Group. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006661/en/

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[April 20, 2017] TransAlta Corporation Announces Results of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders and Election of all Directors

CALGARY, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - TransAlta Corporation (TSX: TA; NYSE: TAC) ("TransAlta" or the "Company") held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders on April 20, 2017 in Calgary, Alberta. A total of 126,567,006 common shares, representing 43.96% of the shares outstanding were represented in person and by proxy at the meeting. The following resolutions were considered by Shareholders: 1. Election of Directors The nine director nominees proposed by management were elected by a show of hands. Proxies were received as follows:







Nominee Votes For Per cent Withheld Per cent John P. Dielwart 118,657,429 97.71% 2,779,026 2.29%









Timothy W. Faithfull 118,789,723 97.82% 2,646,732 2.18%









Dawn L. Farrell 118,761,470 97.80% 2,674,985 2.20%









Alan J. Fohrer 118,877,413 97.89% 2,559,042 2.11%









Gordon D. Giffin 117,995,546 97.17% 3,440,909 2.83%









P. Thomas Jenkins 106,516,301 87.71% 14,920,154 12.29%









Yakout Mansour 118,794,450 97.82% 2,642,005 2.18%









Georgia R. Nelson 106,023,523 87.31% 15,412,932 12.69%









Beverlee F. Park 106,378,987 87.60% 15,057,468 12.40%

2. Appointment of Auditors The appointment of Ernst & Young LLP to serve as the independent auditors for 2017 was approved by a show of hands. Proxies were received as follows: Votes For Per cent Withheld Per cent 124,293,545 98.33% 2,113,141 1.67% 3. Advisory Vote on Executive Compensation The advisory vote on the Company's approach to executive compensation was conducted by ballot and the resolution was not approved. The votes by ballot were received as follows: Votes For Per cent Votes Against Per cent 57,496,305 47.29% 64,097,750 52.71% As this is an advisory vote, the results will not be binding upon the Board; however, the Board will take the results of this vote into account, as appropriate, when considering future compensation policies, procedures and decisions. The Board will also continue engaging directly with Shareholders to receive feedback regarding the Company's approach to executive compensation, and the Board will assess its future compensation policies, procedures, and decisions in the context of such feedback. The Company considers its approach to executive compensation as being a significant component of its broader corporate governance practices, which is generally consistent with best practices and includes claw-back policies, diversity policies, share ownership guidelines, anti-hedging policies and equity grant controls. About TransAlta:

TransAlta is a power generation and wholesale marketing company focused on creating long-term shareholder value. TransAlta maintains a low-to-moderate risk profile by operating a highly contracted portfolio of assets in Canada, the United States and Australia. TransAlta's focus is to efficiently operate wind, hydro, solar, natural gas and coal facilities in order to provide customers with a reliable, low-cost source of power. For over 100 years, TransAlta has been a responsible operator and a proud contributor to the communities in which it works and lives. TransAlta has been recognized on CDP's Canadian Climate Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI), which includes Canada's top 20 leading companies reporting on climate change, and has been selected by Corporate Knights as one of Canada's Top 50 Best Corporate Citizens and is recognized globally for its leadership on sustainability and corporate responsibility standards by FTSE4Good. For more information about TransAlta, visit our web site at transalta.com, or follow us on Twitter @TransAlta. SOURCE TransAlta Corporation

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[April 20, 2017] Blockchain Technology Startup Humaniq Raises $3.8M and Signs Contract With Deloitte

LONDON, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Blockchain technology startup Humaniq and global auditing firm Deloitte join forces. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492568/Humaniq_Logo.jpg ) Humaniq is on a mission to provide financial inclusion products and services powered by blockchain technology to the 2 billion unbanked people across the globe. Their first three operational priorities are Africa, South/Central America, and some parts of Asia. And then they will expand to the rest of the world. Conscious of the challenges ahead when it comes to IP, legal and operational structure Humaniq is preparing for its next challenges. The organisation has recently conducting pilot tech projects in India and is starting in Africa in the next few months, while managing its ICO that raised so far over $3.8M. Deloitte is a global powerhouse in auditing, legal, IP and a driver in blockchain identity technology, making it the right auditing and innovation firm to manage Humaniq's structure and operational efforts in multiple countries and locations. Humaniq aims to repurpose science and technology for the good of the world. The beta version of their fintech application was recently launched in Google Play for Android phones and simply requires a new user to register using their biometric identity by snapping a photo through a face-recognition algorithm. The Humaniq application uses minimum language as it wans to be based on a simple user-interface and symbols, highlighting its international focus through the use of emoticons. This makes it simple to use even for the most illiterate people in the world. Humaniq will bring a great number of unbanked people into the world economy, enabling financial inclusion.



One example of the Humaniq app's benefits is a case-study of a Nigerian farmer who lives ninety miles away from the closest bank. Furthermore, he does not have a vehicle or any ID verification to access or open a new bank account. Humaniq enables this farmer to sell his corns or peppers and buy new seeds on an international scale, as long as he has a simple smartphone and basic access to the internet. And all of this happens for a fraction of the fee when compared with traditional banks or money-transfer companies. In a recent HBR report, Professor Michael Mainelli wrote;

"2.4 billion poor people worldwide, about 1.5 billion of whom are over the age of 14, can't answer that question to the satisfaction of authorities. While they certainly know who they are, they are often excluded from property ownership, free movement, and social protection simply because they can't prove their identity. They are more exposed to corruption and crime, including people trafficking and slavery." In addition to enabling financial inclusion, Humaniq also aims to provide biometric identity to tackle serious issues such as human trafficking and modern slavery. So far Humaniq has raised just under $4m in its pre-seed Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which ends on 27th April 2017. While announcing a strategic partnership with global auditing firm Deloitte, Humaniq wants to highlight their intellectual property and legal efforts with a powerful global company. In addition to the aforementioned, Deloitte will also provide industry-leading audit, consulting, tax, and advisory support to Humaniq. Many of the world's most admired brands including eighty-percent of the Fortune 500 work closely with Deloitte. Co-founded by blockchain technology visionaire Alex Fork and AI expert Dmitry Kaminskiy, Humaniq is breaking international crowdfunding records with a total value of $3,949,131 and 9,189 participants at the time of writing. Steering the wheel as CEO of this powerful new organisation is successful blockchain/fintech author and entrepreneur Dinis Guarda. In addition to the board of directors previously mentioned, Humaniq also has a world-class advisory board consisting of over twenty global thought-leaders. This includes people and alumni from organisations such as The Financial Times, The United Nations, Greenpeace, Right Relevance, University of Toronto, Cambridge University, and Save the Children to name just a few. Through this new partnership, Humaniq and Deloitte ultimately want to help establish sustainable and structured operations to enable more financial inclusion, justice and strong institutions on a global scale.

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[April 20, 2017] SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Goldberg Law PC Announces an Investigation of Signet Jewelers Limited and Advises Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm

Goldberg Law PC, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Signet Jewelers Limited ("Signet" or the "Company") (NYSE: SIG). If you purchased or otherwise acquired Signet shares between August 29, 2013 and February 27, 2017, and would like more information regarding the investigation, we encourage you to contact Michael Goldberg or Brian Schall, of Goldberg Law PC, 1999 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1100, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067, at 800-977-7401, to discuss your rights without cost to you. You can also reach us through the firm's website at http://www.Goldberglawpc.com, or by email at [email protected].



The investigation focuses on claims that Signet issued false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that alleged sexual harassment by employees of Signet's Sterling Family of Jewelers division ("Sterling") - including numerous incidents of sexual assault and rape which were detailed in approximately 249 declarations signed under penalty of perjury by current and former Sterling employees - made it unlikely that Signet would be able to avoid paying a sizable amount of damages in connection with a class action lawsuit filed by Sterling employees. Signet's stock traded at artificially inflated prices during the Class Period as a result of this information being withheld from the market. On February 27, 2017, The Washington Post published a report revealing widespread allegations of sexual harassment made in the private arbitration that implicated the Company's senior managers and executives. If you have any questions concerning your legal rights, please immediately contact Goldberg Law PC at 800-977-7401, or visit our website at http://www.Goldberglawpc.com, or email us at [email protected].

Goldberg Law PC represents shareholders around the world and specializes in securities class actions and shareholder rights litigation. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006680/en/

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[April 20, 2017] Pennsylvania Selects MJ Freeway to Implement Seed-to-Sale Cannabis Tracking System for New Medical Marijuana Program, the Second State to Adopt MJ Freeway's Platform

MJ Freeway, with subcontractor Oracle, to implement Pennsylvania contract, bringing together a cannabis software company and mainstream technology company DENVER, April 20, 2017 /CNW/ -- MJ Freeway, the cannabis industry's leading provider of seed-to-sale traceability solutions, has been awarded the contract from the Pennsylvania Department of Health to implement Leaf Data Systems  a secure, web-based regulatory platform developed by MJ Freeway to enable governments to effectively and efficiently monitor compliance by licensed cannabis businesses. The Pennsylvania tracking platform will feature functionality by MJ Freeway's subcontractor Oracle, the leading provider of fully integrated and comprehensive cloud applications. MJ Freeway pioneered seed-to-sale cannabis tracking in 2010  the model on which Leaf Data Systems is based  and now provides tracking technology to cannabis businesses in 23 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Europe, South America, and Australia. The Leaf Data Systems platform has already been implemented as the State of Nevada's cannabis traceability system. Seed-to-sale tracking ensures public, patient, and product safety through electronic data capture throughout the cannabis supply chain, including: Complete chain-of-custody for cannabis products to ensure product accountability and safety

Reports and alerts to protect the public from unlawful diversion and identify where to strategically deploy enforcement efforts, saving regulators valuable time and resources

Patient and medical professional registration technology that tracks registrations for patients, caregivers, and physicians, enabled through MJ Freeway's relationship with Oracle "Implementing and sustainig a robust and capable cannabis electronic track-and-trace system is vital to ensuring a state's successful medical cannabis industry. We are eager for the Fall 2017 implementation of our system, which we have tailored to support the sophisticated medical cannabis market that is expected to expand in Pennsylvania," said Amy Poinsett, MJ Freeway's Co-founder and CEO. "It's a great privilege to serve the citizens of Nevada and now Pennsylvania in this important work. We're proud of the momentum we are gaining with our government offerings and will do everything in our power to help Pennsylvania regulators ensure this industry matures safely and responsibly."



Karen Murphy, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, said, "This is an important step forward in ensuring that we can get medical marijuana to patients who desperately need it. This contract serves two important functions for the program: tracking medical marijuana from seed-to-sale; and creating a registry for patients, caregivers, and practitioners to participate in the program." Under Pennsylvania's cannabis laws, an inventory tracking system is required to be used by all cannabis operators. System implementation will begin in October 2017 and is expected to be fully implemented in early 2018. The system will include in-depth training workshops to prepare cannabis operators for successful use. The companies have also engaged with Pennsylvania businesses to source local talent for on-site training, tier-one support and business analysis.

Click here to view today's announcement from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. About MJ Freeway: MJ Freeway is the industry-leading software solution for cannabis businesses having processed more than $5B in sales with clients in 23 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Europe, South America, and Australia. Founded in 2010 by technologists creating tech specifically for cannabis businesses, MJ Freeway's tracking software includes patent-pending inventory control and grow management applications to streamline workflow and increase efficiency. MJ Freeway's Leaf Data Systems software solution enables governments to track cannabis plants from seed-to-sale and ensure patient, public, and product safety. MJ Freeway also offers a complete suite of professional consulting services for cannabis businesses. For more information, call 888-932-6537 or visit mjfreeway.com.

Media Contact:

Lance Boehmer

720-961-5030

[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pennsylvania-selects-mj-freeway-to-implement-seed-to-sale-cannabis-tracking-system-for-new-medical-marijuana-program-the-second-state-to-adopt-mj-freeways-platform-300443237.html SOURCE MJ Freeway

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[April 20, 2017] SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Goldberg Law PC Announces an Investigation of Ocwen Financial Corporation

Goldberg Law PC announces that it is investigating Ocwen Financial Corporation ("Ocwen" or the "Company") (NYSE: OCN) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws. If you purchased or otherwise acquired Ocwen shares and would like more information regarding the investigation, we encourage you to contact Michael Goldberg or Brian Schall, of Goldberg Law PC, 1999 Avenue of the Stars Suite 1100, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067, at 800-977-7401, to discuss your rights without cost to you. You can also reach us through the firm's website at http://www.Goldberglawpc.com, or by email at [email protected].



The investigation concerns whether Ocwen and certain of its officers and/or directors violated federal securities laws. On April 20, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it was suing Ocwen for generating errors in borrowers' accounts, failing to credit payments, illegally foreclosing on homeowners, and charging borrowers for add-on products without their consent. Also, several states issued cease-and-desist orders against Ocwen to address mishandling of consumer escrow accounts and a deficient financial condition, specifically prohibiting the Company from acquiring new mortgage servicing rights and originating mortgage loans. When this news was announced, shares of Ocwen dropped in value. If you have any questions concerning your legal rights, please immediately contact Goldberg Law PC at 800-977-7401, or visit our website at http://www.Goldberglawpc.com, or email us at [email protected].

Goldberg Law PC represents shareholders around the world and specializes in securities class actions and shareholder rights litigation. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170420006703/en/

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[April 20, 2017] Marijuana Millionaire Celebrates 4/20 With a Surprise Gift of Giant Bags of Weed to 3 Lucky Social Media Fans in His Custom Ferrari

LOS ANGELES, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- To celebrate 4/20 -- the Cannabis community's most culturally cherished day -- Michael "BigMike" Straumietis (founder and CEO of Advanced Nutrients, the #1 brand in Cannabis) surprised 3 of his social media fans with a visit to their home, where he gave them each an ounce of King Moses OG and a gift bag filled with branded swag. Without revealing the surprise in advance of BigMike's arrival, each recipient was confirmed by a member of BigMike's staff to be a California resident, and over 21 years of age to ensure compliance with California's Prop. 64. These lucky fans, @ibicakes, @doc_the_drummer, and @stevenrichardson, also received what has become the most sought-after invitation among Hollywood's movers and shakers--an exclusive invite to BigMike's legendary 4th of July BBQ Malibu Beach Party. While BigMike has earned his reputation as an innovator and thought leader within the Cannabis community, his celebrity CEO status is growing in the mainstream (right along with the wave of Cannabis legalization that's growing around the world) thanks, in part, to his wildly popular Cannabis-themed @BigMike Instagram account that has well over 1 million followers and rowing.



BigMike, standing 6 foot 7 inches, is larger than life and doesn't do anything small, so he had his new Ferrari transformed with a West Coast Customs custom-designed car wrap. The eye-catching marijuana-themed Ferrari is a stoner's dream come true and has the words "Fastest Weed Delivery Service" emblazoned on the windshield. With over one million fans on Instagram, the King of Cannabis, (or the Marijuana Don as he's also known) turned lots of heads as his Ferrari roared through the streets of Southern California on his way to making 3 lucky fans very happy. BigMike is no stranger to giving big gifts and was just recently in the news because he and his primary charity Holiday Heroes hand-delivered over 2,000 backpacks filled with hygiene products, daily living necessities, and non-perishable items to the LA homeless community for the Easter holiday. This is the second backpack giveaway BigMike has done in the last five months on Skid Row and Los Angeles city Shelters, each charitable giveaway costing him over $100,000.00.

For more information, press only:

Rene Rodriguez, 323-326-3305, [email protected] For more information: https://www.instagram.com/bigmike/ http://www.advancednutrients.com This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/marijuana-millionaire-celebrates-420-with-a-surprise-gift-of-giant-bags-of-weed-to-3-lucky-social-media-fans-in-his-custom-ferrari-300443246.html SOURCE Advanced Nutrients, US LLC.

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[April 21, 2017] LONGi Solar releases new solar module Hi-MO2, starting a new era of high efficiency mono PERC bifacial technology

SHANGHAI, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ -- On April 19, SNEC PV Power Expo 2017 kicked off in Shanghai. President Li Zhenguo of LONGi Group and President Li Wenxue of LONGi Solar unveiled a heavyweight new solar module - Hi-MO2 to the audience. The product boasts high power, high energy yield and low LCOE, and will start a new era of high efficiency monocrystalline PERC bifacial power generation technology. Hi-MO2 is a bifacial power generation product developed based on monocrystalline bifacial PERC technology; the power of the 72-cell module reaches 360-365W, while the power of the 60-cell module reaches 300-305W. The front side is equivalent to conventional PERC with cell efficiency exceeding 21%. Meanwhile, the back side adopts a glass package, achieving bifacial light reception and power generation. Backside efficiency is no less than 75% that of the front side. The backside can increase energy yiel up to 25% (varying with the design and background condition of the PV system), and can bring higher returns to the investors.



Last year, LONGi Solar launched Hi-MO1 based on advanced PERC cell technology and mono-Si low LID solution. The Hi-MO2 developed on the basis of Hi-MO1's low LID technology and bifacial PERC technology can achieve first-year degradation less than 2%, and average annual degradation less than 0.45%, both superior to conventional modules. "Hi-MO2 extends the strengths of mono PERC to the backside of the module, and can achieve higher power and higher energy yield without increasing costs, which will help decrease the LCOE, and bring more value for PV power plant investors," said Li Wenxue, President of LONGi Solar. "Improving efficiency and providing low-price high-quality products has always been the technology innovation ideal upheld by LONGi. LONGi has the confidence to continuously provide high efficiency monocrystalline PV products with the best cost performance ratio for global customers, to use technology to speed up progress towards grid parity, and to make more contributions to improving environment condition."

LONGi Solar's 365W Hi-MO2 module has reached mass production. In the future, Hi-MO2 will be widely used in large scale utility power plant, commercial rooftop, fishery-PV integrated floating power plant and other distributed PV projects. About LONGi Solar: LONGi Solar is a world leading mono-crystalline solar cell and module manufacturer and is dedicated to providing cost-effective solutions for investors in solar power plants. en.longi-solar.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/longi-solar-releases-new-solar-module-hi-mo2-starting-a-new-era-of-high-efficiency-mono-perc-bifacial-technology-300443316.html SOURCE LONGi Solar

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In solidarity with what is being promoted as "a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies, and governments," Montanans will participate in a March for Science Saturday in Helena.

"We want people, especially young people, to be excited about science. Science is a way of understanding the world around us. And that understanding makes our lives better in countless ways. We want to celebrate that," said Helena event organizer Lea Chiavaras, a nurse practitioner.

The Helena gathering will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday, which is Earth Day, at Centennial Park.

Organizers say the marches are not just about scientists and politicians, but a chance to highlight the role science plays in everyone's lives. The events are nonpartisan and aim to be positive celebrations.

Global march organizers say "new policies threaten to further restrict scientists ability to research and communicate their findings. We face a possible future where people not only ignore scientific evidence, but seek to eliminate it entirely."

"Anti-science agendas and policies have been advanced by politicians on both sides of the aisle, and they harm everyone  without exception," according to marchforscience.com.

Chiavaras said she hopes the Helena march will help raise awareness about the local scientific community and garner support for businesses, clubs and groups. The event is family-friendly. Children are encouraged to dress as their favorite plants, animals or scientists.

After gathering at Centennial Park at 2 p.m., participants will march to Memorial Park, where speeches will be made at 2:30 p.m.

Speakers will include Kelly Cline, Carroll College associate professor of mathematics, physics and astronomy, and Sierra Harris, the Nature Conservancy freshwater conservation project manager. Lewis and Clark County Public Health Nurse Supervisor Shelly Maag also will be among the speakers discussing science in everyday life.

Following the rally, ExplorationWorks! will offer hands-on experiments for children with outreach director Sara Felizer, who will also speak at Memorial Park.

For more information, email marchforsciencehelena@gmail.com or go to www.facebook.com/marchforsciencehelena/.
[April 21, 2017] KEPCO and Outstanding Korean SMEs Participate in HANNOVER MESSE 2017 in Germany

SEOUL, South Korea, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- KEPCO and 19 outstanding Korean SMEs together will participate in the Korean Pavilion at the Hannover Messe held in Hannover, Germany for 5 days from April 24 to April 28. The outstanding technology capabilities of Korean companies will be shown off to the global market. KEPCO is pursuing SME accompanied growth businesses. As a public company which was established to supply electric power, it is responsible for power transmission, power transformation, power distribution and sales, and is making efforts to provide assistance to SMEs through support, such as overseas marketing. It is also providing diverse programs and services to develop and support overseas market development of SMEs. According to KEPCO officials, the company composed the Korean Pavilion andparticipated together with 19 outstanding Korean SMEs (KST Plant, DONGNAM Petroleum Ind., S&S INC, HanKwang, DongBang Electric Industrial, Seondo Electric, KP ELECTRIC, SuNAM, NTEK SYSTEM, Costal, QIT, EYECAPKOREA, BISTEL, EMT, Namsung Ind. Shinsung Industrial Electric, Bosung Powertec, ITS, SIGNET) in this event as part of diverse businesses to assist domestic companies in overseas market penetration, and it anticipates SME accompanied growth to become more activated through participation in Hannover Messe.



The Hannover Messe is World's Biggest industrial fair which comprehensively covers diverse fields, such as industry automation, energy, digital factory where top global companies participate every year. It is used as a networking market for showing off new technology, and known as a location where new technology can first be seen. The Korean SMEs' participating in this Hannover Messe will show off diverse products in energy and new business, starting with power equipment and materials, in the Korean Pavilion, such as Power Transformer, Vacuum Circuit Breaker, Superconducting Wire and EV Charger.

The Korean Pavilion is located at Hall13 C31 from April 24 to 28 during this event, many visits by buyers who have interest on the outstanding technology and products of Korean companies are expected. Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/491801/KoreaPavilionatHannoverMesse2015.jpg

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[April 21, 2017] RoseWholesale: Why E-Commerce Companies Split Deliveries

PHOENIX, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the big mysteries with overseas e-commerce sites is why two or more items are sometimes shipped separately. Some customers, upon receiving the first item, fear that they are being swindled and will not receive all the products that were purchased. There are, however, several reasons why this practice is common with e-retailers and, in fact, works to the advantage of the shopper. For news picture, visit: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0-lss2liHyJTXVzX0ZWYjFYVDg "We split deliveries all the time," said Shulin Lee, Director of Operations for Rosewholesale (www.rosewholesale.com), a leading Asian e-retailer. "Split deliveries actually save the customer money and accelerate the shipping process. The problem is that most customers don't understand why it is done this way." Other e-retailers, like DressLily and TwinkleDeals frequently ship with split deliveries as well. Below are the reasons why e-retailers like Rosewholesale sometimes split the delivery of multiple items. Items are shipped from different warehouses Asia-based Rosewholesale has established warehouses in the United States in order to speed up the shipping times of certain items. In some cases, one item might be warehoused in China and another in the US. Thus it's more efficient to ship these items separately.



Items are shipped by different companies In order to get the best shipping prices and fastest delivery times, Rosewholesale partners with many delivery companies. For example, UPS Express has special rates for international shipping and EMS International provides exceptional service for customs clearance. Depending on the item, one or more shipping companies could be required to ship the order in the most efficient t manner.

Processing time can vary Different products can have different processing times. For example, a swimsuit takes 7 -15 working days to process while a dress can take three business days. The customer can benefit by receiving the dress first and getting use out of it, rather than having to wait for both items. Packaging can vary Since items can differ in weight and volume, the packaging methods and materials can be different. In addition, some shipping companies have a weight limit. Shipping in multiple packages often reduces delivery charges and these savings are ultimately passed on to the customer. Communication is important The key to clearing up misconceptions about split deliveries is good communication between the seller and the customer. E-retailers should inform shoppers that orders of multiple items might be delivered in separate packages. About RoseWholesale RoseWholesale (www.RoseWholesale.com) is an online fashion outlet that offers women's, men's and children's clothing at wholesale prices. A large portion of the company's sales come from North America and thus involve overseas shipping. Contact:

Name: Rose

Email: [email protected]

Blog: RoseWholesale Reviews Blog

Website: www.rosewholeslae.com

Phone number: +(1) 888-969-8881 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rosewholesale-why-e-commerce-companies-split-deliveries-300443477.html SOURCE RoseWholesale

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[April 21, 2017] Minister Carr Calls on Canadians to Join Generation Energy and Share Their Ideas for Canada's Energy Future

WINNIPEG, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ - Energy plays an important role in the daily lives of Canadians. It powers our homes, keeps us connected and takes us where we want to go. The way we deliver and consume energy in Canada will evolve as the world works to address climate change while responsibly meeting rising demand for oil and gas and funding the next generation of clean energy. It's time to articulate a vision of how Canada will develop its resources sustainably while investing in the energy of tomorrow. Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Jim Carr, today launched Generation Energy, a national dialogue on Canada's path to a low-carbon future. The purpose of this dialogue is to invite all Canadians to share their ideas and participate in helping define Canada's energy future. Minister Carr launched the event at Manitoba Hydro, where he led a panel discussion with energy experts including Cheryl Cardinal, CEO of the Indigenous Centre for Energy; Aisha Bukhari of the Women in Renewable Energy Advisory Committee; and, Patrick Dillon, Business Manager of the Construction Trades Council of Ontario, who shared their visions for the future of energy in Canada.



Today marks the beginning of a six-month national conversation, which will take place face to face with provinces and territories, Indigenous groups, international experts and academics, and online with all Canadians through www.generationenergy.ca. The conversation will conclude with a national symposium, in Winnipeg, which will allow international and Canadian experts, as well as stakeholders from a range of backgrounds, to review the ideas and opinions shared by Canadians. This information will be used to design an approach focused on how the federal government can work with the provinces and territories to create the affordable energy and innovative jobs Canadians want.

Quote "As we celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary, we should be proud that ingenuity and hard work have made us one of the leading energy producers and innovators in the world. One of the greatest challenges of this generation is building an energy future that addresses climate change while keeping energy affordable, ensures there are jobs for Canadians, and allows our industries to remain competitive. Generation Energy is about engaging Canadians in helping us to chart that course." The Honourable Jim Carr

Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available at www.news.gc.ca. SOURCE Natural Resources Canada

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[April 21, 2017] Research supports on-farm adoption of clean technologies and practices

EDMONTON, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ - Farmers know the importance of keeping the land, water and air healthy to sustain their farms and livelihoods from one generation of farm family to the next. Sustainable farming practices will allow them to further grow their operations, while protecting the environment. Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lawrence MacAulay, alongside the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and Member of Parliament for Edmonton Mill Woods, the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, and Member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre, Randy Boissonnault, today announced 20 new research projects across Canada that will help the farming sector become a world leader in the development and use of clean and sustainable agricultural technologies and practices. The new research projects are supported by the $27 million, five-year (2016-2021) Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program (AGGP) intended to help create technologies, practices and processes to help the agricultural sector adjust to climate change and improve soil and water conservation by developing new farming practices and methods. Minister MacAulay made the announcement on the eve of Earth day in Edmonton at the University of Alberta, which received an investment of $3.7M for three projects that will explore the environmental footprint of different cereal crops, cattle grazing systems, and shelterbelts. Quick facts The AGGP covers four priority areas of research: livestock systems, cropping systems, agricultural water use efficiency and agro-forestry.

The AGGP investment will continue to support the work of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, which brings together 47 countries to find ways to grow more food without growing greenhouse gas emissions. Quotes "Canadian famers are great stewards of the land and the environment. These new investments are part of the government's commitment to address climate change and ensuring our farming sector are world leaders in the use and development of clean and sustainable technology and processes."





Lawrence MacAulay "Canada's farmers are already harnessing innovation to reduce their environmental footprint. These new research projects will provide them with affordable and practical solutions to continue feeding the world sustainably."

- Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna

"The Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program (AGGP) marks a significant investment in the government's strategy against climate change. This new investment with the University of Alberta will help provide Canadian farmers access to the latest technology and expertise to help reduce their carbon footprint."

- Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Amarjeet Sohi "I'm proud to support this announcement of a new investment with the University of Alberta, as part of the government's commitment to sustainable agriculture. The new research at the University of Alberta will help our farmers to continue to be strong stewards of our land, air and water resources."

- MP Randy Boissonnault (Edmonton Centre) "By investing in research focused on land, livestock, and crop management, AGGP will help ensure farmers have access to expertise and knowledge that will improve efficiency. This funding will help Canada meet its GHG emissions targets, enhance Canada's agricultural and agri-food sector productivity and support a key job-creating sector of Canada's economy."

- Lorne Babiuk, Vice-president (Research) University of Alberta Additional links Minister MacAulay's announcement renewing AGGP ( Mar. 30, 2016 )

) Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program

Global Research Alliance BACKGROUND The 20 new research projects span from coast-to-coast, from the University of British Columbia to collaborative research with conservation groups in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island . They range in scope from studying GHG emissions from blueberry, potato and forage crops in B.C. to planting willow trees in areas irrigated by rivers in the Atlantic as a means to sequester carbon.

to collaborative research with conservation groups in and . They range in scope from studying GHG emissions from blueberry, potato and forage crops in B.C. to planting willow trees in areas irrigated by rivers in the Atlantic as a means to sequester carbon. The $3.7 M investment for three projects with the University of Alberta will go towards finding ways for farmers to reduce their GHG emissions and increase soil carbon sequestration. They include: developing a new grazing system for ranchers; investigating the use of perennial cereals over annual cropping systems; and, evaluating the environmental impact of shelterbelts and hedgerows. Follow us on Twitter: @AAFC_Canada

Like us on Facebook: CanadianAgriculture SOURCE Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

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[April 21, 2017] UAlberta partners with Chinese researchers on sustainable energy, economic diversification

UAlberta partners with top Chinese institution, Tsinghua University, to create Joint Research Centre for Future Energy and Environment during recent Alberta mission. EDMONTON, Alberta, April 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Alberta is teaming up with research partners in China to develop low-carbon, sustainable energy solutions while tackling global environmental challenges. Officials from the U of A and Tsinghua University were in Beijing on April 20 to sign an agreement to create the Joint Research Centre for Future Energy and Environment. It was one of several key agreements the U of A signed with Chinese partners as part of a wider Government of Alberta trade mission, led by Premier Rachel Notley, to strengthen ties with the province's second-largest trading partner. "The University of Alberta values our long-standing partnerships with China and Tsinghua University, which bring together world-leading talent to address globally important issues such as clean energy, environment and climate change," said U of A President David Turpin. "Strengthening these collaborations will open even more avenues of discovery and lead to new ideas, technologies and innovations that will benefit both countries and the world." Larry Kostiuk, the U of A's associate vice-president of research, said the Joint Research Centre for Future Energy and Environment is the latest evolution in more than two decades of collaborations between the U of A and Tsingha Universityarguably China's best research institution and among the top in the world. In 2012, the U of A and Tsinghua created the Sino-Canadian Energy and Environment Research and Education Initiative, which has led to more than 30 partnerships in clean energy, environment, water, energy transport and policy.



Kostiuk said the new centre elevates relations with Tsinghua to a "completely new level." Researchers will collaborate on a range of problems related to energy, environment and climate change, renewable energy, advanced power systems, energy transport and more. "This is a rare opportunity for a Canadian university to partner with Tsinghua University in such a significant way," said Kostiuk, who was in China for the signing. "We come from different places and backgrounds, but we're going to come together and leverage our different perspectives to solve common problems."

The centre will be based at Tsinghua in a state-of-the-art research facility. Once operational, the centre will be able to apply for grant funding through the Chinese Ministry of Education, which is establishing strategic international research centres across the country. This centre would be the only one created in partnership with a Canadian university. Kostiuk will serve as the new centre's deputy director while retaining his position as director of U of A's Future Energy Systems initiative, which brings together researchers across disciplines to improve and develop new low-carbon energy technologies, integrate them into today's infrastructure and understand the social and economic impacts of their adoption. Kostiuk said the U of A-Tsinghua centre will be even broader in scope than Future Energy Systems, addressing environment and water issues not necessarily tied to energy. "Tsinghua University is a world leader in clean, low-carbon and renewable energy research and technologies. We all look forward to getting to work with incredibly bright people on both sides." "We are pleased to work with the University of Alberta, which has a global reputation in energy systems research," said Qikun Xue, vice-president of research with Tsinghua University. "We look forward to bringing our strengths together to tackle many critical issues facing our planet." Partnerships boost economic diversification, training In addition to the joint research centre, the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine signed a memorandum of understanding with Guanghua International Education Association to develop training for health professionals that will help China enhance and expand rehabilitation capacity. TEC Edmonton signed an agreement with Tsinghua University's research innovation incubator, TusPark/TusStar, on a new joint incubator. TusPark/TusStar operates the largest university science park in the world, and the new partnership would expand its global reach, creating economic opportunities for Edmonton and Alberta. "I am extremely proud to support the University of Alberta and TEC Edmonton in forming relationships with such innovative partners in China," said Premier Notley. "We look forward to seeing this partnership thrive, and to watching Alberta's expertise across a variety of areas, not only create opportunities for Albertans, but make a difference around the world."

For further information: Bryan Alary, Communications Manager, Marketing & Communications, University of Alberta, Office: 780-492-0336 | Email: [email protected]



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During the past six years it has been my good fortune to come to know and work with Pam Attardo on a variety of projects in the community, especially with the Lewis and Clark County Historical Society. Her willingness to tackle big projects, and, through working with others, help them be successful is a quality that will hold her in good stead as a member of the Helena Elementary School Board.

Pam is running for the School Board to help use her talents in cooperation, problem solving and inspiring others to do their best for the public schools of Helena.

Her background as an involved parent in Helenas elementary and middle schools, her training in the law, and her experience working with the community in her position as Lewis and Clark County Heritage Preservation Officer all combine to make her an excellent candidate for the school board.

Her interest in Helena schools is keen, and translates into hours of volunteer service to the school, and even attending a recent national workshop in Washington, D.C. on the status of public school facilities in the country. As a member of the school board she will work particularly hard to improve Helena school facilities, prevent student suicide and work to maintain teacher morale.

When your mail ballot comes for the May 2nd School Board election, please consider marking Pamela Attardo as one of the two school board candidates to serve our students, their families, faculty and community.

John M. Barrows

Helena
The controversial haul of cash in local and foreign currencies recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, is part of the N57.2 billion released to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) by the Nigerian government in February 2015, PREMIUM TIMES can report.The funds were approved by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), and disbursed in cash by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).The then NSA, Sambo Dasuki, had claimed he was approving the funds for special services he mandated the NIA to undertake.What those special services were remained unclear.Following the announcement of the recovery by operatives of the anti-graft agency, the NIA authorities, according to presidency sources, told President Muhammadu Buhari that former President Goodluck Jonathan approved the fund for some crucial and covert security projects.The huge cash, which included $43,449,947, 27,800 and N23,218,000, were recovered from Apartment 7B following a tip-off to the EFCC by an unnamed whistleblower.Presidency sources believe the cash, which translates to about N13 billion (based on the prevailing official exchange rate by the CBN), is the balance of the N57.2billion released to the NIA for the controversial special services.This newspaper had in an exclusive report after the 2015 presidential elections exposed how the CBN paid out N67.2billion cash  $289,202,382 (N57.2 billion) to the NIA and the rest to the office of the NSA.That report provided extensive details of how bullion vans were used by government officials to cart away the cash to unknown destinations.The details can now prove useful to the three-man presidential committee, headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, mandated to investigate how the NIA came about the funds, and whether or not there was a breach of the law or security procedure in obtaining custody and use of the funds.The committee, which commenced its assignment on Wednesday, also has the current NSA, Babagana Monguno, and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, as members.According to the report, published on September 19, 2015, funds, totaling at least N67.2 billion, were released through two cash withdrawals from the CBN between November 2014 and February 2015.The first of the withdrawals was made through a memo that originated from the office of former NSA, Mr. Dasuki.In the memo, with reference number NSA/366/S, dated November 2014, and entitled: Request for Funds for Special Services, Mr. Dasukis office called the attention of CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to a previous discussion on a request to withdraw $47 million cash, out of a certain N10 billion earmarked for an unbudgeted special services.Further to our discussion, you are pleased requested to provide the sum of forty seven million United States Dollars (USD47, 000,000.00) cash out of the Ten Billion Naira (N10, 000,000,000.00) and the balance in Euro to this office for special services.Mr. S. A. Salisu, director finance and administration is, hereby authorised to sign and collect the amount. Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest esteem, the memo read.The second withdrawal was based on a memo dated February 25, 2015 generated by the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), the investment management services arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.The memo conveyed an instruction to the director, banking and payment system department of the CBN to urgently pay in cash the sum of $289,202,382 (N57.2 billion) to the National Intelligence Agency, NIA.Upon receipt of this mandate, please pay urgently the under-listed beneficiary the cash amount indicated. Please debit CBN/JVCC Foreign Account No. 000000011658360 with the JP Morgan Chase, New York and advise as soon as the payment is made.The payment instruction in favour of the NIA was signed by one Okonkwo Godwin, General Manager, Finance, NAPIMS, with staff No. 18526.The CBN spokesperson, Isaac Okorafor, had on Sunday denied knowledge of how the funds were released to the secret service agency.But sources at the presidency told PREMIUM TIMES that NIA authorities had already explained to President Buhari that they received the funds in cash from the nations apex bank.
A ground collision of two aircraft belonging to Air Peace has been reported at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos state.

A ground collision of two aircraft belonging to Air Peace has been reported at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos state.The incident was said to have occurred while one of the aircraft was trying to manoeuver its way out of the apron wing of the local terminal of the airport.This is coming barely 48 hours after an Aero Contractor aircraft was engulfed in smoke while attempting to land in Lagos from Port Harcourt.Spokesman for Air Peace, Chris Iwarah says although the point of contact was slightly impacted, no passenger was involved in the accident, Channels tv reports.
Senator Ahmed Markafi-led Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has faulted the suspension of the embattled Secretary to the Government of the F...

Senator Ahmed Markafi-led Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has faulted the suspension of the embattled Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal, and Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Amb. Ayo Oke, insisting that the duo should have been arrested.The party, however, described the suspension as an attempt to dress up a failed anti-corruption war saying that the APC-led federal government has suddenly realised the corruption allegation levelled against the SGF; and instead of arresting and detaining him as the government has been doing to PDP members and other Nigerians, he was rather suspended and a committee set-up to investigate him. This is to say the least, double standard. In a statement by spokesman of the faction, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, the party frowned at the Presidents decision to suspend the duo.The statement reads: We are alarmed at the suspension of the SGF at a time that Nigerians and the international community are excitedly enjoying the theatre of the absurd playing out with the recovery of huge sums of money without owners. Now the APC-led federal government suddenly realised the corruption allegation levelled against the SGF; and instead of arresting and detaining him as the government has been doing to PDP members and other Nigerians, he was rather suspended and a committee set-up to investigate him.This is to say the least, double standard. Some Nigerians have applauded the suspension as indicating a new commitment by President Buhari to fight the anti-corruption war without fear or favour but we are constrained to point out that it is another ruse to deceive Nigerians and dress up the failed anti-corruption war in a new garb. We are at a loss why the president would set up a panel comprising members of his cabinet to investigate other senior very powerful members of the same executive, he said.Where is the transparency in that? Not that we doubt the integrity of the vice-president (for whom we have the utmost respect) and other panellists but it appears the matter is being settled within the government closet without the transparency, independence and impartiality necessary in a situation like this.Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to have been done. This is especially important given the fact that we recently travelled this road when the president asked the attorney-general to investigate the SGF (on this same matter) and Magu, the acting chairman of the EFCC. That investigation cleared the SGF of all wrong doings in the grass cutting scandal as stated above. It is amazing that the president who swiftly accepted the recommendations of the attorney-general would now suddenly set-up another panel comprising the same attorney-general to investigate the matter again.The pertinent question is whether the president has now realised that the initial investigation by the attorney-general was not thorough or a cover-up to protect a fellow cabinet member. Against this backdrop, we are constrained to express our lack of confidence in the new panel headed by the vice president.Instead, we demand an independent commission of inquiry comprising eminent Nigerians of proven records of integrity, independence and competence. This is the only way by which we can have confidence that a thorough and impartial investigation will be conducted and by which the president also can reassure the general public that there are no sacred cows in his government for whom there are different set of rules.The present situation amounts to the government being the judge in its own cause. We do not believe that justice can be served that way.
British Government on Friday rejected calls to outlaw sexist dress codes which laid down what women should wear at their workplaces.

British Government on Friday rejected calls to outlaw sexist dress codes which laid down what women should wear at their workplaces.Over 150,000 people signed a public petition to the British parliament, urging action after Nicola Thorp was told to go home from work without pay after she arrived at PriceWaterhouseCooper to work as a temporary receptionist in flat shoes.Thorp refused to comply with the demand that she wear shoes with high heels.However, the government promised new guidelines on dress codes would be issued in the summer, following the outcry.The media in London reported that the government response to the petition meant employers could continue to insist that female employees must wear heeled shoes, provided it was a job requirement and men were made to dress to an equivalent level of smartness.According to the government, existing laws are adequate and already prevent companies from gender-based discrimination.As an alternative, the Government Equalities Office called on all employers to review their dress codes and consider whether they remained relevant and lawful.The issue was discussed in parliament and women and equalities committees of the House of Commons who made recommendations to the government on workplace dress codes.A parliament spokesman said that the government undertook to produce guidance during the summer and to explore other options for raising further awareness on the law on dress codes.The Equality and Human Rights Commission had already run a social media campaign aimed at young women to promote awareness of the law.According to MP Helen Jones, chair of the Petitions Committee, the petition and the inquiry had already done a great deal to improve public awareness of the law.MP Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, also said they welcome the commitments made by government to increase awareness of those rights.Hope that the next Government will monitor how this changes womens experiences of the workplace, Miller said.
President Muhammadu Buhari has said his governments change mantra required perseverance and endurance from Nigerians.

President Muhammadu Buhari has said his governments change mantra required perseverance and endurance from Nigerians.Buhari made the remark during the inauguration of the North-West zone of the National Committee of Buhari Support Group in Kano on Thursday.The President said he was desirous of seeing that Nigerians imbibed the ideals of Change Begins with Me as the much needed strategy of the present administration aimed at achieving the goals of a better Nigeria.Buhari, who expressed gratitude to Nigerians for their prayers and support, assured that Nigeria will be a country that cared for them all very soon.The President, who was represented by the Senate Leader, Sen. Ahmad Lawan, further assured the people that their sacrifice and perseverance would not go in vain as the administration was doing everything in its capacity to get the country out the current recession.We need to re-strategise, but the planning period is always very difficult in any organisation or nation, he stated.Already, as you can see, the country is coming out of economic recession, soon the prices of commodities will go down, and generally things will take a good shape.We call on Nigerians to be patient and not to lose hope.He said the three key areas of the government was fighting insurgency, corruption and achieving sound economy.I urge us to be prayerful and by Gods grace we shall get better and stronger as a nation, the President added.NAN
Tianjin Quanjian are hoping to sign Diego Costa from Chelsea, when the Chinese transfer window re-opens on June 19, according to reports.The Chinese Super League club tried to sign the Spain striker during the January window, but a move did not materialise.However, their owner, Shu Yuhui has confirmed that talks to take Costa to China are still continuing.Tianjin are reportedly ready to make Costa the best-paid player in the world, with a contract worth 650,000 a week after tax.Costas 150,000-a-week Chelsea contract runs out in the summer of 2019.The 28-year-old has suffered a dip in 2017, scoring only three goals, but still have 17 Premier League goals this season.Tianjin are seventh in the Chinese Super League table after five games.The Chinese Super League season starts in March and ends in November and the mid-season transfer window is open from June 19 to July 14.
Former President, Goodluck Jonathan has been fingered in the on-going controversial ghost fund retrieved, weeks ago, from an apartment i...

Former President, Goodluck Jonathan has been fingered in the on-going controversial ghost fund retrieved, weeks ago, from an apartment in Ikoyi by the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.A retired employee of the NIA told newsmen on Thursday that the N15 billion seized by EFCC was part of the monies channelled by ex-president Goodluck Jonathan through the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) for his partys 2015 campaigns,.Ibrahim Ibrahim, who retired from the NIA 2006 as deputy director and worked closely with Oke, said though Jonathan approved the monies to be distributed to PDP chieftains, the embattled Director-General of the agency, Ayo Oke did not do so for unknown reason.A lot of things have happened; a lot of public officers have actually drifted away from the disciplined course and as a result so many things have happened. The NIA is not an exception at all, Ibrahim said.I think what really happened was that the money was issued to the agency (NIA) just in the same way it was given to the NSAs office.President Jonathan approved $289 million or so in November 2014 in excess of the approved budget of the agency.So, that excess was intended as campaign funds and the agency, the DG NIA in particular, was supposed to disburse the fund but along the way, he found a way of diverting even that one for his own private use, Ibrahim said.
Palpable fear gripped over 100 passengers on board a DANA Air MD 83 aircraft on Friday when a huge bird hit the aircraft engine during t...

Palpable fear gripped over 100 passengers on board a DANA Air MD 83 aircraft on Friday when a huge bird hit the aircraft engine during take-off at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.Sensing danger after the bird hit the aircraft engine, the pilot took the professional decision to discontinue the flight by making an air return.Air return is a safety precautionary measure taken by pilots by returning the aircraft to the aerodrome where it took off, if he is not convinced that the aircraft could get to its destination.The aircraft, a source hinted has been grounded as the airlines engineers are evaluating the effects of the bird strike on the affected engine.Confirming the development, the spokesman of DANA Air, Kingsley Ezenwa, said,  On 21st of April, one of our aircrafts with registration number 5N-SRI operating our 11:00 a.m. flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt, had an air return due to bird strike during take-off from Lagos, and our captain took a professional decision and returned to the Lagos airport.A bird strike is a collision between a bird and an aircraft which is airborne and as per standard safety procedure, which is the hallmark of our operation, our pilot returned to base.Our passengers have however been reprotected on another aircraft to ensure that their itinerary is not entirely disrupted. The aircraft is currently being evaluated by our engineers to determine the effect of the bird strike on the affected engine.At Dana Air, the safety and comfort of our passengers will remain a top priority to us and we will stop at nothing in our commitment towards offering a safe and reliable air transportation.
A National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member serving in Ekiti State has gotten automatic employment.

Good afternoon Mr. Governor, I am a native of Edo, I relocated from Adamawa to Ekiti State because of my love for you, I follow everything you do religiously online, I love you so much and I pray God take you higher and higher. I graduated from UNIBEN with a first class in Political Science and Public Administration, one thing I pray thee Sir, please allow me snap with you Sir, the Corps member said.

A National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member serving in Ekiti State has gotten automatic employment.The Corps member, Osamwonyi Bright Osas a graduate Political Science and Public Administration, was said to be serving at the College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti.Luck came his way when he meet Governor Ayodele Fayose who was assessing the third phase of Ado/Ikere road dualization on Thursday.The governor was said to be on his way after the assessment of the project when Corps member asked him for photograph him.Governor Fayose who obliged the request, said to him go to the provost tomorrow, tell her I asked her to give you automatic employment.Speaking with newsmen, Osas said I am overwhelmed seeing the governor of Ekiti State today, hes an amiable leader and he is so down to service, when I was in school as an undergraduate, I do read many of his speeches on what governance should be, on how to move Nigeria forward. I am in love with the fact that hes fearless, he discharges his duties without fear or favour, that is one of the qualities I cherish in him.I learnt from him that for you to rule successfully, you must appreciate the common man, he is a very good friend of the masses, seeing him come so close to the people inspires me, I was just coming from my CDS now and I saw him here, I was so happy and I said I must see him before he leaves and that was why I accosted him.I just thank God for what happened now and I pray God bless him abundantly. He has just called the provost that I should be retained, that I should be given automatic employment, permanent employment, he called the provost and the provost said first thing on Monday I should come with my CV. I just want to appreciate governor Fayose.
Annie Hanshew is running for the school board and I encourage you to vote for her. Annie is a historian with deep roots in education and service. She is the daughter of Sandy Hugus Hanshew, a respected and much loved special education teacher, and Mike Hanshew, former administrator of developmental disabilities and senior services for the State of Montana. Annie is a professional educator as well, having taught American History at the University of Utah and Carroll College. She combined the fields of education and history when she worked on developing curriculum for Indian Education in Utah.

But, Annie is more than her background. Her curiosity and motivation have led her to be a student of our school system and she has worked hard to understand its many complications. She has visited with a multitude of folks around the community to get their perspective on public education. She is honest and direct and able to both listen to other and articulate her position, always looking for consensus. As a historian, she understands the value of long-term planning and thoughtful decision making. So, join me in voting for Annie. She will work to make to make our schools even better.
The three man panel set up by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday to investigate the alleged recovered loot at Osborne House in Ikoy...

The three man panel set up by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday to investigate the alleged recovered loot at Osborne House in Ikoyi, Lagos yesterday quizzed top government officials connected with the development.Ibrahim Magu, the acting Chairman of the agency that made the recovery, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC was one of those interrogated.Others who also appeared before the panel were the Inspector General of Police, IGP, Ibrahim Idris and the Director-General, Department of the State Services, DSS, Lawal Daura.
Manchester United will face Spanish side Celta Vigo in the semi-finals of the 2016/2017 UEFA Europa League.The draw was held on Friday in Nyon, Switzerland on Friday.The other semifinal will see Ajax battle Olympique Lyon for a place in the final of the competition.Ajax reached the semi-finals of a European competition for the first time since 1996/97 defeating Schalke 04 3-3 on an away goal rule Thursday night.Celta Vigo will host Manchester United in the first leg at the Estadio Municipal de Balaidos while Lyon will travel to the Amsterdam Arena for the first leg clash.The semi-finals first legs will be played on the 4th of May with the second legs billed for 11th of May 2017.A new winner will emerge this year after Sevilla won the competition thrice in successive seasons.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction led by Ali Modu Sheriff says the committee set up by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan lacks relev...

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction led by Ali Modu Sheriff says the committee set up by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan lacks relevance.Speaking in an interview with Daily Trust, Cairo Ojougboh, deputy national chairman of the faction, said Sheriffs group would reject any report submitted by that committee.Ojougboh said only the report of the panel led by Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, would be implemented.We recognise the Dicksons committee report only. The party has no business with any other committee not set up by the National Working Committee (NWC), he said.Bashir Maidugu, national legal adviser, also said only the report of the Dickson-led committee could validate the partys national convention.Any PDP believer who wants the national convention to be held should key into the recommendations of the Dicksons committee as no other report would be considered by the party, he said.The Jonathans committee has no relevance. We wont recognise it. What importance does the committee have?We have already accepted the report of the governor Dickson-led reconciliation committee and we are working on it. Those who want the PDP crisis to be nipped in the bud should have also accepted the report of the Dicksons committee.The Dicksons committee is a creation of the second highest decision-making body of the PDP, the NEC. It had been there before the May 21, 2016 botched convention. It is a standing committee. So, we are implementing its report.Similarly, Bernard Mikko, the acting spokesman, said: Dicksons committee is a formal standing committee of the party set up by NEC. Other non-formal reports could generate largely exploratory academic pursuit aiming at enhancing unity in the party.During a stakeholders meeting on April 6, Jonathan constituted a 40-man committee.The committee was charged with the responsibility of finding a lasting political solution to the partys leadership crisis.Sheriff had stormed out of the meeting which held in Abuja.
The Police Command in Bauchi has arrested one Mohammed Nafiu, a Boko Haram member already declared wanted by the military.

The Police Command in Bauchi has arrested one Mohammed Nafiu, a Boko Haram member already declared wanted by the military.The Commissioner of Police, Mr Garba Umar, announced the arrest of the suspect alongside other criminals while presenting him to newsmen in Bauchi on Thursday.Umar explained that Nafiu, 25, was arrested on April 12 at Tama Village in Toro Local Government Area of Bauchi State.He further explained that the suspect being 176th on the wanted list of Nigerian Army was arrested following intelligence report.He said the suspect had fled from Sambisa Forest following the flushing out of the terrorists by the military.The suspect has confessed to have killed over 150 people in Baga Local Government Area of Borno.Case is under investigation after which the suspect would be handed over to the appropriate authority for discreet investigation, he said.In a similar development, the commissioner said that the police had arrested one Osama Abubakar, a notorious thug in Bauchi.He said the suspect had used a knife to cut off the left hand of one Abdul-aziz Mohammed of Gombe Road, Bauchi, who was also alleged to be a Sara Suka hoodlum.Umar said that preliminary investigations showed that the suspect was a notorious Sara-Suka thug who was convicted for a similar offence in 2016.He said that the suspect had voluntarily confessed to committing the offence and was providing the police with useful information that will lead to the arrest of others.
Men of the Nigeria police force who stormed the Abuja residence of Danjuma Goje, the senator representing Gombe central, found cash in sum...

Men of the Nigeria police force who stormed the Abuja residence of Danjuma Goje, the senator representing Gombe central, found cash in sums of $19,000 (N5.8 million) and 4,000 Saudi riyals (N326,000).They also found cash of N18 million in the Nigerian currency, police sources told newsmen.Although the police authorities are yet to issue a statement on the Thursday afternoon search, there are unconfirmed reports that they might have been acting on a tip-off.Newsmen could not confirm these figures officially as the force spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, could not be reached.Goje, who was governor of Gombe from 2003-2011, was at the national assembly office working on the 2017 budget when the police stormed his residence with over 40 officers.Our men were there for between four and five hours and they carried out a thorough search, the source said.It was learnt that officers broke down the doors and all the boxes found in the house of the chairman of the senate appropriations committee.They also went through all the files in the residence.The family was said to have been traumatised.The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was initially thought to be behind the search, but the agency denied any involvement.EFCC recently recovered $43 million, 27,000 and N23 million in a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos state.The police are hardly involved in this kind of search on politicians, but it also has a special fraud unit which performs similar functions to the EFCC.
Men of the Nigerian police force stormed the Abuja residence of Danjuma Goje, former governor of Gombe state, on Thursday evening.

Men of the Nigerian police force stormed the Abuja residence of Danjuma Goje, former governor of Gombe state, on Thursday evening.It was initially reported that operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) carried out a search, but it has not been confirmed that they were police officers.A source told newsmen that the security personnel were at the residence of the former governor, who is now a senator.Goje is being prosecuted for money laundering by the EFCC.His trial started in 2014, but it has dragged on ever since.Newsmen could not speak with Goje because his telephone was switched off.Earlier, Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC, had declined to confirm or deny if the EFCC was part of the operation, saying he had no information on it.He later issued a brief statement, where he said the commission was not part of such activity.Jimoh Moshood, a spokesman of the police, could not be reached for comments as of the time this report was filed.He neither answered his calls nor responded to a text message sent to his telephone.Goje was governor from 2003 to 2011. He won a senatorial election on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket, but he later defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Nigeria police have released the former Head of New Media for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Convener of pro-democracy and goo...

The Nigeria police have released the former Head of New Media for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Convener of pro-democracy and good governance group, Concerned Nigerians, Prince Deji Adeyanju and his co-detainee, Brian Jonah Dennis who were picked by the security operatives earlier this morning for staging a peaceful protest against the federal governments insistence that the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu be tried secretly.Adeyanju who, shortly after his release, spoke with Vanguard, said he was arrested by the police and threatened again but he told them that he was not going to stop the peaceful protests against injustice and breaking of the constitution.Released. I have told them that the protests will continue. We will not STOP and we will not be cowed. We will announce a new date for the #SayNoToSecretTrial. On Monday we will do #FreeAustinOkai and #FreeKemiOlunloyo.Adeyanju however thanked all those who voiced out for his release.Recall that a short while after his arrest, several activists and a coalition of human right groups under the Movement for the Advancement of National Transformation (MANTRA), called for his immediate release. The Convener of MANTRA, Comrade Jude Ndukwe had equally ordered for his release failure of which it promised legal actions against the Nigerian police.Recall also that Prince Adeyanju had, yesterday, alleged that he received life threats from the security operatives comprising the Police, the army and the men of the Department of State Security Services, DSS after he was invited and persuaded to step-down the planned peaceful protest against the federal governments insistence of a secret trial for the Biafran group leader, Nnamdi Kanu.According to him, Just got out of a 1-hour meeting with Commissioner of Police of FCT. In attendance was a Director of DSS and Brigade Commander of the Army.They said theres security concerns over our rallies: #SayNoToSecretTrial of Nnamdi Kanu #FreeZakZakkyI asked what concern: No Answer.Then threats and more threats.I told them, rally will go on as planned tomorrow for #SayNoToSecretTrial and #FreeZakZakky on Wednesday.Then threats and more threats.The DSS guy said: Deji, we have never disturbed you in all your rallies. Why ZakZakky and Kanu They have a major issue with ZakZakky & Kanu.Recall also that the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu and other pro-Biafra supporters have been detained since October 14, 2015, by the DSS over alleged treasonable felony and illegal association preferred against them by the federal government.Although the later charge was later struck out by the court wherein IPOB or Biafra was declared not an illegal association and Mr. Kanu and other detainees granted bail by various courts, the federal government has continued to detain them.Consequently, the group who, in a statement signed by both its Convener, Prince Deji Adeyanju and its Secretary, Dr. John Danfulani, had given reasons for the planned peaceful protest, saying it became necessary to stage it because, such secret trial as being pushed by the federal government does not serve the interest of the course of justice.
The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay (SAN), on Thursday said Senator Shehu Sa...

The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay (SAN), on Thursday said Senator Shehu Sanis call for dissolution of PACAC was borne out of bitterness and frustration.He said the call was due to the Presidencys refusal to remove the acting chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu.The Senate refused to confirm Magu on two occasions, following which the Presidency, with PACACs support, backed the Acting EFCC chairman to remain in office.Sagay said it was the Senators failed bid to truncate the anti-corruption war by removing Magu that has saddened the likes of Sani.The eminent professor of law denied ever defending the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal who was indicted by a committee headed by Sani.Sagay said: Im not surprised at Senator Sanis effusions because they (Senators) are very, very frustrated by the manner in which we have insisted that Ibrahim Magu continue to head the EFCC.They had hoped that they would be able to run down the struggle against corruption and make it totally ineffective by removing Magu. We stood against it. We have succeeded, so they are angry.His response is one of bitterness that we have stood in the way of their attempt to run down the anti-corruption struggle.It is his frustration that he is expressing in that manner, so Im not at all surprised.Sagay said it was not true that he defended Lawal.I never did. That is a blatant lie. I never defended Lawal.He (Senator Sani) should stop limiting his whole commitment to democracy on his little job as a sub-committee man that investigated Lawal.He had a life before then and hes going to have a life after that. He should not limit all his existence on that little report that he wrote. That is over now.Weve gone beyond that and he has to move on, the PACAC chairman concluded.
Femi Adesina, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity has urged Nigerians to have conversations abou...

Femi Adesina, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity has urged Nigerians to have conversations about corruption in the country and not just corruption in the Presidency.He made the call during an appearance on Channels TV when asked about corruption in the Presidency as regards the suspension of secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Babachir Lawal and former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke."No, you don't need to single out the presidency. The question should be how deep is the corruption in Nigeria. There is corruption everywhere, everywhere in the country and don't forget that the Vice President has said it before that there is corruption everywhere. Judiciary, Executive, Legislator, there is corruption everywhere, possibly in broadcasting. There is corruption everywhere in Nigeria".
The Presidency has condemned the media reports that the suspended Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Ayo O...

The Presidency has condemned the media reports that the suspended Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Ayo Oke, had cried during his visit to the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Wednesday.Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, who spoke on the incident in Abuja on Thursday, described the reports as unfair and uncharitable.He stated that witnesses to Okes visit to the Vice President on the fateful day and his own personal account clearly indicated that the DG did not cry as widely reported in the social and some traditional media.The Presidential media aide, who narrated how the incident happened, said: the widespread reports that Oke of the National Intelligence Agency had cried are unfair and uncharitable.Witnesses to his visit to the Vice President and his own personal account, said that Oke arrived to a swarm of journalists which he wanted to avoid.He asked his driver to make a quick turn and instead, he headed to the Glass House, the headquarters of the Department of State Services (DSS).From there, he put a call to the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, and requested that he help to clear the journalists so that he can make a quiet entry to the VPs office and that is what happened.In an SUV with darkened windows, no one could have seen an occupant crying.The Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday met separately with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Babachir Lawal and the NIA DG, Ayo Oke, barely an hour after their suspension from office.It was gathered that the closed-door meeting was in connection with the work of the Presidential Committee set up to investigate allegations of misconduct against the SGF and the DG, NIA.The SGF refused to comment on the outcome of his meeting with the Vice-President.
MISSOULA  The way John Limbert sees it, Barack Obama caught Iran wrong-footed when he took office in 2009.

The president called for negotiations. He talked about mutual respect between the two proud countries.

Hes quoting Persian poetry to them, hes praising their great culture, Limbert said Thursday. And they didnt know how to respond. It took them about three years to do anything.

Limbert is a veteran diplomat who worked in the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, when he and 51 other Americans were taken hostage during the Islamic Revolution.

For the second time in four months hes traveled from his home in Virginia to Missoula, where he was keynote presenter Thursday night at the 15th annual International Conference on Central and Southwest Asia on the University of Montana campus.

Limbert spent most of the first year of the Obama administration as the State Departments point man in Iran before resuming his position as the endowed chair of Middle Eastern studies at the U.S. Naval Academy.

His wife, Parvaneh, is a native Iranian who accompanied Limbert to Montana and recalls the phone negotiations in 2010 between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a Naval Academy admiral over Limberts pending return to academia.

U.S.-Iran relations were at a stalemate at the time and showed no signs of resolution, Limbert said. Under President Donald Trumps administration, for better or worse, thats changing.

Trump promised on the campaign trail to tear up the 2015 Iran Deal that dismantled Irans nuclear program in exchange for trade concessions from the United States and five other nations. Ninety-one days into his tenure he has yet to do that, though just hours before Limberts presentation in Missoula, Trump maintained again that Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement during a joint press conference in Washington with the prime minister of Italy.

On Tuesday, Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, waist-deep in explosive diplomatic issues ranging from North Korea to Afghanistan to Syria, added Iran to the list. He said Iran is in compliance with the treaty, but the United States is reviewing its policy toward Tehran. The next day Tillerson accused Iran of alarming and ongoing provocations to destabilize Middle East countries and undermine U.S. interests in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

I think what youre seeing in this, at least on the surface, is a reversion to what went on for 35 years, Limbert said in an interview with the Missoulian. We bash them, they bash us. We call them a rogue state, we call them the worlds No. 1 sponsor of terrorism. They call us the Great Satan.

Now were comfortable again. People like having what they know.

Iran is abuzz with talk of presidential elections  the one that happened in the United States in November and one thats taking place in Iran on May 19.

Limbert said he was hearing concern from Iranians before the U.S. election about a more hard-line stance by the United States under presumed President Hillary Clinton and her potential secretaries of state, who appeared to be more hawkish toward Iran than John Kerry was.

The game changed with Trumps upset win.

At least under Clinton things were foreseeable, said Limbert. Theyre never predictable, but you would know what to expect. Now all bets are off.

Irans is a different election system. Current president Hassan Rouhani is among hundreds in the running. So was polarizing former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad until Thursday, when state media in Iran reported he had been disqualified from the race. The decision was made by the Guardian Council, a clerical body that Limbert said forms the real core of power in Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had urged Ahmadinejad not to run.

Confounding an already complex scene are reports that Khamenei is on his deathbed, battling an advanced stage of cancer.

Limbert first visited Missoula in December for a program sponsored by the Montana World Affairs Council. Much of his talk then centered on his 444-day hostage experience in 1979-81. Things have changed considerably since Trumps inauguration, and this weeks conference was the ideal time to invite Limbert back, said Mehrdad Kia, director of UMs Central and Southwest Asian Studies Center.

One strong diplomatic tie between the countries during the Obama administration was that of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Both are nuclear scientists who served as deputies to Kerry and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during negotiations of the Iran Deal in 2015. They didnt know each other, but Moniz was on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1970s at the same time Salehi was a graduate student.

That was some very effective diplomacy, probably in some ways more important than the relations between Kerry and Zarif, Limbert said. I somehow doubt that Secretary (Rick) Perry has the same relationship with Dr. Salehi.

He has no inside knowledge on the workings of the Trump administration, but Limbert is clearly concerned when it comes to its approach to Iran.

What were going back to is a kind of Cold War, which from time to time has become more than cold, he said. Its dangerous. A misunderstanding or somebodys mistake could have real consequences. What I worry about is the apparent absence of communication, at least at the foreign ministry level.
Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has questioned President Muhammadu Buharis persistent absence from state functions, especially t...

He said; Every day, what we hear is President said this, President said that without seeing the President in any official function and one is prompted to ask; where is the president?Fayose in a release issued in Ado Ekiti on Thursday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said it was becoming obvious that a group of cabal is exercising the powers of the President. I saw the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Babachir Lawal on television responding to his suspension and what came to my mind was that there could actually be many presidents operating in the Buharis presidency.Perhaps, it is for this reason of possible existence of governments within the government of Buhari that confusion pervades the polity, with the President himself writing letter to the Senate to clear someone of wrongdoing and the same person being suspended three months after on the basis of the same allegation.It is also for this reason that the President nominated Ibrahim Magu to the Senate for confirmation as EFCC Chairman and the DSS, an agency under the Presidency wrote the Senate not to confirm him.Most importantly, the President did not attend the FEC meeting last week and the meeting did not hold this week under the flimsy excuse that Easter Break stalled it. How could Easter Break that ended on Monday be responsible for the inability to hold FEC meeting on Wednesday? Definitely, there is more to this than meets the eye. It has therefore become necessary that Nigerians hear the voice of their President and see him physically, not through surrogates or the cabal operating behind the scene, the governor said.Speaking further, Governor Fayose, who described a President as the face and image of a nation, urged President Buhari to hold regular media chat in which Nigerians can ask questions and offer suggestions on the running of the country.Since his first and only media chat was held in December 2015, Nigerians have not had opportunity of seeing their President address them directly and this is not the best approach to governance in a democracy, he said.
Days after a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, granted her N1 million bail following the bail application of her counsel, Fatai. O. Lawal, nothing has been heard of controversial journalist, Kemi Olunloyo.

Now actress Cossy Ojiakor who t hreatened to release statement of account where the name of the pastor involved in Kemi's case showed, is worried about her whereabouts. Read what she posted below...
President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, on Thursday, vowed that the organisation will not allow famine and hunger kill Nigerians ...

President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, on Thursday, vowed that the organisation will not allow famine and hunger kill Nigerians in the North-East region.He assured that World Bank was deploying tools and financial support required to respond to the famine plaguing the region and some other countries across the globe.Jim Yong Kim said this in his opening remarks at the ongoing World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington DC.The devastation by Boko Haram has left nearly five million people in the North-East region desperately hungry and risk starving to death, according to figures from the United Nations.UN also describes the current wave of famine as the worst in 70 years.Jim Yong Kim lamented that the world was caught unprepared by the situation Nigeria and some other countries.He said: Too often, we forget about crises as soon as they abate  leading to a cycle of panic and neglect. Were already working with the affected countries and partners to respond to the famine  and we will use every tool we have, financial and advisory, to prevent famine in the future.This wont be easy. It will require agreement across the entire international development finance system  multilaterals and bilaterals  to move the global development architecture in this direction, Kim said.The World Bank boss added that We are encouraged to see stronger economic prospects after years of disappointing global growth. There are still many downside risks, however, and countries that have the fiscal space need to continue with structural reforms. This is vital to accelerating the sustainable and inclusive economic growth needed to end extreme poverty by 2030.Were meeting at a time when we face several overlapping crises, both natural and man-made, all of which add urgency to our mission. We have to find new and innovative ways to reach the poor, and make the world more secure and stable. Last week at the London School of Economics, I outlined how were working to change our approach.We have to start by asking whether the private sector can finance a project. If the conditions arent right, we will work with our partners to de-risk that project or, if needed, de-risk entire countries or sectors. Heres the good news: Theres never been a better time to find those win-win solutions.There are trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines, earning little interest, and investors are looking for better returns. That capital should be mobilised to help us meet the exploding aspirations of people all over the world. And with the crises we face, our task is much more urgent than we ever thought.Kim said one of the things that the Bank found was that foreign direct investment often had much higher impact, much stronger impact on improving institutions and government than aid to low income and under-developed countries.This is why were trying to bring together the financing we provide to governments and also the financing that comes from the private sector to create better institutions, more investment, more jobs, more economic growth in a much more synergistic way, he said.In her address, Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde urged Nigeria and other low income countries to step up research and development, innovation, revisit housing policies in their countries in order to drive sustainable growth.Stronger cooperation across counties would help reduce external imbalances, clamp down on excessive tax evasion and avoidance and would help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals so that the low income countries can also reap the benefits of improved productivity, Lagarde added.
Despite a state law prohibiting them, automated phone calls that say they were funded by a Super PAC from Virginia have been used to promote a congressional candidate in Montana this week.

Those who received the robocall heard a recording of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke encouraging voters to support Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate for Montanas lone U.S. House seat. Gianforte did not know the call existed before the Independent Record asked him about it Friday and has no relationship with Sheriff Clarke, campaign spokesperson Shane Scanlon said.

The call says it was paid for by the Great America PAC, which supported Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.

"This is Sheriff David Clarke. President Donald Trump is delivering on his promises and draining the swamp in Washington. But the Democrats will do anything to stop him including defeating his ally, Greg Gianforte, the call says. Thats why we need you to join us and Donald Trump Jr. in our strong support for Greg Gianforte. The special election is just weeks away and we're on the ground right now -- please join us. Visit GregforMontana.com for more information. That's GregforMontana.com. Paid for by Great America PAC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. www.GreatAmericaPAC.com.

The Great America PAC did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment Friday afternoon. The group published the same recording on YouTube Thursday.

Officials with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Office said they have received several complaints about the calls but lack the authority to enforce the state law that prohibits them.

Under Montana law, A person may not use an automated telephone system, device, or facsimile machine for the selection and dialing of telephone numbers and playing of recorded messages in most cases. An exception allows businesses to send messages to their customers, as long as they have a preexisting relationship.

While those found in violation of the law are subject to a fine of up to $2,500, information from the commissioner's office notes that enforcement is difficult.

In the past, local law enforcement has been reluctant to investigate or prosecute the complaints because of the difficulty in prosecuting this type of statute, the office said in a handout on automated calls.

After being asked whether Gianforte has asked for the calls to cease, Scanlon said The law needs to be followed here.
The Montana House killed Rep. Kerry Whites proposal to eliminate property taxes and institute a 2 percent statewide sales tax, but he nonetheless urged his colleagues to start discussing the politically difficult subject.

We want to make a difference for Montana. I didnt come up here to further my political ambitions or my career. I mightve ended it on the floor today for all I know. Im trying to do good work for the citizens of Montana, the Bozeman Republican said, noting Montana would be the only state in the country to eliminate its property tax if his bill became law. Im seeing people forced out of their homes, our infrastructure impacted by tourists and were not collecting anything from them. Heres an out-of-the-box solution. Property tax is very subjective.

Of the Houses 100 members, only 16 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted for House Bill 620 on Friday. That same day the House Taxation Committee had advanced it to the floor on an 11-9 vote shortly after hearing the bill, which White had said took months for three staffers to draft. When he spoke to the House, the 414-page tax overhaul was propped on a stand in a three-ring binder. He admitted the bill might not be perfect, but urged his colleagues to continue the discussion of a sales tax as an alternative to existing taxes, noting that he has proposed an interim study on the same topic. House Resolution 43 that also advanced out of the Taxation Committee on Friday.

Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, also urged his colleagues to support the study, thanking White for his political courage. Hertz had a similar proposal to replace the income tax with a sales tax, but it died without ever being scheduled for a hearing.

We just voted on a gas tax. Thats a sales tax. We voted on an accommodations tax for the Historical Society. Those are sales taxes even if we dont like to admit it, he said. Property tax is the worst form of taxation on citizens ever created on the face of the Earth. You have to pay money to live in your home This is a long term change in policy we need to address.

Several people asked technical questions of the 414-page proposal, asking for more information about exemptions, a month-long tax holiday for major purchases and two new commissions that would oversee local and school infrastructure projects.

Others opposed the bill outright.

A statewide general sales tax is the most unfair tax for poor folks and working class folks. They will pay a higher proportion of their income on taxes than wealthy people will. I dont think thats fair. I dont think Montanans think thats fair, Rep. Kim Abbot, D-Helena, said.

Rep. Tom Jacobson, D-Great Falls, called Whites proposal an exercise in futility that wasted taxpayer dollars on printing costs and staff time when it is well known Montana voters have rejected past sales tax proposals and the bill would ultimately be vetoed by Gov. Steve Bullock even if it did clear the Legislature. He later apologized for those remarks.

In 1971 and 1993, Montana voters overwhelmingly opposed ballot measures that sought to enact a sales tax.

White told the House Taxation Committee on Friday that voters have not considered a full solution. He think more people in the state might actually support a sales tax if legislators could show how other taxes would be reduced or eliminated.
The son of President Donald J. Trump rallied voters in Kalispell and Hamilton on Friday, playing most of the greatest hits from his fathers campaign while making sure Republican voters knew how important it was to show up in Montanas special election.

This is going to be viewed as a referendum on Trump, Donald Trump Jr. told a crowd of about 450 people who gathered at the Glacier International Airport in Kalispell Friday afternoon. It was the first of four Montana rallies over the next two days for U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte, a Bozeman businessmen who lost his bid for governor last fall.

Lets show him and the rest of the world and certainly the rest of this country that this wasnt just a one-time thing in November and some kind of fluke," Trump Jr. said.

Gianforte is running to replace another rally attendee  Ryan Zinke, who resigned Montanas sole seat in the U.S. House earlier this year after Trump appointed him Secretary of the Interior. Gianforte's main opponent is Rob Quist, a Democrat who for years played in the Mission Mountain Wood Band. Inverness rancher Mark Wicks is the Libertarian candidate.

Only about 20 protesters  many with Big Sky Rising, a grassroots organization to raise support for equality, diversity, human rights, civil liberties and the environment  showed up at the Kalispell rally, while some 150 turned out later Friday afternoon in Hamilton.

Janice Lee of Corvallis said she decided to picket the Hamilton rally because she didnt believe the state should send another millionaire to Congress.

I dont really think were going to change anyones minds, but I think its important that theres more than one side to this, she said. They need to know that there are people who disagree.

Dan Bailey of Victor said he and a few friends stopped into a brewery just before the Hamilton protest. Someone there asked them if they had come down from Missoula.

We live right here in the Bitterroot, said his fellow picketer, Annie Heuscher of Stevensville. We believe that Gianforte is a terrible match for Montana.  Hes a strong supporter of Donald Trump. He is attaching himself to someone who has done nothing.

In Kalispell, Trump Jr. went after Quist in his remarks, working to tie him to Democrats in Washingon who are seen as unpopular among many Montana Republicans, while in Hamilton, he emphasized his father's business experience.

We need someone whos going to work with Donald Trump and for Montana and not fall in, like with Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. House minority leader, Trump Jr. said in Kalispell.

Gianforte received loud applause from Kalispell crowd when he likewise highlighted what he says are the differences between himself and Quist.

The other guy is really just Nancy Pelosi in a cowboy hat, Gianforte said.

Trump Jr. told the Hamilton rally that his father is someone who has actually created jobs and knows how to talk to real Americans rather than talk at them.

"So many Americans are tired of it," he said to the crowd at the fairgrounds. "They have had enough of being lied to. They have had enough of false promises."

In his father's time in office, Trump Jr. said, the president has shown action, resolve and conviction in an effort to allow the country to assume its rightful place as the leader of the free world.

"When we're talking about the red line in Syria," Trump Jr. said, "Tomahawk missiles seem to be a lot more effective than crayons."

Ravalli County Republican Central Committee Chair Terry Nelson said he thought it was a great honor that they chose Hamilton as one of the four cities for tour.

I think its sort of a nice reward for how we helped out the Republican Party in the state over the years, Nelson said.

Nelson pointed the leadership positions that Ravalli County state legislators hold, including majority leaders in both houses of the Legislature.

I believe they saw the importance of Ravalli County in the state of Montana, Nelson said. I think its a wonderful opportunity for the citizens to reap some of benefits of that by having an important person come here.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines also attended the rallies, and Trump Jr. gave him credit for the campaign swing through the state. He said the invitation to come to Montana from Daines, a man with whom he'd spent a week in elk camp last fall, was enough to get him on an airplane.

Election Day is May 25. Absentee ballots go out May 1, the same day early voting starts.

National Republican groups have supported Gianforte with donations and ads, while Democrat Rob Quist's campaign received a boost from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which Thursday pledged spending six figures on the race.

Former state Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, of Kalispell, was at Kalispell the rally Friday and said the event shows Montana is still riding a Republican wave after last falls election, when President Donald Trump won the state by more than 20 points. In that election Republicans also took over all but one of five statewide offices, four of which were previously held by Democrats.

Shirley Herrin, the president of Lewis and Clark Republican Women in Helena, drove to the Flathead for the rally.

I support Trump because hes really putting our country back on track, she said after the event. "I've been praying because for years now weve been going down a road thats just not American.

Herrin, like many at the rally, said shes happy with what Trump has accomplished in his first few months as president. She said by the end of the year she expects to see a full repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, former president Barack Obamas hallmark health care law. She also expects a complete overhaul of the country's tax system.

Those are two things Trump promised to do at the start of his presidency but has not accomplished, but Herrin is undeterred.

Hes absolutely keeping every promise he can, she said.

In response to the rallies Friday, Quist released a statement saying his focus is on Montanans, not politics.

"I have visited over 45 counties talking to all Montanans  independents, Republicans and Democrats. And my message to voters crosses party lines. I will work with President Trump when it serves the interests of Montana and hold him accountable when he doesn't. I agree with him on the need for investing in our infrastructure and manufacturing and rebuilding the middle class."

Dorinda Troutman of Hamilton said the rally and appearance of the presidents son in Ravalli County didnt make a difference in her mind. She was one who joined the picketers.

I just wanted to make sure our representatives know that Ravalli County isnt all Republicans or that all of the people are conservative, she said

Troutman doesnt consider herself a Democrat. She said shes voted for candidates of both parties over the years.

I try to vote for local people who would be good for Ravalli County, Troutman said. I want them to know that there are other people to represent than just the ultraconservative voters. I may be strongly against this administration, but no matter who wins this election, they need to remember that there are other people who need to be represented.

At this point, Troutman said she doesnt believe people considered moderates are being represented.

After the rally ended, Lorraine Morgan of Hamilton walked over to take a seat next to the window.

I thought it was terrific, Morgan said. There were some really good issues brought up. I pretty much already had my mind made up, but this was kind of like an amen.

In Billings, where there were a few hundred people. Gianforte unpacked a late developing controversy about Trump Jr's visit: gophers.

Trump's oldest son and Gianforte are going gopher hunting this weekend. Animal rights activists pounced on the killing outing.

"I had to explain to this reporter that the Montana Department of Agriculture classifies them as pests and the little ones grow up into big ones. And they dig holes that can't break a pony's leg," he said. "So we're going to protect the little ponies."

Gianforte also spoke of protecting gun rights and "keeping public lands in public hands," something Democrats accused him of wanting to undermine a year ago.

Sen. Daines also spoke, drawing applause for citing the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court as a major election promise for the president.

"One in five voters said the Supreme Court was important. They broke for Trump 57 to 40," Daines said.

The crowd didnt need to be sold on Trump or Gianforte.

"Greg Gianforte stands for the people who are hard working, whether they're business owners, ranchers, or ditch diggers," said Mike Okragly, a Billings cattleman. "He's for us."

Brenda Brockett said shes met Gianforte's opponent, Rob Quist, and described him as a nice man who was wrong the job because of his financial troubles. Quist has been taken to court over unpaid debts and taxes. She said giving the Democrat a say in the federal budget wasn't sensible.

Brockett liked Gianforte's business chops.

"He came to this state as a young man with his family and started a successful business. He worked hard to do it," Brockett said. "He put himself in a position to be a successful businessman and that's what we need."

Protesters in Billings called Gianforte a creationist denying the science of evolution. The candidate has donated to a Glendive dinosaur museum themed creationism.

Mario Shivers, of Kalispell, said he came out to show his support for Quist and disgust with Trump.

I dont like Trump, and havent been OK with one thing thats happened since Election Day, he said.

Trump Jr. will stop in Bozeman on Saturday.
WASHINGTON  Whatever a president or a congress does in the short term will have negligible impact on the cost of gasoline. But with only 16 days left before midterm congressional elections, politicians need to look like theyre trying.
BILLINGS  Rogers Ssembatya came to Montana from Uganda in 2014 with pressure sores and a bone infection that could have led to his death.

Instead, months of treatment through St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings restored the paraplegic's health. It allowed the now 18-year-old to lead a normal life, to smile again.

Ssembatyas story kicked off the third annual Wound Care Conference sponsored by the Billings hospital at the Mansfield Health Education Center. Participants at the two-day conference watched a short video produced by MiMedx about Ssembatya and his long, difficult medical journey.

St. Vincent donated all the costs of Ssembatyas care, and MiMedx donated $34,000 in products toward his treatments. Both Ssembatya and Terry Fettig, his American guardian, were on hand for the start of the conference.

Watching the video Thursday, he said, it brought back a lot of the pain he experienced during those difficult years.

Hes glad to be on this side of all the medical care hes undergone. It has left him with a gratitude for all the people who have helped him on his way, including Fettig, the physician assistant from St. Vincent he met in Uganda, and the many physicians and other medical professionals.

I dont know how to thank them, he said. Just be who I am, go to school and give back. Thats what its all about.

Back and forth

Back in 2006, Ssembatya was discovered in a small village by Nadine Hart, a St. Vincent physician assistant, who was in Uganda on a mission trip. He had no clothes, was wrapped only in a blanket, unable to extend his contracted legs.

Ssembatya was severely malnourished. He was often the last one to be fed since no one thought he would live long.

Hart did what she could for the boy. When she returned to the United States she told Fettig, then-president of AIDSpirit USA, about the youngster.

Fettig, a Billings contractor, traveled to Uganda in 2007 to help start a sponsorship program for children to go to school. While he was there, he met Ssembatya, made sure the boy had clothes and a new wheelchair.

He and Hart helped him get admitted to a rehabilitation hospital, where he was diagnosed with TB of the spine. The pair worked long and hard and eventually got Ssembatya to St. Vincent in 2010.

There, for the next 18 months, his condition was evaluated and treated, with all the costs covered. In 2011, Ssembayta underwent delicate surgery to remove part of his spine, which was then realigned and fused.

In 2012, he remained under medical care, needing doctor visits to check the hardware in his back and prevent infection. When Fettig returned to Uganda that summer, he brought Ssembatya with him so the youth could see his mother, who was terminally ill.

When it was time to return, complications arose over the youth's travel status and he wasnt allowed to return to the U.S. Fettig placed the youth in safe care and returned to the U.S.

Fettig and Hart, working with an immigration attorney, eventually brought Ssembatya back to Montana in 2014 on a humanitarian visa.

By then, the youth, who relies on a wheelchair, had developed deep pressure sores and a bone infection. Thats where Dr. Timothy Dernbach came in.

Wound care

Dernbach, a vascular surgeon and certified wound specialist at St. Vincent, spoke in an interview after the video about his work with Ssembatya. The youth, Dernbach said, was diagnosed with the pressure ulcers and an infection in his pelvic bone.

In the olden days that wasnt even treatable, Dernbach said. Virtually all those patients either carried those wounds till their death or they died from them, from sepsis.

The wound specialist used a trio of treatments. They included surgery to remove the infected bone, hyperbaric oxygen to get oxygen and blood to the involved area and IV antibiotics.

Unless we put patients in the hyperbaric chamber, which increase the blood supply to those areas, the antibiotics dont get there, Dernbach said. So that allows the antibiotics to get to the wound and allows white blood cells to get into the wound and heal it.

Another recent invention he used with Ssembatya is a skin care product that uses the amniotic membrane. The tissue is removed, with a mothers permission, during a Caesarean section, and is sterilized and analyzed to make sure it has no bacteria or virus forms in it.

And then they freeze-dry it and it comes to us in a dry sheet, Dernbach said. And these skin substitutes are just filled with growth factors, which stimulate the body to bring in healing cells and that accentuates the healing process.

The wound care specialty is only 10 to 12 years old, he said. But it is making all the difference for patients who used to suffer different outcomes.

Previously, patients with diabetic foot ulcers had to undergo amputation because the bone got infected. Now, that outcome is rare.

For every one we see like Rogers, we probably see 100 diabetic foot ulcers that normally would have lost a limb because of the infection of the bone that was not curable, Dernbach said. With hyperbaric oxygen and antibiotics and wound care, they are.

He's glad to have helped Ssembatya. "To take a young man like that who wasn't born on a level playing field and get to the level of life that he enjoys is really, really gratifying."

'A family again'

Fettig appreciates all the care and kindness shown to Ssembatya by the hospital and the staff. He remembers the weeks of inpatient care and then the many months of outpatient treatment.

I think Rogers did better than I did, Fettig said. He had such a good attitude about getting better. He wanted to go to school so bad, and he was stuck in bed for a lot of that time.

He likes the fact that the two are back to a regular routine.

"I get home from work, we cook dinner together, watch TV and he does his studying," Fettig said. "We're a family again."

During Ssembatya's treatment, he was allowed to go to Senior High, joining classmates he first met when he attended Riverside Middle School during his first stay in Billings. He was awarded an honorary diploma.

Now Ssembatya is attending Lincoln Center to earn his GED. He thinks he might like to go to college to become a counselor. That people connection is important in his life.

What makes us happy is other human beings, he said. The pain goes away when you think about happy things they have done for you, how life is, how it has changed.
Three years ago, Marilyn Newland was invite by a friend to consider volunteering at Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital.

At the time I thought volunteering might be fun. I started with the thought that I can do this, and hoped that I would like working in the Gift Shop. I have loved it! I meet so many wonderful people and I actually enjoy going to worknot everyone can say that!

This past year, Marilyn extended her volunteer commitments by accepting the role of vice president of fundraising for the hospital auxiliary.

Through my time at Jennie Ive realized how many people are helped through our fundraising efforts, therefore Im looking forward to becoming more involved.

Methodist Jennie Edmundson has many volunteer opportunities both in and out of the hospital.

During her spare time, Marilyn and her husband, Dan, like to spend time at their lake house in the Ozarks, where they love to entertain friends and family. Marilyn and Dan have three children, Todd (Sally) Newland, Scott (Tricia) Newland and Shannon (Pat) Halsted, and 5 wonderful grandchildren.

To learn more, call or email Jill Killion, volunteer coordinator at 712-396-6040 or email jill.killion@nmhs.org.
Like many who served in World War II, Thomas Flynn rarely spoke of his time in combat or as a Nazi prisoner of war, according to his daughter, author Alice Flynn.

And, when he passed away in 1993, he left a big mystery.

So, Alice decided to find out more about his experience, which resulted in her first book, Unforgettable: The Biography of Capt. Thomas J. Flynn.

Tom Flynn is a name that may sound familiar to area folks. He was a longtime veterinarian in Kimballton. Alice is a native of Kimballton and graduated from Elk Horn-Kimballton High School in 1978.

While researching her fathers life, Alice uncovered his story of heroism and self-sacrifice as part of the critical defensive stand during the first three days of the Battle of the Bulge at Hosingen, Luxembourg The little-told story resulted in Alices second book, The Heroes of Hosingen: Their Untold Story.

Alice will tell more about her father and the other brave soldiers who were told to hold at all costs on April 30 in Atlantic at the American Legion Memorial Building, also known as the Armory, 201 Poplar St. The program will be held from 2 to 3 p.m.

Following a refreshment break, another session will be held beginning at 3:30 p.m.

Realizing that she is not alone in her quest for information about World War II veterans, Alice will share what she learned about finding information. She also has a website and an online blog which connects families.

There is no fee for the program. It is sponsored by Atlantic Rock Island Society Enterprise. The group owns the American Legion Memorial Building that houses a military museum and military library. The groups website, ariseAtlantic.org, provides more information.

Flynn will also give a presentation at the Elk Horn Public Library on April 27.

For more information, call LaVon Eblen at 712-254-2254.
After a successful drill season, the Abraham Lincoln High School Air Force Junior ROTC team will open its doors to allow students from a parochial school to join the team.

This fall, Abraham Lincoln will expand its crosstown agreement to include St. Albert Catholic Schools. Thomas Jefferson High School is also a participant in the agreement.

I applaud the altruistic approach the school district has taken in making this opportunity available to more students in the Council Bluffs community, Lt. Col. Steven Ament said.

The program, which looks to make students, or cadets, better citizens by emphasizing leadership skills, is one of only three JROTC programs offered in Iowa.

Currently, Sioux City and Waterloo also offer JROTC programs, Ament said. So do several Omaha-area schools.

Its a much more valuable program than just to Council Bluffs, Ament said. Its for the community, and thats why we wanted to open it for the community.

The district has also offered to partner with the Lewis Central Community School District and Heartland Christian School, but theres currently no plan to expand the program to those areas, Ament said.

Jason Plourde, director of secondary education for Council Bluffs Community Schools, said the district wants to partner with like-minded individuals and organizations for the betterment of the youth in the community when it comes to programs like JROTC.

A partnership between Council Bluffs schools and St. Albert for JROTC is just one way we are demonstrating these beliefs, Plourde said.

JROTC is a program that also helps prepare students to be college and career ready, Plourde said.

The high academic standards and supports that comes with JROTC, complimented by high employability, social, and work skills required and developed within the program, are an amazing combination that results in well-rounded youth who are truly future ready, Plourde said.

The award-winning program housed at A.L. is made up of 120 cadets who comprise different teams, including two color guard teams and one exhibition team who will travel to Florida next month to compete in the National High School Drill Competition.

Last month, Council Bluffs took one individual trophy, seven team trophies and placed second overall at a competition held in Waterloo.

This month, at the Air Force Regional Drill Competition held in Bellevue, Council Bluffs won five team trophies and placed third overall in Regulation.

Junior Hannah Osmers serves as a core deputy commander and is one of 13 other students who will compete next month. She first joined JROTC as a freshman.

I like the feeling of being a part of a family and having the military environment around me, Osmers said. When I first joined I didnt know what I was getting myself into, but I really enjoy it now.

Osmers said shes very happy that St. Albert students will join the program next year.

It will bring a lot of opportunities for more people and chances for them to experience the experience Im enjoying as a junior, Osmers said. Its a great experience.

Paul Hans, principal of St. Albert High School, said about 10 kids have already showed interest in joining the program next year.

We wanted to give kids more opportunities, Hans said. A lot of students are interested not just in the military aspect but wanting to serve our country, too.

Hans said the program will help teach students different skills on how to be successful and make decisions.

Helping others is what our faith is about, and the two are aligned, Hans said. People in JROTC are people who want to serve.
There are no treadmills humming. There are no weights clanking to the ground. There are no medicine balls smacking against the walls.

The only sound in the room is the smooth swish of water coming from a line of rowing machines and music blaring from the speakers.

Five minutes into the workout, 11 rowers were breathing heavily.

As exercises ramped up in intensity, their instructor offered words of encouragement: Dont give in. Remember, were all on the same boat.

By the end of the 30-minute class at First Row Fitness, participants were covered in sweat. They groaned as they clambered off the machines, still trying to find their footing on wobbly legs.

Rowing isnt new, but its slowly making a splash in the local fitness scene.

The exercise machines have long been left in the dust at big box gyms, surpassed in popularity by treadmills, the weight room and group exercise classes.

But in recent years, rowing machines have been reintroduced through fitness trends like CrossFit and Orangetheory  the latter offers circuit-style fitness classes.

And within the last year, at least two local studios have debuted classes built around the rowing machine.

The exercise, which looks as if users are rowing a boat, is low-impact, increases the heart rate and works several muscle groups.

It was the right format for Carrie McDonalds Council Bluffs facility, First Row Fitness. McDonald, a longtime fitness instructor, wanted a workout for all fitness levels.

First Row Fitness, which opened at 623 W. Broadway in June, offers kettle bell and yoga classes, too. But rowing is the focus.

Rowing classes, offered three days a week, are always full with 11 participants. Attendees are a mix of men and women. The oldest client is 78.

I usually have a wait list on those classes, which is a good problem to have, McDonald said.

Over the past two years, rowing studios have popped up regularly in cities like Chicago and New York.

After visiting a New York studio, Trevor Fleming was inspired to open his own in Omaha. Dynamic Rowing, which opened a year ago at 14505 Grover St., offers seven rowing classes a week.

Like the Council Bluffs studio, Fleming uses water rowers at his facility. A water rower doesnt jerk or jolt the joints, he said. Thats good for individuals who are overweight, have arthritis, joint pain or injuries.

The concept behind water rowers is its ... replicating what you would actually get on the water: that full, smooth, consistent stroke, Fleming said.

Rowers sit on the machines with their backs straight, knees bent and fingers grasping a handle attached to the front of the machine. They kick off the rower, straightening their legs, while simultaneously pulling the handle to their chests. Rowers repeat the motion over and over, at different speeds and intensities, depending on the workout.

If using proper form, the exercise works 80 percent of the bodys muscles. The majority of the muscles worked are in the legs. It also helps strengthen the core, arms and back.

Fleming said his clients often find that its harder than it looks.

Fleming mixes in resistance training in his classes, which can accommodate between two and 10 participants. He said most classes fall somewhere in the middle.

During a Tuesday evening class, Kathy Rains and her classmate used the rowers and a TRX system, a pair of straps anchored to the wall that use gravity and body weight for resistance training.

The two women leaned back, holding onto the straps as they performed lunges, squats and pushups. The more reps they did, the more their arms started to quiver.

While Rains and a classmate rowed, Fleming crouched between their machines to offer advice: Catch your breath. Nice and slow.

Rains had been in boot camps on and off over the years. Once she tried rowing, she was hooked.

I like getting more bang for your buck, Rains, 51, said. It was something that really made me work, but I can go at my own pace.

In the eight months the Papillion woman has been rowing, shes lost 30 pounds. She also has more energy.

At the University of Nebraska at Omaha, rowing is a popular alternative to high-impact exercises, said Skyler Brooke, assistant director for fitness and strength programs. He said the machines are so in-demand on campus it can be hard to find one available.

Brooke has clients use the rowers while warming up because it works so many muscle groups. He said the exercise also can supplement other training.

Brooke also incorporates the rower into his high-intensity interval class on campus. Sometimes participants race on the machines or track how many calories they burn.

Rowing hasnt caught on everywhere. While most local gyms have rowing machines, few offer rowing-centered classes.

Many instructors credit the CrossFit craze with boosting rowings growing popularity. CrossFit gyms use the rowers daily for warm-up and cool-down routines. The machines are incorporated into different interval workouts about three times a week, said Jonathan Pingel, owner of CrossFit Papio.

The machines appearance on the Netflix series House of Cards helped, too.

Sales spiked at the water rower company after the shows protagonist Frank Underwood started using the machine, said David Jones, director of sales and marketing at WaterRower.

The company has been producing more than 1,000 machines a week to keep up with demand.

Patty Scarpello, who works out at First Row Fitness, spent nearly three decades doing the same workout: running and weight lifting. The Omaha woman now rows two to four times a week and takes other fitness classes. Since changing things up, shes gone from 48 percent body fat to 32 percent.

Josee Beier was new to the sport, too. The Glenwood, Iowa, woman used to do competitive weightlifting and bodybuilding in her 20s. She then took up bike riding and Jazzercise, although the latter bothered her knees.

Since she started rowing last summer, the 55-year-old hasnt had any injuries.

At first, I thought I didnt know if I could do this, Beier said. You get in a groove. Its a sport that anyone can do.
The 57-year-old woman who died in a Monday morning crash on the northwest edge of Omaha is being remembered as a passionate teacher with an infectious laugh.

The Department of Roads said Tuesday that Dollie Mott of Council Bluffs died after a semitrailer truck collided with her Toyota Prius near Blair High Road and State Street.

Mott was a substitute teacher for the Omaha Public Schools. An acquaintance said Mott was on her way to substitute teach at Alfonza W. Davis Middle School near North 126th and State Streets.

The semi, driven by a Blair man, was southbound on Blair High Road about 7:10 a.m. when it collided with Motts Prius, Douglas County Sheriffs Deputy Jim Maguire said. The Prius was northbound on Blair High Road and was turning west onto State Street.

She pulled in front of the semi, Maguire said. We have six or seven witnesses who saw the accident.

Mott was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center and died there. The semi driver suffered minor injuries.

Mott had worked as an instructor for gifted and talented high school students in the Glenwood Community School District in Iowa from 2014 to 2016.

Dollie cared deeply for the students she instructed, Glenwood Superintendent Devin Embray wrote in an email to The World-Herald. She was extremely passionate about student learning, he wrote.

As a substitute teacher, she held her students to a high standard, never letting them say I cant do it, said Lewis and Clark Middle School Principal Lisa Sterba. She would find a way to get them to I can! 

Sally Rehmeier said she was shocked to find out about her high school friends death.

She and Mott were to meet May 1 with their Central High School classmates to start planning their 40th class reunion.

Rehmeier remembers that Mott loved journalism in high school and was passionate about teaching English. She loved to travel, especially to visit her young granddaughter.

Her laugh is what no one will forget, Rehmeier said. It was unmistakable and infectious. If you heard it, you knew Dollie was close by.

Dollies Facebook page was filled with messages from classmates, friends and co-workers.

Dollie touched the lives of so many, Rehmeier said.
IOWA CITY  A longtime spokeswoman for the Iowa Board of Regents alleges in a lawsuit that the decision to eliminate her job two years ago was motivated by age and gender discrimination.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Sheila Koppin, also alleges unequal pay based on gender because her duties were absorbed by two newly hired men, including one who was given a salary $24,000 higher than what she earned in her 29th year.

The lawsuit also accuses the boards executive director, Robert Donley, of negligent misrepresentation for allegedly dodging questions for months about whether her job was likely to be eliminated during a reorganization. It says she needed the information so she could evaluate whether to take an early retirement package the board offered, which she declined before being let go weeks later.

A board spokesman declined comment on the lawsuit, which seeks damages for lost pay and benefits.

The board eliminated Koppins job as communications director on June 30, 2015, saying her duties could be absorbed by others. The move came two weeks after the board hired Josh Lehman into a newly created position as senior communications director at a $100,000 salary. Koppin was 53 and had been with the board, which governs the states public universities, since 1986. She made $76,000.

Months later, the board hired Brock Ascher into a newly created electronic media assistant position. The lawsuit alleges that it took those two men to do the same communications work Koppin satisfactorily performed for over 10 years.

Koppin first asked Donley about her jobs future after he informed her in January 2015 of his plan to create the senior communications director position, which was aimed at improving the boards relationship with the news media, the lawsuit says. He told her that it would be evaluated once someone was hired.

In the spring, Koppin again asked Donley about her future as she considered whether to apply for the early retirement program that would have made her eligible for additional health and retirement benefits. He dodged her inquiries, the lawsuit says.

The boards then-general counsel, Thomas Evans, told Koppin that if her job were eliminated in a reorganization, she would be entitled to 90 days notice. In fact, the board eliminated Evans job on June 5, 2015, after he declined the early retirement and he received the 90-day notice and pay, the suit states.

But it states Donley informed Koppin on June 26, 2015, that her job would be eliminated four days later and that she didnt qualify for the 90-day notice because it wasnt a reorganization.
SPRINGFIELD  A Decatur man, a Sullivan woman and an Effingham business are among 24 Illinois honorees in the 2017 Governor's Volunteer Service Awards.

Larry Altenbaumer of Decatur has recognized for his service to the Grow Decatur organization. Genevieve Sutton of Sullivan was selected for her work with Mid-Illinois Senior Services and the Martin's IGA Plus in Effingham is being honored for its service to a variety organizations in Effingham County.

All the volunteers will be presented with awards at 1 p.m Tuesday, April 25, at a reception in the Old State Capitol building in Springfield. Gov. Bruce Rauner has proclaimed April 23 to 29 as National Volunteer Week in Illinois.
As the Iowa Legislature wraps up work on the state budget, Gov. Terry Branstad continues to sign bills into law.

Among the bills Branstad signed Thursday was a law that prohibits the placement of global positioning devices on a person or object to track the person without consent.

House File 263 included the provision in a bill related to domestic abuse. The crime is a serious misdemeanor.

The law also establishes mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines on men and women convicted of three or more domestic abuse charges. The bill requires a denial of parole until offenders have served one-fifth of the maximum term.

The bill passed in the Iowa House by a 90-8 vote  with no area representatives voting against it  and in the Senate on a 48-0 vote.

Branstad also signed a bill that bars liability claims for damages against county fairs and the state fair related to the transmission of pathogens from animals housed on fairgrounds.

In 2015, the avian flu decimated Iowas poultry populations, leading the state to ban live poultry at county fairs, the Iowa State Fair, livestock auction markets, swap meets, exotic sales and other gatherings that year.

The state had no new cases after June 2015 and the final quarantine was lifted on Dec. 1, 2016. Iowa is now considered free of the bird flu, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. Poultry was allowed back at fairs last year.

The bill passed the House 94-0 and Senate 48-1.

Currently awaiting Branstads signature is a bill that would eliminate the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, a longtime research center at Iowa State University.

Lawmakers approved an agriculture-related budget bill this week that eliminates the center by July 1.

Remaining activities within the 30-year-old center would be administered by the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The bill redirects money for the Leopold Center  about $1.5 million  to the Nutrient Research Center at Iowa State, which studies the removal of nutrients in the water. A separate budget bill that cuts nearly $400,000 from the Leopold Center is also headed to governor.

GOP lawmakers have indicated the Leopold Center has completed its work. Staff for the center dispute that, arguing the centers research is valuable to farmers.

Branstad is expected to sign the bill.

As the governor signs bills, the Legislature works to wrap up a state budget and adjourn.

The General Assembly has approved most bills needed to finalize the roughly $7.2 billion state budget.

The Republican-controlled chambers have voted in support of several budget bills over the span of days that address spending on everything from education to economic development. Sen. Dan Dawson, R-Council Bluffs, said lawmakers expect to complete their work today.

Both chambers must finalize the so-called standing appropriation bill, which includes state spending for a variety of purposes across several state agencies.

It is often the last bill passed in the session.

 The Associated Press contributed to this story.
The following editorial first appeared April 14 in The Des Moines Register and was distributed by the Associated Press.

Another piece of reasonable, science-based legislation. Another dire fate in the Iowa House. This time, it is common-sense medical marijuana policy that looks doomed due to the House GOPs affinity for the 1950s.

An expansion of Iowas draconian medical marijuana policy is speeding through the Senate, reports The Gazette of Cedar Rapids. It easily cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee on a voice vote, only hours after a subcommittee unanimously supported it.

Then, reporters asked House Republicans about their peers efforts in the upper chamber. Those House Republicans responded by turning on the fire hose and flooded the place with cold water. Its just too much right now, they said. Its just another step toward a world of jobless stoners dancing to Phishs droning guitar solos instead of going to work, they worried.

The Senate draft is not a wholesale legalization effort. Its not even your standard buy-a-joint with a doctors note-type system thats so popular in more than half the country. No, the Senate draft still bans the smoking of pot, with or without medical consent.

The Compassionate Use of Cannabis Act does, however, drastically expand the list of ailments for which cannabinoid pharmaceuticals can be prescribed, including post-traumatic stress and cancer. As such, it has the backing of numerous advocacy organizations supporting veterans, cancer survivors and those with afflictions included within the draft.

The bill would, finally, also permit production of marijuana-based medicines in Iowa. At least four growing and manufacturing operations would be licensed within Iowa by Dec. 1, the bill says. A dozen dispensaries also would be approved.

Boil it down: It would comfort the sick. It would create jobs.

The very concerns about creating a society where anyone can get it doesnt make much sense, because the legislation explicitly bans pot smoking. Such a standard is farcical if considered from a broad view of medicinal drug policy. Opiates are quite literally destroying entire communities in some parts of the country. Its a scourge rooted in easy access to powerful, highly addictive pain killers.

Marijuana is not without risks and pitfalls, research says. But it might as well be cotton candy next to oxycodone, a legal, poorly regulated opiate that renewed the nations taste for being comfortably numb.

Only misinformed stereotypes and a nonsensical commitment to terrible policy  rejected by conservatives and liberals alike  fuel revolts like this against reasonable marijuana policy. The war on drugs was a massive, costly failure that achieved little but heavily armed police forces and prisons stuffed to the brim with nonviolent offenders.

But the GOP-run Iowa Senate isnt looking to follow Colorados legalization effort. It isnt even moving to make smokable weed available to someone wracked with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.

It does expand the type of cannabinoids that would be available. It does expand the drugs permissible use to a host of other diseases that, according to research, benefit from the plants effects. It does permit the production of said drugs within Iowa, a potentially significant boost to the states pharmaceutical sector.

The House is under significant pressure to do something, mind you. Iowas basically useless marijuana trial period will expire in July, if nothing is done. Look for the House to basically extend the existing program with almost no time before adjournment.

And thousands of Iowans would again be denied access to a drug that could improve their very lives.
DECATUR  A battle over the future of landline phones has dialed up in the Land of Lincoln.

Consumer rights groups in Illinois, including the Citizens Utility Board, Illinois Public Interest Research Group and AARP, are touring the state to highlight what they say is legislation that could end landline phone service from AT&T. They say that could shift the estimated 1.2 million Illinois residents who use landline services to more expensive plans.

Two bills, Senate Bill 1381 and House Bill 2691, are under consideration in the General Assembly. They would deregulate phone service and abolish a state requirement that AT&T serve traditional landline customers. The bills come as the state's Telecommunication Act expires July 1 and comes up for review.

If the bills are passed, it would be up to the Federal Communications Commission to decide whether AT&T could stop offering landline service.

While such a step is likely years away, opponents of the plan say it hurts those who rely on landlines for regular communication.

People who depend on this should not have it stripped away, said Jim Chilsen, spokesman for CUB, during a stop Thursday afternoon at the Decatur-Macon County Senior Center.

The groups have created a website, saveourphoneservice.com, so residents can contact their legislators.

Those whose landline services are through other providers would not be affected by the legislation, Chilsen said.

AT&T has said concerns about the bills are unfounded. AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza has said the proposals would modernize the current law and allow the company to build a stronger network that handles services from internet streaming to 911. He said legislation would allow AT&T to invest more money into modern lines, such as fiber, internet, new copper and coaxial cable.

Home phone service is not going away, " La Schiazza said.

About 41 percent of U.S. households had only wireless phones in the second half of 2013, according to a report by the National Center for Health Statistics. The center, the statistical arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that 39.1 percent of adults and 47.1 percent of children lived in wireless-only households.

Consumer rights groups believe the plans in front of Illinois lawmakers do not go far enough to protect residents who live in rural areas where wireless service can be hit-or-miss. They also argue that landlines are comforting for residents who would not need to worry about their phone battery at a critical moment.

Those critical moments are what concerns Jonathan Thomas, director of the Macon County Emergency Telephone System Board. He said a 911 call from a landline can be traced exactly, but that's not true of cellphones.

At some point in the future, the technology may change where it gets to be more accurate, Thomas said. But I dont think were at a point technology-wise where we can eliminate landlines.
DECATUR  Drive down East Main Street, and youll see signs of a neighborhood filled with life.

Neighbors chat with each other on porches. Kids play in trimmed yards. Though there are a few boarded-up properties  a common occurrence in Decaturs aging inner-city neighborhoods  they are the exceptions on a street where pride of ownership appears evident in many houses.

But its not likely youll ever take that road if you can avoid it. Doing so would expose your vehicle to an onslaught of cracks and craters in the uneven brick street, where intermittent squares of asphalt show a history of futile attempts to patch the problem.

I got tired of buying tires, said Katherine Lewis, 56, who said shes put two sets on her car in the four years shes lived in the 1000 block of East Main. Too many holes, and then you go down the street to take the kids to the bus stop, and theres a hole down there.

Relief is coming soon for Lewis and her neighbors, as their street is among the roughly 30 targeted for repairs this summer by the city of Decatur. The work is funded by the local motor fuel tax that began last April. It has brought in a total of $1.8 million so far, records show.

City officials say a lack of funding prevented them from maintaining streets properly for years. Now they are in the second of a three-year push to get a jump on the work, specifically targeting residential streets.

These are roads in our community (where) the budget would not have touched the needed repairs any time soon, City Manager Tim Gleason said. Its truly a worst-first approach to these, so thats why you see them all over the community, not just one area.

Fueling city coffers

The Decatur City Council held several discussions about the possibility of a local motor fuel tax in the years before it was passed in February 2016. Multiple factors had cut into the ability to fund capital projects: Declining state motor fuel tax revenue, increased cost of asphalt, higher pension costs and pressures created by the recession all played a role.

Delaying maintenance also meant that road conditions grew worse, making them more expensive to fix.

The council ultimately voted to create a tax of 5 cents per gallon on non-diesel fuel and a penny per gallon on diesel, with officials reasoning that diesel is already taxed higher by state and federal governments. The state already charges a tax of 19 cents a gallon. The federal tax is 18.4 cents.

City administrators say the revenue has slightly outstripped their projections that the tax would generate $250,000 to $300,000 per penny annually. Totals published in city financial documents and posted on the citys buildingdecatur.com website show that each month has brought in between $135,000 and $161,000.

The amount collected to date is $1,841,542.

A total of 44 retail and bulk fuel purchasers submit monthly tax returns to the city, said Gregg Zientara, the city finance director, and the first year of the collection process has gone smoothly.

Critics had said that the tax would drive people to purchase their gas outside the city limits and avoid the extra charge. Many also saw the move as piling on in a city that has increased water and sewer fees, among others, in the past few years.

But some people, such as 33-year-old Isaiah Horne, didnt notice when that extra nickel started ringing up at the pump. Another resident of East Main Street, Horne said he didnt know about the gas tax but didnt mind paying it, especially with much-needed help for his neighborhood on the way.

I mean, if thats what they gotta do, and its helping, then I guess its all right, he said.

Last year, the city council authorized a loan of $7.5 million, with the debt to be repaid from the proceeds of the local motor fuel tax. Officials planned to make a three-year push toward catching up with the deferred maintenance, spending $1.5 million the first year and $3 million in 2017 and 2018.

Bids came in slightly lower than expected last year, Marley said, allowing the city to tackle more work this year. The council on Monday approved two contracts totaling $3.6 million for asphalt and concrete work on 12.66 lane miles of streets.

The city also continues to receive proceeds from state motor fuel tax, which are expected to add up to $1.8 million this year. That money typically has been targeted toward more heavily used primary routes, and it also helps pay for engineering services, traffic signal maintenance and road salt.

This years state motor fuel tax project will repair Mound Road between Woodford Street and Illinois 48 at a cost of $710,000. Marley said the city is saving some of this years state motor fuel tax proceeds in anticipation of an expensive project reconstructing part of Airport Road in 2018.

Work on this years projects is likely to begin next month, Marley said, and be completed by October.

Triage for streets

How does the city choose which streets to fix? Marley described the process as similar to triage, when doctors assess the severity of wounds to determine who receives medical treatment first.

Each year, employees of the citys Public Works department evaluate half of the streets in Decatur. They enter their notes into a computer program that calculates the pavement ratings, allowing them to decide where to focus resources.

Generally, there are two criteria: the worst streets, and those that can be stopped from becoming much more expensive to fix in the future.

If you dont fix the roof on your house before it leaks and it does leak, youll have more damage, which would be more expensive to repair, Marley said. A road is very similar to the roof of a house.

In some areas, Marley said the road work could have a significant effect on the neighborhood and even spur interest from developers. He cited East Main Street as an example.

"Its a good neighborhood. The houses are well-maintained. Theyre owner-occupied. There are a few that have been boarded up but not very many," Marley said. "This neighborhood is really going to see a tremendous improvement, and my bet is that once we get through with this, people will take a new look at East Main Street."

Another example is a section of Kellar Lane between Water Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Lined with neatly kept homes and butting up against Hess Park, the neighborhood could be a striking one if not for the cracked, patched asphalt.

When this is done, these people are going to live in a beautiful neighborhood. Its going to be just beautiful, Marley said.

Having lived on Kellar Lane for six years, 32-year-old Erin Lingenfelter was thrilled to find out that her street would be repaved this summer. She said she had supported the gas tax when it was proposed.

The roads in Decatur are awful, she said, adding that she once popped a tire and bent the rim of her wheel on a pothole in the city.

Her neighbor a few houses down, Donna Scott, has lived on the street for about a year and was similarly excited to find out about the upcoming improvement. She didnt know about Decaturs gas tax, but said she didnt mind paying it.

Its a safety thing, said Scott, 46. Kids riding (their bikes) up and down the streets; some of them dont use the sidewalk because the grass is in the sidewalk, so theyre ridin in the streets.

When it created the tax, the council also added a 10-year sunset clause, meaning it must be approved again in 2026 to continue.

Marley said the ideal pace for repairing streets would be about 3.3 percent each year, or 27 lane miles, which would put them on a 30-year maintenance cycle. That's still a higher bar than the city will meet this year, when both projects together will address fewer than 20 miles.

"Weve got a little ways to go, but were started," Marley said. "Its a whole lot better than what we used to do."
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Six Nottinghamshire businesses have been included in a list of 176 winners announced today (Friday, April 21) by Business Secretary Greg Clark in celebration of Her Majesty The Queen's 91 birthday.

Engineering firm Bridgeway Consulting, based in Riverside Way, off Queens Drive, won the sustainable development award after working on high-profile rail projects for the likes of Network Rail and local authorities, including the Crossrail project in London and HS2 enabling work at Euston Station.

Winners of the international trade award included Abacus Lighting, in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottingham city centre designer The Art File, BioCity-based Sygnature Discovery, Romo Group and Sanglier Ltd, both based in Kirkby-in-Ashfield.

Pino De Rosa, managing director of Bridgeway Consulting, which was the highest riser in last year's Nottinghamshire's Top 200 Companies list after turnover almost doubled to 32m, said: "We are proud to be flying the Nottingham and Midlands Engine flag on some of the biggest rail infrastructure programmes in the country.

"My dad was interviewed and recruited in Naples by British Rail in 1951 and was located in Manchester.

"A year later the Queen was coronated and he headed to London to be part of the celebrations, climbing a lamp post to get a better view at Buckingham Palace.

"Though he is not with us anymore, I'm sure he would have been really proud to know that 50 years on his son would receive a Queens Award for Enterprise and would, I'm sure, be grateful for the opportunities that the UK have given him and his family."

Sygnature Discovery's recognition coincides with its move into the new Discovery building, where it is the anchor tenant having outgrown its original space at BioCity.

About half of the 13m-turnover company's business is conducted overseas in markets including the United States, Europe, Australia and Malaysia. It employs 180 staff, all based in Nottingham.

CEO Dr Simon Hirst said: "It's a real honour to get the award anyway but it's very timely in the sense that we're just moving into our new office and laboratories in the Discovery building.

"That move is all about continuing the growth of the business and raising the profile of Sygnature  so to support that growth you need to win business internationally.

"The Queen's Award will sit really nicely alongside that. We've been very lucky to win awards in innovation and entrepreneurship but this is the most prestigious honour in really recognising our commercial achievements."

Romo Group was recognised for developing exports of its luxury fabrics, wall coverings and accessories which are manufactured in Nottinghamshire.

The fourth generation family-owned company, which also received the award in 2008, has boosted worldwide sales from 58m to 88m between 2010 and 2016.

During the same period, exports have increased from 36.5m to 63.7m and now represent 72.5 percent of sales.

The firm employs 381 staff globally, including 270 staff at its Kirkby-in-Ashfield headquarters.

It has submitted plans to move its base from four sites around Lowmoor Road, in the town, to nearby Oddicroft Lane, with a 30m investment to build 250,000 sq ft of warehouses and 60,000 sq ft of offices, design studios and showrooms.

CEO Jonathan Mould said: "It's a fantastic honour and a great privilege to win this award, which is the feather in the cap for our staff who can take great pride and involvement from this.

"The investment in our head office is a massive move and something I've been working towards all my life so I can leave the business with a really modern facility that provides a very good working environment for all our staff.

"We're one of Nottinghamshire's secret successes."

Now in its 51 year, the Queen's Awards for Enterprise are regarded as one of the most prestigious business award schemes in the country, with winning businesses able to use the esteemed Queen's Awards emblem for the next five years.

Mr Clark said: "The Queen's Awards for enterprise highlights everything that's great about UK business today.

"We have some of the best entrepreneurs and innovative minds in the world who are at the heart of small start-ups providing excellent customer service to larger businesses developing global solutions.

"Over one million new businesses have been created since 2010, all playing a vital role in creating jobs and driving growth across the UK.

"I'm extremely proud to see such a wealth of businesses across the East Midlands being recognised today.

"Through our Industrial Strategy we will be building on the successes of these award winning businesses, helping to build a stronger, more outward looking and prosperous global Britain."
Nebraska may be landlocked, but that doesnt stop Americas Navy from stopping by. North Platte will be one of 18 cities in eight states to host a performance by the United States Navy Band during its 2017 tour.

At 7 p.m. May 5 the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters will take the stage at North Platte High School for a free, family-friendly concert. The U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters is the official chorus of the Navy.

According to a press release, the Sea Chanters perform a variety of music ranging from traditional choral music including patriotic pieces and sea chanteys to opera, Broadway hits and more contemporary numbers. The group is often at the center of high-profile national events and performs for the president and vice president as well as congressional, military and foreign dignitaries.

One of the U.S. Navy Bands primary responsibilities involves touring the country. It is considered one of the Navys signature outreach programs. Every year the bands primary performing units tour regions that may not have the opportunity to see the band regularly.
A North Platte man is one of 20 indicted by the federal grand jury for the District of Nebraska, acting U.S. Attorney Robert C. Stuart announced Friday.

Nelson Alfonso Chavez Marroquin, 48, of North Platte has been charged with illegal re-entry after deportation on or about March 22, according to a press release from the U.S. Justice Department.

If Marroquin is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to two years in prison, a year of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and a $100 special assessment, the statement said.

According to the statement, the following indictments were also issued:

 Darrell Lee Blackfish, 36, unknown address, is charged with aggravated sexual contact during the summer of 2015 and abusive sexual contact with children beginning at an unknown date in 2014 and continuing into 2016.

 Chadwick Lynn Board, 31, of Norfolk is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine, knowingly using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime and knowingly possessing a firearm in furtherance of such crime. The charges involve suspected activity that began around April 2014 and continued through March 2017. Additionally, he was charged with being a felon in possession of ammunition and firearms, and user in possession of ammunition and firearms, both occurring this March.

 Juan Diaz Lopez, 26, address unknown, is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation following an aggravated felony conviction in late March.

 Christopher Frommie, 37, of Mead is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine relating to suspected activity that began in June 2016 and continued until March. He was also charged with knowingly using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime and knowingly possessing a firearm and felon in possession of a firearm on or about March 16.

 Reyes Gonzalez-Villanueva, 29, of Lincoln, is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation on or about April 11.

 Luis Guevara-Ceballos, 27, is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation following a felony conviction on or about Jan. 17.

 Marcos Hernandez-Cruz, age and address unknown, is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation on or about Aug. 1, 2016.

 Jallana Lemuz, 31, address unknown, is charged with possession with intent to distribute 280 grams or more of a mixture containing cocaine base on or about Feb. 14.

 Jerry Lopez, 31, address unknown, is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition on or about March 17.

 German Nava-Cleto, 32, of Omaha is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation following a felony conviction on or about March 23.

 Valeria Navarro-Martinez, 21; Jose Lopez-Salazar, 19; and Jose Manuel Zavala-Barron, 27, addresses unknown, are each charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine beginning around April 1 and continuing until around April 5. They were also charged with possession with intent to distribute a mixture containing methamphetamine.

 Joy Ramos, 40; Juan Diaz-Lopez, 26; and Oscar Macias, 23, all of Omaha, are charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute a mixture containing methamphetamine beginning on or about December 2016 and continuing to about Jan. 19. Diaz-Lopez was also charged with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine on or about Jan. 19. Ramos was also charged with possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of a mixture of methamphetamine on or about Jan. 19.

 Jose Real-Lepe, 34, of Sioux City, Iowa, is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation following a felony conviction on or about March 14.

 Ramiro Rios-Bernadac, 35, of Scottsbluff is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation following a felony conviction on or about Feb. 1.

 Jose Arturo Rios-Navarrete, 26, of Sidney is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation on or about March 23.
David Mead has some huge news on the day he will play his 150th NRL game.

Not only will Mead start the match against the Rabbitohs tonight after Jordan Kahu was withdrawn with a groin issue, he has some big news off the field.

Mead last night re-signed with the Broncos for another season, meaning he will be at the club until at least the end of 2018.

Mead joined the Broncos from the Gold Coast Titans at the end of last year.

See what Mead had to say on broncos.com.au



Mead finding his feet as a utility

Rabbitohs v Broncos: Schick Preview

The evolution of James Roberts

Rabbitohs must keep the 'Jet' grounded



Support the ANZAC Appeal
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Coincidentally, independent and local news sources depend on you too. Youve read 25 articles this month and now, wed like you to be join our mission and become a NUVO Supporter. For as little as $4 a month, you can keep us alive and fighting -- and can have unlimited access to the independent news that cant be found anywhere else.
DECATUR  As lawmakers crafted a compromise to bring the Republican health care overhaul to a vote, U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis touted the need for change but pledged that he would only support a plan that covered pre-existing conditions.

The Taylorville Republican said he was part of a small group of lawmakers working directly with Vice President Mike Pence to revive the legislation, which would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. But Davis reiterated his commitment to some of the 2010 laws most popular provisions.

My wife is a cancer survivor, 18 years this month. You really think I want to take away coverage for people who got a disease that they didnt ask for? Davis said. Lifetime caps (on coverage)  people say were going to take those away. No. Scare tactics.

Davis comments came during a meeting at his Decatur office with a group of 10 constituents, most of whom represented the NAACP Decatur Branch. Members of the Metro Decatur Black Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Peoples Action and NAACP Champaign Branch also spoke. A reporter from the Herald & Review was invited to observe.

The group also peppered Davis with questions about school vouchers, voter suppression laws and President Donald Trumps tax returns. The exchange about health care grew the most heated, however, as Davis responded to concerns that the Republican plan would make it more difficult or expensive for people to become insured.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, halted a vote on the measure last month when it became clear that the plan didnt have enough GOP support to pass. Leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus and moderate Tuesday Group brokered a compromise that could bring the deal back to the floor, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Trump struck a sanguine tone, telling reporters progress was being made on a great plan for the health care overhaul. We have a good chance of getting it soon, Trump said. Id like to say next week.

During the Decatur meeting, local physician Dr. Kathleen Miller cited an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which said last month that the Republican bill would have resulted in 24 million additional uninsured people in a decade. The office also said it would lead to higher out-of-pocket medical costs for many lower-income and people just shy of age 65 when they would become eligible for Medicare.

Davis dismissed the analysis, saying the office had already been proven inaccurate when it overestimated how many people would become insured under the Affordable Care Act.

If you lower the cost for the young and the healthy then the cost for the older and the pre-existing conditions is going to to go up, Miller said. The money has to come from somewhere.

Theres something called competition, Davis said.

Not in medicine theres not. That doesnt work in medicine, Miller responded.

Among other measures, Davis said Republicans want to allow groups such as the NAACP to band together nationwide and offer health coverage to members.

People say that cant happen because its got to be at the state level  no, thats BS, he said.

This isnt the first time that Davis has met with members of the NAACP Decatur Branch, said its president, Jeanelle Norman. She said the group appreciated the chance to raise issues and clarify his answers to their questions.
The Lake Area United Way gave the BP Whiting Refinery its top volunteering award at a statewide conference in Indianapolis after the oil refinery raised more than $349,000 in donations.

The former Standard Oil Refinery, which employs more than 1,800 workers along the lakefront, was honored as "Volunteer of the Year" at the 2017 United Way and Funds Volunteer of the Year Awards Banquet at the Indianapolis Marriott North.

I continue to be amazed at the generosity of the people that work at the BP Whiting refinery," BP Whiting Refinery Manager Don Porter said.

"Our employees commitment to the community and the tireless work of the Lake Area United Way, makes a world of difference to those in need and helps to build a stronger community."

BP, considered one of the Lake Area United Way's "Big Three" along with ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel, got the award after 15 employees volunteered more than 100 hours over four weeks on a committee for the Lake Area United Way's 2016-2017 workplace campaign. They hosted 70 presentations and fundraisers at the sprawling 1,400-acre refinery, which is based in Whiting but spills over into East Chicago and Hammond.

When Porter returned to Whiting as manager, he met with Lake Area United Way President and CEO Lisa Daugherty to ask how the refinery's workplace campaign could be more successful. She suggested a committee.

"Smaller workplaces will have one or two ambassadors," United Way Relationship Manager Erin Meisner said. "They exceeded expectations with 15 members from departments all over the refineries. We were able to host 70 in-person presentations, which took a lot of strategizing. Many times we had to go in during the early morning or evening, and security did an unbelievable job of picking us up, taking us to where we needed to be and making sure everything happened."

BP employees raised a total of $171,000, which the BP Foundation matched 100 percent to bring the total donation to $349,000. That included $3,800 raised through two hot dog sales, which the Lily Foundation matched.

The committee signed up 64 new donors, got 30 donors to increase contributions from the previous year, and got 44 donations of $1,000 or more, Meisner said.

More than 300 businesses in Lake County run workplace campaigns that encourage employees to donate and volunteer, such as at the annual Pack-a-Palooza that prepares meals for the needy.

Workers sign up to contribute through biweekly payroll deductions that go to a number of nonprofits that work to improve education, health, income and the safety net in the community.

"One out of four working families in Lake County is struggling," she said. "We were able to share the work we do to assist those families."
A local manufacturer is gunning for a defense contract it says would result in up to 400 jobs over the next decade in East Chicago.

Industrial forklift maker Hoist Liftruck is hoping to ride a wave of Buy American sentiment into a lucrative contract to make container handlers that U.S. military forces could use on rough terrain. It hopes to win a federal contract currently held by a Swedish company whose patents expire next year, Hoist Liftruck President Vince Flaska said.

President Donald Trump just announced details of a Buy American and Hire American policy at a stop in Kenosha last week. He spent a lot of time on the campaign trail pledging that American companies and workers should come first, such as with federal government contracting.

Flaska said Kalmar, a subsidiary of the Finnish company Cargotech, has had defense contracts valued at more than $1 billion to supply the Department of Defense with Rough Terrain Cargo Handlers, the heavy-duty equipment that can move storage containers on sand and other unstable surfaces, since 2000. The military refers to them by the acronym RTCH.

Many of the Army bases that these trucks went to dont need a RTCH, and dont use them, Flaska said. A lot of these trucks just sit there and have been a waste of taxpayers' money, and is military funding that could have gone to better use.

Kalmar dismissed Hoist Liftrucks accusations, but declined to comment on specifics, citing company policy.

At Kalmar, our company policy is not to comment on any information regarding ongoing business opportunities, our customers or competitors as they speak for themselves, said Maija Eklof, vice president of marketing and communications for Kalmar. There is no truth behind these arguments.

Hoist hopes to expand defense contracts

Flaska said Hoist Liftruck has supplied military posts such as Fort Knox, Fort Stewart and Camp Atterbury with its own lift trucks that can move containers from an asphalt base, but has not been able to procure the more lucrative contract for the rough-terrain lifts. It tried unsuccessfully in 2013 to sell its own all-terrain reach stackers to the federal government, though Flaska believes his company can supply the military at a lower cost to taxpayers.

By our estimates, on the number of RTCHs we have seen in the secondary market, and incorrect product selection based on application, there is easily well over $100 million wasted and likely more, Flaska said.

The company recently relocated manufacturing operations from Bedford Park, Illinois, to the 110-year-old former Blaw Knox tank factory in East Chicago, where its investing $40 million and aims to employ 500 over the next few years.

Hoist Liftruck has set aside some land on the site and would build a second factory if it were to secure the Department of Defense contract. Flaska estimates the company would have to hire 120 to 150 people within the first year or two, and ramp up to 300 to 400 employees working only on the military manufacturing over the next decade. The company has a private-label deal with Toyota, which is the world's No. 1 forklift manufacturer.

This will be a huge win for an area that desperately needs job and economic growth, he said.

We have already developed a RTCH truck, we have better worldwide distribution and support, and most importantly we are going to bring jobs to the United States and Indiana that are overseas.

Kalmar operates a manufacturing plant in Texas, but Flaska said he believes the company actually manufactures the Rough Terrain Container Handlers in Sweden and may just assemble them in the United States, based on his review of federal documents and an interview with an ex-Kalmar employee. Kalmar contests that assertion, but Flaska said the greater principle of the federal government doing business with an American company also is at stake.

Focusing on positives, pro-American mood

Hoist is a wholly owned U.S. company; we reinvest our money into our company providing for economic growth and job growth in Northwest Indiana and the United States, he said.

The money the military is spending with Kalmar is producing a reduced economic impact, since the money is going overseas. Hoist manufactures 100 percent in our East Chicago facility, and we only source to U.S. companies. One-hundred percent of our truck is made and sourced in the U.S.

Flaska said he reached out to the offices of U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, and Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, for help.

Viscloskys office initiated an inquiry with the U.S. Army to ensure it was aware of Hoist Liftrucks domestic manufacturing capabilities, spokesman Kevin Spicer said.

It is common sense that American taxpayer dollars should be used to support American workers, Visclosky said.

It is imperative that we use strong Buy America requirements, particularly in areas of national security, so that we preserve and expand the ingenuity and knowledge of our manufacturing base. I applaud Hoist Liftruck for their initiative to invest in our Region and seek further opportunities to create more manufacturing jobs for the skilled Northwest Indiana workforce.

Donnelly Press Secretary Michael Campbell said his office cannot help individual companies land federal contracts, but can notify them of opportunities and see if theyre operating on a level playing field.

Donnelly believes that American companies, employing American workers, should receive federal contracts when other factors are equal, he said.
CEDAR LAKE  Two men are suspected of stealing $48,000 in cellphones on Wednesday from an AT&T store on Wicker Avenue, police said.

At about 4:05 p.m., two black men wearing gloves, masks and hoods entered the store armed with handguns, demanding everyone in the store go to a back room, according to a news release from the Cedar Lake Police Department. Once in the back, the two forced an employee to open a storage safe where $48,000 in cellphones were stolen.

The suspects placed the phones in a large black bag, exited the store and entered a silver, four-door Hyundai Sonata with Illinois license plates. Police said it was a 2015 to 2017 model.

The phones, which ranged from iPhones to Samsung, have since been blacklisted by AT&T and are unusable, the release states.

The driver of the getaway vehicle may have been captured on surveillance video prior to the robbery.

Police believe the same men are suspects in previous robberies of at least two other AT&T stores in the Illinois suburbs on different dates.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Deputy Chief Carl Brittingham of the Cedar Lake Police Department at 219-374-5416 ext. 118 or carl.brittingham@cedarlakein.org.
CHESTERTON  Christopher Dillard told police he had delivered cocaine and marijuana to co-worker Nicole Gland on the night he is accused of stabbing and killing the 24-year-old woman.

While the 50-year-old Hobart resident did not confess to the killing to police, he reportedly told his long-time girlfriend in a recorded interview room at the Chesterton Police Department, "I killed that girl, I didn't mean to," according to charging information.

"He indicated to her that the drugs had a hold of him," police said.

Dillard was arrested early Thursday, charged Friday afternoon with murder and is being held without bond at the county jail. He is scheduled to make an initial court appearance Monday before Porter Superior Judge Bill Alexa.

Chesterton Police Chief Dave Cincoski said during a press conference Friday the case remains under investigation and called on the help of anyone who has any information.

"It is far from over," he said.

Victim's father speaks

Matthew Gland, Nicole's father and a teacher at Chesterton High School, said he hopes people will take Dillard's drug claims as just claims.

"We have confidence that the true facts of this horrible crime will only be brought to light through the efforts of local and regional law enforcement agencies. Though we desire a swift ending to this part of our suffering, we will patiently wait for these facts to come forth and people can draw their own conclusions," Gland said in a statement Friday.

"My daughter was vivacious, fun-loving, caring, loyal to the core, and always willing to help people ... she always stood up for the underdogs in her life."

Stolen vehicle report helped police

Police were led to Dillard by his girlfriend, who had reported a couple of days before the killing that he had taken her vehicle, according to court documents. She reportedly called police back after the homicide made the news to inform them that Dillard worked as a bouncer at the Upper Deck Lounge, 139 South Calumet Road. She also said a knife was missing from her butcher block.

Gland worked as a bartender at the lounge and had left the business at 2:51 a.m., police said. Her dead body was discovered slumped over the wheel of her SUV in the bar's rear parking area about six hours later.

Police said she suffered stab wounds in the back of her neck and an autopsy confirmed that was the cause of her death.

Dillard, who told police he had been "partying rough" for a couple of days, said Gland gave him her car key when he arrived at the Upper Deck Lounge at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and he placed the cocaine and marijuana under the front seat of her car, according to charging information. He reportedly snorted some cocaine in the vehicle, returned the key to Gland and claimed to have left for another Chesterton bar.

Police said they learned Gland never locked her vehicle because the locks were broken.

He said he then went to Portage to pick up more drugs and had his cellphone stolen, police said. He also said he changed his clothes during the day Wednesday, but could not explain why and police were unable to locate them where he claimed they were left.

Dillard said he took the knife from home a couple months earlier for protection and said it fell out of his vehicle at some point that day or possibly a week earlier.

"When pressed for answers, he would indicate that things were hazy from 'partying rough,' " police said.

Police said he reportedly called his girlfriend at 6:53 a.m. Wednesday from a Gary casino.

He said his last memory from that morning was sleeping at a lakefront park in Hobart.

At one point during the police interview, Dillard said he wanted to confess, but ultimately changed his mind, police said.

An acquaintance of Gland started a GoFundMe account to raise money for her funeral and other expenses experienced by Gland's family. The account had raised nearly $29,000 as of Friday afternoon and can be found at gofundme.com/rrm45d4.
For 40 years, Ronald McDonald Houses have served as a haven and home away from home for more than 100,000 families whose children have been hospitalized with critical health issues.

Funded through Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana, the organization continues the mission of providing comfort, compassion and a sense of community at no or low cost that started with an idea proposed by Charlie Marino and Dr. Ed Baum in 1977.

When Marinos daughter, Gage, was receiving treatment at Childrens Memorial Hospital on Deming Place, he saw firsthand the critical need for housing for families with sick children. To open the house, Marino and Baum rallied the support of the McDonalds Operators of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana and Bill Chunowitz, McDonalds president, to provide funding and welcome the Morrisey family as its first guests in 1977.

In honor of its 40th anniversary, the organization is rolling out a new campaign called Raise the Roof to continue its mission. The celebrations officially kick off during the organization's 40th anniversary gala presented by Wintrust Bank on Saturday. The original founders and the Morrisey family will be at the gala.

The Ronald McDonald charity has continued to grow to meet the need to provide comfort and care for families of children with complex medical issues who travel to the Chicago area to receive world-class medical care, said Holly Buckendahl, CEO of RMHC-CNI. Childhood illness will always exist and so we must remain committed to helping families be close to their children when they need life-saving medical treatment.

Today, the charity has five houses near Advocate Childrens Hospital in Oak Lawn; Luries Childrens Hospital in Chicago, the Ronald McDonald Childrens Hospital at Loyola University Medical Center in Hines, Illinois; the University of Chicago Medicine Comers Childrens Hospital and Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Illinois.

Local families share their stories

Krystal and Jeffrey Poortenga, of Griffith, and Russ and Joey Webster, of Gilberts, Illinois, now consider the staff and volunteers at Ronald McDonald Houses part of their own families after experiencing the care and comfort they received as their young daughters faced life-limiting medical conditions.

Elena Anne Poortenga

I only got to hold her for less than a minute after she was born. They took her immediately into surgery, recalled Krystal Poortenga whose daughter Elena Anne was born on Sept. 17, 2014, at Christ Advocate Hospital in Oak Lawn with gastroschisis, a condition where the intestines form outside the body.

Her stomach was out as well, said the first-time mother about the condition known as short gut which is life-limiting. She was at Christ Advocate for six months. They put her intestines in what is called a 'silo' ... It hangs over the baby to hold the intestines vertically.

Gravity gradually placed the intestines back into Elenas little body near her navel. However, Krystal said, her body did not like that. Her body rejected that.

Surgeons inserted a central line for feeding and gave Elena an ostomy to allow bowel movements.

Krystal spent that six months at the Ronald McDonald House located just a block from Christ Advocate while Elena underwent numerous procedures.

The baby was transferred to Lurie Childrens Hospital in Chicago and Krystal stayed at the Ronald McDonald House there.

She was at Luries three months and we were finally able to take her home, Krystal said. But we werent approved for a home nurse and we had to learn how to clean her central line, her ostomy and GJ tube in her stomach.

Elena underwent more than 30 surgeries and procedures in her short life. After a while, we stopped counting, Krystal said.

To pay Elenas medical bills, both Jeffrey and Krystal had to work full time. While her parents worked, relatives cared for Elena when she was at home and Krystal stayed at the Ronald McDonald House whenever she could during the toddlers hospitalizations at Lurie.

An active toddler when at home, Elena climbed out of her crib this past February and her GJ tube came out. The Poortengas called Elenas doctors as the child became more irritable. On Feb. 4, the family went to the emergency room.

We got to the hospital and she wanted me to hold her, so we didnt get the stroller out, Krystal said. Suddenly she became stiff and wasnt responding to me.

In the emergency room, CPR was performed on Elena, but the child died at age 2 years and 5 months.

Honoring their daughter and the work of Ronald McDonald Houses, the Poortenga family began collecting pop tabs. With the help of family, friends and students at Highland Christian Academy, Krystal and Jeffrey Poortenga have collected more than 500,000.

Were going to continue collecting these pop tabs, she said.

Whitney Webster

Thanksgiving 2013 started out as a festive time for Russ and Joey Webster, who had welcomed their third daughter weeks before. However, the holiday quickly turned into a life-changing moment for the couple.

My wife asked Whitney, who was 3, to get her keys. Whitney was in the kitchen and got on a stool to get the keys. She fell and the stools weight fell on her stomach, said Russ Webster. She spent several days on the couch, but on the third day we took her to the ER.

Imaging test revealed a problem with Whitneys kidney and the Websters pediatrician referred them to Lurie Childrens Hospital, Russ said. The kitchen stool hitting Whitneys abdomen ruptured a cancerous tumor on her kidney.

It went from Stage 1 cancer to Stage 3 because it ruptured, he recalled. At that point we realized we are in this for the long haul.

Whitney underwent eight rounds of radiation and eight months of chemotherapy to combat the cancer.

The Ronald McDonald House near Lurie became their home and base station, Russ said. She spent at least a month at a time at the hospital. We returned to the Ronald McDonald House many, many times.

Sometimes Whitneys radiation treatments would begin at 6:30 a.m. or 7:30 a.m., he said, necessitating stays at the Ronald McDonald House to avoid getting stuck in traffic.

In August 2019, Whitney will reach the five-year mark to be cancer-free, Russ said adding that her prognosis is good.

We see so many families who have lost children. Were so fortunate, he said.

Everyone at the Ronald McDonald House is still like family, Russ said. People go there in a season of life, living life on a razors edge and find caring and comfort.
On Wednesday, residents of East Chicago rallied outside the closed Carrie Gosch Elementary School with a water tower in the distance displaying the seemingly mocking phrase, "For Our Children."

Several residents and activists spoke about the health complications they face as a result of immense lead and arsenic contamination in the soil. Activists compiled a list of demands including groundwater monitoring by the EPA, an East Chicago homeowner buyout program and community health surveys.

Pruitts EPA plans will gut the Region 5 office in Chicago, leaving inadequate resources to meet the needs of East Chicago and other communities living with contaminated soil, air and water. We must continue to demand our neighbors' basic human rights be honored.

Join us at the Peoples Climate March at noon on April 29 at Chicago's Federal Plaza.

Mel Whitehouse, Chicago
CHICAGO  Two Chicago aldermen want the city's police to look into using technology that would detect if motorists involved in injury accidents were texting while driving.

Chicago City Council Finance Committee chairman Edward Burke and Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale introduced the resolution on Wednesday. The so-called "textalyzer" is a device that can access a cellphone's operating system to check if it was being used to text or email. It has raised concerns of civil libertarians.

The aldermen want Chicago police to appear before the council "to address the use of emerging technology" in enforcing the city's existing traffic laws and investigation of vehicle crashes.

Burke says he thinks drivers text "because they think there is little chance of ever getting caught." He says the behavior threatens other motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
TEL AVIV, Israel  Syria still possesses chemical weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday, warning against the banned munitions being used again.

At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional U.S. strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.

Mattis spoke alongside Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all," said Mattis. He said he didn't want to elaborate on the amounts Syria has in order to avoid revealing sources of intelligence.

"I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it's a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it's going to have to be taken up diplomatically and they would be ill advised to try to use any again, we made that very clear with our strike," he said.

Israeli defense officials said this week that Syria still has up to three tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of President Bashar Assad's weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.

Lieberman also refused to go into detail but said "We have 100 percent information that Assad regime used chemical weapons against rebels."

Assad has strongly denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government. Top Assad ally, Russia, has asserted a Syrian government airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons factory, causing the disaster.

In response to the April 4 attack, the United States fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base it said was the launching pad for the attack.

Before meeting with Mattis in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel is encouraged by the change of administrations in Washington.

"We sense a great change in the direction of American policy," Netanyahu said. He referred to the U.S. cruise missile strike in Syria as an important example of the new administration's "forthright deeds" against the use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has been locked in a six-year civil war against an array of opposition forces. The fighting has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syria's population.

Israel has largely stayed out of the fighting, though it has carried out a number of airstrikes on suspected Iranian weapons shipments it believed were bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Iran and Hezbollah, both bitter enemies of Israel, along with Russia have sent forces to support Assad.

Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons arsenal to avert U.S. strikes following a chemical weapons attack in opposition-held suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 that killed hundreds of people and sparked worldwide outrage.

Ahead of that disarmament, Assad's government disclosed it had some 1,300 tons of chemical weapons, including sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard gas.

The entire stockpile was said to have been dismantled and shipped out under international supervision in 2014 and destroyed. But doubts began to emerge soon afterward that not all such armaments or production facilities were declared and destroyed. There also is evidence that the Islamic State group and other insurgents have acquired chemical weapons.

___

Associated Press writer Ian Deitch in Tel Aviv contributed to this story.
A 20-year-old man from Russias Sakhalin Oblast region recently made national headlines after being declared the winner of a womens lingerie photo contest organized by a popular store chain.

Andrey Nagorny, a resident of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, heard of the online photo contest through his girlfriend. Aware of his feminine features, they decided to take a few photos of Andrey wearing some sexy womens lingerie and enter them into the contest, just for fun. Andreys girlfriend, whose name has not been made public, fixed his hair and did his makeup before asking a talented photographer to snap some rather professional-looking photos of him and submitting them to the contest organizer online. They expected to get a good laugh out of the whole thing, but what they didnt expect was for Andrey to be declared the winner.

Photo: Andrey Nagorny/Instagram

The lingerie store originally declared 20-year-old Andrey Nagorny the winner of their photo contest, and awarded him the title of Miss Avocado. But that was before they contacted him to schedule a professional photo shoot and learned that he was actually a man. Afraid of how the public  particularly their customers  would react to a man being celebrated for wearing womens lingerie, they decided to disqualify him and hand the title over to the first runner up.

The boy looks very similar to a girl, and since anyone could enter our contest, he chose to participate as well. We got his photos, and in the end the jury chose him as the winner, he was selected, Zheanna Stolpovskaya, manager of the lingerie store chain that organized the photo contest, told 360TV. For the final photo shoot, we chose three girls, he didnt participate, because the photos will be available for everyone to see. Obviously, we couldnt predict how the general public and our buyers would react to them.

Photo: Andrey Nagorny/Instagram

Basically, the guy won, but when the organizers learned that the person in the photos wasnt a woman, they decided that he couldnt be the winner. Andrey Nagorny apparently didnt even win a consolation prize, but he says that hes not disappointed at all, because he never expected to win in the first place.

As for the reaction of the public to the organizers decision to disqualify Andrey, it wasnt exactly what they expected.

Photo: Andrey Nagorny/Instagram

Idiots! Now he can easily sue them for gender discrimination. And you thought that only women are discriminated against? one person wrote on Russian social media.

They are so full of s*hit! Why didnt they announce gender requirements from the very start? Or give the first prize to the owner of the lingerie store chain? another commented.

Photo: Andrey Nagorny/Instagram

Guess their decision backfired

But, controversy aside, Andrey Nagornys win was pretty impressive. If he so wishes, he could probably become a successful androgynous fashion model, like his countryman, supermodel Stanyslas Fedyanin, or Serbian sensation Andrej Pejic.

Photo: Andrey Nagorny/Instagram

Andrey told 360TV that even without makeup and womens clothing he often gets mistaken for a woman, but he has gotten used to it, and his friends dont tease him too much about it.

Check out more of Andrey Nagornys artistic photos and amazing transformations, check out his Instagram account
Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan have recently equipped busy intersections with automatic pedestrian gates that only open when the traffic light turns green. The measure is aimed at preventing jaywalking, which has become a serious problem in many urban centers across China.

Chinese officials have been cracking down on jaywalkers for years. Jaywalking in the Asian country, often referred to as Chinese-style street crossing, often involves pedestrians completely ignoring traffic signals and crossing busy streets and roads, usually in large groups. This contributes heavily to traffic jams and bottlenecks in busy Chinese cities, and fines havent proven as effective a deterrent as authorities had hoped.

Photo: Mark Pedron

In the past couple of years, weve seen a variety of bizarre measures meant to deter jaywalking, including shaming offenders by making them wear green caps, painting red lines on the pavement to make people think twice before crossing a road, or placing injured mannequins and white crosses on roads to highlight the danger jaywalking are exposing themselves to. These havent been working too well either.

Now, traffic officials in Wuhan, Chinas Hubei province, are trying a different approach  stopping people from jaywalking in busy intersections with the helps of automated pedestrian gates, the kind you normally see at subway stations. For now, they have only been installed on either side of several pedestrian crossing, but if they prove effective, authorities plan to have them installed all around the city.

The gates only allow pedestrians to cross the road when the traffic light turns green, and close as the red light comes on. But what prevents people from just going around the gates, or just jumping over them as they do at the subway ticketing stations, right? Well officials have considered that possibility as well, and have announced that surveillance cameras above the gates monitor activity at all times, and offenders will be shamed by having their faces displayed on digital billboards in the area.

Jaywalking has often been described as a cultural problem in China, with citizens displaying a complete lack of principles and total disregard for the law. Others claim that authorities and infrastructure are to blame. Chinese writer Yuan Xiaobin told Quartz that in Germany traffic lights are programmed to last no longer than 60 seconds, which is the amount of time studies found that German residents would wait to cross the street,, but in China they can last for up to 90 seconds. And when the light does turn green for pedestrians, theres no telling if the cars will actually allow them to cross.

The measure may prove to be very expensive, especially if one commenters prediction comes true. Someone might take away the turnstile and sell it for scrap metal, he joked.

Photos: Weibo

via Mashable
Heavy metal music and yoga may seem incompatible, but one New York yoga instructor with a passion for metal has mixed them together in a series of classes that help people relax and unleash their inner beast at the same time.

Headbanging, death growls or devil horns hand gestures, all executed to a background of loud metal music, arent exactly elements associated with yoga, but its exactly what you can expect while attending a Metal Yoga Bones class run by Saskia Thode. Its not the most Zen experience in the world, thats for sure, but the Brooklyn-based yoga instructor claims that her classes are just as liberating, if not more so, than regular yoga.

Photo: Metal Yoga Bones/Facebook

Instead of the group Om that usually starts off a yoga class, Thode gets metal yoga class participants in the mood with death growls  a loud and booming roar often used in death metal music  screaming and banging of fists on the floor. The classes do involve actual yoga, but Saskia likes to spice things up with metal-themed poses she invented herself, like Destroyer666, F*ck you or Corpse Pose. She also incorporates air guitar or flipping the bird in some of the exercises.

Metal Yoga starts off with a lot of growling, screaming, and hitting the floor with our fists to give people a chance to release some of the anger, stress and the darkness inside, Saskia Those told The Guardian. I also encourage people to move; if they like a song and like the beat, why not move with it? Occasionally we will start a circle pit or such, and to close the class, we raise our voices to Satan with a dark and deep howl.

Photo: Metal Yoga Bones/Facebook

Asked how she got the idea for a metal-themed yoga class, the young instructor said: It all started during my own home practice. At home, I usually played metal and enjoyed the two together, so during my teacher training, when we were supposed to think about playlists for our demonstration yoga class, I was thinking, what can I play that is me? Metal, of course!

Be prepared to completely tap into the dark side, to scream, beat, sweat, and do anything you need to do to unleash your inner beast, the Metal Yoga Bones website states. Listen to your favorite blasting metal tunes while letting your body burn with hellish heat. Move and breathe while listening to your favorite bands. Raise your metal horns (mantras), and offer your practice to the darkness. We will be holding poses until we are feeling their hellish fire creeping into our bodies until we rest like the dead in Corpse Pose in the end of the class.

Photo: Metal Yoga Bones/Facebook

German-born Thode holds weekly metal yoga classes at the Saint Vitus Bar and Cobra Club, both in Brooklyn, and welcomes everyone to enjoy the experience. There is no advanced yoga class and no beginner class our practice consists of simple, basic poses that will help ease tension and provide a respite from our hectic lives, she states.

If youre tired of regular yoga, but death metal isnt really your thing, there are lots of other special types of yoga you can try. If you like beer, theres beer yoga, if you love goats, theres goat yoga, and if swearing just comes naturally to you, try rage yoga. Oh, and if you like your yoga without the physical exercise, give laughter yoga a try.
Grass Tacks: 10 States to Avoid If You Want to Actually Enjoy Weed zo Zo is a staff writer at Okayplayer where he covers

Now that weve had a moment to champion the good, its time we move on to the bad and the ugly. As much as the legal weed debate revolves around states rights and safe access, the crux of the discussion centers on the human cost. The stats say it all. Disparities in sentencing between black and white non-violent drug offenders leave African Americans as much as eight times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession depending on which pocket of the south you find yourself in.

Its also no surprise that the states with the strictest enforcement of marijuana laws are those in the south with historically high incarceration rates, where the private prisons and the prison-industrial complex are most directly at work. Despite crime rates continuing to drop across the country (a 30-plus year trend,) non-violent drug arrests continue to rise. Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow unpacks this better than this writer (or most) ever could, so lets just chalk that up as required reading for anyone thats really looking for the vestiges of slavery and how the War on Drugs only compounded longstanding economic and political barriers for equal prosecution under the law.

As our bit of public service for the day, weve compiled a list of states you shouldnt be caught dead in with even a speck of leaf. The ones most certainly ignoring the call of their constituents and cracking down most severely on the disenfranchised. In some of these states, sale is still a felony and possession can get you locked up for as long as 5 years for a single joint. If you happen to live in one, be sure to refer to your local NORML chapter for a comprehensive guide to your rights under the respective laws of your state.

It should be noted that most of these states actually have some form of medical marijuana legislation in effect, but have restricted access so severely that its nearly impossible for a patient with actual medicinal needs to safely procure their treatment. For those neglected patients, a lawyer will also be handy.

Kentucky

Like the rest of the country, marijuana use in black and white communities is nearly identical. However, African Americans are nearly six times as likely to be arrested and prosecuted according to an ACLU study. Its a far cry from their former title as the nations leading industrial hemp manufacturer. Last year, Kentucky legislators proposed a bill that sought to legalize recreational use and sale in the state, but failed to take action. At the top of 2017, Sen. Perry Clark introduced SB 76, a second swing at the end of prohibition and downright racist incarceration gaps.

Alabama

With black users being 4 times as likely to be arrested for possession, Bamas yet another instance of the chronically-lagging south. The states laws are so stiff that a second possession charge and a first trafficking charge bear equally heavy repercussions; both felonies and punishable by a mandatory minimum of one year and one day in jail. Even your first possession charge could land you in prison for up to a year for as little as one joint. Steer clear of the Crimson State, dear stoners.

Georgia

While the state is one of the few in the south with some semblance of protections for at least medicinal users, its failed set up any sort of system to actually supply a patients medication. It also maintains some of the strictest penalties for possession in the country, with two ounces on your person punishable by up to 10 years in prison. According to the ACLU, African Americans in Georgia are 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white users.

Indiana

Even with 73% of Hoosiers supporting the creation of a state-run medical marijuana program, lawmakers have been deaf to the overwhelming demand for safe access, and have done little to roll back another set of the nations most mind-numbingly harsh penalties. With just a joint in your pocket, authorities are capable of locking you up for up to a year and slapping on a $5,000 fine. The ACLU found that African Americans are 3 times as likely to be arrested for possession as white users in a state where the rate of use is equal. Yet another reason to avoid the Ameican midwest almost entirely.

South Dakota

Few things wreak of racial inequality the way South Dakota does. A state where African Americans are 4.8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white users also boasts a singular piece of legislation that criminalizes not only having weed on you, but in you. You read that correctly, South Dakota is the only place in the continental US of A with an internal possession, which effectively slaps on a fine and/or jailtime for mere consumption, regardless of the plants legality in the state it was consumed. Even possession of a small amount on your persons is punishable by 2 years in jail and a $2,000 fine. When venturing through the Dakotas, be sure to take the northern trail.

Oklahoma

Its both a relief and a little sad to know it took Oklahoma until last years elections to finally strip marijuana possession of a felony classification. As of July 1st, all possessions will be looked at as misdemeanor offenses, but lets never forget this is the place that once sentenced a man to life in prison for .16 grams of weed back in 1992. In a state where African-Americans are 2.9 times more likely to be arrested for possession, Okalahoma should be avoided at all costs, even if youre just passing through.

Utah

The adopted home of The Jazz is not here for the funny cigarettes. Touted by the MPP (Marijuana Policy Project) as one of the strictest states on possession, Utah legislators lock up 3.75 times more black residents than white. And while 72% of the states population is in favor of at least a comprehensive medical program, the most recent bill to hit a senate committee, S.B. 211, does little to establish protections or even qualifying conditions for safe access. Currently, possession of up to an ounce can result in up to six months in jail. Read: get your jazz elsewhere.

Iowa

For a state that prides itself on maintaining rights, Iowan lawmakers have done little to curb the disproportionate arrest rates of black residents. According to the ACLU, African-Americans in Iowa are eight times more likely to be arrested for possession than their white neighbors (the highest rate in the country,) and recreational users could be subject to as long as six months in jail for a single joint, with a requisite $1,000 fine.

Tennessee

While cities like Memphis and Nashville have taken action to decriminalize possession, leaving prosecution at the discretion of the arresting officer (still very much problematic,) lawmakers have yet to heed the call of the 75% of its inhabitants calling for reform on the state level. There have been some strides made, however. Last year, legislators loosened up penalties by dropping the felony charge that was once associated with third and subsequent possession charges. Still, African-Americans are three times more likely to be arrested for possession than white Tennesseans.

South Carolina

Like Tennessee and Oklahoma, South Carolina is currently in a state of flux as legislators mull over the merits of a state-run medical marijuana system. At the moment, only those suffering from a (very) short list of conditions are protected under state law. Possession is a misdemeanor offense, but still, African-Americans are three times more likely to be arrested than white users in the state. A new bill, proposed on the first day of this years legislative calendar, S 212, seeks to establish a compassionate care program that would effectively grant patients access to legal medical marijuana from state-sanctioned dispensaries.
Agricultural News

Oklahoma Farm Bureau Keeps Pushing for a No Vote in the State Senate on HB 1374

The latest "Lincoln to Local" video from the Oklahoma Farm Bureau features action from the 2017 State Legislative session. As the final month of the legislative session nears, Farm Bureau's LeeAnna McNally discusses again the problems with HB 1374 and property tax increases, along with proposed revenue raising measures like fuel tax increases. McNally also shares some recent facts on Oklahoma's abundant water resources and the vital need to develop water.





Oklahoma Farm Bureau is urging their members to contact their State Senator to vote no on HB1374.





Watch Lincoln to Local with hostess Hannah Nemecek and Farm Bureau lobbyist LeeAnna McNally by clicking on the LISTEN BAR in the video box below.























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Azerbaijan violated the Karabakh ceasefire thirty five times yesterday and last night, firing more than 400 various caliber small arms rounds, in addition to one 60mm rocket along the eastern border, this according to the Artsakh Ministry of Defense.

The ministry adds that Artsakh forces responded in kind to suppress the firing and continue to monitor the situation.
Agricultural News

Meet Anna Crosswhite of Kingerfisher FFA Chapter, Your Northwest District Star in Agribusiness







During the month of April, the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and Oklahoma Farm Report is spotlighting the twenty District Stars of Oklahoma FFA that are among the highest achievers in the organization. The stars come from the five districts in four categories- Star in Ag Placement, Star in Agriscience, Star in Agribusiness and Star in Production Agriculture. Last week, we spotlighted the five district stars in Agriscience- this week we move on to the Agribusiness Stars for 2017.





We end this week's features of Oklahoma FFA's District Stars in Agribusiness, with Anna Crosswhite of the Kingfisher FFA Chapter, representing the Northwest District. Crosswhite first developed her interest in beekeeping during the 7th grade after reading about the vocation in a book from her school library on self-sufficient farming. Eventually, Crosswhite's interest turned into a practicing hobby when she got her first hive. Now, years later, she has turned it into a steady business.







Today, I actually have 22 hives," she said. "Over the years, I've been lucky enough to get grants for my SAE whether it be from Monsanto or the American Beekeeping Federation. I've used these grants to purchase larger colonies and spent the profits on new equipment."







Crosswhite makes her money beekeeping, selling the honey her bees produce. She says her profits come to her all at once, because she only extracts the honey from the hives once every summer around the end of June. She then sells her honey for $15 a jar.







"This past summer I was able to extract 150 pounds of honey," Crosswhite said. "If it weren't for FFA I'd never have been able to take my small hobby and turn it into a successful business."







Crosswhite says that the marketing aspect of the business is her favorite part. She says this has allowed her to put a bit of her personality into each jar of honey she sells. And she credits the FFA with instilling in her the ability to make her business viable.







"I'm not going to lie, the marketing side is actually my favorite part. It definitely brings out my 8-year-old, selling lemonade personality," she admitted. "But FFA has really taught me to take all of the things I love and actually make them something realistic."







Crosswhite will attend Oklahoma State University's Honor College this fall. Currently, she has not decided on a major to pursue, but says she does plan to continue her beekeeping business.







You can hear her entire conversation with Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays, by clicking or tapping on the LISTEN BAR below.







A complete list of the District Stars can be seen on the Oklahoma FFA website by clicking or tapping here.







Our salute of the 2017 District Stars of the Oklahoma FFA is brought to you by American Farmers & Ranchers, proud to support Oklahoma's youth. Visit the AFR website by clicking or tapping here to learn more on how AFR supports the young people of Oklahoma, and how AFR can provide you with quality insurance for your home, auto, farm, and life.























You can hear her full conversation with Farm Director Ron Hays by clicking the LISTEN BAR below

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Ive arrived at the house of Shahen Abrahamyan in Ditak, a village in Armenias Ararat Province. It's slowly crumbling and has been declared unsafe to live in.

Inside, the living room is warm and inviting. The family cat purrs next to the stove.

Armenouhie Grigoryan, Shahens wife, says the cat is their first-line defense against rats and snakes. Large cracks dot the walls of the house. In the winter, the cold winds seep through. In summer, snakes sneak in.

Armenouhie apologizes for the state of the room. Shes just returned from working in the fields. Childrens clothes are strewn about. A few dirty dishes are on the table.

The house is comprised of three rooms. One room is no longer habitable. Its too damp and damaged. Its used as the family shower  stand in the basin and douse yourself with water from a large pitcher.

In 2000, the house was declared unfit for safe habitation by a private real estate appraiser.

As were talking, Shahen Abrahamyan enters the room. After saying hello, he asks Armenouhie why she hasnt tidied the place.

Mr. Abrahamyan had been pruning his apple trees. Hes holding the pruning scissors. His breathing is labored. He says that while he cant perform hard work, he cant stay idly at home.

Abrahamyan, 57, says his respiratory problems stem from his time as a volunteer fighter in the Artsakh War. He and his brother Arshak signed up together.

I came down with tuberculosis during a winter battle. I was in bad shape, Abrahamyan says. Due to his disability, he receives a monthly pension of 16,000 AMD (US$33).

Rima, Arshaks wife, enters the room. She tells us that she used to hide her husbands gun in the childs crib or dresser. Once, when her son was five, he took the gun and ran to the street. Rima barely managed to grab the gun out of the childs hand before any damage was done.

The Abrahamyans used to raise sheep. Rima recalls those early days with fondness. They and other war volunteers would gather around a large table in the yard of the family house and slaughter a sheep for dinner.

Marousya

Shahen and Armenouhie have four children  Sarkis (19), Davit (18), Levon (17) and Marousya (7).

Sarkis and Davit are known throughout the village for an incident that occurred in 2002.

Sarkis

It was in 2002. We have a place back of the house to store hay. There were some two tons. We were picking figs in the yard. The kids were running around. Suddenly, we saw smoke. I ran to the hay shed. The door was closed. I opened the door and saw Sarkis and Davit inside, Armenouhie recalls.

The boys were pretty badly burnt. Sarkis has been granted a military service waiver because of his burns. Davit will also not have to serve.

Armenouhie

Armenouhie says the boys are still psychologically scarred from the incident. Before turning 18, the boys each received a disability pension of 21,5000 AMD. Both have filed to have their pensions reinstated but the examination committee found them to be disability free.

Armenouhie tells me they make ends meet by growing crops nearby. Their priority is to either renovate the house or move.

In 2011, Mr. Abrahamyan met with then Ararat Governor Edik Barseghyan, asking for assistance to repair the house. Barseghyan advised him to contact the central government in Yerevan.

Its been four years since filing a petition. Weve yet to hear anything, says Abrahamyan, adding that hes been denied a meeting to talk to the current provincial governor.

Photos: Saro Baghdasaryan
U.S. financial institutions brought in more money from overdraft fees in 2016 than any year since the financial crisis, according to recent data. But the largest Nebraska banks are bucking that trend  they collected less in overdraft fees last year than they did in 2015.

It could be a one-time blip in the data thats made Nebraska banks go the other way from their national peers. It could be that people are writing fewer checks. Or it could be that a relatively strong economy  with one of the countrys lowest unemployment rates  means theres less reason for people to overdraw their accounts.

Or, says at least one bank, it could be any of the above combined with new programs meant to steer people into less-expensive ways  like a line of credit  to deal with shortfalls in cash.

U.S. banks, savings and loans and credit unions claimed $33.3 billion worth of revenue from overdraft fees in 2016, up from $32.5 billion a year earlier, according to the latest data from Moebs Services, a bank research firm. The 2016 figures represent the most revenue collected from overdraft fees since 2009  in the wake of the financial crisis  and also the largest year-over-year percentage increase, 2.5 percent, since then.

That was also the year before the Federal Reserve enacted a rule that prohibited banks from automatically hitting customers with overdraft fees for transactions made with debit cards or at automated teller machines. Starting in 2010, banks were required to get customers permission before charging them for overdrafts.

The nations three largest banks  JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo  each saw modest increases to their overdraft revenue in 2016.

But among the largest Nebraska-based banks, those revenues were either flat or heading the opposite direction from 2015 to 2016.

At First National Bank of Omaha, which holds more deposits in Nebraska and in Omaha than any other bank, overdraft fee revenue fell 21 percent to $5.9 million in 2016.

Its the result of the banks decisions in 2013 to cap the amount of overdrafts a customer could incur in a single day to four, and also to establish limits that would void fees for small-dollar overdrafts, the bank says. Before, there were no limits on either.

We started to notice that a lot of fee revenue was coming from a small cohort of customers that habitually abused their account, said Jerry OFlanagan, First Nationals head of consumer banking. It wasnt uncommon for anyone in this small group to overdraft 100 to 150 times a year.

At the rate of $33 each, that means some First National account holders were shelling out as much as $5,000 a year or more just on overdraft fees.

Today, First National account holders face a $33 fee a piece for up to 4 overdrafts in a single day; those fees are waived if an account is overdrawn by $20 or less, however, or if the transaction in question is $20 or less.

I think were taking away a significant source of customer angst and frustration around these nuisance fees and we feel good living up to our philosophy, which puts the customer in the center, OFlanagan said.

Indeed, consumers and bankers relationships are complicated when it comes to overdraft fees, those expensive penalties that financial institutions levy on customers when they transact for amounts that exceed checking account balances.

These fees range from as low as $5 to as much as $50, Moebs research found. The median fee in the U.S. in 2016 was $30, where it peaked in 2013 and has been the same since.

Maligned by some critics as predatory, overdraft charges can mean the difference between paying $1.39 or $31.39 for a 2-liter bottle of Coke. And thats only the beginning.

The bank fee is only the tip of the iceberg, in some cases, says Bob Sutton, director of compliance at American National Bank.

Thats because banks can opt to not cover an overdraft transaction, which can also put the account holder at risk of getting dinged again by the merchant for whats essentially a bad check. Add up to $35 for merchants troubles to $33 for an overdraft at American National  maybe throw in a trip to a payday lender to stem short-term financial woes, too  and costs stack up quickly.

Consumer advocates like the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency, and the Pew Charitable Trusts have knocked such fees because they say the burden falls disproportionately on financially vulnerable consumers. The CFPB has even gone after individual banks for what it alleged are unlawful or deceptive overdraft practices. Both organizations have advocated for changes.

The prevalence of fee-based overdraft programs at both large and small banks underscores the need for new policies to prevent courtesy overdraft programs from being costly and unsustainable forms of short-term credit for many financially vulnerable consumers, said Nick Bourke, director of Pews consumer finance project, in late 2016. Regulators should set reasonable limits on overdraft fees and help banks create new small-credit options for those who want them.

Others, like economist Mike Moebs, see them as a necessary evil. Simply put, Overdrafts are needed, said Moebs, who is also an accountant and chief executive of Moebs Services, an economic research firm situated north of Chicago. Theres not much out there to (replace overdraft fees), and the reason is that overdrafts are unsecured credit.

In other words, its credit a bank offers without any collateral  like a house or a car.

Omaha-based American National saw revenues from overdraft fees it charges fall 9 percent to about $2.7 million in 2016. Its the No. 5 Nebraska-based bank in terms of in-state deposits, according to the latest regulatory figures.

Its $33 per-item fee can be applied up to 8 times in a single day, Sutton said. That means someone could potentially rack up $264 in overdraft charges in one day.

The bank in 2016 introduced a new program that keeps track of customers who habitually overdraft their accounts and triggers automated mailings to encourage them to take advantage of other bank services to avoid bouncing checks over and over.

For instance, they could open savings accounts to link to their checking accounts. When their checking account comes up dry, the savings account is automatically debited  avoiding an overdraft fee.

That program played some part in declining overdraft revenues, but Sutton said the results have not yet been robust. Still, its growing: About 1 in 10 American National customers responded to those communications last year and that rate was up to about 20 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Of course, no matter how proactive financial institutions get, and no matter how healthy the economy is, there will always be people who spend more than they can afford. And that can be good for a banks bottom line.

Without fee income, 55 percent of banks, savings and loans and credit unions would have posted net losses instead of profits through the first three quarters of 2016, Moebs research found. Those fees dont come exclusively from overdrafts; theyre also generated by bank business lines like wealth management, for example.

In the post-recession financial services industry, Moebs says, fee income has become increasingly vital to meet regulatory standards that call for banks to hold higher levels of capital  or money in the bank, essentially  in case of trouble.

And changing customers behavior in any industry is a tall order: Even going back to 2001, account holders have averaged more than 1 billion overdrafts each year, Moebs says.

In other words, fees  overdraft or otherwise  arent going away any time soon.

This is a conservative number, but there are 43 million Americans that have problems with their finances, Moebs said. What are you going to do with them if overdrafts go away? What are you going to replace it with?
LINCOLN  Business and free market groups squared off against agriculture and education groups over a major income and property tax package Thursday.

Friday, the battle will shift to the Nebraska Legislature when state senators begin debate on Legislative Bill 461.

The measure incorporates Gov. Pete Ricketts proposals for cutting the top individual income tax rate and changing how agricultural land is valued for property tax purposes.

Other provisions would cut the top corporate income tax rate and increase credits for most taxpayers, including a higher earned income tax credit, a refundable credit that helps low-income working people, particularly parents.

Ricketts touted the package at a press conference Thursday.

He called it the most comprehensive tax bill to emerge from the Revenue Committee in decades and one that could unite urban and rural senators.

I think this is an important bill to get behind to demonstrate your support for Nebraska families, he said.

Ricketts described opponents of the bill as big government spenders.

They dont want to see money for tax relief because they want more government spending, he said.

Opponents argued that LB 461 does not answer Nebraskans demands for significant property tax relief.

In a telephone press conference, Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson said the bill would provide minimal tax relief for farmers and ranchers, and relief would be uneven across the state.

In addition, he said, the proposal would worsen the imbalance of taxes used to support state and local government.

When we look at a bill that has a 10-to-1 ratio of money going to income tax cuts, we think its backwards, Nelson said.

The Farm Bureau is among 18 agriculture, education and property taxpayer groups that have come together as Nebraskans United for Property Tax Reform and Education.

Speaking for the group, Mike Lucas, superintendent of York Public Schools, said the goal of tax reform should be to reduce Nebraskas heavy reliance on property taxes while adequately funding education.

LB 461 doesnt provide meaningful, long-term property tax reform that many of our elected officials have promised, he said. Property tax reform is the No. 1 issue we hear citizens asking for.

Other opponents said the bill would jeopardize Nebraskas ability to take care of state needs.

It is irresponsible to be talking about a bill that will cut taxes for the wealthiest and raise taxes on some middle-income families at a time when we face a large budget shortfall that will result in cuts to services that Nebraskans rely on, said Renee Fry, executive director of the OpenSky Policy Institute.

On the supporters side, Ricketts was joined by 19 of the 49 state senators, as well as representatives of state and local business groups, Americans for Prosperity-Nebraska and the Platte Institute for Economic Research.

Barry Kennedy, president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said LB 461 would begin to address the chambers long-sought goal of income tax relief.

He said it would make Nebraska more competitive and help the state attract new residents and businesses.

Probably everybody would like to have more, but its definitely a very positive step in the right direction of providing tax relief to all Nebraskans, Kennedy said.

The lone agricultural representative standing with the governor was Steve Wellman of the Governors Agriculture Advisory Committee.

He hailed the proposal to switch from a sales-based approach to valuing agricultural land to one based on the lands income potential.

But Jay Rempe, senior economist with the Farm Bureau, said LB 461 would use a method that differs significantly from the income-based approach in other states.

One key difference is that it would still measure valuations against market sales. The bill would require that valuations statewide end up between 55 percent and 65 percent of market value.

The bill also would cap statewide increases in value at 3.5 percent per year.

When fully implemented, LB 461 would provide an estimated $400 million of income tax cuts, according to the State Department of Revenue.

The rate cuts would be phased in, each step triggered by state tax revenue projections. If revenue is projected to grow at least 3.5 percent, it would trigger an individual income tax rate cut. A projection of at least 4 percent growth would trigger a corporate rate cut as well.

Starting in 2020, about $34 million worth of additional state aid to schools would be required to offset the ag land valuation changes. State officials estimate that 40 school districts would qualify for the aid.
Easter and Christmas are the two days when most churches are standing-room only. A person must arrive at church 30 minutes ahead of the start of mass to try to get a seat. On these special days, those that show up 5 minutes before the scheduled start of church will find themselves standing or in an overflow room.

The regular attendees know that Easter and Christmas bring in lots of new faces  out-of-town families, the son that mom drags to church twice a year, and the soon-to-be-married types that need to make a few appearances before the big day. Attendees squeeze and scrunch to get two extra people in a pew so they dont have to stand, knowing full well that they will leave early. They are there to claim they attended. Dont get me wrong, I like to see the church full. The regulars welcome them, even if we know it is just twice a year and for a shorter duration.

I have just described what some call the CEO Catholics  Christmas and Easter Only. Do we have CEO dairy producers? Those that are Crisis and Excitement Only. You know the type  they are there to complain when the situation is far past dire and all that remains are the tears. Where were they as the situation was manifesting into the trouble ahead?

Or, when the good economic times arrive (not lately), they are all smiles and attend every dairy function to tout their goodwill. I am sure we all long for those days. But they are few and far between.

But what about those other days between the peaks and valleys? What actions are people taking when things are not dreary or bliss? I hope they are planning for what could happen.

There has been an outpouring of support for the Wisconsin dairy producers who abruptly lost their milk market. Those in agriculture and beyond supported them emotionally  because that is all any of us really could do. There was much conversation requesting that something be done, but no one really had a viable plan that would be effective in a matter of a few short weeks. Drinking another glass or milk or eating one more scoop of ice cream was not going to help them.

But the support they felt had to be some consolation as they actively search for a new home for their milk. Rallying around fellow producers in their time of need is an innate response that those in production agriculture feel, whether it is helping farmers who were victims of wildfires or those that face the loss of a milk market.

But don't let crisis be the only time that you emphatically speak up for your friend or neighbor. There are countless small crisis in our friends lives that don't get attention, but that does not mean that they are not worthy of your compassion and help.

So, when the end of the month rolls around and decisions about where that milk will be sent are made, don't stop thinking about and speaking out for others who need a stronger voice. You would hope they would do it for you if the time ever came.
For years, Staff Sgt. Ashleigh Buch hid the fact that she was transgender  a situation that, until last summer, was not allowed under U.S. military rules.

A Department of Defense policy was finalized in June 2016 that allowed transgender service members to serve openly.

Now her years of appearing male at work while living as a woman at home are over.

In October, Buch switched her gender from male to female in the Air Forces system, the first at Offutt Air Force base to transition under the new policy.

Buch now hopes her experience can be used to help other transgender service members.
YORK, Neb.  She sat down in court Friday, took a trembling breath and gave an unimaginable accounting of loss to the man responsible for it.

Almost 30 years ago, Sharon Hankes 12-year-old sister, Sacha, was shot to death in her familys farm home near Henderson. The revolver was wielded by her 14-year-old brother, Sydney.

The killing destroyed her family. Her siblings lives remain in shambles. Her parents, in hiding.

How do you even wrap your head around the betrayal and the hurt of someone that you loved for years slaughtering your sister, Hanke said through tears. It makes you question your very existence and the trust of everyone around you.

Sydney Thieszen sat across the courtroom, his eyes cast toward shackles around his wrists. Later, he stood and tried to explain the burden he has carried for 30 years in a prison cell.

Theres not a day that goes by in my life that I dont feel sorrow and remorse for what I did, taking the life of a precious little girl, he said.

The two took turns speaking Friday in a York courtroom as Thieszen, now 44, asked for a reduction in his life prison sentence. He won the chance because of a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said juveniles who kill cannot receive mandatory life terms.

York County District Judge James Stecker agreed to reduce Thieszens sentence to 70 years to life. It gives Thieszen hope for parole after about nine years, a possibility that did not exist under his former sentence.

But the court flatly rejected Thieszens request for 40 years to something less than life.

The crime was violent, brutal and utterly senseless, the judge said.

The judge also expressed skepticism regarding Thieszens explanation of the killing: that he acted in a fit of panic after his sister threatened to call the police to thwart Thieszen from running away. Evidence showed that Thieszen admitted to investigators he had been thinking of killing his family and he had purchased a box of .22-caliber ammunition in the weeks before the shooting.

After the hearing, Thieszens lawyer, Jeff Pickens of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, said his client will appeal the decision as a de facto life sentence.

Corey OBrien with the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office acknowledged that the defendant suffered horrific abuse during his first years of life, before he was taken in as a foster child and eventually adopted by the Thieszen family.

Abuse, however, does not excuse murder, OBrien said.

There are thousands of kids who come from situations much worse than what Sydney came from and they choose not to murder, he said.

OBrien asked the judge to give Thieszen not less than 80 years in prison. Afterward, he said the judges decision of 70 years to life was just.

The judge also left intact the original sentence of six to 20 years for a weapons conviction. Under the states good-time law, which cuts prison terms roughly in half, Thieszen would be eligible for parole after serving a little more than 38 years.

But if he does receive parole, he would remain under state supervision for the rest of his life.

In December, the Nebraska Supreme Court determined that Thieszen was entitled to a new sentence, citing the Supreme Court ruling that struck down laws requiring mandatory life terms for juveniles convicted of murder.

Nebraska had such a law on the books when Thieszen and 26 other juvenile killers were convicted. That law has since been replaced with one that requires judges to consider prison terms ranging from 40 years to life for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder.

In the case known as Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that advances in brain research have shown that mental capacity does not fully develop until a persons mid-20s. As a result, children have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, leading to recklessness, impulsivity and heedless risk-taking.

The court also said that with treatment and education, juvenile offenders have a better chance at successful rehabilitation. For those reasons, laws that prevent judges from considering such factors when sentencing juveniles violate the Eighth Amendments ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

With the resolution of Thieszens case, all but three of the juvenile killers in Nebraska who were given mandatory life terms have received new sentences, although most of those will not get out until they are retirement age. Several have obtained their releases or been paroled.

The Supreme Court has more recently said juveniles also cannot be given life terms unless the sentencing judge made a finding that the defendant is irreparably corrupt.

Pickens said the evidence clearly shows Thieszen is far from irreparably corrupt.

Thieszen has amassed more than 200 misconduct reports during his incarceration, but none has involved a violent act. Most are for using drugs or violating rules that wouldnt result in tickets on the outside.

He is considered a low risk to reoffend by the psychologists who have interviewed him. He scored a 35 on the prisons custody rating; it takes a 30 to qualify for work release, Pickens said. Prison evaluators have said he doesnt need substance-abuse treatment or anger-management training.

He has a network of close friends who will help him on the outside, Pickens said. He would not try to return to York County where, judging by the letters sent to the judge, he is still regarded as a threat.

Regardless of what happens here today, the rest of my life will be spent expressing my remorse for what I did through the constant efforts to add to the lives of those around me, he told the judge.

But his sister said she never heard him express remorse before Friday. Although the family cut off contact with him after his arrest and conviction, in the years since he has never sent a letter asking for forgiveness.

His words mean less than nothing to her now, she said.

During her statement, Hanke wanted Thieszen to know something he probably never considered: She was the one who had to clean up the blood in the bathroom where their sister died after having been shot three times.

Do you know what that does to a person? she asked. That is something Ill never recover from.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders told a cheering crowd in Omaha on Thursday that he thinks mayoral candidate Heath Mello is part of the Democratic Party of the future.

But some Democrats dont agree, and Sanders appearance at a rally for Mello at Baxter Arena sparked a national debate about whether the party needs to focus on progressive policies and reject Democratic politicians like Mello who are opposed to abortion.

Sanders was in Omaha as part of a Come Together, Fight Back, Vote Democrats national tour aimed at promoting Democratic candidates in local races this year. Mello is running against incumbent Mayor Jean Stothert, a Republican, in what is officially a nonpartisan race.

Sanders is an independent U.S. senator from Vermont who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for president. He laid out a vision for the country that he said involves a Democratic Party that stand(s) up for voters in 50 states, not just the West Coast and the East Coast.

Omaha, are you ready for a political revolution? he asked the crowd of about 6,000.

The rally lasted three hours.

During his 45-minute speech, Sanders touched on positions that would be familiar to those who followed his presidential campaign: expanded access to health care, paid family leave, free college tuition and a pathway to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally. And, of course, he devoted much time to economic inequality.

The way we defeat money and power is by putting together a strong grass-roots coalition, Sanders said. The country is now looking at Omaha, Nebraska, as the first step.

Earlier Thursday, however, abortion-rights advocates argued that Sanders and the Democratic Party shouldnt support those who favor restricting abortion. They pointed to Mellos co-sponsorship of a 2009 bill in the Nebraska Legislature that gives a woman seeking an abortion the option to see an ultrasound, if one is done.

The actions today by the DNC to embrace and support a candidate for office who will strip women  one of the most critical constituencies for the party  of our basic rights and freedom is not only disappointing, it is politically stupid, said NARAL Pro-Choice President Ilyse Hogue in a statement.

Her criticism was part of the national backlash after a Thursday article in the Wall Street Journal that pointed out Mellos opposition to abortion.

In 2009, the version of Legislative Bill 675 that became law, on a 40-5 vote, was viewed as a compromise measure. As first introduced, the bill would have required a woman to look at the ultrasound image.

Mellos campaign said he signed on to the bill to support the compromise version.

Mello, who is Catholic, said he remains pro-life.

While my faith guides my personal views, as mayor I would never do anything to restrict access to reproductive health care, Mello said in the statement.

A last-minute addition to the rally was Sofia Jawed-Wessel, an assistant professor of public health and health behavior at UNO, who spoke about her support of Planned Parenthood.

Rally behind Heath Mello and support the candidate who supports Planned Parenthood, she said.

As national Democrats discussed whether Mello is a true progressive, Stothert painted him as too liberal. She held a press conference Thursday before the event to call Sanders a liberal and a socialist.

Stothert said she expected the tone of the event to be toxic and a Debbie Downer. And she talked about her upcoming campaign event with Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Theres a lot of excitement about him coming to town.

Mellos stance on abortion had not been raised previously in the mayoral campaign. Stothert is also opposed to abortion. And abortion issues rarely come up at City Hall. Potholes and snow removal are much bigger issues.

Thursdays rally included speakers from a variety of backgrounds and several musical interludes.

Deputy Democratic National Committee Chairman Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota called for unity.

We have got to hang together, and you know, weve got to hug it out sometimes, he said. Weve got to believe in unity, and unity means, it cannot be only my way.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez was originally scheduled to appear at the Omaha rally, but Ellison filled in for him.

Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb said the switch was the result of a scheduling problem and that Perez was appearing Thursday in Georgia with congressional candidate Jon Ossoff.

Kleeb said Democrats are trying to decide what issues are we fighting for, not just fighting against.

Its only natural that this (debate) is happening because the Democratic Party is finding its soul again, she said.

Mello and others at the rally highlighted his efforts to advocate for more rights for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, equal pay for women, access to health care and affordable child care.

We have to be focused on May 9, he said. This election is about where were going to go as a city in the next 20 years.

In the audience, University of Nebraska at Omaha student Arianna Cabrera and her friend, recent graduate Sapphire Andersen, said they were excited to see Sanders.

I think this is going to be a very big push for Heath Mello, Cabrera said.

Both said they like Mello because he is personable and because of his support for womens issues in the Legislature.

They said they did not realize that Mello opposes abortion and said theyd want to learn more about his position. But they said they would still support him.

Central High School student Hatim Hassan said he came to the rally because hes a big Sanders fan.

He said he likes that Sanders is a democratic socialist and that he believes that health care is a right.

But, he said, he doesnt plan to vote for Mello. He said Stothert is doing a good job.

World-Herald staff writer Jeffrey Robb contributed to this report.
1 army personnel killed in explosion at Mahar Regiment centre, MP

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

One army personnel has died while another injured after an explosion occurred at a firing range in Madhya Pradesh. The explosion took place while a detonator was being installed during training.

The incident took place at the Mahar Regiment centre in Sagar on Friday. An inquiry has been ordered into the incident. The injured soldier has been shifted to hospital and is undergoing treatment.

Last year, the then Chief of Army Staff, General Dalbir Singh had presented the President's Colours to the 20 and 21 Mahar battalions during the Mahar Regiment's 75th-anniversary programme in Sagar. The regiment was raised on October 1 1941 and it is the only all-India all class infantry regiment of the army.

OneIndia News
IRCTC update: 136 trains cancelled on Nov 08; here is the complete list

'Kejriwal ji, if my claims true, you'll resign and retire': Sukesh writes a new letter

After 'unfit' remark on Rahul Gandhi, Cong expels Barkha Singh

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, April 21: The Congress on Friday expelled Barkha Singh from the party, a day after she resigned from all party posts raising questions over the leadership of vice president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken.

The action was taken by state unit's disciplinary committee headed by former Minister Narendra Nath. The committee found Singh undertaking anti-party activities.

"The disciplinary committee of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee in its meeting has unanimously decided to expel Singh for period of six years from the party for undertaking anti-party activities just before the MCD elections," a party statement said.

Singh, a former chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, was removed from her post as chief of DPCC's women's wing.

Earlier, resigning from the post Singh lashed out at senior party leaders.

"Congress party under the leadership of Rahul and Maken has only used the issue of empowerment of women and women security to gather votes. The issue means nothing to them," she said.

"In an organisation where I myself am unsafe, how will I empower other women in that organisation? That is why I hereby resign from the post of president of Delhi Mahila Congress."

"Rahul Gandhi is unfit to lead the party," she had said.

IANS

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 11:34 [IST]
Army copter joins operation to douse fire at Mukundra Hills tiger reserve

India

oi-PTI

Jaipur, April 21: The army and the air fForce had to step in to douse the fire that broke out in the Mukundra Hills tiger forest reserve on Tuesday and was rapidly spreading in the area.

The state government had asked the air force to provide assistance in extinguishing the fire. Following the request, South Western Air Command tasked the helicopter unit at Phalodi for providing necessary assistance.

"An air force chopper dropped water, taken from the nearby Chambal river, on the fire spread in about 4 km radius of the forest reserve, while army officials helped the fire tenders on ground to douse the fire," SP Kota city Swai Singh Godara said.The fire has now been completely doused, he added.

"A total of 13 shuttles were carried out with underslung Bambi Bucket. 30,600 litres of water was delivered and the fire was brought under control. The operation was called off after the mission was accomplished," defence spokesperson, Manish Ojha said.

Godara said that "the fire came to light on Tuesday night following which fire tenders were pressed into service but they were able to douse only half of it till on Wednesday, following which the air forces help was sought on Thursday."

It is the third such incident in a month when help from the army and the air force was sought to control a fire in the state.

PTI
Baahubali 2 will release in Karnataka after 'Katappa' Sathyaraj apologises

India

oi-Anusha

There is good news for Baahubali fans. The movie will after all release in Karnataka with actor Sathyaraj apologising for his comments on the Cauvery waters issue. Kannada organisations had decided not to allow the release of the movie on April 28 until the actor who plays the character of Kattappa apologised for his comments made 6 years back.

"Nine years ago Tamilians were assaulted in Karnataka during Cauvery protests. There were multiple protests including ones by actors. Kannada film actors had also expressed their anger against Tamilians and I had also reacted. Now I understand that my words have hurt Kannadigas. I apologise for my comments that have hurt the people. I am not against Kannadigas or Karnataka. The biggest example is my assistant Sekhar who has been working with me for the last 30 years and he is a Kannadiga," Satyaraj said in a statement.

His apology comes a day after Baahubali's director Rajamouli released a video statement appealing pro-Kannada organisations not to stall the film. Rajamouli had said that it was unfair to target a movie because of one individual's personal opinion.

The actor appealed that the movie not be stalled because of him. "I would like to apologise for that statement I had 9 years ago. I am a small worker in a huge film like Baahubali and my comments should not affect the film. I also appeal to the people of Tamil Nadu to understand," Sathyaraj added.

Pro-Kannada organisations had demanded an apology from the actor for his statements and called for a bandh on April 28, the day of the film's release. Satyaraj also appealed to film makers to not consider him for roles if they fear opposition by his being a part of the film.

OneIndia News
IRCTC update: 136 trains cancelled on Nov 08; here is the complete list

'Kejriwal ji, if my claims true, you'll resign and retire': Sukesh writes a new letter

BJP is a dengue and Chikungunya party, says Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal

India

oi-Preeti Panwar

New Delhi, April 21: As the MCD elections in the national capital are just 48 hours away, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that the BJP is a dengue and Chikungunya party.

On the micro-blogging site Twitter, Kejriwal said, "If you vote for BJP, then next five years will be full of garbage and mosquitoes."

"If you vote for the BJP and if your child falls prey to chikunngya or dengue, you are responsible for it. I can offer free treatment to your child in (the Delhi government) hospitals, but what led to him contracting dengue", he said.

"If someone in your home falls ill then you are responsible because you voted for the party which is synonymous to chikhungunya, malaria, dengue and garbage," he said in a stinging attack on the BJP.

Making a fervent appeal to vote for an "honest Aam Aadmi Party", the Chief Minister said his party will clean Delhi in a year and eradicate vector-borne diseases in the next three years.

He said that the Congress is "dead" in Delhi and at the national level, and voting for them would mean "wasting your vote."

Kejriwal also alleged that with just two days left for the MCD polls, the BJP and the Congress are resorting to the "cheap politics" by engineering the water and power shortages.

BJP      5 ,                  BJP     Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) 21 April 2017

     "    "   Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) 21 April 2017

In an another tweet, Kejriwal said, "The BJP and the Congress are disconnecting water and electricity connections at various places. With folded hands, I appeal, "Please disconnect my water and power supply, but please do not bother my Delhi people."

"The BJP and the Congress are stealing oil from the power transformers and ensuring that there is power shortage. They are doing it deliberately and resorting to cheap politics by disrupting water and power supply," he alleged.

"Your fight is with me, so do not harm the people of Delhi," he said, adding that such acts will continue till Sunday, the polling day.

Kejriwal also accused the BJP of trying to mask its "misdeeds" by asking people to vote for the party in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Kejriwal's tweet on dengue led to a controversy in the social media, where people labelled his remark as a threat and a tool to blackmail Delhi voters.

Shortly after Kejriwal's insensitive statement, #DengueForVotes was trending on Twitter. Here are some reactions:

@TimesNow @AamAadmiParty @ArvindKejriwal #DengueForVotes AAP really u all r dunked.Delhi remember wht AAP has done before,When ppl of Delhi wr suffering AAP was busy in Goa Electn  Diganta Hazarika (@digantahazarika) 21 April 2017

#DengueForVotes AAP&AK mst b booked4all corruptions namd nShuglu Committee&must recover all the money lootd frm Delhi, soory not ernough???  T Pillai (@TPillai5) 21 April 2017

#DengueForVotes..Such an Irresponsible Statement from Delhi CM, playing with people of Delhi..ShamelessAAP..don't stoop so low to Win..  shakthi talreja (@ShakthiTalreja) 21 April 2017

#DengueForVotes Kejri has lost his mental balance totally & shud immediately get admitted to NIMHANS, B'lore for psychiatric treatment.  K.R.Prithvi Raj (@KRPrithviRaj) 21 April 2017

#DengueForVotes Kejriwal will be immortalised in politics as the most filthy politician of our times.Hope you get dengue-that will be karma  Sugato Bose (@BoseSugato) 21 April 2017

#DengueForVotes Kejri is a blot on IIT for the kind of irresponsible & preposterous statements he is making. He has only ensured his fall.  K.R.Prithvi Raj (@KRPrithviRaj) 21 April 2017

This man @ArvindKejriwal has totally lost it. His tongue is not in his own control. #DengueForVotes  r (@rajabhaijaan) 21 April 2017

#DengueforVotes?ConG blaming Aap?Aren't they working together hand in hand all gloved,to see that dixits&sisodias misrule b put undr carpet?  Indy (@Jayaa03) 21 April 2017

Earlier also, AAP alleged that the BJP's "misrule" in the civic bodies has led to the outbreak of dengue and chikungunya.

[BJP's 'misrule' in MCD is cause of dengue, chikungunya outbreak, says AAP]

Elections to the 272 wards in three municipal corporations are scheduled for April 23. The results will be out on April 26.

OneIndia News
Delhi CM finding excuses for imminent rout in MCD polls: Harsh Vardhan

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, April 21: Faced with an "imminent defeat" in Delhi's municipal polls, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is "looking for an excuse" by questioning the credibility of Electronic Voting Machines, Union Minister and senior BJP leader Harsh Vardhan said on Friday.

Kejriwal's claims that EVMS could be tampered with were not only "baseless" but also reflected his "intellectual bankruptcy", the Union Minister for Science & Technology said.

"For Kejriwal, EVMs means Everyone Votes for Modi. By questioning the credibility of the EVMs, you are insulting the wisdom of people," he told a news agency.

"Hurling charges and wild abuses is a part of his politics," Vardhan said. Kejriwal, he pointed out, did not complain about EVMs when his party won 28 seats in 2013 and the BJP bagged 32 seats.

"They went on to win 67 out 70 seats (in the next election), which was unprecedented. We won only three seats. The BJP also lost (in) Bihar badly. So where is the question of EVMs being tampered with," he asked.

Vardhan stressed that by casting aspersions on EVMs just before the MCD polls, he was looking for an excuse for his "imminent defeat" in the MCD polls, scheduled for April 23. After the party's poor show in the Punjab state assembly elections, Kejriwal had questioned the use of EVMs and the Election Commission (EC).

The party had also demanded that the the MCD polls be conducted with paper ballots. Vardhan also attacked the Delhi government over the findings of the Shunglu committee, formed by former Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to look at whether decisions taken by the Kejriwal government had followed government rules. The report was just the "tip of iceberg", he held.

The Chandni Chowk MP, who was the BJP's chief ministerial candidate in the 2013 Assembly polls, also rubbished AAP claims about the success of its mohalla clinics. The 150-odd mohalla clinics were started by the Delhi government in a bid to provide patients with free treatment and medicines.

A complaint has also been lodged with the Vigilance Department alleging irregularities in the running of these clinics. Vardhan, himself a medico, said the initiative was one Delhi could have been proud of, but doctors in mohalla clinics had made "false entries" of patients to ensure a "good" income.

"Instead of quantity, the focus should have been on giving quality treatment to patients," the minister said.

Vardhan dismissed opposition claims that there was an anti-incumbency wave against the BJP for it had been ruling the MCD for ten years. He also denied that some former BJP councillors had rebelled after being denied tickets for the polls.

"There is hardly any rebellion in the party," the BJP leader claimed. The BJP has been banking on a Modi wave, especially after its massive mandate in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, in the coming MCD polls. It had built a campaign around Modi in the 2015 Assembly polls, too, but changed its strategy at the last moment by making Kiran Bedi its chief ministerial candidate, leading to an electoral rout.

"There is an anti-incumbency factor against the AAP government and not us, because people are disillusioned with it. Even if there was anti-incumbency (against the BJP), we have given fresh faces for the MCD polls and that has brought about a huge amount of positivity," he said.

PTI
Chandra Grahan 2022: Check the start and end timing of lunar eclipse in major cities

IRCTC update: 136 trains cancelled on Nov 08; here is the complete list

'Kejriwal ji, if my claims true, you'll resign and retire': Sukesh writes a new letter

Delhi MCD Election 2017: BJP, AAP, Congress leaders step up campaign

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, April 21: With a day left for campaigning for the municipal polls in Delhi, leaders of various political parties, including the AAP, the BJP and the Congress, on Thursday stepped up their efforts to woo voters through rallies, audio-video messages and door-to-door canvassing.

Among those who addressed rallies during the day included Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah and union ministers Rajnath Singh, M Venkaiah Naidu and Smriti Irani. Kejriwal posted a video message and an audio message that was received by people on their mobile phones.

Rajnath Singh, who addressed rallies in Kirari and Mustafabad, said the Narendra Modi government took tough decisions in the past year including surgical strike and demonetisation and got massive support of people.

"People of Delhi have been deprived of inclusive development during the last two years because Aam Admi Party (AAP) government did not take benefits of central schemes to the poor," he said.

Shah addressed a rally in Matiyala near Dwarka Mor in west Delhi, while Smriti Irani addressed a gathering in Vishwas Nagar.

In his video message, Kejriwal promised to clean up the national capital in one year if AAP won Sunday's municipal election.

Kejriwal said the BJP had failed to keep Delhi clean despite controlling the municipal corporation for 10 years.

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken and former union ministers Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid and Shashi Tharoor were among those who campaigned for the party.

Leaders of Janata Dal-United and Swaraj India also campaigned in different parts of the metropolis. Voting for the three municipal corporations in Delhi will be held on Sunday.

IANS

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 11:37 [IST]
IRCTC update: 136 trains cancelled on Nov 08; here is the complete list

'Kejriwal ji, if my claims true, you'll resign and retire': Sukesh writes a new letter

Delhi MCD Election 2017: HC rejects AAP's plea to use EVMs with VVPAT

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, April 21: The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed the Aam Aadmi Party's plea to use second-generation Electronic Voting Machines with paper trail in the April 23 civic polls in the national capital.

Justice A K Pathak declined AAP's plea saying: "It would not be possible to give any such direction, as it would amount to interference in election process. The plea is dismissed."

The AAP and its candidate Mohammad Tahir Hussain had approached the high court for using second generation EVMs attached with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail in the elections to the capital's three municipal corporations.

The State Election Commission has opposed the plea, saying the petition was filed to stall the election.

The Election Commission maintains that EVMs can't be tampered with.

The VVPAT is connected with EVMs and dispenses paper proof so that voters can verify that their vote has been cast correctly. The AAP and the Congress say that EVMs without VVPAT can be tampered with.

IANS

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 16:55 [IST]
Naxalism is down, but it is still Indias greatest challenge: Rajnath Singh

No documents will be asked or biometric taken for NPR: Home Ministry

Wonder why home minister chose not to go to AIIMS but to private hospital: Shashi Tharoor

Ensure safety of Kashmiris, they are family: Rajnath tells states

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, April 21: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday asked all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris living in different parts of the country.

Condemning the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmiris, the Home Minister said that they are like any other Indian and an advisory is being sent by the Home Ministry to all states to ensure the safety and security of people from the Valley.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all Chief Ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris," he told reporters in Delhi.

Singh's statement came in the wake of reports alleging that Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were being threatened after the latest incidents of stonepelting and assualt on security personnel by Kashmiri youths in the Valley.

PTI

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 12:37 [IST]
With Islamic radicalisation running so deep, why an NIA branch in every state matters

First conviction in IS case: Two sentenced to 7 years imprisonment

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The National Investigation Agency has secured its first conviction in an Islamic State related case. A Delhi court has convicted and sentenced to seven years two persons on charges of criminal conspiracy.

The duo to be convicted are Azhar-ul-Islam from Jammu and Kashmir and Mohammed Shaikh from Maharashtra. Both had pleaded guilty following which they were convicted and also sentenced.

The charge against the duo was that they had raised funds and recruited people for the Islamic State. During the both proceedings,had said that they were guilty and remorseful. They had admitted to the charges a month after the court decided to start the trial against them.

Both had said that in their application that they were pleading guilty without any pressure. "There is no pressure, threat, coercion or influence," the two said in a joint application.

OneIndia News
Unveiling their rage

Girl students pelted stones on police after clashes broke out between college students and security personnel in Srinagar on Thursday.

All photographs credit: PTI

Girls raise their voices

Girl students shouted slogans during a protest rally against the recent police action on students in Kashmir valley in Srinagar on Thursday.

March of women

These images clearly show how girl students are taking charge of protests in the Valley.

Listen to us

Girl students stopped a vehicle during their protest rally in Srinagar on Thursday.

Face-off between students and security personnel

Police stopped students during a protest march against alleged highhandedness by security forces at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Monday.

Stop war in Kashmir

Protests and demonstrations by students in Kashmir are not new. Here is an image of a protest where girl students were seen holding placards in Srinagar last year.
Give us Rana and Headley: India asks the US once again

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The United States has assured India that it would look into its request to question David Headley and Tawwahur Rana. While India has questioned Headley once in the past, it has not been able to access Rana yet. India feels that the investigations into the Mumbai 26/11 attack will not be conclusive unless Rana is questioned.

Rana is accused of helping Headley with travel papers for his various visits to India where he carried out a reconnaissance for the 26/11 attacks. The issue was raised with Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during his recent visit to India.

The NIA raised the issue with McCabe and said that several requests to question Rana and Headley have gone unanswered. The NIA also sought for the extradition of both. In Rana's case, the National Investigation Agency was told that he was already convicted by a court in the US for providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. It would amount to double jeopardy if he is tried again in India, the US had said.

The NIA, however, pointed out that in India he has been charged with forgery and criminal breach of trust. "Hence trying him for those offences would not amount to double jeopardy," the NIA officials pointed out.

The chances of extraditing both the operativesares however slim. Headly has entered into a plea bargain deal with the US. This protects him from extradition and also a death sentence. In Rana's case, the US courts have already convicted him and in normal course such extradition requests are not entertained.

OneIndia News
'If Modi has threat to life, let him die', says Congress minister on VIP culture

India

oi-Anusha

"Let Modi remove security cover around him," said a Karnataka minister, when reminded that the prime minister has a threat to life, Basavaraj Rayareddy said, "So? Die." These statements were made in Koppal by the Congress minister when asked about the Centre' move to remove red beacons from all government vehicles. Basavaraj Rayareddy, the higher education minister of Karnataka also said that 'one should be willing to die if they want to remain in power'

On being asked about removing the red beacon from his car the minister said, "It makes no difference to me. I would, in fact, urge them (Centre) to remove security as well. If Modi really wants to remove (VIP culture) let him revoke security cover. Let him revoke the security cover around him first. Should he be the only one comfortable while others aren't? Let him remove security, I am ready."

On being told by a reporter that the prime minister faces threat to life, the minister said, "So? die. If one wants power one should be ready to die. If you don't want power then quit and sit at home." When asked by a reporter if he wished for Modi to die, the minister immediately said he 'didn't mean Modi'. "I am only trying to say that this is a farce. Nothing but a show-off," he said and walked away.

OneIndia News
Is J&Ks ruling alliance in trouble post BJP mins Deshdrohi comment?

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Srinagar, April 21: As Kashmir is witnessing unprecedented violence and regular protests led by civilians, differences of opinions have also emerged in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, say reports.

Reports suggest that while the PDP wants to take a 'soft stand' on local protesters, especially the stone pelters, the BJP favours a tough stand against anyone who speaks against the Indian government.

Moreover, the controversial remarks made against stone pelters and protesters by a senior BJP minister in the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti cabinet have widened the gap between the ruling partners.

Recently, Chander Parkash Ganga, minister for industries and commerce, called stone pelters "deshdrohi" (traitors). He added that stone pelters deserved to be shot or beaten as those who do not listen deserve to be kicked.

"Aap ne ek video jo viral hua hai dekha, kaise Hindustan Murdabad bol rahe hain. Wahi log hain na jo patthar marte hain. Inka ilaj jahi ek joota hai. Yeh jo inko pyaar kartey hain, unko pappian lene ki zaroorat nahin hai. Deshdrohi hain aur deshdrohi ka ek hi ilaj hai, woh chahe Pakistan se aaya ho ya desh ke andhar ho. Uska ilaj hai goli. Aur agar goli na ho to kam se kam usko aisi sazaa deni chahiye, jaise usko dande maare thhay. Aisa hi inka ilaj chahiye. Dobara koi patthar maar jaye to aap baat karna... Kis tarah ki azadi chahiye inko, aap bataiye mujhe," Ganga said at a public function in Ramgarh town, along the international border in Samba district on Sunday.

("You saw a video that has gone viral, how Hindustan Murdabad was being raised. These are the same people who hurl stones. They deserve to be beaten with shoes. Those who love them don't have to kiss them. They are traitors and there's only one cure, whether these traitors are from Pakistan or within the country. They deserve to be shot. If not bullets, at least punish them like the way there beaten. They deserve this treatment. If anybody throws a stone again, talk to me... what kind of independence do they want, tell me.")

After a video footage of Ganga's remarks surfaced on Thursday, several PDP leaders have opposed his views on the current unrest in the state.

"It is unbecoming of a senior minister in the government to dish out such a sweeping, sickening and intimidating statement against Kashmiri youth," PDP vice president Mohammad Sartaj Madni said in a statement.

He said Ganga's statement was in contravention to the stand of the state cabinet on the issue. "Instead of reaching out to the distressed and alienated Kashmiri youth and address their concerns", Madni said, "the hawkish rhetoric of such fringe elements has the danger of further adding to the alienation of the people and impeding the government's efforts of restoring peace and calm in the Valley".

Earlier this week, the CM chaired a cabinet meeting to discuss the Kashmir turmoil. The cabinet expressed "deep anguish" over the killing of civilians during protests in the Valley and urged security forces to "exercise maximum restraint".

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 11:21 [IST]
Kill 2 RSS workers in uniform: Rudresh's killers were told

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The killers of Rudresh had planned on killing at least two RSS workers in uniform. The NIA which filed its chargesheet in the Rudresh murder case said that there were five persons involved in the murder. Rudresh, an RSS worker was murdered in October 2016 in broad daylight at Bengaluru, following which the NIA took over the probe.

The NIA says that investigations had established that all the five accused persons are members of the Popular Front of India and its affiliated political organisation, Social Democratic Party of India. None of them had any personal enmity with Rudresh.

Investigation has established that the killing was a clear act of terror with the intention to strike fear among a section of the people.

The NIA established that the accused persons had conspiracy meetings prior to the murder at the Aksa Masjid near the Chota Charminar, Bengaluru. It was decided that they would kill at least two RSS workers in uniform. Investigations revealed that the indoctrination of the members was done in order to make them believe that they were doing their act as part of fulfilling the objective of establishing Islam and Jihad by killing a Kaufir.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 18:35 [IST]
Local bias in judicial inquiries has tarnished the image of the Indian Army

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Local bias in judicial inquiries at Jammu and Kashmir is giving the Indian Army a bad name, the Supreme Court was told. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that the army cannot be subject to FIRs for carrying out operations against militants in insurgency hit areas of J&K and Manipur. There is local bias in judicial inquiries that is tarnishing the image of the Indian Army, the AG further submitted.

The submissions were made during a hearing in which compensation was sought in the alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur between 2000 and 2012 by the security forces and the police.

"Military operations cannot be dissected in a particular way and the army cannot be subjected to an FIR. If this continues then it would be tough to carry out military operations," the SC was also told.

"Whether it's Jammu and Kashmir or Manipur, we are facing the same local bias. Why doesn't any judicial inquiry ever exonerate the army? These inquiries have never said that Army did the correct thing. The army is facing problems due to bias in such inquiries," Rohatgi further added.

One cannot disbelieve every operation that the Army carries out. Every judicial inquiry cannot be against the army, the AG said while also pointing out that the alleged cases of extra-judicial killings in Manipur were in fact military operations.

OneIndia News
Made Aadhaar mandatory to prevent fund diversion to shell companies: Centre

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The centre on Thursday justified making Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns. Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi said that the centre had found a number of PAN cards being used to divert funds.

Further the AG said funds were being diverted to shell companies and the only way to prevent the same was to make Aadhaar mandatory for filing of income tax returns. The AG was responding to a query from the Supreme Court which had asked why Aadhaar was made mandatory.

The SC said that it had made it clear that the Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory. "It should be optional," the SC had observed in its last date of hearing. "We have passed an order to this effect despite which you have made Aadhar mandatory," the SC reminded the Centre.

Giving the Centre more time to argue its case, the Supreme Court said that it will hear the matter on April 26.

OneIndia News
'Two-finger test' should be banned in matrimonial dispute cases too, says Maharashtra doctor

Maharashtra: BJP wins Latur, Chandrapur; Congress wins Prabhani

India

oi-Preeti Panwar

Mumbai, April 21: In a historic victory, the BJP on Friday won Latur and Chandrapur seats while the Congress won Prabhani seat from the NCP, out of three municipal corporations in Maharashtra.

On April 19, Chandrapur, Latur and Parbhani held civic polls. The stakes were especially high for the ruling BJP as it was not in power in any of these three corporations and was looking to make inroads.

The elated Chief Minister of Maharashtra, 46-year-old Devendra Fadnavis took to the Twitter to express his happiness. He tweeted, "We will work harder and continue to work for every citizen with our mantra of good governance to serve the last man !"

Thank you #Latur for grand,historic mandate to BJP,showing faith on our Govt's policies!Congratulations to @sambhajipatil77 !#LaturPattern  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) 21 April 2017

Thank you #Chandrapur for giving BJP an absolute majority for devpt!

Congratulations to @SMungantiwar ji, @ahir_hansraj ji & NanaShamkuleji!  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) 21 April 2017

Many congratulations to all katyakartas who worked hard for this victory!

And @BJP4India 's epic winning spree continues...#MahaVoted4BJP  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) 21 April 2017

We will work harder and continue to work for every citizen with our mantra of good governance to serve the last man !#MahaVoted4BJP  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) 21 April 2017

In Chandrapur in Vidarbha, the BJP won 32 and Congress won 17 of the 66 seats. Chandrapur is the home turf of senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar. Till now, Congress was in power in this 66-member civic body. As many as 460 candidates were in the fray whose fates were decided by 3.02 lakh voters.

The BJP won 40 out of 70-seats in Latur. It was a test of political clout for BJP leader and state minister Sambhajirao Nilangekar and the local Congress MLA Amit Deshmukh. In 2012 polls, the BJP had not won any seat in Latur.

Congress, which controlled the corporation, had got a drubbing in the recent local body polls in Latur district. The city had faced acute water crisis last year and government had to transport water by railway waggons at the peak of summer.

In Latur, 407 candidates were in the fray whose fate was decided by 2.78 lakh voters.

In the 65-member Parbhani municipal corporation, the battle was mainly between the incumbent NCP and Shiv Sena. It was a test for district guardian minister and senior Sena leader Diwakar Raote. There were 418 candidates in the fray; number of voters was 2.12 lakh.

OneIndia News
Paramhansdas sent to jail in his bid to self immolate; Vedanti says consensus reached upon

Me, not Advani provoked kar sevaks to raze Babri Masjid, claims former BJP MP Vedanti

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

With the Supreme Court ordering trial against L K Advani, Muri Manohar and others in the Bari Masjid demolition case, former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti, also an accused in the case, on Friday claimed that it he who ensured that the disputed structure was razed.

Vedanti said he provoked the kar sevaks to pull down the disputed Mosque, adding that he was prepared to be "hanged" for the cause of Ram temple, said reports.

Vedanti said Advani or the senior BJP leaders had nothing to do with the demolition as it was he along with late Ashok Singhal, then VHP chief, and Mahant Avaidyanath of Gorakhnath Temple exhorted activists to ensure that the structure was pulled down. Both Avaidyanath and Singhal are now dead.

He said Advani and Joshi, in fact, tried to persuade the kar sevaks to come down from top of the structure on December 6, 1992.

It need to be noted that Advani's former aide Sudheendra Kulkarni on Thursday said that the senior BJP leader had appealed to kar sevaks to stop Mosque's demolition.

"The case of criminal conspiracy against Advani is baseless. He was not a part of the conspiracy at all. In fact, he expressed deep regret at what happened and wrote soon after the Babri demolition that it was the saddest day of his life," Kulkarni told PTI on Thursday.

Vedanti is one of the 13 people accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the conspiracy in the demolition of Babri Masjid.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed an appeal by the Central Bureau of Investigation which challenged the dropping of charges against them. The court said that there would be no fresh trial in the case.

[Advani, Joshi to be tried for criminal conspiracy in Babri Masjid demolition case]

The SC ordered that the trial would be conducted in both Lucknow and Rae Bareli. The trial would be conducted on a day-to-day basis, the court also ruled.

The SC pointed out that a 25-year pendency in this case was 'evasion of justice,' while stating that it would direct the Lucknow court to complete the trial in two years while ordering a day to day hearing.

OneIndia News
IT raids on businessman leads to seizure of mountains of cash

Meerut: Jeweller rapes, kills sister-in-law on tantrik's advice

India

oi-Madhuri

Sanjay Verma, who is a meerut-based jeweller on Thursday allegedly raped and then smothered his 25-year-old sister in-law to death.

It is learnt that the tantrik had advised the jeweller that the reason behind his loss in business is because of this woman.

Verma was not going well in business and approached tantrik for advice who then asked him to kill his sister-in-law as she had done black magic.

According to station house officer Vijay Kumar Gupta of Kotwali police station in Meerut district,'' Verma went to his brother's home on Thursday morning and gave him some money to get liquor from the market. Once he left the house, Verma allegedly raped and killed his brother's wife.''

After killing the woman, Verma came out of the house and raised an alarm. However, the jeweller broke down and confessed the crime.

OneIndia News
Khota sarkar left with egg on their faces: Team Uddhav on Andheri win

Minibus rams into truck in Sangli, 6 dead

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, Apr 21: At least six persons, including two minors, were killed and 13 others injured when a speeding minibus collided with a stationary truck in Sangli district in the early hours of Friday, police said.

The bus, ferrying some pilgrims to Pandharpur in Maharashtra's Solapur, rammed into the truck in Agalgaon Phata area of Sangli at around 4.15 am, they said.

Maharashtra: 6 passengers killed and 10 injured in a minibus-truck collision in Sangli district pic.twitter.com/ZrsuAQSATJ  ANI (@ANI_news) April 21, 2017

The passengers in the bus hailed from Gandhi Nagar in Kolhapur district. Upon getting information about the accident, Sangli police rushed to the spot and rescued the survivors stuck in the bus.

"All victims were shifted to the local civil hospital. Six of them were declared dead before admission, while the 13 injured were undergoing treatment," Sangli's Superintendent of Police Datta Shinde said.

The deceased have been identified as Lakhan Raju Sankaji, 30, Gaurav Raju Narade, 9, Renuka Nandkumar Hegade, 35, Nandkumar Jayram Hegade, 40, Aditya Nandkumar Hegade, 13 and Vinayak Martand Londhe, 50, he said.

The bodies have been sent to Kavathe-Mahankal sub district hospital for postmortem and will be later handed over to their family members, Shinde added.

PTI
No more pellet guns, now sound will shoo away stone pelters in Kashmir

Two Metro stations in Delhi closed after pro, anti CAA protesters pelt stones at each others

MPs tribal youths to fight against Kashmiri stone pelters with slingshots?

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Bhopal, April 21: Tribal youths of Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh want to fight against stone pelters in Kashmir with slingshots. In fact, Bhil youngsters have approached the state government and have offered their expertise in using slingshots to help security forces in Kashmir to counter stone pelters.

"Bhil youths of MP's Jhabua in an appeal to the government have offered to take on stone pelters in Kashmir with their traditional weapon, the slingshot," reported ANI.

The youths in tribal dominated district--Jhabua --in western MP are experts in the use of Gofan. A Gofan is similar to a slingshot and uses a looped cord with a knitted bag attached to the one end. It's a popular traditional weapon used by the tribal men/boys to fight against enemies and wild animals.

"A Gofan battalion of local tribal youths should be constituted and be posted in Kashmir to deal with stone pelters. This battalion will be a suitable answer to stone pelters," Prem Singh, a 26-year-old tribal youth of Lakhpur village of Jhabua district, told PTI.

The leaders of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress in MP have supported the formation of such a squad comprising of local youths--who are masters of this art.

"Government should form a 'Gofan Stone Pelters Squad' to deal with the situation in Kashmir. This would not only be effective in the present situation but also can deal with similar situations in the future," former Congress member of legislative assembly from Jhabua, Xavier Medha said.

"Army can't fire gunshots at the protestors and this squad can give a befitting reply," he added.

Stone pelters of Kashmir have become a major headache for the security forces in the Valley who are fighting against terrorists on a daily basis. According to reports, as many as 411 stone pelting incidents have been reported in the Valley from October 2016 to March 2017.

In recent times, the use of pellet guns by security personnel against stone pelters has been widely condemned by various human rights groups. Now, the Centre is toying with the idea of using plastic bullet to replace pellet gun, the use of which has killed many and caused blindness to hundreds in the Valley last year.

OneIndia News
My party-BJP have different ideologies but common aim of uplifting poor: Nepal ex-PM Prachanda

Nepal President offers to procure 'Kasturi' for Jagannath temple

India

pti-PTI

Puri, April 21: Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Friday promised to take necessary steps to arrange 'Kasturi' for Shri Jagannath Temple to tide over the acute shortage of musk essential for special rituals of the Lord.

Bhandari, who paid obeisance to the presiding deities in the 12th century shrine, told reporters that she would take up the issue of shortage of Kasturi, which is obtained from a stag's navel, with the Nepal government.

The visiting dignitary said she would take appropriate measures to resolve the problem so as to enable the temple authorities to continue with the rituals and traditions for the deities without disruption.

The rare and precious Kasturi was earlier received by the Shri Jagannath Temple from Nepal during monarchy. As the purity and quality of Kasturi from Nepal is considered high, it was used for special rituals of the deities.

Expressing happiness after darshan of Lord Jagannath, Bhandari thanked President Pranab Mukherjee as well as the Centre and Odisha government for the arrangements made for her visit. She also thanked the residents of Puri and Sevayats.

Noting that India and Nepal enjoyed age-old friendly ties with strong cultural bonds, she expressed the hope that the bilateral relationship would continue in future. Bhandari also wished further development of India.

The Nepal President, who is on the concluding leg of her two-day tour of Odisha, visited the shrine and offered prayers to Lord Jagannath amid tight security.

The visiting dignitary, who spent around 40 minutes in the temple premises, was welcomed near the Lion's Gate by senior officials of the district, temple administration and servitors.

Elaborate security arrangements were made both outside and inside the temple for her visit, while the entry of other devotees into the shrine was restricted.

PTI
NGT rejects petition to use Art of Living funds

India

oi-Preeti Panwar

Bengaluru, April 21: In a major respite to the Art of Living, the National Green Tribunal on Thursday rejected a plea to utilise the funds deposited by the foundation.

The petition was filed by an environmental activist Manoj Misra. The court also rejected Misra's request to hear the case without giving Art of Living a chance to put in their objections to the quantification report.

The Tribunal also did not act upon Misra's request to take action against the Art of Living for the opinion expressed by them on their website.

"Counsel of Manoj Misra read out the statement from the Art of Living website. The tribunal did not consider it. Media reports about the NGT coming down heavily on the Art of Living are not true," a statement from AOL said.

"Contrary to media reports, the Tribunal did not come down on us but in fact on Manoj Misra. None of the actions they wanted to be taken were allowed. In court, banter is irrelevant. What is relevant are the decisions, all of which when in our favour. Unfortunately, some sections of the media have misreported the case" the AoL said in a statement.

"We have faith in the judiciary and are confident that truth will prevail", it further added.

Do you think you can say what you want? NGT asks Sri Sri Ravishankar

During the hearing, lawyer Sanjay Parikh, representing petitioner Manoj Misra, said the initial amount of Rs five crore, which AOL had deposited as environment compensation, should be used for restoration of the damaged Yamuna floodplains.

The court, however, did not consider this and directed the AOL and other parties in the case to file their responses and objections on the expert panel's findings within two weeks after taking the report on record.

The counsel, appearing for the AOL foundation, contested the findings of the expert panel, saying they had certain objections to it and sought that the report be set aside. The next hearing is on May 9. On March 11 to March 13 last year, the NGT had allowed Art of Living to hold the three-day World Culture Festival on the Yamuna floodplains.

OneIndia News
Not IS, not IM: This was a brand new terror group in the making

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

It was a big module in the making and these alleged operatives were in the process of staking up a huge cache of arms. While the police have still not be able to ascertain which group they belong to, investigators say the operatives were planning a major attack across different cities in the country.

Four terror suspects are being questioned by officials from various states. Those being questioned are Nazim Umar, Ghazi Baba, Faizan and Ahtesham. Nazim, according to the police was in charge of finances while Baba and Faizan handled recruitments and sourcing weapons. Ahtesham on the other hand who was held in Bihar arranged for money, sources tell OneIndia.

Prima facie, it appears as though they were setting up a new group. The investigations or the literature seized show no indication that they were leaning towards the ideology of any terror group. The police say that they did not have a handler and there is nothing to even suggest that they were radicalised in person or on the internet.

The police say that they were planning a pan-India operation. They may have been planning strikes in different parts of the country. There was nothing planned in specific, but they were in the process of setting up a major module. The money had been arranged for and they were also procuring a huge cache of arms, the police also say.

OneIndia News
Project Cow: Centre plans for cow sanctuary in each state

India

oi-Madhuri

Minister of State for Home Hansraj G Ahir on Friday said that the government is considering a proposal to set up cow sanctuaries and start a 'Project Cow' on the lines of Project Tiger.

The minister told a leading daily that the cow sanctuaries will be set up under such a scheme. ''We have been considering a proposal and have been working on it for some time now. We need to stop cow slaughter, but the biggest stumbling block is who will take care of these cows," Ahir said.

Ahir has also discussed the matter with the environment ministry and plan is to expedite the proposal.

When asked about the video of man being tied to an army jeep in Kashmir, Ahir who also handles Jammu and Kashmir division in the ministry said that the security forces have shown restraint while dealing with protesters in the Kashmir Valley.

Ahir's remarks come at a time when there are a growing number of reports of gau rakshaks using violence to demand a ban on cow slaughter and beef. On April 4, a dairy farmer in Alwar in Rajasthan, was lynched by a mob that accused him of smuggling cattle.

OneIndia News
Ravindra Gaikwad flies again, but this time incident free

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Shiv Sena Member of Parliament Ravindra Gaikwad who had a bad run with Air India after he assaulted one of their staff took a flight from Hyderabad to Delhi on Thursday. He flew business class on a 4 pm flight on Thursday from Hyderabad.

It was his choice to fly Air India and the Shiv Sena MP from Osmanabad, Maharashtra completed his journey incident free. The MP was in the news after he assaulted an Air India staffer last month. Air India and other airlines had taken serious objection to the incident and barred him from flying.

Earlier this month the Indian Airlines Federation had lifted the ban. However, Gaikwad who refused to apologise did not board any flight immediately after the ban was lifted. He travelled to Delhi by train a few times after the ban was lifted.

OneIndia News
Yechury raises suspicion over EC decision to put on hold poll to RS seats in Kerala

Decision to bring in new faces in LDF cabinet taken in CPI(M)'s long term interest: Sitaram Yechury

This is daylight highway robbery of national assets, Sitaram Yechury on Air India returning to Tatas

Sitaram Yechury meets Sonia Gandhi, ahead of presidential elections

India

oi-Madhuri

Pursuing plans to put up a common opposition candidate for the presidential elections scheduled in July, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and discussed strategy to unite the opposition for their candidature against the ruling party BJP.

Earlier on Thursday, Bihar Chief Minister Nititsh Kumar met Congress Chief Sonal Gandhi and also issued an appeal to the opposition parties to field a common candidate for the presendential elections in July.

Nitish has also spoken up regarding this issue with the Yechury over the phone. CPM has already decided after a thorough discussion that if there is a common Presidential candidate from the Opposition, they would extend support.

JD-U national spokesperson K C Tyagi said, "There should a joint opposition candidate for the top Constitutional post and Sonia Gandhi being the leader of the largest opposition party should take the lead," he had said.

Pranab Mukherjee, who took over as President on 25 July 2012, had to contest against NDA government's PA Sangma and prevailed with 713,763 votes while Sangma got 315,987 votes.

OneIndia News
Explained: What the SC said and how is Talaq-e-Hasan different from triple talaq

Triple talaq should not apply to Hindu women married to Muslim men: PIL

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Apr 21: A plea was on Friday moved in the Delhi High Court seeking direction to the Centre that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men.

The petition which is likely to come up for hearing before a bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal demands to shed limelight on the plight of Hindu girls affected by triple talaq. The Public Interest Litigation by advocate Vijay Shukla sought directions to the Centre for making registration of inter-caste marriages compulsory under the Special Marriage Act or Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act with a clause on imposition of penalty in case an inter-caste marriage is not registered.

The PIL said that since the 'nikahnaama' (marriage contract) is written in Urdu, Hindu women fail to understand provisions related to triple 'talaq' or polygamy. The Muslim cleric should explain the provisions of the 'nikahnaama' pertaining to summary divorce and polygamy to the Hindu women in their mother tongue, the petitioner urged the court.

The petition said that triple 'talaq' or polygamy should not be applicable to Hindu women who are married to Muslim men. The petitioner said that since there is no provision of registration of marriage in Muslim law, therefore, time has now come for a direction to the Union of India to make registration of Inter-caste marriages compulsory either in Special Marriage Act or in Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act.

The PIL said the issue is serious and of public importance as the plight of many Hindu girls married to Muslim boys is involved, due to the danger of triple talaq by their Muslim husbands or of another marriage by the men.

PTI
TTV Dinakaran bribery case: Delhi police knows who Sukesh met before striking deal

India

oi-Anusha

The Delhi crime branch police that is probing the bribery case involving TTV Dinakaran has prepared a list of people who Sukesh Chandrasekhar met. The investigating officers said that accused Sukesh Chandrasekhar met many individuals in Chennai before he spoke to Dinakaran about bribing election commission officials.

"The Delhi police have made a list of people who Sukesh met in Chennai before he came up with the proposal of Rs 50 crore for the Sasikala camp," said ACP Sanjay Sehrawat of the Delhi crime branch. While no details on the names have been released, the police are likely to question all those who met Sukesh to track how he managed to get in touch with Dinakaran and struck the deal to 'bribe election commission officials'.

The police also said that not cooperating with investigations was not an option before Dinakaran. "The Delhi police will not accept any requests for exemption from the probe by TTV Dinakaran. He has been issued summons and has to appear on Saturday," he added.

Chandrasekhar was arrested by the Delhi crime branch police and booked for allegedly attempting to bribe election commission officials to ensure a favourable verdict to the Sasikala camp in the AIADMK symbol row. A team of officers from Delhi had arrived in Chennai to issue summons to Dinakaran on Wednesday. Dinakaran is expected to appear before the inter-state cell of the crime branch on Saturday.

OneIndia News
RSMSSB CHO Recruitment: Check vacancy, eligibility and how to apply

To marry her love, Rajasthan teacher changes gender

Two arrested over attack on Kashmiri students in Mewar University

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Two persons were arrested on Friday in connection with the thrashing of eight Kashmiri students Rajasthan's Mewar University.

The took place on Wednesday after a few Kashmiri students of the varsity clashed with locals for being allegedly called "stone-pelters". Four students were hospitalised while four others suffered minor injuries in the incident.

Kashmiri students also staged a protest at the university over the incident.

The case was registered at Gangrar police station and a search was launched to apprehend the accused.

There are around a 1,000 Kashmiri students studying in Mewar University.

Last year, some Kashmiri students were attacked over rumours of cooking beef in hostel. Later, the forensic reports revealed that it was goat meat.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 19:14 [IST]
Two teenagers killed while taking selfie on railway track

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Katihar, April 21: Taking a selfie on railway tracks claimed two lives and another sustained injuries after a train hit the trio near Katihar Junction of Bihar on Friday. According to the police, the incident took place at Lalpur bridge under Korha police station area.

The police said that the deceased were identified as Raushan Kumar and Sameer Chaudhary and the injured as Bittu Paswan. The police added that Bittu was conscious enough to move away from the train but was unable to save his two friends in the mishap.

Korha police station in-charge Anuj Kumar said that the bodies were shifted to Sardar hospital for post-mortem.

Earlier on April 14, four youths were killed and another was severely injured when one among them tried taking a selfie while leaning out from the train but slipped and fell out of the train. In order to protect their friend, the four jumped out of train but were hit by a train coming from the other side. The incident took place near Howrah in West Bengal.

The deceased were identified as Sumit Kumar, Sanjiv Polley, Kajal Saha, Chandan Polley and the injured as Taraknath Makal (the selfie-taker) -- all aged between 25-30. Reports said that Makal and the four others were returning from Tarakeswar temple after offering prayers.

According to police, the five people belong to Dumdum area of Kolkata outskirts and added that some of them are employees in factories and others are auto rickshaw drivers.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 15:16 [IST]
Was a big module of the IS being set up in Maharashtra

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

On Thursday three persons were taken into custody on the charge that they were part of a module sympathetic towards the Islamic State. In a joint operation of the Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad, one alleged recruiter was arrested.

A source said that the 26-year-old Nazim Shamshad Ahmed is being questioned and will be taken from Mumbra in Maharashtra to UP for further questioning. The team conducted a raid at Mumbra and arrested Ahmed while also detaining Gulfam and Ujeda Abrar.

Ahmed according to the ATS had moved from Bijnor in UP to Mumbra and was staying with the other two in a flat. It was revealed during investigations that Ahmed had recruited several persons into a module sympathetic towards the IS.

The ATS is trying to find out where Ahmed got money from despite him being unemployed.

ATS sources say that this module was allegedly planning strikes in Maharashtra. When asked if they were part of the IS, an officer said that they took inspiration from the outfit. They, however, did not divulge specific details about their plans while adding that they were investigating the matter further.

OneIndia News
Truth has come out, says Sasikala in reaction to OPS's remark before panel

We kept her as a mighty lion, claims Sasikalas nephew on Jayalalithaas last days

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Chennai, April 21: As the mystery surrounding the death of J Jayalalithaa is refusing to die down soon, a relative of Sasikala Natarajan-- the close-aide of Amma (as Jayalalithaa was popularly known among her supporters) -- claimed that he has video evidence to prove that the former Tamil Nadu chief minister was kept like a 'mighty lion' during her last days.

In a Facebook post, Sasikala's nephew, Jeyanandh Dhivakaran, said that he was ready to reveal video clips from the last days of Jayalalithaa in Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, where she was undergoing treatment till her death. Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital on September 22 last year and was declared dead by the hospital authorities on December 5 last year.

Jeyanandh added that the video clips clearly showed the kind of 'good' relationship shared between Jayalalithaa and Sasikala. The Facebook post of Jeyanandh said, "Even after been coined as a murderer, Amma's picture was not revealed by Sasikala as her enemies should not see her clad in a green gown. Chinnamma (as Sasikala is known to her supporters) took this decision. "We kept her as a mighty lion until her death and bid adieu. But O Panneerselvam, just to garner votes, placed her in a coffin and paraded her," he said.

He added, "Truth is strong and what if the videos of Amma's and Chinnamma's conversations surface one day? What should we do to PH Pandian and Manoj K Pandian?"

It was the Pandian brothers who first alleged that Jayalalithaa was murdered and her death should be investigated.

The Facebook post of Sasikala's nephew has come at a time when talks of merger between the two camps of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam -- one lead by Panneerselvam and the second by TN CM Edappadi Palanisamy -- are doing the rounds.

The coming together of both the camps were made possible after a defiant Panneerselvam made sure that Sasikala, now lodged in a Bengaluru jail, and her nephew TTV Dinakaran, charged for bribing officials of the Election Commission, were thrown out of the party. Even Panneerselvam demanded an investigation into the death of Jayalalithaa.

Since the time Jayalalithaa died last year, several public interest litigations have been filed in the Madras high court demanding probe into the circumstances leading to the death of the former supremo of the AIADMK.

According to a latest PIL filed by P Balamurugan, a serving Indian revenue service officer, in the Madras HC, the former CM was either brought dead to Apollo Hospitals or died within two days after her admission to the hospital.

OneIndia News
UK PM Liz Truss resigns after 45 days in office, successor to be elected next week

With 2019 LS polls in mind, Modi to hold meet with BJP CMs on April 23

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

New Delhi, April 21: With an eye on 2019 elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting with the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states chief ministers in New Delhi on Sunday. According to reports, BJP chief Amit Shah will also attend the meet.

The call for a meeting came after Modi held a similar meeting with 33 NDA allies who assured of their help in 2019 elections.

According to reports, the meeting with all BJP chief ministers is described as an exercise to prepare for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It was also described as a referendum on Modi's five tenure as the Prime Minister.

It is believed that three BJP-ruled states such as Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will go to poll in 2018.

It is to be mention that BJP-ruled state Gujarat will also go to poll in 2017.

According to a BJP leader, who refused to tell his name said that Modi will not tolerate any anti-incumbency in the party which will bring down the party in 2019 elections.

He also said that the performance of the party will have a bearing in the Lok Sabha elections 2019.

He also said that Modi might ask all its party leaders to concentrate on their governance and avoid controversies as much as possible, adding that Modi might also suggest the leaders be careful about their remarks or comments while making in public which will grab media attraction to put the party into trouble.

Recently, during the BJP conclave meet in Bhubaneswar Modi said to have asked the party leaders to be mindful of their conducts.

Don't let the power go to your head, we should not get spoiled, Modi said to the 300 party leaders during conclave meeting in Odisha recently.

As of now, the BJP-ruled states are 13 and are sharing power in four other states.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 14:11 [IST]
With no information on kith and kin, 22 Indian prisoners languish in Pak jails

India

oi-Preeti Panwar

New Delhi, April 21: As India is trying its best to safely bring back its former Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav (who has been sentenced to death by Pakistan Military Court) from Pakistani jail, a report has emerged that 22 Indian prisoners, including five women, have completed their imprisonment but they are still languishing in Pakistani jails.

The Indian government has reportedly no information about kith and kin of these prisoners. The Indian embassy in Islamabad has made an appeal to public in India, to provide information about these prisoners, alongwith their photographs on their official website- http://www.india.org.pk.

The authorities in Pakistan claim that until the nationalities and exact identities of these prisoners are not established, they cannot initiate the process of their release. Some of them are said to be mentally-challeneged and are not in the condition to tell about their families and thus they are awaiting repatriation. [India 'concerned' over Jadhav's health: MEA]

Here are the details of these 22 Indian prisoners:

Details of prisoners Left to Right from Top: Ajmeera, Baila, Birju Ram, name not known (mark of Om on the back side of his right hand's palm) Left to Right from Bottom: Kishwa Bhagwan, Naqaya, Gullo Jan Do they have any takers in India? Left to Right from Top: Muhammad Qasim Mian, Panwasi Lal (from Uttar Pradesh), Rajoo Roy (from Bihar) Left to Right from Bottom: Raju Mahuli, Roopi Pal, Sham Sundar Yadav (from Bihar) If you have any information about them, please help them Left to Right from Top: Siloraf Salim, Sonu Singh (from Madhya Pradesh), Surendar Mahto (from Bihar) Left to Right from Bottom: Name not known, Ramesh, Raju (from Madhya Pradesh) They need your help! Left: Hasina, Top Right: Esma Maskan, Bottom Right: Prahlad Singh (from Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh)

In 2015, the Indian government had given special consular access to 17 of these prisoners, but they could not disclose any information about their families' whereabouts.

[India's Salman Ahmed stranded in Pakistan, hopes to come back]

"As the government has no data of completion of sentence and national status for majority of the prisoners, it implies that numerous prisoners would have completed their sentence long back," Pradeep Kumar, an activist from Bareilly-based NGO Jagar Society, who filed an RTI seeking their release, said.

NGO Jagar has taken up the responsibility to find information about the family and relatives of these Indians. Earlier also, the same NGO turned out to be the saviour for Yashpal, a labourer from Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh, who had trespassed into Pakistan and was lodged in the central jail of Sahiwal in Pakistan.

[Indian prisoners in Pak jails turning mentally ill due to torture: RTI]

After serving a three-year-term,Yashpal was released in July 2013, but by that time, he lost his mental balance. Yashpal's father Babu Ram, an agricultural labourer, got to knew about his arrest when a Pakistani sent them a letter in 2012, informing them about the whereabout of their son.

In 2014, an RTI finding had revealed that Indian prisoners, who have already served their terms in Pakistani jails, are living a life of torture and brutality leading to mental illness, largely because the Indian government failed to confirm their nationality in time.

[Geeta meets her 'Bajrangi Bhaaijan'! Deaf and mute girl meets PM Modi]

Most of the prisoners are poor and their families back home in India do not know how to take up the issue with the government.

OneIndia News
Delhi: Woman refuses to elope, man sets himself ablaze

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, April 21: A 30-year-old married man allegedly tried to commit suicide by setting himself afire after his sister-in-law refused to elope with him, the police said on Thursday.

The man, a resident of Vishwas Nagar in Shahdara, works as a taxi driver. He had plans to elope with the woman, who happens to be the wife of his brother-in-law, they said. However, the woman refused to go with him. Agitated over the refusal, he returned home and poured kerosene on his body and set himself on fire, the police said.

His wife tried to save him but also ended up sustaining injuries. The man, who sustained 35 per cent burns, is currently undergoing treatment at GTB Hospital, the police said.

PTI
IS claims attack on French police which killed 1, injured 2

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on the French police that left 1 dead and two wounded. The IS claimed the attack by making an announcement through its news agency, Amaq.

A police officer was killed and one person was wounded in a shooting that took place at Paris's Champs Elysees on Thursday. The incident took place just days ahead of the presidential elections in France. France's interior ministry said the attacker was killed in the incident in the early evening on the world-famous boulevard.

The famous shopping street in the heart of the city, which is usually teaming with tourists and Parisians, was blocked by armed police and metro stations in the area were closed. Dozens of vehicles from the emergency services were sent to the area.

France has been in a state of emergency since a spate of terror attacks hit the country in 2015. Attacks since 2015 which includes the one at Paris have claimed over 230 lives.

OneIndia News
Iran nuclear deal badly negotiated: Trump

International

oi-PTI

Washington, April 21: US President Donald Trump has accused Iran of 'not living up to the spirit' of the nuclear deal signed in 2015 under the Obama administration and termed the agreement as 'terrible' and 'badly negotiated'.

"They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that," Trump told reporters at a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Thursday.

"I think Iranians are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed. It was a terrible agreement. It shouldn't have been signed." The US President said his administration was analysing the agreement signed under former president Barack Obama 'very, very carefully' and would take a decision on it soon.

"We are analysing it very, very carefully and we'll have something to say about it in the not too distant future. But Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement. They have to do that. We will see what happens," Trump said.

"It shouldn't have been negotiated the way it was negotiated. I'm all for agreements, but that was a bad one, as bad as I've ever seen negotiated," he added.

Meanwhile, Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said that the US will not allow Iran to mass produce intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"We are not going to allow the Iranians, now that we've already had a deal where the Obama administration gave up all the leverage up front in terms of the sanctions, which was billions in relief, to go forward and mass produce ICBMs so that when we are at the end of the agreement and we lift everything they have a turnkey operation for ICBMs," Royce told the reporters.

PTI

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 8:57 [IST]
Indians lying to get student visas for New Zealand, claims report

New Zealand approves first US Navy ship visit in 3 decades

NASA: Sixth attempt at balloon launch fails

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Wellington, April 21: High surface winds scuttled NASA's sixth attempt at launching a stadium-sized super pressure balloon from Wanaka in New Zealand on Friday.

"The wind speed was below our limit for a time, but unfortunately picked back up at a speed that would not support a launch on Friday. We were close once again in our processing, but the winds didn't set up in the end," said Gabe Garde, mission manager for the 2017 Wanaka Balloon Campaign.

The balloon and its science payload was expected to drift north east and begin a 100-day journey around the world.

The balloon is designed to carry a pioneering telescope to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays from near space.

The purpose of the flight is to test and validate the SPB technology with the goal of long-duration flight at mid-latitudes.

IANS
Panamagate case: Nawaz Sharif's daughter cleared by Pak SC

International

oi-PTI

Islamabad, April 21: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's media savvy daughter Maryam Sharif's name has been virtually cleared by the Supreme Court in the high-profile Panama case, according to a media report. The Panama Papers leaks alleged that 43-year-old Maryam was the beneficial owner of the London properties owned jointly by her brothers.

The petitions claimed that since Maryam was a dependant of Sharif, she should have declared the Mayfair properties in her wealth statement. The verdict, however, was of the view that Maryam "has received cash gifts from her father in substantial amounts on various occasions receipt of gifts from the father does not necessarily make Respondent No 6 (Maryam Nawaz) his (Nawaz Sharif) dependent in the legal sense of the word", Dawn reported.

The bench said in the verdict that "we also notice that she owns substantial agricultural property, receives income from the same, holds shares in limited companies worth more than Rs 200 million and her husband also receives a fair amount of money by way of pension as a retired military officer".

In response to the arguments that Maryam lives in the Sharif's family house, the verdict said: "The mere fact that she has chosen to live in a compound owned by her grandmother does not ipso facto make her a dependent of Respondent No 1 (Nawaz Sharif) either".

The verdict further noted that Maryam "contributes a substantial sum of money towards her share in the joint expenses incurred by her grandmother on behalf of other members of the Sharif family residing in the compound".

Subsequently, the bench declared, "in this context, whether or not Respondent No 6 is the beneficial owner of the Mayfair Properties becomes irrelevant at this stage, seen from the point of view of seeking disqualification of Respondent No 1 on the ground that he has failed to disclose the assets of a dependent".

Even otherwise, the issue of dependency is a question of fact to be determined on a case-to-case basis after recording evidence. The bench concluded that in these proceedings sufficient material was not available on the record to establish that Maryam Nawaz was a dependant of Nawaz Sharif, in a legal sense.

"We do not feel the necessity to discuss this aspect of the case any further, lest it should prejudice the case of either party before a competent forum if and when this issue is agitated," it said.

In the operating part of the judgement, the bench constituted a joint investigation team comprising representatives of the Federal Investigation Agency, National Accountability Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, State Bank of Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.

The court asked the proposed JIT to investigate allegations levelled against Sharif and his sons Hassan and Hussain by the petitioners. A senior lawyer and former deputy attorney general Tariq Jahangiri says that Maryam has been cleared for the time being, but in case the JIT finds some tangible evidence against her she may face the proceedings as well.

PTI

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Story first published: Friday, April 21, 2017, 18:46 [IST]
US parents win battle to name son Allah

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The parents of this toddler decided to call their child ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah. However for this couple from Atlanta, United States, it was not easy registering that name. The authorities objected to the name Allah since it was not part of both the parents' name.

When the parents approached the authorities, they refused to issue a birth certificate. They said that the last name Allah does not match with either of the parents' last names.

However, this issue was taken up by a civil rights group who decided to fight the case out on behalf of the parents. The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia sued last month on behalf of Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk. The group, however, said that it was dropping the lawsuit because the Georgia department of health issued a birth certificate with the name that was chosen by the parents.

The group termed this as a major victory and said that no government can dictate what you and cannot name your child. "It goes against our values and also the intent of the legislature," the director of group Andrea Young said.

OneIndia News
Will Donald Trump administration intervene to save Kulbhushan Jadhav?

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Washington, April 21: The cry to save Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and anti-Pakistani activities, grows louder in the United States.

The Indian-American community in the country has launched a White House petition, requesting the Donald Trump administration to intervene to save Jadhav. Created by one SS, the 'We the People Petition' on the White House website said the allegations against Jadhav that he was spying for India is totally false and fabricated.

The petition requires at least 100,000 signatures before May 14 to qualify for a response from the Trump Administration.

"The fact that India is not given consular access to Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated," it said.

"In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which he never committed," the petition said.

Jadhav, the 46-year-old former naval officer, was kidnapped from Iran where he went for a business-related work last year. Jadhav was staying in Mumbai with his family until he made that ill-fated journey to Iran.

Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was 'a serving officer in the Indian Navy'.

The Pakistan army had also released a 'confessional video' of Jadhav after his arrest. However, India denied Pakistan's contention and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by the Pakistan authorities. India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.

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Since the beginning of 2016, gold stocks have been among the markets' top-performing industries. After the lustrous yellow metal tipped the scales at $1,050 per ounce in early 2016, it has since rebounded to about $1,290 an ounce. Following a four-year downtrend, gold is officially back in a bull market, and many of the companies that mine it have benefited in a big way.

The importance of all-in sustaining costs

However, not all gold stocks are created equally, and as you might have rightly surmised, some have performed better than others. While there are a number of factors that can influence how well or poorly a gold miner performs, including geographic location, ore grade, and the recovery rate of mined material, there's perhaps no more important metric for gold stock investors than all-in sustaining costs, or AISC.

All-in sustaining costs take into account the pertinent costs of mine maintenance (on-site mine and administrative costs, royalties and production taxes, byproduct credits, permitting costs, smelting, refining, and transport) as well as behind-the-scenes costs that aren't often associated with on-site mining but still factor into overall expenses. These include corporate general and administrative costs, sustaining exploration and study costs, sustaining capitalized stripping and underground mine development, and sustaining capital expenditures, to name a few.

Long story short: You get a pretty encompassing picture of which mining companies are producing the best and worst margins by utilizing the AISC measure.

Three gold miners with the lowest AISC

Let's take a closer look at how 10 of the largest gold-mining companies are performing based on the midpoint of their full-year AISC forecast. We're going to exclude royalty and streaming companies such as Royal Gold and Franco-Nevada for the purposes of making an apples-to-apples comparison, as well as remove any large gold miners that report only on a cash cost and not AISC basis, such as Randgold Resources.

Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) : $745 an ounce.

: $745 an ounce. Newmont Mining : $970 an ounce.

: $970 an ounce. Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) : $850 an ounce.

: $850 an ounce. Agnico Eagle Mines : $875 an ounce.

: $875 an ounce. AngoGold Ashanti : $1,075 an ounce.

: $1,075 an ounce. Kinross Gold : $975 an ounce.

: $975 an ounce. Gold Fields : $1,020 an ounce.

: $1,020 an ounce. Yamana Gold : $900 an ounce.

: $900 an ounce. B2Gold : $955 an ounce.

: $955 an ounce. Eldorado Gold (NYSE: EGO) : $860 an ounce.

You'll note that all of these gold miners have done a good job of reducing their costs over the past five years as gold prices have retreated from nearly $1,900 an ounce back in 2011. If gold were to remain near $1,300 an ounce, all 10 of these mid- and large-cap gold-mining stocks would be healthfully profitable.

Nonetheless, there are three clear standouts.

1. Barrick Gold

Far and away the most cost-efficient large miner is Barrick Gold, with a midpoint of its 2017 AISC forecast of $745 per ounce. Barrick wound up lowering its AISC forecast on three separate occasions in 2017, leaving this Fool to believe that the company could indeed be a bit conservative with its cost guidance.

Barrick Gold has two major factors working in its favor. First, it's really taken the time to focus on reducing its capital expenditures and debt. At the end of 2014, the company had $13.1 billion in debt, but by the end of 2016, Barrick had reduced its total debt to $7.9 billion. By 2018, Barrick anticipates reducing its debt to just $5 billion, which means lower interest expenses and more flexibility should it feel the need to acquire new properties. As a bonus, less than $200 million of its remaining debt matures before 2019.

In terms of capital expenditures, Barrick came in under target in 2016 at $1.12 billion, and the company has lowered its capital expenditures by about $225 million in 2017 and 2018 from its initial guidance. This, too, can have a positive impact on AISC.

The other factor working in its favor is the potential for organic mine expansion. For example, the Goldrush mine in Nevada is expected to add an estimated 440,000 ounces of gold a year by 2021. Meanwhile, Turquoise Ridge is expected to see an expansion of its underground mine. These are just two of many examples where Barrick can boost its output without affecting its AISC all that much.

2. Goldcorp

For those of you who regularly follow gold stocks, seeing Goldcorp among the most cost-efficient miners should come as no surprise. Goldcorp has long had a focus on boosting efficiency, being prudent with its capital expenditures, and utilizing its byproducts to offset its gold-mining costs.

Last year, Goldcorp wound up lowering its AISC to $856 an ounce, which was notably lower than the $894 reported in 2015. Goldcorp has managed this about-face by focusing on its most promising projects and looking for ways to reduce its costs organically. For instance, it's been analyzing its properties in an effort to save $250 million annually in cost savings by 2018. Thus far it's identified about $150 million in savings and wound up realizing $100 million in annual savings last year.

At the same time, Goldcorp is focused on ramping up production at Cerro Negro in Argentina and Eleonore in Quebec. After producing 382,000 gold ounces at Cerro Negro last year, Goldcorp is targeting an additional 28,000 ounces in 2017, largely a result of development rate improvements. At Eleonore, production is estimated to grow by a double-digit percentage to 315,000 gold ounces from 278,000 in 2016, as the company continues to ramp up operations. Full production isn't even expected at Eleonore until sometime in 2018.

Significant byproduct recoveries at Musselwhite, Eleonore, Penasquito, Red Lake, and Cerro Negro have also been instrumental in keeping Goldcorp's costs down. I'd expect it to remain a low-cost leader within the industry.

3. Eldorado Gold

Eldorado Gold is another mining company that surprised Wall Street last year by producing an AISC of $900 an ounce versus its original AISC guidance of $940 to $980 an ounce.

What we're seeing right now is a major transformation under way with Eldorado Gold. The company disposed of its non-core assets in China last year, selling its 82% stake in Jinfeng, and closing its sales on both White Mountain and Tanjianshan in November. The sale better helps Eldorado Gold focus on its core mines in Greece and Turkey, as well as prepare for the start of commercial production at Skouries in Greece by 2019.

Gold and copper mine Skouries has the potential to be a real game-changer for Eldorado. After multiple delays, construction of the mine is underway and, at least for now, on track. The company expects to spend $170 millon to $200 million on capital expenditures at Skouries this year, which is lower than it forecast back in September. The company attributes the flexibility of its capital plan and ongoing cost initiatives for helping to push its spending below budget.

Once online, Skouries is expected to have an estimated 25-year lifespan that'll wind up producing more than 3 million ounces of gold and close to 1.5 billon ounces of copper. In fact, the copper byproduct during the first nine years of the mine is expected to push its sustaining and operating cash costs into the negative.

Most importantly, Eldorado ended 2016 with $883.2 million in cash and cash equivalents following the divestiture of its non-core assets. In just one year's time it went from a $300 million net debt position to more than a $290 million net cash position. This added flexibility should be a good thing for the company and shareholders.

10 stocks we like better than Barrick Gold

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David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Barrick Gold wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

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Sean Williams has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) reported its 2017 first-quarter results on Tuesday morning. The healthcare giant again beat earnings estimates, just as it did throughout 2016.

Investors heard a lot from Johnson & Johnson about what went right and what went wrong in the first quarter, as well as some of the company's plans for the future. However, J&J's management team didn't answer every question that shareholders might have had. Here are three things that the company didn't tell you in its first-quarter earnings update.

1. When its consumer business will return to real growth

On the surface, Johnson & Johnson's consumer business segment numbers looked mediocre but not too bad. The company reported worldwide consumer sales of $3.2 billion in the first quarter, up 1% year over year.

What those figures mask, however, is where that small amount of growth came from. Excluding the impact of acquisitions and divestitures, consumer segment sales actually decreased by 2.3%. Consumer sales in the U.S. were worse than in international markets, with domestic sales dropping 2.9% while international sales fell 1.9%.

Joseph Wolk, vice president of investor relations, talked about a lot of macroeconomic factors affecting the consumer segment in the company's earnings call. However, Johnson & Johnson is experiencing broad category declines in several parts of its consumer business, including baby care, Listerine oral care, and wound care/other.

When will Johnson & Johnson's consumer business return to real growth? It's not certain. The company thinks that the introduction of new products could boost sales by around 2% in 2017 from current levels. Even with these new launches, though, CFO Dominic Caruso expects the consumer segment will post a similar performance to 2016 and could do worse if the category declines continue.

2. What the plan is to restore pharmaceuticals growth

An even bigger concern relates to pharmaceuticals growth. Over 46% of Johnson & Johnson's total revenue comes from its pharmaceuticals business. In the first quarter of 2017, sales for the segment grew at a snail's pace -- only 0.8% higher than the prior-year period.

J&J does have several products with strong growth, including multiple myeloma drug Darzalex and blood cancer drug Imbruvica. However, sales for its top-selling drug, the anti-inflammatory Remicade, are falling. The company also reported lower first-quarter sales for diabetes drug Invokana, blood thinner Xarelto, and prostate cancer drug Zytiga.

Granted, Johnson & Johnson did have favorable prior period price adjustments in the first quarter of 2016 that make year-over-year comparisons look worse. But the company nonetheless still appears to have some significant issues in its pharmaceuticals segment.

Part of the problem is the need to provide discounts to payers, particularly for Invokana. Competition is another major challenge. Remicade is losing market share to biosimilar competition in Europe. Although Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) is now selling a biosimilar to Remicade in the U.S., J&J hasn't been impacted too much -- at least not yet. Generic competition in the U.S. is, however, hurting sales of ADHD drug Concerta.

Johnson & Johnson didn't elaborate on how it plans to overcome all of these issues in its first-quarter update. However, the company has scheduled a pharmaceuticals business review for May 17. Perhaps these problems and their solutions will be addressed then.

3. How long it will take for the Actelion acquisition to pay off

J&J's management team mentioned the pending Actelion acquisition several times during the company's earnings conference call. The $30 billion transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017.

Johnson & Johnson raised its 2017 revenue outlook by $700 million as a result of the anticipated Actelion closure. It also increased its adjusted earnings guidance from $7 per share to $7.15 per share.

Upward revisions to guidance are great, but there's still a big unanswered question: How long will it actually take for the Actelion buyout to pay off? J&J didn't really address the question when it first announced plans to buy the Swiss biotech and didn't in the first-quarter update.

There has been considerable skepticism about the price tag paid for Actelion. With several of Johnson & Johnson's existing drugs struggling, the addition of the smaller company's pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) franchise could help. However, so could plenty of other deals that wouldn't have been as expensive.

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Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017

Keith Speights owns shares of Pfizer. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Ischemic Cerebral Stroke Market: Asia-Pacific is Growing Rapidly due to Growing Government Support for Spreading Awareness about Ischemic Cerebral Stroke

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Ischemic cerebral stroke occurs when blood vessels that supply blood to brain are blocked due to the formation of blood clots resulting in the corresponding loss of neurologic function. The symptoms of ischemic cerebral stroke complains include the abrupt onset of hemiparesis, quadriparesis and monoparesis, monocular visual loss, diplopia, visual field deficits, hemisensory deficits, dysarthria, facial droop, vertigo, ataxia, nystagmus, aphasia and decrease in the level of consciousness.Obtain Report Details @CT scan is the most common technique, which is used for diagnosis of ischemic cerebral stroke, majorly due to its efficiency to capture the images in the form of axial slices or as volume studies in three-dimensional form. These three-dimensional images provide the doctor, better insight about the stroke condition. In addition to imaging diagnosis, doctors also perform lumbar puncture and other laboratory testing such as complete blood count, basic chemistry panel, coagulation studies and toxicology screening. These tests are performed to discover any additional disease condition which could hinder the treatment such as meningitis, coagulopathy and other concurrent illness such as diabetes, hypoglycemia, renal insufficiency and hyponatremia.On the basis of the treatment, the ischemic cerebral stroke market is majorly classified into two classes namely medication treatment and surgical treatment. Surgical treatment involves the removal of the blood clots and fatty deposits from the artery in the neck. The surgery helps in reducing the risk of another stroke, but this method of treatment is not suitable for everyone. Therefore, medications capture the major share of the ischemic cerebral stroke treatment market.Drugs that are usually prescribed for treatment include:-Alteplase-Warfarin-Aspirin and ClopidrogelAlteplase captures the major share of the ischemic cerebral stroke medication market followed by warfarin. Alteplase is used to break up blood clots and for restoring blood flow in the brain while warfarin prevents formation of blood clot. Aspirin and clopidrogel are prescribed to reduce the rate of formation of blood clots after a stroke. Moreover, many market players in ischemic cerebral stroke market are performing research for developing drugs that take less time for breaking blood clots and restoring blood flow.For instance, Stempeutics Research Pvt., Ltd. has developed a drug with the namely Stempeucel which is expected to show efficient results in the forecast period leading to the growth of ischemic cerebral stroke market. Currently, Stempeucel is under phase II clinical trials for treatment of ischemic cerebral stroke.North America leads the ischemic cerebral stroke market followed by Europe majorly due to high prevalence of ischemic cerebral stroke. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stroke is a leading cause of death in U.S. and kills around 130,000 people every year and around 85% of the strokes are ischemic cerebral stroke. Such high prevalence of the disease leads to the increased need for diagnosis and treatment medications resulting in the growth of ischemic cerebral stroke market.Make an Enquiry @Asia-Pacific is growing rapidly in the ischemic cerebral stroke treatments market due to increasing prevalence of the disease and growing government support for spreading awareness about ischemic cerebral stroke. As for instance, in 2008, the Regional Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC) program in South Korea was initiated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of South Korea to spread awareness about the availability of treatments and to decrease the mortality rate of the stroke nationwide.Other major players in the ischemic cerebral stroke market include Bayer AG, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, H. Lundbeck A/S, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, ThromboGenics NV, Vernalis plc and Neurotec Pharma SL.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Dental Fittings Market - Global Industry Analysis and Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Orthodontics mainly deals with the correction of improper alignment of teeth by braces or apparent loss of teeth by dentures/artificial teeth. Orthodontics was initially chosen for children but now it is used ubiquitously. Technological advancements have reduced the stigma related with this treatment and now many dental fittings such as tongue and teeth colored braces are available commercially. Rising awareness of dental aesthetics and related advantages has resulted in increased acceptance of dental fittings amongst all age groups.The dental fittings include dentures, archwires, anchorage appliances and ligatures. The braces or the brackets are meant to place the misaligned or crooked teeth in place. Braces are small squares attached to the front of the teeth by an orthodontic bonding agent and connected to each other via connectors or bands. Orthodontic bands are stainless steel, tooth colored material or transparent. Spacers are separating parts that fit between the teeth before the bands. Archwires guide braces with the movement of the teeth. Ligatures are small rubber bands which hold on to the archwires together.Browse Market Research Report @Traditionally braces were made up of metals, however, with technological advancements they are now available in ceramics. The braces are also made up of stainless steel, titanium or a mixture of both. The orthodontic archwires are of two types: coated metal and transparent non-metallic. Coated metal archwires are made up of nickel- titanium or of stainless steel and are coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), parylene-polymer, and an epoxy-resin.Transparent nonmetallic arches are similar to metal arches which are made from glass spindle and are embedded in polymer matrix. The growing demand for aesthetic archwires has led to many advancements in archwires technology. These wires will continuously be developed on the basis of appearance, durability and flexibility. Non-metallic archwires may take over the future market as they are more preferred over the conventional metallic wires. Dentures are used to replace and support the missing teeth and the surrounding gum tissues. Dentures are of two types: complete ones and the partial ones. The partial ones are plastic partials or the metal partials, on the basis of the material used to attach to the teeth.The dental fittings market is on an all-time high due to many regulatory reforms in most of the countries like reimbursement coverage, access to advanced technology, increased disposable income and increased rate of awareness about dental fittings treatment. Aspects such as rising awareness about dental fittings, cheaper availability of treatment and increasing health care expenditure may boost the growth of the dental fittings market in Asia Pacific. Attributing to rapid development in healthcare, infrastructure, government reforms and access to advanced dental fittings, China and India are most profitable markets in Asia. Also, easy availability of skilled orthodontists and supporting economy is expected to spur the growth of the dental fittings market in China and India.For more information on this report, fill the form @Many of the companies are manufacturing dental fittings, and are adopting acquisitions and mergers, extensive R&D as measures to expand their geographic reach and introduction of novel products in to the market. Asia Pacific dental fittings market is expected to rise with context to volume, on basis of low product prices, less market penetration, disposable earning and improving healthcare expenditure. Also the awareness of dental aesthetics systems and dental cosmetic surgery will expectedly drive this market in North America and Europe.The advanced CAD/CAM technology and 3 Dimensional digital imaging may lead to growth in the industry. The CAD technology can support in making digital prostheses much faster. The global dental fittings market is dominated by few key players such as GC Orthodontics, Dentaurum, Henry Schein, Hangzhou Shinye, and Dental Morelli.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Smartphone CPE Component 2017 Global Key Players - Sharp, SAMSUNG, Apple, Vivo, LG, Huawei Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Smartphone CPE Component

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Smartphone CPE ComponentReport Details:This report analyzes the top players in global and United States market, and splits the Smartphone CPE Component market by product type and applications/end industriesTop Key Palyers:Sharp,SAMSUNGAUOInnolux,LGCPTTOSHIBATIANMATPKHuawei,Apple,VivoClick here for sample report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share (%) and growth Rate (%) of Smartphone CPE Component in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificSouth AmericaMiddle East and AfricaThe On the basis of product, the Smartphone CPE Component market is primarily split intoSmartphoneHeadsetChargerData LineOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report coversSmartphoneOthersSome Major Points from Table of content:2017-2022 Smartphone CPE Component Report on Global and United States Market, Status and Forecast, by Players, Types and Applications1 Methodology and Data Source1.1 Methodology/Research Approach1.1.1 Research Programs/Design1.1.2 Market Size Estimation1.1.3 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation1.2 Data Source2.1.1 Secondary Sources2.1.2 Primary Sources1.3 DisclaimerFor Detailed Reading Please visit @7 Smartphone CPE Component Players/Manufacturers Profiles and Sales Data7.1 Sharp7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.1.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Sharp Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 SAMSUNG7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.2.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 SAMSUNG Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 AUO7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.3.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 AUO Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Innolux7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.4.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Innolux Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 LG7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.5.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 LG Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 CPT7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.6.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 CPT Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 TOSHIBA7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.7.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 TOSHIBA Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 TIANMA7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors7.8.2 Smartphone CPE Component Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 TIANMA Smartphone CPE Component Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview..ContinuedBuy now @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About UsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDHouse No. 1, Ekmat SocietyJaywant Nagar, Nagpur - 440027Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042Mail :info@wiseguyreports.com
The Public Safety LTE & Mobile Broadband Market Technology Advancement, Innovation 2016 - 2030 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts

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Due to the bandwidth limitations of their traditional voice-centric LMR (Land Mobile Radio) networks, public safety agencies are keen to leverage commercial cellular network technology to support their growing broadband application needs. Considering its thriving ecosystem, spectrum flexibility and performance metrics, LTE has emerged as the leading candidate for public safety mobile broadband networks. In addition, with the recent approval of the MCPTT (Mission Critical Push to Talk) voice standard as part of 3GPP Release 13, LTE has also become an attractive substitute for providing LMR-like voice services.The Qatar Ministry of Interior made headlines when it deployed a private 800 MHz LTE network in 2012. Since then, numerous public safety LTE networks have sprung up across the globe, including the UAE, China, Laos, Turkey and Kenya. Several early adopter LTE deployments are also operational in the United States, as part of the planned FirstNet nationwide public safety broadband network. While most initial public safety LTE investments are limited to small-scale networks, nationwide rollouts in the United States and South Korea are expected to trigger significant large-scale investments throughout the globe.The European market is largely dominated by MVNO arrangements, such as the UK Home Offices ESN (Emergency Services Network) program that will use EEs commercial LTE network to deliver prioritized mission critical voice and data services for the UKs public safety agencies. As part of the program, EE is enhancing its existing network with additional sites, satellite backhaul and a dedicated mobile core for first responders, among other investments.Download Sample Copy Of This Report :Driven by the thriving ecosystem, SNS Research estimates that annual investments on public safety LTE infrastructure will reach $600 Million by the end of 2016. The market, which includes base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear, is further expected to grow at a CAGR of 33% over the next four years. By 2020, these infrastructure investments will be complemented by over 4.4 Million LTE device shipments, including smartphones, rugged handheld terminals and vehicular routers.The Public Safety LTE & Mobile Broadband Market: 2016  2030  Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts report presents an in-depth assessment of the global public safety LTE market, besides touching upon the wider LMR and mobile broadband industries. In addition to covering the business case, challenges, technology, spectrum allocation, industry roadmap, value chain, deployment case studies, vendor products, strategies, standardization initiatives and applications ecosystem for public safety LTE, the report also presents comprehensive forecasts for mobile broadband, LMR and public safety LTE subscriptions from 2016 till 2030. Also covered are public safety LTE service revenues, over both private and commercial networks. In addition, the report presents revenue forecasts for public safety LTE infrastructure, devices, integration services and management solutions.The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report, as well as a list and associated details of over 90 global public safety LTE network commitments (as of Q22016).View Full Report :Key Findings:The report has the following key findings:SNS Research estimates that annual investments on public safety LTE infrastructure will reach $600 Million by the end of 2016. The market, which includes base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear, is further expected to grow at a CAGR of 33% over the next four years.By 2020, these infrastructure investments will be complemented by over 4.4 Million LTE device shipments, including smartphones, rugged handheld terminals and vehicular routers.Following the Qatar Ministry of Interiors private 800 MHz LTE network deployment in 2012, multiple private LTE rollouts are underway by security forces throughout the oil rich GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region, including the Abu Dhabi and Dubai police forces.Driven by nationwide public safety LTE network rollouts in the United States and South Korea, the North America and Asia Pacific regions will account for nearly 70% of all public safety LTE investments over the next four years.Almost all major LMR industry players are leveraging partnerships with established LTE infrastructure OEMs such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Samsung, to offer end-to-end LTE solutions.Consolidation efforts are continuing to take place throughout the industry, particularly among the largest LTE infrastructure OEMs and public safety system integrators.Topics Covered:The report covers the following topics:Business case for public safety LTE and mobile broadband services, including key benefits and challengesTechnology, economics, trends, commercial commitments and deployment case studiesList of public safety LTE engagements worldwidePublic safety LTE infrastructure, devices and applicationsIndustry roadmap, value chain and standardization initiativesSpectrum allocation, deployment models and funding strategiesProfiles and strategies of over 260 ecosystem players including public safety system integrators and LTE infrastructure/device OEMsTCO analysis of private and commercial public safety LTE deploymentsMilitary and tactical LTE deploymentsPublic safety LTE base station (eNB) form factor analysisExclusive interview transcripts from 5 key ecosystem players: Ericsson, Airbus Defence and Space, Sepura, Aricent and Parallel WirelessStrategic recommendations for vendors, system integrators, public safety agencies and mobile operatorsMarket analysis and forecasts from 2016 till 2030Forecast Segmentation:Market forecasts are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:Public Safety LTE InfrastructureSubmarketsRAN (Radio Access Network)EPC (Evolved Packet Core) and PolicyMobile Backhaul and TransportRAN Base Station (eNB) Mobility CategoriesFixed Base StationsTransportable Base StationsRAN Base Station (eNB) Cell Size CategoriesMacrocellsSmall CellsTransportable RAN Base Station (eNB) Form Factor CategoriesNIB (Network-in-a-Box)VNS (Vehicle Network System)SOW (System-on-Wheels)Airborne PlatformPublic Safety LTE Management & Integration SolutionsSubmarketsNetwork Integration & TestingDevice Management & User ServicesManaged Services, Operations & MaintenanceCybersecurityPublic Safety LTE DevicesSubmarketsPrivate LTECommercial LTEForm Factor CategoriesSmartphones & Handportable TerminalsVehicle Mount Routers & TerminalsTablets & Notebook PCsUSB Dongles & OthersPublic Safety LTE Subscriptions & Service RevenueSubmarketsPrivate LTECommercial LTEPublic Safety User Subscriptions over Private Mobile BroadbandSubmarketsPrivate LTEPrivate WiMAXPublic Safety User Subscriptions over Commercial Mobile BroadbandSubmarkets3GWiMAXLTE5G & BeyondLMR SubscriptionsSubmarketsAnalogDMRdPMR, NXDN & PDTP25TETRATetrapolOthersLMR Data SubscriptionsSubmarketsP25 - Phase 1P25 - Phase 2TETRATEDSTetrapolOthersPublic Safety LTE ApplicationsSubmarketsVideo ApplicationszGIS, AVLS and MappingMobile VPN Access & SecurityCAD (Computer Aided Dispatching)Remote Database AccessTelemetry and Remote DiagnosticsBulk Multimedia/Data TransfersPTT & Voice over LTESituational Awareness ApplicationsRegional SegmentationAsia PacificEastern EuropeLatin & Central AmericaMiddle East & AfricaNorth AmericaWestern EuropeKey Questions Answered:The report provides answers to the following key questions:How big is the public safety LTE opportunity?What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?How is the ecosystem evolving by segment and region?What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?Which regions and submarkets will see the highest percentage of growth?How does standardization impact the adoption of LTE for public safety applications?When will MCPTT and proximity services see large scale proliferation?What is the status of private LTE rollouts and public safety MVNO offerings across the globe?What opportunities exist for commercial mobile operators and MVNOs in the public safety LTE market?Is there a market for 400 MHz LTE networks?What are the prospects of tactical, vehicle-mounted and airborne LTE eNB platforms?How can public safety agencies leverage unused spectrum resources to fund private LTE networks?What strategies should system integrators and vendors adopt to remain competitive?List of Companies Mentioned:The following companies and organizations have been reviewed, discussed or mentioned in the report:3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project)AaeonAbu Dhabi PoliceAccelleranAceAxisACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority)AculabAdaxADCOM911 (Adams County Communication Center)ADRF (Advanced RF Technologies)AdvantechAdvantech WirelessAeroflexAffarii TechnologiesAffirmed NetworksAgile NetworksAirbus Defence and SpaceAirbus GroupAir-LynxAirspan NetworksAirvanaAirwave SolutionsAjman PoliceAlcatel-LucentAltiostar NetworksAmdocsAniteAnritsu CorporationAPCO International (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials)AppleARASKOMArcadyanArgelaAricentARItelArqivaArtemis NetworksAselsanASOCSASTRI (Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute)ASTRIDASTRO SolutionsAsus (ASUSTeK Computer)AT&TAthena Wireless CommunicationsAthonetATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions)Atlas TelecomAvanti Communications GroupAvayaAVIAviat NetworksAvtecAxell WirelessAxis CommunicationsAxis TeknologiesAxxcelera Broadband WirelessBAE SystemsBandRichBarrett CommunicationsBASE (Belgium)Baylin TechnologiesBayRICS (Bay Area Regional Interoperable Communications Systems Authority)BayWEB (Bay Area Wireless Enhanced Broadband system)BFDXBilbao MetroBird TechnologiesBittium CorporationBlack Box CorporationBlackhawk ImagingBlacknedBluebirdBoise Police DepartmentBosch Security SystemsBrazilian ArmyBridgewaterBroadcomBrocade Communications SystemsBT GroupBTI WirelessC4iCalAmp CorporationCalgary Police ServiceCamden County Public SafetyCanadian Advanced Technology AllianceCasio Computer CompanyCatalyst CommunicationsCaterpillarCaviumCCI (Communication Components Inc.)CCI (Competitive Companies, Inc.)CCI (Crown Castle International)CCSA (China Communications Standards Association)CCTI (Catalyst Communications Technologies, Inc.)CellvineCeragonChina MobileCiena CorporationCisco SystemsCITIG (Canadian Interoperability Technology Interest Group)City of CharlotteCity of Fort WorthCity of IrvingCity of New OrleansCity of OaklandCity of Pembroke PineCobhamCobham WirelessCodan Radio CommunicationsColorado Parks and WildlifeComba Telecom Systems HoldingsCommAgilityCommandWear SystemsCommScopeComtech Telecommunications CorporationCONET TechnologiesConnectemContelaCore Network DynamicsCoriantCorningCovia LabsCPqD (Center for Research and Development in Telecommunications, Brazil)CradlepointCSI (Cellular Specialties, Inc.)Dali WirelessDAMM Cellular SystemsDAP TechnologiesDAPage NotificationsDataNet SoftwareDatang GroupDatang MobileDellDeltaNodeDish NetworkDNK (Norwegian Directorate for Emergency Communication)Dongwon T&IDragonWaveDSC (Digital Special Communication)Dubai PoliceDurabook (Twinhead International Corporation)Dutch PoliceEA Networks (Electricity Ashburton)EADSEastcomEchoStar CorporationEden Rock CommunicationsEEEENA (European Emergency Number Association)EF JohnsonElbit SystemsElta SystemsEMC CorporationEricssonEricsson LGETELMEtherstackEthertronicsETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, South Korea)ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute)EventideEXACOMExalt CommunicationsExelisEXFOExteNet SystemsFalu MunicipalityFederated WirelessFirstNet (First Responder Network Authority)FoxcomFraunhofer FokusFrench Armed ForcesFrench MOI (Ministry of Interior)FrequentisFujitsuGaltronicsGemtek Technology CompanyGENBANDGeneral Dynamics CorporationGeneral Dynamics Mission SystemsGenesis GroupGerman Armed Forces (Bundeswehr)Getac Technology CorporationGoodman NetworksGoodmill SystemsGoogleGovernor's OIT (Office of Information Technology), State of ColoradoGrant County Sheriffs OfficeGrenTech (China GrenTech Corporation)GWT (Global Wireless Technologies)Harris CorporationHarris CountyHFRS (Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service)HitachiHome Office, UKHoneywellHong Kong Police ForceHP (Hewlett-Packard Company)HQT RadioHTCHuaweiHughes CommunicationsHughes Network SystemsHytera Communications CompanyIAI (Israel Aerospace Industries)iBwave SolutionsiCOMIDF (Israel Defense Forces)ImtradexInmarsatInnerWirelessIntel CorporationIntel SecurityInterDigitalIntersecIntrepid Networksip.accessIPWirelessITELAZPIITU (International Telecommunication Union)JDI (JING DENG INDUSTRIAL)JMA WirelessJordanian Armed ForcesJRC (Japan Radio Company)Juni GlobalJuniper NetworksJVCKENWOOD CorporationKapsch CarrierComKathrein-Werke KGKBRKelrad SoftwareKenyan Police ServiceKeysight TechnologiesKirisun CommunicationsKisan TelecomKMWKodiak NetworksKPNKT CorporationKudelski GroupKyocera CommunicationsL-3 Communication Systems-WestL-3 Communications HoldingsLaos PoliceLA-RICS (Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System)Las Vegas Metropolitan Police DepartmentLemko CorporationLenovoLeonardo-FinmeccanicaLG CNSLG ElectronicsLG GroupLGS InnovationsLigado NetworksLijiang PoliceLiveViewGPSLockheed Martin CorporationLogic InstrumentMavenir SystemsMcWaneMegaFonMentura GroupMER-CellO Wireless SolutionsMetroPCSMiami Dade Police DepartmentMiami-Dade CountyMicrolabMilestone SystemsMIMOonMinistry of Industry and Information Technology, ChinaMitel Networks CorporationMitsubishi Electric CorporationMobileDemandMobilicomMobistarMODUCOM (MODULAR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS)Moscow PoliceMoseley AssociatesMotorola MobilityMotorola SolutionsMPS (Ministry of Public Security, China)MPSS (Ministry of Public Safety and Security, South Korea)MSB (Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency)MTI MobileMutualinkNational Rail, UKNATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)NCRIC (Northern California Regional Information Center)NEC CorporationNedaaNeptune MobileNet4MobilityNetasNetMotion WirelessNevada Department of TransportationNew Jersey ROIC (Regional Operations Intelligence Center)New Jersey State PoliceNew Jersey TransitNew Mexico DoIT (Department of Information Technology)New Postcom Equipment CompanyNew Zealand PoliceNewCore WirelessNexiusNextG NetworksNextNavNI (National Instruments) CorporationNokia CorporationNokia NetworksNorthrop Grumman CorporationnTerop CorporationNTT DoCoMoNuRAN WirelessNutaqO3b NetworksOceus NetworksOctasicOMA (Open Mobile Alliance)Oman Royal OfficeOntario Ministry of TransportationONTHEGODEVICESOpenSignalOptiwayPanasonic CorporationPanda Electronics (Nanjing Panda Electronics Company)Panorama AntennasParallel WirelessPennsylvania State PolicePeproPhiladelphia Police DepartmentPhonakPiciorgros (Funk-Electronic Piciorgros),Pikewerks CorporationPolaris NetworksPolice Federation of AustraliaPortalifyPotevio (China Potevio Company)PowerTrunkProductivity Commission, AustraliaProximusPryme Radio ProductsPSCR (Public Safety Communications Research)Public WirelessPureWave NetworksPuxing RadioPyramid CommunicationsQatar Armed ForcesQatar MOI (Ministry of Interior)Qigihar Municipal Public Security BureauQiqihar PoliceQualcommQuanta ComputerQucellQuortusRACOMRadio IPRadisys CorporationRADWINRAVEN Electronics CorporationRaytheon CompanyRCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)Reality MobileRedline CommunicationsRELM WirelessRF WindowRFS (Radio Frequency Systems)Rio de Janeiro Fire DepartmentRivada NetworksRohde & SchwarzRohillRoper IndustriesRosenbergerSafaricomSAIC (Science Applications International Corporation)Samji Electronics CompanySamsung ElectronicsSamsung GroupSANG (Saudi Arabian National Guard)Sao Paulo Military PoliceSapura Secured TechnologiesSaudi MOI (Ministry of Interior)Savox CommunicationsSelex ESSepuraSerComm CorporationSESSETARSevis SystemsSFRShanghai Police DepartmentSiemensSiemens Convergence CreatorsSierra WirelessSignalionSikluSimocoSiRRANSK TelecomSK TelesysSLA CorporationSLC (Secure Land Communications)Smith Micro SoftwareSOLiD (SOLiD Technologies)Sonic CommunicationsSonim TechnologiesSony CorporationSpace DataSpectra GroupSpiderCloud WirelessSpirent CommunicationsStar SolutionsState of LouisianaState of MinnesotaState of MississippiState of New JerseyState of New MexicoState of OklahomaState of TexasState Security Networks Group, FinlandStop NoiseSumitomo Electric IndustriesSunnada (Fujian Sunnada Communication Company)Surrey PoliceSwedish National PoliceSymantecTait CommunicationsTaquaTCCA (TETRA and Critical Communications Association)TCL CommunicationTCS (TeleCommunication Systems)TDIA (TD-Industry Alliance)TE ConnectivityTechosonic IndustriesTecoreTEKTELIC CommunicationsTelefonicaTelevateTELEXTelrad NetworksTelstraTeltronicTelumTESSCOTETRAtabThalesTI (Texas Instruments)TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association)TITAN Communication SystemsT-MobileToshiba CorporationTropicoTurk TelekomTurkish National Police ForceTwisted Pair SolutionsU.S. ArmyU.S. CBP (Customs and Border Protection)U.S. CellularU.S. Coast GuardU.S. Department of CommerceU.S. Department of DefenseU.S. Department of Homeland SecurityU.S. Department of StateU.S. FCC (Federal Communications Commission)U.S. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)U.S. NavyU.S. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)U.S. NPSTC (National Public Safety Telecommunications Council)U.S. NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration)UAE MOI (Ministry of Interior)UbidyneUIC (International Union of Railways)UNIMO TechnologyUniversity of OttawaUppsala Ambulance ServicesUS Digital DesignsUSPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)Utility AssociatesVerizon CommunicationsViaSatViavi SolutionsVidyoVientiane Municipal GovernmentVIRVEVision TechnologiesVMwareVodafoneVodafone New ZealandWest CorporationWestell TechnologiesWestern Australia PoliceWildoxWinmateWinMate CommunicationWireless Telecom Group CompanyWNC (Wistron NeWeb Corporation)Wytec InternationalxG TechnologyXplore Technologies CorporationZ-Com (ZDC Wireless)ZetronZhengzhou MetroZhengzhou Municipal Public Security BureauZhengzhou PoliceZinwaveZTEMarketResearchReports.biz supports your business intelligence needs with over 100,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data 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Product Overview and Scope of Worldwide Surgical Sutures Market 2017 Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Surgical Sutures Market

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Executive SummarySurgical Sutures Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Surgical Sutures Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On Request a Sample Report @This report studies the global Surgical Sutures market, analyzes and researches the Surgical Sutures development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeEthicon IncB. Braun Melsungen AGDemeTECH CorporationMedtronicInternacional FarmaceuticaS.A. de C.V.Sutures India Pvt. Ltd.Peters SurgicalSmith & Nephew plcEndoEvolution, LLCBoston Scientific CorporationMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Surgical Sutures can be split intoAbsorbable SuturesNon-absorbable SuturesMarket segment by Application, Surgical Sutures can be split intoCardiovascular SurgeriesGeneral SurgeriesGynecological SurgeriesOrthopedic SurgeriesOphthalmic SurgeriesOther SurgeriesBrowse Full Report Details@Some Major Points from Table of Content:Table of ContentsGlobal Surgical Sutures Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Surgical Sutures1.1 Surgical Sutures Market Overview1.1.1 Surgical Sutures Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Surgical Sutures Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Surgical Sutures Market by Type1.3.1 Absorbable Sutures1.3.2 Non-absorbable Sutures1.4 Surgical Sutures Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Cardiovascular Surgeries1.4.2 General Surgeries1.4.3 Gynecological Surgeries1.4.4 Orthopedic Surgeries1.4.5 Ophthalmic Surgeries1.4.6 Other Surgeries2 Global Surgical Sutures Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Surgical Sutures Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Ethicon Inc3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Surgical Sutures Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 B. Braun Melsungen AG3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Surgical Sutures Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 DemeTECH Corporation3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Surgical Sutures Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Medtronic3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Surgical Sutures Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Internacional Farmaceutica3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Surgical Sutures Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments5 United States Surgical Sutures Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Surgical Sutures Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Surgical Sutures Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)6 EU Surgical Sutures Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Surgical Sutures Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Surgical Sutures Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)Purchase a Copy of This Report @CONTINUEDMore about WiseGuyReports:Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune  411028Maharashtra, India
Mobile Hotspots Industry Global Market 2017: Industry Growth at 2022 and Forecast Research Report

Mobile Hotspots Market

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Mobile Hotspots Market Research Report 2017The Global Mobile Hotspots Industry Situation and Prospects Research report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Mobile Hotspots industry.In 2016, the world economy expanded by just 2.2 per cent, the slowest rate of growth since the Great Recession of 2009. Underpinning the sluggish global economy are the feeble pace of global investment, dwindling world trade growth, flagging productivity growth and high levels of debt. World gross product is forecast to expand by 2.7 per cent in 2017 and 2.9 per cent in 2018, with this modest recovery more an indication of economic stabilization than a signal of a robust and sustained revival of global demand. Given the close linkages between demand, investment, trade and productivity, the extended episode of weak global growth may prove self-perpetuating in the Mobile Hotspotsence of concerted policy efforts to revive investment and foster a recovery in productivity. This would impede progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the goals of eradicating extreme poverty and creating decent work for all.For the sake of making you deeply understand the Mobile Hotspots industry and meeting you needs to the report contents, Global Mobile Hotspots Industry Situation and Prospects Research report will stands on the report readers perspective to provide you a deeply analysis report with the integrity of logic and the comprehensiveness of contents. We promise that we will provide to the report reader a professional and in-depth industry analysis no matter you are the industry insiderpotential entrant or investor.Request For Sample Report @Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Mobile Hotspots market analysis is provided for the international market including development history, competitive landscape analysis, and major regions development status.Secondly, development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. This report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, pMobile Hotspots, revenue and gross margin by regions (United States, EU, China and Japan), and other regions can be added.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, pMobile Hotspots, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. Whats more, the Mobile Hotspots industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Complete Report Details @Table Of Contents1 Industry life cycle analysis1.1 Market size 2011-20161.2 Market growth and demand growth rate1.3 Product technical level1.4 Classification of Mobile Hotspots1.4.1 Type 11.4.2 Type 21.4.3 Type 31.5 Application of Mobile Hotspots1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 21.3.3 Application 31.6 Profit margins of Mobile Hotspots industry2 Industry market structure analysis2.1 Supply & Consumption Analysis 2011-20162.1.1 North America2.1.2 Europe2.1.3 Japan2.1.4 India2.1.5 China2.1.6 The rest of the world2.2 Competitor comparison2.2.1 Major Manufacture market size analysis 2011-20162.2.2 Major Manufacture Revenue analysis 2011-20162.2.3 Major Manufacture pMobile Hotspotscost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20162.3 PMobile Hotspotscost and gross Margin analysis2.4 Industry concentration3 Industry market environment analysis3.1 Industry requirements for resources and technology3.2 Industry technology development trend3.3 Industry Policy analysis3.4 Industry News analysis3.5 The impact of national macro policy on Industry3.6 Other influencing factors4 Competitive pattern analysis4.1 Industry competitive structure analysis by Region 2011-20164.2 Industry competitive structure analysis by Manufacture 2011-20164.3 Market barriers to entry analysis4.4 Threat of substitutes4.5 Mobile Hotspots industry chain bargaining power analysis4.6 Manufacturer stress analysis4.6.1 Manufacturer concentration4.6.2 The proportion of products in the manufacturer's products4.6.3 Manufacturer profitability analysis5 Major manufacturers analysis5.1 Company 15.1.1 Company profile5.1.2 Product introduction5.1.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.2 Company 25.2.1 Company profile5.2.2 Product introduction5.2.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.3 Company 35.3.1 Company profile5.3.2 Product introduction5.3.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.4 Company 45.4.1 Company profile5.4.2 Product introduction5.4.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.5 Company 55.5.1 Company profile5.5.2 Product introduction5.5.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.6 Company 65.6.1 Company profile5.6.2 Product introduction5.6.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.7 Company 75.7.1 Company profile5.7.2 Product introduction5.7.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.8 Company 85.8.1 Company profile5.8.2 Product introduction5.8.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.9 Company 95.9.1 Company profile5.9.2 Product introduction5.9.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-20165.10 Company 105.10.1 Company profile5.10.2 Product introduction5.10.3 Capacity, Production, pMobile Hotspots, revenue, cost and gross Margin analysis 2011-2016Continued.Buy This Report @CONTACT US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Address:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
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Medical Sensors Market 2023; Business Challenges, Emerging Technologies & Competitive Landscape

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Global Medical Sensors Market: SnapshotMedical sensors have become ubiquitous components of the new-age technologically advanced and digitized medical devices. A significant rise in the emphasis on the development of implantable and wearable medical devices has propelled the market for medical sensors in the past few years. Breakthroughs in medical technology have enabled the commercial realization of a number of medical devices that were merely prototypes or designs in the recent past. This has necessitated the increased use of sensors capable of aiding the proper functioning of such new-age medical devices.Transparency Market Research estimates that the market for medical sensors will tread along a smooth growth path in the next few years. The market is expected to exhibit a healthy 7.0% CAGR from 2015 to 2024, owing to which, the opportunity of the market is expected to rise from US$1,452.8 mn in 2015 to US$18,741.3 mn in 2023.It is estimated that the rising pool of geriatrics and the alarming rise in the prevalence of a number of chronic diseases will be the key underlying factors for reason for the healthy growth of the market over the said period. The vast benefits of incorporating medical sensors in medical devices in terms of the enhanced accuracy in disease management, through alerts, notifications, and real-time patient data communication, have also increased their uptake in the field of medical devices.Obtain Report Details:Biosensors Product Segment Most Popular, Thanks to Rising Demand for Compatible DevicesOf the key varieties of products available in the global medical sensors market, the segment of biosensors is expected to grow at the most promising pace in the next few years. The rising demand for compatible medical devices will help the segment exhibit a promising 7.5% CAGR over the reports forecast period. Biosensing devices such as portable blood glucose monitors will gain prominence as the population of diabetics increases at an alarming pace across the globe. According to estimates by the WHO, the total number of diabetics will surpass 366 mn by 2030.Asia Pacific to Emerge as Most Promising Regional Market for Medical SensorsFrom a geographical perspective, the market for medical sensors has been examined in the report across regional markets such as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa. Of these, the North America market accounted for a dominant 35.6% of the overall market in 2014. High consumer awareness, high numbers of minimally-invasive surgeries performed every year, and encouraging healthcare reimbursements are the key factors attributable to the regions dominance in the global marketplace for medical sensors.However, the market across Asia Pacific is expected to expand at the leading pace of growth over the reports forecast period, chiefly owing to the high number of diabetics and patients with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, the rising disposable incomes of the population across emerging economies such as India, Malaysia, and China are also fueling the demand for advanced medical devices with sensors.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:Companies Attempting to Strengthen Foothold in Market through Mergers and AcquisitionsThe vendor landscape of the global market for medical sensors is highly fragmented and is highly competitive. The large consumer base, constantly rising awareness about devices fit with sensors, and rising disposable incomes have led to vast growth opportunities for players in the global medical sensors market, attracting several small- and medium-sized companies. The market has witnessed a rise in strategic mergers and acquisitions from companies attempting to develop strong product lines and expand their geographical reach.Some of the leading companies operating in the global medical sensors market are Analog Devices, Inc., Danaher Corporation, Avago Technologies Limited, LORD Corporation (Stellar Technologies, Inc.), Honeywell International, Inc., GE Measurement & Control, NXP Semiconductors (Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.), Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik, TE Connectivity Ltd. (Measurement Specialties), OmniVision Technologies, Inc., and Sensirion AG.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Centre And Drag Link Market Forecast By End-use Industry 2016-2026

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Center link is used for transmission of motion from inner tie rods to pitman arm on both sides of a vehicle as compared to center link, which connects to an idler arm. While driving, center link allows the driver to turn front wheels in desired direction. Center and drag link assemblies offer smooth functioning of the vehicle and result in less vibrates and wobbles, thus easy to drive. Center and drag link assemblies are essential components of steering wheel, which is intended to maintain front wheel and front axle lineup. Center and drag link manufacturers are keen on developing products, which overcome challenges such as extreme temperatures, uneven terrain, bad ground conditions, safety and reliability. With increasing end user inclination towards better and efficient vehicle components, the vehicle component manufacturers need to design products meeting aforementioned challenges especially for commercial vehicle vehiclesCentre and Drag Link Market Segmentation:Center and drag link market is segmented on the basis of Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), ball size range, end use industry and product type. Based on the type of GVW applications, the market is segmented into less than 8,000 lb. GVW, between 8,000-15,000 lb. GVW, and more than 15,000 GVW. On the basis of ball size type, the segmentation includes 1 to 1.5 inch, 1.5 to 1.75 inch and 1.75 to 2.75 inch. Center and Drag link assemblies are used across various end use industries including agriculture, forestry, off-road vehicles, mining, and military. The segmentation is also done by the product type, which majorly includes light-duty vehicle, medium-duty vehicle and heavy-duty vehicle. Geographically, the center and drag link market is segmented into seven regions namely North America, Western Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. Also, Asian countries offer low-cost labour, the developed products are less expensive as compared to those manufactured in developed regions of the world.Request Report Sample@Centre and Drag Link Market Dynamics:Technological advancements in automotive industry is one of prominent factors driving the demand for development of more durable and strong products such as center and drag links. Moreover, due to fragmented nature of market, number of players in the center and drag link market has increased in recent years. This has further led to improved product development at affordable prices, which is fuelling the market growth. In addition, growing automotive industry particularly across countries such as India and China is further expected to increase demand for steering wheel components such as center and drag link among the end-users. Manufacturers of steering wheel system are focused on extensive research and development (R&D) in order to achieve a defined top-line growth. Apart from R&D gaining significant share in the aftermarket is a concern for manufacturers in North America. Thus, improvement in stock keeping units (SKUs) with an aim to increase coverage of products for different vehicle models might offer surge in unit shipment sales and result in competitive pricing. Furthermore, this is predicted to lead towards enhanced product availability at affordable prices for end users particularly in North America and increase in market share of respective companies. However, large number of suppliers does lead to increased product availability, which results in low quality and less efficiency and thus, hampering the market growth of high-end center and drag link assemblies.Centre and Drag Link Market Key players:Some of the players in the centre and Drag link market include Federal-Mogul Corporation, KOREA Central CO., LTD., Rane (Madras) Ltd., Powers & Sons, LLC, ZF TRW and Moser Engineering among others. Original steering parts manufacturers across the globe are focused on developing quality products in compliance with reliability and durability. This has thus, led to slow replacement rates, which is indirectly leading towards market demand for center and drag link shipments in the aftermarket.Visit For TOC@About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Aspartame Market 2017- Ajinomoto Group, NutraSweet, Daesang, Merisant and Vitasweet

Aspartame

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This report studies Aspartame in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering1. Ajinomoto Group2. NutraSweet3. Daesang4. Merisant5. Niutang Chemical6. Gsweet7. Hanguang Group8. VitasweetA market study based on the " Aspartame " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Aspartame Market 2017'. The Research report by QY Research Group is a market-oriented, technical, and commercial research analysis of the Aspartame market. The analysis is completed using a wide range of secondary sources, databases and directories in order to identify and assemble market data. Primary sources included for the analysis include preferred suppliers, industry experts from core and associated industries, manufacturers, service providers, distributors, and organizations allied to the entire segments of the industry supply chain.CLICK HERE to Request Sample Report @Analyses of the global Aspartame market trends along with the projections of CAGRs (compound annual growth rates) are provided in the research report. To estimate the overall market size of Aspartame, its application, and regionsin terms of value and volumethe bottom-up approach is followed. On the other hand, to corroborate the overall Aspartame market sizeagain in terms of value and volumethe top-down approach is followed. Following the method of data triangulation and data validation via primaries, the precise values of the parent market and individual market in terms of size are calculated and established in the report.This market research report provides the client with comprehensive market analysis of the Aspartame market over the forecast period. In addition, it also furnishes a general idea of the challenges, drivers, and restraints that have direct or indirect impact on the industry. It further highlights the market, the industry, and latest technology trends currently existing in the Aspartame market. All this precise, accurate and comprehensive data will help the clients to make appropriate and practical decisions so as to gain maximum profit in the global market.The research report analyzes, tracks, and presents the global market size of the major players in every region around the world. Furthermore, the report provides data of the leading market players in the Aspartame market.Browse FULL Report @Overall, the report is a one-stop destination and a valuation report to grab all the necessary information regarding the global Aspartame market.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
AWARDS ASIAS MOST TRUSTED BRANDS 2016 IN BANGKOK

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16th April, Hotel Grand Hyatt, Erawan, Bangkok, ThailandDr. Sutharm Valaisathien, President - Belgian-Luxembourg/Thai Chamber Of Commerce Inaugurated The Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Ceremony 2016. Dr. Sutharm Valaisathien Honoured All Awardees With The Trophies And Mr. Hemant Kaushik (Ceo) Ibc Infomedia (A Division Of International Brand Consulting Corporation, New Jersey , Usa) Honoured All Awardees With The Certificates.Mr Hemant Kaushik, President Of Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Council Was Very Happy About The Successful Completion Of The Event. Mr Kaushik Said The Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards 2016 Platform Salutes All The Selected Top 50 Brands Of Asia And The Event Has Proved To Be The Most Radiant Platform Which Showcased Most Distinguished Personalities And Brands Of Asia. Todays Evening Has Been All About Brand Leadership, Entrepreneurship And Inspiration. Every Business Leader Wants To Grow His Brand And Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards 2016 Is That Platform Which Is A New Dimension In The Way They Want To Grow. He Further Added.He Said, Todays Day Was Magical. It Is Truly A Proud Moment For Selected Top Asian Brands As Brands And Leaders Got A International Platform To Showcase Their Strength And Brand Value. Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Council Will Continue To Honour And Recognize The Largest And Best Brands In The Years To Come. The Group Will Continue To Showcase The Brands That Are Touching And Changing The Lives Of Millions Of Asians In The Country And Around The World. Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Provides These Winners An Opportunity To Showcase Their Achievements, Contributions And Network.As A President Of Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Council And A Ceo Of Ibc Infomedia, Mr. Hemant Kaushik Welcomed All The Ceos, Managing Directors, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Directors And Other Senior Officers Who Were There To Attend Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Ceremony.IBC Info Media Conducted A Physical Survey In Around 10 Major Countries Of Asia And An Online Survey Was Also Conducted With Mrg Through Consumersurveyonline.Org, Among More Than 100 Thousand Respondents. Based On The Brand Research Report The Brands Have Been Ranked For The Awards.Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Is A Distinctive Recognition For A Brand Recognized As, Most Trusted In Its Industry Category Based On Current Year Market Standing. Its Evaluation Process Is Based On A Asia Wide Quantitative Qualified Consumer Survey, Expert Analysis And Attributes Based Qualitative Brand Research.Asias Most Trusted Brand Awards Believes That It Can Provide Tremendous Service By Identifying Those Which Have Maintained The Highest Standards Of Product Integrity And Brand Development. Obviously, In Some Cases Winners Are Not Necessarily The Highest Selling Brands But Those That Have Worked Hard To Win Consumer Trust.Mr. Pushpit Gaur (Manager Brand Development) Gave A Vote Of Thanks To All The Winners On Being The Asias Most Trusted Brands 2016 And The Glittering Awards Ceremony Was Hosted By Emcee Bhavna Bhatia, Well Attended By Industry Leaders From Across Businesses And Service Categories, Media Celebrities And Many Other Eminent Guests. Besides Celebrating The New Milestones Created By Brands In Asia, The Event Was Also One Of The Finest Opportunities To Network And Interact With The Best Minds In The Asian Continent.The Brands Which Were Honoured With The Title Of Asias Most Trusted Brand 2016 Were Blue Dart, Wha Corporation (Thailand), Cello Pens, Yash Raj Films, Sbi Mutual Fund, Hitachi Consulting, Alliance University, British Biologicals, National Law University - Jodhpur, Libas Riyaz Gangji, Uflex, Reva University, Frylo, Hil, Sudha Rustagi College Of Dental Sciences & Research, Kangaroo Kids, Supercat Fast Ferry Corporation (Philippines), Lady Irwin College, M.I. Builders, Olivia , Paragon, University College Of Business Studies, Kayam Churna, Narayan Seva Sansthan, Cyber Sipahi, Umaid Bhawan Palace - Taj Hotels, Aaj Tak, Pan Vilas, Bestseller (Jack & Jones, Vero Moda, Only), Baksons Homeopathy, Credila, Eurokids, Hempushpa, S.M. Patel Institute Of Commerce, Sumeet, Sushma Buildtech, Suthol, Sydenham College, 93.5 Red Fm, Peak Pacific Group (Hongkong), Siam Commercial Bank (Thailand), Dbs Bank (Singapore), Mitsubishi Ufj Financial (Japan), Emirates (Uae), Toyota (Japan), China Railway Construction (China), Bright Outdoor, Topsgrup, Reliance Jio, Taj Hotels.Apart From The Above Selected Brands From All Over Asia The Awards Ceremony Was Graced With The Presence Of Mr. Tarun Puri, Mr. D. N. Azad, Ms. Binita Shah, Khun Sorasit, Khun Porntip Utsahaphan, Mr. Anshuman Saikia, Ms. Li Jia, Mr. Raju B. Manwani, Mr. Deepak Mittal, Mr. Vinay Ahuja, Mr. Dinesh Agaskar, Mr. Jinendra Kothari, Mr. Nitin Gupta, Mr. Rajesh Kumathekar, Ms. Bo Luangtang, Mr. D C Bohra, Mr. Arun Singh, Mr. M K Balaji, Mr. D G Kaveeshwar From India Thai Chamber Of Commerce.Mr Hemant Kaushik Said, We Will Be Organising Worlds Most Trusted Brand Awards 2016 On 9th October 2017 At Royal Alberts Palace, New Jersey, Usa. In This Award Function, We Will Be Honouring Worlds Most Outstanding 50 Brands With Distinguished Activity, Exceptional Qualities And Prominent Achievements. Final Selection Of Winners Will Be Made On The Basis Of Brand Research And Expert Panel Assessment.For Any Query, You Can Contact Ms. Alisha Kapoor Via Email At contact@Ibcinfomedia.Com Or Visit The WebsiteIBC Info Media Conducted A Physical Survey In Around 10 Major Countries Of Asia And An Online Survey Was Also Conducted With Mrg Through Consumersurveyonline.Org, Among More Than 100 Thousand Respondents. Based On The Brand Research Report The Brands Have Been Ranked For The Awards.D5 South Ex-1, New Delhi
Structured Cabling Market - Higher Bandwidth And Facilitate Faster Data Transmission In Comparison To Traditional Cabling System.

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Structured cabling is a complete set of cabling infrastructure and associated hardware, that facilitates fast, smooth and error free transmission of data, voice and video signals from one point to other or from one server to other. Globally, the structured cabling market is expected to experience a steady growth during the forecast period of 2015 to 2021. For the purpose of our research, the structured cabling market is segmented on the basis of solution type, application and geography. By solution type the structured cabling market has been segmented into hardware, software and service. The various category of hardware segment includes copper cable, patch panel and cross connects, fiber cable, and racks and cabinets.On the basis of application the global structured cabling market can be segmented intocommercial, residential, government, industrial and transportation. In addition,cross sectional analysis of all the above mentioned segments has been provided in the report with respect to different geographical region including Europe, Asia Pacific, North America and Rest of the World (RoW).Obtain Report Details @This study provides a forecast of the structured cabling market from 2015 to 2021 and focuses on the current market trend. This report also provides the current market synopsis and the future driving factors that are expected to affect the demand of structured cabling market globally.This report also highlights the present market size and forecast has been provided till 2021. In addition, various macro and micro economic factors that are expected to have an impact on the growth of structured cabling market globally is also listed in this report.Among the different applications of structured cabling, the commercial segment held the largest market share in 2014, holding 35.0% share approximately. The market for structured cabling components used in commercial sector is predicted to expand at a CAGR of 7.1% from 2015 to 2021. Increasing demand of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) coupled with growing trend of migrating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to third-party datacenters has triggered the need for higher bandwidth in commercial sectors. This in turn is responsible for the huge demand of structured cabling across different commercial sectors which has higher bandwidth and facilitate faster data transmission in comparison to traditional cabling system.In 2014, the hardware segment held the largest market share among the solution type segment. The hardware segment is primarily driven by the copper cabling segment occupying 59.6% market share. Owing to low installation and maintenance cost copper cable is used extensively across various application segment. Moreover, copper cable has excellent immunity to electromagnetic interference and thus facilitate error free transmission of data. This in turn is also predicted to drive the market of copper cable in the coming years. However, the fiber cable segment is predicted to be the fastest growing market with a CAGR of 8.0% during the forecast period. Increasing demand for cabling infrastructure that can transmit data over long distance with less attenuation (signal loss) across different application sectors specially, industrial, transport and governmental, is expected to boost the demand of fiber cabling during the forecast period.For more information on this report, fill the form @Globally, North America held the largest market share for structured cabling market, accounting for 38.8% share in 2014. This demand for structured cabling in North America is attributed to the presence of large number of datacenters along with higher internet penetration. This in turn has accelerated the need of anadvanced structured cabling infrastructure that provides higher bandwidth. Europe is the second largest market for structured cabling globally. However, the structured cabling market in Asia Pacific region is expected to experience the fastest growing market owing to rapid development and expansion of datacenters and communication infrastructure.Some of the major players operating in global structured cabling market are, Legrand SA, CommScope Holding Company, Inc., Schneider Electric SE, Corning Inc.andBelden Inc.among others.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Automotive Brake System Market : Latest Innovations, Drivers and Industry Key Events 2015 - 2025

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The developing industry of automotive has largely emphasised on the development of the vehicles that are fast and safe. Brakes have become an important and crucial part of any vehicle so as to ensure the safety which becomes very essential when the demand of speed is increasing steadily. Being commonly used in different automobiles an automotive brake system comprises a brake device having different components (such as brake pads, brake shoes, brake drum, rotor, piston, calliper, master cylinder, and brake booster) which are used for decelerating a vehicle.The growth in automotiveindustry is anticipated to fuel the growth of global automotive brake system market along with the increasing concerns over safety and resulting government pressures that have upturned the OEMs towards the launching of higher technology content, thereby driving the demand for global automotive brake systems across the globe.Request For Report Sample@Automotive Brake System Market: Drivers & RestraintsEver-increasing demand and succeeding vehicle production is considered as one of the biggest driver for the increasing demand of the automotive brakes and global automotive brake system market penetration. Also the increasing governmental mandates for improving the vehicle safety has strongly contributed to the demand of the global automotive brake system market. The major restraint in the global automotive brake system market implies to be the higher cost of the newer technology of Electronic Brake Systems (EBS) when compared to the commonly used Hydraulic Brakes.Automotive Brake System Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the global automotive brake system market is segmented as Disc Brakes and Drum Brakes.On the basis of applications the global automotive brake system market is segmented as Two Wheeler Motor Vehicles, Passenger Car Vehicles, and Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV).On the basis of technology the global automotive brake system market is segmented as Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), Traction Control System (TCS), and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) that comes under the electronic braking systems (EBS).Automotive Brake System Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global automotive brake system market is expected to register a favourable growth for the forecast period, 2015?2025. Asia-Pacific is projected to endure its control on the global automotive brake system market. The key countries in the mentioned region are projected to be India, South Korea, and China as an outcome of the increasing demand for commercial vehicles and passenger cars. Japan also contributes to the global automotive brake system market remarkably. China is expected to be the largest opportunity in terms of revenue of the industry. Europe is expected to be the second largest market in global automotive brake system market followed by North America.Request For TOC@Automotive Brake System: Key PlayersSome of the key market participants in global automotive brake system market are TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., Aisin-Seiki Co. Ltd., Continental AG, Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd., Brembo S.P.A., Halla Mando Corp., 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:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Advanced Process Control Market : Recent Industry Trends and Projected Industry Growth, 2015 - 2025

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There has been continuous pressure on the process industries to improve the production process without declining the quality of the product. This has led to the implementation and development of advanced process control systems. In recent years, with the increase in global competition, government and environmental control regulations has stimulated the industrial organizations to focus on the sustainable operations. Advanced process control (APC) consists of a broad range of techniques and technologies designed to add up to the performance and economic improvement in the industries. Advanced process control (APC) are primarily implemented in process industries.Advanced process controller, if implemented effectively, enables the organization to increase the efficiency, productivity and to reduce the downtime of the industry. Advanced process control market players can customize the advance process controller software so that it can be implemented for specific process control issues.Advanced Process Control Market: Drivers & RestraintsAdvance process control market have several advantages such as reduction in power consumption, improved production capacity, improved monitoring of key performance indicators, reduction in process settle time, increase in process safety, better equipment reliability and improved operational understanding. Other factors that are driving the advanced process control market are the development of infrastructure, IT services and hardware services. Increasing use of advanced process control in process industries are also driven due to the need to reduce emissions, increased operational flexibility and reliability, and reduced operational costs. The only challenge faced by advanced process control market is the reluctance to use the new advance process controllers over conventional technology mainly due to lack of proper knowledge.Request For Report Sample@Advanced Process Control Market: SegmentationOn the basis of type, the global advance process control market is segmented into,Advanced Regulatory ControlMultivariable Model Predictive ControlInferential ControlSequential ControlCompressor ControlOn the basis of application, the global advance process control market is segmented into,Oil & GasPetrochemicalsPharmaceuticalsFood & BeveragePulp & PaperPowerChemicalsOthersRequest For TOC@Advanced Process Control Market: Region-wise OutlookAdvanced process control market constitute the largest market share in APC followed by North America. India and China, in the APAC region covers major market share. This is due to the increase in infrastructure development and rising demand for energy efficient production process. It is expected that Europe will have a significant market share in global advanced diode laser analyser market during the forecast period.Advanced Process Control Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market participants in the global advanced process control market are Rudolph Technologies, Inc., General electric Co., ABB Ltd., Aspen Technology, Inc., Yokogawa Electric Corp, Emerson Electric Co., Honeywell International, Inc. Rockwell Automation, Inc., Schneider Electric Se, Siemens AG,.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:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Vial Adaptors for Reconstitution Drug Market: Rising Incidence of Infectious Diseases Augments Demand for Market

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Global Vial Adaptors for Reconstitution Drug Market: SnapshotThe global market for vial adaptors for reconstitution drugs has been experiencing a steady demand as these vial adaptors have come to be the safest solutions for quick transfer for drugs between vials. The demand for these vial adaptors is also expected to shoot up as they are exceptionally cost-effective and come with a reduced the risk of needlestick injuries. The growing prevalence of infectious diseases, widening pool of geriatrics, and increasing safety concerns have all triggered a demand for vial adaptors for reconstitution drugs. According to the research report, the global vial adaptors for reconstitution drug market was valued at US$780 mn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$1.3 bn by the end of 2024. Between the forecast years of 2016 and 2024, the global market is expected to progress at a CAGR of 7.5%.Read Full Report:Autoimmune Diseases to Drive Global Vial Adaptors for Reconstitution Drug MarketOn the basis of therapeutic area, the vial adaptors for reconstitution drug market has been segmented into autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, metabolic conditions, reproductive health and others. Currently, the infectious diseases segment holds a major share in the global vial adaptors for reconstitution drug therapeutic area segment. However, the autoimmune diseases segment is expected to show robust growth rate in the coming years. As of 2015, it was the second largest segment in the overall market in terms of revenue. The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) states that more than 50 million individuals are affected by autoimmune disorders in the U.S. every year. This is expected to drive the autoimmune diseases segment in the coming years.North America to Remain the Leading Regional Market during Forecast PeriodIn terms of geography, the global market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. Out of these regional markets, North America remained dominant in the global vial adaptors for reconstitution drug market in 2015. Europe followed this lead closely. The high incidence of autoimmune diseases, rising technological advancements, and growing demand for needle-free products likely to support the growth of the vial adaptors for reconstitution drug market in North America. On the other hand, the demand in Europe will be fueled by increasing advancements in healthcare technology amidst rising safety concerns.Download exclusive Sample of this report:Analysts estimate that Asia Pacific is also likely to be a lucrative market for the vial adaptors for reconstitution drugs during the forecast period. The growing adoption of technology, high prevalence of autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, and increasing adoption of technology are all expected to make a significant contribution to the soaring vial adaptors for reconstitution drug market in Asia Pacific. This regional market will also be propelled by the swelling pool of geriatrics, who are prone to various medical conditions and a vast pool of unmet medical needs. The strengthening economies of Asia Pacific and improving access to healthcare in the region are also likely to augment the demand for vial adaptors for reconstitution drugs.The key players operating in the global vial adaptors for reconstitution drug market are Baxter International Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Cardinal Health, Inc., Sensile Medical AG, Unilife Corporation and West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. The market is largely consolidated as major players hold a dominating share.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Clinical Alarm Management Market Revenue and Value Chain 2016-2026

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Clinical alarm systems are devices that alert caregivers of immediate adverse patient conditions and help in enhancing potential patient-safety. Alarmsmust be accurate, unique and provide alerts, which could be readily identified and understood by caregivers and the products must belong to standardized & approved product categories. These systems are either built-in or attached to other medical equipment & monitoring systems. Alarm fatigue is the psychological effect produced by too many alarms occurring in a clinical environment, causing clinicians to miss true clinically significant alarms. When alarms work well, the environment of patient care is enhanced. When alarms do not work well, they pull caregivers away from their line of respective duties and other patients, or even ignore alarm sounds altogether. Cases of ignored alarms have resulted in patient deaths earlier in extreme cases. Most often, the major usability problem is an alarm flood- too many alarms ringing together, in case of any device failure. Other defects hampering clinical alarm uptake in sophisticated healthcare systems include poorly designed alarms, improperly set alarm points, ineffective alarm announcements, and unclear alarm messages among others.Clinical Alarm Management Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing awareness of care providers towards enhancing patient safety is a prominent factor pushing the revenue growth of the clinical alarm management market. Others revenue drivers include rising medtech investments by governments of all major countries and promoting access to basic healthcare across all sections of the society. Integrated alarm system designs are often not standardized across different medical equipment systems and devices. This could be considered as a restraint for clinical alarm management market. Improper alarm escalation leading to false negative cases - such as a patient needs immediate clinical attention but a clinician is not alerted - substantially compromises on patient-safety. Other factors negatively affecting market growth are lack of product standardization across regions and lack of proper skills to rationalize the alarm adjustment process.Request For Report Sample@Clinical Alarm Management Market: SegmentationClinical alarm management market is segmented based on product type, end user and geography.Based on product type, clinical alarm management market is segmented as follows:Physiological monitorsTelemetry monitorsVentilatorsInfusion PumpsAnesthesia MachinesCompression PumpsFeeding PumpsNurse Call SystemBed AlarmsBased on end user, the clinical alarm management market is segmented as follows:HospitalsClinicsAmbulatory surgical centersLong term and palliative care centersHome careOthersClinical Alarm Management Market: OverviewIn the present market scenario, clinical alarm manufacturers prioritize sensitivity over specificity. This often leads to a large number of false positive cases, which is often misleading. Particularly, when alarm frequency is high, caregivers could become desensitized, develop alarm fatigue, and create a false negative outcome, compromising patient safety. With rise in the number of urban healthcare centers across regions, there clinical alarm management market is witnessing a sustained growth in demand for standard and tested products. To avoid product level dysfunctionalities, the AAMI (Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation) Foundation had added clinical alarms to its portfolio of multidisciplinary initiatives to advance patient safety and created an Alarm Best Practices Workgroup in 2012. The committee reviews and recommends best practices on clinical alarm management at regular intervals. Developed pharmaceutical markets are expected to create sustainable traction in generating demand for standardized clinical alarm systems over the forecast period, while developing markets are expected to follow suit.Clinical Alarm Management Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global clinical alarm management marketis classified into seven regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America is expected to dominate the clinical alarm management market in terms of both revenue and demand generation owing to greater awareness on medtech advancement followed by Western Europe. However, over the foreseeable long term, markets in Latin America and Asia-Pacific could prove lucrative in terms of market opportunities owing to persistence of factors such as greater penetration of access to organized healthcare and rising disposable income level contribution to private healthcare spending.Visit For TOC@Clinical Alarm ManagementMarket: Key PlayersSome of the major companies contributing to global clinical alarm management market include Medtronic, Extension Healthcare, GE Healthcare, Koninklijke Phislips N.V., Baxter incorporated, Connexall, Mindray Medical International Limited 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:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Medical Holography Market: Business Challenges, Emerging Technologies & Competitive Landscape

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Biomedical imaging technology is bringing in numerous innovations in the medical technology field. Medical imaging has become one of the fastest growing industries. Medical holography is one such technical advancement in medical science that is expected to answer the most complicated diagnostic issues. A medical hologram produces three dimension (3D) images of the human body in real time images or in the form of video stream. The real time images produced by the medical hologram are of high resolution and would help to reveal the complexities in the diagnosed body. Some of the medical holograms are interactive in nature that also provide most effective user interface for better understanding.Read Full Report:There is a high demand for advanced medical imaging from the healthcare sector. As the innovations in medical education are growing, medical holography market is expected to benefit from these innovations due to increased technology integration. Increased awareness among the consumers related to advanced medical technologies is expected to have a positive influence on medical holography market. Medical holography facilitates the real-time viewing of the diagnosed body, further improving the analysis process. The medical holography system provides an advanced diagnostic methodology to the doctors. These systems offer doctors a better understanding about the anatomy of the patients body, driving the demand for medical holography market. Medical holography helps the doctors to view complex displacement of bones or tissues that had occurred. The medical holography system is also expected to help the doctors to understand the medical complications more easily and quickly. Hologram guided heart surgeries are expected to gain more importance during the forecast period. With the help of holograms doctors can easily examine patients heart conditions or detect a colon cancer without breaking the skin. It will result in the quick diagnosis of any disease and the doctor can start with his treatment. Furthermore, there are numerous companies across the world investing in medical holography technologies. Introduction of augmented reality in the field of medical holography could be one of the greatest opportunities to the producers of medical holograms. Limited adoption of medical holograms despite its numerous advantages could prove to be a restraining factor for the market. The pricing of such medical holography technology is also higher which could affect its adoption among customers. However, with increasing technology adoption in medical and healthcare sectors this hurdle is expected to be tackled.Download exclusive Sample of this report:The medical holography market can be segmented on the basis of medical hologram types and the technology adopted in medical holography. Volumetric displays, planar/HUD interactive display, segmented displays, static digital holograms are a few of the types of medical holograms. Some of the common technologies viewed in medical holography market are plasma, touchable, electro holographic, semi-transparency, and laser technology.Some of the key players engaged in medical holography market are Dongguan Linbiao hologram manufacturer, Eon Reality Inc., EchoPixel, Inc., Zebra Imaging, General Electric Company, Microsoft Inc, Provision Holdings Inc., RealView Imaging Ltd., Holographic 3d solutions, Holography Industry JV, Ne&Ro Invest SRL., Arnold Herzig GmbH, DPL Industri A/S Denmark and Olomagic.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Medical Image Analysis Software Market to 2024: Trends, Business Strategies and Opportunities with Key Players Analysis

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Global Medical Image Analysis Software Market: OverviewA host of new entrants compete with numerous big players in the global medical image analysis software market. As a result the market is fragmented. To gain a competitive edge, different manufacturers of medical software have come up with various technologies to effectively aid in the diagnostic procedures. The two prominent end users in the global market for medical image analysis software are hospitals and diagnostic centers. Among them, the diagnostic centers are expected to generate robust demand on account their increasing number and favorable government initiatives supporting them.In the report, Transparency Market Research provides a granular analysis of the opportunities present in the global medical image analysis software market. By segmenting the market based on various parameters, it offers an insightful peek into it. Apart from end users, for example, the report also segments the market on the basis of imaging modalities into magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, computed tomography, positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), microscopy, and X-ray. Among them, the ultrasound imaging segment rakes in substantial revenue due to its high efficiency in detecting breast lumps and the patient safety it ensures.Read Full Report:An assessment of the current vendor landscape has been presented in the report, which includes a look at their strengths and weaknesses. Leveraging popular analytical tools, the report uncovers the threats and opportunities that these companies may face in the forecast period between 2016 and 2024.Global Medical Image Analysis Software Market: Trends and OpportunitiesDriving growth in the global market for medical image analysis software market are factors such as technological advancements which includes cloud-based solutions, fusion of imaging technologies, increasing applications of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), and rising investments both from the public and private sectors. Moreover, the growing use of electronic health records to effectively store, manage, and distribute patient health information in the form of medical images is also fueling an uptick in demand. Other factors contributing to the market are a burgeoning aging population and growing instances of chronic diseases. The under-penetrated emerging markets present strong opportunities for growth to the players operating in the global market for medical image analysis software.Countering the growth in the market is the cost factor and the shortage of skilled professionals in the sector. Yet another factor is the rising hacking-related risks associated with the use of medical equipment and software. Going forward, the global market for medical image analysis software is slated to be further boosted by the technological progress, particularly in computer-aided diagnosis (CAD).Download exclusive Sample of this report:Global Medical Image Analysis Software Market: Regional OutlookNorth America leads the global medical image analysis software market and Europe comes in a second position. Factors at the forefront of driving growth in the market in the two continents are the swift pace of technological advancements, and the increasing demand for platform-independent and n-dimensional image processing and visualization. Asia Pacific too has emerged as a promising market due to the increasing incidences of diseases, especially in the densely populated emerging economies, which require diagnostic tools and the growing pool of patient data. Besides, economic development coupled with favorable government initiatives, improving healthcare facilities, increasing spending capacity, a large patient base is also bolstering the market in the region.Companies Mentioned in ReportSome of the key players in the global market for medical image analysis software listed in the report are Philips, GE Healthcare, Agfa Healthcare, EsaoteSpA, Xinapse Systems Ltd., Siemens AG, and Toshiba Medical Systems.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aptamers Market Segments and Key Trends 2016-2026

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Aptamers are oligonucleotides or peptide molecules that bind to target lipid, protein, or nucleic acid molecules with a high specificity. Aptamers are generated rapidly and applied in the inhibition, specific detection, and characterization of proteins. Aptamers can be used as detection reagents, pharmaceutical leads, and functional proteomic levels with antibodies, small molecules, and other aptamers. Aptamers can be engineered to have higher affinity and specificity to large number of targets. Aptamers can be selected from pools of random-sequence oligonucleotides to bind a wide range of bio medically relevant proteins with affinities and specificities that are comparable to antibodies. Aptamers are versatile and cost effective which offer complementary or alternative solutions to the antibodies.Aptamers exhibit significant advantages relative to protein therapeutics in terms of size, synthetic accessibility and modification by medicinal chemistry. The effectiveness of aptamers and low manufacturing costs can bring treatment for diseases like HIV or AIDS to the poorest countries. Aptamers can be developed faster than antibodies, therefore diseases can be cured even faster.Aptamers Market: Drivers and RestraintsGlobal Aptamers market is continue to witness positive growth owing to higher research and development activities and investments in pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies. Technological advancement and the patent expiration of systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment technology (SELEX) will boost this market positively. With the advent of new technologies in aptamers market which brought cost to more economical level and higher efficiency of aptamers in binding to larger molecules compared to antibodies will help to bolster growth of aptamers market. Growing use of aptamers in drug discovery and disease treatment may impact this market positively over forecasted period. Apart from above factors, RNA aptamers have proven to be of high therapeutic and diagnostic value with recent FDA approval of the first aptamers drug and additional ones in the clinical pipelines eventually lead to growth of aptamers market . However, ethical issues in using aptamers, stringent regulations in use of aptamers and slow in reaching market place owing to regulatory hurdles may hamper the growth of this aptamers market over forecast period.Request For Report Sample@Aptamers Market: SegmentationGlobal Aptamers market has been segmented on the basis of type, application, end user and region.Based on the type, the global aptamers market is segmented into the following:Nucleic Acid AptamersDNA-Based AptamersRNA-Based AptamersXNA-Based AptamersPeptide AptamersBased on the application, the global aptamers market is segmented into the following:DiagnosticsTherapeutics DevelopmentResearch and DevelopmentBased on the end user, the global aptamers market is segmented into the following:Bio-Pharmaceutical companiesPharmaceutical CompaniesAcademic and Research centersContract Research OrganizationAptamers Market: OverviewGlobal aptamers market is undergoing market changes due to the higher competition among key players and this in turn helped to higher investment and development of novel aptamers. With the advent of new technologies in the aptamers market which is expected to change the market dynamics over a given period of forecast. Aptamers in development mat change nucleic acid therapeutics in the near future. By application type, segments such as diagnostics and therapeutic development in the global aptamers market are expected to grow in positive traction owing to increased demand for aptamers in biomedical diagnosis, biomarker development and molecular imaging and disease treatment.Aptamers Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, Aptamers market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America and Europe will remain key markets for Aptamers market. Europe region is expected to witness strong growth owing to presence of key players in the market. Asia Pacific is anticipated to register positive growth owing to increased opportunities in diagnostics and development of pharmaceuticals which are remain untapped in the aptamers market.Visit For TOC@Aptamers Market: Key PlayersThe major players in aptamers market include AM Biotechnologies, LLC, Aptagen, LLC, Aptamer Sciences, Inc., Aptamer Solutions Ltd, Aptus Biotech S.L., Base Pair Biotechnologies, Inc., NeoVentures Biotechnology, SomaLogic Inc., TriLink BioTechnologies, Inc., and Vivonics, Inc.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:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Real-Time Parking System Market to register a healthy CAGR for the forecast period, 2016-2026

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Proliferating number of vehicle combined with the escalating traffic has led to a serious issue of parking in urban cities. In the absence of any systematic method or a system, sufficient time and fuel is wasted over parking. As much as more than twenty five percent of the traffic is contributed by vehicles cruising for parking. Problems are further exacerbated if there are limited parking spaces and or if they are available for any particular period of time. Therefore there arises a strong need for real time information on the availability of parking in a particular region and location. The parking industry has witnessed major technological metamorphosis, and with the introduction of new technology and systems efficient and convenient parking operation can be achieved. A real time parking system collects the data either through cameras or sensors, analyses the input and presents a location to the user either through an inbuilt device in car or through a mobile application. The utilization of real time parking system by parking operator and customer is enabling a smoother transition and efficient management of traffic and parking in a location.Global real-time parking system market: DynamicsThe real time parking system market demand is propelled with increasing usage of such systems in urban cities. The demand is further boosted with enhanced features offered by modern real time parking system such as parking spot price, spot guidance and airport and transit connections along with other services. With increasing adoption of efficient real time parking system the demand for these system is expected arise from airport, hospital, mall parking, commercial parking garages, universities, on street municipal and other event avenues. The strong integration of real time parking system and Internet of Things and cloud data is opening new avenues for the users and manufacturers. The integration is enabling users to access real time parking condition and for paid parking structures, its helping user opt for simple payment method through payment wallet. Although owing to high capital cost of equipment for real time parking systems, the adoption is relatively low but with economic pricing of these systems the application for commercial purpose is expected to increase.Request Report Sample@Global real-time parking system market: SegmentationReal-time parking system market can be segmented on the basis of location, type and application.On the basis of type, real time parking system market can be segmented as:SoftwareHardwareServicesThe Real time parking system market can be segmented on the basis of LocationOnstreetOffstreetOthersOn the basis of application, the real time parking system market can be segmented as:CommercialPersonalTransport and AviationGovernmentOthersGlobal real-time parking system market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of region, the real-time parking system market can be segmented into North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excl. Japan, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, Eastern Europe, and Japan. The North America and Western Europe are currently one of the largest markets real-time parking system, yet the demand for real-time parking system is relatively moderate in the regions owing to maturing automotive sales. The rising sales of automobile and increasing vehicle density in Japan and APEJ are propelling the demand for real time parking system market in the region, therefore the market is anticipated to account for substantial market share during the forecast period. Likewise Latin America real time parking system market is expected to gain significant market share over the forecast period. The Middle East and Africa real time parking system market is expected to create sustainable opportunities in key markets of Qatar, Dubai, Turkey and South Africa among other countries.Visit For TOC@Global real-time parking system market: Key PlayersSome of the key players identified in the real-time parking system market are: Streetline, Smart Parking Ltd., ParkMe Inc., Parknav, T2 SYSTEMS, Spot Innovation, Inc., INRIX, Inc., ParkWhiz API, Robotic Parking Systems, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., and PARKMATIC among many other participant.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Decision Management Applications Market Growth, Trends and Value Chain 2016-2026 by FMI

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Decision management applications decision oriented evaluative software that help an enterprise to solve critical problems, manage and analyses huge data, and delivers decisive results. Also, enterprises are using decision management application for minimizing error and to get accurate results within a short period of time. These application helps an organization to maximise its profitability and efficiency. According to traditional approach, decision management used to be done manually without using any technical tools or applications.Decision Management Applications Market Segmentation:On the basis of type global decision management application market is segmented into Analytical management application, business rule management application, operational optimisation application, testing management application, workflow management application, and monitoring & governance application.Request For Report Sample@On the basis of application global decision management application market is segmented into business research management, fraud management, regulatory compliance management, accounting and revenue management, human resource management, credit risk management, customer management. Business research management is sub segmented into business intelligence and analytics. Business intelligence manages database, helps in analysis, and also tracks reporting. Analytics consist of sophisticated tools with abilities to discover insights in data. In decision management application these three technology areas can perform both together and separately as well. Customer management is sub segmented into Cross-sell and up-sell, web- based purchasing, single channel management and multichannel management.Geographically, decision management application market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America, Western Europe and Japan are the lucrative regions for global decision management application; where, U.S., European Union (EU)-5, Japan are the most revenue generating countries in this market. North America and Western Europe holds the majority of the market share in the decision management application market. Asia Pacific excluding Japan market for decision management application is one of the fastest growing market in terms of revenue generation. India, China, Malaysia, Singapore are the significant contributing countries in terms of revenue growth.Decision Management Applications Market Dynamics:Decision management application delivers solutions and results of a complex data. Currently, enterprises are adopting this applications in order to reduce the timeline of projects and also to optimise the affectivity of a project. These benefits are primarily driving the decision management application market. This applications are used by both service and manufacturing industries. Moreover, increasing critical data and complex business situation require strong result oriented decision, understanding the requirement developers have been improving the model of decision management. Currently, there are number of high level model of decision management application are available in the market. This technological advancement is another factor that drives the global decision management application market. However, owing to have high price, many big and small enterprises cannot effort decision management applications. Moreover, to run these applications, it requires skilled employees, which is again a cost bearing factor for the companies. These are the factor that are restraining the high growth of global decision management application market.Since, decision management application is a recent trend of a decision management market, many large scale enterprises already adopted this application, and most of the small and medium enterprises are still untapped, are the opportunity to the decision management application market globally. New models of decision management applications are always an opportunities to the decision management application market, hence decision management application companies have been developing value added decision management applications.Visit For TOC@Decision Management Applications Market Key Players:Some of the key players operating in the decision management application are IBM Corporation, SAS Institute Inc., AbsolutData Holdings, Inc., Mu Sigma Inc., Manthan Software Services Pvt. Ltd., salesforce.com, inc., Nimble, Inc. PipelineDeals, Inc.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:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Medical Oxygen Concentrators Market: Demand for Medical Oxygen Concentrators Ramped with COPD Patient Numbers on the Rise

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Medical Oxygen Concentrators Market: SnapshotThe global medical oxygen concentrators market is currently being driven by the rising number of COPD patients across the world. The number of patients suffering from lung cancer, asthma, smoking-related lung disorders, and other respiratory illnesses is also increasing at a swift rate, further boosting the overall demand for oxygen supply units and especially medical oxygen concentrators. These units are also considered more advantageous due to their portability and the fact that they can provide an uninterrupted supply of oxygen. Government reimbursement policies are also being increasingly favorable to the global medical oxygen concentrators market and the adoption rate of these units. The market also credits the increasing geriatric population as one of the leading demographics in need of constant oxygen supply. However, the global medical oxygen concentrators market is being restrained by the large number of oxygen concentrators with continuous flow technology, which essentially waste oxygen and electricity when not in use. The high cost of portable oxygen concentrators is also making it difficult for emerging economies to adopt them at a faster rate.The global medical oxygen concentrators market is projected to reach US$2.41 bn in 2024. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 8.5% from 2016 to 2024, and was valued at US$1.25 bn in 2016.Obtain Report Details:Consumers Show Greater Preference for Portable Medical Oxygen ConcentratorsIn terms of modality, the global medical oxygen concentrators market is segmented into portable and stationary oxygen concentrators. Portable oxygen concentrators were leading the market in terms of demand in 2015. Portable oxygen concentrators are easy to carry, light in weight, work on rechargeable lithium batteries, and are small in size. They are designed for an individual of any age being able to carry a unit along his/her daily activities while receiving a concentrated supply of oxygen. The technology used in portable oxygen concentrators is largely known as pulse technology. Stationary oxygen concentrators work on continuous flow technology and consequently require a continuous electricity supply. These are generally used by patients during the night or at their homes. Due to the several advantages posited by the use of portable oxygen concentrators, it is expected that they will continue to acquire the leading share in the global oxygen concentrators market during the forecast period.According to technology, pulse flow technology leads the global medical oxygen concentrators market in terms of growth rate currently. This technology releases concentrated oxygen only when the patient inhales. Thus it does not base itself on continuous working of the oxygen concentrators and reduces overall consumption of power, allowing units with pulse flow technology to work on rechargeable lithium batteries. Among the end users of the global medical oxygen concentrators market, the home care segment has so far been the leading revenue generator.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:Geriatric and COPD Population in North America Puts Region in LeadIn terms of geography, the global medical oxygen concentrators market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. North America contributed the leading volume of demand in the global oxygen concentrators market for 2015, owing to an increasing use of portable oxygen concentrators at home. This region is likely to remain in the lead over the coming years. Europe places second in terms of demand in the global medical oxygen concentrators market, owing to an increasing level of awareness over use of oxygen concentrators over conventional oxygen supply units. Latin America and Asia Pacific collectively contributed to 31.4% of share in the global medical oxygen concentrators market for 2015 and are positioned as high potential locations in terms of untapped regions.Leading players in the global medical oxygen concentrators market so fat have been Chart Industries, Inc., Inogen, Inc., Invacare Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Resmed Inc., Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare LLC., Precision Medical, Inc., Besco Medical Co. Ltd., O2 Concepts LLC, and GCE Group.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
World CPLD Market Research Report 2021(Covering USA, EU, China, South East Asia, India, Japan and etc)

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SummaryICRWorlds CPLD market research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability.The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.The report includes the forecasts, Analysis and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share estimates and profiles of the leading industry Players.Global CPLD Market: Product Segment AnalysisQFP packagePLCC PackageBGA PackageOthersGlobal CPLD Market: Application Segment AnalysisAutomotiveBroadcastComputer and storageConsumer ElectronicsMedicalGlobal CPLD Market: Regional Segment AnalysisUSAEuropeJapanChinaIndiaSouth East AsiaThe Players mentioned in our reportAlteraXilinxAtmelLatticeGet Sample Report @Table Of Contents:Chapter 1 About the CPLD Industry1.1 Industry Definition and Types1.1.1 QFP package1.1.2 PLCC Package1.1.3 BGA Package1.1.1.4 Others1.2 Main Market Activities1.3 Similar Industries1.4 Industry at a GlanceChapter 2 World Market Competition Landscape2.1 CPLD Markets by Regions2.1.1 USAMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20162.1.2 EuropeMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20162.1.3 ChinaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20162.1.4 IndiaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 2016Buy Complete Report Visit @About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors.Contact Us:ReportBazzar30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.United States.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525Email Id: sales@reportbazzar.comWebsite:
Microarray Market 2016 - Industry Perspective and Comprehensive Analysis 2024

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Microarray is an advanced molecular biology technique used to spot expressions of many genes at the same time. Gene expression is a crucial part of normal gene functioning and plays significant role in understanding normal growth and development of life. Any abnormalities in gene functioning can lead to critical disease. Research involving the study of many genes by traditional method is next to impossible. Microarrays serve the purpose. Thousands of genes can be arrayed at one time and analyzed accurately. It is fast, accurate, cost effective and easy to do assay design. Microarray can be used for many micro molecules such as DNA, RNA, proteins, and also for enzymes, carbohydrates, and tissues. It can be used for gene expression profiling, molecular interactions, biomarker profiling, enzyme activity, pathway identification, and mutations. Microarray is not limited to basic research, but has expanded to clinical research and diagnosis.Based on type, microarrays can be segmented into DNA microarrays, protein microarrays, and antibody microarrays. DNA microarrays can be used for single nucleotide polymorphism-based diagnostics, forensic detection, gene expression profiling, etc. Large number of applications of DNA microarrays makes it a major segment of the microarray market. Protein microarrays are used in biomarker screening, enzyme substrate profiling, small molecule profiling, protein-protein interaction, etc. Antibody microarrays find applications in immunology in antibody specificity profiling, electronic immunoassays, etc.Obtain Report Details:In terms of application, microarrays can be segmented into gene expression profiling tool, comparative genomics tool, disease diagnosis, drug discovery, and toxicological research involving the uncharacterized microbial populations exposed to toxins and pollutants. With the help of microarrays some of the uncharacterized microbes can be identified and their original gene pattern and functionality can be studied. Microarray technology has provided a new insight into the evolutionary studies, as many arrays can be studied parallel that are specific for particular species. Microarrays can be used in comparative genomics and pathway probing. Microarrays provide information, though not complete but useful, about the gene or group of genes that can be studied further, illuminating the biological pathways. Microarray has helped in better understanding of some diseases, their pathogenesis, and genetics. Scientists are able to differentiate cancer on the basis of organs harboring tumor, leading to a better understanding of gene pattern in the tumor cells. Microarray has also benefitted therapeutics development. Better understanding of any drug addiction followed by better treatment in any patient is an example of it. In diagnosis of diseases, particularly at the time of outbreaks, where a quick and accurate diagnosis is required, microarray has gained recognition in identifying the causative agent or the pathogen and the specific strain or antigen (serotype).Based on product type and analysis, the microarray market can be segmented into consumables and instruments. Large number of applications of microarray has led to high demand for consumables such as reagents, primers, buffers, DNA chips, and reagent kits.Microarray has widespread applications in genomics as well as proteomics. The progressively evolving information and software technology and emerging bioinformatics are some of the factors driving the microarray market, making it economical, unfailing, and durable. The development of biological products such as vaccines and therapeutic proteins involving microarray technologies could lead to promising results. However government protocols have mentioned that minor changes in the biological process may lead to distinguished end product, there is an urgent need of extensive testing and authentication. And these factors may hamper the market.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:In terms of region, the microarray market can be segmented into five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America was the largest market for microarrays. Advanced technology, high quality result oriented research, public awareness about personal health, and government initiatives are the factors contributing to the growth of the microarray market in North America. Europe was the second largest market for microarrays, followed by Asia Pacific. Increasing awareness among the people about genetic diseases, education, government initiatives, and modern technology in diagnosis and treatment of diseases are propelling the microarray market in Asia Pacific.Key players in the microarray market are Agilent Technologies, Illumina, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific and Merck. Other companies include Applied Microarrays, BioGenex, Perkin Elmer, QIAGEN, and Phalanx Biotech.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
World Retail Order Management Software Market by Product Type, Market, Players and Regions-Forecast to 2021

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SummaryICRWorlds Retail Order Management Software market research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability.The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.The report includes the forecasts, Analysis and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share estimates and profiles of the leading industry Players.Global Retail Order Management Software Market: Application Segment AnalysisGlobal Retail Order Management Software Market: Regional Segment AnalysisUSAEuropeJapanChinaIndiaSouth East AsiaThe Players mentioned in our reportEpicor Software CorporationMicrosoft CorporationSAPIBMManhattan Associates.OrderDynamicsMNPSandersonFreestyle Solutions.OracleBrightpearlRetailOpsSpringboard RetailJDA Software Group, Inc.AccruentTCRDSKhaos ControlMACH SoftwareMoulton FulfillmentMICROS Systems, Inc.Jesta GroupAccentureGet Sample Report @Table Of Contents:Chapter 1 About the Retail Order Management Software Industry1.1 Industry Definition and Types1.2 Main Market Activities1.3 Similar Industries1.4 Industry at a GlanceChapter 2 World Market Competition Landscape2.1 Retail Order Management Software Markets by Regions2.1.1 USAMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20162.1.2 EuropeMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20162.1.3 ChinaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20162.1.4 IndiaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2011-2021Sales and Growth Rate 2011-2021Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 2016Buy Complete Report Visit @About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors.Contact Us:ReportBazzar30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.United States.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525Email Id: sales@reportbazzar.comWebsite:
Field Service Management Market to Develop Rapidly by 2027

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Global Field Service Management (FSM) Market: IntroductionIncreasing interest on mobility solutions to streamlining field operations is the key factor contributes the growth of global field service management (FSM) market. Field service management (FSM) is a system which enable coordination field operations through a mobile devices. Field service management (FSM) helps organizations to optimize its field service operations with higher levels of profitability and customer satisfaction. Field service management (FSM) is an effective tool which integrates billing, accounting, distribution, and service processes, which helps organizations to achieve maximum efficiency in their field services. Field service management (FSM) solution, offers various advantages including real-time communication of work orders & status, work tracking and customer information and service history. Field service management (FSM) gaining traction across various originations, particularly with practice of delivering field service through contractors and third-party agents.A sample of this report is available upon request @Global Field Service Management (FSM) Market: Market DynamicsExpanding wireless communication network infrastructure, growing preference enterprise mobility solutions across various industries, and rising importance for transparency in field operations, are the key driving factors propel the growth of global field service management (FSM) market. At the enterprise level, increasing focus on improving field service productivity by automating field service processes, growing preference to eliminate paper-based processes in field service operations, and continuous focus on integrating technicians, customers, and technology to increase business productivity, are the prominent factors accelerates the growth of global field service management (FSM) market. At the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) level, growing trend on outsourcing field services operations and availability of software as a service (SaaS) subscription based field service management (FSM) solutions, are the factors expected to fuel the growth global field service management (FSM) market. However, complexity related to migrating to field service management (FSM) system, high implementation cost, and lack of awareness about the potential benefits of field service management (FSM) solutions, are the key factors identified as restraints expected to deter the growth of global field service management (FSM) market.Global Field Service Management (FSM) Market: SegmentationThe global field service management (FSM) market is segmented on the basis of deployment type, end-user type, industry vertical and by region. On the basis of deployment type, the global field service management (FSM) market can segmented into on-premise and cloud. On the basis of end-user type, the global field service management (FSM) market can segmented into large enterprise and small and medium enterprise (SME). On the basis industry vertical, the global field service management (FSM) market can segmented into manufacturing, telecommunication, transportation & logistics, manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, retail, energy and utilities and others. Regionally, the global field service management (FSM) market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa.Global Field Service Management (FSM) Market: Regional OutlookNorth America field service management (FSM) market is expected to dominate the market, due increasing preference for enterprise mobility solutions and continuous focus to streamline field service operations. Asia Pacific field service management (FSM) market is identified as the fastest growing market, due to rapid urbanization and expanding contract based service operations across various sectors.Request to view Table of content @Global Field Service Management (FSM) Market: Competition LandscapeSome of the prominent vendors in the global field service management (FSM) market, includes Microsoft , SAP, International Business Machines Corporation, Oracle, ServiceMax (GE Digital), Trimble Inc., IFS, ServicePower, ServiceNow, and Acumatica, Inc.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.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 Water Dispensers Market Estimated to Flourish by 2025

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The water dispenser is also known as water cooler is a device which cools and dispenses water. It is linked to the mains than provide a live stream of chilled water as well as hot and boiling water. It is categorized into two categories bottle less water cooler and bottled water cooler. Usually, water dispenser offers a refrigeration function to cool the water. Some varieties also have a second dispenser that distributes hot water or room temperature water which can be used for tea, coffee or other purposes. The other tap provides hot water which is stored in a hot tank. Furthermore, the hot tap is furnished with a push-in safety valve that prevents injuries from any inadvertent pressing of the tap. Usually, in many regions, extracted groundwater is saline and essential to be purified for the purpose of making it suitable for human intake. Moreover, the decrease in the groundwater table, water quality in countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria and much more are declining. Therefore, to have a healthy and hygiene water intake people are tilting towards trusted purification process, and this increase inclination towards dispensed water. Rising disposable income and growing health concerns are other primary factors enhance demand for water dispensers all over the globe.A sample of this report is available upon request @Water Dispensers Market: Drivers & RestraintsMarket growth of water dispenser is approaching from three sides. First, the awareness about the importance of clean water, secondly the financial growth in developing countries especially Asia-Pacific excluding Japan region, third, the technical improvements that generate the further possibility of treating water and meanwhile reducing the prices. Drinking water market is experiencing market growth worldwide due to which water dispensers market is growing. Majorly, due to high usage of water dispenser in commercial areas, fuel its application in all business divisions, this drives market of water dispensers globally. The key factor that lifts the market growth of water dispenser are the properties such as portable size, availability of water dispenser in the range of types and cost which cover the broad range of customers, easy to use, cleaning and hygiene are the selling point of this product.Besides experiencing unprecedented market growth, water dispensers market is facing two primary restraints that are: often replacement of the components and additional expenses that accumulate particularly during the summertime. These two factors act as a constraint on the growth of water dispensers market.Water Dispensers Market: SegmentationThe global water dispensers market is segmented by its water source and purification types, dispenser type, distribution type, and applications.Based on the water source and purification type the water dispensers market is segmented into:Bottled Water DispenserPlumbed In Water DispenserBased on the dispenser type, water dispensers market is segmented into:Wall MountedBottom Load Water DispenserTable Topwater dispenserDirect piping water dispenserFreestandingBased on the distribution type, water dispensers market is segmented into:Direct salesOEMWholesaler/DistributorOnline shops/salesService companiesBased on the applications, water dispensers market is segmented into:ResidentialCommercialWater Dispensers Market: Regional OutlookRegarding geography, the global water dispensers market has been categorized into seven key regions including North and Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa. The water dispenser market is globally expected to register healthy CAGR during the forecast period. Among the regions mentioned above, North America, West Europe, and Asia Pacific excluding Japan are the largest market for water dispensers, closely followed by Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific excluding Japan. Asia Pacific excluding Japan is the fastest growing region because of the substantial economic growth and the demand from the huge population of developing countries of this region. Eastern Europe, directed by Russias economic progress and expansion in EU, are the reason for fast growth.Request to view Table of content @Water Dispensers Market: Key PlayersFew of the market players accounting for Global Water Dispensers market includes Primo, POVOS, Cosmetal, QINYUAN, Ragalta, Lamo, Aqualad, Angel, Avanti, Midea, Honeywell, Water logic, Voltas, Culligan, Edgar, Blue Star, and Culligan.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 Vector Network Analyzers Market to Record Sturdy Growth by 2025

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A network analyzer or RF analyzer is a device that measures the network parameters of electrical networks; it is a combination of programming and hardware. RF network analyzer is of two types Scalar Network Analyzer (SNA) and Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). Vector network analyzer (VNA) is widely cast-off for RF design uses. It carries the property of measuring both amplitude and phase of the device under test whereas scalar network analyzer only measures the magnitude difference between the wave quantities. Signal integrity problems such as reflections and crosstalk can be quickly and precisely uncovered using vector network analyzer. Vector network analyzer can perform full system error correction as well as provide display all statistics on a user-friendly control panel. It also tests anti-malware programs and pinpoints potential vulnerabilities. Configure alarms for defined threats, search for specific data strings in packets, monitoring bandwidth utilization as a function of time, create application-specific plug-ins, are some of the usages which hold vector network demand worldwide.A sample of this report is available upon request @Vector Network Analyzers Market: Market Dynamics and RestraintsMajorly, due to an immediate decline in the demand for scalar network analyzer and growth in communication, automotive and electronic manufacturing sector is driving the market of vector network analyzers globally. Vector network analyzer in comparison to scalar network analyzer provides much better performance while being almost same in price that is why vector network analyzer is seizing end use industries interest. Growing demand for wireless 3G and4G technology, are also projected to escalate profits significantly. Wireless LAN (Local Area Network) and wireless MAN (Metro Area Network) applications are being explored and mechanisms are being verified, as they provide significant market opportunities for vendors making is another factor which is raising Vector Network Analyzers market. Improvements adhere rigorously in the technological industry on a regular basis; therefore there is an ever-growing need for vector network analyzer.Although demand and necessity of vector network analyzers in the market can be seen significantly, two factors firstly, sudden revenue decline due to global economic downturn and secondly, scalar system network analyzer are still in demand and if the manufacturers low down their prices than scalar network analyzer can recover the market while hindering the market of vector network analyzer.Vector Network Analyzers Market: Regional OutlookRegarding geography, the global vector network analyzer market has been categorized into seven key regions including North and Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa. The vector network analyzer market is globally expected to register healthy CAGR during the forecast period. Despite the soft economy, consumers of North America are buying cars and electronic devices, this raises demand for vector network analyzers in countries such as Canada and US, making, North America leading region in vector network analyzers market. Countries such as China, India are the principal countries of Asia-Pacific excluding Japan region development-wise; industrial growth, and electronic manufacturing industries growth and many companies are coming up with schemes and offer to boost automotive, electronics industry, this makes Asia Pacific Excluding Japan second leading region for the vector network analyzers market. Japan and Eastern and Western Europe are also the propelling regions for the market of vector network analyzer. Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are predicted to acquire the vector network analyzer market shortly.Request to view Table of content @Vector Network Analyzers Market: Key playersSome of the key players of global Vector Network Analyzers market include Keysight Technologies, Nanjing PNA Instruments, Rohde & Schwarz, Chengdu Tianda Instrument, Anritsu, AWT Global, Advantest, OMICRON Lab, The 41st Institute of CETC, GS Instrument, Transcom Instruments, National Instrument, and Copper Mountain Technologies among others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.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
Large Scale Art Exhibitions in Ireland Just Got Easier

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An exciting new business that helps large-scale artists and exhibitionists realise their dreams is now focusing on Ireland.If you have ever had trouble finding and sourcing material for a large exhibition, festival, or artwork, then you know it can be a huge headache. Long delays, untrustworthy suppliers, and difficulty in finding unique materials are just some of the problems that plague this niche industry. Creatives want to start building their vision as soon as they can, not get bogged down in the stressful day-to-day miniature.That's where Bespokie shines - they're billed as a one-stop shop for all large scale creative needs. Just send them your requirements and they'll get to work finding the best supplies at the best price, plus they can give advice and guidance about what works best and how to avoid common pitfalls. They're your fast lane to creative success.And it seems the timing is just right.A survey by the Irish Arts Council and carried out by Kantar Media TGI, also shows that arts attendance in the Republic has increased over the past 12 months, and is now 9 percent higher than in the North, and 13 percent higher than in Britain. It's an exciting and growing industry.So next time you're at festival admiring some of the artwork, take a minute to appreciate the complexities that go into creating the piece. And if you're and artist looking to source material for your next big project, you'll know who to call.Bespokie, a business that helps artists find materials for large scale projects, is now expanding into Ireland.BespokieBenjamin Gilladmin@bespokie.com276 Condamine StManly Vale NSW Australia 2093
Global Human DNA Quantification Market to Record Sturdy Growth by 2025

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Quantification of human DNA in a test sample will help forensic testing facilities to create DNA profiles successfully. It approves that the test sample consists of adequate human DNA for further biological testing, creates whether it consists of inhibitors, and forecasts the success of the samples STR analyses. There are many manufacturing companys quantification assays which provide compassion, speed, and accuracy in the critical step of human identification and forensic testing.The DNA quantification assay contains two 5 nuclease assays, one among them is a target-specific human DNA assay and the other is an internal PCR control assay. The TSA for human DNA quantification comprises of two 5 primers, a forward and reverse primer, and one TaqMan minor groove binder probe. The probe end of 5 is linked to dye FAM to detect the amplified sequence. VIC dye is replaced in the IPC assay as the reporter dye. The internal PCR control sequence is unreal. The 3 probe end of 3 for both the assays consists the non-fluorescent quencher along with the minor groove binder.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @The different characteristic regions are as mentioned:Gene Target: Human Telomerase reverse transcriptase gene (hTERT)Location: 5p15.33Amplicon Length: 62 basesRegion Amplified: Nontranslated region (intron)Single-copy diploid targetDegraded, inhibited, or varied DNA models are communal in forensic casework and other human testing applications. Those models can generate difficulties in STR analysis. Before quantification of the DNA with the use of real-time PCR which decreases the necessity of repeated downstream analyses. This significantly eases the costs and time, thus advances the statistical relevance of results.Governmental agencies support by arranging sufficient funds, speedy industrial quantification method developments, and periodic national meetings and conferences related on how to use the new technologies in DNA outlining. Furthermore, numerous actions are being undertaken by U.S. administrative agencies to expand its national DNA databank, which would fuel the market for human DNA quantification market. Though, price attrition in genomics appliances and facilities is likely to hamper the market growth. Furthermore, the traditional instrumentation for detection of DNA can have a negative impact by technology integration. Apart from this, the established markets of the U.S. and Canada, and Europe, there exists strict government policies over the initiation of Human DNA Quantification policies. The approval procedure and introduction of new technical advancements in DNA sequencing are getting tougher for the manufacturing companies due to strict government regulations.North America to emerge as the dominated region market for DNA quantification market due to increasing necessity to decrease time and cost of DNA examination. DNA quantification is an essential tool for public need, as it contribute to disease exposure and treatment response. The recent advantage for DNA quantification is its ability to distinguish a male donor in the presence of large excess of female DNA in combination models makes it a useful tool for the analysis of sexual assault cases. Among all the major regions North America dominates the DNA quantification market being the U.S. booming the major share of the market, followed by Asia is composed to grow at a normal pace when compared to North America, due to funds provided by other nations to enhance the forensic and DNA outlining services. To the other side, dynamics such as occurrence of huge series of natural adversities and cognizance through forensics and DNA outlining related sessions are likely to deliver required incentive for the growth of this market.Request to View Tables of Content @Some key players in the muscle stimulator market are Agilent Technologies, Bode Technology, GE Healthcare, Illumina, LGC Forensics, Orchid Cellmark, Inc, Promega Corporation, QIAGEN N.V, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.Larger companies with the business units in the human DNA quantification market are now concentrating on collaboration and partnerships with local manufacturers and suppliers so to tap into an untapped markets. The companies are also trying to launch new products into the market in order to materialized their brand and expand their customer base.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 Genome Editing Market Rugged Expansion Foreseen by 2025

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Genome editing is a technique in genetic engineering that involves inserting, deleting or replacing a DNA into the desired locations into a genome of the living organism to change the phenotype of the organism. Genome editing plays a very significant role in modern day biology and is widely used in biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industry to alter the genome of microorganisms to perform process like the fermentation which yield desired products and by - products. The genome editing process involves extraction of desired gene sequence, editing the gene and insertion of the modified gene into the host. The genome editing technique is widely used for understanding the DNA in cells of organisms to have a better understanding of their biology, to treat autoimmune diseases and infectious diseases. Genome editing techniques are used to alter human blood cells that can be inserted back in the body for the treatment of various conditions such as leukemia and AIDS. The genome editing is also used to genetically modify crops to improve production i.e. quality and resistance to various plant disease and drought. Over the coming years the global genome editing market is expected to witness substantial revenue growth owing to increasing applications and adoption of this technique for production of various by-products.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @The increase in the R&D expenditure in industrial and life sciences sector is expected to bolster the demand for genome editing technique, especially in the agriculture and industrial enzymes sector. Technical advancements and collaborations among companies and academic institutions for development of new technology and better portfolio management by life sciences companies for development of new products are expected to boost revenue growth of the genome editing market over the forecast period. However, even though the genome editing industry is expected to witness substantial growth over the forecast period some factors like concerns related to genetically modified crops and animals witness adoption issues among end users and emerging ethical issues may hinder the growth of the market. Moreover the lack of knowledge and expertise among emerging countries may reduce the pace of revenue growth over the forecast period.Increasing applications and adoption of this technique for production of several products is expected to boost the genome editing market over the forecast period. Moreover with for development of new technology by various life sciences companies is expected to drive the genome editing market during the forecast period.Geographically the genome editing market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and MEA region.North America is expected to account for the largest market share in the genome editing market, trailed by Europe and Asia-Pacific owing to larger patient pool. North America is expected to register significant growth rate over the forecast period due to the factors such as the increasing prevalence and high awareness of genetic diseases such as Alzheimers disease, cancer, increasing prevalence of infectious diseases and dementia. Availability and acceptance of research grants and government funding, to increase adoption of GM crops, and development of gene therapy is expected to boost the growth of genome editing market in North America. Asia Pacific is also expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to genome editing conferences, and workshops, government funded programs. Global players are willing to enter into APAC market especially in agriculture sector which is expected to drive growth of genome editing market over the forecast period. Latin America and MEA regions are expected to boost the demand for genome editing techniques owing to economic and social development in these regions.Request to View Tables of Content @Some players in the global genome editing market are Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Merck & Co., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Origene Technologies, Transposagen, Clontech Laboratories, Astra Zeneca, Agilent Technologies Inc. and othersAbout 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:
Diabetic Macular Edema Treatment Market to Register Substantial Expansion by 2025

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Diabetic macular edema (DME) is characterized by accumulation of fluid in the macula  a part of retina responsible for vision. Accumulation may cause by leakage of plasma constituents into the surrounding, consequently leading to edema. Diabetic macular edema is one of the leading causes of blindness among diabetic patients and in 2011, it affected almost 12% of type 1 and 28% type 2 diabetic patients in developing countries. The standard treatment for diabetic macular edema is control of blood sugar levels i.e. glycaemia along with the control of lipid levels and renal function. Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) reported 2.3% reduction in the DME incidence in patients who receiver intensive management of glycaemia. Moreover, UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) showed that exhaustive control of blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetes patients decreased the risk of DME by 25%. Laser therapy is being used as standard treatment for diabetic macular edema since1985. Diabetic macular edema can be of two type viz. focal DME and diffuse DME. However, the treatment for both the types is same and involve laser therapy. For clinically significant diabetic macular edema focal laser treatment is used to treat leakage from microaneurysms. Variety of intravetiral injections for treatment of diabetic macular edema are available in the market and many are in development stage. Some of the commercially available drugs for diabetic macular edema include Lucentis (Ranibizumab injection), Avastin (Bevacizumab injection/solution), Aristocort (Triamcinolone tablet) etc. Moreover, other pharmacological treatments such as intraviteral corticosteroids like fluocinolone acetonide, anti-VEGF drugs, and dexamethasone intraviteral implants are currently being evaluated in clinical trials.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Increasing prevalence of diabetes in the prime factor driving growth of global diabetic macular edema therapeutics market. The prevalence of diabetic macular edema is higher in type 2 diabetes patients than in type 1 diabetes patients. As per study conducted by University Hospital Sant Joan de Reus Spain, the incidence of diabetic macular edema is in the range of 0.9%-2.3%, annually, across the globe. Besides this, substantial R&D investment by pharmaceutical companies and advancement in ophthalmic surgrey techniques are some other factors fueling the growth of global diabetic macular edema treatment market.Based on treatment type, the diabetic macular edema market has been classified as laser photocoagulation therapy and pharmacological therapy (further classified as bevacizumab, ranibizumab and triamcinolone). Combination of pharmacological therapy after laser treatment is often recommended by the physicians. However, laser photocoagulation is expected to hold largest share in global diabetic macular edema treatment market.Based on end user, the global diabetic macular edema market has been segmented into hospitals, ophthalmic clinics, research institutes and contract research organizations. Hospitals are expected to contribute highest share in the global diabetic macular edema treatment market over the forecast period.On the basis of regional presence, global diabetic macular edema treatment market is segmented into five key regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to lead the global market while Europe is expected to hold second largest market share in global diabetic macular edema treatment market. As per study results from University of Illinois, 2.8% of diabetic patients above age 40 years developed macular edema in the U.S. in 2012.Request to View Tables of Content @Some of the players operating in global diabetic macular edema market are Genentech Inc. (a member of Roche group), Novartis Europharm Limited (Novartis AG), Stiefel Laboratories Inc., (GlaxoSmithKline Plc.), Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, Alimera Sciences and others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors Market Set to Witness an Uptick during 2025

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Histone deacetylase (HDAC) is enzymes, which inhibits histone deacetylase by removing scetyl group from n-acetyl lysine amino acid. Histone deacetylase inhibitors are emerging as potential application in diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of cancer. It is also considered as a treatment option for hematological malignancies and plays important role in epigenetic or non-epigenetic regulation. The histone deacetylase inhibitors accumulates acetylated nuclear histone in tumors and normal tissues. Thus, the inhabitation results in acetylation transcription factors such as GATA-1, p53 and estrogen receptor-alpha. These enzymes are found in fungi, bacteria, animals and plants. There are around 18 human histone deacetylase known, which are classified into four classes based on their structures. Class I HDAC1, HDAC2, HDAC3, and HDAC8. Class II includes HDAC4, HDAC5, HDAC7, and HDAC9. Class III includes HDAC6 and HDAC10, whereas Class IV includes HDAC11.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @The demand for histone deacetylase inhibitors is rapidly increasing owing to growing need for innovative therapies for cancer treatment. Histone deacetylase inhibitors plays vital role in regulation of gene expression via the effects on the chromatin structure. Over the past few years, numerous histone deacetylase inhibitors molecules have undergone clinical trials for different types of cancer. These inhibitors are categorized based on their chemical structure. Among these categories hydroxamic acid-based compounds are the most widely explored class of histone deacetylase inhibitor.Histone deacetylase inhibitors market has been segmented on the basis of class, application, end user and geography.Based on application, the market is categorized into oncology, neurology, and other disease. Oncology is expected to be the leading segment owing to the large patient base and increasing need for novel therapies for the treatment of cancer patients. Currently, FDA have approved four products namely, Romidepsin (Istodax), orinostat (Zolinza), Vidaza and Dacogen. However, pharmaceutical companies are now heavily investing into research and development activities and preclinical activities of histone deacetylase inhibitors for different applications.Based on the end user segment, the histone deacetylase inhibitors market is categories into hospitals, oncology clinics and other end users. Oncology clinics end user segment is expected to be the highest revenue generating segment owing to the increasing adoption of novel therapies for cancer treatment and increasing incidence of cancer across the globe. Similarly, growing expenditure on R&D activities by pharmaceutical companies and increasing government funding for such activities is expected to drive the growth for the histone deacetylase inhibitors market during the forecast period.Global histone deacetylase inhibitors market is experiencing significant growth owing to the increase incidence of different types of cancer and growing need for effective cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. Moreover, increasing R&D activities for the cancer treatment and other neurological disorders is one of the prime factor responsible for the market growth. However, unfavorable reimbursement policies and uncertainty issues of HDAC inhibitors might hamper the market growth to some extent.Geographically Histone deacetylase inhibitors market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. North America and Europe will remain key markets for Histone deacetylase inhibitors market due to presence of sophisticated healthcare infrastructure, high R&D spending capacity and early adoption of innovative therapeutics. Asia Pacific is anticipated to register positive growth owing to rising governments initiatives in healthcare sector, improved healthcare infrastructure and increasing cancer patients population in the region.Request to View Tables of Content @Some of the key players in the histone deacetylase inhibitors market are Celgene Corporation, Celleron Therapeutics Ltd, Eisai Co., Ltd., Novartis International AG, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., AstraZeneca plc., Merck & Co., Inc. Pfizer Inc. to name a few.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 Cardiac Markers Rapid Tests and Point of Care Market to Make Rapid Progress in In Vitro Diagnostics

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"The Report MediPoint: Cardiac Markers Rapid Tests and Point of Care - Global Analysis and Market Forecasts provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"The global cardiac markers rapid tests and point of care (POC) market has been anticipated to widen its pool of growth opportunities on account of noteworthy technological advances and the drive to upgrade patient care and refine its efficiency. In a report included by MarketResearchReports.biz in its medical equipment archive, the analysts have suggested manufacturers to focus on exhibiting the clinical value of their products to increase adoption by physicians. The analysts have also recommended players to count on strategies that work toward the accomplishment of present unmet needs. The report bears the title MediPoint: Cardiac Markers Rapid Tests and Point Of Care - Global Analysis and Market Forecasts.The world cardiac markers rapid tests and POC market has been prophesied to receive strength with the advantage of fast turnaround time and clinical laboratory improvement amendments of 1988 (CLIA)-waived status of point-of-care testing (POCT). The augmented uptake of d-dimer testing and application of POC troponin test in a pre-hospital environment could raise the growth expectation of players operating in the market. Besides this, the surging prevalence of diseases diagnosed with cardiac markers rapid tests and POCT has been predicted to set the tone for the market.The authors of the report have researched the global cardiac markers rapid tests and POC market to be negatively impacted by the competition with laboratory tests and adoption of innovative biomarkers. The management of POCT and interference in conventional ways of working could also impede the growth of the market. Other deterrents that have been expected to be functional in the market are cost and reimbursement and regulatory compliance.Get Sample Copy Of this Report @However, opportunities to maintain the current position in the international cardiac markers rapid tests and POC market could arise in the form of unmet in vitro diagnostics (IVD) needs and enhanced reliability of tests even outside of controlled testing environments. Moreover, data management benefits and help with the markers for myocardial ischemia could create new opportunities for players functioning in the market. The popularity of cardiac markers rapid tests and POCT has been envisaged to gain impetus from improved patient outcomes and strong evidences of cost-effectiveness.View Press Release @The report complied on the global cardiac markers rapid tests and POC market has concentrated on 15 different regions, viz. Australia, South Korea, Russia, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, India, China, Japan, the U.K., Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and the U.S. If the companies assessed are concerned, Trinity Biotech, Siemens Healthineers, Roche Diagnostics, Response Biomedical, Radiometer Medical, Philips Healthcare, LSI Medience, Alere, and Abbott Point of Care are the nine players that have caught the eyes of the analysts. Along with their portfolio assessment, these players have been examined according to SWOT analysis. Other vital factors pertaining to the competitive landscape of the market have also been explored in the report.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Radio Frequency Components Market to Register a Strong Growth By 2021

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/6694

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Radio frequency components are the fundamental components required by any communication device for its proper functioning. The advancements in technology and miniaturization property (capability to fit in small size) of RF components are the factors driving this market forward. In addition, with advancements in universal mobile telecommunication network (3G and 4G), the market has seen high demand for tuners and switchers for offering precise functionality to other radio frequency devices such as demodulators, power amplifiers, etc. Although, the radio frequency components market is witnessing good growth, the production of radio frequency components requires significant investment from vendors, posing a challenge to the growth of radio frequency component market.Request to view Sample Report @The radio frequency components market is segmented on the basis of components, modules, applications, and geography. The radio frequency components market is segmented on the basis of its components into five major categories, namely- RF filter (RX/TX FILTERS), duplexers, power amplifiers, antenna switches, and demodulators. On the basis of applications, the radio frequency components market is segmented into four major categories, namely- cellular phones, tablets and note books, SMART TVs, and STB (Set Top Box). The global traction transformer market is further segmented on the basis of modules into six major categories, namely- TX module, RX module, antenna switch module, duplexer + PA module, multi duplexer module, and RX + duplexer module. The radio frequency components market is segmented on the basis of geography into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of World (ROW).Request to view Table of content @Some of the leading players in the radio frequency components market include Triquint Semiconductors (U.S.), Murata Manufacturing (Japan), RDA Microelectronics (China), Skyworks Inc. (U.S.), RF Micro devices (U.S.), and AVAGO Technologies (U.S.). Other key players in the market include, ANADIGICS Inc., Vectron International, Tektronix, Inc., Epson Toyocom, WIN Semiconductors Corp., and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.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
Mass Notification Systems in Healthcare Market Rugged Expansion Foreseen by 2025

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/14740

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/14740

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

A mass notification system is essentially a broadcast communications tool that contacts any number of people immediately with minimal effort on the part of the call initiator. A mass notification system is an integral component of an organizations emergency and routine communication capabilities. While these systems are most often associated with emergency notification for contacting employees during and after a disaster, mass notification dramatically improves an organizations operational efficiency and bottom line when implemented for day to day operations. A mass notification system provides effective communications to deliver time sensitive information in an emergency situation.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Utilization of mass notification system is most important for any business to ensure that their communication plan includes quick notification to all contacts for this is the groundwork for successful emergency response. Most notification systems are able to send voice messaging, text messaging and email messaging to entire organizations in a matter of minutes. The use of mass notification system allows real time communication. With advanced technology, these notifications offer real time follow up instruction, reports and assistance. With an automated notification system communication is consistent to a wide range of people. It supports the notification of all critical members within an enterprise and facilitates a timely gathering for discussion and immediate response. Although, there are chances that the mass notification system can have glitches. At times it is difficult to determine cost to value. While looking at any mass notification system it is important to consider the features that are included and what additional fees there may be, such as overage costs or setup fees.While mass notification is a very useful tool when emergency contact is required, most applications of the technology focus on more mundane, but equally critical business processes. These processes realize significant benefit from the use of mass notification, making any organization more efficient and making employees more productive.Regionally, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. North America is predictable to lead the market since there is presence of a large number of mass notification system vendors offering custom solutions to multiple industry verticals. Developing countries in Asia Pacific such as India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and China are also witnessing the increasing inclination towards the use of mass notification systems.Request to View Tables of Content @Some of the players in mass notification systems market are AtHoc, Inc., Desktop Alert, Inc., Eaton Corporation, Emergency Communications Network, Everbridge, Inc., Honeywell International, Inc., Lone Star Communications, Inc., Metis Secure Solutions, MIR3, and Siemens AG. The companies in this market are adopting various strategies like partnerships, collaboration, agreements, mergers and acquisitions, expansions, product enhancements and product deployment to increase their share and create a strong position in the global mass notification systems in healthcare market.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:
Growing awareness regarding energy conservation and reducing price of LED to Boost the Smart Lighting Market at a CAGR of 17.1% - The Insight Partners

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The smart lighting is a technology that enables its users to govern the lighting of any space without being surrounded by unnecessary wires. Smart lighting is a part of upcoming IoT technology, facilitating mobile and sensor based control on the luminosity of lights in a particular space. The intelligent connected lighting offers ecofriendly environment and effectively reduces the consumption of energy. The global Smart Lighting market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.1% during the forecast period 2016  2025 and accounts for US$ 51.05 Bn in the year 2025.Browse market data tables and in-depth TOC of the Smart Lighting Market to 2025 @The global smart lighting market is fragmented on the basis of lighting Type into. Light Emitting Diode (LED) Lamp, Fluorescent Lamps, Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL), High Intensity Discharge Lamps and Others (Neon Lamps and Photographic Flashes). Furthermore the segmentation is based upon application of smart lighting viz. Industrial lighting, Commercial lighting, Residential lighting, Outdoor lighting, Automotive lighting and Government. According to the geographic regions, the market is segmented into Europe, Middle East & Africa (MEA), Asia Pacific (APAC), North America and South America (SAM). With many developing countries in the region of Middle East and Africa, it is expected to have the highest CAGR of 24.4% during the forecast period.The shortcoming of a wireless system are occasional disturbance in communications among the devices. When a wireless lighting system is installed in a place, one should always make sure that the keypads, processors and dimmers are within a specific range. For example, some old residential buildings may be constructed with metal wire integrated in the walls that might create disturbance or weaken the signals of a wireless system. Though it has certain drawbacks, it is expected to capture more than half of the lighting market in next few years. Thus, maximum companies are switching their product portfolio to wireless smart lighting solutions. Major players in this segment are Philips, GE, OSRAM and Daintree.Request Sample Copy @Now a days wireless connectivity is taking a leap over the wire abled connecting networks as wireless is more convenient to use. First this technology was used in the telephones now called as the mobile phones and since then the wireless technology has revolutionized the way things were viewed. Wireless technology has given its consumers freedom from the limited range of the wired devices.The wireless technology has become an integral part of day to day lifestyle. Wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RF Ids are experiencing high adoption rate among users. The rising popularity of wireless technology in lighting solution is thus considered to be one of the major reasons driving the smart lighting market. The wireless lighting solutions are easy to control and help its customers to attain maximum energy saving.The lighting hardware is highly integrated and dependent on the software platform being used. As there is no common standard for wireless smart lighting products, the complete idea of various smart lighting devices networked together and the entire process of networking becomes complicated. For example, Philips employs ZigBee Light Link, GreenWave uses NXP JenNet-IP and Insteon uses its own wireless technology and all these are incompatible with each other. This incompatibility would result in inconvenience for the user as the choice of products and services will get limited by the platform being used, or else the entire operation of smart lighting would get complicated.Inquire about discount on this report @Major players in the global smart lighting market comprises of Osram Licht AG (Germany), Honeywell International Inc. (U.S.A), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherland), Eaton Corporation PLC. (Ireland), Digital Lumens Inc. (U.S.A), Lutron Electronics Company Inc. (U.S.A), General Electric Company (U.S.A), Legrand SA (France), Streetlight.Vision (France) and Acuity Brands Lighting Inc. (U.S.A).among others.Reasons to Buy Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies Highlights key smart lighting technologies thereby allowing organizations to gain revenues by focusing majorly on select products The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the smart lighting market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long term strategies Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as the those hindering it Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution Examine the current and future impact of the five forces namely: bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitutes, threat of new entrants and degree of competitionProcure Full Report @About The Insight Partners:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.com505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Jessica Chastain continues her trek to out-accent Meryl Streep with The Zookeepers Wife.

This outing, though, isnt as confident as Sophies Choice or The French Lieutenants Woman.

Chastain, for the most part, lets her accent take over, failing to reveal the strong woman underneath.

Shes the titular character, an animal-loving woman trying to hold her family together during World War II.

Based in truth, the drama has heartbreaking moments that dont resonate as well as ones in Schindlers List, largely because director Niki Caro hasnt plotted this with any real sense of surprise.

When Germany invades Poland and bombs the neighborhood, the Warsaw Zoo (which Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh run), the animals are sent into the streets suggesting the zoos days are over.

A Nazi (Daniel Bruhl) takes the superior animals to Germany but listens when the zookeeper suggests they turn the space into a pig farm. The animals can be fed with scraps from the community; the meat can be used to feed the soldiers.

He buys into the idea. Meanwhile, the zookeeper uses his daily run to spirit Jews out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Its a clever plan that enables more than 300 to survive. But its fraught with peril. Every time the mean Nazi shows up (hes also trying to create a hybrid animal on the premises), he begins showing affection for the zookeepers wife.

Its not hard to see where this is headed and, yes, there are plenty of Diary of Anne Frank moments when the plot is almost revealed.

A girl who has been abused by soldiers finds comfort in a rabbit the zookeepers wife offers; the zookeepers son becomes a beacon for decency.

And, yet, a lot of The Zookeepers Wife unfolds like so many TV movies weve seen. It doesnt accentuate whats unique to this situation. It doesnt give Chastain the moments that would give her awards attention.

Shes always good, but she could have been better. Even the part she had in The Help had more meat. This looks restrained.

Heldenbergh gets much better moments. Bruhl is about as nasty as cinematic Nazis get.

Because theres so much worth telling, Caro would have been better off avoiding the heightened drama and just telling the story.
Global Smart Wearable Fitness Device Market Key Vendors Trends, Forecast, and Growth Prospects to 2025

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Latest market study on Smart Wearable Fitness Device Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Type, Connectivity and Component, the report include key understanding on the driving factors of this growth and also highlights the prominent players in the market and their developments.Browse market data tables and in-depth TOC of the Smart Wearable Fitness Device Market to 2025 @Smart Wearable Fitness Devices are devices through which user can track there health and fitness every time. These devices produce data that, often enabled with analytics, can be used by consumers to manage their health and by healthcare organizations to improve care and potentially reduce costs through systems such as remote patient monitoring.The report aims to provide an overview of global smart wearable fitness device market with detailed market segmentation by type, connectivity, component and geography. The global smart wearable fitness device market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. Improved lifestyle and rising awareness of fitness among youth is expected to propel the demand for smart wearable fitness device.Request Sample Copy @The objective of Smart Wearable Fitness Device Market report is as follows: To provide overview of the global smart wearable fitness device market To analyze and forecast the global smart wearable fitness device market on the basis of type, connectivity, and component To provide market size and forecast till 2025 for overall smart wearable fitness device market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM), which is later sub-segmented by respective countries To evaluate market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend To provide exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions To profiles key smart wearable fitness device players influencing the market along with their SWOT analysis and market strategiesInquire about discount on this report @Segmentations Covered in the Smart Wearable Fitness Device Market Components: Software, Sensor, Tracking Device, Others Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, RFID Type: Smart Band, Wrist Watch, Others Geographical Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), South America (SAM)Some of the leading players in Smart Wearable Fitness Market Report Apple Fitbit, Garmin Huawei Motorola, Misfit, Inc. Samsung, TomTom NV Moov Inc. and JawboneWhy Buy Smart Wearable Fitness Device Market Report? Highlights widely used product offerings thereby allowing organizations to gain revenues by focusing majorly on select products The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Smart Wearable Fitness Device market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long term strategies Get reliable information about the strategies manufacturers in this market use to drive revenue Gain insights into the competitive landscape, to strengthen market competitiveness and positioning Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as the those hindering it Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution Examine the current and future impact of the five forces namely: bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitutes, threat of new entrants and degree of competitionAccess Full Report @About The Insight Partners:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.com505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Global Preservatives Sales Market Revenue, Gross Margin and Growth Rate Analysis 2017

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Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K MT) , revenue (Million USD) , market share and growth rate of Preservatives for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast) , coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaPurchase a copy of this report @. And get discount on report purchase @Global Preservatives market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Preservatives sales volume, Price (USD/MT) , revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingArcher Daniels MidlandBASF SEBrenntag AGCargill InCelanese CorpChr. Hansen A/SCorbion NVDaniscoDSM Food Specialties BVDuPontGalactic SAHawkins WattsKemin IndustriesKerry groupTate And Lyle PLCUnivarOn the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume (K MT) , revenue (Million USD) , product price (USD/MT) , market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoOrganic Solvent PreservativesInorganic PreservativesNatural AntisepticEster-Type PreservativesOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate of Preservatives for each application, includingDrinksPastryMeatOtherBrowse Complete Report @Some points from TOC:Global Preservatives Sales Market Report 20171 Preservatives Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Preservatives1.2 Classification of Preservatives by Product Category1.2.1 Global Preservatives Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Preservatives Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Organic Solvent Preservatives1.2.4 Inorganic Preservatives1.2.5 Natural Antiseptic1.2.6 Ester-Type Preservatives1.3 Global Preservatives Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Preservatives Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Drinks1.3.3 Pastry1.3.4 Meat1.3.5 Other1.4 Global Preservatives Market by Region1.4.1 Global Preservatives Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Preservatives Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Preservatives Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Preservatives Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Preservatives Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Preservatives Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Preservatives Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Preservatives (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Preservatives Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Preservatives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Preservatives Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Preservatives Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Preservatives Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Preservatives Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Preservatives (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Preservatives Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Preservatives Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Preservatives (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Preservatives Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Preservatives Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4 Global Preservatives (Volume) by Application3 United States Preservatives (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Preservatives Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Preservatives Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Preservatives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Preservatives Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 China Preservatives (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Preservatives Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Preservatives Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Preservatives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Preservatives Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Players4.3 China Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.4 China Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 Europe Preservatives (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 Europe Preservatives Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Europe Preservatives Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Europe Preservatives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 Europe Preservatives Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 Europe Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Players5.3 Europe Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by Type5.4 Europe Preservatives Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationRequest a sample of this report @ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. The market research industry has changed in last decade. As corporate focus has shifted to niche markets and emerging countries, a number of publishers have stepped in to fulfil these information needs. We have experienced and trained staff that helps you navigate different options and lets you choose best research solution at most effective cost.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Increased Usage of Health Economics and Outcome Research (HEOR) by Pharma Cos in Decision-making Process

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"The Report Evolving Market Access Strategies - Pricing and Reimbursement Landscape in Major Developed Pharmaceutical Markets provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"MarketResearchReports.biz has announced the addition of a new report, titled Evolving Market Access Strategies - Pricing and Reimbursement Landscape in Major Developed Pharmaceutical Markets to its offering. The in-depth study focusses on major market access strategies such as Health Economics and Outcome Research (HEOR) and evaluates the scope of Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The report offers detailed insights into pricing and reimbursements strategies of various pharmaceutical manufacturers.View Report @The study analyzes key HTA regulatory policies in major nations and carefully evaluates pharmacoeconomics modelling methods in HEOR. The study assesses the multiple dimensions of the HEOR process using a number of clinical studies. The research assesses the pricing pressures faced by several pharmaceutical companies in developing and developed regions. In addition, the study evaluates the impact of HEOR implementation on the competitive dynamics. The model is increasingly used by pharmaceutical players and medical device manufacturers to communicate the value of their innovation to payers, physicians, and patients.The report focusses on the need for integrating various market access strategies into the initial stages of drug development. Furthermore, the increasing benefit of HTA in guiding informed strategy formulation in case of limited evidence is boosting its adoption. The analysis elaborates on the prominent pricing and reimbursement policies in major regions such as North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific with a focus on the U.K., Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and Japan. The use of HEOR in understanding the level of competition in the pharmaceutical industry is adequately covered in the study.Get Sample Copy Of this Report @Health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) is increasingly used by several pharmaceutical players to guide healthcare decision-making in various emerging and established markets, such as the U.S., the U.K., and Japan. A large number of healthcare payers are using HEOR data to gain a competitive edge over others. In addition, the use of systemic value development plan (SVDP) has enhanced the potential of HEOR. In a number of developed nations, HTA has soared in popularity due to its increased adoption in various drug development activities. The role of HTA in bridging the gap between regulatory and reimbursement submissions has led numerous players to implement HTA. This has helped the companies to better understand the market prospects of their major products. However, the heterogeneity in HTA practices may increase the complexity of the market access environment.View Press Release @Nevertheless, in the coming years, HTA practices will gain more relevance in clinical development, since a significant part of post-marketing risks is strongly influenced by the coverage provided by third-party payers, including managed service providers. The report takes a closer look at the recent clinical trials and enumerates the challenges for achieving optimum market access.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
China Neurology Software Market By Manufacturers,Application, Forecast To 2022

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https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/china-neurology-software-by-manufacturers-regions-province-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022-market

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"Neurology Software plan packages, this contains individuals for individuals wellbeing records, session scheduling, billing and endurance training.Neurology Software provides the sufferers overall health-related information to assist in wellbeing care decisions. The specialist primarily based plan provides forms similar for his or her paper counterparts however provides easy navigation, a typical paragraph and click solution, discernment and also a standardized interface that allows everyone in workout to be more practical and provide far better wellness health-related treatment towards the patient.Request For Sample Report:Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Neurology Software in China market, to split the market based on manufacturers, Regions (Province), type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversEpicAthenahealthNextgenhealthfusionAllscriptsGreenway HealthPractice FusionBrainlabKareoBizmaticsAdvanced Data SystemsNueMDBrowse Complete Report:Market Segment by Regions (Province), coveringSouth ChinaSouthwest ChinaEast ChinaNortheast ChinaNorth ChinaMarket Segment by Type, coversType 1Type 2Market Segment by Applications, can be divided intoHospitalsCollege & Research InstitutesOtherAsk For Discount on Report:There are 18 Chapters to deeply display the China Neurology Software market.Chapter 1, to describe Neurology Software Introduction, product type and application, market overview, market analysis by Region (province), market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the manufacturers of Neurology Software, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4,to show the China market by Regions (Province),covering South China,East China,Southwest China,North China,Northeast China,Northwest China and Central China,with sales, price,revenue and market share of Neurology Software,for each region,from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5 and 6, to show the market by type and application, with sales, price, revenue, market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 7,8,9,10,11,12 and 13 to analyze the key Province by Type and Application,covering South China,East China,Southwest China,North China,Northwest China,Central China and Northeast China,with sales,revenue and market share by types and applications;Chapter 14, Neurology Software market forecast, by Regions (Province), type and application, with sales, price, revenue and growth rate forecast, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 15, to analyze the manufacturing cost, key raw materials and manufacturing process etc.Chapter 16, to analyze the industrial chain, sourcing strategy and downstream end users (buyers);Chapter 17, to describe sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers etc.Chapter 18, to describe Neurology Software Appendix, methodology and data source.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.With the window of opportunity getting open and shut at a speed of light, it has become very important to survive in the market and only the fittest and competent enough can do so. So, we try and provide with latest changes in the market that can suit your needs and help you take decision accordingly.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United States
Global Flexible Packaging Market: Key vendors - Amcor, Ampac, Clondalkin

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Latest industry research report on: Global Flexible Packaging Market | Industry Size, Share, Research, Reviews, Analysis, Strategies, Demand, Growth, Segmentation, Parameters, ForecastsFlexible packaging products are made of easy-yielding plastic and paper that can easily change shape to accommodate the product being packaged. Shelf life plays a crucial role in flexible packaging for F&B. Vendors are implementing barrier technologies to improve resistance to air and moisture.Request For Sample Report @Technavios analysts forecast the global flexible packaging market for food and beverages (F&B) to exceed USD 83 billion during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global flexible packaging market for food and beverages (F&B) for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the prominent vendors from all regions that are operating in the market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeNorth AmericaROWTechnavio's report, Global Flexible Packaging Market for Food and Beverages (F&B) 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsAmcorAmpacClondalkinConstantia FlexiblesInnovia FilmsMondiPrintpackOther prominent vendorsBemisGlenroyHuhtamakiSealed AirSonocoWestrockWipackMarket driverDemand for convenient packagingFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeSaturated market of F&B industryFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendRising demand for packaged foodFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact UsState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Industry Outlook, Growth Prospects, Key Opportunities, Trends and Forecasts, 2022 - Bioscan, Bruker, PerkinElmer

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.This examination looks at the global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems market in a persistent way by explaining the main features of the market that are relied upon to hold a sizeable impact on its improvements over the given time frame. The key drivers of the market's development, restrictions, and patterns affecting the global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems market are surveyed in extraordinary detail, notwithstanding a subjective and quantitative examination relating to the anticipated effect of these elements on its development prospects sooner rather than later.The vast volumes of data on the Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems by and large makes it an intense undertaking to take it down to the exceptionally significant bits of data and the genuine bits applicable to the present business issues in the market. Many organizations are additionally known to not have the fundamental committed assets and aptitude for taking up an illustrative statistical surveying in view of recorded information. Centered statistical surveying procedures can help these associations in framing clearer thoughts on their business systems and gather significant stakes in the market.Get sample report @A sweeping volume of information concerning the basic components of the Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems that can impact its extent of development is given in the report. The report in this manner makes for an exceptionally useful review and can successfully permit organizations and their leads in tending to the main difficulties that  as of now  control the market, and deliberately increase greatest conceivable advantages inside the profoundly focused market scene.The report likewise gives data on the current improvements in items and innovations as currently visible in the market, alongside an examination of the general impact that these progressions may have on any future advancements. The report likewise offers its clients a 360-degree examination of the competitive situation in the Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems. This is legitimate for organizations of all sizes and development levels inside the worldwide Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems market and helps different associations get a handle on the main dangers and openings that sellers regularly need to manage.Table of ContentGlobal Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Market Report 20171 Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems1.2 Classification of Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems by Product Category1.2.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Standalone Imaging Systems1.2.4 Multimodal Imaging Systems1.3 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Epigenetics1.3.3 Biomarkers1.3.4 Bio-Distribution Studies1.3.5 Longitudinal Studies1.3.6 Other1.4 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market by Region1.4.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4 Global Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume) by Application3 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationBrowse full table of contents and data tables of Report @4 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Players4.3 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.4 China Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Players5.3 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Type5.4 Europe Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Application6 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price)6.1 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)6.1.1 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.2 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.3 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)6.2 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Players6.3 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Type6.4 Japan Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Application7 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price)7.1 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)7.1.1 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)7.1.2 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)7.1.3 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)7.2 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Players7.3 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Type7.4 Southeast Asia Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Application8 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price)8.1 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)8.1.1 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)8.1.2 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)8.1.3 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)8.2 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Players8.3 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by Type8.4 India Pre-Clinical Imaging Systems Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationAbout UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales Market Report 2017

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This report studies sales (consumption) of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers 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, coveringTexas InstrumentsNSMcroblockMaximAnalogicTechLinearNXPInfineonToshibaOnsemiMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanKoreaTaiwanTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Split by product Types, with sales, revenue, price and gross margin, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoType A-LampsT-LampsReflectorsDecorative LampsIntegral LED ModulesSplit by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers in each application, can be divided intoCommercial LightingIndustrial LightingResidential LightingOutdoor & Traffic LightingOthersBrowse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsGlobal Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales Market Report 20171 Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers1.2 Classification of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers1.2.1 Type A-Lamps1.2.2 T-Lamps1.2.3 Reflectors1.2.4 Decorative Lamps1.2.5 Integral LED Modules1.3 Application of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers1.3.1 Commercial Lighting1.3.2 Industrial Lighting1.3.3 Residential Lighting1.3.4 Outdoor & Traffic Lighting1.3.5 Others1.4 Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume and Value) by Regions2.3.1 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.4 Global Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume) by Application3 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers3.3 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Application4 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers4.3 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Type4.4 China Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Application5 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers5.3 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Type5.4 Europe Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Application6 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers (Volume, Value and Sales Price)6.1 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Value (2012-2017)6.1.1 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.2 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.3 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)6.2 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers6.3 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by Type6.4 Japan Low Voltage DC-DC LED Drivers Sales and Market Share by ApplicationQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Consumption Report with Detailed Analysis- Biolchim SpA, Koppert B.V

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Research Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.This research report gives an account of the global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid market manages all its basic points of interest with the assistance of an inside and out and shrewd examination. The market is clarified in a comprehensive way and thus permits the report to show an entire examination of the market as concocted utilizing the elements that are required to have a quantifiable effect on its improvement.Despite the fact that a lot of summed up market-oriented data may not a mind boggling undertaking, it is sifting through the redundant parts of the given data to just the key points of interest that matter to a user, or that can settle a business issue. The absence of dedicated assets for undertaking such focused and even altered research procedure might be difficult for a few players in the Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid, and thusly can esteem this gathering of the most productive information as a standout from the oversimplified styles of research exercises.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @The report supplies data that may help organizations in dealing with core issues without breaking a sweat and furthermore give an unmistakable subjective and quantitative segment relating to particular components of the Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid that associations could be keen on knowing.An association utilizing this report can have increasingly simpler access to the key points of interest of the Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid that are sure to have an exceptionally noticeable bearing on its general advancement, alongside its segments that are critical to the market as a whole. The report is made with the aim of satisfying the modified needs of all its readers who are a part of the Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid. The report in this way makes an exceptionally ingenious information archive that permits best practices to be framed profoundly and to provide viable business systems.Table of ContentsGlobal Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Research Report 20171 Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid1.2 Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 High Purity Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid1.2.4 Low Purity Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid1.3 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Segment by Application1.3.1 Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Medicine1.3.3 Health Care Products1.3.4 Others1.4 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)Obtain Report Details @4 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Pharmaceutical Grade Fulvic Acid Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
The Cards and Payments Industry in Colombia: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020

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"The Report The Cards and Payments Industry in Colombia: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"GlobalDatas "The Cards and Payments Industry in Colombia: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Colombian 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 cash transactions during the review period (2012-2016).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 (2016-2020). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.View Report @The report brings together GlobalDatas 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.To widen the scope of contactless payments in Colombia, Mastercard collaborated with Bancolombia and transport operators - including Recaudo Bogota, Metro de Medellin and SmartTaxi - in February 2015, to allow cardholders to access public transportation on these networks using their cards. This collaboration enables Colombians to make contactless payment for transportation fare directly with their Bancolombia Mastercard at Integrated Public Transit Systems (SITP) in places like Bogota, Mo in Cali, TransMetro in Barranquilla and the Medellin Metro.Alternative payments are gradually gaining prominence in Colombia, with banks and payment solution providers launching services. The latest of these is the launch of the BBVA Wallet by BBVA Colombia in September 2016. Similarly, Group Aval and Bancolombia launched their Aval Pay and Bancolombia wallet respectively in September 2015. Similarly, the Colombia-based payment solution provider Paymenetz launched its mobile app, Plazez, in association with Mastercard in July 2015.To enhance the card acceptance from foreign tourists in Colombia, payment service providers are offering personalized payment solutions. RBM Redeban, Colombias leading electronic payment processing company, and Planet Payment, a provider of international and multi-currency payment processing services, entered into an agreement in July 2016 to establish a dynamic currency conversion service named Pay in Your Currency. Pay in Your Currency provides international customers with the choice to pay in their local currency. Customers are given the convenience of selecting on their receipt whether they prefer to pay in Colombian pesos or their own, while the merchant continues to receive settlements in pesos.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @This report also provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Colombian cards and payments industry, including -- Current and forecast values for each market in the Colombian cards and payments industry, including debit and credit cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including direct debit, cash transactions, checks and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis and payment methods.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Colombian cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit and credit cards.- Comprehensive analysis of consumer attitudes and buying preferences for cards.- The competitive landscape in the Colombian cards and payments industry.Scope- This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Colombian cards and payments industry.- It provides current values for the Colombian cards and payments industry for 2016, and forecast figures to 2020.- It details the different demographic, economic, infrastructural and business drivers affecting the Colombian cards and payments industry.- It outlines the current regulatory framework in the industry.- It details marketing strategies used by various banks and other institutions.Reasons to buy- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Colombian cards and payments industry and each market within it.- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Colombian cards and payments industry.- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Colombian cards and payments industry.- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Colombia.- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Colombian cards and payments industry.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Smart Factory Market to Develop Rapidly by 2021

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Smart factories are affordable and offer fully integrated automation solutions for manufacturing facilities to streamline the flow of materials during the manufacturing process. Smart factories are characterized by increasing the use of technology and field devices to offer complete automation in manufacturing process. By incorporating cyber physical system into the forefront of manufacturing flow, smart factories are able to connect every process and component across the value chain. This interconnection of information and production has revolutionized the automation industry and thereby, facilitated manufacturing units to perform at an optimum level. Moreover, manufacturing companies are able to achieve shortest time to market and zero waste production through smart factories. Automation in smart factories makes the use of various control devices such as sensors, motors, drives, switches and relays and networks technologies such as wired, wireless and radio frequency identification (RFID). Integrated systems such as Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Information Technology (IT) system, Programmable Logic Control (PLC), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) are designed to meet the specific requirements of a manufacturing unit. These industrial control systems manage the process and streamline the flow of materials across the manufacturing line. Smart factories also make use of industrial robots such as articulated robots, SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm or Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm) robots, Cartesian robots, cylindrical and other robots for various manufacturing processes such as painting, welding, conveyance, heavy lifting etc.Request to view Sample Report @One of the major factors driving the growth of smart factory market is the increasing need for improving efficiency and energy saving in the manufacturing process. Automation has enabled manufacturing units to utilize every second of production time through efficient streamlining of the manufacturing process. Technological advancements such as machine to machine communication enable smart factories to eliminate wastage of time caused due to the delay in the process change. Moreover, with rise of Internet of Things (IoT) and services, integration of manufacturing and engineering processes has experienced a tremendous leap forward. However, the growth of smart factory market faces a few restraints due to lack of standardization and interoperability issues. These factors raise concerns in designing integrated solutions using components provided by several automation solution providers. The shortage of trained workers and increasing skill gap further restrains the growth of smart factory market. Other crucial factors such as cyber security threats and associated costs limit the growth of this smart factory market in industries such nuclear, weapons and armaments.With its immense applications in industries such as automotive and transportation, packaging, mining of minerals and metals, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and process industries such as oil and gas, the smart factory market is expected to experience immense growth in coming years. Thereby, companies have invested heavily to explore untapped opportunities in the applications of industrial robots and control devices.Request to view Table of content @Some of the major players in smart factory market include Intel Corporation, General Dynamics Corporation, CMC Associates, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Johnson Controls Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Rockwell Automation Inc., Siemens AG, Schneider Electric SA, General Electric Co., Apriso Corporation, Emerson Electric Co., Invensys Plc., Teledyne Technologies Inc., ABB Ltd., Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, and National Instruments Corporation.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
MOUNT PLEASANT  A foster father has been arrested and charged with physical abuse of a child after he allegedly admitted to shaking his 5-month-old foster child on March 29.

Sean McIntosh, 44, of the 300 block of Oregon Street, admitted to shaking the child and was charged April 13 with abuse of a child causing great bodily harm, a felony, authorities reported.

Initially, the victim was placed in foster care due to a previous incident of abuse, a skull fracture, at a home in Union Grove, according to the Racine County Sheriffs Office.

Mount Pleasant Police Lt. Scott Geyer said it is unfortunate that a child would endure so much alleged abuse at such a young age.

Its a tragedy, Geyer said. As adults we are charged with the responsibility of the safety and well being of all children. We remind ourselves everyday how important that is.

According to the criminal complaint, a Childrens Hospital physician discovered new bleeding on the brain, retinal hemorrhaging and a new skull fracture when the child arrived at the hospital.

McIntosh turned himself into police earlier this month and was officially charged last week. He made his initial appearance in court Thursday and had his bond set at $1,500 cash and received a $23,500 signature bond as well, according to court records.

According to the complaint, McIntosh was playing with the child for two hours after his wife left for work. When the child became inconsolable, McIntosh said he lost it and shook the child four or five times.

Police said McIntosh told them he felt overwhelmed and had been working 12-hour days. He also admitted that he shook the child forcefully enough to do damage.

Racine County Human Services Department oversees the foster care for the county. Racine County Chief of Staff M.T. Boyle declined to comment, citing the countys policy of not commenting on child abuse cases.

McIntosh has a previous conviction of battery in 1999.

If convicted of the new charge, McIntosh could see 25 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

McIntosh is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on April 27 in Racine County Circuit Court.
Global Inventory Tags Market Set for Rapid Growth and Trend by 2022

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/inventory-tags-market-2625

Market research future published a Half Cooked Research Report (HCRR) on Global Inventory Tags Market. The Global Inventory Tags Market is Expected to Grow Over the CAGR of around 4% during the period 2016 to 2022Market Overview:Tags attached to inventory items to provide the required information about the finished products, raw materials, and other stored elements are called inventory tags. Rising trend of online shopping and growing e-commerce companies, are boosting the demand of inventory tags. Additionally, continuously growing demand from end-use industries, is also the key driving factor of this market. Inventory tags offer several benefits such as cost efficient and precise tracking of inventory goods, control over inventory flow, which also boosting the demand of these tags. However, lack of awareness of inventory tags technologies may hamper the growth of global inventory tags market.Global Inventory Tags Market is expected to grow at CAGR of 4% during the forecast period.Sample Copy of Report @Competitive Analysis-Major Key Players in Inventory Tags Market are:We recognize the key players in the Global Inventory Tags Market as Avery Dennison Corporation (U.S), Tyco International Plc. (Ireland), 3M Company (U.S), Brady Corporation (U.S), Zebra Technologies Corporation (U.S), Alien Technology Inc. (U.S), Hewlett-Packard Company (U.S), Checkpoint Systems Inc (U.S), Smartrac N.V. (The Netherlands), and Cenveo Inc. (U.S)Access the market data and market information presented through more than 25 market data tables and 25 figures spread over 140 numbers of pages of the project report Global Inventory Tags Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022Market Research AnalysisOn the basis of material, global inventory tags market is segmented into metal, plastic, and paper. Out of them, metal tags account for the largest share of material segment in global inventory tags market. Metal tags are more durable inventory tags and can withstand extreme conditions. These tags have a wide range of applications in industrial and commercial sector. The most common metals used to manufacture metal tags are aluminum, stainless steel and brass.Europe is the largest market for the inventory tags mainly due to advancements in technologies and strong government support. The inventory tags market in Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at the fastest pace during the forecast period.Scope of the ReportThis study provides an overview of the global inventory tags 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 Inventory tags market as technology, materials, and end-user.By Technology Barcodes RFID QR CodesBy Materials Metal Plastic PaperBy End-User Industrial Retail Logistics OthersAccess Report Details @List of FiguresFIGURE 1 Research MaterialsFIGURE 2 Global Inventory Tags Market: By Technology (%)FIGURE 3 Global Inventory Tags Market: By Materials (%)FIGURE 4 Global Inventory Tags Market: By End-Use (%)Continued.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.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst membersContactAkash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
2017 Overview of Global Antipsychotic Drugs Industry Available in Latest Study - Pfizer, Eli Lilly

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022" to its huge collection of research reports.The Antipsychotic Drugs from the point of view of all its present patterns that are impacting it, is essential to comprehend so as to acquire the most adjusted answer for business procedures in it. These patterns are financial, topographical, monetary, political, buyer, and social, and their general impact on customer or purchaser inclinations will have a noteworthy say in how this market will frame itself in the years to come. These elements and the way they affect the Antipsychotic Drugs have been examined in supreme detail in the report. A definitive objective for the spread of this data is to make an unmistakable investigation of how these patterns could conceivably influence the eventual fate of the market inside the report's given forecast period.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @The report, similar to all reports added to this research repository, is a comprehensive and engaging perspective of the Antipsychotic Drugs. It explains available progression, extent of development in different regions and specific locations, and different parameters that have been so far compelling amid its extension regarding value and volume. This examination study is along these lines a quantitative and a subjective review for conferring a reasonable vision of every single conceivable circumstance in the Antipsychotic Drugs, and in addition the drivers that may exist between 2017 and 2022.The Antipsychotic Drugs is likewise introduced to the readers of this report as an all-encompassing preview of the competitive scene inside the given time frame. It displays a similar examination of the regional portions and player competitiveness, offering readers a superior comprehension of where territories in which they can put their current assets.Browse full table of contents and data tables of Report @Table of ContentsGlobal Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Antipsychotic Drugs1.1 Antipsychotic Drugs Market Overview1.1.1 Antipsychotic Drugs Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Antipsychotic Drugs Market by Type1.3.1 Typical Antipsychotics1.3.2 Atypical Antipsychotics1.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Schizophrenia1.4.2 Psychotic Depression1.4.3 Dementia1.4.4 Bipolar Disorder2 Global Antipsychotic Drugs Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Johnson & Johnson3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Pfizer3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Eli Lilly3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Bristol-Myers Squibb3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 AstraZeneca3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 GlaxoSmithKline3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Antipsychotic Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments4 Global Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Antipsychotic Drugs in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Antipsychotic Drugs5 United States Antipsychotic Drugs Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)6 EU Antipsychotic Drugs Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Antipsychotic Drugs Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Optical Transceiver Global Market Trend, Research Approach, Data Analysis and Forecast to 2022

ReportsWeb

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"According to Publisher, the Global Optical Transceiver market is accounted for $3.15 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $8.49 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 15.2%. Presently penetrating internet market over the world is prevailing opportunities for the market to flourish, throughout the reach of market extremes. Emerging demand for smart phones, and adoption of mainstream cloud services are the factors favoring the market. Moreover, introduction of smaller and cheaper transceivers in near future will provide further opportunities to market.For more information about this report:The Data Centre segment is estimated to grow at rapid pace in near future on account of its connectivity range which is fluctuating over 400 Gbps transmission rate. In addition to this the wavelength of 1,310 nm is emerging with highest CAGR due to emphasized data centre application. North American market is estimated to prevail its dominance over market, whereas, Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region in market due to emerging electronic hubs in the developing regions.Some of the key players of the Optical Transceiver market include Agilent Technologies, Analog Devices, Broadcom / Broadcom Technologies, Dasan Zhone Solutions, Foxconn Technology Group, Fujitsu, Huawei, Innolight Technology Corporation, Luna Innovations / Advanced Photonix, Menara Networks, Molex / Oplink, NeoPhotonics, Nokia, Photon-X, POLYSYS, Reflex Photonics, Rohm Semiconductor, Santec-Creating Optopia, Source Photonics and Viavi Solutions.Applications Covered:- Data CentreIntra-Data Centre ConnectionData Centre Interconnect- EnterpriseEnterprise SwitchingEnterprise Routing- TelecommunicationLong Haul NetworkMetro NetworkUltra-Long Haul NetworkForm Factors covered:- CFP, CFP2, and CFP4- CXP- QSFP, QSFP+, QSFP14, and QSFP28- SFF and SFP- SFP+ and SFP28- XFP- Other Form FactorsDistances Covered:- Less Than 1 Km- Greater Than 1 Km to Less Than 10 Km- Greater Than 10 Km to Less Than 100 Km- Greater Than 100 KmData Rates covered:- Less Than 10 Gbps- Greater Than 10 Gbps and Less Than 40 Gbps- Greater Than 40 Gbps and Less Than 100 Gbps- Greater Than 100 GbpsRequest Sample Copy atWavelengths Covered:- 850nm Band- 1310nm Band- 1550nm Band- Other WavelengthsCWDM (Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing)DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing)BIDI (Bidirectional Wavelength)Regions Covered:- North AmericaUSCanadaMexico- EuropeGermanyFranceItalyUKSpainRest of Europe- Asia PacificJapanChinaIndiaAustraliaNew ZealandRest of Asia Pacific- Rest of the WorldMiddle EastBrazilArgentinaSouth AfricaEgypt1 Executive Summary2 Preface3 Market Trend Analysis4 Porters Five Force Analysis5 Global Optical Transceiver market, By Application6 Global Optical Transceiver market, By Form Factor7 Global Optical Transceiver market, By Distance8 Global Optical Transceiver market, By Data Rate9 Global Optical Transceiver market, By Wavelength10 Global Optical Transceiver market, By Geography11 Key Developments12 Company Profiling12.1 Agilent Technologies12.2 Analog Devices12.3 Broadcom / Broadcom Technologies12.4 Dasan Zhone Solutions12.5 Foxconn Technology Group12.6 Fujitsu12.7 Huawei12.8 Innolight Technology Corporation12.9 Luna Innovations / Advanced Photonix12.10 Menara Networks12.11 Molex / Oplink12.12 NeoPhotonics12.13 Nokia12.14 Photon-X12.15 POLYSYS12.16 Reflex Photonics12.17 Rohm Semiconductor12.18 Santec-Creating Optopia12.19 Source Photonics12.20 Viavi SolutionsInquire before Buying atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
GCC Molded Plastics Market: Thriving Construction Industry Driving Uptake, says TMR

GCC Molded Plastics Market

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According to a recent study by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the molded plastics market in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is highly fragmented, with ten of the leading companies collectively accounting for merely one-third of the shares in 2014. The report detects that more than 60% of these companies are located in Saudi Arabia and there is still high scope of capacity expansion. Investors are focused on acquiring machinery for producing a variety of molded plastic products with world-class quality. Moreover, expansion of product portfolio is the potential way forward to accelerated growth. Most of the leading market players are focusing on export markets as these offer higher margin and better bottom-line growth.The report evaluates that the GCC molded plastics market was worth US$5.5 bn in 2014, and estimates the valuation to reach US$14.2 bn by the end of 2023, increasing at a robust CAGR of 8.3% during the forecast period of 2015 to 2023. Major molded plastics manufacturers such as Al Barsha Plastic Product Company LLC have developed the capability for plastic molding as well as manufacture of molding machinery. This gives them a competitive advantage and equips them with fast adaptive capability aligned with market shifts.Browse Market Research Report @Cost-effectiveness Maintains Injection Molding as Key SegmentApplication-wise, the molded plastics market in Gulf Cooperation Council is segmented into consumable and electronics, packaging, building and construction, consumable and electronics, and others such as toys and furniture. Among these, packaging was rated as the most attractive application in the molded plastics market in GCC. The packaging industry is witnessing rapid growth as a result of increase in trade activities and growth in the industrial as well as consumer goods markets. Increasing population is the most significant stimulant for increase in sales of goods.Technology-wise, the molded plastics market in GCC has been categorized into injection molding, thermoforming, blow molding, and others such as casting and rotomolding. In 2014, in terms of volume, the injection molding market for molded plastics in GCC stood at 1,384 kilo tons and is estimated to reach 2,727.6 kilo tons in 2023, as it is most frequently used technology employed to mold plastics into a wide range of shape and sizes, and is cost efficient.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @Country-wise, the TMR report bifurcates the GCC molded plastics market into UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. In 2014, Saudi Arabia contributed 62.0% of the demand for molded plastics in GCC, and is expected to remain most profitable country throughout the forecast period. UAE is rated as the second most lucrative region, although the demand is anticipated to decrease in comparison to Oman.Packaging Industry Augmenting DemandRapid growth of the packaging industry in the Middle East and rapid construction are the two most prominent factors driving the GCC molded plastics market. Apart from the increase in trade activities in GCC, domestic consumption of packaged consumer products is rising with increase in local population and thereby providing a thrust to the market for molded plastics in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Molded plastics are mostly employed in rigid packaging of food and beverages, cosmetics, consumer goods, industrial items, and medical supplies. As far as the demand from the construction industry is concerned, increased government spending on new projects, both for commercial and residential purposes, is expected to boost the market for molded plastics. Conversely, unpredictable demand patterns in Europe and the Middle East owing to economic and political instability is expected to hamper the growth are during the forecast period.According to the author of the report, investments in research and development activities and product portfolio expansion is will open new opportunities for the players in this market.About Us:-Transparency Market 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.We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog:
Global Satellite antenna Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast to 2022

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https://marketsizeforecasters.com/global-and-chinese-satellite-antenna-industry-2017-market

https://marketsizeforecasters.com/2017-2022-china-mobile-phone-antenna-market

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Satellite antenna analysis is provided for the markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status.The 'Global and Chinese Satellite antenna Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Satellite antenna industry with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Satellite antenna manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry. Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2012-2017 market shares for each company.Request a sample copy of Satellite antenna Market Research Report @Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of Satellite antenna industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export. The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis. The report then estimates 2017-2022 market development trends of Satellite antenna industry. Analysis of upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics is also carried out. In the end, the report makes some important proposals for a new project of Satellite antenna Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2012-2022 global and Chinese Satellite antenna industry covering all important parameters.The listed pricing for this Satellite antenna Market report starts at $ 3000. Request Discount for Satellite antenna Market Research Report @Major Points Covers in Table of ContentsChapter Five Market Status of Satellite antenna Industry5.1 Market Competition of Satellite antenna Industry by Company5.2 Market Competition of Satellite antenna Industry by Country (USA, EU, Japan, Chinese etc.)5.3 Market Analysis of Satellite antenna Consumption by Application/TypeChapter Six 2017-2022 Market Forecast of Global and Chinese Satellite antenna Industry6.1 2017-2022 Global and Chinese Capacity, Production, and Production Value of Satellite antenna6.2 2017-2022 Satellite antenna Industry Cost and Profit Estimation6.3 2017-2022 Global and Chinese Market Share of Satellite antenna6.4 2017-2022 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Satellite antenna6.5 2017-2022 Chinese Import and Export of Satellite antennaChapter Seven Analysis of Satellite antenna Industry Chain7.1 Industry Chain Structure7.2 Upstream Raw Materials7.3 Downstream IndustryBrowse full table of contents and data tables For Satellite antenna Market Report @Related Reports: -2017-2022 China Mobile Phone Antenna Market Report (Status and Outlook)The Mobile Phone Antenna market size will be XX million (USD) in 2022 in China, from the XX million (USD) in 2016, with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) XX% from 2016 to 2022.MarketSizeForecasters.com, a Skyline Market Research LLP brand, is an online aggregator of market research reports. MarketSizeForecasters.com offers a comprehensive collection of full length reports on global and regional markets in 100+ industry verticals. We have partnered with some of the leading business and market research publishing houses and regularly update our online library to offer wide range of reports to our customers.Market size forecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketsizeforecasters.comWebsite:Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Global Refinery Catalysts Market: China Sustaining Asia Pacific as Most Lucrative Region, says TMR

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According to a recent study by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global market for refinery catalysts is well organized and consolidated among four players who collectively owned more than three-fourth of the shares in 2015. These four vendors are Royal Dutch Shell Plc., Chevron Corporation, Sinopec Corporation, and ExxonMobil Corporation. With an impressive product portfolio and distribution channels across various regions worldwide, these four companies are significantly ahead of the curve in the global refinery catalysts market. The TMR report expects this dominance to continue in the near future as these leaders continue to research and develop new products with their financial might and continue to add on their consumer base.As per the TMR estimations, the global refinery catalysts market was worth US$11.5 bn and projects it to reach a valuation of US$17.1 bn by 2024, increasing at a CAGR of 3.93% during the forecast period of 2016 to 2024. The slugging growth rate is a reflection of volatile crude oil prices, which severely affects the production and revenue of the vendors operating in refinery catalysts market. The report anticipates this pattern to continue in the near future, and lead to limited development opportunities for new entrants.Obtain Report Details @Zeolites Remains Profitable SegmentBased on material, the report segments the global refinery catalysts market into cobalt, molybdenum, zeolites, nickel, and others such as platinum. Out of these, zeolites refinery catalysts accounted for 65.5% of the market in 2015, in terms of volume. This substantial demand for zeolites is owing to its expanding appetite for high octane gasoline across the world. Zeolites are primarily used for the fluid catalytic cracking process, and offer benefits such as high temperature resistance, high selectivity, and cost-effectiveness.Geographically, this report on the global refinery catalysts market evaluates the potential of several regions including North America, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. Currently, China not only the leading producer but also the most prominent consumer of refinery catalysts, single-handedly making Asia Pacific the most lucrative region for the players in the global market for the same. The prosperity of the petrochemicals and refining sectors in India and China will favor the expansion of the refinery catalysts market in Asia Pacific. The report also expects the regions of the Middle East and Asia Pacific to increment the demand for molybdenum refinery catalysts during the forecast period.For more information on this report, fill the form @Escalating Pollution Concerns Driving DemandGrowing demand for refined petroleum products, increase in refinery construction across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and upgrading of existing low NCI refineries are some of the key factors favoring the global refinery catalysts market. In the recent past, regulations pertaining to carbon emission from vehicles, particularly in the developed regions in Europe and North America have proved a boon for this market. With refinery catalysts, quantity of sulfur and other impurities can be controlled. On the other hand, factors such as overcapacity in refineries in developed countries, competition from renewable fuels, and unstable regulatory environment are challenging the market from attaining its full potential. Decline in the consumption of refinery catalysts in Europe, which was a lucrative region for the players in this market, is expected to show quite apparently during the forecast period.According to the lead analyst of the report, Low crude oil price will have mixed influence over the refining industry, while the market will open new opportunities on the back of stricter regulations related to fuel specifications, leading to the requirement of secondary processing units and refining catalysts.About Us:-Transparency Market 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.We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog:
Analysis On Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Sales Industry 2017, Size, Application & Research- Sanofi, Chattem

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022" to its huge collection of research reports.Every key element that has happened so far in the Autacoids and Related Drugs has been represented in this widely inclusive report. A key portion of these market elements incorporate the key player profiles and the market's general competitive scene, as players are known to have what's coming to them of impact over it. Different courses of the Autacoids and Related Drugs announced in the report incorporate drivers, restrictions, and key open doors that influence a larger part of the players in it. To totally cover the competitive scene of the Autacoids and Related Drugs, a SWOT examination is jotted down for all players, new and old. This takes into account a clearer projection for the Autacoids and Related Drugs over the coming years. Extra analyses incorporated the player profiles are their budgetary structures and current vital production arrangements for all the key players in the market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The Autacoids and Related Drugs is additionally investigated on the premise of its perfunctory chain, an entry that utilizes research and information in view of the utilization and production abilities introduced into the market currently. This segment likewise fuses the product depictions and cost structures of the Autacoids and Related Drugs. The report also offers a point by point investigation inside the market to determine its trademark qualities as far as upstream and downstream requests for raw materials are concerned, and in addition the import, and cost drifts that affect them.The report additionally gives the aftereffects of an exceptionally itemized review on the Autacoids and Related Drugs in view of its provincial divisions. For each key district expressed, the client is given statistical data points on the player pool and in addition request, alongside expectations for the same. This can be vital for regional players attempting to extend their points of view in the market.For more information on this report, fill the form @Table of ContentsGlobal Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Autacoids and Related Drugs1.1 Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Overview1.1.1 Autacoids and Related Drugs Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Autacoids and Related Drugs Market by Type1.3.1 Polypeptides1.3.2 Decarboxylated Amino Acids1.3.3 Eicosanoids1.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Allergies1.4.2 Inflammation1.4.3 Gastric Acid Secretion1.4.4 Neuroendocrine Regulation1.4.5 Chronic Pain1.4.6 Cardiovascular Diseases1.4.7 Gastrointestinal Diseases2 Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Bedford Laboratories3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Bristol-Myers Squibb3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 APP Pharma3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Abbott Laboratories3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Sanofi3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Chattem3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Xanodyne3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 AstraZeneca3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 Hospira3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 Autacoids and Related Drugs Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.9.5 Recent Developments4 Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Autacoids and Related Drugs Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Autacoids and Related Drugs in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Autacoids and Related DrugsAbout UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Mobile Payment Transaction Market to Value US$ 2.89 Trillion in 2020

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In terms of revenue, the global mobile payment transaction market revenues valued at US$ 549,917.7 Mn in 2015 will possibly reach US$ 2,849,231.4 Mn in the year 2020.The mobile payment is an integrated system linked by various components of value chain which typically includes the merchant, the consumer, the financial institution involved and not to forget the payment gateway and the telecom network.Mobile payment transaction volume will grow by a massive 41.7% during the forecast period 2015-2020. In terms of volume, the global mobile payment transaction market volume was 18,969.8 million transactions in the year 2015 and this is projected to increase by 106,001.5 million transactions by the year 2020.Persistence Market Research forecasts the global mobile payment transaction market to register a CAGR of 39.1% through 2020 and reach US$ 2.89 trillion in revenues.Even though there will be tremendous growth in mobile payment transactions market, there are many challenges that are obstructing the growth of this market. A major challenge is the slow adoption of smartphone compatible POS systems by the retailers. If taken at face value, a 41.7% volume growth looks amazing, but there is something to be concerned about. One of the major concerns is that apart from few countries, consumers havent fully accepted the concept of mobile payments, even though the facility is much more secure. However, given the inherent nature of the product, it wouldnt be long before consumers all over the world use the facilities provided by mobile payments, as per the research report of Persistence Market Research.By technology, SMS and WAP/WEB will continue to account for most of the transactions conducted worldwide. Mobile payments conducted through SMS will witness a robust CAGR of 24.5% over the forecast period. In the year 2015, the revenue from the SMS segment was US$ 238,884.3 Mn and this is going to be at the value of US$ 678,117.1 Mn by 2020 end.Mobile payments conducted through WAP/WEB will witness a CAGR of 48.0% during the forecast period. In the year 2015, the revenue from the WAP/WEB segment was US$ 164,386.1 Mn and this is going to be valued at US$ 1,725,209.6 at the end of the forecast period in the year 2020.Money transfer and merchandise purchases account for over 90% revenue share of the global mobile payment transaction market on the basis of end-use purpose. Mobile payments made for merchandise purchases will be worth US$ 323.73 Bn in 2016, up from US$ 228.32 Bn in 2015. Money transfer, the largest end-use purpose in the mobile payment transaction market, will grow by over 38% to surpass US$ 381 Bn in revenues.The market for mobile payments will continue to be robust in APEJ and Africa, as majority of people there dont own a credit card, in contrast of the situation in Europe and United States. So, consumers in APEJ and Africa are making a direct shift from using cash to using mobile payments. Growth in the mobile payments market will be particularly strong in China. This is due to the entry of major market players like Apple and Samsung in the Chinese market, making the competition more fierce and interesting.Request to view table of content @Due to a strong showing in China, the market for mobile payment will continue to grow in the Asia Pacific region and this region will be the leading market in the world in terms of volume. However, in terms of value, it is Africa that will maintain its number one position in the mobile payment transaction market. This is due to the spectacular success of M-Pesa in Kenya and this has influenced consumers and businesses in other regions of Africa to adopt the technology of mobile payments. This has boosted the market of mobile payment transaction market in Africa. Currently, Africa has nearly 32% revenue share of the global mobile payment market, and boasts of a subscriber base of over 100 million. Other than Asia Pacific and Africa, Western Europe and United States are other lucrative regions for mobile payment transaction market the world over.A sample of this report is available upon request @Leading players operating in the global mobile payment transaction market are PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Alipay.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:
United States Automotive Bluetooth Market research Analysis Report 2017

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A recent report added with titled, Automotive Bluetooth, is a comprehensive analysis of the Automotive Bluetooth market. It offers useful market insights such as the market share, size and growth. The current trends, growth opportunities and challenges in the Loyalty are highlighted in the report. Factors that influence market growth are listed in the presented study along with factors that impede market growth for the forecast period 2017-2022. The prospects of the upcoming projects and technological advancements have been highlighted in the market study. The scope and feasibility of the emerging industry applications is evaluated in the market study.Browse Complete Report:The key market players included in the report:Beats ElectronicsBose CorporationHarman International IndustriesSamsung Electronics Co LtdSony CorporationApplicationThe different applications of the Automotive Bluetooth market are evaluated in detail. The market share, future potential and market size of each application is included in the report. The different applications include:OEMAftermarketRequest For Sample Report:Owing to higher adoption rate and technological advancements, the growth rate of application # is on the rise during the forecast period.The presented study takes into account the key raw materials, price trends, suppliers and the market concentration of the raw materials. The various marketing channels used by different distributors and traders are minutely studied and added in the report.Competitive LandscapeThe competitive landscape of the Automotive Bluetooth market is enclosed in the presented report. The recent mergers, acquisitions and collaborations are all penned down in the report. The key market players are studied in the report. Data related to the major market players include:Company profileProduct specificationSales areaSales, revenue, gross margin (2017-2022)Market share by regionManufacturer 4Do Inquire About Report:The different marketing channels, marketing strategies, raw materials, raw material sourcing and key vendors of raw materials is studied under the scope of the market study for the period 2017-2022.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.With the window of opportunity getting open and shut at a speed of light, it has become very important to survive in the market and only the fittest and competent enough can do so. So, we try and provide with latest changes in the market that can suit your needs and help you take decision accordingly.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United States
Security-as-a-Service Market to Value US$ 16,445.4 Million 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.A sample of this report is available upon request @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.Request to view table of content @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).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:
Prosecutors have charged two West Salem residents with conspiracy to distribute marijuana after intercepting a shipment of more than four pounds of pot from Oregon.

Last year, a police dog at the Minneapolis airport detected a suspicious UPS package addressed to a West Salem home, according to police reports; inside detectives found four plastic bags of pot and 80 small jars of hash wax.

Working with La Crosse county authorities, an airport detective delivered the package on May 18 to Amy Kneesel at the 111 Mill St. address.

Investigators then searched the home, where Kneesel, 39, told police she allowed her friend Corydon Drake, 37, to send the package to her home in exchange for a couple of ounces of marijuana. According to police reports, Kneesel said Drake would fly to Oregon, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2015, and purchase pot from a dispensary. She said he had sent her one other package.

Kneesel also admitted giving Drake $10,000 in cash, which she assumed was for marijuana, because she is a nice person and has a hard time saying no to people.

While investigators hatched a plan to have Drake pick up his package, he texted Kneesel asking why there were cops around her home, according to reports.

According to reports, flight records put Drake in Oregon when the package was shipped, and video from a UPS store showed a person matching his description sending the package.

Prosecutors charged Drake with conspiracy to deliver more than 1,000 grams of THC. He was released on a signature bond Thursday after turning himself in. He is scheduled to return to court for a preliminary hearing May 1.

Kneesel was charged in March with possession with intent to deliver THC and maintaining a drug trafficking place as well as possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

According to reports, she told police she was afraid she would be killed or beaten up for providing information.

In 1999, Drake was accused of shooting a La Crescent man in the head. He told police he believed the gun was unloaded and had intended to hit the man with it when it went off. The bullet glanced off the victims forehead and went through the window of a nearby home. A second shot hit Drakes leg.

Drake pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment and was eventually sentenced to three years in prison after multiple probation violations.
Global Internet of Things Market, Devices, IOT Technology, Application, Trends Analysis and Forecast 2025

INternet of things

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The global internet of things market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 32.7% from 2017 to 2025.The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a scenarios where physical objects are internetworked through the use of electronic devices, network connectivity, software, sensors, and actuators, allowing these objects to generate, exchange, and consume data with minimal human intervention. IoT is having technical, social, and economic significance.Request Sample:It interconnects embedded systems with evolving technologies such as wireless connectivity and smart sensors. It has gained popularity and is considered as the third wave of technology. However, it is still maturing due to some of the most pressing challenges such as security, privacy, interoperability & standards, and emerging economies & development.Key Point from Table of content8. Company profiles8.1. Google Inc.8.1.1. Overview8.1.2. Financials and business segments8.1.3. Recent developments8.2. Microsoft Corporation8.2.1. Overview8.2.2. Financials and business segments8.2.3. Recent developments8.3. Cisco Systems, Inc.8.3.1. Overview8.3.2. Financials and business segments8.3.3. Recent developmentsDiscount on report:Market Dynamics:Drivers: Constantly evolving graphic games. Escalating demand for Artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).Restraints: Technology in commercialization stage.Market Players:The top players in the global internet of things (IoT) market include Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, Intel Corporation, Siemens AG, AT&T Inc., General Electric Company, and Honeywell International Inc.Enquiry About report:MARKET LANDSCAPEBy Component Sensors Networks Hardware Protocols Software OthersBy Application Environment Monitoring Infrastructure Management Industrial Application Energy ManagementAbout us:Progressive Markets is the answer to every possible business query. It is a market research and business consulting firm, headquartered in U.S. that aims to deliver conversant executive support to foster overall growth of an organization in its domain.The company was found with an initiative to bridge the gap between enterprises and global opportunities. It is driven by the sole motive to build an effective channel to communicate up-to-date qualitative and quantitative market intelligence with all-scale participants.Contact us:5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220,United States.Int'l: +1-971-202-1575Toll Free: ++ 1-800-910-6452Fax: +1-800-792-5285help@progressivemarkets.com
Global Low Voltage Motor Market to Record an Impressive Growth By 2021

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The low voltage motors are extensively being used in several industries such as mining, food & beverages, oil & gas, automotive, packaging etc., driven by the profuse growth in industrialization and steadily rising demand for energy across the globe. These are the motors that run at voltages less than 1000 V and generate maximum power that aid to improve productivity, quality and save the energy.Request to view Sample Report @Various motor efficiency legislations which have been enacted all over the world, are likely to drive the global low voltage motor market during the forecast period. According to these legislations, more expensive and more energy efficient motors are mandated to manufacturers.The global low voltage market is forecasted to grow with a single digit CAGR during the forecast period and is anticipated to hold a strong potential in coming 4-5 years. Most of the manufacturers are now focusing towards advanced technology and quality low voltage motors to enhance their production process which in turn had led to the increase in demand for the advanced low voltage motors.With rise in technological advancement, increasing demand for machineries across the world and advantages offered by low voltage motors due to its efficient nature, the global low voltage motor market is anticipated to show the robust growth during the forecast period. The growing consumption of low voltage motors by end user industries will continue to drive the growth in low voltage market over the forecast period.Depending on geographic regions, global low voltage motor market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. As of 2014, Asia pacific dominated the global low voltage motor market owing to the growing consumption of low voltage motors by automotive and electronics industry, in this region. In addition, China is the largest country market for low voltage motor in Asia Pacific and is poised to show strong opportunities for low voltage motors in near future. After Asia Pacific North America is projected to show the vigorous growth in global low voltage motor market, especially due to the increasing demand of low voltage motors in countries like US and Canada, during the forecast period.Request to view Table of content @Some of the major players operating in global low voltage motor market are ABB, TECO-Westinghouse Motor Company, Siemens, Hyosung Power and Industrial Systems Performance Group, Anhui Wannan Electric Machine, ATB Group, Leroy Somer, LEZ Ruselprom, Luan JiangHuai, NIDEC, Regal Beloit, Shandong Huali Electric Motor Group, GE Industrial, Toshiba International, WEG, VEM Group, etc.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global DNA Sequencing 2017 Market Research Report Presents Trends And Forecasts - Illumina, Roche

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global DNA Sequencing Market Research Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.This examination looks at the global DNA Sequencing market in a persistent way by explaining the main features of the market that are relied upon to hold a sizeable impact on its improvements over the given time frame. The key drivers of the market's development, restrictions, and patterns affecting the global DNA Sequencing market are surveyed in extraordinary detail, notwithstanding a subjective and quantitative examination relating to the anticipated effect of these elements on its development prospects sooner rather than later.The vast volumes of data on the DNA Sequencing by and large makes it an intense undertaking to take it down to the exceptionally significant bits of data and the genuine bits applicable to the present business issues in the market. Many organizations are additionally known to not have the fundamental committed assets and aptitude for taking up an illustrative statistical surveying in view of recorded information. Centered statistical surveying procedures can help these associations in framing clearer thoughts on their business systems and gather significant stakes in the market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @A sweeping volume of information concerning the basic components of the DNA Sequencing that can impact its extent of development is given in the report. The report in this manner makes for an exceptionally useful review and can successfully permit organizations and their leads in tending to the main difficulties that  as of now  control the market, and deliberately increase greatest conceivable advantages inside the profoundly focused market scene.The report likewise gives data on the current improvements in items and innovations as currently visible in the market, alongside an examination of the general impact that these progressions may have on any future advancements. The report likewise offers its clients a 360-degree examination of the competitive situation in the DNA Sequencing. This is legitimate for organizations of all sizes and development levels inside the worldwide DNA Sequencing market and helps different associations get a handle on the main dangers and openings that sellers regularly need to manage.Table of ContentGlobal DNA Sequencing Market Research Report 20171 DNA Sequencing Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of DNA Sequencing1.2 DNA Sequencing Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global DNA Sequencing Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global DNA Sequencing Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 First Generation DNA Sequencing1.2.4 Second Generation DNA Sequencing1.2.5 Third Generation DNA Sequencing1.3 Global DNA Sequencing Segment by Application1.3.1 DNA Sequencing Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Oncology DNA Sequencing1.3.3 Life Science DNA Sequencing1.3.4 Emerging Application DNA Sequencing1.3.5 Hereditary Disease Detection DNA Sequencing1.4 Global DNA Sequencing Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global DNA Sequencing Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of DNA Sequencing (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global DNA Sequencing Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global DNA Sequencing Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global DNA Sequencing Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global DNA Sequencing Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global DNA Sequencing Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global DNA Sequencing Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers DNA Sequencing Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 DNA Sequencing Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 DNA Sequencing Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 DNA Sequencing Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global DNA Sequencing Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global DNA Sequencing Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global DNA Sequencing Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India DNA Sequencing Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)For more information on this report, fill the form @4 Global DNA Sequencing Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global DNA Sequencing Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America DNA Sequencing Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe DNA Sequencing Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China DNA Sequencing Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan DNA Sequencing Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia DNA Sequencing Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India DNA Sequencing Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global DNA Sequencing Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global DNA Sequencing Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global DNA Sequencing Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global DNA Sequencing Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global DNA Sequencing Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Solid State Drives Market to be at Forefront by 2021

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A solid-state drive (SSD) is also known as electronic disk or known as a solid-state disk. It is a data storage device that uses assemblies of integrated circuit as memory to store the data.It uses electronic interfaces that are well-matched with conventional input/output hard disk drives, thus allowing simple replacement in usual applications.Request to view Sample Report @SSDs does not contain any moving components. This differentiates them from conventional disks such as hard disk drives and floppy disks. SSDs are usually more resistant to physical shock, have lower access time, run silently, and have less latency compared with electromechanical disks. Another advantage offered by SSDs is its steady performance. HDDs suffer from data fragmentation which is not the case with SSDs owing to the use of integrated circuits as a replacement for of spinning platters. This leads to lesser data access latency and need for running defragmentation programs that is used to manage the storage location on a HDD. However, in spite of continuous declining price of SSDs since 2012, SSDs are still approximately six to seven times more expensive than HDDs.There is a developing trend in the solid state drive industry to remove endurance specifications in the data sheets building it extremely complicated for OEMs to precisely estimate an SSD's life expectancy. In addition, the SSD market is continuously shifting towards consolidation owing to availability of limited market, cost incurred for sales and promotion and high cost of research and development. The market for SSDs limited compared to the size of the storage market. Narrow market and the huge cost of having sales and marketing staff that all making effort to sell into the same market is a problem for the companies.Benefits offered by the SSDs over HDD such as reliable operation, low rate of latency, consistent performance and others are the key drivers for growing adoption of SSDs. In addition, proliferation of Ultrathin and Ultrabook PC and PC tablets drives the SSD market. However consistency of low rate of latency offered by SSD and compatibility issue is hampering the growth of this market. The key appeal of solid state drives is its low latency; although, it is not obtainable every time. Typical solid state drive latencies are a couple of hundred microseconds however some operations may be interrupted by internal tasks of device, and its latency can go beyond milliseconds or even seconds. That is slower as compared with hard disk drives.The market is segmented by SSD type and end user industries. Type include single level cell (SLC) and multi level cell (MLC). End-user industries include banking, finance, defense, data centers/IT and government. Organizations such as include equity trading companies, telecommunication organization, video editing and streaming media firms are expected to get the major benefit of high data speed offered by SSDs.Request to view Table of content @Major players in the market include Samsung Group, Fusion-io, IBM, LSI Corporation, HGST Inc., OCZ Storage Solutions, SanDisk Corporation, Skyera Inc, Violin Memory Inc., Whiptail, Pure Storage, Inc., Maxta Inc., Nimbus Data Systems, Inc., Micron Technology, Inc., A3CUBE Inc and Intel Corporation among others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.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
Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market Players Analysis, Industry Technologies and Forecast to 2027

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/global-commercial-refrigeration-equipment-market

Market Research Future Published a Cooked Research Report (CRR) on Global Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market.Market ScenarioThe Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market is driven by surging urbanization and expansion of hypermarket and supermarket in developing countries of Asia pacific and Latin America. The significant growth in the number of supermarket and hypermarket in developing market has boosted the demand of energy efficient refrigeration equipment in recent years. The market in Europe is heading towards the maturity; however the short product life cycle of the refrigeration equipment in developed regions coupled with increasing floor area of hypermarket and super market and restaurants chains, the market for commercial refrigeration equipment is expected to witness considerable growth over the coming years.Competitive Analysis-Major Key Players in Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market are:The key players that are involved in Global Commercial Refrigeration Equipment market are United Technologies Corporation, Hussmann Corporation, AB Electrolux, Frigoglass S.A.I.C, Dover Corporation, Daikin Industries Ltd, AHT Cooling Systems GmbH, Ali Group S.p.A, Illinois Tool Works Inc and Johnson Controls, Inc.Sample Copy of Report @Study Objectives of Commercial Refrigeration Equipment To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next ten years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Commercial Refrigeration Equipment market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To Analyze the Commercial Refrigeration Equipment 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 Type, Applications, End Users and its sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of 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 Commercial Refrigeration Equipment marketAccess the market data and market information presented through more than 25 market data tables and 25 figures spread over 127 numbers of pages of the project report Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market - Forecast to 2027"Key Findings Global Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market is driven by the growth of supermarket, hypermarket, and organized food retail chains.Global Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market is expected to strengthen the product life cycle owing to the continuous improvement in minimum energy performance standards (MEPS). The European Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market is heading towards maturity and the growth is mainly expected from the emerging countries of Asia-Pacific.Market SegmentsSegmentation by TypeSegmentation for Commercial Refrigeration Equipment market involves the following types such as Display Cases, Walk-in Coolers, Beverages Refrigeration, Ice-Making Machineries, Parts and othersSegmentation by ApplicationsSegmentation for Commercial Refrigeration Equipment market involves the following technology such as hospitals, bars, food service, hotels, and food and beverages preservation.Segmentation by End UsersSegmentation for Commercial Refrigeration Equipment market involves the following End Users such as food manufacturing industries, hyper market and super market.Access Report Details @Brief of TOC Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market:1. Report Prologue2. GLOBAL Commercial Refrigeration Equipment: INTRODUCTION2.1 DEFINITION2.2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY2.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE2.2.2 ASSUMPTIONS2.2.3 LIMITATIONS2.3 MARKET STRUCTURE2.4. MARKET SEGMENTATION2.4.1 MARKET SEGMENTATION ON THE BASIS OF SECURITY SOLUTIONS2.4.2 MARKET SEGMENTATION ON THE BASIS OF SECURITY SERVICES3. GLOBAL Commercial Refrigeration Equipment: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3.1 RESEARCH PROCESS3.2 PRIMARY RESEARCH3.3 SECONDARY RESEARCH3.4 MARKET SIZE ESTIMATION3.5 FORECAST MODEL4. GLOBAL Commercial Refrigeration Equipment: MARKET DYNAMICSContinued.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.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.ContactAkash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Off-Grid Energy Storage System Market by Battery Technology, LAB Technology, Analysis and Forecast to 2020

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Off-grid power generation systems are generally used when there are capital limitations or the physical landscape makes it tough to have a grid connection. Off-grid energy storage systems are used in localities that are far away from populated areas or cities and not connected to any electricity grid. In these regions, despite the presence of independent power supply providers, electricity is not available 24/7 to consumers. This creates a demand for energy storage systems that aid in storing electricity for future use during power outages.Publisher's analysts forecast the global off-grid energy storage system market to grow at a CAGR of 6.657% during the period 2016-2020.For more information about this report:Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global off-grid energy storage system market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated by the demand for energy storage for off-grid systems for application by end-users in each region and their corresponding key countries.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:-Americas-APAC-EMEAPublisher's report, Global Off-Grid Energy Storage System Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors-Aquion Energy-Green Charge-LG Chem-NEC Energy Solutions-NRG EnergyRequest Sample Copy atOther prominent vendors-Amperex Technology-Boston Power-China Aviation Lithium Battery-EnerSys-GE Energy Storage-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-Primus Power-SAFT-Sumitomo Electric Industries-Toshiba-Xtreme PowerMarket driver-Demand for energy storage as distributed generation-For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge-Technological challenges related to batteries-For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend-Decline in cost of energy storage systems-For a full, detailed list, view our reportInquire for Report atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Hams Market Key Manufacturer, Analysis and 2022 Forecasts for North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India

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ReportsWeb.com added Global Hams Market Research Report 2017 to its vast collection of research Database. The report is spread across 113 pages and supported by 14 company leaders.The Global Hams Market Research Report 2017is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Hams industry. In a word, This report studies Hams in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer. Key companies included in this research are Wessex Country Gammons, Sikorskis, Kitto, Dukeshill Ham, Glen Aine Foods, Vulcano, Kaczanowski & Co, Broadoak Farm, Berks Packing Co., Bacon Barn, Gordon Food Service, Plumrose USA, Honey Glazed Ham Co. Ltd. and HoneyBaked Ham.Browse complete report @Market Segment by Region, this report splits Global into several key Region, with sales, revenue, market share and growth rate of Hams in these regions, from 2011 to 2022 (forecast), like North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India. Firstly, Hams On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Air Dried Cured Hams and Smoked Hams. On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales) , market share and growth rate of Hams for each application, including Supermarkets and Hypermarkets, Independent Retailers, Convenience Stores, Specialist Retailers and Online Retailers.Request for Sample @Major points from Table of Contents:1 Hams Market Overview2 Global Hams Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Hams Production, Revenue (Value) by Regions (2012-2017)4 Global Hams Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions(2012-2017)5 Global Hams Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Types6 Global Hams Market Analysis by Applications7 Global Hams Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Wessex Country Gammons7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Hams Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Wessex Country Gammons Hams Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Sikorskis7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Hams Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Sikorskis Hams Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Kitto7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Hams Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Kitto Hams Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview8 Hams Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Hams Market Forecast (2017-2022)List of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of HamsFigure Global Hams Production (K MT) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Types (Product Category) (2012-2022)Figure Global Hams Production Market Share by Types (Product Category) in 2016Figure Product Picture of Air Dried Cured HamsTable Major Manufacturers of Air Dried Cured HamsFigure Product Picture of Smoked HamsTable Major Manufacturers of Smoked HamsFigure Global Hams Consumption (K MT) by Applications (2012-2022)Figure Global Hams Consumption Market Share by Applications in 2016Figure Supermarkets and Hypermarkets ExamplesFigure Independent Retailers ExamplesFigure Convenience Stores ExamplesFigure Specialist Retailers ExamplesFigure Online Retailers ExamplesFigure Global Hams Market Size (Million USD) , Comparison (K MT) and CAGR (%) by Regions (2012-2022)Figure North America Hams Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Europe Hams Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure China Hams Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Japan Hams Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Southeast Asia Hams Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure India Hams Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Hams Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Hams Capacity, Production (K MT) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Hams Major Players Product Capacity (K MT) (2012-2017)Table Global Hams Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Hams Capacity Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Figure Global Hams Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers in 2016Figure Global Hams Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers in 2017Figure Global Hams Major Players Product Production (K MT) (2012-2017)Table Global Hams Production (K MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Hams Production Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)Figure 2016 Hams Production Share by ManufacturersFigure 2017 Hams Production Share by ManufacturersFigure Global Hams Major Players Product Revenue (Million USD) (2012-2017)Table Global Hams Revenue (Million USD) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Hams Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table 2016 Global Hams Revenue Share by ManufacturersTable 2017 Global Hams Revenue Share by ManufacturersTable Global Market Hams Average Price (USD/MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Figure Global Market Hams Average Price (USD/MT) of Key Manufacturers in 2016Table Manufacturers Hams Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales AreaPlace a Direct Purchase Order of Complete Report @Contact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@reportsweb.comOrganization: ReportsWebPhone: +1-646-491-9876ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Report on Global CRISPR Market Competition, Status and Forecast period of 2017-2022.

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MRH Report: The gene editing technology has grown significantly in the last decade. The gene editing tools have become more accessible and cost effective which has enabled a thorough understanding of the human genome. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a new gene editing tool which has opened new doors for gene editing. This technology allows researchers to perform microsurgery on genes, precisely and easily, changing a DNA sequence at exact locations on a chromosome.Request Free Sample Report:CRISPR market is expected to grow on the back of several drivers such as increased R&D expenditure on biotechnology, backed by venture capitals, increasing age-related genetic disorders, increasing private and government expenditure on genetic research, the high prevalence rate of genetic birth disorders and high demand of synthetic genes. Several factors such as limited awareness and little presence in emerging markets are restraints in the path of growth of the market.The Global CRISPR market is segmented on the basis of application and end users: On the basis of application, the market is segmented into Genome Editing, Genetic engineering, gRNA Database/Gene Library, CRISPR Plasmid and vectors so on. CRISPR Plasmid is the highest growing segment due to high demand among scientists and researchers. By end user, the market is segmented into Biotechnology companies, Pharmaceutical companies, Academic and research Institutes, Research and development institutes, Competitive Intelligence, Merger and Acquisitions and Innovation. In end user, the academic and research is highest growing segment due to a high level of R&D into genome process, development of new drugs and development of genetically modified organisms and drugs.The geography analysis consists of North America (US, Canada), Europe (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy), Asia Pacific (India, China, Japan) and Rest of the world. North America is the largest geographical market (2016) in CRISPR because the high level of academics and research based in the region. Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at the fastest rate in forecasted period due to increase in a number of contract research organization and emergence of drug discovery.Browse Full Report with TOC:Major industry players in CRISPR market are: Editas Medicine (US), CRISPR therapeutics (Switzerland), GenScript USA Inc. (US), Horizon Discovery Group plc (UK), Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc. (US), Lonza Group Ltd. (Switzerland), New England Biolabs, Inc. (US), OriGene Technologies, Inc. (US), Sangamo Biosciences, Inc. (US), Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (US), Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (US), Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals (US), Santa Cruz Biotechnology (US), Dharmacon (US), ZGene Biotech (TW), Blue Heron Bio (US), Takara Bio (JP), Synthego (US), Mirus Bio (US), Agilent Technologies (US), VCANBIO Cell & Gene Engineering (CN), Shenzhen Jinjia Group (CN), Galaxy Biomed (CN), Tofflon (CN), AOYANG Group (CN), ANKEBIO (CN).About 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:
Ground Mount PV Utility Market - Evolving Industry Trends 2022

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Industry drivers such as reducing prices of PV modules, decreasing project costs, government schemes such as RPS, and increasing economies of scale of utility-scale projects are creating demand for ground mount PV utility. The ground mount PV utility annual installation in North America stood at 3,381.4 MW in 2013 and is expected to reach 17,589.7 MW by 2022, expanding at an AAGR of 20.1% between 2014 and 2022. Revenue generated through installations of ground mount PV utility projects in North America was valued at USD 7,311.8 million in 2013 and is projected to reach USD 19,464.1 million by 2022 at an AAGR of 11.5% between 2014 and 2022.Obtain Report Details @ :The research study is designed to analyze the ground mount PV utility market in North America. The market is calculated in terms of annual capacity installations (MW) and revenue (USD Million). The market for ground mount PV utility in North America has been segmented based on the installation type and countries. On the basis of installation type, the market for ground mount PV utility in North America has been segmented into pile mount, pole mount, and others. The market for ground mount PV utility in North America, based on country-wise segment, has been divided into the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The report provides a detailed growth forecast for the period 2014a2022 based on the baseline year 2013. Projections have been provided for annual installations (MW) and revenue (USD Million).The report includes the key market dynamics affecting the demand for ground mount PV utility in North America. As a part of our market dynamics analysis, we have analyzed the market drivers, market restraints, and market opportunities. Furthermore, we have also provided a cost analysis of the ground mount PV utility projects in North America. In this cost analysis segment, we have analyzed the price of both fixed-axis and one-axis projects along with the cost of electricity for utility-scale PV projects in the U.S. and other North American countries. A comprehensive competitive landscape, which includes company market share analysis and market attractiveness analysis, has also been provided in this report. The report also provides a detailed industry analysis of the ground mount PV utility market in North America with the help of Porters Five Forces model. The Porters Five Forces analysis aids in understanding the five major forces that affect the industry structure and profitability of the ground mount PV utility market in North America. The forces analyzed are the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat from new entrants, threat from substitutes, and degree of competition.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @ :The study also includes the value chain of the ground mount PV utility market which provides a glimpse of interaction and roles of major stakeholders in the industry. The attractiveness involves benchmarking and ranking each country included in the ground mount PV utility market. The parameters selected are likely to have a pronounced effect on the demand for ground mount PV utility in North America in the current as well as future scenario. In order to collate the North America ground mount utility market report, we have conducted in-depth primary interviews and discussion with numerous key opinion leaders and participants. Primary research represents the bulk of our research efforts, coupled with an extensive secondary research. We also reviewed key players product portfolio, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents for competitive analyses and better understanding of the ground mount utility market in North America. Secondary research includes in-depth research on current trends, Internet sources, trade journals, technical writing, and statistical data from associated approach for obtaining concise data, capturing industry participants insights, and recognizing growth opportunities.Key participants in the ground mount PV utility market in North America include Andalay Solar, Inc., First Solar, Haticon Solar, LLC, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, SolarCity Corporation, SunEdison, Inc., SunLink Corporation, SunPower Corporation, and Unirac Incorporated. This report provides an overview of these companies, followed by their financial revenues, business strategies, and recent developments.North America Ground Mount PV Utility Market: Installation Type AnalysisPile MountPole MountOthersNorth America Ground Mount PV Utility Market: Country-wise AnalysisU.S.CanadaMexicoAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207
Aluminum Market Driving Factors, Industry Analysis, Investment Feasibility and Trends

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Market ScenarioGlobal Aluminum Market Is Expected To Reach USD 145.10 Billion By 2022Globally, the aluminum market has been increasing due to various industries. Properties of aluminum include light weight, strong, ductility, corrosion resistance having barrier properties as well due to which aluminium is widely used in transportation, automobile, packaging, building & construction industry.The most significant end-user holds almost 42% of the aluminum market and this includes users in Japan. Along with this 36% of North American and West European aluminum shipments also has a major share in the growth of the market. This is almost opposite to the situation which existed 40 years ago when this end-user market was responsible for just 20% of total consumption of aluminum in the United States, Japan or Germany.Request a Sample Report@Segmentation:The Global Aluminum Market is majorly segmented on the basis of types, and end-use. Based on the type the market is segmented into wrought aluminum alloy and Cast aluminum alloy. Further on the basis of function the market is classified into Transportation, Automobile, Packaging, and Building &ConstructionKey Player United Company Rusal Aluminum Corporation of China Limited Alcoa Inc. BHP Billiton GroupRio Tinto Norsk Hydro Asa Century Aluminum Company Rio Tinto China Hongquiao Group Limited Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. Hindalco Indsutries LimitedRegional AnalysisChinas aluminum production has grown rapidly. In 2010, China produced 7.7 million tons of aluminum, and has an average annual growth rate of 15% with respect to contributing in the growth of the aluminum market in the last ten years till 2015. Although China is the worlds largest producer and consumer of aluminum, it is not a major exporter or importer of aluminum (although it does export value-added products such as extrusions). In 2015, Russia was the worlds largest exporter of aluminum, exporting 3.4 million tons, which accounts for 18 % of the total export of aluminum globally. The worlds largest importer in 2015 was Germany, which imported 2.59 million tons which is equivalent to 11 % of the worlds total imports.Test the market data and market information presented through more than 50 market data tables and figures spread over 85 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Aluminum Market Research Report Global Forecast to 2022.Browse Full Research Report @TOC of Aluminum Market1 Executive Summary2 Scope of the Report3 Market Research Methodology4 Market Landscape5 Industry Overview of Global Aluminum Market6 Market Trends7 Global Aluminum Market by Region8 Global Aluminum Market by Type (Wrought aluminum alloy and Cast aluminum alloy)9 Global Aluminum Market by End-use (Transportation, Automobile, Packaging, Building &Construction)ContinuedAbout Market Research FutureAt 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 Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune - 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312
A deal that took a surprisingly long time to cut  considering how practical it is to slash red tape and improve health care in rural and under-served areas  finally is in effect, giving Coulee Region doctors a faster, cheaper track to practice across state lines.

The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact was launched officially April 7, after five years of lobbying, negotiations and rules drafting among health systems and states, as well as passing muster to become law in 18 states so far. Proposed laws also are moving through legislatures in eight other states.

Also referred to as license portability, the pact allows doctors who have navigated the time-consuming and costly process of obtaining a license in one state to get one in another state through the compact without having to repeat the same drill.

Individual states licensing processes can take anywhere from four to 12 months, while the pact will reduce the steps and the cost of multi-state licensing.

Doctors then not only will have a faster track to practice in other states in the pact but also can work with patients and other doctors via telemedicine hookups across state lines.

The license compact is a more efficient way of licensing for doctors in multi-state systems and to license more and more providers, said Brian Vamstad, government relations manager at Gundersen Health System, one of the earliest advocates of the change because of the fact that it operates three states  Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.

Before the compact was activated, a Gundersen doctor licensed in Wisconsin could not practice in Minnesota or Iowa without following the duplicative process to gain it in the Gopher or Hawkeye states.

We really spearheaded the effort, asking what can we do to remove the duplications, Vamstad said.

Vamstad expressed confidence that the network will expand, although he hesitated to predict that all 50 states would sign on to the pact.

Similarly benefiting from the national pact is Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare, by virtue of its alignment with the Mayo Clinic network of hospitals and clinics, headquartered in Rochester, Minn.

Weve been strong advocates of this, said Dr. David Rushlow, a family practice physician and chief medical officer at Mayo-Franciscan. This dramatically simplifies and speeds up credentialing for our physicians.

Rushlow also welcomed the fact that the pact reflects increasing confidence and cooperative attitudes among state medical boards and other agencies involved.

The compact had been snagged for several years in part because of states turf wars and wide variations in licensing requirements and costs.

Minnesotas law to join the pact took effect on May 20, 2015, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed the Badger States measure into law on Dec. 14 that year at Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare in Sparta.

This is a major win for patient safety and an achievement that will lessen the burden being felt nationwide as a result of our countrys physician shortage, said Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, president and CEO of the Federation of State Medical Boards in Washington, D.C.

As is the case with most health care cost trimming, the savings will not be apparent to consumers initially because of cost shifting to other programs but could be later after their cumulative effects have taken hold, health officials say.

Other states besides Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota that are members of the pact are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Oddly enough, legislators in Florida, where the Mayo Clinic has a major hospital, have not introduced a measure calling for the Sunshine State to become part of the compact.
Global Seedling Heat Mat Market 2017 : HC Companies, Viagrow, Hydrofarm & Ez Grow

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This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringHC CompaniesViagrowHydrofarmEz GrowMiramar HydroponicsApollo HorticultureSuper SprouterThe survey report by Market Research Store is an overview of the global Seedling Heat Mat market. It covers all the recent trends including key developments in the global market in present and in future. Analyses of the global Seedling Heat Mat market trends along with the projections of CAGRs (compound annual growth rates) are provided in the research report.Further, an evaluation of the history of the global market and the basic information of the global market is included in the report. A developmental perspective of the industry is also documented in the report. Competitive profiles of the key players in the industry are also discussed.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The research report provides both an assessment of recent developments in the industry along with forecasts examining the industry from the perspective of major competitors, present players and prospective end users in the Seedling Heat Mat market.Forecasts are generated on the basis of region, type, product, supply, demand, and other vital factors of the global market. The research report analyzed the major factors driving the global Seedling Heat Mat market in various countries with a satisfactory and manufacturing and structure of the global market. Forecasts are also provided region-wise in the research report.The research report comprises several chapters, tables, figures, graphs, and various other presentations formats so as to provide a precise overview of the market. The sequence of the report is maintained in such a way that highlights the overall flow of the global market. Recent developments in the global market are further described in the research report. The report also summarizes latest trends along with abstracts of the Seedling Heat Mat market. Major competitors of the global market including commercial and non-commercial participants in the global market are also covered in the report.Inquiry For Buying@Thus, the research report provides in-depth analysis covering all the major regions, competitors, and vital aspects of the Seedling Heat Mat industry.About Us:MarketResearchStore.com is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics released by reputed private publishers and public organizations.Contact US:Joel JohnSuite #8138, 3422 SW 15 Street,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803
Wound Irrigation Devices Market Analysis, Share, Trends and Forecast by 2022

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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 Wound Irrigation Devices Market is confident in meeting their needs and expectations. The 2017 market research report on Global Wound Irrigation Devices 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 Wound Irrigation Devices Market report is a noteworthy.Request a sample of this report @The Global Wound Irrigation Devices 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 Wound Irrigation Devices Industry 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 Wound Irrigation Devices Industry. Accurate forecasts and expert opinion from credible sources, and the recent R&D development in the industry is also a mainstay of the Wound Irrigation Devices Market report.Purchase a copy of Global Wound Irrigation Devices Market visit @For more information contact sales@orbisresearch.com .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.Finally, the Wound Irrigation Devices 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 Wound Irrigation Devices Industry is the holy grail of information which serious knowledge seekers can benefit from. The report which is the result of ultimate dedication of pedigree professionals has a wealth of information which can benefit anyone, irrespective of their commercial or academic interest.Browse Complete Report @Table of Contents:Chapter One: Wound Irrigation Devices Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Wound Irrigation Devices1.2 Wound Irrigation Devices Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Bulb Syringes1.2.4 Piston Syringes1.2.5 Pressure Canisters1.2.6 Whirlpool Agitator1.2.7 Whirlpool Hose Sprayer1.2.8 Irrigation Fluid1.3 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Segment by Application1.3.1 Wound Irrigation Devices Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospitals1.3.3 Skin Care Clinics1.3.4 Others1.4 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Wound Irrigation Devices (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Wound Irrigation Devices Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)For any enquires before buying, connect with us @ enquiry@orbisresearch.comAbout 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 Information:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:Follow us on Twitter:Like us on Facebook:
At A CAGR Of 52.46% Gesture Recognition Global Market For Emerging Applications Will Grow During The Period 2016-2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Gesture Recognition Market for Emerging Applications 2016-2020" to its huge collection of research reports.Human-machine interaction has reduced the gap between the two and developed a more natural and intuitive interaction. Humans have come a long way from controlling machines through switches fitted on them to remote controls, and currently, through smartphones. In the future, it will be through natural gestures. Gesture control is by far the most natural form of controlling a device.Gesture recognition technology interprets human motions using computer algorithms. Human motions can be movements of hands, fingers, arms, head, or the entire body. Gestures are used as an input mechanism, aimed at replacing old-fashioned input mechanisms such as keyboards, mouse devices, remote controls, and various other forms of control devices.Technavios analysts forecast the global gesture recognition market for emerging applications to grow at a CAGR of 52.46% during the period 2016-2020.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global gesture recognition market for emerging applications for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, Technavio considers the unit shipment of gesture recognition products in the following application segments: automotive and consumer electronic devices.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Gesture Recognition Market for Emerging Applications 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsMicrosoftSonyeyeSight TechnologiesPointGrabSamsungMarket driverFocus on human-machine interface in automotive sectorFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeLack of gesture-recognition-compatible gamesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendIncrease in number of M&AFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Hearing Aids Sales Market Key Trends, Size, Growth, Shares And Forecast Research Report 2017

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Hearing Aids Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.In this report, the global Hearing Aids market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Hearing Aids for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Hearing Aids market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Hearing Aids sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingZounds Hearing, Inc. (U.S.)SeboTek Hearing Systems, LLC (U.S.)Sivantos Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)GN Store Nord A/S (Denmark)Cochlear Limited (Australia)Sonova (Switzerland)MED-EL (Austria)William Demant Holding A/S (Denmark)On the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume (K Units), revenue (Million USD), product price (USD/Unit), market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoIn the ear hearing aids (ITE)In the canal (ITC)Completely in the canal (CIC)Behind the ear (BTE)Receiver in canal (RIC)On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate of Hearing Aids for each application, includingHospitalClinicOthersTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Table of ContentsGlobal Hearing Aids Sales Market Report 20171 Hearing Aids Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Hearing Aids1.2 Classification of Hearing Aids by Product Category1.2.1 Global Hearing Aids Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Hearing Aids Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 In the ear hearing aids (ITE)1.2.4 In the canal (ITC)1.2.5 Completely in the canal (CIC)1.2.6 Behind the ear (BTE)1.2.7 Receiver in canal (RIC)1.3 Global Hearing Aids Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Hearing Aids Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospital1.3.3 Clinic1.3.4 Others1.4 Global Hearing Aids Market by Region1.4.1 Global Hearing Aids Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Hearing Aids Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Hearing Aids Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Hearing Aids Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Hearing Aids Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Hearing Aids Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Hearing Aids Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Hearing Aids (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Hearing Aids Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Hearing Aids Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Hearing Aids Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Hearing Aids Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Hearing Aids Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Hearing Aids Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Hearing Aids (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Hearing Aids Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Hearing Aids Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Hearing Aids (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Hearing Aids Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Hearing Aids Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4 Global Hearing Aids (Volume) by Application3 United States Hearing Aids (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Hearing Aids Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Hearing Aids Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Hearing Aids Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Hearing Aids Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 China Hearing Aids (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Hearing Aids Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Hearing Aids Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Hearing Aids Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Hearing Aids Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Players4.3 China Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.4 China Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 Europe Hearing Aids (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 Europe Hearing Aids Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Europe Hearing Aids Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Europe Hearing Aids Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 Europe Hearing Aids Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 Europe Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Players5.3 Europe Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Type5.4 Europe Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Application6 Japan Hearing Aids (Volume, Value and Sales Price)6.1 Japan Hearing Aids Sales and Value (2012-2017)6.1.1 Japan Hearing Aids Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.2 Japan Hearing Aids Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.3 Japan Hearing Aids Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)6.2 Japan Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Players6.3 Japan Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by Type6.4 Japan Hearing Aids Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Cryogenic Fuels Market Rising at 6.93% CAGR During 2017-2021

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The global Cryogenic Fuels market to grow at a CAGR of 6.93% during the period 2017-2021 according to latest research study published of MarketSizeForecasters.com which covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years.Cryogenic fuels are in the gaseous form when they are at normal atmospheric conditions. These gases are cooled till they reach boiling point so as to store them as low-temperature liquids. Liquid hydrogen, oxygen, methane, LNG, nitrogen, carbon dioxide (CO), acetylene, helium, xenon, neon, krypton, and argon are some of the prominent cryogenic fuels. Cryogenic fuels are in gaseous form when they are in ambient condition. These gases are cooled to their boiling point to store as liquids for future use.Request a sample copy of Global Cryogenic Fuels Market Research Report @The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEAGlobal Cryogenic Fuels Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors :Air LiquideAir Products and ChemicalsAIR WATERMesser GroupPraxair TechnologyOther prominent vendorsAdvanced Gas TechnologiesAsia Technical GasGulf CryoMaine OxyMatheson Tri-GasThe listed pricing for this Global Cryogenic Fuels Market report starts at $ 3500. Request Discount for Global Cryogenic Fuels Market Research Report @Table of Contents in Global Cryogenic Fuels Market Research Report:PART 01: Executive summaryPART 02: Scope of the reportPART 03: Research MethodologyPART 04: IntroductionKey market highlightsTechnological overviewPART 05: Market landscapeMarket overviewMarket size and forecastFive forces analysisPART 06: Market segmentation by end-userGlobal cryogenic fuels market by end-userGlobal cryogenic fuels market by the manufacturing industryGlobal cryogenic fuels market by the energy industryGlobal cryogenic fuels market by the healthcare industryBrowse full table of contents and data tables For Global Cryogenic Fuels Market Report @Related Reports: -Global and Chinese Biofuels Industry, 2017 Market Research Report TheGlobal and Chinese Biofuels Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Biofuels industry with a focus on the Chinese market.MarketSizeForecasters.com, a Skyline Market Research LLP brand, is an online aggregator of market research reports. MarketSizeForecasters.com offers a comprehensive collection of full length reports on global and regional markets in 100+ industry verticals. We have partnered with some of the leading business and market research publishing houses and regularly update our online library to offer wide range of reports to our customers.Market size forecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketsizeforecasters.comWebsite:Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Global Industrial Explosives Market Expected to Hit US$ 14.6 Billion by 2024

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Rising urbanization has catapulted the use of coal-fired power generation. Quarrying activities from all corners of the world are also resuming at a steady pace. Technological advancements are facilitating the resurgence of global mining industry. Factors such as these and many more are instrumenting the growth in global demand for industrial explosives. A recent report published by Persistence Market Research estimates that in 2016, more than US$ 9 billion worth of industrial explosives were sold in the world. In the course of next eight years, the global market for industrial explosives is anticipated to grow steadily at 5.6% CAGR and reach US$ 14.58 billion value.Sample of this report is available upon request @In the report, titled Industrial Explosives Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024, Persistence Market Research predicts that more than 23 million metric tons of industrial explosives will be used up globally by the end of 2024. Key findings on the global industrial explosives market indicate that environment protection agencies and bodies will strongly coerce the production of industrial explosives. Manufacturers of industrial explosives will be compelled to bring forth advancements in their offerings, particularly towards reducing volumes of explosives used in large-scale explosions and lowering the environmental impact that follows.Surging Preference to Blasting AgentsWith respect to the type of industrial explosives, the report clearly indicates an outright preference to blasting agents. Industrial verticals, where use of explosives is an integral part of production activities, are favoring the use of blasting agents. As opposed to high explosives, more than 22 million metric tons of blasting agents are forecasted to be sold by 2024. In due course of the projected period, global demand for high explosives will see a negligible dip. Nearly 95% of global industrial explosive revenues will be accounted by sales of blasting agents across various industrial sectors.Construction  Largest End-User of Industrial ExplosivesThe global building & construction industry needs blasting agents and explosives for creating subterranean pits, upon which edifices are erected. While mining remains to be one of the recognizable end-use of industrial explosives, revenues contributed by construction industries will be soaring at the highest CAGR of 6%. The report estimates that in 2016, more than US$ 1 billion of industrial explosives were consumed by construction activities. In terms of volume, metal mining and non-metal mining will collectively consume over 17 million metric tons of industrial explosive by the end of 2024. Stringent restriction for environmental laws, however, will inhibit the use of industrial explosives by quarrying industries.Higher Sales of Industrial Explosives in Asia-PacificIn 2017 and beyond, revenues emanating from sales of industrial explosives across Asia-Pacific countries will be accounting for more than 40% of global revenues. Australian companies  Orica Limited and Dyno Nobel Pty Limited (Incitec Pivot Limited)  are two of the largest producers of industrial explosives in the world. By accounting for nearly 40% share of global revenues, these two companies continue to funnel billions into Asia-Pacifics industrial explosives market. Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Company Limited, Ideal Industrial Explosives Ltd., and NOF Corporation are other key industrial explosive manufacturers based in this region.Request to view Table of Content @North Americas industrial explosives is likely to lose traction over the course of forecast period, and will be valued at US$ 3 billion by 2024-end. US-based Autsin Power Holdings Company continues to contribute to global market revenues by offering accessories for carrying out industrial explosions in quarrying and mining.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @Meanwhile, Latin Americas industrial explosives market will soar at the highest value CAGR of 6.5%. Chile-based Enaex SA is recognized as a prominent producer of industrial explosives, initiation systems, and blowing agents. Based in Peru, Exsa SA has gained global recognition for providing bulk emulsions, dynamites and cartridge emulsions to industries. Other key players in the global industrial explosives market include, Irish Industrial Explosives Limited, Eurenco, and MAXAMCORP HOLDINGS SL.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 Moissanite Market Will Attain US$ 48.84 Million by 2025

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research, titled Global Market Study on Moissanite: North America to Be the Most Lucrative Region and Also To Witness Highest Growth By 2025, the global moissanite market is estimated to be valued at US$ 26.80 Mn by the end of 2015 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 6.2% from 2015 to 2025, to account for US$ 48.84 Mn by 2025.Sample of this report is available upon request @Moissanite is a lab-created gemstone that is generally perceived as a diamond substitute by consumers. Moissanite is composed of silicon carbide and is created through a thermal process that is patented by Charles & Colvard Ltd., the only manufacturer of moissanite across the globe. Moissanite, a synthetic diamond, has been estimated to account for around 1.6% share of the overall gemstone market by 2015 end.Currently, the global moissanite market across the world is mainly driven by factors, such as resemblance of the product as diamond, rising consumer awareness about the product, and increasing consumer inclination towards luxurious jewelry products. However, factors such as the emergence of new technologies for creating other similar gemstones may restrain the market growth over the forecast period. The global moissanite market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 6.2 % from 2015 to 2025, to account for US$ 48.84 Mn by 2025.On the basis of application, the moissanite market has been segmented into rings, earrings, bracelets, and pendants. The rings segment is expected to account for 80.4% share of the global moissanite market by 2015 end, and is expected to register a moderate CAGR of 6.5% in terms of value over the forecast period (20152025). There has been a stupendous rise in adoption of moissanite in rings, which are the most preferred products among consumers, who buy them as gifts for their partners or mothers, in turn driving the segment growth in the near future. Earrings segment has been estimated to account for 9.8% value share of the overall market by 2015 end and is expected to register a CAGR of 6.0% in terms of value over the forecast period.Request to view Table of Content @On the basis of region, the moissanite market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa. Among these, North America is expected to account for 88.2% value share of the global moissanite market by 2015 end. The market in the region is expected to expand at CAGR of 6.3% in terms of value during the forecast period. Increasing consumer preference for pocket-friendly luxurious jewelry products is expected to fuel the growth of the market in the North America region over the forecast period.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @The report provides detailed information about the various trends driving each market segment and offers analysis and insights into the potential of the global moissanite market in specific regions.Currently, Charles & Colvard, Ltd is the only player operating in the market. Meanwhile, Cree Inc. and Norstel AB are the key raw material suppliers in the global moissanite market.The global moissanite market is segmented as follows:By Application Type Rings Earrings Pendants BraceletsBy region North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific The Middle East and AfricaAbout 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 Uterine Fibroids Market Analysis Key Trends, Size, Growth, Shares, Forecast & Outlook (2017-2025)

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Uterine Fibroids Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2025)" to its huge collection of research reports.Fibroids are tumors in the uterus which can vary in sizes depending upon the condition and level. A woman may have one or many fibroids in reproductive organ. It is common for a woman to have multiple fibroid tumors which are non-cancerous in nature. Uterine fibroids are broadly classified into four categories i.e. Subserosal fibroids, Intramural fibroids, Submucosal fibroid, and Pedunculated submucosal fibroid.Currently, the uterine fibroid market has no definitive FDA approved agents for medical treatment of uterine leiomyomata or uterine fibroids. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRHa) agents are being used to reduce size of tumor, reduce blood loss and to correct the ensuing iron-deficiency anemia.The global uterine fibroids drugs market is expected to experience robust growth post the launch of therapeutic drugs, primarily due to increasing patient base, rise in female population, and increasing healthcare expenditure. However, the market growth is hindered by high R&D costs and regulatory warnings.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report Global Uterine Fibroids Drugs Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2025) analyzes the development of this market, with focus on the US and European markets. The major trends, growth drivers as well as issues being faced by the market are discussed in detail in this report. The four major players: AbbVie, Myovant Sciences, Astra Zeneca, and Neurocrine Biosciences are being profiled along with their key financials and strategies for growth. The report contains a comprehensive analysis of the global uterine fibroids market along with the study of the regional markets.Table of Content1. Market Overview1.1 Uterine Fibroids1.2 Types of Uterine Fibroids1.3 Symptom & Causes1.4 Treatment & Diagnosis2. Global Uterine Fibroids Therapeutic Market Analysis2.1 Global Uterine Fibroids Therapeutics Market Forecast by Value2.2 Global Uterine Fibroids Therapeutics Market Forecast by Region2.3 Global Uterine Fibroids Therapeutics Market Forecast by Drugs2.3.1 Global Lupron Market Forecast by Value2.3.2 Global Elagolix Market Forecast by Value2.3.3 Global Relugolix Market Forecast by Value3. Regional Uterine Fibroids Market Analysis3.1 The US3.1.1 The US Uterine Fibroids Therapeutics Market by Value3.1.2 The US Uterine Fibroids Therapeutics Market by Drugs3.1.3 The US Lupron Market Forecast by Value3.1.4 The US Elagolix Market Forecast by Value3.1.5 The US Relugolix Market Forecast by Value3.2 Europe3.2.1 Europes Uterine Fibroids Market Forecast by Value3.2.2 Europes Uterine Fibroids Market Forecast by Drugs3.2.3 Europes Lupron Market Forecast by Value3.2.4 Europes Elagolix Market Forecast by Value3.2.5 Europes Relugolix Market Forecast by Value4. Market Dynamics4.1 Growth Drivers4.1.1 Increasing Female Population Worldwide4.1.2 Rising Spending on Public Health Programs for Female4.1.3 Growing Uterine Fibroids Market in Emerging Economies4.1.4 Increased Spending on Medicines4.1.5 Increasing Global Healthcare Expenditure4.2 Trends and Developments4.2.1 Development of New Drugs4.2.2 Increasing Demand for Minimally Invasive Surgeries4.2.3 Expansion of More Efficient and Advanced Technology4.3 Issues and Challenges4.3.1 FDAs Black Box Warnings4.3.2 High R&D Costs4.3.3 Drug Progress Challenges in Developing Countries5. Competitive Landscape5.1 Revenue and Market Cap6. Company Profiles6.1 AbbVie6.1.1 Business Overview6.1.2 Financial Overview6.1.3 Business Strategies6.2 AstraZeneca6.2.1 Business Overview6.2.2 Financial Overview6.2.3 Business Strategies6.3 Neurocrine Biosciences6.3.1 Business Overview6.3.2 Financial Overview6.3.3 Business Strategies6.4 Myovant Sciences Ltd. (Roivant Sciences, Ltd.)6.4.1 Business Overview6.4.2 Business StrategiesMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
New Study Reveals Strategic Development of Neural Stem & Progenitor Cell Products

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Strategic Development of Neural Stem & Progenitor Cell Products" to its huge collection of research reports.Overview: Neurogenesis is the process by which neurons are created. This process is most active during pre-natal development when neurogenesis is responsible for populating the growing brain. Neural stem cells (NSCs) are the self-renewing, multipotent cells that differentiate into the main phenotypes of the nervous system. These cell types include neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Neural progenitor cells (NPCs) are the progeny of stem cell division that normally undergo a limited number of replication cycles in vivo.The terms neuronal and neural also need to be defined. Technically speaking, neuronal means pertaining to neurons, and neural means pertaining to nerves, which are the cordlike bundles of fibers made up of neurons. Since both terms ultimately are descriptive of neurons, the scientific community uses the terms "neuronal" and "neural" interchangeably. The complexity of this issue is explored from a marketing perspective within this report.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @In 1992, Reynolds and Weiss were the first to isolate neural stem cells from the striatal tissue of adult mice brain tissue, including the subventricular zone, which is a neurogenic area. Since then, neural progenitor and stem cells have been isolated from various areas of the adult brain, including non-neurogenic areas like the spinal cord, and from other species, including humans. During the development of the nervous system, neural progenitor cells can either stay in the pool of proliferating undifferentiated cells or exit the cell cycle and differentiate.Over the past few years, neuronal stem and progenitor cells have become of profound interest to the research community due to their potential to be used in drug discovery and delivery applications, as well as for tools of neural toxicology assessment. NSC transplantation also represents a ground-breaking approach for treating a range of chronic neurological diseases and acute CNS injuries, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and spinal cord injury, among other conditions.This market report focuses on recent advances in NSC research applications, explores research priorities by market segment, highlights individual labs and end-users of neuronal stem cell research products, explores the competitive environment for NSC research products, and provides 5-year growth and trend analysis. It provides detailed guidance for companies that wish to offer strategically positioned NSC research products, including cells, kits, assays, and related media and reagents.This market report includes:- Recent advances in NSC research applications- Research priorities by market segment- Competitive analysis of NSC research supply companies- Segmentation of existing NSC products- Individual labs and end-users of NSC research products- Patent analysis- Overview of specialty pharmaceutical companies developing NSC therapies- 5-year market growth projections and trend analysisDetailed guidance for companies that wish to offer strategically positioned NSC research products, including cells, kits, assays, media and reagentsMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Macular Edema Therapeutics Market to Witness Comprehensive Growth by 2017 - 2025

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Macula is oval yellowish area surrounding the center of retina in the eye. Macular edema is the state when fluid and protein start accumulating under macula resulting swelling in the eye. Due to this swelling, central vision of eye get distorted. Macular edema is classified into two types namely cystoids macular edema (CME) and diabetic macular edema (DME). The retina is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye and the macula is the part of the retina responsible for sharp, straight-ahead vision. Diabetic retinopathy is common cause for macular edema which happen to people due to diabetic. Macular edema can also be diagnosed in patient after eye surgery for cataract, glaucoma, or retinal disease. The diseases which damage blood vessel in retina can also cause macular edema. Wavy or blurry vision to noticeable vision loss are primary symptom of macular edema. If one eye affected, there is 50% probability that other eye can also be affected. Macular edema is confirmed by some eye examination such as visual acuity test, dilated exam test and tonometry. The main aim for treatment of macular edema is to stabilize vision by sealing off leaking blood vessels. Focal laser treatment is often used to reduce swelling of the macula.The change in life style have the increased rate of diabetic patients is major driving factors of macular therapeutics market globally. The change in climatic conditions nowadays have huge impact on human health due to which several eye diseases can occur. The increase patient of diabetic retinopathy causes loss of vision have increase the demand of macular edema market globally. Growing aged population have shown increase in eye diseases dramatically. Failure of eye surgery cataract, glaucoma, or retinal disease can also rise the market of macular edema therapeutics worldwide.The increase of aged population has become a leading issue for increase of edema therapeutics market globally. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 180 million people worldwide have diabetes, and this number is expected to increase and to rise to epidemic proportions within the next 20 years. The market of macular edema therapeutics have increase intensely due to increase in diabetic population worldwide. The newly approved drugs are supposed to be show growth in the market of macular edema therapeutics. Currently, Lucentis and Ozurdex are the most trusted drugs for treatment of macula edema in global market. During initial level macular edema can be treated by controlling sugar level. If condition become severe the standard treatment such Anti-VEGF injection can be apply. For avoiding the side-effects of this treatment, retinal specialists apply injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor corticosteroids along with laser photocoagulation.The market of macular edema is dominated by North America which is followed by Europe due tremendous number of population suffering from diabetics. Asia Pacific region have also shown faster rate of increases of macular edema therapeutics market. While Africa and Australia have low market of Macular edema. In Asia pacific region India, China and Brazil have shown emerging growth in the global market of macular edema therapeutics.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Some of the major key player for macular edema therapeutics market globally are Allergan, Inc., Novartis AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., Bayer AG, Bausch & Lomb Incorporated. Another prominent player in the macular edema markets are Aciont Inc., ActiveSite, Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc., Aerpio Therapeutics, Inc., Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Araim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Astellas Pharma Inc.,Boehringer , Ingelheim GmbH.Request to View Tables of Content @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated re-search, 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, Con-sumer 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 en-gagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Botulinum Toxin & HA Fillers Global Market Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021) | New Release

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Botulinum Toxin & HA Fillers Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021)" to its huge collection of research reports.Botulinum toxin is a neurotoxin produced by the bacteria Clostridium Botulinum that has several cosmetic and therapeutic uses. Botulinum toxin A, when injected, blocks the nerve signals that cause muscles to contract. Unlike BT, which is directly used to stop muscle movement, HA fillers are directly injected into the skin to fill wrinkles, depressed, or folded points in the face. It also brings water to the surface of the skin to keep it looking fresh and supple.Botulinum Toxin and HA fillers are used for both aesthetic and therapeutic purposes. Both BT and HA fillers are generally used as non-surgical aesthetic injectables. The therapeutic uses of BT include procedures such as muscle movement disorders (cervical, dystonia, spasticity), urinary tract conditions (overactive bladder and urinary incontinence), excessive sweating, chronic migraine headache and others.The global BT and HA fillers market is likely to grow strongly in the coming years driven by increasing female participation in employment, rising GDP per capita, increase in middle class population globally and ageing population. Key trends of the market include rising number of BT and HA filler procedures per surgeon, reduced safety concerns of aesthetic procedures and sustainable demand driven by short term procedure effect. However, growth of the market can be hindered by several factors including potential health risk of undergoing aesthetic procedures and intense competition leading to price fall.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report Global Botulinum Toxin & HA fillers Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021) by Koncept Analytics provides an extensive research and detailed analysis of the present market along with future outlook. The report discusses the major growth drivers and challenges of the market, covering the U.S., Europe and ROW regions along with the global market. The report profiles the key players of the market including Allergan, Medytox and Ipsen.Table of Content1. Introduction1.1 Market Overview2. Aesthetics Market2.1 Global Market2.1.1 Global Aesthetic Procedures by Volume2.1.2 Global Aesthetic Procedures Forecast by Volume2.1.3 Global Aesthetic Procedures Volume by Category2.1.4 Global Aesthetic Procedures Volume by Type3. Global Botulinum Toxin & HA Fillers Market3.1 Botulinum Toxin3.1.1 Global Botulinum Toxin Market by Value3.1.2 Global Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value3.1.3 Global Botulinum Toxin Market by Regions3.1.4 Global Botulinum Toxin Market by Segments3.1.5 Global Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value3.1.6 Global Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value3.1.7 Global Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value3.1.8 Global Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value3.1.9 Global Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market by Volume3.1.10 Global Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Volume3.2 HA Fillers3.2.1 Global HA Fillers Market by Value3.2.2 Global HA Fillers Market Forecast by Value3.2.3 Global Aesthetic HA Fillers Market by Volume3.2.4 Global Aesthetic HA Fillers Market Forecast by Volume4. Regional Botulinum Toxin & HA Fillers Market4.1 The U.S.4.1.1 The U.S. Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.1.2 The U.S. Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.1.3 The U.S. Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.1.4 The U.S. Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.1.5 The U.S. Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.1.6 The U.S. Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.2 Europe4.2.1 The EU Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.2.2 The EU Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.2.3 The EU Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.2.4 The EU Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.2.5 The EU Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.2.6 The EU Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.3 ROW4.3.1 ROW Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.3.2 ROW Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.3.3 ROW Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.3.4 ROW Aesthetic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.3.5 ROW Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.3.6 ROW Therapeutic Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.3.7 Korean HA Fillers Market by Value4.3.8 Korean HA Filler Market Forecast by Value4.3.9 Korean Botulinum Toxin Market by Value4.3.10 Korean Botulinum Toxin Market Forecast by Value4.3.11 Chinas HA Fillers Market by Value4.3.12 Chinas HA Fillers Market Forecast by Value5. Market Dynamics5.1 Growth Drivers5.1.1 Rising Female Labor Participation5.1.2 Rising GDP Per Capita5.1.3 Increasing Ageing Population5.1.4 Increasing Middle Class Population5.2 Key Trends & Developments5.2.1 Increasing Number of BT & HA Procedures Per Surgeon5.2.2 Reduced Safety Concerns of Aesthetic Procedures5.2.3 Sustained Demand Driven by Short Duration Procedure Effect5.3 Challenges5.3.1 Potential Health Risk of Undergoing Aesthetic Procedures5.3.2 Intense Competition Leading to Price FallMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market: Industry Analysis, Future Growth, Business Prospects and Forecast by 2027

Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market

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Market Scenario:The major growth driver of Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market includes growing mobile subscriber base, rising competition among service providers and increasing customer requirement for low-priced mobile services among others.However, lack of technical expertise is one of the factors which are hindering the growth of Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market.Segments:Global Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market can be segmented as follows:Segmentation by Type: Reseller, Service operator, and Full MVNO among others.Segmentation by Service: Network routing, Customer care, Bulling & collection, Handset management (2G, 3G, 4G), and marketing & sales among others.Segmentation by Infrastructure: Skinny MVNO, Thin MVNO, and Thick MVNO among others.Key Players of Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market: AT&T (U.S.) Verizon (U.S.) Sprint (U.S.) Lyca mobile Group (U.K.) T-Mobile AG (U.S.) CITIC Telecom International Holding Limited (Hong-Kong) Telefonica S.A. (Spain) Tracfone Wireless, Inc. (U.S.)Request a Sample Copy @Objective of Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) Market Study: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub- segments of the Global Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To Analyze the Mobile Virtual Network Operator 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 type, service, infrastructure and sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of 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 Mobile Virtual Network Operator 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
Global Transfusion Diagnostics Market Analysis, Trends and Forecast by 2016 - 2024

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Blood transfusion is a process of receiving blood products or blood into the circulatory system intravenously. Blood transfusion is used in different medical conditions for replacement of lost component in the blood. Earlier blood transfusion included whole blood; however, modern medical methods can use only a component of blood for transfusion. Blood transfusion is among the most common procedures used for patients in hospitals. Hence, it becomes imperative that clinicians have knowledge about the appropriate administration of blood products, along with the symptoms, signs, and transfusion reaction management. Different blood products that can be transfused in the human body are red blood cells, platelets, plasma, albumin, and immunoglobulin preparations.Obtain Report Details @The blood transfusion process is as follows: blood sample is taken and sent to hospital laboratory where tests are performed to ensure that the donor blood is compatible with patient's blood. This process is called cross-matching. Risks associated with blood transfusion are viral infections, allergic reactions, fever, hemolytic reactions, and iron overload. Everything possible should be done to reduce these risks during blood transfusion. Hence, before blood transfusion, several steps are taken to ensure the quality of blood products, compatibility, and safety to the recipient. A definite diagnosis is required for both the donor and recipient blood. Red blood cells are the most common blood products to be transfused. One of the transfusion diagnostics incudes molecular blood group diagnostics. Molecular blood group diagnostic enables safer blood preservation and on-demand supply for patients who have antibodies against clinically relevant, rare or weak antigens. Blood group serology is another blood transfusion diagnostic used to avoid side effects caused due to administration of incorrect blood preservatives or immunizations.Based on type, the transfusion diagnostics market can be segmented into instruments, reagents and others. In terms of application, the market can be segmented into blood grouping, disease screening, and others. Based on distribution channel, the market can be segmented into hospitals, laboratories, blood banks, plasma fractionation facilities, military blood banks, and others. Blood banks and hospitals are the major segments of the transfusion diagnostics market.Increasing prevalence of diseases which require complete blood transfusion is one of the major drivers of the transfusion diagnostics market. Rising number of accidents due to road rash or other reasons which lead to blood loss is also likely to propel the market. Another factor driving the transfusion diagnostics market is the rising emergency situations for blood transfusions during surgical blood loss. Rising number of diseases due to improper blood transfusion without diagnosis of blood also fuels the growth of the transfusion diagnostics market. Alternative treatments and better techniques for blood transfusion are the major restraints of the transfusion diagnostics market. More advanced, efficient, and reliable transfusion diagnostic techniques are expected to create significant opportunities in the market.Geographically, the transfusion diagnostics market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America accounted for the largest share of the blood transfusion diagnostics market owing to increasing health care awareness and technological advancement in the region. Europe is the second largest market for blood transfusion diagnostics due to large geriatric population in the region. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for blood transfusion diagnostics due to increasing adoption of improved health care technologies, emerging health care infrastructure, and rising accidents, diseases, and other emergency situations which require blood transfusion.Major players in the blood transfusion diagnostics market include Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Beckman Coulter, Quotient Limited, Novartis AG, Abbott Diagnostics, Diagast, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Immucor, Inc., BAG Health Care, DiaSorin, Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc., Grifols, S.A., Hologic/Gen-Probe, Biokit, Bio-Rad Laboratories, and Quidel Corporation.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market to Hit 5.62% to 2021: Growth Analysis, Company Profiles & Trends

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CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.Vertical machining centers are used in high precision work and widely adopted in the automotive and aerospace industries. These centers are gaining popularity across a broad range of industries due to their low cost. Vertical machining centers are seeing tremendous improvement in terms of performance in the last few years due to continuous advances in technologies. These factors will drive the demand for vertical CNC machining centers during the forecast period.The Report analysts forecast the global CNC vertical machining centers market to grow at a CAGR of 5.62% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global CNC vertical machining centers market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from CNC vertical machining centers.Request a sample copy of CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market Research Report @The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEAThe report, Global CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsHaas AutomationHURCOMAKINOOKUMASMTCL AmericasOther prominent vendorsYamazaki MazakCMS North AmericaJyoti CNC AutomationKomatsu NTCKRUDO IndustrialMitsubishi ElectricDMG MORIBFWMarket driverGrowing need for accuracy and productivity at affordable priceFor a full, detailed list, view our reportThe listed pricing for this CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market report starts at $ 3500. Request Discount for CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market Research Report @Market challengeEmerging demand for CNC horizontal machining centersFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendEmerging demand for 3+2 CNC vertical machining centersFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendorsBrowse full table of contents and data tables For CNC Vertical Machining Centers Market Report @The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Related Reports: -Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) Rotary Pressure Filters Market 2017 Forecast to 2022Rotary Pressure Filter is a continuously operating filter for pressure filtration, allowing gas-tight cake treatment in several separate process steps. For example the cake treatment can consist of single- or mutli-stage cake washing and cake drying. The cake can be discharged under atmospheric conditions. The range of applications is wide and covers, in particular, bulk chemicals, fine chemicals and the pharmaceutical and Food Processing industries.MarketSizeForecasters.com, a Skyline Market Research LLP brand, is an online aggregator of market research reports. MarketSizeForecasters.com offers a comprehensive collection of full length reports on global and regional markets in 100+ industry verticals. We have partnered with some of the leading business and market research publishing houses and regularly update our online library to offer wide range of reports to our customers.Market size forecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketsizeforecasters.comWebsite:
2017-2022 North America Neurology Software Market Trend & Forecast Research Report

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Summary:Orbis Researchs adds New Report On : North America Neurology Software Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022.Introduction"Neurology Software plan packages, this contains individuals for individuals wellbeing records, session scheduling, billing and endurance training.Neurology Software provides the sufferers overall health-related information to assist in wellbeing care decisions. The specialist primarily based plan provides forms similar for his or her paper counterparts however provides easy navigation, a typical paragraph and click solution, discernment and also a standardized interface that allows everyone in workout to be more practical and provide far better wellness health-related treatment towards the patient.Scope of the North America Neurology Software Market ReportThis report focuses on the Neurology Software in North America market, especially in United States, Canada and Mexico. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, countries, type and application.This report covers Analysis of North America Neurology Software Market Segment by ManufacturersEpicAthenahealthNextgenhealthfusionAllscriptsGreenway HealthPractice FusionBrainlabKareoBizmaticsAdvanced Data SystemsNueMDRequest a Sample of this Report @North America Neurology Software Market Segment by regional analysis coversUnited StatesCanadaMexicoNorth America Neurology Software Market Segment by TypesType 1Type 2North America Neurology Software Market Segment by Applications, can be divided intoHospitalsCollege & Research InstitutesOtherMake an enquire before buying this report @Some of the Points cover in North America Neurology Software Market Research Report is:Chapter 1: Describe Neurology Software Industry Introduction, Product Scope, Market Overview, Market Opportunities, Market Risk, Market Driving ForceChapter 2: To analyze the top manufacturers of Neurology Software 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: North America Neurology Software Market by regions from 2012 to 2017 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 5, 6, 7 and 8: North America Neurology Software Market by key countries in these regions Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 9 and 10: North America Neurology Software Market by type and application from 2012 to 2017 Sales Revenue and market share Growth rateChapter 11: Neurology Software Industry Market forecast from 2017 to 2022 Regions Type and application with sales and revenueChapter 12 and 13: Neurology Software Industry Sales channel Distributors Traders and dealers Appendix Data sourceFor more press releases visit @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; +912064101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:Follow us on Twitter:
HLA Typing Transplant Market Forecast Showing 9.20% CAGR to 2021: Analysis of Key Players, Trends, Drivers, & Challenges

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Global HLA Typing Transplant Market is Projected to grow at 9.20% CAGR during the period 2017-2021. HLA Typing Transplant Industry research report also provides granular analysis of the market share, segmentation, revenue forecasts and geographic regions of the market.The Research Report analysts forecast the global HLA typing transplant market to grow at a CAGR of 9.20% during the period 2017-2021.About HLA Typing TransplantHuman leukocyte antigen (HLA) is located in the chromosome 6, which is present in almost all nucleated cells. The HLA system includes a complex array of genes, which controls the immune response through recognition of self and non-self antigens, which can lead to graft rejection. HLA typing, also known as tissue typing, is required majorly to examine graft rejection due to organ, tissue, blood cell, and bone marrow transplantation. Through this testing, bone marrow and blood cell transplantation complications can be minimized, which can increase the survival rate of the organ recipient.Request a Sample Copy of Global HLA Typing Transplant Market Research Report @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global HLA typing transplant market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers revenue generated by the sales of products such as systems, assays, and accessories.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEAThe Research Report, Global HLA Typing Transplant Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Enquiry Discount for Global HLA Typing Transplant Market Research Report @Key vendors of Global HLA Typing Transplant Market Immucor Illumina Thermo Fisher ScientificGlobal HLA Typing Transplant Market Other prominent vendors Biofortuna Bio-Rad Laboratories Cellular Technology GenDx HistoGenetics InGen Linkage Biosciences Omixon Pacific Biosciences of California STRATEC BiomedicalMarket driver Growing incidence of organ failure For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge High cost of transplantation and unfavorable reimbursement policies For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend New government initiatives for HLA typing For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report What will the Global HLA Typing Transplant Market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key of Global HLA Typing Transplant Market trends? What is driving this Global HLA Typing Transplant Market? What are the challenges to Global HLA Typing Transplant Market growth? Who are the key vendors in this Global HLA Typing Transplant Market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Browse full table of contents and data tables for Global HLA Typing Transplant Market Report @Related Reports: -2017-2022 Global Top Countries Medical Equipment Maintenance Market ReportThis report studies Medical Equipment Maintenance in Global market, especially in United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, China, Japan, India, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, Brazil, Middle East and Africa, focuses on the top Manufacturers in each country, coveringMarketSizeForecasters.com, a Skyline Market Research LLP brand, is an online aggregator of market research reports. MarketSizeForecasters.com offers a comprehensive collection of full length reports on global and regional markets in 100+ industry verticals. We have partnered with some of the leading business and market research publishing houses and regularly update our online library to offer wide range of reports to our customers.Market size forecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketsizeforecasters.comWebsite:Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Self-Service Technologies Market: Industry Analysis, Future Growth, Business Prospects and Global Forecast to 2027

Self-Service Technologies Market

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Market Scenario:The major growth driver of Self-Service Technologies Market includes growing technical advancement of remote and wireless communications, growing awareness about biometric securities such as fingerprint recognition, increasing demand for self-service machines and automated devices among others.However, imposed government regulations over energy and power sectors are one of the factors which are hindering the growth of Self-Service Technologies Market.Segments:Global Self-Service Technologies Market can be segmented as follows:Segmentation by Machine Type: ATM, vending machines, and kiosks among others.Segmentation by Application: Retail, Banking, Healthcare, Food & Beverage, and Security & Surveillance among others.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Self-Service Technologies Market: Kiosk Information Systems Inc. (US) NCR Corporation (US) HESS Cash Systems GmbH & Co. (Germany) Fujitsu Glory Ltd. Azkoyen Group Crane Co. (USA) Mass International Europe B.V. (Netherlands) Vend-Rite and IBM Corporation (US)Objective of Self-Service Technologies Market Study: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Self-Service Technologies Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To Analyze the Self-Service Technologies 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 type, applications and sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of 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 Self-Service Technologies 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
Small Scale LNG Terminals Market by Technology (Liquefaction and Regasification) : Global Industry Analysis & Trends 2017

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ALBANY, NY, April 21, 2017 : This research study analyzes the market for small-scale LNG terminals in terms of annual throughput. The small-scale LNG terminals market has been segmented on the basis of terminal technology, sub-type, and geography. For conducting the research, 2013 has been taken as the base year while all forecasts have been given for the 20142022 period. Market data for all the segments has been provided at the regional as well as country-specific level for the 20132022 period. The regional segment has been further divided into 14 sub-segments comprising nine unique countries which are major players in the global small-scale LNG market. The report provides a comprehensive competitive landscape and features companies engaged in the small-scale LNG terminals business. This report includes the key market dynamics affecting the overall small-scale LNG industry as well as the construction of such terminals globally. The report also provides a detailed industry analysis of the global small-scale LNG terminals market with the help of the Porters Five Forces model. The Porters Five Forces analysis aids in understanding the five major forces that affect the industry structure and profitability of the global small-scale LNG terminals market. The forces analyzed are the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat from new entrants, threat from substitutes, and degree of competition.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @The high-level analysis in the report provides detailed insights into the small-scale LNG terminals business globally. Major drivers, restraints, and opportunities of the small-scale LNG terminal market were analyzed in detail and are illustrated in the report with the help of supporting graphs and tables. There are currently numerous drivers for the small-scale LNG terminals industry. One of the most prominent drivers is the security of gas supply in small demand centers & accelerated development of smaller gas fields. Apart from this, slumping energy prices and a growing interest towards utilizing natural gas as a clean fuel are attracting higher investments in small-scale LNG terminals as compared to megaprojects. Market attractiveness analysis was carried out for the small-scale LNG terminals market on the basis of geography. Market attractiveness was estimated on the basis of common parameters that directly impact the market in different regions.The small-scale LNG terminals market was further segmented on the basis of terminal type into regasification and liquefaction terminals. For this report, only the terminals with tank sizes lesser than 200,000 cubic meters and throughputs lower than 300,000 tons per annum have been considered. Both liquefaction and regasification terminals have also been further sub-segmented on the basis of type into onshore terminals and offshore terminals. The small-scale LNG terminals market was analyzed across five geographies: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and Middle East & Africa. Regional data has been provided for each sub-segment of the small-scale LNG terminal market. Key market participants in the small-scale LNG terminal market include Skangass AS, Prometheus Energy, Linde AG, and Plum Energy. The report provides an overview of these companies, followed by their financial details, business strategy, and recent developments.LNG Terminal Market: Type AnalysisLiquefaction Terminals, by typeOnshoreOffshoreRegasification Terminals, by typeOnshoreOffshoreMake an Enquiry of this report @LNG Terminal Market: Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.Rest of North AmericaEuropeNorwaySwedenRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndonesiaRest of Asia PacificSouth AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaMiddle East AfricaQatarNigeriaRest of Middle East and AfricaResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMoz90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States
Lubrication Systems Market By End-user (Cement Industry, Steel Industry, Mining & Mineral Processing Industry, Automobile Industry and Other Industries) - Global Industry Forecast to 2022

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ALBANY, NY, April 21, 2017 : The lubrication systems market report by Transparency Market Research provides in-depth analysis of the global lubrication systems industry. The report segments the market on the basis of type, process, end-user, and geography, followed by country-wise analysis. It also provides the forecast and estimates for each type, process, end-user, and geography. The market share of various segments in the report reflects the revenue generated by the sale of lubrication systems. For this research study, the base year is 2013, while the forecast is for the period 20142022. Market data for all segments has been provided on regional level for the period 20132022.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @The lubrication systems market has been segmented into five broad categories on the basis of end-users, namely the cement industry, steel industry, mining & mineral processing industry, automobile industry, and other industries. The other industries segment dominated the global lubrication systems market in 2013. The segment accounted for more than 25% of the global market share. The dominance of the other industries segment is attributed to high demand for lubrication systems from industries such as locomotive, marine, aviation and others. The mining & mineral industry segment accounted for more than 20% of the global lubrication systems market. The segment is growing due to the rising demand for minerals and increasing investments in China and Africa. It is anticipated to be the fastest growing segment during the forecast period. The cement industry and steel industry segments together accounted for more than 25% of the global lubrication systems market in 2013. The automobile industry segment is expected to grow during the forecast period owing to the increasing demand for passenger cars in developing countries.On the basis of type, the lubrication systems market has been segmented into manual lubrication systems and automated/centralized lubrication systems. Industries using lubrication systems have been shifting from manual lubrication systems to automated/centralized lubrication systems due to benefits such as less time-consuming, reduced manpower costs, and proper lubrication. On the basis of process, the lubrication systems market has been segmented into dry sump lubrication and wet sump lubrication. In 2013, majority of the market share was held by dry sump lubrication.The lubrication systems market was analyzed across four geographies: Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW). Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific were further segmented and analyzed country-wise. Some of the countries mentioned in the report are the U.S., Canada, China, Japan, India, France, and Germany. Asia Pacific is anticipated to dominate the global lubrication systems market during the forecast period. Asia Pacific accounted for more than 28% of the global lubrication systems market in 2013. RoW was the least attractive segment for lubrication systems market in 2013.The lubrication systems market report provides a comprehensive competitive landscape and features companies which manufacture lubrication systems. This report includes the key market dynamics affecting the lubrication systems market globally. The report also provides a detailed industry analysis of the lubrication systems market with the help of Porters Five Forces model. The major forces that influence the industry structure and profitability were analyzed using Porters Five Forces model. The forces analyzed in the report are the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, degree of competition, threat of new entrants, and threat of substitutes. Major dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities of the market were analyzed in detail and are illustrated in the report through tables. Furthermore, the report provides the value chain and market attractiveness analysis for the global lubrication systems market.Some of the key players in the lubrication systems market include SKF AB, Lube Corporation, Groeneveld Groep B.V., Bijur Delimon, and Graco Inc. The report provides an overview of these companies, followed by their financial details (if available), business strategies, and recent developments.The lubrication systems market has been segmented as follows:Global Lubrication Systems Market: Type AnalysisManual Lubrication SystemsAutomated/Centralized Lubrication SystemsGlobal Lubrication Systems Market: Process AnalysisDry Sump LubricationWet Sump LubricationGlobal Lubrication Systems Market: End-user AnalysisCement IndustrySteel IndustryMining & Mineral Processing IndustryAutomobile IndustryOther IndustriesMake an Enquiry of this report @Global Lubrication Systems Market: Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeGermanySpainItalyFranceU.K.Rest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaRest of Asia PacificRest of the World (RoW)ResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMoz90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States
Feed Phytogenics Market Strongly Driven by Rising Global Demand

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Feed Phytogenics refers to a wide variety of plant-derived products such as herbs, spices, and products, used to feed animals in order to improve the performance of agricultural livestock. The phytogenic feed compounds possess antioxidant property that contribute towards the protection of feed lipids from oxidative damage. Some of the other beneficial properties of feed phytogenics include antiviral, antifungal, and antimicrobial properties that help in enhancing palatability, improve gut functions, and promote growth. Feed phytogenics are widely available as dried and ground material, extracts or essential oils. Rising concerns relating to antibiotic growth promoters has resulted into a shift towards the use of alternate growth-promoting agents in animal nutrition. This is expected to fuel the demand for feed phytogenics market during the forecast period.Obtain Report Details @Market Dynamics of Feed Phytogenics:Feed Phytogenics market is expected to witness rapid growth over the forecast period. Rapid growth of feed phytogenics market can be attributed to the factors such as increasing per capita meat consumption coupled with the rising livestock production over the forecast period. Rise in meat consumption brought a significant increase in the utilization of feed additives. Growth of organic meat sector also contribute vitally to the growth of feed phytogenics market. Further, the reduced usage of antibiotics as growth promoters also acted favorably in raising the demand for feed phytogenics market. Ban on the use of antibiotics by European Union and U.S. FDA supports the increased consumption of feed phytogenics. Furthermore, with the implementation of new technologies like encapsulation of active ingredients, the efficacy of phytogenic feed additives improved to a great extent.Market Segmentation of Feed Phytogenics:Feed Phytogenics market is segmented on the basis of type, livestock, and geography. Based upon type, feed phytogenics market is segmented into essential oils, oleoresins, herbs & spices, and others such as echinacea, mucilage etc. Essential oil is expected to attain relatively higher market share in the feed phytogenics market. High revenue share of essential oils in the feed phytogenics market can be attributed to its high contribution as feed additives in promoting animal nutrition. On the basis of livestock, feed phytogenics market is segmented into ruminants, swine, poultry, equine, aquatic, and others such as pet animals. Poultry sub-segment among the livestock segment is expected to account for relatively higher market value in the global feed phytogenics market. Factors such as increasing demand for safe and organic poultry, expansion of poultry segment are expected to contribute significantly in the segment growth during the forecast period.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @Regional Outlook of Feed Phytogenics:Based on geography, Feed Phytogenics market is segmented into seven different regions namely Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, and Japan. Asia Pacific is projected to attain relatively higher revenue share in the global feed phytogenics market. Higher revenue share of the region can be attributed to the continuous investments made by manufacturers in order to expand their geographical presence in the emerging economies. Europe is expected to witness rapid growth in the feed phytogenics market during the reviewed period. Ban of in-feed antibiotics by the European Union is expected to elevate the demand for feed phytogenics during the forecast period.Key Market Players in Feed Phytogenics:Some of the key players in the feed phytogenics market include Cargill Incorporated., Delacon Biotechnik GmbH, Phytobiotics Futterzusatzstoffe GmbH, BIOMIN Holding GmbH, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Pancosma SA, and Nutricare Lifesciences, Silvestris among others. Leading manufacturers in the feed phytogenics market are keen to expand their product portfolio to strength their position in the market. New product developments coupled with the increased R&D investments are some of some of the key initiatives taken by the companies to meet the growing demand for feed phytogenics.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global IoT Chip Market 2017-2022 Qualcomm Incorporated, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., Texas Instruments Incorporated, NXP Semiconductors, ARM Holdings PLC.

IoT Chip Market

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The latest report IoT Chip 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 IoT Chip report covers the precisely studied and evaluated data of the global market players and their scope in the market using a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as investment return analysies, SWOT analysis and feasibility studyare used to analyze the key global market playersgrowth in the IoT Chip industry.Request for FREE SAMPLE Report @The study report evaluates the range of factors of the IoT Chip industry, such as definition, demands, share, analysis, supply, sales, size, specification, forecast trends, production, classification, industry policy, news, and application. The global IoT Chip market report will provide significant and reliable information on the market clearly in structured format. The report will offers you a key manufacturer of the products, applications, DROS and others.The IoT Chip report is a useful documentation that aids distributors, manufacturers, suppliers, customers, investors & individuals who are interested in this market.Highlights of the reportA complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent market.Important changes in market dynamics.Market segmentation up to the second or third level.Historical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volume.Reporting and evaluation of recent industry developments.Market shares and strategies of key players.Emerging niche segments and regional markets.Focuses on top manufacturers in global marketQualcomm IncorporatedFreescale Semiconductor Inc.Texas Instruments IncorporatedNXP SemiconductorsARM Holdings PLC.Atmel CorporationMediatek Inc.Microchip Technology Inc.Renesas Electronic CorporationDo Enquiry Before Buying This Report @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
Dehydrated Parsley Flakes Market Driven by their Numerous Advantages

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Parsley refers to the bright green, biennial herb of European origin, Petroselinum crispum, which is extensively cultivated for its leaves. Its leaves are used as a garnish or as a flavoring agent in the food products. Dehydrated parsley flakes possess high medicinal value. It highly effective against rheumatoid arthritis. Dehydrated parsley flakes are widely used as a diuretic that helps to control numerous diseases such as kidney stones, urinary tract infections, and gallbladder stones. This is due to the presence of vitamin C and beta-carotene in the dehydrated parsley flakes. Owing to the anti-inflammatory and anti-hepatotoxicity properties of dehydrated parsley flakes, it is added as an ingredient in medicines to strengthen immunity system. Researchers have found that higher consumption of dehydrated parsley flakes helps in reducing the risk of numerous types of cancer.Obtain Report Details @Market Dynamics of Dehydrated Parsley Flakes:Dehydrated parsley flakes market is expected to witness high demand with increasing prominence attached to the use of plant based materials as a source of medicine. Rise in the acceptance of traditional herbal medicines as an alternative to allopathic medicines represents strong growth opportunities for the players operating in the dehydrated parsley flakes market. This is evident from the emergence of new product developments that support high health and wellness functionality. Rapid urbanization along with the growing health consciousness among consumers, is expected to have a significant contribution in revenue growth of dehydrated parsley flakes market. Rising incidences of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and obesity has brought a significant increase in the consumption of dehydrated parsley flakes. Others factors supporting the growth of dehydrated parsley flakes includes marketing efforts, improved supply chain to ensure wide availability of dehydrated parsley flakes in the industry. Food technologist and companies operating in the dehydrated parsley flakes market are carrying out research & development activities to enhance the nutritional profile of dehydrated parsley flakes in various applications.Market Segmentation of Dehydrated Parsley Flakes:Dehydrated parsley flakes market is segmented on the basis of application, and geography. Based upon application, dehydrated parsley flakes market is segmented into food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals, and others. Pharmaceutical application of dehydrated parsley flakes market is expected to expand at relatively high CAGR during the forecast period. High growth of the dehydrated parsley flakes market can be attributed to its nutritional and medicinal value. Cosmeceuticals application of dehydrated parsley flakes market is expected to have a significant share in the dehydrated parsley flakes market over the forecast period. High growth of cosmeceuticals segment is expected to be driven by its ability to treating skin related diseases effectively.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @Regional Outlook of Dehydrated Parsley Flakes:Based on geography, dehydrated parsley flakes market is segmented into seven different regions namely Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, and Japan. Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to expand at relatively high CAGR in the global dehydrated parsley flakes market. High growth of the region can be attributed to its wide availability, changing lifestyle, increasing disposable income, and growing awareness regarding the health benefits of dehydrated parsley flakes in the region. Countries such as China and India expected to contribute significantly in the rising demand for dehydrated parsley flakes for various applications such as food, pharmaceuticals etc., hence expected to contribute significantly in increasing the market revenue of the region. The Western Europe region is expected to have a high growth potential in the dehydrated parsley flakes market, owing to shift in the focus from synthetic to natural ingredients in food and pharmaceutical industry.Key Market Players in Dehydrated Parsley Flakes:Some of the key players in the dehydrated parsley flakes market include New Flavor House, Inc., Monterey Bay Spice Company, Inc., Essex Grain, Foodchem International Corporation, McCormick & Company, Inc., and Sensient Natural Ingredients among others. Dehydrated Parsley Flakes market is dominated by large number of organized and unorganized players competing to develop an edge over others. Leading manufacturers in the dehydrated parsley flakes market focus upon expanding their product portfolio in order to strength their market position.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Top 2017 ICT - Global Field Force Automation In-Depth Advance Market 2017-2020

Field Force Automation

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"Global Field Force Automation Market 2017-2020" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description- About Field Force AutomationFFA employs a combination of technologies to gather information in real time. The solution makes use of devices, such as PCs, tablets, mobile phones, PDAs, and wireless devices to collect and report data from the field to back-end systems (CRM, ERP, or accounting systems) through wireless connectivity. This allows constant updating of information directly from the field to reduce delays and eliminate manual errors such as double entry of data. This not only increases the productivity, but also helps plan delivery schedules, monitor field workers, and reduces inventory maintaining tasks through real-time information.Get Sample Report With TOC @** Technavios analysts forecast the global field force automation (FFA) market to grow at a CAGR of 12.8% during the period 2017-2020. Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global field force automation (FFA) market for 2017-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of FFA solutions. The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Field Force Automation (FFA) Market 2017-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market. Key vendorsClickSoftwareIFSOracleServicemax Other prominent vendorsAstea InternationalAT&TBT Global ServicesCGIClevestCommdelEricssonFieldEZGEIBCS GroupInfosysMobiworkOpenstreamPHI DataRetriever CommunicationsTrasysVentyxVerizonViryaNetWenn SoftZebra Technologies Market driverGrowing need to enhance productivity and efficiencyFor a full, detailed list, view our report Market challengeLimited infrastructure in developing countriesFor a full, detailed list, view our report Market trendEmergence of FFA mobile appsFor a full, detailed list, view our report Key questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?ResearchMoz is the worlds 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. ResearchMozs 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.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Clamshell Packaging Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast Analysis For 2017 - 2025

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Clamshell packaging is very common and popular form of packaging among industry players operating in the consumer market segments. Clamshell packaging is durable and efficient in protecting the product from external environment. Protective packaging properties of clamshell packaging consequently improves the shelf life of the food products. Clamshell packaging is commonly transparent and hence is used to communicate information about product and company to consumers. For packaging of different products, clamshell utilizes standard mold bases which can be customized according to the shape of the product. The clamshell packed goods are easily nested hence minimizing the storage cost during shipping of the goods.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @Clamshell Packaging Market: Market DynamicsClamshell packaging accounts for a significant part of the thermoform packaging market. Thermoform packaging market is estimated to be over US$ 30 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 4% over the forecast period. The convenience offered by the clamshell packaging over other forms of packaging in terms of visibility of the product and in term of protection from external environment has made clamshell packaging a popular practice among global manufacturers and suppliers. The opportunities provided by clamshell packaging for packaging of goods in various forms and sizes has increased the use of clamshell packaging in various industries, thus increasing the demand for clamshell packaging market. The increasing preference for e-commerce platforms for procuring consumer goods over internet technologies and rapid growth of modern retail formats especially in the emerging economies are some factors propelling the clamshell packaging market. Clamshell packaging, along with being cost effective is also easy to manufacture as it is manufactured with a monolayer of a substrate. However, clamshell packaging which is not a sustainable form of packaging requires rigorous use of plastic and hence confines the clamshell packaging market. The stringent government policies, especially in the European region, can limit the use of clamshell packaging. However, the trend of manufacturing clamshell packaging from recycled material can open new gates of opportunity for the clamshell packaging market.Clamshell Packaging Market: Market SegmentationClamshell packaging market is segmented by material type and by end use.Based on the type of material used, clamshell packaging market is segmented into:PEPPPETPVCOthersObtain Report Details @Based on end use, the clamshell packaging market is segmented into:Food industryElectronic goods industryConsumer goods industryClamshell Packaging Market: Regional OutlookRegionally global clamshell packaging market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanClamshell packaging is heavily demanded by manufacturers and suppliers of consumer goods in US and Canada region. The mature markets of US and Canada propel the North America clamshell packaging market to dominate the global market for clamshell packaging. North America clamshell packaging market is followed by Eastern and Western Europe where demand for consumer and electronic goods packed in clamshell is anticipated to grow at a steady rate over the forecast period. Prominent demand for clamshell packaging is expected to come from countries including UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia. Developing economies in Latin America and APEJ region are also expected to register rapid growth for clamshell packaging market due to increase in penetration of e-retail format in the region and presence of many medium and small manufacturers. The entrance of the big players in the emerging economies is propelling the demand for the clamshell packaging market.Clamshell Packaging Market: Key Players:Some key players of clamshell packaging market are National Plastics, Inc., VisiPak, Plastic Ingenuity, Key Packaging Co., Blisterpak, Inc, Amcor Limited, Uflex Ltd, Placon, Fabricators & Manufacturers Association Int'l, Universal Plastics Corporation, ClearPack Engineering, Inc, Dordan Manufacturing Company, Highland Packaging Solutions, Helmy Assoc & Co., Inc., Walter Drake, Inc, McLoone Metal Graphics, Inc, Panic Plastics Inc., Shanghai Light Industrial Products Imp. & Exp. Corp., Ltd., and Klara Wen Dongguan Jiasheng Plastic Packaging Products Co., Ltd, etc.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:
Top 2017 Insulin - Global Insulin Pump In-Depth Advance Market with Focus on Patch Pumps 2017 - 2020

Insulin Pump

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"Global Insulin Pump Market with Focus on Patch Pumps 2017 - 2020" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description- Scope of the ReportThe report titled Global Insulin Pump Market with Focus on Patch Pumps 2017 - 2020 analyzes the significant trends and potential opportunities in the global insulin pump market. The market size and forecast in terms of US$ for global insulin pump market has been provided for the period 2017 to 2020, considering 2014 as the base year. Analysis of insulin patch pump, a latest technology, is also covered in the report.Get Sample Report With TOC @Over the next five years the global insulin pump market revenue is expected to grow due to increasing diabetic population, increasing diabetes health expenditure and innovation in technology etc.The report provides global diabetic population in terms of volume, global diabetic population by region and diabetes health expenditure etc. It provides detailed analysis of global insulin pump market in terms of value as well as volume. The report summarizes the revenue, number of pump users, pump penetration rate and top market players etc. In addition to traditional insulin pumps, the report also focuses on recent launched innovative insulin patch pumps in the market in terms of value and its market share.The report also provides the detailed analysis of the US insulin pump market. It provides detail on total diabetic population in the US with Type1 and Type2 diabetes. The US insulin pump market is measured in terms of volume and market share of top players has also been provided in the report. The US is the market leader of the insulin pump market globally.The report also provides competitive landscape of the global insulin pump market. The global insulin pump market is very less fragmented as major part of market share has been captured by top market players such as Medtronic, Insulet Corporation and Animas Corporation etc. Medtronic is the market leader with the highest revenue earned in the fiscal 2014.Furthermore the report profiles key market player such as Insulet Corporation, Medtronic, Animas Corporation, Roche and Cellnovo on the basis of attributes such as company overview, recent developments, strategies adopted by the market leaders to ensure growth, sustainability, financial overview and recent developments. Country CoverageThe US Company CoverageMedtronicInsulet CorporationAnimas CorporationRocheCellnovo Executive SummaryA medical device that is used in for the management of insulin in the treatment of diabetes is known as insulin pump. It is a small automated device almost similar to the dimension of a mobile phone. It is very convenient in use, as this can be easily carried on a belt or inside a pocket. The device contains buttons to program insulin and navigate through the menu, LCD color screen to show the programming, battery compartment and a reservoir compartment. There are various types of insulin pumps available in the market and the latest pump available in the market is patch pump which is technologically more advanced than traditional pumps.The number of diabetic population around the world is growing at a rapid rate which ultimately helps to grow the insulin pump market. Global insulin pump market has shown continuous growth over the past few years and is expected to grow in the near future. The growth in the market has driven by ageing population, increasing number of diabetic patients and technological advancements etc. The market is expected to achieve a significant growth in the forecasted period. Global insulin demand continued to expand at a rapid pace in 2015 over the previous year. Global insulin pump market is very less fragmented as major part of market has captured by top players. Table of Content1. Executive Summary2. Insulin Pumps2.1 An Overview2.2 Types of Insulin PumpsTable 1: Types of Insulin Pumps3. Global Diabetic Population: An Analysis3.1 Global Diabetic Population by VolumeTable 2: Global Diabetic Population by Volume (Millions)3.1.2 Global Diabetic Population by RegionTable 3: Global Diabetic Population by Region; 2015 (Million)3.1.3 Global Diabetes Health Expenditure by RegionTable 4: Global Diabetic Health Expenditure by Region; 2015 (US$ Billion)4. Global Insulin Pump Market: Sizing & Growth4.1 Global Insulin Pump Market by Value: Actual & ForecastTable 5: Global Insulin Pump Market by Value; 2011-2015E (US$ Million)Table 6: Global Insulin Pump Market by Value; 2017-2020E (US$ Million)4.1.2 Global Insulin Pump Market Share by Top PlayersTable 7: Global Insulin Pump Market Share by Top Players; 2014-20154.2 Global Insulin Pump Market by Volume4.2.1 Global Insulin Pump Market by Number of UsersTable 8: Global Insulin Pump Market by Number of Users; 20144.2.2 Global Insulin Pump Market by Penetration RateTable 9: Global Insulin Pump Market by Penetration Rate; 20144.3 Global Insulin Pump Market Share by Geographical SegmentationTable 10: Global Insulin Pump Market Share by Geographical Segmentation; 20145. Global Insulin Patch Pump Market: An Analysis5.1 Global Insulin Patch Pump Market by ValueTable 11: Global Insulin Patch Pump Market by Value; 2014-2015E (US$ Million)5.2 Global Insulin Patch Pump by Market ShareTable 12: Global Insulin Patch Pump by Market Share; 2014-2015E6. Country Analysis6.1 The US Diabetes Population: An Analysis6.1.1 The US Total Diabetes PopulationTable 13: The US Diabetes Population; 2012-2015E (Million)6.1.2 The US Type1 Diabetes PopulationTable 14: The US Type1 Diabetes Population; 2012-2015E (Million)6.1.3 The US Type2 Diabetes PopulationTable 15: The US Type2 Diabetes Population; 2012-2015E (Million)6.2 The US Insulin Pump Market: Sizing & Growth6.2.1 The US Insulin Pump Market by VolumeTable 16: The US Insulin Pump Market by Volume; 2012-2015E6.2.2 The US Insulin Pump Market Share by Top PlayersTable 17: The US Insulin Pump Market Share by Top Players; 2014-2015E7. Market Dynamics7.1 Market Drivers7.1.1 Increasing Diabetic PopulationTable 18: Diabetic Population; 2014-2035 (in Millions)7.1.2 Increased Life ExpectancyTable 19: Life Expectancy at Age 807.1.3 Ageing PopulationTable 20: Number of Population Age 65+ (In Million)7.1.4 New Product Innovation7.1.5 Expansion of Global Market7.2 Challenges7.2.1 High Cost of Insulin Pumps7.2.2 Undiagnosed Diabetes7.2.3 Threat from Implantable Insulin Pump7.2.4 Invention of Artificial Pancreas7.2.5 Complicated Insulin Pump Software7.3 Market Trends7.3.1 Rise of Smart Pumps7.3.2 Alarming Rise in Obesity7.3.3 Regulatory Requirements7.3.4 High Potential Market for Diabetic ProductsTable 21: Diabetic Foods and Drinks8. Competitive LandscapeTable 22: Top Market Players by Market Share; 2014Table 23: Difference in Share Pumps that Patients Switched to and From; 2014Table 24: Revenue Comparison of Top Market Players; 2014 (US$ Billion)9. Company Profiles9.1 Insulet Corporation9.1.1 Business Overview9.1.2 Financial OverviewTable 25: Insulet Corporation Revenue; 2010-2015 (US$ Million)9.1.3 Business Strategy9.2 Medtronic9.2.1 Business Overview9.2.2 Financial OverviewTable 26: Medtronic Revenue; 2011-2015 (US$ Billion)9.2.3 Business Strategy9.3 Animas Corporation9.3.1 Business Overview9.3.2 Financial OverviewTable 27: Animas Corporation Revenue; 2012-2014 (US$ Billion)ResearchMoz is the worlds 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. ResearchMozs 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.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Kartie Tree Extract Market Driven by Growing Health Concerns

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Kartie Tree is popularly known as Shea Tree, scientific name Vietellaria Paradoxa. It is the only tree in genus Vitellaria and it indigenous to Africa. Kartie is its French name meaning the tree of life. It has got its name due to its extensive healing properties.Kartie tree extract is commonly known as shea extract and traditionally being used for butter production i.e. shea butter. It has tremendous skin care, healing and medicinal properties which marks its demand in market by various industries. Kartie is being used and exported since ancient time from its origin region Africa. Kartie oil has low fat content and hence popularly being used as substitute of cocoa and palm oil, and that is why demanded in global market.Obtain Report Details @Kartie Tree Extract Market Segmentation:Kartie tree extract market is segmented on the basis of its applications into different industries. This includes cosmetics & personal care, food, Medicinal and others. Its market demand is emerging in personal care and cosmetic industry due to its skincare, inflammatory and moisturizing properties. Kartie tree oil is considered as excellent substitute for palm and cocoa oil which has comparatively high fat contents, hence it is commonly used as substitute for high-fat oils. Applications of kartie oil in food industry is expected to increase in near future. Kartie tree extracts market is segmented on the basis of its purity and processing, as grades Grade A,B,C,D and E. A-Raw or unrefined, B-refined, C-highly refined or extracted with solvents, D-lowest uncontaminated grade katrie extract and E- kartie extract with contaminants. Grade A extract retain most natural properties as compared to other grades.Kartie tree extract market is further segmented on basis of regions which includes North America and Latin America, Middle East & Africa, Japan, Europe and Asia pacific excluding Japan. Europe and America possess demand of kartie extract for the cosmetics and personal care industry by volume. The major cosmetics and soap industry in the U.S. is most lucrative global market for kartie tree extracts.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Kartie Tree Extract Market Drivers:Kartie extract is in high demand in several sectors in the world market. Principle factors driving market demand are continuous rising demand for cocoa equivalent products due to rising chocolate consumption by world population. Also rising market demand for natural products based cosmetics and skin care products is becoming another market driver for kartie tree extract.In Europe, Japan and North America markets kartie extract is highly sought due to its high healing and moisturizing properties. This demand mainly comes from cocoa butter equivalent (CBE) as kartie extracted butter is approved to be used in chocolates. India is also an important market for kartie tree extract. The Europe and North America are the main markets for shea butter use in cosmetics and natural products.Consumer awareness about hydrogenated oils containing trans fats has also played an important role in the increased use of kartie tree extract market. Emerging market demand for kartie extracted products in world market is proven employment source for villagers and the sector has got high economic important. And hence government taking initiatives to fulfill maximum market demand of kartie tree extract and related products, emerging from all over the world.Kartie Tree Extract Market Key Players:Maximum amount of kartie is exported to other market places other than Africa where it gets extracted, purified and converted into different required byproducts. Kartie processing takes two routes, the row nuts are exported to Asian oil companies in bulk who extract, refine and sell it to Europe. Unrefined kartie extract is locally processed and graded for purity and then pushed into the world market through distributors.Key players operating in kartie tree extract market are Aarhus United, Fuji Oils Co. Ltd, and Loders Croklaan. Some of the local players manufacturing kartie tree extract include, Inkuto Ltd., The Pure Company, Bosbel Vegetable oil mills, Trituraf S. A among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Renewable Energy - Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage And Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Research Report 2016 : CSP system, Generate electricity, Industrial heating

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http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/850037

This report studies Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringBrightSource EnergySolar Millennium AGAbengoaArevaSiemensAccionaeSolarSolarReserveSchottWilson SolarpowerCool EarthNovatecLointekAcciona EnergyShams PowerZED SolarAbsoliconRioglass SolarGreenera Energy India PvtFocus solarBrightSource EnergyNRELEvergreen Solar ServicesSuntechThai Solar EnergyBP SolarTrina Solar EnergySunhomeMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoTrench concentrating solar power systemsTower-type solar power tower systemDish concentrating solar power systemsOtherSplit by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in each application, can be divided intoCSP systemGenerate electricityIndustrial heatingDownload Sample Copy Of This Report :Table of ContentsGlobal Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Research Report 20161 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)1.2 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Segment by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) by Type in 20151.2.2 Trench concentrating solar power systems1.2.3 Tower-type solar power tower system1.2.4 Dish concentrating solar power systems1.2.5 Other1.3 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Segment by Application1.3.1 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Consumption Market Share by Application in 20151.3.2 CSP system1.3.3 Generate electricity1.3.4 Industrial heating1.4 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) (2011-2021)2 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Average Price by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.4 Manufacturers Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionView Full Report :3 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016)3.1 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production by Region (2011-2016)3.2 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.3 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.4 Global Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.5 North America Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.6 Europe Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.7 China Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.8 Japan Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.9 Southeast Asia Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.10 India Molten Salt Solar Energy Thermal Storage and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)MarketResearchReports.biz supports your business intelligence needs with over 100,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Top 2017 Pet Care Services - Global Pet Insurance In-Depth Advance Market: Trends and Opportunities (2017-2019)

Pet Insurance

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"Global Pet Insurance Market: Trends and Opportunities (2017-2019)" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description- Scope of the ReportThe report titled Global Pet Insurance Market: Trends and Opportunities (2017-2019) provides an in-depth analysis of global animal companion market focusing on major pet insurance markets such as the UK, the US and Japan. The report also assesses the key opportunities and underlying trends in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry in the forecasted period (2017-19). Further, key pet insurers such as Allianz Group, Anicom Holdings, Pethealth Inc. and Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) are profiled in the report.Get Sample Report With TOC @ Geographical CoverageNorth AmericaThe United StatesThe United KingdomJapan Company CoverageAllianz GroupAnicom HoldingsPethealth Inc.Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) Executive summaryPet insurance is a type of specialty property and casualty insurance policy that pet owners purchase to cover the unintended costs that arise in providing care for a pet, including veterinary services such as surgical procedures, injuries from accidents, and prescribed pet medicines. Pet insurance is purely a reimbursement program. A form of property and casualty insurance, pet insurance provides reimbursement to the owner after the pet has received required care and the owner submits a claim to the insurance company.Globally, pet insurance market is largely untapped with extremely low penetration rates and hence it holds potential with high market opportunity. In developed economies like the US, pet insurance penetration rate is less than 1% and the primary reasons for low coverage in North America is lack of awareness, short history of availability in relation to Western Europe and negative product perception from early market entrants. Despite of low penetration, several developed and developing nations are huge markets for pet insurance products and the market is likely to grow on the back of growing number of companion animals and increased awareness of insurance products.The UK, the US and Japan are major pet insurance markets globally. The market is expected to grow in other areas of the world in upcoming years. The growth of the segment is driven by rising pet ownership globally, associated health benefits of pet ownership and expected high potential from under-penetrated pet market around the world. However, factors such as high price of pet insurance policies, lack of awareness and government regulation are posing challenge to industrys growth. Major trends prevailing in the market consists of mergers and acquisitions in the US market and increasing private equity transactions in global pet insurance industry. Table of Content1. Executive Summary2. Pet Insurance Market2.1 OverviewTable A: Global Pet Insurance History2.2 Pet Insurance ProcedureTable 1: Pet Insurance Procedure2.3 Pet Insurance Policy TypesTable 2: Pet Insurance Policy Types2.2.1 Lifetime cover2.2.2 Non-Lifetime Cover2.4 Pet Insurance Costs3. Global Pet Insurance Market: An AnalysisTable B: Companion Animal Populations in the US and the main European Markets (2013)Table 3: Pet Insurance Market Penetration in Selected Nations (2013)4. Global Pet Insurance Market: Region/Country Analysis4.1 North America Pet Insurance Market4.1.1 Overview4.1.2 North American Pet Insurance Market Sizing (Actual & Forecasted)Table 4: North American Pet Insurance Market Size, 2008-13E (US$ Millions)Table 5: North American Pet Insurance Market Size Forecasted, 2017E-19E (US$ Millions)4.2 The U.S.Pet Insurance Market4.2.1 OverviewTable 6: Total Number of Pets Owned in the US Market, 2013 (Millions)Table C: Number of Households in the US that Owns a Pet (Millions), 2013-144.2.2 The US Pet Industry SpendingTable 7: The U.S. Pet Industry Expenditure, 2008-14E (US$ Billions)Table 8: Pet Expenditure Breakdown in the US Market, 2012-14E (US$ Billions)Table 9: Annual Basic Expenses for Dog and Cat Owners in the US Market, 2013-2017 (US$)4.2.3 The US Pet Insurance Market Sizing (Actual & Forecasted)Table 10: The US Pet Insurance Market Written Premium, FY2008-FY2017E (US$ Millions)Table 11: The US Pet Insurance Market Written Premium Forecasted, FY2015E-FY2019E (US$ Millions)4.2.4 The US Pet Insurance Market Share by CompetitorsTable 12: The US Pet Insurance Market Share by Competitors (2012)4.3 The UK Pet Insurance Market4.3.1 Overview4.3.2 The UK Pet Insurance Market Sizing (Actual & Forecasted)Table 13: The UK Pet Insurance Market Size, 2010-13 (US$ Billions)Table 14: The UK Pet Insurance Market Size Forecasted, 2017E-19E (US$ Billions)4.3 Japanese Pet Insurance Market4.3.1 Overview4.3.2 Pet Insurance Sales ChannelTable 15: Japanese Pet Insurance Sales Channel4.3.3 Japanese Pet Insurance Market Sizing (Actual & Forecasted)Table 16: Japanese Pet Insurance Market Size, FY2011-FY2013 (US$ Millions)Table 17: Japanese Pet Insurance Market Size Forecasted, FY2017E-FY2019E (US$ Millions)5. Global Pet Insurance Market Trends5.1 Mergers & Acquisitions in the US MarketTable D: Mergers & Acquisitions in Pet Health Insurance Market, 2008-13 (US$ Millions)5.2 Increasing Private Equity TransactionsTable E: Private Equity Transactions in the US Pet Insurance Industry6. Global Pet Insurance Market: Growth Drivers & Challenges6.1 Growth Drivers6.1.1 Health Benefits of Pet Ownership6.1.2 High Potential from Under-Penetrated Market6.1.3 Rising Pet OwnershipTable 18: Pet Ownership in the US, 2005-18E (Millions of Homes)6.2 Challenges6.2.1 High PriceTable 19: Reasons for not Purchasing Pet Health or Medical Insurance (2017)6.2.2 Lack of Awareness6.2.3 Government Regulation7. Competitive LandscapeTable F: Comparison of Key Players of Pet Health Insurance in North AmericaTable G: Global Pet Insurance LandscapeTable H: Global Dog Insurance Quotes for Various CompaniesTable I: Global Cat (Mixed Breed) Insurance Quotes for Various Companies8. Company Profiles8.1 Allianz Group8.1.1 Business OverviewTable J: Allianz Group Structure  Business Segments and Reportable SegmentsTable 20: Allianz Group Revenue by Business Segment (2013)8.1.2 Financial OverviewTable 21: Allianz Group Property-Casualty Insurance Segment Revenue, 2012-13 (US$ Billions)Table 22: Allianz UK: Share of Pet Insurance in Retail Segment8.1.3 Business Strategies8.2 Anicom Holdings, Inc.8.2.1 Business Overview8.2.2 Financial OverviewTable 23: Anicom Holdings, Inc. Revenue, FY2010-FY2017 (US$ Millions)ResearchMoz is the worlds 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. ResearchMozs 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.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Top 2017 Travel Services - Global Online Travel In-Depth Advance Market: Trends and Opportunities (2017-2020)

Online Travel

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"Global Online Travel Market: Trends and Opportunities (2017-2020)" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description-** Scope of the ReportThe report titled Global Online Travel Market: Trends and Opportunities (2017-2020) analyzes the potential opportunities and significant trends in the global online travel market. Market outlook in value terms for the forecasted period for global online travel market has been detailed in the report. Online leisure/unmanaged business travel, a segment of online travel has also been covered in the report. The report provides detailed analysis of leading players in the sector including Expedia Inc., The Priceline Group and Hostelworld on the basis of attributes such as business overview, recent developments, financials and strategies adopted by the market leaders in order to ensure growth, sustainability, etc.Get Sample Report With TOC @** Geographical Coverage- The US- Europe- Asia Pacific- China- Latin America** Company Coverage- Expedia Inc.- The Priceline Group- Hostelworld** Executive Summary Online travel industry originated in the 1970s in the United States market. Online travel market, a segment of global travel market comes up with strong growth fundamentals. The market can be broadly split into direct bookings with travel suppliers and bookings made through an OTA. The OTA space can be broadly divided into Generalist OTAs and Specialist OTAs. Generalist OTAs such as Expedia and Booking.com (owned by Priceline Group), spans broader market and caters to all forms of travel (lodging, flights, packages, car rentals, etc.). On the other hand, Specialist OTAs (e.g. Hostelworld), operates within travel niches such as the hostel space. In major part of the world, majority of bookings are made directly through suppliers. Worldwide online booking via suppliers accounted for close to 60% share of total online bookings in the year 2015. From a regional perspective, Asia Pacific, Western Europe and the US market are seen to be similar in size and collectively accounting for 80% share of global online travel market in the year 2015. In the upcoming years, emerging market is expected to outperform growth in advanced region due to betterment of socio-economic factors. In addition to this, emerging markets also has high proportion of Millennial population. Growth of global online travel market is driven by growth in global tourism industry, rise in internet penetration and increasing mobile presence. Increasing internet penetration and rise in sue of smartphones especially in emerging economies are providing impetus to online travel industry globally. However, presence of certain factors is also posing hindrance to growth of the industry. Some of these factors are threat from alternative accommodation providers, regulation and compliance in the industry and high marketing spending for companies operating in the segment. Key trends prevailing in the industry includes organic expansion of core brands and increasing capital investment and supply in the hostel space. Table of Contents1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 The OTA landscape2.2 Online Travel Market- Value Chain2.3 Alternative Accommodation2.4 Business Model3. Global Online Travel Market Analysis3.1 Market Sizing Actual & Forecasted3.2 Market Share3.2.1 By Region3.2.2 By Competitors3.3 Online Leisure/Unmanaged Business Travel3.3.1 By Competitors3.3.2 By Region4. Global Online Travel Market Regional Analysis4.1 The US4.2 Europe4.3 Asia Pacific4.3.1 China4.4 Latin America5. Global Online Travel Market Trends5.1 Organic Expansion of Core Brands5.2 Increasing Capital Investment and Supply in the Hostel Space6. Global Online Travel Market: Growth Drivers & Challenges6.1 Growth Drivers6.1.1 Growth in Tourism Industry6.1.2 Rise in Online Travel Penetration6.1.3 Increasing Mobile Presence6.2 Challenges6.2.1 Threat from Alternative Accommodation Providers6.2.2 Regulations and Compliance6.2.3 High Marketing Spending7. Competitive Landscape8. Company Profiles8.1 Expedia Inc.8.1.1 Business Overview8.1.2 Financial Overview8.1.3 Business Strategies8.2 The Priceline Group8.2.1 Business Overview8.2.2 Financial Overview8.2.3 Business Strategies8.3 Hostelworld8.3.1 Business Overview8.3.2 Financial Overview8.3.3 Business StrategiesResearchMoz is the worlds 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. ResearchMozs 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.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Industry Standard Servers Market Global 2017 Size, Share, Trend Split by Application, Regions

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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 Industry Standard Servers Market is confident in meeting their needs and expectations. The 2017 market research report on Global Industry Standard Servers 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 Industry Standard Servers Market report is a noteworthy.Request a sample of this report @The Global Industry Standard Servers 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 Industry Standard Servers 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 Industry Standard Servers Industry. Accurate forecasts and expert opinion from credible sources, and the recent R&D development in the industry is also a mainstay of the Industry Standard Servers 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 Industry Standard Servers 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 Industry Standard Servers 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: Industry Standard Servers Market OverviewChapter Two: Global Industry Standard Servers Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter Three: Global Industry Standard Servers Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)Chapter Four: Global Industry Standard Servers Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)Chapter Five: Global Industry Standard Servers Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter Six: Global Industry Standard Servers Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter Seven: Global Industry Standard Servers Manufacturers Profiles/AnalysisChapter Eight: Industry Standard Servers Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter Nine: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter Ten: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter Eleven: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter Twelve: Global Industry Standard Servers Market Forecast (2017-2022)Chapter Thirteen: Research Findings and ConclusionChapter Fourteen: AppendixList of Figure:Figure Picture of Industry Standard ServersFigure Global Production Market Share of Industry Standard Servers by Type in 2015Figure Product Picture of Type ITable Major Manufacturers of Type IFigure Product Picture of Type IITable Major Manufacturers of Type IITable Industry Standard Servers Consumption Market Share by Application in 2015Figure Application 1 ExamplesFigure Application 2 ExamplesFigure North America Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Europe Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure China Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Japan Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Southeast Asia Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure India Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Industry Standard Servers Revenue (Million UDS) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Table Global Industry Standard Servers Capacity of Key Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)Table Global Industry Standard Servers Capacity Market Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)Figure Global Industry Standard Servers Capacity of Key Manufacturers in 2015Figure Global Industry Standard Servers Capacity of Key Manufacturers in 2016Table Global Industry Standard Servers Production of Key Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)Table Global Industry Standard Servers Production Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)Figure 2015 Industry Standard Servers Production Share by ManufacturersFigure 2016 Industry Standard Servers Production Share by ManufacturersContinued..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
The former head of a Waupaca bank has been ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution and a $100,000 penalty and is barred from holding any future job in a financial institution.

Archie Overby reached the settlement with federal regulators in March, according to documents released Thursday by the Office of the Comptroller of the U.S. Currency.

Overby was president and CEO of First National Bank of Waupaca from 1979 until May 31, 2016; he was also chairman starting in 2005. Overby and his family owned 20 percent of the banks stock, as of Dec. 31, 2013, the OCC said.

A 36-page notice issued in 2016 said Overby breached his fiduciary duties to the bank and acted with personal dishonesty and a willful and continuing disregard for the safety or soundness of the bank that constituted a pattern of misconduct, during an extended period of time, causing a loss to the bank and a benefit to Overby.

During at least 2010 through 2013, (Overby) engaged in fraudulent acts and omissions, breaches of trust and his fiduciary duty, and insider abuse with regard to the bank, the order said.

It said Overby was paid excessive compensation that totaled $5.2 million from 2010 through 2014 with benefits such as a country club membership and a new car every three years, including an $86,000 Cadillac Escalade.

It lists $1.6 million in personal expenses paid by the bank between 2010 and 2013, including trips to luxury resorts or expensive hotels in New York, Arizona, Texas and Tanzania.

The OCC said Overby hired his son-in-law as bank controller and his future successor in 2013 even though he had no experience as a bank officer. When his daughter and son-in-law moved to Texas in 2014, the bank bought their Wisconsin home and then paid Overbys daughter $80,000, which was later reduced to $60,000, to work for the bank remotely, even though she had another full-time job.

The OCC said First National Bank of Waupaca had no written policy on paying personal expenses until late 2014.

Because the personal expenses were listed as operating expenses for the bank, First National Bank of Waupaca filed inaccurate reports with regulators, the OCC said.

The bank had $747.9 million in assets and a net income of $13.2 million as of Dec. 31, 2010. At the end of 2016, it had $478.7 million in assets and a $6.5 million net loss.
Commodity Chemicals Market to Incur Rapid Extension by 2020

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Commodity chemicals (bulk chemicals) are a group of chemicals that are made on a very large scale and act as intermediates to produce other chemicals, which, in turn are used to produce a extensive range of end-user products including construction materials, adhesives, plastics, apparel and tires. Commodity chemicals are the largest sub-segment of the chemical industry. Commodity chemicals are commonly traded under broad categories such as organics, inorganics, plastics resins, synthetic rubbers, fibers, films, explosives and petrochemicals. These broad categories include chemicals such as, acetic acid, acetone, acrylate esters, adipic acid, acrylonitrate, benzene, bisphenol, butadiene, butanediol, butyl acetate, hexane, melamine, polyvinyl chloride, propylene, methanol, methyl, glycol and glycerines. These chemical are very low in product differentiation, and hence making price the dominant economic factor in purchasing decisions for the end users.A sample of this report is available upon request @The commodity chemical industry is highly fragmented and served with large number of local or regional players. Asia Pacific is by far the largest market for commodity chemicals accounting almost half of the total market. It is followed by North America and Europe. The growth prospective is still high in Asia Pacific attributed to the growing economy and ongoing trend and support for manufacturing sector in the developing countries such as India, China, and Indonesia. Bulk availability of crude oil and natural gas from gulf countries such as Saudi Arabian, Iran, Iraq and Syria is helping the commodity chemical industries in Asia Pacific.Commodity chemicals serve a wide range of industries ranging from personal care products to aerospace industries. It has its application either directly or indirectly in almost all manufacturing industries. The economy growth and increasing Gross domestic product (GDP) of developed and developing countries around the world is boosting the overall market of commodity chemicals. However the stiff regulation of the governments around the world regarding the health and environment side effect of chemicals and fluctuating prices of crude oil and natural gas are posing significant challenge for the industry.Some of the major players in commodity chemicals market include, BASF SE, Bayer AG, The Dow Chemical Company, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, PPG industries, Linde Group, Akzo Nobel, LyondellBasell Industries, Asahi Kasei, Sumitomo chemicals, Evonik Industries, INEOS Group Holding and Chem China.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Key points covered in the reportReport segments the market on the basis of types, application, products, technology, etc (as applicable)The report covers geographic segmentationNorth AmericaEuropeAsiaRoWThe report provides the market size and forecast for the different segments and geographies for the period of 2010 to 2020The report provides company profiles of some of the leading companies operating in the marketThe report also provides porters five forces analysis of the market.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 Online Water Quality Monitoring System Market Analysis, Share, Trend and Forecast 2021 with Key Players

Global Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry 2021 Forecast

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The Global Market for Online Water Quality Monitoring System Report 2017 provides critical data of Production, Supply, Sales, Demand, Market Status and Industry Development Trend of Online Water Quality Monitoring System. This Report is a Result of best research material, competitive landscape analysis that will help Decision makers to excel based on futuristic chart.Segmented by Materials, Types and Applications with focus on Regional Market Analysis is the Highlight of this Online Water Quality Monitoring System Market Study. Starting with a Complete Industry Review, this Report covers:Online Water Quality Monitoring System Chain Structure & Market Comparison AnalysisOnline Water Quality Monitoring System Import and Export AnalysisOnline Water Quality Monitoring System Application Share and Status AnalysisOnline Water Quality Monitoring System Upstream Raw Materials and Downstream Demand AnalysisRequest Sample of Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry Report at:In next section, the Report is segmented by Geographical Areas such as Asia, North America and Europe. For these regions, the Report covers Development History & Trends with Competitive Landscape Analysis for the Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry.For same Regions, the Report also offers Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry Development Trends which includes Markets Capacity Production Overview, Production Market Share Analysis, Demand Overview, Supply Demand and Shortage, Import/Export Consumption, Cost Price, Production, Value & Gross Margin Analysis.One of the major mainstays of the Online Water Quality Monitoring System Market Report is the coverage of the Competitors of this Industry. Region-wise Company Profiles are also evaluated for:Company ProfileProduct Picture and SpecificationOnline Water Quality Monitoring System Products Application AnalysisCapacity Production Price Cost Production ValueCompany Contact InformationThe Next Chapter of this Granular Analysis deals with Marketing Channels and Investment Feasibility Analysis. Economic Environmental Analysis is also taken into Account in Chapter 16 of the Online Water Quality Monitoring System Market Report for Countries such as China, European Countries, United States, Japan and other Global Regions.Major Emphasis on Online Water Quality Monitoring System 2012-2017 Industry Productions, Supply, Sales, Demand, Market Status and Forecasts is given and presented to understand past status of Online Water Quality Monitoring System Market. The Report Concludes with 2017-2021 Forecasts of Online Water Quality Monitoring System Import and Export Consumptions, Capacity and Production Overview for Each Region with Insights provided by Key Players of the Market.Buy Report at:As always has been the aim at Orbis Research with every report put up, the information on offer is complete and true knowledge seekers will benefit from it. Irrespective of the interest, academic or commercial, the Photo Printing Kiosk Sales Industry report curated and compiled by domain experts will definitely shed light on key information which the clients require.Major Points from TOC:Part I Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry OverviewPart II Asia Online Water Quality Monitoring System IndustryPart III North American Online Water Quality Monitoring System IndustryPart IV Europe Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry AnalysisPart V Online Water Quality Monitoring System Marketing Channels and Investment FeasibilityPart VI Global Online Water Quality Monitoring System Industry ConclusionsCheck for Discount offered on this Report at: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 Information: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:
Top 2017 Retail - Global Luxury E-tailing Industry 2017 In-Depth Advance Market Research Report

Luxury E-tailing

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"Global Luxury E-tailing Industry 2017 Market Research Report" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description-The Global Luxury E-tailing Industry 2017 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Luxury E-tailing industry.The report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions and classifications. The Luxury E-tailing market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status.Get Sample Report With TOC @Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analyzed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.The report focuses on global major leading industry players providing information such as company profiles, product specification, price, cost, revenue and contact information.With 135 the report provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market. Table of Contents1 Industry Overview1.1 Basic Information of Luxury E-tailing1.1.1 Definition of Luxury E-tailing1.1.2 Classifications of Luxury E-tailing1.1.3 Applications of Luxury E-tailing1.1.4 Characteristics of Luxury E-tailing1.2 Development Overview of Luxury E-tailing1.3 Enter Barriers Analysis of Luxury E-tailing2 Luxury E-tailing International and China Market Analysis2.1 Luxury E-tailing Industry International Market Analysis2.1.1 Luxury E-tailing International Market Development History2.1.2 Luxury E-tailing Competitive Landscape Analysis2.1.3 Luxury E-tailing International Main Countries Development Status2.1.4 Luxury E-tailing International Market Development Trend2.2 Luxury E-tailing Industry China Market Analysis2.2.1 Luxury E-tailing China Market Development History2.2.2 Luxury E-tailing Competitive Landscape Analysis2.2.3 Luxury E-tailing China Main Regions Development Status2.2.4 Luxury E-tailing China Market Development Trend2.3 Luxury E-tailing International and China Market Comparison Analysis3 Environment Analysis of Luxury E-tailing3.1 International Economy Analysis3.2 China Economy Analysis3.3 Policy Analysis of Luxury E-tailing3.4 News Analysis of Luxury E-tailing4 Analysis of Revenue by Classifications4.1 Global Revenue of Luxury E-tailing by Classifications 2011-20174.2 Global Revenue Growth Rate of Luxury E-tailing by Classifications 2011-20174.3 Luxury E-tailing Revenue by Classifications5 Analysis of Revenue by Regions and Applications5.1 Global Revenue of Luxury E-tailing by Regions 2011-20175.2 2011-2017 USA Revenue and Revenue Growth Rate of Luxury E-tailing5.3 2011-2017 Europe Revenue and Revenue Growth Rate of Luxury E-tailing5.4 2011-2017 Japan Revenue and Revenue Growth Rate of Luxury E-tailing5.5 2011-2017 China Revenue and Revenue Growth Rate of Luxury E-tailing6 Analysis of Luxury E-tailing Revenue Market Status 2011-20176.1 Revenue of Luxury E-tailing 2011-20176.2 Revenue Market Share Analysis of Luxury E-tailing 2011-20176.3 Revenue Overview of Luxury E-tailing 2011-20176.4 Gross Margin of Luxury E-tailing 2011-20177 Analysis of Luxury E-tailing Industry Key Manufacturers7.1 Neiman Marcus7.1.1 Company Profile7.1.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.1.3 Neiman Marcus SWOT Analysis7.2 Net-A-Porter7.2.1 Company Profile7.2.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.2.3 Net-A-Porter SWOT Analysis7.3 Nordstrom7.3.1 Company Profile7.3.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.3.3 Nordstrom SWOT Analysis7.4 Ralph Lauren7.4.1 Company Profile7.4.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.4.3 Ralph Lauren SWOT Analysis7.5 Saks Fifth Avenue7.5.1 Company Profile7.5.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.5.3 Saks Fifth Avenue SWOT Analysis7.6 Amara7.6.1 Company Profile7.6.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.6.3 Amara SWOT Analysis7.7 Barneys7.7.1 Company Profile7.7.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.7.3 Barneys SWOT Analysis7.8 Charms and Chain7.8.1 Company Profile7.8.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.8.3 Charms and Chain SWOT Analysis7.9 DellOglio7.9.1 Company Profile7.9.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.9.3 DellOglio SWOT Analysis7.10 Exclusively.com7.10.1 Company Profile7.10.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.10.3 Exclusively.com SWOT Analysis7.11 Harrods7.11.1 Company Profile7.11.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.11.3 Harrods SWOT Analysis7.12 Hudson Bay7.12.1 Company Profile7.12.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.12.3 Hudson Bay SWOT Analysis7.13 Luisa-Via-Roma7.13.1 Company Profile7.13.2 Revenue and Gross Margin7.13.3 Luisa-Via-Roma SWOT AnalysisResearchMoz is the worlds 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. ResearchMozs 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.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Single Board Computer (SBC) Market to Hit 12.67% to 2021: Growth Analysis, Company Profiles & Trends

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Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market is Projected to grow at 12.67% CAGR during the period 2017-2021. Single Board Computer (SBC) Industry research report also provides granular analysis of the market share, segmentation, revenue forecasts and geographic regions of the market.The Research Report analysts forecast the global single board computer (SBC) market to grow at a CAGR of 12.67% during the period 2017-2021.About Single Board Computer (SBC)A Single Board Computer (SBC) is a complete computer that is built on a single circuit board with memory, input and output devices, processors, and other peripheral functions of the computer. SBC can be used for developmental purposes, educational institutes, as well as industrial, automation, and military applications. Home computers and portable computers are also integrated into a single printed circuit board. SBCs do not rely on the expansion of slots for peripheral functions.Request a Sample Copy of Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market Research Report @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global single board computer (SBC) market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated through the sales of different types of single board computer.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: APAC Europe North America ROWThe Research Report, Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Enquiry Discount for Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market Research Report @Key vendors of Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market Digi International Advantech Eurotech Kontron RadisysGlobal Single Board Computer (SBC) Market Other prominent vendors VersaLogic Corporation UDOO ARBOR Technology American Portwell Technology Logic Supply Trenton SystemMarket driver Increase in the use of rugged design with high reliability For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge SBCs can be expensive for high volume products and applications For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Popularity of low-cost SBCs For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report What will the Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key of Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market trends? What is driving this Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market? What are the challenges to Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market growth? Who are the key vendors in this Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Table of ContentsPART 01: Executive summaryPART 02: Scope of the reportPART 03: Research MethodologyPART 04: Introduction Key market highlightsPART 05: Market landscape Market size and forecastPART 06: Five forces analysis Five forces analysisPART 07: Market Segmentation by applicationPART 08: Market segmentation by types of processorsPART 09: Geographical segmentationPART 10: Key leading countriesPART 11: Decision FrameworkPART 12: Drivers and challenge.Browse full table of contents and data tables for Global Single Board Computer (SBC) Market Report @Related Reports: -2017-2022 Global Top Countries Cycle Computer Market ReportThis report studies Cycle Computer in Global market, especially in United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, China, Japan, India, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, Brazil, Middle East and Africa, focuses on the top Manufacturers in each country, coveringMarketSizeForecasters.com, a Skyline Market Research LLP brand, is an online aggregator of market research reports. MarketSizeForecasters.com offers a comprehensive collection of full length reports on global and regional markets in 100+ industry verticals. We have partnered with some of the leading business and market research publishing houses and regularly update our online library to offer wide range of reports to our customers.Market size forecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketsizeforecasters.comWebsite:Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Latest Report Details Of United Kingdom Laryngoscopes Market Outlook to 2023

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"The Report United Kingdom Laryngoscopes Market Outlook to 2023 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"GlobalDatas new report, "United Kingdom Laryngoscopes Market Outlook to 2023", provides key market data on the United Kingdom Laryngoscopes market. The report provides value, in millions of US dollars, volume (in units) and and average prices (USD) within market segments - Non-Video Laryngoscopes and Video Laryngoscopes.The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for each of these market segments, and global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants. Based on the availability of data for the particular market and country, information related to pipeline products, news and deals is available in the report.Extensive interviews are conducted with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians and industry experts to validate the market size, company share and distribution share data and analysis.View Report @Scope- Market size and company share data for Laryngoscopes market segments Non-Video Laryngoscopes and Video Laryngoscopes.- Annualized market revenues (USD million) and volume (units) data for each of the market segments. Data is provided from 2009 to 2016 and forecast to 2023.- 2016 company shares and distribution shares data for each of the market segments.- Global corporate-level profiles of key companies operating within the United Kingdom Laryngoscopes market.- Key players covered include Olympus Corporation, KARL STORZ GmbH & Co KG, PENTAX Medical Company and Others.Get Sample Copy of this Report @Reasons to buy- Develop business strategies by identifying the key market segments poised for strong growth in the future.- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies.- Design competition strategies by identifying who-stands-where in the market.- Develop investment strategies by identifying the key market segments expected to register strong growth in the near future.- What are the key distribution channels and whats the most preferred mode of product distribution - Identify, understand and capitalize.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Meningococcal Vaccines Market is Segmented Broadly into Polysaccharide, Conjugate, Combination and Men B Vaccines

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Meningococcal disease caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis is a life threatening condition which severely infects the meninges or the thin lining surrounding the brain and the spinal cord. Five out of many serogroups of the bacterium are responsible for the invasive meningococcal disease. These serogroups are predominantly present only in humans in the dormant state and may eventually cause the diseased condition due to environmental or immunogenic factors. The disease is known to be contagious and its consequences can be fatal within 24 hours from the onset of symptoms. Prevalence of the serogroups responsible for the disease varies with age, time and geographical locations. The global market for meningococcal vaccines was valued at USD 1,537.3 million in 2013 and is expected to reach USD 4,450.4 million in 2022 at a CAGR of 12.4 % from 2014 - 2022.Browse the Complete Report Details for this Market at:The global meningococcal vaccines market is segmented broadly into polysaccharide, conjugate, combination and Men B vaccines. These vaccine types are further segmented into different brands available in the market. Polysaccharide vaccines is the oldest type available in market since last three decades. However, the presence and widespread use of conjugate vaccines has drastically reduced the incidences of bacterial meningitis due to the prolonged immunity achieved against the disease-causing serogroups, unlike polysaccharide vaccines which provide immunity for a very short period. Combination vaccines against invasive meningococci in combination with other organisms such as pneumococcal and Haemophilus influenzae type B are considered as new weapons to fight against two bacterial infections. This has shown to reduce the number of injections needed to be administered when compared to their individual doses.Recently approved Men B vaccines include Bexsero by Novartis, and Trumenba by Pfizer. The U.S. FDA approved Bexsero in January 2015 and Trumenba in October 2014. In January 2013, Novartis received marketing authorization for Bexsero as the only vaccine against serogroup B, across the European Union, Canada and Australia, and has been currently filed for U.S. FDA licensure. The notable pipeline conjugate vaccine against meningococcal disease includes NmVac4-DT by JN International Medical Corporation. NmVac4 DT has been developed against the broad range of (quadrivalent) serogroups A, C, Y and W-135. Moreover, JN- International claims the vaccine to be animal component free, which is expected to be the major driver for its demand post market launch.Major growth drivers for the global meningococcal vaccines market include favourable public-private partnerships to support development of vaccines at low cost, and the medical emergency status of the disease. Increase in the demand for vaccines and also the number of people getting immunized has been majorly contributed to the education and awareness campaigns conducted by manufacturers as well as non-profit organizations in the developed economies. Government intervention such as approval of legislations to mandate immunization programs for school children up to a certain age, and stringent regulations for Hajj pilgrims and sub-Saharan travellers also contribute positively to this market due to increased demand for these vaccines from the non-profit organizations.Geographically, North America is the largest market in terms of revenue in 2013. In North America and Europe, due to government intervention with respect to legislations, immunization programs and awareness campaigns incidences of meningitis have reduced to a large extent. According to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 1,000 to 2,600 people contract meningococcal disease each year in the United States, whereas in Africa, it is estimated to be 1,000 cases per 100,000 population. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market followed by Rest of the World (RoW) during the forecast period. Factors driving the market in this region include the continuous growth in the population base, the cyclic occurrences of meningococcal disease outbreaks in past and the rising focus on preventive measure against the dreadful disease. The onset of recent trends such as enrolment of pharmacists in training programs conducted by New Zealand Ministry of Health is also contributing to the market growth.Get the Sample PDF Report Containing the Upcoming Market Oppotunities at:The key players contributing to the global meningococcal vaccines market include Sanofi SA, Novartis AG, GSK plc, Pfizer, Inc., Nuron Biotech, JN International Medical Corporation, Serum Institute of India Ltd., Baxter International and Biomed Pvt. Ltd.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
What Future Beholds for Mannitol Market?

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Overview:Mannitol is known as mannite or manna sugar, which is white, odorless and sweet tasting powder. Mannitol is non-cariogenic i.e. preventing development of tooth decay and has a low calorie content. Mannitol is also known as polyol (sugar alcohol) that is derived from a sugar known as mannose by reduction and is a naturally occurring alcohol found in fruits and vegetables. Mannitol is less absorbed by the body, hence it does not increase the insulin level of the body as compared to sugar. Mannitol is mostly used in the food and pharmaceuticals industries because of its unique functional properties. Mannitol is used for diuresis in the treatment and reduction of urine production due to the kidney failure. It is also used in to increase the elimination of toxins from the body and to reduce the intracranial pressure (pressure inside the skull) and also pressure in the eye. Mannitol is an isomer of sorbitol having same chemical formula and molecular weight and is produced by treating with hydrogen of specialty glucose syrups.Obtain Report Details @Global Mannitol: Market SegmentationThe global mannitol market is segmented on the basis of form type, application and region. The mannitol market is segmented on the basis of form type mainly into powder and granular form. Mannitol is used in various applications like food, pharmaceutical, medical, and chemical industries. Due to its very low solubility and hygroscopicity and its positive impact on the machinability and texture of final products, mannitol (European safety number E 421, International number INS 421) is perfectly suited for: - chewing gum (mass, dusting, coating in combination with xylitol) - chewy sweets (crystalline phase) Mannitol being not cariogenic, it can also be used in safe for teeth products.Mannitol is widely used in pharmaceuticals as excipients in tablet formulation and also helps in treating diseases related to kidney and brain. It is also used for renal protection in cardiac, vascular and also in renal transplantation surgery. Hence, the use of mannitol in pharmaceuticals segment is expected to increase the revenue of the mannitol market in the next few years.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Global Mannitol Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global mannitol industry can be divided by major regions which include North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, Middle East and Africa.Asia/ Pacific developed as the most dominant market in 2015. Thus, changing lifestyle with the rise in diseases related to sugar consumption in India, China and Japan has strengthened the growth of the mannitol market and hence is anticipated to expand the growth of Asian mannitol market over the forecast period.Global Mannitol Market: Growth DriversThe mannitol market driving factors are the increasing demand for mannitol in bakery and confectionery such as chewing gums, candies and lozenges. Increasing demand for low calorie sugars due to growing health awareness is anticipated to drive the mannitol market over the forecast period. The demand for mannitol is also increasing due to the use of mannitol powder as an alternative sweetener for the diabetic people. Due to the unique properties of mannitol such as cooling sensation in the mouth, good water solubility, and low sensitivity towards humidity, the mannitol is mostly used in the food and pharmaceutical industries and is anticipated to increase the mannitol market over the forecast period.Global Mannitol Market: PlayersSome of the key players identified across the value chain of the global Mannitol market include Roquette Freres Company, Cargill, SPI Pharma, Qingdao Bright Moon Seaweed Group Co., Ltd., Singsino Group Ltd.,Hebei Huaxu Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, Merck Millipore Corporation, Moga International Ltd, Rongde Seaweed Co.,Ltd, and Qingdao Yuanrun Chemical Co. Ltd. The companies are anticipated to expand their business by enhancing their product portfolio in mannitol. The companies are expected to frame certain strategies in future in order to gain the competitive advantage in global mannitol market till 2026.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Cards and Payments Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Cards and Payments Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022" to its huge collection of research reports.This research report gives a definitive review on the Cards and Payments as in light of a segmented pattern. Entry variables managed in the report incorporate the distinctive services or products offered by the market players alongside the free market activity scales for current market measurements, in addition to anticipated market insights. The Cards and Payments is thus examined first in an authentic sense by getting together all important information in the course of recent years, and after that moves on to the market's future which is a revelatory examination in view of momentum numbers and patterns. The elucidation of each outcome is left to the client who can take their business strategy to the next level in light of the given data.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The geographical examination of the Cards and Payments is directed utilizing different key regions in view of mainland diversities and different variables. For each key locale, the report gives information in general request, its development and the elements that impact it, the relative nearness of key global players and regional ones, and the rate at which every area advances in the market as far as innovative work endeavors. The competitive scene of the Cards and Payments is broken down utilizing systems, for example, the SWOT investigation, giving the report's clients a top notch point of view of all available data and what it might be molded like sooner rather than later. The Cards and Payments is likewise portrayed on the premise of its industry chain structure, in however much detail as could reasonably be expected.Get more information from Research Report Press Release:Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Cards and Payments1.1 Cards and Payments Market Overview1.1.1 Cards and Payments Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Cards and Payments Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Cards and Payments Market by Type1.3.1 Card1.3.2 POS1.4 Cards and Payments Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Commercial1.4.2 Bank1.4.3 Shopping1.4.4 Other2 Global Cards and Payments Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Cards and Payments Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Gemalto3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Cards and Payments Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 G&D3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Cards and Payments Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Oberthur3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Cards and Payments Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2022)11.1 Global Cards and Payments Market Size (Value) by Regions (2017-2022)11.1.1 United States Cards and Payments Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.2 EU Cards and Payments Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.3 Japan Cards and Payments Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.4 China Cards and Payments Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.5 India Cards and Payments Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.6 Southeast Asia Cards and Payments Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.2 Global Cards and Payments Market Size (Value) by Type (2017-2022)11.3 Global Cards and Payments Market Size by Application (2017-2022)12 Cards and Payments Market Dynamics12.1 Cards and Payments Market Opportunities12.2 Cards and Payments Challenge and Risk12.2.1 Competition from Opponents12.2.2 Downside Risks of Economy12.3 Cards and Payments Market Constraints and Threat12.3.1 Threat from Substitute12.3.2 Government Policy12.3.3 Technology Risks12.4 Cards and Payments Market Driving Force12.4.1 Growing Demand from Emerging Markets12.4.2 Potential Application13 Market Effect Factors Analysis13.1 Technology Progress/Risk13.1.1 Substitutes13.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry13.2 Consumer Needs Trend/Customer Preference13.3 External Environmental Change13.3.1 Economic Fluctuations13.3.2 Other Risk FactorsList of Tables and FiguresFigure Cards and Payments Product ScopeFigure Global Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) (2012-2017)Table Global Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Global Cards and Payments Market Share by Regions in 2016Figure United States Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure EU Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Japan Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure China Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure India Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Southeast Asia Cards and Payments Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)QYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States
Postpartum Hemorrhage Treatment Devices Market to Exhibit a CAGR of 4.9% and is Expected to Reach US$926.1 mn by the End of 2023

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The escalating cases of maternal deaths have fuelled demand for advanced therapeutics and devices to ensure effective treatment for pregnancy related complications. Spurred by the factor, demand from the postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) treatment devices market is expected to increase considerably. While manufacturers of these devices have found lucrative prospects in developed nations, they are yet to establish their presence across developing and under developed countries.Browse the Complete Report Details for this Market at:According to Transparency Market Research (TMR), lack of awareness creates bottlenecks for entry of PPH treatment device manufacturers in nations across the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, with governments and leading organizations focusing on spreading awareness about PPH treatment, proliferation of PPH devices is expected to pace up in the forthcoming years.TMR forecasts the global PPH treatment market to exhibit a CAGR of 4.9% between 2015 and 2021. The market stood at US$604.4 mn in 2014 and is expected to reach US$926.1 mn by the end of 2023.Demand for Uniject Prefilled Injection Systems to Rise at Higher Pace than other Product SegmentsAmong the various products available, the market is currently witnessing considerably high demand for uterine balloon tamponade. It is commercially available, offers high effectiveness, and ensures ease of use. Balloon tamponade thus emerged as the dominant product segment in the market in 2014. It is expected to rise at a CAGR of 4.9% between 2015 and 2023.However, according to TMR, demand for uniject prefilled injection systems is likely to increase at a higher pace than other products available in the market. Uniject is an auto-disable and disposable injection system. The product segment is expected to witness considerably rising demand through the forecast period due to the easy applicability of uniject prefilled injection systems, their equitable pricing, and rising participation by government organizations in promoting their use.Besides this, TMR also projects the application of non-pneumatic anti-shock garment (NASG) to increase significantly in the near future.Commercial Availability of Advanced Devices Confirms North Americas Lead in Global PPH Treatment Devices MarketRegionally, the global PPH treatment devices market is currently dominated by North America. The region held over 36.1% of the global market in 2014. The rising prevalence of PPH in North America, increasing awareness among patients as well as healthcare service providers, high hospital delivery rates, and commercial availability of treatment devices are the primary factors fuelling demand from the North America treatment devices market. Manufacturers of PPH treatment devices have been witnessing lucrative opportunities in countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. These countries boast sophisticated healthcare infrastructure, which aids the expansion of the PPH treatment devices market in the region.Europe trailed North America in terms of revenue contributed to the global PPH treatment devices market in 2014. However, during the course of the forecast period, demand from Asia Pacific is expected to rise at a higher pace. The improving healthcare infrastructure will fuel demand for PPH treatment devices in countries such as India, China, Philippines, and Taiwan. Furthermore, programs initiated by governments to prevent maternal deaths will also boost sales opportunities for manufacturers across these countries.Get the Sample PDF Report Containing the Upcoming Market Oppotunities at:Some of the key players in the global postpartum hemorrhage treatment devices market are Bactiguard, Cook Medical, C.R. Bard, Utah Medical Products, Teleflex Incorporated, and Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH).Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Power Banks Market to Expand at CAGR of 25.9% till 2022 due to Increased Use of Consumer Electronics

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Power Banks Market (Portable Power Banks, Battery Cases, Solar Power Banks) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2022 " to it's Large Report database.Power Banks i.e. external batteries have become popular as the battery life of smartphones, MP3 players, tablets and laptops is beaten by the amount of time people spend using them each day. Batteries of such electronic devices drains in a short period of time thus justifying purpose of power banks.The research report provides a detailed analysis of trends in power banks market. The report also includes extensive analysis of the industry drivers, restraints, opportunities and challenges. The market study provides comprehensive assessment of vendors strategies for succeeding in the business. The report segregates the market based on type of battery, power rating and type of power banks across different geographies, such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle-East and Africa and Latin America. For each of these geographies drivers, restraints and opportunities have been analyzed and have been provided in the report. Different regions analyzed in this report include India, China, Japan, U.S., Oceania (New Zealand and Australia), Scandinavia, EU5 (Italy, Spain, Germany, France, UK), CIS (Russia), Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Africa, UAE, and Brazil among others. The market research study analyzes the power banks market on global level, regional level and country level.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:The research report estimates power banks market in terms of revenue (US$ billion) and volume (Mn units) for years 2012 and 2013, along with market forecast for the period 2014 to 2022. The detailed value chain analysis helps market players to formulate their business strategies at every stage of their business. Moreover, the market estimates have been analyzed keeping in mind different factors including technological, environmental, economical, legal and social. The detailed distribution channel analysis for global power banks market is provided in the report. The market attractiveness of different types of power banks such as portable power banks, solar power banks and battery cases (phone charging case) elucidates the most attractive segment. This will help players in the ecosystem of power banks to invest in the right opportunity segment for obtaining competitive advantage.Key players have also been profiled on the basis of financial overview, company overview, segmentation, business strategies, and recent developments in the power banks market. Market participants profiled in this report are Hitachi Maxell, Ltd., Limefuel LLC, Xtorm BV, Mophie, Inc., Mipow Limited, EassyAcc.com, Inc., Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Corporation, Apacer Technologies, Inc., GP Batteries International Ltd, and Anker. The research report also explains the leading players in the ecosystem of the global power banks market and china power banks market.Read All Semiconductors Market Research Reports @Table of ContentChapter 1 Preface1.1 Research Scope1.2 Market Segmentation1.3 Research Methodology1.3.1 Sources1.3.1.1 Secondary research1.3.1.2 Primary researchChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Market Snapshot: Global Power Banks Market (2013 & 2022)2.2 Global Power Banks Market Revenue, 2012  2022 (US$ Million) and Y-o-Y Growth (%)2.3 Global Power Banks Market Volume, 2012  2022 (Mn Units) and Y-o-Y Growth (%)2.4 Global Power Banks Market, by Product Type, 2013 (US$ Million)2.5 Global Power Banks Market, By Power Rating, 2013 (US$ Million)2.6 Global Power Banks Market, by Type of Battery, 2013 (US$ Million)2.7 Global Power Banks Market, By Geography, 2013 (US$ Million)Chapter 3 Global Power Banks Market Analysis3.1 Overview3.2 Key Trends Analysis3.2.1 Creating Products that Complements Consumers Modern Lifestyle3.2.1.1 Power Banks with LCD Displays3.2.1.2 Inbuilt Power Connector for Power Banks3.2.1.3 Power Banks with App Control3.2.1.4 Innovative and Customized Power Banks3.2.2 Smartphones Brand Companies Partnering with OEMs to Certify Power Banks as per their StandardsAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Contact Us:Mr. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at:
Lawyers for a group of former American Family Insurance agents say the company could be forced to provide up to $1 billion in retirement benefits to agents that the company regards as independent contractors, following an advisory verdict issued earlier this week by a federal jury in Cleveland.

But a spokesman for the Madison-based company called the figure grossly overstated and premature because a federal judge who ultimately will rule in the case has not yet done so.

On Tuesday, a jury hearing a class-action lawsuit brought by the former American Family agents ruled that the companys agents are actually employees and are entitled to retirement benefits. The case now turns to U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent, who will decide whether to adopt the jurys conclusion when he issues a formal ruling.

That ruling will come following additional written arguments. If Nugent accepts the jury verdict, the case would proceed to a remedy phase.

The jury apparently agreed that AmFam cannot have it both ways, Erin Dickinson, one of the lawyers representing the former agents, said in a statement. A company cannot just call its agents independent contractors to avoid following the federal law protecting retirement benefits and then insist on controlling how those agents do their work.

Charles Crueger, who also represents the agents in the lawsuit, said Friday that jury trials are not required and are rarely held in cases involving a federal law that protects retirement benefits, but that Nugent decided to hold one to help him reach a decision.

The agents allege in their lawsuit, originally filed in 2013, that American Family mislabels its agents as independent contractors, while treating them in other ways as employees. The lawsuit alleges that despite being called independent contractors, American Family retains the right to control how they do business.

But American Family spokesman Ken Muth said its agents are independent contractors, and that the company values them and the important role they play in the lives of customers and the success of the company.

We strongly disagree with the advisory verdict and believe it is contrary to the fact that American Family treats our agents as the independent contractors that they are, Muth wrote in a statement. While we expect our agents to satisfy agreements they sign as part of their association with the company, they are solely responsible for the manner and means by which they sell insurance and run their agencies.

Muth said the classification of insurance agents as independent contractors has been affirmed by courts in the past.

Muth said the company provides for a program that compensates agents after they are no longer with the company, based on years of service and performance. It isnt a retirement plan, he said.

But the agents claim in court documents that American Family terminates agents before they become vested in the program.

Crueger said the $1 billion figure represents $500 million to $600 million in liabilities American Family would owe agents, plus other costs required of retirement programs under federal law.
Table Top Conveyor for Packaging Market - Competitive Landscape and Regional Analysis by 2016-2024

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Conveyors are mechanical equipment used for the moving material from one location to another. Conveyors are basically used to reduce the manual errors while handling, transportation and packaging the material which saves energy and time. The table top conveyors for packaging are based on an aluminum, steel, stainless steel or thermoplastic profiles with low friction slide rails and a variety of standard widths in inches. The table top conveyor for packaging allows quick and efficient packaging for a variety of materials such as glass, plastic, paper and metal through the various elevation and directional changes of a production line.Browse Market Research Report @The global table top conveyor for packaging market is projected to grow rapidly as a result of increase in automation  a leading factor of the global table top conveyor for packaging. The growing demand for cost effective material packaging system from various industries is expected to boost the growth of the global table top conveyor for the packaging market during the forecast period. Developing industries such as automotive, retail, food & beverages and healthcare also generates demand for mechanical conveyor, fuelling the growth of the market. However, high price and maintenance cost of the conveyor can restrain the growth of the table top conveyor for packaging market during the forecast period. The requirement of the table top conveyor for packaging varies from user to user which leads to the demand of customized equipment which could be the opportunity for the global table top conveyor in packaging market.The global table top conveyor for packaging market is segmented on the basis of the material type, by configuration type, by end use application and geographical region.Based on the material type the global table top conveyor for packaging market is segmented into:AluminumSteelStainless steelThermoplasticFill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Based on the configuration type the global table top conveyor for packaging market is segmented into:HorizontalModularCompactCurvedBased on the end use application type the global table top conveyor for packaging market is segmented into:BeverageConsumer PackagingFood PackagingPharmaceuticalPersonal CareMedicalAutomotiveElectronicsIn terms of geography, the global table top conveyor for packaging market has been divided into five key regions, including North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Middle East & Africa (MEA). The global table top conveyor for packaging market has expected to register the significant growth over the forecast period. Asia Pacific has contributed the major share to the global table top conveyor for packaging market due to the rapidly developing industrialization in Asia Pacific region. North America and Europe regions are also contributed a healthy market share in terms of revenue and expected to register the moderate CAGR over the forecast period. Latin America and MEA regions are showing descent market growth and anticipated to register the healthy significant growth over the forecast period.Some of the key players of the global table top conveyor for packaging market are Nercon, Inc., Modular Conveyor Express, TRIO PAC inc., Omni Metalcraft Corp, Dorner Mfg. Corp., Benda Manufacturing, Ro-Row Wong, Storcan, A&E Conveyor Systems Company, Rexnord Corporation.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 Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) Industry 2016 Market Research Report

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) Industry 2016 Market Research Report" to its huge collection of research reports.This market intelligence report examines extensively the trends in the global Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) market. It highlights the latest market state, the progress pattern in the previous years, and the prospects present for market participants in the near future. The research methods and tools employed in the achievement of this research publication are both secondary and primary. The market intelligence study also provides facts about the investments initiated by several organizations, institutions, government, and non-government authorities and regulatory bodies.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The publication further presents a valuation of the facets that are likely to prevent or encourage the expansion of the global Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) market. The global Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) market has been examined scrupulously based on aspects such as application, technology, product, end user, and geographical segment. An examination has been carried out in the research report of the chief regional segments and their respective place and share in the Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) market. The estimated revenue and volume valuation of the global market for Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) has also been stated in the study.An estimate of the market attractiveness and the level of competition that new entrants along with their new products are likely to offer to the experienced products and players has also been delivered in the market research publication. The market report also discusses the new expansions, the innovations, branding techniques, marketing approaches, and products of the chief players operational in the global Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) market. The vendor landscape has been broadly scrutinized employing the Porters five forces and value chain analysis to deliver a strong conception of the market. The challenges and opportunities in the near future for the key participants have also been stressed upon in the research publication.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 11.1 Definition and Specifications of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 11.1.1 Definition of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 11.1.2 Specifications of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 21.2 Classification of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 41.2.1 Universal Film 41.2.2 Electrical Insulating Film 51.2.3 Capacitor Film 51.2.4 Laminating Film 51.3 Applications of BoPET 61.3.1 Packaging 61.3.2 Industrial & Specialties 71.3.3 Electrical 71.3.4 Imaging 81.4 Industry Chain Structure of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 92 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 132.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 132.1.1 PTA Price Analysis 152.1.2 MEG Price Analysis 172.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 172.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 182.4 Other Costs Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 212.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 212.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 228 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 998.1 Toray 998.1.1 Company Profile 998.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications 1008.1.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 1028.1.4 Contact Information 1048.2 SKC Films 1048.2.1 Company Profile 1048.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications 1058.2.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 1098.2.4 Contact Information 1118.3 DuPont Teijin Films 1118.3.1 Company Profile 1118.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications 1128.3.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 1168.3.4 Contact Information 118Figure Picture of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 1Table Specifications of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) Major Manufacturers 2Table Classification of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 4Figure Global Production Market Share of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) by Types in 2015 4Figure Global Comsuption Market Share of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) by Application in 2015 6Figure Packaging Materials Application Examples 6Figure Industrial & Specialties Application Examples 7Figure Card Protecting Material Examples 7Figure Imaging Application Examples 8Figure Industry Chain Structure of Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) 9Table Global Major Regions Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BoPET) Production and Consumption Status Comparison in 2015 10For Latest QYResearchreports Press Release Visit @QYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States
High Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market Global Analysis & 2023 Forecast Report

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Development of Targeted Therapeutic Drugs Drives Global HPAPI MarketThe booming oncology research and rising cases of cancer, diabetes, and other cardiovascular diseases have created a sizeable demand for dedicated treatments, thereby driving the high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient (HPAPI) market. The HPAPI market stood at a valuation of US$2.64 bn in 2014. The cost containment strategies adopted by companies through outsourcing are favoring market growth. This has brought down the cost of drugs drastically, making them affordable to a larger audience. The positive result of this trend is seen on the increased focus of companies on drug development and commercialization. As a result of these favorable trends, the HPAPI market is projected to be worth US$25.11 bn by 2023. Between 2015 and 2023, the market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 8.3%.Browse the Complete Report Details for this Market at:A promising pipeline of targeted therapeutic drugs will also help the market progress in the coming years. These drugs have minimal side effects and impact targeted areas, thereby helping the patient to recover faster with no lingering after effects. These positive perceptions surrounding HPAPIs combined with the near-expiration dates of blockbuster drugs, which will offer several generic drug manufacturers a chance to offer affordable drugs, will further the markets growth. Consistent research and development to mimic branded drugs will create alternative and cost-effective treatments for patients across the globe, thereby augmenting the growth rate of the market.Emerging Nations in Asia Pacific Becoming Hubs of Generic Drug Manufacturing, to Aid HPAPI Market GrowthAsia Pacific is the expected to be the most lucrative market for high potency active pharmaceutical ingredients due to the soaring contract manufacturing activities in the region. Analysts predict that China will surpass Japans current share of 40% in the Asia Pacific market by the end of 2025. This change will be a result of low labor costs in China, well-equipped manufacturing plants, and supportive foreign exchange policies.India will also be an upcoming high potency active pharmaceutical ingredients market due to the growing concentration of pharmaceutical manufacturing activities in the country. In the forecast period, the country is expected to be the hub for generic drug manufacturing. The growing investments by key players in India are also anticipated to boost this market in the near future. During the forecast period of 2015 to 2023, the Asia Pacific HPAPI market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 10.1%.Oncology Drugs Show Maximum DemandThe oncology drugs segment has been the leading segment of the global high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient market. This segment is expected to expand at CAGR of 8.3% during the forecast period. The introduction of innovative drugs is the primary growth driver for the oncology segment. Analysts predict that the patent expiry of blockbuster drugs such as Herceptin, Rituxan, and Humira will pave the way for generic drug manufacturers, thereby making these drugs affordable to a wide number of patients.Get the Sample PDF Report Containing the Upcoming Market Oppotunities at:Some of the leading players operating in the global high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient market are WuXi AppTec, Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC, Pfizer, Inc., Sandoz International GmbH, Novasep, Lonza Group, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Cambrex Corporation, and Alkermes plc. The fragmented nature of this market will result in strategies to acquire and merge with regional players to gain the first-mover advantage.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
New Study Revelas Global Back Support Belts Consumption 2016 Market Research Report including Impact of Existing and Emerging Market

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Global Back Support Belts Consumption 2016 Market Research Report " to it's Large Report database.The Global Back Support Belts Consumption 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Back Support Belts market.First, the report provides a basic overview of the Back Support Belts industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.Secondly, the report states the global Back Support Belts market size (volume and value), and the segment markets by regions, types, applications and companies are also discussed.Third, the Back Support Belts market analysis is provided for major regions including USA, Europe, China and Japan, and other regions can be added. For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Back Support Belts industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Read All Healthcare Market Research Reports @Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Back Support Belts1.1 Definition and Specifications of Back Support Belts1.1.1 Definition of Back Support Belts1.1.2 Specifications of Back Support Belts1.2 Classification of Back Support Belts1.3 Applications of Back Support Belts1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Back Support Belts1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status of Back Support Belts1.5.1 Industry Overview of Back Support Belts1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status of Back Support Belts1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Back Support Belts1.7 Industry News Analysis of Back Support Belts2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Back Support Belts2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Back Support Belts2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Back Support Belts2.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Back Support Belts2.4 Other Costs Analysis of Back Support Belts2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Back Support Belts2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Back Support Belts3 3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value), Sales and Sale Price Analysis of Back Support Belts3.1 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) and Growth Rate of Back Support Belts 2011-20163.2 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Back Support Belts by Regions 2011-20163.3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Back Support Belts by Types 2011-20163.4 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Back Support Belts by Applications 2011-2016About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Contact Us:Mr. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at:
Sensor Devices for Mobile Health Care Market Research Report 2025

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Mobile health, also known as mHealth, is medical care provided using mobile devices. Sensor is a type of device that detects and responds to inputs from physical environment. Advances in telecommunication and sensor manufacturing have brought new technologies and applications in mobile health care. The primary reason to use sensors in mHealth is to improve the quality of and provide easy access to health care services. Integration of sensor device into electronics enables health care providers to gather medical data, provide home care, and other preventive digital health programs. Mobile-based health care solutions can also decrease service cost.Get Sample Copy of this Report @The global sensor devices for mobile health care market is expected to witness robust growth during the forecast period owing to maturation of technology leading to miniaturization of sensor devices. Major factors propelling the market are low cost of sensors, integration of sensors into consumer devices, surging geriatric population, rise in awareness about health and fitness, increase in remote patient monitoring, and prevalence of chronic and lifestyle diseases. Surge in penetration rate of mobile and smartphone and reimbursement policies are the other factors likely to drive the global market from 2017 to 2025. Regulatory issues, privacy and security concerns, lack of clarity in health communication, and standard protocols are projected to restrain the global sensor devices for mobile health care market during the forecast period.The global sensor devices for mobile health care market can be segmented base on product type, application, and region. In terms of product type, the global market can be divided into microphone sensors, camera sensors, accelerometer sensors & geolocation facilities, and others. Based on application, the global sensor devices for mobile health care market can be segmented into health and wellness monitoring, safety monitoring, home rehabilitation, early diagnosis of disorders, efficacy assessment (clinical trials), and others. The health and wellness segment is expected to witness high growth owing to rise in awareness about fitness and health and prevalence of chronic disease.Geographically, the sensor devices for mobile health care market can be segmented into five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. North America is expected to dominate the global market in terms of value and volume, followed by Europe. Growth of the market in North America is attributed to rapid innovation of technology, rise in enthusiasm in individuals about gathering quantified data about their health, and prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle.The sensor devices for health care market in Asia Pacific is expected to experience fastest growth rate owing to improving technology, rise in geriatric population, health awareness initiatives undertaken by governments, change in lifestyle, and rise in awareness about health and fitness. China is expected to be the fastest growing market due to factors such as low cost, easy availability of the devices, and growing population.View Report @The massive potential of the worlds smallest sensor device integrated into consumer devices is the future of the global market. Hence, to maintain a significant position in the global sensor devices for mobile health care market, the key players are adopting various strategies such developing a technologically advanced and highly efficient product, mergers and acquisitions, and geographical expansion to enter into untapped market. Key players operating in the global market are Apple, Inc., Fitbit, Inc., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Samsung, and Medtronic MiniMed.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) Devices Market - Forecast, Demand, Outlook and Market Research Report

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In vitro fertilization, also known as IVF, is a type of assisted reproductive technology (ART). IVF is a fertilization process performed in the laboratory settings by retrieving a sperm sample, extracting a womans egg, combining manually the egg and the sperm in a laboratory dish, and then implanting the fertilized egg or embryo back to the uterus. IVF is gaining popularity and is highly accepted by couples facing infertility problems, LGBT community, and also single mothers. Technological advancements in IVF technology is augmenting the global IVF devices market.Get Sample Copy of this Report @The global IVF devices market is driven by increasing incidence of infertility and advancements in IVF procedures. Infertility in women may be caused due to blockage of fallopian tubes, endometriosis, lack of normal ovulation, etc. Male infertility is also a major concern globally. Additionally, lifestyle changes, late family planning, improper food habits, and rise in alcohol consumption are recognized as the causes of infertility in some countries. Furthermore, rising health care expenditure, growing awareness about infertility, and easy accessibility of IVF treatments is projected to propel the growth of the global IVF devices market. Innovative technological advancements in IVF technology such has capsule IVF and embryoscope are expected to fuel the growth of the IVF devices market.Adoption of and preference for advanced IVF technologies over conventional infertility treatments such as infertility medication are anticipated to boost the growth of the global IVF devices market. Insurance coverage for IVF is the latest trend in the IVF devices market. Insurance coverage depends upon factors such as annual income of the couple, womans age, and IVF cycles. Few states in the U.S. such as New York, New Jersey, and Maryland offer insurance coverage for IVF treatment. Insurance coverage is anticipated to encourage couples facing infertility problems to choose IVF treatment. This is expected to fuel the growth of the IVF devices market.Maintenance issues and unaffordability of high-end IVF devices limit the growth of the market. Moreover, risk of failure associated with IVF cycles cannot be ruled out. Many couples fail to conceive even after repetitive IVF cycles, leading to disappointment and financial burden. These factors are likely to restrain the IVF devices market.The global IVF devices market can be segmented based on product, end-user, and region. In terms of product, the market can be segmented into IVF work stations (cabinet), incubators, imaging systems, ovum aspiration pump, sperm separation system, cryosystem, micromanipulator systems, anti-vibration tables, and others. Based on end-user, the global IVF devices market can be segmented into hospitals and fertility clinics, clinical research institutes, and cryobanks. Hospitals and fertility clinics is the major end-user segment of the market. High revenue in the segment is attributed to high patient influx for IVF treatments at these settings and diagnostic tests performed such as sonography and ultrasound for women and semen analysis for men.Geographically, the global IVF devices market can be segmented into five major regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America and Europe are the major markets for IVF devices. Apart from these mature markets, Asia Pacific is expected to show rapid growth due to rising demand for affordable IVF services and availability of skilled personnel.Major players in the global IVF devices market include Vitrolife AB, Cook Group Incorporated, Esco Micro Pte. Ltd., Cooper Companies, Inc., Genea Biomedx, IVFtech ApS, Nidacon International AB, The Baker Company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., and Irvine Scientific Sales Company, Inc.View Report @Key players in the global HIV-associated lipodystrophy market are Novelion Therapeutics Inc., Theratechnologies Inc., Gilead Sciences Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc (Viiv Healthcare Group of Companies), AbbVie Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and AstraZeneca plc, among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Lung Cancer Therapeutics Market Research and Analysis 2025

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Abnormal cell growth can lead to cancer. Cells that grow uncontrollably invade nearby tissues and further spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system. Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in lungs. There are three major types of lung cancer: non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer, and lung carcinoid tumor. Non-small cell lung cancer is the common type of lung cancer. About 85% of lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancers. Common symptoms of lung cancer include coughing, chest pains, weight loss, and shortness of breath. Lung cancer can be treated through various types of therapies such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, vaccines, and immunotherapies.Get Sample Copy of this Report @According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer death and the second most common cancer. The global lung cancer therapeutics market is expected to expand at a rapid pace during the forecast period due to the increase in incidence of lung cancer. Cigarette smoking, pipes, cigar smoking, and constant exposure to asbestos are the key factors that can cause lung cancer. Prominent factors driving the global lung cancer therapeutics market include increase in geriatric population and rise in prevalence of unhealthy lifestyles. Availability of generic drugs, poor cancer diagnostic facilities in many countries, high cost and the adverse effect of radiation and chemotherapies are the factors likely to restrain the global lung cancer therapeutics market during the forecast period.The global lung cancer therapeutics market can be segmented based on chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiotherapy, and geography. Based on chemotherapy, the global lung cancer therapeutics market can be categorized into Gemzar, Alimta, Paraplatin, Taxotere, Navelbine, and others. Chemotherapy is usually based on the combination of drugs. In terms of targeted therapy, the global lung cancer therapeutics market can be divided into Avastin, Tarceva, Iressa, Gilotrif, and others. Based on radiotherapy, the global lung cancer therapeutics market can be segregated into external beam radiotherapy, internal radiotherapy, and systemic radiotherapy.Geographically, the lung cancer therapeutics market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. North America is expected to dominate the global lung cancer therapeutics market in the near future, due to extensive technological advancements in the region.Europe is anticipated to be the second largest market for lung cancer therapeutics owing to the large government funding in the field of research and development of novel drugs and technological advancements in the fields of cancer. The global lung cancer therapeutics market in Asia Pacific is estimated to expand at a rapid pace the during the forecast period primarily owing to the development in healthcare facilities, rise in awareness about health, and increase in government funding. In terms of revenue, the lung cancer therapeutics market in China and India is likely to expand significantly owing to the increase in population, development of economies, rise in prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle, and surge in air pollution.View Report @Key players operating in the global lung cancer therapeutics market are adopting various strategies such as acquisition and mergers, development of new and efficient drugs, geographical expansion, and strong research and development activities in order to maintain their position in the market. Prominent players operating in the global lung cancer therapeutics market include F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., AstraZeneca plc, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Sanofi, Merck & Co., Inc., Pfizer, Inc., Agennix AG, and Eli Lilly and Company.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Opioids Market Market Professional Survey Report Forecast 2025

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Opioids are the most widely prescribed medications to treat moderate to severe chronic pain. These analgesics are used to manage pain in cancer patients and also to treat severe constant pain in patients suffering from terminal illnesses. These are generally administered via subcutaneous, oral and intramuscular routes; other routes of administration include nasal insufflations, patient controlled analgesia, transdermal and oral mucosa routes via lozenges. Opioids can be classified into three major classes namely, strong agonists (fentanyl, oxymorphone, and morphine), mild to moderate agonists (codeine and hydroxycodone), and opioids with mixed receptor reactions (buprenophrine and pentazocine). Although they form one of the most widely used analgesic classes, they cause certain adverse effects such as constipation, nausea, vomiting, sedation, respiratory depression and others. However, the major concern with this drug class is the high level of drug abuse observed worldwide, leading to illegal trade of these drugs worth hundreds of billions of dollars. According to a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association in April 2011, the rate of deaths occurring due to the overdose of prescription opioids has increased substantially in the last decade in the U.S. alone. This study also indicated that high doses of opioid drugs prescribed for pain management possessed increased risk of overdose mortality in the patients.Get Sample Copy of this Report @The leading molecules in this segment that constituted about 65% of the total opioids market include OxyContin (oxycodone), Nucynta (tapentadol), Rybix and Ultram (tramadol), Exalgo (hydromorphone), Ultiva (remifentanil) and fentanyl.The remaining 35% market revenue was contributed by other generic opioids as well as combination formulations of NSAIDs with opioids.The actual market scenario for this drug class, however, could be different due to the strong product pipeline, with two major entries MoxDuo IR (morphine/oxycodone) and Remoxy (oxycodone) set to hit the market in 2016. The market entry of these two drugs is expected to boost growth of the overall opioids market during the forecast period. The number of patients suffering from chronic pain is on a constant rise globally. Thus, increasing incidence of chronic pain conditions will continue to encourage the use of pain management drugs, thereby driving the opioids market. Doctors usually prescribe medicines in the initial stages of pain, followed by other treatment options. Prescription drugs are easy to use and economical and are expected to support the growth of the opioids market globally. Prescription drug abuse is the major factor which will limit the growth of the global opioids market.The global opioids market has been segmented by type, geography, and distribution channel. The market by type includes endogenous (enkephalins, endorphins), opium alkaloids, and synthetic and semisynthetic opioids. The market for semisynthetic and synthetic opioids like fentanyl and oxycodone are expected to grow during the forecast period due to their fast and potent analgesic activity. Based on distribution channels, the global opioids market has been divided into retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, and online pharmacies. The hospital pharmacy segment is expected to support the growth of the global opioids market due to high demand for pain killers in hospitals globally.Based on geographic segmentation, the global opioids market is segmented into five key regions: Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. According to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, approximately 100 million adults suffered from common chronic conditions such as low back pain followed by migraine and neck pain. North America is expected to be a major contributor to the global opioids market since it has the maximum percentage of population suffering from pain. Europe follows closely due to high prevalence rate of various diseases such as orthopedic and cancer. India, China, and Japan are the most developing countries in Asia Pacific and hence fuel the growth of the global opioids market.View Report @The major players active in the global opioids market includes Purdue Pharma, Pfizer, Inc., QRxpharma limited, Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Mylan N.V., and AbbVie Inc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Internal Neuromodulation Devices Market 2017 - Imersion, Northern Diver, Riffe International

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Internal neuromodulation devices directly act upon nerves. It is the technology known for alteration of nerve activity directly to a target area by sending electrical or pharmaceutical agents directly to a target area. The neuromodulation devices can treat nearly every disease considering every area of body. The diseases or symptoms from headache to spinal cord damage to tremor and many others. Neuromodulation technology is significantly improving in biotechnology with its broad therapeutic scope. More specifically, it is employed to treat unmanageable chronic pain or movement conditions. According to the study on neuromodulation devices and therapies has shown that neuromodulation is a safe, effective, and long-term treatment for chronic pain and movement disorders. Patients with the diseases such as Parkinsons disease, essential tremor, primary dystonia, chronic back and leg pain associated with peripheral vascular disease (PVD), complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), and failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) can benefit from neuromodulation therapy. As the hardware becomes smaller and easy to use the implantable devices used for neuromodulation have taken a dive headlong with the introduction of smaller devices, and rechargeable systems. These systems are considered with larger but useable complexity which denotes towards the growth of neuromodulation devices segment.Get Sample Copy of this Report @The internal neuromodulation devices market can be segmented into product type, application, end-user, and geography. In terms of product type, the market can be segmented into deep brain stimulators, sacral nerve stimulators, vagus nerve stimulators, spinal cord stimulators, and other internal neuromodulation devices. The spinal cord segment of the internal neuromodulation devices market is anticipated to expand rapidly during the forecast period. The product type segment is estimated to expand significantly in the near future due to its high usage in the treatment of chronic pain. Rising gastric and chronic and nerve disability conditions are driving the expansion of the market globally. The market is anticipated to expand due to growing safety awareness and efficacy of the neuromodulation devices, increasing neurological disorders prevalence and increasing number of clinical trials, globally, for the progress of innovative technologies. Stringent approval policies and low number of trained healthcare professionals are restraining the expansion of the market.In terms of application, the market can be segmented into failed back syndrome, tremors, epilepsy, chronic pain management, Parkinsons disease, depression, urinary and fecal incontinence, gastroparesis, migraine, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and others. The chronic pain management segment accounts for a significant share in the application category of the internal neuromodulation devices market. Increasing prevalence of chronic conditions is a major factor driving the expansion of the segment. In terms of end-user, the internal neuromodulation devices market can be segmented into hospitals, clinics, and home healthcare. The hospitals segment is projected to hold prominent share in the end-user category of the internal neuromodulation devices market.In terms of geography, the global internal neuromodulation devices market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the world, North America held significant share of the internal neuromodulation devices market due to high healthcare awareness, prevalence of chronic disorders, and technological advancement in the region. Europe accounted for the second largest share of the internal neuromodulation devices market due to rising ageing population. However, Asia Pacific represent are estimated to expand rapidly in during the forecast period due to increasing awareness, gradual adoption of improved technologies, emerging health care infrastructures, increased purchasing power of hospitals, and rise in population. Followed by Latin America and Middle- East & Africa.View Report @Key global players in the internal neuromodulation devices market are Medtronic plc, LivaNova PLC, Cyberonics, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, EnteroMedics Inc, BioControl Medical, Bioness Inc., Nevro Corporation, and NeuroPace Inc. Moreover, regional players along with global players are contributing for a significant share in the internal neuromodulation devices market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market Size, Share, Insight Details Set to Grow according to Forecasts 2027

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The global healthcare big data analytics market, which broadly utilizes information for qualitative and quantitative analysis, is experiencing an industry change from volume-based solutions and repayment to esteem based pharmaceuticals and repayment. Factors, for example, the sudden accentuation on a more enhanced quality healthcare, diminished length-of-stay at hospitals, lower expenses of health and prescription, and misrepresentation recognition, is the essential requests of payers of this innovation. Moreover, higher incentives for medication, combination of big data in healthcare, and innovative headways, among others are a portion of alternate drivers of this market.Make an Enquiry @Global Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market: Key Players IBM, Cerner Corporation, Cognizant, Dell, Epic System Corporation, GE Healthcare, McKesson, Optum, Philips, Siemens, XeroxGlobal Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market: Market Growth InfluencerGlobal Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market has seen a tremendous growth in the recent years. Various factors, such as, increase in pressure to control healthcare costs, meaningful use impetuses, accessibility of big data in healthcare industry, innovative headways or technological advancements, and expansion in funding ventures are moving the development of global healthcare big data analytics market. Then again, the operational crevice amongst payers and suppliers, absence of skilled people, and high cost of analytics arrangements may confine market development. A few strengths are setting off the support in the general interest for healthcare Big Data analytics in the industry. Government agencies are empowering the utilization of Big Data in the healthcare industries. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Health Data Initiative (HDI) is beginning to discharge information from organizations like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) keeping in mind the end goal to get to open information of patients for clinical trials and other examination exercises.Global Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market: Market SegmentationFor the purpose of this study, the Global Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market is segmented into:1. By Types a. Platform/ Technologyo i. Prescriptive Analyticso ii. Predictive Analyticso iii. Descriptive Analytics2. By applications a. Clinical Data Analyticso i. Quality Healthcareo ii. Professional Performance Evaluationo iii. Reducing the incidence of medical errorso iv. Otherso b. Financial Data Analyticso i. Risk Management Analyticso ii. Revenue Generation Analyticso iii. Others3. By Components a. Software b. Services c. Consulting4. By End Users a. Healthcare b. Pharmaceuticals c. OthersAccess Report Details @Global Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market: Regional Analysis North America: In 2015, North America is required to lead the Healthcare Big Data Analytics Market and acquire the highest rate of CAGR. The high development of this area is ascribed to elected healthcare commands empowering the adoption of HCIT solutions or arrangements, positive government support, huge funding ventures for big data analytics, and the rising focus on health management population, among others. Europe: Government Healthcare policies, Emergence of Big Data, rising focus on Data Collection, technological advancement, rising awareness and Electronic Health Record implementations are the major factors driving the European market.Every report 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 also gives a broad study of the different market 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.Amanora Town Centre, Office No. 528,, Amanora Chambers, Hadapsar, Pune, Maharashtra 411028Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
LA CROSSE  Life has never been easy for Donald J. Weber.

He struggled to graduate from high school and joined the U.S. Marines Corps within days, spending three years in Vietnam as a rifleman. His decorated return from service led to nothing more than odd jobs  as well as some tough times living on the streets  before he discovered his true talent.

Don Weber likes to start and build companies.

He wasnt very good at it at first, even losing his familys home after one failure. However, he learned from his mistakes and launched Logistics Health Inc. in 1999 out of his zeal to address the medical readiness needs of military personnel  from physical exams to dental work and more.

Today, Logistics Health designs, launches and manages health and wellness programs for the Department of Defense and other clients through a national network of about 27,000 providers. It grew from scratch to 2,056 employees today and has anchored the renaissance of downtown La Crosse.

Weber told his compelling story of struggle, failure and success on Wednesday in one of the three sparkling buildings that make up the Logistics Health riverfront campus. His audience: military veterans, like himself, who want to become entrepreneurs.

His advice was simple enough: follow your passion, work hard, dont give up and dont be afraid to fail.

I learned far more from my failures than my successes, said Weber, who has started 10 companies over time.

Weber also urged the veterans to fall back on what they learned during their time in service, such as teamwork, discipline and staying true to their mission.

His remarks came at the first in a series of Muster Across Wisconsin events produced by Bunker Labs Wisconsin in concert with the UW Small Business Development Centers and the Wisconsin Technology Council. In addition to Webers talk, the La Crosse event featured seminars on the basics of building a business, finding the right resources and attracting capital. Future Muster Across Wisconsin events will follow similar outlines.

Bunker Labs Wisconsin was recently awarded a grant from the state Department of Veterans Affairs to provide programming, mentoring and networking for veterans who want to start businesses. Its part of a national Bunker Labs effort to work with veterans through chapters in 15 cities, including Madison.

For many veterans, its a program that comes at the right time.

The Greatest Generation that won World War II wasnt just great because of what they did while in uniform. When they returned from military service, they sparked a peacetime economic boom that still echoes today.

Nearly half of World War II veterans who came home in the 1940s started their own businesses. Today, veterans returning from the Middle East and other deployments in a still-dangerous world are aiming for a startup boom of their own.

About 25 percent of post-9/11 vets would like to start their own business, based on national surveys, but only a quarter of them have the resources to do so. With tens of thousands of military veterans set to re-enter the workforce, making their own job is an option for many.

Nearly 90 percent of the veterans who responded to a Bunker Labs survey said they would like to use their G.I. Bill benefit to start a small business. Nearly 95 percent said they would complete an entrepreneurial training program to do so.

Its a natural fit for many. Most veterans are disciplined, accustomed to hard work and long hours, trained to perform under pressure and equipped with specific skills that usually translate well to the private sector.

Perhaps that is why veterans own 9 percent of businesses in America, according to U.S. Census Bureau and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation figures. Veteran-owned businesses generate $1.2 trillion in receipts and employ 5.8 million workers.

Not every returning veteran will be the next Don Weber, but many have earned the chance to try. At a time when Wisconsin needs as many startups and talented workers as it can find, returning veterans will provide part of the solution.
E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market : Information, Figures and Analytical Insights 2027

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Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market by product types (disposable e-cigarette, rechargeable e-cigarette, ego and tanks, personal vaporizers and mods and others): forecast to 2027Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market: OverviewThe E-Cigarette (Electronic Cigarette) was first introduced in the year 2003, by Hon Lik in China and was available commercially in the market by 2006. The recognition of e-cigarettes touched instant base with the US and European markets. Since then this industry has been growing at a rapid pace convincing players from Tobacco industry and Pharmaceutical industry to implement several strategies to grow and sustain in the market. While top established tobacco players are securing their market positions with acquisitions and rolling out new brands. The Pharmaceutical monoliths have been acknowledged as opposing the rising trend of e-cigarettes in this fresh or fledgling market.Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market: Key PlayersThe key players present in the Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market Include Altria Group, INC, Ballantyne Brands, LLC, British American Tobacco Plc (Bat), CB Distributors, Bull Smoke, INC, Cigavette, Clearette Electronic Cigarette Co, Cloudcig, Gamucci Electronic Cigarettes, Electronic Cigarettes International Group, Fontem Ventures, Fin Branding Group LLC and others.Get a Sample Report @Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market: Market Growth InfluencerThe Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market has been mainly driven by a flurry of activities mainly including Mergers & Acquisitions, Patent Warfare, and increasing customization in products. Additionally, the emergence of Vape shops is engaging more users through their extensive variety of products and improved assistance while shopping the preferred products. However, the state and local governments proposals to charge heavy taxes on e-cigarettes is emerging as a key challenge for the Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market. Also, the compatibility issues and the unfettered manufacturing process in China are other restrictive factors in the e-cigarette market. The e-cigarette industry has come into limelight after 2012, when the tobacco giant Lorillard acquired the US based e-cigarette company, Blu Ecigs. The market was then taken over by the top tobacco giants through a series of mergers & acquisitions which has brought immediate value to the fledgling market. The giants of tobacco companies has started competing aggressively by acquiring the top e-cigarettes brands and rolled out their own brands in the market with newer and advanced technological products. Furthermore, an overall non-uniformity of regulation and taxation policies has allowed large number of players to enter into the market.Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market: Market SegmentationFor the purpose of this study, MRFR has segmented The Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market into product type. On the basis of product type, the market is differentiated into disposable e-cigarette, rechargeable e-cigarette, ego and tanks, personal vaporizers and mods and others.Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market: Regional AnalysisAsia-Pacific- Asia Pacific prolongs to be the manufacturing center for e-cigarette industry, making the region a predictable player in the supply side. More than 78% of the global production of e-liquids and e-cigarettes is done in China. On the other hand, a major share of the production and manufacturing are meant for export to the US and European market. Many Asian countries are ranked very high in the global tobacco consumption and the government is taking initiatives to bring turn down in such countrys smoking population.North America- North America is considered as the largest revenue generator in the Global E-cigarette market, with a major share contributed by the US. The relentless growth of the market can be primarily credited to the non-uniformity of regulations and the growing perception of e-cigarettes as possible smoking Cessation aid. Moreover, the study of the competitive landscape in the US has brought forward the occurrence of some of the giant e-cigarette brands which are rolled out by tobacco giants such as Philip Morris, Altria, and Lorrilard and among others.Get a Browse Report @Market Research Future introduces about Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer Market during the forecast period 2017-2027 which mainly includes the growth drivers, trends and restraints and how the market will grow in the future across the globe. In this report, Market Research Future has focused on the current market scenario which includes market segmentation, market dynamics, and competitive landscape along with company profiles.The reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:Americas- North America (US, Canada)- Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Rest of LATAM)Europe- Western Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, U.K, Rest of Western Europe)- Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia  Pacific- Asia (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Rest of Asia)- Pacific Countries (Australia, New Zealand)Middle East & Africa- Middle East (Saudi, Qatar, UAE)- Rest of Middle East (Africa, South Africa, Rest of Africa)Every report 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 also gives a broad study of the different market 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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Ultra High-speed Printers 2017 Global Key Players - HP, Xerox, Ricoh, Zebra, Fujitsu Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

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Ultra High-speed PrintersReport Details:This report studies the High Class KVM Switches market status and outlook of global and United States, from angles of players, regions, product types and end industriesTop Key Palyers:HPXeroxRicohZebraFujitsuBrotherKonicaVideojet TechnologiesCanonPrintronixClick here for sample report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Ultra High-speed Printers in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesEUChinaJapanSouth KoreaTaiwanOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoColourMonochromeOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Ultra High-speed Printers for each application, includingOfficeSchoolCommercialHomeOthersSome Major Points from Table of content:Global Ultra-High-speed Printers Market Research Report 20171 Ultra-High-speed Printers Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Ultra-High-speed Printers1.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Colour1.2.4 Monochrome1.2.4 Type II1.2.4 Type II1.3 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Segment by Application1.3.1 Ultra High-speed Printers Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Office1.3.3 School1.3.4 Commercial1.3.5 Home1.3.6 Others1.4 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 EU Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Ultra High-speed Printers (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022For Detailed Reading Please visit @7 Global Ultra High-speed Printers Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 HP7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 HP Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Xerox7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Xerox Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Ricoh7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Ricoh Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Zebra7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Zebra Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Fujitsu7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Fujitsu Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 Brother7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 Brother Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Konica7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Ultra High-speed Printers Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Konica Ultra High-speed Printers Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview..ContinuedBuy now @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About UsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042Mail :info@wiseguyreports.com
Protective relay market is expected to register a CAGR of around 6% by 2027

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Market ScenarioThe Protective relay market is expected to register a CAGR of around 6% during the forecast period. Ongoing Substation Automation projects are expected to induce growth in the Protective Relay market. The growing need of Electric Power in developed as well as developing nations will result in an imminent growth in the Protective relay market.Market SegmentsThe Protective Relay Market can be categorized On the basis of Voltage as: High, Medium and Low On the basis of Protection Mechanism it can be categorized as: Feeder, Transmission Line, Motor, Transformer, Generator, and Busbar On the basis of End User it can be segmented as: Marine, Renewable, Utilities On the basis of Regions it can be segmented as North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and AfricaRequest a Sample Report @Study Objectives of Protective Relays To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Protective Relay market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To Analyze the Protective Relay 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, South America, 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 segment by Type, EndUsers, Voltage Range and Regions To provide strategic profiling of 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, and new product developments in the global Protective Relay marketBrowse Report Details @Key PlayersSome of the key players in the Protective Relay Market are General Electric (U.S.) Littelfuse Inc. (U.S.) Eaton Corporation Plc. (U.S.) Beckwith Electric Co. Inc. (Ireland) ZIV Inc. (U.S.) Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (U.S.) Schneider Electric (France) Alstom Group (France) NR Electric (China) Cooper Industries (Ireland) ERL Phase Power Technologies Ltd. (Canada) Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Japan)Request Table of Contents for this Report @The reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:North America US Canada MexicoSouth America Argentina Brazil Venezuela Rest of South AmericaEurope Germany France Italy Spain U.K Netherlands Norway Rest of EuropeAsia Pacific China India Japan South Korea Australia Malaysia Rest of Asia-PacificMiddle East UAE Saudi Qatar Kuwait Rest Of Middle EastAfrica South Africa Nigeria Algeria Rest Of AfricaAbout 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
The global potash ore market has seen a potential growth and expected to rise -Forecast to 2027

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China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ores Market: OverviewPotash ores are the foremost raw materials which are mostly used to produce the compound fertilizers, potash and other different chemicals. The need for agriculture fertilizers is gradually rising which resulted in increase in demand for potash ores due to constraining factors such as rising global population, growing labor shortage and rural wages. The potash ore generally comprises of potassium chloride (sylvite), sodium chloride (halite), anhydrite, carbonate and silicate. The processing of potash ore is mainly done by hot leaching with further and advance crystallization of potash salt from the inundated or saturated salt brines. While preparing of potash ore, the two different primary methods are implemented. The first one is flotation i.e. mechanical method and hot leaching i.e. chemical method. Many of the manufacturers use both the methods. The flotation method is generally based on the different capacity of halite and sylvite surface to be moisturized with water through the addition of exclusively acting chemicals. The method of hot leaching i.e. chemical method is based on the physicochemical properties of water, sodium chloride and potassium chloride.China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ores Market: ApplicationThe major applications area of potash ore are agriculture industry, chemical industry and metallurgical industry. Agriculture industry is one of the major application segments of global potash ore market. Potash ore is a major fertilizer which is very helpful for plant and crop nutrition. The necessity of engaging in innovative strategies regarding agriculture production and reducing the reliance on manual labor has boosted the demand of potash ores globally. The potash ore are naturally rich in sodium chloride, potassium chloride and naturally obtained by straight shaft mining with the extracted or removed ore ground into a powder form. Potash ores are also used for industrial water treatment, soap manufacturing, photographic chemicals, food products, and textiles.Request a Sample Report @China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ores Market: Market Growth InfluencerThe global potash ore market has seen a potential growth and expected to rise as the growth of fertilizer industry in the recent years. The rising demand and consumption of food will drive the fertilizer industry thereby; the demand is expected to increase for potash ores. North America and Europe are considered as the major market and consumer for organic food. Additionally, rising concern over hygienic food, increasing disposable income, and growing population are the driving factor which has captured the global potash ore market. Along with this, huge population is concerning about healthy food which is one of the major trends in the market. Therefore increasing in the demand for fertilizer will result in the increase in the demand for potash ore globally. In Asia-Pacific, particularly in China and India, large population is dependent on agriculture however; it will be huge opportunity for the potash ore to capture the market. In the developing economies, growing disposable income has set an opportunity for the market.Browse Report Details @China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ores Market: Market SegmentationFor the purpose of this study, the global potash ores market is segmented on the basis of applications and mineral extracted. On the basis of application the global potash ores market is segmented into sodium chloride, potassium chloride and others. On the basis of industry application, the global potash ores market is segmented into agriculture industry, chemical industry and others (metallurgical industry).Request Table of Contents for this Report @China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ores Market: Key PlayersA number of industry giants in this industry are taking advantage of the inevitable need of ensuring food sufficiency through a faster turnaround of agricultural activities and entered the global potash ores market. As a result, opportunities are now emerging for other market players who are willing to bear the high risks involved in the industry due to the high cost of these chemicals.The results of the emerging strategies and developments are already hitting the market, in the form of new fertilizers (potash ores). Moreover, the growing market of the agriculture fertilizers is further expected to increase the involvement of companies across different segments of the value chain. The key players actively taking part in the Global Potash Ores Market include EuroChem, Intrepid Potash, Uralkali, Mining Associates, Agrium Inc., JSC Belaruskali, , K+S GmbH, Israel Chemicals Ltd, Elementals Minerals Limited, PotashCorp, Uralkali, Encanto Potash Corp., BHP Billiton Ltd. and among others.Market Research Future introduces about China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ore Market during the forecast period 2017-2027 which mainly includes the growth drivers, trends and restraints and how the market will grow in the future across the globe. In this report, Market Research Future has focused on the current market scenario which includes market segmentation, market dynamics, and competitive landscape along with company profiles.China, India, US & Europe (Global) Potash Ores Market: Regional AnalysisGeographically, North America is considered as the largest market for organic food, where in Canada is the biggest market followed by the US. By 2011, Canada had a production capacity of 11.2 million tones. The US is also considered as the largest consumer of potash ore. The rising demand of food and animal feed has been the major growing factor in the North America. Potash ore is a major fertilizer in agriculture, therefore in the European countries such as United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland and others, where the available arable land is more compared to other regions. However, this factor has anticipated the European market. As of now, China and India is the worlds largest consumer of potash ores due to the large arable land, huge population growth, and large employment is depended in agriculture. Additionally, growing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rate, rising disposable income, rising concern about healthy food is expected to be a growing factor in the Asian market. Asia-Pacific is one of the emerging economies, where the future market is expected to grown due to the large number of projects coming in India and farmers are practicing in the improvement in the fertilizers.The reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:Americas North America (US, Canada) Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Rest of LATAM)Europe Western Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, U.K, Rest of Western Europe) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia  Pacific Asia (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Rest of Asia) Pacific Countries (Australia, New Zealand)Middle East & Africa Middle East (Saudi, Qatar, UAE) Rest of Middle East (Africa, South Africa, Rest of Africa)At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global upper GI series market with the largest market share-Forecast to 2027

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Market Synopsis Of Upper Gi SeriesMarket ScenarioThe global upper GI Series market has seen a prospective growth in the recent years. Few years back, the diagnoses of the diseases such as Hiatal hernias, Ulcers, Tumors, Esophageal varices, esophageal reflux, strictures, enteritis, and gastrointestinal dysmotility and among other were very complex and diagnose to treat. But as time passes, the new technological development has brought the revolution in the healthcare industry. Rising awareness about the upper GI series test and governments initiatives has made a wonderful scope for the upper GI series market across the globe. Hence the market for upper GI Series is expected to grow (2016-2027)Market Segmentation Segmentation by ApplicationSegmentation for upper GI Series market involves the following applications such as Hiatal hernias, Ulcers, Tumors, Esophageal varices, esophageal reflux, strictures, enteritis, and gastrointestinal dysmotility and among other. Segmentation by Test TypesSegmentation for upper GI Series market involves the following Test Types such as standard barium upper GI series and double-contrast upper GI series. Segmentation by End UsersSegmentation for upper GI Series market involves the following end users such as hospitals, laboratories and clinics.Request a Sample Report @Key PlayersThe prominent key players present in the global upper GI series test market are GastroIntestinal Endoscopy, GastroIntestinal Specialists, Eisai US, Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited, PeaceHealth, Purdue Pharma L.P., Alfa Wassermann, NOVADAQ, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, AstraZeneca, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and among others.Browse Report Details @Regional Analysis Of Upper Gi SeriesNorth America dominated the global upper GI series market with the largest market share, and is expected to grow by 2027. Followed by North America, Europe is the second leading market in terms of revenue. The global upper GI series market expected to grow during the forecasted period.Request Table of Contents for this Report @The reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:AmericasNorth America US CanadaLatin AmericaEuropeWestern Europe Germany France Italy Spain U.K Rest of Western EuropeEastern EuropeAsia  PacificAsia China India Japan South Korea Rest of AsiaPacificThe Middle East& AfricaAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Digital Crosspoint Switches Market Analysis and In-depth Research on Size, Trends, Emerging Growth Factors and Forecasts 2023

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Digital crosspoint switches are considered as the next generation, advanced high speed packet switches. These switches are specifically designed for application in enterprise and metro networking systems for transferring digital information including data and voice traffic at a faster rate. Additionally, these switches are suited for broadcasting or transporting quality video data over the internet. Internet service providers, data centers, telecom central offices, and storage area networks utilizes or incorporates these switches, primarily for transporting digital information and data over public and private networks. Increasing penetration of internet in developing regions, along with evolving new applications, is creating new demand for high end digital crosspoint switches.Some of the major factors driving the growth of global digital crosspoint switches market is owed to the explosion of digital information including video and voice traffic during the past few years. Exponential increase in quantity of data is leading to significant demand for broadband communication network. Efficient functioning of broadband communication network is aided by advanced digital crosspoint switches, driving the market growth during the forecast period. Additionally, digital crosspoint switches supports a large number of protocols particularly specific to the data centers. Ability of digital crosspoint switches to support several protocols, data streams and clock sources is considered as another major factor driving the global digital crosspoint switches market growth.Obtain Report Details @Demand for high quality, high speed data and video transport is driving evolution of broadband networks. These digital data within the data centers are moved to storage devices through public and private networks through regional and international locations at a rapid pace. This in turn is driving the demand for advanced high end digital crosspoint switches creating new opportunities for digital crosspoint switches market in future. Additionally, demand for less expensive, compact and powerful digital crosspoint switches is further paving new opportunities for new and existing players in the digital crosspoint switch market. Overall the global digital crosspoint switch market is expected to see a robust growth due to increase in investment in network infrastructure equipments and communication semiconductors during the forecast period.On the basis of application of global digital crosspoint switches, the market can be categorized into: commercial, military, avionics, medical, and industrial among others. Major challenge faced by digital crosspoint switch manufacturers is to provide with higher data rate and larger number of ports to customers or end-users.Fill the form to Gain Deeper Insights on this Market @The market is segmented on the basis of geography into four regions: North America, Asia pacific, Europe and Rest of the world. Asia Pacific region have higher growth potential due to presence of developing countries such as India and China. Moreover, regions such as Africa and Latin America are expected to see a robust growth during the forecast period with expansion of telecom industry and increasing penetration of broadband network in these regions.Some of the key players in this market are: Mindspeed Technologies Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Analog Devices, Inc., and Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation. Other participants in the digital crosspoint switches market include: LSI Corporation, Hittite Microwave Corporation, Intersil Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, Micrel Inc., Semtech Corporation and Maxim Integrated among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR 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 wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Print Labels Market - Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2024

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A label is a piece of paper, metal, cloth or polymer which is attached to a container or box of a product which is printed with information about the product. These labels are known as printed labels. Information printed directly on the container of the product can also be considered as printed labeling. Printed labeling is used to identify products and to avoid counterfeiting of products and maintain credibility. They are also essential for creating brand identity and impart useful information to consumers. The global market for print labels is segregated on the basis of mechanism, type, raw material, printing technology, identification technology, end-use industry, and geography. On the basis of mechanism, the global market for print labels is segregated into pressure sensitive labeling, glue applied labeling, heat transfer, and others.Pressure sensitive labeling held the dominant market share in 2015 owing to the fuss-free technique and less chances of getting damaged. On the basis of type, the global market for print labels is segregated into branding labels, weatherproof labels, equipment asset labels, warning/security labels, and others. Warning/security labels held the dominant market share in this category in 2015 owing to increased demand for warning/security labels in end-use industries such as logistics & transportation, consumer durables, automotive, and construction among others. This segment is also forecasted to have the most rapid growth rate. On the basis of raw material, the global market is segregated into plastic/polymer labels and metal labels. Plastic/polymer label is further segmented into polyurethane (PU), polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and others.Obtain Report Details @Plastic/polymer label held the dominant market share in 2015 in this category. Metal label is forecasted to witness the most rapid growth rate owing to easy installation, cost effectiveness, and durability. On the basis of printing technology, the global print labels market is segregated into screen printing, digital printing, offset, flexography, and others. Digital printing held the dominant market share in 2015 due to the accurate finish and longevity of the prints. On the basis of identification technology, the global market for print labels is segregated into RFID, barcode, and others. Barcodes held the dominant market share in 2015 due to its varied uses in different end-user industries such as consumer durables, transportation & logistics, and automotives among others. On the basis of end-use industry, the global market for print labels is segregated into construction, consumer durables, automotives, transportation & logistics, and others. Transportation & logistics is forecasted to witness the most speedy growth rate over the forecast period. This is attributed to rise in warehousing & supply chain as online retailing is booming.Major drivers of the global print labels market include rise in production of consumer durable products. Compulsory use of print labels in these products is triggering overall market growth of print labels worldwide. Printed label application in the growing automotive industry is a major driver triggering overall growth of this market. Rise in raw material cost such as plastics in various forms increases overall cost of the labels which is a major restraint to the global market for print labels. Increased growth of various end-user industries in emerging countries of Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa is a great opportunity for the growth of the overall print labels market.Fill the form to Gain Deeper Insights on this Market @Geographically, the market is segregated into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. North America held the dominant market share in 2015 owing to larger presence of end-user industries in the region. Asia Pacific is forecasted to witness the most rapid growth rate owing to growth of various industries in emerging economies such as China, India, and Indonesia among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR 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 wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Network Function Virtualization Market - Current trends, Opportunities, Challenges and Forecast by 2024

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Network function virtualization (NFV) represents the shiftof focus from hardware to software in the telecom industry, with operators making loftier investments in software than in storage, server, and switch hardware. The software segment accounted for a major share in the network function virtualization market in terms of revenue contribution. Geographically, this market is distributed over North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East &Africa (MEA), and Latin America.North Americadominated the global demand for network function virtualization in 2015 and is expected to retain its position over the forecast period, thus creating considerable opportunities for market players. The U.S. is a significant contributor to the growth of network function virtualization due to the superior technological infrastructure in the country and its acceptability of innovative and niche systems such as network function virtualization which are anticipated to experience rapid growth, propelling the market in North America.The market is primarily driven by the commercial deployment of NFV by telecom operators such as Telefonica, AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink. The migration to the 5G network further pushes the need to deploy NFV technologies. Leading vendors intending to improve customer experience of network usage is also projected to play a role. Asia Pacific is a highly attractive market for network function virtualization in terms of growth potential owing to the consumer awareness in this region. Latin America is a potentially attractive market for and its share is likely to rise over the forecast period.The network function virtualization market is highly competitive with the presence of large-scale as well as small-scale global and regional vendors. All the companies race against each other to increase their respective shares of revenue in the market. This cut-throat environment is projected to further intensify with new entrants in the market, which is primarily motivated by technological upgrades of existing services. To survive and gain success in this market, it is important for leading companies to distinguish their services through a unique and clear value proposition.Obtain Report Details @Establishing communities such as Open NFV and strong partnerships are predicted to strengthen their market positions and generate revenue. Deployment of network function virtualizationis majorly implemented by service provider networks such as Telefonica, Vodafone, AT&T, and Orange. Competition between vendors offering similar solutions is more intense compared to that in the total market. In order to gain a competitive edge and to meet increasing demands, network function virtualization companies focus on providing services that increase efficiency and reliability.Key players include Brocade Communication Systems, Ericsson, Huawei Technologies, Nokia, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Juniper Networks, and VMware. Other prominent vendors in the market include 6WIND, Affirmed Networks, A10 Networks, Allot Communications, ASTRI, Amdocs, Broadcom, Ciena (Blue Planet), Canonical's Ubuntu, Citrix, F5 Networks, Dell, Fortinet, GENBAND, Fujitsu, Intel, Ixia, IP Infusion, Mirantis, Metaswitch Networks, NFWare, NEC and Netcracker, OneAccess Networks, PacketLogic, Oracle, PLUMgrid, Palo Alto Networks, Quali Systems, Sonus Networks, Radware. Red Hat, Trend Micro,Telco Systems, Wind River, VeloCloud, and ZTE.These emerging market players have been investing huge amounts of capital in research and development activities and innovation centers in order to expand their production capacities and meet the markets growing demands. In addition, major market players are extending their share in the global network function virtualization marketthrough mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and expansions.Fill the form to Gain Deeper Insights on this Market @The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR 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 wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Logistics Robots Market - Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Logistics robots are automated machines that improve the efficiency of logistics operations. The use of robots in logistic networks serves as an efficient alternative to the customary belt-based transportation system. Logistic slots and concomitant networks are designed in the zone where logistic robotics operations are desired to be undertaken. Logistic robots are self-directed floating devices enabling the easy transportation of assets/merchandises in an appositely designed logistic network.Logistic robots simplify operations in vast accommodations, such as airports and automotive work-floors, and at the same time simplify the passage activity for end-users. This distinct norm is anticipated to serve as a major driver for the logistic robot segment during the forecast period. Logistics robots are deployed by airport ground crew and factory management for the proper management of time and resources in material and goods transmission activities. The industrial sector is undergoing a revolutionary technological transformation from tangibly managed activities to automation technologies, on account of increasing global export activity. The evolution of the logistic robotic substructure as per business requirements has abridged the associated time losses and theft intimidations.Furthermore, the shortcomings of archival delivery techniques, hampering production and sales outcomes, are expected to be a key driving factor for the logistic robots market. However, high R&D investment and initial acquisition cost are anticipated to restrain the markets growth in the current scenario. Low adoption rate to technically advanced infrastructure would challenge market evolution over the forecast period that would be overawed eventually. Strong demand for logistics robots in the supply chain management and defense & military verticals would put forward immense growth opportunities in the years come.Obtain Report Details @Industrial logistics robotics projects are enduring worldwide with an emphasis on end-to-end process automation. Key to industrial robots application is keeping costs down. Adapting existing tools, implementing commercial mechanisms, and loading and unloading pallets is emerging as the best way to build viable robots.The global logistics robots market can be segmented on the basis of component, operation environment, product type, and application. Based on component, the market can be segregated into hardware and software. The operation environment segment can be further classified into warehouse, outdoor, factory, and others. Based on product type, the logistics robots market can be further divided into robotic arms, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Furthermore, the market can be segmented on the basis of application, which includes pick & place, loading & unloading, packaging & co-packing, shipment & delivery, and others.Fill the form to Gain Deeper Insights on this Market @The Asia Pacific region is anticipated to dominate the global logistics robot market during the forecast period owing to the demand for labor. With the growth of the e-commerce industry in the region, the application of robots is expected to provide increased efficiency. Additionally, North American countries including the U.S. and selective European countries such as the U.K. and France are anticipated to grow at a considerable pace in the logistics robots market to bring new automated process into various industries.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR 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 wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Wound Closure Products Market Research Report : Forecast 2022

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Baxter International, Inc., B. Braun, Cryolife, Covidien plc, and Johnson & Johnson (Ethicon) are the leading companies operating in the global wound closure products market.Injury is a common event in all age groups and varies in severity. Although majority of the injuries are healed without treatment, some injuries such as diabetic foot ulcers and pressure ulcers are difficult to treat. Wound closure can help avoid infection and can accelerate healing. Products used in wound closure include sutures, surgical staples, wound closure strips, adhesives and tissue sealants, and hemostats. Although each of these have their own advantages and disadvantages, the overall wound closure products market is growing rapidly. The global wound closure products market was valued at USD 8,750.5 million in 2014 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2014 to 2020 to reach USD 15,222.7 million by 2023.Browse full report on Wound Closure Products Market -Sutures and staples are the traditional forms of wound closure that are used extensively across the world due to low cost and higher adaptability rate among the health care staff. However, new technology hemostat products such as sealants provide obvious advantages such as faster wound closure in shorter duration of time. These also help patients avoid hospital revisit for removal of sutures or staples. Adhesives and tissue sealants include fibrin sealants, collagen-based sealants, cyanoacrylate-based sealants, albumin and glutaraldehyde sealants, and polymer-based sealants. The market for absorbable sutures is growing rapidly due to increased application in external as well as internal wound closure. Various surgical procedures such as aortic valve replacement and peripheral bypass employ combination of sutures or staples as well as tissue adhesives. Increased application of tissue sealants in surgeries such as bariatric surgeries and dental surgeries has fueled the wound closure products market. Increased prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and reluctance in the use of sutures due to development of scars and high risk of infection are the other factors driving the adhesives and tissue sealants segment.Geographically, North America dominated the global wound closure products market with a share of 39.5% in 2014, followed by Europe. Dominance of these regions was majorly due to launch of new medical devices in these regions, especially the U.S. Hence, the longer incubation period is available for the market to inflate. According to an article published in Wound Repair and Regeneration in 2009, over 2% of the population of the U.S. suffers from chronic non-healing wounds. Statistics published in the Journal of Wound Care estimate annual incidence of chronic wounds of 4 million in the European Union. Such higher prevalence and quicker acceptance of new technology have driven the wound closure products market in these regions. Asia Pacific was identified as the most lucrative market destination. India and China have also experienced a surge in prevalence of diabetes and obesity. According to the World Health Organization, 90 million adults in China and 61 million adults in India were diagnosed with diabetes in 2011. Therefore, the wound closure products market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to expand at the highest growth rate during the forecast period from 2015 to 2023.Request for sample of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Johnson Creek Premium Outlets is adding a retailer while another is expanding.

Le Creuset, a company that offers premium cookware, is scheduled to open a 1,600-square-foot store on May 15.

The 90-year-old company offers top-of-the-line kitchen goods including enameled cast iron cookware, stoneware and bakeware and kitchen tools and gadgets. The store will become the second in Wisconsin, joining another Le Creuset at Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets in Kenosha County.

Meanwhile, the Lane Bryant Outlet has reopened in an expanded 4,500 square-foot space in the south side of the Johnson Creek property, next to Loft Outlet.

Johnson Creek Premium Outlets is located at the intersection of Interstate 94 and Highway 26 in Johnson Creek and is home to 60 retailers.
A body found in Lake Mendota near Marshall Park on Thursday is believed to be a Middleton man who had been missing since early April.

The Middleton Police Department said the preliminary investigation leads police to believe it is Mark Hoover, 74, who was discovered on the west shore of the lake shortly before 1 p.m.

Hoover was last seen around 10 p.m. on April 6, police said.

Family said Hoover, who suffered from depression, had left his wallet, credit cards and cellphone at his residence.

An official identification will come from the Dane County Medical Examiner's Office, which will also release a cause and manner of death.

Madison police, Middleton police, the Dane County Sheriff's Office and the medical examiner's officer are working on the case together.

Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said a city of Madison Parks employee found the body near the shoreline.
For the second straight year, the curious will have their day in the citys Downtown.

Doors Open Madison on Sunday will feature 24 buildings where visitors have a chance to explore and learn more about the history, architecture and amenities of the structures.

They include iconic buildings like Bascom Hall, the Red Gym and the Wisconsin Historical Society building, which was constructed in 1900 and had its reading room renovated in 2010.

Other buildings in the free event, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., include: the Majestic Theatre, 115 King St.; Grace Episcopal Church, 116 W. Washington Ave., which was constructed in 1858 and underwent extensive renovations in 2015; and Bethel Lutheran Church, 312 Wisconsin Ave., whose congregation was formed in 1855 and has worshiped since 1941 in a Neogothic Revival-style stone building designed by Hugo Haeuser.

Last year, more than 2,500 people took part in the inaugural event, which was inspired by a similar event in Milwaukee, said Susan Schmitz, president of Downtown Madison Inc.

The feedback was very positive, said Schmitz. It brings in people from surrounding areas and brings people to the Downtown from outside Madison so they can enjoy the buildings.

The event also allows people to discover little-known features of the Downtown, such as the Madison Science Museum on the sixth floor of the Madison Area Technical College building at 211 N. Carroll St. The free hands-on museum, which opened in fall 2015, has four permanent and two temporary exhibits.

The tour also includes an office building at 201 N. Broom St. that was originally built as the first fire station in the city for motorized equipment. The cream-colored brick and limestone building was constructed in 1921 but abandoned as a fire station in 1966 when the city moved its operations a half block away. In 1980, Urban Land interests renovated the building that is now home to OPN Architects.

Theres so many cool buildings, Schmitz said. What we found out from other cities is that these (events) have grown and some become a whole weekend.
Madison School District Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham on Friday released a preliminary balanced budget proposal for next year that would stabilize staffing levels after two years of cuts, increase summer school pay and raise property taxes on an average home by up to $94.

For the first time, under new pressure from Gov. Scott Walkers office, the budget for next school year also could require district employees to pay 12 percent of their health insurance premiums  though the budget plan recommends doing it in a way that wouldnt actually take any more money out of district employees pockets.

Instead, the district could find cost savings and use them to raise wages and salaries to offset any increased premium charges.

We have found different ways to balance our budgets (over the past few years), despite state revenue cuts or minimal revenue growth, budget director Mike Barry said. In classic Madison fashion, weve again gone about it in our own way, and we think its a better solution.

Overall, the districts operating budget for the 2017-2018 school year would rise $8.4 million over the current school year to $389.7 million, according to the proposal.

The budget for the first time also will include spending made possible through a referendum that voters approved in November to permanently raise the districts annual revenue limit authority by $26 million over four years.

Revenues also will be boosted by an extra $9.27 million through a new agreement with the city of Madison giving the school district access to surplus funds being generated by a successful Downtown tax incremental district.

Revenues from both sources will be critically important, Barry said, in funding instruction and stabilizing school staffing levels after back-to-back years of personnel reductions totaling about 150 jobs.

An increase in school funding from the state for next year also is possible, if Walkers two-year budget plan  calling for $200 more per student in the first year of the biennium and $404 in the second year  is adopted by lawmakers this summer. However, the school district would only receive that added money, estimated at $16 million over two years, if the board complies with Walkers concurrent directive to require employees to pay no less than 12 percent of their health insurance premiums.

Barry said the board would have to comply with Walkers order on increased premiums if it becomes part of the state budget lawmakers approve, rather than lose the extra state aid. District employee premiums currently range from 1.25 percent for lower paid staff to 10 percent for top administrators, for an average of 3.5 percent.

The proposed budget estimates upping employee premium contributions to 12 percent would cost $4.5 million.

We have a plan to capture the cost of the premium increase and reallocate it to wages and salary, the budget proposal notes. If the final state budget does not include a 12 percent (employee premium contribution) requirement, the (district) will continue with its current EPC scale of 1.25 percent to 10 percent.

Increasing compensation to cover premium hikes for employees would be accomplished by finding cost savings mainly through possible changes to the three health insurance plans from which district employees can now choose coverage. Those insurance plans are from GHC, Dean and Unity, in ascending order of plan cost.

The budget team developed three health insurance-related options for board members to consider, with an administration goal of choosing one by May 1.

Those three options are:

Maintain the existing 3-HMO plan. Barry noted this option would produce no off- setting savings, leaving employees to cover the required premium increase.

Offer only the lowest-cost GHC coverage, for savings of $5.5 million to put into employee compensation.

Offer GHC or Dean coverage, capturing an estimated $3 million to $4.5 million in savings for increased compensation.

The budget team is recommending the 2-HMO option.

Beyond covering premium increases, the district savings from that option also would increase summer school pay for teachers by a total of $800,000  or from $16 per hour to $25 per hour  according to the budget document, as well as spur a $460,000 boost for starting teacher pay, to $41,096.

It appeared the districts creative approach to meeting Walkers rules on increased health premiums  which stem from a 2011 law known as Act 10 that shifted more pension and health insurance costs onto government employees  would pass muster with state officials.

If the Madison School District indeed uses the tools provided by Act 10 to achieve savings, then we believe it is meeting the spirit of the provision and will work with the Legislature to ensure it would benefit from (state aid) increases, Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said Friday.

Overall, the proposed budget also would increase pay across the board for all district staff by about 2.5 percent, over and above any raises to cover premium increases. It also includes $400,000 to adopt a $15 per hour minimum wage standard for district staff, a provision affecting some 380 educational assistants and food service employees.

The budget proposal released Friday serves as Cheathams formal recommendation for a spending plan for the 50-school district for next school year, effective July 1. It should include no big surprises for board members, because its based on feedback received by administrators in budget discussions over the past few months.

The board will begin reviewing the proposed plan at Mondays meeting, with several opportunities for discussion and public comment prior to a June 26 vote.

State Journal reporter Molly Beck contributed to this story.
Farmers and educators are joining together to support the states Farm to School program, which would be eliminated under Gov. Scott Walkers proposed 2017-19 state budget.

Nineteen groups signed on to a letter to members of the legislatures Joint Finance Committee, urging them to save the program.

The Farm to School program connects Wisconsin growers and producers to schools, daycares, hospitals, universities and other institutions.

Farm to School is an important investment in our farm economy and the next generation, said Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden.

The program allows for nutritious meals for youth in schools across Wisconsin, while also supporting local and regional farmers and processors, Von Ruden said.

In addition to the Wisconsin Farmers Union, groups that signed the letter are: the Dairy Business Association, FairShare CSA Coalition, Grassworks, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Midwest Food Products Association, REAP Food Group, School Nutrition Association of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Agri-Business Association, Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards, Wisconsin Association of Professional Agricultural Consultants, Wisconsin Cattlemen Association, Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, Wisconsin Pork Association, Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association, Wisconsin Public Health Association, Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance and Wisconsin Soybean Association.
The number of late absentee ballots that werent counted in last falls presidential election more than doubled from 2012 after lawmakers moved up their return deadline by three days, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

The increase  from 498 in the 2012 presidential election to 1,208 last fall  isnt surprising given the change in law, and the number of ballots that werent counted is still extremely small given the more than 813,000 absentee ballots and nearly 3 million total ballots cast, WEC spokesman Reid Magney said.

The State Journal reported on the little-known change in law in October. As recently as the August primary the law allowed absentee ballots to be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and received by the next Friday.

Starting with the November election mail-in ballots have to be received by a municipal clerks office no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day, which means they would have to be postmarked a few days earlier to arrive in time. The Wisconsin Elections Commission advised absentee voters to mail in their ballots a week before Election Day last fall.

The new law was enacted in March, but it wasnt set to take effect until September. County clerks had requested the change, said Chad Zuleger, a spokesman for Rep. Kathy Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Elections and Campaigns.

He added the increase from 2012 could have resulted from the election being so contentious, leading some people to wait longer to make their final decision.

Other changes in election law, such as a voter ID requirement and extended early voting hours due to a federal court ruling, received more attention in the run-up to the presidential election.

Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, agreed the number is small and noted the League isnt calling for any changes other than to ensure voters are aware of the deadline in future elections.

Its a bigger deal for those 1,208 voters who tried to vote but didnt have their ballots counted, Kaminski said. Most of them probably do not know their ballot was not counted.
It seems natural that people competing for scarce taxpayer dollars would argue about why their area is more deserving and others less so. But we dont see that. School superintendents dont complain about business subsidies, mayors dont criticize the cash paid to state universities, and Medicaid advocates dont denounce state-paid agriculture marketing. The people who receive government money in one area simply dont complain about other areas of government spending.

Thats because there is a Trough Truce: The people feeding at the trough of public dollars implicitly agree to never criticize when other spending interests receive money. Instead, they advocate for more tax dollars. Theres an unwritten agreement for the community of interests paid by public dollars to keep the peace among themselves and use each other to advocate for more resources for all troughfeeders.

Its a strategy that turns competitors into friends. The people who might become each others fiercest critics instead become allies in grabbing resources from taxpayers.

This is why tax-hike coalitions get so many partners. There was a tax-hike vote last fall for more transit in Southeast Michigan that attracted a wide group of supporters. Environmental groups, fitness advocates, a union for nurses and even a cancer awareness group signed up to support it. It is doubtful that each of these groups thought that transit spending was the best way public dollars could improve the environment, encourage exercise, give nurses better pay or improve cancer awareness. But the tax increase would mean more public dollars.

The truce, however, undermines the tactics that interest groups can use to pursue their own, specific goals.

Consider that the Michigan Municipal League, the advocacy group for cities and villages, has for years asked for more money for cities and villages from state taxpayers. But it rarely suggests where legislators can find that money.

There are not many options. More money for local governments could mean cuts elsewhere in the state budget. It could mean higher taxes. Or it could even mean receiving priority for additional revenue received by Lansing as a result of economic growth. But the league does not address the question.

A more effective technique might be to exploit the halo that some voters place on police and fire services as opposed to other areas of state spending, like the states licensing department. Yet the truce prevents advocates for local government from comparing the two.

And, perhaps because of their failure to compare, they have actually received less in state taxpayer money. As local government property tax collections increased, the state transferred fewer dollars from state taxpayers to local governments. The states discretionary transfers to local governments have dropped from $912.7 million in 2001 to $471.1 million this year. Optional state transfers to local governments have started to go up again, but its one of the areas where there have been actual cuts. (This contrasts with reductions in the growth of spending, so frequently referred to as cuts in government.)

The Trough Truce creates a kind of cartel whose members stick together to add to their mutual pot of resources. The downside is that the failure to compete over resources means there will be winners and losers if that pot of resources is reduced. Political clout and maneuvering will determine which cuts take place, and some members of the cartel wont be able to protect themselves.

The truce may only go skin deep, however. Battles over exactly how many taxpayer dollars go where happen behind closed doors in budget negotiations. There, the state police might claim that higher education appropriations are a waste of money. But if they do, such criticisms are never made public.

Its not just lobbyists who maintain the truce; politicians do as well. This is evident in the difference between how tax cuts and spending increases are treated. Spending increases happen without controversy, but many politicians consider tax cuts to be unaffordable.

Michigan is currently arguing about whether to drop the states income tax rate by a modest 0.35 percent, letting people keep a bit more of what they earn each year. A watered-down bill would let taxpayers keep $195 million more in the first year. The knee-jerk reaction from politicians within the truce is that this is just too much money. The recent $777.5 million spending increase in the state budget? Thats business as usual, just doing what needs to be done.

The Trough Truce is an advantage that the spending interests have over people who want to limit government. But it is not an insurmountable problem. Taking it on is something that think tanks, activists, and advocates are geared for. We broadcast compelling messages about free-market policies to people who will listen. We try to persuade people who are skeptical. We find new ways to save taxpayers money. We nudge lawmakers in the right direction.

We also have an advantage over the people in the Trough Truce: We can speak the truth about government spending.

James M. Hohman is the assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Chainsaw Man Season 1: The anime community is now buzzing about Chainsaw Man. Although the manga has been out for 

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The city has scaled up plans for its first major public parking garage outside Downtown, adding $2.19 million and some 200 spaces to the now $18.67 million project on the Near East Side.

Due to the changes and rising construction costs, Mayor Paul Soglin and Near East Side City Council members have proposed a budget amendment for an extra $1.9 million for the 658-space parking garage and commercial building at the corner of East Livingston and East Main streets. The other $300,000 is already available elsewhere in the city budget.

The project includes a four-story, 658-space parking garage and a separate three-story structure with 9,500 square feet of commercial space, all on a 1.7-acre parcel to be acquired from Madison Gas & Electric.

The city submitted formal plans for committee review this week for the site, which is next to two major projects coming to the south 800 block of the booming East Washington Avenue corridor.

The 800 block south-side developments are the pioneers to start the growth of employment uses in the Cap East District, said Ald. Marsha Rummel, 6th District, a sponsor of the budget amendment. The additional cost for the parking garage will help realize this growth and I am supportive.

During the day, parking will help serve Gebhardt Developments $12 million, eight-story Cosmos  which includes 100,000 square feet of office space, 8,000 square feet of retail and a music venue with a capacity for 2,500 people  and the eight-story Spark, developed by American Family Insurance, which will hold company offices and space for the entrepreneurial hub StartingBlock Madison, city economic development director Matt Mikolajewski said.

In the evening, parking will help serve neighborhood attractions such as the concert venue, Breese Stevens Field and Central Park, Mikolajewski said.

The commercial building, which would be leased or sold to a master developer, would provide space for retail, dining and artists and help enliven East Main Street, he said.

The city initially envisioned a 450-space garage with the potential to expand to 600 spaces for $13 million. But as the Gephardt and American Family projects became more refined, city staff supported the full 600-space facility and the council increased the budget to $16 million late last year.

The costs would have been covered by $7 million in tax incremental financing supported borrowing, $5 million in general borrowing, $3 million in Parking Utility reserves and $1 million in land acquisition funds.

But further analysis revealed the need to buy a slightly larger site from MG&E, which increased land costs from $1 million to $1.2 million. Design and program requirements and rising construction costs pushed the total project cost to $18.67 million.

To address the $2.67 million budget gap, staff identified cost reductions totaling $482,674. The remaining $2.19 million would be covered by $300,000 from Parking Utility equipment reserves, $592,400 in Parking Utility reserves, $1 million more in TIF supported borrowing, $85,000 from MG&E remediation expenses and $213,072 more from the land acquisition fund.

The $300,000 is already in the Parking Utility budget, so Soglin, Rummel and Ald. Ledell Zellers, 2nd District, on Tuesday introduced a budget amendment for an extra $1.89 million. City committees will review the request with a final council decision expected in May.
BLOOMINGTON  An Ohio woman said she was "fearing for her life" when she shot an intruder who tackled her after she discovered him in the garage of her parents' south Bloomington home early Friday morning.

"Anything could have happened by just the way he lunged at me, and I had the gun in his face and told him not to come out because I would shoot," said Kim Sinnott of Hamilton, Ohio. "He probably thought I wouldn't shoot."

Sinnott was still shaking nearly 10 hours later as she recalled details of the incident. She and her twin sister, Tamie Lesher, also of Hamilton, Ohio, had arrived at their parents' home in the 700 block of South Clayton Street on Thursday night for a visit to celebrate their father's 75th birthday.

"About 1:30 a.m. the alarm went off in the house. We noticed the light on in the garage. We saw somebody walking in the garage," said Sinnott.

Sinnott's mother handed her her father's .32-caliber handgun while her sister grabbed a pipe, and they walked outside to the detached garage.

"I told him that I had a gun. I was standing there looking at him with the gun pointing at him," said Sinnott. "I told him a hundred times not to come out because I had a gun and that I would shoot and that we were waiting for the cops, that we had the cops on the line right now."

The intruder opened up the overhead garage door and "lunged at me and tackled me, and we wrestled all the way over to my sister's car," said Sinnott.

"He grabbed me and pulled me down and that's when I shot (him), and he ran off that way," she said, pointing to the 900 block of Clayton Street where police apprehended the suspect.

"When he grabbed me and pulled me down I was fearing for my life," said Sinnott. "I shot him just for him to let me go. I don't know if it was in the leg or in the foot. I was scared to death."

The suspect, 21-year-old Mykale B. Davis of Bloomington, was taken to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said. He has been charged with one count of burglary and one count of battery.

Davis was held at the McLean County jail in lieu of posting $5,270, a bond that includes $200 for an unrelated misdemeanor theft case. First Assistant State's Attorney Adam Ghrist asked that a previous personal recognizance bond in the pending misdemeanor case be revoked.

A May 21 arraignment is scheduled.

Police continue to investigate the incident, including whether the gun was registered. The state is also reviewing it, "but based on the facts at this time no charges are anticipated" against Sinnott, Ghrist said.

The city rarely sees this type of intruder shooting.

"There have (only) been three the last decade," said Bloomington police public information officer Elias Mendiola.

Sinnott said she was not injured, but was "still shook up because I had my granddaughter in (the house) with my parents. My folks aren't doing too well. They're elderly."

The sisters were born and raised in the house where their parents still reside. Their parents added the alarm system after a previous burglary.

In this latest incident, the sisters said the intruder made himself at home, getting a soft drink out of the refrigerator in the garage.

"He was scoping out the tools, opened some doors and checking on his work bench," said Lesher.

Sinnott said nothing like this has happened to her before, "and I hope it never happens again."

She confronted the intruder because she felt she needed to protect her parents and her 13-year-old granddaughter. Sinnott has been raising the girl since her daughter died 11 years ago. Her husband died of cancer about 1 years ago.

"God doesn't give you anything you can't handle, but I'm about done," said Sinnott, who was wearing a shirt with the words live, love and laugh on it.

"That's what I try to do."

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Detective Steve Moreland at 309-434-2359 or smoreland@cityblm.org, or Detective John Atteberry at 309-434-2548 or jatteberry@cityblm.org.
NORMAL  Heartland Community College will begin a new program this fall that will allow students who are at least 25 years old to quickly earn an associate's degree in business while attending classes two evenings a week and online.

Fast Path is designed for post-traditional students who will take a combination of in-person and online classes part time to complete the degree in two years.

Twenty-two students will be selected for the first group or cohort. They will take classes as a group, moving through the curriculum.

Lindsay Eickhorst, Heartland's director of enrollment services, said the cohort approach works well because they can build a learning community that they can bounce ideas off of and get support from.

Eickhorst will serve as the adviser for all students in the program to provide consistency.

I'll stay with them throughout the program, she said. We can build that relationship.

Classes will meet from 6 to 8:30 p.m. two nights a week. There will be eight-week sessions, with each student in the program taking the same classes, with few exceptions.

Rick Pearce, vice president for learning and student success, said the college has been working on the idea for more than a year.

We reached out to some of the major employers around here to see if such a program would meet their needs and whether their employees would be eligible for tuition reimbursement, said Pearce.

He declined to say which employers were contacted, but said the college received a positive response.

Lincoln College has a similar model, leading to a bachelor's degree. Western Illinois University has a program that is completely online.

Community colleges with similar programs include Rock Valley College, Harper College and the City Colleges of Chicago, according to Pearce.

Although the format is different, Fast Path is essentially a transfer program. Its graduates will be able to transfer to other schools to complete a bachelor's degree.

Pearce said Heartland has worked with Illinois State University  the most likely institution to which students would transfer  to ensure its curriculum aligns with ISU for a smooth transition.

The program is aimed at older students because if you're going to take a program like this, you have to bring some life experience into it, said Pearce. It's not for a traditional student who wants to hurry up.

The name for the program came from Kelli Hill, vice president of continuing education and advancement.

Hill noted that Heartland promoted a Guided Path to Success and this is just a faster path, so the name Fast Path was chosen.

Prospective students must be at least 25 years old, have a high school diploma or GED diploma and meet required placement levels in literacy and math. More information is available at heartland.edu/fastpath.
Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories The Pantagraph will publish on the challenges facing people after their release from prison, including issues in housing and employment, and re-entry efforts at the state and federal levels.

NORMAL  Individuals returning to the community from prison have about a 50 percent chance of success as they navigate a system with few options for housing, employment and support, according to speakers at Thursday's Central Illinois Offender Reentry Symposium.

Some of the strongest calls for more services for former offenders were offered by speakers who have worked in the criminal justice system.

Keynote speaker Rodger Heaton, who serves as the state's director of public safety and is a homeland security adviser to the governor, admitted he spent little time during his 18 years as a federal prosecutor "reflecting on what happens to the guy once he's finished his sentence."

Former McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery, who now serves as law enforcement coordinator for the U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois, told the audience at Illinois State University's Bone Student Center that he spent his first 25 years with the county enforcing the law before he was elected sheriff in 2006 and inherited an overcrowded, inefficient jail.

Retired Chief Judge Elizabeth Robb spent more than two decades on the bench in the 11th Judicial Circuit on cases that sometimes ended with a prison sentence.

Heaton noted that about 30,000 of the state's 48,000 inmates will return to their communities annually. The failure of about half of those inmates to stay out of prison costs taxpayers about $40 million each year, said Heaton.

Drawing on his work with the Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform, Heaton said extensive change is needed to a system that offers little to those leaving prison. Increased access to mental health and substance services is critical, said Heaton, "otherwise we'll make our own contribution to the revolving door."

One of committee's recommendations is a review of the restrictions on 40-plus professional licenses available to felons in Illinois. Heaton pointed to the irony that the Department of Corrections offers job training for barbers and manicurists  two professions that were barred to felons.

Emery shared his experience with helping to form the McLean County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council as an example of the positive results that can be realized when all the players in the justice system come together. Initially formed to address jail overcrowding that cost the county over $700,000 in 2008, the CJCC spearheaded changes that essentially eliminated by 2012 the cost of housing inmates elsewhere.

"We adopted the belief that people should be in jail because we're afraid of them and not because we're mad at them," said Emery.

Robb, who also served on the state reform commission, recalled her feelings when sentencing a person to prison.

"In my mind that was a sentence to be warehoused," said Robb. With few resources available, "there is not much hope when you are released," said the retired judge.

Robb said she is encouraged by the governor's directive to the reform commission to develop a plan to reduce the state's prison population by 25 percent by 2015.

The tough challenge of housing is being addressed by two agencies represented at the seminar.

Kelly Kleiman, project manager with BOTEC Analysis, is looking for apartments for 30 state inmates in Peoria and 30 in Rockford. The inmates will be moved to the Hill and East Moline Correctional Centers for 90 days where they will prepare for their transfer to apartments and a program designed to help them develop living skills and find employment before their release.

Jim Simkins, residential re-entry director with Human Service Center, assists federal inmates integrating back into the community. The Peoria center is one of four in Illinois to provide housing for up to six months.

The event was organized by ISU associate professor Jeff Walsh and sponsored by ISU's department of criminal justice sciences and Criminal Justice Association.
Cheers

... to Illinois Wesleyan University, and other schools, that have taken a look at the abilities, interests and future work of the current generation and added to their offerings ... e-sports.

Or, if you're unfamiliar with the term, intercollegiate competitive online video games.

To the older set, it may seem a stretch to pay good money for a university education that supports such an idea, but the computer literacy, teamwork, and strategic thinking needed for game success are the types of skills needed for tomorrow's leaders and businesses.

Cheers

... to the many people who volunteer for Faith in Action, a nonprofit that helps seniors and the disabled with errands, friendship and caring.

Faith in Action had to put a hold on the number of clients it serves because it did not have enough volunteers, but a recent plea brought forth more of this community's good-hearted souls to help  and now Faith in Action is accepting more clients.

Jeers

... to the state of Illinois, for not strengthening its DUI laws.

Last week, a couple and their children escaped serious injury when their SUV crashed into a utility pole in Bloomington. Turns out the driver had been issued a DUI the day before; was issued a DUI in connection with the accident; and had several DUIs on his record.

At what point is enough enough? At the very least, after more than two DUIs, an offender should permanently lose his or her privilege to drive.

Cheers

... to the nominees of this year's Women of Distinction awards, a record year of 40-plus nominees.

Many of this year's crop are new names to the nominee list and we're glad to see so many people who deserve the honor being recognized with a nomination.

Sign up

... During spring and early summer, schools, colleges and foundations distribute hundreds of scholarships, awards and honors.

Many are available to the general public. One example: The Pratt Music Foundation offers scholarships for piano and strings lessons. The foundation provides scholarships for individual instruction for K-12 students with financial need.

There are many other such programs throughout Central Illinois. If you have a student or adult who is interested in a specific program, or is worthy of a special award, start talking to high school or college counselors. Help is out there.

Cheers

... to the Children's Advocacy Center project that collects backpacks and suitcases for children in foster care, who previously relied mostly on plastic trash bags to carry their clothes, toys and books from one home to another.

Cheers

... to the Central Illinois Holiness Association for its plans to broaden its use at the association's grounds on Jersey Avenue in Normal.

It's a wonderful site and can be used for many community events.
I hope that everyone who is a voter and concerned constituent was able to attend U.S. Rep. Darin LaHoods town hall meeting in Washington on Wednesday. We need to remember to hold our elected officials accountable and we must question what each of our officials says and does. Town halls offer one way we can live up to those huge responsibilities we have as citizens.

In particular, we need to consider to whom or to what our elected officials may be beholden. For instance, data for Congressman LaHood, from the Federal Election Commission, paints an interesting picture. From Jan. 1, 2015 through Dec. 31, 2016, about 6.5 percent of U.S. Rep. LaHood's contributions came from small donors (each less than $200) and about 42.1 percent came from committees (PACs and similar). For the first three months of 2017, the portions are 6.9 percent and 64.2 percent, respectively.

For another Central Illinois congressman, U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, using data from the Center for Responsive Politics, we see that 70 percent of his campaign funds for 2016 came from PACs. That's more than $1.8 million. Only about 4 percent (approximately $116,000) came from individuals contributing less than $200 each.

To whom or to what will LaHood and Davis more likely respond, and, perhaps, vote in support of? Explore these and other campaign finance data sources and you'll have a pretty good idea.

Roger Day, Bloomington
Illinois voters will decide Tuesday whether to amend their state constitution to guarantee the right to bargain collectively. The fate of the ballot measure is being closely watched in Illinois and beyond. Unions and pro-industry groups say it could signal a new chapter in the struggle over workers rights as U.S. union ranks have grown. They view it as a way to ensure that workers will always be able to use their collective clout to secure better pay, hours and working conditions. Business groups and conservatives oppose the measure, saying it will drive up taxes, give unions too much power, lead to more strikes and prompt companies to leave for more industry-friendly states.
Columbia County authorities are warning people living in low-lying areas near Portage along the Wisconsin River that flooding could take place this weekend.

The river was just below 17 feet at 1 p.m. Friday, according to the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, and is expected to reach minor flood stage of 17 feet and crest at 17.5 feet on Saturday.

Flooded roads are expected in the lower areas of Blackhawk Park, including Blackhawk Road, West Lane Road, Old River Road and Lake Road, Columbia County Emergency Management said on Friday.

"Local authorities will continue to monitor the situation and provide updated information as it becomes available," said Kathleen Johnson, emergency management coordinator.

Columbia County also issued a slow, no-wake order on the Fox River to protect waterside property, with the order in effect until further notice.




Nose Earring (Gold)  John Baldessari, 20161, Courtesy the artist, Marian Goodman Gallery and Hauser & Wirth, Photo: Alex Delfanne

Hauser & Wirth (32 East 69th Street) launches their "Portable Art Project" on Thursday, April 20, 6 to 8 p.m., featuring wearable works by fifteen artists. Organized by Celia Forner, the exhibition includes one-of-a-kind pieces and limited editions by artists including John Baldessari, Nate Lowman, Paul McCarthy, Pipilotti Rist and Michele Oka Doner. On view until June 17. Also on the night: H&W opens an exhibition of 40 large-scale works by the late German photographer August Sander.





Via the Guggenheim

The Guggenheim (1071 5th Avenue) opens an exhibition called "Life Is Cheap" by 2016 Hugo Boss Prize winner Anicka Yi on Friday, April 21, and on view until July 25. The self-taught artist often works with scents, and the works here include several inflatable dioramas that combine samples of sweat from Asian-American women with the smell of carpenter ants. While you're in the museum, check out Doug Wheeler's "PSAD Synthetic Desert III" and Maurizio Cattelan's 18-karat-gold (functional) toilet, "America."





Via Center for Book Arts

Still arranging your books by spine color? Perhaps you"ll get some fresh ideas at The Center For Book Arts (28 West 27th Street, 3rd floor) latest exhibition, "En Masse: Books Orchestrated," opening on Friday, April 21, 6 to 9 p.m. The group show was organized by Osman Can Yerebakan and features works by over fifteen artists who "utilize book arrangement in their practice." Up until July 1.





Amy Douglas, via Jack Hanley Gallery

Jack Hanley Gallery (327 Broome Street) opens "The Unfortunate Souvenirs of Our Time" featuring reconfigured pieces of broken Staffordshire ceramics by Amy Douglas on Friday, April 21, 6 to 8 p.m. The UK artist is a noted art restorer who also collects and, for this show, brings destroyed 19th century pieces back to life "with a surreal twist." On view until May 21.





Truman Caopte, 1948 by Irving Penn, via the Metropolitan Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrates the centennial of Irving Penn's birth with a big retrospective opening on April 24 and up until the end of July. Over 200 photos by the acclaimed American photographer are included. Look for portraits of Truman Capote, Picasso and Ingmar Bergman; as well as shots of tribesmen in New Guinea, flower studies and studies of his wife, Lisa Fonssagrives.





Julius von Bismarck via Marlborough Contemporary

Marlborough Contemporary (545 West 25th Street) opens three shows on April 19, 6 - 8 p.m.: Julius von Bismarck's "Good Weather," New York-based artist Lucas Ajemian's "A clean glitch..." and -- in their viewing room -- Betty Tompkins' "SMALL." All are up until May 20. Not sure what Tompkins is showing here, but she's known for her explicit imagery of "intimate acts."





The Public Art Fund's 40th Anniversary Spring Benefit Auction is Thursday, April 20, 6:30 p.m., at Metropolitan West (639 West 46th Street). The night will raise funds to bring more works of art to NYC with cocktails, dinner, auction and (of course) an afterparty. Also check out artist projects by Jesse Hamerman, Oliver Herring, Anna K.E., Tabor Robak and B. Wurtz. Tickets are HERE.

Also celebrating four decades supporting the arts in NYC, The Drawing Center's 40th Anniversary Spring Gala is Tuesday, April 25, 6:30 p.m., at Capitale (130 Bowery) They'll be honoring four artists: Marcel Dzama, Teresita Fernandez, Rashid Johnson and R.H. Quaytman; plus Billy Martin is the night's musical director. Tickets are HERE.





tedted via Facebook

The Hollows art space (151 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn) continues their month-long performance/studio series with the tedted group's performance of "Pressing On" at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 21; followed by Ashley Robicheaux's dance-theater piece "Mattress" at 8 and 9:15 p.m. Space is limited, please rsvp to hello@hollows.info





The Wanderer, 2016 by James Hsieh, via Parsons

The New York Academy of Art (111 Franklin Street) hosts their annual MFA Open Studios on April 21, 6 to 9 p.m. Check out over 100 artist studios. Parsons School of Design hosts their 2017 MFA Thesis Exhibition with an opening on Thursday, April 20, 6 to 8 p.m., at Westbeth (55 Bethune Street). The two-day International Studio & Curatorial Program (1040 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn) Spring Open Studios starts on Friday, April 21, 6 to 9 p.m. And SVA's MFA Photography, Video and Related Media (214 East 21st Street) program opens a show of student work on April 21, 7 to 10 p.m.

Header image by Irving Penn via the Metropolitan Museum.


The investigation into the sexual harassment claims of the assistant to the former Dean of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, Sujit Choudhry, against her boss has officially ended, with the university coming to a disciplinary decision that sounds like no discipline at all, really. Quelle freaking surprise.

According to a settlement agreement between Choudhry and the University, Choudhry will reportedly remain in "good standing" with Berkeley as a faculty member with his own office until he "voluntarily" steps down next year. He will not be charged, and will be dropping his suit against the school. While he won't be teaching in his final year, he will still receive funding for research and travel reimbursements which total to just under $100,000 dollars. "This is a reflection of the university once again not taking this issue seriously, and it's a reflection of privilege breeding privilege," Sorrell's lawyer, Leslie F Levy, said to the Guardian in an interview.

When the allegations of Choudhry kissing, messaging and caressing assistant Tyann Sorrell as well as other female employees came to light, the university decreased his pay by 10 percent  from $472,917 to $373,500  and he was forced to write a letter of apology to Sorrell. (Choudhry also penned a column defending himself where he cited an email from Sorrell saying, "I know you don't mean anything by it, other than, perhaps, a warm and friendly greeting." The Berkeley Office for Prevention of Harrasment and Discrimination report cites an email that says "she was 'upset' with him, and that his conduct caused her a 'significant amount of stress and anxietyfor a very long time.'")

When Sorrell questioned why a man who had been accused of sexually harassing his inferiors was allowed to remain in his position, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Claude Steele responded that any further action would "ruin" Choudhry's career.

"This deal insults all who suffer harassment at the hands of those with power and privilege," Sorrell said in a statement following the settlement.

[h/t Jezebel]



This article's headline and body has been updated to reflect that Professor Sujit Chaudhry did not admit to sexual harassment of his assistant.



Image via Getty
Happy 4/20, y'all! While state laws legalizing medicinal marijuana -- not to mention recreational marijuana -- are, in some cases, a relatively recent phenomenon, PAPER's been pro-pot legalization for decades. As far back as March 1993, we dedicated our cover story to an exploration of the growing legalization movement. Back then, we took a look at the diverse constituencies -- "rockers, rappers, Dead Heads environmentalists and AIDS patients" -- fighting for marijuana to go mainstream and the changing role weed has played in our culture over time. While we might still be years away from following in the footsteps of our neighbors to the north and introducing legislation that would make weed legal throughout the entire country, as this feature reminds us -- we've come a long way, baby.



Mary Frey on the cover of our March 1993 "Pot Is Hot" issue, shot by Haim Ariav



Pot Smoke Is Hot



A politically correct hemp movement is spreading like wildfire.

Hemp, cannabis hemp, muggles, pot, marijuana, Mary Jane, reefer, grass, ganja, bhang, blunt, cheeba, "the kind," dagga, herb, weed, smoke. There are many words to describe a plant we have come to know as a basically harmless recreational drug of the '60s. As hard drug casualties mounted and 12-step programs prospered in the '80s, attitudes changed and pot got a bad name. The War on Drugs raged on, and many pot smokers retreated to the closet for fear of being stigmatized in an era of urine testes and corporate orthodoxy.

And then it happened. Little more than a year ago, T-shirts bearing the logo of the Phillies Blunt, a cheap cigar of the inner cities, started popping up with uncommon regularity. Those in the know smiled when they saw the ovoid Phillies Blunt logo because they understood the coded message: a blunt is a joint made of marijuana rolled up in the inner leaf of a Phillies. Soon Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz wore the T-shirt on MTV and B. Real of Cypress Hill -- whose hit album is littered with references to marijuana -- sported one in a video.

No longer a retro-issue, pot smoking is now cool with a new generation, looking at it through a different set of binoculars. And they are not alone. Over the past 10 years, another branch of the family tree has been rethinking its views on marijuana and coming up with some startling, revolutionary ideas. Out in San Fernando Valley, California, Jack Herer and Capt. Ed had founded an organization called HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition), focusing on educating the public on the wonders of the plant -- and its medicinal, agricultural, economic and environmental potential. More importantly, he published The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition & How Hemp Can Still Save the World, a book that has become an underground classic, photocopied and passed along head-to-head. With The Emperor as its rallying point, the dormant movement was revived and suddenly politically correct again. Pro-pot people were now hemp activists out to change the world.

And why not? We'd seen it happen once before when a coalition of leftists, pot heads and common citizens marched to stop the Vietnam War. In its day, that seemed as unlikely a possibility as the legalization of hemp must appear today. But dig it. We used to be afraid of the Communists. And whatever happened to the Berlin Wall?

The AIDS epidemic has also added pressure on the government to approve marijuana for medical use. Smoking marijuana can stimulate the appetites of AIDS patients. It is known to relieve the symptoms of cancer treatments like chemotherapy as well as multiple sclerosis and glaucoma.









(HIGH) TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'



To find out how rockers, rappers, Dead Heads, environmentalists and AIDS patients are coming together to save the world, we went to High Times magazine and met with Editor in Chief Steve Hager. Like the culture it covered, HT was mired in the past, but with the arrival of Hager in 1987, its fortunes changed as it began to focus on the budding hemp movement. "I think the big turnaround came when we got hold of Jack Herer's book. It blew my mind," says Hager. "After our issue came out with Jerry Garcia on the cover and an excerpt of the book inside, that was it. The Dead Head underground spread the story everywhere. And it totally changed a lot of people's perspective on the plant."

What they found when they read The Emperor was a wealth of information about hemp that had been buried by history and by powerful corporate interests. Their reaction was similar to Herer's when he made his powerful discovery. "When I joined the movement, the prime reason was I smoked pot and I wanted it legal. Then I met some kids -- this was back in 1973 -- who told me that hemp used to be paper, fiber, used to sew rugs... Along about 1974 my partner Capt. Ed and I had a vision -- we were stoned at the time -- and we said, you know it really grows better than any other plant. It grows the biggest and the best with the least amount of chemicals. And it's the only plant on earth that leaves the ground healthier for having grown there. I just had to say that to myself 700 or 800 times. And once we had come up with that conclusion, we came up with others."

The Emperor is an eye-opener, possibly even one of those rare works -- like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, The Pentagon Papers -- that will change the way people and the government think and act. Recently, Herer's found a new audience for his views in Hollywood. "There are three or four screenplays being written on hemp right now. I've been spending more time at Beverly Hills and Bel-Air parties explaining this to people in the last three months than I did in the last 17 years."

He's telling them how hemp was widely available until 50 years ago when it was outlawed, how it was used medicinally in many parts of the world until the turn of this century and how young entrepreneurs are now buying up as much hemp as they can get their hands on. He'd tell of DuPont's interest in outlawing hemp in favor of cotton so they could sell pesticides that protected the plant and ruined the environment; and of the Jim Crow origins of the anti-marijuana laws.

But no amount of cajoling, arguing, convincing or rationalizing could have brought people around if it wasn't for the War on Drugs. Larry Sloman, editor of High Times from 1979-84, and author of the seminal book Reefer Madness, saw it coming. "In the '60s pot was tied into a social movement that was about expanding one's mind, being anti-establishment and anti-war. By the time I left no one wanted to know anymore. They were just using pot to get blotto."

What woke these people up was the War on Drugs. Penalties for dealing became harsher, driving prices up and many low-level dealers out of the business. It got to the point where it was easier to buy crack on the corner than pot. Over at HT they were feeling the effects of the war as well and steering their readers toward new ways of attaining the weed. "We said stop buying drugs from criminals. Let's just grow it ourselves," says Hager.

High Times' growing constituency now includes not only rockers like the Black Crowes, but rappers B. Real of Cypress Hill and Redman -- who appeared on the magazine's cover extolling the virtues of hemp and showing off their blunt-rolling abilities. To many in the inner cities, blunts have become a natural-high drug-of-choice, replacing harder options whose devastation can be clearly tracked throughout the neighborhood. As clearly as rap is anti-hard drugs, it is pro-pot. For every anti-drug anthem by KRS-1 or Public Enemy, there's also songs like Redman's "How to Roll a Blunt," Cypress Hill's "Stoned is the Way of the Walk," Tone Loc's "Mean Green" and Goldmoney's "W-E-E-D."

Over at NORML, the oldest advocacy group for the legalization of marijuana, they are feeling the vibrations. Long dormant -- and considered by Herer and others to have been a hindrance to the hemp movement -- it's waking up, says Coordinator of Special Events Dan Wooten from his Washington, D.C. office. "This year it's medical marijuana we are focusing on. We should start research immediately on this medicine and its uses. It's the humane, compassionate thing to do. We have the largest closet army of any issue. Once we get it going, the politicians are either going to have to do it -- or get out of the way."









GRASS ROOTS



The recent national "grass" roots marijuana movement has only just begun. Still in its formative stages, and just now coalescing, observers agree that we are seeing only the germ of a social, political and cultural movement whose full impact and size we may not know for years to come. What we have now is only an inkling of just how broad a base of support there is already for some form of legal and social acceptance of marijuana: from far-right Conservatives like William F. Buckley to the ACLU to Clinton's nominee for surgeon general Dr. Jocelyn Elders; from fashion to rap to rock 'n' roll, there's a vast structural framework already in place capable of mobilizing a massive voice for change.

PAPER columnist Steven Blush, publisher of Seconds magazine and writer for HT, was among the early few to spot the scope of such an alliance between rock, rap, youth culture and pot. "I began to notice that musicians across-the-board were talking about smoking, about the ecological and health benefits. Pot appealed to everyone for different reasons, including leftist alternative rockers like Nirvana, who are attracted to the p.c. hemp politics, rock bands that just like to get stoned and rappers like Cypress Hill who bring in an Afro-Earth sensibility." A major event in this burgeoning movement was a panel Blush organized and moderated at the New Music Seminar last summer, "Pot in Pop: Let's Be Blunt," which included Cypress Hill's B. Real, Dave Windorf of Monster Magnet, Rude Boy from Urban Dance Squad, Rum-DMC/De La Soul manager Mike Scott, Sub Pop's reluctant champion of Seattle grunge rock Bruce Pavitt and representatives from HT and NORML. "Everyone came to laugh at a bunch of stoners," explains Blush. "We were all stoned, but it turned out everyone had plenty to say and did so in a relatively intelligent fashion." These talented and successful figures know how to express themselves, and they're the ones people actually listen to.

For all the appeal of pot culture's current array of spokesmen, a great deal of their success in reaching an audience has to be attributed to the fact that the audience was already there. Jack Herer, who opened the eyes of so many to the promise of pot and the ongoing conspiracy against it; Willie Nelson, the first real megastar to publicly endorse marijuana and come out of the proverbial closet as a user (even admitting to having smoked it at the White House while a guest of President Carter); Cypress Hill, The Beastie Boys, Gangstarr, De La Soul, Tone Loc, Sinead O'Connor, Black Crowes, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, Slayer, Tad, Primus and the Butthole Surfers; clothing designers like GAT, GFS, Weedwear, 555 Soul, who's helped to make pot fashionable -- all have helped promote a pro-pot message to their respective audiences.

GFS (an acronym for its three creative founders Gerb, Futura and Stash) formed their street-hip fashion/design company, Not From Concentrate, in late '91 and produced one of their first T-shirts, Phillies Blunt, in January 1992. GFS started out by just giving the shirts to their friends in the know, including Beastie Boy Ad Rock and B. Real of Cypress Hill. Soon these bands started wearing their shirts onstage, in magazine fashion shoots and on TV, where they not only talked about their music and their careers but about pot itself. Next thing you know Phillies Blunt was everywhere -- on the media and on the streets. "It totally changed our lives," Futura admits, pleased but a bit overwhelmed by all the attention. "We were sitting around in the summer of '91 listening to the Cypress Hill record and it was like, 'Yeah, we support that shit.' They really kicked the doors open."

How big has this national cheeba fever gotten? That so many, including our current President and Vice President, have at one time smoked dope is ammunition on some level for pot activists and proponents, but it's not really indicative of this magical plant's rising status within the youth culture. The potency of today's marijuana movement is one that could have only come about socially after pot was totally reinvented as a cultural term. Marijuana as a contemporary signifier bears little resemblance to its previous incarnations as a hippie icon. Pot today is no longer an Aquarian Age plant of Flower Power; It is the fin de siecle peace symbol for the '90s appropriated in the subcultural discourse of sharp, smart, chic fashion; a sociopolitical flag around which urban hip-hop society rallies for a more benevolent, positive and peaceful escape; and an end-of-the-millennium organic god-given solution to the ecological horrors now threatening our planet.





One number that does stand out is the "head" count of some 60,000 attending last spring's Third Annual Great Atlanta Pot Festival. What brought the congregation at the Atlanta Festival to such massive proportions? The answer is simple, and right on the money when it comes to understanding the renewed cachet of pot: the headlining band was the platinum-selling Black Crowes.

Paul Cornwell, Railroad Records honcho, longtime NORML executive, organizer of pot rallies and producer of the Atlanta festival, is well-aware of this pot dynamic. "A lot of big music acts have come out of the closet about smoking pot. If more straights, more organizations, more bands, begin to express their belief, and demand their rights as pot smokers, we'll continue to move forward."

For all his enthusiasm, Cornwell remains more cautionary about the rising tide of pot populism. "It was a great party, but it doesn't change the world if the people out there don't act on it, don't writer their Congressmen or jam the switchboards of their local officials with so many phone calls they'll have no choice but to listen." Busy at work lining up this year's slate, Cornwell also expressed his belief that the recent boom in hemp apparel has strong potential for adding to the momentum of the movement. "I've been trying to get the textile industry interested in hemp for years. The more hemp clothing manufactured, the more the quality will go up and the prices will go down. Hemp in everyday living has a more real feel to it. Fashion is important," says Cornwell, quickly adding, "But not if it's all at the expense of a brother or sister doing 10 to 15 years without saying a word. Let's make it fashionable to be legal."


Culinary expert and Food Network's "Barefoot Contessa" star Ina Garten has been married for 49 years. However, she and husband, Yale's dean and former trade undersecretary Jeffrey Garten have no kids and she recently opened up about this.

Garten spoke about her marriage and children in a podcast interview with Katie Couric. She revealed she and her husband made the conscious choice to not have children early in their marriage.

"We will always have friends that have children that we are close to," Ina said, as per People. "I really felt ... I feel that I would have never been able to have the life I've had," she added.

So, how does Ina deal with the stigma around childless couples? A new study suggests people often feel "moral outrage" as well as "anger, disapproval and disgust" for couples who choose not to have children, as per Live Science.

As for Ina, the Food Network star said she never felt judgment from other people. If they did, she never paid attention to it. Ina, however, admitted that there's one thing she envies about couples with kids  and it is the connection between parents and children.

"A lot of people's friends are the parents of their kids' friends," she said. "So we never had that connection with other people that I see, that network."

Ina Garten also shared the secret to her long marriage. She candidly said she never had to compromise with her husband because he "always agrees" with her.

48 years and I'm just getting started! A post shared by Ina Garten (@inagarten) on Feb 14, 2017 at 8:38am PST

The "Barefoot Contessa" star and the economist/academic met in college. After they married, she learned cooking through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and she frequently hosted dinners with friends to hone her skills.

Ina briefly worked in the White House but found the environment stressful. So, she went back to cooking and opened a shop in New York called Barefoot Contessa, which existed for two decades.

The TV deals later came and Ina became a big figure on the Food Network after Martha Stewart. Jeffrey sometimes appeared on her show to sample his wife's cooking or assist her in the studio kitchen. Ina also released a series of bestselling cookbooks. Watch the Gartens celebrate their long marriage in the video below.
The furious parents of a 10-year-old boy called out Air Canada for how it handled an overbooked flight. The airline bumped their son a day before the family's scheduled travel to Costa Rica for the holiday.

Dad Brett Doyle said he booked the family's four tickets last August 2016 for their March trip to Costa Rica. He couldn't, however, get a seating assignment for his son, Cole Doyle, via the online check-in system a day before their flight.

The dad called up the airline for assistance but got no help. His wife, Shanna Doyle, drove to the Charlottetown airport to straighten things out. They told her they oversold tickets and had to bump Cole off the flight.

Air Canada couldn't guarantee Cole any seats on the overbooked flight. As this was peak holiday season, passengers won't likely give up their seats.

The airline's staff suggested the family drive to another city and catch a trip to Costa Rica via Montreal. Flights, however, were also booked solid at the other airport.

Brett looked for other options via Air Canada online and found at least three more flights open. An agent, however, confirmed these flights were technically sold out.

"I asked why would I be able to purchase these online if they were sold out and what would happen if I purchased and showed up at the gate," Brett said, as per Daily Mail. The agent said they could likely get bumped too.

The family, however, still made it to Costa Rica for the holiday but not without making travel changes, shifting schedules, more bookings, as well as experiencing stress and headache. Cole was even afraid his family would leave Canada without him.

Brett continued reaching out to the airline when they got back but received no response. "It wasn't until the media picked up the story that Air Canada actually contacted us," the father said, as per The Guardian Canada.

Air Canada apologized to the family and offered compensation. "This situation involving a family traveling together should not have occurred," a spokesperson said, as per CBC. The Doyles, however, confirmed no arrangements were made as of Tuesday despite the Air Canada's offers.
More schools in the U.S. are installing laundry machines to help students living in poverty. They use these machines for free so they can come to school with clean clothes.

Observers expect this trend in schools will continue and rise in demand. What do laundry machines and clean clothes have to do with education?

Lake County Schools in Florida recently launched its School Laundry Program following a similar California schools initiative. Some 17 schools in the district now have washers and dryers for students' use.

Since its installation, teachers saw marked improvements in students' attendance, academic performance and extracurricular and social activities, Daily Commercial reported. "We noticed students that had to come to school in dirty clothing not wanting to come to school," Monica Gordon, a principal, said in explaining why the schools installed the appliances. "We wanted to take down those challenges."

East High students in Salt Lake City also have new showers, laundry machines and dryers for students. Donations keep pouring for stocking the schools' pantry and washrooms with laundry needs.

Some 50 to 100 students at East High reportedly have no access to good laundry or bath on a regular basis. "A lot of them don't have them in their own homes, and a lot of them are afraid to ask their friends or someone else," senior student Emily Beatse said, as per Fox Salt Lake City.

School Principal Greg Maughan said he's expecting school attendance to increase because of these services. An increase in attendance means more students could likely successfully complete high school and improve their chances of going to college or landing work.

Laundry machines are more of a necessity than a luxury or perk and school officials recognize it's also their responsibility to students. In order for the programs to move forward, however, some schools tap companies like Whirlpool for help and funding.

A 2016 study revealed the positive effects of laundry machines in schools to the students. Citylab reported 90 percent attendance improvement among students in laundry programs within a year of launch.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the two types of Hepatitis C drugs for release last week. The drugs, which were formulated for children 12-years-old and older, paved a way for the elimination of the virus from the system at an earlier time.

FDA approved the reproduction and the release of two Hepatitis C drugs specifically formulated for children. The agency's gesture to provide an alternative cure for children diagnosed with Hepatitis C aimed to give the children better chances of recovery.

More than 45,000 children are infected with Hepatitis C in the United states alone. The blood-borne infection causes inflammation of the liver, which can lead to death if left untreated, according to NPR.

The number of people diagnosed with Hepatitis C significantly increased over the years. More than 3 million adults tested positive for the condition, which is often acquired from sharing the needles being used for opioid consumption and other drugs.

"It's great news for our kids," Dr. Jessica Wen, medical director for the viral hepatitis clinical care program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said during an interview. "Historically every new medication that's approved for adults, there's always a lag for pediatrics and the wait can be as long as a decade."

FDA's approval changed the landscape for the treatment of Hepatitis C, according to Dr. Edward Cox. Both drugs, Solvaldi (sofosbuvir) and Harvoni (ledipasvir, sofosbuvir), which were already been approved for adult consumption can now be prescribed to kids 12-years-old and above, as reported by Medline Plus.

Children who were diagnosed with Hepatitis C are less likely to suffer liver damage compared to adults who contacted the virus at a later age. Health care providers urge couples and parents to make sure that they are free from the virus before gestation to avoid future complications.

The price tags for both drugs Solvaldi and Harvoni are still being negotiated. Common side effects of both drugs include fatigue and headache, especially in children.
A 10-year-old boy died after he contracted an illness from a rat bite. They purchased the rat at Petco Animal Supplies and a San Diego jury favored the company.

The jury said that Petco Animal Supplies was not negligent or liable in the death of the 10-year-old named Aidan Pankey, who died on June 12, 2013. His family rushed him to a hospital due to severe stomach pains and later, the hospital ruled that the cause of death was a bacterial infection from streptobacillus moniliformis also known as the rat-bite fever, CBS News revealed.

The victim got the illness from the infected rat and his father, Andrew, filed a lawsuit against the company. He sought $20 million in damages.

Initially, a panel found that Petco Animal Services knew that the pet rat was dangerous when used by a consumer. The jury decided, however, that Petco did not fail to warn the consumers about the potential danger of handling the rats they sell. Even the supplier of Petco Animal Services, Barney's Pets, did not act negligently on the matter.

Petco Animal Services took the necessary steps to protect their consumers by testing the animals and posting warnings. They, however, can't determine what percentage of the rats they sell have the infection.

The company released a statement on the matter after the jury's decision. They said that they remain deeply saddened by the Pankey family's tragic loss and "are committed to continuing to provide the highest level of safety to our customers in the future. The safety of people and pets is always Petco's top priority."

The grandmother of Aidan, Sharon Pankey, said she hopes the public will learn the lesson from this case, which is the that buyers should always beware. She said that consumers should know Petco Animal Services could test an individual rat to see if it is infected, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Meanwhile, rat-bite fever is an acute, febrile human illness caused by the bacteria found in rodents, rats or mice. The transmission is through urine or mucous from the rodent.

Most cases occur in Japan but selected countries such as United States, Africa, Australia and Europe have specific strains of the virus. Other animals can also contract the disease.
Mental health care professionals and parents made a plea that Facebook should do something to stop criminals from posting their crimes on Facebook Live. A murder, which was streamed on Facebook last Sunday, created a huge impact as a killer did a random shootout and eventually committed suicide while live streaming.

Steve Stephens made it to the headlines after he made a video, which was aired on various social media platform displaying the heinous crime he committed. Before he moved forward with the murder, Stephens shared that he recently broke up with his partner, he lost everything and voiced out his motives. Stephens eventually took his own life after being chased by the police, as reported by TIME.

Several crimes have already been streamed live on social media, which include murder, rape, bullying and assault. It raised an alarm among parents as most social media platforms can be easily accessed by school-aged kids and teens, which can potentially impact their mental health.

Technology advancement is said to beneficial, but it did have a negative impact on children and teenagers. There are possible dangers of live streaming as the video, including the ones with explicit content, can easily go viral.

Aside from the crimes, suicide and self-harm videos also made its way through live streaming, which can potentially cause a chain reaction from the people who viewed it, The Guardian noted. Children, as young as nine took their lives while streaming it on Facebook Live. Even though some were bullied into doing it, there were those who used the social media platform to have their voices heard.

Several pieces of evidence have already emerged that emphasized the potential dangers of social media among teenagers. Social media have caused several mental health disorders including anxiety and depression. Hence, parents should be keen when it comes to monitoring their children's social media activity.
A driver suffered minor injuries Thursday after crashing into a Walgreen's pharmacy on the city's East Side.

The crash occurred at about 12:15 p.m. at the store at 108 Cottage Grove Road, near the intersection with Monona Drive, the Madison Fire Department said.

The crash happened at a low rate of speed, with the minivan hitting a corner of the store.

The front doors of the store were damaged, and firefighters checked the interior concrete beams to make sure the building was stable.

There was no indication why the minivan struck the building.
Patna: Patna University Vice Chancellor Dr. Sudhir Kumar Srivastava, at a function at the Wheeler Senate Hall on Thursday, inaugurated the centennial celebration of the university by making big announcements that, if not impossible, would be extremely hard to keep considering the deep political division within the university coupled with the government's apathy towards improving education in general.

{gallery}newsimages2017/apr/042017_2{/gallery}Like the most of the state that is stung by the mythical power of 'Apps', the Vice Chancellor said a special 'app' for mobile with chockful of information was being designed that would help everyone associated with the university including the students, teachers, faculties, former students, and the university employees.

"Patna University has produced thousands of luminaries who have made name for themselves and for the university and the state of Bihar. Our attempt is to bring these ex-students together using the power of social network to seek their help in making the university a world-class center of learning," Dr. Srivastava said.

The year-long celebration would include various kinds of contests like debates and essay writing competitions along with seminars, conferences, and workshops on the past, present, and future of the university. Poster-making, slogan writing, quiz contests and photo exhibitions would also mark the centennial celebration, he said.

On the occasion, Patna University students performed songs to mark the commencement of the celebration.

The inauguration of the program, however, was not without controversies as the newly-elected President of the Patna University Randhir Kumar slammed the Vice Chancellor for failing to invite any big name like Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to inaugurate the event.

PUTA General Secretary Anil Kumar also criticized the arrangement saying the opening was not as big as the glorious history of the university that, he said, had produced great personalities in its 100 years of history.
New Delhi: Giving fresh fodder to political junkies something to talk about, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday met with Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi purportedly to form a national anti-BJP alliance ahead of the next Parliamentary polls in an attempt to thwart Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bid for re-election and to stymie the growing influence of the right wing Hindu nationalist outfits.

As always, however, senior party members, tried to downplay the Nitish-Sonia meeting saying it was merely a courtesy call and people should not try to read too much into it.

Kumar was said to deliver the message of all non-BJP parties unity to the Congress leader ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections that is to be held in 2019 at the completion of Modi's first term but the move is being seen as a preemptive move by the Janata Dal  U leader to project himself as the next anti-BJP Prime Ministerial candidate, a dream he is said to be nurturing for the past five years or so.

Despite his not so stellar performance in terms of development, Kumar, however, is hoping to exploit his 'clean image' to place himself in the shortlist of the next anti-BJP Prime Ministerial candidate before Congress has a chance to project party General Secretary and Congress heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi as the party candidate for the Prime Minister's post.

"There is an urgent need to bring all non-BJP parties under one big tent if we wish to get rid of the communal Modi government at the Center. Mrs. Gandhi should take a lead in uniting all the parties to take on the BJP. However, today's meeting had nothing to do with the Parliamentary elections," party spokesperson K C Tyagi said warning people not to read too much into Nitish-Sonia meeting in Delhi.

It should be noted that Congress, along with Lalu-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), is an ally of Nitish Kumar in Bihar.
Lawmakers Say Iran's Larijani Rejects Call To Bar Religious Minorities From Elections

04/20/17

Source: RFE/RL

Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani has dismissed a call by the head of the powerful Guardians Council to prevent members of religious minorities from running in city council elections in May, according to two lawmakers.

Ghasem Mirzayi, a member of the board in charge of overseeing municipal elections, said on April 19 that Larijani had issued a "written order" stating that the law should be observed, meaning that religious minorities should not be barred from running.



Mirzayi spoke a day after the ILNA news agency published a letter in which the head of the Guardians Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said that religious minorities should not be allowed to run in Muslim-majority cities.



Jannati said their participation would violate Islamic law and go against comments by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 revolution against the shah and is considered the founder of the Islamic republic.



Mirzayi said Jannati's proposal was "illegal" as the Guardians Council is not in charge of vetting those running for city councils.



"The parliament is in charge of overseeing the city council elections and the Guardians Council has nothing to do with it," Mirzayi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.



Esfandiari Ekhtiari, who represents Zoroastrians in the Iranian parliament, also said that Larijani had told the board to act according to the law.



Ekhtiari told the ISNA news agency that Jannati's call was a violation of the constitution that officially recognizes Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians as religious minorities in predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran.



City council elections across Iran will be held simultaneously with the May 19 presidential election.



With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, ISNA and the BBC
Former Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad Barred From Election

04/21/17

Source: RFE/RL

Iranian state TV says the body charged with vetting candidates has disqualified former hard-line President Mahmud Ahmadinejad from running in next month's presidential election. Although Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had previously urged him not to run, Ahmadinejad shocked the country by registering last week.



Mahmud Ahmadinejad

(artwork by Bozorgmehr Hosseinpur, Seda magazine)



Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust, and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear program.



Khamenei has said Ahmadinejad candidacy would create a "polarized situation" that would be "harmful for the county."



State television said that incumbent Hassan Rohani and hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi have both been approved to run in the election, along with four other candidates.



Raisi, 56, who is close to Khamenei, is considered by many to be the 68-year-old Rohani's main challenger.



Raisi is expected to draw support from Iran's hard-line factions, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.



Rohani negotiated the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal with world powers, but some disappointment that the accord has not spurred economic growth has boosted the opposition against him.



The four others state TV said had been approved to run were the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf; First Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri; and two lesser-known politicians: Mostafa Agha Mirsalim and Mostafa Hashemi-Taba.







The 6 approved candidates



The Guardians Council, the agency that vets all candidates before they can appear on the ballot, said it had compiled a final list of candidates earlier on April 20 and that the Interior Ministry would announce their names by April 23.



Officials said a total of 1,636 people registered for the election, including 137 women. The council has not allowed women to run in the past.



Traditionally, about six candidates are finally approved to run.



The council routinely disqualifies those it regards as a threat to the clerical establishment. In 2013, it prevented ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running.



The campaign officially opens later this month (April 28) and the vote is on May 19.



With additional reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
Trump Accuses Iran Of 'Not Living Up To Spirit' Of 2015 Nuclear Deal

04/21/17

Source: RFE/RL

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Iran of "not living up to the spirit" of its nuclear agreement with world powers and said the United States would soon have a response.



"World Worried abuout the Trump U.S."

(by Iranian cartoonist Jamal Rahmati)





At a White House news conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on April 20, Trump repeated his criticism that "it was a terrible agreement...as bad as I've ever seen negotiated."



"Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement, and they have to do that," he said. "We're analyzing it very, very carefully and will have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future."



Trump's comments came amid a series of highly critical remarks from top administration officials and rebuttals from Tehran over the 2015 deal, which requires Iran to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief from Western powers.



Just a day ago, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that the deal had failed to achieve its goal of stopping Iran from developing nuclear arms -- only postponed it.



Despite these criticisms, Tillerson certified on April 19 that Iran was fulfilling its side of the agreement and extended sanctions relief provided by the United States.



Tillerson's certification prompted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to say on April 20 that "worn-out U.S. accusations can't mask its admission of Iran's compliance" with the nuclear deal.



With the administration acknowledging that Iran is -- at least technically -- adhering to the deal, it was unclear what Trump meant when he said Iran is "doing a tremendous disservice to the agreement" by not complying with the "spirit" of the accord.



Trump did not explain his remarks. But the United States has repeatedly clashed with Iran over its ballistic-missile tests, with U.S. officials saying that they violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the deal.



Iran has also accused the United States of not keeping to the spirit of the nuclear agreement by maintaining sanctions against Iran over the ballistic-missile tests and alleged human rights abuses.



On April 20 at the United Nations, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, added to the Trump administration's barrage of criticism of Iran, calling Tehran the "chief culprit" in conflicts in the Middle East and urging the UN to make dealing with Iran a "priority."



Speaking at an open meeting of the UN Security Council, which Haley is chairing this month, she blamed Iran for training "deadly militias" that it is using to "destabilize" countries in conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.



"For decades, they have committed terrorist acts across the region," Haley said, adding that Iran has worked with allied Lebanese Hizballah militias to stir conflict.



"Iran and Hizballah conspired together to destabilize the Middle East," she said. "They prop up [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad's brutality."



"Iran is using Hizballah to advance its regional aspirations," she said. "They are working together to expand extremist ideologies in the Middle East. This is a threat that should be dominating our discussion at this Security Council."



Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo fired back at what he called the "unsubstantiated" U.S. charges, saying the United States is waging a "misleading propaganda campaign" against his country.



Khoshroo accused the United States and Israel of seeking "to remove the Palestinian issue that is central to all the conflicts in the Middle East from these open debates."



Russia's Deputy UN ambassador Petr Iliichev also defended Iran, questioning why Haley in circulating a "concept note" for the meeting on the Middle East did not mention the Palestinian question or threats from extremist groups like the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda's ally, Nusra Front, both of which have caused destruction and suffering in Syria and Iraq.



Instead, Iliichev said, "we're invited to consider as terrorists those who are fighting these groups," he said. Iranian-backed militias have played a major role in fighting the Islamic State both in Syria and Iraq.



With reporting by AP, AFP and Reuters

Related Articles:

Championing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Rules: The EU and Iran - In a newly published book, Tarja Cronberg contrasts EU and US conceptions of multilateralism in the nuclear field. Her work is titled Nuclear Multilateralism and Iran. A former member of the European Parliament (EP) and chair of the EP delegation for EU relations with Iran, Cronberg writes: "For the US multilateralism is a means to an end, but for Europeans it is an end in itself." -Peter Jenkins

Championing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Rules: The EU and Iran - In a newly published book, Tarja Cronberg contrasts EU and US conceptions of multilateralism in the nuclear field. Her work is titled Nuclear Multilateralism and Iran. A former member of the European Parliament (EP) and chair of the EP delegation for EU relations with Iran, Cronberg writes: "For the US multilateralism is a means to an end, but for Europeans it is an end in itself." -Peter Jenkins

Has Donald Trump Learned To Love The Iran Deal? - All this Republican party fighting over the Iran nuclear deal, it's almost enough to forget that it's America's greatest foreign policy achievement in years. At least that's what the Trump administration has seemingly acknowledged. In a statement released late Tuesday evening, they certified that Tehran continues to comply with its end of the bargain. -Tyler Cullis and Reza Marashi, LobeLog

Trump Orders Review of Iran Nuclear Deal - Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed the review in a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Tillerson said that as of Tuesday, Iran is complying with its responsibilities under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which it agreed to in 2015 after negotiations with the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.
WASHINGTON  The crisis with North Korea may appear trumped up. Its not.

Given that Pyongyang has had nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles for more than a decade, why the panic now? Because North Korea is headed for a nuclear breakout. The regime has openly declared it is racing to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States  and thus destroy an American city at a Kim Jong Un push of a button.

The North Koreans are not bluffing. Theyve made significant progress with solid-fuel rockets, which are more quickly deployable and thus more easily hidden and less subject to detection and pre-emption.

At the same time, Pyongyang has been steadily adding to its supply of nuclear weapons. Today it has an estimated 10 to 16. By 2020, it could very well have a hundred. (For context: the British are thought to have about 200.)

Hence the crisis. We simply cannot concede to Kim Jong Un the capacity to annihilate American cities.

Some will argue for deterrence. If it held off the Russians and the Chinese for all these years, why not the North Koreans? First, because deterrence, even with a rational adversary like the old Soviet Union, is never a sure thing. We came pretty close to nuclear war in October 1962.

Second, because North Koreas regime is bizarre in the extreme, a hermit kingdom run by a weird, utterly ruthless and highly erratic god-king. You cant count on Caligula. The regime is savage and cult-like; its people, robotic. Karen Elliott House once noted that while Saddam Husseins Iraq was a prison, North Korea was an ant colony. Ant colonies do not have good checks and balances.

If not deterrence, then prevention. But how? The best hope is for China to exercise its influence and induce North Korea to give up its programs.

For years, the Chinese made gestures, but never did anything remotely decisive. They have their reasons. Its not just that they fear a massive influx of refugees if the Kim regime disintegrates. Its also that Pyongyang is a perpetual thorn in the side of the Americans, whereas regime collapse brings South Korea (and thus America) right up to the Yalu River.

So why would the Chinese do our bidding now? For a variety of reasons.

They dont mind tension but they dont want war. And the risk of war is rising. They know that the ICBM threat is totally unacceptable to the Americans. And that the current administration appears particularly committed to enforcing this undeclared red line.

Chinese interests are being significantly damaged by the erection of regional missile defenses to counteract North Koreas nukes. South Korea is racing to install a THAAD anti-missile system. Japan may follow. THAADs mission is to track and shoot down incoming rockets from North Korea but, like any missile shield, it necessarily reduces the power and penetration of the Chinese nuclear arsenal.

For China to do nothing risks the return of the American tactical nukes in South Korea, withdrawn in 1991.

If the crisis deepens, the possibility arises of South Korea and, most importantly, Japan going nuclear themselves. The latter is the ultimate Chinese nightmare.

These are major cards America can play. Our objective should be clear. At a minimum, a testing freeze. At the maximum, regime change.

Because Beijing has such a strong interest in the current regime, we could sweeten the latter offer by abjuring Korean reunification. This would not be Germany, where the communist state was absorbed into the West. We would accept an independent, but Finlandized, North.

During the Cold War, Finland was, by agreement, independent but always pro-Russian in foreign policy. Here we would guarantee that a new North Korea would be independent but always oriented toward China. For example, the new regime would forswear ever joining any hostile alliance.

There are deals to be made. They may have to be underpinned by demonstrations of American resolve. A pre-emptive attack on North Koreas nuclear facilities would be too dangerous, because it would almost surely precipitate an invasion of South Korea with untold millions of casualties. We might, however, try to shoot down a North Korean missile in mid-flight to demonstrate both our capacity to defend ourselves and the futility of a North Korean missile force that can be neutralized technologically.

The Korea crisis is real. But we are not helpless. We have choices. We have assets. Its time to deploy them.
A Microsoft document detailing the minimum hardware specs for Microsoft Windows 10 Cloud-powered laptops seems to be the best evidence yet that Microsoft plans to launch a Chromebook competitor on May 2.

Windows Central obtained a recommended minimum spec document, presumably handed out to Microsofts partners. The document outlines what Microsoft hopes to achieve with what the document calls an Edu Cloud device (and industry watchers have dubbed Cloudbooks): all-day battery life, a quick boot and resume cycle, and at least a quad-core Intel Celeron processor powering it all. Its also titled Windows 10 Cloud Performance Targets, confirming the name of the new OS.

A Microsoft representative declined to comment.

Microsofts invitation to an education-focused launch event in New York on May 2 hinted strongly that a Chromebook competitor was in the cards Though Windows PCs dominate the workplace, Googles Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks have quickly insinuated themselves into American classrooms. Google and its partners have pitched Chromebooks as affordable, simple to use and manage, and rugged enough to survive student use. Windows 10 Cloud appears to be Microsofts attempt to go back to school.

The impact on you: One key advantage of a Chromebook, from Googles perspective, is that it contributes to a virtuous cycle: Kids use the popular Android tablets and phones at home, then access something similar in the classroom. To help break that chain, Microsoft needs to get kids used to Windows. While this may have little impact on you personally, you might say that this is a fight for the hearts and minds of your children.

What Cloudbooks will contain

Windows 10 Cloud reportedly will restrict apps to the Windows Store, forbidding the use of non-Store apps like Google Chrome. Microsofts document also notes that its performance benchmarks assume the use of Intune device management policies specifically designed for the classroom.

The spec document plainly states that Microsoft considers Chromebooks its chief competition. In a comparison of performance benchmarks, Microsofts target is 10-plus hours of all day battery life, with cold-boot times of 20 seconds and resume times of under 2 seconds. The document does not list suggested pricing.

Likewise, Microsoft lays out what hardware the new devices should include: a quad-core chip, like a Celeron, or higher; 4GB of RAM, and at least 32GB of eMMC or SSD storage. Interestingly, pen and touchscreen capabilities are listed as optional, which would discard one of the chief advantages that a typical Windows PC has over a Chromebook.

Who will make these devices remains a mystery at the moment. PC companies like Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo have all already built Chromebooks, meaning theyll have to choose between platforms, or support both.

Its telling, though, that Microsoft itself admits at least internally that it Windows 10 Cloud-based laptops wont quite measure up to the competition. In its comparison of the two platforms, the document notes that Chromebooks are faster to cold-boot to a login screen (20 seconds to 15 seconds) as well as from the sign-in screen to the desktop (15 seconds versus 10 seconds). Well have to see how Microsoft spins this: Selling something thats almost-as-good as the competition doesnt sound like much of a pitch.
The Ministry of Finance has dismissed allegations of conflict of interest made by the Minority in Parliament against the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta in the issuance of a $2.25 cedi-denominated bond.



In a statement issued Thursday, the Finance Ministry discounted reports that the issuance of the bond was shrouded in secrecy and the transaction, "cooked" to favor a particular investor, Franklin Templeton (FT).



Describing the allegations as "maliciously designed to malign and negate the positive news and rave reviews" that the "landmark transaction has garnered, both locally and internationally", it said "FT was not the only participant, there were over 25 other buyers including other foreign entities, who all brought in dollars to convert to cedis to buy the bonds".



The Finance Ministry's statement pointed out that considering the processes involved in the transaction, it is "unfathomable" that any investor can gain preferential treatment through conspiracy.



"This particular bond issue was no different and was done in conformity with the established process...The said investor participated in the issuance in the manner they have always done since 2006 through their local Primary Dealer, Barclays Bank and their local custodians, Standard Chartered Bank and Stanbic Bank. To have obtained preferential treatment, all the above mentioned institutions would have had to conspire to do so, a situation which is unfathomable," the statement read.



It therefore called on the general public to "disregard these allegations as they are unfounded and malicious".





Below is a the full statement issued by the Finance Ministry:



ASPERTIONS ON THE US$2.25 BILLION OF DOMESTIC CEDI DENOMINATED BONDS ISSUED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA.



1. The attention of the Ministry of Finance has been drawn to a statement issued by the Minority in Parliament which seeks to cast negative aspersions on the 9.7 billion cedis (USD2.25 BILLION) domestic bond issue of the Government of Ghana.



2. The Ministry considers the statement as unfortunate especially as it was fronted by Hon Cassiel Ato Forson, a former Deputy Finance Minister, who knows very well the workings and processes for the issue of domestic bonds and as such, should not be making such baseless allegations. As such, the Ministry has no choice but to surmise that these allegations are maliciously designed to malign and negate the positive news and rave reviews this landmark transaction has garnered, both locally and internationally.



3. The Minority statement sets out three (3) major claims which the Ministry will like to clear.



(a) That the issuance was shrouded in secrecy to the extent that other investors were denied the opportunity to participate in the transaction.



(b) The transaction was cooked to favor a particular investor (Franklin Templeton (FT) just because a director of one of the funds FT manages, knows the Finance Minister; and



(c) The transaction should have received Parliamentary approval because it technically should be considered to be a dollar denominated sovereign bond issue due to the level of foreign investor participation and that, in the view of the Minority, it amounted to a private placement



Response



To the aforementioned claims, the Ministry responds as follows:



1. The issuance was not shrouded in secrecy nor was it cooked for any particular investor. The Bookrunners, (Barclays, Stanbic and SAS), on behalf of the Ministry of Finance have been mandated since 2015 to issue these domestic bonds on a regular basis as per the debt issuance calendar which Ministry of Finance (MoF) puts out every quarter. Also the book runners announce and publish every impending bond issue to the market, the week of issue and provide price guidance to the market. This particular bond issue was no different and was done in conformity with the established process.



It was announced by the Book Runners to the market on March 30, via email and same published on MoF and Bank of Ghana (BoG) websites with settlement on April 3.



FT was not the only participant, there were over 25 other buyers including other foreign entities, who all brought in dollars to convert to cedis to buy the bonds.



2. This bond issue, like all the others done prior could not have been designed to favour any single investor. The conventional processes for the issue of bonds using the book building approach were adhered to in this particular issuance. It is our understanding that the said investor engaged various market participants and other key institutions including the IMF before deciding to participate in the bonds. It is worth noting that local investors also participated. The said investor participated in the issuance in the manner they have always done since 2006 through their local Primary Dealer, Barclays Bank and their local custodians, Standard Chartered Bank and Stanbic Bank. To have obtained preferential treatment, all the above mentioned institutions would have had to conspire to do so, a situation which is unfathomable. The investor in question, FT, has held Government of Ghana bonds of up to USD 2 Billion prior to this transaction. Indeed FT has been buying and investing in government bonds since 2006.



3. This issuance, like all other domestic bonds issued under this bond program since 2015, did not require Parliamentary approval. Approval was given under the initial application to Parliament in the 2015 Budget Statement and Economic Policy document, to run such a bond issuance program. The Ministry of Finance has the mandate to fund the deficit as contained in the budget approved by Parliament through the issuance of debt instruments and to manage the countries debt stock



Impact of this Transaction



The issuance brought in significant amount of foreign currency, which was converted into cedis to purchase the bond, helping to strengthen the value of the Cedi and providing much-needed respite for the citizens of Ghana

The transaction will also lengthen the maturity periods of government debts thereby reducing the short term redemption and rollover pressures on government.



The proceeds from the bond issue are to be used for liability management and for the re-profiling of our domestic debt stock by repaying more expensive short-term debt as it matures, as such it shall not add to the total debt stock of the nation.



This deal is a positive move in the current debt management strategy being pursued by government and should be applauded.



Conclusion



The Ministry hereby informs the general public to disregard these allegations as they are unfounded and malicious and seek to undermine the credibility and integrity of your Government.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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.
Popular Ghanaian Lawyer, Maurice Ampaw want the younger brother of former President John Dramani Mahama jailed for fraud.



He explained that, Ibrahim Mahama's dud cheques brouhaha must be investigated thoroughly and charged for intentionally defrauding the state.



Theres fraud in this. His reason for issuing the dud cheques so many times is unreasonable and must be arraigned before court, He said in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie.



Ibrahim Mahama was recently invited by the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) for questioning over some dud cheques he issued to the Customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) at the Tema Ports to clear some heavy duty equipment he imported into the country.



After interrogation, the businessman has been ordered by EOCO to hand over his passport whiles investigation is ongoing.



Lawyer Maurice Ampaw who insisted that government must charge Ibrahim Mahama for fraud also noted that- He [Ibrahim Mahama] has committed a crime. This crime cannot be negotiated. If all elements are established after investigations, he should be punished for that. Ibrahim Mahama must face the law court. He must face a maximum sentence.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was present at the 4th Rotary International District 9102 Conference where he commended the Rotary Foundation for their humanitarian contributions to the society.



The event which attracts Rotarians from four countries that make up the Rotary International District 9102 - Benin, Ghana, Niger and Togo - is being held in Accra.



Read full speech of the President below:



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC, NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO, AT THE OPENING SESSION OF THE 4TH ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9102 CONFERENCE IN ACCRA, GHANA, ON FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2017.



It is with considerable pleasure that I am participating in the 4th Rotary International District 9102 Conference, which is being held in our capital city of Accra.



Those of you who come from beyond our shores are welcome amongst a people who pride themselves on their sense of hospitality. Akwaaba is our word of welcome, and I hope you enjoy your stay with us.



Je souhaite la bienvenue a nos freres et soeurs francophones parmi vous. Jaurais voulu bien faire cet discours en francais, mais mes compatriots auraient du mal a encaisser comment ca cest fait que leur president parle en public dans le pays dans une langue quils ne comprennent pas. Mais, quand meme, vous etes le bienvenue.



Even though I am not a Rotarian, I think it is worth telling this assembly of Rotarians that I am a proud Paul Harris Fellow of The Rotary Foundation, and what is more, I seem to have always been surrounded on all sides by Rotarians.



I am here this afternoon to underscore the point that, even though I may not share in the weekly fellowship that you have in your clubs, I share common cause with you as far as the Object of Rotary and the pursuance of the ideals of your 4-Way Test are concerned.



Proof of my being surrounded by Rotarians can be seen from the sheer number of my Ministers and government appointees who are past or current Rotarians.



Let me cite a few examples: the Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen; the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta; the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Gloria Akuffo; and the Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekuful, at whose instigation I became a Paul Harris Fellow. And then of course, there is Mr Rotary himself, the venerable Sam Okudzeto, for a long time a prized counsellor of mine, who is now a member of the state advisory body, the Council of State of the Republic.



Rotarians are and have always been well placed to influence events and policies in our country. I doubt that there has ever been any government in this country where there have not been Rotarians at the centre of affairs or at strategic points. Rotary may be apolitical, but Rotarians have never avoided politics in real life.



Rotary played an honourable role in the founding of the United Nations and of many of the humanitarian agencies in the period following the end of the Second World War in the last century.



It set itself apart very much as the nonpartisan and humanitarian entity that seeks to do good.

It is in the adoption and implementation of specific initiatives that Rotary has made an enviable name for itself. I cannot think of a better example than the tenacity of purpose shown by Rotary and Rotarians in the fight against the scourge of polio.



Thanks to Rotary, this dreaded disease has been reduced from an annual worldwide infection rate of 350,000 cases in over 125 countries, to a mere 75 cases in only 3 countries. Mercifully, we can now say that total elimination of polio is in sight. It is particularly heart-warming to learn that, as I speak, none of the four countries in your District, that is Ghana, Togo, Benin and Niger, has recorded a single case of polio over the past nine years.



This would be one of the great stories of world history, if, indeed, we achieve total elimination of polio. Mankind would owe Rotary a debt of eternal gratitude.



And yet in spite of all the hard work and dedication and money that have been spent over the years, we know that all it needs is for one country in a region to slide into instability, and polio would be back.



The difficulties that came with reaching where we are in the fight against polio reinforce the point I seek to make. We need to get the politics of our countries right to be able to get the other sectors of our lives to work efficiently.



I am, thus, encouraged that our own Rotarians have never shied away from politics, even if the organization itself remains resolutely nonpartisan. The lesson that emerges from your experience surely must be the critical need for organizations such as Rotary to work with and collaborate with government, so both sides can learn from each other.



Taking a look at what you call the Six Areas of Focus of Rotary, it is evident that your programmes are not different from what a government with an agenda of social and economic transformation would undertake in our circumstances.



The first responsibility of any government to its people is to ensure peace and stability. Your first chosen area of focus is Peace and Conflict Prevention and Resolution. You might not think you are in government or even being political, but your stated aims and activities do not differ from what we in government should do.



It is noteworthy that the four countries in your District all currently enjoy relative internal peace. Let us always keep in mind that peace is something we have to strive for at all times, and I am glad to have you as an ally to work to keep the peace and prevent conflict.



In another area of focus, which is Disease Prevention and Treatment, the role of Rotary in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is a clear testimony of what collaboration between the state and non-governmental organisations can achieve.



You have taken on the other great killer of our part of the world, malaria, and I wish to congratulate Rotary on your Roll Back Malaria project. It does look as though we are finally making headway in the fight against malaria. This is also the result of collaboration between government and non-governmental organizations.



I am glad that my wife, Rebecca, Ghanas beautiful, new First Lady, who is here with me, has for the last 10 years headed an organisation, Infanta Malaria, which has also been engaged in the fight against malaria, especially where children are involved, as its name indicates.



You are making waves in other areas of the health sector. The Rotary Family Health Days, which, I hear, you commissioned three years ago to offer free medical screening to the less endowed in our communities, has already benefited 120,000 persons. Many, many congratulations.



It is certain that one of the most significant interventions Rotary makes in our communities in is in your Water and Sanitation area of focus.



Your boreholes and small water systems have brought relief to many communities around the country. My Rotarian friend, Nora Bannerman, was very prominent, when she was President of the Accra-North Rotary Club, in that particular outreach. I am pleased to learn that you have started the second phase of a US$6 million Rotary International/USAID Water Collaboration.



We could not ask for a better partner than Rotary as we seek to implement our governments programme to provide potable water and good sanitation to all our people.



Mr Chairman, Rotary is in a good position to help in the education of people on the importance of taking good care of our water sources and rivers. You can help instil the habit of routine and regular maintenance of the mechanized boreholes and small town water systems in the small communities in which you work.



You can help bring home the message that the communities have a responsibility to take care of the water systems that are provided for them.

Another area of collaboration is in Maternal and Child Health and it is good news that Rotary is active in this sector as well.



The future health of our countries depends to a large extent on how we start our children off in life. Education is the only way to give a good head start and provide equal opportunities for all our children. Your Basic Education and Literacy area of focus is very critical to government plans.



This government believes that a lot hangs on the success of our education programmes, and we welcome enthusiastically all the help that we can get from organizations such as Rotary in delivering quality education to our people.



Rotarian friends, all our best laid plans will come to naught unless our economy grows and thrives.



I note your Economic and Community Development area of focus and I am sure that you approach this also with your customary zeal. I know it helps many people in the rural areas in particular, and there are projects in the inner cities that are dependent on such initiatives. I thank you for your efforts. You should be aware that, for the first time in the nations history, we now have a Minister for Inner City and Zongo Development, who ought to be a natural partner for you.



Mr Chairman, I hope what I am about to say is not taken as looking a gift horse in the mouth. After 60 years of independence, I want us, in Ghana, to break out from our aid dependent and charity driven economic outlook. I want programmes that would be dynamic in content and help us to think big and be dissatisfied with remaining poor.



Programmes that help the poor and vulnerable are important and admirable, but I do not want us to continue to be unduly reliant on long term aid projects. I want all such projects to have clear-cut exit strategies. It is not enough to get help to be able to feed your family. The help must be so structured as to enable you strike out and be able to lead an independent life.



I remember when the LEAP programme was envisaged and introduced under President Kufuor, we were clear in our minds that, whereas we wanted it to cover all those who would qualify under the definition of the programme, it was meant to be a hand-up, not a hand-out. If someone has to go on the LEAP programme, it should not be for the rest of that persons life.



There should be a definite time limit to being a LEAP beneficiary, and the beneficiary should be able to stand on his or her own after the stated period. Whatever economic programmes you bring, please let it be something that helps people to stand on their own feet and prosper.



A few days ago I launched the Planting for Food and Jobs programme in Goaso, in the Brong Ahafo Region. I am excited about it and I am confident that it will provide a lot of opportunities to help lift people out of poverty and onto an independent economic life. It might well be that Rotary would be able to join us in making a success of this project. You have experience in community work and I would say this is something right up your street.



Mr Chairman, I urge you to take a good look at our One District One Factory programme. It is a programme in which private sector participation is essential. Come and join us make a success of it. You have a lot of people with good business acumen and experience amongst your ranks.



There are a lot of opportunities and I invite you to join us bring prosperity to our people.



Mr Chairman, I understand Rotary has a Punctuality and Time Management initiative as well. You certainly know how to touch all the necessary buttons with the things I hold dear. I wish you good luck with this particular initiative, as I try to keep up my own end of the campaign for punctuality and time management.



We are determined to build a new Ghanaian and African civilisation, where the rule of law works, where individual liberties and human rights are respected, and where the principles of democratic accountability are the foundation of public policy.



We are determined to forge a new Ghanaian and African, who is neither a victim nor a pawn of the world economic order, but who will be a dignified member of a successful, thriving, prosperous society.



I shall strive to remain a Paul Harris fellow of whom Rotarians can be proud, and I wish you all the best of luck and good deliberations and a successful Conference.



Thank you and may God bless us all and our homeland Ghana, and make her great and strong.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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.

Featured Video
The agitations marring the hearing of the fact-finding committee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) took a very nasty turn on Wednesday, as its sitting at Kawudi in Accra reportedly ended up with a gunshot.



A supporter of former Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayawaso North, Dr. Mustapha Ahmed, was reported to have fired the warning shot, causing undue panic among members of the committee and supporters of the party.



DAILY GUIDE gathered that Prof. Kwesi Botchweys committee, which has been traveling across the country to sample views of supporters and executives of the NDC on why the party lost the 2016 elections in such a shameful manner, met four constituency executive members and party supporters at Kawukudi in Accra last week.



The committee visited the East Ayawaso Constituency in Accra to receive the concerns of four constituencies namely: Ayawaso East, Ayawaso North, Ayawaso Central and Ayawaso West Wuogon.



Constituency executives and enthusiastic supporters reportedly locked horns over who should be allowed to speak to the committee, while a large number of party faithful stood outside the Alhaji Moro Baba Issahs Hall due to the lack of space inside the Hall.



They reportedly could not get in to express their views on what they thought led to the partys embarrassing electoral defeat.



Some had expressed their disappointment about the former government appointees, accusing them of being greedy and selfish.



Confusion was said to have broken out during the hearing when some members of the party from Ayawaso North Constituency accused their former MP and one-time Minister of Youth and Sports, Dr. Mustapha Ahmed, of creating divisions in the constituency and contributing to the downfall of the party in the last general election.



The allegation, according to reports, did not go down well with some supporters of the former minister, resulting in hot exchanges that allegedly led to the firing of a gunshot by a supposed supporter of Dr. Ahmed  known in the area as Chinese.



Dr. Ahmed had also reportedly dismissed the allegations leveled against him, with his supporters saying that former President Mahama had sent his late uncles son, Yusif Jajah, to lead the constituency, leading to his (Dr. Ahmeds) defeat in the partys primary in the run-up to the 2016 elections.



Attempts to speak to Dr Ahmed on the issue failed.



The NDC has formed a 13-member committee to investigate the cause of the partys historic defeat in the December 7, 2016 polls.



The committee was formed by the NDCs Functional Executive Committee (NEC) and approved by its Council of Elders.



But members of the committee have been met with hostility from angry supporters of the opposition party nationwide, some of who believe the party lost the election due to greed, and as such there is no need for any fact-finding exercise.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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John Dramani came face to face with Northern Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Daniel Bugri Naabu for the first time since the NPP stalwart made scathing allegations against him.



The two prominent sons of the North met at the 41st National Congress of the Gonjaland Youth Association held at Sawla in the Northern Region.



Whiles exchanging pleasantries with dignitaries at the event, Mahama reportedly shook hands with Mr Bugri Naabu and said jokingly if you are not using the car they said I gave you, return it.



Mr Bugri Naabu in response said I have given it to my party, a response that sparked spontaneous laughter among other dignitaries who were accompanying the former president.



During an intense run up to election 2016, Mahama was accused of trying to bribe Bugri Naabu to make defamatory comments against Nana Akufo Addo to paint him as tribalistic. It was said that Naabu was given a brand new V6 Mitsubishi Pajero, a brand new V8 Landcruiser, GH3.3 million, as well as the payment of the GH247,000 debt owed him for years from a road construction work.



Claims which can still not be substantiated, but the two men looked like best of friends when they met.

Source: yen.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
When we covered Anthony Albanese spinning tunes in support of Lee Lin Chins Logie bid early last year, there was no way we could have known just how far his DJing dreams would take him.

DJ Albo has become such a household name, such a sterling champion of all things Music, that he has in fact been named an ambassador for this years Record Store Day.

Clearly keeping their finger on the pulse of all things Albo, Sydney band Polish Club immediately capitalised on the MPs ambassadorship by sending him their most recent record, Alright Already, along with a goading note.

The good Deej responded in the best possible way: he plugged the album while fulfilling his duties as Official Parliamentary Disc Jockey / Record Store Day Ambassador / Deck-Spinner Extraordinaire on this mornings Studio 10.

There you go, kids: hassling your heroes really does catch you a break sometimes.

Record Store Day is tomorrow, April 22, and you can check out a list of cool shit to do and great stores to visit right here.

Source: Anthony Albanese MP.

Image: Instagram / @albomp.
Gambling millionaire, MONA owner and eccentric genius David Walsh has weighed into the controversy over an upcoming performance at the Dark Mofo festival involving a freshly slaughtered bull by saying that public outrage is great for the Tasmanian economy.

The performance, directed by Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch, is described by MONA as a bloody, sacrificial ritual performed by the patriarch of Viennese Actionism, his devoted disciples and an orchestra. Its part of a long tradition of Nitschs works which use animal entrails to explore concepts related to sacrifice and rituals.

Animal activists arent super keen, though. Animal Liberation Tasmania kicked off a petition to call off the exhibition which raked in 14,500 signatures.

Walsh defended Nitschs performance in a social media post, implying that much of the critique is hypocritical.

Recently, there has been a rising tide of opposition to a Hermann Nitsch project planned for Dark Mofo. He uses a bull marked for slaughter to ritualistically cover a bunch of people in blood [] I expect the tide to keep rising. But stopping Nitsch wont stop me doing the sort of self-serving, status-enhancing, biologically bound good that I do through MONA. You should be protesting that, too. And you also should have a crack at getting your own house in order (as the Bible says). You should, of course, stop eating meat, and rapacious crops, and you should stop doing anything that has cost (economic, social or environmental). And you should take all the cash you squander and spend it buying mosquito nets, or some other efficient life-saving interventions. For, as the Bible also says, why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?.

Nice. He also made a truly intoxicating proposition: perhaps Tasmania should stimulate its economy by randomly killing someone. Cant help but agree. Get on it, Tourism Tasmania.

Imagine I, David Walsh, go down into the gallery, kill someone at random, and call it art. A lovely ironic way to do this would be to put the suicide machine on display, but make it work. My defence would be: Its a work of art  a lesson in the complex consequences of immorality. What would happen to the Tasmanian economy? My guess is MONA would go from being well known globally to being a household word. Disaster tourism would drive MONA to the top of the charts, and Tasmanias economy would go along for the ride.

Forget the clean air and gorgeous scenery, folks. The real draw of tourism to Tasmania is David Walsh hypothetically committing a murder in MONA. I for one am all for it.

Source: ABC.

Photo: Dark Mofo.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this headline suggested Mr Walsh directly stated that murder is great for tourism, rather than implying it. PEDESTRIAN.TV regrets the error.
I grew up in Janesville and graduated from the same high school as House Speaker Paul Ryan. When I was a student, Ryan made visits back to his alma mater to offer students advice and inspiration. I remember him telling us during an assembly that what made America great is that anybody could make a difference, they just had to try.

Thats why Ive decided to share my experience as a Planned Parenthood patient.

I rely on Planned Parenthood for contraceptive care and preventive cancer screenings. I work three part-time jobs, none of which offer me benefits, and I make just above the monthly threshold to qualify for full Medicaid coverage. Planned Parenthood worked with me to get me enrolled in family planning-only Medicaid services, which has a higher income threshold.

That means Im able to get regular reproductive health checkups, which is especially important to me because of my family history. I lost my aunt to ovarian cancer three years ago, and I know early detection can mean the difference between successful treatment and a terminal diagnosis.

Planned Parenthood is my only health care provider, and its the only place I can access the preventive screenings I need to make sure Im healthy.

When I hear people say I could just go somewhere else, I dont think they understand how difficult it is to find a provider that offers the services I need and accepts Medicaid. In fact, in nearly half the counties Planned Parenthood serves, there are no alternative family planning providers.

Even if I was insured and had my choice of providers, I prefer the care I receive at Planned Parenthood. Their expert providers create an environment that makes me feel comfortable. As a queer woman, I know it is even more difficult for vulnerable populations to find health care in a nonjudgmental, safe environment. At Planned Parenthood, I can get the information and care I need.

Last month, I traveled to Washington, D.C., with other patients to tell Speaker Ryan what Planned Parenthood means to me. While there, I met so many women whose lives have been changed  and saved  by the care they got at Planned Parenthood. Like so many people in Wisconsin, I dont know how I would access critical reproductive care that helps keep me healthy without Planned Parenthood. Im so grateful for the resources they provide for me.

Whether youve been a patient at Planned Parenthood or not, we should all agree that people deserve access to high quality and affordable preventive and diagnostic health care no matter race, income, immigration status or sexual preference. Speaker Ryan and others who have never relied on Planned Parenthood are working to take away the health care I trust and rely on.

Attacks against Planned Parenthood are attacks against my health and the health of the 60,000 Wisconsin women, men and young people who also rely on Planned Parenthood. Some of us are struggling financially. Some of us feel more comfortable with Planned Parenthoods nonjudgmental, expert providers, and some of us have nowhere else to go.

Patients like me dont go to Planned Parenthood to make a political statement. We go for affordable, high-quality health care. Every person, no matter who they are or how much money they make, deserves that kind of care. We cannot allow politicians to take it away.

I urge my fellow Craig high school graduate Speaker Ryan to stop working to block my access to my only health care provider, Planned Parenthood.
Queensland Police have pulled off what they describe as one of the largest drug busts in the states history, with approximately $750,000 worth of cocaine and ice seized from premises across Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Popular Toowong restaurant Mariosarti was part of the probe, and police have arrested its owner, 40-year-old Daniel Milos, along with four other employees, including one identified by ABC News as the restaurants head chef.

The five will face court this morning on 33 drug-related charges, with more expected to be laid at a later time.

A home in Fig Tree Pocket was one of 11 locations raided yesterday, and a number of high-end vehicles were also seized, in what police have described as a sophisticated network of crime.

Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission state manager Charlie Carver said that the successful operation will cause significant disruption to cocaine distribution in the states south east, adding:

Many criminals run so-called front-end shops and businesses which will appear from first blush to actually be legitimate. However once you dig into the investigation and you look through whats actually been happening, you find the illegal activity which is used to launder funds and also fund further illicit activities.

UPDATE: Per reports in News Corp, Daniel Milos has been granted bail and says it will be business as usual at his restaurant, adding that he will vigorously fight the charges against him.

Milos is facing 10 counts of supplying drugs, along with further counts in relation to drug trafficking and possession and money laundering. Mariosarti head chef Ryan David McIver faces one count of trafficking and three of supplying drugs.

The two men will be allowed to communicate for work purposes, and both are due to reappear in court on May 8.

Source: Brisbane Times / 7 News Brisbane.

Photo: Mariosarti / Instagram.
You know that feeling you get when you donate a lovely antique piano to a school out of the goodness of your heart only to later learn that said piano contained $850,000 worth of antique coins? Oh, you dont? Thats weird, dude. Youve never lived.

Well, it happened in the United Kingdom. The biggest gold coin hoard ever discovered in Britain was found concealed inside an antique school piano, donated by an elderly couple.

Megan and Graham Hemmings arent that mad that they dont have a claim the riches, despite the fact they owned the piano for 32 years. The piano tuner who found the haul of 913 nineteenth century sovereigns could pocket tends of thousands of dollars as a reward.

I dont regret not finding the coins, Mr Hemmings said yesterday, after the inquest to determine the treasures true owners ended. I think thats moved on. Weve got to celebrate that its going to be used for a good cause, and thats how we view it  positively.

The British Museum embarked on a four month quest to find out who the coins might originally have belonged to, without much luck. 50 claimants stepped forward, despite few of them having provable or legitimate claims. But then again, why wouldnt you give it bloody crack?

The museums experts reckon that the coins were probably hidden in the piano back during the Great Depression.

Peter Reavill, the British Museum finds liaison officer, said he was pretty impressed with some of the stories people were coming forward with, even if he wasnt ultimately convinced by any of them:

I have been amazed at the stories that people have shared about their families  we are a nation which loves history and adores mysteries  and this is one that rivals the best detective fiction out there. But nothing has been put forward to make me believe that weve found the person who is an heir to the person who stashed these coins away.

The coins will now be will now be offered to the British Museum and others. The final proceeds will then shared among the three parties.

Check your damn antique pianos. Oh, you dont have one? How sad for you.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: AP.
This isnt the time, nor the place, to harp on about how social media enables its users to share the minutiae of their lives (the time and place for that is 2006 and the Boring Takes Bin, respectively). We get it. The internet allows regular ol humans to blast others with boring detritus on a continual basis.

Celebrities, though? Welp, let us tell you: their lives can be just about as pedestrian as yours, even when theyre gearing up for a massive movie premiere.

Anna Faris attempted to prove as much with yesterdays arbitrary Tweetstorm, ahead of the Los Angeles press screening of husband Chris Pratts film Guardians Of The Galaxy. Was it moderately glam? Sure. But when youre surrounded by that kind of swish-ness, we suppose it all blurs together.

Faris opened proceedings in typical fashion:

Its the big premiere day for @Guardians -going to keep you updated! This is me at 824 am in front of the shower. pic.twitter.com/Y7jikiXshr  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

827 am. Me on the bed not taking a shower and playing twitter. This might be a long day for you guys @prattprattpratt pic.twitter.com/iiMG54u3oB  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Not typical: actually living with Pratt, an apparent yoga aficionado.

832 am. Chris just got back from yoga. Doesnt know what Im up to yet. Will he be annoyed? Lets find out. pic.twitter.com/r9ZszBhoKm  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Apparently things were so normal, she had to dig into her photo gallery to break it all up.

This isnt happening right now. Scrolling through photos though and this seemed like a way to exploit my child. 901am pic.twitter.com/7S1Q97n9l3  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Various forms of plumbing and plumbing-related activities followed.

918am. Guess who showered but clearly didnt wash face very well? Also morn news a little boring today pic.twitter.com/5yjlD30raR  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

1103am. Nice pool guys fixed the cover. Said I could tweet their photo. Rats chewed through wires! pic.twitter.com/hUIIdpWZFm  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

A late breakfast ensued. Just imagine being in her position, and still subjecting yourself to raisin toast.

More gallery-snooping, of the cutesy variety.

Going through photos again. This is chris kissing my freezing nose in Tokyo please dont vomit. I just did. pic.twitter.com/HbEmFgKJxI  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Aaand back to the showers.

1214am. Washed my hair and trying to show you guys. pic.twitter.com/7wV2zBXTa5  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Cop a squiz at the time on that one above, and then clock (heh) this follow-up.

Damn-totally right. I hope nobody asks me questions tonight. 1217 pm https://t.co/RyDgimMmF6  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Outfit decisions!

1229pm. Can I wear my favorite T tonight? pic.twitter.com/HxXb4kl1lq  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

The Glass Menagerie!



This photo that has nothing to do with what Im about to tell you. I have to leave here at 515 pm. This is important. pic.twitter.com/dfSl409Qgi  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

It was at this point her mates and beauty pros started to rock up. We admit: somewhat more glam than our lives, here.

113pm. Good news! My friend Alex just showed up. With a suitcase. Does she know she cant move in yet? pic.twitter.com/bOze0zP2H5  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

216pm. Getting my nails done. This is about to start getting a little Hollywood gross but hang in there. pic.twitter.com/5udyWgQh2h  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

My friend Ashlie is so sweet 234pm. We are going light pink. Alex finally figured out how to turn the shower on. pic.twitter.com/iIUHiXvX53  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

This, however, is definitely something wed struggle to comprehend.

Now its getting real. Chris may be annoyed. 403pm pic.twitter.com/67qMmlTdCO  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Lil mate taking advantage of the outdoor facilities seems like the kind of thing thats better saved for his 21st party, but you do you, Faris.

415pm. Our bathrooms clearly arent working pic.twitter.com/UkTIfH0XSS  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

427pm. Lip color application. I love you guys for hanging there pic.twitter.com/4sQIU7nNUa  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

456pm. My backup plan is to become a photo journalist pic.twitter.com/a3VJpam6Vc  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 19, 2017

Even choosing things to wear under a fancy get-up is an ordeal.

513pm. No boy shorts apparently pic.twitter.com/of3AurVuxr  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 20, 2017

Remember that tweet about leaving at quarter past five? Well

519pm. No time for my usual wit! We got to go!! pic.twitter.com/CDcR9FsFCI  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 20, 2017

Sure, theyre in a swish ride here, but come on: being stuck in traffic is the same for everybody.

540pm. Running late. Chris blames you guys. Seriously. pic.twitter.com/bR8dS8WVrA  Anna Faris (@AnnaKFaris) April 20, 2017

In any case, they bloody well made it in the end.

When the gang actually landed on deck, they wound up talking about their senses of taste. We can only assume Faris says her tastebuds are fried due to that raisin toast, but well probably have to wait for the next tweet bombardment to confirm that fact.

Now, well let you get back to barreling through the endless reams of content on your various feeds. May the pool maintenance guys you find there be friendly, too.

Source and photo: Anna Faris / Twitter.
It wasnt that long ago that Tash Sultana was absolutely wailing on her guitar as a busker on Melbournes Bourke Street Mall, but the video clip for her brand new track Murder To The Mind demonstrates how far shes come since then.

The literal answer is a couple of hundred metres, as the footage shows her crushing a gig at the nearby 170 Russell. Metaphorically speaking, the young muso is on another planet, and this lush track is just more proof.

Gentle keys provide the backbone to her signature croon, before a flourish of trumpet and a soul-stealing guitar solo take over. Keep ya ears peeled for more newies from her before her Splendour In The Grass appearance  and maybe keep tabs on any weirdly-talented buskers, too.

Source and photo: Tash Sultana / Facebook.
prison-generic-46865fbe09d21fe1.jpg

A state court is showing no mercy to an Aryan Nation member who helped blind an assault victim.

A white supremacist who helped to blind a man during a "boot party" assault that was so brutal that the victim's eyes were gouged out isn't being punished too severely with a 20-to 40-year prison sentence.



A state Superior Court panel reached that conclusion this week in ruling that Aryan Nation member Frank Casiano needs to stay behind bars.



Casiano, 33, is in jail for an assault he and another Aryan Nation member, Stephen Masten, made in May 2012 on a man Masten believed was hitting on his girlfriend while Masten was in prison. The victim, 43-year-old David Phillips of Philadelphia, also belonged to the supremacist group, according to the state court opinion by President Judge Emeritus Kate Ford Elliott.



Investigators said Casiano and Masten broke into Phillips' home, beat him in the face with a shovel and screamed that they were going to kill him. As Masten tried to smother Phillips with a pillow, Casiano began kicking the victim.



Masten gouged out Phillips' eyes while Casiano held Phillips down, and when the eyes popped out of their sockets the two left the unconscious Phillips for dead, police said.



After the attack, Casiano and Masten went to another Aryan Nation member's home to get a Christian Aryan patch during a ceremony. They joked to several people that they had killed Phillips during a "boot party," prosecutors said.



After his arrest, Casiano pleaded gullty to charges of aggravated assault, burglary and conspiracy. He had no sentencing deal with prosecutors.



On appeal, Casiano argued that the prison term Philadelphia County Judge Robert P. Coleman imposed is "manifestly excessive," since that judge didn't adequately consider several factors, including his rehabilitative needs.



In backing Coleman's decision, Elliott noted that the county judge cited Casiano's lack of remorse and the "unmitigated cruelty and indifference to the value of human life demonstrated by" Casiano.



Elliott also cited the prison terms Casiano served before the beating on convictions for eight other crimes, observing those penalties didn't deter him from continuing his criminal behavior.



Masten, 34, is serving a 41 1/2- to 83-year prison term for the attack.
Five years ago we were drowning in a sea of outrage over Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas decision to snub President Obama during his teams visit to the White House. Then-Gov. Deval Patrick worried that it reflected a loss of basic courtesy and grace. The Boston Globe editorialized that Thomas should have had the class to show up. A couple of our own Herald colleagues were on his case, too. One columnist called Thomas decision bratty, embarrassing and classless.

But the New England Patriots players who months ago announced their intention to skip the traditional White House visit arent getting the same treatment. In fact, theyre being celebrated for blowing off President Trump, who is scheduled to honor the 2017 Super Bowl champs today.

Careful, progressives  your double standard is showing.

To be clear, the criticism here is not for the players. Their reasons for declining to meet with Trump are personal. A number of black players have said they feel unwelcome in a Trump White House, and its not our place to tell them to set aside those sincere feelings for a meaningless photo-op.

No, its simply the hypocrisy of those who would hector Thomas  but rain hosannas on absentee Patriots  that rankles.

Weve heard the argument that Obama, presumably because of his policies and his personal conduct, was entitled to respect, and that Trump just isnt. But hypocrisy shrouded in a veneer of respectability is still hypocrisy.

Trump is a Republican whose policies offend progressives, so players are to be praised for snubbing him. Obama was a Democrat whose policies they embraced, so to skip a meeting was to commit an unpardonable act of disrespect.

But sometimes a photo-op is just a photo-op. Whether an athlete attends or doesnt may matter a great deal to him personally  but it should matter little to the rest of us.
Eric Frein

In this Jan. 5, 2015 photo, Eric Frein, center, is escorted out of the Pike County Courthouse after his preliminary hearing in Milford, Pa. He was found guilty of killing one trooper, injuring another in an ambush.

(PennLive.com/file)

In a few short days, the jury in the Eric Frein trial may impose the death penalty on Pennsylvania's latest cop-killer.

But for the time being, the hard truth is that sentence would effectively stand more as a statement of the punishment the jurors feel is deserved, than the punishment Frein will get.

There are a couple of reasons for that.

First, no one gets an execution warrant in Pennsylvania until after lengthy rounds of post-conviction appeals.

Fact: Since Gov. Tom Wolf took office in January 2015, at least 34 months have lapsed between the sentencing of any death row inmate and the signing of their first execution warrant.

Apply that timeline to Frein's case, and you could reasonably expect that it will be at least early 2020 before the guy who killed one state trooper, wounded another and led police on a 48-day manhunt in northeastern Pennsylvania gets a death date.

Secondly, in Wolf, we have a governor who has effectively ended executions as currently practiced in Pennsylvania.

In a highly controversial move, Wolf in February 2015 said he would not let any executions occur in Pennsylvania until a state-commissioned study of 17 different aspects of capital punishment is completed.

That long-awaited study may be completed by the end of this year.

But even then, Wolf has said he would continue to issue reprieves on any scheduled executions until all major concerns raised by the study have been addressed.

To date, according to state Department of Corrections records, Wolf has issued five such reprieves.

If you think the governor might make an exception in Frein's case -- whom Wolf branded "a monster" in a statement issued by his press office after Frein was convicted Wednesday -- think again.

"There is no change in the governor's position or the process as the task force report is not complete," Press Secretary J.J. Abbott told PennLive via email Thursday night.

It's not that Wolf is trying to substitute his judgement for the jurors in the penalty phase, Abbott said. It is that Wolf believes the capital punishment system should not be used on anyone until all potential biases are studied and cured.

That's a stance that's likely to draw renewed criticism for Wolf in the coming days, as many following the Frein case are likely to argue the ultimate penalty -- death by execution -- is a big part of the justice they seek for slain Cpl. Bryon Dickson II.

"Full justice," Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin termed it after Wednesday's verdict.

Wolf, who was not available for an interview for this story, is not trying to pass judgement on that demand, Abbott said.

But he is trying to be satisfied that the system itself is working.

"The governor's decision to issue temporary reprieves came after significant consideration and reflection and was in no way an expression of sympathy for the guilty on death row," Abbott said Thursday night.

"His only sympathy lies with the family members of the victims of these horrible crimes."

There is also a third factor at play that adds even more uncertainty to Pennsylvania's death penalty debate.

Five death row inmates are pursuing a class action suit in Commonwealth Court alleging the Department of Corrections improperly changed the drug cocktail it would use for lethal injections.

Meanwhile, drug supply issues and lawsuits over lethal injection procedures used in other states have created real questions about its practical future as a mode of execution in America.

In the most recent of those battles, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, permitted Arkansas to proceed with its plan to execute up to four convicted murderers by the end of this month.

The first of those executions was carried out Thursday night.

Frein, now 33, was convicted in the Sept. 12, 2014, attack at the Blooming Grove state police barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania. Dickson, a married father of two, was killed, and a second trooper was shot through the hips and left debilitated in an act that Frein apparently hoped would be seen as a political statement.

The gunman led authorities on a 48-day manhunt through the rugged Pocono Mountains before U.S. marshals caught him at an abandoned airplane hangar more than 20 miles from the barracks.

One more fact:

While 459 execution warrants have been signed by seven different governors and one state Corrections Secretary since 1985, Pennsylvania has executed only three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976.

Each of those inmates, Keith Zettlemoyer, Leon Moser and Gary Heidnik, had voluntarily ended their appeals.

State and federal courts have repeatedly halted almost every other scheduled execution in that time.

Will Pennsylvanians care about those nuances in the current case, which touches so many emotional buttons? Will Eric Frein's case become a hot-button issue in the 2018 gubernatorial campaign?

We may be about to find out.

But if Pennsylvania's history with the death penalty has shown anything, it's this: Closure, no matter how you seek it, is likely years away.
HARRISBURG--Harrisburg school officials are planning to paint the restroom stalls at Rowland Academy, three days after a parent complained that the room "looked like a crime scene."

Priming and painting are scheduled for the weekend, when students and staff won't be in the building, according to a memo written Thursday by Kenn Medina, the district business manager.

School officials provided the memo to reporters who asked for an update of the situation after parent Jennifer Snavely complained about conditions inside the middle school to school board members Monday.

School District Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney was not at Monday's school board meeting and has not publicly commented on the situation.

According to Medina's memo: Bathroom sink vanities and backsplashes that had the Formica torn off are also being addressed. The work will be "done as soon as practicable, and when staff and students are not around due to the chemical dangers of drying adhesive in areas of low ventilation."

Exit signs that were dangling were repaired and "in place" as of Thursday, according to the report.

About 40 other work orders have been assigned to cover outlets and lights and repair paper towel dispensers at the middle school, among other repairs. The work orders will be tackled in order of priority for safety and sanitation, Medina said.

A district engineer is reexamining the air balance in the restrooms as well, Medina said, to be sure stale air is being properly exhausted.

Snavely said she couldn't believe adults were not aware of the bad conditions at the school and she wondered why no action was taken until she posted photos on Facebook.

The situation at Rowland was not acceptable, Medina said, and he apologized for the time the situation languished.

School board members asked leaders at the district's 10 buildings to provide lists of any similar lagging problems at their buildings so they could be addressed as well.

Two school board members toured Rowland at 1842 Derry Street on Thursday to check the progress and get a better idea of what was going on at the school building.

The building previously housed office space and was renovated into a school in the 1990s, said board member Jim Thompson, who toured the building with board member Matthew Krupp. The age of the building contributed to the poor conditions, Thompson said, but the bigger problem is the ongoing vandalism.

A tour revealed a "mishmash" of building appliances that were new, ripped up or had been recently repaired, revealing "chronic breakage problems," said Thompson, an architect.

Thompson toured all 16 restrooms in the four-story building and said one-third of them had objectionable odors, mostly boys' restrooms, even after being cleaned, because of urine that had apparently stained the grout.

Thompson also found a cracked urinal, a sink missing faucet knobs, a damaged fire extinguisher cabinet, a soap dispenser ripped from the wall and a paper towel dispenser with its cover ripped off.

"It's like random vandalism. Why does someone rip a soap dispenser off the wall?" Thompson said. "It's senseless vandalism in the school."

Thompson sat down with maintenance supervisors from Aramark, the company with a district maintenance contract, and the school principal and they reported to him that the kids were breaking items every week, at a pace that made it hard to keep up.

The Aramark supervisor told Thompson they had filled the broken paper towel dispenser the day before, indicating it was fresh vandalism. The Aramark supervisors oversee four or five school custodians at Rowland, Thompson said.

"It's very expensive to spend custodial time constantly repairing these things," Thompson said. "They've got repairs every week."

While the graffiti-covered stalls captured in Snavely's photographs looked to contain years' worth of scrawled initials and expletives, Thompson said the partition panels were painted last summer.

The district is looking to replace the antiquated metal partitions with updated and more scratch-resistant plastic resin ones.

"All of the toilet rooms need to be renovated," Thompson said. "We need a long-term capital-type of solution. It's going to be ugly until we get them renovated."

Of the 16 restrooms in the school, most were in varying states of repair, Thompson said, but two stood out as being worse. One of them was the restroom that was photographed by Snavely during parent-teacher conferences last week. She posted the photos of Facebook, kicking off a series of media stories and the district's current response.

Snavely reported that the doors wouldn't close properly in the girl's restroom outside her 10-year-old daughter's classroom. Thompson said the floating partitions had become loose over time, another reason to replace the stalls instead of simply repairing them again and again, he said.

School board members on Monday night approved a contract with Aramark not to exceed $14,500 to complete phase one of the district's five-year capital improvement plan. It's unclear what projects will be addressed under that contract.

But completely renovating 16 restrooms would require additional money at a time the district is facing possible deficits in future budget years. Student behavior also would have to be addressed, Thompson said.

"We need to educate the students on the cost of renovations and the impact it has on our budget," Thompson said. "The money spent on all these repairs, that's one less program, or one less guidance counselor. It is a zero-sum game."

Custodians also need to jump on vandalism to repair it as soon as possible, Thompson said. Clearly damaged appliances and accumulating graffiti only encourage additional vandalism, he said, invoking New York's "broken windows" theory, because it sets the norm.

Thompson said he didn't think the custodial staff was ignoring damage.

"It's not the same stuff," he said. "The exit signs were repaired within 24 hours, so that's not true (that they were left broken.)"

During Thompson's tour, he said he noted a missing exit sign that had been ripped out the day before. It could not be repaired, and instead, needs to be replaced.

"We need to look at mounting them in a more secure location," he said. "That sort of short-term stuff is never going to end, which is why we need to work with the students to change their behavior too."
A federal judge on Thursday awarded nearly $42 million to the parents of a Chambersburg boy who suffered severe brain damage due to a forceps injury at birth in 2012, according to a publicopinononline report.

The boy's parents, Christina Late and Nathan Armolt, sued the federal government due to the actions of a doctor employed by Keystone Women's Health Center, a federally funded group. The center and Dr. Thomas Orndorf were implicated in the case, the report said.

U.S. District Judge Sylvia Rambo's verdict followed a six-day bench trial in September, according to the report. The award is believed to be the largest ever for a medical malpractice case in the middle district of Pennsylvania.

The boy, now 5-years-old, understands language, but is unable to express himself, will not be able to read or write, fatigues easily and will be confined to a motorized wheelchair as he gets older, the report said. He also has aggressive emotional outbursts.

The child will require life-long supervision, the judge said that by the age of 22 he will likely need to be institutionalized.

Joanne Cochran, president and CEO of Keystone Health, issued the following statement to the Public Opinion

"The entire Keystone Health family is saddened by the outcome of this delivery and for the hardships this child and family have experienced and will continue to endure. While our providers have performed thousands of deliveries resulting in healthy babies over the last 32 years, that does not diminish the significance and the pain of this regrettable incident. Keystone has taken all the necessary quality assurance steps so that this does not happen in the future. Each and every patient is important to us and a part of our Keystone family, and we strive to treat them as such."
Jason Umberger.jpg

Swatara Township Police Department Chief Jason Umberger has accepted the chief of police position with the police department in DeLand, Florida.

(Joe Hermitt)

Swatara Township police Chief Jason Umberger is heading to Florida.

Umberger, a 24-year veteran of the Swatara force, accepted the chief of police position in DeLand, Florida, according to a beacononlinenews report.

Umberger was among six finalists to replace the city's retiring chief following a months-long search. The city selection committee tapped him as the top candidate after he spent two days in Deland being questioned by the committee members and the public.

Deland officials cited Umberger's experience with community policing. He has been Swatara's chief since 2011.

Umberger, 49, is expected to start his new position with the DeLand Police Department before June 1, the report said.
A Harrisburg man convicted of a 2011 revenge murder outside a defunct city club won't be getting a new trial after all.



In January 2016, Dauphin County Judge Scott A. Evans ordered a new trial for Eric Small, citing what he found was newly-discovered evidence in the form of testimony by a woman who claimed another man, Pedro Espada, admitted to the slaying.





Eric Small

A state Superior Court panel overturned Evans' decision on Friday, however, reinstating Small's life prison sentence for fatally shooting 25-year-old William Price Jr. outside the now-closed Club Egypt at Second and State streets.



The state court concluded in an opinion by Senior Judge William H. Platt that the evidence Evans cited as "new" isn't new at all.



Two other defense witnesses testified during Small's 2012 trial that Espada had confessed to the murder, Platt noted, so the belated testimony provided by another witness, Kenosha Tyson, in 2015 can't be considered as new evidence that could have altered the outcome of the trial.



Nor is there any solid corroboration of Tyson's claim that Espada told her he killed Price, the state judge wrote.



Tyson is the mother of Espada's child. Small was a friend of Espada. Prosecutors insisted that Small killed Price as a favor to Espada because Price had gotten into a shoving match with Tyson at another city club a few days before his murder.



Witnesses said they saw Small walking with his arm around Price moments before the fatal shots were fired. Price was shot in the face. The coroner described it as a contact gunshot. After Price was shot, Espada was seen firing several shots, then he and Small ran from the scene.



Platt noted that one defense witness testified during the trial that Espada told him he shot Price from three to five feet away, a scenario that doesn't match the coroner's finding. A detective testified during the trial that claims she heard from a friend that Espada admitted to the killing, Platt added.



He overturned Evans' new trial award after agreeing with the district attorney's office that Evans overreached in granting it.

When he was sentenced in October 2012, Small told Evans and Price's family that he isn't the killer. He insisted the gunman is a relative who he wouldn't reveal to the police.
While some would consider receiving 10 pounds of marijuana in the mail to be the best day of their lives, one church pastor in the Philadelphia suburbs is not considering herself very lucky.

Yeadon police said the church pastor received the drugs on Thursday in bundles stuffed into a plastic bucket inside a cardboard box. The boxed was delivered from Sacramento, Calif. by United Parcel Service, The Associated Press reported.

Police told WTXF-TV the woman who received it is a church pastor who tells authorities it wasn't meant for her. Police believe someone else might have been instructed to watch for the package, but failed to pick it up.

Police Chief Donald Molineux said the pastor is "very upset and traumatized" and afraid someone might come to her home looking for the drugs.

Police are hoping surveillance video from a drop-off location will identify who shipped the package.
marijuana leaf.jpg

Because the traffic stop was illegal, police can't use 13 pounds of marijuana found in a man's car as evidence against him, a state appeals court ruled.

(Shutterstock.com )

Cumberland County prosecutors can't use 13 pounds of marijuana seized during a traffic stop on Interstate 81 as evidence against the driver who was caught with it because he was pulled over illegally, a state appeals court panel has ruled.



District Attorney David Freed said Friday that he is weighing whether to appeal that Superior Court decision to the state Supreme Court.



Freed's office appealed to the Superior Court after county Judge Jessica Brewbaker granted a motion by Kennedy Anthony Richards to prevent prosecutors from using the marijuana as evidence to try him on drug possession charges.



The incident in question occurred on I-81 near Carlisle on the afternoon of May 13, 2005, according to the Superior Court opinion by Judge Anne E. Lazarus. Two state troopers in an unmarked car saw Richards drive by in a rented Nissan Sentra with Florida plates. Richards, 43, of Patterson, N.J., was driving in the left lane and making no effort to get over, the police said.



The troopers said they followed Richards for five miles and he stayed in the left lane the entire time, even though traffic in the right lane was passing him and he had opportunities to get over. However, the cops only turned the dash cam of their cruiser on for the last mile of the incident.



The timing of the video proved to be important. Brewbaker noted the video shows Richard in the left lane with several vehicles in front of him, all of which appeared to be passing other cars.



The troopers claimed Richards was stopped because he was violating a Pennsylvania law requires drivers to use the left lane only for passing or to yield to other vehicles at ramps. They said he was nervous and gave inconsistent stories when he was stopped. A check showed he had a drug-related criminal history.



He did have a valid Florida driver's license, however, and produced the rental agreement for the car. When Richards refused to consent to a search of the car, a drug-sniffing dog was called and the animal alerted on the drugs, investigators said.



However, Brewbaker and the Superior Court agreed with Richards that the police had no probable cause to pull him over. He wasn't even cited for the supposed traffic violation. And, despite testimony from the troopers, "the video shows Richards complying with the law the entire time and actually passing vehicles in the right lane as he traveled in the left lane," Lazarus wrote.



In agreeing with Brubaker's suppression decision, Lazarus agreed that prosecutors can't use improperly secured evidence that "was fruit of the poisonous tree."




GLEN ROCK, YORK COUNTY - It seems a simple and noble intention: A naval lieutenant commander with 20 years of military service and multiple deployments to combat zones every night plays Taps.

That was the intention Joshua Corney had about 18 months ago when he began to broadcast the traditional military bugle call that marks the end of the day as well as final honors for fallen soldiers from the sprawling yard of his Glen Rock home, which sits high on a hill on top of Glen Avenue.

Since then, every night just before 8 p.m., Corney has been broadcasting the evocative 24-note melancholy bugle call from his backyard, the 57-second musical piece spills across his five acres down toward the scenic valley below.

A few months after he started the nightly ritual, Corney amped up the broadcast and invested in a three-speaker sound system, which is perched on top of a 25-foot post out back. The sound system broadcasts the bugle call at about 60 to 80 decibels.

Now, that ritual has boiled over into controversy that has splintered this quiet borough of 2,200 along York County's southern border, pitting neighbors against each other, with threats and accusations of bullying and intimidation thrown into the mix.

Joshua Corney, of Glen Rock, York County, says he broadcasts Taps nightly from his backyard to offer his community a moment to pause and reflect, and remember fallen soldiers.

Corney, who has done eight deployments, including to Iraq and Afghanistan, stands steadfast by his commitment to continue to do what he says is an overture of honor and remembrance for all fallen soldiers.

Meanwhile, the handful of residents who have complained about the noise - most of them elderly neighbors who live in the immediate vicinity of Corney's house - have backed off their demands that he cease playing the music out of fear for their safety, and in large part, because of the outpouring of rage directed at them.

"I've been in the military for 20 years and throughout my service have done several deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq and I have served in a combat zones ...and at one point I made a promise to God that if He brought me back home safe and sound, I would do something in remembrance of those who had fallen while I was there but also those who have died in past wars and who will die in future wars," said Corney, who at 38 walks with crutches as he awaits another surgery on his knees, which have been damaged from the toll of service. "The sacrifice they make is just so great."

He said he has compromised along the way, notably, six months after he started, moving the speakers to the back of the house and pointing them away from specific homes down the hill.

The issue - which at first he said was a "neighbor to neighbor" issue - for the most part simmered down, that is until about six months ago when a second complaint was brought before the council.

Corney said he tried to work with that individual by adjusting the angle of the speakers and lowering the volume, but the two were unable to reach a resolution. That's when the matter was returned to council, and now, it's a matter of public ordinance: Corney is being charged with violating the borough's noise ordinance.

That judgment is poised to be largely arbitrary.

John Trout, Glen Rock's mayor, said the matter depends on interpretation of the ordinance.

Corney's broadcast lasts 57 seconds, well under the continuous 15-minute framework specified in the borough ordinance (which refers to noise made between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.). Corney, by the way, says he has taken the decibel readings and that among the highest reading - that of 80 - compares to the noise made by a hair dryer.

According to borough ordinance, the noise ordinance applies to

Any noise or other disturbance that occurs continuously or intermittently for an extended period, which annoys or disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities, including, without limitation,

the loud playing of radios, televisions, amplifiers, and other sound devices so as to be heard beyond the boundaries of the Property from which that same shall emanate....

Trout, who lives about a half mile away from Corney, said he can hear the bugle call when he is outside on his deck - but not inside his house.

"It doesn't bother me," he said. "I hear it very faintly. I'm not a next door neighbor. I don't know if I would be able to have that if I lived next door."

Victoria Ribeiro, a member of the Glen Rock Borough Council, scoffs at Corney.

For starters, Ribeiro, who agreed to speak on behalf of the residents who had lodged complaints about Corney's nightly ritual, says he turned what should have been a matter between neighbors - or at the very least an affair for the 2,200-strong borough to address - into something that has garnered the attention of tens of thousands of people, some even across the country.

"Just the outcry was so unreasonable and lacking in empathy," she said, referring to the outrage that Corney's social media posts garnered. "These folks were terrified."

Not long after Corney posted an appeal on Facebook asking for support as he prepared to defend his ritual before borough council, the Glen Rock residents who had lodged the complaints were ostracized by residents, and even non-residents, Ribeiro said.

She said that in some social media posts, those residents were told that they should lose a family member or have someone come to their window to blast noise. Those posts have since been deleted, she said.

"It's not blatantly threatening but when 500 people with a mob mentality are telling you that you are unpatriotic and unAmerican... they were scared. These are older folks. They mind their business. They wanted to compromise with their neighbor," Ribeiro said.

Ribeiro on Wednesday night was prepared to speak on behalf of the disgruntled residents at the borough council meeting, which had on its agenda the Corney situation. She said the residents - one of whom is a widow whose husband was a veteran, and the other a woman whose husband, a veteran, is ill and has dementia -- now do not want the publicity that coming forward would bring.

Council at the last minute scrapped the item from its agenda.

Ribeiro said the residents, both of whom have lived for more than 20 years in the borough, were essentially silenced. A small-business owner, Ribeiro said she is even concerned about her own safety. She said Corney is not listening to his neighbors, nor does he care.

"I don't think that's how a serviceman should behave," she said. "I don't think that's how a real soldier should behave. This is not a military base. This is not a church bell.. it's not a train whistle that serves a public safety purpose or a police siren."

Trout, a veteran with more than 40 years of service, said he has mixed feelings about the matter.

"I understand the meaning of Taps and why he is playing it. I'm very appreciative of it," said Trout, a retired colonel from the Pennsylvania National Guard. "I have mixed feelings... I'm a veteran so I understand the meaning behind Taps. I was a chaplain. I did a lot of burials. I understand why Josh is doing it...but I'm also sensitive to people's needs. There probably needs to be some kind of compromise."

John McLaughlin, who lives down the road from Corney, scoffed at the idea that anyone would object to the Taps tribute.

"Just because one person doesn't like it we have to stop? What the heck," he said. "That's not democracy."

He said if Corney is forced to stop playing the call, the neighbors will take it upon themselves to take turns playing it every night.

"It's only 60 seconds," McLaughlin said.

Mike Patria, who lives a few doors from McLaughlin, said he appreciates Corney's effort, but he also understands the other side.

"It's soothing. I enjoy it. It makes me take a moment and think of how fortunate I am," said Patria, a 20-year Navy veteran. "I also see the other side. For some people it's a soothing song. It's a soothing moment, a quiet moment to reflect but for some other people it can bring them back to a very dark place. For some veterans that have been in wars that have been scarred in wars that song can bring a very dark moment. For others who have lost a loved one this may have been the last thing they heard before they buried a loved one. Hearing that song can bring them back to a moment in life that wasn't a very good time. I know both sides of the coin. I can understand both sides."

Corney, a father of six, said he is overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from residents and nonresidents. He said that's the reason he drummed up support - to show appreciation, and his own support - for people who have embraced the Taps ritual from his yard.

Residents routinely stand on his driveway, some in tears. They shake his hand; some send letters.

"I felt a need to let Glen Rock and other communities know what was to take place," Corney said. "I have served overseas to fight for their freedoms back here and I needed their help to help me fight for something that I feel they have embraced and that they want in my community."

Corney said it was never his intent to have anyone threatened or bullied.

"If someone chooses to do something, I can't control that... you stand up for what you think is right and people should be held accountable for their actions," he said. "... it's almost like terrorism. Should I not do something because of a fear of someone's action?"

He said he is prepared to seek legal help if he is forced to cease playing the bugle call - and also prepared to drum up support to cover the cost of the daily ordinance penalty, which is $250.

Update: This article has been updated to clarify that Corney has completed eight total deployments, including to Iraq and Afghanistan. He stresses that his personal views do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense nor the Department of the Navy.
Jeff Sessions

In this March 2, 2017, photo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Look, being America's Attorney General is a demanding gig, requiring a mastery of the law, an understanding of the intricacies of politics and the ability to skillfully navigate the halls of power.

But one of the things it does not require, apparently, is an understanding of basic American geography.

Thus has current AG Jeff Sessions found himself in hot water over some intemperate remarks about America's 50th state:

"I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power," Sessions, of Alabama, said this week in an interview on "The Mark Levin Show," a conservative talk radio program, according to The New York Times.

Sessions was talking about the second of the Trump administration's thwarted travel bans, which U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson of Hawaii blocked, much to the administration's chagrin.

As a refresher, the United States annexed Hawaii in the late 19th century, in one of the more shameful episodes from the nation's early, expansionist history. The territory became a state in 1959.

If you travel to Hawaii, you still run into a lot of bruised feelings about relations with the mainland.

So it's not surprising to learn that its residents and elected leaders were pretty aggrieved by Sessions' dismissal.

"Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences -- including my own," U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat, tweeted. "Jeff Sessions' comments are ignorant & dangerous."

Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences- including my own. Jeff Sessions comments are ignorant & dangerous  Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) April 20, 2017

The state's other U.S. Senator, Brian Schatz, also a Democrat, reminded Sessions that he voted to confirm the judge who made the decision.

"Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It's my home. Have some respect," he tweeted.

Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It's my home. Have some respect. https://t.co/sW9z3vqBqG  Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) April 20, 2017

Here's some other Twitter reaction:

Jeff Sessions dismisses Hawaii as "an island in the pacific." Weird part is he thinks it's just one island. Has he never looked at a US map?  Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) April 21, 2017

Jeff Sessions is confused:

Hawaii IS a legitimate state.

He is NOT a legitimate Attorney General.

Class dismissed. pic.twitter.com/tMB7sFX8SC  Tananarive Due (@TananariveDue) April 20, 2017
KIDS IN A CLASSROOM ART.jpg

When Pennsylvania's policymakers and elected leaders have their annual debate over public school funding, their conversations over funding disparities tend to take place in a very binary context.

That disparity debate generally pits the largest urban school systems - Pittsburgh and Philadelphia - against every other district in the state, both rural and suburban.

But, as a new report makes clear, that's only half the conversation.

According to new data by the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a Harrisburg advocacy group, students in the commonwealth's rural school districts are as at-risk of being left behind as students in any larger urban district.

"More than half of the rural school districts in Pennsylvania are spending less educating their children than their estimated adequacy target, or the amount expected to ensure that children can reach the state's rigorous academic standards," the report reads.

Even with a new basic education funding formula intended to level the playing field among all districts, 202 rural districts are still not receiving their fair share of state funding while 158 spend below the so-called "adequacy" target, the report shows.

And when districts don't meet that target, student performance suffers as a consequence.

In the rural districts that spend between 10 percent and 25 percent below their adequacy target, nearly 40 percent of students were not proficient in third-grade language arts and nearly 70 percent of students were not proficient in eighth-grade math, the study found.

The Upper Dauphin School District, for instance, needs $13 million in funding to meet its so-called "adequacy" target, according to the report. The district's actual state funding is about 9.5 percent below that target.

Two-thirds (nearly 67 percent) of the district's students were not proficient in third-grade language arts, while nearly 70 percent were not proficient in eighth grade math.

In the Newport schools in Perry County, nearly half of all students did not demonstrate proficiency in third-grade language arts, while more than two-thirds were not proficient in eighth-grade math. The state is underfunding the district by nearly $1.3 million a year, the report found.

And in the West Perry District, more than a third of students (36 percent) didn't hit the mark on language arts and nearly three-quarters were not proficient in eighth-grade math. The state is underfunding the district by more than $4.4 million annually, the report found.

Gov. Tom Wolf's proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 calls for a $100 million increase in K-12 spending. That's a good start.

But according to the advocacy group, it will take spending another $3 billion to close the gap and to make sure all students have a fair chance at meeting the state standards. The report calls on lawmakers and the executive to close that gap in the next five to seven years.

That's a laudable goal, and lawmakers should approve Wolf's funding request, and continue their discussions about closing the gap.

But that's only part of the picture.

It's also incumbent upon the General Assembly and the Wolf administration to pass real pension reform, all the better to ensure that the largest share possible of public funding makes it into the classroom and isn't consumed by spiraling retirement costs.

It's also incumbent on school districts to make sure that they are the wisest possible stewards of the public purse, again making sure that the largest possible portion of tax dollars makes it into the classroom.

More money always helps - but it's not the whole answer.

As with any successful effort it takes everyone - lawmakers, school board members, and parents - rowing in the same direction for a good final result.
Recep Tayyip Erdogans ugly win in the recent referendum on a new, authoritarian constitution for Turkey creates big problems for the countrys secular democratic forces and for Turkeys Western allies  but also for Erdogan himself.

His victory was not convincing, as he had hoped, but narrow, contested and tainted by the finding of a European observer mission that the pre-election campaign was not free or fair. Turkeys three biggest cities voted against the would-be strongman. The country is not united behind him, but polarized  a political reality that even an empowered ruler will ignore at his peril.

To be sure, the Turkish president sounded defiant in the wake of his victory, dismissing Western critics for their crusader mentality and hinting that he would embrace harsh new measures, such as reinstituting the death penalty  something that would surely rupture Turkeys relations with European Union leaders.

As it is, Mr. Erdogans government has purged some 130,000 people from their jobs and jailed more than 45,000 since a failed military coup last summer. The new constitution, which will take full effect in 2019, could allow him to remain president until at least 2029, with only weak parliamentary checks and a judiciary he could shape with his own appointments.

Turkey, however, has not yet reached the state of Egypt or Russia, where elections are grossly rigged and most opposition has been crushed. Even Kurdish towns that have been assaulted by the military in the name of defeating terrorists turned out to vote against Erdogan, as did the large secular populations of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

Preliminary results showed 48.7 percent of the country voted against the constitution despite a one-sided campaign in which opposition voices were suppressed. A controversial decision by election authorities to accept ballots that lacked official stamps may have saved Erdogan from defeat, but at the price of further undermining his legitimacy.

Erdogan would be wise to try to defuse some of the opposition by reaching out to opponents, as Western governments urged him to do. Until 2015 he pursued a peace settlement with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party. Some observers think he may return to it.

But Erdogans history over 14 years in office has reflected an increasing hunger for power, matched by a growing intolerance of criticism. If that trend continues, Turkey will face relentless domestic strife.

All of this poses a dilemma for the United States and other NATO nations, which badly need Turkey as an anchor of the alliance on the borders of the Middle East but cannot easily countenance its drift toward dictatorship. The Trump administration awkwardly reflected this tension Monday as President Trump called Erdogan to offer congratulations and discuss Syria even as the State Department gingerly addressed the election irregularities and urged the government to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all its citizens.

In the near term, Western leaders cannot afford to break with Erdogan, but they must do their best to push him toward ending his domestic repression. The millions of Turks who still seek to preserve democracy and civil liberties will need allies, too.
(*This column has been updated to clarify the intent of Sen. Don White's bill)

So here's the thing about that bill that came out of a state Senate committee this week allowing teachers and other school employees to carry guns in the classroom.

Its backers aren't wrong that it's "a sad commentary" that the General Assembly is even discussing such a proposal after years of policy and laws aimed at keeping guns out of the classroom.

But the only thing that's sadder about the bill being peddled by Sen. Don White, R-Indiana, is that there's a decent chance that it won't make our kids any safer.

In fact, it may make them less safe.

If you're just tuning in, the Senate Education Committee voted 9-3 on Wednesday to send White's bill, which would allow school boards to make the final call on whether teachers and others with training in firearms use to pack heat in the classroom, to the full Senate for a vote.

As PennLive's Jan Murphy reports, White's bill would require school employees who agree to carry a firearm at school to possess a concealed carry permit, which requires no training to obtain, according to CeaseFirePa's Shira Goodman.

Employees also would have to complete training that is designed for law enforcement personnel, which critics question whether a non-law enforcement person could access. Or they'd have to take a course certified by the state police commissioner. Right now, that course doesn't exist.

"Teachers have come to me and said I want the opportunity to defend my children and to defend my life and give me something more powerful than an eraser to throw at these people," White told the committee.

It's a noble sentiment - and I get it. I really do.

If my kid was staring down the barrel of some gun-wielding madman, I'd want her to have every chance to make it home alive. And if that means an algebra teacher with a Glock, I'd be willing to consider it.

And let me be clear here - I'm not saying no guns in schools. Having armed security guards or school resource officers, trained professionals, is entirely appropriate. But we shouldn't add to their ranks.

Because the truth is, that "good guy with a gun" myth is a fantasy of the NRA and well-meaning Second Amendment adherents.

Consider the evidence, both anecdotal and scientific:

During last year's rampage in Dallas, in which a former military gunman ambushed a crowd, killing five police officers and two civilians, it wasn't the 20 armed protesters in the crowd who brought him down.

It was a bomb, aimed at the gunman, by a police robot, according to an examination of the "Good Guy" myth by the Harvard Political Review.

And, as a 2014 FBI study concludes, such endings are the case more often than they are not.

More than half, 56 percent, of the 160 "active" shooter incidents between 2000 and 2013 ended of the shooter's own volition, either through suicide or when the shooter simply stopped shooting or fled the scene, the FBI report found.

In 45 (28.1 percent) of the 160 incidents, "law enforcement and the shooter exchanged gunfire. Of those 45 incidents, the shooter was killed at the scene in 21, killed at another location in four, wounded in nine, committed suicide in nine, and surrendered in two," the study found.

In 13 percent of the cases, or 21 incidents, the situation ended when unarmed citizens restrained the shooter. In two of those incidents, three off-duty law enforcement officers were present and assisted, the study found.

Of note in that 13 percent, "11 of the [21] incidents involved unarmed principals, teachers, other school staff and students who confronted shooters to end the threat (9 of those shooters were students)," the FBI report concluded.

"It won't make anyone safer; it likely will endanger kids and teachers; and virtually no one but the gun lobby thinks it's a good idea," Goodman, of CeaseFirePa, said in an email.

Unsurprisingly, Kim Stolfer, the president of Firearms Owners Against Crime, a gun-rights PAC, sees it another way entirely.

White's bill, he argues, highlights the failure of so-called "Gun-Free" school zones, which were intended to combat violence in the first place.

"Now we have teachers, who are supposed to take care of our children," who are unable to defend them, Stolfer argued. "Self-defense is a basic human right - especially when we have people we've charged with the protection of our kids. It's essential."

And I have to admit - it's a compelling argument.

But the data - along with the fact that even the most competent of police marksmen miss about 50 percent of the time - makes a convincing case that the last thing you need in an active shooter situation in the classroom is a Social Studies teacher who thinks he's Wyatt Earp (even with the appropriate training).

"In major cities like New York City and Los Angeles, the measured hit rates of police, according to Firearm Discharge Reports, hover far below 50 percent, some years dipping into the teens," Rachel Tropp, of the Harvard Political Review, wrote. "This statistic doesn't imply police are poor marksmen; it merely reflects the stressful, difficult, and dangerous reality of confrontations, unmatched in a shooting range or training situation."

And, "By telling unprepared civilians it's their responsibility to be heroes, the NRA contributes to the possibility that "good guys" add to the confusion at the crime scene. In the wake of the Dallas shootings, Police Chief David Brown said, 'We don't know who the good guy is versus the bad guy if everybody starts shooting,'" Tropp wrote.

That magnifies the danger for all concerned - putting the teacher, as well as students, at even greater risk.

Supporters will argue that if you can save just one person by letting a teacher have a gun, then it's worthwhile. And I get that, I really do.

But we need to very carefully ask ourselves whether that's worth the potential cost.

And I just don't know if it is.
FILE - In this undated file photo released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations shows Tad Cummins in Tennessee. Authorities said a 15-year-old Tennessee girl who disappeared with Cummins, who was her teacher, last month has been found safe in California and the teacher has been arrested. (Tennessee Bureau of Investigations via AP, File)
FILE - This is a Tuesday, April 11, 2017 file photo of Britain's Queen Elizabeth as she meets residents during a visit to Priory View, an independent living scheme for older residents, in Dunstable, England, Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Britain's Queen Elizabeth celebrates her 91st birthday on Friday, April 21, 2017. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo, File via AP)
Election explainer: How Michigan's university boards are determined

Michigan's process for determining the members of university governing boards is unique. The state is just one of four that uses a statewide vote.
As the week comes to an end and as all attention is focused today upon France and the impending election there this weekend. This is especially so in light of the Islamist terrorist attack upon two French policemen yesterday even as the major candidates were debating on French national television as the campaigns have effectively come to an end.

As we discuss in our political commentary below, the political beneficiary of the attack that took place on the Champs Elysees last evening shall be Ms. Le Pen, who has been openly antagonistic toward immigrants into France for years and has remained consistent in that regard.

The loser shall be Mr. Melenchon, who is the most openly far-left-ofcenter of the four leading candidates and whose positions in the matters regarding immigration et al have been the most liberal.

It was Benjamin Disraeli, we believe, who, when asked what it is that determines one's political future said, Events, my friend, events. It really matters not who said this nor precisely what was said, but it is a simple fact that events such as the attack in Paris are never forecastable.

No one knows when an Event of some very real consequence shall happen that shall change the very dynamics of politics and economics. Going into last night's debate and into the events on the streets of Paris, Mr. Melenchon's campaign was on a roll. His support ratings were rising while those of the other three major candidates were at best holding steady and in some cases Ms. Le Pen's for example were actually falling.
Oil sounding a warning for financial markets, brent physical crude weakens despite OPEC

Bloomberg



OPEC supply management yet to work as producer group intended. Brent is benchmark for more than half the world's crude oil.

LONDON

Petroleumworld 04 21 2017

The Brent physical oil market is flashing signs of weakness again as dwindling Asian purchases, an influx of American crude to Europe, and supplies flowing out of storage all combine to recreate a glut in the North Sea.

The weakness comes at a time when speculators have started rebuilding bullish positions after a sell-off last month, betting the market will tighten in the second quarter. Yet, Brent physical oil traders say the opposite is happening so far, according to interviews with executives at several trading houses, who asked not to be identified discussing internal views.

We need to see the market going really into deficit for oil prices to rise, Giovanni Staunovo, commodity analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich, said. If this is temporary, it could be weathered, but it needs to be monitored.

The weakness is particularly visible in so-called time-spreads -- the price difference between contracts for delivery at different periods. Reflecting a growing surplus that could force traders to seek tankers as temporary floating storage facilities, the Brent June-July spread this week fell to an unusually weak minus 55 cents per barrel, down from parity just two months earlier. The negative structure is known in the industry as contango.

"Keep a wary eye on the Brent contango," said Jan Stuart, energy economist at Credit Suisse Securities LLC in New York. "Bellwether Brent time-spreads have been counter-seasonally widening.

In the world of contracts for difference, which allow traders to insure price exposure for their North Sea crude shipments week-by-week, the one-week CFD spread plunged this week to minus $1.84 a barrel, the weakest since late November and just before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries and allied nations announced their first joint effort to manage supply in over a decade. A month ago, the comparable CFD traded at just minus 50 cents barrel.

"It will not take much before we see headlines about floating storage starting to increase again," said Olivier Jakob, head of oil consultant PetroMatrix GmbH, in Zug, Switzerland.

Weaker differentials

The differentials between physical grades and benchmarks have also weakened in recent weeks. Glencore Plc, the world's largest commodities trader, on Thursday bought from French oil giant Total SA a cargo of Brent crude at $1 a barrel below the main North Sea benchmark, the widest discount in 22 months, according to a trader monitoring deals.

Oil traders said OPEC was initially successful, driving oil prices higher and tightening time-spreads. But the group was a victim of its own success, as those same spreads forced crude out of storage, flooding an already weaker physical market with supply. Higher headline prices also boosted U.S. shale producers.

Among the factors behind the weakness, traders cited muted demand in Asia, saying Chinese independent refiners -- known as "teapots" -- have dramatically reduced buying after strong imports earlier this year.

How OPEC's cuts have failed to eliminate the glut.

Crude arrivals from the U.S. are also surging. American exports ran in early April at a four-week average of 706,000 barrels a day, up nearly 90 percent from the same time of last year, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In January and February, the nation's exports to Europe climbed almost fivefold to 178,000 barrels a day, the most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures compiled by Bloomberg show.

Lastly, tighter time-spreads in late February and early March forced some crude out of storage, particularly from onshore tank-farms in the Caribbean and Saldanha Bay in South Africa, flooding the market, the traders said.

As the physical market for Brent weakens, Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that some oil producers have reached a tentative agreement to extend the current round of output cuts. Russia, which joined OPEC earlier this year in lowering production, said it was too early to say whether a roll-over will be needed.

There is an initial agreement that we might be obligated to extend to get to our target," Khalid Al-Falih, the Saudi energy minister, told an oil conference in Abu Dhabi.

OPEC and several other producers including Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan agreed in December to reduce production by about 1.8 million barrels a day -- the first OPEC and non-OPEC deal in more than a decade -- in an effort to counter an oversupply weighing on prices. The producer group meets again May 25.

"OPEC will need to take action at the next meeting in order to provide some kind of oil-price support," said Tamas Varga, an analyst at brokerage PVM Oil Associates Ltd. in London.






SHENZHEN, China -- Bernd Wiesberger of Austria fired a bogey-free 7-under 65 to lead by four shots when the second round of the Shenzhen International was suspended due to storms on Friday.

First-round leader Bubba Watson is five back, but only managed to play five holes in his second round.

Wiesberger completed his first round in the morning after lightning also halted play on Thursday, and birdied the par-5 17th to get within one of Watson's lead. He added another seven birdies in round two to get to 12 under overall.

"I was feeling comfortable when I was getting the ball on the green and rolling in well on the green," Wiesberger said.

Dylan Frittelli of South Africa and Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark carded matching rounds of 68-68 and were tied for second at 8 under.

Richie Ramsay of Scotland also had a 68 and was a further shot back alongside Gregory Bourdy of France (2 under through four holes) and Watson (1 under through five).

Wiesberger has not missed a cut over the last eight months while claiming seven top-five finishes as he seeks a fourth European Tour title.

Watson had a birdie on the second in his first five holes, while Bourdy birdied the second and fourth and will have 14 holes to complete on Saturday.

George Coetzee, Scott Jamieson, and Jordan Smith were in the clubhouse at 6 under. Haydn Porteous was with them through eight holes.

In all, 75 players were yet to finish round two.




Bethany Lutheran Videos at Each Live Worship Service

Such is the contrast between the Bible of the old and the Bible of the new theologies. That there are compromise systems between the twoor at any rate attempts at a compromise  is certainly true; but it is impossible to effect a compromise between systems fundamentally and essentially at variance. This is a case of either  or, Delitzsch was right when he maintained that a deep chasm existed between the old and the new theology, and this chasm exists because there is a chasm between the Bible of the old and the Bible of the new theologies. In one word, the Scriptures of the one is the Bible without God; the Scriptures of the other is the Bible of and with God.

The Bible Of The Old And The Bible Of The New Theology. By Rev. Professor George H. Schodde, Ph. D., Columbus, O. in Loy, ed. The Columbus Theological Magazine. Vol. 18, 1898. LutheranLibrary.org
This piece, titled, The New Plague, depicts life in Philadelphia in the age of COVID. Artist and educator Raphael Tiberino began painting at the age of four and has been in the spotlight as a professional creative for over 25 years.
It is 2002-03. Liat, a 29-year-old Fulbright Fellow, and Hilmi, a 27-year-old painter, strike up a passionate romance in New York City. She's Israeli, he's Palestinian, and back in the West Bank and Gaza, his people have launched an intifada against a military occupation maintained by hers. What could possibly go wrong?

Sharp and bracing despite a sentimental strain, and beautifully rendered into English by Jessica Cohen, All the Rivers won the Bernstein Prize in author Dorit Rabinyan's native Israel. It became a best seller there when that country's Ministry of Education removed the original Hebrew edition from the national high school curriculum. Setting aside right-wing fears that the novel could encourage interethnic love affairs, as well as speculation as to how much of the story derives from Rabinyan's real-life friendship with the late Palestinian artist Hassan Hourani (to whom the English edition is dedicated), All the Rivers deserves attention on its own merits.

Rabinyan unpacks language's political baggage. Hilmi, for whom Hebrew is associated with menacing Israeli soldiers, tells Liat: "When you speak it, I almost think it sounds nice." Meanwhile, it pains Liat that Hilmi's mutterings in incomprehensible Arabic while asleep strike her as "strange and threatening, bloodcurdling."

The two communicate, and argue, in English. Both oppose the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. However, whereas Hilmi, idealistic and somewhat naive, advocates a binational country of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, hardheaded Liat insists that only two separate states will resolve the conflict. Yet this novel by an Israeli author proves self-assured because its Israeli protagonist allows that her Palestinian lover is sometimes also a (friendly) nemesis. "I hated the taste of losing at the end," she says of their political flare-ups, in which she -- ironically -- rejects a Jewish-Arab union mirroring their relationship.

Even as their mutual affection deepens, Rabinyan reveals that Hilmi and Liat are no Romeo and Juliet struggling valiantly against circumstances impeding their love. In the author's sorrowful yet resolute telling, they seem resigned to parting by the summer of 2003, when Liat will return to Israel.

"How can you love with a deadline, with a stopwatch running?" an exasperated American friend asks Liat. Back in Tel Aviv, Liat has good reason to revisit the question; impetuous Hilmi, vacationing in the West Bank, dodges Israeli army checkpoints and heads her way for a visit.

Rayyan Al-Shawaf is a writer in Beirut.
For the next 60 days, individuals and businesses owing back taxes in Pennsylvania can pay up without late-filing penalties under a tax-amnesty program.

In addition, individuals and businesses would have to pay only half the accrued interest on unpaid amounts.

More than 30 taxes are eligible for the amnesty, including the state's personal income, sales, and inheritance taxes.

Those who are eligible for amnesty but choose not to participate in the program, which expires June 19, would be subject to an additional 5 percent penalty on their unpaid delinquent taxes, state officials said.

The Department of Revenue estimates that about 862,000 taxpayers -- 132,336 in Philadelphia alone -- are eligible. The current program is not open to taxpayers who are in bankruptcy (unless approved by a court), who are under criminal investigation or being prosecuted, or who took advantage of the state's 2010 amnesty program.

According to the state, an individual who owed $1,000 in taxes overdue for three years would save about $300 under the program.

While the state would be forgoing some potential penalty and interest fees, the year's amnesty program is expected to bring in about $100 million.

The program was approved during last year's budget negotiations between Gov. Wolf, a Democrat, and the Republican-led legislature.

Those who owe back taxes can apply for amnesty at www.backtax.pa.gov or call 1-844-PA-STATE-TAX (1-844-727-8283).
Davelle Barnes didn't know how to talk about what she'd experienced as an Army reservist in Afghanistan: 10-hour days spent laying fiber-optic cable in a ditch, weeks without a comforting touch or a hug, a numbing sense of isolation. "A lot of times, I was the only woman, or the only black woman, or the only black, queer woman," she says.

Then some hundred-year-old poems helped her find the words.

Barnes was at the Women Veterans Center on North Lawrence Street the day Lovella Calica, founder/director of Warrior Writers, showed up to lead a workshop. Afterward, Calica gave Barnes some homework: Read this book of World War I poems, find two that resonate, then write responses.

Barnes paged through: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves. Dead white guys. But their war didn't sound all that different from her own. "I was surprised at how much certain elements are the same: frost, cold, bloodshed, weapons," Barnes recalls. "I didn't think I would like their writing style, but I did.

"Nobody understood me, so I wrote. It was something to do."

When she came across Graves' poem "It's a Queer Time," about the nightmare twist of lethal risk and gauzy memory in a soldier's mind, she answered with a poem of her own: "I was too many roles in too many third word countries/  a two-headed woman, young in the oldest battle known to man: power."

Barnes read that, along with another of her poems and the World War I pieces that inspired them, during an event last week at the National Museum of American Jewish History. The reading  organized by museum staff, Moonstone Arts Center, and Warrior Writers, a 10-year-old creative forum for veterans in Philadelphia and elsewhere  was designed to connect the dots between 2017 and 1917.

It was also meant to conjure a mood. That's why the audience of 60 high school students entered to a soundtrack bright with brass instrumental rills: the 1918 music-hall song "Oh! It's a Lovely War!" That's why slides projected behind the readers showed the works of Percy Wyndham Lewis and Otto Dix, including men crawling from a snow-fringed trench, tanks drawn so that they seemed to be grimacing as they rumbled ahead.

"World War I is an essential marker for understanding U.S. history," says Kevin Basl, another member of Warrior Writers. He was a mobile radar operator in the Army from 2003 to 2008, deployed twice to Iraq. "In those four years, Western civilization shifted industrially, artistically, culturally. It was the beginning of the 20th century."

It was also the start of a mood shift in war poetry: from verse that thrummed with valor and patriotism to poems that painted stark images of gas attacks, suicides, the tedium and terror of soldiering on for a questionable cause.

For ancient Greeks, drama captured the acrid taste of battle; photographs and film seared the conflicts of Vietnam indelibly into our minds. But poetry was the lingua franca of World War I, especially in England; soldiers scribbled verses from the trenches, newspapers published them, and readers relied on them for up-front glimpses of an increasingly devastating war.

Between 1914 and 1918, the world convulsed: Revolution seized Russia; empires crumbled across Europe; women in Britain and the U.S. agitated for the right to vote. "World War I poets challenged the lies and myths of war: the nationalism and romanticism," says Basl, who earned a master's in fine arts in fiction at Temple University after returning from Iraq. "They spoke truth to power."

So did last week's writers. In addition to Basl and Barnes, Warrior Writers Christopher Wilson and Michelangelo Collura shared their work, also paired with selected pieces from World War I. Two of the four cited Wilfred Owen's evocative, cynical "Dulce et Decorum est."

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod.

The poem ends by quoting the Latin phrase Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, meaning "It is good and fitting to die for one's country." Owen dubs it "the old Lie."

Wilson, now an actor and poet, told the crowd that he wasn't a writer before he served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Afghanistan. "But when I came home, I had all these experiences on my mind. In poetry, you can make some sense out of the war a little bit."

The World War I poems lent not only candor, but structure and poetic strategies, to Warrior Writers members. Where Owen invokes the wartime horrors of his day  "Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!"  Wilson captured that same urgent cadence in his response poem: "Incoming! Incoming! Get to cover!"

Basl, prompted by reading "The Homecoming" by Joseph Lee, wrote of the strangeness of seeing his parents  his mother's face wearied with new creases, his father's muscle softened into paunch  at the conclusion of a tour of duty. They approached one another, he wrote in "Reunion Dance," like strangers on a blind date.

And Barnes penned a retort to Sassoon's "Glory of Women" because she thought the poet was too dismissive of a German mother's contribution to the war effort: "While you are knitting socks to send your son/His face is trodden deeper in the mud."

Clean socks matter in wartime, Barnes says. They prevent foot rot. And women who send their loved ones into battle understand the stakes intimately. She wrote, "Mothers know how medals are reinforced/by bone and sinew We let you go, come back and leave us/Let us do our work."

One hundred years after the United States declared war on Germany, 100 years after Siegfried Sassoon wrote "Suicide in the Trenches"  amid today's flurry of tweets and Instagram snaps and smartphones in every soldier's pocket  poetry still works, in some small way, to shatter myths, repair brokenness, and give voice to the roiling complexity of what veterans have seen.

"It's like you're wandering through the darkness," says Collura, "and every now and then, you run into a few people who are speaking the same language as you."

Anndee Hochman is a writer in Philadelphia. aehoch@aol.com
20 Things You Should Know If You Plan to Visit Universal Studios Japan

We recently visited Universal Studios in Japan and we totally enjoyed it. We brought our parents for a one day trip to Universal Studios Japan and it was fun. We did learn quite a few things or mistakes during our first trip to Universal Studios Japan so you have a clearer idea if you plan to visit USJ for the first time.

Since we went there with our parents, our trip to Universal Studios Japan was free and easy and we do plan to revisit Universal Studios Japan in the future. That is the main reason we are writing this so you are more prepared to visit Universal Studios Japan.

From our day trip experience to USJ, we list down all the 20 Things You Should Know If You Plan to Visit Universal Studios Japan.

1.Train to Universal Studios Japan

There is a dedicated train service to Universal Studios Japan and the station is called Universal City Station. You can hop on the train from Osaka Train Station at JR Yumesaki Line to Universal City Station. There is a signage saying the next train to Universal City Station. If you not sure how to get to the train station, use the Google Map like we blogged before. This is the best way to visit Universal Studios Japan with their iconic train.

2.The Universal City

There is a mall in front of Universal Studios Japan and it is called Universal City. You can find many restaurants and retail shops here at Universal city. There are quite a number of good Japanese restaurants and there is also a JUMP shop and GAP factory outlet here.

3.You can buy the ticket online

This is probably the most important thing you need to know. You can buy the ticket online for a few reasons. When you purchase your ticket online, you dont need to queue at the ticket counter, go to the left and show them your printed ticket or QR Code, let them scan and they will let you in.

Secondly, you can get it cheaper with authorized online seller like Klook.com. There are many websites claim that they are original reseller but we only trust the one that we used. We purchased four tickets for Universal Studios Japan last month and we have no problems at all. Buy getting your tickets online means you dont need to queue, cheaper and more convenient for you to as they will email the tickets to you. Be smart, purchase online.







4.Universal Studios Japan is huge

So far, we have been to two Universal Studios, Singapore and Japan. Universal Studios Japan is way bigger than Universal Studios Singapore. Thus, expect to spend the whole day in Universal Studios Japan from day till night. It is highly recommended to go as early as possible when you visit Universal Studios Japan.

There is a way of getting in early is by getting the VIP Wristband and it will give you earlier access to the park than the normal ticket holders. Getting the VIP Wristband from Klook will give you also FREE HARUKAS 300 Observatory Pass.

Go early so you can spend the whole day in Universal Studios Japan

5.Buy Express Pass

There is a limit on visitors to Universal Studios Parks around the world. Despite the crowd control, there are long queues to all the rides. Some rides require one hour of queue while the popular can take up to 4 hours of queue.

However, there is a way to skip the queue and by purchasing the Express Pass. The Express Pass is an additional pass for you to beat the queue and at Universal Studios, there are different types of Express Passes available. Again, you can purchase them online at Klook.com.

This is something we regretted as we didnt purchase the express pass but we promised to come again next time with the Express Pass. It is cooler to jump the queue like a boss with the Express Pass.

6.Can I buy the Express Pass at Universal Studios Japan?

Yes, you can if there is Express Pass available on that day. There are limited Express Pass allocated for a day and why do you want to queue up and waste time when you can purchase online? Buy early to avoid disappointment.

7.Why are there so many different types of Universal Express Passes?

There are six different types of Universal Express Passes in Universal Studios Japan. We got confused when we checked on the website. Unlike the Universal express pass in Universal Studios Singapore, there are limitation of rides depending on the type of Universal Express pass you purchase.

For Universal Express Pass 4, you can get express access for 4 selected rides only while for Universal Express Pass 7, you can get express access for 7 selected rides only.







8.What is Universal Cool Japan 2017?

The uniqueness of Universal Studios Japan is they have the Japanese section with 4 new attractions. They are Evangelion XR Ride, Godzilla, Attack on Titan and Monster Hunter. The Universal Express Pass 4 and Universal Express Pass 7 do not cover these four attractions. You can purchase the tickets with Klook.com.

9.What time Universal Studios Japan opens and closes?

The Universal Studios Japan opens at 8.30 am to 9 am daily and it closes from 7.30pm to 9pm. Some rides closed at 7pm and some extended further and it all depends on the day itself. Always ask the park attendants for more info or check the full schedule here.

10.Get the Map and Schedule at Information Counter

This is something you need to do first. Right after you enter Universal Studios, turn left and you will see the information counter and get the map of the choice of your language. It comes with English, Japanese, Chinese and more.

Without the map, you will be like headless chicken. Like we mentioned earlier, the theme park is huge so it is better you have a map and knows where you are heading. There are many park assistants around and you can always ask them if you are lost. All of them speaks English.

11.You cant bring in food

This is important as there is no outside food is allowed within Universal Studios Japan. They didnt check on our mineral water though. Once you are in, you have to eat inside and they will check your bag.

12.Can I re-entry Universal Studios Japan for the same day?

This is one thing you should know. Even though the ticket is a day pass but it means for you to entry any time on that day. If you exit the park, you have to purchase a new ticket. Yes, you cant re-entry Universal Studios Japan once you exited.

13.Visit The Wizardly World of Harry Potter first

Once you get your map, head on to the Wizardly World of Harry Potter first before it gets crowded. If you are late, you need to take a number to visit this place later. As you enter the Wizardly World Of Harry Potter, you will be transported to the world of JK Rowlings. This is one of the mind blowing experiences in Universal Studios Japan.

Go straight to Hogwarts Castle for the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride. During peak time, the queue can go up to four hours!

If you do not want to go for the ride, just walk into the line and you see the entrance of the Castle Walk. Talk to the park assistant if you are not sure.

14.Secret spot for taking Hogwarts Castle with reflection

There is a secret spot for taking Hogwarts Castle with reflection with no obstructions. This secret spot is at the courtyard of The Three Broomstick and you can capture the castle with the reflection on the Black Lake. The Three Broomstick is the restaurant within The Wizardly World of Harry Potter and the courtyard is at the back of the restaurant. It is quite easy to find.

15.Must try the Butter Beer at Wizardly World of Harry Potter and experience the special theme food

Well, it is not actually a beer but it is called the butter beer and you can only get it in e Wizardly World of Harry Potter. It is pricey but it is tasty.

There are many theme restaurants and food stalls in Universal Studios Japan. Since you are here, why not trying the special theme food? We know it is not cheap but how often do you visit Universal Studios Japan? Dont put much expectation on the taste of the food, just be happy with the food presentation.

16.Food in Universal City is better

The truth is the food in Universal City is better. We are being honest and you can eat first before you visit Universal Studios Japan and they are still opened till late after the park is closed. There are quite a number of restaurants in Universal City.

17. Shows are in Japanese

All the shows are in Japanese so be prepared for it. The live shows and even the street performances are all conducted in Japanese. The live shows and performances are good so even not knowing what they are speaking, it is good enough for us.

18.The 15th Anniversary Parade

This year is the 15th anniversary of Universal Studios Japan so there is a cool 15th Anniversary Parade at 2.30pm. Dont miss this cool parade as it is for this year only.

19.What time is the Universal Studios Japan Fireworks?

Universal Studios Japan only has fireworks on special occasions such as New Years Eve or Christmas Day. There is no more daily fireworks and please take note.

20.Buy the souvenirs

Lastly, you should buy some souvenirs for memory keepsake in Universal Studios Japan. There are many souvenir stores in the park and also there are many different types of souvenirs available. Do check out the clearance sale from time to time in their stores.

We hope our experiences and tips will help in planning and preparing your trip to Universal Studios Japan. Thank you for reading and remember to share this to your friends if you like our story. Bookmarked our blog as we will constantly update food and travel tips and experiences.







Wilson Ng A Father and traveler who enjoys to eat, shop, travel and taking pictures with Samsung S22 Ultra and Sony ZV-1. Im a full time blogger, youtuber and father for two. I used to travel around 17 International trips per year but now staying at home. Remember to follow us at www.instagram.com/placesandfoods and www.youtube.com/placesandfoods. For advertisements or features, contact me at [email protected] See author's posts
SPRINGFIELD - Republicans in the Illinois legislature are proposing full budgets, Democrats are grabbing onto problem-avoiding, partial "lifeline" budgets, State Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) said last week on the Illinois House floor.

"The worse part of the crisis is the uncertainty it creates," Bartinick (R-Plainfield) said. The crisis is also shrinking state revenue. The Democrats' proposed stop-gap budget is "nothing but a scheme," he said.

Bartinick then ended his floor speech with a Dr. Suess-like conclusion:
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One of the many travesties endemic in a government controlled by Republicans is that the evangelical right now has the full weight and force of the federal government to institute a theocracy. Now that religious conservatives control the Supreme Court with Neil Gorsuchs appointment to the bench, they have an instant ally to achieve the Dominionist movements highest priorities: tearing down any and all constitutional barriers between church and state.

Yesterday, in a case the High Courts conservatives postponed for 15 months wishing and hoping for an evangelical majority, they heard oral arguments in a case very few Americans are aware of. The people should be terrified because a ruling for theocracy will effectively demolish church-state separation and completely neuter the First Amendments religious clauses. And it will force every taxpayer to fund religious organizations; like it or not.

This one case will have far reaching effects on every American, and every facet of government, that will make the Hobby Lobby, Voting Rights, and Citizens United rulings seem petty and insignificant in comparison. Sadly, due to the media, including the cowards in the liberal media, and their resistance to reporting the rash of evangelical legislation they claim are simply born of conservative ideology, most Americans are clueless as to what is awaiting them; a High Court ruling establishing a veritable evangelical theocracy.

The case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, is about forcing Missouri taxpayers to fund upgrading a church schools playground despite a state and federal prohibition against it. Even though there is a long-standing Constitutional statute against using taxpayer money to fund religious organizations, Missouri is one several states that enshrined the same prohibition in its state Constitution. Still, the churches cried foul and claimed that if taxpayers fund public schools, then they damn sure better start funding religious schools and organizations.

One might think that churches earning well-over $82.5 billion annually (in 2013) from taxpayers subsidizing religious non-profits (churches) was enough welfare for the charitable Christians. Add to that staggering annual figure the $41.7 billion in annual payments (in 2004) in welfare from Bushs faith-based initiative programs. Money well spent according to W. Bush who wanted the taxpayers money to save one soul at a time. Still, even that unconstitutional abomination didnt satisfy their greed for more taxpayer money and more control over government. And, the sad truth is that tearing down the barrier between church and state will set a Constitutional precedent allowing evangelicals to do so much more than just force taxpayers to support their ministries.

Since before America was a nation, the Founding Fathers were preparing, and went to great lengths, to keep religion out of government. The concept of not funding, or legislating according to evangelicalism, is not a new idea.

Founding Father and fourth President of the United States, James Madison joined third President, Declaration of Independence author, and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson in warning why church and state must be separate and permanently kept out of any governing decisions. For example, when Patrick Henry attempted to use tax dollars to pay for teachers of the Christian religion, Madison penned a document called The Remonstrance that listed 15 reasons why state-supported religion is a very, very bad idea.

In fact, after writing The Remonstrance, Madison set out how religion should be handled by the government. In an early draft of the Bill of Rights, Madison proffered a more robust religious clause than currently in the First Amendment. It read:

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.

Obviously, James Madison, like the great majority of the Constitutions Framers, wanted a wall of separation between the church and state; something the current evangelical fanatic running the Justice Department claims is unconstitutional and unhistorical. Founding Father and third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson would heartily disagree with Jeff Sessions that the separation clause is unhistorical or unconstitutional. Jefferson, in fact, explained exactly what the separation clause meant.

Jefferson also noted the atrocity of allowing governments, state or federal, to use taxpayer money to fund churches in any way. He wrote:

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods.

It is true that there was no issue over a womans right to choose her own reproductive life in Jeffersons time, but his comment certainly applies to todays women being enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in their bodies by religious Republicans.

It is wprth noting that it was Jefferson who coined and defined the term wall of separation between church and state that make up the religious clauses of the First Amendment. Jefferson added that,

If any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such as would be an infringement of natural right.

It is certain that none of the conservatives on the High Court or religious Republicans panting to hand governance over the people to the religious right have any regard for what a Founding Father or the Constitution says; they want more taxpayer dollars flowing to churches and complete theocratic purview over the government and the people.

The Trinity case is about much more than robbing taxpayer money for a churchs ministry; it is about setting a precedent that breaks down the wall of separation that is the only thing keeping religion out of the government. Still, many Americans cant comprehend what allowing religion to take money from taxpayers, or writing Republican legislation, means for their lives, and that is too bad. Worse yet are so-called liberal Christians who blow off the creeping threat of theocracy and going so far as to wish God was in the public forum; public forum is evangelical-speak for government.

If any American thinks neutering the religious clauses will not affect them, they are insane. Of course women will be forced into subjection to evangelical mens demands, and the LGBTQ communitys rights, what few theyve won, will be summarily eliminated along with the Fourteenth Amendment. Religious Republicans already complain the equal rights for all Americans in the Fourteenth Amendment violate their religious freedom.

Some Americans are already aware what evangelical malcontent Education Secretary Betsy DeVos intends for Americas children, and a few more likely know that Trump wants taxpayers to fund Republicans religious Super PACs. However, the Dominionists want to control every aspect of every Americans life and that entails controlling the government.

Whether the faithful like it or not, there is historically never a good outcome when religion is involved in governing. This is not to say that all of the faithful are intent on dominating the rest of the population. However, with a Republican majority in Congress, a man who panders to Christians in the White House, and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that already started deconstructing the religious clauses in the First Amendment, there are dangerous times ahead.

And, they begin in earnest with one Supreme Court ruling brought to the court for the sole intent of demolishing what Thomas Jefferson said was a wall of separation between church and state to make it simpler to impose an evangelical theocracy.
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Laurence Tribe, noted professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School who is part of a legal team suing President Trump for violations of the Emolument Clause, observed today that his former student Representative Adam Schiff, who reminds him of No Drama Obama, would make a great Senator or even President.

My former student @RepAdamSchiff would make a great US Senator or even President. Reminds me of No Drama Obama. . . https://t.co/0TMbo9Lv4Z  Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 21, 2017

Thats high praise indeed for the President a majority of Americans wish were in the White House right now instead of Donald Trump.

Tribe shared this over a Politico article about Schiffs rising star in his home state of California, noting, Schiffs near-constant presence on TV is valuable in a state with 53 members of Congress who compete for attention with movie stars. And its practically a requirement for achieving name recognition in a state with eight major media markets that make it nearly impossible to reach voters through commercials.

This echoes sentiments of readers (Democrats and Republicans) who have written spontaneous enthusiastic letters and tweets to us saying they would support Schiff for president.

Schiff does have that essential part of Obama, the part that is about the work above only glorifying his own ego. This isnt to suggest neither has an ego; a person couldnt be in politics without a strong ego and pride. But in an age of inflammatory rhetoric and accusations before evidence, Schiff is the slow, steady worker bee gathering evidence, staying focused, and doing a good job representing his constituents, especially when it comes to his role as a leader of the House Russia investigation.

It just so happens that Schiff is a former prosecutor, and one who has experience prosecuting a crooked FBI agent who was working for the Kremlin. This makes Schiff uniquely qualified at this point in history given President Trumps campaigns constant contacts with Russia while they were actively interfering in the 2016 election on his behalf, and the ensuing investigations.

Schiff isnt running around saying crazy things or whipping up a storm of enraged, cult-like followers. Schiff is slow and steady, eye on the ball, unfazed by distractions and calm. No Drama Obama indeed.

Schiff is the antidote to Donald Trump and the general hysteria inflaming the left and right. He is the cool thinker in opposition to the ego-fueled flames of others who are deliberately using this crisis to propel themselves to fame. Schiff is doing his job and it just so happens to be perfectly positioned to elevate his standing dramatically.

Schiffs approach is what makes him appealing. A public servant should be about the work, he or she should be evidence based and fact-oriented, with an even temperament that doesnt swing wildly with their untethered emotions. Of course, Hillary Clinton had the same disposition, and it didnt make for great campaigning. But she would have been a hell of a president.

The Democratic Party has a bench of talent poised for 2020 and 2024, including Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Chris Murphy, former VP Joe Biden, former First Lady Michelle Obama (if she were so inclined), former HUD Sec Julian Castro, and many more.

Wherever Schiff goes from here, hes an asset to government. Hes actually qualified, hes serious, hes calm.
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Donald Trump told the AP that the terror attack in France will probably help right wing extremist Marine Le Pen in Frances Sunday presidential election, claiming that she is strongest on borders, and shes the strongest on whats been going on in France.

BREAKING: Trump tells @AP that Paris attack will probably help far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in Frances upcoming election.  AP Politics (@AP_Politics) April 21, 2017

The Washington Post reported that Trump also told the AP that he is not worried about emboldening terrorists by saying that an attack can have an impact on a democratic election.

But thats exactly what hes done. Trump egged French voters on to respond to the terrorist attack by voting a certain way in the election, as if he had a clue how to keep a country safe.

Terrorism is defined as The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017

Yes, fear breeds changes in voting patterns. Hes not wrong, Hill contributor Brad Moss noted.

That is correct, but it doesnt make Trump saying these things appropriate. President Trump is egging on the terrorists, using the fear and intimidation generated from their attacks for his own political ends  which is to say, Trump is using terrorism directly to achieve his own political goals  and this is the definition of terrorism.

So it would behoove Trump to at least appear not to exploit a tragedy.

Shes also the only candidate who denied French complicity in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. What a disgrace, Yair Rosenberg of Tabletmag wrote of the far-right candidate Trump is pushing. Trump is using fear to push people into voting for someone who dehumanizes others  the opposite of freedom.

Republicans have been using fear of the other to win elections since the 60s. It was their answer to the American publics support for the liberal Great Society. They used violence and crime against Democrats just as they now use terrorism against Democrats.

The problems with this are many, not the least of which Donald Trump is not keeping us safe  he has already managed to make a Republican in Pennsylvania whisper to me, Are we all going to die?

It was Barack Obama who Kept us safe, and got Bin Laden, and kept us on the steadiest ground he could in a world fraught with global terrorism. There is no end to terrorism, of course. No leader who will put a stop to it, because no leader can.

The terrorists want to kill democracy, so when they drive people to the less freedom inclined party, its a win for them. That is to say, a vote for the far-right is a vote for ISISs ultimate goal.

Republicans have successfully sold people, with the help of Russian trolls and fake news, on the idea that isolationism is the answer to terrorism and better jobs. But we live in a global world, and things are not that simple.

Russia is working overtime to sell fake news pushing LePen in France right now for the same reason they pushed Donald Trump. They, like ISIS, want to undermine democracy, although they have different reasons for wanting to undermine democracy.

Donald Trump is egging on the terrorists because it serves his/Putins political agenda, and that is using terrorism as a weapon of intimidation and fear in order to achieve a political goal. Trump is using the intimidation created by ISIS to achieve his own political ends, which is in and of itself technically an act of terrorism.

A person need not commit the act of terrorism themselves to use it to their benefit, and in fact most leaders inciting terrorism are removed enough from the actors to not get caught- but that doesnt make them any less guilty.

With these words, Donald Trump has not only shamed the U.S., he is inciting terrorists to further acts. This is outrageous and must not be allowed to pass by unnoticed simply because so much of what this president says is inflammatory and disgusting.
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The investigation into Donald Trumps RussiaGate scandal is back on track.

On Friday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced that it sent letters inviting the testimony in regards to Russias active measures during the 2016 campaign of FBI Director James Comey, National Security Adviser Admiral Mike Rogers, former CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

Comey and Rogers were invited to a closed hearing on May 2, and Brennan, Clapper and Yates were invited to an open hearing to be scheduled after May 2nd, according to the press release sent to PoliticusUSA.

Back on track: sent letters with @ConawayTX11 inviting Comey, Rogers, Brennan, Clapper and Yates to testify before House Intel Committee, Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff wrote, sharing the letter.

Yates is the big news here, as it was a hearing that she was scheduled to testify at that was abruptly canceled by Devin Nunes. Yates is the person who told the Trump White House about Mike Flynn, and it is her testimony that the Trump administration tried to squash.

As the United States slowly works its way into maybe investigating Russias interference in the U.S. election, an act of modern war, Russia is pushing fake news via social media in France in the lead up to the French presidential election.

The Kremlins goal wasnt to get Donald Trump elected. Their goal is to undermine Western Democracy and the united front from the U.N. Russia saw Donald Trump as soft on Russia, and therefore a much better choice for them than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom were much tougher on Russia than Trump is.

Moscows goal requires many steps, one of which is to make Americans question their news, question reality, until they give up and disengage. Thats one reason why Donald Trump, who seems to follow the Kremlins playbook rather directly, keeps calling the news here fake news.

The news isnt fake. Developing stories, like this Russia story for example, are full of twists and turns, clarifications, corroborations, detours, and wrong turns. Thats not fake news. Thats called gathering evidence, checking it against other known facts, and being very careful to let the facts dictate the story instead of the other way around.

The testimony of leading intelligence experts on Russias interference in the 2016 election is just another step forward in an excruciatingly long process. And another step forward to determining if indeed Donald Trump and his associates colluded with Russia as has been alleged multiple times now by credible sources.

Donald Trump will keep distracting the media, but the investigation into Russias interference in the election is so much bigger than Donald Trump. This shouldnt be a partisan issue  its a patriotic issue, its a matter of national security and the foundation of western democracy.

We cant afford to let Republicans derail this investigation.
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Appearing on MSNBCs Morning Joe this morning, outspoken Trump critic Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough that she has no respect for Donald Trump and that she has not attended any ceremonial activities because,

I dont honor him. I dont respect this president I dont think that he deserves to be president of this great country.

Watch courtesy of MSNBC:

"I don't respect this president I don't think that he deserves to be president." Maxine Waters on @Morning_Joe https://t.co/iERUe2uCjo pic.twitter.com/X5ujigOtaG  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 21, 2017

Waters went on to say that to Brzezinskis entertaining and mischievous Cheshire-cat smile,

I am very concerned about him, and I really think hes dangerous. And Joe, I dont know if youve seen the six-part series that the LA Times wrote about him. It is scathing. Ive never seen editorials like this before in my life. And so, we can continue to talk about him as if this is normal. This is abnormal what were experiencing with this president and I have taken him on as you know and the millennials have joined me and so I continue to talk about his ties to Russia and what I think all of that meansand I believe if we have the credible investigations that it will lead to his impeachment.

Maxine Waters is right about Donald Trump and this isnt the first time she has taken him to task. She has slammed on previous occasions Trumps Kremlin Klan and his foreign policy incompetence, leading her on that occasion to say I wish that our foreign affairs experts could somehow get his ear and at least tell him to shut up, to just stop it.

She is also right that he is dangerous and she is right to be concerned, having called Trump on a previous occasion very dangerous because of his reckless threats against North Korea.

Donald Trump by his own actions has shown that he is neither deserving of respect nor our honor because as Waters alludes, Trump was elected not by the American people but by Vladimir Putin. As Waters says, he must and will be impeached if have a credible investigation.
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A morose and ego-bruised Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to complain about his treatment at the hands of the press and about getting no love for all his accomplishments during his first 100 days:

No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017

As you can see from the photo above, retweeted by Luke Skywalker himself, who knows a thing or two about evil rulers, Trump deserves all kinds of praise for his first 100 days.

The ridiculous standard Trump speaks of is the expectation that he actually do something beyond cheap publicity stunts and distractions from the Russia scandal that threatens to keep him from seeing a second 100 days.

If you want to see what Trump has been up to, Fox News is maintaining a day-by-day list of these accomplishments:

Accomplishments like meeting with Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots or Attend[ing] Easter morning services with family at Bethesda by the Sea, an Episcopal church, near his south Florida resort home, Mar-a-Lago, and [Leaving] on Air Force One for Palm Beach, Florida.

Just wow. I mean, WOW.

And dont forget Trumps private rich-people-only Easter egg hunt at his plush resort in Florida while stiffing the kids in D.C.:

Obama's Easter Egg Roll vs @realDonaldTrump 's Easter Egg Roll. Pictures are worth 1000 words. pic.twitter.com/QVMX0jKQil  Hilary (@HilareeBanks) April 17, 2017

One sees at once why Donald Trump feels he is getting no respect. After all, he only promises us a government by and for the people before filling the swamp he said hed empty with the richest white guys in the country.

Oh, and taking every weekend off to golf  18 golf trips in his first 12 weeks as president.

And then there is first selling out our country to Russia and then trying to hide it, abusing his presidential powers to quash any investigation. Thats an accomplishment of sorts.

You kinda sorta see where this is going.

Donald Trump hasnt actually done much in his first 100 days and the things he has done havent been good, like trying to strip healthcare away from 24 million Americans or violating the Constitution by firing cruise missiles at Syria and threatening nuclear war with North Korea.

A tweet from author Brian Klaas puts Trumps 100 days in perspective:

Trump says the media is overlooking his accomplishments in his first 100 days. A small sampling from memory lane during the first 90 days. pic.twitter.com/OMq26M1HMs  Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) April 21, 2017

Well, he did accomplish one thing at least, having the lowest 100-day approval rating in the entire history of polling. Feel the love, Donald. Youve earned it.

Photo: Twitter Mark Hamill @HamillHimself
CHICAGO - Illinois' auditor general is in the second year of undergoing scrutiny for the curious ways he spent his own campaign finances while serving as an Illinois state lawmaker. And for the second year, he's refusing to answer questions.

At a hearing in Chicago Thursday before the State Board of Elections, Auditor General Frank Mautino continued his silence. State Representatives Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) and Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville) attended the hearing, and afterwards, stressed that Mautinos decision to plead the Fifth Amendment to again avoid providing answers must result in his removal from office.

Members of the General Assembly gave Auditor General Mautino five chances last year to provide us answers to questions surrounding the state and federal investigations into his campaign finances. He refused. The State Board of Elections gave him two deadlines to produce the required information. He refused. Today, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment, again refusing to answer questions, Rep. Wehrli said. We cannot have someone serving as the taxpayers top financial watchdog who refuses over and over again to answer questions about serious, possibly criminal problems with his own finances. Auditor General Mautino must be removed from office.

Last summer, 21 state lawmakers - including one Democrat - called on Mautino to step aside during a federal probe into his campaign finance spending. Mautino ignored their plea.

Auditor General Mautino has had more than a year to answer questions related to the allegations against him, yet today he again refused to come clean. It is time for him to do the right thing for the people of Illinois and resign. If he wont, then the General Assembly must act to remove him from office. We cannot afford to have the states top auditor continue in office under the cloud of state and federal investigations into his misconduct, Rep. Ives said.

During that year of stalling, the auditor general's pension will have been hiked $59,000 annually, Ives revealed last year.

Representatives Wehrli is sponsoring House Joint Resolution 9 to remove Frank Mautino from the office of Auditor General. The resolution will require a three-fifths majority vote in both chambers of the General Assembly for approval. A similar proposal calling for Mautino to step down by former State Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Glen Carbon) saw no progress in the Illinois House last year.

Unethical behavior is not a partisan issue. All elected officials in Illinois must be held to the highest standard regardless of party. If he wont do the honorable thing and resign, then Auditor General Mautino must be removed. I will be pushing for a hearing on HJR9 when we return to Springfield next week, Wehrli said.
Charleston, SC (29403)

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Watchdog and Public Service reporter

Thad Moore is a reporter on The Post and Couriers Watchdog and Public Service team and a graduate of the University of South Carolina. To share tips securely, reach Moore via ProtonMail at thadmoore@protonmail.com or on Signal at 843-214-6576.
Tim Scott easily turned back a long-shot challenge from Democratic state Rep. Krystal Matthews of Ladson after barely mentioning her name in the campaign, solidifying his place as the most popular Republican in the state. Read moreTim Scott cruises to Senate reelection. What comes next?
Deanna Pan is an enterprise reporter for The Post and Courier, where she writes about education and other issues. She grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati and graduated with a degree in English from Ohio State University in 2012.
CRYSTAL LAKE  It's time to stop playing games with the state budget, first-term State Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee) said this week in a statement. Public schools are nearing shaky financial grounds as the state delays by seven months assistance they promised because the legislature continues to stall budget negotiations.

Illinois has been without a complete budget for nearly two years now, and gone even longer without a balanced budget that actually matches spending to projected revenues, said Skillicorn. Every day this continues, our schools face growing uncertainty as their backlog of unpaid state vouchers grow. This is unacceptable and ultimately leads to more pressure being placed on local taxpayers.

Despite K-12 education funding being spared much of the turmoil caused by the lack of full-year, balanced state budget, many school districts have been feeling the crunch due to state mandated categorical payments not being paid, a statement from Skillicorn's office said Thursday. These categorical payments, which help fund things like transportation and special education, have yet to be paid to school districts by the Comptroller because of the states ever growing backlog of bills.

Skillicorn says this is one more reason it essential to stop playing games with another stopgap in Springfield and pass a comprehensive, full-year balanced budget as soon as possible.

School districts across the state, including those in Skillicorns district, have yet to receive millions of dollars in state mandated categorical payments. The Comptroller has not made the payments since the state does not have enough money to do so. Comptroller Mendozas office has said it plans to make the first of four categorical payments by the end of April, some seven months late. School districts would typically have received three payments by April, but since the states spending has outpaced revenues by so much, and the state is still without an appropriation for a full-year budget, none have been made yet.

K-12 education, higher education and social services need urgent, real solutions, not another stopgap that keeps growing Illinois backlog of unpaid bills. Continuing to spend more money than the state takes in will just grow the problem more in the long run. said Skillicorn. I urge the Speaker to work with both Republicans and Democrats to pass a comprehensive balanced budget immediately.
SAN FRANCISCO  Google's voice-activated assistant can now recognize who's talking to it on Google's Home speaker.

An update released Thursday enables Home's built-in assistant to learn the different voices of up to six people, although they can't all be talking to the internet-connected speaker at the same time.

Distinguishing voices will allow Home to be more personal in some of its responses, depending on who triggers the assistant with the phrase, "OK Google" or "Hey Google."

For instance, once Home is trained to recognize a user named Joe, the assistant will automatically be able to tell him what traffic is like on his commute, list events on his daily calendar or even play his favorite songs. Then another user named Jane could get similar information from Home, but customized for her.

The ability to distinguish voices may help Home siphon sales from Amazon.com's Echo, a competing product that features its own voice-activated assistant, Alexa.

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The Echo doesn't yet recognize different voices. Instead, it has a feature that allows Alexa to switch to a different account when told to do so. The Echo can only handle two personal accounts.

Google's voice-distinction feature, however, won't prevent unauthorized users from activating the assistant, as long as Home's microphone is turned on.

That loophole allowed Burger King to recently air a TV commercial that included the phrase "OK Google" to prompt Home's assistant to recite the ingredients of the fast-food restaurant's Whopper burger from a Wikipedia entry.

Google quickly blocked Burger King's commercial from toying with the Home assistant, but the marketing stunt illustrated how the technology can be manipulated. Voice-personalization eventually could enable Home's users to block others from accessing the device, but Google isn't ready to do that yet.

"It's important to balance making sure the assistant on Google Home is still useful and able to answer a guest's or friend's question while also answering a few specific questions just for you," Google spokeswoman Kara Stockton said.

The voice-distinction feature also isn't being offered for the same digital assistant that operates on Google's Pixel phone and other smartphones running on the latest version of its Android software. Google doesn't think the technology is necessary on phones because most of those devices are password-protected and are usually used by just one person.
An area man with a history of sexual contact with children has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to the most recent charge.

Jeremiah John Dahl, 36, formerly of Dover, was charged in May with one count each of second- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct, later amended to two second-degree counts.

He pleaded guilty in January to one of the counts; Olmsted County District Court Judge Joseph Chase sentenced him Wednesday to 60 months in prison, with credit for 769 days already served.

Dahl, who will be required to register as a predatory offender for the rest of his life, has been in prison since October 2015 after being convicted in Dodge County of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The latest investigation began in late June 2015, when a day-care provider reported that one of the children in her care was playing inappropriately with dolls. When the woman asked the child where she'd seen the behavior, she said Dahl had touched her genitals over her clothes several times, the complaint says.

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The child told investigators that Dahl had touched her at a family member's house, not only on her genitals, but over her clothing on her chest, court documents say. The incidents reportedly occurred between June 2014 and the time she was interviewed in early July 2015.

Dahl told authorities there was never a time when he and the child were alone together, and has no idea why the child made the claims.

Three months later  in October 2015  Dahl was in prison, completing a 36-month prison term he'd been given in 2010. In that case, he was convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct after a 14-year-old girl said he'd sexually assaulted her. Dahl was originally sentenced to 120 days in jail and ordered to attend sex offender programming.

He attended sex offender treatment from November 2010 until April 2015, when he was "kicked out for dishonest conduct," court records say. It was determined that he had violated probation multiple times, and in October 2015 the judge ordered him to serve the stayed prison term, with credit for 223 days already served.
Tucker Carlson, a conservative provocateur who joined Fox Newss prime-time ranks only three months ago, has been tapped to replace Mr. OReilly at 8 p.m. Eastern, beginning on Monday, the network said. Mr. Carlson has become, seemingly overnight, one of the networks most vital players, a remarkable turnaround for a pundit whose bow-tied heyday had seemed behind him.

Illinois Review readers were first introduced to Mr. Prelutsky and his one-of-a-kind writing though my review of his book, Angels on Tap, on Monday, March 27, 2017. Angels on Tap is now a delightful, family-oriented movie with religious overtones. (Lacking yet is a distributor)

Perceived was a decided change in Tucker Carlson's manner from the more aggressive stance he first took when his show premiered until now. But did Tucker really tone down his show, or did perhaps some of the novelty of a new Fox face lead to a false perception?

As Burt Prelutsky suggested, perhaps booking more guests would help. By so doing Tucker wouldn't have to waste so much time with some of his self-righteous pinheads guests. Prelutsky used Tucker's Wednesday, April 20th show as an example. When interviewing the woman who thought there was no limit to Muslim immigrants Europe should be welcoming, Tucker kept demanding the woman answer his "core question," belaboring the point like a dog with a bone. As Burt wrote in his typical witty fashion:

But if people don't care to answer, you have the option of either asking a different question or tying them down and hitting them with rubber hoses. It felt like the segment went on for half an hour.

Food for Thought:

We both perceive that Tucker is showing a tad too much fear about a war with Russia. It makes him sound too much like a liberal. Most people don't want to go to war, but by standing up to naked aggression, we have less chance of a war than we had under Obama, who encouraged our enemies by never standing up to them.

Tucker repeatedly misses cues, as when he fails to mention Hillary's turning over 20% of America's uranium in exchange for a bribe to the Clinton Foundation when a guest slanders Trump for his alleged bromance with the Russian despot.

On the other hand, Tucker's week-long series devoted to the opioid epidemic was first-rate and important.

With Tucker taking over Bill O'Reilly's highly prized time slot, viewers will have to decide if he's ready for primetime. On balance, we both feel that an hour spent with Tucker is worthwhile more often than not.

Burt Prelutsky granted me permission to share his blog post about Tucker published on Monday, April 17, 2017, demonstrating Prelutsky's fact-filled and humorous way of writing, which defines all of what Mr. Prelutsky's writes. .

LISTEN UP, TUCKER CARLSON

Nobody was happier than I was when Tucker Carlson replaced Megyn Kelly on Fox. But I am beginning to lose patience with him because hes reminding me of the famous little girl with the curl, the one who was very good when she was good, but when she was bad, she was horrid.

The other night, (Monday, April 11, 2017) we got to see both Tuckers in the same hour. He did a good job of ridiculing Brad Sherman who just happens to be my congressman. After Sherman theorized that Trump had tomahawked Syria, not for humanitarian or militarily strategic reasons or even to send a clear signal to China and North Korea, but simply to deflect claims that hes in bed with Putin, Tucker did a splendid job of mocking him as the ignoramus I know him to be.

But Sherman, whose skin must be nearly as thick as his head, appeared unfazed. In fact, when Tucker asked him if he didnt agree that the pinpoint attack on the Syrian airfield was a good thing, Sherman replied: After the chemical bombings of civilians by Assad, any president would have done the same.

I, and I suspect the majority of Carlsons viewers, sat in stunned silence when the host failed to point out there had in fact been a president, a member of Shermans own party in fact, who, even after drawing a red line in the sand, had done absolutely nothing.

But missing his cues has become something of a habit with Carlson. A few nights earlier, when another left-wing congressman accused Donald Trump of playing footsies with Putin, Carlson failed to mention that not a single Democrat in Congress complained when Secretary of State Clinton handed over 20% of Americas uranium to Russia in exchange for a huge bribe to her familys foundation. As mortal sins go, most people would agree that playing footsies, even if true, would pale by comparison.

I wouldnt want anyone to get the idea that Carlsons case is hopeless. After blowing it with Rep. Sherman, he made something of a comeback when he had on a New York City public defender whose client is an illegal alien who had been convicted of sexually abusing a child and deported. As so often is the case, the schmuck snuck back in. This time he attacked a woman on a subway.

The lawyers complaint was that the NYPD had informed ICE of his court date, so theyd be in a position to take him into federal custody. She regarded this as a moral outrage because Mayor Bill De Blasio had assured everyone that New York was a sanctuary city, and that such things would never happen.

Apparently, there are those, including this public defender, who believe, as does Mayor De Blasio, that he is God. Carlson did a good job of disabusing her of that notion.

Carlson also did a good job of refuting a lawyer who is fighting the Texas law requiring people to show a government-issued I.D. (drivers license, passport, gun permit) in order to vote.

As Carlson pointed out, you cant board a plane, receive welfare, hold a paying job or get a credit card, without one of these documents. In most places, you cant even register your kids for school if you cant prove who you are.

But the lady ignored the facts, instead focusing on a fraudulent number -- 600,000, mostly black and Hispanic -- whom she insisted had lost their voting rights because of the Texas bill.

Carlson patiently explained that while its true that voting is a constitutional right, so is owning a gun. And yet, there are several barriers that American citizens have to successfully hurdle, including providing a photo I.D., before they can purchase a pistol.

Instead of agreeing that its not unreasonable for Texas to require the same proof of identity before allowing someone to vote that is required of someone buying a six-pack of Budweiser, the loon doubled down by contending that only two cases of voter fraud had been discovered in Texas, and so those pesky IDs are clearly unnecessary.

Heaven only knows what theyre teaching in law school these days, but, apparently, logic isnt one of them.
Almost two years to the day a Rochester man received a lighter sentence in a child pornography case because he was "amenable to treatment," he was charged with 12 new felonies related to child pornography.

Anthony Nathaniel Vandenhemel, 32, of 34 14th Ave. NE, made his first appearance Wednesday in Olmsted County District Court, where he faces two counts of disseminating pornographic work as a registered predatory offender and 10 counts of possession of pornographic work as a registered predatory offender.

He remains in custody in lieu of $100,000 conditional bail, and is due back in court May 3.

The case began in November, when an agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigating the distribution of child pornography was able to download 464 files that contained child porn. The agent was using Bit Torrent software, a peer-to-peer network that allows files to be shared via the internet.

The BCA's Internet Crimes Against Children unit issued a subpoena to identify the subscriber using the internet provider address on the files the agent downloaded; it came back as David Baker, of 34 14th Ave. NE in Rochester.

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In February, Rochester police officers executed a search warrant at the address; Vandenhemel was in a basement-level bedroom of the residence.

He admitted he stayed there about three nights a week, when a child who lives there isn't present. Vandenhemel is prohibited from living with children, per the terms of his 2015 conviction.

Two phones were also in the bedroom; Vandenhemel claimed one, but denied knowing who owned the other. An investigator was able to "unlock" the phone, which revealed several images of child porn, as well as Bit Torrent software, the criminal complaint says.

Vandenhemel later allegedly admitted that phone was his, also, and contained about 1,000 images of child porn.

A subsequent forensic exam of the phone found about 6,000 images and 30 videos, many of which were child pornography, court documents say. The average age of the children was about 8 years old.

In January 2015, Vandenhemel entered an Alford plea of guilty to four counts of possession of child pornography. In exchange for the plea, an additional count of possession and one count of dissemination of child porn were dismissed at his sentencing on April 20, 2015.

With an Alford plea, the defendant maintains his innocence but acknowledges that the evidence would be sufficient to convict him.

According to that criminal complaint, between July 2013 and April 20, 2014, a Minneapolis police officer was able to download thousands of images of naked girls from a computer address assigned to a homeowner in Rochester.

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A search warrant was executed at the home; Vandenhemel had lived there for five years. A computer identified as Vandenhemel's revealed several hundred images of girls under the age of 16, the complaint says, and were located under the user "Tony" on the computer's hard drive.

After the search, a detective went to Vandenhemel's workplace. There, he admitted that he'd downloaded the child pornography, and said he'd only downloaded about 200 images. When told that almost 800 images had already been seen, Vandenhemel didn't disagree, the report says.

His sentence included concurrent prison terms of 39 months, 30 months, 25 months and 20 months, all stayed for five years, and a 90-day jail term, with credit for two days served. He was also ordered to complete sex offender education/treatment; not hold any position of authority over any children; and register as a predatory offender, among other conditions.

The sentence was a downward departure of the state guidelines, court documents say, because Vandenhemel was found to be amenable to sex offender treatment and programming.

Court records show he violated probation in February 2016, and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

The latest charges carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison for the dissemination charges and 10 years in prison for the possession charges.
WINONA  A man who reportedly calls himself "Bay Bay Da Shoota" posted $15,000 conditional bond Wednesday, five days after authorities say he fired a gun into the air  then toward a group of people.

Jaquann Oshay Hughes, 22, who provided a Chicago address, was arrested Friday night after the shooting and charged Monday in Winona County District Court with two felony counts of dangerous weapons violation.

He's due back in court May 1.

The investigation began about 9 p.m. April 14 with a report of gunshots near Maplewood Townhomes on Kraemer Drive. An officer spoke with a woman who said that "a boy people called 'Bay Bay' came out of one of the apartment buildings, stood next to a tree" and fired two rounds from a pistol into the air, the complaint says.

The woman said the man then allegedly pointed the gun at a crowd and continued shooting.

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Though no firearms were found in the area, three .40 caliber shell casings were found. A bullet was recovered from the wall of an apartment, about a foot away from where a small child was lying in bed, court documents say.

Officers viewed a Facebook page for "Bay Bay Da Shoota" and recognized Hughes, the document continues. When an officer approached Hughes, he called out, "Bay Bay!" Hughes stopped and looked at the officer, the report says.

He was arrested, but denied going by the nickname "Bay Bay," and said he hadn't held a gun since 2012.

A second witness said Hughes and another man were having a disagreement when she heard the gunshots, but didn't see what had happened.
STEWARTVILLE  A man who fled from Rochester police Tuesday afternoon was arrested by Olmsted County Sheriff's deputies Wednesday.

Members of the Rochester Police Department's Criminal Interdiction Unit learned Wednesday afternoon that Elijah Joel Beckman, 29, was at an apartment in the 400 block of First Avenue Southeast in Stewartville.

Deputies responded to the area; at 6:12 p.m., Beckman came out of the building, "saw something, and ran back inside," said Capt. Scott Behrns.

Officers made entry to the apartment Beckman was in, the report says, and arrested him on a felony warrant from the Minnesota Department of Corrections. He's accused of violating the terms of a domestic abuse-no contact order.

Beckman was initially spotted Tuesday, when members of the CIU were doing surveillance in the area around McDonald's at Apache Drive. They were looking for a woman who is a suspect in a drug investigation, said Lt. Mike Sadauskis, and saw her get out of one vehicle and into another.

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The driver of the first vehicle was Beckman, the report says, whom the officers knew had an active warrant. They "converged on his car and told him he was under arrest," Sadauskis said, but Beckman was able to maneuver his vehicle around them all and speed out of the parking lot.

Officers didn't pursue him, but watched as Beckman drove north in the southbound lane, crossed 12th Street Southwest in front of oncoming traffic, then speed away on Memorial Parkway, the report says.

Beckman could be charged as early as today with felony fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle and multiple traffic violations, in addition to the DANCO violation.
Rochester Community and Technical College is hoping legislators will increase the funding they've set aside for the college's budget and campus building projects.

If legislators don't increase funding, the college says it could be forced to make cuts, and its long-awaited rebuild of Memorial and Plaza halls could be once again pushed further into the future.

Minnesota's Higher Education Commissioner Larry Pogemiller made a stop at RCTC on Wednesday as part of a push to encourage legislators to up their funding for the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities, and to push for a bonding bill, which would finance campus building projects.

"I think it's fair to say that almost under any scenario, they're going to have to tighten their belt here," Pogemiller said Wednesday morning at a meeting in East Hall.

The Minnesota State system is asking that the Legislature put more of the state's $1.65 billion surplus into higher education and rather than tax cuts, which has been a priority for the GOP-led House and Senate. How that money is distributed, or if it will be used to "fill holes" in the education budget could be determined as early as this morning.

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Pogemiller said the state's three budget proposals  from the governor, the House and the Senate  all fall short of what the system of seven universities and 30 community and technical colleges would need to maintain their current operations. At RCTC, leaders say they would be shorted anywhere from $474,000 to $2.58 million over a two-year time frame, depending on whose budget the proposal the Legislature settles on.

Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, who sits on the House Higher Education Finance Committee said the proposals offer a "lose-lose" situation. He was critical of Minnesota State's request for more funding in November when it first raised alarm of the "urgent" financial situation it was facing, asking for an additional $184 million from the state. That request has now dropped to $145 million, and the Senate and House bills offer anywhere from $45 million to $80 million in additional funding, which Pelowski called "unbelievable" proposals Thursday.

"These budgets go beneath that  I do say there are areas where there could be savings," Pelowski said of his original criticism of the request. "But there's no area you can save like this. These are body blows to the campuses and the programs."

Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, said negotiations between the Legislature and governor are ongoing, but he's hoping the total investment in higher education will increase, but he said he's not surprised Minnesota State's full request isn't being funded.

"We have to look at all the different proposals that come into the Legislature," Miller said. "It's not uncommon for them not to get the full request."

That funding shortage could force the college to scale back on its student service offerings, or require faculty or program cuts, Pogemiller said. Though RCTC's director of communications Nate Stoltman said that's an ongoing conversation and no decisions have been made yet.

After a bonding bill failed to pass last year, a $14.5 million request to renovate Rochester Community and Technical College remained unfunded. They're hoping a bill will make its way through this year that includes funding for the demolition of Memorial Hall and Plaza halls, and Pogemiller said RCTC's request has a "decent" shot at getting funded.

Student services cut

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The college's student leaders are concerned that cuts could impact what RCTC is able to offer to students for support.

The college's Student Senate President Sofia Alston said Wednesday that many of these programs offer support to students , such as a food cupboard for students who need help with groceries, or a room dedicated to student veterans.

Many of these programs  and the connections that are made because of them  help support students while they're in school, keeping them on their way to completing a degree. They help students get through rough period of time and continue to getting their degree instead of dropping out when emergencies or financial problems come up.

"That would be so awful," Alston said.

These groups also allow students to make connections with those in the real world on the career path they're pursuing.

"It offers students a lot of opportunities to get involved with potential career paths, especially for those of us who didn't know what we wanted to do when we came here," said Student Senate Vice President Katherine Nelson.

With that money in the cross hairs, student graduation or completion rates could also be affected, Pogemiller said.

"If you don't have support services around students, they're going to drop out prematurely, or not complete when they should," he said.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help out a homeless Rochester man whose van was wrecked by a possible drunk driver.

Corey Jacob recently purchased a van with the intention of living in it with his cat, Nighty. Less than two weeks after buying it, the van was struck by an alleged drunk driver who does not have insurance. The crash broke the back axle of van and made difficult to move from the public street where it was parked.

Now the Rochester car dealerships of Kinsella's Auto Sales and Clements Chevrolet are helping him with moving the van. However, Jacob, who is disabled, still faces the issue of how he will live going forward. Repairing the van, if it is possible, will be very costly.

To address that, Joe Kinsella and Corey Stafford launched a GoFundMe campaign for Jacob on Wednesday night.

"Corey is a very kind man and could use a little help right now," wrote Kinsella on his Facebook page

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Stafford, who sold the van to Jacob, said they have wanted to do more to help him, since they met Jacob.

"He's a great guy. I think he'd do anything for you," said Stafford.

The GoFundMe account can be found at "Help Corey and Nighty."
DODGE CENTER  Jackie Thayer and Sam Moenning, seniors at Triton Public Schools, are both top four finalists in the state for FFA Star awards.

Thayer is a finalist for the award in agribusiness, and Moenning is in the running for the award in agriculture production placement. They will travel to the 88th Minnesota State FFA Convention, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at the University of Minnesota  St. Paul campus, where they will find out if they've won.

Their adviser, Robert Ickler, teaches agriscience at Triton and explained that the two have been interviewed extensively. Each also had to defend the packet of information they compiled about their project and complete a 40-page application.

Thayer has been employed at the County Line Stables in Dodge County since 2013 and has worked her way up to giving 14 lessons per week to brand new and experienced horse riders. Her lessons include grooming, showing the students how to check over the horses before the riders mount up and being responsive to how the horses are acting.

"To be successful in riding you have to understand how a horse responds to your attitude," Ickler said.

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Thayer is the daughter of Annie and Rick Thayer.

Moenning is the son of Mark and Donna Moenning. He's been involved with farming all his life and now works for Bill Blanchard at Blanchard Farms near Waltham.

One aspect of his job entails feeding newborn and very young Holstein calves milk replacer until they are old enough to be weaned. Sam also helps vaccinate calves and keeps records about them until they grow to about 500 pounds, when they are generally sold.

Both students had to keep track of their finances throughout their high school FFA participation, explained Ickler, as well as track the work they do.

At the end of the time they spend in FFA, students that have fulfilled all the requirements will receive an FFA degree.

Ickler is accompanying a total of four students to St. Paul to receive those degrees this weekend. Besides Thayer and Moenning, Courtney Dohrmann and Gabby Brocker also earned the degrees.

"It's a cumulative achievement award for active participation in FFA over a high school career," Ickler said.

"There is a very strong commitment by these students," Ickler said. "The FFA degree shows potential employers and schools that these students can set goals, follow through, and they have some ambition in their belly."

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"Mr. Ickler encouraged us to apply for awards and to maintain our SAE  'supervised agriculture experience,'" Moenning said.

That is necessary to apply for the various awards as students move up through the years in FFA.

At the top of the award structure are the Star awards.

State FFA Executive Secretary, Juleah Tolnsky, explained that every year, there are 16 state finalists, four in each category: Star Farmer, Star in Agribusiness, Star in Production Placement and Star in Agriscience.

"These awards honor students who have developed outstanding agricultural skills through their supervised agricultural experience and earned the state degree. The Minnesota FFA degree recognition programs are sponsored by AgStar Financial Services as a special project of the Minnesota FFA Foundation," Tolnsky said.

No matter what happens this weekend, Moenning and Thayer said they have enjoyed their time in FFA and are proud of what they've accomplished.

Moenning has enlisted in the Navy and he will begin that new chapter in his life in July.

Thayer will be attending the University of Wisconsin in River Falls in the fall.
ST. PAUL  The Republican-led Legislature is ready to test Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton after the Senate passed a bill Thursday that would ban Minnesota cities from setting their own minimum wage and paid sick leave rules.

The debate over who should control local labor regulations has raged at the Legislature for months, pitting the Republicans who control the Legislature and the business allies backing the measure against Democrats and workers who have turned out in droves to protest the bill. The Senate approved the measure on a near-party line vote of 35-31, following passage early last month in the House.

It won't head to Dayton's desk yet, as a few small differences between the two versions need to be reconciled. But Dayton wouldn't take a firm position on the bill when asked about it before the Senate vote, though he expressed "very significant concerns" about hamstringing cities from enacting their own, tailored policies.

Senate Republicans argued that businesses need uniformity on wage regulations and sick leave policies between cities. Without it, they said employers will be forced to juggle multiple labor laws depending on where they do business.

"A patchwork of inconsistent labor standards from city to city, or county to county ... would be extremely confusing and a huge burden for businesses in the state of Minnesota, especially our small business," Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, said ahead of the floor debate.

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And Sen. Jerry Relph, R-St. Cloud, said the paid sick leave ordinances set to take effect this summer in Minneapolis and St. Paul  which would be rolled back if the bill is signed into law  extend far beyond the idea of letting cities have control of their labor laws.

For example, he said that businesses located in multiple cities may have to raise their pay at every location if one city they do business in votes for a higher minimum wage.

Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, said she initially opposed the bill because she is a strong supporter of local control. However, she became convinced that cities were usurping the state's power to set minimum wage levels. She added that nothing in the bill prevents employers from paying workers more.

"There's just absolutely nothing that would prevent any employer from offering $15 an hour or $20 an hour," Nelson said.

All Senate Republicans voted for the bill. They were joined by one Senate Democrat  Sen. Dan Sparks of Austin.

But Democrats complained that the bill would strip away local cities' abilities to craft policies to best for their needs. Sen. Matt Little of Lakeville said he learned during his time as mayor that state policies that regulate local laws complicate the job of local officials.

"Minnesota state government has always set minimum standards of protection and benefits for people," he said. "This bill sets a ceiling and I don't think that is the proper role of state government."

Democrats were also critical of the bill because they said it was backed by businesses and lobbying groups seeking to take away local input on pay issues.

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As the Republican Legislature works to reconcile the differences between its two bills, they could be expecting a veto from the governor. With most of the focus of the Legislature on budget bills, Republicans' work to push the bill shows they are serious about getting it passed, either by itself or part of a larger budget measure.
ST. PAUL  A request by Red Wing officials for nearly $1 million to help with the costlier-than-expected U.S. Highway 61 reconstruction project is getting serious pushback from a top state official.

Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Charles Zelle called the request an "earmark" in a recent letter and warned that if lawmakers OK the funding it "sets a very troubling precedent." City officials say they are just asking the state to step up and pay money owed to the city for work done on the state highway.

"We just don't feel it's right that city of Red Wing taxpayers should be paying state trunk highway costs," said Red Wing Finance Director Marshall Hallock.

The dispute centers around the $12 million reconstruction of U.S. Highway 61 in Red Wing, which was completed last year. The city and MnDOT entered into a cooperative agreement before work on the project began. As part of the deal, Red Wing agreed to manage the project and MnDOT's financial contribution was capped.

But after the agreement was signed, costs for the project ballooned. Ron Seymour, Red Wing financial solutions analyst, said MnDOT told the city it needed to use concrete instead of asphalt for the project. That dramatically increased the project's total price tag. In addition, bids for the reconstruction work came in higher than anticipated.

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MnDOT agreed to chip in an additional $500,000 for the project. But in the end, Seymour said Red Wing taxpayers were stuck paying an extra $968,000 for work that should have been covered by the state.

"Those are actual costs that are directly related to a state highway," Seymour said. "Is it really fair for local taxpayers to be paying for state highway costs?"

The Minnesota House's transportation funding bill would repay Red Wing the $968,000 for the project. That funding is also included in a Senate public works bill.

But Zelle recently sent a letter to House Transportation Finance Committee Chairman Paul Torkelson stating opposition to the Red Wing funding language.

"In addition to being an earmark for a specific project, this provision changes the terms of an agreement the department entered into with the city under which both parties agreed to limit state participation," Zelle wrote.

Rep. Barb Haley, R-Red Wing, is sponsoring a bill seeking funding for the Red Wing project. She rejects the idea that the money is an earmark because it is for a project that is already completed  not one that is being proposed. She said she will push hard to get the funding passed this year.

"It's a significant amount of money for a city the size of Red Wing to bear and it is a trunk highway so it's a legitimate state expense," Haley said.

Sen. Mike Goggin, R-Red Wing, is sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate.

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Hallock said the experience has made Red Wing leery about entering into future agreements with the state for costly projects.

"This is an equity issue  a big equity issue," Hallock said. "The citizens of Red Wing should not be expected to pick up state costs."
Just when you think the climatistas cant get any stoopider, The Nation magazine comes along with this:

The Other Poison Gas Killing Syrians: Carbon Dioxide Emissions By Juan Cole

Wait! Stop right there? Juan Cole? The noted climate scientist Juan Cole? No: Juan Cole the radical leftist historian at the University of Michigan, a foe of Israel and apologist for the Iranian regime. Anyway. . .

. . . Yet the president and most of his party are committed to increasing the daily release of hundreds of thousands of tons of a far more deadly gascarbon dioxide. Climate scientist James Hansen has described our current emissions as like setting off 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs each day, every day of the year. . .

It is hardly worth bothering with the preposterous idea that without climate change the Middle East would be a peaceful, cheery place with no conflicts whatsoeverI mean, who knew that Lebanons civil unrest of the last 75 years were almost surely caused by climate change? And if it was just wo degrees cooler, and there was 10 inches more rain every year on the West Bank, Im sure the Palestinians would stop hating Jews.

I expect that future historians will look back and conclude that one of the dumber things the climatistas did was calling carbon dioxide a pollutant. But if you want a handy scientific guide to the idea of whether CO2 and Sarin are equivalent, our friends at the American Council for Science and Health have produced this nifty chart:

Good news for The Nation and Juan Cole: Power Lines coveted Green Weenie Award is not only gluten-free, but also carbon free, too.
Paul has written about the downfall of Bill OReilly in a series of three posts, the most alarming of which was Part Three. I want to add a cartoon coda.

I dont usually come down hard on hypocrisy. It strikes me as a relatively mild failing. But when it comes to liberals and Bill OReilly (or Donald Trump), the contradiction is so stunning that one can hardly help remarking on it. Michael Ramirez makes the point well. Click to enlarge:

Bill Clinton was credibly accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick. Kathleen Willey says that he grabbed her p**** in the oval office. He was disbarred from the practice of law and was taxed costs of over $90,000 for committing perjury in Paula Joness sexual harassment lawsuit against him, which he later settled for $850,000. No one has forgotten how he treated intern Monica Lewinsky. In later years, Clinton was a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express.

All the while Clinton remained the leader of, and most popular figure in, the Democratic Party. It is remarkable that any Democrat has the nerve to try to make an issue out of sexual conduct with regard to any Republican or conservative.
At the end of my post about Bill OReillys dismissal, I wrote:

I very much doubt that the decision to fire OReilly was driven by the facts of his conduct. In all likelihood, it was driven by sponsor reaction. In other words, it was the product of corporate America  spineless and liberal as ever  and left-wing groups that exploit these weaknesses.

The link for left-wing groups was to a 2012 Media Matters document called A Three-Year Campaign. What kind of campaign? A campaign against Fox News.

It took five years, not three, but Media Matters has finally succeeded against its bete noire, Bill OReilly. William Jacobson writes:

The conventional wisdom is that after the NY Times exposed a history of sexual harassment settlements, and two new accusers came forward, advertisers fled the show, forcing the hand of News Corp and the Murdochs. That conventional wisdom is only partially correct  advertisers didnt flee, they were chased away by the same organized effort as was used against Glenn Beck once upon a time, and Rush Limbaugh in 2012.

The organized effort consisted of a small cadre of operatives, who often used multiple proxy accounts to multiply their effect. . .harassing Limbaugh advertisers over a variety of issues. Fortunately, Limbaugh was able effectively to fight back through twitter.

Jacobson shows that Media Matters employed the same tactics against OReilly. He cites this article:

The boycott exploded within days. A cadre of Twitter activists, battle-hardened from ongoing campaigns against the Trumps and Breitbart News, swarmed the initial New York Times story about the sexual harassment allegations and put pressure on advertisers to take a stand. They didquickly and vocally. Within about 24 hours, over 20 companies including major players like Allstate, BMW, and T. Rowe Pricepulled their advertising from the OReilly Factor and denounced his alleged behaviour. So many advertisers are not just removing their ads, but giving comments that they typically avoid, or would avoid. I mean, theyre making value judgments, says Angelo Carusone, president of liberal watchdog organization Media Matters for America. That Carusone was caught off guard shows how unexpected the reaction was, as hes long been planning for such a day. I had the @StopOReilly [Twitter] account for seven years, and I just sat on it, he says.

Politico confirms that Media Matters, working with a Democratic fundraiser, spearheaded an advertiser education campaign to get OReilly fired.

Thus, OReillys demise was not the product of widespread outrage over new, weak allegations of harassment and retaliation. It was the product of a cadre of battle-hardened activists influencing weak and, most likely, left-leaning advertisers.

However, it was also the product of OReilly. As Jacobson notes, the assault on Limbaugh was centered on the content of his commentary. The assault on OReilly centered on a pattern of behavior.

The behavior may or not have risen to the level of harassment, and Media Matters motive for the assault certainly was ideologically based. But if OReilly had behaved better, Media Matters could not have brought him down.

Not yet, anyway. And thats an important caveat. Media Matters success against OReilly will encourage this outfit to unleash its cadre of battle-hardened activists against conservatives whose only sins are taking positions the left doesnt like and reaching a mass audience.

It didnt work against Rush in 2012, but that doesnt mean it wont work in the insane environment I foresee in the coming years. As Jacobson concludes:
The Daily Mail has the story, along with, as usual, an abundance of photos:

A policeman was shot dead while two other officers were seriously injured by a Kalashnikov-wielding gunman on the Champs Elysees in central Paris  just three days before the French presidential election. The alleged ISIS gunman, identified as 39-year-old Karim C  who was jailed for 20 years for trying to kill officers in 2001  parked his Audi and opened fire after police stopped at a red light on the world famous avenue.

So Karim C was released early.

Officers have been searching the home of the alleged shooter  who was known to security services and had been flagged as an extremist  in east Paris and he had previously said that he wanted to kill police.

That can be a clue. Here in the U.S., the Obama administration aligned itself with those who wanted to murder policemen. (Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon, Black Lives Matter protesters chanted all across the country, to applause from Barack Obama and his minions.) I dont think that has happened in France, but why should a would-be Islamic terrorist who wants to murder policemen get a break?

More:

French newspaper Le Parisien named the attacker as Karim C, who used the alias Abu Yousuf the Belgian, and reportedly made threats to kill police using the social media app Telegram, an instant messaging service. Karim was born in France and lived in Chelles, a commuter town close to Paris and was jailed for the 2001 attack  but is believed to have been released early in 2016. The gunman has been identified by police but they will not officially reveal his name until investigators determine whether he had accomplices, according to the Paris prosecutor.

***

The Interior Ministry spokesman said the officers were deliberately targeted and the police union added that the policeman was killed while sat in a car at a red light. US President Donald Trump said: It looks like another terrorist attack. What can you say? It never ends.

There is much, much more at the link, including many photos. This is one:
Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson has prepared an Obama-era Surveillance Timeline. It is a mixed bag, containing seemingly indefensible conduct by the Obama administration, but also conduct that I consider justified and proper (e.g., the prosecution of CIA leaker Jeffrey Sterling).

Its clear to me from the timeline, though, that the kinds of intelligence abuses were hearing about now did not begin when Team Obama became concerned about Donald Trump. Attkisson says that in April 2009, just a few months into the Obama presidency, someone leak[ed] the unmasked name of Congresswoman Jane Harman to the press According to news reports, the Bush administration NSA had incidentally recorded and saved Harmons phone conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage. But it was during the Obama presidency that the information was leaked to the press.

Harman is a liberal Democrat. However, she was more hard line than most Democrats on national security. Perhaps more significantly, she was a political enemy of Nancy Pelosi.

There was also the case of Fox News James Rosen. In May 2010, the government secretly applied for a warrant to obtain Google email information regarding Rosen. Three years later, Fox News learned that the Justice Department secretly labeled reporter Rosen a possible criminal co-conspirator and flight-risk in obtaining warrants to monitor his movements, phone records, and emails in a leak investigation starting in 2011.

Moreover, although Attkisson doesnt mention it, when James Rosen visited his parents he used their telephone to talk to one of his contacts. This led to the lead investigation being extended to Rosens parents. Creepy.

Attkisson herself apparently was the victim of surveillance after she broke, and persistently reported on, the Holder Justice Departments Fast and Furious scandal. In February 2013, remote intruders secretly download new spy software proprietary to a federal agency onto her work computer.

In December of that year, she says, two intelligence-connected sources separately told her that she was likely under government surveillance due to her reporting. One source told her the government has pushed the envelope like never before and that public would be shocked to learn the extent that the government is conducting surveillance of private citizens.

Around that same time, Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, both Democrats, who had classified knowledge as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, publicly warned of the back-door search loophole or incidental collection of innocent Americans. Said Udall:

[T]here is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of specific Americans.

Moreover, as Attkisson points out here, incidental collection of a U.S. citizen target may be orchestrated for political reasons. She explains how this can be done without leaving fingerprints.

In the Spring of 2015, the Obama administration finished negotiations of the Iran nuclear deal. It was later reported that Obama intelligence officials had been incidentally capturing communications of U.S. members of Congress and organizations in the U.S. while secretly recording Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus discussions about the Iran deal.

Finally, lets turn to surveillance relating to Donald Trump and/or his campaign. Here are key entries from Attkissons timeline:

July 2016: Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for president. According to later news reports, after Trumps nomination, internal White House logs show Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice begins to show increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material that included unmasked Americans identities. Summer 2016: The FBI reportedly obtains a secret FISA court order to monitor communications of Trump adviser Carter Page, convincing a judge theres probable cause to believe Page is acting as a Russian agent. Surveillance of Page theoretically allows government officials to incidentally collect communications of Trump associates (or Trump himself) if they communicate with Page. Fall 2016: Trump opponents shop to reporters a political opposition research dossier alleging Trump is guilty of various inappropriate acts regarding Russia. The information is unverified (and some of it is false) and the press doesnt publish it, but a copy is provided to the FBI. November 2016-January 2017: News reports claim Rices interest in the NSA materials accelerates after President Trumps election through his January inauguration. Surveillance reportedly included Trump transition figures and/or foreign officials discussing a Trump administration. December 2016: FBI secretly monitors and records communications between Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who later became President Trumps national security adviser. Obama officials take steps to ensure certain intelligence gathered regarding Trump associates is spread across the government. One Obama official would later say its because they were afraid once Trump officials found out how we knew what we knew, the intelligence would be destroyed. However, Obama critics later theorize Obama officials were working to mount opposition to Trumps presidency. January 10, 2017: The media reports on the leaked anti-Trump dossier compiled by a political opposition research group containing unverified and at least partly untrue allegations of misconduct involving Trump and Russia. January 12, 2017: The Obama administration finalizes new rules allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to spread certain intelligence to 16 other U.S. intel agencies without the normal privacy protections. Feb. 9, 2017: News of the FBI recordings of Lt. Gen. Flynn speaking with Russias ambassador is leaked to the press. The New York Times and the Washington Post report that Flynn was captured on wiretaps discussing current U.S. sanctions, despite Flynns earlier denials. The Washington Post also reports the FBI reviewed Flynns calls with Russian ambassador and found nothing illicit. Feb. 13, 2017: Trump National Security Adviser Flynn resigns, acknowledging he had misled Vice President Pence about his Russia conversations. March 2, 2017: In an interview on MSNBC, Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas says that once President Trump was elected, she urged her former colleagues to get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can [about Trump and his associates] before President Obama leaves the administration and get it to people on Capitol Hill. March 10, 2017: Former Congressman Kucinich, a Democrat, steps forward to support Trumps wiretapping claim, revealing that the Obama administration recorded his communications with a Libyan official in Spring 2011. March 22, 2017: Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes publicly announces that he has reviewed evidence of U.S. citizens associated with Trump being incidentally surveilled by Obama intelligence officials, and that the names and information of the Trump associates were illegally leaked and/or used, mostly in November, December and January. March 24, 2017: The political firm that compiled the Trump dossier that was leaked to the press, Fusion GPS, declines to answer questions or document requests from Sen. Charles Grassley. March 31, 2017: Democrat Adam Schiff is invited to the White House to review intel material Republican Nunes saw earlier. April 3, 2017: Multiple news reports state that prior to the election, Rice had requested and reviewed unmasked intelligence on Trump associates whose information was incidentally collected by intelligence agencies. April 4, 2017: In an interview on MSNBC, Rice seems to reverse herself (having earlier said she knew nothing about unmasking of surveilled Trump associates) and admits having asked for names of U.S. citizens previously masked in intelligence reports. Rice says her motivations were not political or to spy. When asked if she leaked names of U.S. citizens, Rice replies, I leaked nothing to nobody.

I have heard it said that ever since Adam Schiff saw the spreadsheet of incidental collection of communications involving U.S. citizens, his tone regarding the Obama administrations surveillance has changed. I dont follow Schiff closely enough to know whether this is true. However, its easy to believe that the spreadsheet revealed a vast degree of collection and possible to believe that it has given Schiff pause.
Andy McCarthy sees the constitutional changes in Turkey as having hammered the final nail in the coffin of [that] countrys democracy. He castigates President Trump for calling to congratulate strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan on this accomplishment.

Lee Smith sees the situation differently. He contends that the closeness of the referendum on Erdogans changes represents a warning that he had better address Turkish voters key concernsthe economy, political stability, terrorismor else he might expect worse in the 2019 presidential elections. And Smith doesnt seem bothered that Trump made his phone call.

I think President Trump was right to call Erdogan, especially if McCarthy is correct about the state of Turkish democracy. If Erdogan really has locked up power for the next eight years or more, it becomes all the more important for Trump to establish a solid relationship with him, if possible. And the best way to seek such a relationship is by approaching Erdogan now, when he most craves such attention.

Turkey is a hugely important player in the Middle East. Whether the issue is Iran, Assad, or ISIS, Turkey matters.

Turkey under Erdogan will never be a U.S. ally or friend, but its a potential collaborator in various projects where the two nations interests run parallel. Unlike Iran, Turkey under Erdogan is not inherently hostile to America. If there has been little collaboration recently, it is probably because, as Smith argues, President Obama turned on American allies [in the region] and empowered their adversaries, notably Iran and Russia.

Trump needs to reverse this course. An overture to Erdogan can be part of the process.

We should think of Trumps approach to Erdogan as similar to his outreach to China, which is less democratic than Turkey and more of a threat to its neighbors, including friends of the U.S. Trump wants China to assist America in dealing with the North Korean threat. He has thus become friendly with Chinas dictator. If China actually does assist on this vital issue, the president likely will overlook a multitude of its sins. If not, not.

The same approach makes sense when it comes to the Middle East. Indeed, Trump has already hosted Egypts Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The strongman isnt much of a democrat, but hes a key ally in the region.

The U.S. shouldnt be indifferent to the internal practices of nations like China, Egypt, and Turkey (or to Chinas trade policies). But these practices shouldnt stand in the way of collaboration on vital issues of mutual interest, provided the nation in question is not implacably hostile to the U.S. and is not unacceptably aggressive towards its neighbors.

Such collaboration cant take place without outreach. This week was an opportune time for Trump to have reached out to Erdogan.
Remittances to developing countries fell for a second consecutive year in 2016, a trend not seen in three decades, says the latest edition of the Migration and Development Brief.

The report was released on Friday by the World Bank, at the ongoing IMF/ World Banks Spring Meetings in Washington DC, U.S.

The report showed that many large remittance-receiving countries saw sharp declines in remittance flows.

Remittance to Nigeria, according to the report, went down by 10 per cent in 2016; Bangladesh 11.1 per cent, and Egypt, 9.5 per cent.

Remittance flows to Sub-Saharan Africa declined by an estimated 6.1 per cent to 33 billion dollars 2016, due to slow economic growth in remittance-sending countries; decline in commodity prices, especially oil, which impacted remittance receiving countries.

The diversion of remittances to informal channels due to controlled exchange rate regimes in countries such as Nigeria contributed to decline in the region.

However, remittances to the region are projected to increase by 3.3 per cent to

34 billion dollars in 2017, it said.

The report showed however, that Mexico and the Philippines were the only exceptions, which saw inflows increase by an estimated 8.8 per cent and 4.9 per cent last year.

The Bank estimates that officially recorded remittances to developing countries amounted to $429 billion in 2016, a decline of 2.4 per cent, from over $440 billion in 2015.

Global remittances which include flows to high-income countries, also contracted by 1.2 per cent to $575 billion dollars in 2016, from $582 billion in 2015.

Low oil prices and weak economic growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the Russian Federation are taking a toll on remittance flows to South Asia and Central Asia.

Also, weak growth in Europe has reduced flows to North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, the report stated.

According to the report, the decline in remittances, when valued in U.S. dollars, was made worse by a weaker Euro, British pound and Russian ruble against the U.S. dollar.

The acting Director of the World Banks Global Indicators Group, Rita Ramalho, said that the decline in remittances could affect the livelihood of many families.

Remittances are an important source of income for millions of families in developing countries.

As such, a weakening of remittance flows can have a serious impact on the ability of families to get health care, education or proper nutrition, she said.

Ms. Ramalho said that with an improved global economic outlook, remittances to developing countries were expected to recover in 2017, growing by an estimated 3.3 per cent , which is about $444 billion in 2017.

The world bank report also gave statistics on current global migration.

Between 2015 and 2016, the number of refugees in the 28 European Union countries were said to have increased by 273,000 to 1.6 million.

During the same period, the number of refugees worldwide increased by 1.4 million, to 16.5 million.

The report called for regional and bilateral agreements to address migration, develop a normative guidelines for governments and international organisations.

Dilip Ratha, Head of the World Bank Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, said migration would continue to be on the increase due to large income gaps, widespread youth unemployment, and ageing populations in many developed countries.

He said that climate change, fragility and conflict would continue to affect migration, going forward.

(NAN)

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The Association of Power Generation Companies, APGC, Thursday, said it has the capacity to generate 12,000 MW to reduce the electricity needs of Nigerians.

Joy Ogaji, the Executive Secretary of the association said the generation companies have an installed capacity that could provide 12,500 MW of electricity to Nigerians.

Then they have an available capacity of 8,000 MW. Out of that 8 ,000 MW, Transmission Company or the transporter that can take this power from us to give to the distribution has a capacity of maximum 5,500 , which is what they claim, but we believe they can t take more than 4,500.

A system stress test that was conducted on the distribution lines shows that the distribution companies (DISCOs ), can take a maximum of 4,600 MW.

With the available capacity , I have 8 ,000 MW if I say okay, come and take no one can take .

On current reduction in power generation despite its capacity to produce more , NAN reports that Ms. Ogaji noted that paucity of funds hindered GENCOs from procuring gas to fire their power plants.

For now we don t have vandalism problem but inability to pay for gas. How do we pay for the gas (when) my people were paid a week ago for the electricity generated in January.

And when they put 100 percent on the grid , maximally they have been paid 30 percent , of the money this is one of the issues, she said.

As we speak, the sector owes the generation companies about N600 billion, unpaid for power that have been generated and consumed already, about N 600 billion.

Ms. Ogaji, who noted that GENCOs were ready to advance power generation in the country, also said it was important to overhaul the transmission and distribution networks in the country to facilitate the supply of more electricity to Nigerians.

Commenting further on the funds the Nigerian government promised to make available, Ms. Ogaji lamented that the funds have not been released.

Now Federal Government came to announce on March 1 , that they are bringing N 701 billiom for the generation companies, she noted.

Where is this money that N 701 billion where is the money; we have written to government, please show us where this money is.

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The controversial haul of cash in local and foreign currencies recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, is part of the N57.2 billion released to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) by the Nigerian government in February 2015, PREMIUM TIMES can report.

The funds were approved by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), and disbursed in cash by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The then NSA, Sambo Dasuki, had claimed he was approving the funds for special services he mandated the NIA to undertake.

What those special services were remained unclear.

Following the announcement of the recovery by operatives of the anti-graft agency, the NIA authorities, according to presidency sources, told President Muhammadu Buhari that former President Goodluck Jonathan approved the fund for some crucial and covert security projects.

The huge cash, which included $43,449,947, 27,800 and N23,218,000, were recovered from Apartment 7B following a tip-off to the EFCC by an unnamed whistleblower.

Presidency sources believe the cash, which translates to about N13 billion (based on the prevailing official exchange rate by the CBN), is the balance of the N57.2billion released to the NIA for the controversial special services.

This newspaper had in an exclusive report after the 2015 presidential elections exposed how the CBN paid out N67.2billion cash  $289,202,382 (N57.2 billion) to the NIA and the rest to the office of the NSA.

That report provided extensive details of how bullion vans were used by government officials to cart away the cash to unknown destinations.

The details can now prove useful to the three-man presidential committee, headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, mandated to investigate how the NIA came about the funds, and whether or not there was a breach of the law or security procedure in obtaining custody and use of the funds.

The committee, which commenced its assignment on Wednesday, also has the current NSA, Babagana Monguno, and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, as members.

According to the report, published on September 19, 2015, funds, totaling at least N67.2 billion, were released through two cash withdrawals from the CBN between November 2014 and February 2015.

The first of the withdrawals was made through a memo that originated from the office of former NSA, Mr. Dasuki.

In the memo, with reference number NSA/366/S, dated November 2014, and entitled: Request for Funds for Special Services, Mr. Dasukis office called the attention of CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to a previous discussion on a request to withdraw $47 million cash, out of a certain N10 billion earmarked for an unbudgeted special services.

Further to our discussion, you are pleased requested to provide the sum of forty seven million United States Dollars (USD47, 000,000.00) cash out of the Ten Billion Naira (N10, 000,000,000.00) and the balance in Euro to this office for special services.

Mr. S. A. Salisu, director finance and administration is, hereby authorised to sign and collect the amount. Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest esteem, the memo read.

The second withdrawal was based on a memo dated February 25, 2015 generated by the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), the investment management services arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The memo conveyed an instruction to the director, banking and payment system department of the CBN to urgently pay in cash the sum of $289,202,382 (N57.2 billion) to the National Intelligence Agency, NIA.

Upon receipt of this mandate, please pay urgently the under-listed beneficiary the cash amount indicated. Please debit CBN/JVCC Foreign Account No. 000000011658360 with the JP Morgan Chase, New York and advise as soon as the payment is made.

The payment instruction in favour of the NIA was signed by one Okonkwo Godwin, General Manager, Finance, NAPIMS, with staff No. 18526.

The CBN spokesperson, Isaac Okorafor, had on Sunday denied knowledge of how the funds were released to the secret service agency.

But sources at the presidency told PREMIUM TIMES that NIA authorities had already explained to President Buhari that they received the funds in cash from the nations apex bank.

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Some unidentified gunmen have killed a 50-year old businessman, Bello Danbuba and his teenage son, Aliyu, in Gandi village, Rabah Local Government Area of Sokoto State.

The killings happened on Thursday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)learnt that the attackers, believed to be bandits, trailed Mr. Danbuba to where his herd of camel was kept, then shot him and his son.

The gunmen left without carting away any camels or cash.

The late businessman was also a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the area.

The spokesperson of the State Police Command, El-Mustapha Sani, has confirmed the incident.

Mr. Sani said that the two victims had since been buried in their hometown, Gandi, after a funeral prayer.

Sani said: The Commissioner of Police, Mr Mohammed Abdulkadir, had visited the bereaved town on Thursday.

He had since directed the deployment of more patrol teams in the local government and its neighbours, with a view to tracking down the fleeing gunmen.

The command had since launched a manhunt for them, we will not relent until they are apprehended and brought to book.

The late businessman is survived by his aged mother, three wives, 13 children and grandchildren.

(NAN)

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Nigeria recorded the highest number of Chinese outbound visitors to Africa in 2016 with a total number of 200,000 visitors to the country.

The report was released on Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the 59th Conference of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, UNWTO, Commission for Africa and High Level Meeting on Chinese Outbound Tourists to Africa.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, led the Nigerian delegation to the conference.

According to the report, Nigeria is ahead of other acclaimed tourist destinations like Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia and the Gambia.

It stated that there were 157 million Chinese outbound visitors globally in the year in review out of which 3.2 million came to Africa and $260 billion was spent on the whole.

Reacting to the report, the minister said that comparatively, it is an indication that the tourism sector is picking up in the country.

He said with the appropriate policies and legal framework the Nigerian government is putting in place, the country will maximise it to advantage.

Mr. Mohammed, however, noted that Africa and indeed Nigeria have a lot to do to develop and promote tourism sector to attract more tourists.

Tourism contributes 10 per cent to global GDP but the African share of this is low.

When you look at this statistics that of the 137 million Chinese outbound visitors globally, spending about 260 billion dollars only 3.2 billion dollars came to Africa and 200,000 to Nigeria, that is not good enough.

Nigeria and Africa need to invest more in promoting tourism and there must be enough messages about the continent to attract tourists, he said.

The minister said that one of the objectives of the conference was to promote Africa and see how the continent could benefit more from what China has to offer.

He added that the ongoing campaign for Africa to take up the leadership of UNWTO would be of huge advantage in improving the tourism sector in the continent.

NAN reports that the current UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Riffai, a Jordanian national, is due to stand down from the post at the end of 2017.

The African Union (AU) has reportedly endorsed Zimbabwes Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Walter Mzembis candidature for the post which is being keenly contested by members from other continents.

Another African, Alain St. Ange, a former Seychelles Minister of Tourism is also a candidate for the exalted office of the UNWTO Secretary General

In an interview with a NAN correspondent covering the conference, Mr. Riffai, the outgoing UNWTO Secretary General, said the high-level meeting on Chinese outbound tourists to Africa aimed to exchange national experiences and tourism border development.

Mr. Riffai said the conference was organised to create synergy among African countries and promote Africa as a tourist destination.

He commended Mr. Mohammed for his passion for the industry and his initiative to bring Nigeria back to the UNWTO fold in 2016 after many years of non-participation in the activities of the global tourism body.

Mr. Riffai said the endorsement of Nigeria for the hosting of UNWTO Conference of Africa Tourism Ministers in 2018 is a catalyst for the realisation of the Federal Government agenda to bring tourism to the mainstream.

(NAN)

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Two days after the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, was suspended, a retreat involving his office has been cancelled.

Mr. Lawal was suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday following Senate findings that he violated public service rules by chairing a company which got a grass-cutting contract while he was in office.

The suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF is also to be investigated by a presidential committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

On Friday, the Federal Government announced it has postponed the 2017 retreat for the SGF and Secretaries to State Governments indefinitely.

Bolaji Adebiyi, the Director of Press in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, made this known in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, without disclosing an official reason for the postponement.

He said that the retreat which was scheduled to hold from April 23 to April 25 in Yola, Adamawa has been shifted and a new date would be announced soon.

The annual retreat of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation with Secretaries to the State Governments scheduled to hold in Yola, Adamawa State, has been postponed.

A new date will be communicated to all participants and invited guests in due course.

The office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) regrets any inconvenience, he said.

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The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, has tasked the Nigerian government to stop making excuses for what it regarded as governments failure to curtail the menace of herdsmen attacks in the country.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja ahead of a five-day national programme of the Nigerian Baptists Convention at the National Stadium, Abuja, President of the convention who is also the President of CAN, Samson Ayokunle, said the killings by herdsmen in various attacks across the country portrays the inability of government to put an end to the problem.

Just a few days ago, news broke again that some Fulani herdsmen allegedly added another 30 people to the list of people killed in southern Kaduna. The government appears not to be in control of the situation. Nigerians need not to continue to lose their lives like this where we have a government in place with all the necessary tools to provide security.

Late last year, government announced that it was establishing a military battalion in addition to the police, just to curb this menace. It is therefore disheartening that innocent lives are being lost despite this.

It is gratifying to note the swiftness in which the police apprehended the suspects in the Ile-Ife communal clash. It is however a wonder that since Fulani herdsmen have been killing farmers from every corner of the country, neither the police nor other security agencies have been able to either be as prompt in making arrest or in seeing prosecution through, regarding the matter.

It is essential that the federal government in whose hands the instruments of cohesion lies quickly remedies the situation. It will be in the interest of national development and peaceful coexistence, if continuous killings have not been happening, we would not have been shouting wolf where there was not.

We appeal to the government to desist from giving excuses any more, when the killings are still occurring. We want an end to be put to the killings henceforth. Enough is enough, said Mr. Ayokunle.

He warned that the failure of government to ensure justice will be dangerous for the unity of Nigeria.

Otherwise it will be to your tent oh Israel, where there has been continuous injustice.

The CAN president said the theme of the national convention; Moving Forward: Overcoming the Challenges of Life through Jesus Christ, was apt in addressing the challenges of the country from the spiritual angle, stressing that although the current administration has achieved a huge success in the fight against the Boko Haram, a lot is necessary if peaceful coexistence and national development is to be achieved.

We appreciate the Federal Government for waging war against Boko Haram and for sustaining it. We equally salute the courage of our gallant military and we shall continue to pray for them over this good work of defending the people on this matter.

Equally, the release of the 21 of the several Chibok girls kidnapped three years ago is commendable but more effort is solicited for the release of the rest before their lives are completely ruined for no sin of theirs.

We commend as well the recent efforts of the Federal Government on the economy especially on strengthening the local currency. Salaries owed the workers all over the nation must be paid without delay. My Bible says that the wages of the workers must not be delayed overnight.

All must be done in political appointments and in the conduct of government business to reflect federal character not only on ethnicity but equally ensuring religious balance. The more the government adheres to these admonitions, the more coherent we would be as a people and the greater the peace and development.

Regarding the fight against corruption, Mr. Ayokunle called on government to ensure that it is fair and balanced, stressing that the Christian community in Nigeria has never and will never stand in support of corruption.

We have advised the government to be more broad-minded in the fight against corruption.

The position of the church has been a stance against corruption. No church in Nigeria preaches corruption.

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The Nigerian authorities must immediately scrap plans to execute death row inmates in Kirikiri prison in Lagos, Amnesty International said Friday amid reports from inmates that the prisons gallows were being prepared and one inmate had been isolated possibly in preparation for execution.

This follows a statement by Adeniji Kazeem, the Attorney General of Lagos State, during a press briefing on April 18, indicating that the state government would soon start signing execution documents.

The indications that Kirikiri prison authorities may be gearing up for a string of executions are deeply alarming. The death penalty is an outdated and cruel punishment which violates the right to life, said Damian Ugwu, Amnesty Internationals Nigeria Researcher.

We also have serious concerns as to whether many of the inmates on death row have received a fair trial. The Nigerian police are overstretched and under-resourced and tend to rely heavily on coerced confessions rather than investigations. In some cases death sentences are handed down on the basis of statements signed under torture.

The Nigerian authorities must halt these executions immediately and establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

In 2016, Nigeria handed down 527 death sentences  three times more than it did in 2015  the highest recorded globally excluding China, according to Amnesty International.

Lagos State imposed the highest number of death sentences in 2016, 68 people, which was closely followed by Rivers State with 61, according to official records provided by the Nigeria Prisons Service.

This massive spike in death sentences puts the country at odds with the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty, Mr. Ugwu noted. Currently, 141 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

On December 23, 2016, three death row prisoners were put to death in Benin Prison, Edo State. Their executions were carried out despite the fact that one of them, Apostle Igene, was sentenced to death in 1997 by a military tribunal, and never had an appeal.

Amnesty International called on the Nigerian government to commute all death sentences to terms of imprisonment and immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

For years, the federal government has claimed to have a voluntary or self-imposed moratorium but executions have happened nonetheless; including those in December 2016.

The authorities have not confirmed officially that they plan to carry out executions imminently at KiriKiri prison.

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Nigerias Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has said the nation plans to get out of recession by boosting government non-oil revenues and cracking down on corruption.

Reuters reports that Mrs. Adeosun made the remarks while fielding questions from reporters at the World Bank conference in Washington on Thursday.

Analysts said the Nigerian governments anti-corruption war received a boost recently when the government suspended the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, David Lawal, and ordered an investigation into the allegations of violations of law and due process made against him in the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on the North East, PINE.

Similarly, the government also ordered a full scale investigation into the discovery of large amounts of foreign and local currencies by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, over which the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has made a claim. The Director General of the NIA, Ayo Oke, was also suspended.

There are insinuations that these and other funds recovered from similar anti-graft operations would be ploughed back into the economy.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Adeosun said the government will also issue more international debt to pay for infrastructural projects.

Nigeria is in its second year of recession, brought on by lower oil prices, which have slashed government revenues, weakened the currency and caused dollar shortages.

The development has stifled investment initiatives and frustrated businesses and households.

Earlier on Wednesday, the World Bank chief economist for Africa, Albert Zeufack, had said that fiscal adjustments in Nigeria would be extremely challenging and that the country needs to reform its finances to ensure it can hedge against any future currency crisis.

Mrs. Adeosun said her aim was to get the non-oil sector of Nigerias economy which accounts for around 90 per cent of GDP to contribute to government revenues.

Improving non-oil revenues is something we are working hard on. We are rolling out measures to get more people into the tax net, the minister said, Thursday.

We are get out of recession because we are following the right type of policies. We are improving our revenues, we are improving our efficiencies in how we spend money.

We are investing in the infrastructure that is needed, power, rail, road, the big enablers of growing sustainable economies.

Commenting further, Mrs. Adeosun said liquidity on currency markets has been improving as the central bank has boosted dollar supply, occasioned by the recently rising oil prices.

The minister also added that government was harmonising fiscal, monetary and trade policies to get the economy growing again.

Nigeria also plans to issue long-term debt on the international markets more regularly for infrastructure projects, Mrs. Adeosun said, noting that Africas largest economy would take advantage of the countrys debt to GDP ratio of 13 per cent.

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The Ahmed Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has urged the Federal Government to constitute an independent body to investigate corruption allegations against suspended Secretary to Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal.

The faction made the call in a statement signed by Dayo Adeyeye, its spokesperson, on Thursday in Abuja.

It said that panel should comprise eminent Nigerians with proven records of integrity, independence and competence.

It explained that an independent investigation of the allegations against Mr. Lawal and the Director- General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke, also suspended, would ensure transparency.

This is the only way by which we can have confidence that a thorough and impartial investigation will be conducted.

It is a way by which President Muhammadu Buhari also can reassure the general public that there are no sacred cows in his government for whom there are different set of rules, the party stated.

The presidency had on Wednesday announced the suspension of both men and constituted a committee headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to investigate the allegations against them.

Mr. Adeyeye recalled that the Senate had in 2016 set up an ad hoc committee headed by Shehu Sani, the senator representing Kaduna Central, to investigate the expenditures and activities of the Presidential Initiative for North-East, PINE.

The committee also investigated the alarming rate of humanitarian crisis in the North-East occasioned by the diversion of grains and other food supplies meant for the Internally Displaced Persons in that region.

The PDP said that at the end of its assignment, the ad-hoc committee indicted Mr. Lawal of mismanagement of PINE funds and award of multi-million naira grass-cutting contract to one of his companies, Rholavision Engineering Limited.

The party said that contrary to expectations, the presidency, in a letter of January 17, 2017 to the Senate, discredited the committees recommendations and refused to sack or prosecute Lawal, clearing him of all wrong doing instead.

According to it, instead of arresting and detaining Mr. Lawal as being doing to PDP members, there is a double standard of suspending him to be investigated by a committee.

We are at a loss as to why the president would set up a panel comprising members of his cabinet to investigate other very senior powerful members of the same executive.

Where is the transparency in that? This is not that we doubt the integrity of the Vice President, who we have the utmost respect, and other members of the committee,

But, it appears the matter is being settled within the Government Closet without the transparency, independence and impartiality necessary in a situation like this.

The party also recalled that recently the president directed the Attorney-General of the Federation to investigate the SGFs involvement in the PINEs contracts.

That investigation cleared the SGF of all wrong doings in the grass-cutting scandal as stated above.

It is amazing that the president who swiftly accepted the recommendations of the Attorney-General would now suddenly set up another panel, including the same Attorney-General, to investigate the matter again.

(NAN)

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The Akwa Ibom Police Command says it has rescued two Turkish nationals kidnapped on April 9 in their hotel rooms at Eket, Eket Local Government Area of the state.

The Turkish citizens are staff of BKS Construction Company in Onna Local Government Area.

The Commissioner of Police, Donald Awunah, disclosed this while briefing journalists in Uyo on Friday.

Mr. Awunah said that the two expatriates were rescued along Oron/Calabar creeks on April 19.

He said that five suspects have been arrested in connection with the crime.

It will be recalled that on April 9, two Turkish nationals were kidnapped and taken to the creeks of Calabar/Oron waterways.

Following sustained police activities in the waterways, deployment of technical platform, cultivation of actionable intelligence and skillful professional negotiation, the two Turkish gentlemen were released on April 19, 2017.

The victims of crime have been reunited with their colleagues after medical assessment.

Five suspects have been arrested and further investigation is ongoing, Awunah said.

The commissioner said that the suspects would be arraigned after investigation.

(NAN)

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President Muhammadu Buhari has called for improved synergy and collaboration among African countries to effectively attain a sustainable use of Africas Oceans and Seas.

President Buhari who made the call while declaring open the 3rd Conference of the Association of Heads of African Maritime Administration (AAMA) in Abuja admonished maritime administrators across the continent to continually work together in building strong maritime economies.

The president who was represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo noted that the Federal Government has paid significant attention to making the Nigerian maritime business environment a much friendlier one, adding that the immediate priority in this regard is the entry and exit of goods especially in Nigerian seaports to increase efficiency of Nigerian ports and enable quick turnaround time of vessels.

In his words, We recently approved a new maritime security architecture and infrastructure to be jointly coordinated by NIMASA, National Security Adviser and Federal Ministry of Transport. We have given required support to the Navy so that they can work with others within our sub region to effectively police our waters for trade. This arrangement will also contribute to resolving and eliminating piracy and sea robbery in our maritime domain.

President Buhari also noted that with the vision of AAMA, Africa is on the right path by using collaborations and synergy to develop the African maritime sector beginning from the National level, regional, sub regional and continental level.

The President also announced that the Federal Government has approved the maritime security architecture and infrastructure which is to be jointly coordinated by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Ministry of Transport and the National Security Advisers Office.

The measures that we are putting in place are designed to improve the efficiency of our ports and to enable quick turnaround time of vessels. Technology is also being deployed to make our port operations more transparent and effective in support of economic growth. NIMASA, which is the regulatory agency of shipping and maritime activities in Nigeria is being reformed so that it can play its expected role as a facilitator of economic prosperity.

On his part, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, said that Africans cannot allow the international partners set and champion an agenda for the African continent. He noted that Africas seas should contribute significantly to the economic and environmental needs of the continent. He charged members of AAMA to lead the way and outline a vision

While calling on other African countries to support Nigerias quest to return to category C of the IMO, he disclosed that Nigeria has ratified 35 IMO Conventions, gazetted 34 maritime regulations, while several other maritime conventions are at different stages of being either domesticated or ratified. He added that Nigeria has stepped up efforts to make the country a deserved maritime hub by embarking on comprehensive port reforms, digitalisation of all processes in the sector, upgrading port infrastructure and linking it to the rail network.

What we require to move Africa forward is a concerted and co-operative spirit amongst Africans. That is why it is imperative that maritime administrators and regulators conference of this nature become regular to forge needed partnership.

The Director General of NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside, noted that Nigeria is delighted to host the 3rd AAMA Conference after the first in Mombasa, Kenya and the second in Sandton, South Africa; while noting that Nigeria accounts for over 60 per cent of the total seaborne traffic in volume and value in West and Central Africa region. The country is determined to advance African Maritime prosperity.

According to him It is no coincidence that this conference of maritime administrators and stakeholders is coming two years after African Leaders through the African Union subscribed to seven key aspirations encapsulated in the Agenda 2063 at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in January 2015 and three years after the adoption of Africa Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIMS) 2050.

Only recently, to further reinforce the critical role maritime can play in the development of Africa, the African Union special summit of heads of government on maritime security, safety and development in Lome, Togo, on October 15, 2016 aligned with us. They adopted a Charter on Maritime Security, Safety and Development aimed at making Africas maritime space the key driver of the continents socio-economic development. This document was endorsed by 43 out of 54 African nations.

The Association of African Maritime Administrators, AAMA, inspired by African Union maritime transport charter provides us, as stakeholders in maritime sector, a platform to give effect to the various charters adopted by our heads of government whether AIM 2050, Agenda 2063 or Lome charter.

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The police on Friday declared a prime suspect in recent wanton killings across Benue State wanted.

The authorities also announced the arrest of 17 suspects accused of participating in the killings and disclosed recovery of arms and ammunition allegedly used by the suspected killers.

A statement signed by police spokesperson, Jimoh Moshood, on Friday night said Terwase Akwaza, a.k.a. Ghana, was wanted for several killings including last months massacre of residents in Zaki Biam, Benue State.

The police said Mr. Akwaza was declared wanted for allegedly being the gang leader of a vicious and notorious serial killer syndicate was responsible for the senseless killings of seventeen (17) innocent persons at Zaki Biam and for killing in cold blood of about fifty (50) people in other locations in Benue State.

The police also identified Mr. Akwaza as the killer of Denen Igbana, Senior Special Assistant on Security to Governor Samuel Ortom.

Mr. Igbana was killed by unidentified gunmen at his residence in Tionsha, Benue State, in the early hours of May 20, 2016, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.

He is culpable for other capital offences such as kidnapping, armed robbery, culpable homicide, mischief by fire and criminal conspiracy, the police said.

Mr. Moshood also paraded 17 suspects arrested in connection with the killings at the Force Headquarters in Abuja. They were said to have acted on the orders of Mr. Akwaza to allegedly carry out the heinous acts.

Weapons were also allegedly recovered from the suspects and the police are treating them as exhibits.

See the names of the suspects bellow and the recovered arms and ammunition underneath as provided by the police.

i. Tordue Kaaor M

ii. Hiikenter Orbunde M

iii. Vincent Asemave M

iv. David Terhembe M

v. Dalhatu Abdullahi M

vi. Iortember Orkuma M

vii. Manasseh Ikyar M

viii. Nengene Ikyar M

ix. Joshua Ioraonya M

x. Joseph John M

xi. akowakwahve M

xii. Terwase Sabastine M

xiii. Sunday Utza M

xiv. Umsughaondo Gbaga M

xv. Swem Utiu M

xvi. Terwase John M

xvii. Mbadon Mbati F

xviii. Tame Buumbu F

xix. Godwin Iorhundu M

EXHIBITS RECOVERED:

i. Three (3) AK 47 Rifles

ii. Three (3) FN Rifles

iii. One (1) G3 Rifle

iv. One (1) LMG

v. One (1) SMG

vi. One (1) Double-Barrel Gun

vii. One (1) Mark 4 Rifle

viii. Four (4) Single-Barrel Guns

ix. Four (4) Locally-Made Revolver Pistols

x. Five (5) Locally-Made Revolver Pistols

xi. Thirty (36) Hand-Grenades

xii. Two (2) Short Gun Local

Magazines:

i. One hundred and forty-one (141) Ak47 Magazines

ii. Twenty (20) FN Magazines

iii. Eighteen (18) 6x G3 Magazines

iv. Three (3) Mark 4 Magazines

v. One (1) Spear

Ammunition:

i. Five hundred and thirty-six (536) rounds of 7.62 mm NATO

ii. Four hundred and sixty- six (466) rounds of 7.62 mm

iii. Four hundred and sixty-four (464) rounds of Special

iv. Twenty-nine (29) rounds of 9mm Ball

v. One hundred and nineteen (119) rounds of 5.56mm 118

vi. One (1) round of 12.7 mm

vii. Five hundred and thirty-three (533) cartridges for Double-Barrel Guns

viii. Twelve (12) Canisters Teargas

ix. Fifty (50) rounds of Air-rifle ammunition

OTHER ITEMS:

i. Two (2) bottles of perfume

ii. One (1) Knife

iii. One (1) Plier

iv. One (1) SMG Magazine

v. Six (6) Beretta Magazine

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The Kaduna State correspondent of the Leadership Newspapers, Midat Joseph, has been arrested by the police.

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that he was taken away in the early hours of Wednesday from his house in Kaduna and was first detained at the Metro Police Station before he was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department, CID, on Thursday.

Unconfirmed report says Mr. Joseph has been moved to Abuja.

The spokesperson of the Kaduna State Police Command, Aliyu Usman, confirmed the arrest when contacted by this newspaper but refused to give further details.

He said the journalist was being investigated.

Mr. Joseph, who is also the Chairman of Correspondents chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists NUJ, Kaduna council, was arrested for an alleged offence not related to his reportorial job.

A source told PREMIUM TIMES that the journalist and some others were allegedly discussing issues relating to the funding of arms import for the defence of the people of Southern Kaduna but unknown to them they were being recorded.

The police reportedly considered their action inciting.

What he did does not relate to him as a journalist. He was arrested over a very serious issue with evidences gathered, the source said.

Efforts by members of the state council of NUJ to secure Mr. Josephs bail were unsuccessful.

The journalists arrest occurs about two months after another journalist was arrested for work related matters.

Two months ago, Luka Binniyat, a Vanguard newspaper Kaduna correspondent, was arraigned before a magistrate court in Kaduna on allegation of falsifying a news report about the Southern Kaduna crisis.

He was accused of falsely claiming that five students of a college of education were killed by Fulani herdsmen.

The report was published on January 24.

Mr. Binniyat, who was invited for questioning by the State Security Service, SSS, Kaduna Command, drove himself to the SSS office at about 10 a.m. on a Monday, and after interrogation was handed over to the police who later charged him to court.

The Chief Magistrate, Emmanuel Yusuf, granted Mr. Binniyat bail on a N200,000 bond, and a surety in like sum.

He said the surety must reside within the jurisdiction of the court and possess landed property within the jurisdiction of the court, covered with a Certificate of Occupancy.

Recent findings indicate that Mr. Binniyat has been asked to proceed on compulsory leave while a new reporter has been deployed to take over from him.

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The Inspector General of Police, Idris Ibrahim, has expressed delight at Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyis efforts in supporting the Nigerian Police towards improving security in the state.

The police chief spoke through the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of the south-eastern region, Valentine Ntomchukwu, who was at the Government House, Enugu on courtesy visit.

Mr. Ntomchukwu informed the governor that he was in Enugu State on a familiarisation visit, to strengthen its community policing initiatives and to review the operational strategies of the Nigerian police as well as to identify the challenges confronting the force with a view to proffering solutions to solving them in order to further reduce crime and criminality in all the states in the region.

He also described Enugu as a very peaceful and friendly state not only to the police but also to all law-abiding citizens, and solicited further support of the state government to the command to enable it to discharge its responsibilities effectively.

Your Excellency, from your pedigree and from what I have been reading about you, we are impressed. We are equally optimistic that you will continue to support the state police command and by extension, the police high command, the DIG said.

In his response, Mr. Ugwuanyi commended the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim, for the initiative, which he said clearly underscores the commitment of the Police to enhance peace and security in the region and the country in general.

The governor noted the importance of security for the stability, growth and development of the society, stressing that without it, engagement in meaningful social, political and economic activities, will be virtually impossible.

Enugu State is regarded as one of the safest and peaceful States in Nigeria and this is a result of the strategic and exemplary partnership that the state government has maintained with security agencies in the State as well as other initiatives designed to involve the citizenry in security efforts.

It is certainly in our interest that this happy state of affairs is sustained and that crime and criminality are reduced to the barest minimum in Enugu State. We therefore whole heartedly, welcome the current measures embarked by the Nigerian Police to achieve this objective and we reassure you of our usual support and cooperation towards that end, Mr. Ugwuanyi added.

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Business owners and residents of Sango in Ado-odo Ota Local Government Area of Ogun state have raised alarm over the effect of flood on businesses in the area.

The residents who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES after a downpour on Thursday, lamented how water floods the area anytime it rained.

Others called on the Ogun State government to address the problem as it may lead to a major flood in the nearest future.

Kunle Ololade, a resident of Ijoko axis of the area, told this newspaper that the situation calls for urgent attention as it may get out of hand soon.

Sango is always in complete mess anytime it rains and this needs to be addressed; or else it may lead to a devastating flood someday, he told PREMIUM TIMES.

A pap seller who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES in Yoruba and identified herself simply as Iya Koko, said the government and community leaders must address the issue as it is dangerous for the safety of residents.

The situation is serious anytime there is a downpour, Sango becomes a flowing river and commuters would find it difficult to move around, she said.

We the traders too bear the brunt as you can see now, everywhere is in a mess and people would barely stop to buy anything; everyone wants to get out of the mess and go home.

For Joke Disu, another trader who sells smoked fish, the situation in the area affects business activities and hinders growth of the communitys local economy.

Business is always in a comma anytime it rains. For instance, I make close to N3,500 daily on the average but anytime it rains and the whole place is in disarray, I barely make up to N2000.

The situation, apart from its possible environmental impact, kills business activities.

Commenting on efforts put in place by the government, Lukumon Adisa, a commercial motorcycle, okada, rider, said the situation had been addressed by government but it needs to do more.

Government has made efforts if you had been here some four or five years ago, you would have known it was much more terrible, he said.

Government constructed drainages about three or four years ago and that reduced the flood.

But I think the drainages are not well dug to accommodate enough water and thats why everywhere is flooded this way. So they need to do more.

Another okada rider who identified himself as Sege told PREMIUM TIMES that the situations affects their trade too as passengers often shun motorcycles whenever it rained.

People are always scared of riding Okada anytime it rains and someone like me that makes up to N3,000 to N4,000 on a regular day finds it difficult to make N1,500 sometimes when it rains, he said.

The situation needs attention and the government must come in. We need help.

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Three persons were killed and 13 others injured on Thursday as a man making a telephone call while driving caused an auto crash in Ogun State.

The incident, which occurred along the Sagamu-Ijebu-Ode expressway, involved a Port Harcourt bound Toyota Hiace bus with registration number GGE 594XT.

The spokesperson of the state Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, TRACE, Babatunde Akinbiyi, who confirmed the accident to PREMIUM TIMES, said the driver was making a telephone call when one of the tyres of his vehicle burst and he lost control.

He said the vehicle had left Lagos for Port Harcourt with 16 passengers when the crash occurred about 200 metres from Odogbolu Junction on the highway.

Mr. Akinbiyi said following the burst tyre and loss of control by the driver, the bus summersaulted, resulting in the death of the driver and two others, while 13 others sustained various degree of injuries.

He said the corpses had being deposited in the morgue of the State Hospital, Ijebu-Ode, while the injured persons were also receiving medical attention at the same hospital.

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"I want to support your interests and defend them since these are the interests of the Republic of Poland", President Andrzej Duda told a meeting of Polish exporters and companies investing abroad.

"I believe that the head of state can help achieve an economic success", the president said, adding that it was the duty of Poland's authorities and especially the president to promote Poland.

"It is nothing extraordinary on the international market, including a political one, that the president supports a concrete entity from his country, irrespective of whether this is a state-owned company or a private one", President Duda went on.

"This is a company from his country and he supports its interests. Let me put it openly, I want to do the same for you and for your firms. I want to support your interests and defend them since for me these are Poland's interests", the president said.

President Duda said that at the moment 80 percent of Polish exports went to EU countries. "This is good since the EU market is safe but there are also other markets", he said, adding that he had in mind Africa, South America, Asia and the US.

He also expressed the conviction that it could be possible to have "giant profits" on these markets in the future and appealed to the gathering to get interested in these places.

The president also asked businessmen "to be open to cooperation with the head of state and the President's Office". (PAP)


Pobierz zdjecie Przeczytaj o zasadach pobierania zdjec Straight after the Mexico visit President's Cabinet chief Krzysztof Szczerski is scheduled for talks in the U.S. (1)

Pobierz zdjecie Przeczytaj o zasadach pobierania zdjec Straight after the Mexico visit President's Cabinet chief Krzysztof Szczerski is scheduled for talks in the U.S. (2)

President Andrzej Duda's planned visit to Mexico is part of the president's economic diplomacy, President's Cabinet Head Krzyszof Szczerski told a press conference on Thursday.

The Polish presidential couple is paying an official visit to Mexico on Saturday. The delegation will include Polish entrepreneurs, with a Polish-Mexican business forum planned during the visit.

The Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) is also going open its Mexico City office during the visit.

"It is going to be the first in a series of presidential visits aimed to promote Polish entrepreneurship, Polish companies abroad", Krzysztof Szczerski said.

It is going to be the first official trip to Mexico by a Polish head of state in the history of the bilateral relations. Poland and Mexico will sign more than ten economic agreements related to economic cooperation, investment support and investment loans.

The aim of the visit is to look for new investment partners for Poland, according to Minister Szczerski, who also stressed President Duda had undertaken to promote relations with countries which so far had been outside of Poland's economic interest.

During the visit, Andrzej Duda will meet with the Mexican president and will address the two houses of the Mexican parliament. "It is important to present Poland as a country that is active on the international stage", Krzysztof Szczerski added.

The emir of Qatar and the president of Singapore are to visit Poland soon, the presidential aide also announced.

Straight after the Mexico visit President's Cabinet chief Krzysztof Szczerski is scheduled for talks in the U.S.(PAP)
President Andrzej Duda met on Friday with US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan. "This was a very good conversation between two allied states" stressed the head of the Presidential Office, Krzysztof Szczerski after the meeting.

The minister said that they had talked, among others, about the security of our region, including the role of NATO and Polish-American cooperation in this regard.

"America and Poland have shared vision of security in our region, and this common vision is confirmed by our allied actions, our joint efforts. This is one of the pillars of Europe's security today. Also the security of Poland", concluded Krzysztof Szczerski.

Paul Ryan delivered a statement at the Presidential Palace after the meeting with President Andrzej Duda. He emphasized that he represented the United States Congress as the head of the delegation joining the two parties represented in the congress.

"We came to thank the Polish government; We would also like to assure our Polish allies that we are shoulder to shoulder with them and that we share Poland's concerns about Russian aggression", said Paul Ryan.

He emphasized that he represented the United States Congress as the head of the delegation joining the two parties represented in the congress.

"We have several reasons for our visit: the first one is to express our gratitude to Poland for being a leader among NATO member states that supports us in our NATO operations, and we also want to express our support for Poland", said Paul Ryan. He also thanked Poland for "paying 2% of GDP for defense". As he emphasized, "this support from Poland is crucial".

"

We came to thank the Polish government and also show our support to NATO. I also want to say that we share Poland's concerns about Russia's aggression, and we would like to assure our Polish allies (...) we stand shoulder to shoulder with them", said the U.S. House of Representatives speaker.

"I would like to emphasize once again that we are strong allies", said Paul Ryan. He also thanked Poland for hosting American troops in Poland. "We have a strategic partnership, we have a great friendship between our countries, and we share many aspects of our common history", said Paul Ryan. (PAP)
William Taggart Sr. was walking up a hill heading into Berlin when he was shot by a machine gun and dropped. He was just a couple of miles from the cessation line during World War II.

Meanwhile, more than 4,000 miles away, his wife, Ruth, was working in Philadelphia at a munitions factory testing hand grenades in water to check for bubbles from leaks.

The two would return to each other in 1945 and move to Pleasantville, where they spent the rest of their lives together. And they will now remain united even after death. At 10 a.m. Saturday at the Atlantic County Park in Estell Manor, the two will be buried together on their anniversary.

Ruth passed away in April 2015 and William followed in November of last year. The two were cremated, but before passing, William set up a plot of land in Atlantic County for both urns to be buried together.

Their son, Bill Taggart, said that Saturday, which would have been the couples 73rd wedding anniversary, was the right date to bury his parents.

This was my mom and dads wishes that we buried them together. My dad arranged for the county park location and grave site, said Taggart, 65, of Galloway Township.

There will be a service in the morning with military honors for William Sr., but the family as a whole contributed much to WWII.

Ruth moved from South Jersey to Philadelphia to help the war effort at the munitions company. William was in the war from 1942 to 45. He stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, in 1944, and received both the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his time on that hill in Berlin. Even the family German Shepherd, Pippy, was a guard dog in the war, according to Bill Taggart.

After the war, William Sr., a union carpenter, worked in-house at the Atlantic City racetrack.

Services will be 10 a.m. at the Veterans Cemetery in Atlantic County Park at Estell Manor, officiated by Catholic clergy. Arrangements are being handled by Adams-Perfect Funeral Home.
ATLANTIC CITY  Gov. Chris Christie said he hopes Glenn Straub sells the former Revel casino because Straub hasnt been able to deliver on reopening the property.

Christie made the remarks Thursday during his monthly Ask the Governor radio show on New Jersey 101.5. He criticized Straub for not wanting to go through the casino license application process.

Straub argues he shouldnt have to apply for a license because hes leasing the casino to a third party. The Casino Control Commission ruled he does need a license, but Straub has sued to appeal the decision.

Uh-uh. Not the way it works, Christie said. You want to profit from a casino in Atlantic City? We have to see your financials, and you have to be licensed. So I dont think its going to open as a casino unless this guy goes through the appropriate licensure process.

Atlantic City former Revel may open June 15, owner Glenn Straub says ATLANTIC CITY  Glenn Straub said Tuesday he plans on reopening a portion of the former Reve

Christie never referred to Straub by name, only calling him this guy.

Straub called Christie a lame-duck governor who is discouraging businesses from investing in New Jersey.

Why do you think Atlantic City is taking as long as its taking? he said, referring to the resorts recovery.

Straub claimed state agencies overseeing casinos didnt follow state statute when they denied his petition to waive a casino license requirement for his company.

Christie said Straub could still reopen the property, now known as TEN, without a casino, but the governor seemed to have his doubts. Straub recently said TEN could open June 15, but he has missed two self-imposed deadlines to reopen.

Im hoping quite frankly that he sells it because in the end he just hasnt been able to deliver, Christie said.
BRIDGETON  The Cumberland County man accused of stabbing to death his estranged wife in front of their 12-year-old son in December pleaded not guilty Friday in court, Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae said.

Jeremiah Monell, 32, of Lawrence Township, appeared in court Friday before Superior Court Judge Cristen DArrigo, court personnel said. He was indicted in March on charges of murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, contempt and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes in the death of Tara OShea-Watson, 35, of Commercial Township.

Public defender Lindsey Seidel is representing Monell.

Friends said OShea-Watson was a longtime victim of domestic violence at the hands of Monell. The mother of five, who lived with two of her children, reportedly had decided to fully enforce court-issued restraining orders against Monell when she was killed. She was found after her son ran to a neighbors house.

After the killing, police began a nationwide manhunt for Monell that ended Jan. 3 when he was arrested in Folsom, Atlantic County.

Monell rejected a plea bargain before his indictment that called for a 30-year state prison term.

Monells next scheduled appearance in court is June 9.
Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead at his home in Southern California. He was 34. Representatives for Carters family confirmed the singers death Saturday. They did not provide any immediate further comment. A sheriff's official says deputies responding to reports of a medical emergency found a person deceased at the home in Lancaster. Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brothers boy band, and appeared on the familys reality series, House of Carters.
NORTHFIELD  On March 21, 2016, Billie Ingram learned that days can end very differently than they begin.

Ingram had looked forward to her husband, Charles R. Ingram III, returning home, anticipating his delight at the news that their 3-year-old daughter had eaten pizza for the first time.

But that conversation never happened. Instead, she was notified her Navy veteran husband, who was called Rich, was being airlifted to Temple University Hospital Burn Center in Pennsylvania.

Police said Rich Ingram, 51, used gasoline to set himself on fire outside the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic at 1901 New Road. He died later that day.

A bench will be dedicated Saturday morning to all veterans in memory of Rich Ingram, of Egg Harbor Township  near the VA clinic where he took his life.

I never knew how bad he was feeling, Billie Ingram said Wednesday. He never gave me any reason to think he had something that was bothering him so much.

She said she sees her husbands death as a heroic gesture.

No one will ever know exactly why Rich chose to make his death such a bold statement, but I truly feel that he did it right there to bring attention to all veterans.

Ingram said her husband was a quiet man who never joined any veterans groups.

But he was proud of his service. He would wear his jacket, and he would thank other veterans when he would meet them, she said.

He would go to the VA clinic to see the doctors, often waiting hours to see someone only to be told the doctor was unavailable and that he would have to reschedule, she said. He was frustrated by the care at the VA clinics, where in Philadelphia, Wilmington, Ventnor and finally Northfield the problem of waiting for care was a common occurrence for all veterans, his wife said.

He would wait so long to see a doctor and then be in and out so quickly, Ingram said. I think his faith in the VA started to erode. He lost hope in them. The deal they made when he and other veterans made a choice to volunteer to put their life on the line for their country was that they would be taken care of when the time came and they needed help.

She said her husband always wanted to help others and felt a true sense of dedication to other veterans: His words were quiet, but his actions were very loud.

Ingram said she is pleased to see the bench dedication come about. She spoke with veterans advocate Marco Polo Smigliani, of Egg Harbor Township, about having a memorial, and veterans organizations rallied around the idea. The Amish-style bench will sit on pavers that straddle the border of the clinic property and the Northfield Baptist Church next door, which agreed to have the bench there.

I hope this will be a quiet place for veterans to relax, and maybe if they feel they need to reflect or find more answers, they can go into the church and find some peace there, Ingram said. I miss him every day, but I remind myself that he has helped so many people  so many veterans who put their lives on the line for us.

Originally from Havertown, Pennsylvania, Rich Ingram served in the Navy from 1985 until he was honorably discharged in 1992. He was a submarine diesel technician, a skill he carried into a post-military career as a diesel mechanic.

It was a terrible tragedy, the death of Charles Ingram, but that tragedy has become a springboard pointing out the woefully ineffective leadership at the Wilmington VA, said U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, who will speak at the bench unveiling Saturday.

In 2015, LoBiondo convinced then-Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald to agree to a program in South Jersey that allows veterans who cannot make the commute to VA hospitals in Wilmington or Philadelphia to be referred to a community provider or local hospital for appointments. They can receive care locally at the VAs expense.

These service agreements allow our veterans to choose whether they will receive services at the VA or with their local doctor, which many veterans have told us they preferred, he said.

LoBiondo said before last year there were fewer than a dozen of those local service agreements, and now there are more than 200.
ATLANTIC CITY  Gov. Chris Christie said at a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday the new Gateway Project under construction turns the corner on the states commitment to the city.

We didnt give up on Atlantic City, he said. We are back to celebrating it.

He praised the public-private partnerships that made the 675,000-square-foot, $220 million project possible. It includes new headquarters for South Jersey Gas, plus a new residential campus for Stockton University that includes an academic building, housing for more than 500 students and a parking garage scheduled to open in fall 2018.

Jon Hanson, chairman of the Atlantic City Development Corp., which is managing the Gateway project, said it took longer than expected to address the problems in Atlantic City. The excavation work on the Stockton campus started almost a year ago, but Hanson said he likes to have a groundbreaking when there is actual construction to see.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Christie praised each other for putting aside partisan politics.

Atlantic City is too important to New Jersey to fail, Sweeney said. It was the golden goose that got sick.

Christie noted the project will generate 925 construction jobs and 300 permanent jobs in Atlantic City.

And we all know the kind of energy 500 college students bring to any area, he said.

About 500 students are expected to live in the new beachfront student housing, and more than 1,000 students could take classes there.

South Jersey Industries CEO Michael Renna said their new building represents need, opportunity and impact all coming together at the right time.

We are bursting in Folsom, but cant expand there, he said. It was an opportunity to come in (to the city) when others seemed to want to get out. We are proud to come back.

Referring to the impact of all the Stockton students and employees, Renna said, Wait until 200 utility workers move in.

Both South Jersey Industries and Stockton originally had sites in Atlantic City. Stockton President Harvey Kesselman, a student in the first class in 1971, cited the schools motto at the time, Plant yourself where you can grow, to emphasize both how Stockton has grown, but also how it will again take root in the city.

We will raise more than steel and bricks and mortar here, he said at the groundbreaking, held under a tent on the Boardwalk. We will raise hope and opportunity. Move over seagulls. The Ospreys have landed.
WILDWOOD  Marcy Gibson came with her resumes and a notepad in hand and was ready to meet with potential employers at the third annual Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce job fair Thursday afternoon.

Im basically looking for office work, said Gibson, but Ive done every job, Ive been the waitress, the bartender, the secretary. I worked on the Boardwalk when I was a kid.

Gibson, who lives in Erma, grew up in Wildwood.

Ive worked my whole life, but I was the caretaker for my mother for the past six years said Gibson. Now Im ready to get back to work.

The chamber invited job seekers to meet with local businesses from the hospitality, food service and banking industries, as well as boardwalk retailers and amusements.

Tables for Moreys Pier, Icona at Diamond Beach and the Fractured Prune Donut Shoppe had applications ready to be filled out for seasonal and possibly year-round positions.

There have been a good number of people, said Jodie DiEduardo, senior vice president of retail banking and facilities for Crest Savings Bank. Its a nice opportunity because there are a lot of industries here.

The job fair drew a wide age range of applicants, from young students looking for summer jobs and seasonal work before school starts in the fall to those looking to make a career change in the seaside town.

DiEduardo, who is also on the chamber board, said Wildwood has seen an increase in adults seeking employment.

Weve notice, in the last 5 years or so, that theres a lot of people coming down to live here in Cape May County to begin the second part of their life. A second career or a steady job every summer, DiEduardo said.

Kathy Joyce, of West Wildwood, was hoping to find a way to start a second career in banking. Im looking to get my foot in the door Joyce said.

Joyce moved to West Wildwood after retiring from a career as a registered nurse.

I was blessed to have the career that I had. Now Im looking for a position thats less physically and mentally taxing she said.

Megan Dougherty, membership service manager for the Chamber, said 22 businesses were at Thursdays job fair.

All the vendors show up today, said Dougherty. And in the past, weve had at least 100 people through the doors, a lot of whom walked out with job offers.

I was born and raised here in Wildwood, Gibson said after interviewing for a few job fair tables. I love it here and hopefully Ill hear back from one.
LONDON, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Blockchain technology startup Humaniq and global auditing firm Deloitte join forces.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492568/Humaniq_Logo.jpg )

Humaniq is on a mission to provide financial inclusion products and services powered by blockchain technology to the 2 billion unbanked people across the globe. Their first three operational priorities are Africa, South/Central America, and some parts of Asia. And then they will expand to the rest of the world.

Conscious of the challenges ahead when it comes to IP, legal and operational structure Humaniq is preparing for its next challenges. The organisation has recently conducting pilot tech projects in India and is starting in Africa in the next few months, while managing its ICO that raised so far over $3.8M.

Deloitte is a global powerhouse in auditing, legal, IP and a driver in blockchain identity technology, making it the right auditing and innovation firm to manage Humaniq's structure and operational efforts in multiple countries and locations.

Humaniq aims to repurpose science and technology for the good of the world. The beta version of their fintech application was recently launched in Google Play for Android phones and simply requires a new user to register using their biometric identity by snapping a photo through a face-recognition algorithm.

The Humaniq application uses minimum language as it wants to be based on a simple user-interface and symbols, highlighting its international focus through the use of emoticons. This makes it simple to use even for the most illiterate people in the world. Humaniq will bring a great number of unbanked people into the world economy, enabling financial inclusion.

One example of the Humaniq app's benefits is a case-study of a Nigerian farmer who lives ninety miles away from the closest bank. Furthermore, he does not have a vehicle or any ID verification to access or open a new bank account. Humaniq enables this farmer to sell his corns or peppers and buy new seeds on an international scale, as long as he has a simple smartphone and basic access to the internet. And all of this happens for a fraction of the fee when compared with traditional banks or money-transfer companies.

In a recent HBR report, Professor Michael Mainelli wrote;

"2.4 billion poor people worldwide, about 1.5 billion of whom are over the age of 14, can't answer that question to the satisfaction of authorities. While they certainly know who they are, they are often excluded from property ownership, free movement, and social protection simply because they can't prove their identity. They are more exposed to corruption and crime, including people trafficking and slavery."

In addition to enabling financial inclusion, Humaniq also aims to provide biometric identity to tackle serious issues such as human trafficking and modern slavery.

So far Humaniq has raised just under $4m in its pre-seed Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which ends on 27th April 2017. While announcing a strategic partnership with global auditing firm Deloitte, Humaniq wants to highlight their intellectual property and legal efforts with a powerful global company.

In addition to the aforementioned, Deloitte will also provide industry-leading audit, consulting, tax, and advisory support to Humaniq. Many of the world's most admired brands including eighty-percent of the Fortune 500 work closely with Deloitte.

Co-founded by blockchain technology visionaire Alex Fork and AI expert Dmitry Kaminskiy, Humaniq is breaking international crowdfunding records with a total value of $3,949,131 and 9,189 participants at the time of writing. Steering the wheel as CEO of this powerful new organisation is successful blockchain/fintech author and entrepreneur Dinis Guarda.

In addition to the board of directors previously mentioned, Humaniq also has a world-class advisory board consisting of over twenty global thought-leaders. This includes people and alumni from organisations such as The Financial Times, The United Nations, Greenpeace, Right Relevance, University of Toronto, Cambridge University, and Save the Children to name just a few.

Through this new partnership, Humaniq and Deloitte ultimately want to help establish sustainable and structured operations to enable more financial inclusion, justice and strong institutions on a global scale.

SOURCE Humaniq
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Fineqia International Inc. (the "Company" or "Fineqia") (CSE: FNQ) is pleased to announce the voting results of its 2016 and 2017 Annual General Meetings (the "Meetings") held on April 13th 2017. A total of 681,752,416 common shares representing 88.60% (2016) and a total of 681,752,416 common shares representing 88.62% (2017) of the issued shares of the Company were represented at the meeting.

"The nearly 90% support is a resounding endorsement of the Company's management and Board that undertook the change of business initiated last year," said Company CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar.

Election of Directors 2016

All nominees listed in the information circular for the Meeting were elected as Directors of the Company. Shareholders present in person or represented via proxy at the Meeting voted as follows:

Percentage of Nominee Votes Cast Percentage of Votes Cast Withheld/ Withheld/ For Against Abstain For Against Abstain Bundeep Singh Rangar 530,856,969 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00 % Stephen John McCann 530,856,969 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00% Brij Chadda 530,856,969 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00% Martin Bernholtz 530,856,969 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00% Martin Graham 530,856,969 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00%

Election of Directors 2017

All nominees listed in the information circular for the Meeting were elected as Directors of the Company. Shareholders present in person or represented via proxy at the Meeting voted as follows:

Percentage of Nominee Votes Cast Percentage of Votes Cast Withheld/ Withheld/ For Against Abstain For Against Abstain Bundeep Singh 530,994,469 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00 % Rangar Stephen John McCann 530,994,469 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00% Brij Chadda 530,994,469 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00% Martin Bernholtz 530,994,469 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00% Martin Graham 530,994,469 0 0 100% 0.00% 0.00%

Appointment of Auditors 2016

McGovern, Hurley, Cunningham, LLP, Chartered Accountants were appointed auditors of the Company to hold office until the close of the next annual general meeting (AGM) of the Company and the directors of the Company were authorized to fix the remuneration of the auditors. Shareholders present in person or represented via proxy at the Meeting voted as follows:

Percentage Number of of Votes Shares Cast For Against Withheld/Abstain For Against Withheld/Abstain 530,856,969 0 0 100.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Appointment of Auditors 2017

McGovern, Hurley, Cunningham, LLP, Chartered Accountants were appointed auditors of the Company to hold office until the close of the next annual general meeting (AGM) of the Company and the directors of the Company were authorized to fix the remuneration of the auditors. Shareholders present in person or represented via proxy at the Meeting voted as follows:

Percentage Number of of Votes Shares Cast For Against Withheld/Abstain For Against Withheld/Abstain 530,994,469 0 0 100.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Approval of Rolling Stock Option Plan 2016

The resolution to amend the Company's 10% Rolling Stock Option Plan to a 20% Rolling Stock Option Plan was approved. Shareholders present in person or represented via proxy at the Meeting voted as follows:

Percentage Number of of Votes Shares Cast For Against Withheld/Abstain For Against Withheld/Abstain 386,939,508 387,500 0 98.51% 1.49% 0.00%

Approval of Rolling Stock Option Plan 2017

The resolution to amend the Company's 10% Rolling Stock Option Plan to a 20% Rolling Stock Option Plan was approved. Shareholders present in person or represented via proxy at the Meeting voted as follows:

Percentage Number of of Votes Shares Cast For Against Withheld/Abstain For Against Withheld/Abstain 387,077,008 387,500 0 98.51% 1.49% 0.00%

About Fineqia International Inc.

Fineqia International Inc.'s business model is to provide an online platform and associated services for the placement of debt and equity securities, initially in the UK, via its subsidiary, Fineqia Limited. 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 THIS 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 Fineqia ("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 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.
As a new member of ZTEWelink's cellular module family, ME3630 features

Developed based on Qualcomm chipset MDM9X07

Supports FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B8/B20, WCDMA B1/B8 and GSM B3/B8

Delivers theoretical rates of 50Mbps (UL) and 150Mbps (DL)

Can be in 30*30 LCC form factor or Mini PCIE form factor

Pin to Pin compatible with other 3G/4G modules

Supports GNSS, FOTA, TCP/UDP

ME3630 can be widely applied in various M2M scenarios such as telematics, industrial gateway, security and surveillance, vending machine, smart grid, etc. In the latest report of Berg Insight, Europe is the world's most active area of IoT in 2016 with the number of cellular connections up to 95.5 million.

ZTEWelink has been the major cellular vendor in global market. In the past few years, ZTEWelink has made some successful cases in European market, such as CDMA 1X 450MHz module in smart meter industry and GSM tracker in UBI. The product quality has been verified by European customers.

"Several major customers have already carried on design-in work on our products," said Wang Peng, VP of ZTEWelink. "ME3630 enriched the product portfolio for European market. We will closely cooperate with the upstream and downstream industry chain and bring real value to industry customers."

According to an IDC forecast, the size of the global IoT markets will increase from 4.8 trillion US dollars in 2012 to 8.9 trillion US dollars by 2020. The worldwide IoT market is expected to grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9 percent.

For more information about ZTEWelink ME3630 module, click here.

If you have any procurement requirements, please contact with our distributor partner Techip (Website: https://techship.com).

About ZTEWelink

ZTEWelink Technology Co., Ltd., is dedicated to the development, production and marketing of Wireless Communication Modules, Industry Customized Terminals and M2M Solutions. ZTEWelink's products and solutions have been widely used in Vehicle-mounted terminals, Smart Power Grids, Remote Controllers, GPS, Wireless POS Machines, Security and Surveillance.

http://www.ztewelink.com/en/

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492698/ZTEWelink_ME3630_E.jpg

Related Links

http://www.ztewelink.com/en



SOURCE ZTEWelink Technology Co., LTD.
Through a partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) and input from the teen members, Aaron's associates and Club officials worked on Monday painting, decorating and furnishing gaming, lounge and leadership programming spaces at the Club. On Wednesday, local Aaron's associates and Club officials unveiled the new space, which is now equipped with new technology, sectionals, tables and chairs, sound systems and fresh coats of paint. Teens chose the special Sherwin-Williams paint colors for the room: Heartthrob, Serious Gray, Black Magic and Alabaster.

"The U.S. Bank Boys & Girls Club provides a safe and encouraging space for Cincinnati teens to achieve their goals and own their futures," said John Robinson, CEO of Aaron's, Inc. "On our 20th Teen Center renovation, Aaron's is proud to once again support the Boys & Girls Clubs of America by providing these teens with the resources and technology that will allow them to excel as leaders in their community."

Cincinnati Councilman Wendell Young attended the surprise unveiling and addressed the crowd. "The Boys & Girls Clubs of America has occupied a special place in my heart ever since I accepted my first job with the Club many years ago," he said. "I grew up in Avondale and today, my wife and I still call this place home. Thanks to our community partners like Aaron's, members of the U.S. Bank Club now have a well-equipped space that will inspire them to work hard and chase their dreams."

In 2015, the Aaron's Foundation, Inc. announced a three-year, $5 million national partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America's Keystone Program, helping teens develop their character and leadership skills in hopes of helping them reach their potential and creating positive change in the community. Keystone Club teen centers provide members ages 14-18 an environment to plan and participate in activities that focus on community service, academic success, career preparation and teen outreach.

The 19 previous Keystone Club makeovers have included Boys & Girls Clubs in cities such as Los Angeles, San Antonio, Nashville, Las Vegas, Chicago and Miami. The makeover at the U.S. Bank Boys & Girls Club of Cincinnati includes an additional in-kind retail donation valued at $26,000.

"Teens who participate in Boys & Girls Club programs see improvements in grades and graduation rates, preparing them for greater success as young adults," said Valarie Pollard, Club Director of the U.S. Bank Boys and Girls Club of Cincinnati. "With the support of Aaron's, which has provided a state-of-the-art space for our club with new technology, furniture and appliances, our teens will learn and develop the skills that lead to successful futures."

Aaron's partnership with BGCA's Keystone Program inspires teens to "Own It" by taking ownership of their choices to build the lives they deserve. The Aaron's and Keystone Club "Own Your Future" campaign supports three principles:

Own Your Path: No matter where you come from, the future is yours to decide.

No matter where you come from, the future is yours to decide. Own Your Decisions: Making good choices opens more doors for your future.

Making good choices opens more doors for your future. Own Your Community: Use your talents to make an impact in your community.

To see photos of the Keystone Club remodel at the U.S. Bank Boys & Girls Club of Cincinnati, visit Aaron's on Facebook (www.facebook.com/aaronsinc), on Twitter (www.twitter.com/AaronsInc) and at www.AaronsGives.com.

About Aaron's, Inc.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Aaron's, Inc. (NYSE: AAN), is a leading omnichannel provider of lease-purchase solutions. The Aaron's Business engages in the sales and lease ownership and specialty retailing of furniture, consumer electronics, home appliances and accessories through its more than 1,850 Company-operated and franchised stores in 47 states and Canada as well as its e-commerce platform Aarons.com. In addition, Progressive Leasing, a virtual lease-to-own company, provides lease-purchase solutions through approximately 22,000 retail locations in 46 states. Dent-A-Med, Inc., d/b/a the HELPcard, provides a variety of second-look credit products that are originated through federally insured banks. For more information, visit investor.aarons.com, Aarons.com, ProgLeasing.com, and HELPcard.com.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of America

For more than 100 years, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (GreatFutures.org) has enabled young people most in need to achieve great futures as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Today, more than 4,100 Clubs serve nearly 4 million young people through Club membership and community outreach. Clubs are located in cities, towns, public housing and on Native lands throughout the country, and serve military families in BGCA-affiliated Youth Centers on U.S. military installations worldwide. They provide a safe place, caring adult mentors, fun and friendship, and high-impact youth development programs on a daily basis during critical non-school hours. Club programs promote academic success, good character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyles. In a Harris Survey of alumni, 54 percent said the Club saved their lives. National headquarters are located in Atlanta. Learn more at www.facebook.com/bgca.clubs and https://twitter.com/BGCA_Clubs.

SOURCE Aaron's, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aaronsinc.com


LOS ANGELES, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acromove Inc., a manufacturer of unique hyper-converged and Thunderbolt RAID systems, today announced the debut of the Thunderpack Mini portable RAID storage system destined to become the industry standard for location productions. The founders will be demonstrating the system at NAB 2017 in booth SL13605 (South Hall Lower Level) from April 24th  27th.

ThunderPack Mini is built using advanced, lightweight materials including aircraft-grade aluminum and carbon fiber elements. The unit is self-contained in an IP67-rated watertight, dustproof Pelican case that can be stowed in an overhead airline bin. It uses a sophisticated power management system with built-in Li-ion battery array that serves as a UPS and can power the unit up to 6 hours, as well as operate an external LTO drive. There is a 12-22v connector so it can be powered by external battery packs and an optional solar panel. Its unique shockproof and patented disk pod holds eight 2.5" HDDs or SSDs impervious to shock and vibration. Capacity is up to 40TB.

The ServerPack is a hyper-converged software-defined system that combines portable storage, compute, networking and virtualization technologies in one physical unit that is managed as a single system. ServerPack can include wireless and GPS capabilities, and is OS and software application agnostic allowing customers to deploy it in virtually any environment. Together with the OSNEXUS QuantaStor SDS Data Migration Edition it is ideal for on-site digital production or content distribution.

Ahead.IO has developed the most advanced VR imaging and review system called Cezanne that uses the power of ThunderPack combined with an nVidia GPU to simplify VR production on location. Ahead.IO will demonstrate their system in the Acromove booth SL13605 every day of the NAB show.

Acromove products are now available for rent in the Los Angeles area from The DIT House www.thedithouse.com.

About Acromove Inc.

Acromove Inc., incorporated in the USA in February 2017, is the former MotionFX, established in Athens Greece in 2014. The founders are pioneers in the field of Digital Video hard disk recording systems. Acromove Inc. manufactures hyper-converged portable NAS servers and Thunderbolt RAID systems for moving large datasets and edge computing workflows.

SOURCE Acromove Inc.

Related Links

http://www.acromove.com


DALLAS, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dallas-based complex litigation boutique Bailey Brauer PLLC congratulates firm co-founder Alex Brauer for his second consecutive selection to D Magazine's Best Lawyers in Dallas listing.

Alex Brauer, co-founder of the Dallas-based complex litigation boutique Bailey Brauer PLLC, earned selection to D Magazines 2017 Best Lawyers in Dallas listing.

Chosen for his outstanding commercial litigation work, Mr. Brauer represents companies and high net worth individuals involved in business disputes. Clients, from data and analytics companies to real estate financial services providers, rely on Mr. Brauer to represent them in cases with millions of dollars at stake. Recently, he obtained a multimillion-dollar arbitration award for a Chinese telecom company in a dispute with a Brazilian supplier and successfully resolved a dispute between a forging company and oilfield supplier.

"Alex is without a doubt one of the very best attorneys I've ever faced or worked with, which is demonstrated by the continued trust business leaders in Texas and across the nation place in him," said firm co-founder Clayton Bailey.

In addition to the D Magazine honors, Mr. Brauer has made Thomson Reuters' Texas Rising Stars list each year since 2010. Bailey Brauer also was recognized recently by BTI Consulting Group as one of the law firms with the "best brand standing" in the country, an indicator of how likely a firm will be considered for new work.

A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Brauer has served on several key Dallas Bar Association committees. A devoted community advocate, he is a board member for literacy program Readers 2 Leaders and is on the Host Committee for the Great Investors' Best Ideas Foundation, benefitting The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation.

The Best Lawyers in Dallas list is based on a review of peer nominations conducted by D Magazine editors and a panel of the city's most respected attorneys. The full listing appears in the publication's May edition and can be found online at http://www.dmagazine.com.

Bailey Brauer PLLC is nationally recognized for its trial and appellate work and provides battle-tested, sophisticated courtroom experience in high-stakes litigation matters. Led by veteran trial and appellate lawyers Clayton Bailey and Alex Brauer, the firm focuses on complex commercial litigation, agribusiness, appeals, and class and collective actions. Learn more about the firm at: http://baileybrauer.com/.

For more information, contact Rhonda Reddick at 800-559-4534 or [email protected].

SOURCE Bailey Brauer PLLC

Related Links

http://www.baileybrauer.com/


NEW YORK, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexander Nachman, "The Pitbull of Pot" and one of the nation's leading experts on the medicinal, social and economic benefits of legalizing cannabis, wrote a pointed and satirical piece about the government's refusal to acknowledge that cannabis has medicinal value, while they secretly own patent rights on the synthetic versions of the plant. The piece is printed in CannaNews.Buzz, a prominent publication covering the legal marijuana industry.

In the article, Nachman says that marijuana is competition to corporate interests that stand to lose a lot of money if cannabis is further legalized. "Corporate Prisons, Big Pharma, Alcohol, and Tobacco fight against the legalization of marijuana. It's ironic that our government acts like they are protecting us  meanwhile, these products destroy lives and kill more than 500,000 Americans annually."

Nachman also takes issue with recent statements made by Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who both said that marijuana leads to increases in opiate addiction.

"Marijuana is not increasing opiate use, it is decreasing it. Please stop the lies," Nachman urges our leaders. "Please return honor to America by honoring the truth."

"This is a call to action" Nachman writes. "This is a right-to-choose issue, and if you don't want the federal government dictating what you do with your own body, or what course of medical treatment you're allowed, you must stand for cannabis. If you reject the government's attempts to dictate who you can love, you must stand with cannabis. If you have ever been discriminated against, or are appalled by the disparity in the civil justice system, you must stand with cannabis.

"Here is our pledge: I respect you as an individual and I support your right to choose. Your preference may not be my own, but mutual respect and dignity must be the benchmark of our nation.

"As a citizen of the United States of America, I expect certain freedoms and inalienable rights. I demand an end to the lies, the greed, and the injustice regarding cannabis prohibition."

To read the article in CannaNews, visit: www.cannanews.buzz

Connect :

Facebook: facebook.com/AlexNachmanSpokespersonAdvocate/

Blog: alexandernachman.wordpress.com/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-nachman-8972984a

Media Inquiries:

Innovation Agency

www.inov8.us

hello(@)inov8.us

SOURCE Alexander Nachman
SEATTLE, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Workstreampeople has recently released its groundbreaking next version of Anywhere365, the largest native Skype for Business-based contact center and dialogue management platform. With the client base doubling in size in the last year, Anywhere365 is now trusted by 438 global customers in 36 countries, including 26 members of the Fortune Global 500. This accelerated success places Release 5.0 in an ideal position to continue to take the world by storm. Anywhere365 is officially certified for Skype for Business in three areas: Contact Center, Reception Console and Call Recording, which is unique in the market.

Already well equipped to successfully compete with large legacy contact center vendors, Anywhere365 continues to add powerful new features as standard that provide tangible benefits to their customer base. Examples include:

- Seamless support for social media as a dialogue management channel. Anywhere365 enables customers to interact directly via Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Twitter, etc. Companies have chosen Skype for Business as their communications platform, but the flexibility of Anywhere365 allows customers to reach companies via a modality of their choosing, managed and delivered by Anywhere365 via Skype.

- Addition of powerful speech analytics to analyze dialogues, create transcripts, extract keywords or quickly translate a chat for an agent in a different language.

- Off-the-shelf connectors for 20+ CRM/ticket platforms such as Dynamics CRM, SalesForce, ServiceNow, Oracle RightNow, Remedy, etc. Anywhere365 leverages the information in these platforms during all moments in the dialogue management cycle.

- Enhanced Dialogue Intelligence via Power BI and numerous new standardized reports and analytics. Anywhere365 helps companies to make quick sense of all their big dialogue data, even if they run hundreds of Anywhere365 Contact Center instances.

- Robust redundancy. Already in use as critical infrastructure at dozens of multinationals, including members of Fortune 500, Anywhere365 has full failover and high availability capabilities. This ensures that any downtime is further minimized, and ensures the highest service levels.

- Transparent license model based on the number of contact center instances and required features, not on the number of users or supervisors. Unique in the market, Anywhere365 provides a clear total cost of ownership without a long list of expensive options. Just select the right license for the required features, and companies can add as many agents, supervisors or managers as they want, free of additional charge.

- High value, low effort. Anywhere365 has been further enhanced to empower businesses with dialogue management capabilities, without the need for extensive professional services. Deployed and configured in record time, Anywhere365 can deliver value quicker than agents can say "dialogue management".

In addition to the continuous expansion of the feature set, Anywhere365 University has been established to fill a need in the market for in-depth training for partners and customers. Last year, during five fully sold out sessions, more than 60 partners received extensive training and official certification, which enables them to extract maximum value from Anywhere365 for their customers.

Anywhere365 is delivered on premises, as a hybrid, or from the cloud; it can leverage CloudPBX and Office 365 based agents, wherever they are.



NOTE FOR EDITORS



About Workstreampeople

Workstreampeople B.V. designs, develops and sells Anywhere365, the market leading Contact Center and Dialogue Management platform exclusively built for Skype for Business and Lync. Recognized by Gartner with an honorable mention in the latest Magic Quadrant Report on Contact Center Infrastructure, Anywhere365 is offered globally to 430+ enterprises of all sizes across all market sectors. Workstreampeople has its headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with regional offices in Brussels, London and Seattle. For more information, visit www.workstreampeople.com or contact [email protected].

SOURCE Workstreampeople
The Attack Resistant opening, with products from ASSA ABLOY Architectural Door Accessories, Wood Doors, and other Group brands Ceco Door, Curries, and Sargent along with glazing material partner School Guard Glass TM , thwarts an intruder's attempts to enter a room. When under a physical attack, the opening remains secure long enough for occupants to take cover and first responders to arrive, making it a practical alternative to costly bullet resistant openings. Designed as a life-safety solution for busy public venues such as government buildings, offices, places of worship, and schools, the Attack Resistant opening supports increased requirements to meet U.S. government and military safety and security objectives.

"We thank the selection committee for recognizing our Attack Resistant assembly, as it underscores the role a complete door opening can play keeping people safe if an armed intruder enters a building," said Jeff Huggins, director of government programs, ASSA ABLOY Door Security Solutions. "This solution offering fills the gap between standard and bullet resistant doors, providing a budget-conscious solution capable of preventing a potential tragedy."

ASSA ABLOY Attack Resistant door assemblies are third-party tested and validated. Complete openings can be installed in new construction or retrofit applications. Metal or wood doors are available in a variety of finishes to match other door openings on the project. The glass feature of the opening, which allows for clear views and daylighting, is available through an exclusive partnership between ASSA ABLOY and School Guard GlassTM.

See demonstration video and product details from Ceco Door, Curries and ASSA ABLOY Wood Doors.

About ASSA ABLOY

ASSA ABLOY is the global leader in door opening solutions, dedicated to satisfying end-user needs for security, safety and convenience. www.assaabloydss.com

SOURCE ASSA ABLOY

Related Links

http://www.assaabloydss.com


MEXICO CITY, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Atento S.A. (NYSE: ATTO), the leading provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing services (CRM/BPO) in Latin America, and one of the three largest providers worldwide, has received the Great Place to Work award in Mexico, in the category of companies with more than 5,000 employees, affirming its position as one of the best places to work in the country. Atento has been recognized with this award for the 11th consecutive year in Mexico.

Miguel Matey, Atento Mexico Managing Director, commented, "We are truly proud to receive this recognition again, as it reflects how committed our employees are to Atento's mission of contributing to companies' success by offering the best experience for their customers, and how they embody our values of commitment, passion, integrity and trust. I would like to thank them all for their contribution towards confirming our status as a Great Place to Work in Mexico."

"Human capital is a fundamental part of Atento and a valuable pillar of our company's success. For that reason we employ, train and provide development opportunities to people with different profiles whose motivation contributes to the success of our clients," stated Atento Mexico Human Resources Director David Vargas.

In Mexico, Atento generates more than 20,000 direct jobs and offers a series of benefits that boost skills among its staff to increase their knowledge and capabilities. In many cases Atento is an excellent first job for young people who want to combine their studies with professional experience. The company is uniquely focused on providing better spaces and work tools for its employees. As part of this strategy it has programs centered on training and motivating employees, like the Talent Incubator and Leadership University.

Moreover, the company organizes supplementary activities that contribute to the well-being of its employees like sports, cultural events and volunteering. All these initiatives are essential to involve workers in the organization in a positive way and make them feel like part of a great team.

Atento is committed to offering a comprehensive value proposition that helps contribute both to the personal and professional growth of its employees and to the company's success, through projects that boost the strengths of workers, an excellent work climate, maintaining staff motivation, promoting collaboration and offering programs that improve the quality of life of employees.

About Great Place to Work

Great Place to Work, headquartered in San Francisco, is a global research, consulting and training company that helps organizations identify, create and sustain great workplaces through the development of high-trust workplace cultures. Great Place to Work serves businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies in almost 51 countries. More information at www.greatplacetowork.net

About Atento

Atento is the largest provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing (CRM BPO) services in Latin America, and among the top three providers globally, based on revenues. Atento is also a leading provider of nearshoring CRM/BPO services to companies that carry out their activities in the United States. Since 1999, the company has developed its business model in 13 countries where it employs 150,000 people. Atento has over 400 clients to whom it offers a wide range of CRM/BPO services through multiple channels. Atento's clients are mostly leading multinational corporations in sectors such as telecommunications, banking and financial services, health, retail and public administrations, among others. Atentos shares trade under the symbol ATTO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In 2016, Atento was named one of the Worlds 25 Best Multinational Workplaces by Great Place to Work for a fourth consecutive year. For more information www.atento.com

SOURCE Atento S.A.

Related Links

http://www.atento.com


DALLAS, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The publishers of D Magazine have selected three attorneys from The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson for inclusion in the 2017 Best Lawyers issue based on their representation of clients who have sustained catastrophic personal injuries or lost loved ones as a result of wrongful deaths.

Widely regarded among the best trial lawyers in the country, Mr. Branson continues to earn some of the legal profession's highest honors. He is among an elite group of attorneys who have been recognized by D Magazine every year since the inception of its Best Lawyers issue in 2001. Other notable honors for Mr. Branson include Texas Lawbook's inaugural "Lions of the Texas Bar" listing; Super Lawyers' Top 10 lawyers in Texas for 10 straight years; and recognition in The Best Lawyers in America, one of the oldest and most respected guides of the country's top attorneys.

Debbie Branson is a fourth-generation lawyer, known for her tireless commitment to the legal profession. She has earned placement on D Magazine's Best Lawyers list for six years. Her accomplishments in the courtroom have also landed her on The Best Lawyers in America and Texas Super Lawyers listings. In 2016, she received Dallas' oldest and most prestigious civic honor, the Linz Award, in recognition of her dedication to the community. She also received the Texas Healthcare Trustees Star Award for her leadership on the Parkland Health and Hospital System Board of Managers.

Chip Brooker's creative legal strategies and solutions for clients enabled him to join his colleagues on the D Magazine list for the first time. His representation of clients involved in wrongful death and catastrophic personal injury claims for defective products, workplace and oilfield accidents, and trucking/transportation accidents has led to his recognition on both the Texas Super Lawyers and Texas Rising Stars lists.

The Law Offices Of Frank L. Branson represent clients in cases involving complex product liability, catastrophic injury, commercial air crashes, professional negligence, and business torts. Visit http://www.flbranson.com to learn more about the firm.

For more information, contact Sophia Reza at 800-559-4534 or [email protected].

SOURCE Law Offices of Frank L. Branson

Related Links

http://www.flbranson.com


On Thursday 20 th April, Aamir Khan, one of the biggest Indian movie stars, came face to face with giant pandas in Southwest China's Sichuan province. Khan, who is best known in China as one of the three idiots in the film Three Idiots , on the promotional trip of his new film Dangal, was invited to Sichuan by General Office of Sichuan Provincial People's Government and Information Office of Chengdu Municipal People's Government.

'Coolest' meets 'cutest'

Khan, who has long been a big fan of giant pandas, first visited the Dujiangyan, the China Conservation & Research Center for the Giant Pandas in Chengdu, the provincial capital and also hometown of giant pandas.

Under the guidance of a nanny of pandas, the 52-year-old Bollywood star learned how to feed pandas as well as about local conservation.

Learning Tai Chi

One of the most important events on Khan's itinerary in Sichuan was watching a performance of tai chi on Mount Qingcheng, an important center of Taoism.

To learn more about the ancient art, he held in-depth exchanges with the master of the Qingcheng school on tai chi's essence and differences among other schools.

Silk Road connection

After the tour, Khan enjoyed Sichuan cuisine, known for the spicy flavor, at a banquet.

During the banquet, Khan was also treated to the performance of tea art and Sichuan embroidery while the Chinese zither played in the background.

He learned embroidery and wrote his name in embroidery.

Sichuan is one of the most important cradles of the Chinese silk culture. Sichuan embroidery was listed as one of China's intangible cultural heritages in 2006.

Having starred in more than 40 films, Khan has received numerous awards and created miracles at box office. Dangal is scheduled to be released in China in early May.

One of Khan's Sichuan trip organizers, a cultural exchange project called "I'm in China", invites foreigners to visit different places in China and experience local culture and customs. Sichuan is this project's first stop. "I'm in China" project is an innovative effort to introduce China to foreigners. Apart from stars like Khan, all expats living in China are also welcome to join the project and they can register through the organizer's official WeChat account.

SOURCE "Im in China" programme
ARLINGTON, Va., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the NTTC announced the two winners of its outstanding safety performance awards: Groendyke Transport of Enid, OK and GLS Transport of Bedford Park, IL. These two carriers will receive their respective awards during the NTTC's upcoming Annual Conference & Exhibits program to be held at the Fairmont Chicago from April 30th through May 2nd. Heil Trailer International is the proud sponsor of the NTTC's Outstanding Safety Performance Awards which recognizes the best industry safety programs in two different mileage divisions.

"The tank truck industry prides itself on its steadfast commitment to safety," said NTTC President Daniel R. Furth. "To win this award, a carrier must absolutely embrace a safety culture from the drivers' room to the board room and that's exactly the case for Groendyke and GLS Transport. With Heil's support, we are very pleased to recognize these two carriers as best in class which underscores the NTTC's mission to champion safety and success in our unique segment of trucking."

"Heil Trailer is very proud to recognize these two winning motor carriers. Congratulations to both Groendyke Transport and GLS Transport for bringing home the NTTC Outstanding Safety Performance Awards," said EnTrans International's CEO, Doug Chapple. "The two Heil trophies embody a commitment to safety and what it means within our essential industry."

The Mileage Divisions are named after the association's first two and longest-serving presidents: Austin Sutherland (1945-1972) and his successor, Cliff Harvison (1972-2005). The mileage-based dividing line of the fleet size categories is 15 million miles. Groendyke Transport won the 40 to 90 million mileage category within the contest's Harvison Division with an accident frequency of 0.373 accidents per million miles. In the Sutherland Division, GLS Transport is the grand winner in the 3.5 to 5 million miles class. GLS Transport's accident frequency of zero accidents per million miles was the winning mark in that category. By winning their respective mileage classes, both motor carriers qualified as finalists for the Outstanding Safety Performance Awards. Groendyke Transport's Mike Elmenhorst and Terry Kolacki of GLS Transport will also be recognized as NTTC's Safety Professionals of the Year at the Safety Awards banquet during the Annual meeting of NTTC's Tank Truck Safety & Security Council on June 22nd in Nashville.

About NTTC

National Tank Truck Carriers, Inc. (NTTC) is a trade association composed of over 550 companies that specialize in bulk transportation services by cargo tank throughout North America. The tank truck industry generates roughly 5.1% of all truck freight revenue, but that represents 25.6% of all truck freight in terms of tonnage due to the heavy nature of the liquid bulk products handled.

About EnTrans International

Comprised of Heil Trailer International, Kalyn Siebert and SERVA, EnTrans International is a leading manufacturer of tank trailers, oilfield capital equipment and related components used in the oil & gas industry.

SOURCE National Tank Truck Carriers, Inc. (NTTC)

Related Links

http://tanktruck.org/


Hannover Messe, the Hanover Fair, is, by far, the world's biggest international industrial exhibition. The words on everyone's lips at this year's event are expected to be "artificial intelligence." As one of the pioneers in China's service robot market, Shenzhen Skyee Smart Grid decided to bring its intelligent anthropomorphic robot Skyee to the exhibition. Skyee's capabilities span a wide range, including pre-school education, video chat, smart home control and home security, and has already proven itself a highly competitive offering against other home intelligent robots available on the Chinese market. The showcasing of Skyee in Hanover is also meant to demonstrate to the world that China now stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world in the field of consumer robotics.

Shenzhen Skyee Smart Grid, a Chinese high-tech company dedicated to the research, development and application of intelligent manufacturing products, is located in what is becoming known as China's Silicon Valley, the Nanshan District in the city of Shenzhen. The company's main business focus is intelligent robots and smart grids, two areas in which the company holds multiple patents and independent intellectual property rights. The proprietary intelligent robot, Skyee, caught the attention of the industry in 2016 as soon as it was launched. The capabilities of the small, intelligent, anthropomorphic, legged robot goes beyond the basic functions of man-machine conversation, dancing and singing, to also include smart appliances control, home security, home education, app function extension as well as long distance voice and video chat. Skyee is but one of several intelligent products manufactured by Shenzhen Skyee Smart Grid, which has also developed many other service models including robots that can act as roving security guards, home and industrial cleaners as well as medical escorts. Shenzhen Skyee Smart Grid will have the full range of its technological abilities on display at this year's Hannover Messe.

CONTACT:

Blair, +86-755-2765-2922, [email protected]

SOURCE Shenzhen Skyee
"We are honored to celebrate our tenth year supporting American Forests' efforts to transform, rehabilitate and protect our precious global forests," said Craig Richardson, Executive Vice President, Chubb Environmental. "Chubb and its employees remain committed to helping ensure a healthy environment and a balance between sustainable development and preservation."

Specifically, Chubb is committed to measuring and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its own operations. Between 2012 and 2015, GHG emissions at Chubb were reduced 5.3 percent per employee, driven by emissions reduction initiatives. This effort is part of a broader global initiative, and Chubb, its employees and its charitable foundations continue to demonstrate their support for a wide range of environmental philanthropies and volunteer activities in local communities around the world. Chubb's charitable foundation grants have helped preserve sensitive lands and habitats, finance green business entrepreneurs, and support educational programs that promote a healthy and sustainable environment in the U.S. and around the world.

Chubb's contribution will support the following six national and two international planting projects with American Forests:

Mississippi (Biloxi and Black Creek): In cooperation with local partners, American Forests will restore the longleaf pine habitat, a 200-acre area selected because of its diverse wildlife, featuring hundreds of unique plant and animal species. This is the first year of a five-year project, and will focus on woodpecker cavity construction, the hatching and raising of gopher tortoise eggs, and the reforestation of longleaf pine ecosystems with 100,000 seedlings.

California (High Sierra Ranger District, Sierra National Forest): The project will span 600 acres and will plant 128,500 seedlings, a mix of ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, sugar pine, white fir and red fir. This forest system is reliant on large, healthy forests to regulate the flow of water throughout the year, and this project will help to make a sizeable contribution to watershed restoration in the Sierra Nevada range.

Kentucky (Daniel Boone National Forest): Restoring these areas to their former forested balance is complex work. Invasive species must be removed, compacted soils must be ripped, and seedlings must be grown and then planted. In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, 11,000 trees will be planted across 16 acres including 14 different tree species.

Texas (Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge): American Forests has been working in the Lower Rio Grande Valley since 1997, and has since planted more than two million trees. This work is vital to safeguarding the many unique area species, including the ocelot, a rare cat that numbers fewer than 50 surviving in the U.S. today.

West Virginia (Mower Tract, Monongahela National Forest): From 1880 to 1940 almost the entire Mower Tract area was clear-cut, and what wasn't logged suffered from extreme wildfires. This project will jump-start the regrowth of an area that will eventually restore itself after a few hundred years. In 2017, 75,000 trees will be planted across 1,126 acres.

Wyoming (Wind River District, Shoshone National Forest): In cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, more than 40,000 whitebark pines will be planted in Shoshone National Forest, a candidate to be listed under the Endangered Species Act. This is part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem; this 163-acre planting will be year three of a decade-long reforestation project in the region affected by wild fire, blister rust and pine beetles.

Panama (Pacific Coast of Panama): The Azuero Peninsula was once verdantly-forested Central American foothills. Although it has been inhabited by humans for more than 12,000 years, it was not until recently that clear-cutting for cattle ranching made a big impact upon the landscape. Now less than 7 percent of the land is forested, and the local wildlife  like the Azuero spider monkey  has suffered. American Forests is working with local partners in Panama to plant 4,500 trees in a biological corridor stretching 75 miles and spanning more than 60,000 acres.

Indonesia (Batang Toru Forest): The Batang Toru Forest in North Sumatra, Indonesia, is internationally recognized as critical habitat for the endangered orangutan, and the forest has been steadily encroached upon by a number of harmful factors such as urbanization and illegal logging. American Forests is working with local partners to plant 28,500 trees across 114 acres in an effort to address multiple environmental concerns while also engaging and educating local communities.

About American Forests

Founded in 1875, American Forests protects and restores urban and rural forests and is the oldest national nonprofit conservation organization in the country, serving as a catalyst for many of the most important milestones in the conservation movement.

With a goal of planting more than two million trees in 2017 alone, American Forests has planted more than 50 million trees since 1990  in all 50 states and in nearly 50 countries worldwide.

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.

Chubb Environmental is among the largest and most advanced global underwriters of environmental liabilities and pollution risk, and develops insurance products and risk management services that facilitate market-based solutions to current and pending environmental issues. In the U.S., Chubb is a leader in meeting the insurance and risk engineering needs of clean technology companies including renewable and alternative energy providers, manufacturers, and software and hardware companies.

SOURCE Chubb

Related Links

https://www2.chubb.com/us-en


SYRACUSE, N.Y., April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) invites you to participate in a conference call to discuss the Company's financial and operating performance during its first quarter ended March 31, 2017.

Event: Earnings Conference Call  First Quarter 2017







When: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time







How: By conference call or from a simultaneous web cast







Access: Conference Call Dial-In: 877-852-6576





719-325-4896- Outside the U.S. & Canada









Conference ID Code: 4779182









Webcast: https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/995/20523

Mark E. Tryniski, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott A. Kingsley, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will provide an overview of first quarter 2017 results. The management presentation typically lasts approximately 15 minutes, followed by investor questions and discussion.

The company's results for the quarter will be released after the market closes on April 24, 2017, and will also be available in the "Investor Relations" section of the company's website, www.communitybankna.com.

The call will also be archived on the company's website for one year, and can be accessed at any time and at no cost during this period.

Community Bank System, Inc. operates more than 200 customer facilities across Upstate New York and Northeastern Pennsylvania through its banking subsidiary, Community Bank, N.A. With assets of approximately $8.7 billion, the DeWitt, N.Y. headquartered company is among the country's 150 largest financial institutions. In addition to a full range of retail and business banking services, the Company offers comprehensive financial planning, insurance and wealth management services. The Company's Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc. subsidiary is a leading provider of employee benefits administration and trust services, and actuarial and consulting services to customers on a national scale. Community Bank System, Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Company's stock trades under the symbol CBU. For more information about Community Bank visit www.communitybankna.com or http://ir.communitybanksystem.com.

For further information contact:

Scott Kingsley,

E.V.P. and Chief Financial Officer

(315) 445-3121

SOURCE Community Bank System, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.communitybankna.com


SPARTANBURG, S.C., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Converse College celebrated the investiture of its tenth president, Krista L. Newkirk, JD, on campus in Twichell Auditorium. The 90-minute inauguration ceremony featured a processional including the four living past presidents of Converse College and delegates from 54 colleges and universities across the country; an address by President Newkirk; and formal greetings from regional, state, and local leaders who included Dr. Philip L. Dubois, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Jean Toal, chief justice (ret.) of the Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina; Trey Gowdy, U.S. representative for S.C.'s fourth congressional district, and Laura Stille, mayor pro tem of the city of Spartanburg, S.C. View/download the Inauguration press materials, including ceremony program and photos.

"Today is about Converse College, the long and important journey in the lives of young women, and our future in continuing to serve as an educational experience that transforms young people and serves to better our community," Newkirk stated in her inauguration address. "It is with humility, joy, and hope that I accept the leadership of this great college. I appreciate the trust of the Board of Trustees, the faculty and staff, the alumnae and students, and the community."

Newkirk also spoke to the college's duty to the community beyond its gates, asserting, "Converse was founded by, and has been sustained by, community support over many years, and we will meet our obligation to this region by broadening our connections with local businesses and industry to develop the workforce they need, and by helping them retain talent in the Upstate to contribute to the region's economic development."

President Newkirk brings to Converse deep-rooted commitments to academic excellence, diversity and inclusion, collaboration across institutional divisions, and the value of the liberal arts in advancing our global society.

"The stories and messages we heard throughout Krista Newkirk's inauguration are a powerful testament to the continued value of women's colleges. President Newkirk believes wholeheartedly in Converse College's mission to develop women who are equipped with the voice, values, and vision to positively impact our world, and she is the right leader at the right time for our college," stated Kimberly Varnadoe Kent, a 1997 alumna of Converse College who now chairs its Board of Trustees. Kent also served on the 12-person Presidential Search Committee for Converse College.

Following the inauguration ceremony, additional celebratory events included a Luncheon on the Lawn honoring president Newkirk and also recognizing Founders Day at Converse  the day in which the college was founded in 1889 by Dexter Edgar Converse. Later in the evening, an Inaugural Ball will be held for the College's most generous supporters, capped off by a student-organized Band Party on the campus back lawn. View full schedule of inauguration events.

About Krista L. Newkirk, JD

Krista L. Newkirk, a distinguished member of the legal and higher education communities, assumed the presidency of Converse College on July 1, 2016. Prior to joining the Converse community, she served as chief of staff for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Newkirk spent her formative years on a cattle ranch in Missouri before attending the University of Missouri's Honor College on scholarship. After two years, she transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she graduated one year later in 1993 in the top 5 percent of her class with an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in Philosophy. She went on to earn her Juris Doctor degree fromthe Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary in 1998. While in law school, she served as editor-in-chief of the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, clerked with the Newport News Commonwealth Attorney's Office, received the Marshall-Wythe Gambrell Professionalism Award, and was selected the Outstanding Woman Law Graduate by the National Association of Women Lawyers.

After working for several years as an attorney in both private practice and at a Fortune 300 company, in 2003 Newkirk joined the Office of Legal Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 2012, she became the university's first chief of staff.

Newkirk was selected by her peers as a Legal Elite in the corporate counsel category by Business North Carolina in 2010. She is a graduate of Leadership North Carolina's Class XIX and has served on a number of boards, including as Chair of the Education Section of the North Carolina Bar Association and on the Women + Girls Research Alliance.

President Newkirk is married to W. Lewis Glenn III, JD, and they have two sons: Holden, a sixth-grader at Spartanburg Day School; and Conrad, a sophomore at Spartanburg High School.

About Converse College

Converse College was founded in 1889 by citizens of Spartanburg, S.C. who aimed to create an educational experience that enables women "to see clearly, decide wisely, and act justly." Today, Converse is a visionary liberal arts college pushing beyond traditional boundaries to make a quality educational experience available to every student who seeks it  both at the undergraduate level for women and at the post-graduate level for male and female students. Converse College's mission is to help students develop their unique voice, a sense of value, and a vision for the future.

SOURCE Converse College

Related Links

http://www.converse.edu


Crystal Group Inc. is an employee-owned small business providing server, switch, display, storage and embedded computer architectures and related integration services for mission critical installations worldwide. The company designs, manufactures, integrates and supports rugged computer-based systems for intelligence, communications, reconnaissance, navigation, surveillance and critical control applications in government and industrial segments. The current Hiawatha location employs 165 people.

"Last year Crystal Group experienced tremendous growth in the defense and industrial markets that we serve, especially in the emerging autonomous segment. Our strategic plan calls for increasing our revenue at least double digit percentages annually," said Crystal Group President Scott Kongable. "This expansion underscores our commitment to that growth in Hiawatha with adequate space, staffing, and funding to accommodate rapid progress and an expanding customer base."

Currently, Crystal Group operates from two buildings totaling 58,000-square-feet in Hiawatha located on Kacena Road. The new building will be situated on land that is located directly behind the current plant.

"Our production and manufacturing capabilities must evolve with our products to meet the changing needs of our defense and industrial customers," said Michael Kruger, Vice President of Manufacturing at Crystal Group. "Our investment in updated equipment, improved manufacturing processes and facilities reflects our focus on maintaining our competitiveness, as well as our commitment to the community."

The City of Hiawatha approved economic development assistance for this project at its meeting on April 19, 2017. The City also approved sponsorship of the state financial assistance application, which was approved earlier today by the Iowa Economic Development Authority Board. State financial assistance will be primarily in the form of state tax credits. The Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance assisted in preparation of the state application that was sent to the Iowa Economic Development Authority earlier this month.

"Crystal Group has been an asset to our City, and this expansion shows their confidence in Hiawatha and long-term commitment to the area," said Hiawatha Mayor Bill Bennett. "It has been wonderful to see the growth of Crystal Group as leaders in their industry and a true success story."

"It is a pleasure to facilitate expansion projects for our members," said Brian Crowe, Economic Development Strategist, Economic Alliance. "We're pleased to be a small part of Crystal Group's impressive growth."

Primus Construction of Cedar Rapids, Iowa will serve as the general contractor for the project.

A groundbreaking celebration is planned for Monday, April 24 at 11:00 a.m.  Noon at 855 Metzger Drive in Hiawatha. Construction plans will begin in May 2017 with an anticipated completion date of third quarter in 2018.

About Crystal Group Inc.

Crystal Group Inc., an employee-owned small business located in Hiawatha, Iowa, USA, is a technology innovation leader specializing in both custom and COTS products for defense, government and industrial markets since 1987. Crystal Group designs and manufactures installation-ready rugged servers, displays, networking devices, embedded systems, power supplies and storage devices that fit critical applications in demanding environmental conditions.

The company is certified to quality management standards AS9100C:2009 and ISO 9001:2008. Crystal Group products meet and exceed MIL-STDs 810, 167-1, 461, MIL-S-901, IEEE and IEC industrial standards. Additionally, the company offers integration services, configuration management, product life-cycle planning and 5+ year warranties.

For more information:

800.378.1636

crystalrugged.com

 2017 Crystal Group Inc. All rights reserved. All marks are properties of their respective owners. Design and specifications are subject to change.

SOURCE Crystal Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.crystalrugged.com


"Through an extensive and inclusive search process, our Board of Trustees unanimously and enthusiastically selected Dr. John C. Knapp to lead Washington & Jefferson College into the future," said Richard T. Clark ('68), chairman of the college's Board of Trustees. "W&J has a long history of excellence in education witnessed by the success of our graduates, innovation in our programs and curriculum, and our community outreach initiatives. Dr. Knapp's skill set - management experience in a variety of academic arenas, a strong record of partnering effectively with faculty, a deep commitment to strategic and ethical leadership, and deep commitment to the liberal arts - make him a superb fit for W&J and the larger Washington & Jefferson community."

Dr. Knapp's 34-year career includes serving as president of Hope College since 2013. A renowned expert in ethics as well as a seasoned academic, administrator, professor, author, consultant and community leader, Dr. Knapp was founding director of the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He also established and directed the Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University.

Additionally, he founded and chaired the Atlanta Diversity Management Network, a project dedicated to sharing best practices among the region's largest employers, including five universities. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Knapp was a successful entrepreneur, trusted advisor and president of a communications consulting firm in Atlanta.

Dr. Knapp earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology and religious studies at the University of Wales, United Kingdom, a Master of Arts degree in theological studies at Columbia Theological Seminary, and a Bachelor of Science degree in urban life with a concentration in communication at Georgia State University.

Commenting on his appointment, Dr. Knapp said, "I am deeply honored to be selected by Washington & Jefferson College's Board of Trustees to lead one of America's great liberal arts institutions. I'm excited for the opportunity to engage the entire W&J community in creating a future that will allow students to thrive as global citizens and lead with uncommon integrity in their professional and personal lives. I am eager to collaborate with faculty, staff, students and alumni to continue the expansion of W&J's influence, student performance and reputation beyond the region. Along with my family, I look forward to becoming part of the W&J community."

While at Hope College, Dr. Knapp led the development and implementation of a comprehensive strategic plan to strengthen academic programs, student development, global education, and campus diversity. Under his leadership, Hope College also is in the process of completing its first campus master plan in more than 30 years.

With Dr. Knapp's guidance, Hope College saw the successfully completed construction of several new facilities on its campus. These projects were made possible through a $203 million comprehensive campaign that exceeded its $175 million goal. The campaign also funded numerous scholarships and professorships in support of students and faculty.

Commenting on W&J's leadership appointment, Trustee Diana Reed, chair of the W&J Presidential Search Committee, said, "W&J is nationally recognized as a superb liberal arts college and is perfectly poised to write its next chapter under Dr. Knapp's leadership. After an extensive national search, our Board of Trustees saw an ideal fit between his many talents and the College's needs. His experience, vision and integrity will be instrumental in leading us into our next stage of growth."

(Note: A biography of John C. Knapp, Ph.D. is available at www.washjeff.edu/john-c-knapp)

About Washington & Jefferson College

Washington & Jefferson College, located in Washington, Pa., is a selective liberal arts college founded in 1781. Committed to providing each of its students with the highest-quality undergraduate education available, W&J offers a traditional arts and sciences curriculum emphasizing interdisciplinary study and independent study work. For more information about W&J, visit www.washjeff.edu, or call 888-W-AND-JAY.

SOURCE Washington & Jefferson College

Related Links

http://www.washjeff.edu


AMSTERDAM, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Big upset in the European Press Prize Ceremony in Amsterdam as the Serbian Centre for Investigative Journalism beats the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers team in the prestigious Investigative Award. Distinguished Writing appears to be a German trait, with Felix Hutt of Stern, and Dialika Neufeld and Claas Relotius of Der Spiegel sharing the award.

Investigative Reporting Award

The judges, chaired by Sir Harold Evans, chose to honour the incredible work and proper journalism done by CINS journalists in Serbia - stories that exposed corruption charges framed and then forgotten: "These revelations fulfil the most basic promise of investigative journalists to their readers: they lift the curtains of corruption and let the light shine in."

Distinguished writing award

Choosing between three contenders was impossible, so the award was divided between Felix Hutt, Dialika Neufeld and Claas Relotius. In their own brilliant way, describing the route of refugees to safety. The story by Relotius shows what happens when child refugees don't make it to Europe. 71 Lives by Hutt tells the tragic history of how migrants suffocated in a sealed lorry. Step-uncle Sam by Neufeld describes how thousands of unaccompanied child refugees got lost in Europe.

Commentator Award

Fintan 0'Toole finally received the well-deserved reward for his commentary pieces. His articles on the Brexit for the Irish Times and The Guardian, are a vivid series adding the extra dimension of Dublin alarm, as Britain voted to leave the EU. The judges hailed his perspective, acute observation and the pungent writing style that make these ideas live.

Innovation Award

From a stronger-than-before collection of new things on the block, Christiaan Triebert of the Netherlands wins for his brilliant use of WhatsApp communications between the plotters of the Turkish military coup. As the plotters struggled through a night of chaos, many simple things went wrong, including traffic jams. Triebert's work for Bellingcat allows readers to live through the coup that failed, facing minute-by-minute crises.

Special Award

The jury was heartened by the number of young journalists who entered their work. As symbol of that rising generation they chose 26-year-old Irina Tacu, web editor at Decat o Revisita in Romania. One of the team who retold the tragedy of the `Colectiv night club fire in Bucharest. A story of young people dying told by young people, showing journalism's way ahead.

Lily Schim v/d Loeff

[email protected]

+31(0)627006043



SOURCE European Press Prize
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

More than 100 training facility sites are sought by end of 2018

FCA US dealerships expect to hire 5,000 service technicians by end of 2018

FCA US LLC has recruited 50 technical training schools from across the country to train the next generation of automotive service technicians for its U.S. dealerships.

Through its program  Mopar CAP (Career Automotive Program) LOCAL  FCA US will continue to grow this network of schools in the U.S. Ultimately, FCA US would like to have more than 100 certified training sites across the country to help its dealerships combat the industry shortage of service technicians.

"We envision that the majority of our dealerships will be located within roughly an hour's drive from the nearest certified-training facility," said John Fox, Director of the FCA Performance Institute. "So far, FCA US has successfully enlisted 50 local community colleges, technical colleges and vocational schools that are training the next generation of highly skilled dealership service technicians."

FCA US established Mopar CAP LOCAL in July 2015 in partnership with the National Coalition of Certification Centers (NC3) of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

"When FCA launched Mopar CAP LOCAL in 2015, we estimated that we had roughly 5,000 technical job openings in our dealerships," Fox said. "As we continue to expand our network of training sites, we are helping our dealers to staff their service bays with technicians that already have the knowledge and the experience to hit the ground running when they are hired."

Mopar CAP LOCAL prepares technicians to work as Level 1 Certified Technicians upon graduation from a NC3 certified two-year training institution. NC3 certifies each Mopar CAP LOCAL school to ensure they meet the stringent requirements necessary for success.

In as little as 24 months, students can earn a two-year associate's degree in Automotive Technology or equivalent. Mopar CAP LOCAL graduates are qualified to handle a variety of customer pay and warranty work for FCA US dealerships.

"Mopar CAP LOCAL is one of the most forward thinking technician training programs in the country," said Patrick Hart, Executive Director, New York Automotive & Diesel Institute in Jamaica, N.Y. "Incorporating Level 0 and Level 1 training into high-quality, entry-level training will produce a highly skilled workforce now and for years to come. This should be the training model all manufacturers in all industries use."

Mopar CAP LOCAL is an extension of FCA's traditional Mopar CAP program that has been training service technicians to work in Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram dealerships since 1984. The traditional Mopar CAP has 31 colleges training service technicians primarily in metropolitan areas of the country. The new Mopar CAP LOCAL program is enlisting schools in secondary and rural markets as well.

The 50 training sites enrolled so far by Mopar CAP LOCAL are elated to be part of the burgeoning network.

"The Mopar CAP LOCAL program has been a great way to infuse OEM training into our General Service automotive classes," said Matthew Janisin, Instructor and NC3 coordinator at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. "This way, students are better prepared technicians regardless of choosing a dealership or independent shop. The ease of integrating the Mopar CAP LOCAL curriculum into an existing general service automotive program makes it an all-around win for the college, FCA, local dealers and most importantly students."

In addition to the Mopar CAP and Mopar CAP LOCAL technician training programs, FCA US has a variety of programs in play to attract, train and retain service technicians, as well as other dealership employees.

For example, in conjunction with Strayer University, FCA US launched its [email protected] program in 2015 that enables a dealership service technician (or any other dealership employee) and their immediate family members to earn a no-expense college degree while employed by participating dealerships.

FCA US also has introduced a technician-exemption policy that allows technicians to work one level above their certification if the technician is in training for the next certification level; launched its Mopar Top Tech program to recognize its top-performing, elite technicians at FCA US dealerships, and partnered with Snap-On Inc. to equip students in training with the necessary tools of the trade at a significant discount.

About FCA US LLC

FCA US LLC is a North American automaker with a new name and a long history. Headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, FCA US is a member of the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA) family of companies. FCA US designs, engineers, manufactures and sells vehicles under the Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram and FIAT brands, as well as the SRT performance vehicle designation. The company also distributes Alfa Romeo vehicles and Mopar products. FCA US is building upon the historic foundations of Chrysler, the innovative American automaker first established by Walter P. Chrysler in 1925; and Fiat, founded in Italy in 1899 by pioneering entrepreneurs, including Giovanni Agnelli.

FCA, the seventh-largest automaker in the world based on total annual vehicle sales, is an international automotive group. FCA is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "FCAU" and on the Mercato Telematico Azionario under the symbol "FCA."

Follow FCA US news and video on:

Company blog: blog.fcanorthamerica.com

Company website: www.fcanorthamerica.com

FCA360: 360.fcanorthamerica.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FiatChrysler.NorthAmerica/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/FiatChrysler_NA

Twitter: www.twitter.com/FiatChrysler_NA

Twitter (Spanish): www.twitter.com/fcausespanol

YouTube: www.youtube.com/pentastarvideo

Media website: media.fcanorthamerica.com

SOURCE FCA US LLC

Related Links

http://www.fcanorthamerica.com


BOYNTON BEACH, Fla., April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously ruled yesterday in favor of Exacta Systems in the trademark lawsuit originally filed by the Oaklawn Jockey Club and several Stronach Group racetracks. The decision is the latest legal victory for Exacta in a string of frivolous lawsuits brought by entities owned by the Stronach Group, which owns Historic Horse Racing competitor PariMax. Earlier this year, another Federal Court unanimously upheld the dismissal of several patent infringement claims brought by Stronach Group/AmTote against Exacta.

In the current action, the Plaintiffs alleged that Exacta had infringed upon their trademarks by using their racetracks' names to identify the location where historic horse races had taken place. The Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the decision of the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, which dismissed the trademark complaint in an opinion issued last year.

"We are extremely grateful that the Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the decision of the U.S. District Court to dismiss the trademark infringement claims brought by several Stronach Group racetracks," commented Exacta President Jeremy Stein. "We went to great lengths to build Exacta the right way, making sure to respect established law, racing commission regulations, and ethical business practices. Now that these two main lawsuits are behind us, we would welcome the Stronach Group to join with us in an effort to grow and expand Historic Horse Racing for the benefit of the entire racing and breeding industries."

For more information about the company and the Exacta historic horse racing system, visit www.exactasystems.com or the Exacta Systems Facebook page.

SOURCE Exacta Systems
COLUMBIA, Mo., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Realistic fiction author Ryan Eidson will participate in the second annual Unbound Book Festival at the Stephens College campus on Saturday, April 22, in Columbia. He will be available for book sales and signings of "A Couple with Common Cents" starting at 1:30 p.m. in the exhibitors' area in the Kimball Ballroom.

A Couple with Common Cents: A Short Story About Abundant Hope in Your Family Finances (ISBN 9781630477127, 108 pp., available at all fine booksellers)

Eidson's most recent book, "A Couple with Common Cents: A Short Story About Abundant Hope in Your Family Finances," teaches couples how to intelligently and responsibly manage their money. Unlike other self-help books or budget guides, "A Couple With Common Cents" is told as a realistic fiction story chronicling the fiscal troubles of a modern Midwestern family. The story is centered primarily on the young mother of the family, Tabitha. As Tabitha faces marital and financial difficulties, readers are able to sympathize and relate, seeing their own struggles mirrored in hers. Following her journey to overcome these difficulties, readers will be filled with hope and be moved to action.

"I enjoy connecting with readers in person," said Ryan Eidson. "When my fans tell me how their thinking has changed after reading this book, I know my writing has made a difference in their lives. The Unbound Book Festival is a great opportunity to connect with local authors and book readers."

Built around themes of perseverance, faith, and mentoring, "A Couple With Common Cents" provides practical, pertinent advice to couples that is both uplifting and effective. This inspirational narrative will guide readers to rebuild the bridges of communication with their spouses, and help husbands and wives learn to see eye to eye about money and family finances.

For more information about this book, please visit http://acouplewithcommoncents.com.

About the Author

Ryan Eidson has the unique ability to make complex ideas easy to understand. He works as a marketing and communications professional at the University of Missouri. Ryan and his wife, Lori, will celebrate their tenth anniversary this year.

About the Publisher

Morgan James Publishing (http://www.MorganJamesPublishing.com) provides entrepreneurs with the vital information, inspiration, and guidance they need to be successful. Morgan James Publishing, The Entrepreneurial Publisher, has been recognized by Publisher's Weekly for four years on their fast growing press list and is reported as being the future of publishing.

Contact:

Ryan Eidson

660-346-3131

[email protected]

SOURCE Ryan Eidson
"Polycystic kidney disease varies greatly in its severity, and there are a number of symptoms and complications associated with this disease," said Terry Watnick, M.D., from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Raising awareness of PKD and the need for a drug treatment is important. I hope more people understand the impact the disease has on patient lives."

Gene's large and low-functioning kidneys quite literally get in the way of normal activities. Daily routines like eating, sleeping and even a simple hug are extremely difficult. The Big Dumb Kidneys campaign videos bring to life specific instances that can be awkward and uncomfortable with the constant accompaniment of two big and dumb kidneys.

"We applaud Gene's efforts to raise awareness for this severe, life-threatening disease," said Andy Betts, CEO of the PKD Foundation. "Our mission is to find treatments and a cure for PKD and to improve the lives of those it affects. We do this through funding programs of research, education, advocacy, support, and awareness on a national level, along with direct services to local communities across the country. We look forward to working together toward a new treatment."

Currently, more than 93,000 people are waiting on kidney transplant lists in the U.S. The wait for a deceased donor could be five years, and in some states, it is closer to 10 years  time that Gene and his kidneys just do not have.

"For many years, I watched my father struggle with PKD, the burden of relying on dialysis, and the many complications of this genetic disease that eventually contributed to his passing," said Gene. "My dad always made the best of every situation. I'm determined to do the same by motivating people to learn about kidney disease and the process of becoming a living kidney donor. People have questions about becoming a donor. With help from my big, dumb kidneys, I want to give them information and help connect them with people in need."

"I don't want to lose my brother the same way I lost my dad," explains Gene's sister, Tina Okun. "We have a big goal  to find Gene a kidney, to keep him healthy and alive, so that he can continue to make a difference in this world."

To discover more about becoming a donor or to help Gene in his search for a live kidney, please visit BigDumbKidneys.com or follow on Facebook and Instagram @BigDumbKidneys and with the hashtag #BigDumbKidneys.

Gene's Big Dumb Kidney Campaign

I launched this Big Dumb Kidney campaign with my sister Tina to find a living kidney donor and raise awareness of polycystic kidney disease and other kidney diseases that affect millions of men, women and children in the U.S. and around the world.

We are grateful to our friends, families, colleagues and business partners who are contributing their creativity, energy and skill to make this campaign possible. We especially recognize the people at SmithSolve, Second Melody, The O'Hara Project, Dave Patino Photography, SmartWorld Coffee, and the talented actors who portrayed my kidneys: Dumb and Big. We would also like to thank the dozens of physicians, donors, recipients and leaders of patient organizations who are providing input, advice and support on this journey.

Together we can find a living kidney donor and help others fight kidney disease. Thank you in advance for your blessings and prayers.

SOURCE Big Dumb Kidney Campaign

Related Links

http://BigDumbKidneys.com


ATLANTA, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Georgia School of Orthodontics (GSO) announced Wednesday the three recipients of complimentary orthodontic care at GSO's ground breaking event for their second campus located in Duluth.

"We chose three children who truly inspired us and whose stories touched our hearts. We want to help boost their confidence by giving them the smile they have always dreamed of and deserve," said Dr. Ricky E. Harrell, Program Director at GSO. During the event, Harrell also asked them to take a pledge to brush and floss daily, which they recited through laughs.

The gift of orthodontic services is GSO's continued commitment of providing $100,000 of orthodontic care to deserving Georgians.

The recipients and their nomination stories are below:

Sierra Henson from Dacula is a bright 14 year old girl and role model to her four siblings. She is an excellent student who makes all A's in her AP and gifted classes. Expensive medical costs for a family member made the hope of orthodontic care seem unachievable. GSO is helping to give the gift of a perfect smile to this deserving young girl.

is a bright 14 year old girl and role model to her four siblings. She is an excellent student who makes all A's in her AP and gifted classes. Expensive medical costs for a family member made the hope of orthodontic care seem unachievable. GSO is helping to give the gift of a perfect smile to this deserving young girl. Savien Cox from Lawrenceville is a caring fifth grader who loves to smile and bring joy to others. He battles with insecurities and low self-esteem over his smile, and is grateful that GSO is giving him the opportunity to have the smile he always dreamed was possible.

is a caring fifth grader who loves to smile and bring joy to others. He battles with insecurities and low self-esteem over his smile, and is grateful that GSO is giving him the opportunity to have the smile he always dreamed was possible. Damian Soler from Gwinnett (currently resides in Decatur ) is a deserving 13 year old boy who suffers from insecurity about his smile. His teeth prevent him from being able to close his mouth while he sleeps, so he suffers from constant sore throats. He is excited to receive his braces, and looks forward to many nights of peaceful sleep.

GSO will provide the recipients any necessary orthodontic care including appliances, braces, retainers and more at no cost. GSO will also provide the children who were nominated but not selected with a significant reduction in the cost of their orthodontic treatment.

The Georgia School of Orthodontics is now accepting patients at their Gwinnett and North Atlanta offices. All patients will have access to GSO's state-of-the art technology, like the CS 3600 intraoral scanner, which eliminates goopy impressions and awkward intraoral photos and features greater accuracy and speed for the orthodontic residents. GSO is the first orthodontic school in the nation with this technology.

Patients will receive high quality care at an affordable price. The residents are licensed dentists seeking specialty training in orthodontics and are overseen by the Board Certified Program Director and faculty. The Georgia School of Orthodontics' presence in Georgia will address a critical need for orthodontists and affordable care in the region. Schedule a complimentary consultation today by calling 770-351-7737 or visiting www.BracesToday.com.

About Georgia School of Orthodontics

The Georgia School of Orthodontics (GSO) enrolled its first class in the fall of 2016. Based in Atlanta, Ga., GSO offers an advanced specialty education program in orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics. The 36-month residency program is structured to provide collaborative and evidence-based learning for residents while providing quality orthodontic care to patients in the school's clinics. GSO's mission is to educate outstanding dentists to be proficient in the clinical specialty of orthodontics while providing affordable care to an underserved population. GSO faculty and staff are dedicated to diversity in both education and practice. For more information, visit www.GSOrthodontics.org or call (770) 351-7737.

SOURCE Georgia School of Orthodontics

Related Links

http://www.GSOrthodontics.org


(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160408/353056LOGO )

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492739/ICIS_Innovation_Awards_2017_Logo.jpg )

ICIS is pleased to confirm Elsevier's R&D Solutions (http://www.elsevier.com/rd-solutions ), the information analytics company specialising in science and health, as the lead sponsor for the Awards for the second year running.

Distribution company U.S. Chemicals (http://www.uschemicals.com), a Maroon Group company, continues as a category sponsor, supporting the Innovation with Best Benefit for Environment and Sustainability category. ExxonMobil Chemical (http://www.exxonmobilchemical.com) also stays on board, sponsoring the category for Best Innovation by a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise.

John Baker, ICIS Innovation Awards manager at ICIS, comments: "We are delighted to have the continued support of all three sponsors, a sign that the awards continue to be successful in their goal of highlighting the importance of innovation in the chemical industry.

"The awards continue to grow and gain industry support and last year attracted a record level of entries. We once again look forward to highlighting the very best of innovation in the chemical industry - by both companies and individuals."

Christina Valimaki, senior director, chemical segment marketing, at Elsevier's R&D Solutions, and also a member of the ICIS Innovation Awards judging panel, adds: "The demands on those working in chemical R&D and manufacturing to create and commercialise solutions that solve business challenges and support the industry's customers, society at large and the environment, are vast.

"Elsevier's R&D Solutions is excited to partner with the ICIS Innovation Awards again this year to honour the scientists and researchers who are at the heart of some of the industry's greatest advances. We look forward to putting a spotlight on the individual people behind these groundbreaking innovations via the Alpha Innovator of the Year Award, now in its second year."

Celebrating success

The ICIS Innovation Awards enable companies and individuals to celebrate their success in the vital activity of innovation and the increasingly important areas of sustainability and environmental performance.

There are four categories for companies to enter:

Best Product Innovation

Best Process Innovation

Best Innovation by a S mall or M edium-sized E nterprise (SME) - sponsored by ExxonMobil Chemical

sponsored by ExxonMobil Chemical Innovation with Best Benefit for Environment and Sustainability - sponsored by U.S. Chemicals

The two categories for individuals -- the Alpha Innovator of the Year Award - launched last year, will honour individual industrial researchers for their outstanding contributions in two areas:

New Product Development/Process Optimisation

Environment and Sustainability

The ICIS Innovation Awards and the Alpha Innovator of the Year Award are open to entry from today, with a deadline for entries of 30 June 2017. The winners will be announced in October 2017.

For more information or to enter the awards, visit http://www.icis.com/awards or call John Baker on +44-20-8652-3153.

Notes to Editors:

About ICIS

ICIS is an independent price reporting agency focusing on global energy, petrochemical and fertilizer markets, and we have covered the complex UK electricity market for nearly two decades. Every day, we assess electricity contracts for more than 40 different delivery periods in the UK market alone. The analysis and data that we produce is widely used as a reference price in energy contracts.

It is our aim to give companies in global commodities markets a competitive advantage by delivering trusted pricing data, high-value news, analysis and independent consulting, enabling our customers to make better-informed trading and planning decisions.

With a global staff of more than 800, ICIS has employees based in Houston, Washington, New York, London, Montpellier, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, Milan, Mumbai, Singapore, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Yantai, Tokyo and Perth. ICIS is a division of Reed Business Information.

About Reed Business Information

Reed Business Information provides information, analytics and data to business professionals worldwide. Our strong global products and services hold market-leading positions across a wide range of industry sectors including banking, petrochemicals and aviation where we help customers make key strategic decisions every day. RBI is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professional customers across industries.

http://www.reedbusiness.com

About RELX Group

RELX Group is a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. The Group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs approximately 30,000 people of whom almost half are in North America. RELX PLC is a London listed holding company, which owns 52.9% of RELX Group. RELX NV is an Amsterdam listed holding company, which owns 47.1% of RELX Group. The shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX and RENX. The total market capitalisation is approximately 30.8bn/36.7bn/$39.5bn.

http://www.relx.com

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics company that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support and professional education, including ScienceDirect, Scopus, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitised journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a world-leading provider of information and analytics to professionals and business customers in a wide range of industries. http://www.elsevier.com

About U.S. Chemicals LLC

Serving the needs of the chemical industry for over 56 years, U.S. Chemicals, a Maroon Group company, combines quality, innovation and service like no other. U.S. Chemicals has built a team that thoroughly understands the complexities of the chemical industry and includes experts at material sourcing and acquisition.

U.S. Chemicals serves as a diversified source for the chemical requirements of many industry sectors, including paint, ink and coatings; chemicals and textiles; cosmetic and personal care products; flame retardants; food and pharmaceutical; plastic; and rubber. It offers prompt delivery from multiple warehouse locations throughout the US.

U.S. Chemicals' world-wide network of resources assures customers of highly competitive pricing, optimum quality and consistency, epic customer care, and rapid worry-free sourcing and delivery.

About ExxonMobil Chemical

ExxonMobil Chemical is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. Our unique portfolio of commodity and specialty businesses generates annual sales of more than 24 million tonnes of prime products. We have world-scale manufacturing facilities in all major regions, and our products serve as the building blocks for a wide variety of everyday consumer and industrial products.

We process feedstocks from ExxonMobil's Upstream and Downstream operations, supplemented with market sources, to manufacture chemical products for higher-value end uses. We focus on product lines that capitalise on scale and technology advantages, building on our strengths in advantaged feedstocks, lower-cost processes, and premium products. As a result, we have strong positions in the markets we serve.

For further ICIS information contact:

John Baker

Global editor, ICIS

Tel: +44-20-8652-3153

Email: [email protected]

Web site: http://www.icis.com

For further Elsevier information contact:

Christina Valimaki

Senior director, chemicals segment marketing, Elsevier's R&D Solutions

Tel: +1-215-239-3709

Email: [email protected]

Web site: http://www.elsevier.com/rd-solutions/chemicals

For further U.S. Chemicals LLC information, contact:

Carol Piccaro

President and CEO

U.S. Chemicals LLC

Tel: +1-203-655-8878

Email: [email protected]

Web site: http://www.uschemicals.com

For further ExxonMobil Chemical information, contact:

Michael Lacey

ExxonMobil Chemical Company

Tel: +1-832-625-4773

Email: [email protected]

Web site: http://www.exxonmobilchemical.com



SOURCE ICIS
"Igloo's metal beverage cooler was the product that launched the cooler industry and put Igloo on the map," said Candi Whitsel, senior vice president of marketing and product management, Igloo Products Corp. "As we celebrate our 70 th anniversary, it seems fitting to pay homage to the cooler that started it all by building on its timeless design and universal appeal."

Igloo Legacy Collection | Modern Performance and Timeless Aesthetics

Legacy Vacuum Tumbler

Igloo is launching its all-new Hydration Collection in 2017. This high performing, high quality drinkware is available in a variety of styles to address different consumer needs and activities.

The Legacy Vacuum Tumbler is the cornerstone of the collection and is the perfect tumbler to keep drinks cold or hot. These beautifully designed tumblers are perfect for the backyard, desktop or family camping trip.

Features include:

- Dishwasher safe press-fit Tritan lid

- Stackable design

- Vacuum insulation keeps drinks cold for 24 hours and hot for 6 hours

- Ounce markings to easily measure 1.5oz for spirits or 5oz for wine

- Colors: Copper, Natural Brushed, Matte Black

- MSRP: 12 oz $8.99, 16 oz $9.99, 20 oz $10.99

Legacy 2.5 Gallon

The Legacy 2.5 Gallon combines Igloo's hydration heritage with fresh materials and innovative features to create the ideal beverage cooler for home and backyard entertaining.

Features include:

- Body and lid made of rust-resistant 304 stainless steel

- Cool Riser Technology pedestal / base elevates from hot surfaces and enables easy cup access to spigot

- Ultratherm foam insulation keeps beverages cooler longer

- Swing-up bail handle for easy lifting and transport

- Leak resistant stainless steel spigot

- Flavor infuser under lid that is easy to remove for refilling or cleaning

- Pressure-fit lid maintains a firm seal

- Inside liner made of easy-to-clean polyethylene

- Capacity: 2.5 gallons | 9.46 liters

- MSRP: $199.99

Legacy 54 Quart

Classic design packed with best-in-class Igloo technology, the Legacy 54 Quart Cooler offers excellent cold retention and is right at home at a backyard party or the family campsite.

Features include:

- Body and lid made of rust-resistant 304 stainless steel

- Cool Riser Technology improves cooling performance by elevating from hot surfaces

- Ultratherm insulation in body and lid keeps contents cold

- Convenient stainless steel bottle opener

- Wide, stainless steel swing-up side handles with comfort grips

- Stainless steel lid hinges and latch for maximum durability

- Recessed, triple-snap drain plug

- Capacity: 54 quarts | 85 cans

- MSRP: $179.99

About Igloo Products Corp.

Texas-based Igloo Products Corp. is an international designer, manufacturer and marketer of coolers, drink containers, and supporting accessories. For 70 years, the Igloo brand has been synonymous with quality, durability and innovation since originating the cooler category in 1947 and remains the number one cooler brand worldwide today. Offering more than 500 different products, Igloo products are sold by more than 110 thousand retail storefronts around the world. For more information, visit www.igloocoolers.com.

SOURCE Igloo Products Corp.

Related Links

http://www.igloocoolers.com


"Farmhouse Thin & Crispy Cookies were inspired by our Campbell Soup Company Real Food Philosophy," said Carlos Abrams-Rivera, President, Pepperidge Farm. "There has been a significant shift in many food categories, but specifically in snacks, in which consumers want 'real food' ingredients. Pepperidge Farm and Campbell are committed to delivering real food that's crafted with care and our Farmhouse Cookies and Farmhouse Bread offerings are delicious examples. In our 80-year history, Pepperidge Farm has remained 100% committed to quality."

As of May 2017, the entire Pepperidge Farm American Collection Cookies line, with names inspired by American cities such as Nantucket and Sausalito, will also move to adding cage-free eggs to their ingredient list. All 58 varieties of Pepperidge Farm breads, buns and rolls are free from High Fructose Corn Syrup, and contain no colors or flavors from artificial sources.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Pepperidge Farm. The company started in 1937, when Margaret Rudkin, a Connecticut housewife and mother of three young children, discovered one of her sons had an allergy to commercial breads that contained preservatives and artificial ingredients. This drove her to experiment baking her own preservative-free bread for her ailing son  ultimately perfecting a delicious whole-wheat loaf that contained only natural ingredients.

Encouraged by her family and her son's doctor, she began a small business out of her kitchen selling her Pepperidge Farm bread  named for her family's home in Fairfield, Connecticut  to local grocers. From there, the company has continued to evolve from one woman's kitchen to an iconic American company, with several of the nation's most beloved brands including Goldfish crackers, Milano cookies, Pepperidge Farm fresh and frozen bakery items and now, Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Thin & Crispy Cookies, available nationwide at an SRP of $3.49.

About Pepperidge Farm

Pepperidge Farm, Incorporated, is a leading provider of premium quality fresh bakery products, cookies, crackers and frozen foods, since 1937. Founded by Margaret Rudkin, an entrepreneurial homemaker who began baking fresh, wholesome bread for her allergy-afflicted son, Pepperidge Farm is now in approximately  of homes nationwide. Celebrating 80 years in 2017, the Pepperidge Farm portfolio includes Goldfish crackers, Milano cookies, Tim Tam biscuits and more than 50 varieties of fresh baked breads including Pepperidge Farm Swirl, Farmhouse and Whole Grain and frozen Puff Pastry, Layer Cakes and Garlic Bread. Pepperidge Farm, part of Campbell Soup Company since 1961, plays a major part in the company's ability to provide consumers  worldwide  with nearly 4 billion servings of whole grains annually. For more information, visit www.pepperidgefarm.com or follow Pepperidge Farm on Facebook and Twitter.

For additional information:

Mary Insinga

Zeno Group

212-299-8951 / [email protected]

SOURCE Pepperidge Farm

Related Links

http://www.pepperidgefarm.com


RESTON, Va., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Edison Awards, celebrating 30 years of honoring the best in innovation and excellence in the development of new products and services, announced today that Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a global science and technology company, was voted a Gold Winner for innovation in the Tactical & Industrial Technology category at the April 20th event at The Capitale in New York City.

Leidos received the award for its support of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program, an entirely new class of ocean-going vesselone intended to traverse thousands of kilometers over the open seas for months at a time, all without a single crew member aboard.

The Edison Awards are named after Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) whose inventions, new product development methods and innovative achievements literally changed the world, garnered him 1,093 U.S. patents, and made him a household name around the world.

"Our judges recognized Leidos as a true innovator out of the many products in its category," said Frank Bonafilia, executive director of the Edison Awards.

"We are pleased to work with DARPA on this program and thrilled to be recognized for our innovative maritime autonomy technologies," said Mike Chagnon, Leidos Advanced Solutions Group president. "This award highlights Leidos' ability to rapidly mature research and development systems to meet our customer's urgent operational needs."

The ballot of nominees for the Edison Awards was judged by a panel of more than 3,000 leading business executives including past award winners, academics and leaders in the fields of product development, design, engineering, science and medical.

About Leidos

Leidos is a global science and technology solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil and health markets. The company's 32,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $7.04 billion for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2016. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

About the Edison Awards

The Edison Awards is a program conducted by Edison Universe, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering future innovators. The Awards have been recognizing and honoring the best in innovations and innovators since 1987. They honor game-changing innovations that are at the forefront of new product and service development, marketing and human-centered design, and are one of the highest accolades a company can receive in the name of successful innovation. For more information about the Edison Awards complete program and a list of past winners, visit www.edisonawards.com.

Statements in this announcement, other than historical data and information, constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be very different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some of these factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended January 1, 2016, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time. Due to such uncertainties and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof.

SOURCE Leidos

Related Links

http://www.leidos.com


SAN MATEO, Calif., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Marketo, Inc., today announced that it will livestream the Day 1 and Day 2 keynotes at The Marketing Nation Summit, the premier event for anyone involved in digital marketing and customer engagement. Anyone unable to attend the event in-person in San Francisco can register here to hear the latest insights from top brands.

The 2017 keynote livestreams will include:

Day One, April 24, 8:30 am PT:

Steve Lucas , Chief Executive Officer, Marketo

, Chief Executive Officer, Ariel Kelman , Vice President Worldwide Marketing, Amazon Web Services

Vice President Worldwide Marketing, Charles Phillips , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Infor

, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Carrie Palin , Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Box

, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Jamie Gutfreund , Global Chief Marketing Officer, Wunderman

, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Jeff Wright , Vice President, Data Analytics & Automation, Autodesk

Vice President, Data Analytics & Automation, Penny Wilson , Chief Marketing Officer, Hootsuite

Chief Marketing Officer, Reggie Aggarwal , Founder and CEO, Cvent

, Founder and CEO, Tracee Nalewak , Vice President of Customer Experience Marketing, Hakkasan Group

Day Two, April 25, 2017, 11 am PT:

Chandar Pattabhiram , Chief Marketing Officer, Marketo

, Chief Marketing Officer, James Cooper , Editorial Director, Adweek

Editorial Director, Kimberly Kadlec , SVP, Global Marketing Platforms & Capabilities, Visa, Inc.

, SVP, Global Marketing Platforms & Capabilities, Kristen O'Hara , Chief Marketing Officer, Global Media, Time Warner Inc.

, Chief Marketing Officer, Global Media, Marisa Thalberg , Chief Marketing Officer, Taco Bell Corp.

Chief Marketing Officer, Stephen Yeo , Marketing Director, Panasonic System Communications Europe

Marketing Director, Tyler Williams , Fungineer, Zappos

The Day 2 keynote includes speakers from "The Future of AdTech at The Marketing Nation Summit," presented by Marketo and Adweek, which focuses on the explosive collision between advertising technology and marketing technology. The Adweek keynote panel will highlight marketing executives at the forefront of change in today's post-advertising world and provide the audience with key takeaways on charting a course forward.

The Marketing Nation Summit is expected to attract thousands of global marketers for more than 100 content sessions centered around "Leading in the Engagement Economy." The event will take place from April 23 to 26, 2017, at Moscone West in San Francisco.

To learn more about the Marketing Nation Summit's thought leadership, educational sessions, workshops, and trainings or to register to attend the conference in-person, click here.

About Marketo

Marketo, Inc., offers the leading Engagement Platform that empowers marketers to create lasting relationships and grow revenue. Consistently recognized as the industry's innovation pioneer, Marketo is the trusted platform for thousands of CMOs thanks to its scalability, reliability, and openness. Marketo is headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with offices around the world, and serves as a strategic partner to large enterprise and fast-growing organizations across a wide variety of industries. To learn more about the Marketo Engagement Platform, LaunchPoint partner ecosystem, and the vast community that is the Marketing Nation, visit www.marketo.com.

SOURCE Marketo, Inc.
MILWAUKEE, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) today reported that net earnings for the three months ended March 31, 2017 were $74.4 million, or $1.09 per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $71.7 million, or 98 cents per diluted share, a year earlier. Revenues for the first quarter were $4.8 billion, an increase of 4% from the prior year period.

The current year quarter included restructuring charges which reduced earnings per share by 30 cents and a lower income tax rate which increased earnings per share by 20 cents primarily due to discrete items.

Financial results in the quarter were also impacted by the stronger US dollar relative to several foreign currencies compared to the prior year period. On a constant currency basis, revenues increased 7% and earnings per diluted share increased 14%. Earnings per share in the quarter were negatively impacted 3 cents by changes in foreign currencies compared to the prior year, or 5 cents excluding the restructuring charges.

Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup Chairman & CEO, said, "The strong first quarter results are very encouraging, and build on the progress we made last year. We are seeing further broad-based improvement in Europe, setting the stage for what we believe could be a slow but sustained labor market recovery in that region.

"Our workforce services and solutions are resonating with our clients and candidates, which gives us the confidence that we are on the right track and well placed to seize further opportunities during 2017.

"We anticipate second quarter earnings per share will be between $1.67 and $1.75, which includes an estimated unfavorable currency impact of 8 cents and excludes restructuring charges."

In conjunction with its first quarter earnings release, ManpowerGroup will broadcast its conference call live over the Internet on April 21, 2017 at 7:30 a.m. CDT (8:30 a.m. EDT). Interested parties are invited to listen to the webcast and view the presentation by logging on to http://www.manpowergroup.com in the section titled "Investor Relations."

Supplemental financial information referenced in the conference call can be found at http://www.manpowergroup.com in the section titled "Investor Relations."

About ManpowerGroup

ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) is the world's workforce expert, creating innovative workforce solutions for nearly 70 years. We connect more than 600,000 people to meaningful work across a wide range of skills and industries every day. Through our ManpowerGroup family of brands  Manpower, Experis, Right Management and ManpowerGroup Solutions  we help more than 400,000 clients in 80 countries and territories address their critical talent needs, providing comprehensive solutions to resource, manage and develop talent. In 2017, ManpowerGroup was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for the seventh consecutive year and one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies, confirming our position as the most trusted and admired brand in the industry. See how ManpowerGroup makes powering the world of work humanly possible: www.manpowergroup.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements, including earnings projections, that are forward-looking in nature and, accordingly, are subject to risks and uncertainties regarding the Company's expected future results. The Company's actual results may differ materially from those described or contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements can be found in the Company's reports filed with the SEC, including the information under the heading 'Risk Factors' in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, which information is incorporated herein by reference.

ManpowerGroup Results of Operations (In millions, except per share data)











Three Months Ended March 31





% Variance





Amount Constant

2017 2016 Reported Currency

(Unaudited) Revenues from services (a) $4,757.2 $4,587.7 3.7% 6.7%









Cost of services 3,969.4 3,813.9 4.1% 7.2%









Gross profit 787.8 773.8 1.8% 4.6%









Selling and administrative expenses 660.8 642.1 2.9% 5.7%









Operating profit 127.0 131.7 -3.6% -1.1%









Interest and other expenses 14.9 12.7 17.0%











Earnings before income taxes 112.1 119.0 -5.8% -3.2%









Provision for income taxes 37.7 47.3 -20.3%











Net earnings $ 74.4 $ 71.7 3.8% 6.5%









Net earnings per share - basic $ 1.10 $ 0.98 12.2%











Net earnings per share - diluted $ 1.09 $ 0.98 11.2% 14.3%









Weighted average shares - basic 67.7 72.8 -7.0%











Weighted average shares - diluted 68.4 73.5 -6.9%







(a) Revenues from services include fees received from our franchise offices of $5.3 million and $5.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. These fees are primarily based on revenues generated by the franchise offices, which were $239.1 million and $227.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

ManpowerGroup Operating Unit Results (In millions)











Three Months Ended March 31





% Variance





Amount Constant

2017 2016 Reported Currency

(Unaudited) Revenues from Services:







Americas:







United States (a) $ 661.5 $ 703.1 -5.9% -5.9% Other Americas 364.7 342.8 6.4% 8.5%

1,026.2 1,045.9 -1.9% -1.2% Southern Europe:







France 1,137.5 1,078.8 5.4% 9.3% Italy 294.4 263.1 11.9% 16.0% Other Southern Europe 372.0 345.8 7.6% 9.8%

1,803.9 1,687.7 6.9% 10.4%









Northern Europe 1,238.7 1,213.9 2.0% 8.8% APME 632.4 576.2 9.7% 7.8% Right Management 56.0 64.0 -12.5% -10.5%

$4,757.2 $4,587.7 3.7% 6.7%









Operating Unit Profit:







Americas:







United States $ 26.4 $ 22.8 16.1% 16.1% Other Americas 12.4 11.6 6.3% 10.7%

38.8 34.4 12.8% 14.3% Southern Europe:







France 50.1 47.2 6.1% 10.1% Italy 18.2 16.1 13.0% 17.3% Other Southern Europe 12.7 8.4 50.6% 53.9%

81.0 71.7 12.9% 16.9%









Northern Europe 11.3 32.5 -65.1% -64.3% APME 20.1 19.3 4.4% 2.9% Right Management 8.8 9.5 -7.4% -6.2%

160.0 167.4



Corporate expenses (24.6) (26.7)



Intangible asset amortization expense (8.4) (9.0)



Operating profit 127.0 131.7 -3.6% -1.1% Interest and other expenses (b) (14.9) (12.7)



Earnings before income taxes $ 112.1 $ 119.0









(a) In the United States, revenues from services include fees received from our franchise offices of $3.5 million and $3.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. These fees are primarily based on revenues generated by the franchise offices, which were $167.7 million and $160.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.





(b) The components of interest and other expenses were:







2017 2016

Interest expense $ 9.3 $ 9.5

Interest income (1.0) (0.7)

Foreign exchange losses 0.1 0.9

Miscellaneous expenses, net 6.5 3.0



$ 14.9 $ 12.7

ManpowerGroup Consolidated Balance Sheets (In millions)









Mar. 31

Dec. 31

2017

2016

(Unaudited) ASSETS





Current assets:





Cash and cash equivalents $ 724.4

$ 598.5 Accounts receivable, net 4,430.6

4,413.1 Prepaid expenses and other assets 145.8

121.3 Total current assets 5,300.8

5,132.9







Other assets:





Goodwill 1,256.3

1,239.9 Intangible assets, net 287.3

294.4 Other assets 687.3

759.7 Total other assets 2,230.9

2,294.0







Property and equipment:





Land, buildings, leasehold improvements and equipment 572.0

567.0 Less: accumulated depreciation and amortization 424.8

419.7 Net property and equipment 147.2

147.3 Total assets $7,678.9

$7,574.2







LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY





Current liabilities:





Accounts payable $2,025.6

$1,914.4 Employee compensation payable 175.0

208.1 Accrued liabilities 406.5

398.6 Accrued payroll taxes and insurance 567.5

649.2 Value added taxes payable 435.0

448.7 Short-term borrowings and current maturities of long-term debt 37.6

39.8 Total current liabilities 3,647.2

3,658.8







Other liabilities:





Long-term debt 796.0

785.6 Other long-term liabilities 703.6

683.4 Total other liabilities 1,499.6

1,469.0







Shareholders' equity:





ManpowerGroup shareholders' equity





Common stock 1.2

1.2 Capital in excess of par value 3,268.3

3,227.2 Retained earnings 2,365.7

2,291.3 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (385.4)

(426.1) Treasury stock, at cost (2,804.4)

(2,731.7) Total ManpowerGroup shareholders' equity 2,445.4

2,361.9 Noncontrolling interests 86.7

84.5 Total shareholders' equity 2,532.1

2,446.4 Total liabilities and shareholders' equity $7,678.9

$7,574.2

ManpowerGroup Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (In millions)









Three Months Ended

March 31,

2017

2016

(Unaudited) Cash Flows from Operating Activities:





Net earnings $ 74.4

$ 71.7 Adjustments to reconcile net earnings to net cash provided by operating activities:





Depreciation and amortization 20.3

21.3 Deferred income taxes 13.6

14.4 Provision for doubtful accounts 5.9

4.1 Share-based compensation 7.2

7.2 Excess tax benefit on exercise of share-based awards -

(0.1) Changes in operating assets and liabilities, excluding the impact of acquisitions:





Accounts receivable 50.3

44.2 Other assets 65.1

90.0 Other liabilities (45.8)

(88.2) Cash provided by operating activities 191.0

164.6







Cash Flows from Investing Activities:





Capital expenditures (10.8)

(16.6) Acquisitions of businesses, net of cash acquired (11.7)

(13.8) Proceeds from the sale of investments, property and equipment 0.7

0.4 Cash used in investing activities (21.8)

(30.0)







Cash Flows from Financing Activities:





Net change in short-term borrowings (3.6)

(9.9) Repayments of long-term debt (0.1)

(5.9) Payments of contingent consideration for acquisitions (12.9)

- Proceeds from share-based awards and other equity transactions 33.8

2.4 Other share-based award transactions (15.8)

(3.2) Repurchases of common stock (57.0)

(117.7) Cash used in financing activities (55.6)

(134.3)







Effect of exchange rate changes on cash 12.3

16.8 Change in cash and cash equivalents 125.9

17.1







Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 598.5

730.5 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $724.4

$747.6

SOURCE ManpowerGroup

Related Links

http://www.manpowergroup.com


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Browse 79 market data Tables and 62 Figures spread through 162 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Metamaterial Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/metamaterials-market-139795737.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The major factors driving the growth of the metamaterial market include variety in design functionalities, anti-glare coating applications, and invisibility cloak for stealth aircraft.

Communication antenna expected to have the largest market size by 2025

Communication antenna accounted for the largest share of the metamaterial market based on application segment in 2016. The growth of this market can be attributed to the usage of antenna for major communication applications such as satellite communication, Wi-Fi routers and radar communication.

Download PDF Brochure @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=139795737

The metamaterial market for frequency selective surface to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period

The metamaterial market for frequency selective surface based on material segment is likely to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period. This is mainly because of the major interest from the defense vertical for this material type, which can be used to create radar covers called radomes.

The metamaterial market for the automotive vertical to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period

The metamaterial market for automotive vertical is expected to grow at the highest rate between 2017 and 2025. This high market growth rate can be attributed to the growing usage of communication antenna applications in the connected cars concept.

Americas likely to hold the largest share of the metamaterial market during the forecast period

Americas is expected to hold the largest share of the metamaterial market during the forecast period. The high growth can be attributed to the increasing demand from the aerospace and defense vertical. Government agencies, such as DOD (Department of Defense), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), are funding research universities and industry players for the development of metamaterial-based antennas.

Inquiry Before Buying @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=139795737

The report also profiles the most promising players in this market. The competitive landscape of the market presents an interesting picture where a large number of players have become a force to reckon with. The key players in this market are Kymeta Corporation (US), Metamaterial Technologies, Inc. (Canada), Phoebus Optoelectronics LLC (US), Multiwave Technologies AG (Switzerland), MediWise Ltd. (UK), and MetaShield LLC. (US).

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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
Channeling the original daredevil Evel Knievel, who made his first of many death defying jumps near Alex's hometown of Ephrata, Washington. Alex Harvill will attempt to smash Robbie Maddison's current record of 351 feet by a monster 50 feet. The attempt will be aired live at the Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, May 7th. Alex Harvill said, "I feel great about going to Talladega to do this jump. Talladega is the biggest and fastest, and it's only fitting that I'm jumping the furthest at that track."

Aboard his modified Suzuki RM-Z450 motocross bike, Harvill plans to tear down the runway launching off the 88 foot ramp at 105 miles per hour travelling 400 feet and then precision landing on the super narrow 30-foot-wide ramp on the other side.

About Monster Energy

Based in Corona, California, Monster Energy is the leading marketer and distributor of energy drinks and alternative beverages. Refusing to acknowledge the traditional, Monster Energy supports the scene and sport. Whether motocross, off-road, NASCAR, MMA, BMX, surf, snowboard, ski, skateboard, or the rock and roll lifestyle, Monster Energy is a brand that believes in authenticity and the core of what its sports, athletes and musicians represent. More than a drink, it's the way of life lived by athletes, sports, bands, believers and fans. See more about Monster Energy including all of its drinks at www.monsterenergy.com .

SOURCE Monster Energy Company

Related Links

http://monsterenergy.com


JUNO BEACH, Fla., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP) has posted its first-quarter 2017 financial results in a news release available on the partnership's website by accessing the following link: www.NextEraEnergyPartners.com/Earnings.

Jim Robo, chairman and chief executive officer of NextEra Energy Partners, John Ketchum, chief financial officer of NextEra Energy Partners, and other members of the senior management team will discuss the first-quarter 2017 financial results during an investor presentation to be webcast live, beginning at 9 a.m. ET today. The listen-only webcast will be available on the website of NextEra Energy Partners by accessing the following link: www.NextEraEnergyPartners.com/Earnings. Also discussed during the investor presentation will be financial results for NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE). A replay will be available for 90 days by accessing the same link as listed above.

NextEra Energy Partners, LP

NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP) is a growth-oriented limited partnership formed by NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE) to acquire, manage and own contracted clean energy projects with stable, long-term cash flows. Headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida, NextEra Energy Partners owns interests in wind and solar projects in North America, as well as natural gas infrastructure assets in Texas. The renewable energy projects are fully contracted, use industry-leading technology and are located in regions that are favorable for generating energy from the wind and sun. The seven natural gas pipelines in the portfolio are all strategically located, serving power producers and municipalities in South Texas, processing plants and producers in the Eagle Ford Shale, and commercial and industrial customers in the Houston area. The NET Mexico Pipeline, the largest pipeline in the portfolio, provides a critical source of natural gas transportation for low-cost, U.S.-sourced shale gas to Mexico. For more information about NextEra Energy Partners, please visit: www.NextEraEnergyPartners.com.

SOURCE NextEra Energy Partners, LP

Related Links

http://www.nexteraenergypartners.com


GUANGZHOU, China, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 25th and 27th, Guangzhou will hold the Fortune Global Forum 2017 Symposium in Tokyo, Japan and Singapore respectively. Guangzhou will be sending invitations again, inviting guests from the world's top 500 enterprises to attend the Fortune Global Forum 2017, which will be held in Guangzhou this December. Predictably, with Japan and Singapore as Guangzhou's important partners in Asia, the symposiums will attract much attention.

As the birthplace of the Maritime Silk Road in the east, Guangzhou is engaged in economic and trade exchanges frequently with Asian countries along the Maritime Silk Road since ancient times. Opening-up and innovation, the lifeblood of Guangzhou, enabled the city's strong economic growth. Guangzhou is becoming one of the cities with the most investment value in the world.

For nearly three decades, Guangzhou has been the third largest city in China, following Shanghai and Beijing. In 2016, the city's Gross Domestic Product reached about 2 trillion yuan, equivalent to that of Singapore and neighboring Hong Kong. As the capital city of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou is at the core of the Pearl River Delta, one of the most dynamic economic areas in the world.

To reach the goal of "establishing open, loose and free innovative ecology", Guangzhou municipal government is increasing its fiscal spending on the innovation of science and technology, reaching 11 billion yuan in 2017. Besides, the city is improving its commercial environment, emphasizing on the rule of law, market-oriented system and international business-friendly environment.

According to the city's latest plan, it would become "the nation's innovation hub with global influence by 2020".

In fact, Guangzhou is one of the most business-friendly cities in China, topping the Forbes list in this category five times over the past six years.

To encourage the innovation of enterprises, Guangzhou is streamlining government administration and delegating power to the lower level of government. Last month, Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics contractor and a major supplier of Apple, began construction of a new panel factory in Guangzhou's Zengcheng District, with an investment of 61 billion yuan. It only takes 50 days from project negotiation to sign the contract, and 60 days from the contract signed to start the project, which is hailed as "China speed" by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

"It will not only be a panel processing factory, but a concept of building an ecological town featuring high-end technology in the city of Guangzhou," said Terry Gou, CEO and chairman of Foxconn Technology Group.

A favorable business environment attracts foreign investors enormously. According to the data from the Commerce Department of Guangzhou, newly established foreign-invested enterprises in 2016 reached 1757, with year-on-year growth of 23 percent. The actual use of foreign capital reached 5.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 5.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

In the study report Chinese Cities of Opportunity 2017, which is jointly published by PwC and China Development Research Foundation in March this year, Guangzhou ranked first for two consecutive years as the city with the most opportunities. Guangzhou's recognition by many industry giants and international organizations is rooted in the city's ambition for innovation and opening up, presenting a powerful attraction for high-end resources, and thus creates huge investment opportunities.

SOURCE Guangzhou Municipal Government
MJ Freeway, with subcontractor Oracle, to implement Pennsylvania contract, bringing together a cannabis software company and mainstream technology company

DENVER, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MJ Freeway, the cannabis industry's leading provider of seed-to-sale traceability solutions, has been awarded the contract from the Pennsylvania Department of Health to implement Leaf Data Systems  a secure, web-based regulatory platform developed by MJ Freeway to enable governments to effectively and efficiently monitor compliance by licensed cannabis businesses. The Pennsylvania tracking platform will feature functionality by MJ Freeway's subcontractor Oracle, the leading provider of fully integrated and comprehensive cloud applications.

MJ Freeway pioneered seed-to-sale cannabis tracking in 2010  the model on which Leaf Data Systems is based  and now provides tracking technology to cannabis businesses in 23 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Europe, South America, and Australia. The Leaf Data Systems platform has already been implemented as the State of Nevada's cannabis traceability system. Seed-to-sale tracking ensures public, patient, and product safety through electronic data capture throughout the cannabis supply chain, including:

Complete chain-of-custody for cannabis products to ensure product accountability and safety

Reports and alerts to protect the public from unlawful diversion and identify where to strategically deploy enforcement efforts, saving regulators valuable time and resources

Patient and medical professional registration technology that tracks registrations for patients, caregivers, and physicians, enabled through MJ Freeway's relationship with Oracle

"Implementing and sustaining a robust and capable cannabis electronic track-and-trace system is vital to ensuring a state's successful medical cannabis industry. We are eager for the Fall 2017 implementation of our system, which we have tailored to support the sophisticated medical cannabis market that is expected to expand in Pennsylvania," said Amy Poinsett, MJ Freeway's Co-founder and CEO. "It's a great privilege to serve the citizens of Nevada and now Pennsylvania in this important work. We're proud of the momentum we are gaining with our government offerings and will do everything in our power to help Pennsylvania regulators ensure this industry matures safely and responsibly."

Karen Murphy, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, said, "This is an important step forward in ensuring that we can get medical marijuana to patients who desperately need it. This contract serves two important functions for the program: tracking medical marijuana from seed-to-sale; and creating a registry for patients, caregivers, and practitioners to participate in the program."

Under Pennsylvania's cannabis laws, an inventory tracking system is required to be used by all cannabis operators. System implementation will begin in October 2017 and is expected to be fully implemented in early 2018. The system will include in-depth training workshops to prepare cannabis operators for successful use. The companies have also engaged with Pennsylvania businesses to source local talent for on-site training, tier-one support and business analysis.

Click here to view today's announcement from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

About MJ Freeway: MJ Freeway is the industry-leading software solution for cannabis businesses having processed more than $5B in sales with clients in 23 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Europe, South America, and Australia. Founded in 2010 by technologists creating tech specifically for cannabis businesses, MJ Freeway's tracking software includes patent-pending inventory control and grow management applications to streamline workflow and increase efficiency. MJ Freeway's Leaf Data Systems software solution enables governments to track cannabis plants from seed-to-sale and ensure patient, public, and product safety. MJ Freeway also offers a complete suite of professional consulting services for cannabis businesses. For more information, call 888-932-6537 or visit mjfreeway.com.



Media Contact:

Lance Boehmer

720-961-5030

[email protected]

SOURCE MJ Freeway

Related Links

https://mjfreeway.com


HONOLULU, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Park Service has selected Polynesian Adventure Tours to receive a 10-year concession contract to operate guided vehicle tours at Haleakala National Park, effective January 1, 2018. The announcement is particularly significant because the number of tour companies authorized to conduct guided tours within the park will be reduced from the current 17 operators to only four companies. Polynesian Adventure Tours is the largest of the four companies awarded contracts and has been operating tours at Haleakala National Park since 1987.

A year ago the National Park Service announced the upcoming reduction in the number of tour operator concession contracts as a means of improving visitor experiences and protecting the park environment. The Service released a prospectus outlining requirements for companies interested in operating Haleakala tours. Selection factors included education of guests on the importance of preserving natural and cultural resources, operational safety, relevant experience, and financial capability. The scoring of the Polynesian Adventure Tours proposal placed it among the four highest of all the proposals submitted by entities seeking concession contracts.

Sandra Weir, President of Polynesian Adventure Tours, said, "We're elated and honored to have been selected. We also feel humbled with being entrusted as one of the few operators to share the wonders of Haleakala National Park on our guided tours. The contract is clearly an expression of confidence in our company and we'll work to ensure we meet all expectations of the Service and the public."

Haleakala National Park Superintendent Natalie Gates quoted in the Haleakala National Park News Release of April 18, said, "We believe the selected concessioners will do an excellent job providing memorable visitor experiences while protecting park resources. We look forward to working with them." An evaluation panel of National Park Service staff recommended the companies to the Pacific West Regional Director of the National Park Service who made the selection. Haleakala National Park employees were not involved in the selection.

Polynesian Adventure Tours is the sole licensee of Gray Line Tours and provides quality sightseeing tours and ground transportation for the Hawaiian Islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island of Hawaii. The company was founded 40 years ago and continues to grow as it explores new ways of bringing the excitement and beauty of Hawaii to its guests. Along with its daily island sightseeing tours, the company operates single-day tours between islands, including Oahu-originating tours to Haleakala National Park and Hana, Maui. For more information visit www.polyad.com.

CONTACT

Lynley Minamoto

Polynesian Adventure Tours  Gray Line Hawaii

(808) 833-3000

[email protected]

SOURCE Polynesian Adventure Tours - Gray Line Hawaii

Related Links

http://www.polyad.com


"As a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and as a leader committed to service, Valerie Jarrett embodies the attributes that inspire Spelman women," said Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., president of Spelman. "She is adept at leading change. A skilled collaborator, she is able to balance disparate interests and points of view in order to effect meaningful change. We are honored to have Ms. Jarrett as our 130th Commencement speaker."

Raised in London, Chicago, and Shiraz, Iran, Jarrett oversaw the White House offices of public engagement and international affairs; and she also chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls during the Obama administration. Her role involved mobilizing elected officials, business and community leaders, and diverse groups of advocates behind efforts to expand and strengthen access to the middle class, boost American businesses and the U.S. economy, and champion equality and opportunity for all Americans. Jarrett helped President Obama develop a broad coalition of partners to execute a robust agenda through her oversight of the Administration's advocacy for workplace policies that empower working families; leadership of campaigns to reform the U.S. criminal justice system; and efforts to end sexual assault and reduce gun violence.

Prior to joining the Obama administration, she was co-chair of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team and held leadership positions for The Habitat Company, Chicago's Transit Board and Department of Planning and Development, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Jarrett earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University and Juris Doctor from University of Michigan Law School.

Honorary Degree Recipient: Katherine G. Johnson, Physicist and Mathematician Katherine G. Johnson is a pioneer in American space history. The physicist and mathematician made contributions to the United State's aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, Johnson received bachelor's degrees in mathematics and French from West Virginia State University before conducting technical work at NASA that spanned decades. During this time, she calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for NASA flights from Mercury though the Space Shuttle programs. Her calculations were critical to the success of these programs, including the NASA missions of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon. Johnson also executed calculations for plans for a mission to Mars. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Baccalaureate Service Andrea C. White, Ph.D., associate professor of theology and culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York, will serve as the Baccalaureate speaker for the class of 2017. Dr. White is executive director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion and a founding member of The Carter Center's Scholars in Action which addresses gender-based violence against women and girls. Her research specializes in womanist theology, critical theory and postmodern religious thought. Prior to her appointment at Union, Dr. White served on the faculty at Emory University's Candler School of Theology and the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. An ordained American Baptist minister who served as pastor of Aldrich Baptist Church, she earned her doctorate in theology from The University of Chicago Divinity School, masters of divinity degree with a concentration in philosophy of religion from Yale Divinity School, and a bachelor's degree with honors in philosophy from Oberlin College. The Baccalaureate service will be held Saturday, May 20, 2017, at 9 a.m. on the Spelman Oval.

To request media credentials, email [email protected]. For details about Commencement media coverage, click here.

To learn more about Spelman's 130th Commencement, click here.

About Spelman College

Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a highly selective, liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the College's picturesque campus is home to 2,100 students. Outstanding alumnae include Children's Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman, Sam's Club CEO Rosalind Brewer, Broadway producer Alia Jones, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman's first alumna President Audrey Forbes Manley, Harvard University Professor Evelynn Hammonds, author Pearl Cleage and actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson. For more information, visit www.spelman.edu.

SOURCE Spelman College

Related Links

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The expected one million visitors to the 17th International Automobile Industry Exhibition in Shanghai this April will be able to view the company's 18 inch ProteanDRIVE product on a BJ80 PHEV being shown by Beijing Automotive, and on a London Taxi EV Demonstrator being shown by VIE Science and Technology.

Both exhibits are part of Protean Electric's long term strategic and product development partnerships with Beijing Automotive and VIE Science and Technology.

China Engineering Sciences Academic and world-renowned vehicle dynamics expert, Professor Guo Kong-hui, exclaimed when he rode on the BJ80 PHEV last year, "This pioneering demonstrator has combined a traditional powertrain with in-wheel motors. The integration has solved a few vehicle control challenges and is a world-first in applying distributed traction control on SUV. I look forward to the commercialization of this technology."

KY Chan, CEO of Protean Electric said, "Auto Shanghai is recognized as a must-see industry event to witness innovation in action. Having our ProteanDRIVE in-wheel motors featured on multiple vehicles is not only a strong confirmation of our development strategy but also the growing acceptance and importance of in-wheel motors in the automotive market."

Wang Zhang, Party Secretary and President of BAIC Group SUV Business Segment said, "Our partnership with Protean Electric on this in-wheel motor driven BJ80 PHEV demonstrates our leadership in developing innovative new energy vehicles."

Leal Jiang Chen, President of VIE Group commented, "We are delighted to have the opportunity to demonstrate our technological capabilities and partnership with Protean Electric on such an iconic vehicle, a London Taxi, and at such an important global exhibition."

About Protean and the ProteanDRIVE In-wheel Electric-drive Solution

Protean Electric is a leading electric drive technology company that designs, develops and manufactures ProteanDRIVE in-wheel motors, a fully integrated in-wheel drive solution. Protean Electric's technology is strategically positioned to play a major role in the hybrid and electric vehicle market by offering a combination of packaging advantages, new vehicle design opportunities, performance benefits and cost savings.

Protean maintains operations in the United Kingdom, Shanghai, China and the United States, and has a manufacturing plant in Tianjin, China. For more information, visit www.proteanelectric.com.

About VIE

VIE (SZSE: 002590) is a leading automotive parts supplier in R&D, manufacturing and sales of automotive chassis control system for both passenger and commercial vehicle. VIE products include the front and rear suspension system, vehicle electronics control system, pneumatic and hydraulic brake systems, clutch operating system and engineering plastic parts. VIE has recently broadened into wireless charging, ADAS and electric motor brakes. http://www.vie.com.cn/en

About Beijing Automotive Group

Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd. (BAIC Group) is a Top 5 automotive groups in China. Its headquarters is located in Beijing and its Turin Styling Center in Italy, BAIC Group has production bases across China. BAIC Group currently has around 110,000 employees. It has the most comprehensive portfolio of products, covering a full range from passenger to commercial vehicles. BAIC Group ranks No. 160 in the Fortune Global 500 in 2016. http://en.baicgroup.com.cn/

SOURCE Protean Electric

Related Links

http://www.proteanelectric.com


NEW YORK, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In a strong display of the recent success of Stroock's national Real Estate Practice, Real Estate Forum has recognized five separate transactions in which the firm played a pivotal advisory role in the just-published "Best of 2016: Deals, Dealmakers, Places & Placemakers" special issue.

Drawn from hundreds of submissions and covered transactions in the Forum's national database, the winning transactions "truly had an enormous impact on the industry, their firms and their local and regional markets," the editors noted in announcing their selections. The winners are being showcased in Real Estate Forum's Annual Review & Forecast Issue, as well as its sibling online news site GlobeSt.com.

The Stroock deals featured were noteworthy for representing three key markets where the firm is based  New York, Washington, DC and Miami. They include several of the largest property transactions recorded in 2016. And they reflect Stroock's representation of important constituencies across the U.S. real estate landscape  owner/developers, as well as private equity investors and key commercial lenders.

"We are thrilled that Real Estate Forum has called out five of our transactions for its selection of the best deals in the U.S. in 2016," said Jeff Keitelman, Stroock's co-managing partner and co-chair of the Real Estate Practice. "The matters chosen are an excellent reflection of the elite caliber of work our group is handling nationally for clients, in financing, developing and selling major real estate assets. They also comprise a good snapshot of how broad-based our practice is and the types of projects on which we advise  from trophy office towers and mixed-use developments to industrial parks and multifamily residences."

A summary of Stroock's transactions contributing to Real Estate Forum's "Best of 2016" include:

Stroock provides strategic transactional, regulatory and litigation advice to advance the business objectives of leading financial institutions, multinational corporations and entrepreneurial businesses in the U.S. and globally. Stroock's award-winning national Real Estate practice handles some of the most complex, high-profile real estate transactions in the country. With a rich history dating back 140 years, the firm has offices in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Miami. For more information, visit www.stroock.com.

Contact: Wayne Kessler, Stroock

212.806.5448 [email protected]

SOURCE Stroock

Related Links

http://www.stroock.com


VANCOUVER, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Incorporated (NYSE and TSX: RBA), the world's largest industrial auctioneer and a leading equipment distributor, invites interested parties to participate in its first quarter 2017 earnings conference call, occurring on Friday, May 5, 2017 at 11:00 am Eastern time / 8:00 am Pacific time / 4:00 pm BST. During the call company executives will discuss Ritchie Bros.' earning results and answer questions from analysts and institutional investors. The Company's first quarter 2017 earnings results will be released the evening before, on May 4, 2017, after NYSE and TSX markets close.

Analysts and institutional investors may participate via conference call, using the following dial-in information:

1-888-231-8191 (toll-free North America )

) 0-800-051-7107 (toll-free UK)

1-647-427-7450 ( Toronto & overseas long-distance)

Please ask to participate in Ritchie Bros.' first quarter 2017 earnings call, and quote conference ID

5374723 if prompted.

Media and other interested parties may listen to the conference call via webcast, by selecting the first quarter 2017 earnings call webcast link at https://investor.ritchiebros.com.

Please note that there will be presentation slides accompanying the earnings call. The slides will be displayed live on the webcast, and will be available to download via the webcast player or at https://investor.ritchiebros.com/events-and-presentations the morning of the call.

A replay of the conference call can be accessed after 2:00 pm Eastern time / 11:00 am Pacific time / 7:00 pm BST until June 2, 2017 at 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056 (using passcode 5374723#).

About Ritchie Bros.

Established in 1958, Ritchie Bros. (NYSE and TSX: RBA) is the world's largest industrial auctioneer, and one of the world's largest sellers of used equipment for the construction, transportation, agriculture, energy, mining, forestry and other industries. Ritchie Bros.TM asset management and disposition solutions include live unreserved public auctions with on-site and online bidding; EquipmentOneTM, an online auction marketplace; MascusTM, a global online equipment listing service; private negotiated sales through Ritchie Bros. Private Treaty; and a range of ancillary services, including financing and leasing through Ritchie Bros. Financial Services. Ritchie Bros. has operations in more than 15 countries, including 45 auction sites worldwide. Learn more at rbauction.com, EquipmentOne.com, mascus.com, rbauction.com/privatetreaty and rbauction.com/financing.

SOURCE Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers

Related Links

http://www.rbauction.com


NEW YORK, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Rivel Research Group, a global leader in investor market research and analytics, today revealed key findings from its most recent survey of the global buy-side. Between January and March 2017, Rivel conducted 336 telephone interviews among an internationally representative sample of institutional investors domiciled in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The study reveals the top five biggest risks to the appeal of equity investments today.

Top Five Biggest Risks to Appeal of Equity Investments Today (Among the global buy-side, March 2017, n=336)

Opposition to international trade agreements 74% US protectionism 73% Poor economic growth in China 59% Weakening of the EU economic order 58% Currency risk 56%

Compared to a similar study completed just prior to the November 2016 US presidential election, investor confidence that economic conditions will improve over the next six months has more than doubled  rising from 25% of this global group in late October to 51% currently. An unusually large turnaround over such a short period of time. But at the same moment, investors the world over point out that the biggest risks to the appeal of equity investments today are two Trump-inspired trends: Opposition to international trade agreements and US protectionism. Clearly, uncertainty is the constant companion of these seemingly conflicting results.

"We are pleased and proud to contribute to the greater understanding of investment trends as we embark on one of the most controversial presidencies in modern times," said Brian Rivel, President of Rivel Research Group. "We will be monitoring the institutional investment community's views on these matters throughout the course of 2017 and beyond. This study is a useful benchmark against which investor sentiment can be monitored and provides a high-level view to help nuance companies' investor messaging in uncertain times."

For more information on the study, please contact Jim Peebles at [email protected] or (203) 803-1772.

About Rivel Research Group

Since 1991, Rivel Research Group has been the global leader in perception studies, research and predictive analytics within the investment community. We help public companies maximize long-term valuation through best practices in investor relations and corporate governance. With more than 600 clients on six continents, our methodology of in-depth interviews, measurements and analysis provide our clients with meaningful and sentiment-changing qualitative and quantitative intelligence. Additional information can be found at http://www.rivel.com.

SOURCE Rivel Research Group

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http://www.rivel.com


RACINE, Wis., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SC Johnson, maker of trusted brands like Glade, Raid and Baygon , Mr Musculo and OFF! today announced SC Johnson Mexico has been recognized as a 2017 Best Workplace by the Great Place to Work Institute. The organizations earned the no. 14 spot in the ranking, which is the sixteenth consecutive year it's been recognized on the Institute's annual Best Workplace list.

"I've said before that SC Johnson's success is built by the talented and committed people in this company. Our Mexico team exemplifies how we strive to create a great place to work in which people can thrive and be inspired," said Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. "We congratulate the team on receiving this honor for the sixteenth time in as many years. It is an extraordinary accomplishment."

The Mexico team joins SC Johnson Venezuela, France, Germany, Poland and Greece on the 2017 list of Best Workplaces.

The Best Workplaces list is the world's largest annual study of workplace excellence. The ranking is determined by the results of an employee opinion survey and information provided about company culture, programs and policies.

In the United States, SC Johnson has been included 28 times in Working Mother magazine's list of the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" and last year received a perfect score of 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index.

Also in 2016, SC Johnson was named one of the 25 World's Best Multinational Workplaces by the Great Place to Work Institute, earning the 20th spot in the ranking. It was the company's fifth year to be included on the list.

About SC Johnson

SC Johnson is a family company dedicated to innovative, high-quality products, excellence in the workplace and a long-term commitment to the environment and the communities in which it operates. Based in the USA, the company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household cleaning products and products for home storage, air care, pest control and shoe care, as well as professional products. It markets such well-known brands as GLADE, KIWI, OFF!, PLEDGE, RAID, SCRUBBING BUBBLES, SHOUT, WINDEX and ZIPLOC in the U.S. and beyond, with brands marketed outside the U.S. including AUTAN, TANA, BAMA, BAYGON, BRISE, KABIKILLER, KLEAR, MR MUSCLE and RIDSECT. The 131-year-old company, which generates $10 billion in sales, employs approximately 13,000 people globally and sells products in virtually every country around the world. www.scjohnson.com

SOURCE SC Johnson

Related Links

http://www.scjohnson.com


ATLANTA, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than 220 Spelman College students, representing 25 academic disciplines, will present their undergraduate research and scholarly findings in STEM, the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts during Research Day, Friday, April 21, 2017. This year's theme is "Inquire  Discover  Imagine  Explore  Create."

Spelman College 2017 Research Day

Established in 1989, Research Day will feature oral and poster presentations that are the result of an independent thesis, an original group research project, faculty-led research and scholarship, an apprentice in a lab or on a project, or a performance piece. Students will delve into a variety of topics from analyses of Black Twitter, to the economics of food discourse and Black women, to identity and career decisions. The all-day event will culminate with an awards ceremony to recognize students and faculty advisors.



Research Day is co-chaired by Dolores Bradley Brennan, Ph.D., interim vice provost, director of undergraduate research and professor of the Department of Psychology, and Marionette Holmes, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Economics and associate professor of economics.

Dr. Holmes noted, "Spelman trains our students to operationalize research questions to generate results that are recognized in the general scholar community. Research Day showcases this process."

Research Day is free and open to the public. For more information, visit Research Day.

WHO:

The plenary speaker is Hazel D. Dean, Sc. D., M.P.H., deputy director of the National Center for HIV/AIDs, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.

Spelman President Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., will moderate a panel discussion with the following faculty members: T. Lang, M.F.A., chair of the Department of Dance, associate professor and director of Spelman Dance Theatre; Tiffany Oliver, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology; Valerie Jones Taylor, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology; and Charissa Threat, Ph.D., assistant professor of history.

WHY:

Research Day is an opportunity for Spelman students to demonstrate their creativity, innovation, scholarship and critical thinking skills, explained Dr. Brennan. "Not only is it an important academic experience, but it is an essential professional development exercise, as students learn to discuss their work and its significance. Research Day creates an atmosphere that is similar, in many ways, to what students would experience at a professional conference in their area of study or in a given profession. When graduate schools and employers see that Spelman students have experience presenting their work, they know our students have a particular set of skills that set them apart, such as methods of inquiry and analysis, or the ability to communicate effectively.

"We want our students to be leaders in research and scholarship because their unique voice is needed for us as a society to be better informed," Dr. Brennan added. "In many instances, Spelman women are asking questions or addressing issues that only they will, or can. As a result, we will be treated to a host of presentations during Research Day that focus on the views, biology, traditions, expertise or experiences of Black women in the U.S. and around the world. I am thrilled at how Spelman prepares our students to articulate their research questions from the unique perspective of a Black woman."

WHEN:

Friday, April 21, 2017

8 a.m.  5 p.m.

WHERE:

Spelman College

GPS Address: 440 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310

Research Day will be held at various locations across campus.

MEDIA NOTE:

Spelman College students and faculty will be available for on-site interviews. To request media credentials, email [email protected] or call 404-270-5892.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Follow the events of the day at #SpelmanResearchDay.

About Spelman College

Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a highly selective, liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the College's picturesque campus is home to 2,100 students. Outstanding alumnae include Children's Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman, former Sam's Club CEO Rosalind Brewer, Broadway producer Alia Jones, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman's first alumna President Audrey Forbes Manley, Harvard University Professor Evelynn Hammonds, author Pearl Cleage and actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson. For more information, visit www.spelman.edu.

SOURCE Spelman College

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FIREBAUGH, Calif., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sunvapor and Horizon Nut jointly announced on the eve of Earth Day that they are teaming up to demonstrate new technology that transforms solar energy into heat that can be used for all of the food industry's needs like steam pasteurization, drying, blanching, cleaning, and roasting.

The disruptively low-cost solar thermal collector technology generates industrial process heat cost-competitively with natural gas.

"We are thrilled to collaborate with industry leader Horizon Nut," said Dr. Philip Gleckman, Sunvapor's CEO. "The collaboration represents a powerful validation of the need for a cost-effective alternative to fuels for industrial heating," he added.

The consumption of natural gas in California for the food processing industry alone is over 11 TWh per year. That's the energy equivalent of burning 300 million gallons of gasoline each year. The potential carbon emissions reductions are significant  equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road.

"We are very eager to find a renewable alternative to fossil fuels so that we can produce more and save money. Expanding production, which is limited by emissions, is important to the economy of the region which suffers from low employment. We are excited to team with Sunvapor so that we can have a front row seat to this important technology development for our industry," said Andrew Howe, Director of Operations and General Manager of Horizon Nut.

California State Assemblyman Jim Patterson is Vice Chair of the Utilities and Energy Committee, and represents the 23rd district adjacent to Firebaugh and home to many food processors.

"This is exactly the kind of breakthrough we need: technology, once it is mature, that can stand on its own without government subsidies. The opportunity to build a solar steam economy in the region has the potential to create thousands of good jobs and improve the air quality," said Assemblyman Patterson.

The U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources before the end of the decade. Learn more at energy.gov/sunshot.

About Sunvapor

Sunvapor, Inc. develops sustainable energy technology solutions for the Food Processing and related industries. Sunvapor is leading a project to displace natural gas heating and coal-fired electricity with solar energy for heating and cooling in the nation's largest greenhouse.

About Horizon Nut

Horizon Nut is comprised of forty pistachio growers from Madera County to Kern County. They process the nuts they grow at their plants in Lost Hills, Tulare, and Firebaugh. Their combined operations makes them the third largest pistachio handler in the State.

For more information: www.sunvapor.net

Media Contact: Philip Gleckman, Sunvapor, Inc., [email protected], mobile (650) 625-7818.

SOURCE Sunvapor and Horizon Nut
DENVER, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- William Howard University offers what is believed to be the only accredited Doctor of Education Program in the United States with a full concentration in Charter School Administration.

For the first time, applications for the annual Roger J. Duthoy Scholarship will be limited to employees of appropriately authorized public charter schools . This 17th Annual award is valued in excess of $15,000.00 and will include all tuition and related fees in the school's nationally-accredited, independent study Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) with a concentration in Charter School Administration Program.

Dr. Barry P. Resnick, Dean of Taft's Graduate School of Education, has commented, "Charter Schools are increasing in number and size. With the growing concern of public school education in general, their numbers are expected to exponentially increase in the next decade. The responsibilities of managing a charter school are dramatically different than administering a regular public school. Charter school administrators require many of the same skills as small business owners  skills not taught in traditional Ed.D. programs. By providing this concentration in Charter School Administration, we hope to encourage the growth of choice in public schools."

All coursework in the Program is presented in a distance learning modality requiring no classroom attendance. Accordingly, students may keep their full-time positions and live anywhere with Internet access. Students may complete the Program in as little as 27 months or may take as long as seven years.

Additional information on William Howard Taft University and the scholarship opportunity as well as application procedures can be found by reviewing the institution's website at www.taft.edu/duthoy.htm or contact William Howard Taft University at (877) 894-TAFT (8238).

All applications and supporting materials must be received by the University on or before August 15, 2017 .

About William Howard Taft University For over three decades William Howard Taft University (www.taft.edu) has offered distance learning graduate degree programs to students throughout the world. Presently the University offers nationally accredited programs in business, education, and taxation. Taft University is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission. The Distance Education Accrediting Commission is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a recognized accrediting agency.

Contact: Eileen Padden

303-867-1155

[email protected]

SOURCE William Howard Taft University

Related Links

https://www.taft.edu


COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NetJets aircraft technicians and related employees represented by the Teamsters Airline Division and Teamsters Local 284 are calling on the leaders of the company to stop denying workers pay increases and provide the job security that comes with a viable in-house maintenance system.

The NetJets workers sent a letter to Warren Buffett, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Berkshire Hathaway, and Greg Abel, President, CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, expressing the urgent need to address their concerns. NetJets, a Columbus-based business jet operator, is owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A and BRK.B).

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Teamsters Airline Division and Teamsters Local 284 represent mechanics, maintenance control, aircraft fuelers, aircraft cleaners and stock clerks.

A copy of the letter was also sent to Berkshire Hathaway board member and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the other Berkshire Hathaway board members, and Adam Johnson, CEO of NetJets, Inc.

In 2015, NetJets pilots picketed Abel's office as part of their labor dispute. While NetJets mechanics, fuelers, cleaners and stock clerks have not received a raise since 2011, Fortune magazine reported that Abel received $17.5 million in pay last year.

"It's only right that when our members' concerns over high levels of maintenance subcontracting and no pay raises fall on management's deaf ears, they address them directly to Mr. Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway," said Chris Moore, Chairman of the Teamsters Aviation Mechanics Coalition. "Their letter also drew attention to analyst reports warning of a shortage of qualified aircraft technicians that will start to impact fractional aviation operations like NetJets. NetJets' refusal to give its own safety workers a raise for six years threatens to drive away the small number of technicians that are actually employed by the company. Tens of millions of dollars in executive compensation only adds insult to injury."

NetJets Aviation, Inc. and NetJets Sales, Inc. only employ 111 aircraft mechanics to work on its fleet of approximately 400 aircraft. By comparison, major airlines often employ up to 10 mechanics for every one aircraft.

The letter also accused NetJets of trying to "drive away qualified mechanics and support workers" in favor of subcontracting critical repair work on NetJets aircraft, despite customer expectations and workers' job security. Highly skilled in-house NetJets aircraft technicians and maintenance support workers say they are forced to compete for work performing critical maintenance with subcontractors.

"Our highly skilled technicians and support workers informed Berkshire Hathaway that NetJets is demanding that they accept wages that are far below those of their peers, including airlines that Mr. Buffett has a stake in, such as United, Continental, American, Delta and Southwest," said Local 284 President Mark Vandak. "NetJets is even demanding that the workforce give up their one and only paid personal day. There is outrage on the shop floor over this greed and mistreatment."

Contract negotiations resume on May 17 in Columbus.

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:

Kara Deniz, (202) 624-6911

[email protected]

SOURCE Teamsters Local 284

Related Links

http://www.teamster.org


SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Telairity, a global leader in encoding technology, today announced an upgrade to its flagship H.264/AVC contribution video encoder, the BE8600. A versatile Go-anywhere, Do-anything real-time encoder, the system is designed for backhaul, broadcasting, cable casting and IPTV.

In keeping with its status as one of the industry's premier H.264 contribution encoders, the BE8600 now complements its previous 8-bit 4:2:2 encoding mode with a new 10-bit 4:2:2 mode.

The Telairity BE8700 distribution encoder. Configurable from 1 to 4 channels, with multiplexed or separate ASI outputs, and dual multiplexed Gigabit Ethernet outputs. Channels auto-configure as HD or SD, according to source input. The Telairity BE8600 contribution encoder. Single channel, 4:2:0 HD/SD modes for high-quality, low-bitrate backhaul transmission over crowded urban airways or direct-to-viewer transmission; 8-bit/10-bit 4:2:2 HD modes for source editing and archiving

4:2:2 encoding preserves high color fidelity in source video by keeping twice as many color bits as are retained in 4:2:0 compression. Holding other factors constant, the extra "chroma" bits boost bitrates by one-third. Raising RGB (Red-Green-Blue) primary color channels from 8-bits to 10-bits multiplies the available color palette by a factor of 64, from about 16M "mixed" colors to over a billion. This improvement requires a further 25% increase in bitrates.

For example, a 15Mbps 4:2:0 stream needs to be raised to 20Mbps to accommodate the additional chroma bits retained in 4:2:2 encoding, then further increased to 25Mbps to enable "giga-color" 10-bit mode.

According to Harlan McGhan, vice president of marketing for Telairity, this latest improvement in the BE8600 is just the next step in an on-going progression of upgrades to Telairity's NexGen encoder line.

"Our NexGen BE8600 system was designed with a lot of headroom, in the expectation that it would continue to be enhanced over its lifetime. From the customer viewpoint, the best thing about this steady stream of improvements is our policy of making all new features, like 4:2:2 10-bit mode, available to existing customers at no additional cost. Free upgrades come automatically, as part of our customer-centric policy of including life-of-unit remote support and access to the latest firmware release, in the purchase price of every encoder we sell."

Other new NexGen features now under development include passing RP188 time code triggers and KLV metadata, and an upgrade from 8 to 16 channels of audio per video channel.

Both the half-width BE8600 contribution encoder and full-width BE8650 paired encoder/modulator system are on display April 24-27, during the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, held in Las Vegas, Nevada. To see the Telairity systems, please visit the booth of Telairity's latest partner company, Primecom Technologies, LLC, located in North Hall at number N3233SUL. For more about the Telairity-Primecom relationship, see the press release "Primecom Technologies, LLC, Partners with Telairity for H.264/AVC Encoders."

Telairity's BE8740 4-channel distribution encoder also can be viewed at the NAB convention, in the Video Clarity booth, located in Upper South Hall, SU12413.

About Telairity

Telairity produces innovative real-time standards-based video compression solutions for broadcasting, telephony, Internet services and aligned industries. The company's unique video processing technology, based on the Telairity TVP multi-core video processor architecture, delivers the industry's best price/performance for real-time video encoding. Global headquarters are based in Santa Clara, California. For further information, see http://www.telairity.com

Agency contact:

Skip Ferderber

Skip Ferderber & Associates

Tel: +1 (425) 315-1724

E-mail: [email protected]

Telairity contact:

Harlan McGhan

Telairity

Tel: +1 (408) 764-0270 x518

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Telairity Semiconductor

Related Links

http://www.telairity.com


Texas de Brazil treats guests to an upscale, continuous dining experience and a service style that is alive and theatrical. Dinner begins at the enticing 50-item salad area featuring Brazilian specialties, fresh salads, imported cheeses, charcuterie, roasted vegetables, smoked salmon and creamy lobster bisque. Renowned for its genuine rodizio-style dining, patrons are also treated to freshly-grilled meats carved tableside from skewers by "gauchos" who deliver succulent lamb chops, leg of lamb, picanha, filet mignon, chicken, Brazilian sausages and more.

Diners pace their feasting with a simple green or red disk that indicates when they're ready to welcome additional servings. Every Texas de Brazil restaurant uses the time-honored method of grilling meat over charcoal, resulting in savory aroma and exceptional flavor. Texas de Brazil also offers a variety of beverages and decadent desserts from the a la carte menu, which includes a selection of specialty mocktails, to further enhance the dining experience.

"The food and hospitality industry in Abu Dhabi is thriving and there is growing demand for best in class international restaurants. Yas Mall is one of the largest shopping destinations in the UAE with a vibrant food scene and is an ideal location for us to launch the highly successful Texas de Brazil dining experience for Abu Dhabi residents and visitors," says Stewart Black, CEO, Gourmet Gulf.

"We are proud to partner with Gourmet Gulf and to open our second restaurant in the UAE at the leading shopping center in Abu Dhabi," adds Salim Asrawi, Chief Operating Officer, Texas de Brazil. "Yas Mall is the perfect location to welcome UAE businesspeople, families and international visitors with our genuine hospitality and authentic churrascaria."

The 600-square meter restaurant will feature a large chef's table, an open-view grill in the dining area and ample space to accommodate 218 guests.

Texas de Brazil located in ground floor, next to Ferrari World entrance at Yas Mall will be open from 11:30 a.m.  11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, and from 11:30 a.m. to 12 midnight Thursday through Saturday.

Sunday through Thursday, during lunch time, the restaurant offers various cuts of meat and over 50 salad options, priced at AED 129, and a light lunch (gourmet salad only area) priced at AED 65. During dinner time Sunday through Thursday as well as all day long on weekends (Friday and Saturday), choose the full experience with a selection of various cuts of meat and over 50 salad options, priced at AED 165, or a light meal (gourmet salad only area) priced at AED 95.

Children 6-12 years old will receive 50% off when purchasing a full dinner-priced meal and children six years and under are complimentary. Prices exclude beverages and dessert.

For more information or to make reservations, call the restaurant directly at 02 563 1424.

Follow us:

Instagram:

@TDBMiddleEast

Facebook: Texas de Brazil

Middle East

About Texas de Brazil

Texas de Brazil is an authentic churrascaria featuring a continuous dining experience that blends the unique culture of Brazil, with the generous hospitality of Texas. The menu features a vast selection of grilled meats, a 50-item salad area, an award-winning wine list and a la carte dessert selections. Founded as a family-owned business in 1998, Texas de Brazil now has over 50 domestic and international locations. For more information, visit http://www.texasdebrazil.com.

SOURCE Texas de Brazil

Related Links

http://www.texasdebrazil.com


The successful six-week campaign, which encouraged coworkers, friends and families to form teams to challenge one another to achieve a team fundraising goal, was sponsored by Stop & Shop, a GBFB Cornerstone Circle member and partner for over 30 years, and Citizens Bank, a GBFB President's Circle and partner for nearly 20 years.

"We are grateful that our community, led by our longstanding partners, Stop & Shop and Citizens Bank, united this spring to help us not only meet our goal of six million meals for our neighbors struggling with hunger, but far surpass it," said Catherine D'Amato, president and CEO of The Greater Boston Food Bank.

One in 10 people in Eastern Massachusetts is at risk of hunger every day in Eastern Massachusetts. For every dollar donated, GBFB can distribute three healthy meals. The proceeds from the "Give Meals. Give Hope." campaign will provide the equivalent of 7.5 million meals through GBFB's network of 530 member agencies, including food pantries, meal programs and shelters.

"We are proud to have partnered with The Greater Boston Food Bank on the "Give Meals. Give Hope." fundraising campaign. The success of this important campaign allows the food bank to assist more of our neighbors in need throughout Eastern Massachusetts," said Mark McGowan, President of Stop & Shop.

"Too many of our neighbors go without a nutritious meal too many days of the year. It is inspiring to see how our colleagues, customers, and the community came together to provide meals  and hope  to those at risk of hunger in our communities," said Jerry Sargent, president, Citizens Bank, Massachusetts. "We were so proud to team up with The Greater Boston Food Bank and Stop & Shop on this campaign, and couldn't be more pleased with the results."

About The Greater Boston Food Bank

The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) is the largest hunger-relief organization in New England and among the largest food banks in the country. GBFB provides the equivalent of more than 48 million healthy meals annually, distributed through its network of 530 member agencies across Eastern Massachusetts. GBFB operates four direct service programs at nearly 70 sites throughout the area. A member of Feeding America, the nation's food bank network, GBFB serves more than 140,000 people every month in its goal to create a hunger-free Eastern Massachusetts. For more information, visit us at GBFB.org, become a fan on Facebook, follow us on Twitter (@gr8bosfoodbank), or call us at 617.427.5200.

About Stop & Shop

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC employs over 61,000 associates and operates 415 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. The company helps support local communities fight hunger, combat childhood cancer and promote general health and wellness  with emphasis on children's educational and support programs. In its commitment to be a sustainable company, Stop & Shop is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and EPA's Smart Way program and has been recognized by the EPA for the superior energy management of its stores. Stop & Shop is an Ahold company. To learn more about Stop & Shop, visit stopandshop.com or facebook.com/stopandshop.

About Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation's oldest and largest financial institutions, with $149.5 billion in assets as of December 31, 2016. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens helps its retail customers "bank better" with mobile and online banking, a 24/7 customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 3,200 ATMs and approximately 1,200 Citizens Bank branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. Citizens also provides wealth management, mortgage lending, auto lending, student lending and commercial banking services in select markets nationwide. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers corporate, institutional and not-for-profit clients a full range of wholesale banking products and services including lending and deposits, capital markets, treasury services, foreign exchange and interest hedging, leasing and asset finance, specialty finance and trade finance.

Citizens operates through its subsidiaries Citizens Bank, N.A., and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania as Citizens Bank, Citizens Commercial Banking and Citizens One. Additional information about Citizens and its full line of products and services can be found at www.citizensbank.com.

SOURCE The Greater Boston Food Bank

Related Links

http://gbfb.org


GIRONA, Spain, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TransPerfect, the world's largest privately held provider of language services and translation-related technology solutions, is proud to announce that the company's employees showed up in full force in Girona, Spain to join Oxfam's Trailwalker and support its noble cause: to raise money and awareness in the fight to end worldwide poverty and social injustice.

Over 80 members of the TransPerfect family gathered from offices in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and banded together to walk, run, or serve in a support capacity for 14 teams in the 100-kilometer event. TransPerfect's robust turnout for the event made the New York-based company the #3 corporate supporter of Oxfam Trailwalker by headcountand the #1 corporate participant among companies headquartered in the United States. All 14 TransPerfect teams placed in the overall top 20 for team fundraising totals, with five teams' totals making the top 10.

Thanks to the enthusiastic support from families, friends, vendors, clients, and partners, TransPerfect's Oxfam Trailwalkers individually raised approximately 30,000for which the company matched the employees' contributionsthereby doubling the total financial support to over 60,000 for donation directly to Oxfam.

TransPerfect Co-CEO Phil Shawe stated, "I was honored to stand alongside our employees at Oxfam's Trailwalker in Girona and witness firsthand their undying support and commitment to giving back. I see our team's drive everyday in the work we do for clientsbut seeing that same energy, spirit, and commitment put forward toward helping others less fortunate was nothing less than awe-inspiring. I've never been more proud of our team's character and resolve."

"Seeing such an inspired and excited group of employees involved with this event is proof positive that we have the greatest employees in the world," added Liz Elting, Co-CEO at TransPerfect. "Oxfam International does incredible work, and we could not be more proud to cheer on our participants and celebrate their tremendous accomplishments as they gave everything they had to raise awareness by donating their time, money, and physical capabilities for such a worthwhile cause."

About TransPerfect

With annual revenues of more than $540 million, TransPerfect is the world's largest privately held provider of language services and technology solutions. From offices in over 90 cities on six continents, TransPerfect offers a full range of services in 170+ languages to clients worldwide. More than 4,000 global organizations employ TransPerfect's GlobalLink Product Suite to simplify management of multilingual content. With an unparalleled commitment to quality and client service, TransPerfect is fully ISO 9001 and ISO 17100 certified. TransPerfect has global headquarters in New York, with regional headquarters in London and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit our website at www.transperfect.com.

SOURCE TransPerfect

Related Links

http://www.transperfect.com


JAKARTA, Indonesia, and PASO ROBLES, Calif., April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- United States Vice President Mike Pence participated in a ceremony celebrating the signing of multiple Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) in Jakarta today, including between Greenbelt Resources Corporation (OTC: GRCO) and PT Jababeka Tbk, through its wholly owned subsidiary PT Jababeka Infrastruktur. The MOU marks the first U.S.-Indonesia municipal waste-to-bioproducts project known as JababECO. Along with Vice President Pence were Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Greenbelt CEO Darren Eng and Jababeka Infrastruktur Director Tjahjadi Rahardja. The celebration ceremony took place as part of an event to showcase over $10.0 billion dollars in trade deals between the United States and Indonesia.

The inaugural project will feature Greenbelt Resources' proprietary and innovative ECOsystem technology and will process municipal food waste into a myriad of bioproducts including bioethanol, animal feed, fertilizer and distilled water. For JababECO, the ECOsystem technology alone is valued at USD $4.5 million (IDR 59.8 billion) with an additional product sales value of another USD $6.0 million (IDR 79.7 billion) cumulatively over the next five years. When complete JababECO will demonstrate the sustainable circular economy in action by utilizing local waste resources to produce locally sold bioproducts.

"Our technology was specifically developed to address local municipal waste needs, a tremendous challenge in growing cities like Jakarta," says Greenbelt Resources CEO Darren Eng. "We're excited for this opportunity and believe that out of this project, we can create a new model of municipal waste management for cities across the country and around the world."

In 2015, Indonesia's Environment and Forestry Ministry waste management director Sudirman told the The Jakarta Post he was considering declaring a state of emergency regarding waste management. In the same year, ministry data found that an average person produces 0.7 kilograms of waste per day. With a population of 250 million people in Indonesia, this amounts to 64 million tons per year, with the majority dumped in fast filling landfills.

Jababeka & Co. Chairman and Founder Setyono Djuandi Darmono believes that his company is leading the way for a new approach to Indonesia and Jakarta's waste management challenges. "We're building cities of the future that create interconnected communities through the latest and most promising technologies from waste water management to fiber optics to sustainable energy," Darmono explains. "New cities need new and innovative approaches to growth challenges and we believe Greenbelt Resource's JababECO technology will prove to be an ideal local waste solution for our cities' local needs."

JababECO is being developed to produce approximately 500,000 gallons of bioethanol as well as protein concentrate to be used as animal feed and a liquid fertilizer. The ECOsystem will include a 24/7 proprietary remote monitoring system developed by Greenbelt, who will provide ongoing technical support and remote monitoring throughout the life of the project.

The JababECO announcement comes on the heels of Greenbelt's announcement of its Paso Robles ECOsystem project coined PRECO, a waste-to-resources project located in Paso Robles, Cali., that will produce half a million gallons of bioethanol from a variety of local feedstocks including waste trub from a nearby brewery and winery wastes. For the company, California represents potential project value of over USD $1.0 billion. Greenbelt plans to raise USD $16.0 million through a Regulation A (RegA) offering it previously filed. A portion of the monies will be used to complete the PRECO project.

About Greenbelt Resources

Greenbelt Resources Corporation is an award-winning provider of sustainable energy production systems focused on delivering modular solutions that enable the localized processing of locally generated waste into locally consumed products. The Company designs, develops and implements technology that makes the production of advanced biofuel reliable, practical and efficient. Controlled by proprietary automated controls, the Company's small-scale, end-to-end modular systems convert food, beverage and other cellulosic wastes into commercially viable advanced biofuels (bioethanol), animal feed, fertilizer and filtered water. For more information visit: www.greenbeltresources.com.

About PT Jababeka Tbk

Jababeka is a leading fully integrated industry-based township developer in Indonesia with a core business of developing industry-based real estate, supported and enhanced by infrastructure and township management services. Jababeka's business model is to develop industrial real estate sites in a manner that builds critical mass and allows the Company to offer and enhance complementary commercial and residential developments as well as infrastructure and estate management services; thereby creating an industry-based township. Jababeka's flagship development is Kota Jababeka, a mature, independent city in Cikarang, 35 km east of Jakarta, which covers about 5,600 hectares of industrial, residential and commercial areas, supported by top notch infrastructure, which include clean water provision, waste water treatment, power supply, dry port and logistics services. This model we are looking to duplicate in other parts of Indonesia. For more information visit www.jababeka.com.

SOURCE Greenbelt Resources Corporation

Related Links

http://www.greenbeltresources.com


SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HTC VIVE, the leader in room-scale Virtual Reality (VR), today announced the first grant recipients in its VR for Impact program. VR for Impact is Vive's $10 million commitment to drive VR content and technologies that will increase awareness and create positive impact in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Vive is commemorating Earth Day by unveiling projects from three creators with unique visions for how VR can address the UN's set of defined goals for the planet such as "Climate Action" and "Zero Hunger." These projects include SpaceVR, the first virtual reality satellite launching into space later this year, Tree, a creatively immersive perspective on deforestation, and The Extraordinary Honey Bee, a joint project with Haagen-Dazs, Reach Agency and SPECTACLE to raise awareness about dwindling bee populations. All projects that receive funding by VR for Impact will be available on Viveport, HTC's app store for VR.

"We believe virtual reality and the immersive experiences it delivers have the potential to positively impact the biggest challenges that mankind faces," said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport, HTC Vive. "We welcome the first VR for Impact grant recipients who will introduce VR as a powerful tool in raising awareness for the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and what better way to mark Earth Day than to unveil projects with three unique visions for helping the planet."

Vive launched VR for Impact as a multi-year program, and SpaceVR, Tree and The Extraordinary Honey Bee represent the first grants awarded. Vive is planning to announce additional grant recipients for 2017 through the end of the year.

SpaceVR is the world's first virtual reality platform allowing users to experience space first hand through the immersion of VR. Founded in 2015, the team has built the first VR satellite, the Overview 1, which will launch later this year on Space X. Once in orbit, SpaceVR will stream video that users can experience in full virtual reality or as 360-degree video. For more information on SpaceVR, please visit www.spacevr.co.

"We're thrilled to be chosen as one of the first participants in HTC Vive's VR for Impact program," said Ryan Holmes, CEO of SpaceVR. "We share a vision with Vive that VR and its power to immerse and affect viewers like no other medium can be used to make the world a better place. By launching the first virtual reality satellite, we want to create the most vivid and visceral reminder yet that despite our individual trials and travails, we all live on this same fragile pale blue dot hurtling through space."

Tree is a critically acclaimed virtual reality experience enhanced by haptic feedback to immerse viewers in the tragic fate that befalls a rainforest tree. The experience brings to light the harrowing realities of deforestation, one of the largest contributors to global warming. Tree is an official selection of Sundance Film Festival New Frontier and Tribeca Film Festival Immersive 2017. For more information on Tree, please visit http://newreality.co.

"We are incredibly honored to announce our collaboration with the Vive VR for Impact program," said Milica Zec, co-director on Tree and co-founder of New Reality Company. "New Reality shares with VR for Impact a core tenet: that VR storytelling is key to raising awareness for the many challenges facing our earth."

Added Winslow Porter, co-director on Tree and co-founder of New Reality Company: "The Tree VR experience has incited emotional, empowering reactions among a wide array of viewers. During the final moments of Tree, a number of individuals have cried or shouted while in the headset and vowed afterward to take action. Together with VR for Impact, we want to reach people from all over the world to help make widespread global impact."

The Extraordinary Honey Bee is a joint project with Haagen-Dazs, Reach Agency and SPECTACLE looking at the alarming rate at which bee populations are falling. In Honey Bee, users will shrink down to the size of a bee for a guided VR experience where they learn of the risks bee colonies face and solutions currently being implemented to offset their decline. For more information on The Extraordinary Honey Bee, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUt2PC0Ks4Y.

"We believe in the transformative and educational power of VR and are excited to use this technology to bring the plight of the honey bee to life," said Orchid Bertelsen, Nestle USA Digital Innovation Lead. "We are thrilled to partner with Vive, not only because of their innovative technology and valuable audience, but because of their ideals and shared belief of harnessing the power of VR to drive true impact."

For press only, you can access assets including video trailers and key art here: http://bit.ly/2ovRU2A.

About VR for Impact

Announced at the World Economic Forum 2017, Vive's VR for Impact is a multi-year program providing grants to VR projects in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The UN goals are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Through VR for Impact, HTC Vive is committing $10 million dollars to industry partners and content developers to create VR experiences that improve awareness, education, and lead to action. For more information please visit https://vrforimpact.com/.

About HTC VIVE

VIVE is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality platform developed by HTC and Valve for total immersion in virtual worlds. Designed from the ground up for room-scale VR and true-to-life interactions, VIVE delivers on the promise of VR with game-changing technology and best-in-class content. VIVE has been recognized with over 65 awards and wide critical acclaim since its unveiling in 2015. For more information, visit www.VIVE.com.

HTC and the HTC logo are the trademarks of HTC Corporation. All other names of companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE HTC VIVE

Related Links

http://www.VIVE.com


SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading London-based barefoot shoe company VIVOBAREFOOT announced today the launch of its new shoe collection, in partnership with Betabrand, a San Francisco-based crowdfunding clothing platform for independent designers and major brands. The collection launched this week with the release of the City Sock, a breathable stretchy mesh sneaker.

Founded in 2012, VIVOBAREFOOT is a leading global barefoot shoe company, offering men's, women's and children's shoes for everyday wear, running, off-road adventures, and more. In addition to encouraging people to get closer to nature, the company prides itself on its sustainability practices.

Betabrand is an online clothing community and crowdfunding platform that releases new products weekly, with help from their fans. Creators from all over the world submit new projects daily for customer votes and feedback.

Through this collaboration, VIVOBAREFOOT and Betabrand are encouraging consumers to vote for their favorite concepts to create new shoes. Due to its popularity, the City Sock was chosen as the first shoe to launch in the collection and became available for sale on Monday, April 17. The new shoe is designed to give freedom through barefoot design, with the protection needed in an urban environment. The 100-percent vegan footwear features an ergonomic flex-mesh body, highly breathable foot bed, ultra-thin, puncture-resistant sole, and radically reflective detailing for nighttime excursions. The City Sock is the first of several shoes to be released in the collection, with additional shoes to be released in the forthcoming weeks. These will include the City Proof and Yoga Flat.

"We are excited and honoured to have partnered up with our pals at Betabrand," said Asher Clark, VIVOBAREFOOT co-founder. "Because there is no point in having a pair of stretchy walk to work, disco yoga pants if you don't have the shoes to match. Conceived in London, designed for toe freedom and flavoured in the Californian sunshine - these are footshaped shoes that let your feet be feet...again!"

"VIVOBAREFOOT is an incredible brand and it's been amazing to connect our customers with their design team," said Chris Lindland, Founder and CEO of Betabrand. "They've welcomed fans into their creative process, thereby creating some of our most popular projects yet. Thousands of people have voted and provided feedback so thousands more can purchase crowd-designed footwear."

The City Sock is now available for purchase/funding in grey and black for both men and women, and retails at $91 online at www.betabrand.com. Customers save 30 percent by ordering the shoes at this stage of development.

For more information about the collection and partnership, visit: https://www.betabrand.com/vivobarefoot

About VIVOBAREFOOT

VIVOBAREFOOT launched in 2012 as a standalone brand, and is based in London, England. VIVOBAREFOOT is on a mission to change the footwear industry based on one simple insightshoes should let your feet do their natural thing. The shoes feature a patented, ultra-thin, puncture-resistant sole in every shoe that protects the foot and allows maximum sensory feedback. Designed using ancient wisdom with modern technology VIVOBAREFOOT is a complete shoe collection for off road, exercise and everyday wear, as well as a line for kids. Created by two cousins from a long line of cobblers, Galahad and Asher Clark are on a quest to make the perfect shoeperfect for feet. VIVOBAREFOOT footwear is produced sustainably using recycled, locally sourced materials in independently monitored factories. For more information on VIVOBAREFOOT, visit www.vivobarefoot.com/us.

About Betabrand

San Francisco-based Betabrand is a crowdfunding clothing platform for independent designers and major brands. Creators from all over the world produce new projects daily for customer votes & feedback. Notable inventions include: Dress Pant Yoga Pants, Black Sheep Sweaters, Under-the-Jack packs, The Suitsy, Executive Hoodies, Cordarounds and many more. For more information, visit www.betabrand.com.

SOURCE VIVOBAREFOOT

Related Links

https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us


SINGAPORE, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology company Wecash announces the completion of its Series C financing with a capital infusion of US$80 million led by China Merchants Venture Capital, Forebright Capital and SIG Ventures, with Joinhope Capital and Lingfeng Capital also joining the round as co-investors. To date, Wecash has raised over US$100 million as it leveraged upon the potential of smartphone ubiquity and artificial intelligence to power its global expansion.

Wecash founder and CEO Zhi Zhengchun said, "Since founding, Wecash has experienced break-neck growth through the application of big data and machine learning to the financial sector, providing tens of millions of consumers with next- generation credit evaluation and lower-friction access to partnering financial institutions' products. I am excited to welcome our new investors China Merchants Group, Forebright Capital, Joinhope Capital and Lingfeng Capital, and firmly believe that their value-add and support alongside our existing investors', can surely propel Wecash to greater heights as we look to go beyond finance and apply our technology to other sectors."

Founded in Beijing in early 2014, Wecash is the first Chinese technology company to apply big data and machine learning to prevent fraud and determine credit worthiness in the financial sector. With over 80 million users and 30 financial institution partners, Wecash's technology has been successfully applied to evaluate consumer credit for loans in 3C, agriculture, aesthetic medicine, home rental, cars, insurance and travel, facilitating more than US$2.2 billion in loans. Since 2017, Wecash has also expanded beyond China through the establishment of offices and operations in Brazil, Singapore and Indonesia.

Wecash Chief Risk Officer Tang Xuewei shared, "Our core risk-pricing engine is a dynamic risk model combined with artificial intelligence system. This engine collects and processes up to 12,000 data points which are then classified into 9 categories of key user behaviours to evaluate the credit of each loan applicant. From these data points, tens of thousands of indicators are generated and cross-checked in evaluating the repayment willingness and ability of each applicant. In merely 3 seconds, our engine can compute an applicant's credit and risk scoring, reducing non-performing loans for partner financial institutions by 70% or higher."

According to Zhi, Wecash will use its latest round of capital to expand in 4 key areas, namely:

Improve its "lending AI" to provide banks, insurance and consumer finance companies with bleeding-edge fintech services; Extend and improve upon its offerings for online and offline consumption and bring about greater convenience and financial inclusion for consumers; Expand upon its hardware R&D team to leverage upon Wecash's technology and develop new machine learning solutions for the financial sector to improve productivity and reduce risk; and Accelerate its overseas expansion; from a R&D centre in Silicon Valley since 2015, to new markets in Brazil , Indonesia and throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia in 2017.

For more information, please contact:

Chan Lianghong James ()

Chief Strategy Officer, Wecash

Managing Director, Wecash (Southeast Asia) Pte. Ltd.

Director and CEO, PT. Digital Tunai Kita

[email protected]

About China Merchants Venture Capital

China Merchants Venture Capital is a subsidiary of a leading state-owned conglomerate China Merchants Group. Started in Dec 2015 with a US$735 million fund from China Merchants Group, China Merchants Venture Capital adopts a combination of fund-of-funds and direct investment strategy to align with the group's "Industry 4.0" and "Internet+" strategy, with a focus on the future of transport, finance and real estate. Apart from providing growth capital, China Merchants Venture Capital also brings the might of parent China Merchants Group's operations to provide strategic value.

About Forebright Capital

Forebright Capital, which was spun off in 2015 from Hong Kong-listed financial conglomerate China Everbright Limited, currently manages US$1 billion in assets across four funds. As one of the earliest teams investing in China, Forebright is committed to partnering with business leaders, providing value-added services and driving long-term growth and returns for investors through discipline and rigorous process.

About SIG Ventures

SIG Ventures is the venture arm of Susquehanna International Group, one of the largest privately held financial institutions in the world, which invests in cutting-edge high-technology companies. With US$950 million under management, SIG Ventures is known for teaming with leading serial entrepreneurs and innovators on disruptive technologies that define and dominate high-growth markets.

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com.

SOURCE Wecash
New Mexico massage fans are sure to also appreciate the launch of Zeel's monthly massage membership, Zeelot, the first and only mobile massage membership in Albuquerque. Zeel Massage members enjoy a discounted massage every month, plus their very own professional massage table and sheet set  a home spa setup worth $379 that's theirs to keep. There's no initiation fee to join Zeelot; a 90-day trial option is available as well.

"As we continue our rapid expansion into the Southwest, we look forward to bringing Zeel Massages and our massage membership to New Mexico," says Samer Hamadeh, founder and CEO of Zeel. "Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico, as well as a major driver of the New Mexico economy. It's the ideal place to start Zeel's expansion into the Land of Enchantment."

Scheduling a massage is simple on the Zeel Massage app for iPhone or Android, or on zeel.com. Choose the preferred gender of your massage therapist, the type of massage, time and location, and your licensed, vetted, and experienced Zeel Massage Therapist will be at your door in as little an hour. Book on your schedule  Zeel Massages are available in Albuquerque 365 days a year, with start times as early as 8am and as late as 10:30pm, same-day, or up to 30 days in advance.

Soothe your nerves and unwind with the massage technique of your choice: Swedish, deep tissue, sports, prenatal, couples, and sleep massage.

Quality, safety, and comfort are guaranteed when you book a Zeel Massage. All Zeel Massage Therapists are licensed and insured in their state of practice, experienced, vetted in person by the Zeel team, and fully committed to providing the best possible massage therapy experience.

Zeel offers competitive pricing on its five-star in-home and on-demand massage services, as compared with equivalent New Mexico spas. The price of a 60-minute Zeel Massage in New Mexico is $105, including tip; Zeelot members pay $87 for a 60-minute Zeel Massage in Albuquerque. All Zeel Massages automatically include 18% gratuity, with the tip and therapist payment clearly indicated on all receipts, for a transparent, simple, and cash-free transaction.

Zeel also provides a staffing solution for spas with Zeel Spa; a platform for hotels to provide in-room massages with Zeel Concierge; and Zeel Chair Massages, delivered to companies, events, and workplaces, through the Zeel Corporate Wellness line of business.

About Zeel

Zeel created the Massage On Demand category in 2012 and was the first company to bring same-day, in-home massages to customers. Zeel is the leading and largest on-demand massage company with more than 8,500 licensed massage therapists in its network of over 60 U.S cities. Zeel offers the most reliable on-demand massage service in as little as an hour, 365 days a year, with start times as early as 8 am and as late as 10:30 pm. Zeel delivers the highest quality, five-star massages from licensed, vetted massage therapists to homes, hotels, workplaces, and events. With best-in-class security protocols and white glove customer service, Zeel customers enjoy massages in the comfort, convenience, safety, and privacy of the place and time of their choosing. Booking, scheduling, and payment are made easy with the Zeel Massage app for iPhone and Android. Zeel is also home to Zeel Spa, the on-demand staffing solution for spas; Zeel Concierge, which enables hotels to provide in room massage bookings for guests; and Zeel Corporate Wellness, which brings Zeel Chair Massages to companies, events, and workplaces.

SOURCE Zeel

Related Links

http://zeel.com


Chennai,Apr 21 (IBNS): Ashok Leyland, flagship of the Hinduja Group, and the 2nd largest commercial vehicle (CV) manufacturer in India, on Friday showcased its full range of future ready products, based on Intelligent Exhaust Gas Recirculation (iEGR) technology, and industry-leading services at its annual Global Conference 2017 in Chennai.

Pioneering the indigenous development and application of the iEGR technology, Ashok Leyland will be the only domestic OEM to implement this technology successfully for its products above 130HP. Thus, Ashok Leyland has, once again, brought its technology prowess and Indian innovation to the fore for the benefit of its customers.

Intelligent Exhaust Gas Recirculation (iEGR) technology is a simple yet innovative solution to achieving the desired results in order to meet the BS4 norms.

This technology is not only better suited to Indian conditions compared to Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology (based on European technology) but will also prove to be hugely cost effective, easy to operate and hassle-free to maintain.

All of which will benefit the Ashok Leyland customer, resulting in better margins compared to products by OEMs which are based on SCR technology.

With iEGR technology as the highlight, the Company displayed a mix of over thirty innovative products and services, featuring trucks, buses, light commercial vehicles (LCVs), simulators, quick service bikes and gensets.



Sharing his views at the Global Conference 2017, Vinod K. Dasari  Managing Director, Ashok Leyland, said, Ashok Leyland has many innovative class leading firsts to its credit through the years. This showcase of the iEGR technology across our product range bears further testimony of our capability to roll-out technology-led future ready products. More so this indigenous technology will help us deliver on our brand promise of Aapki Jeet, Hamari Jeet in multiple ways. For our customers it will mean ease of use and better cost efficiencies. For the environment it will mean more efficient fuel combustion and improved emissions. The indigenous development of iEGR technology will also mean faster time to market and minimal cost of implementation. We will emerge as the ONLY OEM in India to have achieved this.
Mumbai/ Kolkata, Apr 21 (IBNS): Tata Power, an integrated power company, announced execution of Distribution Franchisee Agreement (DFA) for electricity distribution in Ajmer city.

Subsequent to winning the bid for Distribution Franchisee of Ajmer Circle, Tata Power has formed a Special Purpose Company (SPC) "TP Ajmer Distribution Limited".

The Company signed the Distribution Franchisee Agreement (DFA) with Ajmer Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (AVVNL) to cater to the power requirements of customers in Ajmer, for a period of 20 years.

The SPC, TP Ajmer Distribution Limited will be responsible for operating and maintaining the distribution network in Ajmer City, which includes City Division-I and City Division-II areas. It will also be responsible for managing the billing and collections in the said areas. TP Ajmer Distribution Limited will work closely with all the existing employees of AVVNL to facilitate serving customers with efficiency and superior customer care that are synonymous with Tata Power.

Commenting on this development, Anil Sardana, CEO & Managing Director, Tata Power, said, "At Tata Power, we are committed to provide our customers with reliable and quality power, teamed with superior customer service. It is our endeavour to be the most preferred distribution company in the country, and work relentlessly towards achieving this objective. The success of our Delhi, Mumbai, and Jamshedpur Distribution businesses are testament to this fact. We welcome all our customers in Ajmer to a world class reliable power experience that is backed by best-in-class customer service. We would also like to thank AVVNL for giving us the opportunity to serve the residents of Ajmer city. We look forward to support of all stake holders to make the new assignment a success."
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
Singapore City, April 16 : B. Sai Praneeth clinched his maiden Super Series title by downing compatriot Kidambi Srikanth 17-21, 21-17, 21-12 in the Singapore Open final here on Sunday.

This was Praneeth's first appearance in a Super Series final, the biggest events of the international badminton calendar.

Previously, Saina Nehwal, P.V. Sindhu and Srikanth have won the coveted crown.

Until Sunday, only three other countries -- China, Indonesia and Denmark -- had been represented on both sides of the court.

After losing the first game 17-21, Praneeth showed tremendous grit to come back from being 1-6 in the dumps to level at 7-7.

Srikanth tied to assert his dominance with a superb smash down the line to take a 8-7 lead but Praneeth seemed determined to go into the break 11-10, winning 10 of the 14 points on the bounce.

Leading 18-16, Praneeth showed great awareness to outfox Srikanth who relied on his smashes and netplay to dink the cork over his head when he was closer to the net for a sublime point.

Three game points to play for, Praneeth returned the favour this time with an identical 21-17 win to hang the final game perfectly in balance.

In the final game, Praneeth opened up a 10-4 lead and never looked back as Srikanth made an error.

Srikanth, who has a fair bit of experience having played in two finals and winning both - the 2015 India Open and 2014 China Open, never looked settled after the first game. It was Praneeth's all round play and array of strokes that pinned his rival down.

"It's a great feeling," an elated Praneeth said later. "I practice with him (Srikanth), so we know each other's game very well. It was a really tough match.

"I have been playing well in this tournament and the final win is very special. My hard work had paid off," the 24-year-old said.
New York/Chicago, April 16 : Thousands of protesters took to the streets across the United States on Saturday to call on President Donald Trump to release his tax returns.

According to organisers, demonstrators came out in large numbers in about 200 cities, including a few outside the US, CNNMoney reported.

Images of tax protesters in cities including Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and New York flooded social media.

Comedy writer Frank Lesser, whose tweet in January sparked the idea for the 'Tax March', said the participation in the nationwide marches proves that people want to see Trump's returns, Xinhua news agency reported.

Trump has said Americans "don't care at all" about his tax returns, but polls show 74 per cent of Americans say he should release them.

Many lawmakers, including some Republicans, have also called on him to make them public. And a petition demanding that Trump release his returns has garnered more than 1 million signatures.

For the past 40 years, every US President and presidential candidate has released tax documents.

Still, the White House has not indicated that Trump has any intentions of releasing his returns.

Trump has repeatedly said he can not release his tax returns because they are under audit, though many tax experts have said he is not barred from releasing the information during the audit.

"We march to demand that the President release his returns, as he has repeatedly promised, but failed, to do," the Tax March website reads.

"We march because it is in the best interest of the American people to know what financial entanglements and conflicts of interest our leaders have."

Much like the "Pussyhats" symbolised by the Women's March in January, the hallmark of this protest are giant inflatable chickens.

Organisers have nicknamed the march's symbol "Chicken Don".

On Saturday morning, chickens could be spotted on the steps of the Capitol building and outside the Trump Hotel.

Thirty-foot inflatable chickens, designed purposely made to resemble Trump, were also seen at the marches in New York City and San Francisco.
Mumbai, April 17 : An apex corporate tribunal on Monday dismissed a plea filed by Cyrus Mistry's investment companies to waive off a regulatory bar on them, so that they can continue their legal suit against the Tata Sons.

Besides, the main company petition which was filed against Tata Sons was also rejected.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) here dismissed the plea filed by Mistry's investment companies -- Cyrus Investment and Sterling Investment Corp -- the order on which will be released on Friday, April 21.

Under the current rules, only a shareholder with more than 10 per cent effective shareholding can file a minority interest petition with the NCLT.

However, the Companies Act empowers the NCLT to waive off this requirement for a petitioner to hold at least 10 per cent of the total issued share capital of the company to qualify for filing a minority interest petition.

On March 6, the NCLT had ruled against the maintainability of the petition filed against Tata Sons, which cited governance lapses and compromise of minority shareholder interests after Mistry was ousted as Chairman of the holding company of the industrial conglomerate.

On October 24 last year, Tata Sons' Board ousted Mistry as its Chairman and appointed Ratan Tata as Interim Chairman.

On their part, Tata Sons welcomed the ruling by the NCLT which dismissed the waiver application and the company petition.

"We are pleased that Mr. Mistry's claims have been dismissed by the NCLT. The order of the NCLT represents a vindication of our position," said F.N. Subedar, Chief Operating Officer of Tata Sons.

"We hope this brings to an end a vexatious campaign against the Company, the Tata Trusts and Mr. Ratan N. Tata. Tata Sons will continue its focus on its future development under the stewardship of our Executive Chairman, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran."

Tata Sons elaborated that it interprets the ruling by the NCLT to be demonstrating that the petitioners failed to make a convincing or compelling case that warranted a hearing on alleged mismanagement, oppression or other actions.

According to the holding company of the industrial conglomerate, the NCLT's ruling on Monday is the fifth such ruling by the company law tribunals rejecting reliefs requested by the Shapoorji Pallonji Group companies and Mistry.

"Mr. Mistry has made many ill-advised and groundless allegations intended to besmirch the name of the Tata Group," said Subedar.

"Today's ruling by the NCLT makes clear that there is no case to be heard. Over the past six months, Mr. Mistry has failed demonstrably to build a case. We trust that the NCLT's decision brings this matter to a close," Subedar added.

Mistry's firms are expected to move the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against NCLT decision taken on Monday.
Ranchi, April 17 : Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) legislator Pradeep Yadav has started an indefinite peaceful protest -- Satyagraha -- against the proposed power plant of Adani Power in Godda district.

The Satyagraha continued for the second day on Monday.

Hundreds of villagers, who are likely to lose their land to the power project, are sitting with the legislator under the banner of Jameen Bachao Sangrash Samittee.

Last month, a public hearing on land acquisition by the Adani Power was conducted, at which majority of the participants consented to give their lands for the project.

However, the JVM-P legislator, who also joined the public hearing, alleged that "fake land owners" were called to the public hearing. After the legislator's supporters created unruly scenes, police resorted to lathicharge to disperse them.

An arrest warrant was also issued against Yadav last week.

"People are supporting the Satyagraha. Our President Babulal Marandi will also join the Satyagraha. We request the state government to stop land acquisition for the Adani Power," Yadav told reporters.

The Adani Power last year signed an MoU with the state government to set up a 1,600MW power plant in Santhal Pargana area of the state.
New Delhi, Apr 21 (IBNS) Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held a bilateral meeting with the US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington DC on Apr 20 , 2017.

Finance Minister was accompanied by the Indias Ambassador Navtej Sarna and Secretary Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das.



Both leaders emphasized the strength of Indo-US economic relations and the bipartisan support it has acquired over the years.

The Finance Minister briefed the US Commerce Secretary on the strength of the Indian economy and the significant structural reforms Government of India has undertaken over the last three years.

The US Commerce Secretary Ross congratulated the Indian Finance Minister on making the GST a reality.



Finance Minister raised the issue of recent executive orders which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime.

He outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision.
Imphal, April 18 : Unidentified gunmen, suspected to be Kuki tribal militants, opened fire at oil tankers on Tuesday morning in Manipur's Kangpokpi district. The attack caused no casualty, the police said.

Some trucks and tankers coming from Assam towards Imphal were ambushed by the militants using automatic rifles. The personnel of CRPF escorting the convoy opened fire in retaliation. The exchange of fire took place at 5.45 a.m. along the National Highway No. 37, about 60 km from here, the police said.

Two tankers carrying petrol and diesel were hit by the militants' bullets.

Police units were rushed to the spot after the information about the ambush was received. However, the militants managed to escape.

The police officials suspect that it could be an extortion threat to the oil transporters.

"If the fuel had exploded on bullet impact there would have been casualties. We strongly condemn the attack," T. Kipgen, a resident said. Later, the trucks and oil tankers resumed journey towards Imphal.

"A few jeep-loads of CRPF personnel cannot ensure safety to over 600 vehicles along the mountain highway. We had welcomed the government's plan to deploy Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) and police commandos along the vulnerable spots of the two national highways," Laishram Chinglien, a driver, said.

"However, the All Naga Students' Association Manipur (ANSAM) has strongly objected to it and the government cannot say or do anything," he added.

Officials said that the government plan has been staved off. In the past, police commandos and IRB personnel had to be recalled from Ukhrul and some other tribal dominated districts.

ANSAM and other Naga groups say that they object to the government plan to "militarise the lands of the Nagas".

The United Naga Council (UNC) had imposed an economic blockade for more than four months along the two highways which are the lifelines of Manipur.

The UNC was protesting the creation of seven new districts on the "lands of the Nagas" without consulting the stakeholders.

Chief Minister N. Biren Singh held a meeting with his cabinet colleagues on Tuesday morning to review the situation.

Official sources said that security along the highways would be beefed up, without which the drivers may refuse to ply. The IRB personnel and police commandos may be deployed shortly.
Paris, April 18 : Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, one of the frontrunners in the French presidential election, has said she would suspend all legal immigration to France if elected President.

The National Front (FN) leader told a rally that she wanted to stop "a mad, uncontrolled situation", reported BBC on Tuesday.

At a rally in Paris, Le Pen said, "I would decide on a moratorium on all legal immigration to stop this frenzy, this uncontrolled situation that is dragging us down".

After that, she said, France would introduce "much more drastic, more reasonable, more humane, more manageable rules" on immigration.

Left-wing daily Liberation called it "one of the most hardline speeches of her campaign", aimed at satisfying grassroots supporters.

In all, 11 candidates are competing in the first round, BBC said.

Several polls suggest Le Pen is neck and neck with centrist Emmanuel Macron, ahead of Sunday's first round of voting, according to media reports.

Opinion polls suggest Macron and Le Pen will reach the second round on May 7 run-off.

According to an Elabe poll for news channel BFMTV, Macron is on course to get 24 per cent of the vote in the first round, Le Pen 23 per cent, conservative Francois Fillon 19.5 per cent, and far-left candidate Jean-Luc MAlenchon 18 per cent.

Polls suggest that Macron would be favourite to win in the run-off.

Le Pen said the choice for French voters was between her rivals' "savage globalisation" and her patriotism.

Outside the venue, dozens of protesters, who had sought to disrupt her rally, clashed with the police.

Meanwhile, Macron addressed almost 20,000 supporters at the Bercy national indoor arena.

"We are going to turn the page on the last 20 years because our generation is ready for change," he said.

On the issue of France's role in the EU, he said: "We need Europe, so we will remake it. I will be the president of the awakening of our European ambitions."

Macron, a former investment banker running for his self-created En Marche (On the move) party, turned his fire on his opponents.

He said ten of the 11 candidates wanted to take France back to a "fantasy of the past".
New Delhi, April 18 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will on Wednesday leave for a five-day visit to the US to attend the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, an official said.

Jaitley will also take part in a G-20 meeting on the financial sector, as well as interact with American investors, he added.

The Minister will leave on Wednesday evening and arrive in Washington early morning on April 20, a Finance Ministry statement said here.

Jaitley's delegation includes, among others, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel, it said.

On April 21, Jaitley, along with the RBI Governor and Economic Affairs Secretary, will participate in the G-20 meeting on financial sector development and regulations and other issues, the statement added.

As per their Washington itinerary, Jaitley, Patel and Das will, on the same afternoon, attend a meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) on Global Development and Prospects.

"In the evening (April 21), the Finance Minister along with Secretary Economic Affairs will hold a meeting with the CEOs," the Ministry said.

On April 22, following two IMFC sessions, Jaitley will meet US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, it added.

Later that day, Jaitley is slated to meet Bangladesh Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, as well as with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

After the first leg of his tour, Jaitley will, on April 23, reach New York, where he will interact with the Council for Foreign Relations, followed by a meeting with institutional investors.

Thereafter, he will meet long-term investors on April 24, the Indian Finance Ministry said.

"The Finance Minister is supposed to meet the editorial board of the New York Times before leaving for Moscow in the evening on April 24," it added.

Jaitley, who has additional charge of the Defence portfolio, will hold bilateral discussions in Moscow to boost India-Russia military ties.
Chandigarh, April 19 : The Punjab government on Wednesday decided to hand over the management of the Saragarhi memorial and a gurdwara in Ferozepur to the Saragarhi Memorial Management Trust to ensure better upkeep of the historic site.

The Ferozepur-based trust, comprising serving armymen and ex-servicemen, has been entrusted with the memorial situated at Ferozepur Cantt., a government spokesperson said here.

A meeting here of the state Cabinet simultaneously cancelled the previous SAD-BJP government's orders to entrust management of the gurdwara to Baba Nand Singh Gurdwara, Nanaksar Kaleran, Jagraon, for 30 years, the spokesperson said.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had earlier announced his government's intention to transfer the upkeep of the gurdwara to the trust during the launch of his book on the historic battle of Saragarhi -- in the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan) -- of September 12, 1897.

On this date, under the command of Havildar Ishar Singh, 21 soldiers and one non-commissioned officer made the supreme sacrifice after killing hundreds of tribesmen who had attacked the Saragarhi outpost.

The British government had conferred on the martyred soldiers of the 36th Sikhs (now the 4th Battalion of the Sikh Regiment) with its highest battle honour of 'Indian Order of Merit Grade II'.

A former Army Captain, Amarinder Singh said memorials of martyrs in Punjab would not be allowed to deteriorate during the Congress rule in the state.
Kolkata, April 20 : A major fire broke out at a thermocol factory in West Bengal's Howrah district on Thursday, a fire department official said.

"A thermocol factory in Howrah district's Andul Road went ablaze at around 10.30 a.m. The fire spread quickly as plenty of inflammable materials were stocked in the factory premises," the official said.

Visuals showed thick, black smoke billowing out of the factory.

Fire fighters are trying hard to control the blaze as the factory is located in a narrow lane.

"Six fire tenders have been pressed into service. We have got in touch with Uluberia fire brigade and other fire departments for additional support."
New Delhi, April 20 : President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday greeted Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on her birthday on Friday.

Mukherjee said in a message: "It is with great pleasure that I convey warm greetings to you on the occasion of your birthday."

He said the multi-faceted ties between India and the UK had been expanded and strengthened in recent years.

"Our fruitful engagements and exchanges at the highest political levels have given us much to look forward to."

Born on April 21, 1926, Elizabeth II, the world's oldest living and Britain's longest-lived monarch, was coronated on June 2, 1953.

According to the British royal family's website, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates two birthdays: her actual birthday on April 21 and her official birthday on (usually) the second Saturday in June.
Islamabad, April 20 : Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday got a temporary reprieve after the Supreme Court in its highly-anticipated verdict in the Panamagate scandal said there was "insufficient evidence" to remove him from office but ordered a fresh probe into the graft allegations against him and his family.

Sharif expressed his satisfaction after the verdict that was split 3-2 among the five-judge bench, comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.

Sharif said he respected the court's decision. His Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) celebrated the verdict, while the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party demanded that Sharif should resign.

The bench examined arguments presented by the PTI, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the Watan Party and the All Pakistan Muslim League, which framed the case as a campaign against corruption and were pushing for Sharif's ouster.

The final verdict saw two dissenting notes in the bench, with Justice Khosa and Justice Ahmed ruling against Sharif, saying he should be disqualified, while the other three were in favour of forming a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) for a fresh probe.

Reading the 540-page verdict, Justice Khosa asked how the Sharif family assets were transferred from Pakistan to Jeddah in the first place.

A JIT, made up of officials from the military and other investigating agencies, would be set up within a week and submit a report in 60 days, the court said.

Justice Khosa said the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had failed to probe the case properly. The two agencies are part of the JIT.

Sharif, who many in Pakistan feared might be forced to step down on Thursday, will appear before the probe team.

The scandal erupted last year with the publication of the "Panama Papers" which documented the offshore dealings of many of the world's rich and powerful.

Among those implicated were three of Sharif's four children - his daughter and presumptive political heir Maryam and sons Hasan and Hussein.

At the heart of the matter is the legitimacy of the funds used by Sharif's family to buy high-end London properties through offshore firms. His party says the wealth was acquired legally in Pakistan and the Gulf.

"It needs to be investigated how the money was transferred to Qatar," the verdict read.

The JIT will be required to present the report after every two weeks.

The ruling PML-N was quick to tweet photos and statements of celebration after the Supreme Court verdict.

PTI Chairman Imran Khan, after the ruling, urged Sharif to resign during the duration of the investigation into how the Sharif family's money was transferred to Qatar.

"I demand Nawaz Sharif resign... Until the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) completes its probe," Khan said.

"If you're cleared within 60 days, you can return," Khan said.

However, Khan congratulated the nation on the "historic" ruling.

Former President Asif Ali Zardari, addressing a press conference, said that Sharif should hand in his resignation.

"I condemn the (court's) decision," he said.

"Mian sahab you have failed. You cannot run the government. Give someone else a chance to run the government," Zardari said.

"We believe that if Pakistan is not safe in the hands of Nawaz Sharif, it is also not safe in the hands of Imran Khan," said Zardari, whose own Pakistan's Peoples Party is gunning for a victory in the next election.

The Premier's daughter, Maryam Nawaz, tweeted a photo of Sharif, his family and PML-N leaders celebrating the verdict with smiles and embraces.

Addressing the media after the verdict, Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique said: "Every party including Imran Khan, Sirajul Haq should now respect the SC verdict."

"The split verdict proves that people, especially the PTI who opposed the Prime Minister, are in a minority," said Ahsan Iqbal, a leader from Sharif's PML-N.

The landmark judgement was made public 57 days after the case was last heard by the court.
Paris, April 21 : A police officer was gunned down in the heart of this capital on Thursday, just three days before French voters will cast ballots in the first round of the presidential election.

Islamic State rushed to claim responsibility for the attack, which left the policeman and the assailant dead and three others wounded, including a civilian.

Police have confirmed the identity of the gunman, but are withholding his name to allow time to determine whether he had any accomplices, Paris chief prosecutor FranAois Molins said at the crime scene.

Investigators have already searched the shooter's residence in suburban Paris, Efe news agency reported.

IS said the assault was the work of one of its "soldiers," a Belgian national identified only by the pseudonym Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki.

French President FranAois Hollande said he was convinced the shooting was an act of a "terrorist character."

"We have a great determination to battle terrorism here and everywhere our forces are engaged," the head of state said in a televised address.

"With regard to the security forces, the nation's support is total," Hollande said, adding that the government will organize a tribute to the slain policeman.

Authorities will remain on the highest alert, especially for possible threats to the election, he said.

Hollande said he convened a meeting of France's defense council for Friday morning.

The incident on the Champs-Elysees, Paris' iconic main avenue, occurred shortly before 9 pm, interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

A car pulled up next to a police vehicle and a man emerged and opened fire with an automatic weapon, the spokesman said.

"On the face of it, the officers were deliberately targeted," Brandet said.

Evidence and witness statements indicate that the attack was carried out by one man, Brandet said.

Paris police ordered the immediate evacuation of the Champs-Elysees and suspension of service at nearby metro stations.

France has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, when more than 130 people were killed in a single night by coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris.

Several of the candidates vying in Sunday's presidential ballot issued statements of sympathy for the victims and their families, and some referred to the shooting an act of terrorism.

Two presidential hopefuls canceled rallies scheduled for Friday.

US President Donald Trump, in comments prior to Hollande's televised address, said that the violence in Paris "looks like another terrorist attack."

"It never ends," he said during a joint press conference in Washington with the visiting Italian prime minister, offering condolences to the French people.
Paris, April 21 : Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed responsibility for the shooting here in the French capital that saw a gunman open fire on a police van, killing one officer and injuring two, media reports said.

The terrorist network's news agency identified the attacker as Belgian man Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki in a tweet taking credit for the Thursday night attack, the New York Post reported.

IS said the assault was the work of one of its "soldiers".

Cops killed the shooter at the scene - and said he was someone they had previously flagged as an extremist.

At 9 p.m., the officers were stopped at a traffic light on the Champs-Elysees - a bustling boulevard popular with tourists and famed for its luxury stores and eateries.

The gunman pulled up next to the police vehicle, took out an automatic weapon and started shooting, New York Post quoted Interior Ministry Spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet, Efe news reported.

"On the face of it, the officers were deliberately targeted," Brandet said.

Evidence and witness statements indicate that the attack was carried out by one man, Brandet said.

Paris police ordered the immediate evacuation of the Champs-Elysees and suspension of service at nearby metro stations.

The incident comes just three days before French voters cast ballots in the first round of the Presidential election.

Although the police have also confirmed the identity of the gunman, they are withholding his name to allow time to determine whether he had any accomplices, Paris Chief Prosecutor FranAois Molins said at the crime scene.

Investigators have already searched the shooter's residence in suburban Paris.

French President Francois Hollande, who has convened a meeting of France's Defence Council for Friday morning, said he was convinced the shooting was an act of a "terrorist character."

"We have a great determination to battle terrorism here and everywhere our forces are engaged," the head of state said in a televised address.

"With regard to the security forces, the nation's support is total," Hollande said, adding that the government would organise a tribute to the slain policeman.

Authorities would remain on the highest alert, especially for possible threats to the election, he said.

France has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, when more than 130 people were killed in a single night by coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris.

Several of the candidates vying in Sunday's presidential poll issued statements of sympathy for the victims and their families, and some referred to the shooting as an act of terrorism.

Two Presidential hopefuls cancelled rallies scheduled for Friday.

US President Donald Trump, in comments prior to Hollande's televised address, said that the violence in Paris "looks like another terrorist attack."

"It never ends," he said during a joint press conference in Washington with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, offering condolences to the French people.
Washington, April 21 : US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, officials told CNN on Friday.

The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former US Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning now known as Chelsea Manning.

During former President Barack Obama's administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks was not alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning, reports CNN.

The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.

Last week, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia".

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news conference on Thursday that Assange's arrest is a "priority", CNN reported.

"We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," he said.

According to Assange's lawyer Barry Pollack, there has been no communication between him and the Justice Department about any charges against the Australian whistleblower.

Pollack said WikiLeaks is just like any other news daily which routinely publish stories based on classified information.

WikiLeaks, he says, publishes information that is in "the public's interest to know not just about the US but other governments around the world."

Assange, has been staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, reports the BBC.

He was granted asylum by Ecuador to prevent his extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
Mumbai, Apr 21 (IBNS): Union Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh has said that he expects the steel industry to showcase an increase of one percent growth than that of the last financial year in 2017-18.

I want the steel industry to showcase a growth as of the last financial year in 2017-18; in fact, it should be one per cent higher. I am asking you to better your best. Let our mission for 2017-18 be Plus One Per Cent Growth Rate, said Chaudhary Birender Singh, Minister for Steel, Government of India, while addressing the gathering of honchos from the steel industry at India Steel 2017 conference organized by FICCI in Mumbai.

The Minister said, We increased exports by 102%, let us increase exports by 103 % this year. We increased steel production by 9%, let us take it to 10%. We reduced imports by 36%, let us try and reduce imports by 37%. Steel consumption increased by 3%, let us ensure that it reaches 4% this year.

Chaudhary Birender Singh said, I suggest that primary and secondary steel producers must come together to establish a Big-data Analytics & Application Centre for Steel with the objective of pooling resources and information available with all steel companies and analyzing the collated data. This will help to promote usage of steel by statistically demonstrating the advantages of steel over other materials and also to explore new areas where steel can be used.

He added, The findings and research then should be placed in the public domain so that there is no one-upmanship and issue of data ownership. This will also help media, opinion leaders, architects and engineers access authentic and credible database. I am sure industry will consider it seriously.

In my view, in the current scenario, we need to focus on the following five important thrust areas and to make it easy to remember. We have coined an acronym PRIDE that aptly sums up the way forward for the steel industry; P stands for Production & Productivity; R for Research & Development; I for Indian-made steel; D for Demand of Steel; and E for Excellence in quality, Chaudhary Singh said and added, each of these areas is important from the perspective of Make in Steel, which I understand is essential for maximizing usage of steel in different segments of industry. I am sure you will all use PRIDE as your guiding principle for Make in Steel Roadmap for the industry.

The Minister said that in a bid to boost domestic steel production and bring it technologically on a par with developed nations, the government has formulated the Draft National Steel Policy 2017 envisaging that the industry can be steered with appropriate policy support in creating an environment for promoting domestic steel and thereby ensuring a scenario where production matches with the anticipated pace of growth in consumption.



He said the government aims to increase focus on expansion of MSME sector, improve raw material security, enhance R&D activities, reduce import dependency and cost of production, and thus develop a technologically advanced and globally competitive steel industry that promotes economic growth eyeing self-sufficiency in production, developing globally economical steel manufacturing capabilities by facilitating investments and cost efficient productions with adequate availability of raw materials.

Birender Singh said, I recommend to FICCI for the formation of a taskforce, comprising representatives from each sphere of the Indian steel industry (be it public or private producer, raw material supplier, technology provider or a logistics firm); all need to work in tandem and in collaboration so that the vision can be turned into a reality. Our endeavor, through this conglomeration of Government, policy makers, industrial leaders and potential investors from all across the world is to discuss the new growth drivers that are revolutionizing the Indian steel (along with upstream and downstream industries) and assess challenges and opportunities associated with technology adoption.




New Delhi, April 21 : As the market becomes more competitive amid aggressive 4G rollout and more people adopting digital payment methods, smartphones in India will represent 62 per cent of all mobile phones sales in 2018, market research firm Gartner predicted on Friday.

The rise of digital currency is bringing a new use case for smartphones, which, in turn, is set to trigger higher demands for smartphones.

This opens the opportunity for service providers to launch mobile wallet solution or even vendors to launch their exclusive mobile payment solutions like Android Pay or Apple Pay to build an ecosystem, Gartner said.

"India represents the largest opportunity because it is the second-largest mobile phone market after China," said Anshul Gupta, Research Director, Gartner.

Ever rising competition from Chinese manufacturers has not only troubled top local brands such as Micromax, Intex, Lava and Karbonn mobile but also resulted in a decrease in smartphone market share for global leader Samsung in India.

Leading global vendors Samsung and Apple have made exclusive plans to grow their shares in the market.

Gionee, Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and Lenovo, etc. have committed big investments to exploit the growth opportunity, the report added.

"With an exclusive focus on the market from the device manufacturers, we expect more customised smartphones to come to market and remain key to win in this highly competitive market," Gupta said.
Lucknow, April 21 : The Uttar Pradesh government is exploring air connectivity to major religious tourist places in the state, an official said on Friday.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked the tourism department officials to work out an action plan to connect religious hot spots including, Lucknow, Mathura, Vrindavan, Ayodhya, Allahabad, Vindhaychal, Naimisharanya, Kushinagar, Varanasi and Chitrakoot through helicopter services.

At a meeting held to review the civil aviation department, Yogi said the state government will also explore the possibilities of establishing more airports in Uttar Pradesh to boost tourism.

The airports would be established under the regional connectivity scheme, an official told IANS.

The construction of airport at Kushinagar, extension of the air strip at Chitrakoot and construction of a new air strip at Kanpur was on way, the official added.
Beijing, April 21 : China on Friday launched a new freight train service linking Xiamen city with Moscow.

The train with 40 containers left the station carrying goods worth $363,000 including granite, lighting supplies, artificial flowers and shoes, Xinhua news agency repored.

A single trip on the 10,920-km route takes 13 to 14 days. Without the direct train service, it used to take at least 25 days.

The train route connects the Chinese cities of Nanchang, Nanjing, Jinan and Jinzhou, and crosses the border via Manzhouli port in Inner Mongolia.

Xiamen imports wood, paper pulp and vegetable oil from Russia.

Lin Jiangfan, an official with Xiamen Haicang Free Trade Port Zone, said that as the host city of the 2017 Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit slated for September, Xiamen welcomes a closer partnership with Russia.

The Xiamen-Moscow freight train service could also strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative, driving trade in Xiamen.

In 2016, exports from Xiamen to Russia reached more than 5 billion yuan, and imports from Russia totalled 1.9 billion yuan.
New Delhi, April 21 : The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed the Aam Aadmi Party's plea to use second-generation EVMs with paper trail in the April 23 civic polls in the national capital.

Justice A.K. Pathak declined AAP's plea saying: "It would not be possible to give any such direction, as it would amount to interference in election process. The plea is dismissed."

The AAP and its candidate Mohammad Tahir Hussain had approached the High Court for using second generation EVMs attached with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in the elections to the capital's three municipal corporations.

The State Election Commission has opposed the plea, saying the petition was filed to stall the election.

The Election Commission maintains that EVMs can't be tampered with.

The VVPAT is connected with EVMs and dispenses paper proof so that voters can verify that their vote has been cast correctly. The AAP and the Congress say that EVMs without VVPAT can be tampered with.
Islamabad, April 21 : Pakistan has said that consular access to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, who it dubbed a "serial killer", was "not an automatic option".

Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said on Thursday that in all such cases, the request would be decided on the basis of merit, The Nation reported on Friday.

He said India summoned Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner on the issue of consular access to Jadhav "but this is not something new".

Zakaria pointed out that Jadhav had been given the death sentence after he confessed "he was involved in terror financing, subversive and terrorist activities in Pakistan besides being a spy and indulging in espionage".

He said Pakistan and India have a bilateral agreement on consular access but all cases were decided on merit.

Asked if the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India would meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kazakhstan, the spokesperson said: "There is nothing on the table yet, as the SCO Summit is almost two months away.

"Nevertheless, we have consistently maintained that meaningful, result-oriented dialogue, sustainable and constructive engagement to address all outstanding issues, particularly the Kashmir dispute, is the only way forward. Hostility and escalation benefits none."

India has said that if Jadhav was hanged, it would amount to pre-meditated murder. A Pakistani military court sentenced him to death.
Washington, April 21 : An Egyptian-American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years has returned home to the US after President Donald Trump's administration "quietly" negotiated her release, the media reported on Friday.

Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a US citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers, The Washington Post reported.

Trump dispatched a US government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington. They arrived late on Thursday Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a rehabilitation centre for street children in Cairo.

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and US officials as false.

Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates cancelled, reports The Washington Post.

Human rights groups alleged that they were abused in detention.

Finally on Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others.

Meanwhile, a senior administration official said that no quid pro quo had been offered for Hijazi's release but that there had been "assurance from the highest levels (of Sisi's government) that whatever the verdict was, Egypt would use presidential authority to send her home".

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell met Sisi this week in Cairo to arrange the prisoners' release.

As Mattis travelled on to Israel, Powell and military aide Air Force Major Wes Spurlock accompanied Hijazi, Hassanein and their family.

Hijazi and her brother, Basel, were set to visit the White House to meet Trump, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner on Friday, the daily added.
New Delhi, April 21 : The Centre on Friday denounced the decision of a petroleum dealers' association to keep fuel outlets shut on Sundays starting May 14.

"The Petroleum Ministry does not approve or endorse the move by a section of petrol pump dealers to close down fuel stations on Sundays," Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told the Parliamentary Consultative Committee at a meeting in Srinagar according to an official statement here.

Earlier this week, the Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers informed the media of their decision to shut fuel bunks every Sunday starting May 14 to protest the public sector oil companies' failure to hike dealer margins.

The decision will cover Haryana, Maharashtra and the entire southern region -- Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala as well as Puducherry.

Dealers' body representatives told the media on Tuesday that their decision was in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent call to save petrol and diesel.

"Major dealers' federations have clarified that they don't endorse any closure of petrol pumps on any day," the Petroleum Ministry tweeted.

"The Prime Minister in #MannKiBaat appealed to People of India not to use fuel once a week and not to dealers to close their pumps on Sundays," it said in a separate tweet.

All India Petroleum Dealers Association president Ajay Bansal told reporters that the association, which has nearly 46,000 petrol pump owners as members, is not participating in the Sunday closure.

Petroleum Ministry sources have said that the threat to shut down pumps on Sundays will be dealt with according to measures necessary to maintain supplies of essential commodities as petroleum products come under this category.
Kathmandu, April 21 : The Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha, an alliance of seven Madhes-centric parties, will pay a terrible price if it turns down the government's request to participate in next month's local level elections, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said on Friday.

The Madhes-based parties under the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) on Thursday announced their merger to form a new party - Rastriya Janata Party (RJP). With 25 seats in total, the RJP has become the fifth largest force in Parliament now.

Addressing an election rally organised by CPN (Maoist Centre) in Birtamod, Jhapa, Dahal, also the chairman of the Maoist party, said his government has maintained utmost flexibility to address the Morcha's concerns to bring it on board the election process.

The Prime Minister said he will try to convince the agitating side to participate in the polls slated for May 14, the Kathmandu Post reported.

In case the Morcha leaders refuse to participate in the local elections, Dahal said, the decision will only hurt them and their reputation.

The people will reject Morcha if it decides boycott the elections, he added.

Dahal also claimed that the elections will be conducted in a single phase.

Later, a meeting between leaders of the ruling coalition - Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Centre)- and Madhesi Morcha leaders to discuss holding the local level elections in two phases and constitution amendment was held at the the Prime Minister's residence in Baluwatar on Friday. The meeting ended inconclusively.

The leaders have agreed to meet again.

At the meeting, both sides stuck to their respective stances.

The Morcha leaders reiterated that the constitution amendment bill should be revised, while the Prime Minister urged Morcha leaders to agree on the new constitution amendment bill registered by the government in the Parliament and take part in the May 14 local level elections, the Post reported.
Kohima, April 21 : Food processing units in Nagaland will get a boost with the completion of four-laning of the Dimapur-Kohima stretch of National Highway 39, said an official on Friday.

The state government is of the view that the completion of the Dimapur-Kohima stretch of NH 39 -- constructed by the National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation -- will also enable the state to set up cold chain facilities across the state by 2020.

Currently, due to Nagaland's poor road connectivity and poorer power supply, the state has not been able to process its horticulture despite having the potential.

"With very poor road connectivity and poorer power supply, the state has not been able to process its horticulture produce such as banana, papaya, pineapple, chillies, ginger and a host of other products which result in 45 per cent post-harvest losses," said M.K. Mero, Commissioner and Secretary of Nagaland's Veterinary and Animal Husbandry department.

He was speaking at the inauguration of an Outreach Awareness Programme on Cold Chain under aegis of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry here.

Due to the poor road connectivity, Nagaland farmers are economically exploited and highly under-utilised, Mero said, adding that as soon as the new infrastructure (Dimapur-Kohima NH39 four-laning) will come up in the next few years, the food processing potential of the state will multiply and result in a win-win situation both for farmers and end-consumers.

"By 2020, it is expected that the work on four-lane road connectivity will get completed as also the power situation will improve. Nagaland expects host of food processing units coming on both sides of the new highway which will transform its horticulture sector that is currently languishing on account of poor facilities," Mero said.

Nagaland has also urged the Centre to come out with mini food parks in the state.

Under the proposal, Nagaland has sought contribution of 90 per cent of the cost by the Centre while the state will provide 10 per cent of the total cost of the mini food parks.
Jammu, April 21 : BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav on Friday called on Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and discussed the situation in the Valley, official sources said.

This followed a meeting of BJP-PDP leaders on the subject amid differences between the two allies on how to tackle widespread street protests in the troubled valley.

Madhav, the BJP point man on Jammu and Kashmir affairs, earlier met Peoples Democratic Party leaders including Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu.

The Kashmir Valley has been on the boil since the Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha by-election of April 9 when security forces shot dead eight protesters.

A re-poll on April 13 also saw violence including the killing of a youth in Srinagar.

BJP leader Avinash Rai Khanna and state BJP chief Sat Sharma were present at the BJP-PDP meeting.
New Delhi, Apr 21 (IBNS): The Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment (DOA&FE), Government of Odisha, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to further the objectives of improving the lives of smallholder farmers and promoting inclusive agricultural transformation in Odisha.

In the presence of state Chief Minister Naveen Patnak, the agreement was signed by Hari Ballav Mishra, Director of Agriculture and Food Production, Government of Odisha and Dr. Nick Austin. Director of Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The MoU will formalize a partnership between the State Government and the Foundation to accelerate the States agriculture programme and improve the lives of smallholder farmers in Odisha.

The MoU will allow the Government and the Foundation to partner on agriculture projects, including a project to improve data management, analysis and use within the Department of Agriculture. Other activities may include expansion of biofortified crops in Odisha, generating evidence on policy issues pertaining to farmers' income, land, women in agriculture, and crop diversification and developing joint programmes on soil diagnostics and agronomic inputs targeting.

The first project to be initiated under the MoU will build a data management system that supports the Department of Agriculture in using data to make evidence-based policies. The project will combine data from Government sources into a single platform to help the Department monitor and improve its work.

It will support the creation of a Technical Support Unit (TSU) within the Government to develop the system and train users.

The project will be governed by a Advisory Committee chaired by the Principal Secretary of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers" Empowerment, and will leverage the knowledge of local and global experts in data and agriculture.
Islamabad, April 21 : Pakistan's retired Army Chief General Raheel Sharif on Friday departed for Riyadh after the government granted him permission to head a 41-nation military alliance led by Saudi Arabia.

Speaking to Geo News, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed that the government had given the former Chief of Army Staff the No Objection Certificate (NOC) after completion of all legal formalities and requirements.

Asif said the former top commander was given the NOC after approval from the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi.

The Defence Minister had said earlier that Pakistan had received a written request from the Saudi government for employing Raheel Sharif as head of the military alliance to fight militancy.

General Raheel Sharif (Retd.) departed for Riyadh on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother on the flight, Dawn reported.

He was granted approval to serve as the head of the military alliance for three years, reports said.

With a Joint Command Centre headquartered in Riyadh, the coalition includes Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Sudan, Malaysia, Egypt, Yemen and other Muslim countries.

Saudi Arabia said the alliance, which noticeably lacks the presence of Iran, will "coordinate and support military operations to fight terrorism".

Last month, Pakistan's National Security Adviser (NSA) Nasir Janjua said that General Sharif spearheading the Saudi military alliance would bring unity to the Muslim world.

Janjua had said that in May, the advisory board of Defence Ministers of member countries would attend a meeting held in this regard.

"When General Raheel Sharif (Retd.) joins he will define a structure," Janjua had said, speaking at a conference in Islamabad.

Janjua stressed that with his experience General Sharif would remove misunderstandings among Muslim countries.

"Iran and other countries opposed of the alliance will also benefit from this."

Earlier this week, Iran's ambassador to Pakistan Mehdi Honardoost expressed reservations over Sharif's role as head of the Saudi-led military alliance.

"It was correct that Pakistan had contacted Iranian officials before issuing the NOC, but it did not indicate that Iran was satisfied with this decision or it had accepted the same," he said.

But Asif said the military coalition "will not act against Iran."
Manila, April 21 : A top Philippine official on Friday made a one-day trip to the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana travelled to the island Filipinos call Pag-asa, part of the Spratly Islands, emphasising the country's military commitment over the contested waters.

Armed Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla told Efe news that the visit was "to conduct a routine inspection and support the approximately 200 Filipino civilians living on the island".

China, which claims the entire Spratly chain, issued several radio alerts to the C-130, warning it was "flying over their supposed air control area", Padilla said.

"We did not answer because we were flying over our own territory," he remarked, referring to the nine islands currently controlled by Manila.

The trip was aimed at strengthening the Philippines' claim to Pag-asa, as Padilla mentioned the possibility of developing and extending the concrete airstrip on the islet.

Friday's trip was made following President Rodrigo Duterte's order to deploy the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to occupy all islands of the Philippines in the South China Sea to bolster the country's claims.

On April 6, Duterte vowed he would personally travel to the Spratly and raise the Philippine flag there -- but less than a week later, he retracted his statement.

Other countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim total or partial sovereignty over the Spratly Islands.
Tokyo, April 21 : Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Friday accepted the resignation of lawmaker Toshinao Nakagawa who quit after revelations that he was involved in an extra-marital affair.

The scandal-hit lawmaker resigned on Thursday from his position as Parliamentary Vice Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry following demands from the main opposition Democratic Party for him to do so to account for his involvement in the scandal, Xinhua news agency reported.

The LDP ethics committee accepted Nakagawa's offer to leave the party voluntarily after he made his involvement in the affair clear in a Facebook post.

In the post, written on Thursday, Nakagawa apologised for his wrongdoing, stating that he had shown his constituents a "lack of virtue" and that now intends to "spend the rest of my life redeeming myself to my wife and family".

LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai slammed Nakagawa, saying that his behaviour was deplorable and that public figures elected by voters have a duty to act responsibly.
Chandigarh, April 21 : Canada has evinced keen interest in investing in Haryana in civil aviation, skill development, education, defence, and smart city projects, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Friday.

Khattar was speaking to the media after visiting Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan called on him here and evinced keen interest in investing in the northern state.

He said that follow-up meetings would be held to facilitate investment by Canadian companies in Haryana, which would help in creating job opportunities for the state's youths.

The Chief Minister said discussion was also held on the two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed during his visit to Canada in 2015.

It was decided to set up a Working Group to ensure the implementation of the MoUs on horticulture to be executed jointly by Haryana and Canada.

The Chief Minister apprised Sajjan of the progress made by Haryana in various fields.

Sajjan, earlier in the day, inaugurated the new office of the Consulate General of Canada here.

A day earlier, Sajjan paid obeisance at the Harmandar Sahib in Amritsar and visited other places in Punjab.
Islamabad, April 21 : Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar on Friday rejected the notion that the Panama Papers verdict was a "split decision", adding that although the judges' opinions may be different, "all five signed off on formation of a Joint Investigation team (JIT)".

Speaking to the media here, Nisar mentioned how the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leadership had initially demanded that a JIT, including members from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI), be formed to investigate allegations of corruption, Dawn online reported.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif got a temporary reprieve after the Supreme Court in its highly-anticipated verdict in the Panamagate scandal said there was "insufficient evidence" to remove him from office but ordered a fresh probe into the graft allegations against him and his family.

The verdict that was split 3-2 among the five-judge bench, comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.

Later on Thursday, the Prime Minister's daughter Maryam Nawaz's name was also cleared in the case due to lack of evidence.

The JIT would be set up within a week and will require to submit a report in 60 days.

The Interior Minister also expressed his discomfort with political parties announcing protests, terming it as detrimental to the integrity of the SC's verdict, reports Dawn online.

Nisar also commented on the nature of the allegations against Sharif.

"The onus of proving a case lies with the prosecution all over the world," said Nisar, adding "But in Pakistan, it is the opposite."

"This is not a corruption case," he said, referring to the scandal.

"Lots of people have houses abroad...Since day one, the Prime Minister has not hidden his assets," Dawn online quoted Nisar as saying.

Nisar added that the apex court's decision to further investigate allegations of corruption against the prime minister should be accepted in all its merit.
Tehran, April 21 : Campaigning began on Friday for Irans presidential elections after a government vetting body approved incumbent Hassan Rouhani and five challengers to run in the May 19 poll, while former hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was disqualified, state media reported.

According to the Guardian Council, Rouhani's main rivals in the presidential race include two prominent hardliners: Ebrahim Raisi, a political hardliner considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf.

Other candidates qualified to run are Rouhani's Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, former conservative Culture Minister Mostafa Mirsalim and former pro-reform Vice President Mostafa Hashemitaba, IRNA reported.

More than 1,600 candidates sought to stand, but only six were selected by the clerical body which vets candidates.

Khamenei had advised Ahmadinejad not to run, and his attempt to become a candidate was widely seen as a public snub to the Supreme Leader, said the report.

Ahmadinejad's close ally Hamid Baghaie was also barred from standing in the election.

A final list of candidates for the May 19 poll will be announced on April 27.

According to reports, the poll body, by disqualifying Ahmadinejad, runs the risk of being seen as a rubber stamp for the Supreme Leader as he appoints half of the members of the Guardian Council.

Rouhani, a politically moderate cleric, squeaked to victory last time with 51 per cent in the first round, helped by a divided conservative camp.

Raisi runs a powerful religious foundation and business empire in the holy city of Mashhad.

Rouhani and Raisi are expected to focus their campaigns on the state of the economy as well as the nuclear deal, which has been hailed by the President as his most significant success during the past four years in office.

Meanwhile, Iran's Interior Ministry said there would be no live debates in the run-up to the elections.

"Based on a decision by the Election Campaign Monitoring Commission, the election debates of the candidates will be broadcast pre-recorded," Interior Ministry spokesman Seyed Salman Samani said.

Following the ministry's announcement, Rouhani called for the decision to be reviewed.

"I support the mostly independent way in which Iranians could receive information on the candidates and the elections," Rouhani said.

The council's spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said that candidates should stay away from hurting the image of their competitors and respect the electoral law, according to reports.

The election commission also issued guidelines for the debates, and said candidates are not allowed "to tarnish the image of the country, or the actions of the executive, administrative, legislative or judicial bodies."
Mumbai/Kolkata, April 21 : Tata Trusts on Friday said it "has no connection" at all with a recent public interest litigation (PIL) on public sector entities' equity holding in the tobacco sector.

"Tata Trusts clarifies that it has no connection whatsoever with a recent PIL on government entities' equity holding in the tobacco sector," it said in a statement.

According to it, the petitioners have filed the plea, as private citizens. The main petitioner is Sumitra Pednekar, wife of the late Satish Pednekar, former Minister of Maharashtra.

The PIL filed in the Bombay High Court asked the central government's policy of allowing public sector insurance companies to invest in the tobacco industry, contradicting the "anti-tobacco" stance taken by the Union government.

"The other petitioners are Ashish Deshmukh, BJP MLA from Katol (Maharashtra), Abhay Bang, a public health expert, Pankaj Chaturvedi, leading cancer surgeon, Prakash Gupta, public health expert, and R. Venkataramanan and Lakshman Sethuraman, two Tata Trusts employees, all of whom have joined the petition in their individual capacities," the statement said.

The statement came after some media reports suggested that the petition was an initiative of the Trusts trying to draw links with Indian Hotels Company Limited and ITC Limited.

"Tata Trusts denounces such suggestions," it said, adding that it was baseless to describe the petition as initiated by the Trusts just because Venkataramanan and Sethuraman work for the organisation.
London, April 21 : Britain's Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 91st birthday on Friday, an occasion that was marked by ceremonial gun salutes and Buckingham Palace releasing a photograph of her as a baby.

An image posted on Twitter by the Palace showed the Queen as a baby being held in the arms of her mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, under the gaze of her father, King George VI, at her christening, one month after she was born, Efe news reported.

As per tradition, the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery staged a 41-gun salute in London's Hyde Park in honour of the Queen, who celebrated her birthday privately at Windsor Castle.

The Honourable Artillery Company, meanwhile, performed a 62-gun salute at the Tower of London on the banks of the River Thames.

The Queen is the world's longest reigning living monarch and celebrated 65 years on the throne on February 6, thus becoming the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee.

Born on April 21, 1926, the Queen usually celebrates her birthday twice: on the day of her actual birthday, and in June during an official military parade known as the Trooping of the Colour.

This year's parade is to take place on June 10, two days after the snap election announced this week by the UK government.

The General Election will be the 17th such election to take place under Queen Elizabeth II's reign.
Shimla, April 21 : The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh on Friday issued a notification prohibiting the use of red beacons on all vehicles, except those of the High Court judges.

The notification, issued by the Transport Department under Rule 108 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules of 1989, supersedes all previous notifications on the use of red and other coloured beacons, an official spokesperson told IANS.

As per the notification, red light with flasher can now be used only by the Chief Justice and judges of the High Court.

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who is currently in New Delhi, has stopped using a red beacon on his official vehicle, the day the Narendra Modi government put a countrywide ban on it from May 1.

Governor Acharya Devvrat also removed the red beacon from his official vehicle on Thursday.

Hailing the decision of the Union Cabinet to ban red beacons atop the cars of all ministers, politicians and bureaucrats, Devvrat said it would help in ending VIP culture in the country.

State Transport Minister G.S. Bali took the lead in denouncing the use of red beacons on his vehicles even before the Union Cabinet decision.
New Delhi, April 21 : The CPI on Friday flayed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for what it said was "utter disregard" towards the plight of protesting Tamil Nadu farmers and sought the the government's immediate intervention.

Communist Party of India General Secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy and National Council Secretary K. Narayana visited the Jantar Mantar -- where the farmers have been protesting for over a month to demand loan waivers, drought relief package and formation of a Cauvery river management board.

"Modi, during the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, promised to take care of farmers and solve water disputes once he came to power. Three years after assuming power, he has done nothing," the CPI said.

The party pointed out that the Tamil Nadu farmers had been protesting peacefully for nearly 40 days. It asked the Centre to extend all possible relief to the striking farmers.

From wearing human skulls to conducting mock funerals and even stripping at Raisina Hill here, the farmers have been grabbing eyeballs for over a month.

Earlier, the central government approved Rs 1,712 crore under the National Disaster Response Fund for Tamil Nadu as against the state's demand for a relief package of Rs 40,000 crore.
Thimphu, Bhutan, Apr 21 (IBNS): Thirteen year old Bhuma (name changed) spends his day at home. He does not go to school, or play with children in his neighborhood to avoid being laughed at. That's been his life ever since he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was about four years old. Most children with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in low- and -middle income settings lead a life similar to that of Bhuma, marred by stigma, social isolation and lack of support services. And their numbers are increasing.

Accelerating efforts to enable people with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders to lead a productive life, countries in WHO South-East Asia Region today adopted the Thimphu Declaration which calls for integrating the needs of such individuals and their families into national health and socioeconomic development plans.

The Declaration, adopted at the end of the three-day International Conference on Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, emphasizes the need for a whole-ofsociety and whole-of-government approach to these issues, with specific attention to strengthening national capacities in the health, education and social care sectors to provide effective services and support to people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs).

The Declaration welcomed WHO South-East Asia Regions strategy on autism and called for countries in the Region to share experiences and best practices, with a focus on the lifespan needs of people with ASD and NDDs.

Inter-country cooperation and partnerships are fundamental to addressing autism in the Region. Member countries are already demonstrating how progress can be forged, providing valuable learning opportunities that must be embraced and adapted to country needs, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia, said.

The Thimphu Declaration, a collaborative effort of countries in the Region, was facilitated by the existing collaborative framework for autism in South-East Asia.

Government at all levels  national, state and local  should work with civil society, including academia, professionals and non-government organizations, as well as the private sector and media to effectively address autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, the Declaration said.

The Thimphu Declaration stressed the need to promote social inclusiveness and remove stigma, which are major challenges that individuals and their families face.

Barriers affecting persons with ASD must be identified and removed, and legal frameworks supporting the rights of persons with ASD, their families and caregivers must be developed. As part of this, involvement of persons affected by ASD and NDDs is vitally important, as is a commitment to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as previous Regional resolutions and declarations, the Regional Director said in her address to the conference organized by the Ministry of Health Bhutan, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Bangladesh, Shuchona Foundation and WHO.

The conference witnessed high-level representation at the inaugural with the Queen of Bhutan  who is also the Royal Patron of Ability Bhutan Society  gracing the occasion, as well as Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay and Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, highlighting the need for focused and concerted efforts to address ASD and NDDs.

WHO Champion for ASD in South-East Asia, Saima Wazed Hossain, who is also the chairperson of Shuchona Foundation, advocated for WHOs regional strategy on ASD.

The Conference, attended by policymakers, academics, professionals, practitioners, advocates and civil society organizations from the 11 Member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region and beyond, discussed community based services, inclusive education programs, employment opportunities, trainings and rights; and supported independent living in the community.

Autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders are life-long disabilities that affect brain functioning, and when left without proper support can cause significant impairment in exercising of an individuals human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Paris, April 21 : French centrist Emmanuel Macron is set to come out on top in the first round of France's presidential election on Sunday as far-right leader Marine Le Pen fell further behind him in a poll published on Friday.

The nation prepares to vote in the shadow of a terror attack that took place on the capital's famous Champs Elysees Avenue on Thursday night. One police officer and a gunman was killed in the attack claimed by Islamic State (IS) group, reported BBC.

National Front (FN) leader Le Pen pledged to expel radical Islamists and restore border checks after the attack while En Marche! leader Macron stressed that France must not panic, because that would play into the terrorists' hands.

An Elabe survey of voter intentions showed Macron with 24 per cent of the first-round vote and Le Pen falling back slightly to 21.5 per cent.

Two other candidates -- former conservative Prime Minister Francois Fillon and the far left's Jean-Luc Melenchon -- were snapping at their heels with 20 and 19.5 per cent respectively.

Fillon, Le Pen and Macron cancelled their planned campaign events after the shooting. Under French election rules, Friday was due to be the final day of campaigning before Sunday's first round of voting.

It was unclear whether the attack would tip the balance of the vote in favour of Le Pen, who has vowed to take a tough line on "Islamic terrorism".

Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve accused Le Pen of trying to capitalise on the attack.

"The candidate of the Front National, like every drama, seeks to profit from and to control the situation to divide. She seeks to benefit from fear for exclusively political ends," the Prime Minister said in a televised address.

Fillon said that if elected, his foreign policy priority would be the destruction of ISIS. He also called for the creation of 10,000 more police posts.

Cazeneuve, however, questioned Fillon's position on security, saying that when he previously served as Prime Minister he had cut thousands of security force jobs.

Security in Paris has been stepped up in recent days, but the presence of 50,000 police officers on the streets was not enough to prevent the latest assault, which was being investigated by anti-terror officials.
Kolkata, April 21 : Seeking government intervention to check rising cement prices, a national body of real estate developers on Friday said the spike could create unnecessary roadblocks and impediments in achieving the goal of 'Housing for All' by 2022.

According to the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (Credai), cement prices have witnessed a sudden jump of 20-40 per cent in two months across the country.

"We are pained by complaints of unjustifiable and collusive jacking up of cement prices by manufacturers across India which have the potential to create unnecessary roadblocks and impediments in ensuring housing for all by 2022," Credai Vice-President Sushil Mohta said.

He said the Competition Commission of India, on earlier occasions, had pulled up cement manufacturers for "collusive pricing" and imposed hefty fines on them.

It said a Rs 100 increase in each cement bag results in construction cost going up by at least Rs 50 per square foot.

The industry group has regularly urged central government for swift intervention to put an end to collusive practices in the industry and rein in price hikes.

The association's Bengal unit President Nandu Belani said: "With over 350 affordable projects, providing two million units, in the pipeline, the developers need to contain rising costs to ensure affordable housing for all."

According to the National Housing Bank, 99 per cent of the housing today is affordable and for economically weaker sections.

"While the government has laid emphasis on the housing industry and recognised its needs, especially affordable housing segment, by awarding it infrastructure status, this unjust price rise in cement may jack up construction cost which will have to be passed on to consumers," the developers added.
New Delhi, April 21 : India and the European Union on Friday agreed to strengthen security cooperation during a meeting here between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

"Prime Minister Modi and Mogherini discussed regional and global developments of mutual interest," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

"The Prime Minister and Mogherini agreed on the need to strengthen the security cooperation between India and EU, particularly on the issue of counter-terrorism," it said Modi recalled his visit to Brussels in March 2016 for the 13th India-EU Summit, and said that he was looking forward to the next India-EU Summit to be held in India in October 2017.

Earlier in the day, Mogherini, who is on an official visit to India, also met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar.

According to a statement by the External Affairs Ministry, they reaffirmed their commitment to deepening their Strategic Partnership and reviewed progress on the commitments made during the Brussels summit, including in the areas of counter-terrorism, migration and mobility, water partnership, clean energy and climate change action.

Sushma Swaraj also condemned Thursday night's terror attack in Paris that claimed the life of a police officer. Emphasising that terrorism was the gravest threat to humanity today, she called for both to strengthen their cooperation to fight it.

The statement also said that EU is one of India's largest trading partners with bilateral trade in goods reaching $85 billion in 2016, as well as the largest destination for Indian exports and a key source of investment and cutting edge technologies.

"India seeks enhanced level of investments from EU companies in its flagship programmes like Clean India, Namami Gange, Skill India, Start-Up India, Smart Cities, renewable energy and next-generation infrastructure."

According to the statement, both sides also discussed ways to take forward the India-EU broad-based trade and investment agreement.

According to statement by the Delegation of the European Union here, during the course of Friday's meetings, the two sides discussed in depth a broad range of issues of common interest.

It said that the EU and India "are natural partners, they share fundamental values of democracy and diversity, economic interests and robust trade relations, common security challenges, a direct interest in the stabilisation of many fragile areas, from the Korean Peninsula to Afghanistan".

"The EU and India expressed their common interest and commitment to strengthen their cooperation on the world stage, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, on common priorities such as multilateralism, climate change, sustainable development, free and fair trade, security and defence - notably on maritime security - and counter-terrorism," it said.

The two sides also agreed to take stock of progress made on decisions taken at last year's summit in Brussels, to deepen cooperation in foreign policy, security and defence, trade, investments, climate change, water, new and renewable energy, environment, ICT, space, research and technology, urbanisation, and to strengthen people-to-people contacts, including student exchanges.

During her visit, Mogherini opened the EU@60 Treaty of Rome Exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture. This year, the EU celebrates the 60th anniversary of the treaty, which paved the way for the bloc's formation.
New Delhi, April 21 : The Indian Navy on Friday successfully test-fired a BrahMos land-attack supersonic cruise missile from a naval ship, putting India into an exclusive global club.

So far, the Navy had fired only anti-ship version of the BrahMos.

"The Navy successfully undertook the firing of BrahMos land-attack missile from naval ship Teg, a guided missile frigate, on a target on land today (Friday)," a naval statement said.

The variant of the long-range BrahMos was fired in the Bay of Bengal, off the eastern coast of India, sources said.

The successful maiden firing of BrahMos land-attack missile significantly enhances the naval prowess.

"The land-attack variant provides Indian warships the capability to neutralise with precision the selected targets situated deep inland, far from the coast, from stand-off ranges at sea," the Navy said.

BrahMos missile has been jointly developed by India and Russia, and its anti-ship variant has already been inducted into the Indian Navy.

Majority of frontline naval ships of Kolkata, Ranvir and Teg classes are capable of firing this missile.

The land-attack version of BrahMos has been operationalised in the Indian Army since 2007.

The BrahMos missile, with a range of 290 km and a Mach 2.8 speed, is capable of launch from land, sea and sub-sea pads against targets on both land and sea.

BrahMos is considered the only supersonic cruise missile in the world. The missile was first inducted in the India Navy in 2005.

On March 11, India successfully test-fired the BrahMos with an extended range of 450 km, with officials calling it a "textbook launch".

The Defence Research and Development Organisation is developing a second version of the missile with a range of 800 km. Its air version too is under development.
Mumbai, April 21 : Actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar, who has joined a social campaign to create awareness among the masses to save water on the eve of World Earth Day, says that from taking a shower to washing clothes, people can save water for the future.

The campaign titled 'Mission Blue' is by National Geographic in association with NGO Water Aid Foundation.

Being the face of the initiative, Farhan told IANS here on Friday: "We aim to create general awareness and empower people about water conservation. Though it sounds like a mission, little actions in our daily life can save a substantial amount of water for the future."

"For instance, instead of washing your car four days a week, how about doing it twice (a week)? Instead of washing clothes every day, we can do it every alternate day. These are the small things, but end of the week you will realise how much water you have saved."

"They have a website called missionblue.in where we have shown how many litres of water that we use while taking shower, brushing teeth and other basic things in daily life and that how much we can contribute to conserve water. It is very simple yet useful."

The actor was present here for the launch of the campaign on Friday.

Speaking on the campaign, Swati Mohan, Business Head India, National Geographic and FOX Networks Group, said: "Today, the water crisis around the world calls for much attention. In India alone, 76 million people lack access to safe water - a problem that is only going to get worse if no immediate action is taken. We are hopeful that this initiative will help enlighten people on what can be achieved by collective action."

Apart from Farhan's association, the campaign has taken a creative way to reach out to a wider audience by showing short films.

Filmmakers like Imtiaz Ali, Hansal Mehta, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and Madhur Bhandarkar made short films on water conservation that will be shown on National Geographic channel.
Kolkata, April 21 : Opposing the idea of Uniform Civil Code, the West Bengal unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind on Friday once again argued in favour of the Muslim personal law and said the court should not interfere with the "fundamental rights" of Muslims.

"Unlike other countries, the Muslim personal law only exists in India and it has an equation with the country's Constitution. Following the Sharia laws are our fundamental rights and we should be permitted to exercise those rights. Therefore, we appeal to the court not to interfere with the Muslim personal law," Md. Nooruddin, the state president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, told the reporters here.

He also opposed the idea of banning triple talaq saying the option of talaq should be available to people but some basic changes in the process is needed.

"We think the option of talaq should be available to people. Sometimes separation between a couple is necessary if the relationship is not working out at all. It is far better to be separated than to kill someone over relationship disputes," he said.

However, the cleric admitted that a section of "uneducated people" are misusing these rights and said the Sharia law never supports giving talaq on "baseless grounds and harassment of women".

"Separation or talaq is a social issue and should be resolved socially. If all the incidents of family dispute start reaching the court then the families would be ruined," he said.

Stating that the Sharia laws always promote ethical growth, equality, justice and balance, Nooruddin appealed to all the political parties to come together for the initiative of equipping Muslims with authentic knowledge about Islam.

"We appeal to all the political parties to overcome their political differences and come together in the initiative of educating Muslims about the real values of Islam in order to eliminate the violation of Sharia," he added.
Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh), April 21 : Thirteen persons were burnt alive on Friday when a fire broke out in the premises of a cooperative society in Chhindwara district, a senior Madhya Pradesh official said.

"The fire broke out when people had queued up during the distribution of kerosene and food grain in Bargi in Harayi tehsil in the afternoon," Jabalpur Divisional Commissioner Gulshan Bamra told IANS.

The kerosene stored in the premises caught fire, leading to the tragedy, he said.

The 13 victims died on the spot, whereas many others were injured. They have since been admitted to a hospital.

Agriculture Minister Gaurishankar Bisen condoled the deaths and announced an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh to each bereaved family.
New Delhi, April 21 : Delhi Police on Friday said it has made elaborate security arrangements, deploying 57,000 personnel, including paramilitary forces, for Sunday's polls to the three municipal corporations.

"This time we have made adequate security arrangements for the three municipal bodies - the NDMC, the SDMC and the EDMC - polls as this election is important for Delhi. A total of 13,022 booths have been set up in 770 premises. They are categorized into sensitive and hypersensitive," Special Commissioner of Police, Dependra Pathak, said.

Pathak said 3,294 booths were categorised as sensitive and 1,464 as hyper-sensitive, while in the premises 573 were sensitive and 197 hyper sensitive.

"The sensitive and hyper-sensitive booths and premises were made on guidelines to the police after consultation with the Election Commission (EC) and the government on five to 10 parameters, which includes number of cases, demographic situation if any, the kind of population of area and previous election experiences. All the preparedness has been done very professionally by Delhi Police," Pathak said.

He said Delhi Police has deployed 57,000 specific forces, including 40 companies of paramilitary forces, the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), 20,000 Home Guards along with various Delhi Police local units which will be deployed in their jurisdiction and areas.

The Delhi Police has also conducted meetings with Returning Officers and candidates and focused on policing activity such as Defacement of Public Property Act and Excise Act before the election day, the Special Commissioner said.

He said that Delhi Police would also seal the borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh areas as a precaution.

"There are 34 vote counting centres which will be covered with adequate security ring from polling day till April 26, the election result day," he added.

He said Delhi Police has seized 1,93,000 liquor bottles and registered 267 FIRs and arrested 264 people so far.
Mumbai, April 21 : The CBI on Friday raided the residences of several serving and former officers of the Central Bank of India and officials of the Sinhagad Technical Education Society (STES) at multiple locations in connection with a Rs 58 crore scam, an official said here.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths carried out raids on residential and official premises of the bank officers and STES officials in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik and the searches were going on when the reports last came in.

According to the CBI, a case has been registered against A.G. Sawant, former Assistant General Manager (AGM), Central Bank of India's Mid-Corporate Branch, Pune (now retired), Vidyadhar Pednekar, a former Senior Manager in the same branch, STES President and Managing Trustee M.N. Navale, certain trust officials and unknown persons, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI said that during 2011-2012, the bank officers, Sawant and Pednekar, entered into "a criminal conspiracy" with Navale and others to avail various financial facilities to the tune of Rs 81.30 crore, including a fresh loan of Rs 60 crore and transferring the STES's existing loans from the Punjab & Sindh Bank and the Canara Bank.

Navale submitted a project report giving false information that the loan amount would be utilised for various construction works and supplying materials to various STES campuses, including the underconstruction dental college and hospital in Narhe, Pune.

Sawant allegedly recommended the loan proposal, which was cleared by the Central Bank of India board, amounting to Rs 75.01 crore, comprising Rs 60 crore as a new loan plus Rs 13.01 crore takeover loan from the Canara Bank and another Rs 2-crore takeover loan from the Punjab & Sind Bank.

The CBI said that Sawant made the disbursement of the loans to STES without following the procedures and ascertaining its final use, since it later turned out that the borrower diverted it for some other purposes.

The STES also furnished bogus documents to the Central Bank Of India, including a certificate by an architect falsely showing expenses of Rs 21.20 crore towards construction of the Narhe medical campus, though no such thing was built there.

The CBI said the bank officers blatantly favoured the STES by misrepresenting the facts, did not ensure that adequate securities were in place to guard the loan, with Navale turning a wilful defaulter.

As part of the criminal conspiracy, the CBI said Navale failed to repay the loan to the bank, thus becoming a non-performing asset, causing an estimated loss of Rs 58.04 crore, plus interest.
Kolkata, April 21 : Bengali feature film "Shunyota" ("Emptiness") themed on demonetisation released in West Bengal on Friday following six cuts, that were recommended by the censor board, the film's director said.

The censor board had recommended some required cuts in the film for a U/A certificate.

"It has released in West Bengal, across 26 theatres. We are planning a country-wide release," director Suvendu Ghosh told IANS.

He said some portions of the film, which deals with the plight of people post-demonetisation, showcasing comments on demonetisation were axed.

The recommended cuts included deletion of two sequences and muting of four sentences/parts of sentences/words with beeps.

One of the recommended deletions was a 10-second sequence that talks of "a large number of unacceptable death processions in the country revolving around demonetisation".

"Although the film is still complete, I feel the portions where the cuts were made may lose out in creating the impact that I had envisaged," Ghosh said.

He was also asked to mute a part of a sentence with a beep that says "the government has committed the wrong, and while the big fish will survive, the small fish will be trapped".

Earlier, the Kolkata Regional Office of the CBFC had referred the film to the board's Chairman Pahlaj Nihalni for a decision on certification citing "differences of opinion among members of the (examining) committee".

Ghosh has claimed his film is the first on demonetisation.
Kolkata, Apr 21 (IBNS): No matter where he travels to, a box of 'gondhoraj lebu' is part of his luggage, admitted restaurateur Anjan Chatterjee because he must infuse his meals with this typically aromatic lime from Bengal.

It is a flavour that he swears by, a flavour that has found its way into some of the signature dishes of his restaurant chain Oh! Calcutta, which is celebrating its 20th birthday in April this year.

I tried growing it at my Lonavla [Maharashtra] home but it did not taste the same as the ones we get in Kolkata. Probably it has got to do with the soil of Bengal, said Chatterjee.

Not only the aromatic lime. The founder and MD of Speciality Restaurants Limited, Chatterjee is equally finicky about the spices used for cooking at his signature restaurants that span across cuisines.

With the intensive research he has conducted into the use of spices, he can lecture you for hours on how to make fish curry with whole cumin, how to make best use of panch-phoron and radhuni, how to make aam ada murgi (a chicken dish infused with a species of galangal) or how to make the perfect Bengali garam masala  something we found out as we recently met the man at the Oh! Calcutta outlet located in Kolkatas Forum Mall.



Chatterjee, who began with a career in advertising, stepped into the culinary world with Only Fish, a restaurant he opened in Mumbai in 1992.



Happy with the accolades that Only Fish earned, he decided to expand his horizon. He shut down Only Fish but came up with Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta.

Today, Oh! Calcutta has a pan-India presence, with restaurants in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurgaon, and Bengaluru, besides Kolkata.

We source all the typical Bengali ingredients for our Oh! Calcutta restaurants from Kolkata, said Chatterjee.



He never compromises on the authenticity of the taste, added Chatterjee.

Ever since my childhood days, I have been a food lover. I have seen the diverse culinary innovations of Calcuttas cuisine, from the quintessential jhaal muri to Royals Mutton Chanp, from Kolkata biryani to Sabirs unparalleled Chicken Rezala. Oh! Calcutta has been on a path-breaking journey in search of culinary fusion that would be typically Calcutta, he said.

Chatterjee has even teamed up with Sawan Dutta, the musical blogger of Metroname fame, for her post An Ode to Calcutta, where the restaurant Oh! Calcutta and its various dishes have been featured liberally.

Although hailing from western Bengal, Chatterjee was all praises for the cuisine of East Bengal [now Bangladesh], a cuisine to which he was introduced by his wife and mother-in-law.

On one hand, we try to put the extinct or near extinct dishes of Bengal on the table at Oh! Calcutta, and on the other, we experiment to add to the repertoire of culinary fusion, said Chatterjee.

It was his yen for perfection that prompted him to locate an 80-year old woman in Bangladesh who gave him the authentic recipe for Daab Chingri  prawns combined with green chilli paste in tender coconut cream and cooked in a green coconut shell.

To learn more about the different ways Bengalis prepared the basic dishes, in the beginning, the Chatterjees would land up at homes of friends and acquaintances with raw fish or meat and request them to cook it. The exercise gave them an insight into the adaptations that people made to add a different nuance to a known dish.



Wife Suchhanda personally trains the cooks for Oh! Calcutta. The classes used to be held at the Chatterjee home until Speciality Restaurants built its in-house catering institute.

We also tried to dispel the notion that Bengali cooking means steeped in oil, said Chatterjee. We are very serious about using minimum oil in our cooking. We even have a system of rewarding the cooks who can prove that they use minimum oil while cooking without compromising the taste of the dish.

Some of the dishes that are oft-ordered at the Oh! Calcutta restaurants are Gondhoraj Machh, Daab Bhapa Machh, Daab Chingri, Bhapa Sandesh, etc.

Earlier, Bengalis were not quite adventurous about food. But now they are, said Chatterjee, which gives us a lot of room to experiment and innovate.

Film Director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury who was present at the 20th birthday bash at the Forum Mall outlet, said, Oh! Calcutta is a place that has given people like me, who is constantly travelling and living away from home, no reason to miss out on the delectable Bengali food. This is like home.

Very soon, Oh! Calcutta is going to introduce a new dish called Khulna chingri. And as part of its 20th birthday celebration, the much awarded restaurant is offering a 20 per cent discount on their a la carte food menu on weekdays (Monday to Friday) for a limited period.



(Reporting by Uttara Gangopadhyay, Images by Avishek Mitra/IBNS)
New Delhi, April 21 : The British Library will be transformed like never before as the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival animates its iconic spaces for the first time in celebration as part of significant 70 years of India-Britain cultural relations.

Held for two days on May 20-21, the fourth London edition of the ZEE JLF@The British Library will present a sumptuous showcase of South Asia's literary heritage, oral and performing arts, music, cinema and illusion, books and ideas, dialogue and debate, Bollywood and politics in the context of this broader view of India and its relationship to the Britain.

The speakers at the programmer include: Oscar-winning British director Stephen Frears, Swapan Dasgupta, Shashi Tharoor, Shrabani Basu, Neel Madhav, Philip Norman, Tahmima Anam, Sarvat Hasin, Amit Chaudhuri, Kunal Basu, Amit Chaudhuri, Meera Syal, Prajwal Parajuly and Lila Azam Zanganeh, Anita Anand along with William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale.

ZEE JLF@The British Library is the first of five cultural strands which form part of the Year of UK-India of Culture in 2017, celebrating the deep cultural ties and exchange in what is a year of great significance for the world's largest democracy as India marks 70 years as an independent democratic republic.

"In only a decade the Jaipur Literature Festival has grown from 14 lost tourists to third of a million people and it's now the biggest festival of literature in the world. We can't wait to bring its energy and colour to the British Library: our Jaipur-on-Thames," author and ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival Co-Director William Dalrymple said in a statement.

Namita Gokhale, author and ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival Co-Director said: "Delighted that the fourth edition of JLF in London will be hosted by the British Library. London is a uniquely cosmopolitan and literary city, and we look forward to celebrating diversity through a series of vibrant sessions that reflect the special spirit of Jaipur."

Sanjoy Roy, Producer, ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, said: "Our collaboration with the British Library is reflective of the shared history between the sub-continent and the UK. The festival will continue to be a platform for diverse voices and will celebrate 70 years of India's independence."

"The British Library is delighted to be hosting the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival this year as we celebrate the UK-India Year of Culture. The exciting programme reflects the richness of this new cultural partnership," Jamie Andrews, Head, Culture and Learning, The British Library, said in a statement.
Kohima, April 21 : Nagaland Chief Minister Shurhozelie Liezitsu on Friday unveiled a memorial monolith in honour of the Naga Labour Corps that was raised exactly 100 years ago and sent out to France to take part in the First World War.

The monolith was erected in a hillock opposite the Red Cross Building in the heart of Kohima, which itself was the scene of one of the greatest battles of the Second World War.

Liezietsu announced that a memorial park will be built around this hilltop to mark the 100th anniversary of the date marking the departure of the Naga Labour Corps's first batch to the Western Front, and the monolith was the first step in this direction.

"One can hardly imagine the feelings that the Naga Labour Corps must have felt, leaving their homeland for the first time and crossing oceans to distant lands fighting for the then (British) Crown," he said.

"Certainly it was not India's war and it was definitely not the Nagas' war but the Naga Labour Corps participation and the bravery they exhibited during their battles in Europe and elsewhere would have ramifications," he added.

Liezietsu said amongst all the tribes who were sent to duties in the war, the Nagas were the first to realize the need to organise and unite themselves.

"Men who returned from France formed a socio-political association called the Naga Club with branches in Kohima and Mokokchung immediately after their return in 1918," he said, adding that it was this association that later in 1929 submitted a representation to the Simon Commission, conveying the right of choice of self-determination of the Nagas when the British left India.

Moreover, he said, the state of Nagaland has its direct bearing from the Naga Labour Corps and for this purpose alone, their brave mission must be remembered appropriately for posterity.

Nearly 1,700 tribal Naga men were recruited by Deputy Commissioner Herbert Charles Barnes for what was designated as the Naga Labour Corps, and the first batch was dispatched on April 21, 1917 for France, and they sailed for that country on April 26.

Arriving in France in two main groups (688 men on June 21, 1917 and 992 men on July 2, 1917), they were initially divided into the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th Naga Labour Companies but yo avoid confusion with other Indian Labour Corps units serving in Mesopotamia at that time, these companies were renumbered as the 35th, 36th, 37th and 38th (Naga) Labour Companies.

The men of the Naga Labour Corps worked in various places around France on salvage work, road repairs among others. They returned to India in mid-1918.

Unfortunately during the Second World War, the building holding the lists of Naga Labour Corps' personnel was destroyed in Japanese bombing but Liezietsu said that the relative lack of historical records should however not deter the people from commemorating their contributions.
Kabul, April 21 : At least 50 Afghan troops were killed on Friday and around 70 others were injured when a group of Taliban insurgents launched an attack on an army base in northern Afghanistan, a military official said.

Ten Taliban militants were also killed, an Afghan Army Commander told EFE on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
New Delhi, April 21 : Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel has been summoned by Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance to appear before it on May 25 on the demonetisation issue.

According to one of the panel members, he will be asked how money has so far come back into the system after demonetisation.

The Governor would also be asked when the banks' operations would become normal and also how digital economy is being implemented in the country.

The committee is headed by former Union Minister and Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily, who had in January called Finance Ministry officials besides top RBI officials to discuss demonetisation.
This summer, the Boys and Girls Club of the South Coasts will offer their highly-anticipated STEAM-inspired summer camp Dana Point program.

In a recently released report from the Boys and Girls Club of the South Coast Area, a summer camp for kids in Dana Point, parents are challenged to find ways to increase their childs learning and problem-solving abilities, even when school is out. The writers caution parents to find age appropriate activities that both reinforce their childs learning but also provide children to expand their knowledge through real-world and hands-on projects. The informative report outlines three specific ways that parents can make the summer months both educational and engaging for their children.

To view the report, click here or see below:

Learning Guide for Parents

Researchers have found that students statistically score lower on standardized tests administered after summer break. This decrease in academic proficiency is commonly referred to as the summer brain drain, and summer camp Dana Point programs are looking to reverse this trend.

1.) Tailor activities to their interests. Dana Point summer camp parents should seek to find opportunities for their child to explore a hobby or interest. Leverage do-it-yourself or at-home activities to maximize family time and interactions. According to the learning guide, students are often unable to control their learning, both the pace and the content, during the school year and the summer represents a unique time where children can express themselves freely by having time to explore their own interests.

2.) Take advantage of fun (and educational) summer programs. For working parents or those looking for out-of-the-house options, Summer Camp Dana Point programs can be a practical solution. For an added academic boost, STEAM-related camps offer children a welcoming and problem-solving based environment to continue learning, but in a dynamic and hands-on way. Parents should do their due diligence and research summer camps in the Dana Point area that best fit their childs personality and learning style.

To view the complete report, click here.

This summer, the Boys and Girls Club of the South Coasts will offer their highly-anticipated STEAM-inspired summer camp Dana Point program, which will incorporate Summer Brain Gain methodologies, infused with age-appropriate STEM-related projects, to provide campers with a unique summer learning experience. For more information about the innovative activities planned for this summer, click here.

Boys and Girls Club of the South Coast Area | 1304 Calle Valle San Clemente, CA 92672 | (949) 492-7551

Press release by Access Publishing, a California marketing company, 806 9th St. #2D, Paso Robles, CA 93446.
Howard Koeppel and Lisa Veglia (Co-Executive Director at QSAC) "It's not always about being successful," Mr. Koeppel said. "It's about giving back to your community. We, along with Subaru Distributors Corp, are honored and proud to support QSAC and give back to our community."

Koeppel Subaru, in a partnership effort with Subaru Inc. during the Subaru Share the Love Event, presented a $41,488 check to Quality Services for the Autism Community (QSAC) on April 6. The donation coincides with National Autism Awareness Month in April. In recent years, Koeppel has donated over $250,000 to QSAC in an ongoing effort to support the New York community.

Howard Koeppel, owner of Koeppel Auto Group, along with Barron Butler of Subaru Distributors Corp., presented the check to Lisa Veglia, Co-Executive Director at QSAC. Its not always about being successful," Mr. Koeppel said. "Its about giving back to your community. We, along with Subaru Distributors Corp, are honored and proud to support QSAC and give back to our community.

QSAC is a New York City and Long Island-based nonprofit that supports children and adults with autism, together with their families, in achieving greater independence, realizing their future potential, and contributing to their communities in a meaningful way by offering person-centered services.

The four Koeppel auto dealerships in Queens  Koeppel Nissan and Mazda in Jackson Heights, Koeppel Subaru in Long Island City, and Koeppel Ford in Woodside  have participated in numerous community programs, events and charitable endeavors over the years.

"If you or a loved one knows of any charities or programs Koeppel Auto Group can support, please let us know, Mr. Koeppel said. For more information about Koeppel Auto Groups community efforts, log onto http://www.LoveOurNYC.com.
Kolkata, Apr 21 (IBNS): One of the most expensive comic books created in India is all set to hit the bookstores this month.

Two years in the making, after spending a production budget of several million rupees, Building the Perfect Beast: What Really Happens in Brand Management, published by Power Publishers Prime, stands out as one of the best and most expensive comic book projects undertaken in India, according to the publishers.

The work of Building the Perfect Beast: What Really Happens in Brand Management, written by Neil George, started around the middle of 2015. This 159 page huge comic book in large size format, has been illustrated by legendary comic book artist duoXong Brothers, using traditional and state-of-the-art modern technologies available for illustrating.

Neil George, the writer, based in Dubai, describes his book as, Fiveinterns, one tough boss. Add a badass,Veep. Sprinkle some nutty colleagues and agency. One helluva place to work and party. This book is the worlds first brand management comic book and captures the life of 5 young interns in the big bad world of consumer marketing.

Xong Brothers, internationally famed twins who usually stay away from limelight, commented, It was one of the toughest projects for us, that took 2 years to complete, even after waking up through the nights to complete the project.

Sudeshna Sen, the coordinator of this project and the General Manager of Power Publishers & Motion Pictures, says,The mammoth comic book is a collectors item as well as one that educates and entertains. It has more than 500 breath-takingfull colour illustrations. We have not only spent an astronomical amount that no other comic book publisher in India has spent before, but have also given it a quality, which is rare among graphic novels produced in India.

Pinaki Ghosh, the founder of Power Publishers, added, The artwork has been handled by Comic-Book-Artists.com, a premium comic book artist service, also owned by Power Publishers. It has a team of Indias 10 best comic book artists like Xong Brothers.

Anupriya Dutta, the editor of the book, said, Building the Perfect Beast: What Really Happens in Brand Management releases across India and UAE in a platinum deluxe hardound edition and an economy paperback edition.

Power Publishers Prime, emerging as an upcoming comic book publisher in India, has released two more comic books, Pink Ops 01 and Realm of Spirits, recently.
ClearPoint Strategy is excited to announce the release of the ClearPoint Municipal Measures Library, recently launched at our third annual Strategy and Performance Management Summit, hosted by the City of Fort Lauderdale in February. Developed in direct response to needs expressed by our clients, the library allows municipalities around the world to share the measures they are tracking, in the hopes of encouraging increased collaboration and performance among local governments.

Unlike most benchmarking tools, the measures included in the ClearPoint Measures Library are ones that the communities themselves have chosen to track, and are being actively updated by the strategy leaders of the municipalities themselves. Several local governments have assisted in the development of this library, including the City of Fort Collins, Colorado, the City of Olathe, Kansas, the City of Vaughan, Ontario, and the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, among others.

According to Ed Foley, Performance Analyst at the City of Olathe, Kansas, Ted Jackson [Co-founder and Managing Partner at ClearPoint] took our feedback and just started moving on it. It shows the level of commitment and support we can get out of ClearPoint, and it has seamlessly been integrated into the software to create a truly great product.

In addition to adding measures to the Municipal Measures Library, municipalities can easily integrate the measures that they see and like throughout the library into their own scorecards within ClearPoint. The measures can be searched for, filtered for, and categorized based on program areas such as transportation, public safety, and public works. Contact information for the measure experts at each municipality is also provided for users, in the hopes of encouraging increased connection and more effective networking between local governments.

Lawrence Pollack, Budget Director for the City of Fort Collins, Colorado recalled the city having what he described as a lack of comparables. With the introduction of the Measures Library, the city of Fort Collins has been able to draw from other high-performing municipalities to enhance their own measures, as well as evaluate changes to metric targets based on benchmark data.

Foley described the City of Olathes participation in the Measures Library as being part of a community of excellence. We hope to continue to expand upon this community of excellence as we grow the Municipal Measures Library, and continue to help local governments enhance both strategy and performance.

For more information on the ClearPoint Municipal Measures Library, please visit: https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/government/

About ClearPoint Strategy:

ClearPoint Strategy, founded in 2008, is a cloud-based scorecard application built and managed by U.S. based Ascendant Strategy Management Group. With ClearPoint, you can manage your objectives, measures, and initiatives all in one place, to more effectively and efficiently track your strategy. ClearPoint also allows you to take control of your reporting process, by presenting your data any way you want, through customized reporting fields, layouts, styles, and more to match your organizations unique brand. To learn more, visit http://www.clearpointstrategy.com
NFV World Congress is one of the most in demand NFV, SDN and MANO centric events. It takes place in San Jose, CA on May 2-5, and provides the right forum to accelerate innovation and support ecosystem growth. Leading SDN/NFV technology providers, hardware vendors and analysts are coming together to advance the market, to demonstrate a critical mass of progress, and to show what NFV and SDN can deliver to CSPs and their customers.

Brain4Net will exhibit at the event and lead a live demonstration of comprehensive NFV Solution and its implementation to important business case  extending the CSPs service portfolio with value-added NFV services.

Brain4Net team will show VNF onboarding and management processes as well as end-to-end service orchestration features. The company plans to present its brand-new, fully compliant with ETSI NFV MANO reference architecture  Network Service Configurator. The tool provides a convenient way to create network services and network service templates, by combining connectivity services with Virtualized Network services running in Telco DC, manage them and assign to different groups of users.

We are proud to present an important new functionality from the second major release of B4N Service Platform,  said Oleg Schapov, CEO of Brain4Net.  Our solution has a potential to transform a network to commodity service, with additional virtual functions on top. We are ready to demonstrate a VNF management in a plug-and-play way, including interactions with network services templates. Considering the 5G concept, network services templates are able to be upgraded to Network Slicing functionality, based on end-to-end jitter/latency constraints and enabling logical infrastructure slices for different types of services (e.g. IoT, Ultra-High Definition Video, AR/VR, Voice, etc.)

The Brain4Net team will be pleased to meet you at booth #39 to share our unique vision, demonstrate the latest technologies, negotiate partnership opportunities (including VNF Certification Program) and discuss how our solutions can meet your business objectives.
We intentionally designed the RECONVERGE:G2 conference to bring together the intelligence disciplines best and brightest  so they can continue to discover how much more there is to learn.

For the sixth time in four years, global intelligence professionals will gather in Madison, Wisconsin for RECONVERGE:G2, a three-day event designed to tackle the most challenging issues facing the intelligence field. From market and competitive intelligence to globalization and strategic organizational decisions, RECONVERGE:G2 brings together world-class provocateurs and attendees from leading organizations.

This years conference will focus its attention on Invention and Reinvention  the process all organizations (from corporate to government) must master to remain relevant and competitive in todays fast-moving and hyper-connected global marketplace. This years RECONVERGE:G2 Intelligence Leadership Symposium will be held April 25-27, 2017 at Madison, Wisconsins Historic Monona Terrace Conference and Convention Center.

Founded by global intelligence consultancy Aurora WDC in 2013, the RECONVERGE:G2 conference responds to the critical need organizations have to collect, analyze and apply intelligence to enhance their effectiveness.

More data about your competition, customers and markets is useless without the insight to apply it specifically to your companys business challenges and opportunities, explains Aurora WDC Founder and Chairman Arik Johnson. We intentionally designed the RECONVERGE:G2 conference to bring together the intelligence disciplines best and brightest  so they can continue to discover how much more there is to learn.

Johnson contends that the organizations that will win in the future are those that build their intelligence talent pool through dedicated intelligence staff as well as a broader appreciation of intelligence gathering and analysis techniques throughout the organization, including the C-suite. RECONVERGE:G2 provides a forum for collaboratively building those critical skills and developing that culture.

Organizations represented at this years RECONVERGE:G2 Intelligence Leadership Symposium include: IBM, GE Healthcare, NAMSA, McAfee, Logic PD, The Lubrizol Corporation, NetApp, Bennett Jones LLP, Chickasaw Nation Industries, Fiserv, Target, Medtronic, Dunkin Brands, ULTA Beauty and Veritas.

ABOUT AURORA WDC

Since 1995, Aurora WDC has been committed to developing intelligence leadership skills, ethical practice discipline and cutting-edge software platforms. The RECONVERGE:G2 Intelligence Leadership Symposium represents Auroras ongoing commitment to the intelligence community, helping to cultivate knowledge, hone best practices and encourage the next generation of intelligence leadership talent. More information about Aurora is available at http://AuroraWDC.com or at the event website http://g2.reconverge.net.
DiagnosisAI, LLC (http://www.DiagnosisAI.com) has released the Alexa, Ask Doctor Dex (DexMD) skill for Amazon Alexa. The skill is the first ever voice-to-text medical reference of its kind and uses artificial intelligence to provide specific, personalized, and directed answers to medical questions with content curated by a team of over fifty physicians. Most people look up their symptoms through sites such as WebMD and end up self-diagnosing themselves incorrectly (i.e.-cancer). DiagnosisAI is providing a solution to prevent these scares and false alarms, while also providing first aid information.

We are working to make online medical searches a relic of the past. We are pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and voice-to-text to mold the future of how patients receive medical information. Our Alexa skill preview is just a first test in a series of steps DiagnosisAI is taking to spearhead the changing face of medicine in everything from medical reference to telemedicine, states CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Omeed Saghafi.

DiagnosisAI is a healthcare technology company that focuses on using artificial intelligence to empower patients, making the complex medical system easier to understand while saving money and time in an overburdened and overpriced healthcare system. The Doctor Dex chatbot available on both Facebook Messenger and Amazon Alexa provides a glimpse of a much more complex and complete machine learning platform that DiagnosisAI is developing and testing for clinics and hospital systems. The clinic AI platform allows patients to receive rapid and accurate medical advice; it saves hospital systems money and improves clinical outcomes; it empowers patients with personalized updates, tracking, reminders, and answers to FAQs related to their surgeries, procedures, and diagnoses. This system prevents unnecessary, time-consuming, and expensive clinic or Emergency Department visits. The company has an undisclosed amount of seed funding at this time and is currently entertaining further investor interest.

The DiagnosisAI team is particularly well-positioned to disrupt the management and delivery of medicine because our team is made up of medical doctors who are also engineers. As a result, there is a unique reciprocity of understanding among our team. We have experienced the current problems in healthcare firsthand, and we are aware of the available technologies that can remedy these problems. We are creating amazing products that will actually benefit patients and medical providers, states CTO and Co-Founder Dr. Henry Duong.

The DiagnosisAI team developed an Alexa skill to learn more about consumer voice interaction. They combined some of their machine learning technology and original medical content to create a skill that can understand context and answer several thousand of the most commonly-asked medical questions, while also providing weekly CDC updates on topics like influenza and allergen trends. Currently, their skill is trending on Health and Fitness and Movers and Shakers and can be launched on any Amazon device using the phrase Alexa, ask Doctor Dex.
The Marlin Company, the leader in workplace digital signage, announces the appointment of Carolyn Voelkening as Director of Content. With over 12,000 locations worldwide, Marlin helps companies communicate with their employees via visual communication.

As Director of Content, Carolyn will apply her extensive experience in digital media to expand and enhance Marlins digital content offerings. Previously she served as Chief Innovation and Digital Officer at RJ Media Group where she had a key role in driving a digital cultural transformation.

For over 100 years Marlin has been a pioneer in visual communication for employees, said Frank Kenna III, President of The Marlin Company. Given the pace of change in todays workplace, great content is essential for engaging and informing employees. Carolyn brings an impressive track record as a seasoned digital content strategist. She will lead the charge in introducing a wide array of innovative digital content that will help our customers reach their employees.

I'm honored to join a company with such a rich and successful history, said Voelkening. As Ive talked with customers, I hear over and over again that The Marlin Company has been an indispensable partner in helping them communicate with their employees. But I also hear that theyre facing new challenges - how to navigate multiple communication channels, how to cut through communication clutter and how to create compelling digital content in our content-saturated world.

I joined The Marlin Company because were uniquely positioned to solve these problems for employers, said Voelkening. We have a 100+-year legacy of success, a tradition of leveraging technology, and a team of content experts that understands the issues in todays workplace. As digital content evolves, well continue to be at the forefront, helping employers innovate and working hard to maintain that indispensable status.

About The Marlin Company

The Marlin Company, a workplace communications company, helps managers reach employees wherever they work, using the latest SaaS-based technology solutions, including flat screens, desktops and mobile devices. Designed specifically for the workplace, Marlins patented digital signage products are known for their ease of use, robust content options and flexibility. For 104 years Marlin has developed and delivered visual communication programs that engage, inform and motivate employees. Learn more about Marlins digital signage products and services at http://www.themarlincompany.com.
Etheric Networks, the leading provider of Wireless Internet service in the Bay Area, today announced the addition of two new towers in Fremont and San Jose. Etheric's expansion will provide the areas growing business community with fiber and fixed wireless infrastructure that connects clients with Etherics highly available high-speed Internet.

Etheric is continuing to increase capacity throughout the Bay area, and the demand for bandwidth is growing exponentially. We are reinvesting to ensure that all residences and businesses get leading edge Internet speeds with low latency. In addition to providing more capacity, we are deploying next generation routing and switching services.

The new towers will have next generation capabilities, and we will announce these specific capabilities as they achieve maturity by July 2017," said Alexander Hagen, CEO of Etheric Networks.

This ambitious project will result in a new level of connectivity and network reliability for businesses and residents in the surrounding areas in and out of San Jose.

Etherics expansion in these regions increases both the footprint of the companys network and the services that are available to local customers  including fixed wireless, and fiber Internet. Moreover, this will provide business customers with accessibility to the enterprise-class services that Etheric clients use as the foundation for their technology strategy.

Technological advancement is a priority at Etheric, and we are continually upgrading our products and services for the benefit of our clients. We are proud to provide a greater number of San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont, Santa Clara, Los Gatos, and Cupertino clientele with the high-speed Internet coverage, quality, and dependability they need said David Bigge, Etheric's Vice President Engineering.

Additionally, by expanding access in areas often neglected by wireline carriers, Etheric continues to connect underserved communities with reliable high-speed Internet. One's address should not determine their access to quality Internet service as Internet connectivity is critical to the future success where Etherics clients, employees, and residents, call home.

For more details about Etheric Networks or how to sign up, please visit their website at http://www.ethericnetworks.com or call 650-399-4200.

About Etheric Networks

Etheric Networks is a leading Internet Service Provider dedicated to delivering fast, reliable, and affordable, connectivity for business, SOHO, and residential clients. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Etheric spans the greater Bay Area, using a wholly-owned fiber optic backbone and licensed broadband fixed wireless towers.

Etheric Networks was one of the first ISPs to commercialize broadband fixed wireless Internet access and continue to lead the way in making new access solutions available to the public.

###
On March 17th, the third annual TOA Awards were held in New York City. The ceremony awarded 40 Turkish- Americans under the age of 40, individuals who are the most successful in their own fields; from real estate to art, and technology to finance.

Onur Haytac, Founder and CEO of Benseron Hospitality, Naples, FL was recognized as one of the 40 awardees of the night who received rounds and rounds of applause from the successful crowd in the room. Onur stated that This appraisal and award not only makes me proud but also inspires me to work harder and achieve even further.

Onur Haytac founded Benseron in 2004. He was a young student at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. This young entrepreneur parlayed a late-night computer fix for a Subway franchisee into a thriving global business.

Today, Benseron provides point-of sale systems, payment technologies, online ordering, and related merchant services such as loyalty programs and credit card processing to thousands of restaurants and retails establishments to help them be more profitable.

Headquartered in Naples, FL with offices in Chennai, India, Benseron employs more than 110 people who design and develop groundbreaking software to a rapidly growing hospitality market throughout the world.

For more information about Benseron Hospitality and its service offerings visit http://www.benseron.com

About Benseron Hospitality, a trade name of Benseron Information Technologies, Inc.

Benseron Hospitably has been designing high performance Point of Sales solutions for over a decade. We have become known as the PROFIT IMPROVEMENT SPECIALISTS to restaurant owners and operators both locally, across the country and around the globe. Our all-in-one mobile cloud-based POS solutions integrate both front and back operations and include inventory and labor management, online ordering, customer loyalty, gift cards, credit card processing and data analytics.
Network Funding, LP, a residential mortgage lender, has opened a new branch at 1211 Hyde Park Blvd, Houston, Texas 77006 to better serve the Montrose market and surrounding areas.

"Network Funding is a Houston-based operation that is always looking to ways we can better serve our local homebuyers," said Network Funding Executive Vice President Brett Snortland. Chris Sandahl has nearly 16 years of experience in the mortgage industry and will lead the Montrose branch successfully.

I am truly excited to become a part of the Network Funding family, said Montrose Branch Manager Chris Sandahl. From origination to closing, from marketing to underwriting, and everything in between, this is the best support my team has ever had. Our first month with Network Funding was our highest producing month in our teams history. We are excited to put this unparalleled support to good use and pass that along to our clients for the best loan experience possible.

Homebuyers can learn more about the new branch and its offerings at http://branch91204.nflp.com or by calling 713-334-1100. Loan officers interested in joining the team should visit join.nflp.com to learn more about new opportunities in Houston and across the nation.

About Network Funding

Network Funding, LP, NMLS #2297, is a private, residential, mortgage-lending company that operates branches across the country. Since it was founded in 1998, Network Funding has financed more than 105,000 homes at more than $18 billion, making the American Dream a reality for its customers. Network Fundings key standards are based on integrity, reliability and simplicity, and it aims to empower its customers through educating and equipping them for the home-buying process. Network Funding is nationally ranked as a Top 50 Mortgage Companies to Work For, 2016 by Mortgage Executive Magazine, a Top Mortgage Lender by Scotsman Guide and a Top Workplaces by the Houston Chronicle.

Visit http://www.nflp.com to learn more about Network Funding. Visit join.nflp.com to learn more about career opportunities. Visit give.nflp.com to learn about The Giving Network, the charitable arm of Network Funding.
VistaWorks has an outstanding team of professionals that really buckled down and turned this website into a showcase piece for the Royal Gorge Region.

The Fremont County Tourism Council, a board of officials charged with promoting tourism in Colorados Royal Gorge Region, today announced the launch of their new website, RoyalGorgeRegion.com

Colorado-based design and marketing firm, VistaWorks, was hired to conceptualize, design, and implement the new website. With its launch, VistaWorks team of web designers, copywriters, and SEO specialists provided a one-stop-shop for anyone interested in or visiting the Royal Gorge Region. VistaWorks was chosen for this project because it has been providing design and marketing services primarily to tourism-related businesses, including tourism marketing and destination marketing organization management, since 1995.

Im very proud of what we accomplished with this website. VistaWorks has an outstanding team of professionals that really buckled down and turned this website into a showcase piece for the Royal Gorge Region. With hundreds of new articles, pictures, video, and a new contemporary design, pulling this together in just over two months was quite an achievement. Now, its even easier to plan your next vacation to the Royal Gorge Region, says Bryan Jordan, President of VistaWorks.

From epic adventures, like rafting, hiking, and biking, to attractions like the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park and the Royal Gorge Route Railroad, RoyalGorgeRegion.com offers detailed information, maps, and tips for every possible Royal Gorge Region adventure.

RoyalGorgeRegion.com is also loaded with historical information about the area. Visitors to the site can learn about the regions paleontological significance, mining history, the use of Fremont Countys scenic backdrop in several movie productions, and more. Additionally, several multi-day itineraries make planning your next vacation easy. Whether youre looking for a quiet stroll along a river, a visit to a nationally-recognized museum, or a high-flying zipline tour across the Royal Gorge, these itineraries have you covered.

"We are thrilled to launch a fresh, new look for our website. Its a much-improved way to learn about the region. In 2016, we reached over 175,000 people interested in our remarkable part of Colorado. There is no way a small destination marketing organization like ours could do that without a compelling website and great social media presence. We have so much to offer here; it surprises a lot of people. Even new residents are amazed at all there is to discover and do in the Royal Gorge Region. We know visitors will love the new look of our new site and hope they will come back often as they plan their first or fifth visit to our area," says Steve Kaverman, Chairman of the Fremont County Tourism Council.

A full directory of the areas business listings makes it easy to plan a trip to or an event in the Royal Gorge Region. And with new content added weekly, RoyalGorgeRegion.com is the most comprehensive resource on Fremont County and the entire Royal Gorge Region.

Kristyn Econome, Treasurer of the Fremont County Tourism Council says it best, "As the Royal Gorge Region continues to wow visitors from all over the world, we're now proud to have a website that does the same."
Eyegasmic, a premier swimwear brand, is officially expanding its collection with a new line of swimwear, Fruits of Labor. Eyegasmic Brand ensures that men are the best dressed, in and out of the water. At the first look, the collection definitely seems fun-filled and energetic, perfectly capturing the feel of sunny weather and sparkling beaches of Southern California.

The new collection, Fruits of Labor, takes its inspiration from the succulent colors of tropical fruit with an added touch of blossoming flowers from around the world. This premium collection has been designed for the bold and confident men who want to hit the beach with style and comfort. From brightly hued striking briefs to mid-length, regular fit swim trunks adorned with flowers, the collection has everything a modern man looks for in a sexy swimwear. The new line has the most innovative designs including Yellow Heliconia, Orange Asiatic Lily Trunk, Purple Orchid, Blue Bird of Paradise and more.

Brennon Jackson, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, launched his brand 2 years ago. Last year, he opened his official Eyegasmic Brand website and now is fully set to firm his roots in the swimwear fashion industry. With our range of beach swimwear, we aim to epitomize the bold and free spirited lifestyle that Southern California is famous for. says Jackson. Eyegasmic Brand is all about creating a new style statement for LGBT men with swimwear that accentuates their sex appeal and confidence.

Their new line up was recently featured in the International Fashion Encounter show in Toronto, Canada. The show was a success and the models rocked the runway wearing fun and stylish trunks and briefs from the new line. Eyegasmic Brand has captured the interests of swim weeks globally and will be participating in D.C. swim week in July.

Eyegasmic Brand has also partnered with Revolution in Color a community that focuses on spreading STD awareness to men. Eyegasmic Brand is also looking to partner with other non-profit organizations to spread the word about HIV awareness among the gay community.

About Eyegasmic Brand: Eyegasmic Brand is a premium swimwear brand exclusively designed to be worn by the worlds sexiest men. The brands mission is to define and capture all aspects of sexy. It believes that sexy is more than just a cute smile or chiseled body, but being able to confidently stand in your own skin and embrace exactly who you are. Eyegasmic Brand refuses to leave it up to the masses to shape their imagery of what sexy is, so it is here to define it! For more information, https://www.eyegasmicbrand.com
New Delhi, Apr 21 (IBNS) : Condemning the recent attack on Kashmiri students in Rajasthan, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday urged all the Chief Ministers to ensure safety of the Kashmiris, reports said.

"I appeal to Chief Ministers of all states to ensure that such incidents don't happen, they are equal citizens of India, they have also greatly contributed to national security," Singh said in a statement.

The Home Minister said he had heard that "in one or two parts of India, people misbehaved with Kashmiri youth".

The Home Secretary has been advised to issue an advisory in this regard, Singh said.

Six Kashmiri students at the Mewar University of Chittorgarh were allegedly beaten up by some local people in a market place on Wednesday apparently without any provocation.
As was evidenced with Tuesday's display of augmented reality at Facebooks annual F8 conference and the controversy surrounding the Facebook Killer, social media is entrenched in our personal and professional lives. However, many despise the role social media plays in controlling access to information, driving ad budgets, and monitoring behavior.

Today, 816 New York, a full-service strategic branding and marketing consultancy, announces the launch of their full-scale social media strategy and management service: An offering uniquely designed to take back control in the social media marketplace.

The 816 New York team is comprised of strategists in varying roles: content, design, PR, and branding. The five-part social media service offering will include: defining goals and objectives; performing social audits; developing content strategy with content banks and calendars; tracking and reporting on campaigns and networks; and refining the social media strategy over time.

Founder and director Sarah Williams says, At first, this emerged as a means to serve a client need, but it quickly ballooned into part of our overall message. Most people seem to resent social media - not only for what it can do but often doesnt, but for how invasive it is and how beholden we are to it.

On their own social accounts, the agency balances anti-establishment or non-conformist views with informative content and motivational posts. The agencys unapologetic stance on transparency developed in direct opposition to the veil of darkness and illusion that surrounds many corporate CEOtype thinkers.

If Trump does something that negatively affects our small business clients or our community, we blast it. If a major social media company crosses a privacy or humanity line, we call them on it, Williams asserts. Our message is clear: Youre tired of trying to predict and plan around these guys; so are we. You dont have limitless ad budgets; neither do we. You dont want to exist in the vortex of their view of the world; neither do we.

Facebook isnt just hooking you to a feed full of news and baby pictures that you might check dozens of times a day, says Mark Wilson of Co.Design in his post-F8 conference piece "How Long Until Facebook Is Floating An Ad In My Morning Cup Of Coffee?" (http://bit.ly/2ovhfJH)

Its building a world on top of the one we live in, filled with superimposed friends, objects, and ads that will literally make you see the world through the lens of Facebook., he continues. But the common denominator is that youd be looking at your reality through the filter of Facebook, your view ever-warped by Facebooks bubble.

Agencies with access to and understanding of the social media sphere can arm brands and educate the public to take back control of what truly belongs to them - their content.

About 816 New York, LLC

816 New York, an award-winning brand agency, guides small to mid-sized businesses and non-profits who unify and uplift, whose objectives balance profit with creating social impact. By emboldening you and your team, propelling an intention of success, and creating an impactful brand led by your ideals, the firm implements strategy to elevate greatness. For more information, please visit https://816nyc.com
"We are excited to be able to offer our clients Gold and Silver at the lowest possible prices. We believe in the Kaizen Approach to business, keeping our company lean, in turn we dont have to charge as much as our competition."

Gold Gate Capital, a leading Precious Metals and Physical Gold IRA company based in Los Angeles, is excited to announce their Lowest Price Guarantee, they will beat any of the major retailers' pricing on most common gold and silver bullion coins and bars. If youre looking for the best price in the precious metals industry, contact Gold Gate Capital.

In the last ten years Gold Gate Capital has earned a number of certifications and indicators of the companys integrity, including a A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau with ZERO complaints. Gold Gate Capital Co-Founder & President Chris Seebert said, "We are excited to be able to offer our clients Gold and Silver at the lowest possible prices. We believe in the Kaizen Approach to business, keeping our company very lean, in turn we dont have to charge as much as our competition, so we can pass along the saving to our clients.

Gold Gate Capital also offers clients Gold IRAs, which allows our clients to start saving early in life and also allows clients to diversify their portfolio. There are several tax benefits on the amount that is invested in an IRA, so that it actually saves money in the present while securing the client's future. Do you want to add gold or silver to an IRA or 401k or Diversify an IRA or 401k with physical Gold or Silver inside or outside the banking system? Contact one of our Gold IRA Specialists at 1-800-604-0240.

About Gold Gate Capital

For more than 10 years, Gold Gate Capital has been one of the nation's Precious Metals and Gold IRA companies in the world. Gold Gate Capital has a large selection of bullion items on the market. Product offerings include all U.S. Mint bullion such as Gold, Silver. Gold Gate Capital also sells products from leading mints around the world including The Royal Mint, Perth Mint, Royal Canadian Mint and many others. For additional information, visit http://www.Goldgatecapital.com and call (800) 604-0240.
Frederick Innovative Technology Center, Inc. (FITCI), a business incubator and accelerator dedicated to nourishing a range of emerging technology-based businesses, recently earned a $77,518 grant from the Rural Maryland Council (RMC) to support refurbishment of its Metropolitan Court location.

Founded in 2004, FITCI is Fredericks first incubator. A non-profit corporation, FITCI is a public-private partnership of the governments of Frederick County and the City of Frederick, and the business community. FITCI was created with the support from the state of Maryland to foster entrepreneurial activity by providing companies with the tools for a solid foundation.

FITCI supports technology companies with strategic support, business services, and facilities including wet labs. Support of FITCI dovetails with RMCs vision of creating a future where all rural Maryland is prosperous, with thriving resources, vibrant economies, and healthy connected communities.

The success of FITCI clients and graduates in creating high- wage employment and adding to the regions economic vitality is a driving factor behind the development of a second incubator-accelerator in downtown Frederick at 118 N. Market Street, Frederick in early 2018.

For more information please visit our web site, http://www.fitci.org.
We are pleased to support Connecticut-based entrepreneurs in their efforts to bring exciting biotech innovations to market.

The University of Connecticut, in partnership with Connecticut Innovations (CI) and Webster Bank, today announced first round funding to three startups through the UConn Innovation Fund. The $1.5 million UConn Innovation Fund was established to provide early-stage financial support to new business startups affiliated with UConn.

The UConn Innovation Fund provides investments of up to $100,000 to companies founded by students, faculty members, and alumni of the university with an in-state business startup tied to research, advanced technologies, or innovations developed at UConn.

The companies receiving first-round funding are:



Torigen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a startup housed in UConns Technology Incubation Program (TIP) that is focused on providing veterinary cancer care solutions for companion animals using the animals existing tumor cells to fight the disease.

Bioarray Genetics, Inc. is a molecular diagnostics company focused on changing the way that cancer patients are evaluated and treated with tests that predict patient response to cancer treatments. Bioarray is housed at UConns Technology Incubation Program facility at UConn Health in Farmington.

Shoreline Biome, LLC. is another UConn TIP company that is focused on understanding how the human microbiome functions across the entire landscape of human health and disease.

In the first round of funding, we identified three exceptional companies that all have ties to the university, said Jeff Seemann, vice president for research at UConn. UConn continues to be a center of innovation, and we look forward to supporting and catalyzing more promising startups in the future to continue to create new companies, new jobs, and economic growth in the state.

The UConn Innovation Fund serves as a critical early-stage revenue stream for in-state business startups that will allow them to stay in Connecticut and grow. The funds investors review a companys strength and existing resources, innovative technology, potential for commercialization, and likelihood of obtaining additional external funding among other factors. All investment decisions are made by a unanimous vote from UConn, CI, and Webster Bank.

We look forward to supporting these startups with the resources to help them bring their products closer to commercialization, said Matt McCooe, CEO of Connecticut Innovations. We know how difficult it can be to grow a company at the earliest stages of development and this funding can help companies overcome some of those first hurdles.

The fund is managed by the UConn Evaluation Board, fund managers, and an investment committee comprised of representatives from UConn, CI, and Webster Bank. The fund permits Connecticut Innovationsthe leading source of financing and ongoing support for Connecticuts innovative, growing companiesto continue its support of new business startups established through UConn. Webster Bank provides the key financial and banking expertise needed to help new companies grow.

We are pleased to support Connecticut-based entrepreneurs in their efforts to bring exciting biotech innovations to market, said Peter Hicks, senior vice president of the emerging growth banking group at Webster Bank.

The next deadline for applications is July 14, 2017. Businesses interested in learning more about the fund should go to: innovationfund.uconn.edu.

About the University of Connecticut

The University of Connecticut is one of the top 25 public research universities in the nation and is a research leader in the fields of advanced materials, additive manufacturing, biomedical devices, cybersecurity, energy, life sciences, sensors, and nanotechnology. As Connecticuts flagship institution of higher education, UConn serves as an important resource for Connecticut economic development and is dedicated to building collaborations with industry and entrepreneurs. To learn more, visit ip.uconn.edu.

About Connecticut Innovations

Connecticut Innovations (CI) is the leading source of financing and ongoing support for Connecticut's innovative, growing companies. CI provides venture capital and strategic support for early-stage technology companies; grants that support innovation and collaboration; and connections to its well-established network of partners and professionals. For more information, please visit http://www.ctinnovations.com.

About Webster Bank

Webster Financial Corporation is the holding company for Webster Bank, National Association. With $26.1 billion in assets, Webster provides business and consumer banking, mortgage, financial planning, trust, and investment services through 168 banking centers and 349 ATMs. Webster also provides mobile and Internet banking. Webster Bank owns the asset-based lending firm Webster Business Credit Corporation; the equipment finance firm Webster Capital Finance Corporation; and HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank, which provides health savings account trustee and administrative services. Webster Bank is a member of the FDIC and an equal housing lender. For more information about Webster, including past press releases and the latest annual report, visit the Webster website at http://www.websterbank.com.
We want to help the community in any way we can. Were excited about this initiative because it will help students across South Florida.

A hot school lunch is something that every student should be able to enjoy. For various reasons, students often show up at the end of the lunch line without adequate funds in their accounts.

Christian Cordon-Cano, a junior at The King's Academy in West Palm Beach, has stepped up to help with their charitable project known as the School Lunch Fairy, and Exults has become a part of the effort to make sure that a healthy school lunch is readily available for every student.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides a free and reduced-price school lunch program for children of qualifying families throughout the country. The USDA reimburses schools for feeding those who participate in this program. Schools receive $3.16 for each student who gets a free lunch and $2.76 for those who have a reduced-price lunch.

58 percent of schools incur unpaid meal costs. The vast majority of these still serve a meal to the child, leaving their budgets to take a hit. This is a major problem in a landscape where schools are already underfunded. Florida ranks 42nd in the country for funding per student. It's important for schools to find an alternative source for unpaid meal accounts that doesn't leave students hungry.

The School Lunch Fairy program is raising funds to help cover these unpaid lunch balances. Founder Christian Cordon-Cano encourages supporters to, "Help us make a dent on unpaid school lunch balances at public schools." The project has a funding goal of $5,000. Exults is stepping up to join the effort with a donation of its own. Passionate about supporting local efforts such as the School Lunch Fairy, Exults founder and CEO Zach Hoffman says, We want to help the community in any way we can. Were excited about this initiative because it will help students across South Florida.

Exults is a South Florida online marketing company that brings boutique marketing services to a broad range of businesses. With a ten-year history in the business and a proprietary online reporting system, Exults is all about blending stability and innovation. As a local leader, the company is as committed to helping its community as it is to serving its customers. School Lunch Fairy is just one-step toward that goal.
We want to help students from kindergarten to 12th grade receive a decent lunch every day and by paying off their balances we will be able to do just that.

A group of high school juniors from Florida have come together to raise money for unpaid school lunch balances. These admirable teenagers want to make a dent in the unpaid accounts so more children can enjoy a hot nutritious lunch every day. Founder Christian Cordon-Cano, a junior at The Kings Academy in West Palm Beach, says, "We want to help students from kindergarten to 12th grade receive a decent lunch every day and by paying off their balances we will be able to do just that."

Although the government is doing its best to address the problem of hungry kids in school, the current system does not cover all situations. The National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946, provides free or reduced cost lunches to children of families who qualify for this level of government help. These students who are not in the free lunch program or simply do not have the money to pay for lunch are given an insufficient cold meal or not allowed a school lunch until their balance is paid. Thankfully, Christian and School Lunch Fairy are putting their efforts into reducing these balances and getting kids the meals they need to thrive in school.

Inspired by the success in crowd-funding sights, the group set up a donation site for their School Lunch Fairy program so people around the world could support the South Florida cause. The site has been a great platform, and they have already raised over $3,500. The teens set a goal amount of $5,000, and they are over halfway there.

Here is what some donors had to say:



"It is very inspiring to see two high school students taking on the cause to help students be able to pay for school lunch. Keep up the important work to improve our communities!" - Anonymous donor

"No child should EVER go hungry. EVER!" -Nick Jiwa, donor

"Making sure that our children get a good meal at school is a worthy cause." -Edward Gallagher, donor

A study conducted by the School Nutrition Association discovered that about 75% of the districts surveyed had unpaid lunch balances at the end of the school year. Until the government makes a big commitment to feeding kids in school it's up to generous donors and inspirational young leaders like Christian to make up for this lack of funds.

Every donation helps, no matter how small, and every donation to the School Lunch Fairy program goes to this worthy cause. Please visit the donation page to give and share the link to help Christian and his friends reach their goal and get one step closer to their dream of ensuring every child has access to a proper school lunch.
Prof. Dan Shechtman (third from left), 2011 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; Prof. Timothy W. Tong (fourth from left), President of PolyU; and guests and members of PolyU at the lecture.

With the generous support from The D. H. Chen Foundation, the Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles (FAST) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) invited Prof. Dan Shechtman, 2011 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, to speak at the PolyU 80th Anniversary  The D. H. Chen Foundation Nobel Laureate Lecture Series in Hong Kong today (20 April 2017). The title of his lecture is "Why Should We Teach Technological Entrepreneurship in Universities?"

Prof. Shechtman believes that the dropping birth rates in developed countries nowadays inevitably pose threats to the countries for maintaining stable and economically advanced societies. Apart from opening borders to waves of immigration or encouraging families to have more children, he believes skilled entrepreneurs can fill the gap by starting hi-tech businesses with high return on investiment and human capital, and hence is the key to building up thriving economies. He believes motivating university students of engineering, medicine and science as a start would help set up a group of role models of successful entreprenuers who will then kick start a process leading to a huge difference in the life of a country.

Prof. Shechtman's Nobel Prize-awarded discovery of the Icosahedral Phase by TEM (Transmission Electro Microscope) opened the new science of quasiperiodic crystals. He is now Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion  Israel Institute of Technology and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University.

PolyU has invited renowned Nobel Laureates in various disciplines, including Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, as well as Economic Sciences, to deliver insightful and informative lectures at TheNobel Laureate Lecture Series on a wide range of topics of interests to the local community. The Nobel Laureate Lecture Series is one of the celebratory events for PolyU's 80th anniversary.

For further information, please visit https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fast/80anniversary/nobel_apr/.
Employers face some big obstacles, particularly when it comes to planning employee communications programs and reviewing benefit compliance and eligibility requirements

Employers whose benefit sign-up periods take place in the first quarter of 2018 are making slow progress toward their open enrollment goals, according to the latest Employee Benefit Adviser Open Enrollment Readiness Benchmark.

For this group of employers, which represents nearly 70% of all U.S. organizations, Februarys overall OERB score stands at 44unchanged from January.

Employers face some big obstacles, particularly when it comes to planning employee communications programs and reviewing benefit compliance and eligibility requirements, said John McCormick, Editorial Director of SourceMedias Employee Benefits group, which includes EBA and Employee Benefit News.

The Open Enrollment Readiness Benchmark is a data-based performance benchmark that gauges how prepared employers are for their annual employee benefits enrollment periods. The Benchmark is sponsored by ADP. To produce the Benchmark, SourceMedia Research and EBA survey more than 400 HR and benefits executives working in organizations of various sizes and across multiple industries. Respondents rate their progress for each of 26 distinct activities on a scale of 1 to 100, with a score of 100 signifying the employers full preparation for that activity.

Other highlights from the first quarter Benchmark report:



Smaller companies with 50 to 150 employees lag their larger brethren when it comes to benefit plan design, and nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to wellness program selection. In February, a whopping 30% of smaller companies reported that they had made no progress in this area compared with 10% for all other companies.

Mid-size companies with 151 to 999 employees are further ahead of both smaller and larger employers in terms of choosing a benefits adviser and selecting a health plan for their next enrollment period.

Large companies struggle to manage their enrollments. For example, in February, only 3% had completed their employee benefits communications plan, compared to 13% and 14% of small and mid-size employers. Likewise, when it comes to documenting enrollment processes and procedures, only 15% of large companies had completed this task, compared with 21% of small and 18% of mid-range employers.

Employee Benefit Advisers Open Enrollment Readiness Benchmark was developed by SourceMedia Research and EBAs editors. Each month, SourceMedia Research surveys 400-plus prescreened HR and benefits executives of various sizes and across multiple industries. Respondents scores for the 26 individual activities are aggregated and used to produce a readiness mark for each of the four critical phases of open enrollmentbenefit plan design, preparation, employee enrollment and post-enrollment analysisas well as an overall composite score. A complete analysis of the most recent OERB data is available here.

About Employee Benefit Adviser

Employee Benefit Adviser (EBA) is the information resource for employee benefit advisers, brokers, agents and consultants. In an era of tremendous change and challenge, EBA is the benefits broker's digital roadmap, providing the current awareness and perspective advisers need to optimally serve their clients, anticipate changes in the marketplace, and run their businesses. EBA covers a broad range of critical content, including comparative market data, legal and regulatory updates, the latest products and services, and best practices in benefits delivery  including health insurance, vision and dental insurance, voluntary products and services, and retirement benefits. The benefits broker community relies on EBA to stay connected, through its website comment forums, its social media communities, and live events.

About SourceMedia Research

SourceMedia Research is a full-service B2B market research service that draws upon SourceMedias market expertise and proprietary database of engaged executives to develop information and insights for clients. SourceMedia Research provides research solutions for marketers, agencies and others targeting sectors such as banking, payments, mortgage, accounting, employee benefits and wealth management.

About SourceMedia

SourceMedia, an Observer Capital company, is a business-to-business digital marketing services, subscription information, and event company serving senior-level professionals in the financial, technology and healthcare sectors. Brands include American Banker, PaymentsSource, The Bond Buyer, Financial Planning, Accounting Today, Mergers & Acquisitions, National Mortgage News, Employee Benefit News and Health Data Management.

About ADP

Powerful technology plus a human touch. Companies of all types and sizes around the world rely on ADPs cloud software and expert insights to help unlock the potential of their people. HR. Talent. Benefits. Payroll. Compliance. Working together to build a better workforce. For more information, visit http://www.adp.com.

For more information, please contact:

Dana Jackson

dana.jackson(at)sourcemedia(dot)com

212-803-8329

John McCormick

john.mccormick(at)sourcemedia(dot)com

212-803-8509
Were now just days away from the nations largest gathering of international business leaders in the employee recognition field. The annual Learning & Celebration Summit hosted by Recognition Professionals International is coming to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to be held April 30 to May 2 at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66.

Countless numbers of the worlds most successful companies are also great places to work beca003use they make an effort to attract, appreciate and thereby retain the top talent in their field, said Kathie Pugaczewski, executive director of RPI. This conference will celebrate and cultivate that culture of employee recognition and engagement that is the hallmark of so many of the most renowned names in the international business world.

Leaders from many of the worlds business-leading companies will tell their stories of innovation and excitement in employee appreciation during the three-day conference. The program will including examples from successful companies like Celebrity Cruises, Southwest Airlines, Verizon Wireless and others, a few of the spotlight presentations at the conference will include:

-- Cash, Travel, and Neuroscience: Biometric science reveals new insights in motivation and rewards by Charlotte Blank , Head of the Maritz Institute

-- Inside the Mind of an Employee: The Good, the Bad and the Neurobiology by Rodd Wagner, New York Times Bestselling Author, Forbes Columnist, and Vice President of Employee Engagement Strategy at BI Worldwide

-- Kicking Tail and Taking Names: How Southwest Airlines Uses a Dual Recognition and Incentive Program to Align Company Values with Annual Goals and Rewards by Tonda Ferguson, CRP, Joanna Matthews, CRP and Monica Van Slate, CRP - Southwest Airlines

A full schedule of the conference seminars along with details on registration and accommodations are available at the official RPI website, http://www.recognition.org. RPI organizers have noted that registration is limited, so potential attendees are encouraged to make their plans now.

# # #

About RPI

Founded in 1995, Recognition Professionals International (RPI) is the only professional association at the forefront of workforce recognition through its sole focus on recognition innovations and education as a systematic method for improvements in the workplace.
Propper will supply instructors with apparel and gear they can use every day in training and classroom environments. Propper was a logical choice for both a wall sponsorship and apparel sponsor. Top quality products from a top quality company

Propper International is proud to announce a new sponsorship with the Alliance Police Training Facility in Alliance, Ohio.

In addition to a banner displayed on a shoothouse room wall, Propper will supply instructors with apparel and gear they can use every day in training and classroom environments.

We are excited about Propper joining the Alliance team, said Joe Weyer, Training Director for Alliance. They were a logical choice for both a wall sponsorship and apparel sponsor. Top quality products from a top quality company.

Proppers 50-year history of providing industry best uniforms and gear to the US military and law enforcement is a perfect fit with Alliances mission to provide efficient, cost effective and proven training to Law Enforcement and the Military in a top flight facility that features a square range, shoothouse, distance range and aircraft simulator.

Alliances commitment to training excellence parallels our commitment to offering the best apparel and gear to the men and women who protect us each and every day, said John Negrau, Vice President of Marketing & eCommerce for Propper.

About Propper

Propper is proudly celebrating 50 years in business in 2017. Making tactical gear with a purpose has been a way of life for Propper since their first U.S. Navy contract in 1967. Today, Propper designs and manufactures tactical clothing and gear that keeps military, law enforcement, and public safety professionals protected whether theyre in the service, on the job, or off for the weekend.

About Alliance

The mission of the Alliance Police Department Training Division is to provide efficient, cost effective and proven training to Law Enforcement and the Military. Our Instructors, as well as our industry partners and guest instructors will never sacrifice safety and are very mindful that the training you receive can mean the difference between life and death on the street. For more information, visit AlliancePoliceTraining.com

For more information, press only:

David Workman

636-685-1062

davidw(at)propper(dot)com

For more information on Propper:

http://www.propper.com
New Delhi, Apr 21 (IBNS) : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has asked the Congress president Sonia Gandhi to lead the opposition parties against the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance or NDA in putting up a candidate for the upcoming Presidential elections, NDTV reported.

Kumar made the appeal to the Congress chief during a visit to her 10 Janpath residence in Delhi on Thursday.

The Presidential election is due in July this year.

"JD-U wants that for the presidential polls, Mrs Gandhi should take the lead in fielding a united candidate of the opposition," Janata Dal leader KC Tyagi said after Kumar's meeting with Gandhi.

Kumar's Janada Dal-U and Congress are allies in Bihar.

The move is being seen as an attempt to extend the alliance to the national level before the 2019 general elections.

NDTV quoted its sources as saying that Nitish Kumar suggested Sonia Gandhi that, "Instead of reacting to Narendra Modi, we should be setting our own agenda."
The VIA Agency, a full-service creative agency, today announced its been named Agency of Record (AOR) for Theravent, Inc., the makers of a revolutionary new device clinically proven to significantly reduce or eliminate snoring. Theravents parent company, Foundation Consumer Healthcare, is now working to expand distribution in anticipation of a national launch. VIA will be responsible for developing a fully integrated communications plan and advertising campaign as Theravent continues to roll out nationwide.

Theravent is an anti-snoring aid that uses patented MicroValve technology in the form of a nasal strip that covers the nostrils to create expiratory positive airway pressure, or EPAP. Once the strip is applied, EPAP uses the power of your own breathing to open your nasal airway and quiet snoring.

More than 50 million Americans suffer from snoring, creating significant issues for them and their bed partners, said Steve Howard, CMO of Theravent, Inc. Snoring is a very real issue that creates problems for many people both within their relationships and throughout their day. We were impressed with VIAs deep understanding of our audience, both the person who snores and the person sharing a bed with them. We look forward to collaborating with VIA to bring to life Theravents ability to provide a quiet night of sleep.

VIAs work on the account is scheduled to begin immediately, with the first campaign to appear later this year.

Were thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Theravent on a product that helps improve the quality of peoples lives, said Leeann Leahy, CEO of VIA. A significant amount of studies have concluded sleep is directly linked to peoples overall health and happiness, and Theravent is an important solution to ensure a peaceful night free of snoring. We are excited to be Theravents creative partner and are honored to be a part of such a critical time for its business as they expand nationwide.

VIA has recently won a series of new accounts, including L.L.Bean, Asurion, T. Rowe Price and CertainTeed. Its existing client base also includes Three Olives, Unilever and Perdue Farms.

About Foundation Consumer Healthcare

Foundation Consumer Healthcare is dedicated to improving consumers lives by developing and growing a portfolio of differentiated over-the-counter (OTC) products. Foundations management team is comprised of industry leaders with unparalleled experience in the development, marketing, and commercialization of prescription and non-prescription medicines. Our portfolio currently consists of the iconic respiratory brands, Neo-Synephrine and Bronkaid, the topical pain relief antiseptic Campho-Phenique, St. Joseph 81 mg low dose aspirin and our ground-breaking new anti-snoring device, Theravent. Foundation is based in Pittsburgh, PA, with additional team members located throughout the country.

About The VIA Agency

The VIA Agency is an employee-owned, full-service creative agency thats dedicated to helping its clients grow their businesses through creativity. Located in Portland, Maine, VIA has helped some of the worlds most recognizable brands and innovative enterprises  such as Unilever, L.L.Bean, Perdue Farms and Facebook  create groundbreaking campaigns that reflect their own unique corporate styles. VIA also fundamentally believes in using creativity to drive cultural change and has dedicated its services to numerous humanitarian organizations, including Greenpeace and the United Nations. VIA was named one of Ad Ages 2016 Best Places to Work and Ad Ages 2011 Small Agency of the Year. http://www.theviaagency.com
Eric has an established reputation as a nationally respected air quality lawyer and brings significant industry knowledge that will augment our market-leading energy practice.

Holland & Hart is pleased to announce that Eric Waeckerlin has joined the firms Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources practice and will be based in the firms Denver office. Waeckerlin brings over a decade of litigation experience representing clients nationwide in federal and state courts on critical issues affecting the energy industry, with a particular focus on air quality and other complex environmental matters.

"Eric has an established reputation as a nationally respected air quality lawyer and brings significant industry knowledge that will augment our market-leading energy practice," said Liz Sharrer, Chair of Holland & Hart. We are thrilled that Eric has chosen Holland & Hart to continue his representation and solution-oriented approach to client service.

Prior to joining Holland & Hart, Waeckerlin practiced in Denver and in Washington, D.C. advising energy and industrial clients on a wide range of environmental compliance and enforcement issues. He currently serves as vice chair on the American Bar Association (ABA) Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Ecosystems Committee, and as vice chair on the ABA Superfund and Natural Resource Damages Litigation Committee.

About Holland & Hart

Celebrating the 70th anniversary of its founding in 1947, Holland & Hart is a full service, national law firm that today has more than 500 lawyers in 16 offices across eight states and in Washington, D.C. delivering integrated legal solutions to regional, national, and international clients of all sizes. Holland & Harts attorneys have consistently been recognized by leading national and international peer and industry review organizations for innovation and dedication to the practice of law. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, we serve clients in a diverse range of industries from energy and resources, to food and beverage, to technology, communications and media, and more. For more information, visit http://www.hollandhart.com or on Twitter: @HollandHart.
The new Laredo, TX location. Our global prototype in Orlando has seen great success since opening, and the result has been incredible excitement among both new and existing franchisees for the transformed concept

Romacorp, Inc., the parent company of Tony Romas, announces the reopening of its restaurant in Laredo, Texas, located in the Mall del Norte, after an extensive remodel. The restaurant, owned and operated by franchisee Costillas Limited, offers a fresh new look at the iconic brand and is the first restaurant remodel in the US following the launch of Tony Romas new global prototype restaurant in Orlando, Florida in October 2016. Following extensive consumer research, the new global prototype is a brand transformation for Tony Romas and includes a complete overhaul of the restaurant environment, service approach and food and beverage offerings to meet the demands of todays consumer.

As the Laredo Tony Romas heads into its 21st year of serving guests in the community, its exciting to see the restaurant transform along with the Tony Romas brand as we celebrate our 45th anniversary as the worlds largest casual dining concept specializing in ribs, said Stephen K. Judge, President and Chief Executive Officer of Romacorp, Inc. Our global prototype in Orlando has seen great success since opening, and the result has been incredible excitement among both new and existing franchisees for the transformed concept.

The Laredo restaurant has a new modern interior with flexible dining spaces to satisfy a variety of guest occasions, whether its family dining, couples date nights, business meetings or relaxing with friends after a long day. The remodel includes a new menu, plate ware, glassware, chairs, barstools and more as the transformation builds on the brands strong heritage while allowing guests to enjoy a fun, contemporary atmosphere. Laredo is the latest Tony Romas to utilize the new prototype restaurant design, which was also used in the McAllen, Texas and Orlando, Florida remodels and the new restaurant in Thunder Bay, Canada.

Its been a great two decades here in Laredo, and with this gorgeous renovation, we are looking forward to many more on the horizon, said Rick Guerra, Chief Executive Officer of Costillas Limited. This remodel not only shows that we are dedicated to the Laredo community, but also to the Tony Romas brand as it celebrates 45 years of bringing mouthwatering, world-famous ribs to fans around the globe.

This announcement is the latest in a string of landmark growth announcements for Tony Romas as it celebrates its 45th birthday, an incredible milestone unmatched by any American casual dining restaurant chain. Romacorp recently announced renewed US growth with Tony Romas development and franchise agreements in Tennessee and West Palm Beach, Florida. Romacorp also recently announced the signing of a development agreement that will bring Tony Romas world famous ribs to Nicaragua for the first time. Additional new domestic and international agreements are in the works and will be announced in the near future.

About Romacorp, Inc.

Romacorp, Inc., is the parent company of Tony Roma's restaurants, the world's largest casual dining concept specializing in ribs. Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, Romacorp, Inc. has more than 150 restaurant locations in more than 30 countries and is one of the most globally recognizable names in the industry. The first Tony Roma's restaurant opened 45 years ago in North Miami, Florida. Tony Roma's is also proud to partner with the Make-A-Wish Foundation (http://www.cnfl.wish.org), one of the world's leading children's charities, in an effort to help grant the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses across Central and Northern Florida. For more information about Romacorp, Inc. and Tony Roma's, visit http://www.tonyromas.com.

Please visit http://www.tonyromasfranchise.com or call (866) 981-0586 for information about Tony Roma's franchising opportunities.
CURRENT LOGO

Pieology, the creator of personally-inspired pizzas, announces the opening of its newest location in Moon Valley located at 903 E. Bell Road #102 in Phoenix, AZ.

Join the local Phoenix community as it officially welcomes Pieology to the neighborhood on Monday, April 24. As the restaurant opens its doors on the corner of Bell Road and 9th Street, guests can expect delicious handmade personal pizzas crafted with only the freshest ingredients and signature sauces. Boasting a variety of menu options as well as the ability to create your own personalized pie, Pieology delivers limitless pizza combinations, all of which are stone oven fired in five minutes or less.*

Were excited to bring our newest location to Phoenix as we continue to grow our community of Pieology lovers in Arizona, says Carl Chang, Founder and CEO of Pieology Pizzeria. We set out with a promise to deliver creative and delicious personally-inspired pizzas and we are committed to that promise as we expand Pieology both within Arizona and nationwide.

Award-winning Pieology has been dishing out delicious hand-crafted pizzas since 2011, growing from a simple idea to bring creativity back to pizza that now encompasses 139 stores across the nation and 70 more scheduled to open this year. This new veteran-owned location, owned by Amir Siddiqi and Kristopher Olson, offers dine-in, carry out and online ordering options. In addition to Pieologys original thin crust and new PieRise thick crust pizzas, guests can make custom salads as well. Even dairy-free diners can rejoice, as this location will offer Daiya Vegan Mozzarella Cheese.

In addition to serving up delicious pizza, Pieology is committed to making a positive difference in the communities it serves by hosting fundraising events to support local causes such as the humane society, Foster Care Initiatives and Wounded Warrior Project. Our other Arizona locations have performed well in their communities, and were confident our new Phoenix guests will love the Pieology experience as well, said franchise partner Kristopher Olson. The ability for guests to create their own customized pizza coupled with unbeatable customer service has made Pieology a favorite among Arizona pizza fans, and were excited to bring that great flavor and service to the Phoenix community.

Pieology Phoenix will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Guests can stay up to date on the latest offerings and get special access to deals by joining Pie Life, Pieologys community of friends and flavor pioneers. To learn more about Pieology, visit http://www.pieology.com or find them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

*PieRise may take slightly longer depending on location

About Pieology Pizzeria

Using only the freshest ingredients along with signature sauces and crusts, award-winning Pieology offers hand-crafted, personally-inspired pizzas in unlimited flavor combinations that are stone oven fired in less than three minutes. Founded in 2011 by Carl Chang, Pieology was created from the simple idea to turn Americas most craveable food into an affordable and interactive experience. Pieologys mission is to inspire individual creativity in a positive atmosphere where guests can gather with family and friends, while enjoying their delicious pizza creations. Along with providing great food and a memorable dining experience, Pieology is committed to making a positive difference in the communities it serves, one pie at a time. Recently named the #1 Fastest Growing Chain by Technomic, Pieology is steadily expanding its U.S. footprint, with commitments throughout the country in various stages of development. For more information, visit http://www.pieology.com, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Pieology, the creator of personally-inspired pizzas, announces the opening of its newest location at 2998 E. US 412 Highway, Suite 90 in Siloam Springs, AR.

Join the local Siloam Springs community as it officially welcomes Pieology to the neighborhood on Monday, April 24. As the restaurant opens its doors, guests can expect delicious handmade personal pizzas crafted with only the freshest ingredients and signature sauces. Boasting a variety of menu options as well as the ability to create your own personalized pie, Pieology delivers limitless pizza combinations, all of which are stone oven fired in five minutes or less.*

Were excited to bring our newest location to Siloam Springs as we continue to grow our community of Pieology lovers, says Carl Chang, Founder and CEO of Pieology Pizzeria. We set out with a promise to deliver creative and delicious personally-inspired pizzas and we are committed to that promise as we expand Pieology both within Arkansas and nationwide.

Award-winning Pieology has been dishing out delicious hand-crafted pizzas since 2011, growing from a simple idea to bring creativity back to pizza that now encompasses 139 stores across the nation and 70 more scheduled to open this year. Pieologys newest location and second in Arkansas will offer dine-in, carry out and online ordering options. In addition to Pieologys original thin crust and new PieRise thick crust pizzas, guests can make custom salads as well. Even dairy-free diners can rejoice, as this location will offer Daiya Vegan Mozzarella Cheese.

In addition to serving up delicious pizza, Pieology is committed to making a positive difference in the communities it serves by hosting fundraising events to support local causes. I am excited to bring a second Pieology to Arkansas, said franchise partner Ted Cheng. The ability for guests to create their own customized pizza coupled with unbeatable customer service has made Pieology a favorite among Fayetteville residents, and were excited to bring that great flavor and service to the Siloam Springs community.

Pieology Siloam Springs will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Guests can stay up to date on the latest offerings and get special access to deals by joining Pie Life, Pieologys community of friends and flavor pioneers. To learn more about Pieology, visit http://www.pieology.com or find them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

*PieRise may take slightly longer depending on location

About Pieology Pizzeria

Using only the freshest ingredients along with signature sauces and crusts, award-winning Pieology offers hand-crafted, personally-inspired pizzas in unlimited flavor combinations that are stone oven fired in less than three minutes. Founded in 2011 by Carl Chang, Pieology was created from the simple idea to turn Americas most craveable food into an affordable and interactive experience. Pieologys mission is to inspire individual creativity in a positive atmosphere where guests can gather with family and friends, while enjoying their delicious pizza creations. Along with providing great food and a memorable dining experience, Pieology is committed to making a positive difference in the communities it serves, one pie at a time. Named the 2015 #1 Fastest Growing Chain by Technomic, Pieology is steadily expanding its U.S. footprint, with commitments throughout the country in various stages of development. For more information, visit http://www.pieology.com, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Integrated Lab Services Bench by Formaspace Turk and Casey will be at booth #220 and available to speak with anyone interested in Triton Integrated Lab Services Bench.

Having worked on the design of the innovative Triton lab bench for more than a year, Formaspace is pleased to introduce it to top lab design architects from around the country at the Lab Design Conference 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Formaspace CEO Jeff Turk and VP of Industrial Design and Engineering Greg Casey will be at the show, where they will highlight the unique elements of the Triton bench that make it a standout among existing integrated lab services bench products.

Turk and Casey will be at booth #220 and available to speak with anyone interested in learning more about not just the new bench, only introduced to the market in March 2017, but also their custom lab design services. These services allow labs to have workbenches created to their exact specifications in terms of workflow, spatial efficiency, and strategic objectives.

The Lab Design Conference, held at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley, represents a signature event for professionals involved in every aspect of the design and implementation of laboratory facilities. The conference focuses on bringing to the forefront some of the most cutting-edge, efficient and advanced lab facilities available, which is what defines the Triton lab bench.

The Formaspace executives will be available to meet with conference attendees and architects on 4/24 from 12 to 4 pm. Theyll also be available on 4/25 from 8 am to 3:30 pm.

Its exciting to be showcasing the Triton to the best lab architects and industry leaders because we know its the latest, most cost-effective bench design available, said Casey. We just introduced it a few weeks ago, and already weve seen a tremendous amount of interest and demand from lab managers and lab architects. Were looking forward to talking with people in our industry and showing them how this lab bench can help them achieve their objectives.

The Triton lab bench features the utmost in versatility, with distribution panels above the workbench, and service options to allow for the delivery of gas, water or air, as well as data and electrical, directly to the work surface.

As an American Institute of Architects (AIA) continuing education provider, throughout 2017 the Formaspace team will also be offering lunch & learns to architecture & interior design firms, delivering informative sessions on the most current lab design and furniture trends.

About the Company

Formaspace, based in Austin, Texas, is a top manufacturer of advanced laboratory and workplace furniture. Bringing together a dedication to discovery and creation, as well as expertise in technical components, compliance, and safety issues, Formaspace creates tailored solutions for more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500. Formaspace works with universities, governments, small businesses and individuals to meet ever-evolving workbench and workspace requirements. The company operates within a guiding framework of sustainability and social responsibility.
Nearly half of U.S. adults (44 percent) have not planned their summer vacations yet, according to new data from HomeAway, the world leader in vacation rentals, and Radius Global Market Research. The survey of 1,000 U.S. adults also found 72 percent of Americans have not started saving for summer travel, with many planning on using tax refunds, work bonuses, or even income from taking on additional jobs to book their next getaway.

Luckily, prospective travelers may not need to save much money to plan their perfect trip, according to HomeAways Science of Memories study, which surveyed 700 summer travelers before, during and after their vacations, finding that more expensive vacations do not result in better memories.

Planning an unforgettable trip doesnt have to cost a fortune or be booked well in advance. One of the most interesting findings of our vacation memories study is that $5,000 vacations arent any more memorable than those that cost just $500, said Melanie Fish, HomeAway family travel expert. The study also found getting excited about taking a trip before you travel can increase its memorability by up to 73 percent, so now is the time to anticipate and daydream about summertime getaways.

Additional findings from HomeAways Science of Memories provide travelers with helpful tips on planning more memorable vacations  including research to help those who have already booked their trips:

1. Snap those selfies: travelers who take photos and selfies are 40 percent more likely to remember their vacations well. Notably, Instagram users are 24 percent more likely to clearly remember how they feel during important vacation moments than Facebook users.

2. Dont break the bank: HomeAways research showed that expensive vacations are not more memorable than economical trips.

3. Get excited: vacationers who report feeling happy and excited before their vacations are 73 percent more likely to remember their vacations well those who felt stressed, frustrated or calm.

4. Head to the mountains or hit the beach: mountain and beach vacations are the most memorable destinations. Cities ranked as the least memorable in HomeAways sample, coming in under amusement parks and small towns.

This is welcome news for HomeAway travelers as many are flocking to sunny destinations including the Florida panhandle, HomeAways most popular destination this summer. Other high-demand areas include Myrtle Beach, Maui and the greater Orlando area near Walt Disney World. For these top destinations, average rates for HomeAway vacation rentals range from $117 to $360 per night.

If families havent planned their summer getaways yet, theres no need to stress - there are still vacation homes available even in the peak summer weeks, especially if theres a willingness to be a little flexible on location, added Fish. For example, travelers visiting the Florida panhandle can save almost $200 per night by renting a home in Panama City Beach versus the pricier South Walton area, based on average nightly rates for the region. Visitors to North Carolinas coastal beaches can save $56 per night on their vacation rentals by opting to visit central coast beaches such as Emerald Isle and Atlantic Beach versus the more popular Outer Banks area.

About the surveys

The HomeAway Science of Memories study surveyed more than 700 travelers from six countries throughout the summer of 2016. Travelers were surveyed before, during, and after their trips with questions designed to measure memory recall. In addition to being the first survey of its kind to investigate the factors that create lasting vacation memories, the HomeAway Science of Memories study is one of the first surveys to investigate the impact of technology usage on vacation memory formation. This research study was designed and conducted by HomeAway and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. Hanover Research aided in the fielding and analysis of the survey. For more information on what makes vacations memorable, check out the white paper.

HomeAways data on the summer travel planning habits of Americans comes courtesy of Radius Global Market Research. 1,135 U.S. adults aged 18+ were surveyed in early April 2017 to determine how many Americans have planned and saved for their summer vacations. Additional information on the top destinations of summer travelers was sourced from HomeAway internal data.

About HomeAway

HomeAway, based in Austin, Texas, is the world leader in vacation rentals with sites representing more than 1.2 million online bookable vacation rental homes in 190 countries, and is a part of the Expedia, Inc. family of brands. Through HomeAway, owners and property managers offer an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, often for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es and Toprural.es in Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; HomeAway.com.au and Stayz.com.au in Australia; Bookabach.co.nz in New Zealand; and in Asia, HomeAway.asia. The company also operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels. For more information about HomeAway, please visit http://www.homeaway.com

 2017 HomeAway. All rights reserved. HomeAway and the HomeAway logo are trademarks of HomeAway. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Greenpeace Ranks Wild Planet the #1 tuna brand for sustainable sourcing policy We applaud the work Greenpeace has done to provide the Tuna Shopping Guide for consumer guidance."  Wild Planet Foods Founder, Bill Carvalho

For the second time in a row, Wild Planet Foods has been named by Greenpeace as the #1 tuna brand for sustainable sourcing policy in the organizations biennial Tuna Rankings, which ranks 20 popular canned tuna brands based on their level of sustainable sourcing, fairness and ethical practices for both oceans and seafood workers.

Wild Planet Foods, which is the fourth largest canned seafood brand in the U.S., has been committed to sustainable sourcing and ethical productions since its inception in 2001. Since then, the company  which tied for first place with American Tuna in Greenpeaces rankings has dedicated its resources to producing high quality, innovative sustainably sourced products and in educating both consumers and retailers about eco-friendly choices.

We applaud the work Greenpeace has done to provide the Tuna Shopping Guide for consumer guidance, explained Bill Carvalho, founder of Wild Planet Foods. We congratulate American Tuna for the recognition as co-holders with Wild Planet of the highest ranking. We at Wild Planet consider it an honor to work with retailers in providing tuna products with the best possible sourcing standards, which enables consumers to vote for conservation with their food purchases. It is our hope that many more brands elevate their standards to join the mission of promoting responsible seafood sourcing.

Wild Planet sees the world not only as it should be, but also, as it believes the world can be. By utilizing its influence on market forces and providing ecologically-sound and socially-just seafood products, Wild Planet believes it can promote environmental change from within the seafood industry.

With its five vision statements forming the structure of its sourcing policy, Wild Planet seeks to inspire others to work for a just and environmentally healthy future:



Vision #1  Wild Planet envisions a world where all people respect marine ecosystems and support use of SELECTIVE catch methods.

Vision #2  Wild Planet envisions a world that respects local communities rights of fishing access.

Vision #3  Wild Planet envisions a world where no sea creature is wasted, but instead, is wisely and gratefully used for food.

Vision #4  Wild Planet envisions a world with ocean biodiversity in balance.

Vision #5  Wild Planet envisions an honest world.

To learn more about Wild Planets environmental practices and its vision for the future, click here. To read the full Greenpeace Tuna Shopping Guide click here. For more information about Wild Planet Foods, its mission, products and sustainability practices, please visit http://www.wildplanetfoods.com.

About Wild Planet

With strict quality control from hook to shelf, Wild Planet Foods mission is to produce safe, nutritious, great-tasting, and sustainably fished seafood. 100% US owned and based in McKinleyville, CA, the company operates its own docks where selection and delivery of fish are taken directly from the fishermen, some of whom are also shareholders with the company. All products canned by Wild PlanetAlbacore, Skipjack, Shrimp, Sardines, Salmon, Mackerel, Yellowtail and White Anchoviesare considered Responsible Choices for sustainability by the consensus of environmental groups. Greenpeace recently ranked Wild Planet #1 in the U.S. for its sustainable sourcing policy. In harmony with the companys commitment to a healthy planet, Wild Planet is now producing organically produced land-based food; the first product is canned Organic Roasted Chicken Breast. For additional information, visit http://www.wildplanetfoods.com or call 800-998-9946.
"Argentina has set an ambitious goal of reducing rural poverty through income generation based on sustainable agricultural production," said Claus Reiner, IFADs Country Programme Manager for Argentina.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Argentina signed a financial agreement today to transform the lives of 40,000 people who rely on goat breeding as their main source of livelihood.

During the next six years, the Goat Value Chain Development Programme (PRODECCA) will support smallholder goat breeders to increase their incomes through sustainable integration into emerging value chains, including meat, milk products and fibre, especially mohair and cashmere.

The total cost of the project is US$25.45 million of which IFAD is providing a $12.30 million loan and a $1.02 million grant. Other co-financiers are: the Government of Argentina ($7 million), the provincial governments ($2.97 million) and the beneficiaries themselves ($2.16 million).

The agreement was signed today on the sidelines of the World Bank/IMF Spring meetings in Washington, D.C., by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, and Luis Andres Caputo, Minister for Finance of Argentina.

"Argentina has set an ambitious goal of reducing rural poverty through income generation based on sustainable agricultural production," said Claus Reiner, IFADs Country Programme Manager for Argentina. "IFAD aims to contribute to this effort by promoting the integration of poor family farmers into emerging and sustainable value chains, and we welcome the Governments choice of targeting goat producers, who are generally poor," he added.

Argentina is one of the largest economies in Latin America and one of the world's major producers of agricultural commodities, mainly from large-scale farms. However, there are also some 251,000 family farms in the country, many of which are run by poor families. About 46,000 farms, mainly smallholder, are raising goats.

PRODECCA aims to develop markets for goat products and improve the functioning of value chains by supporting market analysis and promotion, improving exploration of new markets and providing technical assistance to processing companies. Beneficiary participation is central to the programme. Producers' organizations will participate in round-table discussions to prepare and monitor plans for the areas in which specific goat products are traded, and will develop, execute and monitor their own business plans.

Poverty in the country is especially severe in farming families and indigenous communities. The programme will benefit some 8,000 rural families, including 5,600 smallholder and 2,400 indigenous families. It will be implemented in the provinces of Chaco, Formosa, Neuquen, Mendoza and Santiago del Estero, which are home to some 60 per cent of all goats in the country.

Since 1988, IFAD has contributed $128.4 million of the total $372.3 million investment for eight rural development programmes and projects in Argentina.

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Contact:

Ana Martinez

Communications Division

Tel: +39 06 5459 2383

Email: a.martinez(at)ifad(dot)org

IFAD invests in rural people, empowering them to reduce poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition and strengthen resilience. Since 1978, we have provided US$18.5 billion in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached about 464 million people. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency based in Rome  the UNs food and agriculture hub.
BIA/Kelsey and comScore announced a new partnership today that will integrate comScore's local television audience measurement information with BIA/Kelsey's local advertising spending data and forecasts. The new alliance will deliver a detailed view of a station's position in the local video market marketplace and allow owners and operators to track and measure their audience success within the context of BIA/Kelsey's comprehensive local market data and analysis.

Were seeing a growing demand in the local linear television marketplace for innovative analytics and insights," said Rick Ducey, managing director, BIA/Kelsey. "As the leader in providing insights to those active in the local TV marketplace, were incredibly pleased to announce a new data partnership with comScore to help us address this demand. Integrating our data offers broadcasters a complete, reliable and efficient view into their local television markets not previously possible.

BIA/Kelsey will incorporate aspects of comScore local television data into its new local market data dashboard, BIA ADVantage, as well as its Media Ad View and Media Access Pro data services.

comScore is constantly working to improve and expand upon our local market television currency, and enter into smart partnerships designed to help our clients drive their businesses forward, faster, said Steven Walsh, EVP, Local Television, comScore. comScore is very pleased to be working with BIA/Kelsey, who has been a trusted advisor to the broadcast industry for decades. Our data enhances their local market analyses to help broadcasters better understand their competitive position and opportunities.

The new data will be available beginning third quarter of this year. Details about the data enhancements to MEDIA Access Pro and ADVantage will be shared during a client only webinar the first week of May. For more information, email advantage(at)biakelsey(dot)com.

About BIA/Kelsey

BIA/Kelsey (@BIAKelsey) combines data, analytics and insights to provide its clients with the information they need for grounded financial and strategic action. Since 1983, BIA/Kelsey has been a valuable resource for many of the leading companies in media and the financial and legal community serving media and telecom, as well as the FCC and other government agencies. Today, BIA/Kelsey offers a broad range of research, consulting services and conferences to traditional and new media companies. Learn more about BIA/Kelsey at http://www.biakelsey.com.

About comScore

comScore is a leading cross-platform measurement company that measures audiences, brands and consumer behavior everywhere. comScore completed its merger with Rentrak Corporation in January 2016, to create the new model for a dynamic, cross-platform world. Built on precision and innovation, our data footprint combines proprietary digital, TV and movie intelligence with vast demographic details to quantify consumers multiscreen behavior at massive scale. This approach helps media companies monetize their complete audiences and allows marketers to reach these audiences more effectively. With more than 3,200 clients and global footprint in more than 75 countries, comScore is delivering the future of measurement. Shares of comScore stock are currently traded on the OTC Market (OTC:SCOR). For more information on comScore, please visit comscore.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains 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, including, without limitation, comScores expectations as to the financial and operational effects of comScores local television data offerings and any related products. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to, comScores ability to project the financial impact of changes in its local TV offerings or comScores ability to achieve its expected financial and operational results. For additional discussion of risk factors, please refer to comScores respective Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K and other filings comScore makes from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), which are available on the SECs website (http://www.sec.gov).

Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date such statements are made. comScore does not intend or undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or new information after the date of this press release, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
Guwahati, Apr 21 (IBNS) : The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Assam police on Friday summoned three officials of state excise department in connection with the multi-crore rupees BG bonded warehouse tax evasion scam.

A top CID official said the investigation agency has summoned to three excise officials named Amarendra Nath, Ajay Bayan and Bijoy Das and asked them to appear before the CID in Guwahati on April 24 next.

Earlier the CID sleuths had arrested liquor barron Rajesh Jalan and owner of the warehouse Bonti Gogoi Pegu in the connection with the multi-crore rupees scam.

The CID team had also interrogated several top government officials including two former commissioner of the department in connection with the scam.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath,Image: Google Map)
Kate Clarke presents Eve DeVaro (left) with the 2017 Ruth Ravich Patient Advocacy Award. The Ruth Ravich Patient Advocacy Award recognizes individuals whose work supports the vision of bringing the patients needs to the center of healthcare.

The Patient Advocacy Community of The Beryl Institute presented Eve DeVaro, Director, Patient Advocacy, Bon Secours Baltimore Health System, with the 2017 Ruth Ravich Patient Advocacy Award in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the field of patient advocacy and to fellow patient advocates. DeVaro was honored with the award at The Beryl Institutes annual Patient Experience Conference on March 20 in Denver, Colorado.

With a background of over twenty years in healthcare ethics and six years in patient advocacy, DeVaro oversees patient advocacy initiatives for an urban health system and is responsible for promoting and protecting patient rights in all service settings, including responding to quality of care complaints and grievances; facilitating ethics consultations; staff education on industry best practices in the areas of patient experience, patient satisfaction and trauma-informed care; and strategic alignment of advocacy programs across the health system. She has a passion and commitment to the local community receiving mental health services and continues to educate caregivers and staff about honoring the rights of persons receiving services.

Eve promotes the Ruth Ravich spirit of Patient Advocacy through actions both at her facility as well as outside her work environment. As a department of one, Eve knows first-hand the hurdles to balance advocating for patients while growing and ensuring the best practice in patient advocacy within her department, said Kate Clarke, Manager, Patient Relations/Interpreter Services at Northwestern Medicines Central DuPage and Delnor Hospitals and Patient Advocacy Community Executive Team Member. Beyond her local community, Eve touches the professionals of the Patient Advocacy Community by working to collaborate and create networking support for other patient advocates who are also a department of one.

Awarded annually since 1991, the Ruth Ravich Patient Advocacy Award recognizes individuals whose work supports the vision of bringing the patients needs to the center of healthcare. Ruth Ravich was the founder and first president of the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy, now the Patient Advocacy Community of The Beryl Institute. As the profession of Patient Advocacy and patient centered care has evolved, the award has come to also recognize individuals within the Patient Advocacy Community who engage in focused efforts to be of support to fellow Advocates in promoting patient rights and patient centered care.

To learn more about the Patient Advocacy Community of The Beryl Institute, visit http://www.theberylinstitute.org/?page=PAC.

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About The Beryl Institute:

The Beryl Institute is the global community of practice dedicated to improving the patient experience through collaboration and shared knowledge. We define patient experience as the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organizations culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.
The Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council is hosting its annual supplier diversity and small business development conference  the Business Opportunity Exchange  on April 25th and 26th at the World Headquarters of the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta. The BOE is the largest and oldest conference of its kind in the Southeast, bringing together small business owners, corporate procurement executives, supplier diversity experts and other stakeholders for two power-packed days of workshops, networking, keynotes and activities. The GMSDC is pleased to announce that Mr. Robb Wong, the Associate Administrator, Office of Government Contracting and Business Development at the US Small Business Administration, will deliver the keynote address on April 25th.

The theme for the 2017 BOE is Own The Moment, as the Council challenges its constituents to rise to a new level of preparedness to seize every opportunity the market presents. Mr. Wong brings a very timely message from one of the small business communitys most ardent champions, the SBA. In his role, Mr. Wong advocates throughout the federal government on behalf of small business owners wanting to do business as federal contractors and subcontractors. He also helps to set small business contracting policy and hold federal agencies accountable to reach their small business contracting goals. The SBA assists small businesses from the startup stage through their full life cycle through programs and initiatives focused on access to capital, surety bonds, small business counseling, and federal contracting programs. Hundreds of millions of dollars flow into the small business ecosystem as a result of SBA programs.

The SBA has been an essential element of the GMSDCs efforts to facilitate win-win business partnerships in the state of Georgia. Stacey Key, the President and CEO of the GMSDC, recognizes the significance of the SBAs impact on small business development across the state. We have enjoyed a marvelous relationship with the SBA for many years, and are so grateful for the support and engagement of both the Regional Administration and the national organization, says Key. SBA programs are a big reason why the economy of our state is experiencing a steady cycle of growth and expansion. We are excited about welcoming Associate Administrator Wong to Georgia and look forward to continuing our long and prosperous partnership.

The BOE will introduce innovative new program elements this year that are designed to enhance the experience for attendees and support the sharing of best practices and the establishment of mutually beneficial business partnerships all across the state of Georgia. For more information or to register, visit gmsdc.org.

About the GMSDC

The Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc. (GMSDC) is a not-for-profit organization that fosters value-driven partnerships that may otherwise not be possible between corporate entities, ethnic minority-owned businesses and government entities in the state of Georgia. With over 400 national and local corporate members and more than 600 certified minority business enterprises, GMSDC is headquartered in Atlanta and is an affiliate of National Minority Supplier Development Council. For more information, call 404-589-4929 or visit http://www.gmsdc.org.

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Our study makes clear that, over the last 10 to 15 years, we have seen a meaningful decrease in the number of adolescents involved in fighting and violence.

Contrary to popular perception, a new study by Boston University professor Christopher Salas-Wright finds that youth violence is decliningand at noteworthy rates. Between 2002 and 2014, Salas-Wright and his colleagues found a 29% decrease in the relative proportion of young people involved in violence in the United States. The study, Trends in Fighting and Violence Among Adolescents in the United States: Evidence From the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 20022014, published in the American Journal of Public Health, also reveals a persistent pattern of racial and ethnic disparities in youth violence.

"There is often the sense that teenagers are out of control and that things are always getting worse," Salas-Wright said. "However, our study makes clear that, over the last 10 to 15 years, we have seen a meaningful decrease in the number of adolescents involved in fighting and violence."

Drawing from nationally representative data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the study examines trends in violence (including fighting, group fighting, and attacks with intent to harm) among youth ages 12-17. Study findings indicate that among youth in general, violence is meaningfully down. Indeed, Salas-Wright and colleagues found that the prevalence of youth violence steadily dropped from a pinnacle of 33.6% in 2003 to a low of 23.7% in 2014. Despite these encouraging findings, Salas-Wright is careful to note that disparities exist. Over the course of the study, African-American youth were consistently found to be most impacted by violent behavior followed by Hispanic and non-Hispanic white youth.

"Overall, these findings represent good news," Salas-Wright noted. "However, while violence decreased among youth from all racial and ethnic groups, we see clear evidence of that African-American and Hispanic youth continue to be disproportionately impacted by violence."

The study was co-authored by Erik Nelson of Indiana University, Michael Vaughn of Saint Louis University, Jennifer Reingle Gonzalez of University of Texas, and David Cordova of the University of Michigan.

The authors argue that, despite the standard assumptions about young people, findings from the present study are consistent with recent research on risk behavior among American youth.

"While we are seeing noteworthy decreases in violence and other risky behaviors among youth, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that these problems persist," Vaughn said. "There is still much work to be done."

Based on these findings, Salas-Wright and colleagues emphasize the importance of the continued development and dissemination of evidence-based programs and interventions designed to prevent not only violence but other problem behaviors among youth.
LJL PaletteArt Wear

WHAT: PALETTEaRT WEAR - An Art & Fashion First!

WHEN: April 21-24, 2017 (Opening Night Preview Party 4-8pm)

WHERE: ArtExpo New York - Booth 446 - Pier 94 NYC

Artist LJLevasseur launches a new clothing line refashioning old clothing and accessories into new one of a kind PaletteArt Wear Designs.

Each year thousands of art industry insiders flock to Artexpo New York in search of the art and artists that will shape trends in galleries worldwide. It's the largest international gathering of qualified trade buyers under one roof.

This is where Art happens and Lady in Red is painted dress unlike any other we've seen in both the fashion and art worlds. Exciting news and worth a visit to the show for the first preview of what's to come.

Lisa's art is being presented by Art Tour International Magazine this year after a successful exhibition of her Art Wear Jewellery at Florence Fashion Week. Visit Booth#446 to meet the editor and get more inside information.

Visit online to read about this innovative artist and her story, you won't believe everything she has in the works. From accident to an environmental art movement, she's leading new trends in the industry and forming a group supporting artists.

Check us out on social media for sneak previews, highlights, behind the scenes & daily action shots, Facebook live interviews and more to see what's happening at the show!

"You're invited to help Paint the World with Recycled Paint" - LJL

Discover PaletteArt http://www.paletteart.org

Visit Gallery PaletteArt http://www.ljlgalleries.com

Learn at PaletteArt Centre http://www.terracana.com/arts.php
Attorney Su Kang I strongly believe that we all have a responsibility to help one another in life. Past News Releases RSS Su Kang Voted Top Lawyer in...

Seiller Waterman LLC is pleased to announce that Su H. Kang has become a Member of the firm. Ms. Kang joined Seiller Waterman in its family law group coming from a successful private practice.

Ms. Kang has been recognized with numerous awards including the prestigious Top 10 Under 40 Attorney Award for the State of Kentucky, Top Lawyer in Kentucky Monthly and as an Outstanding Young Lawyer. Her practice concentrates in divorce, child support, custody of children, spousal maintenance, division of property and debt, as well as domestic violence issues. Ms. Kang dedicates her practice to protecting her clients rights and helping them navigate the complicated world of divorce and family law.

Kang is also a graduate of the Louisville Bar Associations Leadership Academy, whose goal is to build a core of practicing attorneys in the greater Louisville area that will lead the legal community ethically, professionally and charitably, with high regard for service to the city and region. Kang also volunteers with Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse and Habitat for Humanity. I strongly believe that we all have a responsibility to help one another in life, said Kang.

About Su Kang, Seiller Waterman LLC

Attorney Su Kang is licensed to practice law in Kentucky and New York. She is a member of the American Bar Association, Family Law and Young Lawyers sections; Kentucky Bar Association, Young Lawyers section; and Louisville Bar Association, Family Law and Young Lawyers sections. Seiller Waterman LLC focuses on family law, litigation, corporate and business law, real estate, employment law, intellectual property, bankruptcy and financial restructuring, estate planning and taxation. For more information, call (502) 371-3538, or visit http://www.derbycitylaw.com. The law office is located at 462 S. Fourth Street, 22nd Floor, Louisville, KY 40202.

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.
Scott Candoo, of Candoo Law PLLC It doesnt feel like forty years. I still love to practice law after all these years Past News Releases RSS

Scott Candoo, of Candoo Law PLLC, is celebrating his fortieth anniversary practicing law. It doesnt feel like forty years, said Candoo. I still love to practice law after all these years.

During the course of his distinguished forty-year career, Candoo has handled numerous high-profile cases. For example, he filed suit against the Attorney General and State of Washington for refusing to release information about a $400,000 settlement to taxpayers (Case no. 94-2-04017-8 filed in the Superior Court of Washington County of Thurston) and won a $5 million settlement against a child abuser (Case no. 96-2-07444-1 filed in the Superior Court of Washington County of Pierce). He has also been involved with prominent celebrity dissolution cases that received widespread media attention.

Candoo is the recipient of the 2017 Bertha M. Snell Award, given to those who triumph over difficult obstacles in their quest to become a lawyer and in the practice of law. He is also renowned for handling the kind of lawsuits that are often considered too tough for other attorneys and for connecting with clients using humor. When we laugh our brains reboot, added Candoo, who focuses on family law.

In addition to legal guidance, Scotts quick comical wit is always there in a time of need to lift my spirits, said client Rachel P. Scotts valuable wisdom and insight also helped me gain new perspective, which helped shape the new me during my divorce journey.

About Scott Candoo, Candoo Law PLLC

Scott Candoo practices family law, personal injury and criminal law. Scott, a native of Tacoma, is also President Elect of the Tacoma Pierce County Bar Association. He is admitted to practice in the State of Washington and the U.S. Federal Courts. For more information, please call (253) 272-7274, or visit http://www.candoolaw.com. The law office is located at 3929 Bridgeport Way West, Suite 304, University Place, WA 98466.

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.
I would like to personally thank our partners and merchants for choosing Clearent.

Today Clearent announced that it advanced six spots on The Nilson Reports List of national merchant acquirers based on 2016 card processing volume. The companys volume grew by 19% over 2015 by providing industry-leading products and superior customer service.

In 2016, Clearent launched its new suite of omni-channel payment solutions that includes a custom-built Virtual Terminal and Hosted Payment Pages and buttons, which help business owners accept payments anywhere. Clearent also launched recurring payments for its Virtual Terminal, which helps merchants securely set up automated payments. To help merchants comply with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), the company launched the DataGuardian program, which protects businesses and their customers from the devastating effects of a data breach.

In 2017, Clearent expects to see growth from its March acquisition of Payment Alliance International's merchant services division. The company is also forecasting growth in its newest sales channel targeting Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), which it laid the groundwork for in 2016.

"As we climb higher on the list every year, it demonstrates that our commitment to transparency and responsive customer service is the right approach, said Dan Geraty, CEO of Clearent. I would like to personally thank our partners and merchants for choosing Clearent."

About Clearent

Clearent is a full-service, fully integrated payment processor and merchant services provider. Its commitment to honesty and transparency has made it one of the most trusted companies in the payments industry. Clearent has more than 300 employees, 45,000 merchants, and $14 billion in processing volume. Its headquarters are in St. Louis, Missouri and it has offices in West Palm Beach, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky. From traditional point-of-sale terminals, mobile solutions, and tablet-based systems to a custom-built virtual terminal, eCommerce plug-ins, and hosted payments, Clearent can help small business owners securely accept payments just about anywhere. The companys proprietary processing system gives it more flexibility to deliver products that truly help its sales teams and partners stand out from the competition and sign more deals. It also helps the company deliver flexible pricing options, accurate, on-time residuals, and a suite of graphical portfolio management tools that are updated daily. Clearents Next Day Funding service is also unique because of its 11:00 p.m. Eastern cut-off time, which is one of the latest in the industry. The company has consistently been named to several prestigious lists year after year, such as the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies, The Nilson Reports list of top U.S. acquirers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Top Workplaces award, and the St. Louis Business Journals list of fastest growing private companies. To learn more, visit http://www.clearent.com or call 866.205.4721.
A Government Contracts & Projects team from global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP secured a critical win in a bid protest before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on behalf of Tribalco, LLC. The case was decided in March, but recently was publicly unsealed.

Greenberg Traurig Shareholder Richard Moorhouse, Of Counsel Ryan C. Bradel, and Associate Jozef S. Przygrodzki represented Tribalco, LLC, the awardee on a contract by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to provide support to the USACE radio systems. USACEs award to Tribalco was protested by a losing bidder on the grounds that: 1) the solicitation contained a patent ambiguity; and 2) the USACE misevaluated the losing bidders proposal. After full briefing on the merits, the Court of Federal Claims held in favor of USACE and Tribalco finding that the protesters ambiguity claim was untimely and that there was no material error in the USACEs evaluation of the proposals. The decision can be found at By Light Professional IT Services v. United States, No. 161316C, 2017 WL 1349325.

Mr. Moorhouse has more than 30 years of experience litigating procurement award and contract disputes at the federal, state, and local levels. He has extensively prosecuted and defended complex bid protest and claim matters before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the District of Columbia Contract Appeals Board, and the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals.

Mr. Bradel is an experienced government contracts lawyer. He focuses his practice on government contracts litigation matters and has successfully represented clients before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the Boards of Contract Appeal, the GAO, the Small Business Administrations Office of Hearings and Appeals, and state and federal courts.

Mr. Przygrodzki focuses his practice on government contracts litigation, counseling, and investigations. He advises clients on all aspects of government procurement, including ethics and compliance in procurement and administration of state and local government contracts.

About Greenberg Traurigs Government Contracts & Projects Practice: Greenberg Traurig's Government Contracts & Projects Practice helps companies navigate the highly regulated acquisition and compliance processes of the federal, state and local governments and their agencies. The firms attorneys and governmental affairs professionals assist both experienced contractors and newcomers with issues arising from sales of commercial off-the-shelf and customized products, services and managed solutions to governments at the national and local levels. The practice also focuses on meeting both the transactional and U.S. regulatory needs of clients in the commercial, defense, aerospace and other high-tech sectors.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GTLaw) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is celebrating its 50th anniversary. One firm worldwide, GTLaw has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the second largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2016, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
Petroni Vineyards Our goal was to create a tasting and tour experience that ensured every guest enjoyed the beauty and elegance of the terraced mountain estate, the wine, and an unforgettable experience. We wanted to create lasting memories. Past News Releases RSS

Petroni Vineyards successfully transitions from a family hobby winery to a boutique luxury winery in the renowned Moon Mountain AVA of Sonoma wine country.

Petroni Vineyards founder Lorenzo Petroni dreamed of becoming the first California vintner to grow the prized Sangiovese Grosso clone to produce a Brunello-style wine in the hills of Sonoma. The wine requires at least two years of barrel aging followed by an additional three years in a bottle prior to release. Petroni personally imported the root stock from his native Tuscany to develop his vineyards in the rocky, hillside Sonoma soil.

Upon the passing of Lorenzo, the Petroni family recruited Jeff Forestier to consult on strategic options for the winery. This important move led to the repositioning of the brand with a focus on direct-to-consumer marketing. Forestier confirms many of Petroni wines are on allocation and available exclusively from the winery, or at North Beach Restaurant, also founded by Lorenzo Petroni.

With a career conducting corporate turnarounds for the likes of Kleiner-Perkins, Advent Venture Partners, and numerous private equity firms, the strategy was quite clear for Forestier, who immediately began recruiting the best personnel he could find in the industry. Our goal was to create a tasting and tour experience that ensured every guest enjoyed the beauty and elegance of the terraced mountain estate, the wine, and an unforgettable experience. We wanted to create lasting memories, said Forestier.

Director of Hospitality, Cante Swearingen, was the first key hire. Recruited from the Napa Valley, his prior ten years had been spent building the estate program for VIADER Vineyards. Shortly thereafter, Samantha Francis joined Petroni from Spring Mountain Winery as Director of Wine Club and Events. With these key additions, combined with the incomparable winemaking skills of New Zealand-born Martin MacKenzie, who came from the prestigious Stonyridge Vineyard, a great team was formed.

Guests are greeted at the gates of the estate with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to begin their experience. The estate boasts an incredible 19,000-square-foot cave providing year-round invariant temperature and natural humidity that are ideal for aging wines. Petroni commonly hosts private events, intimate parties or large groups, including food pairings with wine, Wine Club member events, weddings, birthdays, as well as large corporate events.

Petroni Vineyards elite tasting experience features knowledgeable and professional hosts that create a welcoming Italian family atmosphere. Several tasting options are available, including a vertical tasting of older vintages dating back to 1998 (selection between Sangiovese, Syrah or Cabernet) side-by-side with current release wines. Tastings include a full tour of the estate (weather permitting) and caves, sampling of the estate Organic Olive Oil, and often includes a few surprise benefits. All wines are from estate vineyards that are organically farmed.

To join the Petroni Vineyards Wine Club, please visit http://www.petronivineyards.com/wine-club/join-the-club/.

About Petroni Vineyards

Located up a winding road above Sonoma Valley in the Moon Mountain AVA, Petroni Vineyards is a breathtaking expanse of terraced, organically-grown vineyards, olive orchards and 19,000 square feet of magnificent Tuscan wine caves. Its boutique 5,000-case production of luxury Bordeaux and Italian varietal wines are allocated exclusively to wine club members, winery visitors, and direct-to-consumer shipping. Founder and visionary Lorenzo Petronis legacy and heritage is celebrated with the flagship Sangiovese and Extra Virgin Olive Oil, both of which are organically farmed from root stock originally imported from Italys famed Tuscan wine region to the rocky volcanic soils of Sonoma. For more information, please call (707) 935-8311, or visit http://www.petronivineyards.com. Petroni Vineyards is located at 990 Cavedale Road, Sonoma, CA 95476.

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.
Kolkata/Birbhum, Apr 21 (IBNS): While West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was directing her comrades to work together and unitedly from an organizational meeting in Kolkata on Friday afternoon, two rival groups of her party engaged in a deadly tussle with each other in state's Birbhum district, killing at least eight people and leaving several others injured, reports said.

According to reports, two groups of local miscreants, allegedly sheltered by ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), engaged in a clash with each other at Durbarpur and neighbouring Dawaraka villages under Labpur Police Station limits in Bibhum district since Friday morning over the occupation of sand mines at the area.

Fighting sand mafias allegedly fired several rounds of bullets and hurled crude bombs aiming at each other.

At least eight persons were killed and several others were seriously hurt when one or more crude bomb(s) suddenly went off inside a hut, where bombs were allegedly being made, at Darbarpur village, during the deadly tussle in evening.

Later, a heavy police force along with Rapid Action Force (RAF) rushed to the scene and rescued the injured.

"Two local miscreants' groups engaged in a tussle with each other over a local issue today at Dawaraka village under Labpur PS limits and there is a report of crude bomb explosion in a house at neighbouring Durbarpur village, where bombs were stored or being made that time," a police source told IBNS.

"A heavy police force, led by Bolpur's SDPO and Officer-in-Charges (OCs) of all nearby police stations, along with RAF and Combat Force have been deployed to the scene and few bodies have been recovered from the explosion site while, police rescued few persons seriously injured and sent them to nearby hospitals," the source added.

A large number of security personnel have been posted at these villages as the situation remains tense till the last update came in.

A senior police official said that police have been started probe into the matter while state Criminal Investigation Department (CID)'s bomb disposal squad has been called in to check and examine the house, where the crude bomb(s) went off.

Meanwhile, local leaders of West Bengal's ruling party denied its involvement in the clash.

TMC's Birbhum district president, Anubrata Mondal, told IBNS, "TMC was not involved in the tussle and CPI-M's miscreants were behind the incident."

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
Guwahati, Apr 21 (IBNS): Politics in the trouble torn hills district of Karbi Anglong in Assam on Friday drastically changed as over hundred youths of 24 tribal organizations staged nude protest ahead of the polls of Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC).



The members of 24 tribal organizations staged nude protest at Diphu town in the hills district and demanded to change electoral rolls ahead of the council poll.

The protesters staged nude protest to draw attention of the government.

The protesters demanded that, only tribal voters should be allowed to exercise in the council.

They said that, if allowing non-tribals to vote in the council poll then it will affect their interest.



Later, police dispersed the protesters by detaining them.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
News

From Bulgaria

Bulgarian State-Run Energy Companies Ready with Statement on Gazprom Case

Individual renegotiations of contracts with Gazprom would come to play only when the proposals have been approved, the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy stressed in an e-mailed statement

AUTHOR: publics.bg



 Bulgartransgaz



Bulgarias state-run energy majors Bulgargaz, Bulgartransgaz and their parent structure  the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) are ready with their statements and suggestions relating to the antitrust probe of the European Commission (EC) against Russias gas mogul Gazprom. This was announced by the Ministry of Energy on Friday, following an appeal by former energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova for a prolongation of the period granted by the EC to Bulgarian companies to issue statements on the matter.

What is more, the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA) said on Tuesday that a single natural gas price from Gazprom for the EU, solely differing by transport costs from country to country, should be backed by the Bulgarian government in the EU-Gazprom antimonopoly negotiations.

On April 19 representatives of the Bulgarian energy ministry, BEH, and its subsidiaries took part in the V4 Gaz Forum organised by the Visegrad Group countries. Following the event, the energy ministry said that it has discussed the company statements on an expert level.

The Bulgarian state-run companies are expected to officially submit their statements to the energy ministry today.

Bulgaria, along with other countries from Central and Eastern Europe, is meant to have its say on the Gazprom proposals by May 4. Individual renegotiations of contracts with Gazprom would come to play only when the proposals have been approved, the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy stressed in an e-mailed statement.

The proposed Gazprom commitments are expected to allow more competitive natural gas pricing for CEE countries. One of the measures in particular, concerning Bulgaria, was said to be Gazprom not seeking compensation from Bulgaria for the cancellation of South Stream gas pipeline.
The Womens National Book Association has announced the nominees for its 2017 WNBA Pannell Award, given annually to two bookstoresone general bookstore and one childrens specialty storethat enhance their communities by fostering a love of reading. The award is co-sponsored by Penguin Young Readers Group.

The nominees in the General Bookstore category are: Bluebird Books in Hutchinson, Kans.; Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Tex.; Books Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.; Byrds Books in Bethel, Conn.; Eagle Harbor Book Company in Bainbridge Island, Wash.; Genes Books in Sanibel, Fla.; Harleysville Books in Harleysville, Pa.; Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Ky.; Laurel Bookstore in Oakland, Calif.; Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine; Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, N.C.; Napa Bookmine in Napa, Calif.; Odyssey Bookshop in Hadley, Mass.; Sandmeyers Bookstore in Chicago, Ill.; The Bookworm of Edwards in Edwards, Colo.; The Conundrum in St. Francisville, La.; Volumes Bookcafe in Chicago, Ill.; and Vromans Bookstore in Pasadena, Calif.

The nominees in the Childrens Specialty Bookstore category are: Bank Street Book Store in New York, N.Y.; Blue Bunny Books and Toys in Dedham, Mass.; Blue Manatee Childrens Bookstore in Cincinnati, Ohio; Books of Wonder in New York, N.Y.; Childrens Book World in Haverford, Pa.; Childrens Book World in Los Angeles, Calif.; Cover to Cover in Columbus, Ohio; Green Bean Books in Portland, Ore.; Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, Ill.; Monkey See, Monkey DoChildrens Bookstore in Clarence, N.Y.; Once Upon a Storybook in Tustin, Calif.; Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, Minn.; Second Star To The Right in Denver, Colo.; Spellbound Childrens Bookshop in Asheville, N.C.; Stories in Brooklyn, N.Y.; The Childrens Bookstore in Baltimore, Md.; The Curious Reader in Glen Rock, N.J.; The French Library in New Orleans, La.; and The Reading Bug in San Carlos, Calif.

This years jurors are Susan Katz Radin, publisher emeritus at HarperCollins Childrens Books; Josalyn Moran, childrens publishing consultant; Emily Romero, senior v-p of marketing at Penguin Young Readers; Roger Sutton, editor-in-chief of the Horn Book; and Lisa Von Drasek, curator of Childrens Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota.

The winners will be announced in early May, with a presentation to follow at BookExpo during the Childrens Book & Author Breakfast. Each of the two winning stores will receive a $1,000 check and a signed original piece of artwork by a childrens illustrator.
As part of its effort to remake its higher education business, Pearson has struck a textbook rental deal with the National Association of College Stores subsidiary, indiCo.

Under the agreement, which goes into effect this fall, 50 Pearson titles will be available via a rent-only model from the 1,500 independent campus stores through indiCo. All titles will be available to rent for less than $100. To make it more affordable for stores to participate in the program, Pearson will sell the included textbooks on a consignment basis.

While students will be able to rent textbooks online, Bob Walton, NACS CEO, said he believes students will appreciate the chance to rent and return the books at the local campus store. Rentals can provide a significant cost savings, but online returns can be a hassle. Additionally, its easy for students to select the wrong materials when shopping with online retailers.

NACS remodeled indiCo this spring, making it a collaborative that an offers operational assistance to college stores in a bid to slow the loss of independent college stores.

After sustaining poor results in its North American higher education business in 2016, Pearson said in January that it was committed to finding ways to make its materials more affordable for students. In addition to its agreement with indiCo, Pearson has announced a series of new cost-cutting initiatives for students that will go into affect this year.

This article has been updated for clarity.
Mamata Banerjee official Facebook Page

Kolkata, Apr 21 (IBNS): Eyeing on the formation of the federal front in the country, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that Trinamool Congress will go across the country and unite all political forces against the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha election, on Friday, according to media reports.

While addressing the organisational meet of the party, the TMC chief said: "Their (BJP) strategy is to send all political leaders to jail so that no one can challenge them in 2019 Lok Sabha election. Our strategy will be to go across the country and unite all political parties against BJP."

Banerjee accused BJP for playing communal politics and said that the religious rally with swords never happened in the state.

"They are coming out to do riot with swords. Religion makes peace. Hindu religion is tolerant. Riot and violence is not religion and are against the constitution," she added.

The state BJP unit was seen to carrying swords during the celebration of Ram Navami festival across the state, few days back.

Sharpening the attacks on BJP, she even said that the saffron the party is trying to divide people on the basis of religion, which has been actually the topic of discussion in the country, of late.

Banerjee also faced an objection to enter the Jagannath Temple by some sevaits in Puri during her three days visit to the state of Odisha, for supporting the beef eaters.

Speaking about her tolerance towards all religion, the TMC supremo said: " I am proud of my religion as well others' too. BJP is demeaning Hindu religion."

The BJP was seen to accuse the WB CM for minority appeasement to secure the vote percentage in the election.

Banerjee asked the workers of TMC units from different states who were present in the meeting, to work hard till BJP is uprooted from the power in the central government.

She even raised her voice against the Central government for using Central Bureau of Investigation to use as a political vendetta.

Referring to the TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhaya's arrest by CBI, Banerjee said: "They do not take care of the law but only muscle power.."

While TMC leaders like Bandopadhaya and Tapas Pal were arrested for an alleged connection to Rose Valley scam, the CBI filed an FIR against 12 leaders this week for accepting money which was seen in a sting operation video by Narada News.

However, Banerjee called it a political game of BJP by using CBI.

Apart from the ambition of the federal front, she hinted at expanding the party in other states like Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab.

"TMC will support all regional parties of other states and also would contest in some places," she said.

In the recently concluded assembly poll in Manipur, TMC managed to win a single seat, though the elected MLA later joined BJP to form the government.

Banerjee made a fresh assault on the saffron party for spreading fake pictures on social networking site in her name and also for sending threat messages to one of his leader Shuvendu Adhikari.

She even accused BJP for silencing media and officers.

Amidst the full fledged attack on the Modi government, the WB CM spared only few words for the Communist Party and the Congress.

Calling CPI(M) 'shameless', Banerjee said that the communist party nurtures BJP in this state and the Congress and BJP have a great deal of understanding.
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Readers seeking insight into Eastern-inspired health and wellness practices have several titles to look forward to this season, including a data-driven advice book on improving meditation and a collection of alternative therapies and home remedies from the Mayo Clinic.

Altered Traits

Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson

Avery/Krauss, Sept.

Asserting that casual meditation fails to bring lasting change, Goleman (Focus) and Davidson (The Minds Own Physician, with Jon Kabat-Zinn) describe methods, developed in part using data from Davidsons Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, for enriching ones practice.

The Eight Immortal Healers

Johnathon Dao and Mantak Chia

Inner Traditions, Aug.

Chia, the founder of the Universal Healing Tao System, and Dao, a Universal Healing Tao instructor and natural healing expert, offer health advice inspired by the Eight Immortals, figures from Chinese mythology. The authors pair each one with a Taoist health principle: one represents hydration; another, detoxification.

The Harvard Medical School Guide to Yoga

Marlynn Wei and James Groves

Da Capo Lifelong, July

Drawing on their work with clients, psychiatrists Wei and Groves lay out an eight-week yoga program that touches on the various limbs of the practice, such as breathing and meditation. The book includes illustrations and information on safety.

Mayo Clinic: The Integrative Guide to Good Health

Brent A. Bauer

Oxmoor, Aug.

This compendium by Bauer, the director of the Mayo Clinic Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program, compiles advice on practices such as meditation and acupuncture, and suggestions for home remedies for ailments from pink eye to psoriasis.

The Longevity Plan

John D. Day and Jane Ann Day, with Matthew LaPlante

Harper, July

Inspired by his study of a Chinese village where centenarians abound, this book by cardiologist John Day lays out seven principles for improving overall health. Day took the proverb Physician, heal thyself to heart: after incorporating the seven principles into his own life, he lost 30 lbs., lowered his blood pressure and cholesterol, and rid himself of his acid reflux and insomnia.

Waking Energy

Jennifer Kries

Harper Elixir, June

Pilates master teacher Kries synthesizes tools from a range of Eastern practices, including qigong and various types of yoga, into a plan focused on combating physical and mental fatigue.

The Yogi Code

Yogi Cameron

Enliven, May

Cameron, a former fashion model turned student of yoga and ayurveda, lays out seven practices to help readers incorporate the principles of yoga into their daily lives, especially when they arent on the mat.

Return to the main feature.
Green Tree, a new international wellness imprint from Bloomsbury, launched in February with Bloomsbury Sport publisher Charlotte Croft at the helm.

The imprint will import a number of titles from Bloomsburys U.K. operation, including, so far, Breaking Mad by Anna Williamson, with Reetta Newell, which proposes strategies for reducing anxiety, and The Wealthy Body in Business: Earn More Money by Being in Better Shape by Tim Bean and Annie Laing.

May brings My Sugar Free Baby and Me by Sarah Schenker, offering more than 80 recipes for parent and child, and a U.S.-only book, The Gut Makeover by nutritional therapist Jeannette Hyde, which details a gut-health-focused plan for losing weight and counteracting digestive issues.

Croft, who commissions for both sides of the Atlantic, concedes that some of the imprints titles will have a distinctly British character. In September, in the U.K., Green Tree will publish Sod Sitting, Get Moving! by Diana Moran and Muir Gray, an exercise book for seniors.

The word sod is incredibly problematic in the U.S., Croft says, where it means a clod of earth. She adds, In the U.K., its just slang.

Green Tree doesnt plan to change the title of that book for its stateside publication, but Croft says that in the future more Americanizing may be necessary. Im doing some parenting titles, and were finding that very interesting, discussing the differences between the U.K. and the U.S., even just in terms of maternity leave, she says. In the U.K., it tends to be much longer.

Green Trees goal, Croft says, is to give readers accessible and sometimes challenging takes on health and wellness, as well as to avoid fads. Were very used to publishing things that will backlist well, she says. Its about taking a step back and being careful about what we choose to publish.

Return to the main feature.
Kolkata, Apr 21 (IBNS): Acting on a tip off, a joint team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Directorate of Drugs Control raided a store of a wholesale medicine dealer at Raja Ram Mohan Roy Sarani area under Serampore Police Station limits in Kolkata's neighbouring Hooghly district of West Bengal on Friday and unearthed a fake medicines racket, officials said.

According to reports, two persons, Anil Roy and Sampad Sarkar, were booked in connection with the case and a large number of expired and fake medicines were seized from the godown.

"Based on a complaint, lodged by a medicine manufacturing company, and acting on source inputs, we raided the godown of medicines distributor- S.S. Enterprise- today and busted the racket," a senior ED official told IBNS.

The arrested persons have been handed over to the local police and Hooghly district police have started probe into the matter, a police official said.

However, the duo will be produced at a local court on Saturday.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
DAVENPORT  It may be another year before Stanley Liggins stands trial in the murder of 9-year-old Jennifer Ann Lewis, Chief District Judge Marita Greve said Thursday in a ruling allowing Mr. Liggins to fire his public defender.

Due to the complexity of the case, this is not a case that another attorney can become familiar enough with to step in and try the case in a month, she wrote. It could conceivably take another year before different attorneys are familiar enough with this case to go to trial.

During a half hour hearing Thursday morning both Assistant Iowa Public Defender Derek Jones and Mr. Liggins told Judge Greve they had fundamental disagreements on trial strategy.

Mr. Jones statements that his relationship with Mr. Liggins is toxic and that the attorney-client relationship has completely broken down are the two hurdles the other facts cannot overcome and which show justifiable dissatisfaction to warrant substitution of counsel, Judge Greve said in her opinion.

The trial was scheduled to begin May 22 in Waterloo, a community in which Judge Greve had ordered the trial to be moved because of pretrial publicity.

This will be the third time Mr. Liggins will be tried in the murder of Jennifer, whose burning body was found behind Jefferson Elementary School in Davenport on Sept. 17, 1990. An autopsy found that she had also been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Mr. Liggins first conviction was overturned by the Iowa Supreme Court because courtroom testimony indicated that he was involved in the illegal drug trade, which the high court ruled prejudiced the jury against him.

The second conviction was overturned three years ago after an Iowa appellate court found that documents that could be helpful to Mr Liggins case were not turned over by prosecutors to his lawyers. Also, the appellate court found that defense attorneys should have been told that a key prosecution witness had worked as a paid police informant in other cases.

The judges ruling Thursday shocked many courtroom observers.

We will be ready to go when this goes to trial," Scott County Attorney Mike Walton told reporters. "We have been ready for two years. Well be ready a year from now, well be ready six months from now.

Mr. Jones declined to comment about the judges decision.

Mr. Liggins, 55, was clad in orange jail attire and shackled during the hearing.

Im tired of sitting in this jail," he said. Im tired of coming up here. I know y'all are tired of seeing me. The feeling is mutual. I just want to be represented right. I want to make sure everything goes right. Everything that we have now, I didnt have in the first or second trial because they withheld it from me, and I finally got an opportunity to present everything that I need to present.

Upon learning of the latest ruling, Jennifers godmother, Mary Rockwell, of Moline, wept.

I keep waiting for this to be over, and it just wont end, she said. This just feels like a punch in the gut. I feel like I keep getting sucker punched over and over again. I was just looking forward to this being over.

Ms. Rockwell said Thursdays hearing was trying for her.

It was the first time in almost 30 years that Ive heard his voice other than a snippet here or there, she said. He sounded shaky and scared. He also was soft-spoken. But he has always been that. For about two minutes this morning, I actually felt sorry for him and thought maybe he should get a new attorney. But then I realized that he was conning us again.

Retrying a murder case more than 26 years after the crime poses many challenges, not the least of the which is that many of the witnesses have died.

Mr. Walton acknowledged that further delay creates the possibility of the loss of more witnesses before the case is heard.

During the hearing, both Mr. Liggins and Mr. Jones were vague about the specifics of their disagreement.

But Mr. Liggins said there are 1,700 pages of newly discovered evidence that he contends would prove misconduct on the part of the prosecution. But he offered no further details.

After the hearing, Mr. Walton said he had no idea what Liggins was alluding to, but added: If the evidence existed, dont you think Derek (Jones) would have presented it?

Judge Greve ordered the Iowa Public Defenders office to find new lawyers to represent Mr. Liggins at the taxpayers expense.
CHICAGO (AP)  A judge is warning protesters not to bother the Chicago police officer charged in the shooting death of black teenager Laquan McDonald when he tries to make his way to and from the courtroom.

On Thursday, Cook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan said he would hold in contempt of court anyone who comes inside the courthouse with a sign and starts "waving it around."

Last month, a protester with a sign that made a reference to the 16 times Van Dyke shot McDonald confronted him outside the courthouse.

Vaughn didn't take any further legal action nor suggest that he'd try to stand in the way of protesters carrying signs outside the courthouse. Protesters have gathered there during past McDonald appearances.

Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 shooting.
EAST MOLINE  Area school superintendents and state Rep. Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, on Thursday pleaded for state school funding reform to help fix broken budgets and close gaps between rich and poor school districts.

Education funding in Illinois is heavily reliant on local property taxes, creating vastly unequal funding across the state. Figures demonstrating that fact were presented at a news conference Thursday at Bowlesburg Elementary School in East Moline.

"The school funding formula is broken," said Kristin Humphries, superintendent of the East Moline School District.

Wealthy districts, such as those in the north shore suburbs of Chicago, can have lower property tax rates than in East Moline, Mr. Humphries said. "Yet they can still spend up to $20,000 more per student" because of much higher property values, he said.

"Something has to change in the state of Illinois," Mr. Humphries said.

To start that change, the superintendents and Rep. McCombie plugged a pending Illinois House bill that would distribute new state dollars to the neediest districts first. It also would ensure all districts meet local students' needs based on an "evidence-based model," including addressing poverty levels and special needs.

"We have cut, over the last two years, $3.2 million," said Ralph Grimm, superintendent of Galesburg schools. "We've raised taxes $2.25 million. Our community has stepped up to the plate and done what they needed to do. And frankly, we cannot ask them to do more.

"Our class size is increasing, and our educational opportunities for all students are diminishing," he said. "The majority of school districts in the state of Illinois are deficit-spending this year. Our problems are further compounded by the fact that the state is not paying what we call our mandated categoricals."

According to figures from Mr. Grimm, Illinois school districts rely much more on local tax sources than the national average  66 percent on average in Illinois compared to 45 percent nationally.

The proposed state funding reform bill would work to even out gaps among Illinois school districts caused by property valuation disparities, the superintendents said. At the same time, it would not take anything away from wealthier districts.

"This funding formula will help all rise up," said Rock Island-Milan superintendent Mike Oberhaus. "It helps all do better, and gives all students in Illinois a better opportunity for success."

The measure, however, would require new revenue.

"This formula fix, it has to be accompanied by a appropriations," said Mark Hansen, superintendent of Eastland School District, based in Lanark in Carroll County. "It has to be funded.

"If it's not funded, it's just a myth," he said. "It doesn't make any difference."

Property taxes shouldn't take on teacher pension reform and defeat the purpose, he said.

"We've got to be honest with ourselves about what it takes," Mr. Hansen said. "And we've got to quit talking like it's going to be painless, that we don't have to make a sacrifice in order to do what's right."

School funding reform is an important step toward finding relief for high property taxes, Rep. McCombie said.

"We can't fix our property taxes until we fix this," she said. "And we can't really, in my mind, talk about property tax freezes or putting the pensions onto the locals until we can fix this piece first.

"And then we're not going to talk about a freeze, we're going to talk about a relief," she said. "I think that's one of the things that's really important. We can't continue to fund our schools through our property taxes, because that's just draining and bleeding our state."

United Township School District Superintendent Jay Morrow agreed that the property tax burden discourages residents.

"We really need to look at this from an economic development standpoint," he said. "That leads us to put pressure on our legislators to get a budget, in addition to a funding formula change."
EAST MOLINE  People attending a long-awaited groundbreaking Thursday for a new hotel on land once home to a Case-IH plant were asked to raise an arm, and "bend" it to give themselves a big pat on the back.

"See how I got the Bend in there," Great River Development partner/investor Mike Jacobs said. "It is The Bend we're trying to sell here  The Bend on the Mississippi River."

More than 150 people watched nine dignitaries representing the city of East Moline, Great River Development, Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce, contractors, Hyatt International and Olympia hotel operators don gold-colored hard hats and and use golden shovels to dig and throw dirt aside

Emcee Tim Knanishu, Redeem East Moline executive vice president, called the groundbreaking for a Hyatt House and Hyatt Place "a new era" that a lot of people never expected to happen. "I'm glad this day is here. It means a lot to East Moline and the region in general, in terms of jobs and people coming to the Quad-Cities. When people visit and tour, they spend money."

Great River Property Development majority owner Dan Murphy agreed it felt good, but said he'll feel even more excited when he starts seeing it rise up in the air and gets built.

Mr. Knanishu said he's looking quite forward to a ribbon-cutting "in June of next year."

East Moline Mayor John Thodos felt relieved to witness the groundbreaking 11 days before he's set to leave office May 1.

He recalled time he spent as an alderman and later as mayor during his 22-year East Moline city government career waiting for the project to succeed.

When he started, Bill Ward was mayor as Case IH decided to close.

The property sat vacant for a number of years and changed hands several times.

Eventually it ended up in the hands of Fiat. Joe Moreno was mayor then, Mayor Thodos said, and talked Fiat into tearing the buildings down, a project finished when Mayor Thodos took office.

It's now in Mayor-elect Reggie Freeman's hands.

It's an exciting way to start his post, Mayor-elect Freeman said.

"It's been a good thing for the city," he said. "It's been a long time in coming, but change is coming," he said, citing an old Sam Cook song, containing lyrics about being born by a river and titled "A Change is Gonna Come."

The redevelopment project has changed names several times, first being called "Port of Call Quad-Cities" in 2012 and then "The Fountainhead" in 2013. It was changed to the "The Bend" in early 2015, according to earlier reports.

The new Hyatt will be East Moline's first hotel and the chain's first blended, dual-brand concept, according to earlier reports. It also will be the first phase of The Bend's redevelopment plans.

A hotel, apartments and infrastructure development phase will cost $76.5 million in its entirety and will generate more than 1,000 jobs, according to earlier reports.

The 132-acre Bend on the Mighty Mississippi mixed-use development is scheduled to be constructed in seven phases over a 10-year period, according to the development's website. It also includes retail and recreation space.

Officials earlier had announced they had closed a deal to finance $23.2 million of the costs to build the nine-story, 233-room hotel.

According to the development's thebendqc.com website, the lodging complex will feature "contemporary, residentially inspired" studios, one- and two-bedroom kitchen suites and den guestrooms. Also planned are a 24-hour workout center, indoor and outdoor social spaces and a lounge that resembles the living space of a modern home, with an adjacent H BAR and Social Sectional, as well as multipurpose areas.

It also will include flexible meeting facilities to accommodate small groups for business or social gatherings, with meeting rooms that can be divided when needed for multiple gatherings and audio-visual equipment.

It will share a front desk and lobby amenities and will feature 134 rooms and 99 all-suite, extended-stay Hyatt House rooms. Olympia Hotel Management will operate the hotel.

Olympia's president and CEO Kevin Mahaney attended the groundbreaking and told the crowd that it will actually be "people in this community who will provide the type of high-quality assistance" for which his company's well-known.

"This is a great day, and the star of our show is the Mississippi River," Mr. Jacobs said.

"It doesn't get more positive than this," Russell Construction president and CEO Jim Russell said.

Moline mayor-elect Stephanie Acri also attended the event.

"There's a lot of opportunity and the market will drive it," she said. "I'm so happy for our neighbor's success in this economic development. What's good for them, is good for us."

Mr. Jacobs added that his company hopes to work with the city of Moline to spruce up the area that leads to The Bend and said he fully expects Mayor-elect Acri's support.

Mr. Jacobs also praised Mr. Murphy's patience during the long process.

"He's a careful guy. He's an engineer by trade," Mr. Jacobs said. "And he's shown me that sometimes it just makes better sense to keep your mouth shut."

Mr. Jacobs added that he's looking forward to people landing at the Quad City International Airport, taking the Interstate 74 "speedway" to The Bend on the Mighty Mississippi, where the Hyatt will be waiting.
Buried in an otherwise-humdrum jobs report was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Department of Labor that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016, and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has ADDED 35,000 jobs.

What a turnaround. Liberals have been saying that Donald Trump was lying to the American people when he said that he could bring coal jobs back. Well, so far, he has delivered on his promise.

There's more good news for the coal industry. Earlier this month, Peabody Energy -- America's largest coal producer -- moved out of bankruptcy, and its stock is actively trading again. Its market cap had sunk by almost 90 percent during Barack Obama's years in office. Arch Coal is also out of bankruptcy.

It turns out that, after all, elections do have consequences. The Obama administration and its allies, such as the Sierra Club, tried to kill coal because of their obsession with global warming. Regime change in Washington has brought King Coal back to life.

Donald Trump pledged to coal miners in small towns across America that he would be a friend to American coal and fossil fuels. As promised, Trump has lifted the so-called Clean Power Plan regulations and several other EPA rules that were intentionally designed to shutter coal plants, which it accomplished with ruthless precision. Hillary Clinton had promised her green allies that she would finish off every last coal-mining job in America.

The coal miners weren't too happy about this, and her arrogant disregard for a leading American industry that hires tens of thousands of union workers contributed to her losing almost all the coal states -- many of which were once reliably Democratic.

America was built on cheap and abundant coal. Fossil fuels powered the U.S. into the industrial age and replaced windmills and wood burning, which were inefficient, as the primary sources of electricity. America currently has access to 500 years' worth of coal -- far more than any other nation. Despite the last decade's war on coal, the U.S. still derives about one-third of our power from coal, making it second only to natural gas.

Liberals have argued that coal could never make a comeback, because of cheap natural gas. Clearly, the shale gas revolution -- with prices falling from $10 to $3 per million cubic feet -- has hurt coal producers.

But economic necessity is the mother of invention, and coal companies, including Peabody, have figured out how to become far more efficient in production. What's more, clean coal is here. Emissions of lead, sulfur, carbon monoxide and other air pollutants from coal plants have fallen by more than half, and in some cases 90 percent, in recent decades.

The climate-change industrial complex pontificates that the U.S. has to stop using coal to save the planet. But even if the U.S. cut our own coal production to zero, China and India are building hundreds of coal plants. By suspending American coal production we are merely transferring jobs out of the U.S.

Renewable energy is decades away from being a major energy source for the world. Until that happens, coal and natural gas will compete as low-priced, super-abundant, domestically produced energy sources for 21st-century America. Nuclear power will, I hope, continue to play an important role, too. Meanwhile, for all the talk of the growth in wind and solar industries, they still account for less than 10 percent of our energy. Almost 70 percent comes from natural gas and coal.

Coal isn't dead in America. It is unleashed. As a Washington Times editorial put it very well recently, "The left gave up on the 100,000 coal workers in America more than a decade ago. Donald Trump has not." Remember this the next time Elizabeth Warren or Nancy Pelosi lectures us about how much they care about the working class in America.
With his very first feature film Lady of the Lake, Haoban Paban Kumar has won the Rajat Kamal at the recent National Film Awards. It was cited as the aBest Film on Environment Conservation and Preservation.a Shoma A. Chatterji in conversation with the producer-director from Manipur

Excerpts from an interview:



How did the idea of making a film on this subject came up?

I was planning my first feature film on contemporary life in Manipur. I went to Loktak lake for the recce. I went along with an environmentalist friend who suggested a beautiful village. To our shock, the entire floating village had been burnt down and there was water all around. I was taken aback but immediately started shooting with a documentary in mind. Deep down I was convinced that this was the perfect subject for my feature film. So I slowly moulded my story into the crisis of the lake and what it meant for the fishermen community who lived right in the middle of the lake.



Tell us a little about the story

It is based on life on the Loktak lake and the conflict situation in Manipur. It tells the story of a fisherman named Tomba, who lives with his family in a hut constructed on the phum (floating biomass) of the lake. He faces constant threat of eviction by the government. This fear keeps him confined to his hut while his wife, Thambalsang, toils to make a living. They are a real-life couple, by the way. One day, Thomba finds a gun hidden under the biomass and transforms himself into an assertive man looking for a target to attack. An old lady who mysteriously wanders in the lake knocks at his door in the middle of the night. Thomba suspects that this old lady is the spirit of all evils. He chases her in sheer terror and commits an unintended crime.



It has been adapted from a short story called Gun by Sudhir Naoroibam. Is this the language of revolt and the only form of revenge available to the protagonist Tomba?

My stories come from contemporary life in Manipur. When I was planning my feature film, the idea of gun/power became the central idea of my film. My protagonist and his community are already fighting a losing battle for a long time against the authorities who come armed with guns and machines. While doing an earlier documentary called Floating Life, I always had this thought that if they took up arms, what would happen? In my film, it becomes extremely important for them.Nothing seems to work in their favour. They somehow must find a way of saving their home and their lives.

The protagonists are poor. So how do they obtain a gun in the first place?

The gun might have been left by some body/ or a member of the authority or have been hidden by someone who, like my protagonist, wants to take an extreme step to save their family and community. There can be many angles. Today, when I look at my birthplace Manipur, I see guns all around. Gun, as a symbol of authority and ownership drives others, be it insurgents or the state authorities. We forget that fear and anxiety instill further worries resulting in violence.

You have taken non-actors for the main roles. How did you train them for the film to avoid looking into the camera?

I had always planned to do my fiction the way I do my documentaries, real people, and real situations. However, the two films are very different and independent entities not because of the genre, but because of the narrative. I had already worked with these locals for Floating Lake. So, this is their second film and now they may be called professional actors (laughs.) I shoot when people feel comfortable and sometimes I simply shoot candidly. You must know when to roll the camera while at times it is all about getting the right rhythm.

Lady of the Lake is being screened across the world and winning not only accolades but also big awards. How does it feel?

This is my debut feature film and I consider myself very fortunate that my film was World Premiered in the Asian New Current Section of the 21st Busan IFF and then the European Premiere at 67th Berlin IFF. I am very happy when people watch my film and I am able to reach out with my story to more and more people. It also pushes me to do more- and better.



Has the film-making scenario in the North East in general, and Manipur in particular,changed in recent years?

Yes, it has changed for the better especially with the entry of digital filming which has led to the production of 40 to 50 films a year in Manipur alone considering the first film there was made way back in 1972. The first digital film in Manipur rolled out in 2002.

For filmmakers like myself in Manipur, cinema is a means of communication that helps us to tell stories about ourselves and about contemporary issue we live with. Filmmaking for me is a natural extension of what is around me  guns and violence that comes along with authoritarianism.


G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
The acquisition, which has been approved by the boards of both companies, represents a 35% premium on Atkins closing share price on March 31. Subject to approval by shareholders, the acquisition is due to be completed in the third quarter of this year.

SNC-Lavalin says the purchase will bring new and complementary capabilities in three of its four business sectors with essentially no overlap in its service offering.

Atkins currently employs 18,000 staff and generated revenues of around 2bn in 2016.
Siemens U.S. unit has launched Digital Rail Services, a new business that will use intelligent sensors and advanced software platforms to put intelligence behind billions of data points created on the countrys rail systems.

The company said this insight will help railroad operators improve their operations and create an Internet of Trains to bring infrastructure and vehicles into the digital era. Powered by software tools, Siemens claims the Digital Service business will help reduce unplanned downtime, improve operational efficiency, enable improved business planning and performance, and generate energy and cost savings.

The new portfolio applies Siemens global digital analytics experience with its extensive rail industry knowledge via an existing rail footprint that spans manufacturing, automation technologies, power infrastructure equipment and service. and will locate its Digital Services hub in Atlanta, which will be home to the Data Analytics and Applications Center on the campus of Georgia Tech. Siemens will also support the rollout by opening a new East Coast Locomotive Service Headquarters in New Castle, Del., this summer.

Siemens Digital Rail Services is part of Siemens Mobility Division, the American division of Berlin-based Siemens AG, which works with more than 25 transit agencies in the U.S. It has transportation manufacturing hubs in Sacramento, Louisville and Marion, Ky., and Pittsburgh. The Digital Services offered for the rail industry are based on Railigent, a cloud-based industrial data analytics platform connected to Mindsphere, Siemens IoT operating system. The platform features Smart Monitoring for real-time insight on vehicle state and location; Smart Data Analytics that provide root cause analysis and remote vehicle and infrastructure diagnostics, and Smart Prediction that conducts prescriptive maintenance. It will also feature advanced cyber security and guidance services.

Today, rail vehicles send between one and four billion data points per year and rail infrastructure can send billions of messages just inside a specific system, said Simon Davidoff, head of Siemens Mobility Digital Services in North America. With our Digital Services business, were taking not only experience from our global rail footprint but also our extensive company-wide digital expertise to turn billions of data points into action, including the ability to detect malfunctions well before they can cause problems and information that helps improve arrival times and punctuality for riders.

In Atlanta, one of two initial launch sites, the Siemens Digital Services team will collect information captured via on-board systems from the Siemens-built Atlanta Streetcar and analyze data points to make the best use of their fleet including slow vehicle movements to identify traffic bottlenecks in order to reduce delays; identifying track segments and time periods with high energy consumption to reduce power usage; length of door opening durations to improve passenger comfort, and horn usage from car or pedestrian traffic warnings to determine possible related infrastructure improvements that would increase safety.

In Charlotte, the Charlotte Area Transit System is currently working with Siemens on a pilot program for near real-time diagnostics and analysis of their light rail system data to help make prescriptive maintenance recommendations. By making preemptive adjustments to service strategies and planning, Siemens said, operators can better avoid light rail service interruptions and delays and increase the availability of their overall fleet.

Download a presentation from Siemens from the link below.
New York, Apr 21 (Just Earth News): The United Nations on Thursday expressed concern about the latest developments in Venezuela, calling on the Government and the opposition to address the countryas challenges for the benefit of the people.

We call on the Government of Venezuela and the opposition to engage sincerely to reactivate dialogue efforts, according to a statement attributable to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Specifically, he noted dialogue around critical issues that are already agreed to be placed on the agenda, namely the balance of power among branches of the State, the electoral calendar, human rights, truth and justice and the socioeconomic situation.

Dujarric called for concrete gestures to reduce polarisation and to create the necessary conditions to address the countrys challenges.

Photo: Meridith Kohut/IRIN

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Union Pacific plans to invest approximately $26.8 million in Nevada infrastructure in 2017. The investment is part of .

The Class 1 says the investment will fund $22.7 million to maintain railroad track and $1.8 million to maintain the states bridges. Key projects planned include:

 $7.5 million investment in the rail line between Elko and Winnemucca to replace 60,854 railroad ties during a tie replacement project.

 $2.2 million investment in the rail line between Floriston, California and Sparks, Nevada, to replace 15,406 railroad ties during a tie replacement project.

 $2.1 million investment in the rail line between Verdi and Reno to replace 12,190 railroad ties during a tie replacement project.

Union Pacifics targeted investments fund projects that strengthen our railroad tracks, increase safety and minimize delays as trains travel through communities across Nevada, said Wes Lujan, Union Pacific vice president  Public Affairs, Western Region. Maintaining a healthy railroad is the foundation of our ability to serve customers and communities across the state.

UPs planned $26.8 million capital expenditure in Nevada is part their ongoing investment strategy. From 2012 to 2016, the Class 1 invested more than $244 million strengthening Nevadas transportation infrastructure. The company says it has invested $51 billion since 2000, contributing to a 40 percent decrease in derailments during the same time frame.

For more data on railroad projects around the world, subscribe to IRJ Pro.
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Over the past few years, several experts have voiced concerns that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and other terrorist groups could use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as a new funding stream to further their operations. But in spite of these fears, the use of digital currencies among terrorists is not widespreadyet. Neither terrorist financing methods nor cryptocurrency technology is static, however, and the world could soon see the worst-case scenario unfolding. Greater pressure on existing terrorist finance methods coupled with easier-to-use cryptocurrencies that give users greater anonymity may well lead to a large-scale adoption of the technology by extremists.

At present, cryptocurrencies are hardly a go-to solution for terrorist financiers. Most types afford only limited anonymity, and it is difficult to quickly transfer large amounts of money through these systems. Moreover, there is limited acceptance of digital cash in regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, where many terrorist groups are most active.

Yet as the U.S. Treasury Department and its partners have increasingly denied terrorists access to other parts of the international financial system, new cryptocurrency technologies could provide an attractive alternative. To be sure, gauging whether these new technologies will be adopted, and if so, how quickly, is difficult. The answer depends on a host of unknowns, such as what other technologies are around the corner, how the public uses the new cryptocurrencies, and how useful or safe they prove to be. Digital currencies could be used for general funding; for money laundering; or to pay the personnel, associates, and vendors that keep the terrorist machine running. But there can be barriers to use as well, depending on the type of group and how its operations are financed.

The Current Landscape

ISIS receives most of its funding from sources that require control of territory, including the sale of oil, extortion rackets, and the confiscation of private property. Exact numbers are hard to estimate, but taxation of various sorts is said to account for $360 million in revenue per year. It is likely to continue to rely on these funding sources even as its territorial base in Iraq and Syria shrinks.

The territory-based revenue model restricts the group's ability to use cryptocurrency, partly because the latter is difficult to convert into a form that could be readily used in ISIS-controlled areas. Even if this challenge was solved, the large amounts of money a group such as ISIS would need would also severely limit its ability to traffic in cryptocurrency markets. Even as ISIS leadership seeks more diverse funding sources, it is unlikely to become an early adopter as long as it continues to rely on control of territory for funding.

Or consider al Qaeda. The group's fundraising apparatus relied heavily on foreign support until after 9/11, when the U.S. Treasury Department and international banking regulators cracked down on such sources ( PDF ). If foreign support is still viable, and al Qaeda supporters feel safe doing so, donations of funds via cryptocurrency could undermine the success of this crackdown. Yet most cryptocurrency offers neither sufficient anonymity nor ease of use for would-be donors, and until that changes, it remains unlikely to become a significant source of funds.

Unlike ISIS and al Qaeda, Hezbollah relies heavily on state sponsorship for financing, eliminating much of the need for access to cryptocurrency. In addition, some traditional banks' accommodation of the group currently makes legally moving money a viable option. At the same time, the group's illegal activities abroadincluding its large network of associates in drug and other illicit markets in Latin America's tri-border areaare likely to push it to become an early adopter of the virtual currency. If Hezbollah turns to cryptocurrency, given its role in technology transfer in other domains, it may portend the transfer of the relevant technical expertise to other terrorist groups in the near future.

Finally, lone wolf attackerscitizens of Western countries inspired by or remotely directed by international terrorist groupsand smaller regional terrorist organizations are mostly self-financed and do not heavily fundraise. However, some lone wolves and individuals traveling to join ISIS have raised funds via Kickstarter-like campaigns. Although cryptocurrency is not yet a viable method for such funding, current efforts by terrorist groups indicate this may already be changing as technical barriers to its use diminish.

The Cryptocurrency Evolution

De-anonymization is currently the largest issue preventing terrorists from using cryptocurrency.

De-anonymization is currently the largest issue preventing terrorists from using cryptocurrency. Bitcoin and similar currencies allow users the ability to transact without identification, affording partial anonymity, but without user privacy, Western governments can identify and target the funds of these groups. If the terrorists fail to install careful safeguards, preserving this anonymity is unlikely. Just as in other areas of cryptography, the security of transactions can decrease over time as newer attack techniques are developed.

Efforts have also begun to integrate many important cryptocurrency services, such as exchanges where cryptocurrency is bought and sold, into various anti-money-laundering programs in the United States, Europe, and around the world. These regulations require verification of identity and reporting of suspicious transactions and allow law enforcement to investigate users more easily. The more successful a currency becomes, the greater the pressure from users and other stakeholders to work within the traditional financial system and abide by these laws. Greater scrutiny by authorities will inevitably follow.

Additionally, the nations leading counterterrorism finance efforts are among the most sophisticated in terms of cybertechnology, with a wide variety of tools at their disposal. They could attack terrorist groups through vulnerabilities not known to the public. Furthermore, even if the cryptocurrency itself is secure, the computers used for the transactions are vulnerable to the same types of attacks any computer system is, including social engineering, hacking, and physical destruction. Even without these challenges, some terrorist organizations distrust systems funded by Western governments or researchers. This distrust may extend to cryptocurrencies.

Despite these limitations, technological progress promises advances that could accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency for both lawful and illicit uses, including terrorist financing. Many of the steps currently required to secure anonymous use of cryptocurrencies are not user-friendly, requiring a moderate degree of sophistication and the cumbersome manual transfer of data from secure offline systems. But these usability challenges are likely to fade. Best practices for security will become more widespread as they become easier to use and better known, which has been the case with other technologies, including secure instant-messaging software such as Signal and WhatsApp, which have replaced older and more difficult-to-use programs that were only partially secure.

Some newer cryptocurrencies provide far more robust anonymity, which could harm counterterrorism efforts by undermining a key tool used to track terrorist organizations. Next-generation anonymous currencies such as Zcash and Monero can reduce traceability of transactions that were fixtures in earlier generations of cryptocurrency. Monero greatly increases privacy via cryptographic anonymization, and the ability to hide IP addresses and other advances may be forthcoming. (Recent work ( PDF ), however, shows that their success is limited.) Zcash, launched late last year, allows secure transactions using a different method that may be extended in the future to allow offline transactions, enabling unrecorded and potentially untraceable transfers that don't rely on clumsy methods like the physical transfer of a cryptocurrency wallet. This would make the use of these currencies viable in parts of the world without reliable Internet access. If these technologies live up to their promise, a major impediment for terrorists and other financial criminals will be removedat least until even newer ways to attack anonymity and privacy are devised.

For now, cryptocurrencies are unlikely to be stable enough or trusted enough for widespread useand funding is only one small but critical part of terrorist operations. Although cryptocurrency technologies continue to have significant limitations for terrorist use, those barriers should decline over time and cause the use of digital currency to spread to other groups. Terrorists' embrace of cryptocurrencies is not yet apparent, but it is not likely far off on the horizon.

David Manheim is an policy researcher, assistant at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Patrick Johnston is a political scientist at RAND and specializes in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, with a particular focus on Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines. Joshua Baron is an information scientist specializing in cyberspace operations and cryptography at RAND. Cynthia Dion-Schwarz is a senior analyst at RAND.

This commentary originally appeared on Foreign Affairs on April 21, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Bill on life-term prisoners right for long visits reaches State Duma

MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI)  Russias Cabinet of Ministers has submitted a bill that would allow life-term prisoners to have one long visit a year from relatives, the governments website announced on Friday.

The bill was drafted by the Justice Ministry in compliance with the Constitutional Courts order.

In November 2016, the Constitutional Court of Russia published a regulation that allows prison inmates sentenced to life to receive at least one long visit from close relatives in the first 10 years of prison term.

The Court was reviewing Russian legislation regarding prison visits under the request of the Volgograd Regional Court regarding cases of convicts Anton Matsynin and Nikolay Korolev. Their wives tried to organize prolonged conjugal visits in the first 10 years of imprisonment but were denied.

Currently, prolonged visits for such inmates are only allowed when they are moved to less strict conditions, but those who serve life terms may be transferred to such conditions only after 10 years of prison time for good behavior.

The bill would give life-term convicts serving their sentence in stringent conditions in high-security prisons the right to have one long visit from close relatives within a year.

Additionally, the draft law proposes to change the number of short and long visits for inmates serving their term in stringent conditions in correctional colonies of general and strict regimes, prisons and juvenile correctional facilities.
Russian citizen charged with desecration of national flag

MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul)  Investigators have charged Nikita Sadkov, the 31-year old resident of the Moscow Region, with desecration of the Russian state flag and incitement of national hatred, attorney Dmitry Dinze told RAPSI on Friday.

According to investigation, on August 15, 2016, Sadkov published on social media an extremist video containing calls aimed at incitement of enmity and hatred against Russian people. A few days after, on August 21, the man set the Russian national flag on fire near the Kremlin.

Sadkov has pleaded not guilty. The man claims that he is being persecuted for his beliefs, according to Dinze.

The defendant believes that he strikes for freedom of speech by publishing his posts on the Internet. Sadkov also insists that the created video was a humorous but he did not publish it in a social networks group, the lawyer added.
Ex-student convicted of attempting to join ISIS transferred to penal colony

MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI)  Russian authorities have transferred Varvara Karaulova (Alexandra Ivanova), a former student of the Moscow State University found guilty of attempting to join the Islamic State militants in Syria to a penal colony, lawyer Sergey Badamshin told RAPSI on Friday.

On March 22, the Russian Supreme Court upheld Karaulovas 4.5-year prison sentence.

On December 22, the Moscow District Military Court found that Karaulova decided to participate in activities of the Islamic State terrorist group, also called ISIS, an organization banned in Russia. The court noted that she shared organization's ideology. The court refrained from fining her.

During announcement of her sentence the court noted that it based its judgment on confessions made by the defendant, including those made during her first interrogations after the arrest on October 27, 2015. Karaulovas arguments in favor of her innocence were dismissed as inconsistent and aiming to avoid responsibility. The court did not find any aggravating circumstances in this case.

Prosecutors demanded a five-year jail sentence for Karaulova, while defense lawyers asked the court for acquittal.

Karaulova went on trial on October 5, 2016. Her parents, friends as well as teachers of the Moscow State University have been questioned in this case.

The second-year student of the Moscow State Universitys Faculty of Philosophy decided to join ISIS, an organization banned in Russia, and secretly started off for Istanbul on May 27, 2015.

Karaulova, who later changed her name to Alexandra Ivanova, was arrested on June 4, 2015, near Turkey's border with Syria along with 13 other Russian citizens when attempting to cross into the territory occupied by Islamic State terrorists.

In October 2015, she was put in jail. She pleaded not guilty

In October 2016, Karaulova was expelled from the university.
New York, Apr 20(Just Earth News): The United Nations agricultural agency created an online database that uses satellite data and Google Earth images to figure out how much water is being used to irrigate crops, focusing on parts of Africa and the Middle East that are facing water scarcity.

Water use continues to surge at the same time that climate change  with increasing droughts and extreme weather  is altering and reducing water availability for agriculture, said Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy Director-General of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Climate Change and Natural Resources.

That puts a premium on making every drop count, underscoring the importance of meeting growing food production needs from efficiency gains.

Known as WaPOR, the open-access database measures evapotranspiration  how water evaporates and returns to the atmosphere, according to FAO.

Evapotranspiration thus provides a direct measure of the water consumed by a crop during a growing season and, when related to the biomass and harvestable crop yield, allows for calculating the crop water productivity, the UN agency said presenting WaPOR at a high-level meeting in Rome on  Coping with water scarcity in agriculture: a global framework for action in a changing climate.

WaPOR sifts through data to produce maps that who much food is produced for every cubic meter of water consumed.

FAO, with support from the Government of the Netherlands, is currently focusing on African and the Middle East, with detailed data expected in October for pilot areas in Ethiopia, Lebanon and Mali.

Photo: FAO/Olivier Asselin

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Long a nation proud of its exceptionalism, France has of late had more than its fair share of exceptional political events. With mere days remaining before the first round of the presidential election, the four leading candidates all stand a solid chance to make the second-round run-off. This situation, French commentators remind us, is inedit, or unprecedented in the nearly 60-year history of the Fifth Republic. No less inedit is that three of the four candidates -- Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Melenchon -- do not represent the countrys traditional political parties. (As for the fourth, Francois Fillon, he represents a conservative party deeply splintered over their candidates apparent belief that parliamentary perks include enriching ones family.)

Most inedit of all, however, is that neither Le Pen (the leader of the extreme right-wing Front National) nor the centrist candidate Macron (who has never before run for office and leads his own movement, En Marche!) are, well, not all that inedit. At least, that is, when compared to Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of La France insoumise (Defiant France).

A tight political pocket

According to an Ipsos-Sofra poll taken on April 12-13, 20 percent of French voters now support Melenchon. This not only leaves his Socialist competitor, Benoit Hamon, in the dust at 7.5 percent, but it also places him ahead of Fillon, who in the wake of what has been the Penelopegate scandal seems to have settled at 19 percent. As for Macron and Le Pen, they continue to battle for the lead, but the stamina for both candidates seems to be waning, though it remains to be seen how an apparent terrorist attack on the Champs-Elysees will affect the mood. From earlier claims of 24-25 percent of the electorate, they both have faltered for now, with each hovering at around 22 percent. The four candidates, Le Monde concludes, are bundled so tightly they could all fit in the same pocket handkerchief.

The right and center are understandably alarmed that, when the handkerchief is shaken this Sunday, Melenchon might be one the last two to tumble out. Referring to his competitors Trotskyist background, Fillon mocked Melenchon, who takes himself for the captain of the Battleship Potemkin, but will end up with the scrap metal of the Titanic. Macron, for his part, sees Melenchon as the resurrection of the French Communist Party circa 1950. Referring to Melenchons refusal in 2014 to condemn Russias activities in Ukraine or its intervention, more recently, on behalf of Bashar al Assads regime in Syria, Macron declared that his opponent promises peace, but it is peace dictated by Moscow. Not surprisingly, Socialists have also trained their sights on Melenchon. In a desperate attempt to stop the hemorrhaging of traditional Socialist voters toward Melenchon, Hamon has lambasted the leader of La France insoumise for being less than defiant when it came to Vladimir Putins policies. When not describing Melenchon as a vassal of Putin, Hamon condemns him for his indulgence toward Russia. Even President Francois Hollande has come to Hamons rescue in his recent criticism of Melenchon. In an interview last Sunday, Hollande declared that Melenchon does not represent the left that I think is capable of governing, and his glibness sometimes slides into simplistic positions. Of course, the irony that this criticism was expressed by a sitting president who, for five years, was the target of the very same barbs thrown by Hamon, was lost on no one -- except, perhaps, on Hollande himself.

Left is not right

It is a decidedly odd moment in French politics when national figures seem to view the candidacy of an extreme-left candidate as a greater threat to the republic than that of the extreme-right candidate. It grows even odder upon the realization that Le Pen has, by and large, spared Melenchon the searing remarks she has aimed at the other candidates. While the explanation for this state of affairs seems straightforward -- Le Pen remains focused on those who seem to be her most likely opponent in the second round -- it nevertheless reinforces the claims made by a growing number of critics that, when it comes to Le Pen and Melenchon, the extremes meet. According to the conservative magazine Le Point, Le Pen and Melenchon are the twins of retreat and ruin, while in the business journal Les Echos, the respected philosopher Roger-Pol Droit observed that when it comes to authoritarian impulses, Melenchon has nothing to learn from Le Pen.

Yet on numerous occasions Melenchon has made clear his disgust with the behavior of Putin. At a mass rally in Le Havre on March 30, he bellowed: I utterly reject Putins politics and, if I were Russian, I would not vote for his party, but instead for my comrade who leads the Russian Front de gauche and is now in prison. At the same time, he continued, the fact that Ive nothing in common with Putin will not stop me from telling you that I do not agree with all of those who are seeking a showdown with Russia because their leader is an abomination. In fact, in his insistence that France does not have friends, we only have interests and irritation at what he considers Frances complete alignment of its foreign policy with the United States, the radical leftwing tribune seems to be channeling the spirit of Charles de Gaulle. We negotiate not with regimes, but with nations.

Less Gaullien, of course, have been many of Melenchons economic and social proposals, ranging from vows to reduce the work week to 32 hours and raise the tax rate to 90 percent on households earning annually more than 400,000 euros. These utopian -- or, depending on your point of view, dystopian -- proposals have obscured others that are textbook Keynesian. For example, Melenchon argues that Frances sluggish economic growth and stubbornly high unemployment rate can be overcome by priming the pump. The pump, he believes, begins with consumer spending, and he promises to raise the salaire minimum de croissance, or minimum wage, by 16 percent -- a position supported by several progressive and respected economists such as Thomas Piketty. To encourage an economic revival, Melenchon also holds that France must insist on a refoundation of Brussels monetary policies, warning that if this so-called Plan A fails, he will turn to Plan B: Renegotiate Frances membership in the European Union.

Needless to say, his economic sovereignism and adversarial attitude towards the European Union have appalled not just the French financial and industrial sectors, but also the traditional Socialists. They have also enabled those critics who insist that Le Pen and Melenchon have more in common than either candidate is willing to admit. Over the last few days, Melenchon has sought to clarify these positions, all the while insisting he is not from the extreme left. Perhaps for good reason, his foes and many former allies take issue with this claim.

But comparisons between Melenchon and Le Pen are not only mistaken on crucial details -- such as their respective attitudes towards immigration or national preference -- but they also miss a broader and equally important point. Le Pens anti-Muslim and xenophobic policies -- earlier this week she called for a moratorium on all legal immigration into France -- are a world apart from Melenchons insistence on Frances revolutionary and universal legacy. Whereas she has built her political career on dividing the French, Melenchon continues to hammer at his desire to unite (federer) the people. It is a message that has catapulted him to the dizzying position where he now finds himself; on Sunday night, we will know whether it will push him over the top.
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New York, Apr 21 (Just Earth News): Noting the lack of sufficient institutions to cater to the growing demand for higher education as well as increasing disparities in its access, the United Nations educational and scientific agency has presented a series of steps to make such education more equitable and affordable.

In its new paper, Six ways to ensure higher education leaves no one behind, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also urged policy makers to set up national agencies to ensure equal opportunities in education as well as to devise measures that keep student loan repayments to less than 15 per cent of their annual income.

Demand for higher education is going to continue rising. Governments must respond by introducing a range of new policies that will ensure expansion doesn't leave the marginalised behind, and that access is based on merit, not privilege, Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, said in a news release announcing the findings.

By creating and transmitting vital knowledge, skills and core values, higher education is a cornerstone for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she highlighted.

According to the assessment, the number of university level students doubled to 207 million between 2000 and 2014, but global trends showed that only 1 per cent of the poorest students spent more than four years in higher education, compared to 20 per cent of the richest.

The figures also revealed that only 8 per cent of young adults were enrolled, on average, in the poorest countries, compared to 74 per cent in the richest countries. The low-income countries also suffered the greatest gender disparity, with women making up only 30 per cent of bachelor-level students (in 2014).

The assessment has been prepared by UNESCO, together with the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIHP)  a specialized UNESCO institute that works to strengthen national education capacity and policies  and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, which monitors progress towards global education targets.

Though 'controversial', affirmative action could help

According to IIHP, quota or bonus systems could potentially be some means that can help address issues identified in the assessment.

In certain countries with deeply rooted social inequities, affirmative action through quota or bonus systems may be necessary to expand access to underrepresented groups, even if these mechanisms are controversial, noted Suzanne Grant Lewis, the Director of IIEP.

At the same time, the report also noted that while private colleges and universities have expanded to cater to the growing pool of students, enrolling some 30 per cent of all students worldwide, Governments aren't keeping pace financially with this expansion and families are left having to bear the expenses.

Across 26 countries in Europe, households paid for 15 per cent of the cost of higher education in 2011. In other high-income countries, these expenditures were even higher  Chile (55 per cent), Japan (52 per cent), the United States (46 per cent) and Australia (40 per cent).

Efforts, particularly aimed at helping the disadvantaged, such as low tuition fees, need-based scholarships and loans repayments based on income, can help families manage the costs.

Coping with dramatic student expansion is not easy, but there are policy solutions Governments can put into place to stop the bill falling to households, noted Aaron Benavot, Director of the GEM Report.

The last thing we want is for higher education to be the ball and chain around students' ankles.

Photo: Arne Hoel/World Bank

Source: www.justearthnews.com
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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 04/20/2017



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

alum Robby Hayes is setting the record straight when it comes to rumors he's dating Are You The One? participant Kathryn Palmer."We enjoy getting to know each other and have fun hanging out," Hayes, 28, told Us Weekly. "She's a super sweet girl, but there's nothing too serious going on. We're definitely not dating."Palmer sparked dating rumors earlier this month when she posted a couple of cute photos on Instagram of the pair spending time together.On April 7, the MTV star shared a picture in which she and Hayes had their arms wrapped around each other. And about one week later, Palmer posted a photo of the couple smiling and posing together in front of an elephant at Florida's Jacksonville Zoo, writing, "Should we talk about the elephant in the room?"One of the reasons Hayes -- a Jacksonville, FL, native who says he's single right now -- is apparently pushing back on the relationship is because he's been considering a stint on Season 4 of Bachelor in Paradise this summer."She knows that's in the cards for me," Hayes, a model and former competitive swimmer, told Us. "If that happens, we don't want any drama between us."The Florida State alums -- he graduated in 2011 while she reportedly started in 2012 -- were introduced by Palmer's mother and a mutual friend who has a connection with Hayes' sister. Hayes told Us that he invited Palmer to hang out with him when he was working an event in Fort Lauderdale."We have a mutual knowledge of reality TV, so it's fun to talk to her about that and share our experiences. We're Florida born and raised, so we have a lot in common," Hayes explained.Even if Bachelor in Paradise doesn't turn out to be an option for Hayes, however, long distance may present an issue for this potential romance.Hayes just recently moved into former winner Jef Holm 's Venice, CA, home with his best buddy Chase McNary . Both Hayes and McNary had competed for JoJo Fletcher 's heart on 's twelfth season last year. (Hayes finished as the runner-up ).Holm proposed to Emily Maynard on Season 8 of the series but the couple called it quits shortly after the finale aired on ABC.Palmer, who recently appeared on the fifth season of Are You The One?, currently resides in Tallahassee, but according to Hayes, that could change in the near future."She wants to move out to L.A. and that was something she wanted to do before I met her," Hayes told the magazine."She wants to get a house out here with [Shannon Duffy] and [Carolina Duarte] from her show, which I encouraged. I'd love to hang out with her here. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't."
New York, Apr 21(Just Earth News): Reporting on the dire situation across the Middle East region, marked by the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, fractured societies, proliferation of non-State actors and unbelievable human suffering, a United Nations envoy on Thursday reiterated the need for a surge in diplomacy for peace to ease the suffering of innocent civilians.

Let us not forget that behind the images of savagery [there] are the millions [struggling] every day not only for their own survival but for the true humane essence of their cultures and societies, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the Security Council on Thursday.

On Thursday, a perfect storm has engulfed the Middle East, and continues to threaten international peace and security, he added, noting that divisions within the region have opened the doors to foreign intervention and manipulation, breeding instability and sectarian strife.

In his briefing, Mladenov noted that developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict continued to resonate across the region and that the question of Palestine remained a potent symbol and rallying cry, one that is easily misappropriated and exploited by extremist groups.

Ending the occupation and realizing a two-state solution will not solve all the regions problems, but as long as the conflict persists, it will continue to feed them, he said.

The UN envoy also informed the 15-member Security Council of sporadic violence that continued to claim lives and reported on Israels approval of the establishment of new settlements and declaration of State land in the occupied Palestinian territory. On the Palestinian side, he noted multiple worrying developments that are further cementing the Gaza-West Bank divide and dangerously increasing the risk of escalation.

Turning to the wider region, Mladenov briefed Council members on the ongoing crisis in Syria that continues to be a massive burden for other countries and called on the international community to do more to stand in solidarity with Syrias neighbours. He also underlined the need for a political solution to the conflict, now into its seventh year.

Further in his briefing, the UN Special Coordinator spoke of the situation in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen as well as of social exclusion and marginalisation that tend to provide fertile ground for the rise of violent extremism.

Unity across ethnic and religious lines, reconciliation and a fair sharing of resources help heal wounds and isolate extremists, he underscored.

Recalling Secretary-General Antonio Guterres call for a surge in diplomacy for peace, Mladenov urged UN Member States, especially through a united Security Council, to assume the leading role in resolving the crisis.

Multilateral approaches and cooperation are necessary to address interlinked conflicts, cross-border humanitarian impacts and violent extremism, he said.

Photo: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Porterville, CA (93257)

Today

Cloudy with occasional light rain . Low 46F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Cloudy with occasional light rain . Low 46F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
New York, Apr 21(Just Earth News): Strongly condemning the 15 April ballistic-missile launch conducted by the Democratic Peopleas Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United Nations Security Council on Thursday demanded that the country immediately cease further actions in violation of the UN bodyas relevant resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions.

In a press statement, the Council expressed its utmost concern over the DPRKs highly destabilizing behaviour and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council by conducting this ballistic-missile launch in violation of its international obligations under its successive resolutions on the issue between 2106 and 2116.

Council members agreed that the 15-member body would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures, including sanctions, in line with its previously expressed determination.

Stressing that the DPRKs illegal ballistic-missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear-weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond, the members of the Council further regretted that the country is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons while its citizens have great unmet needs.

The members of the Security Council went on to emphasize the vital importance of the DPRK immediately showing sincere commitment to denuclearization and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions in the Korean Peninsula and beyond. To that end, the Council demanded the DPRK conduct no further nuclear tests.

Further to the press statement, the Council strongly urged all Member States to significantly accelerate their efforts to implement fully the measures imposed on the DPRK by the Security Council, particularly the comprehensive measures contained in resolutions 2321 (2116) and 2270 (2116).

The Security Council reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in North-East Asia at large, expressed their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation and welcomed efforts by Council members, as well as other States, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue.

UN Photo/JC McIlwaine (file)

Source: www.justearthnews.com
The industry expects Iran to purchase at least 1 million tonnes this financial year

Sowing area under basmati paddy is likely to increase by 25 per cent in 2017 on the back of favourable climatic conditions and forecast of normal rainfall this monsoon season.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday forecasted normal rainfall this monsoon at 96 per cent of long period average (LPA) with 5 per cent of plus and minus error.

Late beginning of rainfall coupled with dry spells in some parts of major growing regions resulted into less acreage under basmati paddy last year.

Rating agency Icra estimates the area under basmati paddy at 1.6 million hectares for the financial year 2016-17, around 20 per cent decline from the level of 2.1 million hectares in the previous year.

This year, the area under basmati paddy, however, is estimated to rise at least to the level of 2015-16. There are two major factors which would help farmers to bring in the additional area under basmati this year - favourable monsoon and sharp increase in realisation from basmati rice this year, said Gurnam Arora, joint managing director, Kohinoor Foods, producer of Kohinoor brand basmati rice.

"We are confident that basmati rice production and export would also proportionately go up."

Following a sharp decline in acreage, Indias basmati rice output is estimated to have declined by over 18 per cent to 8 million tonnes for 2016-17 compared to 9.8 million tonnes in the previous year.

Basmati rice constitutes a small portion of the total rice produced in India. The second advanced estimate of the Ministry of Agriculture estimates Indias total rice output to hit the new record at 108.86 million tonnes for the year 2016-17 compared to the final output of 104.41 million tonnes for 2015-16.

While Kharif season contributes nearly 88 per cent of Indias overall output, rabi season shares the rest.

Basmati rice has witnessed growing demand from the domestic market for past few years. The international demand, though has remained weak for the last two years, it is expected to witness some uptick from this year onwards on Iran, the largest importer, coming back on procurement from India again.

Basmati rice exports to Iran have started since JanuaryMarch quarter. The industry expects Iran to purchase at least 1 million tonnes this financial year.

The Chinese government has identified 14 Indian firms to export basmati rice to that country. Despite the taste being different for consumers, there has been a growing appetite for Indian basmati rice in China. We expect direct export to China to begin very shortly. Currently, India exports a small quantity of basmati rice to China indirectly through Hong Kong, said Rajan Sundareshan, executive director of All India Rice Exporters Association.

This year, prices of basmati rice have jumped by 50 per cent on the shortage of supply resulting into a proportionate jump in farmers income. So, farmers would be encouraged to bring in more area to fetch better realisation this year.

The basmati rice industry has witnessed moderation over the last few years on the back of subdued international demand, partly attributable to the delay in resumption of imports by Iran. However, FY17 has seen some stabilisation in demand.

The industry performance in the current financial year has been encouraging as the growth is supported by an increase in volumetric sales, even while prices have remained under pressure. Going forward, FY18 is expected to witness better revenue growth supported by an increase in average realisations, as paddy prices firm up during the current procurement season, said Deepak Jotwani, assistant vice-president, Icra.

"Moreover, resumption of imports by Iran will also be crucial for driving industry growth in the next financial year."

After declining considerably during the procurement season in FY16, Basmati paddy prices have firmed up by 20-25 per cent across various varieties, primarily due to relatively lower production, in the recent procurement season (OctoberDecember 2016). This is likely to push up basmati rice prices in the next financial year.

Overall, the export volume in FY17 is estimated to be around 4 million tonnes (almost similar to the volumes in FY16). However, muted average realisations are expected to keep the value of these exports under Rs 21,000 crore, against Rs 22,718 crore in FY16.

Photograph: Getty Images
Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly-skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has strongly raised the Donald Trump administration's move to tighten the H-1B visa programmes with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, highlighting the key role played by highly-skilled Indian professionals in boosting American economy.

President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its "abuse" and ensure that the visas are given to the "most-skilled or highest paid" petitioners.

The Indian IT industry has expressed serious concerns over the US's move to tighten the rules for grant of H-1B visa, mainly used by domestic IT professionals for short-term work.

Taking up the case of Indian IT companies and professionals, Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly-skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries, officials said.

During the meeting -- the first cabinet-level interaction between the two countries under the Trump administration -- Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on it yet, they said.

Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administration's objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly-skilled professionals.

The executive order signed by Trump early this week calls for a review of H-1B visas by the departments of state, labour, homeland security and justice.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. Indian technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year for their US operations.

The US market accounts for about 60 per cent of the revenue of the Indian IT industry.

Jaitley, leading an Indian delegation, arrived in Washington, DC, on Thursday to attend the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Over the next two days, the finance minister is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, Australia, France, Indonesia and Sweden. He is also likely to meet finance ministers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Stressing that India-US relationship has bipartisan support in both the countries, the finance minister in his meeting with the US commerce secretary said the two largest democratic countries of the world over the years have developed strong strategic, economic and defence ties.

The three phone conversations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump had, along with the officials meeting, has shown that the two governments are going to build on this momentum in the years to come, the officials said.

Briefing Ross on India's growth story, Jaitley is believed to have given him an insight into a series of "far-reaching reforms" being undertaken by the Modi government post-demonetisation including the Goods and Services Tax.

Jaitley said the two countries should be able to move towards achieving the goal of USD 500 billion per annum in bilateral trade in the next few years.

In addition to his meetings and presentations at the annual spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, Jaitley is also scheduled to attend meetings of other multilateral forums including that of the G-20 finance ministers.

Before leaving Washington, DC, for New York on Sunday, he is expected to interact with think-tanks and eminent Indian-Americans.

Image: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington, DC. Photograph: Courtesy, Indian Embassy in US.
Aayog to present its performance review - since its existence - before the governing council

The NITI Aayog on Sunday might come up with a report card of its performance in the more than two years of its existence, along with the major challenges it faced and the impact it made on the countrys policy making.

Its governing council, before which the report card is likely to be placed, will meet on Sunday at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is likely to seek the support of chief ministers for various initiatives of the Central government, such as agricultural reforms, doubling farmers incomes, and infrastructure development.

All chief ministers are members of the governing council.

Officials said though the agenda of the meeting was being drawn up, the broad contours of the discussion had been decided.

On the 15-year vision document and three-year strategic paper, which the Aayog plans to place before the council for approval, officials said much of those would contain directions and proposals that would help make India a front-ranking, developed country in 15 years.

It could also project the countrys per capita income in 15 years, its economic size, state of urbanisation, economic road map, etc.

The three-year strategic paper will focus on more immediate tasks and the road map that the government is expected to take in consonance with its financial requirements.

This is the first time that the governing council meeting will be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Photograph: PTI Photo
'Political will can reform but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms. We have to bring them on one wavelength,' Prime Minister Narendra Modi told bureaucrats on civil services day.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that he has got extra political will to carry out reforms and asked bureaucrats to break silos and work together as a team to perform and transform the country.

Addressing civil servants, Modi said they do not need to be afraid of any consequences for taking fast decisions as he will stand behind the officers taking honest decisions in the public interest.

Modi said political will can reform, but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms.

"We have to bring them on one wavelength and when we run these three (political will, performance by bureaucracy and public participation) on one wavelength, then we get good results," he said.

Modi said political will is needed to reform. "I do not lack it and may be having a bit extra," the prime minister said.

He said civil servants do not need to think that if a decision is taken promptly then there is ill-will behind it.

"If a decision is taken with honest intention, truthfulness and for the welfare of public then there is nobody in the world who can point fingers at you.

"Something momentary may happen but I am with you," the prime minister said, while addressing a civil services day function in New Delhi, amidst applause from the bureaucrats attending it.

His assertion assumes significance as some bureaucrats have referred to three Cs -- the CAG, CBI and the CVC -- as stumbling blocks in decision-making, ultimately resulting in policy paralysis.

He asked the civil servants to weigh their decisions from an outcome point of view and not on output.

"Aankado se badlav aata hai kya (do we get any change through numbers)? We need to weigh decisions from an outcome point of view. Output is okay for the CAG. If we see output with the CAG, then there won't be any change in the country.

"We will neither be able to see any change, nor any change would come in the country. But if we see things from 'CAG+1' then there would be changes," the prime minister said, referring to outcome- and output- based decision-making in the government.

He asked the bureaucrats to have out-of-the-box thinking to bring solutions to problems faced by people.

"It will be good if you change your working style and way of your thinking. If you come out of the role of being regulator and act as enabling entity, then challenges would convert into opportunities," Modi said.

The prime minister said that senior officers should refrain from the "know-all" syndrome and give a serious thought to new ideas from their juniors.

He said hierarchy in bureaucracy remains an issue which has been inherited from colonial rulers and "was not left behind in Mussoorie (where the civil service academy is located)".

Talking about people's perception towards bureaucracy, he said when bureaucrats are not bad and they are not out to work with some bad will, then what is the reason that common man instead of having a "feeling" (bhaav), has "abhaav" (complaint)?

"What is the reason? We must introspect and if we do that, then I don't feel we need big changes (in changing people's perception)," Modi said.

He said people clap when the Army saves lives during floods in Kashmir. "The same people may later pelt stones at them but for a moment this deed (of army men) touches them," the PM said.

Modi said bureaucrats do not need to work in silos, but work together as a team. He said it is a matter of concern when he sees two departments of the same government having divergent views in courts over some matters.

"On this day, we need to think that do we accept our weakness or is somebody running away from his responsibilities? Or some ego is coming in way? It should be a matter of introspection on this civil services day. These are handicaps in meeting the needs of common people," he said, asking bureaucrats to take responsibility for the works being done by them.

The prime minister said civil servants need to take a vow to make India as per the dreams of freedom fighters by 2022.

"It should be the responsibility of all to take the vow as to how they can make India a super power in the world by 2022, he said.

Image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses bureaucrats on Civil Services Day. Photograph: PIB.
Tata group bets big on design and price as it looks to mark its spot in a highly cluttered category with its newest offering.

The Tigor is Indias first styleback, states a communique from the Tata group.

The company is positioning its newly-launched car bang in the middle of two popular categories.

By doing so, it hopes it can break through the clutter, in a market where customers are driven as much by the desire to upgrade to a better lifestyle, as by the need to find the best value for the money they pay.

The biggest challenge for the brand will be to lure buyers away from the hugely popular Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire in the category. The Tigor is the sedan version of the hatchback Tata Tiago and enters a highly crowded segment that currently clocks close to 30,000 units a month.

A company spokesperson said, We wanted to create a new category, delivering the best aspects of the hatch and sedan body styles. It is positioned as a premium purchase, at an affordable price; the group has priced it almost Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 lower than its closest competitor.



In a market where perception is reality and customers are always looking to upgrade, Tata Motors believes that Tigors pricing and design will attract hatchback and sedan buyers.

Being priced at par with some of the popular premium hatchbacks in the country -- like the the Maruti Suzuki Baleno -- the car is also likely to draw fence-sitters who are open to buying either a premium hatchback or a compact sedan.



Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicle division of Tata Motors said, We have paid significant attention to styling and the overall look. It is not a box added at the back of a hatchback forcibly making it a compact sedan. This car looks distinctly different from the Tiago while being based on the same platform.





What stands out in the Tigor, say auto experts, is its coupe-like styling, the huge boot space (33 per cent bigger than the segment leader Maruti Swift Dzire). While the front is almost similar to the Tiago barring the smoked head lamps, the tail segment is distinctive.

An attempt has also been to give the car a more flowing look, in tune with global customer preferences and also to create the perception of space in the buyers mind. Several design features have been consciously added to give the car a premium look, for example the chrome on the front air-conditioning vents, a bigger rear door, among others.



A Tata spokesperson said that the design has been influenced by customer research. Market research showed that customers are looking for something different. We conceptualised the Tigor three years ago and we wanted its design to be the lead differentiator, he said. Also the company believes that design forms an integral factor in car purchase decisions.

In fact, in recent years studies have shown that exterior design is the primary driver in choice of car, especially among the young.

According to the Tata group spokesperson, 65 per cent of its customers are less than 35 years of age and more than 50 per cent are less than 25 years of age. Customers are young and their reference points are different; they look for cars that are feature rich and stylish, the spokesperson said.



By talking about style and design, instead of price, the company has also generated a buzz around the brand. As per reports Tata Motors has dispatched over 3,000 cars in the first month since launch.

Dealer sources sounded confident too. The Zest was initially very well received, however, over the months, the interest slowly faded and now the car is also being considered by fleet operators. Tigor, on the other hand, has been priced below the Zest, and this makes the car irresistible in the segment, said an Ahmedabad-based dealer.





The task to gain market share, however, is uphill. Swift Dzire, the market leader in the segment, sells over 16,000 units in a month.

A Delhi-based analyst explained, Tata has got the combination right this time, aggressive pricing with great design attributes. The base model of the car being priced significantly lower than other compact sedans like Ford Figo Aspire, Volkswagen Ameo, Maruti Swift Dzire, does not give the Tigor any direct rivals.

However, he also highlighted the smart pricing strategy of the company, which has priced the next model unusually higher.

The attractive pricing would get customers to the showroom. After experiencing the car, many may want to upgrade, or else they might end up buying a higher-end variant of the Tiago or Zest. In any case, it works for the company, he said.



Tata has two compact sedans, Indigo and the Zest. Will Tigor not cannibalise Zests sales? Pareek feels otherwise. We have a clear strategy for Zest and Tigor. Also, we feel that customers should have options within the same category from the same player. That way whether he ends up choosing one car over the other, either way, he stays with Tata Motors.



The company is targeting young customers who are looking to upgrade from their hatchback experience. We need more customers to experience our new generation cars and see for themselves the progress we have made in building world-class quality, the spokesperson said.
Amul is changing the face of dairying in Jammu and Kashmir, and some 15,000 dairy farmers, many of them women, are participating in the initiative.

Shaista Yusuf is a happier person these days.

The resident of Jammu and Kashmir, a state now associated with violence, is seeing prosperity seeping in through a white revolution.



The 19-year-old resident of Goosu in Pulwama town, about 40 km from Srinagar, makes an additional Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 a month through dairy farming, thanks to an initiative by Amul. The steady source of livelihood pays for her college tuition. The two cows owned by her family, traditionally in the embroidery business, helps her contribute to a milk collection initiative, similar to the one Amul had started in Gujarat.





The white revolution, slowing spreading across the state, has also helped Irfana Gull, a supervisor working with a women's self-help group in Pulwama. After starting to work with the Jammu and Kashmir Milk Producers' Cooperative, she said, the incomes of households in the area have increased.

The initiative has also given an identity to hundreds of women, who have joined the milk collection initiative. This has also given stability to an otherwise-fluctuating household cash flow, which was largely dependent on tourism and horticulture.



It all began when the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which owns and markets the Amul brand, was asked to handhold the dairy farming outfits in J&K. Around 2004, defunct outfits Kashmir Valley Milk Federation and Jammu Milk Federation were brought under Jammu and Kashmir Milk Producers' Cooperative Ltd. GCMMF, on the board of the cooperative but without any financial stake, gives technical, financial and marketing advice.





Gull and other women from J&K had recently visited Anand, the headquarters of GCMMF. "The visit has motivated us further. We do not have such high-end dairy processing units in J&K. We saw how farmers have gained by associating with the dairy movement. In this model, we all are owners  we all are equal shareholders."

About 3,000 farmers were part of the movement in 2004. Now 15,000 are. About 350 automated milk collection centres are functional, of which around 200 are Self Help Group based, and the rest are conventional. Another 150 would be added by June, of which 100 would be SHG based.



Of the 500 collection centres by June, 300 would be operated by SHGs under the UMEED project of the state government.





SHGs are functional in J&K and another 150 are expected to be functional by June. JKMPCL Chief Executive Officer Mayank Tiwari said by the end of FY18, around 30,000 households would be under JKMPCL and there would be at least 22,000 live milk-pouring members.



There are around 350 automated collection centres and the daily collection is 30,000 litres. Milk collection is growing 30 per cent annually, he said. Procurement prices are the almost the same as those paid by cooperatives in Punjab.

Cow milk in Jammu is procured at Rs 615 a kg fat, and in the Valley it is around Rs 600. Gul said they were not earning more than Rs 18 a litre. Now they get up to Rs 30 a litre; sometimes even Rs 42 to Rs 44 a litre.

JKMPLs turnover grew 43 per cent on a year-on-year basis to Rs 30.2 crore (provisional figures). The cooperative is now getting ready to produce fermented products such as curd and buttermilk, mainly to cater to tourists demand.





The products are sold under the Snowcap brand. Amul has some production benchmarks for any milk or milk product to be branded as Amul, Tiwari explained. At present, the processing facilities in J&K are old ones, and we are working on modernising these facilities.



The government is funding the expansion and modernisation of processing plants in the area, and around Rs 6 crore is being invested under the National Programme for Dairy Development. After modernisation and necessary certifications, the milk might be sold under the Amul brand.

Photographs: Fayaz Kabli/Reuters.
UP government renews proposal for one at Jewar, 100 km from Delhi



In 2016, Delhi airport handled nearly 56 mn passengers, joining the ranks of some of its busiest global peers. Photograph: Reuters

The Uttar Pradesh government is pushing for a new airport at Jewar, in the same district as Noida and about 100 km from the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in New Delhi.

The state government feels Delhi will require a second airport in a few years and this is an opportunity. The GMR Group manages Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL).

The state appears to have already sent a proposal for the Jewar airport to the Union aviation ministry, asking for a technical evaluation of the site.

The Jewar proposal is not a new one. In 2001, Rajnath Singh, now the Union home minister and then the UP chief minister, first proposed an airport there. So did Mayawati after she became CM in 2007.

Her proposal did not make progress because of a clause in the agreement with GMR for DIAL, preventing the establishment of a new airport within 150 km of IGIA.

However, Union minister of state for civil aviation, Jayant Sinha said, within a few years, we will be using all of the capacity (at Delhi). It is necessary for us to build a new airport.

Sinha said on Thursday that planning for increasing of capacity at the Delhi airport terminals would depend on improvement in airside capacity. DIAL wishes to take steps to increase the airside movement from 67 to 95 an hour. UK-based NATS has been asked to help.

What we agree on is that airside movement will have a bearing on the building of a new terminal. With Delhi having three runways, it gives us significant capacity to increase the airside movement, Sinha said.

According to the minister, the improvement in airside capacity would lead to the addition of around 70 flights. And, IGIA's passenger handling capacity would increase to around 90 million annually, from the current 62 mn, in the next two to three years.

DIAL wishes airlines operating from its T1 terminal shift to T2, as it wishes to redo the former.

Airlines are demanding new slots if they shift to (the) T2 (terminal). The airport authority is unable to give them that, as Delhi is already congested. The airlines have also asked for significant reduction in airport charges, which the airport has not agreed to, said a senior ministry official.

There have been differences between DIAL and IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir on a shift to T2. The airlines have baulked, citing operational constraints. According to the DIAL plan, there is to be a Rs 16,000-crore (Rs 160 billion) investment to expand the airports capacity from 62 million to 109 mn passengers per year. DIAL has already invested around Rs 100 crore to renovate T2.



In 2016, Delhi airport handled nearly 56 mn passengers, joining the ranks of some of its busiest global peers such as those at Bangkok, Singapore and New York.

IndiGo and Air India added the highest number of flights in the world last year. The highest capacity addition was on the Kolkata and Dubai routes - 350,000 and 989,000 seats, respectively.
New York, Apr 21(Just Earth News): Speaking to journalists after a meeting of the Humanitarian Taskforce (HTF), Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, stated that the horrific attack on a convoy of evacuees this past weekend had impacted everyone at on Thursdayas talks.

Armed groups representatives [present at the HTF], Government representatives and non-governmental organizations, all of them [were] affected by the explosion, all helped to make sure that [the wounded] could get to the hospital, said de Mistura.

That was the main moment of total unity among all the members of the HTF [] in a way the divisions were blurred by the horrific attack which was meant to do the opposite, he added.

At least 130 people, including 67 children were killed in the attack near Rashideen, western rural Aleppo, and more than 210 were wounded. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), video showed children gathering around a person giving out sweets just prior to the explosion.

de Mistura also informed the media that he will be meeting with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister on Monday, 24 April, to discuss the next steps regarding both Astana process  which yielded the December 2116 ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran  and the UN-facilitated intra-Syrian talks.

He also noted that though the trilateral meeting, involving the UN, the United States and Russia has been postponed, it is still on the table and there is a clear intention to maintain the forum and resume it at a later date.

Together with the Ceasefire Taskforce, the Humanitarian Taskforce was established last February by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). They have been meeting separately on a way forward in the crisis. Russia and the United States are the co-chairs of the taskforces and the ISSG, which also comprises the UN, the Arab League, the European Union and 16 other countries.

Also speaking alongside de Mistura, Jan Egeland, the UN Senior Advisor informed the media that as of mid-April, some 564,000 people across front lines, and in besieged and hard-to-reach areas were provided with relief. Compared to last year, fewer people were reached in besieged areas (160,000) but more were provided relief in hard-to-reach areas.

So 30 per cent less access to besieged areas, 35 per cent more to hard-to-reach areas, he said, noting that there are resources for relief in Syria and humanitarians willing to deliver them, but the military logic is [prevailing over] the besieged areas these days [and] we are not able to go there.

Egeland further underlined that besiegement should end by being lifted, not by places being emptied from people, and expressed hope for a breakthrough so that people are able to access urgently needed humanitarian relief as well as get back to their normal lives.

If they follow a military logic, I think they will continue, if they follow a humanitarian logic I think a breather could be wise to ensure that there are sufficient protection guarantees, he said. [Sieges] belong in the Middle Ages, they do not belong in 2117, they could be lifted, you can still choose to fight a war, but without suffocation of civilians.

UN Photo

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Former finance head Bansal, who left Infosys in 2015, has gone for arbitration over severance pay

Rajiv Bansal, former finance head at Infosys Technologies, has sought arbitration to get the remaining portion of the severance pay he had been once promised.

The Times of India first reported this development, based on sources.

Personnel and legal experts say in such cases, employees are likely be favoured, as courts and tribunals consider them vulnerable before a large company or organisation.

Bansal has reportedly hired Indus Law to fight for his dues. Former Supreme Court judge R V Raveendran has been appointed sole arbitrator in the case, while Nishith Desai Associates is Infosys' counsel in the matter.

Of the Rs 17.38 crore agreed between the company and Bansal, Infosys paid him Rs 5 crore; the rest was held back.

Bansal left the company in 2015. The software major drew flak from co-founder N R Narayana Murthy for offering such a large amount of severance package to a senior executive.



Salman Waris, managing partner at TechLegis Advocates and Solicitors, says in such a high-profile case, the chances are higher that Infosys settles this out of court.

It appears to be a clear case that the employee has an upper hand. But, if the arbitration award goes in favour of the employee, Infosys could also go to the high court, resulting in further delay in resolution.

In similar cases where high-profile employees are involved, companies have mediated and settled, considering the dearth of talent at the senior management level. Payment could be deferred. They would not like to convey a bad image, he said.

Bansal did not respond to calls or messages seeking a clarification on this development. Sources at Infosys confirmed that both the parties had taken the arbitral tribunal route.

An Infosys spokesperson said: The company has already clarified on the severance package for former CFO Rajiv Bansal through a detailed statement. We do not have anything additional to add at this point.

Kris Lakshmikanth, chairman and managing director of The Head Hunters India, a specialised recruiting agency for the information technology sector, says examples of employees moving to an arbitration tribunal are not new but one with such a large severance package is rare.

In similar cases across the globe, arbitration awards have gone in favour of employees. Courts in India also have supported employees because of the vulnerability of one individual against a big employee, he said.

Arbitration is common in Indias corporate history, says V Balakrishnan, another former finance head at Infosys.

In the case of severance pay, an individual and organisation have a contract and that will have a pre-existing arbitration clause. People want timely resolution to the issue and a court case will take longer.

Photograph: Reuters
'There is nothing like the possibility of war to excite some Americans, especially the so-called "liberals".'

Rajeev Srinivasan on why there is the strong possibility that the US airstrike on Syria is an elaborate charade and how the mainstream might have just played into Trump's showman hands.

IMAGE: 'At low cost to himself, Donald Trump has suddenly managed to show himself as decisive, a leader, and Commander-in-Chief,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.

'He's got the Russia monkey off his back, and the chatterati are now viewing him with new admiration -- maybe, just maybe, he's the warmonger they were expecting President Hillary Clinton would be.'

Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The headlines are revealing:

'Trump U-turn!'

'Trump's foreign policy looks more normal than promised' (The Economist)

'America should be planning for a de facto partition' (in Syria) (The Economist)

'Trump one step from war' (BBC).

There is nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning, as Robert Duvall said bracingly in Apocalypse Now. There is nothing like the possibility of war to excite some Americans, especially the so-called 'liberals'.

Suddenly, there is a spring in the steps of the #DeepState. Why, even Hillary Clinton, who had virtually isolated herself after her humiliating loss, is out there giving interviews.

Almost all the screaming headlines about United States President Donald Trump's alleged collusion with the Russians have disappeared.

There are now stories about US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson being forced to wait for hours to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: there's allegedly a new frostiness in relations.

All this must be music to the ears of the war-mongering #DeepState and its cheerleaders in the media.

Suddenly, Trump is rehabilitated in the eyes of The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, and so on.

He is no longer the devil incarnate, and they believe this is a man they can work with.

The MSM (mainstream media) are practically wetting themselves with excitement, and their tail wagging is positively obscene.

Trump is almost -- not quite, but almost -- their favorite now. All is forgiven, if you just go to war, President.

And that whole kerfuffle over Steve Bannon being demoted from the national security council and the military guys being rehabilitated was fun.

Bannon's elevation in the first place to the council was an aberration, and this is merely a correction. And the speculations about palace intrigue and turf battles between Bannon and Jared Kushner: Bhedam, dissent in the ranks.

The MSM can't believe its luck: Generals H R McMaster (national security adviser) and James Mattis (defence secretary) have apparently softened up the mercurial Trump and made him a 'normal' President.

Almost everything is going the Leftie way, finally. Trump is tamed. Putin is the outcast.

All's pretty much well with the world again, after the regrettable turmoil of 2016.

Amazing, isn't it, how much impact just 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired at a Syrian air base can have? Outstanding return on investment.

Therefore, there is the strong possibility that this whole thing is an elaborate charade.

The fact is that there is considerable reason to doubt the whole story about the sarin gas being dropped from the air by the Syrians.

I am reminded of the entire 'weapons of mass destruction' hoax that eased the US into the Iraq war. That was, as we now know, fabricated. This one might also be.

For one thing, consider motive.

Things have been going pretty well for President Bashar al-Assad. With Russian support, he is beginning to crush the rebel forces.

This is the last moment -- the very last moment -- in which he would be inviting global condemnation and wrath by using chemical weapons.

There is a possibility that the whole episode is an elaborate fraud.

Here's a tweet suggesting that, and Scott Adams and Nicholas Taleb are not people to be trifled with (and oh, by the way, nice new word, kayfabe, meaning theatrical, choreographed moves as in World Wrestling Federation matches):

The Syrians claim they knew about the impending attack and, therefore, they moved their planes out of harm's way. No harm done, then.

Here's another tweet quoting an apparent chemical warfare expert from MIT:

Others have raised doubts about how all the victims of the alleged sarin attacks shown by the media are apparently children and young men. What happened to the old men and the women? They somehow escaped the gas?

I am not saying any of this is conclusive, but to me it looks a lot like marketing.

At low cost to himself, Trump has suddenly managed to show himself as decisive, a leader, and Commander-in-Chief.

He's got the Russia monkey off his back, and the chatterati are now viewing him with new admiration -- maybe, just maybe, he's the warmonger they were expecting President Hillary Clinton would be.

There is no war that, say, The Economist, has not supported with blood-curdling enthusiasm.

And, oh, it must have been sweet to humiliate the visiting Chinese strongman Xi Jinping by giving him virtually no warning that the missile strike was going to happen.

The Guardian bemoaned it: 'Dinner time strike leaves China having to reassess Trump.'

That and a guided missile destroyer fitted with Tomahawks deployed 300 miles off the North Korean coast are a non-too-subtle warning to Xi. The 'face'-conscious Chinese undoubtedly got the message.

Some of us may remember how then foreign minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was embarrassed by the Chinese who invaded Vietnam during his visit. Schadenfreude, anyone?

The Chinese are past masters at the art of diplomatic theater, as was seen also in their protege Musharraf's antics: wasn't it amazing, but very convenient, that all the IED explosions happened moments after his motorcade had just passed by?

In the middle of all this righteous concern about chemical weapons in Syria, there was routine news of Saudis bombing civilian areas in Yemen. Of course, that did not happen to catch the attention of the media.

Business as usual.

If Trump has in fact managed to create this illusion, kudos to him.

He's buried the ghost of Barack 'to bomb or not to bomb' Obama who, despite his many 'red-lines', dithered.

Trump has diverted attention away from the Russia allegations, and he's shown up the Leftie media for what it is: Desperate war-mongers looking for crumbs. They have been dying to figure out a way to suck up to Trump, considering he doesn't look like he's about to be impeached.

And the Syrians moved their planes, so no harm done.

They have called Trump a showman. He may have just proved them right. Nice work.
'The non-implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, almost a year after it was implemented for civilians, is gradually beginning to hurt morale in the armed forces,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).

A salient trend line in the emerging character of conflict points to the fact that future wars on land, sea, in the air and in space and cyber-space will be increasingly fought by machines.

However, military history bears out that ultimately it is the man behind the gun who carries the day.

This is unlikely to change no matter how many robotic vehicles are fitted with weapons and programmed to operate autonomously on the battlefield.

And since he is a thinking human being, the man behind the gun has emotions and feelings. He gets angry and upset, or goes into a shell, or loses his sense of discipline or sulks.

All subalterns and young captains are taught to keep a close eye on the morale of the soldiers.

If their morale is down, they lose their motivation to fight well.

Immediate action is required to be taken to restore morale by identifying the causes and adopting all possible measures to eliminate them.

The non-implementation of the award of the Seventh Pay Commission, chaired by Justice A K Mathur, for the armed forces, almost one year after it was implemented for their civilian counterparts, is gradually, almost imperceptibly, but without an iota of doubt, beginning to hurt morale.

According to the veterans' grapevine, in Sainik Sammelan after Sainik Sammelan across the country, soldiers are asking their commanding officers why they are not being given their new pay scales when their friends and acquaintances in government services have got them.

The COs have no answers as the issue is 'under consideration of the government.'

How has this sorry state of affairs come to pass?

The answer to this question is incredibly bitter. Vis-a-vis civilian government employees, the three Services found some of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, as approved by the Cabinet for the armed forces, to be patently unfair.

The three chiefs of staff felt constrained to request then defence minister Manohar Parrikar to withhold implementation of the award till some of the major infirmities were rectified.

They said the armed forces may be given a 'delayed' award, but not a 'diluted' award vis-a-vis the civilian services.

They must have also reminded him that many of the anomalies of the Sixth Pay Commission had still not been resolved and they did not wish to inflict a similar situation on the rank and file again.

The minister agreed to take up the matter and promised them that their 'core' concerns will be given immediate attention.

The rank and file were informed and told to wait patiently.

Since then, over six months have passed, but the problem has still not been addressed.

To be fair to the PMO, a committee was reportedly appointed to look into the issues raised by the armed forces. However, it is not known whether the committee has submitted its report and it is under consideration, or if the committee is yet to submit its report.

Incidentally, there is not a single member, serving or retired, from the armed forces on this committee.

For that matter, there has never been a single member of the armed forces on any Pay Commission despite the fact that their personnel form a huge chunk (29 per cent) of total central government employees and their service conditions are far more challenging and hazardous.

What were the core concerns expressed by the army, navy and air force chiefs?

The major disparities pointed out included the following: Non-functional upgradation (NFU), already being given to civilians, should be given to the Services as well; the Defence Pay Matrix (DPM) should be brought in sync with the Civilian Pay Matrix (CPM); and the Military Service Pay (MSP) given earlier up to the rank of Brigadier should also be given to Major Generals.

An anomaly in the MSP given to JCOs and the Other Ranks also needed to be corrected.

The new anomalies have further widened the existing gap in status and parity between the armed forces and their civilian counterparts.

Two additional increments were already being given to IAS officers. This facility has now been extended to the IPS and IFoS as well.

The Pay Matrix approved for the armed forces will result in officers stagnating and drawing lesser pay, pension and percentage based allowances.

The armed forces have been short changed while fixing risk and hardship allowances also.

A Superintendent of Police posted at Leh or Shillong will receive Rs 54,000 as Special Duty allowance, SDA. Army officers posted at Leh will get Rs 13,900.

In Shillong army officers are not entitled to any allowance at all.

While civilian personnel who suffer disabilities will continue to get disability pension according to the existing 'slab' system, which is advantageous, armed forces personnel have been relegated to a 'percentage' system of calculation.

Consequently, while a soldier retiring with 100 per cent disability will receive an additional monthly pension of Rs 12,000, a civilian official with similar disability will be given Rs 27,690.

It is not so well known that as many as 46 anomalies of the Sixth Pay Commission have still not been resolved satisfactorily.

The more important ones among these, called 'core anomalies' include incorrect fixation of basic pay, incorrect fixation of grade pay, non-grant of common pay scales for JCOs and Other Ranks, non-grant of non-functional upgradation (NFU) for armed forces officers and not placing lieutenant generals in HAG plus scale.

The three Services had requested the government to resolve these anomalies before the implementation of the award of the Seventh Pay Commission so that there is no distortion in fixing revised pay and allowances. However, the ministry of defence was unable to do so.

Soldiers, sailors and airmen cannot help but feel a sense of bias against them and rue the Commission's failure to recognise the risk that they take and the hardships and deprivation that they suffer on a day-to-day basis.

Successive Pay Commissions have also failed to appreciate that personnel serving in the armed forces retire at an early age, so that a youthful profile that is so necessary in battle can be maintained, and therefore need to be better compensated by way of pension.

The delay in implementation of the award of the Seventh Pay Commission has come on the heels of the OROP imbroglio, in which the government had inexplicably diluted the definition of one rank-one pension while implementing the long-pending pension reform.

As such, the non-implementation of the award was bound to have had an adverse impact on the morale of the nation's defenders.

A dip in the morale of armed forces personnel must ring alarm bells in South Block.

The government must move post haste to rectify the core concerns of the armed forces and approve just and reasonable pay and allowances for them.

The government owes it to the men in uniform to ensure that they do not feel let down and do not think that all their sacrifices have been in vain.

Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd) is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

IMAGE: Soldiers during an encounter in Bandipore, Jammu and Kashmir, February 4, 2016.
'Those who feel the irresistible need to express strong sentiment for our nation and its contents must consider being pro-Indian, whether this Indian be jawan, cobbler, Kashmiri, lesbian, Dalit, protester, pujari, businessman or child,' says Aakar Patel.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

I am not pro-army. I'm not anti-army either.

I recognise that military power is an essential requirement of the nation State. It is irresponsible to raise militias in charge of national defence (I am not in favour of Vahinis and Senas), and so I suppose we must have an army. And then, while we are at it, a navy and an air force.

But other than this recognition of requirement, what does it mean to be pro-army?

In a recent interview, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar took Arnab Goswami to lunch and asked the great man about his ideology. He said: 'I am pro-India, pro-army, not a right-winger.'

None of these categories makes sense to me. These are puerile.

What does it mean to be pro-army in a nation not at war, and whose military and paramilitary force is deployed in formations against its own citizens in the north-east and in Kashmir and in the Adivasi belt?

Most of the people the Indian Army kills and maims every year are other Indians. So do those who say they are 'pro-Indian army' mean they are anti-Indian citizen?

And if that is the case, what does pro-India in the same sentence as pro-army mean?

It can only mean one thing: Support of the nation State and its sword-arm must come at the expense of its citizens. This is an obnoxious point of view and should be resisted.

What does right-winger mean?

Does it mean someone who wants a small government and is socially conservative (as it does in the United States)?

Someone who wants low tax rates, a ban on abortion and opposes equal rights for LGBTs?

A right-winger in the US sets great store by nationalism ('USA! USA!' is their version of BMKJ) and wants a big and muscular army with lots of expensive toys. That is the textbook definition of a right-winger.

And so to me the line 'I am pro-India, pro-army, not a right-winger' makes absolutely no sense.

Does a right-winger in India mean someone who hates Muslims?

But then, why not just call such an individual bigoted or intolerant because that is what they are?

Such a person has no consistent position on abortion or the size of government. Why sully the name of conservatism?

One wishes Mr Goswami had been pressed. I should hasten to say this is not about him or that interview. I am just using his statement to illustrate a larger point.

The formulation is repeated by the man investing most in Mr Goswami's television venture Republic TV -- the businessman Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

People applying for jobs at the channel (not Republic TV) were asked by Mr Chandrasekhar's office to show 'pro-India, pro-military' credentials, according to a Business Standard report in January.

Mr Chandrasekhar has business interests in defence and aerospace. Of course, he and his channel are going to be pro-military.

As a Gujarati, I can appreciate it -- it makes sense because business is business.

But why force this army worship on the rest of us?

The Indian Army's employees are protected against trial in our courts by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Section 7 of the Act, which grants immunity, can be lifted in case the police find evidence of a crime and file a chargesheet after investigations.

In how many cases has the army allowed this to happen in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989? Zero.

A browbeaten civilian government, even if it wanted to, couldn't change this. But it is absolutely fine for Indian citizens to be murdered, kidnapped, raped, tortured and receive no justice.

Accepting that as all right is what being 'pro-army' really means. I refuse to be bullied into accepting this formulation.

Special interests and bigots are narrowing the categories in which Indians can express dissent, express love. Their categories will continue to be stuffed down the throat of those who do not offer resistance.

The Hindu middle class has produced a powerful consensus on nationalism. Those who do not shout slogans about the nation goddess and proclaim that they are pro-army are in some way indulging in treachery against India though they may well be going about their banal Indian lives and paying their taxes.

As I said, I am not pro-army any more than I am pro-postmen, pro-teachers, pro-nurses or pro-IAS officers. All of these also deliver essential and important and vital services.

Many Indians who do dangerous work for the State, such as our drainage workers, die at a rate higher than our soldiers but get no recognition or even justice.

Why limit our love of martyrs to one class of employees?

The father of a colleague of mine at work retired some time ago. The man had driven buses for the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Company.

What was his father's pension, I asked my colleague. A thousand rupees, he said.

Another colleague's father worked as a clerk in the Chhattisgarh state transport corporation. When the Bharatiya Janata Party took power, the thing was shut down because it didn't turn a profit (no such expectation from our airports, of course). He lost his job and had to find another.

No one-rank, one-pension for these people or for any other government servant. It is our army's employees alone who must get this.

The Gurkhas did efficient soldiering at Kargil, yes. The Gurkhas also did efficient soldiering at Jallianwala Bagh.

In my opinion, they were only doing what they thought was their job. It would be cruel to accuse them of anti-national behaviour because they took aim against other Indians and pulled the triggers under orders. But it would be equally cruel to express support for such actions.

Pro-army and pro-India are divisive and ultimately violent categories. Those who hold them must be asked what they really mean so that the meaning of their slogans becomes transparent

Those who feel the irresistible need to express strong sentiment for our nation and its contents must consider being pro-Indian, whether this Indian be jawan, cobbler, Kashmiri, lesbian, Dalit, protester, pujari, businessman or child.

That is a definition I can live with.
The disciplinary committee of Delhi Congress expelled Barkha Singh for six years from the party for undertaking anti-party activities just before the civic elections in Delhi on April 23.

The decision comes a day after Singh stepped down from her post of Delhi Mahila Congress chief for attacking party vice-president Rahul Gandhi and senior leader attacking Ajay Maken.

In a press conference on Thursday, she charged Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi with not meeting party leaders and was reluctant to address issues within the party organisation.

Why is he (Rahul) scared of meeting his own party members? Several senior leaders have quit the party because of this very reason -- his reluctance over addressing issues that exist within the organisation, she said.

Singh, who had complained against neglect of women workers in ticket distribution for the municipal elections, alleged that the voice of party workers was snubbed and their grievances were not addressed.

Delhi Congress president (Maken) not only misbehaved with me but also with other office bearers of Mahila Congress at his residence. When the matter was brought to the notice of Rahul Gandhi, nothing happened, said Singh, a former chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women.

Delhi Congresss chief spokesperson Sharmishtha Mukherjee later said that Singh was settling her personal grudges and hurting party interests at a crucial time when MCD polls are round the corner.

Shortly after her expulsion, Singh took to Twitter and wrote, #RahulGandhiMuktCongress.

Image: Congress's Barkha Singh holds a press conference on Thursday, criticising Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken. Photograph: PTI Photo
Concerned over disturbing reports about "harassment" of Kashmiri students, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday asked chief ministers of all states to ensure their safety.

The home ministry also issued an advisory to states to take "strict action" against those responsible for such incidents.

"I have come to know that there were a few incidents of misbehaviour towards Kashmiris in some places. I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure security of Kashmiris in their states.

"I appeal to everyone to consider the Kashmiri youths as their own brethren and treat them well," Home Minister Rajnath Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

Later in the evening, the home ministry issued an advisory asking the states to ensure safety and security of Kashmiri students.

"Recently there have been reports of harassment of students of Jammu and Kashmir studying in educational institutions in some states. The state governments and police authorities are hereby requested to take strict action to ensure the safety and security of students from Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

"The state governments and union territories are requested to sensitise the nodal officers already appointed earlier for addressing such complaints from students of Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

The development comes against the backdrop of reports about clashes involving Kashmiri students in Rajasthan and banners asking people from Kashmir to quit Uttar Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh's Meerut, banners calling for boycott of Kashmiris and asking people from the valley to leave the state came up but were removed by the police.

Police have registered an FIR against Amir Jani, the leader of the Hindu right group Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena for putting up the posters in several places in the city.

The poster has a picture of masked protesters hurling stones in Kashmir and a warning "Kashmiris, quit Uttar Pradesh or else...". It also calls for a boycott of Kashmiris pelting the Indian army personnel with stones.

Jani said the banners and hoardings were put along the Partapur bypass outside the colleges where Kashmiri students study.

The outfit warned it was only the first step and that it will launch a "halla bol" campaign from April 30 to "banish" Kashmiris who do not leave the state on their own.

The SHO of Partapur police station Dinesh Sharma said the banners have been pulled down.

Sub-Inspector Vipin Kumar said an FIR has been registered under IPC sections related to promoting or attempting to promote disharmony on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community.

Reports from Rajasthan said tension prevailed in Chittorgarh on Wednesday when a group of locals clashed with Kashmiri students of Mewar university. The clash occurred after the locals allegedly called Kashmiri students "stone pelters" and taunted them over a video showing Central Reserve Police Force personnel being heckled and assaulted in the Kashmir valley.

A video clip of some youths assaulting the personnel on poll duty in Kralpora area in central Kashmir's Budgam district had gone viral on social media recently, triggering a nationwide outrage.

The home ministry advisory said action as per law needs to be taken against miscreants and safety of students from other states, including Jammu and Kashmir, needs to be fully ensured.

Sanjay Roy, a Director in the Home Ministry, has been designated as nodal officer and the nodal officers of the states and union territories are asked to send reports of such incidents, if any, along with action taken thereon to him at , it said.

The advisory said a 24x7 helpline for Kashmiris has also been operational and anyone in distress can be contacted at 011-23092923 and 011-23092885.
India will pay dearly if it continues the petty game of playing the Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warned on Friday, dismissing as absurd New Delhis reaction to Beijing renaming six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Referring to allegations that it was silly for China not to have names for various counties and inventing them for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, an op-ed article in the state-run Global Times said these comments are absurd.

It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time, the article titled India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China said.

The daily said playing the Dalai Lama card was never a wise choice for New Delhi.

If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it, the daily said.

South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardise the names of the places, it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet.

China on April 19 announced that it has standardised official names for six places in the north-eastern state and termed the provocative move as a legitimate action.

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lamas visit to the frontier state.

India on Thursday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six areas of Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Chinese foreign ministrys spokesman Lu Kang said earlier that Chinese government is conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names, an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups.

He also said more standardised names will be announced later.

In the next step, we will also step up our study of those names in Tibetan ethnic languages and in the next step we will announce more standardisation of these names, he said.

Highlighting Chinas stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades, India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, Chinas South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987.

Putting the Dalai Lama into its toolbox against China is another trick played by New Delhi lately. New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so, it said.

India seems to have become trapped in its stubbornness to measure its strength with China. But territorial disputes cannot be settled by comparing which side is stronger or which country has more leverage. Otherwise, there is no need for Beijing to sit down with New Delhi at the negotiating table, it said in an apparent reference to 19 rounds of India-China boundary talks.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control. While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday called upon regional parties to unite to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party which, she alleged, has unleashed "vendetta politics" against those opposed to it and wanted to take the country to a "dangerous path."

"What is going on in the country in the name of politics is not politics. The situation demands all regional parties to unite," Banerjee told party workers at a meeting in Kolkata shortly after being re-elected as chairperson of Trinamool Congress for six years.

"I do not want anything. I want you all (regional parties) to progress, I am there in your support. I am giving this message to all parties. Be together, be united, my party will stand by all of you," she said.

"The BJP has resorted to vendetta politics. They are out to break the federal structure of the country. The BJP is against our party because we talk about the people.

"They want to finish us by unleashing an agency (CBI) against our leaders but they themselves will be finished. The TMC will strike back," she said asking partymen not to get scared.

With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha election, she said, "Whatever the conspiracy is, you have to go to the grassroot level and meet our workers. Take the challenge for two years. We will fight taking along everyone."

In an obvious reference to the CBI filing cases against 12 TMC leaders and ministers, Banerjee said, "We respect the CBI as an institution but it is not that the CBI we know. These days the CBI is like a mouse which has been domesticated".

The TMC leaders against whom the CBI had filed FIRs in the Narada sting operation case were present at the meeting.

Banerjee said that there was no proof against them.

She said that TMC parliamentary party leader Sudip Bandopadhyay was arrested by the CBI because he had spoken against demonetisation.

"He is kept in jail for four months. There is no law in the country," she said.

"One party has spoilt the politics in the country. They are spending crores of rupees. Where is this money coming from," she said.

The BJP, however, dismissed her allegations and claimed that it was actually the TMC which is practising the politics of vendetta.

"Banerjee realised that she has lost (the people's support). That is why she is talking like this. It is not the BJP but the TMC which is playing vindictive politics," party national secretary Rahul Sinha said.

He said that recent Ram Navami processions were taken out by people and not by any political party and alleged that they were stopped by the state administration. "This shows the vindictive attitude of the TMC," he said.

Banerjee asked her partymen to remain alert as cadres of the RSS, BJP and Bajrang Dal were trying to enter the state from outside.

Denying the charge, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said, "She is allowing terrorist elements from Bangladesh to come to the state".

Banerjee also alleged that people were paid to open fake Facebook accounts using her name and photographs as well as spread rumours to instigate violence.

She also attacked the BJP on the issue of Hindutva saying, "They are out to unleash communal riot. We will not tolerate this. There is a limit to everything".

Photograph: Swapan Mahapatra/PTI Photo
On Thursday evening, people of Ayodhya were left amused when they saw a group of Muslims going around the town chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'.

The group under the banner of Sri Ram Mandir Nirman Muslim Kar Sevak Manch arrived in the temple town with a truck full of bricks for the construction of Ram temple.

Azam Khan, the president of the group said that they want to help the construction of the temple.

According to some media reports, the police did not allow them to enter the site as the temple was closed for the day.

Reportedly, the kar sevaks tried to contact members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad for safekeeping of the bricks they had brought.

Khan on Friday said that Lord Ram was from the community of warriors, adding that the Muslims want to support the decision to eradicate the feeling of hatred and spread love and unity among the people.

"I am Pathan. Our ancestors would be Kshatriyas and I can claim that Lord Rama would also have been Kshatriya. Indian Muslims want to now support the construction of Ram temple to spread love, unity and end hatred among people," Khan told ANI.

Earlier, the same group put up posters in Lucknow in support of the construction of the temple in Ayodhya following the Supreme Court's suggestion to settle the dispute outside court.

Chief Justice of India J S Khehar even had offered to act as a mediator between the two sides laying claim over the historic site in Ayodhya.

Photograph: ANI
Indian Navy on Friday successfully test-fired the Brahmos land attack supersonic cruise missile in the Bay of Bengal, joining an elite club of navies to have capability to strike on land targets from sea.

The long-range missile was fired from guided missile frigate Teg on a target on land and it yielded desired results, a top navy official said.

The Brahmos Missile has been jointly developed by India and Russia, and its anti-ship variant has already been inducted into Indian Navy.

"This successful maiden firing of Brahmos land attack supersonic cruise missile has significantly enhances the prowess of Indian Navy and has placed India into the club of select few nations," Navy Spokesperson Capt D K Sharma said.

Navies of the United States, Russia, Britain and China have similar strike capabilities.

Majority of the frontline ships of Indian Navy, like the Kolkata, Ranvir and Teg classes of ships, are capable of firing the land attack supersonic missile.

Land attack variant of Brahmos missile provides Indian naval ships the capability to precisely neutralise selected targets deep inland and far away from coast, from stand-off ranges at sea.

The Indian Navy is upgrading its weapons system and platforms as part of a major modernisation programme.

Last month, it had successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile for the first time from an indigenously built Kalvari class submarine, enhancing its "sub-surface" warfare prowess.

The weapon was fired from the submarine, the first of India's six Scorpene-class submarines which are being built under the Project 75.

All the six diesel-electric attack submarines will be equipped with the anti-ship missile, which has a proven record in combat.

These missiles will provide the vessels the ability to neutralise surface threats at extended ranges.

Representative image
Paris, Apr 21 (IBNS): The Islamic State jihadist, who killed at least one police officer and injured two others by firing on a bus in Paris on Thursday, was already on police watch-list, reports said.

According to CNN, the suspect, who was shot dead by French police, was the subject of a "Fiche S" surveillance file and was on the radar of the French domestic security service DGSI.

The incident, dubbed as a 'terror attack' by French President Francois Hollande, took place on Champs-Elysses, the avenue in central Paris known for its theatres, cafes, and luxury shops.

Though the French officials have barred from making the attacker's identity public, the Islamic State through their mouthpiece Amaq news agency identified him as Abu-Yusuf al-Baljik.

According to French officials, the attacker had already served jail-time in 2000's for attacking police officials with a gun.

CNN reports said Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins will reveal the shooter's identity on Friday at a news conference.

Police located his residence in Paris and are looking for any accomplice in the attack.

Meanwhile, following the attack, the presidential candidates have called off their election campaign.

The French presidential election is scheduled for Sunday.


Ram Vilas Vedanti, a former Bharatiya Janata Party MP and an accused in the Babri mosque demolition case, on Friday claimed that it was he and not the BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani who incited the frenzied karsevaks to pull down the disputed shrine.

"I demolished and got demolished the disputed structure, the ruin that stood there. The accusations against L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia are wrong," he said.

Vedanti's remarks came two days after the Supreme Court resurrected the conspiracy charge against Advani, Joshi and union minister Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

Vedanti said, in fact, Advani, Joshi and Scindia even took the microphone from him and tried to persuade the karsevaks to come down from atop the structure and leave. They even made the plea in English, he later told a TV news channel.

Vedanti said he, Mahant Avaidyanath, also a former BJP MP, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal exhorted the karsevaks to raze the disputed structrue. Both Avaidyanath and Singhal are now dead.

He told India Today TV channel he was prepared to be "hanged" for the cause of Ram temple.

When asked was his claim an effort by him to "derail" the trial against BJP veterans, Vedanti said," I have spoken about this earlier too."
Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning British monarch, turns 91 on Friday.

In celebration of her birthday, here are some interesting facts about her life.

IMAGE: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh feed Donna the elephant as they visit the Elephant Centre at the ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

1.



Queen Elizabeth II married the Duke of Edinburgh on 20 November 1947, aged 21. They have been married for nearly 68 years. She is the first reigning British monarch to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary Queen Elizabeth II married the Duke of Edinburgh on 20 November 1947, aged 21. They have been married for nearly 68 years. She is the first reigning British monarch to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary

2. During World War II, the young Elizabeth worked as a military truck driver and mechanic During World War II, the young Elizabeth worked as a military truck driver and mechanic

3.



Elizabeths love of the corgi is well known. Her father, George VI, introduced the breed to the royal family in 1933 when he bought a corgi called Dookie. Her corgis were all issued little rubber boots to protect their feet from BuckinghamPalaces gravel in 1999 Elizabeths love of the corgi is well known. Her father, George VI, introduced the breed to the royal family in 1933 when he bought a corgi called Dookie. Her corgis were all issued little rubber boots to protect their feet from BuckinghamPalaces gravel in 1999

4.



In 1981, a man named Marcus Serjeant fired six blank shots at the Queen while she was riding down The Mall to the Trooping the Colour ceremony. Though shaken, the Queen retained control over her horse. Marcus Serjeant was tried and sentenced to five years in prison under the treason act In 1981, a man named Marcus Serjeant fired six blank shots at the Queen while she was riding down The Mall to the Trooping the Colour ceremony. Though shaken, the Queen retained control over her horse. Marcus Serjeant was tried and sentenced to five years in prison under the treason act

5.



Queen Elizabeth became the first reigning monarch to visit Australia and New Zealand. In 1970, she invented the popular tradition, the royal walkabout, to meet local people as well as dignitaries on her tours Queen Elizabeth became the first reigning monarch to visit Australia and New Zealand. In 1970, she invented the popular tradition, the royal walkabout, to meet local people as well as dignitaries on her tours

6. She has a private ATM in the basement of Buckingham Palace She has a private ATM in the basement of Buckingham Palace

7.



Her signature handbag is made by British luxury leather manufacturer Launer? and costs 1000 (Rs 1.01 lakh). Additionally, if the Queen swaps her handbag between arms, its an indication that she is bored with talking to someone Her signature handbag is made by British luxury leather manufacturer Launer? and costs 1000 (Rs 1.01 lakh). Additionally, if the Queen swaps her handbag between arms, its an indication that she is bored with talking to someone

8. A good driver, the Queen doesnt have a driver's licence; she doesnt need one. She also doesn't need to have a number plate on her car A good driver, the Queen doesnt have a driver's licence; she doesnt need one. She also doesn't need to have a number plate on her car

9. She has visited 116 countries during 265 official visits since she took the throne in 1952, making her the most-travelled monarch in history She has visited 116 countries during 265 official visits since she took the throne in 1952, making her the most-travelled monarch in history

10. Shes obsessed with watching the popular British drama Downton Abbey. In 2014, she also visited the set of Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland.

11. She enjoys photography She enjoys photography

12. She is the first monarch to have seen three of her children divorce She is the first monarch to have seen three of her children divorce

13. The Queen's husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, is known to call her "Cabbage. Her great-grandson, George, the son of Prince William and Duchess Kate, calls her Gan-Gan. The Queen's husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, is known to call her "Cabbage. Her great-grandson, George, the son of Prince William and Duchess Kate, calls her Gan-Gan.

14. She starts every morning with a cup of Darjeeling tea at 7.30 am She starts every morning with a cup of Darjeeling tea at 7.30 am

15. The Queen still owns all the whales, sturgeons and dolphins within a few miles of the British coast The Queen still owns all the whales, sturgeons and dolphins within a few miles of the British coast

Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

REDIFF RECOMMENDS:
A gunman opened fire killing a police officer and injuring two others before being fatally shot himself in Paris, in an incident that raised the spectre of renewed terrorism just three days before voters go to the polls to elect a new president.

IMAGE: Masked police stand on top of their vehicle on the Champs Elysees Avenue after a policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

The Islamic State has issued a statement, saying they were responsible for the attack, which took place at the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said he will reveal the shooters identity on Friday at a news conference. He said officers are searching the mans residence in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, a Paris suburb, and are trying to determine if he had accomplices.

The shooting has not officially been declared a terrorist act but anti-terrorist forces are leading the investigation, French President Francois Hollande said.

The people who were present have been evacuated and we are convinced that the leads which point us to this case, and which will allow us to uncover the truth, are of a terrorist nature, he said.

The shooting happened about 9 pm local time when a car stopped at 102 Champs-Elysees in front of a police van, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre Henry Brandet said.

IMAGE: Police secure the Champs Elysees Avenue after the shooting. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

A man emerged from the car and opened fire on the van with an automatic weapon, killing one officer instantly, he said.

The man then ran away, managing to shoot and wound two other policemen. Other policemen engaged and shot and killed the attacker, Brandet said.

The slain officer was 30-years-old, Molin said. One of the wounded officers was critically injured but is improving, he said. Also wounded was a female tourist.

The shooting shut down the famed Champs-Elysees, one of Paris top tourist attractions and home to the iconic Arc de Triomphe monument. The avenue was clear of residents and tourists but teeming with security officers Thursday night.

IMAGE: People raise their arms to show their hands as they walk towards police on a side road near the Champs Elysees Avenue. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters

France has been in a state of emergency since the 2015 Paris attacks, which left 130 people dead.

United States President Donald Trump conveyed his deep condolence to France.

Our condolences to our country and the people of France ... It looks like another terror attack, Trump said during a joint news conference with Italys prime minister at the White House.

What can you say? It just never ends, Trump added.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve showed solidarity with the policeman, who was killed in the shooting.

Paying homage to the policeman killed on the Champs-Elysees. Thoughts are with his family. Solidarity with his injured colleagues and those close to them, he tweeted.

-- With inputs from ANI
Amid the sounds of gunbattle and bombs exploding, on Wednesday, the sound of music arose from the ruins of Mosul in Iraq, all thanks to one man -- Ameen Mukdad.

The 28-year-old Iraqi violinist was responsible for a small concert in the city he was forced to flee by Islamic State militants.

Meet the man behind the music.

All photographs: Muhammad Hamed/Reuters

In 2014, Ameen Mukdad fled Mosul after Islamic State fighters stormed his house and confiscated his instruments, deeming his music a violation of their hardline interpretation of Sunni Islam. The recently-held concert was his homecoming after he fled the violence.

Mukdad performed his tunes at the Tomb of Jonas, or Mosque of the Prophet Younis, as the site is known by Muslims, to symbolise unity. Asked about the significance behind the location, the 28-year-old Iraqi was quoted as saying by Reuters, "This is a place for all, not just one sect. Daesh (Islamic State) represents no religion but is an ideology that suppresses freedom. Everything about Daesh is wrong."

According to Mukdad, anyone who opposes music is ugly. His tunes for the concert, he said, were composed in secret while living under the militants' austere rule.

-- This is no apocalypse film. It is life in Mosul.

And how were people informed of his concert? Mukdad, daringly, advertised the concert venue and time on social media. At a time when bombs are being dropped and war is being fought, Mukdad took the brave step of using social media -- a move that is once again looked down by the Islamic State.

Tahany Saleh, one of the concert-goers, was quoted as saying, "The performance was like a dream. I wanted to come to give a message that war has not stopped life in Mosul. You can see all this damage but still we still want to be happy, we want to listen music."

-- Life inside an Islamic State training camp

However, the concert initially didn't hit the high notes. In fact, soldiers guarding the venue almost shut down the event even before it started when the boom of a rocket rang out.

But, later, they relented and were soon enjoying the music and applauded the violinist.
The Vadnagar railway station in Gujarat where Prime Minister Narendra Modi used to sell tea during his childhood, is to get a facelift worth Rs 8 crore, Union minister Manoj Sinha said in Ahmedabad on Friday.

"(A sum of) Rs 8 crore has been sanctioned for the development of Vadnagar railway station in Mehsana district," the minister of state for railways told reporters.

Sinha was in Sachana village today to inaugurate the Inland Container Depot, built by the Continental Warehousing Corporation (Nhava Seva) Ltd.

Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had often mentioned that he used to sell tea during his childhood at the Vadnagar railway station along with his father.

Vadnagar town is also the birthplace of Modi.

Giving further details about the project, Divisional Railway Manager of Ahmedabad division, Dinesh Kumar said the entire project of developing Vadnagar and adjoining places in Mehsana district would cost over Rs 100 crore.

"The development of Vadnagar railway station is one of the components of the Rs 100 crore project to develop Vadnagar, Modhera and Patan as tourist destinations. As of now, the Ministry of Tourism has given Rs 8 crore to the state tourism department to develop the railway station," Kumar said.

He said railways has already undertaken a project for converting the meter gauge line on the Vadnagar-Mehasana route into the broad gauge line.

Meanwhile, Sinha said his ministry is considering to implement a time table for all the goods trains in line with the passenger trains.

"At present, goods trains do not run as per any time table. Thus, we have initiated a pilot project wherein three to four such trains are plying as per their time table. After analysing the outcome of the project, we are considering to implement this system for all the goods trains," the minister said.
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Javeed Ahmed was on Friday shunted to a less important post by the Yogi Adityanath government, which transferred 12 IPS officers in the first big reshuffle in the top police hierarchy.

1980-batch IPS officer Sulkan Singh, who was DG-Training, will replace Ahmed, a 1984-batch IPS officer, who has been shifted as the DG of Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary, a senior home department official said.

Singh is likely to have a brief stint as the state police head as his superannuation is due in September.

Additional Director General-Law and Order Daljit Singh Chowdhury and Additional Director General-Economic Offence Wing and Logistics Aditya Mishra have swapped places in the transfer which came a month after Yogi Adtiyanath assumed office.

The chief minister has not minced words in sending out a strong message that law and order was his government's top priority and any laxity in this regard would not be tolerated.

During the recent assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party had petitioned the Election Commission to remove Ahmed, alleging that he was working at the behest of the then Samajwadi Party government.

DG-Intelligence Jawahar Lal Tripathi has been made DG-Prosecution and DG-Homeguards Alok Prasad has been given additional charge of Training.

Surya Kumar has been relieved from post of DG-Prosecution and will continue as DG police recruitment and promotion board.

ADG security Bhavesh Kumar Singh has been made ADG Intelligence, ADG Police Training School Sitapur Vijay Kumar has been made ADG Security while Alok Singh, who was on wait list has been made IG PAC eastern zone. IG Sanjay Singhal has been made IG PAC central zone.

IG Women Powerline Navneet Sikera has been relieved from the charge of PAC central zone but will continue on other posts.

Earlier in the day, the state government transferred seven IAS officers including some divisional commissioners.

Principal Secretary, Science and Technology, Himanshu Kumar, who was transferred as Divisional Commissioner Devipatan division will remain on his post, while CEO, UP Rural Road Development Authority, SVS Rangarao will be new Divisional Commissioner of Devipatan division.

Among others transferred included DM Jhansi Ajay Kumar Shukla, who will be Divisional Commissioner Chitrakoot division, and Secretary Khadi Anurag Yadav, who has been sent to Institutional Finance Department in the same capacity.

Noida Metro Rail Corporation MD Santosh Kumar Yadav has been put on waitlist while Investment Commissioner Amit Mohan Prasad has been given Yadav's charge.

The state government had on Tuesday shunted out tainted Vice Chairman of Lucknow Development Authority Satyendra Singh while effecting a major bureaucratic reshuffle involving 44 IAS officers in the second such drill in less than a week.

Singh, who is mired in controversy over alleged corruption in LDA, was put on wait list on the day the Adityanath government completed one month in office.

In its first major bureaucratic reshuffle on April 12, the state government had transferred 20 senior IAS officers shunting out Principal Secretary Information Navneet Sehgal and others who wielded considerable influence under the Akhilesh Yadav dispensation.

Sehgal was stripped of all key charge and replaced by UP cadre IAS officer Avanish Kumar Awasthi, who was relieved by the Centre on Aditaynath's request after he took over the reins of the state on March 19.
'People wondered aloud why she had given up on the aging, getting-day-by-day-more-infirm avatar. And was freshly blooming.'

Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora trial.

Illustrations: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

It was quite a different Indrani Mukerjea who appeared on the horizon on Friday, April 21, after alighting from the prison bus that brought her across town in 30 degrees Celsius heat, from the congested Byculla jail on Mirza Ghalib Road, central Mumbai.

As she sauntered towards the sessions court building, Kala Ghoda, south Mumbai, for her next court appearance in the Sheena Bora trial -- ahead of another woman prisoner tugging her two- or three-year-old daughter, who came with her -- you were looking at an Indrani who had, voila, shed 10 years in 31 short days.

Gone were the white locks that lent her the earlier mildly beatific look.

Her hair was trimmed, dyed a rich brown. Almost black. She was sporting a salmon shade of lipstick and wore an olive green chikan kurta.

Looking at this Indrani 2.0, you could imagine the Indrani of old, of her INX Media days.

That woman, again, both girlish and siren; a woman always aware of her charm as she skipped up the steps to the courtroom.

Indrani's elegantly dyed hair came up for discussion in the corridors of the court. Several times.

People wondered aloud why she had given up on the aging, getting-day-by-day-more-infirm avatar. And was freshly blooming.

It apparently bothered Bharat Badami, the CBI prosecutor in the case, who was at the court along with CBI officer K K Singh.

Badami brought it up after the half-minute hearing had concluded in Courtroom 51 -- co-accused Peter Mukerjea, Sanjeev Khanna and Indrani filed into the accused enclosure and reversed out in 30 seconds, as Khanna gallantly held the accused pen gate open for the New Indrani.

Conversation swirled around about how hair dye was not available in the prison shop.

How did she get the dye?

How did she get money to buy the dye?

Badami accused Indrani's harried lawyers of passing all kinds of mysterious things to her, including money, and vice versa. And threatened to raise the matter in court.

In now signature Badami playing-to-the-gallery manner, he turned towards the clutch of media reporters standing further away, and said loudly something to the effect: "I am worried about her security.

The connection between hair dye and her well-being was puzzling.

Peter and Sanjeev had already returned to the Arthur Road jail when Badami directed his concern about Indrani at the media.

Relatives and food/fruit dabbas made a thin showing on Friday, with only a friend of Peter's and brother Gautam showing up to warmly hug Peter.

Indrani had, for the first time, a visitor, a friend apparently, who sat next to her as she wrote copiously, in her neat, schoolgirl handwriting, using a red coloured pen.

Sanjeev, in a yellow bush shirt, had no one to see him, except a lawyer much later, and rifled through the court notices on the bulletin board, as he waited and paced around.

The noise of the altercation/argument between Badami and Indrani's lawyers over the alleged passage of money/dye!/goods caused Judge H S Mahajan to send a white uniformed peon out to ask them to clear out of the corridor and for Indrani to go back to jail.

The sound didn't match the hullaballoo happening below, at street level.

Out front OBV vans were gathering, thick and fast, along with more and more byte-starved television reporters.

Saharashri Subrata Roy -- the head of the beleaguered Sahara empire -- was expected any moment for a hearing in Courtroom 39.

Two Bengali 'media barons' in one court on one day, with media attention for the North Bihar-born older one in his shiny black waist coat and tie winning out.

Also in the courtyard downstairs, the police were having a serious and lengthy blow out with a bunch of rebellious young prisoners who were then summarily marched off to the prison bus.

As you cover the Sheena Bora trial, you learn there is much more happening in the stifling corridors of Mumbai's sessions court than in the courtrooms where hearings, at 15-day intervals, are a procession of postponements and adjournments.

Nearly three months into the Sheena Bora trial, the time spent in the courtroom has been all of 30 minutes approximately, between six appearances.

Since the trial began in early February, just one witness has made an appearance. An appearance that was aborted.

I learned I had at least five to seven years or more of coverage coming up when I asked a senior lawyer how long the trial would go on for; his estimate based on the length of other high-profile criminal trials.

The trial awaits an opinion from the Bombay high court on the suitability of admitting the testimony of the first witness -- Khar, northwest Mumbai, police station Constable Ganesh Dalvi who would testify about what the Mukerjeas' driver -- Shyamvar Rai, who has turned approver in the case -- told him after being arrested.

That opinion has been 45 days in coming and is yet not at hand as the CBI has sought more time in the high court.

Meanwhile, the accused continue to make appearances before Judge Mahajan of the CBI special court. Their next appearance is set for May 5.

Their last appearance was on March 31, a day when the sessions court was flooded unusually with women prisoners. That day Peter Mukerjea and Sanjeev Khanna showed up and spent a minute before Judge Mahajan.

Indrani did not appear in court on March 31; the judge said there was a shortage of women guards that day.

At that appearance, Peter was visited by his son Rabin and his girlfriend, his sister Shagun, brother Gautam and his sister-in-law Arti.

As Peter went through several helpings of pomegranate, mango, biscuits and sandwiches, one CBI officer muttered to the other in Hindi: "Peter is very interested in food." The other replied, with pronounced sarcasm, "He had become weak."

That day Sanjeev Khanna got a new pair of spectacles brought by cousin Nikhil, which he tried on repeatedly. And a plastic bag of new clothes and sandwiches.

Peter's family had brought Peter a plastic bag, probably clothes for the English classes he now conducts in jail, although he always wears, like a uniform, an austere white shirt and khaki trousers to court.

The police extra-meticulously went through these few new belongings, once upstairs, and again at the checkpost downstairs, shaking out each shirt, in the hope perhaps of something falling out. Nothing incriminating emerged.

May 5 may be another one minute appearance in court for this trio unless the high court opinion arrives by then.

Rumours surfaced around the corridors this Friday that that Friday in May could be a lively one, with some fresh charges aired even if the high court opinion does not come in.

EARLIER IN THE TRIAL...
New York, Apr 22(Just Earth News): Noting increases in number of migrants, including children, attempting to reach European shores using the Central Mediterranean route, and consequent rise in number of deaths, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called for safe and legal pathways for those who are fleeing conflict, poverty and depravation.

According to UNICEF estimates, at least 849 people, including more than 150 children, perished at sea while trying to make the perilous crossing since January this year.

It is deeply concerning that vulnerable people, including thousands of children, are risking their lives to reach Europe's shores using this incredibly dangerous route, Afshan Khan, the UNICEF Regional Director and Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe, said in a news release on Friday.

Since the start of the year, nearly 37,000 refugees and migrants  13 per cent of them children  have reached Italy by sea via the Central Mediterranean. This is an increase of 42 per cent compared to the same time period last year.

In particular, unaccompanied and separated children are at most risk, and these numbers too have seen a dramatic increase. In January and February this year, some 1,865 unaccompanied and separated children arrived in Italy, an increase of 40 per cent compared to the same period last year.

UNICEF also noted that recent good weather and calmer waters in the Mediterranean have been accompanied by a surge in refugees and migrants attempting to cross. During the Easter weekend (last weekend) alone, more than 8,300 were rescued from the sea between Libya and Italy. At least eight migrants were reported to have drowned over the weekend.

This is further evidence that when safe and legal pathways to migration are cut off, desperate children and families will do whatever they can to flee conflict, poverty and depravation, noted Khan.

As part of its global policy for children on the move, the UN agency has been calling for more action to protect child refugees and migrants, particularly unaccompanied children; end the detention of children seeking refugee status or migrating; and to promote measures to combat xenophobia, discrimination and marginalization in countries of transit and destination.

It has also underlined the need to keep families together as the best way to protect children and give children legal status; to ensure that all refugee and migrant children have opportunities to learn, access to health care and other quality services; and to address the underlying causes of large scale movements of refugees and migrants.

Photo: UNHCR/A. DAmato

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Apr 22(Just Earth News): The United Nations refugee agency is shipping tents, mosquito nets and other essential relief items to Angola, where some 9,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have fled this month alone.

Refugees reported fleeing attacks from militia groups, who are targeting police, military officials, and civilians who they believe are supporting or representing the Government, Babar Baloch, spokesperson at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters at the UN's Geneva Office.

The civilians arrive mainly in Dundo, the capital of Angola's north-eastern Luanda Norte Province.

UNHCR is sending an additional emergency team to the town tomorrow, to support relief efforts.

There are concerns that the situation will worsen as Angola's wet season peaks in April, further complicating living conditions and the health of refugees, particularly women, children, the elderly and the disabled.

The refugees are fleeing from the Kasai region, a formerly peaceful area that turned violent in mid-2016, after a traditional leader, Kamuina Nsapu, was killed in fighting with security forces. Since then, the fighting has displaced more than one million civilians.

The new arrivals are terrified and still fear for their lives and mentioned they do not have any immediate plans to return home, Baloch said. Some parents have reportedly sent their children across the border, worrying they would be forcibly recruited by the militias if they had stayed in the DRC.

Children being killed or injured

There is particular concern about the situation of children in Kasai. An estimated 2,000 children were being used by the militias in the affected region and were yet to return to their homes, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

These children were being killed or injured in the fighting, and were often arrested and imprisoned, UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac said in Geneva.

More than 4,000 children had been separated from their families and at least 300 seriously injured, according to the UN agency.

Those children should be safe in their homes, schools and playgrounds, not forced to fight on the battlefield or wounded or killed in the violence, Boulierac added.

The violence in the region had also had a devastating impact on education and health systems in the region. More than 350 schools had been destroyed in the provinces of Kasai Central and Kasai Oriental, and one out of three health centres no longer function.

The UN refugee agency echoed this concern, saying many of the children arriving in Angola are malnourished and sick suffering from diarrhoea, fever and malaria.

Photo: Joseph Mankamba/OCHA-DRC

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Apr 22(Just Earth News): The increase in reading and writing proficiency among women is a result of the significant up tic in their enrolment and completion of primary education over the last five decades, even as overall funding for adult literacy has remained low, a recently-launched study by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has found.



The publication, Reading the past, writing the future: Fifty years of promoting literacy, marks the uplifting and sobering fiftieth anniversary of UNESCOs efforts to mark global progress on literacy, celebrated annually on 8 September as International Literacy Day. The authors of the current report examine the nature and evolution of the educational challenge, and take stock of literacy initiatives worldwide.



The spread of literacy among women has been a key feature of the past fifty years. However, the gap between male and female literacy rates only started narrowing from 1990 onwards. UNESCO projects that it is likely to keep unfolding over the period of 201530 and beyond.



While various positive trends are highlighted, Qian Tang, UNESCOs Assistant Director-General for Education, in the publications foreword, calls for renewed and strengthened commitment to support literacy promotion for all, including the 758 million youth and adults currently excluded from the networks of written communication.



The authors note that around 1950, just over half of all the worlds people were reported as being literate. Since then, they state, the adult literacy rate has increased by five percentage points every decade on average, to 86 per cent in 2015.



Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with various contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve his or her goals, develop his or her knowledge and potential, and participate fully in community and wider society. UNESCO 2005a:22



One of the reports main findings is that there are now more illiterate adults compared with 50 years ago, meaning that literacy efforts have not kept pace with population growth, a trend UNESCOs Tang finds troubling.



Resources to educate adults



The UNs educational arm identifies sufficient resources for education as one of the bottlenecks for the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Goal 4, on ensuring inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning particularly for the large and growing group of illiterate adults. The authors find that funding for adult education and literacy has rarely been adequate.



UNESCO claims that lack of funding is one of the reasons why progress continues to be slow in certain regions and countries. Among the surveyed countries, only four devote three per cent or more of their educational budget to adult education.



Total aid to education by the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is about 1.4 per cent of their total aid budget, according to UNESCOs report, with only a few OECD-members devoting more than three per cent of their individual funding to education.



Regional disparities



Progress has been far from uniform across countries and regions. UNESCO defines the spread of literacy among young people  especially young women  as a decisive trend for Western Asia and Northern Africa regions, with regional youth literacy rates reaching almost 95 per cent in 2015.



UNESCO argues that the spread of literacy has contributed to the demand for political freedom and socio-economic development expressed by young people in these regions. It also points out that their reading and writing proficiency will be crucial for democratization and stabilization in both regions.



Eastern Asia and South-East Asia have almost universalized literacy thanks to steady progress since the 1960s. Most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have also reached high adult literacy and almost universal youth literacy in recent decades.



For decades large-scale adult illiteracy will persist in Southern Asia, UNESCO projects. The number of illiterate adults has merely stabilized, but the region still counts 43.9 million illiterate young people. Progress made in the last 25 years has been hampered by extreme poverty and conflict.



Other regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania face specific difficulties. UNESCO warns that both regions cannot be expected to reach universal youth literacy rates by 2030 if current trends continue. It claims that sub-Saharan Africa  accounting for almost half of the worlds illiterate people  is the only region in which the number of illiterate young people kept increasing.



The report is based on data from UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) and information from UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL). The publication analyses trends and impacts of literacy programmes on 50 countries around the world.



Photo: UNIC Lagos







Source: www.justearthnews.com






China deletes online criticism of toxic smog choking its cities

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China deletes online criticism of toxic smog choking its cities, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca4e13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

High-rise buildings enveloped in heavy smog in Beijing, Dec. 16, 2016. AFP

As northern China entered its second day on red alert for toxic smog (not all cities are on red, many are on yellow/orange), online censors moved to delete content criticizing the ruling Chinese Communist Party for its handling of the air pollution crisis that grips the country every winter.

Calls have been growing on social media to pin down the government departments responsible for the various factors contributing the toxic brown soup that hundreds of millions of people are forced to breathe in many Chinese cities.

"The State Council must make a formal statement to the 1.4 Chinese people explaining itself," one commentator wrote, calling for "formal plans" to tackle the problem within the next decade.

"People understand that the water can support the boat, but that it can also sink it," the article warned, in a metaphor referring to the ruling party and the people.

The post was rapidly deleted from social media sites and the popular smartphone chat app WeChat.

References and links to a Financial Times article in Chinese by outspoken Beijing University law professor Zhang Qianfan, titled "Can China find its way out of its systemic smog?" were also apparently targeted by censors, returning messages indicating a "violation of content regulations" on Friday.

No real plan

Beijing resident Guo Guijun said the deletion of online content about the smog showed the authorities have no real plan to tackle the problem.

"If they are even going to delete content that is public knowledge, then I think they lack the courage to face up to the situation," Guo said. "The facts are the facts ... and avoiding the issue isn't going to solve anything."

She said many people in Beijing are feeling a sense of despair in the face of the smog.

"I'm from Beijing; I don't have anywhere else I could go," Guo said. "For me, there's no escape."

"We need a leader who is willing to take responsibility and be accountable to the people, because everyone wants this problem to get fixed," she said.

Help for schools

Meanwhile, the Beijing government said it would help finance air purification systems in the city's schools to protect children's health.

Beijing's municipal government education bureau called on district governments to move ahead with purification systems as part of a pilot scheme that could soon be rolled out citywide, official media reported on Friday.

The city government will allocate money to help schools cover the costs, the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, reported.

It said kindergartens and primary and middle schools in Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, and Fengtai districts have already installed such devices, with financial support from the government, enterprises, and parents.

Earlier this week, a middle school affiliated with the prestigious Tsinghua University installed the first batch of air filtration devices in 11 classrooms, and will soon install them in all classrooms, the paper said.

Beyond hazardous

Many northern Chinese cities have seen hazardous levels of air pollution, with some measuring far beyond the "hazardous" level of 500 on air quality indices in recent days.

As of 3.00 p.m. local time on Friday, the northern oil city of Daqing saw an AQI level of 999, Quartz news reported after monitoring the online Real-time Air Quality Index, which tracks air pollution readings in cities around the world.

The smog also appeared to be drifting south on Friday.

The provincial meteorological bureau in the southern province of Guangdong issued a warning of "moderate to severe" air pollution for Friday and Saturday in the Pearl River Delta region.

In Hong Kong, where downtown areas logged air quality readings at an "unhealthy" 152 in some busy areas on Friday, government officials said air pollution in the city had showed a marginal improvement in some areas during 2016.

Air quality official Mok Wai-chuen said the city had recently adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) target for nitrogen dioxide into its air quality objectives, which he described as "very strict."

"We have been able to achieve the short-term objectives for the general air monitoring stations, but not for the roadside stations," he said of the pollutant, which is linked to exhaust fumes from diesel vehicles.

Reported by Yang Fan and Lin Ping for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Court in China's Guizhou jails Protestant pastor on spying charges

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Court in China's Guizhou jails Protestant pastor on spying charges, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca4f13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

Pastor Yang Hua is shown in church in an undated photo. ChinaAid

Authorities in southern China have sentenced a pastor of an unofficial Protestant "house church" to two-and-a-half years in jail on spying charges, his lawyer said.

Pastor Yang Hua of the Huoshi church in the southern province of Guizhou was handed the jail term by the Nanming District People's Court in the provincial capital Guiyang on Wednesday.

Yang Hua, who is also known as Li Guozhi, was initially detained during a raid on Huoshi Church on Dec. 9, 2015, by police who searched his apartment, confiscating computers, disks, and other devices.

His lawyers have accused local prosecutors of torturing Yang in prison and have filed a lawsuit against the officers.

Defense attorney Chen said the sentence was undeserved, and that his client is innocent.

"Even a day in jail is too much for an innocent person," he told RFA. "I have only one thing to say about this. This isn't a judgement: it's persecution."

"This is a political case that has nothing to do with the law or the truth," Chen said. "This is political persecution pure and simple."

Church dispersed

Fellow Huoshi pastor Su Tianfu said the sentence was outrageous and disproportionate, and that the church is now basically dispersed amid an ongoing government crackdown targeting its pastors and followers.

"I think Yang Hua is innocent, and yet they have locked him up for such a long time," said Su, who was himself detained on similar charges but later released on "bail."

"From a legal point of view, the charges against pastor Yang just don't stand up," he said. "How could he have revealed any state secrets?"

"But there's very little we can do about it," he said. "This is a case of political interference, and I think we can say that the law isn't being followed here."

Huoshi accountant Zhang Xiuhong is also being held and is currently awaiting trial, he said.

Yang's wife Wang Hongwu said she learned about the sentencing on Thursday, saying that her husband will likely appeal the sentence, but that he has yet to be allowed a visit from his lawyer.

"They tell me that a meeting isn't possible right now, according to the lawyer," Wang said. "If he is appealing after a sentence, then they can't meet with a lawyer."

"The lawyer may be able to meet with him in about 10 days' time," she said.

Wang told RFA after her husband's Dec. 27 trial that he could only walk with assistance from detention center guards when he was visited by his lawyer.

"I asked why his feet hurt and they said it was to do with the weather, but we don't know the reason," she said.

Religious persecution

Bob Fu, founder of the U.S.-based Christian rights group ChinaAid, hit out at the sentence.

"This is nothing but purely barbaric religious persecution," Fu said in a statement on the group's website.

"We urge President Obama and president-elect Trump to unequivocally condemn this brutal act," he said.

China is home to an estimated 68 million Protestants, of whom 23 million worship in state-affiliated churches, and some nine million Catholics, 5.7 million of whom are in state-sponsored organizations.

But the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which embraces atheism, exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens.

And the administration of President Xi Jinping regards Christianity as a dangerous foreign import, with officials warning last year against the "infiltration of Western hostile forces" in the form of religion.

A crackdown on Protestant churches in the eastern province of Zhejiang widened and intensified to other regions of China during 2016, church members have told RFA.

Reported by Hai Nan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long for the Mandarin Service. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Detained Eleven Media CEO, top editor released on bail in Myanmar

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Detained Eleven Media CEO, top editor released on bail in Myanmar, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca501e.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

Wai Phyo (2nd R), the detained chief editor of one of the news journals of Eleven Media Group, is escorted by a policeman in a courthouse in Yangon, Jan. 6, 2017. AFP

A Myanmar court on Friday released the chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of the independent Eleven Media Group on bail of more than U.S. $37,000 each after the two were held for nearly two months on defamation charges, the defense lawyer in the case said.

Than Htut Aung, chief executive officer of Eleven Media Group, and Wai Phyo, chief editor of the Daily Eleven newspaper, were jailed on Nov. 11 over an editorial that accused Phyo Min Thein, chief minister of Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon, of receiving a $100,000 watch from an unnamed drug tycoon who was later awarded a lucrative contract for a city transit project.

The editorial appeared in the Nov. 6 issue of Daily Eleven and was posted on Than Htut Aung's Facebook page.

The two men were charged under a controversial article in Myanmar's Telecommunications Law that prohibits use of the telecom network to defame people and carries a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine for those who violate it.

"They were released today on bail of 50 million kyats [U.S. $37,230] each," said defense lawyer Kyi Myint.

Though Eleven Media Group issued a public apology for the editorial in December, Moe Hein, director of the Yangon government office, said on Friday that officials will not accept the apology and will proceed with the defamation case against the two men.

The two men were being held in Yangon's notorious Insein Prison where Than Htut Aung suffered a heart attack.

They had asked the Tamwe township court in east-central Yangon to release them on bail three times before Friday.

Their next court hearing will be held on Jan 13.

Reported by Thant Sin Oo for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Four Myanmar workers killed in machete attack in Malaysia

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Four Myanmar workers killed in machete attack in Malaysia, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5113.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

A Myanmar migrant worker ties a rope to a crate at a market in the town of Bukit Mertajam in Central Seberang Perai, Penang, Malaysia, Dec. 17, 2016. Nur Photo

A machete attack on 13 Myanmar nationals in Malaysia on Thursday has left four men dead and three seriously injured as the group returned from working overtime in the capital Kuala Lumpur, said a Myanmar civil society organization that operates in the area.

The deadly assault occurred in the Bukit Serdang area in the southern part of the city after the men left a television hardware factory where they worked at 10 p.m., said San Win, chairman of the Kathpone Free Funeral Service Society in Kuala Lumpur, which provides free funerals for its impoverished citizens in the country.

"Thirteen people were returning to their homes together after they had worked overtime, and a group of people attacked them with knives," San Win said. "Four were killed, and three were sent to a hospital. They didn't see well who the attackers were because it was nighttime."

One of the three sent to Serdang general hospital died Friday evening, he said.

Myanmar embassy officials have filed a case at a local police station, San Win said.

A motive for the attack remains unknown.

San Win told the online journal The Irrawaddy that four of the victims had official passports while another three are believed to be migrant workers.

Previous attacks on migrant workers

Thousands of workers returned to Myanmar from Malaysia in 2014 after roughly 25 were killed between June 2013 and September 2014 in what some observers told Malaysia media at the time may have been links to communal violence in Rakhine, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said in a Dec. 7, 2016, report.

There are more than 400,000 Myanmar migrant workers in Malaysia, around 100,000 of whom are illegal workers, according to Myanmar's embassy in Kuala Lumpur, though some estimate the number of undocumented Myanmar workers in the country at about 500,000, the report said.

Many working in the country illegally often work long hours in dangerous conditions with few means of getting better conditions or pay, it said.

Last July, the Myanmar embassy in Malaysia created a protection task force for migrant workers made up of representatives from roughly 50 civil society organizations based in the country, including the Kathpone Free Funeral Service Society, the Myanmar Times reported.

The Myanmar government last December stopped sending workers to Malaysia out of safety concerns amid growing tension between the two nations over the conflict in Myanmar's restive Rakhine state involving the treatment of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority group.

Muslim-majority Malaysia criticized the Myanmar government and the country's powerful military for alleged violent acts against the Rohingya during a crackdown in northern Rakhine following deadly attacks on border guard stations in the region.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak said Buddhist-majority Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya amounted to "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing," prompting Myanmar to hit back at Malaysia for meddling in its affairs.

Reported by Zarni Htun for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar commission begins second trip to troubled northern Rakhine state

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar commission begins second trip to troubled northern Rakhine state, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5210.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

Officials from the Rakhine State Investigation Commission meet residents of Gwazon, a Muslim-majority village in Maungdaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Dec. 12, 2016. AFP/Myanmar State Counselor's Office

A national-level commission investigating violence in the northern part of Myanmar's Rakhine state is on a second visit to the turbulent region, after receiving heavy criticism from rights groups this week for refuting allegations of abuses by security forces deployed in the region since October.

The 13-member commission led by Myanmar Vice President Myint Swe began a two-day visit on Friday to border guard headquarters in Maungdaw township to further probe Oct. 9 attacks on guard stations by armed assailants in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships that left nine officers dead.

The panel will also visit Zinpaingnya and Myo Thugyi villages on Friday and Shwe Yin Aye, Norula, and Ale Thankyaw villages on Saturday.

On Tuesday, the commission issued its interim report on the situation in Rakhine to the government based on findings and interviews that members conducted during the group's first visit to northern Rakhine last Dec. 11-13.

It said it found no cases of genocide or religious persecution of Rohingya Muslims who live in the region in the wake of the deadly border guard attacks and subsequent security lockdown.

The commission said it conducted special investigations of allegations of rape, torture, arson and illegal arrests in Rohingya villages by security forces that moved into the area to search for those who planned and carried out the border guard station attacks.

But the commission said its interviews of local villagers and women about the rape allegations yielded insufficient evidence to take legal action, though its investigations into accusations of arson, torture, and illegal arrests are still under way.

The commission also noted that an increase in the local number of Muslim religious scholars, mosques, and other religious structures was an indication there had been no cases of genocide and religious persecution in the region.

Human rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), blasted the group's findings, saying they were an attempt to gloss over atrocities and heavy international criticism, especially since the report came only days after a video surfaced showing policemen beating Rohingya Muslims.

The commission was created by presidential order on Dec. 1 to probe the Oct. 9 border guard attacks as well as subsequent violence in Muslim villages in Maungdaw on Nov. 12 and 13, when armed men are said to have ambushed police and soldiers deployed to northern Rakhine to conduct security operations.

The government has blamed the attacks on local Muslim insurgents who received training and financing from terrorists and Islamists abroad, but it has denied that soldiers committed any atrocities against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine.

Some of the 50,000 Rohingya who fled to safety during the violence have alleged otherwise, though.

UN envoy to visit Rakhine

Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special human rights envoy for Myanmar, will begin a 12-day visit at the invitation of the government on Jan. 9 to look into the crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine, the U.N. said on Friday.

She will also visit northern Myanmar's Kachin state where thousands of people have been displaced by fighting between government soldiers and ethnic rebels.

"The events of the last few months have shown that the international community must remain vigilant in monitoring the human rights situation there," Yanghee Lee said in the statement.

Besides meeting with those affected by human rights violations, Lee will also meet with political and community leaders, civil society, and members of the international community.

U.N officials, including Lee, have been critical of the government's handling of the Rakhine crisis, specifically the denial of access by independent media and international humanitarian groups to areas affected by the violence.

Reported by Min Thein Aung for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Tibetans in China defy warnings, support the Kalachakra

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Tibetans in China defy warnings, support the Kalachakra, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca54e.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

The Dalai Lama greets leaders of other faiths in Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 6, 2017. RFA

Defying warnings by authorities, Tibetans living in northwest China's Qinghai province are privately engaging in religious observances coinciding with a major Buddhist gathering in India led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sources in the region say.

Chinese authorities have called the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra ceremony being held this month in Bodh Gaya "illegal" and have threatened punishment for Tibetans spreading news of the event or organizing local ceremonies in support.

Practicing privately or meeting in small groups, Tibetans living in townships and villages across Qinghai are doing whatever they can to be involved, though, a source living in the Malho (in Chinese, Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture told RFA's Tibetan Service.

"In my own village, people are engaged in virtuous activities such as fasting, performing prostrations, and setting animals free," RFA's source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The same things are happening in other places, too," he said.

"Families are hosting gatherings to recite mantras and other prayers, and this is being done in secret as the monasteries and communities are being careful not to do anything more openly," he said.

"The Chinese authorities cannot prevent this, because it is being done discreetly."

Blessings of the ceremony

Noting that the Dalai Lama has promised Tibetans living in China that he will pray for them during the Kalachakra rituals, "Tibetans feel confident they will receive the blessings of the ceremony," the source said.

Speaking separately, another Qinghai source said that local observances connected to the Kalachakra began on Jan. 2 and will continue until Jan. 14, the day that the rituals and teachings held in India end.

"There are many things it is inconvenient to share in the open," a third source said. "Faith in one's spiritual teacher does not need to be publicly displayed."

Kalachakra, which means Wheel of Time, is a ritual that prepares devotees to be reborn in Shambhala, a celestial kingdom which, it is said, will vanquish the forces of evil in a future cosmic battle.

The ceremony and teachings are often conducted outside Tibet by the Dalai Lama, who is widely reviled by Chinese leaders as a "splittist" seeking to separate Tibet, which was invaded by Communist China in 1950, from Beijing's control.

In a bid to reduce attendance at this year's ceremony, Chinese officials moved beginning in November to confiscate the passports of Tibetans authorized to travel abroad, at the same time ordering Tibetans already present in India and Nepal to return home.

Many had been told their families would be harmed if they failed to go back, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Vietnamese dissident attorney's house vandalized by thugs

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Vietnamese dissident attorney's house vandalized by thugs, 6 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5510.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-06

Paint and shrimp paste were smeared on the Hanoi home an attorney who has defended dissidents in Vietnam, Jan. 6, 2017. RFA

Unidentified thugs vandalized the Hanoi home of a prominent human-rights attorney, smearing it with red paint and putrid-smelling shrimp paste late Thursday night, the lawyer told RFA's Vietnamese Service.

Tran Thu Nam told RFA that he was working at his home around midnight when he went to his front door to investigate a mysterious commotion.

"I don't know who did it, as they had already run away when I opened the door," he said. "They painted the door and threw shrimp paste at it."

Tran called the Yen Hoa commune police, who took pictures of the scene and wrote a report.

"They came and took pictures of the scene and wrote a report," he said. "They promised me that they will use pictures taken by cameras from the neighbors to identify those people."

Tran and fellow attorney Le Van Luan were brutally beaten by thugs last year when they visited the family of their client Do Dang Du, who had died in police custody.

Case dropped

Publicity over the 2015 attack on Tran and Le led Hanoi police to investigate and prosecute the people involved in the assault, but the victims decided to drop the case, and Tran forgave his attackers.

"When I was beaten, they had to start the prosecution process because of the public pressure, but I didn't think those young men had any problem with me directly, so I decided to drop the case," he said.

While the beating drew national attention and was raised in Vietnam's National Assembly, an attack on a house is unlikely to rise to that level, he said.

"I'm afraid that it will be very difficult to investigate due to complicating issues in society concerning circumstances," he said. "It is hard to hope that they will find out who did this."

Shrimp paste is a pungent ingredient used in many Asian dishes, and is made from fermented, ground shrimp mixed with salt. In Vietnam, it is used in a wet form, and is often an ingredient in a dip made for fish or vegetables.

While it remains unclear who vandalized Tran's house, attacks on the homes of prominent dissidents and government critics are often used in Asia as a form of intimidation.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Colombo, Apr 21 (IBNS): Sri Lankaas Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe is scheduled to visit India in the last week of April to strengthen the economic corporation between the two countries.

During his third visit to Delhi, he is likely to wrap up strategic deals ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Sri Lanka to take part in the UN Vesak Day celebrations to be held in Colombo from May 12 to 14.

An Indian media has reported that Wickramasinghe will be finalizing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)s for joint development of Trincomalee Port to set up a petroleum refinery and a land lease agreement for Lanka Indian oil Corporation (LIOC), which is the Lankan subsidiary of the Indian Oil Corporation.

The LIOC already has 15 tanks in the lower tank farm out of 99 Britain built oil storage tanks in the Trincomalee Port, following an agreement reached in 2003.

The remaining 84 oil storage tanks will be developed under a joint venture, 'The Wire' stated.

The sources have said that India has been keen in developing the oil storage tank farms in the strategically important Trincomalee Port.

(Reporting by Shanika Sriyananda)
China: Four Inner Mongolian activists detained over on-line herders petition

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 9 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China: Four Inner Mongolian activists detained over on-line herders petition, 9 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca571e.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-09

Four women from the herding community in Inner Mongolia's New Barag Right Banner show signed petition to the government over unpaid grazing subsidies, Jan. 9, 2017. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.

Police in Chinese-ruled Inner Mongolia arrested four herdsmen on Monday for their role in an organized online petition by 500 herdsmen over promised but unpaid subsidies for stopping grazing on protected land, local activists told RFA's Mandarin Service.

"Yesterday police began to talk to local herdsmen to check who made the post on the Internet. Four people were taken away for jointly posting the online letter calling for protests; one of them is a breast-feeding woman," said an activist in Hulun Buir in Inner Mongolia's New Barag Right Banner.

"Consequently, a lot of herdsmen went to the police station to demand the release of the four but police used pepper spray to disperse them. They said the spray was toxic and made them suffer miserably. Someone lost consciousness and was rushed to hospital by an ambulance," said the activist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The activist said the herdsmen were legally entitled to subsidies to cover losses associated for setting aside pastureland to shield it from grazing in Inner Mongolia's grasslands, which are under environmental stress from desertification and pollution from Chinese mining and other resource extraction activities.

The fate of the four detained organizers was unclear and there was no immediate comment from the local government.

"Police were afraid of the potential spread of protests, therefore released the protesting herdsmen. But I am not sure if the originally detained four have been freed or not," said the activist.

"Police intimidated the protesters; they always do this in our area. Last year when local protests happened, police monitored herdsmen closely to prevent the news from being leaked."

Ethnic Mongolians, who make up almost 20 percent of Inner Mongolia's population of 23 million, increasingly complain of widespread environmental destruction and unfair development policies in the region.

Clashes between Chinese state-backed mining or forestry companies and herding communities are common in the region, which borders the independent country of Mongolia.

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated by Chen Ping. Written in English by Paul Eckert.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodians say Vietnamese forced them off family land

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 9 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodians say Vietnamese forced them off family land, 9 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca573.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-09

An unidentified farmer points to an area near the border of Cambodia and Vietnam where he says he was forced off his land, Jan. 8, 2017. RFA/Uon Chhin

Vietnamese authorities, some carrying arms, have suddenly begun preventing Cambodian citizens from cultivating family farms that lie along the border between the two nations, local residents tell RFA's Khmer Service.

While the family plots straddle the border between the two countries, Cambodian residents tell RFA they have been farming them for years without interference.

"Although the border marker was placed inside my plot of land, I could still farm it in the past, but now they don't allow me to do that," Keo Sanea told RFA on Monday.

Keo Sanea said the Cambodian and Vietnamese authorities placed border marker 198 about 20 meters inside the three-hectare plot of land that makes up her family's farm in 2009, but that the two countries had agreed to allow families to farm the land that historically crossed the border.

That is until 2017, when Vietnamese authorities this month prohibited her from cultivating the land on Vietnam's side of the border near the Svay Rieng province's Kok Tek village.

Keo Sanea is not the only Cambodian resident who said that Vietnamese authorities were forcing her to quit the cross-border cultivation.

A Seng Mao village farmer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that about 20 armed Vietnamese border guards stopped her family from farming and cultivating on their rice paddies and confiscated their harvest.

The farmer said her family has been cultivating and farming rice on their plots of land since 1992 without interference from the Vietnamese.

"Nowadays, I worry that perhaps I cannot get my land back, because the border line already cut off my land," one farmer told RFA.

'I lost my land left from my ancestors'

Another said that the family had been farming the same land for generations.

"I lost my land left from my ancestors," said that farmer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "This place is my rice paddy."

On January 8, more than 30 Cambodian youth border activists accompanied by local residents visited the border between markers 147 and 148, located near Svay Rieng province's Thnar Thnung commune.

There, at least 10 Cambodian families said they lost rice paddies ranging in size from 2 to 7 hectares to Vietnam.

Both the residents and border activists said that existing maps of the area show that Cambodian territory bulged into Vietnam, but the border demarcated bilaterally by Cambodia and Vietnam runs in a straight line.

Cambodian landowners told RFA they have seen Vietnamese authorities stop Cambodian residents from farming, prompting officials from both sides into talks.

After the negotiations, Vietnamese authorities asked the farmers to suspend their cultivation until after the Cambodian national elections in 2018.

Var Kim Hong, who heads Cambodia's border affairs committee, told RFA that residents are allowed to cultivate cross-border plots of land according to their past practices.

"I have yet to receive any news regarding this issue from the Svay Reang working group," he said.

Border politics

Kim Sok, a social development and political observer active on border issues, told RFA that Vietnam often makes small border incursions.

"They placed border markers, dug ponds, constructed buildings inside Cambodia," he said. "And there was no strong reaction, so they grabbed the land and banned Cambodian residents from cultivating on their own plots."

The border issue has been a potent political issue for both Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party as the CNRP has criticized Prime Minister Hun Sen for allegedly giving territory to Vietnam, and Hun Sen has retaliated by jailing politicians who have attacked him on the issue.

Vietnam and Cambodia have had a fraught relationship for centuries, but the animosity with Hun Sen dates from the 1979-89 Vietnamese occupation that ended the murderous rule of the Khmer Rouge.

Hun Sen was appointed prime minister during that period when Hanoi had control over Cambodia.

As Cambodian foreign minister and then prime minister, Hun Sen played an important role in the 1991 Paris Peace Talks that brokered peace among Cambodia's warring factions.

The border dispute has also vexed Vietnam as the two countries have been working to complete demarcation of the border for more than two decades.

In November, however, Hun Sen and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc agreed ask the government of France, the former colonial ruler of Cambodia and Vietnam, for assistance in finally settling the long-festering dispute.

Reported by Savi Khorn and Chhin Uon for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Interview: North Koreans 'have a lot of serious risk assessments' with Trump

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 9 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Interview: North Koreans 'have a lot of serious risk assessments' with Trump, 9 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5813.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-09

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un delivering the new year message in Pyongyang, in photo released by North Korean news agency Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Jan. 1, 2017. AFP

In his New Year speech North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shocked the world by threatening to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), declaring that it's in the final stages of ICBM launch. At the same time he reaffirmed his determination to beef up North Korea's nuclear capabilities in a clear defiance of the continuing tough UN sanctions for its several nuclear tests. Some Korea analysts regard Kim's ICBM threat as his intent to force Washington to negotiate on Pyongyang's terms. Changsop Pyon of RFA's Korean Service asked diplomat-turned-scholar David Straub about the implications of Kim Jong Un's calculated statement on the possible ICBM launch and US-DPRK relations this year. Former chief of Korea Desk at the State Department 2002-2004, Mr. Straub served as associate director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center of Stanford University until recently after retiring as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 2006.

RFA: In his New Year speech, Kim Jong Un didn't specify anything about US-DPRK relations this year, with the new Trump administration set to start on Jan. 20. Do you think he wants to wait until the Trump administration comes up with its NK policy review or he will continue to do what he has done before, namely test another nuclear device or long-range missile to challenge the Trump administration?

We can only make educated guesses about North Korea's tactical moves, such as the timing of nuclear and missile tests. We don't have reliable, real-time intelligence about North Korean leaders' intentions. I believe that North Korean leaders tested a nuclear device  their second  in 2009 soon after President Obama was inaugurated because they observed that President Bush softened his policy toward them in 2006 after their first nuclear test. The North Koreans apparently thought that President Obama's reaction to a second nuclear test would be similar, that is, that he would become more willing to negotiate on North Korea's terms. In fact, the opposite happened. The second test convinced the Obama administration that North Korea's leaders were not prepared to negotiate about ending their nuclear weapons program. The Obama administration's reaction probably surprised the North Koreans. So what do the North Koreans think President Trump's reaction would be to a new nuclear test? We just don't know. And since President Trump himself probably doesn't know how he would respond, I think that the North Koreans have a lot of serious risk assessments to do before they decide how to proceed. This new and increased uncertainty coming from the White House should make them hesitant about testing again. But whether they will or won't test soon after Mr. Trump becomes president  we just don't know.

RFA: In the speech Kim Jong Un mentioned that North Korea was in the final stages of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch, sparking off negative reactions around the world. Do you believe he made that remark with the new Trump administration in mind? If so, what kind of message was he trying to convey?

Kim Jong Un undoubtedly made his remark about being close to test launching an ICBM with the Trump administration in mind, although he almost certainly also had other aims, such as making himself appear strong and decisive to his domestic audience. His remark was consistent with the now decade-long record of North Korea's leaders clearly signaling their intent to become an internationally accepted nuclear weapons state. I believe that the North Koreans want to use a credible threat of being able to nuke the United States to force Washington to negotiate on their terms. Those terms include the United States' accepting them as a nuclear weapons state, lifting sanctions, and ending the United States' alliance with South Korea. North Korea's strategic goal of making the United States itself feel threatened is why the North Koreans announce in advance their nuclear and missile intentions and even exaggerate their capabilities. As they proceeded along this path, especially for the past decade, the United States did not use force to try to stop them, so now the North Koreans seem to believe that the United States never will. In other words, the North Koreans may no longer fear the United States and therefore Kim feels free to make such statements publicly.

RFA: As you know, the US and S. Korea conduct their annual joint military exercises in March. Don't you think Kim Jong Un might use the joint military exercises as a pretext to justify military provocations like another nuclear or missile test?

Yes, I think that's quite possible. The North Koreans aim to be accepted internationally as a legitimate nuclear weapons state. One of the ways they seek to do that is by portraying themselves as a victim of American nuclear and other threats. They say that they must have nuclear weapons to defend themselves, even though it has consistently been their side attacking ours militarily, and not the other way around, from the Korean War in 1950 to as recently their artillery shelling of a South Korean island in 2010. Thus, their propaganda always portrays the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises as a prelude to war. They demand an end to those defensive exercises, but they don't mention their own annual military exercises. The North Koreans' long-term effort to demonize the U.S.-South Korean military exercises is consistent with their grand strategic aim of undermining and eventually bringing about an end to the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

RFA: If Kim Jong Un goes ahead with an ICBM test, how would the Trump administration react? Is there any possibility for the Trump administration to take military action, in addition to additional economic sanctions?

No one, including probably President-elect Trump himself, knows how he would react to a North Korean ICBM test. But in response to Kim Jung Un's announcement that his country is in the last stage of preparations for an ICBM launch, President-elect Trump tweeted, "It won't happen." I don't think that a Tweet like that is enough to frighten the North Koreans into not conducting further tests. And if they do so after he is inaugurated  and testing is something that sooner or later the North Koreans are virtually certain to do  President Trump has put himself under great pressure to respond very forcefully. Already, even before his inauguration, he has alienated China, so it will be difficult for President Trump to get China to cooperate with him on a very strong response. That may mean that President Trump will feel he must rely on the U.S. military. In that case, would he order the military to intercept a North Korean missile? Or would Mr. Trump order a preemptive strike against a North Korean missile on the launch pad? Would North Korea respond with attacks against South Korea? Right now probably no one, including North Korea and President-elect Trump, knows the answers to such questions.

RFA: In the speech Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his determination to strengthen North Korea's nuclear capabilities. Given Kim's intransigent attitude, what do you think about the fate of the troubled 6-Party talks and the denuclearization efforts by US and its allies?

There have been no Six Party Talks since 2008 at the end of the Bush administration. From the U.S. perspective, the Six Party Talks were all about reaching a negotiated end to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. When North Korean leaders' words and deeds made it clear to the Obama administration that they were not willing even to consider giving up nuclear weapons, the Obama administration declined to return to Six Party Talks. The Obama administration did try bilateral negotiations with the North Koreans and reached a nuclear and missile test freeze agreement in early 2012, the so-called Leap Day deal, but the North Koreans spectacularly violated it almost immediately by conducting a rocket launch. We'll have to wait and see what kind of North Korea policy the Trump administration develops, but it's hard to believe that the United States will ever agree to negotiate with North Korea on Pyongyang's terms  that is, accepting North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and gutting the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

RFA: Former high-ranking NK diplomat Thae Yong Ho told the S. Korean press recently that Kim Jong Un would never give up North Korea's nuclear programs even if he were rewarded with ten trillion Korean won (US $8.31 billion). What do you think is the best way to tackle NK's nuclear issue?

The international community must never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. That would be the beginning of the end of the global nonproliferation regime. On the other hand, I don't believe that the United States should attack North Korea preemptively, because I don't believe that North Korean leaders are crazy enough to attack the United States with nuclear weapons. Instead, the Trump administration should put North Korea at the top of its agenda, bolster defenses against it, and massively strengthen sanctions pressures, including through tighter sanctions implementation. As a careful reading of Kim Jung Un's New Year's speech indicates, Kim Jong Un is under great psychological pressure to make the nuclear threat succeed in getting the United States to negotiate on his terms. Otherwise, the economic chasm between North and South will just keep growing, as Mr. Thae noted in his press conference, and that is a strategic disaster for Kim Jong Un. The Trump administration must make Kim finally realize that his nuclear threats will never work and that, indeed, they will only make his situation more difficult.

Reported by Changsop Pyon for RFA's Korean Service.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Monday turns black again in Cambodia as protests restart

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 9 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Monday turns black again in Cambodia as protests restart, 9 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5913.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-09

Black Monday protestors restart their demonstrations after the government fails to release imprisoned activists and an election commission official, Jan. 9, 2017. RFA/Rann Samnang

Cambodia's "Black Monday" protest campaign restarted this week after it was put on hold for two weeks as it appeared the government was preparing to release jailed activists and an election commission official.

When the release of the "Kem Sokha Five" and land-rights activist Tep Vanny failed to materialize, Black Monday organizers resumed their protests on Jan. 9.

Activists wearing black have demonstrated for 36 Mondays in an effort to win the release of four human rights workers and an election official who were jailed on charges widely seen as attempts to muzzle the political opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, all workers for ADHOC (the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association), and National Election Commission (NEC) deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya were arrested in April.

They are accused of attempting to pay hush money to opposition leader Kem Sokha's purported mistress in the government's wide-ranging probe into the alleged affair.

Kem Sokha received a royal pardon in December at the request of Prime Minister Hun Sen for charged related to the government investigation. His pardon and that of a local Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) official raised hope that the others would go free.

That hope appeared to be dashed, however, when negotiations broke down after Kem Sokha refused to make a statement endorsed by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) denouncing anyone who made derogatory statements related to the paternity of Hun Sen's eldest son, sources have told RFA.

In addition, the Black Monday protestors hoped to free Tep Vanny, who was convicted on Sept. 19 of insulting and obstructing public officials and was sentenced to six months in prison in relation to a protest in November 2011 near Hun Sen's residence.

Tep Vanny gained prominence as an activist fighting the Boeung Kak lake land grab, when some 3,500 families were evicted from the neighborhood surrounding the urban lake in Phnom Penh.

Her attorney was absent from the courtroom in what some human rights organizations called an abuse of her right to a fair trial.

The lake was filled with sand to make way for a development project with close ties to Hun Sen and the CPP.

Seizure of land for development  often without due process or fair compensation for displaced residents  is a major cause of protests in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Laos.

Hun Sen and other officials have condemned the protests as a "color revolution."

Over the years, Hun Sen has repeatedly inveighed against "color revolutions," named after a series of popular movements that used passive resistance to topple governments in countries of the former Soviet Union during the 2000s.

Reported by Samnang Rann for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Support for Kalachakra spreads among Tibetans living in China

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 9 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Support for Kalachakra spreads among Tibetans living in China, 9 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5a13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-09

The Dalai Lama gives teachings ahead of the Kalachakra Empowerment, Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 7, 2017. RFA

Religious observances and prayers held to coincide with a major Buddhist gathering in India are spreading in Tibetan areas of China in open defiance of authorities' warnings not to take part, sources in the region say.

Chinese authorities have called the Kalachakra teachings being led this month by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama "illegal" and have threatened punishment for Tibetans spreading news of the event or organizing local ceremonies in support.

Residents of at least one Tibetan-populated county in Sichuan have been gathering in small groups to pray and to listen to the Dalai Lama's teachings on the internet, though, a local source told RFA's Tibetan Service.

"Tibetans living near Gyarong Trochu Thukje Chenpo, a sacred place in Barkham [in Chinese, Ma'erkang], have been participating in large-scale meritorious activities, including saving animals' lives, during the period of the Kalachakra teachings," RFA's source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"They have also shared videos of the Dalai Lama's teachings over social media, translating them from the [Dalai Lama's] Central Tibetan dialect to the local dialect so that people can understand," the source said.

"Several hundred elders have also gathered to recite mantras and say other prayers," he said.

Activities supporting the Kalachakra are also under way in Tibetan-populated counties in neighboring Qinghai, with residents defying official warnings by fasting, praying privately in their homes, and freeing animals destined for slaughter, Tibetan sources told RFA this week.

Monasteries warned

With preliminary teachings already under way in Bodh Gaya, India, Chinese officials and police went on Jan. 3 to Tibetan monasteries in Gansu province's Machu (Maqu) county to warn the monasteries' management committees against involvement in related events, another source told RFA.

"They also said that monastery managers should monitor the behavior of the monks, warning them that they would be held responsible for any breaches of proper conduct."

Machu residents who had been detained following region-wide Tibetan protests in 2008, and who were later released to their homes, were also directed to report to county authorities between Nov. 1, 2016, and Jan. 1, 2017, RFA's source said, also speaking on condition he not be named.

"When they arrived, officials warned them against viewing photos or videos of the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra teachings in India," the source said. "Officials also warned them not to induce others to listen to the teachings or share them through social media."

"They were told that anyone caught doing these things would be detained and face severe punishment," he said.

Families threatened

Kalachakra, which means Wheel of Time, is a ritual that prepares devotees to be reborn in Shambhala, a celestial kingdom which, it is said, will vanquish the forces of evil in a future cosmic battle.

The ceremony and teachings are often conducted outside Tibet by the Dalai Lama, who is widely reviled by Chinese leaders as a "splittist" seeking to separate Tibet, which was invaded by Communist China in 1950, from Beijing's control.

In a bid to reduce attendance at this year's ceremony, Chinese officials moved beginning in November to confiscate the passports of Tibetans authorized to travel abroad, at the same time ordering Tibetans already present in India and Nepal to return home.

Many had been told their families would be harmed if they failed to go back, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Group to probe China's human rights violations under U.S. law

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 10 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Group to probe China's human rights violations under U.S. law, 10 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5b13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-10

Chinese human rights activists Teng Biao (L) and Chen Guangcheng are shown at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, March 2015. RFA

Chinese rights activists on Tuesday launched a new group that will collect data on officials who violate human rights, under a recently expanded law targeting corruption and human rights abuse globally.

The China Human Rights Accountability Center will collect data on human rights violators and corrupt officials, putting pressure on the incoming administration of Donald Trump to bring the Magnitsky Act to bear on Beijing, its founders told RFA.

"China is a violator of human rights, so you can't expect it to take positive steps of its own accord," U.S.-based Chinese dissident and legal scholar Chen Guangcheng told RFA.

"As people who have been on the receiving end of human rights violations in China, we believe that we should join hands to ensure that this law is able to have the maximum impact," said Chen, who was jailed and held alongside his family under house arrest for 19 months before making a daring escape in spite of his blindness to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2012.

"That's why we have set up this organization."

According to Chen, the group's most important task will be gathering usable evidence to bring to bear in charging Chinese officials under the law.

Fellow U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said the Magnitsky legislation, which originally targeted the Russian officials responsible for the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009, was the best chance activists have of actually holding human rights abusers to account.

"It is the most likely method to yield visible results," Teng said. "This law is unlike other laws in that there is no government agency or officials responsible for implementing it."

"It is directly implemented by the U.S. president, but of course he can't keep track of human rights violations around the world," Teng said.

"There is a need for nongovernment groups to supply that information ... We want to help the U.S. government use this law to help the victims of human rights violations in China," he said.

A double game

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia, the only founding member who still lives in mainland China, said that while Beijing has frequently hit out at "foreign forces" interfering in its internal affairs on human rights issues, its own officials are playing a double game.

"On the one hand, Chinese official always reject the United States' interference in the internal affairs of other countries, saying that there are also many institutional flaws in the United States," Hu said.

"But it's also their first choice of destination, especially among 'naked' officials who send their families overseas," he said.

He said the Magnitsky Act was "second to none" as a tool to hold foreign officials to account.

But Hu said his involvement with the group could bring him further political trouble from the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

"But what's the use of worrying?" Hu said. "Why bind my own hands?"

He said he was optimistic about the new group.

"From a broader perspective, this may be a relatively small step, but realistically speaking, in 2017, this is ground-breaking and important work," Hu said.

Visas banned, assets blocked

The Magnitsky Act was passed by Congress last month as part of an annual defense-authorization bill.

Named for Sergei Magnitsky, a tax lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management who died in custody at the hands of Russian authorities after exposing a tax refund fraud scheme, the latest law is an expanded version of the original act.

The new version authorizes visa bans and a block on the U.S. assets of government officials anywhere in the world found violating human rights or of engaging in corruption.

Senators Ben Cardin and John McCain, who championed the act, hailed its passage as "a watershed moment" in human rights and anti-corruption work.

Reported by Ding Wenqi for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Killings of 5 Myanmar workers part of feud among countrymen: Malaysian official

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 10 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Killings of 5 Myanmar workers part of feud among countrymen: Malaysian official, 10 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5c13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-10

A Myanmar migrant worker ties a rope to a crate at a market in the town of Bukit Mertajam in Penang, Malaysia, Dec. 17, 2016. AFP

The machete-killings of five Myanmar workers in a Kuala Lumpur suburb last week stemmed from an old dispute with fellow countrymen who came from the same village in Myanmar, the police chief of Selangor state told local media Tuesday.

An investigation has ruled out that Malaysians were involved in the killings, or these were religiously motivated or done in retaliation for the alleged mistreatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state during a military crackdown in the predominantly Buddhist country, Selangor Police Chief Abdul Samah Mat said.

The killings were an act of revenge between Myanmar nationals from the same village whose feuding had escalated on Malaysian soil, he added without naming the village.

The five workers were hacked to death and two other Myanmar nationals were hospitalized with injuries following an assault at around 10 p.m. Thursday on 13 workers from Myanmar, as they were returning together from an overtime shift at a TV hardware factory in Bukit Serdang, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur in Selangor, according to news reports.

Local authorities have detained at least seven people in connection with Thursday's killings, state-run Malaysian news agency Bernama reported. Four of the victims died at the scene while the fifth died in a hospital, reports said.

"We are still investigating. There was no evidence to show that it was connected to the crisis at Rakhine State or religion related," the police chief told reporters.

"At the moment we only establish that it was a result of a fight and we are still investigating the cause of it," he said.

Safety of Myanmar workers questioned

The police chief of Selangor also said his department would give Myanmar migrants the same level of protection given to Malaysian citizens.

Last year, at least seven Myanmar nationals working in Malaysia were killed in grisly slayings, according to a report in the Myanmar Times and two dozen more were killed in other incidents in 2013 and 2014.

"We give them the same attention as we give our people when it comes to safety and security," Abdul said.

Nonetheless, thousands of workers returned to Myanmar from Malaysia in 2014 after roughly 25 were killed between June 2013 and September 2014 in what some observers told Malaysian media at the time might have been linked to communal violence in Rakhine, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said in a Dec. 7, 2016, report.

"I feel so sorry for our migrants. Our Myanmar workers are always being attacked. They have no protection," San Win, chairman of the Kathpone Free Funeral Service Society in Kuala Lumpur, which provides free funerals for impoverished people from Myanmar, told the Myanmar Times.

On Monday, Myanmar's government said it had sent out a safety advisory to its workers in Malaysia following last week's killings, according to Reuters.

Bilateral tensions

Tensions between Myanmar and Malaysia have risen in recent weeks, amid criticism by Malaysian officials of Myanmar's handling of violence in Rakhine state.

Muslim-majority Malaysia criticized Myanmar and its powerful military for alleged violent acts against Rohingya during a crackdown in northern Rakhine following deadly attacks on border guard stations in the region in early October.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak had said that Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya amounted to "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing," prompting Myanmar to hit back at Malaysia for meddling in its affairs.

The violence in Rakhine has caused an exodus of Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh. On Monday, the United Nations announced that 65,000 Rohingya had crossed over since early October, with as many as 22,000 making it to the Bangladeshi side within the past week, Agence France-Presse reported.

Nearly one-half million workers

There are more than 400,000 Myanmar migrant workers in Malaysia, around 100,000 of whom are illegal workers, according to Myanmar's embassy in Kuala Lumpur, though some estimate the number of undocumented Myanmar workers in the country at about 500,000, the report said.

Many working in the country illegally often work long hours in dangerous conditions with few means of getting better conditions or pay, it said.

Last July, the Myanmar embassy in Malaysia created a protection task force for migrant workers made up of representatives from roughly 50 civil society organizations based in the country, including the Kathpone Free Funeral Service Society, the Myanmar Times reported.

In December, the Myanmar government last December stopped sending workers to Malaysia because of safety concerns amid growing tension between the two nations over the conflict in Rakhine state.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar authorities prevent UN rights envoy from visiting volatile areas of Kachin state

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 10 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar authorities prevent UN rights envoy from visiting volatile areas of Kachin state, 10 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5d10.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-10

Yanghee Lee (R), the United Nations human rights envoy to Myanmar, talks to refugees in northern Myanmar's Kachin state, Jan. 10, 2017. RFA

Myanmar authorities on Tuesday prohibited the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights to the country from visiting the towns of Laiza and Hpakant in violence-rocked Kachin state because of security concerns, a state government official said.

Instead, Yanghee Lee, who is visiting Myanmar to look at the human rights situation in volatile areas of the country, stopped at internally displaced persons camps run by the Kachin Baptist Convention near the towns of Myitkyina and Waingmaw, said Kachin state attorney general D. Sinran.

Lee met members of the Kachin state government members on Monday and discussed women's rights and people who have been internally displaced by fighting between Myanmar soldiers and ethnic armed groups in the mountainous state on Myanmar's border with China.

When asked by RFA's Myanmar Service about authorities' refusal to grant her permission to visit the two areas and any conclusions she had drawn from where she did go, Lee said: "I'm disappointed. I'm not sure yet. I have to look around more."

On Wednesday, Lee will visit Rakhine state to probe reports of atrocities against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar security forces amid a crackdown in the northern part of the state following deadly attacks on border guard posts last October.

Nearly 90 people have been killed in the violence, which has forced tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh  about 65,000 according to the U.N.'s estimate.

Lee began her 12-day visit at the invitation of the government on Monday to visit northern Myanmar's Kachin state, where thousands of people have been displaced by renewed fighting in a long conflict between government soldiers and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and to look into the situation in northern Rakhine.

U.N officials, including Lee, have been critical of the government's handling of the Rakhine crisis, specifically the denial of access by independent media and international humanitarian groups to areas affected by the violence.

'We don't want to hear the word war'

Bran Aung, a refugee camp leader in Winemaw, a township in Myitkyina district, said Lee asked about the camp's situation and how long the female residents have lived there.

"I told her that the refugees are in more danger than we were before because we have less support and not enough school buildings for refugee students," he said.

"The most important thing for us is to return home. If we do, we can work on our land for survival. We don't know how much authorities can do for us."

Bran Aung said that only talks and compromise can bring peace to the region.

"We don't want to hear the word 'war' anymore," he said. "We want to ask both sides, the government army and the KIA, to please stop fighting."

Fighting in Shan state

Lee will also look into how intensifying skirmishes between government soldiers and ethnic militias have affected citizens in the volatile northern part of Shan state, directly south of Kachin.

Government troops are preparing to fight Ta'ang National Liberation Army rebels in hostilities near the town of Namhsan, said Tun Wa, a Namhsan resident and member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The TNLA has occupied the west side of the town, while Myanmar army troop have held the east side, he said.

"They are not fighting yet," he said. "Some local residents are leaving their homes, and some are hiding inside their homes because they see both sides have deployed their troops. All shops are closed."

Later reports said that the situation in Namhsan has become stable after TNLA troops started leaving the area.

The TNLA is part of the Northern Alliance of four ethnic militias that launched coordinated attacks on Nov. 20 on 10 government and military targets in war-torn northern Shan state.

The other members of the alliance are the KIA, Arakan Army (AA), and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

The TNLA has also been fighting another ethnic armed group  the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA)  in the region since late November 2015, about six weeks after the signing of a nationwide cease-fire agreement (NCA) between the government and eight of the country's more than 20 ethnic armed groups.

The clashes have resulted in an increase in the number of internal refugees and civilian deaths and have stymied the efforts of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to bring warring ethnic militias to the negotiating table.

The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 people have been displaced by fighting between government soldiers and ethnic armed groups in Kachin and the northern part of neighboring Shan state.

Reported by Kyaw Myo Min and Waiyan Moe Myint for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar diplomats to begin talks with Bangladesh over Rohingya refugees

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 10 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar diplomats to begin talks with Bangladesh over Rohingya refugees, 10 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5e11.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-10

A Rohingya woman combs her daughter's hair at Leda refugee camp outside the border town of Teknaf, Bangladesh, Dec. 8, 2016. Nur Photo

A special diplomatic team from Myanmar will begin talks with their counterparts in Bangladesh on Wednesday in a bid to reduce growing tensions with the neighboring country over the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled there from Myanmar following violence that began in northern Rakhine state in early October.

Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Kyaw Tin will lead the team which will return from Dhaka to Myanmar on Friday, said foreign affairs ministry spokeswoman Aye Aye Soe.

"The deputy minister and the group will be there from Jan. 10-13 to discuss the two countries' relations and internally displaced persons," she said.

"They will also discuss Myanmar citizens who have been living in Bangladesh for several years and how both countries will work together on this issue in the future," she said.

A previous trip slated for last December was postponed for security reasons.

Bangladesh's foreign affairs ministry has complained several times to Myanmar about the influx of Rohingya Muslims  now estimated to be 65,000 by the United Nations  who fled a crackdown by security forces in northern Rakhine following deadly attacks on Myanmar border guard stations on Oct. 9, and sought refuge in Bangladesh.

Some members of the stateless minority group have accused Myanmar security forces of arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and arson during the security operation, though both the government and army have denied the charges.

Independent media and observers have largely been kept out of the conflict zone.

On Dec. 30, the Myanmar government said it will take back 2,415 of its citizens living in Bangladesh  a small number of the 300,000 people who Bangladesh says are Myanmar citizens who have taken refuge there over the course of recent conflicts and should return home, Reuters reported.

Bangladesh has refused to grant the Rohingya refugee status because it considers them citizens of Myanmar, while Myanmar considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and has denied then citizenship and access to basic services for decades.

Reported by Thiri Min Zin for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodia's land compensation issues persist

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 11 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodia's land compensation issues persist, 11 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca5fc.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-11

Protestors seeking to resolve land-disputes demonstrate in front of the Banteay Meanchey provincial hall, Jan. 11, 2017. RFA

About 70 people from three different communities in Cambodia staged a demonstration in front of Banteay Meanchey provincial hall on Wednesday in an effort to prod the government into action over unsettled land claims.

Residents from the Thma Puok and Ou Chrov districts along with the Poipet Railroad community told RFA's Khmer Service that local officials have ignored their repeated pleas for compensation for a railway being built in their village.

A representative from Poipet railroad land community in Poipet city's Phsar Kandal commune, Vorn Voan told RFA's Khmer Service that they have asked municipal authorities 37 times to provide them with settlements, but all they have gotten is a government runaround.

Provincial authorities have told community representatives they can only launch a new inspection of the places where the protestors are living and compile a report for the ministries to evaluate later.

"Residents are facing difficulties," Vorn Voan said. "If they are still living on the side of the railroad, when they go out for work, they leave their kids alone."

He added: "They already face such difficulties now when the train is not yet in operation. What will happen when the train is in operation and railroad is completed?"

The railroad linking Phnom Penh with Poipet city on the Thai-Cambodian border is expected to begin operations soon, but residents say they have not been compensated for the noise and danger caused by the construction.

An uneven application

Sum Chankea, the province's coordinating officer for the human rights group ADHOC, described the settlements in the area as uneven.

"In some places, they have completely settled the case, but the land has not yet been redistributed to residents," he said.

During a press conference on Jan. 4, Environment Minister Say Sam Al told reporters that the government had "already cleaned up the issues" related to economic land concessions, but the demonstrations indicate that the problems have yet to be solved.

Economic land concessions (ELCs) have been at the heart of land disputes between the government and its citizens as residents are often forced off their land so that it can be exploited.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's government has issued concessions to more than 2.1 million hectares of Cambodian land to investors, including major Chinese and Vietnamese companies and local firms with ties to the governing Cambodian People's Party (C.P.P.), according to a 2015 report by the human rights group LICADHO.

While Hun Sen's government has been responsible for issuing the land concessions, he has taken some steps to disarm a potent political issue.

In February 2016, Hun Sen announced that the government was taking back about 1 million hectares from investment companies that had been granted the concessions.

At the time he said the land would be doled out to the poor, and the government also reduced the duration of economic land concession investments from 90 years to only 50 years. At the time Hun Sen said the land taken back would be doled out to the poor, but information on the plans has been scarce.

Reported by Hour Hum for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Calgary, Apr 20 (IBNS): The pilot project initiated by the provincial government in Alberta to encourage employers to hire Albertans on a priority basis has garnered much praise from the local populace, reports said.

Under the existing federal-provincial regulations there are 29 restricted occupations where hiring of temporary foreign workers are strictly prohibited.

The list, among others, includes engineering managers, contractors, machinists, plumbers, carpenters and oil-and-gas drillers, a report in Calgary Metro News read.

The government now had been emphasizing the need of hiring local jobseekers by the companies as that would help reducing rate of unemployment and at the same time would increase purchasing power of the working class.

Currently, Alberta's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 8.4 percent.

Until Dec 2016, the province had the third highest number of Employee Insurance recipients in Canada, which was 55 percent more than the corresponding period the year before.



(Reporting by Chandan Som)
Cambodia's political prisoners urge the opposition to stay strong

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 11 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodia's political prisoners urge the opposition to stay strong, 11 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca60a.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-11

CNRP Member of Parliament Mao Monivann outside of Pre Sar prison, Jan. 11, 2017. RFA

More than a dozen political prisoners held in Cambodia's notorious Prey Sar prison urged the opposition party to put the national interest before their personal freedom, a Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) lawmaker told reporters on Wednesday.

"I respect their great devotion and patriotism as always they have never thought about their own personal happiness," CNRP Member of Parliament Mao Monivann said after a visit with the 17 opposition politicians and activists held at the prison.

"They think about the national interest first," he added. "Such patriotism is the hope for all Khmer citizens."

The meeting comes as opposition lawmakers and members of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) are expected to meet sometime after Jan. 11 to discuss a wide range of issues, including the incarceration of the political prisoners.

While Interior Minister Sar Kheng, who also serves as deputy prime minister and majority leader of the ruling party in the National Assembly, has promised to convene the meeting, there are questions about his seriousness to enter into discussions.

Hopes that at least some of the prisoners would be released were raised when CNRP leader Kem Sokha and a local Cambodia National Rescue Party official Seang Chet were granted royal pardons in the government's case against the CNRP leader.

Those hopes may have faded after evidence surfaced that the CPP was attempting to use some of the prisoners as bargaining chips in the ruling party's attempts to divide the opposition.

After a one-hour trial on Sept. 9, Kem Sokha was sentenced to five months in prison and an 800,000- riel (U.S. $200) fine for failing to appear in one of the cases related to the government's wide-ranging probe into his alleged affair with a young hairdresser.

Seang Chet was sentenced to five years in prison on Dec. 5 for giving $500 to the mother of the hairdresser Khom Chandaraty, in what the government said was an attempt to keep the woman quiet about her alleged affair with Kem Sokha.

Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, all workers for ADHOC (the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association) and National Election Commission (NEC) deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya have been imprisoned since April.

They are also accused of attempting to pay hush money to Kem Sokha's purported mistress in the government's wide-ranging probe into the alleged affair that many inside and outside of Cambodia see as politically motivated.

While Sar Kheng told reporters on Dec. 7 that he expected the five to be freed in late 2016 or early 2017, but recently he dismissed questions about their release, saying it was under the purview of the courts.

"We still have plans for the talks, but we don't know when yet since we have a lot of works to do early this year," he told RFA on Jan 2.

Reported by Moniroth Morm for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Human rights in Hong Kong at lowest point since 1997 handover: Amnesty

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 11 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Human rights in Hong Kong at lowest point since 1997 handover: Amnesty, 11 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca63a.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-11

Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law shows photos of his bruises following an attack by pro-Beijing protesters, Jan. 9, 2017. RFA

Human rights in Hong Kong deteriorated to their lowest point ever last year, according to an annual report by Amnesty International.

Authorities in the former British colony "failed on many fronts" to protect the city's traditional rights and freedoms, which are now at their lowest ebb since the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, the report said.

Citing a lack of official engagement with the disappearances of five Hong Kong booksellers detained by Chinese police for selling controversial political books to customers across the internal immigration border in mainland China, the report said there are now doubts over whether the physical safety of Hong Kong people is sufficiently guaranteed.

The report came after two former student leaders of the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong, were attacked during and on their return from a trip to Taiwan.

Law, now Hong Kong's youngest lawmaker, said he was jostled on Sunday night by protesters at the city's international airport on his return from a speaking tour to visit pro-democracy activists in Taiwan.

Two people were arrested after anti-independence protesters threw liquid in his face and tried to attack Law, 23, who was shown stumbling down a staircase in video footage of the melee, as protesters shouted "Traitor!" and "Fall down and die!"

The alleged attackers, aged 53 and 71, were arrested on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and unlawful assembly, local media reported.

Earlier, Wong and Law, whose Demosisto party embraces the idea of self-determination for Hong Kong, were met by some 200 protesters in Taiwan, some of whom tried to throw punches at Wong.

Police in Taiwan said on Wednesday they have arrested eight people with suspected triad connections over the attempted attack, which came ahead of a political forum organized by the pro-independence New Power Party, at which the pair were speaking.

Repeated warnings

The attacks came after repeated warnings by Chinese officials that talk of independence for Hong Kong won't be tolerated, although it only emerged after widespread calls for fully democratic elections were ignored by Beijing.

Law denied that Demosisto is a pro-independence party, however.

"We are clearly not advocating independence for Hong Kong; I don't think that any of our three elected politicians are," he said following the attack on Sunday.

"But I don't think that I, as an elected representative, should be subjected to physical attacks, whatever my political views," Law said. "They couldn't even guarantee the safety of a lawmaker."

Meanwhile, Amnesty also cited an interpretation by Beijing of Hong Kong's constitution last October, which prompted the disqualification of two pro-independence lawmakers as calling into question Beijing's promises that the city would maintain a "high degree of autonomy."

"The Hong Kong government and civil servants should make defending the rights of Hong Kong people their first priority," the report said.

Spokeswoman Raees Baig told reporters that violence against journalists and diminishing freedom of expression are "escalating."

"We see this year that there are escalating cases of violence against reporters, and a very ... confined space [for] press freedom, or freedom of expression," Baig said.

"So these are actually escalating problems ... Is it the worst year [to date]? I guess we can generally say yes," she said.

No meeting with Trump

The reports come as Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen starts a visit to the Americas this week, after Beijing protested her unofficial trip to Washington. Tsai won't be meeting with president-elect Donald Trump, however.

While the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, it regards the democratic island as a province awaiting reunification, and has threatened to invade if its government seeks formal statehood.

Beijing's diplomatic partners are required to cut ties with the government in Taiwan, which was taken over by the Kuomintang nationalist government after World War II, ending 50 years of Japanese rule there.

Repeated polls have shown that many of Taiwan's 23 million residents identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and that there is broad political support for de facto self-rule, if not formal independence.

President Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) swept to power earlier this year amid fears of growing Chinese influence over Taiwan under her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou.

The party has a staunchly pro-independence wing.

Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Hwang Chun-mei for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodian king reduces a former court official's sentence

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodian king reduces a former court official's sentence, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca640.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-12

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni delivers a speech during the opening day of the World Climate Change Conference 2015, Nov. 30, 2015 AFP

A former president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court who was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges is expected to be released six months early after the king reduced his sentence.

Ang Maltey was arrested on Aug. 16, 2015 for making personal use of an Audi sport utility vehicle confiscated from a convicted drug dealer.

The Kandal Provincial Court on February 12, 2016 sentenced him to three years in prison with one year suspended. While he was supposed to serve until August 2017, he will be freed from jail next month.

Ang Maltey's name is on a list of 45 prisoners who will receive reduced sentences according to a royal decree issued by Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni.

Justice ministry spokesperson Chin Malin told RFA's Khmer Service that the sentence reductions meet official requirements that include good behavior in prison and that the prisoners have served two-thirds of their sentence.

While the prisoners may have met the criteria, their release was criticized by civil society organizations that say it is another example of Cambodia's judicial double standard.

"For those who are former activists of the ruling CPP, they settle and reduce their sentences by interpreting the law differently," said Sum Chan Kea, a spokesman for the human rights group ADHOC.

"For others who are not their supporters or hold different views, they use the same article of the law but with a different interpretation so that those people serve a more severe sentence," he added.

As an example, Sum Chan Kea raised the continuing imprisonment of four ADHOC workers and an election official, who the authorities arrested in the government's wide-ranging probe into an alleged affair by opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party leader Kem Sokha.

Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, all workers for ADHOC (the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association) and National Election Commission (NEC) deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya have been imprisoned since April.

They are also accused of attempting to pay hush money to Kem Sokha's purported mistress in the government's wide-ranging probe into the alleged affair that many inside and outside of Cambodia see as politically motivated.

Chin Malin denied the existence of a double standard.

"We don't count whether they are politicians, non-politicians, human rights activists or any other activists," he said. "The criteria must be met for all."

After a one-hour trial on Sept. 9, Kem Sokha was sentenced to five months in prison and an 800,000- riel (U.S. $200) fine for failing to appear in one of the cases related to the government's wide-ranging probe into his alleged affair with a young hairdresser.

Kem Sokha and a local Cambodia National Rescue Party official, Seang Chet, were granted royal pardons in the government's case against the CNRP leader, but the others involved in the case remain in jail.

Their case was expected to be considered during a meeting between leaders of the two parties, but the issue remains in limbo.

CNRP lawmaker Eng Chhay Eang told RFA that the meeting will cover a pair of topics: environmental protection and environment prior to election and suffrage for the nearly 1 million Cambodian migrants who work overseas.

"We will use the two topics for the talks with the CPP to find any method or procedure to facilitate overseas Cambodian migrant workers so that they are able to vote in the 2018 general elections."

Reported by Maly Leng and Zakariya Tin for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Hong Kong's Carrie Lam resigns ahead of bid for city's top job

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Hong Kong's Carrie Lam resigns ahead of bid for city's top job, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6414.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-12

Hong Kong chief secretary Carrie Lam holds a press conference in Hong Kong, Oct. 9, 2014. RFA

Hong Kong second-in-command Carrie Lam resigned on Thursday, signaling her intention to run for the city's top job in elections in March.

Lam stepped down from her position as head of the civil service, the second-highest-ranking role in the city after that of chief executive.

"This morning, I tended my resignation letter from the post of secretary for the administration to the chief executive, asking him to seek approval from the central People's Government [in Beijing]," Lam told reporters.

"In it, I explained that my reason for resigning was that I plan to stand in the next election for chief executive, subject to approval from the central government," she said.

The March 26 elections will choose a replacement for the highly unpopular incumbent Leung Chun-ying, who has said he won't run again due to family reasons.

The controversial elections were at the heart of mass pro-democracy protests that occupied major roads in Hong Kong for 79 days in late 2014, will be decided by a 1,200-member pro-Beijing committee.

Political commentator Johnny Lau, a former journalist with pro-Beijing media, said a clear favorite has yet to emerge among officials in Beijing.

Instrumental Beijing supporter

But he said Lam likely had higher standing in the eyes of Chinese officials than Leung.

"She has basically been in charge of political matters this whole time, including promoting the government's proposed changes to the election system," Lau said.

A democratic upgrade had been planned for this year, but China's parliament stepped in on Aug. 31, 2014 to insist that candidates would have to be vetted by Beijing, a move that would rule out any pan-democratic politicians, sparking the Occupy Central movement.

Lam was instrumental in supporting Beijing's proposed changes at the time, Lau said.

"When Beijing appraises a Hong Kong official, they don't look at whether they are talented or not," he said. "The most important thing is their political loyalty."

In 2014, protesters derided Leung for refusing to take issue with Beijing over voting reforms, called for his resignation, and taunted him with the nickname "689," in a snide reference to the number of votes that won him the job.

Now, Lam is likely to face off against another government official, financial secretary John Tsang, retired judge Woo Kwok-hing, lawmaker and former security chief Regina Ip, and Wu Sai-chuen, a former member of the the pro-China Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB).

Mockery of Hong Kong's autonomy

Candidates must win the backing of at least 150 members of the Election Committee before being entered onto the slate for the March vote. The winner takes office on July 1, subject to Beijing's approval.

Lau said Lam likely has the edge over rival Tsang.

"Right now, they are starting to lay the cards on the table, and I think she has a better hand where Beijing is concerned," he said.

Lam, 59, first joined the civil service under British colonial rule during the 1980s, and was rapidly promoted following the 1997 handover to Chinese rule.

She took public office for the first time in 2007, as head of the Development Bureau, before being appointed Leung's second-in-command following his election in 2012.

Political columnist Frank Chen said the fact that top officials wait for approval from Beijing when there is nothing in law to require them to stay in post makes a mockery of the "high degree of autonomy" promised to Hong Kong under terms of the handover treaty.

Hitting out at the need to "secure an imperial consent" to leave, Chen wrote: "There's no clause in the Basic Law stating that resignation by an official in the special administrative region is subject to Beijing's approval."

"Local laws bar incumbent officials from running without resigning first, but a government job is like any other job: you give a 30-day notice and then you're free to go," he wrote.

Lam's announcement comes a day after London-based rights group Amnesty International said human rights in Hong Kong were at their lowest ebb since the handover.

The group said Hong Kong officials had "failed on many fronts" to protect the city's traditional rights and freedoms, citing a lack of official engagement with the disappearances of five Hong Kong booksellers detained by Chinese police for selling controversial political books to customers across the internal immigration border in mainland China.

The annual report said there are now doubts over whether the physical safety of Hong Kong people is sufficiently guaranteed.

Last weekend, two former student leaders of the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong, were attacked by pro-Beijing protesters and alleged members of criminal gangs, during and on their return from a trip to Taiwan.

A group of activists gathered outside police headquarters in Hong Kong on Wednesday, calling for the attack on Law to be fully investigated.

The attack wasn't an isolated incident since Leung took up his post in 2012, they said.

Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Chen Pan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
South Korean snacks and sauces find market in North Korea despite import ban

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, South Korean snacks and sauces find market in North Korea despite import ban, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6510.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-12

Traditional South Korean food at a trade fair in China's eastern Jiangsu Province, in file photo. AFP

Defying prohibitions against the import of South Korean products into communist-controlled North Korea, Chinese and North Korean traders are bringing large quantities of South Korean produced foodstuffs across the border after first covering boxes with Chinese markings, sources say.

The trafficked goods include food, cooking pots and other utensils, and a wide range of special sauces, Chinese sources working on the border told RFA's Korean Service.

"Hundreds of boxes of a famous South Korean ramen noodle brand produced at a factory in China are brought into North Korea without any restriction, as long as their labels are written in Chinese characters," RFA's source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"These South Korean products are not produced at all in North Korea and are purchased mostly by restaurants in [the North Korean capital] Pyongyang."

"Simply by removing their trademark, most South Korean food products get through customs without difficulty," he said.

Among the most popular products brought into North Korea are sauce for Bulgogi, a Korean-style marinated and barbecued beef, and stone pots made for serving Bibimbap, a hot mixed-bowl meal of vegetables and cooked rice, sources said.

More expensive in poorer North

"We obtain orders and sell dozens of stone pots for Bibimbap, which are widely used in South Korea, to restaurants in the North," a kitchen warehouse owner in the Chinese border city Dandong told RFA.

Also speaking to RFA, a Korean-Chinese businessman who frequently visits Pyongyang, said that high-end restaurants in the North Korean capital often have menus identical to those found in restaurants in the South.

"The only difference is the price of the food," he said. "It is more expensive in North Korea, and you have to pay in foreign currency."

South Korean food is in high demand in North Korea "because South Korean films circulate widely in North Korea and have a huge impact," another source in China said.

Restaurant scenes and menus shown in South Korean movies and television shows provide "useful examples" for the managers of fine restaurants in the North, he added.

Reported by Joonho Kim for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Hyosun Kim. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
A Lao father's search helps crack a human trafficking ring in Thailand

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, A Lao father's search helps crack a human trafficking ring in Thailand, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6711.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-13

A Lao man embraces his daughter after she was rescue from what Thai authorities think is a human trafficking ring, Jan. 7, 2017. RFA

Note: Reporter Manichanh Phimphachanh of RFA's Lao Service traveled with Lao farmer Boune to the Thai capital Bangkok and observed his encounters with police and traffickers as they searched for and rescued his daughter, Kai. Both the farmer and his daughter's names have been altered to protect their privacy and safety as the trafficking case is prosecuted by Thailand.

Boune was a desperate man.

For six months Boune, a poor Lao rice farmer, had lived a parent's worst nightmare. His 13-year-old daughter was missing.

In late June, Kai disappeared from the Vietnamese store in their village where she worked to help support the family.

When she didn't come home Boune searched Phondaeng village. He checked in the stores and other places where a 13-year-old girl might hang out, but Kai wasn't in any of them.

She wasn't in the stores. She wasn't with a friend. She was just gone.

He had no idea where to look, so he and his wife sat at home and waited. They waited and they hoped against hope.

While his daughter was only 13, in some ways Kai was wiser than her years. Her father was just a poor rice farmer, but she always thought about the future, he told RFA's Lao Service.

"She knew working on a farm is hard, and that we struggled to grow enough rice to feed our family and have enough to sell to get a little money," Boune said.

She had just finished primary school, but she was thinking about the future, he said.

"During her school break, she always worked to help support her family and buy school supplies and clothes even though she was still very young," he said.

Then on Dec. 18, 2016 Boune got a phone call from his daughter. She told him not to worry.

She was in next-door Thailand working as a maid for a woman named Jei Took, who treated her well and paid her 7,000 baht (U.S. $200) a month. She told her parents not worry, because Jei Took, treats her well. If she can save some money she will return home to help the family, she told them.

Boune and his wife tried not to worry, but they knew something was wrong.

On Dec. 24 at 9 a.m. they got another phone call. This time from Jei Took. She didn't sound friendly.

Jei Took told them her daughter was a thief. That she stole a necklace worth 20,000 baht (U.S. $600). She demanded 20,000 baht, and told Boune that if he didn't pay, his daughter's safety was at risk.

A parent's worst nightmare had just become a horror story.

Now Boune and his wife couldn't eat. They had trouble sleeping.

Gripped by desperation, Boune decided to mortgage his farm. He could only get 13,000 baht (U.S. $370), and if he didn't pay it back in two years he'd lose the farm.

Boune took the money and set out for Thailand. By the time he got across the Mekong River, he was already a day late, and he'd already had to spend some of the money.

He was supposed to pay the ransom on Jan. 3, but it was Jan. 4 when he crossed the river and he was in a devastated mind.

A rescue plan

Arriving in Bangkok, Boune went to the Lao embassy and asked for help. Lao diplomats contacted the Thai police, and that's when Boune got his first real break.

The officials from Thailand's Department of Special Investigations (DSI) cooked up a plan to rescue the girl. A policeman disguised as a cab driver would take Boune to a rendezvous and three groups of plainclothes police would nab Jei Took.

As the taxi arrived, instead of being met by a woman they were met by a muscular man. The man tried to spirit Boune away, but the cop-turned-cab-driver was too quick. He got to the man before he could get to Boune.

After a short interrogation the man took police to a house that he said was owned by Jei Took.

The house looked like a home for the aged. Inside there were five hospital beds and one elderly woman, one Thai worker and another from Burma, and Jei Took. But not Kai.

They also a discovered a critical piece of evidence  a long list of workers who appeared to have been sold or sent to other employers. The list included the names of many young Lao girls.

The police told RFA they believe the house was a holding place for the workers before they were sent or sold to their employers. They said Jei Took appeared to be a broker who sells workers to employers across the country.

They also believe that Jei Took was trying to get ransom money from Boune, but had no intention of returning her.

The police took three people into custody: Jei Took, Jei Took's sister (known as Chanraem or Biew) and the muscular man.

Jei Took agreed to lead the police team to a new location, a big house in a wealthy neighborhood in Samut Sakhon near Bangkok.

Lost and then found

At the second location, Boune looked through an opening in the wall in front of the house, and there was his daughter. She saw him. They ran to each other.

Although they were each crying, they were happy as they talked over each other through the tears.

As they sat in a police car, she told her story to her father, her rescuers and RFA.

Kai said she was working in the Vietnamese store in her village when a Thai man called Kekkoi told her that she could have a good paying job in Thailand.

She agreed and packed her things to go with him on a boat to cross the Mekong River. On the Thai side, she got in the man's car with four other Lao girls from Luang Prabang.

The car made a couple of stops to drop off the other girls, and Kai was to a restaurant in Bangkok. She worked at the Bang Na restaurant for two months for 5,500 baht (U.S. $155), which was not enough to cover even the travel expenses.

Kai said she then decided to leave the restaurant because the owner was very mean. She worked in a noodle making shop in Samouthprakarn province for four months without pay, she said.

She left and ended up working as Jei Took's house maid. Jei Took accused her of stealing the necklace.

"She asked me to return the necklace, but I could not return it because I never had it," she said. "She said: 'Don't talk back,' but I had to talk back because I did not take it."

Then Jei Took threatened her more directly.

"She said if I didn't have the money to pay for it, then she would put me in jail," Kai said. "She said: 'Tell your father don't try to play the tough guy, or you will be in jail for the rest of your life.'"

Waking from a nightmare

After questioning by the police, Boune's daughter was sent to Ban Krettakarn, the government center which is a home for young human trafficking victims.

According to the Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN) and her father, Kai is happy at the center. The Thai-based LPN was founded to address discrimination against migrant workers in Thailand and to combat human trafficking.

She will have to stay there for up to a year while the case is under investigation. While in Ban Krettakarn, she has an opportunity to learn life lessons and an array of skills of her choice. She can also take different academic courses including language.

The three individuals apprehended including Jei Took in the chase are in jail and face serious charges: collaborating in human trafficking, child labor violations, soliciting for an illegal worker and illegally housing foreigners.

Boune is staying with LPN, and he may be called to testify. He is expecting to get some financial help from the Thai government for his help in exposing a human trafficking ring.

Boune told RFA he is happy his daughter is safe at the center and plans to visit her soon. He hopes his daughter can finish secondary school so she can find a job.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodian labor leader released in 'fake accident' case

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodian labor leader released in 'fake accident' case, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca68c.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-13

Cambodia Informal Economy Reinforced Association (CIREA) President Din Puthy, also known as Mang Puthy, in Poipet, Banteay Meanchey Province, Nov. 18, 2016. RFA/Hour Hum.

A labor organizer and local opposition party official accused of hitting a border police officer with his car last month was released on bond Friday after a closed hearing before Cambodia's appellate court.

Din Puthy, president of the Cambodia Informal Economy Reinforced Association (CIERA) and the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) deputy head of operations in Poipet City, was charged with aggravated intentional violence in the Dec. 22 incident. He had been held in the provincial jail since Dec. 24.

While border officer Chhean Pisith was taken away in an ambulance wearing a neck brace, video footage of the incident raises questions about whether the policeman was actually hit by Din Puthy's SUV.

Witnesses told reporters the vehicle never touched Chhean Pisith, calling his account the incident into question.

Defense attorney Kim Socheat told RFA's Khmer Service that bail came with restrictions to Din Puthy's movements.

"He cannot change addresses without the court's approval, and he has to respond to all summons by investigating judge," he said. "The ruling is for his immediate release, so he must be freed today as well."

Kim Socheat told RFA that the officer was not severely injured and had decided against filing a civil suit.

"We know the civil plaintiff has already said that he was not seriously injured, and that he would not file any compensation lawsuit," he said.

Ath Thun, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers, called the case an unfair one.

"For me as well as the general public, we think this case is really unfair," he said. "This means that a number of his rights have been withheld."

Still, Ath Thun and Din Puthy's wife, Hum Chrien, told RFA they were happy he may have regained some measure of freedom.

"After hearing the appellate court decided to free my husband, I was very delighted so I skipped my meals to wait for his release from prison," she said.

While Judge Nguon Ratana ordered Din Puthy's release, he was still being held late Friday, his wife said.

"I waited there from this morning until this evening at 6 p.m., but still my husband has not yet been released," she said.

"This morning, more than 40 people went to the prison to wait for his release; these people are our relatives, some members [of my husband's association] and residents here. Tomorrow we will visit the prison again to wait for his release."

Reported by Maly Leng for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China: Cutting tools must be registered with police, authorities in a Xinjiang county say

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China: Cutting tools must be registered with police, authorities in a Xinjiang county say, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca69a.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-13

A map of Xinjiang showing the location of Aksu prefecture. RFA

Authorities in an ethnic Uyghur county of northwest China's Xinjiang region have ordered that all tools used for cutting must be registered with police, with the user's ID number engraved on the blade of each tool in an apparent bid to discourage its use as a weapon, sources say.

The Jan. 8 order issued in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture's Onsu (Wensu) county covers pocket knives and butcher's knives, axes, adzes, scissors, and other bladed tools, with compliance demanded by Jan. 10, sources told RFA's Uyghur Service.

"We have already finished," one Onsu resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We had 11 tools, including scissors and axes. My husband's ID number was engraved on them," she said.

"The Onsu police department designated a place to do this in every neighborhood, so we took our tools there."

"The whole county is doing this," she added.

"Yes, we had all our bladed tools engraved with our ID number," a second Aksu resident said. "We used my father's ID number to have this done."

Reached for comment, an Onsu county township police officer confirmed the order had been given.

"I don't know where to do this, though. The police officer responsible for stability maintenance knows where tools should be taken to be registered," he said.

China has vowed to crack down on what it calls the "three evils" of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism in Xinjiang, but experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from Uyghur "separatists" and that domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012.

On Sept. 18, 2015, a group of knife-wielding suspects attacked security guards and workers at a Chinese coal mine in Asku's Bay (Baicheng) county, killing some 50 mostly Han Chinese mine employees. Nearly 50 others were injured in the attack.

Rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

Reported by Eset Sulaiman and Jilil Kashgary for RFA's Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China's president calls on law enforcement to protect Party rule

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China's president calls on law enforcement to protect Party rule, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6aa.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-13

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at a session of the Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in Beijing, Jan. 6, 2017. Xinhua

President Xi Jinping, who has unleashed a wide-ranging crackdown on rights activists and civil groups in recent years, has warned the country's domestic security regime to protect the ruling Chinese Communist Party's grip on power above all else.

Speaking at a high-level meeting of the party's central committee on law enforcement, Xi said the government should prioritize political stability amid rising social tensions.

"Protecting national political security and regime security should be made top priority," Xi told the meeting, according to state media reports.

"We should also improve our ability to predict conflicts of all kinds," he said, warning that the 19th Party Congress later this year will require a "stable social environment."

Hubei rights activist Yuan Xiaohua said 2017 is a big year for Xi's administration, and his appeal to domestic law enforcement agencies means that he is keen to ensure their loyalty in the face of potential unrest.

"These are all agencies that are part of the machinery of state violence," Yuan said. "He probably wants to rely on them to use force to uphold the so-called stability of the regime."

"It's clear that 2017 is a big year for stability maintenance, and it's possible that they will use any methods necessary to suppress civil society; I think this means that an escalation [of the current crackdown] is likely," Yuan said.

Growing unrest

Beijing-based rights activist Wang Debang said social unrest in China  which sees thousands of strikes, protests, and mass petitions around the country every week  is still on the rise.

"They haven't managed to resolve these tensions after all these years," Wang said. "If anything, they are intensifying."

He said cases like that of Lei Yang, whose death in police custody led to the firing of several police officers last year, are continually emerging, fueling public anger with the government.

According to Wang, Xi's speech showed that the president still feels insecure in his grip on power.

"It's clear that he is in fact facing a major crisis, that the ruling faction within the party hasn't been able to impose unity or achieve a basic consensus," Wang said.

"It also shows that the power struggle between the factions is still extremely fierce."

Taiwan-based rights activist Stefanie Ngai said human rights in China have deteriorated under Xi.

"We were hoping that China would move towards democratization, and gradually towards the rule of law, too," Ngai told RFA. "But now they are nakedly concerned only with maintaining the regime."

She said the more the government expresses concern about stability, the less stable the regime becomes.

"At least they used to act confident in the past. Now they've just come right out and said it," Ngai said. "The ruling principle of the Communist Party is that nothing is more important than itself."

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Vietnam sends a dissident to France but blocks another from leaving

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Vietnam sends a dissident to France but blocks another from leaving, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6ba.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-13

Catholic activist Dang Xuan Dieu, in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of vietnamhumanrightsdefenders.net

Vietnamese authorities released one dissident from jail this week as they exiled the former political prisoner to France, but at the same time they blocked another well-known dissident from leaving the country.

Dang Xuan Dieu, a blogger, community organizer and a member of the outlawed Viet Tan organization, was released late Thursday and deported to Paris after serving six years of a 13-year prison term, according to family members and his international attorney.

Dieu was one of Vietnam's most high-profile political prisoners as he refused to stop his civil disobedience once he was jailed, refusing to wear a prison uniform and staging prolonged hunger strikes.

Truong Minh Tam, a former prisoner who was confined in a cell next to Dieu's, told RFA in 2014 that prison staff humiliated Dieu for several months the previous year by letting other prisoners beat him and forcing him to serve as a "slave."

"Dieu had been disciplined many times not because he asked anything for himself but he was against unfairness in prison treatment of prisoners," Truong told RFA's Vietnamese Service on Friday. "Any reforms we see today in that prison and other prisons as well come from his contributions to the human rights of prisoners."

Dieu, a Catholic, got the longest jail term meted out to a group of Catholic activists, students, and bloggers convicted for their involvement with Viet Tan, a U.S.-based pro-democracy organization banned by the Vietnamese government.

Vietnam's one-party communist state closely controls and monitors the Catholic community, the second largest religious group in the country.

'Dieu should never have been imprisoned'

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) ruled in 2013 that the Hanoi government violated Vietnamese and international law by arbitrarily detaining Dieu and his colleagues.

They were sentenced in January 2013 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, a criminal offense under article 79 of the Penal Code.

Article 79 is among the broadly-worded national security laws that rights groups and Western governments say Vietnam uses to persecute dissidents.

Stanford Law School professor Allen Weiner, who serves as Dieu's international lawyer, called the release "gratifying," while he criticized the arrest.

"Mr. Dieu should never have been imprisoned," Weiner said. "His arrest and imprisonment for engaging in peaceful political expression violated the settled international human rights standards that Vietnam itself has accepted, as well as Vietnam's own constitution."

Dieu's brother, Dang Xuan Ha, told RFA on Jan. 12 that three policemen told him that the dissident could leave.

"They came to tell me that, but it is hard to know what happens in Vietnam," he said. "They told me that I could meet him, but they only gave me about an hour to get to there. The prison is about 1,300 km (780 miles) from my house, so how could I go see him?"

Hellman/Hammett winner stopped

While Dieu was sent to France, former prisoner of conscience Pham Thanh Nghien was barred from leaving Vietnam for Cambodia.

She was stopped at the Moc Bai border checkpoint of Tay Ninh province on Friday as she was attempting to leave to help her father get medical treatment, she told RFA.

"I'm bringing my father to Bangkok for medical treatment and to visit my husband's siblings," she told RFA while she was still at the checkpoint.

"They told me that I am on the list," she added. "I asked them what the reason was but they could not tell me, so I am still waiting here."

Pham Thanh Nghien was arrested in August 2009 and tried in 2010. She was sentenced to a four-year prison term and three years on probation under the charge of conducting propaganda against the state.

She has protested over China's killings of Vietnamese fishermen in the Tonkin Gulf and the South China Sea, and she also staged a sit-in protest at her own house before her arrest.

In 2009 she received A Hellman/Hammett award from Human Rights Watch. The Hellman/Hammett grants are administered by Human Rights Watch and given annually to writers around the world who have been targets of political persecution.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China ramps up control of domain names, adds new layer to Great Firewall

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 16 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China ramps up control of domain names, adds new layer to Great Firewall, 16 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6c4.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-16

Men look at computers in an internet bar in Beijing, in file photo. AFP

The ruling Chinese Communist Party looks set to add a new layer to state control over what the country's 710 million internet users can see online, with a raft of new measures that could undermine their use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to get around censorship.

The draft regulations, which were first released for public consultation in March 2016, would require any websites operating in China to register with a Chinese domain name, which is subject to state control and can be used to shut down entire websites within the country-level .cn top-level domain.

Xinhua news agency published an article on Jan. 11 suggesting that the requirement, which sparked concerns at the time over deeper censorship and access by foreign businesses to the Chinese market, is unlikely to be dropped.

"The domain names are like the nerves of the internet," Xinhua cited experts as saying. "Once there is a problem with the nerves, it is difficult to take any kind of follow-up action."

The draft rules would also "promote cooperation with China's development tasks among overseas organizations," the state-run agency said.

Sang Young, information security expert at the Hong Kong Internet Society, said the move could also serve to tighten state control over Chinese users' access to overseas-based websites, adding another layer to the complex set of blocks, filters and human censorship known as the Great Firewall.

"Under the current Great Firewall system, Chinese users are still able to see content that the government thinks is unsuitable [by accessing overseas sites through VPNs]," he said.

"But under these domain name regulations being implemented by the Chinese government ... people who don't register with domestic domain names won't be allowed to [set up websites]," he said.

Bolstering Great Firewall

Young said the new rules will likely affect overseas websites and content providers hoping to attract a Chinese audience or set up new services in China.

"In the past, they had a blacklist approach which meant that only sites that were considered problematic were blocked," he said.

He said the ultimate target of the new rules is preventing users from tunneling under the Great Firewall with virtual private networks (VPNs).

"Any overseas connections that are not approved will be blocked," Young told RFA. "Once the communication is cut off, it is the equivalent of a wall; there will be no holes for VPN to drill through."

Guangzhou-based writer and internet expert Ye Du said the move will bring much more online content under Beijing's control.

"Once these rules are implemented, the government has a reliable way to ensure that overseas news organizations reporting on China will be forced to self-censor, if they want to open up bigger markets in China," Ye said.

"They will be forced to modify their own reporting in order to continue existing, to avoid being shut off completely once they are blocked," he said.

China's powerful internet regulator has ordered online app stores to register with the government starting on Monday, heralding a new era of state control over the mobile web.

"Starting on Jan. 16, 2017, branches of the Cyberspace Administration at provincial, autonomous region and city level are required to be ready for the official launch of app store registration," the Cyberspace Administration said in a statement on its official website.

Censoring all news

The move is part of a bid to "further promote the healthy and orderly development of the online app store industry and regulate mobile app-based information services," the statement said.

The emphasis on "mobile app-based information services" comes as the ruling Chinese Communist Party broadens a nationwide clampdown on any news or media content that hasn't been pre-approved by censors.

Such apps have "resulted in the dissemination of illegal information," the Cyberspace Administration said.

A spokesman for the agency said in the statement that online app stores seeking registration are now required to submit an application form to its website.

They will be audited for security, handling of user data, and content, the statement said.

China's cabinet, the State Council, recently highlighted "weak management" of online app stores, calling for unified government policies to police the fast-growing sector.

Reported by Goh Fung for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodia's Hun Sen cranks up the threat machine

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 17 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodia's Hun Sen cranks up the threat machine, 17 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6d20.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-17

In these undated file photos, Hun Sen ( right ) and Sam Rainsy speak to reporters after a meeting at the National Assembly. RFA/Yeang Socheametta

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has threatened to retaliate against the opposition party for its attempt to free a group of political activists from jail by stripping a rival politician of his parliamentary title.

On Monday Hun Sen told pro-government media that he wants to strip Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) leader Kem Sokha of the minority leader title because of the opposition's push to get political prisoners released from prison.

Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Hun Sen told Fresh News that he wants to "amend" the National Assembly's internal rules because the CNRP's use of minority leader's office "is frustrating, and that the CNRP's attempt to use it to negotiate for the release of the prisoners "infringes on the judiciary power."

The rule puts the National Assembly's minority leader on roughly the same parliamentary footing as the prime minister.

"Since I initiated [the rule] I now propose for an amendment to the rule to be endorsed by the CPP's members of parliament and the Cambodian People's Party (CPP)," he said.

CNRP leaders have made a concerted push for the release of the so-called "Kem Sokha Five" and other jailed activists since King Norodom Sihamoni granted Kem Sokha and a provincial CNRP leader a royal pardon late last year.

Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, all workers for ADHOC (the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association) and National Election Commission (NEC) deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya were arrested in April.

They are accused of attempting to pay hush money to Kem Sokha's purported mistress in the government's wide-ranging probe into the alleged affair.

In December Kem Sokha and a provincial CNRP official Seang Chet were granted royal pardons in the case against the CNRP leader, but the other five people accused in connection with the case remain in prison.

Their royal pardon they were granted came at the behest of Hun Sen, who also heads the ruling CPP.

Opposition leaders were also pushing for the release of land-rights activist Tep Vanny, who was convicted on Sept. 19 of insulting and obstructing public officials and was sentenced to six months in prison in relation to a protest in November 2011 near Hun Sen's residence.

Tep Vanny gained prominence as an activist fighting the Boeung Kak lake land grab, when some 3,500 families were evicted from the neighborhood surrounding the urban lake in Phnom Penh. The lake was filled with sand to make way for a development project with close ties to Hun Sen and the CPP.

Seizure of land for development  often without due process or fair compensation for displaced residents  is a major cause of protests in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Laos.

Phnom Penh's political tango

Following Hun Sen's remarks, plans for a meeting between CPP and CNRP officials that was tentatively set for Jan. 25 were scrapped.

Majority Leader Sar Kheng, who is also the country's minister of the interior, on Jan. 17 sent a letter Kem Sokha telling him the much-anticipated meeting is postponed and no new date is set.

CPP spokesperson Chim Phal Virun told RFA's Khmer Service that the collapse of the talks is the CNRP's fault.

"The CPP cannot be cajoled by the CNRP to destroy the integrity of the three separate powers of government that are clearly stipulated in the constitution," he said. "We shall not be lured to infringe on the independence of the judiciary."

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann pointed said they were willing to meet anytime.

"It takes two to tango," he said. "If the CPP is too busy to meet or has other reasons not to meet, I don't know what we can do about it."

In Cambodia, judicial independence seems to depend upon the mood of Hun Sen, as opposition lawmakers and outspoken opponents of the government face severe penalties while allies of the prime minister are seldom charged.

The CNRP's exiled president Sam Rainsy continues to face a barrage of legal entanglements in Cambodia.

On Tuesday, the country's appeals court heard arguments in Sam Rainsy's attempt to get a defamation conviction overturned.

On Nov. 8 a Cambodian trial court found Sam Rainsy guilty of defamation for claiming that Hun Sen's social media team bought "likes" on Facebook from "click farms" abroad to bolster his support.

On Tuesday, after the appeal hearing, Som Soeun, chief of the technical group for the CPP website, accused Sam Rainsy of fabricating the claim.

"Sam Rainsy invented the allegation," he said. "He has twisted the facts and defamed me. The court verdict which will be publicized will clear me of this accusation and find me justice."

Som Sokong, an attorney for Sam Rainsy, said he has little faith in the lower court, but he thought the higher court might give his client a fair shake.

"I hope this higher court will exercise its independence to render a decision in favor of my client," he said.

Of Facebook, bribes and leaks

While Sam Rainsy's legal team was in court on Tuesday defending him in the defamation charge, he is likely to face more legal action for his accusation that Hun Sen bribed a former CNRP activist named Thy Sovantha to switch parties.

"Hun Sen, before his trip to Switzerland, allowed me to act on his behalf to prepare a lawsuit against Sam Rainsy who, recently, has accused the Prime Minister of bribing Thy Sovantha a million dollars," Hun Sen attorney Ky Tech told Fresh News.

"I have collected enough evidence for the lawsuit," he said, according to the report. "We will seek a million dollars in damages from Sam Rainsy."

Over 2016 Thy Sovantha transformed from one of the biggest pro-opposition social media activists in the country to one of the opposition's most aggressive critics.

On January 14, in Paris, Sam Rainsy, who was joined by Kem Sokha via Skype, talked about judicial double standard faced by the CNRP's members and human rights workers who are jailed over charges over what amount to a few hundred dollars.

"What about Hun Sen who bribed Thy Sovantha a million dollars?" he told the supporters. "Why has no one taken any actions against him? That one million dollars comes from the proceeds of corruption and is used to bribe bad people to organize demonstrations and attacks against the CNRP."

According to an article in Phnom Penh Post, Thy Sovantha recently announced that that she has received $3 million from international donors to fund a series of university scholarships.

Leaked phone messages allegedly show the prime minister's second son Hun Manith  head of the military's intelligence unit  conspiring with Thy Sovantha to discredit opposition leader Kem Sokha, according to local media reports.

Reported by Thai Tha, Sonorng Khe and Moniroth Morm for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China: Petitioner seeks political asylum after two die in fire

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 16 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China: Petitioner seeks political asylum after two die in fire, 16 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6d3.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-16

Beijing petitioner Wang Ling and her son Miao Juyou outside the offices of the United Nations in Bangkok, Jan. 16, 2017. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.

Beijing evictee Wang Ling arrived in Thailand on Monday to apply for political asylum with the United Nations in Bangkok, citing years of persecution from the authorities in her home country after she pursued complaints against local officials.

Wang, who began seeking redress after her family home was demolished in 2003, arrived in the Thai capital in the earlier hours of Monda morning, to be greeted by her son, Miao Juyou, who arrived there last month.

"I have been in and out of jail, sometimes formally, sometimes with no formal procedures," Wang told RFA. "I was sentenced to a year and three months in labor camp in 2008, but I never thought that I'd keep going back to prison after I got out."

"I have never stopped petitioning ... I have now been detained a total of 11 times, and I have had to rent a place to live after my home was demolished [by the government]," she said.

She said she had received death threats from the police, which she took seriously.

"They told me that if I carried on petitioning, that they would kill me," she said. "Wherever my son tried to get a job, the police would go there and make trouble for him, so that his boss had no option [but to fire him]."

She said recent deaths in police custody, including that of environmental consultant Lei Yang and two petitioners in Hunan's Luoyang city had made her fear for her life.

"Those women in Luoyang were beaten to death and then set on fire," she said. "We are running for our lives."

Years of constant police harassment

Petitioners Wang Shetao and Li Xiaocui, of Luoyang's Liangzhai village, reportedly burned to death in murky circumstances last Monday after a fire at a police station, official media reported.

Activists say cases like that of Lei Yang, whose death in police custody led to the firing of several police officers last year, are constantly emerging, fueling public anger with the government and growing fear among any who complain about their treatment.

Wang said she has endured many years of constant police harassment even after the Beijing police department ruled in her favor after she complained.

"Wherever I tried to rent a place, the police would catch up with me and force to me to leave that place," Wang said.

"If I refused, they would send a gang of men round to smash down the door and take everything in our home, so there was nothing left," she said.

Wang said the most recent attack on her home was Dec. 3, when a gang of thugs smashed in the door and cut off her electricity.

"They took everything and pushed me out onto the street," she said.

Political asylum

Wang, whose labor camp sentence and petitioning activities have been documented by the Hubei-based Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, said it was impossible to live a normal life because she was forced to keep moving to hide from the police.

Thailand-based political refugee Xing Jiang said he plans to help the pair lodge their applications with the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bangkok.

"They are planning ... to seek political asylum, on the basis of ... their 2003 eviction and the 2008 forced demolition, their repeated attempts to seek redress, her detention [in labor camp] in 2008 and her detention during the G20 summit [last September in Hangzhou]," Xing told RFA.

"She told me that she has had her home turned over [by thugs] five times during 2016," he said.

Wang's son Miao said he had landed in Bangkok on Dec. 18 ahead of his mother to maximize the chances of their both getting through Chinese border controls.

"Luckily she got here safely, but she couldn't sleep before she left, because she was so scared of getting stopped," Miao told RFA.

He said life back in China had become untenable for him, too, as a result of his mother's petitioning.

"The police were forever terrorizing me and threatening me," Miao said. "I had no way to hold down a job because whenever I found a job, they would come and cause trouble for me with my employers, for sure."

China's army of petitioners are routinely detained by "interceptors," law enforcement officers from their hometowns, if they try to take a complaint to a higher level of government.

They also frequently report beatings, harassment of landlords and employers, and incarceration in psychiatric hospitals when they have no mental illness.

Deaths and "disappearances" in unofficial detention centers, or "black jails," are also not uncommon, but evidence of police wrong-doing is hard to come by when the authorities typically refuse to allow independent autopsies.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China warns Hong Kong activists over meetings with Taiwan independence groups

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 17 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China warns Hong Kong activists over meetings with Taiwan independence groups, 17 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6e13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-17

Ray Wong, a founder the "localist" group Hong Kong Indigenous, in undated photo. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party on Tuesday hit out at recent visits by Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong, saying that the city's nascent independence movement will never be permitted to make common cause with that of self-ruled Taiwan.

"What so-called Taiwan independence and so-called Hong Kong independence have in common is is that they are hell-bent on destroying the country and bringing disaster to its people, under the banner of freedom and democracy," party mouthpiece the People's Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday.

"But it doesn't matter how rampant they run, mainland China is confident and determined to curb them," it warned.

The paper hit out at student activist and Demosisto party member Joshua Wong, who last week "attended a forum run by ... a party that supports so-called independence."

In a sneering reference to recent attacks on Wong and Demosisto lawmaker Nathan Law in Taiwan and at Hong Kong's international airport, the paper said the activists, who have denied being pro-independence, were looking for help wherever they can find it.

"The so-called Hong Kong independence movement is having a hard time at the moment, with people attacking and yelling at them wherever they go, and so they look to the so-called Taiwan independence movement for welcome," the paper said.

"But they are clutching at straws," it said. "These brothers in adversity know all too well that the road they are traveling is a dead end, but they still feel that they must brazen it out."

Law, now Hong Kong's youngest lawmaker, said he was jostled on Sunday night by protesters at the city's international airport on his return from a speaking tour to visit pro-democracy activists in Taiwan earlier this month.

Two people were arrested after anti-independence protesters threw liquid in his face and tried to attack Law, 23, who was shown stumbling down a staircase in video footage of the melee, as protesters shouted "Traitor!" and "Fall down and die!"

Earlier, Wong and Law, whose Demosisto party embraces the idea of self-determination for Hong Kong, were met by some 200 protesters in Taiwan, some of whom tried to throw punches at Wong.

Triad connections

Police in Taiwan have arrested 13 people with suspected China-linked triad connections over the attempted attack, which came ahead of a political forum organized by the pro-independence New Power Party, at which the pair were speaking.

The failure of the Occupy movement to convince Beijing to adopt fully democratic elections  candidates must still be vetted before they can stand  has sparked growing support for the idea of independence among younger people in the former British colony.

A recent opinion poll commissioned by the pro-Beijing group Silent Majority for Hong Kong showed that while more than 70 percent of respondents overall strongly supported Beijing's view that independence for the city will never be an option, only 51 percent of people aged 18-29 agreed with the Communist Party's position. Some 43 percent said they disagreed.

Silent Majority for Hong Kong convenor Robert Chow said he agreed with the People's Daily editorial.

"A movement that straddles the Taiwan Strait is of greater concern [than calls for independence in Hong Kong alone]," Chow said.

"It wouldn't do Hong Kong any good at all."

But activist Ray Wong, who founded the "localist" group Hong Kong Indigenous, said Hong Kong activists have a lot to learn from the more mature democratic system in Taiwan.

"Hong Kong can find inspiration in Taiwan, and can learn about democratization, and even about the independence movement," Ray Wong said.

"I think we will see more and more such exchanges in future."

He said pro-independence views are still in the minority in Hong Kong because they are extremely recent, having hardly been mentioned before the 2014 Occupy Central movement.

"Hong Kong's independence movement really started in early 2016, with the New Territories East by-election," he said. "Judging from the trends [identified by the survey], support for independence seems to be growing."

Independence not supported in Hong Kong

Robert Chow said the majority of Hong Kong's seven million population still strongly opposes the idea, however.

"In the 18-29 age group, some 40 percent don't support [Beijing's position], but some 50 percent do," he said. "They're still in the minority."

"Most Hong Kong people  70 percent  don't want independence," he said.

Meanwhile, Joshua Wong told reporters he felt that Taiwan police were doing a better job of pursuing those responsible for the attacks on him and Law than the Hong Kong police.

"I think the Taiwan police take their jobs a bit more seriously," Wong said. "They have arrested 13 people there, whereas the Hong Kong police have only arrested four for the attack on Nathan Law."

While the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, it regards the democratic island as a province awaiting reunification, and has threatened to invade if its government seeks formal statehood.

Beijing's diplomatic partners are required to cut official ties with the government in Taiwan, which was taken over by the Kuomintang nationalist government after World War II, ending 50 years of Japanese rule there.

Repeated polls have shown that many of Taiwan's 23 million residents identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and that there is broad political support for de facto self-rule, if not formal independence.

President Tsai's Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) swept to power earlier this year amid fears of growing Chinese influence over Taiwan under her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou.

Tsai's party has a staunchly pro-independence wing.

Reported by Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Hsia Hsiao-hwa for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Chinese activists pay respects at home of late premier who died under house arrest

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 17 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Chinese activists pay respects at home of late premier who died under house arrest, 17 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca6f13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-17

Chinese activists gather at the home of late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang to pay their respects, Jan. 17, 2017. Photo courtesy of Zhang Zhenmin

Hundreds of rights activists and petitioners converged on the home of late ousted Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang on Tuesday, marking the 12th anniversary of his death under house arrest.

Zhao's family home in Beijing's Fuqiang Hutong was thrown open on Tuesday, with a constant stream of visitors coming to pay their respects to Zhao, who was purged for his sympathetic stance towards the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, and his opposition to the use of force against the students.

Among them was Beijing housing rights activist Ni Yulan, recipient of the U.S. State Department's 2016 International Women of Courage award, who arrived with her husband to visit Zhao's shrine.

"Security is always tight on this date, and the [state security police] escorted us here, walking behind us all the way," Ni, who was left disabled by a beating she received in police custody, told RFA.

"When we got on the bus, they got on the bus; there were two plainclothes officers and a police officer in a marked car following the bus."

The courtyard of the Zhao family home was packed with people paying their respects, Ni said.

"There were also a few dozen police standing guard nearby," she said. "They didn't detain anyone at the scene, but they stopped journalists from interviewing people."

"We were allowed to go inside, right inside the courtyard; there were people who had brought fresh flowers and various gifts," Ni said. "People signed a guestbook and left messages after they had paid their respects."

Security police posted

Fellow Beijing rights activist Zhang Zhenmin estimated that several hundred people had visited while she was at the Zhao residence.

"There were a lot of state security police outside the front door, posted every few paces down the street, watching us," she said. "But when we got to the front door, someone let us in, and that's how we got inside."

Veteran rights activist Hu Jia said he had been prevented from going to pay his respects.

"When I went downstairs this morning to take out the trash ... I saw that there were more state security police on duty than usual," Hu said. "Normally there are three or four of them, but today there were seven or eight of them."

"The entire gatehouse for security guards was full of them, even the ones who don't usually show their faces," he said, adding that he was unable to leave his home to visit the Zhao memorial event.

Another person who attended the event but who asked not to be named said around 100 people were there when they went.

"People were coming in in small groups the whole time," the mourner said. "They weren't being stopped at the door, but there were plainclothes police and citizen security guards in red armbands."

Ordered not to go

Zhao's former top aide Bao Tong, who is himself under tight surveillance after serving a seven-year jail term in the wake of the 1989 military crackdown on unarmed civilians, said he was told outright not to go to the event.

"The relevant authorities told me not to go, and not to give interviews or write any articles on this topic," said Bao, who frequently pens eulogies to his former boss.

"This was very different from previous years, when they would just ask me if I planned to go," he said.

Bao said he chose not to go for fear of jeopardizing the event with a tight security presence.

"I think I would ruin the atmosphere if I went along," he said. "I want people to be able to commemorate Zhao without something stressful happening. I can always go another time."

Tiananmen Mothers member Zhang Xianling, who lost her 19-year-old son Wang Nan during the Tiananmen massacre, said she had also been ordered not to go.

"The authorities wouldn't let me go," Zhang said. "A bunch of police cars and plainclothes officers showed up in the compound at about 8.00 p.m. yesterday evening and told me not to go."

"They haven't let me go for four or five years now," she said. "The [ruling Chinese Communist Party] should be honored that so many people want to pay their respects to one of its former leaders."

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
OIC to press Myanmar over Rohingya crisis at Malaysia meeting: Envoy

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 17 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, OIC to press Myanmar over Rohingya crisis at Malaysia meeting: Envoy, 17 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7013.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-17

Flags of Organization of Islamic Cooperation member-states fly in front of the Abraj al-Bait Towers in the holy city of Mecca, Nov. 17, 2016. AFP

Myanmar should allow international investigators to explore whether crimes amounting to genocide have targeted Rohingya Muslims in that country, according to a former Malaysian foreign minister who is special envoy to Myanmar for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Ahead of an extraordinary meeting of the OIC's Council of Foreign Ministers in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, which will focus on a humanitarian crisis surrounding the Rohingya community in Myanmar's Rakhine state, special envoy Syed Hamid Albar outlined some steps that the OIC should take in pressing Naypyidaw to solve the issue.

The Muslim world's largest inter-governmental body should, for one, discuss opening an office in Myanmar for the OIC or another international organization "to enable various investigations to be carried out to determine whether crimes involving genocide had occurred in Myanmar," Syed Hamid told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

The OIC should also ensure that the stateless Rohingya minority "is granted citizenship by Myanmar because, historically, that ethnic group originated from the Arakan region," the Malaysian diplomat said, referring to Rakhine by another name.

Myanmar, he added, should not see such steps as an act of hostility, but as an attempt to resolve international conflicts through diplomacy.

Syed Hamid expects all 57 OIC members to attend Thursday's meeting.

The meeting will also look into other basic problems affecting Rohingya, such as a lack of food and medical supplies. The ministers are expected to press Myanmar to halt military operation in Rakhine and to take immediate action to protect the ethnic group, he said.

"I believe the OIC will take action to push Myanmar to take steps under the UN humanitarian charter to protect all minority groups, not only Muslims but also Christians in the country and make sure humanitarian aid reaches them," he said.

The meeting will be hosted by Malaysia, whose prime minister, Najib Razak, angered Myanmar recently by describing a military crackdown by Myanmar in Rakhine state as "genocide."

Rohingya have accused Myanmar security forces of arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and arson during the security operation, though both the government and army have denied the charges.

Previous discussions

The meeting on Thursday follows emergency meetings of OIC officials in Geneva and Brussels in late December, according to a statement from OIC.

Participants at those meetings discussed the Rohingya crisis amid reports that members of minority population were killed and their houses burned down during a military crackdown following the killings of a group of Myanmar border guards in Maungdaw township on Oct. 9.

Since that attack, nearly 90 people have been killed in ongoing violence and as many as 65,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, according to U.N. figures.

Faisal Islam Muhammad Kassim, president of Rohingya Society Malaysia (RSM), supports the OIC's diplomatic initiative.

"I really hope OIC will fight for the plight of ethnic Rohingya and will put pressure on the government of Myanmar," he told BenarNews.

The Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur said it would not comment on the upcoming meeting.

Reported by Hata Wahari and Anis Natasha for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Rights groups call on Myanmar for details about 'disappeared' Kachin Christians

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 17 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Rights groups call on Myanmar for details about 'disappeared' Kachin Christians, 17 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7113.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-17

Armed men from Myanmar's Border Guard Force patrol Muse township in Myanmar's northern Shan state near the border with China, Nov. 22, 2016. AFP

Human rights groups called on Myanmar authorities on Tuesday to provide information about two Kachin Christian leaders they fear have been forcibly "disappeared" in northern Shan state for taking reporters to a Catholic church allegedly damaged by airstrikes in clashes between the government army and ethnic guerillas.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), Southeast Asia-based Fortify Rights, and London-based Amnesty International want authorities to disclose the whereabouts and conditions of Langjaw Gam Seng, 35, and his cousin Dum Daw Nawng Lat, 65, both of whom have been missing since Dec. 24, 2016, when they were heading to a military base.

HRW and Fortify Rights also called on authorities to allow Yanghee Lee, the United Nations human rights envoy for Myanmar, and other rights monitors to visit conflict zones in Shan state. Lee, who is currently on a 12-day visit to Myanmar, has been denied access to violence-affected areas in Shan state.

Langjaw Gam Seng is a youth leader with the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) in the town of Mong Ko in northern Shan state, and Dumdaw Nawng Lat, is an assistant pastor with the KBC, according to statements issued on Tuesday by HRW and Fortify Rights.

The Baptist-denominated evangelical organization headquartered in Myitkyina, Kachin state, has been helping internally displaced people who have fled fighting between the government army and ethnic militias in both Kachin and Shan states.

Someone claiming to be a member of Myanmar's armed forces called Langjaw Gam Seng on the evening of Dec. 24 and requested that he and Dumdaw Nawng Lat go to the Byuha Gon military base in the town of Mong Ko in Muse township near the border with China to help with the release of detained civilians, according to the press releases.

Local residents reported last seeing the two men, who were helping reporters document the destruction of civilian structures in Mong Ko during hostilities between a coalition of four ethnic armies and government forces last in November and December, traveling by motorbike to the base where Myanmar army battalion numbers 99 and 55 are located, the statements said.

"The apparent enforced disappearance of these two Christian leaders has created a climate of fear and terror in northern Shan state," said Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights.

HRW and Fortify Rights noted that civil society organizations in Kachin and Shan states "have documented unlawful killings, torture, rape, forced labor, and other abuses committed by Burmese military forces against civilians" in the two states.

Amnesty International weighs in

In a separate statement, Amnesty International urged people to write to Myanmar authorities to order an immediate investigation into the men's disappearances, to release them if they are in custody, and to stop violating international human rights law against ethnic civilians in conflict and cease-fire areas.

"The nature of the two men's disappearance means the military has some serious questions to answer," said Phil Robertson, HRW's deputy Asia director. "This is a crucial case for [Myanmar's de factor leader] Aung San Suu Kyi and other government leaders to demand cooperation from the army, which has continued to resist civilian authority."

The two men's family members and KBC representatives filed a missing persons report at Myo Ma police station in Muse township on Jan. 3.

Seven days later, Zaw Htay, spokesman of the President's Office, said that a ground report from the government army indicated the pair had been arrested by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is engaged in hostilities with Myanmar soldiers in northern Shan state.

Armed conflicts in Kachin and Shan states intensified last November when the Northern Alliance of four ethnic militias  the KIA, Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA)  launched coordinated attacks on government and military targets in northern Shan state.

The government has reported that 10 civilians have died in ground and air strikes, while thousands of others have fled over the border into southwestern China.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that the fighting in Kachin and Shan states has displaced more than 100,000 people.

More civilians flee

Meanwhile, more than 100 people have fled the town of Namhsan in Tawngpeng district, northern Shan state, on Tuesday to the central city of Mandalay to escape ongoing fighting between TNLA troops and the government army, a Mandalay official said.

Win Naing Zaw said 113 people from 32 households have sought refuge in the Myinwun Mingyi monastery in Myanmar's second-largest city.

"As far as I know, 93 people arrived first, and then 20 people from five households arrived yesterday," Win Naing Zaw, Mandalay district administrator, told RFA's Myanmar Service.

"CSOs and the regional military headquarters helped them yesterday by providing rice, cooking oil, clothing, mosquito nets, blankets, and other goods they need," he said.

Altogether, more than 2,000 people have fled to Mandalay and the towns of Lashio, Kyaukme, Thibaw, Naungcho, and Pyin Oo Lwin to escape the clashes that have killed two people and injured 10 others, he said.

Reported by Thiri Min Zin for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Tibet: Demolition, expulsions stop for now at Larung Gar

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 17 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Tibet: Demolition, expulsions stop for now at Larung Gar, 17 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7213.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-17

The wreckage of monastic dwellings is shown on a hillside at Larung Gar, December 2016. Photo sent by an RFA listener

Authorities in southwestern China's Sichuan province have temporarily halted demolition work at the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy as winter moves into the area, with the destruction of monastic dwellings expected to resume at a more "aggressive" pace in the spring, sources say.

Thousands of Tibetan and Han Chinese monks and nuns, along with a few Western students, have already been expelled from the makeshift dwellings that once lined the hillsides around Larung Gar as authorities seek to reduce the center's population by about half to a maximum level of 5,000.

With winter slowing the work of destruction, though, the expulsions of Larung Gar residents and destruction of their homes were suspended "at the beginning of January," a resident of the area told RFA's Tibetan Service.

"However, we hear that it will begin again in April, and that this time it will be more aggressive and widespread," RFA's source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"For now, things have calmed down considerably," the source said.

Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese once studied at Serthar (Seda) county's sprawling Larung Gar complex, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the world's largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.

The number of students now left at Larung Gar is still unclear, though all monks and nuns coming originally from the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and western China's Qinghai and Gansu provinces have been removed and sent back to their native regions, RFA's source said.

Those sent back to the TAR have been subjected to month-long courses of political reeducation before being allowed to return to their family homes, sources said in earlier reports.

Hundreds of nuns coming from Tibetan-populated counties of Sichuan are meanwhile being housed in temporary camps of two-storey buildings set up in desolate areas of the province until more permanent accommodations can be found.

"Larung Gar's annual exams will be held in the 12th month of the Tibetan Year [in late January or early February], and we don't know if the monks and nuns who have been expelled will be allowed to return to take part," RFA's source said.

"When they were first sent away, they were told that they would be allowed to come back to take their exams," he said.

Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodia's Hun Sen sues rival Sam Rainsy, again

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 18 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodia's Hun Sen sues rival Sam Rainsy, again, 18 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7311.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-18

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni (L) shakes hands with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (R) during a ceremony marking Cambodia's Independence Day in Phnom Penh, Nov. 9, 2016. AFP

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy welcomed the $1 million lawsuit Prime Minister Hun Sen filed against the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) president on Wednesday, telling RFA it will give the country another shot at seeing the truth about the regime.

"I am not surprised by the lawsuit. I am happy," he told RFA's Khmer Service. "I congratulate him as he continues to file more lawsuits against me. The more the merrier. That gives me more opportunities to reveal more of the truth."

In the suit, Hun Sen accused his political rival of defamation for remarks during a Jan. 14 speech in Paris in which Sam Rainsy accused the Cambodian strongman of giving a $1 million bribe to rising opposition social media star Thy Sovantha to persuade her to switch loyalties to the ruling party.

Thy Sovantha had made a name for herself by attacking Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodia People's Party (CPP) through social media.

But this year she abruptly changed her tune and began attacking CNRP deputy leader Kem Sokha as the government engaged in a wide-ranging probe into a purported affair between him and a young hair dresser.

In December Kem Sokha and a provincial CNRP official Seang Chet were granted royal pardons in the case against the CNRP leader, but five other people accused in connection with the case remain in prison.

In his Jan. 14 remarks, Sam Rainsy, who was joined by Kem Sokha via Skype, talked about what he called the judicial double standard faced by the CNRP's members and human rights workers who are jailed on charges over what amounted to a few hundred dollars.

"What about Hun Sen who bribed Thy Sovantha a million dollars?" he told the supporters. "Why has no one taken any actions against him? That one million dollars comes from the proceeds of corruption and is used to bribe bad people to organize demonstrations and attacks against the CNRP."

According to an article in Phnom Penh Post, Thy Sovantha recently announced that that she has received $3 million from international donors to fund a series of university scholarships.

Leaked phone messages allegedly show the prime minister's second son Hun Manith  head of the military's intelligence unit  conspiring with Thy Sovantha to discredit Kem Sokha, according to local media reports.

A long line of lawsuits

While Thy Sovantha filed a separate defamation lawsuit against Sam Rainsy earlier this week that seeks $250,000 in damages, Sam Rainsy has been down this legal road before, as there have been six lawsuits filed against him by government or CPP figures.

In September he was found guilty of defamation for claiming that Prime Minister Hun Sen's social medial team bought "likes" on Facebook from "click farms" abroad to increase the appearance of support.

And in December, he was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for posting what authorities said was a fake government pledge to dissolve the Southeast Asian country's border with Vietnam.

Sam Rainsy has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest for a defamation case brought by former Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in 2008.

In October, Hun Sen ordered police, immigration and aviation authorities to "use all ways and means" to prevent the opposition leader from returning to the country, as he has pledged to do before the country's elections.

Cambodia's local elections are set for June 2017 and the national elections are scheduled for 2018. In the disputed 2013 elections, the CPP lost 22 seats in its worst showing since 1998.

A weaponized judiciary

Opposition leaders and outside observers, including the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, have criticized the Cambodian judicial system's lack of independence.

Rarely do CPP politicians face charges, but the list of CNRP and other opposition lawmakers dragged before the courts is long and includes Sam Rainsy and deputy Kem Sokha, as well as opposition lawmakers like Um Sam An and Meach Sovannara, the CNRP's media director.

The prosecutions don't stop with opposition lawmakers, as anyone opposing Hun Sen is fair game for the courts.

Land rights activist Tep Vanny also fell afoul of this system, when she was convicted on Sept. 19 of insulting and obstructing public officials and was sentenced to six months in prison in relation to a protest in November 2011 near Hun Sen's residence.

She first gained prominence as an activist fighting the Boeung Kak Lake land grab, when some 3,500 families were evicted from the neighborhood surrounding the urban lake in Phnom Penh. The lake was filled with sand to make way for a development project with close ties to Hun Sen and the CPP.

Seizure of land for development  often without due process or fair compensation for displaced residents  is a major cause of protests in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Laos.

She is waiting for the Cambodia's appellate court to rule on her conviction.

"We are prisoners of conscience. We need to be released," she told RFA. "Good and real leaders are those who take good care of their own people and the country."

Defense attorney Choung Chou Ngy said that the appeal enumerates the procedural defects in the case, including a lack of counsel during her trial.

"The court has severely violated the law," he told RFA. "How on earth could a trial court render a verdict on a criminal case in the absence of the defense counsel?"

Back to the future

Meach Sovannara, the CNRP's jailed media director, told RFA the courts employ a double standard.

He and 10 other activists were jailed on insurrection charges for clashing with police over the closure of a protest site in the capital in 2014.

"Those who beat lawmakers were sentenced to only four years of imprisonment, three years of which were suspended," he said. "Now they are released and promoted."

He was referring to a recent decision by Hun Sen to promote two members of his elite bodyguard unit despite their convictions for brutally beating a pair of opposition lawmakers near the National Assembly in 2015.

Sot Vanny and Mao Hoeun became full colonels on Nov. 17, barely two weeks after they were freed from prison after serving only one year of a four-year sentence for beating the lawmakers.

On Oct. 26, 2015 CNRP lawmakers Kong Saphea and Nhay Chamroeun were dragged from their vehicles and savagely beaten by protesters after the two men attended a morning meeting of the legislature.

The attack occurred as more than 1,000 supporters of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) surrounded the parliament building, calling for Kem Sokha to step down as first vice president of the National Assembly.

Tep Vanny told RFA that she feared the Hun Sen wanted to take the country back to the dark days of the Khmer Rouge, infamous for its 1975-79 reign of terror that killed as many as two million Cambodians.

"The current leader has been in power for many years. He should not rule the country like the ways [Khmer Rouge leader] Pol Pot did," she said. "He should not bring the country backwards."

Reported by Vuthy Huot and Moniroth Morm for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China reins in smog warnings amid 'confusion' over pollution alerts

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 18 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China reins in smog warnings amid 'confusion' over pollution alerts, 18 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7413.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-18

A man wearing a mask visiting a park amid heavy air pollution in Beijing, Dec. 20, 2016. AFP

China's meteorological bureau may be ordered to stop issuing smog warnings, sparking fears that the government may be getting ready to censor air pollution data centrally.

The country's Meteorological Administration reportedly told regional bureaus on Tuesday to "immediately stop issuing smog alerts," in a photograph of an official notice posted on the Twitter-like service Sina Weibo.

Official Chinese news website The Paper quoted a meteorological official as saying that the move was aimed at avoiding conflicting information being issued to the public.

"Meteorological bureaus and the environmental protection administration often disagree when they issue smog-related information," the official said. "A joint alerting mechanism will be formulated to consult how to and who should issue alerts for smog."

The Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, said talks had begun on Wednesday over a unified alert system for the swathes of toxic smog that shroud much of northern and central China each winter.

On Dec. 7, Beijing's emergency services management center issued a red alert on air pollution, while the city's weather bureau posted an orange alert for smog, the paper reported.

China has a four-tier warning system for air pollution, with a red alert issued if the a city's air quality index reaches 500, or after four consecutive days of heavy air pollution over 200 including two days of severe air pollution at levels over 300 on the index.

Mass falsification of data

Environmental activist Wu Lihong said the government should be pouring resources into combating the causes of pollution, rather than arguing over how to present the data.

He said the emphasis on reporting was worrying.

"Why would they bring out such a rule [about the reporting of smog alerts] if they were pouring their time and material resources into a genuine effort to clean up the smog at its source?" Wu told RFA.

"I am very angry that they don't seem to be making a proper effort."

He said the environmental protection ministry, which looks set to wrest control of smog alerts from the meteorological bureaus, had admitted that vast amounts of pollution data were falsified last year.

"And it's not just the air pollution data; the water pollution and soil pollution data were found to be falsified [by environmental officials] in more than 1,000 cases," Wu said.

"If they're in charge of a unified statistic, and they've been fiddling the figures all along, who is going to believe them?"

Bamboozling the public?

Some commentators on social media picked up the same theme.

"If the environmental protection ministry wants to take over the reporting of figures from the meteorological bureau, what are they going to do about the falsification of data?" one user commented.

Another remarked, with what appeared to be biting irony: "At least the government has come up with a truly effective way of dealing with the smog."

Last year, the government sanctioned 1,499 environmental protection officials in Henan province alone, because of "poor air pollution control," official media reported.

Rights activist Wang Fazhan said the government is determined not to let the public know the truth about air pollution, however.

"I don't think there's any need at all for the air pollution figures to be unified in this way," Wang said. "I think the reason they want a unified message is so that they can bamboozle the public."

"There is too much government collusion with business behind the attempt to clean up the smog, so when they can't fix it, they try to stop people talking about it," he said.

"Ordinary citizens aren't allowed to talk about it, and now the government isn't allowed to either. But will that make the smog disappear?"

Meanwhile, authorities in Henan have banned the use of firecrackers and fireworks ahead of Chinese New Year in a bid to limit air pollution, prompting derision from local residents.

"So this year they suddenly issue this new rule," a local resident surnamed Chang told RFA. "Does the government really believe that firecrackers are the cause of poor air quality?"

"This is a tradition in rural areas, to let off firecrackers on Chinese New Year; not setting them off is unthinkable," he said.

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Chinese feminist 'Hooligan Sparrow' faces eviction by Beijing authorities

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 18 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Chinese feminist 'Hooligan Sparrow' faces eviction by Beijing authorities, 18 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7510.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-18

Feminist artist Ye Haiyan, known as Hooligan Sparrow (L), visits the home of poet Wang Zang, whose heating and electricity have been cut off, in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.

Chinese artist and feminist Ye Haiyan, known as "Hooligan Sparrow," the eponymous subject of an award-winning documentary about her activism, is facing eviction from her home in Beijing's Songzhuang artists' village after she wrote an essay criticizing the Maoist left.

"The village party secretary has issued a final warning that I must move out immediately, or they will cut off the water and electricity and seal up the doors," Ye tweeted on Wednesday.

"So far no law enforcement agencies have put in an appearance, and the eviction order is being carried out by the highest-ranking village administrators," she wrote.

Ye had previously been issued with the threat of eviction if she didn't stop posting on social media, but she continued to send out tweets via Twitter on Wednesday.

"They want to silence me on [smartphone chat app] WeChat," she tweeted. "They even told me that China is ruled by law."

"Fine, I told them, you show me the law. My fear is that it's being broken right now by someone," she tweeted.

Earlier, Ye wrote that she had pleaded with the authorities not to use violence in front of her daughter, not to beat her up or smash her things.

She told RFA she believes the eviction order is linked to a political essay she posted on Jan. 13 titled "We should still speak our minds to our friends the Maoists."

"They blocked my WeChat account a few days ago," Ye told RFA. "It was probably because of my last article ... talking about Maoist attacks on liberal intellectuals."

"I called on them not to use violence to resolve the issue," she said.

Flash mob of Maoists

In her essay, Ye wrote: "You don't necessarily have personal experience of all of China's countless political movements, and you may not know the whole truth about them."

"You may be doing society a disservice, so ... I want to call on you to develop an independent standpoint ... regarding historical matters," the essay said.

"You can speak out if you have direct experience of historical events like the Cultural Revolution, about the part that you know about, but don't be too quick to dismiss the experience of others," she wrote.

Ye posted her essay after a flash mob of Maoists descended on a university campus in the eastern province of Shandong, attacking supporters of a university lecturer who criticized late supreme leader Mao Zedong.

The Shandong provincial government terminated the contract of Deng Xiangchao, a professor at the Shandong Jianzhu University, after he drew the ire of leftist "Mao fans" for retweeting a post satirizing the late Chairman.

"All I was doing was expressing my opinion," Ye told RFA. "But then they shut down my [social media] account, which made me very angry indeed."

Ye said the Songzhuang village ruling Communist Party secretary initially said she could stay if she stopped posting on social media, but she took issue with this diktat, and they moved ahead with her eviction order.

"I told them I wouldn't move, but I'll see what their next move is," she said.

Ye said she doesn't blame her landlord, who is under intense pressure from local government and police.

"I know that they are not behind this decision," she said. "I don't blame them ... they are vulnerable, too."

Poet faces harassment

Meanwhile, Beijing poet and political activist Wang Zang, who was detained in 2014 for posting a performance art selfie in support of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, is camping with his young family in their home after the authorities cut off the electricity and internet connection.

"They cut off the electricity, the internet and the central heating," Wang told RFA. "Today is the fourth day."

"We spend our evenings in darkness, and [we] huddle in the bedroom and put on extra clothes," he said, adding that the utilities were cut off after he refused to obey an eviction notice from the authorities.

"They told us on Jan. 11 that they'd cut everything off if we didn't move out," said Wang, who lives with his wife, a five-month-old baby and two other children.

"We can't move out ... we haven't the means to move out," he said. "We have already been forced to move eight times, so there's nowhere else for us to go."

"Wherever we go, they kick us out again. It's not just that they don't want us in Beijing; they evict us from other places too," he said. "We have nowhere left to go."

Wang has previously used performance art to show support for Ye's women's rights activism, detained Guangzhou rights lawyer Guo Feixiong, and to commemorate the execution of Mao-era dissident Lin Zhao.

Wang's poetry was cited as evidence to support the charges against him in 2014, including "Epitaph Without a Tombstone," a lament for uncounted numbers of unnamed Chinese citizens whose deaths are linked to government actions.

"The cemetery is a foreign import, where the corpses of the people lie, sending out random roots and shoots," the poem reads.

Wang has also expressed opinions through his accounts on Twitter and Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent, in support of jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, self-immolating Tibetans and followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, which the authorities have designed an "evil cult."

800 million Maoists?

According to fellow poet Lu Yang, the Maoist left is a growing popular movement in China, in an era where around half the population have no access to information outside the party's official version of event.

"I think a large proportion of Chinese people have no real idea about what is happening," Lu said. "Out of 1.3 billion people, perhaps five, six or even eight hundred million are Maoists."

"The government needs to face up to this."

Political writer Hu Shaojiang agreed.

"The make-up of the popular Maoist movement is very complex," Hu wrote in a recent commentary broadcast on RFA's Cantonese Service. "They have no experience of the actual social and political situation under Mao, but they are disappointed in today's society and in officials."

"Some engage in grandstanding of left-wing ideology ... many agree with Mao's ideological and political line," he said.

"Some of them harbor aggressive tendencies to abuse, criticize, lay siege to and even physically attack people who criticize Mao in a rational manner," Hu said.

He said the administration of President Xi Jinping has done little to curb the Maoist left, and at times seems to take its side.

"They persecute anyone expressing rational criticism of Mao, and take a fairly laissez-faire attitude to violence from the Maoists," Hu wrote.

He said the firing of Deng Xiangchao was "an updated version" of the persecution of liberal intellectuals in the Mao era.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Goh Fung for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar: UN rights envoy meets with Aung San Suu Kyi to discuss volatile Rakhine state

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 18 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar: UN rights envoy meets with Aung San Suu Kyi to discuss volatile Rakhine state, 18 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7613.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-18

Yanghee Lee (R), the UN's human rights envoy to Myanmar, is escorted by a policeman on her arrival in Sittwe, capital of western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 13, 2017. AFP

The United Nations human rights envoy to Myanmar on Wednesday met privately on Wednesday with the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw to discuss recent violence in volatile Rakhine state, as she nears the end of a 12-day biannual visit to Myanmar.

During the meeting, Yanghee Lee, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, condemned the Oct. 9 attacks on border guard posts in northern Rakhine that left nine officers dead, according to an announcement by the foreign affairs ministry.

She also discussed the security situation in the northern part of the state, which has been under lockdown since the October attacks, and reports of security forces committing atrocities against Rohingya Muslims who live in the region, the ministry said.

Lee and Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also Myanmar's state counselor and foreign affairs minister, also discussed increasing humanitarian assistance for people displaced by fighting between the government army and ethnic guerilla groups in war-torn Shan and Kachin states, the ministry said.

Later on Wednesday, Lee met with Vice President Myint Swe, chairman of a national-level commission investigating the situation in northern Rakhine state, and asked him about the group's investigation methods for probing the violence that has occurred there, said commission member Saw Thalay Saw.

The 13-member commission visited northern Rakhine earlier this month and last December to investigate the attacks on border guard stations in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships and reports of atrocities during the subsequent security operations.

On Jan. 3, the commission issued an interim report of its findings and said its interviews of local Rohingya villagers and women about rape allegations yielded insufficient evidence to take legal action, and that its investigations into accusations of arson, torture, and illegal arrests were still under way.

'We told her how we did it'

"We talked mostly about the Maungdaw attacks with Yanghee Lee, and she asked us how we investigated them," Saw Thalay Saw told RFA's Myanmar Service. "We told her how we did it."

One Muslim woman who said she was from Khyet Yoe Pyin village alleged that security forces had raped her and had killed her husband, two sons, and two daughters, he said. But when commission members went to the village and asked other residents about the fate of the family, they said that the family did not live there.

Saw Thalay Saw also said that the commission members showed a photo of the woman to the residents, but they said they did not know her.

"We explained to Yanghee Lee all the steps of the investigation we conducted in that case," he said.

"I feel that she is satisfied with today's meeting, and I hope we will see a good outcome after she submits her report on Maungdaw to the U.N.," he said, in a reference to the report on the findings of Lee's visit that she must give to the U.N. Human Rights Council in March.

During her current visit to Myanmar, which began on Jan. 9, Lee did not allow authorities or police to join her when she stopped in villages in Maungdaw township to talk to residents. She also met with Rohingya Muslims in adjacent Buthidaung township and visited the local prison there.

Nearly 90 people have been killed in the violence, which has forced about 65,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, according to the U.N.'s estimate, where some have alleged that security forces carried out indiscriminate killings of civilians, torture, rape, and arson. The government and military have denied the allegations.

U.N officials, including Lee, have been critical of the government's handling of the Rakhine crisis, specifically the denial of access by independent media and international humanitarian groups to areas affected by the violence.

'They will submit our demands'

Meanwhile, an advisory commission created by Aung San Suu Kyi and headed by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to help resolve the religious and ethnic divisions in Rakhine state, met on Wednesday with ethnic Rakhine and Muslim residents in two villages.

The commission members visited Muslims who live in internally displaced persons camps in Kyaukpyu village and ethnic Kaman Muslim camps in Ramree village, whose homes were burned during communal violence with Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.

Tin Hlaing Win, secretary of Kaman National Development Party who met with nine-member commission, said he told the panel that the Muslims have been losing their ethnic rights for the last four years and that they want to return to the land where they previously lived.

"The commission members told us that they will submit our demands to the central government with their recommendations," he said. "We hope we will get equal rights like other ethnic groups after the commission submits its report [to the government]."

Also on Wednesday, more than 40 Myanmar-based civil society groups issued a statement calling for a "truly independent" international investigation into the situation in Rakhine state.

"Specifically, we recommend a commission of inquiry to fully assess the totality of the situation in Rakhine state and provide clear recommendations for the current government to effectively address and prevent further problems in Rakhine state," the statement said.

"We believe that a truly independent investigation would help Myanmar overcome the complicated problems in Rakhine state, and help rebalance the world's focus on the overall human rights challenges faced by all the people of Myanmar," it said.

Their statement comes a day before foreign ministers of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, an intergovernmental body of 57 member nations, meets in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to discuss the plight of the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

Reported by Kyaw Thu and Kyaw Soe Lin for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
North Korean security conscript in custody after shooting 7 colleagues dead

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 18 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, North Korean security conscript in custody after shooting 7 colleagues dead, 18 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca77e.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-18

A file photo of a view of Hyesan from across the Yalu River. Wikimedia Commons

A young North Korean man conscripted to guard a customs post on his country's border with China in under arrest for shooting dead seven platoon members who had angered him with bullying treatment, RFA's Korean Service has learned.

After the shootings at dawn on Jan. 7 at Hyesan, a city in North Korea's northern Yanggang province, the young conscript was arrested and taken to Pyongyang, sources familiar with the shooting told RFA.

"The suspect and one platoon member who survived the shooting were transported to State Security headquarters in Pyongyang. There is no way to find out the exact cause of this incident, since the Yanggang authorities are trying to keep everyone's mouth shut," one source said on Jan. 14.

A second source, however, said the shooter apparently snapped after suffering bullying from his colleagues.

"The incident at the Hyesan customs office was caused by the frequent beatings suffered by the new conscripts at the hands of their superiors, and the one who committed the crime is a new conscript who graduated from high school last spring," the source told RFA on Jan. 16.

North Korean authorities are trying to prevent the information from spreading to other parts of the country, the sources said.The names of the shooter and victims are not known.

No other information was immediately available about the shooting in Hyesan, a provincial administrative center of nearly 200,000 people that lies on the Yalu River, which forms North Korea's border with China.

Reported by Sunghui Moon for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Max Kwak. Written in English by Paul Eckert.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Malaysian prime minister wants Myanmar to stop violence, discrimination against Rohingya

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 19 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Malaysian prime minister wants Myanmar to stop violence, discrimination against Rohingya, 19 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca79c.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-19

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) attends a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jan. 19, 2017. NurPhoto

Malaysia's prime minister urged the Myanmar government on Thursday to end reported violence and discrimination against the stateless Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state where security forces have allegedly carried out atrocities against the group.

Premier Najib Razak warned that Islamic extremists could use the plight of the Rohingya, who are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh by Myanmar's Buddhist-majority population, as a way to radicalize the minority group, which is denied basic rights.

Myanmar army soldiers stand accused of killing civilians, torturing villagers, raping women and girls, and setting homes ablaze in Rohingya communities during a security sweep in northern Rakhine following deadly attacks on border guard stations last October.

The government and army have denied the allegations and blamed the attacks on Rohingya militants who received training and financial help from abroad.

"Many have suffered appalling deaths, and those that have lived through the atrocities have witnessed or endured unspeakable cruelty," Najib was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying during a special meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

The intergovernmental body of 57 member nations met in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to discuss the plight of the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

"For a start, the killing must stop," he said. "The violation of women and girls must stop."

'The Rohingya cannot wait'

Contacted by RFA's Myanmar Service, the Myanmar government declined to comment on the OIC meeting.

Tensions between Muslim-majority Malaysia and Myanmar over the treatment of the Rohingya have risen in the last several weeks.

Early last December, Najib led a rally of thousands in Kuala Lumpur to protest what he called the Myanmar government's "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" of the Rohingya.

At the time, he also urged the United Nations and OIC to take more active roles in the latest Rohingya crisis, which has caused an exodus of about 65,000 refugees to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, according to the U.N.

"[T]he government of Myanmar disputes the terms 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing,' but whatever the terminology, the Rohingya cannot wait," Najib said in opening remarks at the OIC session.

Malaysia is sending a food flotilla for the Rohingya in Rakhine state and is providing 10 million ringgit ($2.24 million) for humanitarian relief.

The Myanmar government has previously vowed to turn the flotilla back unless the organizers in charge of the mission apply for permission to enter Myanmar territory.

A decision to allow the aid mission to enter the country would help create a more positive image of Myanmar, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said at the OIC meeting, the country's New Straits Times reported.

"Not only [would] we welcome the commitment by the government of Myanmar, but we would also like to assist them by giving a positive impression to the international community towards what is happening in Rakhine State," he was quoted as telling reporters at the meeting.

Solo protest against Malaysia

Back in Myanmar, Myat Hsu Mon, a former political science student, carried out a solo protest against the OIC meeting by marching from Yangon University to the Malaysian embassy.

She had also sent a letter to the Malaysian embassy, asking that the country respect the rights of the 135 ethnic groups on Myanmar's official list  which does not include the Rohingya  and reject the OIC meeting to discuss Myanmar's problem in a foreign country.

"Fifty-seven OIC countries held a meeting in Malaysia to discuss a Myanmar problem," she told RFA's Myanmar Service. "It is direct interference in and an insult to Myanmar's sovereignty. I can't accept it; and that's why I'm protesting."

Myat Hsu Mon said she will join others to protest if her solo effort is not effective in preventing Malaysia from interfering in Myanmar's affairs.

Reported by Thant Zin Oo for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar military captures key ethnic army command base in Kachin state

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 19 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar military captures key ethnic army command base in Kachin state, 19 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7ac.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-19

Soldiers from the Kachin Independence Army move towards the frontline near the town of Laiza in northern Myanmar's Kachin state, Oct. 14, 2016. AFP

The Myanmar military has seized a key command base and two others belonging to the ethnic Kachin Independence Army (KIA) as skirmishes continue between the two armies in Kachin state near the border with China with no apparent let up in sight.

The office of Myanmar commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said Wednesday that government forces captured the 12th battalion of the KIA's third brigade 12 in the town of Mansi in Bhamo district of Kachin state.

No government troops were killed or injured, but some KIA troops were killed, the announcement said.

Government troops from brigade 88 and military operation command headquarters (MOC) conducted a ground attack on the KIA command base from which the ethnic armed group directed illegal logging activities, Min Aung Hlaing's office said.

The government army seized 20 buildings, 108 tons of logs, four logging trucks, two jeeps, one motorcycle, five weapons, and some receipts related to logging at the base in Mansi, the announcement said.

The Myanmar forces also captured two other Kachin outposts following a series of assaults since Jan. 13 that have included aerial and artillery bombardments, the Democratic Voice of Burma reported.

The fighting forced more than 200 local residents to flee to safety in nearby villages.

"We withdrew our troops for three days," said Major John Aung, commanding officer of KIA battalion 12. "They [the government army] had four to five battalions and attacked us for four or five days by aircraft."

Some military affairs observers in the border area said more skirmishes may be likely because the government army is increasing its troop numbers, according to Myanmar media reports.

Government soldiers have seized various KIA outposts and battalions in Kachin state in other clashes since then, resulting in an increase in the number of internal refugees and civilian deaths.

The KIA teamed up with three other ethnic armed groups  the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army  to launch coordinated attacks on Nov. 20 on 10 government and military targets in and around Muse township in war-torn northern Shan state, about a three-hour car drive from Mansi.

The increased hostilities in both Kachin and Shan states have endangered an ongoing national peace process that the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has made a main goal of her civilian-led government that came to power last April.

Reported by RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China: Calls grow for top judge to resign after judicial independence comments

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 20 January 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China: Calls grow for top judge to resign after judicial independence comments, 20 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9ca7da.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-01-20

Zhou Qiang, President of the Supreme People's Court, prepares to deliver his work report to the National People's Congress in Beijing, March 13, 2016. AFP

More than 70 academics and writers have penned an open letter calling on the head of China's Supreme People's Court to resign, citing his refusal to acknowledge the principle of judicial independence.

"The only job of a judicial official is to safeguard the law, which should be held sacred," the letter said.

"As the head of the Supreme Court, Zhou Qiang has refused to accept the universal principle of judicial independence, however, labeling it a 'Western' idea," the letter said.

"This challenges the universal consensus that is shared by all of humanity," it said. "This has created ideological confusion."

"Such a supreme court chief has to go, or risk making a mockery of Chinese law, and ... undermining public confidence in the rule of law."

The chorus of criticism, which includes that of prominent Chinese legal scholars, follows reports in the state-controlled media quoting Zhou as saying that judicial independence is "an erroneous Western ideal."

Zhou had been seen as a reformer keen on limiting the influence of government officials on local courts.

Seven taboos of Xi

But he was recently quoted as telling top judges to "unsheathe their swords" in defense against words and actions that run counter to the ruling Chinese Communist Party's central tenets.

Judicial independence was named as one of seven "taboos" in an internal party ideological directive issued in 2013, shortly after President Xi Jinping took power.

Other "taboos" included press freedom, civil society, citizens' rights, the historical mistakes of the Chinese Communist Party and talking about the financial and political elite.

The letter has garnered more than 70 signatures since it was published on Wednesday, signatory Mao Yushi told RFA on Friday.

"The judiciary must be independent," Mao said. "It can't be subject to external interference; judges must be free to act according to their own consciences."

"This is common sense; it doesn't need any specialist knowledge to understand."

"How can the courts uphold justice if they are subject to external influence?"

Integrity battered

Mao said the integrity of the Supreme Court had taken a battering with the indictment of former vice president Xi Xiaoming for taking bribes.

Prosecutors have also accused Xi of having taken 39 million yuan (U.S.$5.7 million) in stock in a tech company for using his influence to help get the firm listed on a Shenzhen stock market.

"First, investigations reveal that the vice president is corrupt, and now we have a president who doesn't believe in judicial independence," Mao said.

"I think it would help the rule of law in China for everyone to get together and ask him to step down."

Hangzhou-based writer Zan Aizong said judicial independence is enshrined in the constitution of the People's Republic of China.

"[Courts] are forbidden to allow interference from corporations, non-government groups or government agencies and departments," Zan said.

"[Zhou Qiang] has repudiated the notion of judicial independence, saying it is a Western idea," he said. "He has no respect for the constitution, which he is distorting, even trampling underfoot."

Reported by Goh Fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xiao An for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Hundreds of Chinese army veterans visit graves of fallen in protest

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 29 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Hundreds of Chinese army veterans visit graves of fallen in protest, 29 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9713.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-29

Disgruntled veterans of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) are shown in an earlier protest in Beijing, Feb. 22, 2017. Photo courtesy of a protester

Several hundred former soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) from the southeastern province of Fujian have made a trip to the graves of those who died fighting during China's short border war with Vietnam in 1979.

Wearing their full uniforms, the veterans swept and tended the graves of their fallen comrades near Pingxiang in the southwestern province of Guangxi, amid tight security and an ongoing dispute with the ruling Chinese Communist Party over pensions and other benefits they says they were promised after demobilization.

Some made traditional mourning bows with weeping for lost family members, while friends and former comrades stood around in silence and others burned packets of spirit money and incense for the dead.

"Commanding officer, today is March 26, 2017," one man addresses a grave marked "Martyr Lin Fengyun" at a military cemetery in Guangxi.

"I have come to see you, but also to scold you, because you told us, just before you led us into action, that our motherland wouldn't forget us," the man said in a video of the ceremony sent to RFA. "So we followed you into the charge, fought the enemy heroically, and won an order of merit ribbon."

"But since we went back home, our local governments have been ... treating us as a threat to stability maintenance instead," he said.

"Commanding officer, what can we do? If I'd known this back then, I think I would have preferred to die on the battlefield, because it would be better than being alive."

Several thousand attend

A veteran from Fujian who declined to be named told RFA on Wednesday that several thousand veterans in total had attended the official grave-tending event, and that several hundred had traveled from Fujian to attend.

"It was on March 25 and 26," he said. "Between 300 and 500 of us went from Fujian."

A second veteran said other gatherings had continued after the official event.

"There are some grave-tending events still going on on the fringes, and in other locations," he said.

"Some are in [Guangxi's capital] Guizhou, some are in Yunnan, and some are just old comrades meeting up with each other because they haven't seen each other for so long."

"They are gathering together from all over," he said.

Authorities fear anger

Local governments are increasingly nervous that such events could turn into mass eruptions of anger over nonpayment of pensions and other benefits to PLA veterans.

Leaked documents seen by RFA show a March 24 directive issued by Fujian's Quanzhou police department warning local governments in Fujian about the possibility of "mass petitioning in Beijing."

Tens of thousands of veterans have appeared outside the Central Military Commission in Beijing in mass demonstrations twice during the past year, in spite of widespread security checks aimed at preventing them.

"PLA veterans from across China will be doing their utmost to gather in Beijing to lodge a petition," the document warned.

Mass demonstrations outside the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Feb. 22 and outside the CMC on Oct. 11 highlighted local governments' failure to deliver promised pension, medical, and social security benefits to demobilized PLA soldiers, who are regarded by Beijing as one of the country's most politically sensitive groups.

While officials from the Central Military Commission (CMC) ordered provincial and city leaders to Beijing to address the crisis, the veterans say promises that changes would begin to be implemented from Jan. 1 haven't been kept.

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar: Interview: 'The messages Aung San Suu Kyi got are wrong'

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 29 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar: Interview: 'The messages Aung San Suu Kyi got are wrong', 29 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9813.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-29

Myanmar ethnic rebel leader General Gun Maw (3rd from R) from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) poses with Kachin ethnic women wearing traditional costumes for a group photograph in Naypyidaw, Aug. 31, 2016. AFP

Northeastern Myanmar's Kachin state has been rocked by ongoing clashes between the government military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), since 2011, when a cease-fire deal collapsed. The KIA, which controls large sections of the state, joined forces with three other ethnic armed groups last November to form the Northern Alliance. The alliance has engaged in hostilities in neighboring northern Shan state in retaliation for government army offensives against its soldiers, and hostilities in both states have driven thousands of civilians into internally displaced persons camps as well as across the border into China.

The fighting has complicated national de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi's efforts to end decades of hostilities between the government armed forces and numerous ethnic militias via the current series of nationwide peace negotiations known as the 21st-Century Panglong Conference.

The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), one of the state's major parties and the KIA's political wing, has not yet signed a nationwide cease-fire agreement with the government. And the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, has not allowed the KIO to hold talk regional discussions in advance of the next round of peace talks.

During a visit to a refugee camp in Kachin state's Waingmaw township on Tuesday, Aung San Suu Kyi said that the internally displaced persons living there will be able to return to their homes only when all stakeholders work together in pursuit of ethnic peace.

On Wednesday, Aung Moe Myint, a reporter with RFA's Myanmar Service, spoke with General Gun Maw, vice chairman of the KIO, about Aung San Suu Kyi's visit to Kachin state. What follows is an edited version of their conversation.

RFA: Were you satisfied with the meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and the Kachin people?

Gun Maw: I was satisfied to see the way they were talking in the meeting. They were talking in a friendly, warm, and open manner.

RFA: You posted on Facebook that you are dissatisfied with the NCA. Why?

Gun Maw: I feel that the messages Aung San Suu Kyi got have been wrong. Actually, what we said is that UNFC [United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an alliance of nine ethnic armed groups that did not sign the government's NCA], including the KIO are still discussing singing the NCA, and we will sign it only if we agree upon its points after both sides talk about it. But what Aung San Suu Kyi said today is that the KIO has already agreed to sign the NCA. It is a question of why and how she got that wrong message. Who sent this message to her? What I meant when I said I was dissatisfied refers to that point.

RFA: What is the KIA's opinion of Aung San Suu Kyi's peace process?

Gun Maw: Although there are some points that we still need to discuss, we understand that she is doing her best for the peace process. The government is doing what it needs to achieve peace as well.

RFA: What are your thoughts about the original Panglong Agreement?

(Aung San Suu Kyi's father, General Aung San, signed a pact in February 1947 known as the Panglong Agreement to grant autonomy to the Shan, Kachin and Chin ethnic minorities. But his assassination five months later prevented the agreement from reaching fruition, and many ethnic groups took up arms against the central government in wars that then went on for decades.)

Gun Maw: All the leaders from the ethnic armed groups who signed the Panglong Agreement greatly value its points and promises. Although some ethnic groups [that did not attend the Panglong Conference] did not sign the agreement, we accept that every group at the conference discussed issues concerning the entire country. If someone said the agreements made at the conference can't be accepted because not every ethnic armed group was there, that would create some differences between our understanding and others' understanding of the essence of the Panglong Agreement. That's what we feel frustrated about.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Tibet: Larung Gar abbot urges calm ahead of official visit

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 29 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Tibet: Larung Gar abbot urges calm ahead of official visit, 29 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb99c.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-29

Demolished monastic dwellings at Larung Gar are shown in a recent photo. Photo sent by an RFA listener

A senior abbot of Sichuan's Larung Gar Buddhist Academy has asked monks and nuns at the institute to remain calm and focus on their studies during a visit on Thursday by a top leader of the province sent to check on the progress of demolition at the complex.

"Tomorrow [March 30, 2017], the head of Sichuan province is coming to review the demolition work begun on March 24 by Chinese government workers and laborers," the abbot said in a March 29 talk to his followers, a recording of which was obtained by RFA's Tibetan Service.

"Since most of the members of our community are young, you should all concentrate on your religious practice and studies and remain peaceful," the abbot said.

Following the expulsion in 2016 and early this year of over 5,000 Larung Gar monks and nuns and demolition of their homes, about 2,000 dwellings are left to be destroyed, with work scheduled for completion by April 30, sources said in earlier reports.

"These have been tough and hard years four our monks and nuns, both mentally and physically," the abbot said in his remarks. "We have only a month left to go now, so all must be very careful and remain patient and tolerant."

Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese once studied at Serthar (in Chinese, Seda) county's sprawling Larung Gar complex, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the world's largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.

A government map of Larung Gar marks out houses designated "illegal" and remaining to be torn down, the abbot said on March 29.

"All these houses are to be demolished according to the plan, with any house constructed but not shown on the map also deemed illegal," he said.

The expulsions and demolitions at Larung Gar, along with restrictions at Yachen Gar, another large Buddhist center in Sichuan, are part of "an unfolding political strategy" aimed at controlling the influence and growth of these important centers for Tibetan Buddhist study and practice, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said in a March 13 report, "Shadow of Dust Across the Sun."

"[Both centers] have drawn thousands of Chinese practitioners to study Buddhist ethics and receive spiritual teaching since their establishment, and have bridged Tibetan and Chinese communities," ICT said in its report.

Reported by Lhuboom for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
US presents jailed Vietnam blogger with women of courage award in absentia

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 29 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, US presents jailed Vietnam blogger with women of courage award in absentia, 29 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9aa.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-29

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh (R) distributes copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Nha Trang, capital of Khanh Hoa province, on the South Central Coast of Vietnam, May 21, 2013. Photo courtesy of Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh

Jailed blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was honored in absentia by the U.S. government Wednesday with the International Women of Courage Award for her work highlighting rights abuses and providing a platform for peaceful dissent in Vietnam.

Quynh, 37, who writes under the pen name Mother Mushroom (Me Nam), was among 13 recipients of the award, with which the U.S. State Department "honors those who have demonstrated exceptional courage, strength, and leadership in acting to advance the lives of others across the globe."

Held incommunicado since her arrest in October last year, she was the only recipient of the award who was not in attendance at Wednesday's ceremony, presented by First Lady Melania Trump and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas A. Shannon.

During the presentation, which the State Department said was meant to showcase women who risk their personal safety in order to help improve their communities, Shannon expressed admiration for Quynh's "refusing to be silenced and her defense of freedom of expression."

"Nguyen is being honored for her resoluteness to expose injustices and corruption, and using her voice to stand up for the protection of people's rights and freedoms," the Under Secretary said, prompting a standing ovation from attendees in recognition of the absent blogger.

Earlier on Wednesday, United States Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius had praised Quynh in a Facebook post announcing her award in both Vietnamese and English.

Osius said Quynh had been recognized for "her bravery for raising civil society issues, inspiring peaceful change, calling for greater government transparency and access to fundamental human rights, and for being a voice for the freedom of expression."

He noted that the award, now in its 11th year, has regularly honored women who have been imprisoned, tortured, or threatened with death or serious harm for standing up for justice, human rights, and the rule of law.

Overcome with emotion

Quynh co-founded the Vietnamese Bloggers' Network, one of the few independent writers' associations in a country where the news media and publishing industry are tightly controlled by the governing Communist Party.

She had blogged extensively about the Formosa Plastics Group steel plant chemical spill in April last year that killed vast amounts of marine life and left fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless in four provinces along Vietnam's central coast.

Quynh was arrested on Oct. 10, 2016 under Article 88 of Vietnam's Penal Code for openly voicing her opinions on the deaths of people in police custody, sovereignty over the disputed Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea, and the government's handling of the Formosa spill.

On Wednesday, the blogger's mother, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, told RFA's Vietnamese Service that she was overcome by emotion when she heard that her daughter had been recognized by the U.S. government for her work.

"After reading the news on Ted Osius's Facebook account, I, like many others, could not suppress overwhelming feelings for my daughter, who has to suffer so much hardship ... for the cause that she believes in," she said.

There are at least 84 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, including bloggers, labor and land rights activists, political activists, ethnic and religious minorities, and advocates for human rights and social justice who have been convicted after unfair trials or are held in pretrial detention, according to a July 2016 report on Vietnamese political prisoners issued by London-based Amnesty International.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China: Uyghur businessman dies under police questioning in Xinjiang

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China: Uyghur businessman dies under police questioning in Xinjiang, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9ca.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

A map showing the location of Atush city in Xinjiang. RFA

A Uyghur businessman suspected by Chinese authorities of maintaining contacts with separatist organizations has died under police questioning in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, Uyghur sources say.

Abdurishit Haji, 55, was taken into custody on Dec. 16, 2016, and died on Jan. 13, with his body returned to his family that same day, his son Hesenjan Abdurishit told RFA's Uyghur Service.

"I don't know if my father had any health issues. We were not aware of any," the younger man said, adding, "They said our father was accused of helping 81 Uyghurs get visas to travel to Syria."

Abdurishit Haji had worked in Kyrgyzstan about five years before, and had gone to Turkey two years ago to seek repayment of a loan, his son said.

He had been living in Atush city in Xinjiang's Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture for the last year, he said.

"Maybe he helped some Uyghurs get Turkish visas while he was in Kyrgyzstan, and some may have then left for Syria after going to Turkey," he said. "That is probably why my father was arrested. But we never asked the reason, since it would be pointless to do so."

Abdurishit Haji had been accused by Chinese police of recruiting and fundraising for Uyghur separatist organizations while traveling on business in Kyrygyzstan and Turkey, Litip Imin  Communist Party secretary for Atush city's Azak village  told RFA's Uyghur Service.

"He used to conduct a business in fabrics in Kyrgyzstan, but I don't know what kind of business he did in Turkey," he said.

"I was the first person who was informed about Abdurishit Haji's death," said Litip, who was told by authorities to accompany Abdurishit's family to the Ulugqat county hospital to take charge of the body.

"They said he had died of heart failure during interrogation," he said, adding, "His relatives just sat there, hanging their heads. They looked absolutely terrified."

"We were not allowed to take his body home, but had to bury him that same day under police supervision."

Others held, questioned

Friends and other community members came to the family home next day to express their condolences, but the house had been put under police watch, Litip said.

"At least 28 people were detained and questioned. Some were later released, but the rest are still under investigation."

China has vowed to crack down on ethnic separatism in Xinjiang, the homeland of the Uyghur people, and regularly conducts "strike hard" campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on Uyghur language and culture.

While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.

Reported by Jilil Kashgary and Shohret Hoshur for RFA's Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Kim Jong Nam's body flown out of Malaysia as crisis with North Korea winds down

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Kim Jong Nam's body flown out of Malaysia as crisis with North Korea winds down, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9da.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

A Royal Malaysian Police officer stands at the main gate of the forensics wing of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, which housed the body of Kim Jong Nam, March 29, 2017. AFP

Updated at 6:47 p.m. ET on 2017-03-30

Kuala Lumpur agreed Thursday to resolve a six-week-long feud with Pyongyang by sending the body of the North Korean leader's murdered half-brother to the communist state in exchange for nine Malaysians trapped there by an exit ban.

On Thursday evening (local time) the body of Kim Jong Nam was put on a flight to Beijing, and the nine Malaysians soon after boarded a plane in Pyongyang bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian officials said.

Two North Korean nationals, who had been identified by Malaysian police as suspects in the murder case and were thought to be hiding out in the North Korean embassy, were aboard an airliner carrying Kim's body to China, a Malaysian government source told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday night declared an end to the bilateral crisis by announcing that his government had decided to allow Pyongyang to have custody of the body of Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"[F]ollowing the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the body be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Najib, who was traveling in India, said in a statement following a series of "very sensitive" talks between the Malaysian and North Korean governments.

Najib also announced that the nine Malaysians, who had been barred from leaving North Korea, "have now been allowed to return to Malaysia" while Kuala Lumpur "will now allow North Koreans to leave Malaysia."

"I had a deep personal concern about this matter, and we worked intensively behind the scenes to achieve this successful outcome. Many challenges were overcome to ensure the return of our fellow Malaysians. The safety and security of our citizens will always be my first priority," he said.

The plane carrying the nine Malaysians  three staffers at the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang and their families  touched down at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at around 5 a.m. Friday (local time).

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was on the tarmac to greet the nine as they disembarked from a Malaysian government executive jet.

"We are thankful that all nine have returned to us safe and sound," Anifah said

Najib said Malaysia's investigation into the murder of Kim Jong Nam would go on.

Questions about who would have custody of Kim Jong Nam's body, which had been kept for weeks in a morgue at Kuala Lumpur Hospital, following his assassination in the Kuala Lumpur area on Feb. 13, were central to the bilateral crisis. It saw both countries expel their respective ambassadors and impose exit bans on each other's citizens.

"The diplomatic crisis has ended," Najib declared on his Twitter account.

In mid-March, Malaysian officials revealed that DNA from Kim Jong Nam's son who lives in Macau was used to confirm the dead man's identity. He was initially identified by Malaysia as North Korean diplomatic passport holder Kim Chol.

It remained unclear whether Kim Jong Nam's wife and children, who live in Macau, had agreed to let Malaysia hand over his body to North Korea, or whether Najib, in Thursday's statement, was in fact alluding to Kim Jong Un as "his family."

Late Thursday, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a statement issued by both countries that announced an end to the diplomatic impasse.

However, as was the case with previous statements made by North Korean officials regarding the case, the statement did not name Kim Jong Nam. It only referred to him as a "DPRK national" who died in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13.

"As the DPRK has produced all necessary documentations related to the body of the deceased from the family, Malaysia agreed to facilitate the transfer of the body to the family of the deceased in DPRK," the joint statement said.

"Both countries agreed to lift the travel ban imposed on citizens of the other country and guarantee their safety and security within their respective territory. This would allow the nine Malaysians presently in Pyongyang to return to Malaysia and the DPRK citizens in Kuala Lumpur to depart Malaysia," it went on to say.

Details on suspects

Kim Jong Un's hardline communist regime has been blamed for the murder of his older sibling after he was poisoned with a banned nerve agent, according to Malaysian authorities, while he prepared to board a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2.

Two Southeast Asian women have been charged with Kim Jong Nam's murder as co-assassins, and at least seven North Korean nationals have been identified by Malaysian police as wanted for questioning in the case.

Najib had earlier 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, had fled Malaysia, police said. Three other suspects included a second secretary at the North Korean embassy.

South Korea and the United States also blamed Pyongyang for the murder because Kim Jong Un reportedly had a standing order to kill his exiled half-brother.

But North Korea had stoutly denied this and slammed Malaysian investigations into the murder as an attempt to smear Pyongyang.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar monks move to take action against editor for 'insulting' influential religious leader

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar monks move to take action against editor for 'insulting' influential religious leader, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9ea.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

Myanmar Now chief correspondent Swe Win in an undated photo. RFA

Myanmar monks have been collecting signatures for a petition to take legal action against a domestic media reporter whom they accuse of insulting an outspoken and controversial figure in the country's ultranationalist Buddhist movement.

Members of the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union (PMMU) in the country's second-largest city Mandalay have collected about 40,000 signatures from monks and nuns opposing Swe Win, editor-in-chief of the online news organization Myanmar Now, for allegedly insulting Ashin Wirathu, a prominent monk in the Ma Ba Tha movement, who is known for his fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric.

"Swe Win said U [honorific] Wirathu is a criminal and not a monk anymore," said PMMU vice chairman Eaindawbatha.

"Because U Wirathu is a patron monk from the Masoeyein Monastery in Myanmar, which is the biggest monastic school for young monks, his [Swe Win's] comments have insulted not only U Wirathu, but also all Buddhist monks," he told RFA's Myanmar Service.

"We have collected signatures and will ask for legal action to be taken against Swe Win because all Buddhists are disappointed about what he said [about Wirathu]," Eaindawbatha said.

The PMMU monks, who started collecting signatures on March 20, will end their activity on April 3 and submit the signatures to Mandalay's Regional Religion Department the following day, he said.

In a Feb. 28 Facebook post, Swe Win criticized Wirathu for praising the brutal murder of Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer and critic of Myanmar's powerful military, who was shot on Jan. 29 as he held his grandson outside Yangon Aairport.

The reporter said Wirathu had "committed a major violation of parajika [the Buddhist monastic code]" by doing so.

In response, Wirathu demanded an apology from Swe Win within a week.

Kyaw Myo Shwe, a Ma Ba Tha member and follower of Wirathu, then filed a lawsuit against Swe Win under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, which prohibits use of the telecom network to defame people and carries a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine for violators.

Kyaw Myo Shwe withdrew the complaint in early March after being pressured by his family to do so.

On March 10, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka (Ma Ha Na), a government-appointed body of high-ranking Buddhist monks that oversees and regulates the Buddhist clergy in Myanmar, barred Wirathu from making public speeches for one year for using hate speech against religions to cause communal strife and hinder efforts to uphold the rule of law.

Religious authorities in Mandalay warned Wirathu that if he did not adhere to the year-long ban on making public speeches, it would take action against him.

Reported by Thet Su Aung for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
North Korean police restrict citizen movements across country

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, North Korean police restrict citizen movements across country, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9f18.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) visits the Ministry of State Security to congratulate security personnel during the anniversary of the institution's founding in Pyongyang, Nov. 21, 2012. AFP/KCNA via KNS

North Korean police have started to strictly control the movement of residents and throw those without proper documents into detention facilities as they try to fill a gap in monitoring residents' activities neglected by state security agents, sources inside the authoritarian country said.

The country's Stasi-like secret police have been trying to control North Koreans following the regime's purge of Kim Won Hong, the agency's minister, who was expelled from office in mid-January on charges of corruption, abuse of power, and human rights abuses, they said.

Five senior officials from Kim Won Hong's office were reportedly executed by anti-aircraft gunfire after they were charged with submitting false government reports that are said to have enraged dictator Kim Jong Un.

Police have issued an order prohibiting the movement of residents throughout the country as of April 1, a source from North Pyongan province told RFA's Korean Service.

"The order says that people who have gone abroad for business trips or important matters must return to their residences by the end of March," he said.

The ban includes the prohibition of movement on April 5 when North Koreans hold memorial services to honor their dead parents and ancestors with Korean food, he said.

The detention facilities and waiting rooms in police stations are filled with people who were picked up for not carrying their proper documents with them, the source said.

The police have said that the measure will be enacted in April to prevent unexpected incidents on April 15, the birthday of North Korea's founder Kim Il Song (1912-94), who is the grandfather of the country's current leader Kim Jong Un.

But he suggested that another motive was behind the recent move.

"I think the police have cracked down on the control of residents because they want to have the privileges that the State Security Agency used to have," he said.

The Changjin county incident

A source from South Hamgyong province told RFA that the beating death of the head of a family by police in Changjin county earlier this month for not having the proper certificate required for travel on business has outraged residents across the country, the source said.

In all, police arrested six Changjin residents for lacking travel certificates, some of whom were beaten to death, he said. They sent the wife of the man beaten to death to a labor camp, and their young child to an orphanage.

"News of the incident that occurred with Changjin county's police has been spreading throughout the country and has sparked the anger of residents," he said.

Central authorities have not taken any action against the officers, even though the families of those arrested have revealed the tyranny of the Changjin county police, he said.

"I think these incidents are occurring because central authorities handed over part of the power of the State Security Agency to the police ... [who are] taking control of judicial power, while the State Security Agency is struggling with the Kim Won Hong incident," the source said.

Citizens are becoming increasingly resentful of the police because of the harsh treatment they are meting out, he said.

With growing resentment, "the police will also eventually be in a similar situation as that of the State Security Agency, which is generally feared and hated by North Koreans," he said.

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Soo Min Cho. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
North Korea: Pyongyang's karaoke bars gouge foreigners to bring in cash for the regime

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, North Korea: Pyongyang's karaoke bars gouge foreigners to bring in cash for the regime, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cb9f4.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

Women pose outside a karaoke bar in Hunchun, China, near the North Korean border, June 24, 2015. AFP

Karaoke bars catering to foreign businessmen in the North Korean capital Pyongyang have become new sources of revenue for the sanctions-hit regime, with patrons being charged high for the personal attentions of female employees, sources in the capital say.

"These employees are pretty and in their early 20s, and they keep their guests company by dancing and singing with them," a Chinese businessman and frequent visitor to the city told RFA's Korean Service.

"No physical contact beyond hand-holding is allowed, though," the businessman said.

Karaoke bars set up in Pyongyang to attract foreign customers are "clean and tidy" and well-equipped with a sound system, and can be favorably compared with similar establishments in China, the source said.

"And the employees who greet customers when they arrive are friendly and polite, so that one may doubt whether they are actually in North Korea."

Female employees will often pose for photos with their guests, another businessman told RFA.

"However, the pleasure of these joyful moments shared together is momentary, since good humor vanishes as soon as one receives the bill," he said.

Though beer is inexpensively priced at about 10 Chinese yuan (U.S.$1.45) per bottle, with hard liquor charged at higher rates, guests also find themselves charged a "service fee" of about U.S.$100 for each female employee attending them.

"We felt like we had been hit with a bomb," RFA's source said.

"We thought that the service fee for three of us going to a karaoke bar in Pyongyang would be about the same as one charged in a Chinese bar," he said.

"We couldn't fight over the fee, though, and ended up having to pay in order to keep our reputation."

The money from these higher fees is never shared with the female employees, though, the source added. "The whole amount goes to the government."

"The government is making young women serve drinks to foreigners to earn foreign currency," he said.

Reported by Joonho Kim for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Soo Min Jo. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Opposition 'misinterpreted' meeting discussion: Cambodia's Ministry of Interior

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Opposition 'misinterpreted' meeting discussion: Cambodia's Ministry of Interior, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba013.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

Ministry of Interior representative Prak Sam Oeun speaks to reporters in Phnom Penh, March 29, 2017. RFA

Cambodia's Ministry of Interior on Thursday refused to recognize the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party's (CNRP) new leadership, disputing claims by the party that the ministry had no objections to the appointments it made earlier this month during an extraordinary congress.

The announcement once again throws the CNRP's political legitimacy into question ahead of local commune elections slated for June 4.

In a statement issued Wednesday after a meeting between CNRP lawmaker Eng Chhai Eang and director-general of the Ministry of Interior Prak Sam Oeun, the opposition party said the ministry "acknowledges the process of the CNRP extraordinary congress" and "does not object to the amendment of Articles 45 and 47 of the CNRP's statute."

On Thursday, the ministry refuted that claim, issuing a statement which said that the CNRP had made "an attempt to misinterpret the real essence of what being discussed during the meeting" and saying the talks centered on "compliance with the laws ... [not] any political solution."

The statement went on to explain the ministry's position that the CNRP's March 2 extraordinary congress  during which the opposition appointed Kem Sokha president, and Mu Sochua, Pol Ham and Eng Chhay Eang as party deputies  was "against article 47 of the CNRP's statute, which is the supreme law of this party."

Ahead of the CNRP's appointments at the congress, the party had voted to amend articles 45 and 47 of its by-laws  removing an 18-month moratorium on appointing a new president and changing the structure of the party's leadership.

On March 22, the Ministry of Interior ruled in a letter to the CNRP that the party had violated its own by-laws by holding the congress and appointing Kem Sokha, based on documents filed at the CNRP's launch in May 2013. On Thursday, the ministry reiterated its stance, again referring to the four-year-old statute.

Opposition officials contend that the CNRP was compelled to convene the congress and amend its statute before a new ruling party-initiated law on political parties went into effect, or risk being dissolved, because the law only provided it with 90 days to elect new leadership.

Former CNRP president Sam Rainsy resigned on Feb. 11 in order to preserve the party in the face of the new law that also bars anyone convicted of a crime from holding the top offices in a political party, among other changes. He has been living in self-imposed exile in France since 2015 to avoid convictions many see as politically motivated.

Contradicting claims

After Wednesday's meeting, Prak Sam Oeun appeared to contradict the CNRP's claims that the Ministry of Interior had no objections to the results of the opposition extraordinary congress while speaking with the media outside the ministry.

The director-general told reporters that the ministry will be "keeping an eye on the CNRP" to ensure the party's compliance with its by-laws, but made no mention of its stance on the opposition's extraordinary congress or amendments to Articles 45 and 47.

He also suggested that any violation would be forgotten if the CNRP abandoned its campaign slogan of "replace the commune chiefs who serve the party with commune chiefs who serve the people," which the ministry has said goes against election laws and the spirit of democracy.

The CNRP has said it won't modify the motto and will permit party activists to use it while campaigning for commune elections this summer.

On Thursday, Sam Rainsy called those who have found the CNRP's extraordinary congress to be in violation of the party's by-laws "naive" and said they must learn to appreciate the right of the people to form associations and parties if they claim to respect the principles of democracy.

"People are entitled to make their own decisions regarding any creation or amendment of their own statute or regulations, at their own will  they don't need to ask permission or seek approval [from the Ministry of Interior]," the former CNRP president told RFA's Khmer Service in an interview.

"A party congress represents the voice of all its members. Any decision rendered by the congress shall be abided by the party's members. At least, that is how democracy works. What the CNRP has done is correct and I support it."

Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Kem Sokha said that he would remain the rightful president of the CNRP "no matter how others view the party's statute."

A report by the Phnom Penh Post cited Hang Puthea, spokesperson for Cambodia's National Election Committee, as saying that even if Kem Sokha is only considered the "acting president," the CNRP's candidate lists would remain valid for the June polls.

Defamation case

Also on Thursday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Sam Rainsy in absentia to 20 months in prison for incitement and defamation, adding to a previous five-year term, and ordered him to pay a fine of 10 million riel (U.S. $2,500) to the state and a symbolic fine of 100 riel (U.S. $0.02) to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The sentencing coincided with the 20th anniversary of a grenade attack by still-unknown assailants on a rally led by Sam Rainsy, which killed at least 16 and wounded more than 100.

The case against Sam Rainsy stems from a lawsuit Hun Sen filed against the former opposition chief for suggesting that his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was behind the July murder of political analyst Kem Ley. Sam Rainsy had called the killing "state-backed terrorism."

Sam Rainsy's defense lawyer, Sam Sokong, called Thursday's decision "unjust."

"The judgment is unfair to my client," he told RFA, adding that he would consult with Sam Rainsy about whether to appeal the ruling.

Ky Tech, a lawyer representing Hun Sen, said he was unsatisfied with the length of Sam Rainsy's sentence.

"I think the sentence is not commensurate with Sam Rainsy's crime," he said, adding that the former CNRP president had "caused great damage to our government and leader."

Kem Ley, 46, was gunned down on the morning of July 10, 2016 as he stopped for coffee in a Star Mart store at a gasoline station on a busy intersection in the capital.

Last week, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced a former soldier named Oueth Ang to life in prison as the sole perpetrator of Kem Ley's murder, but observers have questioned his testimony and said the investigation did not go far enough bring the masterminds behind the plot to justice.

Just days before he was gunned down, Kem Ley had discussed on a RFA Khmer Service call-in show a report by London-based Global Witness detailing the extent of the wealth of the family of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for 31 years.

Political commentator Meas Ny told RFA Thursday that he was unsurprised by the court's ruling against Sam Rainsy, which he added had been "long anticipated."

"We have been aware from the beginning that [Hun Sen] would win," he said.

CNRP officials have warned that the CPP seeks to prevent the opposition from standing in the June elections through a variety of different measures, including the passage of the political party law.

The CPP won more than 70 percent of the vote and secured 1,592 of 1,633 communes in Cambodia's 2012 local elections, held before the CNRP was formed. The opposition party won nearly half of the vote in the general election the following year.

Observers say the CNRP could give the CPP, which has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years, a run for its money in the June polls  a race that many believe may foreshadow the general election in 2018.

Reported by Moniroth Morm and Vuthy Tha for RFA's Cambodia Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Rights group slams detention of Taiwan democracy activist

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Rights group slams detention of Taiwan democracy activist, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba113.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-30

Taiwanese human rights and civil society activists call on China to release activist Lee Ming-cheh and ensure he is not tortured, at a news conference in Taipei, March 29, 2017. Pool photo.

A former activist with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has become the first overseas NGO worker known to be detained in China since a draconian law gave police control over foreign non-government groups at the beginning of this year.

Community college manager and lifelong NGO activist Lee Ming-cheh, 42, was detained by the ruling Chinese Communist Party's state security police on suspicion of "endangering national security" on his arrival in the southern border city of Zhuhai on March 19.

"The Chinese authorities' detention of a Taiwanese NGO worker on vague national security grounds raises fears the authorities are broadening their attack against those carrying out legitimate activism," London-based Amnesty International said in a statement on its website.

The group called on Beijing to provide further details. Lee's location is currently unknown.

Chinese law allows police to detain those suspected of "national security" crimes and hold them under residential surveillance at a secret location for up to six months, with no access to lawyers or family visits.

"Lee Ming-cheh's detention ... will alarm all those that work with NGOs in China," Amnesty International's East Asia director Nicholas Becquelin said. "If his detention is solely connected to his legitimate activism he must be immediately and unconditionally released."

"The unchecked powers the authorities now have to target NGOs and their partners are frightening," Becquelin said.

China's Overseas NGOs Domestic Activities Management Law, which came into effect at the start of this year, 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.

'Two birds with one stone'

Police can also blacklist NGOs deemed guilty of national security-related crimes like subversion or separatism, although definitions of such crimes remain vague.

Wu Fan, editor in chief of the overseas Chinese-language magazine Chinese Affairs, said he believes Lee's detention is linked to the new law, but that other factors are also at work behind the scenes.

"He's from Taiwan and he's a DPP member, which is like killing two birds with one stone [for the Chinese authorities]," Wu told RFA. "The Chinese Communist Party, in detaining him, is cracking down on NGOs, and also retaliating against the DPP for failing to recognize the 1992 consensus."

Lee, a manager at the Taipei Wenshan Community College in the Taiwanese capital, has been a long-term supporter of civil society organizations and activists in China for many years, as well as a lifelong DPP member and former member of a local party executive group.

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 Beijing signed by her predecessors in the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), angering Beijing.

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia agreed that the crackdown on NGOs and civil society groups appears to be widening with Lee's detention.

"Lee Ming-cheh was definitely not the only person in Taiwan who was doing things such as sending books to [activists] in mainland China," Hu said. "I think that anyone who did similar things is now going to be feeling very scared."

"I think in future we will see ... a cutting off of contacts on WeChat, Weibo and Whatsapp," he said, adding that current training and mentoring programs offered by activists like Lee to Chinese NGOs are unlikely to survive.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, confirmed Lee's detention and the charges on Wednesday, saying he is in "good health," but gave no further details.

"Regarding Lee Ming-cheh's case, because he is suspected of pursuing activities harmful to national security, the investigation into him is being handled in line with legal procedures," Ma said.

Guarantee against torture sought

According to Amnesty, "endangering national security" can encompass a broad spectrum of charges with punishments ranging from three years to life imprisonment.

Cheng Shiowjiuan, who heads the Taipei Wenshan District Community College where Lee works, rejected the claim, however.

"We do not believe that Lee Ming-cheh did anything to break the law, so we hope that he will be released immediately," she said. "Until that time, they should guarantee that Lee Ming-cheh will not be tortured, and that he is allowed access to a lawyer, to family visits, and to adequate medical care."

Yang Sen-hong, who heads the Taiwan Association for China Human Rights, said there is no rule of law in mainland China.

"What is justice in Taiwan becomes a crime in mainland China," Yang said. "Taiwan and China are two very different places, and if the Chinese Communist Party keeps detaining people like this, that difference is going to become even more obvious."

"By directing such mafia-like methods at Taiwan people, they will only succeed in pushing Taiwan further and further away."

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 Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Lin Ping for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodia electoral body to ban opinion polls ahead of June local elections

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodia electoral body to ban opinion polls ahead of June local elections, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba213.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Officials panel a workshop to prepare the media for Cambodia's commune elections in Phnom Penh, March 31, 2017. RFA

Cambodia's top electoral body on Friday threatened legal action against any organization that conducts an opinion poll prior to upcoming local elections, prompting blowback from civil society groups who called the surveys key to fine-tuning political platforms for contending parties.

Speaking at a workshop on media preparation for the June 4 commune election, National Election Committee (NEC) spokesperson Hang Puthea said the NEC is in discussion with the Ministry of Information to release a statement legally banning opinion polls within a month of the ballot.

"[The decision] rests on regulations and legal procedures that we want to further stipulate in detail so as to ensure that even when there is election, Cambodia remains stable," he told attendees.

Surveys predicting which political party will win the election "create confusion and chaos in society," Hang Puthea said, adding that only the NEC is authorized to announce the official results of the vote.

"Past opinion polls caused an irregular environment in society," he said.

"The NEC is paying great attention to preparations for the election and to ensuring that the daily lives of our citizens remain unaffected."

Once the NEC issues its prohibition on opinion polls, any institution violating the ban "will face legal action," Hang Puthea said, without elaborating on what punitive measures might be taken.

The NEC announcement followed an opinion poll recently published by local media that claimed the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) would win up to 60 percent of commune chief positions up for grabs in this year's election. Ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) spokesperson Sok Ey San has called the survey "a trick meant to confuse public opinion and discredit the CPP."

Pov Pisith, the deputy director-general of the Audiovisual Department under the Ministry of Information, who was also in attendance at Friday's workshop, said the ministry will not permit the broadcast of any opinion poll prior to the election to avoid "social insecurity."

"Each political party will have its own observers at all polling offices, so we will know who will win and who will lose because everything is transparent," he said, suggesting there is no need for surveys ahead of the vote.

But Sam Kuntheamy, executive director of the civil society group Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), took issue with the idea that opinion polls foment chaos, instead calling them a crucial tool for parties in gauging how effective their political platforms are ahead of a vote.

"They help parties make further efforts [to refine their campaigns]," he told RFA's Khmer Service.

"Any parties lacking support can further improve their political platforms so that they can attract more votes."

Twelve political parties are competing for 1,646 commune council seats in the June 4 ballot that many see as a bellwether for general elections in 2018.

The CPP won more than 70 percent of the vote and secured 1,592 of 1,633 communes in Cambodia's 2012 local elections, held before the CNRP was formed. The opposition party won nearly half of the vote in the general election the following year.

Observers say the CNRP could give the CPP, which has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years, a run for its money in June, and the opposition has warned that the ruling party seeks to prevent it from standing in the elections through a variety of different measures.

The CNRP on Friday filed official documents informing the Ministry of Interior of amendments to its party by-laws after the ministry recently declared the opposition's appointment of Kem Sokha as president illegitimate, throwing its participation in the upcoming election into question.

The ministry had claimed that the appointment during a March 2 extraordinary congress ran afoul of the CNRP's statute, based on documentation the party filed in 2013, requiring a moratorium on electing a new president for 18 months after the post was vacated. The CNRP had amended the statute at the congress before appointing new leadership.

Bail denied

Also on Friday, Cambodia's Supreme Court denied an appeal for bail by Ny Chakrya, the NEC's deputy secretary-general who has been in pre-trial detention for 337 days  along with four officials from local civil society group ADHOC  in an alleged case of bribing an alleged mistress of CNRP president Kem Sokha.

Ny Chakrya's attorney Sam Sokong told RFA that presiding Judge Khim Ponn's decision to uphold an appeal court's March 24 ruling that his client be denied bail was baseless.

"The rulings of the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court were based on the grounds of the charge made against my client over a criminal case, [as an alleged] accomplice in bribing a witness," he said.

"But in legal principle, allegation of criminal offense or non-criminal offense shall not be served as the basis for pretrial detention because the freedom and rights of the accused are protected by law."

Sam Sokong said that his argument to the Supreme Court should have been sufficient to win Ny Chakrya's freedom.

"We raised the issue of laws concerning freedom [of the accused], the [exorbitant] bail amount, the role of my client as deputy secretary-general of the NEC, [the needs of] his residence and family, and particularly that he is sick right now," the lawyer said.

Sam Sokong said his hopes now rest with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, where he submitted a petition calling for a prompt conclusion of the case against his client so that the trial maybe proceed. He has also requested the court's investigating judges to drop all charges against Ny Chakrya or to grant him temporary bail.

Ny Chakrya has been charged with accessory to bribery, while the four ADHOC officials  Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, and Yi Soksan  were accused of bribery for attempting to keep Kem Sokha's alleged mistress quiet in a wide-ranging probe by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government into the supposed affair.

While the court case against them continues, Kem Sokha and a local CNRP official were granted royal pardons in the case.

On Friday, Ny Chakrya's wife, Yem Chantha, told RFA her husband is not a flight risk and intends to cooperate with the court during his trial.

"He has no intention to flee  the same with the four ADHOC officials," she said.

"We all have proper residences, families and work. We are cooperating with the court. Why would we have to flee?"

She stressed that Ny Chakrya is "truly sick," adding that life in detention had been difficult for his health.

Rights groups and even the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) representative in Cambodia have called on Cambodia to release the five, dismissing their pre-trial detention as "arbitrary."

Reported by Sothearin Yeang, Maly Leng and Moniroth Morm for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China jails Tiananmen protest veteran for four years after grave visit

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China jails Tiananmen protest veteran for four years after grave visit, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba313.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Chen Yunfei in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener

A court in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Friday handed down a four-year jail term to a veteran rights activist detained after visiting the grave of a 1989 Tiananmen massacre victim in 2015, finding him guilty of a public order offense.

The Wuhou District People's Court in Sichuan's capital Chengdu jailed Chen Yunfei after convicting him of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge that is increasingly used to target peaceful dissent and criticism of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Chen, who appeared at the one-day hearing in his pajamas in a satirical reference to President Xi Jinping's slogan "the Chinese dream," rejected the verdict and sentence, his lawyer told RFA.

"Chen Yunfei smiled and made a victory sign ... [he] wore pajamas in court today," defense attorney Sui Muqing said. "He said it was easier that way to dream the Chinese dream."

"He said the police, prosecution and court had persecuted him and shown contempt for ideas."

Sui said Chen, who was initially detained on subversion charges on March 25, 2015 near after visiting the grave of Tiananmen massacre victim Wu Guofeng near Chengdu, is innocent.

"All he did was to exercise his rights as a citizen under the constitution," Sui said. "The core problem with his case is that it is an attack on freedom of expression; it's a form of political persecution."

"He was actually pursuing a glorious ideal; the dream of the citizen to exercise their rights ... He is innocent."

Sui said in an earlier interview that Chen had been hoping to get a longer sentence, of five or even 10 years.

"His aim is to become China's last political prisoner," he said. "He would rather keep on serving other people's jail time for them."

Tight security

Security was tight outside the court buildings, where around a dozen of Chen's supporters gathered in the hope of attending the hearing.

But they were detained by police for questioning at the local police station instead, according to Chengdu-based petitioner Wang Rongwen.

"I went there today with my wife and a few friends," Wang said. "The area was partially sealed off, although not as tightly as [for Chen's trial]."

"We were able to get to a point opposite the court buildings, but we couldn't cross over. The road had been sealed off halfway across," he said.

"I stood there a while, and then the state security police came over and dragged me away as far as the intersection."

Fellow Chengdu rights activist Huang Xiaomin said Chen is a bit of a legend in the human rights community.

"He is a key figure, full of ideas and legendary actions," Huang said. "More than 20 years ago, from the time he was a university student during the 1989 pro-democracy movement, he has matured into an independent social critic and satirist who takes aim at all that is wrong with our society to try to get more people to wake up and push for social change and progress."

"I have collaborated with him many times, and I think there isn't anyone to match him in China today."

Target of harassment

Chen's human rights advocacy and environmental activism have made him a frequent target of police harassment, violent assaults, and arbitrary detention.

In 2007, he was held under six months' residential surveillance after placing an advertisement in the Chengdu Evening News commemorating the relatives of those who died in the Tiananmen massacre, on charges of "incitement to subvert state power."

In 2014, the authorities launched a nationwide crackdown on activists and family members of victims of the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square student-led pro-democracy movement in the run-up to the 25th anniversary on June 4.

The government bans public memorials marking the event, and has continued to ignore growing calls in China and from overseas for a reappraisal of the 1989 student protests, which it once styled a "counterrevolutionary rebellion."

The number of people killed when People's Liberation Army tanks and troops entered Beijing on the night of June 3-4, 1989, has never been confirmed.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China jails two Guangdong rights activists for 'subversive' online posts

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China jails two Guangdong rights activists for 'subversive' online posts, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba413.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Chinese rights activists Su Changlan (L) and Chen Qitang (R) have received jail sentences for 'subversive' online posts. AFP photo/RFA graphic

A court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Friday sentenced two rights activists to jail for subversion for using the internet and social media to "attack the socialist system."

Su Changlan, who has campaigned for the land rights of local farming communities, including the right of rural women, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of "incitement to subvert state power" by the Foshan Intermediate People's Court after a more than two years in pretrial detention.

Fellow Foshan rights activist Chen Qitang was jailed for four years and six months on the same charge.

The court judgement found that Su and Chen had "used the internet and social media to spread rumors and defamation, and repeatedly published or forwarded articles and posts containing attacks on the socialist system."

"Their actions constitute the crime of incitement to subvert state power," the court said.

Defense attorney Liu Xiaoyuan said the sentencing hearing lasted just three minutes, and judges hadn't inquired whether or not the defendants would appeal.

"This was unexpected, and went against the expectations of the defendants," Liu said.

"Today's sentencing hearing took just three minutes, and they didn't even allow time to read the judgement or hear opinions, nor did they ask if there would be appeals, or their opinions on the judgement," he said.

"Then they took them away," Liu said, adding that he would file a procedural complaint.

"They are definitely supposed to read out both the judgement and the opinions of the defense counsel," he said. "They are also supposed to ask the defendants if they plan to appeal."

Fellow defense attorney Wu Kuiming said the authorities had likely deliberately curtailed the hearing for security reasons.

"It's not usual for attorneys to have to go through security checks, but they told us that today was special and that we would have to do this, and the escorted us through in person," Wu told RFA.

"Then I found out that none of the other courts in the building were in operation that day," he said.

He said Su and Chen's hearings had been treated as separate cases, with Su's starting at 9 a.m. and Chen's at 10.30 a.m.

"We didn't get our copy of the judgement for a long time; I don't even think they had it ready. I don't know why," Wu said.

Tight security

Security outside the court building was tight, with large numbers of plainclothes police mingling with passers-by outside, and preventing anyone from taking photos, fellow activists said.

"It was raining today. I got there at about 8.45 a.m. at the east gate. I couldn't see the prisoner vans," Guangdong-based activist Liao Jianhao said. "There were plainclothes police all around me  young people with earpieces."

"One of our group got out his phone to take pictures but he was immediately surrounded by three or four of these young people who said the pictures had to be deleted; then they told us to leave," Liao said.

"They had sealed off the road to the east of the court building, and they were forcing everyone to cross over to the south side of the road," he said, estimating that around 50 people had shown up to support Su and Chen, mostly from Guangdong.

Guangdong activist Wang Aizhong said the authorities are keen to stamp out any signs of nonviolent resistance among activists.

"These are baseless charges, whether we are talking about Su Changlan or Chen Qitang, which the authorities have pinned on them as a political offense," Wang said.

"Actually, they want to suppress anyone who fights for the rights and interests of ordinary people, and any form of disobedience to the dictatorship," he said.

Activists in Hong Kong staged a protest against the sentences, saying that some of the posts made by Su and Chen had been in support of the 2014 pro-democracy Occupy Central movement.

"Just a peaceful action like posting a few words or photos in support of Hong Kong's Umbrella movement is enough to get you a few years in jail," rights activist and lawyer Albert Ho told the protest.

Demonstrators chanted "Free Su Changlan! Free Chen Qitang! Release all political prisoners!" outside Beijing's representative office in the city.

Others chanted: "Supporting the Umbrella movement is not a crime!"

The Occupy Central movement saw hundreds of thousands of people pour onto the streets in a campaign for full democracy, using umbrellas to protect themselves from sun, rain, and pepper spray, which gave the demonstration the nickname Umbrella Movement.

But the movement ended with no political victory, and amid accusations from the ruling Chinese Communist Party that the civil disobedience campaign was being orchestrated by "hostile foreign forces" behind the scenes.

Detention judged 'arbitrary'

Earlier this month Su, 45, became the third recipient of the Cao Shunli Memorial Award for Human Rights Defenders, in honor of her work "promoting human rights at the grassroots level in China."

There have been growing concerns for her health after a prolonged period in police detention with no medical treatment for her heart arrhythmia and hyperthyroidism, rights groups say.

Su's detention has been judged "arbitrary" by the United Nations, which has called on Beijing to release and compensate her. She is still being held in the Nanhai Detention Center in Foshan.

Chen Qitang, better known by his pseudonym Tian Li, stood trial last April at the Foshan Intermediate People's Court, where the charges against him focused on six online posts by Chen, three of which were penned by him.

Chen pleaded not guilty, and his defense team argued that none of his actions constituted a crime under Chinese law. But the prosecution case said the articles represented a "harsh attack" on the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Reported by Yang Fan and Ding Wenqi for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Kim murder case 'not compromised' by release of North Koreans: Malaysia police chief

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Kim murder case 'not compromised' by release of North Koreans: Malaysia police chief, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba5c.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman (left) greets Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, the counselor at Malaysia's embassy to North Korea, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after Md Zain and eight other Malaysians arrived on a flight from Pyongyang, March 31, 2017. BenarNews

Malaysia's police chief gave an assurance Friday that a probe into the murder of the half-brother of North Korea's leader had not been compromised by the homeward return of three North Korean suspects under a diplomatic deal worked out by both countries.

The three men had arrived in Pyongyang on Friday via Beijing along with the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was poisoned to death by the VX nerve agent at a Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13, in an audacious operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

Malaysian Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said the men, who had been hiding in the North Korean embassy for weeks, were allowed to leave because they no longer were needed for the investigation into the murder.

"No, no, on my criminal investigation, it has not been compromised. I still state that the investigation on the murder of KJN is ongoing," Khalid told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

He said that the trio had been interviewed by investigators and, "We have recorded their statements and we are satisfied with it."

Malaysian officials had said that the three  Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Kim Uk Il, an employee of North Korean state airline Air Koryo, and Ri Ji U (also known as James)  had been caught on a CCTV camera at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2, where Kim was assassinated.

Prosecutors have charged two women  an Indonesian and a Vietnamese  with killing Kim Jong Nam, but officials in South Korea and the United States had viewed them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.

Khalid stressed that police were still looking for four other North Koreans, whom they had identified among suspects named in Kim's death.

Police said they think the four returned to North Korea after fleeing Malaysia on the day of Kim's assassination.

"We need the four to complete our investigation. And I believe that if North Korea wants a transparent investigation, they should cooperate with us and hand over to us the four," Khalid said.

Swap resolves crisis

The Malaysian government had allowed the three suspects to return and permitted Pyongyang to take custody of Kim's body, in exchange for nine Malaysians who had been blocked from leaving North Korea for more than three weeks.

"The body of the DPRK citizen who died in Malaysia and relevant people from the DPRK have returned to the DPRK today via Beijing," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang told a daily press briefing.

"Based on international customary practices and humanitarian considerations, the Chinese side offered necessary assistance to the body's transit through China."

The issue of who would have custody of the body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a flashpoint in the diplomatic row. The crisis saw both countries, which have maintained bilateral ties since 1973, expel their respective ambassadors and impose exit bans on each other's citizens.

At the height of the crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak accused North Korea of being behind the assassination.

On Thursday evening, Najib announced the crisis was over after his government had granted North Korea permission to take custody of the body. North Koreans who had been blocked from leaving Malaysia were free to go, and the nine Malaysians headed home on a flight out of Pyongyang.

Bilateral relations were intact, Najib said Friday during a visit to Chennai, India.

"[W]e hope North Korea will no longer raise such problems as this could jeopardize diplomatic relations between the two countries," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.

At Friday's press conference, reporters pressed Khalid about which member or members of Kim's family had authorized, in a letter to the coroner, the body to be released, but he declined to say.

Kim Jong Nam had been living with his wife and children in exile in Macau and was estranged from his half-brother, Kim Jong Un, who reportedly had issued a standing order for his execution.

However, the police chief did not discount the possibility the North Korean leader had claimed custody of the body.

"The next-of-kin [wrote the letter]. Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is Jong Nam's next-of-kin," Khalid said.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Tibetan self-immolation survivor freed from prison in Sichuan

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Tibetan self-immolation survivor freed from prison in Sichuan, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba72f.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Tibetan pilgrims are shown outside Ngaba's Kirti monastery in a file photo. AFP

A Tibetan monk jailed for over five years after surviving a self-immolation protest in Sichuan's Ngaba county was released from prison this week after serving his full sentence, Tibetan sources in the region said.

Lobsang Konchok, a monk belonging to Ngaba's Kirti monastery, was freed on March 28 and was immediately taken by police to a nomadic area far from his family home in Ngaba, a local source told RFA's Tibetan Service.

"His relatives were not informed of the date of his release, and no one was allowed to go to welcome him," RFA's source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The authorities are not permitting him to visit his home in Ngaba's Meruma township and are keeping him secluded from the public in a nomadic place far away," he said.

Konchok had completed his term at Sichuan's Deyang prison earlier this month, but his release was delayed owing to tensions in the Ngaba area during the anniversary of a failed March 10, 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

Though authorities had hoped to keep news of Konchok's release from spreading, "one of his friends from Kirti monastery heard about it and went to see him on March 29, and then word quickly spread to others," a second local source said, also speaking on condition he not be named.

Konchok had lost a leg during treatment for the burns suffered in his protest and was subjected to torture and other kinds of harassment during his time in prison, RFA's sources said.

In a Sept. 26, 2011 protest, Konchok had set himself ablaze at a major intersection in Ngaba county's main town after shouting slogans calling for Tibetan freedom and the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Surviving his burns after being overpowered by police, he was quickly taken to a hospital in Sichuan's Barkham (in Chinese, Ma'erkang) county for treatment and was later jailed, sources said.

Kirti monastery and Ngaba's main town have been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests in recent years by monks, former monks, nuns, and other Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule in Tibetan areas.

Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Three Rohingya villagers to file rape complaints against Myanmar soldiers

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Three Rohingya villagers to file rape complaints against Myanmar soldiers, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba76.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Rohingya Muslim women, sheltered in a house at Kutupalang Rohingya camp in Bangladesh, talk about the abuse they endured during security operations in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 27, 2017. DPA

Authorities in Rakhine state's Maungdaw township have granted permission to three Rohingya Muslims to file complaints against government soldiers whom they have accused of raping them during a recent crackdown, a local administrator said Friday.

Three women from Kyargaung Taung village said they want to file charges against the soldiers who attacked them during a four-month security sweep of the township's Rohingya communities following deadly attacks on local border guard stations in Maungdaw and neighboring Rathedaung township last October.

Officials blamed the attack on Rohingya militants, and conducted the crackdown to find those who were involved in planning and carrying out the raids during which nine border police officers were killed.

"They told media that they want to file charges against the soldiers for raping them," said Ye Htut, Maungdaw's district administrator. "That's why village authorities and community leaders are helping them file it."

"One woman couldn't come because she is pregnant, so we went to her village and helped her to file the complaint against the soldiers," he said.

Though scores of other Rohingya women have accused security forces of raping them during the crackdown, which ended in February, only three other cases have been filed against soldiers in Maungdaw's U Shay Kyar village.

Myanmar has four internal commissions investigating the alleged atrocities by security forces in northern Rakhine townships during the crackdown, but they have been criticized as not being truly independent and having a negative bias toward the country's Muslim minority group.

The United Nations Human Rights Council last week said it will dispatch an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate the alleged recent human rights violations.

The mission will be looking into reports of murder, rape, torture, and arson by security forces in Rohingya Muslim communities in the northern part of the state during a four-month security sweep that ended in February.

About 1,000 people died during the operation, and more than 77,000 Rohingya fled, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh where they are living in refugee camps.

Reported by Waiyan Moe Myint for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Vietnam's Pham Thanh Nghien named finalist for rights defenders at risk award

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Vietnam's Pham Thanh Nghien named finalist for rights defenders at risk award, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba813.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-03-31

Pham Thanh Nghien in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Danlambao

Vietnamese blogger and former political prisoner Pham Thanh Nghien has been named a finalist for the Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, honoring activists who jeopardize their own safety to benefit their communities.

Nghien, who is known for her work publicizing violations against and defending the rights of relatives of fishermen killed by Chinese patrols in the South China Sea, was one of five finalists selected for the 2017 award, Ireland-based Front Line Defenders said in a statement.

Also selected were Ukrainian rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, South African land and environment campaigner Nonhle Mbuthuma, imprisoned Kuwaiti minority activist Abdulhakim Al Fadhli and Nicaraguan anti-canal crusader Francisca Ramirez Torres.

"These five defenders demonstrate the tenacity and will to persist in the face of severe, often life threatening risks," the statement said, citing executive director of Front Line Defenders Andrew Anderson as he announced the finalists in Dublin on March 30.

"Human rights defenders tell us that international visibility is vital to their work, particularly as governments and corporations work to defame, slander, and delegitimize their peaceful struggle for rights ... Their struggle has not gone unnoticed and we in Ireland support their fight for rights."

The 2017 finalists and their families have faced attacks, defamation campaigns, legal harassment, death threats, prison sentences, and intimidation, according to Front Line Defenders, which works to promote the visibility and protection of activists it says are critical to rights movements in their countries and communities.

A recipient of the 2009 Human Rights Watch Hellman/Hammet award for writers targeted with political persecution, Nghien was arrested in August that year and sentenced in 2010 to a four-year prison term, followed by three years' probation under the charge of conducting propaganda against the state.

Her home has since been raided, she has been blocked from attending medical appointments, had a padlock placed on her door from the outside, and been refused a marriage certificate.

During her probation, Nghien spearheaded several rights campaigns and co-founded the Vietnamese Bloggers' Network along with jailed blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh  also known as Mother Mushroom (Me Nam). On Wednesday, Quynh was honored in absentia by the U.S. Department of State with the International Women of Courage Award for her work highlighting rights abuses in Vietnam.

Speaking to RFA's Vietnamese Service Friday, Nghien's friend and fellow activist Kim Chi said that despite the blogger's petite size, she is "very brave and always willing" to speak out about her beliefs, noting that she had even suffered a severe beating by police in 2015 that left her covered in bruises.

"Today, she and her husband continue to be harassed [by the government], but she continues to write important articles that everybody should read," Chi said.

"She has never stopped working for noble causes."

The recipient of the 2017 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk will be announced at a ceremony in Dublin on May 26.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Lao police report arrest of wanted drug kingpin Sisouk Daoheuang

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 2 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Lao police report arrest of wanted drug kingpin Sisouk Daoheuang, 2 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cba913.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-02

Suspected drug kingpin Sisouk Daoheuang, following his arrest in Luang Prabang province on April 1, in undated photo. Courtesy of an RFA listener.

Lao police have arrested fugitive drug kingpin Sisouk Dauheuang, an associate of Xaysana "Mr. X " Keophimpha who had been on the run since Xaysana's capture in January, security sources told RFA's Lao Service on Sunday.

Sisouk was caught by police in Luang Prabang province on Saturday, and was taken to the capital Vientiane for investigation, the sources said.

"They arrested [Sisouk] in Luang Prabang province the day before yesterday. The police need to investigate him first. Details are not clear yet; They are investigating," a senior official from the Lao Ministry of Public Security told RFA. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Thai police major general Pornchai Charoenwongse, deputy chief of the Narcotic Suppression Bureau, told RFA on Sunday that officials would meet on Monday to prepare a "directive to travel to Vientiane to investigate him [Sisouk]."

Sisouk, who had been wanted since Xaysana was arrested I January had sold used and luxury cars, and operated a horse-riding business in Vientiane. The businesses have been closed.

Sisouk is suspected to be part of a major methamphetamines distribution network in Southeast Asia operated by 42-year-old Lao national Xaysana, who was arrested on Jan. 19 in Thailand.

Xaysana, 42, was arrested on Jan. 19 at Thailand's Suvarnabhumi Airport after arriving from Phuket after a five-year long investigation by Thai and Lao authorities.

Authorities say Xaysana was supplying caffeine-laced meth tablets known as "yaba" produced in Myanmar throughout the region.

Known as Mr. X, Xaysana led a lavish lifestyle that included contacts with high-society figures in the region, a fleet of exotic cars and at least five houses.

On February 15, Lao police had a press conference to inform the media of arrests of 33 drugs dealers after they operated suppression of drugs traffickers from September 2016 to January 2017.

On Jan. 10, police arrested 50-year- Khonpasong Soukkaseum, also known as Xiengther, along with three of his associates, Thonglek Mangnormek, director of the General Department of Police under the Ministry of Public Security, told that press conference. He called "a major drug trader" on a scale even larger than Xaysana.

Police are still seeking Xiengphet Lattana and his wife, Boua Lattana, relatives of Khonpasong.

Reported by RFA's Lao Service. Translated by Somnet Inthapannha and Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Paul Eckert.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Cambodian opposition party makes changes to comply with amended bylaws

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 3 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Cambodian opposition party makes changes to comply with amended bylaws, 3 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbaa13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-03

Eng Chhai Eang, a deputy president of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, says the party is in compliance with its bylaws, April 2, 2017. RFA

Cambodia's main opposition party has notified the country's Ministry of Interior that it has re-endorsed its leadership and removed a slogan to comply with newly amended party bylaws.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) submitted a letter to the ministry on Monday, informing it that Kem Sokha remains the president of the party along with the three same deputy presidents  Pol Ham, Mu Sochua, and Eng Chhai Eang.

The CNRP also said it had removed its slogan "Replace the commune chiefs who serve the party with the commune chiefs who serve the people" in the run-up to local elections on June 4.

Eng Chhai Eang told reporters that the CNRP's steering committee decided on Sunday that the party's current leadership will remain in place so that the CNRP is in compliance with Article 47 of the party statutes.

"Now we are in compliance with the statute," Eng Chhai Eang told RFA's Khmer Service. "Actually, our statute came into effect immediately after it was amended."

"Kem Sokha, therefore, has automatically become party president," he said. "The re-endorsement of his position was not necessary. However, we had to convene the meeting to follow what the ministry wanted. Now the Ministry of Interior has recognized our new statute."

Eng Chhai Eang said that the CNRP's removal of the slogan was also a compromise.

Sok Eysan, spokesman of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) said he welcomed the move to remove the slogan because he believes it can resolve the controversy.

"The re-endorsement of the CNRP leadership had to be done to be compliant with its statute," he said. "By cancelling its extraordinary congress decision, the CNRP has resorted to sticking to its Article 47 of the statute.

"Regarding the removal of the slogan, the CNRP had to do so to ensure that it abides by the law," he said.

On March 31, the CNRP notified the Ministry of Interior of amendments to its party bylaws after the ministry recently declared the opposition's appointment of Kem Sokha as president illegitimate, throwing its participation in the upcoming elections into question.

The ministry had claimed that the appointment during a March 2 extraordinary congress ran afoul of the CNRP's statute, based on documentation the party filed in 2013, requiring a moratorium on electing a new president for 18 months after the post was vacated. The CNRP had amended the statute at the congress before appointing new leadership.

The CNRP is one of 12 political parties competing for 1,646 commune council seats on the June 4 ballot that many see as a bellwether for general elections in 2018.

Observers believe that the CNRP could give the CPP, which has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years, a run for its money in the June elections.

The opposition has warned that the ruling party is seeking to prevent it from standing in the elections through a variety of different tactics.

Reported by Savi Khorn and Sarada Taing for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China could roll out Chongqing VPN ban, fines nationwide: Activists

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 3 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China could roll out Chongqing VPN ban, fines nationwide: Activists, 3 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbab13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-03

A screenshot taken on March 27, 2017 of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau website shows an announcement prohibiting the use of VPNs to browse online. RFA

New rules banning the use of circumvention tools to get around internet censorship in the southwestern Chinese megacity of Chongqing could soon be rolled out nationwide, activists told RFA.

Chongqing only recently made public the new regulations, which came into effect last July and ban the city's 50 million residents from "scaling the Great Firewall."

Individuals and companies that use tools like virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent the complex array of blocks, filters and human censorship that limits what Chinese internet users can see online will be ordered to disconnect, while anyone profiting from such activity will be fined, according to the Chongqing regulations.

This could include anyone seeking to read news that the ruling Chinese Communist Party regards as unflattering, businesses wanting to use blocked social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google to communicate, and academics seeking access to overseas research.

Rights activist Ou Biaofeng said he fears the Chongqing regulations are being piloted in the city and will soon be rolled out nationwide.

"I think that the government is using Chongqing as a testing ground, and then they will apply it to the whole country," Ou told RFA in a recent interview.

He said the impact would be huge.

"A lot of people use circumvention tools to access information from overseas at the moment," Ou said. "This is going to spread fear among all those people that climb the Great Firewall."

New regulations

The Chongqing rules are the latest in a string of draconian regulations issued by Beijing in a bid to exert complete control over what China's 731 million internet users can see, or post, online.

Last November, Beijing issued a raft of new measures that could undermine their use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to get around censorship.

The draft regulations would require any websites operating in China to register with a Chinese domain name, which is subject to state control and can be used to shut down entire websites within the country-level .cn top-level domain.

And state news agency Xinhua news agency suggested in a Jan. 11 report that the requirement, which sparked concerns at the time over deeper censorship and access by foreign businesses to the Chinese market, is unlikely to be dropped.

Xie Jiaye, head of the New York-based Chinese Association of Science and Technology, said he sees the Chongqing rules as part of this strategy.

"These kinds of controls on information will be of no benefit to China's economic or technological development," Xie told RFA. "In fact, there are no benefits at all to the kind of control and censorship that the Chinese government exercises over the internet."

He said he can't see any evidence that controls will be relaxed any time soon.

"That's not very likely, certainly not during the 10 years President Xi Jinping will be in power," Xie said.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) hit out at the ban in a blog post by China director Sophie Richardson.

"The Chongqing regulation is unprecedented as it places a blanket ban on the use of VPNs and other circumvention methods used to connect to the global internet," Richardson wrote, adding that previous regulatory efforts have focused on providers and let individuals alone.

"It is unclear whether other local governments will soon follow suit, but the ban has already had a chilling effect among VPN users across the nation  many netizens posted frightened or crying emojis to express their displeasure," she wrote.

'Cutting us off'

Chongqing resident Zhang Lin said the rules are aimed at ensuring that no voices critical of the government can be heard online in China.

"They want to suppress people's freedom of expression and stop ordinary people from having a voice," Zhang said. "They want to cut us off from the rest the world, from public opinion in other countries."

Fellow Chongqing resident Xu Yuanqing agreed.

"They want to oppress people, to shut us down so we can't be seen or heard," Xu said. "That way, there won't be any international pressure [on the government]."

"They shouldn't be allowed to cut us off like this; I hope people overseas will pay attention to what's happening in China."

Reported by Xi Wang for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Dalai Lama's visit to northern state in India angers China

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 3 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Dalai Lama's visit to northern state in India angers China, 3 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbac13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-03

The Dalai Lama is welcomed on the first day of a three-day visit to Assam, India, April 1, 2017. OHHDL

A planned visit by the Dalai Lama this week to Arunachal Pradesh, a state in northeastern India claimed by China as "South Tibet," is stirring controversy and fears of heightened diplomatic tensions between the two powerful neighbors.

The Dalai Lama's nine-day stay from April 4 will be the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's fifth visit to the disputed region since 1983, and China  which regards the Dalai Lama as a separatist seeking to separate Tibet from Beijing's rule  has strongly objected each time.

Now, China has threatened that the Indian government-backed trip to the border state's Tawang region will cause "serious damage" to bilateral ties, though the Dalai Lama has announced plans only to visit and teach at a large Buddhist monastery there.

India has consistently rejected China's claim to Arunachal Pradesh, former state minister and Indian parliamentarian R.K. Khrimey told RFA's Tibetan Service.

"Arunachal Pradesh has always been a part of India, and it will remain a part of India," Khrimey said. "Our prime minister and government have decided that [the Dalai Lama] can travel to any part of India, including Arunachal Pradesh, to which His Holiness wants to travel."

India's open support for the Dalai Lama's present trip reflects government annoyance with China over "a host of issues," former Hindustan Times editor Pramit Pal Chaudhuri said.

These include China's expanding economic ties to Indian rival Pakistan, blocking of India's joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and veto of U.N. sanctions against a Pakistani terrorist accused of attacks against India, Chaudhuri told RFA in an e-mail on Monday.

"At this level, this is par for the course in Sino-Indian relations and their carefully managed ways of needling each other," Chaudhuri said.

Concerns over succession

What is new this time is controversy over the issue of who will succeed the Dalai Lama, now 81, after he dies, Chaudhuri said.

Noting that China has already announced it will select the next Dalai Lama, Chaudhuri said that the present Dalai Lama has been working to undermine the legitimacy of any future "puppet" chosen by Beijing.

The Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang will be "partly about ensuring that the [region's] Tibetan and Buddhist leaders will hold to his line rather than Beijing's," Chaudhuri said.

Interviewed by RFA, residents of Arunachal Pradesh meanwhile voiced support for the Tibetan spiritual leader's coming visit.

"His Holiness the Dalai Lama brings peace and blessings with him whenever he visits this area," one resident of the state said, adding, "China cannot bear the recognition and respect that the Dalai Lama attracts in the world."

Others declared their intention never to be governed by Beijing.

"We enjoy the freedom that India gives us," one said. "Living under Chinese rule would be insane."

Reported by Kalden Lodoe and Passang Tsering for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English with additional reporting by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Dozens of Montagnards flee Cambodia for Thailand amid fears of repatriation to Vietnam

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 3 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Dozens of Montagnards flee Cambodia for Thailand amid fears of repatriation to Vietnam, 3 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbad11.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-03

Montagnards attend a church service in Bang Yai, Thailand, in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of the Montagnards Assistance Project

Some 50 Montagnard asylum seekers have fled Cambodia to Thailand in recent weeks amid fears of forced repatriation to Vietnam, where they complain of discrimination and persecution at the hands of local authorities, a nongovernmental organization that monitors hill tribes said Monday.

Grace Bui, a volunteer with the U.S.-based rights group Montagnards Assistance Project, told RFA's Vietnamese Service that with the latest arrival of asylum seekers from Cambodia, the number of Montagnards based in Bang Yai, in central Thailand's Nonthaburi province, had reached 250.

"There were only 200 people a few months ago but now there are 250 people," she said.

"The reason is the government of Cambodia is very close to the government of Vietnam and it has returned some Montagnards to Vietnam. This makes a lot of people worry, so they traveled to Thailand."

According to a report by the Phnom Penh Post, the 50 Montagnards left Cambodia in several separate groups beginning on March 25 after the country's Ministry of Interior began rejecting some of their asylum claims last month.

The 50 included some individuals with a "very strong" case for asylum, the Post reported, citing Denise Coghlan, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, which has been assisting a group of around 200 Montagnards that arrived in Cambodia in late 2014 and 2015.

Only three of nearly 100 Montagnards remaining in Phnom Penh are being considered for refugee status, the report said.

Thailand is not a signatory to the United Nations' 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and, as in Cambodia, the Montagnards have no rights regardless of their registration with the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR.

When reached for comment, some of the Montagnards who fled Cambodia last month told RFA that their lives in Thailand have been difficult, but said the hardships they face in Vietnam are far worse.

"Cambodia rejected my case and [the government wants] to send us back to Vietnam, but we didn't want to go, so we escaped to Thailand," Y Hut, a member of the Ede minority said.

But he said that his situation in Thailand is also precarious, adding that he is "now in danger" of being taken into custody by authorities in Bang Yai.

Y Yony, another member of the Ede minority who fled to Thailand, told RFA that he would do whatever he could to avoid returning to Vietnam.

"If we return, we will be thrown in prison for five to 20 years," he said.

"The last time I was imprisoned, I promised [the authorities] several times that I would not flee Vietnam and would seek their permission whenever I wanted to go anywhere. That is [another reason] why I don't want to return."

Y Yony said he does not have a stable job in Thailand and has been living hand to mouth since his arrival.

"I get jobs from here and there and get paid about 150 baht (U.S. $4.36) a day, and that is just to pay for my daily life," he said, adding that most of the work he had done was helping to farm rice paddies.

A third member of the Ede minority named Y D'jom, who said he had arrived in Thailand earlier than the 50 who came in March, told RFA he was unable to work because the risk of arrest and repatriation was too high.

"I've been here since February and I have no job  I only stay at home because I'm not allowed to go anywhere," he said.

"But I can't return to Vietnam, because the police will arrest me there and torture me in prison. I'm scared."

Persecuted people

Vietnam's Central Highlands are home to some 30 tribes of indigenous peoples, known collectively as Montagnards or the Degar. The group of Montagnards who fled to Phnom Penh comes from the mountainous region of Gia Lai, Dak Lak, and Kon Tum provinces in central Vietnam, which border Rattanakiri and Mondulkiri provinces of Cambodia.

The Montagnards living in Phnom Penh are among the more than 200 who have fled their country and crossed the border into Cambodia seeking help from UNHCR, citing oppression by the Vietnamese government.

Rights groups say the Montagnards, many of whom are Christian, have been victims of persecution and repression in Vietnam. The Montagnards also backed the U.S. in the Vietnam War and some have suffered repercussions for this.

Xiu A Nem, a protestant member of the J'rai minority, told RFA she had suffered extreme persecution in Vietnam because of her faith, and only managed to relocate to Canada in 2014 after fleeing her home country for Thailand.

"I was oppressed in Vietnam because I'm a protestant  they don't respect religious freedom," she said.

"I was imprisoned for two years, but I escaped to Thailand and got help from [rights groups] and was accepted for asylum by Canada."

Reported by Thanh Truc for RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Ethnic political party sweeps by-elections in Myanmar's restive Shan state

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 3 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Ethnic political party sweeps by-elections in Myanmar's restive Shan state, 3 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbae11.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-03

Sain Kyaw Nyint, vice secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, discusses the ethnic party's win in state parliament by-elections in Myanmar's eastern Shan state, April 3, 2017. RFA

An ethnic Shan political party won all six seats in state parliament by-elections in Kyethi township in Myanmar's eastern Shan state on Sunday, giving it a landslide victory over candidates from the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) contested seats in seven constituencies in the by-elections, but lost one in Kengtung township, said SNLD vice secretary Sain Kyaw Nyunt.

The NLD won only one state parliament seat in the Naungshwe constituency, and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) picked up the remaining seat in the Kengtung township constituency.

Another ethnic Shan party  the Shan Nationalities Development Party (SNDP)  did not win any seats in the state by-election.

On offer in the by-elections  the first held since the civilian NLD came to power a year ago  were seats in eight states and regions around the country left vacant by incumbents whom the government picked for ministerial posts.

Though the NLD, led by de facto national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, won only nine of the 19 seats in national and regional parliaments, the results of the by-elections will not affect the NLD's significant majority in the national parliament

They do, however, serve as a bellwether by which to measure growing dissatisfaction among ethnic minority groups with the current government administration and its failure to make significant headway in ending ethnic strife and propelling economic development.

Sain Kyaw Nyunt said that the SNLD, a federal party with local branches in most townships in Shan State and a few in Kayah and Kachin states and the Mandalay region, was satisfied with its victories in the by-elections in Shan state.

"People voted well," he said of the by-elections, where races were held after being cancelled in 2015 because of clashes between armed rebels and the government army. "Some came from 18 miles away to vote, and the SNLD thanks those people for this."

"Shan people usually care about business and social events, but we now see they care about politics as well," he said. "Although we didn't win all the seats, we are satisfied because we were able to wake up their political minds."

Several ethnic militias have staked out various swathes of Shan state  one of the most restive and unstable areas of Myanmar  and periodically defend them against other ethnic armies and the Myanmar military.

But Sain Kyaw Nyunt said the SNLD didn't have any difficulties holding the by-elections because the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) had issued a statement saying that the SNLD could campaign in SSPP-controlled areas.

Good relationships

The SNLD has good relationships with ethnic armed groups that have signed a nationwide cease-fire agreement (NCA) with the Myanmar government as well as those that have not, Sain Kyaw Nyunt said.

Some militias engaged in hostilities with the government army in several areas, including Shan state, have refused to participate in the peace process.

"It is good to have our members of parliament in conflict areas so that they can participate in any peace process and regional development as representatives of the SNLD," he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi is spearheading efforts to end decades of ethnic separatist civil wars in the country and forge national reconciliation and peace through periodic talks known as the 21st-Century Panglong Conference.

Most armed ethnic groups are seeking autonomy under a federal system in the talks, but some have opted out or been excluded from participating by the government because of ongoing hostilities.

"Although we now have a one-year-old democratic government, we still don't have as much as we had expected, but we have to wait," Sin Kyaw Myunt said.

"Previous governments operated under a military dictatorship, and the current government is trying to reform everything that was put in place by the military dictatorship," he said.

"We know it is not easy," he said. "We understand the current government and we want to urge it to make more of an effort."

The SNLD wants the NLD to invite the political groups and ethnic militias as allies and discuss with them how to rebuild the country together, he said.

Win Htein, a top NLD leader, told Reuters that the party faced language barriers and problems with armed groups in the Shan state districts being contested where residents don't understand Burmese.

Kayah state candidates removed

In a related development, the NLD removed Khin Sithu, chief of eastern Myanmar's Kayah State, and Pei Du, NLD chairman in Hpruso township, from their posts because they failed to register as candidates in Hpruso constituency before the deadline.

"I was removed from the NLD post because they [NLD leaders] think that it is my responsibility for failing to submit the name of a candidate," said Khin Sithu, who is also a lawmaker representing Loikaw township.

"I didn't violate any rule in the party," he said. "Now I am no longer party chief, but I am still a member of parliament."

More than two million voters of the country's more than 54 million population, were eligible to vote in the by-elections.

Reported by Aung Theinkha and Kyaw Thu for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a lookout notice against Vijay Kothari, the diamond trader who is the main accused and mastermind in the Rs 6000 crore fake import remittances case.

ED alleged that Kothari was less a diamond trader and more a hawala operator.

On Thursday, the agency also arrested one Anil Chokhara, ex-director of Kanika Gems Pvt Ltd and proprietor of Keshav Impex in a money laundering case. Chokhara in his capacity had indulged in submitting forged import documents including bills of entry and invoices to IndusInd Bank with the intent to fraudulently remit foreign exchange.

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It was on the basis of the Enforcement Case Investigation Report (ECIR) filed against Yogeshwar Diamonds, Charbhuja Diamonds and Kanika Gems, and their directors, that the investigation was initiated by the ED two years ago. These three companies have allegedly been involved in a fraudulent foreign remittances scam worth Rs 6000 crore.

"It is a multi-layer scam where at least 200-300 shell companies or said dubious importers deposited fake bills of entries (of imports) in four banks. Later, remittances were made to unknown individuals outside India, especially in Hong Kong and Dubai," a source within the agency told India Today. These banks were ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bank of India.

According to ED, investigation revealed Kanika Gems and other two companies had conspired among themselves at the IndusInd Bank branches and submitted forged bills of entry, impelling the bank to remit an approximate Rs 304 crores.

The agency believes the amount of remittances sent to overseas countries is expected to go much higher than the FIR amount of Rs 304 crore, as the said modus operandi has been adopted by above companies with respect to other banks also.

While seeking custodial interrogation before the special PMLA Court, ED counsel Hiten Venegaonkar argued saying, "Anil Chokhara was summoned on three occasions, but he didn't turned up. He is the main director of three companies. We believe somebody else is behind these inward and outward transactions. For that the agency would like to interrogate Chokhara."

During the arguments, Chokhara's advocate denied any role in the scam. The counsel argued that Chokhara was a whistleblower who exposed the scam and had already appeared before ED at least 35 times. "Does he look like a person who could take Rs 304 crore from any bank. He has been made director of these companies without his knowledge. The main masterminds like Vijay Kothari, Sanjay Jain and others who have not been arrested".

Sanjay Jain is a owner of one Mumbai-based movie theatre, and among the main accused who created these fake entry of bills. He has been interrogated thrice by investigators.

--- ENDS ---

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North Korean traders shun email correspondence with foreign partners

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 3 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, North Korean traders shun email correspondence with foreign partners, 3 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbaf13.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-03

A woman is reflected in a window as she uses a computer at the 'Pyongyang Bag Factory' in Pyongyang, Feb. 18, 2017. AFP

Traders in North Korea have shunned email as a method of communicating with their foreign partners because the state exacts exorbitant fees for sending and receiving messages, and their correspondence is subjected to heavy scrutiny by official censors, according to sources who do business in the region.

A Chinese merchant who spoke on condition of anonymity told RFA's Korean Service that traders in North Korea choose to avoid communicating with foreign clients via email because of the challenges they face in the notoriously closed country, despite the impact it has on their business.

In order to establish an email link with a North Korean trader, foreign partners must first "register their email address with North Korea's security authorities to get approval," the source said.

Traders in North Korea must explain to authorities whether their foreign partners are "friendly" towards the country and why it is necessary to communicate using email, but even if given approval, the two sides face additional complications.

"Even if emails addresses of foreign companies are successfully registered, North Korean partners cannot directly receive the emails that are sent to them," the source told RFA.

"Pyongyang's communication center officer censors the contents and delivers only approved messages to the North Korean traders."

The traders must then pay a fee to the authorities as recipients of an email, he said.

"I heard from a North Korean trader that if we send a facsimile to Pyongyang, the recipient will have to pay 4 euros (U.S. $4.26), but recipients have to pay more for emails," he added, without providing an amount.

When a North Korean trader replies to a foreign partner's email, they must first submit the content of the message to Pyongyang's communication center, where an officer will censor it before sending it on to its final destination.

Replies cost even more money to send than receiving emails, the source said.

"All of the expenses should be paid by North Korean trade companies, since the correspondence is part of official business, but in North Korea, individual traders must cover the costs," he said.

"I can understand why North Korean traders hate communicating via email."

Foreign companies affected

A second Chinese merchant, who also asked to withhold his name, said that mainly Chinese foreign companies operating inside North Korea are also affected by challenges associated with using email and have sought to set up their own Internet service to circumvent requirements.

"Foreign companies operating in the Rason Special Economic Zone can establish their own internet service and communicate with their home countries by email," the source said, referring to the warm-water port in the northeastern part of North Hamgyong province bordering China and Russia.

"However, the monthly internet fee is 5,000 yuan (U.S. $726), which is a ridiculously large amount of money, so there are not a lot of foreign businessmen who do this."

Authorities have long tried to block various forms of information from entering North Korea in an attempt to keep unwanted foreign influences from seeping into the isolated nation.

Leader Kim Jong Un is believed to be particularly sensitive about news of the outside world getting into the North because of its ability to undermine his regime's propaganda efforts and threaten his support base  made up largely of the country's elite.

North Koreans regularly use cell phones smuggled into the country from China to access telecom signals in border areas to make international calls and surf the Internet via their handsets.

Local phones and internet access are restricted to the North's own networks, though, as Pyongyang seeks to prevent the spread of information from abroad.

Reported by Joonho Kim for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Soo Min Jo. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Calls grow for Trump to pressure China's president on human rights at summit

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Calls grow for Trump to pressure China's president on human rights at summit, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb0c.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-04

Jin Bianling (L), wife of disappeared rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, and ChinaAid head Bob Fu (R) ask U.S. help to locate Jiang, Washington D.C., Dec. 7, 2016. Bob Fu

The relatives of China's detained human rights lawyers have written to U.S. President Donald Trump calling on him to raise Beijing's human rights record during his forthcoming summit with President Xi Jinping in Florida on Thursday.

"We now know that they have been tortured, and we worry about whether they will live or die," the relatives said of their loved ones. "We want to know how they are looking, and why they haven't been allowed to meet with a lawyer for a year and eight months now."

"We have never given up trying to find out the whereabouts of our loved ones, nor trying to help them," the letter, addressed to President Trump at the White House, said.

"We have been detained several times ... and beaten up by police because of our activities," it said. "We have sent hundreds of letters and paid hundreds of visits, but it has all been to no avail."

"We are writing to you, Mr. President, ... because we know that under the present reality, there is no hope of a fair trial."

Sixteen out of more than 300 human rights lawyers, activists, and law firm employees detained since July 2015 are still facing trial, while two have already been handed harsh sentences.

Request for demands

Jin Bianling, the U.S.-based wife of detained rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, said she had penned the letter, dated March 31, on behalf of all of the relatives of lawyers detained across China in a nationwide police operation since July 2015.

"This week, Trump will meet with Xi Jinping, so we are hoping that Trump can make some demands on China, such as releasing all of the innocent rights lawyers and other citizens detained in the July 2015 crackdown," she said.

Jin said many of the relatives of the detained lawyers are themselves in dire straits as a direct result of the crackdown.

"Their children have been unable to get schooling, and there is no way they can live normal lives," she said. "They are frequently forced to move house, and they have been threatened, followed, and held under house arrest."

"The human rights situation in China right now is extremely dire ... and so we call on Trump for help as a last resort," Jin said.

Continuing crackdown

Since President Xi Jinping assumed power in March 2013, his administration has launched an ongoing campaign against peaceful dissent, freedoms of expression and religion, and the rule of law, the New York-based Human Rights Group said in a recent report.

In Washington, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) called on Trump not to overlook the estimated 1,400 Chinese political prisoners during talks.

"As President Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi to Florida, we cannot forget the men and women who languish unjustly in prison, the family members who do not know the fate of their loved ones, and the professionals who have disappeared for simply doing their job," CECC Chair Marco Rubio said in a statement.

"These people are not statistics, they are booksellers and pastors, writers and Nobel Laureates, lawyers and rights defenders," he said. "It is unacceptable for President Xi to get a pass on human rights."

He said Trump should press for the unconditional release of jailed dissidents on the basis that it chimes in with the U.S. national interest in the rule of law and individual freedoms.

"The President has the historic opportunity to change the failed policy assumptions of the past, increased trade and prosperity have not brought political liberalization to China," Rubio said.

'Not a major topic'

Pan Lu, a founder member of the China Human Rights Observer group, said he expects North Korea's nuclear program to take precedence over human rights.

"Human rights aren't a major topic at these talks, because ... solving the North Korea problem will help liberate 20 million North Koreans from long-term oppression," Pan said.

"China and the U.S.... want to avoid major upheavals and stop the situation even turning into all-out war," he said.

U.S. officials have already indicated that North Korea's nuclear program and U.S.-China trade relations will top the agenda in talks at Trump's lavish Mar-a-lago resort in Florida.

"Well, if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you," Trump told the Financial Times in an interview published online Sunday.

Trump has campaigned against what he describes as unfair Chinese trade policies, as well as raising hackles in Beijing by taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, in violation of China's preferred "One China" policy.

But Trump also appeared hopeful of some kind of bargain with Xi.

"I have great respect for him. I have great respect for China," Trump told the FT. "I would not be at all surprised if we did something that would be very dramatic and good for both countries, and I hope so."

Clashes, conflict likely

U.S.-based Chinese studies expert Xie Xuanjun said talks later this week between Xi and Trump are more likely to result in conflict than constructive dialogue, particularly over rising tensions in the Korean peninsula.

"China has no bargaining chips left to play with the U.S., because North Korea won't do as it says," Xie said, adding that Sino-U.S. ties are now at their coolest level in several years.

"There are some similarities between the personalities of Xi Jinping and Trump," he said. "They both want to play the strongman, so it's likely we'll see some clashes at this meeting."

Reported by Yang Fan and Xi Wang for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Goh Fung for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China: Xinjiang police search Uyghur homes for 'illegal items'

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China: Xinjiang police search Uyghur homes for 'illegal items', 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb118.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-04

Hotan prefecture in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. RFA

Authorities in northwestern China's Xinjiang region have begun searching the homes of mostly Muslim ethnic Uyghurs for "illegal items," including religious materials and attire, after a deadline for handing in the contraband expired over the weekend, according to official sources.

In early March, Chinese authorities in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture's Guma (Pishan) county issued an order requiring local Uyghurs to turn in items such as unsanctioned religious publications, calendars and utensils with the Islamic star and crescent logo, and religious attire, such as burkas.

Uyghurs were called on to hand over the items  as well as other goods, including matches, leftover fertilizer and carpets  by April 1, after which "delinquencies will be dealt with," according to the order, which did not specify what actions authorities planned to take against those who failed to comply.

On March 15, a police officer in Hotan  the location of a deadly attack carried out by a group of Uyghurs a month earlier  told RFA's Uyghur Service that the goods could be brought to local neighborhood committees or police stations, where they would be confiscated in exchange for compensation.

"If they bring them to us, we simply take them and log the items [in a record book]," the officer, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said at the time.

"They have to bring all the items listed as illegal. They will be given compensation for the value of their items, though we can't guarantee that they will be given money for all of them."

But while police had earlier deferred to local residents to deliver the so-called "illegal items" to local authorities, RFA learned in recent days that security personnel have been carrying out searches of Uyghur homes since the deadline expired.

A security guard at the Guma township police station in Guma county contacted over the weekend told RFA that residents would not be held accountable if they hand over items during house searches, despite the passing of the deadline.

Those who do not offer up illicit goods to police that are subsequently uncovered during the searches, however, "will be dealt with accordingly," said the guard, who asked not to be named.

A Guma county police officer, who also did not give his name, said the house searches were "not extreme measures at all," in the aftermath of the Feb. 15 attack by three Uyghurs in Guma county that left five passersby dead and another five injured, with the attackers themselves shot dead by police.

"[Official] working groups are visiting the homes they are responsible for and having conversations with the homeowners," the officer said.

"The mosque management committee, village committee and police  we are all conducting the investigation. We are doing this because maintaining social stability is of the utmost priority."

Books confiscated

According to the officer, if books found in homes are on a list of 156 "legal publications" endorsed by the official United Front and Mosque Management Committee  which includes the Quran  authorities will stamp them with the Chinese characters "inspected" and allow residents to keep them.

Books "without clear publishing details," as well as those on a list of "illegal publications" provided to them by the regional government, are confiscated.

"Some of the illegal books we collected include ones published during 1980s and 1990s, ones with words that are no longer permitted, ones without copyright information and ones sold by booksellers on the streets," he said.

Residents of Hotan told RFA that the searches, and other security measures enacted by authorities in the region since the February knife attack, had made the lives of local Uyghurs extremely difficult.

An ethnic Han Chinese member of the 47th Regiment of the Hotan region Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps  a quasi-military brigade also known as the "bingtuan"  said area Uyghurs are required to attend meetings in local village offices every two or three days.

"I'm not saying there shouldn't be any controls, but the controls should have limits," said the man, who gave his surname as Wang.

"[The authorities] are interfering in every aspect of their existence, but the Uyghurs have to have a life as well."

Wang said that many Uyghurs in the area agree with the central government's basic policies in the Xinjiang region, but that "the lower level of government's way of doing things is really different."

"If you go to someone else's house and order them to do this and that and harass them, you will disturb their normal daily lives and they will not accept that either," Wang said.

"This kind of harassment will drive them to do things they wouldn't normally consider."

Hotan crackdown

Authorities in Hotan have cracked down on Uyghur residents since the Feb. 15 knife incident, which sources say was motivated by anger at threats by local officials to punish the attackers for praying with their family  an activity outlawed as part of a bid to restrict Muslim religious practice in Xinjiang.

A week after the attack, the Hotan prefecture government said in a statement that 100 million yuan (U.S. $14.5 million) had been set aside to reward would-be tipsters reporting "suspicious" acts possibly linked to terrorism.

A second announcement, issued Feb. 28 by the Chira (Cele) county government, said those who report individuals for having "stitched the 'star and crescent moon' insignia on their clothing or personal items" or the words "East Turkestan"  referring to the name of a short-lived Uyghur republic  on their mobile phone case, purse or other jewelry, were also eligible for cash payments.

China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts "strike hard" campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.

While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.

Reported by Jilil Kashgary for RFA's Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Detained Vietnamese human rights attorney to receive award for his work

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Detained Vietnamese human rights attorney to receive award for his work, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb213.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-04

Nguyen Van Dai displays his face after he was beaten by masked assailants in Nghe An province, Dec. 6, 2015. Photo courtesy of Nguyen Van Dai

Detained human rights attorney and activist Nguyen Van Dai will receive an award from the German Association of Judges on Wednesday, making him the first Vietnamese awarded the honor for his work in human rights, RFA's Vietnamese Service has learned.

A representative of Nguyen Van Dai will accept the award from the group known in German as Deutscher Richterbund (DRB), which is the largest professional organization of judges and public prosecutors in Germany.

Every other year, the organization bestows a human rights award on a judge, public prosecutor, or other lawyer for outstanding merit in the defense of human rights.

Former prisoner of conscience Pham Van Troi, a democracy activist and member of the Vietnam-based Brotherhood for Democracy, called Dai's selection "wonderful news."

Dai and other formerly jailed dissidents created the online group in 2013 to coordinate human rights activities across Vietnam and host forums in Hanoi and Saigon to mark International Human Rights Day.

"I think lawyer Nguyen Van Dai deserves this award," Troi told RFA's Vietnamese Service. "This is also a positive sign to promote democratization in Vietnam in the near future."

Troi went on to say that human rights awards from German and American organizations have had a positive impact on Vietnamese human right activists, who are routinely subjected to harassment, beatings, and detentions by government authorities in the one-party, communist country.

"This can indirectly encourage activists inside Vietnam," he said.

"In addition, such awards also send strong messages to the government of Vietnam, letting it know that other countries are paying attention to the human right situation in Vietnam," he said. "The government of Vietnam must reconsider its actions towards democracy activists."

Dai's former colleague Le Thi Cong Nhan told RFA that the award is a "huge encouragement" for Dai.

"It recognizes the example of a brave democratic human rights activist in Vietnam," said the well-known dissident and lawyer who has represented protesters persecuted by the government.

"He has participated in a number of movements in Vietnam and has always been brave," she said. "I'm glad to hear this news."

Arrests and convictions

Dai and Nhan were both convicted a decade ago for "misinterpreting government policy on trade unions and laborers in Vietnam," participating in the democracy movement and the progressive party, teaching courses on human rights, and possessing and disseminating documents propagating democracy and human rights.

Dai received a four-year prison sentence and four years of house arrest, while Nhan received a three-year prison sentence and three years of house arrest.

Authorities took Dai into custody again in December 2015 after he left his home in Hanoi to meet with European Union representatives who were researching human rights issues in Vietnam.

Plainclothes officers stopped him before he arrived at the meeting and took him back to his home where a police camera faces the front door and authorities monitor the movements of everyone who enters and leaves.

They confiscated three computers and USB sticks and later charged Dai with "conducting propaganda against the state" under Article 88 of Vietnam's penal code, a provision that rights groups say is used to imprison peaceful activists.

Dai's arrest came soon after masked assailants beat him and other activists in what he said at the time was retaliation for his work educating Vietnamese people about human rights.

In December 2016, Vietnamese authorities extended Dai's time in prison until April of this year, marking the third time the government had added time to his jail term.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar: Interview: 'We need more preparation for future elections'

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar: Interview: 'We need more preparation for future elections', 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb313.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-04

Voters leave a polling station after casting their votes in a by-election in eastern part of Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon, April 1, 2017. AFP

Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party won only nine of the 19 seats in national and regional parliaments contested in by-elections held in Myanmar on April 1 to fill vacancies left by incumbents whom the government picked for ministerial posts. The election saw the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) make impressive gains in Shan State, and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) picked up a seat some 18 months after the military-backed party lost major national elections. Aung Theinka of RFA's Myanmar Service interviewed NLD Spokesman Nyan Win to get the party's view on Saturday's outcome.

RFA: The NLD contested 18 seats in 19 constituencies in the by-elections and won only nine seats. Are you satisfied with the result?

Nyan Win: Eight seats out of 19 were in Shan State. It is normal for ethnic people to vote for their ethnic parties. Even though they voted for their ethnic party (SNLD), the NLD won a seat in Shewnyaung. It is the result what we expected. We learned a lesson from this by-election. We noticed that we need more preparation for future elections.

RFA: People are saying that it is not good sign for the NLD that more ethnic people have supported/voted ethnic parties than the NLD. What do you say to that?

Nyan Win: We believe in democracy and elections are the most important thing for a democratic country. Political parties contest in elections and we understand it. We don't think the NLD has been harmed because ethnic people voted for ethnic parties.

RFA: Did Aung San Suu Kyi issue any directives for the lost seats?

Nyan Win: There were no directives, but what she said is that the by-election result is not very different from what we had expected.

RFA: The USDP won in Chaungzon constituency, where NLD won in the 2015 election. What is your opinion on the fact that NLD lost in this constituency?

Nyan Win: Daw Khin Htay Kyawe was the candidate for this place in two previous elections. The candidate changed in this constituency for the 2017 by-election and NLD's unity in Chaungzon was weak. That's the undeniable reason for our loss.

RFA: Is that related with problems surrounding the naming of Choungzon Bridge?

Nyan Win: It might be related a little, but it is not the major reason. Although Chanugzon is in Mon State, most people who live in it are Burmese. As I told you before, ethnic people want to vote for their own ethnic party. The USDP won in it because the NLD candidate changed and the Burmese people in this place voted USDP as it is a Burmese party, I think. For example, Burmese political parties win in places like Yangon where the Burmese people are the majority. It is normal. It is the right of people in a democracy, but that kind of thinking is not good.

RFA: People are criticizing the current government's pace of work. What do you think of this criticism?

Nyan Win: It is not weak, it is slow. There is a bureaucratic mechanism in government, but the NLD government and that mechanism are not compatible yet and that is normal. We are trying to get better in dealing with this this mechanism and we will be OK soon.

RFA: People say the NLD government can't do what it wants because of the 2008 constitution.

Nyan Win: That's exactly correct. The 2008 constitution was written to make the next government face difficulties. The current government is working on the economy and the economy is going to be getting better soon. We have to wait until the right time comes.

Translated by Khet Mar.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Protestant pastor held for crossing China-Myanmar border closed in conflict

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Protestant pastor held for crossing China-Myanmar border closed in conflict, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb413.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-04

Pastor Cao Sanqiang (C) with his mother (R) and an unidentified acquaintance in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan on Tuesday criminally detained a pastor from an unofficial Protestant organization on illegal immigration charges.

Cao Sanqiang, of the "house church" network China Ministries International, was formally detained by police in Yunnan's Menglian county on charges of "organizing the illegal crossing of a national border."

He is currently being held in the Menglian Detention Center, according to a fellow pastor who carries out missionary work across the border in northern Myanmar's Wa state.

"A colleague told me that he was initially charged with personally crossing a border illegally, but that now he is being charged with organizing illegal border crossings," the pastor said.

"We will file a lawsuit about this; we have already hired a lawyer," he said.

Cao had been engaged in missionary and poverty relief work across the border in northern Myanmar, until his work was disrupted by recent military conflict in the region, the pastor said.

"Cao Sanqiang was in Wa state helping them to build a school, and he was involved in other poverty reduction projects," the pastor said. "But the border was recent closed completely because of the fighting."

A colleague of Cao's surnamed Wu at the Chinese Ministries International network said he had been working as a teacher and child-minder as well as building a school and carrying out missionary work for several years.

"He'd been there a long time; several years," Wu said. "They had a school there."

Dozens have been reported killed in recent skirmishes between Myanmar government troops and regional ethnic militias that have driven more than 30,000 people to flee to safety, mostly to Yunnan, where the Chinese government and aid groups are housing them in refugee camps.

Calls by the Chinese government for an immediate cease-fire and the restoration of order along the border area have been ignored.

Border crossings

Cao was initially detained on March 5, his mother confirmed to RFA.

"[But] I don't know the details, like whether or not the lawyer has managed to see him," she said. "It has already been [nearly 30 days] ... but there's nothing to report yet."

A Protestant church member from Yunnan's Dehong autonomous prefecture said Chinese nationals usually make repeated border crossings using a pass issued by the Yunnan authorities, but occasionally fall foul of the police.

"I had a friend who escorted four or five people out of ... Myanmar to do manual work in Simao township on this side of the border, but they were detained, and he was sentenced to seven years in jail," the church member said.

"He was a manual worker out of Myanmar, but he was eventually caught and given a seven-year jail term as a snakehead," he said, using a slang term for a human trafficker.

The church follower, who asked to remain anonymous, said the Chinese authorities crack down more harshly on illegal border crossings than the authorities in Myanmar do.

"If they organize illegal border crossings in Myanmar they don't get caught; it's only when people cross from Myanmar that they get caught, and there has been a big crackdown ever since last December," he said.

"That's when Pastor Cao got into trouble, during the crackdown."

Repeated calls to the Menglian county police department rang unanswered in March.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Tibetan families ordered from their homes in Chamdo prefecture

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Tibetan families ordered from their homes in Chamdo prefecture, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb513.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-04

Map showing the location of Chamdo prefecture's Dzogang county in the Tibet Autonomous Region. RFA

UPDATED at 10:00 a.m. EST on 04/06/2017

Nearly 200 Tibetan families have been ordered to leave their homes in a county in eastern Tibet to make way for an unspecified government construction project, with the move to new locations to be made at their own expense, according to a local source.

The families now live in two towns lying on opposite sides of the Gyalmo Ngulchu, or Salween River, in Dzogang (in Chinese, Zuogang) and Pashoe (Basu) counties in the Chamdo (Changdu) prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region, a resident of the area told RFA's Tibetan Service.

No explanation was given for the order to move, RFA's source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"But the local Tibetans believe that mining or some similar project is being planned for the area, and that this is why they are being told to leave against their own wishes," he said.

"The families who are being forced to move have had to register their names with the authorities," he added.

Chinese authorities had initially promised those families registered for removal compensation of from 12,000 to 20,000 yuan (U.S. $2,176 to $2,901) to help with expenses of their move, but the offer was later withdrawn, the source said.

"This has placed many poor families in jeopardy, since they cannot stay at their present location, and if they move they may have to do this with money they don't have," he said.

Government order

Though many families affected by the order have filed appeals asking for permission to remain in their homes, authorities have told them that the requirement they leave is a government order that must be obeyed, the source said.

"No one knows for sure why these families are being told to leave, but some say that the government is planning to build 13 hydropower dams on the Gyalmo Ngulchu, while others have mentioned a large road project in the area."

"Others are talking about a mining project at a sacred mountain that has been examined by Chinese geological surveyors many times since 1991," the source said, adding, "The mountain is believed to have rich deposits of ore."

Tibetan areas of China have become an important source of minerals needed for China's economic growth, and mining operations have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms of disrupting sites of spiritual significance and polluting the environment as they extract local wealth.

In June 2014, police detained 60 men from a village in Dzogang rocked by protests over Chinese plans to excavate gold, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

The protests followed the death in May of a local Tibetan who stabbed himself and jumped from a roof to oppose the project.

Reported by Sangye Dorjee for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

UPDATE: This story provides updated information on the location of the two villages targeted for evictions.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China calls Dalai Lama a 'diplomatic tool' of India amid trip to border region

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China calls Dalai Lama a 'diplomatic tool' of India amid trip to border region, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb611.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

Buddhist followers offer gifts to the Dalai Lama after he delivered religious teachings in Bomdila, in India's Arunachal Pradesh state, April 5, 2017. AFP

China slammed India Wednesday for using the Dalai Lama as a "diplomatic tool" amid his visit to an Indian region claimed by Beijing, but the Tibetan spiritual leader has denied playing a role in the political spat, saying he is only traveling in the area to promote religious harmony.

The Dalai Lama, 81, arrived in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, part of which is claimed as "South Tibet" by Beijing, on Tuesday for the first day of a nine-day trip that was sanctioned by the Indian government and during which he plans to hold several religious teachings throughout the region.

In a press release issued on the day of his arrival, the Indian government noted that the Dalai Lama had traveled to the region  over which China and India fought a brief border war in 1962  on six earlier occasions since 1983, and said that "no additional color" should be ascribed to his spiritual activities around India.

"The government, therefore, urges that no artificial controversy should be created around his present visit to Arunachal Pradesh," the statement read.

Beijing, which has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting separatism in Tibet, was quick to hit out at New Delhi on Wednesday, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying telling reporters China plans to lodge "stern representations" with India over the trip.

"Arranging his activities in this sensitive area where China and India have territorial disputes not only violates India's commitment on Tibet-related issues, but also fuels the border dispute," Hua said.

China's official Global Times newspaper ran an anonymous op-ed on Wednesday which said that the Dalai Lama, who is expected to meet with India's junior home minister Kiren Rijiju in the Arunachal Pradesh town of Tawang, "has long been active in anti-China separatist activities under the guise of religion."

"Amid Beijing-New Delhi conflicts, the Dalai Lama is now openly used by India as a diplomatic tool to win more leverage," the article said. "Therefore, Delhi attempts to play the Tibet card against Beijing."

A report by local Indian media quoted Arunachal Pradesh state chief minister Pema Khandu on Wednesday responding to the criticism from Beijing by saying "China has no business telling us what to do and what not to do" with regards to the Dalai Lama's visit.

Vishakha Desai, president emerita of U.S.-based Asia Society, told RFA that India's refusal to back down over the Dalai Lama's visit was part of a bid by the country to warn China off of meddling in its internal affairs.

"There is a far stronger and clearer nationalist tone that seems different in the Indian response to the Chinese criticism," said Desai, who is also senior advisor for global affairs to the president of Columbia University.

"The fact that [one of two claimants to the title of 17th Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism] also went there, and so did Rich Verma, the American ambassador to India, also suggests that New Delhi is less worried about displeasing Beijing."

India and China have been embroiled in a row over Arunachal Pradesh for decades, as part of a greater dispute over their shared 3,500-kilometer (2,175-mile) border which prompted the 1962 Sino-Indian War. The two sides routinely accuse each other of intrusions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a de facto border that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the area.

Trip underway

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since fleeing China in 1959 amid a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, on Wednesday denied that he had been used as a tool by New Delhi against Beijing, and said that Tibetans prefer self-autonomy within China to forming an independent state.

"India has never used me against China, India has taken great care of me," he told the Economic Times in Bomdila, adding that he considers himself a "messenger of ancient Indian thoughts and values."

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that in the interest of "material development," Tibetans want Tibet to remain a part of China, but said Beijing must provide them with "meaningful self-rule, autonomy, and must take care of the environment."

He also referred to Arunachal Pradesh as place with special meaning to him, as he entered India through the region nearly 60 years ago, before settling in Dharamsala  the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

Ahead of his arrival in Arunachal Pradesh, the Dalai Lama had traveled through the Indian state of Assam, where he was reunited on March 2 with 76-year-old Naran Chandra Das, one of five Assam Rifles guards who escorted him across the border during his flight to India.

The Dalai Lama had planned to fly by helicopter to the 17th-century Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh to hold three days of spiritual teachings beginning on Wednesday, but heavy rainfall forced him to travel by road through the region, delaying his expected arrival until Thursday.

Tawang monastery

In anticipation of the Dalai Lama's arrival, Ngawang Norbu, the head Lama at Tawang monastery, dismissed China's criticism over the visit as a "mere display of politics between the concerned countries," in an interview with RFA's Tibetan Service.

"What really concerns us is that His Holiness had to travel by road, not by air, due to inclement weather," he said.

According to Norbu, the Dalai Lama had emphasized the importance of teaching the Tibetan language to area residents during his last visit in 2009 and the community was eager to show him how much progress had been made in literacy since then, thanks to the work of teachers arranged by the local government and civil society groups.

Other residents of Tawang also expressed their excitement over the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit, including a soldier named Sonam Norbu and a monk named Cho Gonpo  both of whom were present at the border with China on the day the spiritual leader entered India.

"In 1959, the passport office notified us that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had departed from [the Tibetan capital] Lhasa, so I was ordered to leave for border area to receive him," Norbu told RFA.

"I am already 90 years old, so I am very fortunate to see His Holiness again," he said, though he added that he wishes the Dalai Lama had never been forced to leave Lhasa in the first place.

Gonpo, who was among a group of monks that gathered at the steps of the Tawang monastery in 1959 to attend a teaching by the Dalai Lama, also expressed happiness over the impending visit.

"I hope that the Tibet issue can be resolved, but I can't be sure what will happen," he said.

"However, you never know, we may yet regain our self-rule."

Reported by Kalden Lodoe and Passang Tsering for RFA's Tibetan Service, Joshua Lipes and Richard Finney. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
China formally arrests South Korean pastors for helping North Koreans flee regime

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, China formally arrests South Korean pastors for helping North Koreans flee regime, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb7e.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

North Koreans ride a boat on the Yalu River near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, as seen from across the river from the Chinese border town of Dandong, Feb. 9, 2016. AFP

Authorities in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning have formally arrested two South Korean Protestant pastors accused of trying to help North Koreans flee across the border into China.

The arrests come amid rising tensions between South Korea and China over Seoul's deployment of a U.S.-made missile defense system that China says will affect the regional balance of power.

Neither pastor has been named. One was arrested along with his wife in February as they tried to board a plane for South Korea from Qingdao in the eastern province of Shandong, while the second was detained at a hotel in the northeastern city of Qinhuangdao.

While both wives have since been released, the two pastors remain in police detention on charges linked to illegal immigration.

Peter Chung, spokesman for the human rights group Justice For North Korea, said their families have hired lawyers to represent the pastors, now that the cases look set to proceed to trial.

"The cases are now with the state prosecutor's office; all the files are with the prosecutor now," Chung told RFA on Wednesday. "This was approved on March 29."

"Their lawyers have already met with them a number of times, and they both seem to be in good health," he said.

A Chinese rights lawyer who declined to be named said the pastors had been charged with "organizing illegal crossing of a national border," a charge carrying a relatively light sentence in view of the humanitarian intentions behind their actions.

"I think they are trying to treat them in a friendly manner, bearing in mind political considerations, because they are foreigners," the lawyer said. "They will be dealt with a bit more leniently."

"It's likely that they will be deported before sentencing, or even after it, but not have to serve it," he said.

Calls to the Shenyang municipal police department rang unanswered during office hours on Wednesday.

Missile defense system

South Korea announced last month that it had begun deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antimissile system sparked a backlash across China, with some hotels saying they wouldn't take South Korean guests.

The move has drawn strong diplomatic protests from Beijing, and sparked demonstrations and store closures at outlets of the South Korea retail chain Lotte across China, as well as the public destruction of South Korean goods.

South Korea and the United States say the system is aimed solely at defending the South against a growing North Korean missile threat.

But Beijing fears the system's powerful radar will compromise its national security.

The pastors' arrests came as China expelled 32 South Korean missionaries based in the northeastern Yanji region bordering North Korea, and arrested four other men, one of whom is a South Korean national.

China says North Koreans fleeing political persecution in the home country are "economic migrants," and typically repatriates them.

Travel within North Korea and across the border into China is officially strictly regulated, with people required to obtain passes, but traders and refugees often manage to travel without required permits by bribing border guards and soldiers at checkpoints.

Reported by Hai Nan for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Dozens detained in bid to visit grave of Chinese president's father

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Dozens detained in bid to visit grave of Chinese president's father, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb8c.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

Supporters of late Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang gather at his former residence on the 12th anniversary of his death, Jan. 17, 2017. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.

Authorities in China have detained dozens of petitioners who tried to visit the graves of prominent former Chinese leaders, including the revolutionary war-hero father of current President Xi Jinping.

More than a dozen people who showed up in a town in the northern province of Shaanxi, hoping to pay their respects at the tomb of Xi's father Xi Zhongxun, said they were dragged away and held on a bus for two days instead.

"As soon as we got there with our floral wreaths, two minivans full of riot police pulled up, and 40 or 50 policemen got out and said they would take us into the cemetery, then dragged us aboard the prisoner van," Xi'an petitioner Chen Yumei told RFA on Wednesday.

"[Then] they put us all on a bus and drove us out to the mountains near Hancheng," she said. "I thought since when did they more Xi Zhongxun's remains out to Hancheng?"

Fellow detainee Wang Tuanfeng said the police had taken them instead to Xi's birthplace rather than his tomb in Shaanxi's Fuping county.

"They gathered up all of our ID cards, so we couldn't go anywhere; we had to follow around behind them wherever they went," Wang said. "To start with it looked as if they were taking us to Xi'an, but then they turned around and came back again, taking us to Hancheng."

"They just left the bus there and went away again. We spent the night on the bus, then they dragged us off the bus again; there were so many of them, all policemen," Wang said.

Liu Meiyan, Han Lifang, Zhou Yongqiang, Wang Huiling, Wang Huling, Wen Dingding, Xiao Huifang, Yang Hongbo and Ma Xirong were among those on the bus, sources told RFA.

Chen, who is complaining about her treatment to the Shaanxi provincial government, said the people who dragged them off the bus were "unofficial security guards."

"In all, we spent two days and a night on that bus," she said. "I was finally able to get a bus back to Xi'an yesterday."

"They deprived us of our liberty, they wouldn't let us eat or drink anything," she said. "They just kept us on that bus ... so that we couldn't even urinate."

Qing Ming activities

The Qing Ming grave-tending festival is often used by activists and petitioners to honor key figures in the political mythology of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, often as a way of highlighting current grievances.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, hundreds of people have been visiting the former home of late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, who is seldom mentioned in public owing to his sympathies with the student-led democracy protests of 1989.

Police were stationed around the Zhao family residence in Beijing's Goldfish Hutong, but didn't prevent people from entering the traditional courtyard dwelling, family members told reporters.

Talks are still ongoing between the Zhao family and the ruling Chinese Communist Party over a final resting place for the former premier's ashes, his son Zhao Erjun told Hong Kong media.

At issue is whether or not Zhao will be allowed a resting place in the Babaoshan revolutionary cemetery on the outskirts of Beijing, or whether he will have a regular memorial like any other citizen.

Zhao's former aide Bao Tong, who served seven years in jail after his boss' fall from power, and who has been under house arrest for much of the time since his release, called on the government to follow the family's wishes.

"I hope the government will help out and make life easier for the whole family, and support their choices," Bao said in a recent interview with RFA.

"They shouldn't impose anything on the family; they shouldn't do anything," he said. "This decision should really be made by Zhao's children."

Another politically sensitive time

China's annual grave-sweeping festival is a politically sensitive time in China, as memorials for the dead can often swell into broader popular protests.

The 1989 protests themselves were sparked by a spontaneous outpouring of public mourning on Tiananmen Square following the April 22 state funeral of ousted former premier Hu Yaobang, who was credited with overturning many of the injustices of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

You Weijie, spokeswoman for the Tiananmen Mothers victims group, said some had declined to tend the graves of loved ones who perished when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) opened fire on unarmed civilians, ending weeks of mass protests at the heart of Beijing.

"It's not that they won't let us sweep the graves; it's that if we do, we have to go there in a police vehicle," You said. "They haven't exactly interfered, but we would have to do it with them watching us. It's to stop journalists from running into us there."

However, petitioners said they were prevented from paying their respects to late leaders at Babaoshan, however.

"There are police everywhere, many times more than usual," a petitioner surnamed Zhou told RFA. "You can see that all around Babaoshan, they are stopping people from going in there."

"Yesterday it was possible to get as far as the cemetery gates, but today they are stopping people as far as two kilometers away," Zhou said.

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
The Supreme Court had on March 27 made it clear that Aadhaar cards cannot be made mandatory by the government for extending benefits of social welfare schemes.

By Anusha Soni: The Supreme Court today came down hard on the government over the issue of making Aadhaar compulsory in complete violation of the apex court's previous order.

"How can you make Aadhaar mandatory despite a clear order to make it optional. Is making Aadhaar by force the only way to tackle fraud?" a furious Supreme Court told the Centre while hearing a PIL against the government's decision making Aadhaar compulsory.

advertisement

The Supreme Court bench led by Justice Sikri questioned the Centre as to how Aadhar can be made compulsory and forced on people. The Centre's argument has been that the earlier order merely applies for beneficiary schemes like LPG and food grains and the government is free to use it for other services like income tax.

GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE

The contention here is of reading the earlier order. While the Centre is making case for a narrow reading of the order restricting it to essential services and beneficiary schemes, the petitioners have given the earlier order a broad reading. The main matter in Aadhaar is pending on the question of the right to privacy.

"We found a number of of Pan cards being used to divert funds to shell companies. To prevent this, the only option is to make Aadhaar card mandatory," Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the Supreme Court bench.

WHAT SUPREME COURT RULING SAYS

The Supreme Court had on March 27 made it clear that Aadhaar cards cannot be made mandatory by the government for extending benefits of social welfare schemes.

The top court, however, said that the government cannot be barred from seeking these cards, which are issued by UIDAI, for "non-benefit" purposes like filing of IT returns and opening of accounts

"The answer is this that for giving benefits of welfare schemes, it (Aadhaar) cannot be pressed. They (government and its agencies) cannot be stopped from seeking Aadhaar for non-benefit schemes like opening of bank accounts," a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar had said.

The apex court on August 11, 2015 had said that Aadhaar cards will not be mandatory for availing benefits of government's welfare schemes and barred the authorities from sharing personal biometric data collected for enrollment under the scheme

However, on October 15, 2015 it had lifted its earlier restriction and permitted the voluntary use of Aadhaar cards in welfare schemes that also included MGNREGA, all pension schemes and the provident fund besides ambitious flagship programmes like 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna' of the NDA government.

(With PTI inputs)

ALSO READ:

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Aadhaar card can't be made mandatory by government for welfare schemes: Supreme Court

After PAN, mobile numbers, Aadhaar now to be mandatory for driving licenses: Report

Aadhaar may soon become mandatory to board plane for domestic flights

Aadhaar will soon be aadhaar of your existence: Why you cannot afford to live without the 12-digit number

--- ENDS ---
Myanmar's ministry of religious affairs backs journalist facing defamation, religious insult lawsuits

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar's ministry of religious affairs backs journalist facing defamation, religious insult lawsuits, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbb912.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

Myanmar Now chief correspondent Swe Win in an undated photo. RFA

Myanmar's Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture on Wednesday rejected charges of defamation and insulting religion brought against a prominent journalist by followers of an ultranationalist Buddhist group who say he insulted an outspoken member of their organization in an online post.

In a letter, the ministry said chief editor of Myanmar Now Swe Win broke no law when he posted a quote by a Buddhist abbot on Facebook saying Wirathu of the Ma Ba Tha nationalist group could no longer be considered a monk after praising the murder of a well-known Muslim lawyer.

According to the ministry, which has no legal jurisdiction, Swe Win is not guilty of intentionally defaming Wirathu because he was only carrying out his work as a journalist by informing the public about the monk's statement and the abbot's response on his Facebook page.

Furthermore, the ministry said, Swe Win's post could not be considered defamation or insulting to Buddhism because his criticism of the incident had been "based on fact."

Swe Win had requested a summary of the ministry's opinion on the lawsuits against him, filed under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law in Mandalay and Article 295(a) of Myanmar's Penal Code in Yangon.

In a Feb. 28 Facebook post, Swe Win criticized Wirathu for praising the brutal murder of Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer and critic of Myanmar's powerful military, who was shot on Jan. 29 as he held his grandson outside Yangon airport.

The reporter said Wirathu had "committed a major violation of parajika [the Buddhist monastic code]" by doing so, referring to a statement by a prominent Buddhist abbot.

In response, Wirathu demanded an apology from Swe Win within a week.

Kyaw Myo Shwe, a Ma Ba Tha member and follower of Wirathu, then filed a lawsuit against Swe Win under Article 66(d), which prohibits use of the telecom network to defame people and carries a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine for violators.

Kyaw Myo Shwe had said he would withdraw the complaint in early March after being pressured by his family to do so, but warned that his organization was pursuing further legal action.

The second charge, filed by Thet Myo Oo in Yangon's Kyimyintaing township, argues that Swe Win had violated Article 295(a), insulting Buddhism through his social media posts concerning Wirathu.

Facing lawsuits

Swe Win on Wednesday confirmed to RFA's Myanmar Service that he had been notified of the ministry's response to his request.

"I received an email from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture saying I'm not guilty of any of the charges against me," he said.

The Irrawaddy online journal also quoted Swe Win's legal adviser Khin Maung Myint in a report as saying that the statement from the ministry would "help a lot in fighting the criminal charges."

When reached by RFA for comment, Kyaw Thu, a police officer from Mahar Aung Myay township in Mandalay where the lawsuit based on Article 66(d) had been filed, said authorities there "have been working on and will continue to work on Swe Win's case according to the law."

According to the Irrawaddy, Swe Win will meet with authorities in Kyimyintaing township to discuss the charges against him filed under Article 295(a).

As of last week, members of the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union (PMMU) in Mandalay had collected about 40,000 signatures for a petition from monks and nuns demanding legal action Swe Win for allegedly insulting Wirathu, who is known for his fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric.

On March 10, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka (Ma Ha Na), a government-appointed body of high-ranking Buddhist monks that oversees and regulates the Buddhist clergy in Myanmar, barred Wirathu from making public speeches for one year for using hate speech against religions to cause communal strife and hinder efforts to uphold the rule of law.

Religious authorities in Mandalay warned Wirathu that if he did not adhere to the year-long ban on making public speeches, they would take action against him.

Reported by Kyaw Soe Lin for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar's Rakhine state to close three camps for refugees from 2012 violence

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar's Rakhine state to close three camps for refugees from 2012 violence, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbba4.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

Ethnic Rakhine people who fled a crackdown in Maungdaw township, western Myanmar's Rakkhine state, stay in tents in a stadium in the state capital Sittwe, Oct. 16, 2016. RFA

The Rakhine state government in western Myanmar will close three internally displaced persons camps, as recommended by an advisory commission appointed by the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to help resolve the religious and ethnic divisions in the unstable region, a state official said Wednesday.

The camps house Kaman Muslims, ethnic Rakhine people, and Rohingya Muslims who have been living in them since 2012 when they were displaced by communal violence.

"We are doing it as they [the internally displaced persons] want," Min Aung, Rakhine state's municipal minister, told RFA's Myanmar Service.

"They need cars and trucks to move out of the camps," he said. "We have discussed it with a military colonel who is the official that oversees these camps."

Min Aung did not give a timetable for the closure of the camps or provide details about where the camps' inhabitants would live.

Appointed in August 2016, the nine-member advisory commission headed by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan has visited Rakhine several times to meet with camp residents, state officials, and ethnic Rakhine and Muslim community leaders to discuss conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, and development issues in the divided and impoverished state.

The committee had already begun its work when the Myanmar government ordered a security crackdown in the northern part of Rakhine state last October following a deadly attack on border guard posts, which officials later blamed on Rohingya militants.

An estimated 1,000 people were killed during the four-month crackdown, and 77,000 Rohingya fled to safety in neighboring Bangladesh where some accused soldiers of committing human rights violations against them.

The reports sparked allegations by the international community of genocide of the Rohingya Muslims who live in northern Rakhine state.

Though the commission is not responsible for evaluating the human rights situation in Rakhine, it did suggest in an interim report issued in March that the government should immediately begin allowing displaced Rohingya to return to their homes in Rakhine and eventually shut down the internal camps where more than 120,000 have resided following communal violence with Buddhist nationalists in 2012.

The report included 30 recommendations, including allowing humanitarian groups and media to visit conflict areas in Rakhine, providing equal access to health care and education, training police, recognizing Rohingya as Myanmar citizens and giving them citizen's rights, and resettling the Rohingya.

The Myanmar government agreed with the findings and said it would implement the majority of its recommendations.

The commission must also submit a final report on its findings to the government this year.

More than 1.1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims, whom the Burmese call "Bengalis" because they consider them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, have long been subjected to persecution and attacks and denied basic rights, including citizenship by the Buddhist majority in Rakhine state.

Reported by Kyaw Soe Lin for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Vietnamese environmental group seeks to monitor Formosa payout process

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Vietnamese environmental group seeks to monitor Formosa payout process, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbbb27.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

Vietnamese protesters demonstrate against Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa during a rally in downtown Hanoi, May 1, 2016. AFP

An independent environmental group called on the Vietnamese government on Wednesday to allow it to participate in monitoring the payment of compensation to those affected by the Formosa environmental disaster.

Representatives from Green Trees filed a dossier with Vietnam's Ministry of Finance, requesting that the group be able to scrutinize payments to people in four central coastal provinces who lost their livelihoods in the fishing and tourism industries following a toxic chemical spill last April by Taiwan-owned Formosa steel plant.

"Today I handed over the document calling for compensation for the victims in the central provinces," said Green Trees member Dang Vu Luong. "I also want all civil society groups to be able to participate in the monitoring of state stipulations regarding the payouts."

The report emerged as Vietnamese officials were quoted by their state media on Wednesday as saying that Formosa has been declared fit to launch operations on a trial basis.

Following an inspection of the five-year-old plant in Ha Tinh province, officials from the environment ministry said the site would be allowed to open pending approval from Hanoi, Vietnam Television quoted senior environment official Hoang Van Thuc as saying, according to Agence France-Presse.

Luong said it is necessary for civil society groups to be involved in the payment monitoring process because of several contradictory reports by different sources  victims of the spill themselves and state-run television  about the compensation and settlement of the environment disaster.

"We are citizens so we want accurate information for everyone," he said.

The dossier concerns authorities in the natural resources and environment, finance, agriculture and rural development ministries, as well as the people's committees of the four affected central coastal provinces.

Green Trees cited Articles 2 and 28 of Vietnam's 2013 Constitution as the legal basis for its filing of the dossier.

Article 2 stipulates that all state powers belong to the Vietnamese people, while Article 28 says citizens have the right to participate in the administration of the state and management of society and to take part in discussions and recommendations to state bodies on the issues concerning communities, regions and the country.

Green Trees expects the government to listen and provide favorable conditions for the monitoring work, Luong said.

"Through this work we would want to remind everybody of the right to participation in state work," he said.

Stipulations about payouts

The company has voluntarily provided U.S. $500 million to clean up and compensate people affected by the spill, but the government has faced protests over the amount of the settlement and the slow pace of payouts.

On Sept. 29, 2016, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc issued a decision detailing stipulations regarding the compensation rates and those who are to receive payouts.

"Since then, according to our assessment based on media news, local people's thoughts, and our own observations, the compensation process has been slow, and many victims in the affected regions have yet to receive it [payouts]," the dossier says.

"In many regions, local people continue to protest unfair compensation rates," it says. "In addition, we notice a lot of reflections about discrepancies relating to compensation."

Green Trees has asked the government, relevant ministries, and local authorities to provide it with all information and documents related to the payout so it we can exercise the right to monitor the compensation process.

"Recently, state media has run news stories that people who live in the central provinces central people are getting bumper [fish] catches and that their lives are back to normal," said Green Trees member Nguyen Manh Cuong.

He noted that a number of protests, however, have broken out over the government's failure to issue the compensation, including a recent one in the Loc Ha district of Ha Tinh province when hundreds of residents from Thach Banh village stormed the local people's committee office.

"As an independent civil society group, Green Trees want to join in the monitoring of compensation for victims," he said.

"Our primary purpose in participating in the monitoring of compensation is to let all people in the country know the state's policy for victims," Cuong said. "We also expect other civil society groups to exercise monitoring rights."

The April spill  Vietnam's largest environmental disaster to date  killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless in four central provinces, including Ha Tinh.

Two months later, Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group acknowledged it was responsible for the release of toxic chemicals from its massive steel plant located at the deep-water port in Ha Tinh province's Ky Anh district.

The Vietnamese government said in a report to the National Assembly in July of that year that the disaster had harmed the livelihoods of more than 200,000 people, including 41,000 fishermen.

Reported and translated by Gia Minh for RFA's Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
North Korea rolls out trial of GPS devices to monitor border guards

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, North Korea rolls out trial of GPS devices to monitor border guards, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbbb4.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-05

North Korean border guards stand outside a building in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, Sept. 25, 2013. AFP

North Korean authorities have started attaching GPS satellite tracking devices to guards on duty to intensify border security in a trial run of the technology before rolling out a full-blown plan to outfit all patrols with the gadgets, sources inside the country said.

"Satellite tracking devices were introduced to the fourth company of the border garrison in Onsong county [in North Hamgyong province], that suffered flood damage last year," said a source from the province which borders China.

"The reason why the satellite tracking devices were introduced to the fourth company first is that the company is guarding the main path for defection and smuggling," he told RFA's Korean Service.

Attached to the guards' automatic rifle straps, the satellite tracking device has enabled the battalion headquarters to improve security because it prevents guards from going AWOL from their posts along the border as often as they have done previously, the source said.

A source from Yanggang Province told RFA that a trial run for the satellite tracking devices were introduced to the fifth battalion of the 25th brigade of the border garrison stationed in Kimjongsuk county along the Yalu River on the border between North Korea and China.

"However, I cannot understand why the satellite tracking device was introduced in such a remote location," he said

The North Korean-made satellite tracking devices that have been given to members of the battalion only have a registration number, a small oval-shaped LCD display, and a power switch, he said.

"The guards have no idea how the satellite tracking device works," the source said. "The monitoring equipment for the satellite tracking device is not in the company. It is located in the headquarters of a battalion, so it is hard for guards of the company to figure out how the satellite tracking device works because it is monitored by the battalion headquarters."

Authorities introduced the satellite tracking system because some border guards who were on duty crossed into China to commit robberies or else fell asleep in bunkers when they should have been monitoring the border areas, he said.

"Moreover, it is also a preventive measure for keeping border guards from entering residents' houses during work hours," the source said.

Yet, it remains unknown whether the current satellite tracking device only confirms the location of a guard or records surrounding sounds and voices as well to prevent them from smuggling or assisting defectors, he said.

"However, once the guards of the company confirm how the satellite tracking devices work, then they will be able to cope with them," he said.

Reported by Sunghui Moon for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Soo Min Jo. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar president heads to Beijing amid reported Chinese rethink of Myitsone Dam

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar president heads to Beijing amid reported Chinese rethink of Myitsone Dam, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbbe11.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-06

A map showing the location of the Myitsone dam in Kachin state. RFA

A Myanmar foreign ministry official was cautious on Thursday about reports that China was willing to walk away from a controversial $3.6 billion dam on the Irrawaddy River, a project suspended in 2011 in the face of popular opposition.

Speaking at a press conference on Myanmar President Htin Kyaw's trip to China beginning on Thursday, the official told reporters to wait for government-appointed commission to deliver its recommendations on the Chinese-financed Myitsone Dam.

Reuters news agency, citing multiple sources in Myanmar, reported earlier this week that China had shifted from insisting the dam be built to being willing to abandon the project in exchange for other economic and strategic opportunities in Myanmar.

President Htin Kyaw will discuss the 6,000 megawatt dam, one of the biggest Chinese infrastructure projects approved by the military junta that ruled Myanmar until 2011, during his trip to China, two senior Myanmar officials and a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

China is now discussing alternative options with Myanmar, including developing a number of smaller hydropower projects and securing preferential access to a strategically important port to compensate it for shelving the project, Reuters reported, citing seven sources in government or involved with the project.

One factor behind the reported change in China's thinking was that the border province of Yunnan, which would have received the power, now has an oversupply of electricity as it switches to less energy-intensive industries amid an economic slowdown, Reuters reported.

In 2011, Myanmar's military-backed transitional government yielded to public protests over environmental concerns  and anger over the fact that 90 percent of the dam's electricity was expected to go to China  and suspended the project.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who as opposition leader spoke out against the dam, tasked a 20-member committee last August with scrutinizing Myitsone and other planned hydropower dam projects on the Irrawaddy River and determining whether they should be allowed to proceed.

The commission's report, originally expected in November, is now due to be released shortly.

One outstanding issue is Myanmar's liability for the $800 million that China's State Power Investment Corporation has already spent on feasibility and technical studies, as well as supporting infrastructure.

Reported by RFA's Myanmar Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Vietnamese Catholics demonstrate to mark anniversary of Formosa chemical spill

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Vietnamese Catholics demonstrate to mark anniversary of Formosa chemical spill, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbbfa.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-06

Catholic parishioners from Dong Yen parish, Ky Nam district, in central Vietnam's Ha Tinh province face the sea during a memorial service marking the anniversary of a toxic chemical spill, April 6, 2017. RFA

Hundreds of Vietnamese Catholics from various parishes of central Vietnam's Vinh diocese demonstrated on Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of a toxic waste spill that polluted more than 125 miles of coastline in four coastal provinces.

The spill  the country's largest environmental disaster  began on April 6, 2016 and lasted for 12 days, killing an estimated 115 tons of fish and leaving fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless.

Two months later, Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group acknowledged it was responsible for the release of the chemicals from its massive steel plant located at the deep-water port in Ha Tinh province's Ky Anh district.

The company has voluntarily paid U.S. $500 million to clean up and compensate those affected by the spill, but the slow and uneven payout of the funds by the Vietnamese government has prompted protests which continue to be held a year after the spill.

Protesters took to the streets and the beaches of Vinh diocese, carrying black flags decorated with symbolic fish bones and banners that read "Bring Formosa and its supporters to trial," "Formosa disaster is for all Vietnam people," and "Formosa  licensed death."

"Today is the one-year anniversary of the mass fish kill disaster," a fisherman who joined the protest told RFA's Vietnamese Service. "I can't go out to sea anymore, so I have time to join others here."

"My wish is our sea becomes clean so our children can swim and we can go out to sea again," he said. "I have not even mentioned the compensation."

Catholic priest Bui Khiem Cuong of Dong Son parish told RFA, "All of us, from children to senior citizens, including myself, would like to send a message to the whole world and Vietnam's leaders about the environment."

"We demand that the government of Vietnam drive Formosa out of the country because we are the victims of this disaster," he said. "People here depend on the sea, and they have so many difficulties in life."

Environmental activist charged

In a related development, authorities have charged an environmental activist who sought justice for those affected by the Formosa disaster with abusing democracy and freedom and infringing upon the interests of the state under Article 258 of the country's penal code.

Nguyen Van Hoa was arrested by Ha Tinh provincial police in February for reporting on the coastal pollution caused by the toxic chemical spill in the country's central region.

Vietnamese authorities frequently use Article 258, which refers to "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens," to arrest and imprison those who support democracy and human rights and denounce abuses.

"He signed contracts with foreign news outlets to provide 16 reports a month for U.S. $1,500," the online Vietnamese news service VNExpress quoted Nguyen Tien Nam, vice director of the Ha Tinh police, as saying.

Police also accused Hoa of setting up many social media accounts to report on pollution and floods in the region, he said.

"Such evidence shows that Nguyen Van Hoa has complicated security and order in the region," Nam said.

After Hoa was arrested, his sister told RFA that following the Formosa environmental disaster, Hoa decided to speak out about it to ensure justice for the people of the region.

"The police did not like that, so they monitored him," she said. "They had no reason to arrest him officially, so they kidnapped him."

Reported by Gia Minh for RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Court in China's Guangdong acquits milk-scandal father jailed for five years

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 7 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Court in China's Guangdong acquits milk-scandal father jailed for five years, 7 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbc0a.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-07

Chinese parents of babies sickened by milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine protest against the new owners of the bankrupt company that produced the baby formula in Shijiazhuang, northern China's Hebei province, March 4, 2009. AFP China Xtra

A court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has retrospectively acquitted a father jailed for demanding compensation after his infant daughter was sickened by the 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal.

Guo Li, a simultaneous interpreter, was handed a five-year sentence by a court in Guangdong's Chaozhou in 2010 for "extortion" linked to his campaign for compensation from Guangzhou-based infant formula maker Scient after his child became ill with kidney stones.

Guo made a brief statement immediately after the hearing: "After a simple hearing that lasted around 20 minutes, the court found that I am innocent. Everything I did was in the cause of justice, and none of my actions constituted a crime," he said.

Following his release, Guo then lodged an appeal with the Guangdong Provincial High Court, which found that the facts of the case were unclear, that there was insufficient evidence, that the court of first instance had breached due process on two occasions, and that the case was inconclusive.

The provincial court found insufficient evidence to prove that Guo had used threats to extort material gains from the company, according to the judgment.

Guo was recently notified by the same court that it will be issuing a verdict following a rearraignment, and had been advised that he would likely be acquitted.

"The day has come when the slate has been wiped clean," he told RFA.

"I would like to thank everybody for their concern for our cries for justice on behalf of my child," he said.

Guo now suffers ongoing mental and physical health problems he attributes to maltreatment, including poor food and dirty water in prison.

Guo's daughter was one of 300,000 made ill by infant formula milk laced with the industrial chemical melamine, which saw a total of 21 people convicted for their roles in the scandal, two of whom were executed.

The government said after the 2008 scandal that it had destroyed all tainted milk powder, but reports of melamine-laced products have occasionally re-emerged.

Guo has previously described three years of harsh treatment, including beatings and solitary confinement, during his prison sentence, as the authorities put pressure on him to "admit to his crimes."

Held in a cell measuring little more than one meter (3.3 feet) wide and deprived of adequate food and water, Guo was given moldy food and dirty ditch-water instead.

'Shocking and immoral'

Fellow "kidney stone baby" relative Jiang Yalin, who has criticized Guo's jailing as a political case.

"We parents of the victims are very happy to see the Provincial High Court acquit [Guo]," Jiang said. "The main thing is that it sends the message that justice has been done."

"As for Guo Li, I am full of admiration for him, because of his five-year ordeal in jail and for the three years he spent pursuing this appeal ceaselessly," said Jiang, whose own daughter became ill from drinking tainted infant formula.

"The way they mistreated him in jail was shocking and immoral, and for him to have hung in there through all of that really shows what an amazing father he is," he said.

Campaigners say promises from then-premier Wen Jiabao that the government would foot the medical bills for all of the children affected by melamine-tainted milk haven't been kept.

Instead, Jiang said, the scandal has led major health insurance companies in China to start excluding kidney-related diseases from policies, owing to the huge medical bills racked up following the scandal.

"Now, most major illness cover has an exclusion for kidney conditions," she said. "If a lot of people were to develop kidney conditions [as a result], then the company would lose money."

At least four infants died from kidney stones, and many of those who got sick, like Jiang's daughter, have yet to return to full health owing to calcification.

But the authorities retaliated against the most vocal parent activists, including Zhao Lianhai, who launched an advocacy group Kidney Stone Babies after officials refused to meet with victims'

families, or to allocate compensation funds earmarked for the children.

In Hong Kong, local residents staged protests in 2015 after parallel traders began buying up imported infant formula powder in bulk for resale to worried parents across the internal border in mainland China.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Myanmar ruling party researcher jailed for insulting military chief

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 7 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Myanmar ruling party researcher jailed for insulting military chief, 7 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbc16.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-07

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of Myanmar's armed forces, speaks at a ceremony marking the country's 72nd Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw, March 27, 2017. AFP

Authorities in Myanmar on Friday sentenced and jailed a researcher from the ruling National League for Democracy party for criticizing the country's commander-in-chief of the armed forces on social media.

NLD researcher Myo Yan Naung Thein was sentenced to six months in jail by a court in Kamaryut Township in the north central part of the commercial capital Yangon court for criticizing Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in a Facebook post.

He was accused of defaming the military chief under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, which prohibits use of the telecom network to defame people and carries a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine for those who violate it.

Lieutenant Colonel Lin Tun, who filed a lawsuit against Myo Yan Naung Thein, told RFA's Myanmar Service he had no comment on the jail sentence and that questions could be directed to officials in the Military Office in Myanmar's political capital Naypyidaw.

The number of defamation suits filed under the article have soared under the government of de facto national leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her civilian-led NLD government. So far, 54 people have been charged under the article, seven of whom have been sentenced to jail.

During the previous military-backed government of former president Thein Sein, only seven people were charged under Article 66(d), and five of them received prison sentences.

"Article 66(d) is needed, but we need to amend it because people have misused it," he said. "It's obvious that we have two groups ruling Myanmar, not only our government."

No intention to insult

Ma Cho, Myo Yan Maung Thein's wife, pointed out that her husband has been in jail since Nov. 3, 2016, and will have been there six months on May 3.

"It seems the judge concluded that his words on Facebook constituted an insult [to Min Aung Hlaing], but it is obvious that he did not do this in the post he wrote," she said.

"He wrote it as an opinion piece with no intention of insulting the army chief," she said.

Maung Saung Kha, a Myanmar poet who was arrested in November 2015 for posting a short poem online that was construed to be offensive to Myanmar's president and sentenced under Article 66(d), said this section of the telecommunications law should be amended.

"If it isn't amended, there are many people who will be charged and sentenced under it this month," he told RFA.

In May 2016, Maung Saung Kha was convicted by a Yangon court on defamation charges for penning the lines, "A tattoo of the president is on my penis; my wife felt detestation when she married me."

He was sentenced to six months in prison, but was set free because he had already served six months and 19 days in prison.

"We have had more charges and sentences [under Article 66(d)] during the current government's term, and it has destroyed the government's reputation," he said.

"We must amend it, and I want this issue to be discussed in coming parliament meetings in May," he said.

Reported by Thiha Tun for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Thousands of devotees greet Dalai Lama at Tawang monastery in Indian border state

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 7 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Thousands of devotees greet Dalai Lama at Tawang monastery in Indian border state, 7 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbc213.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-07

The Dalai Lama is greeted by devotees as he arrives at Tawang monastery in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, April 7, 2017. RFA

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, arrived in the Buddhist town of Tawang, in northeastern India's Arunachal Pradesh state Friday and was greeted by thousands of followers who had come to hear his religious teachings.

After traveling seven hours by car along roads lined with prayer flags, the 81-year-old monk reached the 17th-century Tawang Gaden Lhatse monastery, where he was welcomed by local monks and Buddhist devotees from throughout the region, including several from neighboring Bhutan.

A resident of Tawang, where the sixth Dalai Lama was discovered in the late 1600s, told RFA's Tibetan Service that the visit had been highly anticipated.

"We were waiting for this great occasion to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama, so we worked hard to put up a good reception for him with prayers flags and other decorations," said the resident, who spoke to RFA anonymously.

Loden, a Tibetan visiting from Switzerland, said residents had gone to great lengths to prepare for the spiritual leader's arrival.

"Yesterday when I was coming down from the valley where most of the residents are nomads, they were cleaning the roads for several kilometers for His Holiness to pass through," he said.

"It was really amazing to see the sense of devotion and faith and joy they felt in preparing to see His Holiness."

The Dalai Lama  the 14th of his lineage  had planned to fly by helicopter from Guwahati in neighboring Assam state to Tawang monastery to hold spiritual teachings beginning on Wednesday, but heavy rainfall forced him to travel by road through the region, delaying his arrival.

He is expected to begin three days of teachings on Saturday.

Beijing angered

The nine-day visit to Arunachal Pradesh  which China claims as its territory  has angered Beijing, and on Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying slammed India for extending the spiritual leader an invitation to the region.

"The Chinese side opposes the Dalai Lama's visit to the disputed area and any country's provision of venues for his anti-China separatist activities," she said at a media briefing, adding that Beijing had "lodged stern representations" with New Delhi.

The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing China in 1959 during an uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, and New Delhi has warned Beijing to stay out of its internal affairs in response to criticism over the trip.

On Thursday, after consecrating the Thupsung Dhargyeling monastery in Dirang amid nearly 10,000 devotees, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate dismissed Beijing's claims while speaking with reporters.

"My visit is purely spiritual  nothing [to do with] politics  so I wish some Chinese official would come here to observe what kind of activities [I am involved in]," he said.

The Dalai Lama also suggested that the Indian government should encourage Chinese Buddhists to visit important Buddhist sites in India, where the religion originated before being brought to China around the second century BC.

"China, historically, is a Buddhist country ... So often I suggest to concerned Indian officials that ... they create some sort of arrangement for Chinese Buddhists to make a pilgrimage in India," he said.

"Some sort of arrangement to come for these Chinese pilgrims, I think, would be very useful  firstly, for individual satisfaction and secondly, for them ... to see India's freedom."

He reiterated statements that Tibetans are not seeking an independent nation, but rather that China provide them with "meaningful self-rule, autonomy and must take full care of the environment."

India and China have been embroiled in a row over the region for decades, as part of a greater dispute over their shared 3,500-kilometer (2,175-mile) border which prompted the brief 1962 Sino-Indian War. The two sides routinely accuse each other of intrusions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a de facto border that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the area.

The Dalai Lama has traveled to Arunachal Pradesh on six earlier occasions since 1983.

Reported by Passang Tsering for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
Vietnamese dissident's eyesight failing in prison, relatives say

Publisher Radio Free Asia Publication Date 7 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Asia, Vietnamese dissident's eyesight failing in prison, relatives say, 7 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58f9cbc313.html [accessed 9 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.

2017-04-07

Democracy activist Tran Huynh Duy Thuc is shown during his trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Jan. 20, 2010. AFP

A Vietnamese activist jailed seven years ago for writing online articles criticizing government policies is suffering failing vision after being kept in a dark cell, family members said after visiting him in prison at the beginning of the month.

Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, 51, was convicted in 2010 on charges of plotting to overthrow the government under Article 79 of Vietnam's penal code and is serving a 16-year prison term. He was tried along with lawyer Le Cong Dinh, engineer Nguyen Tien Trung, and businessman Le Thang Long.

Transferred in May 2016 to Prison No. 6 in north-central Vietnam's Nghe An province, Thuc has been kept in a dark cell and denied books and other reading materials, Thuc's brother Tran Huynh Duy Tan told RFA's Vietnamese Service on April 7.

Tan and other family members visited Thuc at his prison on April 1, he said.

"We are worried about the lack of light in his cell," Tan said. "His eyes have dark circles under them, and he complains of seeing flies."

"He rarely complains about conditions in the prison, but whenever he writes to us, he always asks us to send him a flashlight."

Power has frequently failed at the prison since August last year, Tan told RFA.

"Thuc has to live in the dark."

"If there is sunlight outside, the cell will be a bit brighter, but it is really dark inside if the day is overcast or raining," he said.

"Things are a bit better in the cold weather, but in the summer when it is hot, and there is no electricity, we don't see how he can cope with it," he said.

Thuc's family now plans to complain directly to Vietnam's president Tran Dai Quang about conditions at the prison where Thuc is being held, his brother said.

"We will send our petition to the prison authorities and to the president himself, demanding that they respect the rule of law, as President Tran Dai Quang said would be the case in a speech on Feb. 17."

"He has talked a lot about respecting human rights and the rule of law for people serving sentences. But in this case, they are doing just the opposite," he said.

Reported by Loan Ngo for RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Link to original story on RFA website

Copyright notice: Copyright  2006, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.
The Supreme Court has come to the rescue of a man from West Bengal, who had appealed against the Calcutta High Court order seeking reduction in alimony amount to be paid to his ex-wife.

By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court has come to rescue of a man, who had married after separation from his ex-wife and has a child from his second wife.

Passing an order on the appeal of the man, the Supreme Court reduced the alimony amount of a divorced woman from Rs 23,000 to Rs 20,000. The apex court held that the man had to support his new family including the child born of his re-marriage.

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In a 1970-judgment, the Supreme Court had held that 25 per cent of ex-husband's net salary was the just alimony amount to be paid to the divorced woman.

The apex court had then said that the alimony amount awarded to the ex-wife must be befitting the status and capacity.

THE PRESENT CASE

In the present case, a man and his ex-wife from West Bengal's Hooghly district are engaged in a legal battle over maintenance since 2003.

The district court had fixed the alimony amount at Rs 4,500 14 years ago. The Calcutta High Court increased the alimony award to Rs 16,000 in 2015.

In 2016, when man's salary went up from Rs 63,842 to Rs 95,527, the Calcutta High Court increased the award to Rs 23,000.

RELIEF FROM SUPREME COURT

While the legal battle over alimony went on, the man remarried and a son was born of the wedlock. Finding it difficult to run the two households, the man challenged the high court order in the Supreme Court.

He argued that since his ex-wife was a trained beautician and Montessori teacher earning Rs 30,000 while their son was now a 18 years old, the alimony amount should be reduced.

The ex-wife argued that additional money was required to support the higher education of their major son.

The Supreme Court in its order gave relief to the man but rejected his plea to revert the alimony amount to Rs 16,000 as originally stipulated by the Calcutta High Court.

Fixing Rs 20,000 as alimony amount, the Supreme Court bench of Justices R Banumathi and M M Santanagoudar said that the alimony amount should be 'just and proper'.

The apex court also held that the Calcutta High Court order of awarding Rs 23,000 was in consonance with the apex court order that set the benchmark for alimony amount.

ALSO READ |

Howrah: Massive fire breaks out at thermocol factory, efforts to douse flames on

ALSO WATCH |

Suspended BSF jawan Tej Bahadur to India Today: Suspected they would kill me but media saved my life

--- ENDS ---

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This year is 29th year of the festival where followers and lovers of Savakar come together and discuss the various aspects of his writings.

By Mayuresh Ganapatye: The three-day All India Savarkar Literature Festival was inaugurated today by BJP national president Amit Shah in Thane city.

This year is 29th year of the festival where followers and lovers of Savakar come together and discuss the various aspects of his writings. Savarkar followers feel that his writings are still relevant.

In the inaugural speech, Amit Shah, who is also a staunch follower of Savakar, said, "Writings of Vinayak Savarkar had inspired youth in the past and in today's era. Savarkar's literature is enlightening youth and showing them a path."

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Shah described Savarkar as multidimensional person.

He also took a dig at critics of Savakar. He criticised Congress for its leaders stand on Savarkar. He gave a suggestion to Congress leaders to read his writings as they have failed to understand a true patriot like Savarkar. "Indian people call Savakar as 'Veer' Savakar for this no resolution wasn't passed by any assembly or any govt. It came from people's heart." Shah said.

Remembering Savarkar as multidimensional person, Shah told the gathering about his contribution in the field of linguistics. He also said that Hindi-Marathi synonyms for English words like director, parliament etc were Savarkar's contribution. Shah urged the gathered crowed to spread his literature to as many as people they can, so that his thoughts can reached to those people who don't know Savarkar.

While Shiv Sena MLA and cabinet minister in Fadnavis govt Eknath Shinde requested Amit Shah to tell PM Modi to honour late Vinayak Savarkar with Bharat Ratan.

--- ENDS ---
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By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Apr 21 (PTI) Hinduja Group flagship firm Ashok Leyland today said it has lined up around Rs 600 crore capex for this fiscal to enhance cabin and engine capacity besides setting up new assembly units in Kenya and Ivory Coast.

The company is bullish on the Indian commercial vehicle market and expects the industry to grow around 10-15 per cent this fiscal.

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"We will have capex (capital expenditure) to enhance capacity of cabin and engines. We will not be building new plant for enhancing overall capacity," Ashok Leyland Managing Director Vinod Dasari told PTI here.

He further said the second requirement of capex will be for developing future technologies like modular vehicles and BS-VI emission norm.

The company will also be investing in setting up small plants in Andhra Pradesh, Kenya and Ivory Coast.

Asked how much has the company earmarked as capex for the fiscal, Dasari said: "We are looking at Rs 500-600 crore per year."

There will be no acquisition, he added.

Elaborating on the companys plans for assembly plants in Africa, Ashok Leyland President, Global Sales and Distribution, Rajiv Saharia said these would be smaller units with an initial capacity of rolling out 200 units a month, scalable to 400 units.

"We are hopeful to set up the plants in Kenya and Ivory Coast within this fiscal but land acquisition has been a bit of an issue there," he added.

The Kenyan plant will be used to cater to neighbouring countries in East Africa, while the Ivory Coast unit will do the same for West Africa, Saharia added.

He also said the capacity of the companys plant in Ras al-Khaimah will be enhanced beyond 400 units a month to cater to increased demand from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

On the domestic market, Dasari said the three main drivers of commercial vehicle sales -- GDP growth, infrastructure and mining -- are firing simultaneously at the moment.

"We expect the industry to grow around 10-15 per cent this fiscal," he said.

The first quarter will be a bit slow as people are still evaluating the BS-IV transformation.

"However, there is a lot of pent up demand which we think will transform into sales sooner rather than later," Dasari added. PTI RKL ABM

--- ENDS ---
Oeuth Ang is led away from a hearing at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Sept. 16, 2016.

A former soldier sentenced to life in prison in March for murdering prominent Cambodian political analyst Kem Ley filed an appeal through his attorney on Thursday, arguing that the punishment handed down by the trial court is too harsh.

On March 23, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court found Oeuth Angwho calls himself Chuob Samlab, a Khmer name meaning meet to killsolely responsible for Kem Leys death and guilty of illegal possession of a weapon and premeditated murder.

Kem Ley, 46, was gunned down on the morning of July 10, 2016, as he stopped for coffee in a Star Mart store at a gasoline station at a busy intersection in the capital Phnom Penh.

Yung Phanith, Oeuth Angs attorney, said his client considers life imprisonment too heavy a penalty to pay because it does not offer him an opportunity to rehabilitate himself.

He [Oeuth Ang] said that the court has punished him too heavily, said Yung Phanith. Life imprisonment is too harsh a sentence. He wants the appeals court to reduce the sentence so that he can have a chance to reform himself and return to live in his community after he has served a reduced sentence.

Am Sam Ath, head of investigations for the domestic rights group Licadho, said that although Oeuth Ang has the legal right to appeal the courts decision, the most important consideration in the matter is that the court must conduct a further investigation to clear up public doubt about how the case has been handled.

Oeuth Ang confessed during his brief March 1 trial to shooting Kem Ley twice at point-blank range over an unpaid U.S. $3,000 debt, though his motive was not supported by physical evidence, and witness testimony suggested others were involved in the crime.

Several inconsistencies in Oeuth Angs statements also prompted widespread skepticism over how the case was handled.

Later that month, more than 60 local civil society organizations issued a statement demanding that an independent commission comprised of experts from outside Cambodia investigate Kem Leys murder, citing what they called an insufficient investigation of the case.

I dont think the case ends with Chuob Samlab being sentenced, said Am Sam Ath. The court will need to find other people who are behind this murder.

Those who were responsible for the crime must be brought in for prosecution, he said. Justice will need to be done and seen to be done to the victims family. Something needs to done to restore public faith in justice.

Reported by Sonorng Khe for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Chinese police detain Ming Jingguo (1st photo, R) who is accused of killing an official during a forced demolition of homes in Ganzhou village near Ganzhou city in southern China's Jiangxi province, March 17, 2017.

An elderly woman in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi died after being trapped in the rubble as bulldozers destroyed her family home, local residents told RFA.

Hu Xianglan, who was in her eighties, was trapped in the rubble as bulldozers moved in on her family home near Jiangxis Wuzhou city, according to photos and eyewitness accounts.

By the time her body was retrieved from the rubble, it was unrecognizable, a local resident surnamed Huo told RFA.

This happened between Dongxiang and Yangqiao where we live, Huo said. She was related to my sister-in-law, whos from Qiuyuan village.

When the forced evictions were over, they found that she had died the next day when they were clearing up the rubble. Her body had been torn into several pieces by the mechanical digger.

Huo said all of the houses in the neighborhood had been demolished without the agreement of residents in what local officials said was a village improvement project.

The villagers were all unwilling, so the government  called in some local muscle, police and ambulances, and said, If you make a move, well beat you up and then send you to the hospital, Huo told RFA in an interview on Thursday, a week after the demolitions took place.

Dozens of local residents and family members had gathered outside local government offices demanding an explanation in the days after Hus death, but the government dispatched around 300 police officers to seal off the area, he said.

Local officials had later paid out 900,000 yuan (U.S. $130,700) in compensation to Hus family, he added.

The government has been acting like a mafia organization with this village improvement campaign, he said. They dont even discuss it with people first. They knock down your house whether you like it or not, and if you complain about it, they beat you up.

Ordinary people cant win against the government, he said.

An official who answered the phone at the Dongxiang district government said an investigation is under way into Hus death, but denied it was linked to forced eviction and demolitions.

How can you say that? the official said. We have to wait for the results of the police investigation. We have already set up an investigation team, and we are investigating it too.



Official bludgeoned to death

Elsewhere in Jiangxi, relatives of an elderly man accused of killing an official during a forced demolition have been placed under tight surveillance.

Police in Ganzhou village near Ganzhou city detained Ming Jingguo after he was accused of bludgeoning local Peoples Congress representative Zhuo Yu with a hoe on March 17.

Local media said the coroners report gave the cause of death as multiple blunt force trauma" resulting in a smashed skull.

On March 20, lawyers Guo Lianhui and Liu Wenhua were prevented from meeting with Ming, who is being held at the Nankang District Detention Center in Ganzhou, Human Rights in China reported.

He faces charges of intentional homicide, which could result in the death penalty.

A source close to the family said Mings son Ming Bangwei is being held under house arrest and has had his cell phone confiscated by police.

The authorities have him under house arrest, and they are watching his every move, the source said. Hes not allowed to leave the local area.

If past cases are anything to go by, the authorities will be looking to make his relatives disappear outright.

Ming Bangwei had been prevented from traveling to Beijing to find a lawyer for his father, the source said.

Fatal shooting over demolition

Last November, authorities in the northern city of Shijiazhuang executed Jia Jinglong, who fatally shot a local official with a nail gun in protest over the forced demolition of his home, in spite of a massive public campaign for a reprieve.

Jias execution came after his death sentence was reviewed and approved by the Supreme People's Court in Beijing.

In a case that became emblematic of widespread anger over social injustice in China, the highest court ruled that Jia's crime was "extremely serious," and merited the death penalty.

Jia had pleaded guilty from the start to shooting his former village chief He Jianhua in the head with a nail gun, and to planning the attack, including his getaway vehicle.

He was convicted of intentional homicide and sentenced to death, and also deprived of his political rights for life on Nov. 24, 2015, by the Shijiazhuang court, and his appeal to the provincial-level court was rejected last May.

Lawyers said the Supreme Court's review of Jia Jinglongs case didn't take into consideration the allegations of illegal and corrupt dealings linked to village land sales and forced demolitions, and ran counter to current policies requiring caution when applying the death penalty.

Reported by Xin Lin for RFAs Mandarin Service, and by Wong Siu-san for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
A North Korean soldier stands next to a watchtower on the banks of the Yalu river near Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, April 14, 2017.

Seven North Koreans from three families overpowered border guards and seized their weapons in a dramatic escape across the Tumen River to China on April 15, multiple sources inside the North told RFAs Korean Service.

The defectors were from a small village in Musan County, North Hamgyong Province near the Chinese border and their escape took place as North Korea was marking the 105th birthday of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung amid heightened security for the national holiday.

On April 15, the late Kim Il Sungs birthday, three family units of Musan County beat the border guards and defected. As this incident happened during the special security week, the Border Guard and law enforcement agencies were put on high alert, one source in North Hamgyong Province told RFA on April 18.

The defectors were a total of seven from the three family units who resided in Dosori village in Musan County, the source added.

The law enforcement agencies believe the defectors had no choice but to attack the border guards and steal their weapons when they were in danger of being caught by the approaching guards, said the source.

It was not clear if any guards were injured and the whereabouts of the seven escapees is unknown.

A second source in North Hamgyong Province reached by RFA on April 20 added details on the events of April 15, whose repercussions are being felt all along the Norths long border with China.

During the escape process, three adults in the families ambushed and muzzled two patrolling guards before tying them securely to trees, and then seized their automatic rifles, removed the magazines and threw them into the (Tumen) river, the second source said.

Dozens of border guards stationed in Musan County were mobilized the next day, the afternoon of April 16 to dive into icy cold Tumen River to search for the magazines, but failed to find them up to now, added that source.

Right after the incident happened, the Peoples Security Department and the Border Guards headquarters in Musan County prohibited the movement of county residents, and at the same time informed China of the incident, dispatching an investigative team over on the Chinese side of the border in an effort to arrest the seven defectors, the source said.

When asked about the incident by RFA on April 21, a Chinese embassy official in Washington said only: I do not know."

Both of RFAs sources in North Hamgyong said Saturdays dramatic escape took place against the backdrop of tighter state controls on border guards. Guards used to take bribes to turn a blind eye on defections into China, but now face stern punishments for allowing escapes, including public execution.

The tighter security, coupled with the spreading rumors of a nuclear war, have made lots of residents determined to defect solo, without the border guards help, as they feel they might die helplessly. This kind of thinking among the residents affected the incident involving the seven family members, said the second Hamgyong source.

Reported by Jieun Kim and translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Changsop Pyon and Paul Eckert.
Myanmar police on Friday said they have arrested two suspects in the murder of a news magazine publisher, saying the crime was in retaliation for a romantic affair, rather than for his critical coverage of the military, as many observers in the country had feared.

The body of Wai Yan Heinn, the 27-year-old publisher and editor of Iron Rose, was found slumped in a chair with 15 stab wounds in his in his chest and abdomen on April 16, after neighbors reported a strong odor coming from his first-floor office in Pazundaung township in the commercial capital Yangon.

Aung Ko Ko, a cargo ship officer and the husband of a woman with whom Wai Yan Heinn allegedly had an affair, has been charged with murdering the publisher, the Myanmar Police Force said in a post on its Facebook page.

Yangon police arrested both Aung Ko Ko and his wife on Wednesday, and they have formed a special team to investigate this case.

Police said Wai Yan Heinn and Aung Ko Kos wife Al Ni had been in contact on Facebook for the past eight months, according to a report by the online journal The Irrawaddy.

A friend informed Aung Ko Ko that the two were having an affair, so he allegedly locked his wife and son in his home in Yangons Mingalar Taung Nyunt township on April 11, prompting Al Ni to call Wai Yan Heinn for help, the report said.

Wai Yan Heinn broke the lock on the door and took Al Ni and her son to a hotel in Lanmadaw township on the same day, said police, it said.

Aung Ko Ko then reportedly phoned Wai Yan Heinn before going to the journalists office on April 14, where he is suspected of killing him and taking his iPhone, the report said. He picked up his wife and son from the hotel and fled to Pyin Oo Lwin in Mandalay region the next day.

Journalism groups weigh in

Before news of the love triangle emerged, journalism rights groups spoke out on the murder, urging the Myanmar government to quickly resolve the crime and bring Wai Yan Heinns killer to justice.

The groups believed that his murder was in retaliation for recent reports on Myanmars former ruling military generals and their business associates, as well as his reference to the countrys de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a drone president.

Authorities should leave no stone unturned in identifying and apprehending Wai Yen Heinns killer, said Shawn Crispin, senior Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists in a statement issued on Thursday.

Myanmar is fast emerging as a country where media murders go unpunished, he said. The cycle of impunity and deadly violence should be broken now by promptly bringing Wai Yen Heinn's murderer to justice.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday echoed the CPJs also called for a swift investigation of Wai Yan Heinns murder.

We offer our condolences to Wai Yan Heinns family and colleagues, and we urge the authorities to allocate enough resources to the investigation so that it can be carried out quickly and thoroughly, and does not ignore the possible links to the victims work as a journalist, said Benjamin Ismail, head of RSFs Asia-Pacific desk, in a statement.

Killings of other journalists

Last December, Soe Moe Tun, an investigative reporter for Myanmars Eleven Media Group was found beaten to death on the side of a road in the town of Monywa in northwestern Myanmars Sagaing region.

Soe Moe Tun, whose death marked the fifth killing of a journalist in Myanmar since 1999, had been reporting on sensitive topics, such as illegal logging and a controversial mining project, before he was murdered.

As of January, police had arrested three suspects, but no additional progress has been made in solving the case, according to local media reports.

The family of Soe Moe Tun, a journalist murdered more than four months ago, is still awaiting significant progress in that investigation, so any attempt to stint on the resources assigned to this latest investigation would send a very negative message to journalists and would foster an unacceptable climate of impunity, Ismail said.

In October 2014, freelance journalist Aung Kyaw Naing, also known as Par Gyi, was shot and killed in military custody in Kyaikmayaw township in southeastern Myanmars Mon state, after he was arrested while covering fighting between the government army and ethnic Karen rebels.

The following month, a military court acquitted two soldiers of his death, and police stopped investigating the case in April 2016 although another court ruled in a separate civil case that Par Gyi had died of unnatural causes, according to media reports at the time.

Despite a series of reforms to push Myanmar towards democracy, including laws enshrining media freedom, enacted by the former administration of Thein Sein, authorities continue to use various means to intimidate media and restrict freedom of expression.

Myanmar remains in the bottom quarter of RSFs 2016 World Press Freedom Index, ranked 143rd of 180 countries.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Rosanne Gerin.
A Tibetan monk jailed three years ago in Sichuan for protesting Chinese rule in Tibetan areas has been released from prison after serving his full term, a source in the region said.



Lobsang Gyatso, a monk from Kirti monastery in the Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures Ngaba county, was freed on April 19 and returned to his family home, a resident of the area told RFAs Tibetan Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.



Gyatso, now about 23, had launched a solo protest on April 2, 2014 on a main road of the county seat, the source said, adding, He carried a Tibetan national flag and called out for Tibetan freedom and the long life of [exiled spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama.



He escaped arrest and went back to his monastery after his protest, the source said.



Then, on April 15, the police raided his quarters in the monastery and took him away.



After being held in detention for about seven months, Gyatso was convicted on a charge of subversion and given a three-year sentence by the Bathang County Peoples Intermediate Court, also in Ngaba prefecture, the source said.



His present state of his health is unknown, he said.



Gyatsos April 2014 protest was followed later that month by a protest by another Kirti monk, 19-year-old Lobsang Tenpa, who was detained and beaten by police after calling out in public for freedom for Tibet, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



He was released on May 5, 2016 after serving a two-year term.



Kirti monastery and Ngabas main town have been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests in recent years by monks, former monks, nuns, and other Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule.



Reported by Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karme Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.




A group of farmers locked in a standoff with authorities over a land dispute in Vietnams capital Hanoi have released one of 20 officials held for nearly a week, citing health concerns, state media reported Friday.



Dang Van Canh, deputy head of the Publicity and Education Committee in My Duc districtwhere the showdown is underway some 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of central Hanoiwas released by the farmers in Dong Tam commune owing to my health, he told the official Vietnam News Service.



I was treated well during the last few days; the villagers treated decently all the other people that they held hostage, Canh said.



I wish the locals would keep calm, he added.



The Dong Tam standoff was sparked by an April 15 clash between police and the farmers, who say the government is seizing 47 hectares (116 acres) of their farmland for the military-run Viettel Groupthe countrys largest mobile phone operatorwithout adequately compensating them.



Police had arrested several farmers for allegedly causing social unrest, and other farmers responded by detaining 38 police officers and local officials, and threatening to burn them alive with petrol if security personnel attack again. Local media said that the farmers who were arrested have since been released.



By April 17, villagers freed 15 police officers, while three other detainees managed to escape by themselves. Nineteen people are still being held in Dong Tam, where farmers have erected barricades to prevent anyone from entering, and authorities have said that those responsible for detaining them will be dealt with according to the law.



Hanoi mayor Nguyen Duc Chung invited the farmers to the My Duc district Peoples Committee building on Thursday to resolve the situation, but the farmers have said they want Chung to meet with them in Dong Tam because they fear arrest if they leave the area.



Instead, Chung told district officials at the Peoples Committee building that the city government will investigate the land dispute and called on villagers to assist with the inspection, which is expected to take 45 days. He promised that the issue would be addressed properly, unlike previous instances when residents submitted complaints to no avail in recent years.



Chung also urged the farmers to remove blockades and release the detainees, assuring them that authorities will not launch an attack.



On Friday, Tien Phong newspaper reported that Chung might visit the commune on April 22 to speak with the farmers as part of a bid to secure the release of the remaining detainees, citing an anonymous source. RFA was unable to confirm the report.



In the meantime, the mayor has ordered Viettel to cease construction on the disputed land until a resolution is reached.



The authorities maintain that the farmers have illegally occupied land earmarked for the military nearly 40 years ago, which was allocated to Viettel in 2015 to build a defense-related project.



The farmers believe the land is zoned for agricultural, rather than military, purposes and say Viettel has no right to use it. They have suggested that they will vacate the land if the central government confirms it as military-zonedprovided they are adequately compensated.

Call for dialogue



Observers on Friday questioned Chungs approach, saying the mayor should give the farmers a reason to trust that their grievances will be heard and the standoff will end peacefully.



Hanoi-based activist Nguyen Khac Toan told RFAs Vietnamese Service that the farmers were right to boycott Thursdays meeting.



The Dong Tam villagers refusal to talk with Chung at the My Duc District Peoples Committee headquarters has merit, he said.



Chung must go to the site to listen to villagers and see [the situation] for himself. Doing so would demonstrate his good will and if the government demonstrates good will, [resolving things] will be very simple.



Toan said the standoff is a matter of conflict of interest, but advised the government to find a solution to the dispute that would benefit all stakeholders.



If this hotspot is not contained and becomes contagious, it would be very dangerous for the regime, he said.



Blogger Nguyen Lan Thang told RFA that the mayor must show that heand by extension, the governmentis capable of understanding the needs of the people.



Chung must be sincere in listening  not simply in settling the crisis at Dong Tam, he said.



[This is why] Chung should have gone to Dong Tam in an official capacity and sat down to talk with the residents.

Open letter



Also on Friday, around 50 civil society groups and 40 activists published an open letter stating their support for the Dong Tam farmers and suggesting that a poor system of land ownership in Vietnam and arrogant behavior on the part of the authorities were responsible for the April 15 clash.



We activists and groups that struggle for democracy in Vietnam want to share support and encouragement for our compatriots in Dong Tam amid their current fight for justice and legal rights, Do Nam Hai from the pro-democracy group Bloc 8406 told RFA of the decision to release the letter.



Hai said that the letters signatories had been monitoring the situation in Dong Tam and were in agreement with the farmers decision to reject Thursdays meeting at the My Duc District Peoples Committee building.



We are closely watching how the government behaves in this case, he said.



There will be more announcements and calls for assistance [for the farmers] to come from people both inside and outside Vietnam, as well as from progressive organizations around the world.



While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landowners aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to those whose land is taken.



Many petitioners who seek justice and demand adequate compensation for their land have been beaten and imprisoned by authorities on allegations of causing public disorder under Article 245 of Vietnams Penal Code.



Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.




Nikolai Andrushchenko, a cantankerous septuagenarian journalist with a turbulent past, rarely kept editors abreast of his investigations.



"As a rule, [he] kept his articles tightly under wraps. Hardly anyone in the office knew exactly what he was working on," said Denis Usov, editor in chief of Novy Peterburg, a small St. Petersburg newspaper that bubbles with Stalinist and anti-Jewish screeds.

So it was not unusual that Andrushchenko, a former city lawmaker who had written extensively about alleged local corruption, was tight-lipped about his work in his final conversation with Usov at around 5 p.m. on March 9 at the newspaper's office in the city center.

Like his work, precisely what happened next to Andrushchenko remains -- for now, at least -- shrouded in mystery.



Later that night, after the office closed, passersby discovered the journalist splayed unconscious on the street with severe head trauma, Usov said. He added that Andrushchenko's colleagues learned only a few days later that he had been hospitalized.

"He led a very private life. He lived alone. He didn't have any relatives in St. Petersburg at the time," Usov said.

Any hopes that Andrushchenko, an early and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, could shed light on the circumstances of his injuries vanished this week. He died in the hospital on April 19 at the age of 73, having never regained consciousness.

Usov told RFE/RL that it's possible Andrushchenko died as the result of an accident. The Kremlin-loyal website Life.ru, widely seen as having ties to Russian security services, cited an unidentified police source as saying the journalist had simply fallen down drunk and hit his head.



But just weeks prior to suffering his ultimately fatal injuries, Andrushchenko publicly complained that he had twice been attacked over the previous two months by unidentified assailants demanding documents related to an investigation he had been working on -- documents that he did not have.



"So unfortunately, it's not possible to exclude the possible criminal nature of this incident," Usov said.



'Extremely Difficult Person'



Andrushchenko's death, which his lawyer described as the result of an "attack," triggered widespread speculation among Russian political observers and international press freedom watchdogs that he had become the latest journalist in the country to be killed for his work.



The Committee To Protect Journalists described it as a "brutal murder" and called on authorities to "carry out a thorough and independent investigation."



Andrushchenko did not have the national name recognition of higher-profile journalists -- such as Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta -- who have been killed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.



And while he had carved out a reputation as a local rabble-rouser, his recent work was also far from influential in St. Petersburg, according to current and local media players.



"Andrushchenko has certainly not played any role in the political or journalistic life [of the city] for many years, which is not to diminish his possible strong points," Aleksandr Gorshkov, editor in chief of the prominent St. Petersburg website Fontanka.ru, told RFE/RL.

Nikolai Andrushchenko: 'Money Was At The Center Of Putin's Politics'

Andrushchenko did make enemies in the city -- in part with his investigations on human rights issues, police brutality, and organized crime, and in part thanks to his personality.



"He was an extremely difficult person," Usov told RFE/RL. "You wouldn't call him a sweetheart."



Usov, who said Andrushchenko claimed to have been a West German agent with the code name "Stepan Razin," acknowledged that the two men found little common ground beyond their approach to journalism.



A physicist by training, Andrushchenko served as a city lawmaker in the early 1990s, when he co-founded Novy Peterburg amid the raucous Russian media scene that emerged in the final years of the Soviet Union.



"The newspaper where he worked was in part very good and conducted deep human rights work and investigations," Dmitry Zapolsky, a journalist and former St. Petersburg television personality who served together with Andrushchenko on the city council, told RFE/RL.



Zapolsky added, however, that Novy Peterburg was a very "murky project." He noted longstanding rumors that it was funded by Yury Shutov, a former St. Petersburg politician and reputed gangster who died in prison in 2014 while serving a life sentence after being convicted of ordering the murders of businessmen.



Novy Peterburgs editors previously denied financing by Shutov, who also published articles in the newspaper. Andrushchenko made no secret of his association with Shutov, however.



Law-enforcement officials suggested the two conspired against them. A senior St. Petersburg police official in 2007 suggested that Shutov and Andrushchenko were behind alleged machinations aimed at fomenting discord between federal and local authorities, Fontanka.ru reported at the time.



Aleksandr Skobov, a Soviet-era dissident and Russian opposition activist, told RFE/RL that while Andrushchenko was his "ideological and political opponent," he respected his criticism of authorities.

"He tried to root out their crimes, and for that reason he gave authorities reasons not to like him," Skobov said, adding that he believes Andrushchenko was attacked in connection with his journalism and his public activism.



'Maybe I Went Overboard A Bit'



Throughout the 2000s, Andrushchenko continued to publish in the newspaper, which suffered financial difficulties and was temporarily shut down by authorities in 2007 after it received two official warnings for articles allegedly containing extremist content.



One of those warnings was for a 2007 article written by Andrushchenko about why he was attending an opposition protest. Around the same time he was arrested and charged with libel and pressuring officers of the court with his tendentious articles.





That incident made him a minor cause celebre in opposition circles at the time, triggering at least one protest reportedly attended by around 100 people.



Andrushchenko, who peppered his often hyperbolic prose with exclamation marks and words in all-caps, played very loose with his facts, Zapolsky told RFE/RL, adding that he did not believe the journalist intended any harm with his approach to reporting.

"I would never say that he lied or that he wasn't an honest person. He was an honest person, and he really believed that he was a human rights defender and an investigator," Zapolsky said. "But from the standpoint of journalism and commitment to the truth, the quality of his work was rather low."



He was fined and released in 2009 after being found guilty of publicly insulting two prosecutors and stoking social discord. Prosecutors dropped the extremism and libel charges, and he was released from criminal liability because the statute of limitations had expired.



The original charges were based on Andrushchenkovs articles about opposition protests, and about the trial of four men ultimately convicted of murdering a Congolese student. He passionately defended the accused, saying that "we will smite all of those who are killing justice, killing souls, killing faith."



In his final statement to the court, Fontanka.ru reported, Andrushchenko said: "Maybe I went overboard a bit with the sharp words in a polemical fervor, but I was acting in the interests of all citizens."



Andrushchenko claimed he was tortured while in custody, and Usov told RFE/RL that his time in jail took a significant toll on his health and his work. The prominent human rights group Memorial deemed him a political prisoner.



In the years before his death, Andrushchenko gave several interviews in which he offered his recollections of Putin in the 1990s, when he was a city lawmaker and Putin was working for Mayor Anatoly Sobchak.



Speaking to Current Time TV in 2015, he said that the future Russian president could be "frank" while speaking in private. Shortly after the 1991 failed putsch by hard-liners against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Andrushchenko claims Putin told him that now it's time "to make money."



"Money was at the center of his politics right from the start," he told the Russian-language network, run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

No Confidence In Investigation



Usov, the editor in chief of Novy Peterburg, told RFE/RL that he has no confidence authorities will get to the bottom of Andrushchenko's death.



"He was hated [by the authorities], so it's completely pointless to say that someone there might be interested in some kind of investigation," he said.



He added that the newspaper had not been contacted by authorities.



"They should probably talk to someone from our office if they want to get a full picture of what happened. And they haven't done this," Usov said.



Sergei Kapitonov, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee's main branch in St. Petersburg, told RFE/RL that the agency is conducting a probe in connection with Andrushchenko's death. He declined to comment further.



Andrushchenko is survived by a wife, a daughter, and a son, Usov said. He added that the journalist's wife and daughter did not live in St. Petersburg and that Andrushchenko "didn't have much contact" with them.

His wife traveled to St. Petersburg after Andrushchenko was hospitalized, Usov said.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service
The race for French president is too close to call as voters prepare to cast ballots in the first round of presidential elections on Sunday, April 23. Polls show four candidates hovering around 20 percent support including far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Riding a wave of antiestablishment anger, both have threatened to pull France out of the European Union and out of the NATO military alliance. (Reuters)
French authorities have identified the gunman in the attack on police officers on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, and said a note found near his body included a message of support for the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Police on April 21 said the gunman, identified as Karim Cheurfi, fired on a police vehicle parked on the famed boulevard in central Paris late on April 20, just days before the French presidential election.

One officer was killed and two were injured, and the gunman was also killed by police firing back after the attack.

IS, which had claimed multiple terror attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Europe over the past two years, issued a claim of responsibility for the Paris attack.

French authorities said Cheurfi, 39, was a French national who lived with his mother in the eastern Paris suburb of Chelles.

Police said he opened fire on a police van, killing a 37-year-old officer, before shooting at other officers guarding a Turkish tourist office on the heavily patrolled Champs-Elysees shopping and dining boulevard.

They said a handwritten message defending IS was found on a piece of paper near the gunmans body.

The authorities have said it appeared that police had been specifically targeted by the shooter, with notes found in a car believed to have been driven by Cheurfi containing the addresses of several police facilities.

A sports bag was also found in the car with a pump-action rifle, two kitchen knives, and garden items that could be used as weapons.

A police source told Reuters the man had been known to authorities and had served prison time for previous assaults on law-enforcement officials over the past 16 years. They added, though, that he had no known militant links.

In one incident, Cheurfi served 10 years after firing on two plainclothes officers in 2001 as they attempted to arrest him in a stolen car.

Antiterror prosecutor Francois Molins said Cheurfi had been arrested in February after he tried to acquire weapons and had spoken in terms that suggested he wanted to kill police officers.

No charges were filed, however, after authorities determined there was not sufficient evidence against him.

Investigators are trying to find out whether Cheurfi had accomplices, Molins said.

France is in a state of emergency and at its highest-possible level of alert since a string of terror attacks that began in 2015 and have killed more than 230 people.

Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist attractions such as the Champs-Elysees or other potential targets like government buildings and religious sites.



In addition, French voters are set go to the polls on April 23 to choose their next president, and authorities said they are tightening security further for the election.



Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said after an emergency security cabinet meeting that some 50,000 police and gendarmes will be deployed to provide security during the first-round vote.

Centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are likely to take the top two spots, sending them into a runoff election on May 7.

With reporting by Reuters and dpa
The Forest Department had given out a job advertisement on April 13 regarding 90 vacant posts for forest guards in the Kaziranga National Park.

By Manogya Loiwal : Local organizations in Kaziranga erupted in protests against an alleged discriminatory job advertisement by forest department in relation to vacancies in Kaziranga National Park on Friday.

Irate protesters blocked the National Highway 37 that passes through the national park. The Forest Department had given out a job advertisement on April 13 regarding 90 vacant posts for forest guards in the Kaziranga National Park.

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The local organizations have alleged that the reservations for the local tribal communities are not as per the constitutional norms in the particular advertisement.

"The people of Kaziranga are demanding 100 per cent reservation in all the posts. The organizations are Jeepal, TMPK and MMK that are standing together and protesting against this draconian step. They have been doing injustice to the people here and we demand that they immediately revoke their orders and pass a resolution that they are going to give 100 per cent employment to the people from Kaziranga, the locals from Kaziranga," said secretary of Jeepal Krishak Shrami Sangha (JKSS), Pranab.

NATIONAL PARK RIDDLED WITH POACHING

The National Park has often made headlines for rampant poaching of the world famous one-horned Rhinoceros. Local organizations have claimed in the past that only locals in and around Kaziranga understood the Park and can be effective in anti-poaching operations and in conservation of the National Park.

This alleged discrimination in the recruitment procedures sidelining the locals is significant in the backdrop of rampant poaching activities going on in the Park. President of JKSS, Huneshwar went on to added that the authorities violated the constitutional rights here and so they are condemning the move.

PROTESTS OUTSIDE DFO OFFICE

"On April 21, they will give us proper documents of assurance. We have been demanding that the people living in and around Kaziranga should get 100 per cent reservations in AFPF posts of the forest department including ST, SC, OBC, and women reservations as per norms and they should release a new advertisement in accordance with that. They had invited us before the DFO's office today on April 21 after promising this before a Magistrate few days ago. But they have locked the DFO office gate instead today and so we are staging this protest and have blocked the way," said Huneshwar.

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Protests and counterdemonstrations greeted a visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Some took issue with a new law which many believe is aimed at shutting down a liberal university in Hungary founded by George Soros. (RFE/RL's Georgian Service)
Iraqi officials say members of a Qatari hunting party have been freed 16 months after being kidnapped.

The Iraqi interior ministers adviser, Wahab al-Taee, told the AFP news agency that "all 26" Qatari hunters had been released into the custody of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and would be handed over to a Qatari delegation.

The group of hunters, believed to include members of Qatars ruling family, were abducted by gunmen in southern Iraq near the Saudi border in December 2015.

No group claimed responsibility for the abduction, which reportedly sparked months of negotiations between Iran, Qatar, and Shiite militias.

Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has used an annual address to warn the West against meddling in his country's affairs and hit out at Moscow, suggesting Russia is seeking to dominate a trade grouping of former Soviet republics.

In the wide-ranging televised speech to parliament on April 21, Lukashenka employed a mixture of warm words and tough talk targeting both Russia and Europe -- at one point using crude language to suggest that Western countries are weak.

An authoritarian leader who has ruled Belarus since 1994, Lukashenka has sought to strike a balance between its eastern neighbor Russia, which he depicts as both an ally and a threat, and the EU to the west.

This year's address came weeks after a fence-mending April 3 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which they said they had resolved disputes over natural-gas and oil supplies, a frequent source of discord.

Lukashenka said that Belarus has a "strategic" relationship with Russia and, without using Putin's name, said he and "the Russian president" have "established trusting ties."

But be said that it has proven difficult to "establish equal, mutually respectful ties" among the members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EES), which comprises Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan.

"We are constantly engaged in disputes," he said, adding that members have accused one another of launching price wars and have been "unable to share" funds in a common pool.

"We all have to understand the main thing: the Eurasian market is not the market of one of the countries.... It is our common, self-sufficient market, which we must develop in order to withstand any sanctions and come out winners," Lukashenka said.

Observers say Putin seeks to use the EES to bolster Moscow's influence in the former Soviet Union and counter the EU.

At the same time, Lukashenka said Belarus has a "strategic" relationship with Russia and that he and "the Russian president" have "established trusting ties."

"We solve all the problems that emerge," Lukashenka said.

Turning to the West, he said he hopes ties with the European Union will reach "a qualitatively higher level" by the end of 2017.

He said cooperation with the EU is "a key to investments, modern technologies, resources, and greater markets" for the nation of 9.6 million.

However, he said that "full cooperation in all spheres" is possible only if European nations stop placing "preliminary conditions" and criticizing his domestic policies.

The EU eased sanctions against Belarus in 2016 after the release of several people considered political prisoners, but has criticized Lukashenka's government for a violent clampdown on demonstrators protesting an unemployment tax in March.

He accused the EU of double-standards, asserting that some of the countries that have criticized his use of force against crowds have done the same, and he also suggested that European countries are not tough enough to ensure security for their citizens.

Suggesting that Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik was living in cushy conditions in prison and escaping adequate punishment, he said of European governments: "They are lacking something in the lower body area."

Lukashenka also had words of caution for the United States.

"The latest developments in Syria, the growing tension on the Korean Peninsula cause, first of all, concerns regarding whether Washington will be able to overcome the temptation to try to dictate its will to the rest of the world again," he said.

Lukashenka said that Belarus would continue to develop close military ties with Russia but also wants to increase cooperation with NATO.

"It is in Belarus' interests to gradually deepen the dialogue with the NATO military alliance. That is important to decrease potential risks linked to the appearance of the NATO structures next to our borders," Lukashenka said.

Lukashenka, who has hosted talks aimed to end the war in between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, ambitiously offered to host what he said should be "a new wide-scaled dialogue between East and West."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service and BelTA
Serbian and Russian officials have condemned talk of the potential unification of Albania and Kosovo, with officials saying it carried the risk of igniting another Balkan war.

The comments on April 21 come after Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told Politico that a union between Albania and predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo could not be ruled out if European Union membership prospects fade for the countries of the Western Balkans.

Kosovo broke away from Serbia in a 1998-99 war and declared independence in 2008. It is recognized by 114 nations, but not by Belgrade or Moscow. Tensions are high between Serbia and Kosovo and between the ethnic Serb minority and the central government within Kosovo.

Serbian Labor and Welfare Minister Aleksandar Vulin on April 21 rejected any potential union of Albania and Kosovo and demanded that the EU and NATO denounce Ramas statements and those by other Albanian leaders. He said such moves could lead to another war in the Balkans.

In his interview with Politico published on April 18, Rama said there could be a nightmare for Europe if EU membership for Balkan countries were taken off the table, with the potential for the region to go crazy and become a gray zone in which other actors have more influence than the European Union.

Rama said he would prefer to be part of a big union, such as the EU. But if theres no hope, no perspective, no space, then, of course, little unions may happen, he responded when asked about a potential merger of NATO-member Albania and Kosovo.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also condemned Ramas comments.

"Under the guise of hypocritical talks about stabilization in the region under the NATO 'umbrella,' the fundamentals of stability are being shaken and a course has been adopted toward recarving the Balkan borders, which is sharply increasing the degree of the conflictpotential," the ministry said.

The Russian ministry also assailed the United States and European Union for timidly keeping silent in the face of sly attempts to a Great Albania project.

With reporting by AP, Politico, TASS, and Interfax
JALAL-ABAD, Kyrgyzstan -- The mother of a suspect Russian authorities said was arrested in Moscow in connection with a deadly bombing earlier this month on a St. Petersburg subway train says her son was detained in Kyrgyzstan, not in Russia.

Vazira Mirzakhmedova told RFE/RL on April 21 that her son, Akram Azimov, was taken away by Kyrgyz security officers on April 15 from a hospital in the city of Osh, where he was being treated after surgery. According to Mirzakhmedova, Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security refused to explain her son's detainment. She also says that Akram did not have either money or his passport with him to be able to travel to Russia.

"Several days later, television reports said he was detained in Moscow," Mirzakhmedova said.

A medical personnel member at the Osh hospital who asked not to be named, confirmed to RFE/RL that Azimov underwent sinusitis surgery at the facility and was a patient from April 12-15. He said several men in civilian clothes took Azimov away after handcuffing him on April 15.

Bakyt Seitov, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, did not confirm or deny the information, saying only that Russian citizens can be quickly deported to Russia.

Officials from Russia's Investigative Committee on April 20 said Azimov had been apprehended the previous day in Moscow and he was armed with a hand grenade at the time of his arrest.

Russian news agencies carried footage provided by the Investigative Committee showing what they said was Azimov's arrest.

It shows a man sitting on a bus-stop bench and being roughly grabbed by men in FSB jackets.

Azimov, 29, is the brother of another suspect in the case, Abror Azimov, 26, who was detained on April 17 and ordered held in custody.

Both brothers are ethnic-Uzbek Russian citizens born in Kyrgyzstan. Eight other detained suspects are also of Central Asian origin.

Investigators say the bombing was a suicide attack carried out by the 22-year-old Akbarjon Jalilov, also an ethnic-Uzbek Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan.

Authorities say they suspect Abror Azimov organized the bombing.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Alarmed by reports that Central Asians working abroad are being brainwashed and recruited into extremist groups like the Islamic State, authorities in northern Tajikistan are calling on kids to help keep tabs on dad.

Schoolchildren as young as 11 in the northern district of Isfara have been instructed by teachers and local authorities to make frequent phone calls to their fathers working in Russia as seasonal laborers. The idea is to get updates on their everyday routines and whereabouts, share the details with school administrations, and hopefully prevent Tajik nationals from joining with Islamic militants.

A school administration in Isfara openly admits that teachers are asking students to gather information about their fathers, an effort that is vaguely reminiscent of Stalin-era attempts to get children to inform on their parents in the Soviet Union.

Sobirboy Tuychiev, a deputy school director in the village of Chorkuh, says schoolchildren are also being asked to plead with their fathers not to join extremist groups.

"First we gather information from the children about where in Russia their fathers or brothers work and what kind of work they are engaged in," Tuychiev says, noting that they have obtained parents' consent.

"The children make phone calls to their fathers and brothers and ask them to just keep their nose clean and return home with heads held high," he adds. "Meaning, don't go off track."

When a migrant worker returns home from Russia, Tuychiev says, the children are asked to let authorities know.

A law-enforcement official in Dushanbe told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that the measure is a part of authorities broader project to combat terrorism threats in the country's most vulnerable areas.

Once dubbed the Islamic Triangle of Tajikistan, Isfara -- especially its Chorkuh area -- is locally known as one of the most religiously conservative pockets of Tajikistan's otherwise relatively liberal north.

Dozens of Isfara residents have been arrested in the past decade for alleged links to extremist groups, such as the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which in 2015 pledged allegiance to the extremist Islamic State group.

The area came under scrutiny in 2014, when authorities said that at least 20 people from the district had gone to Syria and Iraq to join IS extremists.

Authorities said that the 20 alleged militants -- all of them from Chorqishloq, a village of some 3,000 inhabitants -- had been migrant laborers in Russia. Local officials suggested they had been brainwashed and radicalized while working in Russia.

Desperate to prevent more people from joining with Islamic militants, the local government has since organized meetings with villagers at teahouses, mosques, and schools. Imams have been asked to explain to young men attending mosque sermons that the conflict in the Middle East is not the holy war they might think it is.

Saadi Yusufi, a Dushanbe-based expert on social affairs, suggests the new effort to bring children into the effort to prevent radicalization could work.

"It might have psychological effects especially for men who are mulling over joining extremist groups but are still undecided," says Yusufi. "In such a situation, when children plead with their fathers not to go astray, it can sway the fathers' decision and make them think twice."

In the southern Khatlon Province, meanwhile, women are being told by local authorities to be vigilant for any signs of radicalization among men in their families, both at home and away.

Just days after the deadly subway attack in St. Petersburg on April 3 -- an act blamed on natives of Central Asia and deemed to be terrorism by Russian authorities, although no group has claimed responsibility -- Khatlon authorities and women's groups began meetings with rural women to discuss the threat posed by recruiters.

The gatherings are being held across the province, where authorities explain to women how to help prevent their husbands, sons, and brothers from falling under the influence of extremist groups.

"Talk to your men, tell them to stay away from extremist groups, tell them not to get involved in anything suspicious while working abroad," religious affairs expert Saidahmad Qalandarov told women in one of the Khatlon meetings filmed by RFE/RLs Tajik Service.

Qalandarov told the women that if they don't want their male relatives to be killed and to kill others, they should act now.

Written by Farangis Najibullah, with reporting by RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondent Shahloi Gulkhoja and additional reporting by Tajik Service correspondent Orzu Karim in Khatlon.
Officials in Afghanistan say more than 100 army personnel were killed or injured in a Taliban attack on a military compound near Mazar-e Sharif on April 21.

Defense Ministry spokesman Daulat Waziri said on April 22 that the victims were almost all members of the 209th Corps of the Afghan National Army.

He added that 10 militants dressed in Afghan Army uniforms carried out that attack -- two conducting suicide attacks, while the other eight were shot dead during the gunbattle.

Mohammad Ibrahim Khair Andesh, head of the Balkh Provincial Council, told the dpa news agency that at least 140 soldiers were killed and another 160 injured in the incident, but those numbers were not confirmed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that more than 500 soldiers had been killed or wounded. The Taliban statement also said four of the attackers were soldiers who had been stationed at the outpost.

U.S. General John Nicholson, commander of NATO's Resolute Support operation, said in a statement that the attack targeted "soldiers at prayer in a mosque and others in a dining facility" of the 209th Corps of the Afghan Army.

Nicholson praised "the Afghan commandos who brought today's atrocity to an end."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered condolences to Afghanistan, saying she was horrified by "the Taliban's deceitful, brutal barracks attack on your soldiers."

"My sympathy to the many injured and the relatives of the many victims," she wrote in a telegram to President Ashraf Ghani.

A German Army contingent is stationed at the base, which serves as the Afghan Army command center in the north of the country.

The attackers, dressed in Afghan uniforms, entered the base in two military vehicles after telling guards at the gates that they were carrying wounded soldiers and urgently needed to get in, Afghan Army spokesman Nasratullah Jamshidi said.

Balkh is among the relatively secure provinces in Afghanistan.

This is the second such attack on a secure facility in recent months. The first, by Islamic State militants, took place on a military hospital in Kabul, killing 49 people and wounding 76 others early last month.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa
KYIV -- Ukrainian investigators are seeking a court order to place an influential former lawmaker who is suspected of embezzlement in pretrial custody.

Mykola Martynenko was detained in Kyiv late on April 20 after the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) announced it was preparing to file charges against him.

Special anticorruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytskiy said on April 21 that prosecutors would seek a custody decision from a Kyiv court later in the day.

Martynenko is the second prominent political figure to have been detained in less than three months in Ukraine, whose government has faced pressure from its own citizens, Western governments, and the IMF to crack down on corruption.

An ally of former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and former chairman of parliament's fuel and energy committee, Martynenko is suspected of embezzling $17.3 million in a scheme involving a state company that provides uranium for nuclear power plants.

The court was also expected to rule on custody for Serhiy Pereloma, a former Odesa chemical plant chief who faces the same charges.

Ukrainian tax and customs service chief, Roman Nasirov, was detained in early March in another case seen as a test of the government's commitment to fighting corruption.

Observers say corruption harms the economy and hurts Ukraine's chances of throwing off the influence of Russia, which seized Crimea in 2014 and backs separatists whose war against government forces has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine.

With reporting by AP
The Ukrainian military says two of its soldiers have been killed in clashes with Russia-backed separatists in the countrys east.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on April 21 that the fighting had been concentrated around Avdiyivka, a government-held town near the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk.

Eight soldiers were also wounded in the previous 24 hours, Lysenko said.

Meanwhile, the separatists said two of their fighters have been killed over the past week.

A new cease-fire agreed by Kyiv and the separatists went into effect on April 1 and largely held through the Easter holidays.

Fighting between government forces and the Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 9,900 people since it broke out April 2014, shortly after Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Kyiv and Western governments say Russia fomented separatism in eastern and southern Ukraine at the time and has sent large numbers of military personnel and weapons across the border to fight against Ukrainian forces.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, and TASS
By India Today Web Desk: Following protest from pro-Kannada groups for his derogatory statements against Kannadigas during the Cauvery issue, actor Sathyaraj today apologised to the Kannada people for his comments, requesting them to not stall the release of Baahubali: The Conclusion.

After Sathyaraj's apology, Twitterati praised the actor for saving Baahubali. On the contrary, Katappa (Sathyaraj) killed Baahubali in the first part.

Part 1 Kattappa killed Baahubali Part 2 Kattappa saved Baahubali- ????? (@kandaknd) April 21, 2017

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In the statement, Sathyaraj said, "I have got to know that what I had spoken during the Cauvery water crisis has created a lot of tension among the people of Karnataka. I am not against Kannadigas or Karnataka. The biggest example for this is that for the last 35 years my assistant has been Shekar who is a Kannadiga. I would like to apologise for the statement that I had made nine years back and would like to say that I am a small worker in Bahubali film and my comment should not affect the film. I appeal to Tamils to understand."

On Thursday, Rajamouli had requested the Kannadigas to give Baahubali: The Conclusion as much love and affection as the first film. He said, "We understand that the comments he made hurt the sentiments of many of our friends but we would like to say that it's his individual opinion and would request you to understand that the Baahubali producers and I do not reflect the same opinion."

ALSO READ | EXCLUSIVE Rajamouli on Baahubali 2 row: Kannadigas are supporting us, hope democracy prevails

ALSO READ | Baahubali 2 ban in Karnataka: Sathyaraj apologises for anti-Kannada comments

--- ENDS ---
A Russian man convicted of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit-card information has been sentenced by a Seattle court to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay $170 million in restitution.

U.S. District Judge Richard Jones on April 21 pronounced the sentence on Roman Seleznyov, saying the convicted man was "driven by one goal: greed."

Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznyov, a member of Russia's lower house of parliament and outspoken critic of U.S. policies.

Before the sentencing, Seleznyov issued a plea for leniency. "I plead, pray, and beg your honor for mercy," he told the judge.

Seleznyov was found guilty by a Seattle jury in August 2016 on 38 counts, including hacking and wire fraud. He faced up to 34 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors accused Seleznyov of making millions by hacking into businesses and restaurants and selling credit-card information and other data on underground Internet forums.

He was arrested by U.S. Secret Service agents, with the help of local police, at a Maldives airport as he and a girlfriend were on their way back to Russia.

Seleznyov's lawyer, Igor Litvak, said his client had accepted responsibility. However, after sentencing, the lawyer called the term unreasonable and said Seleznyov was a victim of tense U.S.-Russia relations.

Seleznyov released a statement saying the decision demonstrates to the world "that I am a political prisoner."

Based on reporting by AP and TASS
U.S. media outlets are reporting that the Justice Department is preparing charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not answer questions about Assange directly at an April 21 news conference but said, We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks."

"Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail," he added.

The Justice Department declined to comment on media reports about Assange, who has been holed up at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London since 2012.

Assange has been under the threat of extradition to Sweden, where he faces a rape allegation that he denies. He has expressed fears that if he is sent to Sweden, that country would extradite him to the United States.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed U.S. officials, said prosecutors have been drafting a memo on potential charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks.

The charges potentially include conspiracy, theft of government property, and violations of the Espionage Act, the Post reported.

Last week, CIA Director Mike Pompeo described Wikileaks as a "hostile" intelligence service abetted by Russia, and Assange as a "fraud."

During the U.S. presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump routinely praised WikiLeaks after it released hacked e-mails related to his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

U.S. officials have said the e-mails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the U.S. election.

Critics say the release of the e-mails late in the race may have helped tip the election to Trump.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the Trump administration will not grant permission to Exxon Mobil and other companies to resume drilling for oil in areas covered by U.S. sanctions against Russia.

Mnuchin said in an April 21 statement that the decision had been made in consultation with President Donald Trump.

U.S. media reported that Exxon Mobil had applied for a waiver from U.S. sanctions on Russia so it could resume drilling around the Black Sea with its partner, Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft.

"We understand the statement today by Secretary Mnuchin in consultation with President Trump," Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said.

Exxon was arguing it deserved a waiver because its exploration rights in the Black Sea will expire if it does not act by this year, and because some of its competitors in Europe are not similarly restricted.

The Texas-based oil giant was run until this year by Rex Tillerson.

When he was chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Tillerson had opposed the sanctions imposed in 2014 over Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region.

But since becoming the U.S. secretary of state under Trump, Tillerson has backed the sanctions.

The sanctions prohibit U.S. companies from transferring advanced offshore and shale drilling technology to Russia. Exxon was ordered to stop drilling in the Kara Sea off Russia's northern coast after they were imposed.

Based on reporting by AP, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters
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S.S. Rajamouli tells India Today Deputy Editor Amarnath K. Menon what it took to make his mega venture

Q. In what ways has the making of Baahubali been a challenge?

A. One of the biggest challenges had to be shooting the first part. We shot for around 380 days, and after 330 days, I could feel the energy levels going low. I don't know how it is in other industries, but as far as our industry is concerned, everybody takes their energy from the director. I myself was very exhausted but I was acting as if I was full of energy and was pumping it into the whole team.

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No matter how challenging it might get, I don't like to compromise on my vision. I'm well aware that I have put my actors in difficult positions because of my vision, but when they see I work for the betterment of the product, they understand the pain I put them through.

Q. What is contributing to the films' success?

A. I know that if you have a universal theme and a good story told well, it will work everywhere. The success of Baahubali across the country proves my theory right.

In childhood, we used to read stories from the Arabian Nights. Why were we so interested when it happened somewhere in Arabia, in a different culture? Until now, we hadn't gone to the Hindi audience with a good story. There were films like Roja by Mani Ratnam and Shankar's Endhiran (Robot) which did well nationally.

As always, it's the fans who've pushed it to the heights it has reached. And the consistent effort by the production house to tap new markets.

Q. How would you describe the art of storytelling and the craft of filmmaking in this venture?

A. No one can ever create art, even on a piece of paper, as they have envisioned it in their mind. Because there are no limits, you cannot frame the mind, you can imagine whatever you want, whereas putting it on paper, in writing form, on celluloid, [each medium] has its own limitations, so you can never do complete justice to whatever you have created in your mind. That can never be achieved. But what I look at is whether I have given my one hundred per cent in trying to achieve what I have in my mind. If I've done it to only 99 per cent of my ability then I curse myself and feel I haven't done justice to the story.

I don't believe in luck. Everything is our doing or undoing. If something doesn't come out right, then as a director you have to take full responsibility. You can't just say no I gave this job to the music supervisor, they promised me they would do it and they didn't do it. You can't blame anyone else.

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Q. Apparently this is not your magnum opus. What would it be and when will it come?

A. The Mahabharata, without any doubt. That is what I would do. Even if I have so many restrictions, if I don't have the freedom, I'll still make it one day.

--- ENDS ---
Faster internet appears to be on its way to the Hanover County area.

Hanover has struck a deal to eventually expand internet service in the eastern and western parts of the county, and Ashland is gearing up for an upgrade to its internet service.

On April 12, Hanovers Board of Supervisors finalized a deal with SCS Broadband Internet Service, a wireless internet service provider, intended to increase the internet availability in rural areas of the county.

In July, SCS Broadband will begin two initial five-year leases for the Ellysons emergency communications tower at 5834 Cold Harbor Road and the Old Church tower at 2343 Old Church Road. Service to customers is expected to be available within 120 days of July 1, or sometime in the fall.

There are three other towers SCS Broadband is expected to lease in Montpelier, Rockville and Beaverdam.

SCS Broadband CEO Lon Whelchel said the company was new to Hanover.

Hanover was seeking somebody to come in to provide internet service in the underserved locations of the county, Whelchel said.

Whelchel said SCS Broadband has been around for 12 years and is owned by AcelaNet.

Deputy County Administrator Frank W. Harksen Jr. gave a presentation on the deal with SCS Broadband at a Board of Supervisors meeting in April. Harksen said the county has been in talks with SCS Broadband since at least August.

Its a pretty broad coverage as a result of this, Harksen said. It gets Hanover, and it goes into the surrounding counties.

Harksen said in an interview Thursday that of all the firms Hanover has been in talks with, SCS Broadband was the most interested and the most responsive.

After Harksens presentation, Cold Harbor Supervisor Scott A. Wyatt said he has been contacted by residents looking for broadband coverage in eastern Hanover.

I think this is much needed, Wyatt said. Were kind of limited on access.

As Hanover looks to expand wireless internet to its residents, Ashland is looking at how better internet service can entice economic development.

Town Manager Josh Farrar said the town is exploring how it can tap into a line of dark fiber located near Interstate 95 exit 92 in Ashland. Farrar said the dark fiber in the area is part of a line that runs from Northern Virginia to Richmond and has the potential to give Ashland some of the best internet in the country.

As an economic development tool, its really important, Farrar said of having improved internet. Having better service would make us a more attractive destination.

Farrar said Ashland is looking into how to go about installing the infrastructure needed to connect Town Hall to the dark fiber.

A public meeting is planned for May or June to share more details with the community on the process.

Farrar said part of the towns vision is to get high-speed internet service available to the Holland Tract, a more than 200-acre parcel in the northern part of town that Ashland hopes businesses will want to develop.
A Hanover County man pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 4 years in prison for possessing thousands of images of child pornography.

James L. Crump, 45, entered pleas Friday to five counts of possession of child pornography before Hanover Circuit Judge J. Overton Harris, according to a release from Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring.

Harris sentenced Crump to a total of 45 years with 40 years and six months suspended. After serving his term, Crump will be placed on indefinite supervised release and required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction in which he lives or works, the release said.

This case is such a stark reminder that child exploitation can leave scars that last a lifetime, and images that live forever in the darker corners of the internet, Herring said in a statement. I appreciate the good work by the investigators and prosecutors in this case from Hanover and from my office who have put this man behind bars where he belongs.

According to court documents, Crump was identified by law enforcement after he shared files of child pornography over a peer-to-peer file sharing network with investigators from the Hanover Sheriffs Office and the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Investigators were able to identify Crump through internet service records, authorities said.

Based on that information, investigators obtained and executed a search warrant on Crumps Hanover County residence, where they seized several computers and electronic storage media. The Attorney General Offices Computer Forensic Unit examined the devices and found them to contain both child pornography and peer-to-peer file-sharing software.

Thousands of child pornography images were recovered, and they depicted young children being sexually abused.
James Davis dropped out of middle school in eighth grade to sell crack on the streets of South Richmond.

By 15, he was homeless, still selling, and spending nights in motel rooms when he could afford them.

Things spiraled downward from there, until, at 31, he had a moment of clarity after he snapped out of a withdrawal-induced psychosis in a glass observation cell at Henrico County Jail.

I knew that destroying families while I gained money was wrong, he said. I couldnt profit off of anyones demise like that anymore.

That newfound determination to get clean and get his life together led him to a city department created two years ago with the sole mission of lifting residents out of poverty: the Office of Community Wealth Building.

Davis exited the departments workforce training program with, among other things, a Department of Criminal Justice Services certification to work security, and hes been employed full time in the field ever since. He currently makes about $10 an hour.

But more than just helping him find a job, the program led Davis to a mission: Hes emerged as one of the most vocal citizen advocates for the department. As his life has improved, hes vowed to help others find the same support he did.

I took everything they had to offer. ... Their program inspired me so much, Ive probably put 25 or 30 people in there myself, said Davis, now 34 and a resident of Fairfield Court. You know, for a while, I was using my money to get people on the bus to take them down there, because a lot of these people dont have the initial money to go.

The departments director, Reggie Gordon, put Davis front and center earlier this year when they delivered the departments annual report to the city, asking him to address the City Council about the impact the program has had on his life.

The humanity sometimes gets lost in the data, Gordon said. And I think its important for Richmond to appreciate these are the real stories. Some of this is shocking. Some of it is sobering. Some of it seems unbelievable. And I think our office is tasked with synthesizing it.

***

Stories like Davis command attention. But just as the Community Wealth Building department has begun winning over supporters in the impoverished neighborhoods it aims to help, the program has faced increased scrutiny as the City Council debates its proposed $2.1 million budget for the coming fiscal year.

Included in that is a $400,000 increase over last years funding to hire six additional caseworkers to provide intensive intervention to help get people jobs.

A majority of council members tentatively agreed to strip that additional funding last week. The council members made the decision as they combed the budget for money that could be diverted to provide raises to police and firefighters, who are leaving the city in record numbers for better-paying jurisdictions.

I could not live with myself if I agreed to give you all of this money, Councilwoman Reva Trammell told Gordon during a recent budget work meeting. There have been 21 homicides this year  21.

Gordon, the former CEO of the Red Cross Greater Richmond Chapter, said the citys crime problems and poverty problems are interconnected, and to truly address crime, the city must also address the conditions that lead to a quarter of its residents living below the poverty line.

Its unfortunate this process sort of pits us against each other in a way because we definitely agree that we need a strong police department, said Gordon, who is paid $142,000 annually to lead the department. But thanks to the work of this council and other community citizens, were the first city in the nation that says, Here is how we move the needle. 

But council members expressed skepticism about the degree to which the department has moved the needle. The most commonly cited statistic regarding the department  Mayor Levar Stoney noted it just last month as he announced his proposed budget  is the departments eventual goal to lift 1,000 people out of poverty a year.

Gordon acknowledged that number is more of an aspiration than something officials can realistically expect to achieve in the foreseeable future  at least not without dramatically increasing funding.

Instead, in response to questions from council members, he said that with the departments budget of $1.28 million last year, it was only able to provide enough support to move 75 residents out of poverty.

With the increased funding proposed by the mayor this year, Gordon said he expected he could get that number up to 150 residents a year.

Those numbers come with some caveats, Gordon said: The department does not consider someone to have worked their way out of poverty until they are making at least $15 an hour  enough to mean they no longer qualify for or rely on government assistance.

Gordon said the department helped many more people obtain employment at lower wages. He said 212 people who participated in programs offered by the departments workforce development center gained employment last fiscal year and a total of about 18,000 people visited the center.

Hundreds of other people got jobs that, you know, moved up the economic ladder, Gordon said. So there is a lot of work thats going on. But we want to be really honest about the number of people who have reached that plateau of no longer needing public benefits.

Statistics aside, several City Council members made clear they were not impressed with some of the departments spending decisions thus far: One questioned why the city paid to create its own culinary training center when Reynolds Community College is planning to open its own program in Richmonds East End. Gordon said the citys program predates Reynolds, but that the city will work to make sure they complement each other.

Another wondered why the city decided to create its own workforce development center when there is already a regionally funded program offering similar services. Gordon said the citys is more intensive.

Councilman Parker C. Agelasto signaled he was beginning to run out of patience.

You know, 75 jobs for the efforts of 25 people isnt satisfactory, he said. And I think one slide said you should get 150. Capacity in this department has been building and building, but at some point we need to see some of the results.

***

From Davis perspective, the program is already delivering results.

He said he considers it vital to ending the cycle of poverty that can lead kids down the kind of path he found himself on.

Davis was born at VCU Medical Center. The second youngest of five siblings, he was raised in South Richmond by his mom, who drove a school bus for Richmond Public Schools and, in Davis words, gave him a decent childhood.

But at 10, he started hanging out with older guys and suffered from their influence. In sixth grade, he stopped going to Elkhardt Elementary School regularly. In eighth grade, he dropped out altogether.

We wanted to run the streets and make money because we didnt have money, he said. And that was selling drugs. Anything we could find, we would sell it  me and the crew I was running with. That was a different culture in those years. You had kids who were making more money than their teachers. You had kids that were driving to school in middle school. Kids had cars. Theyd barter them from crack addicts.

How does a 13-year-old sell crack? In 1990s Richmond, notorious for open-air drug markets, it was easy, Davis said.

What you have to understand is some of these communities if you stand on the corner, people come, he said. Because they know the areas where its at. And thats just how it is.

Things snowballed. Fast.

His mom moved to Pennsylvania. At 14, he stayed behind, initially living with family members, then family friends, then, on his own  homeless, sleeping in abandoned apartments, an old boat in a friends parents backyard and, eventually, motel rooms.

It became not just selling drugs just to do it, he said. It became selling drugs just for shelter. So now youre selling drugs for shelter and also for food every day. This is becoming a life. And you get deeper and deeper and deeper into it. Now youre all the way out there because youre in the streets and now youre 15 years old.

A lot of kids in these cities are grown men at 15 years old. Its sad. I had my first friend die when I was 14. You know, Ive lost 15 friends to murder.

Davis only smoked marijuana at first, but eventually started taking pills. Painkillers like Percocet and anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax were his favorites.

His family worried but felt more or less powerless to help.

You dont know what its like knowing the kind of life I knew you were living, Davis sister, Natasha Randolph, told him during a visit on a recent Sunday afternoon. Every time I heard something bad on the news, I think its my brother. I stopped watching. Its hard.

***

Davis managed to avoid serious criminal charges, but he wound up in Henrico County Jail in 2013 a few days before Christmas on charges that he failed to appear in court in connection to unpaid child support. He was also charged with driving with a revoked license.

The ensuing detox, particularly from his heavy Xanax use, sent him into what he described as psychosis.

He came to in one of the jails glass observation rooms. A few days later, they moved him to a more traditional cell, where he was alone except for a camera on the ceiling pointed at him. The only reading material he was provided was a Bible. He said he started reading it and started to pray.

When he was eventually released the next month, a caseworker who had been working with him on his child support payments introduced him to the Office of Community Wealth Buildings workforce center.

He took to it  signing up for every job-training program they offered. Hes licensed to drive a forklift. He can provide in-home health care. Hes certified to work security jobs. He also got what the department calls soft training: practice job interviews, resume help and the like.

His first job out of the program was in-home health care. But he only lasted a month. It paid minimum wage, $7.25 an hour.

Its not enough, he said.

He found a security job that pays $10 an hour. Still not enough, but better. Hes currently working to get his GED.

***

To the extent that Davis represents a success story for the department, he also underscores its limits.

Gordon, the departments director, said that after taking the job, he quickly realized that a lot of the strategic planning that led to the departments creation overlooked barriers that are keeping residents from getting jobs. Some are obvious, like felony convictions. Some are not so obvious, like inexperience in offices and other professional settings and the social norms that go with them.

In Davis case, its the fact that, no matter how smart he is and how much training the city can get him, he only has an eighth-grade education.

Thats why this is hard, Gordon said. James is moving, but hes not there yet.

Gordon said it comes down to funding, which for him brings things back to this years budget debate.

The mayor, in what is thus far his only attempt to publicly sway the budget debates, put out a statement urging the council to restore the funds. Several City Council members, including Cynthia Newbille and Ellen Robertson, have promised to fight to keep money for the program in the budget.

Its just too important, Robertson said: There are a lot of people that are living in poverty that are aggressively striving to get to a place where they are living a sustainable life. Weve got a lot of success stories. We need to fund them. Period.

A hard date for the final vote has not been set, but the councils first public hearing on the budget will take place Monday at 6 p.m.

Davis said he plans to do what he can to advocate on behalf of the departments budget. At this point, he said hes dedicated himself to doing everything he can to help people around him  among the projects hes currently working on is creating an app that can help connect city residents to services that exist to help them, because he says most just dont know whats out there and what they can take advantage of to better themselves.

I feel like Im stable, he said. I feel like, right now, Im sustaining myself because I refuse to go back to the streets.
A Mechanicsville woman charged in a fatal shooting at an Ashland Walmart can be released on a $50,000 bond, a judge ruled Friday.

Brittany Lashea Wiggins, 25, faces a count of first-degree murder and other charges in the Feb. 18 killing of Ashley Fricke, a 25-year-old Woodford woman.

Joe Morrissey, Wiggins attorney, said during a bond hearing that Frickes killing was accidental and that his client fired the gun out of fear, not malice.

It is tragic. It is very sad, Morrissey said of the shooting. But it is an accidental killing.

Morrissey said Wiggins, who is gay, had gotten into a verbal confrontation with two males in a pickup truck after leaving the store late at night and that Wiggins had been subjected to anti-gay slurs during the altercation. Morrissey has said the gun was fired as a warning shot and that she was not aiming at anyone specifically, adding that she had told investigators she was scared during the incident.

But Mackenzie Babichenko, an assistant commonwealths attorney for Hanover County, said the evidence before the judge did not support Morrisseys version of events of what occurred around the time of the shooting.

Investigator Adam Aigner, with the Ashland Police Department, said under questioning from the prosecutor that there was no indication that anyone followed or threatened the defendant before the shooting. Aigner also said there was no indication at the time of the incident that anyone yelled homophobic slurs at the defendant.

But Aigner did acknowledge that in the hours after the incident, one of the boys had referred to the defendant using a derogatory term for a lesbian.

Morrissey said Wiggins, a Lee-Davis High School graduate, kept a gun in her car for protection. At first, Wiggins did not know that anyone had been hit, Morrissey said.

Robert Isaacs, a friend of Wiggins, said he told the defendant about media reports that contained a video of her as someone police were trying to find. She immediately called police, Morrissey said.

But Babichenko said that when Wiggins contacted authorities, she tried to argue that she was not responsible for what happened.

Only when her face is plastered all over the media does she call up Crime Stoppers and say she was framed, Babichenko said.

Morrissey argued for a bond no higher than $10,000, after calling a series of character witnesses who described the defendant as a nonviolent person. Morrissey said his client has a learning disability and described her as slow and somewhat challenged.

Wiggins mother, Demetria Moreland, testified there had been no discipline issues with her daughter.

Shes very quiet, laid back, reserved, Moreland said. Pretty much shes nonconfrontational. ... Anyone can be nasty to her and she just takes it with a grain of salt.

Babichenko said Wiggins should remain behind bars, noting the seriousness of the first-degree murder count. She also said the defendant is a loose cannon and a flight risk.

The prosecutor said Wiggins actions were inexcusable.

That could have been anybody in the parking lot that night, Babichenko said. It happened to be Ashley Fricke.
Former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti said Advani had no role in the demolition of Babri Masjid.

By India Today Web Desk: Former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti today said veteran BJP leader LK Advani had no role in inciting a frenzied mob to raze the Babri Masjid in 1992. He instead claimed it was he who led the demolition.

"He (Advani) had no role in this incident...I brought it down and ensured that it went down," Vedanti told the media.

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Vedanti is one of the 13 people accused by the CBI of conspiring to bring down the 16th century mosque at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

"I demolished and got demolished the disputed structure, the ruin that stood there. The accusations against L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia are wrong," he said.

Vedanti said, in fact, Advani, Joshi and Scindia even took the microphone from him and tried to persuade the karsevaks to come down from atop the structure and leave.

Vedanti said he, Mahant Avaidyanath, also a former BJP MP, and VHP leader Ashok Singhal exhorted the karsevaks to raze the disputed structrue. Both Avaidyanath and Singhal are now dead.

SUPREME COURT ORDER

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the special court in Lucknow to proceed with the trial against BJP leaders Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Union Minister Uma Bharati and BJP MP Vinay Katiyar among others.

He said it was vital to raze the mosque to the ground quickly so that a makeshift Ram temple could be raised on its ruins. "It was I who said 'Ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tod do'."

Vedanti also said that while he and others were inciting the mob, Joshi, Advani and Vijayraje Scindia were trying to calm the 'karsevaks'.

He demanded that the 67.77 acre acquired land around the disputed site be handed over to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyaas.

The mosque razing led to widespread Hindu-Muslim violence in the country.

(Inputs from PTI, IANS)

Also read:

Babri Masjid impending verdict has already claimed the life of LK Advani's dream to become President

Babri Masjid order: Worst-case scenario for LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti is five years in jail

Also watch:

Ex-BJP MP Vedanti, who said Advani had no role in Babri Masjid demolition, speaks to India Today

--- ENDS ---
Michael Kenneth McAlister has died in Florida, less than two years after his exoneration and release from prison for a 1986 sexual assault he did not commit.

McAlister, 60, died on April 15, apparently of natural causes, said Becci Conkwyn, a daughter who also lives in Florida. He had been struggling with major chest pains, and he had recently been in the hospital quite often, she said. We believe it was his heart, that his heart just gave out.

McAlister was wrongfully convicted of the 1986 abduction and attempted rape of a woman in a laundry room at the Town & Country Apartments in South Richmond, for which he served almost 30 years in prison. He was pardoned in 2015 after a confession by the real assailant  a serial rapist to whom he bore a striking resemblance at the time.

Supporters during his exoneration bid included the former Richmond detective who investigated the 1986 attack, as well as Richmond Commonwealths Attorney Michael Herring, the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project and volunteer lawyers with a high-powered Washington law firm.

McAlisters pardon on May 13, 2015, and release from prison came as he was facing possible civil commitment and indefinite confinement for treatment as a violent sexual predator for a crime he did not commit.

Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, said Friday, Mike called me two weeks ago because he wanted to make sure I knew how grateful he was for the work Id done on his case  even though he was released almost two years ago.

And that was Mike. He went through an unimaginably horrible experience and struggled to adjust after his exoneration, but he never lost his decency, his concern for others, or his sense of humor, Armbrust said.

Last year, the Virginia General Assembly awarded McAlister $1.2 million in wrongful imprisonment compensation, of which $253,740 was paid in an initial lump sum with the rest to be paid over the years in an annuity.

The compensation was put at risk, however, by his arrest last October in Florida on charges related to cocaine possession. Virginia law bars payments to those convicted of new felonies.

McAlister, who pleaded not guilty to the new charges, was placed in a pre-trial diversion program which, if successfully completed, would have led to the dismissal of the felony charge. Orange County court records show the case has now been closed, presumably because of McAlisters death.

Things were looking good. ... It looked like he was starting to try to build a life, Conkwyn said Friday.

Armbrust said, That he had a difficult time adjusting after his exoneration is not a commentary on Mike, but a commentary on how much more support exonerees need when they leave prison.

Experts say relatively few exonerated people run into trouble after release, but those who do generally have substance-abuse issues, often related to post-traumatic stress disorder. They said the trauma of prison is exacerbated by the knowledge that you are innocent.
The dateline was Drakes Branch on the article in the May 7, 1886, edition of the Richmond Dispatch with the stark headline LYNCHED.

According to the article, a black man named Dick Walker was arrested in the attempted assault upon a daughter of one of our most respected citizens. He was apprehended, identified by a black witness and the alleged victim, and jailed. But a mob of 50 people overpowered the jailer and hung him.

The public well lost the new rope, the article notes, but the negro was justly dealt with.

Lauranett Lee, a public historian, said Tuesday that her fathers family came from Drakes Branch, a town in Charlotte County, but moved to Chesterfield County in the 1890s.

We dont know if its because of the lynching that occurred, but thats part of that history that we dont know ... part of that American narrative that in many ways was shrouded in secrecy.

Husband-and-wife filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren are pulling the covers off this history with their documentary on lynching in the American South, An Outrage, shown earlier this week at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.

After Tuesdays screening, Lee led a discussion with the filmmakers and Kimberly Wilson, the great-great-niece of journalist John B. Mitchell Jr., editor of The Richmond Planet and a fierce anti-lynching crusader. Mitchells reporting on Richard Walkers lynching so angered a Charlotte County mob that they threatened the editor with the same fate. Armed with two Smith & Wesson pistols, Mitchell boarded a train, walked 5 miles from the depot to the site of the lynching, and lived to write about it.

Wilson, as part of the film, became the first family member since the man known as The Fighting Editor to visit Charlotte County.

You kind of still carry that feeling of back in 1886, she said. It was eerie, but it was something we needed to do.

Ayers and Warren, co-directors of Field Studio, felt similarly compelled.

Around the time the two historians realized how little they knew about the history of lynching, the Equal Justice Initiative issued Lynching in America, a report that documented more racially motivated lynchings than had been previously known  more than 4,000. The Initiative plans to open a memorial to lynching in Montgomery, Ala., next year.

In their attempt to learn more, the couple discovered that the media sources available were either poor in quality or offensive, Ayers said. And we felt like this is something that needed to be taught and learned and had been swept under the rug for too long.

Warren said what got lost in the numbers about lynchings were human stories about families traumatized by this history. They sought to connect with some of those families.

They also sought to reflect the disgusting diversity of lynching from the crowded spectacles where concessions were sold to hangings in wooded isolation witnessed by two or three people. These acts of terrorism were triggered by allegations of rape, the threat of economic competition or a desire for social control.

The filmmakers interviewed Dr. Fostenia Baker, great-niece of Frazier B. Baker, a postmaster in Lake City, S.C., who was lynched with his infant daughter, Julia, on Feb. 22, 1898. President William McKinley, who had appointed Baker, did not provide a pension to his widow and five surviving children.

Also featured were activists seeking to commemorate this history, as well as scholars and authors such as Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of Americas Great Migration, and Mia Bay, biographer of anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells. Edward L. Ayers, emeritus president at the University of Richmond and Hannahs father, was the films historical consultant.

Toward the end of the film, we are shown footage of unarmed men such as Walter Scott dying at the hands of police.

It was important to us to talk about what the echoes are of this history; to show the threat of racial violence is not in our past, its very much in our present, Hannah Ayers said. I think Isabel Wilkerson says it best: that theres a disturbing symmetry between what we see happening today and the lynchings of the past.

Or as Warren said: We didnt want this to seem as sort of settled past but reflect that the past is deeply inside our present. I think in America, what we think about killing often has to do with who was killed. The history of lynching reflects this.

Ayers draws hope from the individuals and groups working to make this history known, from the simple act of maintaining a gravesite to forming the nonprofit Lynching Sites Project in Memphis, Tenn.

The couple hope to have screenings at K-12 schools and institutions across the country to spark discussion and action. I think every community needs to grapple with and respond to this history in its own way, Warren said.

That includes Virginia, which likes to have this persona, this image that it is different from the Deep South, but has its own hidden history and undocumented lynchings, Lee said. (Tazewell County has more lynchings on record  10  than any other county in the state, Warren said.)

We, too, are part of that South that we really dont want to acknowledge, Lee said. Its part of who we are. And thats why these conversations are so important. To really bring out that underside, so we can heal from it.

Such conversations are a key to unlocking the secrets, Lee said. Until we do, were going to be stuck.
The bizarre case of two Fishersville residents accused of stealing and unlawfully killing a pig from the SPCA has entered its first day of trial.

In Albemarle County Circuit Court on Thursday, 33-year-old Lee Edward Oakes Jr. and 27-year-old Jerelyn Aymarie Sutter pleaded not guilty to the three charges against each of them: felony killing of livestock, felony theft of livestock and misdemeanor animal cruelty.

The pair was arrested on July 10, roughly a week after a months-old pig was taken from the Albemarle-Charlottesville SPCA, slaughtered and sent to a butcher. Authorities were able to retrieve the animal before it was butchered, and performed a necropsy that showed it had been stabbed 31 times in the neck.

Counsel for Oakes and Sutter admitted at trial on Thursday that their clients were responsible for taking and killing the pig, but they insisted that the pig was both feral and ownerless.

Prosecutor Amanda Galloway tells a different story: she told jurors that the two were not permitted to take the pig, a fact that should have been known to Sutter, who worked at the SPCA until her termination immediately following the incident.

Video surveillance from the SPCA, which was admitted into evidence during a preliminary hearing last summer, showed Oakes putting a harness on the pig, walking it around and petting it, all before getting into an altercation with the pig when he attempted to subdue it. An officer reviewing the video last summer said that, sometime later, the pig appeared to have been stabbed somewhere out of frame.

At trial Thursday, an Albemarle County animal control officer testified that on July 4, he had been called to the SPCA to retrieve a pig that had been brought in by county police officers the previous day. Larry Crickenberger told the 14-person jury that when he arrived at the SPCA, he was made aware that Sutter had taken the pig home on July 3. He called on Sutter to return it to the SPCA, but when Oakes and Sutter arrived soon after, they told him that the pig had been taken to a butcher.

There was no implication at the time of whether the pig was dead or alive, Crickenberger said, but Oakes had stated that he believed the pig to be feral.

When the pigs body was recovered from the butcher, Crickenberger testified that it had multiple stab wounds and had its back legs hogtied.

Two officers from the county police department also took the stand on Thursday and spoke about the hours theyd spent wrangling the pig on July 3. Sergeant David Wallace said that after multiple calls about the pig being a nuisance and a traffic hazard, he and other officers tracked it down and cornered it into a fenced-in backyard. After two hours of chasing, they were finally able to lure the pig into a cage; at that point, he continued, the wily but unaggressive pig finally tired out.

Wallace said he then brought the pig to the SPCA, which serves as the countys animal shelter, and handed it off to workers there, including Sutter. While he recalled joking that hed be willing to barbecue it himself for all the trouble itd caused him, he testified that he never actually gave permission for the pig to leave the shelter.

The purported owner of the pig, Jose Zamora, also testified on Thursday with the help of a translator. A painter and farmer, Zamora said that he had purchased a different pig weeks before the incident, but that when it was delivered to him, the pig in question was accompanying his purchase. Told that the former owner no longer wanted it, Zamora took in the little pig, feeding and watering it alongside the rest of his livestock. Like his other animals, the pig was allowed to roam free; he had seen the pig on July 3, he said, but not again until he was contacted by authorities days later.

Although the presentation of evidence continued into Thursday evening, another notable testimony came from Dr. Kristen Scheller, a veterinarian with the SPCA. Scheller told the jury that when animals are signed into the SPCAs logbook, they become the property of the SPCA until otherwise allocated. As such, the pig in questions status had been entered as stray when it arrived on July 3, which was updated to stolen after its apparent theft. She added that in the weeks leading up to the incident, Sutters performance at the SPCA had taken a downturn and she had been demoted.

The trial is set to continue on Friday morning.
Barbara Lynch, the award-winning restaurateur from Boston, is on Time's list along with Ivanka Trump and others.

Barbara Lynch is the only chef to make it to the Time's 100 Most Influential People list this year. Picture courtesy: Instagram/barbaralynchbos

By India Today Web Desk: Barbara Lynch is the only chef to make it to the Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World list, and the culinary world is rejoicing the news for a number of reason.

You might not know too much about this award-winning chef, but she has had a long journey to the top of her profession, and deserves to be celebrated.

Barbara Lynch owns and runs seven restaurants. Picture courtesy: Instagram/foodninfo

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In the tribute penned for her on this achievement, Padma Lakshmi gives us a glimpse into the life of Lynch: "Barbara grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Boston, and decided to enter one of the most male-dominated fields in the world. Now she has seven restaurants, two James Beard Awards and a memoir. She creates opportunities for herself, even when it seems like they do not exist."

Also Read: Meet the World's Best Female Chef 2017

And that's just the reason why Lynch has made it to this prestigious list, which also features global biggies like Ivanka Trump, Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin, and Emma Stone, among others.

B&G Oysters is one of the seven restaurants run by chef Barbara Lynch. Picture courtesy: Instagram/chefwilliamlee

"I have truly experienced the American dream in building a company from the ground up that creates opportunities for passionate people devoted to the dining experience, where I can inspire, educate and contribute to my community. To be recognized for the hard work that went into achieving that dream is both humbling and gratifying," Lynch said in a press release.

Lynch is the brains behind successful restaurants like No. 9 Park, Menton, B&G Oysters, and Sportello--all of them in Boston. She released her memoir, Out of Line: A Life of Playing With Fire, this month.

--- ENDS ---
The Richmond area will experience a few waves of soaking rain on Saturday, Sunday and Monday along with unseasonably cool temperatures.

SATURDAY

On-and-off showers will be possible at any point in the day, but rain will be slightly more prevalent during the evening hours. An all-day outdoor plan is likely to have rain at some point. Watching radar trends may allow you to time out an hour or two outside in between showers.

Rain duration: Rain may be falling for 25 percent to 50 percent of the daylight hours. Otherwise, expect it to be cloudy and damp.

Rain amounts: Richmond-area totals could range from 0.25 inch to 1 inch.

Severe chance: Theres a minimal chance for a strong storm near the North Carolina line during the afternoon. Rumbles of thunder cant be ruled out in Richmond, but there shouldnt be anything severe in the metro.

Comfort: Temperatures will turn cooler as the day goes on. Expect 60s in the morning, then 50s for the afternoon and evening. That will be about a 30-degree drop from Friday afternoon.

SUNDAY

Rain becomes more widespread and heavier as a low tracks across the Carolinas. Sunday will be much closer to a washout than Saturday, but there could still be cloudy and dry intervals. Were unlikely to see any sun.

Rain duration: Rain could fall for most of the day, but it will vary in intensity.

Rain amounts: The heaviest rain of the weekend should occur on Sunday, with totals ranging from 1 to 2.5 inches.

Severe chance: None.

Comfort: It will feel unseasonably chilly. Temperatures will hover in the 50s all day with a northeast breeze.

MONDAY

A slow-moving low off to our south will continue to provide occasional rain for Richmond, but the exact timing is not clear.

Severe chance: None.

Comfort: Chilly and cloudy conditions will continue to start the work week. Temperatures are likely to be in the 50s for most of the day, possibly peaking in the lower 60s if there is a break of sun.

WHEN WILL IT BE WARM AND DRY AGAIN?

Late next week  the last weekend of April  is likely to be unseasonably warm. Temperatures could push into the upper 80s or 90 between April 28 and April 30. High pressure should keep rain and thunder chances minimal, if not zero.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
A day after she called Rahul Gandhi unfit to lead the Congress, the party expelled woman leader Barkha Shukla Singh for anti-party activities.

By Parvina Purkayastha: The Delhi Congress today expelled its women's wing chief Barkha Shukla Singh, who in an open letter on Thursday had hit out at vice-president Rahul Gandhi, calling him "unfit to lead the party", and alleged harassment of party workers by Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken.

Singh, a former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief, had resigned from her party post on Thursday. "Rahul Gandhi is unfit to lead the party," she said in the letter. "The one pertinent question we need to ask today is why is Rahul Gandhi in hiding? Why is he scared of meeting his own party members?" Singh asked.

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"If Vinay Katiyar says something demeaning Priyanka Gandhi then they (Congress leaders) speak out, why they don't react when other women party members are misbehaved with," Shukla asked.

"Rahul Gandhi should step down. Why is Rahul Gandhi in hiding? Why is he scared of meeting his own party members?" she added and claimed, "Ajay Maken misbehaved with many women party workers. When we wanted to bring this to Rahul Gandhi's notice, our plea fell on deaf ears."

"It is because of this attitude of Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken that as many as five districts presidents and 75 block presidents resigned from the organisation. One of them has also filed a complaint of harassment against Ajay Maken and (All India Mahila Congress President) Shobha Oza," she added.

"Congress party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken has only used the issue of empowerment of women and women security to gather votes. The issue means nothing to them," she said.

"In an organisation where I myself am unsafe, how will I empower other women in that organisation? That is why I hereby resign from the post of President of Delhi Mahila Congress," she wrote in the letter.

In reaction, the Congress' women wing issued a statement removing Barkha Singh from the post of president of Delhi Mahila Congress.

In a statement, All India Mahila Congress President Shobha Oza said: "This is to inform that Barkha Shukla Singh has been removed from the post of President, Delhi Pradesh Mahila Congress, with immediate effect."

Singh's removal from the party comes in the middle of the crucial MCD election. On Tuesday, former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and former Youth Congress leader Amit Malik quit the party and joined the BJP.

WATCH: Days before MCD polls, Congress hit by mass defections

ALSO READ:

Delhi Women's Congress chief Barkha Shukla Singh resigns, accuses Ajay Maken of abusing women workers

Congress hit by exits ahead of Delhi MCD election: When Generals leave, it means hard times for party

Congress leader and former Delhi minister Arvinder Singh Lovely joins BJP ahead of MCD polls

--- ENDS ---
CHARLOTTESVILLE  City Attorney Craig Brown and his staff will have to carry the burden of defending Charlottesville in a lawsuit over its efforts to remove Confederate monuments.

The citys insurance carrier, the Virginia Municipal League, has declined to provide coverage in the legal case thats arisen over the Charlottesville City Councils recent decision to move a statue of Robert E. Lee from a downtown park.

[T]here are no plans to hire outside counsel, Brown said in an email Thursday.

On Monday evening, moments before the City Council voted 3-2 to sell the statue of the Confederate general, Councilor Bob Fenwick revealed that VML earlier this month said in a letter that it would not cover the city.

As with many insurance claims, the initial response from VML is they will not cover this cost. But that opinion will be appealed, Fenwick said.

Brown said Thursday that the city has yet to respond to the insurance carriers April 5 letter.

The insurance companys letter cited several reasons why it denied the citys claim. Among them are exclusions in the policy that do not apply to cases where claims are a consequence of either an alleged willful violation of state, federal or local laws or potential dishonest, criminal or fraudulent acts.

Last month, a group called the Monument Fund  an extension of Friends of CVille Monuments  along with several area residents and the Virginia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a lawsuit against the city.

The lawsuit alleges that the councils decision to move the statue and rename and redesign Lee and Jackson parks violates a state law which protects war monuments, as well as the terms of the gift.

Philanthropist Paul Goodloe McIntire donated the land and the statues to the city nearly a century ago.

A statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson in the namesake park will stay, but the council unanimously agreed in February to redesign the two parks, and Jackson Park would include a new memorial to residents who were enslaved prior to 1865.

The group suing the city is seeking an injunction against the resolution so that the lawsuit can be resolved before the city takes action.

It is the entire councils hope ... that the court will not oblige the plaintiffs request to maintain the status quo with regards to adding memorials, signage and changing the names of the parks, Councilor Kathy Galvin said Monday.

Both Galvin and Mayor Mike Signer voted against moving the statue. But they also could bear responsibility for allegedly violating state law by voting to make changes in the two parks.

Distorting the meaning of the Jackson statue by adding an opposing memorial  so as to reveal a more complete history of Charlottesvilles racist past is exactly what we all want, not the status quo, Galvin said.

Earlier this year, Brown said the VML insurance program covered all of the citys legal costs when Joe Draego, an Albemarle County resident, won a lawsuit regarding the City Councils meeting procedures.

The case resulted in the council abandoning a meetings rule prohibiting group defamation after a federal court determined the rule was unconstitutional.

Brown said hes unsure how much the insurance carrier paid in that case.

Brown said the citys insurance premium with VML in the current fiscal year is $717,874.

Commenting during the council meeting Monday, Fenwick refuted several claims the statues defenders have made in the past year.

Fenwick said he disagrees that the decision over the Lee statue will cost the city a considerable amount of money as it defends against the lawsuit and then works to relocate the statue.

The city has earmarked $1 million for the redesign projects for the two parks. Last year, city officials estimated that moving the Lee statue would cost approximately $330,000.

The resolution the council approved Monday stipulates that whoever purchases the statue will be responsible for paying for its removal and transportation. However, the city could still face hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages if it loses the case.

I personally will work hard to ensure that the taxpayer will not bear this burden, Fenwick said.
April 4, 1934 April 19, 2017 Ruth Elaine Benshoff Barber passed peacefully and was received into her true and lasting heavenly peace and rest on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 in Roanoke, Va. at the age of 83. Ruth was born on April 4, 1934 in Johnstown, Pa. to Kenneth H. Benshoff and Louise Link Benshoff and spent time growing up in Ligonier, Pa. and Grove City, Pa. On July 21, 1951, she married Carl L. Barber, who is a retired Brethren pastor and teacher. She is survived by Carl and their five children: Stephen (Beth) Barber, Plymouth, Ind., Deborah (Rick) Surette, Sweden, Maine, Jon (Kelis) Barber, Indianapolis, Ind., Meredith (Joel) Burdell, Clovis, N.M., and Philip (Shari) Barber, Fredericksburg, Va.; as well as cherished members of the family, Vahid (Liliana) Khakbaz, Bethesda, Md. She had 19 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. She was preceded into glory by her parents, her brother, Allen Benshoff, and an infant grandchild. The value of education permeated every facet of her life. She attended Ashland College, Miami University and earned her Bachelor's Degree from Wichita State University. She taught English at Herndon Middle School, Va. for many years, during which time she earned her Master's Degree at the University of Virginia and her ESL certificate. She utilized this ESL expertise and was instrumental in a ministry to international students at Columbia Baptist Church, Falls Church, Va. She was devoted to missions and spent more than two years abroad with Carl in this endeavor. Reading was her passion and her faith guided every step. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and pastor's wife. Visitation will be from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 23, 2017 at Rader Funeral Home, 630 Roanoke Road, Daleville, Va. Interment will be at 11 a.m. on Monday, April 24, 2017 at Southwest Virginia Veterans Cemetery, Dublin, Va. The worship/memorial service will be 4 p.m., Monday, April 24, 2017 at Second Presbyterian Church, 214 Mountain Avenue, SW, Roanoke, Va. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Dominican Republic Hospital Fund of Second Presbyterian Church, Roanoke, Va. (on their website) or any mission endeavor of your choice. On-line condolences may be made to the family at www.rader-funeralhome.com. Rader Funeral Home 540-992-1212
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 21 (PTI) Bar Council of India today called off its proposed nationwide protest from May 2 after Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad assured them that no law concerning lawyers will be made without consulting them.

BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra said the minister gave the assurance after he and a delegation of members of all bar associations, met him here this evening.

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The meeting came after the lawyers across the country protested against the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that lays down the definition of "misconduct" which according to the BCI has only been defined in its rules.

The lawyers also burnt the copies of the Law Commission report which suggests bar on advocates from holding agitations and make them liable to compensate litigants if they go on strike.

Mishra told PTI that the Law Minister also assured them that any amendments to the Advocates Act would be made after consulting BCI and other lawyers bodies.

He said that on the basis of the assurance given by the minister, the BCI and other lawyers bodies have decided to call off the protest they were planning to hold from May 2.

BCI, in a statement, earlier had said that on May 2 they would hold a rally where members of all the Bar Councils across the country shall assemble at Patiala House Court here and proceed to march to Rajghat in full court dress.

It had also decided to initiate a jail bharo campaign in case their demands for rejection of the Law Commission recommendations, were not accepted even after May 2.

The proposed changes in the Advocates Act also include removal of a lawyers name from the rolls if he or she abstains from court work.

The BCI had claimed that this will lead to usurping of their right to protest.

The Law Commission has further proposed to impose a fine which may extend up to Rs 3 lakh and the cost of proceedings and also award compensation of such an amount, subject to a maximum of Rs 5 lakh as it may deem fit, payable to the person aggrieved by the misconduct of the advocate.

Lawyers would also be liable to pay compensation to litigants if they abstain from work even if the client has not paid the advocate.

The non-payment of fees either in full or part by a person to his advocate shall not be a defence available for the lawyer against whom claim for compensation due to alleged misconduct or participation in strike or otherwise is made by the client. PTI RRT HMP ARC

--- ENDS ---

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Indonesia

Pence visits China-wary Southeast Asia region

JAKARTA, Indonesia  Southeast Asia, a focus of past U.S. presidents, has been overlooked thus far for the Trump administration, but Vice President Mike Pences visit to Indonesia on Thursday marked a sign of change and he announced the president would follow him to the region later this year.

Anxious Southeast Asian governments are looking for Americas commitment to counter Chinas rising economic and military clout. Vietnams foreign minister is in Washington his week, and the top diplomats of the regions 10-nation bloc are expected to arrive en masse in early May, amid concerns their interests were being crowded out by priorities.

Pences stop in Jakarta on a 10-day swing through the Asia-Pacific, meeting with Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo, sends a message that President Donald Trumps interests in Asia extend beyond North Korea and the massive U.S. trade imbalance with China.

Pence announced Trump will attend the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in November.

CONGRESS

White House tries to revive health care bill

WASHINGTON  Eager for a victory, the White House expressed confidence Thursday that a breakthrough on the mired Republican health care bill could emerge in the House next week. The chambers GOP leaders, burned by a March debacle on the measure, were dubious and signs were scant that an emerging plan was gaining enough votes to succeed.

At a White House news conference, Trump said progress was being made on a great plan for overhauling the nations health care system, though he provided no details. We have a good chance of getting it soon, Trump said. Id like to say next week.

Yet conservatives and moderates alike were skeptical that the House would vote next week on the health legislation. They cited the higher priority of passing a spending bill within days to avert a government shutdown.

OPIOIDS

Cherokee Nation sues distributors, retailers

OKLAHOMA CITY  The Cherokee Nation sued distributors and retailers of opioid medications on Thursday, alleging the companies have contributed to an epidemic of prescription opioid abuse within the tribe and have not done enough to prevent tribal members from acquiring illegally prescribed opioid painkillers.

The lawsuit alleges that six distribution and pharmacy companies have created conditions in which vast amounts of opioids have flowed freely from manufacturers to abusers and drug dealers within the 14 northeastern Oklahoma counties that comprise the Cherokee Nation.

The lawsuit, filed in the Cherokee Nation District Court, names as defendants distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp., and pharmacies CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

SEATTLE

2 cops shot, injured

SEATTLE  Two Seattle police officers responding to a robbery at a convenience store were shot, one critically, and authorities were still searching for a suspect Thursday.

Another suspect was taken into custody, while a third was found with significant injuries, authorities said.

A 42-year-old female officer was in satisfactory condition, and a 30-year-old male officer was in critical condition, with life-threatening injuries, according to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Business News Chevron Loses Australia Transfer Pricing Battle | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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Business News Patti Payne Alaska Air Is Flying High With Top Grades Patti S Dream Candidates For Mayor Of Seattle | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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Politics News Michigan Doctor Wife Arrested For Allegedly Conspiring To Perform Female Genital Mutilation | RobinsPost News & Noticias

A local doctor has been arraigned and charged in court for allegedly sexually ... contact with two different female patients in August of 2019. According to the news release, while working as ... Read More FARMINGTON HILLS, MI  A Michigan doctor who has worked with hockey clubs for more than 20 years has been charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct. Dr. Zvi Levran was arraigned in ... Read More A Michigan woman is being charged after allegedly stealing items from Walmart by not scanning all of her items at the self-checkout. Police say 34-year-old TeddyJo Marie Fliam was using the self ... Read More SAGINAW COUNTY, Mich. (WLNS)  A Michigan woman has been charged after she allegedly spent roughly $1.1 million of her mothers money when she had a stroke. According to Attorney General Dana ... Read More A husband and wife from Weston are facing the possibility ... David and Sherry Varrone each face one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted, he could receive a maximum sentence ... Read More A Michigan woman is being charged after allegedly stealing items from Walmart by not scanning ... arrested after swapping barcodes while checking out items. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Walmart began ... Read More Dr. Vinay Malviya was a once-renowned gynecologic oncologist who practiced medicine until 2021. As 7 Action News first reported in September, the longtime Michigan cancer doctor has been accused ... Read More GOODAR TWP, MI  A South Branch man was arrested after allegedly detaining a school bus while falsely claiming he was a police officer. About 4:20 p.m. on Sept. 28, a Hale Community Schools bus ... Read More Oct. 18An 18-year-old woman was arrested Thursday after her boyfriend told paramedics she stabbed him. According to an Odessa Police Department report, officers were dispatched to an apartment ... Read More
Politics News Civil Rights Groups Challenge Registration Deadline In Georgia House Race | RobinsPost News & Noticias

The eligibility of tens of thousands voters has been challenged under a provision of Georgia's election law that allows any resident to contest the qualifications of an unlimited number of voters ... Read More Midterm elections 2022 are underway; get live updates and the latest coverage heading into Election Day, November 8th, as voters determine who whether the GOP or Democrats will win the House, Senate, ... Read More Ahead of Tuesdays Midterm Elections, GOP and Democrat candidates make the final stops on the campaign trail to pitch to voters. Read More Election watchdogs reported routine issues in key battleground states Tuesday but no major problems as ballots were cast across the U.S. Live updates. Read More Republicans are seeking to hold their majorities in Georgias legislature and maintain their lock on statewide offices as voting concludes. Republicans now have a 103-76 majority in the House with ... Read More President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are both on the campaign trail. On Tuesday, well start to discover what the voters have in store. Today, heres what you need to know: Democrats ... Read More Fair Fight Action, the nonprofit founded by Abrams, paid her close friend and allys law firm $9.4 million in 2019 and 2020, with two more years of billing yet to be disclosed. Read More The Justice Department will deploy election monitors to 64 locations on Election Day to ensure compliance with voter access laws and to prevent intimidation and interference. President Joe Biden ... Read More This is the first election in which a substantial number of candidates for major offices are election deniers or conspiracy theorists. Read More
Politics News California Politics Updates How Much Did Each Vote In L A S Congressional Primary Cost | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Gavin Newsom responded to comments made by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar over the weekend. Newsom has drawn national headlines in recent months for repeatedly stating that Democrats are losing the ... Read More Because these days we cant even agree on when elections are done. I mean, good grief. How many more conspiracies, analyses and righteously indignant reactions can our fragile democracy/constitutional ... Read More California midterm election polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, but eligible voters have been casting ballots since mid-October. Below youll find what to do if you havent voted yet, how to ... Read More Katy Perry is taking heat for a voting-booth photo she posted to Instagram revealing she cast her Los Angeles Mayoral race vote for billionaire developer Rick Caruso. l am voting for a myriad of ... Read More With five days until Election Day, President Biden is campaigning in New Mexico and California. Election officials are warning of widening efforts to intimidate voters. Read More The 2022 midterm election is less than two weeks away, with control of Congress and key statehouses at stake. Our reporters are covering contests across the nation. Read More
Potus News Trump Joins Criticism Of Iran Questions U S Role In Libya | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Irans membership is an ugly stain on the U.N. commissions credibility, said U.S. diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Read More WASHINGTON (AP)  A top Biden administration official on Monday pushed back against growing criticism from Iranian American activists who are calling on the White House to abandon its efforts to ... Read More
Violent clash erupted between doctors and attendants of the reputed Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur after the patient died following refusal of doctors to attend on her.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: The junior doctors at the reputed Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur indulged in violent clashes with attendants after the patient died following refusal of doctors to attend on her. The patient from Sheohar was critical and undergoing treatment in Patna but was brought to Muzaffarpur to be admitted at SKMCH on Thursday night.

VIOLENT CONFRONTATION

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However, junior doctors refused to attend to her maintaining that her condition had worsened and chances of survival was bleak. Later, the patient died and this triggered the controversy which further escalated into violent clashes between doctors and attendants in which almost one dozen ambulances were torched by agitating doctors and approximately 50 private vehicles badly damaged on Friday morning.

The ambulance drivers of the hospitals and the locals also sided with the attendants and indulged in violent confrontation with the doctors. The angry doctors first jammed the NH 77 very close to the hospital and later set on fire almost a dozen ambulances parked at the hospital. Both sides pelted stones and set on fire several vehicles. As the clashes became further violent, the district administration officials including the District Magistrate, Dharmendra Singh and SSP, Vivek Kumar reached the spot to control the situation. Police also indulged in baton charge to disperse mob.

HOSPITAL TURNED BATTLEFIELD

There was a state of chaos and lawlessness in the area for almost five hours after which police deployment was increased. The area near the hospital was been cordoned and massive police deployment has taken place to control the situation from worsening further. The other patients and people at the hospital managed to save themselves by locking themselves inside the hospital premises. For almost five hours the medical services came to a standstill because of the hospital area turning into a battlefield.

"We have controlled the situation as of now by using force against the agitators. We are investigating the case and trying to reach to the root cause of the incident. Whosoever is found guilty will be punished," said Dharmendra Kumar, DM Muzaffarpur.

Four agitators have been arrested by the police. However, the situation in the area, though, has been brought under control but remains tense.

Also Read:

400 cartons of foreign liquor seized from Muzaffarpur

--- ENDS ---
Potus News Ap Explains How A Single Trump Sentence Enraged South Korea | RobinsPost News & Noticias

AP Explains: Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to life without parole for the 2018 massacre of 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Oct. 13 ... Read More South Korean officials ... missiles that North Korea has launched over the past couple weeks but that the developing nuclear program is still a threat. The Associated Press rep orted on Tuesday ... Read More and South Korea is also developing indigenous systems designed to intercept various kinds of North Korean missiles. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news ... Read More According to a report from the Associated Press (AP), South Korea's joint chiefs of staff said in a statement Wednesday that North Korea had fired about 100 shells off its west coast and 150 ... Read More South Korea -- South Korea says North Korea has launched a ballistic missile toward its eastern waters. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events ... Read More South Korea -- South Korea says North Korea has flown warplanes near their shared border, South Korea scrambles fighter jets. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events ... Read More A TV screen in Seoul shows a file image of a South Korean navy vessel during a news program on Monday, 24 October. Photograph: Ahn Young-joon/AP Pyongyang ... Japan and South Korea in Tokyo ... Read More The members of BTS will enlist in South Koreas military as required by law, the bands label said on Monday, ending months of public debate about whether the group qualified for an exemption ... Read More SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Koreas military said Tuesday its capable of detecting and intercepting the variety of missiles North Korea launched in a barrage of recent simulated ... Read More Seoul, South Korea  South Korea's military said Tuesday its capable of detecting and intercepting the variety of missiles North Korea launched in a barrage of recent simulated nuclear ... Read More
Potus News Donald Trump Announces Meeting With Pope Francis In Italy Before It Is Finalized | RobinsPost News & Noticias

More info A committee made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans is investigating the January 6 riots from 2021 in which supporters of ex-President Donald Trump stormed Congress. This week ... Read More UPDATE, 7:10 AM Friday: Donald Trump followed up his Twitter rants about ... Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) just before the committee vote was held on live TV. He must be accountable. Read More On Monday, Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN, accusing the network of sabotaging his 2020 election campaign. The former POTUS is seeking $475 million in damages  and he might ... Read More Say this for Donald Trump ... Court didnt side with Trump, refusing to even hear a challenge to the results. Just fyi. POTUS is pissed  breaking news  Supreme Court denied his law ... Read More Don't expect the pope to lead the opposition to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who has shown aspects of the Peronism that Francis grew up with in his native Argentina ... Read More Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Donald ... in Israel  Before it is too late! Its true that Trump is popular ... Read More Eric Trump has suggested that his father, former President Donald Trump, should testify before the House of Representatives' Select Committee investigating the 2021 Capitol riot. Trump made the ... Read More Donald Trump once claimed that his two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Both are in question after he formed a new company in response to the Trump ... Read More Former President Donald Trump ... months ago?" Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. "Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Read More Former President Donald Trump bashed the U.S. Jewish community on Sunday for, as he put it, being insufficiently supportive of Israel. "U.S. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what ... Read More Former President Donald Trump angrily lashed out Wednesday, calling the nations legal system a broken disgrace after a judge ruled he must answer questions under oath next week in a ... Read More
White House Vice President Mike Pence Arrives In Indonesia | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Former Vice President Mike Pence was welcomed home tonight by the Bartholomew County GOP as he arrived to watch the election returns from his hometown. His brother, Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, is ... Read More Donald Trump set the stage for another White House bid next week as he teased a very big announcement on the same day his former vice president and potential 2024 rival will release a memoir.The ... Read More Former Vice President Mike Pence described the basis for the election challenges brought by former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of Joe Biden being projected as the winner of the 2020 ... Read More Former Vice President Mike Pence is set to participate in a CNN town hall just eight days after the midterm elections on Wednesday, November 16. Read More
Product Reviews Canada Takes A Stand For Net Neutrality Strikes Down Unlimited Music Plan | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Google updated the documentation on how to write product reviews to add examples of kinds of product reviewers and to tighten the focus of the documentation with more precise wording. Overall ... Read More Search Engine Land  SEO  Google adds more example categories of sites that may be impacted by the product reviews update Google has added three new examples to the top of the how to write ... Read More While the Prime plan gives users access to a little over 2 million songs, the Unlimited tier opens up access to more than 90 million tracks. Amazon often runs promotional offers on Amazon Music ... Read More and only applies to the Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan. After your first three months are up, youll be charged $9.99 a month until you cancel. With Music Unlimited, you can enjoy ... Read More Google's Danny Sullivan told us that the Google product reviews update primarily evaluates product review content on a page-level basis, but not always. Danny added "for sites that have a ... Read More Google has added three examples of the type of product review pages and who can write them to the "how to write product reviews" help document. Google added these three examples for the type of ... Read More Others werent as impressed: I had it in my hip pocket; then I fell down. When I got up, I was dead. Other than that, its OK. Disappointing. This would be a great product but was ... Read More Read our Ethics Policy to learn more. Trying to figure out what you need in terms of equipment for unboxing videos and product reviews on YouTube? Weve got you covered. As other YouTube trends ... Read More purchase or transfer of handguns within Canada take effect on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, adding that the measure builds on earlier efforts banning handgun imports. The handgun ... Read More (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press via AP) PARIS  After years of studies, the preliminary design review for Canadas future surface combatant ships is expected to be completed before the end ... Read More Canada defeated Australia twice in September, 1-0 and 2-1 in Brisbane and Sydney respectively, and is 6-2-2 against the Matildas this century. Having just played Down Under, it also knows what to ... Read More At the opening of the La Jolla Music ... Fresh takes on established traditions were there at the outset. To begin with, all the members of the quartet other than the cellist stand. Read More
Science News New Digital Map Details Shifting Demographics In United States | RobinsPost News & Noticias

We can help! Science News Explores and the Science News in High Schools Digital Library offer a variety of free, age-appropriate STEM resources for kids from fifth through 12th grades. Stay up to ... Read More Nov. 3, 2022  A new method to treat sewage can efficiently convert leftover sludge to biogas, an advance that could help communities lower their waste treatment costs while helping the ... Read More (opens in new tab ... to the Census Bureau. The way people "melt" in the United States differs. "Different groups of immigrants integrate in different ways," De Rossi told Live Science. Read More 2 takeaways from our meeting: We like health care and staples, Club stock news Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to ... Read More Researchers at Princeton Engineering have found a way to turn your breakfast food into a new material that can cheaply remove salt and microplastics from seawater. Read More Science News is published by the Society for Science. Your subscription includes a free one-year membership in the Society and supports our work to: 22 issues of Science News magazine delivered in ... Read More Oct. 26, 2022  Scientists have discovered a way to create a material that can be made like a plastic, but conducts electricity more like a ... Nov. 4, 2022  Astronomers have discovered the ... Read More An orbital NASA instrument designed mainly to advance studies of airborne dust and its effects on climate change has proven adept at another key Earth-science function - detecting large ... Read More It has world-class universities, leading technology and biological science ... New Jersey amid declines in both demand and crude oil prices. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S ... Read More The Longevity Science Foundation (LSF), a global ... has recently expanded by launching operations in the United States and appointing its new president and CEO, Lisa Ireland. Read More Grid north is the direction of the grid lines on maps, that usually point towards or near the North Pole. The three norths will make landfall at the village of Langton Matravers just west of ... Read More A 1,000-year-old amulet of Thor's Hammer found in Sweden shows the lasting popularity of the ancient Norse deity, who has now won a new audience with Chris Hemsworth's portrayal of the Viking god ... Read More
Internet News Cameroon S President Paul Biya Orders End To Internet Shutdown | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Cameroons President Paul Biya will celebrate this Sunday his fourth decade at the helm of power in Central Africas largest economy amid opposition calls for reform and doubts about his appearance at ... Read More France must stop supporting the president and his electoral ploys On 6 December, Africas oldest serving leader, Paul Biya, and his ruling party, Cameroon ... Wall and the end of the cold ... Read More has petitioned the President of the Republic of Cameroun, Mr. Paul Biya, over the Internet shut down in the southern part of the country. The group recalls the incident of Internet shut down in ... Read More At over 90 years of age, this long-time presidential loyalist leads the National Security department with an iron fist. He also happens to be the worlds oldest police officer on active duty. Every ... Read More Paul Biya, the long-serving Cameroonian president, has won a seventh consecutive term as head of the Central African state, according to official results. "Election was free, fair, credible in ... Read More Cameroons President Paul Biya, in power for almost 36 years ... It is Nigerias most authoritative news media available on all platforms for the political, business, professional and ... Read More Cameroons territorial administration minister, said the president dispatched him to lead a delegation to provide food and blankets to 43,000 flood victims. "President Paul Biya instructed us ... Read More The French president sees himself as a break from old colonial ways. But his visit to the despot Paul Biya tells a different story Paul Biya with Emmanuel Macron in Lyon in 2019. The Cameroonian ... Read More Sixteen-year-old Adama Issatou tells onlookers in Maroua, a town on Cameroon's northern border with Chad and Nigeria, that she needs an education. She said she speaks for scores of other girls who ... Read More internet-based education, news and media services and a wide variety of other activities. As the internet became more and more affordable and, therefore, integrated into the life of ordinary ... Read More Internet freedom improved slightly in the U.S. for the first time in six years ... from people self-censoring to whether a country orders internet service providers to block whole websites or ... Read More Cameroons President Paul Biya will celebrate this Sunday his fourth decade at the helm of power in Central Africas largest economy amid opposition calls for reform and doubts about his appearance at ... Read More
Travel News This Is The Safest Travel Destination In The World | RobinsPost News & Noticias

After the first day of the World Travel Market in London tourism professionals from Andalucia are feeling optimistic about the year to come, as British tourists appear to be very keen to travel again ... Read More Based on research reports from Deloitte, The U.S. Travel Association and Statista, its clear that this pattern holds true across all pieces of the travel pie, including hotels (the biggest slice), ... Read More We know COVID-19 is continuing to impact your travel plans. Should you travel now, be sure to familiarize yourself with the CDC's latest guidance on domestic and international travel as well as local ... Read More Planning a trip to South America? These are the safest countries in South America, ranked by crime and safety statistics, to help you plan a safe trip! Read More Recently, the travel publication announced the winners of its fifth annual Editors Choice Awards, which recognizes the best in travel and hospitality in the U.S. and around the globe. The awards ... Read More EP: What is a bona fide rewilding destination? NR: For Rewilding Europe Travel, a bona fide rewilding destination ... brown bears roaming the Central Apennines. They are relatively safe in the ... Read More Amicus International Consulting can provide people safe travel from country to country anonymously. Whatever the purpose or reason, be assured that they can arrange safe passage anywhere in the world ... Read More With domestic trips hitting a plateau, international travel now accounts for 88% of policies bought through squaremouth.com for trips this fall. Portugal is among the European destinations gaining the ... Read More This summer's high season came about with great expectations as tourists with pent-up travel aspirations were finally free from the pandemic. Read More From packing wisely to getting quality shut-eye anywhere, these are some of the secrets we swear by to get you to your holiday destination. Read More One of the best reasons to travel ... destination? Absolutely. The Fenelon Place Elevatorsalso called the Fourth Street Elevatoris actually the steepest, shortest railroad in the world. Read More
Us News Mysterious Death Of New York Judge Was Initially Called A Suicide Now Police Think It S Suspicious | RobinsPost News & Noticias

NEW YORK-- Two NYPD officers ... a Bronx man appeared before a judge Thursday. The family of the man who was killed says he didn't have to die, and the city's police watchdog wants the two ... Read More The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death. The womans identity ... Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Bradford Betz is a Fox News ... Read More Jury selection began Monday morning in the Trump Organization's trial on New York state criminal fraud charges, and the judge told ... who is now an ardent critic, told CBS News he was unaware ... Read More police said. The 50-year-old man was taken into custody. Neither mans identity was released. An investigation is ongoing. The altercation came after another man in New York City was pushed onto ... Read More A New York State judge reinstated 16 fired sanitation workers who did not comply with New York Citys vaccination mandate ... an attorney for the plaintiffs, called the ruling, a remarkable ... Read More BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP)  A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the part of a New York state law that makes it a crime for people to carry guns in places of worship. U.S. District Judge ... Read More In response, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, warned on Oct. 4 that the judge essentially gave New Yorks blessing ... of EWTN News. You can contact us at news@ ... Read More (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday barred the state of New York, at least for now ... called "even more restrictive" than the law struck down by the Supreme Court. "The nation's history ... Read More Nearly a quarter of those arrested for slashings and stabbings so far this year in New York City have some form of mental illness, NYPD statistics obtained by PIX11 shows. Read More New York's law has faced other legal challenges. This month, a federal judge in Syracuse put a hold on several of the states new licensing rules for carrying handguns in public, including one ... Read More
Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav held a meeting with Finance Minister and People's Democratic Party (PDP) leader Haseeb Drabu. As per reports it was to discuss the future strategy on several challenging issues.

By Shuja-ul-Haq : At a time when Kashmir valley has been going through a phase of tension, the two coalition partners in the govt held an important meeting in Jammu. Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav held a meeting with Finance Minister and People's Democratic Party (PDP) leader Haseeb Drabu. As per reports it was to discuss the future strategy on several challenging issues.

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Top BJP leaders in the state like Avinash Rai Khanna and Satpal Sharma were also among those who attended the meeting. The deliberations were held at the BJP office in Jammu city.

The Kashmir issue was discussed in the recent meeting of the BJP leaders in national capital as well. The valley has been tense for last couple of weeks. After the elections for the Srinagar constituency violence had again broken out in the Kashmir. Nine people lost their lives. Ever since then tension has been prevailing across Kashmir.

Last week, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat met the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to discuss the security situation in Kashmir.

ALSO READ:

J-K: BJP minister triggers row, says bullets only way to deal with stone pelters in Kashmir

Kashmir: PDP calls BJP minister's remark on stone-pelters reflective of poisonous mindset

ALSO WATCH| Operation Stone Pelters: Kashmir's scariest admissions caught on camera

--- ENDS ---
Us News Strong Rip Currents To Threaten Florida S East Coast Beaches Through The Weekend | RobinsPost News & Noticias

The storm will probably make landfall between Fort Lauderdale and Daytona Beach late Wednesday night with strong winds, coastal flooding and heavy rain. Read More As Tropical Storm Nicole nears, here is a look at conditions in the Treasure Coast area. Considerable flooding impacts are possible later this week. Read More Nicole on Tuesday was upgraded to a tropical storm and is expected to strengthen, prompting a hurricane warning for parts of east central Florida and the southeast coast, according to ... Read More Regardless of development, there is an increasing risk of coastal flooding, gale-force winds, heavy rainfall, rough surf, and beach erosion. Read More The risk of a hurricane strike is shifting to the US East ... 2012s Superstorm Sandy was one -- they arent a threat to homes and businesses on the oil-rich western Gulf Coast. Read More The East Coast of the U.S. will need to brace for more ... and author of the study, told ABC News. The trend will likely continue if the current level of greenhouse gas emissions continues around ... Read More The diesel shortage that had the White House on edge last week is spreading from the Northeast to the Southeast, prompting at least one supplier to initiate emergency protocols. Because ... Read More according to the U.S. Coast Guard. A Coast Guard helicopter spotted the 96 Haitians, as well as a passenger each from Uganda and the Bahamas, about 20 miles east of Boca Raton, Florida ... Read More Almost 100 people, mostly from Haiti, who were rescued from an overcrowded boat off the Florida coast had no food or water for two days, according to the U.S. Coast ... east of Boca Raton, Florida ... Read More FORT MYERS - An army of 42,000 utility workers has restored electricity to more than 2.5 million businesses and homes in Florida since Hurricane Ian's onslaught ... told a weekend news conference. Read More Record warmth over the West  the Northwest in particular  will finally come to an end over the weekend ... contributes to FOX Weather, FOX News Medias free ad-supported streaming ... Read More As president of Suffolk Florida East Coast ... s free morning and afternoon daily newsletters to receive the latest business news impacting South Florida. For more business intelligence, follow us ... Read More
Us News Father Of Missing Tennessee Teen Found Safe Says She Was Brainwashed | RobinsPost News & Noticias

An Amber Alert for 16-year-old Aubrea Branham was canceled after the teen ... Missing & Exploited Children) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) -- Authorities in Tennessee have reported 16-year-old ... Read More NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) -- Authorities in Tennessee have reported 16-year-old Aubrea Branham has been found safe Saturday morning after she was reported missing Friday. The Tennessee ... Read More
Us News Alaska Dentist Filmed Himself Pulling Tooth While On A Hoverboard Prosecutors Say | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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Us News Labor Group Levels Charges Of Union Busting Against Muslim Rights Organization | RobinsPost News & Noticias

If a union-backed constitutional amendment wins in Illinois, it will send a powerful message about the importance of defending worker rights. Read More In the union election in Albany, 406 workers voted against unionization and 206 workers voted for it, a National Labor ... News in a statement. I will continue to fight for my fellow workers ... Read More US employee rights agency issues growing number of complaints against ... labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging her termination was in retaliation for union ... Read More Tuesday's Schodack vote bucks a national trend of labor organizing across the United States. Defying corporate union-busting, workers at more than 200 U.S. Starbucks locations, as well as employees of ... Read More A group that works with union ... risk for labor rights violations is relatively small so it might be seen as a cost of doing business," Waizenegger said. "I think investors like us need to ... Read More Workers at the facility, known as ALB1, had hoped to become a local offshoot of the Amazon Labor Union, an independent organization ... unfair labor practice charges against the company with ... Read More The US Department of ... over time and other Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) protections. The rule rescinds a January 2021 rule, which inquired into whether the worker was dependent on a particular ... Read More The third-largest maintenance workers union opposed the deal, saying concerns over paid time off remained unaddressed The USs third-largest ... for sickness. The group that represents ... Read More
Us News U S Israeli Teen Charged With Threatening Jewish Centers | RobinsPost News & Noticias

"Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S ... us about the US-Israel ... Read More Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S. Those living in Israel ... Read More Israeli PM: Israel-Lebanon Maritime Deal to Be Signed Thursday JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A U.S.-brokered maritime border deal between Israel and Lebanon will be signed on Thursday, Israeli Prime ... Read More Israels Secondary School Teachers Association, which represents high school staff, threatens ... US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Both sides confirmed they discussed Ukraine. In a U ... Read More Republican U.S. Representative Mike Turner told reporters on a conference call after he travelled to Ukraine that he was "personally disappointed" with Israel. "We have never seen, since Bosnia ... Read More In an interview with Israel National News ... s students study in the Israeli education system and the rest in either the Jordanian or Palestinian Authority education system, which contains anti ... Read More What is the U.N ... Jewish community. Indeed, the COI is funded  with Americans contributing the lions share  for the express purpose of demonizing and delegitimizing Israel in perpetuity. Read More Israeli forces raided a stronghold of an armed group in the occupied West Bank's second-largest city, blowing up a bomb lab and engaging in a firefight, the military said Tuesday. Five ... Read More This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretzs free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox. Ahead of Israels ... Read More
World News Ukraine Urges West To Back Its Reform Work | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Pope Francis said the need to reform the United Nations was "more than obvious" after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war exposed its limits ... the horrors of two World Wars from happening ... Read More As Ukrainian forces zero in on the southern city of Kherson, occupied by Russian troops since early in the war, the Kremlin-picked leader of the Kherson province is urging civilians to take ... Read More Ukraine foreign minister says experts from UN nuclear watchdog will soon arrive in Ukraine and receive full access ... Read More Ukraine formally submitted a request for the historic center of Odesa to be designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the designation is vital to ... Read More Pope Francis in his new book called for the reform of the UN after the pandemic and the Ukraine war showed its 'limits' - Copyright AFP - Pope Francis in his new book ... Read More VATICAN CITY  Pope Francis said the need to reform the United Nations was more than obvious after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war exposed its limits ... founded to prevent the horrors of ... Read More VATICAN CITY, Holy See  Pope Francis said the need to reform the United Nations was "more than obvious" after the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war exposed its ... of two World Wars from ... Read More
World News Military Court Convicts Cameroon Journalist Ahmed Abba | RobinsPost News & Noticias

A court in Bosnia-Herzegovina has convicted seven former soldiers and acquitted their commander for war crimes in the kidnapping and execution of 20 civilians during the war in Bosnia nearly 30 ... Read More BANGKOK >> A court in military ... false news, or agitating against a government employee. Some of the closed media outlets have continued operating without a license and many Myanmar journalists ... Read More Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, the secretary-general of the Somali Journalists Syndicate, or SJS, appeared in a Mogadishu court Sunday ... journalists from reporting news related to Islamist militant ... Read More Cameroons military said several soldiers have been arrested for torturing a suspected separatist general and fighters, following deadly fighting in the northwestern village of Djotin. Read More Richard Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, wrote on his Twitter account: "A Ukrainian military officer says hundreds of Russian convicts offered ... in Colorado [NEWS] Russia Guards unit ... Read More Somali military court Monday executes by firing squad two Al-Shabab operatives in Mogadishu after being found guilty of murdering several people. Blindfolded, hand-cuffed, and tied to poles ... Read More When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used ... Read More A court in Cambodia on Wednesday convicted self ... Get top headlines from the Union-Tribune in your inbox weekday mornings, including top news, local, sports, business, entertainment and opinion. Read More PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)  A court in Cambodia on Wednesday convicted self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy in absentia of planning to cede national land to a foreign entity and sentenced ... Read More A court in Cambodia has convicted opposition leader Sam Rainsy in absentia of planning to cede national land to a foreign entity and sentenced him to life in prison PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- A court ... Read More PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)  A court in Cambodia on Wednesday convicted ... The Washington Post or Bloomberg News. Rather, we focus on discussions related to local stories by our own staff. Read More
World News First Execution In 12 Years Carries Out In Arkansas As Ledell Lee Given Lethal Injection | RobinsPost News & Noticias

FILE PHOTO - Inmates Bruce Ward(top row L to R), Don Davis, Ledell Lee ... clearing the way for Arkansas to become the first U.S. state since 2000 to carry out multiple executions on the same ... Read More The state, one of the nations leaders in executions, tried to kill Miller by lethal injection on September 22. But, with time running out ... one year to the day after the first execution ... Read More was executed by lethal ... news coverage and court hearings along the long road of carrying out a death sentence. Their blond, blue-eyed infant niece was killed, they said, just days before her ... Read More Prosecutors said she was last seen driving out of the restaurant ... unsuccessful. An execution last November was Mississippi's first in nine years. A lethal injection was given to David Neal ... Read More to argue that Alabamas lethal injection process creates a risk of cruel and unusual punishment. The July 28 execution of Joe Nathan James Jr. was carried out more than three hours after the U.S ... Read More The execution was postponed around half an hour before the deadline. The US Supreme Court had given ... years ago in which he requested to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia rather than lethal injection. Read More McALESTER  Oklahoma on Thursday carried out the execution of convicted ... It was the sixth lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary since executions resumed a year ago. Another 23 are ... Read More This is exactly whats seen at autopsy in the lungs of 77% of prisoners after execution by lethal injection. When Gov. Bill Lee temporarily halted executions this year to investigate our lethal ... Read More The states high court granted the motion for a warrant of execution of the 76-year-old. He will die by lethal injection or gas ... execution should not be carried out until an analysis of ... Read More
World News France Prepares For A Presidential Vote In The Shadow Of The Champs Elysees Attack | RobinsPost News & Noticias

TotalEnergies workers extend stoppages in row over pay, with transport workers joining movement The French president ... prepares to force its budget through parliament without a vote, unable ... Read More France's Ex-President: Bastille Day Attack Was 'Terror Act' By NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY and BARBARA SURK, Associated Press PARIS (AP)  Former French President ... Read More Only 33% of Americans would vote to reelect President Biden if the 2024 election were held today  and 54% would cast their ballot for another candidate, according to a Fox News poll ... Read More 20 (UPI) --The slaying of a 12-year-old girl in France ... attempt. World News // 1 day ago Putin signs law mobilizing troops with criminal records Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir ... Read More Even the very notion of democracy and the civil ritual of voting was under attack. President Joe Biden, presiding over narrow Democratic control of Washington, has seen his approval ratings buffeted ... Read More Ljubljana (AFP)  Slovenians vote on Sunday in close presidential elections seen as a chance by the country's conservatives to regain some support after their defeat in April parliamentary ... Read More Ukraine President Says He Had 'Urgent Call' With France's Macron PARIS (Reuters ... explosion on the bridge to Crimea to be a terrorist attack. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Mark ... Read More 25, 2012. Voters in Slovenia are preparing to choose a new president in a weekend election that is seen as a test for the European Union nations liberal government. Opinion polls ahead of ... Read More Thousands of people had packed Nices famed boardwalk on the Mediterranean coast on July 14, 2016, to celebrate France ... the French president at the time of the attack, told the court ... Read More
World News Pence Heads To Australia To Talk Trade Security | RobinsPost News & Noticias

National security fears in both Washington and Beijing threaten to eclipse prospects for greater commercial cooperation, leaving corporate executives worried. Read More Benita Kolovos Victorian and federal governments to announce $877m package for flood recovery Victorian businesses in flood-affected areas will be able to receive up to $200,000 in grants as ... Read More
45-year-old Fazal Abbas was killed by three sisters who entered his faith-healer father's home in Sialkot district's Pasrur city on the pretext of getting the father to pray for them, Dawn reported.

This murder comes only days after Mashal Khan was lynched to death in Mardan also on charges of blasphemy. PHOTO: Reuters.

By India Today Web Desk: A 45-year-old man accused of committing blasphemy over a decade ago was shot dead in Pakistan this week.

The man was killed by three sisters who entered his faith-healer father's home in Sialkot district's Pasrur city on the pretext of getting the father to pray for them, Dawn reported.

Once they were inside the home, the burqa-clad sisters asked the father if his son, Fazal Abbas, had returned to Pakistan from abroad.

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When Abbas walked out, the sisters opened fire, killing him on the spot.

According to Dawn, the women then raised jubilant slogans, proclaiming that they had eliminated a blasphemer.

Abbas, Dawn reported, was officially booked under Pakistan's strict blasphemy law in 2004. He had fled the country then and had only recently come back home.

The women, who were detained by police, reportedly told the cops that they couldn't kill Abbas in 2004 "because we were too young then".

STUDENT KILLED

The latest killing over alleged blasphemy in Pakistan comes close on the heels of a mass media student of the Abdul Wali Khan University student being lynched to death in Mardan.

Mashal Khan, who was accused of promoting blasphemous content on social media, was beaten and stoned until his skull caved in.

BLASPHEMY IN PAKISTAN

Blasphemy is a serious offence in Pakistan, with punishment ranging from fines to the death penalty.

The Pakistan Supreme Court has taken a serious view of the matter and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently ordered that social media websites be cleansed of blasphemous content.

According to a calculation performed by Reuters , Pakistan has seen at least 66 murders over alleged blasphemy since 1990.

Also read | Only Pakistanis behind sullying their country's image: Malala Yousafzai on student's lynching

ALSO WATCH VIDEO

--- ENDS ---
World News Contentious Jakarta Election Finally Called For Challenger | RobinsPost News & Noticias

With the midterm election fast approaching, Michigan Republicans hope a court order will nix new instructions for election challengers and poll watchers issued after the 2020 election when allies ... Read More Anderson said she has and would continue to push back against any candidate who spreads misinformation about elections but dismissed Griswold's call as too political. I will not put fuel on the ... Read More Swartzle found that some provisions in the election challenger manual  such as a ban on the use of electronic devices at absentee counting boards  were at odds with the law or failed to ... Read More A Michigan judge on Thursday ruled that state elections officials can't use a manual outlining the rights and duties of election challengers and poll watchers. Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ... Read More With the midterm election just weeks away ... which brought the lawsuit challenging the legality of the election challenger manual issued by the Bureau of Elections this year. Read More NEW YORK, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Crime dominated the debate between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Republican challenger Lee ... incumbent ahead of the Nov. 8 election. The state's majority ... Read More
World News The Rise Of Erdogan In Turkey | RobinsPost News & Noticias

When Russia backed down earlier this week over its threats to block grain shipments out of Ukraine, it was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who was among the first to break the news. Speaking to ... Read More Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday laid out his vision for Turkey in the next century, promising a new constitution that would guarantee the rights and freedoms ... Read More Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and his wife, Ingrid Schulerud, at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, Turkeys capital, on Friday, a meeting ... Read More In this case, a news ... Erdogan, an Islamist autocrat, brooks no criticism and cannot abide a free press. Turkey reportedly imprisons more journalists than any other nation in the world ... Read More Sweden's new prime minister vowed on Tuesday a firmer stance on fighting crime and terrorism during a visit to Turkey where he will seek the approval of President Tayyip Erdogan for his country's bid ... Read More Turkey will continue its efforts for the Black Sea grain export deal despite Russian hesitancy, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday after Moscow suspended its participation in the initiative at ... Read More Annual inflation in Turkey continued to rise in October and push the price of essential goods higher and amplifying a cost-of-living crisis in the country ... Read More BARTIN, Turkey (Reuters) -The death toll after an explosion in a coal mine in Turkey's northern Bartin province on Friday has reached 41, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday. Read More Annual inflation in Turkey continued to rise in October, official figures showed Thursday, pushing the price of essential goods higher and amplifying a cost-of-living crisis in the country. Consumer ... Read More Prices in Turkey are rising at their fastest rate in 24 years, according to the latest official figures. The annual rate of inflation, the pace at which prices rise, hit 78.62% in June ... Read More
World News Taliban Attacks Key Military Base In North Afghanistan | RobinsPost News & Noticias

An unidentified gunman has killed three men in the northern Afghan province of Faryab, two of them miners and the third a member of the Taliban, officials said. The attack took place on Friday night ... Read More Austin said the evacuation effort was historic and that no other military in the world ... Afghanistan. Arghand, a female anchor at TOLO, an Afghan news network, interviewed a senior ... Read More Tuesday evening Taliban assaulted the Kandahar airport, an attack ... military bases cant be anything but a suicide mission  but it will further chip away at the veneer of stability in ... Read More An attack on a vehicle in western Afghanistan killed five medical personnel employed by Taliban security forces on Thursday, a defence ministry spokesperson said. Read More The Taliban said Wednesday there is enough security across Afghanistan to restart major economic projects that stopped due to decades of war, despite a slew of attacks rocking the country since ... Read More The Taliban say there is enough security across Afghanistan to restart major economic projects, despite attacks rocking the ... Afghanistan in August 2021. World governments piled on sanctions ... Read More In the wake of Thursdays attack on troops in Afghanistan, Biden touches on what it feels like to be a member of a military family ... example for the world  the Talibans violence ... Read More The Taliban said Wednesday there is enough security across Afghanistan to restart major economic projects that stopped due to decades of war, despite a slew of attacks rocking the country since ... Read More The US military ... tried to attack and enter Panjshir yesterday from the south and north, said Ali Nazary, spokesperson for the anti-Taliban National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF).  ... Read More
World News Us Defense Secretary Reiterates Support For Israel | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Israeli President Isaac Herzog looks on during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, in Washington, DC, on October 25, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS/ ... Read More Israel reiterated on Wednesday that it will not be sending weapons systems to Ukraine as Kyiv ramps up calls for help in strengthening its air defenses. However, Israel did offer to assist Ukraine in ... Read More The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has identified an American aid worker who was fatally shot in the Iraqi capital as Stephen Edward Troell. The identification came Tuesday, a day after ... Read More
World News Islamic Kindergartens In Austria Raise Eyebrows | RobinsPost News & Noticias

NEW YORK  French cement company Lafarge pleaded guilty Tuesday to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group ... company Holcim to form the worlds largest cement maker. Read More Australia will see its first Islamic bank open for business in a significant step forward for the country's 800,000 Muslim population. Islamic Bank Australia has been granted a restricted license ... Read More Mamelodi Sundowns are the most resourceful team in South Africa as they are able to get any player they want from anywhere in the world ... matches has also raised eyebrows with both coaches ... Read More the Russian TASS news agency reported. "We appreciate the fact that in todays difficult international situation, complicated by the unilateral actions of Western countries, the Islamic world does not ... Read More Taliban security forces killed six Islamic State members in an overnight operation in the Afghan capital, Kabul, a spokesman for the ruling group's administration said on Saturday. The Islamic ... Read More Austria could have elected its first far-right head of state since World War II. This year, the Freedom Party has capitalized on inflation and rising energy prices to make modest poll gains in ... Read More 9 (UPI) --Alexander Van der Bellen won reelection as Austria's president on Sunday ... a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said Monday. World News // 39 minutes ago China's imports, exports ... Read More 18 (UPI) --A French global building manufacturing company pleaded guilty and was fined $777.78 million on Tuesday for paying the Islamic State ... policy. World News // 2 hours ago 'Loss and ... Read More received the coveted Best Islamic Bank in Qatar and the Arab World award at the Arab Banks Awards and Commendations of Excellence 2022, in recognition of its leadership in the Islamic ... Read More The agreements raise concerns that other countries will ... At last years U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, world leaders pledged to halt deforestation, phase out fossil fuel subsidies and ... Read More NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)  A plane crashed Sunday morning into Lake Victoria as it approached an airport in Tanzania, killing 19 people on board, the country's prime minister said. HARRISBURG, Pa ... Read More There are just days to go before Qatar hosts the World Cup, and rights groups fear the window for addressing the widespread exploitation of foreign workers could soon close. The long run-up to ... Read More
World News Lebanese Pm Asks Un To Help Seek Permanent Truce With Israel | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Israel said Tuesday it has reached a US-brokered agreement with Lebanon to settle their long ... committed to exporting more gas to Europe to help replace Russian deliveries hit by the war in ... Read More Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati on Wednesday said that U.S. guarantees would protect a maritime border deal with Israel should Israel's conservative former premier Benjamin Netanyahu ... Read More The text of the US-mediated agreement between Israel and Lebanon was revealed on Wednesday and it describes a permanent and equitable ... and Israel to the UN, depositing the maritime boundary ... Read More Israeli PM: Israel-Lebanon Maritime Deal to Be Signed Thursday JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A U.S.-brokered maritime border deal between Israel and Lebanon will be signed on Thursday, Israeli Prime ... Read More Earlier on Wednesday, a text of the maritime agreement was revealed, stating that Washington "understands [Lebanon/Israel] is prepared to establish its permanent maritime boundary, and conclude a ... Read More Israel and Lebanon have reached "a historic agreement" on their maritime border, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Tuesday. This is a historic achievement that will strengthen Israel ... Read More Washington will provide a written guarantee for the maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon, a source involved in Israels side of the negotiations said on Tuesday. The main points ... Read More BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Lebanon and Israel have reached a historic agreement ... made a gas find even more urgent, as it could help fix a long-standing Lebanese failure to produce adequate ... Read More Lebanon hopes gas exploration will help lift its country out of its spiraling economic crisis. Israel also hopes to exploit gas reserves while also easing tensions with its northern neighbor. Read More Lebanon hopes gas exploration will help lift its country out of its spiraling economic crisis. Lebanon and Israel both claim some 330 square miles of the Mediterranean Sea. Under the agreement ... Read More Israel and Lebanon have reached a US-brokered agreement ... bur/bs/kir The Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. Read More
World News Dozens Reported Killed In Taliban Attack On Afghan Army Base | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Afghan Witness said it analyzed dozens ... for the Taliban-run government, was not immediately available for comment. Last month, Mujahid was reported as saying the Taliban had killed 40 ... Read More CNN has reported that Sundays drone strike killed ... an Afghan news network, interviewed a senior Taliban representative on the air. The interview garnered headlines around the world. Read More Taliban forces have killed six fighters from the jihadist Islamic State group who were involved in a suicide bombing on an Afghan educational centre that killed dozens of female students ... Read More We are saddened to report ... Army soldier were killed in Thursdays attack at Kabuls airport. Another 18 service members were injured. The United States continued coordination with the ... Read More ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP)  The Taliban captured, bound and shot to death 27 men in Afghanistan ... a report published Tuesday, refuting the groups earlier claims that the men were killed ... Read More A few dozen ... World Health Organization situation report on Monday. About 12.2 million people were projected to experience food insecurity before the Taliban takeover, according to WHO ... Read More
World News Story Russian Bombers Fly Near Alaska In Fourth Incident In Four Days | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Two Air Force warplanes intercepted a pair of Russian bombers flying in international airspace near Alaska ... Casiano is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to louis.casiano@ ... Read More The United States scrambled a pair of fighter jets Monday to intercept two Russian bombers ... incident remained safe and professional and noted such interactions over international waters near ... Read More The Air Force on Monday tracked a pair of Russian bombers off the coast of Alaska, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. NORAD said two F-16 jet fighters intercepted two ... Read More detected operating near Alaska, according a NORAD news release. The Russian aircraft, identified as Tu-95 Bear-H bombers, were operating with the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ ... Read More U.S. F-16 warplanes intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace near Alaska on Tuesday ... American airspace 24 hours a day, seven days a week." "Aerospace control requires ... Read More US F-16 warplanes intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace near the state of Alaska ... Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story ... Read More US F-16 warplanes intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace near the state of Alaska, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Tuesday. The Tu-95 bombers were ... Read More ALASKA, USA  U.S. F-16 warplanes intercepted two Russian bombers in international ... "what goes on in and near North American airspace 24 hours a day, seven days a week." ... Read More 19 (UPI) --The United States sent two fighter jets to intercept two Russian bombers ... incident remained safe and professional and noted such interactions over international waters near Alaska ... Read More
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala slams government for sacking BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav for complaining about the poor quality of food served to soldiers.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Upping the ante against the NDA government on BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav's expulsion from the force, Congress is demanding that he should be reinstated to his duty.

Congress' communication department head Randeep Surjewala has asked few questions from the Modi government.

SURJEWALA SLAMS NDA GOVERNMENT Why was Tej Bahadur Yadav detained? Why was he taken into custody ? What kind of anti-national act did Tej Bahadur indulge in? What is the fault of Tej Bahadur? Why was he terminated? Should our soldiers not even complain about the quality of food being served to them? Do our soldiers not demand respect? Can this country provide them good food, clothing and weapons? Government must reinstate Border Security Force constable Tej Bahadur Yadav.

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"Modi government must come out and explain its treatment to the soldiers. Every tenth soldier is from Haryana, it's not just about Tej Bahadur but honour of India. These questions must be answered by the prime minister and the defence minister. Each one of India's soldier is the brand ambassadors of Mother India," said Surjewala.

Also read: Congress hits out at Modi, says PM has already spent Rs 200 crore on foreign trips

Also read | BSF constable Tej Bahadur Yadav is hale and hearty, clarifies BSF after photos of dead lookalike go viral

Also read: BSF sacks constable Tej Bahadur Yadav who had posted video on poor quality of food for jawans

--- ENDS ---
Punjab govt's decision to cold shoulder Sajjan can be gauged from the fact that not even a single state minister or MLA 'dared' to meet him, a retired Punjab Police havaldar's son, who rose to the rank of Canada's defence minister.

By Manjeet Sehgal: Canada's Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan's Punjab visit can be termed an opportunity that knocked at the doors of the fund-starved Captain Amarinder Singh government, but it was encashed by the neighbouring Haryana.

Punjab government's decision to cold shoulder Sajjan can be gauged from the fact that not even a single state government minister or MLA 'dared' to meet him, a retired Punjab Police havaldar's son, who rose to the rank of Canada's defence minister.

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Sajjan's relatives in his native village Bambehali, Hoshiarpur were also dismayed as only a couple of government officers were present in the village which welcomed him with marigold garlands.

Interestingly, Punjab's loss is Haryana's gain. While Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh maintained a distance from Sajjan saying he was Khalistan sympathiser, his counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar rushed to Chandigarh airport to meet him.

Sources close to Haryana government said that Sajjan was keen to meet Manohar Lal Khattar before leaving to Mumbai, but he was in New Delhi. Sajjan was at airport when Khattar landed at Chandigarh. He immediately rushed to the airport and met him.

Sajjan has assured Khattar that his government will explore the possibilities of investment in the state.

"The Canadian government is keen to invest in Haryana in the field of Civil Aviation, Education, Defence, Human Resource Development and Smart City projects .We will organise follow-up meetings to bring the investments to the state. I also discussed the two prominent MoUs signed between Haryana and Canada in 2015," Manohar Lal Khattar said.

Captain Amarinder Singh had dubbed Sajjan as sympathiser of Khalistan groups and had refused to meet him. Captain was compelled to cancel his seven days Canada tour in April 2016 as he allegedly faced a torture case in Toronto. The case was filed by a Sikh activist group. Sajjan is believed to be a member of this organisation.

Investigations had revealed that the case was filed by a Canadian who had accused that he was tortured during Captain's tenure as Chief Minister.

Opposition SAD-BJP has accused the Captain Amarinder Singh of ignoring state's interests for personal reasons.

"There were no evidences which can prove that Harjit Singh Sajjan is Khalistan supporter. Punjab missed a big investment opportunity due to personal differences of the chief minister with the Canadian leader," BJP secretary Vineet Joshi said.

Also read:

Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan offers prayers at Golden Temple

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 21 (PTI) The tax department today said it hasremoved Cyprus from the list of notified jurisdictional area with retrospective effect from November 1, 2013, thereby providing a big relief to investors and Indian companies that have raised capital from the island nation.

"Forremoval of doubts,it ishereby clarifiedthat NotificationNo.86/2013hasbeen rescindedwith effect from the dateofissue ofthe said notification, thereby, removing Cyprus jurisdictionalareawith retrospective effect from November1,2013," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said.

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India blacklisted Cyprus in 2013 for not sharing tax information.

It had classified the island nation as a notified jurisdictional area (NJA) by way ofNotification 86/2013 on grounds that Cyprus was not providing information requested by tax authorities under the taxation treaty.

Following the notification, all payments made to Cyprus attracted a 30 per cent withholding tax and Indian entities receiving money from there were required to disclose the source of funds.

However, following the revision of bilateral tax treaty between India and Cyprus last year, India had removed the island country from the black list.

Insomecasesaviewhasbeentaken bytheIncome-tax authoritiesthattherescissionofNotification No.86/2013 was notwithretrospectiveeffectfromNovember1, 2013, the CBDT circular said.

Hence, the CBDT today came out with this clarification.

India and Cyprus had on November 18, 2016, signed the revised bilateral tax treaty under which capital gains tax will be levied on sale of shares on investments made after April 1, 2017, bringing the island nation at par with Mauritius and Singapore in terms of tax treatment.

The new agreement also provides for exchange of banking information and allows the use of such information for purposes other than taxation with prior approval of competent authorities of the country. PTI JD MKJ

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A BUNGLING burglar who stole a 5,000 quad bike from a farm needed to be rescued by the police after crashing his getaway van into a wall and becoming trapped.

Colin Freer (34) had driven over 100 miles from his home in Masbrough to the Yorkshire Dales where he and an accomplice broke into an outbuilding on a farm in Hawes, York Crown Court heard.

They loaded the bike into the back of a van and drove away, but their getaway plan became unstuck when Freer drove into a dry-stone wall and became trapped in the van by the stolen quad, which had been shunted forward in the crash.

The hapless crook had no option but to sit and wait for police to arrive, said Ms Stephanie Hancock, prosecuting.

The emergency services were soon on the scene after being alerted by the victim and his neighbour.

Firefighters and ambulance staff freed the thief from his van before taking him to hospital.

Freer, of James Street, was discharged later that morning when he was arrested and charged with burglary, driving while disqualified and having no insurance.

He admitted the offences and was due to be sentenced last week but sentencing was deferred until July for him to attempt to comply with an existing curfew and rehabilitation order.

Ms Hancock said Freer and his sidekick - an unnamed man who fled the crash scene before police arrived - had driven more than 100 miles from his home in Rotherham to Hawes in Wensleydale in the early hours of November 15 last year.

They broke into the farm at about 3am by forcing the lock on the main gates and got into the outbuilding by removing a padlock, she said.

A neighbour heard the sound of the quad being loaded into the van and alerted victim Martin Coates, Ms Hancock said.

Freers van was later discovered on the B6255 near Dent, 14 miles from the scene of the burglary.

He had collided with a dry-stone wall which had)turned the Transit van on its side, said Ms Hancock.

The quad bike had been at the back of the van and trapped the defendant in the drivers seat.

Freer told police he had only recently been released from prison and had hooked up with a friend who told him he knew where they could steal a quad bike.

The court heard that Freer, of Masbrough, had 66 previous convictions for 155 offences, half of them thefts and many for burglary.

He had 14 previous convictions for driving while disqualified and was on prison licence at the time of the Hawes raid after serving time for burglary in his home patch.

Since the quad theft, jobless Freer had received a suspended prison sentence for burglary and a community order for shoplifting, the court heard.

Defence barrister Mr Nicholas Rooke conceded that Freer had a horrendous record, but asked for sentence to be deferred for three months to see how his client fared with his current probation, curfew and rehabilitation order.

Recorder Mark McKone agreed to defer sentence until July 14 on condition that Freer did not commit further offences, complied with his current court orders and provided evidence that he had been looking for work.

Any breach of these conditions meant jail was likely, he said.
Police would like to speak to this woman

A TRAIN passenger was verbally abusive to an inspector for more than ten minutes after being asked to show her ticket.

Police said the staff member at Rotherham Central station was very distressed after the April 6 incident, which is being treated as a hate crime.

A British Transport Police spokesman said: At the station a revenue barrier was in force. A woman refused to show a ticket to the inspector when asked.

The woman then became abusive towards the inspector, which lasted for over ten minutes.

PC Ewan Brechin said: As you can imagine the revenue inspector was left feeling really upset and distressed over the incident. Everyone has the right to work and travel in a safe environment.

I am keen to speak to the woman in the CCTV image as I believe she has vital information about the incident that could help with the investigation.

Anyone with information is urged to contact 0800 405040 or text 61016 citing reference 156 of April 21.
(Pictured from left to right), Ray Matthews, Wendy Whitaker, Rotherham Harriers, Sam Cooper and Andrew Mosley, Rotherham, Advertiser and Julie Benson, fundraising co-ordinator for Age UK Rotherham. 170397-1

RUNNERS at the first-ever Love Later Life Run  being organised by Age UK Rotherham and the Advertiser  have an extra incentive for lacing up their shoes.

Not only will they be playing a part in helping to put our town on the map for the right reasons, we have teamed up with Dee Jay Trophies to offer 100 runners a commemorative medal.

The event will be held in Clifton Park on Sunday, May 7, and include a 5km race, which is three laps of the park, and a one-lap fun run.

And the first 100 people to cross the finish line of the 5km race will receive a medal in recognition of their efforts.

There will also be trophies for the first man and woman to cross the finish line.

But its not the running that will be the most important part of the day  we want it to be a celebration of everything that is fantastic about our town and borough.

We want EVERYONE to come together and we think one of the best ways of uniting Rotherham is to lace up our running shoes and get Fighting Fit.

Julie Benson, fundraising officer at Age UK Rotherham, said: Its all systems go for the run. We are up to around 50 entries at the minute.

If we can get some more nearer the date and get people coming down on the day, then that will be fantastic for the first year.

The family run will begin at 10.30am and the 5km race will begin at 11.15am.

Harworth Brass Band and Rotherham African Drummers will help keep the crowds entertained and the runners motivated.

The Deputy Mayor of Rotherham, Cllr Eve Rose Keenan, has also given her backing to the event.

Entry for the 5km race costs 8, with entry to the fun run priced at 4.

Runners can either choose to raise sponsorship for Age UK or a charity of their choice.

For more information or to enter www.ageuk.org.uk/rotherham.
Botswana to host KP permanent secretariat The Kimberley Process (KP), a multilateral tool for the prevention of conflict diamonds, unanimously elected Botswana to host its permanent secretariat. The secretariat is scheduled to become operational by 2024, according to Reuters.

Zimbabwes artisanal miners depend on forests to survive Hordes of artisanal gold miners throng parts of Mazowe village in Zimbabwes Mashonaland Central Province, where they have cut down thousands of trees to process gold ore. They are some of the miners who mine without a permit, says a report in IPS.

Shanta Gold posts high-grade results at Kenyan gold project East Africa-focused gold producer, developer and explorer Shanta Gold has reported high-grade results at its West Kenya project. Company chief executive Eric Zurrin said visible gold was identified across several of the intersections.

Petra suspends operations at Williamson after wall breach at tailings storage facility Petra Diamonds says the eastern wall of the tailings storage facility at its 75%-owned Williamson mine in Tanzania was breached, resulting in flooding away from the pit into certain areas outside of the mine lease area. Petra said mine production...
Zimbabwe said it will not support the civil societys sponsored move to expand the definition of conflict diamonds to include issues such as human rights.

Mines minister Walter Chidhakwa told Rough & Polished that Harare engaged the South Africans on the sidelines of the African Mining Indaba last February and they also indicated their discomfort with the overhaul of the definition.

The contentious issue was expected to cause rancour at the Kimberley Process Intersessional meeting set for Perth, Australia early next month.

Our argument is a very simple argument. We deal diamonds lets do the best we can to ensure that our diamonds are clean, said Chidhakwa.

That is our core business, this is a UN organ there is another UN organ (that deals with human rights), before I even go there is an African Union organ responsible for human rights. If we now say human rights as they relate with diamonds must be dealt with by the Kimberley Process, (then) I dont understand what we are trying to do.

He also said that the UN and IMF as well as member countries had ways to deal with the issue of financial illicit.

Why dont we let those who have the expertise to deal with that? he asked rhetorically.

If we are asked for information, naturally we pass on the information to them so that they are able to better investigate the work, but to say we are going to take over the activities and responsibilities of other [agencies and institutions] as part of KP, I dont think its the way to go. So we were in discussions with the South Africans, we will say no to that.

KP chairperson Robert Owen Jones told Rough & Polished in February that the diamond watchdog would do a review this year and it wont surprise him if a number of countries and delegates propose things like changes to the definition of conflict diamonds.

I want to have a conversation about anything that people raise in terms of, will KP work better or not if we do this?, ultimately any decisions that we make as Kimberley Process, are decisions by consensus, so you dont just accept any one point of view, you have to listen to everyones point of view and the extent to which we might change or might not change the definition will be an agreement by all of us, equally, so its a consensus-based organization, he said.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Botswana Governments wholly-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) is set to conduct yet another rough diamond auction mid-next month with viewing of lots slated from 3 to 12 May.

Its last auction was held in March when it provided 294,553.06 carats for spot auction and 97,577.75 carats for term supply.

Spot supply refers to the number of similar lots offered in the auction while term supply refers to the number of corresponding sale lots supplied through term contracts.

ODC conducts an online auction following customer viewings of the sales lots at their offices in Gaborone.

With access to 15 percent of Debswana's run-of-mine production, ODC was said to be an important supplier to the market with sales in the region of $500 million per annum.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Signet Jewelers announced that its new Respect in the Workplace committee has appointed former U.S. federal to conduct a thorough review of the companys policies and practices regarding equal opportunity and workplace expectations, IDEX Online reported.

Judgeand her team have had a distinguished career in matters relating to workplace compliance issues and she will bring that experience to the company as she conducts a review of company policy and practices, said Helen McCluskey, Signet Director and Chair of the committee. (She) will help us ensure our programs are functioning as intended and to identify areas where we can further improve.

Judge Barbara S. Jones previously served a 16-year term in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, presiding over a wide range of cases. Prior to her U.S. District Judge nomination in 1995 by President Bill Clinton, she served as Chief Assistant to District Attorney of New York County. Along with workplace compliance issues, she has focused on corporate monitorships, internal investigations, arbitrations and mediations since leaving the bench.




Diamonds Direct has acquired both Distinctive Diamonds and Global Diamonds, giving the jewelry retail chain a total of 14 locations, National Jeweler reported.

Two of the stores belonged to Distinctive Diamonds, and two other stores  to Global Diamonds.

All four stores will continue to operate under their current brand names, for now. The staff at all four stores will be merging with employees of Diamonds Direct, with an immediate focus on adopting the Diamonds Direct way, the company said.

The acquisition of Distinctive Diamonds and Global Diamonds comes less than a year after the company announced that it was buying Dallas retailer Diamond Doctor, which now operates as a Diamonds Direct store.

Diamonds Direct ranked No. 44 on National Jewelers 2016 list of North Americas largest 50 jewelry retailers as of the end of 2015.

The Diamonds Direct chain was founded in 1995.



Theodor Lisovoy, Rough&Polished, Moscow




The ministrys representative, Svetlana Borisova, told the Supreme Court on Thursday that Jehovahs Witnesses had shown signs of extremist activity that represent a threat to the rights of citizens, social order and the security of society. The religious group repeatedly dismissed the extremist allegation arguing that reading the Bible and promoting its nonviolent message could in no way be construed as extremist. Jehovahs Witnesses would appeal the ruling, one of their lawyers said. We consider this decision an act of political repression that is impermissible in contemporary Russia, he declared. Possibly the Jehovahs Witnesses will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France. Founded in the United States in the 19th century, Jehovahs Witnesses has its worldwide headquarters in the United States and, along with all foreign-led groups outside the control of the state, is viewed with deep suspicion by Russias post-Soviet version of the KGB.
Protesting youth pelted stones in Nowhatta area of Srinagar on police and CRPF after Friday prayers .

Picture for representational purpose only.

By Ashraf Wani: Clashes erupted between protesters and security forces after Friday prayers in Srinagar and Pulwama.

Protesting youth pelted stones in Nowhatta area of Srinagar on police and CRPF after Friday prayers.

Mirwaiz Omar Farooq was not allowed to lead Friday prayers and was kept under house arrest.

Police controlled the protesters by using tear gas shells.

Similarly protesters in Pulwama and Sopore pelted stones on security forces. Situation was brought under control by police.

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ALSO READ | Kashmir: Students turn stone-pelters against police, dozens injured in clashes

ALSO WATCH | Kashmir valley tense after death of 2 civilians

--- ENDS ---
Amtrak

Four democratic senators from New York and New Jersey are urging U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to visit the rail infrastructure linking to two states to highlight the need for investment in the region's rail and transit infrastructure.

The senators, which include Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), say the series of crippling delays along the Northeast Corridor puts a spotlight on the critical need for robust investment in the region.

As you may know, the last two Secretaries of the Department of Transportation, Anthony Foxx and Ray LaHood, visited New York Penn Station during their tenures to discuss the importance of driving investment to the Northeast Corridor, the lawmakers wrote. Following in that tradition, a site visit, particularly one that allows you to witness the volume of passengers at peak travel times, will provide you detailed information about the status of the current infrastructure and the urgent need for federal investments in advancing the Gateway Project.

The senators pointed to the Trump Administrations proposed Fiscal Year 2018 budget, which reduced discretionary funding of the U.S. Department of Transportation, eliminates funding for Amtraks long distance trains and reduces or eliminates funding for several popular transportation grants. The senators note that the budget proposals zeroing out of the Federal Transit Administrations New Starts capital grant program threatens to terminate work on critical components to the Gateway Program including replacing the century-old Portal Bridge in New Jersey and new trans-Hudson rail tunnels.

In April, Sens. Booker, Menendez and Schumer cited the recent spate of New York Penn Station issues as reason to provide Amtrak with better funding.
General Motors Venezolana said Thursday that it was forced to cease operations in Venezuela due to an illegal judicial seizure of its assets.

On Wednesday, General Motors Venezolan or GMV said its plant was unexpectedly taken by the public authorities, preventing normal operations. In addition, other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities.

The seizure was granted and enforced in total disregard of GMV's right to due process, causing irreparable damage to the company, its 2,678 workers, its 79 dealers , and to its suppliers.

As a consequence, GMV today announced the immediate cessation of its operations in the country, and ensures payment of the employees' separation benefits arising from the termination of the employment relationships due to causes beyond the parties' control.

GMV said it strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights.

The company noted that it is confident that justice will eventually be served, and looks forward to continue leading the Venezuelan market. In the meantime, GMV, through its dealers, will continue to provide aftermarket service and parts for its customers.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Hawaii's two Senators have struck back at Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the nation's top law enforcement officer criticized a federal judge from their state who blocked President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration.

Sessions told conservative radio host Mark Levin on Wednesday he was "amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific" could stop Trump from executing an order he believes is clearly within the president's statutory and Constitutional power.

In an op-ed piece for CNN, Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, called Sessions' comments about U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson "ignorant" as well as "insulting and prejudiced."

"I would never criticize a judge just because he or she presides in another state, including Alabama. Sessions' Alabamans would be outraged if I did," Hirono wrote. "Yet that's exactly what the attorney general did."

"These kinds of comments reflect badly on him and the Trump administration," she added. "Does he think federal judges in Hawaii don't know the law, don't have the training (by the way, Watson graduated from Harvard Law School), or don't understand their constitutional responsibilities?"

Responding to the uproar, a statement from Justice Department spokesperson Ian D. Prior noted that Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific and where Sessions' granddaughter was born.

"The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the President's lawful exercise of authority to keep the entire country safe," Prior said.

However, Hirono argued that Sessions' comments reflect the Trump administration's discriminatory attitude and said she would expect the Attorney General to understand the independent role of the judiciary.

Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, also lashed out at Sessions in a post on Twitter, saying, "Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It's my home. Have some respect."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Editors Pick

Package delivery and logistic major Deutsche Post DHL Group Tuesday raised fiscal 2022 EBIT guidance after reporting higher third-quarter profit with strong revenues. The company also maintained its mid-term outlook for 2024. CEO Frank Appel said, "The first three quarters of the year were the most successful in our company's history thanks to the international DHL business..."

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, mostly starting Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter. The layoffs are likely to impact many thousands of employees, and the social media platform is preparing to notify employees of the job cuts, the report said. Employees already have been informed to cancel nones

German biotechnology company BioNTech SE reported Monday sharply lower profit in its third quarter reflecting weak revenues. Looking ahead, BioNTech has raised the lower end of its fiscal 2022 COVID-19 vaccine revenue estimate. In pre-market activity in Nasdaq, BioNTech shares were losing around 3.2 percent.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Apr 21 (PTI) Continuing its winning streak in Maharashtra, the ruling BJP today won Latur and Chandrapur municipal corporations, out of three civic bodies that went to polls on April 19.

Defeat in Latur came as a major embarrassment for the Congress as the district has traditionally been the bastion of the party stalwart and former chief minister (late) Vilasrao Deshmukh.

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The results of the elections held for the three municipal corporations were declared today.

The consolation for the Congress was the Parbhani municipal corporation, where the party improved its tally compared to the 2012 polls to retain power.

In 65-member Parbhani civic body, the Congress won 31 seats, NCP 18, BJP 8, Shiv Sena 6, and Independents 2.

In 2012 polls, the Congress won 23 seats, NCP 30, Shiv Sena 8, BJP 2 and others 2.

The BJPs victory in Latur stands out as the saffron party, which drew a blank in the 2012 elections, bagged 36 seats today in the 70-member civic body. The Congress won 33 seats while one seat went to the NCP.

The Latur debacle reflects poorly on the leadership potential of Amit Deshmukh, the MLA son of late Vilasrao, who was steering the Congress in elections.

In 2012 polls to the Latur civic body, the Congress won 49 seats, NCP 13, and Shiv Sena 6. Remaining two seats were won by the smaller parties.

The BJP pulled off another victory in the 66-member Chandrapur civic body, which was ruled by a coalition comprising the Congress and the NCP.

Chandrapur is the home district of the senior BJP leader and Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.

The final tally is: BJP (36), Congress (12), NCP (2), Shiv Sena (2), BSP (8), MNS (2), and Independents (4).

In 2012, the Congress won 26 seats, BJP 18, NCP 4, Shiv Sena 5, BSP 2, MNS 1, and Independents (10).

Hailing the BJPs performance, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, "BJP is creating history yet again."

He thanked the people of Latur and Chandrapur for the mandate to his party and for showing faith in his government.

The CM also congratulated the party workers for the victory.

"We will work harder and continue to work for every citizen with our mantra of good governance to serve the last man," he tweeted.

In the elections held to the ten municipal corporations across the state in February this year, the BJP won eight civic bodies. The party also made inroads into the hinterland in the elections held in February for 25 Zilla Parishads.

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In Latur Zilla Parishad (ZP) polls, the BJP had breached the long-standing Congress citadel.

For the April 19 elections to the three civic bodies, 1,284 candidates were in fray for total 201 seats.

In Chandrapur 460 candidates were in the ring, followed by Parbhani (418) and Latur (406).

A total of 7,93,621 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in the three corporations, where 62 per cent voting was registered.

Meanwhile, Mungantiwar, the Guardian minister of Chandrapur district, thanked the voters and party workers for the partys victory.

He attributed the victory to the BJPs agenda of development and transparency. PTI MR CORR NSK NSK

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 21 (PTI) The government today approved new guidelines giving consumers the right to decide service charge they wish to voluntarily pay on a hotel or restaurant bill.

The guidelines, which have made service charge "totally voluntary and not mandatory", will be sent to states for necessary action, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.

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While the new norms provide relief to those dining out, the hotel industry is not likely to take it lying down as they feel being singled out.

The Guidelines on Fair Trade Practices Related to Charging of Service Charge from Consumers by Hotels and Restaurants has been issued in public interest to protect consumers right, the government said, adding that mandatory levy of service charge amounts to unfair trade practice.

"The government has approved guidelines on service charge. As per the guidelines, service charge is totally voluntary and not mandatory now," Paswan tweeted.

"Hotels and restaurants should not decide how much service charge is to be paid by the customer and it should be left to the discretion of the customer," he added.

The guidelines are being sent to states for necessary action at their end, the minister said in another tweet.

"...the (food) bill presented to the customer may clearly display that the service charge is voluntary and the service charge column of the bill may be left blank for the customer to fill before making payment," the guidelines said.

In case of unfair and restrictive trade practices, customers are entitled to exercise their right to be heard and redressed under provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, and can approach the consumer dispute redressal commission or forum.

"If there is mandatory levy of service charge, customers can file a complaint in the consumer court," a senior consumer affairs ministry official told PTI. The current consumer protection law does not empower the ministry to go for hefty fines and stringent action against violations. However, the new Consumer Protection Bill under which an authority will be set up will have powers to take action, the official explained.

Last week, Paswan had said the ministry had prepared an advisory on the service charge issue and the same was sent to the PMO for approval.

A number of complaints from consumers have been received that hotels and restaurants were asking for service charge in the range of 5-20 per cent, in lieu of tips, the ministry had said earlier.

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Reacting to the guidelines, the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI) said the service charge levying is a global practice and a legitimate tax.

"Service charge is a global practice and one that has been in force in India for more than half a century. The charge is neither hidden nor disguised. It is categorically and boldly mentioned in the menu," Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI) President Dilip Datwani said.

"A customer patronises a food outlet with the full knowledge that he or she will be levied a service charge. It is not just hospitality (sector), but many businesses levy such charges. We cannot understand why we are being singled out," he wondered.

"It is sad to see constant demands being made from the hospitality industry on one issue or the other. One day, it is reducing food portions and on another day, it is about terminating a legitimate charge."

The guidelines made it clear that a component of service is inherent in provision of food and beverages ordered by a customer and pricing of the product is expected to cover both goods and service components.

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"Placing of an order by a customer amounts to his or her agreement to pay the prices displayed on the menu card along with the applicable taxes. Charges for anything other than the aforementioned without express consent of the customer would amount to unfair trade practices as defined under the Act," it added.

Tip or gratuity paid by customers is towards hospitality received by them beyond the basic minimum service already contracted between them and the hotel management, the new guidelines said.

"It is a separate transaction between the customer and the staff of the hotel or restaurant, which is entered into at the customers discretion," the rules added.

Stating that customers can assess quality of service and decide whether or not to pay tip only after having the meal, the order said it is "not correct" if a hotel or restaurant considers that entry of a customer to its premises amounts to his or her implied consent to pay service charge.

Any restriction on the entry into a hotel based on this amounts to restrictive trade practice as defined under the Act.

Justifying its move, the Department of Consumer Affairs said it has come to its notice that some hotels and restaurants are charging tips and gratuities from customers without their consent in the name of service charge.

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Some customers are paying tips to waiters, in addition to service charge, under the mistaken impression that it is part of taxes while in some cases, hotels and restaurants are restraining customers from entering the premises if they are not in prior agreement to pay the mandatory service charge. PTI LUX MJH AKT ANZ ARD

--- ENDS ---
Two drug addicts, Chandan Kumar and Suraj Singh Rawat, have been arrested for stealing taps from the YMCA building in Connaught Place. The duo have been stealing and selling taps since April, after learning that most buildings in Delhi's largest commercial hub were empty early in the morning.

By Chayyanika Nigam: Two drug addicts have been arrested in the Capital on Friday for stealing taps from the YMCA building in Connaught Place on Friday.

Chandan Kumar (30) and Suraj Singh Rawat (24) used to board the first metro every morning from Uttam Nagar metro station to Rajiv Chowk and Barakhamba metro stations in search of premium taps installed in offices and institutional buildings.

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Since April, the duo started stealing taps and selling them off after learning that most of the buildings in Delhi's largest commercial hub were empty early in the morning.

During investigation, police found that the two did not use any equipment to remove the premium taps from the washrooms of these buildings.

THREE TAPS STOLEN

Following the same modus operandi On April 12, Chandan and Suraj entered the CCL building, YMCA at Jai Singh Road, which was empty at that moment. Both managed to take out three taps from the second floor washroom.

As soon as the taps were taken out, the entire floor was flooded with water which alerted a security guard, who had arrived on duty.

The man rushed to the second floor and caught the two red-handed. When he tried to nab them, Suraj managed to escape.

The guard then informed the security supervisor of the building, who further made a call to the police control room.

The team reached the spot and apprehended Chandan and recovered the two Jaquar taps. During interrogation, he revealed the name of his accomplice Suraj, who was later nabbed during a raid. A third tap was recovered from him.

ADDICTED TO DRUGS SINCE LAST YEAR

Both of the accused are residents of Uttam Nagar and are unemployed. The duo became addicted to drugs since last year and started stealing iron and steel items, including taps. Both, also confessed about attempting to steal a manhole cover once. On further interrogation, the two revealed that they used to collect and sell premium bathroom taps to scrap dealers.

Suraj and Chandan also confessed that since they weren't getting enough returns from selling local taps to buy drugs, they started stealing and selling premium taps.

The two have been booked under Sections 380 (theft), 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property), 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. Now, they are lodged in Tihar jail. It is also to be mentioned that in early April, seven bathroom taps were also stolen Ferozeshah Road residence of Nationalist Congress Party MP Majeed Memon.

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The thief left the house, in the high-security Lutyens Zone, without stealing anything else. Memon, also a noted lawyer, had lodged a complaint regarding the theft with the New Delhi district police. Lutyens Zone, where the bungalows of VIPs and VVIPs are situated, has been in the news for the past few months as thieves are regularly targeting the high-profile homes and stealing whatever they can get, be it nameplates or front gate lamps.

ALSO READ | Child drug abuse: Sale of whiteners, nail paint removers to minors banned in NCR

ALSO READ | Delhi: Call centre employee returns home to dead friends, doctors claim it's case of drug abuse

ALSO WATCH | Pellets of cocaine recovered from stomachs of 2 foreigners arrested at Delhi airport

--- ENDS ---
In Delhi, a group of 500-odd college-going girls and young professionals are part of a revolutionary campaign called 'Health Over Stigma,' and call themselves 'Sexual Health Rights Defenders.'

A group of women who are part of the Health Over Stigma campaign call themselves 'Sexual Health Rights Defenders'

By Baishali Adak: How liberal and modern is Delhi when it comes to sexual health rights of single women in the city? Certainly not as cool as our popular culture-movies, fashions and novels-portray and like us to believe!

Sample this: 19-year-old Gunjan (name changed), a Delhi University (DU) student, consumed 30 i pills (an emergency contraceptive tablet) after accidentally conceiving, and bled so heavily that she had to be rushed to hospital by fellow hostellers. Not that she didn't try visiting a gynaecologist, but the old lady instead asked her - Do your parents know?

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However, a group of 500-odd college-going girls and young professionals have decided they will not take this nonsense any longer. Initiated by an NGO called 'Haiyya,' they are part of a revolutionary campaign in Delhi titled 'Health Over Stigma.'

Bearing the symbol of a caricatured 'happy' pink uterus, the girls call themselves 'Sexual Health Rights Defenders' (SHRD). They network over a wide range of universities, startups, big companies, online youth platforms like youthkiawaaz, hospitals and doctors, etc., and take their bold message forward.

'10 WOMEN DIE OF UNSAFE ABORTIONS IN INDIA EVERY DAY'

Their leader and founder of Haiyya, Aprajita Pandey, says, "It's a myth that cases of unsafe abortion occur in just rural pockets of far flung Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh or Bengal. As per estimates, 10 women die of unsafe abortions in India every day, which sees about 68 lakh pregnancy terminations a year. A chunk of them take place in Delhi."

She herself realised how grave this issue is when she contracted a severe case of UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) in 2013. "The doctor I visited took so much interest in my personal life rather than the UTI, which comes from even ubiquitous sources like dirty toilets, I stormed out of the clinic. That day I decided I had to do something about this," she informed.

A volunteer with Haiyya, Indraprastha College student Divyangana Sharma said, "It is sad that there is so much shame and dishonour associated with single women's sexual health. They cannot approach doctors for abortions, knowledge of contraceptives, even something like a suspected breast cancer without fears of snide remarks and being judged."

Dr. Ankita Srivastava, a Senior Resident at Lok Nayak Jaiprakash (LNJP) Hospital, and associated with the campaign said, "You will be surprised I see two-three cases of complications in ectopic pregnancies (conceiving in the fallopian tube instead of uterus) from taking over-the-counter MTP (Medical Termination of Pregnancy) pills in young girls every week."

"The truth is that you can legally abort a child till 12 weeks of pregnancy in an authorised hospital, under the care of a gynaeocologist. But girls are obviously scared," she rued. In the sisterhood that has arisen from the medical grievance, 'Health Over Stigma,' which once had only 10 girl members, now has over 500.

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'WE'VE CROWD-SOURCED A LIST OF DOCTORS'

Mrinalini Dayal, a campaign manager with Haiyya, said, "We have links with students in Lady Shri Ram College, Miranda House, Dyal Singh College, Ambedkar University, etc. We have already crowd sourced a list of 500 doctors who are professional and trustworthy and refer them to women in distress."

"We have recently liaisoned with URJA (the umbrella group of RWAs in Delhi) and have plans to speak to the Delhi Medical Association (DMA) and Indian Medical Association (IMA) too. We will not stop till we have our constitutional rights taken out of the hands of patriarchy and restored to us," she resolved.

ALSO READ | I'm a survivor, not a victim: Laxmi Saa

ALSO READ | Delhi: Access to washrooms, toilets still a problem for transgenders in city

ALSO WATCH | 5 ways friends and family can help a sexual assault survivor heal

--- ENDS ---
By SA Commercial Prop News

Tokai on Main shopping centre.



A R35 million upgrade and redevelopment of the Tokai on Main Shopping Centre in Main Road, Tokai which includes a new, state-of-the-art 3500 square metre Food Lovers Market, is nearing completion.

Colin Anderson, a director of the Rabie Property Group, said the building work had been completed and final touches were now being done.



He said the Food Lovers Market had accounted for the bulk of the redevelopment - which included raising the roof to bring in natural light - with five other shops being closed or relocated to make way for the enlarged store.



The groups largest store in the Western Cape, the Food Lovers Market had opened in December and was trading way ahead of expectations attracting customers from far afield.



As a fresh produce emporium it is really spectacular offering not only a huge variety of fruit and vegetables but also cheeses, meat, fish, chocolates and pasta. There is also a general grocery department, a bakery, a deli, a sushi bar, coffee shop, biltong bar, wood burning pizza oven and wine bar.



Anderson said the incredible support from local shoppers justified the upgrade as there had certainly been a pent up demand for genuine convenience retailing in the area.



And the increased foot count the new Food Lovers Market is drawing to the centre will no doubt improve the trading density of all the tenants.



Graeme Liebenberg, Group Property & Business Development Manager, of Food Lovers Market, said the store had exceeded all expectations in terms of sales performance which bears testimony to the fact that we are providing what the consumer is looking for.



The new Food Lovers Market gives the customer the Theatre of Food experience, which is unique in South African food retail and brings a level of excitement to an otherwise mundane experience.



The Tokai Food Lovers Market is the latest example of our innovation and years of constantly analyzing international food trends offering the customer an experience that is right on the forefront of global food retail and which could be in New York, Paris or London.



The shopping centre, which is managed by Rabie Property Administrators, includes Baby City, Sportsmans Warehouse, Super Plants, Postnet and Dial a Bed. This too has received a facelift with work now nearing completion.



The redevelopment had also improved the parking flows while still retaining in excess of 370 parking bays.



The redevelopment of the shopping centre, along with other large urban renewal projects in the area including the upgrade of the nearby Blue Route centre, was assisting the repositioning of the area as a strong commercial node and there had also been a strong pick up of inquiries for the adjacent offices in recent months, said Anderson.
The Congress on Friday expelled Barkha Singh from the party, a day after she resigned from all party posts raising questions over the leadership of Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken.

The action was taken by state unit's Disciplinary Committee headed by former Minister Narendra Nath. The committee found Singh undertaking anti-party activities.



"Disciplinary Committee of the DPCC in its meeting has unanimously decided to expel Barkha Singh for period of six years from the party for undertaking anti-party activities just before the MCD elections," a party statement said.



Singh, a former chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, was removed from her post as chief of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee's women's wing.





Earlier, resigning from the post Singh lashed out at senior party leaders.



"Congress party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and Ajay Maken has only used the issue of empowerment of women and women security to gather votes. The issue means nothing to them," she said.



"In an organisation where I myself am unsafe, how will I empower other women in that organisation? That is why I hereby resign from the post of President of Delhi Mahila Congress."



"Rahul Gandhi is unfit to lead the party," she said.
Condemning the attack on Kashmiri students in Rajasthan's Mewar University, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday appealed to all state governments to ensure safety of Kashmiris.

"I appeal to all the chief ministers to ensure safety of Kashmiri youths. No Kashmiri should be harassed. If such incidents happen, action should be taken," Rajnath Singh told the media here.



The minister also said he has asked the home ministry officials to circulate an advisory in this regard.





Rajnath Singh's remarks came a day after six Kashmiri students studying in Mewar University were were beaten up by some locals in Chittorgarh district.



Dubbing the incident as "unfortunate" the minister said: "Kashmiris are citizens of India and part of our family. They should not be harassed. I condemn the attack."
The leaders of Jammu and Kashmir's ruling PDP-BJP coalition on Friday discussed the prevailing situation in the valley which has been on the boil since the Srinagar Lok Sabha by-poll earlier this month.

The meeting was held at the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) headquarters in Jammu.



BJP's National General Secretary Ram Madhav and senior leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), including Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, attended the meeting.



BJP leader Avinash Rai Khanna and state BJP chief Sat Sharma were also present in the meeting where a discussion was held on the way forward to bring peace to the troubled Valley.



Divergent voices have emerged from the two ruling coalition partners about handling of the situation in Kashmir ever since the April 9 Srinagar by-poll violence and the killing of eight persons in security forces firing. A re-poll on April 13 for 38 seats also saw violence and the killing of another youth in Srinagar. Protests have also rocked colleges in the valley, leading their closure.





The BJP also sought feedback about the law and order situation from top officials and on dealing with the tense situation on the ground, sources said.
Over 50 students of the Jaypee University of Information Technology (JUIT) near Shimla have been hospitalised following suspected food poisoning, a senior doctor said on Friday.

"The students were admitted late last (Thursday) night...," Shimla's Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMCH) Senior Medical Superintendent Ramesh Chand told media.



After taking meals the students had developed restlessness, abdominal discomfort and generalised weakness. "They started coming to hospital in groups at around 2 a.m.," he added.

Their condition have started improving, he said.



The prestigious JUIT is located in Waknaghat in Solan district, some 25 km from the state capital Shimla.
Four members of the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), a militant outfit, were arrested on Friday on charges of extortion, kidnapping and opening fire at several places, police said.

"These four KRA cadres had ambushed two oil tankers in Kangpokpi district (of Manipur) on Tuesday. No weapons were recovered. However four handsets and nine SIM cards were recovered from them," Director General of Police L.M. Khaute said.





"We believe that the different SIM cards were used to make extortion calls and for other illegal activities. The matter is under investigation," he added.





Khaute said the KRA has a nexus with the Kuki National Front (H) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (Lalheiba). The police is expecting some more breakthroughs, he added.





Police said the KRA is a signatory to the suspension of operations with the government. The main ground rules say that they cannot move around with arms and indulge in violence. They should be confined to the designated camps.
The vexed issue of restrictions on American H-1B visas has been taken up with the US administration by Arun Jaitley ' title='Finance Minister Arun Jaitley '>Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his ongoing visit to the US, an Indian official said on Friday.

The issue was raised by Jaitley at his meeting here on Thursday with AUS Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, an Indian Finance Ministry statement said.



"Finance Minister raised the issue of recent executive orders which indicate a possible tightening of the H-1B visa regime," it said.



"He outlined the significant contributions the skilled Indian professionals have made to the US economy and expressed the hope that the US administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decision," it added.



Jaitley is on a five-day visit to the US to attend the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.



Speaking to the media in New Delhi on the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on H-1B visas, Indian Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that the US had committed certain number of these visas to India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and "we would definitely want" America to honour that commitment.



"It is not just the US, but several countries now adopting such (restrictive) measures," she said.



The restrictive visa regime would also impact the US companies operating in India, the Minister said.



"So it is not a unilateral (issue) where Indian companies would have to face this... there are several US companies in India which are doing business for years here," she said.



While the US is reviewing its visa programme for foreign workers, Australia has recently abolished a temporary work visa programme -- the 457 visa.



Citing the examples of these countries tightening their visa regime for movement of skilled professionals, Sitharaman said: "Countries are now very clearly raising protectionist walls as regards service trade."



"I protest comparison of asylum-seeking migrants with skilled professionals."



To a question whether India would take the US and Australia to the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism, she replied: "At this stage, we will engage constructively. At the same time, India will ensure that it will not accept unfair treatment."
The US state of Arkansas carried out its first execution in more than a decade after the Supreme Court, in a last-minute series of orders, rejected requests by a death row inmate to stay his lethal injection.

The US state of Arkansas carried out its first execution in more than a decade after the Supreme Court, in a last-minute series of orders, rejected requests by a death row inmate to stay his lethal injection.

Ledell Lee, who was condemned to death for the murder of Debra Reese more than 20 years ago in a Little Rock suburb, died at 11.56 p.m. on Thursday and was pronounced dead 12 minutes later at a prison in southeast Arkansas, the New York Times reported.

Lee was executed shortly after the US Supreme Court denied emergency motions in his case. He received injections of three drugs: Midazolam, to render him unconscious; vecuronium bromide, to halt his breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop his heart.

He requested the Holy Communion as his last meal, and declined to make a final statement, the Arkansas Department of Correction said.

Arkansas's store of midazolam drug is set to expire at the end of the month and that is what triggered the Department of Correction to plan an unprecedented string of eight executions in ten days this month.

But four of these men have received stays for various reasons.

The last execution carried out in Arkansas was in 2005.

At one point on Thursday night, the Supreme Court nearly halted Lee's execution, but decided, 5 to 4, to allow the state to proceed with its plan.

The court's majority -- which included the newest justice, Neil M. Gorsuch -- did not explain its decision, but in a dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer complained about how the state had established its execution schedule because of the approaching expiration date of Arkansas's stock of midazolam.

Lee was convicted in 1995 in the murder of Debra Reese, 26, two years prior, the daily reported.

Reese was found dead in her home in Jacksonville, where she had been strangled and beaten with a small wooden bat her husband gave her for protection.

Lee's execution prompted immediate criticism.

"Today is a shameful day for Arkansas, which is callously rushing the judicial process by treating human beings as though they have a sell-by date," Amnesty International said in a statement.

But Arkansas officials cast the execution as a milestone.

"Tonight, the lawful sentence of a jury which has been upheld by the courts through decades of challenges has been carried out," Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement.
Pakistan has said that consular access to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, who it dubbed a "serial killer", was "not an automatic option".

Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said on Thursday that in all such cases, the request would be decided on the basis of merit, The Nation reported on Friday.



He said India summoned Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner on the issue of consular access to Jadhav "but this is not something new".



Zakaria pointed out that Jadhav had been given the death sentence after he confessed "he was involved in terror financing, subversive and terrorist activities in Pakistan besides being a spy and indulging in espionage".



He said Pakistan and India have a bilateral agreement on consular access but all cases were decided on merit.



Asked if the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India would meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kazakhstan, the spokesperson said: "There is nothing on the table yet, as the SCO Summit is almost two months away.





"Nevertheless, we have consistently maintained that meaningful, result-oriented dialogue, sustainable and constructive engagement to address all outstanding issues, particularly the Kashmir dispute, is the only way forward. Hostility and escalation benefits none."



India has said that if Jadhav was hanged, it would amount to pre-meditated murder. A Pakistani military court sentenced him to death.
The World Bank has pledged to give $6 billion in credit to Bangladesh over the next three years.

Bangladesh over the next three years.The announcement came after Finance Minister AMA Muhith held a meeting with the global bank's Vice President for South Asia Region, Annette Dixon, at its Washington D.C. headquarters on Thursday on the sidelines of the Spring Meeting of the World Bank Group.

Dixon said the World Bank would provide the money to the country in three instalments of $2 billion each in every fiscal year from 2017-18 to 2019-20, Muhith told bdnews24.com.

Muhith said the previous three-year loan package of the World Bank is ending in June. The World Bank had pledged to give $4 billion from 2014-15 to 2016-17 financial year, he said.

_

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Targeting BJP, Arvind Kejriwal said if your children get dengue or chikungunya, then you yourself will be responsible for it, because you voted for a party that spreads mosquitoes that breed dengue or chikungunya.

By Pankaj Jain: Two days before the Delhi MCD elections, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lashed out against BJP and Congress and appealed to the people not vote for them. Targeting BJP, he further said, "if your children get dengue or chikungunya, then you yourself will be responsible for it, because you voted for a party that spreads mosquitoes that breed dengue or chikungunya."

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He said that, "BJP is in MCD for the last 10 years but still it cannot clean Delhi. How a party can clean Delhi if it cannot get rid of mosquitoes in 10 years? And if you vote BJP, then in the coming 5 years, there will be so much garbage in Delhi that people will have dengue and chikungunya."

While talking about Congress, Kejriwal said, "Congress has lost its hold over the country and is finished in Delhi. People should not waste their votes by voting for Congress."

He further said that, "We are getting complaints about water and electricity shortage. I want to tell the people of Delhi that BJP and Congress workers have stolen oil from 70 places, and at many places they have put cement in sewer pipelines because of which water is flowing on roads at some places. Till Sunday, these people will steal oil and create water scarcity in the city.

Polling for the upcoming MCD election ends today evening. The AAP is fighting in all the 272 wards. They won five wards last year.

The MCD election in Delhi's 272 municipal wards will be held on Sunday while the results will be declared on April 26.

The total number of voters in Delhi stands at 1,32,10,206, which include 73,15,915 men, 58,93,418 women, and 793 voters in the other category. Among them, over 1.10 lakh people will be exercising their franchise for the first time.

Also read:

Delhi MCD election: Ruling AAP survey claims it's winning, ABP News-C Voter opinion poll gives it to BJP

MCD election 2017: Did Amit Shah cancel his rally due to BJP's weak strategy for crucial civic polls?

WATCH THE VIDEO:

--- ENDS ---
Find out final information before heading to the polls Tuesday

As the 2022 midterm election day is finally upon us, here's where Saline County citizens can find out where to vote.
The BJP has won Latur Municipal Corporation for the first time since Independence as the Congress was voted out after an aggressive campaign by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

By India Today Web Desk: If you heard of Latur, the chances are high that you heard the name for some drought story. The Maharashtra district has failed to deal with consecutive drought for past five years.

The track record was not much better in the preceding years. Drought and Congress were the two constant things for Latur. The Congress had been ruling the 70-member Latur Municipal Corporation since Independence.

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But, the city has this time picked up the BJP following an inspiring campaign led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

During his campaigns, Fadnavis said, "If the BJP is voted to power, Latur will become drought-free."

When polling took place on Wednesday, Latur responded with making the city Congress-free for the first time in 70 years.

POLL RESULTS

Of the 70 seats in the Latur Municipal Corporation, the BJP won 41. The Congress stood second in the tally table with 28 corporators while NCP won one seat.

The elections were also held for Chandrapur and Parbhani municipal corporations. The BJP won Chandrapur while the Congress emerged victorious in Parbhani.

The BJP won 36 seats in Chandrapur, followed by the Congress, which secured 12 seats, NCP 2, Shiv Sena 2 while others managed to keep 14 seats.

In Parbhani Municipal Corporation, Congress won 29 of 65 seats, the NCP 20, the BJP 8, Shiv Sena 6 while others were victorious at 2 seats.

FADNAVIS AT WORK

If the BJP has done well in the latest civic polls, credit goes to Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, who had led equally well campaigns for Amravati and Pune local body elections.

In Mumbai's BMC poll, the BJP improved its vote share and seats tally significantly and came a close runner-up to the Shiv Sena.

The Latur, Chandrapur and Parbhani civic polls were being seen as another test for Fadnavis' electoral strategy.

LATUR IS A BIG PRIZE

Latur has been a Congress stronghold. It was the bastion of former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh but the region has consistently faced acute water shortage.

The images of trains carrying water to Latur last year are still fresh in public memory.

During the campaign, Fadnavis not only promised to seek a permanent solution to the water problem of the region, he also said that the farmers would not be required to pay electricity bills for the electric pumps which could not be used because of power shortage.

Fadnavis also promised to provide Rs 561 crore for better electricity supply in the entire Marathwada region.

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ALSO READ |

Maharashtra: About 62% voter turnout in three municipal corporations

Panvel among 3 municipal corporations to go to polls on May 24

ALSO WATCH | BMC polls: Historic win for BJP in Maharashtra, says Nitin Gadkari

--- ENDS ---
Finland has a new Ambassador to Samoa. Lars Erik Backstrom was welcomed yesterday with a traditional ava ceremony at the Head of States residence in Tuaefu.

He then presented his credentials to His Highness, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi.

 As ambassador of Finland to Samoa I will do my very best to promote relations between our two nations, he said.

I am especially pleased to say that my government and the Finnish Meteorological Institute have been much involved for a number of years with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (S.P.R.E.P) in helping your and other South Pacific nations improve meteorological service and livelihoods of your communities. The project is known as Finpac.

There will be a meeting in the Solomon Islands in August to take stock of the projects achievements.

His Highness Tui Atua welcomed the new Ambassador.

Samoa and Finland have enjoyed a friendly and fruitful relationship since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries in 1999, he said.

This has largely been attained through the pursuit of our common interests and aspirations in international fora for maintaining prosperity, peace and security in our regions and beyond.

For a small country like Samoa, the rule of law, climate change and the environment, effective management of our marine resources, regional security, renewable energy, and hospitable tourism remain tropical issues.

In this regard, we appreciate the assistance of your Government through the development of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (F.M.I.) given to S.P.R.E.P. states, which Samoa is a beneficiary of, to facilitate weather services, especially in assessing the developing tropical cyclones that has been frequent in the Pacific region due to effects of climate change.

In this spirit we look forward to working closely with your government in finding way to address these challenges through effective dialogue, collaboration and mutual respect.

Mr. Backstrom graduated with a Master of Political Science from Abo Akademi in 1980.

In 1982, he began his diplomatic career as an attache at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Helsinki.

Later he was assigned to many of the following diplomatic posts: Second Secretary and Deputy Chief in Mission of Turkey (1983-1986); A first Secretary and Deputy Chief of Mission in Nigeria (1986-1989); Counsellor of Political Affairs at the Permanent Mission in New York (1991-1994); Counsellor of EUs Common Foreign and Security Policy in Belgium (1994-1997); before becoming the Director of Humanitarian Assistance at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Helsinki (1994-1997).

He was later nominated by the government of Finland to be an Ambassador in various Finnish missions in Asia and Pacific.
The discussion about the recent typhoid outbreak in Auckland, which led to the death of a Samoan woman there, was largely muted on these shores.

We say this because although there was the occasional report here and there about the possible connections  if there was any  between the Samoans affected in Auckland and back here, the message from the local health authorities was relatively reassuring.

That was there is no need to panic and that everything was under control.

Of course when things like the outbreak in Auckland happened, its natural to expect people to panic.

Who wouldnt when its happening to our own people? And although this is a question that has yet to be answered, what if the woman actually got it from Samoa?

And so it was understandable that a senior lawyer had written to the Prime Minister to express her concerns, reminding about the consequences of being ignorant about such diseases.

In a letter, dated 6 April 2017, New Zealand-based Samoan lawyer, Leuluaialii Olinda Woodroffe, wrote to Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, urging him to act immediately to avoid the outbreak reaching epidemic proportion in Samoa like it did with the Spanish flu.

I am seriously concerned about a possible outbreak of typhoid amongst Samoans including Samoans in Samoa who may have come to New Zealand to attend the funeral and returned without knowing that they are infected, she said.

Even if no one came from Samoa, we have people travelling to and from New Zealand to Samoa, and some Samoans who are now infected may bring the disease to Samoa.

Leuluaialii went on to accuse the Auckland Regional Public Health Service Clinic of being negligent.

In my view, there has been a clear negligent act by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service Clinic in not letting the members of the family of the woman who died; and in not letting members of the church that she had her funeral service at; and in not informing the public to be vigilant and take extra care, because there is now an outbreak of typhoid, which is serious.

We can deal with this issue later.

Suffice to say, however, that my call is to alert you of a possible outbreak of typhoid in Samoa, and invite you to alert and inform people of Samoa and the medical profession in Samoa to be on alert, to be vigilant and seek help immediately to prevent the spread of this serious disease in Samoa.

Prevention is better that cure. We do not wish to see an outbreak, as Samoa experienced in the past with the Spanish flu.

We dont need to remind you about the devastation caused by the Spanish flu. And although some people might say that Leuluaialii was overreacting, she had a valid point and her concern is a legitimate one.

It is always better to err on the side of caution.

Now the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Leausa Dr. Take Naseri, immediately reassured the nation there is nothing to worry about.

Leausa said they had written to the New Zealand I.H.R. Focal Point for details on the deceased Samoan woman but they have yet to receive any information.

We havent seen any reports on the deceased travel history or any documentation of her travel to Samoa before we can link it to contracting typhoid while here in Samoa.

Even now we dont have a name to start off with. So we need more facts before we can comment whether she got the disease while travelling to Samoa or to another place.

That was some two weeks ago. It would be interesting to find out the latest developments  especially if the woman had travelled to Samoa and whether she was in contact with people who have since returned to Samoa.

In the meantime, Leausa and the Ministry of Health had used the opportunity issue a general warning for Samoan people travelling to New Zealand especially to the affected areas where the outbreak has occurred.

Those who have been treated were from Mt Roskill, Manurewa and Blockhouse Bay, at this stage, he said. We are not sure of the scope of the outbreak so extra precaution should be exercised when travelling to these affected areas.

But how can we protect ourselves?

Basic hand washing, good personal hygiene, drinking clean & safe water is the best prevention and protection.

Typhoid was spread primarily through water and food but could be spread person to person.

Typhoid is a serious illness and it is potentially fatal.

Symptoms include a high fever developing over several days, headaches, general weakness and muscle aches. Stomach pain and constipation are also common (particularly in children), but some people get diarrhea.

So there you go folks, its always best to be well informed.

Have a safe weekend Samoa, God bless!
Samoa now has an official union for seafarers aptly named the Samoa Seafarers Union (S.S.U.).

The union is led by president, Fred Amoa.

At the launching of the union at the Maritime School in Mulinuu, Mr. Amoa said he wants everyone to know there is a union vested in seafarers now.

This is to make known to the rest of the country and the seafarers that havent registered that we have a seafarers union now, he said.

Were organizing this union to ensure that the seafarers are taken care of and also to work with the government agencies, especially employment opportunities for our qualified seafarers who have come out of the university, he said.

Mr. Amoa also stressed the importance of having a union to help seafarers seek employment after they graduate from the Maritime School.

When they come out they will need employment, he said.

This is where the union will come and try to help them get on merchant vessels and shipping companies overseas. The idea is to try and connect with fishing fleets that requite seafarers to work on their ships.

The seafarers union is now working under a work plan to implement a programme of activities pursuant to its objective. It is our hope that this union will be supported by the government and its ministries as well as the commercial private sector community.

It is our belief that we can source and find employment for our sea farers and with the support of our community this can be a very successful endeavour to find employment for many of our qualified seafarers.

We have seen large cruise liners bringing many tourists to our shore and the challenge is why cant we have our seafarers working on these ships?

It is an issue that the union would like to explore with the relevant government ministries to supply seafarers to these ships that employ thousands on board.
The feeling was bitter sweet for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (M.N.R.E.) yesterday.

The occasion was to allow them to bid farewell to the outgoing Chief Executive Officer, Suluimalo Amataga Penaia and welcome the new boss, Ulu Bismarck Tamati Crawley.

The ceremony was held at the E.F.K.S. hall with hundreds of employees in attendance.

Minister of M.N.R.E, Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, spoke on behalf of the government to thank Suluimalo for all the hard work he has done.

On behalf of the government, cabinet ministers and everyone here today, we would like to take this special opportunity to thank you very much Sulu, Fiame said.

For when one door closes another opens and we wish you all the best for your future endeavours.

Suluimalo acknowledged everyone who have helped him along the way.

From the bottom of my heart, thanks for all the efforts and the support that youve shown in the last three years.

The ceremony also welcomed the new Chief Executive Officer, Ulu Bismarck Crawley.

The appointment of Ulu was endorsed by Cabinet last week.

I am very humbled and honoured to be chosen as Chief Executive Officer of the M.N.R.E. for the next three years, Ulu told the Samoa Observer.

Whatever plans that the government directs me to work on in the next three years, I will give it my best.

Yes, there will be challenges along the way, but they make us stronger everyday and prepare us for the future.

Ulu said he is excited to be serving the people of Samoa.
PARIS (AP)  The Paris police officer who was shot to death while at work on the French capital's most famous boulevard had seen firsthand the horror that could be carried out in the name of the Islamic State group.

Xavier Jugele was one of the officers who raced to the Bataclan concert hall the night three armed men in suicide bombs stormed a show and slaughtered 90 people on Nov. 13, 2015.

In the latest attack, Jugele was the only person killed when an assailant opened fire with an assault rifle on a police van parked on the Champs-Elysees. The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility, and authorities say the gunman had a note defending IS with him.

Paris police declined to give details about Jugele's career and life, saying his family had asked for privacy. Mickael Bucheron, president of a French association of LGBT police officers, told The Associated Press Jugele would have celebrated his 38th birthday at the beginning of May.

"He was a very simple man, with a big heart. A real nice guy," Flag! Vice President Alain Parmentier told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "And he really loved his job."

Jugele was in the van's driver's seat when he was shot dead. Two other officers were wounded. The attacker was shot and killed by officers at the scene.

Laurent, a police colleague and friend of Jugele's who also was deployed to the Bataclan attack, said Jugele was in a civil union and that his partner has a child. Laurent asked not to be identified by his last name because he does not represent the Paris police officially.

Both officers returned to the concert venue a year later when it reopened with a concert by Sting. Jugele told People magazine at the time how happy he was to be "here to defend our civic values."

"It's symbolic. We're here tonight as witnesses. This concert's to celebrate life. To say no to terrorists," he said.

Jugele had worked in the Paris area as a police officer since 2011. At the time of his death, he was a member of the Paris police department's public order and traffic division.

"It was one of his final missions, he was about to join another service," Parmentier said.

Jugele had received praised from his bosses earlier this year for his courage during the evacuation of a building ravaged by an accidental blast in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt.

Laurent said Jugele had also served in Greece for Frontex, the agency in charge of border control of Europe's 26-nation Schengen Area.

French president Francois Hollande said a national tribute will be paid to Jugele, "who was cowardly assassinated."
Stem cell research begins with scientists, passes on to physicians and ends up with patients.

But those roles arent as separate as they seem, said speakers Thursday at a special meeting held by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the states stem cell agency, and UC San Diego.

The agency is beginning a statewide tour to discuss the progress of its treatments through the lengthy research and clinical trial process. One priority is to make sure all those involved understand each others needs, and how they can help.

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Speaker David Higgins has multiple roles built into his life. A San Diegan with Parkinsons disease, Higgins sits on CIRMs governing board.

Patient input is heard throughout CIRM, Higgins said, addressing the audience of more than 100 at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine on Torrey Pines Mesa.

Patient advocates sit on reviews for grant funding, Higgins said. Nothing ever goes out the door without it being screened through the eyes of a patient advocate.

Patients can now take a much more active role in managing their illness and advocate for others, Higgins said, because doctors now recognize that treating disease is a partnership.

Now were looking at a two-way relationship, Higgins said. I dont know a single physician that Ive ever talked to who doesnt welcome this, Higgins said.

And in the long run, nobody can escape patienthood, said Dr. Catriona Jamieson, an oncologist-researcher at UCSD Moores Cancer Center.

Were all going to be patients, were all going to be health care users, Jamieson said. I dont see the patient term as in any way stigmatizing, because its part of using our health care system.

Making sure these roles are harmonized is important to CIRM, which has about $800 million left of the $3 billion given by California voters in 2004 in Proposition 71.

And while CIRM cant formally lobby on the issue, those who support the agency recognize they need public support if they want more money from taxpayers.

Jamieson said CIRM has helped her research, her UCSD colleagues and patients by grants and funding alpha stem cell clinics, including one at UCSD. These clinics help translate science into patient care, and help scientists and doctors share ideas and resources.

What we know so far is that great medicine requires great science, said Jamieson, who specializes in blood cancers.

Audience member Adrienne Shapiro was there as a patient advocate for sickle cell disease. Shes a carrier of the trait, and her daughter, Marissa Cors, has the disease. CIRM has funded a program to develop a better bone marrow transplant to treat the disease.

Cors said one of her main issues is dealing with the pain sickle cell disease causes her.

The pain medications are really the key at this particular point in  the journey, Cors said, hesitating slightly in discussing the course of her disease.

Cors said shes hopeful that the CIRM program helps others.

Im looking for something effective for the community, Cors said.

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

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The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday accelerated its deregulation push under Republican control, voting to ease limits on broadcast TV ownership and prices that large telecom companies can charge businesses and governments for bulk broadband services.

Revisions to how the agency calculates the audience reached by broadcasters would clear the way for Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. to purchase Tribune Media Co., which owns KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles and 41 other stations.

Thursdays changes, advocated by the agencys new chairman, Ajit Pai, and approved on party-line votes, reverse initiatives the FCC pursued under Democratic leadership during the Obama administration. Consumer groups and some lawmakers warned that the deregulation steps would trigger more media consolidation and higher prices for consumers.

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The moves came as Pai is expected to soon try to roll back the controversial net neutrality rules for online traffic that were pushed through by former chairman Tom Wheeler.

A small group of protesters disrupted the meeting briefly, singing a song indicating they would fight any attempt to water down those rules, which are designed to ensure the free flow of Internet content.

The FCCs sole Democrat, Mignon Clyburn, said it was abhorrent that the policy goal is deregulation at all costs. She opposed both regulatory changes Thursday.

Pai said he was not acting from ideological zeal but just trying to promote more competition.

The overall approach is pretty simple -- its not to deregulate or over-regulate, Pai told reporters after the meeting.

Sinclair and Tribune Media are two of the largest owners of broadcast stations. Their reported desire to combine would create a company whose total audience would have exceeded a statutory cap under the FCCs former rules that limit reach to 39% of the nations television households.

Tribune Media was formerly Tribune Co., which owned The Times before spinning off its newspapers into a separate company in 2014.

The FCC on Thursday reinstated the so-called UHF discount, which allows stations broadcasting on those higher-frequency airwaves  channels 14 to 83  to count only half of their audience against the cap.

The FCC voted 3-2 in the summer to eliminate the discount, arguing the 2009 federally mandated switch to digital TV ended the technical inferiority of the weaker UHF signals. The FCC grandfathered in existing station groups that exceeded the cap but said the exception could not be transfered in a sale.

Pai and the FCCs other Republican, Michael ORielly, opposed the 2016 change, arguing it was unlawful to alter the way the cap limits were calculated. With Republicans now holding a 2-1 majority, they were able to reverse the change on Thursday.

Pai said the UHF discount and the cap were inextricably linked and it made no sense to change one without considering a change to the other. He promised the FCC would launch such a review later this year.

But Clyburn said the UHF discount had outlived its purpose and reinstating it would allow a broadcast station group to reach up to 78% of the nations TV households.

The FCCs action will reduce competition, ownership diversity and local content and is a huge gift for large broadcasters with ambitious dreams of more consolidation, she said.

Two top congressional Democrats, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, wrote to Pai this week opposing the change.

The UHF Loophole is unfair to the public because it treats UHF stations differently only for one purpose  to let big station conglomerates own more stations across the country, they wrote.

A Sinclair/Tribune deal would be bad news for consumers because it would reduce independent voices in some markets and could lead to higher pay-TV bills because Sinclair charges more than Tribune for cable companies to carry their stations, Pelosi and Pallone wrote.

The FCCs decision to reduce price controls on bulk broadband access  known as business data services  came after Wheeler had proposed to tighten them last year. He gave up on the attempt to stiffen regulations on the $45-billion market after the November election when Republican lawmakers urged him not to push controversial measures in the weeks before party control of the FCC switched.

Large telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. provide special connections to heavy data users such as banks, retailers, schools and hospitals for services such as ATMs, credit-card authorizations and general Internet access.

Pai said FCC price controls were preventing existing providers from expanding their networks and discouraging new entrants, such as cable companies.

Price regulation is seductive, he said. In reality, price regulation threatens competition and investment.

The FCC voted to eliminate price regulations in competitive markets and reduce the rules in noncompetitive ones to try to lure new entrants. The changes will be phased in over three years.

Clyburn complained that the new rules define a market as competitive even if it has only one bulk broadband provider, as long as a competitor has access lines within half a mile.

Consumer groups said the elimination of price controls would lead to higher costs for businesses.

Ultimately, these price hikes will be passed on to consumers, and American families and businesses will pay dearly for the green light the FCC has given to the unfettered exercise of market power by dominant telecommunications providers, said Phillip Berenbroick, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, a digital rights group.

The federal Small Business Administrations Office of Advocacy urged the FCC to delay a vote, as did the European Union, which said it was worried the changes could affect the global business-to-business data services market.

Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

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San Diego has long been known as a top destination for conventions, but it turns out its equally popular for associations and companies looking to book a small gathering at a hotel.

Thats according to Meetings.com, a technology company that serves as something of a matchmaker for groups and hotels looking to fill their meeting space.

Based on the number of meetings booked through the online site, San Diego came out on top as the city with the widest appeal for small meetings, followed by Charlotte and Atlanta. Rounding out the top five were Las Vegas and Minneapolis.

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In all, Meetings.com booked 3,000 groups last year for San Diego meetings, from the Hypnobirthing Institute and Fuzzbuster Films to the Faith Bible Church.

Small meetings are typically defined as having a maximum 50 attendees and requiring no more than 30 guestrooms.

Although larger meetings fill the citys waterfront convention center with thousands of attendees, there generally are 25 smaller meetings booked for every large one, said Meetings.com President Ross Hoskings.

You have the large blocks of meetings that hotels build their year around, and then they fill in around those with small meetings, Hoskings explained. Even a large hotel like the Manchester Grand Hyatt would fill in with these small meetings; otherwise, theyd have these peaks and valleys.

A sister brand of HotelPlanner, Meetings.com will typically send 3,000 business meeting leads a day to hotels it works with. September and October are more popular months for smaller meetings because hotel rates tend to be more affordable then, Hoskings said.

San Diego has got great restaurants, great weather, good air service, and a fantastic location that people doing small meetings are attracted to, he said.

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lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

Twitter: @loriweisberg
The O Panneerselvam camp will be happy if mid-term poll happens in Tamil Nadu. Still, the OPS and EPS camps are in talks for a possible merger.

By Prabhash K Dutta: With the Election Commission giving the two factions of the AIADMK time till June 16 to submit supporting documents to claim the frozen party symbol 'Two Leaves', the talks of merger of O Panneerselvam and E Palaniswami camps have further intensified.

Chief Minister E Palanassami and former Chief Minister and rebel leader O Panneerselvam are said to have reached some kind of agreement over merger of the two factions to end the turmoil in the party since the death of Jayalalithaa.

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The speculation for merger gained momentum once the EPS camp of the ruling AIADMK (Amma) decided to show jailed party general secretary Sasikala and deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran the doors.

Rebellion, division and merger are not new for the AIADMK. J Jayalalithaa and Janaki Ramachandran had led separate factions of AIADMK after MGR's death. They later buried their hatchet when Janaki surrendered her claim to the party.

But this time around, the merger of the two factions does not seem to be a repeat of 1989 episode. Panneerselvam and Palaniswami factions have huge trust deficit between them.

OPS CAMP SUSPECTS CONSPIRACY

Many supporters of O Panneerselvam believe that ousting of Sasikala and Dhinakaran is a set up plotted by the deputy general secretary himself.

According to the OPS camp, Dhinakaran aims to claim election symbol 'Two Leaves' from the Election Commission. The 'Two Leaves' symbol has a wide following in Tamil Nadu and Jayalalithaa's legacy can only be claimed if the party gets it back.

For an early and favourable settlement of the poll symbol matter, a united AIADMK should approach the Election Commission. The OPS camp feels that for this solitary purpose, Dhinakaran has, himself, designed his exit from the party so that Panneerselvam can be accommodated in the party.

Once the election symbol matter is resolved favourably, Dhinakaran would be back in the party and Panneerselvam sidelined or expelled, the OPS supporters suspect.

DHINAKARAN HAS STRONG SUPPORT IN AIADMK

Of the 123 MLAs in the EPS camp about 40 legislators are strong supporters of Dhinakaran.

On the other hand, EPS government is surviving on a fragile majority where even just half-a-dozen MLAs can topple the government if they switch sides.

OPS camp has 12 MLAs and can't bridge the gap if all the Dhinakaran supporters turn against the EPS government.

Under such circumstances, the OPS supporters tell their leader, it is not possible for EPS to act against Dhinakaran.

OPS DIGS IN

Under pressure from his supporters, OPS has toughened his stand on merger. Earlier, OPS was happy to be the general secretary of the united AIADMK while EPS could continue to run the government as the Chief Minister.

OPS supporters convinced him that while the Assembly election is still four years away, it would be difficult for him to defend the EPS government in the polls if it faltered on people's expectations.

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Further, the OPS camp feels that the MLAs on its side would be insignificant in a united AIADMK if Panneerselvam is not the Chief Minister or does not hold some powerful ministries.

This has led to the rebel camp putting the condition of OPS being made the number-two in the Tamil Nadu government. Such a position to OPS would help him expand his influence in the party and the government to neutralise any future attempt by Dhinakaran to oust him.

CASES AGAINST AIADMK LEADERS

The AIADMK leaders are also rattled by some cases being investigated by the central agencies. The Delhi Police is probing a bribery charge against TTV Dhinakaran.

Delhi Police arrested one Chandrashekhar for allegedly trying to bribe Election Commission officials in an attempt to fix a deal for helping the Dhinakaran camp keep the 'Two Leaves' symbol. Chandrashekhar's trail has reportedly linked him with Dhinakaran.

In another case, the Income Tax department earlier raided Health Minister C Vijayabaskar's properties.

The two incidents have made several AIADMK leaders insecure. The OPS camp MLAs don't want to be seen on the other side of the divide. Further, they believe that the BJP wants OPS to be the Tamil Nadu CM.

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THE OTHER ALLIANCE TALKS

The OPS camp has floated the idea of forming a third political option in Tamil Nadu. The supporters of Panneerselvam are in favour of snap polls and will be happy if six or more MLAs from the EPS camp switch sides to bring down the government.

The principal Opposition party DMK is no longer led by M Karunanidhi. Many party leaders are sympathetic to MK Alagiri against MK Stalin, who is said to be authoritarian.

The BJP is aggressively attempting to expand its influence in Tamil Nadu and has growing support in the state. This situation suits the OPS camp, which is in favour of stitching an alliance with the BJP. The DMDK and PMK can also be taken along.

Moreover, the supporters of O Panneerselvam argue that OPS would lose his newly found aura if he goes back to the same party. They also calculate that OPS' aura may not last till the next Assembly election if something meaningful is not done before or if he surrenders to the EPS camp before or after the merger.

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ALSO READ |

OPS, EPS camps ready with AIADMK merger plan: VK Sasikala, Dinakaran to be 'completely sidelined'

WATCH: Major blow to Mannarguddi clan as AIADMK ousts Sasikala, Dinakaran

--- ENDS ---
A couple dozen protesters gathered outside the Shadowridge Country Club on Thursday to protest a scheduled speech by Janet Levy, a political activist who has spoken across the country on what she calls the Islamist infiltration of American society.

But Levy fell ill early Thursday morning, and at the last minute had to cancel her appearance as the keynote speaker for a meeting of the Federation of Republican Women in Vista, according to the groups president.

Levy, whose writings appear on websites such as American Thinker, could not be reached for comment. Her blogs also appear on womenagainstsharia.com, including a 2010 posting questioning whether the United States is a de facto sharia state, and arguing that Muslims now enjoy more freedom of religion and speech under our Bill of Rights than non-Muslims.

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Saundra Waecker, president of the local Federation chapter, said she was surprised by the small protest outside the event.

I cant believe its controversial to look at the other side  the infiltration, the money being spent, Waecker said

Among the attendees at the luncheon was Juliet Cunningham, an Iraqi Christian who said she moved to the United States in 1979. She said she wanted to hear Levy speak because she educates people about Islam.

Outside, however, two dozen or so protesters  many of whom oppose the policies of President Donald Trump  held up signs with phrases supporting Muslims or with statements such as Love trumps hate.

Vista resident Judith Brighton, holding a sign that read I stand with my Muslim neighbor, said she came to protest because I am just thoroughly opposed to fear-mongering.

Have you seen her (writings)? Brighton asked. If you have, then you know why I came.

The Federation of Republican Women in Vista is a local chapter of a national organization founded in 1938, that aims to inform the public through political and legislation action, and promote the principles and policies of the Republican party, according to the groups website.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
Two Google employees gave hundreds of Oceanside middle-school students an energetic crash course in digital dos and donts Thursday, stressing the permanent impact the Internet can leave on their lives.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) had invited the company to present its Google Online Safety Roadshow at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Oceanside, and the congressman also participated in the event.

The program  which has been presented in 40 states  targets middle schoolers because thats the point at which kids go from simply being viewers of online content to actors on its many platforms, said Google spokeswoman Catherine Williams.

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Ninety-three percent of teens are online, she said. Theyre moving from a more passive use of technology to an active one.

Using interactive games and pop culture examples, the event aimed to show students how their online activities can take them down unexpected paths, and how they can steer toward safer practices.

Explaining that things students share online can reach up to three billion viewers, the presenters offered a physical example of a viral post.

Google employee Clayton Hunter asked one student to look for a message under his chair, and then instructed other students to look for the message, simulating the way an online post can spread among viewers. The example in this case was a photo of a co-worker with french fries up her nose  arguably not the kind of thing middle-school students would choose to share with their classmates.

Other portions of the presentation centered on setting a strong password, and keeping it secure. In that segment, Issa  who made his fortune by founding a successful auto alarm company and reviewed cyber security issues as chairman of the House Oversight Committee  competed with students in a game-show type contest to create a tough password.

Following Googles recommendation to mix up upper and lower-case letters, punctuation and numerals, Issa tied with a girl who challenged him in the first round, and narrowly beat a boy who played the second. The goal of the exercise, Issa said, is to keep kids on their guard in the digital realm.

Were trying to get them to be suspicious in the cyber world, the way that they would at the mall (if) someone says Come here, Ive got candy, he said.

The Google staff also warned that password security is only as good as the people who have access to it, citing statistics that one in three teens share their passwords with friends.

Theres lots of great things you can share with your friends, presenter Jaquetta Gooden said. But your password is not one of them.

Some students said they also appreciated the tip that they should change passwords for different websites.

The presentation also covered phishing scams, reminding students not to respond to ads or e-mails requesting their passwords, identification or other personal information, no matter how tempting.

You dont want to take offers that look too free or too good to be true, like a trip to Hawaii or free iPad, Hunter said.

The Google workers also urged students to be aware of their settings on social media platforms and other apps, and share their profiles only with those they trust.

Alexis Villanueva, 13, said that was a helpful reminder, adding that he planned to go home and check his privacy settings that afternoon.

Presenters summed up the assembly with a discussion of online etiquette, noting that the best way to avoid embarrassing or hurtful mistakes online is to be respectful as a matter of habit.

It was really neat, said Kimberly Ontivors, 12, adding that the assembly offered a lot of excitement and encouragement to be positive.

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan
While this year marks the 15th anniversary of the San Diego Black Film Festival (SDBFF), its director Karen Willis is excited about 2017 for another reason.

This year is different because were expanding the festival, she said. Its the first time we wont be using just one theater.

The festival was previously held at downtowns Pacific Gaslamp multiplex, which abruptly closed last year. SDBFF 2017 will be presented at AMC Mission Valley, UltraStar Cinemas and Reading Cinemas Grossmont Center (all three located near trolley stops). Grossmont Center will also house the Black Film Centre.

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In addition to showing more than 100 films from nine countries, SDBFF will present several special events this year at the Black Film Centre.

We are introducing the public to the Black Film Centre, which will end up hosting the Black Film Festival, Willis said. We have one of the largest collections of black films and we need a place for that. By the end of the year, were hoping to have a permanent location. Right now, Grossmont Center is providing a temporary place for us.

The film officially launching the 2017 festival will be at Reading Cinemas Grossmont Center. Then There Was You is the first feature movie directed by Adewale Bajere, 31. He shot the movie in Tallahassee, Fla., after he earned his masters degree from Florida State University.

He also produced and co-wrote Then There Was You with his friend Shanti Nelson. It all started in 2010, when she shared a dream she had with Bajere.

When she told me the climax, I knew a film like this hadnt been done before. I wrote a 1,000-word synopsis that night, Bajere said, speaking from the Atlanta area, where he is now based. Within nine months, we had the final script. Then we got to the production phase. It was a challenge shooting on a shoestring budget, which was $11,000-15,000.

When I found out we were selected as the festivals opening film, I was excited and stunned. Its been a seven-year journey. At last, well have the world premiere. In San Diego!

Bajere, who was born in Baton Rouge to Nigerian parents, has never visited here. He and several cast members will attend the films premiere and participate in question-and-answer sessions.

He describes Then There Was You as a compelling love story involving a spoken-word artist who helps a man discover what it means to be African American and how to love someone. Lashawnda Batts-Bowser and Taurean J. Royal star as the couple.

Spoken-word poetry was written for the film, including three poems by Yveka Pierre. Music was also composed specifically for Then There Was You.

We used original music, poetry and art, Bajere said. The film itself is a new idea. So much in Hollywood is recycled and duplicated. We wanted original elements and wanted to showcase peoples talents.

This years festival will also host a free pre-opening reception and screening of The Products of the American Ghetto, a 2016 film set in Atlanta. It stars Robin Givens, who will host SDBFF, as she has for the last several years. Festival director Willis said the pre-opening will also feature stars of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

I hope people come and have a good time, Willis said. We have movies for kids, adult-oriented films, documentaries, historical films and LGBT films. Theres something for everyone.

Wood is a San Diego freelance writer.

San Diego Black Film Festival Pre-opening Community reception

When: 6 p.m., Wednesday, April 26

Where: San Diego Black Film Centre, Grossmont Center, 5500 Grossmont Center Drive, La Mesa.

Tickets: Free, registration required

Phone: (619) 232-1913

Online: sdbff.com

San Diego Black Film Festival

When: Thursday, April 27, through Sunday, April 30

Where: Opening day, Reading Cinemas Grossmont Center, 5500 Grossmont Center Drive, La Mesa; next Friday through April 30, AMC Mission Valley, 1640 Camino Del Rio North, Mission Valley or UltraStar Cinemas, Hazard Center, 7510 Hazard Center Drive, Mission Valley.

Tickets: $10 to $20 per film; screening passes available; prices vary for special events.

Phone: (619) 232-1913

Online: sdbff.com

Did you know?

Films principally acted, directed or produced by someone of African descent can qualify for San Diego Black Film Festival. Among this years entries are films from Oman, Israel and  for the first time  South Korea. Six other countries will be represented.
Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias are extending their joint North American concert tour with a fall leg that starts Sept. 22 in Houston and concludes Oct. 28 in Oakland.

The new leg includes an Oct. 22 show at San Diegos Valley View Casino Center. All the newly added cities and dates appear below, along with ticket information.

The fall leg follows Iglesias and Pitbulls 16 previously announced summer tour dates together, six of whichc are already sold out.

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Cuban-American rapper Pitbull (real name: Armando Christian Perez) released his tenth album, Climate Change, last month. Iglesias, the son of Latin music crooner Julio Iglesias, is expected to release his 11th album later this year. He has thus far scored 27 No. 1 hits on Billboards Latin Songs Chart.

Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull have collaborated regularly in the past. Iglesias is featured on Pitbulls recent single, Messin Around, which almost inexplicably samples REO Speedwagons 1980 hit, Take It on the Run.

Pitbull has previously teamed up with a slew of pop stars, including Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Usher, Shakira, Kesha and Chris Brown. He is not expected to duet any time soon with actress Lindsay Lohan, who filed an unsuccessful defamation suit against him after he rapped I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan in his 2011 song, Give Me Everything  a reference to her highly publicized arrests.

Iglesias, meanwhile, is not expected to grab any drones that hover over the stage while he performs, as he painfully did during his May, 2015, show at Tijuanas Plaza de Toros de Playas. The injuries he sustained required him to subsequently undergo surgery on his right hand.

Tickets for the new fall tour dates by Iglesias and Pitbull go on sale April 28 at ticketmaster.com and livenation.com. Tickets for their Oct, 22 San Diego show are priced from $49 to $139.95 each, plus service charges.

Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias fall tour itinerary, with CNCO (except dates noted **)

Friday, September 22 Houston, TX Toyota Center

Saturday, September 23 Laredo, TX Laredo Energy Arena

Sunday, September 24 Austin, TX Frank Erwin Center

Tuesday, September 26 Corpus Christi, TX American Bank Center

Friday, September 29 Orlando, FL Amway Center

Saturday, September 30 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena

Tuesday, October 03 Washington, DC Verizon Center

Friday, October 06 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center

Saturday, October 07 Chicago, IL Allstate Arena

Tuesday, October 10 Newark, NJ Prudential Center

Thursday, October 12 Boston, MA TD Garden

Friday, October 13 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center

Saturday, October 14 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre

Friday, October 20 Fresno, CA Save Mart Center**

Saturday, October 21 Anaheim, CA Honda Center**

Sunday, October 22 San Diego, CA Valley View Casino Center**

Friday, October 27 Los Angeles, CA The Forum

Saturday, October 28 Oakland, CA Oracle Arena

Twitter @georgevarga

george.varga@sduniontribune.com
Prince, who died a year ago today, sold more albums in 2016 than anyone else last year, alive or posthumously.

In the 12 months after his death on April 21, 2016, his albums and songs have sold a combined 7.7 million copies in the U.S. alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. All told, 5.4 million of those were from digital song downloads and 2.3 million were physical album sales, which saw Prince outsell even Adele, 2016s second biggest-selling album artist in this country.

Amazingly  or not  5.65 million of Princes sales took place between April 21 and May 19, 2016. It was a sad reminder that, as with other major music stars who have died in recent years, death can provide the biggest sales boost of all.

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No doubt, tributes will pour in from all over the world today to the Purple Wonder, as some Prince fans fondly called the Minnesota-born marvel. He was 57 at the time of his death, which an autopsy attributed to an accidental overdose of fentanyl  a drug 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Prince performed his final San Diego concerts  four over two nights, to be exact  in the suitably named Legends Ballroom at the San Diego Hard Rock Hotel in May, 2013. He was accompanied by his then-new, all-female band, 3rd Eye Girl, whose members happily discussed him and the group in a Union-Tribune interview.

Hes very warm and welcoming. It just goes to show that you shouldnt listen to the gossip, drummer Hannah Ford said at the time. Hes a great band leader and he definitely knows what he wants in every aspect of the music. And its really great to work with him, rather than for him.

I did not expect him to be as much fun as he is; he has a cool sense of humor, added Danish bassist Ida Nielsen.

Oh, hes hilarious! agreed guitarist Donna Grantis. Hes a really funny guy. Not only is he such a phenomenal player, but hes an incredible teacher. This is more than a dream come true. For me to be front-row-center to some of the most astonishing guitar playing of all time is an incredible gift, for sure.

The gift of Princes music will, no doubt, continue to be felt for years to come, although it remains to be seen how many previously.unreleased recordings of his will come out.

On Tuesday came news of the release of Deliverance, a new Prince EP featuring six songs he recorded between 2006 and 2008. The estate of Prince quickly objected and a United States District Court judge in Minnesota granted a temporary restraining order.

For now, only the title track of Deliverance is still available for sale as a digital download.

Prince, incidentally, was not a fan of digital music, which is why he continued to buy physical copies of albums. On April 16, 2016, just five days before his death, Prince commemorated national Record Store Day by going to one of his favorite Minneapolis stores, Electric Fetus, where he bought six albums in CD form.

The six albums are: Talking Book by Stevie Wonder; Heijra by Joni Mitchell; Inspirational Gospel Classics by The Swan Silvertones; Santana IV by Santana; The Time Has Come by The Chambers Brothers; and The Best of Missing Persons by Missing Persons.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Electric Fetus now gets a request from customers  once or twice a month  for the six CDs Prince bought there five days before he died.

Its almost like a secret handshake to buy them together, Electric Fetus music buyer Jim Novak told the Star-Tribune.

By coincidence, this years Record Store Day takes place Saturday, April 22. Among the items being offered is a special, 7-inch vinyl picture disc reissue of Princes 1983 single, Little Red Corvette and 1999, which has been out of print since 1985.

But youll have to act quickly, since only 5,000 copies are being released nationwide and it is unclear how many will be available in each city. At least 10 stores in San Diego will be participating in Record Store Day 2017.

Twitter @georgevarga

george.varga@sduniontribune.com
Society has generally accepted that the Department of Veterans Affairs bears the responsibility to treat, heal, and rehabilitate the men and women who served in our military and suffered injury or disease as a result.

So when the Phoenix VA scandal of 2014 made national news, it represented an abject breach of the countrys obligation to provide healthcare for those who ensured our freedom.

This raised to the forefront of public and policy consciousness the critical question of how we, as a country, can best meet our obligation.

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In light of what happened in Phoenix, some argued that private sector health provided at VA expense was the best option, while others pointed to VA healthcare, if adequately funded by Congress, as the optimal option.

GUEST VOICES: Authoritative views on the military and veterans issues

This debate eventually led to the passage of the Veterans Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014, or Choice Act, allowing veterans to choose between VA healthcare and non-VA care in the community.

The initial concern about the Choice Act was whether veterans would have two viable options from which to choose, or if veterans would be given a choice that boiled down to choosing the better between two incredibly bad options.

So far, the Choice Act has allowed VA to treat, directly or indirectly, more than 1 million veterans since 2014, despite the litany of problems that challenged program implementation.

On April 19, nearly three years after the Phoenix VA scandal made national news, I sat within arms reach as President Donald Trump signed the Veterans Choice Improvement Act into law.

The new law addresses problems uncovered during the implementation of the Choice Act, such as veterans having to pay upfront for private care and await reimbursement from a red-tape riddled VA.

After years of private doctors going unpaid for caring for military veterans, VA is moving away from using third-party contractors to pay its bills, making VA the primary payer to doctors caring for military veterans under the new law.

The new law also extends the Choice program beyond its original August 7 expiration date.

Optimism notwithstanding, the new law should not be considered a watershed moment in how the country treats its veterans.

Catastrophically disabled veterans, such as those with spinal cord injuries and diseases, have limited choices for care outside of VA and heavily rely on lifelong VA care. Any erosion of specialized VA services, due to a drop in demand, will not bode well for the countrys most vulnerable veterans whose only real choice is VA.

For this reason, Paralyzed Veterans of America has championed Choice Care, which includes VA as one of those choices.

It is also important to keep in mind that not every private sector provider has readily embraced the idea of taking on a wave of new patient demand  one that brings with it unique and complicated health challenges. Thats in addition to an unwillingness on the part of many providers to accept the additional workload at the Medicare/Medicaid rate.

That said, the newly enacted Choice extension should be considered a major milestone for the VA. It provides a sustained release valve for a system that nearly burst given its undersized capacity to take on swelling demand.

If successful, the measure will allow VA to focus on those services it does very well, while facilitating timely access to care for those veterans who have viable non-VA alternatives.

The law also undergirds plans  plans that Paralyzed Veterans supports  that integrate community healthcare more seamlessly with that offered by the VA, while ensuring VA itself has the capacity to treat those who make VA their choice.

Gillums is national executive director of Paralyzed Veterans of America. He was paralyzed in a 2002 accident while serving as a Camp Pendleton Marine.
The pilot of a strike fighter on final approach to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson safely ejected in the Celebes Sea early Friday morning and was recovered, Navy officials said.

The incident occurred as the pilot of the F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to Carrier Air Wing 2 was trying to land. The Navy didnt identify the person publicly.

A helicopter crew from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 4, the Black Knights, quickly recovered the pilot, according to a statement released by Third Fleet headquarters in Point Loma.

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An initial medical assessment aboard the San Diego-based Vinson indicated that the pilot was unharmed. The aircraft did not strike the carrier; it hit the waters between Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group is composed of the Nimitz-class flattop, plus the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers Wayne E. Meyer and Michael Murphy, and the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser Lake Champlain. Third Fleets Maritime Operations Center exerts operational control over the strike group.

The flotilla is heading north to the waters of the Korean peninsula from recent exercises off the coast of Australia. It was ordered to the Yellow Sea amid rising tensions between the United States and North Korea.

Pyongyang continues to test fire ballistic missiles, part of a larger program designed to build a device capable of striking North America.

On Tuesday, Rear Adm. James Jim Kilby announced aboard the Vinson that his sailors deployment had been extended for at least a month to provide a persistent presence in the troubled region.

Military Videos  On Now D-Day paratrooper from Coronado jumps again in France  at age 96 On Now Remembering war's fallen, one name at a time On Now In Ramona, an airplane and an aviator provide living lessons on World War II 1:43 On Now Video: Navy's newest vessel sails into San Diego and a new future in surface warfare On Now Video: U.S. Navy files homicide charges over warship collisions On Now Stopping Marine hazing On Now Video: U.S. Navy Air Crew Grounded After Creating Vulgar Sky Drawing On Now Navy says Asia Pacific ship collisions were avoidable On Now Hundreds of recruits get sick at Marine boot camp On Now Cutler Dawson Talks Navy Federal

cprine@sduniontribune.com
A Navy SEAL stationed in San Diego filmed himself molesting a sleeping girl, raped a woman in Virginia and kept a stash of child porn on his cellphone that included footage involving an infant having sex with a dog, according to allegations unsealed in federal court in Virginia Beach.

Arrested in San Diego by federal marshals more than two weeks ago, SEAL Team One Petty Officer 1st Class Gregory Kyle Seerden, 31, faces felony child pornography and child sex assault charges in Virginia following a probe by Naval Criminal Investigative Services Norfolk field office.

Seerdens alleged sex crimes against children were uncovered by agents investigating the purported rape of an an unconscious Virginia woman there.

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Identified as Jane Doe in court documents, the woman accused Seerden of raping her on Jan. 27 after she blacked out after drinking with Seerden in his hotel room aboard Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek  Fort Story, where he was on a temporary assignment.

After she awoke at 4 a.m., Seerden allegedly told her that they had engaged in intercourse. When he dropped her off at the bases Gate 5, she told a guard. Authorities monitoring her communications with Seerden reported that he disclosed he was aware that the woman was not sober the previous night when he had intercourse with her, according to the criminal complaint filed in his case.

Agents seized Seerdens iPhone 7 the same day. Combing the telephones electronic files in an initial search, an analyst uncovered images of prepubescent children that were naked an engaged in sexual acts, another image that seemed linked to bestiality and other questionable material.

Armed with a federal search warrant, on March 31 a digital forensic examiner found approximately 78 images that also appeared to be child pornography, including the bondage of children, federal files state.

In addition, videos and a photograph on the phone created on or about Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 allegedly showed a man masturbating next to an unidentified sleeping girl who appeared to be about 5 or 6 years of age. In the footage, a man in a blue shirt uses the childs hand and lips for sexual acts, but his face is never shown, according to the criminal complaint.

Other photos on Seerdens phone do show him wearing a blue shirt. He also was allegedly photographed reading the female victim a bedtime story. The girl is believed to be a relative. On his Facebook page, Seerden allegedly posted that he enjoyed an awesome weekend with family members when the images were made.

Its unclear where the alleged assault took place. Court documents indicate that the family did not live in Virginia. The Navy lists his home of record in Missouri. He enlisted in 2005.

Court records show that federal magistrate William V. Gallo in San Diego held a detention hearing for Seerden on April 13, the same day an extradition warrant was issued. More detailed documents remain sealed by court order.

Seerdens criminal defense attorney, Gerard Jeffrey Wasson, has not returned a call placed Friday morning seeking comment from him. If convicted, the mandatory minimum sentence for the charges is 15 years in prison.

Petty Officer First Class Seerden is an active-duty service member assigned to a Naval Special Warfare unit. NSW is cooperating with the investigative authorities, said Lt. Zachary Keating, spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group One.

When asked if Navy commanders were administratively moving to strip Seerden of his coveted trident insignia and the honor of being called a SEAL, Keating declined comment.

Along with scrapping a SEALs security clearance, thats a step special warfare commanders often take because it is not considered a form of punishment under military law.

In disclosure forms Seerden filed in federal court, the SEAL claimed to be divorced and without children. He said he earns $6,000 per month in the Navy, has $10,000 in the bank, owns both a car and a motorcycle, and took a $20,000 stake in a silver investment.

On March 24, a military judge found Chief Special Warfare Operator Stephen Varanko III guilty of sexual harassment and battery stemming from an adulterous relationship. He was a SEAL assigned to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek  Fort Story.

Navy SEAL Petty Officer Second Class Theo Andrew Krah was arrested on June 15 after being accused of beating and stabbing to death a man following an altercation on the Santa Monica Pier. Krah was stationed in San Diego.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
A conservative group on Friday threatened to take legal action against UC Berkeley if student sponsors are not allowed to pick the date and location for an appearance by commentator Ann Coulter.

Coulter had been scheduled to speak on the demonstration-weary campus on April 27, but Berkeley officials refused permission, citing safety concerns. Amid public criticism, the administration on Thursday agreed to set the event for May 2, at midday, in a science hall away from the central campus.

The universitys actions violate fundamental principles of free speech, equal protection and due process guaranteed by the United States Constitution, a letter from lawyers representing the conservative outreach group Young Americas Foundation warned.

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It called Berkeleys offer transparently insincere  noting that the new date falls during dead week, a time when most students are studying for final exams.

UC Berkeley may not censor speech its administrators plainly disfavor, simply because a potential mob shares the administrators distaste, the letter said.

In response, Berkeley answered that it does not have a protectable venue available on April 27 and raised concern about Coulters disregard for what police believe is required to keep her appearance safe.

The Constitution permits the university to take such steps to protect public safety while facilitating expressive activities, and that is exactly what we are doing, officials said in a prepared statement.

Coulter, who had been invited to speak about immigration, used her Twitter account Thursday to declare she would speak at Berkeley on April 27, as I was invited to do and have a contract to do.

Although the student groups hosting her appearance are the Berkeley College Republicans and BridgeCal, the contracted sponsor for the event is Young Americas Foundation.

Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said administrators learned of Coulters planned arrival only after that contract was signed, preventing an assessment of how to avoid a replay of the violence that disrupted a scheduled Milo Yiannopoulos appearance at Berkeley on Feb. 1.

Large crowds swarmed the campus where the right-wing provocateur was to appear, and masked demonstrators in black garb tore down police barricades, smashed windows and set off explosives.

Since then, the university town has witnessed two demonstrations held by alt-right organizations that led to violent clashes.

We were disappointed we couldnt make an event work, Mogulof said. We believe it is important to expose our students to a diverse array of perspectives.  [They] cant be educated in an echo chamber.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

For updates and more, follow @paigestjohn.

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San Diego Superior Court Judge Gary Kreep violated judicial ethics rules when he made remarks to lawyers and litigants about their appearance and ethnicity in his first years on the bench, a special panel of judges concluded in a report released Friday.

In the 90-page report, a three-judge panel appointed by the state Commission on Judicial Performance said Kreep committed willful misconduct, prejudicial misconduct and improper actions.

But the panel disagreed with commission lawyers who had brought ethics charges against the one-time conservative legal activist that his comments to some women amounted to sexual harassment.

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They also credited him with changing his behavior after complaints from some lawyers in the San Diego City Attorneys Office and warnings from top administrators on the Superior Court bench.

Yet the panel also rejected Kreeps contention in his formal written response to the charges that the complaints against him were the product of a harassment and intimidation campaign because of his right-leaning political history.

Kreep was elected to the bench in 2012 in an upset win. He had built a lengthy legal career in part by taking on conservative legal causes, including filing birther lawsuits challenging President Barack Obamas legitimacy by erroneously contending he was not born a U.S. citizen.

Although Kreeps lawyer did not press the harassment argument in the eight-day hearing on the charges in February, the panel wrote there was little support for it in any event.

To the extent he was referring to the complaints of inappropriate behavior, our report validates most (but not all) of the complaints, the report said.

And the judges said that Kreep was tone deaf to how some of his comments could offend people and did not move quickly enough to correct them.

Although he worked diligently on his assigned cases, participated in judicial education opportunities, and volunteered for community outreach, he nevertheless delegated, delayed or ignored some of his most pressing ethical responsibilities the report said. He had a sincere desire to connect with people and to help them in the courtroom, but his approach was improper for a judicial officer.

The report now goes to the 11-member Commission on Judicial Performance, which will decide whether to adopt the findings and conclusions of the three-judge panel. The commission then will decide what discipline may be warranted.

That can range from a private letter of advice or admonishment to public censure or, in rare cases, removal from the bench.

Kreep declined to comment on the report. His lawyer, James Murphy, did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

The accusations the commission brought against Kreep included that he made misrepresentations on his campaign website in 2012, violated campaign finance and disclosure rules, and campaigned against Obamas 2012 re-election while running for judge by signing three fundraising letters as the head of the U.S. Justice Foundation, a legal group he founded.

Judicial canons  or ethics rules  prohibit judges and judicial candidates from endorsing or opposing candidates for office.

Kreep had already settled a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission over those charges, but that did not make him ineligible for judicial discipline.

The most serious finding the panel found against Kreep of willful misconduct focused on action taken by the City Attorneys Office in September 2013. Fed up with his treatment of some of their lawyers, the office instituted a blanket challenge on Kreep.

That is a tactic where prosecutors can boycott a judges courtroom from getting new cases. It generally results with the court quietly reassigning the judge for a period of time to another courtroom.

Kreep reacted angrily when informed of the challenge and told that he was being sent to Traffic Court. He told some public defenders in his downtown San Diego courtroom during a break, If they are coming for me, they are likely coming for you, according to the report.

The reference was to the City Attorneys Office and was clearly improper the report said. Judge Kreep was angry about the challenge by the City Attorneys Office. ... Judge Kreep acted in bad faith and for a purpose other than the faithful discharge of his judicial duties, the report said.

The panel also found that several remarks he made over time were inappropriate. Among other things, he commented on the appearance of some lawyers in his courtroom and had nicknames for others  including one woman who wore her hair in a bun. He called her bun-head.

He also occasionally used Spanish when talking to some litigants  even those who spoke English. Court rules require that proceedings be conducted in English.

He also commented on one Hispanic public defenders accent and asked if she was a Mexican citizen. She replied: I am a U.S. citizen and proud of it. Kreeps response: I wasnt planning on having you deported.

The panel described that as a jaw-dropping comment and said that while Kreep contended he was trying to put people at ease it was a comment like many others that was discourteous and could be construed as being prejudicial.

While crediting Kreep with trying to improve his conduct after court administrators and others counseled him, the panel concluded his defense to some of the charges was disingenuous. Kreep testified at the hearing and said he received little training before being given a challenging assignment in a high-volume misdemeanor case department.

The panel said, however, he had received substantial guidance and training, as well as extra help from court administrators.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with fresh inputs)

From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Apr 21 (PTI) Pakistans former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif left for Riyadh today to head a 41-nation Islamic military alliance after getting the governments approval, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said amidst concerns here about the Saudi-led grouping.

Asif said that Gen. Sharif had been "given permission to head the military alliance after completion of all legal formalities and requirements" by the Pakistan government three days ago.

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Media reports suggested that the 60-year-old former chief of army staff was granted approval to serve as head of the alliance, dubbed as Islamic Nato, for three years.

"We have issued the NOC after he completed all formalities including a permission by army headquarters," he said.

He said Saudi Arabia has approached Pakistan about three months ago to acquire services of General Raheel and Pakistan agreed to allow him to lead the alliance.

Sharif, who has army chief for three years till his retirement on November 29, 2016, left for Riyadh today on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother.

The issue of General Raheel was a difficult decision due to rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran but Pakistan decided to let him join the alliance as its first chief due to close ties with Riyadh.

It was not immediately clear if the government had discussed its decision with opposition parties, which recently expressed serious misgivings regarding the issue in light of the possibility that the alliance may be used against Iran, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The news also seemed to go against what the defence minister himself had assured Parliament of on April 13, the report said.

Asif had said that the Saudi government would hold a grand meeting in May, where it would unveil the alliances Terms of Reference (ToR).

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former COAS Gen Raheel Sharif will attend the event," he had said.

He had further said that the former COAS would formally apply for a No Objection Certificate after the ToR was made public.

He also said that the ToR and the aims and objectives of the alliance would be presented to Parliament before a formal decision would be made on whether Pakistan should become a part of it or not.

The 41-nation armed coalition was initially proposed as a platform for security cooperation among Muslim countries and included provisions for training, equipment and troops, and the involvement of religious scholars for devising a counter- terrorism narrative.

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Since news of the alliance first surfaced, there have been concerns in Pakistan about its nature and how it may affect a pre-existing parliamentary resolution on Yemen passed unanimously by lawmakers calling for "neutrality in the conflict" in 2015.

On April 13, Asif had told the National Assembly: "We will stick to our prerogative when it comes to Yemen, and the agreement we have will remain binding."

Earlier this week, Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had assured Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Honardoost that Pak-Iran ties would "remain unaffected by recent developments".

"Pakistan greatly values historic Pak-Iran relationship and the same shall continue based on mutual trust and respect for each other?s interests," Gen Bajwa had told Honardoost.

Extraordinary importance was attached to the meeting by diplomatic circles because it was the second between the two in around six weeks, a rare happening in Pakistan-Iran relations given the mutual mistrust, the Dawn said.

Earlier this month, Honardoost had said that Iran had reservations on the appointment of Gen Sharif as the head of the Saudi-led Islamic military alliance, warning that it may "impact" the unity among Muslim countries.

"We are concerned about this issue... that it may impact the unity of Islamic countries," Honardoost said, adding that Tehran had conveyed its concerns to Islamabad. PTI SH/AKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---

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About 80 people gathered near the San Ysidro border crossing Friday morning to send a message to Trump administration officials visiting San Diego about the needs of border communities.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary John Kelly toured San Diegos border and immigration detention on Friday after visiting border enforcement officials in El Paso on Thursday.

Leaders from faith groups, immigrant rights advocacy groups and labor unions rejected the administrations policies of a border wall and ramped up immigration enforcement in speeches to the crowd gathered across the street from Las Americas Premium Outlets.

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For the Attorney General to come to our border communities and describe us as beachheads, war zones and ground zero, this is not only an affront to our dignity, but it goes against the very basic values of a democratic society, said Christian Ramirez, human rights director for Alliance San Diego.

The two Trump administration officials have made several trips to the border since President Donald Trumps inauguration. Each time, activists in San Diego have called on the officials to meet with local leaders to learn more about what life at the border is like.

Alicia Arambula, 28, of Chula Vista, joined the rally, chanting at cars that passed by the group. Several cars and even city buses honked while passing the protest.

Im here because I love my community, and this community is not a war zone, Arambula said, referencing Sessions speech in Nogales last week.

Arambula, a U.S. citizen, said she grew up minutes from the border and that the administrations description of border communities was not true.

Its all this fear-based information, she said. Theres really good things going on this community.

Mark Lane of National City attended the rally with two of his sons, ages six and seven.

He thinks that the Trump administrations immigration agenda is un-American.

Im a white man. I dont have issues. Theyre not going to profile me, Lane said. I made that conscious choice that Im going to be out here using my privilege to fight for the ones that dont have it.

I have a brown wife and three brown sons, Lane added. For us, its life or death.

1 / 10 Supporters of immigrant rights held hands in a prayer circle during a rally in San Ysidro near the border protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 10 With the Mexican flag on the Mexico side of the border in the background, a Love Thy Neighbor sign was held by supporters of immigrant rights at a rally in San Ysidro protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 10 La Tanya Cline was one of the immigrant rights supporters at the rally led by Alliance San Diego near the border in San Ysidro protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 10 In a prayer circle, Mohamed Abdullah, Issam Lagrichi and Yusef Miller, immigrant rights supporters held hands at a rally in San Ysidro near the border protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 10 During the rally in San Ysidro near the border supporting immigrant rights protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration, supporters held hands in a prayer circle. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 10 Supporters of immigrant rights held a rally in San Ysidro near the border led by Alliance San Diego protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 10 Supporters of immigrant rights held a rally in San Ysidro near the border led by Alliance San Diego protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 10 Supporters of immigrant rights held a rally in San Ysidro near the border protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 10 Mark Lane and his son, Jacob, were two of the supporters of immigrant rights at a rally in San Ysidro near the border protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 10 Supporters of immigrant rights made a chalk drawing as an appeal during a rally in San Ysidro near the border protesting the Trump Administration policies on immigration. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Two professors from Whittier College brought about 30 students to participate in the protest as part of a field trip to the border.

Jose Orozco and Michelle Chihara teach a pair of classes in history of the U.S./Mexico border and Chicano literature that culminate in a visit to see the border. This semester, that visit happened to be timed with the rally, so they decided to make that part of the experience for their students.

Orozco said the classes were involved in pushing for Whittier to declare itself a sanctuary campus.

Their policies are abhorrent, Orozco said when asked about Sessions and Kellys visit.

Rally attendees listed on chalk boards what they thought border communities need instead of a wall and more immigration enforcement personnel.

Their responses ranged from abstract concepts like unity and equity to very concrete demands like better schools and affordable housing.

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UPDATES:

This story was originally posted as a Facebook Live video at the event. The text was added at 1:40 p.m.
Competition to build President Donald Trumps border wall is underway with 467 companies nationwide, including 23 from San Diego, submitting bids and designs to construct what was a centerpiece promise of Trumps campaign.

Fencing and barriers are nothing new along the U.S.-Mexico border. For nearly 30 years, fencing made from landing mats, steel mesh and concrete-filled steel bollards have been erected along nearly 700 miles of the border.

Much of that was constructed between 2007 and 2015, when the government spent an estimated $2.5 billion on border fencing projects. The work was done in populated border areas, including San Diego, and along desert mesas and in small towns in Arizona and Texas.

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Much remains unknown about Trumps wall, like what it would look like, how much it would cost, and how much more of the 2,000-mile Southwest border it would cover.

Yet a look back at some of the fencing projects undertaken during the border building boom and what has happened since they were completed can give a sense of what may be in store for border residents if the wall is constructed.

From Smugglers Gulch in San Diego, which was filled in with nearly 2 million cubic yards of dirt to form a massive berm after a years-long legal battle, to the Lower Rio Grande area of Texas, border barriers and fencing have helped reduce the number of people entering the United States illegally.

And they have also left a mark on the landscape that critics said have led to other problems such as flooding and erosion.

Its not just build the wall and forget about it, said Oscar Romo, a researcher with UC San Diego who coordinated the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserves coastal training program for about a decade. There are consequences, and we are paying for some of those consequences.

Smugglers Gulch

In July 2009, a group of jubilant federal officials gathered in Smugglers Gulch for a ceremonial ribbon cutting ceremony atop a giant earthen berm.

It marked the completion, in less than a year, of a border construction and fencing project that sealed off what had for decades been a prime route for smugglers and unauthorized immigrants.

Contractors scraped about 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt from two mesas bordering the canyon, constructing a berm more than 100 feet high. They also added a second layer of steel mesh fencing, augmenting an existing fence, and constructed a road for U.S. Border Patrol vehicles at a cost of $48.6 million.

The Smugglers Gulch work was one of the more expensive stretches of fencing constructed on the border, costing about $16 million per mile. And one of the most controversial.

The project faced stiff opposition, including a 2004 lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, San Diego Audubon Society and other environmental groups. They contended the project would add large amounts of sediment and damage to the nearby Tijuana River Estuary.

But in 2005, Congress passed legislation that allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to waive all laws  state, local and federal  that could impede the construction of border fencing projects.

After the ribbon cutting ceremony, contractors and some of the federal officials left. But the controversy did not.

Its not just build the wall and forget about it. There are consequences, and we are paying for some of those consequences.  Oscar Romo, UC San Diego researcher

In the fall of 2009, critics complained that the government had botched a critical aspect of the work  reseeding the barren dirt slopes with vegetation to control erosion and runoff.

The then-leader of the California Coastal Commission fired off a letter in October saying the re-vegetation plan had failed miserably, largely because after seeding the slopes the federal government had not irrigated them properly.

Congresswoman Susan Davis, D-San Diego, also wrote a letter, as did the manager of the estuary reserve, expressing concern that the bare slopes would increase sediment flowing to the estuary. Storms the previous winter, when construction was underway, flooded the river valley and left behind what residents said was an unusual amount of mud.

In response, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said they were following a proper plan to revegetate the slopes and care for the environment.

Today, the berm slope is thick with vegetation, covering more than 70 percent of the area, said Mark Endicott, supervisory Border Patrol agent for the San Diego Sector.

Flying over the California-Mexico border

The work was done over the past five years in conjunction with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as well as the San Diego County and California parks departments.

The plants have lessened the amount of sediment flowing into the estuary, Endicott said. Erosion pins that measure slope stability showed an average change in the height of the soil of 0.5 centimeters in 2014 to 2015, then 0.1 centimeters the following year.

The successful revegetation of the area has resulted in little to no sedimentation into the estuary as a result of the fence project, Endicott said.

Romo, who has worked in the valley for three decades, said other problems have occurred since the fence was built.

A concrete culvert constructed at the base of the berm now captures water from Mexico and the U.S. and funnels it into a channel. Romo said the culvert has increased the velocity of the water flowing into the channel, with damaging effect. The channel is eroding quickly, and more importantly the increased speed of the water is pushing the trash and sediment farther into the estuary than before.

Trash is now building up in parts of the reserve where it was not before, Romo said. Hauling the trash out of the environmentally sensitive estuary will be tedious and difficult, but eventually it will have to be done, he said.

They modified the topography and created additional problems, Romo said. The urgency to build  because of a congressional mandate in 2006 to construct at least 700 miles of fencing and barriers to make it harder for people to enter the U.S. illegally from Mexico  created problems.

By doing this in a rush, said Romo as he stood in front of the massive culvert where the river flows into the canyon, they did not mitigate this well.

But the fence has achieved its main purpose  to help reduce the number of unauthorized immigrants entering the U.S., Endicott said.

The number of apprehensions in the San Diego Sector has dropped significantly, from 118,721 in 2009 when the fencing was complete to 31,891 last year.

That drop tracks an overall decline in apprehensions across the Southwest border that has been trending down for a decade, before beginning to tick up slightly in 2015.

Organ Pipe in Arizona

Around the time that work on Smugglers Gulch was starting, another section of fence was being constructed to the east in Arizona.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument lies next to the international border, about two hours west of Tucson. In early 2008, the government built 5.2 miles of steel mesh fencing there. Activists and monument land managers said at the time they were concerned that the design would block the flow of water across the border, possibly causing floods.

But the Homeland Security Department went ahead with the $21.3 million project built by Omaha, Neb., company Kiewit. The same company built the Smugglers Gulch project.

A storm in July 2008 dumped about 2 inches of rain in less than 90 minutes around the border crossing town of Lukeville. The fence, even with wide iron grates at the base to allow water to flow through, essentially acted like a dam. Debris stuck against the bottom, blocking the water flow and causing flooding to the nearby port of entry as well as at businesses in Lukeville.

One company unsuccessfully sued the government for $6 million for flood damage and property loss. In the aftermath, the government installed a series of gates in the fence near Lukeville that would be lifted in times of flooding to allow water to pass through.

Then, in August 2011, another summertime storm hit  but the gates didnt work as planned. Debris again built up at the base of the fence causing not only flooding but also knocking over a 40-foot-long section of the fence.

Randy Serraglio, Southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the problem at Organ Pipe stemmed from the Department of Homeland Security not listening to local land managers at the monument site and area landowners who warned about the flooding dangers.

They were told by the land manager at Organ Pipe it was not a good location to put up the infrastructure they were trying to build there, Serraglio said. They just really rushed forward blindly with construction.

There has been no reported flooding in the area for several years. Border agents now routinely go on patrol and clear debris from the base of the fence, Serraglio said.

Lessons learned

On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly stood at a small lectern on a strip of the border between the primary fence and secondary fence  an area about 100 yards wide known as no mans land. He was in San Diego along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on a tour of the Southwest border and made a fleeting reference to the wall project.

We will continue to expand our approach to deterring illegal migration, Kelly said. That includes constructing a physical barrier, supporting it with technology, and patrolling it with a dedicated and professional workforce.

While Trumps proposal for a wall is moving quickly, its also hitting resistance. Customs and Border Protection is reviewing bids and hopes to select by June up to 20 companies to construct prototypes in San Diego.

In testimony this month before Congress, Kelly said a solid border wall would not be built from sea to shining sea. Instead, he said, the department would build a wall where agents and immigration enforcement officials say one is needed.

Those who are concerned about more fencing along the border welcome such comments. DHS should take away from what happened at Organ Pipe that there are some places where you should not build a border wall. Period, Serraglio said.

1 / 30 This is the view looking west from the Andrade/Algodones port of entry area. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 30 A Border Patrol patrol boat heads north on the Colorado River where the fence ends between Arizona and California. The river is the border for a small part of the way. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 30 View looking west with existing fence slicing through the Imperial sand dunes. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 30 View looking southwest with existing fence slicing though Imperial Sand Dunes. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 30 Construction equipment just north of the existing border fence at the Imperial sand dunes between Andrade and Calexico. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 30 Existing border fence fighting the drifting sand at the Imperial sand dunes area. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 30 Agricultural fields on the Mexico side of the border almost touching existing fence just south of Gordons Well. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 30 Once out of the sand dunes the existing fence heads west towards Calexico. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 30 A Border Patrol unit on post just north of the border fence east of Calexico. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 30 The Mexicali-Calexico East border crossing. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 30 This is the main Mexicali/Calexico crossing for pedestrians and passenger vehicles with its landmark water tower high above it. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 30 West of Calexico the tall fence ends and drive through barriers are placed along the border depending on the topography. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 30 West of Calexico/Mexicali the border continues with barriers to prevent vehicle drive throughs up to the mountains. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 30 An international boundary marker west of Calexico/Mexicali. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 30 This is the most rugged part of the border between Arizona and the Pacific. It is roughly the section south of Montezuma grade on the U.S. Side and north of La Rumorosa on the south side, and Jacumba on the west and the mountains west of Calexico. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 16 / 30 This is where the existing border fence picks up again, east of Jacumba. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 17 / 30 Between Jacumba and Tecate terrain seems to dictate where the current border fence is located. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 18 / 30 An incomplete section of the existing fence south of Campo between Jacumba and Tecate. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 19 / 30 This is the Tecate border crossing with the inbound traffic to the U.S. on the left and southbound traffic in to Mexico on the right. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 20 / 30 The existing fence already built between Tecate and Jacumba. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 21 / 30 This is a very steep section of the fence built on the south side of Otay mountain between Tecate and Otay. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 22 / 30 This is a very steep section of the fence built on the south side of Otay mountain between Tecate and Otay. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 23 / 30 Border Patrol agents with observation equipment positioned on a hillside looking in to Mexico on the east side of Otay. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 24 / 30 Trucks from Mexico stream in to the U.S. through the Otay Mesa commercial port of entry. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 25 / 30 This is the Otay Mesa Port of Entry for passenger vehicles and pedestrians. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 26 / 30 This is the new privately funded Cross Border Express terminal that lets travelers park in the U.S and cross to Abelardo Rodriguez International Airport in Mexico. It has been a big success since its opening 14 months ago. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 27 / 30 This is the San Ysidro Port of Entry that connects Tijuana with San Diego. It is claimed to be the busiest land port in the world. The construction at the bottom is the new pedestrian crossing facility. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 28 / 30 The Tijuana river flows to the U.S. just past the curve on the bottom of the photo. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 29 / 30 The triple fence is visible in this section: two visible on the south side of the river and one on the north side, the bottom of the photo, along the roadway. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) 30 / 30 This is where the fence ends, at the Pacific Ocean in the Las Playas section of Tijuana which is the northwestern most point in Mexico. The Bullring by the Sea is visible as is the working light house. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The pressure to begin construction though is troubling to some. Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina, who is also the executive director of the environmental group Wildcoast, which opposed the Smugglers Gulch project, said the rush to build and not weighing thoroughly what the potential problems are is the wrong course.

That is what I get concerned about, in this rush to build a wall, Dedina said. We are talking about some of the most remote parts of the country. Its simplistic to think you can plan this kind of a fence project without thinking through the engineering and earthworks that will be needed in some areas.

The federal government spent $2.5 billion to build nearly 700 miles of fencing. Estimates for the wall Trump wants to build vary widely, from a $21 billion Homeland Security Department estimate to $38 billion in an MIT study.

Its simplistic to think you can plan this kind of a fence project without thinking through the engineering and earthworks that will be needed in some areas.  Serge Dedina, Imperial Beach mayor and head of Wildcoast

In a March 28 letter to Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, wrote that the Homeland Security budget request for the coming year calls for $2.6 billion to build less than 75 miles of fence.

McCaskill said the figures came from a briefing CBP officials gave to members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

She pointed out the $2.6 billion request works out to a cost of $36.6 million per mile, or a total cost for the borders 1,827 miles of $66.9 billion.

The per-mile estimate is more than than twice the per-mile cost for the Smugglers Gulch project eight years ago.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

8:30 p.m.: This article was updated with comments that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly made in San Diego on Friday, April 21, 2017.

This article was originally published at 6 a.m.
Convicted murderer Ledell Lee was executed in Arkansas on Thursday shortly before midnight, the states first death row execution since 2005.

Witnesses said Lee had no final words before he was given a lethal injection, minutes before his death warrant was set to expire.

Outside the governors mansion, vigils were held in protest. On social media, pictures and video showed protesters praying, or carrying signs that read Thou Shalt Not Kill. Others bore candles during the somber ceremonies.

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Lees last meal, according to the Associated Press, was Holy Communion.

Thursdays execution put Arkansas squarely in the center of the death penalty debate, renewed after the state announced plans to put eight people to death over the course of 11 days this month in a race to use its lethal injection drugs before one of them expires.

Courts had blocked the first two executions, which had been scheduled for Monday, as well as another that had been scheduled for Thursday.

But they allowed the execution of 51-year-old Lee, who had sought a last-minute stay through the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court after lawyers from the Innocence Project and the American Civil Liberties Union argued for fresh DNA testing that they believed would vindicate him.

Lee was convicted in the 1993 murder of 26-year-old Debra Reese, the mother of a 6-year-old boy. She was robbed and strangled in her Jacksonville, Ark., home. Prosecutors said Lee then beat her 36 times with a tire thumper her husband had given her for protection.

Prosecutors came forward with evidence that Lee had previously committed violent crimes against several other women, though he maintained his innocence until his death.

Tonight the lawful sentence of a jury which has been upheld by the courts through decades of challenges has been carried out. The family of the late Debra Reese, who was brutally murdered with a tire thumper after being targeted because she was home alone, has waited more than 24 years to see justice done, Atty. Gen. Leslie Rutledge said in a statement. I pray this lawful execution helps bring closure for the Reese family.

The execution had been held up at several points throughout the evening, with stays and appeals being reviewed simultaneously by the federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. issued the final denials on Lees appeals, and the stay was lifted about 11:30 p.m.

The case had been closely watched by supporters and opponents of capital punishment, and high-profile death penalty critic Sister Helen Prejean expressed her dismay on Twitter.

The U.S. Supreme Court has lifted the stay of execution. Arkansas will now kill Ledell Lee, Prejean tweeted at 11:26 p.m.  just 34 minutes before Lees death warrant was set to expire.

Lee on Thursday declined a last meal and opted instead to receive Communion, the Associated Press reported.

Many of the legal arguments focused on the three drugs used in lethal injections. The states supply of one, midazolam, expires April 30. McKesson Corp., the wholesaler of another, vecuronium bromide, had filed for a temporary restraining order last week to keep Arkansas from using it.

The company said it had been misled because the state had never said it planned to use the drug in executions.

A temporary restraining order was put in place April 14, but three days later the state Supreme Court removed it, agreeing with Rutledge that the judge who issued it was biased because he had attended an anti-death-penalty protest.

McKesson filed for a new restraining order, which was approved Wednesday but then removed Thursday afternoon by the state Supreme Court.

We believe we have done all we can do at this time to recover our product, the company said in a statement lamenting the ruling.

That court also denied attempts by the makers of the other drugs to join McKessons fight.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Rutledge and prosecutors claimed the last-minute legal proceedings were a calculated effort by defense attorneys to run out the clock and stymie the executions.

Through the manipulation of the judicial system, these men continue to torment the victims families in seeking, by any means, to avoid their just punishment, the prosecutors said in a joint statement issued Thursday.

The eight executions originally scheduled between April 17 and April 27 would have been the most by a state in such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Hutchinson set the execution dates in February, drawing instant condemnation from death penalty opponents.

Bruce Earl Ward, 60, who had been convicted of strangling an 18-year-old woman in Little Rock in 1990, got a reprieve Monday. So did Don Davis, who was convicted of killing Jane Daniel the same year.

In addition to Lee, Stacey Johnson was set to be executed Thursday night, but the attorney general chose not to appeal the Arkansas Supreme Courts decision to keep his stay in place. Johnson, 47, was found guilty of killing Carol Heath in 1993.

The remaining four executions are still scheduled for next week, though more court challenges are expected.

One of the men scheduled to die, Jason McGehee, 40, currently has a stay in place and is unlikely to face execution because the legal process would extend beyond the April 30 deadline.

Public support for capital punishment, which peaked in the mid-1990s, when 80% of Americans favored the death penalty, is now at its lowest level since 1972, according to the Pew Research Center.

Its poll in September showed 49% of Americans supported executions for convicted murderers.

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UPDATES:

11:30 p.m.: The article was updated with additional details of the execution and background on Lee.

10:20 p.m.: The article was updated with additional details of the execution.

10:10 p.m.: The article was updated with news of the execution.

10 p.m.: The article was updated throughout with staff reporting.

9:40 p.m.: This article was updated with news that the Supreme Court had cleared the way for the execution.

4:15 p.m.: This article was updated with news that Arkansas planned to proceed with its first execution since 2005.

This article was originally published at 2:25 p.m.
For the first time in the nearly 14 years since the costliest eco-terrorism arson in U.S. history, the FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 in hopes of shaking out tips that will finally lead to who set a University City housing project ablaze in an act of protest.

No one was injured in the 2003 inferno, but it caused an estimated $50 million in damage and has nipped at the heels of a number of federal investigators who have at one time or another worked on the case.

The FBI will be advertising the reward on billboards and posters to renew public interest in the case.

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A loose-knit radical environmental group, the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, immediately took responsibility for the fire, leaving hand-painted messages on bedsheets at the scene and later confirming its involvement on its website and in an email to The San Diego Union-Tribune. But the individuals behind the crime have never been identified.

ELF, with members and cells nationwide, targeted large developments and sought to protect the land from urban sprawl. At 3 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2003, their target was the five-story residential complex, framed and still under construction, between the University Town Centre mall and Interstate 805.

The arsonists left a message behind on bedsheets laid together on the ground: If you build it  we will burn it. The E.L.F.s are mad.

About a month later, on Sept. 19, 2003, similar fires burned down four homes under construction in Torrey Highlands and damaged two others. A third target in the area did not burn as anticipated.

A banner left at one of those sites read: Environmental murder. Nature demands justice. The E.L.F.s are mad.

The backs of each set of banners in the San Diego fires were labeled as a different shade of purple: mauve, violet, magenta, lavender and burgundy. Perhaps a way for the perpetrators to match each pair of bedsheets? If so, wouldnt a numbering system have been easier, agents wonder?

The fires also shared similar ignition methods, a homemade device that FBI agents have described as somewhere between crude and sophisticated.

Information on how to build such arson devices was widely distributed by ELF and other activists at that time, and activist Rodney Coronado even demonstrated how to use one during a public event in Hillcrest just hours before the University City blaze.

By the time the fires were set, Coronado was back home in Tucson, Ariz., and the FBI focused its investigation on others who attended the Hillcrest event, eventually arresting three who refused to testify before a grand jury. The case never stuck and they were released. They denied any involvement with ELF.

Coronado ended up being prosecuted and spending about a year in prison for demonstrating how to make a destructive device.

What has potentially made solving this case more difficult than others is that it is an ideological-driven crime, agents have said.

Agents hope that those with information, perhaps people who used to run in activist circles in the past but have changed their outlook or circumstances, might finally want to talk.

It is our hope that new information will be generated and that someone will be motivated to come forward, said San Diego FBI spokeswoman Davene Butler.

How to reach the FBI

Anyone with specific knowledge of the fires and those responsible can call the FBI at (800) CALL-FBI or visit tips.fbi.gov. Information can remain confidential. Tipsters may be eligible for a reward of up to $25,000.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
Two things San Diego County residents can expect each year after April arrives: Very little rain for the next six or more months and wildfires.

Cal Fire wants residents to be ready for fire season by downloading a new fire preparedness cellphone app.

Called Ready for Wildfire, the app offers an emergency evacuation checklist, step-by-step advice on creating defensible space around a house to slow the advance of flames, and maps of active fires in California.

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The app includes an option to receive text alerts if a wildfire of 10 acres or more is within 30 miles of the phone owners location.

Use the App Store or Google Play Store to search for Cal Fire and install the Ready for Wildfire app. More information is available at ReadyForWildfire.org.

The message were trying to get out is, this time of year fire agencies in San Diego County, and the whole state, are doing their preparedness for coming fires. We want the public to do the same, said Cal Fire Capt. Isaac Sanchez.

Heavy winter rains brought lots of new growth of grasses and other light fuels that burn fast and hot when theyre dry. The state estimates there are 100 million dead trees across California that the rains could not revive.

Those trees are still out there, waiting to burn, Sanchez said.

As an incentive for downloading the app, iHeart Media, which owns radio stations around the country including several in San Diego, has put up the funds to offer a sweepstakes prize worth $10,000 in a random drawing of participants. Of that, $7,500 would be in the form of a home improvement center gift card, and $2,500 in cash, to be used toward making a house more fire-resistant. The sweepstakes can be entered through May 21.

Sanchez urged urban dwellers to download the app too, as many residential neighborhoods back up against canyons and nature preserves.

Even if you live in downtown San Diego, you can use the same evacuation tips and apply it to your home, he said.
The Defense Department is giving $22.7 million to General Dynamics-NASSCO for upgrades and maintenance on the Fort Worth, one of the Navys troubled littoral combat ships. The work is expected to be done at NASSCOs shipyard in Barrio Logan.

The San Diego-based Fort Worth was temporarily stuck in Singapore in early 2016 when crew members failed to properly maintain the ships engines.

Last year, the Navy also had mechanical and operational problems with three other San Diego-based littoral combat ships  the Freedom, Coronado and Montgomery.

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In other shipyard news, the Navy has awarded $19.4 million to BAE Systems San Diego for maintenance and repairs on two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the John Finn and Rafael Peralta.

Burke-class destroyers are known as the workhorse of the fleet because of their versatility and reliability.

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

Twitter: @grobbins

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
Any time attention is called to Americas Armed Forces, its often the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force that are recognized for their professionalism and unmatchable mission capability. Each of these services deserves the praise and admiration they receive, but theres one armed force that is regularly overlooked as an equally essential defender of U.S. national security: the U.S. Coast Guard.

Among all its counterparts, the Coast Guard is uniquely developed in form and function as an organization with both military and law enforcement applications. That by no means makes the Coast Guard less relevant. To the contrary, it provokes greater appreciation for the only service that is tasked to protect Americas shores from migrants, criminals and hostile actors.

Under this tasking, the Coast Guard has earned its reputation as Americas first line of defense. But as an element under the leadership structure of the Department of Homeland Security, the service has been somewhat pigeonholed as a law enforcement entity no different than Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When in actuality and affirmed by statute, the Coast Guard is a military service first and foremost, and it deserves to be treated like one.

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Acknowledging but putting aside the fact that the Coast Guard interdicts more cocaine at sea than all other domestic law enforcement agencies combined, as well as the national security exposure that exists from sea-based transit routes, the Coast Guard remains an important component of the modern Joint Force.

In the Caribbean, for instance, the Coast Guard has almost exclusively undertaken the dangerous security mission once dominated by the Navy. And in the Persian Gulf, Coast Guard cutters are supporting U.S. Central Command.

Along with these responsibilities and others, the Coast Guard has a unique Artic mission much different than the Navy. That mission involves not only research, reconnaissance, and search and rescue. It also puts the Coast Guard in the lead to clear sea lanes by breaking ice in order to provide assured Arctic access for strategic and commercial interests. In direct competition but far ahead of U.S. efforts is Russia, which has amassed 40-icebreaking vessels compared to only two operational vessels in the U.S. inventory.

Theres an aggressive move affront to accelerate the acquisition of heavy and medium icebreakers for this reason, although progress has not been smooth and without setback. In large part, the challenges facing icebreaker acquisition are indicative of a bigger problem facing the Coast Guard and why its time to consider moving the service out of DHS and to DoD, where it really belongs.

When in actuality and affirmed by statute, the Coast Guard is a military service first and foremost, and it deserves to be treated like one.  Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine

For the Coast Guard, its predominant challenge is funding. The service is on a shoestring budget at approximately $9 billion and has been constrained year-in and year-out from increasing in size and strength. As an element within DHS, the Coast Guard is categorized for funding as nondefense discretionary, which means its funded no different than the Federal Emergency Management Agency or any other nondefense centric organization. Its also why the Coast Guard was targeted for a $1.3 billion cut in preliminary budget guidance for the next fiscal year.

This has put the Coast Guard and the nation at a severe disadvantage. In order just to kick-start icebreaker development, the Navy was needed to step in for purposes of providing initial funding and shipbuilding expertise. However, with so many priorities of its own and costs to match, the Navy will be unable to sustain its contributions in this area, never mind others necessary to uphold the Joint Force mission.

The same goes for drones, which the Coast Guard has been desperate to acquire while remaining tied to CBPs air program and often denied use of limited assets due to other operational demands along the land border. Without funding and proper support, this arranged marriage will continue and the Coast Guard will not gain any new advantages where needed  just more setbacks.

If theres a silver lining for the Coast Guard right now its that DHS Secretary John Kelly values and understands its mission and has committed to fight for its interests. But what will happen to the Coast Guard under the next secretary or a new administration? The risk to the nation is too significant to wait and see in the hope that a cultural transformation holds.

A review of the federal governments organization is underway to determine opportunities for consolidation in order to make the federal government more efficient. The recommendation has been made to consider moving the Coast Guard to DoD where it can receive better and more consistent advocacy. If President Trump truly wants to make Americas military more effective and achieve better bang for the buck, then one of his first directives should be to solidify the Coast Guard status as a military service by putting it in its rightful place.

Hunter, R-Alpine, represents the 50th Congressional District.
Politicians cutting deals to win enactment of legislation is as old as parliamentary lawmaking itself. It certainly lends itself to cynicism. Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made, was the famous observation of Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany. But after years of federal gridlock, politicians horse-trading to get something done seems constructive to the point of being borderline wholesome.

Which brings us to the absurd remarks of Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, who asked state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to investigate Gov. Jerry Browns recent maneuvering to win passage of Senate Bill 1, a bold plan to raise gas taxes to fix Californias worn-down roads, highways and transportation infrastructure.

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I am for working toward a solution ... but there is a big difference between compromise and bribery, Melendez said in a statement citing deals Brown struck with state Sens. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, and Anthony Cannella, R-Modesto, and Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, to gain their votes and benefit their districts. Thats not ethical and I believe, if the attorney general actually looks into this, SB 1 will be found illegal.

The kindest possible term for this view of how politics works is obtuse. Brown and accused lawmakers were right to laugh off the allegations.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
In a 1989 decision upholding the legality of flag burning as a political protest, iconic liberal Supreme Court Justice William Brennan wrote, If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

In a 1993 decision upholding a junior high students right to distribute religious materials at her school, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Frank H. Easterbrook elaborated on this principle: The police are supposed to preserve order, which unpopular speech may endanger. Does it follow that the police may silence the rabble-rousing speaker? Not at all. The police must permit the speech and control the crowd. There is no hecklers veto. Just as bellicose bystanders cannot authorize the government to silence a speaker, so ignorant bystanders cannot make censorship legitimate.

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This clear, concise, powerful view of First Amendment rights should resonate with officials at the University of California, Berkeley, the campus that famously gave birth to the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s in reaction to attempts to silence students upset over resistance to civil rights. Yet these days college authorities are all too willing to tolerate the hecklers veto by invoking public safety to keep speakers from visiting campus and offering political views that some students may see as anathema.

In February, Berkeley officials canceled a speaking engagement by Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing firebrand, as protests erupted two hours before the speech. On Wednesday, they canceled right-wing author Ann Coulters scheduled speech eight days ahead of time. On Thursday, thankfully, they changed their mind, saying Coulter could speak on campus on May 2. Until her talk, it will remain unclear how this plays out, but Coulter said Wednesday night that she still plans to speak in Berkeley  somewhere  on April 27. That is her right.

These big issues raised by Berkeleys initial decision and by a growing series of campus protests targeting conservative speakers are not going away. Defenders of this assault on American values and ideals should heed UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich, secretary of labor under President Clinton.

Free speech is what universities are all about, Reich wrote on his website. If universities dont do everything possible to foster and protect it, they arent universities. Theyre playpens.

There are pragmatic reasons for liberals to defend free-speech rights as well. Their cultural influence may be at an all-time high, but their political influence  apart from California  is as small as it has been in decades. The way to change this is by making the case for their views and their ideology in an attempt to win over the millions of independent, politically unaffiliated Americans  not by silencing those with different opinions.

Thats the point that President Barack Obama made in 2015 after several campus contretemps. He said the purpose of free speech is to make sure that we are forced to use argument and reason and words in making our democracy work. And, you know, you dont have to be fearful of somebody spouting bad ideas. Just out-argue them. Beat em. Make the case as to why theyre wrong. Win over adherents. Thats how things work in a democracy.

Or at least that is how things are supposed to work in a democracy. On too many college campuses today, this troubling suppression of free speech has left bellicose bystanders in charge.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Vinson story line was a strategic misdirection

Regarding Carrier Group didnt rush to North Korea as claimed (April 19): Seems like yesterday that the USS Chicago was turned around while heading to Australia and rerouted to Korean waters because of the capture of the USS Pueblo by North Korea in January 1968.

During the Vietnam War, it was a standing joke that the bar girls in ports such as Subic Bay knew your ships arrival date before the crew was informed. I bring this up because it seems the media have created another fake story centered around the reported destination of the USS Carl Vinson.

Perhaps the information was ambiguous in order to confuse North Korea. President Trump has long emphasized that telegraphing our strategy is not how he operates. Not so confusing when you think about it.

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Paul Determan

Point Loma

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

Trumps lies meant for allies, constituents

Regarding the Carl Vinson carrier group issue (Carrier Group didnt rush to North Korea as claimed, April 19), just who was the Trump administration trying to deceive?

Surely it wasnt the Russians or the Chinese, whose satellites and other collection platforms monitor closely all U.S. military assets 24/7, and who thereby knew the truth.

And it probably wasnt the North Koreans, who likely were tipped off by their friends in Moscow and Beijing.

And it definitely was not the Australian naval vessels exercising with the Vinson. They knew the truth, too.

Apparently, the only key parties to this crisis deliberately kept in the dark were Americas own regional allies, Japan and South Korea and, sad to say, the American people themselves.

Why?

Sheldon Rabin

Chula Vista

Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
Modi said they do not need to be afraid of any consequences for taking fast decisions as he will stand behind the officers taking honest decisions in public interest.

By Press Trust of India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today he has got a bit extra political will to carry out reforms and asked bureaucrats to break silos and work together as a team to perform and transform the country.

Addressing civil servants, Modi said they do not need to be afraid of any consequences for taking fast decisions as he will stand behind the officers taking honest decisions in public interest.

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Modi said political will can reform, but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms.

"We have to bring them on one wavelength and when we run these three (political will, performance by bureaucracy and public participation) on one wavelength, then we get good results," he said.

Modi said political will is needed to reform. "I do not lack it and may be having a bit extra," the Prime Minister said.

NO NEED TO TAKE PROMPT DECISION

He said the civil servants do not need to think that if a decision is taken promptly then there is ill-will behind it.

"If a decision is taken with honest intention, truthfulness and for the welfare of public then there is nobody in the world who can raise fingers at you.

"Something momentary may happen but I am with you," the Prime Minister said, addressing a Civil Services Day function here, amidst applause from the bureaucrats attending it.

THREE Cs

His assertion assumes significance as some bureaucrats have referred to three Cs -- the CAG, CBI and the CVC -- as stumbling blocks in decision-making, ultimately resulting in policy paralysis.

He asked the civil servants to weigh their decisions from an outcome point of view and not on output.

"Aankado se badlav aata hai kya (Do we get any change through numbers)? We need to weigh decisions from an outcome point of view. Output is okay for the CAG. If we see output with the CAG then there wont be any change in the country.

"We will neither be able to see any change, nor any change would come in the country. But if we see things from CAG+1 then there would be changes," the Prime Minister said, referring to outcome- and output- based decision-making in the government.

INNOVATIVE THINKING WILL GIVE SOLUTIONS

He asked the bureaucrats to have out-of-the-box thinking to bring solutions to problems faced by people.

"It will be good if you change your working style and way of your thinking. If you come out of the role of being regulator and act as enabling entity, then challenges would convert into opportunities," Modi said.

The Prime Minister said that senior officers should refrain from "know-all" syndrome and give a serious thought to new ideas from their juniors.

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He said hierarchy in the bureaucracy remains an issue which has been inherited from colonial rulers and "was not left behind in Mussoorie (where the civil service academy is located)".

Talking about peoples perception towards bureaucracy, he said when bureaucrats are not bad and they are not out to work with some bad will, then what is the reason that common man instead of having a "feeling" (bhaav), has "abhaav" (complaint)?

"What is the reason? We must introspect and if we do that, then I dont feel we need big changes (in changing peoples perception)," Modi said.

He said people clap when army saves lives during flood in Kashmir. "The same people may later pelt stones at them but for a moment this deed (of army men) touch them," the PM said.

Modi said bureaucrats do not need to work in silos, but work together as a team. He said it is a matter of concern when he sees two departments of the same government having divergent views in courts over some matters.

"On this day, we need to think that do we accept our weakness or somebody running away from his responsibilities? Or some ego is coming in way? It should be a matter of introspection on this Civil Services Day. These are handicaps in meeting the needs of common people," he said, asking the bureaucrats to take responsibilities for works being done by them.

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The Prime Minister said civil servants need to take a vow to make India as per the dreams of freedom fighters by 2022.

"It should be responsibility of all to take the vow as to how they can make India a super power in the world by 2022, he said.

Also Read:

Civil Services Day: PM Narendra Modi urges bureaucrats to change mindset, style of working

--- ENDS ---
Attorney General Jeff Sessions decision earlier this month to review reform agreements the Justice Department has made with troubled local police departments across the nation signals not just an end to federal support for efforts to reduce unnecessary police violence but a rejection of the idea that such violence is actually a significant problem. This was underscored by Sessions harsh criticism of a federal judge who refused the Justice Departments request to delay the adoption of a reform decree for Baltimore that was finalized in the closing weeks of the Obama administration.

None of this should be a surprise, especially considering President Donald Trumps somber reaction to the horrible shooting death of a French police officer on Thursday was, It never ends. Trump  the man who appointed Sessions  has shown far more sympathy for police officers than for the Black Lives Matter movement. Given how many millions of Americans deeply revere police officers for their willingness to put their lives on the line, Trumps Blue Lives Matter position no doubt helped him get elected. But its doubtful he or Sessions even considered the evidence that federal consent decrees have improved professionalism and community relationships among police forces.

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Whatever approach is forthcoming from the White House and the Justice Department, it shouldnt slow the momentum at the local and state level in California to promote the use of body cameras, police review boards and standardized use-of-force policies to improve police behavior and accountability. Such efforts hardly have as their goal diminishing the effectiveness of law enforcement, as Sessions has implied. Instead, they are driven by an appreciation that while the vast majority of police officers do their job the right way, Americans have seen a decades worth of videos from cellphones and other sources that chronicled numerous cases of officers violating the civil rights of suspects with little or no provocation. Members of minority groups who have complained for decades about police brutality in some big cities have had their I told you so moments many times over.

And while cases in Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio have received more national attention, California has painful examples, too. Last May, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr resigned under pressure after three fatal police shootings in six months of people who didnt appear to pose grave risks to anyone. Last June, Fresno police fatally shot Dylan Noble, an unarmed 19-year-old whom officers alleged made a hand gesture that they thought indicated he was pulling out a weapon. Yet cellphone video showed the last of four shots to hit Noble followed a 14-second pause with him lying on his back. Now, a lawyer who secured a $719,900 settlement for the father of a man shot dead by Sacramento police last year is representing a man recorded on video being thrown to the ground and punched in the face repeatedly by another Sacramento officer.

Increasingly, Americans find themselves both holding the police in great respect and horrified by these sorts of incidents. Police reforms must proceed in California and build off this dual view.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Congratulations to Gloria Roma for taking the top spot this week. Purrrfect, Gloria! She will receive Steve Breens signed original in the mail. Thanks to all those who participated.

Next weeks cartoon is below. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. Good luck!

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Winner

Your inordinately large YouTube fan base is not going to get you out of this one. Gloria Roma, San Diego

Finalists

Youve committed purrrrjury. Kamal Gilliam, San Diego

The sofa was shredded ... you had probable claws. Karen Farrington, Alpine

Youre entitled to a jury of your peers, but we cant find 12 cats who will sit still and pay attention. Bill McGrath, San Diego

30 days for violating your restraining order at Point Loma Seafood. Mike Dodson, San Diego

I see you are a blue-collar defendant. Mark Heinze, San Diego

Your motion to exclude all dogs from the jury is denied. Gordy Dunfee, La Jolla

Yes, Im a dog person, but I resent your questioning my impartiality. Jim Dela Rosa, Bay Park

Your sentence is 10 lifetimes. George Bartolomei, San Diego

Despite the heinous nature of the hairball, the court finds no evidence of malice. Linda Hughes, Lakeside

No, the court will not grant you a license for a cathouse. Paul S.D. Berg, Castro Valley

Tom, for the last time, what happened to Jerry? Craig Twitchell, San Diego

So its your testimony that the goldfish retired and moved to Florida? Don X. Sanelli, Ocean Hills

Did you know that the kangaroo rat was an endangered species before the incident? George Bullette, Rancho Santa Fe

Cute as a kitten does not cut it in this classroom. Holly Hamel, Carlsbad

Due to the last-minute appearance of this incredible surprise witness, I find curiosity innocent. Daniel Gruskin, San Diego

Sir, you are now a convicted feline. Tony Batakis, online submission



K-12

Youre accused of copy-catting. Ardi Amirsoleymany, sixth grade, Muirlands Middle School

Weve been tailing you for quite a while. Nikko Barry, sixth grade, Muirlands Middle School

The beach is not your own personal litter box. Rachel McFeaters, fifth grade, Hope Elementary School

For the last time, a goldfish is not the same as sushi. Jacob Hosmer, sixth grade, Dana Middle School

Next weeks cartoon

To enter, email entries to cartooncontest@sduniontribune.com by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. View last weeks winners.
France will vote Sunday on who should replace President Francois Hollande, making a choice that will not only have implications at home but likely for the rest of Europe.

Even President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama are getting involved. All eyes will be on the French people as they make a huge decision following political upheaval in 2016 in the U.S. with Trump and in the U.K. with its voters decision to leave the European Union.

Will the French election be the latest in a series of political events to shock the world? Heres what you need to know.

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The details

The eleven French presidential election candidates take part in a television debate at French national television France 2, in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, Thursday, April 20, 2017. (Martin Bureau/Pool Photo via AP)

In France, presidents are elected for five-year terms and can serve two terms.

The French often decide their presidents with two rounds of voting. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote on the first voting date  in this case, April 23  a second day, May 7, will be used for a head-to-head contest between the top two vote-getters in the first round.

Here are the five legitimate contenders, according to The New York Times.

Francois Fillon, a conservative from the center-right Republican Party.

Benoit Hamon, of the mainstream left-wing Socialist Party, who has dropped to single digits in the polls.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front.

Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, a hard-left candidate who created the France Unbowed movement.

Trumps role

Trump hasnt formally endorsed any candidate, but many are comparing Le Pens far-right, populist message to that of the U.S. presidents campaign. She was even sighted in Trump Tower in New York City during the presidents transition period, according to The Associated Press.

However, the AP also noted that Trump has already gone against Le Pens wishes in bombing Syria, a country whose president Le Pen backs, and in alienating Russia. Le Pen wants France to have better relations with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.

But the shake-up in U.S. politics represented by Trump is seen as encouraging by Le Pen.

He made possible what had previously been presented as impossible, she said in an interview just days after the Nov. 8 American election. Its really the victory of the people against the elite.

His anti-globalism and harsh-on-immigration message is very similar to Le Pens, and many wondered if that similarity meant this tweet after a deadly shooting in Paris, France, on Thursday was meant to help Le Pen.

Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017

Obama gets involved

Lets keep defending our progressive values. Thank you for this discussion @BarackObama. pic.twitter.com/8rhNdHkLo8  Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 20, 2017

Former President Obama jumped into the fray on Thursday when he gave a call to Macron to wish him luck. Macron posted video of the phone call on social media and it was widely shared.

The main message I have is to wish you all the best in the coming days, and make sure, as you said, you work hard all the way through  because you never know, it might be that last day of campaigning that makes all the difference, Obama said.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said, however, an endorsement was not the purpose of the call, as President Obama is not making any formal endorsement.

Either way, its safe to say Macron was extremely happy about the call.

What are the major issues at play?

French police officers patroll the Human Rights plaza on the Trocadero facing the Eiffel Tower on April 21, 2017 in Paris, a day after a gunman opened fire on police on the avenue, killing a policeman and wounding two others in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. (LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Two of the candidates are proposing major reforms when it comes to Frances place in the European Union. Melenchon and Le Pen have said they would consider a Brexit-like departure from the EU.

Immigration and security are also major, related issues in the election after a wave of terror attacks by individuals inspired by or working with the Islamic State, including a December 2015 terror strike which left 130 people dead in Paris.

The economy is another key topic for candidates, with the unemployment rate in the country at 10 percent and years of little growth in new jobs.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
Facebook has emerged as one of the largest data companies in the world. The social media giant has more than 1.23 billion active daily users, many of whom post lots of personal information thats analyzed not only by the company, but independent scientists.

Those researchers include Jennifer Golbeck, a University of Maryland computer scientist who who writes algorithms that produce a deeper understanding of individual users. She discussed her work with the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Q: Facebook users realize that the company knows certain things about them because we voluntarily post a lot of personal information. But you write algorithms that predict many things about these users -- like a persons age, their religion, their sexual orientation, their personality traits, even their intelligence.

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How do these algorithms work?

A: They start with a bunch of data and what we call ground truth. For example, if you want to know if someones introverted based on what they tweet, you need lots of tweets from people who are known to be introverted and people who arent.

Then, you measure a bunch of things about the data. If youre using tweets, it may be what hashtags they use, who they follow, what kinds of words they use, how often they use images, and so on. Then, you teach a machine learning algorithm how to tell the groups apart. Basically, you say heres a person we know is introverted. Heres all the measurements for that person.

You do this over and over with thousands of examples of introverts and non-introverts. The algorithm learns what features or combinations of features show a difference between each group. Then, you can theoretically feed it measurements for an unknown person and it will guess based on what it learned.

Q: Most users click the Like button on Facebook. How important are those likes to coming up with a profile of an individual user?

A: The likes are interesting because they are always public - you cant make them private no matter what your settings are. Research has shown that likes are useful to predict all kinds of demographics and behaviors. People can try it on themselves; the project is online at https://applymagicsauce.com/

Question: Do these algorithms do simple things like say, Well, this user likes BBC America and NPR. Therefore, he or she must be well-educated?

A: They can, but usually it is much more complex than that. In fact, most of the connections dont make a lot of logical sense. For example, when one paper was published, liking the Facebook page for curly fries was a strong indicator of intelligence. Its not because curly fries have anything to do with intelligence. There are lot of complex social dynamics going on behind the scenes and liking a page reflects those, which relate to personal attributes much more than the subject of a page does.

Q: Do the algorithms factor in the photos and videos that we post on Facebook? Many photos are rich in meaning.

A: They can! There are algorithms that work just on photos. Theres one recent study that can accurately identify signs that a person is depressed based on the composition of photos they post.

The interesting and scary thing is that we find signals of peoples personal attributes and mental states pretty much everywhere we look for them. This means we can discover things all over, which is exciting from a scientific perspective, but it also means people cant hide from the algorithms. I personally think consent is critical as these move from research labs into the public sphere, but now, basically anyone can discover your secrets from your public social media data, and theres nothing you can do about it. I find this very troubling.

Cybersecurity Playlist  On Now Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) slams Equifax On Now LA 90: Yahoo data breach worse than originally reported On Now Lifelock offers to protect you from the Equifax breach  by selling you services provided by Equifax 1:02 On Now California beer maker thrives in Germany On Now Cyberattacks on Hollywood On Now Hackers gain access to OneLogin On Now What is WannaCry? On Now Senate overturns privacy rules for Internet providers On Now Online pirates claim to hold Disney's latest 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie hostage, demand ransom On Now Yahoo warns users of malicious activity

Twitter: @grobbins

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
Gene Panes computer abruptly stopped working, save for a jarring message that appeared on his screen.

It was a warning that said I had downloaded a virus and had to pay $199 to get rid of it, Pane, a retired business executive who lives in Carlsbad, said of the recent incident. I needed the files on my computer, so I paid. The money wont break me, but still ...

Pane had accidentally downloaded ransomware, a rapidly growing form of extortion in which hackers slyly load malicious software onto peoples computers  via emails, decoy ads, bogus news stories and code embedded in all manner of websites.

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Its entirely possible that well have far in excess of $1 billion in losses worldwide related to ransomware, said Special Agent Chris Christopherson, who investigates cyber crimes out of the FBIs field office in San Diego.

He was referring to the projected tally for 2016, which will take awhile to finalize. The figure for this year could turn out to be twice as much.

Slideshow: Five things to know about ransomware 

At least 190 types of ransomware currently exist, experts said. Once a malicious link is clicked, the virus encrypts the files on a persons computer and freezes the home screen.

Victims then receive a message saying they have to pay a fee to regain control of their hijacked computers. In most cases, the ransom must be paid in bitcoins, a comparatively new international form of digital currency thats hard for banks and law enforcement to trace.

The FBI said every hour, about 4,000 computers around the world become infected with ransomware.

Thats just an estimate. For a variety of reasons, the exact depth and breadth of the problem arent known.

Cyber experts said many ransomware victims never report such extortion because they feel ashamed for getting duped, are worried that people will know they visited a pornography website or some other questionable page, or just want to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

Other people dont know where to report an attack or doubt whether law-enforcement authorities would investigate this type of ransom demand, which experts said generally doesnt exceed $700 per incident.

And many businesses  particularly in the health-care industry  are loathe to acknowledge that they were attacked for fear of undermining the publics confidence in their ability to protect data.

The challenge that we must overcome is the shame of being a victim, said Todd OBoyle, chief technology officer for Percipient Networks, a security firm based in Wakefield, Mass. Until people are OK saying that theyve been victimized, there will be no way to measure the size of the problem. Its OK to talk. This is like being robbed. Youre a victim.

Related content: How to fend off ransomware attacks 

Hardly anyone is being spared the grief these days.

Ransomware is one of the few cyber-criminal business models where the same attack could harm a Fortune 500 company, a local restaurant and your grandmother, the company Palo Alto Networks of Santa Clara said in a report.

OBoyle has seen the attacks evolve. In the bad old days, the same person who attacked you would write the software and send you the malicious email. Now, there are professional software developers who build the solicits that trick you, he said.

They sell the software to hackers, who also buy email lists and operate the servers needed to handle the traffic, he added. They can buy the software and lists on the underground  the (alternate online network known as the) dark web. These franchisees hire young, energetic, persistent sales and support people to do the rest of the work.

Theres particular concern about a recent innovation in ransomware, said Reg Harnish, chief executive of GreyCastle Security, a firm based in Troy, N.Y.

There are new variants that offer to decrypt infected victims computers as long as they are willing to infect someone else on their list of contacts, Harnish said. That can create a moral dilemma for the affected consumers and businesses.

In some cases, the malicious software  called malware  launches a countdown clock on the computer screen, giving victims a specific length of time to pay up. If they dont comply, the hackers sometimes delete files on the hijacked computer.

Of course, in all instances of ransomware, theres no guarantee that a hacker will free up the affected computer once a payment is made.

The anger and anxiety caused by ransomware were clearly evident in the more than 50 responses The San Diego Union-Tribune received when it asked readers whether they had been hit by this crime.

Rick Schloss, a publicist in San Diego, said he received an email that appeared to be from FedEx. He was expecting a package, so he clicked on the message, inadvertently launching ransomware.

Im panicking, wondering whats going on, he said. They wanted $300 in bitcoins. I didnt know how to transfer money that way, and didnt know anyone who does.

Schloss computer was crucial to running his business, so he ignored the hackers and bought a new machine for $1,500. Fortunately, he was able to upload his lost files from another device.

On a pissed number-scale of 1 to 10, it was an 11!, Schloss said.

Lou Cumming, a retiree in La Jolla, also got scammed. The hackers were so polite, he initially didnt know he was being attacked.

The problem began in March 2015 when he downloaded an email attachment.

The next thing I know, my computer screen turned all blue with loud bells going off, lights blinking and in the screen center there appeared a box saying it was Microsoft (and the company was) aware of my problem and gave me a phone number to call ASAP to get it fixed, Cumming said.

All during this process, (the guy who took his call) was very polite and courteous, like there was nothing wrong, he recounted. Claiming to be from Microsoft at the very inception of this problem really put my mind at ease.

Following the mans instructions, Cumming paid $308 to an unknown party. In actuality, Microsoft doesnt place such messages on peoples screens or demand such payments.

Then Cumming experienced a similar attack last month. About three days later, he received a call asking for another payment.

This time, he sought help from a friend who subsequently discovered and removed the malware that had been placed on his computer.

Ransomware is an exponentially larger problem for the city of San Diego, which faces a daily onslaught of ransomware attacks against its 14,000 desktop and laptop computers.

It has become the malware of choice, said Gary Hayslip, the citys chief information security officer. Some days I truly wish for just basic good-old email spam, the type that annoys you but doesnt try to destroy your organizations assets or interrupt business operations.

With that said, here at the city, we have a strict policy that we dont pay ransom.

The FBI also advises people not to pay ransom.

Obviously, we dont want to see criminals make money from their criminal activity, Special Agent Christopherson said. It funds further illicit activity, and it kind of emboldens them.

However, we do understand that businesses or even individuals might have a lot of money invested in files (on their computers).  There are going to be business decisions that arise where people pay the ransom.

Even some law-enforcement agencies have decided to pay the hackers. Last year, for example, the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office in Maine and four towns in that area together paid $300 to end a ransomware attack.

Experts warn that if people use their credit card to make a ransom payment, they wont be able to get relief later by calling their credit card company to request a cancellation or refund.

Overall, cyber analysts said hackers, which include so-called cyber gangs and criminal syndicates, currently have the upper hand.

Tracking the attacker or crime group back to their offices  because yes, ransomware is a business  can be difficult if not impossible, said James Carder, vice president of LogRhythm Labs, a security company in Boulder, Colorado. You combine that with the sheer number of attackers or crime groups  and you almost dont know where to start. If youre a law-enforcement agency, that makes it extremely difficult to do your job.

REFLECTIONS OF AN FBI CYBER CRIME EXPERT

The San Diego Union-Tribune recently interviewed Special Agent Chris Christopherson, who investigates cyber crimes out of the FBI field office in San Diego. Here are some of his comments about ransomware; the remarks were edited for space and continuity.

What happens in a ransomware attack?

Its dark and seedy. Its a form of malware that infects your computer. The hacker or someone trying to extort money from you takes control of your computer. With that control, they go out and download the ransomware. The ransomware has specialized instructions for decrypting the files on your computer and displaying some sort of ransom message. Even if you have (those) encrypted files decrypted, you still have the initial infection.

How big is the problem?

Every hour of every day, we believe that 4,000 computers (worldwide) are being infected with ransomware. All the data files are being encrypted. And at the end of the day, theyre trying to extort a ransom. The more computers they infect, the more likely someone is to pay the ransom. Ive got a list, which Im sure is not exhaustive, of almost 200 forms of ransomware.

Who are these hackers?

What we see a lot of the time in cyber crime  and ransomware is not different  (are) people who are very talented, who have a gift for math programming, science, things of that nature, but dont have an outlet for employment. You see economies, like in eastern Europe or even potentially Russia, where there are not a lot of jobs in that area, but there are a lot of people who are educated. It becomes a problem where they turn to the black market, to the dark side, in order to get some sort of employment or money.  What they resort to is making money for criminal groups or writing software and selling it to criminal groups.

Can you understand why some people agree to pay a ransom to hackers?

There are often really good business reasons to pay the ransom. Our only fear is that the more money the criminals make by writing and distributing ransomware, the more they will do it. So our concern is two-fold: It is for the victims, of course. But (also) for stopping the criminal activity in the future. Were kind of caught in a hard place where we dont want people to pay the ransom, but we have seen certain instances where it makes sense.

Cybersecurity Playlist  On Now Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) slams Equifax On Now LA 90: Yahoo data breach worse than originally reported On Now Lifelock offers to protect you from the Equifax breach  by selling you services provided by Equifax 1:02 On Now California beer maker thrives in Germany On Now Cyberattacks on Hollywood On Now Hackers gain access to OneLogin On Now What is WannaCry? On Now Senate overturns privacy rules for Internet providers On Now Online pirates claim to hold Disney's latest 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie hostage, demand ransom On Now Yahoo warns users of malicious activity

Twitter: @grobbins

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
TORONTO (AP)  Rob Ford, the pugnacious, populist former mayor of Toronto whose career crashed in a drug-driven, obscenity-laced debacle, died Tuesday after fighting cancer, his family said. He was 46.

Ford rode into office on a backlash against urban elites. He cast an image sharply at odds with Canadas reputation for sedate, unpretentious politics. His tenure as mayor of the countrys largest city was marred by revelations about his drinking problems and illegal drug use. He was repeatedly videotaped and photographed while intoxicated in public.

Nevertheless, he was later elected by a landslide to a city council seat, a job he held until his death.

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One after another, his statements and actions as mayor became nightly fodder for TV comedians and an embarrassment to many of the suburbanites he championed. Among the more notable:

 Knocking over a 63-year-old female city councilor while rushing to the defense of his brother, Councilor Doug Ford, who was insulting spectators in the council chamber.

 Threatening murder in a profane, incoherent rant captured by video.

 Swearing and slurring his words, calling the police chief a derogatory name and trying to imitate a Jamaican accent in a different video.

But his popularity continued. Even after a scandal broke about Fords use of crack, hundreds of people lined up for bobblehead dolls of the mayor, signed by Ford himself. Ford spent countless hours taking pictures with residents eager to be photographed with an international celebrity.

As he sought a second term as mayor in 2014, Ford was diagnosed with a rare cancer just two months before the election date. Malignant liposarcoma in his abdomen forced him to do what months of scandals could not  drop his bid for re-election. He underwent a series of aggressive chemotherapy treatments.

With heavy hearts and profound sadness, the Ford family announces the passing of their beloved son, brother, husband, and father, Councillor Rob Ford, earlier today at the age of 46, a statement from his family said Tuesday. A dedicated man of the people, Councillor Ford spent his life serving the citizens of Toronto.

Current Toronto Mayor John Tory said in a statement that the city is reeling with this news.

He was a man who spoke his mind and who ran for office because of the deeply felt convictions that he had, Tory said. I know there are many who were affected by his gregarious nature and approach to public service.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that Ford fought cancer with courage and determination and offered condolences to the Ford family.

When Ford was elected mayor in 2010, his bluster was widely known. A plurality of voters backed him, eager to shake things up at a City Hall they viewed as elitist and wasteful. Fords voter base resided mainly in the outer suburbs, a result of the Conservative provincial governments decision to force liberal Toronto to merge with five of its neighboring municipalities in 1998, creating a mega-city that now has 2.7 million residents.

Ford appealed to conservative-leaning, working-class suburban residents with his populist, common-man touch and with promises to slash spending, cut taxes and end what he called the war on the car. He first won as mayor by promising to stop the gravy train of government spending.

His supporters got perhaps more turmoil than they expected.

The international spotlight fell on Ford in May 2013, when Toronto Star and the U.S. website Gawker reported the existence of a video that appeared to show the mayor inhaling from a crack pipe. He denied the existence of the video but later backtracked when police said they had obtained it. Although he became the subject of a police investigation, Ford was never charged with a crime.

Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine, Ford told reporters after he stepped off an elevator. But, no, do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.

According to police interviews, members of Fords staff accused the mayor of frequently drinking, driving while intoxicated and making sexual advances toward a female staffer.

Ford drew gasps when he used crude language on live television to deny telling a staffer he wanted to have oral sex. The father of two school-age children said he was happily married and that he enjoys enough oral sex at home.

Disgusted city councilors turned their backs on Ford in a council meeting that day. Jon Stewart played the oral sex remark clip that night on the Daily Show and yelled, What? What?! What?! WHAT!? WHAT!?

Despite immense pressure, Ford refused to resign. The City Council stripped Ford of most of his powers but lacked the authority to force him out of office because he wasnt convicted of a crime.

Ford announced he was entering rehab in April 2014 after newspaper reports detailed three different nights in which the mayor was extremely intoxicated. One report cited a video that appeared to show him again smoking a crack pipe.

Although his cancer ultimately forced him to drop his re-election bid, Ford opted to seek his old City Council seat. It was in the same suburban district where he launched his political career and where his everyman style and conservative fiscal policies first gained a faithful following that became known as Ford Nation. He won his old seat in a landslide. His brother Doug replaced him on the ballot for mayor but lost.

The youngest of four children, Rob Ford grew up in a palatial home in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. He dropped out of university after a year and worked at the family business.

Ford mayor met his wife, Renata, in high school, and they were married in 2000. One of Renata Fords few forays into the media spotlight came in 2008 after a widely reported domestic dispute with her husband. Rob Ford was charged with assault and threatening death, but prosecutors withdrew the charges, citing inconsistencies in Renata Fords statements.

Ford is survived by his wife and two children, Stephanie and Doug.
In a corner of old Beijing, the government may soon be both destroying history and remaking it.

District officials want to re-create a piece of Chinas glorious dynastic past by rebuilding a square near the Drum and Bell towers in 18th-century Qing Dynasty fashion. To do it, they will demolish dozens of scuffed courtyard homes that preservationists say have themselves become a part of a cultural history that is fast disappearing as construction transforms the capital.

Because of relatively recent renovation, few of the homes can claim to be more than a few decades old. But they are in crooked alleyways known as hutongs, which formed around courtyard houses and date back centuries.

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Along their lanes and within their mended walls, an old way of life is still visible - mahjong rooms, shared courtyards, clothes hanging to dry - against a more distant backdrop of skyscrapers.

The plan to redo the neighborhood has raised the ire of those who see it as swapping a real and living piece of Beijings history with something static and fake.

They want to restore the Drum and Bell Tower square to the time of the prosperous Qing Dynasty, but in doing so they will destroy a rich accumulation of cultural heritage, said He Shuzhong, founder of Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, a nongovernmental organization.

We believe that protecting cultural heritage is about inheriting, accumulation. It is a process of history. It shouldnt look like the prosperous time now, he said.

Dominic Johnson-Hill, a British entrepreneur who spent nine years living in the Drum and Bell neighborhood, said the hutongs are kind of the living museums of China, or Beijing at least.

If you go to the Forbidden City it feels quite empty, as do a lot of cultural spots. But when you go to a hutong, you feel like you are in some of the best surviving parts of Beijing, Johnson-Hill said.

The Drum and Bell towers were first built in 1272 to announce the time, and at various points in history, the square served as a lively marketplace. Today, it is different.

The homes are dilapidated and the hutongs lined with rubble. A handful of tourists meander through while locals carry home shopping bags, some of them stopping to read pasted signs advising which properties will be knocked down. At one home, pigeons warble in coops on the corrugated iron roof.

A previous plan in 2009 to demolish the courtyard houses and build an underground mall was shelved after opposition from civic groups and some residents. Now a less ambitious plan is on the table.

The Dongcheng district government says the new plan is about preserving history. It says it will restore the square to its original appearance by using maps of the Qianlong period in the Qing dynasty in the 18th century and other unspecified periods, though they are still working out designs and details are vague. Residents, however, were given notice to move in December.

The oldest houses to be demolished date from the Republic of China, 1911-1949, but most were either renovated or rebuilt after the 1970s, said Liu Jingdi, who works for the Dongcheng district Historical Appearance Protection Office.

These houses are of no historical value. There is absolutely no cultural heritage in the 4,700-square-meter area to be demolished, Liu said.

The neighborhoods average living space per household is just 20 square meters (24 square yards) and is rife with fire hazards, officials say. Many houses are made of wood, and the 3-meter-wide (3-yard-wide) hutongs are too narrow for fire trucks to navigate.

Those displaced will be relocated to bigger apartments farther from the city center. Residents of illegally added second and third stories wont be compensated, said Li Guanghui, deputy chief of Dongcheng housing administration.

Officials say the project will raise residents living standards and safeguard the areas historical appearance. Heritage experts disagree, saying the existing homes should be renovated, not destroyed.

We respect this place because it has so many histories, so many stories, so many imaginations, said He, of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center. They think this is a dilapidated place, the dirtiest, messiest place of Beijing, which is hindering Beijings development. They think Beijing should be big, sparkling and new.

Chinas breakneck economic growth and real estate explosion over the past three decades have transformed its big cities at the expense of history. A third of Beijings narrow hutongs have disappeared since the early 1990s and another third have lost their original appearance after renovation, Hes group estimates.

One hutong community south of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square was bulldozed to make way for new shops modeled on old architecture, rebuilt in 2008 with new materials rather than reusing what was there before, to the horror of heritage buffs. It is now filled with Chinese and Western brand stores.

Dongcheng officials say the Drum and Bell square wont become a commercial street and that the surrounding area will remain residential. But those in the immediate vicinity will have to leave.

Many arent sorry, and are looking forward to newer and bigger houses.

I wanted to move 30 years ago, said one woman, who would only give her surname, Wang.

Liu Fengying, 64, is more wistful. Liu, who remembers three earlier generations of her family living in the neighborhood, hosted visitors while wearing a winter coat and sitting on a bed that took up about half of one of her two drafty rooms. A washing line was strung across the room, and a calendar with a drawing of a young Mao Zedong hung on the wall.

Im not willing to leave, she said. But if the state needs this land, then we have no choice. They will give us a bigger house, but its just a little far out.

Johnson-Hill, the British entrepreneur, said he chose to live on a hutong because he wanted to bring up his children in a community, rather than in neighborhoods where people live a meter apart but dont even know each other. His family lived on a courtyard with four Chinese families and wild ferrets in the roof.

Those families are now like family to us. Our children would come home and would go to our neighbors home before they came to our home, he said. The best days of my life have been spent living on hutongs.

---

AP researchers Henry Hou and Flora Ji contributed to this report.
A Seattle man has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison in an embezzlement scheme that defrauded Microsoft Corp. of more than $450,000.

Robert D. Curry has agreed to repay the company for its losses as well as for the cost of the internal investigation of his conduct. The 41-year-old was sentenced for wire fraud Friday in federal court in Seattle.

Court records show Curry was a well-regarded professional in Microsofts online business development area. According to court documents, Curry said he hatched the scheme in 2010 when he grew disillusioned with his employer because of an abusive manager.

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Prosecutors say Curry used an unwitting third-party vendor in an intricate and sophisticated scheme that involved forged documents and a shell company.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has countered India's charge that China was inventing names to make its territorial claims over the area legal.

By Press Trust of India: China today asserted that it was its "lawful right" to standardise official names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh, while its state-run media warned that India will pay "dearly" if it continues to play the Dalai Lama card."

China's position on the eastern section of the India-China boundary is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a media briefing here while reacting to India's assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is its integral part.

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"Relevant names have been used by ethnic Momba and Tibetan Chinese who have lived here for generations. So it is a fact that cannot be changed. To standardise these names and publicise them is a legitimate measure based on our lawful right," he said.

Lu also countered India's charge that China was inventing names to make its territorial claims over the area legal.

India had yesterday hit out at China for giving Chinese names to six places in Arunachal Pradesh, saying assigning invented names to towns of the neighbour does not make illegal territorial claims legal.

ARUNACHAL INTEGRAL PART OF INDIA

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay in New Delhi had also asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

Earlier, the Global Times, in an op-ed article, said India will pay "dearly" if it continues the "petty game" of playing the Dalai Lama card and dismissed as "absurd" New Delhi's reaction to China's renaming of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardised names in South Tibet at this time," said the article titled 'India playing Dalai card worsens territorial spats with China'.

The daily said "playing the Dalai Lama card" was never a wise choice for New Delhi. "If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in playing dearly for it," the daily warned.

"South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) is historically part of China and name of the places there is part of the local ethnic culture. It is legitimate for the Chinese government to standardize the names of the places," it said.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet'. China on Wednesday had announced that it has "standardised" official names for six places in the northeastern state and termed the provocative move as a legitimate action".

The Chinese move came days after Beijing lodged strong protests with India over the Dalai Lama's visit to the frontier state. Lu had earlier said that the Chinese government was conducting the second nationwide survey on geographical names," an important task to standardise the geographical names in the languages of ethnic minority groups."

He had also said that more standardised names will be announced later. Highlighting China's stand on the border dispute, the Global Times said, "China has been making efforts to solve the territorial disputes with India, but over the past decades,India has not only increased migration to the disputed area and boosted its military construction there, but it also named Arunachal Pradesh, China's South Tibet, as a formal state of India in 1987."

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The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covers the Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.

ALSO READ:

Inventing names for Arunachal towns doesn't make China's claim legal, says India

India will 'pay dearly' for playing Dalai Lama card, Chinese media warns

ALSO WATCH: China renames 6 places in Arunachal Pradesh on Chinese map after Dalai Lama visit

--- ENDS ---
35 students of the Jaypee University of Information Technology in Waknaghat in Solan district were hospitalised after a suspected case of food poisoning. A total of 150 students fell ill after consuming substandard food.

By Satender Chauhan: As many as 35 students of a private institute in Himachal Pradesh have been hospitalised after consuming substandard food last night.

Their condition continues to be critical. The students belong to the Jaypee University of Information Technology (JUIT) in Waknaghat in Solan district, 25 kilometres away from Shimla.

According to primary reports, it seems to be a case of food poisoning, a senior doctor said.

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150 STUDENTS FELL ILL

A total of 150 students fell ill after having adulterated food in their hostel mess on Thursday night.

"The students were admitted late last night", Shimla's Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMCH) Senior Medical Superintendent Ramesh Chand said. Some ailing students were also referred to Kandaghat and Solan.

Chand added, "After having their meals, students started complaining of restlessness, abdominal discomfort and generalised weakness. They started coming to the hospital in groups at around 2 a.m."

(WITH INPUTS FROM IANS)

Also read | BSF sacks constable Tej Bahadur Yadav who had posted video on poor quality of food for jawans

--- ENDS ---
From prehistory to modern America, these destinations tell the story of how the U.S. has come to be.

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These U.S. travel destinations tell the nations story through preservation, research, and reenactment. From prehistory to modern times, this is a bucket list for American history buffs.

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Hovenweep

Built by ancestral Puebloans between A.D. 1200 and 1300, the towers of Hovenweep are a fascinating display of early masonry located at the border of Colorado and Utah, about 25 miles from the Four Corners. Hiking trails in the park offer views of the ruins as well as the canyons surrounding the Cajon Mesa. Hovenweeps remoteness also yields brilliant stargazing opportunities from the onsite tent camp.

https://www.nps.gov/hove/index.htm

Minute Man Park

A wealth of American history lies in this National Historic Park that stretches from Concord to Lexington, Massachusetts. The five-mile Battle Road Trail leads visitors through various sites of the first battle of the American Revolution, and at the North Bridge you can relive the shot heard round the world. The Wayside, a preserved Colonial home, housed authors Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney throughout the 19th century, and Henry David Thoreaus Walden Pond is located just south of the site.

https://www.nps.gov/mima/index.htm

Hamilton Grange

Alexander Hamiltons Harlem home was moved twice before landing in its current spot in Saint Nicholas Park in Manhattan. The controversial Founding Father completed the home in 1802 on his 32-acre estate in upper Manhattan. Hamilton Grange tells the story of Hamiltons self-made career and influential vision of industry. The recent restoration of the mansion was completed, inside and out, to replicate Alexander Hamiltons original furnishings and landscaping.

https://www.nps.gov/hagr/index.htm

Homestead National Monument

Abraham Lincolns Homestead Act of 1862 provided 270 million acres of free land to Americans eager to start a life out West. The Homestead National Monument was established by Franklin D. Roosevelt in southeast Nebraska to commemorate the impact of Lincolns law on the economic and cultural development of the West. The site features 211 acres of prairie and woodlands preserved to represent the plains before settlement. You can tour an 1867 cabin and the Freeman School, a one-room schoolhouse that served students from 1872 to 1967.

https://www.nps.gov/home/index.htm

Manassas National Battlefield Park

The First Battle of Bull Run, the start of the Civil War, took place on the well-preserved grounds of Manassas National Battlefield Park. Civil War history buffs can experience reenactments and cannon-firing at this site just 25 miles from Washington D.C. Antietam, Harpers Ferry, and Fredericksburg battlefields are a short drive from Manassas as well.

https://www.nps.gov/mana/index.htm

Henry Ford Museum

The largest museum complex in the country houses a plethora of artifacts from American history, particularly from the Industrial Revolution. Thomas Edisons laboratory, JFKs presidential limousine, and the bus on which Rosa Parks took a stand all reside at the museums campus in Dearborn, Michigan. Most notable is the museums collection of cars that spans the history of automobiles in the United States.

https://www.thehenryford.org/

New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park

Located in Louis Armstrong Park just blocks away from the French Quarter, the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park is a new kind of national park that offers programs and tours to educate visitors on the birthplace of jazz. Rangers guide groups through jazz walks of the city as well as interactive demonstrations. The park also offers free concerts at a venue in the French Quarter.

https://www.nps.gov/jazz/index.htm

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

The BCRI strives to act as a living memorial to the civil rights story of Birmingham, Alabama. Dramatic and interactive exhibits depict the civil rights movement in Birmingham as a necessity for understanding present and future human rights, as well as the past. The museum is situated in downtown Birmingham, close to other key sites from the Birmingham movement.

http://www.bcri.org/index.html

USS Midway

From 1945 to 1992 the USS Midway was an active aircraft carrier, but now the vessel rests in San Diego as a museum ship. Guided tours, flight simulators, and 29 restored aircraft from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and Operation Desert Storm are aboard the massive carrier.
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/21/2017 -- GlobalDatas "The Cards and Payments Industry in Colombia: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Colombian 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 cash transactions during the review period (2012-2016).



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 (2016-2020). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.



View Report @ http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/1064618



The report brings together GlobalDatas 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.



To widen the scope of contactless payments in Colombia, Mastercard collaborated with Bancolombia and transport operators - including Recaudo Bogota, Metro de Medellin and SmartTaxi - in February 2015, to allow cardholders to access public transportation on these networks using their cards. This collaboration enables Colombians to make contactless payment for transportation fare directly with their Bancolombia Mastercard at Integrated Public Transit Systems (SITP) in places like Bogota, Mo in Cali, TransMetro in Barranquilla and the Medellin Metro.



Alternative payments are gradually gaining prominence in Colombia, with banks and payment solution providers launching services. The latest of these is the launch of the BBVA Wallet by BBVA Colombia in September 2016. Similarly, Group Aval and Bancolombia launched their Aval Pay and Bancolombia wallet respectively in September 2015. Similarly, the Colombia-based payment solution provider Paymenetz launched its mobile app, Plazez, in association with Mastercard in July 2015.



To enhance the card acceptance from foreign tourists in Colombia, payment service providers are offering personalized payment solutions. RBM Redeban, Colombias leading electronic payment processing company, and Planet Payment, a provider of international and multi-currency payment processing services, entered into an agreement in July 2016 to establish a dynamic currency conversion service named Pay in Your Currency. Pay in Your Currency provides international customers with the choice to pay in their local currency. Customers are given the convenience of selecting on their receipt whether they prefer to pay in Colombian pesos or their own, while the merchant continues to receive settlements in pesos.



Get Sample Copy Of This Report @

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This report also provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Colombian cards and payments industry, including -



- Current and forecast values for each market in the Colombian cards and payments industry, including debit and credit cards.

- Detailed insights into payment instruments including direct debit, cash transactions, checks and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.

- E-commerce market analysis and payment methods.

- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Colombian cards and payments industry.

- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit and credit cards.

- Comprehensive analysis of consumer attitudes and buying preferences for cards.

- The competitive landscape in the Colombian cards and payments industry.



Scope



- This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Colombian cards and payments industry.

- It provides current values for the Colombian cards and payments industry for 2016, and forecast figures to 2020.

- It details the different demographic, economic, infrastructural and business drivers affecting the Colombian cards and payments industry.

- It outlines the current regulatory framework in the industry.

- It details marketing strategies used by various banks and other institutions.



Reasons to buy



- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Colombian cards and payments industry and each market within it.

- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Colombian cards and payments industry.

- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Colombian cards and payments industry.

- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Colombia.

- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Colombian cards and payments industry.



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Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/21/2017 -- A floating production, storage, and offloading unit is considered as a vessel that is being used widely by a large number of gas and offshore oil industries. These vessels are used for the purpose of manufacturing and processing of hydrocarbons and further for the storage of oil. The use of FPSO vessels helps in storing oil and transporting it through a pipeline, which saves time as well as resources of the oil and gas companies. As a result, the global FPSO market is anticipated to witness a robust growth in the next few years.



A significant rise in the number of exploration activities across the globe is one of the vital factors projected to fuel the growth of the global FPSO market in the next few years. The rising focus of key players on research and development activities and new product development are predicted to generate promising opportunities in the coming years. In addition, the rising number of oil and gas exploration sites in order to cater the rising demand from consumers are projected to accelerate the growth of the global FPSO market in the near future.



Request a Brochure of the Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=1355



Among the key regions, the developed economies, including Europe and North America are expected to experience a steady growth in the next few years. At present, the global FPSO market is growing at a rapid pace and is likely to witness a high level of competition in the coming years. The increasing number of mergers and acquisition is expected to enhance the competitive scenario of the FPSO market in the near future, encouraging the expansion of product portfolio. As a result, the overall market is likely to supplement the development of the market in the near future.



Global FPSO Market: Overview



A floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) unit could be a newly constructed vessel or converted oil tanker which is equipped with oil and gas processing and production facilities. An FPSO is able to carry out all the activities for which the term stands for. It is a commodious vessel which resembles the shape of a ship and finds extensive usage in extracting raw hydrocarbons from sea beds. With processing facilities provided onboard, it can also transport processed oil and gas to desired onshore locations using a shuttle tanker.



Request for TOC of the Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1355



With more number of countries producing their own FPSOs and higher sales achieved by manufacturers, the world FPSO market is anticipated to rack up a staggering amount of revenue until the end of the forecast period.



Global FPSO Market: Key Trends



The substantial degree of growth witnessed in the FPSO market is predicted to be augmented by the soaring demand for enhanced productivity and controlled capital spending. With a view to achieve this, companies are looking to convert tank vessels into FPSOs. The very nature of FPSO to be able to operate at any depth, relocate to any location, and offer high return on investment is deemed to be a strong reason for its incrementing demand.



The redeployed FPSO market is prognosticated to rise above freshly converted or newly built vessels with the capability to minimize project execution timeline. Suitable for operation in medium and small offshore fields, converted FPSO poses a lesser capital cost compared to new built products.



The rising exploration activities in ultra-deep offshore fields led by maturing onshore oil and gas reserves are expected to provide an aggressive boost to the global FPSO market. More opportunities are envisaged to take birth as the need to counter difficult conditions in ultra-deep and deep sea reserves surges the demand for integrated compact systems.



Global FPSO Market: Market Potential



Iran is all set to install its first ever FPSO named 'FPSO Cyrus' near South Pars in the Persian Gulf. The vessel is expected to employ pipelines to draw hydrocarbons from subsea wells. On an average, the Iranian FPSO holds the capacity to extract 30,000 barrels per day in the first production phase, which could be increased to a whopping 55,000 to 60,000 barrels per day in the second production phase.



Read Complete Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/fpso-market



On similar lines, Keppel Offshore & Marine will be delivering its first FPSO unit named 'John Agyekum Kufuor' to Yinson Production (West Africa) Pte. Ltd. in 2017. The vessel will be engaged by ENI Ghana Exploration & Production Limited for oil and gas processing at the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) positioned in Offshore Ghana. The unit is studied to boast a 58,000 barrels per day processing capacity and 1.7 million barrel storage capacity. With an approximate 15,000 ton topside weight, it has the potential to be moored in a standard 1,000 meter water depth.



Global FPSO Market: Regional Outlook



With ample of support furnished by the government of Brazil, the country is predicted to stand out as a chief FPSO market in the South America region. The prominence of the Brazilian market could also be accredited to the elevating number of oil and gas activities. The oil field discoveries in deep water and latest offshore exploration and production developments of East Africa and South America are envisaged to help the regions register growth at a significant rate.



However, regions such as Europe and North America of the FPSO market are foretold to grow at a stagnant rate but secure a valuable share on account of their mature oil and gas reserves.



In order to curb its dependence on imports of energy resources, China is forecasted to offer profit-making opportunities for vendors in the FPSO market. Besides this, the development of offloading technologies, production advancement, surging area of ultra-deep and deep sea reserves, and maturing shallow water and inland oil and gas fields are envisioned to help China take precedence in the global market.



Global FPSO Market: Competitive Landscape



With mergers and acquisitions and fast building of product portfolio, key players in the international FPSO market are foreseen to take charge of a leading share. Some of the tough competitors in the global market are Sembcorp Marine Ltd., COSCO Shipyard Group Co. Ltd., PetroleoBrasileiro S.A., MODEC, Inc., TOTAL S.A., SBM Offshore N.V., and Samsung Heavy Industries Ltd.



About TMR Research

TMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todayas supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clientsa conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.



Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.
New York City, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/20/2017 -- Global consumption of sodium metal will grow at a sluggish CAGR of 3.3% through 2024, according to Persistence Market Research's report entitled, "Sodium Metal Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016 - 2024." In 2016, over 98,400 MT sodium metal was consumed globally, and it is estimated to surpass 127,400 MT by 2024.



Sample of this report is available upon request @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/14854



The sluggish demand for sodium metal is attributed to hazardous effects of highly reactive sodium element. Challenges with handling and storage of sodium metal will continue to negatively impact the growth of the market. Further, limited availability of sodium metal on account of fewer players has resulted into introduction and use of alternatives, such as magnesium for use in industrial applications.



Key players in this market are concentrating on expansion of their production capacities and making long-term contacts with end-use industries, especially in near proximity, to incur growth opportunities. Manufacturers are also focusing on introduction to new grades of application-specific sodium metal. Inner Mongolia Lantai Industrial Co. Ltd. held the highest volume market share in 2015. Other leading players in the global sodium metal market include Wanji Holdings Group Limited, Shandong Moris Tech Co. Ltd., and MSSA S.A.S.



In terms of volume, chemical synthesis application of sodium metal held 70.4% share of the market in 2016; by 2024, this is expected to reach nearly 72%. Sodium metal is also used in the production of dyes, and it is projected that this application segment will grow at 4.7% CAGR in terms of volume through 2024. The weakness in demand will be offset to a certain extent by applications in chemical synthesis and textile industry.



Request to view Table of Content @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/sodium-metal-market/toc



APAC is projected to be the most lucrative region for the global sodium metal market followed by North America and Europe. Asia Pacific forms a hub for textile industries owing to the ever-growing population and demand for a wide range of textiles, resulting in steady demand for sodium metal. Over 53,690 MT of sodium metal was consumed in APAC in 2016. The North America sodium metal market was around US$ 60 Mn in 2016, and it is expected to reach around US$ 80 Mn by 2024. Consumption of sodium metal in Europe, pegged at over 19,700 MT in 2016, is expected to surpass 24,200 MT by 2024.



To Buy Full Report for a Single User @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/14854



Key Market Drivers and Trends



- The demand for denim clothing has witnessed a robust growth in the recent past resulting in higher demand for sodium metal for textiles and apparels

- Sodium metal forms a key constituent in the manufacturing of indigo dyes

- Steady growth in global biodiesel production is one of the primary driving factors as sodium methylate is widely used as a catalyst for large-scale biodiesel production

- Application of sodium metal as a reductant in metals manufacturing and refining

- Global sodium market is characterized by competitive oligopoly, wherein few manufacturers hold major shares in the overall market supply



About Persistence Market Research

Persistence 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, PMR's engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.
Chicago, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/21/2017 -- On April 10, Ravi Jolly, co-founder of US-based quinoa company I Heart Keenwah, traveled to Bolivia to meet with Fair Trade certified farmers who grow the company's organic Royal Bolivian quinoa. While conducting interviews with the growers, Jolly gained new insights on the impact that Fair Trade farming has on smallholder family farms.



Jolly met with Suma Kamana and AIPQUISA-C, two of the three Fair Trade associations with whom I Heart Keenwah partners. During his meetings, Jolly learned more about the positive impact of Fair Trade funds:



- The purchase of land in the town of Challapata, which is the future site of a warehouse and facility where the AIPQUISA-C association will clean, store and pack quinoa for all of the members of the Sau Sau community.



- The purchase of machinery equipment, with which the members of the Suma Kamana association will be able to more efficiently clean quinoa



- Azankeri, a third Fair Trade association I Heart Keenwah works with, has used Fair Trade dollars to purchase organic manure for fertilizer, and to improve organic pest control. Additionally, the association has purchased building materials for community housing improvements and personal protection equipment such as goggles, boots and gloves.



Teofilo Coca Martinez is the president of the AIPQUISA-C association. In an interview with Jolly, he commented: "Our quinoa is very ancient. It's the quinoa of our grandparents and of our ancestors. We continue to work with quinoa because it's the only type of work that we have in these parts. The Fair Trade program gives us an incentive for all of our efforts in farming organic quinoa, from the seeding to harvest. Fair Trade also gives us community support."



I Heart Keenwah is sharing Jolly's portraits of the Fair Trade association members on the company's social media accounts (Instagram: @iheartkeenwah), and the video interviews are being compiled into a mini documentary Jolly plans to post on the recently-launched Toasted Quinoa Project website (www.ToastedQuinoa.com) in summer 2017.



"Growing demand by Western consumers has driven the price of quinoa down in many places, and encouraged unsustainable growing practices in some countries," said Jolly. "Our commitment to Fair Trade certified quinoa not only ensures that traditional, environmentally conscious growing methods are preserved, but it also empowers the farmers we work with, and contributes to their communities."



About I Heart Keenwah

I Heart Keenwah is a quinoa company, dedicated to bringing delicious foods that have health-promoting nutrients to the market. The company cooks up quinoa products with great flavors and simple ingredients, making it easy for you to get quinoa, a superfood, into your day-to-day routine. Ravi Jolly and Sarah Chalos, I Heart Keenwah's founders, chose quinoa because of its numerous health and nutritional benefitsit's the only grain that is a complete source of protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids.



Media Contact:

Natalie Slater

natalie@iheartkeenwah.com

312-967-6608
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/21/2017 -- The latest analysis on the phenomenally expanding market of Ireland telecoms, mobile, broadband and digital media, has been recently included in the broad portfolio of Market Research Hub (MRH). It is titled as "Ireland Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Digital Media - Statistics and Analyses" and it provides a professional overview of the sector, which is presently the focus of active market experts. Accordingly, it also offers resourceful data about the telecom sector's progress, in terms of infrastructure and the special mention about the various types of networks, operators, alongside profitable information about the forecast for the years 2018; 2020; and 2022.



Request Free Sample Report @ http://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=737317



The Ireland telecom sector is booming due to the innovative technological advances and the demand for better internet speed among subscribers. The Irish government has planned to invest 600 million for covering national broadband. Correspondingly, the highly, engaging report initially begins with the wonderful overview of the telecommunications market. Further, the study talks about important data on the regulatory environment as well as the historical overview of the sector. Furthermore, the revised NFR, along with regulatory authority is evaluated thoroughly. Also, three important sections have been carefully introspected in the report that includes:



Telecom sector liberalization

Privatization

Interconnect



Thereafter, the two crucial types are discussed in the report, that is, leased lines and fiber access. Moreover, the number portability and carrier pre-selection are examined to help buyers gain a better grasp of the business.



In the next section, the fixed network operators are introduced in the study that includes:



Eire

Company restructures

BT Ireland

Smart Telecom

Tele2

Other operators



The buyer gains detailed knowledge about the telecommunications infrastructure as well as the overview of the national telecom network. Soon after, the study shifts focus to the international infrastructure, alongside the introspection of the two chief types that include: submarine cable networks and satellite networks.



The reader can also gain knowledge about the broadband market precisely with the presence of introduction and statistical overview. The next section speaks about market analysis which encloses the description of three main topics which are: national broadband plan, government networks, and regional infrastructure. The good part of the study is that the buyer also learns accurately about the wholesale bitstream; broadband statistics. As a bonus, the buyer also gets to acquire data about the vital forecasts for broadband subscribers during 2018; 2020; 2022.



Browse Full Report with TOC @ http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/ireland-telecoms-mobile-broadband-and-digital-media-statistics-and-analyses-report.html



The report also holds a critical evaluation of several key networks that include:



Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) networks

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) networks



Befittingly, in the end, the buyer gets to learn important information in terms of alternative operators.



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1. Europe Distributed Acoustic Sensing Market Report 2017:- http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/europe-distributed-acoustic-sensing-market-report-2017-report.html



2. Global A2P SMS Sales Market Report 2016:- http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-a2p-sms-sales-market-report-2016-report.html



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Samia Abdul Hafeez, a resident of the city's Saidabad area, started an online campaign in January, claiming she was suffering from brain and breast cancer and needed money for treatment. She had a Facebook page called 'Go Fund Samia.'

By Ashish Pandey: A 22-year-old woman who posed as a cancer patient to con her Facebook friends into giving her Rs 22 lakh, has been arrested in Hyderabad.

Samia Abdul Hafeez, a resident of the city's Saidabad area, started an online campaign in January, claiming she was suffering from brain and breast cancer and needed money for treatment. She had a Facebook page called 'Go Fund Samia.'

advertisement

Samia's father Abdul Hafeez was actually undergoing treatment for cancer in a well-known private hospital in Hyderabad - that's how she learned about the disease.

Several of Samia's Facebook friends made donations, and she ended up Rs 22 lakh richer. The money went to her account in State Bank of Hyderabad's Gunfoundry branch.

But her 'perfect crime' was exposed when one of her donors contacted the hospital.

Banjara Hills Police told India Today they took Samiya into custody after a few donors and a private hospital lodged a complaint against her.

As well, police have requested the State Bank of Hyderabad to freeze Samia's account - in which there's only Rs 5,000 left.

--- ENDS ---
Mount Olympus, UT -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/21/2017 -- 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.



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



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.



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
Mount Pleasant, UT -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/21/2017 -- 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



Mount Pleasant, UTAH General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Introduces New Geneology Asset Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.news.adampaulgreen.com



The Pilgrims did not leave behind any lists of the items they brought with them on the Mayflower, but historians have used a provision list put together by Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) to take an educated guess. However, in 2012, Caleb Johnson, Simon Neal, and Jeremy Bangs started transcribing and studying a rare manuscript (a page of which is here illustrated) in the possession of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, that was written by one of the investors in the Pilgrims' joint-stock company. This manuscript actually contains several lists of suggested provisions the colonists should bring with them. It is the closest thing we can get to a list of what the Pilgrims would have actually brought.



A summary of some of the key items on the provision lists: http://mayflowerhistory.com/pilgrim-history/



-Food and Drink: Biscuit, beer, salt, (dried) beef, salt pork, oats, peas, wheat, butter, sweet oil, mustard seed, ling or cod fish, "good cheese", vinegar, aqua-vitae, rice, bacon, cider.



-Clothing: Monmouth cap, falling bands, shirts, waistcoat, suit of canvas, suit of cloth, Irish stockings, 4 pairs of shoes, garters. Slippers, plain shoes, little shoes, French soles, sewing needles.



-Bedding: Canvas sheets, bolster "filled with good straw", rug and blankets.



-Arms: Light armor (complete), fowling piece, snaphance, sword, belt, bandoleer, powder horn, 20 pounds of powder, 60 pounds of shot.



-Household: Iron pot, kettle, frying pan, gridiron, two skillets, spit, platters, dishes, spoons of wood, napkins, towels, soap, hand mill, mortar and pestle.



-Tools: Broad hoes, narrow hoes, broad axe, felling axe, steel handsaw, whipsaw, hammers, shovels, spades, augers, chisels, gimlets, hatchets, grinding stone, nails, locks for doors.



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



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



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.



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
Scientists warn about the decreasing rate of the leopard population in South Africa. The grim situation may lead to the elimination of the big cats within a few years.

The increasing trend of unlawful killing of the leopards in a specific area in South Africa creates an alarming situation. The number of the big cats in Soutpansberg Mountains has lowered so rapidly that two-third of them is now non-existent. Popular journal Royal Society Open Science reported this fact.

Samual Williams, a conservation biologist at the Durham University in England and the lead author of the study utters significant words about this situation. He clearly points out that the current condition should be changed immediately unless there will be no leopard in the area by 2020. A few years ago in 2008, the Soutpansberg Mountain region was one of the best areas in Africa with a huge number of big cats. The current number of the animal in South Africa is 4,500.

A vast area of Africa and Asia once became the fittest regions for the leopard to roam about. The big cats were able to travel unchallenged throughout the forest in Sri Lanka and Java. But, the species gradually lost their foothold and currently, they occupy a very little portion of the said territory. It seems that within a few years they will face the extinction.

Last year the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List has included leopard as the endangered species. Leopards were strongly present in the 2,600-square mile area in Soutpansberg Mountains with 11 adult big cats for each 39 square miles in 2008. Later Samual Williams placed four dozen cameras in the said region and left them to monitor the animals from 2012 to 2016.

The study team also attached GPS collars to eight adult leopards to note their various movements. Shockingly, only two big cats with GPS collars survived during the said monitoring period, according to the Phys.org. This report indicates the necessity of some urgent steps to stabilize the number of the animals.

The study reveals a very crucial fact. The number of the leopards declined almost 66 percent just within a period of 7.5 years. Some initiatives were already taken and a "community engagement officer" is recruited. The officer plays a key role to spread the non-lethal techniques among the local people to avert the attack from the big cats.

The local people suffer a lot when the species attack their cattle and destroy important things. But, this is not the key cause of the fight between the big cats and human beings. Continuous human encroachment mainly in Africa is the key reason behind the fight and the decreasing rate of the leopard population.

Every living being on this earth has the right to live freely, but the rapid elimination of the leopard is an alarming fact. Acute constructive measures are necessary to stop the elimination. At the same time, proper initiatives are the need of the hour to increase the number of this big cat.
Which scientist's name has over the years become synonymous with the word "genius"? Yes, it is indeed Albert Einstein's. It is hard to imagine someone who has not heard about him.

Einstein's theory of relativity revolutionized mankind's understanding of physics and science. The theory of relativity became the standing reference for the conceptualization and validation of most of the subsequently proposed physical theories and the technological inventions that were based on them.

After almost a decade of strenuous research and analysis, Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity in 1916. The theory provided an explanation to the causes and effects of gravitational waves and their correlation with the space-time curvature. The subsequent proposition of the theory of special relativity not only validated Newton's laws of motion but it also explained the existence of space wormholes, Gizmodo reported.

Einstein's theories also formed the basis of the advent of many present day technological innovations, say GPS for example. The GPS serves to provide the most accurate position of an individual or device by communicating with the numerous satellites that are presently orbiting in space. It is a boon for all kinds of navigations systems, starting from Uber Cabs to airplanes.

The functioning of devices like GPS depends on several complicated calculations that incorporate physical constants such as the speed of light. The GPS and the satellites work in tandem to calculate the relative geographical location of the device. Application of the basic concepts of light, gravity and laws of motion, which were explained by Albert Einstein, ensures that the GPS works with impeccable accuracy, IndiaTimes reported.

In an effort to showcase the importance of Einstein's contribution to physics, National Geographic is launching a 10-part scripted series that portrays the life of Albert Einstein. While Johnny Flynn will be playing the part of young Einstein, the role of Einstein in his later years will be played by Oscar winning actor Geoffrey Rush. Other distinguished cast members of the series include Emily Watson and Elsa Einstein, The New York Times reported.

Most people know Albert Einstein as the genius scientist that he was, but National Geographic's Genius series will also show the other side of him. It will also showcase his struggle and victory over anti-Semitism.
The U.S. secretive military space plane referred to as X-37B has already orbited the planet Earth for 700 days. It is pursuing its fourth mission known as Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-4) since May 20, 2015.

The first mission of X-37B known as OTV-1 was launched in April 2010. It orbited the Earth for 224 days. Meanwhile, OTV-2 was launched in March 2011 and circled the Earth for 468 days. OTV-3 started in December 2012 and orbited the Earth for almost 675 days, according to Live Science.

The Air Force officials emphasized that the major objectives of the X-37B are reusing spacecraft technologies for America's outlook in space and managing experiments that could be returned to and investigated on the planet Earth. They stated that this secretive space plane must operate for 270 days in orbit. On the other hand, the three missions had surpassed the designated duration.

The Boeing X-37 or X-37B is also referred to as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). This unmanned spacecraft is managed by the United States Air Force. It is a reusable unmanned space plane. The robotic space plane is more than 29 feet (8.8 meters) in length and has two angled tail fins. It is derived from the earlier Boeing X-40.

Its goal is to demonstrate reusable space technologies. On the other hand, there were speculations of its purpose. It was reported that X-37B space plane is used as a spy satellite or could distribute weapons from space, yet this was denied by the Pentagon. There were also allegations that the space plane was used to spy on China's Tiangcong-1 space station module. This was also refuted by the Air Force officials.

Meanwhile, once the mission of X-37B has been completed, it may later land in Florida at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which the Air Force modified. The Air Force officials stated that they want to establish the program's launch and the landing on Florida's Space Coast.
Researchers have developed a new personalized cancer vaccine that could protect people from tumors or cancerous cells. It has targeted 20 mutated proteins unique to each patient's tumors and has inhibited early relapse in 12 patients with skin cancer.

The findings of the study were presented to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington, D.C. The study was led by Catherine Wu at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and other colleagues. The vaccines aim at viruses and bacteria and diminish the patient's cancer cells, according to Science Alert.

The personalized vaccines have neoantigens that are mutated proteins specific to a patient's tumor. Once the patient's tumor is genomically sequenced, the neoantigens are determined. This provides the physicians the information they need to identify the distinctive mutations. Once the immune system of a patient had given a dose of the tumor neoantigens, the patient's T cells are triggered and then attack cancer cells.

In the clinical trial, the scientists targeted about 20 neoantigens each patient. The vaccines were inserted or injected under the skin of the patients for about five months. They have no side effects and have a powerful T cell response.

The results showed that all the patients who were inserted the personal vaccine are still cancer-free for over two and a half years after the clinical trial. Although the personalized vaccines show promising results, the scientists stressed that these are relatively new and need more clinical testing.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian biotech Targovax is now creating new cancer vaccine known as TG02, which targets mutations of the RAS gene in pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer and other forms of cancer. TG02 is the second vaccine developed by Targovax, and it is now undergoing clinical trials. The first vaccine is the TG01 that just finished a Phase I/II trial in pancreatic cancer and had also showed promising results with two-year survival data, according to Labiotech.
It is already confirmed that Apple is planning to release the next generation Apple iMac 2017 in the second half of 2017. Although nothing about iMac 2017 specs, release date or price has been officially announced, a new report suggests that the Cupertino-based company will roll out a server-grade iMac model that will be specially designed for the high-end sector.

According to The Christian Post, Apple's supply-chain sources based in Taiwan have reported that the company will start the production of two new iMac all-in-one (AIO) PCs sometime in May this year. The upcoming iMac 2017 variants will get an official launch in the second half of the year to catch up with the year-end holiday season.

The two Apple iMac 2017 variants will reportedly be manufactured by Taiwan-based Quanta Computer. Quanta is expected to remain the largest AIO PC maker in 2017, thanks to its long list of customers that includes big names such as Lenovo, Dell, HP, Alienware, Toshiba, LG, Sony and Apple, Ubergizmo reported. The PC maker has not confirmed the reports yet.

Talking about Apple iMac 2017 specs, the server-grade variant is expected to feature the yet-to-be released Intel server chip Xeon E3-1285 v6, 64GB ECC RAM, up to 2TB NVMe SSD and a latest discrete graphics card. The Apple iMac 2017 is expected to compete with Microsoft's recently released Surface Studio line.

Currently, there are two Apple iMac models available in the market -- a 21.5-inch variant and a 27-inch variant. The next-gen 2017 devices are likely to be upgrades of the two current models. Among other rumored specs, the Apple iMac 2017 is expected to feature a keyboard with the Touch Bar, an AMD Polaris 10 or Polaris 11 GPU, Thunderbolt 3 ports and integrated virtual reality support.

Apple is yet to confirm reports about iMac 2017 specs, release date and price details. So, it is advised that readers should take the information with a hefty pinch of salt.
A new article in the state-run Global Times says New Delhi will 'pay dearly' for playing the Dalai Lama card in Arunachal Pradesh, over which Beijing claims sovereignty.

By India Today Web Desk: China's rhetoric over the Dalai Lama's recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh continues. Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party-run English daily, in a new article has said that India will 'pay dearly' for playing the 'petty game' of using 'the Dalai Lama card'.

The Global Times op-ed, titled 'India playing Dalai Lama card worsens territorial spats with China' , also blasted Indian media for its reaction over China recently announcing 'standardised' names for six towns in Arunachal Pradesh.

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The Chinese move "unsurprisingly set the Indian media ablaze", the article, written by Ai Jun, reads. The Global Times piece also took offence with the comments of Brahma Chellaney, a professor at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Quoting Chellaney's tweet, which read, "SILLY: China claims India's Arunachal state but didn't have names for its various counties. Now it invents the names", the Global Times calls the argument and other such arguments "absurd."

The Global Times then goes on to assert that South Tibet, which is the name that Beijing uses for Arunachal Pradesh, is a historical part of China and that it is "legitimate for the Chinese government to standardize the names of the places".

'SIMLA ACCORD WAS ILLEGAL'

The article details how "British India and local Tibetan representatives unilaterally signed the illegal "Simla Accord" and created the "McMahon Line"" and how "the illegal deal ceded some 90,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory in South Tibet to British India."

The piece also blames India for "increased migration" to the region and 'boosting military construction' there.

"New Delhi would be too ingenuous to believe that the region belongs to India simply because the Dalai Lama says so," Ai Jun writes, referencing the Tibetan spiritual leader's trip to Arunachal Pradesh, a trip New Delhi maintains was apolitical.

"It is time for India to do some serious thinking over why China announced the standardized names in South Tibet at this time. Playing the Dalai Lama card is never a wise choice for New Delhi. If India wants to continue this petty game, it will only end up in paying dearly for it," the article ends.

Beijing and New Delhi have been involved in a diplomatic tussle ever since the Dalai Lama visited the north-eastern Indian state. An angry China lodged formal protests in New Delhi and Beijing even as India warned against interfering in its internal matters.

Chinese media has been particularly vociferous in voicing its displeasure over the incident, even going to the extent of warning that Beijing may be forced to consider interfering in the Kashmir issue.

ALSO READ | The Tibet card: How India should respond to growing Chinese pressure

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ALSO WATCH | China shouldn't interfere in India's internal matters: Rijiju on Dalai Lama's Arunachal visit

--- ENDS ---
The supersonic missile with a range of 400km was fired from a warship off the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

By Manjeet Negi: The Indian Navy today moved towards acquiring a pin-point ability to attack targets on land with its first test of the land-attack variant of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. The missile has a range of 400km. The successive successful launch of the supersonic missile took place at sea off the Andaman and Nicobar islands. This is the first time a land-attack variant of the missile was fired from a warship and also the first sea-to-land missile test in the country.

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HERE'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW:

1. The missile fired from ship squarely hit the specially created land target put up in one of the islands of Andaman and Nicobar.

2. According to officials of the Indo-Russian BrahMos corporation, the missile met all flight parameters during the test where it selected the designated target among the group of targets, hitting it precisely and destroying the target with its tremendous kinetic energy.

3. The Navy has already inducted anti-ship versions of the BrahMos on its warships including the Rajput and is integrating them into two other ships of the class.

4. The missiles will also equip the three 7000-ton Kolkata class destroyers currently under construction at the Mazagon Docks Ltd, Mumbai.

5. The Indian Navy began inducting the first version of BrahMos Missile System in all of its frontline warships from 2005. BrahMos can be launched in single or in a salvo from ship towards single or different types of targets within an interval of 2-2.5 seconds in various trajectories.

ALSO READ:

A view from the BrahMos missile factory

Agni 5 is India's most potent nuclear-capable missile ever, and here's why China is worried

Why the world is worried about this 'unstoppable' hypersonic Russian missile

--- ENDS ---
The decision by the Guardian Council means that President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, will face off against a field that includes two prominent hard-liners: Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.

By AP: An Iranian panel charged with vetting candidates approved the country's incumbent president and five challengers but disqualified former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from running in next month's presidential election, state television reported onThursday.

The decision by the Guardian Council means that President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, will face off against a field that includes two prominent hard-liners: Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.

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The Guardian Council, a cleric-dominated body, controls elections and must approve all laws passed by parliament. It has never allowed a woman to run for president and routinely rejects political dissidents and others calling for dramatic reform.

Other presidential candidates who made the cut, according to an Interior Ministry statement carried by state TV, include moderate Senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, former conservative culture minister Mostafa Mirsalim, and former pro-reform vice president Mostafa Hashemitaba.

Ahmadinejad, who remains a deeply polarizing figure even among Iranian hard-liners, had shocked the country by registering last week. Khamenei had previously urged him not to run.

Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear program.

He said upon registering that he was doing so to support his former Vice President Hamid Baghaei, who also failed to receive approval to run.

"He was an unwanted guest in the election," Tehran-based political analyst Soroush Farhadi said of Ahmadinejad's disqualification. He predicted the former president would nonetheless remain politically active during the campaign to create a "quasi-opposition face for himself" for the future.

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a close ally of Ahmadinejad, downplayed the two candidates' exclusion, saying on social media that Ahmadinejad and Baghaei had only registered out of "national, religious and revolutionary duty."

"Thank god, the Guardian Council removed the duty from their shoulders," he wrote.

More than 1,600 people registered to run for the May 19 election.

Under Iran's clerically overseen system, the president is subordinate to Khamenei, who is Iran's top decision-maker and has the final say on all matters of state. Khamenei appoints half the Guardian Council's members.

Rouhani, 68, is hoping voters will deliver him a second term to see out his promises of greater personal freedoms at home and openness to the wider world as he works to turn around Iran's sagging economy - a top priority for many voters.

The election will be in many ways a referendum on his administration's negotiation of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That agreement gave Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions in exchange for limits to its nuclear program, but has been assailed by hard-liners who believe Iran gave too much away in exchange for too little.

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While reliable polling information is not widely available, most political observers see Rouhani as the current front-runner even though he has been unable to significantly turn around Iran's slumping economy. Every incumbent since Khamenei himself took the presidency in 1981 has won re-election.

Rouhani, though no radical, has the support of many reform-minded Iranians. Khamenei himself also might favor a second term for Rouhani despite his closeness to more hard-line candidates.

"Iranian presidents tend to become much weaker in their second terms, with a key cause being their greater susceptibility to control by the supreme leader and his institutions," Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran expert at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote this week. "This helps explain Khamenei's possible abstention from active support for the hard-line candidates."

Rouhani's toughest challenge could come from Raisi, 56, a hard-line cleric and professor of Islamic law who has promised to fight poverty and corruption if he's elected. Many hard-liners have rallied around Raisi, who got a boost last year when Khamenei appointed him head of an Islamic charity that holds extensive business interests in Iran.

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He has held several judiciary positions, including serving as attorney general from 2014 to 2016, and is mentioned as a possible successor for Khamenei himself.

ALSO READ | Iran bans chess grandmaster Dorsa Derakhshani for not wearing hijab, brother for playing with Israeli

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Amid protests over the removal of a sculpture from the Supreme Court premises, an Islamist party has threatened to launch a nationwide stir against the govt.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: Amid protests over the removal of a sculpture from the Supreme Court premises, an Islamist party has threatened to launch a nationwide stir against the govt. Recently, a sculpture of Greek idol lady justice was installed at the Supreme Court premises. Over the matter an understanding had been reached between an Islamic party and prime minister that followed a great criticism all from across the country.

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Meanwhile on Friday, after the jumma prayer, an Islamist party threatened to gherao the Supreme Court if the government will not relocate or replace the idol before the holy Ramadan. Not only that, they also threatened the government that they would take to the street to oust it.

Addressing idol a sculpture, the Aamir Syed Mohammad Rezaul Karim of the party said, "The place of idol is in temple. The idol should be removed from Supreme Court premises. if not, then on 17th Ramadan a protest program will be observed countrywide."

He declared it after the special Friday prayer during a meeting at Baitul Mokarram's north gate.

Syed Mohammad Rezaul Karim said, "We are frightened about our freedom and sovereignty. The Muslim Ummah has been stricken by installing a Greek idol in the Supreme Court premises."

He further said, "Prime minister says she does not know how the idol was installed there, who brought it there. I heard chief justice decided to set up the idol there."

Muhammad Rezaul Karim said, "The name of Muhammad (SM) has been inscribed in front of the Supreme Court premises of the USA, the greatest Christian populated country. It is an attempt destroys the image of Muslims' by installing Greek idol in front of the supreme court of Bangladesh, the 2nd largest Muslim majority country. Earthen made or bronze-made idols can't be the signs of justice. The idol has no power of speech, it can't hand out verdict. Only Qur'an is the symbol of justice. Allah (god) has given all, the ways of justice written in the holy Qur'an. His prophet has implemented that successfully. For this, he is the greatest justice for all ages".

Presidium member of the party principal Maulana Syed Mosaddek Billah Al Madani, Nayeb Amir Mufti Syed Fajjul Karim, Maulana Abdul Huq Azad, Maulana Abdul Awal, Secretary General Moulana Younes Ahmad, Political Advisor Prof Ashraf Ali Akon, Joint Secretary-General Professor ATM Hemayetuddin, Hafez Maulana neyamatullaha Al Faridi were present on the occasion.

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The background is well known - Frontline had been attempting to gain control of DHT in a stock for stock transaction. DHT, not enthused by the likely value on offer, went out and negotiated a ships for shares deal with BW Group instead - where BW obtained 33.5% of DHT shares.

In this past weeks unsuccessful legal move in the New York State Supreme Court, Frontline had sought to obtain and injunction and a restraining order that would have prevented the transaction between BW and DHT from going ahead.

Frontline was alleging that DHT shareholders were irreparably harmed because they were precluded from exercising their rights to vote on a Frontline acquisition of DHT. The catalyst for this legal flurry was the 20 April closing date of the Vessel Acquisition Agreement (VAA), part of the DHT/ BW deal.

The Judge, an corporate litigator who came to the bench following his retirement from a prominent New York firm, basically threw Frontlines complaint out of court - though it may not be the final word. In his published opinion on the matter, he noted that: Plaintiff [Frontline] has failed to establish either that the defendants [DHT and BW executives] were properly served or that the Court has jurisdiction over the defendants.

The Judge also noted that Frontlines timing was inexcusable, pointing out that 18 days had passed since the termination of talks between Frontline and DHT, during which Frontline could have properly served documents to DHT and BW if Frontline had filed its complaint promptly at end March - three weeks in advance of the VAA, rather than one day ahead. The Jurisdiction issue stems from the choice of court in the DHT/ BW deal- which the Judge pointed out did not confer any rights to third parties (eg Frontline).

The DHT / BW deal continues to move ahead. Indeed, on 20 April, DHT announced that it had taken delivery of DHT Utik, the first of nine VLCCs on the water being acquired from BW Group, all likely to be delivered during Q2 of 2017. Nevertheless, the defendants (Frontline) have 30 days to respond to the Judges ruling, which is a non-final disposition. A conference of all the parties is scheduled for end June.

Frontlines original complaint can be found among the items in:

http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/iscroll/SQLData.jsp?IndexNo=652065-2017

DHTs response to Frontlines complaint can be found at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/04/20/962715/0/en/DHT-Holdings-Inc-DHT-Memorandum-in-response-to-Frontline-s-Complaint.html
Singapore-listed Cosco Shipping International (Singapore) has informed the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore on the name change.

The parent firm Cosco Shipping, formed from the merger of China Cosco Group and China Shipping Group, has reorganised its extensive web of business entities and is harmonising the names of all its key subsidiaries to start with Cosco Shipping.

The renamed Cosco Shipping International (Singapore) informed shareholders that the name change has no impact for any shareholders and on the groups daily business operations and financial position.

Cosco Shipping International (Singapore) continues to be the majority stakeholder of Cosco Shipyard Group, which has merged with the shipbuilding entities of China Shipping Group to form Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry.
Keppel O&M, the offshore business of Keppel Corp, reported a loss of SGD3.39m ($2.42m) for the first three months, as against the profit of SGD107.98m in the same period of last year.

Loh Chin Hua, ceo of Keppel Corp, said the very challenging offshore market is due to, among other factors, the oversupply of rigs and OSVs. It will take some time before the industry fully recovers, Loh said.

Keppel O&M recorded a first quarter revenue of SGD483.39m, down 40.9% year-on-year, and an operating profit of SGD3.74m, a significant plunge compared to the operating profit of SGD110.83m in the year-ago period.

While the division continued to make a profit at the gross operating level, it was insufficient to cover our fixed costs, Loh said, adding that rightsizing efforts since early 2015 have been important to ensure operational sustainability.

During the first quarter, Keppel O&M further reduced its global direct workforce by about 1,250 or 6% compared to the previous quarter, through natural attrition, early termination of contracts and retrenchments.

Since the start of 2015, the division has slashed global direct workforce by close to 18,000 or about 49%.

Apart from workforce reduction, Keppel O&M has also ceased operations at a yard at Shipyard Road in Singapore and returned the land to the government at the end of March. Two other yards will be closed later this year. The closure of the three Singapore yards were revealed at Keppel Corps 2016 full year results announcement.

The net orderbook of Keppel O&M stood at SGD3.5bn as at 31 March 2017, excluding the rig orders from one of its biggest customer Sete Brasil, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year amid a corruption scandal.

Looking ahead, Loh said Keppel O&M is pushing into new markets and revenue sources. Gas will be an important market of the future, and we are priming Keppel O&M to be an industry leader with an extensive gas strategy that spans the value chain, he said.

We are also re-purposing our offshore technology for applications in other areas including floating infrastructure assets.
By Press Trust of India: Chandigarh, Apr 21 (PTI) Israel today evinced interest in strengthening cooperation with Punjab in various sectors, including agriculture, dairy farming as well as promotion of private investment in the state.

At a meeting between Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and Israel?s ambassador to India, Daniel Carmon in New Delhi, the two sides decided to explore the possibility of setting up Punjab-Israel working groups for continuous dialogue on issues of mutual interest.

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The chief minister promised to take up the matter with the External Affairs Ministry, after the Israeli envoy suggested the formation of such groups for long-term cooperation, according to Raveen Thukral, Media Advisor to the chief minister.

The ambassador told the chief minister that Israel is interested in expanding ties with Punjab beyond government- to-government relations by extending business opportunities for the Israeli private sector, Thukral said.

The Israeli envoy also showed interest in technological cooperation, with a possibility of setting up an IT and communications hub in Punjab, to which Singh said it could be an important area of mutual growth.

The chief minister was keen to involve private sector, like in his previous tenure as the CM, in innovating new ways to boost irrigation and improve the yields of farmers with small holdings by encouraging them to shift to horticulture, Thukral said.

The ambassador pointed out that several Israeli companies were engaged in augmenting crop yield through innovative measures aimed at ensuring ?more crop per drop?, he added.

The chief minister also suggested Israel to set up an agricultural implements manufacturing facility in Punjab, besides helping the state in providing effective cold storage solutions for agricultural produce, Thukral said.

Pointing out that the dairy yield of Israeli cows was among the top three in the world, Carmon offered to provide Punjab with embryo transfer and artificial insemination technologies to scale up the dairy farming business in the state, the media advisor added.

The two sides also discussed cooperation in police/ security training, to which the Israeli ambassador said it could be arranged either in his country or in Punjab.

Captain Amarinder and Carmon agreed to explore the possibility for setting up a Punjab Special Operation Group for training.

Israel already has an agreement with the Ministry of Home Affairs on homeland security and anti-terror activities.

Israeli envoy and the chief minister agreed to exchange of agricultural and other experts as an ongoing measure to boost cooperation between the two sides, according to the media advisor. PTI VJ BAL

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Despite Amma's demise, her spirit and legacy continues to guide and motivate AIADMK cadres regardless of the seething divide.

By Akshaya Nath: On September 22, 2016, a cool winter night, the political situation in the state of Tamil Nadu was seeing the beginning of a spark that would create one of the worst political heat.

The Amma of Tamil Nadu, the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, was rushed to the Apollo Hospital and there was a lot of buzz on her health condition for the next three months.

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The long waits outside the Greams road hospital always ended with the spokespersons of the party giving more and more promises of an improving condition of the CM until catastrophe struck on the late hours of December 5 - the demise of Jaya.

This was just the beginning of the late night dramatic events that were to unfold in the state. Among the slew of unexpected decisions were - Jaya's most trusted lieutenant O Panneerselvam (OPS) made the chief minister and her 'shadow' Sasikala elevated to the position of AIADMK general secretary.

If the reverence that was showed to Chinamma was to be taken at its face value the developments that followed in a matter of two months is something that is astonishing.

SASIKALA TOO FOLLOWED THE FOOTSTEPS

While Jaya was always criticized for the way her party members behaved with her - bowing, prostrating and touching the ground that she was walking on - the way the party members behaved with Sasikala was no different and Sasikala too had adapted to the absence of her "Akka" and her new responsibility really quick. She greeted those who bowed to her, wore the same shades of sarees, and even quickly got the photo shoots done that were to adorn the state of Tamil Nadu.

But history has proved it time and again that power is intoxicating and power once acquired makes it hard for one to let go of it. Though OPS who until he was asked to step down as the chief minister, a seat that he had safeguarded for Jaya a couple of times, seemed too honour bound to do the same for Sasikala. The late night meditation at the Jaya memorial got many supporters for OPS, but it also left many wondering about the actual need for power.

"I am ready to continue as the Chief Minister if the people of the state want me to. I was forced to resign by Sasikala and her family," OPS had said after the long meditation, which he said was done because of a call by Amma's spirit.

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Marina beach has been the most fascinating spot for most visitors and the residents of the city of Chennai, but the second largest beach in the world has attained more attention since December after several felt Jaya's presence.

The strong AIADMK which was a "military party", the loving description of the spokesperson of the AIADMK, CR Saraswathy, has now turned into multiple factions. "We listen to our Amma and Amma knows what is best for us," is the common statement of most AIADMK leaders and now even after her death it seems like Amma continues to be the guiding force for many.

FORMATIONS OF NEW FACTIONS

The greed for power and the lack of a strong leadership has led to the formation of a new wing. What started off with a split between Sasikala and OPS loyalist, later saw a faction of Deepa (Jaya's niece's supporters) emerging.

With Sasikala already behind the bars and her nephew - TTV Dinakaran, who is her deputy, facing multiple cases and all their trusted knights facing IT raids, the Sasikala faction seems to have a dwindling number with most of the senior leaders ready for a compromise with the OPS faction leaving.

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This leaves with a Sasikala faction, an Eddapadi Palaniswami (EPS) faction, an OPS faction, a Deepa faction and now after a long meditation and seeking the blessings of aunt Jaya - Madhavan - Deepa's husband too has flouted a new party - MGR Jayalalithaa Dravida Munetra Kazhagam.

Jaya, the Amma of the people of Tamil Nadu always said, "Makkalal naan, Makkalakaga naan" (I am made by the people of Tamil Nadu and I am for the people of Tamil Nadu), after her demise crores of AIADMK cadres were saddened by the mysterious death but even as the people have learnt to move on, the leaders of the factions have not learn to walk alone.

With Amma's spirit always guiding them and energising them but still none of the leaders have managed to create the persona that Jaya and her predecessor MGR had. The ongoing turmoil within the party has left a once strong AIADMK now in the lurch.

Also read:

The fight for Amma's legacy is far from over, now Deepa Jayakumar's husband floats a party

Another twist to Jayalalithaa death mystery: Sasikala's relative threatens to release hospital clips

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WATCH VIDEO | Chinnamma is Tamil Nadu's new Amma: Will Sasikala rise above Jayalalithaa's shadow?

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Press Release

April 21, 2017 De Lima seeks Senate probe on gov't readiness for the 'Big One' Sen. Leila M. de Lima has sought for an immediate Senate investigation into the readiness of the national and local governments to mitigate the impact of the possible occurrence of the "Big One," a magnitude 7.2 earthquake feared to hit Metro Manila. De Lima filed Proposed Senate Resolution No. 322 directing the appropriate Senate committees to assess the country's earthquake preparedness following an increasing frequency of earthquakes that recently hit some parts of the country. "There is a need for a holistic assessment and strengthening of the respective capacities of national government agencies, local government units and other stakeholders to mitigate, respond and recover from a potential massive earthquake," she said. Based on the 2016 World Risk Index, the Philippines which is situated along the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", the most active earthquake belt in the world, is considered as the "third most vulnerable country with the highest disaster risk." De Lima cited a Japanese study which claims that Metro Manila is due for the "Big One" earthquake that may destroy an approximate 40% of all buildings in the capital, claim about 34,000 lives and injure up to 100,000 others due to collapsed buildings. She also noted another Swiss study which considered Manila as the "riskiest city in the world" next to Tokyo, Japan, considering that the country's capital is located near two major faultlines - the West Valley Fault and the Manila Trench. Mindful of these two technical studies, the former justice secretary also called for an immediate review and possible revision of Republic Act No. 6541, also known as the National Building Code of the Philippines. "The National Building Code should be revisited and amended to ensure that homeowners and building administrators will upgrade and retrofit their houses or buildings to comply with the minimum requirements provided by the Code," she said. De Lima pointed out that the Senate inquiry should look into how the present administration is implementing Republic Act No. 10121, also known as the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010. Under Section 2 of the RA 10121, the State is mandated "to uphold people's constitutional rights to life and property by addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities to disasters, strengthening the country's institutional capacity for disaster risk reduction and management, and building the resilience of local communities to disasters."
Press Release

April 21, 2017 STATEMENT OF SEN. LEILA M. DE LIMA I am deeply humbled for being recognized by Time magazine as an Icon among their 100 Most Influential people in the world. The struggle for human rights and the fight for justice for those who have been murdered by the Duterte regime in its drug war are not popular causes as of the moment. For many of our countrymen, it is more convenient to huddle up close to Malacanang and reap the benefits of being a sycophant, rather than take the road less travelled but be the victim of political persecution by a vengeful strongman. I could have chosen to stay silent and dance with the regime's music, but that would have been a betrayal of the country, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the fight for justice. It would have been a betrayal of my father, my sons, and my family. I cannot for once contemplate capitulating to the dark side that this regime now embodies in exchange for a comfortable but opportunist life. This is why international recognition of what we fight for is important, because even as darkness surrounds us now, the world keeps watch and shines a light on us, until the time comes when we can finally bear our own torch once again and chase away the monster that enslaves us in evil.
Press Release

April 21, 2017 Legarda: Do Something Every Day for Mother Earth Senator Loren Legarda today encouraged everyone to do acts that would help save the planet not only during Earth Day but every day. On April 22, the world will observe Earth Day as a reminder of man's responsibility to take care of the environment. "Mother Earth is giving so much to us every day-the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe. What have we given in return? It is not enough that we join the world in observing Earth Day. What we must do is to take care of our planet every day," said Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change and UNISDR Global Champion for Resilience. "Unplug gadgets and unused appliances, plant trees, segregate garbage, put up a rainwater collector in your home, share your eco-friendly practices in social media or talk about it among your family and peers-these are just five simple practices we can start with and there are many more. If we all do eco-friendly acts every day, if we all embrace an eco-friendly lifestyle, we can address climate change," she added. On April 21, Legarda, along with more than 30 individuals and groups, was recognized by the Climate Reality Project Philippines for outstanding leadership in helping address climate change. The Senator was bestowed the Luntiang Kapawa Award for her "indefatigable leadership in bringing up the level of climate conversation and action in governance." Kapawa is Hiligaynon word for light. Legarda has authored laws on environmental governance like the Clean Air Act, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the Climate Change Act, People's Survival Fund Law and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act, among many other initiatives. She was also instrumental in ensuring the Philippines' accession to the Paris Agreement-from explaining to the Cabinet members its importance to the Philippines, to shepherding the immediate and unanimous concurrence of the Senate in the President's accession to the treaty. "The individuals and groups recognized by the Climate Reality Project prove that we can take action against climate change either through individual or community efforts. They prove that we can all work, in our own and simple ways, to help resuscitate our ailing environment," she said. Earth Day 2017 is historic for the Philippines as the Paris Agreement officially takes effect in the country on the said day. "As Party to the Agreement, we can influence the decisions on how the accord will be implemented and we maintain our leadership role in the international climate talks and advocacy," said Legarda. "Even if we are a nation vulnerable to climate change impacts, we can show the world that we are capable of action, that we will use our vulnerability as our motivation towards sustainability," Legarda concluded.
Wilbur Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H-1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on it yet.

By Press Trust of India: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has "strongly raised" the H-1B visa issue with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, highlighting the important role played by highly skilled Indian professionals in America, officials said.

During the meeting in Washington -- the first cabinet-level interaction between the two countries under the Trump administration -- Ross is believed to have said that US has started the process of reviewing H-1B visas issues and no decision has been taken on it yet, sources said.

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Taking up the case of Indian IT companies and professionals, Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries, an Indian official said.

Ross is understood to have said that whatever the outcome of the review process, the Trump administration's objective is to have a merit-based immigration policy that gives preference to highly skilled professionals.

TRUMP'S EXECUTIVE ORDER

The executive order signed by Trump early this week calls for a review of H-1B visas by the departments of State, Labour, Homeland Security and Justice.

Jaitley, leading an Indian delegation, arrived in Washington DC on Thursday morning to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Over the next two days, the Finance Minister is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, Australia, France, Indonesia and Sweden. He is also likely to meet finance ministers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Stressing that India-US relationship has bipartisan support in both the countries, the Finance Minister in his meeting with the commerce secretary said the two largest democratic countries of the world over the years have developed z strong strategic, economic and defence relationship.

The three phone conversations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump have had, along with the officials meeting, has shown that the two governments are going to build on this momentum in the years to come, the official said.

Briefing Ross on India's growth story, Jaitley is believed to have given an him insight into a series of "far reaching reforms" being undertaken by the Modi government post-demonetisation including the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Jaitley said the two countries should be able to move towards achieving the goal of USD 500 billion per annum in bilateral trade in the next few years.

In addition to his meetings and presentations at the annual Spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, the Union minister is also scheduled to attend meetings of other multilateral forums including that of the G-20 finance ministers.

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Before leaving Washington DC for New York on Sunday, he is expected to interact with think-tanks and eminent Indian-Americans.

Also Read:

India calls H-1B visa trade and services issue, will take up matter with Trump government

H-1B visa curbs coming soon, says Trump's pick for US attorney general

Trump rakes up H1B visa issue again, says 'won't allow foreign workers to replace Americans'

Trump vows 'tracking system' to deport everyone whose visa expires

President Donald Trump to seek changes in H-1B visa programme to encourage hiring Americans

After US and Australia, now New Zealand toughens visa norms for skilled immigrants

WATCH VIDEO

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To some Muni Metro riders, theres nothing worse than hitting the end of the line before the end of the line  thats called a switchback, when the train is turned around to patch service holes behind it  leaving those riders waiting on the sidewalk for another train.

And since 2013, switchbacks have more than doubled on every Metro line of the San Francisco railway.

Last year, Muni ordered 5,345 switchbacks, up 57 percent since 2013 when 3,403 occurred, according to a Chronicle analysis of Muni data. The unexpected drop-offs increased on every line, with the biggest jumps on the J-Church (104 percent), M-Oceanview (100 percent), N-Judah  the line with the most overall switchbacks (48 percent)  and KT-Ingleside/Third Street (43 percent). The S-Castro shuttle, which had the fewest switchbacks overall, increased from one in 2013 to four in 2016.

Paul Rose, a spokesman for the Municipal Transportation Agency, said the increase is because of an uptick in the number of large public demonstrations and problems caused by aging infrastructure, like track switches, rails and signals. Also, during the past six months, 20 days had more than 40 switchbacks because of increased ridership, he said.

Muni uses switchbacks when the vehicles become bottlenecked in the system, creating a logjam where trains follow one another too closely. Switchbacks occur most frequently on outbound trains. Muni officials say it improves transit times.

But the switchbacks vex voters who passed a $500 million bond in 2014 to improve the transit system. It was sponsored by Supervisor Katy Tang, whose district includes the Sunset. More than two years later, Muni has spent only about $14 million of the money, according to an agency official, and switchbacks on several lines have doubled. Tangs office has been fielding complaints from residents whose property taxes went up to finance the bond.

MTA Director Ed Reiskin said the delays in spending the bond money come from overly optimistic project deadlines that have since been pushed back.

Theres no question we have challenges, especially with the suite of projects we had teed up with these dollars, he said. Im not happy with the pace of spending on this bond or any of our other revenues. Everything we are doing is trying to shorten that time.

In 2013, 24 percent of switchbacks happened during peak travel times, from 7 to 9 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. In 2016, that jumped to 31 percent.

When we do order a switchback, our policy is to only do one if there is a train five minutes behind, and we do ask that operators make announcements, Rose said. It is something we have been trying to get better at over the years. We are going to continue doing work on improving switchbacks.

Commuters, who often cannot hear announcements crackling over the trains speaker systems, say the switchbacks shouldnt happen at all. Only 22 percent of them were satisfied with Munis overall communication, a 2017 agency survey showed. About 25 percent said they were satisfied with the agencys overall service reliability.

Sometimes Sarah Stromska thinks it would be easier to just sleep at the office. The 35-year-old shuttles from her home near Ocean Beach to her job at a startup software company near AT&T Park. But riding the N-Judah streetcar has become a long, slogging ordeal. Muni routinely orders switchbacks, dumping Stromska and a fleet of other commuters off with no warning, stranding them until the next train arrives.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

On a good day, it takes an hour to get home by taking Muni, Stromska said, sighing. But then a switchback happens, unbeknownst to me until we get a block away. Its death by a thousand paper cuts; its an annoyance that accumulates over time. It already takes so long to go such a short distance.

City Hall officials are flummoxed as to what to do. The $500 million bond that passed in 2014  the Transportation and Road Improvement General Obligation Bond, the first bond for Muni since 1947  was hailed as a measure that would improve Muni. In a 2014 presentation, Muni promised to make service less crowded and more reliable and improve safety for everyone getting around. ... The benefits of the bond will be felt in every San Francisco neighborhood.

At a Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee meeting this month, Board President London Breed maligned the MTA for failing to spend the money in a timely fashion.

I am concerned that the MTA is misusing our trust, she said. With every passing day, we are paying interest on the bonds that we have sold but are not using. With each passing day, the value of this money goes down while the cost of construction goes up, meaning the MTA cant deliver the same quality or quantity of improvements that the bond money could originally have had.

While many of those projects would not impact switchbacks directly, it would improve overall reliability within the system and how quickly commuters are able to get around. That could prevent overcrowding on Munis most popular lines.

Of the bond money, $191 million is supposed to go to Muni Forward, which will improve service on Munis highest ridership lines  the ones most commonly affected by switchbacks. The L-Taraval Transit Improvement project, a $2 million package that would fix tracks, trolley wires and poles along the line, is still under construction.

The N-Judah Transit Priority project, stretching from Arguello to Ninth Avenue, would build transit priority lanes along the busiest corridor. The $3.2 million project is still in the design phase, and completion has been pushed back to next year.

In 2013, Tang worked with the MTA to create a switchback action plan with new rules about who could authorize switchbacks, when they could occur and how they must be logged. But she remains frustrated by how little progress has been made.

I think that the bond funding and the capital improvements have everything to do with reliability, Tang said. MTAs response on the switchbacks in general is that this is part of our system, that we need to do this, she said. Im saying it is unacceptable because our residents feel abandoned by Muni. They deserve to be able to get on a train from start to finish and end up where theyre going.

Muni rider Mickey Lim, 53, who commutes to the Castro from his home at 45th Avenue and Quintara Street, shares that feeling.

My feeling is that they need to have some human decency and give us the opportunity to get off the train at the last station, rather than leaving us on a street corner, Lim said. We are stuck in the dark, in the cold, in the fog, in the rain, without any warning. I understand that this has to happen sometimes, but they need to hold up their end to ensure it happens as little as possible.

Stromska said switchbacks added insult to injury  making trips longer than they need to be.

At the end of the day, its like, Ive been on this train for ages, and now you tell me I have to get off, she said.

Later, 45 minutes into her commute, Stromskas train switched back at 19th Avenue. She stepped off the vehicle to wait in the dark.

Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn
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Students who invited right-wing pundit Ann Coulter to UC Berkeley next week gave campus administrators an ultimatum Friday: Let her speak on campus Thursday evening or they will sue the university in federal court on grounds UC is violating their constitutional right to free speech.

UC Berkeley responded quickly, warning that if Coulter shows up Thursday, as she has insisted she will, campus officials wont be able to ensure the safety of participants because of security threats theyve learned about. For that reason, they said, they have asked Coulter to speak the following week in the afternoon.

The standoff caps a dramatic back-and-forth over the last week between UC Berkeley and Coulter  an author and television personality who was invited by two student groups to speak on campus April 27  over when she might come to campus.

Campus officials contend that the two student groups signed a contract for Coulters appearance without consulting with them first or getting a security review, as required.

Earlier this week, campus officials canceled the Coulter talk on campus on that date, saying they could not safely accommodate her after learning there would be anti-Coulter violence. They also cited recent violent protests in Berkeley, as well as the Feb. 1 riot that caused $100,000 in damage on campus when another right-wing personality, Milo Yiannopoulos, tried to speak in the student union.

Campus officials offered to schedule Coulters talk in September. But Coulter said she was coming next week anyway, prompting campus officials to offer her May 2 instead.

At a news conference Thursday announcing the May 2 date, UC Berkeley police Capt. Alex Yao said police were caught by surprise by the large numbers of masked agitators and the orchestrated tactics they used to breach three rows of metal barriers. He said UC officials protect free speech without regard to political views, but also must keep people safe.

Coulter refused to come May 2, saying the day falls within Dead Week when classes are suspended and students are studying for finals. Besides, she tweeted Thursday, she will be busy that day. The semesters last day of instruction is May 5.

Two student groups invited her: the Berkeley College Republicans and the nonpartisan BridgeUSA. Now, the Republican students and the national Young Americas Foundation that is paying for most of Coulters $20,000 speaking fee have hired Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney and member of the Republican National Committee representing California.

In a letter to Vice Chancellor Stephen Sutton, Dhillon accused UC Berkeley administrators of singling out Coulter for unfair treatment in violation of the First Amendment.

She said administrators have placed restrictions on Coulters speech  requiring her to end her talk by 3 p.m.  but have not similarly restricted innumerable speeches by prominent liberal speakers, including Maria Echaveste, former adviser to President Bill Clinton on immigration. Students recently invited both Echaveste and Coulter to speak separately on immigration. Echavestes evening talk went on unimpeded.

Dhillon said another recent speaker, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was billed as a vocal critic of President Trumps policies, also spoke after 3 p.m.

The attempted cancellation of Coulters speech also comes on the heels of UC Berkeleys similar silencing of two other speakers, Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz, both conservative activists, whose talks were canceled at the last minute on the pretext of being unable to provide adequate security, Dhillon said. She called the cancellations a hecklers veto to suppress the free speech rights of speakers properly invited by students.

In her letter, she wrote: It is ironic that UC Berkeley, known to many Americans as the birthplace of the Free-Speech Movement, is now leading the vanguard to silence conservative speech on campus. Dhillon concluded her letter by giving the campus until 5 p.m. Friday to cooperate with Ms. Coulters planned speech by providing a similar forum to her as that provided to other prominent speakers this month.

UC Berkeleys attorney, Christopher Patti, promptly made it clear that the campus would not budge.

In a response to Dhillon, he wrote that campus police have received mounting intelligence that some of the same groups that previously engaged in local violent action also intended violence at the Coulter event.

Patti denied prohibiting any events from taking place on campus and said employees have spent countless hours, including during weekends and vacations, working to enable the Berkeley College Republicans planned events to go ahead safely.

Patti said the campus actions have been wholly consistent with its obligations under the Constitution to protect the free speech rights of your clients, and its duty to protect the safety and security of the university community.

Dhillon called the campus response unacceptable and said it leaves her clients no choice but to seek relief from the courts.

She said shell write UC Berkeley one more time, and that if campus officials dont reverse their decision shell file a suit in the next few days.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
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California health officials have fined Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City $47,450 for mistakenly removing a womans ovaries in 2016.

The fine against Sequoia, which is owned by the Northern California health system Dignity Health, is one of 17 civil penalties lodged against 14 California hospitals for incidents that caused serious injury or death. The penalties against the hospitals, which total $1.1 million, were announced by the California Department of Public Health on Thursday.

Four of the 14 hospitals, including Sequoia, are in the Bay Area. The other three  which all had fatalities  are California Pacific Medical Center-St. Lukes Campus and Kaiser Foundation Hospital, both in San Francisco and Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa.

Doctors at Sequoia were supposed to remove the patients uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix during a February 2016 surgery, but mistakenly removed her ovaries, according to a report from the California Department of Public Health. It is unclear whether the ovaries were removed in addition to, or instead of, the uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix. The report does not include the patients name or age.

The procedure was entered incorrectly in the hospitals surgical schedule, the report found, and the woman will need estrogen replacement therapy for life.

"The care and safety of our patients and staff are the highest priority at Dignity Health Sequoia Hospital and we take this matter very seriously," a Dignity Health spokeswoman said in an email. "After self-reporting this event to the CDPH, we fully cooperated during their investigation and immediately took steps to ensure this never happens again, including revising protocols and staff re-education."

Kaiser was fined $147,000 for two separate incidents that ended in patient deaths in 2015 and 2016. One involved a patient receiving dialysis whose line disconnected from his catheter, causing massive blood loss and cardiac arrest, the report found. The second involved the mishandling of a patients tracheostomy, a procedure to unblock the airways. St. Lukes, an affiliate of Sutter Health, was fined $47,450 after a female patient fell in 2015 while under the care of hospital staff, hit her head, underwent brain surgery and died, according to the report.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

We sincerely regret that these incidents occurred and extend our sympathy to the families involved, said a Kaiser spokeswoman. In response to these incidents, and to ensure such situations never occur again, we immediately investigated their root cause, evaluated our processes and implemented systemic improvements and training for our nurses, physicians, and staff.

A spokesman for Sutter said the hospital immediately reported the incident to the appropriate regulatory agencies and initiated a quality improvement process to ensure it does not happen again.

Queen of the Valley was fined $225,000 for three incidents in 2013 in which the staff failed to properly monitor patients symptoms or administered an incorrect treatment. Two patients died and the third is in a vegetative state, according to the report. A spokeswoman for the hospital did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: Cat__Ho
The Federal Communications Commissions landmark wireless spectrum auction netted KQED in San Francisco a whopping $95,459,109  but dont expect the public media broadcasters next pledge drive to wrap up any sooner as a result.

KQED and nine other Bay Area TV stations collectively brought in more than $825 million from the FCCs auction, an extraordinarily complex process in which broadcasters across the country sold portions of their coveted airwaves. The eager buyers: wireless providers vying to meet the countrys bottomless appetite for Internet bandwidth, with the FCC acting as a kind of broker between the two.

The auction, ordered by Congress in 2012, represents an unprecedented reallocation of airwaves, which, by law, are the publics property.

The regions TV stations reeled in amounts between $55.4 million and $114.2 million.

But with few exceptions, the results of those windfalls will be as invisible to Bay Area TV audiences as the electromagnetic signals that produced them. None of the regions broadcasters will go off the air. They wont even have to change their positions on the dial.

Rather than plowing the money into new programming or glossy promotional campaigns, many station operators say they are being prudent and husbanding funds for the future.

Not a dime will be spent on operations, said KQED President and CEO John Boland. So far, people get it. They understand that this is going to help KQED long-term, but we still need their support every year to meet our budget.

About 70 percent of KQEDs auction proceeds will be plunged directly into the stations endowment, a pool of money that produces returns for KQED in perpetuity, Boland said. The endowment makes up about 10 percent of KQEDs $70 million annual operating budget. The station has to raise the remainder each year.

The balance will be put toward building and technology improvements, Boland said. Our building was designed for the KQED of 25 years ago, he said. Our board is studying what we should do  how should we renovate the building, should we move?

For KRCB, which has an annual budget of $2.8 million, the nearly $72 million that the auction brought in will move the needle for the small Rohnert Park public media broadcaster.

The looming proposal to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting has been disquieting for KRCBs president and CEO, Nancy Dobbs. The auction proceeds will help the station chart its own financial future, Dobbs said.

Were in a very low-budget situation, and TV equipment is expensive, so were hoping to put around $50 million to $60 million into a permanent endowment which will underpin the budget, especially if federal cuts to public broadcasting go forward, Dobbs said.

We, like a lot of other small stations, would be in dire straits if (the spectrum auction) hadnt happened, she added. Dobbs expects about $1 million to go toward upgrading the stations facilities. The remainder will be used to cover the expenses of the stations repacking process, something many TV broadcasters are preparing for in the wake of the auction.

To prevent signal interference, TV broadcasters will have to squeeze their transmissions into new frequency bands under the terms of the auction process. Many broadcasters will be able to piggyback their channels on top of one another in so-called channel sharing agreements, which help to conserve spectrum and minimize disruption for viewers. The FCC is bound by law to make all reasonable efforts to preserve  the coverage area and population served of each TV broadcaster. TV stations began broadcasting all-digital signals in 2009, which allows them to use less spectrum while maintaining their coverage areas. The digital signals also make it easier for stations to share channel space without having to switch the familiar numbers viewers use to find them.

All 10 of the Bay Area stations who participated in the auction indicated they intend to enter into channel-sharing agreements, according to data from the FCC.

Repacking doesnt require broadcasters to change their channel numbers, so the process will largely go unnoticed by viewers. Audiences who view local channels carried on cable or satellite services will also be unaffected. But the technical expenses can quickly mount into the millions of dollars. KRCB will have to pay for a new broadcast antenna and transmitter, and the station is exploring just how much those will cost.

I would say that by this time next year well be able to allow ourselves to relax and say, What does this mean in terms of new staff or the purchasing of programming? Were already thinking about that a little bit, and we want to expand our local offerings, Dobbs said.

None of the nearly $78 million KRON received from the auction will go toward broadcast operations, according to a spokeswoman for Nexstar Broadcasting, the company that owns the station. Those proceeds will instead go to shareholders of Media General  KRONs previous owner  which was acquired by Nexstar in a $4.6 billion deal that closed in January. (Chronicle Publishing Company, The Chronicles former parent company, sold KRON in 2000 to Young Broadcasting, which merged with Media General in 2013.) The proceeds from the sale of Media Generals spectrum was built into the terms of that transaction.

In an email, Barbara Bissell-Howell, a board member at KTSF, which broadcasts Asian-language programming, said that a significant portion of the $90 million the station netted in the auction would go toward a planned channel-sharing agreement. Another large portion of the auction proceeds will be paid out in taxes, with the balance going to the Lillian Lincoln Foundation, a nonprofit operated by KTSFs owners that produces documentary films.

Representatives from KTLN and KTNC declined to comment on how their stations intended to use their auction proceeds. KTNC reaped the biggest reward from the auction, bringing in more than $114.2 million. The station, a former Estrella TV affiliate offering Spanish-language programming, now airs infomercials like How to Lighten Age Spots and How to Tighten Crepey Skin. The station and its parent company, NRJ TV, could not be reached for comment.

Representatives from KOFY, KEXT and KEMO also could not be reached for comment.

KMTP, a noncommercial San Francisco station owned by the Minority Television Project, will receive $87.8 million from the auction. Booker Wade, the stations general manager, said KMTP would use the money to replace the stations outdated studio and production equipment and build products to reach viewers on mobile devices.

Those viewers may benefit from the auction in other ways  by getting cheaper, faster Internet access on their phones, on which they can view an expanding array of video programs.

T-Mobile walked away from the auction with the biggest chunk of wireless spectrum  45 percent of the total amount being offered  after bidding nearly $8 billion. Dish Network came in second, bidding $6.2 billion, followed by Comcast, which will pay $1.7 billion. AT&T bid $910 million. Fifty wireless companies bid $19.8 billion for spectrum nationwide.

Sprint and Verizon sat out the auction entirely, according to FCC data.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
President Trump had promised to quickly pass a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. He later acknowledged that health care is an unbelievably complex subject.

He is finding the same goes for global trade.

Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to save U.S. jobs by getting tough on trade deals, seems to have learned that global commerce is hardly a silo. Pulling on one end of the economy inevitably impacts the other, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Take the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump says he wants to renegotiate the deal because he thinks Mexico is stealing American jobs by luring U.S. companies with its low-cost labor. He has threatened to slap border taxes and tariffs on Mexican imports.

But Mexico buys billions of dollars of goods from U.S. firms, so the country will surely retaliate with its own tariffs, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said in an interview Wednesday.

Trading is not a zero-sum game, said Fox, who was in San Francisco to speak at the Commonwealth Club. Trading is to the benefit of two nations.

We dont want trade wars, he said. But if he decides on a border tax, every action has a reaction. ... American farmers, you will lose a lot of money.

Indeed, Trump no longer seems to support a plan to finance construction of a border wall with a tax on Mexican goods.

In addition, he recently signaled support for the Export-Import Bank, which finances exports to developing countries like China and India. Republican conservatives in Congress have long wanted to eliminate the agency, calling such financial support as corporate welfare. But the Export-Import Bank has produced a profit for taxpayers, something that Trump likes, especially as he tries to find ways to pay for deep tax cuts  though he did name a sharp critic of the bank as its president.

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Trump also appears to be backing away from a campaign promise to name China as a currency manipulator  a claim unmoored from current reality, according to authorities like S&P Global Ratings.

The reason? Trump needs China to restrain North Korea from testing nuclear weapons.

Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? he tweeted.

Any move to punish trading partners will hurt the U.S. economy  especially in the Bay Area, where hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on exports. Until now, what Trump has refused to acknowledge is that the global economy, with its interlocking supply chains, is beyond the reach of any one person or country.

You cannot change the global economy just because you want to change it, said Mauro Guillen, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School. These are complicated issues.

For example, Mexico is a top destination for U.S. energy and agricultural products. The U.S. Trade Representatives office estimates that Mexico purchases more than $2 billion worth of corn and more than $1 billion worth of beef from American farmers and ranchers, many of whom live in Midwest and Southern states that voted for Trump.

Because of this, elected leaders in those states have a stake in preserving the status quo, according to a recent report by global risk analysis firm Stratfor.

And Mexican goods exported to United States like cars and medical devices often include components made in America. The Center for Automotive Research estimates that ending NAFTA and imposing tariffs would cost America 31,000 jobs in the auto sector alone.

If Trump cares about jobs, in other words, he needs to care about trade.

Who wants General Motors or Ford to go broke again? Fox said. Who wants more taxpayer money to rescue these companies?

Californias exports to Mexico totaled $25.2 billion in 2016, including machinery, airplane parts, almonds and semiconductors, according U.S. Census data. Mexico and Canada account for more than $41 billion, or 25.3 percent, of state exports.

California sent $14.4 billion worth of goods and services last year to China, the worlds second-largest economy.

Wendy Cutler, the former acting deputy U.S. Trade Representative who is now managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institutes Washington office, says that striking trade agreements can help strengthen a broader relationship. For example, the U.S. and China for years have been negotiating a bilateral investment treaty that would theoretically address many of Trumps complaints about the Chinese market: access to specific industries and protection of intellectual property.

You would think this would play to the presidents perceived strength as a deal maker. And the administration has previously signaled that it wants to negotiate deals with individual countries instead of forging large trade agreements with several nations.

But to be a real deal maker, Trump needs to take a pragmatic, holistic approach to trade and ditch the populist, protectionist tone of his campaign. Thats starting to happen; whether he can keep it up, and bolster jobs in the U.S. and abroad rather than simply using trade as a bargaining chip, remains to be seen.

Thomas Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: tlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByTomLee
A day after canceling a scheduled speech by Ann Coulter for security reasons, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said Thursday that the right-wing pundits insistence on coming anyway persuaded him to rethink her banishment.

An appropriate, protectable venue will be made available on campus May 2  not next Thursday, as originally planned  he said, adding that he would disclose the location only after Coulter accepts the new date.

Thats not likely.

Hours later, Coulter shot down the invitation in a series of tweets and said she will speak at Berkeley on Thursday as planned not only because she cant do May 2, but THERE ARE NO CLASSES AT BERKELEY THE WEEK OF MAY 2!!!

That week is Dead Week, a time when classes are suspended so students can study for exams.

Its at an awful time, said Naweed Tahmas, 20, of the Berkeley College Republicans student group that invited Coulter. Also, the last day of instruction is three days later.

Do not fall for b.s. Berkeley press release claiming they rescinded cancelation, Coulter tweeted. GOOD NEWS FOR CA TAXPAYER! You won't be required to pay $$$$ to compensate me & my crew for rebooked airfare & hotels. I'm speaking on 4/27.

Dirks rejected accusations from Coulter, the student Republicans and the national Young Americas Foundation that the university was infringing on their right to free speech by originally canceling the talk this week.

The university has an unwavering commitment to the First Amendment of the Constitution, Dirks said, adding that student safety is of equal importance.

He said campus police had uncovered threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event.

Dirks said Coulters response to the cancellation  that she planned to speak on or off campus next Thursday regardless of security concerns  led him to ask his staff to find a protectable venue.

The location is not one we have used for these sorts of events in the past; it can both accommodate a substantial audience and meet the security criteria established by our police department, Dirks said at a hastily called news conference Thursday.

UC Police Capt. Alex Yao said, Our approach (to Coulters security) will be different than for the Milo (Yiannopoulos) event Feb. 1, when masked and violent agitators infiltrated a student protest of Yiannopoulos  another right-wing pundit  breaking windows, setting equipment on fire and shutting down his talk before it began.

Declining to offer specifics on security, Yao suggested that more police would be on hand. He said the Yiannopoulos protest and others March 4 and Saturday in Berkeley are causing police to look at how we staff.

Meanwhile, its unclear from Coulters tweets whether she intends to try to speak on campus or in the city of Berkeley on Thursday, and neither the Republican students nor the national Young Americas Foundation, that is paying most of her $20,000 speaking fee, responded to requests for comment.

An informal Chronicle survey of half a dozen event sites in Berkeley yielded not one that would or could have her.

Absolutely not, said Mirian Wolodarski Lundberg, co-manager of the 200-seat Finnish Lodge on Chestnut Street, when asked if Coulter could speak there Thursday.

The Finnish Hall was built in 1932 by immigrants, Wolodarski Lundberg said. Coulter, who was invited by the student Republicans to speak on immigration, is famously anti-immigrant. She also has labeled herself a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative.

COVID Resources Coronavirus Map Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.

Not only would we not agree with her politics, but we would also be concerned about the kind of crowds that she would attract, she said.

Nor could Coulter speak at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse on Addison Street, which has 490 seats. The Cowboy Junkies, a Canadian country-blues band, is playing that night, and I wouldnt consider canceling it for Coulter, said executive director Sharon Dolan.

Besides, Dolan said, the sites nonprofit status could be in jeopardy if it started hosting partisan speakers.

Other places booked Thursday: the 550-seat UC Theater, where a Beatles cover show is playing, and the Berkeley Repertory Theater, where Hershey Feder is playing Irving Berlin.

As for the 120-seat Berkeley Yacht Club, the Sierra Club has it that night.

And even if it didnt, there would be a riot problem to consider.

I would, obviously, have a slight concern about that, said the Yacht Clubs manager, Mark Sokolov.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
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Louis Marinelli, the 30-year-old English teacher and California secession movement co-founder, has announced his intention to drop efforts to qualify the Calexit measure for the 2018 election ballot and move to Russia, a country I have grown to love.

I sent him a note.

I was curious what he had to say to Californians (OK, me) who believe his movement to have us secede from the United States might be the work of the Russian government.

Secession is serious business, and Marinelli didnt strike me as an uncompromised backer of the movement.

Maybe it was the fact that hed worked on the campaign from his apartment in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia. Maybe it was the pro-Russia posts he wrote on the campaign blog. Maybe it was the campaign office space hed accepted from a Kremlin-backed group.

Im not a conspiracy theorist.

But if you give me enough dots, I will see a pattern.

Marinelli got right back to me.

Anyone who believes our petition was the work of the Russian government is a sheep, he wrote. Easily manipulated, and scared by propaganda in the midst of ridiculous anti-Russian hysteria.

How sad! I thought.

I didnt feel sad at being called a scared, easily manipulated sheep. (If being called names by strange men on the Internet were enough to get me down, Id have left this business long ago.)

Instead, I felt sad that Marinelli believed that his background wouldnt lead sensible people to immediately dismiss his plans for our future.

From the beginning, I have been a reluctant leader of the Calexit campaign, Marinelli wrote in his farewell statement. (But not reluctant enough to let someone else lead? I thought.)

I also felt sad that so many Californians (1 in 3, according to a January poll from Reuters) are so fed up with the rest of the country, that theyre willing to support the completely bananas idea of setting up our own country.

After all, if you cant look at the Marinelli saga and realize that secession rarely works to the advantage of those who believe they want it, then Im not sure how to get through to you.

Forget history, although the U.S. has more than enough examples to prove this point (while the Southern states exhausted their resources in a pro-slavery secession fight, the Union states consolidated an economic advantage that remains till this day). We can talk about whats going on today.

The state of Jefferson separatists in far Northern California, for example, rave about the regulations and various indignities they must suffer for the benefit of being carried by the tax money and economic innovations of the diverse, prosperous districts below.

These throwbacks believe theyre special enough to do better for themselves, and regularly start insulting petitions that the rest of us tolerate.

The truth is, these are the poorest counties in the state. Theyd flounder without us. The rest of California might have to pay a little more for weed after they left, but on the whole wed be lifted by their exit, and theyd be begging the federal government for help instead.

State secessionist sorts would have us believe California would be different.

California is rich, so rich we subsidize other U.S. states. We were the worlds sixth-largest economy in 2015, according to the state department of finance.

Ive also heard about the values that make California different and better than the rest of the country: Our views on education, science, immigration, taxation and healthcare are different, wrote Marcus Ruiz Evans, Marinellis co-leader, in a Jan. 21 commentary in the Mercury News.

Values is a common theme for todays aggrieved separatists.

These people range in location, from England to Washington state, but they generally have one thing in common: Theyve never really experienced what it was like to depend on their values in the face of aggressive state power.

You know who have?

The people of Russia. Over the past several years, a small number of brave Russians have kept an anti-Putin movement alive. Theyve done this in the big cities  where Putin does not share their values  and theyve done it at great physical risk.

Instead of launching a secession movement  the political equivalent of trying to take their toys and go home  theyve dedicated themselves to freeing their country and all of the people in it. Even the ones who are afraid to be free.

Instead of listening to a movement with ties to Putin, then, perhaps the people of California should look to their counterparts in Putins country.

These are the people who understand that its only by working together that people become powerful. Separation may stroke our petty urges, but it inevitably leads to isolation, weakness and defeat.

Lets stay within America, California. Our fellow Americans need us, but we need them, too.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner
Beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June had her wakeup call 15 years ago. An unnamed industry executive lectured Godfrey-June that as a journalist, it was her job to report whether beauty products were safe. I had never thought of beauty products as not being safe, said the former beauty director of Lucky and Elle magazines and current beauty director of Goop, the lifestyle website started by Gwyneth Paltrow. Suddenly I saw an unregulated industry with zero transparency.

Annie Jacksons epiphany was similar: Now the vice president of merchandise and planning for Credo, a clean-beauty retailer that has shops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Brooklyn, Jackson was shocked when she began to research the harmful toxins found in cosmetics.

I was sitting at my computer most days with my mouth wide open. I mean, I dedicated my entire career to conventional beauty brands  Benefit, Lauder, Sephora  and I was blissfully unaware. My role has always been Does the product work? Is the color what we want it to be? Is it commercial? Never once pausing to ask, What is in this? Is it good for humans? It was a huge eye-opener for me.

Godfrey-June says the a-ha moment for Goop readers often comes when they have children. I think people become awake and aware when they have children. They only want nontoxic for their baby; its their life marker for awareness.

Russell Yip/The Chronicle

Some of the most common and worrisome toxic substances that are prevalent in personal-care products in the U.S. are: the chemical sunscreen oxybenzone; parabens; sodium laureth sulfate (SLS), a detergent used in everything from shampoos and mouthwash to soap and baby products; phthalates, which are restricted in Europe; and mineral oil, found in popular moisturizers like Aquaphor and Creme de la Mer. Their effects can range from disrupting wearers homones and endocrine systems to immune-toxicity and birth defects, according to the nonprofit research firm Environmental Working Group.

Fear, awareness and a demand for transparency are driving the burgeoning green beauty movement, as is a desire for a healthier lifestyle, translating farm-to-table to farm-to-face. According to a report by Transparency Market Research, the global demand for organic personal-care products is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2018. International companies like Unilever are paying attention and investing in small startups like Mill Valleys True Botanicals and LXMI, a nilotica shea nut-based skin-care line.

Nordstrom announced earlier this year it would be opening Natural Beauty Outposts at 46 brick-and-mortar locations, including Walnut Creek, Corte Madera and Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara. About a year ago we saw a surge in customers asking for more natural beauty, said Nordstrom Regional Beauty Director Joelle Russo. Look at the explosion of juice bars and acai spots. Its a lifestyle shift, and people want to know what is going on their skin.

Nordstrom keeps its standards simple: In order for a product to be included in the natural collection, it has to follow one rule  no parabens, phthalates or sulfates. While Nordstrom added green brands like Kypris and Herbivore to the natural beauty outposts, the company also included individual products from conventional brands like Origins, Kiehls and Erno Lazlo that follow the no parabens, phthalates and sulfates rule.

Jeannie Jarnot, founder of Novatos Beauty Heroes, a healthy beauty discovery service and online beauty store, has a different standard for products she carries. Just because a product is free from parabens, phthalates and sulfates doesnt mean its clean or natural, she said. Were seeing more retailers mix conventional beauty with clean. And by not educating the consumer, its just using the clean brands to dress up the conventional brands. Retailers and conventional brands are putting up a minimal effort to get a maximum result, trying to capitalize on the trend. Its green-washing.

In order for a brand to be carried in Credo, it must steer clear of a constantly evolving list of close to a 100 dirty ingredients, plus use 100 percent biodegradable, recyclable or reusable packaging and be cruelty-free. The retailer also offers consumers comprehensive yet digestible educational materials on its site like an ingredient FAQ and clean swaps section recommending greener substitutes for conventional beauty products (see our picks , below).

We understand the overwhelmed feeling customers have when they are trying to understand the space, said Jackson about the companys educational efforts.

There has to be education  people just keep piling on these products filled with endocrine disruptors, said Godfrey-June. Your average person has no idea that their beauty products are full of toxins that can hurt them. Godfrey-June cited a recent poll conducted by American Viewpoint and the Mellman Group that showed that two-thirds of consumers believe chemicals in cosmetics are already reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.

How to bridge the gap? My greatest piece of advice is to find a curator you trust, said Dara Kennedy, founder of Ayla, an online and brick-and-mortar shop for nontoxic, natural and organic beauty products. Whos deciding what goes on the shelves in the store youre shopping from, and how deep is their expertise, really  or are they relying blindly on apps or potentially alternative facts that theyve mined from a quick Google search and are evaluating without proper context?

Godfrey-June also noted that just because a product is nontoxic doesnt mean youre giving up quality or efficacy. Makers are coming up with beautiful stuff, especially in the luxury skin-care market, she said. Without all the fillers and texturizers, ingredients are way more active and have added benefits like essential oils, which have been used as medicine for centuries.

Janna Mandell is a beauty freelance writer in Marin County. Email: style@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BeautyBinge
Madhavan officially flagged off his party at the Jaya Samathi at Marina Beach earlier today. He and his wife had initially joined hands and started the MGR Amma Deepa Peravai, but due to differences between the two, Madhavan drifted off to form his own political party.

By Shalini Lobo: Tamil Nadu is still reeling under its former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's demise. An unstable government, rebellion from all corners and more political parties mushrooming one after the other. This time it is Jaya's niece Deepa Jayakumar's husband, Madhavan, who has floated a political party.

Madhavan officially flagged off his party at the Jaya Samathi at Marina Beach earlier today. He and his wife had initially joined hands and started the MGR Amma Deepa Peravai, but due to differences between the two, Madhavan drifted off to form his own political party.

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Last month, Madhavan revealed to the media that his wife was influenced by "evil forces" which is why he decided to start his own political outfit, but they two are very much happy with their personal life.

"This is just a ploy to create more confusion and will not be fruitful. He is influenced by certain people," said Deepa Jayakumar about her husband's new political outfit. However, party cadres maintained that the reason for Deepa and Madhavan to break off in their political ambition was because a certain group of people he was associated with were involved in anti-party activities and she was not too happy with it.

There has also been friction between the two parties as party cadres are also split in their loyalties between the husband wife duo.

Also read:

On Jayalalithaa's 69th birthday, niece opens another anti-Sasikala front, unveils new AIADMK logo

Battle for Jaya's constituency: 127 nominations filed for by-polls; 82 accepted

WATCH THE VIDEO:

--- ENDS ---
Fans of the danker depths of genre movies will feast on Free Fire, a feral exercise in high-energy moviemaking that boils down to an extended shootout in a decrepit warehouse. And I do mean extended: After a modest setup, wild gunplay fills maybe two-thirds of the films 90-minute run time.

A comedy and a labor of love, the movie is a takeoff on 1970s action films thats been stripped of filler to concentrate on pure visceral thrills. The director is Britains Ben Wheatley, a cult figure who often works with writer Amy Jump (his wife). Their highly idiosyncratic output includes the 2012 bloody black comedy Sightseers and last years High-Rise, based on a dystopian novel by J.G. Ballard.

Certainly the filmmakers have soaked up the work of Sam Peckinpah, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo and Martin Scorsese (executive producer of Free Fire), past masters at depicting over-the-top battles with firearms. Wheatley aims to outdo them all, employing a minimum of plots and a cast of walking, talking action-movie cliches who trade quips and insults between volleys of bullets.

Its the late 1970s in Boston, and an IRA operative, Chris (Cillian Murphy), with a briefcase full of cash, wants to purchase several dozen high-powered assault weapons. Accompanying Chris are a handful of characters  its a terrific cast  played by Brie Larson, Michael Smiley and Sam Riley. Aficionados of wacky 70s hair and clothing styles will have much to savor.

The sellers are led by Sharlto Copleys hilariously loutish Vern, wearing what must be the ugliest suit ever made on Savile Row. His team includes Armie Hammer (with beard and turtleneck), a ferocious Jack Reynor and a former Black Panther played by Babou Ceesay.

Theres bad blood between the Reynor and Riley characters. The weaponry Vern brings is not what was requested. And everyone on both sides is armed to the teeth. Guess what follows.

Its a shootout for the ages, something that might have been choreographed by Chuck Jones (Bugs Bunny, etc.) at his most anarchic  if he had really been into guns. Everyone wants to grab the cash; almost everyone has been wounded (mostly in the limbs), so we see a lot of bleeding people crawling on their bellies and firing at anything that moves. A couple of assassins later join the fray (and who is employing them?) and the film toys with the constant possibility of combatants switching sides. Yes, its gunplay, but its funny and ghastly at the same time.

To forestall audience burnout, the filmmakers have inserted a few lulls in the action. That helps, as do the comic verbal sallies that accompany the gunfire. Still, after a while we may feel that, OK, weve gotten what Wheatley and company are up to, but they are pushing on regardless.

Quibbling aside, Free Fire mainly works, as an indulgence in cinematic overkill for moviegoers who realize that sometimes too much is just enough.

Walter Addiego is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: waddiego@sfchronicle.com

Free Fire

Comic crime thriller. Starring Sharlto Copley, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Armie Hammer. Directed by Ben Wheatley. (R. 90 minutes).

To see a trailer: http://bit.ly/2cjwlzP
It wasnt too long ago that vandalism and violence at demonstrations was carried out under the cover of darkness. Now people come dressed and armed for war in broad daylight, as they did Saturday in Berkeley.

Supporters of the president held a rally for him at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park  a demonstration thats not unlike entering an angry bulls pen and waving a red flag in front of his face.

It didnt take long for the scene to turn violent and bloody.

The Berkeley Police Department, which has been criticized for allowing bloody encounters to happen, attempted to contain the fighting so it didnt spread.

They couldve stepped in, shields raised and batons brandished, but that most likely wouldve led to even more violence, police believe.

We always work to ensure that the police response is not the focus of the event, said Sgt. Andrew Frankel, a spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department. The more times we do it, the more effective were going to be at taking action only at those people who are responsible for breaking the law.

At least on Saturday, one-time rules imposed on Civic Center Park allowed officers to confiscate weapons before people entered the park.

Think about that for a second longer: There was a checkpoint to walk into a public park  and more than one knife was confiscated.

Because thats what its come to, Frankel said as he sipped from a glass of coffee at Caffe Strada on Wednesday morning at a Coffee With a Cop event.

Frankel was one of more than 10 Berkeley police officers there for the community-engagement event  the second of the year  that lets concerned citizens get some face time with officers.

Here, in a cafe where students in ripped jeans hunched over their laptops, was an opportunity for officers to hear from people upset by rallies that have turned into hand-to-hand melees. Frankel defended the departments approach.

It was clear that we werent the provocateurs at any of these events, he said. I think weve learned from lessons of the past about how we respond to these situations. Every time we have one, we evaluate them very closely for lessons learned.

I hope officers are studying as hard as those students, because there are going to be more events, especially if right-wing pundit Ann Coulter visits Berkeley.

And more people will get hurt. How long until someone dies?

Berkeley firefighters reported treating 11 people for injuries on Saturday. Officers made 20 arrests for alleged crimes ranging from public intoxication to battery to assault. At least eight officers were hurt.

Still, not everyone who showed up for Coffee With a Cop had violent rallies on their minds.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

What Sabe Hundenski came to talk about was traffic safety. A pedestrian had been hit by a car on Tuesday night near her home on Ashby Avenue.

His mouth was bleeding. Lots of neighbors came out to help, Hundenski told me as we waited for officers to arrive at the coffee shop. He had to go to the hospital. His mouth was bleeding and he had knocked out some teeth, and they werent sure whether he had a concussion or neck problem.

Another person who came to talk to officers was Alana Mirabella, who was walking on Bancroft Way toward her car when I caught up to her. She had come to Caffe Strada because she was curious about why the brawls outside of the park werent stopped on Saturday. Mirabella, who lives in Lafayette, spent probably 20 minutes talking with an officer who told her he had briefly lost hearing after a bomb  a firecracker placed into a bottle  detonated near him on Saturday.

I was wondering why wouldnt they do something, said Mirabella, whose daughter attends the College Preparatory School in Oakland. Whats stopping them from stopping the crime is the question.

Does protecting freedom of speech now mean standing by while people assault each other?

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
A while back, Didi asked me how old I was. I told him.

Forty? he replied. Is that the end of counting?

Laughing, I scooped him into my arms. No, I said, and tried to explain infinity to him. Numbers dont end.

Despite his tender years, he began looking ahead. When Im 6, Ill be in first grade. When Im 7, Ill be in second grade, he chanted, all the way through high school and college. And then Ill be an adult.

Later, at bedtime, we talked again about the outer limits of age.

Daddys grandma lived until she was 105, I said. We were flat on our backs, under the blue glow of the nightlight, which beams our solar system onto the ceiling.

Then what happened? Didi asked.

Then she died.

How can we take care of you so you wont die? Didi asked.

My heart ached. I didnt want to have such a weighty conversation before bedtime, didnt want to upset the twins, but I didnt want to lie. Everybody dies, I said.

They fell silent. What does it feel like when youre dead? Didi asked.

It feels like nothing, I said. Being dead wasnt like a video game, I warned. You cant start over. Dont try it.

I feared that our daredevil might attempt it  say, by running into the street  to test death out the way he likes to fiddle with every knob and switch in the house. He promised he wouldnt.

Over drinks, a friend with boys the same age told me that the question had come up in his household, too. At first hed tried to dodge it by bringing up the concept of reincarnation. Eventually, he told his children about a man in Asia who had reportedly lived until 150. Probably fake news, but they decided if they worked hard at eating healthy and exercising, as a family, they could live just as long  or even longer.

Morbid as it sounds, after I became a mother, after my father died, I began thinking about death more often. While reading obituaries, I check to see whether the deceased was older, the same age or younger than my loved ones. In the past three weeks, someone Ive known since the first grade died, as well as a classmate from high school and another from college, and a dear friend just lost her mother.

I take in every news clip about the untimely deaths of babies and toddlers, stories I might have missed before having children. I was haunted by the 9-month-old twins in Syria who died in the chemical attack, and couldnt get past the headline about the boy crushed in the revolving restaurant in Atlanta. Sometimes it feels like were drowning in pain, in terrorist assaults, in school and police shootings.

Lately, Ive been even more on edge, worrying about the demise of the planet following U.S military strikes in Syria, the mega-bomb dropped in Afghanistan and saber rattling on the Korean Peninsula.

After the presidential election, when I wrote friends about getting together, their replies often had a bit of gallows humor. Looking forward to meeting up! they say. If were still around.

The jokes not so funny anymore.

In the years since the twins first asked about death, theyve continued their probing.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

What do you look like when youre dead? Didi asked.

Like youre sleeping. Your eyes are closed, but youre not breathing, I said.

Later on, we were driving somewhere when I noticed him slumped in his booster seat, his eyes closed.

Didi! Are you asleep, Didi? I asked. Ever since he was an infant, he has fallen asleep easily in his car seat, and although were long past regular naps, he still conks out in the car.

Im pretending Im dead, he said. His tone was matter-of-fact.

My husband and I exchanged a glance. To Didi, death is a mystery of the world hes trying to get a handle on  a phenomenon worthy of consideration like gravity, multiplication or dinosaurs. One of the many mysteries we are delving into as a family.

When Im feeling troubled, getting outdoors, volunteering and spending time with my family has always been a balm. To mark Earth Day, on Saturday, April 22, were planning to help clean up a creek that glimmers and gushes through our town. Maybe youll join the March for Science, or get out to a national park, where admission is free this weekend?

Small acts, taken collectively, will sustain us, now and in the future.

Vanessa Huas column appears Fridays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com
San Francisco has earned many nicknames over the years: the City by the Bay, the Paris of the West, the City That Knows How.

Heres a new suggestion: Needle City.

As San Francisco politicos inch ever-so-slowly toward opening a safe-injection site where intravenous drug users can shoot up legally, the scene outside City Hall and beyond grows more dire.

In March, the Department of Public Works collected 13,333 syringes left on the streets  an average of 430 every day. Thats 10,465 more needles than the crews collected in March 2016, a shocking rise that could be attributed to better collection efforts but also probably to simply more drug use in a country facing a growing opioid epidemic.

The figures come only from the departments hot spot crews, which mostly clean homeless tent camps. Even more needles were found by regular cleaning crews, though those arent tracked. And the totals dont count all the syringes discarded on port property and in parks.

Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

In the past few weeks, Ive seen a man passed out and contorted around a bike rack in Civic Center Plaza, needles spread on the ground all around him. A man shooting up between his toes near Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. A man passed out with his head in the murky water of the gutter outside the Main Library.

Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

A Chronicle reporters car was recently stolen from Civic Center Plaza and recovered a block away the next day  with two men shooting up inside and 15 needles strewn around. An addict was found dead in a Main Library restroom in February.

Bevan Dufty, a member of the BART Board of Directors, tells me 40 to 50 needles are picked up at each entrance of the Civic Center Station every day. We already knew human feces was mucking up the BART escalators, but Dufty says syringes are a big factor in their breakdowns, too. Syringes contributed to the total failure and yearlong shutdown of the escalator at the entrance by the Burger King at Hyde and Market streets, he said.

On a Facebook group for San Francisco moms, a woman recently shared a picture of her baby at Ocean Beach right before she found a used needle in the sand. Another mom responded, Happened to us at Dolores Park.

But until recently, politicians dismissed the idea of a safe-injection site as being too controversial. More controversial than people dying in libraries and babies picking up needles on the beach? Please. San Francisco has essentially become one big unsafe injection site.

If San Francisco wants to reclaim that old nickname the City That Knows How, it needs to try something new. It sounds like the always deliberate Mayor Ed Lee is realizing that, too.

The current situation on the street is not acceptable. Ive seen needles (sticking) out of peoples arms when theyre shooting up, and of course its a horrible situation, he said, adding he calls the Homeless Outreach Team when he sees that.

Lee said hes open to a safe injection site but doesnt want to call it that. He wants a harm reduction center with social services on-site.

Weve got to be aspirational about this, he said. We cant be selling this as just someplace to do drugs.

Barbara Garcia, the director of the Department of Public Health, said its unlikely an injection site will open in a new location. Instead, several nonprofits that already offer services for intravenous drug users have said they can incorporate supervised drug use into their sites.

Part of bringing people inside to shoot up is also providing support to them to reduce their harms, Garcia said. In the meantime, she sends two-person patrols around Civic Center Plaza to administer overdose-reversing drugs. A separate medical team patrols the streets offering health care and services.

Board of Supervisors President London Breed has become a supporter of the safe-injection site idea after visiting one in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The intent is not to promote or encourage drug use, she said. The intent is to provide a site thats not out on the streets, where people more than likely will just throw their needles on the ground.

At Breeds urging, the supervisors have approved a safe-injection site task force, which will have 90 days to meet, gather data and offer a recommendation, at which point a safe injection site could finally become reality in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Sacramento, including state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, are pushing a bill to remove the states prohibition on safe-injection sites so long as they are supervised by health care professionals.

For Breed, the devastation wrought by drug use is personal. More than a decade ago, her younger sister, Chantiee Breed, died of an overdose the day before her 26th birthday, alone in her public housing unit in Potrero Hill.

You think about what could have been done differently, Breed said. Could she have been helped?

Public health officials estimate there are 22,000 intravenous drug users in San Francisco, and many of them choose to shoot up in public so somebody will help them if they overdose. Public health officials believe 85 percent of intravenous drug users would use safe-injection sites, and that could save the city $3.5 million a year in medical costs.

You know a once-wild idea is becoming more mainstream when even the police chief is open to it. Police Chief Bill Scott called it one of many opportunities to make this situation better.

Scott said that currently, open-air drug use is handled on a case-by-case basis. Police try to connect the user with services, but sometimes arrests are necessary.

I dont think this is one size fits all, Scott said.

Maybe the city can agree that the status quo fits nobody. And maybe this issue wont follow the mold of so many other ideas at City Hall  lots of meetings, lots of hand-wringing and no real action.

Everybody  from the babies finding needles in the sand to the drug users themselves  deserves better.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Tuesdays and Fridays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf
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Its not a full-blown secession. But in the face of the heartless brutishness of the Trump administration on everything from health care and immigration to environmental protection, what California is now doing comes pretty close.

Call it semi-secession. And given the ugliness that has gripped Washington, its easy to understand. But carried too far, it could also be a strategic mistake.

Start with SB54, the California Values Act, which the state Senate passed this month and would, with the exception of violent felons and repeat offenders, prohibit state and local law enforcement officers from detaining, arresting or interrogating undocumented people for immigration enforcement purposes.

Add the sanctuary cities and counties (San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento and Los Angeles, among others) that will not allow their resources to be used to detain unauthorized immigrants for federal immigration officials.

Then add last months ruling of the state Air Resources Board further tightening emissions standards for cars and trucks.

Now cap it with the we-dare-you letter that lawyers for the leaders of the Legislature, all Democrats, sent April 6 to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

The letter was itself a response to one Sessions and Kelly wrote in reaction to California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauyes demand that federal immigration agents stop stalking courthouses and arresting undocumented immigrants. Such measures, she said, correctly, not only compromise our core value of fairness, but they undermine the judiciarys ability to provide equal access to justice.

The Sessions and Kelly letter charged that the state and many of its largest cities and counties have enacted statutes and ordinances (to) hinder ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) from enforcing immigration law by prohibiting communication with ICE and denying requests by ICE officers and agents to enter prisons and jails to make arrests.

What specific laws, the legislators letter asked, are Sessions and Kelly referring to? The administration appears to forget that our system (quoting a 1991 U.S. Supreme Court opinion) is one of dual sovereignty between the states and the Federal Government.

John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the great defender of the rights of the slave states, would have been familiar with the argument. A state, Calhoun had argued in his opposition to the federal Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832, had the right to interpose itself to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government.

A similar case was advanced by the abolitionist authors of the Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act of 1855, which sought to prevent the federal Fugitive Slave Act from being enforced in Massachusetts. But neither effort to oppose federal law prevented the secession of the Southern states or the Civil War that followed.

More recently, Alabama Gov. George Wallace and Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, not unlike Donald Trump with his proposed wall at the border, postured in the schoolhouse door to block court-ordered desegregation in Southern classrooms.

Notwithstanding the weird campaign launched by expatriate Louis Marinelli (now living in Yekaterinburg, Russia) to have California withdraw from the union  aborted last week  there was never a chance, even if the Assembly passed SB54 and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it, that California will ever come to anything resembling formal secession.

But put together, the state is mounting a frontal challenge to the feds that, if not specifically using Calhouns words interposition or nullification, comes close in principle.

The legislators letter cites Trumps executive order directing Sessions to take appropriate enforcement action against any entity that prevents or hinders the enforcement of federal law and issues what amounts to a direct we-dare-you challenge:

If the Trump administration resorts to attempting to enforce its Order against California, the Legislature will use all available means to defend the rights, values and safety of California.

And given the long list of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that the federal government cant compel the states to use their own resources to enforce federal law, the legislators have a strong case.

Ten days ago, in trying to block suits filed by San Francisco and Santa Clara counties to stop Trumps attempt to turn local cops into what one of the suits called federal apparatchiks and punish sanctuary cities with the loss of billions of dollars in federal aid if they dont, the feds already seemed to back off.

Billions of dollars werent at stake, a Justice Department lawyer told U.S. District Judge William Orrick, just a million or so. Orrick wasnt convinced. Have Trump and Sessions been bluffing, or was this just another momentary flip by the administration? Given its record of obfuscation and shameless mendacity, theres no way to know.

The resisters in state and local government have powerful reasons for their defiance  not just moral in preventing the agony of family breakups, but practical: in the need for labor; in fostering enterprise and innovation; in inducing cooperation by immigrants with, not resistance to, law enforcement; in encouraging school attendance and civic cohesion.

Yet even if the federal courts uphold Californias interposition, then a law like SB54 could well make California look as extreme on the left as nativists and abortion abolition extremists look on the right. It doesnt make the case with swing voters east of the Sierra. It alienates the states red counties and further divides the country. Should there be no enforcement of the immigration laws?

Californias own history may be the best model for an alternative: In 1994, voters passed the harsh Proposition 187, which denied unauthorized immigrants all public services, including education.

A generation later, Californias diversity has generated the sixth most powerful economy on Earth. Its rules to promote energy efficiency and protect wildlife, the water its people drink and the air they breathe are a model for the nation.

Its own governors approval ratings are nearly double Trumps as president. The approval numbers for the Legislature, at 57 percent, are at record highs. Meanwhile, as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put it, Congress is less popular than herpes. Yes, lets defend our immigrants wherever we can, but not with Calhouns or Wallaces tactics. We are still one nation.

Peter Schrag is the former Sacramento Bee editorial page editor. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at http://bit.ly/SFChronicleletters
In a Facebook post, Sasikala Natarajan's nephew, Jeyanandh Dhivakaran, has threatened to release video clips shot during J Jayalalithaa's last days in a Chennai hospital.

By Pramod Madhav: In an explosive post on Facebook, Sasikala Natarajan's nephew Jeyanandh Dhivakaran has threatened to reveal clips from the last days of J Jayalalithaa in a Chennai hospital to show the kind of relationship Amma and Chinnamma (Jayalalithaa and Sasikala respectively as they are popularly known within the AIADMK) shared.

The Facebook post is aimed at blunting the attack of Sasikala's current rival and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's camp, which had alleged Jayalalithaa was murdered by the Sasikala family to control the AIADMK after Amma's death in December last year.

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Jayalalithaa died on December 5 after prolonged hospitalisation at Chennai's Apollo Hospital, and a faction of party members have questioned the circumstances around her death.

The post by Jeyanandh on his Facebook page says: "Even after been coined as a murderer, Amma's pic was not revealed by Sasikala as her enemies should not see her clad in a green gown. Chinnamma took this decision. We kept her as a mighty lion until her death and bid adieu. But OPS, just to garner votes, placed her in a coffin and paraded her."

The post further says: "Truth is strong and what if the videos of Amma's and Chinnamma's conversations surface one day? What should we do to PH Pandian and Manoj K Pandian?"

The Pandian brothers belong to Team OPS and were the first to bring out the murder allegations. In high drama that followed Jayalalithaa's demise, OPS sat on a meditation at Marina Beach's Jaya Memorial.

The crisis within the AIADMK has since escalated to the extent that the OPS camp has put the removal of Sasikala's family from the AIADMK as a condition for the merger of the two factions.

The AIADMK split into two after Jayalalithaa's death -- one faction is led by Sasikala and the other by Panneerselvam. Majority of the legislators had lined behind Sasikala and her nominee E Palaniswami was elected as the Chief Minister.

ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa death row: Amma's medical reports made public, here's what they reveal

ALSO READ | In just 3 hours, Sasikala thrown out of AIADMK in a coup, panel to work on OPS-EPS factions merger

ALSO WATCH | AIADMK: After I-T raids, EPS camp discusses OPS' merger offer

--- ENDS ---
Turnout was so light just a few years ago that Rep. Mike Thompson stopped holding town hall meetings in my town of Benicia. I think eight people came to the last one, recalled the Napa Valley Democrat, who has served in the House since 1999. Wednesday night, however, more than 150 people gathered in the Benicia High School gymnasium to hold their elected representative to account. Participatory democracy is blooming again.

And we have President Trump to thank for that.

Citizens, young and old (but a majority female) came to hear what Thompson was doing about the issues of most concern to them. The program was segmented by topic  education, immigration, the environment, general concerns  and high school students pitched the first questions in each. The town hall organizers wisely had made the students participation a priority to train the next generation of engaged citizens.

A tall teenage boy wanted to know how Congress would protect U.S. service members in Yemen, Syria and Mosul, Iraq.

Student Anna Mulrooney asked: How can you guarantee the safety of Americans without taking away freedom of religion?

Then the adults lined up at the microphones by the dozen.

Bill Franchini of Benicia was distraught that an Iowa Republican had introduced legislation (HR610) to fund vouchers to help parents pay for private school while dropping the requirement Michelle Obama advocated that public school lunches and breakfasts include fruit, vegetables and whole grains. (The subtitle of this bill, which takes benefits from poor kids to aid well-off families, cynically is the No Hungry Kids Act.)

One woman, noting a Dreamer (an immigrant brought to the U.S. as a child and now dreaming of American citizenship) had been deported earlier that day, was worried about immigration enforcement agents representing themselves as local police. How do we hold them accountable? she demanded of Thompson.

Carol Hazenfield of Benicia couldnt believe the Trump administration is working to kill the Energy Star program, which helps market environmental virtue along with money-saving new appliances. What can we do to push back such cuts? she asked.

Kim Thomas of Vallejo said the president terrifies her. Can everyday people have confidence that Congress will delve into the Russia connection?

Unlike many town halls across the country, where constituents confused and frightened by the rapidly shifting landscape in Washington have shown up to angrily denounce their representative, those filling the seats in Benicia mostly agreed with Thompsons views.

And they were well versed on the issues. When he rhetorically asked whether they knew how long it took to vet a refugee before he or she might set foot on U.S. soil, the crowd blurted, Two years. (Correct.)

Thompson responded to every query but offered little comfort. Everything you care about is on the chopping block, he said bluntly.

More than one constituent rose to say that he or she was astonished at how the other side of the aisle votes.

Thompson is popular in the Fifth Congressional District, which stretches through portions of Solano, Napa and Sonoma counties. But this event, organized not by the congressmans staff but by the Benicia chapter of the new activism group Indivisible and the Carquinez Patriotic Resistance, drew many grassroots supporters but few with differing views. It didnt help constituents understand the other side of the aisle. For democracy to truly bloom, we must.

Lois Kazakoff is the deputy editorial page editor of The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: lkazakoff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @lkazakoff
Bill OReilly was always more carnival barker than journalist at Fox News. His show was a nightly morality play between good (conservative) and evil (liberals). Those who disagreed were not just wrong, they were a threat to American traditions and security. His approach did not so much provoke thought as entice outrage.

Oh how he railed against Beyonce, Ludacris and various Hollywood stars and productions he assailed as threats to our culture. He routinely played to fear, misconceptions, racial resentments and religious prejudice. He instinctively became an apologist for powerful friends on matters of sexual misconduct (then-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes harassment history and revelations of what he called then-candidate Donald Trumps guy talk about grabbing womens genitals).

And he rarely missed a chance to slam what he regarded as a far left, terminally corrupt and hopelessly politically correct mainstream media, most especially the New York Times.

Last week, the truth came crashing down on Bill OReilly.

Even if the Prince of Polarization at Fox News had never diminished the issue of sexual harassment  or tried to intimidate his own accusers, or defended his accused pals without real knowledge  his despicable actions toward women more than merited his firing. His behavior was so egregious that it did not matter that the 67-year-old anchor had been with Fox News since its inception in 1996, or that his top-rated show had brought in hundreds of millions of dollars.

He had to go, and not just because scores of advertisers were running from his prime-time program after the New York Times  yes, that news-gathering organization he was so determined to discredit  detailed how OReilly and 21st Century Fox had reached settlements for about $13 million with women who had accused him of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior. The Times description of how Fox News and 21st Century Fox stood by OReilly even as the cases of exploitive behavior piled up against him suggested a craven pursuit of profits.

That the revelations against OReilly came after Ailes resigned in the face of sexual harassment allegations only compounded the public relations disaster for the network.

Corporate culture there obviously has to change, Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, GOP vice presidential candidate and Fox contributor, said on CNN Thursday. No question, it had to change, as a matter of business interest and human decency.

Then there is the journalism culture at Fox  which, laughably, has tried to brand itself as fair and balanced. OReillys show made no serious effort at either. I was a guest twice, and I certainly knew what I was getting into: Anyone to the left of him was brought in as a foil.

My first appearance on The OReilly Factor  now, The Factor  came near the onset of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which I opposed. The setup was a debate with Mortimer Zuckerman, the billionaire real estate developer and media proprietor who supported the war, with OReilly serving as moderator. I was speaking remotely from San Francisco, with OReilly and Zuckerman in studio. In the middle of one of my sentences  whoosh  they cut off the feed (a common Fox tactic on not-with-the-party-line guests, highlighted in the documentary Outfoxed.)

OReilly then turned to Zuckerman and said, dismissively, that perhaps 20 percent of Americans agreed with Mr. Garcia.

It would be nice to think OReillys departure would cause Fox to look not only at its workplace environment but at its corrosive effect on American political discourse. Im not optimistic. His time slot will be filled by the shrill Tucker Carlson, whose step-over interview style mimics OReillys whack-a-liberal-for-sport approach, and the networks other big star, Sean Hannity, is a bellicose shill for all things Trump.

The one heartening takeaway from the OReilly saga is that it has shown that no man is too big to fail if he creates a hostile workplace atmosphere. A bully finally met his comeuppance.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron

All outrage, all the time

Among Bill OReillys perennial themes on his Fox News show

Immigration

His premise: Sanctuary cities for immigrants reaching the U.S. illegally are creating a crime wave. He was quick to highlight heinous crimes allegedly committed by immigrants, none more emphatically than the tragic 2015 shooting of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco.

Quote: So if protesters and these loony mayors think that open borders and lax immigration enforcement are good things, theyre idiots. And deserve to be scorned. Breaking it down, sanctuary cities and counties promote anarchy.

Reality check: Law enforcement leaders in many of those cities and counties believe sanctuary policies advance public safety by making witnesses and victims of crimes more willing to come forward. Studies have shown that immigrants are no more likely than the population at large to commit crimes.

White angst

His premise: It is open season on Christians and white people in America. He contended the liberal press applies a double standard on politicians that gave minorities the benefit of the doubt. He even suggested proposals to abolish the Electoral College were rooted in a desire to dilute the white vote.

Quote: The left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with.

Reality check: The term underrepresented minorities still applies to almost any metric reflecting the status of African Americans and Latinos when it comes to influence or prosperity in the U.S.

Culture corrosion

His premise: Celebrity entertainers  most notably rappers  were horrible role models. He successfully pushed for Pepsi to drop its sponsorship of Ludacris, a man who degrades women. He ripped lyrics of Beyonce, Jay Z, Kanye West and CamRon.

Quote: The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people  the group that is most likely to reject religion.

Reality check: The moralizing host is now the poster child for depraved behavior in the workplace.

War on Christmas

His premise: Secular Americans were hell-bent to stop public acknowledgment, let alone celebration, of the birth of Jesus Christ. His annual rants went on for a dozen years..

Quote: Well, that culture war issue ignited, and we won, he said in December 2016. Most companies stopped the nonsense, and Merry Christmas became a common greeting once again.

Reality check: Many of his claims were overblown or flat-out false, such as accusing a school of banning red-and-green clothes, an electronics retailer prohibiting the phrase Merry Christmas, or a school changing the lyrics to Silent Night.
The United States dropped the mother of all bombs on caves in Afghanistan on April 13  just days ahead of the Moscow-backed peace talks with Afghanistan. While its reported that the bombing resulted in few civilian casualties in the mountainous Achin District, the Trump administrations actions are traumatizing the Afghan American community in the Bay Area.

Zakia has been in the United States legally for more than 30 years. But, because she is a refugee, she wonders if she will be sent back to Afghanistan.

I didnt like Afghanistan when it was safe for women like me to wear mini-skirts and go out openly, let alone now, she said. Do you think they will send me back there? I am a citizen of the United States now. I came here as a refugee because I had to  not because I wanted a better life, but because I had to  they would have killed my daughter and me if we stayed in Afghanistan.

She picked at her long nail beds in distress. Zakia was among the first wave of refugees who entered the United States during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

When I was in Afghanistan, a bomb fell onto my house and my three sons who were between 6 months and 5 years old were home with me, Zakia said. My neighbor was killed and her decapitated head ended up in our house. I will never forget the permed hair on her head. Until this day, my children still have memories.

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Zakia was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which the National Institutes of Mental Health describes as a disorder that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary or dangerous event. Afghans living in the United States are known to have high rates of PTSD and depression. A study of 257 Afghan refugees conducted by Carl Stempel, a sociologist at California State University East Bay, found that 45 percent had PTSD. The symptoms are generally heightened by events that trigger memories.

Zakia is one of many refugees who say they are experiencing more symptoms of PTSD since President Trumps rhetoric began targeting Muslims.

I fled Afghanistan to find safety in America, and now, after almost three decades, I am feeling unsafe among those I consider my American bothers and sisters, she said. Every time I see a protest on TV, or the Internet, I know they are protesting for my freedom to be in this country.

But ... I also know that there is another side they are protesting against, (one) that hates me. The sounds of the protest, the images, remind me that I am not safe. It reminds me very much of the days leading up to when Afghanistan was destroyed by the Soviets. I am afraid to speak up myself, because what if they kill me, arrest me, or hurt my family? What if they take us away, like the Soviets took my family members?

Zakias fears radiate throughout the Bay Area Afghan community, considered the largest outside of Afghanistan.

My son told me not to go to the mosque to pray, or to community gatherings, or Afghan restaurants. He was born here, and he is concerned that someone might attack these places, or me, said Soraya. I feel so alone now. I used to participate in a womens group, and get out for a few hours a day. But now, I feel like I cannot leave my house. All I think about is when  when the government of America will hurt me like the government of Afghanistan hurt me.

Soraya is in her mid 40s. She moved to the United States in 2000 during the peak of the Taliban era in Afghanistan. She has acid burns on her forearms, a permanent reminder of the day she went to fetch food for her family and was punished by the Taliban for being a woman outside, alone. The burns look like craters on the moon, with patches of thickened skin that sink into transparency exposing what looks like muscle. After the acid incident, Soraya refused to leave her home for fear she may have been beaten or even killed.

Now, those fears have returned. This time, however, she is in the Bay Area.

My son told me they hurt a Muslim woman at a coffee shop, in front of her child, for having a hijab. In front of her child! I never thought this would happen in America, Soraya said. I thought women were safe. I am now reminded of when the Taliban would beat women for any crazy excuse. What is the difference if, as a woman, as a Muslim woman who doesnt bother anyone, I am in fear of getting hurt again if I go out, by a country that promised me safety from the very actions that I was running from?

Our community is in a state of heightened alert, said Rona Popal, the executive director of the Afghan Coalition, a community organization in Fremont. The women in our support groups are reporting that they cannot sleep. They are too afraid to leave their homes. They feel like they left Afghanistan not to make a better life, but to make sure their families stayed alive and safe, and now, the country that promised them safety and security is threatening that same safety and security by the words that are being spoken by people and the inaction against hate crimes.

She continued: The only way we can help people understand is by inviting those who dont believe how much we are contributing to the communities we live within to visit us, speak with us, and get to know what we went through.

Hear our stories, and we will hear yours.

Mizgon Zahir Darby is an Afghan American journalist. She lives in Hayward.
Many evangelical Christians believe that stewardship of the Earth and taking care of the poor and sick are core to their faith.

Yet roughly 8 in 10 voted for Donald Trump, who as president has proposed cutting the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent, the National Institutes of Health by 18.3 percent and isnt sure if he wants the United States to participate in the Paris climate change accord.

That politics-science-faith disconnect is one of many threads running through the March for Science events to take place Saturday in more than 500 cities around the world, including San Francisco, San Jose and Livermore, with the main event in Washington, D.C. Organizers say 13,500 people have signed up to attend the San Francisco march and science fair, while an additional 17,000 have expressed interest in attending through social media channels.

The rallies are intended to be political but not partisan, said Kristen Ratan, the lead organizer for the San Francisco march. The goal of Saturdays events is to highlight concerns that science is not being supported, said Ratan, who added that cuts to the NIH jeopardize research on cancer, diabetes and childhood diseases. If federal funding is cut, Ratan said, critical research could be lost.

It is one of the alarm bells that are ringing, she said.

When it comes to science, President Trump appears to be out of touch with many of his voters, evangelical or not.

While the president has referred to climate change as a hoax perpetrated by China, 49 percent of Trump voters think global warming is real, while 30 percent do not, according to a post-election survey of registered voters in November by Yale and George Mason universities. And nearly half of Trump voters said the U.S. should participate in international agreements to limit global warming, compared with 28 percent who said it should not, according to the study.

In November, there was another message that resonated even more loudly than science with evangelical voters.

Most evangelicals voted for Trump for one reason and one reason only: The promise to put someone on the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade, said the Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network  which claims 80 organizations and 3 million pro-life Christians as members. A contingent from the organization will march in Washington on Saturday behind the banner: Climate science: Its a matter of life.

For years, Hescox said he has been trying to rally support among evangelicals to see pro-life is not just about abortion. Its about all of life. Like how working to improve air quality in a poor neighborhood would improve the health of children and the unborn there, he said.

But often, he said, faith community members dont connect with the way that progressives try to explain climate change concerns  worrying about melting polar ice caps doesnt resonate with many conservative evangelical voters, he said.

His credo is that being pro-climate and pro-life is the same message. Its the same value, Hescox said. Because climate change is the greatest threat to human life in the whole world.

One challenge in bridging that political-science disconnect is that many evangelical Christians dont equate their political life with their religious life, said Tim Ritchie, president and CEO of the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. He will speak at the March for Science Silicon Valley as an expression of his Christian faith.

For some reason, oddly, they dont believe that when it comes to challenges like a pandemic or a cancer research that we cant do it alone, Ritchie said. We actually need public support for science as part of our command to love our neighbor.

Ritchie, who grew up in Kentucky, attended school in North Carolina and lived in Alabama for 17 years, said many of my red state friends are smart people who know the value of science. Im trying to get my friends, especially my friends in the red states, to be their best selves and be reasonable.

Others are trying to bridge the divide in the heart of the very politically blue Bay Area.

On Wednesday night, on the second floor of a storefront in Albany, 19 members of the Solano Community Church listened to fellow congregant Dave Kurz give a presentation on Dominion and Stewardship. The informal talk was one in a series the congregation has offered in recent months on how spirituality and science mix.

Compared to evangelical congregations elsewhere, this group may be a bit more politically moderate, but members say their church includes Trump voters and that there is a wide diversity of opinion among them.

Like Kurz, a doctoral environmental science student at UC Berkeley, many in the room work in science or engineering fields and frequently wrestle with the question of how faith and empirical evidence interact. Kurz rolled through a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation that deftly weaved hard scientific studies with biblical passages and largely steered clear of partisan politics. The word Trump was not mentioned.

Instead, he explained how climate change has affected corn yields in South America and Africa.

Caring about climate change is really caring about the poor  the weak and vulnerable that God has the heart for are really suffering, Kurz said.

The sad and frustrating part, Kurz said, is that he knows many evangelicals who may acknowledge the science of climate change but dont speak out about it because the political climate demands that they kind of have to buy this whole political umbrella encompassing everything conservative.

Im not trying to tell Christians how to vote, Kurz said. But something that has to do with science should be about science, not part of some larger package.

Solanos pastor, Andrew Hoffman, who attended Wednesdays meeting, said: Its a question of thinking carefully. How do you wade into hot-button issues in a way that creates more light than heat? That is a slow process.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Next years election is already shaping up for District Eight Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who will have to compete against well-known progressive Rafael Mandelman.

The challenger, a City College of San Francisco trustee who is also a former building inspection commissioner and past president of the Noe Valley and Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic clubs, pulled his initial papers Wednesday for the June 2018 race. Mandelman entered the race just hours before Sheehy held a fundraiser attended by several City Hall allies, including Mayor Ed Lee and Board of Supervisors President London Breed.

Mandelman said hes gearing up for a spirited race in a demanding district, where he hopes to build more affordable housing and provide better services for the mentally ill.

I think District Eight needs a supervisor who is going to roll up his sleeves and do the work, said the candidate, who leans left of the typical District Eight voter but has strong name recognition.

Hes viewed in some circles as the antimayor candidate, a perfect foil for Sheehy, who Lee appointed in January to fill the seat vacated after former Supervisor Scott Wiener was elected to the state Senate. Mandelman lost to Wiener in the 2010 race for supervisor.

Political consultant David Latterman, who ran campaigns for Wiener and fellow moderate Bevan Dufty, predicted a cutthroat race, but noted that Mandelman might have to soften his positions.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle

He is firmly entrenched in the hard left of this city, and District Eight voters have consistently rejected that stance, Latterman said.

But Jim Stearns, a political strategist who works with progressive candidates, noted that Mandelman has taken centrist stances on the City College board and that the issues he cares about have broad appeal.

His specialty is building housing, which is an urgent need in this city, Stearns said.

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.

Sheehy, perceived as the more moderate candidate, is an openly HIV-positive dad who came to San Francisco in 1989, working as a bike messenger before making a name in the citys Democratic establishment.

He was quick to downplay his early campaign fundraiser, saying that hes focused on being a supervisor right now.

Im dealing with homelessness, which I see as a public health crisis in this city  thats where my head is, he said.

Both candidates will run in June 2018 because of a city rule that all political appointments be contested at the next scheduled election. The District Eight seat will go up again in November of next year, which could make for a long campaign season.

 Rachel Swan

Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfcityinsider, @rachelswan
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BART has hired a new police chief  Carlos Rojas, who resigned as chief in the Orange County city of Santa Ana, multiple sources told The Chronicle on Thursday.

BART officials are expected to announce Rojas hiring Friday.

Rojas, who has been Santa Anas police chief for nearly three years, spent 27 years with the department. Hell take over from Kenton Rainey, who retired Dec. 31 after seven years as BART police chief.

During Raineys tenure, the chief reformed the department and helped it recover from the fatal Jan. 1, 2009, Oscar Grant shooting by a BART police officer at Fruitvale Station. The shooting, which attracted national attention and became the subject of a movie, roiled the department and the transit system in controversy.

Rojas worked his way up from patrol officer to police chief in Santa Ana, serving as corporal, sergeant, commander and deputy chief, according to the citys website. He also created a homeland security division of the department after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

According to the Orange County Register, Santa Ana experienced a surge in shootings, many of them gang related, across the city from 2013 to 2016. The shootings, and Rojas, became an issue in last years City Council campaigns, and there were rumors that some wanted to fire the chief.

The Santa Ana Police Officers Association, which had been critical of Rojas, had scheduled a no-confidence vote.

At BART, Rojas will be in charge of a smaller department. In Santa Ana, Rojas oversaw more than 300 sworn officers. BART has 227 sworn officers. But BART police cover a transit system that extends into four counties and has 46 stations and more than 100 miles of track. It carries about 433,000 people on an average weekday.

While the department may have recovered from the Grant shooting and has a low violent crime rate, it faces other challenges, including a growing number of homeless people who sleep on trains, panhandle in stations and use elevators and escalators as restrooms, and an increase in riders who fail to pay their fares.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening.

Saturday

Town halls: Hosted by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, at 10 a.m. in the gymnasium of Canada College, 4200 Farm Hill Blvd., Woodside. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, will host a town hall at 4 p.m. at the Dublin High School student union, 8151 Village Parkway, Dublin. State Sen. Scott Wiener, Assemblymen David Chiu and Phil Ting, all San Francisco Democrats, are hosting a town hall, Californias Role in the Resistance, at 2 p.m. at the Mission High School Auditorium, 3750 18th St., San Francisco. www.eventbrite.com/e/town-hall-with-san-franciscos-state-legislators-tickets-32926946383.

Science marches: Rallies will observe Earth Day. In San Francisco, a march begins at 11 a.m. at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero Center at Market and Steuart streets, and ends at Civic Center Plaza. For information: http://bit.ly/2nAcLkN. A march in San Jose will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Details to be confirmed. For information: http://bit.ly/2oV8oSu. In Walnut Creek, a march from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. will start at Civic Park, 1375 Civic Drive. A Hayward march from 10 a.m.-noon begins at the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center, 4901 Breakwater Ave. For information: http://bit.ly/2n7oonY.

Sunday

Town hall: Hosted by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont, at 1 p.m. at Newark Memorial High School, 39375 Cedar Blvd., Newark.

Sexual assault conversation: Loosid Projects, Planned Parenthood and Bay Area Women Against Rape host a discussion called Locker Room Talk: Confronting Sexual Violence in the Age of Trump. The event is from 6 to 8 p.m. at 507 55th St., Oakland. Tickets are $10 at the door. For information, contact info@loosidity.com.

Wednesday

Environment discussion: Marin County Supervisor Kate Sears will discuss the recent findings of the BayWave Project, a study on sea levels and rising tides from Sausalito to Novato. Sears will discuss Marins vulnerability and list next steps for how to deal with issues associated with rising sea levels. The event is free and wheelchair-accessible. It begins at 7 p.m. at Drivers Market, 200 Caledonia St., Sausalito. RSVP: www.driversmarket.com.

Thursday

Comedy night: Hosted by the International Institute of the Bay Area, a Comedy Night for Immigrant Rights will feature Bay Area comedians Irene Tu, Johan Miranda and Zahra Noorbaksh. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. at BATS Improv Theatre in Building B at Fort Mason, San Francisco. For tickets: www.iibayarea.org/comedy-night-event.

Next Saturday

Climate change marches: Marches throughout the country to demand action on climate change. In Oakland, a march will begin at 11 a.m. at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater, between 12th Street and First Avenue. In Kentfield, a march will start at 11 a.m. at the College of Marin, 1001 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. In San Rafael, a march will begin 11 a.m. outside San Rafael City Hall, 1400 Fifth Ave. In San Jose, a march starts at 10 a.m. outside City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St. For information on all marches: https://peoplesclimate.org.
Derek Dammann / Getty Image

All lanes of westbound Interstate 80 were reopened Friday morning in Vallejo after a crash injured a motorcyclist and caused gridlock for commuters, officials said.

The collision occurred close to 6 a.m. near Redwood Parkway, according to the California Highway Patrol. The lanes were reopened by about 6:50 a.m.
Expect to see lab coats and clever signs on the streets of the Bay Area this weekend as locals participate in the March for Science.

Thousands are expected to take to the streets across the country Saturday in a series of rallies, marches and celebrations of scientific knowledge and enrichment of this planet and its inhabitants.
When President Ronald Reagan nominated John T. Noonan in 1985 to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, he chose a man who had gained prominence in the academic and legal worlds as a Catholic scholar and staunch opponent of abortion.

Judge Noonan fulfilled that reputation in more than three decades on the bench, siding with conservatives on issues of abortion and reproduction and writing the first appellate ruling upholding a states ban on physician aid in dying. But he proved to be less predictable in other areas, and often sided with moderate or liberal colleagues on issues such as immigration and criminal law.

The announcement of his death on Monday at his Berkeley home, at age 90, drew tributes from across the ideological spectrum.

He took his religion to heart and turned it to the pursuit of justice, said Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a leader of the courts liberal wing.

He was a Renaissance man who contributed to his country, his church, the legal academy and the rule of law, said Judge Diarmuid OScannlain, one of the courts most conservative members.

A native of Boston, Judge Noonan graduated from Harvard University with honors, earned a masters degree and a doctorate in philosophy at Catholic University, and then attended Harvard Law School. After five years of law practice, he joined the Notre Dame Law School in 1960 and published a book, Contraception, that led Pope Paul VI to appoint him to a Vatican commission on birth control. He became a UC Berkeley law professor in 1966.

In another book, Narrowing the Nations Power, published in 2002, Judge Noonan criticized Supreme Court rulings that limited individuals rights to sue state governments over issues such as religious freedom, age, disability and sexual assaults.

In a 1995 ruling, Judge Noonan upheld Washington states ban on physician assistance in dying, declaring that compassion for human suffering, though a laudable character trait, cannot be the compass of a federal judge when it is inconsistent with constitutional standards. The ruling was later affirmed by the Supreme Court.

His ruling in 1992 was one of the first to allow a female defendant to use evidence of abuse-related trauma, known as battered-womens syndrome, to argue for a reduced sentence. When his court in 1999 upheld police use of a thermal imaging device to monitor heat within a home as evidence of drug planting, Judge Noonan dissented on privacy grounds, a view later endorsed by the Supreme Court.

He was also one of four judges who issued separate stays of execution in 1992 to convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris. The Supreme Court overturned all the stays, and Harris was put to death in the gas chamber, Californias first execution in 25 years.

Judge Noonan transferred to senior status in 1996, with a reduced caseload, but continued working on cases through December.

In one case, when two Democratic-appointed judges voted in 2013 to uphold the convictions of thieves who had been drawn in by an undercover agents promise of riches in a poor neighborhood, Judge Noonan said in dissent that the government tactics had endangered values of equality, fairness and liberty.

He is survived by his wife of 49 years, the former Mary Lee Bennett; their three children, John K. Noonan, Rebecca Murray and Susanna Howard; and seven grandchildren.

A funeral Mass is scheduled at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Alberts Priory in Oakland.
A Jet Airways spokesperson said the flight 9W 234 returned to Amsterdam due to a "suspected tail scrape during take-off".

By Anindya Banerjee: A Jet Airways flight from Amsterdam to Toronto with 352 people on board today suffered tail strike, forcing the pilot to return back and seek priority landing.

Problem in the flight 9W 234 was encountered during take-off.

The Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, with 337 guests and 15 crew, landed safely and is currently being inspected by Jet Airways' engineering team.

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A Jet Airways spokesperson said the flight 9W 234 returned to Amsterdam due to a "suspected tail scrape during take-off".

"The aircraft, with 337 guests and 15 crew, landed safely and is currently being inspected by Jet Airways' engineering team," he said in a statement.

The airline also regretted the inconvenience caused to its passengers.

In January this year, a Jet Airways plane's tail had touched the runway during landing at the Dhaka airport. The flight was from Mumbai.

Also read:

Passengers angry over non-functioning AC delay Jet Airways Mumbai-Bhopal flight

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Hard as it may have been for San Franciscans to believe Friday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has made steady, substantial progress in cutting the number and length of blackouts that its customers endure.

Stung by a series of outages and dramatic equipment failures in its San Francisco hometown  including a 2003 substation fire that cut power to one-third of the city  PG&E spent the last decade upgrading its equipment.

And that effort has produced results.

The average PG&E customer lost power 1.02 times in 2016, according to data compiled by the utility. In 2006, blackouts hit the average PG&E customer 1.45 times.

Similarly, the average customer lost power for 109 minutes in 2016. While more than an hour and a half may sound like a long time, its a big improvement from 2006, when the average PG&E customer went without electricity for 3 hours.

Those figures exclude major weather-related events.

The statistics may come as cold comfort to those in the 88,000 San Francisco homes and businesses that lost electricity in the blackout that started just after 9 a.m. Friday.

PG&E blamed the outage on a fire at an electrical substation that the utility planned to refurbish next year.

Weve identified it as a substation that needed to be updated, said Barry Anderson, PG&Es vice president of electric distribution, at a news conference Friday. It just is a case where the equipment failed before we could get to the update.

While more public attention has focused on PG&Es natural gas network in the wake of the deadly 2010 San Bruno explosion, the utilitys electricity infrastructure also has a history of highly visible failures.

In June 2009, a power line from the 1920s melted inside a vault beneath Polk and OFarrell streets, starting a fire that shot flames 30 feet into the air and knocked out power to 8,600 customers.

In August 2005, a transformer exploded beneath a sidewalk in the city's Financial District, shattering windows and severely burning a woman who was walking nearby.

And in December 2003, a fire in a Mission District substation blacked out large swaths of the city, with some customers waiting more than 24 hours for electricity to return.

But PG&E has been swapping out old equipment and adding new gear that can spot and isolate blackouts quickly. As a result, the number and duration of outages striking PG&Es system have declined.

PG&E use to consistently suffer more blackouts than the states other large, investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. But, in 2015, the latest year for which data from all three companies are available, PG&E had improved its standing compared to its corporate peers.

In 2015, Edison experienced blackouts at a rate of 0.92 per customer, slightly worse than PG&Es performance of 0.87 per customer. The San Diego utility, meanwhile, reported 0.53 per customer that year.

Edisons average customer lost power for 115 minutes in 2015, while SDG&Es average customer went without electricity for 58 minutes. PG&Es average customer lost electricity for 96 minutes.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
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Watch out, Amazon. Here come two young, determined booksellers.

Marian Adducci and Shoshana Smith, friends from college, have plans to open a childrens bookstore in Walnut Creek  the East Bay city in which the online giant will soon have a brick-and-mortar store.

Adducci and Smith have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $50,000 to open Flashlight Books. They are still searching for a space for the store in downtown Walnut Creek.

A bookstore isnt just somewhere to go and buy a book, Smith wrote in an email. Its a full experience of making connections with the staff, with other patrons  getting personalized recommendations, learning about books and authors that you (and an online algorithm) might never have thought of. Its a place to facilitate conversation.

Especially when it comes to childrens bookstores, Smith added, its a place to be a haven of creativity, that embraces curiosity and wants you to ask questions and explore. In my ideal world, a towns bookstore is a community center-point, a heartbeat.

Flashlight Books would join a number of other childrens bookstores in the Bay Area, including Bel and Bunnas Books in Lafayette, Mr. Mopps Childrens Books in Berkeley, Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, the Reading Bug in San Carlos and Hicklebees in San Jose. The Storyteller Bookstore, in Lafayette, closed in 2015.

In their mission statement, Adducci and Smith write, Amazon is the greatest competitor to indie bookstores; they offer a level of instant gratification and convenience that we cant. However, they do not offer the kind of thoughtfulness, expertise and community relationship that a brick-and-mortar independent store can, and we believe that matters.

Indie bookstores are having a resurgence, they add, and the localism movement has more people aware of the fact that where they spend their money matters.

Adducci and Smith said they came up with the stores name when hitting upon the same image: a girl in her pajamas, covers pulled up over her head, flashlight lit as she reads late into the night.

Walnut Creek, a city of 64,000 inhabitants, has just one independent bookstore, Swans Fine Books. Amazon announced in February that it will open a store in Broadway Plaza, an open-air shopping mall. No opening date has been announced. Amazon also plans to open a store in Santana Row, the shopping mall in San Jose.

Walnut Creek is such a great town, Smith wrote, with this walkable downtown full of independent businesses (and some chains, sure), connected to the BART, lots of young families, good schools, assisted-living homes and hospitals to bring book carts to, a beautiful library  it has everything we need as a business, for support, and I like to think that we would have everything it needs, as a community.

Adducci and Smith, who are 30, met at Knox College, in Illinois. Adducci grew up outside Chicago, and Smith is from Greater Boston. Both have experience working in childrens bookstores: They worked at the Reading Bug, and Smith also worked at the Curious George Store, in Cambridge, Mass.

The friends estimate they will need roughly $200,000 to open a 1,300-square-foot space. They intend to get a loan to supplement the crowdfunding campaign.

Quoting a line from Gabrielle Zevins novel The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry  a beautiful book  Smith wrote, A place aint a place without a bookstore.

John McMurtrie is the San Francisco Chronicle books editor. Email: jmcmurtrie@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @McMurtrieSF
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The day after Bill OReilly was pushed out of Fox News amid allegations that he sexually harassed several colleagues, two women who rose to national prominence for challenging powerful men called for reform  and transparency  in how institutions handle issues of sexual assault, harassment and discrimination.

Anita Hill, whose days-long testimony against now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was televised nationally in 1991, directed national attention to the issue of sexual harassment in a way that few at the time had seen before. Hill claimed Thomas had harassed her with explicit suggestions of sexual acts after she refused to date him. The justice has denied the allegations.

Ellen Pao, a venture capitalist and diversity advocate at Kapor Capital, sued her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for gender discrimination in a highly publicized case. She lost the suit against the venture firm, which denied Paos allegations.

Speaking at San Franciscos Nourse Theater on Thursday, Hill and Pao said the timing of their talk was not lost on them. The event was hosted by Kapor Center for Social Impact, a diversity in technology organization.

Fox News made a decision to tolerate Bill OReillys behavior, and even to spend a certain amount of money to keep it quiet, Hill said. So the first thing is that there has to be transparency in whatever process you have. There has to be a productive investigation.

Hill, now a professor at Brandeis University, said the OReilly incident should be used as a case study in teaching workplaces, schools, government bodies and other such institutions what not to do when investigating claims of discrimination or harassment.

One of the things that happens with investigations is women go in and make a complaint, and the investigation is not inclusive because you dont have a transparent system and you dont know, maybe, about some other complaints that have been filed against the person, Hill said. Theres no established pattern, so every individual has to fight their case all on its own like its a new problem.

This month, a New York Times investigation found that OReilly had settled with five women who said the television host had harassed them.

Nine months earlier, Roger Ailes, the founding chairman of Fox News, was also ousted amid claims that he had sexually harassed several women at the network. Ailes pocketed a $40 million package upon his departure.

Together, the departures of Ailes and OReilly may cost the networks parent company, 21st Century Fox, as much as $65 million. OReilly is receiving as much as $25 million.

Ailes and OReilly both deny the allegations.

As all this evidence starts to accumulate, youve got to be willing to make hard decisions. Now Fox made a hard decision to end the relationship with OReilly, Hill said. However, before they did that, they signed a contract with him to pay him millions of dollars, and now theyre paying him millions of dollars to exit, when, in fact, he should have not been granted the contract because the evidence (of harassment) was clear.

More than two decades passed between when Hill sat before a congressional committee and when Pao took the stand in a San Francisco courtroom.

Yet the women said their experiences were strikingly similar.

Both were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1991, Thomas, who compared the allegations against him to a high-tech lynching, was confirmed to the Supreme Court, despite Hills testimony. In 2015, Pao lost her lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins.

Both felt as though their stories were dismissed and ignored by powerful people and institutions.

Hill and Pao said that after they spoke out, they heard from countless other women from across the country who said they, too, had experienced discrimination, harassment or worse. Though their time in the public eye has been difficult, both said they would do it again.

When it was just about me, I thought, Ill just work harder, Ill do better, Pao said. But when I saw (discrimination) was clearly happening to other women in the firm and there was this harassment element to it, I felt like somebody had to be held accountable.

Hills testimony set off a wave of mandatory sexual-harassment training in workplaces around the nation. But, the women said, sexual harassment and issues of gender bias are too commonly discussed in the abstract.

According to data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, charges of sex discrimination make up nearly 30 percent of the complaints it receives annually. In 2016, the federal agency received nearly 13,000 allegations of sexual harassment from American workers, though studies have shown that exponentially more cases go unreported.

Toward the end of the evening, members of the audience were asked to raise their hands if they knew of someone in their own lives who has been sexually harassed at work. Nearly every hand in the auditorium, filled with 1,650 people, shot into the air.

Wow, a man in the crowd said. There it is.

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae
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A new study from Indeed provides more evidence that San Francisco's job market is trending towards highly technical positions.

The job site unveiled its list of the top ten positions in the city, based on growth, exclusively to SFGate. Topping the list is Product Designer, followed by Operations Analyst, Department Manager, and Full Stack Developer  all technical positions.

"We were amazed at how technical this list was and how many of the jobs are dealing with either data or with complex technical products," Paul D'Arcy, Senior Vice President at Indeed told SFGATE. "San Francisco remains a relatively diversified economy. There's still, for example, a base of manufacturing in San Francisco and the area around San Francisco. Consumer brands are there. Financial services are there."

D'Arcy said that the list of highly-technical jobs really surprised Indeed.

"It really reflects a shift in the economy toward being more software driven, and San Francisco being in the heart of that shift," he said.

The list, compiled by Indeed's data science team, looks specifically at job listings with a salary of at least $70,000. That list is then cross-referenced against the number of postings found for those same types of positions between 2013-2016.

Job titles are normalized. So, an Operations Analyst, for instance, might be a sales operations analyst, and finance operations analyst or a supply chain analyst, among other positions. Jobs with different titles are grouped together when they're essentially the same type of work. Along those lines, a "full stack developer" could also be a software engineer.

"We take all those similar titles and bring them together into one normal recognized category," says D'Arcy.

While the list is San Francisco specific, it also points to a larger trend in the U.S. as a whole. Full Stack Developer, for instance, tops the charts for the entire United States, and several Salesforce positions have also ranked in the overall top 10. You can check out the national list below on the Indeed website.
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A man and a woman were arrested after an unsuccessful attempt to shoot and kill an 11-month-old baby boy  the mans son from another relationship  in a McDonalds restaurant in downtown San Leandro, police said Thursday.

The baby was with his mother when the failed attack occurred about 2:30 p.m. Monday inside the restaurant in San Leandro Plaza, said police Lt. Isaac Benabou.

According to court documents, Marcel Brooks, 29, allegedly baited the mother into meeting him at the fast-food restaurant while his girlfriend, Adanna Ibe, 27, sat in a corner with a handgun in her purse while dressed in a mask, hoodie and gloves.

Ibe approached the mother and child, aimed the gun at the baby and pulled the trigger, missing the boy and piercing one of the shops front windows, Benabou said at a news conference.

She fired from 1 foot away, he said. In my opinion, it was a miracle that she missed.

Brooks and Ibe, both of whom are Antioch residents, were arrested the morning after the shooting at a Sacramento motel, authorities said. They were charged with counts of attempted murder and conspiracy and made their first court appearance Thursday in front of an Alameda County Superior Court judge in Hayward.

Benabou said Brooks and Ibe planned the shooting together and had an undisclosed motive stemming from a history between the male subject and the female victim and her child.

Members of Brooks family, who gathered outside the courtroom Thursday, said Brooks would never hurt his son. Though police described Ibe as Brooks girlfriend, his family said the two had broken up years ago after dating for about a year.

Family members said Brooks had nothing to do with what happened at the restaurant. Ibe had long been unstable, they said, repeatedly getting evicted from homes and fired from jobs. She is now homeless, they said.

Jealousy has always been a problem for her, said Ebone Danielle, who said she was Brooks current girlfriend. Shes come to my house, yelling and screaming. Shes gotten in my (3-year-old) daughters face before. Shes an evil person.

According to court documents, Brooks denied any involvement in the crime but implicated Ibe. Meanwhile, Ibe allegedly confessed, but said it was Brooks idea.

There were about 20 to 30 other patrons in the restaurant, Benabou said, when Ibe fired the shot and then fled.

A witness who was inside the McDonalds, who declined to be identified, said the shooter had a black bandanna wrapped around her face and was trembling moments before she got up from a seat and aimed the gun at the baby.

Investigators originally believed the mother was the intended victim, but Ibe confessed that she had been targeting the baby, according to court documents. Mondays shooting may not have been the first attempt to harm the child, Benabou said.

At the time the incident occurred, we werent thinking the child was the victim, he said. A lot of us involved in this case have been in police work for many years, and I can tell you I have never been part of a case where the intended murder victim was an infant. Its very disturbing.

Nina Clark, Brooks aunt, said the situation was a nightmare. She said her nephew, a UPS driver, had no criminal record and had done what he could for his four children.

When Clark visited him in jail, He was more worried about his son than anything, she said.

He loves his kids, Clark said. We all brag on Marcel. Hes so young but taking care and loving and spending time with his kids, and going to work. ... We know this is not him.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter took to Twitter on Thursday night to mock her friend Matt Drudge for promoting fake news by reporting that University of California at Berkeley reversed its decision to cancel an upcoming speech.

Drudge linked to a story reporting that Berkeley, which has been rocked by two violent protests recently, announced Thursday that it had reversed its earlier decision to cancel conservative speaker Ann Coulters April 27 appearance and will now allow her to speak at the school on May 2.

Also Read: Berkeley Blinks, Reinvites Ann Coulter to Speak Next Month

However, Coulter isnt cool with the change and still plans to appear at Berkeley on April 27, the Washington Post reported. It appears Coulter isnt happy that Drudge portrayed the decision by the school as a positive development.

Coulter and Drudge are known friends and were even spotted at a Miami Heat game together back in 2014.

Berkeley first saw violence in February when right-wing provocateur and then Breitbart News senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at the school. The school canceled Yiannopouloss talk moments before it was to begin after some masked protesters hurled rocks and molotov cocktails and attacked members of the crowd.

Also Read: Trump Mocks 'Ridiculous Standard' of First 100 Days: 'Media Will Kill'

President Trump criticized the school in February for its decision to cancel the Yiannopoulos talk and tweeted a threat to yank federal funds from Berkeley.

Berkeley has been criticized for canceling the two speakers despite the campuss historic role as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Coulter said in an email to The Washington Post on Wednesday that she believes that her April 27 speech had been unconstitutionally banned by the public, taxpayer-supported UC-Berkeley.

In another violent outburst, anti- and pro-Trump protestors clashed in Berkeley on Saturday.

Read original story Conservative Infighting: Ann Coulter Says Drudge Promotes Fake News At TheWrap
By India Today Web Desk: We all know that Karisma Kapoor's ex-husband Sunjay Kapur recently married longtime girlfriend Priya Sachdev. Rumours were doing the rounds that Karisma is also ready to walk down the aisle with her boyfriend Sandeep Toshniwal. However, the actor's father, Randhir Kapoor dismissed reports that Lolo is getting married.

He told DNA, "I think Lolo is very well settled and happy. I have never discussed the issue of marriage with her but if she does plan to, she will always have my blessings. But I don't think she wants to get married. She is a happy mother and if she wants, she can get married any time but there is no step in that direction right now. She is happy the way she is. Lolo is an excellent mother who dotes on her children and probably doesn't feel the need to get married."

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For the last few months, speculation is rife that Karisma and Sandeep are ready to take their relationship to the next level. The actor was clicked wearing a huge ring, sparking rumours that she got secretly engaged. It is also being said that the two have finalised an apartment to move in together.

PHOTOS: Karisma Kapoor's ex-husband Sunjay Kapur and Priya Sachdev's grand New York reception

ALSO READ: Karisma Kapoor-Sandeep Toshniwal to get married, with his wife agreeing to a divorce?

ALSO WATCH: Sunjay Kapur's father's Mumbai house transferred in Karisma's name

--- ENDS ---
Norman is the movie equivalent of a well-told anecdote. The story is original and entertaining, but its not completely sketched in. This is less a matter of details being suggested than details being left out altogether. Whats more, it has at its center a character whose life history stays unknown and whose work  his work is the subject of the entire film  remains mostly a mystery.

Richard Gere stars in the unlikely role of a pathetic wheeler-dealer, trying to live by his wits on the fringes of money and power. The casting turns out to be inspired, and Gere scores a minor triumph. He burrows into the characters desperation and eagerness to please, lowering his status in every two-person encounter, while always staying alert to how hes going over.

At the same time, the former matinee idol thing helps, because for some reason Norman is able to survive. He has a good smile, the kind that makes people want to say yes.

Joseph Cedar, an American who works mostly in Israel, wrote and directed Norman, and he throws the audience into Normans attempted deal making, even if the proposed deals are not entirely easy to follow. The important thing is that we understand the personal dynamic. Norman follows people he needs to talk to. He ambushes them on their morning run. He lies constantly, always to make himself look important and connected, and so we recognize him as someone hanging on by a thread  and we wish him well.

Normans gift, assuming he has one, is that he has a head for potential deals and knows whom he needs to connect with to make them happen. At the start of the film, his plan is to persuade a rich New Yorker and an Israeli politician to meet. He envisions some kind of multimillion-dollar deal, for which he would presumably get a percentage.

To that end, Norman stalks the charismatic politician (Lior Ashkenazi) and follows him down a New York street, until he finds precisely the right moment  in front of a store window  to start a conversation. The extended scene that follows is one of the films best. Cedar shows the beginning of the conversation from the other side of the window, so that we only see the men talking. Then they enter the store and we see and hear an elaborate seduction in which the seducer is nervous and tentative, but relentless; and the seduced knows what seducer is up to, but also sees the need there, and maybe some inner core of kindness.

This scene contains the extra something that the movie has in its favor. Though Norman and the politicians dealings have only to do with external things, their connection seems to be deeper, like spirit talking to spirit. One guy is a politician and the other is incapable of an unguarded moment, but they understand each other in a real way.

Ashkenazi is a terrific actor, commanding and grand-scale in his aura, but with an unmistakable warmth. And Gere, cast against type, couldnt be better. In a career of good performances, this is one of his best.

The impact of the performance is lessened by our knowing so little of the character or of the business goings-on, but perhaps Cedar knew his own movie and knew that this was the best he was going to get  a perfectly decent picture that leaves its audience wanting more.

Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicles movie critic. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle

Norman

Starring Richard Gere and Lior Ashkenazi. Directed by Joseph Cedar. (R. 117 minutes.)

To see a trailer: https://tinyurl.com/mnejbtp
To really appreciate The Lost City of Z, it would help not to consider its hero a complete idiot. True, my own impression of the British explorer Percy Fawcett was derived from the movie itself, from information that writer-director James Gray placed there. But that impression couldnt have been Grays intention. No one would make a 2-hour movie about an idiot, not even Jerry Lewis at his most grandiose.

Based on David Granns book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession, the film tells the story of Fawcett, a British military officer who was sent to South America to chart the jungles along the Amazon. At the start of the film, Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) is a young man with something to prove, and so he leaves his pregnant wife (Sienna Miller) for years and risks disease and cannibals to go off and make his name.

Grays presentation of the jungle is without doubt striking. To watch Fawcett and his small crew navigating the waters or hacking their way through the foliage is to feel as if you are there, and for many that will constitute a recommendation. In the end, it depends on just how much a viewer wants to feel stuck on a boat, in boiling heat, with your shirt stuck to your back and with mosquitoes swarming and arrows being fired at you. A case could be made in favor of such an experience, but it wont be made here.

While on that first expedition, Fawcett finds some pottery and carvings and leaps to the conclusion that he is on the verge of discovering ruins from an ancient and previously unknown civilization. This becomes the mission of his life. He goes back to London and tells everybody. Hes forceful. Hes certain. He is determined to go back and find something besides a broken pot.

With a movie about an obsessed and driven protagonist, it helps if the protagonists goal seems worth it. The movie makes a feint in the direction of egalitarianism, that Fawcett is out to discover that pre-Christian non-Europeans were capable of creating a sophisticated civilization. Fine.

But what would be the tangible good of finding such a civilization? For sure, it would be of considerable archaeological interest. At the same time, it would probably destroy every tribe and village near it and bring in a flood of European businesses to rape the environment. No wonder the first impulse of the indigenous residents is to fire arrows at his boat.

There is also the personal cost, which the movie is very good about showing. Imagine being married to this guy. Percy and his wife, Nina, start their life together with a lot of talk about equality between the sexes, and Miller, as the wife, plays that. She plays a woman radiant in her inner value and confident that she has a man who loves and respects her. But he loves and respects her so much that he disappears for years. He comes back just long enough to get her pregnant, then leaves for a few years, only to have to reintroduce himself to the latest children upon his return.

Again, if Fawcett were pursuing some noble end, then it might be worth our while to sit and watch his struggle. Or, conversely, were he some interesting form of lunatic, that might be something, too. But instead hes somewhere in between, a hero who is really not a hero. The last chapter of Fawcetts career, which I wont reveal, is selfish and irresponsible to an indefensible degree.

To his credit, Hunnam carries himself like a great man, so that we buy Fawcetts act for a while. Robert Pattinson, unrecognizable under a beard, plays Fawcetts faithful assistant. Its Miller, however, who gives the most affecting performance, in that we see the light fade from her eyes. What an awful thing this husband did to her  to praise her for courage and then use all her courage against her.

Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicles movie critic. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle

The Lost City of Z

Drama. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller. Directed by James Gray. (PG-13. 141 minutes.)

To see a trailer: https://tinyurl.com/lefefck
FRESNO  The suspect in this weeks racially motivated shooting rampage in Fresno shouted Friday that natural disasters will increasingly hit the United States as he was ushered into a cramped courtroom for his first appearance before a judge.

Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, was supposed to be officially advised about the first-degree murder charge he is accused of in the shooting death of unarmed motel security guard Carl Williams.

Authorities have said he then killed three more people in the rampage, targeting white victims, before he was caught.

But the reading of the charge never took place because Muhammad had another outburst, yelling Let black people go and a phrase similar to in reparations that was not clearly enunciated.

His court-appointed lawyer, Eric Christensen, then told the judge: I believe this gentleman may not be mentally competent to proceed.

Muhammad yelled again, and the judge canceled the proceedings, setting bail at $2.6 million and ordering a mental evaluation for Muhammad.

Police have said Muhammad told them that learning he was wanted for the Williams killing prompted him to try to kill as many white people as possible before he was caught.

He shot three other white men at random Tuesday, police said, including a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. utility worker sitting in a truck  Zackary David Randalls, 34  and two men who had come out of a Catholic Charities building  Mark James Gassett, 37, and David Martin Jackson, 58.

Muhammad fired 17 rounds in less than two minutes before running out of ammunition, police said. Officers with help from acoustic sensors posted in the area arrested him less than five minutes after the rampage began.

Police said Muhammad had tossed aside his empty gun moments before an officer pulled up. He then surrendered.

Muhammad said Williams showed him disrespect while Muhammad was visiting a woman at the Motel 6 in Fresno last week, according to police.

After the Williams shooting, Muhammad ran behind the motel and climbed onto the roof of a nearby 7-Eleven, where he hid, police said. The morning of April 14, he watched officers investigate the crime scene, and by evening he was in a ravine, where he told police he conducted voodoo rituals for three days.

Prosecutors said they are waiting for investigators to finish compiling their case before filing charges related the other three victims.

Christensen after the court hearing declined comment about his client or the authorities case.

Scott Smith is an Associated Press writer.
1 Death penalty: Dozens of prosecutors and judges from around the nation filed a legal brief Friday in support of a Florida prosecutor who refuses to seek the death penalty. The brief filed with the state Supreme Court backs State Attorney Aramis Ayalas right to decide not to seek capital punishment in cases in her district covering the Orlando area. After Ayala recently announced her decision, Florida Gov. Rick Scott removed her from about two dozen death penalty cases. Ayala is challenging Scotts authority to do that before the Florida Supreme Court. Separately, an investigation is under way after a noose was mailed to Ayalas office. Ayala became Floridas first African American state attorney when she was elected last year.

2 Officers shot: Three Seattle police officers were shot and injured during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect, who later died, after a robbery at a convenience store. Three people are suspected in the Thursday robbery at a 7-Eleven store near Pioneer Square, said Deputy Police Chief Carmen Best. Officers chased two suspects, a 19-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl, police said. While one officer struggled with the male suspect, the girl struck the officer over the head with a bottle, police said. The 19-year-old then ran to the entrance of an office building, where he shot at police, who returned fire, Best said. Officers later found the man deceased. The girl was arrested nearby. The third suspect, another 19-year-old man, was also taken into custody. Two officers were treated and released, while the third was in satisfactory condition.
Former President Barack Obama will make his first public appearance since leaving office, breaking his post-presidency silence Monday in Chicago just days before his successor marks his 100th day in office.

Obama will participate in a town-hall-style event with young adults at the University of Chicago focused on community organizing and civic engagement, his office said Friday.

The event is part of Obamas goals to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world, his office said in a statement.

It will mark the first in a series of public events for Obama, including stops next month in Boston to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and in Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Obama has generally refrained from speaking out since he left the White House in January. In his final days in office, he expressed appreciation that his predecessor, George W. Bush, did not publicly second-guess him and refrained from playing an active political role.

Aides said Obamas public appearance next week is not intended to boost his activism as a leader of the Democratic resistance to President Trump, who angered Obama supporters when he accused his predecessor of ordering a wiretap on Trump Tower during last years election campaign. Trump has offered no evidence to back up the claim, and U.S. intelligence agencies and congressional investigators have said they have found none.

Obama has issued a statement objecting to Trumps efforts to bar people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States, saying through a spokesman that he fundamentally disagrees with the ban. Two executive orders imposing such bans have been blocked by a federal judges. Obama also defended the Affordable Care Act last month when the Trump White House and House Republicans attempted, unsuccessfully, to craft a bill to overturn the law.

And Obama spoke by phone this week with French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, although Obama did not make an endorsement in the race.

Since leaving office, Obama has focused on building his foundation and beginning his memoir, along with taking some vacation time.

David Nakamura is a Washington Post reporter.
COLUMBUS, Ohio  In a video released Friday, tearful family members plead for information that could help solve the massacre of eight people in Ohio a year ago.

Geneva Rhoden, who lost two sons, three grandchildren and a nephew, said she is begging anyone with information to contact authorities.

If theres someone out there that knows anything about what happened, would they please, please come forward and tell what happened, Rhoden said in the video released at family members request by the Ohio Attorney Generals Office, which is leading the investigation. There has to be someone.

The reward in the case remains just $10,000, small compared to rewards offered in other high-profile killings in Ohio and elsewhere. Investigators have suggested people are reluctant to make donations because of the alleged criminal activity by one of Rhodens sons, Christopher Rhoden Sr., who died in the attack.

The attorney generals office has said Christopher Rhoden was operating a large-scale marijuana operation on his property.

His sister, Teresa Grebing, appeared to address this issue when she said her brothers were good people who would help anyone. She said people afraid to come forward should just leave a tip. Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers, which offered the reward, uses an anonymous reporting system.

I hope and pray that somebody out there comes forward, Grebing said in the video. Please end this nightmare that we are living.

Saturday marks a year since of the discovery of the bodies of seven adults and a teenage boy from the Rhoden family found shot to death at four homes near Piketon, about 70 miles south of Columbus.

Andrew Welsh-Huggins is an Associated Press writer.
Worried over the non-stop clashes between civilians and security forces in the Kashmir Valley, the government is now planning to squeeze out funding of separatist organisations from Middle East countries.

As many as 411 stone-pelting incidents have been reported in the Kashmir Valley from October 2016 to March 2017. (File Photo/PTI)

By Manjeet Negi: The Narendra Modi government is worried over the continuous clashes between civilians and security forces in the Kashmir Valley. Stone pelting incidents have increased manifold in the region since the BJP-PDP government came into power in 2015. Concerned over the situation, the government is now planning to rope in oil producing Middle East nations to stop funding of organisations like Jamaat-e-Islami.

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According to sources, the Army invited Oman's Defence General Secretary Mohammed Bin Naseer to visit the Northern Command in Kashmir recently. Naseer was also taken out on a tour of the Valley to apprise him of the situation and challenges being faced by the security forces.

The government aims to isolate the separatists by squeezing their foreign funding while remaining firm on its 'no talks' policy, sources said. In the coming months, security forces are likely to step up action against people working covertly for separatists.

The issue of Kashmir unrest also featured in the Bharatiya Janata Party's core group meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a couple of days ago.

Eight people were killed in clashes by-election in Anantnag last week. The violence prompted the Election Commission to postpone voting.

ARMY CHIEF, NSA DISCUSS KASHMIR UNREST

Last week, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Sunday apprised National Security Advisor Ajit Doval of the security situation in Kashmir. Rawat's meeting with Doval on April 16 came a day after he had separate deliberations with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Governor N N Vohra over the law and order situation in Kashmir during his visit to the state.

As many as 411 stone-pelting incidents have been reported in the Kashmir Valley from October 2016 to March 2017. Hundreds of civilians and security men have been injured in clashes in the region.

WATCH: Operation Stone Pelters: Kashmir's scariest admissions caught on camera

ALSO READ:Stone-pelting in Kashmir not for money but due to political isolation: Omar Abdullah to India Today

Kashmir: Students turn stone-pelters against police, dozens injured in clashes

Cycle of violence in Kashmir: Spike in civilian deaths, injuries to security forces in Valley

--- ENDS ---
Leave it to "Saturday Night" alum Dana Carvey to turn our fears around nuclear war with North Korea into a laughing matter.

The comedian appeared on "Conan" Thursday and nailed a Trump impression, putting himself in a scenario where the bombs are dropping.
Rajnath appealed to all states to ensure the safety of all Kashmiris anywhere in the country, adding that they were equal citizens of India. This after 6 students were allegedly beaten up in Mewar University in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh.

By India Today Web Desk: Two days after 6 Kashmiri students at Mewar University in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh were allegedly beaten up by locals, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has urged all states to ensure safety of Kashmiris everywhere.

"I appeal to all states to ensure the safety of all Kashmiris anywhere in the country. They are also equal citizens of India", Rajnath said.

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Six Kashmiri students enrolled at the Mewar University in Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan were allegedly thrashed by locals on Wednesday.

A Kashmiri student at the Mewar University was quoted as saying, "At least 9 fellow students were beaten up with sticks and bats around 6 pm on Wednesday near Gangrar town after locals got to know that we are from Kashmir. At least 6 of them were injured."

UNIVERSITY AUTHORITIES REJECT STUDENT'S CHARGE

The university authorities, however, said that students had got into a brawl with some locals while they were on their way to a market near the university in Chittorgarh.

The Kashmiri student's claim that around 250 university colleagues from his state even skipped dinner in protest was denied by the university.

A Mewar University official said, "These students had dinner and there was no protest. Classes are being held as usual."

Police have lodged a case against unidentified people.

The Modi government has been attacked by Opposition parties for its mishandling of the Kashmir crisis in the wake of the unrest in the Valley, particularly since it is power both at the Centre and in a coalition government with the PDP in the state.

CASE OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST KASHMIRIS ALSO FROM UP

This attack on Kashmiri students in Rajasthan is not just an isolated incident. Recently, a hoarding put up in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh asked Kashmiris to leave the state.

Hoarding put up in Meerut asking Kashmiris to leave Uttar Pradesh pic.twitter.com/mbTz0eYV9I- ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 21, 2017

The BJP government has been talking about bringing the Kashmiris into the mainstream but such actions, ironically in both states that are BJP-ruled (Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh), only expose the party's doublespeak and rhetoric on development.

Such discrimination that Kashmiris are facing, for all the reassurances that top BJP leaders may be giving, will only serve to further alienate Kashmiris.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs has launched helpline numbers 011-23092923, 011-23092885 for the people of Jammu and Kashmir living in other parts of the country.

(WITH INPUTS FROM IANS)

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Also read | Kashmir: Colleges remain shut in Valley after students protest

Also read | Kashmir: PDP calls BJP minister's remark on stone-pelters reflective of poisonous mindset

ALSO WATCH VIDEO

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They ate lobster salad and lamb chops, with baked Alaska for dessert. The dinner-table conversation veered from hunting and music to the Supreme Court. There was also a White House tour - led by their host, President Donald Trump.

And, of course, they documented every magical moment.

Trump's Wednesday-night dinner guests - Sarah Palin and conservative musicians Ted Nugent and Kid Rock - popped up in pictures after their visit to the White House, becoming quite a topic of conversation.

One photo in particular has drawn attention - the one in which the three high-profile visitors are seen posing in front of the official portrait of Hillary Clinton, when she was a first lady.

In the picture, Palin, Nugent and Rock appear to be mocking Clinton, who has been the subject of sharp criticism and sometimes crude insults from the trio.

The photo, posted on Palin's Facebook page without a caption, has ricocheted around social media, thrilling Clinton haters and upsetting others who have called it "disrespectful" and "straight up classless." Some in the latter camp have referred to Palin and her rock-star friends as "the redneck holy trinity."

"What a bunch of disrespectful idiots," one person wrote beneath the photo. "You call yourselves proud Americans and behave like 3rd graders in the White House. I don't care if you like her or not. You are disrespectful."

Even Paul Begala, a former White House counselor to President Bill Clinton, had something to say about it.

"It's a white trash Mount Rushmore," the CNN pundit said Thursday on Anderson Cooper's show. "I love it. Look at them. That's just perfect."

Then he tweeted about his televised remarks:

Perhaps I meant it as a compliment.

Being respectful. A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Apr 20, 2017 at 12:22pm PDT

---

A post on Palin's blog noted that Trump invited her to dinner and told her to bring some friends.

"It was the highest honor to have great Americans who are independent, hardworking, patriotic, and unafraid share commonsense solutions at the White House," according to the blog post, "BEHIND THE SCENES: Photos From An Awesome Evening At The White House."

She added: "Asked why I invited Kid Rock and Ted Nugent I joked, 'Because Jesus was booked.'"

As The Washington Post's Emily Heil reported, Nugent and Kid Rock (Robert James Ritchie) were among the few "celebrities" to support Trump on the campaign trail. Nugent is an outspoken Obama critic and has regularly slammed Trump's presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

Nugent told the Detroit Free Press it was his wife's idea to take the photo in front of Clinton's portrait.

"She said, 'You guys have to stop here; I've got to get a picture of this,'" he told the newspaper. "Ever the thoughtful wife, yeah. And I guess that it's made its rounds.

"That's another thing about it. Getting to that ----kicker term - nobody said, 'You can't do this and you can't talk about that, you can't go here and you can't touch that.' It was a damned free-for-all. The president had faith that we knew how to conduct ourselves, regardless of what someone might have printed in Creem magazine about the Motor City Madman."

According to the New York Times:

---

Mr. Nugent said one member of the group - he wouldn't say who - asked the three to extend their middle fingers beneath the portrait. "I politely declined," he said. "Let the juxtaposition speak for itself."

---

On Palin's Facebook page, some of her supporters cheered the photo.

"Awesome....and the expressions are as appropriate as they are priceless!" one person wrote.

"Plain looks Great w Killary the Global Socialist Queen in the background," wrote another.

"Why the hell is that picture even still up. That would be the first thing I burn in the fireplace," another person wrote.

Still, the criticism kept coming.

Among those chiming in, with an Instagram subtweet: Obama's former White House photographer.

Pete Souza, who often uses his archival photographs to compare his old boss with Trump, posted a photo Thursday showing Obama sitting with former White House chief of staff Bill Daley under an official portrait of Ronald Reagan.

The caption: "Being respectful."

On CNN, after making his "white-trash Mount Rushmore" remark, Begala went to say that he does admire Palin.

"She has spoken out when she has been the target of really vicious sexism from the left - and good for her," Begala said Thursday. "She has defended her children when they have been attacked."

"So it's kind of unfortunate that she's buddying up with Nugent, who . . . has said the most vile things about Hillary you can say," he added. "And I think when those things had been said about Sarah Palin - and they have, it was outrageous then - I wish she would hold her friends to the same standard."
Supreme Court said that it cannot interfere in the diplomatic process nor can it direct another country to not auction the diamond.

Kohinoor diamond, now set in a crown which is on display in the Tower of London. (Photo: AP)

By Anusha Soni: The Supreme Court today disposed off petitions which sought direction to the Centre to bring back the Kohinoor diamond from UK saying the court cannot do much in this issue.

Supreme Court said that it cannot interfere in the diplomatic process nor can it direct another country to not auction the diamond.

A court here cannot pass a direction with regard to auctioning of a property, which is outside India, said the SC.

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The apex court said that the government is exploring ways and taking diplomatic measures to get back the $200 million dollar diamond.

In July 2016, PM Narendra Modi had called a high-level meeting instructing his government to ensure the return of the medieval artefact, now set in a crown which is on display in the Tower of London.

In April 2016, the government had told the Supreme Court that the diamond was neither "forcibly taken nor stolen" by the British, but given as a "gift" to the East India Company by the rulers of Punjab.

Citing a 44-year-old law, the Centre said the diamond cannot be reclaimed as it was given as a gift in 1849 by the successors of Maharaja Ranjith Singh, and not stolen or forcibly taken away from India.

The government, however, reiterated its resolve to "make all possible efforts" to bring back the Kohinoor diamond from the UK in an amicable manner.

Kohinoor, which means the Mountain of Light, is a large, colourless diamond that was found in South India's Golconda mines in early 14th century. The 108-carat gem is the subject of a historic ownership dispute and is claimed by at least four countries including India.

Also Read:

Modi's Mission Kohinoor: Government begins fresh bid to get famed diamond back

Pakistan jumps into Kohinoor controversy, says diamond was gifted to England

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Jammu, Apr 21 (PTI) BJPs pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir Ram Madhav today held a meeting with senior leader of ally PDP Haseeb Drabu here amid growing tension between the coalition partners, especially after certain controversial remarks by a BJP minister in the state.

Madhav also met the BJP minister Chander Prakash Ganga, who later expressed regret for his recent comment "traitors and stone-pelters should be treated with bullets".

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The BJPs National General Secretary, who is visiting the state against the backdrop of deteriorating security situation in the Kashmir valley, also met Governor N N Vohra.

Madhav and Avinash Rai Khanna, the BJPs National VicePresident, held a meeting with PDP leader and Minister Haseeb Drabu for over one-and-a-half hours at the BJP headquarters here.

Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, the BJPs statechief Sat Sharma and partys organisation general secretary Ashok Kaul also attended the meeting.

Later, state police chief S.P. Vaid also joined the meeting at the BJP headquarters. ?We held a meeting to discuss and review the situation in Jammu and Kashmir,? Khanna told reporters.

Sharma maintained that Madhav was visiting Jammu in connection with the forthcoming two-day visit of party chief Amit Shah here from April 29.

The meeting assumes significance in view of the growing tension between the coalition partners over several issues, particularly the remarks made by some BJP leaders against stone-pelters of Kashmir.

Gangas recent remarks drew the ire of the PDP, which said there was a"conspiracy" to keep trouble brewing in the Valley which has been witnessing repeated clashes over the last several days.

"Such detestable remarks not only reflect the nauseous mentality of some extremist politicians in the state, but also expose the larger design of certain elements to provoke fresh trouble in Kashmir so that Kashmiris are pushed into perpetual educational and economicdis-empowerment," senior PDP leader Peerzada Mansoor said in a statement yesterday.

Ganga today said he regretted his remarks, which he claimed were being "misinterpreted and misrepresented".

"I deeply regret my remarks,? he said in a televised statementwhile making a fervent appeal to everyone to maintain peace and harmonyin the state.

PDP sources said that apart from Gangas remarks, the party was also unhappy with Madhavs comments made yesterday, complimenting an army officer who had tied a man to the bonnet of a jeep to escape stone-pelting in a Kashmir village. Taking strong exception to Madhavs remark, PDP leader and Minister Mohd Altaf Bukhari today said the comment "seems to be a move aimed at legitimizing a crime that is internationally-abhorred under covenants of human rights". "One fails to understand against whom Madhav has declared war! Is it a war declared against Kashmiris who despite all odds caste their votes reaffirming their belief in democracy? Or is it a war declared to satiate the sanguine electoral interests of a particular political partyin the country,? Bukhari questioned.

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The PDP is also alleging ?betrayal? by the BJP in the legislative council elections, in which an associate member of the PDPin the Assembly voted in favour of the BJP candidate on assurance of a post.

"Our coalition partner did not obey the coalition dharma," a PDP source said.

Not taking this lightly, the Mehbooba Mufti-led government sacked the Zanskar MLA Mohammad Baqir Rizvi from the post of Vice Chairman of the States Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board and withdrew the Minister of State from him. Reflecting the PDPs unhappiness, Yasri Reshi, an elected MLC of the party, did not attend the oath-taking ceremony of the MLCs here yesterday.

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In his meeting with the Governor, Madhav discussed the initiatives for bringing peace and normalcy in Kashmir. "Madhav met the Governor and discussed security-related issues with him and the initiatives under consideration for hastening the developmental process and promoting peace and normalcy," a Raj Bhawan spokesman said. "We are here to discuss arrangements for the forthcoming visit of Amit Shah from April 29,? BJP?s Khanna said. BJP MLA Vibodh Gupta said Shah had chosen to start an all-India tour with Jammu and Kashmir. ?It is an honour for us,? he added. PTI AB AKK AKK

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In honor of John Muir's birthday, we've put together a list of hikes where you can follow in the great naturalist's footsteps.

Muir had a passion for the outdoors that's legendary and his extensive writings include accounts of his California adventures, ascending Mount Shasta in a snowstorm, walking all the way from San Francisco to Yosemite, and simply sauntering around Mount Wanda with his two daughters near his Martinez Ranch.

The hikes above will bring you to many of Muir's favorite spots and connect you to the state's natural beauty that Muir cherished and fought to protect.

Muir first arrived in San Francisco from New York by Steamer on March 27, 1868, according to newspaper accounts. At the time, he was 30 years old, and the story goes that Muir asked a carpenter on Market Street for the fastest route out of town to "anywhere that's wild."

Upon receiving the suggestion to go to Yosemite, he hopped on a ferry to Oakland and walked all the way to Yosemite Valley.

Related video: Story continues below.

Thus began Muir's love affair with the natural wonders of the Golden State. He went on to travel all over the country, but often came back to California and especially Yosemite, where he worked as a shepherd and lived in a tiny cabin beside a creek.

He eventually settled in the state permanently at the age of 40 when he married the daughter of a physician and horticulturist Louisa Strentzel. The couple lived in Martinez, where they raised two daughters and tended to their ranch and orchard.

But Muir couldn't stay in one spot. He often traveled away from home continuing his exploration of the natural world.

He once said about his ranch that it "is a good place to be housed in during stormy weather, to write in, and to raise children in, but it is not my home. Up there," pointing towards the Sierra Nevada, "is my home."

Muir passed away on Dec. 24, 1914, of pneumonia during a trip to Los Angeles to visit one of his daughters. He's remembered as an American naturalist, author, an environmental philosopher and advocate for the preservation of American wilderness. He's recognized as the founder of the Sierra Club and helped to preserve and found Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas.
By Suhani Singh: Director: Ashtar Sayed

Cast: Raveena Tandon, Madhur Mittal, Divya Jagdale, Anurag Arora, Rushad Rana

Rating: (1.5/5)

Not Without My Daughter, Taken, The Brave One are just some of the Hollywood thrillers that come to mind when sitting through Maatr, a revenge drama, in which a traumatised mother takes the law into her own hands and tracks down the killers. But writer Michael Pellico throws in Indian references to in the Mahabharata and the brutal gangrape which is reminiscent of the Nirbhaya case. For all its grittiness, Maatr is barely able to skim the surface of a woman's paranoia unlike Pink, another drama about sexual assault which is set in the capital.

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Raveena Tandon plays Vidya, a teacher, who witnesses her bright daughter's brutal rape and subsequent demise. She is a bruised, battered victim herself but the makers pretty much sideline Vidya's trauma to focus on her grief. Here too one of the perpetrators is a man with influence, in this case it's the bratty son (Madhur Mittal of Slumdog Millionaire) of the Chief Minister. This is one of the earlier signs that in Maatr playing out extremities is more important than allowing moments of reflection and empathy. When justice is out of her reach ("it's not like filter coffee that you get it instantly"), Vidya with a little help of Facebook, Google Maps, email, drugs and a gun plots the death of the seven accused. While some are well-executed, most are a bit sudden and haphazard. The latter makes the film occasionally germane and at times improbable.

Tandon does well as the more amateurish Liam Neeson but one wishes for more context to her character instead of just a well-coiffed, vengeful, death magnet of a mother. Little time is devoted to her doomed marriage with an inconsiderate husband who blames her poor navigation skills for the tragedy. As the sole witness of the murder and survivor she is also surprisingly given too much free reign to execute her plan. Another minor sexual assault victim is included to heighten the anger, but in Maatr this seems more a lazy plot convenience. As the clock approaches the hour mark, Sayed raises the violence quotient adding kicks and punches to the action but the blows don't quite have the emotional impact.

Maatr despite the gravity of the theme is a subpar drama. The film would have been more effective if the mawkish, flashback-heavy songs were skipped. Maatr is a missed opportunity to make a powerful statement against India's poor track record in dispensing justice and tackling violence against women. Revenge is a dish best served cold; in Maatr it's crass and oddly flat too.

ALSO READ: CBFC bans Raveena Tandon's Maatr for scenes of graphic, gruesome violence against women

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ALSO READ: Stay on Raveena Tandon's Maatr lifted by Bombay High Court

ALSO WATCH: Intolerance in India wasn't born yesterday, says Raveena Tandon

--- ENDS ---
Update: by 1:30 p.m., school officials said power had been restored at half of the schools affected.

The San Francisco Unified School District indicated that several schools lost power Friday morning as a widespread outage hit the city.
Speaking on the occasion of Trinamool Congress organisational polls held in Kolkata on Thursday, Mamata said BJP was spending crores to tarnish her image using the social media.

By Indrajit Kundu: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again hit out at the BJP alleging that the saffron party had undertaken a paid social media campaign to malign her image.

Speaking on the occasion of Trinamool Congress organisational polls held in Kolkata on Thursday, Mamata said BJP was spending crores to tarnish her image using the social media.

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"BJP is spending crores to run social media campaigns against me. They post fake photos and twist my words. We must confront them strongly," she told party men at the event.

SPREADING CANARDS OVER SOCIAL MEDIA

"They have spread canards that I eat beef! But what I eat is my choice. They are liars spreading canards over social media," Mamata said, after being re-elected as the chairperson of All India Trinamool Congress.

Referring to the BJP protest in Puri during her visit to the Lord Jagannath temple earlier this week, Mamata said, "They are carrying out a malicious propaganda. Wherever I go, London, Puri or Delhi, they send workers to disrupt (my visit)."

At a time the two senior Trinamool Congress MPs like Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Pal are behind bars in connection with the chit fund scam and many more likely to face CBI summons over the Narada sting case, Mamata dared the BJP to put all her party leaders in jail.

"JAIL KA KHEL KHATAM HO JAYEGA"

"How many leaders will you put in jails? Jail ka khel khatam ho jayega," she told Trinamool supporters in a bid to boost her party's morale.

Giving a clean chit to her party men, Mamata reiterated that the central agency was being used to target Opposition parties by the Centre. She even made all her party leaders, who have been named in the CBI FIR in the Narada case stand on the dais next to her while she addressed her supporters.

"If they think they can destroy TMC using central agencies, let me tell them our party will only get stronger," she said amidst a loud applause at Kolkata's Netaji Indoor Stadium.

Harping on the need for political unity among opposition parties to fight Narendra Modi's BJP, Mamata said, "It is the need of the hour for all regional parties to come together for the sake of the nation. BJP lost elections in Bengal, Bihar, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Delhi. How they formed govt in Goa and Manipur, everyone knows."

Also read:

I'm a born Hindu, but don't indulge in Hindutva that maligns Hindus: Mamata slams BJP over Puri temple visit

Sevaits at Puri's Jagannath Temple protest against Mamata Banerjee's visit to shrine for standing by meat-eaters

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WATCH THE VIDEO:

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More than 10,000 supporters will gather at the Netaji Indoor Stadium today to attend the ceremony, where Mamata Banerjee will be re-elected as the Chairperson of TMC for the fourth time since 1998.

By Manogya Loiwal : Trinamool Congress is all set to re-elect Mamata Banerjee as the Chairperson of the party today.

More than 500 voters, mostly office-bearers of the party voted to re-elect her for the top post in the party, uncontested.

More than 10,000 supporters will gather at the Netaji Indoor Stadium today to attend the ceremony, where Mamata Banerjee will be re-elected as the Chairperson of TMC for the fourth time since 1998.

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Banerjee was last re-elected as the chairperson in November 2011.

WHY NOW?

Panchayat elections, which are considered to be the backbone of the Bengal polity, are scheduled for the first quarter of 2018.

Since the party will take time to establish the new office-bearers as acceptable faces to supporters, the elections were preponed from November 2017 to April 2017.

Trinamool has presence in 10 states across the country, including its head quarters in West Bengal.

TMC TAINTED WITH SCAMS

Working Committee Members are also expected to be changed as an after-effect of the Saradha scam and the Narada sting operation that tainted the party.

TMC leaders Sudip Bandhopadhyay, Sovan Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Sultan Ahmed, Suvendu Adhikari, Subrata Mukherjee and Mukul Roy are all office-bearers in the committees and are involved in the scams or sting operations too.

It will be interesting to see what the party leadership's decision in this regard is.

Meanwhile, with the demand for Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee being assigned a bigger role in the party growing louder, he may be given additional responsibilities from being only the face of the TMC's youth chapter at present.

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A party leader claimed that the public meetings of other BJP leaders so far had not seen great support and hence, it could have be en embarrassing for BJP President Amit Shah.

By Rakesh Ranjan: In move that triggered speculations just a couple of days before the crucial MCD polls, the public meeting of BJP president Amit Shah in southwest Delhi on Thursday was cancelled.

While the Delhi BJP did not officially cite any reason behind cancelling the rally, top sources said Shah chose to opt out at the last moment.

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Speculations got further strength as BJP vice-president and former co-incharge in Delhi, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe held a close-door meeting with the senior most Delhi BJP leaders on Thursday to chalk out the final strategy.

However, insiders claimed the ground reports from all three municipal corporations were also discussed threadbare in the meeting. Several BJP veterans like VK Malhotra, HS Balli, Mewa Ram Arya and Ram Bhaj who were sidelined from poll management, were called for the meeting.

WHAT IS HAPPENING

Senior BJP councilor Subhash Arya and Arvinder Singh Lovely, who joined BJP on Tuesday, all attended the meeting. A BJP leader who attended the meeting told Mail Today that Sahasrabuddhe asked BJP leaders to ensure that its traditional vote bank remained intact. Further party's strategy for the final three days was chalked out.

The three MCDs in Delhi will go to polls on April 23. Shah was scheduled to address a public meeting in Dwarka in southwest Delhi on Thursday evening. This was the only rally of Shah for the civic polls. Interestingly, the BJP president was personally monitoring party's preparations for the high-stake MCD polls right from the distribution of tickets to campaigning and poll management. However, the public meetings of union ministers Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani were conducted as scheduled.

WHY DID AMIT SHAH BACK OUT?

A senior BJP leader said the decision to cancel the meeting was taken after a meeting with senior leaders who opined that the top leaders of BJP should stay away from campaigning. A party leader also claimed that the public meetings of other BJP leaders so far had not seen great support and hence, it could be embarrassing for the BJP president.

"It was decided that BJP president Amit Shah should not campaign and instead it should be left up to the state leaders and some cabinet ministers," a senior leader said. Earlier, the party high-command had also turned down Delhi BJP's request for public meetings of popular BJP CMs like Yogi Adityanath and Manohar Parrikar. Instead, Shah had agreed to address a public rally in Delhi in the last leg of campaigning. BJP's campaign has mostly been revolving round Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishan.

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Also read: Goodbye knickers, hello trousers: RSS agrees on uniform change Come down hard on anti-national activities in universities, RSS tells govt

Also read: RSS meet: No question of compromising core beliefs, says BJP chief Amit Shah

Watch the video: Cow vigilante attacks: Is PM Modi's warning being ignored?

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These students are conducting door-to-door campaigns and roadshows to become the next young face of the party.

By Arpan Rai: While acing college remains a priority for several students on Delhi campus, studies can wait for these young guns, who have taken to the streets to campaign for their leaders with couple of days to go for the civic polls battle.

These students are conducting door-to-door campaigns and roadshows to become the next young face of the party. For 24-year-old Anoop Pawar, who is also one of BJP's youngest candidates from Shakurpur ward, campaigning tops his priority chart.

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THE YOUNG ASPIRANTS

And residents are willing to give fresh faces fielded by BJP a chance.

"People have rather been open to change here in Shakurpur because they want a young leader who is educated. Anoop, has helped people during demonetisation by offering water, as it was the most he could do in his capacity," said Rajnish Kumar, a resident of Shakurpur.

"Anoop has a considerable fan following among students of the area as he helps them during the admission time by setting up help desk in the colony," added Rajnish.

NSUI president and student campaigner Akshay Lakra. Photo: K Asif NSUI president and student campaigner Akshay Lakra. Photo: K Asif

Swaraj India is not far behind with student campaigners jumping the wagon. "I have been unable to attend college now because campaigning needs extra attention," said Rajat, a 21-year-old campaigner for Swaraj India who is also a student at the School of Open Learning in Delhi University.

On the other hand, National Students Union of India (NSUI) president and a Law faculty student at DU, Akshay Lakra promised residents that Congress is the only party which has been at its efficient best on the MCD level during his campaigning. The 23-year-old said, "Congress is the only party that does not sell jumlas and drama like other parties."

Also read: MCD elections 2017: State Election Commission rejects 40 per cent nominations

Also read: Raj Thackeray meets party leaders, plans revival of MNS

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Panchkula, Apr 21 (PTI) The National Health Mission (NHM) in Haryana today launched a mobile-based application to create awareness among pregnant women, parents and health workers on the importance of ante and post natal care, institutional delivery and immunisation.

The application, Kilkari, was launched during the concluding day of the State-level Orientation Workshop that began at the State Institute of Health and Family Welfare here on Wednesday.

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New data elements in the Health Management Information System (HMIS) were also launched at the workshop.

From the second trimester of pregnancy till the child is one-year-old, the application will deliver 72 time appropriate audio messages to registered mobile numbers on pregnancy, child and childbirth care every week, NHM director Amneet P Kumar said.

The modified data elements were added to thematic areas of the health care delivery. More health programmes would be covered for monitoring and evaluation purpose with these additions, the official said.

Apart from this, the services provided at the grassroots by front-line workers can be also easily monitored, Kumar said.

The NHM director said the data elements will help in analysing and bridging gaps in the service delivery and help strengthen it. PTI VJ ANB

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By Press Trust of India: Saharanpur(UP), Apr 20 (PTI) Several persons, including a local MP and a senior police officer, were today injured allegedly in stone-pelting by two communities when a clash erupted between them during a rally to mark Ambedkar Jayanti in Janakpuri here, police said.

"A flag march was carried out in the village, however, the situation is under control now," SSP Love Kumar told PTI.

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The rally being taken out to mark BR Ambedkars birth anniversary in Sadak Dudhali village here was allegedly objected to by members of a community who started pelting stones, they said.

MP Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma and SSP Kumar were among several people who suffered injuries in the ensuing stone pelting from both the sides, they said, adding some other policemen were also injured.

Following this, police reached the spot and pacified both the groups. However, the MP along with his supporters reached outside the SSPs official residence and started protesting demanding conduct of the rally and suspension of the Senior Superintendent of Police, police said.

"A peaceful rally was taken out to mark BR Ambedkars birth anniversary which was attacked by a group here. The MP was injured in the incident," a spokesperson of the MP told PTI.

They damaged a CCTV camera outside the SPs residence, police said, adding after which police personnel from nearby areas were deployed there.

Inspector General of Police Ajay Anand reached the spot and pacified the protesting MP and his supporters after which they left from there.

The SSP said permission for the rally was not given by the administration.

A flag march was carried out in the village, he said, adding those who pelted stones will be identified and arrested.

At present, the situation is under control in the area while heavy police force has been deployed to prevent any untoward incident. PTI CORR DIP BSA IKA DIP

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A group of Indian-Americans in the United States have launched a White House petition demanding that the Donald Trump government intervene to save Kulbhushan Jadhav.

By India Today Web Desk: Indian-Americans in the United States have launched a 'We The People' petition in the country, demanding that President Donald Trump intervene to save Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been condemned to death in Pakistan.

The appeal, launched under a US system that allows citizens to directly petition their government, would need at least 100,000 signatures by May 14 in order to qualify for a response from the Donald Trump-led White House.

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The petition has been launched by one 'S.S.' and states, "The fact that India is not given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Jadhav are false and fabricated."

"In view of above, I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn't get punished for the act which he never committed," the petitioner further writes.

ABOUT THE CASE

Jadhav, a 46-year-old Indian national, was sentenced to die by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage. Pakistan has labeled Jadhav a Research and Analysis Wing agent, a charge that India has strongly denied.

The surprise death sentence meted out to Kulbhushan Jadhav was met by a strong reaction from New Delhi, which warned Islamabad that if the execution was carried out, India would consider it "pre-meditated murder".

Meanwhile, Pakistan has maintained that Jadhav received a fair trial even as the country refuses to grant India consular access to the former Navy officer.

14 New Delhi requests for consular access have been rejected, with India launching a fresh one just this week.

(With inputs from PTI)

ALSO WATCH | Musharraf to India Today: On Kulbhushan Jadhav, Pakistan will bow down to nobody

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By Press Trust of India: Puri, Apr 21 (PTI) Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari today promised to take necessary steps to arrange Kasturi for Shri Jagannath Temple here to tide over the acute shortage of musk essential for special rituals of the Lord.

Bhandari, who paid obeisance to the presiding deities in the 12th century shrine, told reporters that she would take up the issue of shortage of Kasturi, which is obtained from a stags navel, with the Nepal government.

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The visiting dignitary said she would take appropriate measures to resolve the problem so as to enable the temple authorities to continue with the rituals and traditions for the deities without disruption.

The rare and precious Kasturi was earlier received by the Shri Jagannath Temple from Nepal during monarchy. As the purity and quality of Kasturi from Nepal is considered high, it was used for special rituals of the deities.

Expressing happiness after darshan of Lord Jagannath, Bhandari thanked President Pranab Mukherjee as well as the Centre and Odisha government for the arrangements made for her visit. She also thanked the residents of Puri and Sevayats.

Noting that India and Nepal enjoyed age-old friendly ties with strong cultural bonds, she expressed the hope that the bilateral relationship would continue in future. Bhandari also wished further development of India.

The Nepal President, who is on the concluding leg of her two-day tour of Odisha, visited the shrine and offered prayers to Lord Jagannath amid tight security.

The visiting dignitary, who spent around 40 minutes in the temple premises, was welcomed near the Lions Gate by senior officials of the district, temple administration and servitors.

Elaborate security arrangements were made both outside and inside the temple for her visit, while the entry of other devotees into the shrine was restricted. PTI COR SKN CR SRY

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Apr 21 (PTI) Nepal has scaled down the size of its first-ever military exercise with China after facing strong opposition from India, state-run Chinese media claimed today.

The 10-day joint military exercise, code-named Sagarmatha Friendship 2017, commenced in Nepal from April 16.

"It was said the two countries initially planned to hold a battalion-scale military exercises. However, facing a strong opposition from India, Nepal had to compress the size of the military exercise and change the venue to a military school," an article in the state-run Global Times said.

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"For Nepal, the joint military exercise has a deeper significance. For starters, it shows that Nepal moves forward in its pursuit of a balanced diplomacy among major powers. Since the 1990s, balanced diplomacy has become the basic principle of Nepals foreign strategy, which is established based on Nepals nationalism and anti-Indian sentiment," the article said.

Chinese official media has been expressing its frustration over the fall of pro-China Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli who was replaced by Prachanda.

For China, the fall of the Oli regime was a big disappointment and a setback to its planned big push into Nepal through Tibet with rail and highway linkages to expand its influence in the landlocked country which was dependent on India for all its supplies, according to analysts.

Prachanda sought to improve ties with India much to the chagrin of Beijing.

"Nepals dependence on India in political, economic, cultural and other aspects as well as Indias ambition to make Nepal its sphere of influence has made most people in Nepal fear losing their national independence as Sikkim did," the article claimed.

"Holding joint military exercises with China can contribute to deterring ethnic separatism in Nepal," it said without elaborating.

China has expressed its backing for Nepals new constitution which was strongly resisted by Madhesis over fears that it marginalised their political and constitutional rights.

"It is a normal development for China to hold a military exercise with Nepal as Nepal is Chinas friendly neighbour. There are many countries which have held joint military exercises, including India, with China. South Asia is a terrorism-prone region. Now that China and Nepal have developed closer economic relations, Nepal hopes to join Chinas Belt and Road initiative, for which regional security and stability is a necessity," it said.

The joint military exercise shows that the "bilateral diplomatic relations have expanded from political, economic and cultural to the field of military defence. But for China, this is just one aspect of the overall national security outlook proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping".

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"Nepal has taken a cautious attitude to avoid provoking India. The drill does not violate the Treaty of Peace and Friendship inked by Nepal and India in 1950," it said.

"Due to geographic, political, economic, historic, religious and cultural factors, India has wielded much bigger influence over Nepal than China. Nepal cannot cut its economic ties with India," it said.

India views small South Asian countries such as Nepal and Bhutan as its "sphere of influence and a strategic buffer zone against China".

"It sees their relations with China from a geopolitical standpoint and a Cold-War mentality," it said.

"Given the rise of nationalism in India, especially the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments among Indias diplomatic circles, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a tough China policy since assuming office. India is concerned about Chinas economic cooperation with South Asia and the region around the Indian Ocean and wants to push back Chinas influence," it claimed.

Over the past two years, "India has raised a couple of unreasonable requests toward and imposed pressure on China, dragging the Sino-Indian relations into a vicious cycle".

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If New Delhi does not change its mentality, it will be "paranoid" about every cooperation between China and South Asian countries, it said.

"China has a clear-cut approach toward China-Nepal-India trilateral relations. It hopes Nepal can become a bridge between China and India. By pushing forward the China-Nepal- India economic corridor, it can boost development in all three countries. No matter how India views cooperation between China and Nepal, such cooperation will continue to expand, as it fits the interests of both peoples," it said.

Nepals President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is in India on her first overseas tour. She arrived on a five-day trip to India on April 17. PTI KJV UZM AKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Washington, Apr 19 (PTI) Scientists have developed a new device that can convert heat emitted by computers into an alternative energy source, an advance that could allow computing at ultra-high temperatures.

One of the biggest problems with computers, dating to the invention of the first one, has been finding ways to keep them cool so that they do not overheat or shut down, researchers said.

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Instead of combating the heat, researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US have embraced it as an alternative energy source that would allow computing at ultra-high temperatures.

Sidy Ndao, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering, said the development of a nano- thermal-mechanical device, or thermal diode, came after flipping around the question of how to better cool computers.

"If you think about it, whatever you do with electricity you should (also) be able to do with heat, because they are similar in many ways," Ndao said.

"In principle, they are both energy carriers. If you could control heat, you could use it to do computing and avoid the problem of overheating," he said.

The device working in temperatures that approached 630 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ndao said he expects the device could eventually work in heat as extreme as 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, which could have major implications in many industries.

"We are basically creating a thermal computer. It could be used in space exploration, for exploring the core of the earth, for oil drilling, (for) many applications," Ndao said.

"It could allow us to do calculations and process data in real time in places where we havent been able to do so before," he said.

By taking advantage of an energy source that has long been overlooked, the thermal diode could also help limit the amount of energy that gets wasted, Ndao said.

"It is said now that nearly 60 per cent of the energy produced for consumption in the US is wasted in heat," Ndao said.

"If you could harness this heat and use it for energy in these devices, you could obviously cut down on waste and the cost of energy," he said.

The next step is making the device more efficient and making a physical computer that could work in the highest of temperatures, Ndao said.

Though the researchers have filed for a patent, Elzouka said there is still work to be done to improve the diode and its performance.

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"We want to to create the worlds first thermal computer," Ndao said.

"Hopefully one day, it will be used to unlock the mysteries of outer space, explore and harvest our own planets deep-beneath-the-surface geology, and harness waste heat for more efficient-energy utilisation," he said.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. PTI MHN SAR MHN

--- ENDS ---
Aurora Theatre Companys Temple invokes the pantheon of theater history.

Opening Thursday, April 20, Steve Waters play, making its U.S. premiere, dramatizes the decision by the dean of St. Pauls Cathedral (Paul Whitworth) about how to deal with Occupy protesters camped outside the landmark London church. As it does so, you detect echoes of Antigone in the way the laws of God conflict with the laws of state. Youre reminded of Hamlet as the dean volleys back and forth between contrasting sides, delaying and delaying taking action about when to reopen the church, which has been closed for two weeks, what he might say in his first homily after the closure, and whether to partner with the city of London in seeking an injunction against the protesters, which would most likely lead to their eviction.

Above all else, you might hear George Bernard Shaw in the way the drama pits progressivism against capitalism, in the characters quintessentially British restraint, in the way the dean answers urgent questions with droll koans about church history, each of them laden with three or four subordinate clauses. He is allergic to simplification, to charting any course of action or even speaking in a way that does not honor all that is at stake in a fraught, endlessly complex situation: Leadership is not mere decision-making, he tells Michelle (Sharon Lockwood), the cathedrals verger. Wise words, but they dont obviate the need for a decision, and soon.

Rich as its theatrical antecedents are, this gripping drama, based on real events in London in 2011, is also refreshingly contemporary. Thats not just because characters are always talking about whether theyre trending on social media. (Theres a peephole into every closed-door discussion in Temple, thanks to Twitter.) Playwright Waters frames right and wrong differently than do Sophocles or Shakespeare or Shaw. By the end of the play, you might find yourself agreeing with, or at least understanding, a course of action you would have found objectionable walking into the Berkeley theater. Its an unsettling feeling, but also an enriching one. Isnt this exactly what theater is supposed to do  make you empathize with a point of view youre inclined to reject  yet so rarely actually does?

Tom Ross direction keeps the show relentlessly tense. It has neither intermission nor scene change, and the dean never leaves the stage. Yet he rarely gets more than a breath of a moment to himself. As the interruptions, the calls to action, the opposing pleas for attention mount, Whitworth as the dean paints a portrait of leadership that, while short on clear, efficient decisions that please everybody, models a less-appreciated quality: true decency and generosity under pressure. When for a moment the dean deviates from that modus operandi, the childlike shock Whitworth registers shows that something inside him has broken open. His performance makes for a stirring reminder of why so many find comfort in religion. The capacity for malevolence resides in all of us and must be kept at bay.

Supporting members of Ross cast are equally strong. Sylvia Burboeck gives a breakout performance as Lizzie, the deans new assistant. Shes so pathologically shaky in her first day on the job that you dont know whether to pity her, laugh at her or wish someone would forcibly hold her still so shed relax. But allowing you to underestimate her early in the play makes her small triumphs toward the end feel even richer. As the Canon Chancellor, the plays most politically radical character, Mike Ryan is always a lit fuse; he feeds on outburst, and when his character cant, in any given moment, stoke it, Ryan focuses that energy inward, making the chancellor look liable to immolate.

If cooler heads ultimately prevail in Temple, you leave the play with a much deeper appreciation for all the internal combustion that goes into presenting and maintaining priestly calm and dignity.

Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicles theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak

Temple: Written by Steve Waters. Directed by Tom Ross. Through May 14. One hour, 40 minutes. $32-$65. Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

To see a trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoE86LE8NUo
KABUL  Dozens of soldiers were killed on Friday when Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers in military uniforms stormed an Afghan army base in northern Afghanistan, officials said.

The attack on the 209th Corps in Balkh province began around 1 p.m., in a crowded area where soldiers, most of them unarmed, were leaving Friday prayers or eating lunch.

A Western military official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the number of deaths could reach 70 or more. Zabiullah Kaker, a member of the Balkh provincial council, said people inside the army corps had told him that at least 66 soldiers were killed in the attack and that 74 others were wounded.

But Ahmad Javid Salim, a spokesman for the Afghan armys commando forces who was at the scene of the attack, said at least 20 Afghan army soldiers were killed and 30 were wounded.

Six assailants dressed in military uniforms drove in two army vehicles past the first checkpoint, according to Lt. Col. Abdul Qahar Aram, a spokesman for the corps. At the second checkpoint, one of the suicide bombers blew up his explosives, allowing the militants to enter, take up positions and start firing at soldiers, who were leaving prayers or making their way to lunch.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack through a spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. In a message posted on Twitter, Mujahid said the assailants were led by four soldiers inside the base who had long been Taliban infiltrators.

Hashem Azimi, a member of Balkh provincial council, agreed that the attackers seemed to have had help from the inside, where, he said, at least five infiltrators joined them after they had breached the security measures.

The two ranger vehicles had pretended that they were coming back from operations at some front line. They were all covered in dust, Azimi said. When they reached the gates of the army corps, they started firing and one of them got off the vehicle and blew himself up.

The attack came weeks after militants entered the Afghan armys main hospital in Kabul, the capital, and killed more than 50 people in a siege that lasted nearly seven hours. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that carnage.

Mujib Mashal and Najim Rahim are New York Times writers.
1 Deadly crash: A minibus carrying young students collided with a truck and burst into flames Friday in South Africa, killing 20 children. The victims were between 5 and 10 years old, officials said. Several survived after being pulled from the wreckage near Bronkhorstspruit, east of the capital, Pretoria. Authorities were investigating the cause of the crash. We are trying to find out exactly what happened, said Russel Meiring, a spokesman for paramedic company ER24. Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi expressed condolences to the families of the dead.

2 Militants killed: Kenyas military said Friday it killed 52 fighters with the extremist group al-Shabab in an attack on a camp in neighboring Somalia. The army destroyed the camp in the Badhadhe region of Lower Jubba using ground troops and artillery fire, said military spokesman Col. Joseph Owuoth. Kenyan troops are part of a multinational African Union mission supporting Somalias weak central government against the homegrown al-Shabab insurgency. Kenya sent troops to Somalia in 2011. Al-Shabab has been blamed for more than 100 attacks inside Kenya since it sent troops to Somalia, including a Garissa University attack in April 2015 that killed 148 people.
Jonathan Ernst/Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel  Syria still stockpiles chemical weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in Israel on Friday, warning against the banned munitions being used again.

At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian Air Force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional U.S. strikes following the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.
The border line glows red like a re-opened scar ripping through flesh-colored earth, a reminder that the process of colonization is never complete so long as there are people around to resist it. This is the image featured on the poster advertising the Decolonizing Nature conference at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, where activists, scholars and members of the public have converged to confront the threat that colonialism's legacy poses to our future.

Against a backdrop of mass extinction in a warming world and a federal government packed with strongmen and carbon fiends, the very title of the event invites controversy. For some Indigenous academics, the reduction of "decolonization" from a bloody and chaotic historical process to a metaphor for good environmental stewardship can obscure the hard sacrifices decolonization would actually entail; compare the San Juan medicine man Pope leading the annihilation of the Spanish settlement at Pecos in 1680 to contemporary demands for "decolonizing" public schools through eco-friendly curricula. For the oil industry and its proponents, even metaphoric decolonization, with its emphasis on de-carbonized living, poses a threat to New Mexico's largest sources of state funding, not to mention profits.

But such detractors did not make their presence known at the conference, and attendees seem convinced that the habits and assumptions imposed by centuries of colonial force are still malleable enough to change. Over the course of four days (April 17-22), panelists presented on topics like the sanctity of water, eco-violence, colonial legacies along borders and food justice, all with the aim of promoting traditionally Indigenous ways of interacting with the Earth and its life forms.

To Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a panelist and the environmental manager of the native village of Nuiqsut off the Arctic coast in northern Alaska, decolonization means active struggle against American oil development in her region. "It's about recognizing the migration of the animals that come from every continent in this world to the Arctic for renewal," she told me. "It's about connecting and growing the goodness of the life and health of our communities, and growing the importance of tradition and culture to keep our people safe and healthy."

Students and faculty at the University of New Mexico had already been planning the event since last fall, but the ascension of Donald Trump and his neocolonial agenda to the White House heightened the urgency of coming together. Its lead organizer, and the most popular guy at the conference, was Subhankar Banerjee, a fast-talking professor of art and ecology at UNM and a seriously good environmental photographer. Banerjee said that he and his team had originally expected for planning to take two years, but they were able to pull it together in just three and a half months.

"We already had to deal with environmental injustice and species extinction," he said, as he paused from greeting attendees. "But after the election, the significance of it became much more amplified. All of us have been more energized to deal with this, and now it's not just environmental issues, but it's also that public media and the arts and humanities are getting defunded."

Run down the list of sponsors of the conference and you'll see what's at stake. The New Mexico Humanities Council and 516 ARTS would be gravely threatened if Trump's proposal to nix the National Endowment of the Humanities is approved by Congress. Same with KUNM and the local PBS affiliate if public broadcasting was cut, and several other organizational supporters dependent on the National Endowment for the Arts.

Even so, Jamie Blosser, executive director of the Santa Fe Art Institute, is confident that her organization will survive. The institute heavily promoted the conference following its partnership with University of Mexico's Land Arts of the American West program, which sent some of its artist residents to speak with Dine activists and farmers about water rights. Several other institute artist residents have continued to work with Native communities struggling for environmental justice in New Mexico; one woman, Albuquerque-based artist Asha Canalos, makes portraits and broadcasts the stories of activists on the front lines of the anti-fracking movement for a blog called New Mexico Story Power. But while Blosser does not believe the institute will go under if its federal funding is eliminated, she does fear it will lose its ability to offer residency and programs to underserved populations, which would undermine the institute's commitment to social justice.

Artists interested in decolonization, Blosser said, must "look at the much broader system that allows these deep structural inequities to flourish, and ask themselves difficult and uncomfortable questionsbut through the lens of art."

Although the conference began with a film series and will end with an arts exhibition, there were surprisingly few artists around. The interests of attendees ranged from feminist intersectional theory to eco-religious practice. The point of agreement among everybody was that the industrial systems bequeathed to us since colonization are not only deeply unfair, but are leading to our demise through global warming and related extinction. The contradictions of colonialism, based on a growing need to extract resources from the Earth, are particularly stark in New Mexico, which was conquered and reconquered and today remains one of the poorest states in the country.

"We're a profoundly colonial state," said Gregory Gould, a food historian and board member of the Santa Fe- and Albuquerque-based food co-op La Montanita. "It's important a conference like this is happening in New Mexico so we don't feel so isolated." Through his research, Gould came to conclude that people who feed off an industrial agricultural system suffer from "low grade insecurity and stress" because we don't know where our food comes from. Only about 3 percent of the food New Mexicans eat is grown in the state. For Gould, advocating for broader access to sustainability grown food is key.

Recasting our understanding of food as a part of the same organic process as our ever-decaying bodies was also indicative of another fundamental takeaway from the conference: The atomization and siloing of everything, from commodity supply chains to academic disciplines and even the conception of "nature" as something we can opt out of are the reasons the Earth is shaking us off like a bad case of fleas (to borrow from George Carlin). And with the fattest fleas digging in at the heights of American power, at least one younger attendee was feeling the rumblings under their feet.

After an early Thursday panel titled "Species, Place, & Politics," 23-year-old Ebrahim Nourestani hobbled up to the microphone on crutches to challenge what he saw as ineffectual talk.

"How can we stray away from traditional ways of making change, and how can we make some type of revolutionary movement here that will invoke some type of serious action?" he asked the panelists. "Because these are serious times."

Later, the bushy-haired Albuquerquean explained that what he envisioned as a way out of our contemporary suicide pact wasn't too different from the ol' think-globally-act-locally values proposed by others at the conference.

"We want to promote the universal connection around one another," Nourestani said. "By creating an influential movement here [in northern New Mexico,] we can possibly pioneer a process that rolls over into other countries and other continents. I am working my best to gain knowledge and skills so I can positively have an impact."

Let's hope that Nourestani is hard at work, because at this late stage in the climate crisis, we need all the help we can get.

Santa Fe Reporter
The New Zealand dollar unwound yesterday's gains against the Australian dollar but still ended the week higher, despite improving iron ore prices giving the Aussie a boost.

The kiwi was trading at 92.97 Australian cents at 5pm from 93.70 cents yesterday and 92.28 cents late Friday a week ago in New York. Against the greenback, it fell over the week to 70.01 US cents from 69.97 cents and from 70.37 cents yesterday.

The kiwi gained strongly yesterday against both the Aussie and the greenback on news that consumer prices rose at their fastest annual pace since the September 2011 quarter in the first three months of 2017, solidifying market expectations the central bank will lift rates sooner than it's forecasting.

Market pricing Friday continued to point to a rate hike next March, well ahead of the RBNZ's forecast mid-2019. New Zealand's two-year swap rate rose 1 basis point to 2.31 percent and 10-year swaps rose 6 basis points to 3.32 percent.

The kiwi, however, opened weaker after Dallas Federal Reserve president Robert Kaplan affirmed his view that the US central bank will lift rates another two times this year, stoking demand for the greenback. Also helping US dollar sentiment were comments from US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he would unveil a plan to cut taxes "soon, very soon" and predicted it would be passed by Congress this year.

Mark Johnson, a senior foreign exchange dealer at OMF in Wellington, said iron ore "had a good bounce overnight, which gave the Aussie a lift and the bit of a rebound in the Aussie may have dragged us down a bit", although the kiwi was supported at 92.8 Australian cents.

Both the Aussie and the kiwi will likely be pushed around by French presidential election news this weekend, in particular after a shooting on the Champs-Elysees boulevard, in which one policeman was killed and two others were wounded. Markets were cheered, however, by polls that indicate centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron set to come out on top, although there is little clarity on which candidates will be in likely run-off vote.

In the shorter term, markets will be watching for euro-zone manufacturing and services figures for April as well as flash US manufacturing and services data for April and existing home sales for March later in the global trading day.

The kiwi slipped to 65.34 euro cents from 65.58 cents yesterday and fell to 54.72 British pence from 54.93 pence. The kiwi eased to 76.48 yen from 76.65 yen yesterday and fell to 4.8166 from 4.8439 yuan.

(BusinessDesk)
Wellington Drive Technologies, which makes energy efficient motors and control systems for commercial refrigerators, lifted first-quarter sales 30 percent as the company's focus on Latin America continues to underpin its long march to profitability.

The Auckland-based company generated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $600,000 on revenue of almost $13 million in the three months ended March 30, and expects strong sales growth to continue, chairman Tony Nowell told shareholders at today's annual meeting.

"Regardless, the $600k ebitda performance is materially better than Q1 2016, and we expect no change to our full year estimate; to achieve revenue growth in the 30 percent to 40 percent range and ebitda profit in the low millions of dollars," Nowell said in speech notes published on the NZX. "Our strategy to expand the motor product range, further develop the SCS Connect solution and develop new customers for those products in new markets, will continue at pace."

The company marked its first positive ebitda result in calendar 2016 as a five-year turnaround plan came to fruition, and it's now developing a range of 'Internet of Things' products for large food and retail brands as a second stream for the business.

The shares rose 3.6 percent to 29 cents, having jumped 73 percent so far this year.

(BusinessDesk)
Regulatory Reform Minister Paul Goldsmith and his under-secretary David Seymour want government officials to provide more robust regulatory analysis under a tighter framework to avoid poor advice typically undermined by seeking a preordained solution.

The government today announced changes to the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) requirements to boost the use of economic and cost-benefit analysis, ensuring the work is fit for purpose, increasing its transparency and encouraging earlier and broader consultation, Goldsmith and Seymour said in a statement. The measures form part of the government's response to a 2014 Productivity Commission report on regulatory practices and draw on an independent review by consultancy Castalia.

"At the core of the regulatory management strategy is the government agencies' role as regulatory stewards and the expectation that they will actively monitor and maintain regulation to ensure it delivers the intended benefit," Goldsmith said. "While we have a well-established reputation for our fiscal management and reporting disciplines, the challenge is to build that same level of discipline around government regulation."

In its 2016 annual report, the Treasury found 78 percent of significant regulatory impact statements (RIS) met the required levels in the year ended June 30, 2016, an improvement from the 63 percent level a year earlier but falling short of the department's 90 percent target. The government's financial adviser said there were a number of reasons why the reports fell short of expectations and it was investigating ways to improve other departments' performances.

Castalia's review found an even split of 'high quality' and 'low quality' assessments, with the difference between the two mainly influenced by policy processes that didn't embed the regulatory impact analysis requirements.

Lower quality assessments tended to view the regulatory impact statements as a "tickbox" exercise, and "was most prevalent when RIS authors or ministers had already decided on the nature of the problem or the preferred solution, leading to RISs with poor problem definitions and weak options analysis," Castalia said. "In several instances, officials had already presented 'high-level' policy papers to their minister and sought a steer before drafting a RIS; this created difficulties when a full RIA analysis undermined the original preferred option."

Castalia recommended the regulatory impact analysis team in the Treasury work with departments to help them lay groundwork when formulating policy, and outline the expected level of analysis and resourcing expected for different types of analysis.

Seymour said the changes were in line with Castalia's findings and would help make regulation more robust.

"The changes also reflect feedback from the business community suggesting costs of regulation are insufficiently considered," he said.

Earlier this month, Chapman Tripp partner and chair Victoria Heine said the expansion of regulatory regimes and increased budgets was pushing government oversight to a "tipping point" where the costs start outweighing the public benefits, when releasing a report on dispute resolution in New Zealand.

At the time, New Zealand Initiative senior fellow Bryce Wilkinson said governments tend to regulate in response to the public demanding a response to something "without enough checks and balances to make sure that the response to that public anxiety is a sensible one in terms of the essential wellbeing of the community."

Wilkinson said one of the tensions was that ministers need to rely on their department's expertise to provide cost-benefit analyses, but that it's "hard for a department to produce an assessment which is critical of a preannounced policy of its own minister."

(BusinessDesk)
New Zealand shares joined a rally across Asia as stock markets took their lead from Wall Street on a day when firms posted better-than-expected earnings. Dual-listed stocks Australia & New Zealand Banking Group and Trade Me led the local bourse higher.

The S&P/NZX 50 index edged up 9.16 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7197.21. Within the index, 17 stocks gain, 18 fell and 15 were unchanged. Turnover was $135 million.

The local market has been following international trends in recent months as heightened uncertainty over Europe's political direction and the ability of US President Donald Trump's administration to pass its policy objectives keeps investors nervous. Stocks across Asia rose with Australia's S&P/ASX up 0.7 percent in afternoon trading and South Korea's Kospi 200 index gaining 1 percent, following Wall Street higher.

"The US markets have had probably more down days than up days over the last fortnight and there's been a little bit of a bounce after a period of weakness," said Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners. "There's no real stand-out performers on the upside or the downside and it seems to be a bit quieter because of school holidays and the shortened week."

Dual-listed stocks were at the top of the leaderboard, headed by ANZ which gained 2.4 percent to $34.19. Trade Me Group rose 2.2 percent to $5.12 and Air New Zealand advanced 2.1 percent to $2.49. Westpac Banking Corp climbed 1.3 percent to $36.96.

Fletcher Building increased 0.8 percent to $7.91. The building products and construction firm has been the subject of rumours that investment banks are looking to pitch a break-up or buy-out of the company, although Craigs' Lister didn't think there was much truth to the speculation.

"No-one seems to really believe that. If they did you would have seen the share price strengthen on the back of those reports and they still seem to be in the dog box in the investment community," Lister said.

Spark New Zealand and Auckland International Airport were unchanged at $3.615 and $6.69 respectively.

Restaurant Brands New Zealand was unchanged at $5.25. About half of the fast food operator's unionised workforce will tomorrow picket stores around the country after negotiations for a new collective agreement broke down. About 2,000 of Restaurant Brands' 4,000 staff are members of the Unite Union, and they haven't taken industrial against the company since 2006.

Vista Group International posted the biggest fall on the day, down 1.5 percent to $5.86, while Comvita declined 1.4 percent to $7.20. Mainfreight decreased 0.9 percent to $21.80.

Outside the benchmark index, NPT was unchanged at 63 cents after shareholders led by Augusta Capital voted to block a proposed deal with Kiwi Property Group and spill the board. Kiwi Property shares slipped 0.7 percent to $1.41 and Augusta shares rose 1 percent to $1.

Wellington Drive Technologies rose 3.6 percent to 29 cents after affirming annual earnings guidance and saying first-quarter sales were up 30 percent.

Michael Hill International was unchanged at $1.25 after Fisher Funds Management emerged as a substantial shareholder in the jewellery chain.

(BusinessDesk)
By Devarsi Ghosh: Noor manages to neither be a decent slice-of-life film about a young, independent, working woman nor an insightful film about the profession of journalism. Here is our Noor movie review.

Noor Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Kanan Gill, Purab Kohli, Manish Chaudhary, Smita Tambe

Noor Direction: Sunhil Sippy

Noor Rating: (0.5/5)

If one edited out the audio track of Noor, which consists of Sonakshi Sinha blabbering rubbish ninety per cent of the time, and then played it on loudspeakers, it would make for a terrific torture device at Abu Ghraib.

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Noor is insufferable, boring, tedious, torturous, f... words will not be enough to describe how bad the film is. Based on the Pakistani novel Karachi, You're Killing Me!, Noor explores the life of the titular character, played by Sonakshi Sinha, who is a journalist. We know this because Noor tells us this fact about her life at least ten times and by the way, Noor is really bad at her job but that comes later. Director Sunhil Sippy clearly doesn't believe that cinema is about 'show, not tell' so Sonakshi Sinha is given monologue after monologue that serve to describe exactly what is happening on screen. For example, if Noor walks in front of the mirror, checks her waistline and shrugs, we get it that she is upset about her weight. She does not have to say out loud, "I am so fat, I hate my life" which she does, by the way, innumerable times in the film. Dear reader, get ready for hot takes from angry ladies about how Noor glorifies fat-shaming in the next few days. And that's not even the most offensive thing about the film.

Noor is a bad, bad film on many levels. An entire chunk of the first half is spent on establishing that Noor is like any other 27-year-old independent, working woman in a big city. Her love life, her weight issues, her struggle with finances, her EMIs; these things are not cinematically unique! So if you keep making Sonakshi Sinha say out loud every single thought that passes through her head, it does not make Noor interesting or cute. My life is a mess! So, what? Why does one need to watch an entire movie about you? Why is Noor a character worth exploring? The film does not give us answers.

Suddenly, comes an unexpected twist. Noor who has so far been a features reporter comes across a big story. She is sent out by her editor to do a 'positive' story on a doctor but turns out this doc has been nasty. Lives have been lost because of greed. Noor gets hold of a source and gets her to speak on camera. Wait, could the film get interesting now? Was that embarrassing marketing campaign for Noor that screamed #ThisIsAFilmTheYouthWillLikeOK just a clickbait and now, the real drama begins? The first half ends on a promising note. Maybe, just maybe, the film would shift to an investigative-thriller territory and we would be spared the agony of watching Noor just prancing on the big screen and hating herself.

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But no. The bad-doctor plot point is used as a minor tool to bring about a change of track in Noor's story and this change is as contrived as it can get. Suddenly, Noor becomes a bleeding-heart, socially conscious journalist and in what is the worst Bollywood moment of this year so far, delivers a long, exasperating monologue titled 'Mumbai, You're Killing me!' It is an unbearable five minutes (or what felt like much more than that) where Noor looks at the camera and starts off with corruption in the medical field in the first sentence and suddenly jumps to Mumbai being an unsafe city for women in the third and before you know it, it has become a rant on how people are apathetic about each other in a big city. Noor's monologue, which she shoots with her webcam, gets viral. #IAmNoor starts trending, the doctor gets arrested and she becomes an icon overnight. Thankfully, no one in the film calls her a 'feminist' icon.

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Noor is neither a slice-of-life film on the lines of Bridget Jones' Diary which it tries to emulate nor does it develop into a good film about the journalism business. Noor calls herself a broadcast journalist but comes back to a newsroom which has literally no more than three people working at any given point. Is this a news channel or a website? We don't know. Noor loves a kind of rum that she and the other characters keep calling 'Old Rum'. No self-respecting filmmaker in India would want to desecrate the legacy of our national hard drink like that! What's worse is that the characters go to bars and drink beer from bottles off which the sticker has been pulled out. At least, Kanan Gill could break the fourth wall and apologise for being in the film. For penance, he can consider doing an unpretentious movie review of Noor (fingers crossed).

Sonakshi Sinha plays, perhaps, the most uncharismatic character of her life in Noor. After Akira, Noor is another failed attempt to reinvent herself as a solo-heroine who can put butts in seats. The film also has Purab Kohli who at one point looks at himself in the mirror sadly and probably wonders, I could have rocked on with Farhan Akhtar but now, I am here. Kanan Gill moonwalks through his role, takes the paycheck and leaves through the back door. Manish Choudhary plays Noor's editor, a man who was once a war reporter but now has chosen the nice, desk-life after marriage and he doesn't disappoint.

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The one single issue in Noor that had the potential for great drama is the bad-doctor thread and Noor's makers seem to be reluctant to touch it in the film. Every time, this plot point rears its head, the film quickly shifts to scenes of Noor hanging out or moping about with her friends. Noor, being a film about a journalist at the end of the day, unavoidably brings up a few uncomfortable truths about the profession: At what point, does a journalist lose her empathy? Do news organisations give airtime to Sunny Leone because people would rather see her than 'real issues'? Is doing a story that could incriminate powerful people important when you are putting a source's life in fatal danger?

But the film raises these points and abandons them by the wayside because the focus needs to be on Sonakshi Sinha, all dolled up and dancing to the tatti remix of Gulabi Aankhen after all. If nothing else, the existence of the remix in this world should tell you all you need to know about Noor.

(The writer tweets as @devarsighosh.)

ALSO READ: 5 Bollywood films that depicted the life of a journalist before Noor

WATCH: Sonakshi Sinha lets out her success mantra

--- ENDS ---
By Suhani Singh: Director: Sunhil Sippy

Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Purab Kohli, Kannan Gill, Manish Chaudhari, Sunita Tambe, MK Raina, Shibani Dandekar

Rating: (1.5/5)

Saba Imtiaz's novel Karachi, You're Killing Me! was a breezy, quick read that told you as much about the flawed but endearing female protagonist Ayesha Khan as it did about the Pakistani port city, its media scene and its varied social-cultural milieu. Given love thy neighbour, even if he is as hot as Fawad Khan, is not a favourable stance in India to have currently, Karachi has been replaced with Mumbai in the Bollywood adaption Noor. Mumbai is a fine substitute but sadly the writers choose to say or depict next to nothing of substance about the maximum city and its inhabitants. Instead you get to see more of the interiors of Social in Colaba than anything else. It's a pity for Sonakshi Sinha for a change actually does something far more substantial than play the standard pretty prop of a heroine. In Noor she rolls her eyes, screams out her frustrations and frowns a lot to play a young woman who is constantly cynical as she desires for a better professional life and shed some kilos. In one amusing scene she eyes a packet of aloo bhujia and finally succumbs. It's a perfectly relatable scenario but in Noor the dilemma is conveniently forgotten to hastily construct a tragic episode which only exposes Noor's incompetence as a journalist.

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Sunhil Sippy's film turns Imtiaz's female protagonist from a print journalist to a broadcast one. That's a great decision given how print publications are struggling to stay afloat. But Noor we are told is "paid peanuts" and lives on instalments. Perhaps her wardrobe, which if you ask us has an overabundance of stoles, has something to do with her dire financial straits. Her retired dad has more fondness for Dimpy the cat (who we're scared is kidnapped in the second half); her boss Shekhar (Manish Chaudhari) is the bane of her existence packing her off to do nonsensical stories rather than allow her to do "issue-based broadcast journalism" and she has zilch for love life.

Two assignments later she is out of a job. Noor's childhood friends Zara (Shibani Dandekar) and Saad (Kannan Gill, well cast but underused) are there to perk her up and supply her with her favourite poison - rum, but even their role has been severely undersized here robbing the film of the easygoing camaraderie that was central to the book. In Imtiaz's world a foreign white journalist sweeps the Pakistani woman off her feet, in the film it is Ayan (Purab Kohli) a serious freelance photographer - with a background in war to make him more desirable - who leads Noor astray. Soon audiences are in the midst of an organ harvesting racket involving Noor's domestic help Malati (Smita Tambe, moving) as a victim and we have Noor running away with Saad to London to drown away her guilt with glasses of Guinness.

Imtiaz's heroine Ayesha isn't perfect with her insecurities and tendency to whine a lot. Noor is all of the above things but unlike Ayesha her wallowing in self-pity is annoying. Here we have Noor tell Ayan - "Oh God, You're hot" to his face which in turn makes viewers want to roll their eyes. Imtiaz's sharp observations and snark commentary are missing despite the makers using a generous mix of Hindi and English.

The only thing that Noor gets right about journalism today is that it takes little to go viral. We still can't make sense of what Noor has done to become a sensation but by the looks of it recording a "Mumbai, You're Killing Me" rant, which will make Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation turn red, and uploading it on Facebook is all it takes. The fiery monologue is so juvenile that it is hard to believe it is coming from a 28-year-old journalist. In Noor's bedroom walls you will see posters of Pyaasa and Annie Hall (fine choices) and you will see portraits of Che Guevara too. You'd think Noor would know that to make a real difference a revolution can't be staged from the four walls of a bedroom.

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This is what Sonakshi Sinha has to say to the whole Kailash Kher-Justin Bieber fiasco

Sonakshi Sinha looks like she just walked out of a disco in the '80s

ALSO WATCH: Sonakshi Sinha's moustache connection

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The NGT in its notice to the Anuppur district collector has asked him to appear before the tribunal on April 27 with water and air pollution figures and explain how the Prime Minister's visit is going to impact Amrit Dhara, the originating point of the Narmada river.

By Hemender Sharma: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's scheduled visit to Amarkantak in Anuppur district in Madhya Pradesh on May 15 has sparked a fresh controversy with the National Green Tribunal serving a notice to the district collector asking him to explain the environmental impact the visit is likely to have on the place from where the Narmada river has originated.

The NGT in its notice to the Anuppur district collector has asked him to appear before the tribunal on April 27 with water and air pollution figures and explain how the Prime Minister's visit is going to impact Amrit Dhara, the originating point of the Narmada river.

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Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to visit Amrit Dhara in Amarakantak on May 15 and participate in the concluding event of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh's ongoing Namami Devi Narmada Seva Yatra. An estimated five lakh people are expected to participate in the concluding event that is to be presided by the Prime Minister.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan started the 148-day-long Namami Devi Narmada Seva Yatra from Amarkantak on December 11, 2016 and it will conclude in Amarkantak on May 15. The Yatra, according to Chouhan is aimed at making river conservation into a mass movement.

The MP government is organising workshops and public meeting during the course of this yatra in which issues like sanitation, need for forests, soil and water conservation and pollution control measures are being taken to the people living along the banks of the Narmada river.

The latest NGT notice has come on a PIL filed by one Sanjeev Tiwari of Amarkantak in 2016. Tiwari in his petition had urged the NGT to crack down on illegal construction along both sides of the Amrit Dhara in Amarkantak.

According to Dharmveer Sharma, the counsel for the petitioner, the NGT is already monitoring the construction activities in Amarkantak and notices have been served to the district administration in the past as well.

"The fresh notice has been served to the district collector asking him to appear in person on April 27 as over 5 lakh people are expected to turn up at the Prime Minister's event. This is likely to have an adverse impact on the place from where the Narmada river has originated. The district collector has been asked to come up with the fact," Dharamveer Sharma while talking to India Today said.

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 21 (PTI) With only two days left for the civic polls, the political parties in Delhi engaged in a bitter war of words as they highlighted their achievements and promises, setting the tone for a keen contest on April 23.

In the last lap of hectic campaigning, a bitter war of words ensued after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claimed that the people would "risk" the health of their children if they voted for the BJP in the polls as it had failed to provide proper sanitation to the citizen.

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"If someone in your home falls ill then you are responsible because you voted for the party which is synonymous with chikhungunya, malaria, dengue and garbage," Kejriwal said.

Reacting sharply, BJP New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi, without naming Arvind Kejriwal, said that his government had spent funds on "self promotion" instead of publicity to make people aware of diseases like dengue and chinkungunya that have become a major health hazards in the last few years in Delhi.

"Such a thing can be said only by a man having a brain of a mosquito. His government spent Rs 526 crore on publicity of his party and its leaders instead of telling the people how to fight against dengue and chikungunya," Lekhi said.

Former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit also criticised the Kejriwals statement, saying that as ususal he is passing the responsibility on others.

"Being a chief minister, he is supposed to help the municipal corporations if they are in need," she said.

The 2017 civic body polls, across 272 wards, is scheduled on April 23 and the counting of voters will take place on April 26.

The BJP, the Congress and the AAP are locked in a triangular contest.

Before 2012, there was one unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi. During the Sheila Dikshit regime, it was trifurcated into three bodies - North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations. The BJP has been ruling the civic bodies since 2007.

The BJP will be looking to retain the three civic bodies, while the AAP, which had failed in the recent Assembly polls in Punjab and Goa, will try to make a mark in this election. The Congress too is trying to regain their lost ground.

Meanwhile, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari concluded his partys poll campaign - Vijay Vikas Yatra - by offering special prayer at the Kalkaji temple for the partys victory.

He asserted that his party will win over 200 seats in the elections.

"Why would not people vote for us. We have given them life insurance for Re 1, free liquified petroleum gas (LPG) connection to poor women," he said, referring to the Modi governments schemes.

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Kejriwal today also accused the BJP of trying to cover up its "corruption and failure" in the local bodies by seeking votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also cast doubt on the Election Commissions insistence on the use of the electronic voting machines (EVMs).

He said that the BJPs strategy would not work as people know that the three municipal corporations will not be run by Modi, but by the BJPs local leaders who have failed in their job in the past 10 years.

A few hours before the close of campaigning this evening, BJP leader Vijender Gupta hit out at Kejriwal by accusing his cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain of being involved in corruption.

"The CBI has registered a preliminary enquiry against Satyendar Jain for corruption and misuse of power in purchasing agricultural land but Chief Minister Kejriwal is saving him," alleged Gupta, who is Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly.

Gupta was leading the partys campaign in "exposing" the alleged scams in the Kejriwal government during the electioneering.

The AAP hit back by putting up a hoarding that showed Guptas face with a scowl and a smiling Kejriwal, asking people by whom would they like to be ruled.

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He retaliated with a complaint against the AAP at the State Election Commission.

"We are committed to revive the municipal corporations financially by eradicating corruption and ending mismanagement witnessed by them during 10 year old rule of BJP," Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken said.

Maken and Congress, during the campaign, demanded the registration of an FIR against Kejriwal, his ministers and officials of his government, based on the findings of Shunglu Committee report.

The DPCC chief had put the report in public domain during the campaigning. PTI VIT TDS SMJ

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Inturi Ravikiran, a political satirist on social media, was arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police in Hyderabad for an offensive social media post showing a nude lady with pictures of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and council building.

By Ashish Pandey: Inturi Ravikiran, a political satirist on social media, was arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police in Hyderabad in the wee hours today.

Police arrested Ravikiran from his rented accommodation in Hyderabad. It is believed that the police raided Ravikiran's house at Shamshabad at around 3.30 am and picked him up in their car without informing his family.

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Ravikiran, who works as a techie and runs a Facebook page titled "Political punch", is known for his political satires.

POLICE's STATEMENT

Speaking to India Today, SP of Guntur (Rural) Narayan Naik said "Assembly Secretary Satyanarayan Rao approached the police against a social media post showing a nude lady with pictures of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and council building and derogatory remarks against the legislative assembly and legislative council."

Naik added, "We have registered a case under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act and under 292 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and arrested the accused."

The page "Political Punch" has earlier morphed photographs of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, his son Nara Lokesh and his family apart from various Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and displays satirical memes.

Also read | Satirist Gurpreet Ghuggi becomes Punjab unit convener

Also read | Delhi: Cyber crooks stealing, morphing social media photos to extort victims

WATCH VIDEO

--- ENDS ---


NEW DELHI: Engineering conglomerate Larsen and Toubro inked a deal with South Korean defence major Hanwha Techwin (HTW) today to jointly manufacture over 100 self- propelled howitzers for Indian Army at a cost of nearly Rs 4,500 crore.

The first batch of the 155mm/52 Cal Tracked Self Propelled (SP) gun -- K9 VAJRA-T -- will be delivered later this year and the entire supply will be made within a span of 42 months.

While 10 guns will be directly brought from South Korea, 90 will be manufactured in L&Ts Strategic Systems Complex in Talegaon near Pune.

The K9 VAJRA-T gun is an enhanced version of HTWs K9 Thunder which is known as one of the best performing self- propelled howitzers in the world.

At a function to sign the deal, South Koreas Minister for Defence Acquisition Chang Myoung Jin said his country would like to significantly expand defence ties with India as envisaged during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Seoul in 2015.

"Today, we have taken our defence partnership to a new high," he said.

Jayant Patil, Head of Defence and Aerospace at L&T, said the programme has set a new benchmark in co-development and co-production of defence systems by Indian private sector defence players and foreign majors.

"This contract marks an important milestone in L&Ts defence business journey and in our relationship with Hanwha Techwin. It will create synergies not only for this programme but also for upcoming Indian and global programmes," said Patil.

He did not rule out exporting K9 VAJRA-T to other countries.

L&T also has initiated the process for setting up a greenfield manufacturing line at Gujrats Hazira to produce K9 VAJRA-T guns.

Patil said L&T will not only manufacture K9 VAJRA-T in India, with over 50 per cent indigenous content, but also provide life support to the army with the weapon.

L&T said the contract is a result of nearly a decade long close relationship and joint efforts of the two companies on the programme, through extensive user evaluation and field trials followed by contract negotiations with the Ministry of Defence.

Addressing the gathering, South Korean envoy Cho Hyun said a new government will assume charge in South Korea by early May and hoped defence ties between India and his country will deepen further.

He also referred to the latest nuclear test by North Korea, saying his country has a troubled neighbour due to which South Korea has to focus majorly on defence preparedness.

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The Union Home Ministry is planning to launch Project Cow and set up cow sanctuaries in each state. MoS (Home) Hansraj Ahir has said that the matter has been discussed with Environment Ministry.

By India Today Web Desk: Amid row over cow slaughter ban and rising incidents of cow vigilantism, Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj G Ahir has said that the Narendra Modi government was planning to launch Project Cow.

Ahir said that the Project Cow would be on the lines of Project Tiger that was launched in 1973 to protect animal then facing extinction threat.

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Hansraj Ahir further said the government was considering a proposal to set up 'cow sanctuaries' in each state of the country. Tiger reserves and sanctuaries were created for better upkeep of the animal under Project Tiger.

WHAT MODI'S MINISTER SAID

"We had thought and we have been working on this for so many days. We have to put an end to cow slaughter. The biggest obstacle in this is the question as to who would take care of cows. For this we need to have cow sanctuaries. We will also have to collect fodder (for cows)," Hansraj Ahir said.

Speaking to the Indian Express, Hansraj Ahir also said, "Every state should have cow sanctuary only then cow slaughter will stop."

Availability of cow sanctuaries in each state will dissuade farmers from selling the uneconomic and old-aged cows. This can become an alternative.

Hansraj Ahir, who represents Maharashtra's Chandrapur constituency in the Lok Sabha, said that he had discussed the matter with the Environment Ministry and the proposal could be expedited.

A separate fodder bank can also be set up for cows living in sanctuaries, Ahir said.

ALSO READ | Cow vigilante attacks are anything but spontaneous, reveals India Today sting

ALSO WATCH | Gau rakshaks exposed: Cow brigade brags about violence it unleashes on streets

--- ENDS ---
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Mariners Harbor man is facing several charges after he drove and wrecked a pricey SUV that had been reported stolen in Queens, according to a criminal complaint.

Emeka Aduba, 23, was allegedly driving the black Range Rover, which was stolen Easter Sunday, when he was spotted by police at the intersection of South and Arlington Avenues on Tuesday at approximately 6:35 p.m., police said.

When police attempted to stop him, Aduba allegedly sped away, attempting to elude the officers. The complaint states that he was traveling at approximately 90 miles per hour in the residential area.

Eventually, Aduba crashed the car, valued at more than $50,000, into a building on Harbor Road, sources said.

He was apprehended by police at approximately 7:10 p.m., and reportedly told officers, "I'm sorry, it's not my car," police said.

Police also found a stolen cell phone in the center console of the SUV, according to the criminal complaint.

Aduba is facing four counts of criminal possession of stolen property, two counts of reckless endangerment, one count of obstructing governmental administration, and one count of unauthorized use of a vehicle.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Elm Park man gunned down in his neighborhood last month appeared to be running from two people before the fatal shooting.

On the night of March 31, Keith Keita, 42, is seen in surveillance video apparently being chased by two people before he is hit by a dark SUV near Kalver Place and Morningstar Road.

In the footage, the two people follow the victim across the street and in an attempt to get away, Keita runs into the street and ends up on the hood of the vehicle on impact.

He then falls off the side of the car and two people approach him by the dumpster on the side of the Morningstar Auto Parts store, which was closed at the time of the incident.

The car continues driving, then makes a right turn at the corner, leaving the frame.

"It happened right here on the side by the dumpster," Robert Visciano, owner of Morningstar Auto Parts, previously told the Advance.

Keita was shot multiple times in the torso near the intersection of Morningstar Road and Kalver Place at 8:46 p.m. on March 31, police said.

Police said they are searching for two males wearing dark hoodies who fled toward Pulaski Avenue following the incident.

Keita, who police previously said likely knew his assailants, lived nearby on Pulaski Avenue.

Cops are also looking for a black SUV in connection with the incident.

On Thursday, the NYPD released a separate surveillance video of the vehicle sought, taken from commercial locations in the vicinity of Morningstar Road and Walker Street.

Two unidentified males drove off southbound on Pulaski Avenue in a late-model Mercedes-Benz SUV, according to the police statement.

The persons of interest are described by police as black males wearing dark-colored clothing.

There have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-8477 (TIPS), submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers' website or by texting their tips to CRIMES (274637), then entering TIP577.

--

Want to discuss this report? Click here for the comments section.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are continuing to search for a suspect who shot and wounded a 23-year-old woman in Stapleton.

The North Shore has been under siege in recent weeks with a spate of bloody shootings. Some of the attacks have occurred near the Stapleton Houses.

The woman was shot in the right side of her back and the lower left side of her chest at about 12:17 a.m. Thursday at the southwest corner of Hudson and Cedar streets, said a spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

The woman is pregnant and was shot while walking with her mother and boyfriend, according to the Daily News.

No arrests have been made and police have obtained no description of the suspect, a police spokesman said.

The 23-year-old victim was rushed to Richmond University Medical Center where she was listed in stable condition, according to police.

The Daily News identified the victim as Diamond Roberson, who is four months pregnant.

Police recovered 10 shell casings from the scene -- five from .45-caliber bullets, five from .380-caliber bullets, the Daily News said.
The way of the empty hands The Simi Valley Shotokan Karate Dojo recently hosted a two-day seminar at Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District headquarters featuring a trio of karate experts. The Oct. 22 seminar was...

Slide into winter fun at SnowFest The Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District is bringing snow to Simi Valley. SnowFest will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sun., Nov. 6 at Rancho Madera Community...
By Shreya Goswami: A look at Britain's longet reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and you might just assume that she's very strict. Well, she is a ruler after all, and being strict and serious comes with the job description. But the Queen, who turns 91 today, has her moments of pure indulgence and happiness too--and yes, it's all related to the things she loves to eat.

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You might have heard some things about the Queen's eating habits--that she doesn't have carbs like rice, potatoes or pasta, and even that garlic is completely banned from the Buckingham Palace kitchens. That's all true. And those rules might have actually helped the Queen stay healthy and fit.

Also Read: Here's why the Queen shouldn't miss out on garlicky meals

Here are a few things you didn't know she just loves to have.

Chocolate

Chocolate mousse. Picture courtesy: Pinterest/cookiesandcups.com Chocolate mousse. Picture courtesy: Pinterest/cookiesandcups.com

Queen Elizabeth loves chocolate in all forms, whether it comes as in a bar or in a well-crafted dessert. According to a report by Good Housekeeping, the Queen's favourite chocolate dishes are chocolate biscuit cake, chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache sponge cake. These dishes, as you might have guessed already, are very chocolatey indeed. Can't you just imagine dipping her spoon in a good old mousse as a special treat after a day's work?

Fruits

The Queen loves fresh fruits. Picture courtesy: Pinterest/bottega39.com

This one follows from her attitude towards healthy eating habits. But it's not just about that, because fresh fruits can be some of the most delicious treats one can have any day, especially when it comes to seasonal ones. The Queen's favourites are mangoes, peaches, and strawberries. Does she mash up her love for fresh fruits with her love for chocolates, ever? We hope she does, because that would be just amazing.

Also Read: The Queen honours the first Indian woman to own and run her restaurant in the UK

Gin and Dubonnet

Gin and Dubonnet is the Queen's favourite drink. Picture courtesy: Pinterest/The Framed Table

You might assume that the Queen indulges only in the best wines from across the world. While that may be true, her favourite drink is a cocktail of gin and Dubonnet. In case you're wondering, Dubonnet is wine-based apertif, and goes really well with gin. It's a delightful drink to have, and the Queen prefers a glass before going to sleep.

Queen Elizabeth clearly knows what she loves to eat, and if you're a foodie, you'll of course admire her taste. In fact, some of these things--like her love for chocolate--have made us fall in love with the foodie in her. So here's wishing Her Majesty a happy birthday, and we hope she indulges in her favourite chocolate biscuit cake for years to come.

--- ENDS ---

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A Rajasthan boy and girl were mercilessly tortured and paraded naked in front of villagers, including children, after panchayat's order because 'they both were cousins and yet in a relationship'.

By India Today Web Desk: A couple was tortured and thrashed brutally in Rajasthan. They were paraded naked in a village for running away and marrying, which was against the will of their family.

Twenty-year-old Kachru and his 18-year-old cousin fled to Gujarat so that they could marry each other. They tried to dodge the fury of their family but were traced and brought back to Shambhupara village of Banswara district in Rajasthan.

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To teach them a lesson, the village panchayat issued an order to strip them naked and beat them up in front of their family members and villagers which included little kids.

THE PUNISHMENT

The 18-year-old girl was sexually assaulted. She was beaten with a stick by the crowd.

"The boy had fled from the village with his cousin sister, a minor, in March. Instead of lodging a complaint after they went missing, their family began searching for them. After tracking them down, the villagers thrashed them publicly, before parading them naked throughout the village," senior police official Ravindra Singh from Kalinjara police station informed Gulf News.

FAMILY AGREES

Several people pressurised the cousins' family to go ahead and teach the boy and girl a lesson as they were in a relationship despite the fact that they were cousins, according to a Gulf News report.

"We acted after one of the videos was spotted by us. No one from the village in the state's Banswara district had complained; the couple were made to sign an undertaking by Khap Panchayat that they would not report the incident to the police," Ravindra Singh told Gulf News.

"The couple had eloped to neighbouring Gujarat on March 22 because they are cousins and so their relationship was frowned upon by the tribal community they belong to. It was not acceptable to their society. For that society, cousins marrying each other is an immoral activity," Senior Police Superintendent Anand Sharma told media.

As many as 20 persons are booked by police out of which 18 have been arrested so far, including those who captured the video.

Watch:

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By India Today Web Desk: Rajkummar Rao believes in going the extra way to make his characters convincing him. After surviving on just coffee and carrots to convincingly portray a man stranded in an apartment in Trapped, the actor went through the tedious process of applying prosthetics for five-six hours every day to look like a 324-year-old man in Raabta, in spite of it being just a guest appearance.

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Rajkummar took to Twitter to share his look, and we could not have recognised him from his mysterious blink-and-miss appearance at the end of the trailer.

And here is my Guest appearance from #Raabta. pic.twitter.com/AZaHryWX6a- Rajkummar Rao (@RajkummarRao) April 21, 2017

Spot him in the trailer if you can.

According to a report in Indian Express, the film's team did 16 look tests before zeroing in on the current one. Director Dinesh Vijan said, "Rajkummar was kind enough to do me a favour. It was tedious but, he patiently sat through it every day. I think, the idea of the prosthetics making him completely unrecognisable excited him as an actor."

Raabta, which also stars Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon and Jim Sarbh, will release on June 9.

ALSO READ: Rajkummar Rao opens up on why he went without food and water for Trapped

ALSO READ: Deepika Padukone has put on her dancing shoes for this song in Sushant-Kriti's Raabta

ALSO READ: 5 reasons Raabta is one of 2017's most-awaited films

ALSO WATCH: Hansal Mehta directs Rajkummar Rao in his next

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A 17-year-old girl was raped by two men in the MLA Hostel in Civil Lines area of Nagpur. The accused were known to the victim.

By Press Trust of India: A 17-year-old girl has alleged that she was raped by two men in the MLA Hostel in Civil Lines area of the Nagpur city on April 14, following which they were arrested on April 18, police said today.

According to the police, one of the accused, identified as Manoj Bhagat (44), is known to the girl as she works in his shop in the city. Another accused is identified as Rajat Madre (19).

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Bhagat and Madre are the residents of Gittikhadan area in the city.

"The incident occurred on April 14, when Bhagat took the girl along with him after telling her family members that he wanted her to accompany his family members to attend a marriage," Gittikhadan police station sub-inspector Shalini Kinake told PTI.

VICTIM FIRST RAPED IN CAR

However, Bhagat took the girl to the MLA Hostel and allegedly raped her inside a car in the parking area on its campus, the officer said quoting the girl's complaint.

"Bhagat was then joined by his accomplice Madre. The duo raped her in a room booked by them in the MLA Hostel," Kinake said.

The officer said that the girl returned home after the incident, but didn't disclose her ordeal.

On April 17, Bhagat went to the girl's house drunk and told her family members that she didn't accompany him on April 14.

Scared by the ruckus created by Bhagat, the girl went missing on that day, the PSI said.

The duo raped the victim in a room booked by them in the MLA Hostel. (Photo: ANI)

The girl's mother then lodged a missing person complaint, following which a case of kidnapping was registered by the Gittikhadan police station.

Police traced her near Katol railway station, about 55 kms away from here, in the wee hours of April 17.

On the basis of her statement, the police arrested Bhagat and Madre on April 18.

They have been booked under sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 376 (punishment for rape) of IPC.

According to the police, Bhagat and Madre pretended as outsiders before the staff of the MLA Hostel to get the room booked.

When asked how is it possible that nobody noticed Bhagat and the girl in the car in the parking area, the police said they are investigating all the details.

Police are also investigating whether the car in which the alleged incident occurred belonged to Bhagat or Madre.

The winter session of the Maharashtra legislature is held every year in Nagpur, the second capital of the state.

Also Read:

Manipur extrajudicial killings: SC slams Centre, Manipur for inaction in 15-year-old's rape case

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Odisha: Mentally challenged minor girl raped near Jagannath temple

28-year-old mother-of-two gangraped by 5, accused say they brought her home for paid sex

Nashik: 15-year-old girl raped by police constable

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A federal government ban on retained phone and internet records being used as evidence in family violence civil proceedings has been warned to have potentially "catastrophic" consequences.

Legislation requires telecommunications companies to keep data for at least two years.

The federal government has ruled out allowing retained metadata to be used in civil litigation. Credit:Luca Pierro

Law enforcement and security agencies are able to access the data under strict controls and use it in criminal proceedings, but the government has ruled out allowing admission in civil cases following a review which considered more than 260 submissions.

Federal Attorney-General George Brandis said the review had found there was insufficient reason to justify making exceptions.
An aspiring firefighter has launched a challenge of ACT Fire and Rescue's equal opportunity recruitment policy - which aims for a 50/50 gender representation of trainees in new hiring rounds.

The man is arguing that the policy discriminates against men.

In 2016 ACT Fire and Rescue introduced an equal opportunity recruitment policy designed to address the organisation's gender imbalance. Credit:Rohan Thomson

In documents filed with the ACT Human Rights Commission last year, the man noted that of the 802 applications Fire and Rescue received for new firefighters last year, 144 were women.

He said that meant women had a much greater chance at securing a spot in 2016, even though many men had scored higher in the required tests, including for strength, fitness and the beep test.
A man allegedly bashed in the head by an off-duty police officer early one morning in Civic was later unlawfully locked up by a sergeant who had lied about the victim, court documents suggest.

The two officers now face serious charges, including attempting to pervert the course of justice, and abuse of public office.

The incident took place in the early hours of April 2, 2016.

The off-duty AFP officer, Wade Howell, 35, was in Canberra from Melbourne for training and was out drinking with friends the night of the alleged incident.

The alleged victim, 45, and his partner, 42, were also out in Civic that night.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Apr 21 (PTI) Royal Enfield today inaugurated its first direct distribution subsidiary in the Brazilian capital of Sao Paulo apart from opening its first stand-alone flagship store there.

Brazil is the fourth biggest two-wheeler market in the world and this subsidiary there makes the second one for the Eicher Motors-owned twowheeler maker outside the country.

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Royal Enfield opened its first direct distribution subsidiary outside the country in the US in 2015 as Royal Enfield North America.

The newly-formed subsidiary, Royal Enfield Brazil, will be selling to dealers, as well as conduct all front-end activities such as marketing and after-sales in the Latin American country. Its also present in neighbouring Colombia.

Royal Enfield president Rudratej Singh said the move will help it realise the competitive potential in the fourth biggest motorcycle market in the world. We see a huge opportunity in Brazil that has a hugely under-served mid-sized motorcycle market with a massive commuter base, he added.

Royal Enfield has entered Brazil with a line-up of three of its widely popular models featuring single-cylinder engines under 535-cc category such as the iconic standard street model -- Bullet 500, the retro street model - Classic 500, and the Continental GT (535cc) cafe racer, Singh said.

With a CAGR of over 50 per cent in the past six years, Royal Enfield has grown phenomenally, becoming one of the most profitable automobile brands in the world and the worlds fastest growing twowheeler brand.

Royal Enfield sold over 6,60,000 units globally in fiscal 2017, and intends to ramp up its production capacity to up to 9,00,000 units by the end of 2018, as it the demand for its models are rising fast in the global markets.

As the oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production, Royal Enfield has made its first motorcycle in 1901 and is now a division of Eicher Motors.

It manufactures the Bullet, the Classic and Thunderbird models in 350 and 500cc displacement along with Continental GT 535cc cafA racer and the purpose built Himalayan powered by the LS410 engine from its Chennai plant.

Royal Enfield ships its models to over 50 countries including the US, Britain, Europe, Latin America and West Asia and Southeast Asia also operates 17 company-operated stores and 675 dealers in the country. PTI BEN NRB

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Saturday's derby between the Swans and the Giants is looming as the closest contest ever played between the sides as a desperate Sydney look to kick-start their faltering season.

Barely a struck match separates the two teams in the 12th edition of the derby in terms of experience  the Swans' 22 named for this weekend have racked up 2056 collective games, just 13 more than the Giants.

That's an average of 93.45 AFL games per player for the Swans, and 92.86 for GWS.

Had returning trio Kurt Tippett, Isaac Heeney and Gary Rohan not made the team sheet, the Giants would've boasted a more experienced roster  almost an unfathomable possibility in their debut season five years ago when GWS played a record 17 debutants in the round-one opener against Sydney.
But the word "misled" was dropped by an ASIC executive. Australia's top corporate cop, ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft. Credit:Jessica Hromas The ASIC media staffer, who no longer works at the regulator, wrote back: "We are not stating openly that CBA misled us? Are we dialling down that rhetoric?" He goes on to say: "We have removed the reference about the results of the review being monitored by ASIC and will be made public? Do we want to consider that such a reference would provide some (even if on a minuscule scale) sort of comfort/reassurance to customers/media/observers who when they read this or hear about it third-hand will (already being disillusioned by how this matter has been handled) roll their eyes and refuse to believe there are no other surprises lurking about? Also consider the issue of transparency (then and now) being at the heart of this whole CFPL matter." Former Senator Mark Bishop. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The version that was released doesn't mention "misled" and, after weeks of editing, plays down the significance of the licence conditions. What is most interesting is the attitude of one of CBA's spin doctors on receiving the draft release: "I think the language needs to align. A bit about semantics but we do need to be clear so will make some suggested adjustments." We are not stating openly that CBA misled us? Are we diallng down that rhetoric? Former ASIC PR Asked about the arrangement a CBA spokesman said: "We value our relationship with regulators and we engage with them every day on a range of topics. ASIC plays a crucial role in ensuring Australia has a strong and stable financial system, and fact-checking statements prior to announcements is an important part of a regulatory process." It is all too cosy.

Neutral tone "Systemic fraud", "systemic theft", doctoring of customer files and "lying to clients", were some of the words used by Senator Mark Bishop, who chaired the Senate inquiry into ASIC and the CBA, and recommended a royal commission into the bank's financial planning arm. In contrast, ASIC's press releases favour a "neutral tone" about its concerns, as one email relating to a NAB release reveals. Words such as "superficial" were airbrushed from a Macquarie draft press release despite an independent experts report being considered a "sham" by a senior officer at ASIC. In one press release ASIC deliberately left out the compensation figure despite knowing what it was. Correspondence between ASIC and Westpac relating to a dodgy Westpac home loan manager, David St Pierre, who has since been sentenced to jail, was rejigged with the ASIC PR saying to her colleague the restructure was to "placate" Westpac. Emails show Westpac and ASIC discussing the timing of the media release and Westpac giving ASIC the heads-up it was briefing Senator Williams.

Again, not a good look. Nor was ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell's curious remarks: "Given the good Senator's current practices we should expect it to be leaked very quickly. I assume Westpac understand this?" What is particularly disturbing is ASIC continued to send out draft press releases to the banks after chairman Greg Medcraft told a parliamentary inquiry into the performance of ASIC that the regulator had been "too trusting" of the banks, particularly CBA in its dealings with it over a financial planning arm. That same Senate inquiry had found ASIC was too timid and trusting and that this was "inherently dangerous to ASIC's legitimacy as a regulator". ASIC promised to lift its game. Despite this, the policy to show draft releases and allow them to be edited continued. Culture exposed It speaks volumes about the culture. It can only serve to embarrass Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who described ASIC as the tough cop on the beat when defending his decision not to have a royal commission into financial services despite public support.

ASIC says it changed its policy on media releases in February 2015. That's all well and good, but the brutal reality is that policy only changed after Fairfax Media embarrassed it with an article, "ASIC allowed NAB to check and alter media releases", in February 2015. The article was picked up in a Senate hearing by Senator Williams, with a commitment from ASIC that it wouldn't do it anymore. The information was supplied to Fairfax by a NAB whistleblower who released documents that showed ASIC agreeing to alter a draft media release about a significant, six-year-long system error in NAB Wealth's Navigator platform, which affected tens of thousands of customers. These documents shine a light on the impact of getting the heads-up on press releases. One internal NAB document says that "feedback provided was incorporated into the final release", contributing to a "well executed" strategy that resulted in "minimal" media coverage and public reaction. It was a win for NAB. A February 2014 document obtained by Fairfax refers to ASIC's acceptance of NAB's plan to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers to independently review the Navigator problem. "This approach avoided a formal enforceable undertaking." A second February document states: "This is a less severe regulatory outcome than was originally anticipated."

Instead of calling it for what it was, the media release, issued on May 2, 2014, described it as "a systems error that resulted in some customers having incorrect investment income allocated to their account". In the media release, ASIC acknowledged the "co-operative approach taken by NAB Wealth in this matter". Macquarie sham Another set of correspondence relating to Macquarie and its financial planning scandal describes an Ernst & Young independent experts report as a "sham". The ASIC officer Adrian Borchok, who has since left ASIC, who labelled it a sham requests the word superficial be included in the draft press release. However, Louise Macaulay, who is still at ASIC, wrote: "In para 5 do we really want to say 'superficial', as MEL [Macquarie Equities Limited] did engage EY to do a review of their compliance system." Borchok fired back: "I think the use of 'superficial' is appropriate because it reflects the situation. Further, the EY review was a sham therefore they are getting off easy with 'superficial'."
Nissan is following in the tracks of other major automotive manufacturers and listing its Melbourne headquarters for sale, but for different reasons.

The Japanese carmaker has put its 11-hectare national corporate office and warehousing distribution centre at 260-270 Frankston Dandenong Road in the city's south-east on the market.

Nissan is selling its headquarters in Frankston Dandenong Road.

While other automotive giants such as Holden and Toyota are selling substantial brownfield sites as they shut down their Australian operations, Nissan is selling because of its expanding workforce.

CBRE's David Aiello and Stephen Adgemis have been appointed to sell Nissan's head office, a two-storey building with 4846 square metres of net lettable area, and three separate warehouse facilities with a total building area of 27,584 sq m.
Retail giant Woolworths is a step closer to putting its disastrous foray into hardware behind it.

In a long-awaited ruling, Woolworths' joint venture partner, the US hardware giant Lowe's, has been ordered to sell its shares in the joint venture behind hardware chain Masters for an amount yet to be determined.

Woolworths and Lowe's poured billions into launching hardware chain Masters. Credit:Rohan Thomson

The share sale to Woolworths will enable Woolworths to then sell the business to a consortium that includes some of Australia's richest families.

Woolworths and Lowe's have been squabbling over the value of the latter's 33 per cent stake in the joint venture behind Masters. Woolworths said it was worth nothing; Lowe's said it was worth more than $600 million.
George Orwell could not have written the pork-barrel script any better himself. During the week, we saw the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicine Authority's chief executive placed in Room 101, forced to back-pedal on her previous admission that she and her staff were working from Armidale's McDonald's.

Back then, before the historical revision had to occur, she was asked how the authority's relocation from Canberra to Armidale was going, and she admitted that the high-level employees forced to work in New England lacked even the basic internet services to do their jobs. They were using Macca's free Wi-Fi.

At the Senate inquiry into the Policy Order that moved the authority into the regions of Air Strip One, Kareena Arthy revised her earlier comments, saying they were a literary device, not an actual description.

Now heading the Ministry of Truth, Barnaby Joyce is ordering that history be rewritten: the authority's head wasn't really working at Macca's ... the authority isn't really a regulator, it's a research organisation ... the authority must be based near a university in Armidale, of course.
This Thursday will be the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War. It is perhaps timely to reflect on it, given the emphasis on bombing in the past couple of weeks: the bombing of Syria "in retaliation" for the use of chemical weapons; the "mother of all bombs" dropped in Afghanistan; and North Korean's threats to pre-emptively use nuclear bombs.

The significance of Guernica is that it was the first time civilians were deliberately targeted in an air attack; the first time a population centre was carpet-bombed from the air; and one of the first times a population was used as a target from the air by a foreign power (fascist Germany and Italy) to test the effectiveness of its aircraft and the effectiveness of terror on the civilian population.

Guernica in ruins in 1937, after it became the world's first civilian population centre to be carpet bombed.

Guernica changed the mode of war. Before then, civilians in cities and towns away from the front were, by and large, relatively safe. In wars before then, air power was not capable of such bombing attacks. In World War I, by and large, troops slugged it out in trenches on the front and there was no air war.

For three hours on the afternoon of Monday, April 26, 1937, a market day in which the town's population was swollen from 7000 to 10,000, bombers from the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Italian Legionary Air Force, in wave after wave, demolished the town in a grid pattern of carpet bombing. The town had no air defences.
Australia is a young nation. It's still working out its relationship to the world. It's still working out its identity. There was no such thing as an Australian citizen until 1949. Until then, if you born in Australia you were a British subject. Although, if you were Aboriginal, you didn't count. Literally. The Indigenous people were denied full voting rights and not even counted in the census until 1967. And, of course, it was one of the foundation acts of the freshly federated Australia in 1901 that Chinese people were deported.

The White Australia policy, aimed principally at the Chinese, also excluded other non-Europeans until Harold Holt's Liberal government killed it off in 1966 and Gough Whitlam's Labor gave it formal burial in 1973.

Reasonable reform by a centre-right government is infinitely better than adopting more radical proposals. Illustration: John Shakespeare

Whitlam made it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of race, for official purposes, in 1975. This was a dramatic moment in the evolution of Australia's definition of rights and identity. From malign neglect of Aboriginal people and the explicit banning of Asians and blacks, all races were now equal before the law, and all could qualify to become Australian citizens.

Every society works out its own ideas of who can be counted as citizens. You can be born in Japan, live there your whole life, beget children and grandchildren there. Yet, a century later, none of them may ever be admitted as citizens. Just ask the descendants of the Koreans, for instance, forcibly relocated to Japan a hundred years ago by their colonial masters. Of course, the price for such extreme exclusion is a society that seems bent on slow extinction. Japan's population, which shrank by a million people to 127 million in the five years to 2015, is projected to fall by another 44 million by the end of the century, according to the UN.
A gunman burst into a regional office of Russia's Federal Security Service and killed one of its employees and a visitor, the service said on Friday. The Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service, said that Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the attack.

A still image from a video footage shows Interior Ministry officers block a street near a regional office of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), which was attacked by a gunman, in Khabarovsk, Russia (Reuters Photo)

By Reuters: Russia's Federal Security Service said on Friday that a gunman had burst into one of its regional offices in the far east of the country and opened fire, killing one of its employees and a visitor.

The region where the incident happened is close to China. The FSB, the successor organisation to the Soviet KGB, said the attacker had been killed and that another person had been injured in the incident.

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"An unknown person entered the reception of the FSB's Khabarovsk regional branch and started shooting at people inside," the FSB said in a statement.

The Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service, said that Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the attack. It said that the claim of responsibility had been made through the militant group's Amaq news agency.

That contradicted earlier media reports, which said the FSB believed the gunman was a nationalist. The TASS news agency cited an unnamed FSB official as saying that the gunman was a local resident and born in 1999.

The visitor who was killed and the one who was injured were from former Soviet states outside Russia, according to the security service.

Russia was this month shaken by a suicide bombing of the St Petersburg metro, which killed 16 people. The suspected suicide bomber and his alleged accomplices were from Central Asia.

The man Russian police believe was the suicide bomber had developed an interest in Islam and soon after travelled to Turkey, two people who knew him told Reuters.

ALSO READ | St. Petersburg subway blast was a suicide attack

ALSO READ | St Petersburg metro attack: 8 detained, explosive device seized

ALSO WATCH | St Petersburg metro bombing: Kyrgyzstan-born Russian citizen likely suspect

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The tragedy of Turnbull is that words like authenticity, charisma, temperament and focus had already attached themselves to him before he went into politics, and before he became prime minister. People then saw him as a known quantity, and a known quality, able, predictable, of calm temperament, and a disdain for the glib slogan, contemptible slur, or politics of emotionalism, prejudice and division. It was for such qualities that the Newspolls that charted the collapse of support for Abbott and Abbotism consistently saw Turnbull as the man who could rescue the Coalition from seemingly inevitable defeat. It was for such qualities that once Turnbull mounted the coup and took over, business and consumer confidence soared, and his party's re-election seemed certain. People remember that Turnbull, in mounting his challenge to Abbott, spoke of successive bad Newspoll results, and the virtual certainty that, if things went on, Shorten would be the next prime minister. Now his own run of bad poll results is being used against him. But so could his words about leadership. "It is clear enough that the government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need. It is not the fault of individual ministers. Ultimately, the prime minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs," Turnbull said. We should run any statements of Australian values past Aborigines living at, say, Wadeye, Yuendumu, Goodooga and West End.

"He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs. Now, we are living as Australians in the most exciting time. The big economic changes that we're living through here and around the world offer enormous challenges and enormous opportunities. "And we need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans. "We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people. "The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott's leadership. "Now, what we also need to remember, and this is a critical thing, is that our party  the Liberal Party  has the right values ... of free enterprise, of individual initiative, of freedom; this is what you need to be a successful agile economy in 2015. What we have not succeeded in doing is translating those values into the policies and the ideas that will excite the Australian people and encourage them to believe and understand that we have a vision for their future.

"There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls. We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public." Eighteen months on, the public has seen little of the Turnbull they wanted and expected. He has seemed in a dearth dance with a conservative wing of the party that has always mistrusted, usually despised him. A new prime minister, as Paul Keating once said, changes the country and the conversation. But although the nation endured a certain period of relief after Abbott's downfall, Turnbull has failed to rebuild the nation or the government in his own image. Constantly criticised for his failure to inspire or to paint a plausible tale about where he wants to take the country, he has reached into a grab bag of "vision things"  most of which show little evidence of research or genuine touch for the public mood. Most have been forgotten, whether in the public mind, commentaries and the Parliament within weeks. We've had innovation. Disruption. We've had the redevelopment of South Australia on the back of the submarine project. We've had a new Snowy Mountains scheme and any number of big projects in Queensland, NSW and Tasmania, few of which seem to have galvanised the public imagination. We've had repackaged 457 schemes to pander to false Hansonite and CFMEU claims that foreigners are stealing Australian jobs. A man who promised to defend free trade is using more and more phrases that suggest building walls around the nation. Now, in an almost direct pinch of Abbott's Team Australia, we have Australian values, and the pretence that unAustralian types (by clear implication Muslims) will out themselves by failing to know that domestic violence, or female (but not male) genital mutilation, is wrong. Turnbull has been unlike Abbott in (so far) failing to confect any national security crisis, but is dog-whistling to popular anxiety about it. And while blandly insisting that the policies represent no threat to multiculturalism, he is using well-chosen words suggesting that conformity and assimilation are at the heart of Australian values.

Not a little of his patter this week seems at odds with his statements, inside cabinet, when he led the charge against the Abbott-Dutton-Pezzulo moves to allow government to strip citizens of citizenship. His pragmatism has been in one direction and, if it has sustained him in the party room, it has chipped at his identity, authority and legitimacy. I somehow have a feeling we should run any statements of Australian values past Aborigines living at, say, Wadeye, Yuendumu, Goodooga and West End, as well, of course, by those who have had such close encounters with these values in action at Manus and Nauru. Were the public to feel that the daily announcement of solutions to non-problems were but frolics or flourishes by a person who has become a bit bored by the smooth and professional way in which he and senior ministers were running the economy, and promoting jobs and growth, it might be a bit indulgent with him  at least as long as there were no Abbott-style surprises. But there is ample evidence the economy is stagnating, not least because of slow wages growth, and that business and consumer confidence is holding back growth. Accompanying this is considerable uncertainty about international growth, and political and economic relationships with our friends and neighbours. Whatever is happening, or is going to happen abroad, it seems unlikely Australia will have much capacity to influence it, or will be faster than anyone else in anticipating it. The budget may address some particular public issues, such as housing affordability and energy prices, but seems unlikely to give growth or confidence any sort of impetus. The idea of sound steering, or sure feel for the course, is also considerably undermined by the sheer chaos of National Party boondoggling, and the rein Barnaby Joyce has been given to sprout loony economic theories, nonsense about the efficacy of dams, or doomed and foolish decentralisation schemes. There is a case for repopulating rural and regional Australian with Commonwealth public servants delivering goods and services. There is no case for sending specialised agencies, or policy and regulatory units, to centres lacking ready access to the places where decisions are made. Those worried for the ship of state should, by now, be dropping their focus on where, if anywhere, Turnbull wants to take us, and what he thinks he is doing. They should be asking instead how long he can survive, and what damage he will do to the country as he concentrates solely on month-to-month survival.
Canberra is and will continue to be the centre of government administration for the Commonwealth. While it's understandable that Canberrans are concerned when the Nationals talk about decentralisation, we shouldn't lose sight of the fundamental reasons why it makes sense for government administration to be conducted from Canberra.

It makes financial sense and is by far the most efficient and effective way of delivering government administration. This is not just because of the massive investment in bricks and mortar to house government (and the efficiencies that go with it) but also the significant expertise and skill sets that have built up in the capital and its institutions since the 1950s, when most public service agencies began to be headquartered here.

Quite simply, Canberra is good at the business of government because it was set up for it. This can't be easily replicated elsewhere.

Ministers of all political persuasions see this benefit close up in the day-to-day work of their departments. This isn't about to change. With Parliament House in the centre, ministers want easy access to the best policy, program and regulatory advice. In Canberra, they get it.
Three characters should be sufficient to define Australian values: 18C. Chris Danckwerts Turramurra Dean Fraser needs to take off his rose-coloured spectacles ("Australian values testing starts at home", Letters, April 21). Many Australians of my parents' and grandparents' generations were in favour of the White Australia policy, thought they were doing the right thing bringing "orphans" from Britain to Australia and brought about what we now refer to as the Stolen Generation. Ian Davis Bella Vista Hoaxer should not be surprised

With no historical proof, Helen Dale's 1994 fictional novel directly blamed Jews for the suffering of Ukrainian peasants in the 1930s Soviet-engineered famine and offered that as the reason why some Ukrainians later assisted the Nazis to carry out genocide ("No Hoax: Helen Demidenko is back", April 21). At the time, she insisted the book was based on truth, with her invented Ukrainian identity used to give the claims a veneer of veracity. Not only has she never apologised for her behaviour, she now says she is a victim, persecuted for her right as a writer to exercise her imagination and free speech. Given how casual she was with the facts and her lack of apology, it is hardly surprising that she is unable to understand that concerns about her role as a political adviser were more than justified. George Greenberg Malvern (Vic) No doubt Helen Dale's critics are lying in wait, guns drawn. But it's amazing what 23 years of life can do to one's hindsight, whether your surname is English or Ukrainian. Putting aside the issues of right or wrong, and I am sure these will be debated again, what about the boon in publishing that her hoax created? Since leaving Australia she has studied law at Oxford and practised it in Scotland, and comes across as a different person. She says she is prepared to face the music. I think she's brave to return to Australia. Which of us hasn't changed in 23 years? Peter Skrzynecki Eastwood

Dutton knows Manus tactics will work Peter Dutton has suggested that the latest Manus Island refugee centre riot broke out because refugees were leading a five-year old Papua New Guinea child into the complex ("Dutton gives new account of Manus rampage", April 21). As with John Howard's shameless "Children Overboard" lie, the Immigration Minister understands that if you want to make people believe something just say it. Only half of them will be listening when you are forced to correct the falsehood later. Donna Wiemann Balmain Peter Dutton has cunningly conflated all the tropes about refugees and about Muslims to conclude that the Good Friday attack on Manus Island was in response to a child who was victim of "another alleged sexual assault". Ironically, the incident has become a true test of Australian values and whether Australians see refugees as human beings who came here looking for a better life, or just "reffos with no rights". Shayne Chester Potts Point

Malcolm Turnbull may be channelling John Howard on immigration, but Peter Dutton's unfounded claim about the Manus Island rampage gives him the "Children Overboard" prize. Barry Welch Bridgeman Downs (Qld) How low can you go? Ask Peter Dutton. The man sets new standards in lowness. Is that an Australian value? Robert Franzos Murwillumbah Xenophon China rant lacking credibility

I cannot believe Nick Xenophon ("A US war with China would strand Australia in the middle", April 21). To say China may sink an Australian naval ship to warn off the US navy is an irresponsible and childish statement. The last standing politician whom I usually respect for his integrity has sunk low to join the rhetoric of others for his own political gain.There is enough provocation made by politicians in this populist era. He should stick to the fight for poker machine reform, the area he is good at. I also suggest he researches properly the facts about who are the aggressors in this world. Paul Lau Blakehurst Most people will have missed John Pilger's crowd-funded film, The Coming War on China, which was fleetingly screened in Australia over the summer. A pity, because he makes the same point as Nick Xenophon, that neither side would win a war between the US and China. Australia, rather than taking the American side, as Julie Bishop has done, should be telling US Vice-President Mike Pence that we will not fight in such a war and that the US should not goad China into one. Xenophon says Australia would suffer catastrophic loss, if not nuclear obliteration. He calls for both houses of Parliament to debate and vote before Australia sends troops to this or any other war. Legislation to change the power of a Prime Minister unilaterally to opt for war is needed more urgently than ever. Alison Broinowski Paddington

Listen to scientists Bravo for your editorial ("Putting science at the centre of society", April 21). Although we must put more reliance and belief in our science, I cannot concur that we are "nowhere near the situation of the United States". Our most recent past prime minister tried his best to dismantle the CSIRO, as well as every climate monitor and policy we had. We still have governments pushing, encouraging and facilitating the opening up of the largest coalfield in the world when scientists say no new coal mines should be opened. We still give huge tax deductions to gas companies for expanding their exploration when scientists clearly say we must keep 80 per cent of known fossil reserves in the ground. Sadly, we are not far behind at all. Peggy Fisher Killara

End housing tax 'lurk' The Labor Party is to be congratulated on its proposed housing affordability policy ("ALP moves to seize the initiative on housing", April 21). The proposal to end tax deductibility on capital gains tax payments is a significant step in the right direction. However, to grandfather negative gearing for existing landlords will mean it remains a significant tax "lurk". Negative gearing should be phased out over a period of, say, three to five years. Ignore the inevitable bleats from the negative gearers who will complain that their retirement or investment strategies will be upset. Tell them to keep in mind what the government has done in recent months regarding pensions and assets. This decision upset the financial plans of those who could least afford it. Geoff Lewis Raglan Are we currently in an election campaign? It seems so, with both major parties announcing false new ideas on the same old issue. The ALP, like the Coalition, is merely fiddling at the edges of our housing national disgrace. Its new initiative is like coming in the side door to hit major issues, but with a wet lettuce leaf. As if doubling the application fee for foreign buyers matters when they have many millions to park in our housing, and why only apply this to "houses worth $2-$3 million"? Who will police "foreigners who who break investment laws"?

Robyn Dalziell Castle Hill Move Navy to Darwin While we are talking about moving people out of Canberra, let's not forget the navy ("Joyce shines more darkness on public service shift", April 21). Why, oh why, is it based in Canberra and Sydney? All the action  whether it be people smugglers, border protection, natural disasters, unlicensed fishing or the potential for serious unrest north of Australia  says that the navy should based in Darwin. Every last ship and personnel. Wayne Stinson Merimbula Slave labour  shame

Australia went through a horrible period where it "blackbirded" Pacific Islanders as cheap, or free labour and, sadly, Diane Smith Gander's call to allow nannies in on 457 visas bears shades of this dark time ("Bring in nannies from the Pacific Islands to help Australian women get back to work", smh online, April 21). To also compare the need for such workers to the importation of Filipino nannies to other countries weakens her argument even further, given the many reports of blatant exploitation of these women. Would women in Australia want to climb over the backs of these other women from often developing and far less wealthy countries to ensure their own careers remain on track? At a time when people are complaining about being underemployed, there must be some Australians out there who would take up nanny roles for families "crying out" for this service. Or are they crying out only if it comes cheap? How much is caring for your children worth? Paul Bugeja Brunswick (Vic) Hidden treasure trove

It is curious that the Discovery Centre in Castle Hill never gets a mention in the debate on shifting the Powerhouse to the floodplains of Parramatta. The centre contains a huge display of items from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Australian Museum and Sydney Living Museums, with $10 admission. Michael Bogle Surry Hills Aussie values and house-trained, too I think my best mate ticks all the boxes for what represents Australian values ("Australian values testing starts at home", Letters, April 21). He was born in the outer western suburbs of Sydney, with a working class background going back many generations. He is passionate about all water and ball sports, fiercely loyal to friends and family, and loves a barbie. He could probably run for Australian of the Year, if he did not bark so much when he got excited.

John Friedman Bondi Beach Nobody has values like Woolworths and Coles. Gary Frances Bexley Thought central Well, I never. I always thought Canberra was decentralisation.

Peter Wilson Quorrobolong Game, set and hatch There is no doubt that becoming pregnant is a miracle and that for some our first trimester, if not the whole pregnancy, can be plagued with morning sickness and fatigue ("Williams aims for mother of all records", April 21). But Serena Williams is an exceptional athlete who won the Australian Open. Her being pregnant at the time shouldn't make this any more or less of an outstanding achievement. Postscript Prime Minister Turnbull's rapid-fire announcements about changes to the 457 temporary visa rules and tightening of the citizenship test provided an intriguing comparison between readers' sympathies on closely related issues. Response to the 457 changes was divided. Although most readers argued it was a cosmetic makeover that effectively massaged a few regulations around the edge, there was also robust support for an overdue "Australian first" message they saw enshrined in the changes.
There's a sturdy shovel in your hand, soft soil to be turned, warm sun on the back of your neck. And then, within seconds, you're plunged into the stuff of bad dreams. There's a buzzing noise, growing louder by the second. First fear: you've hit a nest of wasps or, just as bad, there's an armada of angry bees coming your way. But where the hell are they?

Hurl the shovel, close your eyes and wave your arms maniacally above your head to ward off the imminent attack, doing your best imitation of an extra on the set of Hitchcock's The Birds.

CASA said it's receiving one complaint every week from Canberra residents about drone use. Credit:Joe Armao

And then all goes quiet. The buzzing retreats. You look up, squinting against the sun, to find the cause of your initial panic. A drone is hovering, maybe 30 to 40 metres directly above. Watching. Probably sending live video footage back to its controller. You wave your arms again, this time in frustration. Hurl abuse. The drone moves off and you race out to the front yard, driven by your anger and a growing sense of being violated.

But by the time you reach the gate the machine has disappeared behind a line of trees and the person guiding its surveillance is nowhere to be found.
So where did it all go wrong for humanity that it came to this, a nuclear showdown between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un? Last week, Trump told Kim his "armada" was on its way. In fact, it was heading in the opposite direction. He either didn't know or didn't care. Does it matter any more?

How is it that the fate of the world came to be in the hands of two men so ill-equipped for the task? Kim's worst excesses wildly exceed Trump's, but the two men are alike in their grandiosity and bad haircuts. Kim's makes him look like a strangely indulged five-year-old. My brother Richard reckons Kim's barber is the John Clarke of totalitarian humour.

During the US presidential election, while describing Kim Jong-Un as a maniac you don't play games with, Trump said you had to give him "credit".

Kim represents the failure of the old Left which promised dictatorships of the proletariat but only managed to deliver the dictatorship part of it. Trump, the so-called champion of the free world, has a fascination with dictators  or, as they are becoming known, "strong men". This week, he rang to congratulate Turkey's President Erdogan on winning a referendum that will gut parliamentary democracy in that nation.

"Strong men" relate easily to other "strong men"  until they fall out. During the US presidential election, while describing Kim Jong-Un as a maniac you don't play games with, Trump said you had to give him "credit". " How many young guys he was like 26 or 25 when his father died  take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden  you know, it's pretty amazing when you think of it  How does he do that?  he goes in, he takes over, and he's the boss. It's incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one." How does he do it? Like the Mafia do it.
US Vice-President Mike Pence has his work cut out for him during his first Australian visit this weekend, with a new poll showing 60 per cent of voters have a negative view of Donald Trump.

Mr Pence, the first senior US administration official to visit Australia since the Republicans' shock election wins last year, will meet Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney to discuss regional security and the North Korean nuclear threat, as part of efforts to reassure America's allies in Asia and smooth over relations with the federal government.

Australian voters have a negative view of Donald Trump.

A new poll from the left-leaning think-tank the Australia Institute shows 60 per cent of Australians think Mr Trump's election will result in a negative outcome for the world, while 48 per cent said Australia should be more independent from America on military and security matters.

The poll of 1420 voters released on Friday showed 19 per cent said the New York businessman's win was a positive outcome, with 65 per cent of women and 55 per cent of men responding negatively.
Sydney will host not one Pence, but four Pences this weekend, as the US Vice-President and famous family man Mike Pence flies into town on Air Force 2, accompanied by his "prayer warrior" wife, Karen, and their two daughters, Audrey and Charlotte.

Vice-President Pence will visit tourist sites, conduct trade talks and take tea with the Governor-General, and generally  though it would be impolitic to say so  relieve the Australian government of the burden of a visit from the President himself.

The vice-presidential entourage flew into Sydney on Friday night on Air Force 2, which is usually a Boeing C-32, a modified 757 which carries about 50 people.

The Sydney leg is the last stop in the Vice-President's 10-day Asia-Pacific tour, during which he has visited South Korea, Japan and Indonesia.
A strange new condition seems to be afflicting many of her journalist friends in Washington DC, says Lissa Muscatine, Hillary Clinton's long-time friend, former aide and chief speech writer.

"One friend's doctor jokingly called it Trumporrhoea  they [the reporters] are all exhausted, coming down with insomnia, gastrointestinal disorders, these physiological reactions  it's not just the one thing that happens in a day, it's five things a day, every time you look up there is another controversy or tweet that has gone out, some other insult or some other regulation that's been overturned  it's hard for people in other countries to fully grasp just how insane it is."

Muscatine, 62, is a core member of what's known in the United States as "Hillaryland'', a term originally coined to describe the dedicated group of women staffers who moved into the White House with Hillary after husband Bill first won the presidency.

It will also be the title of Muscatine's recently commissioned first book, news of which broke in the US this week.
I had turned 18 just a few months before. My colleagues at The Telegraph, where I'd just started my cadetship, had bought a cake and sang  even the formidable Women's News editor, Miss Erica Parker. I was 18, an adult. I had been feeling so grown-up. But now I was feeling very small. My teacher and her husband guessed. They forced it out of me one night the following week when I was at their house. I had said that I might leave my job as a cadet journalist  I couldn't think what else I'd do  and they wanted to know why. I was in a big lounge chair curled up small and they leaned over me, one on either side, and demanded to know what was going on, demanded that I speak. I was shaking all over, wanting to disappear. The shame I felt. This was all my fault, I was sure. The beach, the night I drank too much. We did the naughty but nice things, as he called them. I burst into tears and told them. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. This was all my fault, I was sure. The beach, the night I drank too much. We did the naughty but nice things, as he called them  I sobbed and sobbed. They told me not to worry. They would fix it. The next day, my teacher's husband contacted a priest, an ex-army chaplain in Melbourne, who knew of a home for girls where I could stay. We agreed I should go away. Melbourne was a city they knew I'd never seen. My teacher and her husband told me it would be an adventure. They would come down for the birth, they said. They would visit me and everything would be all right.

Over the next week, I told everyone I was going to leave my job as a journalist. I was casual in the saying of it. I said I wanted to travel. This was shocking to my parents, to Miss Parker. I had been one of four successful applicants for cadetships from among more than 400 who applied, she said. How could I throw that away? My teacher and her husband talked, but I was not included. My teacher was unwell, an unspecified unwellness later diagnosed as endometriosis. They had no children. My teacher's husband called them brats, said he didn't want to end up like his siblings who had brats. He told me I had upset my teacher. I felt bad for what I'd done, what I'd done to my teacher. She wasn't harsh with me, but I was sure she blamed me. I blamed myself. It was all my fault and I had to make it right. We agreed it would be best to keep my pregnancy a secret from everyone but my family. We also agreed that while I should tell my parents I was pregnant, I shouldn't tell them my teacher's husband was the father. If people knew, the scandal would cost him his commission as an army officer. My mother had guessed about the pregnancy as soon as I announced I was going to quit the job I loved so much. More to the point, first thing every morning I vomited. When I told her the father was a journalist I met at a party, she went very quiet and looked hard at me. "I was drunk," I said, "and I don't know his name." I closed my mouth and set it tight. I would not say more. My father pushed until my mother turned to him and said, "That's enough, Mac." Strangely, of all the things I later worried about, this was the worst: that I agreed to tell my mother that I had became pregnant while I was drunk, having sex with a man whose name I couldn't remember.

My parents would have been happy for me to stay in Brisbane instead of going away to Melbourne. We were not a family that had the luxury of caring much about its reputation, and Catholic Church rules were the least of our failures of social expectations. My father's family's Catholicism was two generations back. "You don't have to go away on our account," Mum said. "Only if you'll feel better." She looked at me again. I thought she might be going to say more but she didn't. By this time  the late 1970s  the Catholic Church had already started to change anyway, to modernise. Girls who got pregnant were not wicked in those days: they were stupid. There was good contraception, family planning clinics. We were not bad, except in the eyes of one or two old ladies and the conservative end of the Church, which was losing ground. Of course I had to go away. My teacher and her husband had said if anyone knew about the pregnancy, he would be in trouble. Other people didn't understand. Of course I had to go away. Before I left The Telegraph, I told Miss Parker I was pregnant. She had been miffed when I gave her my letter of resignation, citing no reason other than a desire to travel, so I told her the story I'd told my parents. She was annoyed with me all over again. "That was stupid," she said. "Very stupid. You are a little fool." She meant getting pregnant. She meant throwing away my career, because she could see, as I couldn't, that I would not get it back. She wanted to know who the journalist was, the father. I said I didn't know.

Even if she called me a fool, Miss Parker understood my leaving. The world was starting to change, but leaving was what girls had done for years in Brisbane. She asked if she could tell the editor of the paper. I said she couldn't. I was worried for my teacher and her husband. The more people who knew, the more likely he'd be in trouble. Miss Parker shook her head, called me a fool again, and said to come back when it was over and she'd see what she could do. Today, Mary-Rose MacColl is a novelist living in Brisbane with her husband and son. Credit:Russell Shakespeare My father wanted us to have a conversation about abortion. I'd resigned and was about to leave for Melbourne. Dad had been asking why I couldn't tell them the journalist's name, why I didn't remember. "Shouldn't we find him?" Dad said to me, to Mum. "I do not want to find him, no," I said.

Dad said to Mum then, in my hearing, "I don't see why she can't just look after it." At first, I thought he meant the baby; look after the baby. I was silent. Mum said, "Mac, she can't do that." When I realised he meant have an abortion, not keep a baby, I left the room in tears, not because of any regard for the child growing inside me, but because I had been to the seminars at school run by Right to Life. They turned out the lights in the concert hall at my previous high school, so we 100 or so schoolgirls could see properly. They showed us the slides they brought with them in their carousel, the tiny perfect feet between a finger and thumb proving categorically that life begins at conception; the burgeoning foetus at time of termination. They told us about the different methods used and how much pain the baby felt. The suction method, the saltwater death, the poisons. I knew it to be murder. I would never have an abortion, I told my father. But a year later, when I became pregnant again, I had an abortion without hesitation I left Brisbane after I finished up at The Telegraph and drove my car to Melbourne with my oldest brother, Ian. Crossing the border from NSW to Victoria at 3am, I was spooked by big gums hanging over both sides of the highway at Echuca. I was as far from home as I'd ever been.

Ian was asleep on the back seat and I couldn't rouse him no matter how hard I tried. I longed for a human voice, so I turned on the radio and listened to country music. It was Johnny Cash, The Long Black Veil, which made me laugh. At dawn, we had apple pie and cream and icecream for breakfast at a truck stop Ian knew from another trip. At 11 o'clock that morning, Ian left me at St Joseph's Convent in Grattan Street, Carlton. He was going to stay with friends and then hitch a ride home to Brisbane. I remember I didn't want him to go; I stalled him with small talk at the gate, became close to desperate as he became keener to extract himself. Finally, he said he must go and off he went. I waited a few moments more and then went up the path to the door and rang the bell. It was answered by a nervous-looking nun who took me into a parlour and said she'd get Sister Mary, who was in charge of the girls. The first nun made me a cup of tea. There were lemon crisp biscuits. I took two. She watched me eat them. I worried about the crumbs. In Melbourne during that time, someone who caught the tram from the city and alighted at the corner of Swanston and Grattan streets would pass the Royal Women's Hospital across Swanston on their left. They would cross another street and then walk a little way further to 99 Grattan, which would be followed by 103, a double terrace, St Joseph's Convent. That was the door I was told to knock on. There was no 101 Grattan Street. But for years, 101 Grattan Street was where I thought I'd lived. It's where people addressed their letters to us girls. The nuns  whose terrace covered a double block  gave us that address so that there would be no real address if someone came searching for one of the girls. The postman knew the letters were to go to the convent at 103.

I only learnt this years later, when I went back to Grattan Street with my husband, David, trying to understand something of what had happened, what I'd done. I went looking for the place I'd been and found it had never existed. In the home, I had my own room with its own sink. I met the other girls, one of whom became my good friend. Jill was a nurse and the father of her baby was an apprentice from her home town in northern Victoria. He was young, like us. I told Jill the father of my baby was a boy I knew at university, also young like us. The father of Jill's baby came to visit Jill each month. They were going to be married one day, Jill told me, but not yet. Same with me, I said. Jill and I sat up late smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. As our bellies swelled, we didn't talk about babies. We talked about what we'd do when we got out. We talked about the other girls. There was a girl we hated, Paula, who came back at the end of September, after her baby was born, much changed Paula was a chatterbox, never shut up  it was what we criticised in her  but when she came back to pack up after her baby was born, she had little to say. If this unnerved us, we never spoke of it. Later we heard she changed her mind and came back a second time, within the 30 days, and took her baby home. Typical, Jill and I would have said, if we had said anything. Paula was weak. Another girl, Jane, wasn't booked into the Royal Women's Hospital like the rest of us. She was a patient at the private Catholic Mercy Hospital. I think her people were unhappy about what she'd done. No one visited her.

Lily was a prostitute, pregnant for the second time, giving up a second baby. She'd had polio as a child and walked with sticks. When she was with us, we walked slowly. She said she didn't know if she would give up this baby. Writer Mary-Rose MacColl in 2017, photographed on the Gold Coast. Credit:Russell Shakespeare I didn't feel self-conscious or guilty, not then. If I felt bad, it was for what I'd done to my teacher. I was young enough to believe I was on an adventure, like my teacher and her husband said. My only cause for shame was what I'd done to them, what I'd done to my teacher. I felt it was all my fault. As my belly swelled, I began to see it as a lump, an inconvenience, that stopped me sleeping. Not as anything else. I never looked at books with pictures of babies in them. I didn't notice if ever I happened upon a woman with a baby in the street. I didn't see women with babies at the hospital when I went for appointments. Sister Mary told us an occupational therapist would be coming to see us on Thursday mornings. She was blonde, the occupational therapist, and worked hard to act as if we were normal. She smiled and trained her eyes on our faces, ignoring our bellies. In one of the first sessions, I said, "Are we going to do basket weaving?" She told me I could leave if I wanted to, so I did. I went and hung around Sister Margaret in the kitchen.

Sister Margaret was the cook at St Joseph's. She cooked for the nuns and for us. "The same food," she told me. "I cook the same food for you as I do for us. I don't let them do the other." She didn't tell me what "the other" was. I think it was that the nuns would eat different food from the girls; the girls ate poorer-quality food. At St Joseph's, before my time, girls were made to work. The nuns took in linen and the girls washed it and wrung it out to earn their keep while they waited for their babies to be born. They were treated as unforgiven sinners. That was why their food was different from the nuns' food. Their sin was not that they were going to give up a baby. Their sin was the sex that made the baby. Giving up the baby, sending the baby to a good home with two Catholic parents, was what redeemed them, got them out of the home where they were sinners unforgiven. The memory of these beliefs was still fresh when I was in Melbourne. There were still nuns living in the convent who took this view, including Sister Mary. She liked me, because I was intelligent and read books. I think she might have found my behaviour hard to square away with who I was, would have preferred, I think, sinful girls to be unintelligent. I liked Sister Margaret best. She was tall and large-boned, in her 50s when I met her, the youngest of 12 children. She had a red face, as if her heart was about to let her down, or she'd just come in from a windy walk along a headland. She added so much salt to our food that sometimes it was hard to eat. "I have to cook it to someone's taste," she said, "so I cook it to mine." I kept a coffee mug she gave me, beige Dunoon porcelain with brown sheep embossed on it. I've tried to throw it out several times, but it keeps getting out of the bin and up onto the sink, so I've given up.
London: Britain's Prince William, his wife Kate and brother Harry have given their most public comments on their emotional struggles and how the siblings' closeness helped them cope with their mother's death.

The three have been speaking out this week as part of a high-profile Heads Together campaign, which aims to break stigmas around mental health issues and encourage people to speak openly about their emotions.

In a six-minute film recorded at Kensington Palace in central London on Wednesday, the trio discussed the stress of becoming new parents, dealing with trauma at work, and the death of the princes' mother, Princess Diana, in a Paris car crash in 1997.

"When you have children, it really does put your own emotions and your own life into perspective and it has been very, very interesting understanding why I get so upset about some things, why some things effect me," William said in the clip released by his office on Friday.
By Mustafa Shaikh: The non-bailable warrant issued against Sahara founder Subrata Roy was cancelled on Friday after he presented himself in special SEBI court in Mumbai.

Roy had approached High Court to cancel the NBW issued on March 31 and was asked to produce himself before the designated court.

Roy was released on a personal bond in the court of Sessions Judge Shahida Razvi. Bail was given on the condition that Roy will be present for the hearings, unless he gives appropriate reason for not being present.

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The warrant was issued in a criminal prosecution case filed by SEBI against Subrata Roy and the directors of two companies - Sahara India Real Estate Corporation and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation -- before special SEBI court in Mumbai. The case was registered for violating SEBI provision under section 24 and a chargesheet in the case was filed in 2012.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 18, where argument on framing of charges will take place.

A total of five people are accused in the case in which Roy is the promoter, three others are directors and fifth is the company. The accused collected close to Rs 17,400 crores from 3 crore investors subscribing to optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCDs), along with 15 per cent interest, without listing the company in a recognised stock exchange.

On August 31, 2012, Supreme Court had directed Sahara group companies to refund close to Rs 17,400 crore that was mobilised from three crore investors. Special Public Prosecutor, Dr Poornima Advani had informed the court that there had been delays in the case and that charges should be framed at the earliest.

Roy's Lawyer Ashok Sarogi had told India Today, "We have just got the chargesheet. We will go through it and then decide whether we want to argue on the framing of chargesheet or we want to go for discharge."

--- ENDS ---
Ivanka Trump, seeking to avoid conflicts of interest, will forgo a promotional tour for her upcoming book and put the proceeds in a charitable fund.

The charity will make grants of $132,000 each to the National Urban League and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the first daughter said in a statement Thursday. Trump said she won't make appearances on behalf of the work, "out of an abundance of caution and to avoid the appearance of using my official role to promote the book."

The issue of how to handle the book has become thornier since her father Donald Trump was elected president in November. She is now an official, unpaid federal employee, a role she took after Democratic lawmakers said in March that her previously unspecified position raised questions about how she'd avoid conflicts.

"In light of government ethics rules, I want to be clear that this book is a personal project," Ivanka Trump said. "I wrote it at a different time in my life, from the perspective of an executive and an entrepreneur, and the manuscript was completed before the election last November."
The principal of the school inside Darwin's notorious juvenile detention centre went on Facebook to attack compensation payouts to four teenage detainees who had been tear-gassed during riots in the Darwin facility.

Lisa Coon who is on leave from the Tivendale School said they were her private views and had nothing to with her post as principal.

Dylan Voller testifies at the royal commission.

She told the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory she had been outraged by the payouts that had ranged between $12,000 and $17,000.

"This was money being paid to boys who had caused thousands of dollars damage," she said.
Some Canberra teachers are reducing their hours to better cope with a workload the education union has labelled a major threat to the workforce's health and wellbeing.

One long-serving secondary school teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said the increasing expectation that teachers would complete administrative work without recognition of what they already did left her feeling like she was "drowning".

Stressed Canberra teachers are reducing their workload. Credit:Virginia Star

Teachers in Canberra preschools and primary schools may teach up to 21 hours and 30 minutes face-to-face each week. In high schools and colleges, teachers may be asked to teach up to 19 hours weekly, averaged over the year.

As well, teachers are expected to undertake curriculum planning, assessment, student supervision, reporting, professional learning, parent-teacher interviews and "activities to enrich the educational experience of students", an Education Directorate spokeswoman said.
It's known as the leafy north shore for good reason, but some of Sydney's greenest suburbs are the worst offenders when it comes to cutting down mature trees, according to research submitted to the Greater Sydney Commission.

Pittwater, Warringah, Hornsby, Willoughby, Hunters Hill and Manly local council areas have seen the highest percentage loss in their tree canopy in the past seven years, according to the research by environmental lobby group 202020Vision.

Green scene: The main shopping area in Hampden Road, Artarmon. Credit:Peter Rae

Environment groups blame complying development laws, which permit the removal of trees under eight metres, and the notorious 10/50 rule, which was introduced to mitigate bushfire risk. The groups say the rule has been abused by homeowners who have been clearing trees so that views enhance their property values.

"The 10/50 tree clearing rule was a major mistake by the Baird government and we are now seeing the evidence. It's been modified but is still a threat," said Jeff Angel from the Total Environment Centre.
Triple murderer Matthew De Gruchy has been working at an abattoir in country NSW as he prepares for his permanent release from prison.

Twenty-one years after he killed three of his four family members at their Illawarra home, De Gruchy has reinvented himself as a model inmate of Junee Correctional Centre. With his parole hearing in sight, he has earned the right, since June, to leave prison for approved reasons including work and education.

Matthew De Gruchy in prison circa 2001.

De Gruchy was 18 years old when he bludgeoned to death his mother Jennifer (41), sister Sarah (13) and brother Adrian (15) in the family's Albion Park Rail home on March 12, 1996.

In a nod to his youth and perhaps a sign of softer sentencing times, he was sentenced to a maximum 28 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 21 years.
New research into the "hobbit" fossils of now-extinct metre-tall humanoids discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores has found they most likely evolved from an ancient African ancestor and not from the taller Homo erectus found on Java, as widely believed.

Research led by Australian National University scientist Debbie Argue has said that Homo floresiensis was more likely a sister species of Homo habilis, which emerged up to 2 million years ago in Africa, rather than the larger and more recently evolved Homo erectus, which emerged 1.2 million years ago.

Dr Argue said: "It's possible that Homo floresiensis evolved in Africa and migrated, or the common ancestor moved from Africa then evolved into Homo floresiensis somewhere else."

Last year, research led by Gert van den Bergh from the University of Wollongong's centre for archaeological science claimed that the "hobbits" had evolved from the larger Homo erectus.
A list of scientific luminaries and their supporters have signed a letter in support of international scientific endeavour on the eve of the Global March for Science on Saturday.

Entertainer Tim Minchin has joined Australian of the Year Alan Mackay-Sim, Nobel Laureate and ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt, University of NSW science dean-elect Emma Johnston and broadcaster Adam Spencer to "call for a world that supports, celebrates and learns from science".

Tim Minchin is speaking out for science. Credit:Justin McManus

The March for Science will take place in hundreds of cities in more than 50 countries on April 22, Earth Day. The focus will be on Washington DC, where science advocates will rally in response to proposed budget cuts to science announced by US President Donald Trump and what many perceive as his interference in independent climate science research.

Australian of the Year Professor Mackay-Sim is a leading expert in stem cell research at Griffith University. He said: "Scientists must publicly discuss the importance of science in political decision-making and convince politicians of all parties to keep investing in science is as important for our future as spending on health and defence."
When Perth man Ben Marshall received a call from his former boss on Wednesday asking if he had just won $2.35 million in the MSWA Mega Home Lottery, Mr Marshall asked if he'd been drinking.

"He said to me, I just saw your names on the news, have you won a house and a million dollars?" Mr Marshall said.

The Success couple's new $1.35 million home. Credit:MSWA Mega Home Lottery

As he hung up the phone, he turned to his wife Kaori Tanaka, who had just answered a call on her mobile phone as the couple walked along Elizabeth Quay on their way to dinner to celebrate her 34th birthday.

He saw she had a look of surprise and shock on her face.
By Press Trust of India: dispute

(Attn Eds: adding a line in para two) Chennai, Apr 21 (PTI) "Baahubali" actor Sathyaraj today expressed "wholehearted regret" over his comments during the Cauvery dispute while appealing for the smooth release of the second part of the SS Rajamouli-directed film in Karnataka next week.

The actor, who plays the role of Kattappa in the movie, clarified that he was not against Kannada people and was even offered films in the industry though he could not do them due to the paucity of time.

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His statement comes following the demands of an apology from the actor by pro-Kannada outfits, who had threatened to stall the release of the film in the state.

In a video released to the media, Sathyaraj read out a statement, saying he had made the remarks nine years ago at a protest held by the Tamil film industry against the "attack" on Tamils in Karnataka over the Cauvery dispute. "I had spoken something nine years ago at the meeting which has been viewed on Youtube. And since they feel hurt over some of the words spoken by me, I express my wholehearted regret to them (Kannada people) for those words," he said.

Sathyaraj said he did not want the hard work of the films team go to waste and appealed for allowing its release in Karnataka.

"I am a small actor in a mega film called Baahubali. I dont want the efforts of many people to go to waste. Not just that, I have the added responsibility of ensuring exhibitors in Karnataka, who have bought (screening rights of) Baahubali 2, are not affected," he said in what he termed as an "explanation" to Tamil people and activists.

An atheist, known for his pro-Tamil views, Sathyaraj insisted that he will continue to voice support for matters concerning Tamils including the Cauvery dispute and the Eelam issue in Sri Lanka.

The actor, sporting a black T-shirt synonymous with the the states Progressive movement led by rationalist leader, late E V Ramasamy Periyar, said he was not against Kannada people.

In a message to producers and filmmakers, he said those who fear "problems" in the future by casting him in their films may not do so and avoid "facing losses."

"Because I take more pride in living and dying as a Tamil without any superstition than living and dying as an actor," he added.

He also extended his thanks to director Rajamouli, the films producers, various professional bodies of Tamil cinema including an artistes association and his well-wishers "for tolerating the difficulties caused by me."

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Kannada Okoota, an umbrella organisation of Kannada bodies, has announced Bengaluru Bandh on April 28, the date of release of the film, to protest his remarks.

"The remarks made by Sathyaraj against Kannadigas during the Cauvery row (a few years ago) had crossed limits of decency. We will not allow the film to be released under any circumstances," Vatal Nagaraj, who heads Kannada Okoota, had said.

Director Rajamouli has already released video statement, saying Sathyarajs comments were made in a personal capacity and had no relation with the movie. PTI SA BN JCH BK

--- ENDS ---
Sentencing laws for methamphetamine dealers have been labelled "insufficient" by WA's new attorney general after state prosecutors this week successfully appealed a four-and-a-half year sentence handed down to a drug baron in mid-2016.

The sentencing judge, in his original remarks, indicated he believed the court's approach to drug offences was "softening" - contradicting the state government's hard line on fighting WA's ice crisis.

A WA drug lord has had his 'soft' sentence thrown out on appeal as the state promises to introduce harsher penalties for meth dealers.

Jacksen Nillson's Geraldton house and storage unit was raided in 2015 after police intercepted an envelope containing 129 grams of methamphetamine destined for a PO Box registered in his name.

The 24-year-old later pleaded guilty to possessing 377 grams - or around $250,000 worth of methamphetamine, other drugs including MDMA and cannabis and $23,635 in cash.
Jakarta: A day after Jakarta's Christian governor was ousted in an election riven with religious tension, US Vice-President Mike Pence pronounced that "Indonesia's tradition of moderate Islam frankly is an inspiration to the world".

"In your nation, as in mine, religion unifies, it doesn't divide," Pence gushed inside the presidential palace in Jakarta.

To be fair, a version of these words is parroted by most Western leaders, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, when they visit Indonesia.

But the remarks were jarring given the timing.
Lille, France: So called 'Twitter bots' that masquerade as real people and spread fake news and propaganda on social media have been detected in action in France in the lead-up to this weekend's presidential election.

However, French voters are sharing much better quality information online than what many US voters shared in last year's presidential election, according to an analysis released on Saturday by a group of experts from Oxford University.

The Computational Propaganda project at the Oxford Internet Institute said they have not yet seen 'bot' activity in France at the levels they recorded during the last days of last year's American presidential election, when just as much 'junk news' was being shared online as genuine, professional news.

However they found that bot activity was rising in France.
Jeremy Corbyn promised to do things differently to the establishment. Credit:Bloomberg Lazarus returned from the dead, and so too can Labour return from 24 per cent in the polls (the latest YouGov figure), literally half the Conservatives' figure, in just a month and a half. Water was turned into wine, and so too can Corbyn turn his 23 per cent approval rating  less than half his opponent's and one of the worst of any Labour leader in history  into a ticket to Downing Street. Surprise: British Prime Minister Theresa May called an election much earlier than promised. Credit:Getty Images "We are bigger, stronger and more determined than we have ever been," Corbyn assures the room  and the electorate on the other side of the cameras. "We will prove the establishment experts wrong and change the direction of this election."

Those "experts" have taken a pummelling recently. But their polls project that Labour will be pummelled on June 8. The laws of statistics and probability have Labour winning fewer than half the number of seats as the Conservatives, who would have their biggest Commons majority since Margaret Thatcher's after the 1983 election. "All I can say is, in 2015, almost exactly two years ago, I was given 200-to-one as an outside chance": Jeremy Corbyn. Credit:Bloomberg That was the year Thatcher rode a wave of post-Falklands popularity, against a Labour gutted by defections to the new Social Democratic Party (SDP). The Labour of 1983 had swung sharply to the left under Michael Foot, whose 39-page election manifesto was later famously dubbed  by a fellow Labour MP  "the longest suicide note in history". That document proposed unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher taxes for the rich, renationalisation of recently privatised bodies such as British Telecom (ironically, it also included withdrawal from the European Common Market). Prime Minister Theresa May meets supporters after delivering her first speech of the campaign on Wednesday. Credit:Getty Images

Corbyn's manifesto is expected to be significantly less radical. But his rhetoric echoes the old politics. On Thursday the Labour leader flies a very red flag. He rails against the powerful, the "cosy club", the "wealth extractors", the "corrupt rule of the City and the tax dodgers". "It's the establishment versus the people and it is our historic duty to make sure that the people prevail," he says. Cartels are hoarding wealth that belongs to the workers  the nurses, teachers, builders and carers, he says. "I don't play by [the establishment's] rules. They are yesterday's rules, set by failed political and corporate elites we should be consigning to the past."

It's an energetic, punchy speech, despite an oddly paced delivery that often sees him end obvious applause-bait lines with his quiet voice, rather than his "cheer now" voice. But it's the content rather than the delivery that raises eyebrows. ITV's political editor Robert Preston asks afterwards "is there anyone alive who has heard class-war rhetoric like this from a Labour leader when fighting to win a general election?". After Corbyn's speech, a journalist has the temerity to ask if he's not just a member of the "Islington elite". The crowd boos. Corbyn hits back, smartly, pointing out his constituency has its share of poverty, social injustice and inequality. A journalist mentions the polls and Corbyn sarcastically thanks her for bringing it up. But he's prepared with a zinger comeback.

"All I can say is, in 2015, almost exactly two years ago, I was given 200-to-one as an outside chance," he says. It's true. The crowd loves it. Two years ago, of course, Labour was just about to go into an election under Ed Miliband, which it was projected to win or nearly win, but instead convincingly lost (leaving pollsters red-faced and apologetic for their forecasts' failure). The consensus among commentators in the wash-up was that Miliband had been just a little too left-wing for the electorate  though it's interesting to note how many of his policies, such as caps on energy bills, were quietly adopted by the Conservative government. In early June 2015 Corbyn announced he would run for leader, as an "anti-austerity" candidate. He only just managed the minimum number of nominations from his parliamentary colleagues who saw him as useful to widen the debate but never expected him to win it.

Bookmakers didn't rate him. William Hill put him at 100-1, Ladbrokes 200-1 and Betfair an extraordinary 980-1. But in the leadership battle that followed over the summer Corbyn defied all predictions. He was backed by trade unions who didn't want a return to Blair-style "New Labour", and grassroots campaigners from the anti-war and Occupy movements. It was cheap and easy to register with the party as a supporter, and many did, especially young people, excited by Corbyn's left-field style and old-school left-wing politics, flooding social media with their enthusiasm. Party members suspected they were being infiltrated by "entryists", interlopers from the Socialist Party. But their complaints fell on deaf ears, especially as Corbyn packed room after room on a barnstorming campaign. In the end he won not just the most votes from Labour MPs and MEPs, but also from members of affiliated organisations such as unions, and among the registered supporters both new and old. It felt like a breath of fresh air. There was a sense that he was a genuine political phenomenon, a cut-through, plain-speaking figure who could sell the left's message, draw on resentment against austerity economics, and transform Westminster. But Corbyn has never hit such heights again. His eccentric style in Parliament (he likes posing questions supplied by voters to the PM) exacerbated his unpopularity with his own parliamentary colleagues, who felt he was regularly trounced by the government in the Westminster bullring. He was forced into reshuffle after reshuffle as MPs decided they couldn't work with him in the shadow ministry. And his popularity among potential voters dropped, month by month, until many  even within his own party  considered him unelectable.

A wave of Labour MPs have chosen this snap election to announce their retirement. Many used age as an excuse, some say it's time to move on. But many might have hung on if they thought they'd be on a winning team  or could say with a straight face they thought their leader would make a good prime minister. On Thursday, former MP and longtime ally of Corbyn, Bob Marshall-Andres, revealed he had joined the Liberal Democrats, calling his former party "a political basket case" that had failed to rise to the challenge of the Brexit referendum campaign. Middlesbrough MP Tom Blenkinsop said he wouldn't stand as "I have made no secret about my significant and irreconcilable differences with the current Labour leadership". Slough's Fiona MacTaggart said she had been "bored by political squabbles over personalities and I know I don't still have the passion which has driven my politics". Oddest of all, perhaps, is John Woodcock, the Barrow and Furness MP, who said he would stand for re-election "but I will not countenance ever voting to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister".

Theresa May has chosen to frame this election as a kind of Brexit referendum, on her vision of a "hard" separation from the EU, and on her  versus Corbyn's  ability to lead the country through the messy, difficult years to come. One theory is that this could help Labour, boosting their vote with the near half the country that voted against Brexit. Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs, at King's College London, does not buy it. "If the whole narrative of this election is about Brexit, [Labour is] in trouble because they don't have a narrative," he says. "[Corbyn] wants to talk about social care, the NHS, schools, cuts, that sort of thing." Corbyn was never very convincing on his arguments for Remain  to the annoyance of his colleagues. And he has a pro-free-movement stance that is causing headaches for MPs who are being told on the doorstep "control immigration or piss off", Menon says.

This week BBC radio sent a reporter into Labour  and Brexit  heartland in the north of England. They found working-class voters who professed themselves satisfied with the way May was running things, who were considering voting Tory for the first time in their lives. Menon says this loss of the working class is not a new phenomenon for Labour. "Across Western Europe the centre-left is getting screwed, partly because it was an unhappy coalition between metropolitan liberals and traditional working-class communities and it's very hard to hold that together," Menon says. "Labour have suffered from that. From 2005 onwards the working-class vote for Labour has been in massive decline." That said, it's wrong to say all Labour voters who voted Leave would switch to the Tories.

"Yes they don't want to be in the EU, but they've got 100 years of family history of loathing the Tories," says Menon. "It's visceral, it's emotional  The crucial thing among heartland Labour is whether they actually feel impelled to get off their arse and vote for Corbyn  I think they won't." Here, again, is the unpopularity of the leader. "The phrase du jour [among Labour MPs] is 'I will be running a very personal, local campaign'," says Menon. In summary, he says, it's not looking great for Labour. "A lot of people out there at the moment are saying you can't trust the polls, the polls are always wrong. The polls haven't had it great over the past four or five years but they've never been wrong by the sort of margin they'd need to be wrong to see Labour win this election."
GREAT BAY:---Its Story Time, at the Philipsburg Jubilee Library on Saturday. The story toddler time will take place on April 22 from 10.00am to 12.00pm. Mitsha Giterson will do the reading.

The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department within the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour (Ministry VSA), is the organizer of the annual activity.

The story toddler time is part of CPSs sustaining breastfeeding together campaign.

Breastfeeding is the best way to provide infants with the nutrients they need. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding starting within one hour after birth until a baby is six months old.

Nutritious complementary foods should then be added while continuing to breastfeed for up to two years or beyond.

For more information, you can call the Baby Clinic at 543-0295 or CPS at 542-3003 or 542-2078.
GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- The St. Maarten Tourist Bureau (STB) is inviting local photographers participation in the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Cover Star Competition in search of stunning romantic shots that would grace the cover of CTOs Your Caribbean Weddings & Honeymoons next edition.

The aforementioned publication is a major consumer and travel guide which is distributed at wedding shows and other key wedding and travel and tourism events in the United Kingdom and Europe.

The competition is open to amateurs and professionals. Those interested should contact the following persons at the STB before submitting their photos: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

CTO is looking for photos that portray the romantic side of the Caribbean  think dreamy landscapes and loved-up couples. The backdrop has to be unmistakably Caribbean; think sun-drenched beaches or beautiful rainforest; a romantic plantation house or a glamorous yacht.

Amateur and professional photographers should contact the STB as soon as possible for additional information as well as the terms and conditions.
One policeman has been shot dead and two others wounded in central Paris, French police say, with their suspected attacker killed by security forces.

A lone gunman opened fire before being killed as he fled the scene, police say. The Champs-Elysees was sealed off.

President Francois Hollande said that he was convinced the attack was "terrorist-related".

So-called Islamic State (IS) said that one of its "fighters" had carried out the attack.

Islamist militancy is a major issue in the polls after recent mass attacks claimed by IS, with 238 people killed in jihadist attacks in France since 2015, according to data from AFP news agency.

Several candidates in Sunday's presidential election have ended their campaigns early as a mark of respect, with the centre-right's Francois Fillon calling on others to halt theirs too.

"On the face of it, the officers were deliberately targeted," Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

Mr Hollande said after crisis talks with his prime minister and interior minister that the security forces had the full support of the nation and a national tribute would be paid to the fallen policeman.

He said he would hold a meeting of his security cabinet on Friday morning.

Because of its worldwide renown and its large number of visitors, the Champs-Elysees has long been seen as a potential target, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from the French capital.

A car pulled up alongside a police bus just before 21:00 (19:00 GMT) and a man got out, opening fire with an automatic weapon at the bus, Mr Brandet said.

After killing an officer, he attempted to run away while shooting at other officers, two of whom he injured, the spokesman added.

He was then shot dead by security forces.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins later said that "the attacker's identity is known and has been verified".

"I won't reveal it, because investigations and raids are already under way, in particular, to establish whether there is any evidence or not of complicity (in this attack)."

Meanwhile, IS identified the attacker as Abu-Yusuf al-Baljiki, in a statement carried by its Amaq news outlet.The whole of the Champs-Elysees was evacuated and police vehicles were lined up near a point half way up the avenue around the George V metro station, our correspondent says.

Shots were heard near the Marks & Spencer store, provoking a panicked rush away from the scene by tourists and passers-by.

Witnesses interviewed by AFP recounted scenes of panic as people ran for cover and sought shelter.

"We had to hide our customers in the basement," said Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting.

Thousands of troops and police guard tourist areas of the French capital. In February, a man armed with a machete in each hand was wounded after attacking soldiers on patrol at the Louvre Museum.

The following month, a 39-year-old man was killed at Orly airport after attacking a soldier.

Campaigns called off

The 11 candidates standing in Sunday's closely fought election were engaged in a final joint TV appearance to make their pitches as the attack happened.Marine Le Pen, of the far-right national Front, tweeted:"I feel for and stand by our security forces, who have been targeted again."

Mr. Fillon went on Twitter to pay "tribute to the security forces who give their lives to protect ours".

Both Ms. Le Pen and Mr Fillon later announced they were cancelling campaign events scheduled for Friday, the last day of canvassing for votes.

Independent centrist Emmanuel Macron said during his TV appearance that it was a president's "first duty to protect" and he expressed his "solidarity" with the police.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, standing for the far left, tweeted: "I strongly feel for the policemen killed and wounded and their families. Terrorist attacks will never go unpunished, accomplices never forgotten."

French candidates in last TV pitch ahead of vote

At the White House, US President Donald Trump said people had to be strong and vigilant.

"Our condolences from our country to the people of France," he said. "It looks like another terrorist attack and... what can you say? It just never ends."

Source: BBC News
TSA says Ofcr Noelle= Grant passed through the checkpoint with a firearm, because of lack of procedures

An 8 year SMPD veteran faces 5 years in a Taiwan jail, when she "simply forgot" that she had a Luger pistol and 6 bullets in her carry on handbag. Taiwanese customs came upon the weapon, which somehow was not detected at LAX, and that's potentially the greater story. It means that TSA policies failed to detect a pistol.

Noell Grant's odyssey began when she arrived at Taoyuan International Airport near Taipei. Authorities detected the weapon in her bag. She told airport police in Taiwan that she accidentally left her pistol and six bullets in her handbag, according to the Reuters news agency.

If convicted of the weapons charges, Grant, 42, faces up to two years in prison, according to the Taiwan media. Her husband could not be reached for comment.

Taiwan courts ordered Grant not to leave the country on April 13, after she entered Taiwan with the pistol and ammunition. She's free on bail.

The Transportation Security Administration "has determined standard procedures were not followed and a police officer did in fact pass through the checkpoint with a firearm," TSA Public Affairs Manager Nico Melendez said in a statement Wednesday.

When asked if anyone would be disciplined, he said, "we'll hold those responsible appropriately accountable."

The Santa Monica Police Department was notified last week that Grant had been detained at an airport in Taiwan during a layover to Thailand, Santa Monica police confirmed Wednesday. Grant was on vacation with family at the time, said Lt. Saul Rodriguez, the department's public information officer.

"We know that she left out of here - out of LAX - arrived in Taiwan, at which point she notified officials in Taiwan that she inadvertently left a weapon in her bag, being the gun that was found," Rodriguez said.

TSA's Melendez said the off-duty police officer went through regular screening procedures rather than expedited security.

According to the SMPD's Rodriguez, Grant was carrying a "personal, off-duty" weapon, not a service weapon. He could not say whether Grant, who has been in contact with one of her department supervisors, has been booked or charged with any crime in Taiwan. She's dealing with potential legal proceedings in that country, he said.

"My understanding is she's able to move about, (but) she cannot leave the country until the matter is resolved," Rodriguez explained.

Asked whether the incident could affect Grant's status as a police officer, Rodriguez said it was not yet clear.

"At some point, we will be doing an administrative review of what happened," he said. "Hopefully she gets back safely, and we'll take care of the administrative portion of it when she returns."

Ali Abbas, professor of public policy and engineering at USC, said the incident was "definitely a surprise," particularly because regular screening is "pretty intense."

"A security chain is as strong as its weakest link, and it shows us that we are still vulnerable," Abbas said.

Taiwan Airport Security Taiwan Police released this photo of the Luger pistol that SMPD's Noell Grant carried in her purse and through security at LAX.

If standard procedures were not followed, the question is why, he said. Did the officer know people at the airport, for example, and not go through the whole standard procedure as a result?

"If there was a personal relationship that led to a violation of standard procedure ... this should be investigated immediately," he said. Abbas is researching TSA programs alongside a former TSA chief risk officer, Kenneth Fletcher, with an eye toward increasing their efficiency.

If the oversight was made due to negligence of a security officer, that's also a concern and raises the question of whether TSA should increase the number of security officers at the airport, he said.

"I think it's human factor that led to this," Abbas said. "Whether it's personal relationships or negligence or lack of training, screening at airports should be capable of detecting a gun."
When asked "What matters to you and why," Ziad Ahmed wrote #BlackLivesMatter 100 times

When Ziad Ahmed faced his college applications to Stanford University, California's most prestigious private college, he gave the perfect answer for today's politically correct admission committee. The application asked "What matters to you and why?" Ahmed wrote #BlackLivesMatter 100 times, and got admitted. Even though he's not black. Genius, right?

Because after all, that proves he's qualified, right? Anyway, the Pakisatani American tweeted his application and admission, and the story went viral.

"I was actually stunned when I opened the update and saw that I was admitted," Ahmed wrote in an email to Mic, the millennials-centric media company. "I didn't think I would get admitted to Stanford at all, but it's quite refreshing to see that they view my unapologetic activism as an asset rather than a liability."

A senior at Princeton Day School in Princeton, N.J., Ahmed - whose Twitter handle is @ziadtheactivist - said the #BlackLivesMatter movement is inherently important to him because he is Muslim: "To me, to be Muslim is to be a BLM ally," he said, noting that "one-fourth to one-third of the Muslim community in America are black... and to separate justice for Muslims from justices for the black community is to erase the realities of the plurality of our community."

The Bangladeshi-American teen has already been recognized for his activism. In 2015, he was among MTV's Top 9 Teens Changing the World, while, in 2016, he was named one of Business Insider's Top 15 "young prodigies" making the world a better place. Now 18, Ahmed also has given a Tedx Talk in Panama about the impact of stereotypes. And he is the founder of Redefy, "an organization committed to fighting bias and stereotypes."

His Twitter announcement set off the usual social-media explosion of congratulatory comments and denunciations. Some respondents asked to know his grade point average and SAT scores. Presumably, they're quite good; Ahmed also was admitted to Yale University and Princeton University, Mic reported, though it didn't give any details about his application essays for those schools.

Other online commentators said Ahmed should have written a formal essay, addressing the "why" part of the application question.

His response to Mic was this: "The insistence on an explanation is inherently dehumanizing. Black lives have been explicitly and implicitly told they don't matter for centuries, and as a society - it is our responsibility to scream that black lives matter because it is not to say that all lives do not matter, but it is to say that black lives have been attacked for so long, and that we must empower through language, perspective, and action."

The National Review responded with an essay, calling Ahmed a "lazy activist" and a "lazy question-answerer" for not explaining his position: "Think about it: Could you imagine if Ahmed someday approaches a thesis the same way that he approached that application question?" asked reporter Katherine Timpf. What if he turned in a "one-sentence paper, believing that his point of view was so clearly correct that it was somehow above him to explain?"

If Ahmed wants to change the opinions of those who don't agree with him, Timpf argued, it is incumbent upon him to build a detailed argument.

Reached for comment, a Stanford spokesman said, "We do not discuss student applications."

Whatever his approach, Ahmed keeps meeting movers and shakers.

In 2015, while attending an Iftar dinner at the White House - an annual reception during the month of Ramadan - he got to chat with President Obama. Ahmed told MTV that he and the president discussed "counter-terrorism and Palestine and Israel. And we talked about education; girls' education. It was just the most enlightening and intellectual and informative conversation I could ever be part of. It reminded me of what I'd said before: Teens don't realize we need to be in this conversation, injustice is our fight too."
Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today said hotels and restaurants should not decide how much service charge is to be paid by the customer and it should be left to the discretion of customer.

By India Today Web Desk: No hotel or hotel or restaurant can now force you to pay service charge as the government has approved guidelines on the issue.

Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today said hotels and restaurants should not decide how much service charge is to be paid by the customer and it should be left to the discretion of customer.

Government has approved guidelines on Service Charge.- Ram Vilas Paswan (@irvpaswan) April 21, 2017

As per guidelines Service Charge is totally voluntary and not mandatory now.- Ram Vilas Paswan (@irvpaswan) April 21, 2017

Hotels/Restaurants should not decide how much Service Charge is to be paid by the customer &it should be left to the discretion of customer.- Ram Vilas Paswan (@irvpaswan) April 21, 2017

Guidelines are being sent to states for necessary action at their ends.

- Ram Vilas Paswan (@irvpaswan) April 21, 2017

As per the guidelines, the column of service charge in a bill will be left blank to customers to fill up before making the final payment. advertisement "If there is mandatory levy of service charge, customers can file a complaint in the Consumer Court," a senior Consumer Affairs Ministry official told PTI. Hefty fines and stringent action against violation cannot be taken at present as the current Consumer Protection Law does not empower the ministry to do so, the official said. However, the new Consumer Protection Bill under which an authority will be set up will have powers to take action, the official added. Last week, Paswan had said that the ministry has prepared an advisory on the service charge issue and the same was sent to the PMO for approval. "Service charge does not exist. It is being wrongly charged. We have prepared an advisory on this issue. We have sent it to the PMO for approval," Paswan had said. A number of complaints from consumers have been received that hotels and restaurants were charging 'service charge' in the range of 5-20 per cent, in lieu of tips, the ministry had said earlier. (Inputs from PTI)

Also read:

Service charge paid by consumers should be given to poor waiters: Ram Vilas Paswan

Nanny state? People grill govt on plan to fix portion sizes of dishes served by hotels

--- ENDS ---
FacilityONE Technologies Unveils UNITY Enhancements for Improved Facility Management

Posted by Publisher Hardware

LOUISVILLE, KY  (Marketwired)  04/20/17  FacilityONE Technologies, LLC, which provides a cloud-based Facility Information Solution (FIS) that enhances a buildings functional and economic lifespan and boosts employee productivity, announced today significant enhancements to its UNITY interface, including the addition of true offline create, edit and view functionality. The updates mean that users of UNITY, the industrys first responsive HTML5-based web application of its kind, can now work with critical facility information regardless of connectivity and have it automatically update and sync system-wide once online.

UNITY subscribers also benefit from the ability to create panel and preventive maintenance schedules, more efficiently capture time worked and a single screen for work orders. New annotation capabilities enable users to draw Life Safety Plans, designate hazardous areas and add notes to floorplans from within the UNITY SMARTPRINT viewer.

FacilityONE is renowned for providing strategic implementations to aid facilities in effectively managing infrastructure, reducing unnecessary expenditures and labor while enhancing operational processes, said Cathy Powell-Voigt, Executive Chair and CEO, FacilityONE. Incorporating these enhancements to the UNITY platform enables us to better support our clients diverse and evolving needs to ensure optimal functionality of the facilities they manage.

Eliminating the need for plugins, installations and licensing fees, UNITY provides seamless navigation around corrective and preventive maintenance, including graphical representations of floor plans and buildings, and the assets they contain. The interface can be utilized on a desktop computer, tablet or smartphone to manage work orders and data on facility blueprints.

By extending UNITY capabilities, we are equipping our clients with additional tools to prevent productivity losses associated with unplanned maintenance, as well as providing essential preventive measures to eliminate unnecessary expenditures, said Dr. Robin Alston, CTO, FacilityONE. The enhancements exemplify FacilityONEs ongoing efforts to provide effective, easily accessible solutions to help our clients achieve continued growth and efficiency.

Based in Louisville, Ky., FacilityONE Technologies provides web-based Facility Information Solutions (FIS) that simplify facility management by enhancing a buildings functional and economic lifespan and employee productivity. It offers the only Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), Computer-Aided Facility Management (CAFM) and asset management solutions enhanced by SmartPrint technology to support data aggregation, compliance and risk mitigation. The FacilityONE FIS is suitable for buildings and organizations of all sizes, and is currently being utilized to organize and transform facility management of millions of square feet worldwide. For more information, visit .

Angeline del Pilar
Lee Hnetinka Darkstore Raises 1.4 Million Dollars

Posted by Publisher Software

SAN FRANCISCO, CA  (Marketwired)  04/20/17  Darkstore CEO Lee Hnetinka has successfully raised $1.4 million in seed funding from , the company has announced. The funding will be used to hire additional employees and expand Darkstores operations into three new markets: Chicago, Los Angeles, and Seattle. In addition to the money, PivotNorth general partner Tim Connors will be joining Darkstores Board of Directors.

Hnetinka had the following to say about his companys new partnership:

PivotNorth brings tremendous value to Darkstore. Tim (Connors)has a deep understanding of the market and shares our vision for democratizing logistics so any retailer can offer the same affordable  delivery options as big box stores.

Darkstore specializes in allowing smaller online retailers to offer 1-hour and same day delivery services that are generally too expensive for them to offer on their own. They accomplish this by leasing excess space in buildings for use as fulfillment centers near large population centers. The company has locations in New York, San Francisco, and Phoenix in addition to the new ones above. Companies such as Deliv and UberRUSH are used to transport products from the fulfillment center to customers quickly and at an affordable price, making Darkstore the only third-party logistics provider (3PL) to partner with last-mile delivery services for a more efficient customer experience.

This message resonates with a lot of Hnetinkas retail partners, which include Tuft & Needle, Luma Home, Nootroo, Frank + Oak, and Wildfang. Their latest partner is audio manufacturer Master & Dynamic. Hnetinka had the following to say about his newest retail partner, We couldnt be more excited to partner with Master & Dynamic. Were big fans of the brand and we share the same philosophy of offering a stellar product and customer experience.

Hnetinka had previously raised $270,000 from and TripAdvisor Chief Growth Officer Gary Fritz. Darkstore is now in excellent financial shape to pursue Hnetinkas strategy of expansion.

In addition, Hnetinka has positioned Darkstore as a future market leader in the 3PL industry by securing partnerships with valuable firms such as PivotNorth, Deliv and Master & Dynamic that go well beyond short term financial gains.

Related Links

Darkstore
SICOM Acquires RTI Furthering its Commitment to Delivering Innovative Technology Solutions to Quick Service and Fast Casual Restaurants

DOYLESTOWN, PA and ATLANTA, GA  (Marketwired)  04/20/17  ., a leading best-of-breed provider of end-to-end solutions for quick service and fast casual restaurants, today announced the acquisition of , a leading technology provider for quick service and fast casual restaurants. RTIs restaurant software solutions complement SICOMs end-to-end technologies and will enable the company to expand its capacity, accelerate research and development and increase its presence in new brands and markets.

RTIs founders were multi-unit franchisees before starting the company in 1985 and built the business based on their real-life experience in the industry. They grew the company consistently through the years today serving more than 10,000 restaurants for major brands including McDonalds, Arbys, Checkers, Popeyes, Wendys, Beef O Bradys, Burger King, Brass Tap, Churchs Chicken, among others. RTI offers RTIconnect, RTIoffice and RTI Payroll solutions helping multi-unit franchises improve operational efficiencies and increase profitability.

This is a very strategic acquisition for SICOM as we focus on expanding and strengthening the solutions we provide to the quick service and fast casual restaurant industry, said , CEO of SICOM. Like SICOM, RTI has a high level of dedication and desire to help franchisees and brands increase their profitability and efficiency through the application of leading edge technology products. We welcome RTI to the SICOM family. With the industry-specific experience of its founders and employees, RTI has earned a sterling reputation among its customers. It is a growing company with a breadth of customers that will enable us to penetrate new brands with our end-to-end technologies and expand into new markets.

For more than three decades, we have been delivering restaurant software solutions and are excited to transition into this next stage of the company by joining the team at SICOM and helping empower our customers to maximize the efficiency and profitability of their operations, said Jim Clutter, CEO of RTI. SICOM has a similar culture to RTIs and its team is very likeminded in its dedication to innovation and commitment to a high-level of customer service. We look forward to the opportunities this combination has for our customers, employees and the industry.

The combined new company will serve more than 25,000 restaurants globally in over 38 countries.

RTI is a leading developer of technology solutions for the restaurant industry and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Today more than 10,000 restaurants, including many of todays best known brands, rely on a broad suite of RTI hospitality solutions. Incorporated in 1985, the company is headquartered in Marietta, Ga. For more information, visit the RTI website at .

SICOM Systems, Inc. is a leading best-of-breed provider of end-to-end technologies and services for the quick service and fast casual restaurants. The company offers front-of-house solutions (i.e. Digital Menu Boards, Point-of-Sale (POS) and Order Confirmation Units); back-of-house solutions (Drive-Thru Director and Chef Kitchen Management); as well as above restaurant solutions (360 degrees Data Analytics and SEMS4 Restaurant Management) that are helping major restaurant chains around the globe to streamline their operations. SICOM has over 40,000 digital menu boards in operation worldwide, while its POS systems are in more than 6,500 restaurants worldwide and it has more than 10,000 restaurants leveraging its enterprise management systems globally. Founded in 1987, SICOM is headquartered in Doylestown, Pa. and can be found online at .

Karen Higgins

A&E Communications, Inc.

610-831-5723
Infomart Data Centers Purchases 100% Renewable Energy at Its Silicon Valley Facility

SAN JOSE, CA  (Marketwired)  04/20/17  , a national wholesale data center provider, announces today that its Infomart facility is purchasing 100% renewable power for all electricity consumption as of January 2017.

Many leading companies have made public commitments to procure 100% renewable energy by a specified year. A list of 100 of these influential firms can be found at . According to the site, the private sector accounts for approximately half of the worlds electricity consumption. Switching this demand to renewables will accelerate the transformation of the global energy market and aid the transition to a low carbon economy.

Another purchasing coalition leadership example is and its initiative, which has set forth standards and principles for sourcing renewable power for data centers with a goal of an internet powered by 100% renewable energy. Infomart Silicon Valley has met the challenge laid out by BSR in 2017, and has done so in a transparent and repeatable way for other companies to follow.

Across the U.S., the definition of renewable energy can change by state and jurisdiction. The California Energy Commission has published a benchmark Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS), which is one of the most ambitious in the country. California requires energy service providers to purchase 27% renewables by 2017, 33% by 2020, and 50% by 2030. By purchasing 100% renewable energy by todays RPS standard, Infomart is decades ahead of Californias requirement.

Since the companys inception, Infomart has consistently been ahead of our competitors in demonstrating commitment to environmental responsibility, states John Sheputis, President Infomart Data Centers. Data centers use substantial amounts of energy and we believe its our moral duty to be both an efficient operator and to make responsible choices about energy procurement. Having a great PUE is not enough. Simply buying Renewable Energy Certificates from a distant source is not enough.

Sheputis went on to discuss why price is no longer a barrier to buying renewable. Over the last few years, renewable power pricing has become competitive with higher carbon energy sources, he comments. Using Direct Access to buy a 100% renewable mix 247 costs 6% more than the higher-carbon alternative. We could have saved money, but this was clearly the more responsible choice.

Infomarts renewable energy initiative isnt the first in its ongoing commitment to environmental responsibility. set the renewable power precedent for the Infomart data center portfolio in 2015, when the property used Direct Access rights to source power from the nations largest producer of hydroelectric power, the . In addition, Infomart Silicon Valley recently converted to using non-potable, or gray water, for 100% of the mechanical infrastructure and irrigation surrounding the facility, earning Infomart the 2016 Recycled Water Customer of the Year award. The LEED Gold Silicon Valley facility is also the only wholesale data center in California to provide Direct Access power pricing with metered power solutions. All Infomart properties are designed to maximize energy efficiency and maintain industry-leading PUE metrics.

To learn more about Infomart and its Silicon Valley data center, visit .

Founded in 2006, Infomart Data Centers (formerly Fortune Data Centers) is an award-winning industry leader in building, owning and operating highly efficient, cost-effective wholesale data centers. Each of its national facilities meet or exceed the highest industry standards for data centers in all operational categories of availability, security, connectivity and physical resilience.

Infomart Data Centers offers wholesale and colocation facilities in four markets throughout the United States: San Jose, Calif.; Hillsboro, Ore.; Dallas; and Ashburn, Va. For more information, please visit or connect with Infomart on and .

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Fresche Solutions Named One of Montreals Top Employers For 2017

MONTREAL, QUEBEC  (Marketwired)  04/20/17  , a leading provider of IBM i application management and modernization solutions, was recognized today as one of Montreals Top Employers. This is the third year in a row that Fresche has been chosen as one of the most employee-friendly and forward-thinking companies in the region. Fresche does all of the following and more for employees:

Maria Anzini, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Fresche, commented that being chosen multiple consecutive years shows that Fresche takes employee satisfaction to heart. We qualified as a top employer by providing a wide variety of benefits, flexible working conditions and numerous opportunities for growth to our employees. We also go out of our way to recognize and reward achievement. When you appreciate your employees and give them room to grow, they like where they work, and they transmit their enthusiasm to customers. Fresche continues to be a place where people are happy to arrive in the morning.

Were especially proud of the opportunities for growth that we provide to our employees. They have numerous options to help them learn, stay current and develop new skills. Were always looking for ways to innovate; we know that growth is the key to employee satisfaction and we want to encourage it any way we can. Fresche grew significantly this year and is now the largest vendor in the IBM i space, second only to IBM itself, so opportunities for advancement are available in every department.

No matter where you are in your career, if you are enthusiastic and ready for growth, Fresche is a place where you can make a significant contribution  no matter your location. We have been chosen one of Montreals Top Employers, but our benefits and philosophy extend worldwide to our many Fresche offices. Our diversified cultures around the world are a vital part of our success.

About Montreals Top Employers Program

Now entering its eleventh year, Montreals Top Employers is an annual competition organized by the editors of Canadas Top 100 Employers. This special designation recognizes the Montreal-area employers that lead their industries in offering exceptional places to work. Employers are evaluated by the editors of Canadas Top 100 Employers using the same eight criteria as the national competition: (1) Physical Workplace; (2) Work Atmosphere & Social; (3) Health, Financial & Family Benefits; (4) Vacation & Time Off; (5) Employee Communications; (6) Performance Management; (7) Training & Skills Development; and (8) Community Involvement. Employers are compared to other organizations in their field to determine which offers the most progressive and forward-thinking programs.

About Fresche Solutions

Fresche helps IBM i customers meet all their challenges. As a leading expert in IBM i, we provide products and services that span the complete IBM i application modernization and management spectrum. We enable IT with modernization strategies to support business and improve financial performance, increase market competitiveness, remove risk and add business value. With the widest solution portfolio in the IBM i marketplace and 100% referenceability, our team of experts helps organizations future-proof their business by modernizing business processes, technologies and applications. Companies running RPG, COBOL, CA 2E SYNON and Java applications rely on us for comprehensive, automated solutions that optimize IBM i systems and help take advantage of technologies such as Web, Mobile, Cloud and RPGOA on IBM i. Our complete portfolio includes solutions in the following areas:

For more information about our company, visit us on the web at

Contacts:

Fresche Solutions

Christine McDowell

Marketing Director

Tel: +1 514.747.7007

Cell:+1 514.220.1309
ITRI Wins 2017 Edison Awards with URABat

HSINCHU, TAIWAN  (Marketwired)  04/20/17  The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwans largest applied research institution, was honored at the 2017 Edison Awards in New York with its URABat technology. URABat, an ultrafast rechargeable aluminum battery, won Silver in the Energy & Sustainability/Power Source category. The Edison Awards have been recognizing the best innovations and innovators in the spirit of Thomas Edison since 1987. Other winners this year include Dow Chemicals, GE Global Operations, and 3M.

URABat, co-developed by ITRI and Stanford University, has achieved three breakthroughs: (1) discovery of the perfect combination of aluminum and graphite as the battery cell; (2) the whole battery cell is as supple as paper, and can be mass produced for various demands and product attributes; (3) the stability and durability which make the battery safe even if damaged by an external force. Currently URABat can reach a charging rate of 100 C (recharged in less than one minute) while maintaining a specific energy of 90 mAh/g and a charging/discharging efficiency greater than 99%. ITRI has certified a full-scale battery and concluded pilot production of a large surface coating for battery manufacturing. One 48 V/1Ah aluminum battery installed in an electric bicycle for road tests demonstrates a full charge within 6 minutes, a charging rate 20 times faster than conventional lead-acid batteries.

There hasnt really been a substantial growth in battery technology as the one that ITRI has provided us, commented Frank Bonafilia, Executive Director of Edison Awards. We are so pleasured to have ITRI here at the 2017 Edison Awards. Its a company that does everything we want to be associated with, a company we want to honor. Theyre pursuing that innovation is not just fun but also important, said Steve Herring, Senior Director of Nomination from Edison Awards.

We are glad that URABat has once again been recognized by an international accolade after winning the 2016 R&D 100 Awards, said Dr. Chang-Chung Yang, Deputy Division Director of ITRIs Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories. URABat is expected to offer a new power storage alternative that would hugely impact the world. The Edison Awards honor just reaffirmed our commitment to accelerating its commercialization process.

According to Dr. Yang, the technologies including the graphite materials for cathode, ionic liquid, battery cell structure, modules, and fast-charging control should put the team in a leading position among the research community of this area, and a solid foundation has been laid for future commercialization of aluminum battery technology. After commercialization, it will compete with lead acid batteries in electric motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and in renewable energy storage in electric grids and with lithium batteries for mobile devices in the future. A video of URABat demo is available here: .

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is one of the worlds leading technology R&D institutions aiming to innovate a better future for society. Founded in 1973, ITRI has played a vital role in transforming Taiwans industries from labor-intensive into innovation-driven. It focuses on the fields of Smart Living, Quality Health, and Sustainable Environment.

Over the years, ITRI has cultivated more than 140 CEOs and incubated over 240 innovative companies, including well-known names such as UMC and TSMC. In addition to its headquarters in Taiwan, ITRI has branch offices in the U.S., Europe, and Japan in an effort to extend its R&D scope and promote opportunities for international cooperation around the world. For more information, please visit .

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Irene Shih

Office of Marketing Communications

ITRI

+886-(0)3-5912542
Volaris Group, a Constellation Software company, Enters into Agreement to Acquire Asset Management Software Provider

TORONTO, ONTARIO  (Marketwired)  04/21/17  Constellation Software Inc. (Constellation) (TSX: CSU) today announced that its wholly-owned division Volaris Group (Volaris) has entered into an agreement to acquire an Asset Management software provider of telematics solutions. Completion of the acquisition remains subject to mutually agreed closing conditions.

About Volaris Group

Volaris acquires, strengthens and grows vertical market technology companies. As an Operating Group of Constellation Software Inc., Volaris is all about strengthening businesses within the markets they compete and enabling them to grow  whether that growth comes through organic measures such as new initiatives and product development, day-to-day business, or through complementary acquisitions. Learn more at .

About Constellation

Constellation Software acquires, manages and builds vertical market software businesses.

Contacts:

Constellation Software Inc.

Jamal Baksh

Chief Financial Officer

(416) 861-9677
By Press Trust of India: Washington, Apr 21 (PTI) A quick walk up and down a flight of stairs packs a more powerful and restorative buzz than a midday jolt of caffeine, according to new research.

Researchers from the University of Georgia (UGA) in the US found that 10 minutes of walking up and down stairs at a regular pace was more likely to make participants feel energised than ingesting 50 milligrammes of caffeine - equivalent to the amount in a can of soda.

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"We found, in both the caffeine and the placebo conditions, that there was not much change in how they felt," said Patrick J OConnor, professor at UGAs department of kinesiology.

"But with exercise they did feel more energetic and vigorous. It was a temporary feeling, felt immediately after the exercise, but with the 50 milligrammes of caffeine, we did not get as big an effect," said J OConnor.

The study aimed to simulate the hurdles faced in a typical office setting, where workers spend hours sitting and staring at computer screens and do not have time for a longer bout of exercise during the day.

For the study, participants on separate days either ingested capsules containing caffeine or a placebo, or spent 10 minutes walking up and down stairs - about 30 floors total - at a low-intensity pace.

"Office workers can go outside and walk, but weather can be less than ideal. It has never rained on me while walking the stairs," said OConnor.

"And a lot of people working in office buildings have access to stairs, so it is an option to keep some fitness while taking a short break from work," he said.

Study participants were female college students who described themselves as chronically sleep deprived - getting less than six and a half hours per night of shut eye.

To test the effects of caffeine versus the exercise, each group took some verbal and computer-based tests to gauge how they felt and how well they performed certain cognitive tasks.

Neither caffeine nor exercise caused large improvements in attention or memory, but stair walking was associated with a small increase in motivation for work.

The study was published in the journal Physiology and Behaviour. PTI SAR SAR

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Mendip District Council has apologised to residents living close to its Shepton Mallet offices for an intermittent noise caused by a fault with the sites boiler heating system.

The noise, which has been disturbing people locally, is being caused by problems within the flue system which causes a vibration creating a loud droning noise when the boilers at the Cannards Grave Road site are working at full capacity.

The noise has been particularly disturbing for residents early in the morning, when the boilers are first switched on. As a result, until the issue can be resolved, it has been decided that the boilers will not be switched on until 8am each day.

Donna Nolan, deputy chief executive at Mendip District Council, said: I would like to apologise to residents living in Shepton Mallet who have been disturbed by this noise.

It is the result of a complex fault with one of the boilers at the Shape Mendip Hub which we are working hard to get resolved as quickly as possible.

We will now be switching on the boilers later each morning to reduce disturbance to local people.

I would like to thank people living close to the offices in Cannards Grave Road for their patience and assure them we are working hard to resolve this issue as soon as we can.

Residents with queries about the issue should contact Stuart Finney, Group Manager for Neighbourhood Services, on 01749 341418.
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A primary school in Crewkerne will be closed until Monday (April 24) following the death of its head teacher.

David Carter, who was appointed head teacher of St Bartholomew's First School in 2013, died on Wednesday (April 19).

The deputy head teacher and school governors announced that the school will be closed on Friday (April 21) in tribute to "a caring, committed and inspiring member of the community".

In a joint statement, chair of governors Beryl Eeles and deputy head teacher Gemma Coward paid tribute to Mr Carter, who leaves his wife Kelly and four children.

A statement from them said: "We are deeply saddened and shocked by the sudden passing of St Bartholomews First Schools head teacher, David Carter. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this very sad time.

"He was a highly respected colleague and friend, and will be sadly missed by all at the school community."

When the school reopens on Monday, support and counselling services will be available for all staff and children.

The schools senior leadership team are meeting today, and a letter is planned to be sent to all parents and carers on Monday.

St Bartholomews Church in Crewkerne is open to any member of the community who wishes to pay their respects.

The church school describes itself as proud of its strong Christian ethos and its present premises at Kithill in Crewkerne opened in 1994.
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UK fashion retail giants, Debenhams has announced it is considering closing ten of its UK stores as well as eleven of its warehouses that are no longer considered profitable as part of a new five-year financial strategy.

And that could have repercussions on the three stores currently operating in Bristol, Bath and Taunton  although it has not been disclosed what shops are thought to be at risk.

Part of the closures could include one of the main distribution centres at Lodge Farm in Northamptonshire, although it is thought the 200 jobs affected by the decision could be redeployed elsewhere.

The fashion chain currently has 165 stores nationwide, but a recent announcement on March 4, revealed that company had suffered a 6.4 per cent drop in pre-tax profits to 87.8 million over the course of the last six months.

Somerset Live understands that CEO Sergio Buchers decision is not concrete and that a list of affected stores has not been earmarked as further assessment is required.

A spokesman for the company said: "Debenhams CEO announced its interim results and future strategy this morning, which includes looking at the store estate.

While it is stated that up to 10 stores will be considered for closure over the next five years, there will not be any immediate implications for any of the stores.

At the same time, we continue to open a small amount of stores in selected locations."
Chantal Vaughan was shocked to deal with a snakes-on-a-plane kind of situation when she saw that a huge snake was living in her gym in Australia for two days, undetected.

By India Today Web Desk: Gym is a great place for getting your body in shape, but how will you react if a huge snake falls over you while you are flexing those muscles?

Well, you will probably freak out and pass out on the spot. But this Australian gym owner did not.

Chantal Vaughan, the owner of a gym located in Rockhampton, Australia, was shocked when she got to know that a dangerous serpent was living in her gym for two days.

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She had noticed a hole in her gym's ceiling but thought it was a possum, and ignored it. But, it was actually a huge snake that fell from the ceiling after a massive meal and hid in the gym for two days while the gym held regular work-out sessions.

Photo: Facebook/Chantal Vaughan

Also read: Watch: Deadly python swallows man, police cuts open snake's stomach to retrieve his body

According to a report by The Morning Bulletin , the cleaner of the gym informed Vaughan about the snake's presence after 48 hours. When she saw the reptile, she immediately posted pictures on a local Facebook page called 'CQ snake identification, relocations and queries.'

Bokwa CQ, Vaughan's gym was subjected to possum trespassing on a regular basis which made her take the "hole-problem" lightly assuming it was a possum, a tree-dwelling Australasian marsupial mammals.

Photo: Facebook/Chantal Vaughan

Also read: Goes down in hissstory: Woman ends up with a snake in her ear piercing

Vaughan looked on social media to get help for getting the serpent removed from her gym.

"He was really well behaved actually because he was so full, you can clearly see that he had a possum in his belly," she said.

Also watch: Roasted Bats, Skewered Rats and Sliced Snakes - Tomohon Food Market Has It All

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If you've been walking through Yeovil town centre recently, you may have noticed police tape outside one of the town's many charity shops.

The Age Concern branch on Middle Street had tape across its front, which was captured by a passing shopper.

Given the building's history - including a fire last year which practically destroyed the retail unit - the sight of police tape would lead people to expect the worst.

In fact, the reason for it is much more mundane - it was put up to protect the public from a fallen roof slate.

Steve Wooldridge, Head of Retail Operations at Age UK, said: "We can confirm that on Wednesday afternoon (April 19), a roof tile above the Age UK shop in Yeovil became dislodged and fell off onto the pavement outside the shop.

"No one was hurt, but as a health and safety precaution police tape was placed around that area of the shop until the contractors attended yesterday (April 20).

"The roof has been inspected and no defects have been reported by the contractor. The shop remains open as usual."
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THE BIGGEST STORIES ACROSS TAUNTON IN YOUR INBOX

A new interactive website has been created that looks to highlight the increasing levels of poor parking across the country  and this includes Somerset.

A charity called Guide Dogs, which specialises in helping the visually impaired, has put the website together to highlight the impact obstructions can have on those who have no sight.

The interactive guide is regularly updated and allows members of the public to upload examples of ignorant motorists who feel the need to leave their vehicles in compromising positions.

The pictures include where the car is parked and the street it was pictured on.

A spokesman from Guide Dogs told The Mirror: The interactive map is a tool to highlight the scale of the problem. There needs to be nationwide solution to this nationwide problem. Its a national issue and the map highlights that.

A survey conducted by Guide Dogs UK showed that 97 per cent of blind or partially sighted people encounter problems with street obstructions, and 90 per cent of those had experienced trouble with a pavement parked car.

Pavement parking is outlawed in London, and Guide Dogs is campaigning for an Act of Parliament to ban it across England and Wales.

(Image: Guide Dogs)

The organisation is planning to take their campaign further after they claim their pleas were ignored in the past by leading authorities and politicians.

The submission of photographs enables the charity to build up an extensive portfolio that they can then use as evidence in their campaign.
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Police are appelaing for help as they investigate a burglary in Chapmanslade near Frome .

A distinctive catering van with the branding 'Tea & Sympathy' on the side was stolen.

A spokesman from Avon and Somerset Constabulary said: "Offenders broke into a property in the village between Tuesday, April 18 and Thursday April 20 and took the keys to the van before stealing it.

"The white Peugeot Partner refrigerated van has the registration NV59 LHZ.

"Other car and property keys were also stolen during the burglary."

Avon and Somerset police shared a tweet with pictures of the van:

If you have seen this van, or know where it is, or if you have any information about the burglary, can call PC Declan Quinn on 101 and give the call handler the reference number 5217087350.
2022 Indiana election results: See the latest updates from St. Joseph County

Vote totals are preliminary until all are counted and certified by the St. Joseph County Election Board.
A Bhil youth in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district has made an offer to the Modi government in regards to tackling stone pelters in Kashmir: use their traditional weapon, Gofan.

By India Today Web Desk: Welcome to the newest battalion in India, the Gofan Battalion, which is full of Madhya Pradesh's youth who want to give stone pelters in the Valley a taste of their own medicine.

Photo: ANI

A group of Bhil youth in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district, better known as the 'Gofan Battalion', recently appealed to PM Narendra Modi to take on stone pelters in Kashmir using a traditional weapon that Bhils invented.

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They wrote a letter to the prime minister and claimed that they should be sent to Kashmir to take care of the stone pelters, and handed it over to the district collector RC Saxena.

What is Gofan?

Known as "Gofan", the weapon is a desi-slingshot which works on a simple missile phenomenon.

How it works?

A Gofan consists of a piece of rope where the loose ends are held in one hand and at the centre a square or rectangular piece of cloth, rubber or skin is attached on which a stone is put.

The rope has to be rotated until it has gained sufficient velocity and then released from one, which makes the stone fly in the air at a great velocity. The stone can hit till 50m accuracy.

Also read: Kashmir: Students turn stone-pelters against police, dozens injured in clashes

What does the Gofan battalion wants?

"We will give a befitting reply to them, stone for stone, and send them packing" said Bhanu Bhuria, one of the youths.

RC Bhaskare, the police inspector of the tribal belt told HT , "The stone missile travels at two to three times the velocity compared to a person throwing a stone and it also travels a greater distance. Some skilful tribals can hit a target at 50 metres with accuracy,"

Why go Gofan?

The Bhil group of youths invented the weapon after they saw the grave situation of soldiers in the valley and decided to train an entire battalion who are skilled in this defence art.

Also read: Kashmir unrest: Government to rope in oil-rich Middle East nations to stop funding of separatists

Jhabua superintendent of police Mahesh Jain told HT that a large number of tribals used the gofan and were both deadly and accurate.

The tribe was known for fighting against the British under their tribal leader Tantiya Bhil and claims they want to serve the country again by helping the helpless forces.

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Also watch: I'm not even a stone-pelter, says Kashmiri man tied to jeep

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With this, it is the eighth consecutive term of KCR as president of TRS since its raising in 2001.

By Ashish Pandey: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has been unanimously elected as president of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) at the party's plenary held in Hyderabad today.

With this, it is the eighth consecutive term of KCR as president of TRS since its raising in 2001. KCR has been elected unanimously as party president at the plenary as no one else filed nominations for the post of the party president.

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Speaking to media after the election of KCR as party president, state home minister and senior party leader N Narsimha Reddy said, "As per the election schedule, the process of filing the nominations for the party president's post began on April 14 and continued till April 18. Total 12 sets of nominations were received proposing KCR's name."

KCR was a member of the Telugu Desam Party until he quit the party due to differences with the then chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu. He quit the membership of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and the post of Deputy Speaker of Andhra Pradesh Legislature and formed a new party Telangana Rashtr Samithi on April 27, 2001 as a flag bearer party for separate Telangana agitation.

After statehood, the party won 2014 Telangana Assembly Election and formed the first government in Telangana State. K Chandrashekar Rao is the first Chief Minister of Telangana and his party has 11 Loksabha and three Rajya Sabha MPs representing the state in Delhi.

Also Read:

Telangana: CM Chandrasekhar Rao announces 100 per cent free fertilisers for farmers, Opposition calls it early poll preparation

Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao to double up as coolie for two days

Telangana minister to address meet on water resources in US

Telangana shocker: Woman poisons physically challenged 3-year-old daughter

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By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with Panneerselvam camp announcing panel)

Chennai, Apr 21 (PTI) In signs of thaw on AIADMK merger move, the factions led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami and the one by O Panneerselvam today announced formation of their respective committees to hold discussions.

Rajya Sabha MP R Vaithilingam will head the panel set up by the Palaniswami group while the Panneerselvam camp tonight named senior leader and former minister K P Munusamy as the head of a seven-member committee.

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Former ministers C Ponnaiyan, R Viswanathan and K Pandiarajan, Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan, former MP T H Manoj Pandian and former MLA J C D Prabhakar were the other members, a release from Panneerselvam camp said.

Earlier in the day, the Palanaismami camp constituted its committee led by Vaithilingam (which is likely to include some ministers) to hold talks with the Panneerselvam faction.

Responding to the development, Munusamy this evening announced that his faction would also constitute a committee soon to hold the merger talks.

The developments came a day after the talks appeared to have hit a roadblock with the Panneerselvam camp seeking formal expulsion of V K Sasikala and T T V Dhinakaran from the party.

It had also sought a CBI probe into the circumstances leading to former chief minister Jayalalithaas death on December 5 last year.

Hardening its stance for talks, the OPS camp had also demanded that 30 members of the Sasiskala family be formally expelled from the party.

Meanwhile, former School Education Minister K Pandiarajan of OPS faction confirmed that the Palaniswami group had contacted them for talks.

Earlier, the AIADMK (Amma) leader and Local Administration Minister S P Velumani quoted Palaniswami as saying that Vaithilingam, heading the panel, would be at the party office here and "we will join him as and when required."

"As far as we are concerned, we want to redeem the Two Leaves symbol and remain united," he told reporters.

Velumani said the common feeling in the faction was that there should be unity in the "party founded by MGR (M G Ramachandran) and taken forward by Amma (Jayalalithaa)".

Earlier, the ministers and senior leaders met at the party headquarters here under Palaniswami.

Following the Cabinets revolt against him early this week, Dhinakaran had said he was "stepping aside" in the interest of the party.

Munusamy had yesterday said the first demand was getting the resignation of Sasikala and Dhinakaran and later their formal expulsion along with 30 other members of their family.

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The Panneerselvam camp had also demanded withdrawal of affidavits submitted to the Election Commission by the Palaniswami faction, declaring Sasikala and Dhinakaran as party General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary, respectively.

Munusamy had said he suspected "foul play" over the Palaniswamy camps decision of April 18 to remove Sasikala and Dhinakaran.

He had said that in keeping with AIADMK party practice, a party notification should be issued on Dhinakaran and Sasikala familys expulsion.

He had said that the OPS camp would regard it as a full victory only if cadres were asked not to have any truck with the duo.

Vaithilingam had retorted that there was "no drama" over the decision to ask Sasikala and Dhinakaran to keep away from the party and the government.

"There is no drama. We compelled him (Dhinakaran) to step aside and he did it happily," Vaithilingam said.

Munusamy had yesterday in reply to a query from reporters said the OPS faction had not demanded the posts of either Chief Minister or party general secretary. Meanwhile, Dhinakaran remained incommunicado for the second consecutive day after being served summons by a two-member Delhi police team here on April 19 for allegedly trying to bribe an Election Commission official to secure the partys coveted two leaves symbol. Dhinakaran has maintained that he had already announced he would stay away from party affairs and that he could be removed only by Sasikala.

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Sasikala is at present serving a four year jail term in Bengaluru in a disproportionate assets case. PTI SA APR VS TVS RC SRY

--- ENDS ---
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 48F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 48F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.
On April 11, 1970, NASA launched three Apollo 13 (opens in new tab) astronauts to land on the moon. But disaster struck on the way to the moon, and the lunar landing was scrapped. See Apollo 13's epic mission of survival from start to finish in this photo gallery.

Related: How Apollo 13's dangerous survival mission worked (infographic) (opens in new tab)

Apollo 13 crew

(Image credit: NASA)

The crew of NASA's Apollo 13 lunar landing mission, poses for a group photo shortly before the mission launched in April 1970. From left to right: Apollo 13 Cmdr. Jim Lovell, command module pilot Jack Swigert (opens in new tab), and lunar module pilot Fred Haise (opens in new tab).

Lunar training

(Image credit: NASA)

As part of training exercises at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (opens in new tab) in Florida, astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission, simulates an extravehicular activity on the lunar surface  also known as a "moonwalk"  while inside the Flight Crew Training Building. Lovell is holding an Apollo Lunar Hand Tool in his left hand and is wearing an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (opens in new tab) (EMU) spacesuit. In front of Lovell is a gnomon (a sundial-like tool on a tripod), and behind him to the right is a tool carrier.

Getting ready for the moon

(Image credit: NASA)

Apollo 13 lunar module pilot Fred Haise (opens in new tab) completes lunar surface training exercises inside the Kennedy Space Center while preparing for extravehicular activities on the moon. Haise is wearing an Extravehicular Mobility Unit as he carries the Solar Wind Composition Experiment, which consists of an aluminum foil sheet deployed on a pole facing the sun.

Heavy lifting

(Image credit: NASA)

On Jan. 19, 1970, Apollo 13 lunar module pilot Fred Haise practices his moonwalking skills inside the Manned Spacecraft Center (now known as the Johnson Space Center (opens in new tab)) in Houston. Haise is shown here with a version of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package as he walks attached to the "Six Degrees of Freedom" simulator.

Lying down on the job?

(Image credit: NASA)

While seemingly resting, astronaut Jack Swigert (opens in new tab), command module pilot for the Apollo 13 mission, prepares for the ensuing launch in the suiting room at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Swigert replaced astronaut Ken Mattingly (opens in new tab) on the Apollo 13 crew when it was discovered that Mattingly had been exposed to the measles. (Mattingly later flew on the Apollo 16 mission instead.)

Landing practice with a "flying bedstead"

(Image credit: NASA)

A test flight of the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (opens in new tab) (LLTV) ends as astronaut Jim Lovell lands on a runaway at Ellington Air Force Base near Houston. Nicknamed the "flying bedstead," the LLTV allowed astronauts to master the intricacies of landing on the moon by simulating the lunar module's performance. Lovell would later command the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970, which aimed to land in the lunar highlands just north of Fra Mauro on the moon. That mission never made it to the moon.

Water egress training

(Image credit: NASA)

The Apollo 13 lunar landing mission prime crew members Jim Lovell (left), Fred Haise (right) and Ken Mattingly (behind Haise) prepare for water egress training inside Building 260 at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Mattingly, who was originally slated to fly on the Apollo 13 mission, was replaced by his backup crewmember, astronaut Jack Swigert, because he had been exposed to measles before the launch.

Underwater

(Image credit: NASA)

In a water tank inside the Manned Spacecraft Center in Building 260, astronaut Ken Mattingly, the original command module pilot of Apollo 13, completes a water egress training exercise.

Training in Hawaii

NASA (Image credit: NASA)

During a December 1969 simulation, astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the upcoming Apollo 13 lunar landing mission, practices with a scoop from the Apollo Lunar Hand Tools. The lunar surface traverse exercise took place at the Kapoho, Hawaii training site.

Practice for the day

(Image credit: NASA)

Two crewmembers of NASA's Apollo 13 lunar landing mission practice using tools from the Apollo Lunar Hand Tools and a gnomon. Astronauts Jim Lovell (left) and Fred Haise are pictured carrying cameras and communications equipment during the simulation.

EVA walkthrough

(Image credit: NASA)

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell participates in a simulation of the extravehicular activity, or "moonwalk" timeline. Lovell moves carrying two sub-package mockups of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. In the background to the left is Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise.
Neil deGrasse Tyson says that when people who deny science rise to power that is a recipe for a complete dismantling of our democracy.

Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson urges Americans to become more scientifically literate in a short video he posted yesterday (April 19) on his Facebook page.

In the video he titled "Science in America," Tyson comments on 21st-century attitudes toward science, explaining the importance of the scientific method and making the case that science denial could erode democracy.

"Dear Facebook Universe," he wrote. "I offer this four-minute video on 'Science in America' containing what may be the most important words I have ever spoken. As always, but especially these days, keep looking up." [2017 March for Science: What You Need to Know]

Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, the author of several books and a star of TV and radio, has been speaking for years against the troubling decline of basic science knowledge in America.

The video begins with a reminder that the United States rose up from a "backwoods country," as Tysoncalls it, to "one of the greatest nations the world has ever known," thanks to science. It was the United States that put humans on the moon and whose big thinkers created the personal computer and the internet.

"We pioneered industries," Tysonsaid. "Science is a fundamental part of the country that we are."

But in the 21st century, a disturbing trend took hold: "People have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not," he said.

In a voice full of passion, Tyson said, "This is science," as images flash across the screen showing the world's great scientists from Albert Einstein to Jane Goodall, and scientific accomplishments, from ultrasound images of a fetus and robotic surgery to animations of solar flares and pictures of a swirling hurricane.

"It's not something to say 'I choose not to believe E = mc^2,' you don't have that option."

Tyson points to scientific issues that have become highly controversial: vaccinations, human-caused climate change, genetically modified foods, even evolution. One clip shows Vice President Mike Pence, then a congressman, saying, "Let us demand that educators around America teach evolution not as fact, but as theory." (Evolution is a scientific fact; so much so that the evidence supporting its occurrence is undeniable, according to the National Academy of Sciences.)

Tyson suggests that those who understand science the least are the people who are rising to power and denying it the loudest.

"That is a recipe for the complete dismantling of our informed democracy," he said.

In about 30 seconds, Tyson explains how hypothesis and experimentation, fundamental ingredients of the scientific method, lead to emergent truths. "The scientific method does it better than anything else we have ever done as human beings," he said.

Emergent scientific truths are true whether or not a person believes them, he said. "And the sooner you understand that, the faster we can get on with the political conversations about how to solve the problems that face us."

Every minute a person is in denial only delays the political solution, he said. Tyson wants voters and citizens to learn what science is and how it works to make more informed decisions.

"It's in our hands," he said.

Original article on Live Science.
Scientists have created a new superfluid that has a negative mass, meaning that if it's pushed to the right, it accelerates to the left and vice versa.

The bizarre behavior may sound like a freakish violation of nature, but it is a phenomenon that physicists have seen hints of before. However, this is the first time that negative mass has been demonstrated without ambiguity in a lab, said Han Pu, a theoretical physicist at Rice University who was not involved in the new research.

The newly created material with negative mass is a type of Bose-Einstein condensate, in which individual atoms move as one object, the scientists wrote in the new study. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]

The new findings could hold clues to the behavior occurring in the heart of ultracold neutron stars, which also act as superfluids, said study co-author Michael Forbes, a physicist at Washington State University.

Negative mass

One of the first things that students learn in high school physics is that force is equal to mass times acceleration, or F= m*a. Called Newton's second law of motion, the equation dictates what everyone experiences daily: If you push an object (barring other forces at play), it accelerates away from you.

Yet, for a long time, scientists have known that  theoretically, at least  there are certain conditions in which acceleration could be negative.

"These types of negative-mass conditions can arise in a variety of contexts," Forbes told Live Science. "They don't occur out in the middle of space, as far as we know."

However, there have been hints of this behavior occurring spontaneously in systems where light is traveling through nonlinear materials with special electrical properties, as well as in certain types of crystals. However, in these systems, it was hard to control or predict where the negative mass occurred, so it was difficult to say whether the behavior was actually occurring, Forbes said.

Supercool atoms

In the new study, which was published April 10 in the journal Physical Review Letters, Forbes and his colleagues eliminated this uncertainty. They cooled rubidium atoms to near absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius) while the atoms were squished inside a tiny horizontal tube. At these bone-chilling temperatures, the atoms move glacially slow, and their motion is correlated such that the material made up of the rubidium atoms acts more like a wave than a particle. In essence, it is as if the collection of supercool atoms behaves as one particle.

Then, the researchers shined lasers at the tube, which changed the state of the atoms inside. Based on the angle of the laser, it pushes the particles either one way or the other. Next, the researchers opened up the ends of the tube holding the atoms. Normally, the laser light would push the cloud of atoms to expand outward toward the ends of the tube. But in this instance, a shock wave built up on one side of the cloud, causing the cloud of atoms to contract away from the wave.

"If you try to push [the cloud of atoms] away, it's effectively the lasers that are causing it to push backward," Forbes said. "At a microscopic level, that's what's happening."

Though the new demonstration may seem to violate the laws of physics, it actually doesn't.

"I wouldn't say it's unexpected," Pu told Live Science.

That's because the effective negative mass of the system here is inertial mass, which dictates how an object accelerates in response to an applied force; in this instance the study simply means that in certain narrow, dynamic conditions, the sign on the mass term in the equation is flipped. But energy is still conserved and the gravitational mass of the system, meaning the amount of gravitational pull the atom cloud exerts and experiences, has not changed. So Newton's law of universal gravitation, which describes the gravitational attraction between two masses, has not been violated. (This law is what dictates that, in a vacuum without air resistance, a feather and a lead ball will fall toward Earth at the same rate.)

Because the gravitational mass of the Bose-Einstein condensate is still positive, the individual atoms in the material are still pulled together by gravity. So if the same experiment were flipped so it were in a vertical tube, the force of gravity could cause the atom cloud to fall toward the floor and expand, just as ordinary intuition would expect, Forbes added.

(If, somehow, an experiment created conditions in which gravitational mass turned negative, that would likely violate fundamental physics laws, and things would get weird  fast. For instance, if there were a negative gravitational mass particle and a positive mass particle in proximity, one would be attracted to the other, while the other would be repelled. So one particle would essentially chase the other one forever, reaching infinitely high speeds, Forbes said.)

The new findings are interesting from a purely theoretical point of view, but they could also help scientists understand what's going on inside neutron stars, Forbes said. For instance, cold clouds of lithium atoms filled with fermions have almost identical energetic properties to neutron stars, so they could be used to create "experiments" that otherwise never could have been done on the massive interstellar objects in space, Forbes said.

Originally published on Live Science.
The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The 330-foot-wide (100 meters) radio dish is searching for possible signals from intelligent aliens as part of the $100 million Breakthrough Listen project.

STANFORD, Calif.  A $100 million search for intelligent aliens has come up with some intriguing leads but has revealed no evidence of E.T. so far.

Observations of nearly 700 stars by the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia revealed no compelling signs of alien civilizations, representatives of the Breakthrough Listen project, which led the observations for the E.T. search, announced Thursday (April 20).

Team members also unveiled the GBT's 11 "most significant" observed events but stressed that these hits were probably caused by human technology. [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Aliens]

"We were able to determine that they were most likely due to radio frequency interference," Andrew Siemion, director of the University of California, Berkeley's SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research Center, said here Thursday during a presentation at the Breakthrough Discuss conference.

The new results are just the beginning for Breakthrough Listen, which billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner and a group of scientists, including Stephen Hawking, announced in July 2015. Over the next decade, the ambitious project aims to search the 1 million stars closest to the sun, the 100 galaxies closest to our own Milky Way, and the galactic plane for possible signals of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

Breakthrough Listen scientists are starting with an initial target list of 1,709 stars, which the team is observing with three telescopes: the 330-foot (100 meters) GBT radio dish, the 210-foot-wide (64 m) Parkes radio telescope in Australia and the Automated Planet Finder, a 7.9-foot (2.4 m) optical telescope at the Lick Observatory in California.

"This sample of stars is designed to be what we call 'spectral type complete'  it samples stars of every spectral type," Siemion said. "We want to look at as many different types of stars as possible, to leave ourselves open to any possibility that life might emerge [around] one of these stars."

The newly announced results, which the team submitted to The Astrophysical Journal on Thursday, are based on GBT data for 692 of those 1,709 stars. The telescope made about 5,000 individual 5-minute observations, racking up a total of 400 observing hours, Siemion said.

Those observations targeted a band of frequencies that includes the "water hole," a quiet part of the radio spectrum that SETI scientists have long speculated would be a good window for interstellar communication. The water hole lies between the emission band of hydroxyl molecules (OH) and that of hydrogen. Together, hydroxyl and hydrogen form water  hence the name.

"These results represent the most comprehensive and fundamental test of the water-hole hypothesis that's ever been conducted for nearby stars," Siemion said. "This is a classic idea in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that's been with us for more than four decades."

Breakthrough Listen is part of the Breakthrough Initiatives, which Milner founded in 2015 to look for evidence of life beyond Earth and help spur space exploration. Another program under this umbrella is Breakthrough Starshot, which aims to develop a system that can blast tiny, sail-equipped nanoprobes to other star systems at 20 percent the speed of light using powerful lasers.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
On April 25, National Geographic Channel will launch its first scripted television show, "Genius," about the life of Albert Einstein. But before that happens, the channel is also planning for the famed scientist to make an appearance  of sorts  just in time for the March for Science this weekend in Washington, D.C.

A chatbot on Facebook Messenger allows users to engage in a text exchange with "Albert Einstein," exploring details of his life and accomplishments, and discovering his perspective on the March for Science, which is taking place in the nation's capital (and elsewhere across the globe) on April 22. [2017 March for Science: What You Need to Know]

A sample conversation shows the chatbot replying to questions, making jokes about Einstein's hair, and sharing a GIF of Einstein (played by actor Geoffrey Rush in the television show) turning to the camera and sticking out his tongue.

The real-life Einstein would likely have supported the march, which invites scientists and nonscientists alike to rally in a show of support for the sciences. In Einstein's famous essay "The Common Language of Science"  recorded in 1941 as a radio address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and published in 1954 in an anthology of his writings called "Ideas and Opinions"  he described science as a shared language that plays an important role in shaping critical goals for the benefit of people and nations around the world.

National Geographic is installing a free Wi-Fi network for March for Science participants, which they can access after viewing short scenes from the "Genius," as well as a "Genius"-themed tent that offers charging stations and provides a sneak peek of footage from upcoming episodes.

Connect with the Einstein chatbot on Facebook Messenger.

Original article on Live Science.
Spire, which operates a constellation of cubesats, and GeoOptics have commercial weather data contracts with NOAA under a program formally authorized by a weather forecasting bill signed into law this week.

WASHINGTON  President Trump signed into law this week a weather bill that includes provisions formally authorizing ongoing commercial satellite weather data projects and a study of future weather satellite needs.

The president signed the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 April 18, according to a statement from the White House. The bill originally passed the House in January on a voice vote, while the Senate approved an amended version March 29 by unanimous consent. The House adopted the Senate's version, again by a voice vote, April 4.

Among the bill's provisions is language formally authorizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to purchase weather data from commercial satellite systems. The bill authorizes NOAA to spend $6 million a year in fiscal years 2017 through 2020 for a pilot program of data purchases to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial data to support weather forecasting.

NOAA has already started such a pilot program using $3 million appropriated to the agency in fiscal year 2016. In September 2016, NOAA awarded contracts to GeoOptics and Spire, with a combined value of a little more than $1 million, for GPS radio occultation data.

In an April 3 interview, Steven Volz, assistant administrator for NOAA Satellite and Information Services, said those efforts were ongoing, with the contracts remaining open until the end of April, after which NOAA will study the collected data. While Spire has launched a number of cubesats able to collect GPS radio occultation data, GeoOptics has yet to launch its first satellite.

Volz said that NOAA was considering a second round of contracts for commercial weather data should it receive funding to do so in a final fiscal year 2017 appropriations bill. "That's just the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully it's a big iceberg of potential sources of commercial data that we can use to supplement and, eventually, potentially replace some of our core mission measurements," he said.

The bill also authorizes continued development of a government-funded satellite system also designed to collect GPS radio occultation data. The bill calls on NOAA to "complete and operationalize" the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) 2 mission, placing satellites into both equatorial and polar orbits.

The first six COSMIC-2 satellites, developed in cooperation with Taiwan, are scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy as part of the Air Force's Space Test Program 2 mission no sooner than late this year. A second set of six would launch to polar orbit in 2019.

The bill directs NOAA to enter into an agreement by the end of fiscal year 2018 with the National Academies to study future weather satellite systems. That study, due two years after the agreement is reached, would examine both the observational needs of scientists to improve weather forecasts and means to collect that data. It explicitly calls for assessment of the use of constellations of small satellites, standard bus designs and alternative sources of data, including commercial systems.

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
Blue Bermuda

NASA

As seen from above, Berumda shines bright blue. From NASA, "Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the western Atlantic off the east coast of North America."

Educational Earth

NASA

The letter "Y" as seen from space. From NASA, "NASA's Earth Observatory has tracked down images resembling all 26 letters of the English alphabet using only NASA satellite imagery and astronaut photography. In this image, the letter 'Y' is for yardangs, elongated landforms sculpted by erosion and similar to sand dunes, but instead comprised of sandstone or siltstone."

Circles on Circles

NASA

In Northwest Australia, Adele Island as seen from above. From NASA, "Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took this detailed image of a tiny island with many concentric zones around it. Adele Island, off Australia's north coast, is only 2.9 km (2 mi) long, but the entire tidal zone with all the concentric zones is 24.5 km (15.2 mi) long, surrounded by extensive sandbanks in the tidally exposed area."

Land of Fire

NASA

A composite image of Earth art from Australia. From NASA, "On Oct. 12-13, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared a series of seventeen photographs taken from the International Space Station during a flyover of Australia. This first photo of the series was shared on Twitter with the caption, '#EarthArt in one pass over the #Australian continent. Picture 1 of 17. #YearInSpace.'"

As Seen ... From Mars

NASA

Earth and its moon seen from Mars. From NASA, "Here is a view of Earth and its moon, as seen from Mars. It combines two images acquired on Nov. 20, 2016, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with brightness adjusted separately for Earth and the moon to show details on both bodies."

Dark Marble

NASA

A composite image of Earth at night, as seen from space. From NASA: "NASA scientists are releasing new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet. This composite image, one of three new full-hemisphere views, provides a view of the Americas at night."

Ice Shelf

NASA

As seen from above during NASA's Operation IceBridge mission, the Getz Ice Shelf. From NASA, "As scientists and crew with NASAs Operation IceBridge mission prepared for a research flight on Nov. 5, 2016, the weather in Punta Arenas, Chile, was cold, wet, and windy. But when they reached their survey site in West Antarctica, skies were clear and winds were calm

Long History of Images

NASA

This image of Earth was captured by the astronauts of the Gemini VI mission. From NASA, "This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19, on June 4, 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3."

A Grand Scene

NASA

The entire Grand Canyon National Park, as seen from above. From NASA, "To celebrate the centennial of the U.S National Park Service, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA has taken hundreds of images of national parks from his vantage point in low Earth orbit, aboard the International Space Station. Here, a series of Williams' photographs are assembled into this composite image of the Grand Canyon."

Bahama Mama!

NASA

Great Exuma Island, Bahamas, as seen from above. From NASA, "An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of small island cays in the Bahamas and the prominent tidal channels cutting between them. For astronauts, this is one of the most recognizable points on the planet.:

Ever-changing

NASA

The Larsen Ice Shelf as seen from space. From NASA, "The Larsen Ice Shelf is situated along the northeastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places on the planet. In the past three decades, two large sections of the ice shelf (Larsen A and B) collapsed. A third section (Larsen C) seems like it may be on a similar trajectory, with a new iceberg poised to break away soon."
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The Kapil Sharma Show fails to revive its ratings again; Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Little Champ emerges as the new winner in reality TV space.

The Kapil Sharma Show fails to find a spot in Top 10; Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li'l Champs is the No. 1 reality show of the week.

By Parmita Uniyal: The Kapil Sharma Show is all set to complete a year this Sunday, but sadly a month before its anniversary, the show slipped from No. 2 and is constantly sliding down.

The mid-air feud between Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover adversely affected the show's performance.

So much so that the show has even lost a spot in Top 10. As per the latest data of BARC India, the show has garnered 4.4 million impressions, down from last week's 4.6 million impressions. Also read: Damage is done! The Kapil Sharma Show's ratings hit all-time low

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While the show premiered in April 2016, it did not exactly open on a super note, and used to manage 5-5.5 million impressions in the initial few weeks of its premiere. But as the weeks passed by, the show's ratings saw a marked improvement.

In 2017, the show--barring the first week--managed the average rating of 6.4 million impressions.

While Kapil Sharma is desperately trying to climb back to its original position by experimenting with new team and new formats, another reality show is showing promise. We are talking about Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li'l Champs, the top reality show this week, that has improved its game by garnering 5.1 million impressions this week, up from 4.7 million impressions last week. Also read: No hope for The Kapil Sharma Show's revival as ratings continue to dip

The success of music reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li'l Champs is being attributed to the quality of participants and the judges--Neha Kakar, Himesh Reshammiya and Javed Ali.

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There was no casualty or damage to property, Superintendent of Police Niti Sekhar said.

By Press Trust of India: A pilotless target aircraft (PTA) called Lakshya crashed in a paddy field in Baliapal block of Balasore district today.

There was no casualty or damage to property, Superintendent of Police Niti Sekhar said.

"It was a routine trial and part of training exercises. It was inert. No issue of concern," a senior DRDO official at Chandipur near here said. A team from the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal would come to the accident site to collect debris and investigate the incident, the DRDO official said.

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Policemen cordoned off the site in Chandmani village as per instructions from senior officers, Baliapal inspector-in- charge Surendra Beuria said.

PTA Lakshya is a reusable aerial target system. It is operated with the help of a remote from the ground to provide aerial target for training of pilots of all three services, DRDO officials said.

The PTAs entered service in November 2000 at the Interim Test Range (ITR), Chandipur. Lakshya was operational with the IAF and the Indian Navy by April 2002.

It is powered by a single PTAE-7 turbojet engine designed and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore.

Also read:

MH 370 mystery: New analysis reveals area where Malaysia Airlines plane may have crashed

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Does Turkey belong in Europe? The outcome of Sunday's referendum has rekindled the decades-old debate and provided fresh fodder for those who have always answered "no."

And what about the around 3 million people with Turkish roots living in Germany ? "We can't make the mistake of lumping all the Turks living here into the Erdogan camp," says Thomas Kufen, the CDU mayor of Essen and former integration commissioner for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. More Turks in the consular jurisdiction of Essen voted in favor of Erdogan's constitutional referendum than in any other city. Attempting to explain the results, he says: "Our immigrants came as guest workers (in the 1950s and 1960s) and have worked in the coal mines, the coking plants and the steel mills. They originate from the rural parts of Anatolia, where support was highest for the referendum." But Kufen also says he has no understanding for how people "could basically curtail democracy and freedom in their homeland from the comfort of their sofas here."

'Blame for Both Sides'

Similar statements can be heard from many German politicians at the national level. "We have a lot of catching up to do," says Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary floor leader for the SPD. "Both sides share the blame -- after all, Germany went for decades without having an integration policy of any kind, and many Turks grew comfortable in a kind of parallel society." Stephan Weil, the SPD governor of the state of Lower-Saxony, is calling for "clear allegiance to the German constitution and behavior which reflects that" in order to be accepted on equal footing. Michelle Muntefering, head of the Turkish-German parliamentary group in the Bundestag and a member of the SPD, says that Turkish-Germans need to be asking themselves, "How you can live in one democracy while at the same time wanting to eliminate it in another country?"

The debate has been particularly heated among conservatives, where questions are being raised about Germany's dual citizenship laws. At its annual party conference last December, the CDU called for a return to the old system, under which children born to Turkish parents in Germany should be forced to choose a single nationality. But Merkel made it clear that she did not feel bound by the resolution.

Now some in her party, particularly those critical of Merkel's refugee policies, are pushing for a restoration of the old citizenship rules to be anchored in the party's political platform ahead of parliamentary elections in September. For her part, Merkel is seeking to find a compromise under which children born to migrants in Germany could retain dual citizenship, but the third generation born here could not.

An Election Issue Emerges

For a time, at least, it looked as though she had a real chance at pushing the compromise through. But the situation has changed following the referendum. "It was the right move for the CDU to affirm its position opposing dual citizenship at its party conference," says Daniel Gunther, the party's candidate for governor in upcoming Schleswig-Holstein state elections. Meanwhile, the CSU, which had been reticent on the issue, has now arrived at a clear position. "The CSU and the CDU have a clear resolution envisioning the return" to the old model, says the party's general-secretary, Andreas Scheuer. "We should be clear about this in the campaign."

Merkel can see that her room for maneuver on the issue is narrowing. But she wants to follow developments in Turkey and in state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in May before making a decision. But one thing is certain, according to a source close to Merkel: "Following the referendum, it is no longer conceivable that we will keep things as they are."
Navalny: What a pathetic appearance. He waited one month and all he could come up with was the word "compote!"

SPIEGEL: Will the allegations have consequences for Medvedev?

Navalny: His political prospects have now been damaged. He supposedly got drunk for a week right afterwards and he looked like it, too.

SPIEGEL: Medvedev has not sued you -- but billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whom you accuse of having given Dmitri Medvedev a residence valued at 5 billion rubles, now intends to.

Navalny: Usmanov is surely not doing so of his own accord. Obviously, someone asked him to sue me.

SPIEGEL: Officially, the Kremlin acts as though it is fighting corruption, with five governors having been arrested -- the fifth one just recently.

Navalny: The governors are being arrested in order to steal some of my thunder. Besides, Putin needs to terrorize his own elite. He is more afraid of those in his own surroundings than any protests; there are people there who are at least as critical as I am because they see up close that the system doesn't work. He wants to silence them.

SPIEGEL: Will President Putin run again in the 2018 election?

Navalny: Of course! Putin wants to be the czar of this new Russian empire that he is rebuilding. I think he is really obsessed with the idea.

SPIEGEL: Will you be allowed to run?

Navalny: We want to force them to register me, like we did during the 2013 Moscow mayoral race. Back then we threatened a boycott. And then the Kremlin decided it was better to let Navalny participate -- he'll get 8 or 9 percent at most.

SPIEGEL: Instead you won 27 percent of the votes, a significant result, and it almost led to a runoff.

Navalny: As a result, as far as I know, the people who are against my candidacy now have the upper hand in the Kremlin. They say: Who knows what the election result will be? We already made that mistake once. And they are also afraid of all the things I would say if they let me run. For 17 years, elections in Russia have followed the same pattern: Nobody criticizes Putin, nobody runs a real election campaign, the whole process takes place quietly over a period of two months. The Kremlin blocks every alternative to Putin. He doesn't want a candidate who will travel through the country and speak loudly about Russia's problems.

SPIEGEL: Why has the opposition gone along with this game for so long?

Navalny: Have you ever been in the new Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg? There's a ballot from the 1996 presidential election in the exhibition and it has exactly the same names on it as appear now. Communist Party leader Gennday Zyuganov, the liberal Grigory Yavlinsky, the right-wing populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Only Boris Yeltsin was replaced, by Putin. No opposition politician has ever taken responsibility for his or her election failures.

SPIEGEL: In your campaign platform, you call for a special tax for oligarchs, the doubling of health expenditures and a minimum wage of 25,000 rubles. It sounds as though you have swung to the left.

Navalny: Let's just say: It doesn't sound like what one is used to from our liberal opposition. Unfortunately, people expect a Russian opposition politician to be a manic libertarian who thinks the oligarchs are great, who isn't interested in the problems of retirees and who believes the invisible hand of the market will resolve everything.

SPIEGEL: Your proposals aren't particularly concrete. How do you intend to finance everything?

Navalny: Russia spends enormous, senseless amounts of money on the army and the police. We have one of the top rankings in the world when it comes to the number of police officers -- but when it comes to the number of murders, we are also right at the top. Besides, almost 30 percent of the budget is secret! Nobody knows what happens to this money. During public tendering, 1,500 billion rubles are stolen every year. The fight against corruption would free up a considerable sum.

SPIEGEL: Only six years ago, you were still active in nationalist circles. Even many of your supporters found the people with whom you allied yourself at the time to be unpalatable. Was it a tactical move or one made out of conviction?

Navalny: Between 2005 and 2011, I did a lot to bring together the market-friendly liberal and nationalist wings of the protest movement. That is true. And yes, I am still against visa-free entry from Central Asia into Russia.

SPIEGEL: Why did the protests of 2011-2012 actually fail? What did the opposition do wrong at time time?

Navalny: There is no recipe for toppling the regime in a couple of months. That is a historical process that we cannot steer. Fifteen-hundred people participated in my most successful protest in 2010. Today, a rally with fewer than 30,000 people is considered a failure. Something has developed despite all the setbacks. But the most important reason for the failure was the violent crushing of the protests. If we compare the regime of 2012 with the one from 2017, it feels like we are talking about two different countries. We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet.

SPIEGEL: Some of the people who took part in the large protest in May 2012 on Bolotnaya Square are still incarcerated today. And yet you have still called for an unauthorized protest in March. Can you justify that?

Navalny: I am aware that I bear responsibility -- for my brother, who is in jail, and for the prisoners from May 2012. It is not a pleasant thought. Nevertheless, newspapers reported about my brother on their front pages. If some blogger in a rural area is arrested today, then no journalists, lawyers or human-rights activists visit them, because now there are too many cases like that. If we want to prevent that, then we need to keep fighting for political change.

SPIEGEL: Many wonder why you are still able to walk free in a such a repressive system and even lead expensive election campaigns. Who finances you?

Navalny: We are open about everything. My Anti-Corruption Foundation is well-funded by Russian standards, with an annual budget equivalent to 750,000 euros. But the average individual donations are only about 11.50 euros.

SPIEGEL: Based on your income tax return, you have a solid personal income. In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Russian government to pay you about 50,000 euros in damages. Where did the remaining 90,000 euros come from?

Navalny: That's income from my law firm. My license to practice law was revoked, but a few clients have stuck with me.

SPIEGEL: What kind of people want to be represented by a prominent enemy of the Kremlin?

Navalny: As a lawyer, I tend to be disadvantageous to my clients. But those who continue to retain me do so because they also support me.

SPIEGEL: Do you fear you are being used?

Navalny: Nobody uses me. But, of course, my work is used. If I attack Igor Sechin ...

SPIEGEL: ... the head of the state oil company Rosneft and an opponent of Medvedev's ...

Navalny: ... then that helps someone else. And when I attack Medvedev, there are loads of people who think that's great. Though I unfortunately do not even know if I am weakening him or strengthening him! Maybe Putin wanted to fire Medvedev a month ago, but how is he supposed to do that after my film? In an opaque system, everything can be used somehow. I can't change that.

SPIEGEL: While you were in jail, Russia and the U.S. embarked on a collision course over Syria. What do you think of Putin's Syria policy?

Navalny: Russia should join the international coalition against Islamic State. It is absurd that we are intervening on the side of the Shiites in a war between Sunnis and Shiites even though almost all Russian Muslims are Sunnis. Putin is creating big problems for us in his attempt to help Bashar Assad.

SPIEGEL: But it did recently look as though Putin had found a supporter of his Syria policies in Donald Trump.

Navalny: After Trump's election victory, I explained in a video why there would be no friendship with Trump. The contradictions between the systems are too great. And Putin needs an enemy. He wants to be the leader of the anti-American, anti-European world. And given that he cannot be friends with their heads of state and government, he instead needs to generate scandals and resistance.

SPIEGEL: In Angela Merkel, he at least has one opponent left. Without her there wouldn't be any EU sanctions against Russia. What should Russia's approach to those sanctions be?

Navalny: We should fulfill the Minsk Protocol. The main reason for the sanctions is that Russia broke a taboo: It triggered a war in Europe. Crimea is a problem, but the most painful part of the sanctions is tied to the war in the Donbas. As soon as Russia takes real steps to prevent shots from being fired there, this part of the sanctions will be lifted.

SPIEGEL: At your appearances, you say: My foreign policy consists of finally building better roads and the payment of higher wages. It sounds like you are trying to avoid the topic.

Navalny: I am not avoiding it. But I believe, and in this sense I am different from Putin, that Russia should not isolate itself. Everything that happens in our country is justified through Syria or Ukraine. But when one's own citizens only make 300 euros, one can't have much clout in foreign policy. Let's start with colonizing our own country. When I visit my brother in jail, I drive through the most densely populated part of European Russia -- and I don't see anybody, kilometer after kilometer. That would be a great opportunity to apply our energies.

SPIEGEL: You are by far the best-known face of the opposition; younger fellow campaigners look up to you. Does this role sometimes go to your head?

Navalny: I encourage all my colleagues to run for office themselves. But it has become extremely difficult in this system to become a prominent opposition politician. I no longer have any rivals to have a debate with. I need competition. And the people will soon tire of me. They say: Navalny, It's always just Navalny. We want to see someone new.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Navalny, we thank you for this interview.
Dajla (Saharawi Refugee Camps), April 13, 2017 (SPS)- the Participants in the International Youth and Students Conference in Solidarity Sahrawi people held in Dajla voived their support with Saharawi political prisoners and condemned their farce trial.

In a peaceful sit-in this Wednesday afternoon in the dunes of Dajla, outside the work of the Conference, participants carried banners with slogans condemning the plundering of Saharawi natural resources.

Speakers from the UESARIO have expressed the support of the Saharawi student organization with the Saharawi student movement in the Occupied Zones, condemning the serious violations of human rights and the Moroccan occupation repression against the Saharawi activists. SPS

125/090/TRA
Michael Fiddes, Head of Estates & Farm Agency for Strutt & Parker, said:

The year 2017 started unusually. There was a significant carryover of land on the market  over 40% of the farms launched in 2016 were still available at the end of the year, which is a far higher proportion than we have seen before.

However, there has been a flurry of activity since Christmas, so a considerable amount of this has now gone under offer. A quarter of the land launched in Q1 of 2017 also looks to have found a buyer.

This is encouraging and suggests that buyers remain confident about land as a long-term investment, although it is now taking longer to get sales to the point of completion. Buyers are being more cautious than they were when there was greater competition in the marketplace.

Our analysis also shows that over half of the livestock and residential farms put on the market last year are still available or have been withdrawn, which is a higher proportion than for other types of farms.

Mr Fiddes said based on the transactions in Strutt & Parkers Farmland Database, the average price of arable farmland sold in the first quarter was 9,800/acre. However, if you exclude three sales which took place under exceptional circumstances and achieved 15,000/acre, the average was 8,400/acre.

However, prices remain highly variable, said Mr Fiddes. A better measure, that shows the variability that an average can hide, is that almost 40% of arable sales were for 6-8,000/acre, with most of the rest selling for over 10,000/acre.

This highlights how polarised the market has become with strong prices still being achieved where there is both a committed buyer and a vendor with a farm that is attractive to the market.

Looking at supply, there was a significant drop in land marketed in the first quarter, possibly due to some vendors delaying marketing to avoid the carryover from 2016 and due to more land than usual being marketed at the end of 2016.

Mr Fiddes said he expected supplies to catch up later in the year, but based on his knowledge of what is going to be marketed in the coming months, levels were unlikely to exceed those seen in recent years.

This is likely to support prices, although undoubtedly a wide range in values will continue to be achieved dependent on location.

Farms are generally taking longer to sell and most prices have eased back from the highs of 2015 but overall the market remains pretty resilient given the uncertainties associated with Brexit.

Estimated range in prices by region

Each quarter the Strutt & Parker regional agency team estimates the range of prices in their area.

The prices in the chart are for vacant arable and pasture land only (i.e. it excludes the value of houses or buildings). Bottom 25% means if 100 farms were valued, the price of the 25th farm from the bottom. The average is the 50th from the bottom (and 50th from the top).
Held under auspices of the British Limousin Cattle Society, and taking place at Harrison & Hetheringtons Borderway Mart on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th May, this sale is one of the key dates in H&Hs annual livestock calendar. This year there are 218 bulls and 200 females entered, almost double the number of females entered last year.

With consigners from the length and breadth of the UK, including Northern Ireland, this two day show and sale of Limousin Cattle has attracted entries, appropriately described as the cream of the crop. The sale is expected to attract keen interest.

The Limousin Society is very honoured to have Dougie Graham from Burnbank, Stirling, judging the pre-sale show of bulls. Judging will commence at 9.00am on the Friday, followed by the sale of females at 2.30pm. The sale of bulls will commence on the Saturday at 10.30 am.

Speaking in advance of the sale Harrison & Hetheringtons auctioneer, Grant Anderson, said:

There is, and always has been a very close association between ourselves and the Limousin Cattle Society. This is one of the Societys key sales of the year, renowned for attracting outstanding animals and this year will be no exception as we have such a tremendous catalogue of entries.

Currently there is strong confidence in the pedigree and commercial sectors of the cattle industry and this sale will as always, provide a very good spring benchmark as it is aimed at both commercial and pedigree breeders.
36-year-old Sangeeta Verma, who last week was allegedly attacked with acid and diesel fire by her husband and in-laws over an unfulfilled dowry demand, died on Friday. Verma, who's from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district, was brought to the institute this week with 90 per cent burns.

By Priyanka Sharma: Her charred, wasted body gave up on Friday. Sangeeta Verma, 36, died at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital a week after she was allegedly attacked with acid and diesel fire by her husband and in-laws over an unfulfilled dowry demand of Rs 25 lakh.

MAIL TODAY first reported on Wednesday that the schoolteacher from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district was brought to the institute this week with 90 per cent burns.

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The attack followed years of harassment and torture over dowry, she told this reporter. While the Hindu wedding custom has been illegal since 1961, brides' families often feel it is a matter of honour for the young woman to be given a proper send-off. Though dowries are not negotiated as much now, a wide difference often exists between what the groom's relatives expect and the bride's parents give.

UP's minister for women welfare Rita Bahuguna Joshi told MAIL TODAY, "We are deeply saddened by Sangeeta's death. Strict action would be taken against her in-laws. The district magistrate and state women welfare ministry are keeping a close watch on the matter and officials from the ministry met the family members on Friday."

Joshi also said that the state government will give all permissible support to Sangeeta's family members and two children as it is a case of dowry and domestic violence.

Experts say burning is the preferred method of killing for desperate husbands and in-laws because it is hard to prove it is murder. Women in India wearing loose flowing saris while cooking on gas or kerosene stoves often suffer accidental burns.

'WILL MAKE EVERY POSSIBLE EFFORT TO ENSURE JUSTICE IS DONE'

Union minister for Women and Child development Maneka Gandhi took to Twitter to express her condolences. "Deeply saddened upon hearing that Sangeeta passed away at Safdarjung Hospital, late last night. May her soul rest in peace. We will make every possible effort to ensure that justice is done," she wrote, also citing MAIL TODAY's report published on Friday. "This loss must be shared by all, as another daughter of our nation has lost her life to dowry."

A senior official from her ministry said Gandhi is likely to meet the victim's family to ensure justice. She has also sought an action-taken report from Ghaziabad police.

A senior doctor from Safdarjung Hospital told MAIL TODAY, "Preliminary post-mortem reports suggested that Sangeeta was burnt alive with diesel and acid. She passed away at 12.30am.

Sangeeta's body had suffered 90 per cent thermal burn injuries due to which she succumbed. In this type of burns, there are minimal chances of survival." While police have arrested her husband Sanjeev Nagar, a hunt is on to catch her absconding in-laws. "I had been pleading with my father and family to help me get divorce from my cruel husband for 15 years," Sangeeta had told MAIL TODAY.

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"The in-laws too always abused and tortured me for dowry to fulfil their desires. But none of my family members listened to me due to societal pressure. Now, see where I am."

India has the highest number of recorded acid attacks, which are often a form of revenge by angry spouses or rejected suitors. "A report has been submitted to National Commission for Women (NCW) and main accused Sangeeta's husband has been arrested now. Investigation is on," said Ghaziabad's senior superintendent of police Deepak Kumar.

According to her brother, Sangeeta's husband had bought liquor and indulged in other revelries with the Rs 1.5 lakh she had saved for their kids' school fees, books and uniform. This led to massive arguments.

On April 13, the fight over dowry turned ugly and her husband and in-laws allegedly attacked her with acid just before she was about to leave for school. She was first taken to a neighbourhood hospital and later moved to Safdarjung.

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"For the past 15 years, Sangeeta was physically and mentally tortured by her husband and in-laws. Today, she is not with us, but we will fight for justice," said Pradeep Verma, Sangeeta's brother, who is now taking care of her sons - Avni, 13, and Akash, 12.

ALSO READ | Uttar Pradesh: Husband of woman doused with acid over dowry demand, arrested

ALSO READ | UP horror: Family ignores ordeal, now daughter battles life after in-laws douse her with acid over dowry

--- ENDS ---
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STAMFORD  The citys latest hairdressing destination has bubbled up in the downtown.

Pink Soda Blow Dry Bar and More debuted April 15 at 500 Bedford St. The new venture represents the second location for owner Wendy Brown, who also runs an establishment of the same name in Ridgefield. Brown was recruited to her new address by the firm that owns the Village at Stamford apartment complex, which houses the street-level salon.

I loved the space the minute I walked in, Brown said in an interview this week. It has the modern look  and thats how our Ridgefield location looks, too.

The Bedford Street establishment  which also includes a full-service salon that does cuts, coloring and highlights  has started quickly. The business booked up with appointments throughout its first day. It occupies some 700 square feet, but its high ceiling creates a feeling of more space.

Brown said she and her colleagues aim to deliver a boutique and luxury experience to clients, who might have previously gone to Manhattan to seek such service. A signature blowout  which involves a brush-set or hot tools  costs $47 and takes under an hour.

Normally, youll have a salon, and theyll do full-service items, Brown said. And within that, theyll do a blowout. The problem with that is most of the time their blowouts are just subpar. Here, blowouts came first.

Clients range in age from elementary school-aged girls  Pink Salon hosts parties for girls 4 to 14  to women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.

More Information For more information about Pink Soda, visit www.pinksodact.com See More Collapse

How I look at it, no woman should have to wash their own hair, Brown said. If you get you a blowout twice a week, you really dont have to wash your hair any more than that.

Catering to those who have busy weekday schedules, Pink Soda opens at 6:30 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. The establishment is open every day except Tuesday.

We welcome any business that caters to people who are working, said Sandy Goldstein, president of the Stamford Downtown Special Services District. I think it will be a great addition to the downtown.

Complementing the hair styling, Pink Soda offers other services including makeup, organic spray tans and hand treatments with paraffin wax. The complimentary drinks menu includes cappuccinos, lattes and pink momos, which consist of Prosecco with pureed watermelon and cotton candy.

Pink Sodas name refers to the moniker that Browns 25-year-old daughter, Kaylee, gave to the pink seltzer drink when she was a little girl.

Brown opened the first Pink Soda in 2014 in Newtown, where she lives. That business operated about a year on South Main Street before Brown decided that the town was too quiet to support a long-term Pink Soda presence.

Last year, Brown opened the Ridgefield Pink Soda at 10 Roberts Lane. Pink Soda employs 12 people, who work in Stamford and Ridgefield.

Earlier in her career, Brown ran a salon in West Hartford. She has also launched medical spas in several states and owns a Manhattan-based dermatological and plastic surgery consulting agency.

Pink Soda commands the resounding majority of Browns time. She is also considering opening other salons in the tri-state area.

This is my baby, Brown said. This is the predominant focus.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
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STAMFORD  A convicted bank robber who landed a job with the citys highway department after being released from prison pressured his partner into a Springdale heist earlier this year so he could get his cut of the proceeds, according to his arrest affidavit.

Spero Moschos, 36, of Knox Road, was paid with cash and bundles of heroin for his advice and being a lookout in several of a series of bank robberies recently committed by Joseph Boccuzzi, the affidavit said.

Boccuzzi said he considered Moschos, who spent four and a half years in prison for 12 bank robberies in 2009, an inspiration and mentor, and bragged to him when he robbed the First County Bank on Hope Street last December, the affidavit said.

Boccuzzi gave Moschos three bundles of heroin after that robbery for giving him advice, the affidavit said.

They decided to hit the Springdale bank again on Feb. 3, but Moschos repeatedly told Boccuzzi the coast was clear when the place was filled with customers, the affidavit said.

Boccuzzi said Moschos pressured him to rob the bank because he wanted his cut to pay off debt, the affidavit said.

After turning back three times because the bank was too crowded, Boccuzzi  wearing a Scream mask  said trick or treat to the teller, who gave him $12,000, the affidavit said. Police said they also have video of Moschos in the bank that afternoon.

Boccuzzi gave Moschos $2,000 for being the lookout in the robbery, the affidavit said.

Boccuzzi said he also gave Moschos 10 bundles of heroin for his role in a Norwalk bank robbery, the affidavit said.

Moschos was arrested last week while on the job for the city. He was hired three years ago by Stamfords highway department.

Moschos was arraigned last week on charges of second-degree robbery and conspiracy to commit second-degree robbery and is being held in lieu of a $150,000 court appearance bond. He did not make a plea and is being held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center.

Robert Bello, who represented Moschos at his arraignment, declined to comment. Moschos mother also declined comment.

Boccuzzi, 34, an unemployed Norwalk resident, was arraigned last week for twice robbing the First County Bank in Stamford and Fairfield County Bank in Wilton. A judge ordered him held in lieu of $750,000 bond.

Supervisory Assistant States Attorney Steven Weiss said there are pending warrants for Boccuzzi, charging him with robbing a Norwalk bank on Dec. 6, 2016 and the attempted robbery of one in Fairfield on Feb. 22.
I ts been 10 years since Steve Jobs, dressed in his signature black polo neck and jeans, unveiled the first iPhone to rock-star acclaim around the world. He and the audience were  the Apple founder claimed  making history.

Those who were aware of Jobs ego, which only reared its head away from the cameras, rolled their eyes. Among them was Hermann Hauser, another computer pioneer who founded Acorn Computers, which spawned ARM Holdings.

Hauser would mingle at conferences in the early days of computers with the likes of Jobs, Bill Gates and Amazons Jeff Bezos. When Jobs showed his iPhone for the first time and said hed reinvented the phone, I thought, Oh, for Christs sake, the Austria-born entrepreneur recalls, throwing his Google phone on the table in disgust.

But he had. He actually had, Hauser acknowledges, almost with a grimace, as if it pains him to say so. He was absolutely brilliant, but he treated his staff like shit. I ask if Jobs stood out from the crowd. Steve stood out as the most unpleasant of the lot, Hauser clarifies.

When we meet in the London office of his Cambridge venture capital firm Amadeus Capital Partners, the silver-haired, tanned Hauser is dressed in his own signature outfit: a navy jacket, with beige fleece underneath, and polka-dot neckerchief.

Contemporary: Apple's Steve Jobs / AFP/Getty Images

Hes so calm and laidback that it seems hard to believe this is the man who bemoaned the 24 billion sale of ARM, the chip designer he founded, to Japans SoftBank. I still regret that it was sold because its really the last UK IT company with a global footprint, he says.

He is pleased that out of all the acquirers, Masayoshi Son, SoftBanks billionaire founder who pledged to more than double ARMs headcount in the UK and keep the headquarters in Cambridge, is in charge. And he isnt concerned by the recent decision to move a quarter of ARM into a new $100 billion fund it set up with Saudi Arabia.

As long as Son runs SoftBank, I think ARM will be fine. But hes retired once already, and what happens when he retires in three or five years time? Will his successor have the same attitude to ARM or not?

Hauser makes a compelling argument. If ARM bolsters the security of the chips, he says it could easily be worth $100 billion  more than three times what SoftBank paid.

His opinions dont come in half measures but each is delivered with typical composure. He thinks the likes of Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland will just not exist as High Street banks once the fintech revolution picks up speed. You can replace all these banks by computer. He also believes Apples smartphone dominance is coming to an end  a very sad story.

"Apple will be back as a niche player with a 10% market share  if they can keep it."

They will be back as a niche player with a 10% market share  if they can keep it  because Huawei, LG and Samsung are going to wipe the floor with them, he says. I like Apple, despite Steve Jobs, he adds with a grin.

Dont get him started on Brexit, or Britains worst own goal in history as he tweeted on the day of the EU referendum result. Hausers frustration at Britain leaving the EU is hardly surprising, given his European roots. He left the Austrian Alps for Cambridge to do a PhD in physics after a year of military service at home. Hes been in Silicon Fen since, but manages to find time to spend with his wife on their beef farm in New Zealand (it has its own beach).

When he went into physics, he was warned by a family friend that he would never make any money. But then he decided to start a company with Cambridge-based entrepreneur Chris Curry, whom he met socially. I must have had some of my fathers entrepreneurial genes, he says, referring to his fathers wine business in Austria.

Hauser and Curry went to the bank across from his halls at Kings College, Cambridge and got a 10,000 cheque, and, months later, one for 50,000. What started as Cambridge Processor Unit Ltd in the late Seventies became Acorn Computers. A deal to produce the BBC Micro for schools made it an overnight success. When the pair returned two years later, asking for 1 million, the bank manager fell off his chair. No company had ever asked for that amount of money so soon.

I often wonder if I would have financed myself. And the answer is probably no, he admits. We didnt even have a business plan  we had a hunch that this was going to be important. Luckily, they did find a banker to lend them the cash and Acorn grew into a company known across the land when Hauser and Curry cashed in with a 200 million stock-market float.

Just as the first ARM chips were being developed, and when they finally solved their production problems, the home-computer market collapsed. We finally had them coming in by the lorry loads when people stopped buying them.

Olivetti rode to the rescue and took a controlling stake on the cheap. Hauser spent the next three years setting up research labs for the Italian PC firm. He also helped create Advanced RISC Machines, which became ARM. It started out as a joint venture with Apple before floating on the LSE in 1998.

In the meantime, Hauser established Active Book Company, which was behind a pen computer  the original tablet computer. It was bought by AT & T and incorporated into EO, which the US telecoms giant also owned, although pen computing never took off.

Next, he brought online share trading to the UK in the late Nineties when he set up E*Trade UK, a joint venture with the US company of the same name. Just as it signed a one-year deal with the London Stock Exchange to get a near-live price feed, the LSE pulled the plug, and shortly after stunned Hauser by announcing it would be doing its own online share trading.

With lawyers in tow, he met the then-chairman of the London Stock Exchange in the most bizarre meeting of my life, Hauser recalls. He greeted me with the LSEs motto My Word is My Bond  just after breaking the contract. The chairman proceeded to thump the desk in anger. As a young person, you have this great respect for a great institution like the LSE. And there was this guy who was clearly out of his tree. The financial watchdog told the LSE to honour its contract, he recollects with satisfaction, and E*Trade UK was ultimately sold to the US partner for $280 million.

At about the same time, he had started his private equity firm Amadeus with chief executive Anne Glover, a tech start-up investor at Apax, and became the person handing out the cheques rather than receiving them. The move into venture capital made sense. By then, Hauser accounted for half of all angel investment in Cambridge, having backed dozens of start-ups along the way.

Although it has kept a low profile, Amadeus has had a pretty good run in its 20 years. Early successes included lastminute.coms float in 2000 and the $600 million sale of gene-sequencing firm Solexa in 2007. More recently, Samsung-backed Amadeus cashed in when London-listed chipmaker CSR, formerly Cambridge Silicon Radio, was sold to Qualcomm in 2015 for 1.6 billion. It also sold VocalIQ, an artificial intelligence voice firm, to Apple in 2015 for reportedly close to $100 million.

Hauser himself  reportedly worth 150 million  is a real draw for tech founders. Those include lastminute.com and made.com co-founder Brent Hoberman, who describes him as a pillar of UK tech investing and a great support for his own businesses. He can help predict the future and help entrepreneurs get there fast, he adds.

Amadeus has always had a fondness for biotech, a Cambridge speciality, but is also a specialist investor in fast-growing areas such as AI and cyber security. Hauser is also keen on fintech, where the London scene comes into its own.He visits the Mayfair office once or twice a week but still spends most of his time in Cambridge. While hes scaling back a little, Hauser, who was awarded an honorary knighthood last year, has no plans to head off into the sunset  or to his beef farm  just yet.

The joy he clearly gets from starting companies has not diminished, and he recalls almost every step of his career with the same fondness  most anecdotes begin with the phrase: It was the most amazing time.

Although very different in personality, Hauser clearly shares the vision that made Jobs such an icon. Does it bother him that he is often described as the UKs answer to the Apple man?

Given his achievements, its probably not a bad comparison. Maybe, but I get the feeling Hauser is more popular among colleagues than Jobs ever was.
The police action came after the Union Minister for Women and Child Development Minister, Maneka Gandhi, said on Thursday that the government will adopt a zero-tolerance approach in the case.

By Priyanka Sharma: The husband of Sangeeta Verma, a government school teacher from Ghaziabad who was doused with acid and received over 90 per cent burn injuries, has been arrested as Mail Today reported about her 15-year-old battle against dowry harassment.

The police action came even as Union Minister for Women and Child Development Minister, Maneka Gandhi, said on Thursday that the government will adopt a zero-tolerance approach in the case in a series of tweets after reading the MT report.

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Gandhi said in her tweets that she has asked for a detailed action-taken report from Uttar Pradesh Police and doctors treating her at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital. "Shameful that another woman has fallen victim to dowry. Immediate action will be taken to bring the culprits to book," she wrote, adding, "We must show zero-tolerance to dowry and the violence against women resulting due to it. This is unpardonable!"

IN-LAWS ABSCONDING

A senior official from the women and child development ministry said that Gandhi is not in the Capital right now but is in constant touch with Sangeeta and her family members, and plans to visit her at Safdurjung Hospital on her return from Assam. Deepak Kumar, SSP, Sahibabad told Mail Today that Sangeeta's husband, Sanjeev Nagar, was arrested from Sahibabad, but her in-laws are absconding and are being tracked. An FIR has been registered against the husband and his family under various IPC sections for dowry harassment and the acid attack.

ACID ATTACK CARRIES JAIL TERM OF 10 YRS

Acid attack carries a minimum prison term of 10 years. Police also recorded the victim's statement on Thursday, but said there are discrepancies in her versions. Sangeeta has suffered extensive burns all over her body and had narrated her ordeal to Mail Today with great difficulty. Chances of her survival are slim, doctors have said.

"In her first statement, she said that she got burn injuries on her own, while in her second statement she revealed that her husband and in-laws allegedly burnt her. Meanwhile, investigation is on to find the absconding in-laws," said Kumar. While chances of Sangeeta's survival are bleak, her family members are hoping for a recovery. Her two children, Avni (13) and Akash (12), have no idea where their mother has been since last week.

The victim was allegedly frequently threatened by her inlaws that if she spoke out about her harassment, the kids would have to pay the price. "Earlier, she was reluctant to tell the truth about her burn injuries. But knowing that her chances of survival are slim, she gave a statement to the police in an FIR that she was burnt by her in-laws," Pradeep Verma, Sangeeta's brother said.

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According to her brother, Sangeeta's husband had bought alcohol and indulged in other revelries with the `1.5 lakh she had saved for the school fees, books and uniform of their children. This led to massive arguments. Last Thursday, the fight over dowry turned ugly and her husband and in-laws allegedly attacked her with acid just before she was about to leave for school.

Also read: UP horror: Family ignores ordeal, now daughter battles life after in-laws douse her with acid over dowry

Also read: Is young Congress brigade fleeing party due to nepotism and corruption?

--- ENDS ---
A group of suppliers and creditors to collapsed fashion chain Jaeger are considering bidding for the company and installing its former chief Harold Tillman to salvage the business, the Standard has learned.

The consortium, which includes Portuguese textiles manufacturer Calvelex, has written to administrators AlixPartners to open deal negotiations.

Calvelexs Cesar Araujo said the group, which is owed millions following Jaegers demise, have asked Tillman if he would assemble his old team and run the business should they succeed.

We believe that this great British brand can become a world leader once again, Araujo added.

Tillman, who owned Jaeger between 2003 and 2012 and preivously tried to buy it back, said: If I was asked to do whats in the best interests of employees and creditors then of course Id take it.

Jaeger Fashion - In pictures 1 /33 Jaeger Fashion - In pictures English actress Leonora Corbett modelling a coat designed by Jaeger in 1934 Getty Images The cricket team of the Jaeger clothing company in 1934 Getty Images The men's department in the Jaeger store, Regent Street, London in 1935 Getty Images A model wearing a summer outfit by Jaeger, during the opening launch of their Regent Street store, London in 1935 Getty Images This is the uniform designed and made by Jaeger for the Womens British Olympic team to wear in the grand parade at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin A winter sports ensemble by Jaeger, one of the items at a fashion show at Claridge's in London presented by the International Wool Secretariat, 6th September 1938. A white woolen three-quarter length coat with a hood is worn over grey slacks Getty Images Jaeger makes this trim tennis "all-in-one" which combines the advantages of a dress and shorts in 1939 Fashion model Melissa Condon shows a tie, satin shirt, camel pullover and camel trousers all by Jaeger in 1967 Getty Images Models, Lynn Kohlman wearing a long shaggy coat with purple jersey two piece and Graham Rodgers wearing a green quilted cotton velvet jacket and green needlecord jeans all from Jaeger in 1971 Arthur Jones/Evening Standard Summer shopping at Jaeger on Regent Street Nigel Howard A model walks the catwalk at the Jaeger Spring/Summer 2009 collection catwalk during London Fashion week on September 15, 2008 in London Getty Images A model walks down the runway at the Jaeger London Spring/Summer 2010 fashion show at the BFC Tent, Somerset House, during London Fashion Week on September 21, 2009 Getty Images A model walks down the runway at the Jaeger London Spring/Summer 2010 fashion show at the BFC Tent, Somerset House, during London Fashion Week on September 21, 2009 in London Getty Images A model walks down the runway at the Jaeger London Spring/Summer 2010 fashion show at the BFC Tent, Somerset House, during London Fashion Week on September 21, 2009 in London Getty Images A model walks down the catwalk during Jaeger London's Spring/Summer 2010 collection presentation on the fourth day of London Fashion Week in central London, on September 21, 2009 AFP/Getty Images A model walks the catwalk at the Jaeger Spring/Summer 2009 collection catwalk during London Fashion week on September 15, 2008 in London Getty Images Jaeger wet look mac and print dress Jaeger Jaeger London Autumn/Winter 2010 at The London Eye Jaeger Models walk the runway during the Jaeger Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show at Somerset House during London Fashion Week on September 21, 2010 Getty Images Models walk the runway during the Jaeger Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show at Somerset House during London Fashion Week on September 21, 2010 Getty Images A model walks down the catwalk at the Jaeger show during London Fashion Week on February 22, 2010 Getty Images A model walks the runway at the Jaeger London Show during London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2011 at Somerset House on February 19, 2011 Getty Images A model walks the runway during the Jaeger London show at London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012 at the BFC Space at Somerset House on September 17, 2011 in London Getty Images A model displays a creation by Jaeger London during the Spring/Summer 2012 collection show, on the second day of the London Fashion Week in London, on September 17, 2011 AFP/Getty Images Harold Tillman arriving for the Burberry Catwalk show, during London Fashion Week, at Kensington Gardens in 2011 PA

Tillman, who has twice previously tried to buy Jaeger back, said: If I was asked to do whats in the best interests of employees and creditors then of course Id take it.

AlixPartners declined to comment.

The 131-year-old clothing brand lost its way after a shift to cheaper fabrics alienated its core middle-aged customer. A recent revamp, including a major rebranding, a move away from discounting and store closures, helped sales rise over Christmas, but it remained loss-making.

Last month its private equity owner Better Capital sold Jaegers debt to a mystery buyer, believed to be Peacocks owner Edinburgh Woollen Mill, for 7 million. Better Capital, which bought Jaeger for 19.5 million and invested more, made a loss of around 62 million on the business.

Jaeger drafted in AlixPartners last week after failing to attract suitable offers.

On Tuesday AlixPartners said it would shut 20 financially unviable Jaeger stores, including Bluewater and Canary Wharf, at the cost of more than 200 jobs.
R eckitt Benckiser was under pressure today after the Durex-to-Dettol maker said it had been hurt by a safety scandal, and revealed lacklustre figures that missed analysts estimates.

The consumer goods giant said on a reported basis, first-quarter sales rose 15% to 2.6 billion. However, excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, acquisitions and disposals, sales were flat.

Analysts were expecting like-for-like growth of 1%.

Reckitt Benckiser warned its Africa, Asia and South America division had been negatively impacted by a controversy in South Korea, where the former boss of its division there was sentenced in January to seven years in prison over the sale of a toxic product linked to almost 100 deaths.

It also flagged a failed new Scholl product that weighed on the business.

There was better news in its Durex and Mucinex divisions, where there was growth.

Chief executive Rakesh Kapoor, who saw his pay slashed by more than a third to 14.6 million last year, said the results are in line with expectations as macro conditions remain challenging. The firm stood by its target for full-year sales growth of 3%.

But the City was unimpressed, and Reckitt Benckiser was one of the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100. The shares lost 89p to 7186p.

The update comes two months after the firm revealed plans for a $16.6 billion (13 billion) takeover of US baby formula maker Mead Johnson. It said the deal is due to complete in the third quarter.

Reckitt recently launched a review of its 2 billion foods business, which could see the division behind Franks RedHot sauces being sold off to help fund the deal.
W hatever may be desirable, the polls appear to be definitive on the election and the respective polling positions of the Leaders of the Government and Opposition.

There are many great Labour candidates and MPs and I will be fully supportive of them. But the fact is that if the polls are right, Theresa May will be PM on June 9 with a large majority.

But with what mandate? The British people have to navigate a way through not just choosing a government but working out what they want the governing mandate to be.

Unless there is some clarity around that mandate, a re-elected Tory Government could do what it wants. But is that what we want? The PM says she wants her hand strengthened in the Brexit negotiations. This is plausible as a headline but requires greater interrogation. What she really wants is a free hand  but to do what?

Some say it is to defeat the Tory Right so that she can go for a softer Brexit. This is naive. The opposite is true. At present, if she wanted to face down the Tory Right she has a Parliament with a majority to do so. What she doesnt have is a Parliament that would vote for Brexit at any cost.

Her current position is: Brexit will happen, theres no turning back and no deal is better than a bad deal. What for her is non-negotiable, is that Brexit will not happen.

Tony Blair: 'She is choosing to hold the election now because, as of now, we dont know the terms we may be offered' / PA

Therefore she wants a landslide majority so that there are sufficient numbers of Tory MPs who will vote to leave Europe even if the deal does not deliver exactly the same benefits as membership of the single market and customs union. Or there is no deal.

The Daily Mail front page Crush the Saboteurs tells you exactly what the aim of the election is  and the saboteurs it has in mind are not, I think we can safely say, the Tory Right.

Of course the PMs preference, correctly, is for the best deal for Britain and, she genuinely hopes, one giving us maximum access to the single market and customs union.

But for her it is the best deal for Britain that is consistent with Brexit. Excluded from the best deal concept is giving the people the right to change their minds on Brexit.

Brexit means Brexit was mocked at the time as a vacuous statement. In fact, it was a plain encapsulation of the mission of the Government. Brexit comes first, foremost and paramount.

Theresa May is a reasonable person pursuing an unreasonable policy. In so far as this election is about Brexit, there is one question that should dominate every interview, course through every husting, enlighten every debate  a question for the PM and for every other candidate.

PM Theresa May calls for general elections on June 8

It is: would you still go ahead with Brexit, even if the deal did not deliver substantially the same access to the single market and customs union we have now or was one that carried long-term risks to our economy or there was no deal? In other words, are there any circumstances in which having looked at the best deal we can get, we conclude that it isnt good enough for Britain?

She is choosing to hold the election now because, as of now, we dont know the terms we may be offered. She is therefore in the benign position of claiming there is a best deal for Britain in prospect. And no one can irrefutably claim otherwise. But she will also now have a much more detailed analysis of the difficulties of this negotiation. And they are formidable.

Essentially, and never forget this was an original achievement of the Thatcher government of the Eighties, we created one supra-national market which was a vast facilitation of economic activity. It became easier to do business, to criss-cross supply chains in manufacturing, to have London as Europes financial centre, even for the euro when we werent a member of it, to have service industries serving the whole of Europe not just the UK. It was something hugely superior to an ordinary free-trade agreement. It was unique.

What were now embarked upon is the strangest exercise in trade negotiation the world has seen.

Were going to unravel our participation in that one market, and then try to renegotiate a free-trade agreement that gives us back its benefits.

Most trade negotiations are about straightforward trade liberalisation. This one will be about de-liberalisation followed by re-liberalisation. The technical complication of this is obvious.

But politically, the choices are now pretty clear: either something effectively like the single market and customs union but which would require accepting the rules of both  and that is inconsistent with the political declarations of the PM. Or something less than that, with reduced market access and probably a lot of bureaucracy around things such as rules of origin etc. Or going out with no deal and trading under World Trade Organisation rules.

Some of these deals are comparatively good for the economy, some bad, some ugly. She will try for good but she has ruled out staying in the single market. The likelihood is therefore a choice between bad and downright ugly.

We need to add a new dimension to this election, a movement of informed voters who can ensure that a re-elected Tory party cannot claim a mandate for Brexit at any cost.

I propose that the organisations that want to keep open the right of people to change their minds on Brexit, depending on the outcome of the negotiation, come together to mobilise voters to demand from candidates a clear statement of their position on Brexit; in particular, whether they would refuse to support a deal that substantially diminishes our access to the single market or a no deal outcome.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who are still highly active on this issue. There are several organisations, each with a contact base of more than 200,000 people and one with more than 500,000. Would-be MPs need to know that for significant numbers of their constituents an open mind on Brexit counts.

We dont know what size majority Mrs May will get. But we can determine what mandate she can claim.
R ecord Store Day returns for another glorious year celebrating everything vinyl this Saturday, April 22.

As ever, aside from the limited edition releases themselves  which will be available at record stores across London  therell be a few gatherings across town.

Rough Trade West have live music from the Hold Steadys Craig Finn, as well as south London post-punks Shame, while over in Boxpark Croydon, theres an all day party hosted by Vinyl Club.

Brixton has two offerings: Container Records are hosting a label party throughout the day, then in the evening will have everyone on their feet dancing, with a night featuring Dele Sosimi and London hip-hop producer Eric Lau.

Elsewhere, in the Bussey Building, Rye Wax are celebrating indie labels with live music followed by a late night get down with plenty of local beer.

Fans of the Duke Spirit should head to Flashback Records in Shoreditch, where the band are performing live, followed by Slabdragger at 7.30pm. Flashback is one of the finest record stores in London, so expect their to be some extra special Record Store Day releases.

Further out east, Vinyl Pimp in Hackney Wick will have a host of DJs spinning, including Luke Vibert, Bambooman, Deft and Miro SundayMusiq, with hotdogs from nearby restaurant Pearl and beers from Crate Brewery. Enjoy!
A n incredible vista and delicious food to boot, Oblix is the perfect spot for an occasion...

The story: On the 32nd floor of the Shard, with panoramic views across the London skyline, it is hard to compete with Oblix's setting.

The restaurant is the brainchild of chef Rainer Becker, who started out his career at some of Germanys top restaurants including Michelin star Koenigshof in Munich and Goethehaus in Bensberg. He later moved to Australia, working as the executive chef at the Park Hyatt hotel in Sydney before heading to its sister concept in Tokyo for six years.

His first big London project was Japanese inspired restaurant Zuma, with business partner Arjun Waney in Knightsbridge. Roka, in Charlotte Street, followed. Oblix opened its doors in 2013 and has established itself as one of the city's landmark dining options.

Atmosphere: A modern, smart but relaxed experience. The senses are stirred as you enter the main dining room through the open kitchen. Alternatively, the bar is a buzzy place to enjoy a pre or post dinner cocktail.

As the sun sets and the capital lights up, there is something rather special about being this close to the clouds. This is just the spot for a special occasion.

What's on the menu? Food is centred on the wood fired oven, charcoal grill and spit roast. Becker knows how to do upscale, contemporary dining with the best of British and European produce. Try the free range chicken from the rotisserie, Dover Sole from the grill or chops from the Josper oven. Then leave room for the New York cheesecake.

Who goes? Movers and shakers from the City will feel just as at home as royals and celebrities. Pippa Middleton has been spotted tucking into one of the delicious dishes.

Cheque out: Expect to pay around 100 per person with a glass of wine.

Book it: call 020 7268 6700 or visit oblixrestaurant.com.

Follow Amira Hashish on Twitter @amiranews and Instagram @thedesigneditor
I f you think you dont like Chardonnay, or that its passe, a bit Eighties wine bar, it could be time to think again about this super-versatile white. Chardonnay is a real shapeshifter of a wine  one of the most diverse, most widely planted grapes across the globe. Hailing from the Burgundy village of Maconnais, it really stands out in the limestone-rich soils found in Champagne and Burgundy but it can flourish in a wide range of climates and a huge variety of soils, showcasing the specific terroir, the flavours of the environment where it is grown. This quality white also has a great ability to age gracefully - just think of a premium Mersault, with notes of honey, nuts and butter.

In cool climates such as Champagne and Chablis, the wines are beautifully steely, light to medium in body with high lemon acidity and notes of barely ripe green fruit, greengage and plum. In more moderate conditions Chardonnay releases extra citrus and stone fruit, while in hot climates, bigger flavours of tropical fruit - banana, mango, passionfruit and pineapple - come forward. When the weather heats up, the acidity of the wine decreases as the alcohol increases.

Because Chardonnay is relatively neutral in taste, not aromatic like Sauvignon Blanc, it can also suit many different techniques in the winery. It is often fermented and/or aged in oak to add tannin, butter-rich, toast and nutty flavours. A rounded, oily, creamier style can be achieved by softening the tart malic acid - found in apples - into smooth, lactic acid, found in milk, in a process known as malolactic fermentation. Ageing on the wines lees  the dead yeast cells - is another technique used to add complexity and body. Little or no use of such techniques will keep the flavours sharp and precise with a lighter mouthfeel.

From saline-sharp styles to creamy and exotic, Chardonnay is superbly food-friendly. Lighter, unoaked styles pair well with sushi, shellfish, goats cheese, grilled fish and chicken, while fuller-bodied and oak-aged styles work with cream-based dishes, veal and meatier fish, pates, pumpkin ravioli and nutty cheddar cheese. Depending on the use of oak, and on age, vintage and price, there will inevitably be some crossover in the food pairings but dressed up or dressed down, theres a Chardonnay to suit the dish.

From the ABC brigade  Anything But Chardonnay - to the faithful lovers of only one style or region, this selection will rev up your taste buds.

Varner Wines, Foxglove Chardonnay 2014

Stannary Wine

From Californias Central Coast, this excellent-value wine is juicy and fresh with tropical notes of pineapple and yellow stone fruit, with hints of orange and white florals against an icy steel minerality. The two opposing forces are kept in check. No malolactic fermentation or oak keeps the taste pure, lean and precise.

18.05, Stannary Wine Buy it here

Michel Gahier, Chardonnay La Fauquette Arbois (sous-voile) 2012

Gahier Michel

Sous-voile, or under the veil, is a winemaking technique, popular in Frances Jura region, where the wine is deliberately oxidised in half-filled barrels that are not topped up, allowing oxygen to seep in. As in sherry-making, a veil of yeast grows over the surface, protecting the wine from further oxidation but leaving deliciously intense characteristics of salted nuts and spice. The deep flavours of the 2012 harvest are effortlessly kept fresh and beautifully balanced. An ideal partner to the regions aged Comte cheese.

28.99, Les Caves de Pyrene, Tel 01483 554750

Ivo Varbanov, Clair de Lune, Bulgaria 2013

Berry Bros. & Rudd

Formerly a renowned concert pianist, winemaker Ivo Varbanovs Chardonnay is an ode to Debussys Clair de Lune and to lovers of oak. The wine is fermented in Bulgarian oak, giving heavier flavours of spice and toast than you would get from French. Pale golden in colour, herbal and citrus on the nose. From front to back, the palate takes you from lemon to rich and juicy stone fruit, honey blossom and warm ginger, nutty spice, crunchy apple acidity and a rounded, creamy finish. The oak keeps things interesting - giving depth and balance to the fruit.

14.95, Berry Bros. & Rudd Buy it here

Les Cretes Chardonnay 2015

Les Cretes

For Burgundy lovers, this Italian Chardonnay from the mountainous Valle dAosta has an exotic fruit core, refreshing acidity, and a well-rounded, smooth finish. Steel-fermented with only six months on lees, this medium-bodied Chardonnay, rich and pure on the palate, will take you from starter through to the cheese course.

24.49, Les Caves de Pyrene, Tel 01483 554750

Petit Chablis, Domaine des Hates 2013

Stannary Wine

The Petit Chablis appellation lies on the edge of the town of Chablis. Often overlooked for creating wines with high acidity and tart flavours in favour of higher-ranked appellations in the region, young winemaker Pierrick Laroche has created a something of a niche for his wines. The vines are grown high on the chalky contouring slopes, creating an intense, stony minerality on the palate, dry with balanced, refreshing acidity and a scintillating saline finish. Light, pared-back hints of honeysuckle and floral peep through but the draw is all in the crisp, nervy energy. Enjoy chilled with egg-based dishes, including omelettes and quiche, as well as oysters or grilled sardines. Avoid too much spice.

15.95 on special offer (ends April 30), Stannary Wine Buy it here

Schnabel Morillon (skin contact) 2014

Schnabel Morillon

Weingut Schnabel grows its Morillon - the local name for Chardonnay in southern Styria - on vines at 550m altitude on the craggy island of Sausal. This Austrian family of five has a vehement commitment to forgo all chemical and technical manipulation, using only the best raw material and natural practices. All their whites are made in the orange style - white grapes undergoing extended skin contact during maceration, the same procedure for making red wine - and the 2014 Morillon is wild fermented in open vats, aged for one year and bottled with no fining or filtration. Honey-yellow in the glass, with intense aromas of herbal and orange citrus, peach stone fruit, bitter pith, walnut, hazelnut and dried herbs on the palate. At only 11.5 per cent ABV, the intense flavours are very light and beautifully refined. The herbal, savoury finish is dry, delicious, very moreish and will elevate any dish.

32.49, Les Caves de Pyrene, Tel 01483 554750

Arnaud Aucoeur Vieilles Vignes Beaujolais Blanc 2016

Yapp Brothers

Packing fuller flavours than other mineral-driven Chardonnays due to the use of old vines, the delicate orchard fruit flavours of Arnaud Aucoeurs Beaujolais Blanc are magnified, paired with bracingly fresh acidity and no oak, keeping the finish mineral-pure and arrow-straight. This will cut through many seafood dishes, including crab, mussels and oysters.

12.50, Yapp Brothers Buy it here

Jean Durup Pere et Fils, Les Valery Chablis 2015

Tanner Wines

Dip your toe into Chablis with this fine and affordable example. Durups trademark style is unoaked, pure and terroir-driven. A classic nose of wet stones, honeysuckle, green fruit and steel in youth. Light and lean on the taste buds, with citrus, apple, pear and seaside salinity, this will enhance the flavours of shellfish, seafood and fish and chips but the wines hallmark acidity will also cut through the richness of scallops and wash-rind cheeses such as Stinking Bishop, Epoisses and Taleggio.

16.50, Tanners Wines Buy it here

2012 Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis Grand Cru Bougros

Tanners Wines

For those already well acquainted, Chablis Grand Cru can often taste like a still version of Champagne, with which it shares a great ability to stay fresh with age. This 2012 vintage, from one of the regions best producers, has layered aromas of sun-ripened citrus fruit, honey, brioche and toasted hazelnut. Aged without oak to keep the flavours pure and fresh and the acidic structure tight. More mature Chablis can enhance the creaminess of dishes such as foie gras; steamed lobster dipped in melted butter; mushrooms cooked in butter, parsley and wild garlic; roasted quail; cream-based fish and chicken dishes, and black truffles over rich polenta.

40, Marks & Spencer Buy it here

Nuria Stylianou is our WSET-qualified wine and spirits columnist. Email her on nuria.stylianou@ and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @nu_on_the_vine
The ambitious expressway project is under scanner over allegations of farm land being passed as land for residential purposes to get higher compensation.

By India Today Web Desk: After ordering the removal of ration cards bearing the photograph of former chief minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, now it seems the Yogi Adityanath Government is leaving no stone unturned to overhaul the works done by the previous government.

Now, Akhilesh Yadav's ambitious Lucknow-Agra Expressway project has come under the scanner of the Yogi Adityanath government.

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The ambitious expressway project is under scanner over allegations of farm land being passed as land for residential purposes to get higher compensation.

According to official sources, the state government has directed 10 district magistrates to probe all land deals done in around 230 villages over the last 18 months. It has hired public sector company RITES to conduct a technical survey of the expressway within a month.

The move comes after a special field officer of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), Y N Lal, filed an FIR in Firozabad against five chakbandi (land consolidation) officers and 22 land owners accusing them of showing agriculture land in Bachhela Bachheli village as land for residential purposes.

LAND PURCHASED FROM 232 VILLAGES

Around 3,500 hectare of land was purchased from 20,456 farmers in 10 districts of 232 villages for this project. UPEIDA chief executive officer Awanish Awasthi said that he has sent letters to the district magistrates concerned on April 19. The idea is to ensure that genuine farmers are not affected, he said.

The previous Samajwadi Party government had claimed that the 302-km long expressway was constructed in record time and then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav often peppered his election speeches with the mention of his "dream project".

The present government claims that around Rs 670 crore allotted for the project is lying unused in its accounts. Around Rs 200 crore of this amount is with the district magistrates and the rest were with the UPEIDA, despite around 99.5 per cent of land for the project have already been purchased.

The District Magistrates have been asked to return funds lying with them, while the amount with UPEIDA has been reversed, officials said.

EXPRESSWAY COSTS ABOUT RS 15,000 CRORE

The expressway, which cost Rs 15,000 crore, passes through Etawah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Unnao, Kanpur, Kannauj, Auraiya and Hardoi. It has an air strip near Unnao, where fighter planes can land, making it unique.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been reviewing the schemes of the Akhilesh Yadav government, including the Samajwadi Pension Yojana, Gomti river front project, Smartphone Yojana and cycle track project.

He has also ordered a thorough review of the prestigious Yash Bharti Awards, started by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1994, saying that giving them away to undeserving persons lowers the prestige of such an honour.

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The government has also instructed magistrates of districts along the proposed Poorvanchal Expressway, connecting Lucknow and Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh, to stop land consolidation in 19 villages of Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur districts till land acquisition is completed. So far, the government has purchased about 35 per cent of the land required for this project.

With inputs from PTI

Also read:

Yogi Adityanath completes a month as UP CM, scraps Akhilesh's dream project

Yogi Adityanath government completes 30 days: How foreign media reported the month

Yogi Adityanath in Bundelkhand: Drought-hit farmers to meet UP CM in Jhansi to press for demands

WATCH VIDEO | Yogi government orders probe into Lucknow-Agra Expressway land deal

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A scot opens its Flat Racing season next week on May 3, which means it's time to start thinking about your first flutter.

But aside from being a great day out and a way to make - or lose - a few bob, how much do you actually know about the famous racecourse?

Here are five things you didn't know about Ascot.

1. Queen Anne spotted its potential

It was Queen Anne who first saw the potential for a racecourse at Ascot in summer 1711, when it was still called East Cote. Whilst out riding she came upon an area of open heath not far from Windsor Castle, which looked like an ideal place for horses to gallop at full stretch. Naturally her wish was granted and the first race meeting at Ascot took place on August 11th of the same year. The inaugural event was Her Majesty's Plate, which was worth 100 guineas.

2. The first building was erected in 1974

The first permanent building was erected in 1794 by a local Windsor builder - it held 1,650 people and was used for almost fifty years.

Royal Ascot 2017 - Style Guide suggestions 1 /21 Royal Ascot 2017 - Style Guide suggestions Royal Ascot 2017 Style guide suggestions... Royal Ascot 2017 style guide She wears:

Hat: Awon Golding, 595

Jumpsuit: Hugo Boss, 450

Shoes: Hugo Boss, 340





He wears:

Suit: Hugo Boss, 580

Shirt: Hugo Boss, 109

Shoes: Hugo Boss, 450 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide She wears:

Hat: Jess Collett, 495

Jacket: Escada, 735

Trouser: Escada, 355

Top: Hugo Boss, 179

Shoes: Jimmy Choo, 425

Bag: Jimmy Choo, 475



He wears: Hat: Oliver Brown, from 500

Coat: Favourbrook, 690

Waistcoat: Favourbrook, 150

Trousers: Favourbrook, 240

Shirt: Ted Baker, 89

Tie: Reiss, 40

Shoes: Crockett & Jones, 385 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Suit: Hugo Boss, 600

Shirt: Hugo Boss, 109

Tie: Hugo Boss, 65

Shoes: Hugo Boss, 450 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Harvy Santos, 1,100 made to order

Dress: Suzannah, 2,850

Shoes: Casadei, 745

Earrings: Garrard, 8,000

Clutch: Sophia Webster, 350 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Merve Bayindir, 850

Dress: La Mania, price on request

Clutch: Elena Ghisellini, 515

Shoes: Roger Vivier, 545 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Awon Golding, 1,800

Jacket: Antonio Berardi, 1,170

Trouser: Antonio Berardi 596

Top: Hugo Boss, 179

Shoes: Kurt Geiger, 140

Clutch: Elena Ghisellini, 1,895 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Jess Collett, 980

Dress: Coast, 229

Shoes: Rupert Sanderson, 425

Clutch: Paula Cademartori, 1,026 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Edwina Ibbotson, 1,460

Dress: Roksanda, 995

Shoes: Reiss, 140 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Jacket: Reiss, 295

Trousers: Reiss, 135

Tie: Reiss, 40

Shirt: Ted Baker, 89

Shoes: Kurt Geiger, 89 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Sarah Cant, 650

Jumpsuit: Emilia Wickstead, 990

Shoes: Sophia Webster, 395 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Jess Collett, 650

Coat: Ted Baker, 275

Bag: Ted Baker, 109

Dress: Reiss, 265

Shoes: Tabitha Simmons, 695 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Oliver Brown, from 500

Waistcoat: Oliver Brown, 135

Suit: bespoke Dunhill, price on request

Shirt: Dunhill, 160

Shoes: Dunhill, 890

Tie: Favourbrook, 85 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Stephen Jones Millinery, 405

Dress: Luisa Beccaria, price on request

Shoes: Tabitha Simmons, 595 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Oliver Brown, from 500

Coat: Oliver Brown, 475

Waistcoat: Oliver Brown, 135

Shirt: Oliver Brown, 65

Trousers: Oliver Brown, 225

Tie: Oliver Brown, 35

Watch: Longines, 4,190

Shoes: Ludwig Reiter, 549 Royal Ascot 2017 style guide Hat: Emily London, 1,125

Coat: Hugo Boss, 430

Dress Hugo Boss, 400

Shoes: Hugo Boss, 365

Bag: Hugo Boss, 895

3. The land is leased from the Crown Estate

The land on which Ascot Racecourse sits is leased from the Crown Estate, and is adjacent to Windsor's Great Park. Famed for being a tough course, it is a 73-foot climb from the lowest point (Swinley Bottom) up to the highest (Winning Post). The racecourse covers 179 acres and is maintained by 12 regular ground staff. For flat racing, the grass is cut to a regulation 4 inches, and 5 inches for Jump racing.

4. There's a race most months of the year

A race meeting is held nearly every month at Ascot. The flat season runs from late April/early May to the end of October, and the Jumps season runs from November until late March/early April. Last year a total of 1,421 runners raced at Ascot during the Flat Season.

5. More than half a million people go to Ascot each year

Ascot Racecourse is visited by almost 600,000 racegoers a year, accounting for 10 per cent of all UK racegoers. Between them they consume more than 72,000 scones and 55,000 bottles of Champagne.
.

France is renowned for its cuisine and its culture  so why not eat, drink and be merry as you tour its beautiful south west? Around eight hours south of Calais, the Dordogne, Gironde and Charente are home to some of Frances most celebrated food and drink, while at the same time offering an eclectic mix of history, music and arts.

Food is such an integral part of French culture that in 2010 the national cuisine was added to Unescos intangible cultural heritage list, in recognition of its ability to bring people together and create balance between humans and nature.

Indeed, in France, nature is as unique and beautiful as the gastronomy. Take the Dordogne and its heady mix of thick forests, chalk landscapes and rolling hills, for example. Or Charente and Gironde, which both have undulating landscapes that shift and change from fields of sunflowers to row after row of ancient vines.

This outstanding agricultural land produces gourmet delights in abundance, be it knobbly black truffles, creamy Cabecou goats cheese, walnuts, foie gras or duck confit  all to be washed down with Cognac, Pineau and fine wine.

Theres a fantastic mix of culture to experience from prehistoric caves to charming villages and 1,500 fairy tale castles

Of course, it is not just the cuisine that makes this area so appealing to visit. There is a fantastic mix of culture to experience  from prehistoric caves to charming villages, and more than 1,500 fairy tale castles. Add to this farmers markets, Romanesque churches, and numerous festivals, and visitors are not short of activities to fill their time with.

The popularity of the Dordogne can mean hordes of tourists during the summer months. To escape the crowds, head to Hautefort. This ancient town offers a medieval chateau, farm tours where you can taste and buy local produce direct from source. It also offers easy access to activities, such as travelling deep underground in the caves of Tourtoirac or Lascaux, canoeing down the Dordogne river or rummaging through antiques shops in pretty local villages.

From Hautefort travel west to Saint-Emilion. With 2,000 years of history, world-famous wines and beautiful architecture, this Unesco World Heritage-listed town is well worth the two-hour drive and has much by way of things to do.

When you have had your fill of Saint-Emilion, head north to Cognac. It may be a small town but there is lots to keep you occupied, be it sampling its namesake or spending a leisurely evening by the River Charente (above). Visit in July and you have the pick of two music festivals to choose from: Cognac Blues Passion (4-8 July or Fete du Cognac (27-29 July). With so much to experience in this beautiful part of the world, one trip wont be enough and you will need to keep coming back for seconds  and thirds.

Along the way - Saint-Emilion

Alamy / Alamy

Most visit Saint-Emilion to sample the wine, be it at a vineyard or via the tasting experiences available in the shops and restaurants. But even if wine isnt your thing, theres still lots to do. Explore the catacombs, visit ancient monuments and art galleries, or climb the 196 steps of the Bell Tower for stunning views as far as the eye can see.

While youre there - Cognac

Alamy / Alamy

Cognac is famed for its brandy so it would be remiss not to discover what has earned its global reputation while here. The bigger distilleries, such as the houses of Hennessey, Martell and Remy Martin, are located in the town centre, while smaller producers can be found in the surrounding vine-covered hills. All have tours, tastings and the opportunity to buy.

Book tomorrows adventure today - with Eurotunnel Le Shuttle you can get to France by car in just 35 minutes, travel in the freedom of your own car and explore Europe at your own pace

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A London luxury flats developer on Friday revealed its first property deal since the Brexit vote, as it outlined plans for a 100 million project in Marylebone.

Native Land, backed by private British and international investors, said it has agreed a deal with The Portman Estate for the long leasehold of office block Regent House in Edgware Road.

Planning permission is in place for 24 apartments, shops and 43,000 square feet of offices.

Construction is due to begin in 2018, with completion in 2020.

Native Land boss Alasdair Nicholls, told the Standard: In spite of post-referendum uncertainty, we have kept a very selective eye on new opportunities, based on our view that London will remain a global talent hub and that demand for high-quality homes in excellent locations will continue.

Although residential prices across the most expensive central London areas dropped by an average of 6.4% in the year to March, they have held their own in Marylebone, rising 0.7%, according to property agent Knight Frank.

The area is set to benefit from Crossrail.
A conman posed as a Met police officer to persuade his victim to hand over thousands of pounds in cash from her life savings.

The scam started when the thief rang a 51-year-old woman at her home in Waltham Forest on Thursday, February 9, telling her she had been a victim of fraud and her identification had been stolen.

Pretending to be a Metropolitan Police detective called James Portman, he told her to hang up the phone, dial 999 and quote a crime reference number, and she would be put back through to him.

In reality, he stayed on the line, meaning she did not speak to a genuine 999 operator.

Having gained her trust, the victim was then given a set of instructions by DC Portman and told to visit a bank on Leytonstone High Road to withdraw cash, then a bureau de change in Walthamstow to withdraw Euros and American dollars.

The conman called her again at 6pm and convinced her to hand over the cash and her bank cards as evidence, to a courier who came to her house who claimed he would take the cash to Hammersmith Police Station.

The next day she was made to transfer savings into her current account, then go to a jewellery shop on Old Bond Street to buy a high-end watch which she gave to another courier,

On Monday, 13 February, DC Portman told her by phone she must withdraw everything or she could lose her life savings. She was then ordered to buy another watch from a jewellers and hand it to a different courier.

The scam was rumbled when the victims phone ran out of battery while on the phone to the con artist.

She borrowed a member of publics phone to dial 101, quoting DC Portmans name and the crime reference number she was given, which the operator said was false and there was no DC James Portman in the system.

The victim became suspicious and reported the crime to police.

Police investigating the courier scam have now released an image of a man they want to speak to.

Detective Constable James Egley, the investigating officer from the Mets Operation Falcon, said: These conmen went to extreme lengths to gain the victims trust to deliberately deceive her out of her hard-earned life-savings.

We would appeal for anyone who recognises the man in the CCTV to contact us or Crimestoppers.

People should be aware that the police would never send a courier service to collect items and would never ask for your PIN, bank cards, to withdraw money or to buy expensive items.

Anyone who recognises the man or has any information should call Operation Falcon on 020 7230 8203, Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or tweet @MetCC.

For fraud advice visit www.met.police.uk
A loyal customer of an iconic pie and mash shop in Walthmstow has launched a Facebook campaign to find a much-loved till that was swiped in the middle of the night.

The ornamental brass till has sat behind the counter of the Grade II listed shop L. Manzes for nearly 90 years.

But it was stolen three weeks ago and now the hunt has begun to return the antique National Cash Register to its rightful home in north east London.

Tim Nicholls, who owns the cafe with his sister Jacqueline Cooper, told the Standard that the till had been there since the shop opened in 1929.

It's always been there. But about three weeks ago someone smashed the window and broke into the shop at night and took the till, he said, adding that, bizarrely, the only other thing stolen was dishwasher tablets.

It is not worth much money  probably about 150, he said. But it has a lot of sentimental value. It was one of the artefacts that stood out in the shop.

It would be lovely if one of the thousands of people out there on social media spotted something and could help us to get it back.

A customer of Mr Nicholls, Steve Read, wrote about the stolen till in a Facebook post that has since been shared almost 45,000 times in two days.

He wrote: Please can you read and help. Someone broke into Manze's Pie & Mash shop in Walthamstow E17.

Shop:The Pie and Mash shop is iconic in east London

Although there was little damage, they stole the brass till that has been part of the shop for 90 plus years and may try to sell it on.

Its of such sentimental value to the Manze Shop and so many remember it, not worth a lot of money.

A spokesman for the Met said: "Police were called at 2.59pm March 30 March to reports of a burglary at an address on High Street, E17.

"The burglary took place between about 5pm on March 29 March and 7am the following day. It is believed entry was gained by smashing a side window. An antique brass till was reported stolen."

Anyone with information about the burglary or the whereabouts of the till should contact police on 101 or @MetCC.
A young hacker caused global chaos and "incalculable" damage by fuelling more than 1.7 million cyber attacks around the world, the Old Bailey heard today.

Adam Mudd, 20, helped fellow hackers to attack and crash websites and computer servers by selling access to his sophisticated TitaniumStresser programme.

The court heard Mudd's distributed denial of service (DDoS) programme, designed in his bedroom in Hertfordshire when he was just 15-years-old, crippled computers in "every major city" around the world, causing millions of pounds of damage.

He first road-tested the programme on the website of West Herts College, where he himself was studying computer science, causing "incalculable" harm.

Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told the court TitaniumStresser users, paying up to 250 to subscribe, could target websites, email systems, and file transfer services, as well as online gamers using XBox Live, PlayStation, RuneScape and Minecraft.

TitaniumStresser would "overwhelmed" the servers of the victim with an avalanche of online requests sent simultaneously, and gave users the option of logging a list of their "friends and enemies".

Mr Polnay showed the court a map of the world showing attacks in "almost every major city", adding: "Where there are computers, there have been attacks."

He said it would be "impossible" to assess the financial damage done by Mudd's systems, but said one of Mudd's four attacks on West Herts College in 2014 "was so large it is likely to have affected a further 70 schools and higher education establishments, including the Universities of Cambridge, Essex and East Anglia as well as local and district councils."

Mudd raked in more than 250,000 through subscriptions to TitaniumStresser - in bitcoins and US dollars - before reaching his 18th birthday.

Titanium Stresser is a computer programme created by the defendant, and it is not an unimpressive piece of software in terms of design, said Mr Polnay.

It carried out DDoS attacks and it takes down computer networks and websites.

The defendant charged for use of it, to others all around the world  these offences truly had a global reach  would pay money to use this programme.

He said the TitaniumStresser internal log showed it had been used for 1,738,828 cyber attacks between September 2013 and March 2015.

Mr Polnay added that Mudd appears to have saved the most powerful attack capabilities of his programme for himself, using it nearly 600 times on 181 victims under the username themuddfamily.

More than 666,000 computers were targeted by Mudd's programme, including 52,836 in the UK, before he was finally snared by police.

Mudd opened his computer for officers when he was arrested in March 2015, admitting he had made TitaniumStresser but claiming "he had not been involved in any criminality".

However he pleaded guilty to doing unauthorised acts with intent to impair the operation of a computer, a charge of making, supplying or offering to supply the TitaniumStresser programme, and concealing criminal property in October last year.

Judge Michael Topolski QC said the teenager, who has been assessed for autism, will not be sentenced until a later date.

The court has heard his software code was copied by notorious hackers the Lizard Squad, who claims to have successfully overloaded victims including Microsoft, Sony, and Instagram.

Mudd, of Toms Lane, Kings Langley, pleaded guilty to all three charges against him.
A second victim has been left blind in one eye following a horrific acid attack at an east London nightclub.

Police say a man suffered burns when a noxious substance was sprayed into a crowd of revellers at the Mangle club in Hackney.

Itt emerged earlier this week that a 22-year-old woman was also left blind in one eye in the terrifying scenes in Sidworth Street on Bank Holiday Monday.

A woman, 33, has been arrested on suspicion of firearms offences after officers carried out a raid at an address in Hertfordshire in connection with the investigation.

Two other properties in the area were also raided by police.

Detectives continue to hunt 25-year-old Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann, over the attack.

Police want to trace Arthur Collins / Met Police

Police say he should not be approached by members of the public if seen.

Two other men are also wanted for questioning, and CCTV images of the pair are currently being reviewed by investigators.

Twenty people suffered burns during the assault at around 1.10am on Monday, April 17.

Two men, aged 24 and 29, were transferred to a specialist burns hospital in Essex. They remain there in a serious but stable condition, police say.

Officers believe a dispute erupted between two groups of people developed before the substance, which is yet to be identified, was sprayed.

A 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of GBH on Friday.

He remains in custody at a north London police station.

A 24-year-old man was later arrested in north London, also on suspicion of GBH.

Detective Inspector Lee McCullough from Hackney CID, leading the investigation, said: "This investigation continues to move at great pace and the net is closing in on those we believe to be responsible.

"My team continue to act on a number of leads to bring in those wanted for questioning in relation to this awful incident.

Anyone with information that may assist police should call detectives from Hackney CID via 101 or via Twitter @MetCC. To remain anonymous, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A housekeeper who stole a 100,000 collection of luxury watches from the home of a billionaire Russian businessman to fund her gambling addiction has been spared jail.

Charisse Montes, 32, swiped eight Hublot and Rolex timepieces from a rotating cabinet in the master bedroom of Timur Sardarov at his Kensington mansion, pawning them to bankroll thousands of games of roulette.

Mr Sardarov, the founder of the Ocean Group and son of billionaire oil tycoon Rashid Sardarov, had sacked Montes, his employee of eight years, after she stole his wife's Rolex but decided to give her a second chance.

But when he noticed eight timepieces were missing in June 2015, he knew Montes, who he thought of "like a family friend", was the likely culprit and hired a private investigator to track her down.

At Southwark crown court this morning, Judge Michael Grieve QC sentenced a sobbing Montes to 14 months in prison suspended for two years and ordered her to complete 150 hours of community service.

"Gambling addiction is one of the scourges of modern times, I accept it is a powerful addiction and drives people like yourself to do shameful and hurtful things such as you have done to your employer in this case", he said.

"You let him and his wife down very badly, I hope you are aware of that."

Prosecutor Edward Franklin said Mr Sardarov kept his treasured watch collection in a locked cabinet and stored the key in a drawer.

"Miss Montes had access to the cabinet and where the key was, she was a trusted member of the household", he said.

The court heard Montes, who was a regular at casinos around London and a habitual gambler on apps on her phone, failed to turn up for work when the watch thefts were discovered.

She made around 22,000 selling the stolen watches to pawnbroker Mattia Dal-Pont, 36, who is already serving a 16-month prison sentence after being caught in a police sting trying to buy stolen goods.

When she was sacked by Mr Sardarov for stealing his wife's Rolex, the wealthy businessman went to great lengths to forgive the Filipino national.

She apologised and helped to recover the watch from a pawn shop, so a sympathetic Mr Sardarov agreed to give her another chance.

Mr Sardarov's private investigator tracked her down when she fled after stealing the eight watches, spotting her leaving home in Barnet.

When she was arrested, Montes had 4,240 in cash in her bedroom, along with three iPads, a laptop, and seven designer handbags.

Rupert Russell, defending, said Montes had a gambling addiction, playing thousands of games of roulette on her phone, but she now believes she has kicked the habit.

She also had a WhatsApp message on her phone from Dal-Pont asking if she had more watches for sale, leading detectives to his pawn shop in Soho called W1 Watches.

An undercover officer was deployed to meet Dal-Pont, offering for sale luxury handbags which the pawnbroker knew had been stolen.

Prosecutors are now pursuing Montes and Dal-Pont's assets to try to recover some of the money made from the stolen watches.

Montes, of Campe House, Colney Hatch Lane, Barnet, pleaded guilty to theft and converting criminal property.

Dal-Pont, formerly of Gatliff Road, Westminster, admitted illegally acting as a pawnbroker and attempting to handle stolen goods.


A man was repeatedly knifed in the head outside a doctors' surgery in Islington in a frenzied attack that resembled scenes from a "horror movie", witnesses say.

The man fled into the surgery on Elizabeth Avenue after being allegedly being attacked in a car by a man armed with a stanley knife.

The victim was described as being "dazed" and "covered in blood" as he stumbled across the road before being rushed to hospital by paramedics.

A mother-of-two witnessed the incident as she dropped her 10-year-old son and six-year-old daughter off at school just after 8.30am on Friday.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, said she noticed two men appearing to have a fight in the car next to her as she waited in traffic outside the Elizabeth Avenue Group Practice.

We were about 30 yards from the school and I looked to the right and saw this man trying to drag another man across the seat of the car, she told the Standard.

Then he seemed like he was punching him repeatedly in the head but I saw what looked like a Stanley knife in his hand," she claimed. "And that's when I realised he was being stabbed.

"Their whole car was shaking, it was very violent.

I wanted to get out the car but I had the children in so I didnt know what to do. I just covered my sons eyes because he was next to me and told my daughter not to look  but she saw everything.

Then I noticed a police car behind and the man with the knife ran off. The other man stood up out the car and he was absolutely covered in blood.

It was awful, it looked like something from a horror movie. He looked really dazed and he just ran into the doctors surgery over the road.

The victim was taken to an east London hospital. His condition is not yet known.

The road remained taped off throughout the day as police investigated the alleged stabbing.

Islington police said a man was subsequently arrested on suspicion of GBH.

A spokeswoman for London Ambulance Service said: We were called at 8.45am on Friday to reports of an incident on Elizabeth Avenue in Islington.

We sent an ambulance crew and an officer and treated a patient at the scene for face and neck injuries and took him as a priority to hospital.

She confirmed the mans injuries were consistent with knife wounds.

This latest incident comes just days before a planned march against knife crime and violence in north and east London.

The march, called Enough is Enough, will go from Islington Green to Hackney on May 7.

Jeanette Collins, one of the organisers, said it is about the community coming together to put an end to violence.

It is not just a Hackney problem its a community problem. It is down to us to do something  whether the person is young, old, black, white or pink  we are saying enough violence.
A young man was allegedly kidnapped at a bus stop and driven to a house in Sheffield by thugs posing as police officers.

The 25-year-old man was standing at a bus stop at the junction of Station Road with Manor Park Crescent in Edgware when a gang of men allegedly grabbed him before bundling him into a dark coloured Ford Fiesta.

The gang assaulted the man as they pulled him into the car on Friday, April 7, before driving their victim to a house in Sheffield, police said.

The men had allegedly shouted that they were police officers to distract the man, before making off in the car down Station Road.

The Ford Fiesta used in the alleged kidnapping / Met Police

Detectives were able to trace the car to the address in Sheffield, where officers from South Yorkshire Police found the victim and four gang members.

The four men, aged 19, 22, 26 and 29 were arrested and have since been charged with kidnapping.

The victim was taken to hospital and has now been released. He had various facial and head injuries and also suffered a bleed on the brain.

Three men had also made off on foot following the kidnapping and police are continuing to hunt two people in connection with the incident.

Detective Sergeant Andrew Cook, from Barnet CID, said: "The incident happened in a busy street just off the main road in Edgware.

The junction in Station Road where the alleged kidnapping took place (Google ) / Google

There were passing members of the public and other vehicles in the area.

"The suspects appear to have carefully planned this attack and are alleged to have shouted 'police' when grabbing hold of the victim.

All the male suspects involved are believed to be aged between 20-35 years and of an east European appearance.

Anyone with information is asked to call Barnet CID on 0208 733 5836 or 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A predatory paedophile who tried taking a photo up a schoolgirls skirt as he travelled to work on the Tube has been jailed.

Philip Goodwin was spotted by a horrified commuter as he attempted to get sick footage of the 14-year-old, dressed in school uniform, as she walked up the stairs at Moorgate station.

Station staff called the police after the incident in October and the 48-year-old, of Swakeleys Drive, Hillingdon, was promptly arrested.

During interviews, Goodwin admitted taking photos up the skirts of other women and schoolgirls across the Underground network.

On Friday at Blackfriars Crown Court, he was jailed for four-and-a-half years, after admitting a string of offences.

Speaking afterwards, Investigating officer, Detective Constable Andrew Parkinson from British Transport Police, said: Goodwin is a predatory offender who will now spend the next four and a half years behind bars for his actions.

Whilst he was travelling to work one morning, he spotted his victim, a young girl in school uniform, and targeted her. He attempted to take a photo up her skirt near a staircase; however his behaviour was spotted by a vigilant commuter.

Because of this vigilance, officers were then able to trace Goodwin and expose his stash of indecent images, he said.

I welcome todays sentence as it has taken a child sex offender off the streets - I hope this jail sentence brings a level of comfort to his victims."
T he writer of Wild Swans has warned that her neighbours purely selfish plans to build a huge wine cellar under their Notting Hill home jeopardise her next book.

Jung Chang, whose 1991 epic about her familys lives in pre- and post-revolutionary China has sold 20 million copies, said the desire to store large amounts of alcohol could not justify prolonging the misery of others.

The writer, 65, is one of several residents in the street to object to their neighbours plan to install the 2.8-metre-deep spiral wine store, which would be able to hold more than 1,000 bottles.

The application has been made by Chadi Semaan, who works for Commerzbank, and his wife Amelie, an executive director at JP Morgan.

The couple were given planning consent for front and rear mega-basement extensions to their 6 million, four-storey terraced house, despite neighbours objections, in 2014.

The planned spiral wine cellar

Ms Chang, who is working on a book about the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, told the Standard: This new application to dig a wine cellar presents a new and further threat to the stability of our house.

"It only adds to the concern we already have about the basement dig.

My husband and I are both writers working from home, where we have all our research and reference books. We cant work anywhere else.

"The disruption from the noise and the vibration will be intolerable, and will really jeopardise our hopes of delivering our next books on time.

Ms Chang, the first person from the Peoples Republic to be awarded a PhD in Britain, is married to the historian Jon Halliday, a former visiting research fellow at Kings College.

The couple, who have lived in the house since 1992, published their book Mao: The Unknown Story, in 2005. Mr Halliday said the need for a wine cellar to hold enough wine to get the whole street drunk many times over was, with the basement dig, disproportionate to the effect it would have on his home.

In the application to Kensington & Chelsea council, installers Spiral Cellars said the cellar would not affect the planned or existing foundations.

It states: The level of excavation involved in the construction of the store is not significant and will be carried out in conjunction with the main front and rear basement extensions.

Its managing director Lucy Hargreaves said it ensures its cellars wont impact on the propertys foundations or those of neighbouring properties.

Planning officers have recommended that the cellar, said to cost 30,000, be approved next week. They said it is not a basement development and should not be considered under the same council policy.

The Semaans were unavailable to comment.
A London nurse has won the top prize in a London photography competition with an incredible picture capturing a Tube station packed with smiling commuters.

Luke Collins, 33, only took up photography five months ago but has now been crowned winner of the ES Londons competition with his stunning entry taken at Bank Underground station.

The cardiac nurse, who works at St Thomas Hospital, managed to get a full Tube station of people to look at his camera for the shot, which was taken on a busy Monday rush hour.

Mr Collins, who lives in Borough, told the Standard: I have been living in London for about six years and I remember thinking one day, a long time ago, that Bank station has a really nice curve.

Stunning: Mr Collins said he first noticed the curve would make a great shot a while ago. / Luke Collins

I thought it would make a really nice shot, you can see everyone down the line.

I had been wanting to do it for some time but it requires some balls. You know what Londoners are like, and it was a Monday as well, after work.

He put out a message on the internet through his instagram account, @6stops, and recruited the help of three other men, who accompanied him along with a loudspeaker to the Tube station.

As well as having a good eye for photography, Mr Collins is a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital. / Luke Collins

Mr Collins, originally from Maidstone, said: I have to give full credit to Elliott, he got up on the platform seat and said to me, are you ready?

I was on the platform before the curve and Elliott was on the seat. He said really loudly: Ladies and gentleman and it just went dead silent.

He said a little spiel and then three, two, one. I took some shots. At first they didnt really engage and at that point, Steve, another of the guys I was with, got everyone going.

And they responded amazingly.

The shot, taken in a four minute gap between trains, has since been liked tens of thousands of times and has been praised for capturing London at its best: diverse and welcoming.

Mr Collins said: Theres something about that shot.

The peoples reactions surprised me and it didnt surprise me. Londoners are known for being dont talk to me kind of thing but actually its not really that.

People just want to get where they are going. But if you engage, people like that.

Stunning: Mr Collins said he loves skylines as well as shots featuring people. / Luke Collins/@6stops on Instagram

When I look back on the shot it really is amazing. It really did encapsulate quite well the diversity of London. Theres old people, young people, different races.

He added he is delighted about winning the competition and added things have got absolutely crazy.

The photo has been called epic by Londoners who have said it captures London as the best city in the world.

Mr Collins has won the chance to do a photo blog, tickets to the Sony World Photography Awards and a camera worth 1,000.

The competition was held in conjunction with the @London Instagram group.
T heres no longer a scent of Musk in the air. Actress Talulah Riley, who divorced Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk last year, has found love again with Tom Hooper, Oscar-winning director of Les Miserables and The Kings Speech.

The Londoner was at The Trafalgar Studios last night for the opening of The Philanthropist. The play was charming but the real drama was around Riley and Hooper, sitting in Row C. The pair arrived together and dutifully watched Act One. But one guest, en route to the ladies during the interval, found them snogging in the corridors as people queued around them.

Perhaps realising that they had caused something of a blockade, they returned to their seats and continued the pashing like it was going out of style. The couple were visible even from The Londoners seat in Row M. They are clearly smitten, said the woman next to us. Hooper and Riley never made it to the after-party at the Mall Galleries, which was attended by actors Lily Cole and Simon Bird.

The new partnership could be a promising new chapter in Rileys fascinating love life: she divorced Musk in October. It gave friends and family a sense of deja vu: she had already divorced him in 2012 after their first marriage in 2010.

Riley has now moved into a new 3 million home in central London after beating Cherie Blair to the property in March, while Musk has reportedly moved on with actress Amber Heard, the ex-wife of Johnny Depp.

Riley released her first novel, Acts of Love, last summer, with the plot reminding The Londoner of her romance with Musk. This will provide ample content for the sequel.

Amber Alert at Churchill Launch

Getty Images

No sign of Boris Johnson at Philip Mould & Co at the launch of Winston Churchill in British Art, by Jonathan Black, despite the fact that he wrote his own tome on the wartime PM. But Home Secretary Amber Rudd came, as did Sir William Cash and David Mellor. Were still at work. Purdah kicks off late tomorrow night, Ive just come straight from the office, Rudd said. Perhaps shes taking her status as a potential future PM more seriously than BoJo.

A novel suggestion for Donald Trump

AFP/Getty Images

Keen readers arrived with bated breath at Kensington Palace Orangery last night for the announcement of the Man Booker International Prize shortlist for translated fiction. Dashing judges chairman Nick Barley said he hoped to reach one man in particular. Ive got a hunch that Donald Trump doesnt get round to reading much fiction, he told the audience. Id like to suggest to Melania Trump that she should get the shortlist of this years Man Booker International prize for Donald for his next birthday  maybe she could help him to read [last years winner, from South Korea] Han Kang before he makes his next policy intervention in South East Asia. Barley promised The Londoner hed be sending the six novels to the White House.

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Dave Benett/Getty Images

Quote of the Day: Whenever I work, wherever I work, as an actor educated at Eton, Im still always in a minority

Pity Homeland Damian Lewis, struggling by as the only old Etonian on set.

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It's Time to Shine for Riz

Getty Images for Coachella

Riz Ahmed, the actor from Wembley who hit the big time in Sky Atlantic series The Night Of and Star Wars prequel Rogue One, has been named one of the worlds 100 most influential people by Time magazine.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, offers his own tribute to the 34-year-old actor. To know him is to be inspired, engaged and ready to create alongside him, writes Miranda in Time. And heres the best part: hes just getting started.

The boy done good.

Chelsea's Hugo goes Green

Dave Benett/Getty Images for Mad

Former Made in Chelsea star and Spencer Matthews BFF Hugo Taylor, whos squiring Millie Mackintosh, tells us that he wants to pursue a career in politics. I might have left it too late to run for this general election but I definitely want to stand at some stage, he says. As he is a Kensington and Chelsea resident, most would have thought Taylor would be a staunch Conservative. Not so. Lanky Taylor says: I want to be a candidate for the Green Party.

Red flags fly in the family

Its a family affair for Labour. Lewisham West and Penge MP Jim Dowd has decided to take his pension after 25 years, and the race to replace him as Labour candidate looks set to feature two modern party dynasties.

In one red corner is Ellie Reeves, vice-chair of the London Labour Party  and sister of chess champ and Labour MP Rachel. Ellies husband John Cryer is an east London MP and chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Both of Johns parents were Labour MPs too.

But Reeves wont be in for an easy ride. Whisperings are that Joe Dromey, who has wowed locals as an independent-minded Lewisham councillor, would also like to run. Dromey may struggle to escape the shadow of his own parents, though  dad Jack is MP for Birmingham Erdington while his mother is Labour heavyweight Harriet Harman.

With rumours that Jeremy Corbyns son Seb might throw his hat in the ring, are these the new red princes and princesses?

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Tweet of the Day: Politicians shouldnt be all soundbites. But Corbyn cant even make his soundbites sound like soundbites.

Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, doesnt rate Jezzas oratory

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Naomi shows her charitable side

Getty Images for Diesel 'Fashion

Naomi Campbell was in Paris last night launching a partnership between her kids welfare charity, Fashion for Relief, and Diesel. Posing with fellow model Maria Borges, Campbell appealed for support on Instagram Live. You know I never ask for myself, she said to her followers, but I will ask when it comes to my charity.

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Fishy news of the day: a crowd-funding page has secured 1,500 to help a fish finger run against Tim Farron in his Westmorland constituency. Want to knock Farron off his perch and put him in his plaice? it asks. Will it tip the scales?

Follow The Londoner on Twitter and Facebook here.
C yber security chiefs are to give fresh guidance to protect the general election from being disrupted by hackers.

Just weeks ago, Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, briefed political party bosses on how they can defend their organisations from online attacks.

They were given an overview of threats, case studies on recent cyber incidents, actions to take to reduce the risks, and advice on how to respond to successful and attempted intrusions.

The move came as the FBI continued to investigate claims of Russian hacking of the US presidential election to favour Donald Trump. The Kremlin denies the allegations.

The NCSC said that the UK electoral system does not lend itself to electronic manipulation as voting and counting of ballots are manual processes conducted under the eye of observers. But it will issue guidance on protective measures for political parties, the Electoral Commission and town halls carrying out counts.

A spokesman added: We have systems in place to defend against electoral fraud at all levels and have seen no successful cyber intervention in UK democratic processes.

The NCSC offers political parties access to the best cyber security guidance and support, and will be refreshing cyber security guidance to the range of bodies involved in the election.

That guidance warns that an organisations networks almost certainly span many sites and covers the use of mobile or remote working, malware prevention, monitoring to detect intrusions and building resilience against attacks. It also covers controlling who has access to computers and other equipment, as well as risk management systems.
C hancellor Philip Hammond today claimed that Britains economic growth would be in danger if Jeremy Corbyn gains power in coalition with the Scottish National Party.

Speaking before a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, the senior Cabinet minister was expected to warn of the risks of an unstable coalition.

He was expected to claim that it would be a grave risk to the economy if the rival parties attempted to negotiate their way through the complexities of a Brexit deal.

However, fears of a Brexit economic slowdown  whoever is in No 10  grew today as really dire retail sales showed the biggest fall for seven years in the three months to March as rising living costs ate into household spending.

The Office for National Statistics said sales fell by 1.4 per cent over the three-month period and sank well below expectations to drop by 1.8 per cent on the month to March.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Markit, said: This is a really dire retail sales performance  there is no other word for it.

The Tory charge of a possible post-election coalition was fuelled by a report in the Labour-backing Mirror newspaper that quoted a senior source saying the party would cut a deal with other Opposition parties in a hung Parliament.

Labour leader: Jeremy Corbyn / PA

Our number one goal is to deny the Tories a majority, and that is not beyond the realms of imagination, said the source. If we can take say 40 seats off them  and were only talking overturning small majorities  then we can be somewhere near parity.

And if the Lib Dems do well too, the Tories will be out of government. Who is going to be able to cut a deal (with the other parties) over Brexit, us or them?

The claims flew in the face of Mr Corbyns insistence that he is not considering deals. Earlier this week he said that he would not enter into a formal coalition with the SNP.

His official spokesman said: Labour is campaigning to win every seat. The only deal we will do is with the electorate, to be a government for the many not the few.

Mr Corbyn stuck to his anti-austerity theme in his keynote address, accusing the Prime Minister of breaking promises to 10-year-olds this morning.

He used a speech in Bristol to say school overcrowding was on the increase, with 51,548 children in London alone being taught in classes of more than 30 last year.

He said: Broken promises and failure  thats the Conservative record on schools. Soaring class sizes mean children crammed into classrooms, with teachers frustrated that they cant give them the attention and education their deserve.

He added: Theresa May should be ashamed that her government is breaking promises to 10-year-olds.

The Conservatives have seized on shadow Chancellor John McDonnells proposal of bigger tax bills for people earning more than 70,000 to 80,000.

However, senior Labour MP Liam Byrne today suggested fiscal reforms should focus on wealth taxes rather than higher levies on income.

Mr Byrne, who as Chief Secretary to the Treasury famously left a note for the incoming coalition government in 2010 saying that theres no money, told BBC radio: The big picture in tax reform over the last 10 to 15 years has been the spectacular rise of the stock market since 2010, which is up about 40 per cent, the big increase in the property market, up about 25 per cent since 2010  but the absence of wealth taxes. So if you look over the last 15 years, taxes on wealth have been pretty stable at about one, one and a half per cent of GDP.

So despite the huge increase in asset prices ... wealth taxes are still an absolutely tiny fraction of the tax base and that is probably one of the biggest priorities for reform.

However, a Labour source said: Mr Byrne does not speak for the campaign, and he was clearly expressing only his personal views.
A ban on MPs employing their spouses is to come in within weeks under a new expenses crackdown.

The restriction was due to be introduced in 2020.

But now it will be enforced immediately after the general election. It will apply to new MPs and re-elected MPs who do not currently employ their spouse, partner or other relatives. They can get around the new rules by putting their spouse or other connected party on their books before the election.

Other changes being introduced by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority after June 8 include:

Cutting associated expenditure, such as for utility bills, for MPs who own their own home from 8,850 to 5,000 a year.

MPs with constituencies outside the London area who claim the 3,820-a-year London Area Living Payment, rather than the budget to rent a second home, will be barred from doing so.

MPs are being warned to use their discretion on buying equipment such as computers after a surge of such spending before the 2015 election. The expenses watchdog will scrutinise such claims and make them public.

As of March, 151 MPs were employing connected parties  including spouses or other relatives  at an annual cost of more than 3 million.

However, IPSA chairwoman Ruth Evans has described the employment of connected parties as out of step with modern employment practice which requires fair and open recruitment to encourage diversity.

Staff members who begin a relationship with an MP while working for him, or her, will have their publicly funded contract terminated after two years as partner or spouse.
T his is the shocking moment a group of youths climbed to the top of one of Britains tallest rollercoasters after dark.

The four youngsters broke into Thorpe Park and risked their lives by scaling two rides including the 200-feet Stealth ride.

Since they climbed the white-knuckle rides on Easter Sunday, they published footage online of the reckless stunt.

The teenage co-founder of parkour group Brewman, Rikke Brewer, uploaded the shocking footage to Youtube with the caption: Sneaking into Thorpe Park! (Caught) climbing Stealth.

In the footage, he and three friends can be seen arriving at the Surrey theme park and heading towards Stealth, the UKs second tallest rollercoaster, and climbing it.

After that, they ascend the looping ride Colossus before the video cuts to the daredevils being reprimanded by security guards for their dangerous act.

At the end of the film, one of the group says: We have just been detained and banned for two years at Thorpe Park. Pretty jokes."

Climb: The reckless stunt was captured on camera / Rikke Brewer/YouTube

A picture of the letter that explains they are banned from the theme park was then posted by Mr Brewman online.

He said he used a fake name, Richard Jones Jake, because: I wanna go Thorpe Park soon so

The letter, issued by the parks security, reads: As a result of your actions, you are now banned from entering Thorpe Park property for a period of 24 months.

Failure to comply with the ban may result in police action or an action in Civil Recovery to recover any losses caused as a result of your actions.

A Surrey Fire and Rescue Service spokesman told the Croydon Advertiser: "A group of youths broke in and climbed to the top of the Stealth ride.

"By the time we got there they had rescued themselves.

"I think they saw the better of it and climbed down as it is crazy going that high."

A Thorpe Park spokeswoman said the theme park will be pursuing legal action against the youths.

She said: After the theme park had closed, four youths broke in and attempted to climb one of the rides.

They were spotted very quickly by our security team and the police were informed. One of the young men had difficulty descending from his position and the Surrey Fire Service were called to help him down safely.

Thorpe Park takes trespass extremely seriously. It has a zero tolerance policy towards this behaviour which is irresponsible and potentially very dangerous for those individuals as well as others. As such we will be pursuing legal action against those involved.

It is understood that no arrests have been made following the incident.

The Standard has approached Surrey Police for a comment.
F rance goes to the polls on Sunday in the first round of the presidential election with tensions ratcheted up by Thursday nights terror attack on the Champs-Elysees.

Here, we reveal what you need to know about the forthcoming vote as polls point to a close-run race.

What is particularly significant about this election for France compared to the previous ones?

This election is proving at once far more unpredictable and potentially far more important than any other election since the start of the fifth republic.

Polls suggest that the two parties that have shared power since 1958 might not make to second round. That would be a first. For now the two candidates leading the polls are the far rights Marine Le Pen and the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron. The former is a populist with a right wing platform that would substantially shift the course that France is on, threatening even the future of the European Union. The latter is a man who hopes to become the first to make it to the Elysee Palace without ever been elected before and without the benefit of an established party.

Marine Le Pen: The French National Front political party leader / REUTERS

There are two rounds of voting, what will we know after this weekends first round?

By about 8pm local time on Sunday we will know, thanks to the estimations of the pollsters whether any of the 11 candidates has won outright. That seems unlikely as he or she would need 50% of the vote, and none of the 11 candidates is polling much over 20 percent. If none makes the 50 per cent mark, then the two top candidates go through to the second round on 7 May. Depending on who they are and their results in the first round, we should have a fair idea of who the next president of France will be.

Scandal-hit: Francois Fillon / Getty Images

What differentiates the main players in terms of key policies?

With 11 candidates in the field, there are a vast array of political sensitivities and policies on offer. The mainstream left candidate wants an income paid to everyone regardless of whether they work or not. The right wing mainstream candidate who wants to end the 35-hour week and cut half a million civil service jobs.

Why should the rest of Europe and the world care about it?

First of all because Frances vote will be a measure of the thirst for change that has appears to be sweeping western democracies and that has already transformed British and American politics. But mostly because several of the populist candidates, both left and right, are standing on platforms that would bring changes well beyond the borders of France.

Hard left runner: Jean-Luc Melenchon / EPA

Two of the four leading the polls, the far-rights Marine Le pen and the far left independent Jean-Luc Melanchon, would hold a referendum on Europe, opening the door to a Frexit. It is difficult to imagine how the European Union would survive if one of its founding members and current pillars were to withdraw. Then there is the question of broader international relations and it is important to remember that France is one of the five permanent members of the UN security council.

Three of the leading candidates, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Melanchon, and the mainstream right candidate Francois Fillon, all want closer ties with Moscow. France could tip the balance in the security council firmly on the side of Russia.

What is the mood in France ahead of Sundays vote?

There is curious mood in France with one third of voters still undecided about how they will vote. There is excitement about the prospect of real change and also cynicism founded on decades of failed promises. Time will tell whether last nights terror attack in Paris has any impact on the result.

CNNs special coverage of the France election begins today on TV and digital
A mericas top lawyer has said arresting Julian Assange is a "priority" as prosecutors debate whether to charge him.

Legal officials in the United States are thought to be preparing or considering whether to bring charges against Wikileaks and its founder Assange, US media has reported.

The website has a reputation for publicly posting leaked information on activities by the US government.

Last month WikiLeaks released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyber-espionage tools for breaking into computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.

Mr Assange is currently in his fifth year of self-imposed lockdown at the Ecuadorian embassy  behind Harrods in Knightsbridge  after seeking political asylum in June 2012.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters that arresting Julian Assange is 'a priority'. / AP

He is wanted by officials in Sweden over a sex allegation dating from 2010 but the Australian fears he will be extradited to the US over Wikileaks charges if he hands himself in.

US attorney general Jeff Sessions, the chief lawyer in the government, was asked in a press conference whether it was a priority for him to arrest Mr Assange.

He said: "We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks.

"This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.

"So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail."

According to CNN, authorities are preparing to seek his arrest.

But Mr Assange's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he had not been made aware of any developments.

He added: "The Department of Justice should not be treating the publication of truthful information as a reason for a criminal investigation of the publisher.

"Democracy has always depended on journalists being able to inform the public of what their government is doing."

When approached by the Press Association, the US Department of Justice declined to comment on the reports.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.
T his is the moment a gunman armed with a Kalashnikov rifle is shot dead in Paris after killing a police officer and wounding two others.

An armed policeman stands over the corpse of the attacker who was shot dead on the Champs Elysees in Paris just three days before the French presidential election.

The gunman has been named by French police as Karim Cheurfi, 39, also referred to as Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki by ISIS media channels which have claimed responsibility for the attack.

He is reported to have been released from prison last year after serving 15 years of a 20-year jail sentence for attacking police officers.

Armed police surround the gunman after shooting him, halting his attack targeting police in the French capital

Anti-terror detectives were today searching his home in Chelles, a commuter town east of Paris.

A woman tourist was also wounded in the incident outside a branch of Marks & Spencer in the French capital.

The gunman was identified as Karim Cheurfi, 39, who was known to French police / AP

Police have launched a terrorism investigation and the so-called Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The world-famous avenue was sealed off and nearby stations on the Paris Metro closed as investigations began.

French police warned the public to stay away from the area and armed officers were at the scene.

Tourists have told of their terror at being caught up in the attack

A terrified family caught up in the attack have revealed today how they looked the gunman in the eyes before running for their lives as he opened fire on police.

John Finney, 51, shielded his wife and children as they fled the attacker.

The Finney family, tourists visiting Paris en route to London from their home in Kentucky. were walking down the famous boulevard when a series of blasts rang out.

Mr Finney told the Standard: My wife and I looked him in the eye. It was like slow-motion. We are blessed to be alive.

His 16-year-old son Jack said: There was a single gunman in black clothes on the sidewalk in between a hotel and a police van. Three rounds of machine gun fire were shot off.

Forensic experts investigate the crime scene after the shooting / AP

He was about 20ft from us on the crowded street. It was a Kalashnikov, all black. It was very terrifying.

Everyone started running including me. We saw a few people fall. My dad held his arms out and covered as much of us as he could as we ran away, not sure if we were going to be shot at.

I knew more and more attacks have been happening here but I really didnt expect one to happen as I walked down such a famous street.

Police officers on the Champs Elysees / AP

The family sought refuge in a nearby branch of Swatch along with other shocked witnesses before being given the all-clear by police more than two hours later.

Mr Finney said that French special forces and bomb squads were sweeping every inch of the area involved following the attack.

He said his family, who are scheduled to travel on to London on Sunday, would not be scared into returning home early.

Bystanders raise their arms as police seal off the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris / AP

He said: We will not live in fear and we will not bow to the terrorists.

The shooting  believed to be the sixth fatal terrorist outrage in France since January 2015 - came three days before the first round of voting in the French presidential election.

Following the shooting British Foreign secretary Boris Johnson tweeted: Appalled by attack on #Paris police officers. My condolences to victims & their loved ones. UK & France at one in fight against terror.
T he gunman who killed a police officer and injured two others in Paris had been arrested and released just weeks before for threatening police.

The first image of the suspected attacker was released today after he was named by French media as Karim Cheurfi, 39.

He was given a 20-year jail sentence in 2005 for attempting to kill police officers.

Police were today searching a home in a Paris suburb following the attack on the Champs-Elysees just three days before the first round of Frances presidential election.

A police officer stands over the body of a gunman after he was shot dead in Paris

The attacker pulled up in a silver Audi and opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

One traffic officer died instantly from a shot to the head and two others were wounded before the attacker was gunned down by police. A ricocheting bullet also wounded a foreign woman tourist.

Video of Paris attack shows police shooting dead the gunman

Islamic State claimed responsibility, making it clear that they were trying to disrupt the elections that start on Sunday.

Two French officials today said the gunman was detained towards the end of February after speaking threateningly about the police.

Reports suggested he had been seeking guns to kill officers but he was freed due to lack of evidence.

Police officers on the Champs Elysees / AP

He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted murder over the shootings of two police officers.

Today, dramatic footage emerged of the moment French police chased and shot at the gunman, killing him on the street.

The video, taken by a passer-by, records volleys of gunshots with people screaming and running before the footage shows a police officer standing over the body of the terrorist.

Masked police stand on top of their vehicle on the Champs Elysees / REUTERS

The world-famous avenue was sealed off after the attack outside a branch of Marks & Spencer and nearby stations on the Paris Metro were closed as French police launched a terror inquiry.

The Paris prosecutors office, leading the investigation, said a pump-action shotgun and knives were found in the gunmans car.

Witness Badi Ftaiti said: They were running, running. Some were crying. There were tens, maybe even hundreds of them.

Armed police at the scene / AP

Gunman Cheurfis family home in Chelle, a Paris commuter town, was being searched today amid a hunt for possible accomplices. Three members of his family were detained for questioning.

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said authorities were trying to determine whether one or more people might have helped the attacker.

Landmark: A police officer stands guard / AP

He confirmed that the two officers who were wounded in the attack were out of danger today. Surgeons at the Georges Pompidou hospital worked throughout the night to save their lives and their condition was described as stable. The tourist was not seriously hurt.

Mr Brandet did not name any of the victims but praised the officers for helping to avoid a bloodbath by neutralising the attacker as quickly as possible.

Intelligence sources said that Cheurfi, who was believed to have used the nom de guerre Abu Yousuf the Belgian, was jailed for 20 years in 2005 for shooting at three men, including two police officers.

He opened fire five times with a .38 revolver following a car chase in 2001, leaving the officers and a third victim wounded. All three of those hit survived the attack in Roissy-en-Brie on the outskirts of Paris.

Attack: The gunman was also killed / AP

Cheurfi is believed to have been released last year. He is thought to have been radicalised in prison and had recently boasted on the encrypted Telegram Messenger service that he wanted to kill police officers. His identity card was found in the Audi, which was registered in his name.

In Belgium, a man who had been linked by some as an accomplice to the terror attack turned himself in, but authorities said there was no link.

At the time of the Champs-Elysee shooting  which happened shortly after 9pm  all 11 election candidates were in a nearby France 2 TV studio taking part in a live debate.

Shooting: One policeman has died / REUTERS

President Francois Hollande, meanwhile called a high-level Defence Council meeting at the Elysee Palace, pledging that the terrorists would not be allowed to hijack democracy. The French government reviewed its already extensive election security measures and said it was fully mobilized in the wake of the Champs-Elysees attack.

More than 50,000 police and gendarmes are being deployed to protect Sundays first-round vote in the two-stage election, with an additional 7,000 soldiers also on patrol.

There were fears that the terror attack could push voters towards far-Right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has made immigration and security the core of her campaign.

Ms Le Pen, of the National Front, and Francois Fillon, of the conservative Republicans, cancelled their planned electioneering today.

Mr Fillon, who has been indicted in a fake jobs scandal involving his British-born wife Penelope, even called for the first round of elections on Sunday to be cancelled.

Moderate candidate Emmanuel Macron appealed to French voters to keep a cool head in the wake of the gun attack.

Speaking on RTL radio today, he said: What our attackers want is death, symbolism, to sow panic and to disturb a democratic process, which is the presidential election.

France remains under a state of emergency following a series of terrorist attacks by Islamist killers in recent years.

The worst was on November 13, 2015, when 130 people were killed during a single night of violence in Paris, including the Bataclan massacre.

A Downing Street spokesman said: The UK strongly condemns the appalling terrorist attack in Paris. The Prime Minister has tonight passed on her condolences to President Hollande.
K evin Bridges, Annie Lennox and Texas will entertain former US President Barack Obama when he visits Edinburgh next month.

The performers will take to the stage at a special charity dinner on May 26, to mark Obamas first ever visit to Scotland.

All proceeds from the event, organised by The Hunter Foundation, will be shared between 300 Scottish childrens charities as well as the Obama Foundation.

I'm proud, privileged and over the moon to announce Oscar-winning musician Annie Lennox, brilliant stand-up comedian Kevin Bridges and world-class rock band Texas will all play at this amazing dinner, said organiser Sir Tom Hunter.

Music icon: Annie Lennox will take to the stage at the event ( Danny E. Martindale/Getty Images) / Danny E. Martindale/Getty Images

What's even more amazing is that they are all doing this for the benefit of a charity of their choice.

The Obama Family Album - In pictures 1 /64 The Obama Family Album - In pictures Michelle, Sasha, Barack and Malia Obama Michelle Obama/Instagram @BarackObama via Twitter Michelle Obama tweets out a photo on 18 January 2017 'Being your First Lady has been the honor of a lifetime. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. -mo @FLOTUS Michelle Obama tweets out an old family photo 'So proud of @POTUS and all that we've accomplished together. An incredible journey filled with remarkable people. I love you Barack. -mo @FLOTUS Michelle Obama tweets out a photo on 19 January 2017 'Thank you for the birthday wishes and for the greatest gift of all: the opportunity to serve as your First Lady. @FLOTUS 10 Jan 2017: US First Lady Michelle Obama (C) and US President Barack Obama greet supporters as daughter Malia looks on after the President delivered his farewell address in Chicago, Illinois Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images 10 Jan 2017: President Barack Obama wipes his tears as he speaks at McCormick Place in Chicago Charles Rex Arbogast/AP 21 August 2016: Barack, First Lady Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha walk to board Air Force One at Cape Cod Air Force Station in Massachusetts on as they depart for Washington after a two-week holiday at nearby Martha's Vineyard Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images 4 July 2016: US President Barack Obama hugs his daughter Malia on her birthday during an Independence Day Celebration for military members and administration staff in the White House Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images 22 April 2016: Prince George meets the President of the United States and the First Lady Michelle at Kensington Palace, as the Duke of Cambridge looks on Kensington Palace/Pete Souza/The White House 22 April 2016: Prince George talks to his mother, the Duchess of Cambridge after meeting the Obamas Pete Souza/Kensington Palace via AP 12 May 2015: "The First Lady demonstrates her boxing skills during a #GimmeFive video taping" Amanda Lucidon/The White House 27 March 2015: "The First Lady snuggles against the President during a video taping for the World Expo in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House" Amanda Lucidon/The White House 26 Nov 2015: President Barack Obama makes Thanksgiving Day phone calls from the Oval Office to U.S. troops stationed around the world Pete Souza/The White House 23 March 2014: "A great moment captured by Amanda Lucidon of the First Lady and daughters Sasha and Malia during their visit to the Great Wall of China" Amanda Lucidon/The White House 14 April 2014: A spontaneous moment is captured between the First Lady as she hugs the family dogs Sunny and Bo Amanda Lucidon/The White House 16 June 2014: Barack and Michelle walk across the South Lawn from Marine One following a trip to California Pete Souza/The White House 21 Jan 2013: President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ride in the inaugural parade in Washington Pete Souza/The White House 4 Sept 2012: Obama with his daughters Malia and Sasha, watch on television as first lady Michelle Obama takes the stage to deliver her speech at the Democratic National Convention Pete Souza/The White House 9 July 2012: President Barack Obama plays with Sarah Froman, daughter of Nancy Goodman and Mike Froman, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, in the Oval Office Pete Souza/The White House June 2012: Bo and Sunny, the Obama family dogs, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Sunny arrived on this day from Michigan. Pete Souza/The White House 26 Oct 2012: "The President to be caught in Spider-Man's web as he greets the Nicholas Tamarin, 3, just outside the Oval Office. Spider-Man had been trick-or-treating for an early Halloween with his father, White House aide Nate Tamarin in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. I can never commit to calling any picture my favorite, but the President told me that this was HIS favorite picture of the year when he saw it hanging in the West Wing a couple of weeks later." Pete Souza/The White House 18 June 2012: "The First Lady reacts as she watches Laura Jarrett and Tony Balkissoon take their vows during their wedding at Valerie Jarrett's home in Chicago" Pete Souza/The White House 20 May 2012: "'How cool is this,' the President said after he threw a football at Soldier Field following the NATO working dinner in Chicago. I think he was especially excited to be on the home turf of his beloved Chicago Bears." Pete Souza/The White House 1 Feb 2012: The President holding Arianna Holmes, 3, before taking a departure photo with members of her family in the Oval Office Lawrence Jackson/The White House 1 Jan 2012: US President Barack Obama swims in the ocean in his native state of Hawaii Pete Souza/The White House 15 Dec 2011: President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama descend the Grand Staircase to greet guests at a holiday reception in the Grand Foyer of the White House Pete Souza/The White House 11 Dec 2011: The Obamas sit for a family portrait in the Oval Office in Washington Pete Souza/The White House 9 Dec 2010: President Barack Obama, with mother-in-law Marian Robinson, daughters Sasha and Malia, and First Lady Michelle Obama, push the button to light the National Christmas Tree during a ceremony on the Ellipse in Washington Chuck Kennedy/The White House 21 Sep 2010; President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama walk along the Colonnade of the White House Pete Souza/The White House 8 Aug 2010: President Barack Obama sits with daughter Sasha during a barbecue with family and friends in celebration of his 49th birthday on the South Lawn of the White House Pete Souza/The White House 30 Oct 2009: Barack Obama Playing peek-aboo with the daughter of one of his staff Pete Souza/The White House 13 Oct 2009: The President starts dancing to the music at the Fiesta Latina event on the South Lawn of the White House. Sasha is by his side. Pete Souza/The White House 26 Aug 2009: President Barack Obama plays basketball with White House staffers while on vacation on Martha's Vineyard Pete Souza/The White House 14 Aug 2009: Local fishing guide Dan Vermillion reacts as President Obama hooks a trout on the East Gallatin River near Belgrade. The President hooked about 6 fish, but did not land any during his first fly fishing outing. Pete Souza/The White House 29 July 2009: President Barack Obama eats a nectarine following a town hall meeting at Kroger's Supermarket in Bristol, Vancouver Pete Souza/The White House 7 July 2009: "Family dinner is usually private time. But I heard they were having dinner a the top their hotel in Moscow, which overlooked the Kremlin. When they first sat down, Sasha was just having some fun with her dad" Pete Souza/The White House 12 May 2009: Obama plays football with the family dog Bo on the South Lawn of the White House Pete Souza/The White House 3 May 2009: President Barack Obama walks down the Colonnade with his arms around daughters, Malia and Sasha Pete Souza/The White House 19 May 2009: "The President was leaving the State Floor after an event and found Sasha in the elevator ready to head upstairs to the private residence. He decided to ride upstairs with her before returning to the Oval Office." Pete Souza/The White House 4 April 2009: President Barack Obama plays with a football in the Oval Office Pete Souza/The White House 2 March 2009: "Washington had its first big snowstorm and I knew the girls were home from school. I suspected the girls might try to sled or make a snowman, so I asked the Usher's Office to call me if the girls headed outside. I got there just in time to catch the First Lady helping the girls sled down a hill on the South Lawn. This picture now hangs on the wall of the President's study" Pete Souza/The White House 20 Jan 2009: US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, with staff and secret service, ride a freight elevator to get to one of the 10 inaugural balls in Washington, D.C Pete Souza/The White House Sep 2009: President Barack Obama runs down the East Colonnade with family dog 'Bo' Pete Souza/The White House 20 Jan 2009: President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ride in a golf cart at an Inaugural Ball Pete Souza/The White House 20 Jan 2009: Barack and Michelle dance Mark Wilson/Getty Images 20 Jan 2009: A close embrace from the Obamas as they dance Carolyn Kaster/AP 28 Oct 1992: Barack Obama and his bride Michelle Robinson, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate on their wedding day in Chicago, Illinois Obama for America/AP

They are stand-out talents of their generation and will provide a remarkable conclusion to what we all hope will be an incredible evening, with all profits benefiting Scotland's children's charities.

Obama, who will attend with wife Michelle, is expected to answer audience questions at the event, in one of his first major address since his presidency came to an end.

Tickets for the dinner are priced between 5000-20,000, although a number have been donated to local young people.

"Demand for this dinner has been unparalleled in our own experience and we can only apologise to those who we cannot accommodate at the dinner, said Sir Tom.


K im Kardashian faced a backlash from fans after she transformed herself into the Virgin Mary for her new Kimoji.

The reality TV star, 38, was branded disgusting for the disrespectful emoji which sees her face superimposed onto the mother of Christ.

The moving image, which turns psychedelic, is surrounded by a fiery halo and a wreath of flowers.

Followers quickly vented their anger at the Keeping Up With the Kardashian star, who is a Christian, and accused her of mocking religion.

One Instagram user commented: You are disgusting.

Another wrote: This is a disgrace youre trying to make money from our faith. No you arent a virgin no Kanye [West] is not a God. Are you trying to start your own religion . 100% disrespect (sic).

A third posted: What has happened to you Kim??? Are you that desperate for attention that you have to mock a religious figure? You are a disgrace to humanity if you think that this is OK.

You need many many prayers for your disrespectful behaviour.. If you want to go to hell youre sure taking the right steps to enter. God have mercy on you.... (sic).

Others deemed her actions beyond forgivable, shameful, extremely disgusting and low, while another suggested she should be thrown to the sea.

The post came hours after Katy Perry faced a similar onslaught from fans for posting an offensive picture of Hindu goddess Kali on Instagram.

She captioned the image: Current mood.

Perry  who married her first husband, comedian Russell Brand, in a private Hindu ceremony in 2010  was accused of being disrespectful to Indians and warned to not make fun of our God.
L ondon filmmaker Shola Amoo has claimed that gentrification could make the city super-elitist and accessible only to the wealthy, but admitted that he is complicit.

The British-Nigerian directors feature debut, A Moving Image, is a part-fictionalised account of the current regeneration of Brixton, which asks Londoners to question their own involvement in gentrification.

There are a lot of feelings about London; how expensive its becoming, the housing crisis and stuff like that and I think at some point theres going to have to be a reckoning, he told the Standard.

Theres a real sense among Londoners, the ones I know anyway, that they dont want the city to become this wealthy, super elitist space. If thats going to be prevented, there needs to be some kind of reckoning with the powers that be because thats, ostensibly, where it seems to be heading.

Actor Tanya Fear on gentrification in Brixton in new film A Moving Image

His film follows young woman Nina, played by Tanya Fear, who tries to make sense of her identity through a visual art project about Brixtons regeneration, having returned to the area after years spent in trendy east London.

Set against the backdrop of the 2015 Reclaim Brixton protests, Nina grapples with the fact that shes part of the problem as well as trying to be part of the solution.

The similarity of his own situation isnt lost on Amoo, who admitted to having to face up to the same moral struggles and acknowledge his own complicity.

It really comes down to the core point of the film which is complicity  ones own complicity in the process, he said.

Im not anti-change, I think change is inevitable. I dont know, theres a question mark though over whether gentrification is and the nature of that change.

There needs to be almost an enquiry into how were going to solve it because right now I dont see many answers in that sense.

Amoo, 32, who resides in Elephant and Castle, said that his film is about asking questions rather than answering them and is hoping to spark conversation among Londoners.

He said: I think thats why the film doesnt try to provide any answers because its not for me to say what the answers are. I think the film poses questions and is more comfortable doing that then trying to solve gentrification.

I didnt want to simplify this discussion. Its super complex, its super nuanced, so enabling a space where there are all of these viewpoints and allowing the audience to pick at the different arguments and ideas and form their own opinions was the key.

A Moving Image is in cinemas on April 28.
F or the prudish out there, avert your eyes now. Historical romp Versailles is back  and its promising even more nudity than its debut.

Expect sex, betrayal, debauchery, decadence and war as King Louis XIV returns to screens for the next instalment of the racy French period drama.

Here's everything you need to know:

When is it set?

Series two will jump four years into the future to 1671.

Back together: George Blagden and Anna Brewster as Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan / BBC/ Canal+

Who is in it?

George Blagden has returned to play the spirited and seductive King Louis XIV alongside Elisa Lasowski as his wife Queen Marie-Therese and Anna Brewster as his mistress Francoise Athenais de Montespan.

Alexander Vlahos, is back as his widowed younger cross-dressing brother Philippe who will be reunited with his male lover Chevalier, played by Evan Williams, who was exiled in series one.

Tygh Runyan returns as head of security, Fabien Marchal, while Stuart Bowman reprises his role as Alexandre Bontemps, the Kings First Valet and Governor of Versailles.

Other returning cast members include Pip Torrens (The Duke of Cassel), Maddison Jaizani (Sophie de Clermont), Steve Cumyn (Colbert) and Joe Sheridan (Louvois).

When is it on?

The steamy series returns to BBC2 on Friday, April 21 at 9:30pm.

Versailles - meet the cast 1 /10 Versailles - meet the cast George Blagden as King Louis XIV Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Alexander Vlahos as Philippe I Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Elisa Lasowski as Marie-Therese Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Evan Williams as Chevalier de Lorraine Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Stuart Bowman as Bontemps Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Anna Brewster as Madame de Montespan Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Noemie Schmidt as Henrietta of England Thibault Grabherr/Canal+/BBC Versailles Meet the cast of the historical drama Canal Plus/ BBC

Will there be more nudity?

Ohhhhh yes, Vlahos told Radio Times. "Yes, just you wait until you see episode two, that's all I'm saying. Youve been warned, so brace yourself for the next instalment which will see the royals romping their way through the 1600s with more risque scenes from the Kings bedroom and a five-in-a-bed scene between Philippe, the Chevalier and three courtiers.

Back in action: Alexander Vlahos, Anna Brewster and George Blagden as Phillipe, Madame de Montespan and Louis XIV / BBC/ Canal+

What else will happen?

This series will see the King appearing to lose his grip on reality as his courtiers start an uprising to demand more power and he turns to the wrong people for advice. This is heightened further by the start of the affair of the poisons, a murder scandal which began in 1677 and lasted until 1682. He later decides to go to war.

Is this the last series?

No. Fans of the show wont have to wait in anticipation for news of a third instalment. Producer Claude Chelli confirmed last September that the show has been renewed, with filming kicking off this month.

Versailles is on BBC2 tonight at 9:30pm.
For the past 50-plus years, Dairy King employees at Avenue I and West Overland in Scottsbluff have been dispensing sweet treats for the community. The new owners bring their own 34 years of food industry experience to continue this local tradition.

Gering graduate Dale Blehm started the Little Red Dairy Cone in Gering in 1983. Thirty-four years later, hes still doing the same thing.

Blehm said he, his wife, mother and grandmother operated the Little Red Dairy Cone in the early years.

My grandmother used to work at Kings Food Host, so shes the one who helped me get started and taught me a lot about the business.

Cheese Frenchees, tuna Frenchees and homemade onion rings were Kings menu items that are still remembered in the community. Theyre still on the menu at Dairy King and are big sellers for the business.

Last year, the lease for Dairy King became available.

It was my granddaughter who told me we should take it over, Blehm said. Shes the fifth generation in the family business.

Many other items like hamburgers and kiss-a-floats that started at the Little Red Dairy Cone are still on the menu. Rather than flavorings, Blehm adds the same toppings used for the sundaes into the malts and shakes.

Cheese Frenchees are still our best sellers, he said, but we still sell a lot of hamburgers. Up front, the malts and shakes, ice cream cones and sundaes are also popular items.

In addition to the Dairy King store, Blehm caters different events, from graduations to auctions.

Although hes lived in other places, Blehm said he always seems to come back to the valley. I worked for KFC in Rapid City and later some restaurants in Nevada, but this has always been home.

After coming home, Blehm operated Nebraska Twister at Gabes Barbecue in the mall. After they closed, I decided to retire, he said. I didnt like it (retirement).

What keeps him interested is all the good people he serves with quality food. I enjoy working with people, Blehm said. Its funny, but some of the kids who worked for me years ago are coming back to visit and bringing their children or grandchildren.

Blehm took over Dairy King on Valentines Day 2017. The weather was nice, so business started strong. One person posting on their Facebook page said Finally getting that ice cream cone. Take that winter!

It got a little cold after we opened, but we have a walk-up area so on some days were swamped and other days it slows down a bit  but were still doing good business, he said. Our plan is to try to stay open year round. People can call in their order for pickup.

From the feedback hes received, the public is happy that Blehm and his family took over the Dairy King as the local landmark continues to dish out ice cream, good food and good memories.
Scottsbluff  Ahead of Earth Day, the 8th annual Reel Earth Festival kicks off Thursday, April 20, and runs for three nights at the Midwest Theater. This years festival features films about how people view the earth, from an extraordinary tale of seeds, to the water in our oceans, to the silence we are lucky to have in Nebraska. The festival will also include live Skype question and answer sessions with two of the film makers. Admission for screenings is a 16 ounce jar of peanut butter or a non-perishable item for the Cat/Pup Pack Program. There are two ways to participate, join in person at the Midwest Theater or online on the social screening platform, OVEE at netnebraska.org/ovee.

Reel Earth Festival is made possible with support from Kosman Foundation, NET NEBRASKA, Meadowlark Hearth Farm, Nebraska Arts Council and Nebraska Cultural Endowment.

 SEED: The Untold Story

Thursday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds  worshiped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. This documentary follows passionate seed keepers who are protecting a 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94 seed varieties have disappeared. A cadre of 10 agri-chemical companies, including Syngenta, Bayer, and Monsanto, controls over two-thirds of the global seed market, reaping unprecedented profits. Farmers and others battle to defend the future of our food. After the film, director Jon Betz and Bill Mcdorman from the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (who is featured in the film) will be available to answer questions via Skype. Beth Evertt from Meadowlark Hearth (a local seed producer) will also be the in person to answer questions and hand out free seed packets.

 A Plastic Ocean

Friday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m.

A Plastic Ocean is an epic global adventure following a documentary filmmaker and a world record free-diver as they travel the earth discovering the shocking impact plastic is having on our oceans and the marine animals that live there. They investigate how our addiction to plastic is impacting the food chain and how that is effecting every one of us through new and developing human health problems. The expedition leads the two adventurers to unusual scientific discoveries, heart-breaking truths and important solutions to one of the biggest problems confronting mankind.

 In Pursuit of Silence

Saturday April 22 at 7:30 p.m.

In Pursuit of Silence is a meditative exploration of our relationship with silence, sound and the impact of noise on our lives. Beginning with an ode to John Cages ground-breaking composition 433, In Pursuit of Silence takes us on an immersive cinematic journey around the globe  from a traditional tea ceremony in Kyoto, to the streets of the loudest city on the planet, Mumbai during the wild festival season  and instantly inspires us to experience silence and celebrate the wonders of our world. AJ Legault from Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and Jane Sayre from Tamaraks Wellness center will be on hand for the post-film Q&A session.
A Catawba County man was sentenced up to eight years in prison for using a stolen credit card to purchase more than $1,000 in items and assaulting a police officer.

Christopher Tyrone Mack, 31, pleaded guilty to obtaining property by false pretenses on April 5 in Iredell County Superior Court.

The plea consolidated charges of assault on a law enforcement officer inflicting physical injury, breaking and entering into a motor vehicle and financial card fraud.

Superior Court Judge Joe Crosswhite sentenced Mack to between 73 and 100 months in prison, according to court documents. He will receive credit for the 228 days he spent in jail awaiting trial.

The incidents happened in July and August of 2016.

In July, Mack broke into a vehicle and stole an L.L. Bean wallet which contained several credit cards. He also took a North Carolina drivers license and $40 worth of property.

In August, Mack stole a womans credit card and purchased $1,172.72 in various items, court documents said.

That same month, Mack punched Statesville Police Officer J. Johnson in the face, causing several scrapes and bruises, then bit him in the leg, court documents said.

Its not clear whether the theft and assault charges were related.
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Romania pleads for a unitary, coherent and fair strategy within the future negotiations regarding the UK leaving the European Union (EU), stated Minister-delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall, who is paying a working visit to Austria.

The Romanian official had a series of meetings with Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration Sebastian Kurz, Advisor on foreign policy of Austria's Chancellor Bernhard Wrabetz, Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs of Austria Michael Linhart and Director of Diplomatic Academy of Vienna Hans Winkler.

According to a press release sent to agerpres. by the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE), within the meetings topical matters of mutual interest for the two states, that feature on the European agenda were discussed, such as: negotiations regarding Brexit, financial multi-annual framework, migration and Schengen space functioning, the EU Strategy for the Danube region, Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership, as well as the importance of strengthening the cooperation in order for Austria to consecutively take over the presidency of the Council of the EU, in the second semester of 2018, and Romania holding the office in the first semester of 2019.

"Romania pleads for a unitary, coherent and fair strategy within the future negotiations regarding the UK leaving the EU. In respect to the future relation between the EU 27 and the UK, we will follow, as a priority, for a balanced agreement to be ensured, in which all the four freedoms of the Single Market, including the free movement of persons/workers to be reflected in an objective and equitable manner. Romanian citizens, alongside European citizens must benefit fully from all the rights and freedoms granted by the treaties. Furthermore, I reiterated that for the EU it's essential that the detachment of the UK must be carefully managed, so that the impact over the EU budget can be attenuated," Ana Birchall stated.

Regarding the debates on the future of Europe, Birchall and Kurz revealed that Romania and Austria oppose to the idea of a EU with multiple speeds or formalizing a Europe with concentric circles, the release points out.

The Schengen area was one of the topics tackled within the meeting with Michael Linhart, the Vienna official reiterated Austria's support for Romania's accession to Schengen.

The Romanian official reiterated within the discussion with Advisor for foreign policy of Austria's Chancellor Bernhard Wrabetz, our country's commitment to efficiently implement the EU Strategy for the Danube region, and within the meeting with Director of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, Ana Birchall underscored Romania's interest and openness for deepening the cooperation with this institution.
Romania's Foreign Ministry (MAE) on Friday extended its best wishes to the families of the French police officers victims of a Thursday night terror attack on Champs Elysees in Paris.

"Our best wishes to the families of the French policemen. We are condemning the Paris attack and extending our full solidarity with France," reads the MAE message posted on Twitter.

A Policeman was shot dead and two seriously wounded on Thursday evening on Champs Elysees, Paris, by an armed assailant, who was shot dead in his turn by security.

agerpres.
This is what we consider our get-to-know-ya/re-get to know ya run, A Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan said a few songs into the bands hundred-minute set Thursday night at a packed Chaifetz Arena. Its been a while since weve been out.

Indeed, the band founded by Keenan and guitarist Billy Howerdel just before the turn of the century hasnt toured for a half-dozen years nor released a studio album since 2004. Keenan is often occupied with his other musical projects, Tool and Pusifer, and his business interests, which include a winery. So its a waiting game for fans of A Perfect Circle and for the band itself, the current version of which includes guitarist James Iha, bassist Matt McJunkins and drummer Jeff Friedl.

That wait lasted a few tantalizing minutes into the show at Chaifetz as the band members played their opening number, The Package, from behind a white scrim, their backlit figures casting long shadows. As the dark, doleful song broke open with its first power chords, the scrim was ripped away, and Howerdel and McJunkins bounded forth.

Keenan, Iha and Friedl were stationed atop lighted risers, where theyd remain, encased in darkness and stage fog, for the entire show.

That arrangement was theatrical, but limiting in terms of creating a sense of intimacy with the crowd. Any emotional connection would have to come from the music, which it did as A Perfect Circle played songs drawn largely from 2003s Thirteenth Step as well as Mer de Noms (2000) and Emotive (2004).

The bands hard, heavy brand of alt-metal is infused with an artfulness and melodic sense brought to the table by Howerdel, whose incisive guitar lines cut through the melancholy of songs such as The Noose and Rose.

Keenan, in a seemingly chatty mood  for him, anyway  introduced an inside-out, dirgelike cover of John Lennons Imagine with a call to unity among those of all political persuasions. Being divided is boring, he said. Were all in this together.

In a considerably lighter mood, during Thinking of You, he broke out a pair of Shake Weights, a deservedly lampooned piece of novelty exercise equipment, and said: I got these for my birthday. If you dont mind, Im going to do my workout during the show.

Those are big yuks for the typically dour Keenan, but the defining moments of the show came courtesy of Howerdels buzzsaw guitar on Thomas, the industrial grind of Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums and the intense, soaring Magdalena.

During the band introductions, Iha lightened the mood once again by asking about St. Louis Universitys mysterious mascot. Is it a ghost? he asked. Some kind of god from the sky? The Billiken  it can be whatever you want?

Best of all for fans, the set included a pair of new songs, Hourglass, with its mechanized vocal treatment, and the shows closing number, Feathers, suggesting that a new album may be on the horizon. But with the enigmatic and eccentric Keenan setting the pace for the bands progress, who knows?
Summer may be in full swing, but it isnt too late to whip up a summer cocktail. And while Im usually partial to whiskey, nothing says summer like a drink with rum. Something about the result of distilled molasses has just the right combination of sweetness and bite. I find the occasional over-the-top umbrella rum cocktaillike a mai tai, pina colada, or rum punchhave to have too much sweetness to pair well with a smoke (though the classic Daiquiri, as opposed to the overly sweet frozen version, is excellent). So here are five classic rum drinks that work fantastically with a cigar:

5) Mount Gay Tonic  Want a fresh drink thats perfect for a warm afternoon? Mount Gay Tonic is the answer. Mix rum and tonic water in nearly equal parts, serve over ice with a lime, and youll end up with a versatile and invigorating drink thats a suitable pairing for most medium-bodied smokes.

4) Dark n Stormy  Made with Goslings rum and tangy ginger beer, this concoction mixes one part dark rum with two parts ginger beer, ideally Barritts. Known as the official drink of Burmuda, youll need a full-flavored cigar to stand up to its spice.

3) Cuba Libre  You can just call it a rum and Coke, but when youre pairing it with a cigar cuba libre seems so much more fitting. (The pairing is so fitting that Nestor Plasencia named a cigar Cuba Libre.) I recommend a spiced rum and pairing it with a spicy Cameroon-wrapped cigar.

2) Mojito  For my money its hard to beat a mojito: mint, rum, lime, sugar, and a splash of soda water blended perfectly into a refreshing beverage. Enjoy it with a mild- to medium-bodied smoke, preferably a creamy stick with a Connecticut wrapper.

1) Straight Up or On the Rocks  As well as rums blend with other beverages, its easy to forget that the best way to taste a fine rum is straight up or on the rocks. Fine rums offer as much intensity as a fine scotch or bourbon, and only unaccompanied will you be able to discern all the complexity of a well-aged spirit. Each will require its own cigar pairing, but with such flavors as honey, banana peel, oak, cedar, and pepper, there are more than enough flavors to pair with a fine smoke.

So there you have it, my favorite rum drinks to accompany a fine cigar. Think I missed one? Let us know in the comments.

Patrick S

photo credit: Wikimedia
Tru Optik and NinthDecimal Partner to Power Over-The-Top Television Ad Targeting and Attribution

Mobile Location-Based Audience Segments and Data Now Available Through Tru Optik's OTT Marketing Cloud

Stamford, CT( )

Tru Optik, the only audience measurement and data management platform built for over-the-top (OTT) television, today announced a partnership with NinthDecimal, the marketing platform powered by location data, that will allow marketers to leverage consumers physical-world shopping, dining and lifestyle behaviors for OTT television ad targeting and campaign performance assessment.

Powering NinthDecimals suite of products are trillions of data points generated every month from over 135 million unique devices. As the industrys leading marketing platform, NinthDecimal creates an average of 10,000 custom segments annually for major brands, built on the signals that deliver the best campaign reach, accuracy and performance. By accumulating exact property boundaries across the U.S., NinthDecimal maps locations with the precision needed to reliably distinguish between consumers entering a store versus those simply walking by or standing in the parking lot.

Using Tru Optiks recently launched OTT Marketing Cloud, marketers now have the unique ability to use NinthDecimals audience intelligence in conjunction with other CRM data to activate cross-device, programmatic and direct OTT television campaigns. Brands can also use NinthDecimals audience intelligence for retargeting on Connected TV. For example, if a prospective customer visits a department store, that store or a nearby competitor, marketers can reach thatperson in a privacy-compliant environment with TV ads on their Roku, Apple TV, PlayStation or other OTT device.

Our partnership with Tru Optik delivers an entirely new level of reach and accuracy for marketers that want to take full advantage of OTTs targeting and measurement capabilities, said Brian Slitt, chief revenue officer at NinthDecimal. With specific consumer profiles and preferences based on physical-world behavior, including their affinity to specific brands, marketers can more accurately reach OTT audiences that align with their media campaigns. Were excited about what both companies can deliver to the market under this new partnership.

According to Tru Optik Chief Strategist David Wiesenfeld, Most shopping, purchasing and everyday activities play out in the physical world, which makes location-based behavior a powerful way to understand and reach consumers. Its the real-world analog of targeting based on website visitation or search."

In addition, the Tru Optik and NinthDecimal partnership allows marketers to link OTT ad exposure with subsequent visits to designated commercial establishments using NinthDecimals offline attribution solution, Location Conversion Index (LCI). Combining the two sources of data enables brands to prove the effectiveness of mid-funnel and lower-funnel OTT marketing campaigns.

The ability to use consumer location data to prove OTT campaign effectiveness in driving traffic to stores, restaurants, auto dealerships and other commercial locations has become essential for advertisers eager to shift marketing dollars to OTT, said Michelle Swanston, SVP of Operations for Tru Optik. Our partnership with NinthDecimal gives brands and advertisers another critical tool to power their data driven OTT marketing efforts across both connected TV and mobile.

About Tru Optik:

Tru Optik is a digital media intelligence company providing audience insight and advertising solutions that empower brand marketers and media companies to fully monetize audience and consumer demand. Armed with advanced technology, the largest census-level dataset of global over-the-top (OTT) media consumption, and unmatched focus, Tru Optik has built the only audience measurement and data-management platform that works across the entire OTT ecosystem, including Connected TV. Tru Optik is the preferred partner of many of the worlds largest media companies, brands, and agencies as they navigate the millennial-led shift to OTT.

About NinthDecimal:

NinthDecimal is the marketing platform powered by location data. It harnesses this data to build a precise understanding of consumers physical world behavior. Fortune 500 companies and marquee brands, including Microsoft, Target, Kraft, Comcast, American Express, Starbucks and Toyota, activate this customer intelligence through audience targeting, measurement, insights and data licensing solutions. By filling the massive gap in understanding how consumers spend the majority of their time, NinthDecimal provides marketers a comprehensive new model of the customer journey for impactful engagement.
Jamaat-e-Islami also demanded to step down like other opposition parties, while Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Siraj-ul-Haq said that Panama case has not yet ended, but has advanced.

Addressing a news conference in Islamabad, JI Ameer Siraj-ul-Haq said that court did not give clean chit to Nawaz Sharif, while he said that it would be better that all three judges would have also decided against Prime Minister like two judges.

He said that prime ministers lawyers could not satisfy the court and it was decided with the verdict that there is corruption in country.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Friday announced his party's intention to hold a rally in Islamabad next Friday to"demand Nawaz Sharif's resignation".

Speaking to reporters outside the National Assembly Khan posed the question: "With which face will the PML-N confront the public after the comments made in the Supreme Court judgement?"

"I asked the PML-N supporters, what were you distributing sweets for yesterday? You should have read the full judgement yesterday," he said.

"It has never happened in Pakistan's history before, that such comments were passed against a sitting prime minister."

"All five judges have raised questions asked by the PTI," he said, adding that the apex court had rejected all defence presented by the PM's counsel.

"Resign while you are being investigated," he urged the premier. "This is not an unusual demand."

Also read: Panamagate verdict: Supreme Court orders JIT probe of Sharif family

Imran asked if it was possible for heads of institutions like the National Accountability Bureau to investigate the prime minister while he is power.

"If these institutions had been working, they would have stopped corruption already," he asserted.

The PTI chief avoided an earlier meeting of opposition parties today which was held to discuss the ramifications of the Panama case verdict.

'Soft hand on Sharifs'

PPP lawmakers Aitzaz Ahsan and Khursheed Shah addressing a press conference following the meeting of opposition parties rejected the formation of a Joint Investigation Team to investigate the PM's family, claiming that the Sharifs have links with the Inter-Services Intelligence, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, and the State Bank of Pakistan.

Ahsan said it was a custom of the SC to "keep a soft hand on the Sharifs".

Leader of the Opposition in the NA Khursheed Shah said the dissenting judges had given "a clear-cut order".

Read more: Zardari condemns SC decision, demands resignation from PM

Shah maintained the three other judges had not disagreed with those dissenting, but added the condition of a JIT to probe the PM and his sons.

'Go Nawaz, go': lawmakers protest SC verdict

Opposition lawmakers in the Upper and Lower House on Friday protested the Panamagate verdict announced by the Supreme Court a day earlier, with chants of 'Go Nawaz, go' echoing in parliament.

National Assembly Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi struggled to maintain order in the house as PML-N's Sheikh Aftab's speech during question hour was disrupted by MNAs registering their protest before the speaker's dias and staging a walkout.
PPP lawmakers Aitzaz Ahsan and Khursheed Shah addressing a press conference following the meeting of opposition parties rejected the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to investigate the PM's family, claiming that the Sharifs have links with the Inter-Services Intelligence, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, and the State Bank of Pakistan.

Shah asked, "How can an employee fairly investigate his employer?" he asked.

"We always asked the PM to refrain from resigning [in the past] for the sake of democracy. We always stood by Nawaz Sharif in the name of democracy," he said.

Shah maintained the three other judges had not disagreed with those dissenting, but added the condition of a JIT to probe the PM and his sons.

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan said it was a custom of the SC to "keep a soft hand on the Sharifs", adding that the majority judges had rejected a letter from a Qatari royal submitted as evidence by the PM's counsel.

Read more: PTI to hold rally in Islamabad next week to demand PM's resignation: Imran Khan

He said the PPP rejected a JIT which would include people who favoured the ruling party.

The PPP also rejected the SC decision to clear Maryam Nawaz before the formation of the JIT.

In response to a question, he said the PPP would form a new strategy to force the prime minister to step down.

'You think you passed the exam?'

Awami Muslim League (AML) President Sheikh Rasheed called for all parties to create "a grand alliance" against the government.

"You failed in two subjects and failed to clear the other three, and you still think you passed the exam," Rasheed exclaimed.

Also read: Zardari condemns SC decision, demands resignation from PM

"It doesn't make sense that you [the PML-N] are distributing sweets even after you've failed," he said.

JI calls for PM's resignation 'on moral grounds'

Jamaat-i-Islami Emir Sirajul Haq called for the resignation of PM Nawaz Sharif "on moral grounds".

The JI chief framed the party's move against the sitting prime minister as part of its ongoing campaign against corruption.

"Nawaz's respect lies in resigning and conducting a free investigation into the case," he maintained.

"The SC verdict is not the destination, but a step forward towards success."

'Go Nawaz, go': lawmakers protest in parliament

Opposition lawmakers in the Upper and Lower House on Friday protested the Panamagate verdict announced by the Supreme Court a day earlier, with chants of 'Go Nawaz, go' echoing in parliament.

National Assembly Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi struggled to maintain order in the house as PML-N's Sheikh Aftab's speech during question hour was disrupted by MNAs registering their protest before the speaker's dias and staging a walkout.

Shah calls for postponing parliamentary sessions

A meeting of opposition parties chaired by PPP's Khursheed Shah and Aitzaz Ahsan was held to discuss the ramifications of the SC verdict on Panamagate earlier today.

The opposition collectively decided to demand the PM's resignation and protest the matter in both the NA and Senate.

Read more: Panamagate verdict: Supreme Court orders JIT probe of Sharif family

Leader of the Opposition in the NA Khursheed Shah while addressing the joint meeting said, "Besides the government, every other party has understood the Panama case verdict."

"Today the sessions of parliament and senate will be postponed indefinitely," the leader of the opposition stated at the meeting, adding that opposition parties must vehemently protest in both the upper and lower houses of parliament.
Chaos marred the session of the National Assembly on Friday as opposition parties decided to jointly confront the ruling party in the assembly and demand resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif following yesterday's Panama Papers verdict.

Opposition leader Khursheed Shah demanded that the Prime Minister step down from his position. Rejecting the JIT, which the apex court ordered for further investigation into the money trail of the Prime Minister and his sons, Shah questioned how the team could probe transparently while the PM remained in power.

Speaking to media, Shah said the opposition was ready to fight the PML-N, both inside the Parliament and outside, and called on the nation to get ready for a protest call.

"We have always been in favour of positive politics," Shah said. "We have been mocked by being called a friendly opposition, but we have always been with democracy."

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmad, meanwhile, said Nawaz Sharif was the elected representative of the people of Pakistan and would not step down from his position.

Aftab Ahmad said all the political parties should honour the decision of the apex court and avoid creating hurdles in the path of investigation by the JIT.

The demand of the opposition was reflective of their disappointment on the decision, he added.

Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Sirajul Haq, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairperson Imran Khan and Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rasheed were also present at the assembly session.

While low attendance was witnessed on the treasury benches, those present on the opposition benches stood up from their seats in protest. The leaders of Pakistan Peoples Party also protested by pounding their desks.

Since no one from the opposition or treasury benches maintained decorum, the speaker was forced to adjourn the session for an 'undefined' period.

JIT will do nothing: Aitzaz Ahsan

PPP's Aitzaz Ahsan, present on the occasion, said it had always been witnessed that policies were softened when it came to Nawaz Sharif and other members of the Sharif family.

"They get 14 people martyred in Model Town [Lahore], nothing happens," Ahsan said. "A JIT was formed for that incident as well but nothing has happened yet."

He added that his party rejected the JIT formed to further probe the Panama case.

Politics of right or wrong: Siraj

Speaking to the media, JI chief Siraj said the Prime Minister should resign so that investigation could be carried out in an independent manner.

Siraj said he believed ordering a JIT was a big deal.

"Instead of right or left, there should be politics of right or wrong," he said.

PML-N has failed the exams: Sheikh Rasheed

All the parties in the opposition have come together on a single platform, said Sheikh Rasheed.

"PML-N has failed the exams yet they are still distributing sweetmeat," he said.

Imran announces protest rally in the capital

PTI chief Imran Khan announced earlier to hold a protest rally in Islamabad next Friday to demand resignation from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over the split verdict by the Supreme Court in Panama leaks case.

Speaking to media after the chaotic session of the National Assembly, Imran reiterated his demand that the prime minister step down, following the apex courts ruling that further investigation was needed into corruption allegations levelled by the opposition at the PM and his family.

Citing the dissent note by two judges of the Supreme Court, Imran said the PM had lost the moral authority to rule the country.

Imran compared the current scenario with the UK where David Cameron quit after he lost the Brexit referendum, despite being elected with a landslide majority, because he lost the moral ground to lead.

Panama verdict vindicates PMs stance: Raja Zafarul Haq

Leader of House in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq said that the Supreme Court's decision in Panama case had vindicated the stance of the prime minister.

Talking to reporters outside the Parliament house, he said that the opponents would continue to face humiliation in future as the PML-N would win at every forum.

Raja Zafarul Haq regretted the PPP's attitude towards the JIT and said his party would follow the instructions of the apex court and every decision would be taken in accordance with the law.

The Supreme Court ordered on Thursday that a JIT be formed to probe the allegations levelled on the Sharif family in Panamagate case. The long-awaited verdict was given by a bench that was divided on a 3:2 ratio i.e. two judges wanted to denotify the Prime Minister while three announced the issue be probed further by a JIT.
Former army chief retired Gen Raheel Sharif has left for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to head a 41-nation military alliance, media reports said, quoting Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Friday.

The reports suggested that the former chief of army staff was granted approval to serve as head of the alliance for three years.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told that Sharif had been "given permission to head the military alliance after due process".

Sharif departed for Riyadh earlier today on a special aircraft and was accompanied by his wife and mother on the flight.

Concerns about the Saudi military alliance

The 41-nation armed coalition was initially proposed as a platform for security cooperation among Muslim countries, and included provisions for training, equipment and troops, and the involvement of religious scholars for devising a counter-terrorism narrative.

Since news of the alliance first surfaced, there have been concerns about its nature and how it may affect a pre-existing parliamentary resolution on Yemen passed unanimously by lawmakers calling for "neutrality in the conflict" in 2015.

Minister for Defence Khawaja Asif has time and again reassured the nation that Pakistan's stance on Yemen would not suffer due to this new-found coalition.

In the latest of these reassurances, on April 13, Asif told the National Assembly:"We will stick to our prerogative when it comes to Yemen, and the agreement we have will remain binding."

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's (PTI) Shireen Mazari raised concerns in the NA, saying that a military alliance cannot be a solution to terrorism. The PTI urged the government to determine the nature and purpose of the alliance and make its Terms of Reference clear.

"There are at least 10 militaries present in the alliance who are also a part of a Saudi alliance against Yemen," Mazari earlier cautioned.

PTI's Asad Umer had said, "The matter is not of Raheel Sharif's appointment, the question is if we should be part of the alliance or not."

Earlier this week in a meeting at GHQ in Rawalpindi, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa assured Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Honardoost that Pak-Iran bilateral ties would remain unaffected by recent developments.

Extraordinary importance was attached to the meeting by diplomatic circles because it was the second between the two in around six weeks, a rare happening in Pakistan-Iran relations given the mutual mistrust.

Pakistan greatly values historic Pak-Iran relationship and the same shall continue based on mutual trust and respect for each others interests, Gen Bajwa told Amb Honardoost.
Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Friday said there was no pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ahead of the Panama verdict.

There was no pressure on him (Nawaz Sharif) before the verdict and there is no pressure after the judgment, said Nisar at a press conference in Islamabad.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday there was insufficient evidence to order the prime minister's removal from office but called for further investigation into corruption allegations in connection with the so-called Panama Papers leaks.

A five-member bench was split three votes to two in favor of Nawaz Sharif retaining his position.

On Friday, opposition chanted slogans demanding the premiers resignation and tore up the assembly's agenda for the day, before the speaker suspended the session, television footage showed.

"I was the petitioner in the case, the hearing continued for four months, at least I should have been allowed to speak in the parliament," PTI Chairman Imran Khan later told reporters outside the assembly.

The Supreme Court, in its 549-page judgment, ordered a joint investigation team be formed to look into allegations around three of Nawaz Sharifs four children using offshore companies to buy properties in London.

The investigating team has two months to complete its inquiry, after which a special bench will decide what action to take, the court said.

The prime minister and his children deny any wrongdoing.

The joint investigation team will comprise members from six different government bodies including intelligence agencies and financial regulatory authorities.
The month of May marks the official beginning of the summer season in Pakistan. It is under the glaring sun that the summer crops including maize, millet, and cotton are grown.

It is also the time when people from various parts of Pakistan make travel plans to avail their summer vacations in the best possible manner.

If you are planning to travel to Pakistan in the month of May, then read along to get to know the 3 places in Pakistan, which Jovago Pakistan recommends, to visit and to explore in the month of May in order to get enthralled by the offerings of the summer season.

1. Leepa valley

One of the most spectacular wonders that Azad Kashmir region offers to its visitors, the Leepa valley is a must visit in the summer season. This is because, during the summer season the lush green rice fields and the delicious walnut, apple, cherry and honey along with a variety of scenic spectacular beauty spell bounds the visitors who are exploring the valley.

2. Chitral

On the foothills of the famous Hindukush mountain range, lies the beautiful valley of Chitral which is the largest district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Famous for its traditions, the valley is home to various tribes including the Kalash who are known for their backward lifestyle.

Whilst exploring the area, do make sure you attend the Chilam Joshi festival which is held in the middle of May every year to get a glimpse of the traditional yet colourful culture of the Kalash people.

3. Skardu

This place is an embodiment of natures perfection. Located in the heart of Gilgit-Baltistan, Skardu is home to some of the highest mountains in the world including K2 and Gasherbrum.

Skardu enthralls its visitors with its diverse offerings which include mighty mountain peaks, rich, lush green pastureland, sparkling river water and even a cold desert.
At least four people were injured in the wake of aerial firing and fireworks display near in Karachi late Thursday, after which police apprehended five suspects involved in the incident, officials told.

The incident occurred near Five Star Chowrangi after which police apprehended five affiliates of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the centre. The arrested party affiliates included two local office-bearers, Afsar Ali Khan and Khalid Mumtaz, said SP Gulberg Bashir Brohi.

Mumtaz has formerly been a general secretary of the Karachi Bar Association.

'Target killer' among three held

Nazimabad police nabbed a suspected target killer, Wasim alias Boss, among two suspects. Police claimed to have seized a handgun, a stolen motorbike and mobile phones from the suspect, who reportedly confessed to his involvement in target killing in Surjani Town.

The other suspect, Noman, was said to be involved in stealing car parts.

The law enforcers, after an exchange of fire in Mawach Goth, rounded up a gangster, Arif, affiliated with Bahadur PMT group along with weapons. Officials said his accomplices Salman and Joji managed to flee away.

Search operations

On the other hand, 55 suspected people were held during house-to-house searches in Khamisu Goth in New Karachi and Gulberg's DT Chowk, Roshan Bagh, Power Chowrangi areas, according to SP Bashir Brohi.

The official said the particulars of arrested individuals were being verified, along with checking of any criminal record of them with various police stations.
President Hassan Rouhani was among six candidates approved Thursday by Irans Guardian Council to run in next months election while former leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was barred, state media reported.

The other candidates selected were hardliners Ebrahim Raisi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, conservative Mostafa Mirsalim, former minister Mostafa Hashemitaba and Rouhanis ally and vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri.

Both Ahmadinejad and his close ally Hamid Baghaie were barred from running by the Guardian Council.

The former president, who ruled from 2005 to 2013, shocked everyone by registering as a candidate last week against the advice of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

More than 1,600 candidates registered to run in the May 19 election, but the Guardian Council only ever selects around half a dozen.
Papamoa dairy farmers are calling for a re-think on the drainage design for the area after two weeks of flooding that has forced them to dry off their herds early and lose about a months worth of production.

Two cyclones in two weeks left the Bell Rd farms underwater, with drainage relying on pumps.

Over 30 years weve been milking cows here and its gets flooded, but not this bad, says farmer Graham Thompson. The last flood was worse than this one last week, but this is getting up there.

Its got worse since the Tauranga Eastern Link highway went through and all of the subdivisions up there. Theres more water coming down a lot quicker.

A lot of computer modelling has been done about all this and I think its miles out.

An issue is the TEL culvert over the Bell Rd drain. The farmers see the culvert as a choke point that backs up the water in the drain, which then floods neighbouring farmland.

We told the TEL people three years ago we were not happy with that culvert down the road. And nothings been done since then. Its probably only 3.5m wide, it wants to be double that, says Graham.

The drains this wide and culverts only this wide. You dont have to be an expert to figure out somethings not right there.

David Hurst has been milking cows in Bell Rd for 30 years. He says here were similar flood levels in 2005.

But the real issue is the whole bottom end of the scheme is under-designed. TEL has had a huge effect on it and the water just cant get away, as you can see.

A huge amount of the water now comes from the developments at Papamoa East, you know yourself whats happening along there.

Pasture will absorb one inch of rainwater an hour, bush will absorb four inches, and concrete nothing. Now there is more concrete than there is pasture and bush.

They need bigger pump systems and more of them, says David. His pasture has been underwater for 10 days.

You couldnt avoid the rainfall, but you could improve the drainage system, says David, who reckons regional council staff who brought in extra pumps are doing a marvellous job.

BOPRCs works co-ordinator for the Bell Rd pump station Arty Rangihika says two cyclones in two weeks is too much for the pump station.

Its just the rainfall weve had, says Arty. Debbie was a cyclone so, we got that in one night. If its over a week its fine, but to have something happen like with the last two  Debbie and Cook  its just too much to handle.

All of the flood waters and all of the run off from the TEL is pumped into the Kaituna River by the Bell Rd pumps. The two pumps each have a capacity of 1500 litres a second; with two of them operating thats three cubic metres of flood waters a second.

They were predicting 300-400mm to fall from this last one Cook, says Arty. It actually got downgraded to 150mm. Its just hard to predict what you are going to get  150mm we can handle, but 300mm you are starting to push it a bit.

Flooding data used for answers

Recent Papamoa floods are providing the first opportunity in several year for engineers to calibrate the flood model for the changed landscape following the construction of the Tauranga Eastern Link, says New Zealand Transport Agency project manager Wayne Troughton.

The TEL stormwater and flood control measures were constructed according to the Bay of Plenty Regional Councils existing model. We designed everything and over-designed it, says Wayne.

Over time the regional council also repaired the stop banks, rebuilt the road and changed the drains, cleaned them out and made a whole lot of changes.

The regional council initiated a new model that was more detailed, but they needed to calibrate the model against a storm, says Wayne. Since that 2014 event there havent been any big storms to calibrate it against.

The flood from recent cyclones Debbie and Cook mean the model can now be calibrated and engineers will be able to see where the issues are coming out.

We are working with them. Once we get the results from the model calibrated, see where the bottlenecks are, then there will be some discussions about what needs to be looked at going forward, says Wayne.

Until we get that data back that we have been waiting for, for quite some time, were really flying blind.
Prime Minister Bill English opened the new EmployNZ training centre in Second Avenue on Friday afternoon, an official duty on a short trip to Tauranga that also included an art gallery visit this morning.

Employ NZ transitions people from benefit dependency to higher levels of tertiary education training or employment through being recognised as part of a community.

They are agents of change and at the front lines of changing peoples lives, says Bill.

I want to congratulate those who have shown this kind of confidence in the programmes they are delivering.

This confidence in their own community and future particular for the young people but also their confidence that they have something very special and specific that their government is going to be able to support.

His ribbon cutting was applauded by a crowd of about fifty people on the footpath near the front of the new building.

Tauranga MP and Transport Minister Simon Bridges says Employ NZ does a great job of getting people into work and keeping them in work with its wraparound support.

In Tauranga Employ NZ has helped hundreds, probably thousands of people into long term employment.

The Prime Minister has been looking forward to doing this, says Simon. He knows a lot about EmployNZ and the model that they have got, and its the sort of thing we want to see more of around New Zealand.

EmployNZ is a sort of role model in this kind of work and its great that they are doing it here in Tauranga.



Prime Minister Bill English opening the new EmployNZ building on Second Ave in Tauranga today. Photo: Andrew Campbell.
Bay of Plenty Regional Councils newest councillor Matemoana McDonald has been welcomed with a powhiri.

Matemoana will represent the Mauao Maori Constituency and fills the role left vacant after the passing of Councillor Awanui Black late last year.

The final results of the by-election held to fill the vacancy were declared on April 15, with Matemoana as the successful candidate being sworn into office at Thursdays Council meeting.

She was also appointed to Komiti Maori and to Te Awanui Tauranga Harbour Advisory Group as a member for the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

Matemoana is automatically a member of the Regional Direction and Delivery Committee.

An entourage of Tauranga Moana iwi representatives attended in support at Thursdays powhiri.
These are challenges that are being faced by the banking sector as much as any other. With more and more banking services undertaken online, the chance to build and maintain interpersonal relationships with clients is becoming ever more difficult.

We spoke with Christoph Mauchle, Member of the Group Executive Management and Head Client Business at Liechtenstein-based private bank VP Bank, to find out more about such challenges and how his organisation is striving to overcome them.

Superyachts: Firstly, for those who are unfamiliar with VP Bank, can you start by telling us about some of the key services and products you provide?

Christoph Mauchle: VP Bank Ltd was founded in 1956 and, with its 800 employees, ranks amongst the largest banks in Liechtenstein. Today, VP Bank is present with offices in Vaduz, Luxembourg, Zurich, Singapore, Hong Kong, Moscow and Tortola (British Virgin Islands). VP Bank Group offers tailor-made asset management and investment advisory services to private clients and financial intermediaries. Thanks to the Banks genuine open architecture, clients benefit from independent counselling: included in its investment recommendations are not just the Banks own asset management solutions but also the products and services of other leading financial institutions. Beside from these core capabilities VP Bank Group maintains an international fund centre.

What are some of the benefits of being a boutique bank compared with being a larger organisation?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to selecting an ideal financial partner. Be there no doubt, big banks can bring to bear some weighty advantages, such as a global network and the widest imaginable array of services. Nonetheless, the major players in the banking industry will always have difficulty shedding their reputation as dispassionate mass-marketers. Questions also arise as to the will  or even the ability  of large financial institutions to place the cultivation and nurturing of long-term relationships at the heart of their endeavours.

There are other options, though. Traditional yet highly modern financial services providers like VP Bank lay claim to their boutique approach, one which affords a big plus in terms of personalised care and the lack of potential conflicts of interest. The keen focus on client needs across all organisational and hierarchical levels is without a doubt the greatest strength of this boutiqueness: VP Banks employees share a common goal and are all pulling on the same end of the rope. Moreover, as a totally independent market participant, we can draw on a product universe that is not only on a par with the offerings of the big players; in many ways, it is far superior. Not least of all thanks to our worldwide collaboration with renowned partners, clients have access to solutions that are indeed hard to surpass. And of course, part of the package is our traditional intense desire to earn and preserve long-term relationships with our clients.

You have high net-worth clients all over the world  what are some of the modern challenges involved in being customer-focused and building relationships with clients in a digital era?

The financial industry is undergoing profound changes. Bank clients of all generations today use the internet for a large number of financial transactions and expect their banking partners to provide modern platforms.

VP Bank has recognised the signs of the times and invests specifically in digital solutions that will make the lives of private clients and intermediaries easier. At the same time, we are working to link digital platforms with personal advice. For we are convinced: the successful model of the future will be a combination of automated services and personal advice. This hybrid advice combines the benefits of digital solutions with the experience, expertise and empathy of a personal advisor.

As we know, wealthy people often make their money in diverse ways, from technology to property to inheritance. What are the challenges of creating a bespoke approach for each client?

We make it our objective to understand our clients and advise them on the basis of the current situation. The advisory process at VP Bank therefore comprises four steps: understand  advise  implement  follow up. These are the four steps we employ when we provide our clients with individual advice and service according to their personal requirements. Trust between the client and his or her advisor is essential.

Being successful requires meeting changes in client needs, complying with regulatory requirements and, at the same time, being able to utilise the advantages offered by a digital world. This is a challenge, of course. We are  as already mentioned  not an all-rounder, but pursue a boutique approach. This means that we offer distinct services to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, while our clients benefit from comprehensive and personal advice.

What ratio of your clients come from personal referrals?

It is our vision: We generate enthusiasm by offering our clients unique experiences  this is why they recommend us. We do know that most of VP Banks new clients come to the Bank at the recommendation of existing clients, but we dont have the ratio in numbers.

How important is it to retain your best staff? Is there a risk that as banking becomes more digitised, personal relationships with staff will not be so important and clients will be more inclined to move from bank to bank?

The quality of employees and their commitment are crucial to success in business. As practice shows, quality of advice and customer focus are increasingly key differentiation factors in gaining long-term clients. After all, the more the financial industry meets the digital requirements of clients across the board, the more difficult it becomes to stand out among the competition on the basis of such solutions.

VP Bank relies on experienced client advisors and has launched targeted strategic recruitment efforts to this end. The aim is to hire a total of 75 client advisors at select Group locations over the next three years.

The working environment of VP Bank is characterised by a family-like atmosphere and a high degree of freedom in decision-making. Internal communications and teamwork are key success factors for us. Our clients ultimately observe that too.

Would you venture a look into the future? What else are we going to see with the digitisation of the financial industry?

Online and mobile banking changes the habits of clients. Instead of stepping up to the bank counter, they manage many bank services online today. Many banks are experimenting with video chat, avatar-based advice and the use of artificial intelligence. Clients expect their banks to simplify and increasingly digitise certain services. But we believe that artificial intelligence can never replace an empathic and personal advisor. However, it is difficult to predict what the future holds. Who would have imagined 20 years ago that we would book trips and wire money from a smartphone?
There were celebrations among LGBT groups across Spain after the Spanish Congress voted in favour of the reform bill that would allow marriage between same-sex couples.

With 183 votes in favour, 136 against and three abstentions, Minister of Justice, Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar, announced that Spain would be only the third country to recognise the right of same-sex couples to marry, after Belgium and the Netherlands.

During the vote, which was applauded by the representatives of LGBT groups who witnessed the session from the public gallery, the bill was approved by all the political groups except the Partido Popular (PP) and Unio.

One member of the PP, however, former Mayor of Malaga and Minister of Health, Celia Villalobos, voted in favour, saying later that she was "following her conscience" rather than her party's policy.

A couple drink champagne in Malaga's Plaza de la Merced. / SUR

Same-sex marriage was just one of a raft of measures proposed by socialist PSOE prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero; the bill also conceded same-sex couples the right to adopt children and also made it easier for married couples to get divorced.

According to the changes, couples could file for divorce three months after their wedding, rather than having to be officially separated for at least a year - or even earlier in cases of domestic violence.

However, as was to be expected, the law on gay marriage didn't go down well with hard-line conservatives nor with the Roman Catholic Church. In fact Spain's Bishops' Conference called the move an "error and an injustice".

In fact, when the bill was passed to the Senate, Spain's upper house, a veto proposed by the conservative PP, led by Mariano Rajoy, was approved.

This, though, was not enough to obstruct the will of the lower house which on 30 June 2005, approved the bill, overriding the Senate's veto, after Zapatero unexpectedly took to the floor to speak in support of the bill.

King Juan Carlos gave his royal assent the next day.

Approximately 4,500 same-sex couples married in Spain during the first year of the law.
Sunday 23 April is the day when English nationals celebrate St Georges Day.

However, even though he is perhaps one of Christianitys most venerated saints, the English seem to have virtually turned their backs on him over the years.

His achievements have been questioned by the scholarly and his life is something of a mystery, and much of what we know is based on legend.

St George is believed to have served as a soldier in the Roman army during the latter part of the 3rd century AD, but resigned in protest of the Emperors persecution of Christians.

He was then imprisoned for refusing to renounce Christianity and was eventually beheaded by the Emperor Diocletian.

It was his celebrated combat with a dragon that set him apart from most of his fellow martyrs, and the account of this heroic slaying comes from the Golden Legend, which was written in the thirteenth century.

It is believed that he was adopted in England because the story in The Golden Legend was similar to an old Anglo-Saxon legend.

However, St Georges Day celebrations are often more low key than the razzmatazz events connected to some of his fellow saints.

With the odd exception, celebrations are virtually nonexistent here on the coast and the day will often pass without much ado, largely down to the fact that many are unaware of the occasion.

A recent survey carried out in England claimed that only one in five people know that St Georges Day falls on April 23. The same survey suggested that 25 percent of English people do not even know who their patron saint is.

It would seem that a good majority of English nationals prefer to celebrate St Patricks Day in preference to their own martyr, and there are those who believe that Englands patron saint should be defrocked.

A poll carried out by a British tabloid newspaper in 2003 suggested that St George should be ousted as Englands patron saint and replaced by St Alban. This notion was also backed by several prominent clergy from the Church of England.

The major sources on St Albans life were written hundreds of years after his death, and many of the later texts contain additions and embellishments that probably did not occur.

Alban and George

St Alban, who is venerated as the first recorded British Christian martyr, and St George lived in the same era, and were both beheaded by the Romans for refusing to renounce Christianity. Although knowledge of both men is based more on legend than fact, St Alban was English, whereas St George was not.

St George has suffered many indignities since he was adopted by the English in the fourteenth century and scholars have ridiculed his dragon slaying exploits.

He is identified with English ideals of honour, bravery and gallantry, but he was not English and he is not thought to have visited Britain. This alone may explain why so many remain sceptical of his suitability as Englands patron saint: his association with other countries is perhaps another reason.

St George is not only the patron saint of England, but also of Aragon, Catalonia, Caceres, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Germany, Greece and Moscow.

Hes also patron saint of soldiers, archers, cavalry and chivalry, farmers and field workers.

However, St George was not the first patron saint of England, that honour was originally held by St Edmund in the ninth century.

St Edmunds influence began to fade during the Third Crusade in 1199, when King Richard I visited the tomb of St. George in Palestine on the eve of a battle. Following his great victory the next day, Richard adopted St. George as his personal patron and protector of the army.

In 2006, an attempt was made to have St Edmund reinstated as patron saint of England, but the petition was rejected by the British government.

For the moment, it would appear that St George has managed to fight off his contenders in much the same way as he did the legendary dragon, and his patronage, at least for the foreseeable future, would seem to be secure.

In recent years he has been adopted as patron saint of Scouts. The Scout Association takes part in parades all across England on St Georges Day; one of the biggest being the parade of the Queen Scouts that takes place at Windsor Castle each year.
Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca have been ambassadors for BBVA since 2014 and they have done three international tours in the summer months. This year they will be visiting seven regions of Spain and will choose 21 students, three from each area, who are studying at local catering colleges. These students will receive grants from BBVA and will have the chance to work as stagiaires in Girona for four months. This week, Josep Roca is heading for the Basque Country on a familiarisation trip, visiting txakoli and cheese producers, fishing wharves (such as the one in Getaria) and traditional markets.
On 10 September 1984 geneticist Alec Jeffreys had arrived early at his laboratory in Leicester. It was just an ordinary Monday like any other until, just after 9am, he had one of those eureka moments which have occurred periodically in the history of science.

Jeffreys was carrying out an experiment in the dark room and he took an X-ray from the developing tank. He looked at the genetic material on the plate and within seconds he realised what he was looking at: the variations in the genetic code of the three people who had taken part in the test (the laboratory technician, his mother and his father) served to identify each of them, with no equivocation. He had found a genetic footprint which makes each person unique.

Since then, this DNA testing technique has proven vital in resolving crimes, identifying rapists and dead bodies, checking would-be immigrants claims and proving paternity. Although individuals of the same species share a large part of their DNA sequencing (deoxyribonucleic acid) there are also some highly variable aspects which are unique to them (genetic markers) and these are used for identification purposes.

Enrique Samper Mercedes Aleman The number of genetic tests is increasing by between 15 and 25 per cent a year The paternity test which people can do at home is just as reliable as the legal one

It is now 30 years since that discovery was used for the first time to demonstrate a parental relationship and the British government accepted the result of a DNA test as evidence. On that occasion the immigration authorities had to admit their mistake after they had refused to let a young man from Ghana into the country, although his mother was living in Britain legally. They doubted that she really was his mother, and suspected that she was actually his aunt. The government asked the scientist for help and the genetic footprints showed that the young man was telling the truth.

Found guilty through DNA

From that moment on, there were so many requests for DNA tests that Alec Jeffreys team at the Leicester laboratory couldnt cope with the workload. It has gone crazy, he said at the time.

He collaborated on the first police case which was solved through use of this new technique, known as the Pitchfork Case. DNA testing identified Colin Pitchfork as the man who had raped and murdered two teenage girls. After comparing the samples of semen from the girls bodies and a blood sample of a person who was initally detained, it was shown that they did not match and the suspect was innocent. Pitchfork therefore became the first person to be found guilty through DNA evidence.

Since then gigantic steps have been taken in developing this test. It has gone from being a very expensive manual technique which only provided a small amount of very specific information, to an automated process which enables the first complete human genome to be sequenced (together with the genes contained in the chromosomes) something which occurred in 2004 after 13 years of work by an international consortium and a budget of three billion dollars.

paternity tests Thomas Jefferson's illegitimate son

The difference is that nowadays we can read all the fragments which codify the proteins of the 19,000 genes of a person, and instead of taking a decade, it can be done in ten days and costs between 1,000 and 1,500 euros, says Enrique Samper, the president of NIMGenetics (a biomedical company which specialises in genetic clinical diagnosis), who qualified in Biological Sciences at Michigan State University.

This technological progress and the progressive reduction in the cost of DNA tests has made them available to a large part of the population who, either from lack of knowledge about them or from a lack of resources, would previously have been unable to use them for early diagnosis or to demonstrate a parent-child relationship.

At present there are between 6,000 and 8,000 illnesses (of the 10,000 from which a human can suffer) which have a genetic base and originate from changes to DNA. These can be mutations or changes in the copy number of the genetic fragments which lead to an illness, most of which are classified as rare.

Fifteen years ago, with the physical study of the chromosomes (every human cell has 46 chromosomes, half inherited from the father and the other half from the mother) we were able to determine one or two per cent of the causes of genetic illnesses. Nowadays we are approaching 60 per cent. This has made these tests necessary and, at the same time, affordable, explains Dr Samper. He expects there to be major growth in the sector in the next few years because different studies show an increase of between 15 and 25 per cent a year in genetic tests.

Paternity tests are another field in which DNA plays a decisive role. It is irrefutable. A cigarette end is worth more than 200 witnesses and a million bits of paper, says Fernando Osuna, a lawyer who specialises in paternity suits and who is known, among other cases, for that of bullfighter Manuel Diaz El Cordobes. At present he is dealing with over 400 cases of this type and says they are not all to claim an inheritance. He believes that when someone embarks on a paternity suit, which can be a long and costly process, they are also doing it for reasons of dignity, to know who their father is, or also to defend the honour of a mother who may have been disparaged for years.

In 2015 alone, the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences received 1,485 judicial requests for DNA testing to determine parenthood. When data about these tests began to be registered, in 2007, there were only 401.

The samples are kept with extreme care to avoid any type of contamination or irregularity in the testing process. The price of DNA testing by this institute is regulated by the Ministry of Justice: a test of this type costs 600 euros plus IVA if the father, mother and child are analysed, and if somebody else is analysed as well, there is an extra charge of 200 euros.

However, there is no need to go to court to clarify doubts about paternity. By making a simple phone call or filling out a form on the internet people can obtain a kit which produces results that are 99.99 per cent reliable. The only thing that people have to do at home is take the sample. The analysis is carried out in the laboratory, and is as reliable as the legal validity test, says Mercedes Aleman, the manager and technical director of Cefegen, one of the companies which sells these kits. Cefegen currently carries out between 800 and 1,000 paternity tests a year, 50 per cent more than when they began about ten years ago.

A large part of their success is due to their anonymity, but it is also due to their simplicity. The person requesting the test has to collect oral epithelium cells from the inside of the cheek with a cotton bud and leave it to dry before sending it back to us in the kit we sent them, says Mercedes Aleman. In five days and for 199 euros, it will be clear whether or not they are the father.

In the search to know who we are and where we come from, man has found genetics to be his main ally. Whereas people used to rely on relatives memories and historical archives to draw up their family tree, it can now constructed from genes. From DNA tests and the enormous genealogical registers, data can be cross-referenced to see whether someone is descended from Julius Caesar or Isabella of Aragon. Private companies, especially in America, offer tests which enable people to look back thousands of years. One of the most popular is 23andMe, located in Silicon Valley, which has DNA data of 1.2 million men and women.

In their case, as well as discovering the regions from which a person originated, it is also possible (with consent) to make contact with unknown parents and even calculate what percentage of the DNA comes from the Neanderthals.

This new service, which is provided by about 20 companies round the world - the most important are Ancestry, Family Tree and MyHeritage- is relatively recent in Spain. The company DNA Solutions, originally from Australia and now with a base in Seville, confirms this trend and the great quantitative leap that occurred in 2015, when demand grew by 70 per cent compared with the previous year.

By analysing certain areas of DNA, they can establish which group of people with similar genetic profiles a person belongs to. They are called haplogroups: there are hundreds of them and they share a common past. Each one is associated with an ancient people (Celts, Vikings or Jews, for example) and geographic areas. The samples can be taken at home with a simple cotton bud. The cost? Between 169 and 299 euros. In just four months, family origins will no longer be a secret.

Non-invasive prenatal tests detect genetic alterations associated with extra copy chromosomes through a simple analysis of a mothers blood sample.

judicial requests for DNA analysis were received by the National Institute of Toxicology in 2015, to determine parenthood. In 2007, there were only 401.

DNA studies provide crucial information for adapting nutritional and sporting habits to the genetic characteristics of individuals.
Imagine that when you throw away your rubbish you have to insert an identity card into the container, so the authorities know how much rubbish you produce and what percentage of it you recycle. It may sound unlikely, but it could become reality before long. In Catalonia, in fact, it is already being considered as a way of monitoring the amount of rubbish each citizen produces. We have to remove the anonymity with regard to rubbish, says the director of the Residue Agency of Catalonia, Josep Maria Tost, who criticises politicians for being afraid to introduce measures which may be unpopular but which go in the right direction. Its not going to kill anybody to recycle more rubbish he says.
Spains King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia paid an official visit to the Andalusian capital, Seville, on Thursday, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the citys World Expo. This week the countrys first high-speed rail link,from Madrid to Seville, also celebrates the same birthday.

Don Juan Carlos, who abdicated in favour of his son, King Felipe in 2014, and Dona Sofia attended a reception in Sevilles Alcazar setting off a series of festivities across the city remembering the event that started exactly a quarter of a century ago.

Seville hosted the World Expo on a reclaimed site at La Cartuja between April and October 1992. The expo coincided with the 500th anniversary of Columbuss discovery of America and was seen as a major boost to the Andalusian economy and Spains international prestige, coming in the same year as the Barcelona Olympics.

Almost 16 million people visited the 215-hectare park where 112 countries had pavilions.

King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia attended the original opening. At this Thursdays event there was an air of a reunion, with a lot reminiscence among politicians and dignitaries, past and present.

In 1992, the king and queen travelled on the brand-new AVE high- speed train from Madrid to Seville, the first line of its type in Spain and today [Friday] Mariano Rajoy will be in Seville to mark the anniversary of the line.
INFORMATION When: Thursday 27 April. Where: La Carihuela, Torremolinos. Information: www.torremolinos.es

The streets and bars in La Carihuela, Torremolinos, will be decked out in bright orange next Thursday, in recognition of Koningsdag (Kings Day), the national holiday of the Netherlands.

Dutch residents along the Costa del Sol will be celebrating the birth of King Willem-Alexander on 27 April, and in La Carihuela, a massive street party will take place between 3pm and 8pm.

The event, which is open to the public, has been organised by the cultural department of Torremolinos town hall, with the collaboration of the Voom Voom Club in La Carihuela.

The festival will include a street market offering Dutch handicraft products and the traditional food and drink of the Netherlands.

Visitors will able to sample smoked sausages, sauerkraut, meatloaf and stamppot, a hearty stew of mashed potatoes, vegetables and meat.

There will be shows, attractions, and live music supplied by several bands and Dutch DJs, including Gosta, Gypsy Bros, Kobus Engels, Mike Sanders, Kees Diks and Bianca Voom.

The Kings Day celebrations first began in 1885 and orange is traditionally worn as a show of respect for the Dutch royal family - The House of Orange-Nassau.

In a similar fashion to the Saint Patricks day celebrations, Dutch nationals will be covered from head to toe in orange wigs, wacky clothes and face paint.

The festival has become a reference event for the Dutch community on the Costa del Sol.

Prior to Willem-Alexanders accession to the throne in 2013, Kings Day was called Queens Day (Koninginnedag), and was held on 30 April in honour of the former monarch, Queen Beatrix.

With a large Dutch population, Torremolinos maintains strong historic ties to the Netherlands.
What's the future of automobiles?

That's a big question for the mobility industry, as the nation looks to increase the use and accessibility of plug-in electric cars, connected autos and autonomous vehicles.

While all of those may seem distant to the average American, University of Michigan researchers seeking viewpoints just leapfrogged to the next stages of transportation beyond automation: Flying cars.

Turns out, once we think about it, many of us see some appeal to that "Jetsons" style of getting around.

Following an online survey, 41 percent of adult respondents said they are "very interested" in riding in a fully autonomous (self-driving and self-flying) flying car.

But fewer people are ready to fly it themselves. Only 26 percent are "very interested" in operating the so-called aerocar themselves after obtaining an appropriate pilot license, researchers found.

"Until recently, flying cars have existed primarily in the realm of science fiction, although patents for such vehicles extend to the early years of aviation," said Michael Sivak, a research professor at UMTRI, in a news release.

"However, recently there has been a rapid increase in interest in flying cars from companies ranging from large, international manufacturers to a variety of startups."

That includes Ford Motor Company, which in January unveiled a virtual reality display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

That display invited participants to don a VR headset and view a simulation of what transportation may be like in a "city of tomorrow," which featured - you guessed it - flying cars.

For a crowd that may just be getting its head around the concept of autonomous vehicles and all of the new decisions still to be made on that front - from legal issues to how non-drivers will be positioned in a car they don't need to steer - the display brought home just how far the technology can go.

In their study, Sivak and UMTRI colleague Brandon Schoettle found that more than 60 percent of respondents are "very concerned" with the overall safety of flying cars and with their performance in congested airspace and poor weather.

Despite these concerns, most Americans would still ultimately like to use flying cars, according to the news release.

The reasons: About three-fourths of the respondents cited shorter travel time. Other reasons included fewer crashes, better fuel economy or lower emissions.

Other findings included in the release:

Nearly 80 percent of respondents said it is "extremely or very important" for flying cars to have parachutes.

About 60 percent said electricity is the preferred source of energy for flying cars.

More than 80 percent prefer a vertical, helicopter-like takeoff and landing as opposed to a runway strip.

Nearly a quarter said they would pay between $100,000 and $200,000 for a flying car.

All of this may be very exciting to the many automakers and related entities in Michigan that are racing to bring autonomous vehicles to market.
SU robbery.JPG

Police and paramedics investigate a burglary at the Park Point Apartments on Syracuse University's campus.

(Samantha House)

Dominick Kelly, 27

Syracuse, NY -- A Syracuse man has pleaded guilty to burglarizing a Syracuse University student's apartment and stabbing her in the neck.

Dominick Kelly, 27, will spend 10 years in prison under the plea deal worked out this week in the December 2015 attack, prosecutor Michael Whalen said. Kelly was due to stand trial next week, but will instead be sentenced June 1.

Kelly entered the student's apartment through an open window. She woke up around 6:10 a.m. to find him in her bedroom in the 400 block of Comstock Avenue, SU public safety said.

The two struggled before Kelly stabbed the victim in the neck, authorities said. The weapon remains unknown.

After stabbing the woman, the man left the room -- stealing a wallet as he fled from the 417 Comstock Ave. apartment, police said at the time.

An indictment accused Kelly of stealing a debit and credit card in the victim's wallet. It also charged him with assault for the stabbing.

Under the plea deal, Kelly only admitted to the burglary, not to the assault or theft charges. The burglary encompasses injury to the victim.

Kelly remains in jail with no bail and will be sentenced June 1.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
When Maddy Locastro graduated from Marcellus High School, she decided to defer her college plans. Instead, she packed up and moved to Ecuador.

There, Maddy began her work in a school for children with disabilities. Her decision to go abroad now finds her working at an orphanage in Peru.

Though Maddy, an aspiring pediatrician, has already spent nearly a year in South America, this isn't her first time lending her hand to people in foreign countries. Maddy's interest in helping others sprouted when she was about eight years old, after participating in a medical service trip to Quito, Ecuador with her father, Dr. David Locastro.

Locastro, a native of Auburn, and a doctor specializing in the treatment of venous diseases, has spent the past 28 years serving his patients. But his service goes beyond the walls of his offices.

Last month, Locastro participated in a one-week service trip to the Honduras. His daughter, Maddy, flew in from Peru to serve as an interpreter between the patients and doctors and volunteers. Locastro has gone on several medical mission trips around the world to countries like Ecuador, Haiti and Vietnam to provide free services to people in underprivileged communities, sometimes bringing his own children with him.

"I've tried to broaden my children's horizons and get them to see how other people live," Locastro said.

This year, Locastro also let another student from Marcellus High accompany him. Lauren Lundrigan, a junior at the school, said she enjoyed seeing how Locastro interacted with the patients.

"Even if he couldn't talk to them, he would find a way to make people laugh," Lundrigan said.

Lundrigan, who Locastro would refer to as his "foam homie" during the trip, said her time in Honduras led her to see that a future in medicine and helping people was a real possibility.

One of Lundrigan's tasks during the trip was to stir a mixture of medicine into a foam the doctors would inject into their patients' veins to treat some of their conditions.

Locastro's trip to the Honduras was his first time focusing strictly on venous diseases, and the patient turnout was overwhelming.

"There were people camping out the night before, getting there at three in the morning, driving days to get there," Maddy said. "A few patients came from Nicaragua, a completely different country."

Many of the women -- and some men -- would arrive at the clinic and stick their legs through the metal rods of the door to show how bad their conditions were, asking to please be let in. Locastro treated every patient with as much care and attention as possible.

"It's awesome to go on these missions with him because it really just brings out all his emotion and passion that he has for caring for other people," Maddy said. "His love for helping others is what makes him a great doctor."

Locastro's mission trips around the world have given him a different sense of humility, he said.

"One of the reasons that I do this type of work is it humbles you and makes you realize how different and how good we have it here in the United States," Locastro said.

Locastro, who comes from a family of 12, had a very humble upbringing. After deciding to become a surgeon in high school, Locastro studied at LeMoyne College and then went on to medical school at New York University. He then served in the U.S. Air Force in order to pay off medical school.

During his early career, Locastro worked in wound care, where he would often see patients suffering from venous insufficiency, a condition where blood flow from the leg veins back to the heart is inadequate.

Since taking over the practice of a vascular surgeon and the approval of laser treatment for venous diseases by the FDA in 2001, Locastro has focused exclusively on treating venous diseases. He was one of the first doctors in the country to use laser for the treatment of varicose veins.

Today, Locastro owns the Locastro Vein Center, which has four offices located around Upstate New York. Locastro's 28 years in medicine have not diminished his commitment to his profession and patients.

"In everything that he does, he's so passionate but he really takes pride in caring for his patients and just doing everything that he can to make sure that they are healthy and that he helps them in whatever ways he can," Maddy said.
Eric Schneiderman.JPG

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announces a settlement with 104 auto dealers across the state that he said sold vehicles under recall for serious safety problems without telling the buyers of the autos' recall status.

(Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has reached a settlement with 104 auto dealers, including 25 in the Syracuse area, who he said sold used vehicles without telling the buyers the autos were under recall for serious safety defects.

Schneiderman said the dealers have agreed to provide consumers with advance notice of any existing and unrepaired safety recalls and to notify people who have already purchased such vehicles that they are under recall.

"Consumers rely on businesses to be fair and honest about the goods they sell, particularly when it comes to matters of safety," he said during a press conference Friday at his Syracuse district office. "And under New York state law, it is a deceptive business practice if a car dealer or any other merchant fails to disclose a material fact about a vehicle before it is sold."

Schneiderman said his office began an investigation in December 2015 after receiving complaints from consumers and consumer advocates that dealers were selling used vehicles without telling the buyers that the vehicles were under a manufacturer's recall for a dangerous safety issue and had not been repaired.

When manufacturers issue recalls, they agree to repair the defect at no charge to the owner, even if the auto is no longer under warranty.

Schneiderman said his office identified 102 car models with the most serious and widespread safety issues that were under recall and then scanned ads to see which dealers across the state were selling those vehicles. It then contacted the dealers to see if the cars had been repaired before they were sold and, if not, whether the buyers had been notified of that fact.

During a 60-day period, investigators found that 350 vehicles with unrepaired serious safety issues had been sold statewide and only 12 of the buyers had been told about the defects, he said.

Among the unrepaired recall issues were unintended acceleration, airbag problems, vehicle fires, steering loss and brake loss, he said. Among the autos sold with outstanding safety recalls were the 2012 Chevrolet Impala, 2009 Dodge Ram 2500, 2002 Ford Escape, 2004 Honda CR-V and 2008 Toyota Highlander, he said.

As part of the settlements, the dealers must each pay $1,000 to Schneiderman's office to cover the cost of the investigation and must adhere to the following:

Dealers that advertise used vehicles online must include information that enables consumers to check the recall status of the advertised vehicles.

Dealers who advertise in print or other media must disclose in the ads that the vehicle is subject to a safety recall.

Dealers must place a decal notice in the windows of used cars that include information that allows consumers to check the recall status of the vehicles.

Two days before any sale, dealers must provide the buyer with a copy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall status report for a vehicle with an unrepaired safety recall and obtain a written acknowledgment from the consumer.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a Sacramento, Calif., based auto safety and consumer advocacy organization, criticized the settlement, saying it allows dealers to sell "deathtrap" cars in New York as long as they make certain disclosures to the buyers.

"Car dealers should not be allowed to play 'recalled used car roulette' with people's lives," said Rosemary Shahan, president of the organization.

The consumer group has been calling on states to require dealers to repair autos under recalls for safety problems before selling them.

Schneiderman said he preferred that dealers fix cars under recall before selling them, but that New York law does not require it.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety said it disagreed, citing a provision of New York's Vehicle and Traffic law that requires that used cars be "in condition and repair" for "satisfactory and adequate service" at time of delivery. State courts have used the statue to find that it is "the policy of this state to protect purchasers of used vehicles from being sold defective vehicles," the group said.

Vehicles owners and buyers can check the recall status of any vehicle by going to the SaferCar.gov or nhtsa.gov/recalls websites and typing in the auto's vehicle identification number.

Here is the list of the 104 dealers who have agreed to the settlements, broken down by the attorney general's regional offices that reached the settlements. Addresses are included where provided by the attorney general's office:

BINGHAMTON REGIONAL OFFICE - 15

Butler Auto Sales, Chambers & O'Hara Truck Center Inc., North Norwich Motors & Trailer Sales LLC, SHB Associates LLC (Serafini Nissan Volvo) VanDervort Service Center Inc., Ridge Road Imports LLC Milller Motor Car Corp Royal Ford Motors, Inc./Royal Chrysler Motors Inc. Gault Auto Mall Inc. Gene Balmer's Auto Sales Jeff Kies Auto Sales Inc.

BROOKLYN REGIONAL OFFICE - 2

Compass Luxor Hamilton Avenue Auto Sales

BUFFALO REGIONAL OFFICE - 12

Basil Ford Inc SCGA Holdings LLC (DBA Castilone Chrysler Dodge Jeep & Ram) CrazyCheapCars Inc Northtown Automotive Companies Inc Landmark Chevrolet Inc Olean Class Cars Inc Ontario Sales Inc Pellegrino Auto Sales LLC Riverfront Auto Sales Inc Shults Management Group Inc Superior Auto Sales Inc V&A Enterprises Inc., (DBA Buffalo Auto Group)

HARLEM REGIONAL OFFICE - 4

Best Auto Group Boston Road Best Motors, New York Motors Group Solutions Manhattan Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram

NASSAU REGIONAL OFFICE - 1

LA Auto Sales

POUGHKEEPSIE REGIONAL OFFICE - 5

Hudson Valley Auto Sales Ruge's Automotive Inc. (2 dealerships) Autos by Joseph Inc. Frank Siena Auto Sales Inc.

ROCHESTER REGIONAL OFFICE - 16

Auction Direct USA, L.P. Best Value Auto Cavallaro Neubauer Chevrolet Buick Doan Buick Inc. Doan Chevrolet LLC Doan Kia Good Buy Auto J & J Auto Inc. Pioneer Truck Sales Inc. Pool Auto Sales Inc. Ralph Honda Santa Motors Inc. Stone Road Auto Inc. Tiffany Transportation Services Ltd. Websmart Auto Inc. Websmart Imports

SYRACUSE REGIONAL OFFICE - 25

Bill Rapp Inc. (2 dealerships) Bridgeland Auto Brokers Cortland Used Cars Liverpool World Car LLC Par-K Enterprises TDK Property Company of Oneida LLC TDK Property Co. LLC TRK-2 Operating Company LLC (3 dealerships) Tecforce Automotive LLC Drivers Village Inc. (13 dealerships)

WATERTOWN REGIONAL OFFICE - (15)

FX Caprara Dealerships (14 dealerships) Waite Motor Sales Inc.

WESTCHESTER REGIONAL OFFICE (8)
sandbags.JPG

Sodus Point resident Ann Hayslip is pictured here in front of her house. The village is providing sand bags for those residents who request them, but it's their responsibility to put them in place.

(David Figura l NYup.com)

If Lake Ontario water levels continue to go up as experts are predicting, evacuations could result along the shoreline in coming weeks, officials said.

One county is asking the White House to intervene.

"Lake Ontario and Wayne County bays and harbors are reported to be at, or above flooding level (247.3 feet), " according to a press release Wednesday from the Wayne County Sheriff's office.

At some areas, minor flooding has already been reported. At this point, states of emergency -- a precursor to getting state and federal aid if needed -- have been declared in Niagara, Orleans and Wayne counties and various communities within those counties. The village of Sodus Point has also issued one as well.

Several Western New York politicians were at a news conference earlier this week at the Olcott Yacht Club discussing the situation. They strongly criticized the International Joint Commission's newly adopted water level control policy for Lake Ontario, called Plan 2014, for causing the serious problem.

"I'm more afraid of the winds than the rains right now," Newfane Town Supervisor Timothy R. Horanburg said, reported the Buffalo News. "If we get a northeast storm right now, we have major problems coming. It would be a disaster."

Niagara County lawmaker David E. Godrey told those at the meeting: "It takes five to seven days to drop our level one inch. It's too late," the Buffalo News reported.

This morning, Monroe County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo held a press conference at Mayer's Marina in Webster on Irondequoit Bay.

She was joined by Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn, Webster Supervisor Ron Nesbitt, Irondequoit Supervisor Dave Seeley and Allison Mayer, the owner of Mayer's Marina to discuss the rising water levels on Lake Ontario.

Dinolfo noted the county has called upon the federal government to lower the lake level in an attempt to pressure the International Joint Commission to take action. The county has also been working with towns to distribute sandbags to protect occupied structures and public infrastructure.

This morning, I joined Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn, Webster Supervisor Ron Nesbitt, Irondequoit Supervisor Dave Seeley and Allison Mayer, the owner of Mayer's Marina to discuss the rising water levels on Lake Ontario. We called on the Federal government to reduce the levels in the lake. The county has also been working with towns to distribute sandbags to protect occupied structures and public infrastructure. The Sheriff is calling on boaters to stay 500 feet off shore and to be respectful to property owners by keeping no wake. Going forward, the Monroe County Office of Emergency Management will be keeping an eye on conditions and are prepared to escalate our response, if necessary. Posted by Cheryl Dinolfo on Friday, April 21, 2017

"We've been told our request has reached the White House," said Brett Walsh, a spokesman for the county. Monroe has not issued a state of emergency declaration yet, but is requesting that boats observe a no-wake soon within 500 feet of shore -- something that other counties have also also announcing.

The International Joint Commission, which is in charge of Lake Ontario's water levels, is made up of U.S. and Canadian officials with the goal of preventing and resolving conflicts on waterways shared by both countries.

Plan 2014, which went into effect earlier this year changed a regulating system that's been in place on the Great Lake and the St. Lawrence River since 1958. It was finalized after 16 years in a process that included studies costing more than $20 million with experts from both sides of the border involved, public meetings and the collection of numerous written comments for and against the new plan.

Lake Ontario levels are controlled primarily by the Robert Moses - Robert H. Saunders Dam on the St. Lawrence River, which plays the main role in controlling the lake's level.

The scary part is that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the level of Lake Ontario is 18 inches higher than the long-term average for April, with a further rise of 11 inches forecast by mid-May.

Heavy rains through the Great Lakes region has caused the problems.

During the last month, water levels have risen in all of the Great Lakes, according to the Army Corps. "Lake Superior has risen 2 inches, Lakes Michigan-Huron and Erie have both risen 7 inches, Lake St. Clair has risen 8 inches, and Lake Ontario has risen 15 inches. In the next month, all of the lakes are expected to continue their seasonal rise."

Jonathan F. Schultz, Niagara County's fire coordinator and emergency management director, said the state has provided sandbags and a sandbag filling machine, the Buffalo News reported.

Schultz said 30,000 bags ready to go in Olcott, with another 30,000 coming today, along with a sandbag-filling machine. "The bags will be filled this weekend from six to eight truckloads of sand, and will be ready for use when needed," said the Buffalo News.

Officials in several communities along the lake's shoreline - particularly Olcott and Sodus Bay - are concerned if the flood waters compromise their sewage system, they may have to close down their sewage treatment plants, affecting most everyone in the communities.

Sand bags line the back of the building at Arney's Marina in Sodus Point. The boat launch is comletely covered and closed -- and water is getting into the building.,

In Sodus Point, inmates from the Wayne County Correctional Facility have been toiling the past few days filling 40- to 50-pound sand bags at the village highway department barn. Village highway staff are delivering them for free to residents and businesses that request them who want to build up their shoreline.

Frank Bevacqua, a spokesman for the International Joint Commission, has said Plan 2014 only allows the lake levels to rise two inches higher at specific times of the year compared to if the plan hadn't been approved.

Although the level is unseasonably high, it is just shy of the "high trigger point" -- a water level that would result in increased water releases from the St. Lawrence River dam to bring the lake level down.

Bevacqua said he hasn't heard anything from the White House. He added that even if the old lake management plan was still in shape, the water level at best would only be about two inches lower. "Essentially, conditions in the lake would be about the same. It's been a very wet month," he said.

The Buffalo News reported that Anthony McKenna, an Olcott resident and professional engineer who served on a study committee for Plan 2014, said the current situation should have prompted action.

"They can't release now because it would flood out Montreal," McKenna said. "They should have done it sooner."

Bevacqua said Montreal is already experiencing flood conditions due to the unseasonably high Ottawa River and that evacuations of residents in certain areas is already taking place.

"Basically, we're trying to distribute the high water upstream and downstream," he said.

PHOTOS, VIDEOS WANTED: Send us your photos and videos of flooding along Lake Ontario's shoreline. Email them to outdoors writer David Figura at dfigura@NYup.com.
H. Kenneth Woods

In this Friday, Sept. 29, 2006 file photo, H. Kenneth Woods, chef and owner of Sylvia's restaurant, cooks southern fried chicken using a soy bean oil that doesn't contain trans fats in New York's Harlem neighborhood. A study released Wednesday, April 12, 2017 suggests restrictions on heart-damaging fats in restaurant food may have helped prevent heart attacks in several New York counties.

(Dima Gavrysh / AP)

Score one for the "nanny state."



A recent study in JAMA shows that New York City's ban on trans fats in restaurant food led to fewer heart attacks and strokes, compared to places where there was no ban. The apparent success of this public health measure lends support to the federal government's 2015 ban on trans fats in processed foods, which takes full effect next year.



Trans fats are contained in oils that are "partially hydrogenated" - an industrial process that won a Nobel Prize for its inventors in 1912. Such fats are cheaper and more shelf-stable, which led to their widespread adoption in the restaurant and processed food industry.



At first, trans fats like margarine were promoted as "heart healthy." But multiple scientific studies in the 1980s showed just the opposite. Trans fats contributed to a 50 percent higher risk of hospitalizations and deaths attributed to coronary artery disease, according to a study of more than 100,000 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study. Trans fats also were found to raise "bad" cholesterol and depress "good" cholesterol - known risk factors for heart disease.



Faced with this alarming evidence, in 2006 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started requiring food manufacturers to list trans fats on nutrition labels. FDA estimated trans fat consumption fell 78 percent between 2003 and 2012, thanks to labeling and consumer education. McDonald's dropped trans fats from its fryers and baked goods in 2008. Many other fast-food chains followed.



In 2015, FDA declared trans fats "unsafe" in foods and gave the food industry three years to reformulate their products. According to the Mayo Clinic, "It's predicted that eliminating trans fat in manufactured foods could prevent up to 20,000 cases of coronary heart disease and up to 7,000 deaths annually in the U.S."



Consumers have barely noticed.



Gripe all you want about the "nanny state," but sometimes it works to improve the public's health. Without it, we wouldn't have seatbelts and airbags in cars, fluoride in public water supplies and huge declines in tobacco use.



Next on the public health agenda: the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes. We know one of the main culprits: sugary soft drinks. We took on Big Tobacco. Do we have the will to take on Big Soda?
WASHINGTON -- Marine Corps 1st Lt. Trey Cleary received one of the biggest surprises of his life Friday when his mother texted him, "Do you have time to talk with POTUS?"

Seconds later, U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney was talking with her son at Camp Lejeune, N.C., who is due to leave Saturday for a six-month deployment to Iraq.

Tenney, R-New Hartford, said she handed her cell phone to a waiting President Donald Trump.

"This is President Trump," the commander-in-chief said. "I'm sitting here with your mother. Thank you for what you do for your country. I'm so proud of you. I want you to do your best. We're all counting on you."

Tenney said she was stunned as the president, before a bill signing ceremony at the Treasury Department in Washington, took the time to have a serious talk with her son.

President Donald Trump shows a memorandum he signed on Orderly Liquidation Authority at the Treasury Department in Washington, Friday, April 21, 2017. From left are, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

"They had quite a long conversation for a couple of minutes," Tenney recalled after the ceremony. "I said, 'What's going on? (Trump) laughed a little bit. They must have been joking or something. He handed me the phone back and my son said, 'Oh my God.'"

Tenney, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, joined Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., on Friday as the only two members of Congress to witness Trump sign three executive orders to roll back some of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms passed after the Great Recession.

While waiting for Trump to arrive, Tenney and Perdue chatted in a private room at the Treasury Department. Tenney mentioned that her son, Trey, was due to deploy Saturday to Iraq out of Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington.

"He said, 'That's amazing. You should say something to the president,'" Tenney recalled. She was reluctant to bring it up when Trump arrived, but Perdue told the president and asked if he could sign an autograph for the Marine.

Tenney pulled out a piece of stationery from her backpack, and the president wrote, "To Trey. Thanks. Donald Trump."

Then the president asked, "Can we call him?" Tenney said she replied, "Sure, but let me text him first. He doesn't usually take my calls."

Later, after Trump signed the first of the executive orders in front of the cameras, he handed his pen to Perdue -- a tradition at such presidential signings. "Senator, you get the first one, can you handle that?" Trump asked.

Perdue promptly handed the pen to Tenney to give to her son.

Trump, seated at a desk, turned and looked at Tenney as she accepted the pen with the presidential seal and Trump's name on it. "Oh, that's even better," the president said. "I like that. Great boy."

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
2016-05-25-mjg-Gov28.JPG

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget included $15 million for a "world-class" gondola that will carry 1,200 people an hour from the New York State Fairgrounds to the Onondaga Lakeview Amphitheater. Cuomo visited the fairgrounds May 25, 2016 to talk about improvement projects. Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com

(Michael Greenlar)

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney says the $15 million gondola planned for the New York State Fair is an unnecessary waste of taxpayers' money, and she'll oppose granting the federal approval needed for the project.

Tenney, R-New Hartford, and other members of Central New York's congressional delegation will likely be asked to support the state's request for a federal waiver allowing the gondola to cross over Interstate 690 at the fairgrounds.

Tenney said the gondola concept seems like a "silly pipe dream" and she's disturbed that the state delayed the release of records to Syracuse.com that might show how officials came up with the idea for the project.

"You just have to wonder, why are we focusing on a gondola?" Tenney said in an interview. "And the fact they won't disclose any information makes you wonder even more. It just seems like an unnecessary waste of money. I know $15 million in the large scheme of things doesn't seem like a lot. But I'd like to see it go for a different use."

Tenney, a member of the state Assembly until she won the 22nd Congressional District election last year, has been a frequent critic of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's spending on discretionary projects and the lack of public input into the decision-making process.

"He just has no regard for the taxpayers," Tenney said. "Because of everything with Cuomo, you often wonder: Who is behind this and why do they want it? The lack of transparency doesn't surprise me at all."

The gondola project was included with $70 million allocated for the State Fairgrounds in Geddes in a two-month budget that state lawmakers agreed to earlier this month to prevent a government shutdown. The additional money will pay for a $35 million expo center at the fair, and a new on-ramp to ease traffic problems.

But the gondola - which would provide aerial transport for visitors between the State Fair and Onondaga County's Lakeview Amphitheater - has drawn widespread criticism in Central New York and Albany.

Those who say there's no need for the gondola include State Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, Camillus Town Supervisor Mary Ann Coogan and Onondaga County Republican Party Chairman Tom Dadey.

U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, have not taken a position on the gondola because they have not yet reviewed the proposal, their aides said this week.

No plans have been submitted for federal approval because state officials are still in the process of determining the next steps for projects that passed in the budget, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, which oversees the fair.

Tenney said she would rather see the state spend the $15 million to take care of serious needs.

"It just seems like it's a little over the top and unnecessary," she said of the gondola. "For $15 million in Central New York you could repair a road or a bridge that has been out, or help some of the social services groups that have had their budget cut. It kind of seems like a novelty item to spend $15 million on a gondola when the state is in crisis."

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Donald Trump,Paul Ryan,Charles Schumer

President Donald Trump, left, has agreed to work with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., center, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on a trade dispute with Canada over dairy taxes. The three leaders met Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 at the White House. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

(Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer says he and President Donald Trump have finally found an issue where they can agree to work together -- a trade dispute with Canada over milk exports.

Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate minority leader, said he and Trump struck a deal in a phone conversation Thursday to take on Canada regarding an issue hurting dairy farms in New York and Wisconsin.

The agreement is the first between the two New York City natives after months of bitter exchanges, including a Twitter battle that included a nasty exchange over Vladimir Putin and Russia.

Schumer said Trump reached out to him Thursday in a phone call to discuss how they could work together in the trade dispute.

"President Trump and I spoke yesterday about reversing Canada's new and unfair dairy-pricing policy," Schumer said. "It is an unwise policy that violates our agreements and hurts our farmers, and we agreed to work together to immediately address the issue."

Schumer said he and Trump agreed to work with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on the issue along with Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat.

Trump first expressed his concern about Canadian taxes on certain dairy imports while visiting Wisconsin this week, and suggested it would be a priority as he attempts to renegotiate NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The trade dispute began last year when Canada decided to impose import taxes on ultra-filtered milk, a liquid concentrate used to make cheese. The dairy product had been duty free until last year. The tax affects about 70 dairy producers in New York and Wisconsin.

Schumer said the Canadian tax unfairly harms Cayuga Milk Ingredients, a milk processing plant near Auburn that has been exporting dairy products to Canada. The $101 million plant opened in 2014, the product of an investment by 21 local dairy farmers.

Canada's ambassador to the United States sent a letter this week to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, denying that Canada has imposed any unfair trade practices.

Ambassador David MacNaughton said dairy farmers in both the U.S. and Canada are affected by global supply issues affecting the industry.

But Trump on Thursday, during a bill signing in the Oval Office, called Canada's actions a "disgrace" that's putting American dairy farmers out of business.

Schumer said he's sure any remedy proposed by Congress will receive bipartisan support. "We can all agree that it is critical to level the playing field for our hard-working dairy farmers and make sure our Canadian neighbors rescind their unfair policy and again play by the rules," Schumer said.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
gondola.jpg

Three state legislators on the New York State Fair Task Force said a gondola, illustrated above, was not their priority for a new round of state funding at the fairgrounds.

(Provided photo)

GEDDES, N.Y. -- Three state legislators who served on a task force charged with recommending how millions of taxpayer dollars should be spent at the State Fair say a $15 million gondola was not among their priorities.

Yet one is scheduled to be built anyway by June 2018. It was included in $70 million of new spending for the fairgrounds passed in the state budget earlier this month.

Al Stirpe and Pamela Hunter, both Assembly Democrats from the Syracuse area, said the plan task force members liked best did not call for money to be budgeted for a gondola. Stirpe said a gondola was not listed as a priority, but was mentioned as a future project that could be revisited.

Hunter said the gondola was mentioned in task force discussions, but did not emerge as a priority.

"An infusion of double-digit millions into our area is significant, and investment in the fair, which has been neglected, is important," Hunter told Syracuse.com. "With that said, I think that, with a $15 million gondola, my constituents don't necessarily think it would be the best use of funds."

Earlier this month, Sen. John DeFrancisco said the task force did not recommend a gondola and that it became a symbol of government excess during budget negotiations in Albany.

"It didn't come from the (task force), I can guarantee you that. I was part of those discussions," he said. "I don't know where it came from, but it was not one of the priorities. I think the governor just wanted it for whatever reason he wanted it."

Task force members were initially asked to make plans for $50 million worth of state spending at the fairgrounds. They began work on a plan in November. That plan included a new on-ramp to ease traffic, an expo center and other improvements, Stirpe and Hunter said.

After the planning began, state officials told task force members that a separate fund, the Upstate Revitalization Initiative, would be tapped to pay for a $20 million on-ramp, Stirpe said. With the ramp being paid by a separate fund, state officials told the task force the gondola project would go forward, Stirpe said.

Shortly afterward, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the "world-class" gondola, as well as a $35 million expo center and the $20 million on-ramp.

Stirpe said he thinks the gondola will become an attraction for tourists eventually and is a way to move fairgoers around the grounds, but he did not think it was an immediate priority.

State officials have touted the gondola as an attraction and a means of transportation between the fairgrounds and the Onondaga Lakeview Amphitheater as they try to transform the fair into a year-round tourism draw.

Documents obtained through a public records request by Syracuse.com show that task force members were scheduled to meet four times between November and mid-December. They were to produce a draft plan by the end of December.

A public hearing was held Dec. 6, and no mention was made of a gondola as a possible improvement to the fair, according to a transcript.

The task force's final report was not included in the records provided to Syracuse.com. DeFrancisco and Stripe said they do not have a final report. Hunter said she could not locate a final report.

The task force of 21 people includes state legislators, County Executive Joanie Mahoney, commissioners of three state departments, business leaders and others involved at the fair.

Assemblyman William Magee (D-Nelson) said he was surprised to learn of the gondola but he didn't attend any of the meetings.

Patricia Ritchie (R-Oswegatchie), chairwoman of the Senate's Agriculture Committee, did not return phone calls. She said in a statement that, "the gondola was not a priority of mine."

Other task force members did not return phone calls or declined comment.

The documents show that the gondola was not among the projects listed as possibilities in the fairgrounds' 2015 Master Plan. It was included among "candidate future projects" in the 2016 plan which was published by the state Agriculture and Markets Department and Office of General Services.

The records were produced by Agriculture and Markets about three months after they were first requested and after Syracuse.com appealed the delay.

The records included a letter sent to each task force member in early November that outlined their responsibilities.

"We thank you for agreeing to serve on the New York State Fair Phase Two Task Force," the letter reads, signed by Mahoney and Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball. "Your input will be vital in helping to shape the future of the Fairgrounds and to further grow the economy of Central New York."

--

Reporter Patrick Lohmann covers New York state government and other topics. He can be reached any time: Email | Twitter | (315)766-6670
A former Ithaca college student faces up to 20 years in prison after admitting Thursday to possessing thousands of images and hundreds of videos depicting child pornography, according to the Ithaca Journal.

Nicholas M. Feminella, 22, pleaded guilty to felony counts of transportation of child pornography and possession of child pornography. He will be sentenced Sept. 11 at the federal courthouse in Albany.

Feminella has not been a student at Ithaca College since spring 2016, according to the college.

The Journal reports that about 13,000 images and 870 video files, all depicting children engaged in sex acts, were found by the state police Computer Crimes Unit on an external hard drive that Feminella owned, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Officials executed a search warrant at Feminella's home in November 2015, after state police traced five child porn videos uploaded to a Dropbox account, according to the Journal.

The Journal also reports that police found a document that describes how to "find, groom and abuse children." The 170-page document detailed "child sexuality, taboos, the risks involved, and the age of a child they recommend starting with."
Gilli.JPG

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand poses with a supporter Friday afternoon at the Hotel Syracuse. She was addressing a convention of rural Democrats in New York.

(Patrick Lohmann | Syracuse.com)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told a room full of Democrats from rural Upstate counties that President Donald Trump, who "literally lives in a gold-adorned apartment," won support from working-class voters here by mentioning two simple themes:

A "rigged" political system and "bad" trade deals.

"Donald Trump did not offer any solutions, that's for sure," Gillibrand told supporters at the Hotel Syracuse. "But he also said an important thing. He said 'the system is rigged' and 'no more bad trade deals,' and that message resonated in Upstate New York. That is why they voted for him, because the fact is the system is rigged."

She then outlined her vision for Democrats to retake Congress and eventually the White House, which includes looping workers in Upstate back into the economy. She advocated doing so by improving higher and early education, raising the minimum wage, strengthening paid family leave and getting money out of politics. She spoke for about 15 minutes.

"The system is rigged for haves, not the have-nots and the most privileged among us, not the working families," she said. "Democrats haven't done a good enough job actually addressing these challenges."

Gillibrand was the first speaker at a weekend meeting of the New York State Democratic Rural Conference. Other Democratic speakers in the lineup include Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The governor's speech at 6 p.m. Friday was still not confirmed as of 3 p.m.

Though New York went to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November presidential election, Donald Trump was the clear winner Upstate. Just the cities here went for Clinton and the rest of the region for the Republican.

He won Upstate by more than 100,000 votes.
Brad Smith at last night's Gala Dinner

Hon. Annabelle Bennett

Judge Rian Kalden

Judge O'Malley

Brad Smith (Microsoft), delivered and incredible an emotive speech on the stories of innovation, IP and society that makes our field so unique and exciting, Day 2 of the Fordham conference got into swing. The AmeriKat, rarely a morning Kat, did not make it to the sunrise sessions but she prowled in for the ever popular view from the judges session with a smattering of trivia and more serious issues.recalled working with both Robin Jacob and Christopher Floyd when they were all barristers. He enjoys cooking, but within his job, he finds it fascinating rather than "fun" with the most interesting area being trade marks. He agreed that the most challenging area in IP law right now is copyright because of the impact of the caselaw of the CJEU and because of the extensive technological developments in the tech sector. It is difficult to find consistent principles in the decisions of the CJEU on copyright, in part because the problems they are addressing are not simple. He expected that over time the CJEU caselaw would be refined through dialogue with the national courts, just as it had been in the area of trade marks. He commented that all supreme courts, including the UK Supreme Court, found IP cases challenging, in part because they do not have a specialist IP background.considers that patent law is changing the most. When asked what annoys her the most about advocates it was lawyers who do not answer the question. It is also not okay to be interrupted by advocates. Judges get to do the interrupting.commented that occasionally when judges from other divisions (who do not handle IP cases) get together they talk about the cases they are doing. When some of his colleagues who do not do IP cases hear about what is preoccupying his attention in court, they think that Mr Justice Birss's cases are incredibly interesting. That is because it is! The subject matter - be it an invention, a product or a service - is incredibly interesting. In answer to whether everyone can become a patent lawyer, Mr Justice Birss commented that you don't have to have a science degree to be a great patent lawyer. A lot of great patent lawyers do not have science backgrounds. A lot of great copyright lawyers, are scientist. There is no predetermination as to whether someone is going to be a great IP lawyer by virtue of their background.spent a year in the Court of Appeal but has returned to first instance and much prefers being a trial judge. He missed the freshness of the cases and (like Rian) the vibrancy and speed of summary proceedings that can be completed in just a few weeks. His preference is for patents, especially pharmaceutical patents, which remind him of his chemistry background. He enjoys the trials themselves most, and very much likes asking "trick" questions - he is most annoyed when advocates know the answer! He is in favour of specialist courts, but queried whether judges should stay on those courts for the entirety of their careers.said that the Chancery Division is very interesting. He said that is where he had the most fun. He considers that the US Supreme Court practices, with the greatest respect to them, are verging on the anti-patent side. It is very difficult for non-specialist courts. He considers that trade mark cases are the most fun, including the Kit-Kat case and color trade mark cases, which are pushing the limits of protection to trade mark law.commented on a question on amicus briefs: the German courts have no concept of these submissions and would simply send them back! Arnold J commented that the UK Supreme Court receives increasing numbers of interventions and welcomes them.explains that decisions should be consistent and if there is a variance in decisions then they should refer it to the Enlarged Board. This is happening increasingly. In the past year there have been 3 referrals and there are two pending.responded to a question on allowing new evidence at appeal level. He felt that this rendered the appeal stage a new hearing rather than being a true appeal - parties should bring all of their case, and make it their best case, at first instance.relished her work as a first instance judge, particularly enjoying fast, summary proceedings, but on the other hand likes the additional time for reflection that that appeal court benefits from. She sees copyright as a key area of development and noted that the CJEU has recently begun to take an interest in this area. Her advice for advocates is to avoid verbosity in written arguments where that is not strictly necessary.has spent 30 years at the General Court, although she didn't initially mean to be a judge.said her work in private practice was more "fun", but the job of a judge was very interesting. On the appellate side, the argument is always full of tension and drama. However, that comes with the obligation to try to find the "right" answer - she didn't necessarily call that "fun". She thinks that the developments in the IP field reflect what is happening in the nation more broadly - the evolution of the tech sector is driving not just GDP and international development, but also the growth in the patent litigation business. Patent litigation is no longer the sleepy boutique practice it was when she entered it, it is now a hugely interesting and dynamic area. The tech sector has also driven huge developments in copyright law, and perhaps that is more fun!read Gideon's Trumpet when she was 13 and that is when she knew she wanted to be a judge. She says that you are never really ever prepared to be a judge until you get on the bench and do it. The experience of being a trial judge is the best preparation. She likes first principles - analyzing jurisdiction, procedure and separation of powers. Sometimes they come up in patent law but they often come up in all cases and that is what she enjoys the most. Congress went out of the way not to create a specialist court as they wanted the judges to have a general court experience. About half of those on the Federal Circuit have technical background but everyone is equipped to deal with science. She considers that IP is becoming much more global and noted how often judges refer to foreign precedents.was formerly an interlocutory attorney in the Court, which he remembered being a very satisfying role as it involved so much control over the procedural path of the cases, shepherding them through discovery and up to trial. The work of the chief TTAB judge involves hearing fewer cases. He always wanted to be a journalist rather than a lawyer (having graduated in the Watergate era), and particularly enjoys the writing of the decisions. In response to a question about the value of oral argument, he noted that the TTAB only hears oral argument in around 15% of cases. This low value is partly due to the nature of many decisions being ex parte appeals of examiners' decisions where the record is already highly developed. However oral argument is still important in cases where the goods or services diverge from regular, consumer goods and the Board needs additional help to understand the nature of the case.has heard a broad variety of cases, including family and tax law, as well as IP. His court now hears 50% patent, 25% trade mark, and 25% copyright cases and he enjoys patent cases the most. He is looking forward to hosting a pan-Asian IP conference in the autumn at which judges from several Asian countries will exchange experience and hold a mock IP trial.
The new del Lago Resort & Casino near Waterloo seems to be boosting tourism in Seneca County.

Almost a quarter of the visitors staying at Seneca County hotels in the first three months of 2017 reported they came for the new casino, which didn't open until Feb. 1, according to a report in the Finger Lakes Times.

The Times cited a tourism study presented by the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce, which conducted a survey of hotel guests for January, February and March. The survey found that 23 percent of the visitors came for the casino. That was a big part of the 42 percent who reported coming to Seneca County for tourism-related activities such as visiting wineries and breweries, shopping and recreation, including the casino.

The tourism survey showed 70 percent of the visitors came from New York state, 4 percent came from Canada, 3 percent from New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and 2 percent from China.

The $440 million del Lago resort, just off state Thruway Exit 41 in Waterloo, is currently building a 205-room hotel and spa, expected to be completed this summer. The hotel is now taking reservations, with a first booking date of July 14.

Del Lago is a partnership between Rochester developer Wilmorite and JNB Gaming of Iowa. It is one of four full-service, non-Indian casinos approved to operate in the state in 2015. Two others -- Tioga Downs in Nichols and Rivers Casino and Resort in Schenectady, are also open. The fourth, which was to be called Montreign, will open in 2018 as a Resort World property near Monticello in the Catskills.

Rivers Casino makes adjustments

Rivers Casino & Resort Schenectady.

In the first two months after its Feb. 8 opening, managers at the Rivers Casino in Schenectady made some changes due to customer feedback, according to a report from news10.com, the ABC affiliate in the Capital Region.

They include adding more of the popular "Let It Ride" poker-based table games and reducing the number of "Spanish 21" tables.

And, after players complained about the difficulty finding a seat in the 15-table high stakes poker room, the casinos has decided to start holding daily tournaments and high-hand promotions, Rivers vice president for marketing Danny Brockdorf told news10.com. Those "will be offered at times when the room is a little slower so from a customer demand standpoint we'll thin it out at busy times because they will want to play in the tournaments and then the cash games after."

Rivers is also programming its slot machines to show rewards in real time as players earn them, Rivers machines had not initially been programmed to do that, although machines in most casinos have that feature.

Rivers also tweaked its dining menus, "adjusted prices", and added more room on the dance floor at Van Slyck's Lounge, Brockhoff told the station.

The 165-room hotel at Rivers is expected to open this summer.

Lighting the way in Buffalo

A new LED video display that will greet visitors to the Seneca Buffalo Creek casino in downtown Buffalo includes interactive features that will highlight Seneca Nation heritage, culture and traditions. Other interactive highlights depict buffalo walking toward the screen and stopping to pose for pictures and Buffalo City Hall being made out of playing cards, according to a report at digitalsignageconnection.com.

The display, made by Daktronics of Brookings, S.D., is located near the staircase in the entry of the casino's recent addition, The WD Bar & Grille.

Seneca Buffalo Creek is located in Buffalo's Cobblestone District, near the city's harborfront. It is one of three full-service casinos operated by the Seneca Nation. The others are the Seneca Allegany Resort in Salamanca and the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls.

Earlier this year, the Seneca Nation announced it was halting payments of gambling revenues to the state, but would consider renegotiating financial deals with the municipalities that host the casinos. The Senecas claim the compact with the state that permitted the casinos allowed them to cease payments this year. The office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo has disputed that.

Don Cazentre writes about New York state casinos for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
Beginning March 21, 2017, the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian opposition began to advance in the north of Hama, and reached within three kilometers of the city of Hama. According to an article published by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the IRGC dispatched its forces in Damascus and its suburbs, using its highest ranking commanders. These forces were present in the North and West of the city of Hama and around the town of Soran. They include battalions of the 19th Fajr Shiraz Division, battalions of the division known as Nabi Akram of Kermanshah, Saberine special battalions of Tehran province, and Ninawa brigade forces in Golestan province.

Dozens of IRGC forces and their mercenaries, including some IRGC commanders, were killed in the region less than two weeks before the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun. The NCRI reports that some of them include:

 Revolutionary Guards Corps Brigadier General Abdullah Khoshnoud from 19th Fajr Division on March 29 in the outskirts of Hama;

 Colonel Morad Abbasifar, from the division known as Nabi Akram who had close relationship with Qasem Soleimani, in late March in the town of Moardas in northeast of city of Hama;

 Mohammad Jannati known as Haj Haidar, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria, in late March in Tarabee near the city of Halfaya;

 Saeed Khaja Salehani, an IRGC officer, on March 25 in north of Hama;

 Hossein Moez Gholami of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, Abuzar Farahbakhsh and Ghodratollah Aboudi from 19th Fajr Division in Hama province.

A large number of Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries sent by the IRGC to Hama province were also killed. So high were the losses, that on March 31, four days before the chemical attack, Qassem Soleimani visited the IRGC forces to boost their morale.

The goal of chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun was changing the balance of power in favor of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, writes the NCRI, adding, The IRGC conflict zone was on average 20 km away from Khan Sheikhoun.

The IRGC forces continued their assault after the chemical attack, and last week, the bodies of a number of Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries were returned to Iran.

Bashar al-Assads ground force is weakened, and so offensive ground operations in Syria are now carried out by the IRGC, with support from Assads air force.

In his memoirs, Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani, who commanded the IRGC forces and was killed in October 2015 near the city of Aleppo, wrote, In March 2013 (opposition) was quite close to a victory  they tightened the noose and got closer to the Syrian Presidential Palace such that they were set to occupy the palace Bashar al-Assad also thought it was over and was pursuing to go to another country. Hamadani goes on to tell how the IRGC saved Bashar al-Assad from being overthrown.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran writes,The role of the clerical regime and the IRGC in recent chemical attack proves once again that the only way to end war and bloodshed in Syria is to evict the mullahs regime and to expel the IRGC and its mercenaries from the country.
Aframax joins Murmansk transhipment fleet

The 1996-built Aframax Polar Rock has arrived in Murmansk to replace the 1983-built Panamax Kola Bay as a storage tanker. She owned by Commodity Service, part of the New Stream Group.

The vessel was converted for her new role to operate in extreme conditions in Romania, having been purchased last year as the CE-Merapi.

Oil transhipment at Murmansk has grown steadily. In 2016, about 1.25 mill tonnes of products were exported overseas via the companys oil transhipment terminal, which amounts to a 126% year-on-year growth from the 551,000 tonnes recorded in 2015, according to Russian newswire TASS.






Bahri opts for Saudi flag

National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) has revealed plans to re-flag up to 32 of its VLCCs and five MRs to the domestic flag by the end of 2017.

According to local reports, Bahris CEO, Ibrahim bin Abdul Rahman Al Omar, said that the registration of the companys 37 VLCCs under Saudi Arabian flag was aimed at enhancing the Kingdoms position in the IMOs global ranking list and to increase the size and efficiency of the domestic fleet.

The tanker Amjad was the last to join Bahris VLCC fleet. She was handed over to the company in February of this year and registered under the Saudi Arabian flag.




Danelec VDR conversion kits for Swedish tankers

Danelec Marines distribution partners have reported significant savings on VDR retrofit installations using the companys conversion kits.

One example was the Swedish marine electronics company CA Clase Marinelektronik, which recently undertook VDR retrofits on two product tankers, Stella Orion and Stella Virgo, for Tarbit Tankers.

The existing VDRs were at the end of their service life and were no longer supported by their manufacturer. The shipowner agreed to replace them with new Danelec Marine DM100 VDRs.

Normally, removing an obsolete VDR and replacing it with a new unit would involve many hours of work for the installing technician, since the existing components are often not compatible with the new technology. To solve this problem, Danelec developed a range of conversion kits to replace more than 30 different models of VDRs and simplified VDRs (S-VDRs), including all major existing and legacy brands.

The conversion kits provide specific sets of hardware, software and data interfaces tailored to each VDR model.

We believe the Danelec conversion kits saved us at least one-to-two days on each of the installations, said Gert Kjellberg, service technician and surveyor at CA Clase Marinelektronik.

Kjellberg said that the installations went very smoothly on the two ships.The compact DM100 unit was an easy fit into the old much larger VDR console. Many of the existing sensor modules and cables were able to be re-used. The serial outputs from these modules were connected to a new serial input to the new DM100. This saves a lot of time and cost and makes the installation very pleasant for the service technician, he said.

The Danelec mechanical conversion kits consist of pre-drilled universal adaptor plates and mounting brackets for all system components, including the VDR main unit, memory capsule and bridge microphones. The kits also include remote data interface (RDI) units for serial, analog and digital connections, as well as a software tool for conversion of old configuration files.

We provide the hardware and software conversion kits totally free of charge, said Hans Ottosen, Danelec Marine CEO. Feedback from installing service dealers reveals that the retrofit kits can reduce the installation times by 25-50%, saving time and money and minimising downtime for the ship.

Ottosen said the company is also offering its DanelecConnect remote data gateway free of charge as part of its VDR retrofit packages. This gives shipowners a low-cost and painless upgrade pathway to initiate remote retrieval of real-time data from ship systems and sensors in shore offices, he said.






Markets- VLCCs on a roll

Despite the recent holiday period, the week was very active for VLCCs.

Thinning tonnage lists almost everywhere and steady supply both from West Africa and MEG to the East, resulted in sharply firming rates, Fearnleys said.



Earnings were almost $30,000 per day, which was far better than forecast. The question remains - how sustainable is the present trend?



Before the holiday period, there was a surge in Suezmax activity as charterers left it late to cover the 1st decade of May for West Africa in a narrow week. Owners sensed an opportunity and pressed for higher levels gaining some ground with TD20 briefly hitting the WS80 mark.



The Black Sea and Med followed and managed some moderate gains, thus improving the sentiment going into the holidays.



However, a more measured approach from charterers was seen this week as cargoes were circulated in a orderly fashion and as a result, they have wrestled back some control, thus steadying rates.



Current earnings could be described as reasonable but the forward paper curve suggests that there will be some erosion in the coming weeks, but in the short term, owners will be looking for any excuse to capitalise.



North Sea and Baltic Aframaxes were well balanced in the past week. The Baltic ice season is coming to an end. However, the market is expected to remain at present levels in the week ahead, Fearnleys said.



The days leading up to Easter proved to be quite busy in the Med and Black Sea. But a very long position list kept rates under downward pressure, softening to WS100, despite good chartering activity.



Given that a small ship clearance has taken place from the position lists and Libyan activity has increased, the market is slowly firming again, Fearnleys concluded.



Due to the holiday period, only one fixture was reported on brokers lists. This concerned the 2017-built MR St Pauli thought fixed to Maersk Tankers for nine months, option three months, for $14,000 per day.



In the newbuilding sector, Dynacom was said to have concluded four, option four VLCCs on LOI terms at New Times for a price reported to be in the region of $77 mill each. They are to be delivered in 2019-2020.



Lundqvist was thought to have ordered another Aframax at Sumitomo for 2019 delivery.



There were a few more tanker orders believed to be nearing fruition, which should come to light in the next week or so.



Reported leaving the fleet were the 1999-built VLCC Good News sold to Indian sub-continent buyers for around $390 per ldt; the 1992-built Aframax Catherine Knutsen, said to have been taken by Indian breakers for $361 per ldt and the 1983-built parcel tanker Bow Hunter believed sold to undisclosed interests on the basis as is South Korea for about $302 per ldt. She is fitted with around 700 tonnes of stainless steel and is to be towed to her final destination.



On 4th April, 2017, Stealthgas named three prototype 22,000 cu m ammonia/VCM carrier newbuildings at Hyundai Mipo.



Hull No 8184 was named Eco Frost; Hull No 8185 was named Eco Arctic and Hull No 8186 - Eco Ice.



The ships feature many innovative technologies that were implemented for first time by HMDs R&D department, Stealthgas said.



These included being built to Ice Class 1b and being fitted with exhaust scrubbers.



All three ships fly the Marshall islands flag and are classed by Lloyds Register.



Normally all of Stealthgas's newbuildings are built in Japanese yards but in this case HMD was chosen as its the global leader in specialised gas vessels with innovative technologies, the company explained.



These vessels represent Stealthgas's 31st, 32nd and 33rd newbuilding deliveries. One more sistership is left to be delivered from Hyundai, due in 1Q18.






Straits Tankers Pool expands to LR2s

Straits Tankers LR Pool, jointly operated by Hafnia Management and MOL, is about to welcome two LR2s to add to the 47 LR1s already commercially managed.

The 2005-built MOL-controlled LR2 Phoenix Dream is to join the pool following a drydocking and she will be joined by a sister vessel.



Hafnia Managements Anders Engholm confirmed the move into the larger product tanker segment. He said that Straits Tankers would welcome more LR2s and Hafnia would welcome more MRs into its pools.



At present, Hafnia commercially operates three pools - Handysize Pool (23 vessels), MR Pool (33 tankers) and Straits Tankers with 47 LR1s, which are soon to be joined by the LR2s.



This will give Hafnia and its partners commercial control over 105 CPP tankers putting it into third place behind the Scorpio and Handytankers pools.

***Moore Stephens has warned shipowners and operators to check the financial, tax and jurisdictional implications carefully before participating in shipping pool arrangements.

Shipping partner, Michael Simms, said, Shipping pools can be an attractive option, particularly in difficult markets and during periods of economic uncertainty. Interest in the concept is generally increasing, as a way to leverage money and maximise economies of scale. But while it might make good commercial sense for like-minded shipping interests to pool their resources to mutual advantage, traps may lie in wait for the unwary.

Shipping pools can take a variety of forms, from incorporated entities or partnerships to joint-ventures and other forms of agreement. The jurisdiction in which the pool is established is of primary importance, since it will have fundamental tax and reporting implications.

Simms added, Historically, tax-friendly offshore jurisdictions have been a natural fit for many shipping pools, but the recent increased focus on general tax transparency and on proper governance and reporting procedures may serve as a catalyst for change in this regard.

The existing structure of shipping pools established in offshore jurisdictions is unlikely to change, but it would be reasonable to expect the members of any new pool arrangements to at least consider the option of establishing the pool in a more traditional jurisdiction.

A move towards greater corporatisation of shipping pools, which may grant access to trade finance solutions, might be a viable option for many owners, provided the terms of entry and exit are acceptable, he said.

Moore Stephens has advised on a number of pool agreements during the past 12 months, the company claimed. There are a range of tax issues to consider when setting up, amending or joining a pool. In the case of a new pool, it will be necessary to consider the tax position of each entity within the pool structure.

Other important considerations include the terms of the pool agreement itself, the status of the pool under competition law, the effectiveness of the marketing strategy and the way pool accounts are prepared and submitted.

Simms concluded, Shipping pools have clear advantages for some. But it is a challenging market, and one subject to increasingly stringent evaluation. It would be a mistake to just dive in without careful consideration.




For many scientists, the outcome of the EU referendum arrived as an unwelcome surprise. Brexit has cast doubt on the security of EU funding for sciences, while the possibility of restrictions on migration poses a challenge to the international and collaborative culture of scientific research.

A report by Prospect Union last month indicated how British participation in numerous ambitious science projects are now in doubt. The report also revealed how one in ten STEM professionals say they plan to leave the UK due to Brexit, while almost a quarter (22%) say they are undecided about whether they wish to remain. Prospect also surveyed 2,758 of its members, which include scientists working in a range of industries. 86% of respondents vocalised their dissatisfaction with the governments preparations for life outside the EU.

Cambridge voted overwhelmingly to remain. The town is a UK hub for science research and development: its Biomedical Campus is one of the largest centres of science and medical research in the world. The University receives almost a quarter of its research funding from the EU, and its academics hail from all corners of the world. It is thus unsurprising that many academics and scientists have expressed their dissatisfaction at the referendum result.

Today, Cambridges MP Daniel Zeichner will host a roundtable discussion in partnership with Alzheimers Research UK. The discussion will focus on the relationship between future migration policy and the life sciences sector, and will result in recommendations and actions that Zeichner will put to Government to make it aware of the needs and priorities of those working in the life sciences.

Matthew Norton, Director of Policy and Strategy at Alzheimers Research UK, will be chairing the roundtable. He said that it will be an invaluable opportunity to discuss ways in which we can endeavour to protect life sciences once we leave the European Union, and that he hopes the recommendations will help achieve a collective goal of ensuring life sciences continue to thrive post-Brexit.

For Zeichner, this is also likely a move that will align him with those working in the sciences who may have previously favoured the former Liberal Democratic MP Julian Huppert, a scientist from Cambridge who completed his PhD in Biological Chemistry at Trinity College in 2005. In an article Huppert wrote for the Guardian, he argued that Cambridge was particularly pro-European in part because of its particular characteristics as a world leader in science and technology.
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The Iran lobby, in particular the NIAC (National Iranian American Council) were calling for the approval and used the decision as proof that the nuclear deal is working.

However, the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the nuclear deal has failed to put an end to the nuclear threat posed by Iran  it has simply just pushed the date back. Tillerson stated that Iran is still a huge threat to national and international security and is standing in the way of peace in the Middle East.

He also said that if Iran is not monitored then it will follow in the same way as North Korea. He said: An unchecked Iran has the potential to follow the same path as North Korea and take the world along with it. The United States is keen to avoid a second piece of evidence that strategic patience is a failed approach.

Tillerson added that the US is going to take a thorough look into its Iran policy and will carefully evaluate the Iran nuclear deal that was agreed with the Obama administration. So the approval regarding Irans compliance with the nuclear deal is not as significant as Trita Parsi  the NIAC President  made it out to be.

Parsi said: With this certification, President Trump must now uphold the United States obligations and renew the sanctions waivers. If not, Trump will place the U.S. in violation of its commitments and be responsible for unilaterally killing the nuclear deal.

Parsi seems to misunderstand the point that the Trump administration is making. The administration is looking into foreign policy and doing a complete review of the Iran nuclear deal because of Irans violations of human rights, its support for terrorism, its meddling in the internal affairs of other countries in the Middle East, and so on. All of this was ignored when the Obama administration was drawing up the nuclear deal.

The regime was appeased and thus emboldened faced with the inaction of the Obama administration. The Trump administration is now dealing with the consequences of this decision, and Tillerson said that the buck ends here: The Trump administration has no intention of passing the buck to a future administration on Iran.

So for now it remains to be seen what the outcome of the Iran deal and foreign policy review will be. It is almost certain that the Trump administration will take the appropriate measures to stop Iran from continuing to spread terrorism across the region.
Google and Samsung on Friday announced a partnership that'll make Google Play Music the default music player and music service on new Samsung handsets and tablets globally. It starts today with the launch of the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

Elias Roman, Lead Product Manager at Google Play Music, said in announcing the partnership that those with a new Samsung device can now upload and stream up to 100,000 of their songs to the service absolutely free. That's twice as much storage capacity exclusively for Samsung customers, we're told, which should make it even easier for users to migrate their personal music collection to Google Play Music.

It doesn't end there, however, as new Samsung mobile devices will also come with a free three-month trial of the streaming service that offers ad-free, on-demand access to more than 40 million tracks and thousands of playlists curated for a variety of moods and occasions. A subscription also grants access to YouTube Red, the ad-free version of Google's popular video sharing service that launched in late 2015.

Last but not least, Google Play Music will integrate seamlessly with Bixby when English language voice support arrives later this spring.

Samsung launched its own streaming music service, called Milk Music, in early 2014 but shut it down back in September (probably because that name was so terrible, no?).

Will Google's partnership with Samsung sway your decision to pick up a Galaxy S8 or S8+ (or any other Samsung device on your radar) or is it just icing on the cake? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
A first of its kind continent-wide survey of Antarctica revealed that the ice-capped continent has a surprisingly vast network of rivers and lakes, which make their way through the ice shelves of the landmass.

These rivers flow with melting water over many parts of Antarctica during the continent's brief summer season.

The discovery of lakes and river streams is not new for the researchers. However, scientists earlier assumed that these water networks were confined only to the warm locations of the continent, mostly to the northern part.

What Is Antarctic Meltwater?

Meltwater is a part of Antarctica's natural water cycle. These water streams have been crisscrossing the continent for decades and scientists have systematically classified them for years.

After a thorough observation and analysis, scientists were surprised to find that these meltwater networks were much more vast and extensive than in the past.

Some of the meltwater networks are quite big such as the Amery Ice Shelf, which comprises streams that transport meltwater up to 75 miles at a row.

These meltwater systems fill up the ponds on the surface of the ice shelf, which can be over 50 miles in length.

Discovery Of Lakes And River Streams In Antarctica: How Did The Researchers Find?

According to the researchers, the creation of river streams, ponds, and lakes occurs when there is a rise in temperature. Therefore, global warming could "quickly magnify their influence on sea level."

To discover how wide the meltwater drainage system ran all over the continent, the study's lead author Jonathan Kingslake and his team analyzed pervious surface water photos captured from military aircrafts from 1947, as well as satellite imagery post 1973.

The researchers discovered a seasonal network of 700 ponds, pools, rivers, braided streams, and channels fringing Antarctica's sides. The meltwater networks originate nearly "375 miles from the South Pole" and is roughly 4,300 feet over sea level. Previously, it was believed that it would be unusual to improbable for liquid water to flow through in this region.

"This is not in the future--this is widespread now, and has been for decades. I think most polar scientists have considered water moving across the surface of Antarctica to be extremely rare. But we found a lot of it, over very large areas," said Kingslake

Several of the newly-discovered drainages originate close to the "mountains poking through glaciers." They also originate in places where powerful winds have exposed underlying bluish ice, which is more prone to absorbing sunlight and, therefore, may melt easily.

Effect Of The Meltwater Drainages On Ice Shelves

The authors of the study bear contradictory views on the effect meltwater drainage has on Antarctica's ice shelves.

A team of glaciologists fear that in the near future these meltwater systems can result in the ice shelves collapsing. For the unfamiliar, the huge ice shelves of Antarctica surround three quarters of the continent and stop the land glaciers from getting released into the ocean water.

With the rise in temperature due to climate change, warmer meltwater from drainage systems will pool underneath these floating ice shelves, eroding them in the process. Scientists anticipate that a time will come when these huge ice shelves will break off, resulting in the land glaciers getting released into the ocean. The most recent example of such an incident in the disintegration of the Larsen Ice Shelf. If this catastrophe occurs, ocean water levels will rise dramatically and endanger our planet.

On the other hand, Robin Bell, co-author of the research, led another associated study and found that these drainage systems may have helped the ice shelves on West Antarctica stay together despite climatic upswings.

Both the studies have been published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, April 19.

Watch the below video taken by Won Sang Lee of Korea Polar Research to see a meltwater waterfall in Antarctica first hand.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Yet another wildlife species has fallen victim to a deadly fungus that could potentially result in significant biodiversity loss.

Nearly a month after Tech Times reported about three species of Texas bats carrying the Pd fungus, putting them at risk for the lethal white nose syndrome, biologists warn salamanders are in danger of being decimated.

Researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland reveal that fire salamander populations in Europe are under threat from an invasive skin-eating fungus.

Working together with biologists from the University of Ghent in Belgium, the scientists determined there are little to no means of saving the amphibians once they become infected.

A university press release describes the situation as "alarming," considering only a small number of these amphibians have shown resistance to the fungus, ominously called the "devourer of salamanders."

The team presented their conclusions in a study, featured April 19 in the journal Nature.

Their paper attests to the fungus' virulence and cautions that, if the blight continues to expand, it could "behave as a 'perfect storm' that is able to rapidly extirpate highly susceptible salamander populations across Europe."

Little Chance Of Survival

The fungal disease threatening salamanders comes from Asia and is assumed to have been brought to Europe via pet trade. Here, it has recently led to mass mortality of this species in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, the study shows.

Known as Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, or Bsal, the fungus is highly aggressive and attacks the animals' skin, which is soon covered in ulcers and eventually becomes necrotic, making the amphibians vulnerable to secondary bacterial infections.

Once they contract Bsal, the amphibians only survive briefly, observe the biologists, who studied fire salamanders in Belgium for two years immediately after the first signs of infection.

"Pathogen arrival was associated with a rapid and sustained population collapse," indicates the study's summary.

"Our mark-and-recapture data shows that only 13 percent of the infected salamanders survive over a 10-day period," says Benedikt Schmidt, research team leader and a biologist at the University of Zurich's Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Sciences.

Schmidt adds that healthy salamanders are very susceptible to the fungus, as a large proportion of them - a third of the studied group - contracted the disease in the same interval.

According to study lead author An Martel from the University of Ghent, the extremely high death rate threatens to reduce affected populations by more than 90 percent in just a matter of weeks, facing them with extinction.

No Possible Cure For Fire Salamanders In The Wild

Experiments showed the infection is so rampant that salamanders can't build up immunity to the fungus. The disease develops from merely touching the fungus spores, and a few sporadic ones are enough for the infection to ensue and eventually lead to death.

In addition, Bsal spores have thick walls that make them incredibly resilient to weather conditions and allow them to survive for long periods in both water and soil.

The highly persistent spores also seem to target sexually mature individuals, preventing them from producing new generations.

Fire salamanders are among the most susceptible species and biologists state these animals have no means of fighting the disease in their natural habitat.

Since Bsal spores are able to survive in nature for a long time, the reintroduction of the species "would also have few prospects for success," Schmidt points out.

"Classical measures to control animal diseases such as vaccination and repopulation will not be successful since there is no immunity buildup in these species and eradication of the fungus from the ecosystem is unlikely," Martel tells The Associated Press.

This leaves biologists with only one option: to keep a healthy population of fire salamanders in captivity. This could be the only way to save Europe's salamanders, at least until a cure is found, the study suggests.

Salamander Pet Trade Banned Preventively

Although the deadly Asian fungus hasn't yet reached Switzerland, the country has banned the importation of salamanders and newts as a preventive measure in an attempt to hinder the spread of the disease.

Study authors call for a Europe-wide system of monitoring the spread of the pathogen that can alert biologists to early warning signs. Many European species of salamander are already endangered and figure as red-listed in a lot of countries.

The pet trade could facilitate the spread of the fungus even to other continents. In 2015, salamander experts at the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University solicited a similar pre-emptive action.

The researchers urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban salamander imports in the United States lest the fungus decimate amphibian populations as it had already been doing in Europe at the time.

Fears of Bsal entering the United States escalated as early as 2014, when the fungus had just been identified in the Netherlands and was wreaking havoc amid salamanders in the wild.

Conservationists in the United States are already monitoring wetlands for signs of the fungus to save local salamander populations.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After listening to both side's closing arguments, a San Diego jury finds Petco not liable to the death of a 10-year-old boy. The decision was made four years after the boy's death from rat-bite fever.

Closing Arguments

Lawyers of both sides of the case presented their arguments about the responsibility of the pet retailer regarding Aidan Pankey's death in June 12, 2013.

The Pankey family's lawyer, John H. Gomez, argued that Petco, as well as their supplier Barney's Pets, were well aware that the rats that they sell are affected by the bacteria that causes rat-bite fever and that there were already over 50 cases of rat-bite fever ever since the company started selling rats in 2001.

To counter this, Petco's lawyer stated that the company is doing everything they can to prevent the disease, and that there is no way of knowing the percentage of rats that carry the disease. What's more, they argued that among the 5 million rats sold between the years of 2001 and 2013, only 45 claims of rat-bite have been filed, with some of them still unconfirmed.

After deliberation, the jury found Petco and Barney's Pets not liable to the death of Aidan Pankey, stating that the company did enough to warn consumers of the risks of buying a pet rat.

In a statement, Petco expressed their agreement with the ruling, and declares their commitment to ensure the safety of their customers.

Aidan Pankey's Death

Aidan Pankey died in 2013, two weeks after purchasing a male rat he named Alex. He was brought to the hospital after developing flu-like symptoms but was sent home after doctors thought it was common flu.

He was rushed to the emergency room when his symptoms worsened, but died early the next day. His death was ruled as a result of rat-bite fever, despite not having been bitten or scratched by his pet rat.

His father, Andrew Pankey, then sued Petco and Barney's Pets, seeking $20 million for the loss of his son.

Rat-Bite Fever

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines Rat-bite Fever (RBF) as an infectious disease that can be caused by two different bacteria depending on where you live; Streptobacillus moniliformis in North America, and Spirillum minus in Asia.

Apart from rat bites and scratches, RBF can be contracted by humans by handling rodents with the disease, or by consuming contaminated food or beverages. It cannot be passed from one person to another.

Though RBF is rare, symptoms can occur three to 10 days after exposure, and can lead to death if left untreated.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Dow Chemical, a known ally of U.S. President Trump, is now asking the White House for a favor  a huge one at that.

'Set Aside' Pesticide Study

Along with a couple of chemical manufacturers, lawyers of Dow Chemical are pulling strings to shut down and shelf a study about a major class of pesticides that can kill almost 1,800 critically endangered or threatened species.

In a letter sent to three Cabinet secretaries  Sec. of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Sec. of Interior Ryan Zinke, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt  the chemical companies described the findings of EPA's federal scientists as fundamentally flawed and lacking in transparency necessary for evaluation.

They also urged the Trump administration to "set aside" the results that could potentially be a catalyst for large-scale restrictions in the use of the pesticides.

The Associated Press has obtained a copy of these letters.

What Dow Chemical Wants To Happen

Basically what Dow wants is to scrap four years and over 10,000 pages worth of research by federal scientists who have found that three pesticides  chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion  pose a risk to nearly every endangered species they studied.

Based on EPA's latest biological evaluation of chlorpyrifos, the pesticide is "likely to adversely affect" 1,778 of the 1,835 animals and plants, including critically endangered or threatened species of frogs, fish, birds, and mammals. The same results were documented for malathion and diazinon.

In this scenario, endangered species are the canary in the coal mine since most of them live in lakes and streams that serve as sources for human drinking water, Brett Hartl, a government scientist, explained.

Dow Chemical: Chlorpyrifos Is Safe



On the contrary, Dow Chemical has released an official statement disputing the supposed adverse effects of chlorpyrifos.

"Chlorpyrifos is authorized for use not only in the U.S., but nearly 100 nations, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy and Japan. Dow AgroSciences remains confident that authorized uses of chlorpyrifos products offer wide margins of protection for human health and safety..."

Dow Chemical's Ties To The Trump Administration

Dow Chemical has long secured strong connections to the current administration.

Its chairman and CEO, Andrew Liveris, was appointed by the POTUS himself to lead the American Manufacturing Council, which is a private sector group that advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and which Trump has "tasked with finding ways to bring industry back to America."

It has also allegedly signed a $1 million check to help fund U.S. President Trump's inaugural celebrations.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Apparently, even the Arctic Ocean is not safe from the unsightly bits of plastic, bottles, and other garbage defacing most of our oceans today.

This is what an emerging study published in Science Advances has revealed.

From The North Atlantic To The Arctic

A team of researchers from the University of Cadiz in Spain and a number of other organizations have made the sad discovery that a major ocean current is bringing countless plastic bits all the way from the North Atlantic, to the Greenland and Barents seas.

Experts predict that plastic pollution could rapidly find its way into the pristine Arctic waters in the years to come.

8 Million Tons Of Plastic Pollution In The Ocean

At least 275 million tons of plastic waste are produced every year by 192 nations across the globe - almost 8 million tons of this plastic pollution is washed up straight into the ocean.

China has been notoriously identified as the biggest contributor of plastic waste at 1.32 to 3.52 million tons, with its neighboring countries Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam following closely behind.

Where Do Plastics End Up In The Ocean?

Plastic pollution is pervasive in the open ocean, but the largest concentrations can be spotted in the five major ocean gyres, or circulating ocean currents, such as in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.

The Great Garbage Patch in the North Pacific, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, is one example of this. This dense part of the sea filled with marine debris or microplastics was discovered between 1985 and 1988.

In 2014, scientists have also found proof of microplastics in deep-sea sediments from the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

Plastic Could Really Last Forever

Unfortunately, plastics are really built to last forever. They're made from strong, durable materials that are difficult to break down naturally.

There are certain types of plastics - say, a dense monofilament fishing line - that could stay up to 600 years. A thin plastic bag in harsh surf zones, on the other hand, only stand a few months.

"But even if that bag breaks down over the course of six months or a year, it might well have had a lot of environmental impact before that," Chris Wilcox of CSIRO's Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship said.

Research shows that many marine animals get caught in plastic fishing lines and end up getting strangulated. There's also the risk of animals mistaking colorful plastic as food, which is severely toxic to them.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Astronomers are always looking for answers to the mysteries of the universe by observing celestial objects and attempting to comprehend cosmic phenomena, but huge discoveries don't always come knocking in observatories.

After searching for over a decade, a team of researchers detected, identified, and captured a rare cosmic event that opens up new ways to understand the expansion of the universe and the mysterious dark matter  all thanks to a distant galaxy magnifying a supernova's brightness.

What Is A Type Ia Supernova?

Type Ia supernovas are dying stars that burn at a consistent brightness, allowing astronomers to measure their distance from Earth. This would, in turn, also allow scientists to precisely measure any celestial objects detected around them. However, the farther away a Type Ia supernova is, the more difficult it is for astronomers to actually find and study it.

This is why Professor Ariel Goobar from University of Stockholm's Oskar Klein Centre has spent the past 15 years searching for a gravitationally lensed type Ia supernova  and he found one by chance in 2016 when he spotted iPTF16geu.

iPTF16geu Supernova And Gravitational Lensing

Professor Goobar first noticed that iPTF16geu  a Type Ia supernova that has been identified earlier but was mostly ignored  seems to have increased in brightness in 2016. Astronomers originally thought that the supernova was just another Type Ia about 1 billion light-years away since that is the limit of the telescope in California's Palomar Observatory, but the recent discovery made things clearer and more exciting for astronomers.

iPTF16geu is, in fact, a Type Ia about 4 billion light-years away so the sudden magnification of its brightness to 50 times of what is expected baffled astronomers  at least until Prof. Goobar suggested that it was lensed.

"I've been looking for a lensed supernova for about 15 years. I looked in every possible survey, I've tried a variety of techniques to do this and essentially gave up ... One of the reasons I'm interested in studying gravitational lensing is that it allows you to measure the structure of matter  both visible and dark matter  at scales that are very hard to get," Prof. Goobar explains.

A rapid follow up with partner observatories that use more powerful telescopes showed that a galaxy was, at that time, in between Earth and iPTF16geu, causing the supernova to undergo gravitational lensing. That is to say, the galaxy bent the light coming from the supernova and made it appear 50 times brighter. Not only that, the galaxy also produced multiple images of iPTF16geu when seen from certain angles.

Take a look at the photo below showing multiple versions of the lensed supernova.

"I was baffled when I saw the initial data for iPTF16geu from the Palomar Observatory. It looked like a normal Type Ia supernova but it was much brighter than it should have been given its distance from us," study co-author and Caltech Assistant Professor for Astronomy Mansi Kasliwal said.

What This Means For Astronomy

Prof. Goobar and his team's discovery is significant for astronomy because it will allow scientists to measure the expansion of the universe and understand dark matter and the gravitational lensing phenomenon.

Not only this, two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have already come up with a possible method for identifying gravitationally lensed supernovas using the observations published by Prof. Goobar and his team.

"It is extremely difficult to find a gravitationally lensed supernova, let alone a lensed Type Ia ... [but] since the discovery of iPTF16geu, we now have some thoughts on how to improve our pipeline to identify more of these events," astrophysicist Peter Nugent from Berkeley Lab's Computational Research Division said.

Prof. Goobar and his team's observations have been published in the journal Science.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Haley holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations top decision-making body for April, and she plans to use the meeting to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question and Tehrans role in Yemen and Syria, as well as its support for Hezbollah. She sees these topics as central to the actualization of peace in the Middle East.

After the February meeting Haley said, Incredibly, the UN Department of Political Affairs has an entire department devoted to Palestinian affairs. There is no division devoted to the worlds number one state sponsor of terror, Iran.

This past week, the Trump administration aimed sharp criticism at Iran, following previous warnings to Syria and North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tore into the 2015 nuclear agreement between the P5+1+EU and Iran on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that curbs Irans nuclear program, on Wednesday. He stated that it only delays the day Iran will get a nuclear weapon and completely ignored its other actions.

It will be difficult to get the 15-member Security Council to change its focus. The U.S. and five other world powers joined Iran in signing the 2015 deal, and in a message to Congress late Tuesday, Tillerson acknowledged that Iran has delivered so far on its end of the deal. Still, the U.S. will review whether to reimpose economic sanctions that were eased under the accord, he said. However, if the U.S. decides to breach the accord, it would cause conflict with global powers, including European allies, China and Russia, who support it. Meanwhile, U.S. allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, are angered by the deal.

Israel has been viewed with a critical focus over the years by The Security Council. Arab nations, including those who are U.S. allies in the region, will resist a shift in that focus.

Monthly reports on the Palestinian question have been received since 2000, and they have held a debate on the topic each quarter since 2010. Quarterly reports on Israels expansion of housing settlements are now required under a resolution. Former President Barack Obama allowed the council to pass that measure by having the U.S. abstain rather than exercise its veto power during the closing weeks of his administration.

The UNs special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov of Bulgaria, will present Thursdays report.

Haleys message may be lost under the questions about President Trumps approach to Iran.

Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington said, The Trump administration needs a grand plan on how to curb Irans influence, and right now I dont see a plan.

Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at Brookings Institute in Washington stated that the U.S. seeks to portray Iran as a criminal enterprise, not just as another bad country but as a rogue state that is engaged in horrible crimes across the region, and added, We are moving from a position of accommodation to one of confrontation across multiple fronts. Maloney said further, Building a broad consensus is tough.

On his tour of the Middle East, Defense Secretary James Mattis, said Wednesday in Riyadh, that the U.S. will reinforce Saudi Arabias resistance to Irans mischief and make you more effective with your military.

Although Haley has the leadership role this month, any resolution condemning Irans regional influence is unlikely to pass because Tehran holds an alliance with Russia, who holds veto power in the Security Council.
Prosecutors charged over two dozen doctors as well as pharmacists, medical business owners, and other medical professionals Thursday, April 20, in an alleged kickback scheme that may have defrauded some 13,000 California patients.

The defendants are accused of netting about $40 million in overcharging for drugs or prescribed balms with no known medical value.

Details Of Alleged Conspiracy

The plot was led by 37-year-old Tanya Moreland King and 38-year-old Christopher King of Beverly Hills, owners of a trio of medical billing and management firms, revealed Orange County district attorney Tony Rackauckas and state insurance commissioner Dave Jones in a joint statement.

In the said plot that provided $23 million to the couple, the charge involves paying physicians to prescribe unnecessary drugs as well as tests, with the kickbacks masked as marketing expenses. The patientss insurers were believed to be billed with almost $40 million.

The Kings and their co-conspirators played with patients' lives, buying and selling them for profit without regard to patient safety, said Jones in the statement, asserting patientss right to doctorss decisions based on medical need and not unadulterated greed.

Well-Thought-Out Kickback Scheme?

Stevens Pharmacy in Costa Mesa, owned by Charles Bonner and Mervyn Miller, is also accused of conniving with the Kings to prescribe over $1 million worth of transdermal creams not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and having no known medical benefits.

Investigators disclosed that while the Kings would buy the products for $15 to $40 from the pharmacy, insurance companies will be billed up to $700 for every prescription. In addition, Tanya is thought to pay doctors $50 for every prescription as part of the scheme.

Other doctors in the case are accused of ordering unneeded urine tests in order to confirm that the patients were taking their prescription meds. After the tests were ordered, the Kings would offer $60 to a toxicology group for every screening done, and afterwards bill insurers hundreds of dollars more for each test, the statement said further.

Rackauckas reminded of the need for doctors to follow the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, as well as have the law keep its intent to keep physician, patients, and profit all separate.

Associated Press published the names of the 26 medical professionals involved in the case.

In a related health insurance controversy last March, Mayo Clinic reportedly stamped its preference on patients with commercial insurance, triggering a wave of reactions from senior health officials.

Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper said her department is very concerned about Mayo CEO Dr. John Noseworthys counsel to employees on their new policy  as seen in a leaked video transcript  and is looking how that will be put into action.

Also just recently, the Florida health department warned residents of scammers offering free or cheap medical marijuana and pretending to be the Office of Compassionate Use when collecting credit card details.

This office is the only segment allowed to issue medical marijuana ID cards and it will never solicit credit card information, the agency reminded. Few people in Florida have access to medical cannabis and scammers are cashing in on this limited knowledge of the law.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Rumours About Xiaomi Mi Note 3 And Mi Mix 2 Surface Online | TechTree.com

Just as Xiaomi officially announced the much rumoured smartphone Mi 6, it looks like the rumour mills are filled with speculations pertaining to yet another Xiaomi smartphone.

Being called as Mi Note 3, the recent leak comes via Weibo, when a user tipped that Xiaomi would more likely be launching Mi Note 3 with OLED display in the 3rd quarter of 2017.

However, it is also worth noting that no specific detailed information about the smartphone is available yet, apart from few reports that actually claims the Xiaomi Mi Note 3 to come with Snapdragon 835 processor under the hood.

It doesnt just stop there. Along side Mi Note 3, the Chinese smartphone company is also being rumoured to launch the Mi MIX 2 as well, which is, obviously the successor to the Mi Mix that made roars in the smartphone industry with its bezel-less design.

According to a recent report published on BGR, it is expected that the Mi MIX 2 would be coming with 93 percent screen-to-body ration compared to 91.3 percent ration on the original Mi Mix.

TAGS: Xiaomi
Of course cybersecurity is critical today  yet many organizations view it as a huge expenditure that slows the flow of business and frustrates employees, users and customers alike. C-level executives need to be aware of how their organizations security measures affect the flow of business. At its best, cybersecurity infrastructure runs quietly in the background, unnoticed. Rather than being considered a cost center,

cybersecurity can be re-envisioned as a growth enabler or differentiator, enabling enterprises to make innovative investments that spur growth.

Data security is so important that mishandling it can spell disaster for an enterprise. It is a potentially ruinous mistake for executives with non-technical backgrounds to simply assign responsibility for cybersecurity to the chief security officer, chief information security officer or IT team. C-suite executives might see the iceberg ahead, but do they really understand the size of the problem below the surface?

Taking Responsibility

Cybersecurity leadership must come from the top down if it is to successfully involve everyone. If the top executives are not involved directly, it can give the impression that cybersecurity is not a No. 1 priority; employees can do it tomorrow or whenever they have time. When the board or CEO starts asking the management team about what measures the company has in place to avoid becoming a headline, then theres a much bigger chance of real change taking place.

Members of the C-suite who are not tracking with current events may be in for a rude awakening. The boardroom is placing the responsibility for cybersecurity squarely on the C-suites shoulders. As we have seen in recent headlines, a particularly bad public data breach can ruin a CEOs career. As enterprises and government agencies are required to follow NIST and other cybersecurity guidelines, more than just the CEO will be targeted for replacement.

Cybersecurity Awareness Best Practices

For the sake of the enterpriseand their careersthose in the C-suite must become intimately familiar with the companys cybersecurity efforts. The following best practices are a good place to start:

Start with the experts: Ask the cybersecurity team questions and assess: What are they working on? What is their security posture, and what solutions are currently in place? What is the critical business decision-making process used to determine what infrastructure MUST be secured? Where are the weak spots? How can the team see, control and maintain a more secure environment? Attend conferences and seminars to learn about what steps your peers are taking to protect their own companies. Make sure that you have knowledge of your current systems and the opportunities to improve  and as quickly as possible. Dont wait for the next quarter or next years budget, because it might be too late.

Become a culture change agent: Create a cybersecurity culture by building security hygiene and compliance into compensation and reward packages (if they arent already). Make everyone in your organization aware of the risks and how they can keep the company safe. The goal is for everyone to understand the importance of cybersecurity to the company and your customers, and to underscore the importance of cybersecurity as a personal responsibility.

Look ahead and evolve: Leaders must adopt a totally new way of thinking to address todays evolving cyber threats. Companies need to adopt practices that dont affect their workflow and dont disrupt the actual business in any way. Look to what universities, incubators and startups are producing, as they are the best sources for cybersecurity solutions and talent, and hire the expertise you need from that pool. Make sure your team is evolving with the threats.

Know when enough is enough: Are employees bypassing security measures in order to access business applications more easily? Have they created a shadow IT environment of unauthorized systems and solutions for their convenience? When used properly, cybersecurity can be an enabler of new business, protecting data in the cloud and allowing the company to take advantage of the clouds cost-saving agility and flexibility, for example. Finding ways to minimize the risk of human error, such as automating as many security processes as possible, can also help increase business efficiency.

Maintaining Business Trust

Clearly, these best practices require significant time and attention, but the rewards are real. There are measurable business benefits for greater involvement in cybersecurity  and measureable downsides if you dont. For instance, if your network gets infected and your servers go down, that downtime will have a disastrous effect on your companys bottom line, not to mention the sustained operational costs and damage to reputation.

Without trust, business doesnt happen. Your companys solutions, products and services must be trustworthy. By leading from the top down, the C-suite can help ensure that the organization is protected appropriately while maintaining performance and ensuring that security measures do not disrupt operations in any way. Once the C-suite has established a security game plan for the organization and is confident that the team is performing on the right level, you can trust in your critical information flow and sleep better at night.

Cybersecurity from the C-suite

Trust has become a precious commodity in this era of mega breaches. Once lost, trust is difficult if not impossible to regain. C-level executives have a responsible and opportunity to maintain and even expand the trustworthiness of their enterprises. This means that they cannot delegate cybersecurity responsibility to someone else; they must take the issue up themselves and get hands-on experience and information on safeguarding critical data. If not, loss of trust, share prices and even careers are possible.

About the Author

Chris Riley has worked in IT and information security for more than 20 years. His experience in markets for identity assurance, data security, governance and risk management is extensive. At SSH, Chris is responsible for all U.S. business operations, including customer success and marketing. Chris is passionate about the work being done by SSH customers and associates regarding governance for trusted access and how that makes the world a safer place given the evolving threat landscape. Prior to joining SSH, Chris spent more than 10 years at RSA Security in various leadership roles around enterprise sales and customer success. Chris is a graduate of Merrimack College in North Andover, MA, where he majored in finance and minored in economics. He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Northeastern University in Boston.

Edited by Alicia Young




By Joe Urchill on 19 April 2017 for Zero Hedge -

(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/us-preparing-charges-arrest-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange)





Image above: A photo of Julien Assange at the Equidorian Embassy in London in September 2016. From ( http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-16/julian-assange-press-conference-ecuador-embassy/7854166 ).



In a podcast interview, WikiLeaks head Julian Assange characterized his site's most recent series of leaks as showing "all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA."



In the same interview for the



The comments came at the beginning of the interview conducted by Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept, as the two discussed CIA Director Mike Pompeo's recent speech calling out WikiLeaks as a "nonstate hostile intelligence service."



"In fact, the reason Pompeo is launching this attack is because he understands we are exposing in this series all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA, so hes trying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a pre-emptive defense," Assange said.



The conversation addressed recent allegations that WikiLeaks has stretched the facts in its descriptions of what the CIA files showed. Those allegations were made in



Pompeo told The Intercept that WikiLeaks was "stretching the facts" in saying the CIA was likely intercepting new Apple cellphones to implant malware before the iPhones were sent to purchasers.

"I never liked that article," Assange said on the podcast.



Though he did not defend the Apple claim, he did say that a separate controversy referenced in The Intercept  that another WikiLeaks summary may have implied that the CIA specifically developed techniques to hack encrypted chat apps, which the documents did not show  was unwarranted.



"One of the important revelations from our initial Vault 7 publication was that the CIA had spent enormous resources on developing endpoint attacks, that is, to attack your smartphone directly. ... We thought it was very important to show that, no, thats not true. The encryption itself is quite good, but if you can hack the endpoints, the encryption doesnt matter," he said.



Assange also used the interview to reaffirm stances he's taken since publishing internal Democratic Party emails last year during the presidential campaign.



He said he still does not believe his site received files stolen by the Russian government and defended the site as nonpartisan. He said it would have published Republican National Committee emails if it had received them.



He also said he had no "back channel" communications with Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Trump, as Stone has claimed. Stone has told The Hill he communicated with Assange through a mutual friend but said perhaps Assange did not consider the communications as formal as he did.



Assange told "Intercepted" that he does not have a vendetta against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton



I think Id probably like her in person. Most good politicians are quite charismatic in person. In some ways, shes a bit like me, Shes a bit wonkish and a bit awkward, so maybe wed get along, he said. SUBHEAD: The CIA, a state non-intelligence agency"calls him a "non-state intelligence service".In a podcast interview, WikiLeaks head Julian Assange characterized his site's most recent series of leaks as showing "all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA."In the same interview for the "Intercepted" podcast, Assange accused the CIA director of slamming him "to get ahead of the publicity curve."The comments came at the beginning of the interview conducted by Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept, as the two discussed CIA Director Mike Pompeo's recent speech calling out WikiLeaks as a "nonstate hostile intelligence service.""In fact, the reason Pompeo is launching this attack is because he understands we are exposing in this series all sorts of illegal actions by the CIA, so hes trying to get ahead of the publicity curve and create a pre-emptive defense," Assange said.The conversation addressed recent allegations that WikiLeaks has stretched the facts in its descriptions of what the CIA files showed. Those allegations were made in The Hill and other news outlets, including The Intercept Pompeo told The Intercept that WikiLeaks was "stretching the facts" in saying the CIA was likely intercepting new Apple cellphones to implant malware before the iPhones were sent to purchasers."I never liked that article," Assange said on the podcast.Though he did not defend the Apple claim, he did say that a separate controversy referenced in The Intercept  that another WikiLeaks summary may have implied that the CIA specifically developed techniques to hack encrypted chat apps, which the documents did not show  was unwarranted."One of the important revelations from our initial Vault 7 publication was that the CIA had spent enormous resources on developing endpoint attacks, that is, to attack your smartphone directly. ... We thought it was very important to show that, no, thats not true. The encryption itself is quite good, but if you can hack the endpoints, the encryption doesnt matter," he said.Assange also used the interview to reaffirm stances he's taken since publishing internal Democratic Party emails last year during the presidential campaign.He said he still does not believe his site received files stolen by the Russian government and defended the site as nonpartisan. He said it would have published Republican National Committee emails if it had received them.He also said he had no "back channel" communications with Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Trump, as Stone has claimed. Stone has told The Hill he communicated with Assange through a mutual friend but said perhaps Assange did not consider the communications as formal as he did.Assange told "Intercepted" that he does not have a vendetta against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, as is often alleged.I think Id probably like her in person. Most good politicians are quite charismatic in person. In some ways, shes a bit like me, Shes a bit wonkish and a bit awkward, so maybe wed get along, he said.

US prepares to arrest Assange

By Tyler Durden on 20 April 2107 for Zero Hedge -

US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, US officials familiar with the matter tell CNN.



The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former US Army intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning.

Last week in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, CIA Director Mike Pompeo went further than any US government official in describing a role by WikiLeaks that went beyond First Amendment activity

Julian Assange @JulianAssange

Called a "non-state intelligence service" today by the "state non-intelligence agency" which produced al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Iran & Pinochet.

Quite simply, our motive is identical to that claimed by the New York Times and The Post  to publish newsworthy content. Consistent with the U.S. Constitution, we publish material that we can confirm to be true irrespective of whether sources came by that truth legally or have the right to release it to the media. And we strive to mitigate legitimate concerns, for example by using redaction to protect the identities of at-risk intelligence agents.

.

SUBHEAD: Called a "non-state intelligence service" today by the "state non-intelligence agency".In a stunning new report, CNN has just revealed, according to anonymous sources at least, that US authorities have prepared charges and will seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for intelligence leaks dating all the way back to 2010.This latest revelation comes after CIA Director Mike Pompeo ramped up the Trump administration's rhetoric against WikiLeaks describing it as a "non-state hostile intelligence service" earlier this week.Ironically, as we noted this morning , Pompeo's comments can just days before the FBI and CIA admitted that they are searching for an "insider" at the CIA (not a Russian) who exposed thousands of top-secret documents that described CIA tools used to penetrate smartphones, smart televisions and computer systems.He said WikiLeaks "directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information, and it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States.""It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," Pompeo said.Pompeo's comments were, of course, met with an immediate snarky reply from Assange over twitter.For the past several years, U.S. prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Assange. In fact, in what now appears to be a very prescient opinion piece, Julian Assange recently penned an article in the Washington Post defending his publications by saying that his motives are "identical to those claimed by the New York Times and The Post."During President Barack Obama's administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasn't alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning.Several newspapers, including The New York Times, did as well. The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.All that said, CNN's sources seem to believe those same prosecutors have now found a way to move forward...though we're sure the New York Times won't receive similar arrest warrants.Of course, it's unclear what immediate purpose the charges will serve given that Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the sole purpose of avoiding political persecution.That said, somehow we suspect that some form of 'leverage' is about to be applied against Ecuador to help them 'remember' that they have other immediate and critically important uses for Assange's London bedroom.
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Officials in Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration are now admitting that the proposed Commercial Activity Tax would raise $400 million next year, not $800 to $900 million, as they originally projected, because of changes meant to make it more palatable to businesses.

Making those changes means that Edwards overall tax package no longer would raise enough money to head off the fiscal cliff, when the $1.3 billion in temporary taxes will fall off next year.

Were $200 million to $300 million short, Kimberly Robinson, the secretary of Revenue, said in an interview, adding that administration officials are examining ways to make up the difference.

One change made by the administration to the commercial activity tax spells out that pass-through entities  businesses such as limited liability corporations or sole proprietorships that choose to file individual income tax returns  with taxable gross receipts under $1 million per year would pay no more than $500, while those with taxable gross receipts above $12 million would pay $12,500 per year.

The other change would allow retailers and wholesalers to deduct the cost of their goods sold. This change attempted to assuage concerns of businesses, such as grocery stores, that the commercial activity tax would hit them unfairly because they have huge amounts of sales with low profit margins.

The CAT is a centerpiece of Edwards' budget plan to address a fiscal cliff the state is facing when the additional one-cent state sales tax expires next year.

But he's already facing an uphill battle as he tries to win support for it.

Edwards on Friday conceded that even his conversations with state lawmakers about the controversial Commercial Activity Tax have given little indication that the proposal will pass.

"I wouldn't say that the conversations I'm having are terribly different than what you're having," Edwards told reporters on Friday when asked if he had any reason to believe his tax plan could garner support.

Several legislators have suggested that the bill has no chance of passing. The bill, which is sponsored by Rep. Sam Jones, a Franklin Democrat who was Edwards roommate and seat-mate when the governor served in the House, is scheduled to get its first committee hearing on Monday.

Edwards said he is still waiting alternative plans from the Republican members of the House.

"I'm disappointed that I have yet to see anything that resembles an alternative plan," Edwards said, taking aim at his critics.

But Jones has seemingly offered up his own plan B, should the corporate tax change fail. Jones is sponsoring another bill that would extend the additional state sales tax penny, slated to expire next year, another five years.

Edwards said that's not a back-up plan that he asked for or even supports.

"The Legislature last year decided when we imposed the fifth penny (of sales tax), that it should roll off June 30, 2018 and as I've said before we should stick to that date," he said. "That is certainly not plan B."

Edwards again made his case for the controversial proposal to a group of business and community leaders at the Public Affairs Research Council's annual luncheon.

"Structural change requires that we work together," Edwards said, noting that the legislation will require support from two-thirds of each legislative chamber.

He told the crowd that 80 percent of corporations that file tax returns pay no taxes, because of various exemptions and the current taxing levels.

"I believe we ought to do something to restore fairness," he said. "(The CAT) is a way to restore fairness, to partially address the cliff we have coming up and will function basically as an alternative minimum tax."

He again knocked Republican legislators who oppose his proposal as having "no plan."

House Republican leaders have recently offered up a budget outline that they expect to present and have said that they are working toward a budget plan that could include several pieces.

Edwards said that he remains optimistic.

"It's still early," he said. "Maybe we will get there. I sure hope we do because we owe it to the people of Louisiana."

Elizabeth Crisp of The Advocate Capitol news bureau contributed to this report.
Although the man convicted of killing former Saints star Will Smith still faces one serious legal charge, some experts think it is unlikely he will be prosecuted on it or at least will face any additional prison time.

Prosecutors and Smith's family made it clear Thursday they felt Cardell Hayes got off with too light a punishment after being convicted of killing Smith and wounding his wife.

One possible avenue for tacking on more years would be to pursue a lingering charge against Hayes of aggravated assault stemming from the same April 9, 2016, dispute that left Smith dead in the driver's seat of his Mercedes SUV.

But legal experts said Friday that District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office likely would have a hard time using that charge to put Hayes away for any longer than the 25 years he got from Criminal District Court Judge Camille Buras on Thursday.

Hayes' attorneys, John Fuller and Jay Daniels, almost certainly will move to quash the charge, which is tentatively set for trial June 26. They likely will argue that it would amount to "double jeopardy," violating the constitutional protection against being prosecuted twice on the same set of facts, said criminal defense lawyer Craig Mordock, a former New Orleans prosecutor.

Further, while committing aggravated assault with a firearm in Louisiana calls for up to 10 years in prison, defense attorneys and former prosecutors Joseph Raspanti and Donald "Chick" Foret said it is unlikely that Buras would extend the 25-year prison sentence she handed Hayes, even if he were found guilty of the additional charge.

Buras could have given Hayes up to 40 years on his manslaughter conviction in Smith's death. She could have tacked on an additional 20 years because he also was found guilty of attempted manslaughter after Smith's widow, Racquel, was shot in both legs.

Instead, Buras sentenced Hayes to serve 25 years for Smith's death and 15 years for the bullet that hit Racquel Smith in both legs, with the sentences to run concurrently.

Mordock, Raspanti and Foret agreed that is a clear indication that Buras believes Hayes  who has repeatedly asserted that he killed Smith in self-defense  deserves no more than 25 years for what happened the night of the shooting.

"I would be very surprised if this case ever went to trial," Foret said.

A spokesman for Cannizzaro declined to comment Friday, citing an office policy against discussing open cases.

But Mordock and Raspanti both speculated that the District Attorney's Office may view the aggravated assault charge as a kind of insurance policy in case Hayes' team succeeds in appealing his convictions.

A conviction for aggravated assault could ensure Hayes would remain jailed, even if he gets his other convictions overturned.

A grand jury indicted Hayes on four counts: murder, attempted murder, aggravated criminal damage to property and aggravated assault.

By a 10-2 vote, the trial jury convicted Hayes of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, rather than murder and attempted murder. One juror said they never seriously considered the murder count, which would have meant mandatory life in prison.

The criminal damage count accused Hayes of intentionally ramming the back of the former Saint's SUV, sparking the fatal confrontation. The jury in December acquitted Hayes on that count, finding no evidence that he intentionally slammed into Smith's SUV.

The aggravated assault charge essentially alleges that Hayes, before pulling the trigger, pointed a gun at Will Smith without justification.

With credit for "good time," Hayes could be free in roughly 20 years, given the year he has spent jailed since his arrest.
Haraquon Degruy, who faces life in prison for her role in the killing of David and Nicholas Pence in their Metairie home two years ago, will g
The art collection of the Australian National University is scattered across the campus, works by leading national and international artists hanging in hallways, offices, lecture theatres and libraries.

Now, in the recently refurbished Drill Hall Gallery, 100 of the more than 2500 pieces in the whole collection, which is worth more than $34 million, have been brought together in a major exhibition, 10 Years Collecting at the ANU.

Drill Hall Gallery director Terence Maloon at the installation of 10 Years Collecting at the ANU exhibition. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

Drill Hall Gallery director Terence Maloon said the collection was a reflection of the ANU, and more specifically the School of Art, but also of the university's ties with the indigenous and international community.

"This is not a collection like any other in Australia's museums," Mr Maloon said.
"It had a film noir aspect I liked." he says. He is taking the film to Cannes and hopes to get it in wide release soon.

Cobb, whose company Cobbstar Productions produced the $1.1 million film, says Simpson's script was quite different to any other Australian film he had seen.

Indigo Lake, written and directed by Martin Simpson, is a Sydney-set film in which artist Jack Zeffa (played by Andrew Cutcliffe) is hired by Bill Kazak (Marin Mimica) to paint a portrait of his wife Ruby (O'Hare). As Jack paints Ruby a bond develops between them and as it deepens so do the jealous Bill's suspicions.

The world premiere of a new Australian thriller will take place at Dendy Canberra on Sunday night - because the producer, Brian Cobb, and the lead actress, Miranda O'Hare, were both originally from Canberra. Although no longer based here they remain close to the city that produced them and have family and friends here.

Cobb, who will be celebrating his 40th birthday on Sunday - "What a way to have a party!" - says he came relatively late to the arts. He was going to be a rugby league referee and it wasn't until a trip overseas and a part in a corporate film when he was 20 that he decided to become an actor (he's still a big fan of the Canberra Raiders). He trained at ther Australian Academy of Dramatic Arts in Sydney and had a few small parts but found himself producing plays for himself and his friends to perform in pubs and bars which drew him to the production side of the business and he studied it at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

Since then his projects have included the longrunning gay digital drama series The Horizon, which began in 2009. He joined it in 2012 and it's still running. Other upcoming projects include the virtual reality series Dream Channel and the coming-of-age story Patricia Moore. In 2016 Cobbstar won the City of Sydney's accommodation grant for the space formerly known as Metro Screen.

O'Hare acted from a young age, being part of Canberra Youth Theatre and studying at the National Acting School before gaining an agent at a showcase in Sydney when she was 19. She didn't know Cobb in Canberra but met him in 2008 when they did a play for Mardi Gras, The Unicorn and the Girl (no prizes for guessing who played who). They kept in touch and in September 2015 he told her about Indigo Lake. But her casting was not automatic.

"I did a fair few auditions - I had to fight my way to get the role. As soon as I read it. it meant so much to me," she says.

"Ruby was a real character. She resonated with me... I understood her completely."
The federal government is considering its "management options" for a potential [phase-out of some toxic chemicals once used in fire-fighting foams, in the wake of a spill near Brisbane Airport nearly two weeks ago.

The Queensland government has already banned use of the PFAS chemicals and the Defence department is facing two class actions linked to contamination at airbases near Oakey in the state and Williamtown, NSW.

Darren Chester said the government was now considering the "transitional removal" of the chemicals used in the foams. Credit:Jamila Toderas

It comes as the federal government also considers wide-ranging reforms to the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, which assesses such substances, which The Canberra Times has previously reported prompted concerns about the protection of public health and the environment.

After a spill of up to 22,000 litres of fire-fighting foams containing the chemicals at a Qantas-owned hangar at Brisbane Airport, federal infrastructure minister Darren Chester has indicated the Commonwealth may now consider "phasing out" the substances.
The Islamic School of Canberra will appeal the federal government's decision to revoke its funding after a long-running investigation into its independence, governance and financial management.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced on Friday that the $1 million provided by the federal government each year, covering about 80 per cent of the Weston school's operational costs, would cease on July 1.

Azra Khan, Chair of the Islamic School of Canberra's board. Credit:Jay Cronan

Senator Birmingham said the school had failed to meet "the standards and expectations placed on them" after first losing its funding last year following an examination of its links with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

"These conditions centred around improvements to governance and financial management and required regular reporting on progress in making the required changes," he said.
A former Canberra embassy worker has spoken of her "betrayal" by her former employers, the Spanish government, which is accused of refusing to hand over years worth of superannuation payments.

Another former worker for the Spanish government in Australia says she has been left disabled by cancer but without vital disability cover because of the consulate's failure to pay her super.

Esperanza Poveda alleges she is owed years of super payments by her former bosses at the Spanish Embassy. Credit:Karleen Minney

The two women are now taking legal action against their former employer, looking to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid super, interest and penalties.

But the Spanish government has defended itself, claiming its two former employees were covered by their home country's social welfare system during the periods in question and their current claim was an attempt to "double-dip".
That sort of rhetoric has raised scepticism about the substance of the reform. Critics argue that many of the occupations that remain on the eligible list are not areas of genuine skills shortages such as accountancy and IT systems engineers. The retention of employer-based market testing suggests exploitation of the visa system will continue. The lack of independence at arms length of government means political interference will continue to influence the shape of the skilled occupations list. "You are asked to choose between a pay cut and a worse pay cut," says ACTU president Ged Kearney. Credit:Louise Kennerley Some obscure jobs have been removed from the list prompting outrage in blindsided sectors even as mainstream employer groups largely welcomed the move. Scientists, ICT support technicians and engineers are among the 200 jobs removed. Executive recruitment will also become harder because employer-sponsored visa applicants will need to be under the age of 45 and the difficulty of gaining residency. Under the changes, the 457 visa will be replaced with two new Temporary Skill Shortage visas  one of up to two years, with one opportunity for renewal. Another visa of up to four years can be renewed and provide a permanent residence pathway after three years. Other changes to the system include tougher English language tests and a requirement to have a tax file number. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Dutton announce the scrapping of 457 visas in April. Credit:Andrew Meares

Migration law expert Dr Joanna Howe, an Associate Professor in Law at The University of Adelaide, says the government is "talking the talk" about restoring credibility to the visa system because Australians are waking up to its problems. "It is interesting that if this is really the radical transformation of the temporary labour migration system, why are employer groups not up in arms about restrictions? It's because the main occupations and industries which rely on temporary migrant workers haven't been pared back under this change." Employment relations expert, Dr Chris F Wright from the University of Sydney business school agrees, describing the move as a "rebranding exercise". "Tinkering around the edges of the 457 visa isn't going to make employers more seriously engage with the local labour force," he says. In their research, Wright and his colleague Dr Andreea Constantin found employers were using 457 visas in the hospitality industry to overcome recruitment difficulties, which are not the same as skills shortages.

"This was especially the case in accommodation and food services and the three main occupations are cooks, cafe and restaurant managers and chefs," Wright says. For a skills shortage to exist as distinct from a recruitment difficulty, Wright says it has to be across the labour market and not specific to a particular employer. And it has to be persistent. Employers can respond to a skills shortage by setting higher wages, providing better career opportunities or training workers. But in a tough business environment only 1 per cent of 1600 employers using 457 visas were prepared to address a job vacancy by increasing wages. They were more likely to recruit labour from overseas.

"Employers in hospitality were 13 times more likely to prefer 457 visa holders over similar Australian workers," Wright says. "The scheme is designed to address shortfalls of qualified workers, but hospitality employers were just as likely to recruit 457 visa workers because they were perceived as being harder working or more loyal. "The scheme has essentially been misused by many employers in this industry. The evidence suggests that employers, especially in hospitality, aren't prepared to improve the quality of jobs in the industry to make them more attractive to locals." To fix the scheme workers on temporary skilled visas need to have greater capacity to switch employers and there should be an independent assessment of skills shortages, rather than taking employers at their word. Howe supports a more independent system of labour market testing.

Left in the hands of employers, labour market testing can amount to a job advertisement. More genuine labour market testing considers the wording of the advertisement and the wages and conditions offered. Howe's research reviewed international best practice in migration policy and found a more credible system in the UK where an independent committee of economic and legal experts are responsible for labour market testing. The testing is used to determine if wages and conditions and public investment in an occupation need to increase before overseas labour is used to fill employment gaps. When Turnbull says he was implementing the recommendations of a 2014 review of the 457 visa system led by John Azarias, he stepped around one of its "core" recommendations. The Azarias review recommended the replacement of the ministerial advisory council on skilled migration (MACSM) with a new tripartite ministerial advisory council to report to government on skilled migration issues and that the new advisory body should be supported by labour market data.

Michaelia Cash reconstituted the MACSM when she was the assistant minister for immigration in 2015. Howe says this did not create a tripartite body capable of providing independent and evidence-based advice to government. She says the eight-member committee was "stacked" with six people (now five) with an employer background or favourable view towards greater levels of skilled migration, one trade union member, ACTU president Ged Kearney and one independent member, Azarias. Author of the 2014 Azarias review, John Azarias. Credit:Daniel Munoz Kearney resigned her position on Friday citing the government's failure to consult with MACSM over its new visa policy, rendering the advisory body irrelevant. "I would have made it clear that the occupations that remain on the list, which include roof tilers, carpenters, joiners, chefs, cooks midwives, nurses and real estate agents, do not accurately reflect the genuine labour shortages in Australia," Kearney says.

"The changes to the skilled migration visa system are only relevant to one in 10 visa-holders so actually do not protect jobs for local workers. "The visa system is being rorted and workers are being exploited every day but the government only cares about its political survival." Another "core" recommendation of the Azarias review was to acknowledge, as the OECD had pointed out, that employer-conducted labour market testing is not "fully reliable", and in the Australian context has proven ineffective and "that the current legislative requirement for labour market testing be abolished". Azarias, a non-executive director and former senior partner with Deloitte Australia, told Fairfax Media his 2014 recommendation that employer-based labour market testing should be abolished and was not accepted by either side of politics. "The minister of the day made the political call to do what the government wanted," he says.

"It was not our job to do labour market testing, we made suggestions on the governance. Both the government and the opposition says no, we will keep [employer-based] labour market testing." He says changes to the skilled occupations list announced by the government this week had provided a "better system that relies on expert advice from various government departments". "It is a more transparent system than it was before," he says. "The old list was not fit for immigration purposes." Decisions on which occupations stay on the skilled occupations list are made by government based on advice from the ministerial advisory council.

The Azarias review did not recommend abolition of the 457 visa. "The decision to abolish the 457 is probably more about political sound bite than something that needed to happen in substance," Howe says. "What they are replacing it with is something fairly similar by just tweaking the regulation on the 457 visa." While the federal government's reforms are a "step in the right direction", Howe believes they do not go far enough because a key Azarias recommendation has been ignored. "They retain the worst element of the 457 visa which is employer-conducted labour market testing," she says. "The compilation of lists within the department of employment is not consistent with international best practice because it can be subject to political influence and lobbying by powerful employer groups.

"Evidence of this is that the top 29 occupations for the 457 visa have not been taken off the list and the occupations which have been taken off the list are more marginal and obscure like goat herding and deer farming." Howe's research argues for a more accountable and transparent way of compiling skilled occupations lists using robust economic data from independent experts instead of public servants beholden to a minister and subject to political influence. "There is such strong employer group lobbying on this that it is difficult for a government department to put a list together like that free from political influence purely on the economic data," she says. "There are real integrity concerns around occupations like cooks and accounting and how those are being exploited under the 457 visa.

"They are still on the lists because the peak employer bodies are so powerful. For example, for the Restaurants and Catering Association it is a key issue for them being able to hire overseas cooks because they can pay them less and they provide a ready labour supply. If they have to employ locals it is a different ball game as local workers often have higher wage expectations which reduces profits for the industry." John Hart, the chief executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia says cooks are one of the most sought after occupations in the country and the industry is facing a "gaping skills shortage". He says his organisation has successfully argued its case on policy, not politics. RCA chief executive, John Hart. Credit:Mark Metcalfe He says the Department of Employment's own projections suggest there is a 28,000 shortage of cooks between now and 2020. "Our occupations in our industry are the highest projected employment growth of any sector in the economy," Hart says. "We need to have skilled cooks brought in from offshore to train local apprentices in the kitchen."

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says the new approach to the skilled occupation list would help identify genuine skill shortages and guard against "often opportunistic spikes" in applications for vague or non-essential skill categories. He says the 457 visa system was a highly valued program but misunderstandings of its use and "exaggerations of its misuse" led to it becoming a lighting rod for anti-immigration sentiments. Ending the visa category, adding limits and more clearly defining its successor visas would return its focus to addressing persistent areas of skills shortages. Changes to English language testing would need to be monitored to ensure they did not adversely impact on access to skilled workers in lower-skilled categories. Willox says many workplaces are multilingual and a working knowledge of English was "sufficient" in many cases to meet operational and safety requirements. IT professionals have contacted Fairfax Media to complain they have been unable to get jobs in Australia which are filled with cheaper labour from overseas.

The Australian Population Research Institute has found that IT professionals are the largest single occupation represented in the 457 program and more than three-quarters are Indian nationals who mostly work in Sydney or Melbourne. The study found that the proportion of IT professionals from India granted 457 visas and paid base salaries of $53,900 or less, much lower than experienced Australian IT professionals, has significantly increased. The NSW government has also confirmed it uses people on 457 visas to fill full-time jobs following its decision to outsource ServiceFirst which looks after IT, human resources and payroll services. With more than a quarter of 457 visas granted to people from India, particularly those working in the ICT software sector, Australia India Business Council National chair Sheba Nandkeolyar says the Prime Minister's announcement this week had "come as a surprise" and had created some uncertainty in the ICT market. Australia India Business Council National chair Sheba Nandkeolyar. Credit:Louie Douvis

"We are hoping that industry does not get affected because that is a very specialised skill that Australia needs," she says. Ms Nandkeolyar says engineers, health workers and medical professionals had also contributed to addressing skills shortages in the past and she hoped these areas could continue to be supplemented. Moves to tighten the visa scheme was welcomed. "Yes we do know that 457 visas have too many categories and probably some categories which were being misused. To that extent, the government tightening the categories within the 457 visa category is good," she says. Migration lawyer Angela Chan, the past president of the Migration Institute of Australia, says the federal government has taken a "big stick" to the 457 visa program which represented a small proportion of temporary visa holders. She says the existing system was working well, including effective monitoring by the Fair Work Ombudsman, but the Department of Immigration had been lax in enforcing penalties against some businesses.

She says labour market testing had been problematic for restaurants that could not find local staff to fill vacancies. "It's not as if people haven't been advertising," she says. Neville Roach, chair of a 1995 report that recommended the introduction of the 457 visa believes the federal government needs to return to the original purpose of a high-skilled visa program. The program was introduced in 1996 and originally focused on growth resulting from deregulation in the finance sector, the resources and construction boom and the IT revolution. "We needed a lot of new skills very rapidly ... without the 457 visa it is hard to see how Australia would have coped," Roach says. High vetting standards were also applied to visa sponsors, who were generally large employers, to ensure integrity in the system.

"If you did that the risk of the system being rorted was very low," Roach says. As the visa program expanded to include a wider range of skill levels and industries, its integrity became compromised. Entry standards were relaxed and a large number of semi-skilled people and students started entering Australia on temporary visas. The policy was brought in to cater to one type of skill entrant and instead was applied to all skills, high and low. Sponsorship was also extended to family businesses. Roach believes the 457 visa was not the right vehicle to bring in chefs and hairdressers. It is much harder to check skills and sponsor integrity and he agrees there is need for reform.
We are faced today with a question that has never before arisen in our history. From January 1788, when the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, to 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, we've had first Britain and then the USA as both trading partner and strategic ally.

But now China is our largest two-way trading partner in goods and services ($150 billion), our largest export market ($86 billion) and our largest source of imports ($64 billion). And the integrated East Asian economic zone is the world's fastest growing.

So, how do we negotiate the tension between our major security partner and our major trading partner?

China sees as vital to its security the string of archipelagos from northern Borneo to the Kuril Islands north-east of Japan. It has piled sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new artificial islands, and has installed missile batteries and radar facilities, giving it effective control over sea and air traffic in the region.
Even now, despite everything, we consider ourselves the good guys. Perhaps it's a universal human conceit: all of us heroes in our own movie. Yet there is irony here. We hold this idea of Australianness  modest-living, straight-talking, fair-minded  in the face of mass ostentation, worsening homelessness, gross environmental despoliation, concentration camps, near-total disdain for the commons and a rich-take-all education system. Two new books, two recent deaths and a show make me wonder all over again; is that old Aussie modesty a lost virtue? Or was it always an illusion?

The death of John Clarke (and for these purposes yes, Australianness includes Kiwis), seemed to underline the contradiction of this persistent antipodean self-image.

Illustration: Simon Bosch

Clarke's wonderful Fred Dagg, followed by the gimlet-eyed but sweet-hearted satire of his Aussie decades, seemed to embody a world lost. It was a world I grew up with: small houses, big ideas, jobs for all, plain food, guaranteed super, dinner out once a year and free, universal access to the best health, schools and nature. Mostly, back then, it was real, or at least in sight. Not any more. Now, our public life barely even fakes principle.

That same lost modesty endues a new book, Shack Life by Ingeborg van Teeseling. A rare mix of clear intelligence and sumptuous imagery, Shack Life documents the against-all-odds survival of three water's edge shack communities in the Royal National Park; Burning Palms, Era and Little Garie.
As a journalist at the Esperance Express newspaper, I have spoken to community paramedic Paul Gaughan many times in the year I have worked in this scenic Western Australian coastal town 700 kilometres south-east of Perth.

I've interviewed him about all sorts of issues and incidents around the region.

Laeticia Brouwer. Shark attack victim in Western Australia. April 2017. Photo: supplied by family

But it was still a shock to suddenly see him on Monday afternoon, standing over motionless Laeticia Brouwer at the back of an ambulance pumping her chest in a desperate attempt to save the life of the 17-year-old surfer.

Under grey skies, with the beach looking far from its usual idyllic turquoise water and pristine white sand, Esperance's off-road ambulance and a convoy of other four-wheel-drives had just driven off the beach.
The last orca to be born at a SeaWorld park, which popularised killer whale shows in the 1960s but faced growing opposition in recent years, has been born at SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas.

Veterinarians at the park have not yet determined the gender of the calf, but said the baby and its mother Takara were in good shape and being monitored closely.

Attendance at SeaWorld's theme parks has been falling amid negative publicity and criticism from animal rights activists upset by the treatment of captive marine mammals.

Takara was already pregnant when the company said last year that it was suspending its captive breeding program and phasing out killer whale shows at its three parks in Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio.
There are no plans for Australia to follow the UK policy of requiring internet service providers to offer network-level filters that block online porn.

The option isn't part of the government's response to a senate committee inquiry into harm being done to children through access to pornography.

Teachers have concerns about school moving to NAPLAN online. Credit:Phil Carrick

The government will wait instead for new research and will support continued education for parents and teachers.

The inquiry received 416 submissions, many of which proposed filtering pornographic content to make it inaccessible for children.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has warned former prime minister Tony Abbott's public criticisms of the Turnbull government could help Labor win the next election.

As internal Liberal tensions continue to spill into the public arena, Mr Abbott revealed this week that he and Senator Cormann had a "man-to-man" chat after the Finance Minister in February called Mr Abbott's interventions "destructive" and "sad".

Senator Cormann is a leading conservative in cabinet and former ally of Mr Abbott.

"I don't normally talk about private conversations but look, given Tony has given his public interpretation, let me just firstly confirm that, yes, we did have a very direct conversation that day," Senator Cormann said on Sky News on Friday.